diff --git a/dependency_support/pip_requirements.txt b/dependency_support/pip_requirements.txt index ae4ff48d4a..ee63295724 100644 --- a/dependency_support/pip_requirements.txt +++ b/dependency_support/pip_requirements.txt @@ -8,6 +8,8 @@ termcolor==1.1.0 psutil==5.7.0 portpicker==1.3.1 pyyaml==6.0.1 +cocotb==1.8.0 +cocotb_bus==0.2.1 # Note: numpy and scipy version availability seems to differ between Ubuntu # versions that we want to support (e.g. 18.04 vs 20.04), so we accept a diff --git a/dependency_support/rules_hdl/workspace.bzl b/dependency_support/rules_hdl/workspace.bzl index fcb5b6def8..0275953848 100644 --- a/dependency_support/rules_hdl/workspace.bzl +++ b/dependency_support/rules_hdl/workspace.bzl @@ -29,9 +29,9 @@ def repo(): ], ) - # Commit on 2023-06-13, current as of 2023-06-13. - git_hash = "e6540a5bccbfb124aec0b19deaa9cf855781b3a5" - git_sha256 = "21307b0c14a036f1b4879c8f1d4d50a115053eb87c428307d4d6569c3e7ba859" + # Commit on 2023-07-25, current as of 2023-07-25 + git_hash = "b036366bae45a03628d2bc891c97bb700992bb67" + git_sha256 = "70bce281469986440f8b4a09a093a28a2a9b00d83d4f4b2cd47cf5497944ab19" maybe( http_archive, @@ -39,6 +39,6 @@ def repo(): sha256 = git_sha256, strip_prefix = "bazel_rules_hdl-%s" % git_hash, urls = [ - "https://github.com/hdl/bazel_rules_hdl/archive/%s.tar.gz" % git_hash, + "https://github.com/antmicro/bazel_rules_hdl/archive/%s.tar.gz" % git_hash, ], ) diff --git a/xls/build_rules/cocotb_xls_test.bzl b/xls/build_rules/cocotb_xls_test.bzl new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..552a55e519 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/build_rules/cocotb_xls_test.bzl @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + +load("@rules_hdl//cocotb:cocotb.bzl", "cocotb_test") + +def cocotb_xls_test(**kwargs): + name = kwargs["name"] + top = kwargs["hdl_toplevel"] + + if "timescale" in kwargs: + timescale = kwargs["timescale"] + timestamp_target = name + "-timescale" + timestamp_verilog = name + "_timescale.v" + native.genrule( + name = timestamp_target, + srcs = [], + cmd = "echo \\`timescale {}/{} > $@".format( + timescale["unit"], + timescale["precission"], + ), + outs = [timestamp_verilog], + ) + kwargs["verilog_sources"].insert(0, timestamp_verilog) + kwargs.pop("timescale") + + cocotb_test(**kwargs) diff --git a/xls/examples/cocotb/BUILD b/xls/examples/cocotb/BUILD new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..bbe56df4d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/examples/cocotb/BUILD @@ -0,0 +1,55 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + +load("@xls_pip_deps//:requirements.bzl", "requirement") +load("//xls/build_rules:xls_build_defs.bzl", "xls_dslx_verilog") +load("//xls/build_rules:cocotb_xls_test.bzl", "cocotb_xls_test") + +xls_dslx_verilog( + name = "running_counter_verilog", + srcs = ["running_counter.x"], + deps = [], + codegen_args = { + "delay_model": "unit", + "clock_period_ps": "5000", + "reset": "rst", + "module_name": "RunningCounter", + "use_system_verilog": "false", + "streaming_channel_data_suffix": "_data", + }, + dslx_top = "RunningCounter", + verilog_file = "running_counter.v", +) + +cocotb_xls_test( + name = "running_counter_cocotb", + hdl_toplevel = "RunningCounter", + hdl_toplevel_lang = "verilog", + test_module = [ + "cocotb_running_counter.py", + ], + verilog_sources = [ + "dumpvcd.v", + ":running_counter.v", + ], + timescale = { + "unit": "1ns", + "precission": "1ps", + }, + deps = [ + requirement("cocotb"), + requirement("cocotb_bus"), + "//xls/simulation/cocotb:cocotb_xls", + ], +) diff --git a/xls/examples/cocotb/cocotb_running_counter.py b/xls/examples/cocotb/cocotb_running_counter.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..e33aa09c18 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/examples/cocotb/cocotb_running_counter.py @@ -0,0 +1,70 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + +import cocotb + +from cocotb.clock import Clock +from cocotb.triggers import Event, ClockCycles +from cocotb.binary import BinaryValue + +from cocotb_bus.scoreboard import Scoreboard +from cocotb_xls import XLSChannelDriver, XLSChannelMonitor + +from typing import List, Any + + +def list_to_binary_value(data: List, n_bits: int = 32, bigEndian=False) -> List[BinaryValue]: + return [BinaryValue(x, n_bits, bigEndian) for x in data] + + +def init_sim(dut, data_to_send: List[BinaryValue], data_to_recv: List[BinaryValue]): + clock = Clock(dut.clk, 10, units="us") + + driver = XLSChannelDriver(dut, "running_counter__base_r", dut.clk) + monitor = XLSChannelMonitor(dut, "running_counter__cnt_s", dut.clk) + + scoreboard = Scoreboard(dut, fail_immediately=True) + scoreboard.add_interface(monitor, data_to_recv) + + total_of_packets = len(data_to_recv) + terminate = Event("Last packet of data received") + + def terminate_cb(transaction): + if monitor.stats.received_transactions == total_of_packets: + terminate.set() + + monitor.add_callback(terminate_cb) + monitor.bus.rdy.setimmediatevalue(1) + + return (clock, driver, terminate) + + +@cocotb.coroutine +async def reset(clk, rst, cycles=1): + rst.setimmediatevalue(1) + await ClockCycles(clk, cycles) + rst.value = 0 + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=10, timeout_unit="ms") +async def counter_test(dut): + data_to_send = list_to_binary_value([0x100, 0x100, 0x100]) + data_to_recv = list_to_binary_value([0x102, 0x103, 0x104]) + + (clock, driver, terminate) = init_sim(dut, data_to_send, data_to_recv) + + cocotb.start_soon(clock.start()) + await reset(dut.clk, dut.rst, 10) + await driver.write(data_to_send) + await terminate.wait() diff --git a/xls/examples/cocotb/dumpvcd.v b/xls/examples/cocotb/dumpvcd.v new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..a3b6ac1c5e --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/examples/cocotb/dumpvcd.v @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + +module wavedump(); +initial begin + $dumpfile("dump.vcd"); + $dumpvars(0, RunningCounter); +end +endmodule diff --git a/xls/examples/cocotb/running_counter.x b/xls/examples/cocotb/running_counter.x new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..28cd3ca42a --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/examples/cocotb/running_counter.x @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + +import std + +proc RunningCounter { + base_r: chan in; + cnt_s: chan out; + + init { u32:0 } + + config(base_r: chan in, cnt_s: chan out) { + (base_r, cnt_s) + } + + next(tok: token, cnt: u32) { + let (tok, base, base_valid) = recv_non_blocking(tok, base_r, u32:0); + let tok = send_if(tok, cnt_s, base_valid, cnt + base); + let cnt_next = cnt + u32:1; + cnt_next + } +} + +#[test_proc] +proc RunningCounterTester { + terminator: chan out; + base_s: chan out; + cnt_r: chan in; + + init { u32:0 } + + config (terminator: chan out) { + let (base_s, base_r) = chan; + let (cnt_s, cnt_r) = chan; + + spawn RunningCounter(base_r, cnt_s); + (terminator, base_s, cnt_r) + } + + next(tok: token, recv_cnt: u32) { + let next_state = if (recv_cnt < u32:10) { + let tok = send(tok, base_s, u32:1); + let (tok, cnt) = recv(tok, cnt_r); + + trace_fmt!("Received {} cnt", recv_cnt); + assert_lt(u32:1, cnt); + + recv_cnt + u32:1 + } else { + send(tok, terminator, true); + u32:0 + }; + + (next_state) + } +} diff --git a/xls/examples/cocotb/timescale.v b/xls/examples/cocotb/timescale.v new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..a8b8dbbcbc --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/examples/cocotb/timescale.v @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + +`timescale 1ns/1ps diff --git a/xls/examples/ram.x b/xls/examples/ram.x index ae9a108225..93e7d9d57d 100644 --- a/xls/examples/ram.x +++ b/xls/examples/ram.x @@ -249,9 +249,18 @@ proc RamModel { - data: unmasked_read_value & read_req.mask, + data: unmasked_read_value & expand_mask(read_req.mask), }; let tok = send_if(tok, read_resp, read_req_valid, read_resp_value); @@ -406,6 +415,92 @@ proc RamModelInitializationTest { } } +// Tests that RAM works with partitions larger than 1 bit +#[test_proc] +proc RamModelFourBitMaskReadWriteTest { + read_req: chan> out; + read_resp: chan> in; + write_req: chan> out; + write_resp: chan in; + + terminator: chan out; + + init { () } + + config(terminator: chan out) { + let (read_req_s, read_req_r) = chan>; + let (read_resp_s, read_resp_r) = chan>; + let (write_req_s, write_req_r) = chan>; + let (write_resp_s, write_resp_r) = chan; + spawn RamModel< + u32:8, // DATA_WIDTH + u32:256, // SIZE + u32:4 // WORD_PARTITION_SIZE + >( + read_req_r, read_resp_s, write_req_r, write_resp_s); + (read_req_s, read_resp_r, write_req_s, write_resp_r, terminator) + } + + next(tok: token, state: ()) { + // Write full words + let tok = send(tok, write_req, WriteWordReq( + u8:0, + u8:0xFF)); + let (tok, _) = recv(tok, write_resp); + let tok = send(tok, write_req, WriteWordReq( + u8:1, + u8:0xBA)); + let (tok, _) = recv(tok, write_resp); + + // Check that full words are written as expected + let tok = send(tok, read_req, ReadWordReq(u8:0)); + let (tok, read_data) = recv(tok, read_resp); + assert_eq(read_data.data, u8:0xFF); + let tok = send(tok, read_req, ReadWordReq(u8:1)); + let (tok, read_data) = recv(tok, read_resp); + assert_eq(read_data.data, u8:0xBA); + + // Write half-words + let tok = send(tok, write_req, WriteReq{ + addr: u8:0, + data: u8:0xDE, + mask: u2:0b10, + }); + let (tok, _) = recv(tok, write_resp); + let tok = send(tok, write_req, WriteReq{ + addr: u8:1, + data: u8:0x78, + mask: u2:0b01, + }); + let (tok, _) = recv(tok, write_resp); + + // Check that half-words are written as expected + let tok = send(tok, read_req, ReadWordReq(u8:0)); + let (tok, read_data) = recv(tok, read_resp); + assert_eq(read_data.data, u8:0xDF); + let tok = send(tok, read_req, ReadWordReq(u8:1)); + let (tok, read_data) = recv(tok, read_resp); + assert_eq(read_data.data, u8:0xB8); + + // Read half-words and check the result + let tok = send(tok, read_req, ReadReq{ + addr: u8:0, + mask: u2:0b01, + }); + let (tok, read_data) = recv(tok, read_resp); + assert_eq(read_data.data, u8:0x0F); + let tok = send(tok, read_req, ReadReq{ + addr: u8:1, + mask: u2:0b10, + }); + let (tok, read_data) = recv(tok, read_resp); + assert_eq(read_data.data, u8:0xB0); + + let tok = send(tok, terminator, true); + () + } +} + // Single-port RAM request pub struct SinglePortRamReq { addr: bits[ADDR_WIDTH], diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/BUILD b/xls/modules/dbe/BUILD new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..32a5a8a20f --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/BUILD @@ -0,0 +1,226 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + +# Build rules for XLS DBE/LZ4 algorithm implementation. + +load( + "//xls/build_rules:xls_build_defs.bzl", + "xls_dslx_library", + "xls_dslx_ir", + "xls_ir_opt_ir", + "xls_ir_verilog", + "xls_dslx_test", +) + +load("@xls_pip_deps//:requirements.bzl", "requirement") +load("//xls/build_rules:cocotb_xls_test.bzl", "cocotb_xls_test") + +package( + default_applicable_licenses = ["//:license"], + default_visibility = ["//xls:xls_users"], + licenses = ["notice"], +) + +# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- +# Common +# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +xls_dslx_library( + name = "dbe_common_dslx", + srcs = [ + "common.x", + "common_test.x" + ], +) + +py_library( + name = "dbe_common_test_py", + srcs = [ + "dbe_common_test.py", + ], + imports = [ + "." + ], + deps = [ + "//xls/modules/dbe/scripts:dbe", + requirement("cocotb"), + ], +) + +# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- +# LZ4 decoder +# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +xls_dslx_library( + name = "dbe_lz4_decoder_dslx", + srcs = [ + "lz4_decoder.x" + ], + deps = [ + ":dbe_common_dslx", + "//xls/examples:ram_dslx", + ], +) + +xls_dslx_test( + name = "dbe_lz4_decoder_dslx_test", + dslx_test_args = { + "compare": "none", + }, + library = "dbe_lz4_decoder_dslx", +) + +xls_dslx_ir( + name = "dbe_lz4_decoder_ir", + dslx_top = "decoder", + library = "dbe_lz4_decoder_dslx", + ir_file = "dbe_lz4_decoder_ir.ir", +) + +xls_ir_opt_ir( + name = "dbe_lz4_decoder_opt_ir", + src = "dbe_lz4_decoder_ir.ir", + top = "__lz4_decoder__decoder__decoder_base_0__16_16_8_next", +) + +xls_ir_verilog( + name = "dbe_lz4_decoder_verilog", + src = "dbe_lz4_decoder_opt_ir.opt.ir", + verilog_file = "dbe_lz4_decoder.v", + codegen_args = { + "module_name": "dbe_lz4_decoder", + "delay_model": "unit", + "pipeline_stages": "3", + "reset": "rst", + "use_system_verilog": "false", + "streaming_channel_data_suffix": "_data", + "io_constraints": ",".join([ + "lz4_decoder__o_ram_hb_rd_req:send:lz4_decoder__i_ram_hb_rd_resp:recv:1:none", + "lz4_decoder__o_ram_hb_wr_req:send:lz4_decoder__i_ram_hb_wr_resp:recv:1:none", + ]), + }, +) + +cocotb_xls_test( + name = "dbe_lz4_decoder_cocotb_test", + sim_name = "icarus", + hdl_toplevel = "lz4_decoder_wrap", + hdl_toplevel_lang = "verilog", + test_module = [ + "lz4_decoder_test.py", + ], + verilog_sources = [ + ":dbe_lz4_decoder.v", + "ram_model.v", + "lz4_decoder_wrap.v", + ], + timescale = { + "unit": "1ns", + "precission": "1ps", + }, + deps = [ + "dbe_common_test_py", + "//xls/modules/dbe/scripts:dbe", + "//xls/simulation/cocotb:cocotb_xls", + requirement("cocotb"), + requirement("cocotb_bus"), + ], +) + +# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- +# LZ4 encoder +# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +xls_dslx_library( + name = "dbe_lz4_encoder_dslx", + srcs = [ + "lz4_encoder.x" + ], + deps = [ + ":dbe_common_dslx", + "//xls/examples:ram_dslx", + # decoder is referenced by test code + ":dbe_lz4_decoder_dslx", + ], +) + +xls_dslx_test( + name = "dbe_lz4_encoder_dslx_test", + dslx_test_args = { + "compare": "none", + }, + library = "dbe_lz4_encoder_dslx", +) + +#8K hash specialization +xls_dslx_ir( + name = "dbe_lz4_encoder_8k_ir", + dslx_top = "encoder_8k", + library = "dbe_lz4_encoder_dslx", + ir_file = "dbe_lz4_encoder_8k_ir.ir", +) + +xls_ir_opt_ir( + name = "dbe_lz4_encoder_8k_opt_ir", + src = "dbe_lz4_encoder_8k_ir.ir", + top = "__lz4_encoder__encoder_8k__encoder_base_0__16_3_13_12_13_65536_8192_4_16_8_next", +) + +xls_ir_verilog( + name = "dbe_lz4_encoder_8k_verilog", + src = "dbe_lz4_encoder_8k_opt_ir.opt.ir", + verilog_file = "dbe_lz4_encoder_8k.v", + codegen_args = { + "module_name": "dbe_lz4_encoder", + "delay_model": "unit", + "pipeline_stages": "3", + "worst_case_throughput": "3", + "reset": "rst", + "use_system_verilog": "false", + "streaming_channel_data_suffix": "_data", + "io_constraints": ",".join([ + "lz4_encoder__o_ram_hb_req:send:lz4_encoder__i_ram_hb_resp:recv:1:none", + "lz4_encoder__o_ram_hb_req:send:lz4_encoder__i_ram_hb_wr_comp:recv:1:none", + "lz4_encoder__o_ram_ht_req:send:lz4_encoder__i_ram_ht_resp:recv:1:none", + "lz4_encoder__o_ram_ht_req:send:lz4_encoder__i_ram_ht_wr_comp:recv:1:none", + ]) + }, +) + +cocotb_xls_test( + name = "dbe_lz4_encoder_cocotb_test", + sim_name = "icarus", + hdl_toplevel = "lz4_encoder_wrap", + hdl_toplevel_lang = "verilog", + test_module = [ + "lz4_encoder_test.py", + ], + verilog_sources = [ + ":dbe_lz4_encoder_8k.v", + "ram_model.v", + "lz4_encoder_wrap.v", + ], + timescale = { + "unit": "1ns", + "precission": "1ps", + }, + deps = [ + "dbe_common_test_py", + "//xls/modules/dbe/scripts:dbe", + "//xls/modules/dbe/scripts:dbe_data", + "//xls/simulation/cocotb:cocotb_xls", + requirement("cocotb"), + requirement("cocotb_bus"), + ], +) diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/common.x b/xls/modules/dbe/common.x new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..f3d3f79d93 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/common.x @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + +import std + +pub enum Mark : u4 { + // Default initialization value used when marker field is not needed + NONE = 0, + // Signals end of sequence/block + END = 1, + // Requests reset of the processing chain + RESET = 2, + + _ERROR_FIRST = 8, + // Only error marks have values >= __ERROR_FIRST + ERROR_BAD_MARK = 8, + ERROR_INVAL_CP = 9, +} + +pub fn is_error(mark: Mark) -> bool { + (mark as u32) >= (Mark::_ERROR_FIRST as u32) +} + +pub enum TokenKind : u2 { + LT = 0, // Literal + CP = 1, // Copy pointer + MK = 2, // Control marker +} + +pub struct Token { + kind: TokenKind, + // Literal fields + lt_sym: uN[SYM_WIDTH], + // Copy pointer fields + cp_off: uN[PTR_WIDTH], + cp_cnt: uN[CNT_WIDTH], + // Marker fields + mark: Mark +} + +pub fn zero_token() + -> Token { + Token{ + kind: TokenKind::MK, + lt_sym: uN[SYM_WIDTH]:0, + cp_off: uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0, + cp_cnt: uN[CNT_WIDTH]:0, + mark: Mark::NONE, + } +} + +pub struct PlainData { + is_mark: bool, + data: uN[DATA_WIDTH], // symbol + mark: Mark, // marker code +} + +pub fn zero_plain_data() -> PlainData { + PlainData{ + is_mark: true, + data: uN[DATA_WIDTH]:0, + mark: Mark::NONE, + } +} diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/common_test.x b/xls/modules/dbe/common_test.x new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..3dc6ba70ec --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/common_test.x @@ -0,0 +1,172 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + +import xls.modules.dbe.common as dbe + +type Mark = dbe::Mark; +type TokenKind = dbe::TokenKind; +type Token = dbe::Token; +type PlainData = dbe::PlainData; + +/// +/// This library contains helper processes and functions used by DBE tests +/// + +pub proc data_sender { + data: PlainData[NUM_SYMS]; + o_data: chan> out; + + init { u32:0 } + + config ( + data: PlainData[NUM_SYMS], + o_data: chan> out, + ) { + (data, o_data) + } + + next (tok: token, state: u32) { + let next_idx = state + u32:1; + let is_done = (state >= NUM_SYMS); + + if (!is_done) { + let tosend = data[state]; + trace_fmt!("Sending {}", tosend); + send(tok, o_data, tosend); + next_idx + } else { + state + } + } +} + +pub proc data_validator { + ref_data: PlainData[NUM_SYMS]; + i_data: chan> in; + o_term: chan out; + + init { u32:0 } + + config( + ref_data: PlainData[NUM_SYMS], + i_data: chan> in, + o_term: chan out + ) { + (ref_data, i_data, o_term) + } + + next (tok: token, state: u32) { + // state = [0, NUM_SYMS-1] - expect data + // state >= NUM_SYMS - expect nothing + let next_idx = state + u32:1; + let is_end = (state == NUM_SYMS - u32:1); + let is_done = (state >= NUM_SYMS); + + let (tok, rx) = recv(tok, i_data); + trace_fmt!("Received {}", rx); + + let (fail, next_state) = if is_done { + // Shouldn't get here + (true, state) + } else { + let expect = ref_data[state]; + let fail = if (rx != expect) { + trace_fmt!("MISMATCH! Expected {}, got {}", expect, rx); + true + } else { + false + }; + (fail, next_idx) + }; + + send_if(tok, o_term, fail || is_end, !fail); + + next_state + } +} + +pub proc token_sender< + NUM_TOKS: u32, SYM_WIDTH: u32, PTR_WIDTH: u32, CNT_WIDTH: u32> { + toks: Token[NUM_TOKS]; + o_toks: chan> out; + + init { u32:0 } + + config ( + toks: Token[NUM_TOKS], + o_toks: chan> out, + ) { + (toks, o_toks) + } + + next (tok: token, state: u32) { + let next_idx = state + u32:1; + let is_done = (state >= NUM_TOKS); + + if (!is_done) { + let tosend = toks[state]; + trace_fmt!("Sending {}", tosend); + send(tok, o_toks, tosend); + next_idx + } else { + state + } + } +} + +pub proc token_validator< + NUM_TOKS: u32, SYM_WIDTH: u32, PTR_WIDTH: u32, CNT_WIDTH: u32> { + ref_toks: Token[NUM_TOKS]; + i_token: chan> in; + o_term: chan out; + + init { u32:0 } + + config( + ref_toks: Token[NUM_TOKS], + i_token: chan> in, + o_term: chan out + ) { + (ref_toks, i_token, o_term) + } + + next (tok: token, state: u32) { + // state = [0, NUM_TOKS-1] - expect token + // state >= NUM_TOKS - expect nothing + let next_idx = state + u32:1; + let is_end = (state == NUM_TOKS - u32:1); + let is_done = (state >= NUM_TOKS); + + let (tok, rx) = recv(tok, i_token); + trace_fmt!("Received {}", rx); + + let (fail, next_state) = if is_done { + // Shouldn't get here + (true, state) + } else { + let expect = ref_toks[state]; + let fail = if (rx != expect) { + trace_fmt!("MISMATCH! Expected {}, got {}", expect, rx); + true + } else { + false + }; + (fail, next_idx) + }; + + send_if(tok, o_term, fail || is_end, !fail); + + next_state + } +} diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/dbe_common_test.py b/xls/modules/dbe/dbe_common_test.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b8ccf3da16 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/dbe_common_test.py @@ -0,0 +1,199 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +from cocotb.binary import BinaryValue +from dbe import PlainData, TokMK, TokCP, TokLT, Token, Mark +import enum +from typing import List, Tuple, Mapping, Any, Type + + +class Struct: + _STRUCT_FIELDS_ = [] + + @classmethod + def from_int(cls, v: int): + return cls(v) + + @classmethod + def from_fields(cls, *fields_seq, **fields_dict): + if fields_seq: + return cls(cls._fields_to_int(fields_seq)) + else: + fields = cls._fields_dict_to_list(fields_dict) + return cls(cls._fields_to_int(fields)) + + @classmethod + def from_binary(cls, bin: BinaryValue): + if bin.n_bits != cls._structlen(): + raise ValueError( + f'Given {bin.n_bits} bits value, expect {cls._structlen()}') + return cls.from_int(bin.integer) + + @classmethod + def _fields(cls) -> List[Tuple[str, int, Type]]: + return list(reversed(cls._STRUCT_FIELDS_)) + + @classmethod + def _structlen(cls) -> int: + return sum(d[1] for d in cls._fields()) + + @classmethod + def _masks(cls) -> List[Tuple[int, int]]: + r = [] + off = 0 + for f in cls._fields(): + assert f[1] >= 1, f"Field {f} width should be at least 1" + mask = (1 << f[1]) - 1 + r.append((off, mask)) + off += f[1] + return r + + @classmethod + def _int_to_fields(cls, v: int) -> List[Any]: + defs = cls._fields() + masks = cls._masks() + r = [] + for d, m in zip(defs, masks): + t = d[2] + r.append(t((v >> m[0]) & m[1])) + return r + + @classmethod + def _fields_to_int(cls, fields: List[Any]) -> int: + defs = cls._fields() + masks = cls._masks() + if len(fields) != len(defs): + raise RuntimeError( + f"Need {len(defs)} fields, passed: {fields}") + r = 0 + for f, d, m in zip(fields, defs, masks): + i = int(f) + # TODO: signed ints will need special handling + if (i & m[1]) != i: + raise ValueError( + f'Field {d[0]} was given value {f!r} (int {i}) that is out of range') + r |= (i & m[1]) << m[0] + return r + + @classmethod + def _fields_dict_to_list(cls, dct: Mapping[str, Any]) -> List[Any]: + r = [] + for d in cls._fields(): + r.append(dct[d[0]]) + return r + + def __init__(self, v: int): + fields = self._int_to_fields(v) + for f, d in zip(fields, self._fields()): + setattr(self, d[0], d[2](f)) + + def __int__(self) -> int: + return self._fields_to_int(self._fields_dict_to_list(self.__dict__)) + + def __repr__(self) -> str: + attrs = ','.join(f'{d[0]}={getattr(self, d[0])}' + for d in reversed(self._fields())) + return f'{self.__class__.__name__}({attrs})' + + def as_binary(self) -> BinaryValue: + b = BinaryValue( + value=int(self), n_bits=self._structlen(), bigEndian=False) + return b + + # Convenience methods + @staticmethod + def to_int_list(values: List[Any]) -> List[int]: + return [int(x) for x in values] + + @classmethod + def to_binary_list(cls, values: List[Any]) -> List[BinaryValue]: + return [BinaryValue(int(x), cls._structlen()) for x in values] + + +class DslxPlainData8(Struct): + _STRUCT_FIELDS_ = [ + ('is_mark', 1, bool), + ('data', 8, int), + ('mark', 4, Mark), + ] + + @classmethod + def from_plain_data(cls, value: PlainData): + if isinstance(value, Mark): + d = { + 'is_mark': True, + 'mark': value, + 'data': 0 + } + else: + d = { + 'is_mark': False, + 'mark': Mark.NONE, + 'data': value + } + return cls.from_fields(**d) + + def to_plain_data(self) -> PlainData: + if self.is_mark: + return Mark(self.mark) + return self.data + + +class DslxToken(Struct): + class Kind(enum.IntEnum): + LT = 0 + CP = 1 + MK = 2 + + _STRUCT_FIELDS_ = [ + ('kind', 2, Kind), + ('lt_sym', 8, int), + ('cp_off', 16, int), + ('cp_cnt', 16, int), + ('mark', 4, Mark) + ] + + @classmethod + def from_token(cls, tok: Token): + d = { + 'kind': cls.Kind.MK, + 'lt_sym': 0, + 'cp_off': 0, + 'cp_cnt': 0, + 'mark': Mark.NONE + } + if isinstance(tok, TokMK): + d['mark'] = tok.mark + elif isinstance(tok, TokCP): + assert tok.cnt >= 1 + d['kind'] = cls.Kind.CP + d['cp_off'] = tok.ofs + d['cp_cnt'] = tok.cnt - 1 + elif isinstance(tok, TokLT): + d['kind'] = cls.Kind.LT + d['lt_sym'] = tok.sym + else: + raise TypeError(f'Unexpected token type: {tok!r} ({type(tok)})') + return cls.from_fields(**d) + + def to_token(self) -> Token: + if self.kind == self.Kind.LT: + return TokLT(self.lt_sym) + elif self.kind == self.Kind.CP: + return TokCP(self.cp_off, self.cp_cnt + 1) + elif self.kind == self.Kind.MK: + return TokMK(self.mark) + else: + return RuntimeError(f'Decoding unsupported token kind: {self}') diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder.x b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder.x new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..8ec3c20217 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder.x @@ -0,0 +1,618 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + +import std +import xls.examples.ram as ram +import xls.modules.dbe.common as dbe + +type Mark = dbe::Mark; +type TokenKind = dbe::TokenKind; +type Token = dbe::Token; +type PlainData = dbe::PlainData; +type RamWriteReq = ram::WriteReq; +type RamWriteResp = ram::WriteResp; +type RamReadReq = ram::ReadReq; +type RamReadResp = ram::ReadResp; + + +fn RamZeroReadReq + () -> RamReadReq { + RamReadReq { + addr:uN[ADDR_WIDTH]:0, + mask:uN[NUM_PARTITIONS]:0, + } +} + +fn RamZeroReadResp + () -> RamReadResp { + RamReadResp { + data:uN[DATA_WIDTH]:0, + } +} + +fn RamZeroWriteReq + () -> RamWriteReq { + RamWriteReq { + addr:uN[ADDR_WIDTH]:0, + data:uN[DATA_WIDTH]:0, + mask:uN[NUM_PARTITIONS]:0, + } +} + +fn RamZeroWriteResp() -> RamWriteResp { + RamWriteResp {} +} + +/// The behavior of our decoder is defined as follows. +/// +/// A. History buffer is a buffer of (1< { + // Write pointer - next location _to be written_ + wr_ptr: uN[PTR_WIDTH], + // Read pointer - next location _to be read_ + rd_ptr: uN[PTR_WIDTH], + // Read counter - remaining number of symbols to be read out from the + // history buffer + rd_ctr_rem: uN[CNT_WIDTH], + // Whether we're in the ERROR state + err: bool, + // Helps to track which cells in HB are written and which ones are not + // (if some CP token points to an unwritten cell, we detect that and + // generate an error, as otherwise that will make decoder output garbage + // data that may leak some stale data from previous blocks) + hb_all_valid: bool, +} + +pub proc decoder_base { + i_encoded: chan> in; + o_data: chan> out; + + /// History buffer RAM + /// Size: (1<> out; + i_ram_hb_wr_resp: chan in; + o_ram_hb_rd_req: chan> out; + i_ram_hb_rd_resp: chan> in; + + init { + State { + wr_ptr: uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0, + rd_ptr: uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0, + rd_ctr_rem: uN[CNT_WIDTH]:0, + err: false, + hb_all_valid: false, + } + } + + config ( + i_encoded: chan> in, + o_symb: chan> out, + // RAM + o_ram_hb_wr_req: chan> out, + i_ram_hb_wr_resp: chan in, + o_ram_hb_rd_req: chan> out, + i_ram_hb_rd_resp: chan> in, + ) { + ( + i_encoded, o_symb, + o_ram_hb_wr_req, i_ram_hb_wr_resp, + o_ram_hb_rd_req, i_ram_hb_rd_resp, + ) + } + + next (tok: token, state: State) { + let is_copying = state.rd_ctr_rem != uN[CNT_WIDTH]:0; + let do_recv = !is_copying; + + // Receive token + let (tok, rx) = recv_if(tok, i_encoded, do_recv, + dbe::zero_token()); + + let rx_lt = do_recv && rx.kind == TokenKind::LT; + let rx_cp = do_recv && rx.kind == TokenKind::CP; + let rx_mark = do_recv && rx.kind == TokenKind::MK; + let rx_end = rx_mark && rx.mark == Mark::END; + let rx_error = rx_mark && dbe::is_error(rx.mark); + let rx_reset = rx_mark && rx.mark == Mark::RESET; + let rx_unexpected_mark = rx_mark && !(rx_end || rx_reset || rx_error); + + // Are we going to output a literal symbol or a symbol from HB? + let emit_sym_lit = rx_lt; + let emit_sym_from_hb = rx_cp || is_copying; + + // Reset, set or increment read pointer + let rd_ptr = if rx_reset { + uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0 + } else if rx_cp { + state.wr_ptr - rx.cp_off - uN[PTR_WIDTH]:1 + } else if is_copying { + state.rd_ptr + uN[PTR_WIDTH]:1 + } else { + state.rd_ptr + }; + + // Check whether rd_ptr points to an unwritten HB cell + let rd_ptr_valid = (rd_ptr < state.wr_ptr) || state.hb_all_valid; + + // HB READ - read the symbol from history buffer + let do_hb_read = emit_sym_from_hb && rd_ptr_valid; + let tok = send_if(tok, o_ram_hb_rd_req, do_hb_read, + ram::ReadWordReq(rd_ptr)); + let (tok, hb_rd) = recv_if(tok, i_ram_hb_rd_resp, do_hb_read, + RamZeroReadResp()); + + // Generate ERROR_INVAL_CP when we should've read from HB but + // we couldn't because CP points to an invalid location + let err_inval_cp = emit_sym_from_hb && !do_hb_read; + + // Send decoded data symbol or Mark + let zero_data = dbe::zero_plain_data(); + let (data_valid, data) = if rx_reset { + // Propagate RESET in all states + (true, PlainData { + is_mark: true, + mark: Mark::RESET, + ..zero_data + }) + } else if state.err { + // Do not send anything else while in an error state + (false, zero_data) + } else if rx_error || rx_end { + // Propagate ERROR and END tokens + (true, PlainData { + is_mark: true, + mark: rx.mark, + ..zero_data + }) + } else if rx_unexpected_mark { + // Generate ERROR_BAD_MARK + (true, PlainData { + is_mark: true, + mark: Mark::ERROR_BAD_MARK, + ..zero_data + }) + } else if err_inval_cp { + // Generate ERROR_INVAL_CP + (true, PlainData { + is_mark: true, + mark: Mark::ERROR_INVAL_CP, + ..zero_data + }) + } else if emit_sym_lit { + // Replicate symbol from LT token + (true, PlainData { + is_mark: false, + data: rx.lt_sym, + ..zero_data + }) + } else if emit_sym_from_hb { + // Replicate symbol from HB + (true, PlainData { + is_mark: false, + data: hb_rd.data, + ..zero_data + }) + } else { + (false, zero_data) + }; + let tok = send_if(tok, o_data, data_valid, data); + + // HB WRITE - write emitted symbol to the history buffer + let do_hb_write = data_valid && !data.is_mark; + let tok = send_if(tok, o_ram_hb_wr_req, do_hb_write, + ram::WriteWordReq(state.wr_ptr, data.data)); + let (tok, _) = recv_if(tok, i_ram_hb_wr_resp, do_hb_write, + RamZeroWriteResp()); + + // Reset/increment write pointer + let wr_ptr = if rx_reset { + uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0 + } else if do_hb_write { + state.wr_ptr + uN[PTR_WIDTH]:1 + } else { + state.wr_ptr + }; + + // When write pointer wraps over to 0 after the increment, + // that means we've filled the complete HB, so set a corresponding flag + let hb_all_valid = if rx_reset { + false + } else if do_hb_write && wr_ptr == uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0 { + true + } else { + state.hb_all_valid + }; + + // Read count set & decrement + let rd_ctr_rem = if rx_reset { + uN[CNT_WIDTH]:0 + } else if rx_cp { + rx.cp_cnt + } else if is_copying { + state.rd_ctr_rem - uN[CNT_WIDTH]:1 + } else { + state.rd_ctr_rem + }; + + // Enter/exit error state + let err = if rx_reset { + false + } else if rx_error || rx_unexpected_mark || err_inval_cp { + true + } else { + state.err + }; + + State{ + wr_ptr: wr_ptr, + rd_ptr: rd_ptr, + rd_ctr_rem: rd_ctr_rem, + hb_all_valid: hb_all_valid, + err: err, + } + } +} + +/// Version of `decoder` with embedded RamModel +/// Intended to be used only for tests +pub proc decoder_base_modelram { + init{()} + + config ( + i_encoded: chan> in, + o_data: chan> out, + ) { + let (o_hb_wr_req, i_hb_wr_req) = + chan>; + let (o_hb_wr_resp, i_hb_wr_resp) = + chan; + let (o_hb_rd_req, i_hb_rd_req) = + chan>; + let (o_hb_rd_resp, i_hb_rd_resp) = + chan>; + + spawn ram::RamModel + (i_hb_rd_req, o_hb_rd_resp, i_hb_wr_req, o_hb_wr_resp); + + spawn decoder_base + ( + i_encoded, o_data, + o_hb_wr_req, i_hb_wr_resp, + o_hb_rd_req, i_hb_rd_resp, + ); + } + + next (tok: token, state: ()) { + } +} + +/// Version of `decoder_base` compatible with classic LZ4 algorithm +pub const LZ4C_SYM_WIDTH = u32:8; +pub const LZ4C_PTR_WIDTH = u32:16; +pub const LZ4C_CNT_WIDTH = u32:16; + +pub proc decoder { + init{} + + config ( + i_encoded: + chan> in, + o_data: chan> out, + o_ram_hb_wr_req: + chan> out, + i_ram_hb_wr_resp: chan in, + o_ram_hb_rd_req: chan> out, + i_ram_hb_rd_resp: chan> in, + ) { + spawn decoder_base + + ( + i_encoded, o_data, + o_ram_hb_wr_req, i_ram_hb_wr_resp, + o_ram_hb_rd_req, i_ram_hb_rd_resp, + ); + } + + next(tok: token, st: ()) { + } +} + +/// Version of `decoder` with embedded RamModel +/// Intended to be used only for tests +pub proc decoder_modelram { + init{()} + + config ( + i_encoded: + chan> in, + o_symb: chan> out, + ) { + let (o_hb_wr_req, i_hb_wr_req) = + chan>; + let (o_hb_wr_resp, i_hb_wr_resp) = + chan; + let (o_hb_rd_req, i_hb_rd_req) = + chan>; + let (o_hb_rd_resp, i_hb_rd_resp) = + chan>; + + spawn ram::RamModel + + (i_hb_rd_req, o_hb_rd_resp, i_hb_wr_req, o_hb_wr_resp); + + spawn decoder + ( + i_encoded, o_symb, + o_hb_wr_req, i_hb_wr_resp, + o_hb_rd_req, i_hb_rd_resp, + ); + } + + next (tok: token, state: ()) { + } +} + + +/// +/// Tests +/// +import xls.modules.dbe.common_test as test + +const TST_SYM_WIDTH = u32:4; +const TST_PTR_WIDTH = u32:3; +const TST_CNT_WIDTH = u32:4; + + +// Reference input +const TST_SIMPLE_INPUT_LEN = u32:32; +const TST_SIMPLE_INPUT = Token[TST_SIMPLE_INPUT_LEN]: [ + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]:12, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]: 1, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]:15, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]: 9, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]:11, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 1, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 1, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 0, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 4, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]:15, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 1, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 2, cp_cnt: uN[4]:13, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]: 1, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 5, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 5, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]: 7, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]: 2, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:11, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 1, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 6, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 5, cp_cnt: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]: 3, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]: 9, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 5, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 1, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 3, cp_cnt: uN[4]:13, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]:14, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 1, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 0, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 7, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]:15, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 4, cp_cnt: uN[4]: 0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]: 5, cp_cnt: uN[4]:11, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: uN[4]: 8, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::MK, lt_sym: uN[4]:0, cp_off: uN[3]:0, cp_cnt: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::END} +]; +// Reference output +const TST_SIMPLE_OUTPUT_LEN = u32:109; +const TST_SIMPLE_OUTPUT = PlainData[TST_SIMPLE_OUTPUT_LEN]: [ + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:12, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:1, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:11, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:11, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:11, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:11, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:11, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:1, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:3, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:3, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:3, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:3, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:3, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:14, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:14, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:14, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:14, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:14, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:14, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:9, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:15, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:14, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: uN[4]:8, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: true, data: uN[4]:0, mark: Mark::END} +]; + +#[test_proc] +proc test_simple { + o_term: chan out; + recv_last_r: chan in; + + init {()} + + config(o_term: chan out) { + // tokens from sender and to decoder + let (send_toks_s, send_toks_r) = + chan>; + // symbols & last indicator from receiver + let (recv_data_s, recv_data_r) = chan>; + let (recv_last_s, recv_last_r) = chan; + + + spawn test::token_sender + + (TST_SIMPLE_INPUT, send_toks_s); + spawn decoder_base_modelram( + send_toks_r, recv_data_s); + spawn test::data_validator( + TST_SIMPLE_OUTPUT, recv_data_r, recv_last_s); + + (o_term, recv_last_r) + } + + next (tok: token, state: ()) { + // Here, test::data_validator validates the data received from decoder + // We just forward its o_term to our o_term + let (tok, v) = recv(tok, recv_last_r); + send(tok, o_term, v); + } +} diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder_test.py b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder_test.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..7883c21331 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder_test.py @@ -0,0 +1,680 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +import cocotb +from cocotb.clock import Clock +from cocotb.triggers import RisingEdge, ClockCycles, Event + +from cocotb_bus.scoreboard import Scoreboard +from cocotb_xls import XLSChannelDriver, XLSChannelMonitor + +from dbe import TokMK, TokCP, TokLT, Mark, Token, PlainData +from dbe_common_test import DslxPlainData8, DslxToken + +from typing import Sequence + + +@cocotb.coroutine +async def reset(clk, rst, cycles=1): + await RisingEdge(clk) + rst.value = 1 + await ClockCycles(clk, cycles) + rst.value = 0 + + +async def do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in: Sequence[Token], expected_out: Sequence[PlainData], + post_watch_cycles: int = 100): + """ + Tests the module by feeding it with `test_in`, reading the output, + and comparing the output with `expected_out`. + + If the test receives a data item that does not match the one which + is expected according to the `expected_out`, it terminates with a failure + immediately. + If the test receives all data items specified by `expected_out` after + feeding all the `test_in` data, it continues to run for `post_watch_cycles` + clock cycles, checking if it will receive any "garbage" data. If it does, + that is also considered a failure. If it doesn't, then that'll be a pass. + """ + # Convert i/o arrays to BinaryData + test_in_bd = list(DslxToken.from_token(t).as_binary() for t in test_in) + expected_out_bd = list( + DslxPlainData8.from_plain_data(b).as_binary() for b in expected_out) + + all_data_received = Event("All expected data received") + + clock = Clock(dut.clk, 1, units="us") + + i_token = XLSChannelDriver(dut, "i_token", dut.clk) + o_data = XLSChannelMonitor(dut, "o_data", dut.clk) + + sb = Scoreboard(dut, fail_immediately=True) + sb.add_interface(o_data, expected_out_bd) + + def check_if_all_data_received(_): + if o_data.stats.received_transactions == len(expected_out): + all_data_received.set() + + o_data.add_callback(check_if_all_data_received) + o_data.bus.rdy.setimmediatevalue(1) + + await cocotb.start(clock.start()) + await reset(dut.clk, dut.rst, 1) + await i_token.write(test_in_bd) + if expected_out: + await all_data_received.wait() + await ClockCycles(dut.clk, post_watch_cycles) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_void(dut): + """ + Check that in absence of input the module does not generate any output + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + ], + expected_out=[ + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_lt1(dut): + """ + Check that a single LT produces one symbol + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_lt2(dut): + """ + Check that a few LTs produce the same number of symbols + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokLT(20), + TokLT(30), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 20, + 30, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_cp1(dut): + """ + Check that a CP with length 1 works correctly + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokCP(0, 1) + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 10, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_cp2(dut): + """ + Check that a CP with length >1 works correctly + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokLT(20), + TokLT(30), + TokLT(40), + TokCP(2, 3) + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 20, + 30, + 40, + 20, 30, 40, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_cp3(dut): + """ + Check that CP can properly repeat symbols produced by itself + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokLT(20), + TokCP(1, 6) + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 20, + 10, 20, 10, 20, 10, 20 + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_cp4(dut): + """ + Check that decoder handles several CP tokens correctly + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokLT(20), + TokCP(1, 2), + TokCP(2, 4), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 20, + 10, 20, + 20, 10, 20, 20 + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_cp4(dut): + """ + Check that decoder handles mixed CP and LT tokens + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokCP(0, 1), + TokLT(30), + TokCP(0, 2), + TokLT(40), + TokCP(1, 2), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 10, + 30, + 30, 30, + 40, + 30, 40 + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_end1(dut): + """ + Check that END mark is propagated + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_end2(dut): + """ + Check that several END marks without any data in between are propagated + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_block1(dut): + """ + Check that a simple block with a single LT is handled properly + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_block2(dut): + """ + Check that a simple block with two LT is handled properly + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokLT(20), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 20, + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_block3(dut): + """ + Check that a simple block with LT and CP is handled properly + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokCP(0, 1), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 10, + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_blocks1(dut): + """ + Check that two blocks with LT are handled properly + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokLT(20), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + Mark.END, + 20, + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_blocks2(dut): + """ + Check that two blocks with CP are handled correctly + (this also validates that END token is not written to HB) + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokCP(0, 1), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + Mark.END, + 10, + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_blocks3(dut): + """ + Check that several blocks with CP are handled correctly + (this also validates that END token is not written to HB) + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokLT(20), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokCP(1, 2), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + 20, + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + 10, 20 + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset1(dut): + """ + Check that RESET token is propagated + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.RESET, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset2(dut): + """ + Check that RESET & END tokens are propagated + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.RESET, + Mark.END, + Mark.RESET, + Mark.RESET, + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error1(dut): + """ + Check that ERROR token is propagated + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokMK(Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error2(dut): + """ + Check that ERROR token is propagated and no further tokens are + processed afterwards + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokMK(Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK), + TokLT(1), + TokCP(0, 1), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_reset1(dut): + """ + Check that ERROR token is propagated, no further tokens are + processed afterwards, and module can be RESET and start accepting tokens + after that + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(1), + TokMK(Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK), + TokLT(2), + TokCP(0, 1), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokLT(3), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + expected_out=[ + 1, + Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK, + Mark.RESET, + 3, + Mark.END, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp1(dut): + """ + Check that when given a CP that points to an unwritten HB location, + ERROR_INVAL_CP is generated and no data is leaked from unwritten part + of HB. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokCP(0, 1), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.ERROR_INVAL_CP, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp2(dut): + """ + Check that ERROR_INVAL_CP can be reset. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokCP(0, 1), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokLT(10), + TokCP(0, 1), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.ERROR_INVAL_CP, + Mark.RESET, + 10, + 10 + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp3(dut): + """ + Check that RESET resets HB pointers and then when given a CP that points + to an unwritten HB location, ERROR_INVAL_CP is generated and no data is + leaked from HB. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(10), + TokCP(0, 1), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokCP(0, 1), + ], + expected_out=[ + 10, + 10, + Mark.RESET, + Mark.ERROR_INVAL_CP, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp4(dut): + """ + Check that after ERROR_INVAL_CP is produced, no other data is emitted + besides RESET (if present) + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokCP(0, 1), + TokLT(10), + TokCP(0, 1), + TokCP(10, 1), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.ERROR_INVAL_CP, + Mark.RESET, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp5(dut): + """ + Check that ERROR_INVAL_CP is produced for CP offset > 0 + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(1), + TokLT(2), + TokLT(3), + TokCP(0, 1), + TokCP(2, 2), + TokCP(10, 1), + ], + expected_out=[ + 1, + 2, + 3, + 3, + 2, 3, + Mark.ERROR_INVAL_CP, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp6(dut): + """ + Check that after ERROR_INVAL_CP is produced for maximum LZ4 CP offset + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokCP(0xFFFF, 1), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokLT(10), + TokCP(0xFFFF, 1), + ], + expected_out=[ + Mark.ERROR_INVAL_CP, + Mark.RESET, + 10, + Mark.ERROR_INVAL_CP, + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1000, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp7(dut): + """ + Check that ERROR_INVAL_CP is produced when only 1 symbol in buffer is + unwritten + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[TokLT(10)] * 65535 + [TokCP(65535, 1)], + expected_out=[10] * 65535 + [Mark.ERROR_INVAL_CP], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1000, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp8(dut): + """ + Check that ERROR_INVAL_CP is not produced when buffer is full (test 1) + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[TokLT(10)] * 65536 + [TokCP(65535, 1)], + expected_out=[10] * 65536 + [10], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1000, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_error_inval_cp9(dut): + """ + Check that ERROR_INVAL_CP is not produced when buffer is full (test 2) + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[TokLT(10)] * 65536 + [TokCP(0, 1)], + expected_out=[10] * 65536 + [10], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1000, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_cp_maxcount(dut): + """ + Check that CP token with maximum permitted cp_cnt value works + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + TokLT(7), + TokCP(0, 65536), + TokLT(15), + ], + expected_out=[7] * 65537 + [15], + ) diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder_wrap.v b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder_wrap.v new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..9304e74b1d --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_decoder_wrap.v @@ -0,0 +1,97 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + + +module lz4_decoder_wrap ( + input clk, + input rst, + // tokens input + input [45:0] i_token_data, + input i_token_vld, + output i_token_rdy, + // data output + output [12:0] o_data_data, + output o_data_vld, + input o_data_rdy +); + + localparam RAM_HB_ADDR_WIDTH = 16; + localparam RAM_HB_DATA_WIDTH = 8; + localparam RAM_HB_NUM_PART = 1; + + // HB RAM bus + wire [RAM_HB_ADDR_WIDTH+RAM_HB_DATA_WIDTH+RAM_HB_NUM_PART-1:0] + ram_hb_wr_req_data; + wire ram_hb_wr_req_vld; + wire ram_hb_wr_req_rdy; + wire ram_hb_wr_resp_vld; + wire ram_hb_wr_resp_rdy; + wire [RAM_HB_ADDR_WIDTH+RAM_HB_NUM_PART-1:0] ram_hb_rd_req_data; + wire ram_hb_rd_req_vld; + wire ram_hb_rd_req_rdy; + wire [RAM_HB_DATA_WIDTH-1:0] ram_hb_rd_resp_data; + wire ram_hb_rd_resp_vld; + wire ram_hb_rd_resp_rdy; + + // HB RAM + sdpram_xls_chan #( + .DATA_WIDTH(RAM_HB_DATA_WIDTH), + .ADDR_WIDTH(RAM_HB_ADDR_WIDTH), + .NUM_PARTITIONS(RAM_HB_NUM_PART) + ) ram_hb ( + .clk(clk), + .rst(rst), + .wr_req_data(ram_hb_wr_req_data), + .wr_req_vld(ram_hb_wr_req_vld), + .wr_req_rdy(ram_hb_wr_req_rdy), + .wr_resp_vld(ram_hb_wr_resp_vld), + .wr_resp_rdy(ram_hb_wr_resp_rdy), + .rd_req_data(ram_hb_rd_req_data), + .rd_req_vld(ram_hb_rd_req_vld), + .rd_req_rdy(ram_hb_rd_req_rdy), + .rd_resp_data(ram_hb_rd_resp_data), + .rd_resp_vld(ram_hb_rd_resp_vld), + .rd_resp_rdy(ram_hb_rd_resp_rdy) + ); + + // Decoder engine + dbe_lz4_decoder dut ( + .clk(clk), + .rst(rst), + .lz4_decoder__i_encoded_data(i_token_data), + .lz4_decoder__i_encoded_vld(i_token_vld), + .lz4_decoder__i_encoded_rdy(i_token_rdy), + .lz4_decoder__o_data_data(o_data_data), + .lz4_decoder__o_data_vld(o_data_vld), + .lz4_decoder__o_data_rdy(o_data_rdy), + // RAM + .lz4_decoder__o_ram_hb_wr_req_data(ram_hb_wr_req_data), + .lz4_decoder__o_ram_hb_wr_req_vld(ram_hb_wr_req_vld), + .lz4_decoder__o_ram_hb_wr_req_rdy(ram_hb_wr_req_rdy), + .lz4_decoder__i_ram_hb_wr_resp_vld(ram_hb_wr_resp_vld), + .lz4_decoder__i_ram_hb_wr_resp_rdy(ram_hb_wr_resp_rdy), + .lz4_decoder__o_ram_hb_rd_req_data(ram_hb_rd_req_data), + .lz4_decoder__o_ram_hb_rd_req_vld(ram_hb_rd_req_vld), + .lz4_decoder__o_ram_hb_rd_req_rdy(ram_hb_rd_req_rdy), + .lz4_decoder__i_ram_hb_rd_resp_data(ram_hb_rd_resp_data), + .lz4_decoder__i_ram_hb_rd_resp_vld(ram_hb_rd_resp_vld), + .lz4_decoder__i_ram_hb_rd_resp_rdy(ram_hb_rd_resp_rdy) + ); + + initial begin + $dumpfile("dump.vcd"); + $dumpvars(0, lz4_decoder_wrap); + end + +endmodule \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder.x b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder.x new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..424cee8c56 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder.x @@ -0,0 +1,832 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + +import std +import xls.examples.ram as ram +import xls.modules.dbe.common as dbe + +type Mark = dbe::Mark; +type TokenKind = dbe::TokenKind; +type Token = dbe::Token; +type PlainData = dbe::PlainData; +type RamReq = ram::SinglePortRamReq; +type RamResp = ram::SinglePortRamResp; + + +fn fifo_shift_left( + fifo: uN[DATA_WIDTH][FIFO_SIZE], + data: uN[DATA_WIDTH]) -> uN[DATA_WIDTH][FIFO_SIZE] { + let fifo = for (i, arr): (u32, uN[DATA_WIDTH][FIFO_SIZE]) + in u32:1..FIFO_SIZE { + update(arr, i - u32:1, fifo[i]) + } (uN[DATA_WIDTH][FIFO_SIZE]: [0, ...]); + let fifo = update(fifo, FIFO_SIZE - u32:1, data); + fifo +} + +fn fifo_shift_right( + fifo: uN[DATA_WIDTH][FIFO_SIZE], + data: uN[DATA_WIDTH]) -> uN[DATA_WIDTH][FIFO_SIZE] { + let fifo = for (i, arr): (u32, uN[DATA_WIDTH][FIFO_SIZE]) + in u32:1..FIFO_SIZE { + update(arr, i, fifo[i - u32:1]) + } (uN[DATA_WIDTH][FIFO_SIZE]: [0, ...]); + let fifo = update(fifo, u32:0, data); + fifo +} + +fn RamZeroReq + () -> RamReq { + RamReq { + addr:uN[ADDR_WIDTH]:0, + data:uN[DATA_WIDTH]:0, + write_mask: (), + read_mask: (), + we: false, + re: false, + } +} + +fn RamZeroResp + () -> RamResp { + RamResp { + data:uN[DATA_WIDTH]:0, + } +} + +fn RamWriteReq + (addr:uN[ADDR_WIDTH], data:uN[DATA_WIDTH]) + -> RamReq { + RamReq { + addr:addr, + data:data, + write_mask: (), + read_mask: (), + we: true, + re: false, + } +} + +fn RamReadReq + (addr:uN[ADDR_WIDTH]) + -> RamReq { + RamReq { + addr:addr, + data:uN[DATA_WIDTH]:0, + write_mask: (), + read_mask: (), + we: false, + re: true, + } +} + +enum FsmSt: u4 { + RESET = 0, + HASH_TABLE_CLEAR = 1, + RESTART = 2, + FIFO_PREFILL = 3, + FIFO_POSTFILL = 4, + START_MATCH_0 = 5, + START_MATCH_1 = 6, + CONTINUE_MATCH_0 = 7, + CONTINUE_MATCH_1 = 8, + EMIT_SHORT_MATCH = 9, + EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS = 10, + EMIT_END = 11, + ERROR = 12, +} + +struct State { + fifo_cache: uN[SYM_WIDTH][FIFO_CACHE_SZ], + fifo_in: uN[SYM_WIDTH][FIFO_IN_SZ], + fifo_in_count: u32, + fifo_in_nvalid: u32, + wp: uN[PTR_WIDTH], + hb_all_valid: bool, + pnew: uN[PTR_WIDTH], + pold: uN[PTR_WIDTH], + match_nconts: u32, + ht_ptr: uN[HASH_BITS], + recycle: bool, + finalize: bool, + fsm: FsmSt, +} + +fn init_state() + -> State { + State{ + fifo_cache: uN[SYM_WIDTH][FIFO_CACHE_SZ]: [uN[SYM_WIDTH]:0, ...], + fifo_in: uN[SYM_WIDTH][FIFO_IN_SZ]: [uN[SYM_WIDTH]:0, ...], + fifo_in_count: u32:0, + fifo_in_nvalid: u32:0, + wp: uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0, + hb_all_valid: false, + pnew: uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0, + pold: uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0, + match_nconts: u32:0, + ht_ptr: uN[HASH_BITS]:0, + recycle: false, + finalize: false, + fsm: FsmSt::RESET + } +} + +pub proc encoder_base< + SYM_WIDTH: u32, PTR_WIDTH: u32, CNT_WIDTH: u32, HASH_BITS: u32, + MINMATCH: u32 = {u32:4}, FINAL_LITERALS: u32 = {u32:12}, + FIFO_CACHE_SZ: u32 = {MINMATCH - u32:1}, + FIFO_IN_SZ: u32 = {std::umax(MINMATCH, FINAL_LITERALS + u32:1)}, + HB_RAM_SZ: u32 = {u32:1 << PTR_WIDTH}, + HT_RAM_SZ: u32 = {u32:1 << HASH_BITS}> { + i_data: chan> in; + o_encoded: chan> out; + + /// History buffer RAM + /// Size: (1<> out; + i_ram_hb_resp: chan> in; + i_ram_hb_wr_comp: chan<()> in; + + /// Hash table RAM + /// Size: (1<> out; + i_ram_ht_resp: chan> in; + i_ram_ht_wr_comp: chan<()> in; + + init { + init_state() + } + + config ( + // Data in, tokens out + i_data: chan> in, + o_encoded: chan> out, + // RAM + o_ram_hb_req: chan> out, + i_ram_hb_resp: chan> in, + i_ram_hb_wr_comp: chan<()> in, + o_ram_ht_req: chan> out, + i_ram_ht_resp: chan> in, + i_ram_ht_wr_comp: chan<()> in, + ) { + ( + i_data, o_encoded, + o_ram_hb_req, i_ram_hb_resp, i_ram_hb_wr_comp, + o_ram_ht_req, i_ram_ht_resp, i_ram_ht_wr_comp, + ) + } + + next (tok: token, cur: State) { + let upd = cur; + + // Read new symbol from input + let do_recv = !cur.recycle && ( + cur.fsm == FsmSt::FIFO_PREFILL + || cur.fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 + || cur.fsm == FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_0 + || cur.fsm == FsmSt::ERROR + ); + + // I_DATA RECV + let (tok, rx) = recv_if(tok, i_data, do_recv, + dbe::zero_plain_data()); + + // Classify input markers + let rx_symbol = do_recv && !rx.is_mark; + let rx_mark = do_recv && rx.is_mark; + let rx_end = rx_mark && rx.mark == Mark::END; + let rx_error = rx_mark && dbe::is_error(rx.mark); + let rx_reset = rx_mark && rx.mark == Mark::RESET; + let rx_unexpected_mark = rx_mark && !(rx_end || rx_reset || rx_error); + + let upd = if cur.fsm == FsmSt::ERROR || cur.recycle { + // Do not shift FIFOs / write HB in these states + upd + } else if rx_symbol { + let wp = upd.wp + uN[PTR_WIDTH]:1; + // Update state, shift input FIFOs + let upd = State{ + wp: wp, + fifo_cache: + fifo_shift_right(upd.fifo_cache, upd.fifo_in[0]), + fifo_in: + fifo_shift_left(upd.fifo_in, rx.data), + hb_all_valid: + if wp == uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0 {true} else {upd.hb_all_valid}, + fifo_in_count: + std::umin(upd.fifo_in_count + u32:1, FIFO_IN_SZ), + ..upd + }; + upd + } else if rx_end { + // When receiving END marker, shift input FIFO anyhow as we're + // expected to drop the symbol at OP + let new_count = std::umin(upd.fifo_in_count + u32:1, FIFO_IN_SZ); + let upd = State{ + finalize: true, + fifo_cache: + fifo_shift_right(upd.fifo_cache, upd.fifo_in[0]), + fifo_in: + fifo_shift_left(upd.fifo_in, uN[SYM_WIDTH]:0), + fifo_in_count: new_count, + fifo_in_nvalid: new_count - u32:1, + ..upd + }; + upd + } else if ( + cur.fsm == FsmSt::FIFO_POSTFILL + || cur.fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + ) { + // Feed input FIFO with 0s and shift + let (new_count, new_nvalid) = if cur.fsm == FsmSt::FIFO_POSTFILL { + ( + std::umin(upd.fifo_in_count + u32:1, FIFO_IN_SZ), + upd.fifo_in_nvalid + ) + } else { + ( + upd.fifo_in_count, + upd.fifo_in_nvalid - u32:1 + ) + }; + let upd = State{ + fifo_in: + fifo_shift_left(upd.fifo_in, uN[SYM_WIDTH]:0), + fifo_in_count: new_count, + fifo_in_nvalid: new_nvalid, + ..upd + }; + upd + } else { + upd + }; + + // Calculate origin pointer OP from WP + let op = ((upd.wp as u32) - FIFO_IN_SZ + u32:1) as uN[PTR_WIDTH]; + + // Calculate u32 Fibonacci hash function + let hsh_input = (upd.fifo_in[3] as u8) + ++ (upd.fifo_in[2] as u8) + ++ (upd.fifo_in[1] as u8) + ++ (upd.fifo_in[0] as u8); + let hsh32 = hsh_input * u32:2654435761; + let hsh = (hsh32 >> (u32:32 - HASH_BITS)) as uN[HASH_BITS]; + + // NOTE: HT RAM, HB RAM accesses and o_token emission all happen + // in parallel. + + // Access HT RAM + let (ht_vld, ht_req) = if cur.fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 { + (true, RamReadReq(hsh)) + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_1 { + (true, RamWriteReq(hsh, op)) + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::HASH_TABLE_CLEAR { + (true, RamWriteReq(upd.ht_ptr, uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0)) + } else { + (false, RamZeroReq()) + }; + let tok_ht = send_if(tok, o_ram_ht_req, ht_vld, ht_req); + let (tok_ht, ht_resp) = recv_if(tok_ht, i_ram_ht_resp, ht_vld && ht_req.re, + RamZeroResp()); + let (tok_ht, _) = recv_if(tok_ht, i_ram_ht_wr_comp, ht_vld && ht_req.we, + ()); + + // Update match pointers & HT ptr used to clean hash table + let upd = if cur.fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 { + State { + pold: ht_resp.data, + pnew: op, + ..upd + } + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::HASH_TABLE_CLEAR { + State { + ht_ptr: upd.ht_ptr + uN[HASH_BITS]:1, + ..upd + } + } else { + upd + }; + + // Prepare to check for a match + let (mchk_do, mchk_pos, mchk_canextend) = if ( + cur.fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_1 + ) { + ( + true, + upd.pold, + true + ) + } else if (cur.fsm == FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_1) { + ( + true, + upd.pold + upd.match_nconts as uN[PTR_WIDTH] + uN[PTR_WIDTH]:1, + upd.match_nconts < ((u32:1 << CNT_WIDTH) - u32:1) + ) + } else { + ( + false, + uN[PTR_WIDTH]:0, + false + ) + }; + + // Do not match-check unwritten (uninitialized) HB RAM locations + let mchk_is_hb_written = + upd.hb_all_valid + || (mchk_pos >= uN[PTR_WIDTH]:1 && mchk_pos < upd.wp); + + // Access HB RAM + let (hb_vld, hb_req) = if rx_symbol && cur.fsm != FsmSt::ERROR { + (true, RamWriteReq(upd.wp, rx.data)) + } else if mchk_do && mchk_is_hb_written { + (true, RamReadReq(mchk_pos)) + } else { + (false, RamZeroReq()) + }; + let tok_hb = send_if(tok, o_ram_hb_req, hb_vld, hb_req); + let (tok_hb, hb_resp) = recv_if(tok_hb, i_ram_hb_resp, hb_vld && hb_req.re, + RamZeroResp()); + let (tok_hb, _) = recv_if(tok_hb, i_ram_hb_wr_comp, hb_vld && hb_req.we, + ()); + + // Actually check for a match + let is_match = if mchk_do { + let sym = hb_resp.data; + // For match to happen, following criteria have to be met: + // 1. pos should not point to an unwritten HB entry + // (see `mchk_is_hb_written` above) + // 2. pos should not point between OP and WP inclusive + let isold = (mchk_pos - op) > (upd.wp - op); + // 3. sym should match current origin symbol + let _matches = sym == upd.fifo_in[0]; + // 4. our existing matching string should not be too long + (mchk_is_hb_written && isold && _matches && mchk_canextend) + } else { + false + }; + + // Update match_nconts + let upd = State{ + match_nconts: if cur.fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_1 { + u32:0 + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_1 { + upd.match_nconts + u32:1 + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_SHORT_MATCH { + upd.match_nconts - u32:1 + } else { + upd.match_nconts + }, + ..upd + }; + + // Handle match termination + let ( + is_match_terminated, + match_len, + match_is_long + ) = if cur.fsm == FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_1 { + ( + !is_match || upd.finalize, + upd.match_nconts, + upd.match_nconts >= MINMATCH, + ) + } else { + (false, u32:0, false) + }; + + // Emit compressed data token + let zero_tok = dbe::zero_token(); + let (do_emit, encoded_tok) = if rx_reset { + // Propagate RESET + (true, Token{ + kind: TokenKind::MK, + mark: Mark::RESET, + ..zero_tok + }) + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::ERROR { + // Do not emit anything in error state + (false, zero_tok) + } else if rx_error { + // Propagate error + (true, Token{ + kind: TokenKind::MK, + mark: rx.mark, + ..zero_tok + }) + } else if rx_unexpected_mark { + // Generate error + (true, Token{ + kind: TokenKind::MK, + mark: Mark::ERROR_BAD_MARK, + ..zero_tok + }) + } else if ( + cur.fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_1 && + (!is_match || upd.finalize) + ) { + // Emit symbol at OP as literal + (true, Token{ + kind: TokenKind::LT, + lt_sym: upd.fifo_in[0], + ..zero_tok + }) + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_1 && is_match_terminated { + // If match is long enough, emit a single CP + // If not, emit symbols from Cache FIFO as literals + if match_is_long { + let off = upd.pnew - upd.pold; + let t = Token { + kind: TokenKind::CP, + cp_off: off - uN[PTR_WIDTH]:1, + cp_cnt: (match_len - u32:1) as uN[CNT_WIDTH], + ..zero_tok + }; + (true, t) + } else { + (true, Token { + kind: TokenKind::LT, + lt_sym: upd.fifo_cache[upd.match_nconts - u32:1], + ..zero_tok + }) + } + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_SHORT_MATCH { + (true, Token { + kind: TokenKind::LT, + lt_sym: upd.fifo_cache[upd.match_nconts - u32:1], + ..zero_tok + }) + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS { + // We dump literals from Input FIFO till nvalid becomes 0 + (true, Token { + kind: TokenKind::LT, + lt_sym: upd.fifo_in[u32:0], + ..zero_tok + }) + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_END { + (true, Token { + kind: TokenKind::MK, + mark: Mark::END, + ..zero_tok + }) + } else { + (false, zero_tok) + }; + let tok_out = send_if(tok, o_encoded, do_emit, encoded_tok); + + // Handle state re-initialization + let upd = if cur.fsm == FsmSt::RESET { + // Full reset + // NOTE: .fsm value will be overridden by the state change logic + init_state() + } else if cur.fsm == FsmSt::RESTART { + // Intra-block partial reset, keeping HB and HT intact + State { + fifo_in_count: u32:0, + fifo_in_nvalid: u32:0, + match_nconts: u32:0, + finalize: false, + recycle: false, + ..upd + } + } else { + upd + }; + + // State change logic + let fsm = cur.fsm; + let fsm = if rx_error || rx_unexpected_mark { + FsmSt::ERROR + } else if rx_reset { + FsmSt::RESET + } else if fsm == FsmSt::RESET { + FsmSt::HASH_TABLE_CLEAR + } else if fsm == FsmSt::HASH_TABLE_CLEAR { + if upd.ht_ptr == uN[HASH_BITS]:0 { + FsmSt::RESTART + } else { + fsm + } + } else if fsm == FsmSt::RESTART { + FsmSt::FIFO_PREFILL + } else if fsm == FsmSt::FIFO_PREFILL { + if rx_end { + if upd.fifo_in_nvalid > u32:0 { + if upd.fifo_in_count < FIFO_IN_SZ { + FsmSt::FIFO_POSTFILL + } else { + FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + } + } else { + // This handles empty input blocks + FsmSt::EMIT_END + } + } else if upd.fifo_in_count >= FIFO_IN_SZ { + FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 + } else { + fsm + } + } else if fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 { + FsmSt::START_MATCH_1 + } else if fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_1 { + if upd.finalize { + FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + } else if is_match { + FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_0 + } else { + FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 + } + } else if fsm == FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_0 { + FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_1 + } else if fsm == FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_1 { + if is_match_terminated { + // Match failed or interrupted + if match_is_long || upd.match_nconts == u32:1 { + // CP or the sole LT has been emitted + if upd.finalize { + FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + } else { + FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 + } + } else { + // Still need to emit some LT to terminate the match + FsmSt::EMIT_SHORT_MATCH + } + } else { + // Continue matching + FsmSt::CONTINUE_MATCH_0 + } + } else if fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_SHORT_MATCH { + if upd.match_nconts == u32:1 { + if upd.finalize { + // Finish block transcription + FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + } else { + // Restart matching + FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 + } + } else { + fsm + } + } else if fsm == FsmSt::FIFO_POSTFILL { + // It is worth noting that we get into this state only when + // finalizing very short blocks (so short that they don't even + // fill the input FIFO). + if upd.fifo_in_count == FIFO_IN_SZ { + FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + } else { + fsm + } + } else if fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS { + if upd.fifo_in_nvalid == u32:1 { + FsmSt::EMIT_END + } else { + fsm + } + } else if fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_END { + FsmSt::RESTART + } else { + fail!("unhandled_fsm_state", fsm) + }; + + let upd = State { + fsm: fsm, + ..upd + }; + + // Set 'recycle' flag when we want to "stall" Input FIFO to not lose + // the symbol at the OP, which is needed for certain state transitions + let recycle = if ( + upd.fsm == FsmSt::START_MATCH_0 + && cur.fsm != FsmSt::START_MATCH_1 + ) { + true + } else if ( + upd.fsm == FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + && cur.fsm != FsmSt::EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + && cur.fsm != FsmSt::START_MATCH_1 + ) { + true + } else { + false + }; + + let upd = State { + recycle: recycle, + ..upd + }; + + upd + } +} + +/// Version of `encoder_base` that uses RamModel +/// Intended to be used only for tests +pub proc encoder_base_modelram + { + init{()} + + config ( + i_data: chan> in, + o_encoded: chan> out, + ) { + let (o_hb_req, i_hb_req) = + chan>; + let (o_hb_resp, i_hb_resp) = + chan>; + let (o_hb_wr_comp, i_hb_wr_comp) = + chan<()>; + let (o_ht_req, i_ht_req) = + chan>; + let (o_ht_resp, i_ht_resp) = + chan>; + let (o_ht_wr_comp, i_ht_wr_comp) = + chan<()>; + + spawn ram::SinglePortRamModel + + (i_hb_req, o_hb_resp, o_hb_wr_comp); + spawn ram::SinglePortRamModel + + (i_ht_req, o_ht_resp, o_ht_wr_comp); + + spawn encoder_base + + ( + i_data, o_encoded, + o_hb_req, i_hb_resp, i_hb_wr_comp, + o_ht_req, i_ht_resp, i_ht_wr_comp, + ); + } + + next (tok: token, state: ()) { + } +} + +/// LZ4 encoder with 8K hash table + +const LZ4C_SYM_WIDTH = u32:8; +const LZ4C_PTR_WIDTH = u32:16; +const LZ4C_CNT_WIDTH = u32:16; +const LZ4C_HASH_BITS_8K = u32:13; + +pub proc encoder_8k { + init{()} + + config ( + i_data: + chan> in, + o_encoded: + chan> out, + o_ram_hb_req: + chan> out, + i_ram_hb_resp: + chan> in, + i_ram_hb_wr_comp: + chan<()> in, + o_ram_ht_req: + chan> out, + i_ram_ht_resp: + chan> in, + i_ram_ht_wr_comp: + chan<()> in, + ) { + spawn encoder_base + + ( + i_data, o_encoded, + o_ram_hb_req, i_ram_hb_resp, i_ram_hb_wr_comp, + o_ram_ht_req, i_ram_ht_resp, i_ram_ht_wr_comp, + ); + } + + next(tok: token, st: ()) { + } +} + +/// Version of `encoder_8k` that uses RamModel +/// Intended to be used only for tests +pub proc encoder_8k_modelram { + init{()} + + config ( + i_data: + chan> in, + o_encoded: + chan> out, + ) { + spawn encoder_base_modelram + + (i_data, o_encoded); + } + + next (tok: token, state: ()) { + } +} + +/// +/// Tests +/// + +import xls.modules.dbe.common_test as test +import xls.modules.dbe.lz4_decoder as dec + +const TST_SYMS_LEN = u32:19; +const TST_SYMS = PlainData<8>[TST_SYMS_LEN]: [ + // Check basic LT and CP generation + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:1, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:1, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:1, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:2, mark: Mark::NONE}, + // Final token sequence - should stay as literals + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: false, data: u8:7, mark: Mark::NONE}, + PlainData{is_mark: true, data: u8:0, mark: Mark::END}, +]; + +const TST_TOKS_LEN = u32:16; +const TST_TOKS = +Token[TST_TOKS_LEN]: [ + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:1, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:2, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::CP, lt_sym: u8:0, cp_off: u16:1, cp_cnt: u16:3, mark: Mark::NONE}, + // Final literal token sequence + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::LT, lt_sym: u8:7, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::NONE}, + Token{kind: TokenKind::MK, lt_sym: u8:0, cp_off: u16:0, cp_cnt: u16:0, mark: Mark::END}, +]; + +#[test_proc] +proc test_encoder_8k_simple { + o_term: chan out; + i_recv_term: chan in; + + init {()} + + config(o_term: chan out) { + let (o_send_data, i_send_data) = + chan>; + let (enc_toks_s, enc_toks_r) = + chan>; + let (o_recv_term, i_recv_term) = + chan; + + spawn test::data_sender + (TST_SYMS, o_send_data); + spawn encoder_8k_modelram( + i_send_data, enc_toks_s, + ); + spawn test::token_validator + + (TST_TOKS, enc_toks_r, o_recv_term); + + (o_term, i_recv_term) + } + + next (tok: token, state: ()) { + // Here, test::token_validator validates the data received from encoder + // We only forward its o_term to our o_term + let (tok, recv_term) = recv(tok, i_recv_term); + send(tok, o_term, recv_term); + } +} diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder_test.py b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder_test.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b78ac7352f --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder_test.py @@ -0,0 +1,570 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +import cocotb +from cocotb.clock import Clock +from cocotb.triggers import RisingEdge, ClockCycles, Event + +from cocotb_bus.scoreboard import Scoreboard +from cocotb_xls import XLSChannelDriver, XLSChannelMonitor + +from dbe import TokMK, TokCP, TokLT, Mark, Token,\ + PlainData, Params, Decoder +from dbe_common_test import DslxPlainData8, DslxToken +from dbe_data import DataFiles + +from typing import Sequence + + +# Underlying LZ4 algorithm parameters the tests must be aware of +MINMATCH = 4 +FINAL_LITERALS = 12 + + +@cocotb.coroutine +async def reset(clk, rst, cycles=1): + await RisingEdge(clk) + rst.value = 1 + await ClockCycles(clk, cycles) + rst.value = 0 + + +async def do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in: Sequence[PlainData], expected_out: Sequence[Token], + post_watch_cycles: int = 100): + """ + Tests the module by feeding it with `test_in`, reading the output, + and comparing the output with `expected_out`. + + If the test receives a data item that does not match the one which + is expected according to the `expected_out`, it terminates with a failure + immediately. + If the test receives all data items specified by `expected_out` after + feeding all the `test_in` data, it continues to run for `post_watch_cycles` + clock cycles, checking if it will receive any "garbage" data. If it does, + that is also considered a failure. If it doesn't, then that'll be a pass. + """ + # Convert i/o arrays to BinaryData + test_in_bd = list(DslxPlainData8.from_plain_data(b).as_binary() for b in test_in) + expected_out_bd = list( + DslxToken.from_token(t).as_binary() for t in expected_out) + + all_data_received = Event("All expected data received") + + clock = Clock(dut.clk, 1, units="us") + + i_data = XLSChannelDriver(dut, "i_data", dut.clk) + o_token = XLSChannelMonitor(dut, "o_token", dut.clk) + + sb = Scoreboard(dut, fail_immediately=True) + sb.add_interface(o_token, expected_out_bd) + + def check_if_all_data_received(_): + if o_token.stats.received_transactions == len(expected_out): + all_data_received.set() + + o_token.add_callback(check_if_all_data_received) + o_token.bus.rdy.setimmediatevalue(1) + + await cocotb.start(clock.start()) + await reset(dut.clk, dut.rst, 1) + await i_data.write(test_in_bd) + if expected_out: + await all_data_received.wait() + await ClockCycles(dut.clk, post_watch_cycles) + if sb.errors: + raise cocotb.TestFailure("Received data different from expected") + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_void(dut): + """ + Check that in absence of input the module does not generate any output + + (this runs long as we want to observe module's behavior after it finishes + clearing HT RAM) + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + ], + expected_out=[ + ], + post_watch_cycles=50000) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_end1(dut): + """ + Check that module correctly passes END token + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + Mark.END + ], + expected_out=[ + TokMK(Mark.END), + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_end2(dut): + """ + Check that module correctly passes several END tokens + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + ], + expected_out=[ + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_short1(dut): + """ + Check that module correctly passes a single symbol as a literal + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + 10, + Mark.END, + ], + expected_out=[ + TokLT(10), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_short2(dut): + """ + Check that module correctly passes a single symbol as a literal + when repeated in several blocks + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + 10, + Mark.END, + 20, + Mark.END, + 30, + Mark.END, + ], + expected_out=[ + TokLT(10), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokLT(20), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokLT(30), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_cp_simple(dut): + """ + Check the simplest case where a single CP is emitted in RLE-like manner. + + This also tests producing CP for repetitive sequences and the generation + of final literal sequence. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*20 + [15]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [TokLT(7)]*1 + [TokCP(0, 19)] + [TokLT(15)]*FINAL_LITERALS + + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_cp_long(dut): + """ + Check that we can emit CP for a more complicated sequence than a + repetition of a single symbol. + + This also partially tests the generation of a final literal sequence + (after match fail & LT token). + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [ + 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, + 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, + ] + [15]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [ + TokLT(1), TokLT(2), TokLT(3), TokLT(4), + TokLT(5), TokLT(6), TokLT(7), TokLT(8), TokLT(9), + ] + + [TokCP(8, 9)] + + [TokLT(15)]*FINAL_LITERALS + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_finlit1(dut): + """ + Check that the final sequence is generated correctly when + encoder is fed FINAL_LITERALS copies of the same symbol. All those + should be emitted as literals (LT). + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [TokLT(7)]*FINAL_LITERALS + [TokMK(Mark.END)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_finlit2(dut): + """ + Check that the final sequence is generated correctly in a corner + case with preceding match being 2 symbols too short of MINMATCH. + + Specifically, this tests the behavior of encoder when given a repeated + sequence of some symbol of length MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS-1. + - First symbol creates LT token (no other possibility) + - The next symbol can already make a match (CP) of up to + MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS-2 symbols long. But since at least + FINAL_LITERALS last symbols should be emitted as literals, the maximum + match length is limited by MINMATCH-2, which is less than MINMATCH, thus + CP will not be generated, and all symbols are emitted as literals (LT). + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*(MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS-1) + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [TokLT(7)]*(MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS-1) + [TokMK(Mark.END)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_finlit3(dut): + """ + Check that the final sequence is generated correctly in a corner + case with preceding match being 1 symbol too short of MINMATCH. + + - First symbol creates LT token (no other possibility) + - The next symbol can already make a match (CP) of up to + MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS-1 symbols long. But since at least + FINAL_LITERALS last symbols should be emitted as literals, the maximum + match length is limited by MINMATCH-1, which is less than MINMATCH, thus + CP will not be generated, and all symbols are emitted as literals (LT). + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7] * (MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS) + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [TokLT(7)]*(MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS) + [TokMK(Mark.END)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_finlit4(dut): + """ + Check that the final sequence is generated correctly in a corner + case with preceding match being exactly MINMATCH long. + + - First symbol creates LT token (no other possibility) + - The next symbol can already make a match (CP) of up to + MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS symbols long. Since at least FINAL_LITERALS + last symbols should be emitted as literals, the maximum match length + is limited by MINMATCH, which is enough for CP, and it should generate + a CP token. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7] * (MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS+1) + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [ + TokLT(7), + TokCP(0, MINMATCH), + ] + + [TokLT(7)] * FINAL_LITERALS + + [TokMK(Mark.END)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_finlit5(dut): + """ + Check that the final sequence is generated correctly after mismatch. + + Similar to test_finlit4, but with an extra CP in the beginning. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*(1+MINMATCH) + + [8]*(1+MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS) + + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [ + TokLT(7), + TokCP(0, MINMATCH), + TokLT(8), + TokCP(0, MINMATCH), + ] + + [TokLT(8)] * FINAL_LITERALS + + [TokMK(Mark.END)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_finlit6(dut): + """ + Check that the final sequence can be generated several times, if + encoder is given several blocks one after another. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*(1+MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS) + + [Mark.END] + + [7]*(MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS) + + [Mark.END] + + [8]*(1+MINMATCH+FINAL_LITERALS) + + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [TokLT(7), TokCP(0, MINMATCH)] + + [TokLT(7)] * FINAL_LITERALS + + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + + [TokCP(MINMATCH + FINAL_LITERALS - 1, MINMATCH)] + + [TokLT(7)] * FINAL_LITERALS + + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + + [TokLT(8), TokCP(0, MINMATCH)] + + [TokLT(8)] * FINAL_LITERALS + + [TokMK(Mark.END)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=200, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset1(dut): + """ + Simple check for correctness of END and RESET token passing + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + Mark.END, + Mark.RESET, + Mark.END, + Mark.END, + Mark.RESET, + Mark.END, + ], + expected_out=[ + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.END), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset2(dut): + """ + Check that RESET does not drop symbols following after it + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in=[ + Mark.RESET, + 7, + Mark.END, + ], + expected_out=[ + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokLT(7), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ]) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset3(dut): + """ + Check that RESET token aborts final sequence generation. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*(FINAL_LITERALS-1) + + [Mark.RESET, Mark.END], + expected_out= + [TokMK(Mark.RESET), TokMK(Mark.END)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset4(dut): + """ + Check that RESET token aborts final sequence generation (test #2) + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + + [Mark.RESET, Mark.END], + expected_out= + [TokMK(Mark.RESET), TokMK(Mark.END)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset5(dut): + """ + Check that RESET token aborts final sequence generation (test #3) + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*(FINAL_LITERALS+1) + + [Mark.RESET, Mark.END], + expected_out= + [ + TokLT(7), + TokMK(Mark.RESET), + TokMK(Mark.END), + ], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset6(dut): + """ + Check that RESET token does not abort final sequence generation when + passed after the END token. + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + + [Mark.END, Mark.RESET], + expected_out= + [TokLT(7)]*FINAL_LITERALS + + [TokMK(Mark.END), TokMK(Mark.RESET)], + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=100, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_reset7(dut): + """ + Check that RESET mark prevents matching with symbols preceding the mark. + + Matching can happen across END mark (thus, emitted CP tokens can look + past the END token), but it must not happen across RESET mark (thus, + emitted CP tokens should not look past the RESET). + """ + await do_comparison_test( + dut, + test_in= + [10, 20, 30, 40] + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END] + + [10, 20, 30, 40] + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END] + + [10, 20, 30, 40] + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END] + + [Mark.RESET] + + [10, 20, 30, 40] + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END] + + [10, 20, 30, 40] + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END] + + [10, 20, 30, 40] + [7]*FINAL_LITERALS + [Mark.END], + expected_out= + [TokLT(10), TokLT(20), TokLT(30), TokLT(40)] + + [TokLT(7)]*FINAL_LITERALS + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + + [TokCP(FINAL_LITERALS+3, 4)] + + [TokLT(7)]*FINAL_LITERALS + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + + [TokCP(FINAL_LITERALS+3, 4)] + + [TokLT(7)]*FINAL_LITERALS + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + + [TokMK(Mark.RESET)] + + [TokLT(10), TokLT(20), TokLT(30), TokLT(40)] + + [TokLT(7)]*FINAL_LITERALS + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + + [TokCP(FINAL_LITERALS+3, 4)] + + [TokLT(7)]*FINAL_LITERALS + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + + [TokCP(FINAL_LITERALS+3, 4)] + + [TokLT(7)]*FINAL_LITERALS + [TokMK(Mark.END)] + ) + + +@cocotb.test(timeout_time=1000, timeout_unit='ms') +async def test_compression(dut): + """ + Compress a piece of text and check that it can be decompressed correctly. + """ + num_bytes_to_compress = 10000 + + clock = Clock(dut.clk, 1, units="us") + i_data = XLSChannelDriver(dut, "i_data", dut.clk) + o_token = XLSChannelMonitor(dut, "o_token", dut.clk) + + # Test completes when END token is received, detect that + end_received = Event("END token received") + + toks = [] + def recv_cb(trans): + tok = DslxToken.from_binary(trans).to_token() + toks.append(tok) + if isinstance(tok, TokMK) and tok.mark == Mark.END: + end_received.set() + + o_token.add_callback(recv_cb) + o_token.bus.rdy.setimmediatevalue(1) + + # Get plaintext for compression + with open(DataFiles.DICKENS_TXT, 'rb') as f: + text1 = list(f.read(num_bytes_to_compress)) + text1.append(Mark.END) + + # Run + await cocotb.start(clock.start()) + await reset(dut.clk, dut.rst, 1) + await i_data.write( + tuple(DslxPlainData8.from_plain_data(b).as_binary() for b in text1)) + await end_received.wait() + + # Validate the output using reference decoder + par = Params(symbits = 8, ptrbits = 16, cntbits = 16) + dec = Decoder(par) + text2 = dec.decode(toks) + for i in range(max(len(text1), len(text2))): + assert i < len(text1), ( + f"Extra chars in decoded text: " + f"l1={len(text1)} l2={len(text2)}, byte: {text2[i]!r}" + ) + assert i < len(text2), ( + f"Preliminary EOF in decoded text: " + f"l1={len(text1)} l2={len(text2)}, byte: {text1[i]!r}" + ) + s1 = text1[i] + s2 = text2[i] + if s1 != s2: + raise AssertionError(f"Mismatch @ {i}: expected {s1!r} got {s2!r}") diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder_wrap.v b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder_wrap.v new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..8b9193754c --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/lz4_encoder_wrap.v @@ -0,0 +1,126 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + + +module lz4_encoder_wrap ( + input clk, + input rst, + // data input + // [u1 is_mark, u8 data, u4 mark] + input [12:0] i_data_data, + input i_data_vld, + output i_data_rdy, + // tokens output + // [u2 kind, u8 lt_sym, u16 cp_off, u16 cp_cnt, u4 mark] + output [45:0] o_token_data, + output o_token_vld, + input o_token_rdy +); + + localparam RAM_HB_ADDR_WIDTH = 16; + localparam RAM_HB_DATA_WIDTH = 8; + + localparam RAM_HT_ADDR_WIDTH = 13; + localparam RAM_HT_DATA_WIDTH = 16; + + // HB RAM bus + wire [RAM_HB_ADDR_WIDTH+RAM_HB_DATA_WIDTH+1:0] ram_hb_req_data; + wire ram_hb_req_vld; + wire ram_hb_req_rdy; + wire [RAM_HB_DATA_WIDTH-1:0] ram_hb_resp_data; + wire ram_hb_resp_vld; + wire ram_hb_resp_rdy; + wire ram_hb_wr_comp_vld; + wire ram_hb_wr_comp_rdy; + + // HT RAM bus + wire [RAM_HT_ADDR_WIDTH+RAM_HT_DATA_WIDTH+1:0] ram_ht_req_data; + wire ram_ht_req_vld; + wire ram_ht_req_rdy; + wire [RAM_HT_DATA_WIDTH-1:0] ram_ht_resp_data; + wire ram_ht_resp_vld; + wire ram_ht_resp_rdy; + wire ram_ht_wr_comp_vld; + wire ram_ht_wr_comp_rdy; + + // HB RAM + spram_xls_chan #( + .DATA_WIDTH(RAM_HB_DATA_WIDTH), + .ADDR_WIDTH(RAM_HB_ADDR_WIDTH) + ) ram_hb ( + .clk(clk), + .rst(rst), + .req_data(ram_hb_req_data), + .req_vld(ram_hb_req_vld), + .req_rdy(ram_hb_req_rdy), + .resp_data(ram_hb_resp_data), + .resp_vld(ram_hb_resp_vld), + .resp_rdy(ram_hb_resp_rdy), + .wr_comp_vld(ram_hb_wr_comp_vld), + .wr_comp_rdy(ram_hb_wr_comp_rdy) + ); + + // HT RAM + spram_xls_chan #( + .DATA_WIDTH(RAM_HT_DATA_WIDTH), + .ADDR_WIDTH(RAM_HT_ADDR_WIDTH) + ) ram_ht ( + .clk(clk), + .rst(rst), + .req_data(ram_ht_req_data), + .req_vld(ram_ht_req_vld), + .req_rdy(ram_ht_req_rdy), + .resp_data(ram_ht_resp_data), + .resp_vld(ram_ht_resp_vld), + .resp_rdy(ram_ht_resp_rdy), + .wr_comp_vld(ram_ht_wr_comp_vld), + .wr_comp_rdy(ram_ht_wr_comp_rdy) + ); + + // Encoder engine + dbe_lz4_encoder dut ( + .clk(clk), + .rst(rst), + .lz4_encoder__i_data_data(i_data_data), + .lz4_encoder__i_data_vld(i_data_vld), + .lz4_encoder__i_data_rdy(i_data_rdy), + .lz4_encoder__o_encoded_data(o_token_data), + .lz4_encoder__o_encoded_vld(o_token_vld), + .lz4_encoder__o_encoded_rdy(o_token_rdy), + // HB RAM + .lz4_encoder__o_ram_hb_req_data(ram_hb_req_data), + .lz4_encoder__o_ram_hb_req_vld(ram_hb_req_vld), + .lz4_encoder__o_ram_hb_req_rdy(ram_hb_req_rdy), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_hb_resp_data(ram_hb_resp_data), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_hb_resp_vld(ram_hb_resp_vld), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_hb_resp_rdy(ram_hb_resp_rdy), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_hb_wr_comp_vld(ram_hb_wr_comp_vld), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_hb_wr_comp_rdy(ram_hb_wr_comp_rdy), + // HT RAM + .lz4_encoder__o_ram_ht_req_data(ram_ht_req_data), + .lz4_encoder__o_ram_ht_req_vld(ram_ht_req_vld), + .lz4_encoder__o_ram_ht_req_rdy(ram_ht_req_rdy), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_ht_resp_data(ram_ht_resp_data), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_ht_resp_vld(ram_ht_resp_vld), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_ht_resp_rdy(ram_ht_resp_rdy), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_ht_wr_comp_vld(ram_ht_wr_comp_vld), + .lz4_encoder__i_ram_ht_wr_comp_rdy(ram_ht_wr_comp_rdy) + ); + + initial begin + $dumpfile("dump.vcd"); + $dumpvars(0, lz4_encoder_wrap); + end + +endmodule \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/ram_model.v b/xls/modules/dbe/ram_model.v new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..0e991c0870 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/ram_model.v @@ -0,0 +1,260 @@ +// Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +// +// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +// You may obtain a copy of the License at +// +// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +// +// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +// limitations under the License. + + +// Semi-dual-port RAM with XLS-native channel interface +// - Can be used with Verilog modules generated without using +// `ram_configurations` codegen option +// - Simultaneous write & read behavior: reads new value +module sdpram_xls_chan #( + parameter DATA_WIDTH = 8, + parameter ADDR_WIDTH = 16, + parameter NUM_PARTITIONS = 1 +) ( + input clk, + input rst, + // write request + input [DATA_WIDTH+ADDR_WIDTH+NUM_PARTITIONS-1:0] wr_req_data, + input wr_req_vld, + output wr_req_rdy, + // write response (no data) + output wr_resp_vld, + input wr_resp_rdy, + // read request + input [ADDR_WIDTH+NUM_PARTITIONS-1:0] rd_req_data, + input rd_req_vld, + output rd_req_rdy, + // read response + output [DATA_WIDTH-1:0] rd_resp_data, + output rd_resp_vld, + input rd_resp_rdy +); + + localparam SIZE = 32'd1 << ADDR_WIDTH; + + // RAM array + reg [DATA_WIDTH-1:0] mem [SIZE]; + + // Disassemble requests + reg [DATA_WIDTH-1:0] r_wr_req_f_data; + reg [ADDR_WIDTH-1:0] r_wr_req_f_addr; + reg [NUM_PARTITIONS-1:0] r_wr_req_f_mask; + reg [ADDR_WIDTH-1:0] r_rd_req_f_addr; + reg [NUM_PARTITIONS-1:0] r_rd_req_f_mask; + + always @* begin + { + r_wr_req_f_addr, + r_wr_req_f_data, + r_wr_req_f_mask + } = wr_req_data; + { + r_rd_req_f_addr, + r_rd_req_f_mask + } = rd_req_data; + end + + // Assemble response + reg [DATA_WIDTH-1:0] r_rd_resp_f_data; + assign rd_resp_data = r_rd_resp_f_data; + + // Reset RAM on reset (simulator only) + integer i; + always @(posedge clk) begin + if (rst) begin + for (i = 0; i < SIZE; i = i + 1) begin + mem[i] <= {DATA_WIDTH{1'bx}}; + end + end + end + + // RAM-write state machine + reg r_wr_req_canhandle; + reg r_wr_req_ack; + reg r_wr_resp_pending; + reg r_wr_resp_ack; + + always @* begin + r_wr_req_ack = wr_req_vld && wr_req_rdy; + r_wr_resp_ack = wr_resp_vld && wr_resp_rdy; + // We're accepting new request only if there is no pending response + // or that response is gonna be acknowledged in this cycle + r_wr_req_canhandle = !r_wr_resp_pending || r_wr_resp_ack; + end + + assign wr_req_rdy = r_wr_req_canhandle; + assign wr_resp_vld = r_wr_resp_pending; + + always @(posedge clk) begin + if (rst) begin + r_wr_resp_pending <= 1'b0; + end else begin + if (r_wr_resp_ack) begin + r_wr_resp_pending <= 1'b0; + end + if (r_wr_req_ack) begin + // write to RAM and signal response availability + mem[r_wr_req_f_addr] <= r_wr_req_f_data; + r_wr_resp_pending <= 1'b1; + end + end + end + + // RAM-read state machine + reg r_rd_req_canhandle; + reg r_rd_req_ack; + reg r_rd_resp_pending; + reg r_rd_resp_ack; + + always @* begin + r_rd_req_ack = rd_req_vld && rd_req_rdy; + r_rd_resp_ack = rd_resp_vld && rd_resp_rdy; + // We're accepting new request only if there is no pending response + // or that response is gonna be acknowledged in this cycle + r_rd_req_canhandle = !r_rd_resp_pending || r_rd_resp_ack; + end + + assign rd_req_rdy = r_rd_req_canhandle; + assign rd_resp_vld = r_rd_resp_pending; + + always @(posedge clk) begin + if (rst) begin + r_rd_resp_pending <= 1'b0; + r_rd_resp_f_data <= {DATA_WIDTH{1'bx}}; + end else begin + if (r_rd_resp_ack) begin + r_rd_resp_pending <= 1'b0; + r_rd_resp_f_data <= {DATA_WIDTH{1'bx}}; + end + if (r_rd_req_ack) begin + // read from RAM and signal response availability + if (r_wr_req_ack && r_rd_req_f_addr == r_wr_req_f_addr) begin + // write-before-read logic + r_rd_resp_f_data <= r_wr_req_f_data; + end else begin + // normal read + r_rd_resp_f_data <= mem[r_rd_req_f_addr]; + end + r_rd_resp_pending <= 1'b1; + end + end + end + +endmodule + +// Single-port with XLS-native channel interface +// - Can be used with Verilog modules generated without using +// `ram_configurations` codegen option +module spram_xls_chan #( + parameter DATA_WIDTH = 8, + parameter ADDR_WIDTH = 16 +) ( + input clk, + input rst, + // request + input [ADDR_WIDTH+DATA_WIDTH+1:0] req_data, + input req_vld, + output req_rdy, + // write comletion response (no data) + output wr_comp_vld, + input wr_comp_rdy, + // read response + output [DATA_WIDTH-1:0] resp_data, + output resp_vld, + input resp_rdy +); + + localparam SIZE = 32'd1 << ADDR_WIDTH; + + // RAM array + reg [DATA_WIDTH-1:0] mem [SIZE]; + + // Disassemble requests + reg [ADDR_WIDTH-1:0] r_req_f_addr; + reg [DATA_WIDTH-1:0] r_req_f_data; + reg r_req_f_we; + reg r_req_f_re; + + always @* begin + { + r_req_f_addr, + r_req_f_data, + r_req_f_we, + r_req_f_re + } = req_data; + end + + // Assemble response + reg [DATA_WIDTH-1:0] r_resp_f_data; + assign resp_data = r_resp_f_data; + + // Reset RAM on reset (simulator only) + integer i; + always @(posedge clk) begin + if (rst) begin + for (i = 0; i < SIZE; i = i + 1) begin + mem[i] <= {DATA_WIDTH{1'bx}}; + end + end + end + + // State machine + reg r_req_canhandle; + reg r_req_ack; + reg r_resp_pending; + reg r_resp_ack; + reg r_wr_comp_pending; + reg r_wr_comp_ack; + + always @* begin + r_req_ack = req_vld && req_rdy; + r_resp_ack = resp_vld && resp_rdy; + r_wr_comp_ack = wr_comp_vld && wr_comp_rdy; + // We're accepting new request only if there is no pending response + // or that response is gonna be acknowledged in this cycle + r_req_canhandle = + (!r_resp_pending || r_resp_ack) + && (!r_wr_comp_pending || r_wr_comp_ack); + end + + assign req_rdy = r_req_canhandle; + assign resp_vld = r_resp_pending; + assign wr_comp_vld = r_wr_comp_pending; + + always @(posedge clk) begin + if (rst) begin + r_resp_pending <= 1'b0; + r_wr_comp_pending <= 1'b0; + end else begin + if (r_resp_ack) begin + r_resp_pending <= 1'b0; + end + if (r_wr_comp_ack) begin + r_wr_comp_pending <= 1'b0; + end + if (r_req_ack) begin + // SinglePortRamModel has WE prioritized over RE. + // If neither WE nor RE are set, no response is generated. + if (r_req_f_we) begin + mem[r_req_f_addr] <= r_req_f_data; + r_wr_comp_pending <= 1'b1; + end else if (r_req_f_re) begin + r_resp_f_data <= mem[r_req_f_addr]; + r_resp_pending <= 1'b1; + end + end + end + end + +endmodule diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/BUILD b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/BUILD new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..a2a0950dce --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/BUILD @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + +# Build rules for LZ4 Python reference & tests + +package( + default_applicable_licenses = ["//:license"], + default_visibility = ["//xls:xls_users"], + licenses = ["notice"], +) + +load("@xls_pip_deps//:requirements.bzl", "requirement") + +py_library( + name = "dbe", + imports = [ + ".", + ], + srcs = [ + "dbe/__init__.py", + "dbe/common.py", + "dbe/decoder.py", + "dbe/lz4.py", + "dbe/random.py", + ], +) + +py_library( + name = "dbe_data", + imports = [ + ".", + ], + srcs = [ + "dbe_data/__init__.py", + ], + deps = [ + "@rules_python//python/runfiles", + ], + data = [ + "dbe_data/data/dickens.txt", + ], +) + +py_binary( + name = "lz4_test", + srcs = [ + "lz4_test.py" + ], + deps = [ + ":dbe", + ":dbe_data", + ], +) + +py_binary( + name = "randomize_tokens", + srcs = [ + "randomize_tokens.py" + ], + deps = [ + ":dbe", + ], +) diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/__init__.py b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/__init__.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b4d64ed5ee --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/__init__.py @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +from .common import \ + Params, Token, TokCP, TokLT, TokMK, Mark, PlainData,\ + plain_data_to_dslx +from .decoder import Decoder +from .random import get_random_tokens +from .lz4 import Lz4Params, Lz4Encoder, estimate_lz4_size diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/common.py b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/common.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..365a4a5117 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/common.py @@ -0,0 +1,154 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +from abc import abstractmethod +from enum import IntEnum +from typing import Union, List, Iterable + + +class Params: + def __init__(self, symbits: int, ptrbits: int, cntbits: int): + self.wsym = symbits + self.wptr = ptrbits + self.wcnt = cntbits + self.hb_maxsz = 1 << self.wptr + self.sym_max = (1 << self.wsym) - 1 + self.cnt_max = (1 << self.wcnt) + + def __eq__(self, oth: object) -> bool: + if not isinstance(oth, Params): + return False + ok = self.wsym == oth.wsym + ok = ok and self.wptr == oth.wptr + ok = ok and self.wcnt == oth.wcnt + return ok + + +class Mark(IntEnum): + NONE = 0 + END = 1 + RESET = 2 + + _ERROR_FIRST = 8 + # Only errors have values >= __ERROR_FIRST + ERROR_BAD_MARK = 8 + ERROR_INVAL_CP = 9 + + @classmethod + def is_error(cls, v: 'Mark') -> bool: + return v >= cls._ERROR_FIRST + + +PlainData = Union[int, Mark] + + +def plain_data_to_dslx(b: PlainData, cfg: Params) -> str: + is_mark = isinstance(b, Mark) + attrs = [ + f'is_mark: {"true" if is_mark else "false"}', + f'data: uN[{cfg.wsym}]:{0 if is_mark else b}', + f'mark: Mark::{b.name if is_mark else "NONE"}', + ] + return f'PlainData{{{", ".join(attrs)}}}' + + + +class Token: + @abstractmethod + def to_dslx(self, cfg: Params) -> str: + ... + + +class TokLT(Token): + """ + TokLT - literal token + + Makes decoder emit a single symbol specified by the token + """ + def __init__(self, sym: int): + super().__init__() + self.sym = sym + + def __repr__(self) -> str: + return f'TokLT(sym={self.sym})' + + def to_dslx(self, cfg: Params) -> str: + attrs = [ + f'kind: TokenKind::LT', + f'lt_sym: uN[{cfg.wsym}]:{self.sym:2d}', + f'cp_off: uN[{cfg.wptr}]:0', + f'cp_cnt: uN[{cfg.wcnt}]:0', + f'mark: Mark::NONE', + ] + return f'Token{{{", ".join(attrs)}}}' + + +class TokCP(Token): + """ + TokCP - copy pointer token + + Makes decoder emit a sequence of symbols that repeats the continous + sequence of symbols that was emitted in the past. It specifies how far + to go into the past, and how many symbols to copy. + + - 'offset' tells decoder where the beginning of past sequence if located. + It is counted starting from the last written character, so offset of 0 + means "copy beginning with the last output character". + - 'count' is just a number of characters to copy. Count of 0 can be + deemed illegal by some token encoding schemes. + """ + def __init__(self, ofs: int, cnt: int): + super().__init__() + self.ofs = ofs + self.cnt = cnt + + def __repr__(self) -> str: + return f'TokCP(ofs={self.ofs}, cnt={self.cnt})' + + def to_dslx(self, cfg: Params) -> str: + assert self.cnt >= 1 + attrs = [ + f'kind: TokenKind::CP', + f'lt_sym: uN[{cfg.wsym}]:0', + f'cp_off: uN[{cfg.wptr}]:{self.ofs:2d}', + f'cp_cnt: uN[{cfg.wcnt}]:{self.cnt-1:2d}', + f'mark: Mark::NONE', + ] + return f'Token{{{", ".join(attrs)}}}' + + +class TokMK(Token): + """ + TokMK - control marker token + + Contains 8-bit wide marker control code specified by Marker enum. + """ + def __init__(self, mark: Mark): + super().__init__() + self.mark = mark + + def __repr__(self) -> str: + return f'TokMK({self.mark!r})' + + def to_dslx(self, cfg: Params) -> str: + attrs = [ + f'kind: TokenKind::MK', + f'lt_sym: uN[{cfg.wsym}]:0', + f'cp_off: uN[{cfg.wptr}]:0', + f'cp_cnt: uN[{cfg.wcnt}]:0', + f'mark: Mark::{self.mark.name}', + ] + return f'Token{{{", ".join(attrs)}}}' + diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/decoder.py b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/decoder.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..f82d8e4306 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/decoder.py @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +from .common import ( + Params, + Token, + TokCP, + TokLT, + TokMK, + Mark, + PlainData +) +from typing import Sequence, List + + +class Decoder: + def __init__(self, cfg: Params): + self.cfg = cfg + self.hb = [] + self.toks: List[Token] = [] + self.out: List[int] = [] + + def _pout(self, sym: PlainData): + self.out.append(sym) + if not isinstance(sym, Mark): + self.hb.append(sym) + if len(self.hb) >= self.cfg.hb_maxsz: + self.hb = self.hb[-self.cfg.hb_maxsz:] + + def feed(self, tok): + assert isinstance(tok, Token) + + self.toks.append(tok) + if isinstance(tok, TokLT): + # Literal + self._pout(tok.sym) + elif isinstance(tok, TokCP): + # CP + for i in range(tok.cnt): + try: + self._pout(self.hb[-tok.ofs-1]) + except IndexError as e: + print(self.out) + print(len(self.out)) + raise e + elif isinstance(tok, TokMK): + if tok.mark == Mark.RESET: + self.hb.clear() + self._pout(Mark.RESET) + elif tok.mark == Mark.END: + self._pout(Mark.END) + else: + raise RuntimeError(f'Unexpected marker: {tok}') + else: + raise RuntimeError(f'Unexpected token type: {type(tok)!r}') + + def decode(self, toks: Sequence[Token]) -> List[int]: + self.toks.clear() + self.out.clear() + for t in toks: + self.feed(t) + return self.out diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/lz4.py b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/lz4.py new file mode 100755 index 0000000000..b735fb67da --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/lz4.py @@ -0,0 +1,537 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 + +import logging +import enum +from typing import Sequence, List +from copy import deepcopy +import itertools + +from .common import Params, Token, TokCP, TokLT, TokMK, Mark, PlainData + + +class Lz4Params(Params): + def __init__( + self, + symbits: int, + ptrbits: int, + cntbits: int, + hash_bits: int, + minmatch: int = 4, + final_literals: int = 12, + ): + super().__init__(symbits, ptrbits, cntbits) + self.hash_bits = hash_bits + self.minmatch = minmatch + self.final_literals = final_literals + self.hb_mask = (1 << self.wptr) - 1 + self.ht_sz = 1 << self.hash_bits + self.ht_mask = (1 << self.hash_bits) - 1 + self.fifo_cache_sz = self.minmatch - 1 + self.fifo_in_sz = max(self.minmatch, self.final_literals) + + +@enum.unique +class _FsmSt(enum.IntEnum): + RESET = 0 + HASH_TABLE_CLEAR = 1 + RESTART = 2 + FIFO_PREFILL = 3 + FIFO_POSTFILL = 4 + START_MATCH_0 = 5 + START_MATCH_1 = 6 + CONTINUE_MATCH_0 = 7 + CONTINUE_MATCH_1 = 8 + EMIT_SHORT_MATCH = 9 + EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS = 10 + EMIT_END = 11 + ERROR = 12 + + +class Lz4Encoder: + class State: + def __init__(self, cfg: Lz4Params) -> None: + # Two connected FIFOs: + # 1. Cache FIFO, length: MINMATCH-1 + # Remembers past symbols that may need to be emitted as + # literals in case our match is too short + # (shorter than MINMATCH) + # + # 2. Input FIFO, length: max(MINMATCH, FINAL_LITERALS) + # Stores incoming symbols used for hashing & delays incoming + # stream to form proper LZ4 block termination upon EOF + # + # Data first enters Input FIFO from the right, exits from the + # left, then enters Cache FIFO from the left. Such arrangement + # simplifies indexing. + + self.fifo_cache = [0] * cfg.fifo_cache_sz + self.fifo_in = [0] * cfg.fifo_in_sz + self.fifo_in_count = 0 + self.fifo_in_nvalid = 0 + + # HB write pointer + # Normally WP is the index of _last_ written HB element. + # When a new element is written to HB, that's how it is done: + # WP = (WP + 1) & mask + # hb[WP] = new_element + # + # WP is also used to keep track of fill rate of HB (which elements + # are valid and which are not). + # Initially WP is set to 0. The first valid element will thus + # be the one at idx=1. Element at idx=0 will continue to stay + # invalid till the first time WP rolls over to 0. + # Checking for WP==0 _after_ we've performed at least one write to + # the buffer is an easy way to determine how many elements are + # valid in the HB: + # Have we observed WP==0 after writing at least 1 element to HB? + # NO => HB has `WP` valid elements at idx in [1, WP] + # YES => all HB elements are valid + self.wp = 0 + self.hb_all_valid = False + + # -- Match pointer registers -- + # Pointer to the beginning of the string we're trying to match + # (not yet emitted as tokens) + self.pnew = 0 + # Pointer to the beginning of historic string in HB, for which + # tokens should've been already emitted, and that we're trying to + # match to incoming symbols specified by match_pnew + self.pold = 0 + # -- Match continuations counter -- + # This stores number of iterations spent in CONTINUE_MATCH state. + # It is used to compute match length and for other needs when + # terminating a match that has been started but needs to be + # finished for any reason. + self.match_nconts = 0 + # -- Hash table pointer -- + # User to address hash table during clear + self.ht_ptr = 0 + # -- Recycle flag -- + # When we want to read a new input symbol, we do so if recycle + # is False. If it is True, we instead recycle a symbol read in + # the previous step. + self.recycle = False + # -- End sequence flag -- + # This is set to True once we've received the END marker. + # We drain all internal buffers, emit END marker token and + # prepare the encoder to accept a new data block. + self.finalize = False + # -- FSM state -- + self.fsm: _FsmSt = _FsmSt.RESET + + def __init__(self, cfg: Lz4Params, verbose: bool = False) -> None: + level = logging.DEBUG if verbose else logging.INFO + self.log = logging.getLogger(__class__.__name__) + self.log.setLevel(level) + + # ------------------------- + # Configuration (immutable) + # ------------------------- + self.cfg = cfg + + # --------------- + # State + # --------------- + self.state = self.State(self.cfg) + + # ------------- + # Memory blocks + # ------------- + + # History buffer + self.hb = [0] * self.cfg.hb_maxsz + + # LZ4 hashtable + # Given: + # hashtable[hash(syms[:MINMATCH])] == pos + # We have: + # if is_valid(pos): + # hb[pos:pos+4] =? four_bytes + # Here '=?' means "tentatively equal" because of possibility of + # collisions. + # + # + # LZ4 attempts to find a match by collecting a few unprocessed (in + # the sense that no Tokens were emitted for them) input symbols; + # computing hash for those symbols and making a bet that a + # corresponding location in the hash table points to the matching + # sequence of symbols in history buffer. + # Compared to algorithms like ALDC that perform exhaustive matching, + # this is not guaranteed to find the longest matching string existing + # in the history buffer, or even to find a matching string at all + # (even though it may exist). To maintain compression ratio, LZ4 uses + # larger history buffer than what is usually used by ALDC. + # Compression ratio usually increases in `1-1/exp(sz)`-like fashion + # with increasing hash table size. + # + # Upon reset, hash table can be random-initialized. We anyway check + # whether a position returned by the table points to a valid (written) + # HB location, and then we read symbols from that location in HB to + # detect potential collisions. However, it may be a good idea to + # deterministically initialize hash table in the beginning of each LZ4 + # block, as otherwise compression result, although always being + # correct, will not be deterministic and will depend on data + # previously consumed by the encoder. + self.ht = [0] * self.cfg.ht_sz + + # ----------- + # IO channels + # ----------- + self.input_iter = iter(()) + self.output_list = [] + + def _hb_read(self, addr: int) -> int: + assert 0 <= addr <= self.cfg.hb_mask + return self.hb[addr] + + def _hb_write(self, addr: int, v: int): + assert 0 <= addr <= self.cfg.hb_mask + assert 0 <= v <= self.cfg.sym_max + self.hb[addr] = v + + def _ht_read(self, addr: int) -> int: + assert 0 <= addr <= self.cfg.ht_mask + return self.ht[addr] + + def _ht_write(self, addr: int, v: int): + assert 0 <= addr <= self.cfg.ht_mask + assert 0 <= v <= self.cfg.hb_mask + self.ht[addr] = v + + def _recv_input(self) -> PlainData: + rx = next(self.input_iter) + self.log.debug(f" *** RECV {type(rx)}:{rx!r}") + return rx + + def _send_output(self, tok: Token): + self.log.debug(f" ***** SEND {tok}") + self.output_list.append(tok) + + @staticmethod + def _hash(cfg: Lz4Params, st: "Lz4Encoder.State") -> int: + "Combinational hash function evaluated on Input FIFO" + bs = bytes(st.fifo_in[: cfg.minmatch]) + x = int.from_bytes(bs, "little") + h = (x * 2654435761) & 0xFFFFFFFF + h >>= 32 - cfg.hash_bits + assert 0 <= h <= cfg.ht_mask + return h + + def _step(self): + c = self.cfg + cur = self.state + upd = deepcopy(cur) + + self.log.debug( + f" ---STEP--- fsm: {cur.fsm.name}, recycle: {cur.recycle}" + ) + + # Read new symbol from input + do_recv = not cur.recycle and cur.fsm in ( + _FsmSt.FIFO_PREFILL, + _FsmSt.START_MATCH_0, + _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_0, + _FsmSt.ERROR, + ) + rx = self._recv_input() if do_recv else 0 + + # Classify input markers + rx_symbol = do_recv and not isinstance(rx, Mark) + rx_mark = do_recv and isinstance(rx, Mark) + rx_end = rx_mark and rx is Mark.END + rx_error = rx_mark and Mark.is_error(rx) + rx_reset = rx_mark and rx is Mark.RESET + rx_unexpected_mark = rx_mark and not (rx_end or rx_reset or rx_error) + + if cur.fsm == _FsmSt.ERROR or cur.recycle: + # Do not shift FIFOs / write HB in these states + pass + elif rx_symbol: + # Push symbol to the HB and shift input FIFOs + assert not upd.finalize + # Update WP and HB-full flag + upd.wp = (upd.wp + 1) & c.hb_mask + if upd.wp == 0: + upd.hb_all_valid = True + # Write to FIFO + upd.fifo_cache = [upd.fifo_in[0]] + upd.fifo_cache[:-1] + upd.fifo_in = upd.fifo_in[1:] + [rx] + upd.fifo_in_count = min(upd.fifo_in_count + 1, c.fifo_in_sz) + elif rx_end: + # When receiving END marker, shift input FIFO anyhow as we're + # expected to drop the symbol at OP + assert not upd.finalize + upd.finalize = True + upd.fifo_cache = [upd.fifo_in[0]] + upd.fifo_cache[:-1] + upd.fifo_in = upd.fifo_in[1:] + [0] + upd.fifo_in_count = min(upd.fifo_in_count + 1, c.fifo_in_sz) + upd.fifo_in_nvalid = upd.fifo_in_count - 1 + elif cur.fsm in (_FsmSt.FIFO_POSTFILL, _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS): + # Feed input FIFO with 0s and shift + upd.fifo_in = upd.fifo_in[1:] + [0] + if cur.fsm == _FsmSt.FIFO_POSTFILL: + upd.fifo_in_count = min(upd.fifo_in_count + 1, c.fifo_in_sz) + else: + upd.fifo_in_nvalid -= 1 + + # Calc origin pointer OP from WP + # WP points to the symbol in HB which corresponds to fifo_in[-1] + # (the last received symbol), while OP points to the symbol in HB + # which corresponds to fifo_in[0] ("the origin", the first + # symbol of matched sequence) + op = (upd.wp - c.fifo_in_sz + 1) & c.hb_mask + + # Hash table lookup is synchronized with hash table update and + # is performed on each symbol till a match is found. Hash table is + # not updated when growing an existing match. + + # Calculate u32 Fibonacci hash function + _hsh = self._hash(c, upd) + + # Update match pointers & access HT RAM + if cur.fsm == _FsmSt.START_MATCH_0: + upd.pold = self._ht_read(_hsh) + upd.pnew = op + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.START_MATCH_1: + self._ht_write(_hsh, op) + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.HASH_TABLE_CLEAR: + self._ht_write(upd.ht_ptr, 0) + upd.ht_ptr = (upd.ht_ptr + 1) & c.ht_mask + + # Prepare to check for a match + if cur.fsm == _FsmSt.START_MATCH_1: + mchk_do = True + mchk_pos = upd.pold + mchk_canextend = True + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_1: + mchk_do = True + mchk_pos = (upd.pold + upd.match_nconts + 1) & c.hb_mask + mchk_canextend = upd.match_nconts < (c.cnt_max - 1) + else: + mchk_do = False + + # Access HB RAM + if rx_symbol and cur.fsm != _FsmSt.ERROR: + self._hb_write(upd.wp, rx) + elif mchk_do: + mchk_sym = self._hb_read(mchk_pos) + + # Actually check for a match + if mchk_do: + # For match to happen, following criteria have to be met: + # 1. _pos should not point to an unwritten HB entry + _iswritten = upd.hb_all_valid or mchk_pos < upd.wp + # 2. _pos should not point between OP and WP inclusive + _isold = ((mchk_pos - op) & c.hb_mask) > ((upd.wp - op) & c.hb_mask) + # 3. _sym should match current "origin" symbol + _matches = mchk_sym == upd.fifo_in[0] + # 4. our existing matching string should not be too long + is_match = _iswritten and _isold and _matches and mchk_canextend + self.log.debug( + f"OP {upd.fifo_in[0]}: " + ("MATCH" if is_match else "MISS") + ) + else: + is_match = False + + # Update match_nconts + if cur.fsm == _FsmSt.START_MATCH_1: + upd.match_nconts = 0 + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_1: + upd.match_nconts += 1 + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.EMIT_SHORT_MATCH: + assert upd.match_nconts >= 0 + upd.match_nconts -= 1 + + # NOTE: match_len and other variables set below are available only + # when terminating match in CONTINUE_MATCH_1 state. + if cur.fsm == _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_1: + # Do we terminate the current match? + is_match_terminated = not is_match or upd.finalize + # - If termination is due to a failed match, OP is excluded from + # match by definition. + # - If termination is due to an EOF (upd.finalized=1), we will + # exclude OP from the match. + # - That means, when match is terminated, OP symbol is always + # excluded from the match. + # - If match was long enough, CP is emitted and we jump + # to EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS. + # - Otherwise, we emit a single literal from fifo_cache + # and let EMIT_SHORT_MATCH handle the rest. + # - EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS or next START_MATCH/CONTINUE_MATCH takes + # care of emitting OP as a literal. + if is_match_terminated: + match_len = upd.match_nconts + match_is_long = match_len >= c.minmatch + + # Emit compressed data token + if cur.fsm == _FsmSt.ERROR: + # Do not emit anything in error state + pass + elif rx_error: + # Propagate error + self._send_output(TokMK(rx)) + elif rx_unexpected_mark: + # Generate error + self._send_output(TokMK(Mark.ERROR_BAD_MARK)) + elif (cur.fsm == _FsmSt.START_MATCH_1 + and (not is_match or upd.finalize)): + # Emit symbol at OP as literal + self._send_output(TokLT(upd.fifo_in[0])) + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_1 and is_match_terminated: + # If match is long enough, emit a single CP + # If not, emit symbols from Cache FIFO as literals + assert upd.match_nconts > 0 + if match_is_long: + _off = (upd.pnew - upd.pold) & c.hb_mask + assert _off >= 1 + self._send_output(TokCP(_off - 1, match_len)) + else: + self._send_output(TokLT(upd.fifo_cache[upd.match_nconts - 1])) + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.EMIT_SHORT_MATCH: + assert upd.match_nconts > 0 + self._send_output(TokLT(upd.fifo_cache[upd.match_nconts - 1])) + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS: + # We dump literals from Input FIFO till nvalid becomes 0 + assert 1 <= upd.fifo_in_nvalid <= c.fifo_in_sz + self._send_output(TokLT(upd.fifo_in[0])) + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.EMIT_END: + self._send_output(TokMK(Mark.END)) + + # Handle state re-initialization + if cur.fsm == _FsmSt.RESET: + # Full reset + upd = self.State(c) + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.RESTART: + # Intra-block partial reset, keeping HB and HT intact + upd.fifo_in_count = 0 + upd.fifo_in_nvalid = 0 + upd.match_nconts = 0 + upd.finalize = False + upd.recycle = False + + # State change logic + if rx_error or rx_unexpected_mark: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.ERROR + elif rx_reset: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.RESET + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.RESET: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.HASH_TABLE_CLEAR + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.HASH_TABLE_CLEAR: + if upd.ht_ptr == 0: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.RESTART + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.RESTART: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.FIFO_PREFILL + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.FIFO_PREFILL: + if rx_end: + if upd.fifo_in_nvalid: + if upd.fifo_in_count < c.fifo_in_sz: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.FIFO_POSTFILL + else: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + else: + # Empty input block + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.EMIT_END + elif upd.fifo_in_count >= c.fifo_in_sz: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.START_MATCH_0 + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.START_MATCH_0: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.START_MATCH_1 + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.START_MATCH_1: + if upd.finalize: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + elif is_match: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_0 + else: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.START_MATCH_0 + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_0: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_1 + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_1: + if is_match_terminated: + if match_is_long or upd.match_nconts == 1: + if upd.finalize: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + else: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.START_MATCH_0 + else: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.EMIT_SHORT_MATCH + else: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.CONTINUE_MATCH_0 + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.EMIT_SHORT_MATCH: + if upd.match_nconts == 1: + if upd.finalize: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + else: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.START_MATCH_0 + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.FIFO_POSTFILL: + if upd.fifo_in_count == c.fifo_in_sz: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS: + if upd.fifo_in_nvalid == 1: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.EMIT_END + elif cur.fsm == _FsmSt.EMIT_END: + upd.fsm = _FsmSt.RESTART + + # Set 'recycle' flag when we need to "stall" Input FIFO to not lose + # the symbol at the OP, which is needed for certain state transitions + if upd.fsm == _FsmSt.START_MATCH_0 and cur.fsm != _FsmSt.START_MATCH_1: + upd.recycle = True + elif (upd.fsm == _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS and + cur.fsm != _FsmSt.EMIT_FINAL_LITERALS and + cur.fsm != _FsmSt.START_MATCH_1): + upd.recycle = True + else: + upd.recycle = False + + self.state = upd + + def encode_block(self, data: Sequence[PlainData]) -> List[Token]: + if not data or not isinstance(data[-1], Mark) or data[-1] != Mark.END: + # If 'data' does not end with the END mark, append it. + data = itertools.chain(data, [Mark.END]) + self.input_iter = iter(data) + self.output_list = [] + + # Run till we get END marker on the output + while not (self.output_list + and isinstance(self.output_list[-1], TokMK) + and self.output_list[-1].mark == Mark.END): + self._step() + + return self.output_list + + +def estimate_lz4_size(toks: Sequence[Token]) -> int: + sz = 0 + + def count_block(lit_count, cp_count) -> int: + assert cp_count == 0 or cp_count >= 4 + cp_count_off = cp_count - 4 + # 4+4 bit token + bs = 1 + # Extra bytes encoding literal count + num_lc = (lit_count - 15 + 255) // 255 + bs += num_lc + # Literals themselves + bs += lit_count + # MATCH part is generated onlt when cp_count >= 4 + if cp_count_off >= 0: + # Match offset + bs += 2 + # Extra bytes encoding match length + num_cpc = (cp_count_off - 15 + 255) // 255 + bs += num_cpc + return bs + + litcount = 0 + for t in toks: + if isinstance(t, TokLT): + litcount += 1 + elif isinstance(t, TokCP): + sz += count_block(litcount, t.cnt) + litcount = 0 + elif isinstance(t, TokMK) and t.mark == Mark.END: + sz += count_block(litcount, 0) + litcount = 0 + else: + raise RuntimeError(f'Unexpected token: {t}') + + return sz diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/random.py b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/random.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..2057b3a40f --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe/random.py @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +from typing import List +import random +from dbe.common import Params, Token, TokLT, TokCP, TokMK, Mark + + +def get_random_tokens(seqlen: int, cfg: Params, ofsslope: float = 2, cntslope: float = 4) -> List[Token]: + toks = [] + nsym = 0 + + def emit(t: Token): + nonlocal nsym + if isinstance(t, TokLT): + nsym += 1 + elif isinstance(t, TokCP): + nsym += t.cnt + toks.append(t) + + emit(TokLT(random.randint(0, cfg.sym_max))) + # Then we generate CP or LIT with equal probability and fill their contents randomly + while len(toks) < (seqlen - 1): + kind = random.randint(0, 1) + if kind: + # Literal + emit(TokLT(random.randint(0, cfg.sym_max))) + else: + # CP + # exp-like distribution for number of repetitions + rx = random.random() + cnt = int(1.5 + (cfg.cnt_max - 1) * (rx ** cntslope)) + cnt = min(max(cnt, 1), cfg.cnt_max) + # exp-like distribution for offset + assert nsym >= 1 + rx = random.random() + ofs = int(0.5 + (cfg.hb_maxsz - 1) * (rx ** ofsslope)) + ofs = min(max(ofs, 0), nsym - 1) + emit(TokCP(ofs, cnt)) + emit(TokMK(Mark.END)) + + return toks diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe_data/__init__.py b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe_data/__init__.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..0339b4187d --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe_data/__init__.py @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +# Bazel runfiles to access data from the package +from rules_python.python.runfiles import runfiles + + +_RES = runfiles.Create() + + +def _get_path(file_name: str) -> str: + p = _RES.Rlocation( + "com_google_xls/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe_data/data/" + file_name) + if not p: + raise FileNotFoundError( + f"Data file {file_name!r} is not known to Bazel runfiles") + return p + + +class DataFiles: + DICKENS_TXT = _get_path("dickens.txt") diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe_data/data/dickens.txt b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe_data/data/dickens.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..aa9cb18434 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/dbe_data/data/dickens.txt @@ -0,0 +1,200782 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Child's History of England** +#11 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens +Scanned and Proofed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +A Child's History of England + + + + +CHAPTER I - ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS + + + +IF you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand +upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the +sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ireland. England and +Scotland form the greater part of these Islands. Ireland is the +next in size. The little neighbouring islands, which are so small +upon the Map as to be mere dots, are chiefly little bits of +Scotland, - broken off, I dare say, in the course of a great length +of time, by the power of the restless water. + +In the old days, a long, long while ago, before Our Saviour was +born on earth and lay asleep in a manger, these Islands were in the +same place, and the stormy sea roared round them, just as it roars +now. But the sea was not alive, then, with great ships and brave +sailors, sailing to and from all parts of the world. It was very +lonely. The Islands lay solitary, in the great expanse of water. +The foaming waves dashed against their cliffs, and the bleak winds +blew over their forests; but the winds and waves brought no +adventurers to land upon the Islands, and the savage Islanders knew +nothing of the rest of the world, and the rest of the world knew +nothing of them. + +It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient people, +famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to these Islands, and +found that they produced tin and lead; both very useful things, as +you know, and both produced to this very hour upon the sea-coast. +The most celebrated tin mines in Cornwall are, still, close to the +sea. One of them, which I have seen, is so close to it that it is +hollowed out underneath the ocean; and the miners say, that in +stormy weather, when they are at work down in that deep place, they +can hear the noise of the waves thundering above their heads. So, +the Phoenicians, coasting about the Islands, would come, without +much difficulty, to where the tin and lead were. + +The Phoenicians traded with the Islanders for these metals, and +gave the Islanders some other useful things in exchange. The +Islanders were, at first, poor savages, going almost naked, or only +dressed in the rough skins of beasts, and staining their bodies, as +other savages do, with coloured earths and the juices of plants. +But the Phoenicians, sailing over to the opposite coasts of France +and Belgium, and saying to the people there, 'We have been to those +white cliffs across the water, which you can see in fine weather, +and from that country, which is called BRITAIN, we bring this tin +and lead,' tempted some of the French and Belgians to come over +also. These people settled themselves on the south coast of +England, which is now called Kent; and, although they were a rough +people too, they taught the savage Britons some useful arts, and +improved that part of the Islands. It is probable that other +people came over from Spain to Ireland, and settled there. + +Thus, by little and little, strangers became mixed with the +Islanders, and the savage Britons grew into a wild, bold people; +almost savage, still, especially in the interior of the country +away from the sea where the foreign settlers seldom went; but +hardy, brave, and strong. + +The whole country was covered with forests, and swamps. The +greater part of it was very misty and cold. There were no roads, +no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would think deserving of +the name. A town was nothing but a collection of straw-covered +huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round, and a low +wall, made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one upon another. +The people planted little or no corn, but lived upon the flesh of +their flocks and cattle. They made no coins, but used metal rings +for money. They were clever in basket-work, as savage people often +are; and they could make a coarse kind of cloth, and some very bad +earthenware. But in building fortresses they were much more +clever. + +They made boats of basket-work, covered with the skins of animals, +but seldom, if ever, ventured far from the shore. They made +swords, of copper mixed with tin; but, these swords were of an +awkward shape, and so soft that a heavy blow would bend one. They +made light shields, short pointed daggers, and spears - which they +jerked back after they had thrown them at an enemy, by a long strip +of leather fastened to the stem. The butt-end was a rattle, to +frighten an enemy's horse. The ancient Britons, being divided into +as many as thirty or forty tribes, each commanded by its own little +king, were constantly fighting with one another, as savage people +usually do; and they always fought with these weapons. + +They were very fond of horses. The standard of Kent was the +picture of a white horse. They could break them in and manage them +wonderfully well. Indeed, the horses (of which they had an +abundance, though they were rather small) were so well taught in +those days, that they can scarcely be said to have improved since; +though the men are so much wiser. They understood, and obeyed, +every word of command; and would stand still by themselves, in all +the din and noise of battle, while their masters went to fight on +foot. The Britons could not have succeeded in their most +remarkable art, without the aid of these sensible and trusty +animals. The art I mean, is the construction and management of +war-chariots or cars, for which they have ever been celebrated in +history. Each of the best sort of these chariots, not quite breast +high in front, and open at the back, contained one man to drive, +and two or three others to fight - all standing up. The horses who +drew them were so well trained, that they would tear, at full +gallop, over the most stony ways, and even through the woods; +dashing down their masters' enemies beneath their hoofs, and +cutting them to pieces with the blades of swords, or scythes, which +were fastened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond the car on +each side, for that cruel purpose. In a moment, while at full +speed, the horses would stop, at the driver's command. The men +within would leap out, deal blows about them with their swords like +hail, leap on the horses, on the pole, spring back into the +chariots anyhow; and, as soon as they were safe, the horses tore +away again. + +The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the +Religion of the Druids. It seems to have been brought over, in +very early times indeed, from the opposite country of France, +anciently called Gaul, and to have mixed up the worship of the +Serpent, and of the Sun and Moon, with the worship of some of the +Heathen Gods and Goddesses. Most of its ceremonies were kept +secret by the priests, the Druids, who pretended to be enchanters, +and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each of them, about his +neck, what he told the ignorant people was a Serpent's egg in a +golden case. But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies +included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of some +suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning +alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and animals +together. The Druid Priests had some kind of veneration for the +Oak, and for the mistletoe - the same plant that we hang up in +houses at Christmas Time now - when its white berries grew upon the +Oak. They met together in dark woods, which they called Sacred +Groves; and there they instructed, in their mysterious arts, young +men who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes stayed with them +as long as twenty years. + +These Druids built great Temples and altars, open to the sky, +fragments of some of which are yet remaining. Stonehenge, on +Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, is the most extraordinary of these. +Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House, on Bluebell Hill, +near Maidstone, in Kent, form another. We know, from examination +of the great blocks of which such buildings are made, that they +could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious +machines, which are common now, but which the ancient Britons +certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses. I +should not wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with +them twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept +the people out of sight while they made these buildings, and then +pretended that they built them by magic. Perhaps they had a hand +in the fortresses too; at all events, as they were very powerful, +and very much believed in, and as they made and executed the laws, +and paid no taxes, I don't wonder that they liked their trade. +And, as they persuaded the people the more Druids there were, the +better off the people would be, I don't wonder that there were a +good many of them. But it is pleasant to think that there are no +Druids, NOW, who go on in that way, and pretend to carry +Enchanters' Wands and Serpents' Eggs - and of course there is +nothing of the kind, anywhere. + +Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons, fifty-five +years before the birth of Our Saviour, when the Romans, under their +great General, Julius Caesar, were masters of all the rest of the +known world. Julius Caesar had then just conquered Gaul; and +hearing, in Gaul, a good deal about the opposite Island with the +white cliffs, and about the bravery of the Britons who inhabited it +- some of whom had been fetched over to help the Gauls in the war +against him - he resolved, as he was so near, to come and conquer +Britain next. + +So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this Island of ours, with +eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. And he came from the +French coast between Calais and Boulogne, 'because thence was the +shortest passage into Britain;' just for the same reason as our +steam-boats now take the same track, every day. He expected to +conquer Britain easily: but it was not such easy work as he +supposed - for the bold Britons fought most bravely; and, what with +not having his horse-soldiers with him (for they had been driven +back by a storm), and what with having some of his vessels dashed +to pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great +risk of being totally defeated. However, for once that the bold +Britons beat him, he beat them twice; though not so soundly but +that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace, and go +away. + +But, in the spring of the next year, he came back; this time, with +eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. The British tribes +chose, as their general-in-chief, a Briton, whom the Romans in +their Latin language called CASSIVELLAUNUS, but whose British name +is supposed to have been CASWALLON. A brave general he was, and +well he and his soldiers fought the Roman army! So well, that +whenever in that war the Roman soldiers saw a great cloud of dust, +and heard the rattle of the rapid British chariots, they trembled +in their hearts. Besides a number of smaller battles, there was a +battle fought near Canterbury, in Kent; there was a battle fought +near Chertsey, in Surrey; there was a battle fought near a marshy +little town in a wood, the capital of that part of Britain which +belonged to CASSIVELLAUNUS, and which was probably near what is now +Saint Albans, in Hertfordshire. However, brave CASSIVELLAUNUS had +the worst of it, on the whole; though he and his men always fought +like lions. As the other British chiefs were jealous of him, and +were always quarrelling with him, and with one another, he gave up, +and proposed peace. Julius Caesar was very glad to grant peace +easily, and to go away again with all his remaining ships and men. +He had expected to find pearls in Britain, and he may have found a +few for anything I know; but, at all events, he found delicious +oysters, and I am sure he found tough Britons - of whom, I dare +say, he made the same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte the great +French General did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when he said +they were such unreasonable fellows that they never knew when they +were beaten. They never DID know, I believe, and never will. + +Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time, there was +peace in Britain. The Britons improved their towns and mode of +life: became more civilised, travelled, and learnt a great deal +from the Gauls and Romans. At last, the Roman Emperor, Claudius, +sent AULUS PLAUTIUS, a skilful general, with a mighty force, to +subdue the Island, and shortly afterwards arrived himself. They +did little; and OSTORIUS SCAPULA, another general, came. Some of +the British Chiefs of Tribes submitted. Others resolved to fight +to the death. Of these brave men, the bravest was CARACTACUS, or +CARADOC, who gave battle to the Romans, with his army, among the +mountains of North Wales. 'This day,' said he to his soldiers, +'decides the fate of Britain! Your liberty, or your eternal +slavery, dates from this hour. Remember your brave ancestors, who +drove the great Caesar himself across the sea!' On hearing these +words, his men, with a great shout, rushed upon the Romans. But +the strong Roman swords and armour were too much for the weaker +British weapons in close conflict. The Britons lost the day. The +wife and daughter of the brave CARACTACUS were taken prisoners; his +brothers delivered themselves up; he himself was betrayed into the +hands of the Romans by his false and base stepmother: and they +carried him, and all his family, in triumph to Rome. + +But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison, great +in chains. His noble air, and dignified endurance of distress, so +touched the Roman people who thronged the streets to see him, that +he and his family were restored to freedom. No one knows whether +his great heart broke, and he died in Rome, or whether he ever +returned to his own dear country. English oaks have grown up from +acorns, and withered away, when they were hundreds of years old - +and other oaks have sprung up in their places, and died too, very +aged - since the rest of the history of the brave CARACTACUS was +forgotten. + +Still, the Britons WOULD NOT yield. They rose again and again, and +died by thousands, sword in hand. They rose, on every possible +occasion. SUETONIUS, another Roman general, came, and stormed the +Island of Anglesey (then called MONA), which was supposed to be +sacred, and he burnt the Druids in their own wicker cages, by their +own fires. But, even while he was in Britain, with his victorious +troops, the BRITONS rose. Because BOADICEA, a British queen, the +widow of the King of the Norfolk and Suffolk people, resisted the +plundering of her property by the Romans who were settled in +England, she was scourged, by order of CATUS a Roman officer; and +her two daughters were shamefully insulted in her presence, and her +husband's relations were made slaves. To avenge this injury, the +Britons rose, with all their might and rage. They drove CATUS into +Gaul; they laid the Roman possessions waste; they forced the Romans +out of London, then a poor little town, but a trading place; they +hanged, burnt, crucified, and slew by the sword, seventy thousand +Romans in a few days. SUETONIUS strengthened his army, and +advanced to give them battle. They strengthened their army, and +desperately attacked his, on the field where it was strongly +posted. Before the first charge of the Britons was made, BOADICEA, +in a war-chariot, with her fair hair streaming in the wind, and her +injured daughters lying at her feet, drove among the troops, and +cried to them for vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious +Romans. The Britons fought to the last; but they were vanquished +with great slaughter, and the unhappy queen took poison. + +Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When SUETONIUS +left the country, they fell upon his troops, and retook the Island +of Anglesey. AGRICOLA came, fifteen or twenty years afterwards, +and retook it once more, and devoted seven years to subduing the +country, especially that part of it which is now called SCOTLAND; +but, its people, the Caledonians, resisted him at every inch of +ground. They fought the bloodiest battles with him; they killed +their very wives and children, to prevent his making prisoners of +them; they fell, fighting, in such great numbers that certain hills +in Scotland are yet supposed to be vast heaps of stones piled up +above their graves. HADRIAN came, thirty years afterwards, and +still they resisted him. SEVERUS came, nearly a hundred years +afterwards, and they worried his great army like dogs, and rejoiced +to see them die, by thousands, in the bogs and swamps. CARACALLA, +the son and successor of SEVERUS, did the most to conquer them, for +a time; but not by force of arms. He knew how little that would +do. He yielded up a quantity of land to the Caledonians, and gave +the Britons the same privileges as the Romans possessed. There was +peace, after this, for seventy years. + +Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, sea-faring +people from the countries to the North of the Rhine, the great +river of Germany on the banks of which the best grapes grow to make +the German wine. They began to come, in pirate ships, to the sea- +coast of Gaul and Britain, and to plunder them. They were repulsed +by CARAUSIUS, a native either of Belgium or of Britain, who was +appointed by the Romans to the command, and under whom the Britons +first began to fight upon the sea. But, after this time, they +renewed their ravages. A few years more, and the Scots (which was +then the name for the people of Ireland), and the Picts, a northern +people, began to make frequent plundering incursions into the South +of Britain. All these attacks were repeated, at intervals, during +two hundred years, and through a long succession of Roman Emperors +and chiefs; during all which length of time, the Britons rose +against the Romans, over and over again. At last, in the days of +the Roman HONORIUS, when the Roman power all over the world was +fast declining, and when Rome wanted all her soldiers at home, the +Romans abandoned all hope of conquering Britain, and went away. +And still, at last, as at first, the Britons rose against them, in +their old brave manner; for, a very little while before, they had +turned away the Roman magistrates, and declared themselves an +independent people. + +Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Caesar's first invasion +of the Island, when the Romans departed from it for ever. In the +course of that time, although they had been the cause of terrible +fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to improve the condition +of the Britons. They had made great military roads; they had built +forts; they had taught them how to dress, and arm themselves, much +better than they had ever known how to do before; they had refined +the whole British way of living. AGRICOLA had built a great wall +of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending from Newcastle to +beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out the Picts and +Scots; HADRIAN had strengthened it; SEVERUS, finding it much in +want of repair, had built it afresh of stone. + +Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by means of Roman ships, +that the Christian Religion was first brought into Britain, and its +people first taught the great lesson that, to be good in the sight +of GOD, they must love their neighbours as themselves, and do unto +others as they would be done by. The Druids declared that it was +very wicked to believe in any such thing, and cursed all the people +who did believe it, very heartily. But, when the people found that +they were none the better for the blessings of the Druids, and none +the worse for the curses of the Druids, but, that the sun shone and +the rain fell without consulting the Druids at all, they just began +to think that the Druids were mere men, and that it signified very +little whether they cursed or blessed. After which, the pupils of +the Druids fell off greatly in numbers, and the Druids took to +other trades. + +Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in England. It is +but little that is known of those five hundred years; but some +remains of them are still found. Often, when labourers are digging +up the ground, to make foundations for houses or churches, they +light on rusty money that once belonged to the Romans. Fragments +of plates from which they ate, of goblets from which they drank, +and of pavement on which they trod, are discovered among the earth +that is broken by the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the +gardener's spade. Wells that the Romans sunk, still yield water; +roads that the Romans made, form part of our highways. In some old +battle-fields, British spear-heads and Roman armour have been +found, mingled together in decay, as they fell in the thick +pressure of the fight. Traces of Roman camps overgrown with grass, +and of mounds that are the burial-places of heaps of Britons, are +to be seen in almost all parts of the country. Across the bleak +moors of Northumberland, the wall of SEVERUS, overrun with moss and +weeds, still stretches, a strong ruin; and the shepherds and their +dogs lie sleeping on it in the summer weather. On Salisbury Plain, +Stonehenge yet stands: a monument of the earlier time when the +Roman name was unknown in Britain, and when the Druids, with their +best magic wands, could not have written it in the sands of the +wild sea-shore. + + + +CHAPTER II - ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS + + + +THE Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain, when the Britons +began to wish they had never left it. For, the Romans being gone, +and the Britons being much reduced in numbers by their long wars, +the Picts and Scots came pouring in, over the broken and unguarded +wall of SEVERUS, in swarms. They plundered the richest towns, and +killed the people; and came back so often for more booty and more +slaughter, that the unfortunate Britons lived a life of terror. As +if the Picts and Scots were not bad enough on land, the Saxons +attacked the islanders by sea; and, as if something more were still +wanting to make them miserable, they quarrelled bitterly among +themselves as to what prayers they ought to say, and how they ought +to say them. The priests, being very angry with one another on +these questions, cursed one another in the heartiest manner; and +(uncommonly like the old Druids) cursed all the people whom they +could not persuade. So, altogether, the Britons were very badly +off, you may believe. + +They were in such distress, in short, that they sent a letter to +Rome entreating help - which they called the Groans of the Britons; +and in which they said, 'The barbarians chase us into the sea, the +sea throws us back upon the barbarians, and we have only the hard +choice left us of perishing by the sword, or perishing by the +waves.' But, the Romans could not help them, even if they were so +inclined; for they had enough to do to defend themselves against +their own enemies, who were then very fierce and strong. At last, +the Britons, unable to bear their hard condition any longer, +resolved to make peace with the Saxons, and to invite the Saxons to +come into their country, and help them to keep out the Picts and +Scots. + +It was a British Prince named VORTIGERN who took this resolution, +and who made a treaty of friendship with HENGIST and HORSA, two +Saxon chiefs. Both of these names, in the old Saxon language, +signify Horse; for the Saxons, like many other nations in a rough +state, were fond of giving men the names of animals, as Horse, +Wolf, Bear, Hound. The Indians of North America, - a very inferior +people to the Saxons, though - do the same to this day. + +HENGIST and HORSA drove out the Picts and Scots; and VORTIGERN, +being grateful to them for that service, made no opposition to +their settling themselves in that part of England which is called +the Isle of Thanet, or to their inviting over more of their +countrymen to join them. But HENGIST had a beautiful daughter +named ROWENA; and when, at a feast, she filled a golden goblet to +the brim with wine, and gave it to VORTIGERN, saying in a sweet +voice, 'Dear King, thy health!' the King fell in love with her. My +opinion is, that the cunning HENGIST meant him to do so, in order +that the Saxons might have greater influence with him; and that the +fair ROWENA came to that feast, golden goblet and all, on purpose. + +At any rate, they were married; and, long afterwards, whenever the +King was angry with the Saxons, or jealous of their encroachments, +ROWENA would put her beautiful arms round his neck, and softly say, +'Dear King, they are my people! Be favourable to them, as you +loved that Saxon girl who gave you the golden goblet of wine at the +feast!' And, really, I don't see how the King could help himself. + +Ah! We must all die! In the course of years, VORTIGERN died - he +was dethroned, and put in prison, first, I am afraid; and ROWENA +died; and generations of Saxons and Britons died; and events that +happened during a long, long time, would have been quite forgotten +but for the tales and songs of the old Bards, who used to go about +from feast to feast, with their white beards, recounting the deeds +of their forefathers. Among the histories of which they sang and +talked, there was a famous one, concerning the bravery and virtues +of KING ARTHUR, supposed to have been a British Prince in those old +times. But, whether such a person really lived, or whether there +were several persons whose histories came to be confused together +under that one name, or whether all about him was invention, no one +knows. + +I will tell you, shortly, what is most interesting in the early +Saxon times, as they are described in these songs and stories of +the Bards. + +In, and long after, the days of VORTIGERN, fresh bodies of Saxons, +under various chiefs, came pouring into Britain. One body, +conquering the Britons in the East, and settling there, called +their kingdom Essex; another body settled in the West, and called +their kingdom Wessex; the Northfolk, or Norfolk people, established +themselves in one place; the Southfolk, or Suffolk people, +established themselves in another; and gradually seven kingdoms or +states arose in England, which were called the Saxon Heptarchy. +The poor Britons, falling back before these crowds of fighting men +whom they had innocently invited over as friends, retired into +Wales and the adjacent country; into Devonshire, and into Cornwall. +Those parts of England long remained unconquered. And in Cornwall +now - where the sea-coast is very gloomy, steep, and rugged - +where, in the dark winter-time, ships have often been wrecked close +to the land, and every soul on board has perished - where the winds +and waves howl drearily and split the solid rocks into arches and +caverns - there are very ancient ruins, which the people call the +ruins of KING ARTHUR'S Castle. + +Kent is the most famous of the seven Saxon kingdoms, because the +Christian religion was preached to the Saxons there (who domineered +over the Britons too much, to care for what THEY said about their +religion, or anything else) by AUGUSTINE, a monk from Rome. KING +ETHELBERT, of Kent, was soon converted; and the moment he said he +was a Christian, his courtiers all said THEY were Christians; after +which, ten thousand of his subjects said they were Christians too. +AUGUSTINE built a little church, close to this King's palace, on +the ground now occupied by the beautiful cathedral of Canterbury. +SEBERT, the King's nephew, built on a muddy marshy place near +London, where there had been a temple to Apollo, a church dedicated +to Saint Peter, which is now Westminster Abbey. And, in London +itself, on the foundation of a temple to Diana, he built another +little church which has risen up, since that old time, to be Saint +Paul's. + +After the death of ETHELBERT, EDWIN, King of Northumbria, who was +such a good king that it was said a woman or child might openly +carry a purse of gold, in his reign, without fear, allowed his +child to be baptised, and held a great council to consider whether +he and his people should all be Christians or not. It was decided +that they should be. COIFI, the chief priest of the old religion, +made a great speech on the occasion. In this discourse, he told +the people that he had found out the old gods to be impostors. 'I +am quite satisfied of it,' he said. 'Look at me! I have been +serving them all my life, and they have done nothing for me; +whereas, if they had been really powerful, they could not have +decently done less, in return for all I have done for them, than +make my fortune. As they have never made my fortune, I am quite +convinced they are impostors!' When this singular priest had +finished speaking, he hastily armed himself with sword and lance, +mounted a war-horse, rode at a furious gallop in sight of all the +people to the temple, and flung his lance against it as an insult. +From that time, the Christian religion spread itself among the +Saxons, and became their faith. + +The next very famous prince was EGBERT. He lived about a hundred +and fifty years afterwards, and claimed to have a better right to +the throne of Wessex than BEORTRIC, another Saxon prince who was at +the head of that kingdom, and who married EDBURGA, the daughter of +OFFA, king of another of the seven kingdoms. This QUEEN EDBURGA +was a handsome murderess, who poisoned people when they offended +her. One day, she mixed a cup of poison for a certain noble +belonging to the court; but her husband drank of it too, by +mistake, and died. Upon this, the people revolted, in great +crowds; and running to the palace, and thundering at the gates, +cried, 'Down with the wicked queen, who poisons men!' They drove +her out of the country, and abolished the title she had disgraced. +When years had passed away, some travellers came home from Italy, +and said that in the town of Pavia they had seen a ragged beggar- +woman, who had once been handsome, but was then shrivelled, bent, +and yellow, wandering about the streets, crying for bread; and that +this beggar-woman was the poisoning English queen. It was, indeed, +EDBURGA; and so she died, without a shelter for her wretched head. + +EGBERT, not considering himself safe in England, in consequence of +his having claimed the crown of Wessex (for he thought his rival +might take him prisoner and put him to death), sought refuge at the +court of CHARLEMAGNE, King of France. On the death of BEORTRIC, so +unhappily poisoned by mistake, EGBERT came back to Britain; +succeeded to the throne of Wessex; conquered some of the other +monarchs of the seven kingdoms; added their territories to his own; +and, for the first time, called the country over which he ruled, +ENGLAND. + +And now, new enemies arose, who, for a long time, troubled England +sorely. These were the Northmen, the people of Denmark and Norway, +whom the English called the Danes. They were a warlike people, +quite at home upon the sea; not Christians; very daring and cruel. +They came over in ships, and plundered and burned wheresoever they +landed. Once, they beat EGBERT in battle. Once, EGBERT beat them. +But, they cared no more for being beaten than the English +themselves. In the four following short reigns, of ETHELWULF, and +his sons, ETHELBALD, ETHELBERT, and ETHELRED, they came back, over +and over again, burning and plundering, and laying England waste. +In the last-mentioned reign, they seized EDMUND, King of East +England, and bound him to a tree. Then, they proposed to him that +he should change his religion; but he, being a good Christian, +steadily refused. Upon that, they beat him, made cowardly jests +upon him, all defenceless as he was, shot arrows at him, and, +finally, struck off his head. It is impossible to say whose head +they might have struck off next, but for the death of KING ETHELRED +from a wound he had received in fighting against them, and the +succession to his throne of the best and wisest king that ever +lived in England. + + + +CHAPTER III - ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED + + + +ALFRED THE GREAT was a young man, three-and-twenty years of age, +when he became king. Twice in his childhood, he had been taken to +Rome, where the Saxon nobles were in the habit of going on journeys +which they supposed to be religious; and, once, he had stayed for +some time in Paris. Learning, however, was so little cared for, +then, that at twelve years old he had not been taught to read; +although, of the sons of KING ETHELWULF, he, the youngest, was the +favourite. But he had - as most men who grow up to be great and +good are generally found to have had - an excellent mother; and, +one day, this lady, whose name was OSBURGA, happened, as she was +sitting among her sons, to read a book of Saxon poetry. The art of +printing was not known until long and long after that period, and +the book, which was written, was what is called 'illuminated,' with +beautiful bright letters, richly painted. The brothers admiring it +very much, their mother said, 'I will give it to that one of you +four princes who first learns to read.' ALFRED sought out a tutor +that very day, applied himself to learn with great diligence, and +soon won the book. He was proud of it, all his life. + +This great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine +battles with the Danes. He made some treaties with them too, by +which the false Danes swore they would quit the country. They +pretended to consider that they had taken a very solemn oath, in +swearing this upon the holy bracelets that they wore, and which +were always buried with them when they died; but they cared little +for it, for they thought nothing of breaking oaths and treaties +too, as soon as it suited their purpose, and coming back again to +fight, plunder, and burn, as usual. One fatal winter, in the +fourth year of KING ALFRED'S reign, they spread themselves in great +numbers over the whole of England; and so dispersed and routed the +King's soldiers that the King was left alone, and was obliged to +disguise himself as a common peasant, and to take refuge in the +cottage of one of his cowherds who did not know his face. + +Here, KING ALFRED, while the Danes sought him far and near, was +left alone one day, by the cowherd's wife, to watch some cakes +which she put to bake upon the hearth. But, being at work upon his +bow and arrows, with which he hoped to punish the false Danes when +a brighter time should come, and thinking deeply of his poor +unhappy subjects whom the Danes chased through the land, his noble +mind forgot the cakes, and they were burnt. 'What!' said the +cowherd's wife, who scolded him well when she came back, and little +thought she was scolding the King, 'you will be ready enough to eat +them by-and-by, and yet you cannot watch them, idle dog?' + +At length, the Devonshire men made head against a new host of Danes +who landed on their coast; killed their chief, and captured their +flag; on which was represented the likeness of a Raven - a very fit +bird for a thievish army like that, I think. The loss of their +standard troubled the Danes greatly, for they believed it to be +enchanted - woven by the three daughters of one father in a single +afternoon - and they had a story among themselves that when they +were victorious in battle, the Raven stretched his wings and seemed +to fly; and that when they were defeated, he would droop. He had +good reason to droop, now, if he could have done anything half so +sensible; for, KING ALFRED joined the Devonshire men; made a camp +with them on a piece of firm ground in the midst of a bog in +Somersetshire; and prepared for a great attempt for vengeance on +the Danes, and the deliverance of his oppressed people. + +But, first, as it was important to know how numerous those +pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified, KING ALFRED, +being a good musician, disguised himself as a glee-man or minstrel, +and went, with his harp, to the Danish camp. He played and sang in +the very tent of GUTHRUM the Danish leader, and entertained the +Danes as they caroused. While he seemed to think of nothing but +his music, he was watchful of their tents, their arms, their +discipline, everything that he desired to know. And right soon did +this great king entertain them to a different tune; for, summoning +all his true followers to meet him at an appointed place, where +they received him with joyful shouts and tears, as the monarch whom +many of them had given up for lost or dead, he put himself at their +head, marched on the Danish camp, defeated the Danes with great +slaughter, and besieged them for fourteen days to prevent their +escape. But, being as merciful as he was good and brave, he then, +instead of killing them, proposed peace: on condition that they +should altogether depart from that Western part of England, and +settle in the East; and that GUTHRUM should become a Christian, in +remembrance of the Divine religion which now taught his conqueror, +the noble ALFRED, to forgive the enemy who had so often injured +him. This, GUTHRUM did. At his baptism, KING ALFRED was his +godfather. And GUTHRUM was an honourable chief who well deserved +that clemency; for, ever afterwards he was loyal and faithful to +the king. The Danes under him were faithful too. They plundered +and burned no more, but worked like honest men. They ploughed, and +sowed, and reaped, and led good honest English lives. And I hope +the children of those Danes played, many a time, with Saxon +children in the sunny fields; and that Danish young men fell in +love with Saxon girls, and married them; and that English +travellers, benighted at the doors of Danish cottages, often went +in for shelter until morning; and that Danes and Saxons sat by the +red fire, friends, talking of KING ALFRED THE GREAT. + +All the Danes were not like these under GUTHRUM; for, after some +years, more of them came over, in the old plundering and burning +way - among them a fierce pirate of the name of HASTINGS, who had +the boldness to sail up the Thames to Gravesend, with eighty ships. +For three years, there was a war with these Danes; and there was a +famine in the country, too, and a plague, both upon human creatures +and beasts. But KING ALFRED, whose mighty heart never failed him, +built large ships nevertheless, with which to pursue the pirates on +the sea; and he encouraged his soldiers, by his brave example, to +fight valiantly against them on the shore. At last, he drove them +all away; and then there was repose in England. + +As great and good in peace, as he was great and good in war, KING +ALFRED never rested from his labours to improve his people. He +loved to talk with clever men, and with travellers from foreign +countries, and to write down what they told him, for his people to +read. He had studied Latin after learning to read English, and now +another of his labours was, to translate Latin books into the +English-Saxon tongue, that his people might be interested, and +improved by their contents. He made just laws, that they might +live more happily and freely; he turned away all partial judges, +that no wrong might be done them; he was so careful of their +property, and punished robbers so severely, that it was a common +thing to say that under the great KING ALFRED, garlands of golden +chains and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no man +would have touched one. He founded schools; he patiently heard +causes himself in his Court of Justice; the great desires of his +heart were, to do right to all his subjects, and to leave England +better, wiser, happier in all ways, than he found it. His industry +in these efforts was quite astonishing. Every day he divided into +certain portions, and in each portion devoted himself to a certain +pursuit. That he might divide his time exactly, he had wax torches +or candles made, which were all of the same size, were notched +across at regular distances, and were always kept burning. Thus, +as the candles burnt down, he divided the day into notches, almost +as accurately as we now divide it into hours upon the clock. But +when the candles were first invented, it was found that the wind +and draughts of air, blowing into the palace through the doors and +windows, and through the chinks in the walls, caused them to gutter +and burn unequally. To prevent this, the King had them put into +cases formed of wood and white horn. And these were the first +lanthorns ever made in England. + +All this time, he was afflicted with a terrible unknown disease, +which caused him violent and frequent pain that nothing could +relieve. He bore it, as he had borne all the troubles of his life, +like a brave good man, until he was fifty-three years old; and +then, having reigned thirty years, he died. He died in the year +nine hundred and one; but, long ago as that is, his fame, and the +love and gratitude with which his subjects regarded him, are +freshly remembered to the present hour. + +In the next reign, which was the reign of EDWARD, surnamed THE +ELDER, who was chosen in council to succeed, a nephew of KING +ALFRED troubled the country by trying to obtain the throne. The +Danes in the East of England took part with this usurper (perhaps +because they had honoured his uncle so much, and honoured him for +his uncle's sake), and there was hard fighting; but, the King, with +the assistance of his sister, gained the day, and reigned in peace +for four and twenty years. He gradually extended his power over +the whole of England, and so the Seven Kingdoms were united into +one. + +When England thus became one kingdom, ruled over by one Saxon king, +the Saxons had been settled in the country more than four hundred +and fifty years. Great changes had taken place in its customs +during that time. The Saxons were still greedy eaters and great +drinkers, and their feasts were often of a noisy and drunken kind; +but many new comforts and even elegances had become known, and were +fast increasing. Hangings for the walls of rooms, where, in these +modern days, we paste up paper, are known to have been sometimes +made of silk, ornamented with birds and flowers in needlework. +Tables and chairs were curiously carved in different woods; were +sometimes decorated with gold or silver; sometimes even made of +those precious metals. Knives and spoons were used at table; +golden ornaments were worn - with silk and cloth, and golden +tissues and embroideries; dishes were made of gold and silver, +brass and bone. There were varieties of drinking-horns, bedsteads, +musical instruments. A harp was passed round, at a feast, like the +drinking-bowl, from guest to guest; and each one usually sang or +played when his turn came. The weapons of the Saxons were stoutly +made, and among them was a terrible iron hammer that gave deadly +blows, and was long remembered. The Saxons themselves were a +handsome people. The men were proud of their long fair hair, +parted on the forehead; their ample beards, their fresh +complexions, and clear eyes. The beauty of the Saxon women filled +all England with a new delight and grace. + +I have more to tell of the Saxons yet, but I stop to say this now, +because under the GREAT ALFRED, all the best points of the English- +Saxon character were first encouraged, and in him first shown. It +has been the greatest character among the nations of the earth. +Wherever the descendants of the Saxon race have gone, have sailed, +or otherwise made their way, even to the remotest regions of the +world, they have been patient, persevering, never to be broken in +spirit, never to be turned aside from enterprises on which they +have resolved. In Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the whole world +over; in the desert, in the forest, on the sea; scorched by a +burning sun, or frozen by ice that never melts; the Saxon blood +remains unchanged. Wheresoever that race goes, there, law, and +industry, and safety for life and property, and all the great +results of steady perseverance, are certain to arise. + +I pause to think with admiration, of the noble king who, in his +single person, possessed all the Saxon virtues. Whom misfortune +could not subdue, whom prosperity could not spoil, whose +perseverance nothing could shake. Who was hopeful in defeat, and +generous in success. Who loved justice, freedom, truth, and +knowledge. Who, in his care to instruct his people, probably did +more to preserve the beautiful old Saxon language, than I can +imagine. Without whom, the English tongue in which I tell this +story might have wanted half its meaning. As it is said that his +spirit still inspires some of our best English laws, so, let you +and I pray that it may animate our English hearts, at least to this +- to resolve, when we see any of our fellow-creatures left in +ignorance, that we will do our best, while life is in us, to have +them taught; and to tell those rulers whose duty it is to teach +them, and who neglect their duty, that they have profited very +little by all the years that have rolled away since the year nine +hundred and one, and that they are far behind the bright example of +KING ALFRED THE GREAT. + + + +CHAPTER IV - ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS + + + +ATHELSTAN, the son of Edward the Elder, succeeded that king. He +reigned only fifteen years; but he remembered the glory of his +grandfather, the great Alfred, and governed England well. He +reduced the turbulent people of Wales, and obliged them to pay him +a tribute in money, and in cattle, and to send him their best hawks +and hounds. He was victorious over the Cornish men, who were not +yet quite under the Saxon government. He restored such of the old +laws as were good, and had fallen into disuse; made some wise new +laws, and took care of the poor and weak. A strong alliance, made +against him by ANLAF a Danish prince, CONSTANTINE King of the +Scots, and the people of North Wales, he broke and defeated in one +great battle, long famous for the vast numbers slain in it. After +that, he had a quiet reign; the lords and ladies about him had +leisure to become polite and agreeable; and foreign princes were +glad (as they have sometimes been since) to come to England on +visits to the English court. + +When Athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his brother EDMUND, +who was only eighteen, became king. He was the first of six boy- +kings, as you will presently know. + +They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a taste for +improvement and refinement. But he was beset by the Danes, and had +a short and troubled reign, which came to a troubled end. One +night, when he was feasting in his hall, and had eaten much and +drunk deep, he saw, among the company, a noted robber named LEOF, +who had been banished from England. Made very angry by the +boldness of this man, the King turned to his cup-bearer, and said, +'There is a robber sitting at the table yonder, who, for his +crimes, is an outlaw in the land - a hunted wolf, whose life any +man may take, at any time. Command that robber to depart!' 'I +will not depart!' said Leof. 'No?' cried the King. 'No, by the +Lord!' said Leof. Upon that the King rose from his seat, and, +making passionately at the robber, and seizing him by his long +hair, tried to throw him down. But the robber had a dagger +underneath his cloak, and, in the scuffle, stabbed the King to +death. That done, he set his back against the wall, and fought so +desperately, that although he was soon cut to pieces by the King's +armed men, and the wall and pavement were splashed with his blood, +yet it was not before he had killed and wounded many of them. You +may imagine what rough lives the kings of those times led, when one +of them could struggle, half drunk, with a public robber in his own +dining-hall, and be stabbed in presence of the company who ate and +drank with him. + +Then succeeded the boy-king EDRED, who was weak and sickly in body, +but of a strong mind. And his armies fought the Northmen, the +Danes, and Norwegians, or the Sea-Kings, as they were called, and +beat them for the time. And, in nine years, Edred died, and passed +away. + +Then came the boy-king EDWY, fifteen years of age; but the real +king, who had the real power, was a monk named DUNSTAN - a clever +priest, a little mad, and not a little proud and cruel. + +Dunstan was then Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, whither the body of +King Edmund the Magnificent was carried, to be buried. While yet a +boy, he had got out of his bed one night (being then in a fever), +and walked about Glastonbury Church when it was under repair; and, +because he did not tumble off some scaffolds that were there, and +break his neck, it was reported that he had been shown over the +building by an angel. He had also made a harp that was said to +play of itself - which it very likely did, as AEolian Harps, which +are played by the wind, and are understood now, always do. For +these wonders he had been once denounced by his enemies, who were +jealous of his favour with the late King Athelstan, as a magician; +and he had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, and thrown into a +marsh. But he got out again, somehow, to cause a great deal of +trouble yet. + +The priests of those days were, generally, the only scholars. They +were learned in many things. Having to make their own convents and +monasteries on uncultivated grounds that were granted to them by +the Crown, it was necessary that they should be good farmers and +good gardeners, or their lands would have been too poor to support +them. For the decoration of the chapels where they prayed, and for +the comfort of the refectories where they ate and drank, it was +necessary that there should be good carpenters, good smiths, good +painters, among them. For their greater safety in sickness and +accident, living alone by themselves in solitary places, it was +necessary that they should study the virtues of plants and herbs, +and should know how to dress cuts, burns, scalds, and bruises, and +how to set broken limbs. Accordingly, they taught themselves, and +one another, a great variety of useful arts; and became skilful in +agriculture, medicine, surgery, and handicraft. And when they +wanted the aid of any little piece of machinery, which would be +simple enough now, but was marvellous then, to impose a trick upon +the poor peasants, they knew very well how to make it; and DID make +it many a time and often, I have no doubt. + +Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the most sagacious +of these monks. He was an ingenious smith, and worked at a forge +in a little cell. This cell was made too short to admit of his +lying at full length when he went to sleep - as if THAT did any +good to anybody! - and he used to tell the most extraordinary lies +about demons and spirits, who, he said, came there to persecute +him. For instance, he related that one day when he was at work, +the devil looked in at the little window, and tried to tempt him to +lead a life of idle pleasure; whereupon, having his pincers in the +fire, red hot, he seized the devil by the nose, and put him to such +pain, that his bellowings were heard for miles and miles. Some +people are inclined to think this nonsense a part of Dunstan's +madness (for his head never quite recovered the fever), but I think +not. I observe that it induced the ignorant people to consider him +a holy man, and that it made him very powerful. Which was exactly +what he always wanted. + +On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king Edwy, it was +remarked by ODO, Archbishop of Canterbury (who was a Dane by +birth), that the King quietly left the coronation feast, while all +the company were there. Odo, much displeased, sent his friend +Dunstan to seek him. Dunstan finding him in the company of his +beautiful young wife ELGIVA, and her mother ETHELGIVA, a good and +virtuous lady, not only grossly abused them, but dragged the young +King back into the feasting-hall by force. Some, again, think +Dunstan did this because the young King's fair wife was his own +cousin, and the monks objected to people marrying their own +cousins; but I believe he did it, because he was an imperious, +audacious, ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a young lady +himself before he became a sour monk, hated all love now, and +everything belonging to it. + +The young King was quite old enough to feel this insult. Dunstan +had been Treasurer in the last reign, and he soon charged Dunstan +with having taken some of the last king's money. The Glastonbury +Abbot fled to Belgium (very narrowly escaping some pursuers who +were sent to put out his eyes, as you will wish they had, when you +read what follows), and his abbey was given to priests who were +married; whom he always, both before and afterwards, opposed. But +he quickly conspired with his friend, Odo the Dane, to set up the +King's young brother, EDGAR, as his rival for the throne; and, not +content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen Elgiva, +though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, to be stolen +from one of the Royal Palaces, branded in the cheek with a red-hot +iron, and sold into slavery in Ireland. But the Irish people +pitied and befriended her; and they said, 'Let us restore the girl- +queen to the boy-king, and make the young lovers happy!' and they +cured her of her cruel wound, and sent her home as beautiful as +before. But the villain Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo, +caused her to be waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying +to join her husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to +be barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die. When Edwy the +Fair (his people called him so, because he was so young and +handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken heart; +and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and husband ends! +Ah! Better to be two cottagers in these better times, than king +and queen of England in those bad days, though never so fair! + +Then came the boy-king, EDGAR, called the Peaceful, fifteen years +old. Dunstan, being still the real king, drove all married priests +out of the monasteries and abbeys, and replaced them by solitary +monks like himself, of the rigid order called the Benedictines. He +made himself Archbishop of Canterbury, for his greater glory; and +exercised such power over the neighbouring British princes, and so +collected them about the King, that once, when the King held his +court at Chester, and went on the river Dee to visit the monastery +of St. John, the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people +used to delight in relating in stories and songs) by eight crowned +kings, and steered by the King of England. As Edgar was very +obedient to Dunstan and the monks, they took great pains to +represent him as the best of kings. But he was really profligate, +debauched, and vicious. He once forcibly carried off a young lady +from the convent at Wilton; and Dunstan, pretending to be very much +shocked, condemned him not to wear his crown upon his head for +seven years - no great punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly +have been a more comfortable ornament to wear, than a stewpan +without a handle. His marriage with his second wife, ELFRIDA, is +one of the worst events of his reign. Hearing of the beauty of +this lady, he despatched his favourite courtier, ATHELWOLD, to her +father's castle in Devonshire, to see if she were really as +charming as fame reported. Now, she was so exceedingly beautiful +that Athelwold fell in love with her himself, and married her; but +he told the King that she was only rich - not handsome. The King, +suspecting the truth when they came home, resolved to pay the +newly-married couple a visit; and, suddenly, told Athelwold to +prepare for his immediate coming. Athelwold, terrified, confessed +to his young wife what he had said and done, and implored her to +disguise her beauty by some ugly dress or silly manner, that he +might be safe from the King's anger. She promised that she would; +but she was a proud woman, who would far rather have been a queen +than the wife of a courtier. She dressed herself in her best +dress, and adorned herself with her richest jewels; and when the +King came, presently, he discovered the cheat. So, he caused his +false friend, Athelwold, to be murdered in a wood, and married his +widow, this bad Elfrida. Six or seven years afterwards, he died; +and was buried, as if he had been all that the monks said he was, +in the abbey of Glastonbury, which he - or Dunstan for him - had +much enriched. + +England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by wolves, +which, driven out of the open country, hid themselves in the +mountains of Wales when they were not attacking travellers and +animals, that the tribute payable by the Welsh people was forgiven +them, on condition of their producing, every year, three hundred +wolves' heads. And the Welshmen were so sharp upon the wolves, to +save their money, that in four years there was not a wolf left. + +Then came the boy-king, EDWARD, called the Martyr, from the manner +of his death. Elfrida had a son, named ETHELRED, for whom she +claimed the throne; but Dunstan did not choose to favour him, and +he made Edward king. The boy was hunting, one day, down in +Dorsetshire, when he rode near to Corfe Castle, where Elfrida and +Ethelred lived. Wishing to see them kindly, he rode away from his +attendants and galloped to the castle gate, where he arrived at +twilight, and blew his hunting-horn. 'You are welcome, dear King,' +said Elfrida, coming out, with her brightest smiles. 'Pray you +dismount and enter.' 'Not so, dear madam,' said the King. 'My +company will miss me, and fear that I have met with some harm. +Please you to give me a cup of wine, that I may drink here, in the +saddle, to you and to my little brother, and so ride away with the +good speed I have made in riding here.' Elfrida, going in to bring +the wine, whispered an armed servant, one of her attendants, who +stole out of the darkening gateway, and crept round behind the +King's horse. As the King raised the cup to his lips, saying, +'Health!' to the wicked woman who was smiling on him, and to his +innocent brother whose hand she held in hers, and who was only ten +years old, this armed man made a spring and stabbed him in the +back. He dropped the cup and spurred his horse away; but, soon +fainting with loss of blood, dropped from the saddle, and, in his +fall, entangled one of his feet in the stirrup. The frightened +horse dashed on; trailing his rider's curls upon the ground; +dragging his smooth young face through ruts, and stones, and +briers, and fallen leaves, and mud; until the hunters, tracking the +animal's course by the King's blood, caught his bridle, and +released the disfigured body. + +Then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, ETHELRED, whom +Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered brother +riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat with a torch +which she snatched from one of the attendants. The people so +disliked this boy, on account of his cruel mother and the murder +she had done to promote him, that Dunstan would not have had him +for king, but would have made EDGITHA, the daughter of the dead +King Edgar, and of the lady whom he stole out of the convent at +Wilton, Queen of England, if she would have consented. But she +knew the stories of the youthful kings too well, and would not be +persuaded from the convent where she lived in peace; so, Dunstan +put Ethelred on the throne, having no one else to put there, and +gave him the nickname of THE UNREADY - knowing that he wanted +resolution and firmness. + +At first, Elfrida possessed great influence over the young King, +but, as he grew older and came of age, her influence declined. The +infamous woman, not having it in her power to do any more evil, +then retired from court, and, according, to the fashion of the +time, built churches and monasteries, to expiate her guilt. As if +a church, with a steeple reaching to the very stars, would have +been any sign of true repentance for the blood of the poor boy, +whose murdered form was trailed at his horse's heels! As if she +could have buried her wickedness beneath the senseless stones of +the whole world, piled up one upon another, for the monks to live +in! + +About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan died. He was +growing old then, but was as stern and artful as ever. Two +circumstances that happened in connexion with him, in this reign of +Ethelred, made a great noise. Once, he was present at a meeting of +the Church, when the question was discussed whether priests should +have permission to marry; and, as he sat with his head hung down, +apparently thinking about it, a voice seemed to come out of a +crucifix in the room, and warn the meeting to be of his opinion. +This was some juggling of Dunstan's, and was probably his own voice +disguised. But he played off a worse juggle than that, soon +afterwards; for, another meeting being held on the same subject, +and he and his supporters being seated on one side of a great room, +and their opponents on the other, he rose and said, 'To Christ +himself, as judge, do I commit this cause!' Immediately on these +words being spoken, the floor where the opposite party sat gave +way, and some were killed and many wounded. You may be pretty sure +that it had been weakened under Dunstan's direction, and that it +fell at Dunstan's signal. HIS part of the floor did not go down. +No, no. He was too good a workman for that. + +When he died, the monks settled that he was a Saint, and called him +Saint Dunstan ever afterwards. They might just as well have +settled that he was a coach-horse, and could just as easily have +called him one. + +Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I dare say, to be rid of this +holy saint; but, left to himself, he was a poor weak king, and his +reign was a reign of defeat and shame. The restless Danes, led by +SWEYN, a son of the King of Denmark who had quarrelled with his +father and had been banished from home, again came into England, +and, year after year, attacked and despoiled large towns. To coax +these sea-kings away, the weak Ethelred paid them money; but, the +more money he paid, the more money the Danes wanted. At first, he +gave them ten thousand pounds; on their next invasion, sixteen +thousand pounds; on their next invasion, four and twenty thousand +pounds: to pay which large sums, the unfortunate English people +were heavily taxed. But, as the Danes still came back and wanted +more, he thought it would be a good plan to marry into some +powerful foreign family that would help him with soldiers. So, in +the year one thousand and two, he courted and married Emma, the +sister of Richard Duke of Normandy; a lady who was called the +Flower of Normandy. + +And now, a terrible deed was done in England, the like of which was +never done on English ground before or since. On the thirteenth of +November, in pursuance of secret instructions sent by the King over +the whole country, the inhabitants of every town and city armed, +and murdered all the Danes who were their neighbours. + +Young and old, babies and soldiers, men and women, every Dane was +killed. No doubt there were among them many ferocious men who had +done the English great wrong, and whose pride and insolence, in +swaggering in the houses of the English and insulting their wives +and daughters, had become unbearable; but no doubt there were also +among them many peaceful Christian Danes who had married English +women and become like English men. They were all slain, even to +GUNHILDA, the sister of the King of Denmark, married to an English +lord; who was first obliged to see the murder of her husband and +her child, and then was killed herself. + +When the King of the sea-kings heard of this deed of blood, he +swore that he would have a great revenge. He raised an army, and a +mightier fleet of ships than ever yet had sailed to England; and in +all his army there was not a slave or an old man, but every soldier +was a free man, and the son of a free man, and in the prime of +life, and sworn to be revenged upon the English nation, for the +massacre of that dread thirteenth of November, when his countrymen +and countrywomen, and the little children whom they loved, were +killed with fire and sword. And so, the sea-kings came to England +in many great ships, each bearing the flag of its own commander. +Golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts of prey, +threatened England from the prows of those ships, as they came +onward through the water; and were reflected in the shining shields +that hung upon their sides. The ship that bore the standard of the +King of the sea-kings was carved and painted like a mighty serpent; +and the King in his anger prayed that the Gods in whom he trusted +might all desert him, if his serpent did not strike its fangs into +England's heart. + +And indeed it did. For, the great army landing from the great +fleet, near Exeter, went forward, laying England waste, and +striking their lances in the earth as they advanced, or throwing +them into rivers, in token of their making all the island theirs. +In remembrance of the black November night when the Danes were +murdered, wheresoever the invaders came, they made the Saxons +prepare and spread for them great feasts; and when they had eaten +those feasts, and had drunk a curse to England with wild +rejoicings, they drew their swords, and killed their Saxon +entertainers, and marched on. For six long years they carried on +this war: burning the crops, farmhouses, barns, mills, granaries; +killing the labourers in the fields; preventing the seed from being +sown in the ground; causing famine and starvation; leaving only +heaps of ruin and smoking ashes, where they had found rich towns. +To crown this misery, English officers and men deserted, and even +the favourites of Ethelred the Unready, becoming traitors, seized +many of the English ships, turned pirates against their own +country, and aided by a storm occasioned the loss of nearly the +whole English navy. + +There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, who was true +to his country and the feeble King. He was a priest, and a brave +one. For twenty days, the Archbishop of Canterbury defended that +city against its Danish besiegers; and when a traitor in the town +threw the gates open and admitted them, he said, in chains, 'I will +not buy my life with money that must be extorted from the suffering +people. Do with me what you please!' Again and again, he steadily +refused to purchase his release with gold wrung from the poor. + +At last, the Danes being tired of this, and being assembled at a +drunken merry-making, had him brought into the feasting-hall. + +'Now, bishop,' they said, 'we want gold!' + +He looked round on the crowd of angry faces; from the shaggy beards +close to him, to the shaggy beards against the walls, where men +were mounted on tables and forms to see him over the heads of +others: and he knew that his time was come. + +'I have no gold,' he said. + +'Get it, bishop!' they all thundered. + +'That, I have often told you I will not,' said he. + +They gathered closer round him, threatening, but he stood unmoved. +Then, one man struck him; then, another; then a cursing soldier +picked up from a heap in a corner of the hall, where fragments had +been rudely thrown at dinner, a great ox-bone, and cast it at his +face, from which the blood came spurting forth; then, others ran to +the same heap, and knocked him down with other bones, and bruised +and battered him; until one soldier whom he had baptised (willing, +as I hope for the sake of that soldier's soul, to shorten the +sufferings of the good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe. + +If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of this noble +archbishop, he might have done something yet. But he paid the +Danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead, and gained so little by +the cowardly act, that Sweyn soon afterwards came over to subdue +all England. So broken was the attachment of the English people, +by this time, to their incapable King and their forlorn country +which could not protect them, that they welcomed Sweyn on all +sides, as a deliverer. London faithfully stood out, as long as the +King was within its walls; but, when he sneaked away, it also +welcomed the Dane. Then, all was over; and the King took refuge +abroad with the Duke of Normandy, who had already given shelter to +the King's wife, once the Flower of that country, and to her +children. + +Still, the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, could +not quite forget the great King Alfred and the Saxon race. When +Sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a month after he had been +proclaimed King of England, they generously sent to Ethelred, to +say that they would have him for their King again, 'if he would +only govern them better than he had governed them before.' The +Unready, instead of coming himself, sent Edward, one of his sons, +to make promises for him. At last, he followed, and the English +declared him King. The Danes declared CANUTE, the son of Sweyn, +King. Thus, direful war began again, and lasted for three years, +when the Unready died. And I know of nothing better that he did, +in all his reign of eight and thirty years. + +Was Canute to be King now? Not over the Saxons, they said; they +must have EDMUND, one of the sons of the Unready, who was surnamed +IRONSIDE, because of his strength and stature. Edmund and Canute +thereupon fell to, and fought five battles - O unhappy England, +what a fighting-ground it was! - and then Ironside, who was a big +man, proposed to Canute, who was a little man, that they two should +fight it out in single combat. If Canute had been the big man, he +would probably have said yes, but, being the little man, he +decidedly said no. However, he declared that he was willing to +divide the kingdom - to take all that lay north of Watling Street, +as the old Roman military road from Dover to Chester was called, +and to give Ironside all that lay south of it. Most men being +weary of so much bloodshed, this was done. But Canute soon became +sole King of England; for Ironside died suddenly within two months. +Some think that he was killed, and killed by Canute's orders. No +one knows. + + + +CHAPTER V - ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE + + + +CANUTE reigned eighteen years. He was a merciless King at first. +After he had clasped the hands of the Saxon chiefs, in token of the +sincerity with which he swore to be just and good to them in return +for their acknowledging him, he denounced and slew many of them, as +well as many relations of the late King. 'He who brings me the +head of one of my enemies,' he used to say, 'shall be dearer to me +than a brother.' And he was so severe in hunting down his enemies, +that he must have got together a pretty large family of these dear +brothers. He was strongly inclined to kill EDMUND and EDWARD, two +children, sons of poor Ironside; but, being afraid to do so in +England, he sent them over to the King of Sweden, with a request +that the King would be so good as 'dispose of them.' If the King +of Sweden had been like many, many other men of that day, he would +have had their innocent throats cut; but he was a kind man, and +brought them up tenderly. + +Normandy ran much in Canute's mind. In Normandy were the two +children of the late king - EDWARD and ALFRED by name; and their +uncle the Duke might one day claim the crown for them. But the +Duke showed so little inclination to do so now, that he proposed to +Canute to marry his sister, the widow of The Unready; who, being +but a showy flower, and caring for nothing so much as becoming a +queen again, left her children and was wedded to him. + +Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valour of the English in +his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble him at home, +Canute had a prosperous reign, and made many improvements. He was +a poet and a musician. He grew sorry, as he grew older, for the +blood he had shed at first; and went to Rome in a Pilgrim's dress, +by way of washing it out. He gave a great deal of money to +foreigners on his journey; but he took it from the English before +he started. On the whole, however, he certainly became a far +better man when he had no opposition to contend with, and was as +great a King as England had known for some time. + +The old writers of history relate how that Canute was one day +disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery, and how he caused +his chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to command the +tide as it came up not to wet the edge of his robe, for the land +was his; how the tide came up, of course, without regarding him; +and how he then turned to his flatterers, and rebuked them, saying, +what was the might of any earthly king, to the might of the +Creator, who could say unto the sea, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and +no farther!' We may learn from this, I think, that a little sense +will go a long way in a king; and that courtiers are not easily +cured of flattery, nor kings of a liking for it. If the courtiers +of Canute had not known, long before, that the King was fond of +flattery, they would have known better than to offer it in such +large doses. And if they had not known that he was vain of this +speech (anything but a wonderful speech it seems to me, if a good +child had made it), they would not have been at such great pains to +repeat it. I fancy I see them all on the sea-shore together; the +King's chair sinking in the sand; the King in a mighty good humour +with his own wisdom; and the courtiers pretending to be quite +stunned by it! + +It is not the sea alone that is bidden to go 'thus far, and no +farther.' The great command goes forth to all the kings upon the +earth, and went to Canute in the year one thousand and thirty-five, +and stretched him dead upon his bed. Beside it, stood his Norman +wife. Perhaps, as the King looked his last upon her, he, who had +so often thought distrustfully of Normandy, long ago, thought once +more of the two exiled Princes in their uncle's court, and of the +little favour they could feel for either Danes or Saxons, and of a +rising cloud in Normandy that slowly moved towards England. + + + +CHAPTER VI - ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD +THE CONFESSOR + + + +CANUTE left three sons, by name SWEYN, HAROLD, and HARDICANUTE; but +his Queen, Emma, once the Flower of Normandy, was the mother of +only Hardicanute. Canute had wished his dominions to be divided +between the three, and had wished Harold to have England; but the +Saxon people in the South of England, headed by a nobleman with +great possessions, called the powerful EARL GODWIN (who is said to +have been originally a poor cow-boy), opposed this, and desired to +have, instead, either Hardicanute, or one of the two exiled Princes +who were over in Normandy. It seemed so certain that there would +be more bloodshed to settle this dispute, that many people left +their homes, and took refuge in the woods and swamps. Happily, +however, it was agreed to refer the whole question to a great +meeting at Oxford, which decided that Harold should have all the +country north of the Thames, with London for his capital city, and +that Hardicanute should have all the south. The quarrel was so +arranged; and, as Hardicanute was in Denmark troubling himself very +little about anything but eating and getting drunk, his mother and +Earl Godwin governed the south for him. + +They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people who had +hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, when Edward, the +elder of the two exiled Princes, came over from Normandy with a few +followers, to claim the English Crown. His mother Emma, however, +who only cared for her last son Hardicanute, instead of assisting +him, as he expected, opposed him so strongly with all her influence +that he was very soon glad to get safely back. His brother Alfred +was not so fortunate. Believing in an affectionate letter, written +some time afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother's name +(but whether really with or without his mother's knowledge is now +uncertain), he allowed himself to be tempted over to England, with +a good force of soldiers, and landing on the Kentish coast, and +being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin, proceeded into Surrey, as +far as the town of Guildford. Here, he and his men halted in the +evening to rest, having still the Earl in their company; who had +ordered lodgings and good cheer for them. But, in the dead of the +night, when they were off their guard, being divided into small +parties sleeping soundly after a long march and a plentiful supper +in different houses, they were set upon by the King's troops, and +taken prisoners. Next morning they were drawn out in a line, to +the number of six hundred men, and were barbarously tortured and +killed; with the exception of every tenth man, who was sold into +slavery. As to the wretched Prince Alfred, he was stripped naked, +tied to a horse and sent away into the Isle of Ely, where his eyes +were torn out of his head, and where in a few days he miserably +died. I am not sure that the Earl had wilfully entrapped him, but +I suspect it strongly. + +Harold was now King all over England, though it is doubtful whether +the Archbishop of Canterbury (the greater part of the priests were +Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) ever consented to crown him. +Crowned or uncrowned, with the Archbishop's leave or without it, he +was King for four years: after which short reign he died, and was +buried; having never done much in life but go a hunting. He was +such a fast runner at this, his favourite sport, that the people +called him Harold Harefoot. + +Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in Flanders, plotting, with his +mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder of Prince +Alfred), for the invasion of England. The Danes and Saxons, +finding themselves without a King, and dreading new disputes, made +common cause, and joined in inviting him to occupy the Throne. He +consented, and soon troubled them enough; for he brought over +numbers of Danes, and taxed the people so insupportably to enrich +those greedy favourites that there were many insurrections, +especially one at Worcester, where the citizens rose and killed his +tax-collectors; in revenge for which he burned their city. He was +a brutal King, whose first public act was to order the dead body of +poor Harold Harefoot to be dug up, beheaded, and thrown into the +river. His end was worthy of such a beginning. He fell down +drunk, with a goblet of wine in his hand, at a wedding-feast at +Lambeth, given in honour of the marriage of his standard-bearer, a +Dane named TOWED THE PROUD. And he never spoke again. + +EDWARD, afterwards called by the monks THE CONFESSOR, succeeded; +and his first act was to oblige his mother Emma, who had favoured +him so little, to retire into the country; where she died some ten +years afterwards. He was the exiled prince whose brother Alfred +had been so foully killed. He had been invited over from Normandy +by Hardicanute, in the course of his short reign of two years, and +had been handsomely treated at court. His cause was now favoured +by the powerful Earl Godwin, and he was soon made King. This Earl +had been suspected by the people, ever since Prince Alfred's cruel +death; he had even been tried in the last reign for the Prince's +murder, but had been pronounced not guilty; chiefly, as it was +supposed, because of a present he had made to the swinish King, of +a gilded ship with a figure-head of solid gold, and a crew of +eighty splendidly armed men. It was his interest to help the new +King with his power, if the new King would help him against the +popular distrust and hatred. So they made a bargain. Edward the +Confessor got the Throne. The Earl got more power and more land, +and his daughter Editha was made queen; for it was a part of their +compact that the King should take her for his wife. + +But, although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to be +beloved - good, beautiful, sensible, and kind - the King from the +first neglected her. Her father and her six proud brothers, +resenting this cold treatment, harassed the King greatly by +exerting all their power to make him unpopular. Having lived so +long in Normandy, he preferred the Normans to the English. He made +a Norman Archbishop, and Norman Bishops; his great officers and +favourites were all Normans; he introduced the Norman fashions and +the Norman language; in imitation of the state custom of Normandy, +he attached a great seal to his state documents, instead of merely +marking them, as the Saxon Kings had done, with the sign of the +cross - just as poor people who have never been taught to write, +now make the same mark for their names. All this, the powerful +Earl Godwin and his six proud sons represented to the people as +disfavour shown towards the English; and thus they daily increased +their own power, and daily diminished the power of the King. + +They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when he had +reigned eight years. Eustace, Earl of Bologne, who had married the +King's sister, came to England on a visit. After staying at the +court some time, he set forth, with his numerous train of +attendants, to return home. They were to embark at Dover. +Entering that peaceful town in armour, they took possession of the +best houses, and noisily demanded to be lodged and entertained +without payment. One of the bold men of Dover, who would not +endure to have these domineering strangers jingling their heavy +swords and iron corselets up and down his house, eating his meat +and drinking his strong liquor, stood in his doorway and refused +admission to the first armed man who came there. The armed man +drew, and wounded him. The man of Dover struck the armed man dead. +Intelligence of what he had done, spreading through the streets to +where the Count Eustace and his men were standing by their horses, +bridle in hand, they passionately mounted, galloped to the house, +surrounded it, forced their way in (the doors and windows being +closed when they came up), and killed the man of Dover at his own +fireside. They then clattered through the streets, cutting down +and riding over men, women, and children. This did not last long, +you may believe. The men of Dover set upon them with great fury, +killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded many more, and, +blockading the road to the port so that they should not embark, +beat them out of the town by the way they had come. Hereupon, +Count Eustace rides as hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where +Edward is, surrounded by Norman monks and Norman lords. 'Justice!' +cries the Count, 'upon the men of Dover, who have set upon and +slain my people!' The King sends immediately for the powerful Earl +Godwin, who happens to be near; reminds him that Dover is under his +government; and orders him to repair to Dover and do military +execution on the inhabitants. 'It does not become you,' says the +proud Earl in reply, 'to condemn without a hearing those whom you +have sworn to protect. I will not do it.' + +The King, therefore, summoned the Earl, on pain of banishment and +loss of his titles and property, to appear before the court to +answer this disobedience. The Earl refused to appear. He, his +eldest son Harold, and his second son Sweyn, hastily raised as many +fighting men as their utmost power could collect, and demanded to +have Count Eustace and his followers surrendered to the justice of +the country. The King, in his turn, refused to give them up, and +raised a strong force. After some treaty and delay, the troops of +the great Earl and his sons began to fall off. The Earl, with a +part of his family and abundance of treasure, sailed to Flanders; +Harold escaped to Ireland; and the power of the great family was +for that time gone in England. But, the people did not forget +them. + +Then, Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a mean +spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and sons +upon the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending wife, whom +all who saw her (her husband and his monks excepted) loved. He +seized rapaciously upon her fortune and her jewels, and allowing +her only one attendant, confined her in a gloomy convent, of which +a sister of his - no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart - +was abbess or jailer. + +Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his way, the +King favoured the Normans more than ever. He invited over WILLIAM, +DUKE OF NORMANDY, the son of that Duke who had received him and his +murdered brother long ago, and of a peasant girl, a tanner's +daughter, with whom that Duke had fallen in love for her beauty as +he saw her washing clothes in a brook. William, who was a great +warrior, with a passion for fine horses, dogs, and arms, accepted +the invitation; and the Normans in England, finding themselves more +numerous than ever when he arrived with his retinue, and held in +still greater honour at court than before, became more and more +haughty towards the people, and were more and more disliked by +them. + +The old Earl Godwin, though he was abroad, knew well how the people +felt; for, with part of the treasure he had carried away with him, +he kept spies and agents in his pay all over England. + +Accordingly, he thought the time was come for fitting out a great +expedition against the Norman-loving King. With it, he sailed to +the Isle of Wight, where he was joined by his son Harold, the most +gallant and brave of all his family. And so the father and son +came sailing up the Thames to Southwark; great numbers of the +people declaring for them, and shouting for the English Earl and +the English Harold, against the Norman favourites! + +The King was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually have +been whensoever they have been in the hands of monks. But the +people rallied so thickly round the old Earl and his son, and the +old Earl was so steady in demanding without bloodshed the +restoration of himself and his family to their rights, that at last +the court took the alarm. The Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, and +the Norman Bishop of London, surrounded by their retainers, fought +their way out of London, and escaped from Essex to France in a +fishing-boat. The other Norman favourites dispersed in all +directions. The old Earl and his sons (except Sweyn, who had +committed crimes against the law) were restored to their +possessions and dignities. Editha, the virtuous and lovely Queen +of the insensible King, was triumphantly released from her prison, +the convent, and once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed in +the jewels of which, when she had no champion to support her +rights, her cold-blooded husband had deprived her. + +The old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored fortune. He +fell down in a fit at the King's table, and died upon the third day +afterwards. Harold succeeded to his power, and to a far higher +place in the attachment of the people than his father had ever +held. By his valour he subdued the King's enemies in many bloody +fights. He was vigorous against rebels in Scotland - this was the +time when Macbeth slew Duncan, upon which event our English +Shakespeare, hundreds of years afterwards, wrote his great tragedy; +and he killed the restless Welsh King GRIFFITH, and brought his +head to England. + +What Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the French +coast by a tempest, is not at all certain; nor does it at all +matter. That his ship was forced by a storm on that shore, and +that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In those barbarous +days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken prisoners, and obliged +to pay ransom. So, a certain Count Guy, who was the Lord of +Ponthieu where Harold's disaster happened, seized him, instead of +relieving him like a hospitable and Christian lord as he ought to +have done, and expected to make a very good thing of it. + +But Harold sent off immediately to Duke William of Normandy, +complaining of this treatment; and the Duke no sooner heard of it +than he ordered Harold to be escorted to the ancient town of Rouen, +where he then was, and where he received him as an honoured guest. +Now, some writers tell us that Edward the Confessor, who was by +this time old and had no children, had made a will, appointing Duke +William of Normandy his successor, and had informed the Duke of his +having done so. There is no doubt that he was anxious about his +successor; because he had even invited over, from abroad, EDWARD +THE OUTLAW, a son of Ironside, who had come to England with his +wife and three children, but whom the King had strangely refused to +see when he did come, and who had died in London suddenly (princes +were terribly liable to sudden death in those days), and had been +buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. The King might possibly have made +such a will; or, having always been fond of the Normans, he might +have encouraged Norman William to aspire to the English crown, by +something that he said to him when he was staying at the English +court. But, certainly William did now aspire to it; and knowing +that Harold would be a powerful rival, he called together a great +assembly of his nobles, offered Harold his daughter ADELE in +marriage, informed him that he meant on King Edward's death to +claim the English crown as his own inheritance, and required Harold +then and there to swear to aid him. Harold, being in the Duke's +power, took this oath upon the Missal, or Prayer-book. It is a +good example of the superstitions of the monks, that this Missal, +instead of being placed upon a table, was placed upon a tub; which, +when Harold had sworn, was uncovered, and shown to be full of dead +men's bones - bones, as the monks pretended, of saints. This was +supposed to make Harold's oath a great deal more impressive and +binding. As if the great name of the Creator of Heaven and earth +could be made more solemn by a knuckle-bone, or a double-tooth, or +a finger-nail, of Dunstan! + +Within a week or two after Harold's return to England, the dreary +old Confessor was found to be dying. After wandering in his mind +like a very weak old man, he died. As he had put himself entirely +in the hands of the monks when he was alive, they praised him +lustily when he was dead. They had gone so far, already, as to +persuade him that he could work miracles; and had brought people +afflicted with a bad disorder of the skin, to him, to be touched +and cured. This was called 'touching for the King's Evil,' which +afterwards became a royal custom. You know, however, Who really +touched the sick, and healed them; and you know His sacred name is +not among the dusty line of human kings. + + + +CHAPTER VII - ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND, AND CONQUERED BY THE +NORMANS + + + +HAROLD was crowned King of England on the very day of the maudlin +Confessor's funeral. He had good need to be quick about it. When +the news reached Norman William, hunting in his park at Rouen, he +dropped his bow, returned to his palace, called his nobles to +council, and presently sent ambassadors to Harold, calling on him +to keep his oath and resign the Crown. Harold would do no such +thing. The barons of France leagued together round Duke William +for the invasion of England. Duke William promised freely to +distribute English wealth and English lands among them. The Pope +sent to Normandy a consecrated banner, and a ring containing a hair +which he warranted to have grown on the head of Saint Peter. He +blessed the enterprise; and cursed Harold; and requested that the +Normans would pay 'Peter's Pence' - or a tax to himself of a penny +a year on every house - a little more regularly in future, if they +could make it convenient. + +King Harold had a rebel brother in Flanders, who was a vassal of +HAROLD HARDRADA, King of Norway. This brother, and this Norwegian +King, joining their forces against England, with Duke William's +help, won a fight in which the English were commanded by two +nobles; and then besieged York. Harold, who was waiting for the +Normans on the coast at Hastings, with his army, marched to +Stamford Bridge upon the river Derwent to give them instant battle. + +He found them drawn up in a hollow circle, marked out by their +shining spears. Riding round this circle at a distance, to survey +it, he saw a brave figure on horseback, in a blue mantle and a +bright helmet, whose horse suddenly stumbled and threw him. + +'Who is that man who has fallen?' Harold asked of one of his +captains. + +'The King of Norway,' he replied. + +'He is a tall and stately king,' said Harold, 'but his end is +near.' + +He added, in a little while, 'Go yonder to my brother, and tell +him, if he withdraw his troops, he shall be Earl of Northumberland, +and rich and powerful in England.' + +The captain rode away and gave the message. + +'What will he give to my friend the King of Norway?' asked the +brother. + +'Seven feet of earth for a grave,' replied the captain. + +'No more?' returned the brother, with a smile. + +'The King of Norway being a tall man, perhaps a little more,' +replied the captain. + +'Ride back!' said the brother, 'and tell King Harold to make ready +for the fight!' + +He did so, very soon. And such a fight King Harold led against +that force, that his brother, and the Norwegian King, and every +chief of note in all their host, except the Norwegian King's son, +Olave, to whom he gave honourable dismissal, were left dead upon +the field. The victorious army marched to York. As King Harold +sat there at the feast, in the midst of all his company, a stir was +heard at the doors; and messengers all covered with mire from +riding far and fast through broken ground came hurrying in, to +report that the Normans had landed in England. + +The intelligence was true. They had been tossed about by contrary +winds, and some of their ships had been wrecked. A part of their +own shore, to which they had been driven back, was strewn with +Norman bodies. But they had once more made sail, led by the Duke's +own galley, a present from his wife, upon the prow whereof the +figure of a golden boy stood pointing towards England. By day, the +banner of the three Lions of Normandy, the diverse coloured sails, +the gilded vans, the many decorations of this gorgeous ship, had +glittered in the sun and sunny water; by night, a light had +sparkled like a star at her mast-head. And now, encamped near +Hastings, with their leader lying in the old Roman castle of +Pevensey, the English retiring in all directions, the land for +miles around scorched and smoking, fired and pillaged, was the +whole Norman power, hopeful and strong on English ground. + +Harold broke up the feast and hurried to London. Within a week, +his army was ready. He sent out spies to ascertain the Norman +strength. William took them, caused them to be led through his +whole camp, and then dismissed. 'The Normans,' said these spies to +Harold, 'are not bearded on the upper lip as we English are, but +are shorn. They are priests.' 'My men,' replied Harold, with a +laugh, 'will find those priests good soldiers!' + +'The Saxons,' reported Duke William's outposts of Norman soldiers, +who were instructed to retire as King Harold's army advanced, 'rush +on us through their pillaged country with the fury of madmen.' + +'Let them come, and come soon!' said Duke William. + +Some proposals for a reconciliation were made, but were soon +abandoned. In the middle of the month of October, in the year one +thousand and sixty-six, the Normans and the English came front to +front. All night the armies lay encamped before each other, in a +part of the country then called Senlac, now called (in remembrance +of them) Battle. With the first dawn of day, they arose. There, +in the faint light, were the English on a hill; a wood behind them; +in their midst, the Royal banner, representing a fighting warrior, +woven in gold thread, adorned with precious stones; beneath the +banner, as it rustled in the wind, stood King Harold on foot, with +two of his remaining brothers by his side; around them, still and +silent as the dead, clustered the whole English army - every +soldier covered by his shield, and bearing in his hand his dreaded +English battle-axe. + +On an opposite hill, in three lines, archers, foot-soldiers, +horsemen, was the Norman force. Of a sudden, a great battle-cry, +'God help us!' burst from the Norman lines. The English answered +with their own battle-cry, 'God's Rood! Holy Rood!' The Normans +then came sweeping down the hill to attack the English. + +There was one tall Norman Knight who rode before the Norman army on +a prancing horse, throwing up his heavy sword and catching it, and +singing of the bravery of his countrymen. An English Knight, who +rode out from the English force to meet him, fell by this Knight's +hand. Another English Knight rode out, and he fell too. But then +a third rode out, and killed the Norman. This was in the first +beginning of the fight. It soon raged everywhere. + +The English, keeping side by side in a great mass, cared no more +for the showers of Norman arrows than if they had been showers of +Norman rain. When the Norman horsemen rode against them, with +their battle-axes they cut men and horses down. The Normans gave +way. The English pressed forward. A cry went forth among the +Norman troops that Duke William was killed. Duke William took off +his helmet, in order that his face might be distinctly seen, and +rode along the line before his men. This gave them courage. As +they turned again to face the English, some of their Norman horse +divided the pursuing body of the English from the rest, and thus +all that foremost portion of the English army fell, fighting +bravely. The main body still remaining firm, heedless of the +Norman arrows, and with their battle-axes cutting down the crowds +of horsemen when they rode up, like forests of young trees, Duke +William pretended to retreat. The eager English followed. The +Norman army closed again, and fell upon them with great slaughter. + +'Still,' said Duke William, 'there are thousands of the English, +firms as rocks around their King. Shoot upward, Norman archers, +that your arrows may fall down upon their faces!' + +The sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still raged. Through +all the wild October day, the clash and din resounded in the air. +In the red sunset, and in the white moonlight, heaps upon heaps of +dead men lay strewn, a dreadful spectacle, all over the ground. + +King Harold, wounded with an arrow in the eye, was nearly blind. +His brothers were already killed. Twenty Norman Knights, whose +battered armour had flashed fiery and golden in the sunshine all +day long, and now looked silvery in the moonlight, dashed forward +to seize the Royal banner from the English Knights and soldiers, +still faithfully collected round their blinded King. The King +received a mortal wound, and dropped. The English broke and fled. +The Normans rallied, and the day was lost. + +O what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when lights were shining +in the tent of the victorious Duke William, which was pitched near +the spot where Harold fell - and he and his knights were carousing, +within - and soldiers with torches, going slowly to and fro, +without, sought for the corpse of Harold among piles of dead - and +the Warrior, worked in golden thread and precious stones, lay low, +all torn and soiled with blood - and the three Norman Lions kept +watch over the field! + + + +CHAPTER VIII - ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST, THE NORMAN +CONQUEROR + + + +UPON the ground where the brave Harold fell, William the Norman +afterwards founded an abbey, which, under the name of Battle Abbey, +was a rich and splendid place through many a troubled year, though +now it is a grey ruin overgrown with ivy. But the first work he +had to do, was to conquer the English thoroughly; and that, as you +know by this time, was hard work for any man. + +He ravaged several counties; he burned and plundered many towns; he +laid waste scores upon scores of miles of pleasant country; he +destroyed innumerable lives. At length STIGAND, Archbishop of +Canterbury, with other representatives of the clergy and the +people, went to his camp, and submitted to him. EDGAR, the +insignificant son of Edmund Ironside, was proclaimed King by +others, but nothing came of it. He fled to Scotland afterwards, +where his sister, who was young and beautiful, married the Scottish +King. Edgar himself was not important enough for anybody to care +much about him. + +On Christmas Day, William was crowned in Westminster Abbey, under +the title of WILLIAM THE FIRST; but he is best known as WILLIAM THE +CONQUEROR. It was a strange coronation. One of the bishops who +performed the ceremony asked the Normans, in French, if they would +have Duke William for their king? They answered Yes. Another of +the bishops put the same question to the Saxons, in English. They +too answered Yes, with a loud shout. The noise being heard by a +guard of Norman horse-soldiers outside, was mistaken for resistance +on the part of the English. The guard instantly set fire to the +neighbouring houses, and a tumult ensued; in the midst of which the +King, being left alone in the Abbey, with a few priests (and they +all being in a terrible fright together), was hurriedly crowned. +When the crown was placed upon his head, he swore to govern the +English as well as the best of their own monarchs. I dare say you +think, as I do, that if we except the Great Alfred, he might pretty +easily have done that. + +Numbers of the English nobles had been killed in the last +disastrous battle. Their estates, and the estates of all the +nobles who had fought against him there, King William seized upon, +and gave to his own Norman knights and nobles. Many great English +families of the present time acquired their English lands in this +way, and are very proud of it. + +But what is got by force must be maintained by force. These nobles +were obliged to build castles all over England, to defend their new +property; and, do what he would, the King could neither soothe nor +quell the nation as he wished. He gradually introduced the Norman +language and the Norman customs; yet, for a long time the great +body of the English remained sullen and revengeful. On his going +over to Normandy, to visit his subjects there, the oppressions of +his half-brother ODO, whom he left in charge of his English +kingdom, drove the people mad. The men of Kent even invited over, +to take possession of Dover, their old enemy Count Eustace of +Boulogne, who had led the fray when the Dover man was slain at his +own fireside. The men of Hereford, aided by the Welsh, and +commanded by a chief named EDRIC THE WILD, drove the Normans out of +their country. Some of those who had been dispossessed of their +lands, banded together in the North of England; some, in Scotland; +some, in the thick woods and marshes; and whensoever they could +fall upon the Normans, or upon the English who had submitted to the +Normans, they fought, despoiled, and murdered, like the desperate +outlaws that they were. Conspiracies were set on foot for a +general massacre of the Normans, like the old massacre of the +Danes. In short, the English were in a murderous mood all through +the kingdom. + +King William, fearing he might lose his conquest, came back, and +tried to pacify the London people by soft words. He then set forth +to repress the country people by stern deeds. Among the towns +which he besieged, and where he killed and maimed the inhabitants +without any distinction, sparing none, young or old, armed or +unarmed, were Oxford, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, +Lincoln, York. In all these places, and in many others, fire and +sword worked their utmost horrors, and made the land dreadful to +behold. The streams and rivers were discoloured with blood; the +sky was blackened with smoke; the fields were wastes of ashes; the +waysides were heaped up with dead. Such are the fatal results of +conquest and ambition! Although William was a harsh and angry man, +I do not suppose that he deliberately meant to work this shocking +ruin, when he invaded England. But what he had got by the strong +hand, he could only keep by the strong hand, and in so doing he +made England a great grave. + +Two sons of Harold, by name EDMUND and GODWIN, came over from +Ireland, with some ships, against the Normans, but were defeated. +This was scarcely done, when the outlaws in the woods so harassed +York, that the Governor sent to the King for help. The King +despatched a general and a large force to occupy the town of +Durham. The Bishop of that place met the general outside the town, +and warned him not to enter, as he would be in danger there. The +general cared nothing for the warning, and went in with all his +men. That night, on every hill within sight of Durham, signal +fires were seen to blaze. When the morning dawned, the English, +who had assembled in great strength, forced the gates, rushed into +the town, and slew the Normans every one. The English afterwards +besought the Danes to come and help them. The Danes came, with two +hundred and forty ships. The outlawed nobles joined them; they +captured York, and drove the Normans out of that city. Then, +William bribed the Danes to go away; and took such vengeance on the +English, that all the former fire and sword, smoke and ashes, death +and ruin, were nothing compared with it. In melancholy songs, and +doleful stories, it was still sung and told by cottage fires on +winter evenings, a hundred years afterwards, how, in those dreadful +days of the Normans, there was not, from the River Humber to the +River Tyne, one inhabited village left, nor one cultivated field - +how there was nothing but a dismal ruin, where the human creatures +and the beasts lay dead together. + +The outlaws had, at this time, what they called a Camp of Refuge, +in the midst of the fens of Cambridgeshire. Protected by those +marshy grounds which were difficult of approach, they lay among the +reeds and rushes, and were hidden by the mists that rose up from +the watery earth. Now, there also was, at that time, over the sea +in Flanders, an Englishman named HEREWARD, whose father had died in +his absence, and whose property had been given to a Norman. When +he heard of this wrong that had been done him (from such of the +exiled English as chanced to wander into that country), he longed +for revenge; and joining the outlaws in their camp of refuge, +became their commander. He was so good a soldier, that the Normans +supposed him to be aided by enchantment. William, even after he +had made a road three miles in length across the Cambridgeshire +marshes, on purpose to attack this supposed enchanter, thought it +necessary to engage an old lady, who pretended to be a sorceress, +to come and do a little enchantment in the royal cause. For this +purpose she was pushed on before the troops in a wooden tower; but +Hereward very soon disposed of this unfortunate sorceress, by +burning her, tower and all. The monks of the convent of Ely near +at hand, however, who were fond of good living, and who found it +very uncomfortable to have the country blockaded and their supplies +of meat and drink cut off, showed the King a secret way of +surprising the camp. So Hereward was soon defeated. Whether he +afterwards died quietly, or whether he was killed after killing +sixteen of the men who attacked him (as some old rhymes relate that +he did), I cannot say. His defeat put an end to the Camp of +Refuge; and, very soon afterwards, the King, victorious both in +Scotland and in England, quelled the last rebellious English noble. +He then surrounded himself with Norman lords, enriched by the +property of English nobles; had a great survey made of all the land +in England, which was entered as the property of its new owners, on +a roll called Doomsday Book; obliged the people to put out their +fires and candles at a certain hour every night, on the ringing of +a bell which was called The Curfew; introduced the Norman dresses +and manners; made the Normans masters everywhere, and the English, +servants; turned out the English bishops, and put Normans in their +places; and showed himself to be the Conqueror indeed. + +But, even with his own Normans, he had a restless life. They were +always hungering and thirsting for the riches of the English; and +the more he gave, the more they wanted. His priests were as greedy +as his soldiers. We know of only one Norman who plainly told his +master, the King, that he had come with him to England to do his +duty as a faithful servant, and that property taken by force from +other men had no charms for him. His name was GUILBERT. We should +not forget his name, for it is good to remember and to honour +honest men. + +Besides all these troubles, William the Conqueror was troubled by +quarrels among his sons. He had three living. ROBERT, called +CURTHOSE, because of his short legs; WILLIAM, called RUFUS or the +Red, from the colour of his hair; and HENRY, fond of learning, and +called, in the Norman language, BEAUCLERC, or Fine-Scholar. When +Robert grew up, he asked of his father the government of Normandy, +which he had nominally possessed, as a child, under his mother, +MATILDA. The King refusing to grant it, Robert became jealous and +discontented; and happening one day, while in this temper, to be +ridiculed by his brothers, who threw water on him from a balcony as +he was walking before the door, he drew his sword, rushed up- +stairs, and was only prevented by the King himself from putting +them to death. That same night, he hotly departed with some +followers from his father's court, and endeavoured to take the +Castle of Rouen by surprise. Failing in this, he shut himself up +in another Castle in Normandy, which the King besieged, and where +Robert one day unhorsed and nearly killed him without knowing who +he was. His submission when he discovered his father, and the +intercession of the queen and others, reconciled them; but not +soundly; for Robert soon strayed abroad, and went from court to +court with his complaints. He was a gay, careless, thoughtless +fellow, spending all he got on musicians and dancers; but his +mother loved him, and often, against the King's command, supplied +him with money through a messenger named SAMSON. At length the +incensed King swore he would tear out Samson's eyes; and Samson, +thinking that his only hope of safety was in becoming a monk, +became one, went on such errands no more, and kept his eyes in his +head. + +All this time, from the turbulent day of his strange coronation, +the Conqueror had been struggling, you see, at any cost of cruelty +and bloodshed, to maintain what he had seized. All his reign, he +struggled still, with the same object ever before him. He was a +stern, bold man, and he succeeded in it. + +He loved money, and was particular in his eating, but he had only +leisure to indulge one other passion, and that was his love of +hunting. He carried it to such a height that he ordered whole +villages and towns to be swept away to make forests for the deer. +Not satisfied with sixty-eight Royal Forests, he laid waste an +immense district, to form another in Hampshire, called the New +Forest. The many thousands of miserable peasants who saw their +little houses pulled down, and themselves and children turned into +the open country without a shelter, detested him for his merciless +addition to their many sufferings; and when, in the twenty-first +year of his reign (which proved to be the last), he went over to +Rouen, England was as full of hatred against him, as if every leaf +on every tree in all his Royal Forests had been a curse upon his +head. In the New Forest, his son Richard (for he had four sons) +had been gored to death by a Stag; and the people said that this so +cruelly-made Forest would yet be fatal to others of the Conqueror's +race. + +He was engaged in a dispute with the King of France about some +territory. While he stayed at Rouen, negotiating with that King, +he kept his bed and took medicines: being advised by his +physicians to do so, on account of having grown to an unwieldy +size. Word being brought to him that the King of France made light +of this, and joked about it, he swore in a great rage that he +should rue his jests. He assembled his army, marched into the +disputed territory, burnt - his old way! - the vines, the crops, +and fruit, and set the town of Mantes on fire. But, in an evil +hour; for, as he rode over the hot ruins, his horse, setting his +hoofs upon some burning embers, started, threw him forward against +the pommel of the saddle, and gave him a mortal hurt. For six +weeks he lay dying in a monastery near Rouen, and then made his +will, giving England to William, Normandy to Robert, and five +thousand pounds to Henry. And now, his violent deeds lay heavy on +his mind. He ordered money to be given to many English churches +and monasteries, and - which was much better repentance - released +his prisoners of state, some of whom had been confined in his +dungeons twenty years. + +It was a September morning, and the sun was rising, when the King +was awakened from slumber by the sound of a church bell. 'What +bell is that?' he faintly asked. They told him it was the bell of +the chapel of Saint Mary. 'I commend my soul,' said he, 'to Mary!' +and died. + +Think of his name, The Conqueror, and then consider how he lay in +death! The moment he was dead, his physicians, priests, and +nobles, not knowing what contest for the throne might now take +place, or what might happen in it, hastened away, each man for +himself and his own property; the mercenary servants of the court +began to rob and plunder; the body of the King, in the indecent +strife, was rolled from the bed, and lay alone, for hours, upon the +ground. O Conqueror, of whom so many great names are proud now, of +whom so many great names thought nothing then, it were better to +have conquered one true heart, than England! + +By-and-by, the priests came creeping in with prayers and candles; +and a good knight, named HERLUIN, undertook (which no one else +would do) to convey the body to Caen, in Normandy, in order that it +might be buried in St. Stephen's church there, which the Conqueror +had founded. But fire, of which he had made such bad use in his +life, seemed to follow him of itself in death. A great +conflagration broke out in the town when the body was placed in the +church; and those present running out to extinguish the flames, it +was once again left alone. + +It was not even buried in peace. It was about to be let down, in +its Royal robes, into a tomb near the high altar, in presence of a +great concourse of people, when a loud voice in the crowd cried +out, 'This ground is mine! Upon it, stood my father's house. This +King despoiled me of both ground and house to build this church. +In the great name of GOD, I here forbid his body to be covered with +the earth that is my right!' The priests and bishops present, +knowing the speaker's right, and knowing that the King had often +denied him justice, paid him down sixty shillings for the grave. +Even then, the corpse was not at rest. The tomb was too small, and +they tried to force it in. It broke, a dreadful smell arose, the +people hurried out into the air, and, for the third time, it was +left alone. + +Where were the Conqueror's three sons, that they were not at their +father's burial? Robert was lounging among minstrels, dancers, and +gamesters, in France or Germany. Henry was carrying his five +thousand pounds safely away in a convenient chest he had got made. +William the Red was hurrying to England, to lay hands upon the +Royal treasure and the crown. + + + +CHAPTER IX - ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS + + + +WILLIAM THE RED, in breathless haste, secured the three great forts +of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, and made with hot speed for +Winchester, where the Royal treasure was kept. The treasurer +delivering him the keys, he found that it amounted to sixty +thousand pounds in silver, besides gold and jewels. Possessed of +this wealth, he soon persuaded the Archbishop of Canterbury to +crown him, and became William the Second, King of England. + +Rufus was no sooner on the throne, than he ordered into prison +again the unhappy state captives whom his father had set free, and +directed a goldsmith to ornament his father's tomb profusely with +gold and silver. It would have been more dutiful in him to have +attended the sick Conqueror when he was dying; but England itself, +like this Red King, who once governed it, has sometimes made +expensive tombs for dead men whom it treated shabbily when they +were alive. + +The King's brother, Robert of Normandy, seeming quite content to be +only Duke of that country; and the King's other brother, Fine- +Scholar, being quiet enough with his five thousand pounds in a +chest; the King flattered himself, we may suppose, with the hope of +an easy reign. But easy reigns were difficult to have in those +days. The turbulent Bishop ODO (who had blessed the Norman army at +the Battle of Hastings, and who, I dare say, took all the credit of +the victory to himself) soon began, in concert with some powerful +Norman nobles, to trouble the Red King. + +The truth seems to be that this bishop and his friends, who had +lands in England and lands in Normandy, wished to hold both under +one Sovereign; and greatly preferred a thoughtless good-natured +person, such as Robert was, to Rufus; who, though far from being an +amiable man in any respect, was keen, and not to be imposed upon. +They declared in Robert's favour, and retired to their castles +(those castles were very troublesome to kings) in a sullen humour. +The Red King, seeing the Normans thus falling from him, revenged +himself upon them by appealing to the English; to whom he made a +variety of promises, which he never meant to perform - in +particular, promises to soften the cruelty of the Forest Laws; and +who, in return, so aided him with their valour, that ODO was +besieged in the Castle of Rochester, and forced to abandon it, and +to depart from England for ever: whereupon the other rebellious +Norman nobles were soon reduced and scattered. + +Then, the Red King went over to Normandy, where the people suffered +greatly under the loose rule of Duke Robert. The King's object was +to seize upon the Duke's dominions. This, the Duke, of course, +prepared to resist; and miserable war between the two brothers +seemed inevitable, when the powerful nobles on both sides, who had +seen so much of war, interfered to prevent it. A treaty was made. +Each of the two brothers agreed to give up something of his claims, +and that the longer-liver of the two should inherit all the +dominions of the other. When they had come to this loving +understanding, they embraced and joined their forces against Fine- +Scholar; who had bought some territory of Robert with a part of his +five thousand pounds, and was considered a dangerous individual in +consequence. + +St. Michael's Mount, in Normandy (there is another St. Michael's +Mount, in Cornwall, wonderfully like it), was then, as it is now, a +strong place perched upon the top of a high rock, around which, +when the tide is in, the sea flows, leaving no road to the +mainland. In this place, Fine-Scholar shut himself up with his +soldiers, and here he was closely besieged by his two brothers. At +one time, when he was reduced to great distress for want of water, +the generous Robert not only permitted his men to get water, but +sent Fine-Scholar wine from his own table; and, on being +remonstrated with by the Red King, said 'What! shall we let our own +brother die of thirst? Where shall we get another, when he is +gone?' At another time, the Red King riding alone on the shore of +the bay, looking up at the Castle, was taken by two of Fine- +Scholar's men, one of whom was about to kill him, when he cried +out, 'Hold, knave! I am the King of England!' The story says that +the soldier raised him from the ground respectfully and humbly, and +that the King took him into his service. The story may or may not +be true; but at any rate it is true that Fine-Scholar could not +hold out against his united brothers, and that he abandoned Mount +St. Michael, and wandered about - as poor and forlorn as other +scholars have been sometimes known to be. + +The Scotch became unquiet in the Red King's time, and were twice +defeated - the second time, with the loss of their King, Malcolm, +and his son. The Welsh became unquiet too. Against them, Rufus +was less successful; for they fought among their native mountains, +and did great execution on the King's troops. Robert of Normandy +became unquiet too; and, complaining that his brother the King did +not faithfully perform his part of their agreement, took up arms, +and obtained assistance from the King of France, whom Rufus, in the +end, bought off with vast sums of money. England became unquiet +too. Lord Mowbray, the powerful Earl of Northumberland, headed a +great conspiracy to depose the King, and to place upon the throne, +STEPHEN, the Conqueror's near relative. The plot was discovered; +all the chief conspirators were seized; some were fined, some were +put in prison, some were put to death. The Earl of Northumberland +himself was shut up in a dungeon beneath Windsor Castle, where he +died, an old man, thirty long years afterwards. The Priests in +England were more unquiet than any other class or power; for the +Red King treated them with such small ceremony that he refused to +appoint new bishops or archbishops when the old ones died, but kept +all the wealth belonging to those offices in his own hands. In +return for this, the Priests wrote his life when he was dead, and +abused him well. I am inclined to think, myself, that there was +little to choose between the Priests and the Red King; that both +sides were greedy and designing; and that they were fairly matched. + +The Red King was false of heart, selfish, covetous, and mean. He +had a worthy minister in his favourite, Ralph, nicknamed - for +almost every famous person had a nickname in those rough days - +Flambard, or the Firebrand. Once, the King being ill, became +penitent, and made ANSELM, a foreign priest and a good man, +Archbishop of Canterbury. But he no sooner got well again than he +repented of his repentance, and persisted in wrongfully keeping to +himself some of the wealth belonging to the archbishopric. This +led to violent disputes, which were aggravated by there being in +Rome at that time two rival Popes; each of whom declared he was the +only real original infallible Pope, who couldn't make a mistake. +At last, Anselm, knowing the Red King's character, and not feeling +himself safe in England, asked leave to return abroad. The Red +King gladly gave it; for he knew that as soon as Anselm was gone, +he could begin to store up all the Canterbury money again, for his +own use. + +By such means, and by taxing and oppressing the English people in +every possible way, the Red King became very rich. When he wanted +money for any purpose, he raised it by some means or other, and +cared nothing for the injustice he did, or the misery he caused. +Having the opportunity of buying from Robert the whole duchy of +Normandy for five years, he taxed the English people more than +ever, and made the very convents sell their plate and valuables to +supply him with the means to make the purchase. But he was as +quick and eager in putting down revolt as he was in raising money; +for, a part of the Norman people objecting - very naturally, I +think - to being sold in this way, he headed an army against them +with all the speed and energy of his father. He was so impatient, +that he embarked for Normandy in a great gale of wind. And when +the sailors told him it was dangerous to go to sea in such angry +weather, he replied, 'Hoist sail and away! Did you ever hear of a +king who was drowned?' + +You will wonder how it was that even the careless Robert came to +sell his dominions. It happened thus. It had long been the custom +for many English people to make journeys to Jerusalem, which were +called pilgrimages, in order that they might pray beside the tomb +of Our Saviour there. Jerusalem belonging to the Turks, and the +Turks hating Christianity, these Christian travellers were often +insulted and ill used. The Pilgrims bore it patiently for some +time, but at length a remarkable man, of great earnestness and +eloquence, called PETER THE HERMIT, began to preach in various +places against the Turks, and to declare that it was the duty of +good Christians to drive away those unbelievers from the tomb of +Our Saviour, and to take possession of it, and protect it. An +excitement such as the world had never known before was created. +Thousands and thousands of men of all ranks and conditions departed +for Jerusalem to make war against the Turks. The war is called in +history the first Crusade, and every Crusader wore a cross marked +on his right shoulder. + +All the Crusaders were not zealous Christians. Among them were +vast numbers of the restless, idle, profligate, and adventurous +spirit of the time. Some became Crusaders for the love of change; +some, in the hope of plunder; some, because they had nothing to do +at home; some, because they did what the priests told them; some, +because they liked to see foreign countries; some, because they +were fond of knocking men about, and would as soon knock a Turk +about as a Christian. Robert of Normandy may have been influenced +by all these motives; and by a kind desire, besides, to save the +Christian Pilgrims from bad treatment in future. He wanted to +raise a number of armed men, and to go to the Crusade. He could +not do so without money. He had no money; and he sold his +dominions to his brother, the Red King, for five years. With the +large sum he thus obtained, he fitted out his Crusaders gallantly, +and went away to Jerusalem in martial state. The Red King, who +made money out of everything, stayed at home, busily squeezing more +money out of Normans and English. + +After three years of great hardship and suffering - from shipwreck +at sea; from travel in strange lands; from hunger, thirst, and +fever, upon the burning sands of the desert; and from the fury of +the Turks - the valiant Crusaders got possession of Our Saviour's +tomb. The Turks were still resisting and fighting bravely, but +this success increased the general desire in Europe to join the +Crusade. Another great French Duke was proposing to sell his +dominions for a term to the rich Red King, when the Red King's +reign came to a sudden and violent end. + +You have not forgotten the New Forest which the Conqueror made, and +which the miserable people whose homes he had laid waste, so hated. +The cruelty of the Forest Laws, and the torture and death they +brought upon the peasantry, increased this hatred. The poor +persecuted country people believed that the New Forest was +enchanted. They said that in thunder-storms, and on dark nights, +demons appeared, moving beneath the branches of the gloomy trees. +They said that a terrible spectre had foretold to Norman hunters +that the Red King should be punished there. And now, in the +pleasant season of May, when the Red King had reigned almost +thirteen years; and a second Prince of the Conqueror's blood - +another Richard, the son of Duke Robert - was killed by an arrow in +this dreaded Forest; the people said that the second time was not +the last, and that there was another death to come. + +It was a lonely forest, accursed in the people's hearts for the +wicked deeds that had been done to make it; and no man save the +King and his Courtiers and Huntsmen, liked to stray there. But, in +reality, it was like any other forest. In the spring, the green +leaves broke out of the buds; in the summer, flourished heartily, +and made deep shades; in the winter, shrivelled and blew down, and +lay in brown heaps on the moss. Some trees were stately, and grew +high and strong; some had fallen of themselves; some were felled by +the forester's axe; some were hollow, and the rabbits burrowed at +their roots; some few were struck by lightning, and stood white and +bare. There were hill-sides covered with rich fern, on which the +morning dew so beautifully sparkled; there were brooks, where the +deer went down to drink, or over which the whole herd bounded, +flying from the arrows of the huntsmen; there were sunny glades, +and solemn places where but little light came through the rustling +leaves. The songs of the birds in the New Forest were pleasanter +to hear than the shouts of fighting men outside; and even when the +Red King and his Court came hunting through its solitudes, cursing +loud and riding hard, with a jingling of stirrups and bridles and +knives and daggers, they did much less harm there than among the +English or Normans, and the stags died (as they lived) far easier +than the people. + +Upon a day in August, the Red King, now reconciled to his brother, +Fine-Scholar, came with a great train to hunt in the New Forest. +Fine-Scholar was of the party. They were a merry party, and had +lain all night at Malwood-Keep, a hunting-lodge in the forest, +where they had made good cheer, both at supper and breakfast, and +had drunk a deal of wine. The party dispersed in various +directions, as the custom of hunters then was. The King took with +him only SIR WALTER TYRREL, who was a famous sportsman, and to whom +he had given, before they mounted horse that morning, two fine +arrows. + +The last time the King was ever seen alive, he was riding with Sir +Walter Tyrrel, and their dogs were hunting together. + +It was almost night, when a poor charcoal-burner, passing through +the forest with his cart, came upon the solitary body of a dead +man, shot with an arrow in the breast, and still bleeding. He got +it into his cart. It was the body of the King. Shaken and +tumbled, with its red beard all whitened with lime and clotted with +blood, it was driven in the cart by the charcoal-burner next day to +Winchester Cathedral, where it was received and buried. + +Sir Walter Tyrrel, who escaped to Normandy, and claimed the +protection of the King of France, swore in France that the Red King +was suddenly shot dead by an arrow from an unseen hand, while they +were hunting together; that he was fearful of being suspected as +the King's murderer; and that he instantly set spurs to his horse, +and fled to the sea-shore. Others declared that the King and Sir +Walter Tyrrel were hunting in company, a little before sunset, +standing in bushes opposite one another, when a stag came between +them. That the King drew his bow and took aim, but the string +broke. That the King then cried, 'Shoot, Walter, in the Devil's +name!' That Sir Walter shot. That the arrow glanced against a +tree, was turned aside from the stag, and struck the King from his +horse, dead. + +By whose hand the Red King really fell, and whether that hand +despatched the arrow to his breast by accident or by design, is +only known to GOD. Some think his brother may have caused him to +be killed; but the Red King had made so many enemies, both among +priests and people, that suspicion may reasonably rest upon a less +unnatural murderer. Men know no more than that he was found dead +in the New Forest, which the suffering people had regarded as a +doomed ground for his race. + + + +CHAPTER X - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-SCHOLAR + + + +FINE-SCHOLAR, on hearing of the Red King's death, hurried to +Winchester with as much speed as Rufus himself had made, to seize +the Royal treasure. But the keeper of the treasure who had been +one of the hunting-party in the Forest, made haste to Winchester +too, and, arriving there at about the same time, refused to yield +it up. Upon this, Fine-Scholar drew his sword, and threatened to +kill the treasurer; who might have paid for his fidelity with his +life, but that he knew longer resistance to be useless when he +found the Prince supported by a company of powerful barons, who +declared they were determined to make him King. The treasurer, +therefore, gave up the money and jewels of the Crown: and on the +third day after the death of the Red King, being a Sunday, Fine- +Scholar stood before the high altar in Westminster Abbey, and made +a solemn declaration that he would resign the Church property which +his brother had seized; that he would do no wrong to the nobles; +and that he would restore to the people the laws of Edward the +Confessor, with all the improvements of William the Conqueror. So +began the reign of KING HENRY THE FIRST. + +The people were attached to their new King, both because he had +known distresses, and because he was an Englishman by birth and not +a Norman. To strengthen this last hold upon them, the King wished +to marry an English lady; and could think of no other wife than +MAUD THE GOOD, the daughter of the King of Scotland. Although this +good Princess did not love the King, she was so affected by the +representations the nobles made to her of the great charity it +would be in her to unite the Norman and Saxon races, and prevent +hatred and bloodshed between them for the future, that she +consented to become his wife. After some disputing among the +priests, who said that as she had been in a convent in her youth, +and had worn the veil of a nun, she could not lawfully be married - +against which the Princess stated that her aunt, with whom she had +lived in her youth, had indeed sometimes thrown a piece of black +stuff over her, but for no other reason than because the nun's veil +was the only dress the conquering Normans respected in girl or +woman, and not because she had taken the vows of a nun, which she +never had - she was declared free to marry, and was made King +Henry's Queen. A good Queen she was; beautiful, kind-hearted, and +worthy of a better husband than the King. + +For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm and clever. +He cared very little for his word, and took any means to gain his +ends. All this is shown in his treatment of his brother Robert - +Robert, who had suffered him to be refreshed with water, and who +had sent him the wine from his own table, when he was shut up, with +the crows flying below him, parched with thirst, in the castle on +the top of St. Michael's Mount, where his Red brother would have +let him die. + +Before the King began to deal with Robert, he removed and disgraced +all the favourites of the late King; who were for the most part +base characters, much detested by the people. Flambard, or +Firebrand, whom the late King had made Bishop of Durham, of all +things in the world, Henry imprisoned in the Tower; but Firebrand +was a great joker and a jolly companion, and made himself so +popular with his guards that they pretended to know nothing about a +long rope that was sent into his prison at the bottom of a deep +flagon of wine. The guards took the wine, and Firebrand took the +rope; with which, when they were fast asleep, he let himself down +from a window in the night, and so got cleverly aboard ship and +away to Normandy. + +Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar came to the throne, was +still absent in the Holy Land. Henry pretended that Robert had +been made Sovereign of that country; and he had been away so long, +that the ignorant people believed it. But, behold, when Henry had +been some time King of England, Robert came home to Normandy; +having leisurely returned from Jerusalem through Italy, in which +beautiful country he had enjoyed himself very much, and had married +a lady as beautiful as itself! In Normandy, he found Firebrand +waiting to urge him to assert his claim to the English crown, and +declare war against King Henry. This, after great loss of time in +feasting and dancing with his beautiful Italian wife among his +Norman friends, he at last did. + +The English in general were on King Henry's side, though many of +the Normans were on Robert's. But the English sailors deserted the +King, and took a great part of the English fleet over to Normandy; +so that Robert came to invade this country in no foreign vessels, +but in English ships. The virtuous Anselm, however, whom Henry had +invited back from abroad, and made Archbishop of Canterbury, was +steadfast in the King's cause; and it was so well supported that +the two armies, instead of fighting, made a peace. Poor Robert, +who trusted anybody and everybody, readily trusted his brother, the +King; and agreed to go home and receive a pension from England, on +condition that all his followers were fully pardoned. This the +King very faithfully promised, but Robert was no sooner gone than +he began to punish them. + +Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on being summoned by +the King to answer to five-and-forty accusations, rode away to one +of his strong castles, shut himself up therein, called around him +his tenants and vassals, and fought for his liberty, but was +defeated and banished. Robert, with all his faults, was so true to +his word, that when he first heard of this nobleman having risen +against his brother, he laid waste the Earl of Shrewsbury's estates +in Normandy, to show the King that he would favour no breach of +their treaty. Finding, on better information, afterwards, that the +Earl's only crime was having been his friend, he came over to +England, in his old thoughtless, warm-hearted way, to intercede +with the King, and remind him of the solemn promise to pardon all +his followers. + +This confidence might have put the false King to the blush, but it +did not. Pretending to be very friendly, he so surrounded his +brother with spies and traps, that Robert, who was quite in his +power, had nothing for it but to renounce his pension and escape +while he could. Getting home to Normandy, and understanding the +King better now, he naturally allied himself with his old friend +the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had still thirty castles in that +country. This was exactly what Henry wanted. He immediately +declared that Robert had broken the treaty, and next year invaded +Normandy. + +He pretended that he came to deliver the Normans, at their own +request, from his brother's misrule. There is reason to fear that +his misrule was bad enough; for his beautiful wife had died, +leaving him with an infant son, and his court was again so +careless, dissipated, and ill-regulated, that it was said he +sometimes lay in bed of a day for want of clothes to put on - his +attendants having stolen all his dresses. But he headed his army +like a brave prince and a gallant soldier, though he had the +misfortune to be taken prisoner by King Henry, with four hundred of +his Knights. Among them was poor harmless Edgar Atheling, who +loved Robert well. Edgar was not important enough to be severe +with. The King afterwards gave him a small pension, which he lived +upon and died upon, in peace, among the quiet woods and fields of +England. + +And Robert - poor, kind, generous, wasteful, heedless Robert, with +so many faults, and yet with virtues that might have made a better +and a happier man - what was the end of him? If the King had had +the magnanimity to say with a kind air, 'Brother, tell me, before +these noblemen, that from this time you will be my faithful +follower and friend, and never raise your hand against me or my +forces more!' he might have trusted Robert to the death. But the +King was not a magnanimous man. He sentenced his brother to be +confined for life in one of the Royal Castles. In the beginning of +his imprisonment, he was allowed to ride out, guarded; but he one +day broke away from his guard and galloped of. He had the evil +fortune to ride into a swamp, where his horse stuck fast and he was +taken. When the King heard of it he ordered him to be blinded, +which was done by putting a red-hot metal basin on his eyes. + +And so, in darkness and in prison, many years, he thought of all +his past life, of the time he had wasted, of the treasure he had +squandered, of the opportunities he had lost, of the youth he had +thrown away, of the talents he had neglected. Sometimes, on fine +autumn mornings, he would sit and think of the old hunting parties +in the free Forest, where he had been the foremost and the gayest. +Sometimes, in the still nights, he would wake, and mourn for the +many nights that had stolen past him at the gaming-table; +sometimes, would seem to hear, upon the melancholy wind, the old +songs of the minstrels; sometimes, would dream, in his blindness, +of the light and glitter of the Norman Court. Many and many a +time, he groped back, in his fancy, to Jerusalem, where he had +fought so well; or, at the head of his brave companions, bowed his +feathered helmet to the shouts of welcome greeting him in Italy, +and seemed again to walk among the sunny vineyards, or on the shore +of the blue sea, with his lovely wife. And then, thinking of her +grave, and of his fatherless boy, he would stretch out his solitary +arms and weep. + +At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel and +disfiguring scars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his jailer's +sight, but on which the eternal Heavens looked down, a worn old man +of eighty. He had once been Robert of Normandy. Pity him! + +At the time when Robert of Normandy was taken prisoner by his +brother, Robert's little son was only five years old. This child +was taken, too, and carried before the King, sobbing and crying; +for, young as he was, he knew he had good reason to be afraid of +his Royal uncle. The King was not much accustomed to pity those +who were in his power, but his cold heart seemed for the moment to +soften towards the boy. He was observed to make a great effort, as +if to prevent himself from being cruel, and ordered the child to be +taken away; whereupon a certain Baron, who had married a daughter +of Duke Robert's (by name, Helie of Saint Saen), took charge of +him, tenderly. The King's gentleness did not last long. Before +two years were over, he sent messengers to this lord's Castle to +seize the child and bring him away. The Baron was not there at the +time, but his servants were faithful, and carried the boy off in +his sleep and hid him. When the Baron came home, and was told what +the King had done, he took the child abroad, and, leading him by +the hand, went from King to King and from Court to Court, relating +how the child had a claim to the throne of England, and how his +uncle the King, knowing that he had that claim, would have murdered +him, perhaps, but for his escape. + +The youth and innocence of the pretty little WILLIAM FITZ-ROBERT +(for that was his name) made him many friends at that time. When +he became a young man, the King of France, uniting with the French +Counts of Anjou and Flanders, supported his cause against the King +of England, and took many of the King's towns and castles in +Normandy. But, King Henry, artful and cunning always, bribed some +of William's friends with money, some with promises, some with +power. He bought off the Count of Anjou, by promising to marry his +eldest son, also named WILLIAM, to the Count's daughter; and indeed +the whole trust of this King's life was in such bargains, and he +believed (as many another King has done since, and as one King did +in France a very little time ago) that every man's truth and honour +can be bought at some price. For all this, he was so afraid of +William Fitz-Robert and his friends, that, for a long time, he +believed his life to be in danger; and never lay down to sleep, +even in his palace surrounded by his guards, without having a sword +and buckler at his bedside. + +To strengthen his power, the King with great ceremony betrothed his +eldest daughter MATILDA, then a child only eight years old, to be +the wife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of Germany. To raise her +marriage-portion, he taxed the English people in a most oppressive +manner; then treated them to a great procession, to restore their +good humour; and sent Matilda away, in fine state, with the German +ambassadors, to be educated in the country of her future husband. + +And now his Queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It was a sad +thought for that gentle lady, that the only hope with which she had +married a man whom she had never loved - the hope of reconciling +the Norman and English races - had failed. At the very time of her +death, Normandy and all France was in arms against England; for, so +soon as his last danger was over, King Henry had been false to all +the French powers he had promised, bribed, and bought, and they had +naturally united against him. After some fighting, however, in +which few suffered but the unhappy common people (who always +suffered, whatsoever was the matter), he began to promise, bribe, +and buy again; and by those means, and by the help of the Pope, who +exerted himself to save more bloodshed, and by solemnly declaring, +over and over again, that he really was in earnest this time, and +would keep his word, the King made peace. + +One of the first consequences of this peace was, that the King went +over to Normandy with his son Prince William and a great retinue, +to have the Prince acknowledged as his successor by the Norman +Nobles, and to contract the promised marriage (this was one of the +many promises the King had broken) between him and the daughter of +the Count of Anjou. Both these things were triumphantly done, with +great show and rejoicing; and on the twenty-fifth of November, in +the year one thousand one hundred and twenty, the whole retinue +prepared to embark at the Port of Barfleur, for the voyage home. + +On that day, and at that place, there came to the King, Fitz- +Stephen, a sea-captain, and said: + +'My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon the sea. +He steered the ship with the golden boy upon the prow, in which +your father sailed to conquer England. I beseech you to grant me +the same office. I have a fair vessel in the harbour here, called +The White Ship, manned by fifty sailors of renown. I pray you, +Sire, to let your servant have the honour of steering you in The +White Ship to England!' + +'I am sorry, friend,' replied the King, 'that my vessel is already +chosen, and that I cannot (therefore) sail with the son of the man +who served my father. But the Prince and all his company shall go +along with you, in the fair White Ship, manned by the fifty sailors +of renown.' + +An hour or two afterwards, the King set sail in the vessel he had +chosen, accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all night with a +fair and gentle wind, arrived upon the coast of England in the +morning. While it was yet night, the people in some of those ships +heard a faint wild cry come over the sea, and wondered what it was. + +Now, the Prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of eighteen, +who bore no love to the English, and had declared that when he came +to the throne he would yoke them to the plough like oxen. He went +aboard The White Ship, with one hundred and forty youthful Nobles +like himself, among whom were eighteen noble ladies of the highest +rank. All this gay company, with their servants and the fifty +sailors, made three hundred souls aboard the fair White Ship. + +'Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen,' said the Prince, 'to the +fifty sailors of renown! My father the King has sailed out of the +harbour. What time is there to make merry here, and yet reach +England with the rest?' + +'Prince!' said Fitz-Stephen, 'before morning, my fifty and The +White Ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your +father the King, if we sail at midnight!' + +Then the Prince commanded to make merry; and the sailors drank out +the three casks of wine; and the Prince and all the noble company +danced in the moonlight on the deck of The White Ship. + +When, at last, she shot out of the harbour of Barfleur, there was +not a sober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, and the +oars all going merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. The gay young +nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various +bright colours to protect them from the cold, talked, laughed, and +sang. The Prince encouraged the fifty sailors to row harder yet, +for the honour of The White Ship. + +Crash! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. It was the +cry the people in the distant vessels of the King heard faintly on +the water. The White Ship had struck upon a rock - was filling - +going down! + +Fitz-Stephen hurried the Prince into a boat, with some few Nobles. +'Push off,' he whispered; 'and row to land. It is not far, and the +sea is smooth. The rest of us must die.' + +But, as they rowed away, fast, from the sinking ship, the Prince +heard the voice of his sister MARIE, the Countess of Perche, +calling for help. He never in his life had been so good as he was +then. He cried in an agony, 'Row back at any risk! I cannot bear +to leave her!' + +They rowed back. As the Prince held out his arms to catch his +sister, such numbers leaped in, that the boat was overset. And in +the same instant The White Ship went down. + +Only two men floated. They both clung to the main yard of the +ship, which had broken from the mast, and now supported them. One +asked the other who he was? He said, 'I am a nobleman, GODFREY by +name, the son of GILBERT DE L'AIGLE. And you?' said he. 'I am +BEROLD, a poor butcher of Rouen,' was the answer. Then, they said +together, 'Lord be merciful to us both!' and tried to encourage one +another, as they drifted in the cold benumbing sea on that +unfortunate November night. + +By-and-by, another man came swimming towards them, whom they knew, +when he pushed aside his long wet hair, to be Fitz-Stephen. 'Where +is the Prince?' said he. 'Gone! Gone!' the two cried together. +'Neither he, nor his brother, nor his sister, nor the King's niece, +nor her brother, nor any one of all the brave three hundred, noble +or commoner, except we three, has risen above the water!' Fitz- +Stephen, with a ghastly face, cried, 'Woe! woe, to me!' and sunk to +the bottom. + +The other two clung to the yard for some hours. At length the +young noble said faintly, 'I am exhausted, and chilled with the +cold, and can hold no longer. Farewell, good friend! God preserve +you!' So, he dropped and sunk; and of all the brilliant crowd, the +poor Butcher of Rouen alone was saved. In the morning, some +fishermen saw him floating in his sheep-skin coat, and got him into +their boat - the sole relater of the dismal tale. + +For three days, no one dared to carry the intelligence to the King. +At length, they sent into his presence a little boy, who, weeping +bitterly, and kneeling at his feet, told him that The White Ship +was lost with all on board. The King fell to the ground like a +dead man, and never, never afterwards, was seen to smile. + +But he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and bought +again, in his old deceitful way. Having no son to succeed him, +after all his pains ('The Prince will never yoke us to the plough, +now!' said the English people), he took a second wife - ADELAIS or +ALICE, a duke's daughter, and the Pope's niece. Having no more +children, however, he proposed to the Barons to swear that they +would recognise as his successor, his daughter Matilda, whom, as +she was now a widow, he married to the eldest son of the Count of +Anjou, GEOFFREY, surnamed PLANTAGENET, from a custom he had of +wearing a sprig of flowering broom (called Gent in French) in his +cap for a feather. As one false man usually makes many, and as a +false King, in particular, is pretty certain to make a false Court, +the Barons took the oath about the succession of Matilda (and her +children after her), twice over, without in the least intending to +keep it. The King was now relieved from any remaining fears of +William Fitz-Robert, by his death in the Monastery of St. Omer, in +France, at twenty-six years old, of a pike-wound in the hand. And +as Matilda gave birth to three sons, he thought the succession to +the throne secure. + +He spent most of the latter part of his life, which was troubled by +family quarrels, in Normandy, to be near Matilda. When he had +reigned upward of thirty-five years, and was sixty-seven years old, +he died of an indigestion and fever, brought on by eating, when he +was far from well, of a fish called Lamprey, against which he had +often been cautioned by his physicians. His remains were brought +over to Reading Abbey to be buried. + +You may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking of King Henry +the First, called 'policy' by some people, and 'diplomacy' by +others. Neither of these fine words will in the least mean that it +was true; and nothing that is not true can possibly be good. + +His greatest merit, that I know of, was his love of learning - I +should have given him greater credit even for that, if it had been +strong enough to induce him to spare the eyes of a certain poet he +once took prisoner, who was a knight besides. But he ordered the +poet's eyes to be torn from his head, because he had laughed at him +in his verses; and the poet, in the pain of that torture, dashed +out his own brains against his prison wall. King Henry the First +was avaricious, revengeful, and so false, that I suppose a man +never lived whose word was less to be relied upon. + + + +CHAPTER XI - ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN + + + +THE King was no sooner dead than all the plans and schemes he had +laboured at so long, and lied so much for, crumbled away like a +hollow heap of sand. STEPHEN, whom he had never mistrusted or +suspected, started up to claim the throne. + +Stephen was the son of ADELA, the Conqueror's daughter, married to +the Count of Blois. To Stephen, and to his brother HENRY, the late +King had been liberal; making Henry Bishop of Winchester, and +finding a good marriage for Stephen, and much enriching him. This +did not prevent Stephen from hastily producing a false witness, a +servant of the late King, to swear that the King had named him for +his heir upon his death-bed. On this evidence the Archbishop of +Canterbury crowned him. The new King, so suddenly made, lost not a +moment in seizing the Royal treasure, and hiring foreign soldiers +with some of it to protect his throne. + +If the dead King had even done as the false witness said, he would +have had small right to will away the English people, like so many +sheep or oxen, without their consent. But he had, in fact, +bequeathed all his territory to Matilda; who, supported by ROBERT, +Earl of Gloucester, soon began to dispute the crown. Some of the +powerful barons and priests took her side; some took Stephen's; all +fortified their castles; and again the miserable English people +were involved in war, from which they could never derive advantage +whosoever was victorious, and in which all parties plundered, +tortured, starved, and ruined them. + +Five years had passed since the death of Henry the First - and +during those five years there had been two terrible invasions by +the people of Scotland under their King, David, who was at last +defeated with all his army - when Matilda, attended by her brother +Robert and a large force, appeared in England to maintain her +claim. A battle was fought between her troops and King Stephen's +at Lincoln; in which the King himself was taken prisoner, after +bravely fighting until his battle-axe and sword were broken, and +was carried into strict confinement at Gloucester. Matilda then +submitted herself to the Priests, and the Priests crowned her Queen +of England. + +She did not long enjoy this dignity. The people of London had a +great affection for Stephen; many of the Barons considered it +degrading to be ruled by a woman; and the Queen's temper was so +haughty that she made innumerable enemies. The people of London +revolted; and, in alliance with the troops of Stephen, besieged her +at Winchester, where they took her brother Robert prisoner, whom, +as her best soldier and chief general, she was glad to exchange for +Stephen himself, who thus regained his liberty. Then, the long war +went on afresh. Once, she was pressed so hard in the Castle of +Oxford, in the winter weather when the snow lay thick upon the +ground, that her only chance of escape was to dress herself all in +white, and, accompanied by no more than three faithful Knights, +dressed in like manner that their figures might not be seen from +Stephen's camp as they passed over the snow, to steal away on foot, +cross the frozen Thames, walk a long distance, and at last gallop +away on horseback. All this she did, but to no great purpose then; +for her brother dying while the struggle was yet going on, she at +last withdrew to Normandy. + +In two or three years after her withdrawal her cause appeared in +England, afresh, in the person of her son Henry, young Plantagenet, +who, at only eighteen years of age, was very powerful: not only on +account of his mother having resigned all Normandy to him, but also +from his having married ELEANOR, the divorced wife of the French +King, a bad woman, who had great possessions in France. Louis, the +French King, not relishing this arrangement, helped EUSTACE, King +Stephen's son, to invade Normandy: but Henry drove their united +forces out of that country, and then returned here, to assist his +partisans, whom the King was then besieging at Wallingford upon the +Thames. Here, for two days, divided only by the river, the two +armies lay encamped opposite to one another - on the eve, as it +seemed to all men, of another desperate fight, when the EARL OF +ARUNDEL took heart and said 'that it was not reasonable to prolong +the unspeakable miseries of two kingdoms to minister to the +ambition of two princes.' + +Many other noblemen repeating and supporting this when it was once +uttered, Stephen and young Plantagenet went down, each to his own +bank of the river, and held a conversation across it, in which they +arranged a truce; very much to the dissatisfaction of Eustace, who +swaggered away with some followers, and laid violent hands on the +Abbey of St. Edmund's-Bury, where he presently died mad. The truce +led to a solemn council at Winchester, in which it was agreed that +Stephen should retain the crown, on condition of his declaring +Henry his successor; that WILLIAM, another son of the King's, +should inherit his father's rightful possessions; and that all the +Crown lands which Stephen had given away should be recalled, and +all the Castles he had permitted to be built demolished. Thus +terminated the bitter war, which had now lasted fifteen years, and +had again laid England waste. In the next year STEPHEN died, after +a troubled reign of nineteen years. + +Although King Stephen was, for the time in which he lived, a humane +and moderate man, with many excellent qualities; and although +nothing worse is known of him than his usurpation of the Crown, +which he probably excused to himself by the consideration that King +Henry the First was a usurper too - which was no excuse at all; the +people of England suffered more in these dread nineteen years, than +at any former period even of their suffering history. In the +division of the nobility between the two rival claimants of the +Crown, and in the growth of what is called the Feudal System (which +made the peasants the born vassals and mere slaves of the Barons), +every Noble had his strong Castle, where he reigned the cruel king +of all the neighbouring people. Accordingly, he perpetrated +whatever cruelties he chose. And never were worse cruelties +committed upon earth than in wretched England in those nineteen +years. + +The writers who were living then describe them fearfully. They say +that the castles were filled with devils rather than with men; that +the peasants, men and women, were put into dungeons for their gold +and silver, were tortured with fire and smoke, were hung up by the +thumbs, were hung up by the heels with great weights to their +heads, were torn with jagged irons, killed with hunger, broken to +death in narrow chests filled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered +in countless fiendish ways. In England there was no corn, no meat, +no cheese, no butter, there were no tilled lands, no harvests. +Ashes of burnt towns, and dreary wastes, were all that the +traveller, fearful of the robbers who prowled abroad at all hours, +would see in a long day's journey; and from sunrise until night, he +would not come upon a home. + +The clergy sometimes suffered, and heavily too, from pillage, but +many of them had castles of their own, and fought in helmet and +armour like the barons, and drew lots with other fighting men for +their share of booty. The Pope (or Bishop of Rome), on King +Stephen's resisting his ambition, laid England under an Interdict +at one period of this reign; which means that he allowed no service +to be performed in the churches, no couples to be married, no bells +to be rung, no dead bodies to be buried. Any man having the power +to refuse these things, no matter whether he were called a Pope or +a Poulterer, would, of course, have the power of afflicting numbers +of innocent people. That nothing might be wanting to the miseries +of King Stephen's time, the Pope threw in this contribution to the +public store - not very like the widow's contribution, as I think, +when Our Saviour sat in Jerusalem over-against the Treasury, 'and +she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.' + + + +CHAPTER XII - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND - PART THE FIRST + + + +HENRY PLANTAGENET, when he was but twenty-one years old, quietly +succeeded to the throne of England, according to his agreement made +with the late King at Winchester. Six weeks after Stephen's death, +he and his Queen, Eleanor, were crowned in that city; into which +they rode on horseback in great state, side by side, amidst much +shouting and rejoicing, and clashing of music, and strewing of +flowers. + +The reign of King Henry the Second began well. The King had great +possessions, and (what with his own rights, and what with those of +his wife) was lord of one-third part of France. He was a young man +of vigour, ability, and resolution, and immediately applied himself +to remove some of the evils which had arisen in the last unhappy +reign. He revoked all the grants of land that had been hastily +made, on either side, during the late struggles; he obliged numbers +of disorderly soldiers to depart from England; he reclaimed all the +castles belonging to the Crown; and he forced the wicked nobles to +pull down their own castles, to the number of eleven hundred, in +which such dismal cruelties had been inflicted on the people. The +King's brother, GEOFFREY, rose against him in France, while he was +so well employed, and rendered it necessary for him to repair to +that country; where, after he had subdued and made a friendly +arrangement with his brother (who did not live long), his ambition +to increase his possessions involved him in a war with the French +King, Louis, with whom he had been on such friendly terms just +before, that to the French King's infant daughter, then a baby in +the cradle, he had promised one of his little sons in marriage, who +was a child of five years old. However, the war came to nothing at +last, and the Pope made the two Kings friends again. + +Now, the clergy, in the troubles of the last reign, had gone on +very ill indeed. There were all kinds of criminals among them - +murderers, thieves, and vagabonds; and the worst of the matter was, +that the good priests would not give up the bad priests to justice, +when they committed crimes, but persisted in sheltering and +defending them. The King, well knowing that there could be no +peace or rest in England while such things lasted, resolved to +reduce the power of the clergy; and, when he had reigned seven +years, found (as he considered) a good opportunity for doing so, in +the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury. 'I will have for the +new Archbishop,' thought the King, 'a friend in whom I can trust, +who will help me to humble these rebellious priests, and to have +them dealt with, when they do wrong, as other men who do wrong are +dealt with.' So, he resolved to make his favourite, the new +Archbishop; and this favourite was so extraordinary a man, and his +story is so curious, that I must tell you all about him. + +Once upon a time, a worthy merchant of London, named GILBERT A +BECKET, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was taken prisoner +by a Saracen lord. This lord, who treated him kindly and not like +a slave, had one fair daughter, who fell in love with the merchant; +and who told him that she wanted to become a Christian, and was +willing to marry him if they could fly to a Christian country. The +merchant returned her love, until he found an opportunity to +escape, when he did not trouble himself about the Saracen lady, but +escaped with his servant Richard, who had been taken prisoner along +with him, and arrived in England and forgot her. The Saracen lady, +who was more loving than the merchant, left her father's house in +disguise to follow him, and made her way, under many hardships, to +the sea-shore. The merchant had taught her only two English words +(for I suppose he must have learnt the Saracen tongue himself, and +made love in that language), of which LONDON was one, and his own +name, GILBERT, the other. She went among the ships, saying, +'London! London!' over and over again, until the sailors understood +that she wanted to find an English vessel that would carry her +there; so they showed her such a ship, and she paid for her passage +with some of her jewels, and sailed away. Well! The merchant was +sitting in his counting-house in London one day, when he heard a +great noise in the street; and presently Richard came running in +from the warehouse, with his eyes wide open and his breath almost +gone, saying, 'Master, master, here is the Saracen lady!' The +merchant thought Richard was mad; but Richard said, 'No, master! +As I live, the Saracen lady is going up and down the city, calling +Gilbert! Gilbert!' Then, he took the merchant by the sleeve, and +pointed out of window; and there they saw her among the gables and +water-spouts of the dark, dirty street, in her foreign dress, so +forlorn, surrounded by a wondering crowd, and passing slowly along, +calling Gilbert, Gilbert! When the merchant saw her, and thought +of the tenderness she had shown him in his captivity, and of her +constancy, his heart was moved, and he ran down into the street; +and she saw him coming, and with a great cry fainted in his arms. +They were married without loss of time, and Richard (who was an +excellent man) danced with joy the whole day of the wedding; and +they all lived happy ever afterwards. + +This merchant and this Saracen lady had one son, THOMAS A BECKET. +He it was who became the Favourite of King Henry the Second. + +He had become Chancellor, when the King thought of making him +Archbishop. He was clever, gay, well educated, brave; had fought +in several battles in France; had defeated a French knight in +single combat, and brought his horse away as a token of the +victory. He lived in a noble palace, he was the tutor of the young +Prince Henry, he was served by one hundred and forty knights, his +riches were immense. The King once sent him as his ambassador to +France; and the French people, beholding in what state he +travelled, cried out in the streets, 'How splendid must the King of +England be, when this is only the Chancellor!' They had good +reason to wonder at the magnificence of Thomas a Becket, for, when +he entered a French town, his procession was headed by two hundred +and fifty singing boys; then, came his hounds in couples; then, +eight waggons, each drawn by five horses driven by five drivers: +two of the waggons filled with strong ale to be given away to the +people; four, with his gold and silver plate and stately clothes; +two, with the dresses of his numerous servants. Then, came twelve +horses, each with a monkey on his back; then, a train of people +bearing shields and leading fine war-horses splendidly equipped; +then, falconers with hawks upon their wrists; then, a host of +knights, and gentlemen and priests; then, the Chancellor with his +brilliant garments flashing in the sun, and all the people capering +and shouting with delight. + +The King was well pleased with all this, thinking that it only made +himself the more magnificent to have so magnificent a favourite; +but he sometimes jested with the Chancellor upon his splendour too. +Once, when they were riding together through the streets of London +in hard winter weather, they saw a shivering old man in rags. +'Look at the poor object!' said the King. 'Would it not be a +charitable act to give that aged man a comfortable warm cloak?' +'Undoubtedly it would,' said Thomas a Becket, 'and you do well, +Sir, to think of such Christian duties.' 'Come!' cried the King, +'then give him your cloak!' It was made of rich crimson trimmed +with ermine. The King tried to pull it off, the Chancellor tried +to keep it on, both were near rolling from their saddles in the +mud, when the Chancellor submitted, and the King gave the cloak to +the old beggar: much to the beggar's astonishment, and much to the +merriment of all the courtiers in attendance. For, courtiers are +not only eager to laugh when the King laughs, but they really do +enjoy a laugh against a Favourite. + +'I will make,' thought King Henry the second, 'this Chancellor of +mine, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. He will then be +the head of the Church, and, being devoted to me, will help me to +correct the Church. He has always upheld my power against the +power of the clergy, and once publicly told some bishops (I +remember), that men of the Church were equally bound to me, with +men of the sword. Thomas a Becket is the man, of all other men in +England, to help me in my great design.' So the King, regardless +of all objection, either that he was a fighting man, or a lavish +man, or a courtly man, or a man of pleasure, or anything but a +likely man for the office, made him Archbishop accordingly. + +Now, Thomas a Becket was proud and loved to be famous. He was +already famous for the pomp of his life, for his riches, his gold +and silver plate, his waggons, horses, and attendants. He could do +no more in that way than he had done; and being tired of that kind +of fame (which is a very poor one), he longed to have his name +celebrated for something else. Nothing, he knew, would render him +so famous in the world, as the setting of his utmost power and +ability against the utmost power and ability of the King. He +resolved with the whole strength of his mind to do it. + +He may have had some secret grudge against the King besides. The +King may have offended his proud humour at some time or other, for +anything I know. I think it likely, because it is a common thing +for Kings, Princes, and other great people, to try the tempers of +their favourites rather severely. Even the little affair of the +crimson cloak must have been anything but a pleasant one to a +haughty man. Thomas a Becket knew better than any one in England +what the King expected of him. In all his sumptuous life, he had +never yet been in a position to disappoint the King. He could take +up that proud stand now, as head of the Church; and he determined +that it should be written in history, either that he subdued the +King, or that the King subdued him. + +So, of a sudden, he completely altered the whole manner of his +life. He turned off all his brilliant followers, ate coarse food, +drank bitter water, wore next his skin sackcloth covered with dirt +and vermin (for it was then thought very religious to be very +dirty), flogged his back to punish himself, lived chiefly in a +little cell, washed the feet of thirteen poor people every day, and +looked as miserable as he possibly could. If he had put twelve +hundred monkeys on horseback instead of twelve, and had gone in +procession with eight thousand waggons instead of eight, he could +not have half astonished the people so much as by this great +change. It soon caused him to be more talked about as an +Archbishop than he had been as a Chancellor. + +The King was very angry; and was made still more so, when the new +Archbishop, claiming various estates from the nobles as being +rightfully Church property, required the King himself, for the same +reason, to give up Rochester Castle, and Rochester City too. Not +satisfied with this, he declared that no power but himself should +appoint a priest to any Church in the part of England over which he +was Archbishop; and when a certain gentleman of Kent made such an +appointment, as he claimed to have the right to do, Thomas a Becket +excommunicated him. + +Excommunication was, next to the Interdict I told you of at the +close of the last chapter, the great weapon of the clergy. It +consisted in declaring the person who was excommunicated, an +outcast from the Church and from all religious offices; and in +cursing him all over, from the top of his head to the sole of his +foot, whether he was standing up, lying down, sitting, kneeling, +walking, running, hopping, jumping, gaping, coughing, sneezing, or +whatever else he was doing. This unchristian nonsense would of +course have made no sort of difference to the person cursed - who +could say his prayers at home if he were shut out of church, and +whom none but GOD could judge - but for the fears and superstitions +of the people, who avoided excommunicated persons, and made their +lives unhappy. So, the King said to the New Archbishop, 'Take off +this Excommunication from this gentleman of Kent.' To which the +Archbishop replied, 'I shall do no such thing.' + +The quarrel went on. A priest in Worcestershire committed a most +dreadful murder, that aroused the horror of the whole nation. The +King demanded to have this wretch delivered up, to be tried in the +same court and in the same way as any other murderer. The +Archbishop refused, and kept him in the Bishop's prison. The King, +holding a solemn assembly in Westminster Hall, demanded that in +future all priests found guilty before their Bishops of crimes +against the law of the land should be considered priests no longer, +and should be delivered over to the law of the land for punishment. +The Archbishop again refused. The King required to know whether +the clergy would obey the ancient customs of the country? Every +priest there, but one, said, after Thomas a Becket, 'Saving my +order.' This really meant that they would only obey those customs +when they did not interfere with their own claims; and the King +went out of the Hall in great wrath. + +Some of the clergy began to be afraid, now, that they were going +too far. Though Thomas a Becket was otherwise as unmoved as +Westminster Hall, they prevailed upon him, for the sake of their +fears, to go to the King at Woodstock, and promise to observe the +ancient customs of the country, without saying anything about his +order. The King received this submission favourably, and summoned +a great council of the clergy to meet at the Castle of Clarendon, +by Salisbury. But when the council met, the Archbishop again +insisted on the words 'saying my order;' and he still insisted, +though lords entreated him, and priests wept before him and knelt +to him, and an adjoining room was thrown open, filled with armed +soldiers of the King, to threaten him. At length he gave way, for +that time, and the ancient customs (which included what the King +had demanded in vain) were stated in writing, and were signed and +sealed by the chief of the clergy, and were called the +Constitutions of Clarendon. + +The quarrel went on, for all that. The Archbishop tried to see the +King. The King would not see him. The Archbishop tried to escape +from England. The sailors on the coast would launch no boat to +take him away. Then, he again resolved to do his worst in +opposition to the King, and began openly to set the ancient customs +at defiance. + +The King summoned him before a great council at Northampton, where +he accused him of high treason, and made a claim against him, which +was not a just one, for an enormous sum of money. Thomas a Becket +was alone against the whole assembly, and the very Bishops advised +him to resign his office and abandon his contest with the King. +His great anxiety and agitation stretched him on a sick-bed for two +days, but he was still undaunted. He went to the adjourned +council, carrying a great cross in his right hand, and sat down +holding it erect before him. The King angrily retired into an +inner room. The whole assembly angrily retired and left him there. +But there he sat. The Bishops came out again in a body, and +renounced him as a traitor. He only said, 'I hear!' and sat there +still. They retired again into the inner room, and his trial +proceeded without him. By-and-by, the Earl of Leicester, heading +the barons, came out to read his sentence. He refused to hear it, +denied the power of the court, and said he would refer his cause to +the Pope. As he walked out of the hall, with the cross in his +hand, some of those present picked up rushes - rushes were strewn +upon the floors in those days by way of carpet - and threw them at +him. He proudly turned his head, and said that were he not +Archbishop, he would chastise those cowards with the sword he had +known how to use in bygone days. He then mounted his horse, and +rode away, cheered and surrounded by the common people, to whom he +threw open his house that night and gave a supper, supping with +them himself. That same night he secretly departed from the town; +and so, travelling by night and hiding by day, and calling himself +'Brother Dearman,' got away, not without difficulty, to Flanders. + +The struggle still went on. The angry King took possession of the +revenues of the archbishopric, and banished all the relations and +servants of Thomas a Becket, to the number of four hundred. The +Pope and the French King both protected him, and an abbey was +assigned for his residence. Stimulated by this support, Thomas a +Becket, on a great festival day, formally proceeded to a great +church crowded with people, and going up into the pulpit publicly +cursed and excommunicated all who had supported the Constitutions +of Clarendon: mentioning many English noblemen by name, and not +distantly hinting at the King of England himself. + +When intelligence of this new affront was carried to the King in +his chamber, his passion was so furious that he tore his clothes, +and rolled like a madman on his bed of straw and rushes. But he +was soon up and doing. He ordered all the ports and coasts of +England to be narrowly watched, that no letters of Interdict might +be brought into the kingdom; and sent messengers and bribes to the +Pope's palace at Rome. Meanwhile, Thomas a Becket, for his part, +was not idle at Rome, but constantly employed his utmost arts in +his own behalf. Thus the contest stood, until there was peace +between France and England (which had been for some time at war), +and until the two children of the two Kings were married in +celebration of it. Then, the French King brought about a meeting +between Henry and his old favourite, so long his enemy. + +Even then, though Thomas a Becket knelt before the King, he was +obstinate and immovable as to those words about his order. King +Louis of France was weak enough in his veneration for Thomas a +Becket and such men, but this was a little too much for him. He +said that a Becket 'wanted to be greater than the saints and better +than St. Peter,' and rode away from him with the King of England. +His poor French Majesty asked a Becket's pardon for so doing, +however, soon afterwards, and cut a very pitiful figure. + +At last, and after a world of trouble, it came to this. There was +another meeting on French ground between King Henry and Thomas a +Becket, and it was agreed that Thomas a Becket should be Archbishop +of Canterbury, according to the customs of former Archbishops, and +that the King should put him in possession of the revenues of that +post. And now, indeed, you might suppose the struggle at an end, +and Thomas a Becket at rest. NO, not even yet. For Thomas a +Becket hearing, by some means, that King Henry, when he was in +dread of his kingdom being placed under an interdict, had had his +eldest son Prince Henry secretly crowned, not only persuaded the +Pope to suspend the Archbishop of York who had performed that +ceremony, and to excommunicate the Bishops who had assisted at it, +but sent a messenger of his own into England, in spite of all the +King's precautions along the coast, who delivered the letters of +excommunication into the Bishops' own hands. Thomas a Becket then +came over to England himself, after an absence of seven years. He +was privately warned that it was dangerous to come, and that an +ireful knight, named RANULF DE BROC, had threatened that he should +not live to eat a loaf of bread in England; but he came. + +The common people received him well, and marched about with him in +a soldierly way, armed with such rustic weapons as they could get. +He tried to see the young prince who had once been his pupil, but +was prevented. He hoped for some little support among the nobles +and priests, but found none. He made the most of the peasants who +attended him, and feasted them, and went from Canterbury to Harrow- +on-the-Hill, and from Harrow-on-the-Hill back to Canterbury, and on +Christmas Day preached in the Cathedral there, and told the people +in his sermon that he had come to die among them, and that it was +likely he would be murdered. He had no fear, however - or, if he +had any, he had much more obstinacy - for he, then and there, +excommunicated three of his enemies, of whom Ranulf de Broc, the +ireful knight, was one. + +As men in general had no fancy for being cursed, in their sitting +and walking, and gaping and sneezing, and all the rest of it, it +was very natural in the persons so freely excommunicated to +complain to the King. It was equally natural in the King, who had +hoped that this troublesome opponent was at last quieted, to fall +into a mighty rage when he heard of these new affronts; and, on the +Archbishop of York telling him that he never could hope for rest +while Thomas a Becket lived, to cry out hastily before his court, +'Have I no one here who will deliver me from this man?' There were +four knights present, who, hearing the King's words, looked at one +another, and went out. + +The names of these knights were REGINALD FITZURSE, WILLIAM TRACY, +HUGH DE MORVILLE, and RICHARD BRITO; three of whom had been in the +train of Thomas a Becket in the old days of his splendour. They +rode away on horseback, in a very secret manner, and on the third +day after Christmas Day arrived at Saltwood House, not far from +Canterbury, which belonged to the family of Ranulf de Broc. They +quietly collected some followers here, in case they should need +any; and proceeding to Canterbury, suddenly appeared (the four +knights and twelve men) before the Archbishop, in his own house, at +two o'clock in the afternoon. They neither bowed nor spoke, but +sat down on the floor in silence, staring at the Archbishop. + +Thomas a Becket said, at length, 'What do you want?' + +'We want,' said Reginald Fitzurse, 'the excommunication taken from +the Bishops, and you to answer for your offences to the King.' +Thomas a Becket defiantly replied, that the power of the clergy was +above the power of the King. That it was not for such men as they +were, to threaten him. That if he were threatened by all the +swords in England, he would never yield. + +'Then we will do more than threaten!' said the knights. And they +went out with the twelve men, and put on their armour, and drew +their shining swords, and came back. + +His servants, in the meantime, had shut up and barred the great +gate of the palace. At first, the knights tried to shatter it with +their battle-axes; but, being shown a window by which they could +enter, they let the gate alone, and climbed in that way. While +they were battering at the door, the attendants of Thomas a Becket +had implored him to take refuge in the Cathedral; in which, as a +sanctuary or sacred place, they thought the knights would dare to +do no violent deed. He told them, again and again, that he would +not stir. Hearing the distant voices of the monks singing the +evening service, however, he said it was now his duty to attend, +and therefore, and for no other reason, he would go. + +There was a near way between his Palace and the Cathedral, by some +beautiful old cloisters which you may yet see. He went into the +Cathedral, without any hurry, and having the Cross carried before +him as usual. When he was safely there, his servants would have +fastened the door, but he said NO! it was the house of God and not +a fortress. + +As he spoke, the shadow of Reginald Fitzurse appeared in the +Cathedral doorway, darkening the little light there was outside, on +the dark winter evening. This knight said, in a strong voice, +'Follow me, loyal servants of the King!' The rattle of the armour +of the other knights echoed through the Cathedral, as they came +clashing in. + +It was so dark, in the lofty aisles and among the stately pillars +of the church, and there were so many hiding-places in the crypt +below and in the narrow passages above, that Thomas a Becket might +even at that pass have saved himself if he would. But he would +not. He told the monks resolutely that he would not. And though +they all dispersed and left him there with no other follower than +EDWARD GRYME, his faithful cross-bearer, he was as firm then, as +ever he had been in his life. + +The knights came on, through the darkness, making a terrible noise +with their armed tread upon the stone pavement of the church. +'Where is the traitor?' they cried out. He made no answer. But +when they cried, 'Where is the Archbishop?' he said proudly, 'I am +here!' and came out of the shade and stood before them. + +The knights had no desire to kill him, if they could rid the King +and themselves of him by any other means. They told him he must +either fly or go with them. He said he would do neither; and he +threw William Tracy off with such force when he took hold of his +sleeve, that Tracy reeled again. By his reproaches and his +steadiness, he so incensed them, and exasperated their fierce +humour, that Reginald Fitzurse, whom he called by an ill name, +said, 'Then die!' and struck at his head. But the faithful Edward +Gryme put out his arm, and there received the main force of the +blow, so that it only made his master bleed. Another voice from +among the knights again called to Thomas a Becket to fly; but, with +his blood running down his face, and his hands clasped, and his +head bent, he commanded himself to God, and stood firm. Then they +cruelly killed him close to the altar of St. Bennet; and his body +fell upon the pavement, which was dirtied with his blood and +brains. + +It is an awful thing to think of the murdered mortal, who had so +showered his curses about, lying, all disfigured, in the church, +where a few lamps here and there were but red specks on a pall of +darkness; and to think of the guilty knights riding away on +horseback, looking over their shoulders at the dim Cathedral, and +remembering what they had left inside. + + +PART THE SECOND + + +WHEN the King heard how Thomas a Becket had lost his life in +Canterbury Cathedral, through the ferocity of the four Knights, he +was filled with dismay. Some have supposed that when the King +spoke those hasty words, 'Have I no one here who will deliver me +from this man?' he wished, and meant a Becket to be slain. But few +things are more unlikely; for, besides that the King was not +naturally cruel (though very passionate), he was wise, and must +have known full well what any stupid man in his dominions must have +known, namely, that such a murder would rouse the Pope and the +whole Church against him. + +He sent respectful messengers to the Pope, to represent his +innocence (except in having uttered the hasty words); and he swore +solemnly and publicly to his innocence, and contrived in time to +make his peace. As to the four guilty Knights, who fled into +Yorkshire, and never again dared to show themselves at Court, the +Pope excommunicated them; and they lived miserably for some time, +shunned by all their countrymen. At last, they went humbly to +Jerusalem as a penance, and there died and were buried. + +It happened, fortunately for the pacifying of the Pope, that an +opportunity arose very soon after the murder of a Becket, for the +King to declare his power in Ireland - which was an acceptable +undertaking to the Pope, as the Irish, who had been converted to +Christianity by one Patricius (otherwise Saint Patrick) long ago, +before any Pope existed, considered that the Pope had nothing at +all to do with them, or they with the Pope, and accordingly refused +to pay him Peter's Pence, or that tax of a penny a house which I +have elsewhere mentioned. The King's opportunity arose in this +way. + +The Irish were, at that time, as barbarous a people as you can well +imagine. They were continually quarrelling and fighting, cutting +one another's throats, slicing one another's noses, burning one +another's houses, carrying away one another's wives, and committing +all sorts of violence. The country was divided into five kingdoms +- DESMOND, THOMOND, CONNAUGHT, ULSTER, and LEINSTER - each governed +by a separate King, of whom one claimed to be the chief of the +rest. Now, one of these Kings, named DERMOND MAC MURROUGH (a wild +kind of name, spelt in more than one wild kind of way), had carried +off the wife of a friend of his, and concealed her on an island in +a bog. The friend resenting this (though it was quite the custom +of the country), complained to the chief King, and, with the chief +King's help, drove Dermond Mac Murrough out of his dominions. +Dermond came over to England for revenge; and offered to hold his +realm as a vassal of King Henry, if King Henry would help him to +regain it. The King consented to these terms; but only assisted +him, then, with what were called Letters Patent, authorising any +English subjects who were so disposed, to enter into his service, +and aid his cause. + +There was, at Bristol, a certain EARL RICHARD DE CLARE, called +STRONGBOW; of no very good character; needy and desperate, and +ready for anything that offered him a chance of improving his +fortunes. There were, in South Wales, two other broken knights of +the same good-for-nothing sort, called ROBERT FITZ-STEPHEN, and +MAURICE FITZ-GERALD. These three, each with a small band of +followers, took up Dermond's cause; and it was agreed that if it +proved successful, Strongbow should marry Dermond's daughter EVA, +and be declared his heir. + +The trained English followers of these knights were so superior in +all the discipline of battle to the Irish, that they beat them +against immense superiority of numbers. In one fight, early in the +war, they cut off three hundred heads, and laid them before Mac +Murrough; who turned them every one up with his hands, rejoicing, +and, coming to one which was the head of a man whom he had much +disliked, grasped it by the hair and ears, and tore off the nose +and lips with his teeth. You may judge from this, what kind of a +gentleman an Irish King in those times was. The captives, all +through this war, were horribly treated; the victorious party +making nothing of breaking their limbs, and casting them into the +sea from the tops of high rocks. It was in the midst of the +miseries and cruelties attendant on the taking of Waterford, where +the dead lay piled in the streets, and the filthy gutters ran with +blood, that Strongbow married Eva. An odious marriage-company +those mounds of corpse's must have made, I think, and one quite +worthy of the young lady's father. + +He died, after Waterford and Dublin had been taken, and various +successes achieved; and Strongbow became King of Leinster. Now +came King Henry's opportunity. To restrain the growing power of +Strongbow, he himself repaired to Dublin, as Strongbow's Royal +Master, and deprived him of his kingdom, but confirmed him in the +enjoyment of great possessions. The King, then, holding state in +Dublin, received the homage of nearly all the Irish Kings and +Chiefs, and so came home again with a great addition to his +reputation as Lord of Ireland, and with a new claim on the favour +of the Pope. And now, their reconciliation was completed - more +easily and mildly by the Pope, than the King might have expected, I +think. + +At this period of his reign, when his troubles seemed so few and +his prospects so bright, those domestic miseries began which +gradually made the King the most unhappy of men, reduced his great +spirit, wore away his health, and broke his heart. + +He had four sons. HENRY, now aged eighteen - his secret crowning +of whom had given such offence to Thomas a Becket. RICHARD, aged +sixteen; GEOFFREY, fifteen; and JOHN, his favourite, a young boy +whom the courtiers named LACKLAND, because he had no inheritance, +but to whom the King meant to give the Lordship of Ireland. All +these misguided boys, in their turn, were unnatural sons to him, +and unnatural brothers to each other. Prince Henry, stimulated by +the French King, and by his bad mother, Queen Eleanor, began the +undutiful history, + +First, he demanded that his young wife, MARGARET, the French King's +daughter, should be crowned as well as he. His father, the King, +consented, and it was done. It was no sooner done, than he +demanded to have a part of his father's dominions, during his +father's life. This being refused, he made off from his father in +the night, with his bad heart full of bitterness, and took refuge +at the French King's Court. Within a day or two, his brothers +Richard and Geoffrey followed. Their mother tried to join them - +escaping in man's clothes - but she was seized by King Henry's men, +and immured in prison, where she lay, deservedly, for sixteen +years. Every day, however, some grasping English noblemen, to whom +the King's protection of his people from their avarice and +oppression had given offence, deserted him and joined the Princes. +Every day he heard some fresh intelligence of the Princes levying +armies against him; of Prince Henry's wearing a crown before his +own ambassadors at the French Court, and being called the Junior +King of England; of all the Princes swearing never to make peace +with him, their father, without the consent and approval of the +Barons of France. But, with his fortitude and energy unshaken, +King Henry met the shock of these disasters with a resolved and +cheerful face. He called upon all Royal fathers who had sons, to +help him, for his cause was theirs; he hired, out of his riches, +twenty thousand men to fight the false French King, who stirred his +own blood against him; and he carried on the war with such vigour, +that Louis soon proposed a conference to treat for peace. + +The conference was held beneath an old wide-spreading green elm- +tree, upon a plain in France. It led to nothing. The war +recommenced. Prince Richard began his fighting career, by leading +an army against his father; but his father beat him and his army +back; and thousands of his men would have rued the day in which +they fought in such a wicked cause, had not the King received news +of an invasion of England by the Scots, and promptly come home +through a great storm to repress it. And whether he really began +to fear that he suffered these troubles because a Becket had been +murdered; or whether he wished to rise in the favour of the Pope, +who had now declared a Becket to be a saint, or in the favour of +his own people, of whom many believed that even a Becket's +senseless tomb could work miracles, I don't know: but the King no +sooner landed in England than he went straight to Canterbury; and +when he came within sight of the distant Cathedral, he dismounted +from his horse, took off his shoes, and walked with bare and +bleeding feet to a Becket's grave. There, he lay down on the +ground, lamenting, in the presence of many people; and by-and-by he +went into the Chapter House, and, removing his clothes from his +back and shoulders, submitted himself to be beaten with knotted +cords (not beaten very hard, I dare say though) by eighty Priests, +one after another. It chanced that on the very day when the King +made this curious exhibition of himself, a complete victory was +obtained over the Scots; which very much delighted the Priests, who +said that it was won because of his great example of repentance. +For the Priests in general had found out, since a Becket's death, +that they admired him of all things - though they had hated him +very cordially when he was alive. + +The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base conspiracy of +the King's undutiful sons and their foreign friends, took the +opportunity of the King being thus employed at home, to lay siege +to Rouen, the capital of Normandy. But the King, who was +extraordinarily quick and active in all his movements, was at +Rouen, too, before it was supposed possible that he could have left +England; and there he so defeated the said Earl of Flanders, that +the conspirators proposed peace, and his bad sons Henry and +Geoffrey submitted. Richard resisted for six weeks; but, being +beaten out of castle after castle, he at last submitted too, and +his father forgave him. + +To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford them +breathing-time for new faithlessness. They were so false, +disloyal, and dishonourable, that they were no more to be trusted +than common thieves. In the very next year, Prince Henry rebelled +again, and was again forgiven. In eight years more, Prince Richard +rebelled against his elder brother; and Prince Geoffrey infamously +said that the brothers could never agree well together, unless they +were united against their father. In the very next year after +their reconciliation by the King, Prince Henry again rebelled +against his father; and again submitted, swearing to be true; and +was again forgiven; and again rebelled with Geoffrey. + +But the end of this perfidious Prince was come. He fell sick at a +French town; and his conscience terribly reproaching him with his +baseness, he sent messengers to the King his father, imploring him +to come and see him, and to forgive him for the last time on his +bed of death. The generous King, who had a royal and forgiving +mind towards his children always, would have gone; but this Prince +had been so unnatural, that the noblemen about the King suspected +treachery, and represented to him that he could not safely trust +his life with such a traitor, though his own eldest son. Therefore +the King sent him a ring from off his finger as a token of +forgiveness; and when the Prince had kissed it, with much grief and +many tears, and had confessed to those around him how bad, and +wicked, and undutiful a son he had been; he said to the attendant +Priests: 'O, tie a rope about my body, and draw me out of bed, and +lay me down upon a bed of ashes, that I may die with prayers to God +in a repentant manner!' And so he died, at twenty-seven years old. + +Three years afterwards, Prince Geoffrey, being unhorsed at a +tournament, had his brains trampled out by a crowd of horses +passing over him. So, there only remained Prince Richard, and +Prince John - who had grown to be a young man now, and had solemnly +sworn to be faithful to his father. Richard soon rebelled again, +encouraged by his friend the French King, PHILIP THE SECOND (son of +Louis, who was dead); and soon submitted and was again forgiven, +swearing on the New Testament never to rebel again; and in another +year or so, rebelled again; and, in the presence of his father, +knelt down on his knee before the King of France; and did the +French King homage: and declared that with his aid he would +possess himself, by force, of all his father's French dominions. + +And yet this Richard called himself a soldier of Our Saviour! And +yet this Richard wore the Cross, which the Kings of France and +England had both taken, in the previous year, at a brotherly +meeting underneath the old wide-spreading elm-tree on the plain, +when they had sworn (like him) to devote themselves to a new +Crusade, for the love and honour of the Truth! + +Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, and almost +ready to lie down and die, the unhappy King who had so long stood +firm, began to fail. But the Pope, to his honour, supported him; +and obliged the French King and Richard, though successful in +fight, to treat for peace. Richard wanted to be Crowned King of +England, and pretended that he wanted to be married (which he +really did not) to the French King's sister, his promised wife, +whom King Henry detained in England. King Henry wanted, on the +other hand, that the French King's sister should be married to his +favourite son, John: the only one of his sons (he said) who had +never rebelled against him. At last King Henry, deserted by his +nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, broken-hearted, consented +to establish peace. + +One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. When they +brought him the proposed treaty of peace, in writing, as he lay +very ill in bed, they brought him also the list of the deserters +from their allegiance, whom he was required to pardon. The first +name upon this list was John, his favourite son, in whom he had +trusted to the last. + +'O John! child of my heart!' exclaimed the King, in a great agony +of mind. 'O John, whom I have loved the best! O John, for whom I +have contended through these many troubles! Have you betrayed me +too!' And then he lay down with a heavy groan, and said, 'Now let +the world go as it will. I care for nothing more!' + +After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the French town +of Chinon - a town he had been fond of, during many years. But he +was fond of no place now; it was too true that he could care for +nothing more upon this earth. He wildly cursed the hour when he +was born, and cursed the children whom he left behind him; and +expired. + +As, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the Court +had abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, so they now +abandoned his descendant. The very body was stripped, in the +plunder of the Royal chamber; and it was not easy to find the means +of carrying it for burial to the abbey church of Fontevraud. + +Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have the +heart of a Lion. It would have been far better, I think, to have +had the heart of a Man. His heart, whatever it was, had cause to +beat remorsefully within his breast, when he came - as he did - +into the solemn abbey, and looked on his dead father's uncovered +face. His heart, whatever it was, had been a black and perjured +heart, in all its dealings with the deceased King, and more +deficient in a single touch of tenderness than any wild beast's in +the forest. + +There is a pretty story told of this Reign, called the story of +FAIR ROSAMOND. It relates how the King doted on Fair Rosamond, who +was the loveliest girl in all the world; and how he had a beautiful +Bower built for her in a Park at Woodstock; and how it was erected +in a labyrinth, and could only be found by a clue of silk. How the +bad Queen Eleanor, becoming jealous of Fair Rosamond, found out the +secret of the clue, and one day, appeared before her, with a dagger +and a cup of poison, and left her to the choice between those +deaths. How Fair Rosamond, after shedding many piteous tears and +offering many useless prayers to the cruel Queen, took the poison, +and fell dead in the midst of the beautiful bower, while the +unconscious birds sang gaily all around her. + +Now, there WAS a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare say) the +loveliest girl in all the world, and the King was certainly very +fond of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was certainly made jealous. +But I am afraid - I say afraid, because I like the story so much - +that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no silken clue, no dagger, +no poison. I am afraid fair Rosamond retired to a nunnery near +Oxford, and died there, peaceably; her sister-nuns hanging a silken +drapery over her tomb, and often dressing it with flowers, in +remembrance of the youth and beauty that had enchanted the King +when he too was young, and when his life lay fair before him. + +It was dark and ended now; faded and gone. Henry Plantagenet lay +quiet in the abbey church of Fontevraud, in the fifty-seventh year +of his age - never to be completed - after governing England well, +for nearly thirty-five years. + + + +CHAPTER XIII - ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE LION- +HEART + + + +IN the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and eighty-nine, +Richard of the Lion Heart succeeded to the throne of King Henry the +Second, whose paternal heart he had done so much to break. He had +been, as we have seen, a rebel from his boyhood; but, the moment he +became a king against whom others might rebel, he found out that +rebellion was a great wickedness. In the heat of this pious +discovery, he punished all the leading people who had befriended +him against his father. He could scarcely have done anything that +would have been a better instance of his real nature, or a better +warning to fawners and parasites not to trust in lion-hearted +princes. + +He likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and locked +him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free until he had +relinquished, not only all the Crown treasure, but all his own +money too. So, Richard certainly got the Lion's share of the +wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had a Lion's heart or +not. + +He was crowned King of England, with great pomp, at Westminster: +walking to the Cathedral under a silken canopy stretched on the +tops of four lances, each carried by a great lord. On the day of +his coronation, a dreadful murdering of the Jews took place, which +seems to have given great delight to numbers of savage persons +calling themselves Christians. The King had issued a proclamation +forbidding the Jews (who were generally hated, though they were the +most useful merchants in England) to appear at the ceremony; but as +they had assembled in London from all parts, bringing presents to +show their respect for the new Sovereign, some of them ventured +down to Westminster Hall with their gifts; which were very readily +accepted. It is supposed, now, that some noisy fellow in the +crowd, pretending to be a very delicate Christian, set up a howl at +this, and struck a Jew who was trying to get in at the Hall door +with his present. A riot arose. The Jews who had got into the +Hall, were driven forth; and some of the rabble cried out that the +new King had commanded the unbelieving race to be put to death. +Thereupon the crowd rushed through the narrow streets of the city, +slaughtering all the Jews they met; and when they could find no +more out of doors (on account of their having fled to their houses, +and fastened themselves in), they ran madly about, breaking open +all the houses where the Jews lived, rushing in and stabbing or +spearing them, sometimes even flinging old people and children out +of window into blazing fires they had lighted up below. This great +cruelty lasted four-and-twenty hours, and only three men were +punished for it. Even they forfeited their lives not for murdering +and robbing the Jews, but for burning the houses of some +Christians. + +King Richard, who was a strong, restless, burly man, with one idea +always in his head, and that the very troublesome idea of breaking +the heads of other men, was mightily impatient to go on a Crusade +to the Holy Land, with a great army. As great armies could not be +raised to go, even to the Holy Land, without a great deal of money, +he sold the Crown domains, and even the high offices of State; +recklessly appointing noblemen to rule over his English subjects, +not because they were fit to govern, but because they could pay +high for the privilege. In this way, and by selling pardons at a +dear rate and by varieties of avarice and oppression, he scraped +together a large treasure. He then appointed two Bishops to take +care of his kingdom in his absence, and gave great powers and +possessions to his brother John, to secure his friendship. John +would rather have been made Regent of England; but he was a sly +man, and friendly to the expedition; saying to himself, no doubt, +'The more fighting, the more chance of my brother being killed; and +when he IS killed, then I become King John!' + +Before the newly levied army departed from England, the recruits +and the general populace distinguished themselves by astonishing +cruelties on the unfortunate Jews: whom, in many large towns, they +murdered by hundreds in the most horrible manner. + +At York, a large body of Jews took refuge in the Castle, in the +absence of its Governor, after the wives and children of many of +them had been slain before their eyes. Presently came the +Governor, and demanded admission. 'How can we give it thee, O +Governor!' said the Jews upon the walls, 'when, if we open the gate +by so much as the width of a foot, the roaring crowd behind thee +will press in and kill us?' + +Upon this, the unjust Governor became angry, and told the people +that he approved of their killing those Jews; and a mischievous +maniac of a friar, dressed all in white, put himself at the head of +the assault, and they assaulted the Castle for three days. + +Then said JOCEN, the head-Jew (who was a Rabbi or Priest), to the +rest, 'Brethren, there is no hope for us with the Christians who +are hammering at the gates and walls, and who must soon break in. +As we and our wives and children must die, either by Christian +hands, or by our own, let it be by our own. Let us destroy by fire +what jewels and other treasure we have here, then fire the castle, +and then perish!' + +A few could not resolve to do this, but the greater part complied. +They made a blazing heap of all their valuables, and, when those +were consumed, set the castle in flames. While the flames roared +and crackled around them, and shooting up into the sky, turned it +blood-red, Jocen cut the throat of his beloved wife, and stabbed +himself. All the others who had wives or children, did the like +dreadful deed. When the populace broke in, they found (except the +trembling few, cowering in corners, whom they soon killed) only +heaps of greasy cinders, with here and there something like part of +the blackened trunk of a burnt tree, but which had lately been a +human creature, formed by the beneficent hand of the Creator as +they were. + +After this bad beginning, Richard and his troops went on, in no +very good manner, with the Holy Crusade. It was undertaken jointly +by the King of England and his old friend Philip of France. They +commenced the business by reviewing their forces, to the number of +one hundred thousand men. Afterwards, they severally embarked +their troops for Messina, in Sicily, which was appointed as the +next place of meeting. + +King Richard's sister had married the King of this place, but he +was dead: and his uncle TANCRED had usurped the crown, cast the +Royal Widow into prison, and possessed himself of her estates. +Richard fiercely demanded his sister's release, the restoration of +her lands, and (according to the Royal custom of the Island) that +she should have a golden chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty +silver cups, and four-and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too +powerful to be successfully resisted, Tancred yielded to his +demands; and then the French King grew jealous, and complained that +the English King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Messina and +everywhere else. Richard, however, cared little or nothing for +this complaint; and in consideration of a present of twenty +thousand pieces of gold, promised his pretty little nephew ARTHUR, +then a child of two years old, in marriage to Tancred's daughter. +We shall hear again of pretty little Arthur by-and-by. + +This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody's brains being +knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him), King Richard +took his sister away, and also a fair lady named BERENGARIA, with +whom he had fallen in love in France, and whom his mother, Queen +Eleanor (so long in prison, you remember, but released by Richard +on his coming to the Throne), had brought out there to be his wife; +and sailed with them for Cyprus. + +He soon had the pleasure of fighting the King of the Island of +Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the English +troops who were shipwrecked on the shore; and easily conquering +this poor monarch, he seized his only daughter, to be a companion +to the lady Berengaria, and put the King himself into silver +fetters. He then sailed away again with his mother, sister, wife, +and the captive princess; and soon arrived before the town of Acre, +which the French King with his fleet was besieging from the sea. +But the French King was in no triumphant condition, for his army +had been thinned by the swords of the Saracens, and wasted by the +plague; and SALADIN, the brave Sultan of the Turks, at the head of +a numerous army, was at that time gallantly defending the place +from the hills that rise above it. + +Wherever the united army of Crusaders went, they agreed in few +points except in gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in a most +unholy manner; in debauching the people among whom they tarried, +whether they were friends or foes; and in carrying disturbance and +ruin into quiet places. The French King was jealous of the English +King, and the English King was jealous of the French King, and the +disorderly and violent soldiers of the two nations were jealous of +one another; consequently, the two Kings could not at first agree, +even upon a joint assault on Acre; but when they did make up their +quarrel for that purpose, the Saracens promised to yield the town, +to give up to the Christians the wood of the Holy Cross, to set at +liberty all their Christian captives, and to pay two hundred +thousand pieces of gold. All this was to be done within forty +days; but, not being done, King Richard ordered some three thousand +Saracen prisoners to be brought out in the front of his camp, and +there, in full view of their own countrymen, to be butchered. + +The French King had no part in this crime; for he was by that time +travelling homeward with the greater part of his men; being +offended by the overbearing conduct of the English King; being +anxious to look after his own dominions; and being ill, besides, +from the unwholesome air of that hot and sandy country. King +Richard carried on the war without him; and remained in the East, +meeting with a variety of adventures, nearly a year and a half. +Every night when his army was on the march, and came to a halt, the +heralds cried out three times, to remind all the soldiers of the +cause in which they were engaged, 'Save the Holy Sepulchre!' and +then all the soldiers knelt and said 'Amen!' Marching or +encamping, the army had continually to strive with the hot air of +the glaring desert, or with the Saracen soldiers animated and +directed by the brave Saladin, or with both together. Sickness and +death, battle and wounds, were always among them; but through every +difficulty King Richard fought like a giant, and worked like a +common labourer. Long and long after he was quiet in his grave, +his terrible battle-axe, with twenty English pounds of English +steel in its mighty head, was a legend among the Saracens; and when +all the Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust for many a year, +if a Saracen horse started at any object by the wayside, his rider +would exclaim, 'What dost thou fear, Fool? Dost thou think King +Richard is behind it?' + +No one admired this King's renown for bravery more than Saladin +himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. When Richard lay +ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits from Damascus, and +snow from the mountain-tops. Courtly messages and compliments were +frequently exchanged between them - and then King Richard would +mount his horse and kill as many Saracens as he could; and Saladin +would mount his, and kill as many Christians as he could. In this +way King Richard fought to his heart's content at Arsoof and at +Jaffa; and finding himself with nothing exciting to do at Ascalon, +except to rebuild, for his own defence, some fortifications there +which the Saracens had destroyed, he kicked his ally the Duke of +Austria, for being too proud to work at them. + +The army at last came within sight of the Holy City of Jerusalem; +but, being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quarrelling and +fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the Saracens upon a truce +for three years, three months, three days, and three hours. Then, +the English Christians, protected by the noble Saladin from Saracen +revenge, visited Our Saviour's tomb; and then King Richard embarked +with a small force at Acre to return home. + +But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was fain to pass +through Germany, under an assumed name. Now, there were many +people in Germany who had served in the Holy Land under that proud +Duke of Austria who had been kicked; and some of them, easily +recognising a man so remarkable as King Richard, carried their +intelligence to the kicked Duke, who straightway took him prisoner +at a little inn near Vienna. + +The Duke's master the Emperor of Germany, and the King of France, +were equally delighted to have so troublesome a monarch in safe +keeping. Friendships which are founded on a partnership in doing +wrong, are never true; and the King of France was now quite as +heartily King Richard's foe, as he had ever been his friend in his +unnatural conduct to his father. He monstrously pretended that +King Richard had designed to poison him in the East; he charged him +with having murdered, there, a man whom he had in truth befriended; +he bribed the Emperor of Germany to keep him close prisoner; and, +finally, through the plotting of these two princes, Richard was +brought before the German legislature, charged with the foregoing +crimes, and many others. But he defended himself so well, that +many of the assembly were moved to tears by his eloquence and +earnestness. It was decided that he should be treated, during the +rest of his captivity, in a manner more becoming his dignity than +he had been, and that he should be set free on the payment of a +heavy ransom. This ransom the English people willingly raised. +When Queen Eleanor took it over to Germany, it was at first evaded +and refused. But she appealed to the honour of all the princes of +the German Empire in behalf of her son, and appealed so well that +it was accepted, and the King released. Thereupon, the King of +France wrote to Prince John - 'Take care of thyself. The devil is +unchained!' + +Prince John had reason to fear his brother, for he had been a +traitor to him in his captivity. He had secretly joined the French +King; had vowed to the English nobles and people that his brother +was dead; and had vainly tried to seize the crown. He was now in +France, at a place called Evreux. Being the meanest and basest of +men, he contrived a mean and base expedient for making himself +acceptable to his brother. He invited the French officers of the +garrison in that town to dinner, murdered them all, and then took +the fortress. With this recommendation to the good will of a lion- +hearted monarch, he hastened to King Richard, fell on his knees +before him, and obtained the intercession of Queen Eleanor. 'I +forgive him,' said the King, 'and I hope I may forget the injury he +has done me, as easily as I know he will forget my pardon.' + +While King Richard was in Sicily, there had been trouble in his +dominions at home: one of the bishops whom he had left in charge +thereof, arresting the other; and making, in his pride and +ambition, as great a show as if he were King himself. But the King +hearing of it at Messina, and appointing a new Regency, this +LONGCHAMP (for that was his name) had fled to France in a woman's +dress, and had there been encouraged and supported by the French +King. With all these causes of offence against Philip in his mind, +King Richard had no sooner been welcomed home by his enthusiastic +subjects with great display and splendour, and had no sooner been +crowned afresh at Winchester, than he resolved to show the French +King that the Devil was unchained indeed, and made war against him +with great fury. + +There was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising out of the +discontents of the poor people, who complained that they were far +more heavily taxed than the rich, and who found a spirited champion +in WILLIAM FITZ-OSBERT, called LONGBEARD. He became the leader of +a secret society, comprising fifty thousand men; he was seized by +surprise; he stabbed the citizen who first laid hands upon him; and +retreated, bravely fighting, to a church, which he maintained four +days, until he was dislodged by fire, and run through the body as +he came out. He was not killed, though; for he was dragged, half +dead, at the tail of a horse to Smithfield, and there hanged. +Death was long a favourite remedy for silencing the people's +advocates; but as we go on with this history, I fancy we shall find +them difficult to make an end of, for all that. + +The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was still in +progress when a certain Lord named VIDOMAR, Viscount of Limoges, +chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient coins. As the +King's vassal, he sent the King half of it; but the King claimed +the whole. The lord refused to yield the whole. The King besieged +the lord in his castle, swore that he would take the castle by +storm, and hang every man of its defenders on the battlements. + +There was a strange old song in that part of the country, to the +effect that in Limoges an arrow would be made by which King Richard +would die. It may be that BERTRAND DE GOURDON, a young man who was +one of the defenders of the castle, had often sung it or heard it +sung of a winter night, and remembered it when he saw, from his +post upon the ramparts, the King attended only by his chief officer +riding below the walls surveying the place. He drew an arrow to +the head, took steady aim, said between his teeth, 'Now I pray God +speed thee well, arrow!' discharged it, and struck the King in the +left shoulder. + +Although the wound was not at first considered dangerous, it was +severe enough to cause the King to retire to his tent, and direct +the assault to be made without him. The castle was taken; and +every man of its defenders was hanged, as the King had sworn all +should be, except Bertrand de Gourdon, who was reserved until the +royal pleasure respecting him should be known. + +By that time unskilful treatment had made the wound mortal and the +King knew that he was dying. He directed Bertrand to be brought +into his tent. The young man was brought there, heavily chained, +King Richard looked at him steadily. He looked, as steadily, at +the King. + +'Knave!' said King Richard. 'What have I done to thee that thou +shouldest take my life?' + +'What hast thou done to me?' replied the young man. 'With thine +own hands thou hast killed my father and my two brothers. Myself +thou wouldest have hanged. Let me die now, by any torture that +thou wilt. My comfort is, that no torture can save Thee. Thou too +must die; and, through me, the world is quit of thee!' + +Again the King looked at the young man steadily. Again the young +man looked steadily at him. Perhaps some remembrance of his +generous enemy Saladin, who was not a Christian, came into the mind +of the dying King. + +'Youth!' he said, 'I forgive thee. Go unhurt!' Then, turning to +the chief officer who had been riding in his company when he +received the wound, King Richard said: + +'Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let him +depart.' + +He sunk down on his couch, and a dark mist seemed in his weakened +eyes to fill the tent wherein he had so often rested, and he died. +His age was forty-two; he had reigned ten years. His last command +was not obeyed; for the chief officer flayed Bertrand de Gourdon +alive, and hanged him. + +There is an old tune yet known - a sorrowful air will sometimes +outlive many generations of strong men, and even last longer than +battle-axes with twenty pounds of steel in the head - by which this +King is said to have been discovered in his captivity. BLONDEL, a +favourite Minstrel of King Richard, as the story relates, +faithfully seeking his Royal master, went singing it outside the +gloomy walls of many foreign fortresses and prisons; until at last +he heard it echoed from within a dungeon, and knew the voice, and +cried out in ecstasy, 'O Richard, O my King!' You may believe it, +if you like; it would be easy to believe worse things. Richard was +himself a Minstrel and a Poet. If he had not been a Prince too, he +might have been a better man perhaps, and might have gone out of +the world with less bloodshed and waste of life to answer for. + + + +CHAPTER XIV - ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND + + + +AT two-and-thirty years of age, JOHN became King of England. His +pretty little nephew ARTHUR had the best claim to the throne; but +John seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility, +and got himself crowned at Westminster within a few weeks after his +brother Richard's death. I doubt whether the crown could possibly +have been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a more +detestable villain, if England had been searched from end to end to +find him out. + +The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John +to his new dignity, and declared in favour of Arthur. You must not +suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless +boy; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the King of +England. So John and the French King went to war about Arthur. + +He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. He was +not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains trampled out at +the tournament; and, besides the misfortune of never having known a +father's guidance and protection, he had the additional misfortune +to have a foolish mother (CONSTANCE by name), lately married to her +third husband. She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the +French King, who pretended to be very much his friend, and who made +him a Knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but, who +cared so little about him in reality, that finding it his interest +to make peace with King John for a time, he did so without the +least consideration for the poor little Prince, and heartlessly +sacrificed all his interests. + +Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly; and in the +course of that time his mother died. But, the French King then +finding it his interest to quarrel with King John again, again made +Arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan boy to court. 'You +know your rights, Prince,' said the French King, 'and you would +like to be a King. Is it not so?' 'Truly,' said Prince Arthur, 'I +should greatly like to be a King!' 'Then,' said Philip, 'you shall +have two hundred gentlemen who are Knights of mine, and with them +you shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of which +your uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken possession. I +myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in Normandy.' +Poor Arthur was so flattered and so grateful that he signed a +treaty with the crafty French King, agreeing to consider him his +superior Lord, and that the French King should keep for himself +whatever he could take from King John. + +Now, King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip was so +perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well have been a +lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so young, he was ardent +and flushed with hope; and, when the people of Brittany (which was +his inheritance) sent him five hundred more knights and five +thousand foot soldiers, he believed his fortune was made. The +people of Brittany had been fond of him from his birth, and had +requested that he might be called Arthur, in remembrance of that +dimly-famous English Arthur, of whom I told you early in this book, +whom they believed to have been the brave friend and companion of +an old King of their own. They had tales among them about a +prophet called MERLIN (of the same old time), who had foretold that +their own King should be restored to them after hundreds of years; +and they believed that the prophecy would be fulfilled in Arthur; +that the time would come when he would rule them with a crown of +Brittany upon his head; and when neither King of France nor King of +England would have any power over them. When Arthur found himself +riding in a glittering suit of armour on a richly caparisoned +horse, at the head of his train of knights and soldiers, he began +to believe this too, and to consider old Merlin a very superior +prophet. + +He did not know - how could he, being so innocent and +inexperienced? - that his little army was a mere nothing against +the power of the King of England. The French King knew it; but the +poor boy's fate was little to him, so that the King of England was +worried and distressed. Therefore, King Philip went his way into +Normandy and Prince Arthur went his way towards Mirebeau, a French +town near Poictiers, both very well pleased. + +Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because his +grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her appearance in this +history (and who had always been his mother's enemy), was living +there, and because his Knights said, 'Prince, if you can take her +prisoner, you will be able to bring the King your uncle to terms!' +But she was not to be easily taken. She was old enough by this +time - eighty - but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of +years and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur's +approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged her +soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little army +besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how matters stood, +came up to the rescue, with HIS army. So here was a strange +family-party! The boy-Prince besieging his grandmother, and his +uncle besieging him! + +This position of affairs did not last long. One summer night King +John, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised Prince +Arthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized the +Prince himself in his bed. The Knights were put in heavy irons, +and driven away in open carts drawn by bullocks, to various +dungeons where they were most inhumanly treated, and where some of +them were starved to death. Prince Arthur was sent to the castle +of Falaise. + +One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinking +it strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and +looking out of the small window in the deep dark wall, at the +summer sky and the birds, the door was softly opened, and he saw +his uncle the King standing in the shadow of the archway, looking +very grim. + +'Arthur,' said the King, with his wicked eyes more on the stone +floor than on his nephew, 'will you not trust to the gentleness, +the friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving uncle?' + +'I will tell my loving uncle that,' replied the boy, 'when he does +me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of England, and then +come to me and ask the question.' + +The King looked at him and went out. 'Keep that boy close +prisoner,' said he to the warden of the castle. + +Then, the King took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles how +the Prince was to be got rid of. Some said, 'Put out his eyes and +keep him in prison, as Robort of Normandy was kept.' Others said, +'Have him stabbed.' Others, 'Have him hanged.' Others, 'Have him +poisoned.' + +King John, feeling that in any case, whatever was done afterwards, +it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes +burnt out that had looked at him so proudly while his own royal +eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians to +Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. But Arthur so +pathetically entreated them, and shed such piteous tears, and so +appealed to HUBERT DE BOURG (or BURGH), the warden of the castle, +who had a love for him, and was an honourable, tender man, that +Hubert could not bear it. To his eternal honour he prevented the +torture from being performed, and, at his own risk, sent the +savages away. + +The chafed and disappointed King bethought himself of the stabbing +suggestion next, and, with his shuffling manner and his cruel face, +proposed it to one William de Bray. 'I am a gentleman and not an +executioner,' said William de Bray, and left the presence with +disdain. + +But it was not difficult for a King to hire a murderer in those +days. King John found one for his money, and sent him down to the +castle of Falaise. 'On what errand dost thou come?' said Hubert to +this fellow. 'To despatch young Arthur,' he returned. 'Go back to +him who sent thee,' answered Hubert, 'and say that I will do it!' + +King John very well knowing that Hubert would never do it, but that +he courageously sent this reply to save the Prince or gain time, +despatched messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle of +Rouen. + +Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert - of whom he had never +stood in greater need than then - carried away by night, and lodged +in his new prison: where, through his grated window, he could hear +the deep waters of the river Seine, rippling against the stone wall +below. + +One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of rescue by +those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying +in his cause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come down +the staircase to the foot of the tower. He hurriedly dressed +himself and obeyed. When they came to the bottom of the winding +stairs, and the night air from the river blew upon their faces, the +jailer trod upon his torch and put it out. Then, Arthur, in the +darkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. And in that +boat, he found his uncle and one other man. + +He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. Deaf to his +entreaties, they stabbed him and sunk his body in the river with +heavy stones. When the spring-morning broke, the tower-door was +closed, the boat was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and never +more was any trace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes. + +The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England, awakened +a hatred of the King (already odious for his many vices, and for +his having stolen away and married a noble lady while his own wife +was living) that never slept again through his whole reign. In +Brittany, the indignation was intense. Arthur's own sister ELEANOR +was in the power of John and shut up in a convent at Bristol, but +his half-sister ALICE was in Brittany. The people chose her, and +the murdered prince's father-in-law, the last husband of Constance, +to represent them; and carried their fiery complaints to King +Philip. King Philip summoned King John (as the holder of territory +in France) to come before him and defend himself. King John +refusing to appear, King Philip declared him false, perjured, and +guilty; and again made war. In a little time, by conquering the +greater part of his French territory, King Philip deprived him of +one-third of his dominions. And, through all the fighting that +took place, King John was always found, either to be eating and +drinking, like a gluttonous fool, when the danger was at a +distance, or to be running away, like a beaten cur, when it was +near. + +You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions at this +rate, and when his own nobles cared so little for him or his cause +that they plainly refused to follow his banner out of England, he +had enemies enough. But he made another enemy of the Pope, which +he did in this way. + +The Archbishop of Canterbury dying, and the junior monks of that +place wishing to get the start of the senior monks in the +appointment of his successor, met together at midnight, secretly +elected a certain REGINALD, and sent him off to Rome to get the +Pope's approval. The senior monks and the King soon finding this +out, and being very angry about it, the junior monks gave way, and +all the monks together elected the Bishop of Norwich, who was the +King's favourite. The Pope, hearing the whole story, declared that +neither election would do for him, and that HE elected STEPHEN +LANGTON. The monks submitting to the Pope, the King turned them +all out bodily, and banished them as traitors. The Pope sent three +bishops to the King, to threaten him with an Interdict. The King +told the bishops that if any Interdict were laid upon his kingdom, +he would tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the monks +he could lay hold of, and send them over to Rome in that +undecorated state as a present for their master. The bishops, +nevertheless, soon published the Interdict, and fled. + +After it had lasted a year, the Pope proceeded to his next step; +which was Excommunication. King John was declared excommunicated, +with all the usual ceremonies. The King was so incensed at this, +and was made so desperate by the disaffection of his Barons and the +hatred of his people, that it is said he even privately sent +ambassadors to the Turks in Spain, offering to renounce his +religion and hold his kingdom of them if they would help him. It +is related that the ambassadors were admitted to the presence of +the Turkish Emir through long lines of Moorish guards, and that +they found the Emir with his eyes seriously fixed on the pages of a +large book, from which he never once looked up. That they gave him +a letter from the King containing his proposals, and were gravely +dismissed. That presently the Emir sent for one of them, and +conjured him, by his faith in his religion, to say what kind of man +the King of England truly was? That the ambassador, thus pressed, +replied that the King of England was a false tyrant, against whom +his own subjects would soon rise. And that this was quite enough +for the Emir. + +Money being, in his position, the next best thing to men, King John +spared no means of getting it. He set on foot another oppressing +and torturing of the unhappy Jews (which was quite in his way), and +invented a new punishment for one wealthy Jew of Bristol. Until +such time as that Jew should produce a certain large sum of money, +the King sentenced him to be imprisoned, and, every day, to have +one tooth violently wrenched out of his head - beginning with the +double teeth. For seven days, the oppressed man bore the daily +pain and lost the daily tooth; but, on the eighth, he paid the +money. With the treasure raised in such ways, the King made an +expedition into Ireland, where some English nobles had revolted. +It was one of the very few places from which he did not run away; +because no resistance was shown. He made another expedition into +Wales - whence he DID run away in the end: but not before he had +got from the Welsh people, as hostages, twenty-seven young men of +the best families; every one of whom he caused to be slain in the +following year. + +To Interdict and Excommunication, the Pope now added his last +sentence; Deposition. He proclaimed John no longer King, absolved +all his subjects from their allegiance, and sent Stephen Langton +and others to the King of France to tell him that, if he would +invade England, he should be forgiven all his sins - at least, +should be forgiven them by the Pope, if that would do. + +As there was nothing that King Philip desired more than to invade +England, he collected a great army at Rouen, and a fleet of +seventeen hundred ships to bring them over. But the English +people, however bitterly they hated the King, were not a people to +suffer invasion quietly. They flocked to Dover, where the English +standard was, in such great numbers to enrol themselves as +defenders of their native land, that there were not provisions for +them, and the King could only select and retain sixty thousand. +But, at this crisis, the Pope, who had his own reasons for +objecting to either King John or King Philip being too powerful, +interfered. He entrusted a legate, whose name was PANDOLF, with +the easy task of frightening King John. He sent him to the English +Camp, from France, to terrify him with exaggerations of King +Philip's power, and his own weakness in the discontent of the +English Barons and people. Pandolf discharged his commission so +well, that King John, in a wretched panic, consented to acknowledge +Stephen Langton; to resign his kingdom 'to God, Saint Peter, and +Saint Paul' - which meant the Pope; and to hold it, ever +afterwards, by the Pope's leave, on payment of an annual sum of +money. To this shameful contract he publicly bound himself in the +church of the Knights Templars at Dover: where he laid at the +legate's feet a part of the tribute, which the legate haughtily +trampled upon. But they DO say, that this was merely a genteel +flourish, and that he was afterwards seen to pick it up and pocket +it. + +There was an unfortunate prophet, the name of Peter, who had +greatly increased King John's terrors by predicting that he would +be unknighted (which the King supposed to signify that he would +die) before the Feast of the Ascension should be past. That was +the day after this humiliation. When the next morning came, and +the King, who had been trembling all night, found himself alive and +safe, he ordered the prophet - and his son too - to be dragged +through the streets at the tails of horses, and then hanged, for +having frightened him. + +As King John had now submitted, the Pope, to King Philip's great +astonishment, took him under his protection, and informed King +Philip that he found he could not give him leave to invade England. +The angry Philip resolved to do it without his leave but he gained +nothing and lost much; for, the English, commanded by the Earl of +Salisbury, went over, in five hundred ships, to the French coast, +before the French fleet had sailed away from it, and utterly +defeated the whole. + +The Pope then took off his three sentences, one after another, and +empowered Stephen Langton publicly to receive King John into the +favour of the Church again, and to ask him to dinner. The King, +who hated Langton with all his might and main - and with reason +too, for he was a great and a good man, with whom such a King could +have no sympathy - pretended to cry and to be VERY grateful. There +was a little difficulty about settling how much the King should pay +as a recompense to the clergy for the losses he had caused them; +but, the end of it was, that the superior clergy got a good deal, +and the inferior clergy got little or nothing - which has also +happened since King John's time, I believe. + +When all these matters were arranged, the King in his triumph +became more fierce, and false, and insolent to all around him than +he had ever been. An alliance of sovereigns against King Philip, +gave him an opportunity of landing an army in France; with which he +even took a town! But, on the French King's gaining a great +victory, he ran away, of course, and made a truce for five years. + +And now the time approached when he was to be still further +humbled, and made to feel, if he could feel anything, what a +wretched creature he was. Of all men in the world, Stephen Langton +seemed raised up by Heaven to oppose and subdue him. When he +ruthlessly burnt and destroyed the property of his own subjects, +because their Lords, the Barons, would not serve him abroad, +Stephen Langton fearlessly reproved and threatened him. When he +swore to restore the laws of King Edward, or the laws of King Henry +the First, Stephen Langton knew his falsehood, and pursued him +through all his evasions. When the Barons met at the abbey of +Saint Edmund's-Bury, to consider their wrongs and the King's +oppressions, Stephen Langton roused them by his fervid words to +demand a solemn charter of rights and liberties from their perjured +master, and to swear, one by one, on the High Altar, that they +would have it, or would wage war against him to the death. When +the King hid himself in London from the Barons, and was at last +obliged to receive them, they told him roundly they would not +believe him unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he would +keep his word. When he took the Cross to invest himself with some +interest, and belong to something that was received with favour, +Stephen Langton was still immovable. When he appealed to the Pope, +and the Pope wrote to Stephen Langton in behalf of his new +favourite, Stephen Langton was deaf, even to the Pope himself, and +saw before him nothing but the welfare of England and the crimes of +the English King. + +At Easter-time, the Barons assembled at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, +in proud array, and, marching near to Oxford where the King was, +delivered into the hands of Stephen Langton and two others, a list +of grievances. 'And these,' they said, 'he must redress, or we +will do it for ourselves!' When Stephen Langton told the King as +much, and read the list to him, he went half mad with rage. But +that did him no more good than his afterwards trying to pacify the +Barons with lies. They called themselves and their followers, 'The +army of God and the Holy Church.' Marching through the country, +with the people thronging to them everywhere (except at +Northampton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they +at last triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whither +the whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them. +Seven knights alone, of all the knights in England, remained with +the King; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the Earl of +Pembroke to the Barons to say that he approved of everything, and +would meet them to sign their charter when they would. 'Then,' +said the Barons, 'let the day be the fifteenth of June, and the +place, Runny-Mead.' + +On Monday, the fifteenth of June, one thousand two hundred and +fourteen, the King came from Windsor Castle, and the Barons came +from the town of Staines, and they met on Runny-Mead, which is +still a pleasant meadow by the Thames, where rushes grow in the +clear water of the winding river, and its banks are green with +grass and trees. On the side of the Barons, came the General of +their army, ROBERT FITZ-WALTER, and a great concourse of the +nobility of England. With the King, came, in all, some four-and- +twenty persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and were +merely his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that great +company, the King signed MAGNA CHARTA - the great charter of +England - by which he pledged himself to maintain the Church in its +rights; to relieve the Barons of oppressive obligations as vassals +of the Crown - of which the Barons, in their turn, pledged +themselves to relieve THEIR vassals, the people; to respect the +liberties of London and all other cities and boroughs; to protect +foreign merchants who came to England; to imprison no man without a +fair trial; and to sell, delay, or deny justice to none. As the +Barons knew his falsehood well, they further required, as their +securities, that he should send out of his kingdom all his foreign +troops; that for two months they should hold possession of the city +of London, and Stephen Langton of the Tower; and that five-and- +twenty of their body, chosen by themselves, should be a lawful +committee to watch the keeping of the charter, and to make war upon +him if he broke it. + +All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter with a +smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would have done so, +as he departed from the splendid assembly. When he got home to +Windsor Castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. And he +broke the charter immediately afterwards. + +He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope for help, +and plotted to take London by surprise, while the Barons should be +holding a great tournament at Stamford, which they had agreed to +hold there as a celebration of the charter. The Barons, however, +found him out and put it off. Then, when the Barons desired to see +him and tax him with his treachery, he made numbers of appointments +with them, and kept none, and shifted from place to place, and was +constantly sneaking and skulking about. At last he appeared at +Dover, to join his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came into his +pay; and with them he besieged and took Rochester Castle, which was +occupied by knights and soldiers of the Barons. He would have +hanged them every one; but the leader of the foreign soldiers, +fearful of what the English people might afterwards do to him, +interfered to save the knights; therefore the King was fain to +satisfy his vengeance with the death of all the common men. Then, +he sent the Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his army, to +ravage the eastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fire +and slaughter into the northern part; torturing, plundering, +killing, and inflicting every possible cruelty upon the people; +and, every morning, setting a worthy example to his men by setting +fire, with his own monster-hands, to the house where he had slept +last night. Nor was this all; for the Pope, coming to the aid of +his precious friend, laid the kingdom under an Interdict again, +because the people took part with the Barons. It did not much +matter, for the people had grown so used to it now, that they had +begun to think nothing about it. It occurred to them - perhaps to +Stephen Langton too - that they could keep their churches open, and +ring their bells, without the Pope's permission as well as with it. +So, they tried the experiment - and found that it succeeded +perfectly. + +It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness of +cruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a forsworn outlaw of +a King, the Barons sent to Louis, son of the French monarch, to +offer him the English crown. Caring as little for the Pope's +excommunication of him if he accepted the offer, as it is possible +his father may have cared for the Pope's forgiveness of his sins, +he landed at Sandwich (King John immediately running away from +Dover, where he happened to be), and went on to London. The +Scottish King, with whom many of the Northern English Lords had +taken refuge; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of the +Barons, and numbers of the people went over to him every day; - +King John, the while, continually running away in all directions. + +The career of Louis was checked however, by the suspicions of the +Barons, founded on the dying declaration of a French Lord, that +when the kingdom was conquered he was sworn to banish them as +traitors, and to give their estates to some of his own Nobles. +Rather than suffer this, some of the Barons hesitated: others even +went over to King John. + +It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes, for, in +his savage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns and +met with some successes. But, happily for England and humanity, +his death was near. Crossing a dangerous quicksand, called the +Wash, not very far from Wisbeach, the tide came up and nearly +drowned his army. He and his soldiers escaped; but, looking back +from the shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep +down in a torrent, overturn the waggons, horses, and men, that +carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirlpool from +which nothing could be delivered. + +Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on to +Swinestead Abbey, where the monks set before him quantities of +pears, and peaches, and new cider - some say poison too, but there +is very little reason to suppose so - of which he ate and drank in +an immoderate and beastly way. All night he lay ill of a burning +fever, and haunted with horrible fears. Next day, they put him in +a horse-litter, and carried him to Sleaford Castle, where he passed +another night of pain and horror. Next day, they carried him, with +greater difficulty than on the day before, to the castle of Newark +upon Trent; and there, on the eighteenth of October, in the forty- +ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his vile reign, was +an end of this miserable brute. + + + +CHAPTER XV - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED, OF WINCHESTER + + + +IF any of the English Barons remembered the murdered Arthur's +sister, Eleanor the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in her convent +at Bristol, none among them spoke of her now, or maintained her +right to the Crown. The dead Usurper's eldest boy, HENRY by name, +was taken by the Earl of Pembroke, the Marshal of England, to the +city of Gloucester, and there crowned in great haste when he was +only ten years old. As the Crown itself had been lost with the +King's treasure in the raging water, and as there was no time to +make another, they put a circle of plain gold upon his head +instead. 'We have been the enemies of this child's father,' said +Lord Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords who were +present, 'and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is +innocent, and his youth demands our friendship and protection.' +Those Lords felt tenderly towards the little boy, remembering their +own young children; and they bowed their heads, and said, 'Long +live King Henry the Third!' + +Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, and +made Lord Pembroke Regent or Protector of England, as the King was +too young to reign alone. The next thing to be done, was to get +rid of Prince Louis of France, and to win over those English Barons +who were still ranged under his banner. He was strong in many +parts of England, and in London itself; and he held, among other +places, a certain Castle called the Castle of Mount Sorel, in +Leicestershire. To this fortress, after some skirmishing and +truce-making, Lord Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatched an army +of six hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it. +Lord Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, retired +with all his men. The army of the French Prince, which had marched +there with fire and plunder, marched away with fire and plunder, +and came, in a boastful swaggering manner, to Lincoln. The town +submitted; but the Castle in the town, held by a brave widow lady, +named NICHOLA DE CAMVILLE (whose property it was), made such a +sturdy resistance, that the French Count in command of the army of +the French Prince found it necessary to besiege this Castle. While +he was thus engaged, word was brought to him that Lord Pembroke, +with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty men with cross- +bows, and a stout force both of horse and foot, was marching +towards him. 'What care I?' said the French Count. 'The +Englishman is not so mad as to attack me and my great army in a +walled town!' But the Englishman did it for all that, and did it - +not so madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into the +narrow, ill-paved lanes and byways of Lincoln, where its horse- +soldiers could not ride in any strong body; and there he made such +havoc with them, that the whole force surrendered themselves +prisoners, except the Count; who said that he would never yield to +any English traitor alive, and accordingly got killed. The end of +this victory, which the English called, for a joke, the Fair of +Lincoln, was the usual one in those times - the common men were +slain without any mercy, and the knights and gentlemen paid ransom +and went home. + +The wife of Louis, the fair BLANCHE OF CASTILE, dutifully equipped +a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from France to her +husband's aid. An English fleet of forty ships, some good and some +bad, gallantly met them near the mouth of the Thames, and took or +sunk sixty-five in one fight. This great loss put an end to the +French Prince's hopes. A treaty was made at Lambeth, in virtue of +which the English Barons who had remained attached to his cause +returned to their allegiance, and it was engaged on both sides that +the Prince and all his troops should retire peacefully to France. +It was time to go; for war had made him so poor that he was obliged +to borrow money from the citizens of London to pay his expenses +home. + +Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the country +justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturbances that had +arisen among men in the days of the bad King John. He caused Magna +Charta to be still more improved, and so amended the Forest Laws +that a Peasant was no longer put to death for killing a stag in a +Royal Forest, but was only imprisoned. It would have been well for +England if it could have had so good a Protector many years longer, +but that was not to be. Within three years after the young King's +Coronation, Lord Pembroke died; and you may see his tomb, at this +day, in the old Temple Church in London. + +The Protectorship was now divided. PETER DE ROCHES, whom King John +had made Bishop of Winchester, was entrusted with the care of the +person of the young sovereign; and the exercise of the Royal +authority was confided to EARL HUBERT DE BURGH. These two +personages had from the first no liking for each other, and soon +became enemies. When the young King was declared of age, Peter de +Roches, finding that Hubert increased in power and favour, retired +discontentedly, and went abroad. For nearly ten years afterwards +Hubert had full sway alone. + +But ten years is a long time to hold the favour of a King. This +King, too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance to his +father, in feebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution. The best +that can be said of him is that he was not cruel. De Roches coming +home again, after ten years, and being a novelty, the King began to +favour him and to look coldly on Hubert. Wanting money besides, +and having made Hubert rich, he began to dislike Hubert. At last +he was made to believe, or pretended to believe, that Hubert had +misappropriated some of the Royal treasure; and ordered him to +furnish an account of all he had done in his administration. +Besides which, the foolish charge was brought against Hubert that +he had made himself the King's favourite by magic. Hubert very +well knowing that he could never defend himself against such +nonsense, and that his old enemy must be determined on his ruin, +instead of answering the charges fled to Merton Abbey. Then the +King, in a violent passion, sent for the Mayor of London, and said +to the Mayor, 'Take twenty thousand citizens, and drag me Hubert de +Burgh out of that abbey, and bring him here.' The Mayor posted off +to do it, but the Archbishop of Dublin (who was a friend of +Hubert's) warning the King that an abbey was a sacred place, and +that if he committed any violence there, he must answer for it to +the Church, the King changed his mind and called the Mayor back, +and declared that Hubert should have four months to prepare his +defence, and should be safe and free during that time. + +Hubert, who relied upon the King's word, though I think he was old +enough to have known better, came out of Merton Abbey upon these +conditions, and journeyed away to see his wife: a Scottish +Princess who was then at St. Edmund's-Bury. + +Almost as soon as he had departed from the Sanctuary, his enemies +persuaded the weak King to send out one SIR GODFREY DE CRANCUMB, +who commanded three hundred vagabonds called the Black Band, with +orders to seize him. They came up with him at a little town in +Essex, called Brentwood, when he was in bed. He leaped out of bed, +got out of the house, fled to the church, ran up to the altar, and +laid his hand upon the cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black Band, +caring neither for church, altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to +the church door, with their drawn swords flashing round his head, +and sent for a Smith to rivet a set of chains upon him. When the +Smith (I wish I knew his name!) was brought, all dark and swarthy +with the smoke of his forge, and panting with the speed he had +made; and the Black Band, falling aside to show him the Prisoner, +cried with a loud uproar, 'Make the fetters heavy! make them +strong!' the Smith dropped upon his knee - but not to the Black +Band - and said, 'This is the brave Earl Hubert de Burgh, who +fought at Dover Castle, and destroyed the French fleet, and has +done his country much good service. You may kill me, if you like, +but I will never make a chain for Earl Hubert de Burgh!' + +The Black Band never blushed, or they might have blushed at this. +They knocked the Smith about from one to another, and swore at him, +and tied the Earl on horseback, undressed as he was, and carried +him off to the Tower of London. The Bishops, however, were so +indignant at the violation of the Sanctuary of the Church, that the +frightened King soon ordered the Black Band to take him back again; +at the same time commanding the Sheriff of Essex to prevent his +escaping out of Brentwood Church. Well! the Sheriff dug a deep +trench all round the church, and erected a high fence, and watched +the church night and day; the Black Band and their Captain watched +it too, like three hundred and one black wolves. For thirty-nine +days, Hubert de Burgh remained within. At length, upon the +fortieth day, cold and hunger were too much for him, and he gave +himself up to the Black Band, who carried him off, for the second +time, to the Tower. When his trial came on, he refused to plead; +but at last it was arranged that he should give up all the royal +lands which had been bestowed upon him, and should be kept at the +Castle of Devizes, in what was called 'free prison,' in charge of +four knights appointed by four lords. There, he remained almost a +year, until, learning that a follower of his old enemy the Bishop +was made Keeper of the Castle, and fearing that he might be killed +by treachery, he climbed the ramparts one dark night, dropped from +the top of the high Castle wall into the moat, and coming safely to +the ground, took refuge in another church. From this place he was +delivered by a party of horse despatched to his help by some +nobles, who were by this time in revolt against the King, and +assembled in Wales. He was finally pardoned and restored to his +estates, but he lived privately, and never more aspired to a high +post in the realm, or to a high place in the King's favour. And +thus end - more happily than the stories of many favourites of +Kings - the adventures of Earl Hubert de Burgh. + +The nobles, who had risen in revolt, were stirred up to rebellion +by the overbearing conduct of the Bishop of Winchester, who, +finding that the King secretly hated the Great Charter which had +been forced from his father, did his utmost to confirm him in that +dislike, and in the preference he showed to foreigners over the +English. Of this, and of his even publicly declaring that the +Barons of England were inferior to those of France, the English +Lords complained with such bitterness, that the King, finding them +well supported by the clergy, became frightened for his throne, and +sent away the Bishop and all his foreign associates. On his +marriage, however, with ELEANOR, a French lady, the daughter of the +Count of Provence, he openly favoured the foreigners again; and so +many of his wife's relations came over, and made such an immense +family-party at court, and got so many good things, and pocketed so +much money, and were so high with the English whose money they +pocketed, that the bolder English Barons murmured openly about a +clause there was in the Great Charter, which provided for the +banishment of unreasonable favourites. But, the foreigners only +laughed disdainfully, and said, 'What are your English laws to us?' + +King Philip of France had died, and had been succeeded by Prince +Louis, who had also died after a short reign of three years, and +had been succeeded by his son of the same name - so moderate and +just a man that he was not the least in the world like a King, as +Kings went. ISABELLA, King Henry's mother, wished very much (for a +certain spite she had) that England should make war against this +King; and, as King Henry was a mere puppet in anybody's hands who +knew how to manage his feebleness, she easily carried her point +with him. But, the Parliament were determined to give him no money +for such a war. So, to defy the Parliament, he packed up thirty +large casks of silver - I don't know how he got so much; I dare say +he screwed it out of the miserable Jews - and put them aboard ship, +and went away himself to carry war into France: accompanied by his +mother and his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who was rich and +clever. But he only got well beaten, and came home. + +The good-humour of the Parliament was not restored by this. They +reproached the King with wasting the public money to make greedy +foreigners rich, and were so stern with him, and so determined not +to let him have more of it to waste if they could help it, that he +was at his wit's end for some, and tried so shamelessly to get all +he could from his subjects, by excuses or by force, that the people +used to say the King was the sturdiest beggar in England. He took +the Cross, thinking to get some money by that means; but, as it was +very well known that he never meant to go on a crusade, he got +none. In all this contention, the Londoners were particularly keen +against the King, and the King hated them warmly in return. Hating +or loving, however, made no difference; he continued in the same +condition for nine or ten years, when at last the Barons said that +if he would solemnly confirm their liberties afresh, the Parliament +would vote him a large sum. + +As he readily consented, there was a great meeting held in +Westminster Hall, one pleasant day in May, when all the clergy, +dressed in their robes and holding every one of them a burning +candle in his hand, stood up (the Barons being also there) while +the Archbishop of Canterbury read the sentence of excommunication +against any man, and all men, who should henceforth, in any way, +infringe the Great Charter of the Kingdom. When he had done, they +all put out their burning candles with a curse upon the soul of any +one, and every one, who should merit that sentence. The King +concluded with an oath to keep the Charter, 'As I am a man, as I am +a Christian, as I am a Knight, as I am a King!' + +It was easy to make oaths, and easy to break them; and the King did +both, as his father had done before him. He took to his old +courses again when he was supplied with money, and soon cured of +their weakness the few who had ever really trusted him. When his +money was gone, and he was once more borrowing and begging +everywhere with a meanness worthy of his nature, he got into a +difficulty with the Pope respecting the Crown of Sicily, which the +Pope said he had a right to give away, and which he offered to King +Henry for his second son, PRINCE EDMUND. But, if you or I give +away what we have not got, and what belongs to somebody else, it is +likely that the person to whom we give it, will have some trouble +in taking it. It was exactly so in this case. It was necessary to +conquer the Sicilian Crown before it could be put upon young +Edmund's head. It could not be conquered without money. The Pope +ordered the clergy to raise money. The clergy, however, were not +so obedient to him as usual; they had been disputing with him for +some time about his unjust preference of Italian Priests in +England; and they had begun to doubt whether the King's chaplain, +whom he allowed to be paid for preaching in seven hundred churches, +could possibly be, even by the Pope's favour, in seven hundred +places at once. 'The Pope and the King together,' said the Bishop +of London, 'may take the mitre off my head; but, if they do, they +will find that I shall put on a soldier's helmet. I pay nothing.' +The Bishop of Worcester was as bold as the Bishop of London, and +would pay nothing either. Such sums as the more timid or more +helpless of the clergy did raise were squandered away, without +doing any good to the King, or bringing the Sicilian Crown an inch +nearer to Prince Edmund's head. The end of the business was, that +the Pope gave the Crown to the brother of the King of France (who +conquered it for himself), and sent the King of England in, a bill +of one hundred thousand pounds for the expenses of not having won +it. + +The King was now so much distressed that we might almost pity him, +if it were possible to pity a King so shabby and ridiculous. His +clever brother, Richard, had bought the title of King of the Romans +from the German people, and was no longer near him, to help him +with advice. The clergy, resisting the very Pope, were in alliance +with the Barons. The Barons were headed by SIMON DE MONTFORT, Earl +of Leicester, married to King Henry's sister, and, though a +foreigner himself, the most popular man in England against the +foreign favourites. When the King next met his Parliament, the +Barons, led by this Earl, came before him, armed from head to foot, +and cased in armour. When the Parliament again assembled, in a +month's time, at Oxford, this Earl was at their head, and the King +was obliged to consent, on oath, to what was called a Committee of +Government: consisting of twenty-four members: twelve chosen by +the Barons, and twelve chosen by himself. + +But, at a good time for him, his brother Richard came back. +Richard's first act (the Barons would not admit him into England on +other terms) was to swear to be faithful to the Committee of +Government - which he immediately began to oppose with all his +might. Then, the Barons began to quarrel among themselves; +especially the proud Earl of Gloucester with the Earl of Leicester, +who went abroad in disgust. Then, the people began to be +dissatisfied with the Barons, because they did not do enough for +them. The King's chances seemed so good again at length, that he +took heart enough - or caught it from his brother - to tell the +Committee of Government that he abolished them - as to his oath, +never mind that, the Pope said! - and to seize all the money in the +Mint, and to shut himself up in the Tower of London. Here he was +joined by his eldest son, Prince Edward; and, from the Tower, he +made public a letter of the Pope's to the world in general, +informing all men that he had been an excellent and just King for +five-and-forty years. + +As everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort, nobody cared +much for this document. It so chanced that the proud Earl of +Gloucester dying, was succeeded by his son; and that his son, +instead of being the enemy of the Earl of Leicester, was (for the +time) his friend. It fell out, therefore, that these two Earls +joined their forces, took several of the Royal Castles in the +country, and advanced as hard as they could on London. The London +people, always opposed to the King, declared for them with great +joy. The King himself remained shut up, not at all gloriously, in +the Tower. Prince Edward made the best of his way to Windsor +Castle. His mother, the Queen, attempted to follow him by water; +but, the people seeing her barge rowing up the river, and hating +her with all their hearts, ran to London Bridge, got together a +quantity of stones and mud, and pelted the barge as it came +through, crying furiously, 'Drown the Witch! Drown her!' They +were so near doing it, that the Mayor took the old lady under his +protection, and shut her up in St. Paul's until the danger was +past. + +It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and a great +deal of reading on yours, to follow the King through his disputes +with the Barons, and to follow the Barons through their disputes +with one another - so I will make short work of it for both of us, +and only relate the chief events that arose out of these quarrels. +The good King of France was asked to decide between them. He gave +it as his opinion that the King must maintain the Great Charter, +and that the Barons must give up the Committee of Government, and +all the rest that had been done by the Parliament at Oxford: which +the Royalists, or King's party, scornfully called the Mad +Parliament. The Barons declared that these were not fair terms, +and they would not accept them. Then they caused the great bell of +St. Paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing up the London +people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound and formed quite +an army in the streets. I am sorry to say, however, that instead +of falling upon the King's party with whom their quarrel was, they +fell upon the miserable Jews, and killed at least five hundred of +them. They pretended that some of these Jews were on the King's +side, and that they kept hidden in their houses, for the +destruction of the people, a certain terrible composition called +Greek Fire, which could not be put out with water, but only burnt +the fiercer for it. What they really did keep in their houses was +money; and this their cruel enemies wanted, and this their cruel +enemies took, like robbers and murderers. + +The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these Londoners +and other forces, and followed the King to Lewes in Sussex, where +he lay encamped with his army. Before giving the King's forces +battle here, the Earl addressed his soldiers, and said that King +Henry the Third had broken so many oaths, that he had become the +enemy of God, and therefore they would wear white crosses on their +breasts, as if they were arrayed, not against a fellow-Christian, +but against a Turk. White-crossed accordingly, they rushed into +the fight. They would have lost the day - the King having on his +side all the foreigners in England: and, from Scotland, JOHN +COMYN, JOHN BALIOL, and ROBERT BRUCE, with all their men - but for +the impatience of PRINCE EDWARD, who, in his hot desire to have +vengeance on the people of London, threw the whole of his father's +army into confusion. He was taken Prisoner; so was the King; so +was the King's brother the King of the Romans; and five thousand +Englishmen were left dead upon the bloody grass. + +For this success, the Pope excommunicated the Earl of Leicester: +which neither the Earl nor the people cared at all about. The +people loved him and supported him, and he became the real King; +having all the power of the government in his own hands, though he +was outwardly respectful to King Henry the Third, whom he took with +him wherever he went, like a poor old limp court-card. He summoned +a Parliament (in the year one thousand two hundred and sixty-five) +which was the first Parliament in England that the people had any +real share in electing; and he grew more and more in favour with +the people every day, and they stood by him in whatever he did. + +Many of the other Barons, and particularly the Earl of Gloucester, +who had become by this time as proud as his father, grew jealous of +this powerful and popular Earl, who was proud too, and began to +conspire against him. Since the battle of Lewes, Prince Edward had +been kept as a hostage, and, though he was otherwise treated like a +Prince, had never been allowed to go out without attendants +appointed by the Earl of Leicester, who watched him. The +conspiring Lords found means to propose to him, in secret, that +they should assist him to escape, and should make him their leader; +to which he very heartily consented. + +So, on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his attendants after +dinner (being then at Hereford), 'I should like to ride on +horseback, this fine afternoon, a little way into the country.' As +they, too, thought it would be very pleasant to have a canter in +the sunshine, they all rode out of the town together in a gay +little troop. When they came to a fine level piece of turf, the +Prince fell to comparing their horses one with another, and +offering bets that one was faster than another; and the attendants, +suspecting no harm, rode galloping matches until their horses were +quite tired. The Prince rode no matches himself, but looked on +from his saddle, and staked his money. Thus they passed the whole +merry afternoon. Now, the sun was setting, and they were all going +slowly up a hill, the Prince's horse very fresh and all the other +horses very weary, when a strange rider mounted on a grey steed +appeared at the top of the hill, and waved his hat. 'What does the +fellow mean?' said the attendants one to another. The Prince +answered on the instant by setting spurs to his horse, dashing away +at his utmost speed, joining the man, riding into the midst of a +little crowd of horsemen who were then seen waiting under some +trees, and who closed around him; and so he departed in a cloud of +dust, leaving the road empty of all but the baffled attendants, who +sat looking at one another, while their horses drooped their ears +and panted. + +The Prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow. The Earl of +Leicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old King, was at +Hereford. One of the Earl of Leicester's sons, Simon de Montfort, +with another part of the army, was in Sussex. To prevent these two +parts from uniting was the Prince's first object. He attacked +Simon de Montfort by night, defeated him, seized his banners and +treasure, and forced him into Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, +which belonged to his family. + +His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the meanwhile, not knowing +what had happened, marched out of Hereford, with his part of the +army and the King, to meet him. He came, on a bright morning in +August, to Evesham, which is watered by the pleasant river Avon. +Looking rather anxiously across the prospect towards Kenilworth, he +saw his own banners advancing; and his face brightened with joy. +But, it clouded darkly when he presently perceived that the banners +were captured, and in the enemy's hands; and he said, 'It is over. +The Lord have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are Prince +Edward's!' + +He fought like a true Knight, nevertheless. When his horse was +killed under him, he fought on foot. It was a fierce battle, and +the dead lay in heaps everywhere. The old King, stuck up in a suit +of armour on a big war-horse, which didn't mind him at all, and +which carried him into all sorts of places where he didn't want to +go, got into everybody's way, and very nearly got knocked on the +head by one of his son's men. But he managed to pipe out, 'I am +Harry of Winchester!' and the Prince, who heard him, seized his +bridle, and took him out of peril. The Earl of Leicester still +fought bravely, until his best son Henry was killed, and the bodies +of his best friends choked his path; and then he fell, still +fighting, sword in hand. They mangled his body, and sent it as a +present to a noble lady - but a very unpleasant lady, I should +think - who was the wife of his worst enemy. They could not mangle +his memory in the minds of the faithful people, though. Many years +afterwards, they loved him more than ever, and regarded him as a +Saint, and always spoke of him as 'Sir Simon the Righteous.' + +And even though he was dead, the cause for which he had fought +still lived, and was strong, and forced itself upon the King in the +very hour of victory. Henry found himself obliged to respect the +Great Charter, however much he hated it, and to make laws similar +to the laws of the Great Earl of Leicester, and to be moderate and +forgiving towards the people at last - even towards the people of +London, who had so long opposed him. There were more risings +before all this was done, but they were set at rest by these means, +and Prince Edward did his best in all things to restore peace. One +Sir Adam de Gourdon was the last dissatisfied knight in arms; but, +the Prince vanquished him in single combat, in a wood, and nobly +gave him his life, and became his friend, instead of slaying him. +Sir Adam was not ungrateful. He ever afterwards remained devoted +to his generous conqueror. + +When the troubles of the Kingdom were thus calmed, Prince Edward +and his cousin Henry took the Cross, and went away to the Holy +Land, with many English Lords and Knights. Four years afterwards +the King of the Romans died, and, next year (one thousand two +hundred and seventy-two), his brother the weak King of England +died. He was sixty-eight years old then, and had reigned fifty-six +years. He was as much of a King in death, as he had ever been in +life. He was the mere pale shadow of a King at all times. + + + +CHAPTER XVI - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST, CALLED LONGSHANKS + + + +IT was now the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred and +seventy-two; and Prince Edward, the heir to the throne, being away +in the Holy Land, knew nothing of his father's death. The Barons, +however, proclaimed him King, immediately after the Royal funeral; +and the people very willingly consented, since most men knew too +well by this time what the horrors of a contest for the crown were. +So King Edward the First, called, in a not very complimentary +manner, LONGSHANKS, because of the slenderness of his legs, was +peacefully accepted by the English Nation. + +His legs had need to be strong, however long and thin they were; +for they had to support him through many difficulties on the fiery +sands of Asia, where his small force of soldiers fainted, died, +deserted, and seemed to melt away. But his prowess made light of +it, and he said, 'I will go on, if I go on with no other follower +than my groom!' + +A Prince of this spirit gave the Turks a deal of trouble. He +stormed Nazareth, at which place, of all places on earth, I am +sorry to relate, he made a frightful slaughter of innocent people; +and then he went to Acre, where he got a truce of ten years from +the Sultan. He had very nearly lost his life in Acre, through the +treachery of a Saracen Noble, called the Emir of Jaffa, who, making +the pretence that he had some idea of turning Christian and wanted +to know all about that religion, sent a trusty messenger to Edward +very often - with a dagger in his sleeve. At last, one Friday in +Whitsun week, when it was very hot, and all the sandy prospect lay +beneath the blazing sun, burnt up like a great overdone biscuit, +and Edward was lying on a couch, dressed for coolness in only a +loose robe, the messenger, with his chocolate-coloured face and his +bright dark eyes and white teeth, came creeping in with a letter, +and kneeled down like a tame tiger. But, the moment Edward +stretched out his hand to take the letter, the tiger made a spring +at his heart. He was quick, but Edward was quick too. He seized +the traitor by his chocolate throat, threw him to the ground, and +slew him with the very dagger he had drawn. The weapon had struck +Edward in the arm, and although the wound itself was slight, it +threatened to be mortal, for the blade of the dagger had been +smeared with poison. Thanks, however, to a better surgeon than was +often to be found in those times, and to some wholesome herbs, and +above all, to his faithful wife, ELEANOR, who devotedly nursed him, +and is said by some to have sucked the poison from the wound with +her own red lips (which I am very willing to believe), Edward soon +recovered and was sound again. + +As the King his father had sent entreaties to him to return home, +he now began the journey. He had got as far as Italy, when he met +messengers who brought him intelligence of the King's death. +Hearing that all was quiet at home, he made no haste to return to +his own dominions, but paid a visit to the Pope, and went in state +through various Italian Towns, where he was welcomed with +acclamations as a mighty champion of the Cross from the Holy Land, +and where he received presents of purple mantles and prancing +horses, and went along in great triumph. The shouting people +little knew that he was the last English monarch who would ever +embark in a crusade, or that within twenty years every conquest +which the Christians had made in the Holy Land at the cost of so +much blood, would be won back by the Turks. But all this came to +pass. + +There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain in France, +called Chlons. When the King was coming towards this place on his +way to England, a wily French Lord, called the Count of Chlons, +sent him a polite challenge to come with his knights and hold a +fair tournament with the Count and HIS knights, and make a day of +it with sword and lance. It was represented to the King that the +Count of Chlons was not to be trusted, and that, instead of a +holiday fight for mere show and in good humour, he secretly meant a +real battle, in which the English should be defeated by superior +force. + +The King, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed place on +the appointed day with a thousand followers. When the Count came +with two thousand and attacked the English in earnest, the English +rushed at them with such valour that the Count's men and the +Count's horses soon began to be tumbled down all over the field. +The Count himself seized the King round the neck, but the King +tumbled HIM out of his saddle in return for the compliment, and, +jumping from his own horse, and standing over him, beat away at his +iron armour like a blacksmith hammering on his anvil. Even when +the Count owned himself defeated and offered his sword, the King +would not do him the honour to take it, but made him yield it up to +a common soldier. There had been such fury shown in this fight, +that it was afterwards called the little Battle of Chlons. + +The English were very well disposed to be proud of their King after +these adventures; so, when he landed at Dover in the year one +thousand two hundred and seventy-four (being then thirty-six years +old), and went on to Westminster where he and his good Queen were +crowned with great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. +For the coronation-feast there were provided, among other eatables, +four hundred oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and fifty pigs, +eighteen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon, and twenty +thousand fowls. The fountains and conduits in the street flowed +with red and white wine instead of water; the rich citizens hung +silks and cloths of the brightest colours out of their windows to +increase the beauty of the show, and threw out gold and silver by +whole handfuls to make scrambles for the crowd. In short, there +was such eating and drinking, such music and capering, such a +ringing of bells and tossing of caps, such a shouting, and singing, +and revelling, as the narrow overhanging streets of old London City +had not witnessed for many a long day. All the people were merry +except the poor Jews, who, trembling within their houses, and +scarcely daring to peep out, began to foresee that they would have +to find the money for this joviality sooner or later. + +To dismiss this sad subject of the Jews for the present, I am sorry +to add that in this reign they were most unmercifully pillaged. +They were hanged in great numbers, on accusations of having clipped +the King's coin - which all kinds of people had done. They were +heavily taxed; they were disgracefully badged; they were, on one +day, thirteen years after the coronation, taken up with their wives +and children and thrown into beastly prisons, until they purchased +their release by paying to the King twelve thousand pounds. +Finally, every kind of property belonging to them was seized by the +King, except so little as would defray the charge of their taking +themselves away into foreign countries. Many years elapsed before +the hope of gain induced any of their race to return to England, +where they had been treated so heartlessly and had suffered so +much. + +If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to Christians as he +was to Jews, he would have been bad indeed. But he was, in +general, a wise and great monarch, under whom the country much +improved. He had no love for the Great Charter - few Kings had, +through many, many years - but he had high qualities. The first +bold object which he conceived when he came home, was, to unite +under one Sovereign England, Scotland, and Wales; the two last of +which countries had each a little king of its own, about whom the +people were always quarrelling and fighting, and making a +prodigious disturbance - a great deal more than he was worth. In +the course of King Edward's reign he was engaged, besides, in a war +with France. To make these quarrels clearer, we will separate +their histories and take them thus. Wales, first. France, second. +Scotland, third. + + +LLEWELLYN was the Prince of Wales. He had been on the side of the +Barons in the reign of the stupid old King, but had afterwards +sworn allegiance to him. When King Edward came to the throne, +Llewellyn was required to swear allegiance to him also; which he +refused to do. The King, being crowned and in his own dominions, +three times more required Llewellyn to come and do homage; and +three times more Llewellyn said he would rather not. He was going +to be married to ELEANOR DE MONTFORT, a young lady of the family +mentioned in the last reign; and it chanced that this young lady, +coming from France with her youngest brother, EMERIC, was taken by +an English ship, and was ordered by the English King to be +detained. Upon this, the quarrel came to a head. The King went, +with his fleet, to the coast of Wales, where, so encompassing +Llewellyn, that he could only take refuge in the bleak mountain +region of Snowdon in which no provisions could reach him, he was +soon starved into an apology, and into a treaty of peace, and into +paying the expenses of the war. The King, however, forgave him +some of the hardest conditions of the treaty, and consented to his +marriage. And he now thought he had reduced Wales to obedience. + +But the Welsh, although they were naturally a gentle, quiet, +pleasant people, who liked to receive strangers in their cottages +among the mountains, and to set before them with free hospitality +whatever they had to eat and drink, and to play to them on their +harps, and sing their native ballads to them, were a people of +great spirit when their blood was up. Englishmen, after this +affair, began to be insolent in Wales, and to assume the air of +masters; and the Welsh pride could not bear it. Moreover, they +believed in that unlucky old Merlin, some of whose unlucky old +prophecies somebody always seemed doomed to remember when there was +a chance of its doing harm; and just at this time some blind old +gentleman with a harp and a long white beard, who was an excellent +person, but had become of an unknown age and tedious, burst out +with a declaration that Merlin had predicted that when English +money had become round, a Prince of Wales would be crowned in +London. Now, King Edward had recently forbidden the English penny +to be cut into halves and quarters for halfpence and farthings, and +had actually introduced a round coin; therefore, the Welsh people +said this was the time Merlin meant, and rose accordingly. + +King Edward had bought over PRINCE DAVID, Llewellyn's brother, by +heaping favours upon him; but he was the first to revolt, being +perhaps troubled in his conscience. One stormy night, he surprised +the Castle of Hawarden, in possession of which an English nobleman +had been left; killed the whole garrison, and carried off the +nobleman a prisoner to Snowdon. Upon this, the Welsh people rose +like one man. King Edward, with his army, marching from Worcester +to the Menai Strait, crossed it - near to where the wonderful +tubular iron bridge now, in days so different, makes a passage for +railway trains - by a bridge of boats that enabled forty men to +march abreast. He subdued the Island of Anglesea, and sent his men +forward to observe the enemy. The sudden appearance of the Welsh +created a panic among them, and they fell back to the bridge. The +tide had in the meantime risen and separated the boats; the Welsh +pursuing them, they were driven into the sea, and there they sunk, +in their heavy iron armour, by thousands. After this victory +Llewellyn, helped by the severe winter-weather of Wales, gained +another battle; but the King ordering a portion of his English army +to advance through South Wales, and catch him between two foes, and +Llewellyn bravely turning to meet this new enemy, he was surprised +and killed - very meanly, for he was unarmed and defenceless. His +head was struck off and sent to London, where it was fixed upon the +Tower, encircled with a wreath, some say of ivy, some say of +willow, some say of silver, to make it look like a ghastly coin in +ridicule of the prediction. + +David, however, still held out for six months, though eagerly +sought after by the King, and hunted by his own countrymen. One of +them finally betrayed him with his wife and children. He was +sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered; and from that time +this became the established punishment of Traitors in England - a +punishment wholly without excuse, as being revolting, vile, and +cruel, after its object is dead; and which has no sense in it, as +its only real degradation (and that nothing can blot out) is to the +country that permits on any consideration such abominable +barbarity. + +Wales was now subdued. The Queen giving birth to a young prince in +the Castle of Carnarvon, the King showed him to the Welsh people as +their countryman, and called him Prince of Wales; a title that has +ever since been borne by the heir-apparent to the English throne - +which that little Prince soon became, by the death of his elder +brother. The King did better things for the Welsh than that, by +improving their laws and encouraging their trade. Disturbances +still took place, chiefly occasioned by the avarice and pride of +the English Lords, on whom Welsh lands and castles had been +bestowed; but they were subdued, and the country never rose again. +There is a legend that to prevent the people from being incited to +rebellion by the songs of their bards and harpers, Edward had them +all put to death. Some of them may have fallen among other men who +held out against the King; but this general slaughter is, I think, +a fancy of the harpers themselves, who, I dare say, made a song +about it many years afterwards, and sang it by the Welsh firesides +until it came to be believed. + +The foreign war of the reign of Edward the First arose in this way. +The crews of two vessels, one a Norman ship, and the other an +English ship, happened to go to the same place in their boats to +fill their casks with fresh water. Being rough angry fellows, they +began to quarrel, and then to fight - the English with their fists; +the Normans with their knives - and, in the fight, a Norman was +killed. The Norman crew, instead of revenging themselves upon +those English sailors with whom they had quarrelled (who were too +strong for them, I suspect), took to their ship again in a great +rage, attacked the first English ship they met, laid hold of an +unoffending merchant who happened to be on board, and brutally +hanged him in the rigging of their own vessel with a dog at his +feet. This so enraged the English sailors that there was no +restraining them; and whenever, and wherever, English sailors met +Norman sailors, they fell upon each other tooth and nail. The +Irish and Dutch sailors took part with the English; the French and +Genoese sailors helped the Normans; and thus the greater part of +the mariners sailing over the sea became, in their way, as violent +and raging as the sea itself when it is disturbed. + +King Edward's fame had been so high abroad that he had been chosen +to decide a difference between France and another foreign power, +and had lived upon the Continent three years. At first, neither he +nor the French King PHILIP (the good Louis had been dead some time) +interfered in these quarrels; but when a fleet of eighty English +ships engaged and utterly defeated a Norman fleet of two hundred, +in a pitched battle fought round a ship at anchor, in which no +quarter was given, the matter became too serious to be passed over. +King Edward, as Duke of Guienne, was summoned to present himself +before the King of France, at Paris, and answer for the damage done +by his sailor subjects. At first, he sent the Bishop of London as +his representative, and then his brother EDMUND, who was married to +the French Queen's mother. I am afraid Edmund was an easy man, and +allowed himself to be talked over by his charming relations, the +French court ladies; at all events, he was induced to give up his +brother's dukedom for forty days - as a mere form, the French King +said, to satisfy his honour - and he was so very much astonished, +when the time was out, to find that the French King had no idea of +giving it up again, that I should not wonder if it hastened his +death: which soon took place. + +King Edward was a King to win his foreign dukedom back again, if it +could be won by energy and valour. He raised a large army, +renounced his allegiance as Duke of Guienne, and crossed the sea to +carry war into France. Before any important battle was fought, +however, a truce was agreed upon for two years; and in the course +of that time, the Pope effected a reconciliation. King Edward, who +was now a widower, having lost his affectionate and good wife, +Eleanor, married the French King's sister, MARGARET; and the Prince +of Wales was contracted to the French King's daughter ISABELLA. + +Out of bad things, good things sometimes arise. Out of this +hanging of the innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and strife it +caused, there came to be established one of the greatest powers +that the English people now possess. The preparations for the war +being very expensive, and King Edward greatly wanting money, and +being very arbitrary in his ways of raising it, some of the Barons +began firmly to oppose him. Two of them, in particular, HUMPHREY +BOHUN, Earl of Hereford, and ROGER BIGOD, Earl of Norfolk, were so +stout against him, that they maintained he had no right to command +them to head his forces in Guienne, and flatly refused to go there. +'By Heaven, Sir Earl,' said the King to the Earl of Hereford, in a +great passion, 'you shall either go or be hanged!' 'By Heaven, Sir +King,' replied the Earl, 'I will neither go nor yet will I be +hanged!' and both he and the other Earl sturdily left the court, +attended by many Lords. The King tried every means of raising +money. He taxed the clergy, in spite of all the Pope said to the +contrary; and when they refused to pay, reduced them to submission, +by saying Very well, then they had no claim upon the government for +protection, and any man might plunder them who would - which a good +many men were very ready to do, and very readily did, and which the +clergy found too losing a game to be played at long. He seized all +the wool and leather in the hands of the merchants, promising to +pay for it some fine day; and he set a tax upon the exportation of +wool, which was so unpopular among the traders that it was called +'The evil toll.' But all would not do. The Barons, led by those +two great Earls, declared any taxes imposed without the consent of +Parliament, unlawful; and the Parliament refused to impose taxes, +until the King should confirm afresh the two Great Charters, and +should solemnly declare in writing, that there was no power in the +country to raise money from the people, evermore, but the power of +Parliament representing all ranks of the people. The King was very +unwilling to diminish his own power by allowing this great +privilege in the Parliament; but there was no help for it, and he +at last complied. We shall come to another King by-and-by, who +might have saved his head from rolling off, if he had profited by +this example. + +The people gained other benefits in Parliament from the good sense +and wisdom of this King. Many of the laws were much improved; +provision was made for the greater safety of travellers, and the +apprehension of thieves and murderers; the priests were prevented +from holding too much land, and so becoming too powerful; and +Justices of the Peace were first appointed (though not at first +under that name) in various parts of the country. + + +And now we come to Scotland, which was the great and lasting +trouble of the reign of King Edward the First. + +About thirteen years after King Edward's coronation, Alexander the +Third, the King of Scotland, died of a fall from his horse. He had +been married to Margaret, King Edward's sister. All their children +being dead, the Scottish crown became the right of a young Princess +only eight years old, the daughter of ERIC, King of Norway, who had +married a daughter of the deceased sovereign. King Edward +proposed, that the Maiden of Norway, as this Princess was called, +should be engaged to be married to his eldest son; but, +unfortunately, as she was coming over to England she fell sick, and +landing on one of the Orkney Islands, died there. A great +commotion immediately began in Scotland, where as many as thirteen +noisy claimants to the vacant throne started up and made a general +confusion. + +King Edward being much renowned for his sagacity and justice, it +seems to have been agreed to refer the dispute to him. He accepted +the trust, and went, with an army, to the Border-land where England +and Scotland joined. There, he called upon the Scottish gentlemen +to meet him at the Castle of Norham, on the English side of the +river Tweed; and to that Castle they came. But, before he would +take any step in the business, he required those Scottish +gentlemen, one and all, to do homage to him as their superior Lord; +and when they hesitated, he said, 'By holy Edward, whose crown I +wear, I will have my rights, or I will die in maintaining them!' +The Scottish gentlemen, who had not expected this, were +disconcerted, and asked for three weeks to think about it. + +At the end of the three weeks, another meeting took place, on a +green plain on the Scottish side of the river. Of all the +competitors for the Scottish throne, there were only two who had +any real claim, in right of their near kindred to the Royal Family. +These were JOHN BALIOL and ROBERT BRUCE: and the right was, I have +no doubt, on the side of John Baliol. At this particular meeting +John Baliol was not present, but Robert Bruce was; and on Robert +Bruce being formally asked whether he acknowledged the King of +England for his superior lord, he answered, plainly and distinctly, +Yes, he did. Next day, John Baliol appeared, and said the same. +This point settled, some arrangements were made for inquiring into +their titles. + +The inquiry occupied a pretty long time - more than a year. While +it was going on, King Edward took the opportunity of making a +journey through Scotland, and calling upon the Scottish people of +all degrees to acknowledge themselves his vassals, or be imprisoned +until they did. In the meanwhile, Commissioners were appointed to +conduct the inquiry, a Parliament was held at Berwick about it, the +two claimants were heard at full length, and there was a vast +amount of talking. At last, in the great hall of the Castle of +Berwick, the King gave judgment in favour of John Baliol: who, +consenting to receive his crown by the King of England's favour and +permission, was crowned at Scone, in an old stone chair which had +been used for ages in the abbey there, at the coronations of +Scottish Kings. Then, King Edward caused the great seal of +Scotland, used since the late King's death, to be broken in four +pieces, and placed in the English Treasury; and considered that he +now had Scotland (according to the common saying) under his thumb. + +Scotland had a strong will of its own yet, however. King Edward, +determined that the Scottish King should not forget he was his +vassal, summoned him repeatedly to come and defend himself and his +judges before the English Parliament when appeals from the +decisions of Scottish courts of justice were being heard. At +length, John Baliol, who had no great heart of his own, had so much +heart put into him by the brave spirit of the Scottish people, who +took this as a national insult, that he refused to come any more. +Thereupon, the King further required him to help him in his war +abroad (which was then in progress), and to give up, as security +for his good behaviour in future, the three strong Scottish Castles +of Jedburgh, Roxburgh, and Berwick. Nothing of this being done; on +the contrary, the Scottish people concealing their King among their +mountains in the Highlands and showing a determination to resist; +Edward marched to Berwick with an army of thirty thousand foot, and +four thousand horse; took the Castle, and slew its whole garrison, +and the inhabitants of the town as well - men, women, and children. +LORD WARRENNE, Earl of Surrey, then went on to the Castle of +Dunbar, before which a battle was fought, and the whole Scottish +army defeated with great slaughter. The victory being complete, +the Earl of Surrey was left as guardian of Scotland; the principal +offices in that kingdom were given to Englishmen; the more powerful +Scottish Nobles were obliged to come and live in England; the +Scottish crown and sceptre were brought away; and even the old +stone chair was carried off and placed in Westminster Abbey, where +you may see it now. Baliol had the Tower of London lent him for a +residence, with permission to range about within a circle of twenty +miles. Three years afterwards he was allowed to go to Normandy, +where he had estates, and where he passed the remaining six years +of his life: far more happily, I dare say, than he had lived for a +long while in angry Scotland. + +Now, there was, in the West of Scotland, a gentleman of small +fortune, named WILLIAM WALLACE, the second son of a Scottish +knight. He was a man of great size and great strength; he was very +brave and daring; when he spoke to a body of his countrymen, he +could rouse them in a wonderful manner by the power of his burning +words; he loved Scotland dearly, and he hated England with his +utmost might. The domineering conduct of the English who now held +the places of trust in Scotland made them as intolerable to the +proud Scottish people as they had been, under similar +circumstances, to the Welsh; and no man in all Scotland regarded +them with so much smothered rage as William Wallace. One day, an +Englishman in office, little knowing what he was, affronted HIM. +Wallace instantly struck him dead, and taking refuge among the +rocks and hills, and there joining with his countryman, SIR WILLIAM +DOUGLAS, who was also in arms against King Edward, became the most +resolute and undaunted champion of a people struggling for their +independence that ever lived upon the earth. + +The English Guardian of the Kingdom fled before him, and, thus +encouraged, the Scottish people revolted everywhere, and fell upon +the English without mercy. The Earl of Surrey, by the King's +commands, raised all the power of the Border-counties, and two +English armies poured into Scotland. Only one Chief, in the face +of those armies, stood by Wallace, who, with a force of forty +thousand men, awaited the invaders at a place on the river Forth, +within two miles of Stirling. Across the river there was only one +poor wooden bridge, called the bridge of Kildean - so narrow, that +but two men could cross it abreast. With his eyes upon this +bridge, Wallace posted the greater part of his men among some +rising grounds, and waited calmly. When the English army came up +on the opposite bank of the river, messengers were sent forward to +offer terms. Wallace sent them back with a defiance, in the name +of the freedom of Scotland. Some of the officers of the Earl of +Surrey in command of the English, with THEIR eyes also on the +bridge, advised him to be discreet and not hasty. He, however, +urged to immediate battle by some other officers, and particularly +by CRESSINGHAM, King Edward's treasurer, and a rash man, gave the +word of command to advance. One thousand English crossed the +bridge, two abreast; the Scottish troops were as motionless as +stone images. Two thousand English crossed; three thousand, four +thousand, five. Not a feather, all this time, had been seen to +stir among the Scottish bonnets. Now, they all fluttered. +'Forward, one party, to the foot of the Bridge!' cried Wallace, +'and let no more English cross! The rest, down with me on the five +thousand who have come over, and cut them all to pieces!' It was +done, in the sight of the whole remainder of the English army, who +could give no help. Cressingham himself was killed, and the Scotch +made whips for their horses of his skin. + +King Edward was abroad at this time, and during the successes on +the Scottish side which followed, and which enabled bold Wallace to +win the whole country back again, and even to ravage the English +borders. But, after a few winter months, the King returned, and +took the field with more than his usual energy. One night, when a +kick from his horse as they both lay on the ground together broke +two of his ribs, and a cry arose that he was killed, he leaped into +his saddle, regardless of the pain he suffered, and rode through +the camp. Day then appearing, he gave the word (still, of course, +in that bruised and aching state) Forward! and led his army on to +near Falkirk, where the Scottish forces were seen drawn up on some +stony ground, behind a morass. Here, he defeated Wallace, and +killed fifteen thousand of his men. With the shattered remainder, +Wallace drew back to Stirling; but, being pursued, set fire to the +town that it might give no help to the English, and escaped. The +inhabitants of Perth afterwards set fire to their houses for the +same reason, and the King, unable to find provisions, was forced to +withdraw his army. + +Another ROBERT BRUCE, the grandson of him who had disputed the +Scottish crown with Baliol, was now in arms against the King (that +elder Bruce being dead), and also JOHN COMYN, Baliol's nephew. +These two young men might agree in opposing Edward, but could agree +in nothing else, as they were rivals for the throne of Scotland. +Probably it was because they knew this, and knew what troubles must +arise even if they could hope to get the better of the great +English King, that the principal Scottish people applied to the +Pope for his interference. The Pope, on the principle of losing +nothing for want of trying to get it, very coolly claimed that +Scotland belonged to him; but this was a little too much, and the +Parliament in a friendly manner told him so. + +In the spring time of the year one thousand three hundred and +three, the King sent SIR JOHN SEGRAVE, whom he made Governor of +Scotland, with twenty thousand men, to reduce the rebels. Sir John +was not as careful as he should have been, but encamped at Rosslyn, +near Edinburgh, with his army divided into three parts. The +Scottish forces saw their advantage; fell on each part separately; +defeated each; and killed all the prisoners. Then, came the King +himself once more, as soon as a great army could be raised; he +passed through the whole north of Scotland, laying waste whatsoever +came in his way; and he took up his winter quarters at Dunfermline. +The Scottish cause now looked so hopeless, that Comyn and the other +nobles made submission and received their pardons. Wallace alone +stood out. He was invited to surrender, though on no distinct +pledge that his life should be spared; but he still defied the +ireful King, and lived among the steep crags of the Highland glens, +where the eagles made their nests, and where the mountain torrents +roared, and the white snow was deep, and the bitter winds blew +round his unsheltered head, as he lay through many a pitch-dark +night wrapped up in his plaid. Nothing could break his spirit; +nothing could lower his courage; nothing could induce him to forget +or to forgive his country's wrongs. Even when the Castle of +Stirling, which had long held out, was besieged by the King with +every kind of military engine then in use; even when the lead upon +cathedral roofs was taken down to help to make them; even when the +King, though an old man, commanded in the siege as if he were a +youth, being so resolved to conquer; even when the brave garrison +(then found with amazement to be not two hundred people, including +several ladies) were starved and beaten out and were made to submit +on their knees, and with every form of disgrace that could +aggravate their sufferings; even then, when there was not a ray of +hope in Scotland, William Wallace was as proud and firm as if he +had beheld the powerful and relentless Edward lying dead at his +feet. + +Who betrayed William Wallace in the end, is not quite certain. +That he was betrayed - probably by an attendant - is too true. He +was taken to the Castle of Dumbarton, under SIR JOHN MENTEITH, and +thence to London, where the great fame of his bravery and +resolution attracted immense concourses of people to behold him. +He was tried in Westminster Hall, with a crown of laurel on his +head - it is supposed because he was reported to have said that he +ought to wear, or that he would wear, a crown there and was found +guilty as a robber, a murderer, and a traitor. What they called a +robber (he said to those who tried him) he was, because he had +taken spoil from the King's men. What they called a murderer, he +was, because he had slain an insolent Englishman. What they called +a traitor, he was not, for he had never sworn allegiance to the +King, and had ever scorned to do it. He was dragged at the tails +of horses to West Smithfield, and there hanged on a high gallows, +torn open before he was dead, beheaded, and quartered. His head +was set upon a pole on London Bridge, his right arm was sent to +Newcastle, his left arm to Berwick, his legs to Perth and Aberdeen. +But, if King Edward had had his body cut into inches, and had sent +every separate inch into a separate town, he could not have +dispersed it half so far and wide as his fame. Wallace will be +remembered in songs and stories, while there are songs and stories +in the English tongue, and Scotland will hold him dear while her +lakes and mountains last. + +Released from this dreaded enemy, the King made a fairer plan of +Government for Scotland, divided the offices of honour among +Scottish gentlemen and English gentlemen, forgave past offences, +and thought, in his old age, that his work was done. + +But he deceived himself. Comyn and Bruce conspired, and made an +appointment to meet at Dumfries, in the church of the Minorites. +There is a story that Comyn was false to Bruce, and had informed +against him to the King; that Bruce was warned of his danger and +the necessity of flight, by receiving, one night as he sat at +supper, from his friend the Earl of Gloucester, twelve pennies and +a pair of spurs; that as he was riding angrily to keep his +appointment (through a snow-storm, with his horse's shoes reversed +that he might not be tracked), he met an evil-looking serving man, +a messenger of Comyn, whom he killed, and concealed in whose dress +he found letters that proved Comyn's treachery. However this may +be, they were likely enough to quarrel in any case, being hot- +headed rivals; and, whatever they quarrelled about, they certainly +did quarrel in the church where they met, and Bruce drew his dagger +and stabbed Comyn, who fell upon the pavement. When Bruce came +out, pale and disturbed, the friends who were waiting for him asked +what was the matter? 'I think I have killed Comyn,' said he. 'You +only think so?' returned one of them; 'I will make sure!' and going +into the church, and finding him alive, stabbed him again and +again. Knowing that the King would never forgive this new deed of +violence, the party then declared Bruce King of Scotland: got him +crowned at Scone - without the chair; and set up the rebellious +standard once again. + +When the King heard of it he kindled with fiercer anger than he had +ever shown yet. He caused the Prince of Wales and two hundred and +seventy of the young nobility to be knighted - the trees in the +Temple Gardens were cut down to make room for their tents, and they +watched their armour all night, according to the old usage: some +in the Temple Church: some in Westminster Abbey - and at the +public Feast which then took place, he swore, by Heaven, and by two +swans covered with gold network which his minstrels placed upon the +table, that he would avenge the death of Comyn, and would punish +the false Bruce. And before all the company, he charged the Prince +his son, in case that he should die before accomplishing his vow, +not to bury him until it was fulfilled. Next morning the Prince +and the rest of the young Knights rode away to the Border-country +to join the English army; and the King, now weak and sick, followed +in a horse-litter. + +Bruce, after losing a battle and undergoing many dangers and much +misery, fled to Ireland, where he lay concealed through the winter. +That winter, Edward passed in hunting down and executing Bruce's +relations and adherents, sparing neither youth nor age, and showing +no touch of pity or sign of mercy. In the following spring, Bruce +reappeared and gained some victories. In these frays, both sides +were grievously cruel. For instance - Bruce's two brothers, being +taken captives desperately wounded, were ordered by the King to +instant execution. Bruce's friend Sir John Douglas, taking his own +Castle of Douglas out of the hands of an English Lord, roasted the +dead bodies of the slaughtered garrison in a great fire made of +every movable within it; which dreadful cookery his men called the +Douglas Larder. Bruce, still successful, however, drove the Earl +of Pembroke and the Earl of Gloucester into the Castle of Ayr and +laid siege to it. + +The King, who had been laid up all the winter, but had directed the +army from his sick-bed, now advanced to Carlisle, and there, +causing the litter in which he had travelled to be placed in the +Cathedral as an offering to Heaven, mounted his horse once more, +and for the last time. He was now sixty-nine years old, and had +reigned thirty-five years. He was so ill, that in four days he +could go no more than six miles; still, even at that pace, he went +on and resolutely kept his face towards the Border. At length, he +lay down at the village of Burgh-upon-Sands; and there, telling +those around him to impress upon the Prince that he was to remember +his father's vow, and was never to rest until he had thoroughly +subdued Scotland, he yielded up his last breath. + + + +CHAPTER XVII - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND + + + +KING Edward the Second, the first Prince of Wales, was twenty-three +years old when his father died. There was a certain favourite of +his, a young man from Gascony, named PIERS GAVESTON, of whom his +father had so much disapproved that he had ordered him out of +England, and had made his son swear by the side of his sick-bed, +never to bring him back. But, the Prince no sooner found himself +King, than he broke his oath, as so many other Princes and Kings +did (they were far too ready to take oaths), and sent for his dear +friend immediately. + +Now, this same Gaveston was handsome enough, but was a reckless, +insolent, audacious fellow. He was detested by the proud English +Lords: not only because he had such power over the King, and made +the Court such a dissipated place, but, also, because he could ride +better than they at tournaments, and was used, in his impudence, to +cut very bad jokes on them; calling one, the old hog; another, the +stage-player; another, the Jew; another, the black dog of Ardenne. +This was as poor wit as need be, but it made those Lords very +wroth; and the surly Earl of Warwick, who was the black dog, swore +that the time should come when Piers Gaveston should feel the black +dog's teeth. + +It was not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be coming. The +King made him Earl of Cornwall, and gave him vast riches; and, when +the King went over to France to marry the French Princess, +ISABELLA, daughter of PHILIP LE BEL: who was said to be the most +beautiful woman in the world: he made Gaveston, Regent of the +Kingdom. His splendid marriage-ceremony in the Church of Our Lady +at Boulogne, where there were four Kings and three Queens present +(quite a pack of Court Cards, for I dare say the Knaves were not +wanting), being over, he seemed to care little or nothing for his +beautiful wife; but was wild with impatience to meet Gaveston +again. + +When he landed at home, he paid no attention to anybody else, but +ran into the favourite's arms before a great concourse of people, +and hugged him, and kissed him, and called him his brother. At the +coronation which soon followed, Gaveston was the richest and +brightest of all the glittering company there, and had the honour +of carrying the crown. This made the proud Lords fiercer than +ever; the people, too, despised the favourite, and would never call +him Earl of Cornwall, however much he complained to the King and +asked him to punish them for not doing so, but persisted in styling +him plain Piers Gaveston. + +The Barons were so unceremonious with the King in giving him to +understand that they would not bear this favourite, that the King +was obliged to send him out of the country. The favourite himself +was made to take an oath (more oaths!) that he would never come +back, and the Barons supposed him to be banished in disgrace, until +they heard that he was appointed Governor of Ireland. Even this +was not enough for the besotted King, who brought him home again in +a year's time, and not only disgusted the Court and the people by +his doting folly, but offended his beautiful wife too, who never +liked him afterwards. + +He had now the old Royal want - of money - and the Barons had the +new power of positively refusing to let him raise any. He summoned +a Parliament at York; the Barons refused to make one, while the +favourite was near him. He summoned another Parliament at +Westminster, and sent Gaveston away. Then, the Barons came, +completely armed, and appointed a committee of themselves to +correct abuses in the state and in the King's household. He got +some money on these conditions, and directly set off with Gaveston +to the Border-country, where they spent it in idling away the time, +and feasting, while Bruce made ready to drive the English out of +Scotland. For, though the old King had even made this poor weak +son of his swear (as some say) that he would not bury his bones, +but would have them boiled clean in a caldron, and carried before +the English army until Scotland was entirely subdued, the second +Edward was so unlike the first that Bruce gained strength and power +every day. + +The committee of Nobles, after some months of deliberation, +ordained that the King should henceforth call a Parliament +together, once every year, and even twice if necessary, instead of +summoning it only when he chose. Further, that Gaveston should +once more be banished, and, this time, on pain of death if he ever +came back. The King's tears were of no avail; he was obliged to +send his favourite to Flanders. As soon as he had done so, +however, he dissolved the Parliament, with the low cunning of a +mere fool, and set off to the North of England, thinking to get an +army about him to oppose the Nobles. And once again he brought +Gaveston home, and heaped upon him all the riches and titles of +which the Barons had deprived him. + +The Lords saw, now, that there was nothing for it but to put the +favourite to death. They could have done so, legally, according to +the terms of his banishment; but they did so, I am sorry to say, in +a shabby manner. Led by the Earl of Lancaster, the King's cousin, +they first of all attacked the King and Gaveston at Newcastle. +They had time to escape by sea, and the mean King, having his +precious Gaveston with him, was quite content to leave his lovely +wife behind. When they were comparatively safe, they separated; +the King went to York to collect a force of soldiers; and the +favourite shut himself up, in the meantime, in Scarborough Castle +overlooking the sea. This was what the Barons wanted. They knew +that the Castle could not hold out; they attacked it, and made +Gaveston surrender. He delivered himself up to the Earl of +Pembroke - that Lord whom he had called the Jew - on the Earl's +pledging his faith and knightly word, that no harm should happen to +him and no violence be done him. + +Now, it was agreed with Gaveston that he should be taken to the +Castle of Wallingford, and there kept in honourable custody. They +travelled as far as Dedington, near Banbury, where, in the Castle +of that place, they stopped for a night to rest. Whether the Earl +of Pembroke left his prisoner there, knowing what would happen, or +really left him thinking no harm, and only going (as he pretended) +to visit his wife, the Countess, who was in the neighbourhood, is +no great matter now; in any case, he was bound as an honourable +gentleman to protect his prisoner, and he did not do it. In the +morning, while the favourite was yet in bed, he was required to +dress himself and come down into the court-yard. He did so without +any mistrust, but started and turned pale when he found it full of +strange armed men. 'I think you know me?' said their leader, also +armed from head to foot. 'I am the black dog of Ardenne!' The +time was come when Piers Gaveston was to feel the black dog's teeth +indeed. They set him on a mule, and carried him, in mock state and +with military music, to the black dog's kennel - Warwick Castle - +where a hasty council, composed of some great noblemen, considered +what should be done with him. Some were for sparing him, but one +loud voice - it was the black dog's bark, I dare say - sounded +through the Castle Hall, uttering these words: 'You have the fox +in your power. Let him go now, and you must hunt him again.' + +They sentenced him to death. He threw himself at the feet of the +Earl of Lancaster - the old hog - but the old hog was as savage as +the dog. He was taken out upon the pleasant road, leading from +Warwick to Coventry, where the beautiful river Avon, by which, long +afterwards, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was born and now lies buried, +sparkled in the bright landscape of the beautiful May-day; and +there they struck off his wretched head, and stained the dust with +his blood. + +When the King heard of this black deed, in his grief and rage he +denounced relentless war against his Barons, and both sides were in +arms for half a year. But, it then became necessary for them to +join their forces against Bruce, who had used the time well while +they were divided, and had now a great power in Scotland. + +Intelligence was brought that Bruce was then besieging Stirling +Castle, and that the Governor had been obliged to pledge himself to +surrender it, unless he should be relieved before a certain day. +Hereupon, the King ordered the nobles and their fighting-men to +meet him at Berwick; but, the nobles cared so little for the King, +and so neglected the summons, and lost time, that only on the day +before that appointed for the surrender, did the King find himself +at Stirling, and even then with a smaller force than he had +expected. However, he had, altogether, a hundred thousand men, and +Bruce had not more than forty thousand; but, Bruce's army was +strongly posted in three square columns, on the ground lying +between the Burn or Brook of Bannock and the walls of Stirling +Castle. + +On the very evening, when the King came up, Bruce did a brave act +that encouraged his men. He was seen by a certain HENRY DE BOHUN, +an English Knight, riding about before his army on a little horse, +with a light battle-axe in his hand, and a crown of gold on his +head. This English Knight, who was mounted on a strong war-horse, +cased in steel, strongly armed, and able (as he thought) to +overthrow Bruce by crushing him with his mere weight, set spurs to +his great charger, rode on him, and made a thrust at him with his +heavy spear. Bruce parried the thrust, and with one blow of his +battle-axe split his skull. + +The Scottish men did not forget this, next day when the battle +raged. RANDOLPH, Bruce's valiant Nephew, rode, with the small body +of men he commanded, into such a host of the English, all shining +in polished armour in the sunlight, that they seemed to be +swallowed up and lost, as if they had plunged into the sea. But, +they fought so well, and did such dreadful execution, that the +English staggered. Then came Bruce himself upon them, with all the +rest of his army. While they were thus hard pressed and amazed, +there appeared upon the hills what they supposed to be a new +Scottish army, but what were really only the camp followers, in +number fifteen thousand: whom Bruce had taught to show themselves +at that place and time. The Earl of Gloucester, commanding the +English horse, made a last rush to change the fortune of the day; +but Bruce (like Jack the Giant-killer in the story) had had pits +dug in the ground, and covered over with turfs and stakes. Into +these, as they gave way beneath the weight of the horses, riders +and horses rolled by hundreds. The English were completely routed; +all their treasure, stores, and engines, were taken by the Scottish +men; so many waggons and other wheeled vehicles were seized, that +it is related that they would have reached, if they had been drawn +out in a line, one hundred and eighty miles. The fortunes of +Scotland were, for the time, completely changed; and never was a +battle won, more famous upon Scottish ground, than this great +battle of BANNOCKBURN. + +Plague and famine succeeded in England; and still the powerless +King and his disdainful Lords were always in contention. Some of +the turbulent chiefs of Ireland made proposals to Bruce, to accept +the rule of that country. He sent his brother Edward to them, who +was crowned King of Ireland. He afterwards went himself to help +his brother in his Irish wars, but his brother was defeated in the +end and killed. Robert Bruce, returning to Scotland, still +increased his strength there. + +As the King's ruin had begun in a favourite, so it seemed likely to +end in one. He was too poor a creature to rely at all upon +himself; and his new favourite was one HUGH LE DESPENSER, the son +of a gentleman of ancient family. Hugh was handsome and brave, but +he was the favourite of a weak King, whom no man cared a rush for, +and that was a dangerous place to hold. The Nobles leagued against +him, because the King liked him; and they lay in wait, both for his +ruin and his father's. Now, the King had married him to the +daughter of the late Earl of Gloucester, and had given both him and +his father great possessions in Wales. In their endeavours to +extend these, they gave violent offence to an angry Welsh +gentleman, named JOHN DE MOWBRAY, and to divers other angry Welsh +gentlemen, who resorted to arms, took their castles, and seized +their estates. The Earl of Lancaster had first placed the +favourite (who was a poor relation of his own) at Court, and he +considered his own dignity offended by the preference he received +and the honours he acquired; so he, and the Barons who were his +friends, joined the Welshmen, marched on London, and sent a message +to the King demanding to have the favourite and his father +banished. At first, the King unaccountably took it into his head +to be spirited, and to send them a bold reply; but when they +quartered themselves around Holborn and Clerkenwell, and went down, +armed, to the Parliament at Westminster, he gave way, and complied +with their demands. + +His turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. It arose out of +an accidental circumstance. The beautiful Queen happening to be +travelling, came one night to one of the royal castles, and +demanded to be lodged and entertained there until morning. The +governor of this castle, who was one of the enraged lords, was +away, and in his absence, his wife refused admission to the Queen; +a scuffle took place among the common men on either side, and some +of the royal attendants were killed. The people, who cared nothing +for the King, were very angry that their beautiful Queen should be +thus rudely treated in her own dominions; and the King, taking +advantage of this feeling, besieged the castle, took it, and then +called the two Despensers home. Upon this, the confederate lords +and the Welshmen went over to Bruce. The King encountered them at +Boroughbridge, gained the victory, and took a number of +distinguished prisoners; among them, the Earl of Lancaster, now an +old man, upon whose destruction he was resolved. This Earl was +taken to his own castle of Pontefract, and there tried and found +guilty by an unfair court appointed for the purpose; he was not +even allowed to speak in his own defence. He was insulted, pelted, +mounted on a starved pony without saddle or bridle, carried out, +and beheaded. Eight-and-twenty knights were hanged, drawn, and +quartered. When the King had despatched this bloody work, and had +made a fresh and a long truce with Bruce, he took the Despensers +into greater favour than ever, and made the father Earl of +Winchester. + +One prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at Boroughbridge, +made his escape, however, and turned the tide against the King. +This was ROGER MORTIMER, always resolutely opposed to him, who was +sentenced to death, and placed for safe custody in the Tower of +London. He treated his guards to a quantity of wine into which he +had put a sleeping potion; and, when they were insensible, broke +out of his dungeon, got into a kitchen, climbed up the chimney, let +himself down from the roof of the building with a rope-ladder, +passed the sentries, got down to the river, and made away in a boat +to where servants and horses were waiting for him. He finally +escaped to France, where CHARLES LE BEL, the brother of the +beautiful Queen, was King. Charles sought to quarrel with the King +of England, on pretence of his not having come to do him homage at +his coronation. It was proposed that the beautiful Queen should go +over to arrange the dispute; she went, and wrote home to the King, +that as he was sick and could not come to France himself, perhaps +it would be better to send over the young Prince, their son, who +was only twelve years old, who could do homage to her brother in +his stead, and in whose company she would immediately return. The +King sent him: but, both he and the Queen remained at the French +Court, and Roger Mortimer became the Queen's lover. + +When the King wrote, again and again, to the Queen to come home, +she did not reply that she despised him too much to live with him +any more (which was the truth), but said she was afraid of the two +Despensers. In short, her design was to overthrow the favourites' +power, and the King's power, such as it was, and invade England. +Having obtained a French force of two thousand men, and being +joined by all the English exiles then in France, she landed, within +a year, at Orewell, in Suffolk, where she was immediately joined by +the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, the King's two brothers; by other +powerful noblemen; and lastly, by the first English general who was +despatched to check her: who went over to her with all his men. +The people of London, receiving these tidings, would do nothing for +the King, but broke open the Tower, let out all his prisoners, and +threw up their caps and hurrahed for the beautiful Queen. + +The King, with his two favourites, fled to Bristol, where he left +old Despenser in charge of the town and castle, while he went on +with the son to Wales. The Bristol men being opposed to the King, +and it being impossible to hold the town with enemies everywhere +within the walls, Despenser yielded it up on the third day, and was +instantly brought to trial for having traitorously influenced what +was called 'the King's mind' - though I doubt if the King ever had +any. He was a venerable old man, upwards of ninety years of age, +but his age gained no respect or mercy. He was hanged, torn open +while he was yet alive, cut up into pieces, and thrown to the dogs. +His son was soon taken, tried at Hereford before the same judge on +a long series of foolish charges, found guilty, and hanged upon a +gallows fifty feet high, with a chaplet of nettles round his head. +His poor old father and he were innocent enough of any worse crimes +than the crime of having been friends of a King, on whom, as a mere +man, they would never have deigned to cast a favourable look. It +is a bad crime, I know, and leads to worse; but, many lords and +gentlemen - I even think some ladies, too, if I recollect right - +have committed it in England, who have neither been given to the +dogs, nor hanged up fifty feet high. + +The wretched King was running here and there, all this time, and +never getting anywhere in particular, until he gave himself up, and +was taken off to Kenilworth Castle. When he was safely lodged +there, the Queen went to London and met the Parliament. And the +Bishop of Hereford, who was the most skilful of her friends, said, +What was to be done now? Here was an imbecile, indolent, miserable +King upon the throne; wouldn't it be better to take him off, and +put his son there instead? I don't know whether the Queen really +pitied him at this pass, but she began to cry; so, the Bishop said, +Well, my Lords and Gentlemen, what do you think, upon the whole, of +sending down to Kenilworth, and seeing if His Majesty (God bless +him, and forbid we should depose him!) won't resign? + +My Lords and Gentlemen thought it a good notion, so a deputation of +them went down to Kenilworth; and there the King came into the +great hall of the Castle, commonly dressed in a poor black gown; +and when he saw a certain bishop among them, fell down, poor +feeble-headed man, and made a wretched spectacle of himself. +Somebody lifted him up, and then SIR WILLIAM TRUSSEL, the Speaker +of the House of Commons, almost frightened him to death by making +him a tremendous speech to the effect that he was no longer a King, +and that everybody renounced allegiance to him. After which, SIR +THOMAS BLOUNT, the Steward of the Household, nearly finished him, +by coming forward and breaking his white wand - which was a +ceremony only performed at a King's death. Being asked in this +pressing manner what he thought of resigning, the King said he +thought it was the best thing he could do. So, he did it, and they +proclaimed his son next day. + +I wish I could close his history by saying that he lived a harmless +life in the Castle and the Castle gardens at Kenilworth, many years +- that he had a favourite, and plenty to eat and drink - and, +having that, wanted nothing. But he was shamefully humiliated. He +was outraged, and slighted, and had dirty water from ditches given +him to shave with, and wept and said he would have clean warm +water, and was altogether very miserable. He was moved from this +castle to that castle, and from that castle to the other castle, +because this lord or that lord, or the other lord, was too kind to +him: until at last he came to Berkeley Castle, near the River +Severn, where (the Lord Berkeley being then ill and absent) he fell +into the hands of two black ruffians, called THOMAS GOURNAY and +WILLIAM OGLE. + +One night - it was the night of September the twenty-first, one +thousand three hundred and twenty-seven - dreadful screams were +heard, by the startled people in the neighbouring town, ringing +through the thick walls of the Castle, and the dark, deep night; +and they said, as they were thus horribly awakened from their +sleep, 'May Heaven be merciful to the King; for those cries forbode +that no good is being done to him in his dismal prison!' Next +morning he was dead - not bruised, or stabbed, or marked upon the +body, but much distorted in the face; and it was whispered +afterwards, that those two villains, Gournay and Ogle, had burnt up +his inside with a red-hot iron. + +If you ever come near Gloucester, and see the centre tower of its +beautiful Cathedral, with its four rich pinnacles, rising lightly +in the air; you may remember that the wretched Edward the Second +was buried in the old abbey of that ancient city, at forty-three +years old, after being for nineteen years and a half a perfectly +incapable King. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD + + + +ROGER MORTIMER, the Queen's lover (who escaped to France in the +last chapter), was far from profiting by the examples he had had of +the fate of favourites. Having, through the Queen's influence, +come into possession of the estates of the two Despensers, he +became extremely proud and ambitious, and sought to be the real +ruler of England. The young King, who was crowned at fourteen +years of age with all the usual solemnities, resolved not to bear +this, and soon pursued Mortimer to his ruin. + +The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer - first, because he +was a Royal favourite; secondly, because he was supposed to have +helped to make a peace with Scotland which now took place, and in +virtue of which the young King's sister Joan, only seven years old, +was promised in marriage to David, the son and heir of Robert +Bruce, who was only five years old. The nobles hated Mortimer +because of his pride, riches, and power. They went so far as to +take up arms against him; but were obliged to submit. The Earl of +Kent, one of those who did so, but who afterwards went over to +Mortimer and the Queen, was made an example of in the following +cruel manner: + +He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl; and he was +persuaded by the agents of the favourite and the Queen, that poor +King Edward the Second was not really dead; and thus was betrayed +into writing letters favouring his rightful claim to the throne. +This was made out to be high treason, and he was tried, found +guilty, and sentenced to be executed. They took the poor old lord +outside the town of Winchester, and there kept him waiting some +three or four hours until they could find somebody to cut off his +head. At last, a convict said he would do it, if the government +would pardon him in return; and they gave him the pardon; and at +one blow he put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense. + +While the Queen was in France, she had found a lovely and good +young lady, named Philippa, who she thought would make an excellent +wife for her son. The young King married this lady, soon after he +came to the throne; and her first child, Edward, Prince of Wales, +afterwards became celebrated, as we shall presently see, under the +famous title of EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE. + +The young King, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of +Mortimer, took counsel with Lord Montacute how he should proceed. +A Parliament was going to be held at Nottingham, and that lord +recommended that the favourite should be seized by night in +Nottingham Castle, where he was sure to be. Now, this, like many +other things, was more easily said than done; because, to guard +against treachery, the great gates of the Castle were locked every +night, and the great keys were carried up-stairs to the Queen, who +laid them under her own pillow. But the Castle had a governor, and +the governor being Lord Montacute's friend, confided to him how he +knew of a secret passage underground, hidden from observation by +the weeds and brambles with which it was overgrown; and how, +through that passage, the conspirators might enter in the dead of +the night, and go straight to Mortimer's room. Accordingly, upon a +certain dark night, at midnight, they made their way through this +dismal place: startling the rats, and frightening the owls and +bats: and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the +Castle, where the King met them, and took them up a profoundly-dark +staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the voice of Mortimer +in council with some friends; and bursting into the room with a +sudden noise, took him prisoner. The Queen cried out from her bed- +chamber, 'Oh, my sweet son, my dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer!' +They carried him off, however; and, before the next Parliament, +accused him of having made differences between the young King and +his mother, and of having brought about the death of the Earl of +Kent, and even of the late King; for, as you know by this time, +when they wanted to get rid of a man in those old days, they were +not very particular of what they accused him. Mortimer was found +guilty of all this, and was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn. The +King shut his mother up in genteel confinement, where she passed +the rest of her life; and now he became King in earnest. + +The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The English +lords who had lands in Scotland, finding that their rights were not +respected under the late peace, made war on their own account: +choosing for their general, Edward, the son of John Baliol, who +made such a vigorous fight, that in less than two months he won the +whole Scottish Kingdom. He was joined, when thus triumphant, by +the King and Parliament; and he and the King in person besieged the +Scottish forces in Berwick. The whole Scottish army coming to the +assistance of their countrymen, such a furious battle ensued, that +thirty thousand men are said to have been killed in it. Baliol was +then crowned King of Scotland, doing homage to the King of England; +but little came of his successes after all, for the Scottish men +rose against him, within no very long time, and David Bruce came +back within ten years and took his kingdom. + +France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the King had a +much greater mind to conquer it. So, he let Scotland alone, and +pretended that he had a claim to the French throne in right of his +mother. He had, in reality, no claim at all; but that mattered +little in those times. He brought over to his cause many little +princes and sovereigns, and even courted the alliance of the people +of Flanders - a busy, working community, who had very small respect +for kings, and whose head man was a brewer. With such forces as he +raised by these means, Edward invaded France; but he did little by +that, except run into debt in carrying on the war to the extent of +three hundred thousand pounds. The next year he did better; +gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of Sluys. This success, +however, was very shortlived, for the Flemings took fright at the +siege of Saint Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggage +behind them. Philip, the French King, coming up with his army, and +Edward being very anxious to decide the war, proposed to settle the +difference by single combat with him, or by a fight of one hundred +knights on each side. The French King said, he thanked him; but +being very well as he was, he would rather not. So, after some +skirmishing and talking, a short peace was made. + +It was soon broken by King Edward's favouring the cause of John, +Earl of Montford; a French nobleman, who asserted a claim of his +own against the French King, and offered to do homage to England +for the Crown of France, if he could obtain it through England's +help. This French lord, himself, was soon defeated by the French +King's son, and shut up in a tower in Paris; but his wife, a +courageous and beautiful woman, who is said to have had the courage +of a man, and the heart of a lion, assembled the people of +Brittany, where she then was; and, showing them her infant son, +made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert her and their +young Lord. They took fire at this appeal, and rallied round her +in the strong castle of Hennebon. Here she was not only besieged +without by the French under Charles de Blois, but was endangered +within by a dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the +people what horrors they must undergo if they were faithful - first +from famine, and afterwards from fire and sword. But this noble +lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged her soldiers by her +own example; went from post to post like a great general; even +mounted on horseback fully armed, and, issuing from the castle by a +by-path, fell upon the French camp, set fire to the tents, and +threw the whole force into disorder. This done, she got safely +back to Hennebon again, and was received with loud shouts of joy by +the defenders of the castle, who had given her up for lost. As +they were now very short of provisions, however, and as they could +not dine off enthusiasm, and as the old bishop was always saying, +'I told you what it would come to!' they began to lose heart, and +to talk of yielding the castle up. The brave Countess retiring to +an upper room and looking with great grief out to sea, where she +expected relief from England, saw, at this very time, the English +ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued! Sir Walter +Manning, the English commander, so admired her courage, that, being +come into the castle with the English knights, and having made a +feast there, he assaulted the French by way of dessert, and beat +them off triumphantly. Then he and the knights came back to the +castle with great joy; and the Countess who had watched them from a +high tower, thanked them with all her heart, and kissed them every +one. + +This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea-fight +with the French off Guernsey, when she was on her way to England to +ask for more troops. Her great spirit roused another lady, the +wife of another French lord (whom the French King very barbarously +murdered), to distinguish herself scarcely less. The time was fast +coming, however, when Edward, Prince of Wales, was to be the great +star of this French and English war. + +It was in the month of July, in the year one thousand three hundred +and forty-six, when the King embarked at Southampton for France, +with an army of about thirty thousand men in all, attended by the +Prince of Wales and by several of the chief nobles. He landed at +La Hogue in Normandy; and, burning and destroying as he went, +according to custom, advanced up the left bank of the River Seine, +and fired the small towns even close to Paris; but, being watched +from the right bank of the river by the French King and all his +army, it came to this at last, that Edward found himself, on +Saturday the twenty-sixth of August, one thousand three hundred and +forty-six, on a rising ground behind the little French village of +Crecy, face to face with the French King's force. And, although +the French King had an enormous army - in number more than eight +times his - he there resolved to beat him or be beaten. + +The young Prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the Earl of +Warwick, led the first division of the English army; two other +great Earls led the second; and the King, the third. When the +morning dawned, the King received the sacrament, and heard prayers, +and then, mounted on horseback with a white wand in his hand, rode +from company to company, and rank to rank, cheering and encouraging +both officers and men. Then the whole army breakfasted, each man +sitting on the ground where he had stood; and then they remained +quietly on the ground with their weapons ready. + +Up came the French King with all his great force. It was dark and +angry weather; there was an eclipse of the sun; there was a +thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous rain; the frightened +birds flew screaming above the soldiers' heads. A certain captain +in the French army advised the French King, who was by no means +cheerful, not to begin the battle until the morrow. The King, +taking this advice, gave the word to halt. But, those behind not +understanding it, or desiring to be foremost with the rest, came +pressing on. The roads for a great distance were covered with this +immense army, and with the common people from the villages, who +were flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise. +Owing to these circumstances, the French army advanced in the +greatest confusion; every French lord doing what he liked with his +own men, and putting out the men of every other French lord. + +Now, their King relied strongly upon a great body of cross-bowmen +from Genoa; and these he ordered to the front to begin the battle, +on finding that he could not stop it. They shouted once, they +shouted twice, they shouted three times, to alarm the English +archers; but, the English would have heard them shout three +thousand times and would have never moved. At last the cross- +bowmen went forward a little, and began to discharge their bolts; +upon which, the English let fly such a hail of arrows, that the +Genoese speedily made off - for their cross-bows, besides being +heavy to carry, required to be wound up with a handle, and +consequently took time to re-load; the English, on the other hand, +could discharge their arrows almost as fast as the arrows could +fly. + +When the French King saw the Genoese turning, he cried out to his +men to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm instead of +service. This increased the confusion. Meanwhile the English +archers, continuing to shoot as fast as ever, shot down great +numbers of the French soldiers and knights; whom certain sly +Cornish-men and Welshmen, from the English army, creeping along the +ground, despatched with great knives. + +The Prince and his division were at this time so hard-pressed, that +the Earl of Warwick sent a message to the King, who was overlooking +the battle from a windmill, beseeching him to send more aid. + +'Is my son killed?' said the King. + +'No, sire, please God,' returned the messenger. + +'Is he wounded?' said the King. + +'No, sire.' + +'Is he thrown to the ground?' said the King. + +'No, sire, not so; but, he is very hard-pressed.' + +'Then,' said the King, 'go back to those who sent you, and tell +them I shall send no aid; because I set my heart upon my son +proving himself this day a brave knight, and because I am resolved, +please God, that the honour of a great victory shall be his!' + +These bold words, being reported to the Prince and his division, so +raised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. The King +of France charged gallantly with his men many times; but it was of +no use. Night closing in, his horse was killed under him by an +English arrow, and the knights and nobles who had clustered thick +about him early in the day, were now completely scattered. At +last, some of his few remaining followers led him off the field by +force since he would not retire of himself, and they journeyed away +to Amiens. The victorious English, lighting their watch-fires, +made merry on the field, and the King, riding to meet his gallant +son, took him in his arms, kissed him, and told him that he had +acted nobly, and proved himself worthy of the day and of the crown. +While it was yet night, King Edward was hardly aware of the great +victory he had gained; but, next day, it was discovered that eleven +princes, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common men lay +dead upon the French side. Among these was the King of Bohemia, an +old blind man; who, having been told that his son was wounded in +the battle, and that no force could stand against the Black Prince, +called to him two knights, put himself on horse-back between them, +fastened the three bridles together, and dashed in among the +English, where he was presently slain. He bore as his crest three +white ostrich feathers, with the motto ICH DIEN, signifying in +English 'I serve.' This crest and motto were taken by the Prince +of Wales in remembrance of that famous day, and have been borne by +the Prince of Wales ever since. + +Five days after this great battle, the King laid siege to Calais. +This siege - ever afterwards memorable - lasted nearly a year. In +order to starve the inhabitants out, King Edward built so many +wooden houses for the lodgings of his troops, that it is said their +quarters looked like a second Calais suddenly sprung around the +first. Early in the siege, the governor of the town drove out what +he called the useless mouths, to the number of seventeen hundred +persons, men and women, young and old. King Edward allowed them to +pass through his lines, and even fed them, and dismissed them with +money; but, later in the siege, he was not so merciful - five +hundred more, who were afterwards driven out, dying of starvation +and misery. The garrison were so hard-pressed at last, that they +sent a letter to King Philip, telling him that they had eaten all +the horses, all the dogs, and all the rats and mice that could be +found in the place; and, that if he did not relieve them, they must +either surrender to the English, or eat one another. Philip made +one effort to give them relief; but they were so hemmed in by the +English power, that he could not succeed, and was fain to leave the +place. Upon this they hoisted the English flag, and surrendered to +King Edward. 'Tell your general,' said he to the humble messengers +who came out of the town, 'that I require to have sent here, six of +the most distinguished citizens, bare-legged, and in their shirts, +with ropes about their necks; and let those six men bring with them +the keys of the castle and the town.' + +When the Governor of Calais related this to the people in the +Market-place, there was great weeping and distress; in the midst of +which, one worthy citizen, named Eustace de Saint Pierre, rose up +and said, that if the six men required were not sacrificed, the +whole population would be; therefore, he offered himself as the +first. Encouraged by this bright example, five other worthy +citizens rose up one after another, and offered themselves to save +the rest. The Governor, who was too badly wounded to be able to +walk, mounted a poor old horse that had not been eaten, and +conducted these good men to the gate, while all the people cried +and mourned. + +Edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads of the whole +six to be struck off. However, the good Queen fell upon her knees, +and besought the King to give them up to her. The King replied, 'I +wish you had been somewhere else; but I cannot refuse you.' So she +had them properly dressed, made a feast for them, and sent them +back with a handsome present, to the great rejoicing of the whole +camp. I hope the people of Calais loved the daughter to whom she +gave birth soon afterwards, for her gentle mother's sake. + +Now came that terrible disease, the Plague, into Europe, hurrying +from the heart of China; and killed the wretched people - +especially the poor - in such enormous numbers, that one-half of +the inhabitants of England are related to have died of it. It +killed the cattle, in great numbers, too; and so few working men +remained alive, that there were not enough left to till the ground. + +After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince of Wales +again invaded France with an army of sixty thousand men. He went +through the south of the country, burning and plundering +wheresoever he went; while his father, who had still the Scottish +war upon his hands, did the like in Scotland, but was harassed and +worried in his retreat from that country by the Scottish men, who +repaid his cruelties with interest. + +The French King, Philip, was now dead, and was succeeded by his son +John. The Black Prince, called by that name from the colour of the +armour he wore to set off his fair complexion, continuing to burn +and destroy in France, roused John into determined opposition; and +so cruel had the Black Prince been in his campaign, and so severely +had the French peasants suffered, that he could not find one who, +for love, or money, or the fear of death, would tell him what the +French King was doing, or where he was. Thus it happened that he +came upon the French King's forces, all of a sudden, near the town +of Poitiers, and found that the whole neighbouring country was +occupied by a vast French army. 'God help us!' said the Black +Prince, 'we must make the best of it.' + +So, on a Sunday morning, the eighteenth of September, the Prince +whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in all - prepared to +give battle to the French King, who had sixty thousand horse alone. +While he was so engaged, there came riding from the French camp, a +Cardinal, who had persuaded John to let him offer terms, and try to +save the shedding of Christian blood. 'Save my honour,' said the +Prince to this good priest, 'and save the honour of my army, and I +will make any reasonable terms.' He offered to give up all the +towns, castles, and prisoners, he had taken, and to swear to make +no war in France for seven years; but, as John would hear of +nothing but his surrender, with a hundred of his chief knights, the +treaty was broken off, and the Prince said quietly - 'God defend +the right; we shall fight to-morrow.' + +Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the two armies +prepared for battle. The English were posted in a strong place, +which could only be approached by one narrow lane, skirted by +hedges on both sides. The French attacked them by this lane; but +were so galled and slain by English arrows from behind the hedges, +that they were forced to retreat. Then went six hundred English +bowmen round about, and, coming upon the rear of the French army, +rained arrows on them thick and fast. The French knights, thrown +into confusion, quitted their banners and dispersed in all +directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the Prince, 'Ride forward, +noble Prince, and the day is yours. The King of France is so +valiant a gentleman, that I know he will never fly, and may be +taken prisoner.' Said the Prince to this, 'Advance, English +banners, in the name of God and St. George!' and on they pressed +until they came up with the French King, fighting fiercely with his +battle-axe, and, when all his nobles had forsaken him, attended +faithfully to the last by his youngest son Philip, only sixteen +years of age. Father and son fought well, and the King had already +two wounds in his face, and had been beaten down, when he at last +delivered himself to a banished French knight, and gave him his +right-hand glove in token that he had done so. + +The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited his +royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at table, +and, when they afterwards rode into London in a gorgeous +procession, mounted the French King on a fine cream-coloured horse, +and rode at his side on a little pony. This was all very kind, but +I think it was, perhaps, a little theatrical too, and has been made +more meritorious than it deserved to be; especially as I am +inclined to think that the greatest kindness to the King of France +would have been not to have shown him to the people at all. +However, it must be said, for these acts of politeness, that, in +course of time, they did much to soften the horrors of war and the +passions of conquerors. It was a long, long time before the common +soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds; but they +did at last; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier who asked +for quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any other such great +fight, may have owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black +Prince. + +At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace called +the Savoy, which was given up to the captive King of France and his +son for their residence. As the King of Scotland had now been King +Edward's captive for eleven years too, his success was, at this +time, tolerably complete. The Scottish business was settled by the +prisoner being released under the title of Sir David, King of +Scotland, and by his engaging to pay a large ransom. The state of +France encouraged England to propose harder terms to that country, +where the people rose against the unspeakable cruelty and barbarity +of its nobles; where the nobles rose in turn against the people; +where the most frightful outrages were committed on all sides; and +where the insurrection of the peasants, called the insurrection of +the Jacquerie, from Jacques, a common Christian name among the +country people of France, awakened terrors and hatreds that have +scarcely yet passed away. A treaty called the Great Peace, was at +last signed, under which King Edward agreed to give up the greater +part of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six years, a +ransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so beset by his own +nobles and courtiers for having yielded to these conditions - +though they could help him to no better - that he came back of his +own will to his old palace-prison of the Savoy, and there died. + +There was a Sovereign of Castile at that time, called PEDRO THE +CRUEL, who deserved the name remarkably well: having committed, +among other cruelties, a variety of murders. This amiable monarch +being driven from his throne for his crimes, went to the province +of Bordeaux, where the Black Prince - now married to his cousin +JOAN, a pretty widow - was residing, and besought his help. The +Prince, who took to him much more kindly than a prince of such fame +ought to have taken to such a ruffian, readily listened to his fair +promises, and agreeing to help him, sent secret orders to some +troublesome disbanded soldiers of his and his father's, who called +themselves the Free Companions, and who had been a pest to the +French people, for some time, to aid this Pedro. The Prince, +himself, going into Spain to head the army of relief, soon set +Pedro on his throne again - where he no sooner found himself, than, +of course, he behaved like the villain he was, broke his word +without the least shame, and abandoned all the promises he had made +to the Black Prince. + +Now, it had cost the Prince a good deal of money to pay soldiers to +support this murderous King; and finding himself, when he came back +disgusted to Bordeaux, not only in bad health, but deeply in debt, +he began to tax his French subjects to pay his creditors. They +appealed to the French King, CHARLES; war again broke out; and the +French town of Limoges, which the Prince had greatly benefited, +went over to the French King. Upon this he ravaged the province of +which it was the capital; burnt, and plundered, and killed in the +old sickening way; and refused mercy to the prisoners, men, women, +and children taken in the offending town, though he was so ill and +so much in need of pity himself from Heaven, that he was carried in +a litter. He lived to come home and make himself popular with the +people and Parliament, and he died on Trinity Sunday, the eighth of +June, one thousand three hundred and seventy-six, at forty-six +years old. + +The whole nation mourned for him as one of the most renowned and +beloved princes it had ever had; and he was buried with great +lamentations in Canterbury Cathedral. Near to the tomb of Edward +the Confessor, his monument, with his figure, carved in stone, and +represented in the old black armour, lying on its back, may be seen +at this day, with an ancient coat of mail, a helmet, and a pair of +gauntlets hanging from a beam above it, which most people like to +believe were once worn by the Black Prince. + +King Edward did not outlive his renowned son, long. He was old, +and one Alice Perrers, a beautiful lady, had contrived to make him +so fond of her in his old age, that he could refuse her nothing, +and made himself ridiculous. She little deserved his love, or - +what I dare say she valued a great deal more - the jewels of the +late Queen, which he gave her among other rich presents. She took +the very ring from his finger on the morning of the day when he +died, and left him to be pillaged by his faithless servants. Only +one good priest was true to him, and attended him to the last. + +Besides being famous for the great victories I have related, the +reign of King Edward the Third was rendered memorable in better +ways, by the growth of architecture and the erection of Windsor +Castle. In better ways still, by the rising up of WICKLIFFE, +originally a poor parish priest: who devoted himself to exposing, +with wonderful power and success, the ambition and corruption of +the Pope, and of the whole church of which he was the head. + +Some of those Flemings were induced to come to England in this +reign too, and to settle in Norfolk, where they made better woollen +cloths than the English had ever had before. The Order of the +Garter (a very fine thing in its way, but hardly so important as +good clothes for the nation) also dates from this period. The King +is said to have picked 'up a lady's garter at a ball, and to have +said, HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE - in English, 'Evil be to him who +evil thinks of it.' The courtiers were usually glad to imitate +what the King said or did, and hence from a slight incident the +Order of the Garter was instituted, and became a great dignity. So +the story goes. + + + +CHAPTER XIX - ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND + + + +RICHARD, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years of age, +succeeded to the Crown under the title of King Richard the Second. +The whole English nation were ready to admire him for the sake of +his brave father. As to the lords and ladies about the Court, they +declared him to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best - +even of princes - whom the lords and ladies about the Court, +generally declare to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the +best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this base manner was not +a very likely way to develop whatever good was in him; and it +brought him to anything but a good or happy end. + +The Duke of Lancaster, the young King's uncle - commonly called +John of Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which the common +people so pronounced - was supposed to have some thoughts of the +throne himself; but, as he was not popular, and the memory of the +Black Prince was, he submitted to his nephew. + +The war with France being still unsettled, the Government of +England wanted money to provide for the expenses that might arise +out of it; accordingly a certain tax, called the Poll-tax, which +had originated in the last reign, was ordered to be levied on the +people. This was a tax on every person in the kingdom, male and +female, above the age of fourteen, of three groats (or three four- +penny pieces) a year; clergymen were charged more, and only beggars +were exempt. + +I have no need to repeat that the common people of England had long +been suffering under great oppression. They were still the mere +slaves of the lords of the land on which they lived, and were on +most occasions harshly and unjustly treated. But, they had begun +by this time to think very seriously of not bearing quite so much; +and, probably, were emboldened by that French insurrection I +mentioned in the last chapter. + +The people of Essex rose against the Poll-tax, and being severely +handled by the government officers, killed some of them. At this +very time one of the tax-collectors, going his rounds from house to +house, at Dartford in Kent came to the cottage of one WAT, a tiler +by trade, and claimed the tax upon his daughter. Her mother, who +was at home, declared that she was under the age of fourteen; upon +that, the collector (as other collectors had already done in +different parts of England) behaved in a savage way, and brutally +insulted Wat Tyler's daughter. The daughter screamed, the mother +screamed. Wat the Tiler, who was at work not far off, ran to the +spot, and did what any honest father under such provocation might +have done - struck the collector dead at a blow. + +Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. They made Wat +Tyler their leader; they joined with the people of Essex, who were +in arms under a priest called JACK STRAW; they took out of prison +another priest named JOHN BALL; and gathering in numbers as they +went along, advanced, in a great confused army of poor men, to +Blackheath. It is said that they wanted to abolish all property, +and to declare all men equal. I do not think this very likely; +because they stopped the travellers on the roads and made them +swear to be true to King Richard and the people. Nor were they at +all disposed to injure those who had done them no harm, merely +because they were of high station; for, the King's mother, who had +to pass through their camp at Blackheath, on her way to her young +son, lying for safety in the Tower of London, had merely to kiss a +few dirty-faced rough-bearded men who were noisily fond of royalty, +and so got away in perfect safety. Next day the whole mass marched +on to London Bridge. + +There was a drawbridge in the middle, which WILLIAM WALWORTH the +Mayor caused to be raised to prevent their coming into the city; +but they soon terrified the citizens into lowering it again, and +spread themselves, with great uproar, over the streets. They broke +open the prisons; they burned the papers in Lambeth Palace; they +destroyed the DUKE OF LANCASTER'S Palace, the Savoy, in the Strand, +said to be the most beautiful and splendid in England; they set +fire to the books and documents in the Temple; and made a great +riot. Many of these outrages were committed in drunkenness; since +those citizens, who had well-filled cellars, were only too glad to +throw them open to save the rest of their property; but even the +drunken rioters were very careful to steal nothing. They were so +angry with one man, who was seen to take a silver cup at the Savoy +Palace, and put it in his breast, that they drowned him in the +river, cup and all. + +The young King had been taken out to treat with them before they +committed these excesses; but, he and the people about him were so +frightened by the riotous shouts, that they got back to the Tower +in the best way they could. This made the insurgents bolder; so +they went on rioting away, striking off the heads of those who did +not, at a moment's notice, declare for King Richard and the people; +and killing as many of the unpopular persons whom they supposed to +be their enemies as they could by any means lay hold of. In this +manner they passed one very violent day, and then proclamation was +made that the King would meet them at Mile-end, and grant their +requests. + +The rioters went to Mile-end to the number of sixty thousand, and +the King met them there, and to the King the rioters peaceably +proposed four conditions. First, that neither they, nor their +children, nor any coming after them, should be made slaves any +more. Secondly, that the rent of land should be fixed at a certain +price in money, instead of being paid in service. Thirdly, that +they should have liberty to buy and sell in all markets and public +places, like other free men. Fourthly, that they should be +pardoned for past offences. Heaven knows, there was nothing very +unreasonable in these proposals! The young King deceitfully +pretended to think so, and kept thirty clerks up, all night, +writing out a charter accordingly. + +Now, Wat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He wanted the entire +abolition of the forest laws. He was not at Mile-end with the +rest, but, while that meeting was being held, broke into the Tower +of London and slew the archbishop and the treasurer, for whose +heads the people had cried out loudly the day before. He and his +men even thrust their swords into the bed of the Princess of Wales +while the Princess was in it, to make certain that none of their +enemies were concealed there. + +So, Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about the city. +Next morning, the King with a small train of some sixty gentlemen - +among whom was WALWORTH the Mayor - rode into Smithfield, and saw +Wat and his people at a little distance. Says Wat to his men, +'There is the King. I will go speak with him, and tell him what we +want.' + +Straightway Wat rode up to him, and began to talk. 'King,' says +Wat, 'dost thou see all my men there?' + +'Ah,' says the King. 'Why?' + +'Because,' says Wat, 'they are all at my command, and have sworn to +do whatever I bid them.' + +Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this, he laid his hand on +the King's bridle. Others declared that he was seen to play with +his own dagger. I think, myself, that he just spoke to the King +like a rough, angry man as he was, and did nothing more. At any +rate he was expecting no attack, and preparing for no resistance, +when Walworth the Mayor did the not very valiant deed of drawing a +short sword and stabbing him in the throat. He dropped from his +horse, and one of the King's people speedily finished him. So fell +Wat Tyler. Fawners and flatterers made a mighty triumph of it, and +set up a cry which will occasionally find an echo to this day. But +Wat was a hard-working man, who had suffered much, and had been +foully outraged; and it is probable that he was a man of a much +higher nature and a much braver spirit than any of the parasites +who exulted then, or have exulted since, over his defeat. + +Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows to avenge his +fall. If the young King had not had presence of mind at that +dangerous moment, both he and the Mayor to boot, might have +followed Tyler pretty fast. But the King riding up to the crowd, +cried out that Tyler was a traitor, and that he would be their +leader. They were so taken by surprise, that they set up a great +shouting, and followed the boy until he was met at Islington by a +large body of soldiers. + +The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon as the King +found himself safe, he unsaid all he had said, and undid all he had +done; some fifteen hundred of the rioters were tried (mostly in +Essex) with great rigour, and executed with great cruelty. Many of +them were hanged on gibbets, and left there as a terror to the +country people; and, because their miserable friends took some of +the bodies down to bury, the King ordered the rest to be chained up +- which was the beginning of the barbarous custom of hanging in +chains. The King's falsehood in this business makes such a pitiful +figure, that I think Wat Tyler appears in history as beyond +comparison the truer and more respectable man of the two. + +Richard was now sixteen years of age, and married Anne of Bohemia, +an excellent princess, who was called 'the good Queen Anne.' She +deserved a better husband; for the King had been fawned and +flattered into a treacherous, wasteful, dissolute, bad young man. + +There were two Popes at this time (as if one were not enough!), and +their quarrels involved Europe in a great deal of trouble. +Scotland was still troublesome too; and at home there was much +jealousy and distrust, and plotting and counter-plotting, because +the King feared the ambition of his relations, and particularly of +his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster, and the duke had his party +against the King, and the King had his party against the duke. Nor +were these home troubles lessened when the duke went to Castile to +urge his claim to the crown of that kingdom; for then the Duke of +Gloucester, another of Richard's uncles, opposed him, and +influenced the Parliament to demand the dismissal of the King's +favourite ministers. The King said in reply, that he would not for +such men dismiss the meanest servant in his kitchen. But, it had +begun to signify little what a King said when a Parliament was +determined; so Richard was at last obliged to give way, and to +agree to another Government of the kingdom, under a commission of +fourteen nobles, for a year. His uncle of Gloucester was at the +head of this commission, and, in fact, appointed everybody +composing it. + +Having done all this, the King declared as soon as he saw an +opportunity that he had never meant to do it, and that it was all +illegal; and he got the judges secretly to sign a declaration to +that effect. The secret oozed out directly, and was carried to the +Duke of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester, at the head of forty +thousand men, met the King on his entering into London to enforce +his authority; the King was helpless against him; his favourites +and ministers were impeached and were mercilessly executed. Among +them were two men whom the people regarded with very different +feelings; one, Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice, who was hated for +having made what was called 'the bloody circuit' to try the +rioters; the other, Sir Simon Burley, an honourable knight, who had +been the dear friend of the Black Prince, and the governor and +guardian of the King. For this gentleman's life the good Queen +even begged of Gloucester on her knees; but Gloucester (with or +without reason) feared and hated him, and replied, that if she +valued her husband's crown, she had better beg no more. All this +was done under what was called by some the wonderful - and by +others, with better reason, the merciless - Parliament. + +But Gloucester's power was not to last for ever. He held it for +only a year longer; in which year the famous battle of Otterbourne, +sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was fought. When the year +was out, the King, turning suddenly to Gloucester, in the midst of +a great council said, 'Uncle, how old am I?' 'Your highness,' +returned the Duke, 'is in your twenty-second year.' 'Am I so +much?' said the King; 'then I will manage my own affairs! I am +much obliged to you, my good lords, for your past services, but I +need them no more.' He followed this up, by appointing a new +Chancellor and a new Treasurer, and announced to the people that he +had resumed the Government. He held it for eight years without +opposition. Through all that time, he kept his determination to +revenge himself some day upon his uncle Gloucester, in his own +breast. + +At last the good Queen died, and then the King, desiring to take a +second wife, proposed to his council that he should marry Isabella, +of France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth: who, the French +courtiers said (as the English courtiers had said of Richard), was +a marvel of beauty and wit, and quite a phenomenon - of seven years +old. The council were divided about this marriage, but it took +place. It secured peace between England and France for a quarter +of a century; but it was strongly opposed to the prejudices of the +English people. The Duke of Gloucester, who was anxious to take +the occasion of making himself popular, declaimed against it +loudly, and this at length decided the King to execute the +vengeance he had been nursing so long. + +He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester's house, +Pleshey Castle, in Essex, where the Duke, suspecting nothing, came +out into the court-yard to receive his royal visitor. While the +King conversed in a friendly manner with the Duchess, the Duke was +quietly seized, hurried away, shipped for Calais, and lodged in the +castle there. His friends, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, were +taken in the same treacherous manner, and confined to their +castles. A few days after, at Nottingham, they were impeached of +high treason. The Earl of Arundel was condemned and beheaded, and +the Earl of Warwick was banished. Then, a writ was sent by a +messenger to the Governor of Calais, requiring him to send the Duke +of Gloucester over to be tried. In three days he returned an +answer that he could not do that, because the Duke of Gloucester +had died in prison. The Duke was declared a traitor, his property +was confiscated to the King, a real or pretended confession he had +made in prison to one of the Justices of the Common Pleas was +produced against him, and there was an end of the matter. How the +unfortunate duke died, very few cared to know. Whether he really +died naturally; whether he killed himself; whether, by the King's +order, he was strangled, or smothered between two beds (as a +serving-man of the Governor's named Hall, did afterwards declare), +cannot be discovered. There is not much doubt that he was killed, +somehow or other, by his nephew's orders. Among the most active +nobles in these proceedings were the King's cousin, Henry +Bolingbroke, whom the King had made Duke of Hereford to smooth down +the old family quarrels, and some others: who had in the family- +plotting times done just such acts themselves as they now condemned +in the duke. They seem to have been a corrupt set of men; but such +men were easily found about the court in such days. + +The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore about the +French marriage. The nobles saw how little the King cared for law, +and how crafty he was, and began to be somewhat afraid for +themselves. The King's life was a life of continued feasting and +excess; his retinue, down to the meanest servants, were dressed in +the most costly manner, and caroused at his tables, it is related, +to the number of ten thousand persons every day. He himself, +surrounded by a body of ten thousand archers, and enriched by a +duty on wool which the Commons had granted him for life, saw no +danger of ever being otherwise than powerful and absolute, and was +as fierce and haughty as a King could be. + +He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the Dukes of +Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more than the others, he +tampered with the Duke of Hereford until he got him to declare +before the Council that the Duke of Norfolk had lately held some +treasonable talk with him, as he was riding near Brentford; and +that he had told him, among other things, that he could not believe +the King's oath - which nobody could, I should think. For this +treachery he obtained a pardon, and the Duke of Norfolk was +summoned to appear and defend himself. As he denied the charge and +said his accuser was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen, according +to the manner of those times, were held in custody, and the truth +was ordered to be decided by wager of battle at Coventry. This +wager of battle meant that whosoever won the combat was to be +considered in the right; which nonsense meant in effect, that no +strong man could ever be wrong. A great holiday was made; a great +crowd assembled, with much parade and show; and the two combatants +were about to rush at each other with their lances, when the King, +sitting in a pavilion to see fair, threw down the truncheon he +carried in his hand, and forbade the battle. The Duke of Hereford +was to be banished for ten years, and the Duke of Norfolk was to be +banished for life. So said the King. The Duke of Hereford went to +France, and went no farther. The Duke of Norfolk made a pilgrimage +to the Holy Land, and afterwards died at Venice of a broken heart. + +Faster and fiercer, after this, the King went on in his career. +The Duke of Lancaster, who was the father of the Duke of Hereford, +died soon after the departure of his son; and, the King, although +he had solemnly granted to that son leave to inherit his father's +property, if it should come to him during his banishment, +immediately seized it all, like a robber. The judges were so +afraid of him, that they disgraced themselves by declaring this +theft to be just and lawful. His avarice knew no bounds. He +outlawed seventeen counties at once, on a frivolous pretence, +merely to raise money by way of fines for misconduct. In short, he +did as many dishonest things as he could; and cared so little for +the discontent of his subjects - though even the spaniel favourites +began to whisper to him that there was such a thing as discontent +afloat - that he took that time, of all others, for leaving England +and making an expedition against the Irish. + +He was scarcely gone, leaving the DUKE OF YORK Regent in his +absence, when his cousin, Henry of Hereford, came over from France +to claim the rights of which he had been so monstrously deprived. +He was immediately joined by the two great Earls of Northumberland +and Westmoreland; and his uncle, the Regent, finding the King's +cause unpopular, and the disinclination of the army to act against +Henry, very strong, withdrew with the Royal forces towards Bristol. +Henry, at the head of an army, came from Yorkshire (where he had +landed) to London and followed him. They joined their forces - how +they brought that about, is not distinctly understood - and +proceeded to Bristol Castle, whither three noblemen had taken the +young Queen. The castle surrendering, they presently put those +three noblemen to death. The Regent then remained there, and Henry +went on to Chester. + +All this time, the boisterous weather had prevented the King from +receiving intelligence of what had occurred. At length it was +conveyed to him in Ireland, and he sent over the EARL OF SALISBURY, +who, landing at Conway, rallied the Welshmen, and waited for the +King a whole fortnight; at the end of that time the Welshmen, who +were perhaps not very warm for him in the beginning, quite cooled +down and went home. When the King did land on the coast at last, +he came with a pretty good power, but his men cared nothing for +him, and quickly deserted. Supposing the Welshmen to be still at +Conway, he disguised himself as a priest, and made for that place +in company with his two brothers and some few of their adherents. +But, there were no Welshmen left - only Salisbury and a hundred +soldiers. In this distress, the King's two brothers, Exeter and +Surrey, offered to go to Henry to learn what his intentions were. +Surrey, who was true to Richard, was put into prison. Exeter, who +was false, took the royal badge, which was a hart, off his shield, +and assumed the rose, the badge of Henry. After this, it was +pretty plain to the King what Henry's intentions were, without +sending any more messengers to ask. + +The fallen King, thus deserted - hemmed in on all sides, and +pressed with hunger - rode here and rode there, and went to this +castle, and went to that castle, endeavouring to obtain some +provisions, but could find none. He rode wretchedly back to +Conway, and there surrendered himself to the Earl of +Northumberland, who came from Henry, in reality to take him +prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms; and whose men were +hidden not far off. By this earl he was conducted to the castle of +Flint, where his cousin Henry met him, and dropped on his knee as +if he were still respectful to his sovereign. + +'Fair cousin of Lancaster,' said the King, 'you are very welcome' +(very welcome, no doubt; but he would have been more so, in chains +or without a head). + +'My lord,' replied Henry, 'I am come a little before my time; but, +with your good pleasure, I will show you the reason. Your people +complain with some bitterness, that you have ruled them rigorously +for two-and-twenty years. Now, if it please God, I will help you +to govern them better in future.' + +'Fair cousin,' replied the abject King, 'since it pleaseth you, it +pleaseth me mightily.' + +After this, the trumpets sounded, and the King was stuck on a +wretched horse, and carried prisoner to Chester, where he was made +to issue a proclamation, calling a Parliament. From Chester he was +taken on towards London. At Lichfield he tried to escape by +getting out of a window and letting himself down into a garden; it +was all in vain, however, and he was carried on and shut up in the +Tower, where no one pitied him, and where the whole people, whose +patience he had quite tired out, reproached him without mercy. +Before he got there, it is related, that his very dog left him and +departed from his side to lick the hand of Henry. + +The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to this +wrecked King, and told him that he had promised the Earl of +Northumberland at Conway Castle to resign the crown. He said he +was quite ready to do it, and signed a paper in which he renounced +his authority and absolved his people from their allegiance to him. +He had so little spirit left that he gave his royal ring to his +triumphant cousin Henry with his own hand, and said, that if he +could have had leave to appoint a successor, that same Henry was +the man of all others whom he would have named. Next day, the +Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall, where Henry sat at the +side of the throne, which was empty and covered with a cloth of +gold. The paper just signed by the King was read to the multitude +amid shouts of joy, which were echoed through all the streets; when +some of the noise had died away, the King was formally deposed. +Then Henry arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead +and breast, challenged the realm of England as his right; the +archbishops of Canterbury and York seated him on the throne. + +The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed throughout +all the streets. No one remembered, now, that Richard the Second +had ever been the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best of +princes; and he now made living (to my thinking) a far more sorry +spectacle in the Tower of London, than Wat Tyler had made, lying +dead, among the hoofs of the royal horses in Smithfield. + +The Poll-tax died with Wat. The Smiths to the King and Royal +Family, could make no chains in which the King could hang the +people's recollection of him; so the Poll-tax was never collected. + + + +CHAPTER XX - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH, CALLED BOLINGBROKE + + + +DURING the last reign, the preaching of Wickliffe against the pride +and cunning of the Pope and all his men, had made a great noise in +England. Whether the new King wished to be in favour with the +priests, or whether he hoped, by pretending to be very religious, +to cheat Heaven itself into the belief that he was not a usurper, I +don't know. Both suppositions are likely enough. It is certain +that he began his reign by making a strong show against the +followers of Wickliffe, who were called Lollards, or heretics - +although his father, John of Gaunt, had been of that way of +thinking, as he himself had been more than suspected of being. It +is no less certain that he first established in England the +detestable and atrocious custom, brought from abroad, of burning +those people as a punishment for their opinions. It was the +importation into England of one of the practices of what was called +the Holy Inquisition: which was the most UNholy and the most +infamous tribunal that ever disgraced mankind, and made men more +like demons than followers of Our Saviour. + +No real right to the crown, as you know, was in this King. Edward +Mortimer, the young Earl of March - who was only eight or nine +years old, and who was descended from the Duke of Clarence, the +elder brother of Henry's father - was, by succession, the real heir +to the throne. However, the King got his son declared Prince of +Wales; and, obtaining possession of the young Earl of March and his +little brother, kept them in confinement (but not severely) in +Windsor Castle. He then required the Parliament to decide what was +to be done with the deposed King, who was quiet enough, and who +only said that he hoped his cousin Henry would be 'a good lord' to +him. The Parliament replied that they would recommend his being +kept in some secret place where the people could not resort, and +where his friends could not be admitted to see him. Henry +accordingly passed this sentence upon him, and it now began to be +pretty clear to the nation that Richard the Second would not live +very long. + +It was a noisy Parliament, as it was an unprincipled one, and the +Lords quarrelled so violently among themselves as to which of them +had been loyal and which disloyal, and which consistent and which +inconsistent, that forty gauntlets are said to have been thrown +upon the floor at one time as challenges to as many battles: the +truth being that they were all false and base together, and had +been, at one time with the old King, and at another time with the +new one, and seldom true for any length of time to any one. They +soon began to plot again. A conspiracy was formed to invite the +King to a tournament at Oxford, and then to take him by surprise +and kill him. This murderous enterprise, which was agreed upon at +secret meetings in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, was +betrayed by the Earl of Rutland - one of the conspirators. The +King, instead of going to the tournament or staying at Windsor +(where the conspirators suddenly went, on finding themselves +discovered, with the hope of seizing him), retired to London, +proclaimed them all traitors, and advanced upon them with a great +force. They retired into the west of England, proclaiming Richard +King; but, the people rose against them, and they were all slain. +Their treason hastened the death of the deposed monarch. Whether +he was killed by hired assassins, or whether he was starved to +death, or whether he refused food on hearing of his brothers being +killed (who were in that plot), is very doubtful. He met his death +somehow; and his body was publicly shown at St. Paul's Cathedral +with only the lower part of the face uncovered. I can scarcely +doubt that he was killed by the King's orders. + +The French wife of the miserable Richard was now only ten years +old; and, when her father, Charles of France, heard of her +misfortunes and of her lonely condition in England, he went mad: +as he had several times done before, during the last five or six +years. The French Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon took up the poor +girl's cause, without caring much about it, but on the chance of +getting something out of England. The people of Bordeaux, who had +a sort of superstitious attachment to the memory of Richard, +because he was born there, swore by the Lord that he had been the +best man in all his kingdom - which was going rather far - and +promised to do great things against the English. Nevertheless, +when they came to consider that they, and the whole people of +France, were ruined by their own nobles, and that the English rule +was much the better of the two, they cooled down again; and the two +dukes, although they were very great men, could do nothing without +them. Then, began negotiations between France and England for the +sending home to Paris of the poor little Queen with all her jewels +and her fortune of two hundred thousand francs in gold. The King +was quite willing to restore the young lady, and even the jewels; +but he said he really could not part with the money. So, at last +she was safely deposited at Paris without her fortune, and then the +Duke of Burgundy (who was cousin to the French King) began to +quarrel with the Duke of Orleans (who was brother to the French +King) about the whole matter; and those two dukes made France even +more wretched than ever. + +As the idea of conquering Scotland was still popular at home, the +King marched to the river Tyne and demanded homage of the King of +that country. This being refused, he advanced to Edinburgh, but +did little there; for, his army being in want of provisions, and +the Scotch being very careful to hold him in check without giving +battle, he was obliged to retire. It is to his immortal honour +that in this sally he burnt no villages and slaughtered no people, +but was particularly careful that his army should be merciful and +harmless. It was a great example in those ruthless times. + +A war among the border people of England and Scotland went on for +twelve months, and then the Earl of Northumberland, the nobleman +who had helped Henry to the crown, began to rebel against him - +probably because nothing that Henry could do for him would satisfy +his extravagant expectations. There was a certain Welsh gentleman, +named OWEN GLENDOWER, who had been a student in one of the Inns of +Court, and had afterwards been in the service of the late King, +whose Welsh property was taken from him by a powerful lord related +to the present King, who was his neighbour. Appealing for redress, +and getting none, he took up arms, was made an outlaw, and declared +himself sovereign of Wales. He pretended to be a magician; and not +only were the Welsh people stupid enough to believe him, but, even +Henry believed him too; for, making three expeditions into Wales, +and being three times driven back by the wildness of the country, +the bad weather, and the skill of Glendower, he thought he was +defeated by the Welshman's magic arts. However, he took Lord Grey +and Sir Edmund Mortimer, prisoners, and allowed the relatives of +Lord Grey to ransom him, but would not extend such favour to Sir +Edmund Mortimer. Now, Henry Percy, called HOTSPUR, son of the Earl +of Northumberland, who was married to Mortimer's sister, is +supposed to have taken offence at this; and, therefore, in +conjunction with his father and some others, to have joined Owen +Glendower, and risen against Henry. It is by no means clear that +this was the real cause of the conspiracy; but perhaps it was made +the pretext. It was formed, and was very powerful; including +SCROOP, Archbishop of York, and the EARL OF DOUGLAS, a powerful and +brave Scottish nobleman. The King was prompt and active, and the +two armies met at Shrewsbury. + +There were about fourteen thousand men in each. The old Earl of +Northumberland being sick, the rebel forces were led by his son. +The King wore plain armour to deceive the enemy; and four noblemen, +with the same object, wore the royal arms. The rebel charge was so +furious, that every one of those gentlemen was killed, the royal +standard was beaten down, and the young Prince of Wales was +severely wounded in the face. But he was one of the bravest and +best soldiers that ever lived, and he fought so well, and the +King's troops were so encouraged by his bold example, that they +rallied immediately, and cut the enemy's forces all to pieces. +Hotspur was killed by an arrow in the brain, and the rout was so +complete that the whole rebellion was struck down by this one blow. +The Earl of Northumberland surrendered himself soon after hearing +of the death of his son, and received a pardon for all his +offences. + +There were some lingerings of rebellion yet: Owen Glendower being +retired to Wales, and a preposterous story being spread among the +ignorant people that King Richard was still alive. How they could +have believed such nonsense it is difficult to imagine; but they +certainly did suppose that the Court fool of the late King, who was +something like him, was he, himself; so that it seemed as if, after +giving so much trouble to the country in his life, he was still to +trouble it after his death. This was not the worst. The young +Earl of March and his brother were stolen out of Windsor Castle. +Being retaken, and being found to have been spirited away by one +Lady Spencer, she accused her own brother, that Earl of Rutland who +was in the former conspiracy and was now Duke of York, of being in +the plot. For this he was ruined in fortune, though not put to +death; and then another plot arose among the old Earl of +Northumberland, some other lords, and that same Scroop, Archbishop +of York, who was with the rebels before. These conspirators caused +a writing to be posted on the church doors, accusing the King of a +variety of crimes; but, the King being eager and vigilant to oppose +them, they were all taken, and the Archbishop was executed. This +was the first time that a great churchman had been slain by the law +in England; but the King was resolved that it should be done, and +done it was. + +The next most remarkable event of this time was the seizure, by +Henry, of the heir to the Scottish throne - James, a boy of nine +years old. He had been put aboard-ship by his father, the Scottish +King Robert, to save him from the designs of his uncle, when, on +his way to France, he was accidentally taken by some English +cruisers. He remained a prisoner in England for nineteen years, +and became in his prison a student and a famous poet. + +With the exception of occasional troubles with the Welsh and with +the French, the rest of King Henry's reign was quiet enough. But, +the King was far from happy, and probably was troubled in his +conscience by knowing that he had usurped the crown, and had +occasioned the death of his miserable cousin. The Prince of Wales, +though brave and generous, is said to have been wild and +dissipated, and even to have drawn his sword on GASCOIGNE, the +Chief Justice of the King's Bench, because he was firm in dealing +impartially with one of his dissolute companions. Upon this the +Chief Justice is said to have ordered him immediately to prison; +the Prince of Wales is said to have submitted with a good grace; +and the King is said to have exclaimed, 'Happy is the monarch who +has so just a judge, and a son so willing to obey the laws.' This +is all very doubtful, and so is another story (of which Shakespeare +has made beautiful use), that the Prince once took the crown out of +his father's chamber as he was sleeping, and tried it on his own +head. + +The King's health sank more and more, and he became subject to +violent eruptions on the face and to bad epileptic fits, and his +spirits sank every day. At last, as he was praying before the +shrine of St. Edward at Westminster Abbey, he was seized with a +terrible fit, and was carried into the Abbot's chamber, where he +presently died. It had been foretold that he would die at +Jerusalem, which certainly is not, and never was, Westminster. +But, as the Abbot's room had long been called the Jerusalem +chamber, people said it was all the same thing, and were quite +satisfied with the prediction. + +The King died on the 20th of March, 1413, in the forty-seventh year +of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. He was buried in +Canterbury Cathedral. He had been twice married, and had, by his +first wife, a family of four sons and two daughters. Considering +his duplicity before he came to the throne, his unjust seizure of +it, and above all, his making that monstrous law for the burning of +what the priests called heretics, he was a reasonably good king, as +kings went. + + + +CHAPTER XXI - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH + + + +FIRST PART + + +THE Prince of Wales began his reign like a generous and honest man. +He set the young Earl of March free; he restored their estates and +their honours to the Percy family, who had lost them by their +rebellion against his father; he ordered the imbecile and +unfortunate Richard to be honourably buried among the Kings of +England; and he dismissed all his wild companions, with assurances +that they should not want, if they would resolve to be steady, +faithful, and true. + +It is much easier to burn men than to burn their opinions; and +those of the Lollards were spreading every day. The Lollards were +represented by the priests - probably falsely for the most part - +to entertain treasonable designs against the new King; and Henry, +suffering himself to be worked upon by these representations, +sacrificed his friend Sir John Oldcastle, the Lord Cobham, to them, +after trying in vain to convert him by arguments. He was declared +guilty, as the head of the sect, and sentenced to the flames; but +he escaped from the Tower before the day of execution (postponed +for fifty days by the King himself), and summoned the Lollards to +meet him near London on a certain day. So the priests told the +King, at least. I doubt whether there was any conspiracy beyond +such as was got up by their agents. On the day appointed, instead +of five-and-twenty thousand men, under the command of Sir John +Oldcastle, in the meadows of St. Giles, the King found only eighty +men, and no Sir John at all. There was, in another place, an +addle-headed brewer, who had gold trappings to his horses, and a +pair of gilt spurs in his breast - expecting to be made a knight +next day by Sir John, and so to gain the right to wear them - but +there was no Sir John, nor did anybody give information respecting +him, though the King offered great rewards for such intelligence. +Thirty of these unfortunate Lollards were hanged and drawn +immediately, and were then burnt, gallows and all; and the various +prisons in and around London were crammed full of others. Some of +these unfortunate men made various confessions of treasonable +designs; but, such confessions were easily got, under torture and +the fear of fire, and are very little to be trusted. To finish the +sad story of Sir John Oldcastle at once, I may mention that he +escaped into Wales, and remained there safely, for four years. +When discovered by Lord Powis, it is very doubtful if he would have +been taken alive - so great was the old soldier's bravery - if a +miserable old woman had not come behind him and broken his legs +with a stool. He was carried to London in a horse-litter, was +fastened by an iron chain to a gibbet, and so roasted to death. + +To make the state of France as plain as I can in a few words, I +should tell you that the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Burgundy, +commonly called 'John without fear,' had had a grand reconciliation +of their quarrel in the last reign, and had appeared to be quite in +a heavenly state of mind. Immediately after which, on a Sunday, in +the public streets of Paris, the Duke of Orleans was murdered by a +party of twenty men, set on by the Duke of Burgundy - according to +his own deliberate confession. The widow of King Richard had been +married in France to the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans. The +poor mad King was quite powerless to help her, and the Duke of +Burgundy became the real master of France. Isabella dying, her +husband (Duke of Orleans since the death of his father) married the +daughter of the Count of Armagnac, who, being a much abler man than +his young son-in-law, headed his party; thence called after him +Armagnacs. Thus, France was now in this terrible condition, that +it had in it the party of the King's son, the Dauphin Louis; the +party of the Duke of Burgundy, who was the father of the Dauphin's +ill-used wife; and the party of the Armagnacs; all hating each +other; all fighting together; all composed of the most depraved +nobles that the earth has ever known; and all tearing unhappy +France to pieces. + +The late King had watched these dissensions from England, sensible +(like the French people) that no enemy of France could injure her +more than her own nobility. The present King now advanced a claim +to the French throne. His demand being, of course, refused, he +reduced his proposal to a certain large amount of French territory, +and to demanding the French princess, Catherine, in marriage, with +a fortune of two millions of golden crowns. He was offered less +territory and fewer crowns, and no princess; but he called his +ambassadors home and prepared for war. Then, he proposed to take +the princess with one million of crowns. The French Court replied +that he should have the princess with two hundred thousand crowns +less; he said this would not do (he had never seen the princess in +his life), and assembled his army at Southampton. There was a +short plot at home just at that time, for deposing him, and making +the Earl of March king; but the conspirators were all speedily +condemned and executed, and the King embarked for France. + +It is dreadful to observe how long a bad example will be followed; +but, it is encouraging to know that a good example is never thrown +away. The King's first act on disembarking at the mouth of the +river Seine, three miles from Harfleur, was to imitate his father, +and to proclaim his solemn orders that the lives and property of +the peaceable inhabitants should be respected on pain of death. It +is agreed by French writers, to his lasting renown, that even while +his soldiers were suffering the greatest distress from want of +food, these commands were rigidly obeyed. + +With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged the town of +Harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks; at the end of which +time the town surrendered, and the inhabitants were allowed to +depart with only fivepence each, and a part of their clothes. All +the rest of their possessions was divided amongst the English army. +But, that army suffered so much, in spite of its successes, from +disease and privation, that it was already reduced one half. +Still, the King was determined not to retire until he had struck a +greater blow. Therefore, against the advice of all his +counsellors, he moved on with his little force towards Calais. +When he came up to the river Somme he was unable to cross, in +consequence of the fort being fortified; and, as the English moved +up the left bank of the river looking for a crossing, the French, +who had broken all the bridges, moved up the right bank, watching +them, and waiting to attack them when they should try to pass it. +At last the English found a crossing and got safely over. The +French held a council of war at Rouen, resolved to give the English +battle, and sent heralds to King Henry to know by which road he was +going. 'By the road that will take me straight to Calais!' said +the King, and sent them away with a present of a hundred crowns. + +The English moved on, until they beheld the French, and then the +King gave orders to form in line of battle. The French not coming +on, the army broke up after remaining in battle array till night, +and got good rest and refreshment at a neighbouring village. The +French were now all lying in another village, through which they +knew the English must pass. They were resolved that the English +should begin the battle. The English had no means of retreat, if +their King had any such intention; and so the two armies passed the +night, close together. + +To understand these armies well, you must bear in mind that the +immense French army had, among its notable persons, almost the +whole of that wicked nobility, whose debauchery had made France a +desert; and so besotted were they by pride, and by contempt for the +common people, that they had scarcely any bowmen (if indeed they +had any at all) in their whole enormous number: which, compared +with the English army, was at least as six to one. For these proud +fools had said that the bow was not a fit weapon for knightly +hands, and that France must be defended by gentlemen only. We +shall see, presently, what hand the gentlemen made of it. + +Now, on the English side, among the little force, there was a good +proportion of men who were not gentlemen by any means, but who were +good stout archers for all that. Among them, in the morning - +having slept little at night, while the French were carousing and +making sure of victory - the King rode, on a grey horse; wearing on +his head a helmet of shining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, +sparkling with precious stones; and bearing over his armour, +embroidered together, the arms of England and the arms of France. +The archers looked at the shining helmet and the crown of gold and +the sparkling jewels, and admired them all; but, what they admired +most was the King's cheerful face, and his bright blue eye, as he +told them that, for himself, he had made up his mind to conquer +there or to die there, and that England should never have a ransom +to pay for HIM. There was one brave knight who chanced to say that +he wished some of the many gallant gentlemen and good soldiers, who +were then idle at home in England, were there to increase their +numbers. But the King told him that, for his part, he did not wish +for one more man. 'The fewer we have,' said he, 'the greater will +be the honour we shall win!' His men, being now all in good heart, +were refreshed with bread and wine, and heard prayers, and waited +quietly for the French. The King waited for the French, because +they were drawn up thirty deep (the little English force was only +three deep), on very difficult and heavy ground; and he knew that +when they moved, there must be confusion among them. + +As they did not move, he sent off two parties:- one to lie +concealed in a wood on the left of the French: the other, to set +fire to some houses behind the French after the battle should be +begun. This was scarcely done, when three of the proud French +gentlemen, who were to defend their country without any help from +the base peasants, came riding out, calling upon the English to +surrender. The King warned those gentlemen himself to retire with +all speed if they cared for their lives, and ordered the English +banners to advance. Upon that, Sir Thomas Erpingham, a great +English general, who commanded the archers, threw his truncheon +into the air, joyfully, and all the English men, kneeling down upon +the ground and biting it as if they took possession of the country, +rose up with a great shout and fell upon the French. + +Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with iron; and +his orders were, to thrust this stake into the ground, to discharge +his arrow, and then to fall back, when the French horsemen came on. +As the haughty French gentlemen, who were to break the English +archers and utterly destroy them with their knightly lances, came +riding up, they were received with such a blinding storm of arrows, +that they broke and turned. Horses and men rolled over one +another, and the confusion was terrific. Those who rallied and +charged the archers got among the stakes on slippery and boggy +ground, and were so bewildered that the English archers - who wore +no armour, and even took off their leathern coats to be more active +- cut them to pieces, root and branch. Only three French horsemen +got within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. All +this time the dense French army, being in armour, were sinking +knee-deep into the mire; while the light English archers, half- +naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting on a +marble floor. + +But now, the second division of the French coming to the relief of +the first, closed up in a firm mass; the English, headed by the +King, attacked them; and the deadliest part of the battle began. +The King's brother, the Duke of Clarence, was struck down, and +numbers of the French surrounded him; but, King Henry, standing +over the body, fought like a lion until they were beaten off. + +Presently, came up a band of eighteen French knights, bearing the +banner of a certain French lord, who had sworn to kill or take the +English King. One of them struck him such a blow with a battle-axe +that he reeled and fell upon his knees; but, his faithful men, +immediately closing round him, killed every one of those eighteen +knights, and so that French lord never kept his oath. + +The French Duke of Alenon, seeing this, made a desperate charge, +and cut his way close up to the Royal Standard of England. He beat +down the Duke of York, who was standing near it; and, when the King +came to his rescue, struck off a piece of the crown he wore. But, +he never struck another blow in this world; for, even as he was in +the act of saying who he was, and that he surrendered to the King; +and even as the King stretched out his hand to give him a safe and +honourable acceptance of the offer; he fell dead, pierced by +innumerable wounds. + +The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The third division +of the French army, which had never struck a blow yet, and which +was, in itself, more than double the whole English power, broke and +fled. At this time of the fight, the English, who as yet had made +no prisoners, began to take them in immense numbers, and were still +occupied in doing so, or in killing those who would not surrender, +when a great noise arose in the rear of the French - their flying +banners were seen to stop - and King Henry, supposing a great +reinforcement to have arrived, gave orders that all the prisoners +should be put to death. As soon, however, as it was found that the +noise was only occasioned by a body of plundering peasants, the +terrible massacre was stopped. + +Then King Henry called to him the French herald, and asked him to +whom the victory belonged. + +The herald replied, 'To the King of England.' + +'WE have not made this havoc and slaughter,' said the King. 'It is +the wrath of Heaven on the sins of France. What is the name of +that castle yonder?' + +The herald answered him, 'My lord, it is the castle of Azincourt.' +Said the King, 'From henceforth this battle shall be known to +posterity, by the name of the battle of Azincourt.' + +Our English historians have made it Agincourt; but, under that +name, it will ever be famous in English annals. + +The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three Dukes were +killed, two more were taken prisoners, seven Counts were killed, +three more were taken prisoners, and ten thousand knights and +gentlemen were slain upon the field. The English loss amounted to +sixteen hundred men, among whom were the Duke of York and the Earl +of Suffolk. + +War is a dreadful thing; and it is appalling to know how the +English were obliged, next morning, to kill those prisoners +mortally wounded, who yet writhed in agony upon the ground; how the +dead upon the French side were stripped by their own countrymen and +countrywomen, and afterwards buried in great pits; how the dead +upon the English side were piled up in a great barn, and how their +bodies and the barn were all burned together. It is in such +things, and in many more much too horrible to relate, that the real +desolation and wickedness of war consist. Nothing can make war +otherwise than horrible. But the dark side of it was little +thought of and soon forgotten; and it cast no shade of trouble on +the English people, except on those who had lost friends or +relations in the fight. They welcomed their King home with shouts +of rejoicing, and plunged into the water to bear him ashore on +their shoulders, and flocked out in crowds to welcome him in every +town through which he passed, and hung rich carpets and tapestries +out of the windows, and strewed the streets with flowers, and made +the fountains run with wine, as the great field of Agincourt had +run with blood. + + +SECOND PART + + +THAT proud and wicked French nobility who dragged their country to +destruction, and who were every day and every year regarded with +deeper hatred and detestation in the hearts of the French people, +learnt nothing, even from the defeat of Agincourt. So far from +uniting against the common enemy, they became, among themselves, +more violent, more bloody, and more false - if that were possible - +than they had been before. The Count of Armagnac persuaded the +French king to plunder of her treasures Queen Isabella of Bavaria, +and to make her a prisoner. She, who had hitherto been the bitter +enemy of the Duke of Burgundy, proposed to join him, in revenge. +He carried her off to Troyes, where she proclaimed herself Regent +of France, and made him her lieutenant. The Armagnac party were at +that time possessed of Paris; but, one of the gates of the city +being secretly opened on a certain night to a party of the duke's +men, they got into Paris, threw into the prisons all the Armagnacs +upon whom they could lay their hands, and, a few nights afterwards, +with the aid of a furious mob of sixty thousand people, broke the +prisons open, and killed them all. The former Dauphin was now +dead, and the King's third son bore the title. Him, in the height +of this murderous scene, a French knight hurried out of bed, +wrapped in a sheet, and bore away to Poitiers. So, when the +revengeful Isabella and the Duke of Burgundy entered Paris in +triumph after the slaughter of their enemies, the Dauphin was +proclaimed at Poitiers as the real Regent. + +King Henry had not been idle since his victory of Agincourt, but +had repulsed a brave attempt of the French to recover Harfleur; had +gradually conquered a great part of Normandy; and, at this crisis +of affairs, took the important town of Rouen, after a siege of half +a year. This great loss so alarmed the French, that the Duke of +Burgundy proposed that a meeting to treat of peace should be held +between the French and the English kings in a plain by the river +Seine. On the appointed day, King Henry appeared there, with his +two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, and a thousand men. The +unfortunate French King, being more mad than usual that day, could +not come; but the Queen came, and with her the Princess Catherine: +who was a very lovely creature, and who made a real impression on +King Henry, now that he saw her for the first time. This was the +most important circumstance that arose out of the meeting. + +As if it were impossible for a French nobleman of that time to be +true to his word of honour in anything, Henry discovered that the +Duke of Burgundy was, at that very moment, in secret treaty with +the Dauphin; and he therefore abandoned the negotiation. + +The Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin, each of whom with the best +reason distrusted the other as a noble ruffian surrounded by a +party of noble ruffians, were rather at a loss how to proceed after +this; but, at length they agreed to meet, on a bridge over the +river Yonne, where it was arranged that there should be two strong +gates put up, with an empty space between them; and that the Duke +of Burgundy should come into that space by one gate, with ten men +only; and that the Dauphin should come into that space by the other +gate, also with ten men, and no more. + +So far the Dauphin kept his word, but no farther. When the Duke of +Burgundy was on his knee before him in the act of speaking, one of +the Dauphin's noble ruffians cut the said duke down with a small +axe, and others speedily finished him. + +It was in vain for the Dauphin to pretend that this base murder was +not done with his consent; it was too bad, even for France, and +caused a general horror. The duke's heir hastened to make a treaty +with King Henry, and the French Queen engaged that her husband +should consent to it, whatever it was. Henry made peace, on +condition of receiving the Princess Catherine in marriage, and +being made Regent of France during the rest of the King's lifetime, +and succeeding to the French crown at his death. He was soon +married to the beautiful Princess, and took her proudly home to +England, where she was crowned with great honour and glory. + +This peace was called the Perpetual Peace; we shall soon see how +long it lasted. It gave great satisfaction to the French people, +although they were so poor and miserable, that, at the time of the +celebration of the Royal marriage, numbers of them were dying with +starvation, on the dunghills in the streets of Paris. There was +some resistance on the part of the Dauphin in some few parts of +France, but King Henry beat it all down. + +And now, with his great possessions in France secured, and his +beautiful wife to cheer him, and a son born to give him greater +happiness, all appeared bright before him. But, in the fulness of +his triumph and the height of his power, Death came upon him, and +his day was done. When he fell ill at Vincennes, and found that he +could not recover, he was very calm and quiet, and spoke serenely +to those who wept around his bed. His wife and child, he said, he +left to the loving care of his brother the Duke of Bedford, and his +other faithful nobles. He gave them his advice that England should +establish a friendship with the new Duke of Burgundy, and offer him +the regency of France; that it should not set free the royal +princes who had been taken at Agincourt; and that, whatever quarrel +might arise with France, England should never make peace without +holding Normandy. Then, he laid down his head, and asked the +attendant priests to chant the penitential psalms. Amid which +solemn sounds, on the thirty-first of August, one thousand four +hundred and twenty-two, in only the thirty-fourth year of his age +and the tenth of his reign, King Henry the Fifth passed away. + +Slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in a +procession of great state to Paris, and thence to Rouen where his +Queen was: from whom the sad intelligence of his death was +concealed until he had been dead some days. Thence, lying on a bed +of crimson and gold, with a golden crown upon the head, and a +golden ball and sceptre lying in the nerveless hands, they carried +it to Calais, with such a great retinue as seemed to dye the road +black. The King of Scotland acted as chief mourner, all the Royal +Household followed, the knights wore black armour and black plumes +of feathers, crowds of men bore torches, making the night as light +as day; and the widowed Princess followed last of all. At Calais +there was a fleet of ships to bring the funeral host to Dover. And +so, by way of London Bridge, where the service for the dead was +chanted as it passed along, they brought the body to Westminster +Abbey, and there buried it with great respect. + + + +CHAPTER XXII - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH + + + +PART THE FIRST + + +IT had been the wish of the late King, that while his infant son +KING HENRY THE SIXTH, at this time only nine months old, was under +age, the Duke of Gloucester should be appointed Regent. The +English Parliament, however, preferred to appoint a Council of +Regency, with the Duke of Bedford at its head: to be represented, +in his absence only, by the Duke of Gloucester. The Parliament +would seem to have been wise in this, for Gloucester soon showed +himself to be ambitious and troublesome, and, in the gratification +of his own personal schemes, gave dangerous offence to the Duke of +Burgundy, which was with difficulty adjusted. + +As that duke declined the Regency of France, it was bestowed by the +poor French King upon the Duke of Bedford. But, the French King +dying within two months, the Dauphin instantly asserted his claim +to the French throne, and was actually crowned under the title of +CHARLES THE SEVENTH. The Duke of Bedford, to be a match for him, +entered into a friendly league with the Dukes of Burgundy and +Brittany, and gave them his two sisters in marriage. War with +France was immediately renewed, and the Perpetual Peace came to an +untimely end. + +In the first campaign, the English, aided by this alliance, were +speedily successful. As Scotland, however, had sent the French +five thousand men, and might send more, or attack the North of +England while England was busy with France, it was considered that +it would be a good thing to offer the Scottish King, James, who had +been so long imprisoned, his liberty, on his paying forty thousand +pounds for his board and lodging during nineteen years, and +engaging to forbid his subjects from serving under the flag of +France. It is pleasant to know, not only that the amiable captive +at last regained his freedom upon these terms, but, that he married +a noble English lady, with whom he had been long in love, and +became an excellent King. I am afraid we have met with some Kings +in this history, and shall meet with some more, who would have been +very much the better, and would have left the world much happier, +if they had been imprisoned nineteen years too. + +In the second campaign, the English gained a considerable victory +at Verneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, otherwise, +for their resorting to the odd expedient of tying their baggage- +horses together by the heads and tails, and jumbling them up with +the baggage, so as to convert them into a sort of live +fortification - which was found useful to the troops, but which I +should think was not agreeable to the horses. For three years +afterwards very little was done, owing to both sides being too poor +for war, which is a very expensive entertainment; but, a council +was then held in Paris, in which it was decided to lay siege to the +town of Orleans, which was a place of great importance to the +Dauphin's cause. An English army of ten thousand men was +despatched on this service, under the command of the Earl of +Salisbury, a general of fame. He being unfortunately killed early +in the siege, the Earl of Suffolk took his place; under whom +(reinforced by SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, who brought up four hundred +waggons laden with salt herrings and other provisions for the +troops, and, beating off the French who tried to intercept him, +came victorious out of a hot skirmish, which was afterwards called +in jest the Battle of the Herrings) the town of Orleans was so +completely hemmed in, that the besieged proposed to yield it up to +their countryman the Duke of Burgundy. The English general, +however, replied that his English men had won it, so far, by their +blood and valour, and that his English men must have it. There +seemed to be no hope for the town, or for the Dauphin, who was so +dismayed that he even thought of flying to Scotland or to Spain - +when a peasant girl rose up and changed the whole state of affairs. + +The story of this peasant girl I have now to tell. + + +PART THE SECOND: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC + + +IN a remote village among some wild hills in the province of +Lorraine, there lived a countryman whose name was JACQUES D'ARC. +He had a daughter, JOAN OF ARC, who was at this time in her +twentieth year. She had been a solitary girl from her childhood; +she had often tended sheep and cattle for whole days where no human +figure was seen or human voice heard; and she had often knelt, for +hours together, in the gloomy, empty, little village chapel, +looking up at the altar and at the dim lamp burning before it, +until she fancied that she saw shadowy figures standing there, and +even that she heard them speak to her. The people in that part of +France were very ignorant and superstitious, and they had many +ghostly tales to tell about what they had dreamed, and what they +saw among the lonely hills when the clouds and the mists were +resting on them. So, they easily believed that Joan saw strange +sights, and they whispered among themselves that angels and spirits +talked to her. + +At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been surprised +by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards heard a solemn +voice, which said it was Saint Michael's voice, telling her that +she was to go and help the Dauphin. Soon after this (she said), +Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret had appeared to her with +sparkling crowns upon their heads, and had encouraged her to be +virtuous and resolute. These visions had returned sometimes; but +the Voices very often; and the voices always said, 'Joan, thou art +appointed by Heaven to go and help the Dauphin!' She almost always +heard them while the chapel bells were ringing. + +There is no doubt, now, that Joan believed she saw and heard these +things. It is very well known that such delusions are a disease +which is not by any means uncommon. It is probable enough that +there were figures of Saint Michael, and Saint Catherine, and Saint +Margaret, in the little chapel (where they would be very likely to +have shining crowns upon their heads), and that they first gave +Joan the idea of those three personages. She had long been a +moping, fanciful girl, and, though she was a very good girl, I dare +say she was a little vain, and wishful for notoriety. + +Her father, something wiser than his neighbours, said, 'I tell +thee, Joan, it is thy fancy. Thou hadst better have a kind husband +to take care of thee, girl, and work to employ thy mind!' But Joan +told him in reply, that she had taken a vow never to have a +husband, and that she must go as Heaven directed her, to help the +Dauphin. + +It happened, unfortunately for her father's persuasions, and most +unfortunately for the poor girl, too, that a party of the Dauphin's +enemies found their way into the village while Joan's disorder was +at this point, and burnt the chapel, and drove out the inhabitants. +The cruelties she saw committed, touched Joan's heart and made her +worse. She said that the voices and the figures were now +continually with her; that they told her she was the girl who, +according to an old prophecy, was to deliver France; and she must +go and help the Dauphin, and must remain with him until he should +be crowned at Rheims: and that she must travel a long way to a +certain lord named BAUDRICOURT, who could and would, bring her into +the Dauphin's presence. + +As her father still said, 'I tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy,' she +set off to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a poor +village wheelwright and cart-maker, who believed in the reality of +her visions. They travelled a long way and went on and on, over a +rough country, full of the Duke of Burgundy's men, and of all kinds +of robbers and marauders, until they came to where this lord was. + +When his servants told him that there was a poor peasant girl named +Joan of Arc, accompanied by nobody but an old village wheelwright +and cart-maker, who wished to see him because she was commanded to +help the Dauphin and save France, Baudricourt burst out a-laughing, +and bade them send the girl away. But, he soon heard so much about +her lingering in the town, and praying in the churches, and seeing +visions, and doing harm to no one, that he sent for her, and +questioned her. As she said the same things after she had been +well sprinkled with holy water as she had said before the +sprinkling, Baudricourt began to think there might be something in +it. At all events, he thought it worth while to send her on to the +town of Chinon, where the Dauphin was. So, he bought her a horse, +and a sword, and gave her two squires to conduct her. As the +Voices had told Joan that she was to wear a man's dress, now, she +put one on, and girded her sword to her side, and bound spurs to +her heels, and mounted her horse and rode away with her two +squires. As to her uncle the wheelwright, he stood staring at his +niece in wonder until she was out of sight - as well he might - and +then went home again. The best place, too. + +Joan and her two squires rode on and on, until they came to Chinon, +where she was, after some doubt, admitted into the Dauphin's +presence. Picking him out immediately from all his court, she told +him that she came commanded by Heaven to subdue his enemies and +conduct him to his coronation at Rheims. She also told him (or he +pretended so afterwards, to make the greater impression upon his +soldiers) a number of his secrets known only to himself, and, +furthermore, she said there was an old, old sword in the cathedral +of Saint Catherine at Fierbois, marked with five old crosses on the +blade, which Saint Catherine had ordered her to wear. + +Now, nobody knew anything about this old, old sword, but when the +cathedral came to be examined - which was immediately done - there, +sure enough, the sword was found! The Dauphin then required a +number of grave priests and bishops to give him their opinion +whether the girl derived her power from good spirits or from evil +spirits, which they held prodigiously long debates about, in the +course of which several learned men fell fast asleep and snored +loudly. At last, when one gruff old gentleman had said to Joan, +'What language do your Voices speak?' and when Joan had replied to +the gruff old gentleman, 'A pleasanter language than yours,' they +agreed that it was all correct, and that Joan of Arc was inspired +from Heaven. This wonderful circumstance put new heart into the +Dauphin's soldiers when they heard of it, and dispirited the +English army, who took Joan for a witch. + +So Joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, until she +came to Orleans. But she rode now, as never peasant girl had +ridden yet. She rode upon a white war-horse, in a suit of +glittering armour; with the old, old sword from the cathedral, +newly burnished, in her belt; with a white flag carried before her, +upon which were a picture of God, and the words JESUS MARIA. In +this splendid state, at the head of a great body of troops +escorting provisions of all kinds for the starving inhabitants of +Orleans, she appeared before that beleaguered city. + +When the people on the walls beheld her, they cried out 'The Maid +is come! The Maid of the Prophecy is come to deliver us!' And +this, and the sight of the Maid fighting at the head of their men, +made the French so bold, and made the English so fearful, that the +English line of forts was soon broken, the troops and provisions +were got into the town, and Orleans was saved. + +Joan, henceforth called THE MAID OF ORLEANS, remained within the +walls for a few days, and caused letters to be thrown over, +ordering Lord Suffolk and his Englishmen to depart from before the +town according to the will of Heaven. As the English general very +positively declined to believe that Joan knew anything about the +will of Heaven (which did not mend the matter with his soldiers, +for they stupidly said if she were not inspired she was a witch, +and it was of no use to fight against a witch), she mounted her +white war-horse again, and ordered her white banner to advance. + +The besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers upon the +bridge; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked them. The fight was +fourteen hours long. She planted a scaling ladder with her own +hands, and mounted a tower wall, but was struck by an English arrow +in the neck, and fell into the trench. She was carried away and +the arrow was taken out, during which operation she screamed and +cried with the pain, as any other girl might have done; but +presently she said that the Voices were speaking to her and +soothing her to rest. After a while, she got up, and was again +foremost in the fight. When the English who had seen her fall and +supposed her dead, saw this, they were troubled with the strangest +fears, and some of them cried out that they beheld Saint Michael on +a white horse (probably Joan herself) fighting for the French. +They lost the bridge, and lost the towers, and next day set their +chain of forts on fire, and left the place. + +But as Lord Suffolk himself retired no farther than the town of +Jargeau, which was only a few miles off, the Maid of Orleans +besieged him there, and he was taken prisoner. As the white banner +scaled the wall, she was struck upon the head with a stone, and was +again tumbled down into the ditch; but, she only cried all the +more, as she lay there, 'On, on, my countrymen! And fear nothing, +for the Lord hath delivered them into our hands!' After this new +success of the Maid's, several other fortresses and places which +had previously held out against the Dauphin were delivered up +without a battle; and at Patay she defeated the remainder of the +English army, and set up her victorious white banner on a field +where twelve hundred Englishmen lay dead. + +She now urged the Dauphin (who always kept out of the way when +there was any fighting) to proceed to Rheims, as the first part of +her mission was accomplished; and to complete the whole by being +crowned there. The Dauphin was in no particular hurry to do this, +as Rheims was a long way off, and the English and the Duke of +Burgundy were still strong in the country through which the road +lay. However, they set forth, with ten thousand men, and again the +Maid of Orleans rode on and on, upon her white war-horse, and in +her shining armour. Whenever they came to a town which yielded +readily, the soldiers believed in her; but, whenever they came to a +town which gave them any trouble, they began to murmur that she was +an impostor. The latter was particularly the case at Troyes, which +finally yielded, however, through the persuasion of one Richard, a +friar of the place. Friar Richard was in the old doubt about the +Maid of Orleans, until he had sprinkled her well with holy water, +and had also well sprinkled the threshold of the gate by which she +came into the city. Finding that it made no change in her or the +gate, he said, as the other grave old gentlemen had said, that it +was all right, and became her great ally. + +So, at last, by dint of riding on and on, the Maid of Orleans, and +the Dauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes believing and sometimes +unbelieving men, came to Rheims. And in the great cathedral of +Rheims, the Dauphin actually was crowned Charles the Seventh in a +great assembly of the people. Then, the Maid, who with her white +banner stood beside the King in that hour of his triumph, kneeled +down upon the pavement at his feet, and said, with tears, that what +she had been inspired to do, was done, and that the only recompense +she asked for, was, that she should now have leave to go back to +her distant home, and her sturdily incredulous father, and her +first simple escort the village wheelwright and cart-maker. But +the King said 'No!' and made her and her family as noble as a King +could, and settled upon her the income of a Count. + +Ah! happy had it been for the Maid of Orleans, if she had resumed +her rustic dress that day, and had gone home to the little chapel +and the wild hills, and had forgotten all these things, and had +been a good man's wife, and had heard no stranger voices than the +voices of little children! + +It was not to be, and she continued helping the King (she did a +world for him, in alliance with Friar Richard), and trying to +improve the lives of the coarse soldiers, and leading a religious, +an unselfish, and a modest life, herself, beyond any doubt. Still, +many times she prayed the King to let her go home; and once she +even took off her bright armour and hung it up in a church, meaning +never to wear it more. But, the King always won her back again - +while she was of any use to him - and so she went on and on and on, +to her doom. + +When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, began to be +active for England, and, by bringing the war back into France and +by holding the Duke of Burgundy to his faith, to distress and +disturb Charles very much, Charles sometimes asked the Maid of +Orleans what the Voices said about it? But, the Voices had become +(very like ordinary voices in perplexed times) contradictory and +confused, so that now they said one thing, and now said another, +and the Maid lost credit every day. Charles marched on Paris, +which was opposed to him, and attacked the suburb of Saint Honore. +In this fight, being again struck down into the ditch, she was +abandoned by the whole army. She lay unaided among a heap of dead, +and crawled out how she could. Then, some of her believers went +over to an opposition Maid, Catherine of La Rochelle, who said she +was inspired to tell where there were treasures of buried money - +though she never did - and then Joan accidentally broke the old, +old sword, and others said that her power was broken with it. +Finally, at the siege of Compigne, held by the Duke of Burgundy, +where she did valiant service, she was basely left alone in a +retreat, though facing about and fighting to the last; and an +archer pulled her off her horse. + +O the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that were sung, +about the capture of this one poor country-girl! O the way in +which she was demanded to be tried for sorcery and heresy, and +anything else you like, by the Inquisitor-General of France, and by +this great man, and by that great man, until it is wearisome to +think of! She was bought at last by the Bishop of Beauvais for ten +thousand francs, and was shut up in her narrow prison: plain Joan +of Arc again, and Maid of Orleans no more. + +I should never have done if I were to tell you how they had Joan +out to examine her, and cross-examine her, and re-examine her, and +worry her into saying anything and everything; and how all sorts of +scholars and doctors bestowed their utmost tediousness upon her. +Sixteen times she was brought out and shut up again, and worried, +and entrapped, and argued with, until she was heart-sick of the +dreary business. On the last occasion of this kind she was brought +into a burial-place at Rouen, dismally decorated with a scaffold, +and a stake and faggots, and the executioner, and a pulpit with a +friar therein, and an awful sermon ready. It is very affecting to +know that even at that pass the poor girl honoured the mean vermin +of a King, who had so used her for his purposes and so abandoned +her; and, that while she had been regardless of reproaches heaped +upon herself, she spoke out courageously for him. + +It was natural in one so young to hold to life. To save her life, +she signed a declaration prepared for her - signed it with a cross, +for she couldn't write - that all her visions and Voices had come +from the Devil. Upon her recanting the past, and protesting that +she would never wear a man's dress in future, she was condemned to +imprisonment for life, 'on the bread of sorrow and the water of +affliction.' + +But, on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, the +visions and the Voices soon returned. It was quite natural that +they should do so, for that kind of disease is much aggravated by +fasting, loneliness, and anxiety of mind. It was not only got out +of Joan that she considered herself inspired again, but, she was +taken in a man's dress, which had been left - to entrap her - in +her prison, and which she put on, in her solitude; perhaps, in +remembrance of her past glories, perhaps, because the imaginary +Voices told her. For this relapse into the sorcery and heresy and +anything else you like, she was sentenced to be burnt to death. +And, in the market-place of Rouen, in the hideous dress which the +monks had invented for such spectacles; with priests and bishops +sitting in a gallery looking on, though some had the Christian +grace to go away, unable to endure the infamous scene; this +shrieking girl - last seen amidst the smoke and fire, holding a +crucifix between her hands; last heard, calling upon Christ - was +burnt to ashes. They threw her ashes into the river Seine; but +they will rise against her murderers on the last day. + +From the moment of her capture, neither the French King nor one +single man in all his court raised a finger to save her. It is no +defence of them that they may have never really believed in her, or +that they may have won her victories by their skill and bravery. +The more they pretended to believe in her, the more they had caused +her to believe in herself; and she had ever been true to them, ever +brave, ever nobly devoted. But, it is no wonder, that they, who +were in all things false to themselves, false to one another, false +to their country, false to Heaven, false to Earth, should be +monsters of ingratitude and treachery to a helpless peasant girl. + +In the picturesque old town of Rouen, where weeds and grass grow +high on the cathedral towers, and the venerable Norman streets are +still warm in the blessed sunlight though the monkish fires that +once gleamed horribly upon them have long grown cold, there is a +statue of Joan of Arc, in the scene of her last agony, the square +to which she has given its present name. I know some statues of +modern times - even in the World's metropolis, I think - which +commemorate less constancy, less earnestness, smaller claims upon +the world's attention, and much greater impostors. + + +PART THE THIRD + + +BAD deeds seldom prosper, happily for mankind; and the English +cause gained no advantage from the cruel death of Joan of Arc. For +a long time, the war went heavily on. The Duke of Bedford died; +the alliance with the Duke of Burgundy was broken; and Lord Talbot +became a great general on the English side in France. But, two of +the consequences of wars are, Famine - because the people cannot +peacefully cultivate the ground - and Pestilence, which comes of +want, misery, and suffering. Both these horrors broke out in both +countries, and lasted for two wretched years. Then, the war went +on again, and came by slow degrees to be so badly conducted by the +English government, that, within twenty years from the execution of +the Maid of Orleans, of all the great French conquests, the town of +Calais alone remained in English hands. + +While these victories and defeats were taking place in the course +of time, many strange things happened at home. The young King, as +he grew up, proved to be very unlike his great father, and showed +himself a miserable puny creature. There was no harm in him - he +had a great aversion to shedding blood: which was something - but, +he was a weak, silly, helpless young man, and a mere shuttlecock to +the great lordly battledores about the Court. + +Of these battledores, Cardinal Beaufort, a relation of the King, +and the Duke of Gloucester, were at first the most powerful. The +Duke of Gloucester had a wife, who was nonsensically accused of +practising witchcraft to cause the King's death and lead to her +husband's coming to the throne, he being the next heir. She was +charged with having, by the help of a ridiculous old woman named +Margery (who was called a witch), made a little waxen doll in the +King's likeness, and put it before a slow fire that it might +gradually melt away. It was supposed, in such cases, that the +death of the person whom the doll was made to represent, was sure +to happen. Whether the duchess was as ignorant as the rest of +them, and really did make such a doll with such an intention, I +don't know; but, you and I know very well that she might have made +a thousand dolls, if she had been stupid enough, and might have +melted them all, without hurting the King or anybody else. +However, she was tried for it, and so was old Margery, and so was +one of the duke's chaplains, who was charged with having assisted +them. Both he and Margery were put to death, and the duchess, +after being taken on foot and bearing a lighted candle, three times +round the City, as a penance, was imprisoned for life. The duke, +himself, took all this pretty quietly, and made as little stir +about the matter as if he were rather glad to be rid of the +duchess. + +But, he was not destined to keep himself out of trouble long. The +royal shuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the battledores were very +anxious to get him married. The Duke of Gloucester wanted him to +marry a daughter of the Count of Armagnac; but, the Cardinal and +the Earl of Suffolk were all for MARGARET, the daughter of the King +of Sicily, who they knew was a resolute, ambitious woman and would +govern the King as she chose. To make friends with this lady, the +Earl of Suffolk, who went over to arrange the match, consented to +accept her for the King's wife without any fortune, and even to +give up the two most valuable possessions England then had in +France. So, the marriage was arranged, on terms very advantageous +to the lady; and Lord Suffolk brought her to England, and she was +married at Westminster. On what pretence this queen and her party +charged the Duke of Gloucester with high treason within a couple of +years, it is impossible to make out, the matter is so confused; +but, they pretended that the King's life was in danger, and they +took the duke prisoner. A fortnight afterwards, he was found dead +in bed (they said), and his body was shown to the people, and Lord +Suffolk came in for the best part of his estates. You know by this +time how strangely liable state prisoners were to sudden death. + +If Cardinal Beaufort had any hand in this matter, it did him no +good, for he died within six weeks; thinking it very hard and +curious - at eighty years old! - that he could not live to be Pope. + +This was the time when England had completed her loss of all her +great French conquests. The people charged the loss principally +upon the Earl of Suffolk, now a duke, who had made those easy terms +about the Royal Marriage, and who, they believed, had even been +bought by France. So he was impeached as a traitor, on a great +number of charges, but chiefly on accusations of having aided the +French King, and of designing to make his own son King of England. +The Commons and the people being violent against him, the King was +made (by his friends) to interpose to save him, by banishing him +for five years, and proroguing the Parliament. The duke had much +ado to escape from a London mob, two thousand strong, who lay in +wait for him in St. Giles's fields; but, he got down to his own +estates in Suffolk, and sailed away from Ipswich. Sailing across +the Channel, he sent into Calais to know if he might land there; +but, they kept his boat and men in the harbour, until an English +ship, carrying a hundred and fifty men and called the Nicholas of +the Tower, came alongside his little vessel, and ordered him on +board. 'Welcome, traitor, as men say,' was the captain's grim and +not very respectful salutation. He was kept on board, a prisoner, +for eight-and-forty hours, and then a small boat appeared rowing +toward the ship. As this boat came nearer, it was seen to have in +it a block, a rusty sword, and an executioner in a black mask. The +duke was handed down into it, and there his head was cut off with +six strokes of the rusty sword. Then, the little boat rowed away +to Dover beach, where the body was cast out, and left until the +duchess claimed it. By whom, high in authority, this murder was +committed, has never appeared. No one was ever punished for it. + +There now arose in Kent an Irishman, who gave himself the name of +Mortimer, but whose real name was JACK CADE. Jack, in imitation of +Wat Tyler, though he was a very different and inferior sort of man, +addressed the Kentish men upon their wrongs, occasioned by the bad +government of England, among so many battledores and such a poor +shuttlecock; and the Kentish men rose up to the number of twenty +thousand. Their place of assembly was Blackheath, where, headed by +Jack, they put forth two papers, which they called 'The Complaint +of the Commons of Kent,' and 'The Requests of the Captain of the +Great Assembly in Kent.' They then retired to Sevenoaks. The +royal army coming up with them here, they beat it and killed their +general. Then, Jack dressed himself in the dead general's armour, +and led his men to London. + +Jack passed into the City from Southwark, over the bridge, and +entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his men not +to plunder. Having made a show of his forces there, while the +citizens looked on quietly, he went back into Southwark in good +order, and passed the night. Next day, he came back again, having +got hold in the meantime of Lord Say, an unpopular nobleman. Says +Jack to the Lord Mayor and judges: 'Will you be so good as to make +a tribunal in Guildhall, and try me this nobleman?' The court +being hastily made, he was found guilty, and Jack and his men cut +his head off on Cornhill. They also cut off the head of his son- +in-law, and then went back in good order to Southwark again. + +But, although the citizens could bear the beheading of an unpopular +lord, they could not bear to have their houses pillaged. And it +did so happen that Jack, after dinner - perhaps he had drunk a +little too much - began to plunder the house where he lodged; upon +which, of course, his men began to imitate him. Wherefore, the +Londoners took counsel with Lord Scales, who had a thousand +soldiers in the Tower; and defended London Bridge, and kept Jack +and his people out. This advantage gained, it was resolved by +divers great men to divide Jack's army in the old way, by making a +great many promises on behalf of the state, that were never +intended to be performed. This DID divide them; some of Jack's men +saying that they ought to take the conditions which were offered, +and others saying that they ought not, for they were only a snare; +some going home at once; others staying where they were; and all +doubting and quarrelling among themselves. + +Jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a pardon, +and who indeed did both, saw at last that there was nothing to +expect from his men, and that it was very likely some of them would +deliver him up and get a reward of a thousand marks, which was +offered for his apprehension. So, after they had travelled and +quarrelled all the way from Southwark to Blackheath, and from +Blackheath to Rochester, he mounted a good horse and galloped away +into Sussex. But, there galloped after him, on a better horse, one +Alexander Iden, who came up with him, had a hard fight with him, +and killed him. Jack's head was set aloft on London Bridge, with +the face looking towards Blackheath, where he had raised his flag; +and Alexander Iden got the thousand marks. + +It is supposed by some, that the Duke of York, who had been removed +from a high post abroad through the Queen's influence, and sent out +of the way, to govern Ireland, was at the bottom of this rising of +Jack and his men, because he wanted to trouble the government. He +claimed (though not yet publicly) to have a better right to the +throne than Henry of Lancaster, as one of the family of the Earl of +March, whom Henry the Fourth had set aside. Touching this claim, +which, being through female relationship, was not according to the +usual descent, it is enough to say that Henry the Fourth was the +free choice of the people and the Parliament, and that his family +had now reigned undisputed for sixty years. The memory of Henry +the Fifth was so famous, and the English people loved it so much, +that the Duke of York's claim would, perhaps, never have been +thought of (it would have been so hopeless) but for the unfortunate +circumstance of the present King's being by this time quite an +idiot, and the country very ill governed. These two circumstances +gave the Duke of York a power he could not otherwise have had. + +Whether the Duke knew anything of Jack Cade, or not, he came over +from Ireland while Jack's head was on London Bridge; being secretly +advised that the Queen was setting up his enemy, the Duke of +Somerset, against him. He went to Westminster, at the head of four +thousand men, and on his knees before the King, represented to him +the bad state of the country, and petitioned him to summon a +Parliament to consider it. This the King promised. When the +Parliament was summoned, the Duke of York accused the Duke of +Somerset, and the Duke of Somerset accused the Duke of York; and, +both in and out of Parliament, the followers of each party were +full of violence and hatred towards the other. At length the Duke +of York put himself at the head of a large force of his tenants, +and, in arms, demanded the reformation of the Government. Being +shut out of London, he encamped at Dartford, and the royal army +encamped at Blackheath. According as either side triumphed, the +Duke of York was arrested, or the Duke of Somerset was arrested. +The trouble ended, for the moment, in the Duke of York renewing his +oath of allegiance, and going in peace to one of his own castles. + +Half a year afterwards the Queen gave birth to a son, who was very +ill received by the people, and not believed to be the son of the +King. It shows the Duke of York to have been a moderate man, +unwilling to involve England in new troubles, that he did not take +advantage of the general discontent at this time, but really acted +for the public good. He was made a member of the cabinet, and the +King being now so much worse that he could not be carried about and +shown to the people with any decency, the duke was made Lord +Protector of the kingdom, until the King should recover, or the +Prince should come of age. At the same time the Duke of Somerset +was committed to the Tower. So, now the Duke of Somerset was down, +and the Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, however, the +King recovered his memory and some spark of sense; upon which the +Queen used her power - which recovered with him - to get the +Protector disgraced, and her favourite released. So now the Duke +of York was down, and the Duke of Somerset was up. + +These ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole nation into +the two parties of York and Lancaster, and led to those terrible +civil wars long known as the Wars of the Red and White Roses, +because the red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster, and +the white rose was the badge of the House of York. + +The Duke of York, joined by some other powerful noblemen of the +White Rose party, and leading a small army, met the King with +another small army at St. Alban's, and demanded that the Duke of +Somerset should be given up. The poor King, being made to say in +answer that he would sooner die, was instantly attacked. The Duke +of Somerset was killed, and the King himself was wounded in the +neck, and took refuge in the house of a poor tanner. Whereupon, +the Duke of York went to him, led him with great submission to the +Abbey, and said he was very sorry for what had happened. Having +now the King in his possession, he got a Parliament summoned and +himself once more made Protector, but, only for a few months; for, +on the King getting a little better again, the Queen and her party +got him into their possession, and disgraced the Duke once more. +So, now the Duke of York was down again. + +Some of the best men in power, seeing the danger of these constant +changes, tried even then to prevent the Red and the White Rose +Wars. They brought about a great council in London between the two +parties. The White Roses assembled in Blackfriars, the Red Roses +in Whitefriars; and some good priests communicated between them, +and made the proceedings known at evening to the King and the +judges. They ended in a peaceful agreement that there should be no +more quarrelling; and there was a great royal procession to St. +Paul's, in which the Queen walked arm-in-arm with her old enemy, +the Duke of York, to show the people how comfortable they all were. +This state of peace lasted half a year, when a dispute between the +Earl of Warwick (one of the Duke's powerful friends) and some of +the King's servants at Court, led to an attack upon that Earl - who +was a White Rose - and to a sudden breaking out of all old +animosities. So, here were greater ups and downs than ever. + +There were even greater ups and downs than these, soon after. +After various battles, the Duke of York fled to Ireland, and his +son the Earl of March to Calais, with their friends the Earls of +Salisbury and Warwick; and a Parliament was held declaring them all +traitors. Little the worse for this, the Earl of Warwick presently +came back, landed in Kent, was joined by the Archbishop of +Canterbury and other powerful noblemen and gentlemen, engaged the +King's forces at Northampton, signally defeated them, and took the +King himself prisoner, who was found in his tent. Warwick would +have been glad, I dare say, to have taken the Queen and Prince too, +but they escaped into Wales and thence into Scotland. + +The King was carried by the victorious force straight to London, +and made to call a new Parliament, which immediately declared that +the Duke of York and those other noblemen were not traitors, but +excellent subjects. Then, back comes the Duke from Ireland at the +head of five hundred horsemen, rides from London to Westminster, +and enters the House of Lords. There, he laid his hand upon the +cloth of gold which covered the empty throne, as if he had half a +mind to sit down in it - but he did not. On the Archbishop of +Canterbury, asking him if he would visit the King, who was in his +palace close by, he replied, 'I know no one in this country, my +lord, who ought not to visit ME.' None of the lords present spoke +a single word; so, the duke went out as he had come in, established +himself royally in the King's palace, and, six days afterwards, +sent in to the Lords a formal statement of his claim to the throne. +The lords went to the King on this momentous subject, and after a +great deal of discussion, in which the judges and the other law +officers were afraid to give an opinion on either side, the +question was compromised. It was agreed that the present King +should retain the crown for his life, and that it should then pass +to the Duke of York and his heirs. + +But, the resolute Queen, determined on asserting her son's right, +would hear of no such thing. She came from Scotland to the north +of England, where several powerful lords armed in her cause. The +Duke of York, for his part, set off with some five thousand men, a +little time before Christmas Day, one thousand four hundred and +sixty, to give her battle. He lodged at Sandal Castle, near +Wakefield, and the Red Roses defied him to come out on Wakefield +Green, and fight them then and there. His generals said, he had +best wait until his gallant son, the Earl of March, came up with +his power; but, he was determined to accept the challenge. He did +so, in an evil hour. He was hotly pressed on all sides, two +thousand of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he himself was +taken prisoner. They set him down in mock state on an ant-hill, +and twisted grass about his head, and pretended to pay court to him +on their knees, saying, 'O King, without a kingdom, and Prince +without a people, we hope your gracious Majesty is very well and +happy!' They did worse than this; they cut his head off, and +handed it on a pole to the Queen, who laughed with delight when she +saw it (you recollect their walking so religiously and comfortably +to St. Paul's!), and had it fixed, with a paper crown upon its +head, on the walls of York. The Earl of Salisbury lost his head, +too; and the Duke of York's second son, a handsome boy who was +flying with his tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the +heart by a murderous, lord - Lord Clifford by name - whose father +had been killed by the White Roses in the fight at St. Alban's. +There was awful sacrifice of life in this battle, for no quarter +was given, and the Queen was wild for revenge. When men +unnaturally fight against their own countrymen, they are always +observed to be more unnaturally cruel and filled with rage than +they are against any other enemy. + +But, Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke of York - +not the first. The eldest son, Edward Earl of March, was at +Gloucester; and, vowing vengeance for the death of his father, his +brother, and their faithful friends, he began to march against the +Queen. He had to turn and fight a great body of Welsh and Irish +first, who worried his advance. These he defeated in a great fight +at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford, where he beheaded a number of +the Red Roses taken in battle, in retaliation for the beheading of +the White Roses at Wakefield. The Queen had the next turn of +beheading. Having moved towards London, and falling in, between +St. Alban's and Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of +Norfolk, White Roses both, who were there with an army to oppose +her, and had got the King with them; she defeated them with great +loss, and struck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were +in the King's tent with him, and to whom the King had promised his +protection. Her triumph, however, was very short. She had no +treasure, and her army subsisted by plunder. This caused them to +be hated and dreaded by the people, and particularly by the London +people, who were wealthy. As soon as the Londoners heard that +Edward, Earl of March, united with the Earl of Warwick, was +advancing towards the city, they refused to send the Queen +supplies, and made a great rejoicing. + +The Queen and her men retreated with all speed, and Edward and +Warwick came on, greeted with loud acclamations on every side. The +courage, beauty, and virtues of young Edward could not be +sufficiently praised by the whole people. He rode into London like +a conqueror, and met with an enthusiastic welcome. A few days +afterwards, Lord Falconbridge and the Bishop of Exeter assembled +the citizens in St. John's Field, Clerkenwell, and asked them if +they would have Henry of Lancaster for their King? To this they +all roared, 'No, no, no!' and 'King Edward! King Edward!' Then, +said those noblemen, would they love and serve young Edward? To +this they all cried, 'Yes, yes!' and threw up their caps and +clapped their hands, and cheered tremendously. + +Therefore, it was declared that by joining the Queen and not +protecting those two prisoners of note, Henry of Lancaster had +forfeited the crown; and Edward of York was proclaimed King. He +made a great speech to the applauding people at Westminster, and +sat down as sovereign of England on that throne, on the golden +covering of which his father - worthy of a better fate than the +bloody axe which cut the thread of so many lives in England, +through so many years - had laid his hand. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH + + + +KING EDWARD THE FOURTH was not quite twenty-one years of age when +he took that unquiet seat upon the throne of England. The +Lancaster party, the Red Roses, were then assembling in great +numbers near York, and it was necessary to give them battle +instantly. But, the stout Earl of Warwick leading for the young +King, and the young King himself closely following him, and the +English people crowding round the Royal standard, the White and the +Red Roses met, on a wild March day when the snow was falling +heavily, at Towton; and there such a furious battle raged between +them, that the total loss amounted to forty thousand men - all +Englishmen, fighting, upon English ground, against one another. +The young King gained the day, took down the heads of his father +and brother from the walls of York, and put up the heads of some of +the most famous noblemen engaged in the battle on the other side. +Then, he went to London and was crowned with great splendour. + +A new Parliament met. No fewer than one hundred and fifty of the +principal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lancaster side were +declared traitors, and the King - who had very little humanity, +though he was handsome in person and agreeable in manners - +resolved to do all he could, to pluck up the Red Rose root and +branch. + +Queen Margaret, however, was still active for her young son. She +obtained help from Scotland and from Normandy, and took several +important English castles. But, Warwick soon retook them; the +Queen lost all her treasure on board ship in a great storm; and +both she and her son suffered great misfortunes. Once, in the +winter weather, as they were riding through a forest, they were +attacked and plundered by a party of robbers; and, when they had +escaped from these men and were passing alone and on foot through a +thick dark part of the wood, they came, all at once, upon another +robber. So the Queen, with a stout heart, took the little Prince +by the hand, and going straight up to that robber, said to him, 'My +friend, this is the young son of your lawful King! I confide him +to your care.' The robber was surprised, but took the boy in his +arms, and faithfully restored him and his mother to their friends. +In the end, the Queen's soldiers being beaten and dispersed, she +went abroad again, and kept quiet for the present. + +Now, all this time, the deposed King Henry was concealed by a Welsh +knight, who kept him close in his castle. But, next year, the +Lancaster party recovering their spirits, raised a large body of +men, and called him out of his retirement, to put him at their +head. They were joined by some powerful noblemen who had sworn +fidelity to the new King, but who were ready, as usual, to break +their oaths, whenever they thought there was anything to be got by +it. One of the worst things in the history of the war of the Red +and White Roses, is the ease with which these noblemen, who should +have set an example of honour to the people, left either side as +they took slight offence, or were disappointed in their greedy +expectations, and joined the other. Well! Warwick's brother soon +beat the Lancastrians, and the false noblemen, being taken, were +beheaded without a moment's loss of time. The deposed King had a +narrow escape; three of his servants were taken, and one of them +bore his cap of estate, which was set with pearls and embroidered +with two golden crowns. However, the head to which the cap +belonged, got safely into Lancashire, and lay pretty quietly there +(the people in the secret being very true) for more than a year. +At length, an old monk gave such intelligence as led to Henry's +being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a place called +Waddington Hall. He was immediately sent to London, and met at +Islington by the Earl of Warwick, by whose directions he was put +upon a horse, with his legs tied under it, and paraded three times +round the pillory. Then, he was carried off to the Tower, where +they treated him well enough. + +The White Rose being so triumphant, the young King abandoned +himself entirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. But, thorns +were springing up under his bed of roses, as he soon found out. +For, having been privately married to ELIZABETH WOODVILLE, a young +widow lady, very beautiful and very captivating; and at last +resolving to make his secret known, and to declare her his Queen; +he gave some offence to the Earl of Warwick, who was usually called +the King-Maker, because of his power and influence, and because of +his having lent such great help to placing Edward on the throne. +This offence was not lessened by the jealousy with which the Nevil +family (the Earl of Warwick's) regarded the promotion of the +Woodville family. For, the young Queen was so bent on providing +for her relations, that she made her father an earl and a great +officer of state; married her five sisters to young noblemen of the +highest rank; and provided for her younger brother, a young man of +twenty, by marrying him to an immensely rich old duchess of eighty. +The Earl of Warwick took all this pretty graciously for a man of +his proud temper, until the question arose to whom the King's +sister, MARGARET, should be married. The Earl of Warwick said, 'To +one of the French King's sons,' and was allowed to go over to the +French King to make friendly proposals for that purpose, and to +hold all manner of friendly interviews with him. But, while he was +so engaged, the Woodville party married the young lady to the Duke +of Burgundy! Upon this he came back in great rage and scorn, and +shut himself up discontented, in his Castle of Middleham. + +A reconciliation, though not a very sincere one, was patched up +between the Earl of Warwick and the King, and lasted until the Earl +married his daughter, against the King's wishes, to the Duke of +Clarence. While the marriage was being celebrated at Calais, the +people in the north of England, where the influence of the Nevil +family was strongest, broke out into rebellion; their complaint +was, that England was oppressed and plundered by the Woodville +family, whom they demanded to have removed from power. As they +were joined by great numbers of people, and as they openly declared +that they were supported by the Earl of Warwick, the King did not +know what to do. At last, as he wrote to the earl beseeching his +aid, he and his new son-in-law came over to England, and began to +arrange the business by shutting the King up in Middleham Castle in +the safe keeping of the Archbishop of York; so England was not only +in the strange position of having two kings at once, but they were +both prisoners at the same time. + +Even as yet, however, the King-Maker was so far true to the King, +that he dispersed a new rising of the Lancastrians, took their +leader prisoner, and brought him to the King, who ordered him to be +immediately executed. He presently allowed the King to return to +London, and there innumerable pledges of forgiveness and friendship +were exchanged between them, and between the Nevils and the +Woodvilles; the King's eldest daughter was promised in marriage to +the heir of the Nevil family; and more friendly oaths were sworn, +and more friendly promises made, than this book would hold. + +They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, the +Archbishop of York made a feast for the King, the Earl of Warwick, +and the Duke of Clarence, at his house, the Moor, in Hertfordshire. +The King was washing his hands before supper, when some one +whispered him that a body of a hundred men were lying in ambush +outside the house. Whether this were true or untrue, the King took +fright, mounted his horse, and rode through the dark night to +Windsor Castle. Another reconciliation was patched up between him +and the King-Maker, but it was a short one, and it was the last. A +new rising took place in Lincolnshire, and the King marched to +repress it. Having done so, he proclaimed that both the Earl of +Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were traitors, who had secretly +assisted it, and who had been prepared publicly to join it on the +following day. In these dangerous circumstances they both took +ship and sailed away to the French court. + +And here a meeting took place between the Earl of Warwick and his +old enemy, the Dowager Queen Margaret, through whom his father had +had his head struck off, and to whom he had been a bitter foe. +But, now, when he said that he had done with the ungrateful and +perfidious Edward of York, and that henceforth he devoted himself +to the restoration of the House of Lancaster, either in the person +of her husband or of her little son, she embraced him as if he had +ever been her dearest friend. She did more than that; she married +her son to his second daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable +this marriage was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable to +the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-in-law, the +King-Maker, would never make HIM King, now. So, being but a weak- +minded young traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, he +readily listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose, +and promised to turn traitor once more, and go over to his brother, +King Edward, when a fitting opportunity should come. + +The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon redeemed his +promise to the Dowager Queen Margaret, by invading England and +landing at Plymouth, where he instantly proclaimed King Henry, and +summoned all Englishmen between the ages of sixteen and sixty, to +join his banner. Then, with his army increasing as he marched +along, he went northward, and came so near King Edward, who was in +that part of the country, that Edward had to ride hard for it to +the coast of Norfolk, and thence to get away in such ships as he +could find, to Holland. Thereupon, the triumphant King-Maker and +his false son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, went to London, took +the old King out of the Tower, and walked him in a great procession +to Saint Paul's Cathedral with the crown upon his head. This did +not improve the temper of the Duke of Clarence, who saw himself +farther off from being King than ever; but he kept his secret, and +said nothing. The Nevil family were restored to all their honours +and glories, and the Woodvilles and the rest were disgraced. The +King-Maker, less sanguinary than the King, shed no blood except +that of the Earl of Worcester, who had been so cruel to the people +as to have gained the title of the Butcher. Him they caught hidden +in a tree, and him they tried and executed. No other death stained +the King-Maker's triumph. + +To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again, next year, +landing at Ravenspur, coming on to York, causing all his men to cry +'Long live King Henry!' and swearing on the altar, without a blush, +that he came to lay no claim to the crown. Now was the time for +the Duke of Clarence, who ordered his men to assume the White Rose, +and declare for his brother. The Marquis of Montague, though the +Earl of Warwick's brother, also declining to fight against King +Edward, he went on successfully to London, where the Archbishop of +York let him into the City, and where the people made great +demonstrations in his favour. For this they had four reasons. +Firstly, there were great numbers of the King's adherents hiding in +the City and ready to break out; secondly, the King owed them a +great deal of money, which they could never hope to get if he were +unsuccessful; thirdly, there was a young prince to inherit the +crown; and fourthly, the King was gay and handsome, and more +popular than a better man might have been with the City ladies. +After a stay of only two days with these worthy supporters, the +King marched out to Barnet Common, to give the Earl of Warwick +battle. And now it was to be seen, for the last time, whether the +King or the King-Maker was to carry the day. + +While the battle was yet pending, the fainthearted Duke of Clarence +began to repent, and sent over secret messages to his father-in- +law, offering his services in mediation with the King. But, the +Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected them, and replied that +Clarence was false and perjured, and that he would settle the +quarrel by the sword. The battle began at four o'clock in the +morning and lasted until ten, and during the greater part of the +time it was fought in a thick mist - absurdly supposed to be raised +by a magician. The loss of life was very great, for the hatred was +strong on both sides. The King-Maker was defeated, and the King +triumphed. Both the Earl of Warwick and his brother were slain, +and their bodies lay in St. Paul's, for some days, as a spectacle +to the people. + +Margaret's spirit was not broken even by this great blow. Within +five days she was in arms again, and raised her standard in Bath, +whence she set off with her army, to try and join Lord Pembroke, +who had a force in Wales. But, the King, coming up with her +outside the town of Tewkesbury, and ordering his brother, the DUKE +OF GLOUCESTER, who was a brave soldier, to attack her men, she +sustained an entire defeat, and was taken prisoner, together with +her son, now only eighteen years of age. The conduct of the King +to this poor youth was worthy of his cruel character. He ordered +him to be led into his tent. 'And what,' said he, 'brought YOU to +England?' 'I came to England,' replied the prisoner, with a spirit +which a man of spirit might have admired in a captive, 'to recover +my father's kingdom, which descended to him as his right, and from +him descends to me, as mine.' The King, drawing off his iron +gauntlet, struck him with it in the face; and the Duke of Clarence +and some other lords, who were there, drew their noble swords, and +killed him. + +His mother survived him, a prisoner, for five years; after her +ransom by the King of France, she survived for six years more. +Within three weeks of this murder, Henry died one of those +convenient sudden deaths which were so common in the Tower; in +plainer words, he was murdered by the King's order. + +Having no particular excitement on his hands after this great +defeat of the Lancaster party, and being perhaps desirous to get +rid of some of his fat (for he was now getting too corpulent to be +handsome), the King thought of making war on France. As he wanted +more money for this purpose than the Parliament could give him, +though they were usually ready enough for war, he invented a new +way of raising it, by sending for the principal citizens of London, +and telling them, with a grave face, that he was very much in want +of cash, and would take it very kind in them if they would lend him +some. It being impossible for them safely to refuse, they +complied, and the moneys thus forced from them were called - no +doubt to the great amusement of the King and the Court - as if they +were free gifts, 'Benevolences.' What with grants from Parliament, +and what with Benevolences, the King raised an army and passed over +to Calais. As nobody wanted war, however, the French King made +proposals of peace, which were accepted, and a truce was concluded +for seven long years. The proceedings between the Kings of France +and England on this occasion, were very friendly, very splendid, +and very distrustful. They finished with a meeting between the two +Kings, on a temporary bridge over the river Somme, where they +embraced through two holes in a strong wooden grating like a lion's +cage, and made several bows and fine speeches to one another. + +It was time, now, that the Duke of Clarence should be punished for +his treacheries; and Fate had his punishment in store. He was, +probably, not trusted by the King - for who could trust him who +knew him! - and he had certainly a powerful opponent in his brother +Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who, being avaricious and ambitious, +wanted to marry that widowed daughter of the Earl of Warwick's who +had been espoused to the deceased young Prince, at Calais. +Clarence, who wanted all the family wealth for himself, secreted +this lady, whom Richard found disguised as a servant in the City of +London, and whom he married; arbitrators appointed by the King, +then divided the property between the brothers. This led to ill- +will and mistrust between them. Clarence's wife dying, and he +wishing to make another marriage, which was obnoxious to the King, +his ruin was hurried by that means, too. At first, the Court +struck at his retainers and dependents, and accused some of them of +magic and witchcraft, and similar nonsense. Successful against +this small game, it then mounted to the Duke himself, who was +impeached by his brother the King, in person, on a variety of such +charges. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be publicly +executed. He never was publicly executed, but he met his death +somehow, in the Tower, and, no doubt, through some agency of the +King or his brother Gloucester, or both. It was supposed at the +time that he was told to choose the manner of his death, and that +he chose to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. I hope the story +may be true, for it would have been a becoming death for such a +miserable creature. + +The King survived him some five years. He died in the forty-second +year of his life, and the twenty-third of his reign. He had a very +good capacity and some good points, but he was selfish, careless, +sensual, and cruel. He was a favourite with the people for his +showy manners; and the people were a good example to him in the +constancy of their attachment. He was penitent on his death-bed +for his 'benevolences,' and other extortions, and ordered +restitution to be made to the people who had suffered from them. +He also called about his bed the enriched members of the Woodville +family, and the proud lords whose honours were of older date, and +endeavoured to reconcile them, for the sake of the peaceful +succession of his son and the tranquillity of England. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH + + + +THE late King's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, called EDWARD +after him, was only thirteen years of age at his father's death. +He was at Ludlow Castle with his uncle, the Earl of Rivers. The +prince's brother, the Duke of York, only eleven years of age, was +in London with his mother. The boldest, most crafty, and most +dreaded nobleman in England at that time was their uncle RICHARD, +Duke of Gloucester, and everybody wondered how the two poor boys +would fare with such an uncle for a friend or a foe. + +The Queen, their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about this, was +anxious that instructions should be sent to Lord Rivers to raise an +army to escort the young King safely to London. But, Lord +Hastings, who was of the Court party opposed to the Woodvilles, and +who disliked the thought of giving them that power, argued against +the proposal, and obliged the Queen to be satisfied with an escort +of two thousand horse. The Duke of Gloucester did nothing, at +first, to justify suspicion. He came from Scotland (where he was +commanding an army) to York, and was there the first to swear +allegiance to his nephew. He then wrote a condoling letter to the +Queen-Mother, and set off to be present at the coronation in +London. + +Now, the young King, journeying towards London too, with Lord +Rivers and Lord Gray, came to Stony Stratford, as his uncle came to +Northampton, about ten miles distant; and when those two lords +heard that the Duke of Gloucester was so near, they proposed to the +young King that they should go back and greet him in his name. The +boy being very willing that they should do so, they rode off and +were received with great friendliness, and asked by the Duke of +Gloucester to stay and dine with him. In the evening, while they +were merry together, up came the Duke of Buckingham with three +hundred horsemen; and next morning the two lords and the two dukes, +and the three hundred horsemen, rode away together to rejoin the +King. Just as they were entering Stony Stratford, the Duke of +Gloucester, checking his horse, turned suddenly on the two lords, +charged them with alienating from him the affections of his sweet +nephew, and caused them to be arrested by the three hundred +horsemen and taken back. Then, he and the Duke of Buckingham went +straight to the King (whom they had now in their power), to whom +they made a show of kneeling down, and offering great love and +submission; and then they ordered his attendants to disperse, and +took him, alone with them, to Northampton. + +A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and lodged him +in the Bishop's Palace. But, he did not remain there long; for, +the Duke of Buckingham with a tender face made a speech expressing +how anxious he was for the Royal boy's safety, and how much safer +he would be in the Tower until his coronation, than he could be +anywhere else. So, to the Tower he was taken, very carefully, and +the Duke of Gloucester was named Protector of the State. + +Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very smooth +countenance - and although he was a clever man, fair of speech, and +not ill-looking, in spite of one of his shoulders being something +higher than the other - and although he had come into the City +riding bare-headed at the King's side, and looking very fond of him +- he had made the King's mother more uneasy yet; and when the Royal +boy was taken to the Tower, she became so alarmed that she took +sanctuary in Westminster with her five daughters. + +Nor did she do this without reason, for, the Duke of Gloucester, +finding that the lords who were opposed to the Woodville family +were faithful to the young King nevertheless, quickly resolved to +strike a blow for himself. Accordingly, while those lords met in +council at the Tower, he and those who were in his interest met in +separate council at his own residence, Crosby Palace, in +Bishopsgate Street. Being at last quite prepared, he one day +appeared unexpectedly at the council in the Tower, and appeared to +be very jocular and merry. He was particularly gay with the Bishop +of Ely: praising the strawberries that grew in his garden on +Holborn Hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he might +eat them at dinner. The Bishop, quite proud of the honour, sent +one of his men to fetch some; and the Duke, still very jocular and +gay, went out; and the council all said what a very agreeable duke +he was! In a little time, however, he came back quite altered - +not at all jocular - frowning and fierce - and suddenly said, - + +'What do those persons deserve who have compassed my destruction; I +being the King's lawful, as well as natural, protector?' + +To this strange question, Lord Hastings replied, that they deserved +death, whosoever they were. + +'Then,' said the Duke, 'I tell you that they are that sorceress my +brother's wife;' meaning the Queen: 'and that other sorceress, +Jane Shore. Who, by witchcraft, have withered my body, and caused +my arm to shrink as I now show you.' + +He then pulled up his sleeve and showed them his arm, which was +shrunken, it is true, but which had been so, as they all very well +knew, from the hour of his birth. + +Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she had +formerly been of the late King, that lord knew that he himself was +attacked. So, he said, in some confusion, 'Certainly, my Lord, if +they have done this, they be worthy of punishment.' + +'If?' said the Duke of Gloucester; 'do you talk to me of ifs? I +tell you that they HAVE so done, and I will make it good upon thy +body, thou traitor!' + +With that, he struck the table a great blow with his fist. This +was a signal to some of his people outside to cry 'Treason!' They +immediately did so, and there was a rush into the chamber of so +many armed men that it was filled in a moment. + +'First,' said the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Hastings, 'I arrest +thee, traitor! And let him,' he added to the armed men who took +him, 'have a priest at once, for by St. Paul I will not dine until +I have seen his head of!' + +Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower chapel, and +there beheaded on a log of wood that happened to be lying on the +ground. Then, the Duke dined with a good appetite, and after +dinner summoning the principal citizens to attend him, told them +that Lord Hastings and the rest had designed to murder both himself +and the Duke if Buckingham, who stood by his side, if he had not +providentially discovered their design. He requested them to be so +obliging as to inform their fellow-citizens of the truth of what he +said, and issued a proclamation (prepared and neatly copied out +beforehand) to the same effect. + +On the same day that the Duke did these things in the Tower, Sir +Richard Ratcliffe, the boldest and most undaunted of his men, went +down to Pontefract; arrested Lord Rivers, Lord Gray, and two other +gentlemen; and publicly executed them on the scaffold, without any +trial, for having intended the Duke's death. Three days afterwards +the Duke, not to lose time, went down the river to Westminster in +his barge, attended by divers bishops, lords, and soldiers, and +demanded that the Queen should deliver her second son, the Duke of +York, into his safe keeping. The Queen, being obliged to comply, +resigned the child after she had wept over him; and Richard of +Gloucester placed him with his brother in the Tower. Then, he +seized Jane Shore, and, because she had been the lover of the late +King, confiscated her property, and got her sentenced to do public +penance in the streets by walking in a scanty dress, with bare +feet, and carrying a lighted candle, to St. Paul's Cathedral, +through the most crowded part of the City. + +Having now all things ready for his own advancement, he caused a +friar to preach a sermon at the cross which stood in front of St. +Paul's Cathedral, in which he dwelt upon the profligate manners of +the late King, and upon the late shame of Jane Shore, and hinted +that the princes were not his children. 'Whereas, good people,' +said the friar, whose name was SHAW, 'my Lord the Protector, the +noble Duke of Gloucester, that sweet prince, the pattern of all the +noblest virtues, is the perfect image and express likeness of his +father.' There had been a little plot between the Duke and the +friar, that the Duke should appear in the crowd at this moment, +when it was expected that the people would cry 'Long live King +Richard!' But, either through the friar saying the words too soon, +or through the Duke's coming too late, the Duke and the words did +not come together, and the people only laughed, and the friar +sneaked off ashamed. + +The Duke of Buckingham was a better hand at such business than the +friar, so he went to the Guildhall the next day, and addressed the +citizens in the Lord Protector's behalf. A few dirty men, who had +been hired and stationed there for the purpose, crying when he had +done, 'God save King Richard!' he made them a great bow, and +thanked them with all his heart. Next day, to make an end of it, +he went with the mayor and some lords and citizens to Bayard +Castle, by the river, where Richard then was, and read an address, +humbly entreating him to accept the Crown of England. Richard, who +looked down upon them out of a window and pretended to be in great +uneasiness and alarm, assured them there was nothing he desired +less, and that his deep affection for his nephews forbade him to +think of it. To this the Duke of Buckingham replied, with +pretended warmth, that the free people of England would never +submit to his nephew's rule, and that if Richard, who was the +lawful heir, refused the Crown, why then they must find some one +else to wear it. The Duke of Gloucester returned, that since he +used that strong language, it became his painful duty to think no +more of himself, and to accept the Crown. + +Upon that, the people cheered and dispersed; and the Duke of +Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham passed a pleasant evening, +talking over the play they had just acted with so much success, and +every word of which they had prepared together. + + + +CHAPTER XXV - ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD + + + +KING RICHARD THE THIRD was up betimes in the morning, and went to +Westminster Hall. In the Hall was a marble seat, upon which he sat +himself down between two great noblemen, and told the people that +he began the new reign in that place, because the first duty of a +sovereign was to administer the laws equally to all, and to +maintain justice. He then mounted his horse and rode back to the +City, where he was received by the clergy and the crowd as if he +really had a right to the throne, and really were a just man. The +clergy and the crowd must have been rather ashamed of themselves in +secret, I think, for being such poor-spirited knaves. + +The new King and his Queen were soon crowned with a great deal of +show and noise, which the people liked very much; and then the King +set forth on a royal progress through his dominions. He was +crowned a second time at York, in order that the people might have +show and noise enough; and wherever he went was received with +shouts of rejoicing - from a good many people of strong lungs, who +were paid to strain their throats in crying, 'God save King +Richard!' The plan was so successful that I am told it has been +imitated since, by other usurpers, in other progresses through +other dominions. + +While he was on this journey, King Richard stayed a week at +Warwick. And from Warwick he sent instructions home for one of the +wickedest murders that ever was done - the murder of the two young +princes, his nephews, who were shut up in the Tower of London. + +Sir Robert Brackenbury was at that time Governor of the Tower. To +him, by the hands of a messenger named JOHN GREEN, did King Richard +send a letter, ordering him by some means to put the two young +princes to death. But Sir Robert - I hope because he had children +of his own, and loved them - sent John Green back again, riding and +spurring along the dusty roads, with the answer that he could not +do so horrible a piece of work. The King, having frowningly +considered a little, called to him SIR JAMES TYRREL, his master of +the horse, and to him gave authority to take command of the Tower, +whenever he would, for twenty-four hours, and to keep all the keys +of the Tower during that space of time. Tyrrel, well knowing what +was wanted, looked about him for two hardened ruffians, and chose +JOHN DIGHTON, one of his own grooms, and MILES FOREST, who was a +murderer by trade. Having secured these two assistants, he went, +upon a day in August, to the Tower, showed his authority from the +King, took the command for four-and-twenty hours, and obtained +possession of the keys. And when the black night came he went +creeping, creeping, like a guilty villain as he was, up the dark, +stone winding stairs, and along the dark stone passages, until he +came to the door of the room where the two young princes, having +said their prayers, lay fast asleep, clasped in each other's arms. +And while he watched and listened at the door, he sent in those +evil demons, John Dighton and Miles Forest, who smothered the two +princes with the bed and pillows, and carried their bodies down the +stairs, and buried them under a great heap of stones at the +staircase foot. And when the day came, he gave up the command of +the Tower, and restored the keys, and hurried away without once +looking behind him; and Sir Robert Brackenbury went with fear and +sadness to the princes' room, and found the princes gone for ever. + +You know, through all this history, how true it is that traitors +are never true, and you will not be surprised to learn that the +Duke of Buckingham soon turned against King Richard, and joined a +great conspiracy that was formed to dethrone him, and to place the +crown upon its rightful owner's head. Richard had meant to keep +the murder secret; but when he heard through his spies that this +conspiracy existed, and that many lords and gentlemen drank in +secret to the healths of the two young princes in the Tower, he +made it known that they were dead. The conspirators, though +thwarted for a moment, soon resolved to set up for the crown +against the murderous Richard, HENRY Earl of Richmond, grandson of +Catherine: that widow of Henry the Fifth who married Owen Tudor. +And as Henry was of the house of Lancaster, they proposed that he +should marry the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the +late King, now the heiress of the house of York, and thus by +uniting the rival families put an end to the fatal wars of the Red +and White Roses. All being settled, a time was appointed for Henry +to come over from Brittany, and for a great rising against Richard +to take place in several parts of England at the same hour. On a +certain day, therefore, in October, the revolt took place; but +unsuccessfully. Richard was prepared, Henry was driven back at sea +by a storm, his followers in England were dispersed, and the Duke +of Buckingham was taken, and at once beheaded in the market-place +at Salisbury. + +The time of his success was a good time, Richard thought, for +summoning a Parliament and getting some money. So, a Parliament +was called, and it flattered and fawned upon him as much as he +could possibly desire, and declared him to be the rightful King of +England, and his only son Edward, then eleven years of age, the +next heir to the throne. + +Richard knew full well that, let the Parliament say what it would, +the Princess Elizabeth was remembered by people as the heiress of +the house of York; and having accurate information besides, of its +being designed by the conspirators to marry her to Henry of +Richmond, he felt that it would much strengthen him and weaken +them, to be beforehand with them, and marry her to his son. With +this view he went to the Sanctuary at Westminster, where the late +King's widow and her daughter still were, and besought them to come +to Court: where (he swore by anything and everything) they should +be safely and honourably entertained. They came, accordingly, but +had scarcely been at Court a month when his son died suddenly - or +was poisoned - and his plan was crushed to pieces. + +In this extremity, King Richard, always active, thought, 'I must +make another plan.' And he made the plan of marrying the Princess +Elizabeth himself, although she was his niece. There was one +difficulty in the way: his wife, the Queen Anne, was alive. But, +he knew (remembering his nephews) how to remove that obstacle, and +he made love to the Princess Elizabeth, telling her he felt +perfectly confident that the Queen would die in February. The +Princess was not a very scrupulous young lady, for, instead of +rejecting the murderer of her brothers with scorn and hatred, she +openly declared she loved him dearly; and, when February came and +the Queen did not die, she expressed her impatient opinion that she +was too long about it. However, King Richard was not so far out in +his prediction, but, that she died in March - he took good care of +that - and then this precious pair hoped to be married. But they +were disappointed, for the idea of such a marriage was so unpopular +in the country, that the King's chief counsellors, RATCLIFFE and +CATESBY, would by no means undertake to propose it, and the King +was even obliged to declare in public that he had never thought of +such a thing. + +He was, by this time, dreaded and hated by all classes of his +subjects. His nobles deserted every day to Henry's side; he dared +not call another Parliament, lest his crimes should be denounced +there; and for want of money, he was obliged to get Benevolences +from the citizens, which exasperated them all against him. It was +said too, that, being stricken by his conscience, he dreamed +frightful dreams, and started up in the night-time, wild with +terror and remorse. Active to the last, through all this, he +issued vigorous proclamations against Henry of Richmond and all his +followers, when he heard that they were coming against him with a +Fleet from France; and took the field as fierce and savage as a +wild boar - the animal represented on his shield. + +Henry of Richmond landed with six thousand men at Milford Haven, +and came on against King Richard, then encamped at Leicester with +an army twice as great, through North Wales. On Bosworth Field the +two armies met; and Richard, looking along Henry's ranks, and +seeing them crowded with the English nobles who had abandoned him, +turned pale when he beheld the powerful Lord Stanley and his son +(whom he had tried hard to retain) among them. But, he was as +brave as he was wicked, and plunged into the thickest of the fight. +He was riding hither and thither, laying about him in all +directions, when he observed the Earl of Northumberland - one of +his few great allies - to stand inactive, and the main body of his +troops to hesitate. At the same moment, his desperate glance +caught Henry of Richmond among a little group of his knights. +Riding hard at him, and crying 'Treason!' he killed his standard- +bearer, fiercely unhorsed another gentleman, and aimed a powerful +stroke at Henry himself, to cut him down. But, Sir William Stanley +parried it as it fell, and before Richard could raise his arm +again, he was borne down in a press of numbers, unhorsed, and +killed. Lord Stanley picked up the crown, all bruised and +trampled, and stained with blood, and put it upon Richmond's head, +amid loud and rejoicing cries of 'Long live King Henry!' + +That night, a horse was led up to the church of the Grey Friars at +Leicester; across whose back was tied, like some worthless sack, a +naked body brought there for burial. It was the body of the last +of the Plantagenet line, King Richard the Third, usurper and +murderer, slain at the battle of Bosworth Field in the thirty- +second year of his age, after a reign of two years. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH + + + +KING HENRY THE SEVENTH did not turn out to be as fine a fellow as +the nobility and people hoped, in the first joy of their +deliverance from Richard the Third. He was very cold, crafty, and +calculating, and would do almost anything for money. He possessed +considerable ability, but his chief merit appears to have been that +he was not cruel when there was nothing to be got by it. + +The new King had promised the nobles who had espoused his cause +that he would marry the Princess Elizabeth. The first thing he +did, was, to direct her to be removed from the castle of Sheriff +Hutton in Yorkshire, where Richard had placed her, and restored to +the care of her mother in London. The young Earl of Warwick, +Edward Plantagenet, son and heir of the late Duke of Clarence, had +been kept a prisoner in the same old Yorkshire Castle with her. +This boy, who was now fifteen, the new King placed in the Tower for +safety. Then he came to London in great state, and gratified the +people with a fine procession; on which kind of show he often very +much relied for keeping them in good humour. The sports and feasts +which took place were followed by a terrible fever, called the +Sweating Sickness; of which great numbers of people died. Lord +Mayors and Aldermen are thought to have suffered most from it; +whether, because they were in the habit of over-eating themselves, +or because they were very jealous of preserving filth and nuisances +in the City (as they have been since), I don't know. + +The King's coronation was postponed on account of the general ill- +health, and he afterwards deferred his marriage, as if he were not +very anxious that it should take place: and, even after that, +deferred the Queen's coronation so long that he gave offence to the +York party. However, he set these things right in the end, by +hanging some men and seizing on the rich possessions of others; by +granting more popular pardons to the followers of the late King +than could, at first, be got from him; and, by employing about his +Court, some very scrupulous persons who had been employed in the +previous reign. + +As this reign was principally remarkable for two very curious +impostures which have become famous in history, we will make those +two stories its principal feature. + +There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, who had for a +pupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnel, the son of a baker. +Partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, and partly to carry out +the designs of a secret party formed against the King, this priest +declared that his pupil, the boy, was no other than the young Earl +of Warwick; who (as everybody might have known) was safely locked +up in the Tower of London. The priest and the boy went over to +Ireland; and, at Dublin, enlisted in their cause all ranks of the +people: who seem to have been generous enough, but exceedingly +irrational. The Earl of Kildare, the governor of Ireland, declared +that he believed the boy to be what the priest represented; and the +boy, who had been well tutored by the priest, told them such things +of his childhood, and gave them so many descriptions of the Royal +Family, that they were perpetually shouting and hurrahing, and +drinking his health, and making all kinds of noisy and thirsty +demonstrations, to express their belief in him. Nor was this +feeling confined to Ireland alone, for the Earl of Lincoln - whom +the late usurper had named as his successor - went over to the +young Pretender; and, after holding a secret correspondence with +the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy - the sister of Edward the Fourth, +who detested the present King and all his race - sailed to Dublin +with two thousand German soldiers of her providing. In this +promising state of the boy's fortunes, he was crowned there, with a +crown taken off the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary; and was +then, according to the Irish custom of those days, carried home on +the shoulders of a big chieftain possessing a great deal more +strength than sense. Father Simons, you may be sure, was mighty +busy at the coronation. + +Ten days afterwards, the Germans, and the Irish, and the priest, +and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in Lancashire to +invade England. The King, who had good intelligence of their +movements, set up his standard at Nottingham, where vast numbers +resorted to him every day; while the Earl of Lincoln could gain but +very few. With his small force he tried to make for the town of +Newark; but the King's army getting between him and that place, he +had no choice but to risk a battle at Stoke. It soon ended in the +complete destruction of the Pretender's forces, one half of whom +were killed; among them, the Earl himself. The priest and the +baker's boy were taken prisoners. The priest, after confessing the +trick, was shut up in prison, where he afterwards died - suddenly +perhaps. The boy was taken into the King's kitchen and made a +turnspit. He was afterwards raised to the station of one of the +King's falconers; and so ended this strange imposition. + +There seems reason to suspect that the Dowager Queen - always a +restless and busy woman - had had some share in tutoring the +baker's son. The King was very angry with her, whether or no. He +seized upon her property, and shut her up in a convent at +Bermondsey. + +One might suppose that the end of this story would have put the +Irish people on their guard; but they were quite ready to receive a +second impostor, as they had received the first, and that same +troublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon gave them the opportunity. +All of a sudden there appeared at Cork, in a vessel arriving from +Portugal, a young man of excellent abilities, of very handsome +appearance and most winning manners, who declared himself to be +Richard, Duke of York, the second son of King Edward the Fourth. +'O,' said some, even of those ready Irish believers, 'but surely +that young Prince was murdered by his uncle in the Tower!' - 'It IS +supposed so,' said the engaging young man; 'and my brother WAS +killed in that gloomy prison; but I escaped - it don't matter how, +at present - and have been wandering about the world for seven long +years.' This explanation being quite satisfactory to numbers of +the Irish people, they began again to shout and to hurrah, and to +drink his health, and to make the noisy and thirsty demonstrations +all over again. And the big chieftain in Dublin began to look out +for another coronation, and another young King to be carried home +on his back. + +Now, King Henry being then on bad terms with France, the French +King, Charles the Eighth, saw that, by pretending to believe in the +handsome young man, he could trouble his enemy sorely. So, he +invited him over to the French Court, and appointed him a body- +guard, and treated him in all respects as if he really were the +Duke of York. Peace, however, being soon concluded between the two +Kings, the pretended Duke was turned adrift, and wandered for +protection to the Duchess of Burgundy. She, after feigning to +inquire into the reality of his claims, declared him to be the very +picture of her dear departed brother; gave him a body-guard at her +Court, of thirty halberdiers; and called him by the sounding name +of the White Rose of England. + +The leading members of the White Rose party in England sent over an +agent, named Sir Robert Clifford, to ascertain whether the White +Rose's claims were good: the King also sent over his agents to +inquire into the Rose's history. The White Roses declared the +young man to be really the Duke of York; the King declared him to +be PERKIN WARBECK, the son of a merchant of the city of Tournay, +who had acquired his knowledge of England, its language and +manners, from the English merchants who traded in Flanders; it was +also stated by the Royal agents that he had been in the service of +Lady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English nobleman, and that the +Duchess of Burgundy had caused him to be trained and taught, +expressly for this deception. The King then required the Archduke +Philip - who was the sovereign of Burgundy - to banish this new +Pretender, or to deliver him up; but, as the Archduke replied that +he could not control the Duchess in her own land, the King, in +revenge, took the market of English cloth away from Antwerp, and +prevented all commercial intercourse between the two countries. + +He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert Clifford to +betray his employers; and he denouncing several famous English +noblemen as being secretly the friends of Perkin Warbeck, the King +had three of the foremost executed at once. Whether he pardoned +the remainder because they were poor, I do not know; but it is only +too probable that he refused to pardon one famous nobleman against +whom the same Clifford soon afterwards informed separately, because +he was rich. This was no other than Sir William Stanley, who had +saved the King's life at the battle of Bosworth Field. It is very +doubtful whether his treason amounted to much more than his having +said, that if he were sure the young man was the Duke of York, he +would not take arms against him. Whatever he had done he admitted, +like an honourable spirit; and he lost his head for it, and the +covetous King gained all his wealth. + +Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years; but, as the Flemings +began to complain heavily of the loss of their trade by the +stoppage of the Antwerp market on his account, and as it was not +unlikely that they might even go so far as to take his life, or +give him up, he found it necessary to do something. Accordingly he +made a desperate sally, and landed, with only a few hundred men, on +the coast of Deal. But he was soon glad to get back to the place +from whence he came; for the country people rose against his +followers, killed a great many, and took a hundred and fifty +prisoners: who were all driven to London, tied together with +ropes, like a team of cattle. Every one of them was hanged on some +part or other of the sea-shore; in order, that if any more men +should come over with Perkin Warbeck, they might see the bodies as +a warning before they landed. + +Then the wary King, by making a treaty of commerce with the +Flemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country; and, by +completely gaining over the Irish to his side, deprived him of that +asylum too. He wandered away to Scotland, and told his story at +that Court. King James the Fourth of Scotland, who was no friend +to King Henry, and had no reason to be (for King Henry had bribed +his Scotch lords to betray him more than once; but had never +succeeded in his plots), gave him a great reception, called him his +cousin, and gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine Gordon, a +beautiful and charming creature related to the royal house of +Stuart. + +Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the Pretender, the King +still undermined, and bought, and bribed, and kept his doings and +Perkin Warbeck's story in the dark, when he might, one would +imagine, have rendered the matter clear to all England. But, for +all this bribing of the Scotch lords at the Scotch King's Court, he +could not procure the Pretender to be delivered up to him. James, +though not very particular in many respects, would not betray him; +and the ever-busy Duchess of Burgundy so provided him with arms, +and good soldiers, and with money besides, that he had soon a +little army of fifteen hundred men of various nations. With these, +and aided by the Scottish King in person, he crossed the border +into England, and made a proclamation to the people, in which he +called the King 'Henry Tudor;' offered large rewards to any who +should take or distress him; and announced himself as King Richard +the Fourth come to receive the homage of his faithful subjects. +His faithful subjects, however, cared nothing for him, and hated +his faithful troops: who, being of different nations, quarrelled +also among themselves. Worse than this, if worse were possible, +they began to plunder the country; upon which the White Rose said, +that he would rather lose his rights, than gain them through the +miseries of the English people. The Scottish King made a jest of +his scruples; but they and their whole force went back again +without fighting a battle. + +The worst consequence of this attempt was, that a rising took place +among the people of Cornwall, who considered themselves too heavily +taxed to meet the charges of the expected war. Stimulated by +Flammock, a lawyer, and Joseph, a blacksmith, and joined by Lord +Audley and some other country gentlemen, they marched on all the +way to Deptford Bridge, where they fought a battle with the King's +army. They were defeated - though the Cornish men fought with +great bravery - and the lord was beheaded, and the lawyer and the +blacksmith were hanged, drawn, and quartered. The rest were +pardoned. The King, who believed every man to be as avaricious as +himself, and thought that money could settle anything, allowed them +to make bargains for their liberty with the soldiers who had taken +them. + +Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and never to find +rest anywhere - a sad fate: almost a sufficient punishment for an +imposture, which he seems in time to have half believed himself - +lost his Scottish refuge through a truce being made between the two +Kings; and found himself, once more, without a country before him +in which he could lay his head. But James (always honourable and +true to him, alike when he melted down his plate, and even the +great gold chain he had been used to wear, to pay soldiers in his +cause; and now, when that cause was lost and hopeless) did not +conclude the treaty, until he had safely departed out of the +Scottish dominions. He, and his beautiful wife, who was faithful +to him under all reverses, and left her state and home to follow +his poor fortunes, were put aboard ship with everything necessary +for their comfort and protection, and sailed for Ireland. + +But, the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit Earls of +Warwick and Dukes of York, for one while; and would give the White +Rose no aid. So, the White Rose - encircled by thorns indeed - +resolved to go with his beautiful wife to Cornwall as a forlorn +resource, and see what might be made of the Cornish men, who had +risen so valiantly a little while before, and who had fought so +bravely at Deptford Bridge. + +To Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly, came Perkin Warbeck and +his wife; and the lovely lady he shut up for safety in the Castle +of St. Michael's Mount, and then marched into Devonshire at the +head of three thousand Cornishmen. These were increased to six +thousand by the time of his arrival in Exeter; but, there the +people made a stout resistance, and he went on to Taunton, where he +came in sight of the King's army. The stout Cornish men, although +they were few in number, and badly armed, were so bold, that they +never thought of retreating; but bravely looked forward to a battle +on the morrow. Unhappily for them, the man who was possessed of so +many engaging qualities, and who attracted so many people to his +side when he had nothing else with which to tempt them, was not as +brave as they. In the night, when the two armies lay opposite to +each other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. When morning +dawned, the poor confiding Cornish men, discovering that they had +no leader, surrendered to the King's power. Some of them were +hanged, and the rest were pardoned and went miserably home. + +Before the King pursued Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary of Beaulieu +in the New Forest, where it was soon known that he had taken +refuge, he sent a body of horsemen to St. Michael's Mount, to seize +his wife. She was soon taken and brought as a captive before the +King. But she was so beautiful, and so good, and so devoted to the +man in whom she believed, that the King regarded her with +compassion, treated her with great respect, and placed her at +Court, near the Queen's person. And many years after Perkin +Warbeck was no more, and when his strange story had become like a +nursery tale, SHE was called the White Rose, by the people, in +remembrance of her beauty. + +The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the King's men; +and the King, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, sent pretended +friends to Perkin Warbeck to persuade him to come out and surrender +himself. This he soon did; the King having taken a good look at +the man of whom he had heard so much - from behind a screen - +directed him to be well mounted, and to ride behind him at a little +distance, guarded, but not bound in any way. So they entered +London with the King's favourite show - a procession; and some of +the people hooted as the Pretender rode slowly through the streets +to the Tower; but the greater part were quiet, and very curious to +see him. From the Tower, he was taken to the Palace at +Westminster, and there lodged like a gentleman, though closely +watched. He was examined every now and then as to his imposture; +but the King was so secret in all he did, that even then he gave it +a consequence, which it cannot be supposed to have in itself +deserved. + +At last Perkin Warbeck ran away, and took refuge in another +sanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he was again +persuaded to deliver himself up; and, being conveyed to London, he +stood in the stocks for a whole day, outside Westminster Hall, and +there read a paper purporting to be his full confession, and +relating his history as the King's agents had originally described +it. He was then shut up in the Tower again, in the company of the +Earl of Warwick, who had now been there for fourteen years: ever +since his removal out of Yorkshire, except when the King had had +him at Court, and had shown him to the people, to prove the +imposture of the Baker's boy. It is but too probable, when we +consider the crafty character of Henry the Seventh, that these two +were brought together for a cruel purpose. A plot was soon +discovered between them and the keepers, to murder the Governor, +get possession of the keys, and proclaim Perkin Warbeck as King +Richard the Fourth. That there was some such plot, is likely; that +they were tempted into it, is at least as likely; that the +unfortunate Earl of Warwick - last male of the Plantagenet line - +was too unused to the world, and too ignorant and simple to know +much about it, whatever it was, is perfectly certain; and that it +was the King's interest to get rid of him, is no less so. He was +beheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn. + +Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose shadowy +history was made more shadowy - and ever will be - by the mystery +and craft of the King. If he had turned his great natural +advantages to a more honest account, he might have lived a happy +and respected life, even in those days. But he died upon a gallows +at Tyburn, leaving the Scottish lady, who had loved him so well, +kindly protected at the Queen's Court. After some time she forgot +her old loves and troubles, as many people do with Time's merciful +assistance, and married a Welsh gentleman. Her second husband, SIR +MATTHEW CRADOC, more honest and more happy than her first, lies +beside her in a tomb in the old church of Swansea. + +The ill-blood between France and England in this reign, arose out +of the continued plotting of the Duchess of Burgundy, and disputes +respecting the affairs of Brittany. The King feigned to be very +patriotic, indignant, and warlike; but he always contrived so as +never to make war in reality, and always to make money. His +taxation of the people, on pretence of war with France, involved, +at one time, a very dangerous insurrection, headed by Sir John +Egremont, and a common man called John a Chambre. But it was +subdued by the royal forces, under the command of the Earl of +Surrey. The knighted John escaped to the Duchess of Burgundy, who +was ever ready to receive any one who gave the King trouble; and +the plain John was hanged at York, in the midst of a number of his +men, but on a much higher gibbet, as being a greater traitor. Hung +high or hung low, however, hanging is much the same to the person +hung. + +Within a year after her marriage, the Queen had given birth to a +son, who was called Prince Arthur, in remembrance of the old +British prince of romance and story; and who, when all these events +had happened, being then in his fifteenth year, was married to +CATHERINE, the daughter of the Spanish monarch, with great +rejoicings and bright prospects; but in a very few months he +sickened and died. As soon as the King had recovered from his +grief, he thought it a pity that the fortune of the Spanish +Princess, amounting to two hundred thousand crowns, should go out +of the family; and therefore arranged that the young widow should +marry his second son HENRY, then twelve years of age, when he too +should be fifteen. There were objections to this marriage on the +part of the clergy; but, as the infallible Pope was gained over, +and, as he MUST be right, that settled the business for the time. +The King's eldest daughter was provided for, and a long course of +disturbance was considered to be set at rest, by her being married +to the Scottish King. + +And now the Queen died. When the King had got over that grief too, +his mind once more reverted to his darling money for consolation, +and he thought of marrying the Dowager Queen of Naples, who was +immensely rich: but, as it turned out not to be practicable to +gain the money however practicable it might have been to gain the +lady, he gave up the idea. He was not so fond of her but that he +soon proposed to marry the Dowager Duchess of Savoy; and, soon +afterwards, the widow of the King of Castile, who was raving mad. +But he made a money-bargain instead, and married neither. + +The Duchess of Burgundy, among the other discontented people to +whom she had given refuge, had sheltered EDMUND DE LA POLE (younger +brother of that Earl of Lincoln who was killed at Stoke), now Earl +of Suffolk. The King had prevailed upon him to return to the +marriage of Prince Arthur; but, he soon afterwards went away again; +and then the King, suspecting a conspiracy, resorted to his +favourite plan of sending him some treacherous friends, and buying +of those scoundrels the secrets they disclosed or invented. Some +arrests and executions took place in consequence. In the end, the +King, on a promise of not taking his life, obtained possession of +the person of Edmund de la Pole, and shut him up in the Tower. + +This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he would have +made many more among the people, by the grinding exaction to which +he constantly exposed them, and by the tyrannical acts of his two +prime favourites in all money-raising matters, EDMUND DUDLEY and +RICHARD EMPSON. But Death - the enemy who is not to be bought off +or deceived, and on whom no money, and no treachery has any effect +- presented himself at this juncture, and ended the King's reign. +He died of the gout, on the twenty-second of April, one thousand +five hundred and nine, and in the fifty-third year of his age, +after reigning twenty-four years; he was buried in the beautiful +Chapel of Westminster Abbey, which he had himself founded, and +which still bears his name. + +It was in this reign that the great CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, on behalf +of Spain, discovered what was then called The New World. Great +wonder, interest, and hope of wealth being awakened in England +thereby, the King and the merchants of London and Bristol fitted +out an English expedition for further discoveries in the New World, +and entrusted it to SEBASTIAN CABOT, of Bristol, the son of a +Venetian pilot there. He was very successful in his voyage, and +gained high reputation, both for himself and England. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, CALLED BLUFF KING +HAL AND BURLY KING HARRY + + + +PART THE FIRST + + +WE now come to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been too much the +fashion to call 'Bluff King Hal,' and 'Burly King Harry,' and other +fine names; but whom I shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one +of the most detestable villains that ever drew breath. You will be +able to judge, long before we come to the end of his life, whether +he deserves the character. + +He was just eighteen years of age when he came to the throne. +People said he was handsome then; but I don't believe it. He was a +big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned, +swinish-looking fellow in later life (as we know from the +likenesses of him, painted by the famous HANS HOLBEIN), and it is +not easy to believe that so bad a character can ever have been +veiled under a prepossessing appearance. + +He was anxious to make himself popular; and the people, who had +long disliked the late King, were very willing to believe that he +deserved to be so. He was extremely fond of show and display, and +so were they. Therefore there was great rejoicing when he married +the Princess Catherine, and when they were both crowned. And the +King fought at tournaments and always came off victorious - for the +courtiers took care of that - and there was a general outcry that +he was a wonderful man. Empson, Dudley, and their supporters were +accused of a variety of crimes they had never committed, instead of +the offences of which they really had been guilty; and they were +pilloried, and set upon horses with their faces to the tails, and +knocked about and beheaded, to the satisfaction of the people, and +the enrichment of the King. + +The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, had +mixed himself up in a war on the continent of Europe, occasioned by +the reigning Princes of little quarrelling states in Italy having +at various times married into other Royal families, and so led to +THEIR claiming a share in those petty Governments. The King, who +discovered that he was very fond of the Pope, sent a herald to the +King of France, to say that he must not make war upon that holy +personage, because he was the father of all Christians. As the +French King did not mind this relationship in the least, and also +refused to admit a claim King Henry made to certain lands in +France, war was declared between the two countries. Not to perplex +this story with an account of the tricks and designs of all the +sovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to say that England +made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken in by +that country; which made its own terms with France when it could +and left England in the lurch. SIR EDWARD HOWARD, a bold admiral, +son of the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by his bravery +against the French in this business; but, unfortunately, he was +more brave than wise, for, skimming into the French harbour of +Brest with only a few row-boats, he attempted (in revenge for the +defeat and death of SIR THOMAS KNYVETT, another bold English +admiral) to take some strong French ships, well defended with +batteries of cannon. The upshot was, that he was left on board of +one of them (in consequence of its shooting away from his own +boat), with not more than about a dozen men, and was thrown into +the sea and drowned: though not until he had taken from his breast +his gold chain and gold whistle, which were the signs of his +office, and had cast them into the sea to prevent their being made +a boast of by the enemy. After this defeat - which was a great +one, for Sir Edward Howard was a man of valour and fame - the King +took it into his head to invade France in person; first executing +that dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his father had left in the +Tower, and appointing Queen Catherine to the charge of his kingdom +in his absence. He sailed to Calais, where he was joined by +MAXIMILIAN, Emperor of Germany, who pretended to be his soldier, +and who took pay in his service: with a good deal of nonsense of +that sort, flattering enough to the vanity of a vain blusterer. +The King might be successful enough in sham fights; but his idea of +real battles chiefly consisted in pitching silken tents of bright +colours that were ignominiously blown down by the wind, and in +making a vast display of gaudy flags and golden curtains. Fortune, +however, favoured him better than he deserved; for, after much +waste of time in tent pitching, flag flying, gold curtaining, and +other such masquerading, he gave the French battle at a place +called Guinegate: where they took such an unaccountable panic, and +fled with such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by the +English the Battle of Spurs. Instead of following up his +advantage, the King, finding that he had had enough of real +fighting, came home again. + +The Scottish King, though nearly related to Henry by marriage, had +taken part against him in this war. The Earl of Surrey, as the +English general, advanced to meet him when he came out of his own +dominions and crossed the river Tweed. The two armies came up with +one another when the Scottish King had also crossed the river Till, +and was encamped upon the last of the Cheviot Hills, called the +Hill of Flodden. Along the plain below it, the English, when the +hour of battle came, advanced. The Scottish army, which had been +drawn up in five great bodies, then came steadily down in perfect +silence. So they, in their turn, advanced to meet the English +army, which came on in one long line; and they attacked it with a +body of spearmen, under LORD HOME. At first they had the best of +it; but the English recovered themselves so bravely, and fought +with such valour, that, when the Scottish King had almost made his +way up to the Royal Standard, he was slain, and the whole Scottish +power routed. Ten thousand Scottish men lay dead that day on +Flodden Field; and among them, numbers of the nobility and gentry. +For a long time afterwards, the Scottish peasantry used to believe +that their King had not been really killed in this battle, because +no Englishman had found an iron belt he wore about his body as a +penance for having been an unnatural and undutiful son. But, +whatever became of his belt, the English had his sword and dagger, +and the ring from his finger, and his body too, covered with +wounds. There is no doubt of it; for it was seen and recognised by +English gentlemen who had known the Scottish King well. + +When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in France, the +French King was contemplating peace. His queen, dying at this +time, he proposed, though he was upwards of fifty years old, to +marry King Henry's sister, the Princess Mary, who, besides being +only sixteen, was betrothed to the Duke of Suffolk. As the +inclinations of young Princesses were not much considered in such +matters, the marriage was concluded, and the poor girl was escorted +to France, where she was immediately left as the French King's +bride, with only one of all her English attendants. That one was a +pretty young girl named ANNE BOLEYN, niece of the Earl of Surrey, +who had been made Duke of Norfolk, after the victory of Flodden +Field. Anne Boleyn's is a name to be remembered, as you will +presently find. + +And now the French King, who was very proud of his young wife, was +preparing for many years of happiness, and she was looking forward, +I dare say, to many years of misery, when he died within three +months, and left her a young widow. The new French monarch, +FRANCIS THE FIRST, seeing how important it was to his interests +that she should take for her second husband no one but an +Englishman, advised her first lover, the Duke of Suffolk, when King +Henry sent him over to France to fetch her home, to marry her. The +Princess being herself so fond of that Duke, as to tell him that he +must either do so then, or for ever lose her, they were wedded; and +Henry afterwards forgave them. In making interest with the King, +the Duke of Suffolk had addressed his most powerful favourite and +adviser, THOMAS WOLSEY - a name very famous in history for its rise +and downfall. + +Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in Suffolk +and received so excellent an education that he became a tutor to +the family of the Marquis of Dorset, who afterwards got him +appointed one of the late King's chaplains. On the accession of +Henry the Eighth, he was promoted and taken into great favour. He +was now Archbishop of York; the Pope had made him a Cardinal +besides; and whoever wanted influence in England or favour with the +King - whether he were a foreign monarch or an English nobleman - +was obliged to make a friend of the great Cardinal Wolsey. + +He was a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing and drink; and +those were the roads to so much, or rather so little, of a heart as +King Henry had. He was wonderfully fond of pomp and glitter, and +so was the King. He knew a good deal of the Church learning of +that time; much of which consisted in finding artful excuses and +pretences for almost any wrong thing, and in arguing that black was +white, or any other colour. This kind of learning pleased the King +too. For many such reasons, the Cardinal was high in estimation +with the King; and, being a man of far greater ability, knew as +well how to manage him, as a clever keeper may know how to manage a +wolf or a tiger, or any other cruel and uncertain beast, that may +turn upon him and tear him any day. Never had there been seen in +England such state as my Lord Cardinal kept. His wealth was +enormous; equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the Crown. His +palaces were as splendid as the King's, and his retinue was eight +hundred strong. He held his Court, dressed out from top to toe in +flaming scarlet; and his very shoes were golden, set with precious +stones. His followers rode on blood horses; while he, with a +wonderful affectation of humility in the midst of his great +splendour, ambled on a mule with a red velvet saddle and bridle and +golden stirrups. + +Through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meeting was +arranged to take place between the French and English Kings in +France; but on ground belonging to England. A prodigious show of +friendship and rejoicing was to be made on the occasion; and +heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen trumpets through all the +principal cities of Europe, that, on a certain day, the Kings of +France and England, as companions and brothers in arms, each +attended by eighteen followers, would hold a tournament against all +knights who might choose to come. + +CHARLES, the new Emperor of Germany (the old one being dead), +wanted to prevent too cordial an alliance between these sovereigns, +and came over to England before the King could repair to the place +of meeting; and, besides making an agreeable impression upon him, +secured Wolsey's interest by promising that his influence should +make him Pope when the next vacancy occurred. On the day when the +Emperor left England, the King and all the Court went over to +Calais, and thence to the place of meeting, between Ardres and +Guisnes, commonly called the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Here, all +manner of expense and prodigality was lavished on the decorations +of the show; many of the knights and gentlemen being so superbly +dressed that it was said they carried their whole estates upon +their shoulders. + +There were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains running wine, +great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, silk tents, +gold lace and foil, gilt lions, and such things without end; and, +in the midst of all, the rich Cardinal out-shone and out-glittered +all the noblemen and gentlemen assembled. After a treaty made +between the two Kings with as much solemnity as if they had +intended to keep it, the lists - nine hundred feet long, and three +hundred and twenty broad - were opened for the tournament; the +Queens of France and England looking on with great array of lords +and ladies. Then, for ten days, the two sovereigns fought five +combats every day, and always beat their polite adversaries; though +they DO write that the King of England, being thrown in a wrestle +one day by the King of France, lost his kingly temper with his +brother-in-arms, and wanted to make a quarrel of it. Then, there +is a great story belonging to this Field of the Cloth of Gold, +showing how the English were distrustful of the French, and the +French of the English, until Francis rode alone one morning to +Henry's tent; and, going in before he was out of bed, told him in +joke that he was his prisoner; and how Henry jumped out of bed and +embraced Francis; and how Francis helped Henry to dress, and warmed +his linen for him; and how Henry gave Francis a splendid jewelled +collar, and how Francis gave Henry, in return, a costly bracelet. +All this and a great deal more was so written about, and sung +about, and talked about at that time (and, indeed, since that time +too), that the world has had good cause to be sick of it, for ever. + +Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy +renewal of the war between England and France, in which the two +Royal companions and brothers in arms longed very earnestly to +damage one another. But, before it broke out again, the Duke of +Buckingham was shamefully executed on Tower Hill, on the evidence +of a discharged servant - really for nothing, except the folly of +having believed in a friar of the name of HOPKINS, who had +pretended to be a prophet, and who had mumbled and jumbled out some +nonsense about the Duke's son being destined to be very great in +the land. It was believed that the unfortunate Duke had given +offence to the great Cardinal by expressing his mind freely about +the expense and absurdity of the whole business of the Field of the +Cloth of Gold. At any rate, he was beheaded, as I have said, for +nothing. And the people who saw it done were very angry, and cried +out that it was the work of 'the butcher's son!' + +The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey invaded +France again, and did some injury to that country. It ended in +another treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, and in the +discovery that the Emperor of Germany was not such a good friend to +England in reality, as he pretended to be. Neither did he keep his +promise to Wolsey to make him Pope, though the King urged him. Two +Popes died in pretty quick succession; but the foreign priests were +too much for the Cardinal, and kept him out of the post. So the +Cardinal and King together found out that the Emperor of Germany +was not a man to keep faith with; broke off a projected marriage +between the King's daughter MARY, Princess of Wales, and that +sovereign; and began to consider whether it might not be well to +marry the young lady, either to Francis himself, or to his eldest +son. + +There now arose at Wittemberg, in Germany, the great leader of the +mighty change in England which is called The Reformation, and which +set the people free from their slavery to the priests. This was a +learned Doctor, named MARTIN LUTHER, who knew all about them, for +he had been a priest, and even a monk, himself. The preaching and +writing of Wickliffe had set a number of men thinking on this +subject; and Luther, finding one day to his great surprise, that +there really was a book called the New Testament which the priests +did not allow to be read, and which contained truths that they +suppressed, began to be very vigorous against the whole body, from +the Pope downward. It happened, while he was yet only beginning +his vast work of awakening the nation, that an impudent fellow +named TETZEL, a friar of very bad character, came into his +neighbourhood selling what were called Indulgences, by wholesale, +to raise money for beautifying the great Cathedral of St. Peter's, +at Rome. Whoever bought an Indulgence of the Pope was supposed to +buy himself off from the punishment of Heaven for his offences. +Luther told the people that these Indulgences were worthless bits +of paper, before God, and that Tetzel and his masters were a crew +of impostors in selling them. + +The King and the Cardinal were mightily indignant at this +presumption; and the King (with the help of SIR THOMAS MORE, a wise +man, whom he afterwards repaid by striking off his head) even wrote +a book about it, with which the Pope was so well pleased that he +gave the King the title of Defender of the Faith. The King and the +Cardinal also issued flaming warnings to the people not to read +Luther's books, on pain of excommunication. But they did read them +for all that; and the rumour of what was in them spread far and +wide. + +When this great change was thus going on, the King began to show +himself in his truest and worst colours. Anne Boleyn, the pretty +little girl who had gone abroad to France with his sister, was by +this time grown up to be very beautiful, and was one of the ladies +in attendance on Queen Catherine. Now, Queen Catherine was no +longer young or handsome, and it is likely that she was not +particularly good-tempered; having been always rather melancholy, +and having been made more so by the deaths of four of her children +when they were very young. So, the King fell in love with the fair +Anne Boleyn, and said to himself, 'How can I be best rid of my own +troublesome wife whom I am tired of, and marry Anne?' + +You recollect that Queen Catherine had been the wife of Henry's +brother. What does the King do, after thinking it over, but calls +his favourite priests about him, and says, O! his mind is in such a +dreadful state, and he is so frightfully uneasy, because he is +afraid it was not lawful for him to marry the Queen! Not one of +those priests had the courage to hint that it was rather curious he +had never thought of that before, and that his mind seemed to have +been in a tolerably jolly condition during a great many years, in +which he certainly had not fretted himself thin; but, they all +said, Ah! that was very true, and it was a serious business; and +perhaps the best way to make it right, would be for his Majesty to +be divorced! The King replied, Yes, he thought that would be the +best way, certainly; so they all went to work. + +If I were to relate to you the intrigues and plots that took place +in the endeavour to get this divorce, you would think the History +of England the most tiresome book in the world. So I shall say no +more, than that after a vast deal of negotiation and evasion, the +Pope issued a commission to Cardinal Wolsey and CARDINAL CAMPEGGIO +(whom he sent over from Italy for the purpose), to try the whole +case in England. It is supposed - and I think with reason - that +Wolsey was the Queen's enemy, because she had reproved him for his +proud and gorgeous manner of life. But, he did not at first know +that the King wanted to marry Anne Boleyn; and when he did know it, +he even went down on his knees, in the endeavour to dissuade him. + +The Cardinals opened their court in the Convent of the Black +Friars, near to where the bridge of that name in London now stands; +and the King and Queen, that they might be near it, took up their +lodgings at the adjoining palace of Bridewell, of which nothing now +remains but a bad prison. On the opening of the court, when the +King and Queen were called on to appear, that poor ill-used lady, +with a dignity and firmness and yet with a womanly affection worthy +to be always admired, went and kneeled at the King's feet, and said +that she had come, a stranger, to his dominions; that she had been +a good and true wife to him for twenty years; and that she could +acknowledge no power in those Cardinals to try whether she should +be considered his wife after all that time, or should be put away. +With that, she got up and left the court, and would never +afterwards come back to it. + +The King pretended to be very much overcome, and said, O! my lords +and gentlemen, what a good woman she was to be sure, and how +delighted he would be to live with her unto death, but for that +terrible uneasiness in his mind which was quite wearing him away! +So, the case went on, and there was nothing but talk for two +months. Then Cardinal Campeggio, who, on behalf of the Pope, +wanted nothing so much as delay, adjourned it for two more months; +and before that time was elapsed, the Pope himself adjourned it +indefinitely, by requiring the King and Queen to come to Rome and +have it tried there. But by good luck for the King, word was +brought to him by some of his people, that they had happened to +meet at supper, THOMAS CRANMER, a learned Doctor of Cambridge, who +had proposed to urge the Pope on, by referring the case to all the +learned doctors and bishops, here and there and everywhere, and +getting their opinions that the King's marriage was unlawful. The +King, who was now in a hurry to marry Anne Boleyn, thought this +such a good idea, that he sent for Cranmer, post haste, and said to +LORD ROCHFORT, Anne Boleyn's father, 'Take this learned Doctor down +to your country-house, and there let him have a good room for a +study, and no end of books out of which to prove that I may marry +your daughter.' Lord Rochfort, not at all reluctant, made the +learned Doctor as comfortable as he could; and the learned Doctor +went to work to prove his case. All this time, the King and Anne +Boleyn were writing letters to one another almost daily, full of +impatience to have the case settled; and Anne Boleyn was showing +herself (as I think) very worthy of the fate which afterwards befel +her. + +It was bad for Cardinal Wolsey that he had left Cranmer to render +this help. It was worse for him that he had tried to dissuade the +King from marrying Anne Boleyn. Such a servant as he, to such a +master as Henry, would probably have fallen in any case; but, +between the hatred of the party of the Queen that was, and the +hatred of the party of the Queen that was to be, he fell suddenly +and heavily. Going down one day to the Court of Chancery, where he +now presided, he was waited upon by the Dukes of Norfolk and +Suffolk, who told him that they brought an order to him to resign +that office, and to withdraw quietly to a house he had at Esher, in +Surrey. The Cardinal refusing, they rode off to the King; and next +day came back with a letter from him, on reading which, the +Cardinal submitted. An inventory was made out of all the riches in +his palace at York Place (now Whitehall), and he went sorrowfully +up the river, in his barge, to Putney. An abject man he was, in +spite of his pride; for being overtaken, riding out of that place +towards Esher, by one of the King's chamberlains who brought him a +kind message and a ring, he alighted from his mule, took off his +cap, and kneeled down in the dirt. His poor Fool, whom in his +prosperous days he had always kept in his palace to entertain him, +cut a far better figure than he; for, when the Cardinal said to the +chamberlain that he had nothing to send to his lord the King as a +present, but that jester who was a most excellent one, it took six +strong yeomen to remove the faithful fool from his master. + +The once proud Cardinal was soon further disgraced, and wrote the +most abject letters to his vile sovereign; who humbled him one day +and encouraged him the next, according to his humour, until he was +at last ordered to go and reside in his diocese of York. He said +he was too poor; but I don't know how he made that out, for he took +a hundred and sixty servants with him, and seventy-two cart-loads +of furniture, food, and wine. He remained in that part of the +country for the best part of a year, and showed himself so improved +by his misfortunes, and was so mild and so conciliating, that he +won all hearts. And indeed, even in his proud days, he had done +some magnificent things for learning and education. At last, he +was arrested for high treason; and, coming slowly on his journey +towards London, got as far as Leicester. Arriving at Leicester +Abbey after dark, and very ill, he said - when the monks came out +at the gate with lighted torches to receive him - that he had come +to lay his bones among them. He had indeed; for he was taken to a +bed, from which he never rose again. His last words were, 'Had I +but served God as diligently as I have served the King, He would +not have given me over, in my grey hairs. Howbeit, this is my just +reward for my pains and diligence, not regarding my service to God, +but only my duty to my prince.' The news of his death was quickly +carried to the King, who was amusing himself with archery in the +garden of the magnificent Palace at Hampton Court, which that very +Wolsey had presented to him. The greatest emotion his royal mind +displayed at the loss of a servant so faithful and so ruined, was a +particular desire to lay hold of fifteen hundred pounds which the +Cardinal was reported to have hidden somewhere. + +The opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doctors and +bishops and others, being at last collected, and being generally in +the King's favour, were forwarded to the Pope, with an entreaty +that he would now grant it. The unfortunate Pope, who was a timid +man, was half distracted between his fear of his authority being +set aside in England if he did not do as he was asked, and his +dread of offending the Emperor of Germany, who was Queen +Catherine's nephew. In this state of mind he still evaded and did +nothing. Then, THOMAS CROMWELL, who had been one of Wolsey's +faithful attendants, and had remained so even in his decline, +advised the King to take the matter into his own hands, and make +himself the head of the whole Church. This, the King by various +artful means, began to do; but he recompensed the clergy by +allowing them to burn as many people as they pleased, for holding +Luther's opinions. You must understand that Sir Thomas More, the +wise man who had helped the King with his book, had been made +Chancellor in Wolsey's place. But, as he was truly attached to the +Church as it was even in its abuses, he, in this state of things, +resigned. + +Being now quite resolved to get rid of Queen Catherine, and to +marry Anne Boleyn without more ado, the King made Cranmer +Archbishop of Canterbury, and directed Queen Catherine to leave the +Court. She obeyed; but replied that wherever she went, she was +Queen of England still, and would remain so, to the last. The King +then married Anne Boleyn privately; and the new Archbishop of +Canterbury, within half a year, declared his marriage with Queen +Catherine void, and crowned Anne Boleyn Queen. + +She might have known that no good could ever come from such wrong, +and that the corpulent brute who had been so faithless and so cruel +to his first wife, could be more faithless and more cruel to his +second. She might have known that, even when he was in love with +her, he had been a mean and selfish coward, running away, like a +frightened cur, from her society and her house, when a dangerous +sickness broke out in it, and when she might easily have taken it +and died, as several of the household did. But, Anne Boleyn +arrived at all this knowledge too late, and bought it at a dear +price. Her bad marriage with a worse man came to its natural end. +Its natural end was not, as we shall too soon see, a natural death +for her. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH + + + +PART THE SECOND + + +THE Pope was thrown into a very angry state of mind when he heard +of the King's marriage, and fumed exceedingly. Many of the English +monks and friars, seeing that their order was in danger, did the +same; some even declaimed against the King in church before his +face, and were not to be stopped until he himself roared out +'Silence!' The King, not much the worse for this, took it pretty +quietly; and was very glad when his Queen gave birth to a daughter, +who was christened ELIZABETH, and declared Princess of Wales as her +sister Mary had already been. + +One of the most atrocious features of this reign was that Henry the +Eighth was always trimming between the reformed religion and the +unreformed one; so that the more he quarrelled with the Pope, the +more of his own subjects he roasted alive for not holding the +Pope's opinions. Thus, an unfortunate student named John Frith, +and a poor simple tailor named Andrew Hewet who loved him very +much, and said that whatever John Frith believed HE believed, were +burnt in Smithfield - to show what a capital Christian the King +was. + +But, these were speedily followed by two much greater victims, Sir +Thomas More, and John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester. The latter, +who was a good and amiable old man, had committed no greater +offence than believing in Elizabeth Barton, called the Maid of Kent +- another of those ridiculous women who pretended to be inspired, +and to make all sorts of heavenly revelations, though they indeed +uttered nothing but evil nonsense. For this offence - as it was +pretended, but really for denying the King to be the supreme Head +of the Church - he got into trouble, and was put in prison; but, +even then, he might have been suffered to die naturally (short work +having been made of executing the Kentish Maid and her principal +followers), but that the Pope, to spite the King, resolved to make +him a cardinal. Upon that the King made a ferocious joke to the +effect that the Pope might send Fisher a red hat - which is the way +they make a cardinal - but he should have no head on which to wear +it; and he was tried with all unfairness and injustice, and +sentenced to death. He died like a noble and virtuous old man, and +left a worthy name behind him. The King supposed, I dare say, that +Sir Thomas More would be frightened by this example; but, as he was +not to be easily terrified, and, thoroughly believing in the Pope, +had made up his mind that the King was not the rightful Head of the +Church, he positively refused to say that he was. For this crime +he too was tried and sentenced, after having been in prison a whole +year. When he was doomed to death, and came away from his trial +with the edge of the executioner's axe turned towards him - as was +always done in those times when a state prisoner came to that +hopeless pass - he bore it quite serenely, and gave his blessing to +his son, who pressed through the crowd in Westminster Hall and +kneeled down to receive it. But, when he got to the Tower Wharf on +his way back to his prison, and his favourite daughter, MARGARET +ROPER, a very good woman, rushed through the guards again and +again, to kiss him and to weep upon his neck, he was overcome at +last. He soon recovered, and never more showed any feeling but +cheerfulness and courage. When he was going up the steps of the +scaffold to his death, he said jokingly to the Lieutenant of the +Tower, observing that they were weak and shook beneath his tread, +'I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up; and, for my coming +down, I can shift for myself.' Also he said to the executioner, +after he had laid his head upon the block, 'Let me put my beard out +of the way; for that, at least, has never committed any treason.' +Then his head was struck off at a blow. These two executions were +worthy of King Henry the Eighth. Sir Thomas More was one of the +most virtuous men in his dominions, and the Bishop was one of his +oldest and truest friends. But to be a friend of that fellow was +almost as dangerous as to be his wife. + +When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the Pope raged +against the murderer more than ever Pope raged since the world +began, and prepared a Bull, ordering his subjects to take arms +against him and dethrone him. The King took all possible +precautions to keep that document out of his dominions, and set to +work in return to suppress a great number of the English +monasteries and abbeys. + +This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of whom +Cromwell (whom the King had taken into great favour) was the head; +and was carried on through some few years to its entire completion. +There is no doubt that many of these religious establishments were +religious in nothing but in name, and were crammed with lazy, +indolent, and sensual monks. There is no doubt that they imposed +upon the people in every possible way; that they had images moved +by wires, which they pretended were miraculously moved by Heaven; +that they had among them a whole tun measure full of teeth, all +purporting to have come out of the head of one saint, who must +indeed have been a very extraordinary person with that enormous +allowance of grinders; that they had bits of coal which they said +had fried Saint Lawrence, and bits of toe-nails which they said +belonged to other famous saints; penknives, and boots, and girdles, +which they said belonged to others; and that all these bits of +rubbish were called Relics, and adored by the ignorant people. +But, on the other hand, there is no doubt either, that the King's +officers and men punished the good monks with the bad; did great +injustice; demolished many beautiful things and many valuable +libraries; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained glass windows, +fine pavements, and carvings; and that the whole court were +ravenously greedy and rapacious for the division of this great +spoil among them. The King seems to have grown almost mad in the +ardour of this pursuit; for he declared Thomas a Becket a traitor, +though he had been dead so many years, and had his body dug up out +of his grave. He must have been as miraculous as the monks +pretended, if they had told the truth, for he was found with one +head on his shoulders, and they had shown another as his undoubted +and genuine head ever since his death; it had brought them vast +sums of money, too. The gold and jewels on his shrine filled two +great chests, and eight men tottered as they carried them away. +How rich the monasteries were you may infer from the fact that, +when they were all suppressed, one hundred and thirty thousand +pounds a year - in those days an immense sum - came to the Crown. + +These things were not done without causing great discontent among +the people. The monks had been good landlords and hospitable +entertainers of all travellers, and had been accustomed to give +away a great deal of corn, and fruit, and meat, and other things. +In those days it was difficult to change goods into money, in +consequence of the roads being very few and very bad, and the +carts, and waggons of the worst description; and they must either +have given away some of the good things they possessed in enormous +quantities, or have suffered them to spoil and moulder. So, many +of the people missed what it was more agreeable to get idly than to +work for; and the monks who were driven out of their homes and +wandered about encouraged their discontent; and there were, +consequently, great risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These +were put down by terrific executions, from which the monks +themselves did not escape, and the King went on grunting and +growling in his own fat way, like a Royal pig. + +I have told all this story of the religious houses at one time, to +make it plainer, and to get back to the King's domestic affairs. + +The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by this time dead; and the King +was by this time as tired of his second Queen as he had been of his +first. As he had fallen in love with Anne when she was in the +service of Catherine, so he now fell in love with another lady in +the service of Anne. See how wicked deeds are punished, and how +bitterly and self-reproachfully the Queen must now have thought of +her own rise to the throne! The new fancy was a LADY JANE SEYMOUR; +and the King no sooner set his mind on her, than he resolved to +have Anne Boleyn's head. So, he brought a number of charges +against Anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which she had never +committed, and implicating in them her own brother and certain +gentlemen in her service: among whom one Norris, and Mark Smeaton +a musician, are best remembered. As the lords and councillors were +as afraid of the King and as subservient to him as the meanest +peasant in England was, they brought in Anne Boleyn guilty, and the +other unfortunate persons accused with her, guilty too. Those +gentlemen died like men, with the exception of Smeaton, who had +been tempted by the King into telling lies, which he called +confessions, and who had expected to be pardoned; but who, I am +very glad to say, was not. There was then only the Queen to +dispose of. She had been surrounded in the Tower with women spies; +had been monstrously persecuted and foully slandered; and had +received no justice. But her spirit rose with her afflictions; +and, after having in vain tried to soften the King by writing an +affecting letter to him which still exists, 'from her doleful +prison in the Tower,' she resigned herself to death. She said to +those about her, very cheerfully, that she had heard say the +executioner was a good one, and that she had a little neck (she +laughed and clasped it with her hands as she said that), and would +soon be out of her pain. And she WAS soon out of her pain, poor +creature, on the Green inside the Tower, and her body was flung +into an old box and put away in the ground under the chapel. + +There is a story that the King sat in his palace listening very +anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to announce this +new murder; and that, when he heard it come booming on the air, he +rose up in great spirits and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting. +He was bad enough to do it; but whether he did it or not, it is +certain that he married Jane Seymour the very next day. + +I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long +enough to give birth to a son who was christened EDWARD, and then +to die of a fever: for, I cannot but think that any woman who +married such a ruffian, and knew what innocent blood was on his +hands, deserved the axe that would assuredly have fallen on the +neck of Jane Seymour, if she had lived much longer. + +Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church property +for purposes of religion and education; but, the great families had +been so hungry to get hold of it, that very little could be rescued +for such objects. Even MILES COVERDALE, who did the people the +inestimable service of translating the Bible into English (which +the unreformed religion never permitted to be done), was left in +poverty while the great families clutched the Church lands and +money. The people had been told that when the Crown came into +possession of these funds, it would not be necessary to tax them; +but they were taxed afresh directly afterwards. It was fortunate +for them, indeed, that so many nobles were so greedy for this +wealth; since, if it had remained with the Crown, there might have +been no end to tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the most +active writers on the Church's side against the King was a member +of his own family - a sort of distant cousin, REGINALD POLE by name +- who attacked him in the most violent manner (though he received a +pension from him all the time), and fought for the Church with his +pen, day and night. As he was beyond the King's reach - being in +Italy - the King politely invited him over to discuss the subject; +but he, knowing better than to come, and wisely staying where he +was, the King's rage fell upon his brother Lord Montague, the +Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen: who were tried for +high treason in corresponding with him and aiding him - which they +probably did - and were all executed. The Pope made Reginald Pole +a cardinal; but, so much against his will, that it is thought he +even aspired in his own mind to the vacant throne of England, and +had hopes of marrying the Princess Mary. His being made a high +priest, however, put an end to all that. His mother, the venerable +Countess of Salisbury - who was, unfortunately for herself, within +the tyrant's reach - was the last of his relatives on whom his +wrath fell. When she was told to lay her grey head upon the block, +she answered the executioner, 'No! My head never committed +treason, and if you want it, you shall seize it.' So, she ran +round and round the scaffold with the executioner striking at her, +and her grey hair bedabbled with blood; and even when they held her +down upon the block she moved her head about to the last, resolved +to be no party to her own barbarous murder. All this the people +bore, as they had borne everything else. + +Indeed they bore much more; for the slow fires of Smithfield were +continually burning, and people were constantly being roasted to +death - still to show what a good Christian the King was. He +defied the Pope and his Bull, which was now issued, and had come +into England; but he burned innumerable people whose only offence +was that they differed from the Pope's religious opinions. There +was a wretched man named LAMBERT, among others, who was tried for +this before the King, and with whom six bishops argued one after +another. When he was quite exhausted (as well he might be, after +six bishops), he threw himself on the King's mercy; but the King +blustered out that he had no mercy for heretics. So, HE too fed +the fire. + +All this the people bore, and more than all this yet. The national +spirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom at this time. +The very people who were executed for treason, the very wives and +friends of the 'bluff' King, spoke of him on the scaffold as a good +prince, and a gentle prince - just as serfs in similar +circumstances have been known to do, under the Sultan and Bashaws +of the East, or under the fierce old tyrants of Russia, who poured +boiling and freezing water on them alternately, until they died. +The Parliament were as bad as the rest, and gave the King whatever +he wanted; among other vile accommodations, they gave him new +powers of murdering, at his will and pleasure, any one whom he +might choose to call a traitor. But the worst measure they passed +was an Act of Six Articles, commonly called at the time 'the whip +with six strings;' which punished offences against the Pope's +opinions, without mercy, and enforced the very worst parts of the +monkish religion. Cranmer would have modified it, if he could; +but, being overborne by the Romish party, had not the power. As +one of the articles declared that priests should not marry, and as +he was married himself, he sent his wife and children into Germany, +and began to tremble at his danger; none the less because he was, +and had long been, the King's friend. This whip of six strings was +made under the King's own eye. It should never be forgotten of him +how cruelly he supported the worst of the Popish doctrines when +there was nothing to be got by opposing them. + +This amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. He +proposed to the French King to have some of the ladies of the +French Court exhibited before him, that he might make his Royal +choice; but the French King answered that he would rather not have +his ladies trotted out to be shown like horses at a fair. He +proposed to the Dowager Duchess of Milan, who replied that she +might have thought of such a match if she had had two heads; but, +that only owning one, she must beg to keep it safe. At last +Cromwell represented that there was a Protestant Princess in +Germany - those who held the reformed religion were called +Protestants, because their leaders had Protested against the abuses +and impositions of the unreformed Church - named ANNE OF CLEVES, +who was beautiful, and would answer the purpose admirably. The +King said was she a large woman, because he must have a fat wife? +'O yes,' said Cromwell; 'she was very large, just the thing.' On +hearing this the King sent over his famous painter, Hans Holbein, +to take her portrait. Hans made her out to be so good-looking that +the King was satisfied, and the marriage was arranged. But, +whether anybody had paid Hans to touch up the picture; or whether +Hans, like one or two other painters, flattered a princess in the +ordinary way of business, I cannot say: all I know is, that when +Anne came over and the King went to Rochester to meet her, and +first saw her without her seeing him, he swore she was 'a great +Flanders mare,' and said he would never marry her. Being obliged +to do it now matters had gone so far, he would not give her the +presents he had prepared, and would never notice her. He never +forgave Cromwell his part in the affair. His downfall dates from +that time. + +It was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the unreformed +religion, putting in the King's way, at a state dinner, a niece of +the Duke of Norfolk, CATHERINE HOWARD, a young lady of fascinating +manners, though small in stature and not particularly beautiful. +Falling in love with her on the spot, the King soon divorced Anne +of Cleves after making her the subject of much brutal talk, on +pretence that she had been previously betrothed to some one else - +which would never do for one of his dignity - and married +Catherine. It is probable that on his wedding day, of all days in +the year, he sent his faithful Cromwell to the scaffold, and had +his head struck off. He further celebrated the occasion by burning +at one time, and causing to be drawn to the fire on the same +hurdles, some Protestant prisoners for denying the Pope's +doctrines, and some Roman Catholic prisoners for denying his own +supremacy. Still the people bore it, and not a gentleman in +England raised his hand. + +But, by a just retribution, it soon came out that Catherine Howard, +before her marriage, had been really guilty of such crimes as the +King had falsely attributed to his second wife Anne Boleyn; so, +again the dreadful axe made the King a widower, and this Queen +passed away as so many in that reign had passed away before her. +As an appropriate pursuit under the circumstances, Henry then +applied himself to superintending the composition of a religious +book called 'A necessary doctrine for any Christian Man.' He must +have been a little confused in his mind, I think, at about this +period; for he was so false to himself as to be true to some one: +that some one being Cranmer, whom the Duke of Norfolk and others of +his enemies tried to ruin; but to whom the King was steadfast, and +to whom he one night gave his ring, charging him when he should +find himself, next day, accused of treason, to show it to the +council board. This Cranmer did to the confusion of his enemies. +I suppose the King thought he might want him a little longer. + +He married yet once more. Yes, strange to say, he found in England +another woman who would become his wife, and she was CATHERINE +PARR, widow of Lord Latimer. She leaned towards the reformed +religion; and it is some comfort to know, that she tormented the +King considerably by arguing a variety of doctrinal points with him +on all possible occasions. She had very nearly done this to her +own destruction. After one of these conversations the King in a +very black mood actually instructed GARDINER, one of his Bishops +who favoured the Popish opinions, to draw a bill of accusation +against her, which would have inevitably brought her to the +scaffold where her predecessors had died, but that one of her +friends picked up the paper of instructions which had been dropped +in the palace, and gave her timely notice. She fell ill with +terror; but managed the King so well when he came to entrap her +into further statements - by saying that she had only spoken on +such points to divert his mind and to get some information from his +extraordinary wisdom - that he gave her a kiss and called her his +sweetheart. And, when the Chancellor came next day actually to +take her to the Tower, the King sent him about his business, and +honoured him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and a fool. So +near was Catherine Parr to the block, and so narrow was her escape! + +There was war with Scotland in this reign, and a short clumsy war +with France for favouring Scotland; but, the events at home were so +dreadful, and leave such an enduring stain on the country, that I +need say no more of what happened abroad. + +A few more horrors, and this reign is over. There was a lady, ANNE +ASKEW, in Lincolnshire, who inclined to the Protestant opinions, +and whose husband being a fierce Catholic, turned her out of his +house. She came to London, and was considered as offending against +the six articles, and was taken to the Tower, and put upon the rack +- probably because it was hoped that she might, in her agony, +criminate some obnoxious persons; if falsely, so much the better. +She was tortured without uttering a cry, until the Lieutenant of +the Tower would suffer his men to torture her no more; and then two +priests who were present actually pulled off their robes, and +turned the wheels of the rack with their own hands, so rending and +twisting and breaking her that she was afterwards carried to the +fire in a chair. She was burned with three others, a gentleman, a +clergyman, and a tailor; and so the world went on. + +Either the King became afraid of the power of the Duke of Norfolk, +and his son the Earl of Surrey, or they gave him some offence, but +he resolved to pull THEM down, to follow all the rest who were +gone. The son was tried first - of course for nothing - and +defended himself bravely; but of course he was found guilty, and of +course he was executed. Then his father was laid hold of, and left +for death too. + +But the King himself was left for death by a Greater King, and the +earth was to be rid of him at last. He was now a swollen, hideous +spectacle, with a great hole in his leg, and so odious to every +sense that it was dreadful to approach him. When he was found to +be dying, Cranmer was sent for from his palace at Croydon, and came +with all speed, but found him speechless. Happily, in that hour he +perished. He was in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the +thirty-eighth of his reign. + +Henry the Eighth has been favoured by some Protestant writers, +because the Reformation was achieved in his time. But the mighty +merit of it lies with other men and not with him; and it can be +rendered none the worse by this monster's crimes, and none the +better by any defence of them. The plain truth is, that he was a +most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of +blood and grease upon the History of England. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SIXTH + + + +HENRY THE EIGHTH had made a will, appointing a council of sixteen +to govern the kingdom for his son while he was under age (he was +now only ten years old), and another council of twelve to help +them. The most powerful of the first council was the EARL OF +HERTFORD, the young King's uncle, who lost no time in bringing his +nephew with great state up to Enfield, and thence to the Tower. It +was considered at the time a striking proof of virtue in the young +King that he was sorry for his father's death; but, as common +subjects have that virtue too, sometimes, we will say no more about +it. + +There was a curious part of the late King's will, requiring his +executors to fulfil whatever promises he had made. Some of the +court wondering what these might be, the Earl of Hertford and the +other noblemen interested, said that they were promises to advance +and enrich THEM. So, the Earl of Hertford made himself DUKE OF +SOMERSET, and made his brother EDWARD SEYMOUR a baron; and there +were various similar promotions, all very agreeable to the parties +concerned, and very dutiful, no doubt, to the late King's memory. +To be more dutiful still, they made themselves rich out of the +Church lands, and were very comfortable. The new Duke of Somerset +caused himself to be declared PROTECTOR of the kingdom, and was, +indeed, the King. + +As young Edward the Sixth had been brought up in the principles of +the Protestant religion, everybody knew that they would be +maintained. But Cranmer, to whom they were chiefly entrusted, +advanced them steadily and temperately. Many superstitious and +ridiculous practices were stopped; but practices which were +harmless were not interfered with. + +The Duke of Somerset, the Protector, was anxious to have the young +King engaged in marriage to the young Queen of Scotland, in order +to prevent that princess from making an alliance with any foreign +power; but, as a large party in Scotland were unfavourable to this +plan, he invaded that country. His excuse for doing so was, that +the Border men - that is, the Scotch who lived in that part of the +country where England and Scotland joined - troubled the English +very much. But there were two sides to this question; for the +English Border men troubled the Scotch too; and, through many long +years, there were perpetual border quarrels which gave rise to +numbers of old tales and songs. However, the Protector invaded +Scotland; and ARRAN, the Scottish Regent, with an army twice as +large as his, advanced to meet him. They encountered on the banks +of the river Esk, within a few miles of Edinburgh; and there, after +a little skirmish, the Protector made such moderate proposals, in +offering to retire if the Scotch would only engage not to marry +their princess to any foreign prince, that the Regent thought the +English were afraid. But in this he made a horrible mistake; for +the English soldiers on land, and the English sailors on the water, +so set upon the Scotch, that they broke and fled, and more than ten +thousand of them were killed. It was a dreadful battle, for the +fugitives were slain without mercy. The ground for four miles, all +the way to Edinburgh, was strewn with dead men, and with arms, and +legs, and heads. Some hid themselves in streams and were drowned; +some threw away their armour and were killed running, almost naked; +but in this battle of Pinkey the English lost only two or three +hundred men. They were much better clothed than the Scotch; at the +poverty of whose appearance and country they were exceedingly +astonished. + +A Parliament was called when Somerset came back, and it repealed +the whip with six strings, and did one or two other good things; +though it unhappily retained the punishment of burning for those +people who did not make believe to believe, in all religious +matters, what the Government had declared that they must and should +believe. It also made a foolish law (meant to put down beggars), +that any man who lived idly and loitered about for three days +together, should be burned with a hot iron, made a slave, and wear +an iron fetter. But this savage absurdity soon came to an end, and +went the way of a great many other foolish laws. + +The Protector was now so proud that he sat in Parliament before all +the nobles, on the right hand of the throne. Many other noblemen, +who only wanted to be as proud if they could get a chance, became +his enemies of course; and it is supposed that he came back +suddenly from Scotland because he had received news that his +brother, LORD SEYMOUR, was becoming dangerous to him. This lord +was now High Admiral of England; a very handsome man, and a great +favourite with the Court ladies - even with the young Princess +Elizabeth, who romped with him a little more than young princesses +in these times do with any one. He had married Catherine Parr, the +late King's widow, who was now dead; and, to strengthen his power, +he secretly supplied the young King with money. He may even have +engaged with some of his brother's enemies in a plot to carry the +boy off. On these and other accusations, at any rate, he was +confined in the Tower, impeached, and found guilty; his own +brother's name being - unnatural and sad to tell - the first signed +to the warrant of his execution. He was executed on Tower Hill, +and died denying his treason. One of his last proceedings in this +world was to write two letters, one to the Princess Elizabeth, and +one to the Princess Mary, which a servant of his took charge of, +and concealed in his shoe. These letters are supposed to have +urged them against his brother, and to revenge his death. What +they truly contained is not known; but there is no doubt that he +had, at one time, obtained great influence over the Princess +Elizabeth. + +All this while, the Protestant religion was making progress. The +images which the people had gradually come to worship, were removed +from the churches; the people were informed that they need not +confess themselves to priests unless they chose; a common prayer- +book was drawn up in the English language, which all could +understand, and many other improvements were made; still +moderately. For Cranmer was a very moderate man, and even +restrained the Protestant clergy from violently abusing the +unreformed religion - as they very often did, and which was not a +good example. But the people were at this time in great distress. +The rapacious nobility who had come into possession of the Church +lands, were very bad landlords. They enclosed great quantities of +ground for the feeding of sheep, which was then more profitable +than the growing of crops; and this increased the general distress. +So the people, who still understood little of what was going on +about them, and still readily believed what the homeless monks told +them - many of whom had been their good friends in their better +days - took it into their heads that all this was owing to the +reformed religion, and therefore rose, in many parts of the +country. + +The most powerful risings were in Devonshire and Norfolk. In +Devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand men +united within a few days, and even laid siege to Exeter. But LORD +RUSSELL, coming to the assistance of the citizens who defended that +town, defeated the rebels; and, not only hanged the Mayor of one +place, but hanged the vicar of another from his own church steeple. +What with hanging and killing by the sword, four thousand of the +rebels are supposed to have fallen in that one county. In Norfolk +(where the rising was more against the enclosure of open lands than +against the reformed religion), the popular leader was a man named +ROBERT KET, a tanner of Wymondham. The mob were, in the first +instance, excited against the tanner by one JOHN FLOWERDEW, a +gentleman who owed him a grudge: but the tanner was more than a +match for the gentleman, since he soon got the people on his side, +and established himself near Norwich with quite an army. There was +a large oak-tree in that place, on a spot called Moushold Hill, +which Ket named the Tree of Reformation; and under its green +boughs, he and his men sat, in the midsummer weather, holding +courts of justice, and debating affairs of state. They were even +impartial enough to allow some rather tiresome public speakers to +get up into this Tree of Reformation, and point out their errors to +them, in long discourses, while they lay listening (not always +without some grumbling and growling) in the shade below. At last, +one sunny July day, a herald appeared below the tree, and +proclaimed Ket and all his men traitors, unless from that moment +they dispersed and went home: in which case they were to receive a +pardon. But, Ket and his men made light of the herald and became +stronger than ever, until the Earl of Warwick went after them with +a sufficient force, and cut them all to pieces. A few were hanged, +drawn, and quartered, as traitors, and their limbs were sent into +various country places to be a terror to the people. Nine of them +were hanged upon nine green branches of the Oak of Reformation; and +so, for the time, that tree may be said to have withered away. + +The Protector, though a haughty man, had compassion for the real +distresses of the common people, and a sincere desire to help them. +But he was too proud and too high in degree to hold even their +favour steadily; and many of the nobles always envied and hated +him, because they were as proud and not as high as he. He was at +this time building a great Palace in the Strand: to get the stone +for which he blew up church steeples with gunpowder, and pulled +down bishops' houses: thus making himself still more disliked. At +length, his principal enemy, the Earl of Warwick - Dudley by name, +and the son of that Dudley who had made himself so odious with +Empson, in the reign of Henry the Seventh - joined with seven other +members of the Council against him, formed a separate Council; and, +becoming stronger in a few days, sent him to the Tower under +twenty-nine articles of accusation. After being sentenced by the +Council to the forfeiture of all his offices and lands, he was +liberated and pardoned, on making a very humble submission. He was +even taken back into the Council again, after having suffered this +fall, and married his daughter, LADY ANNE SEYMOUR, to Warwick's +eldest son. But such a reconciliation was little likely to last, +and did not outlive a year. Warwick, having got himself made Duke +of Northumberland, and having advanced the more important of his +friends, then finished the history by causing the Duke of Somerset +and his friend LORD GREY, and others, to be arrested for treason, +in having conspired to seize and dethrone the King. They were also +accused of having intended to seize the new Duke of Northumberland, +with his friends LORD NORTHAMPTON and LORD PEMBROKE; to murder them +if they found need; and to raise the City to revolt. All this the +fallen Protector positively denied; except that he confessed to +having spoken of the murder of those three noblemen, but having +never designed it. He was acquitted of the charge of treason, and +found guilty of the other charges; so when the people - who +remembered his having been their friend, now that he was disgraced +and in danger, saw him come out from his trial with the axe turned +from him - they thought he was altogether acquitted, and sent up a +loud shout of joy. + +But the Duke of Somerset was ordered to be beheaded on Tower Hill, +at eight o'clock in the morning, and proclamations were issued +bidding the citizens keep at home until after ten. They filled the +streets, however, and crowded the place of execution as soon as it +was light; and, with sad faces and sad hearts, saw the once +powerful Protector ascend the scaffold to lay his head upon the +dreadful block. While he was yet saying his last words to them +with manly courage, and telling them, in particular, how it +comforted him, at that pass, to have assisted in reforming the +national religion, a member of the Council was seen riding up on +horseback. They again thought that the Duke was saved by his +bringing a reprieve, and again shouted for joy. But the Duke +himself told them they were mistaken, and laid down his head and +had it struck off at a blow. + +Many of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped their +handkerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection. He had, +indeed, been capable of many good acts, and one of them was +discovered after he was no more. The Bishop of Durham, a very good +man, had been informed against to the Council, when the Duke was in +power, as having answered a treacherous letter proposing a +rebellion against the reformed religion. As the answer could not +be found, he could not be declared guilty; but it was now +discovered, hidden by the Duke himself among some private papers, +in his regard for that good man. The Bishop lost his office, and +was deprived of his possessions. + +It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay in prison +under sentence of death, the young King was being vastly +entertained by plays, and dances, and sham fights: but there is no +doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. It is pleasanter to +know that not a single Roman Catholic was burnt in this reign for +holding that religion; though two wretched victims suffered for +heresy. One, a woman named JOAN BOCHER, for professing some +opinions that even she could only explain in unintelligible jargon. +The other, a Dutchman, named VON PARIS, who practised as a surgeon +in London. Edward was, to his credit, exceedingly unwilling to +sign the warrant for the woman's execution: shedding tears before +he did so, and telling Cranmer, who urged him to do it (though +Cranmer really would have spared the woman at first, but for her +own determined obstinacy), that the guilt was not his, but that of +the man who so strongly urged the dreadful act. We shall see, too +soon, whether the time ever came when Cranmer is likely to have +remembered this with sorrow and remorse. + +Cranmer and RIDLEY (at first Bishop of Rochester, and afterwards +Bishop of London) were the most powerful of the clergy of this +reign. Others were imprisoned and deprived of their property for +still adhering to the unreformed religion; the most important among +whom were GARDINER Bishop of Winchester, HEATH Bishop of Worcester, +DAY Bishop of Chichester, and BONNER that Bishop of London who was +superseded by Ridley. The Princess Mary, who inherited her +mother's gloomy temper, and hated the reformed religion as +connected with her mother's wrongs and sorrows - she knew nothing +else about it, always refusing to read a single book in which it +was truly described - held by the unreformed religion too, and was +the only person in the kingdom for whom the old Mass was allowed to +be performed; nor would the young King have made that exception +even in her favour, but for the strong persuasions of Cranmer and +Ridley. He always viewed it with horror; and when he fell into a +sickly condition, after having been very ill, first of the measles +and then of the small-pox, he was greatly troubled in mind to think +that if he died, and she, the next heir to the throne, succeeded, +the Roman Catholic religion would be set up again. + +This uneasiness, the Duke of Northumberland was not slow to +encourage: for, if the Princess Mary came to the throne, he, who +had taken part with the Protestants, was sure to be disgraced. +Now, the Duchess of Suffolk was descended from King Henry the +Seventh; and, if she resigned what little or no right she had, in +favour of her daughter LADY JANE GREY, that would be the succession +to promote the Duke's greatness; because LORD GUILFORD DUDLEY, one +of his sons, was, at this very time, newly married to her. So, he +worked upon the King's fears, and persuaded him to set aside both +the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth, and assert his right +to appoint his successor. Accordingly the young King handed to the +Crown lawyers a writing signed half a dozen times over by himself, +appointing Lady Jane Grey to succeed to the Crown, and requiring +them to have his will made out according to law. They were much +against it at first, and told the King so; but the Duke of +Northumberland - being so violent about it that the lawyers even +expected him to beat them, and hotly declaring that, stripped to +his shirt, he would fight any man in such a quarrel - they yielded. +Cranmer, also, at first hesitated; pleading that he had sworn to +maintain the succession of the Crown to the Princess Mary; but, he +was a weak man in his resolutions, and afterwards signed the +document with the rest of the council. + +It was completed none too soon; for Edward was now sinking in a +rapid decline; and, by way of making him better, they handed him +over to a woman-doctor who pretended to be able to cure it. He +speedily got worse. On the sixth of July, in the year one thousand +five hundred and fifty-three, he died, very peaceably and piously, +praying God, with his last breath, to protect the reformed +religion. + +This King died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the seventh +of his reign. It is difficult to judge what the character of one +so young might afterwards have become among so many bad, ambitious, +quarrelling nobles. But, he was an amiable boy, of very good +abilities, and had nothing coarse or cruel or brutal in his +disposition - which in the son of such a father is rather +surprising. + + + +CHAPTER XXX - ENGLAND UNDER MARY + + + +THE Duke of Northumberland was very anxious to keep the young +King's death a secret, in order that he might get the two +Princesses into his power. But, the Princess Mary, being informed +of that event as she was on her way to London to see her sick +brother, turned her horse's head, and rode away into Norfolk. The +Earl of Arundel was her friend, and it was he who sent her warning +of what had happened. + +As the secret could not be kept, the Duke of Northumberland and the +council sent for the Lord Mayor of London and some of the aldermen, +and made a merit of telling it to them. Then, they made it known +to the people, and set off to inform Lady Jane Grey that she was to +be Queen. + +She was a pretty girl of only sixteen, and was amiable, learned, +and clever. When the lords who came to her, fell on their knees +before her, and told her what tidings they brought, she was so +astonished that she fainted. On recovering, she expressed her +sorrow for the young King's death, and said that she knew she was +unfit to govern the kingdom; but that if she must be Queen, she +prayed God to direct her. She was then at Sion House, near +Brentford; and the lords took her down the river in state to the +Tower, that she might remain there (as the custom was) until she +was crowned. But the people were not at all favourable to Lady +Jane, considering that the right to be Queen was Mary's, and +greatly disliking the Duke of Northumberland. They were not put +into a better humour by the Duke's causing a vintner's servant, one +Gabriel Pot, to be taken up for expressing his dissatisfaction +among the crowd, and to have his ears nailed to the pillory, and +cut off. Some powerful men among the nobility declared on Mary's +side. They raised troops to support her cause, had her proclaimed +Queen at Norwich, and gathered around her at the castle of +Framlingham, which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For, she was +not considered so safe as yet, but that it was best to keep her in +a castle on the sea-coast, from whence she might be sent abroad, if +necessary. + +The Council would have despatched Lady Jane's father, the Duke of +Suffolk, as the general of the army against this force; but, as +Lady Jane implored that her father might remain with her, and as he +was known to be but a weak man, they told the Duke of +Northumberland that he must take the command himself. He was not +very ready to do so, as he mistrusted the Council much; but there +was no help for it, and he set forth with a heavy heart, observing +to a lord who rode beside him through Shoreditch at the head of the +troops, that, although the people pressed in great numbers to look +at them, they were terribly silent. + +And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. While he +was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the Council, the +Council took it into their heads to turn their backs on Lady Jane's +cause, and to take up the Princess Mary's. This was chiefly owing +to the before-mentioned Earl of Arundel, who represented to the +Lord Mayor and aldermen, in a second interview with those sagacious +persons, that, as for himself, he did not perceive the Reformed +religion to be in much danger - which Lord Pembroke backed by +flourishing his sword as another kind of persuasion. The Lord +Mayor and aldermen, thus enlightened, said there could be no doubt +that the Princess Mary ought to be Queen. So, she was proclaimed +at the Cross by St. Paul's, and barrels of wine were given to the +people, and they got very drunk, and danced round blazing bonfires +- little thinking, poor wretches, what other bonfires would soon be +blazing in Queen Mary's name. + +After a ten days' dream of royalty, Lady Jane Grey resigned the +Crown with great willingness, saying that she had only accepted it +in obedience to her father and mother; and went gladly back to her +pleasant house by the river, and her books. Mary then came on +towards London; and at Wanstead in Essex, was joined by her half- +sister, the Princess Elizabeth. They passed through the streets of +London to the Tower, and there the new Queen met some eminent +prisoners then confined in it, kissed them, and gave them their +liberty. Among these was that Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who +had been imprisoned in the last reign for holding to the unreformed +religion. Him she soon made chancellor. + +The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner, and, together +with his son and five others, was quickly brought before the +Council. He, not unnaturally, asked that Council, in his defence, +whether it was treason to obey orders that had been issued under +the great seal; and, if it were, whether they, who had obeyed them +too, ought to be his judges? But they made light of these points; +and, being resolved to have him out of the way, soon sentenced him +to death. He had risen into power upon the death of another man, +and made but a poor show (as might be expected) when he himself lay +low. He entreated Gardiner to let him live, if it were only in a +mouse's hole; and, when he ascended the scaffold to be beheaded on +Tower Hill, addressed the people in a miserable way, saying that he +had been incited by others, and exhorting them to return to the +unreformed religion, which he told them was his faith. There seems +reason to suppose that he expected a pardon even then, in return +for this confession; but it matters little whether he did or not. +His head was struck off. + +Mary was now crowned Queen. She was thirty-seven years of age, +short and thin, wrinkled in the face, and very unhealthy. But she +had a great liking for show and for bright colours, and all the +ladies of her Court were magnificently dressed. She had a great +liking too for old customs, without much sense in them; and she was +oiled in the oldest way, and blessed in the oldest way, and done +all manner of things to in the oldest way, at her coronation. I +hope they did her good. + +She soon began to show her desire to put down the Reformed +religion, and put up the unreformed one: though it was dangerous +work as yet, the people being something wiser than they used to be. +They even cast a shower of stones - and among them a dagger - at +one of the royal chaplains who attacked the Reformed religion in a +public sermon. But the Queen and her priests went steadily on. +Ridley, the powerful bishop of the last reign, was seized and sent +to the Tower. LATIMER, also celebrated among the Clergy of the +last reign, was likewise sent to the Tower, and Cranmer speedily +followed. Latimer was an aged man; and, as his guards took him +through Smithfield, he looked round it, and said, 'This is a place +that hath long groaned for me.' For he knew well, what kind of +bonfires would soon be burning. Nor was the knowledge confined to +him. The prisons were fast filled with the chief Protestants, who +were there left rotting in darkness, hunger, dirt, and separation +from their friends; many, who had time left them for escape, fled +from the kingdom; and the dullest of the people began, now, to see +what was coming. + +It came on fast. A Parliament was got together; not without strong +suspicion of unfairness; and they annulled the divorce, formerly +pronounced by Cranmer between the Queen's mother and King Henry the +Eighth, and unmade all the laws on the subject of religion that had +been made in the last King Edward's reign. They began their +proceedings, in violation of the law, by having the old mass said +before them in Latin, and by turning out a bishop who would not +kneel down. They also declared guilty of treason, Lady Jane Grey +for aspiring to the Crown; her husband, for being her husband; and +Cranmer, for not believing in the mass aforesaid. They then prayed +the Queen graciously to choose a husband for herself, as soon as +might be. + +Now, the question who should be the Queen's husband had given rise +to a great deal of discussion, and to several contending parties. +Some said Cardinal Pole was the man - but the Queen was of opinion +that he was NOT the man, he being too old and too much of a +student. Others said that the gallant young COURTENAY, whom the +Queen had made Earl of Devonshire, was the man - and the Queen +thought so too, for a while; but she changed her mind. At last it +appeared that PHILIP, PRINCE OF SPAIN, was certainly the man - +though certainly not the people's man; for they detested the idea +of such a marriage from the beginning to the end, and murmured that +the Spaniard would establish in England, by the aid of foreign +soldiers, the worst abuses of the Popish religion, and even the +terrible Inquisition itself. + +These discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying young +Courtenay to the Princess Elizabeth, and setting them up, with +popular tumults all over the kingdom, against the Queen. This was +discovered in time by Gardiner; but in Kent, the old bold county, +the people rose in their old bold way. SIR THOMAS WYAT, a man of +great daring, was their leader. He raised his standard at +Maidstone, marched on to Rochester, established himself in the old +castle there, and prepared to hold out against the Duke of Norfolk, +who came against him with a party of the Queen's guards, and a body +of five hundred London men. The London men, however, were all for +Elizabeth, and not at all for Mary. They declared, under the +castle walls, for Wyat; the Duke retreated; and Wyat came on to +Deptford, at the head of fifteen thousand men. + +But these, in their turn, fell away. When he came to Southwark, +there were only two thousand left. Not dismayed by finding the +London citizens in arms, and the guns at the Tower ready to oppose +his crossing the river there, Wyat led them off to Kingston-upon- +Thames, intending to cross the bridge that he knew to be in that +place, and so to work his way round to Ludgate, one of the old +gates of the City. He found the bridge broken down, but mended it, +came across, and bravely fought his way up Fleet Street to Ludgate +Hill. Finding the gate closed against him, he fought his way back +again, sword in hand, to Temple Bar. Here, being overpowered, he +surrendered himself, and three or four hundred of his men were +taken, besides a hundred killed. Wyat, in a moment of weakness +(and perhaps of torture) was afterwards made to accuse the Princess +Elizabeth as his accomplice to some very small extent. But his +manhood soon returned to him, and he refused to save his life by +making any more false confessions. He was quartered and +distributed in the usual brutal way, and from fifty to a hundred of +his followers were hanged. The rest were led out, with halters +round their necks, to be pardoned, and to make a parade of crying +out, 'God save Queen Mary!' + +In the danger of this rebellion, the Queen showed herself to be a +woman of courage and spirit. She disdained to retreat to any place +of safety, and went down to the Guildhall, sceptre in hand, and +made a gallant speech to the Lord Mayor and citizens. But on the +day after Wyat's defeat, she did the most cruel act, even of her +cruel reign, in signing the warrant for the execution of Lady Jane +Grey. + +They tried to persuade Lady Jane to accept the unreformed religion; +but she steadily refused. On the morning when she was to die, she +saw from her window the bleeding and headless body of her husband +brought back in a cart from the scaffold on Tower Hill where he had +laid down his life. But, as she had declined to see him before his +execution, lest she should be overpowered and not make a good end, +so, she even now showed a constancy and calmness that will never be +forgotten. She came up to the scaffold with a firm step and a +quiet face, and addressed the bystanders in a steady voice. They +were not numerous; for she was too young, too innocent and fair, to +be murdered before the people on Tower Hill, as her husband had +just been; so, the place of her execution was within the Tower +itself. She said that she had done an unlawful act in taking what +was Queen Mary's right; but that she had done so with no bad +intent, and that she died a humble Christian. She begged the +executioner to despatch her quickly, and she asked him, 'Will you +take my head off before I lay me down?' He answered, 'No, Madam,' +and then she was very quiet while they bandaged her eyes. Being +blinded, and unable to see the block on which she was to lay her +young head, she was seen to feel about for it with her hands, and +was heard to say, confused, 'O what shall I do! Where is it?' +Then they guided her to the right place, and the executioner struck +off her head. You know too well, now, what dreadful deeds the +executioner did in England, through many, many years, and how his +axe descended on the hateful block through the necks of some of the +bravest, wisest, and best in the land. But it never struck so +cruel and so vile a blow as this. + +The father of Lady Jane soon followed, but was little pitied. +Queen Mary's next object was to lay hold of Elizabeth, and this was +pursued with great eagerness. Five hundred men were sent to her +retired house at Ashridge, by Berkhampstead, with orders to bring +her up, alive or dead. They got there at ten at night, when she +was sick in bed. But, their leaders followed her lady into her +bedchamber, whence she was brought out betimes next morning, and +put into a litter to be conveyed to London. She was so weak and +ill, that she was five days on the road; still, she was so resolved +to be seen by the people that she had the curtains of the litter +opened; and so, very pale and sickly, passed through the streets. +She wrote to her sister, saying she was innocent of any crime, and +asking why she was made a prisoner; but she got no answer, and was +ordered to the Tower. They took her in by the Traitor's Gate, to +which she objected, but in vain. One of the lords who conveyed her +offered to cover her with his cloak, as it was raining, but she put +it away from her, proudly and scornfully, and passed into the +Tower, and sat down in a court-yard on a stone. They besought her +to come in out of the wet; but she answered that it was better +sitting there, than in a worse place. At length she went to her +apartment, where she was kept a prisoner, though not so close a +prisoner as at Woodstock, whither she was afterwards removed, and +where she is said to have one day envied a milkmaid whom she heard +singing in the sunshine as she went through the green fields. +Gardiner, than whom there were not many worse men among the fierce +and sullen priests, cared little to keep secret his stern desire +for her death: being used to say that it was of little service to +shake off the leaves, and lop the branches of the tree of heresy, +if its root, the hope of heretics, were left. He failed, however, +in his benevolent design. Elizabeth was, at length, released; and +Hatfield House was assigned to her as a residence, under the care +of one SIR THOMAS POPE. + +It would seem that Philip, the Prince of Spain, was a main cause of +this change in Elizabeth's fortunes. He was not an amiable man, +being, on the contrary, proud, overbearing, and gloomy; but he and +the Spanish lords who came over with him, assuredly did +discountenance the idea of doing any violence to the Princess. It +may have been mere prudence, but we will hope it was manhood and +honour. The Queen had been expecting her husband with great +impatience, and at length he came, to her great joy, though he +never cared much for her. They were married by Gardiner, at +Winchester, and there was more holiday-making among the people; but +they had their old distrust of this Spanish marriage, in which even +the Parliament shared. Though the members of that Parliament were +far from honest, and were strongly suspected to have been bought +with Spanish money, they would pass no bill to enable the Queen to +set aside the Princess Elizabeth and appoint her own successor. + +Although Gardiner failed in this object, as well as in the darker +one of bringing the Princess to the scaffold, he went on at a great +pace in the revival of the unreformed religion. A new Parliament +was packed, in which there were no Protestants. Preparations were +made to receive Cardinal Pole in England as the Pope's messenger, +bringing his holy declaration that all the nobility who had +acquired Church property, should keep it - which was done to enlist +their selfish interest on the Pope's side. Then a great scene was +enacted, which was the triumph of the Queen's plans. Cardinal Pole +arrived in great splendour and dignity, and was received with great +pomp. The Parliament joined in a petition expressive of their +sorrow at the change in the national religion, and praying him to +receive the country again into the Popish Church. With the Queen +sitting on her throne, and the King on one side of her, and the +Cardinal on the other, and the Parliament present, Gardiner read +the petition aloud. The Cardinal then made a great speech, and was +so obliging as to say that all was forgotten and forgiven, and that +the kingdom was solemnly made Roman Catholic again. + +Everything was now ready for the lighting of the terrible bonfires. +The Queen having declared to the Council, in writing, that she +would wish none of her subjects to be burnt without some of the +Council being present, and that she would particularly wish there +to be good sermons at all burnings, the Council knew pretty well +what was to be done next. So, after the Cardinal had blessed all +the bishops as a preface to the burnings, the Chancellor Gardiner +opened a High Court at Saint Mary Overy, on the Southwark side of +London Bridge, for the trial of heretics. Here, two of the late +Protestant clergymen, HOOPER, Bishop of Gloucester, and ROGERS, a +Prebendary of St. Paul's, were brought to be tried. Hooper was +tried first for being married, though a priest, and for not +believing in the mass. He admitted both of these accusations, and +said that the mass was a wicked imposition. Then they tried +Rogers, who said the same. Next morning the two were brought up to +be sentenced; and then Rogers said that his poor wife, being a +German woman and a stranger in the land, he hoped might be allowed +to come to speak to him before he died. To this the inhuman +Gardiner replied, that she was not his wife. 'Yea, but she is, my +lord,' said Rogers, 'and she hath been my wife these eighteen +years.' His request was still refused, and they were both sent to +Newgate; all those who stood in the streets to sell things, being +ordered to put out their lights that the people might not see them. +But, the people stood at their doors with candles in their hands, +and prayed for them as they went by. Soon afterwards, Rogers was +taken out of jail to be burnt in Smithfield; and, in the crowd as +he went along, he saw his poor wife and his ten children, of whom +the youngest was a little baby. And so he was burnt to death. + +The next day, Hooper, who was to be burnt at Gloucester, was +brought out to take his last journey, and was made to wear a hood +over his face that he might not be known by the people. But, they +did know him for all that, down in his own part of the country; +and, when he came near Gloucester, they lined the road, making +prayers and lamentations. His guards took him to a lodging, where +he slept soundly all night. At nine o'clock next morning, he was +brought forth leaning on a staff; for he had taken cold in prison, +and was infirm. The iron stake, and the iron chain which was to +bind him to it, were fixed up near a great elm-tree in a pleasant +open place before the cathedral, where, on peaceful Sundays, he had +been accustomed to preach and to pray, when he was bishop of +Gloucester. This tree, which had no leaves then, it being +February, was filled with people; and the priests of Gloucester +College were looking complacently on from a window, and there was a +great concourse of spectators in every spot from which a glimpse of +the dreadful sight could be beheld. When the old man kneeled down +on the small platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed aloud, +the nearest people were observed to be so attentive to his prayers +that they were ordered to stand farther back; for it did not suit +the Romish Church to have those Protestant words heard. His +prayers concluded, he went up to the stake and was stripped to his +shirt, and chained ready for the fire. One of his guards had such +compassion on him that, to shorten his agonies, he tied some +packets of gunpowder about him. Then they heaped up wood and straw +and reeds, and set them all alight. But, unhappily, the wood was +green and damp, and there was a wind blowing that blew what flame +there was, away. Thus, through three-quarters of an hour, the good +old man was scorched and roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and +sank; and all that time they saw him, as he burned, moving his lips +in prayer, and beating his breast with one hand, even after the +other was burnt away and had fallen off. + +Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were taken to Oxford to dispute with +a commission of priests and doctors about the mass. They were +shamefully treated; and it is recorded that the Oxford scholars +hissed and howled and groaned, and misconducted themselves in an +anything but a scholarly way. The prisoners were taken back to +jail, and afterwards tried in St. Mary's Church. They were all +found guilty. On the sixteenth of the month of October, Ridley and +Latimer were brought out, to make another of the dreadful bonfires. + +The scene of the suffering of these two good Protestant men was in +the City ditch, near Baliol College. On coming to the dreadful +spot, they kissed the stakes, and then embraced each other. And +then a learned doctor got up into a pulpit which was placed there, +and preached a sermon from the text, 'Though I give my body to be +burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' When you +think of the charity of burning men alive, you may imagine that +this learned doctor had a rather brazen face. Ridley would have +answered his sermon when it came to an end, but was not allowed. +When Latimer was stripped, it appeared that he had dressed himself +under his other clothes, in a new shroud; and, as he stood in it +before all the people, it was noted of him, and long remembered, +that, whereas he had been stooping and feeble but a few minutes +before, he now stood upright and handsome, in the knowledge that he +was dying for a just and a great cause. Ridley's brother-in-law +was there with bags of gunpowder; and when they were both chained +up, he tied them round their bodies. Then, a light was thrown upon +the pile to fire it. 'Be of good comfort, Master Ridley,' said +Latimer, at that awful moment, 'and play the man! We shall this +day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust +shall never be put out.' And then he was seen to make motions with +his hands as if he were washing them in the flames, and to stroke +his aged face with them, and was heard to cry, 'Father of Heaven, +receive my soul!' He died quickly, but the fire, after having +burned the legs of Ridley, sunk. There he lingered, chained to the +iron post, and crying, 'O! I cannot burn! O! for Christ's sake +let the fire come unto me!' And still, when his brother-in-law had +heaped on more wood, he was heard through the blinding smoke, still +dismally crying, 'O! I cannot burn, I cannot burn!' At last, the +gunpowder caught fire, and ended his miseries. + +Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his tremendous +account before God, for the cruelties he had so much assisted in +committing. + +Cranmer remained still alive and in prison. He was brought out +again in February, for more examining and trying, by Bonner, Bishop +of London: another man of blood, who had succeeded to Gardiner's +work, even in his lifetime, when Gardiner was tired of it. Cranmer +was now degraded as a priest, and left for death; but, if the Queen +hated any one on earth, she hated him, and it was resolved that he +should be ruined and disgraced to the utmost. There is no doubt +that the Queen and her husband personally urged on these deeds, +because they wrote to the Council, urging them to be active in the +kindling of the fearful fires. As Cranmer was known not to be a +firm man, a plan was laid for surrounding him with artful people, +and inducing him to recant to the unreformed religion. Deans and +friars visited him, played at bowls with him, showed him various +attentions, talked persuasively with him, gave him money for his +prison comforts, and induced him to sign, I fear, as many as six +recantations. But when, after all, he was taken out to be burnt, +he was nobly true to his better self, and made a glorious end. + +After prayers and a sermon, Dr. Cole, the preacher of the day (who +had been one of the artful priests about Cranmer in prison), +required him to make a public confession of his faith before the +people. This, Cole did, expecting that he would declare himself a +Roman Catholic. 'I will make a profession of my faith,' said +Cranmer, 'and with a good will too.' + +Then, he arose before them all, and took from the sleeve of his +robe a written prayer and read it aloud. That done, he kneeled and +said the Lord's Prayer, all the people joining; and then he arose +again and told them that he believed in the Bible, and that in what +he had lately written, he had written what was not the truth, and +that, because his right hand had signed those papers, he would burn +his right hand first when he came to the fire. As for the Pope, he +did refuse him and denounce him as the enemy of Heaven. Hereupon +the pious Dr. Cole cried out to the guards to stop that heretic's +mouth and take him away. + +So they took him away, and chained him to the stake, where he +hastily took off his own clothes to make ready for the flames. And +he stood before the people with a bald head and a white and flowing +beard. He was so firm now when the worst was come, that he again +declared against his recantation, and was so impressive and so +undismayed, that a certain lord, who was one of the directors of +the execution, called out to the men to make haste! When the fire +was lighted, Cranmer, true to his latest word, stretched out his +right hand, and crying out, 'This hand hath offended!' held it +among the flames, until it blazed and burned away. His heart was +found entire among his ashes, and he left at last a memorable name +in English history. Cardinal Pole celebrated the day by saying his +first mass, and next day he was made Archbishop of Canterbury in +Cranmer's place. + +The Queen's husband, who was now mostly abroad in his own +dominions, and generally made a coarse jest of her to his more +familiar courtiers, was at war with France, and came over to seek +the assistance of England. England was very unwilling to engage in +a French war for his sake; but it happened that the King of France, +at this very time, aided a descent upon the English coast. Hence, +war was declared, greatly to Philip's satisfaction; and the Queen +raised a sum of money with which to carry it on, by every +unjustifiable means in her power. It met with no profitable +return, for the French Duke of Guise surprised Calais, and the +English sustained a complete defeat. The losses they met with in +France greatly mortified the national pride, and the Queen never +recovered the blow. + +There was a bad fever raging in England at this time, and I am glad +to write that the Queen took it, and the hour of her death came. +'When I am dead and my body is opened,' she said to those around +those around her, 'ye shall find CALAIS written on my heart.' I +should have thought, if anything were written on it, they would +have found the words - JANE GREY, HOOPER, ROGERS, RIDLEY, LATIMER, +CRANMER, AND THREE HUNDRED PEOPLE BURNT ALIVE WITHIN FOUR YEARS OF +MY WICKED REIGN, INCLUDING SIXTY WOMEN AND FORTY LITTLE CHILDREN. +But it is enough that their deaths were written in Heaven. + +The Queen died on the seventeenth of November, fifteen hundred and +fifty-eight, after reigning not quite five years and a half, and in +the forty-fourth year of her age. Cardinal Pole died of the same +fever next day. + +As BLOODY QUEEN MARY, this woman has become famous, and as BLOODY +QUEEN MARY, she will ever be justly remembered with horror and +detestation in Great Britain. Her memory has been held in such +abhorrence that some writers have arisen in later years to take her +part, and to show that she was, upon the whole, quite an amiable +and cheerful sovereign! 'By their fruits ye shall know them,' said +OUR SAVIOUR. The stake and the fire were the fruits of this reign, +and you will judge this Queen by nothing else. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI - ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH + + + +THERE was great rejoicing all over the land when the Lords of the +Council went down to Hatfield, to hail the Princess Elizabeth as +the new Queen of England. Weary of the barbarities of Mary's +reign, the people looked with hope and gladness to the new +Sovereign. The nation seemed to wake from a horrible dream; and +Heaven, so long hidden by the smoke of the fires that roasted men +and women to death, appeared to brighten once more. + +Queen Elizabeth was five-and-twenty years of age when she rode +through the streets of London, from the Tower to Westminster Abbey, +to be crowned. Her countenance was strongly marked, but on the +whole, commanding and dignified; her hair was red, and her nose +something too long and sharp for a woman's. She was not the +beautiful creature her courtiers made out; but she was well enough, +and no doubt looked all the better for coming after the dark and +gloomy Mary. She was well educated, but a roundabout writer, and +rather a hard swearer and coarse talker. She was clever, but +cunning and deceitful, and inherited much of her father's violent +temper. I mention this now, because she has been so over-praised +by one party, and so over-abused by another, that it is hardly +possible to understand the greater part of her reign without first +understanding what kind of woman she really was. + +She began her reign with the great advantage of having a very wise +and careful Minister, SIR WILLIAM CECIL, whom she afterwards made +LORD BURLEIGH. Altogether, the people had greater reason for +rejoicing than they usually had, when there were processions in the +streets; and they were happy with some reason. All kinds of shows +and images were set up; GOG and MAGOG were hoisted to the top of +Temple Bar, and (which was more to the purpose) the Corporation +dutifully presented the young Queen with the sum of a thousand +marks in gold - so heavy a present, that she was obliged to take it +into her carriage with both hands. The coronation was a great +success; and, on the next day, one of the courtiers presented a +petition to the new Queen, praying that as it was the custom to +release some prisoners on such occasions, she would have the +goodness to release the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and +John, and also the Apostle Saint Paul, who had been for some time +shut up in a strange language so that the people could not get at +them. + +To this, the Queen replied that it would be better first to inquire +of themselves whether they desired to be released or not; and, as a +means of finding out, a great public discussion - a sort of +religious tournament - was appointed to take place between certain +champions of the two religions, in Westminster Abbey. You may +suppose that it was soon made pretty clear to common sense, that +for people to benefit by what they repeat or read, it is rather +necessary they should understand something about it. Accordingly, +a Church Service in plain English was settled, and other laws and +regulations were made, completely establishing the great work of +the Reformation. The Romish bishops and champions were not harshly +dealt with, all things considered; and the Queen's Ministers were +both prudent and merciful. + +The one great trouble of this reign, and the unfortunate cause of +the greater part of such turmoil and bloodshed as occurred in it, +was MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. We will try to understand, in as +few words as possible, who Mary was, what she was, and how she came +to be a thorn in the royal pillow of Elizabeth. + +She was the daughter of the Queen Regent of Scotland, MARY OF +GUISE. She had been married, when a mere child, to the Dauphin, +the son and heir of the King of France. The Pope, who pretended +that no one could rightfully wear the crown of England without his +gracious permission, was strongly opposed to Elizabeth, who had not +asked for the said gracious permission. And as Mary Queen of Scots +would have inherited the English crown in right of her birth, +supposing the English Parliament not to have altered the +succession, the Pope himself, and most of the discontented who were +followers of his, maintained that Mary was the rightful Queen of +England, and Elizabeth the wrongful Queen. Mary being so closely +connected with France, and France being jealous of England, there +was far greater danger in this than there would have been if she +had had no alliance with that great power. And when her young +husband, on the death of his father, became FRANCIS THE SECOND, +King of France, the matter grew very serious. For, the young +couple styled themselves King and Queen of England, and the Pope +was disposed to help them by doing all the mischief he could. + +Now, the reformed religion, under the guidance of a stern and +powerful preacher, named JOHN KNOX, and other such men, had been +making fierce progress in Scotland. It was still a half savage +country, where there was a great deal of murdering and rioting +continually going on; and the Reformers, instead of reforming those +evils as they should have done, went to work in the ferocious old +Scottish spirit, laying churches and chapels waste, pulling down +pictures and altars, and knocking about the Grey Friars, and the +Black Friars, and the White Friars, and the friars of all sorts of +colours, in all directions. This obdurate and harsh spirit of the +Scottish Reformers (the Scotch have always been rather a sullen and +frowning people in religious matters) put up the blood of the +Romish French court, and caused France to send troops over to +Scotland, with the hope of setting the friars of all sorts of +colours on their legs again; of conquering that country first, and +England afterwards; and so crushing the Reformation all to pieces. +The Scottish Reformers, who had formed a great league which they +called The Congregation of the Lord, secretly represented to +Elizabeth that, if the reformed religion got the worst of it with +them, it would be likely to get the worst of it in England too; and +thus, Elizabeth, though she had a high notion of the rights of +Kings and Queens to do anything they liked, sent an army to +Scotland to support the Reformers, who were in arms against their +sovereign. All these proceedings led to a treaty of peace at +Edinburgh, under which the French consented to depart from the +kingdom. By a separate treaty, Mary and her young husband engaged +to renounce their assumed title of King and Queen of England. But +this treaty they never fulfilled. + +It happened, soon after matters had got to this state, that the +young French King died, leaving Mary a young widow. She was then +invited by her Scottish subjects to return home and reign over +them; and as she was not now happy where she was, she, after a +little time, complied. + +Elizabeth had been Queen three years, when Mary Queen of Scots +embarked at Calais for her own rough, quarrelling country. As she +came out of the harbour, a vessel was lost before her eyes, and she +said, 'O! good God! what an omen this is for such a voyage!' She +was very fond of France, and sat on the deck, looking back at it +and weeping, until it was quite dark. When she went to bed, she +directed to be called at daybreak, if the French coast were still +visible, that she might behold it for the last time. As it proved +to be a clear morning, this was done, and she again wept for the +country she was leaving, and said many times, ' Farewell, France! +Farewell, France! I shall never see thee again!' All this was +long remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and interesting in a fair +young princess of nineteen. Indeed, I am afraid it gradually came, +together with her other distresses, to surround her with greater +sympathy than she deserved. + +When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at the palace of +Holyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself among uncouth strangers +and wild uncomfortable customs very different from her experiences +in the court of France. The very people who were disposed to love +her, made her head ache when she was tired out by her voyage, with +a serenade of discordant music - a fearful concert of bagpipes, I +suppose - and brought her and her train home to her palace on +miserable little Scotch horses that appeared to be half starved. +Among the people who were not disposed to love her, she found the +powerful leaders of the Reformed Church, who were bitter upon her +amusements, however innocent, and denounced music and dancing as +works of the devil. John Knox himself often lectured her, +violently and angrily, and did much to make her life unhappy. All +these reasons confirmed her old attachment to the Romish religion, +and caused her, there is no doubt, most imprudently and dangerously +both for herself and for England too, to give a solemn pledge to +the heads of the Romish Church that if she ever succeeded to the +English crown, she would set up that religion again. In reading +her unhappy history, you must always remember this; and also that +during her whole life she was constantly put forward against the +Queen, in some form or other, by the Romish party. + +That Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not inclined to like her, is +pretty certain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, and had an +extraordinary dislike to people being married. She treated Lady +Catherine Grey, sister of the beheaded Lady Jane, with such +shameful severity, for no other reason than her being secretly +married, that she died and her husband was ruined; so, when a +second marriage for Mary began to be talked about, probably +Elizabeth disliked her more. Not that Elizabeth wanted suitors of +her own, for they started up from Spain, Austria, Sweden, and +England. Her English lover at this time, and one whom she much +favoured too, was LORD ROBERT DUDLEY, Earl of Leicester - himself +secretly married to AMY ROBSART, the daughter of an English +gentleman, whom he was strongly suspected of causing to be +murdered, down at his country seat, Cumnor Hall in Berkshire, that +he might be free to marry the Queen. Upon this story, the great +writer, SIR WALTER SCOTT, has founded one of his best romances. +But if Elizabeth knew how to lead her handsome favourite on, for +her own vanity and pleasure, she knew how to stop him for her own +pride; and his love, and all the other proposals, came to nothing. +The Queen always declared in good set speeches, that she would +never be married at all, but would live and die a Maiden Queen. It +was a very pleasant and meritorious declaration, I suppose; but it +has been puffed and trumpeted so much, that I am rather tired of it +myself. + +Divers princes proposed to marry Mary, but the English court had +reasons for being jealous of them all, and even proposed as a +matter of policy that she should marry that very Earl of Leicester +who had aspired to be the husband of Elizabeth. At last, LORD +DARNLEY, son of the Earl of Lennox, and himself descended from the +Royal Family of Scotland, went over with Elizabeth's consent to try +his fortune at Holyrood. He was a tall simpleton; and could dance +and play the guitar; but I know of nothing else he could do, unless +it were to get very drunk, and eat gluttonously, and make a +contemptible spectacle of himself in many mean and vain ways. +However, he gained Mary's heart, not disdaining in the pursuit of +his object to ally himself with one of her secretaries, DAVID +RIZZIO, who had great influence with her. He soon married the +Queen. This marriage does not say much for her, but what followed +will presently say less. + +Mary's brother, the EARL OF MURRAY, and head of the Protestant +party in Scotland, had opposed this marriage, partly on religious +grounds, and partly perhaps from personal dislike of the very +contemptible bridegroom. When it had taken place, through Mary's +gaining over to it the more powerful of the lords about her, she +banished Murray for his pains; and, when he and some other nobles +rose in arms to support the reformed religion, she herself, within +a month of her wedding day, rode against them in armour with loaded +pistols in her saddle. Driven out of Scotland, they presented +themselves before Elizabeth - who called them traitors in public, +and assisted them in private, according to her crafty nature. + +Mary had been married but a little while, when she began to hate +her husband, who, in his turn, began to hate that David Rizzio, +with whom he had leagued to gain her favour, and whom he now +believed to be her lover. He hated Rizzio to that extent, that he +made a compact with LORD RUTHVEN and three other lords to get rid +of him by murder. This wicked agreement they made in solemn +secrecy upon the first of March, fifteen hundred and sixty-six, and +on the night of Saturday the ninth, the conspirators were brought +by Darnley up a private staircase, dark and steep, into a range of +rooms where they knew that Mary was sitting at supper with her +sister, Lady Argyle, and this doomed man. When they went into the +room, Darnley took the Queen round the waist, and Lord Ruthven, who +had risen from a bed of sickness to do this murder, came in, gaunt +and ghastly, leaning on two men. Rizzio ran behind the Queen for +shelter and protection. 'Let him come out of the room,' said +Ruthven. 'He shall not leave the room,' replied the Queen; 'I read +his danger in your face, and it is my will that he remain here.' +They then set upon him, struggled with him, overturned the table, +dragged him out, and killed him with fifty-six stabs. When the +Queen heard that he was dead, she said, 'No more tears. I will +think now of revenge!' + +Within a day or two, she gained her husband over, and prevailed on +the tall idiot to abandon the conspirators and fly with her to +Dunbar. There, he issued a proclamation, audaciously and falsely +denying that he had any knowledge of the late bloody business; and +there they were joined by the EARL BOTHWELL and some other nobles. +With their help, they raised eight thousand men; returned to +Edinburgh, and drove the assassins into England. Mary soon +afterwards gave birth to a son - still thinking of revenge. + +That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after his +late cowardice and treachery than she had had before, was natural +enough. There is little doubt that she now began to love Bothwell +instead, and to plan with him means of getting rid of Darnley. +Bothwell had such power over her that he induced her even to pardon +the assassins of Rizzio. The arrangements for the Christening of +the young Prince were entrusted to him, and he was one of the most +important people at the ceremony, where the child was named JAMES: +Elizabeth being his godmother, though not present on the occasion. +A week afterwards, Darnley, who had left Mary and gone to his +father's house at Glasgow, being taken ill with the small-pox, she +sent her own physician to attend him. But there is reason to +apprehend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and that she +knew what was doing, when Bothwell within another month proposed to +one of the late conspirators against Rizzio, to murder Darnley, +'for that it was the Queen's mind that he should be taken away.' +It is certain that on that very day she wrote to her ambassador in +France, complaining of him, and yet went immediately to Glasgow, +feigning to be very anxious about him, and to love him very much. +If she wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her heart's +content; for she induced him to go back with her to Edinburgh, and +to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house outside the city +called the Kirk of Field. Here, he lived for about a week. One +Sunday night, she remained with him until ten o'clock, and then +left him, to go to Holyrood to be present at an entertainment given +in celebration of the marriage of one of her favourite servants. +At two o'clock in the morning the city was shaken by a great +explosion, and the Kirk of Field was blown to atoms. + +Darnley's body was found next day lying under a tree at some +distance. How it came there, undisfigured and unscorched by +gunpowder, and how this crime came to be so clumsily and strangely +committed, it is impossible to discover. The deceitful character +of Mary, and the deceitful character of Elizabeth, have rendered +almost every part of their joint history uncertain and obscure. +But, I fear that Mary was unquestionably a party to her husband's +murder, and that this was the revenge she had threatened. The +Scotch people universally believed it. Voices cried out in the +streets of Edinburgh in the dead of the night, for justice on the +murderess. Placards were posted by unknown hands in the public +places denouncing Bothwell as the murderer, and the Queen as his +accomplice; and, when he afterwards married her (though himself +already married), previously making a show of taking her prisoner +by force, the indignation of the people knew no bounds. The women +particularly are described as having been quite frantic against the +Queen, and to have hooted and cried after her in the streets with +terrific vehemence. + +Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and wife had lived +together but a month, when they were separated for ever by the +successes of a band of Scotch nobles who associated against them +for the protection of the young Prince: whom Bothwell had vainly +endeavoured to lay hold of, and whom he would certainly have +murdered, if the EARL OF MAR, in whose hands the boy was, had not +been firmly and honourably faithful to his trust. Before this +angry power, Bothwell fled abroad, where he died, a prisoner and +mad, nine miserable years afterwards. Mary being found by the +associated lords to deceive them at every turn, was sent a prisoner +to Lochleven Castle; which, as it stood in the midst of a lake, +could only be approached by boat. Here, one LORD LINDSAY, who was +so much of a brute that the nobles would have done better if they +had chosen a mere gentleman for their messenger, made her sign her +abdication, and appoint Murray, Regent of Scotland. Here, too, +Murray saw her in a sorrowing and humbled state. + +She had better have remained in the castle of Lochleven, dull +prison as it was, with the rippling of the lake against it, and the +moving shadows of the water on the room walls; but she could not +rest there, and more than once tried to escape. The first time she +had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes of her own washer- +woman, but, putting up her hand to prevent one of the boatmen from +lifting her veil, the men suspected her, seeing how white it was, +and rowed her back again. A short time afterwards, her fascinating +manners enlisted in her cause a boy in the Castle, called the +little DOUGLAS, who, while the family were at supper, stole the +keys of the great gate, went softly out with the Queen, locked the +gate on the outside, and rowed her away across the lake, sinking +the keys as they went along. On the opposite shore she was met by +another Douglas, and some few lords; and, so accompanied, rode away +on horseback to Hamilton, where they raised three thousand men. +Here, she issued a proclamation declaring that the abdication she +had signed in her prison was illegal, and requiring the Regent to +yield to his lawful Queen. Being a steady soldier, and in no way +discomposed although he was without an army, Murray pretended to +treat with her, until he had collected a force about half equal to +her own, and then he gave her battle. In one quarter of an hour he +cut down all her hopes. She had another weary ride on horse-back +of sixty long Scotch miles, and took shelter at Dundrennan Abbey, +whence she fled for safety to Elizabeth's dominions. + +Mary Queen of Scots came to England - to her own ruin, the trouble +of the kingdom, and the misery and death of many - in the year one +thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. How she left it and the +world, nineteen years afterwards, we have now to see. + + +SECOND PART + + +WHEN Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without money and even +without any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote to +Elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and injured piece of +Royalty, and entreating her assistance to oblige her Scottish +subjects to take her back again and obey her. But, as her +character was already known in England to be a very different one +from what she made it out to be, she was told in answer that she +must first clear herself. Made uneasy by this condition, Mary, +rather than stay in England, would have gone to Spain, or to +France, or would even have gone back to Scotland. But, as her +doing either would have been likely to trouble England afresh, it +was decided that she should be detained here. She first came to +Carlisle, and, after that, was moved about from castle to castle, +as was considered necessary; but England she never left again. + +After trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing +herself, Mary, advised by LORD HERRIES, her best friend in England, +agreed to answer the charges against her, if the Scottish noblemen +who made them would attend to maintain them before such English +noblemen as Elizabeth might appoint for that purpose. Accordingly, +such an assembly, under the name of a conference, met, first at +York, and afterwards at Hampton Court. In its presence Lord +Lennox, Darnley's father, openly charged Mary with the murder of +his son; and whatever Mary's friends may now say or write in her +behalf, there is no doubt that, when her brother Murray produced +against her a casket containing certain guilty letters and verses +which he stated to have passed between her and Bothwell, she +withdrew from the inquiry. Consequently, it is to be supposed that +she was then considered guilty by those who had the best +opportunities of judging of the truth, and that the feeling which +afterwards arose in her behalf was a very generous but not a very +reasonable one. + +However, the DUKE OF NORFOLK, an honourable but rather weak +nobleman, partly because Mary was captivating, partly because he +was ambitious, partly because he was over-persuaded by artful +plotters against Elizabeth, conceived a strong idea that he would +like to marry the Queen of Scots - though he was a little +frightened, too, by the letters in the casket. This idea being +secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen of Elizabeth's court, +and even by the favourite Earl of Leicester (because it was +objected to by other favourites who were his rivals), Mary +expressed her approval of it, and the King of France and the King +of Spain are supposed to have done the same. It was not so quietly +planned, though, but that it came to Elizabeth's ears, who warned +the Duke 'to be careful what sort of pillow he was going to lay his +head upon.' He made a humble reply at the time; but turned sulky +soon afterwards, and, being considered dangerous, was sent to the +Tower. + +Thus, from the moment of Mary's coming to England she began to be +the centre of plots and miseries. + +A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these, and it +was only checked by many executions and much bloodshed. It was +followed by a great conspiracy of the Pope and some of the Catholic +sovereigns of Europe to depose Elizabeth, place Mary on the throne, +and restore the unreformed religion. It is almost impossible to +doubt that Mary knew and approved of this; and the Pope himself was +so hot in the matter that he issued a bull, in which he openly +called Elizabeth the 'pretended Queen' of England, excommunicated +her, and excommunicated all her subjects who should continue to +obey her. A copy of this miserable paper got into London, and was +found one morning publicly posted on the Bishop of London's gate. +A great hue and cry being raised, another copy was found in the +chamber of a student of Lincoln's Inn, who confessed, being put +upon the rack, that he had received it from one JOHN FELTON, a rich +gentleman who lived across the Thames, near Southwark. This John +Felton, being put upon the rack too, confessed that he had posted +the placard on the Bishop's gate. For this offence he was, within +four days, taken to St. Paul's Churchyard, and there hanged and +quartered. As to the Pope's bull, the people by the reformation +having thrown off the Pope, did not care much, you may suppose, for +the Pope's throwing off them. It was a mere dirty piece of paper, +and not half so powerful as a street ballad. + +On the very day when Felton was brought to his trial, the poor Duke +of Norfolk was released. It would have been well for him if he had +kept away from the Tower evermore, and from the snares that had +taken him there. But, even while he was in that dismal place he +corresponded with Mary, and as soon as he was out of it, he began +to plot again. Being discovered in correspondence with the Pope, +with a view to a rising in England which should force Elizabeth to +consent to his marriage with Mary and to repeal the laws against +the Catholics, he was re-committed to the Tower and brought to +trial. He was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of the Lords +who tried him, and was sentenced to the block. + +It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and +between opposite accounts, whether Elizabeth really was a humane +woman, or desired to appear so, or was fearful of shedding the +blood of people of great name who were popular in the country. +Twice she commanded and countermanded the execution of this Duke, +and it did not take place until five months after his trial. The +scaffold was erected on Tower Hill, and there he died like a brave +man. He refused to have his eyes bandaged, saying that he was not +at all afraid of death; and he admitted the justice of his +sentence, and was much regretted by the people. + +Although Mary had shrunk at the most important time from disproving +her guilt, she was very careful never to do anything that would +admit it. All such proposals as were made to her by Elizabeth for +her release, required that admission in some form or other, and +therefore came to nothing. Moreover, both women being artful and +treacherous, and neither ever trusting the other, it was not likely +that they could ever make an agreement. So, the Parliament, +aggravated by what the Pope had done, made new and strong laws +against the spreading of the Catholic religion in England, and +declared it treason in any one to say that the Queen and her +successors were not the lawful sovereigns of England. It would +have done more than this, but for Elizabeth's moderation. + +Since the Reformation, there had come to be three great sects of +religious people - or people who called themselves so - in England; +that is to say, those who belonged to the Reformed Church, those +who belonged to the Unreformed Church, and those who were called +the Puritans, because they said that they wanted to have everything +very pure and plain in all the Church service. These last were for +the most part an uncomfortable people, who thought it highly +meritorious to dress in a hideous manner, talk through their noses, +and oppose all harmless enjoyments. But they were powerful too, +and very much in earnest, and they were one and all the determined +enemies of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant feeling in England +was further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to which +Protestants were exposed in France and in the Netherlands. Scores +of thousands of them were put to death in those countries with +every cruelty that can be imagined, and at last, in the autumn of +the year one thousand five hundred and seventy-two, one of the +greatest barbarities ever committed in the world took place at +Paris. + +It is called in history, THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW, because +it took place on Saint Bartholomew's Eve. The day fell on Saturday +the twenty-third of August. On that day all the great leaders of +the Protestants (who were there called HUGUENOTS) were assembled +together, for the purpose, as was represented to them, of doing +honour to the marriage of their chief, the young King of Navarre, +with the sister of CHARLES THE NINTH: a miserable young King who +then occupied the French throne. This dull creature was made to +believe by his mother and other fierce Catholics about him that the +Huguenots meant to take his life; and he was persuaded to give +secret orders that, on the tolling of a great bell, they should be +fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men, and slaughtered +wherever they could be found. When the appointed hour was close at +hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, was taken +into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. The +moment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. During all that +night and the two next days, they broke into the houses, fired the +houses, shot and stabbed the Protestants, men, women, and children, +and flung their bodies into the streets. They were shot at in the +streets as they passed along, and their blood ran down the gutters. +Upwards of ten thousand Protestants were killed in Paris alone; in +all France four or five times that number. To return thanks to +Heaven for these diabolical murders, the Pope and his train +actually went in public procession at Rome, and as if this were not +shame enough for them, they had a medal struck to commemorate the +event. But, however comfortable the wholesale murders were to +these high authorities, they had not that soothing effect upon the +doll-King. I am happy to state that he never knew a moment's peace +afterwards; that he was continually crying out that he saw the +Huguenots covered with blood and wounds falling dead before him; +and that he died within a year, shrieking and yelling and raving to +that degree, that if all the Popes who had ever lived had been +rolled into one, they would not have afforded His guilty Majesty +the slightest consolation. + +When the terrible news of the massacre arrived in England, it made +a powerful impression indeed upon the people. If they began to run +a little wild against the Catholics at about this time, this +fearful reason for it, coming so soon after the days of bloody +Queen Mary, must be remembered in their excuse. The Court was not +quite so honest as the people - but perhaps it sometimes is not. +It received the French ambassador, with all the lords and ladies +dressed in deep mourning, and keeping a profound silence. +Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage which he had made to Elizabeth +only two days before the eve of Saint Bartholomew, on behalf of the +Duke of Alenon, the French King's brother, a boy of seventeen, +still went on; while on the other hand, in her usual crafty way, +the Queen secretly supplied the Huguenots with money and weapons. + +I must say that for a Queen who made all those fine speeches, of +which I have confessed myself to be rather tired, about living and +dying a Maiden Queen, Elizabeth was 'going' to be married pretty +often. Besides always having some English favourite or other whom +she by turns encouraged and swore at and knocked about - for the +maiden Queen was very free with her fists - she held this French +Duke off and on through several years. When he at last came over +to England, the marriage articles were actually drawn up, and it +was settled that the wedding should take place in six weeks. The +Queen was then so bent upon it, that she prosecuted a poor Puritan +named STUBBS, and a poor bookseller named PAGE, for writing and +publishing a pamphlet against it. Their right hands were chopped +off for this crime; and poor Stubbs - more loyal than I should have +been myself under the circumstances - immediately pulled off his +hat with his left hand, and cried, 'God save the Queen!' Stubbs +was cruelly treated; for the marriage never took place after all, +though the Queen pledged herself to the Duke with a ring from her +own finger. He went away, no better than he came, when the +courtship had lasted some ten years altogether; and he died a +couple of years afterwards, mourned by Elizabeth, who appears to +have been really fond of him. It is not much to her credit, for he +was a bad enough member of a bad family. + +To return to the Catholics. There arose two orders of priests, who +were very busy in England, and who were much dreaded. These were +the JESUITS (who were everywhere in all sorts of disguises), and +the SEMINARY PRIESTS. The people had a great horror of the first, +because they were known to have taught that murder was lawful if it +were done with an object of which they approved; and they had a +great horror of the second, because they came to teach the old +religion, and to be the successors of 'Queen Mary's priests,' as +those yet lingering in England were called, when they should die +out. The severest laws were made against them, and were most +unmercifully executed. Those who sheltered them in their houses +often suffered heavily for what was an act of humanity; and the +rack, that cruel torture which tore men's limbs asunder, was +constantly kept going. What these unhappy men confessed, or what +was ever confessed by any one under that agony, must always be +received with great doubt, as it is certain that people have +frequently owned to the most absurd and impossible crimes to escape +such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubt it to have been proved +by papers, that there were many plots, both among the Jesuits, and +with France, and with Scotland, and with Spain, for the destruction +of Queen Elizabeth, for the placing of Mary on the throne, and for +the revival of the old religion. + +If the English people were too ready to believe in plots, there +were, as I have said, good reasons for it. When the massacre of +Saint Bartholomew was yet fresh in their recollection, a great +Protestant Dutch hero, the PRINCE OF ORANGE, was shot by an +assassin, who confessed that he had been kept and trained for the +purpose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, in this surprise and +distress, offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, but she +declined the honour, and sent them a small army instead, under the +command of the Earl of Leicester, who, although a capital Court +favourite, was not much of a general. He did so little in Holland, +that his campaign there would probably have been forgotten, but for +its occasioning the death of one of the best writers, the best +knights, and the best gentlemen, of that or any age. This was SIR +PHILIP SIDNEY, who was wounded by a musket ball in the thigh as he +mounted a fresh horse, after having had his own killed under him. +He had to ride back wounded, a long distance, and was very faint +with fatigue and loss of blood, when some water, for which he had +eagerly asked, was handed to him. But he was so good and gentle +even then, that seeing a poor badly wounded common soldier lying on +the ground, looking at the water with longing eyes, he said, 'Thy +necessity is greater than mine,' and gave it up to him. This +touching action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known as any +incident in history - is as famous far and wide as the blood- +stained Tower of London, with its axe, and block, and murders out +of number. So delightful is an act of true humanity, and so glad +are mankind to remember it. + +At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. I +suppose the people never did live under such continual terrors as +those by which they were possessed now, of Catholic risings, and +burnings, and poisonings, and I don't know what. Still, we must +always remember that they lived near and close to awful realities +of that kind, and that with their experience it was not difficult +to believe in any enormity. The government had the same fear, and +did not take the best means of discovering the truth - for, besides +torturing the suspected, it employed paid spies, who will always +lie for their own profit. It even made some of the conspiracies it +brought to light, by sending false letters to disaffected people, +inviting them to join in pretended plots, which they too readily +did. + +But, one great real plot was at length discovered, and it ended the +career of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary priest named BALLARD, +and a Spanish soldier named SAVAGE, set on and encouraged by +certain French priests, imparted a design to one ANTONY BABINGTON - +a gentleman of fortune in Derbyshire, who had been for some time a +secret agent of Mary's - for murdering the Queen. Babington then +confided the scheme to some other Catholic gentlemen who were his +friends, and they joined in it heartily. They were vain, weak- +headed young men, ridiculously confident, and preposterously proud +of their plan; for they got a gimcrack painting made, of the six +choice spirits who were to murder Elizabeth, with Babington in an +attitude for the centre figure. Two of their number, however, one +of whom was a priest, kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, SIR FRANCIS +WALSINGHAM, acquainted with the whole project from the first. The +conspirators were completely deceived to the final point, when +Babington gave Savage, because he was shabby, a ring from his +finger, and some money from his purse, wherewith to buy himself new +clothes in which to kill the Queen. Walsingham, having then full +evidence against the whole band, and two letters of Mary's besides, +resolved to seize them. Suspecting something wrong, they stole out +of the city, one by one, and hid themselves in St. John's Wood, and +other places which really were hiding places then; but they were +all taken, and all executed. When they were seized, a gentleman +was sent from Court to inform Mary of the fact, and of her being +involved in the discovery. Her friends have complained that she +was kept in very hard and severe custody. It does not appear very +likely, for she was going out a hunting that very morning. + +Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in France who had +good information of what was secretly doing, that in holding Mary +alive, she held 'the wolf who would devour her.' The Bishop of +London had, more lately, given the Queen's favourite minister the +advice in writing, 'forthwith to cut off the Scottish Queen's +head.' The question now was, what to do with her? The Earl of +Leicester wrote a little note home from Holland, recommending that +she should be quietly poisoned; that noble favourite having +accustomed his mind, it is possible, to remedies of that nature. +His black advice, however, was disregarded, and she was brought to +trial at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, before a tribunal +of forty, composed of both religions. There, and in the Star +Chamber at Westminster, the trial lasted a fortnight. She defended +herself with great ability, but could only deny the confessions +that had been made by Babington and others; could only call her own +letters, produced against her by her own secretaries, forgeries; +and, in short, could only deny everything. She was found guilty, +and declared to have incurred the penalty of death. The Parliament +met, approved the sentence, and prayed the Queen to have it +executed. The Queen replied that she requested them to consider +whether no means could be found of saving Mary's life without +endangering her own. The Parliament rejoined, No; and the citizens +illuminated their houses and lighted bonfires, in token of their +joy that all these plots and troubles were to be ended by the death +of the Queen of Scots. + +She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter to the +Queen of England, making three entreaties; first, that she might be +buried in France; secondly, that she might not be executed in +secret, but before her servants and some others; thirdly, that +after her death, her servants should not be molested, but should be +suffered to go home with the legacies she left them. It was an +affecting letter, and Elizabeth shed tears over it, but sent no +answer. Then came a special ambassador from France, and another +from Scotland, to intercede for Mary's life; and then the nation +began to clamour, more and more, for her death. + +What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, can never +be known now; but I strongly suspect her of only wishing one thing +more than Mary's death, and that was to keep free of the blame of +it. On the first of February, one thousand five hundred and +eighty-seven, Lord Burleigh having drawn out the warrant for the +execution, the Queen sent to the secretary DAVISON to bring it to +her, that she might sign it: which she did. Next day, when +Davison told her it was sealed, she angrily asked him why such +haste was necessary? Next day but one, she joked about it, and +swore a little. Again, next day but one, she seemed to complain +that it was not yet done, but still she would not be plain with +those about her. So, on the seventh, the Earls of Kent and +Shrewsbury, with the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, came with the +warrant to Fotheringay, to tell the Queen of Scots to prepare for +death. + +When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary made a frugal +supper, drank to her servants, read over her will, went to bed, +slept for some hours, and then arose and passed the remainder of +the night saying prayers. In the morning she dressed herself in +her best clothes; and, at eight o'clock when the sheriff came for +her to her chapel, took leave of her servants who were there +assembled praying with her, and went down-stairs, carrying a Bible +in one hand and a crucifix in the other. Two of her women and four +of her men were allowed to be present in the hall; where a low +scaffold, only two feet from the ground, was erected and covered +with black; and where the executioner from the Tower, and his +assistant, stood, dressed in black velvet. The hall was full of +people. While the sentence was being read she sat upon a stool; +and, when it was finished, she again denied her guilt, as she had +done before. The Earl of Kent and the Dean of Peterborough, in +their Protestant zeal, made some very unnecessary speeches to her; +to which she replied that she died in the Catholic religion, and +they need not trouble themselves about that matter. When her head +and neck were uncovered by the executioners, she said that she had +not been used to be undressed by such hands, or before so much +company. Finally, one of her women fastened a cloth over her face, +and she laid her neck upon the block, and repeated more than once +in Latin, 'Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!' Some say +her head was struck off in two blows, some say in three. However +that be, when it was held up, streaming with blood, the real hair +beneath the false hair she had long worn was seen to be as grey as +that of a woman of seventy, though she was at that time only in her +forty-sixth year. All her beauty was gone. + +But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cowered under +her dress, frightened, when she went upon the scaffold, and who lay +down beside her headless body when all her earthly sorrows were +over. + + +THIRD PART + + +ON its being formally made known to Elizabeth that the sentence had +been executed on the Queen of Scots, she showed the utmost grief +and rage, drove her favourites from her with violent indignation, +and sent Davison to the Tower; from which place he was only +released in the end by paying an immense fine which completely +ruined him. Elizabeth not only over-acted her part in making these +pretences, but most basely reduced to poverty one of her faithful +servants for no other fault than obeying her commands. + +James, King of Scotland, Mary's son, made a show likewise of being +very angry on the occasion; but he was a pensioner of England to +the amount of five thousand pounds a year, and he had known very +little of his mother, and he possibly regarded her as the murderer +of his father, and he soon took it quietly. + +Philip, King of Spain, however, threatened to do greater things +than ever had been done yet, to set up the Catholic religion and +punish Protestant England. Elizabeth, hearing that he and the +Prince of Parma were making great preparations for this purpose, in +order to be beforehand with them sent out ADMIRAL DRAKE (a famous +navigator, who had sailed about the world, and had already brought +great plunder from Spain) to the port of Cadiz, where he burnt a +hundred vessels full of stores. This great loss obliged the +Spaniards to put off the invasion for a year; but it was none the +less formidable for that, amounting to one hundred and thirty +ships, nineteen thousand soldiers, eight thousand sailors, two +thousand slaves, and between two and three thousand great guns. +England was not idle in making ready to resist this great force. +All the men between sixteen years old and sixty, were trained and +drilled; the national fleet of ships (in number only thirty-four at +first) was enlarged by public contributions and by private ships, +fitted out by noblemen; the city of London, of its own accord, +furnished double the number of ships and men that it was required +to provide; and, if ever the national spirit was up in England, it +was up all through the country to resist the Spaniards. Some of +the Queen's advisers were for seizing the principal English +Catholics, and putting them to death; but the Queen - who, to her +honour, used to say, that she would never believe any ill of her +subjects, which a parent would not believe of her own children - +rejected the advice, and only confined a few of those who were the +most suspected, in the fens in Lincolnshire. The great body of +Catholics deserved this confidence; for they behaved most loyally, +nobly, and bravely. + +So, with all England firing up like one strong, angry man, and with +both sides of the Thames fortified, and with the soldiers under +arms, and with the sailors in their ships, the country waited for +the coming of the proud Spanish fleet, which was called THE +INVINCIBLE ARMADA. The Queen herself, riding in armour on a white +horse, and the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Leicester holding her +bridal rein, made a brave speech to the troops at Tilbury Fort +opposite Gravesend, which was received with such enthusiasm as is +seldom known. Then came the Spanish Armada into the English +Channel, sailing along in the form of a half moon, of such great +size that it was seven miles broad. But the English were quickly +upon it, and woe then to all the Spanish ships that dropped a +little out of the half moon, for the English took them instantly! +And it soon appeared that the great Armada was anything but +invincible, for on a summer night, bold Drake sent eight blazing +fire-ships right into the midst of it. In terrible consternation +the Spaniards tried to get out to sea, and so became dispersed; the +English pursued them at a great advantage; a storm came on, and +drove the Spaniards among rocks and shoals; and the swift end of +the Invincible fleet was, that it lost thirty great ships and ten +thousand men, and, defeated and disgraced, sailed home again. +Being afraid to go by the English Channel, it sailed all round +Scotland and Ireland; some of the ships getting cast away on the +latter coast in bad weather, the Irish, who were a kind of savages, +plundered those vessels and killed their crews. So ended this +great attempt to invade and conquer England. And I think it will +be a long time before any other invincible fleet coming to England +with the same object, will fare much better than the Spanish +Armada. + +Though the Spanish king had had this bitter taste of English +bravery, he was so little the wiser for it, as still to entertain +his old designs, and even to conceive the absurd idea of placing +his daughter on the English throne. But the Earl of Essex, SIR +WALTER RALEIGH, SIR THOMAS HOWARD, and some other distinguished +leaders, put to sea from Plymouth, entered the port of Cadiz once +more, obtained a complete victory over the shipping assembled +there, and got possession of the town. In obedience to the Queen's +express instructions, they behaved with great humanity; and the +principal loss of the Spaniards was a vast sum of money which they +had to pay for ransom. This was one of many gallant achievements +on the sea, effected in this reign. Sir Walter Raleigh himself, +after marrying a maid of honour and giving offence to the Maiden +Queen thereby, had already sailed to South America in search of +gold. + +The Earl of Leicester was now dead, and so was Sir Thomas +Walsingham, whom Lord Burleigh was soon to follow. The principal +favourite was the EARL OF ESSEX, a spirited and handsome man, a +favourite with the people too as well as with the Queen, and +possessed of many admirable qualities. It was much debated at +Court whether there should be peace with Spain or no, and he was +very urgent for war. He also tried hard to have his own way in the +appointment of a deputy to govern in Ireland. One day, while this +question was in dispute, he hastily took offence, and turned his +back upon the Queen; as a gentle reminder of which impropriety, the +Queen gave him a tremendous box on the ear, and told him to go to +the devil. He went home instead, and did not reappear at Court for +half a year or so, when he and the Queen were reconciled, though +never (as some suppose) thoroughly. + +From this time the fate of the Earl of Essex and that of the Queen +seemed to be blended together. The Irish were still perpetually +quarrelling and fighting among themselves, and he went over to +Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, to the great joy of his enemies (Sir +Walter Raleigh among the rest), who were glad to have so dangerous +a rival far off. Not being by any means successful there, and +knowing that his enemies would take advantage of that circumstance +to injure him with the Queen, he came home again, though against +her orders. The Queen being taken by surprise when he appeared +before her, gave him her hand to kiss, and he was overjoyed - +though it was not a very lovely hand by this time - but in the +course of the same day she ordered him to confine himself to his +room, and two or three days afterwards had him taken into custody. +With the same sort of caprice - and as capricious an old woman she +now was, as ever wore a crown or a head either - she sent him broth +from her own table on his falling ill from anxiety, and cried about +him. + +He was a man who could find comfort and occupation in his books, +and he did so for a time; not the least happy time, I dare say, of +his life. But it happened unfortunately for him, that he held a +monopoly in sweet wines: which means that nobody could sell them +without purchasing his permission. This right, which was only for +a term, expiring, he applied to have it renewed. The Queen +refused, with the rather strong observation - but she DID make +strong observations - that an unruly beast must be stinted in his +food. Upon this, the angry Earl, who had been already deprived of +many offices, thought himself in danger of complete ruin, and +turned against the Queen, whom he called a vain old woman who had +grown as crooked in her mind as she had in her figure. These +uncomplimentary expressions the ladies of the Court immediately +snapped up and carried to the Queen, whom they did not put in a +better tempter, you may believe. The same Court ladies, when they +had beautiful dark hair of their own, used to wear false red hair, +to be like the Queen. So they were not very high-spirited ladies, +however high in rank. + +The worst object of the Earl of Essex, and some friends of his who +used to meet at LORD SOUTHAMPTON'S house, was to obtain possession +of the Queen, and oblige her by force to dismiss her ministers and +change her favourites. On Saturday the seventh of February, one +thousand six hundred and one, the council suspecting this, summoned +the Earl to come before them. He, pretending to be ill, declined; +it was then settled among his friends, that as the next day would +be Sunday, when many of the citizens usually assembled at the Cross +by St. Paul's Cathedral, he should make one bold effort to induce +them to rise and follow him to the Palace. + +So, on the Sunday morning, he and a small body of adherents started +out of his house - Essex House by the Strand, with steps to the +river - having first shut up in it, as prisoners, some members of +the council who came to examine him - and hurried into the City +with the Earl at their head crying out 'For the Queen! For the +Queen! A plot is laid for my life!' No one heeded them, however, +and when they came to St. Paul's there were no citizens there. In +the meantime the prisoners at Essex House had been released by one +of the Earl's own friends; he had been promptly proclaimed a +traitor in the City itself; and the streets were barricaded with +carts and guarded by soldiers. The Earl got back to his house by +water, with difficulty, and after an attempt to defend his house +against the troops and cannon by which it was soon surrounded, gave +himself up that night. He was brought to trial on the nineteenth, +and found guilty; on the twenty-fifth, he was executed on Tower +Hill, where he died, at thirty-four years old, both courageously +and penitently. His step-father suffered with him. His enemy, Sir +Walter Raleigh, stood near the scaffold all the time - but not so +near it as we shall see him stand, before we finish his history. + +In this case, as in the cases of the Duke of Norfolk and Mary Queen +of Scots, the Queen had commanded, and countermanded, and again +commanded, the execution. It is probable that the death of her +young and gallant favourite in the prime of his good qualities, was +never off her mind afterwards, but she held out, the same vain, +obstinate and capricious woman, for another year. Then she danced +before her Court on a state occasion - and cut, I should think, a +mighty ridiculous figure, doing so in an immense ruff, stomacher +and wig, at seventy years old. For another year still, she held +out, but, without any more dancing, and as a moody, sorrowful, +broken creature. At last, on the tenth of March, one thousand six +hundred and three, having been ill of a very bad cold, and made +worse by the death of the Countess of Nottingham who was her +intimate friend, she fell into a stupor and was supposed to be +dead. She recovered her consciousness, however, and then nothing +would induce her to go to bed; for she said that she knew that if +she did, she should never get up again. There she lay for ten +days, on cushions on the floor, without any food, until the Lord +Admiral got her into bed at last, partly by persuasions and partly +by main force. When they asked her who should succeed her, she +replied that her seat had been the seat of Kings, and that she +would have for her successor, 'No rascal's son, but a King's.' +Upon this, the lords present stared at one another, and took the +liberty of asking whom she meant; to which she replied, 'Whom +should I mean, but our cousin of Scotland!' This was on the +twenty-third of March. They asked her once again that day, after +she was speechless, whether she was still in the same mind? She +struggled up in bed, and joined her hands over her head in the form +of a crown, as the only reply she could make. At three o'clock +next morning, she very quietly died, in the forty-fifth year of her +reign. + +That reign had been a glorious one, and is made for ever memorable +by the distinguished men who flourished in it. Apart from the +great voyagers, statesmen, and scholars, whom it produced, the +names of BACON, SPENSER, and SHAKESPEARE, will always be remembered +with pride and veneration by the civilised world, and will always +impart (though with no great reason, perhaps) some portion of their +lustre to the name of Elizabeth herself. It was a great reign for +discovery, for commerce, and for English enterprise and spirit in +general. It was a great reign for the Protestant religion and for +the Reformation which made England free. The Queen was very +popular, and in her progresses, or journeys about her dominions, +was everywhere received with the liveliest joy. I think the truth +is, that she was not half so good as she has been made out, and not +half so bad as she has been made out. She had her fine qualities, +but she was coarse, capricious, and treacherous, and had all the +faults of an excessively vain young woman long after she was an old +one. On the whole, she had a great deal too much of her father in +her, to please me. + +Many improvements and luxuries were introduced in the course of +these five-and-forty years in the general manner of living; but +cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting, were still the +national amusements; and a coach was so rarely seen, and was such +an ugly and cumbersome affair when it was seen, that even the Queen +herself, on many high occasions, rode on horseback on a pillion +behind the Lord Chancellor. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII - ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST + + + +'OUR cousin of Scotland' was ugly, awkward, and shuffling both in +mind and person. His tongue was much too large for his mouth, his +legs were much too weak for his body, and his dull goggle-eyes +stared and rolled like an idiot's. He was cunning, covetous, +wasteful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swearer, +and the most conceited man on earth. His figure - what is commonly +called rickety from his birth - presented a most ridiculous +appearance, dressed in thick padded clothes, as a safeguard against +being stabbed (of which he lived in continual fear), of a grass- +green colour from head to foot, with a hunting-horn dangling at his +side instead of a sword, and his hat and feather sticking over one +eye, or hanging on the back of his head, as he happened to toss it +on. He used to loll on the necks of his favourite courtiers, and +slobber their faces, and kiss and pinch their cheeks; and the +greatest favourite he ever had, used to sign himself in his letters +to his royal master, His Majesty's 'dog and slave,' and used to +address his majesty as 'his Sowship.' His majesty was the worst +rider ever seen, and thought himself the best. He was one of the +most impertinent talkers (in the broadest Scotch) ever heard, and +boasted of being unanswerable in all manner of argument. He wrote +some of the most wearisome treatises ever read - among others, a +book upon witchcraft, in which he was a devout believer - and +thought himself a prodigy of authorship. He thought, and wrote, +and said, that a king had a right to make and unmake what laws he +pleased, and ought to be accountable to nobody on earth. This is +the plain, true character of the personage whom the greatest men +about the court praised and flattered to that degree, that I doubt +if there be anything much more shameful in the annals of human +nature. + +He came to the English throne with great ease. The miseries of a +disputed succession had been felt so long, and so dreadfully, that +he was proclaimed within a few hours of Elizabeth's death, and was +accepted by the nation, even without being asked to give any pledge +that he would govern well, or that he would redress crying +grievances. He took a month to come from Edinburgh to London; and, +by way of exercising his new power, hanged a pickpocket on the +journey without any trial, and knighted everybody he could lay hold +of. He made two hundred knights before he got to his palace in +London, and seven hundred before he had been in it three months. +He also shovelled sixty-two new peers into the House of Lords - and +there was a pretty large sprinkling of Scotchmen among them, you +may believe. + +His Sowship's prime Minister, CECIL (for I cannot do better than +call his majesty what his favourite called him), was the enemy of +Sir Walter Raleigh, and also of Sir Walter's political friend, LORD +COBHAM; and his Sowship's first trouble was a plot originated by +these two, and entered into by some others, with the old object of +seizing the King and keeping him in imprisonment until he should +change his ministers. There were Catholic priests in the plot, and +there were Puritan noblemen too; for, although the Catholics and +Puritans were strongly opposed to each other, they united at this +time against his Sowship, because they knew that he had a design +against both, after pretending to be friendly to each; this design +being to have only one high and convenient form of the Protestant +religion, which everybody should be bound to belong to, whether +they liked it or not. This plot was mixed up with another, which +may or may not have had some reference to placing on the throne, at +some time, the LADY ARABELLA STUART; whose misfortune it was, to be +the daughter of the younger brother of his Sowship's father, but +who was quite innocent of any part in the scheme. Sir Walter +Raleigh was accused on the confession of Lord Cobham - a miserable +creature, who said one thing at one time, and another thing at +another time, and could be relied upon in nothing. The trial of +Sir Walter Raleigh lasted from eight in the morning until nearly +midnight; he defended himself with such eloquence, genius, and +spirit against all accusations, and against the insults of COKE, +the Attorney-General - who, according to the custom of the time, +foully abused him - that those who went there detesting the +prisoner, came away admiring him, and declaring that anything so +wonderful and so captivating was never heard. He was found guilty, +nevertheless, and sentenced to death. Execution was deferred, and +he was taken to the Tower. The two Catholic priests, less +fortunate, were executed with the usual atrocity; and Lord Cobham +and two others were pardoned on the scaffold. His Sowship thought +it wonderfully knowing in him to surprise the people by pardoning +these three at the very block; but, blundering, and bungling, as +usual, he had very nearly overreached himself. For, the messenger +on horseback who brought the pardon, came so late, that he was +pushed to the outside of the crowd, and was obliged to shout and +roar out what he came for. The miserable Cobham did not gain much +by being spared that day. He lived, both as a prisoner and a +beggar, utterly despised, and miserably poor, for thirteen years, +and then died in an old outhouse belonging to one of his former +servants. + +This plot got rid of, and Sir Walter Raleigh safely shut up in the +Tower, his Sowship held a great dispute with the Puritans on their +presenting a petition to him, and had it all his own way - not so +very wonderful, as he would talk continually, and would not hear +anybody else - and filled the Bishops with admiration. It was +comfortably settled that there was to be only one form of religion, +and that all men were to think exactly alike. But, although this +was arranged two centuries and a half ago, and although the +arrangement was supported by much fining and imprisonment, I do not +find that it is quite successful, even yet. + +His Sowship, having that uncommonly high opinion of himself as a +king, had a very low opinion of Parliament as a power that +audaciously wanted to control him. When he called his first +Parliament after he had been king a year, he accordingly thought he +would take pretty high ground with them, and told them that he +commanded them 'as an absolute king.' The Parliament thought those +strong words, and saw the necessity of upholding their authority. +His Sowship had three children: Prince Henry, Prince Charles, and +the Princess Elizabeth. It would have been well for one of these, +and we shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a little wisdom +concerning Parliaments from his father's obstinacy. + +Now, the people still labouring under their old dread of the +Catholic religion, this Parliament revived and strengthened the +severe laws against it. And this so angered ROBERT CATESBY, a +restless Catholic gentleman of an old family, that he formed one of +the most desperate and terrible designs ever conceived in the mind +of man; no less a scheme than the Gunpowder Plot. + +His object was, when the King, lords, and commons, should be +assembled at the next opening of Parliament, to blow them up, one +and all, with a great mine of gunpowder. The first person to whom +he confided this horrible idea was THOMAS WINTER, a Worcestershire +gentleman who had served in the army abroad, and had been secretly +employed in Catholic projects. While Winter was yet undecided, and +when he had gone over to the Netherlands, to learn from the Spanish +Ambassador there whether there was any hope of Catholics being +relieved through the intercession of the King of Spain with his +Sowship, he found at Ostend a tall, dark, daring man, whom he had +known when they were both soldiers abroad, and whose name was GUIDO +- or GUY - FAWKES. Resolved to join the plot, he proposed it to +this man, knowing him to be the man for any desperate deed, and +they two came back to England together. Here, they admitted two +other conspirators; THOMAS PERCY, related to the Earl of +Northumberland, and JOHN WRIGHT, his brother-in-law. All these met +together in a solitary house in the open fields which were then +near Clement's Inn, now a closely blocked-up part of London; and +when they had all taken a great oath of secrecy, Catesby told the +rest what his plan was. They then went up-stairs into a garret, +and received the Sacrament from FATHER GERARD, a Jesuit, who is +said not to have known actually of the Gunpowder Plot, but who, I +think, must have had his suspicions that there was something +desperate afoot. + +Percy was a Gentleman Pensioner, and as he had occasional duties to +perform about the Court, then kept at Whitehall, there would be +nothing suspicious in his living at Westminster. So, having looked +well about him, and having found a house to let, the back of which +joined the Parliament House, he hired it of a person named FERRIS, +for the purpose of undermining the wall. Having got possession of +this house, the conspirators hired another on the Lambeth side of +the Thames, which they used as a storehouse for wood, gunpowder, +and other combustible matters. These were to be removed at night +(and afterwards were removed), bit by bit, to the house at +Westminster; and, that there might be some trusty person to keep +watch over the Lambeth stores, they admitted another conspirator, +by name ROBERT KAY, a very poor Catholic gentleman. + +All these arrangements had been made some months, and it was a +dark, wintry, December night, when the conspirators, who had been +in the meantime dispersed to avoid observation, met in the house at +Westminster, and began to dig. They had laid in a good stock of +eatables, to avoid going in and out, and they dug and dug with +great ardour. But, the wall being tremendously thick, and the work +very severe, they took into their plot CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, a +younger brother of John Wright, that they might have a new pair of +hands to help. And Christopher Wright fell to like a fresh man, +and they dug and dug by night and by day, and Fawkes stood sentinel +all the time. And if any man's heart seemed to fail him at all, +Fawkes said, 'Gentlemen, we have abundance of powder and shot here, +and there is no fear of our being taken alive, even if discovered.' +The same Fawkes, who, in the capacity of sentinel, was always +prowling about, soon picked up the intelligence that the King had +prorogued the Parliament again, from the seventh of February, the +day first fixed upon, until the third of October. When the +conspirators knew this, they agreed to separate until after the +Christmas holidays, and to take no notice of each other in the +meanwhile, and never to write letters to one another on any +account. So, the house in Westminster was shut up again, and I +suppose the neighbours thought that those strange-looking men who +lived there so gloomily, and went out so seldom, were gone away to +have a merry Christmas somewhere. + +It was the beginning of February, sixteen hundred and five, when +Catesby met his fellow-conspirators again at this Westminster +house. He had now admitted three more; JOHN GRANT, a Warwickshire +gentleman of a melancholy temper, who lived in a doleful house near +Stratford-upon-Avon, with a frowning wall all round it, and a deep +moat; ROBERT WINTER, eldest brother of Thomas; and Catesby's own +servant, THOMAS BATES, who, Catesby thought, had had some suspicion +of what his master was about. These three had all suffered more or +less for their religion in Elizabeth's time. And now, they all +began to dig again, and they dug and dug by night and by day. + +They found it dismal work alone there, underground, with such a +fearful secret on their minds, and so many murders before them. +They were filled with wild fancies. Sometimes, they thought they +heard a great bell tolling, deep down in the earth under the +Parliament House; sometimes, they thought they heard low voices +muttering about the Gunpowder Plot; once in the morning, they +really did hear a great rumbling noise over their heads, as they +dug and sweated in their mine. Every man stopped and looked aghast +at his neighbour, wondering what had happened, when that bold +prowler, Fawkes, who had been out to look, came in and told them +that it was only a dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar under +the Parliament House, removing his stock in trade to some other +place. Upon this, the conspirators, who with all their digging and +digging had not yet dug through the tremendously thick wall, +changed their plan; hired that cellar, which was directly under the +House of Lords; put six-and-thirty barrels of gunpowder in it, and +covered them over with fagots and coals. Then they all dispersed +again till September, when the following new conspirators were +admitted; SIR EDWARD BAYNHAM, of Gloucestershire; SIR EVERARD +DIGBY, of Rutlandshire; AMBROSE ROOKWOOD, of Suffolk; FRANCIS +TRESHAM, of Northamptonshire. Most of these were rich, and were to +assist the plot, some with money and some with horses on which the +conspirators were to ride through the country and rouse the +Catholics after the Parliament should be blown into air. + +Parliament being again prorogued from the third of October to the +fifth of November, and the conspirators being uneasy lest their +design should have been found out, Thomas Winter said he would go +up into the House of Lords on the day of the prorogation, and see +how matters looked. Nothing could be better. The unconscious +Commissioners were walking about and talking to one another, just +over the six-and-thirty barrels of gunpowder. He came back and +told the rest so, and they went on with their preparations. They +hired a ship, and kept it ready in the Thames, in which Fawkes was +to sail for Flanders after firing with a slow match the train that +was to explode the powder. A number of Catholic gentlemen not in +the secret, were invited, on pretence of a hunting party, to meet +Sir Everard Digby at Dunchurch on the fatal day, that they might be +ready to act together. And now all was ready. + +But, now, the great wickedness and danger which had been all along +at the bottom of this wicked plot, began to show itself. As the +fifth of November drew near, most of the conspirators, remembering +that they had friends and relations who would be in the House of +Lords that day, felt some natural relenting, and a wish to warn +them to keep away. They were not much comforted by Catesby's +declaring that in such a cause he would blow up his own son. LORD +MOUNTEAGLE, Tresham's brother-in-law, was certain to be in the +house; and when Tresham found that he could not prevail upon the +rest to devise any means of sparing their friends, he wrote a +mysterious letter to this lord and left it at his lodging in the +dusk, urging him to keep away from the opening of Parliament, +'since God and man had concurred to punish the wickedness of the +times.' It contained the words 'that the Parliament should receive +a terrible blow, and yet should not see who hurt them.' And it +added, 'the danger is past, as soon as you have burnt the letter.' + +The ministers and courtiers made out that his Sowship, by a direct +miracle from Heaven, found out what this letter meant. The truth +is, that they were not long (as few men would be) in finding out +for themselves; and it was decided to let the conspirators alone, +until the very day before the opening of Parliament. That the +conspirators had their fears, is certain; for, Tresham himself said +before them all, that they were every one dead men; and, although +even he did not take flight, there is reason to suppose that he had +warned other persons besides Lord Mounteagle. However, they were +all firm; and Fawkes, who was a man of iron, went down every day +and night to keep watch in the cellar as usual. He was there about +two in the afternoon of the fourth, when the Lord Chamberlain and +Lord Mounteagle threw open the door and looked in. 'Who are you, +friend?' said they. 'Why,' said Fawkes, 'I am Mr. Percy's servant, +and am looking after his store of fuel here.' 'Your master has +laid in a pretty good store,' they returned, and shut the door, and +went away. Fawkes, upon this, posted off to the other conspirators +to tell them all was quiet, and went back and shut himself up in +the dark, black cellar again, where he heard the bell go twelve +o'clock and usher in the fifth of November. About two hours +afterwards, he slowly opened the door, and came out to look about +him, in his old prowling way. He was instantly seized and bound, +by a party of soldiers under SIR THOMAS KNEVETT. He had a watch +upon him, some touchwood, some tinder, some slow matches; and there +was a dark lantern with a candle in it, lighted, behind the door. +He had his boots and spurs on - to ride to the ship, I suppose - +and it was well for the soldiers that they took him so suddenly. +If they had left him but a moment's time to light a match, he +certainly would have tossed it in among the powder, and blown up +himself and them. + +They took him to the King's bed-chamber first of all, and there the +King (causing him to be held very tight, and keeping a good way +off), asked him how he could have the heart to intend to destroy so +many innocent people? 'Because,' said Guy Fawkes, 'desperate +diseases need desperate remedies.' To a little Scotch favourite, +with a face like a terrier, who asked him (with no particular +wisdom) why he had collected so much gunpowder, he replied, because +he had meant to blow Scotchmen back to Scotland, and it would take +a deal of powder to do that. Next day he was carried to the Tower, +but would make no confession. Even after being horribly tortured, +he confessed nothing that the Government did not already know; +though he must have been in a fearful state - as his signature, +still preserved, in contrast with his natural hand-writing before +he was put upon the dreadful rack, most frightfully shows. Bates, +a very different man, soon said the Jesuits had had to do with the +plot, and probably, under the torture, would as readily have said +anything. Tresham, taken and put in the Tower too, made +confessions and unmade them, and died of an illness that was heavy +upon him. Rookwood, who had stationed relays of his own horses all +the way to Dunchurch, did not mount to escape until the middle of +the day, when the news of the plot was all over London. On the +road, he came up with the two Wrights, Catesby, and Percy; and they +all galloped together into Northamptonshire. Thence to Dunchurch, +where they found the proposed party assembled. Finding, however, +that there had been a plot, and that it had been discovered, the +party disappeared in the course of the night, and left them alone +with Sir Everard Digby. Away they all rode again, through +Warwickshire and Worcestershire, to a house called Holbeach, on the +borders of Staffordshire. They tried to raise the Catholics on +their way, but were indignantly driven off by them. All this time +they were hotly pursued by the sheriff of Worcester, and a fast +increasing concourse of riders. At last, resolving to defend +themselves at Holbeach, they shut themselves up in the house, and +put some wet powder before the fire to dry. But it blew up, and +Catesby was singed and blackened, and almost killed, and some of +the others were sadly hurt. Still, knowing that they must die, +they resolved to die there, and with only their swords in their +hands appeared at the windows to be shot at by the sheriff and his +assistants. Catesby said to Thomas Winter, after Thomas had been +hit in the right arm which dropped powerless by his side, 'Stand by +me, Tom, and we will die together!' - which they did, being shot +through the body by two bullets from one gun. John Wright, and +Christopher Wright, and Percy, were also shot. Rookwood and Digby +were taken: the former with a broken arm and a wound in his body +too. + +It was the fifteenth of January, before the trial of Guy Fawkes, +and such of the other conspirators as were left alive, came on. +They were all found guilty, all hanged, drawn, and quartered: +some, in St. Paul's Churchyard, on the top of Ludgate-hill; some, +before the Parliament House. A Jesuit priest, named HENRY GARNET, +to whom the dreadful design was said to have been communicated, was +taken and tried; and two of his servants, as well as a poor priest +who was taken with him, were tortured without mercy. He himself +was not tortured, but was surrounded in the Tower by tamperers and +traitors, and so was made unfairly to convict himself out of his +own mouth. He said, upon his trial, that he had done all he could +to prevent the deed, and that he could not make public what had +been told him in confession - though I am afraid he knew of the +plot in other ways. He was found guilty and executed, after a +manful defence, and the Catholic Church made a saint of him; some +rich and powerful persons, who had had nothing to do with the +project, were fined and imprisoned for it by the Star Chamber; the +Catholics, in general, who had recoiled with horror from the idea +of the infernal contrivance, were unjustly put under more severe +laws than before; and this was the end of the Gunpowder Plot. + + +SECOND PART + + +His Sowship would pretty willingly, I think, have blown the House +of Commons into the air himself; for, his dread and jealousy of it +knew no bounds all through his reign. When he was hard pressed for +money he was obliged to order it to meet, as he could get no money +without it; and when it asked him first to abolish some of the +monopolies in necessaries of life which were a great grievance to +the people, and to redress other public wrongs, he flew into a rage +and got rid of it again. At one time he wanted it to consent to +the Union of England with Scotland, and quarrelled about that. At +another time it wanted him to put down a most infamous Church +abuse, called the High Commission Court, and he quarrelled with it +about that. At another time it entreated him not to be quite so +fond of his archbishops and bishops who made speeches in his praise +too awful to be related, but to have some little consideration for +the poor Puritan clergy who were persecuted for preaching in their +own way, and not according to the archbishops and bishops; and they +quarrelled about that. In short, what with hating the House of +Commons, and pretending not to hate it; and what with now sending +some of its members who opposed him, to Newgate or to the Tower, +and now telling the rest that they must not presume to make +speeches about the public affairs which could not possibly concern +them; and what with cajoling, and bullying, and fighting, and being +frightened; the House of Commons was the plague of his Sowship's +existence. It was pretty firm, however, in maintaining its rights, +and insisting that the Parliament should make the laws, and not the +King by his own single proclamations (which he tried hard to do); +and his Sowship was so often distressed for money, in consequence, +that he sold every sort of title and public office as if they were +merchandise, and even invented a new dignity called a Baronetcy, +which anybody could buy for a thousand pounds. + +These disputes with his Parliaments, and his hunting, and his +drinking, and his lying in bed - for he was a great sluggard - +occupied his Sowship pretty well. The rest of his time he chiefly +passed in hugging and slobbering his favourites. The first of +these was SIR PHILIP HERBERT, who had no knowledge whatever, except +of dogs, and horses, and hunting, but whom he soon made EARL OF +MONTGOMERY. The next, and a much more famous one, was ROBERT CARR, +or KER (for it is not certain which was his right name), who came +from the Border country, and whom he soon made VISCOUNT ROCHESTER, +and afterwards, EARL OF SOMERSET. The way in which his Sowship +doted on this handsome young man, is even more odious to think of, +than the way in which the really great men of England condescended +to bow down before him. The favourite's great friend was a certain +SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, who wrote his love-letters for him, and +assisted him in the duties of his many high places, which his own +ignorance prevented him from discharging. But this same Sir Thomas +having just manhood enough to dissuade the favourite from a wicked +marriage with the beautiful Countess of Essex, who was to get a +divorce from her husband for the purpose, the said Countess, in her +rage, got Sir Thomas put into the Tower, and there poisoned him. +Then the favourite and this bad woman were publicly married by the +King's pet bishop, with as much to-do and rejoicing, as if he had +been the best man, and she the best woman, upon the face of the +earth. + +But, after a longer sunshine than might have been expected - of +seven years or so, that is to say - another handsome young man +started up and eclipsed the EARL OF SOMERSET. This was GEORGE +VILLIERS, the youngest son of a Leicestershire gentleman: who came +to Court with all the Paris fashions on him, and could dance as +well as the best mountebank that ever was seen. He soon danced +himself into the good graces of his Sowship, and danced the other +favourite out of favour. Then, it was all at once discovered that +the Earl and Countess of Somerset had not deserved all those great +promotions and mighty rejoicings, and they were separately tried +for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and for other crimes. But, +the King was so afraid of his late favourite's publicly telling +some disgraceful things he knew of him - which he darkly threatened +to do - that he was even examined with two men standing, one on +either side of him, each with a cloak in his hand, ready to throw +it over his head and stop his mouth if he should break out with +what he had it in his power to tell. So, a very lame affair was +purposely made of the trial, and his punishment was an allowance of +four thousand pounds a year in retirement, while the Countess was +pardoned, and allowed to pass into retirement too. They hated one +another by this time, and lived to revile and torment each other +some years. + +While these events were in progress, and while his Sowship was +making such an exhibition of himself, from day to day and from year +to year, as is not often seen in any sty, three remarkable deaths +took place in England. The first was that of the Minister, Robert +Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who was past sixty, and had never been +strong, being deformed from his birth. He said at last that he had +no wish to live; and no Minister need have had, with his experience +of the meanness and wickedness of those disgraceful times. The +second was that of the Lady Arabella Stuart, who alarmed his +Sowship mightily, by privately marrying WILLIAM SEYMOUR, son of +LORD BEAUCHAMP, who was a descendant of King Henry the Seventh, and +who, his Sowship thought, might consequently increase and +strengthen any claim she might one day set up to the throne. She +was separated from her husband (who was put in the Tower) and +thrust into a boat to be confined at Durham. She escaped in a +man's dress to get away in a French ship from Gravesend to France, +but unhappily missed her husband, who had escaped too, and was soon +taken. She went raving mad in the miserable Tower, and died there +after four years. The last, and the most important of these three +deaths, was that of Prince Henry, the heir to the throne, in the +nineteenth year of his age. He was a promising young prince, and +greatly liked; a quiet, well-conducted youth, of whom two very good +things are known: first, that his father was jealous of him; +secondly, that he was the friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, languishing +through all those years in the Tower, and often said that no man +but his father would keep such a bird in such a cage. On the +occasion of the preparations for the marriage of his sister the +Princess Elizabeth with a foreign prince (and an unhappy marriage +it turned out), he came from Richmond, where he had been very ill, +to greet his new brother-in-law, at the palace at Whitehall. There +he played a great game at tennis, in his shirt, though it was very +cold weather, and was seized with an alarming illness, and died +within a fortnight of a putrid fever. For this young prince Sir +Walter Raleigh wrote, in his prison in the Tower, the beginning of +a History of the World: a wonderful instance how little his +Sowship could do to confine a great man's mind, however long he +might imprison his body. + +And this mention of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had many faults, but +who never showed so many merits as in trouble and adversity, may +bring me at once to the end of his sad story. After an +imprisonment in the Tower of twelve long years, he proposed to +resume those old sea voyages of his, and to go to South America in +search of gold. His Sowship, divided between his wish to be on +good terms with the Spaniards through whose territory Sir Walter +must pass (he had long had an idea of marrying Prince Henry to a +Spanish Princess), and his avaricious eagerness to get hold of the +gold, did not know what to do. But, in the end, he set Sir Walter +free, taking securities for his return; and Sir Walter fitted out +an expedition at his own coast and, on the twenty-eighth of March, +one thousand six hundred and seventeen, sailed away in command of +one of its ships, which he ominously called the Destiny. The +expedition failed; the common men, not finding the gold they had +expected, mutinied; a quarrel broke out between Sir Walter and the +Spaniards, who hated him for old successes of his against them; and +he took and burnt a little town called SAINT THOMAS. For this he +was denounced to his Sowship by the Spanish Ambassador as a pirate; +and returning almost broken-hearted, with his hopes and fortunes +shattered, his company of friends dispersed, and his brave son (who +had been one of them) killed, he was taken - through the treachery +of SIR LEWIS STUKELY, his near relation, a scoundrel and a Vice- +Admiral - and was once again immured in his prison-home of so many +years. + +His Sowship being mightily disappointed in not getting any gold, +Sir Walter Raleigh was tried as unfairly, and with as many lies and +evasions as the judges and law officers and every other authority +in Church and State habitually practised under such a King. After +a great deal of prevarication on all parts but his own, it was +declared that he must die under his former sentence, now fifteen +years old. So, on the twenty-eighth of October, one thousand six +hundred and eighteen, he was shut up in the Gate House at +Westminster to pass his late night on earth, and there he took +leave of his good and faithful lady who was worthy to have lived in +better days. At eight o'clock next morning, after a cheerful +breakfast, and a pipe, and a cup of good wine, he was taken to Old +Palace Yard in Westminster, where the scaffold was set up, and +where so many people of high degree were assembled to see him die, +that it was a matter of some difficulty to get him through the +crowd. He behaved most nobly, but if anything lay heavy on his +mind, it was that Earl of Essex, whose head he had seen roll off; +and he solemnly said that he had had no hand in bringing him to the +block, and that he had shed tears for him when he died. As the +morning was very cold, the Sheriff said, would he come down to a +fire for a little space, and warm himself? But Sir Walter thanked +him, and said no, he would rather it were done at once, for he was +ill of fever and ague, and in another quarter of an hour his +shaking fit would come upon him if he were still alive, and his +enemies might then suppose that he trembled for fear. With that, +he kneeled and made a very beautiful and Christian prayer. Before +he laid his head upon the block he felt the edge of the axe, and +said, with a smile upon his face, that it was a sharp medicine, but +would cure the worst disease. When he was bent down ready for +death, he said to the executioner, finding that he hesitated, 'What +dost thou fear? Strike, man!' So, the axe came down and struck +his head off, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. + +The new favourite got on fast. He was made a viscount, he was made +Duke of Buckingham, he was made a marquis, he was made Master of +the Horse, he was made Lord High Admiral - and the Chief Commander +of the gallant English forces that had dispersed the Spanish +Armada, was displaced to make room for him. He had the whole +kingdom at his disposal, and his mother sold all the profits and +honours of the State, as if she had kept a shop. He blazed all +over with diamonds and other precious stones, from his hatband and +his earrings to his shoes. Yet he was an ignorant presumptuous, +swaggering compound of knave and fool, with nothing but his beauty +and his dancing to recommend him. This is the gentleman who called +himself his Majesty's dog and slave, and called his Majesty Your +Sowship. His Sowship called him STEENIE; it is supposed, because +that was a nickname for Stephen, and because St. Stephen was +generally represented in pictures as a handsome saint. + +His Sowship was driven sometimes to his wits'-end by his trimming +between the general dislike of the Catholic religion at home, and +his desire to wheedle and flatter it abroad, as his only means of +getting a rich princess for his son's wife: a part of whose +fortune he might cram into his greasy pockets. Prince Charles - or +as his Sowship called him, Baby Charles - being now PRINCE OF +WALES, the old project of a marriage with the Spanish King's +daughter had been revived for him; and as she could not marry a +Protestant without leave from the Pope, his Sowship himself +secretly and meanly wrote to his Infallibility, asking for it. The +negotiation for this Spanish marriage takes up a larger space in +great books, than you can imagine, but the upshot of it all is, +that when it had been held off by the Spanish Court for a long +time, Baby Charles and Steenie set off in disguise as Mr. Thomas +Smith and Mr. John Smith, to see the Spanish Princess; that Baby +Charles pretended to be desperately in love with her, and jumped +off walls to look at her, and made a considerable fool of himself +in a good many ways; that she was called Princess of Wales and that +the whole Spanish Court believed Baby Charles to be all but dying +for her sake, as he expressly told them he was; that Baby Charles +and Steenie came back to England, and were received with as much +rapture as if they had been a blessing to it; that Baby Charles had +actually fallen in love with HENRIETTA MARIA, the French King's +sister, whom he had seen in Paris; that he thought it a wonderfully +fine and princely thing to have deceived the Spaniards, all +through; and that he openly said, with a chuckle, as soon as he was +safe and sound at home again, that the Spaniards were great fools +to have believed him. + +Like most dishonest men, the Prince and the favourite complained +that the people whom they had deluded were dishonest. They made +such misrepresentations of the treachery of the Spaniards in this +business of the Spanish match, that the English nation became eager +for a war with them. Although the gravest Spaniards laughed at the +idea of his Sowship in a warlike attitude, the Parliament granted +money for the beginning of hostilities, and the treaties with Spain +were publicly declared to be at an end. The Spanish ambassador in +London - probably with the help of the fallen favourite, the Earl +of Somerset - being unable to obtain speech with his Sowship, +slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was a prisoner in +his own house, and was entirely governed by Buckingham and his +creatures. The first effect of this letter was that his Sowship +began to cry and whine, and took Baby Charles away from Steenie, +and went down to Windsor, gabbling all sorts of nonsense. The end +of it was that his Sowship hugged his dog and slave, and said he +was quite satisfied. + +He had given the Prince and the favourite almost unlimited power to +settle anything with the Pope as to the Spanish marriage; and he +now, with a view to the French one, signed a treaty that all Roman +Catholics in England should exercise their religion freely, and +should never be required to take any oath contrary thereto. In +return for this, and for other concessions much less to be +defended, Henrietta Maria was to become the Prince's wife, and was +to bring him a fortune of eight hundred thousand crowns. + +His Sowship's eyes were getting red with eagerly looking for the +money, when the end of a gluttonous life came upon him; and, after +a fortnight's illness, on Sunday the twenty-seventh of March, one +thousand six hundred and twenty-five, he died. He had reigned +twenty-two years, and was fifty-nine years old. I know of nothing +more abominable in history than the adulation that was lavished on +this King, and the vice and corruption that such a barefaced habit +of lying produced in his court. It is much to be doubted whether +one man of honour, and not utterly self-disgraced, kept his place +near James the First. Lord Bacon, that able and wise philosopher, +as the First Judge in the Kingdom in this reign, became a public +spectacle of dishonesty and corruption; and in his base flattery of +his Sowship, and in his crawling servility to his dog and slave, +disgraced himself even more. But, a creature like his Sowship set +upon a throne is like the Plague, and everybody receives infection +from him. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII - ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST + + + +BABY CHARLES became KING CHARLES THE FIRST, in the twenty-fifth +year of his age. Unlike his father, he was usually amiable in his +private character, and grave and dignified in his bearing; but, +like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated notions of the +rights of a king, and was evasive, and not to be trusted. If his +word could have been relied upon, his history might have had a +different end. + +His first care was to send over that insolent upstart, Buckingham, +to bring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his Queen; upon which +occasion Buckingham - with his usual audacity - made love to the +young Queen of Austria, and was very indignant indeed with CARDINAL +RICHELIEU, the French Minister, for thwarting his intentions. The +English people were very well disposed to like their new Queen, and +to receive her with great favour when she came among them as a +stranger. But, she held the Protestant religion in great dislike, +and brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests, who made her do +some very ridiculous things, and forced themselves upon the public +notice in many disagreeable ways. Hence, the people soon came to +dislike her, and she soon came to dislike them; and she did so much +all through this reign in setting the King (who was dotingly fond +of her) against his subjects, that it would have been better for +him if she had never been born. + +Now, you are to understand that King Charles the First - of his own +determination to be a high and mighty King not to be called to +account by anybody, and urged on by his Queen besides - +deliberately set himself to put his Parliament down and to put +himself up. You are also to understand, that even in pursuit of +this wrong idea (enough in itself to have ruined any king) he never +took a straight course, but always took a crooked one. + +He was bent upon war with Spain, though neither the House of +Commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of that +war, now that they began to think a little more about the story of +the Spanish match. But the King rushed into it hotly, raised money +by illegal means to meet its expenses, and encountered a miserable +failure at Cadiz, in the very first year of his reign. An +expedition to Cadiz had been made in the hope of plunder, but as it +was not successful, it was necessary to get a grant of money from +the Parliament; and when they met, in no very complying humour, +the, King told them, 'to make haste to let him have it, or it would +be the worse for themselves.' Not put in a more complying humour +by this, they impeached the King's favourite, the Duke of +Buckingham, as the cause (which he undoubtedly was) of many great +public grievances and wrongs. The King, to save him, dissolved the +Parliament without getting the money he wanted; and when the Lords +implored him to consider and grant a little delay, he replied, 'No, +not one minute.' He then began to raise money for himself by the +following means among others. + +He levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which had not +been granted by the Parliament, and could lawfully be levied by no +other power; he called upon the seaport towns to furnish, and to +pay all the cost for three months of, a fleet of armed ships; and +he required the people to unite in lending him large sums of money, +the repayment of which was very doubtful. If the poor people +refused, they were pressed as soldiers or sailors; if the gentry +refused, they were sent to prison. Five gentlemen, named SIR +THOMAS DARNEL, JOHN CORBET, WALTER EARL, JOHN HEVENINGHAM, and +EVERARD HAMPDEN, for refusing were taken up by a warrant of the +King's privy council, and were sent to prison without any cause but +the King's pleasure being stated for their imprisonment. Then the +question came to be solemnly tried, whether this was not a +violation of Magna Charta, and an encroachment by the King on the +highest rights of the English people. His lawyers contended No, +because to encroach upon the rights of the English people would be +to do wrong, and the King could do no wrong. The accommodating +judges decided in favour of this wicked nonsense; and here was a +fatal division between the King and the people. + +For all this, it became necessary to call another Parliament. The +people, sensible of the danger in which their liberties were, chose +for it those who were best known for their determined opposition to +the King; but still the King, quite blinded by his determination to +carry everything before him, addressed them when they met, in a +contemptuous manner, and just told them in so many words that he +had only called them together because he wanted money. The +Parliament, strong enough and resolute enough to know that they +would lower his tone, cared little for what he said, and laid +before him one of the great documents of history, which is called +the PETITION OF RIGHT, requiring that the free men of England +should no longer be called upon to lend the King money, and should +no longer be pressed or imprisoned for refusing to do so; further, +that the free men of England should no longer be seized by the +King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their +rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the +King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to +shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their +determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King +in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was +required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and +honour on these points, over and over again, but, at this very +time, he did the mean and dissembling act of publishing his first +answer and not his second - merely that the people might suppose +that the Parliament had not got the better of him. + +That pestilent Buckingham, to gratify his own wounded vanity, had +by this time involved the country in war with France, as well as +with Spain. For such miserable causes and such miserable creatures +are wars sometimes made! But he was destined to do little more +mischief in this world. One morning, as he was going out of his +house to his carriage, he turned to speak to a certain Colonel +FRYER who was with him; and he was violently stabbed with a knife, +which the murderer left sticking in his heart. This happened in +his hall. He had had angry words up-stairs, just before, with some +French gentlemen, who were immediately suspected by his servants, +and had a close escape from being set upon and killed. In the +midst of the noise, the real murderer, who had gone to the kitchen +and might easily have got away, drew his sword and cried out, 'I am +the man!' His name was JOHN FELTON, a Protestant and a retired +officer in the army. He said he had had no personal ill-will to +the Duke, but had killed him as a curse to the country. He had +aimed his blow well, for Buckingham had only had time to cry out, +'Villain!' and then he drew out the knife, fell against a table, +and died. + +The council made a mighty business of examining John Felton about +this murder, though it was a plain case enough, one would think. +He had come seventy miles to do it, he told them, and he did it for +the reason he had declared; if they put him upon the rack, as that +noble MARQUIS OF DORSET whom he saw before him, had the goodness to +threaten, he gave that marquis warning, that he would accuse HIM as +his accomplice! The King was unpleasantly anxious to have him +racked, nevertheless; but as the judges now found out that torture +was contrary to the law of England - it is a pity they did not make +the discovery a little sooner - John Felton was simply executed for +the murder he had done. A murder it undoubtedly was, and not in +the least to be defended: though he had freed England from one of +the most profligate, contemptible, and base court favourites to +whom it has ever yielded. + +A very different man now arose. This was SIR THOMAS WENTWORTH, a +Yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in Parliament for a long time, and +who had favoured arbitrary and haughty principles, but who had gone +over to the people's side on receiving offence from Buckingham. +The King, much wanting such a man - for, besides being naturally +favourable to the King's cause, he had great abilities - made him +first a Baron, and then a Viscount, and gave him high employment, +and won him most completely. + +A Parliament, however, was still in existence, and was NOT to be +won. On the twentieth of January, one thousand six hundred and +twenty-nine, SIR JOHN ELIOT, a great man who had been active in the +Petition of Right, brought forward other strong resolutions against +the King's chief instruments, and called upon the Speaker to put +them to the vote. To this the Speaker answered, 'he was commanded +otherwise by the King,' and got up to leave the chair - which, +according to the rules of the House of Commons would have obliged +it to adjourn without doing anything more - when two members, named +Mr. HOLLIS and Mr. VALENTINE, held him down. A scene of great +confusion arose among the members; and while many swords were drawn +and flashing about, the King, who was kept informed of all that was +going on, told the captain of his guard to go down to the House and +force the doors. The resolutions were by that time, however, +voted, and the House adjourned. Sir John Eliot and those two +members who had held the Speaker down, were quickly summoned before +the council. As they claimed it to be their privilege not to +answer out of Parliament for anything they had said in it, they +were committed to the Tower. The King then went down and dissolved +the Parliament, in a speech wherein he made mention of these +gentlemen as 'Vipers' - which did not do him much good that ever I +have heard of. + +As they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were sorry for +what they had done, the King, always remarkably unforgiving, never +overlooked their offence. When they demanded to be brought up +before the court of King's Bench, he even resorted to the meanness +of having them moved about from prison to prison, so that the writs +issued for that purpose should not legally find them. At last they +came before the court and were sentenced to heavy fines, and to be +imprisoned during the King's pleasure. When Sir John Eliot's +health had quite given way, and he so longed for change of air and +scene as to petition for his release, the King sent back the answer +(worthy of his Sowship himself) that the petition was not humble +enough. When he sent another petition by his young son, in which +he pathetically offered to go back to prison when his health was +restored, if he might be released for its recovery, the King still +disregarded it. When he died in the Tower, and his children +petitioned to be allowed to take his body down to Cornwall, there +to lay it among the ashes of his forefathers, the King returned for +answer, 'Let Sir John Eliot's body be buried in the church of that +parish where he died.' All this was like a very little King +indeed, I think. + +And now, for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his design of +setting himself up and putting the people down, the King called no +Parliament; but ruled without one. If twelve thousand volumes were +written in his praise (as a good many have been) it would still +remain a fact, impossible to be denied, that for twelve years King +Charles the First reigned in England unlawfully and despotically, +seized upon his subjects' goods and money at his pleasure, and +punished according to his unbridled will all who ventured to oppose +him. It is a fashion with some people to think that this King's +career was cut short; but I must say myself that I think he ran a +pretty long one. + +WILLIAM LAUD, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the King's right-hand +man in the religious part of the putting down of the people's +liberties. Laud, who was a sincere man, of large learning but +small sense - for the two things sometimes go together in very +different quantities - though a Protestant, held opinions so near +those of the Catholics, that the Pope wanted to make a Cardinal of +him, if he would have accepted that favour. He looked upon vows, +robes, lighted candles, images, and so forth, as amazingly +important in religious ceremonies; and he brought in an immensity +of bowing and candle-snuffing. He also regarded archbishops and +bishops as a sort of miraculous persons, and was inveterate in the +last degree against any who thought otherwise. Accordingly, he +offered up thanks to Heaven, and was in a state of much pious +pleasure, when a Scotch clergyman, named LEIGHTON, was pilloried, +whipped, branded in the cheek, and had one of his ears cut off and +one of his nostrils slit, for calling bishops trumpery and the +inventions of men. He originated on a Sunday morning the +prosecution of WILLIAM PRYNNE, a barrister who was of similar +opinions, and who was fined a thousand pounds; who was pilloried; +who had his ears cut off on two occasions - one ear at a time - and +who was imprisoned for life. He highly approved of the punishment +of DOCTOR BASTWICK, a physician; who was also fined a thousand +pounds; and who afterwards had HIS ears cut off, and was imprisoned +for life. These were gentle methods of persuasion, some will tell +you: I think, they were rather calculated to be alarming to the +people. + +In the money part of the putting down of the people's liberties, +the King was equally gentle, as some will tell you: as I think, +equally alarming. He levied those duties of tonnage and poundage, +and increased them as he thought fit. He granted monopolies to +companies of merchants on their paying him for them, +notwithstanding the great complaints that had, for years and years, +been made on the subject of monopolies. He fined the people for +disobeying proclamations issued by his Sowship in direct violation +of law. He revived the detested Forest laws, and took private +property to himself as his forest right. Above all, he determined +to have what was called Ship Money; that is to say, money for the +support of the fleet - not only from the seaports, but from all the +counties of England: having found out that, in some ancient time +or other, all the counties paid it. The grievance of this ship +money being somewhat too strong, JOHN CHAMBERS, a citizen of +London, refused to pay his part of it. For this the Lord Mayor +ordered John Chambers to prison, and for that John Chambers brought +a suit against the Lord Mayor. LORD SAY, also, behaved like a real +nobleman, and declared he would not pay. But, the sturdiest and +best opponent of the ship money was JOHN HAMPDEN, a gentleman of +Buckinghamshire, who had sat among the 'vipers' in the House of +Commons when there was such a thing, and who had been the bosom +friend of Sir John Eliot. This case was tried before the twelve +judges in the Court of Exchequer, and again the King's lawyers said +it was impossible that ship money could be wrong, because the King +could do no wrong, however hard he tried - and he really did try +very hard during these twelve years. Seven of the judges said that +was quite true, and Mr. Hampden was bound to pay: five of the +judges said that was quite false, and Mr. Hampden was not bound to +pay. So, the King triumphed (as he thought), by making Hampden the +most popular man in England; where matters were getting to that +height now, that many honest Englishmen could not endure their +country, and sailed away across the seas to found a colony in +Massachusetts Bay in America. It is said that Hampden himself and +his relation OLIVER CROMWELL were going with a company of such +voyagers, and were actually on board ship, when they were stopped +by a proclamation, prohibiting sea captains to carry out such +passengers without the royal license. But O! it would have been +well for the King if he had let them go! This was the state of +England. If Laud had been a madman just broke loose, he could not +have done more mischief than he did in Scotland. In his endeavours +(in which he was seconded by the King, then in person in that part +of his dominions) to force his own ideas of bishops, and his own +religious forms and ceremonies upon the Scotch, he roused that +nation to a perfect frenzy. They formed a solemn league, which +they called The Covenant, for the preservation of their own +religious forms; they rose in arms throughout the whole country; +they summoned all their men to prayers and sermons twice a day by +beat of drum; they sang psalms, in which they compared their +enemies to all the evil spirits that ever were heard of; and they +solemnly vowed to smite them with the sword. At first the King +tried force, then treaty, then a Scottish Parliament which did not +answer at all. Then he tried the EARL OF STRAFFORD, formerly Sir +Thomas Wentworth; who, as LORD WENTWORTH, had been governing +Ireland. He, too, had carried it with a very high hand there, +though to the benefit and prosperity of that country. + +Strafford and Laud were for conquering the Scottish people by force +of arms. Other lords who were taken into council, recommended that +a Parliament should at last be called; to which the King +unwillingly consented. So, on the thirteenth of April, one +thousand six hundred and forty, that then strange sight, a +Parliament, was seen at Westminster. It is called the Short +Parliament, for it lasted a very little while. While the members +were all looking at one another, doubtful who would dare to speak, +MR. PYM arose and set forth all that the King had done unlawfully +during the past twelve years, and what was the position to which +England was reduced. This great example set, other members took +courage and spoke the truth freely, though with great patience and +moderation. The King, a little frightened, sent to say that if +they would grant him a certain sum on certain terms, no more ship +money should be raised. They debated the matter for two days; and +then, as they would not give him all he asked without promise or +inquiry, he dissolved them. + +But they knew very well that he must have a Parliament now; and he +began to make that discovery too, though rather late in the day. +Wherefore, on the twenty-fourth of September, being then at York +with an army collected against the Scottish people, but his own men +sullen and discontented like the rest of the nation, the King told +the great council of the Lords, whom he had called to meet him +there, that he would summon another Parliament to assemble on the +third of November. The soldiers of the Covenant had now forced +their way into England and had taken possession of the northern +counties, where the coals are got. As it would never do to be +without coals, and as the King's troops could make no head against +the Covenanters so full of gloomy zeal, a truce was made, and a +treaty with Scotland was taken into consideration. Meanwhile the +northern counties paid the Covenanters to leave the coals alone, +and keep quiet. + +We have now disposed of the Short Parliament. We have next to see +what memorable things were done by the Long one. + + +SECOND PART + + +THE Long Parliament assembled on the third of November, one +thousand six hundred and forty-one. That day week the Earl of +Strafford arrived from York, very sensible that the spirited and +determined men who formed that Parliament were no friends towards +him, who had not only deserted the cause of the people, but who had +on all occasions opposed himself to their liberties. The King told +him, for his comfort, that the Parliament 'should not hurt one hair +of his head.' But, on the very next day Mr. Pym, in the House of +Commons, and with great solemnity, impeached the Earl of Strafford +as a traitor. He was immediately taken into custody and fell from +his proud height. + +It was the twenty-second of March before he was brought to trial in +Westminster Hall; where, although he was very ill and suffered +great pain, he defended himself with such ability and majesty, that +it was doubtful whether he would not get the best of it. But on +the thirteenth day of the trial, Pym produced in the House of +Commons a copy of some notes of a council, found by young SIR HARRY +VANE in a red velvet cabinet belonging to his father (Secretary +Vane, who sat at the council-table with the Earl), in which +Strafford had distinctly told the King that he was free from all +rules and obligations of government, and might do with his people +whatever he liked; and in which he had added - 'You have an army in +Ireland that you may employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience.' +It was not clear whether by the words 'this kingdom,' he had really +meant England or Scotland; but the Parliament contended that he +meant England, and this was treason. At the same sitting of the +House of Commons it was resolved to bring in a bill of attainder +declaring the treason to have been committed: in preference to +proceeding with the trial by impeachment, which would have required +the treason to be proved. + +So, a bill was brought in at once, was carried through the House of +Commons by a large majority, and was sent up to the House of Lords. +While it was still uncertain whether the House of Lords would pass +it and the King consent to it, Pym disclosed to the House of +Commons that the King and Queen had both been plotting with the +officers of the army to bring up the soldiers and control the +Parliament, and also to introduce two hundred soldiers into the +Tower of London to effect the Earl's escape. The plotting with the +army was revealed by one GEORGE GORING, the son of a lord of that +name: a bad fellow who was one of the original plotters, and +turned traitor. The King had actually given his warrant for the +admission of the two hundred men into the Tower, and they would +have got in too, but for the refusal of the governor - a sturdy +Scotchman of the name of BALFOUR - to admit them. These matters +being made public, great numbers of people began to riot outside +the Houses of Parliament, and to cry out for the execution of the +Earl of Strafford, as one of the King's chief instruments against +them. The bill passed the House of Lords while the people were in +this state of agitation, and was laid before the King for his +assent, together with another bill declaring that the Parliament +then assembled should not be dissolved or adjourned without their +own consent. The King - not unwilling to save a faithful servant, +though he had no great attachment for him - was in some doubt what +to do; but he gave his consent to both bills, although he in his +heart believed that the bill against the Earl of Strafford was +unlawful and unjust. The Earl had written to him, telling him that +he was willing to die for his sake. But he had not expected that +his royal master would take him at his word quite so readily; for, +when he heard his doom, he laid his hand upon his heart, and said, +'Put not your trust in Princes!' + +The King, who never could be straightforward and plain, through one +single day or through one single sheet of paper, wrote a letter to +the Lords, and sent it by the young Prince of Wales, entreating +them to prevail with the Commons that 'that unfortunate man should +fulfil the natural course of his life in a close imprisonment.' In +a postscript to the very same letter, he added, 'If he must die, it +were charity to reprieve him till Saturday.' If there had been any +doubt of his fate, this weakness and meanness would have settled +it. The very next day, which was the twelfth of May, he was +brought out to be beheaded on Tower Hill. + +Archbishop Laud, who had been so fond of having people's ears +cropped off and their noses slit, was now confined in the Tower +too; and when the Earl went by his window to his death, he was +there, at his request, to give him his blessing. They had been +great friends in the King's cause, and the Earl had written to him +in the days of their power that he thought it would be an admirable +thing to have Mr. Hampden publicly whipped for refusing to pay the +ship money. However, those high and mighty doings were over now, +and the Earl went his way to death with dignity and heroism. The +governor wished him to get into a coach at the Tower gate, for fear +the people should tear him to pieces; but he said it was all one to +him whether he died by the axe or by the people's hands. So, he +walked, with a firm tread and a stately look, and sometimes pulled +off his hat to them as he passed along. They were profoundly +quiet. He made a speech on the scaffold from some notes he had +prepared (the paper was found lying there after his head was struck +off), and one blow of the axe killed him, in the forty-ninth year +of his age. + +This bold and daring act, the Parliament accompanied by other +famous measures, all originating (as even this did) in the King's +having so grossly and so long abused his power. The name of +DELINQUENTS was applied to all sheriffs and other officers who had +been concerned in raising the ship money, or any other money, from +the people, in an unlawful manner; the Hampden judgment was +reversed; the judges who had decided against Hampden were called +upon to give large securities that they would take such +consequences as Parliament might impose upon them; and one was +arrested as he sat in High Court, and carried off to prison. Laud +was impeached; the unfortunate victims whose ears had been cropped +and whose noses had been slit, were brought out of prison in +triumph; and a bill was passed declaring that a Parliament should +be called every third year, and that if the King and the King's +officers did not call it, the people should assemble of themselves +and summon it, as of their own right and power. Great +illuminations and rejoicings took place over all these things, and +the country was wildly excited. That the Parliament took advantage +of this excitement and stirred them up by every means, there is no +doubt; but you are always to remember those twelve long years, +during which the King had tried so hard whether he really could do +any wrong or not. + +All this time there was a great religious outcry against the right +of the Bishops to sit in Parliament; to which the Scottish people +particularly objected. The English were divided on this subject, +and, partly on this account and partly because they had had foolish +expectations that the Parliament would be able to take off nearly +all the taxes, numbers of them sometimes wavered and inclined +towards the King. + +I believe myself, that if, at this or almost any other period of +his life, the King could have been trusted by any man not out of +his senses, he might have saved himself and kept his throne. But, +on the English army being disbanded, he plotted with the officers +again, as he had done before, and established the fact beyond all +doubt by putting his signature of approval to a petition against +the Parliamentary leaders, which was drawn up by certain officers. +When the Scottish army was disbanded, he went to Edinburgh in four +days - which was going very fast at that time - to plot again, and +so darkly too, that it is difficult to decide what his whole object +was. Some suppose that he wanted to gain over the Scottish +Parliament, as he did in fact gain over, by presents and favours, +many Scottish lords and men of power. Some think that he went to +get proofs against the Parliamentary leaders in England of their +having treasonably invited the Scottish people to come and help +them. With whatever object he went to Scotland, he did little good +by going. At the instigation of the EARL OF MONTROSE, a desperate +man who was then in prison for plotting, he tried to kidnap three +Scottish lords who escaped. A committee of the Parliament at home, +who had followed to watch him, writing an account of this INCIDENT, +as it was called, to the Parliament, the Parliament made a fresh +stir about it; were, or feigned to be, much alarmed for themselves; +and wrote to the EARL OF ESSEX, the commander-in-chief, for a guard +to protect them. + +It is not absolutely proved that the King plotted in Ireland +besides, but it is very probable that he did, and that the Queen +did, and that he had some wild hope of gaining the Irish people +over to his side by favouring a rise among them. Whether or no, +they did rise in a most brutal and savage rebellion; in which, +encouraged by their priests, they committed such atrocities upon +numbers of the English, of both sexes and of all ages, as nobody +could believe, but for their being related on oath by eye- +witnesses. Whether one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand +Protestants were murdered in this outbreak, is uncertain; but, that +it was as ruthless and barbarous an outbreak as ever was known +among any savage people, is certain. + +The King came home from Scotland, determined to make a great +struggle for his lost power. He believed that, through his +presents and favours, Scotland would take no part against him; and +the Lord Mayor of London received him with such a magnificent +dinner that he thought he must have become popular again in +England. It would take a good many Lord Mayors, however, to make a +people, and the King soon found himself mistaken. + +Not so soon, though, but that there was a great opposition in the +Parliament to a celebrated paper put forth by Pym and Hampden and +the rest, called 'THE REMONSTRANCE,' which set forth all the +illegal acts that the King had ever done, but politely laid the +blame of them on his bad advisers. Even when it was passed and +presented to him, the King still thought himself strong enough to +discharge Balfour from his command in the Tower, and to put in his +place a man of bad character; to whom the Commons instantly +objected, and whom he was obliged to abandon. At this time, the +old outcry about the Bishops became louder than ever, and the old +Archbishop of York was so near being murdered as he went down to +the House of Lords - being laid hold of by the mob and violently +knocked about, in return for very foolishly scolding a shrill boy +who was yelping out 'No Bishops!' - that he sent for all the +Bishops who were in town, and proposed to them to sign a +declaration that, as they could no longer without danger to their +lives attend their duty in Parliament, they protested against the +lawfulness of everything done in their absence. This they asked +the King to send to the House of Lords, which he did. Then the +House of Commons impeached the whole party of Bishops and sent them +off to the Tower: + +Taking no warning from this; but encouraged by there being a +moderate party in the Parliament who objected to these strong +measures, the King, on the third of January, one thousand six +hundred and forty-two, took the rashest step that ever was taken by +mortal man. + +Of his own accord and without advice, he sent the Attorney-General +to the House of Lords, to accuse of treason certain members of +Parliament who as popular leaders were the most obnoxious to him; +LORD KIMBOLTON, SIR ARTHUR HASELRIG, DENZIL HOLLIS, JOHN PYM (they +used to call him King Pym, he possessed such power and looked so +big), JOHN HAMPDEN, and WILLIAM STRODE. The houses of those +members he caused to be entered, and their papers to be sealed up. +At the same time, he sent a messenger to the House of Commons +demanding to have the five gentlemen who were members of that House +immediately produced. To this the House replied that they should +appear as soon as there was any legal charge against them, and +immediately adjourned. + +Next day, the House of Commons send into the City to let the Lord +Mayor know that their privileges are invaded by the King, and that +there is no safety for anybody or anything. Then, when the five +members are gone out of the way, down comes the King himself, with +all his guard and from two to three hundred gentlemen and soldiers, +of whom the greater part were armed. These he leaves in the hall; +and then, with his nephew at his side, goes into the House, takes +off his hat, and walks up to the Speaker's chair. The Speaker +leaves it, the King stands in front of it, looks about him steadily +for a little while, and says he has come for those five members. +No one speaks, and then he calls John Pym by name. No one speaks, +and then he calls Denzil Hollis by name. No one speaks, and then +he asks the Speaker of the House where those five members are? The +Speaker, answering on his knee, nobly replies that he is the +servant of that House, and that he has neither eyes to see, nor +tongue to speak, anything but what the House commands him. Upon +this, the King, beaten from that time evermore, replies that he +will seek them himself, for they have committed treason; and goes +out, with his hat in his hand, amid some audible murmurs from the +members. + +No words can describe the hurry that arose out of doors when all +this was known. The five members had gone for safety to a house in +Coleman-street, in the City, where they were guarded all night; and +indeed the whole city watched in arms like an army. At ten o'clock +in the morning, the King, already frightened at what he had done, +came to the Guildhall, with only half a dozen lords, and made a +speech to the people, hoping they would not shelter those whom he +accused of treason. Next day, he issued a proclamation for the +apprehension of the five members; but the Parliament minded it so +little that they made great arrangements for having them brought +down to Westminster in great state, five days afterwards. The King +was so alarmed now at his own imprudence, if not for his own +safety, that he left his palace at Whitehall, and went away with +his Queen and children to Hampton Court. + +It was the eleventh of May, when the five members were carried in +state and triumph to Westminster. They were taken by water. The +river could not be seen for the boats on it; and the five members +were hemmed in by barges full of men and great guns, ready to +protect them, at any cost. Along the Strand a large body of the +train-bands of London, under their commander, SKIPPON, marched to +be ready to assist the little fleet. Beyond them, came a crowd who +choked the streets, roaring incessantly about the Bishops and the +Papists, and crying out contemptuously as they passed Whitehall, +'What has become of the King?' With this great noise outside the +House of Commons, and with great silence within, Mr. Pym rose and +informed the House of the great kindness with which they had been +received in the City. Upon that, the House called the sheriffs in +and thanked them, and requested the train-bands, under their +commander Skippon, to guard the House of Commons every day. Then, +came four thousand men on horseback out of Buckinghamshire, +offering their services as a guard too, and bearing a petition to +the King, complaining of the injury that had been done to Mr. +Hampden, who was their county man and much beloved and honoured. + +When the King set off for Hampton Court, the gentlemen and soldiers +who had been with him followed him out of town as far as Kingston- +upon-Thames; next day, Lord Digby came to them from the King at +Hampton Court, in his coach and six, to inform them that the King +accepted their protection. This, the Parliament said, was making +war against the kingdom, and Lord Digby fled abroad. The +Parliament then immediately applied themselves to getting hold of +the military power of the country, well knowing that the King was +already trying hard to use it against them, and that he had +secretly sent the Earl of Newcastle to Hull, to secure a valuable +magazine of arms and gunpowder that was there. In those times, +every county had its own magazines of arms and powder, for its own +train-bands or militia; so, the Parliament brought in a bill +claiming the right (which up to this time had belonged to the King) +of appointing the Lord Lieutenants of counties, who commanded these +train-bands; also, of having all the forts, castles, and garrisons +in the kingdom, put into the hands of such governors as they, the +Parliament, could confide in. It also passed a law depriving the +Bishops of their votes. The King gave his assent to that bill, but +would not abandon the right of appointing the Lord Lieutenants, +though he said he was willing to appoint such as might be suggested +to him by the Parliament. When the Earl of Pembroke asked him +whether he would not give way on that question for a time, he said, +'By God! not for one hour!' and upon this he and the Parliament +went to war. + +His young daughter was betrothed to the Prince of Orange. On +pretence of taking her to the country of her future husband, the +Queen was already got safely away to Holland, there to pawn the +Crown jewels for money to raise an army on the King's side. The +Lord Admiral being sick, the House of Commons now named the Earl of +Warwick to hold his place for a year. The King named another +gentleman; the House of Commons took its own way, and the Earl of +Warwick became Lord Admiral without the King's consent. The +Parliament sent orders down to Hull to have that magazine removed +to London; the King went down to Hull to take it himself. The +citizens would not admit him into the town, and the governor would +not admit him into the castle. The Parliament resolved that +whatever the two Houses passed, and the King would not consent to, +should be called an ORDINANCE, and should be as much a law as if he +did consent to it. The King protested against this, and gave +notice that these ordinances were not to be obeyed. The King, +attended by the majority of the House of Peers, and by many members +of the House of Commons, established himself at York. The +Chancellor went to him with the Great Seal, and the Parliament made +a new Great Seal. The Queen sent over a ship full of arms and +ammunition, and the King issued letters to borrow money at high +interest. The Parliament raised twenty regiments of foot and +seventy-five troops of horse; and the people willingly aided them +with their money, plate, jewellery, and trinkets - the married +women even with their wedding-rings. Every member of Parliament +who could raise a troop or a regiment in his own part of the +country, dressed it according to his taste and in his own colours, +and commanded it. Foremost among them all, OLIVER CROMWELL raised +a troop of horse - thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly well armed +- who were, perhaps, the best soldiers that ever were seen. + +In some of their proceedings, this famous Parliament passed the +bounds of previous law and custom, yielded to and favoured riotous +assemblages of the people, and acted tyrannically in imprisoning +some who differed from the popular leaders. But again, you are +always to remember that the twelve years during which the King had +had his own wilful way, had gone before; and that nothing could +make the times what they might, could, would, or should have been, +if those twelve years had never rolled away. + + +THIRD PART + + +I SHALL not try to relate the particulars of the great civil war +between King Charles the First and the Long Parliament, which +lasted nearly four years, and a full account of which would fill +many large books. It was a sad thing that Englishmen should once +more be fighting against Englishmen on English ground; but, it is +some consolation to know that on both sides there was great +humanity, forbearance, and honour. The soldiers of the Parliament +were far more remarkable for these good qualities than the soldiers +of the King (many of whom fought for mere pay without much caring +for the cause); but those of the nobility and gentry who were on +the King's side were so brave, and so faithful to him, that their +conduct cannot but command our highest admiration. Among them were +great numbers of Catholics, who took the royal side because the +Queen was so strongly of their persuasion. + +The King might have distinguished some of these gallant spirits, if +he had been as generous a spirit himself, by giving them the +command of his army. Instead of that, however, true to his old +high notions of royalty, he entrusted it to his two nephews, PRINCE +RUPERT and PRINCE MAURICE, who were of royal blood and came over +from abroad to help him. It might have been better for him if they +had stayed away; since Prince Rupert was an impetuous, hot-headed +fellow, whose only idea was to dash into battle at all times and +seasons, and lay about him. + +The general-in-chief of the Parliamentary army was the Earl of +Essex, a gentleman of honour and an excellent soldier. A little +while before the war broke out, there had been some rioting at +Westminster between certain officious law students and noisy +soldiers, and the shopkeepers and their apprentices, and the +general people in the streets. At that time the King's friends +called the crowd, Roundheads, because the apprentices wore short +hair; the crowd, in return, called their opponents Cavaliers, +meaning that they were a blustering set, who pretended to be very +military. These two words now began to be used to distinguish the +two sides in the civil war. The Royalists also called the +Parliamentary men Rebels and Rogues, while the Parliamentary men +called THEM Malignants, and spoke of themselves as the Godly, the +Honest, and so forth. + +The war broke out at Portsmouth, where that double traitor Goring +had again gone over to the King and was besieged by the +Parliamentary troops. Upon this, the King proclaimed the Earl of +Essex and the officers serving under him, traitors, and called upon +his loyal subjects to meet him in arms at Nottingham on the twenty- +fifth of August. But his loyal subjects came about him in scanty +numbers, and it was a windy, gloomy day, and the Royal Standard got +blown down, and the whole affair was very melancholy. The chief +engagements after this, took place in the vale of the Red Horse +near Banbury, at Brentford, at Devizes, at Chalgrave Field (where +Mr. Hampden was so sorely wounded while fighting at the head of his +men, that he died within a week), at Newbury (in which battle LORD +FALKLAND, one of the best noblemen on the King's side, was killed), +at Leicester, at Naseby, at Winchester, at Marston Moor near York, +at Newcastle, and in many other parts of England and Scotland. +These battles were attended with various successes. At one time, +the King was victorious; at another time, the Parliament. But +almost all the great and busy towns were against the King; and when +it was considered necessary to fortify London, all ranks of people, +from labouring men and women, up to lords and ladies, worked hard +together with heartiness and good will. The most distinguished +leaders on the Parliamentary side were HAMPDEN, SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX, +and, above all, OLIVER CROMWELL, and his son-in-law IRETON. + +During the whole of this war, the people, to whom it was very +expensive and irksome, and to whom it was made the more distressing +by almost every family being divided - some of its members +attaching themselves to one side and some to the other - were over +and over again most anxious for peace. So were some of the best +men in each cause. Accordingly, treaties of peace were discussed +between commissioners from the Parliament and the King; at York, at +Oxford (where the King held a little Parliament of his own), and at +Uxbridge. But they came to nothing. In all these negotiations, +and in all his difficulties, the King showed himself at his best. +He was courageous, cool, self-possessed, and clever; but, the old +taint of his character was always in him, and he was never for one +single moment to be trusted. Lord Clarendon, the historian, one of +his highest admirers, supposes that he had unhappily promised the +Queen never to make peace without her consent, and that this must +often be taken as his excuse. He never kept his word from night to +morning. He signed a cessation of hostilities with the blood- +stained Irish rebels for a sum of money, and invited the Irish +regiments over, to help him against the Parliament. In the battle +of Naseby, his cabinet was seized and was found to contain a +correspondence with the Queen, in which he expressly told her that +he had deceived the Parliament - a mongrel Parliament, he called it +now, as an improvement on his old term of vipers - in pretending to +recognise it and to treat with it; and from which it further +appeared that he had long been in secret treaty with the Duke of +Lorraine for a foreign army of ten thousand men. Disappointed in +this, he sent a most devoted friend of his, the EARL OF GLAMORGAN, +to Ireland, to conclude a secret treaty with the Catholic powers, +to send him an Irish army of ten thousand men; in return for which +he was to bestow great favours on the Catholic religion. And, when +this treaty was discovered in the carriage of a fighting Irish +Archbishop who was killed in one of the many skirmishes of those +days, he basely denied and deserted his attached friend, the Earl, +on his being charged with high treason; and - even worse than this +- had left blanks in the secret instructions he gave him with his +own kingly hand, expressly that he might thus save himself. + +At last, on the twenty-seventh day of April, one thousand six +hundred and forty-six, the King found himself in the city of +Oxford, so surrounded by the Parliamentary army who were closing in +upon him on all sides that he felt that if he would escape he must +delay no longer. So, that night, having altered the cut of his +hair and beard, he was dressed up as a servant and put upon a horse +with a cloak strapped behind him, and rode out of the town behind +one of his own faithful followers, with a clergyman of that country +who knew the road well, for a guide. He rode towards London as far +as Harrow, and then altered his plans and resolved, it would seem, +to go to the Scottish camp. The Scottish men had been invited over +to help the Parliamentary army, and had a large force then in +England. The King was so desperately intriguing in everything he +did, that it is doubtful what he exactly meant by this step. He +took it, anyhow, and delivered himself up to the EARL OF LEVEN, the +Scottish general-in-chief, who treated him as an honourable +prisoner. Negotiations between the Parliament on the one hand and +the Scottish authorities on the other, as to what should be done +with him, lasted until the following February. Then, when the King +had refused to the Parliament the concession of that old militia +point for twenty years, and had refused to Scotland the recognition +of its Solemn League and Covenant, Scotland got a handsome sum for +its army and its help, and the King into the bargain. He was +taken, by certain Parliamentary commissioners appointed to receive +him, to one of his own houses, called Holmby House, near Althorpe, +in Northamptonshire. + +While the Civil War was still in progress, John Pym died, and was +buried with great honour in Westminster Abbey - not with greater +honour than he deserved, for the liberties of Englishmen owe a +mighty debt to Pym and Hampden. The war was but newly over when +the Earl of Essex died, of an illness brought on by his having +overheated himself in a stag hunt in Windsor Forest. He, too, was +buried in Westminster Abbey, with great state. I wish it were not +necessary to add that Archbishop Laud died upon the scaffold when +the war was not yet done. His trial lasted in all nearly a year, +and, it being doubtful even then whether the charges brought +against him amounted to treason, the odious old contrivance of the +worst kings was resorted to, and a bill of attainder was brought in +against him. He was a violently prejudiced and mischievous person; +had had strong ear-cropping and nose-splitting propensities, as you +know; and had done a world of harm. But he died peaceably, and +like a brave old man. + + +FOURTH PART + + +WHEN the Parliament had got the King into their hands, they became +very anxious to get rid of their army, in which Oliver Cromwell had +begun to acquire great power; not only because of his courage and +high abilities, but because he professed to be very sincere in the +Scottish sort of Puritan religion that was then exceedingly popular +among the soldiers. They were as much opposed to the Bishops as to +the Pope himself; and the very privates, drummers, and trumpeters, +had such an inconvenient habit of starting up and preaching long- +winded discourses, that I would not have belonged to that army on +any account. + +So, the Parliament, being far from sure but that the army might +begin to preach and fight against them now it had nothing else to +do, proposed to disband the greater part of it, to send another +part to serve in Ireland against the rebels, and to keep only a +small force in England. But, the army would not consent to be +broken up, except upon its own conditions; and, when the Parliament +showed an intention of compelling it, it acted for itself in an +unexpected manner. A certain cornet, of the name of JOICE, arrived +at Holmby House one night, attended by four hundred horsemen, went +into the King's room with his hat in one hand and a pistol in the +other, and told the King that he had come to take him away. The +King was willing enough to go, and only stipulated that he should +be publicly required to do so next morning. Next morning, +accordingly, he appeared on the top of the steps of the house, and +asked Comet Joice before his men and the guard set there by the +Parliament, what authority he had for taking him away? To this +Cornet Joice replied, 'The authority of the army.' 'Have you a +written commission?' said the King. Joice, pointing to his four +hundred men on horseback, replied, 'That is my commission.' +'Well,' said the King, smiling, as if he were pleased, 'I never +before read such a commission; but it is written in fair and +legible characters. This is a company of as handsome proper +gentlemen as I have seen a long while.' He was asked where he +would like to live, and he said at Newmarket. So, to Newmarket he +and Cornet Joice and the four hundred horsemen rode; the King +remarking, in the same smiling way, that he could ride as far at a +spell as Cornet Joice, or any man there. + +The King quite believed, I think, that the army were his friends. +He said as much to Fairfax when that general, Oliver Cromwell, and +Ireton, went to persuade him to return to the custody of the +Parliament. He preferred to remain as he was, and resolved to +remain as he was. And when the army moved nearer and nearer London +to frighten the Parliament into yielding to their demands, they +took the King with them. It was a deplorable thing that England +should be at the mercy of a great body of soldiers with arms in +their hands; but the King certainly favoured them at this important +time of his life, as compared with the more lawful power that tried +to control him. It must be added, however, that they treated him, +as yet, more respectfully and kindly than the Parliament had done. +They allowed him to be attended by his own servants, to be +splendidly entertained at various houses, and to see his children - +at Cavesham House, near Reading - for two days. Whereas, the +Parliament had been rather hard with him, and had only allowed him +to ride out and play at bowls. + +It is much to be believed that if the King could have been trusted, +even at this time, he might have been saved. Even Oliver Cromwell +expressly said that he did believe that no man could enjoy his +possessions in peace, unless the King had his rights. He was not +unfriendly towards the King; he had been present when he received +his children, and had been much affected by the pitiable nature of +the scene; he saw the King often; he frequently walked and talked +with him in the long galleries and pleasant gardens of the Palace +at Hampton Court, whither he was now removed; and in all this +risked something of his influence with the army. But, the King was +in secret hopes of help from the Scottish people; and the moment he +was encouraged to join them he began to be cool to his new friends, +the army, and to tell the officers that they could not possibly do +without him. At the very time, too, when he was promising to make +Cromwell and Ireton noblemen, if they would help him up to his old +height, he was writing to the Queen that he meant to hang them. +They both afterwards declared that they had been privately informed +that such a letter would be found, on a certain evening, sewed up +in a saddle which would be taken to the Blue Boar in Holborn to be +sent to Dover; and that they went there, disguised as common +soldiers, and sat drinking in the inn-yard until a man came with +the saddle, which they ripped up with their knives, and therein +found the letter. I see little reason to doubt the story. It is +certain that Oliver Cromwell told one of the King's most faithful +followers that the King could not be trusted, and that he would not +be answerable if anything amiss were to happen to him. Still, even +after that, he kept a promise he had made to the King, by letting +him know that there was a plot with a certain portion of the army +to seize him. I believe that, in fact, he sincerely wanted the +King to escape abroad, and so to be got rid of without more trouble +or danger. That Oliver himself had work enough with the army is +pretty plain; for some of the troops were so mutinous against him, +and against those who acted with him at this time, that he found it +necessary to have one man shot at the head of his regiment to +overawe the rest. + +The King, when he received Oliver's warning, made his escape from +Hampton Court; after some indecision and uncertainty, he went to +Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. At first, he was pretty +free there; but, even there, he carried on a pretended treaty with +the Parliament, while he was really treating with commissioners +from Scotland to send an army into England to take his part. When +he broke off this treaty with the Parliament (having settled with +Scotland) and was treated as a prisoner, his treatment was not +changed too soon, for he had plotted to escape that very night to a +ship sent by the Queen, which was lying off the island. + +He was doomed to be disappointed in his hopes from Scotland. The +agreement he had made with the Scottish Commissioners was not +favourable enough to the religion of that country to please the +Scottish clergy; and they preached against it. The consequence +was, that the army raised in Scotland and sent over, was too small +to do much; and that, although it was helped by a rising of the +Royalists in England and by good soldiers from Ireland, it could +make no head against the Parliamentary army under such men as +Cromwell and Fairfax. The King's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, +came over from Holland with nineteen ships (a part of the English +fleet having gone over to him) to help his father; but nothing came +of his voyage, and he was fain to return. The most remarkable +event of this second civil war was the cruel execution by the +Parliamentary General, of SIR CHARLES LUCAS and SIR GEORGE LISLE, +two grand Royalist generals, who had bravely defended Colchester +under every disadvantage of famine and distress for nearly three +months. When Sir Charles Lucas was shot, Sir George Lisle kissed +his body, and said to the soldiers who were to shoot him, 'Come +nearer, and make sure of me.' 'I warrant you, Sir George,' said +one of the soldiers, 'we shall hit you.' 'AY?' he returned with a +smile, 'but I have been nearer to you, my friends, many a time, and +you have missed me.' + +The Parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army - who +demanded to have seven members whom they disliked given up to them +- had voted that they would have nothing more to do with the King. +On the conclusion, however, of this second civil war (which did not +last more than six months), they appointed commissioners to treat +with him. The King, then so far released again as to be allowed to +live in a private house at Newport in the Isle of Wight, managed +his own part of the negotiation with a sense that was admired by +all who saw him, and gave up, in the end, all that was asked of him +- even yielding (which he had steadily refused, so far) to the +temporary abolition of the bishops, and the transfer of their +church land to the Crown. Still, with his old fatal vice upon him, +when his best friends joined the commissioners in beseeching him to +yield all those points as the only means of saving himself from the +army, he was plotting to escape from the island; he was holding +correspondence with his friends and the Catholics in Ireland, +though declaring that he was not; and he was writing, with his own +hand, that in what he yielded he meant nothing but to get time to +escape. + +Matters were at this pass when the army, resolved to defy the +Parliament, marched up to London. The Parliament, not afraid of +them now, and boldly led by Hollis, voted that the King's +concessions were sufficient ground for settling the peace of the +kingdom. Upon that, COLONEL RICH and COLONEL PRIDE went down to +the House of Commons with a regiment of horse soldiers and a +regiment of foot; and Colonel Pride, standing in the lobby with a +list of the members who were obnoxious to the army in his hand, had +them pointed out to him as they came through, and took them all +into custody. This proceeding was afterwards called by the people, +for a joke, PRIDE'S PURGE. Cromwell was in the North, at the head +of his men, at the time, but when he came home, approved of what +had been done. + +What with imprisoning some members and causing others to stay away, +the army had now reduced the House of Commons to some fifty or so. +These soon voted that it was treason in a king to make war against +his parliament and his people, and sent an ordinance up to the +House of Lords for the King's being tried as a traitor. The House +of Lords, then sixteen in number, to a man rejected it. Thereupon, +the Commons made an ordinance of their own, that they were the +supreme government of the country, and would bring the King to +trial. + +The King had been taken for security to a place called Hurst +Castle: a lonely house on a rock in the sea, connected with the +coast of Hampshire by a rough road two miles long at low water. +Thence, he was ordered to be removed to Windsor; thence, after +being but rudely used there, and having none but soldiers to wait +upon him at table, he was brought up to St. James's Palace in +London, and told that his trial was appointed for next day. + +On Saturday, the twentieth of January, one thousand six hundred and +forty-nine, this memorable trial began. The House of Commons had +settled that one hundred and thirty-five persons should form the +Court, and these were taken from the House itself, from among the +officers of the army, and from among the lawyers and citizens. +JOHN BRADSHAW, serjeant-at-law, was appointed president. The place +was Westminster Hall. At the upper end, in a red velvet chair, sat +the president, with his hat (lined with plates of iron for his +protection) on his head. The rest of the Court sat on side +benches, also wearing their hats. The King's seat was covered with +velvet, like that of the president, and was opposite to it. He was +brought from St. James's to Whitehall, and from Whitehall he came +by water to his trial. + +When he came in, he looked round very steadily on the Court, and on +the great number of spectators, and then sat down: presently he +got up and looked round again. On the indictment 'against Charles +Stuart, for high treason,' being read, he smiled several times, and +he denied the authority of the Court, saying that there could be no +parliament without a House of Lords, and that he saw no House of +Lords there. Also, that the King ought to be there, and that he +saw no King in the King's right place. Bradshaw replied, that the +Court was satisfied with its authority, and that its authority was +God's authority and the kingdom's. He then adjourned the Court to +the following Monday. On that day, the trial was resumed, and went +on all the week. When the Saturday came, as the King passed +forward to his place in the Hall, some soldiers and others cried +for 'justice!' and execution on him. That day, too, Bradshaw, like +an angry Sultan, wore a red robe, instead of the black robe he had +worn before. The King was sentenced to death that day. As he went +out, one solitary soldier said, 'God bless you, Sir!' For this, +his officer struck him. The King said he thought the punishment +exceeded the offence. The silver head of his walking-stick had +fallen off while he leaned upon it, at one time of the trial. The +accident seemed to disturb him, as if he thought it ominous of the +falling of his own head; and he admitted as much, now it was all +over. + +Being taken back to Whitehall, he sent to the House of Commons, +saying that as the time of his execution might be nigh, he wished +he might be allowed to see his darling children. It was granted. +On the Monday he was taken back to St. James's; and his two +children then in England, the PRINCESS ELIZABETH thirteen years +old, and the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER nine years old, were brought to +take leave of him, from Sion House, near Brentford. It was a sad +and touching scene, when he kissed and fondled those poor children, +and made a little present of two diamond seals to the Princess, and +gave them tender messages to their mother (who little deserved +them, for she had a lover of her own whom she married soon +afterwards), and told them that he died 'for the laws and liberties +of the land.' I am bound to say that I don't think he did, but I +dare say he believed so. + +There were ambassadors from Holland that day, to intercede for the +unhappy King, whom you and I both wish the Parliament had spared; +but they got no answer. The Scottish Commissioners interceded too; +so did the Prince of Wales, by a letter in which he offered as the +next heir to the throne, to accept any conditions from the +Parliament; so did the Queen, by letter likewise. + +Notwithstanding all, the warrant for the execution was this day +signed. There is a story that as Oliver Cromwell went to the table +with the pen in his hand to put his signature to it, he drew his +pen across the face of one of the commissioners, who was standing +near, and marked it with ink. That commissioner had not signed his +own name yet, and the story adds that when he came to do it he +marked Cromwell's face with ink in the same way. + +The King slept well, untroubled by the knowledge that it was his +last night on earth, and rose on the thirtieth of January, two +hours before day, and dressed himself carefully. He put on two +shirts lest he should tremble with the cold, and had his hair very +carefully combed. The warrant had been directed to three officers +of the army, COLONEL HACKER, COLONEL HUNKS, and COLONEL PHAYER. At +ten o'clock, the first of these came to the door and said it was +time to go to Whitehall. The King, who had always been a quick +walker, walked at his usual speed through the Park, and called out +to the guard, with his accustomed voice of command, 'March on +apace!' When he came to Whitehall, he was taken to his own +bedroom, where a breakfast was set forth. As he had taken the +Sacrament, he would eat nothing more; but, at about the time when +the church bells struck twelve at noon (for he had to wait, through +the scaffold not being ready), he took the advice of the good +BISHOP JUXON who was with him, and ate a little bread and drank a +glass of claret. Soon after he had taken this refreshment, Colonel +Hacker came to the chamber with the warrant in his hand, and called +for Charles Stuart. + +And then, through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace, which he +had often seen light and gay and merry and crowded, in very +different times, the fallen King passed along, until he came to the +centre window of the Banqueting House, through which he emerged +upon the scaffold, which was hung with black. He looked at the two +executioners, who were dressed in black and masked; he looked at +the troops of soldiers on horseback and on foot, and all looked up +at him in silence; he looked at the vast array of spectators, +filling up the view beyond, and turning all their faces upon him; +he looked at his old Palace of St. James's; and he looked at the +block. He seemed a little troubled to find that it was so low, and +asked, 'if there were no place higher?' Then, to those upon the +scaffold, he said, 'that it was the Parliament who had begun the +war, and not he; but he hoped they might be guiltless too, as ill +instruments had gone between them. In one respect,' he said, 'he +suffered justly; and that was because he had permitted an unjust +sentence to be executed on another.' In this he referred to the +Earl of Strafford. + +He was not at all afraid to die; but he was anxious to die easily. +When some one touched the axe while he was speaking, he broke off +and called out, 'Take heed of the axe! take heed of the axe!' He +also said to Colonel Hacker, 'Take care that they do not put me to +pain.' He told the executioner, 'I shall say but very short +prayers, and then thrust out my hands' - as the sign to strike. + +He put his hair up, under a white satin cap which the bishop had +carried, and said, 'I have a good cause and a gracious God on my +side.' The bishop told him that he had but one stage more to +travel in this weary world, and that, though it was a turbulent and +troublesome stage, it was a short one, and would carry him a great +way - all the way from earth to Heaven. The King's last word, as +he gave his cloak and the George - the decoration from his breast - +to the bishop, was, 'Remember!' He then kneeled down, laid his +head on the block, spread out his hands, and was instantly killed. +One universal groan broke from the crowd; and the soldiers, who had +sat on their horses and stood in their ranks immovable as statues, +were of a sudden all in motion, clearing the streets. + +Thus, in the forty-ninth year of his age, falling at the same time +of his career as Strafford had fallen in his, perished Charles the +First. With all my sorrow for him, I cannot agree with him that he +died 'the martyr of the people;' for the people had been martyrs to +him, and to his ideas of a King's rights, long before. Indeed, I +am afraid that he was but a bad judge of martyrs; for he had called +that infamous Duke of Buckingham 'the Martyr of his Sovereign.' + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV - ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL + + + +BEFORE sunset on the memorable day on which King Charles the First +was executed, the House of Commons passed an act declaring it +treason in any one to proclaim the Prince of Wales - or anybody +else - King of England. Soon afterwards, it declared that the +House of Lords was useless and dangerous, and ought to be +abolished; and directed that the late King's statue should be taken +down from the Royal Exchange in the City and other public places. +Having laid hold of some famous Royalists who had escaped from +prison, and having beheaded the DUKE OF HAMILTON, LORD HOLLAND, and +LORD CAPEL, in Palace Yard (all of whom died very courageously), +they then appointed a Council of State to govern the country. It +consisted of forty-one members, of whom five were peers. Bradshaw +was made president. The House of Commons also re-admitted members +who had opposed the King's death, and made up its numbers to about +a hundred and fifty. + +But, it still had an army of more than forty thousand men to deal +with, and a very hard task it was to manage them. Before the +King's execution, the army had appointed some of its officers to +remonstrate between them and the Parliament; and now the common +soldiers began to take that office upon themselves. The regiments +under orders for Ireland mutinied; one troop of horse in the city +of London seized their own flag, and refused to obey orders. For +this, the ringleader was shot: which did not mend the matter, for, +both his comrades and the people made a public funeral for him, and +accompanied the body to the grave with sound of trumpets and with a +gloomy procession of persons carrying bundles of rosemary steeped +in blood. Oliver was the only man to deal with such difficulties +as these, and he soon cut them short by bursting at midnight into +the town of Burford, near Salisbury, where the mutineers were +sheltered, taking four hundred of them prisoners, and shooting a +number of them by sentence of court-martial. The soldiers soon +found, as all men did, that Oliver was not a man to be trifled +with. And there was an end of the mutiny. + +The Scottish Parliament did not know Oliver yet; so, on hearing of +the King's execution, it proclaimed the Prince of Wales King +Charles the Second, on condition of his respecting the Solemn +League and Covenant. Charles was abroad at that time, and so was +Montrose, from whose help he had hopes enough to keep him holding +on and off with commissioners from Scotland, just as his father +might have done. These hopes were soon at an end; for, Montrose, +having raised a few hundred exiles in Germany, and landed with them +in Scotland, found that the people there, instead of joining him, +deserted the country at his approach. He was soon taken prisoner +and carried to Edinburgh. There he was received with every +possible insult, and carried to prison in a cart, his officers +going two and two before him. He was sentenced by the Parliament +to be hanged on a gallows thirty feet high, to have his head set on +a spike in Edinburgh, and his limbs distributed in other places, +according to the old barbarous manner. He said he had always acted +under the Royal orders, and only wished he had limbs enough to be +distributed through Christendom, that it might be the more widely +known how loyal he had been. He went to the scaffold in a bright +and brilliant dress, and made a bold end at thirty-eight years of +age. The breath was scarcely out of his body when Charles +abandoned his memory, and denied that he had ever given him orders +to rise in his behalf. O the family failing was strong in that +Charles then! + +Oliver had been appointed by the Parliament to command the army in +Ireland, where he took a terrible vengeance for the sanguinary +rebellion, and made tremendous havoc, particularly in the siege of +Drogheda, where no quarter was given, and where he found at least a +thousand of the inhabitants shut up together in the great church: +every one of whom was killed by his soldiers, usually known as +OLIVER'S IRONSIDES. There were numbers of friars and priests among +them, and Oliver gruffly wrote home in his despatch that these were +'knocked on the head' like the rest. + +But, Charles having got over to Scotland where the men of the +Solemn League and Covenant led him a prodigiously dull life and +made him very weary with long sermons and grim Sundays, the +Parliament called the redoubtable Oliver home to knock the Scottish +men on the head for setting up that Prince. Oliver left his son- +in-law, Ireton, as general in Ireland in his stead (he died there +afterwards), and he imitated the example of his father-in-law with +such good will that he brought the country to subjection, and laid +it at the feet of the Parliament. In the end, they passed an act +for the settlement of Ireland, generally pardoning all the common +people, but exempting from this grace such of the wealthier sort as +had been concerned in the rebellion, or in any killing of +Protestants, or who refused to lay down their arms. Great numbers +of Irish were got out of the country to serve under Catholic powers +abroad, and a quantity of land was declared to have been forfeited +by past offences, and was given to people who had lent money to the +Parliament early in the war. These were sweeping measures; but, if +Oliver Cromwell had had his own way fully, and had stayed in +Ireland, he would have done more yet. + +However, as I have said, the Parliament wanted Oliver for Scotland; +so, home Oliver came, and was made Commander of all the Forces of +the Commonwealth of England, and in three days away he went with +sixteen thousand soldiers to fight the Scottish men. Now, the +Scottish men, being then - as you will generally find them now - +mighty cautious, reflected that the troops they had were not used +to war like the Ironsides, and would be beaten in an open fight. +Therefore they said, 'If we live quiet in our trenches in Edinburgh +here, and if all the farmers come into the town and desert the +country, the Ironsides will be driven out by iron hunger and be +forced to go away.' This was, no doubt, the wisest plan; but as +the Scottish clergy WOULD interfere with what they knew nothing +about, and would perpetually preach long sermons exhorting the +soldiers to come out and fight, the soldiers got it in their heads +that they absolutely must come out and fight. Accordingly, in an +evil hour for themselves, they came out of their safe position. +Oliver fell upon them instantly, and killed three thousand, and +took ten thousand prisoners. + +To gratify the Scottish Parliament, and preserve their favour, +Charles had signed a declaration they laid before him, reproaching +the memory of his father and mother, and representing himself as a +most religious Prince, to whom the Solemn League and Covenant was +as dear as life. He meant no sort of truth in this, and soon +afterwards galloped away on horseback to join some tiresome +Highland friends, who were always flourishing dirks and +broadswords. He was overtaken and induced to return; but this +attempt, which was called 'The Start,' did him just so much +service, that they did not preach quite such long sermons at him +afterwards as they had done before. + +On the first of January, one thousand six hundred and fifty-one, +the Scottish people crowned him at Scone. He immediately took the +chief command of an army of twenty thousand men, and marched to +Stirling. His hopes were heightened, I dare say, by the +redoubtable Oliver being ill of an ague; but Oliver scrambled out +of bed in no time, and went to work with such energy that he got +behind the Royalist army and cut it off from all communication with +Scotland. There was nothing for it then, but to go on to England; +so it went on as far as Worcester, where the mayor and some of the +gentry proclaimed King Charles the Second straightway. His +proclamation, however, was of little use to him, for very few +Royalists appeared; and, on the very same day, two people were +publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing his cause. Up came +Oliver to Worcester too, at double quick speed, and he and his +Ironsides so laid about them in the great battle which was fought +there, that they completely beat the Scottish men, and destroyed +the Royalist army; though the Scottish men fought so gallantly that +it took five hours to do. + +The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did him good +service long afterwards, for it induced many of the generous +English people to take a romantic interest in him, and to think +much better of him than he ever deserved. He fled in the night, +with not more than sixty followers, to the house of a Catholic lady +in Staffordshire. There, for his greater safety, the whole sixty +left him. He cropped his hair, stained his face and hands brown as +if they were sunburnt, put on the clothes of a labouring +countryman, and went out in the morning with his axe in his hand, +accompanied by four wood-cutters who were brothers, and another man +who was their brother-in-law. These good fellows made a bed for +him under a tree, as the weather was very bad; and the wife of one +of them brought him food to eat; and the old mother of the four +brothers came and fell down on her knees before him in the wood, +and thanked God that her sons were engaged in saving his life. At +night, he came out of the forest and went on to another house which +was near the river Severn, with the intention of passing into +Wales; but the place swarmed with soldiers, and the bridges were +guarded, and all the boats were made fast. So, after lying in a +hayloft covered over with hay, for some time, he came out of his +place, attended by COLONEL CARELESS, a Catholic gentleman who had +met him there, and with whom he lay hid, all next day, up in the +shady branches of a fine old oak. It was lucky for the King that +it was September-time, and that the leaves had not begun to fall, +since he and the Colonel, perched up in this tree, could catch +glimpses of the soldiers riding about below, and could hear the +crash in the wood as they went about beating the boughs. + +After this, he walked and walked until his feet were all blistered; +and, having been concealed all one day in a house which was +searched by the troopers while he was there, went with LORD WILMOT, +another of his good friends, to a place called Bentley, where one +MISS LANE, a Protestant lady, had obtained a pass to be allowed to +ride through the guards to see a relation of hers near Bristol. +Disguised as a servant, he rode in the saddle before this young +lady to the house of SIR JOHN WINTER, while Lord Wilmot rode there +boldly, like a plain country gentleman, with dogs at his heels. It +happened that Sir John Winter's butler had been servant in Richmond +Palace, and knew Charles the moment he set eyes upon him; but, the +butler was faithful and kept the secret. As no ship could be found +to carry him abroad, it was planned that he should go - still +travelling with Miss Lane as her servant - to another house, at +Trent near Sherborne in Dorsetshire; and then Miss Lane and her +cousin, MR. LASCELLES, who had gone on horseback beside her all the +way, went home. I hope Miss Lane was going to marry that cousin, +for I am sure she must have been a brave, kind girl. If I had been +that cousin, I should certainly have loved Miss Lane. + +When Charles, lonely for the loss of Miss Lane, was safe at Trent, +a ship was hired at Lyme, the master of which engaged to take two +gentlemen to France. In the evening of the same day, the King - +now riding as servant before another young lady - set off for a +public-house at a place called Charmouth, where the captain of the +vessel was to take him on board. But, the captain's wife, being +afraid of her husband getting into trouble, locked him up and would +not let him sail. Then they went away to Bridport; and, coming to +the inn there, found the stable-yard full of soldiers who were on +the look-out for Charles, and who talked about him while they +drank. He had such presence of mind, that he led the horses of his +party through the yard as any other servant might have done, and +said, 'Come out of the way, you soldiers; let us have room to pass +here!' As he went along, he met a half-tipsy ostler, who rubbed +his eyes and said to him, 'Why, I was formerly servant to Mr. +Potter at Exeter, and surely I have sometimes seen you there, young +man?' He certainly had, for Charles had lodged there. His ready +answer was, 'Ah, I did live with him once; but I have no time to +talk now. We'll have a pot of beer together when I come back.' + +From this dangerous place he returned to Trent, and lay there +concealed several days. Then he escaped to Heale, near Salisbury; +where, in the house of a widow lady, he was hidden five days, until +the master of a collier lying off Shoreham in Sussex, undertook to +convey a 'gentleman' to France. On the night of the fifteenth of +October, accompanied by two colonels and a merchant, the King rode +to Brighton, then a little fishing village, to give the captain of +the ship a supper before going on board; but, so many people knew +him, that this captain knew him too, and not only he, but the +landlord and landlady also. Before he went away, the landlord came +behind his chair, kissed his hand, and said he hoped to live to be +a lord and to see his wife a lady; at which Charles laughed. They +had had a good supper by this time, and plenty of smoking and +drinking, at which the King was a first-rate hand; so, the captain +assured him that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed +that the captain should pretend to sail to Deal, and that Charles +should address the sailors and say he was a gentleman in debt who +was running away from his creditors, and that he hoped they would +join him in persuading the captain to put him ashore in France. As +the King acted his part very well indeed, and gave the sailors +twenty shillings to drink, they begged the captain to do what such +a worthy gentleman asked. He pretended to yield to their +entreaties, and the King got safe to Normandy. + +Ireland being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by plenty of +forts and soldiers put there by Oliver, the Parliament would have +gone on quietly enough, as far as fighting with any foreign enemy +went, but for getting into trouble with the Dutch, who in the +spring of the year one thousand six hundred and fifty-one sent a +fleet into the Downs under their ADMIRAL VAN TROMP, to call upon +the bold English ADMIRAL BLAKE (who was there with half as many +ships as the Dutch) to strike his flag. Blake fired a raging +broadside instead, and beat off Van Tromp; who, in the autumn, came +back again with seventy ships, and challenged the bold Blake - who +still was only half as strong - to fight him. Blake fought him all +day; but, finding that the Dutch were too many for him, got quietly +off at night. What does Van Tromp upon this, but goes cruising and +boasting about the Channel, between the North Foreland and the Isle +of Wight, with a great Dutch broom tied to his masthead, as a sign +that he could and would sweep the English of the sea! Within three +months, Blake lowered his tone though, and his broom too; for, he +and two other bold commanders, DEAN and MONK, fought him three +whole days, took twenty-three of his ships, shivered his broom to +pieces, and settled his business. + +Things were no sooner quiet again, than the army began to complain +to the Parliament that they were not governing the nation properly, +and to hint that they thought they could do it better themselves. +Oliver, who had now made up his mind to be the head of the state, +or nothing at all, supported them in this, and called a meeting of +officers and his own Parliamentary friends, at his lodgings in +Whitehall, to consider the best way of getting rid of the +Parliament. It had now lasted just as many years as the King's +unbridled power had lasted, before it came into existence. The end +of the deliberation was, that Oliver went down to the House in his +usual plain black dress, with his usual grey worsted stockings, but +with an unusual party of soldiers behind him. These last he left +in the lobby, and then went in and sat down. Presently he got up, +made the Parliament a speech, told them that the Lord had done with +them, stamped his foot and said, 'You are no Parliament. Bring +them in! Bring them in!' At this signal the door flew open, and +the soldiers appeared. 'This is not honest,' said Sir Harry Vane, +one of the members. 'Sir Harry Vane!' cried Cromwell; 'O, Sir +Harry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!' Then he +pointed out members one by one, and said this man was a drunkard, +and that man a dissipated fellow, and that man a liar, and so on. +Then he caused the Speaker to be walked out of his chair, told the +guard to clear the House, called the mace upon the table - which is +a sign that the House is sitting - 'a fool's bauble,' and said, +'here, carry it away!' Being obeyed in all these orders, he +quietly locked the door, put the key in his pocket, walked back to +Whitehall again, and told his friends, who were still assembled +there, what he had done. + +They formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary +proceeding, and got a new Parliament together in their own way: +which Oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and which he said +was the beginning of a perfect heaven upon earth. In this +Parliament there sat a well-known leather-seller, who had taken the +singular name of Praise God Barebones, and from whom it was called, +for a joke, Barebones's Parliament, though its general name was the +Little Parliament. As it soon appeared that it was not going to +put Oliver in the first place, it turned out to be not at all like +the beginning of heaven upon earth, and Oliver said it really was +not to be borne with. So he cleared off that Parliament in much +the same way as he had disposed of the other; and then the council +of officers decided that he must be made the supreme authority of +the kingdom, under the title of the Lord Protector of the +Commonwealth. + +So, on the sixteenth of December, one thousand six hundred and +fifty-three, a great procession was formed at Oliver's door, and he +came out in a black velvet suit and a big pair of boots, and got +into his coach and went down to Westminster, attended by the +judges, and the lord mayor, and the aldermen, and all the other +great and wonderful personages of the country. There, in the Court +of Chancery, he publicly accepted the office of Lord Protector. +Then he was sworn, and the City sword was handed to him, and the +seal was handed to him, and all the other things were handed to him +which are usually handed to Kings and Queens on state occasions. +When Oliver had handed them all back, he was quite made and +completely finished off as Lord Protector; and several of the +Ironsides preached about it at great length, all the evening. + + +SECOND PART + + +OLIVER CROMWELL - whom the people long called OLD NOLL - in +accepting the office of Protector, had bound himself by a certain +paper which was handed to him, called 'the Instrument,' to summon a +Parliament, consisting of between four and five hundred members, in +the election of which neither the Royalists nor the Catholics were +to have any share. He had also pledged himself that this +Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent until it +had sat five months. + +When this Parliament met, Oliver made a speech to them of three +hours long, very wisely advising them what to do for the credit and +happiness of the country. To keep down the more violent members, +he required them to sign a recognition of what they were forbidden +by 'the Instrument' to do; which was, chiefly, to take the power +from one single person at the head of the state or to command the +army. Then he dismissed them to go to work. With his usual vigour +and resolution he went to work himself with some frantic preachers +- who were rather overdoing their sermons in calling him a villain +and a tyrant - by shutting up their chapels, and sending a few of +them off to prison. + +There was not at that time, in England or anywhere else, a man so +able to govern the country as Oliver Cromwell. Although he ruled +with a strong hand, and levied a very heavy tax on the Royalists +(but not until they had plotted against his life), he ruled wisely, +and as the times required. He caused England to be so respected +abroad, that I wish some lords and gentlemen who have governed it +under kings and queens in later days would have taken a leaf out of +Oliver Cromwell's book. He sent bold Admiral Blake to the +Mediterranean Sea, to make the Duke of Tuscany pay sixty thousand +pounds for injuries he had done to British subjects, and spoliation +he had committed on English merchants. He further despatched him +and his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, to have every English +ship and every English man delivered up to him that had been taken +by pirates in those parts. All this was gloriously done; and it +began to be thoroughly well known, all over the world, that England +was governed by a man in earnest, who would not allow the English +name to be insulted or slighted anywhere. + +These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet to sea +against the Dutch; and the two powers, each with one hundred ships +upon its side, met in the English Channel off the North Foreland, +where the fight lasted all day long. Dean was killed in this +fight; but Monk, who commanded in the same ship with him, threw his +cloak over his body, that the sailors might not know of his death, +and be disheartened. Nor were they. The English broadsides so +exceedingly astonished the Dutch that they sheered off at last, +though the redoubtable Van Tromp fired upon them with his own guns +for deserting their flag. Soon afterwards, the two fleets engaged +again, off the coast of Holland. There, the valiant Van Tromp was +shot through the heart, and the Dutch gave in, and peace was made. + +Further than this, Oliver resolved not to bear the domineering and +bigoted conduct of Spain, which country not only claimed a right to +all the gold and silver that could be found in South America, and +treated the ships of all other countries who visited those regions, +as pirates, but put English subjects into the horrible Spanish +prisons of the Inquisition. So, Oliver told the Spanish ambassador +that English ships must be free to go wherever they would, and that +English merchants must not be thrown into those same dungeons, no, +not for the pleasure of all the priests in Spain. To this, the +Spanish ambassador replied that the gold and silver country, and +the Holy Inquisition, were his King's two eyes, neither of which he +could submit to have put out. Very well, said Oliver, then he was +afraid he (Oliver) must damage those two eyes directly. + +So, another fleet was despatched under two commanders, PENN and +VENABLES, for Hispaniola; where, however, the Spaniards got the +better of the fight. Consequently, the fleet came home again, +after taking Jamaica on the way. Oliver, indignant with the two +commanders who had not done what bold Admiral Blake would have +done, clapped them both into prison, declared war against Spain, +and made a treaty with France, in virtue of which it was to shelter +the King and his brother the Duke of York no longer. Then, he sent +a fleet abroad under bold Admiral Blake, which brought the King of +Portugal to his senses - just to keep its hand in - and then +engaged a Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and took two more, +laden with silver to the value of two millions of pounds: which +dazzling prize was brought from Portsmouth to London in waggons, +with the populace of all the towns and villages through which the +waggons passed, shouting with all their might. After this victory, +bold Admiral Blake sailed away to the port of Santa Cruz to cut off +the Spanish treasure-ships coming from Mexico. There, he found +them, ten in number, with seven others to take care of them, and a +big castle, and seven batteries, all roaring and blazing away at +him with great guns. Blake cared no more for great guns than for +pop-guns - no more for their hot iron balls than for snow-balls. +He dashed into the harbour, captured and burnt every one of the +ships, and came sailing out again triumphantly, with the victorious +English flag flying at his masthead. This was the last triumph of +this great commander, who had sailed and fought until he was quite +worn out. He died, as his successful ship was coming into Plymouth +Harbour amidst the joyful acclamations of the people, and was +buried in state in Westminster Abbey. Not to lie there, long. + +Over and above all this, Oliver found that the VAUDOIS, or +Protestant people of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently +treated by the Catholic powers, and were even put to death for +their religion, in an audacious and bloody manner. Instantly, he +informed those powers that this was a thing which Protestant +England would not allow; and he speedily carried his point, through +the might of his great name, and established their right to worship +God in peace after their own harmless manner. + +Lastly, his English army won such admiration in fighting with the +French against the Spaniards, that, after they had assaulted the +town of Dunkirk together, the French King in person gave it up to +the English, that it might be a token to them of their might and +valour. + +There were plots enough against Oliver among the frantic +religionists (who called themselves Fifth Monarchy Men), and among +the disappointed Republicans. He had a difficult game to play, for +the Royalists were always ready to side with either party against +him. The 'King over the water,' too, as Charles was called, had no +scruples about plotting with any one against his life; although +there is reason to suppose that he would willingly have married one +of his daughters, if Oliver would have had such a son-in-law. +There was a certain COLONEL SAXBY of the army, once a great +supporter of Oliver's but now turned against him, who was a +grievous trouble to him through all this part of his career; and +who came and went between the discontented in England and Spain, +and Charles who put himself in alliance with Spain on being thrown +off by France. This man died in prison at last; but not until +there had been very serious plots between the Royalists and +Republicans, and an actual rising of them in England, when they +burst into the city of Salisbury, on a Sunday night, seized the +judges who were going to hold the assizes there next day, and would +have hanged them but for the merciful objections of the more +temperate of their number. Oliver was so vigorous and shrewd that +he soon put this revolt down, as he did most other conspiracies; +and it was well for one of its chief managers - that same Lord +Wilmot who had assisted in Charles's flight, and was now EARL OF +ROCHESTER - that he made his escape. Oliver seemed to have eyes +and ears everywhere, and secured such sources of information as his +enemies little dreamed of. There was a chosen body of six persons, +called the Sealed Knot, who were in the closest and most secret +confidence of Charles. One of the foremost of these very men, a +SIR RICHARD WILLIS, reported to Oliver everything that passed among +them, and had two hundred a year for it. + +MILES SYNDARCOMB, also of the old army, was another conspirator +against the Protector. He and a man named CECIL, bribed one of his +Life Guards to let them have good notice when he was going out - +intending to shoot him from a window. But, owing either to his +caution or his good fortune, they could never get an aim at him. +Disappointed in this design, they got into the chapel in Whitehall, +with a basketful of combustibles, which were to explode by means of +a slow match in six hours; then, in the noise and confusion of the +fire, they hoped to kill Oliver. But, the Life Guardsman himself +disclosed this plot; and they were seized, and Miles died (or +killed himself in prison) a little while before he was ordered for +execution. A few such plotters Oliver caused to be beheaded, a few +more to be hanged, and many more, including those who rose in arms +against him, to be sent as slaves to the West Indies. If he were +rigid, he was impartial too, in asserting the laws of England. +When a Portuguese nobleman, the brother of the Portuguese +ambassador, killed a London citizen in mistake for another man with +whom he had had a quarrel, Oliver caused him to be tried before a +jury of Englishmen and foreigners, and had him executed in spite of +the entreaties of all the ambassadors in London. + +One of Oliver's own friends, the DUKE OF OLDENBURGH, in sending him +a present of six fine coach-horses, was very near doing more to +please the Royalists than all the plotters put together. One day, +Oliver went with his coach, drawn by these six horses, into Hyde +Park, to dine with his secretary and some of his other gentlemen +under the trees there. After dinner, being merry, he took it into +his head to put his friends inside and to drive them home: a +postillion riding one of the foremost horses, as the custom was. +On account of Oliver's being too free with the whip, the six fine +horses went off at a gallop, the postillion got thrown, and Oliver +fell upon the coach-pole and narrowly escaped being shot by his own +pistol, which got entangled with his clothes in the harness, and +went off. He was dragged some distance by the foot, until his foot +came out of the shoe, and then he came safely to the ground under +the broad body of the coach, and was very little the worse. The +gentlemen inside were only bruised, and the discontented people of +all parties were much disappointed. + +The rest of the history of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell is a +history of his Parliaments. His first one not pleasing him at all, +he waited until the five months were out, and then dissolved it. +The next was better suited to his views; and from that he desired +to get - if he could with safety to himself - the title of King. +He had had this in his mind some time: whether because he thought +that the English people, being more used to the title, were more +likely to obey it; or whether because he really wished to be a king +himself, and to leave the succession to that title in his family, +is far from clear. He was already as high, in England and in all +the world, as he would ever be, and I doubt if he cared for the +mere name. However, a paper, called the 'Humble Petition and +Advice,' was presented to him by the House of Commons, praying him +to take a high title and to appoint his successor. That he would +have taken the title of King there is no doubt, but for the strong +opposition of the army. This induced him to forbear, and to assent +only to the other points of the petition. Upon which occasion +there was another grand show in Westminster Hall, when the Speaker +of the House of Commons formally invested him with a purple robe +lined with ermine, and presented him with a splendidly bound Bible, +and put a golden sceptre in his hand. The next time the Parliament +met, he called a House of Lords of sixty members, as the petition +gave him power to do; but as that Parliament did not please him +either, and would not proceed to the business of the country, he +jumped into a coach one morning, took six Guards with him, and sent +them to the right-about. I wish this had been a warning to +Parliaments to avoid long speeches, and do more work. + +It was the month of August, one thousand six hundred and fifty- +eight, when Oliver Cromwell's favourite daughter, ELIZABETH +CLAYPOLE (who had lately lost her youngest son), lay very ill, and +his mind was greatly troubled, because he loved her dearly. +Another of his daughters was married to LORD FALCONBERG, another to +the grandson of the Earl of Warwick, and he had made his son +RICHARD one of the Members of the Upper House. He was very kind +and loving to them all, being a good father and a good husband; but +he loved this daughter the best of the family, and went down to +Hampton Court to see her, and could hardly be induced to stir from +her sick room until she died. Although his religion had been of a +gloomy kind, his disposition had been always cheerful. He had been +fond of music in his home, and had kept open table once a week for +all officers of the army not below the rank of captain, and had +always preserved in his house a quiet, sensible dignity. He +encouraged men of genius and learning, and loved to have them about +him. MILTON was one of his great friends. He was good humoured +too, with the nobility, whose dresses and manners were very +different from his; and to show them what good information he had, +he would sometimes jokingly tell them when they were his guests, +where they had last drunk the health of the 'King over the water,' +and would recommend them to be more private (if they could) another +time. But he had lived in busy times, had borne the weight of +heavy State affairs, and had often gone in fear of his life. He +was ill of the gout and ague; and when the death of his beloved +child came upon him in addition, he sank, never to raise his head +again. He told his physicians on the twenty-fourth of August that +the Lord had assured him that he was not to die in that illness, +and that he would certainly get better. This was only his sick +fancy, for on the third of September, which was the anniversary of +the great battle of Worcester, and the day of the year which he +called his fortunate day, he died, in the sixtieth year of his age. +He had been delirious, and had lain insensible some hours, but he +had been overheard to murmur a very good prayer the day before. +The whole country lamented his death. If you want to know the real +worth of Oliver Cromwell, and his real services to his country, you +can hardly do better than compare England under him, with England +under CHARLES THE SECOND. + +He had appointed his son Richard to succeed him, and after there +had been, at Somerset House in the Strand, a lying in state more +splendid than sensible - as all such vanities after death are, I +think - Richard became Lord Protector. He was an amiable country +gentleman, but had none of his father's great genius, and was quite +unfit for such a post in such a storm of parties. Richard's +Protectorate, which only lasted a year and a half, is a history of +quarrels between the officers of the army and the Parliament, and +between the officers among themselves; and of a growing discontent +among the people, who had far too many long sermons and far too few +amusements, and wanted a change. At last, General Monk got the +army well into his own hands, and then in pursuance of a secret +plan he seems to have entertained from the time of Oliver's death, +declared for the King's cause. He did not do this openly; but, in +his place in the House of Commons, as one of the members for +Devonshire, strongly advocated the proposals of one SIR JOHN +GREENVILLE, who came to the House with a letter from Charles, dated +from Breda, and with whom he had previously been in secret +communication. There had been plots and counterplots, and a recall +of the last members of the Long Parliament, and an end of the Long +Parliament, and risings of the Royalists that were made too soon; +and most men being tired out, and there being no one to head the +country now great Oliver was dead, it was readily agreed to welcome +Charles Stuart. Some of the wiser and better members said - what +was most true - that in the letter from Breda, he gave no real +promise to govern well, and that it would be best to make him +pledge himself beforehand as to what he should be bound to do for +the benefit of the kingdom. Monk said, however, it would be all +right when he came, and he could not come too soon. + +So, everybody found out all in a moment that the country MUST be +prosperous and happy, having another Stuart to condescend to reign +over it; and there was a prodigious firing off of guns, lighting of +bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps. The people +drank the King's health by thousands in the open streets, and +everybody rejoiced. Down came the Arms of the Commonwealth, up +went the Royal Arms instead, and out came the public money. Fifty +thousand pounds for the King, ten thousand pounds for his brother +the Duke of York, five thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of +Gloucester. Prayers for these gracious Stuarts were put up in all +the churches; commissioners were sent to Holland (which suddenly +found out that Charles was a great man, and that it loved him) to +invite the King home; Monk and the Kentish grandees went to Dover, +to kneel down before him as he landed. He kissed and embraced +Monk, made him ride in the coach with himself and his brothers, +came on to London amid wonderful shoutings, and passed through the +army at Blackheath on the twenty-ninth of May (his birthday), in +the year one thousand six hundred and sixty. Greeted by splendid +dinners under tents, by flags and tapestry streaming from all the +houses, by delighted crowds in all the streets, by troops of +noblemen and gentlemen in rich dresses, by City companies, train- +bands, drummers, trumpeters, the great Lord Mayor, and the majestic +Aldermen, the King went on to Whitehall. On entering it, he +commemorated his Restoration with the joke that it really would +seem to have been his own fault that he had not come long ago, +since everybody told him that he had always wished for him with all +his heart. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV - ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, CALLED THE MERRY +MONARCH + + + +THERE never were such profligate times in England as under Charles +the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his swarthy, ill- +looking face and great nose, you may fancy him in his Court at +Whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst vagabonds in the +kingdom (though they were lords and ladies), drinking, gambling, +indulging in vicious conversation, and committing every kind of +profligate excess. It has been a fashion to call Charles the +Second 'The Merry Monarch.' Let me try to give you a general idea +of some of the merry things that were done, in the merry days when +this merry gentleman sat upon his merry throne, in merry England. + +The first merry proceeding was - of course - to declare that he was +one of the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that ever +shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted earth. The +next merry and pleasant piece of business was, for the Parliament, +in the humblest manner, to give him one million two hundred +thousand pounds a year, and to settle upon him for life that old +disputed tonnage and poundage which had been so bravely fought for. +Then, General Monk being made EARL OF ALBEMARLE, and a few other +Royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work to see what was +to be done to those persons (they were called Regicides) who had +been concerned in making a martyr of the late King. Ten of these +were merrily executed; that is to say, six of the judges, one of +the council, Colonel Hacker and another officer who had commanded +the Guards, and HUGH PETERS, a preacher who had preached against +the martyr with all his heart. These executions were so extremely +merry, that every horrible circumstance which Cromwell had +abandoned was revived with appalling cruelty. The hearts of the +sufferers were torn out of their living bodies; their bowels were +burned before their faces; the executioner cut jokes to the next +victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands together, that were reeking +with the blood of the last; and the heads of the dead were drawn on +sledges with the living to the place of suffering. Still, even so +merry a monarch could not force one of these dying men to say that +he was sorry for what he had done. Nay, the most memorable thing +said among them was, that if the thing were to do again they would +do it. + +Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished the evidence against Strafford, +and was one of the most staunch of the Republicans, was also tried, +found guilty, and ordered for execution. When he came upon the +scaffold on Tower Hill, after conducting his own defence with great +power, his notes of what he had meant to say to the people were +torn away from him, and the drums and trumpets were ordered to +sound lustily and drown his voice; for, the people had been so much +impressed by what the Regicides had calmly said with their last +breath, that it was the custom now, to have the drums and trumpets +always under the scaffold, ready to strike up. Vane said no more +than this: 'It is a bad cause which cannot bear the words of a +dying man:' and bravely died. + +These merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps even merrier. +On the anniversary of the late King's death, the bodies of Oliver +Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were torn out of their graves in +Westminster Abbey, dragged to Tyburn, hanged there on a gallows all +day long, and then beheaded. Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell +set upon a pole to be stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom +would have dared to look the living Oliver in the face for half a +moment! Think, after you have read this reign, what England was +under Oliver Cromwell who was torn out of his grave, and what it +was under this merry monarch who sold it, like a merry Judas, over +and over again. + +Of course, the remains of Oliver's wife and daughter were not to be +spared either, though they had been most excellent women. The base +clergy of that time gave up their bodies, which had been buried in +the Abbey, and - to the eternal disgrace of England - they were +thrown into a pit, together with the mouldering bones of Pym and of +the brave and bold old Admiral Blake. + +The clergy acted this disgraceful part because they hoped to get +the nonconformists, or dissenters, thoroughly put down in this +reign, and to have but one prayer-book and one service for all +kinds of people, no matter what their private opinions were. This +was pretty well, I think, for a Protestant Church, which had +displaced the Romish Church because people had a right to their own +opinions in religious matters. However, they carried it with a +high hand, and a prayer-book was agreed upon, in which the +extremest opinions of Archbishop Laud were not forgotten. An Act +was passed, too, preventing any dissenter from holding any office +under any corporation. So, the regular clergy in their triumph +were soon as merry as the King. The army being by this time +disbanded, and the King crowned, everything was to go on easily for +evermore. + +I must say a word here about the King's family. He had not been +long upon the throne when his brother the Duke of Gloucester, and +his sister the PRINCESS OF ORANGE, died within a few months of each +other, of small-pox. His remaining sister, the PRINCESS HENRIETTA, +married the DUKE OF ORLEANS, the brother of LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH, +King of France. His brother JAMES, DUKE OF YORK, was made High +Admiral, and by-and-by became a Catholic. He was a gloomy, sullen, +bilious sort of man, with a remarkable partiality for the ugliest +women in the country. He married, under very discreditable +circumstances, ANNE HYDE, the daughter of LORD CLARENDON, then the +King's principal Minister - not at all a delicate minister either, +but doing much of the dirty work of a very dirty palace. It became +important now that the King himself should be married; and divers +foreign Monarchs, not very particular about the character of their +son-in-law, proposed their daughters to him. The KING OF PORTUGAL +offered his daughter, CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA, and fifty thousand +pounds: in addition to which, the French King, who was favourable +to that match, offered a loan of another fifty thousand. The King +of Spain, on the other hand, offered any one out of a dozen of +Princesses, and other hopes of gain. But the ready money carried +the day, and Catherine came over in state to her merry marriage. + +The whole Court was a great flaunting crowd of debauched men and +shameless women; and Catherine's merry husband insulted and +outraged her in every possible way, until she consented to receive +those worthless creatures as her very good friends, and to degrade +herself by their companionship. A MRS. PALMER, whom the King made +LADY CASTLEMAINE, and afterwards DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND, was one of +the most powerful of the bad women about the Court, and had great +influence with the King nearly all through his reign. Another +merry lady named MOLL DAVIES, a dancer at the theatre, was +afterwards her rival. So was NELL GWYN, first an orange girl and +then an actress, who really had good in her, and of whom one of the +worst things I know is, that actually she does seem to have been +fond of the King. The first DUKE OF ST. ALBANS was this orange +girl's child. In like manner the son of a merry waiting-lady, whom +the King created DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH, became the DUKE OF +RICHMOND. Upon the whole it is not so bad a thing to be a +commoner. + +The Merry Monarch was so exceedingly merry among these merry +ladies, and some equally merry (and equally infamous) lords and +gentlemen, that he soon got through his hundred thousand pounds, +and then, by way of raising a little pocket-money, made a merry +bargain. He sold Dunkirk to the French King for five millions of +livres. When I think of the dignity to which Oliver Cromwell +raised England in the eyes of foreign powers, and when I think of +the manner in which he gained for England this very Dunkirk, I am +much inclined to consider that if the Merry Monarch had been made +to follow his father for this action, he would have received his +just deserts. + +Though he was like his father in none of that father's greater +qualities, he was like him in being worthy of no trust. When he +sent that letter to the Parliament, from Breda, he did expressly +promise that all sincere religious opinions should be respected. +Yet he was no sooner firm in his power than he consented to one of +the worst Acts of Parliament ever passed. Under this law, every +minister who should not give his solemn assent to the Prayer-Book +by a certain day, was declared to be a minister no longer, and to +be deprived of his church. The consequence of this was that some +two thousand honest men were taken from their congregations, and +reduced to dire poverty and distress. It was followed by another +outrageous law, called the Conventicle Act, by which any person +above the age of sixteen who was present at any religious service +not according to the Prayer-Book, was to be imprisoned three months +for the first offence, six for the second, and to be transported +for the third. This Act alone filled the prisons, which were then +most dreadful dungeons, to overflowing. + +The Covenanters in Scotland had already fared no better. A base +Parliament, usually known as the Drunken Parliament, in consequence +of its principal members being seldom sober, had been got together +to make laws against the Covenanters, and to force all men to be of +one mind in religious matters. The MARQUIS OF ARGYLE, relying on +the King's honour, had given himself up to him; but, he was +wealthy, and his enemies wanted his wealth. He was tried for +treason, on the evidence of some private letters in which he had +expressed opinions - as well he might - more favourable to the +government of the late Lord Protector than of the present merry and +religious King. He was executed, as were two men of mark among the +Covenanters; and SHARP, a traitor who had once been the friend of +the Presbyterians and betrayed them, was made Archbishop of St. +Andrew's, to teach the Scotch how to like bishops. + +Things being in this merry state at home, the Merry Monarch +undertook a war with the Dutch; principally because they interfered +with an African company, established with the two objects of buying +gold-dust and slaves, of which the Duke of York was a leading +member. After some preliminary hostilities, the said Duke sailed +to the coast of Holland with a fleet of ninety-eight vessels of +war, and four fire-ships. This engaged with the Dutch fleet, of no +fewer than one hundred and thirteen ships. In the great battle +between the two forces, the Dutch lost eighteen ships, four +admirals, and seven thousand men. But, the English on shore were +in no mood of exultation when they heard the news. + +For, this was the year and the time of the Great Plague in London. +During the winter of one thousand six hundred and sixty-four it had +been whispered about, that some few people had died here and there +of the disease called the Plague, in some of the unwholesome +suburbs around London. News was not published at that time as it +is now, and some people believed these rumours, and some +disbelieved them, and they were soon forgotten. But, in the month +of May, one thousand six hundred and sixty-five, it began to be +said all over the town that the disease had burst out with great +violence in St. Giles's, and that the people were dying in great +numbers. This soon turned out to be awfully true. The roads out +of London were choked up by people endeavouring to escape from the +infected city, and large sums were paid for any kind of conveyance. +The disease soon spread so fast, that it was necessary to shut up +the houses in which sick people were, and to cut them off from +communication with the living. Every one of these houses was +marked on the outside of the door with a red cross, and the words, +Lord, have mercy upon us! The streets were all deserted, grass +grew in the public ways, and there was a dreadful silence in the +air. When night came on, dismal rumblings used to be heard, and +these were the wheels of the death-carts, attended by men with +veiled faces and holding cloths to their mouths, who rang doleful +bells and cried in a loud and solemn voice, 'Bring out your dead!' +The corpses put into these carts were buried by torchlight in great +pits; no service being performed over them; all men being afraid to +stay for a moment on the brink of the ghastly graves. In the +general fear, children ran away from their parents, and parents +from their children. Some who were taken ill, died alone, and +without any help. Some were stabbed or strangled by hired nurses +who robbed them of all their money, and stole the very beds on +which they lay. Some went mad, dropped from the windows, ran +through the streets, and in their pain and frenzy flung themselves +into the river. + +These were not all the horrors of the time. The wicked and +dissolute, in wild desperation, sat in the taverns singing roaring +songs, and were stricken as they drank, and went out and died. The +fearful and superstitious persuaded themselves that they saw +supernatural sights - burning swords in the sky, gigantic arms and +darts. Others pretended that at nights vast crowds of ghosts +walked round and round the dismal pits. One madman, naked, and +carrying a brazier full of burning coals upon his head, stalked +through the streets, crying out that he was a Prophet, commissioned +to denounce the vengeance of the Lord on wicked London. Another +always went to and fro, exclaiming, 'Yet forty days, and London +shall be destroyed!' A third awoke the echoes in the dismal +streets, by night and by day, and made the blood of the sick run +cold, by calling out incessantly, in a deep hoarse voice, 'O, the +great and dreadful God!' + +Through the months of July and August and September, the Great +Plague raged more and more. Great fires were lighted in the +streets, in the hope of stopping the infection; but there was a +plague of rain too, and it beat the fires out. At last, the winds +which usually arise at that time of the year which is called the +equinox, when day and night are of equal length all over the world, +began to blow, and to purify the wretched town. The deaths began +to decrease, the red crosses slowly to disappear, the fugitives to +return, the shops to open, pale frightened faces to be seen in the +streets. The Plague had been in every part of England, but in +close and unwholesome London it had killed one hundred thousand +people. + +All this time, the Merry Monarch was as merry as ever, and as +worthless as ever. All this time, the debauched lords and +gentlemen and the shameless ladies danced and gamed and drank, and +loved and hated one another, according to their merry ways. + +So little humanity did the government learn from the late +affliction, that one of the first things the Parliament did when it +met at Oxford (being as yet afraid to come to London), was to make +a law, called the Five Mile Act, expressly directed against those +poor ministers who, in the time of the Plague, had manfully come +back to comfort the unhappy people. This infamous law, by +forbidding them to teach in any school, or to come within five +miles of any city, town, or village, doomed them to starvation and +death. + +The fleet had been at sea, and healthy. The King of France was now +in alliance with the Dutch, though his navy was chiefly employed in +looking on while the English and Dutch fought. The Dutch gained +one victory; and the English gained another and a greater; and +Prince Rupert, one of the English admirals, was out in the Channel +one windy night, looking for the French Admiral, with the intention +of giving him something more to do than he had had yet, when the +gale increased to a storm, and blew him into Saint Helen's. That +night was the third of September, one thousand six hundred and +sixty-six, and that wind fanned the Great Fire of London. + +It broke out at a baker's shop near London Bridge, on the spot on +which the Monument now stands as a remembrance of those raging +flames. It spread and spread, and burned and burned, for three +days. The nights were lighter than the days; in the daytime there +was an immense cloud of smoke, and in the night-time there was a +great tower of fire mounting up into the sky, which lighted the +whole country landscape for ten miles round. Showers of hot ashes +rose into the air and fell on distant places; flying sparks carried +the conflagration to great distances, and kindled it in twenty new +spots at a time; church steeples fell down with tremendous crashes; +houses crumbled into cinders by the hundred and the thousand. The +summer had been intensely hot and dry, the streets were very +narrow, and the houses mostly built of wood and plaster. Nothing +could stop the tremendous fire, but the want of more houses to +burn; nor did it stop until the whole way from the Tower to Temple +Bar was a desert, composed of the ashes of thirteen thousand houses +and eighty-nine churches. + +This was a terrible visitation at the time, and occasioned great +loss and suffering to the two hundred thousand burnt-out people, +who were obliged to lie in the fields under the open night sky, or +in hastily-made huts of mud and straw, while the lanes and roads +were rendered impassable by carts which had broken down as they +tried to save their goods. But the Fire was a great blessing to +the City afterwards, for it arose from its ruins very much improved +- built more regularly, more widely, more cleanly and carefully, +and therefore much more healthily. It might be far more healthy +than it is, but there are some people in it still - even now, at +this time, nearly two hundred years later - so selfish, so pig- +headed, and so ignorant, that I doubt if even another Great Fire +would warm them up to do their duty. + +The Catholics were accused of having wilfully set London in flames; +one poor Frenchman, who had been mad for years, even accused +himself of having with his own hand fired the first house. There +is no reasonable doubt, however, that the fire was accidental. An +inscription on the Monument long attributed it to the Catholics; +but it is removed now, and was always a malicious and stupid +untruth. + + +SECOND PART + + +THAT the Merry Monarch might be very merry indeed, in the merry +times when his people were suffering under pestilence and fire, he +drank and gambled and flung away among his favourites the money +which the Parliament had voted for the war. The consequence of +this was that the stout-hearted English sailors were merrily +starving of want, and dying in the streets; while the Dutch, under +their admirals DE WITT and DE RUYTER, came into the River Thames, +and up the River Medway as far as Upnor, burned the guard-ships, +silenced the weak batteries, and did what they would to the English +coast for six whole weeks. Most of the English ships that could +have prevented them had neither powder nor shot on board; in this +merry reign, public officers made themselves as merry as the King +did with the public money; and when it was entrusted to them to +spend in national defences or preparations, they put it into their +own pockets with the merriest grace in the world. + +Lord Clarendon had, by this time, run as long a course as is +usually allotted to the unscrupulous ministers of bad kings. He +was impeached by his political opponents, but unsuccessfully. The +King then commanded him to withdraw from England and retire to +France, which he did, after defending himself in writing. He was +no great loss at home, and died abroad some seven years afterwards. + +There then came into power a ministry called the Cabal Ministry, +because it was composed of LORD CLIFFORD, the EARL OF ARLINGTON, +the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (a great rascal, and the King's most +powerful favourite), LORD ASHLEY, and the DUKE OF LAUDERDALE, C. A. +B. A. L. As the French were making conquests in Flanders, the +first Cabal proceeding was to make a treaty with the Dutch, for +uniting with Spain to oppose the French. It was no sooner made +than the Merry Monarch, who always wanted to get money without +being accountable to a Parliament for his expenditure, apologised +to the King of France for having had anything to do with it, and +concluded a secret treaty with him, making himself his infamous +pensioner to the amount of two millions of livres down, and three +millions more a year; and engaging to desert that very Spain, to +make war against those very Dutch, and to declare himself a +Catholic when a convenient time should arrive. This religious king +had lately been crying to his Catholic brother on the subject of +his strong desire to be a Catholic; and now he merrily concluded +this treasonable conspiracy against the country he governed, by +undertaking to become one as soon as he safely could. For all of +which, though he had had ten merry heads instead of one, he richly +deserved to lose them by the headsman's axe. + +As his one merry head might have been far from safe, if these +things had been known, they were kept very quiet, and war was +declared by France and England against the Dutch. But, a very +uncommon man, afterwards most important to English history and to +the religion and liberty of this land, arose among them, and for +many long years defeated the whole projects of France. This was +WILLIAM OF NASSAU, PRINCE OF ORANGE, son of the last Prince of +Orange of the same name, who married the daughter of Charles the +First of England. He was a young man at this time, only just of +age; but he was brave, cool, intrepid, and wise. His father had +been so detested that, upon his death, the Dutch had abolished the +authority to which this son would have otherwise succeeded +(Stadtholder it was called), and placed the chief power in the +hands of JOHN DE WITT, who educated this young prince. Now, the +Prince became very popular, and John de Witt's brother CORNELIUS +was sentenced to banishment on a false accusation of conspiring to +kill him. John went to the prison where he was, to take him away +to exile, in his coach; and a great mob who collected on the +occasion, then and there cruelly murdered both the brothers. This +left the government in the hands of the Prince, who was really the +choice of the nation; and from this time he exercised it with the +greatest vigour, against the whole power of France, under its +famous generals CONDE and TURENNE, and in support of the Protestant +religion. It was full seven years before this war ended in a +treaty of peace made at Nimeguen, and its details would occupy a +very considerable space. It is enough to say that William of +Orange established a famous character with the whole world; and +that the Merry Monarch, adding to and improving on his former +baseness, bound himself to do everything the King of France liked, +and nothing the King of France did not like, for a pension of one +hundred thousand pounds a year, which was afterwards doubled. +Besides this, the King of France, by means of his corrupt +ambassador - who wrote accounts of his proceedings in England, +which are not always to be believed, I think - bought our English +members of Parliament, as he wanted them. So, in point of fact, +during a considerable portion of this merry reign, the King of +France was the real King of this country. + +But there was a better time to come, and it was to come (though his +royal uncle little thought so) through that very William, Prince of +Orange. He came over to England, saw Mary, the elder daughter of +the Duke of York, and married her. We shall see by-and-by what +came of that marriage, and why it is never to be forgotten. + +This daughter was a Protestant, but her mother died a Catholic. +She and her sister ANNE, also a Protestant, were the only survivors +of eight children. Anne afterwards married GEORGE, PRINCE OF +DENMARK, brother to the King of that country. + +Lest you should do the Merry Monarch the injustice of supposing +that he was even good humoured (except when he had everything his +own way), or that he was high spirited and honourable, I will +mention here what was done to a member of the House of Commons, SIR +JOHN COVENTRY. He made a remark in a debate about taxing the +theatres, which gave the King offence. The King agreed with his +illegitimate son, who had been born abroad, and whom he had made +DUKE OF MONMOUTH, to take the following merry vengeance. To waylay +him at night, fifteen armed men to one, and to slit his nose with a +penknife. Like master, like man. The King's favourite, the Duke +of Buckingham, was strongly suspected of setting on an assassin to +murder the DUKE OF ORMOND as he was returning home from a dinner; +and that Duke's spirited son, LORD OSSORY, was so persuaded of his +guilt, that he said to him at Court, even as he stood beside the +King, 'My lord, I know very well that you are at the bottom of this +late attempt upon my father. But I give you warning, if he ever +come to a violent end, his blood shall be upon you, and wherever I +meet you I will pistol you! I will do so, though I find you +standing behind the King's chair; and I tell you this in his +Majesty's presence, that you may be quite sure of my doing what I +threaten.' Those were merry times indeed. + +There was a fellow named BLOOD, who was seized for making, with two +companions, an audacious attempt to steal the crown, the globe, and +sceptre, from the place where the jewels were kept in the Tower. +This robber, who was a swaggering ruffian, being taken, declared +that he was the man who had endeavoured to kill the Duke of Ormond, +and that he had meant to kill the King too, but was overawed by the +majesty of his appearance, when he might otherwise have done it, as +he was bathing at Battersea. The King being but an ill-looking +fellow, I don't believe a word of this. Whether he was flattered, +or whether he knew that Buckingham had really set Blood on to +murder the Duke, is uncertain. But it is quite certain that he +pardoned this thief, gave him an estate of five hundred a year in +Ireland (which had had the honour of giving him birth), and +presented him at Court to the debauched lords and the shameless +ladies, who made a great deal of him - as I have no doubt they +would have made of the Devil himself, if the King had introduced +him. + +Infamously pensioned as he was, the King still wanted money, and +consequently was obliged to call Parliaments. In these, the great +object of the Protestants was to thwart the Catholic Duke of York, +who married a second time; his new wife being a young lady only +fifteen years old, the Catholic sister of the DUKE OF MODENA. In +this they were seconded by the Protestant Dissenters, though to +their own disadvantage: since, to exclude Catholics from power, +they were even willing to exclude themselves. The King's object +was to pretend to be a Protestant, while he was really a Catholic; +to swear to the bishops that he was devoutly attached to the +English Church, while he knew he had bargained it away to the King +of France; and by cheating and deceiving them, and all who were +attached to royalty, to become despotic and be powerful enough to +confess what a rascal he was. Meantime, the King of France, +knowing his merry pensioner well, intrigued with the King's +opponents in Parliament, as well as with the King and his friends. + +The fears that the country had of the Catholic religion being +restored, if the Duke of York should come to the throne, and the +low cunning of the King in pretending to share their alarms, led to +some very terrible results. A certain DR. TONGE, a dull clergyman +in the City, fell into the hands of a certain TITUS OATES, a most +infamous character, who pretended to have acquired among the +Jesuits abroad a knowledge of a great plot for the murder of the +King, and the re-establishment if the Catholic religion. Titus +Oates, being produced by this unlucky Dr. Tonge and solemnly +examined before the council, contradicted himself in a thousand +ways, told the most ridiculous and improbable stories, and +implicated COLEMAN, the Secretary of the Duchess of York. Now, +although what he charged against Coleman was not true, and although +you and I know very well that the real dangerous Catholic plot was +that one with the King of France of which the Merry Monarch was +himself the head, there happened to be found among Coleman's +papers, some letters, in which he did praise the days of Bloody +Queen Mary, and abuse the Protestant religion. This was great good +fortune for Titus, as it seemed to confirm him; but better still +was in store. SIR EDMUNDBURY GODFREY, the magistrate who had first +examined him, being unexpectedly found dead near Primrose Hill, was +confidently believed to have been killed by the Catholics. I think +there is no doubt that he had been melancholy mad, and that he +killed himself; but he had a great Protestant funeral, and Titus +was called the Saver of the Nation, and received a pension of +twelve hundred pounds a year. + +As soon as Oates's wickedness had met with this success, up started +another villain, named WILLIAM BEDLOE, who, attracted by a reward +of five hundred pounds offered for the apprehension of the +murderers of Godfrey, came forward and charged two Jesuits and some +other persons with having committed it at the Queen's desire. +Oates, going into partnership with this new informer, had the +audacity to accuse the poor Queen herself of high treason. Then +appeared a third informer, as bad as either of the two, and accused +a Catholic banker named STAYLEY of having said that the King was +the greatest rogue in the world (which would not have been far from +the truth), and that he would kill him with his own hand. This +banker, being at once tried and executed, Coleman and two others +were tried and executed. Then, a miserable wretch named PRANCE, a +Catholic silversmith, being accused by Bedloe, was tortured into +confessing that he had taken part in Godfrey's murder, and into +accusing three other men of having committed it. Then, five +Jesuits were accused by Oates, Bedloe, and Prance together, and +were all found guilty, and executed on the same kind of +contradictory and absurd evidence. The Queen's physician and three +monks were next put on their trial; but Oates and Bedloe had for +the time gone far enough and these four were acquitted. The public +mind, however, was so full of a Catholic plot, and so strong +against the Duke of York, that James consented to obey a written +order from his brother, and to go with his family to Brussels, +provided that his rights should never be sacrificed in his absence +to the Duke of Monmouth. The House of Commons, not satisfied with +this as the King hoped, passed a bill to exclude the Duke from ever +succeeding to the throne. In return, the King dissolved the +Parliament. He had deserted his old favourite, the Duke of +Buckingham, who was now in the opposition. + +To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in this +merry reign, would occupy a hundred pages. Because the people +would not have bishops, and were resolved to stand by their solemn +League and Covenant, such cruelties were inflicted upon them as +make the blood run cold. Ferocious dragoons galloped through the +country to punish the peasants for deserting the churches; sons +were hanged up at their fathers' doors for refusing to disclose +where their fathers were concealed; wives were tortured to death +for not betraying their husbands; people were taken out of their +fields and gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial; +lighted matches were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a most +horrible torment called the Boot was invented, and constantly +applied, which ground and mashed the victims' legs with iron +wedges. Witnesses were tortured as well as prisoners. All the +prisons were full; all the gibbets were heavy with bodies; murder +and plunder devastated the whole country. In spite of all, the +Covenanters were by no means to be dragged into the churches, and +persisted in worshipping God as they thought right. A body of +ferocious Highlanders, turned upon them from the mountains of their +own country, had no greater effect than the English dragoons under +GRAHAME OF CLAVERHOUSE, the most cruel and rapacious of all their +enemies, whose name will ever be cursed through the length and +breadth of Scotland. Archbishop Sharp had ever aided and abetted +all these outrages. But he fell at last; for, when the injuries of +the Scottish people were at their height, he was seen, in his +coach-and-six coming across a moor, by a body of men, headed by one +JOHN BALFOUR, who were waiting for another of their oppressors. +Upon this they cried out that Heaven had delivered him into their +hands, and killed him with many wounds. If ever a man deserved +such a death, I think Archbishop Sharp did. + +It made a great noise directly, and the Merry Monarch - strongly +suspected of having goaded the Scottish people on, that he might +have an excuse for a greater army than the Parliament were willing +to give him - sent down his son, the Duke of Monmouth, as +commander-in-chief, with instructions to attack the Scottish +rebels, or Whigs as they were called, whenever he came up with +them. Marching with ten thousand men from Edinburgh, he found +them, in number four or five thousand, drawn up at Bothwell Bridge, +by the Clyde. They were soon dispersed; and Monmouth showed a more +humane character towards them, than he had shown towards that +Member of Parliament whose nose he had caused to be slit with a +penknife. But the Duke of Lauderdale was their bitter foe, and +sent Claverhouse to finish them. + +As the Duke of York became more and more unpopular, the Duke of +Monmouth became more and more popular. It would have been decent +in the latter not to have voted in favour of the renewed bill for +the exclusion of James from the throne; but he did so, much to the +King's amusement, who used to sit in the House of Lords by the +fire, hearing the debates, which he said were as good as a play. +The House of Commons passed the bill by a large majority, and it +was carried up to the House of Lords by LORD RUSSELL, one of the +best of the leaders on the Protestant side. It was rejected there, +chiefly because the bishops helped the King to get rid of it; and +the fear of Catholic plots revived again. There had been another +got up, by a fellow out of Newgate, named DANGERFIELD, which is +more famous than it deserves to be, under the name of the MEAL-TUB +PLOT. This jail-bird having been got out of Newgate by a MRS. +CELLIER, a Catholic nurse, had turned Catholic himself, and +pretended that he knew of a plot among the Presbyterians against +the King's life. This was very pleasant to the Duke of York, who +hated the Presbyterians, who returned the compliment. He gave +Dangerfield twenty guineas, and sent him to the King his brother. +But Dangerfield, breaking down altogether in his charge, and being +sent back to Newgate, almost astonished the Duke out of his five +senses by suddenly swearing that the Catholic nurse had put that +false design into his head, and that what he really knew about, +was, a Catholic plot against the King; the evidence of which would +be found in some papers, concealed in a meal-tub in Mrs. Cellier's +house. There they were, of course - for he had put them there +himself - and so the tub gave the name to the plot. But, the nurse +was acquitted on her trial, and it came to nothing. + +Lord Ashley, of the Cabal, was now Lord Shaftesbury, and was strong +against the succession of the Duke of York. The House of Commons, +aggravated to the utmost extent, as we may well suppose, by +suspicions of the King's conspiracy with the King of France, made a +desperate point of the exclusion, still, and were bitter against +the Catholics generally. So unjustly bitter were they, I grieve to +say, that they impeached the venerable Lord Stafford, a Catholic +nobleman seventy years old, of a design to kill the King. The +witnesses were that atrocious Oates and two other birds of the same +feather. He was found guilty, on evidence quite as foolish as it +was false, and was beheaded on Tower Hill. The people were opposed +to him when he first appeared upon the scaffold; but, when he had +addressed them and shown them how innocent he was and how wickedly +he was sent there, their better nature was aroused, and they said, +'We believe you, my Lord. God bless you, my Lord!' + +The House of Commons refused to let the King have any money until +he should consent to the Exclusion Bill; but, as he could get it +and did get it from his master the King of France, he could afford +to hold them very cheap. He called a Parliament at Oxford, to +which he went down with a great show of being armed and protected +as if he were in danger of his life, and to which the opposition +members also went armed and protected, alleging that they were in +fear of the Papists, who were numerous among the King's guards. +However, they went on with the Exclusion Bill, and were so earnest +upon it that they would have carried it again, if the King had not +popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, bundled +himself into it along with them, hurried down to the chamber where +the House of Lords met, and dissolved the Parliament. After which +he scampered home, and the members of Parliament scampered home +too, as fast as their legs could carry them. + +The Duke of York, then residing in Scotland, had, under the law +which excluded Catholics from public trust, no right whatever to +public employment. Nevertheless, he was openly employed as the +King's representative in Scotland, and there gratified his sullen +and cruel nature to his heart's content by directing the dreadful +cruelties against the Covenanters. There were two ministers named +CARGILL and CAMERON who had escaped from the battle of Bothwell +Bridge, and who returned to Scotland, and raised the miserable but +still brave and unsubdued Covenanters afresh, under the name of +Cameronians. As Cameron publicly posted a declaration that the +King was a forsworn tyrant, no mercy was shown to his unhappy +followers after he was slain in battle. The Duke of York, who was +particularly fond of the Boot and derived great pleasure from +having it applied, offered their lives to some of these people, if +they would cry on the scaffold 'God save the King!' But their +relations, friends, and countrymen, had been so barbarously +tortured and murdered in this merry reign, that they preferred to +die, and did die. The Duke then obtained his merry brother's +permission to hold a Parliament in Scotland, which first, with most +shameless deceit, confirmed the laws for securing the Protestant +religion against Popery, and then declared that nothing must or +should prevent the succession of the Popish Duke. After this +double-faced beginning, it established an oath which no human being +could understand, but which everybody was to take, as a proof that +his religion was the lawful religion. The Earl of Argyle, taking +it with the explanation that he did not consider it to prevent him +from favouring any alteration either in the Church or State which +was not inconsistent with the Protestant religion or with his +loyalty, was tried for high treason before a Scottish jury of which +the MARQUIS OF MONTROSE was foreman, and was found guilty. He +escaped the scaffold, for that time, by getting away, in the +disguise of a page, in the train of his daughter, LADY SOPHIA +LINDSAY. It was absolutely proposed, by certain members of the +Scottish Council, that this lady should be whipped through the +streets of Edinburgh. But this was too much even for the Duke, who +had the manliness then (he had very little at most times) to remark +that Englishmen were not accustomed to treat ladies in that manner. +In those merry times nothing could equal the brutal servility of +the Scottish fawners, but the conduct of similar degraded beings in +England. + +After the settlement of these little affairs, the Duke returned to +England, and soon resumed his place at the Council, and his office +of High Admiral - all this by his brother's favour, and in open +defiance of the law. It would have been no loss to the country, if +he had been drowned when his ship, in going to Scotland to fetch +his family, struck on a sand-bank, and was lost with two hundred +souls on board. But he escaped in a boat with some friends; and +the sailors were so brave and unselfish, that, when they saw him +rowing away, they gave three cheers, while they themselves were +going down for ever. + +The Merry Monarch, having got rid of his Parliament, went to work +to make himself despotic, with all speed. Having had the villainy +to order the execution of OLIVER PLUNKET, BISHOP OF ARMAGH, falsely +accused of a plot to establish Popery in that country by means of a +French army - the very thing this royal traitor was himself trying +to do at home - and having tried to ruin Lord Shaftesbury, and +failed - he turned his hand to controlling the corporations all +over the country; because, if he could only do that, he could get +what juries he chose, to bring in perjured verdicts, and could get +what members he chose returned to Parliament. These merry times +produced, and made Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, a +drunken ruffian of the name of JEFFREYS; a red-faced, swollen, +bloated, horrible creature, with a bullying, roaring voice, and a +more savage nature perhaps than was ever lodged in any human +breast. This monster was the Merry Monarch's especial favourite, +and he testified his admiration of him by giving him a ring from +his own finger, which the people used to call Judge Jeffreys's +Bloodstone. Him the King employed to go about and bully the +corporations, beginning with London; or, as Jeffreys himself +elegantly called it, 'to give them a lick with the rough side of +his tongue.' And he did it so thoroughly, that they soon became +the basest and most sycophantic bodies in the kingdom - except the +University of Oxford, which, in that respect, was quite pre-eminent +and unapproachable. + +Lord Shaftesbury (who died soon after the King's failure against +him), LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL, the Duke of Monmouth, LORD HOWARD, LORD +JERSEY, ALGERNON SIDNEY, JOHN HAMPDEN (grandson of the great +Hampden), and some others, used to hold a council together after +the dissolution of the Parliament, arranging what it might be +necessary to do, if the King carried his Popish plot to the utmost +height. Lord Shaftesbury having been much the most violent of this +party, brought two violent men into their secrets - RUMSEY, who had +been a soldier in the Republican army; and WEST, a lawyer. These +two knew an old officer of CROMWELL'S, called RUMBOLD, who had +married a maltster's widow, and so had come into possession of a +solitary dwelling called the Rye House, near Hoddesdon, in +Hertfordshire. Rumbold said to them what a capital place this +house of his would be from which to shoot at the King, who often +passed there going to and fro from Newmarket. They liked the idea, +and entertained it. But, one of their body gave information; and +they, together with SHEPHERD a wine merchant, Lord Russell, +Algernon Sidney, LORD ESSEX, LORD HOWARD, and Hampden, were all +arrested. + +Lord Russell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do so, being +innocent of any wrong; Lord Essex might have easily escaped, but +scorned to do so, lest his flight should prejudice Lord Russell. +But it weighed upon his mind that he had brought into their +council, Lord Howard - who now turned a miserable traitor - against +a great dislike Lord Russell had always had of him. He could not +bear the reflection, and destroyed himself before Lord Russell was +brought to trial at the Old Bailey. + +He knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having always been +manful in the Protestant cause against the two false brothers, the +one on the throne, and the other standing next to it. He had a +wife, one of the noblest and best of women, who acted as his +secretary on his trial, who comforted him in his prison, who supped +with him on the night before he died, and whose love and virtue and +devotion have made her name imperishable. Of course, he was found +guilty, and was sentenced to be beheaded in Lincoln's Inn-fields, +not many yards from his own house. When he had parted from his +children on the evening before his death, his wife still stayed +with him until ten o'clock at night; and when their final +separation in this world was over, and he had kissed her many +times, he still sat for a long while in his prison, talking of her +goodness. Hearing the rain fall fast at that time, he calmly said, +'Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which is a dull +thing on a rainy day.' At midnight he went to bed, and slept till +four; even when his servant called him, he fell asleep again while +his clothes were being made ready. He rode to the scaffold in his +own carriage, attended by two famous clergymen, TILLOTSON and +BURNET, and sang a psalm to himself very softly, as he went along. +He was as quiet and as steady as if he had been going out for an +ordinary ride. After saying that he was surprised to see so great +a crowd, he laid down his head upon the block, as if upon the +pillow of his bed, and had it struck off at the second blow. His +noble wife was busy for him even then; for that true-hearted lady +printed and widely circulated his last words, of which he had given +her a copy. They made the blood of all the honest men in England +boil. + +The University of Oxford distinguished itself on the very same day +by pretending to believe that the accusation against Lord Russell +was true, and by calling the King, in a written paper, the Breath +of their Nostrils and the Anointed of the Lord. This paper the +Parliament afterwards caused to be burned by the common hangman; +which I am sorry for, as I wish it had been framed and glazed and +hung up in some public place, as a monument of baseness for the +scorn of mankind. + +Next, came the trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys +presided, like a great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with +rage. 'I pray God, Mr. Sidney,' said this Chief Justice of a merry +reign, after passing sentence, 'to work in you a temper fit to go +to the other world, for I see you are not fit for this.' 'My +lord,' said the prisoner, composedly holding out his arm, 'feel my +pulse, and see if I be disordered. I thank Heaven I never was in +better temper than I am now.' Algernon Sidney was executed on +Tower Hill, on the seventh of December, one thousand six hundred +and eighty-three. He died a hero, and died, in his own words, 'For +that good old cause in which he had been engaged from his youth, +and for which God had so often and so wonderfully declared +himself.' + +The Duke of Monmouth had been making his uncle, the Duke of York, +very jealous, by going about the country in a royal sort of way, +playing at the people's games, becoming godfather to their +children, and even touching for the King's evil, or stroking the +faces of the sick to cure them - though, for the matter of that, I +should say he did them about as much good as any crowned king could +have done. His father had got him to write a letter, confessing +his having had a part in the conspiracy, for which Lord Russell had +been beheaded; but he was ever a weak man, and as soon as he had +written it, he was ashamed of it and got it back again. For this, +he was banished to the Netherlands; but he soon returned and had an +interview with his father, unknown to his uncle. It would seem +that he was coming into the Merry Monarch's favour again, and that +the Duke of York was sliding out of it, when Death appeared to the +merry galleries at Whitehall, and astonished the debauched lords +and gentlemen, and the shameless ladies, very considerably. + +On Monday, the second of February, one thousand six hundred and +eighty-five, the merry pensioner and servant of the King of France +fell down in a fit of apoplexy. By the Wednesday his case was +hopeless, and on the Thursday he was told so. As he made a +difficulty about taking the sacrament from the Protestant Bishop of +Bath, the Duke of York got all who were present away from the bed, +and asked his brother, in a whisper, if he should send for a +Catholic priest? The King replied, 'For God's sake, brother, do!' +The Duke smuggled in, up the back stairs, disguised in a wig and +gown, a priest named HUDDLESTON, who had saved the King's life +after the battle of Worcester: telling him that this worthy man in +the wig had once saved his body, and was now come to save his soul. + +The Merry Monarch lived through that night, and died before noon on +the next day, which was Friday, the sixth. Two of the last things +he said were of a human sort, and your remembrance will give him +the full benefit of them. When the Queen sent to say she was too +unwell to attend him and to ask his pardon, he said, 'Alas! poor +woman, SHE beg MY pardon! I beg hers with all my heart. Take back +that answer to her.' And he also said, in reference to Nell Gwyn, +'Do not let poor Nelly starve.' + +He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of +his reign. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI - ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND + + + +KING JAMES THE SECOND was a man so very disagreeable, that even the +best of historians has favoured his brother Charles, as becoming, +by comparison, quite a pleasant character. The one object of his +short reign was to re-establish the Catholic religion in England; +and this he doggedly pursued with such a stupid obstinacy, that his +career very soon came to a close. + +The first thing he did, was, to assure his council that he would +make it his endeavour to preserve the Government, both in Church +and State, as it was by law established; and that he would always +take care to defend and support the Church. Great public +acclamations were raised over this fair speech, and a great deal +was said, from the pulpits and elsewhere, about the word of a King +which was never broken, by credulous people who little supposed +that he had formed a secret council for Catholic affairs, of which +a mischievous Jesuit, called FATHER PETRE, was one of the chief +members. With tears of joy in his eyes, he received, as the +beginning of HIS pension from the King of France, five hundred +thousand livres; yet, with a mixture of meanness and arrogance that +belonged to his contemptible character, he was always jealous of +making some show of being independent of the King of France, while +he pocketed his money. As - notwithstanding his publishing two +papers in favour of Popery (and not likely to do it much service, I +should think) written by the King, his brother, and found in his +strong-box; and his open display of himself attending mass - the +Parliament was very obsequious, and granted him a large sum of +money, he began his reign with a belief that he could do what he +pleased, and with a determination to do it. + +Before we proceed to its principal events, let us dispose of Titus +Oates. He was tried for perjury, a fortnight after the coronation, +and besides being very heavily fined, was sentenced to stand twice +in the pillory, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate one day, and +from Newgate to Tyburn two days afterwards, and to stand in the +pillory five times a year as long as he lived. This fearful +sentence was actually inflicted on the rascal. Being unable to +stand after his first flogging, he was dragged on a sledge from +Newgate to Tyburn, and flogged as he was drawn along. He was so +strong a villain that he did not die under the torture, but lived +to be afterwards pardoned and rewarded, though not to be ever +believed in any more. Dangerfield, the only other one of that crew +left alive, was not so fortunate. He was almost killed by a +whipping from Newgate to Tyburn, and, as if that were not +punishment enough, a ferocious barrister of Gray's Inn gave him a +poke in the eye with his cane, which caused his death; for which +the ferocious barrister was deservedly tried and executed. + +As soon as James was on the throne, Argyle and Monmouth went from +Brussels to Rotterdam, and attended a meeting of Scottish exiles +held there, to concert measures for a rising in England. It was +agreed that Argyle should effect a landing in Scotland, and +Monmouth in England; and that two Englishmen should be sent with +Argyle to be in his confidence, and two Scotchmen with the Duke of +Monmouth. + +Argyle was the first to act upon this contract. But, two of his +men being taken prisoners at the Orkney Islands, the Government +became aware of his intention, and was able to act against him with +such vigour as to prevent his raising more than two or three +thousand Highlanders, although he sent a fiery cross, by trusty +messengers, from clan to clan and from glen to glen, as the custom +then was when those wild people were to be excited by their chiefs. +As he was moving towards Glasgow with his small force, he was +betrayed by some of his followers, taken, and carried, with his +hands tied behind his back, to his old prison in Edinburgh Castle. +James ordered him to be executed, on his old shamefully unjust +sentence, within three days; and he appears to have been anxious +that his legs should have been pounded with his old favourite the +boot. However, the boot was not applied; he was simply beheaded, +and his head was set upon the top of Edinburgh Jail. One of those +Englishmen who had been assigned to him was that old soldier +Rumbold, the master of the Rye House. He was sorely wounded, and +within a week after Argyle had suffered with great courage, was +brought up for trial, lest he should die and disappoint the King. +He, too, was executed, after defending himself with great spirit, +and saying that he did not believe that God had made the greater +part of mankind to carry saddles on their backs and bridles in +their mouths, and to be ridden by a few, booted and spurred for the +purpose - in which I thoroughly agree with Rumbold. + +The Duke of Monmouth, partly through being detained and partly +through idling his time away, was five or six weeks behind his +friend when he landed at Lyme, in Dorset: having at his right hand +an unlucky nobleman called LORD GREY OF WERK, who of himself would +have ruined a far more promising expedition. He immediately set up +his standard in the market-place, and proclaimed the King a tyrant, +and a Popish usurper, and I know not what else; charging him, not +only with what he had done, which was bad enough, but with what +neither he nor anybody else had done, such as setting fire to +London, and poisoning the late King. Raising some four thousand +men by these means, he marched on to Taunton, where there were many +Protestant dissenters who were strongly opposed to the Catholics. +Here, both the rich and poor turned out to receive him, ladies +waved a welcome to him from all the windows as he passed along the +streets, flowers were strewn in his way, and every compliment and +honour that could be devised was showered upon him. Among the +rest, twenty young ladies came forward, in their best clothes, and +in their brightest beauty, and gave him a Bible ornamented with +their own fair hands, together with other presents. + +Encouraged by this homage, he proclaimed himself King, and went on +to Bridgewater. But, here the Government troops, under the EARL OF +FEVERSHAM, were close at hand; and he was so dispirited at finding +that he made but few powerful friends after all, that it was a +question whether he should disband his army and endeavour to +escape. It was resolved, at the instance of that unlucky Lord +Grey, to make a night attack on the King's army, as it lay encamped +on the edge of a morass called Sedgemoor. The horsemen were +commanded by the same unlucky lord, who was not a brave man. He +gave up the battle almost at the first obstacle - which was a deep +drain; and although the poor countrymen, who had turned out for +Monmouth, fought bravely with scythes, poles, pitchforks, and such +poor weapons as they had, they were soon dispersed by the trained +soldiers, and fled in all directions. When the Duke of Monmouth +himself fled, was not known in the confusion; but the unlucky Lord +Grey was taken early next day, and then another of the party was +taken, who confessed that he had parted from the Duke only four +hours before. Strict search being made, he was found disguised as +a peasant, hidden in a ditch under fern and nettles, with a few +peas in his pocket which he had gathered in the fields to eat. The +only other articles he had upon him were a few papers and little +books: one of the latter being a strange jumble, in his own +writing, of charms, songs, recipes, and prayers. He was completely +broken. He wrote a miserable letter to the King, beseeching and +entreating to be allowed to see him. When he was taken to London, +and conveyed bound into the King's presence, he crawled to him on +his knees, and made a most degrading exhibition. As James never +forgave or relented towards anybody, he was not likely to soften +towards the issuer of the Lyme proclamation, so he told the +suppliant to prepare for death. + +On the fifteenth of July, one thousand six hundred and eighty-five, +this unfortunate favourite of the people was brought out to die on +Tower Hill. The crowd was immense, and the tops of all the houses +were covered with gazers. He had seen his wife, the daughter of +the Duke of Buccleuch, in the Tower, and had talked much of a lady +whom he loved far better - the LADY HARRIET WENTWORTH - who was one +of the last persons he remembered in this life. Before laying down +his head upon the block he felt the edge of the axe, and told the +executioner that he feared it was not sharp enough, and that the +axe was not heavy enough. On the executioner replying that it was +of the proper kind, the Duke said, 'I pray you have a care, and do +not use me so awkwardly as you used my Lord Russell.' The +executioner, made nervous by this, and trembling, struck once and +merely gashed him in the neck. Upon this, the Duke of Monmouth +raised his head and looked the man reproachfully in the face. Then +he struck twice, and then thrice, and then threw down the axe, and +cried out in a voice of horror that he could not finish that work. +The sheriffs, however, threatening him with what should be done to +himself if he did not, he took it up again and struck a fourth time +and a fifth time. Then the wretched head at last fell off, and +James, Duke of Monmouth, was dead, in the thirty-sixth year of his +age. He was a showy, graceful man, with many popular qualities, +and had found much favour in the open hearts of the English. + +The atrocities, committed by the Government, which followed this +Monmouth rebellion, form the blackest and most lamentable page in +English history. The poor peasants, having been dispersed with +great loss, and their leaders having been taken, one would think +that the implacable King might have been satisfied. But no; he let +loose upon them, among other intolerable monsters, a COLONEL KIRK, +who had served against the Moors, and whose soldiers - called by +the people Kirk's lambs, because they bore a lamb upon their flag, +as the emblem of Christianity - were worthy of their leader. The +atrocities committed by these demons in human shape are far too +horrible to be related here. It is enough to say, that besides +most ruthlessly murdering and robbing them, and ruining them by +making them buy their pardons at the price of all they possessed, +it was one of Kirk's favourite amusements, as he and his officers +sat drinking after dinner, and toasting the King, to have batches +of prisoners hanged outside the windows for the company's +diversion; and that when their feet quivered in the convulsions of +death, he used to swear that they should have music to their +dancing, and would order the drums to beat and the trumpets to +play. The detestable King informed him, as an acknowledgment of +these services, that he was 'very well satisfied with his +proceedings.' But the King's great delight was in the proceedings +of Jeffreys, now a peer, who went down into the west, with four +other judges, to try persons accused of having had any share in the +rebellion. The King pleasantly called this 'Jeffreys's campaign.' +The people down in that part of the country remember it to this day +as The Bloody Assize. + +It began at Winchester, where a poor deaf old lady, MRS. ALICIA +LISLE, the widow of one of the judges of Charles the First (who had +been murdered abroad by some Royalist assassins), was charged with +having given shelter in her house to two fugitives from Sedgemoor. +Three times the jury refused to find her guilty, until Jeffreys +bullied and frightened them into that false verdict. When he had +extorted it from them, he said, 'Gentlemen, if I had been one of +you, and she had been my own mother, I would have found her +guilty;' - as I dare say he would. He sentenced her to be burned +alive, that very afternoon. The clergy of the cathedral and some +others interfered in her favour, and she was beheaded within a +week. As a high mark of his approbation, the King made Jeffreys +Lord Chancellor; and he then went on to Dorchester, to Exeter, to +Taunton, and to Wells. It is astonishing, when we read of the +enormous injustice and barbarity of this beast, to know that no one +struck him dead on the judgment-seat. It was enough for any man or +woman to be accused by an enemy, before Jeffreys, to be found +guilty of high treason. One man who pleaded not guilty, he ordered +to be taken out of court upon the instant, and hanged; and this so +terrified the prisoners in general that they mostly pleaded guilty +at once. At Dorchester alone, in the course of a few days, +Jeffreys hanged eighty people; besides whipping, transporting, +imprisoning, and selling as slaves, great numbers. He executed, in +all, two hundred and fifty, or three hundred. + +These executions took place, among the neighbours and friends of +the sentenced, in thirty-six towns and villages. Their bodies were +mangled, steeped in caldrons of boiling pitch and tar, and hung up +by the roadsides, in the streets, over the very churches. The +sight and smell of heads and limbs, the hissing and bubbling of the +infernal caldrons, and the tears and terrors of the people, were +dreadful beyond all description. One rustic, who was forced to +steep the remains in the black pot, was ever afterwards called 'Tom +Boilman.' The hangman has ever since been called Jack Ketch, +because a man of that name went hanging and hanging, all day long, +in the train of Jeffreys. You will hear much of the horrors of the +great French Revolution. Many and terrible they were, there is no +doubt; but I know of nothing worse, done by the maddened people of +France in that awful time, than was done by the highest judge in +England, with the express approval of the King of England, in The +Bloody Assize. + +Nor was even this all. Jeffreys was as fond of money for himself +as of misery for others, and he sold pardons wholesale to fill his +pockets. The King ordered, at one time, a thousand prisoners to be +given to certain of his favourites, in order that they might +bargain with them for their pardons. The young ladies of Taunton +who had presented the Bible, were bestowed upon the maids of honour +at court; and those precious ladies made very hard bargains with +them indeed. When The Bloody Assize was at its most dismal height, +the King was diverting himself with horse-races in the very place +where Mrs. Lisle had been executed. When Jeffreys had done his +worst, and came home again, he was particularly complimented in the +Royal Gazette; and when the King heard that through drunkenness and +raging he was very ill, his odious Majesty remarked that such +another man could not easily be found in England. Besides all +this, a former sheriff of London, named CORNISH, was hanged within +sight of his own house, after an abominably conducted trial, for +having had a share in the Rye House Plot, on evidence given by +Rumsey, which that villain was obliged to confess was directly +opposed to the evidence he had given on the trial of Lord Russell. +And on the very same day, a worthy widow, named ELIZABETH GAUNT, +was burned alive at Tyburn, for having sheltered a wretch who +himself gave evidence against her. She settled the fuel about +herself with her own hands, so that the flames should reach her +quickly: and nobly said, with her last breath, that she had obeyed +the sacred command of God, to give refuge to the outcast, and not +to betray the wanderer. + +After all this hanging, beheading, burning, boiling, mutilating, +exposing, robbing, transporting, and selling into slavery, of his +unhappy subjects, the King not unnaturally thought that he could do +whatever he would. So, he went to work to change the religion of +the country with all possible speed; and what he did was this. + +He first of all tried to get rid of what was called the Test Act - +which prevented the Catholics from holding public employments - by +his own power of dispensing with the penalties. He tried it in one +case, and, eleven of the twelve judges deciding in his favour, he +exercised it in three others, being those of three dignitaries of +University College, Oxford, who had become Papists, and whom he +kept in their places and sanctioned. He revived the hated +Ecclesiastical Commission, to get rid of COMPTON, Bishop of London, +who manfully opposed him. He solicited the Pope to favour England +with an ambassador, which the Pope (who was a sensible man then) +rather unwillingly did. He flourished Father Petre before the eyes +of the people on all possible occasions. He favoured the +establishment of convents in several parts of London. He was +delighted to have the streets, and even the court itself, filled +with Monks and Friars in the habits of their orders. He constantly +endeavoured to make Catholics of the Protestants about him. He +held private interviews, which he called 'closetings,' with those +Members of Parliament who held offices, to persuade them to consent +to the design he had in view. When they did not consent, they were +removed, or resigned of themselves, and their places were given to +Catholics. He displaced Protestant officers from the army, by +every means in his power, and got Catholics into their places too. +He tried the same thing with the corporations, and also (though not +so successfully) with the Lord Lieutenants of counties. To terrify +the people into the endurance of all these measures, he kept an +army of fifteen thousand men encamped on Hounslow Heath, where mass +was openly performed in the General's tent, and where priests went +among the soldiers endeavouring to persuade them to become +Catholics. For circulating a paper among those men advising them +to be true to their religion, a Protestant clergyman, named +JOHNSON, the chaplain of the late Lord Russell, was actually +sentenced to stand three times in the pillory, and was actually +whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. He dismissed his own brother-in- +law from his Council because he was a Protestant, and made a Privy +Councillor of the before-mentioned Father Petre. He handed Ireland +over to RICHARD TALBOT, EARL OF TYRCONNELL, a worthless, dissolute +knave, who played the same game there for his master, and who +played the deeper game for himself of one day putting it under the +protection of the French King. In going to these extremities, +every man of sense and judgment among the Catholics, from the Pope +to a porter, knew that the King was a mere bigoted fool, who would +undo himself and the cause he sought to advance; but he was deaf to +all reason, and, happily for England ever afterwards, went tumbling +off his throne in his own blind way. + +A spirit began to arise in the country, which the besotted +blunderer little expected. He first found it out in the University +of Cambridge. Having made a Catholic a dean at Oxford without any +opposition, he tried to make a monk a master of arts at Cambridge: +which attempt the University resisted, and defeated him. He then +went back to his favourite Oxford. On the death of the President +of Magdalen College, he commanded that there should be elected to +succeed him, one MR. ANTHONY FARMER, whose only recommendation was, +that he was of the King's religion. The University plucked up +courage at last, and refused. The King substituted another man, +and it still refused, resolving to stand by its own election of a +MR. HOUGH. The dull tyrant, upon this, punished Mr. Hough, and +five-and-twenty more, by causing them to be expelled and declared +incapable of holding any church preferment; then he proceeded to +what he supposed to be his highest step, but to what was, in fact, +his last plunge head-foremost in his tumble off his throne. + +He had issued a declaration that there should be no religious tests +or penal laws, in order to let in the Catholics more easily; but +the Protestant dissenters, unmindful of themselves, had gallantly +joined the regular church in opposing it tooth and nail. The King +and Father Petre now resolved to have this read, on a certain +Sunday, in all the churches, and to order it to be circulated for +that purpose by the bishops. The latter took counsel with the +Archbishop of Canterbury, who was in disgrace; and they resolved +that the declaration should not be read, and that they would +petition the King against it. The Archbishop himself wrote out the +petition, and six bishops went into the King's bedchamber the same +night to present it, to his infinite astonishment. Next day was +the Sunday fixed for the reading, and it was only read by two +hundred clergymen out of ten thousand. The King resolved against +all advice to prosecute the bishops in the Court of King's Bench, +and within three weeks they were summoned before the Privy Council, +and committed to the Tower. As the six bishops were taken to that +dismal place, by water, the people who were assembled in immense +numbers fell upon their knees, and wept for them, and prayed for +them. When they got to the Tower, the officers and soldiers on +guard besought them for their blessing. While they were confined +there, the soldiers every day drank to their release with loud +shouts. When they were brought up to the Court of King's Bench for +their trial, which the Attorney-General said was for the high +offence of censuring the Government, and giving their opinion about +affairs of state, they were attended by similar multitudes, and +surrounded by a throng of noblemen and gentlemen. When the jury +went out at seven o'clock at night to consider of their verdict, +everybody (except the King) knew that they would rather starve than +yield to the King's brewer, who was one of them, and wanted a +verdict for his customer. When they came into court next morning, +after resisting the brewer all night, and gave a verdict of not +guilty, such a shout rose up in Westminster Hall as it had never +heard before; and it was passed on among the people away to Temple +Bar, and away again to the Tower. It did not pass only to the +east, but passed to the west too, until it reached the camp at +Hounslow, where the fifteen thousand soldiers took it up and echoed +it. And still, when the dull King, who was then with Lord +Feversham, heard the mighty roar, asked in alarm what it was, and +was told that it was 'nothing but the acquittal of the bishops,' he +said, in his dogged way, 'Call you that nothing? It is so much the +worse for them.' + +Between the petition and the trial, the Queen had given birth to a +son, which Father Petre rather thought was owing to Saint Winifred. +But I doubt if Saint Winifred had much to do with it as the King's +friend, inasmuch as the entirely new prospect of a Catholic +successor (for both the King's daughters were Protestants) +determined the EARLS OF SHREWSBURY, DANBY, and DEVONSHIRE, LORD +LUMLEY, the BISHOP OF LONDON, ADMIRAL RUSSELL, and COLONEL SIDNEY, +to invite the Prince of Orange over to England. The Royal Mole, +seeing his danger at last, made, in his fright, many great +concessions, besides raising an army of forty thousand men; but the +Prince of Orange was not a man for James the Second to cope with. +His preparations were extraordinarily vigorous, and his mind was +resolved. + +For a fortnight after the Prince was ready to sail for England, a +great wind from the west prevented the departure of his fleet. +Even when the wind lulled, and it did sail, it was dispersed by a +storm, and was obliged to put back to refit. At last, on the first +of November, one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight, the +Protestant east wind, as it was long called, began to blow; and on +the third, the people of Dover and the people of Calais saw a fleet +twenty miles long sailing gallantly by, between the two places. On +Monday, the fifth, it anchored at Torbay in Devonshire, and the +Prince, with a splendid retinue of officers and men, marched into +Exeter. But the people in that western part of the country had +suffered so much in The Bloody Assize, that they had lost heart. +Few people joined him; and he began to think of returning, and +publishing the invitation he had received from those lords, as his +justification for having come at all. At this crisis, some of the +gentry joined him; the Royal army began to falter; an engagement +was signed, by which all who set their hand to it declared that +they would support one another in defence of the laws and liberties +of the three Kingdoms, of the Protestant religion, and of the +Prince of Orange. From that time, the cause received no check; the +greatest towns in England began, one after another, to declare for +the Prince; and he knew that it was all safe with him when the +University of Oxford offered to melt down its plate, if he wanted +any money. + +By this time the King was running about in a pitiable way, touching +people for the King's evil in one place, reviewing his troops in +another, and bleeding from the nose in a third. The young Prince +was sent to Portsmouth, Father Petre went off like a shot to +France, and there was a general and swift dispersal of all the +priests and friars. One after another, the King's most important +officers and friends deserted him and went over to the Prince. In +the night, his daughter Anne fled from Whitehall Palace; and the +Bishop of London, who had once been a soldier, rode before her with +a drawn sword in his hand, and pistols at his saddle. 'God help +me,' cried the miserable King: 'my very children have forsaken +me!' In his wildness, after debating with such lords as were in +London, whether he should or should not call a Parliament, and +after naming three of them to negotiate with the Prince, he +resolved to fly to France. He had the little Prince of Wales +brought back from Portsmouth; and the child and the Queen crossed +the river to Lambeth in an open boat, on a miserable wet night, and +got safely away. This was on the night of the ninth of December. + +At one o'clock on the morning of the eleventh, the King, who had, +in the meantime, received a letter from the Prince of Orange, +stating his objects, got out of bed, told LORD NORTHUMBERLAND who +lay in his room not to open the door until the usual hour in the +morning, and went down the back stairs (the same, I suppose, by +which the priest in the wig and gown had come up to his brother) +and crossed the river in a small boat: sinking the great seal of +England by the way. Horses having been provided, he rode, +accompanied by SIR EDWARD HALES, to Feversham, where he embarked in +a Custom House Hoy. The master of this Hoy, wanting more ballast, +ran into the Isle of Sheppy to get it, where the fishermen and +smugglers crowded about the boat, and informed the King of their +suspicions that he was a 'hatchet-faced Jesuit.' As they took his +money and would not let him go, he told them who he was, and that +the Prince of Orange wanted to take his life; and he began to +scream for a boat - and then to cry, because he had lost a piece of +wood on his ride which he called a fragment of Our Saviour's cross. +He put himself into the hands of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, +and his detention was made known to the Prince of Orange at Windsor +- who, only wanting to get rid of him, and not caring where he +went, so that he went away, was very much disconcerted that they +did not let him go. However, there was nothing for it but to have +him brought back, with some state in the way of Life Guards, to +Whitehall. And as soon as he got there, in his infatuation, he +heard mass, and set a Jesuit to say grace at his public dinner. + +The people had been thrown into the strangest state of confusion by +his flight, and had taken it into their heads that the Irish part +of the army were going to murder the Protestants. Therefore, they +set the bells a ringing, and lighted watch-fires, and burned +Catholic Chapels, and looked about in all directions for Father +Petre and the Jesuits, while the Pope's ambassador was running away +in the dress of a footman. They found no Jesuits; but a man, who +had once been a frightened witness before Jeffreys in court, saw a +swollen, drunken face looking through a window down at Wapping, +which he well remembered. The face was in a sailor's dress, but he +knew it to be the face of that accursed judge, and he seized him. +The people, to their lasting honour, did not tear him to pieces. +After knocking him about a little, they took him, in the basest +agonies of terror, to the Lord Mayor, who sent him, at his own +shrieking petition, to the Tower for safety. There, he died. + +Their bewilderment continuing, the people now lighted bonfires and +made rejoicings, as if they had any reason to be glad to have the +King back again. But, his stay was very short, for the English +guards were removed from Whitehall, Dutch guards were marched up to +it, and he was told by one of his late ministers that the Prince +would enter London, next day, and he had better go to Ham. He +said, Ham was a cold, damp place, and he would rather go to +Rochester. He thought himself very cunning in this, as he meant to +escape from Rochester to France. The Prince of Orange and his +friends knew that, perfectly well, and desired nothing more. So, +he went to Gravesend, in his royal barge, attended by certain +lords, and watched by Dutch troops, and pitied by the generous +people, who were far more forgiving than he had ever been, when +they saw him in his humiliation. On the night of the twenty-third +of December, not even then understanding that everybody wanted to +get rid of him, he went out, absurdly, through his Rochester +garden, down to the Medway, and got away to France, where he +rejoined the Queen. + +There had been a council in his absence, of the lords, and the +authorities of London. When the Prince came, on the day after the +King's departure, he summoned the Lords to meet him, and soon +afterwards, all those who had served in any of the Parliaments of +King Charles the Second. It was finally resolved by these +authorities that the throne was vacant by the conduct of King James +the Second; that it was inconsistent with the safety and welfare of +this Protestant kingdom, to be governed by a Popish prince; that +the Prince and Princess of Orange should be King and Queen during +their lives and the life of the survivor of them; and that their +children should succeed them, if they had any. That if they had +none, the Princess Anne and her children should succeed; that if +she had none, the heirs of the Prince of Orange should succeed. + +On the thirteenth of January, one thousand six hundred and eighty- +nine, the Prince and Princess, sitting on a throne in Whitehall, +bound themselves to these conditions. The Protestant religion was +established in England, and England's great and glorious Revolution +was complete. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + + +I HAVE now arrived at the close of my little history. The events +which succeeded the famous Revolution of one thousand six hundred +and eighty-eight, would neither be easily related nor easily +understood in such a book as this. + +William and Mary reigned together, five years. After the death of +his good wife, William occupied the throne, alone, for seven years +longer. During his reign, on the sixteenth of September, one +thousand seven hundred and one, the poor weak creature who had once +been James the Second of England, died in France. In the meantime +he had done his utmost (which was not much) to cause William to be +assassinated, and to regain his lost dominions. James's son was +declared, by the French King, the rightful King of England; and was +called in France THE CHEVALIER SAINT GEORGE, and in England THE +PRETENDER. Some infatuated people in England, and particularly in +Scotland, took up the Pretender's cause from time to time - as if +the country had not had Stuarts enough! - and many lives were +sacrificed, and much misery was occasioned. King William died on +Sunday, the seventh of March, one thousand seven hundred and two, +of the consequences of an accident occasioned by his horse +stumbling with him. He was always a brave, patriotic Prince, and a +man of remarkable abilities. His manner was cold, and he made but +few friends; but he had truly loved his queen. When he was dead, a +lock of her hair, in a ring, was found tied with a black ribbon +round his left arm. + +He was succeeded by the PRINCESS ANNE, a popular Queen, who reigned +twelve years. In her reign, in the month of May, one thousand +seven hundred and seven, the Union between England and Scotland was +effected, and the two countries were incorporated under the name of +GREAT BRITAIN. Then, from the year one thousand seven hundred and +fourteen to the year one thousand, eight hundred and thirty, +reigned the four GEORGES. + +It was in the reign of George the Second, one thousand seven +hundred and forty-five, that the Pretender did his last mischief, +and made his last appearance. Being an old man by that time, he +and the Jacobites - as his friends were called - put forward his +son, CHARLES EDWARD, known as the young Chevalier. The Highlanders +of Scotland, an extremely troublesome and wrong-headed race on the +subject of the Stuarts, espoused his cause, and he joined them, and +there was a Scottish rebellion to make him king, in which many +gallant and devoted gentlemen lost their lives. It was a hard +matter for Charles Edward to escape abroad again, with a high price +on his head; but the Scottish people were extraordinarily faithful +to him, and, after undergoing many romantic adventures, not unlike +those of Charles the Second, he escaped to France. A number of +charming stories and delightful songs arose out of the Jacobite +feelings, and belong to the Jacobite times. Otherwise I think the +Stuarts were a public nuisance altogether. + +It was in the reign of George the Third that England lost North +America, by persisting in taxing her without her own consent. That +immense country, made independent under WASHINGTON, and left to +itself, became the United States; one of the greatest nations of +the earth. In these times in which I write, it is honourably +remarkable for protecting its subjects, wherever they may travel, +with a dignity and a determination which is a model for England. +Between you and me, England has rather lost ground in this respect +since the days of Oliver Cromwell. + +The Union of Great Britain with Ireland - which had been getting on +very ill by itself - took place in the reign of George the Third, +on the second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight. + +WILLIAM THE FOURTH succeeded George the Fourth, in the year one +thousand eight hundred and thirty, and reigned seven years. QUEEN +VICTORIA, his niece, the only child of the Duke of Kent, the fourth +son of George the Third, came to the throne on the twentieth of +June, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven. She was married +to PRINCE ALBERT of Saxe Gotha on the tenth of February, one +thousand eight hundred and forty. She is very good, and much +beloved. So I end, like the crier, with + +GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText A Child's History of England + +Project Gutenberg Etext of Contributions to: All The Year Round +#48 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company +edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +Contributions to All The Year Round by Charles Dickens + + + + +Contents: + + +Announcement in "Household Words" +The Poor Man and his Beer +Five New Points of Criminal Law +Leigh Hunt: A Remonstrance +The Tattlesnivel Bleater +The Young Man from the Country +An Enlightened Clergyman +Rather a Strong Dose +The Martyr Medium +The Late Mr. Stanfield +A Slight Question of Fact +Landor's Life +Address which appeared shortly previous to the completion of the +20th volume + + + +ANNOUNCEMENT IN "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" OF THE APPROACHING PUBLICATION OF +"ALL THE YEAR ROUND" + + + +After the appearance of the present concluding Number of Household +Words, this publication will merge into the new weekly publication, +All the Year Round, and the title, Household Words, will form a part +of the title-page of All the Year Round. + +The Prospectus of the latter Journal describes it in these words: + + +"ADDRESS + + +"Nine years of Household Words, are the best practical assurance +that can be offered to the public, of the spirit and objects of All +the Year Round. + +"In transferring myself, and my strongest energies, from the +publication that is about to be discontinued, to the publication +that is about to be begun, I have the happiness of taking with me +the staff of writers with whom I have laboured, and all the literary +and business co-operation that can make my work a pleasure. In some +important respects, I am now free greatly to advance on past +arrangements. Those, I leave to testify for themselves in due +course. + +"That fusion of the graces of the imagination with the realities of +life, which is vital to the welfare of any community, and for which +I have striven from week to week as honestly as I could during the +last nine years, will continue to be striven for "all the year +round". The old weekly cares and duties become things of the Past, +merely to be assumed, with an increased love for them and brighter +hopes springing out of them, in the Present and the Future. + +"I look, and plan, for a very much wider circle of readers, and yet +again for a steadily expanding circle of readers, in the projects I +hope to carry through "all the year round". And I feel confident +that this expectation will be realized, if it deserve realization. + +"The task of my new journal is set, and it will steadily try to work +the task out. Its pages shall show to what good purpose their motto +is remembered in them, and with how much of fidelity and earnestness +they tell + +"the story of our lives from year to year. + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + +Since this was issued, the Journal itself has come into existence, +and has spoken for itself five weeks. Its fifth Number is published +to-day, and its circulation, moderately stated, trebles that now +relinquished in Household Words. + +In referring our readers, henceforth, to All the Year Round, we can +but assure them afresh, of our unwearying and faithful service, in +what is at once the work and the chief pleasure of our life. +Through all that we are doing, and through all that we design to do, +our aim is to do our best in sincerity of purpose, and true devotion +of spirit. + +We do not for a moment suppose that we may lean on the character of +these pages, and rest contented at the point where they stop. We +see in that point but a starting-place for our new journey; and on +that journey, with new prospects opening out before us everywhere, +we joyfully proceed, entreating our readers--without any of the pain +of leave-taking incidental to most journeys--to bear us company All +the year round. + +Saturday, May 28, 1859. + + + +THE POOR MAN AND HIS BEER + + + +My friend Philosewers and I, contemplating a farm-labourer the other +day, who was drinking his mug of beer on a settle at a roadside ale- +house door, we fell to humming the fag-end of an old ditty, of which +the poor man and his beer, and the sin of parting them, form the +doleful burden. Philosewers then mentioned to me that a friend of +his in an agricultural county--say a Hertfordshire friend--had, for +two years last past, endeavoured to reconcile the poor man and his +beer to public morality, by making it a point of honour between +himself and the poor man that the latter should use his beer and not +abuse it. Interested in an effort of so unobtrusive and +unspeechifying a nature, "O Philosewers," said I, after the manner +of the dreary sages in Eastern apologues, "Show me, I pray, the man +who deems that temperance can be attained without a medal, an +oration, a banner, and a denunciation of half the world, and who has +at once the head and heart to set about it!" + +Philosewers expressing, in reply, his willingness to gratify the +dreary sage, an appointment was made for the purpose. And on the +day fixed, I, the Dreary one, accompanied by Philosewers, went down +Nor'-West per railway, in search of temperate temperance. It was a +thunderous day; and the clouds were so immoderately watery, and so +very much disposed to sour all the beer in Hertfordshire, that they +seemed to have taken the pledge. + +But, the sun burst forth gaily in the afternoon, and gilded the old +gables, and old mullioned windows, and old weathercock and old +clock-face, of the quaint old house which is the dwelling of the man +we sought. How shall I describe him? As one of the most famous +practical chemists of the age? That designation will do as well as +another--better, perhaps, than most others. And his name? Friar +Bacon. + +"Though, take notice, Philosewers," said I, behind my hand, "that +the first Friar Bacon had not that handsome lady-wife beside him. +Wherein, O Philosewers, he was a chemist, wretched and forlorn, +compared with his successor. Young Romeo bade the holy father +Lawrence hang up philosophy, unless philosophy could make a Juliet. +Chemistry would infallibly be hanged if its life were staked on +making anything half so pleasant as this Juliet." The gentle +Philosewers smiled assent. + +The foregoing whisper from myself, the Dreary one, tickled the ear +of Philosewers, as we walked on the trim garden terrace before +dinner, among the early leaves and blossoms; two peacocks, +apparently in very tight new boots, occasionally crossing the gravel +at a distance. The sun, shining through the old house-windows, now +and then flashed out some brilliant piece of colour from bright +hangings within, or upon the old oak panelling; similarly, Friar +Bacon, as we paced to and fro, revealed little glimpses of his good +work. + +"It is not much," said he. "It is no wonderful thing. There used +to be a great deal of drunkenness here, and I wanted to make it +better if I could. The people are very ignorant, and have been much +neglected, and I wanted to make THAT better, if I could. My utmost +object was, to help them to a little self-government and a little +homely pleasure. I only show the way to better things, and advise +them. I never act for them; I never interfere; above all, I never +patronise." + +I had said to Philosewers as we came along Nor'-West that patronage +was one of the curses of England; I appeared to rise in the +estimation of Philosewers when thus confirmed. + +"And so," said Friar Bacon, "I established my Allotment-club, and my +pig-clubs, and those little Concerts by the ladies of my own family, +of which we have the last of the season this evening. They are a +great success, for the people here are amazingly fond of music. But +there is the early dinner-bell, and I have no need to talk of my +endeavours when you will soon see them in their working dress". + +Dinner done, behold the Friar, Philosewers, and myself the Dreary +one, walking, at six o'clock, across the fields, to the "Club- +house." + +As we swung open the last field-gate and entered the Allotment- +grounds, many members were already on their way to the Club, which +stands in the midst of the allotments. Who could help thinking of +the wonderful contrast between these club-men and the club-men of +St. James's Street, or Pall Mall, in London! Look at yonder +prematurely old man, doubled up with work, and leaning on a rude +stick more crooked than himself, slowly trudging to the club-house, +in a shapeless hat like an Italian harlequin's, or an old brown- +paper bag, leathern leggings, and dull green smock-frock, looking as +though duck-weed had accumulated on it--the result of its stagnant +life--or as if it were a vegetable production, originally meant to +blow into something better, but stopped somehow. Compare him with +Old Cousin Feenix, ambling along St. James's Street, got up in the +style of a couple of generations ago, and with a head of hair, a +complexion, and a set of teeth, profoundly impossible to be believed +in by the widest stretch of human credulity. Can they both be men +and brothers? Verily they are. And although Cousin Feenix has +lived so fast that he will die at Baden-Baden, and although this +club-man in the frock has lived, ever since he came to man's estate, +on nine shillings a week, and is sure to die in the Union if he die +in bed, yet he brought as much into the world as Cousin Feenix, and +will take as much out--more, for more of him is real. + +A pretty, simple building, the club-house, with a rustic colonnade +outside, under which the members can sit on wet evenings, looking at +the patches of ground they cultivate for themselves; within, a well- +ventilated room, large and lofty, cheerful pavement of coloured +tiles, a bar for serving out the beer, good supply of forms and +chairs, and a brave big chimney-corner, where the fire burns +cheerfully. Adjoining this room, another: + +"Built for a reading-room," said Friar Bacon; "but not much used-- +yet." + +The dreary sage, looking in through the window, perceiving a fixed +reading-desk within, and inquiring its use: + +"I have Service there," said Friar Bacon. "They never went anywhere +to hear prayers, and of course it would be hopeless to help them to +be happier and better, if they had no religious feeling at all." + +"The whole place is very pretty." Thus the sage. + +"I am glad you think so. I built it for the holders of the +Allotment-grounds, and gave it them: only requiring them to manage +it by a committee of their own appointing, and never to get drunk +there. They never have got drunk there." + +"Yet they have their beer freely?" + +"O yes. As much as they choose to buy. The club gets its beer +direct from the brewer, by the barrel. So they get it good; at once +much cheaper, and much better, than at the public-house. The +members take it in turns to be steward, and serve out the beer: if +a man should decline to serve when his turn came, he would pay a +fine of twopence. The steward lasts, as long as the barrel lasts. +When there is a new barrel, there is a new steward." + +"What a noble fire is roaring up that chimney!" + +"Yes, a capital fire. Every member pays a halfpenny a week." + +"Every member must be the holder of an Allotment-garden?" + +"Yes; for which he pays five shillings a year. The Allotments you +see about us, occupy some sixteen or eighteen acres, and each garden +is as large as experience shows one man to be able to manage. You +see how admirably they are tilled, and how much they get off them. +They are always working in them in their spare hours; and when a man +wants a mug of beer, instead of going off to the village and the +public-house, he puts down his spade or his hoe, comes to the club- +house and gets it, and goes back to his work. When he has done +work, he likes to have his beer at the club, still, and to sit and +look at his little crops as they thrive." + +"They seem to manage the club very well." + +"Perfectly well. Here are their own rules. They made them. I +never interfere with them, except to advise them when they ask me." + + +RULES AND REGULATIONS +MADE BY THE COMMITTEE +From the 21st September, 1857 + +One half-penny per week to be paid to the club by each member + +1.--Each member to draw the beer in order, according to the number +of his allotment; on failing, a forfeit of twopence to be paid to +the club. + +2.--The member that draws the beer to pay for the same, and bring +his ticket up receipted when the subscriptions are paid; on failing +to do so, a penalty of sixpence to be forfeited and paid to the +club. + +3.--The subscriptions and forfeits to be paid at the club-room on +the last Saturday night of each month. + +4.--The subscriptions and forfeits to be cleared up every quarter; +if not, a penalty of sixpence to be paid to the club. + +5.--The member that draws the beer to be at the club-room by six +o'clock every evening, and stay till ten; but in the event of no +member being there, he may leave at nine; on failing so to attend, a +penalty of sixpence to be paid to the club. + +6.--Any member giving beer to a stranger in this club-room, +excepting to his wife or family, shall be liable to the penalty of +one shilling. + +7.--Any member lifting his hand to strike another in this club-room +shall be liable to the penalty of sixpence. + +8.--Any member swearing in this club-room shall be liable to a +penalty of twopence each time. + +9.--Any member selling beer shall be expelled from the club. + +10.--Any member wishing to give up his allotment, may apply to the +committee, and they shall value the crop and the condition of the +ground. The amount of the valuation shall be paid by the succeeding +tenant, who shall be allowed to enter on any part of the allotment +which is uncropped at the time of notice of the leaving tenant. + +11.--Any member not keeping his allotment-garden clear from seed- +weeds, or otherwise injuring his neighbours, may be turned out of +his garden by the votes of two-thirds of the committee, one month's +notice being given to him. + +12.--Any member carelessly breaking a mug, is to pay the cost of +replacing the same. + + +I was soliciting the attention of Philosewers to some old old +bonnets hanging in the Allotment-gardens to frighten the birds, and +the fashion of which I should think would terrify a French bird to +death at any distance, when Philosewers solicited my attention to +the scrapers at the club-house door. The amount of the soil of +England which every member brought there on his feet, was indeed +surprising; and even I, who am professedly a salad-eater, could have +grown a salad for my dinner, in the earth on any member's frock or +hat. + +"Now," said Friar Bacon, looking at his watch, "for the Pig-clubs!" + +The dreary Sage entreated explanation. + +"Why, a pig is so very valuable to a poor labouring man, and it is +so very difficult for him at this time of the year to get money +enough to buy one, that I lend him a pound for the purpose. But, I +do it in this way. I leave such of the club members as choose it +and desire it, to form themselves into parties of five. To every +man in each company of five, I lend a pound, to buy a pig. But, +each man of the five becomes bound for every other man, as to the +repayment of his money. Consequently, they look after one another, +and pick out their partners with care; selecting men in whom they +have confidence." + +"They repay the money, I suppose, when the pig is fattened, killed, +and sold?" + +"Yes. Then they repay the money. And they do repay it. I had one +man, last year, who was a little tardy (he was in the habit of going +to the public-house); but even he did pay. It is an immense +Advantage to one of these poor fellows to have a pig. The pig +consumes the refuse from the man's cottage and allotment-garden, and +the pig's refuse enriches the man's garden besides. The pig is the +poor man's friend. Come into the club-house again." + +The poor man's friend. Yes. I have often wondered who really was +the poor man's friend among a great number of competitors, and I now +clearly perceive him to be the pig. HE never makes any flourishes +about the poor man. HE never gammons the poor man--except to his +manifest advantage in the article of bacon. HE never comes down to +this house, or goes down to his constituents. He openly declares to +the poor man, "I want my sty because I am a Pig. I desire to have +as much to eat as you can by any means stuff me with, because I am a +Pig." HE never gives the poor man a sovereign for bringing up a +family. HE never grunts the poor man's name in vain. And when he +dies in the odour of Porkity, he cuts up, a highly useful creature +and a blessing to the poor man, from the ring in his snout to the +curl in his tail. Which of the poor man's other friends can say as +much? Where is the M.P. who means Mere Pork? + +The dreary Sage had glided into these reflections, when he found +himself sitting by the club-house fire, surrounded by green smock- +frocks and shapeless hats: with Friar Bacon lively, busy, and +expert, at a little table near him. + +"Now, then, come. The first five!" said Friar Bacon. "Where are +you?" + +"Order!" cried a merry-faced little man, who had brought his young +daughter with him to see life, and who always modestly hid his face +in his beer-mug after he had thus assisted the business. + +"John Nightingale, William Thrush, Joseph Blackbird, Cecil Robin, +and Thomas Linnet!" cried Friar Bacon. + +"Here, sir!" and "Here, sir!" And Linnet, Robin, Blackbird, Thrush, +and Nightingale, stood confessed. + +We, the undersigned, declare, in effect, by this written paper, that +each of us is responsible for the repayment of this pig-money by +each of the other. "Sure you understand, Nightingale?" + +"Ees, sur." + +"Can you write your name, Nightingale?" + +"Na, sur." + +Nightingale's eye upon his name, as Friar Bacon wrote it, was a +sight to consider in after years. Rather incredulous was +Nightingale, with a hand at the corner of his mouth, and his head on +one side, as to those drawings really meaning him. Doubtful was +Nightingale whether any virtue had gone out of him in that committal +to paper. Meditative was Nightingale as to what would come of young +Nightingale's growing up to the acquisition of that art. Suspended +was the interest of Nightingale, when his name was done--as if he +thought the letters were only sown, to come up presently in some +other form. Prodigious, and wrong-handed was the cross made by +Nightingale on much encouragement--the strokes directed from him +instead of towards him; and most patient and sweet-humoured was the +smile of Nightingale as he stepped back into a general laugh. + +"Order!" cried the little man. Immediately disappearing into his +mug. + +"Ralph Mangel, Roger Wurzel, Edward Vetches, Matthew Carrot, and +Charles Taters!" said Friar Bacon. + +"All here, sir." + +"You understand it, Mangel?" + +"Iss, sir, I unnerstaans it." + +"Can you write your name, Mangel?" + +"Iss, sir." + +Breathless interest. A dense background of smock-frocks accumulated +behind Mangel, and many eyes in it looked doubtfully at Friar Bacon, +as who should say, "Can he really though?" Mangel put down his hat, +retired a little to get a good look at the paper, wetted his right +hand thoroughly by drawing it slowly across his mouth, approached +the paper with great determination, flattened it, sat down at it, +and got well to his work. Circuitous and sea-serpent-like, were the +movements of the tongue of Mangel while he formed the letters; +elevated were the eyebrows of Mangel and sidelong the eyes, as, with +his left whisker reposing on his left arm, they followed his +performance; many were the misgivings of Mangel, and slow was his +retrospective meditation touching the junction of the letter p with +h; something too active was the big forefinger of Mangel in its +propensity to rub out without proved cause. At last, long and deep +was the breath drawn by Mangel when he laid down the pen; long and +deep the wondering breath drawn by the background--as if they had +watched his walking across the rapids of Niagara, on stilts, and now +cried, "He has done it!" + +But, Mangel was an honest man, if ever honest man lived. "T'owt to +be a hell, sir," said he, contemplating his work, "and I ha' made a +t on 't." + +The over-fraught bosoms of the background found relief in a roar of +laughter. + +"OR-DER!" cried the little man. "CHEER!" And after that second +word, came forth from his mug no more. + +Several other clubs signed, and received their money. Very few +could write their names; all who could not, pleaded that they could +not, more or less sorrowfully, and always with a shake of the head, +and in a lower voice than their natural speaking voice. Crosses +could be made standing; signatures must be sat down to. There was +no exception to this rule. Meantime, the various club-members +smoked, drank their beer, and talked together quite unrestrained. +They all wore their hats, except when they went up to Friar Bacon's +table. The merry-faced little man offered his beer, with a natural +good-fellowship, both to the Dreary one and Philosewers. Both +partook of it with thanks. + +"Seven o'clock!" said Friar Bacon. "And now we better get across to +the concert, men, for the music will be beginning." + +The concert was in Friar Bacon's laboratory; a large building near +at hand, in an open field. The bettermost people of the village and +neighbourhood were in a gallery on one side, and, in a gallery +opposite the orchestra. The whole space below was filled with the +labouring people and their families, to the number of five or six +hundred. We had been obliged to turn away two hundred to-night, +Friar Bacon said, for want of room--and that, not counting the boys, +of whom we had taken in only a few picked ones, by reason of the +boys, as a class, being given to too fervent a custom of applauding +with their boot-heels. + +The performers were the ladies of Friar Bacon's family, and two +gentlemen; one of them, who presided, a Doctor of Music. A piano +was the only instrument. Among the vocal pieces, we had a negro +melody (rapturously encored), the Indian Drum, and the Village +Blacksmith; neither did we want for fashionable Italian, having Ah! +non giunge, and Mi manca la voce. Our success was splendid; our +good-humoured, unaffected, and modest bearing, a pattern. As to the +audience, they were far more polite and far more pleased than at the +Opera; they were faultless. Thus for barely an hour the concert +lasted, with thousands of great bottles looking on from the walls, +containing the results of Friar Bacon's Million and one experiments +in agricultural chemistry; and containing too, no doubt, a variety +of materials with which the Friar could have blown us all through +the roof at five minutes' notice. + +God save the Queen being done, the good Friar stepped forward and +said a few words, more particularly concerning two points; firstly, +that Saturday half-holiday, which it would be kind in farmers to +grant; secondly, the additional Allotment-grounds we were going to +establish, in consequence of the happy success of the system, but +which we could not guarantee should entitle the holders to be +members of the club, because the present members must consider and +settle that question for themselves: a bargain between man and man +being always a bargain, and we having made over the club to them as +the original Allotment-men. This was loudly applauded, and so, with +contented and affectionate cheering, it was all over. + +As Philosewers, and I the Dreary, posted back to London, looking up +at the moon and discussing it as a world preparing for the +habitation of responsible creatures, we expatiated on the honour due +to men in this world of ours who try to prepare it for a higher +course, and to leave the race who live and die upon it better than +they found them. + + + +FIVE NEW POINTS OF CRIMINAL LAW + + + +The existing Criminal Law has been found in trials for Murder, to be +so exceedingly hasty, unfair, and oppressive--in a word, to be so +very objectionable to the amiable persons accused of that +thoughtless act--that it is, we understand, the intention of the +Government to bring in a Bill for its amendment. We have been +favoured with an outline of its probable provisions. + +It will be grounded on the profound principle that the real offender +is the Murdered Person; but for whose obstinate persistency in being +murdered, the interesting fellow-creature to be tried could not have +got into trouble. + +Its leading enactments may be expected to resolve themselves under +the following heads: + +1. There shall be no judge. Strong representations have been made +by highly popular culprits that the presence of this obtrusive +character is prejudicial to their best interests. The Court will be +composed of a political gentleman, sitting in a secluded room +commanding a view of St. James's Park, who has already more to do +than any human creature can, by any stretch of the human +imagination, be supposed capable of doing. + +2. The jury to consist of Five Thousand Five Hundred and Fifty-five +Volunteers. + +3. The jury to be strictly prohibited from seeing either the +accused or the witnesses. They are not to be sworn. They are on no +account to hear the evidence. They are to receive it, or such +representations of it, as may happen to fall in their way; and they +will constantly write letters about it to all the Papers. + +4. Supposing the trial to be a trial for Murder by poisoning, and +supposing the hypothetical case, or the evidence, for the +prosecution to charge the administration of two poisons, say Arsenic +and Antimony; and supposing the taint of Arsenic in the body to be +possible but not probable, and the presence of Antimony in the body, +to be an absolute certainty; it will then become the duty of the +jury to confine their attention solely to the Arsenic, and entirely +to dismiss the Antimony from their minds. + +5. The symptoms preceding the death of the real offender (or +Murdered Person) being described in evidence by medical +practitioners who saw them, other medical practitioners who never +saw them shall be required to state whether they are inconsistent +with certain known diseases--but, THEY SHALL NEVER BE ASKED WHETHER +THEY ARE NOT EXACTLY CONSISTENT WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF POISON. +To illustrate this enactment in the proposed Bill by a case:- A +raging mad dog is seen to run into the house where Z lives alone, +foaming at the mouth. Z and the mad dog are for some time left +together in that house under proved circumstances, irresistibly +leading to the conclusion that Z has been bitten by the dog. Z is +afterwards found lying on his bed in a state of hydrophobia, and +with the marks of the dog's teeth. Now, the symptoms of that +disease being identical with those of another disease called +Tetanus, which might supervene on Z's running a rusty nail into a +certain part of his foot, medical practitioners who never saw Z, +shall bear testimony to that abstract fact, and it shall then be +incumbent on the Registrar-General to certify that Z died of a rusty +nail. + +It is hoped that these alterations in the present mode of procedure +will not only be quite satisfactory to the accused person (which is +the first great consideration), but will also tend, in a tolerable +degree, to the welfare and safety of society. For it is not sought +in this moderate and prudent measure to be wholly denied that it is +an inconvenience to Society to be poisoned overmuch. + + + +LEIGH HUNT: A REMONSTRANCE + + + +"The sense of beauty and gentleness, of moral beauty and faithful +gentleness, grew upon him as the clear evening closed in. When he +went to visit his relative at Putney, he still carried with him his +work, and the books he more immediately wanted. Although his bodily +powers had been giving way, his most conspicuous qualities, his +memory for books, and his affection remained; and when his hair was +white, when his ample chest had grown slender, when the very +proportion of his height had visibly lessened, his step was still +ready, and his dark eyes brightened at every happy expression, and +at every thought of kindness. His death was simply exhaustion; he +broke off his work to lie down and repose. So gentle was the final +approach, that he scarcely recognised it till the very last, and +then it came without terrors. His physical suffering had not been +severe; at the latest hour he said that his only uneasiness was +failing breath. And that failing breath was used to express his +sense of the inexhaustible kindness he had received from the family +who had been so unexpectedly made his nurses,--to draw from one of +his sons, by minute, eager, and searching questions, all that he +could learn about the latest vicissitudes and growing hopes of +Italy,--to ask the friends and children around him for news of those +whom he loved,--and to send love and messages to the absent who +loved him." + + +Thus, with a manly simplicity and filial affection, writes the +eldest son of Leigh Hunt in recording his father's death. These are +the closing words of a new edition of The Autobiography of Leigh +Hunt, published by Messrs. Smith and Elder, of Cornhill, revised by +that son, and enriched with an introductory chapter of remarkable +beauty and tenderness. The son's first presentation of his father +to the reader, "rather tall, straight as an arrow, looking slenderer +than he really was; his hair black and shining, and slightly +inclined to wave; his head high, his forehead straight and white, +his eyes black and sparkling, his general complexion dark; in his +whole carriage and manner an extraordinary degree of life," +completes the picture. It is the picture of the flourishing and +fading away of man that is born of a woman and hath but a short time +to live. + +In his presentation of his father's moral nature and intellectual +qualities, Mr Hunt is no less faithful and no less touching. Those +who knew Leigh Hunt, will see the bright face and hear the musical +voice again, when he is recalled to them in this passage: "Even at +seasons of the greatest depression in his fortunes, he always +attracted many visitors, but still not so much for any repute that +attended him as for his personal qualities. Few men were more +attractive, in society, whether in a large company or over the +fireside. His manners were peculiarly animated; his conversation, +varied, ranging over a great field of subjects, was moved and called +forth by the response of his companion, be that companion +philosopher or student, sage or boy, man or woman; and he was +equally ready for the most lively topics or for the gravest +reflections--his expression easily adapting itself to the tone of +his companion's mind. With much freedom of manners, he combined a +spontaneous courtesy that never failed, and a considerateness +derived from a ceaseless kindness of heart that invariably +fascinated even strangers." Or in this: "His animation, his +sympathy with what was gay and pleasurable; his avowed doctrine of +cultivating cheerfulness, were manifest on the surface, and could be +appreciated by those who knew him in society, most probably even +exaggerated as salient traits, on which he himself insisted WITH A +SORT OF GAY AND OSTENTATIOUS WILFULNESS." + +The last words describe one of the most captivating peculiarities of +a most original and engaging man, better than any other words could. +The reader is besought to observe them, for a reason that shall +presently be given. Lastly: "The anxiety to recognise the right of +others, the tendency to 'refine', which was noted by an early school +companion, and the propensity to elaborate every thought, made him, +along with the direct argument by which he sustained his own +conviction, recognise and almost admit all that might be said on the +opposite side". For these reasons, and for others suggested with +equal felicity, and with equal fidelity, the son writes of the +father, "It is most desirable that his qualities should be known as +they were; for such deficiencies as he had are the honest +explanation of his mistakes; while, as the reader may see from his +writings and his conduct, they are not, as the faults of which he +was accused would be, incompatible with the noblest faculties both +of head and heart. To know Leigh Hunt as he was, was to hold him in +reverence and love." + +These quotations are made here, with a special object. It is not, +that the personal testimony of one who knew Leigh Hunt well, may be +borne to their truthfulness. It is not, that it may be recorded in +these pages, as in his son's introductory chapter, that his life was +of the most amiable and domestic kind, that his wants were few, that +his way of life was frugal, that he was a man of small expenses, no +ostentations, a diligent labourer, and a secluded man of letters. +It is not, that the inconsiderate and forgetful may be reminded of +his wrongs and sufferings in the days of the Regency, and of the +national disgrace of his imprisonment. It is not, that their +forbearance may be entreated for his grave, in right of his graceful +fancy or his political labours and endurances, though - + + +Not only we, the latest seed of Time, +New men, that in the flying of a wheel +Cry down the past, not only we, that prate +Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well. + + +It is, that a duty may be done in the most direct way possible. An +act of plain, clear duty. + +Four or five years ago, the writer of these lines was much pained by +accidentally encountering a printed statement, "that Mr. Leigh Hunt +was the original of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House". The writer of +these lines, is the author of that book. The statement came from +America. It is no disrespect to that country, in which the writer +has, perhaps, as many friends and as true an interest as any man +that lives, good-humouredly to state the fact, that he has, now and +then, been the subject of paragraphs in Transatlantic newspapers, +more surprisingly destitute of all foundation in truth than the +wildest delusions of the wildest lunatics. For reasons born of this +experience, he let the thing go by. + +But, since Mr. Leigh Hunt's death, the statement has been revived in +England. The delicacy and generosity evinced in its revival, are +for the rather late consideration of its revivers. The fact is +this: + +Exactly those graces and charms of manner which are remembered in +the words we have quoted, were remembered by the author of the work +of fiction in question, when he drew the character in question. +Above all other things, that "sort of gay and ostentatious +wilfulness" in the humouring of a subject, which had many a time +delighted him, and impressed him as being unspeakably whimsical and +attractive, was the airy quality he wanted for the man he invented. +Partly for this reason, and partly (he has since often grieved to +think) for the pleasure it afforded him to find that delightful +manner reproducing itself under his hand, he yielded to the +temptation of too often making the character SPEAK like his old +friend. He no more thought, God forgive him! that the admired +original would ever be charged with the imaginary vices of the +fictitious creature, than he has himself ever thought of charging +the blood of Desdemona and Othello, on the innocent Academy model +who sat for Iago's leg in the picture. Even as to the mere +occasional manner, he meant to be so cautious and conscientious, +that he privately referred the proof sheets of the first number of +that book to two intimate literary friends of Leigh Hunt (both still +living), and altered the whole of that part of the text on their +discovering too strong a resemblance to his "way". + +He cannot see the son lay this wreath on the father's tomb, and +leave him to the possibility of ever thinking that the present words +might have righted the father's memory and were left unwritten. He +cannot know that his own son may have to explain his father when +folly or malice can wound his heart no more, and leave this task +undone. + + + +THE TATTLESNIVEL BLEATER + + + +The pen is taken in hand on the present occasion, by a private +individual (not wholly unaccustomed to literary composition), for +the exposure of a conspiracy of a most frightful nature; a +conspiracy which, like the deadly Upas-tree of Java, on which the +individual produced a poem in his earlier youth (not wholly devoid +of length), which was so flatteringly received (in circles not +wholly unaccustomed to form critical opinions), that he was +recommended to publish it, and would certainly have carried out the +suggestion, but for private considerations (not wholly unconnected +with expense). + +The individual who undertakes the exposure of the gigantic +conspiracy now to be laid bare in all its hideous deformity, is an +inhabitant of the town of Tattlesnivel--a lowly inhabitant, it may +be, but one who, as an Englishman and a man, will ne'er abase his +eye before the gaudy and the mocking throng. + +Tattlesnivel stoops to demand no championship from her sons. On an +occasion in History, our bluff British monarch, our Eighth Royal +Harry, almost went there. And long ere the periodical in which this +exposure will appear, had sprung into being, Tattlesnivel had +unfurled that standard which yet waves upon her battlements. The +standard alluded to, is THE TATTLESNIVEL BLEATER, containing the +latest intelligence, and state of markets, down to the hour of going +to press, and presenting a favourable local medium for advertisers, +on a graduated scale of charges, considerably diminishing in +proportion to the guaranteed number of insertions. + +It were bootless to expatiate on the host of talent engaged in +formidable phalanx to do fealty to the Bleater. Suffice it to +select, for present purposes, one of the most gifted and (but for +the wide and deep ramifications of an un-English conspiracy) most +rising, of the men who are bold Albion's pride. It were needless, +after this preamble, to point the finger more directly at the LONDON +CORRESPONDENT OF THE TATTLESNIVEL BLEATER. + +On the weekly letters of that Correspondent, on the flexibility of +their English, on the boldness of their grammar, on the originality +of their quotations (never to be found as they are printed, in any +book existing), on the priority of their information, on their +intimate acquaintance with the secret thoughts and unexecuted +intentions of men, it would ill become the humble Tattlesnivellian +who traces these words, to dwell. They are graven in the memory; +they are on the Bleater's file. Let them be referred to. + +But from the infamous, the dark, the subtle conspiracy which spreads +its baleful roots throughout the land, and of which the Bleater's +London Correspondent is the one sole subject, it is the purpose of +the lowly Tattlesnivellian who undertakes this revelation, to tear +the veil. Nor will he shrink from his self-imposed labour, +Herculean though it be. + +The conspiracy begins in the very Palace of the Sovereign Lady of +our Ocean Isle. Leal and loyal as it is the proud vaunt of the +Bleater's readers, one and all, to be, the inhabitant who pens this +exposure does not personally impeach, either her Majesty the queen, +or the illustrious Prince Consort. But, some silken-clad smoothers, +some purple parasites, some fawners in frippery, some greedy and +begartered ones in gorgeous garments, he does impeach--ay, and +wrathfully! Is it asked on what grounds? They shall be stated. + +The Bleater's London Correspondent, in the prosecution of his +important inquiries, goes down to Windsor, sends in his card, has a +confidential interview with her Majesty and the illustrious Prince +Consort. For a time, the restraints of Royalty are thrown aside in +the cheerful conversation of the Bleater's London Correspondent, in +his fund of information, in his flow of anecdote, in the atmosphere +of his genius; her Majesty brightens, the illustrious Prince Consort +thaws, the cares of State and the conflicts of Party are forgotten, +lunch is proposed. Over that unassuming and domestic table, her +Majesty communicates to the Bleater's London Correspondent that it +is her intention to send his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to +inspect the top of the Great Pyramid--thinking it likely to improve +his acquaintance with the views of the people. Her Majesty further +communicates that she has made up her royal mind (and that the +Prince Consort has made up his illustrious mind) to the bestowal of +the vacant Garter, let us say on Mr. Roebuck. The younger Royal +children having been introduced at the request of the Bleater's +London Correspondent, and having been by him closely observed to +present the usual external indications of good health, the happy +knot is severed, with a sigh the Royal bow is once more strung to +its full tension, the Bleater's London Correspondent returns to +London, writes his letter, and tells the Tattlesnivel Bleater what +he knows. All Tattlesnivel reads it, and knows that he knows it. +But, DOES his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales ultimately go to +the top of the Great Pyramid? DOES Mr. Roebuck ultimately get the +Garter? No. Are the younger Royal children even ultimately found +to be well? On the contrary, they have--and on that very day had-- +the measles. Why is this? BECAUSE THE CONSPIRATORS AGAINST THE +BLEATER'S LONDON CORRESPONDENT HAVE STEPPED IN WITH THEIR DARK +MACHINATIONS. Because her Majesty and the Prince Consort are +artfully induced to change their minds, from north to south, from +east to west, immediately after it is known to the conspirators that +they have put themselves in communication with the Bleater's London +Correspondent. It is now indignantly demanded, by whom are they so +tampered with? It is now indignantly demanded, who took the +responsibility of concealing the indisposition of those Royal +children from their Royal and illustrious parents, and of bringing +them down from their beds, disguised, expressly to confound the +London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater? Who are those +persons, it is again asked? Let not rank and favour protect them. +Let the traitors be exhibited in the face of day! + +Lord John Russell is in this conspiracy. Tell us not that his +Lordship is a man of too much spirit and honour. Denunciation is +hurled against him. The proof? The proof is here. + +The Time is panting for an answer to the question, Will Lord John +Russell consent to take office under Lord Palmerston? Good. The +London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater is in the act of +writing his weekly letter, finds himself rather at a loss to settle +this question finally, leaves off, puts his hat on, goes down to the +lobby of the House of Commons, sends in for Lord John Russell, and +has him out. He draws his arm through his Lordship's, takes him +aside, and says, "John, will you ever accept office under +Palmerston?" His Lordship replies, "I will not." The Bleater's +London Correspondent retorts, with the caution such a man is bound +to use, "John, think again; say nothing to me rashly; is there any +temper here?" His Lordship replies, calmly, "None whatever." After +giving him time for reflection, the Bleater's London Correspondent +says, "Once more, John, let me put a question to you. Will you ever +accept office under Palmerston?" His Lordship answers (note the +exact expressions), "Nothing shall induce me, ever to accept a seat +in a Cabinet of which Palmerston is the Chief." They part, the +London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater finishes his +letter, and--always being withheld by motives of delicacy, from +plainly divulging his means of getting accurate information on every +subject, at first hand--puts in it, this passage: "Lord John +Russell is spoken of, by blunderers, for Foreign Affairs; but I have +the best reasons for assuring your readers, that" (giving prominence +to the exact expressions, it will be observed) "'NOTHING WILL EVER +INDUCE HIM, TO ACCEPT A SEAT IN A CABINET OF WHICH PALMERSTON IS THE +CHIEF.' On this you may implicitly rely." What happens? On the +very day of the publication of that number of the Bleater--the +malignity of the conspirators being even manifested in the selection +of the day--Lord John Russell takes the Foreign Office! Comment +were superfluous. + +The people of Tattlesnivel will be told, have been told, that Lord +John Russell is a man of his word. He may be, on some occasions; +but, when overshadowed by this dark and enormous growth of +conspiracy, Tattlesnivel knows him to be otherwise. "I happen to be +certain, deriving my information from a source which cannot be +doubted to be authentic," wrote the London Correspondent of the +Bleater, within the last year, "that Lord John Russell bitterly +regrets having made that explicit speech of last Monday." These are +not roundabout phrases; these are plain words. What does Lord John +Russell (apparently by accident), within eight-and-forty hours after +their diffusion over the civilised globe? Rises in his place in +Parliament, and unblushingly declares that if the occasion could +arise five hundred times, for his making that very speech, he would +make it five hundred times! Is there no conspiracy here? And is +this combination against one who would be always right if he were +not proved always wrong, to be endured in a country that boasts of +its freedom and its fairness? + +But, the Tattlesnivellian who now raises his voice against +intolerable oppression, may be told that, after all, this is a +political conspiracy. He may be told, forsooth, that Mr. Disraeli's +being in it, that Lord Derby's being in it, that Mr. Bright's being +in it, that every Home, Foreign, and Colonial Secretary's being in +it, that every ministry's and every opposition's being in it, are +but proofs that men will do in politics what they would do in +nothing else. Is this the plea? If so, the rejoinder is, that the +mighty conspiracy includes the whole circle of Artists of all kinds, +and comprehends all degrees of men, down to the worst criminal and +the hangman who ends his career. For, all these are intimately +known to the London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater, and +all these deceive him. + +Sir, put it to the proof. There is the Bleater on the file-- +documentary evidence. Weeks, months, before the Exhibition of the +Royal Academy, the Bleater's London Correspondent knows the subjects +of all the leading pictures, knows what the painters first meant to +do, knows what they afterwards substituted for what they first meant +to do, knows what they ought to do and won't do, knows what they +ought not to do and will do, knows to a letter from whom they have +commissions, knows to a shilling how much they are to be paid. Now, +no sooner is each studio clear of the remarkable man to whom each +studio-occupant has revealed himself as he does not reveal himself +to his nearest and dearest bosom friend, than conspiracy and fraud +begin. Alfred the Great becomes the Fairy Queen; Moses viewing the +Promised Land, turns out to be Moses going to the Fair; Portrait of +His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, is transformed, as if by +irreverent enchantment of the dissenting interest, into A Favourite +Terrier, or Cattle Grazing; and the most extraordinary work of art +in the list described by the Bleater, is coolly sponged out +altogether, and asserted never to have had existence at all, even in +the most shadow thoughts of its executant! This is vile enough, but +this is not all. Picture-buyers then come forth from their secret +positions, and creep into their places in the assassin-multitude of +conspirators. Mr. Baring, after expressly telling the Bleater's +London Correspondent that he had bought No. 39 for one thousand +guineas, gives it up to somebody unknown for a couple of hundred +pounds; the Marquis of Lansdowne pretends to have no knowledge +whatever of the commissions to which the London Correspondent of the +Bleater swore him, but allows a Railway Contractor to cut him out +for half the money. Similar examples might be multiplied. Shame, +shame, on these men! Is this England? + +Sir, look again at Literature. The Bleater's London Correspondent +is not merely acquainted with all the eminent writers, but is in +possession of the secrets of their souls. He is versed in their +hidden meanings and references, sees their manuscripts before +publication, and knows the subjects and titles of their books when +they are not begun. How dare those writers turn upon the eminent +man and depart from every intention they have confided to him? How +do they justify themselves in entirely altering their manuscripts, +changing their titles, and abandoning their subjects? Will they +deny, in the face of Tattlesnivel, that they do so? If they have +such hardihood, let the file of the Bleater strike them dumb. By +their fruits they shall be known. Let their works be compared with +the anticipatory letters of the Bleater's London Correspondent, and +their falsehood and deceit will become manifest as the sun; it will +be seen that they do nothing which they stand pledged to the +Bleater's London Correspondent to do; it will be seen that they are +among the blackest parties in this black and base conspiracy. This +will become apparent, sir, not only as to their public proceedings +but as to their private affairs. The outraged Tattlesnivellian who +now drags this infamous combination into the face of day, charges +those literary persons with making away with their property, +imposing on the Income Tax Commissioners, keeping false books, and +entering into sham contracts. He accuses them on the unimpeachable +faith of the London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater. With +whose evidence they will find it impossible to reconcile their own +account of any transaction of their lives. + +The national character is degenerating under the influence of the +ramifications of this tremendous conspiracy. Forgery is committed, +constantly. A person of note--any sort of person of note--dies. +The Bleater's London Correspondent knows what his circumstances are, +what his savings are (if any), who his creditors are, all about his +children and relations, and (in general, before his body is cold) +describes his will. Is that will ever proved? Never! Some other +will is substituted; the real instrument, destroyed. And this (as +has been before observed), is England. + +Who are the workmen and artificers, enrolled upon the books of this +treacherous league? From what funds are they paid, and with what +ceremonies are they sworn to secrecy? Are there none such? Observe +what follows. A little time ago the Bleater's London Correspondent +had this passage: "Boddleboy is pianoforte playing at St. +Januarius's Gallery, with pretty tolerable success! He clears three +hundred pounds per night. Not bad this!!" The builder of St. +Januarius's Gallery (plunged to the throat in the conspiracy) met +with this piece of news, and observed, with characteristic +coarseness, "that the Bleater's London Correspondent was a Blind +Ass". Being pressed by a man of spirit to give his reasons for this +extraordinary statement, he declared that the Gallery, crammed to +suffocation, would not hold two hundred pounds, and that its +expenses were, probably, at least half what it did hold. The man of +spirit (himself a Tattlesnivellian) had the Gallery measured within +a week from that hour, and it would not hold two hundred pounds! +Now, can the poorest capacity doubt that it had been altered in the +meantime? + +And so the conspiracy extends, through every grade of society, down +to the condemned criminal in prison, the hangman, and the Ordinary. +Every famous murderer within the last ten years has desecrated his +last moments by falsifying his confidences imparted specially to the +London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater; on every such +occasion, Mr. Calcraft has followed the degrading example; and the +reverend Ordinary, forgetful of his cloth, and mindful only (it +would seem, alas!) of the conspiracy, has committed himself to some +account or other of the criminal's demeanour and conversation, which +has been diametrically opposed to the exclusive information of the +London Correspondent of the Bleater. And this (as has been before +observed) is Merry England! + +A man of true genius, however, is not easily defeated. The +Bleater's London Correspondent, probably beginning to suspect the +existence of a plot against him, has recently fallen on a new style, +which, as being very difficult to countermine, may necessitate the +organisation of a new conspiracy. One of his masterly letters, +lately, disclosed the adoption of this style--which was remarked +with profound sensation throughout Tattlesnivel--in the following +passage: "Mentioning literary small talk, I may tell you that some +new and extraordinary rumours are afloat concerning the +conversations I have previously mentioned, alleged to have taken +place in the first floor front (situated over the street door), of +Mr. X. Ameter (the poet so well known to your readers), in which, X. +Ameter's great uncle, his second son, his butcher, and a corpulent +gentleman with one eye universally respected at Kensington, are said +not to have been on the most friendly footing; I forbear, however, +to pursue the subject further, this week, my informant not being +able to supply me with exact particulars." + +But, enough, sir. The inhabitant of Tattlesnivel who has taken pen +in hand to expose this odious association of unprincipled men +against a shining (local) character, turns from it with disgust and +contempt. Let him in few words strip the remaining flimsy covering +from the nude object of the conspirators, and his loathsome task is +ended. + +Sir, that object, he contends, is evidently twofold. First, to +exhibit the London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater in the +light of a mischievous Blockhead who, by hiring himself out to tell +what he cannot possibly know, is as great a public nuisance as a +Blockhead in a corner can be. Second, to suggest to the men of +Tattlesnivel that it does not improve their town to have so much Dry +Rubbish shot there. + +Now, sir, on both these points Tattlesnivel demands in accents of +Thunder, Where is the Attorney General? Why doesn't the Times take +it up? (Is the latter in the conspiracy? It never adopts his +views, or quotes him, and incessantly contradicts him.) +Tattlesnivel, sir, remembering that our forefathers contended with +the Norman at Hastings, and bled at a variety of other places that +will readily occur to you, demands that its birthright shall not be +bartered away for a mess of pottage. Have a care, sir, have a care! +Or Tattlesnivel (its idle Rifles piled in its scouted streets) may +be seen ere long, advancing with its Bleater to the foot of the +Throne, and demanding redress for this conspiracy, from the orbed +and sceptred hands of Majesty itself! + + + +THE YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY + + + +A song of the hour, now in course of being sung and whistled in +every street, the other day reminded the writer of these words--as +he chanced to pass a fag-end of the song for the twentieth time in a +short London walk--that twenty years ago, a little book on the +United States, entitled American Notes, was published by "a Young +Man from the Country", who had just seen and left it. + +This Young Man from the Country fell into a deal of trouble, by +reason of having taken the liberty to believe that he perceived in +America downward popular tendencies for which his young enthusiasm +had been anything but prepared. It was in vain for the Young Man to +offer in extenuation of his belief that no stranger could have set +foot on those shores with a feeling of livelier interest in the +country, and stronger faith in it, than he. Those were the days +when the Tories had made their Ashburton Treaty, and when Whigs and +Radicals must have no theory disturbed. All three parties waylaid +and mauled the Young Man from the Country, and showed that he knew +nothing about the country. + +As the Young Man from the Country had observed in the Preface to his +little book, that he "could bide his time", he took all this in +silent part for eight years. Publishing then, a cheap edition of +his book, he made no stronger protest than the following: + + +"My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the +influences and tendencies which I distrusted in America, have any +existence but in my imagination. They can examine for themselves +whether there has been anything in the public career of that country +during these past eight years, or whether there is anything in its +present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that those +influences and tendencies really do exist. As they find the fact, +they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-going, +in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I +had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such thing, they +will consider me altogether mistaken. I have nothing to defend, or +to explain away. The truth is the truth; and neither childish +absurdities, nor unscrupulous contradictions, can make it otherwise. +The earth would still move round the sun, though the whole Catholic +Church said No." + + +Twelve more years having since passed away, it may now, at last, be +simply just towards the Young Man from the Country, to compare what +he originally wrote, with recent events and their plain motive +powers. Treating of the House of Representatives at Washington, he +wrote thus: + + +"Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who, applying +themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and +vices of the old, purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the +dirty ways to Place and Power, debated and made laws for the Common +Good, and had no party but their Country? + +"I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of +virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought. +Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with +public officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous +newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful +trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered, is, +that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal +types, which are the dragon's teeth of yore, in everything but +sharpness; aidings and abettings of every bad inclination in the +popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences: +such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most +depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of +the crowded hall. + +"Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the true, +honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there, were drops of +its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of +desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay. +It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to make +the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so destructive of +all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and delicate-minded +persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to +battle out their selfish views unchecked. And thus this lowest of +all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in other countries +would, from their intelligence and station, most aspire to make the +laws, do here recoil the farthest from that degradation. + +"That there are, among the representatives of the people in both +Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character and great +abilities, I need not say. The foremost among those politicians who +are known in Europe, have been already described, and I see no +reason to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of +abstaining from all mention of individuals. It will be sufficient +to add, that to the most favourable accounts that have been written +of them, I fully and most heartily subscribe; and that personal +intercourse and free communication have bred within me, not the +result predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but increased +admiration and respect." + +Towards the end of his book, the Young Man from the Country thus +expressed himself concerning its people: + + +"They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and +affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their +warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of +these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders an +educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of +friends. I never was so won upon, as by this class; never yielded +up my full confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to +them; never can make again, in half a year, so many friends for whom +I seem to entertain the regard of half a life. + +"These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole +people. That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their +growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which +endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of +their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told. + +"It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself +mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its +wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the +popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable +brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen +plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently +dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce +it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great sagacity +and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness and +independence. + +"'You carry,' says the stranger, 'this jealousy and distrust into +every transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from your +legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for the +suffrage, who, in their every act, disgrace your Institutions and +your people's choice. It has rendered you so fickle, and so given +to change, that your inconstancy has passed into a proverb; for you +no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it down +and dash it into fragments: and this, because directly you reward a +benefactor, or a public-servant, you distrust him, merely because he +IS rewarded; and immediately apply yourselves to find out, either +that you have been too bountiful in your acknowledgments, or he +remiss in his deserts. Any man who attains a high place among you, +from the President downwards, may date his downfall from that +moment; for any printed lie that any notorious villain pens, +although it militate directly against the character and conduct of a +life, appeals at once to your distrust, and is believed. You will +strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and confidence, however +fairly won and well deserved; but you will swallow a whole caravan +of camels, if they be laden with unworthy doubts and mean +suspicions. Is this well, think you, or likely to elevate the +character of the governors or the governed, among you?' + +"The answer is invariably the same: 'There's freedom of opinion +here, you know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be +easily overreached. That's how our people come to be suspicious.' + +"Another prominent feature is the love of 'smart' dealing: which +gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a +defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold +his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter: though it +has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness +has done more in a few years to impair the public credit, and to +cripple the public resources, than dull honesty, however rash, could +have effected in a century. The merits of a broken speculation, or +a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not gauged by its or +his observance of the golden rule, 'Do as you would be done by', but +are considered with reference to their smartness. I recollect, on +both occasions of our passing that ill-fated Cairo on the +Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such gross deceits must +have when they exploded, in generating a want of confidence abroad, +and discouraging foreign investment: but I was given to understand +that this was a very smart scheme by which a deal of money had been +made: and that its smartest feature was, that they forgot these +things abroad, in a very short time, and speculated again, as freely +as ever. The following dialogue I have held a hundred times: 'Is +it not a very disgraceful circumstance that such a man as So-and-so +should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious +means, and notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been +guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your citizens? He is a +public nuisance, is he not?' 'Yes, sir.' 'A convicted liar?' +'Yes, sir.' 'He has been kicked, and cuffed, and caned?' 'Yes, +sir.' 'And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and profligate?' +'Yes, sir.' 'In the name of wonder, then, what is his merit?' +'Well, sir, he is a smart man.' + +"But the foul growth of America has a more tangled root than this; +and it strikes its fibres, deep in its licentious Press. + +"Schools may he erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be +taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands; +colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be +diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through +the land with giant strides; but while the newspaper press of +America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral +improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and +will go back; year by year, the tone of public opinion must sink +lower down; year by year, the Congress and the Senate must become of +less account before all decent men; and year by year, the memory of +the Great Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and more, +in the bad life of their degenerate child. + +"Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there +are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and credit. +From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen connected with +publications of this class, I have derived both pleasure and profit. +But the name of these is Few, and of the others Legion; and the +influence of the good, is powerless to counteract the moral poison +of the bad. + +"Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and moderate; +in the learned professions; at the bar and on the bench; there is, +as there can be, but one opinion, in reference to the vicious +character of these infamous journals. It is sometimes contended--I +will not say strangely, for it is natural to seek excuses for such a +disgrace--that their influence is not so great as a visitor would +suppose. I must be pardoned for saying that there is no warrant for +this plea, and that every fact and circumstance tends directly to +the opposite conclusion. + +"When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can +climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, without +first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee before +this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is safe from +its attacks; when any social confidence is left unbroken by it; or +any tie of social decency and honour is held in the least regard; +when any man in that Free Country has freedom of opinion, and +presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without humble +reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance and base +dishonesty, he utterly loaths and despises in his heart; when those +who most acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it casts upon the +nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare to set their +heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all men: then, I +will believe that its influence is lessening, and men are returning +to their manly senses. But while that Press has its evil eye in +every house, and its black hand in every appointment in the state, +from a president to a postman; while, with ribald slander for its +only stock in trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous +class, who must find their reading in a newspaper, or they will not +read at all; so long must its odium be upon the country's head, and +so long must the evil it works, be plainly visible in the Republic." + + +The foregoing was written in the year eighteen hundred and forty- +two. It rests with the reader to decide whether it has received any +confirmation, or assumed any colour of truth, in or about the year +eighteen hundred and sixty-two. + + + +AN ENLIGHTENED CLERGYMAN + + + +At various places in Suffolk (as elsewhere) penny readings take +place "for the instruction and amusement of the lower classes". +There is a little town in Suffolk called Eye, where the subject of +one of these readings was a tale (by Mr. Wilkie Collins) from the +last Christmas Number of this Journal, entitled "Picking up Waifs at +Sea". It appears that the Eye gentility was shocked by the +introduction of this rude piece among the taste and musical glasses +of that important town, on which the eyes of Europe are notoriously +always fixed. In particular, the feelings of the vicar's family +were outraged; and a Local Organ (say, the Tattlesnivel Bleater) +consequently doomed the said piece to everlasting oblivion, as being +of an "injurious tendency!" + +When this fearful fact came to the knowledge of the unhappy writer +of the doomed tale in question, he covered his face with his robe, +previous to dying decently under the sharp steel of the +ecclesiastical gentility of the terrible town of Eye. But the +discovery that he was not alone in his gloomy glory, revived him, +and he still lives. + +For, at Stowmarket, in the aforesaid county of Suffolk, at another +of those penny readings, it was announced that a certain juvenile +sketch, culled from a volume of sketches (by Boz) and entitled "The +Bloomsbury Christening", would be read. Hereupon, the clergyman of +that place took heart and pen, and addressed the following terrific +epistle to a gentleman bearing the very appropriate name of Gudgeon: + + +STOWMARKET VICARAGE, Feb. 25, 1861. + +SIR,--My attention has been directed to a piece called "The +Bloomsbury Christening" which you propose to read this evening. +Without presuming to claim any interference in the arrangement of +the readings, I would suggest to you whether you have on this +occasion sufficiently considered the character of the composition +you have selected. I quite appreciate the laudable motive of the +promoters of the readings to raise the moral tone amongst the +working class of the town and to direct this taste in a familiar and +pleasant manner. "The Bloomsbury Christening" cannot possibly do +this. It trifles with a sacred ordinance, and the language and +style, instead of improving the taste, has a direct tendency to +lower it. + +I appeal to your right feeling whether it is desirable to give +publicity to that which must shock several of your audience, and +create a smile amongst others, to be indulged in only by violating +the conscientious scruples of their neighbours. + +The ordinance which is here exposed to ridicule is one which is much +misunderstood and neglected amongst many families belonging to the +Church of England, and the mode in which it is treated in this +chapter cannot fail to appear as giving a sanction to, or at least +excusing, such neglect. + +Although you are pledged to the public to give this subject, yet I +cannot but believe that they would fully justify your substitution +of it for another did they know the circumstances. An abridgment +would only lessen the evil in a degree, as it is not only the style +of the writing but the subject itself which is objectionable. + +Excuse me for troubling you, but I felt that, in common with +yourself, I have a grave responsibility in the matter, and I am most +truly yours, + +T. S. COLES. +To Mr. J. Gudgeon. + + +It is really necessary to explain that this is not a bad joke. It +is simply a bad fact. + + + +RATHER A STRONG DOSE + + + +"Doctor John Campbell, the minister of the Tabernacle Chapel, +Finsbury, and editor of the British Banner, etc., with that massive +vigour which distinguishes his style," did, we are informed by Mr. +Howitt, "deliver a verdict in the Banner, for November, 1852," of +great importance and favour to the Table-rapping cause. We are not +informed whether the Public, sitting in judgment on the question, +reserved any point in this great verdict for subsequent +consideration; but the verdict would seem to have been regarded by a +perverse generation as not quite final, inasmuch as Mr. Howitt finds +it necessary to re-open the case, a round ten years afterwards, in +nine hundred and sixty-two stiff octavo pages, published by Messrs. +Longman and Company. + +Mr. Howitt is in such a bristling temper on the Supernatural +subject, that we will not take the great liberty of arguing any +point with him. But--with the view of assisting him to make +converts--we will inform our readers, on his conclusive authority, +what they are required to believe; premising what may rather +astonish them in connexion with their views of a certain historical +trifle, called The Reformation, that their present state of unbelief +is all the fault of Protestantism, and that "it is high time, +therefore, to protest against Protestantism". + +They will please to believe, by way of an easy beginning, all the +stories of good and evil demons, ghosts, prophecies, communication +with spirits, and practice of magic, that ever obtained, or are said +to have ever obtained, in the North, in the South, in the East, in +the West, from the earliest and darkest ages, as to which we have +any hazy intelligence, real or supposititious, down to the yet +unfinished displacement of the red men in North America. They will +please to believe that nothing in this wise was changed by the +fulfilment of our Saviour's mission upon earth; and further, that +what Saint Paul did, can be done again, and has been done again. As +this is not much to begin with, they will throw in at this point +rejection of Faraday and Brewster, and "poor Paley", and implicit +acceptance of those shining lights, the Reverend Charles Beecher, +and the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher ("one of the most vigorous and +eloquent preachers of America"), and the Reverend Adin Ballou. + +Having thus cleared the way for a healthy exercise of faith, our +advancing readers will next proceed especially to believe in the old +story of the Drummer of Tedworth, in the inspiration of George Fox, +in "the spiritualism, prophecies, and provision" of Huntington the +coal-porter (him who prayed for the leather breeches which +miraculously fitted him), and even in the Cock Lane Ghost. They +will please wind up, before fetching their breath, with believing +that there is a close analogy between rejection of any such plain +and proved facts as those contained in the whole foregoing +catalogue, and the opposition encountered by the inventors of +railways, lighting by gas, microscopes and telescopes, and +vaccination. This stinging consideration they will always carry +rankling in their remorseful hearts as they advance. + +As touching the Cock Lane Ghost, our conscience-stricken readers +will please particularly to reproach themselves for having ever +supposed that important spiritual manifestation to have been a gross +imposture which was thoroughly detected. They will please to +believe that Dr. Johnson believed in it, and that, in Mr. Howitt's +words, he "appears to have had excellent reasons for his belief". +With a view to this end, the faithful will be so good as to +obliterate from their Boswells the following passage: "Many of my +readers, I am convinced, are to this hour under an impression that +Johnson was thus foolishly deceived. It will therefore surprise +them a good deal when they are informed upon undoubted authority +that Johnson was one of those by whom the imposture was detected. +The story had become so popular, that he thought it should be +investigated, and in this research he was assisted by the Rev. Dr. +Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, the great detector of impostures"- +-and therefore tremendously obnoxious to Mr. Howitt--"who informs me +that after the gentlemen who went and examined into the evidence +were satisfied of its falsity, Johnson wrote in their presence an +account of it, which was published in the newspapers and Gentleman's +Magazine, and undeceived the world". But as there will still remain +another highly inconvenient passage in the Boswells of the true +believers, they must likewise be at the trouble of cancelling the +following also, referring to a later time: "He (Johnson) expressed +great indignation at the imposture of the Cock Lane Ghost, and +related with much satisfaction how he had assisted in detecting the +cheat, and had published an account of it in the newspapers". + +They will next believe (if they be, in the words of Captain Bobadil, +"so generously minded") in the transatlantic trance-speakers "who +professed to speak from direct inspiration", Mrs. Cora Hatch, Mrs. +Henderson, and Miss Emma Hardinge; and they will believe in those +eminent ladies having "spoken on Sundays to five hundred thousand +hearers"--small audiences, by the way, compared with the intelligent +concourse recently assembled in the city of New York, to do honour +to the Nuptials of General the Honourable T. Barnum Thumb. At about +this stage of their spiritual education they may take the +opportunity of believing in "letters from a distinguished gentleman +of New York, in which the frequent appearance of the gentleman's +deceased wife and of Dr. Franklin, to him and other well-known +friends, are unquestionably unequalled in the annals of the +marvellous". Why these modest appearances should seem at all out of +the common way to Mr. Howitt (who would be in a state of flaming +indignation if we thought them so), we could not imagine, until we +found on reading further, "it is solemnly stated that the witnesses +have not only seen but touched these spirits, and handled the +clothes and hair of Franklin". Without presuming to go Mr. Howitt's +length of considering this by any means a marvellous experience, we +yet venture to confess that it has awakened in our mind many +interesting speculations touching the present whereabout in space, +of the spirits of Mr. Howitt's own departed boots and hats. + +The next articles of belief are Belief in the moderate figures of +"thirty thousand media in the United States in 1853"; and in two +million five hundred thousand spiritualists in the same country of +composed minds, in 1855, "professing to have arrived at their +convictions of spiritual communication from personal experience"; +and in "an average rate of increase of three hundred thousand per +annum", still in the same country of calm philosophers. Belief in +spiritual knockings, in all manner of American places, and, among +others, in the house of "a Doctor Phelps at Stratford, Connecticut, +a man of the highest character for intelligence", says Mr. Howitt, +and to whom we willingly concede the possession of far higher +intelligence than was displayed by his spiritual knocker, in +"frequently cutting to pieces the clothes of one of his boys", and +in breaking "seventy-one panes of glass"--unless, indeed, the +knocker, when in the body, was connected with the tailoring and +glazing interests. Belief in immaterial performers playing (in the +dark though: they are obstinate about its being in the dark) on +material instruments of wood, catgut, brass, tin, and parchment. +Your belief is further requested in "the Kentucky Jerks". The +spiritual achievements thus euphoniously denominated "appear", says +Mr. Howitt, "to have been of a very disorderly kind". It appears +that a certain Mr. Doke, a Presbyterian clergyman, "was first seized +by the jerks", and the jerks laid hold of Mr. Doke in that +unclerical way and with that scant respect for his cloth, that they +"twitched him about in a most extraordinary manner, often when in +the pulpit, and caused him to shout aloud, and run out of the pulpit +into the woods, screaming like a madman. When the fit was over, he +returned calmly to his pulpit and finished the service." The +congregation having waited, we presume, and edified themselves with +the distant bellowings of Doke in the woods, until he came back +again, a little warm and hoarse, but otherwise in fine condition. +"People were often seized at hotels, and at table would, on lifting +a glass to drink, jerk the liquor to the ceiling; ladies would at +the breakfast-table suddenly be compelled to throw aloft their +coffee, and frequently break the cup and saucer." A certain +venturesome clergyman vowed that he would preach down the Jerks, +"but he was seized in the midst of his attempt, and made so +ridiculous that he withdrew himself from further notice"--an example +much to be commended. That same favoured land of America has been +particularly favoured in the development of "innumerable mediums", +and Mr. Howitt orders you to believe in Daniel Dunglas Home, Andrew +Davis Jackson, and Thomas L. Harris, as "the three most remarkable, +or most familiar, on this side of the Atlantic". Concerning Mr. +Home, the articles of belief (besides removal of furniture) are, +That through him raps have been given and communications made from +deceased friends. That "his hand has been seized by spirit +influence, and rapid communications written out, of a surprising +character to those to whom they were addressed". That at his +bidding, "spirit hands have appeared which have been seen, felt, and +recognised frequently, by persons present, as those of deceased +friends". That he has been frequently lifted up and carried, +floating "as it were" through a room, near the ceiling. That in +America, "all these phenomena have displayed themselves in greater +force than here"--which we have not the slightest doubt of. That he +is "the planter of spiritualism all over Europe". That "by +circumstances that no man could have devised, he became the guest of +the Emperor of the French, of the King of Holland, of the Czar of +Russia, and of many lesser princes". That he returned from "this +unpremeditated missionary tour", "endowed with competence"; but not +before, "at the Tuileries, on one occasion when the emperor, +empress, a distinguished lady, and himself only were sitting at +table, a hand appeared, took up a pen, and wrote, in a strong and +well-known character, the word Napoleon. The hand was then +successively presented to the several personages of the party to +kiss." The stout believer, having disposed of Mr. Home, and rested +a little, will then proceed to believe in Andrew Davis Jackson, or +Andrew Jackson Davis (Mr. Howitt, having no Medium at hand to settle +this difference and reveal the right name of the seer, calls him by +both names), who merely "beheld all the essential natures of things, +saw the interior of men and animals, as perfectly as their exterior; +and described them in language so correct, that the most able +technologists could not surpass him. He pointed out the proper +remedies for all the complaints, and the shops where they were to be +obtained";--in the latter respect appearing to hail from an +advertising circle, as we conceive. It was also in this gentleman's +limited department to "see the metals in the earth", and to have +"the most distant regions and their various productions present +before him". Having despatched this tough case, the believer will +pass on to Thomas L. Harris, and will swallow HIM easily, together +with "whole epics" of his composition; a certain work "of scarcely +less than Miltonic grandeur", called The Lyric of the Golden Age--a +lyric pretty nigh as long as one of Mr. Howitt's volumes--dictated +by Mr. (not Mrs.) Harris to the publisher in ninety-four hours; and +several extempore sermons, possessing the remarkably lucid property +of being "full, unforced, out-gushing, unstinted, and absorbing". +The candidate for examination in pure belief, will then pass on to +the spirit-photography department; this, again, will be found in so- +favoured America, under the superintendence of Medium Mumler, a +photographer of Boston: who was "astonished" (though, on Mr. +Howitt's showing, he surely ought not to have been) "on taking a +photograph of himself, to find also by his side the figure of a +young girl, which he immediately recognised as that of a deceased +relative. The circumstance made a great excitement. Numbers of +persons rushed to his rooms, and many have found deceased friends +photographed with themselves." (Perhaps Mr. Mumler, too, may become +"endowed with competence" in time. Who knows?) Finally, the true +believers in the gospel according to Howitt, have, besides, but to +pin their faith on "ladies who see spirits habitually", on ladies +who KNOW they have a tendency to soar in the air on sufficient +provocation, and on a few other gnats to be taken after their +camels, and they shall be pronounced by Mr. Howitt not of the +stereotyped class of minds, and not partakers of "the astonishing +ignorance of the press", and shall receive a first-class certificate +of merit. + +But before they pass through this portal into the Temple of Serene +Wisdom, we, halting blind and helpless on the steps, beg to suggest +to them what they must at once and for ever disbelieve. They must +disbelieve that in the dark times, when very few were versed in what +are now the mere recreations of Science, and when those few formed a +priesthood-class apart, any marvels were wrought by the aid of +concave mirrors and a knowledge of the properties of certain odours +and gases, although the self-same marvels could be reproduced before +their eyes at the Polytechnic Institution, Regent Street, London, +any day in the year. They must by no means believe that Conjuring +and Ventriloquism are old trades. They must disbelieve all +Philosophical Transactions containing the records of painful and +careful inquiry into now familiar disorders of the senses of seeing +and hearing, and into the wonders of somnambulism, epilepsy, +hysteria, miasmatic influence, vegetable poisons derived by whole +communities from corrupted air, diseased imitation, and moral +infection. They must disbelieve all such awkward leading cases as +the case of the Woodstock Commissioners and their man, and the case +of the Identity of the Stockwell Ghost, with the maid-servant. They +must disbelieve the vanishing of champion haunted houses (except, +indeed, out of Mr. Howitt's book), represented to have been closed +and ruined for years, before one day's inquiry by four gentlemen +associated with this journal, and one hour's reference to the Local +Rate-books. They must disbelieve all possibility of a human +creature on the last verge of the dark bridge from Life to Death, +being mysteriously able, in occasional cases, so to influence the +mind of one very near and dear, as vividly to impress that mind with +some disturbed sense of the solemn change impending. They must +disbelieve the possibility of the lawful existence of a class of +intellects which, humbly conscious of the illimitable power of GOD +and of their own weakness and ignorance, never deny that He can +cause the souls of the dead to revisit the earth, or that He may +have caused the souls of the dead to revisit the earth, or that He +can cause any awful or wondrous thing to be; but to deny the +likelihood of apparitions or spirits coming here upon the stupidest +of bootless errands, and producing credentials tantamount to a +solicitation of our vote and interest and next proxy, to get them +into the Asylum for Idiots. They must disbelieve the right of +Christian people who do NOT protest against Protestantism, but who +hold it to be a barrier against the darkest superstitions that can +enslave the soul, to guard with jealousy all approaches tending down +to Cock Lane Ghosts and suchlike infamous swindles, widely degrading +when widely believed in; and they must disbelieve that such people +have the right to know, and that it is their duty to know, wonder- +workers by their fruits, and to test miracle-mongers by the tests of +probability, analogy, and common sense. They must disbelieve all +rational explanations of thoroughly proved experiences (only) which +appear supernatural, derived from the average experience and study +of the visible world. They must disbelieve the speciality of the +Master and the Disciples, and that it is a monstrosity to test the +wonders of show-folk by the same touchstone. Lastly, they must +disbelieve that one of the best accredited chapters in the history +of mankind is the chapter that records the astonishing deceits +continually practised, with no object or purpose but the distorted +pleasure of deceiving. + +We have summed up a few--not nearly all--of the articles of belief +and disbelief to which Mr. Howitt most arrogantly demands an +implicit adherence. To uphold these, he uses a book as a Clown in a +Pantomime does, and knocks everybody on the head with it who comes +in his way. Moreover, he is an angrier personage than the Clown, +and does not experimentally try the effect of his red-hot poker on +your shins, but straightway runs you through the body and soul with +it. He is always raging to tell you that if you are not Howitt, you +are Atheist and Anti-Christ. He is the sans-culotte of the +Spiritual Revolution, and will not hear of your accepting this point +and rejecting that;--down your throat with them all, one and +indivisible, at the point of the pike; No Liberty, Totality, +Fraternity, or Death! + +Without presuming to question that "it is high time to protest +against Protestantism" on such very substantial grounds as Mr. +Howitt sets forth, we do presume to think that it is high time to +protest against Mr. Howitt's spiritualism, as being a little in +excess of the peculiar merit of Thomas L. Harris's sermons, and +somewhat TOO "full, out-gushing, unstinted, and absorbing". + + + +THE MARTYR MEDIUM + + + +"After the valets, the master!" is Mr. Fechter's rallying cry in the +picturesque romantic drama which attracts all London to the Lyceum +Theatre. After the worshippers and puffers of Mr. Daniel Dunglas +Home, the spirit medium, comes Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home himself, in +one volume. And we must, for the honour of Literature, plainly +express our great surprise and regret that he comes arm-in-arm with +such good company as Messrs. Longman and Company. + +We have already summed up Mr. Home's demands on the public capacity +of swallowing, as sounded through the war-denouncing trumpet of Mr. +Howitt, and it is not our intention to revive the strain as +performed by Mr. Home on his own melodious instrument. We notice, +by the way, that in that part of the Fantasia where the hand of the +first Napoleon is supposed to be reproduced, recognised, and kissed, +at the Tuileries, Mr. Home subdues the florid effects one might have +expected after Mr. Howitt's execution, and brays in an extremely +general manner. And yet we observe Mr. Home to be in other things +very reliant on Mr. Howitt, of whom he entertains as gratifying an +opinion as Mr. Howitt entertains of him: dwelling on his "deep +researches into this subject", and of his "great work now ready for +the press", and of his "eloquent and forcible" advocacy, and eke of +his "elaborate and almost exhaustive work", which Mr. Home trusts +will be "extensively read". But, indeed, it would seem to be the +most reliable characteristic of the Dear Spirits, though very +capricious in other particulars, that they always form their circles +into what may be described, in worldly terms, as A Mutual Admiration +and Complimentation Company (Limited). + +Mr. Home's book is entitled Incidents in My Life. We will extract a +dozen sample passages from it, as variations on and phrases of +harmony in, the general strain for the Trumpet, which we have +promised not to repeat. + + +1. MR. HOME IS SUPERNATURALLY NURSED + + +"I cannot remember when first I became subject to the curious +phenomena which have now for so long attended me, but my aunt and +others have told me that when I was a baby my cradle was frequently +rocked, as if some kind guardian spirit was attending me in my +slumbers." + + +2. DISRESPECTFUL CONDUCT OF MR. HOME'S AUNT NEVERTHELESS + + +"In her uncontrollable anger she seized a chair and threw it at me." + + +3. PUNISHMENT OF MR. HOME'S AUNT + + +"Upon one occasion as the table was being thus moved about of +itself, my aunt brought the family Bible, and placing it on the +table, said, 'There, that will soon drive the devils away'; but to +her astonishment the table only moved in a more lively manner, as if +pleased to bear such a burden." (We believe this is constantly +observed in pulpits and church reading desks, which are invariably +lively.) "Seeing this she was greatly incensed, and determined to +stop it, she angrily placed her whole weight on the table, and was +actually lifted up with it bodily from the floor." + + +4. TRIUMPHANT EFFECT OF THIS DISCIPLINE ON MR. HOME'S AUNT + + +"And she felt it a duty that I should leave her house, and which I +did." + + +5. MR. HOME'S MISSION + + +It was communicated to him by the spirit of his mother, in the +following terms: "Daniel, fear not, my child, God is with you, and +who shall be against you? Seek to do good: be truthful and truth- +loving, and you will prosper, my child. Yours is a glorious +mission--you will convince the infidel, cure the sick, and console +the weeping." It is a coincidence that another eminent man, with +several missions, heard a voice from the Heavens blessing him, when +he also was a youth, and saying, "You will be rewarded, my son, in +time". This Medium was the celebrated Baron Munchausen, who relates +the experience in the opening of the second chapter of the incidents +in HIS life. + + +6. MODEST SUCCESS OF MR. HOME'S MISSION + + +"Certainly these phenomena, whether from God or from the devil, have +in ten years caused more converts to the great truths of immortality +and angel communion, with all that flows from these great facts, +than all the sects in Christendom have made during the same period." + + +7. WHAT THE FIRST COMPOSERS SAY OF THE SPIRIT-MUSIC, TO MR. HOME + + +"As to the music, it has been my good fortune to be on intimate +terms with some of the first composers of the day, and more than one +of them have said of such as they have heard, that it is such music +as only angels could make, and no man could write it." + +These "first composers" are not more particularly named. We shall +therefore be happy to receive and file at the office of this +Journal, the testimonials in the foregoing terms of Dr. Sterndale +Bennett, Mr. Balfe, Mr. Macfarren, Mr. Benedict, Mr. Vincent +Wallace, Signor Costa, M. Auber, M. Gounod, Signor Rossini, and +Signor Verdi. We shall also feel obliged to Mr. Alfred Mellon, who +is no doubt constantly studying this wonderful music, under the +Medium's auspices, if he will note on paper, from memory, say a +single sheet of the same. Signor Giulio Regondi will then perform +it, as correctly as a mere mortal can, on the Accordion, at the next +ensuing concert of the Philharmonic Society; on which occasion the +before-mentioned testimonials will be conspicuously displayed in the +front of the orchestra. + + +8. MR. HOME'S MIRACULOUS INFANT + + +"On the 26th April, old style, or 8th May, according to our style, +at seven in the evening, and as the snow was fast falling, our +little boy was born at the town house, situate on the Gagarines +Quay, in St. Petersburg, where we were still staying. A few hours +after his birth, his mother, the nurse, and I heard for several +hours the warbling of a bird as if singing over him. Also that +night, and for two or three nights afterwards, a bright starlike +light, which was clearly visible from the partial darkness of the +room, in which there was only a night-lamp burning, appeared several +times directly I over its head, where it remained for some moments, +and then slowly moved in the direction of the door, where it +disappeared. This was also seen by each of us at the same time. +The light was more condensed than those which have been so often +seen in my presence upon previous and subsequent occasions. It was +brighter and more distinctly globular. I do not believe that it +came through my mediumship, but rather through that of the child, +who has manifested on several occasions the presence of the gift. I +do not like to allude to such a matter, but as there are more +strange things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of, even in my +philosophy, I do not feel myself at liberty to omit stating, that +during the latter part of my wife's pregnancy, we thought it better +that she should not join in Seances, because it was found that +whenever the rappings occurred in the room, a simultaneous movement +of the child was distinctly felt, perfectly in unison with the +sounds. When there were three sounds, three movements were felt, +and so on, and when five sounds were heard, which is generally the +call for the alphabet, she felt the five internal movements, and she +would frequently, when we were mistaken in the latter, correct us +from what the child indicated." + +We should ask pardon of our readers for sullying our paper with this +nauseous matter, if without it they could adequately understand what +Mr. Home's book is. + + +9. CAGLIOSTRO'S SPIRIT CALLS ON MR. HOME + + +Prudently avoiding the disagreeable question of his giving himself, +both in this state of existence and in his spiritual circle, a name +to which he never had any pretensions whatever, and likewise +prudently suppressing any reference to his amiable weakness as a +swindler and an infamous trafficker in his own wife, the guileless +Mr. Balsamo delivered, in a "distinct voice", this distinct +celestial utterance--unquestionably punctuated in a supernatural +manner: "My power was that of a mesmerist, but all-misunderstood by +those about me, my biographers have even done me injustice, but I +care not for the untruths of earth". + + +10. ORACULAR STATE OF MR. HOME + + +"After various manifestations, Mr. Home went into the trance, and +addressing a person present, said, 'You ask what good are such +trivial manifestations, such as rapping, table-moving, etc.? God is +a better judge than we are what is fitted for humanity, immense +results may spring from trivial things. The steam from a kettle is +a small thing, but look at the locomotive! The electric spark from +the back of a cat is a small thing, but see the wonders of +electricity! The raps are small things, but their results will lead +you to the Spirit-World, and to eternity! Why should great results +spring from such small causes? Christ was born in a manger, he was +not born a King. When you tell me why he was born in a manger, I +will tell you why these manifestations, so trivial, so undignified +as they appear to you, have been appointed to convince the world of +the truth of spiritualism.'" + +Wonderful! Clearly direct Inspiration!--And yet, perhaps, hardly +worth the trouble of going "into the trance" for, either. Amazing +as the revelation is, we seem to have heard something like it from +more than one personage who was wide awake. A quack doctor, in an +open barouche (attended by a barrel-organ and two footmen in brass +helmets), delivered just such another address within our hearing, +outside a gate of Paris, not two months ago. + + +11. THE TESTIMONY OF MR. HOME'S BOOTS + + +"The lady of the house turned to me and said abruptly, 'Why, you are +sitting in the air'; and on looking, we found that the chair +remained in its place, but that I was elevated two or three inches +above it, and my feet not touching the floor. This may show how +utterly unconscious I am at times to the sensation of levitation. +As is usual, when I had not got above the level of the heads of +those about me, and when they change their position much--as they +frequently do in looking wistfully at such a phenomenon--I came down +again, but not till I had remained so raised about half a minute +from the time of its being first seen. I was now impressed to leave +the table, and was soon carried to the lofty ceiling. The Count de +B- left his place at the table, and coming under where I was, said, +'Now, young Home, come and let me touch your feet.' I told him I +had no volition in the matter, but perhaps the spirits would kindly +allow me to come down to him. They did so, by floating me down to +him, and my feet were soon in his outstretched hands. He seized my +boots, and now I was again elevated, he holding tightly, and pulling +at my feet, till the boots I wore, which had elastic sides, came off +and remained in his hands." + + +12. THE UNCOMBATIVE NATURE OF MR. HOME + + +As there is a maudlin complaint in this book, about men of Science +being hard upon "the 'Orphan' Home", and as the "gentle and +uncombative nature" of this Medium in a martyred point of view is +pathetically commented on by the anonymous literary friend who +supplies him with an introduction and appendix--rather at odds with +Mr. Howitt, who is so mightily triumphant about the same Martyr's +reception by crowned heads, and about the competence he has become +endowed with--we cull from Mr. Home's book one or two little +illustrative flowers. Sir David Brewster (a pestilent unbeliever) +"has come before the public in few matters which have brought more +shame upon him than his conduct and assertions on this occasion, in +which he manifested not only a disregard for truth, but also a +disloyalty to scientific observation, and to the use of his own +eyesight and natural faculties". The same unhappy Sir David +Brewster's "character may be the better known, not only for his +untruthful dealing with this subject, but also in his own domain of +science in which the same unfaithfulness to truth will be seen to be +the characteristic of his mind". Again, he "is really not a man +over whom victory is any honour". Again, "not only he, but +Professor Faraday have had time and ample leisure to regret that +they should have so foolishly pledged themselves", etc. A Faraday a +fool in the sight of a Home! That unjust judge and whited wall, +Lord Brougham, has his share of this Martyr Medium's +uncombativeness. "In order that he might not be compelled to deny +Sir David's statements, he found it necessary that he should be +silent, and I have some reason to complain that his Lordship +preferred sacrificing me to his desire not to immolate his friend." +M. Arago also came off with very doubtful honours from a wrestle +with the uncombative Martyr; who is perfectly clear (and so are we, +let us add) that scientific men are not the men for his purpose. Of +course, he is the butt of "utter and acknowledged ignorance", and of +"the most gross and foolish statements", and of "the unjust and +dishonest", and of "the press-gang", and of crowds of other alien +and combative adjectives, participles, and substantives. + +Nothing is without its use, and even this odious book may do some +service. Not because it coolly claims for the writer and his +disciples such powers as were wielded by the Saviour and the +Apostles; not because it sees no difference between twelve table +rappers in these days, and "twelve fishermen" in those; not because +it appeals for precedents to statements extracted from the most +ignorant and wretched of mankind, by cruel torture, and constantly +withdrawn when the torture was withdrawn; not because it sets forth +such a strange confusion of ideas as is presented by one of the +faithful when, writing of a certain sprig of geranium handed by an +invisible hand, he adds in ecstasies, "WHICH WE HAVE PLANTED AND IT +IS GROWING, SO THAT IT IS NO DELUSION, NO FAIRY MONEY TURNED INTO +DROSS OR LEAVES"--as if it followed that the conjuror's half-crowns +really did become invisible and in that state fly, because he +afterwards cuts them out of a real orange; or as if the conjuror's +pigeon, being after the discharge of his gun, a real live pigeon +fluttering on the target, must therefore conclusively be a pigeon, +fired, whole, living and unshattered, out of the gun!--not because +of the exposure of any of these weaknesses, or a thousand such, are +these moving incidents in the life of the Martyr Medium, and similar +productions, likely to prove useful, but because of their uniform +abuse of those who go to test the reality of these alleged +phenomena, and who come away incredulous. There is an old homely +proverb concerning pitch and its adhesive character, which we hope +this significant circumstance may impress on many minds. The writer +of these lines has lately heard overmuch touching young men of +promise in the imaginative arts, "towards whom" Martyr Mediums +assisting at evening parties feel themselves "drawn". It may be a +hint to such young men to stick to their own drawing, as being of a +much better kind, and to leave Martyr Mediums alone in their glory. + +As there is a good deal in these books about "lying spirits", we +will conclude by putting a hypothetical case. Supposing that a +Medium (Martyr or otherwise) were established for a time in the +house of an English gentleman abroad; say, somewhere in Italy. +Supposing that the more marvellous the Medium became, the more +suspicious of him the lady of the house became. Supposing that the +lady, her distrust once aroused, were particularly struck by the +Medium's exhibiting a persistent desire to commit her, somehow or +other, to the disclosure of the manner of the death, to him unknown, +of a certain person. Supposing that she at length resolved to test +the Medium on this head, and, therefore, on a certain evening +mentioned a wholly supposititious manner of death (which was not the +real manner of death, nor anything at all like it) within the range +of his listening ears. And supposing that a spirit presently +afterwards rapped out its presence, claiming to be the spirit of +that deceased person, and claiming to have departed this life in +that supposititious way. Would that be a lying spirit? Or would it +he a something else, tainting all that Medium's statements and +suppressions, even if they were not in themselves of a manifestly +outrageous character? + + + +THE LATE MR. STANFIELD + + + +Every Artist, be he writer, painter, musician, or actor, must bear +his private sorrows as he best can, and must separate them from the +exercise of his public pursuit. But it sometimes happens, in +compensation, that his private loss of a dear friend represents a +loss on the part of the whole community. Then he may, without +obtrusion of his individuality, step forth to lay his little wreath +upon that dear friend's grave. + +On Saturday, the eighteenth of this present month, Clarkson +Stanfield died. On the afternoon of that day, England lost the +great marine painter of whom she will be boastful ages hence; the +National Historian of her speciality, the Sea; the man famous in all +countries for his marvellous rendering of the waves that break upon +her shores, of her ships and seamen, of her coasts and skies, of her +storms and sunshine, of the many marvels of the deep. He who holds +the oceans in the hollow of His hand had given, associated with +them, wonderful gifts into his keeping; he had used them well +through threescore and fourteen years; and, on the afternoon of that +spring day, relinquished them for ever. + +It is superfluous to record that the painter of "The Battle of +Trafalgar", of the "Victory being towed into Gibraltar with the body +of Nelson on Board", of "The Morning after the Wreck", of "The +Abandoned", of fifty more such works, died in his seventy-fourth +year, "Mr." Stanfield.--He was an Englishman. + +Those grand pictures will proclaim his powers while paint and canvas +last. But the writer of these words had been his friend for thirty +years; and when, a short week or two before his death, he laid that +once so skilful hand upon the writer's breast and told him they +would meet again, "but not here", the thoughts of the latter turned, +for the time, so little to his noble genius, and so much to his +noble nature! + +He was the soul of frankness, generosity, and simplicity. The most +genial, the most affectionate, the most loving, and the most lovable +of men. Success had never for an instant spoiled him. His interest +in the Theatre as an Institution--the best picturesqueness of which +may be said to be wholly due to him--was faithful to the last. His +belief in a Play, his delight in one, the ease with which it moved +him to tears or to laughter, were most remarkable evidences of the +heart he must have put into his old theatrical work, and of the +thorough purpose and sincerity with which it must have been done. +The writer was very intimately associated with him in some amateur +plays; and day after day, and night after night, there were the same +unquenchable freshness, enthusiasm, and impressibility in him, +though broken in health, even then. + +No Artist can ever have stood by his art with a quieter dignity than +he always did. Nothing would have induced him to lay it at the feet +of any human creature. To fawn, or to toady, or to do undeserved +homage to any one, was an absolute impossibility with him. And yet +his character was so nicely balanced that he was the last man in the +world to be suspected of self-assertion, and his modesty was one of +his most special qualities. + +He was a charitable, religious, gentle, truly good man. A genuine +man, incapable of pretence or of concealment. He had been a sailor +once; and all the best characteristics that are popularly attributed +to sailors, being his, and being in him refined by the influences of +his Art, formed a whole not likely to be often seen. There is no +smile that the writer can recall, like his; no manner so naturally +confiding and so cheerfully engaging. When the writer saw him for +the last time on earth, the smile and the manner shone out once +through the weakness, still: the bright unchanging Soul within the +altered face and form. + +No man was ever held in higher respect by his friends, and yet his +intimate friends invariably addressed him and spoke of him by a pet +name. It may need, perhaps, the writer's memory and associations to +find in this a touching expression of his winning character, his +playful smile, and pleasant ways. "You know Mrs. Inchbald's story, +Nature and Art?" wrote Thomas Hood, once, in a letter: "What a fine +Edition of Nature and Art is Stanfield!" + +Gone! And many and many a dear old day gone with him! But their +memories remain. And his memory will not soon fade out, for he has +set his mark upon the restless waters, and his fame will long be +sounded in the roar of the sea. + + + +A SLIGHT QUESTION OF FACT + + + +It is never well for the public interest that the originator of any +social reform should be soon forgotten. Further, it is neither +wholesome nor right (being neither generous nor just) that the merit +of his work should be gradually transferred elsewhere. + +Some few weeks ago, our contemporary, the Pall Mall Gazette, in +certain strictures on our Theatres which we are very far indeed from +challenging, remarked on the first effectual discouragement of an +outrage upon decency which the lobbies and upper-boxes of even our +best Theatres habitually paraded within the last twenty or thirty +years. From those remarks it might appear as though no such Manager +of Covent Garden or Drury Lane as Mr. Macready had ever existed. + +It is a fact beyond all possibility of question, that Mr. Macready, +on assuming the management of Covent Garden Theatre in 1837, did +instantly set himself, regardless of precedent and custom down to +that hour obtaining, rigidly to suppress this shameful thing, and +did rigidly suppress and crush it during his whole management of +that theatre, and during his whole subsequent management of Drury +Lane. That he did so, as certainly without favour as without fear; +that he did so, against his own immediate interests; that he did so, +against vexations and oppositions which might have cooled the ardour +of a less earnest man, or a less devoted artist; can be better known +to no one than the writer of the present words, whose name stands at +the head of these pages. + + + +LANDOR'S LIFE + + + +Prefixed to the second volume of Mr. Forster's admirable biography +of Walter Savage Landor, {1} is an engraving from a portrait of that +remarkable man when seventy-seven years of age, by Boxall. The +writer of these lines can testify that the original picture is a +singularly good likeness, the result of close and subtle observation +on the part of the painter; but, for this very reason, the engraving +gives a most inadequate idea of the merit of the picture and the +character of the man. + +From the engraving, the arms and hands are omitted. In the picture, +they are, as they were in nature, indispensable to a correct reading +of the vigorous face. The arms were very peculiar. They were +rather short, and were curiously restrained and checked in their +action at the elbows; in the action of the hands, even when +separately clenched, there was the same kind of pause, and a +noticeable tendency to relaxation on the part of the thumb. Let the +face be never so intense or fierce, there was a commentary of +gentleness in the hands, essential to be taken along with it. Like +Hamlet, Landor would speak daggers, but use none. In the expression +of his hands, though angrily closed, there was always gentleness and +tenderness; just as when they were open, and the handsome old +gentleman would wave them with a little courtly flourish that sat +well upon him, as he recalled some classic compliment that he had +rendered to some reigning Beauty, there was a chivalrous grace about +them such as pervades his softer verses. Thus the fictitious Mr. +Boythorn (to whom we may refer without impropriety in this +connexion, as Mr. Forster does) declaims "with unimaginable energy" +the while his bird is "perched upon his thumb", and he "softly +smooths its feathers with his forefinger". + +From the spirit of Mr. Forster's Biography these characteristic +hands are never omitted, and hence (apart from its literary merits) +its great value. As the same masterly writer's Life and Times of +Oliver Goldsmith is a generous and yet conscientious picture of a +period, so this is a not less generous and yet conscientious picture +of one life; of a life, with all its aspirations, achievements, and +disappointments; all its capabilities, opportunities, and +irretrievable mistakes. It is essentially a sad book, and herein +lies proof of its truth and worth. The life of almost any man +possessing great gifts, would be a sad book to himself; and this +book enables us not only to see its subject, but to be its subject, +if we will. + +Mr. Forster is of opinion that "Landor's fame very surely awaits +him". This point admitted or doubted, the value of the book remains +the same. It needs not to know his works (otherwise than through +his biographer's exposition), it needs not to have known himself, to +find a deep interest in these pages. More or less of their warning +is in every conscience; and some admiration of a fine genius, and of +a great, wild, generous nature, incapable of mean self-extenuation +or dissimulation--if unhappily incapable of self-repression too-- +should be in every breast. "There may be still living many +persons", Walter Landor's brother, Robert, writes to Mr. Forster of +this book, "who would contradict any narrative of yours in which the +best qualities were remembered, the worst forgotten." Mr. Forster's +comment is: "I had not waited for this appeal to resolve, that, if +this memoir were written at all, it should contain, as far as might +lie within my power, a fair statement of the truth". And this +eloquent passage of truth immediately follows: "Few of his +infirmities are without something kindly or generous about them; and +we are not long in discovering there is nothing so wildly incredible +that he will not himself in perfect good faith believe. When he +published his first book of poems on quitting Oxford, the profits +were to be reserved for a distressed clergyman. When he published +his Latin poems, the poor of Leipzig were to have the sum they +realised. When his comedy was ready to be acted, a Spaniard who had +sheltered him at Castro was to be made richer by it. When he +competed for the prize of the Academy of Stockholm, it was to go to +the poor of Sweden. If nobody got anything from any one of these +enterprises, the fault at all events was not his. With his +extraordinary power of forgetting disappointments, he was prepared +at each successive failure to start afresh, as if each had been a +triumph. I shall have to delineate this peculiarity as strongly in +the last half as in the first half of his life, and it was certainly +an amiable one. He was ready at all times to set aside, out of his +own possessions, something for somebody who might please him for the +time; and when frailties of temper and tongue are noted, this other +eccentricity should not be omitted. He desired eagerly the love as +well as the good opinion of those whom for the time he esteemed, and +no one was more affectionate while under such influences. It is not +a small virtue to feel such genuine pleasure, as he always did in +giving and receiving pleasure. His generosity, too, was bestowed +chiefly on those who could make small acknowledgment in thanks and +no return in kind." + +Some of his earlier contemporaries may have thought him a vain man. +Most assuredly he was not, in the common acceptation of the term. A +vain man has little or no admiration to bestow upon competitors. +Landor had an inexhaustible fund. He thought well of his writings, +or he would not have preserved them. He said and wrote that he +thought well of them, because that was his mind about them, and he +said and wrote his mind. He was one of the few men of whom you +might always know the whole: of whom you might always know the +worst, as well as the best. He had no reservations or duplicities. +"No, by Heaven!" he would say ("with unimaginable energy"), if any +good adjective were coupled with him which he did not deserve: "I +am nothing of the kind. I wish I were; but I don't deserve the +attribute, and I never did, and I never shall!" His intense +consciousness of himself never led to his poorly excusing himself, +and seldom to his violently asserting himself. When he told some +little story of his bygone social experiences, in Florence, or where +not, as he was fond of doing, it took the innocent form of making +all the interlocutors, Landors. It was observable, too, that they +always called him "Mr. Landor"--rather ceremoniously and +submissively. There was a certain "Caro Pedre Abete Marina"-- +invariably so addressed in these anecdotes--who figured through a +great many of them, and who always expressed himself in this +deferential tone. + +Mr. Forster writes of Landor's character thus: + + +"A man must be judged, at first, by what he says and does. But with +him such extravagance as I have referred to was little more than the +habitual indulgence (on such themes) of passionate feelings and +language, indecent indeed but utterly purposeless; the mere +explosion of wrath provoked by tyranny or cruelty; the +irregularities of an overheated steam-engine too weak for its own +vapour. It is very certain that no one could detest oppression more +truly than Landor did in all seasons and times; and if no one +expressed that scorn, that abhorrence of tyranny and fraud, more +hastily or more intemperately, all his fire and fury signified +really little else than ill-temper too easily provoked. Not to +justify or excuse such language, but to explain it, this +consideration is urged. If not uniformly placable, Landor was +always compassionate. He was tender-hearted rather than bloody- +minded at all times, and upon only the most partial acquaintance +with his writings could other opinion be formed. A completer +knowledge of them would satisfy any one that he had as little real +disposition to kill a king as to kill a mouse. In fact there is not +a more marked peculiarity in his genius than the union with its +strength of a most uncommon gentleness, and in the personal ways of +the man this was equally manifest."--Vol. i. p. 496. + + +Of his works, thus: + + +"Though his mind was cast in the antique mould, it had opened itself +to every kind of impression through a long and varied life; he has +written with equal excellence in both poetry and prose, which can +hardly be said of any of his contemporaries; and perhaps the single +epithet by which his books would be best described is that reserved +exclusively for books not characterised only by genius, but also by +special individuality. They are unique. Having possessed them, we +should miss them. Their place would be supplied by no others. They +have that about them, moreover, which renders it almost certain that +they will frequently be resorted to in future time. There are none +in the language more quotable. Even where impulsiveness and want of +patience have left them most fragmentary, this rich compensation is +offered to the reader. There is hardly a conceivable subject, in +life or literature, which they do not illustrate by striking +aphorisms, by concise and profound observations, by wisdom ever +applicable to the deeds of men, and by wit as available for their +enjoyment. Nor, above all, will there anywhere be found a more +pervading passion for liberty, a fiercer hatred of the base, a wider +sympathy with the wronged and the oppressed, or help more ready at +all times for those who fight at odds and disadvantage against the +powerful and the fortunate, than in the writings of Walter Savage +Landor."--Last page of second volume. + + +The impression was strong upon the present writer's mind, as on Mr. +Forster's, during years of close friendship with the subject of this +biography, that his animosities were chiefly referable to the +singular inability in him to dissociate other people's ways of +thinking from his own. He had, to the last, a ludicrous grievance +(both Mr. Forster and the writer have often amused themselves with +it) against a good-natured nobleman, doubtless perfectly unconscious +of having ever given him offence. The offence was, that on the +occasion of some dinner party in another nobleman's house, many +years before, this innocent lord (then a commoner) had passed in to +dinner, through some door, before him, as he himself was about to +pass in through that same door with a lady on his arm. Now, Landor +was a gentleman of most scrupulous politeness, and in his carriage +of himself towards ladies there was a certain mixture of stateliness +and deference, belonging to quite another time, and, as Mr. Pepys +would observe, "mighty pretty to see". If he could by any effort +imagine himself committing such a high crime and misdemeanour as +that in question, he could only imagine himself as doing it of a set +purpose, under the sting of some vast injury, to inflict a great +affront. A deliberately designed affront on the part of another +man, it therefore remained to the end of his days. The manner in +which, as time went on, he permeated the unfortunate lord's ancestry +with this offence, was whimsically characteristic of Landor. The +writer remembers very well when only the individual himself was held +responsible in the story for the breach of good breeding; but in +another ten years or so, it began to appear that his father had +always been remarkable for ill manners; and in yet another ten years +or so, his grandfather developed into quite a prodigy of coarse +behaviour. + +Mr. Boythorn--if he may again be quoted--said of his adversary, Sir +Leicester Dedlock: "That fellow is, AND HIS FATHER WAS, AND HIS +GRANDFATHER WAS, the most stiff-necked, arrogant, imbecile, pig- +headed numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born +in any station of life but a walking-stick's!" + +The strength of some of Mr. Landor's most captivating kind qualities +was traceable to the same source. Knowing how keenly he himself +would feel the being at any small social disadvantage, or the being +unconsciously placed in any ridiculous light, he was wonderfully +considerate of shy people, or of such as might be below the level of +his usual conversation, or otherwise out of their element. The +writer once observed him in the keenest distress of mind in behalf +of a modest young stranger who came into a drawing-room with a glove +on his head. An expressive commentary on this sympathetic +condition, and on the delicacy with which he advanced to the young +stranger's rescue, was afterwards furnished by himself at a friendly +dinner at Gore House, when it was the most delightful of houses. +His dress--say, his cravat or shirt-collar--had become slightly +disarranged on a hot evening, and Count D'Orsay laughingly called +his attention to the circumstance as we rose from table. Landor +became flushed, and greatly agitated: "My dear Count D'Orsay, I +thank you! My dear Count D'Orsay, I thank you from my soul for +pointing out to me the abominable condition to which I am reduced! +If I had entered the Drawing-room, and presented myself before Lady +Blessington in so absurd a light, I would have instantly gone home, +put a pistol to my head, and blown my brains out!" + +Mr. Forster tells a similar story of his keeping a company waiting +dinner, through losing his way; and of his seeing no remedy for that +breach of politeness but cutting his throat, or drowning himself, +unless a countryman whom he met could direct him by a short road to +the house where the party were assembled. Surely these are +expressive notes on the gravity and reality of his explosive +inclinations to kill kings! + +His manner towards boys was charming, and the earnestness of his +wish to be on equal terms with them and to win their confidence was +quite touching. Few, reading Mr. Forster's book, can fall to see in +this, his pensive remembrance of that "studious wilful boy at once +shy and impetuous", who had not many intimacies at Rugby, but who +was "generally popular and respected, and used his influence often +to save the younger boys from undue harshness or violence". The +impulsive yearnings of his passionate heart towards his own boy, on +their meeting at Bath, after years of separation, likewise burn +through this phase of his character. + +But a more spiritual, softened, and unselfish aspect of it, was to +derived from his respectful belief in happiness which he himself had +missed. His marriage had not been a felicitous one--it may be +fairly assumed for either side--but no trace of bitterness or +distrust concerning other marriages was in his mind. He was never +more serene than in the midst of a domestic circle, and was +invariably remarkable for a perfectly benignant interest in young +couples and young lovers. That, in his ever-fresh fancy, he +conceived in this association innumerable histories of himself +involving far more unlikely events that never happened than Isaac +D'Israeli ever imagined, is hardly to be doubted; but as to this +part of his real history he was mute, or revealed his nobleness in +an impulse to be generously just. We verge on delicate ground, but +a slight remembrance rises in the writer which can grate nowhere. +Mr. Forster relates how a certain friend, being in Florence, sent +him home a leaf from the garden of his old house at Fiesole. That +friend had first asked him what he should send him home, and he had +stipulated for this gift--found by Mr. Forster among his papers +after his death. The friend, on coming back to England, related to +Landor that he had been much embarrassed, on going in search of the +leaf, by his driver's suddenly stopping his horses in a narrow lane, +and presenting him (the friend) to "La Signora Landora". The lady +was walking alone on a bright Italian-winter-day; and the man, +having been told to drive to the Villa Landora, inferred that he +must be conveying a guest or visitor. "I pulled off my hat," said +the friend, "apologised for the coachman's mistake, and drove on. +The lady was walking with a rapid and firm step, had bright eyes, a +fine fresh colour, and looked animated and agreeable." Landor +checked off each clause of the description, with a stately nod of +more than ready assent, and replied, with all his tremendous energy +concentrated into the sentence: "And the Lord forbid that I should +do otherwise than declare that she always WAS agreeable--to every +one but ME!" + +Mr. Forster step by step builds up the evidence on which he writes +this life and states this character. In like manner, he gives the +evidence for his high estimation of Landor's works, and--it may be +added--for their recompense against some neglect, in finding so +sympathetic, acute, and devoted a champion. Nothing in the book is +more remarkable than his examination of each of Landor's successive +pieces of writing, his delicate discernment of their beauties, and +his strong desire to impart his own perceptions in this wise to the +great audience that is yet to come. It rarely befalls an author to +have such a commentator: to become the subject of so much artistic +skill and knowledge, combined with such infinite and loving pains. +Alike as a piece of Biography, and as a commentary upon the beauties +of a great writer, the book is a massive book; as the man and the +writer were massive too. Sometimes, when the balance held by Mr. +Forster has seemed for a moment to turn a little heavily against the +infirmities of temperament of a grand old friend, we have felt +something of a shock; but we have not once been able to gainsay the +justice of the scales. This feeling, too, has only fluttered out of +the detail, here or there, and has vanished before the whole. We +fully agree with Mr. Forster that "judgment has been passed"--as it +should be--"with an equal desire to be only just on all the +qualities of his temperament which affected necessarily not his own +life only. But, now that the story is told, no one will have +difficulty in striking the balance between its good and ill; and +what was really imperishable in Landor's genius will not be +treasured less, or less understood, for the more perfect knowledge +of his character". + +Mr. Forster's second volume gives a facsimile of Landor's writing at +seventy-five. It may be interesting to those who are curious in +calligraphy, to know that its resemblance to the recent handwriting +of that great genius, M. Victor Hugo, is singularly strong. + +In a military burial-ground in India, the name of Walter Landor is +associated with the present writer's over the grave of a young +officer. No name could stand there, more inseparably associated in +the writer's mind with the dignity of generosity: with a noble +scorn of all littleness, all cruelty, oppression, fraud, and false +pretence. + + + +ADDRESS WHICH APPEARED SHORTLY PREVIOUS TO THE COMPLETION OF THE +TWENTIETH VOLUME (1868), INTIMATING A NEW SERIES OF "ALL THE YEAR +ROUND" + + + +I beg to announce to the readers of this Journal, that on the +completion of the Twentieth Volume on the Twenty-eighth of November, +in the present year, I shall commence an entirely New Series of All +the Year Round. The change is not only due to the convenience of +the public (with which a set of such books, extending beyond twenty +large volumes, would be quite incompatible), but is also resolved +upon for the purpose of effecting some desirable improvements in +respect of type, paper, and size of page, which could not otherwise +be made. To the Literature of the New Series it would not become me +to refer, beyond glancing at the pages of this Journal, and of its +predecessor, through a score of years; inasmuch as my regular +fellow-labourers and I will be at our old posts, in company with +those younger comrades, whom I have had the pleasure of enrolling +from time to time, and whose number it is always one of my +pleasantest editorial duties to enlarge. + +As it is better that every kind of work honestly undertaken and +discharged, should speak for itself than be spoken for, I will only +remark further on one intended omission in the New Series. The +Extra Christmas Number has now been so extensively, and regularly, +and often imitated, that it is in very great danger of becoming +tiresome. I have therefore resolved (though I cannot add, +willingly) to abolish it, at the highest tide of its success. + +CHARLES DICKENS. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} Walter Savage Landor: a Biography, by John Forster, 2 vols. +Chapman and Hall. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Contributions to: All The Year Round + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of American Notes, by Charles Dickens +#9 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +American Notes for General Circulation by Charles Dickens +Scanned and proofed by David Price +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +American Notes for General Circulation + + + + + + +PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES" + + + +IT is nearly eight years since this book was first published. I +present it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my +opinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too. + +My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the +influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any +existence not in my imagination. They can examine for themselves +whether there has been anything in the public career of that +country during these past eight years, or whether there is anything +in its present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that +those influences and tendencies really do exist. As they find the +fact, they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong- +going in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge +that I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such thing, +they will consider me altogether mistaken. + +Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the +United States. No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores, +with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in +America. + +I purposely abstain from extending these observations to any +length. I have nothing to defend, or to explain away. The truth +is the truth; and neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous +contradictions, can make it otherwise. The earth would still move +round the sun, though the whole Catholic Church said No. + +I have many friends in America, and feel a grateful interest in the +country. To represent me as viewing it with ill-nature, animosity, +or partisanship, is merely to do a very foolish thing, which is +always a very easy one; and which I have disregarded for eight +years, and could disregard for eighty more. + +LONDON, JUNE 22, 1850. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE "CHARLES DICKENS" EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES" + + + +MY readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the +influences and tendencies which I distrusted in America, had, at +that time, any existence but in my imagination. They can examine +for themselves whether there has been anything in the public career +of that country since, at home or abroad, which suggests that those +influences and tendencies really did exist. As they find the fact, +they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-going, +in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that +I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such indications, +they will consider me altogether mistaken - but not wilfully. + +Prejudiced, I am not, and never have been, otherwise than in favour +of the United States. I have many friends in America, I feel a +grateful interest in the country, I hope and believe it will +successfully work out a problem of the highest importance to the +whole human race. To represent me as viewing AMERICA with ill- +nature, coldness, or animosity, is merely to do a very foolish +thing: which is always a very easy one. + + + +CHAPTER I - GOING AWAY + + + +I SHALL never forget the one-fourth serious and three-fourths +comical astonishment, with which, on the morning of the third of +January eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and +put my head into, a 'state-room' on board the Britannia steam- +packet, twelve hundred tons burthen per register, bound for Halifax +and Boston, and carrying Her Majesty's mails. + +That this state-room had been specially engaged for 'Charles +Dickens, Esquire, and Lady,' was rendered sufficiently clear even +to my scared intellect by a very small manuscript, announcing the +fact, which was pinned on a very flat quilt, covering a very thin +mattress, spread like a surgical plaster on a most inaccessible +shelf. But that this was the state-room concerning which Charles +Dickens, Esquire, and Lady, had held daily and nightly conferences +for at least four months preceding: that this could by any +possibility be that small snug chamber of the imagination, which +Charles Dickens, Esquire, with the spirit of prophecy strong upon +him, had always foretold would contain at least one little sofa, +and which his lady, with a modest yet most magnificent sense of its +limited dimensions, had from the first opined would not hold more +than two enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight +(portmanteaus which could now no more be got in at the door, not to +say stowed away, than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a +flower-pot): that this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, +and profoundly preposterous box, had the remotest reference to, or +connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous +little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand, in the highly varnished +lithographic plan hanging up in the agent's counting-house in the +city of London: that this room of state, in short, could be +anything but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest of the captain's, +invented and put in practice for the better relish and enjoyment of +the real state-room presently to be disclosed:- these were truths +which I really could not, for the moment, bring my mind at all to +bear upon or comprehend. And I sat down upon a kind of horsehair +slab, or perch, of which there were two within; and looked, without +any expression of countenance whatever, at some friends who had +come on board with us, and who were crushing their faces into all +manner of shapes by endeavouring to squeeze them through the small +doorway. + +We had experienced a pretty smart shock before coming below, which, +but that we were the most sanguine people living, might have +prepared us for the worst. The imaginative artist to whom I have +already made allusion, has depicted in the same great work, a +chamber of almost interminable perspective, furnished, as Mr. +Robins would say, in a style of more than Eastern splendour, and +filled (but not inconveniently so) with groups of ladies and +gentlemen, in the very highest state of enjoyment and vivacity. +Before descending into the bowels of the ship, we had passed from +the deck into a long narrow apartment, not unlike a gigantic hearse +with windows in the sides; having at the upper end a melancholy +stove, at which three or four chilly stewards were warming their +hands; while on either side, extending down its whole dreary +length, was a long, long table, over each of which a rack, fixed to +the low roof, and stuck full of drinking-glasses and cruet-stands, +hinted dismally at rolling seas and heavy weather. I had not at +that time seen the ideal presentment of this chamber which has +since gratified me so much, but I observed that one of our friends +who had made the arrangements for our voyage, turned pale on +entering, retreated on the friend behind him., smote his forehead +involuntarily, and said below his breath, 'Impossible! it cannot +be!' or words to that effect. He recovered himself however by a +great effort, and after a preparatory cough or two, cried, with a +ghastly smile which is still before me, looking at the same time +round the walls, 'Ha! the breakfast-room, steward - eh?' We all +foresaw what the answer must be: we knew the agony he suffered. +He had often spoken of THE SALOON; had taken in and lived upon the +pictorial idea; had usually given us to understand, at home, that +to form a just conception of it, it would be necessary to multiply +the size and furniture of an ordinary drawing-room by seven, and +then fall short of the reality. When the man in reply avowed the +truth; the blunt, remorseless, naked truth; 'This is the saloon, +sir' - he actually reeled beneath the blow. + +In persons who were so soon to part, and interpose between their +else daily communication the formidable barrier of many thousand +miles of stormy space, and who were for that reason anxious to cast +no other cloud, not even the passing shadow of a moment's +disappointment or discomfiture, upon the short interval of happy +companionship that yet remained to them - in persons so situated, +the natural transition from these first surprises was obviously +into peals of hearty laughter, and I can report that I, for one, +being still seated upon the slab or perch before mentioned, roared +outright until the vessel rang again. Thus, in less than two +minutes after coming upon it for the first time, we all by common +consent agreed that this state-room was the pleasantest and most +facetious and capital contrivance possible; and that to have had it +one inch larger, would have been quite a disagreeable and +deplorable state of things. And with this; and with showing how, - +by very nearly closing the door, and twining in and out like +serpents, and by counting the little washing slab as standing-room, +- we could manage to insinuate four people into it, all at one +time; and entreating each other to observe how very airy it was (in +dock), and how there was a beautiful port-hole which could be kept +open all day (weather permitting), and how there was quite a large +bull's-eye just over the looking-glass which would render shaving a +perfectly easy and delightful process (when the ship didn't roll +too much); we arrived, at last, at the unanimous conclusion that it +was rather spacious than otherwise: though I do verily believe +that, deducting the two berths, one above the other, than which +nothing smaller for sleeping in was ever made except coffins, it +was no bigger than one of those hackney cabriolets which have the +door behind, and shoot their fares out, like sacks of coals, upon +the pavement. + +Having settled this point to the perfect satisfaction of all +parties, concerned and unconcerned, we sat down round the fire in +the ladies' cabin - just to try the effect. It was rather dark, +certainly; but somebody said, 'of course it would be light, at +sea,' a proposition to which we all assented; echoing 'of course, +of course;' though it would be exceedingly difficult to say why we +thought so. I remember, too, when we had discovered and exhausted +another topic of consolation in the circumstance of this ladies' +cabin adjoining our state-room, and the consequently immense +feasibility of sitting there at all times and seasons, and had +fallen into a momentary silence, leaning our faces on our hands and +looking at the fire, one of our party said, with the solemn air of +a man who had made a discovery, 'What a relish mulled claret will +have down here!' which appeared to strike us all most forcibly; as +though there were something spicy and high-flavoured in cabins, +which essentially improved that composition, and rendered it quite +incapable of perfection anywhere else. + +There was a stewardess, too, actively engaged in producing clean +sheets and table-cloths from the very entrails of the sofas, and +from unexpected lockers, of such artful mechanism, that it made +one's head ache to see them opened one after another, and rendered +it quite a distracting circumstance to follow her proceedings, and +to find that every nook and corner and individual piece of +furniture was something else besides what it pretended to be, and +was a mere trap and deception and place of secret stowage, whose +ostensible purpose was its least useful one. + +God bless that stewardess for her piously fraudulent account of +January voyages! God bless her for her clear recollection of the +companion passage of last year, when nobody was ill, and everybody +dancing from morning to night, and it was 'a run' of twelve days, +and a piece of the purest frolic, and delight, and jollity! All +happiness be with her for her bright face and her pleasant Scotch +tongue, which had sounds of old Home in it for my fellow-traveller; +and for her predictions of fair winds and fine weather (all wrong, +or I shouldn't be half so fond of her); and for the ten thousand +small fragments of genuine womanly tact, by which, without piecing +them elaborately together, and patching them up into shape and form +and case and pointed application, she nevertheless did plainly show +that all young mothers on one side of the Atlantic were near and +close at hand to their little children left upon the other; and +that what seemed to the uninitiated a serious journey, was, to +those who were in the secret, a mere frolic, to be sung about and +whistled at! Light be her heart, and gay her merry eyes, for +years! + +The state-room had grown pretty fast; but by this time it had +expanded into something quite bulky, and almost boasted a bay- +window to view the sea from. So we went upon deck again in high +spirits; and there, everything was in such a state of bustle and +active preparation, that the blood quickened its pace, and whirled +through one's veins on that clear frosty morning with involuntary +mirthfulness. For every gallant ship was riding slowly up and +down, and every little boat was splashing noisily in the water; and +knots of people stood upon the wharf, gazing with a kind of 'dread +delight' on the far-famed fast American steamer; and one party of +men were 'taking in the milk,' or, in other words, getting the cow +on board; and another were filling the icehouses to the very throat +with fresh provisions; with butchers'-meat and garden-stuff, pale +sucking-pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and +poultry out of all proportion; and others were coiling ropes and +busy with oakum yarns; and others were lowering heavy packages into +the hold; and the purser's head was barely visible as it loomed in +a state, of exquisite perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of +passengers' luggage; and there seemed to be nothing going on +anywhere, or uppermost in the mind of anybody, but preparations for +this mighty voyage. This, with the bright cold sun, the bracing +air, the crisply-curling water, the thin white crust of morning ice +upon the decks which crackled with a sharp and cheerful sound +beneath the lightest tread, was irresistible. And when, again upon +the shore, we turned and saw from the vessel's mast her name +signalled in flags of joyous colours, and fluttering by their side +the beautiful American banner with its stars and stripes, - the +long three thousand miles and more, and, longer still, the six +whole months of absence, so dwindled and faded, that the ship had +gone out and come home again, and it was broad spring already in +the Coburg Dock at Liverpool. + +I have not inquired among my medical acquaintance, whether Turtle, +and cold Punch, with Hock, Champagne, and Claret, and all the +slight et cetera usually included in an unlimited order for a good +dinner - especially when it is left to the liberal construction of +my faultless friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi Hotel - are +peculiarly calculated to suffer a sea-change; or whether a plain +mutton-chop, and a glass or two of sherry, would be less likely of +conversion into foreign and disconcerting material. My own opinion +is, that whether one is discreet or indiscreet in these +particulars, on the eve of a sea-voyage, is a matter of little +consequence; and that, to use a common phrase, 'it comes to very +much the same thing in the end.' Be this as it may, I know that +the dinner of that day was undeniably perfect; that it comprehended +all these items, and a great many more; and that we all did ample +justice to it. And I know too, that, bating a certain tacit +avoidance of any allusion to to-morrow; such as may be supposed to +prevail between delicate-minded turnkeys, and a sensitive prisoner +who is to be hanged next morning; we got on very well, and, all +things considered, were merry enough. + +When the morning - THE morning - came, and we met at breakfast, it +was curious to see how eager we all were to prevent a moment's +pause in the conversation, and how astoundingly gay everybody was: +the forced spirits of each member of the little party having as +much likeness to his natural mirth, as hot-house peas at five +guineas the quart, resemble in flavour the growth of the dews, and +air, and rain of Heaven. But as one o'clock, the hour for going +aboard, drew near, this volubility dwindled away by little and +little, despite the most persevering efforts to the contrary, until +at last, the matter being now quite desperate, we threw off all +disguise; openly speculated upon where we should be this time to- +morrow, this time next day, and so forth; and entrusted a vast +number of messages to those who intended returning to town that +night, which were to be delivered at home and elsewhere without +fail, within the very shortest possible space of time after the +arrival of the railway train at Euston Square. And commissions and +remembrances do so crowd upon one at such a time, that we were +still busied with this employment when we found ourselves fused, as +it were, into a dense conglomeration of passengers and passengers' +friends and passengers' luggage, all jumbled together on the deck +of a small steamboat, and panting and snorting off to the packet, +which had worked out of dock yesterday afternoon and was now lying +at her moorings in the river. + +And there she is! all eyes are turned to where she lies, dimly +discernible through the gathering fog of the early winter +afternoon; every finger is pointed in the same direction; and +murmurs of interest and admiration - as 'How beautiful she looks!' +'How trim she is!' - are heard on every side. Even the lazy +gentleman with his hat on one side and his hands in his pockets, +who has dispensed so much consolation by inquiring with a yawn of +another gentleman whether he is 'going across' - as if it were a +ferry - even he condescends to look that way, and nod his head, as +who should say, 'No mistake about THAT:' and not even the sage Lord +Burleigh in his nod, included half so much as this lazy gentleman +of might who has made the passage (as everybody on board has found +out already; it's impossible to say how) thirteen times without a +single accident! There is another passenger very much wrapped-up, +who has been frowned down by the rest, and morally trampled upon +and crushed, for presuming to inquire with a timid interest how +long it is since the poor President went down. He is standing +close to the lazy gentleman, and says with a faint smile that he +believes She is a very strong Ship; to which the lazy gentleman, +looking first in his questioner's eye and then very hard in the +wind's, answers unexpectedly and ominously, that She need be. Upon +this the lazy gentleman instantly falls very low in the popular +estimation, and the passengers, with looks of defiance, whisper to +each other that he is an ass, and an impostor, and clearly don't +know anything at all about it. + +But we are made fast alongside the packet, whose huge red funnel is +smoking bravely, giving rich promise of serious intentions. +Packing-cases, portmanteaus, carpet-bags, and boxes, are already +passed from hand to hand, and hauled on board with breathless +rapidity. The officers, smartly dressed, are at the gangway +handing the passengers up the side, and hurrying the men. In five +minutes' time, the little steamer is utterly deserted, and the +packet is beset and over-run by its late freight, who instantly +pervade the whole ship, and are to be met with by the dozen in +every nook and corner: swarming down below with their own baggage, +and stumbling over other people's; disposing themselves comfortably +in wrong cabins, and creating a most horrible confusion by having +to turn out again; madly bent upon opening locked doors, and on +forcing a passage into all kinds of out-of-the-way places where +there is no thoroughfare; sending wild stewards, with elfin hair, +to and fro upon the breezy decks on unintelligible errands, +impossible of execution: and in short, creating the most +extraordinary and bewildering tumult. In the midst of all this, +the lazy gentleman, who seems to have no luggage of any kind - not +so much as a friend, even - lounges up and down the hurricane deck, +coolly puffing a cigar; and, as this unconcerned demeanour again +exalts him in the opinion of those who have leisure to observe his +proceedings, every time he looks up at the masts, or down at the +decks, or over the side, they look there too, as wondering whether +he sees anything wrong anywhere, and hoping that, in case he +should, he will have the goodness to mention it. + +What have we here? The captain's boat! and yonder the captain +himself. Now, by all our hopes and wishes, the very man he ought +to be! A well-made, tight-built, dapper little fellow; with a +ruddy face, which is a letter of invitation to shake him by both +hands at once; and with a clear, blue honest eye, that it does one +good to see one's sparkling image in. 'Ring the bell!' 'Ding, +ding, ding!' the very bell is in a hurry. 'Now for the shore - +who's for the shore?' - 'These gentlemen, I am sorry to say.' They +are away, and never said, Good b'ye. Ah now they wave it from the +little boat. 'Good b'ye! Good b'ye!' Three cheers from them; +three more from us; three more from them: and they are gone. + +To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again a hundred times! This +waiting for the latest mail-bags is worse than all. If we could +have gone off in the midst of that last burst, we should have +started triumphantly: but to lie here, two hours and more in the +damp fog, neither staying at home nor going abroad, is letting one +gradually down into the very depths of dulness and low spirits. A +speck in the mist, at last! That's something. It is the boat we +wait for! That's more to the purpose. The captain appears on the +paddle-box with his speaking trumpet; the officers take their +stations; all hands are on the alert; the flagging hopes of the +passengers revive; the cooks pause in their savoury work, and look +out with faces full of interest. The boat comes alongside; the +bags are dragged in anyhow, and flung down for the moment anywhere. +Three cheers more: and as the first one rings upon our ears, the +vessel throbs like a strong giant that has just received the breath +of life; the two great wheels turn fiercely round for the first +time; and the noble ship, with wind and tide astern, breaks proudly +through the lashed and roaming water. + + + +CHAPTER II - THE PASSAGE OUT + + + +WE all dined together that day; and a rather formidable party we +were: no fewer than eighty-six strong. The vessel being pretty +deep in the water, with all her coals on board and so many +passengers, and the weather being calm and quiet, there was but +little motion; so that before the dinner was half over, even those +passengers who were most distrustful of themselves plucked up +amazingly; and those who in the morning had returned to the +universal question, 'Are you a good sailor?' a very decided +negative, now either parried the inquiry with the evasive reply, +'Oh! I suppose I'm no worse than anybody else;' or, reckless of all +moral obligations, answered boldly 'Yes:' and with some irritation +too, as though they would add, 'I should like to know what you see +in ME, sir, particularly, to justify suspicion!' + +Notwithstanding this high tone of courage and confidence, I could +not but observe that very few remained long over their wine; and +that everybody had an unusual love of the open air; and that the +favourite and most coveted seats were invariably those nearest to +the door. The tea-table, too, was by no means as well attended as +the dinner-table; and there was less whist-playing than might have +been expected. Still, with the exception of one lady, who had +retired with some precipitation at dinner-time, immediately after +being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of +mutton with very green capers, there were no invalids as yet; and +walking, and smoking, and drinking of brandy-and-water (but always +in the open air), went on with unabated spirit, until eleven +o'clock or thereabouts, when 'turning in' - no sailor of seven +hours' experience talks of going to bed - became the order of the +night. The perpetual tramp of boot-heels on the decks gave place +to a heavy silence, and the whole human freight was stowed away +below, excepting a very few stragglers, like myself, who were +probably, like me, afraid to go there. + +To one unaccustomed to such scenes, this is a very striking time on +shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it +never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me. The +gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and +certain course; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen; +the broad, white, glistening track, that follows in the vessel's +wake; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely +visible against the dark sky, but for their blotting out some score +of glistening stars; the helmsman at the wheel, with the +illuminated card before him, shining, a speck of light amidst the +darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence; the +melancholy sighing of the wind through block, and rope, and chain; +the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny +piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with +fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its +resistless power of death and ruin. At first, too, and even when +the hour, and all the objects it exalts, have come to be familiar, +it is difficult, alone and thoughtful, to hold them to their proper +shapes and forms. They change with the wandering fancy; assume the +semblance of things left far away; put on the well-remembered +aspect of favourite places dearly loved; and even people them with +shadows. Streets, houses, rooms; figures so like their usual +occupants, that they have startled me by their reality, which far +exceeded, as it seemed to me, all power of mine to conjure up the +absent; have, many and many a time, at such an hour, grown suddenly +out of objects with whose real look, and use, and purpose, I was as +well acquainted as with my own two hands. + +My own two hands, and feet likewise, being very cold, however, on +this particular occasion, I crept below at midnight. It was not +exactly comfortable below. It was decidedly close; and it was +impossible to be unconscious of the presence of that extraordinary +compound of strange smells, which is to be found nowhere but on +board ship, and which is such a subtle perfume that it seems to +enter at every pore of the skin, and whisper of the hold. Two +passengers' wives (one of them my own) lay already in silent +agonies on the sofa; and one lady's maid (MY lady's) was a mere +bundle on the floor, execrating her destiny, and pounding her curl- +papers among the stray boxes. Everything sloped the wrong way: +which in itself was an aggravation scarcely to be borne. I had +left the door open, a moment before, in the bosom of a gentle +declivity, and, when I turned to shut it, it was on the summit of a +lofty eminence. Now every plank and timber creaked, as if the ship +were made of wicker-work; and now crackled, like an enormous fire +of the driest possible twigs. There was nothing for it but bed; so +I went to bed. + +It was pretty much the same for the next two days, with a tolerably +fair wind and dry weather. I read in bed (but to this hour I don't +know what) a good deal; and reeled on deck a little; drank cold +brandy-and-water with an unspeakable disgust, and ate hard biscuit +perseveringly: not ill, but going to be. + +It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal +shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there's any +danger. I rouse myself, and look out of bed. The water-jug is +plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin; all the smaller +articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a +carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges. Suddenly I +see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which +is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same +time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the +floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing +on its head. + +Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible +with this novel state of things, the ship rights. Before one can +say 'Thank Heaven!' she wrongs again. Before one can cry she IS +wrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature +actually running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing +legs, through every variety of hole and pitfall, and stumbling +constantly. Before one can so much as wonder, she takes a high +leap into the air. Before she has well done that, she takes a deep +dive into the water. Before she has gained the surface, she throws +a summerset. The instant she is on her legs, she rushes backward. +And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, +jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking: and going +through all these movements, sometimes by turns, and sometimes +altogether: until one feels disposed to roar for mercy. + +A steward passes. 'Steward!' 'Sir?' 'What IS the matter? what DO +you call this?' 'Rather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head-wind.' + +A head-wind! Imagine a human face upon the vessel's prow, with +fifteen thousand Samsons in one bent upon driving her back, and +hitting her exactly between the eyes whenever she attempts to +advance an inch. Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and +artery of her huge body swollen and bursting under this +maltreatment, sworn to go on or die. Imagine the wind howling, the +sea roaring, the rain beating: all in furious array against her. +Picture the sky both dark and wild, and the clouds, in fearful +sympathy with the waves, making another ocean in the air. Add to +all this, the clattering on deck and down below; the tread of +hurried feet; the loud hoarse shouts of seamen; the gurgling in and +out of water through the scuppers; with, every now and then, the +striking of a heavy sea upon the planks above, with the deep, dead, +heavy sound of thunder heard within a vault; - and there is the +head-wind of that January morning. + +I say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the +ship: such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling +down of stewards, the gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant +dozens of bottled porter, and the very remarkable and far from +exhilarating sounds raised in their various state-rooms by the +seventy passengers who were too ill to get up to breakfast. I say +nothing of them: for although I lay listening to this concert for +three or four days, I don't think I heard it for more than a +quarter of a minute, at the expiration of which term, I lay down +again, excessively sea-sick. + +Not sea-sick, be it understood, in the ordinary acceptation of the +term: I wish I had been: but in a form which I have never seen or +heard described, though I have no doubt it is very common. I lay +there, all the day long, quite coolly and contentedly; with no +sense of weariness, with no desire to get up, or get better, or +take the air; with no curiosity, or care, or regret, of any sort or +degree, saving that I think I can remember, in this universal +indifference, having a kind of lazy joy - of fiendish delight, if +anything so lethargic can be dignified with the title - in the fact +of my wife being too ill to talk to me. If I may be allowed to +illustrate my state of mind by such an example, I should say that I +was exactly in the condition of the elder Mr. Willet, after the +incursion of the rioters into his bar at Chigwell. Nothing would +have surprised me. If, in the momentary illumination of any ray of +intelligence that may have come upon me in the way of thoughts of +Home, a goblin postman, with a scarlet coat and bell, had come into +that little kennel before me, broad awake in broad day, and, +apologising for being damp through walking in the sea, had handed +me a letter directed to myself, in familiar characters, I am +certain I should not have felt one atom of astonishment: I should +have been perfectly satisfied. If Neptune himself had walked in, +with a toasted shark on his trident, I should have looked upon the +event as one of the very commonest everyday occurrences. + +Once - once - I found myself on deck. I don't know how I got +there, or what possessed me to go there, but there I was; and +completely dressed too, with a huge pea-coat on, and a pair of +boots such as no weak man in his senses could ever have got into. +I found myself standing, when a gleam of consciousness came upon +me, holding on to something. I don't know what. I think it was +the boatswain: or it may have been the pump: or possibly the cow. +I can't say how long I had been there; whether a day or a minute. +I recollect trying to think about something (about anything in the +whole wide world, I was not particular) without the smallest +effect. I could not even make out which was the sea, and which the +sky, for the horizon seemed drunk, and was flying wildly about in +all directions. Even in that incapable state, however, I +recognised the lazy gentleman standing before me: nautically clad +in a suit of shaggy blue, with an oilskin hat. But I was too +imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to separate him from his +dress; and tried to call him, I remember, PILOT. After another +interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had gone, and +recognised another figure in its place. It seemed to wave and +fluctuate before me as though I saw it reflected in an unsteady +looking-glass; but I knew it for the captain; and such was the +cheerful influence of his face, that I tried to smile: yes, even +then I tried to smile. I saw by his gestures that he addressed me; +but it was a long time before I could make out that he remonstrated +against my standing up to my knees in water - as I was; of course I +don't know why. I tried to thank him, but couldn't. I could only +point to my boots - or wherever I supposed my boots to be - and say +in a plaintive voice, 'Cork soles:' at the same time endeavouring, +I am told, to sit down in the pool. Finding that I was quite +insensible, and for the time a maniac, he humanely conducted me +below. + +There I remained until I got better: suffering, whenever I was +recommended to eat anything, an amount of anguish only second to +that which is said to be endured by the apparently drowned, in the +process of restoration to life. One gentleman on board had a +letter of introduction to me from a mutual friend in London. He +sent it below with his card, on the morning of the head-wind; and I +was long troubled with the idea that he might be up, and well, and +a hundred times a day expecting me to call upon him in the saloon. +I imagined him one of those cast-iron images - I will not call them +men - who ask, with red faces, and lusty voices, what sea-sickness +means, and whether it really is as bad as it is represented to be. +This was very torturing indeed; and I don't think I ever felt such +perfect gratification and gratitude of heart, as I did when I heard +from the ship's doctor that he had been obliged to put a large +mustard poultice on this very gentleman's stomach. I date my +recovery from the receipt of that intelligence. + +It was materially assisted though, I have no doubt, by a heavy gale +of wind, which came slowly up at sunset, when we were about ten +days out, and raged with gradually increasing fury until morning, +saving that it lulled for an hour a little before midnight. There +was something in the unnatural repose of that hour, and in the +after gathering of the storm, so inconceivably awful and +tremendous, that its bursting into full violence was almost a +relief. + +The labouring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I shall +never forget. 'Will it ever be worse than this?' was a question I +had often heard asked, when everything was sliding and bumping +about, and when it certainly did seem difficult to comprehend the +possibility of anything afloat being more disturbed, without +toppling over and going down. But what the agitation of a steam- +vessel is, on a bad winter's night in the wild Atlantic, it is +impossible for the most vivid imagination to conceive. To say that +she is flung down on her side in the waves, with her masts dipping +into them, and that, springing up again, she rolls over on the +other side, until a heavy sea strikes her with the noise of a +hundred great guns, and hurls her back - that she stops, and +staggers, and shivers, as though stunned, and then, with a violent +throbbing at her heart, darts onward like a monster goaded into +madness, to be beaten down, and battered, and crushed, and leaped +on by the angry sea - that thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, and +wind, are all in fierce contention for the mastery - that every +plank has its groan, every nail its shriek, and every drop of water +in the great ocean its howling voice - is nothing. To say that all +is grand, and all appalling and horrible in the last degree, is +nothing. Words cannot express it. Thoughts cannot convey it. +Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage, and +passion. + +And yet, in the very midst of these terrors, I was placed in a +situation so exquisitely ridiculous, that even then I had as strong +a sense of its absurdity as I have now, and could no more help +laughing than I can at any other comical incident, happening under +circumstances the most favourable to its enjoyment. About midnight +we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst +open the doors above, and came raging and roaring down into the +ladies' cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a +little Scotch lady - who, by the way, had previously sent a message +to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her +compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the +top of every mast, and to the chimney, in order that the ship might +not be struck by lightning. They and the handmaid before +mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew +what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some +restorative or comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to +me, at the moment, than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumbler +full without delay. It being impossible to stand or sit without +holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long +sofa - a fixture extending entirely across the cabin - where they +clung to each other in momentary expectation of being drowned. +When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to +administer it with many consolatory expressions to the nearest +sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to +the other end! And when I staggered to that end, and held out the +glass once more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by +the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again! I +suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a quarter +of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I did catch +them, the brandy-and-water was diminished, by constant spilling, to +a teaspoonful. To complete the group, it is necessary to recognise +in this disconcerted dodger, an individual very pale from sea- +sickness, who had shaved his beard and brushed his hair, last, at +Liverpool: and whose only article of dress (linen not included) +were a pair of dreadnought trousers; a blue jacket, formerly +admired upon the Thames at Richmond; no stockings; and one slipper. + +Of the outrageous antics performed by that ship next morning; which +made bed a practical joke, and getting up, by any process short of +falling out, an impossibility; I say nothing. But anything like +the utter dreariness and desolation that met my eyes when I +literally 'tumbled up' on deck at noon, I never saw. Ocean and sky +were all of one dull, heavy, uniform, lead colour. There was no +extent of prospect even over the dreary waste that lay around us, +for the sea ran high, and the horizon encompassed us like a large +black hoop. Viewed from the air, or some tall bluff on shore, it +would have been imposing and stupendous, no doubt; but seen from +the wet and rolling decks, it only impressed one giddily and +painfully. In the gale of last night the life-boat had been +crushed by one blow of the sea like a walnut-shell; and there it +hung dangling in the air: a mere faggot of crazy boards. The +planking of the paddle-boxes had been torn sheer away. The wheels +were exposed and bare; and they whirled and dashed their spray +about the decks at random. Chimney, white with crusted salt; +topmasts struck; storm-sails set; rigging all knotted, tangled, +wet, and drooping: a gloomier picture it would be hard to look +upon. + +I was now comfortably established by courtesy in the ladies' cabin, +where, besides ourselves, there were only four other passengers. +First, the little Scotch lady before mentioned, on her way to join +her husband at New York, who had settled there three years before. +Secondly and thirdly, an honest young Yorkshireman, connected with +some American house; domiciled in that same city, and carrying +thither his beautiful young wife to whom he had been married but a +fortnight, and who was the fairest specimen of a comely English +country girl I have ever seen. Fourthy, fifthly, and lastly, +another couple: newly married too, if one might judge from the +endearments they frequently interchanged: of whom I know no more +than that they were rather a mysterious, run-away kind of couple; +that the lady had great personal attractions also; and that the +gentleman carried more guns with him than Robinson Crusoe, wore a +shooting-coat, and had two great dogs on board. On further +consideration, I remember that he tried hot roast pig and bottled +ale as a cure for sea-sickness; and that he took these remedies +(usually in bed) day after day, with astonishing perseverance. I +may add, for the information of the curious, that they decidedly +failed. + +The weather continuing obstinately and almost unprecedentedly bad, +we usually straggled into this cabin, more or less faint and +miserable, about an hour before noon, and lay down on the sofas to +recover; during which interval, the captain would look in to +communicate the state of the wind, the moral certainty of its +changing to-morrow (the weather is always going to improve to- +morrow, at sea), the vessel's rate of sailing, and so forth. +Observations there were none to tell us of, for there was no sun to +take them by. But a description of one day will serve for all the +rest. Here it is. + +The captain being gone, we compose ourselves to read, if the place +be light enough; and if not, we doze and talk alternately. At one, +a bell rings, and the stewardess comes down with a steaming dish of +baked potatoes, and another of roasted apples; and plates of pig's +face, cold ham, salt beef; or perhaps a smoking mess of rare hot +collops. We fall to upon these dainties; eat as much as we can (we +have great appetites now); and are as long as possible about it. +If the fire will burn (it WILL sometimes) we are pretty cheerful. +If it won't, we all remark to each other that it's very cold, rub +our hands, cover ourselves with coats and cloaks, and lie down +again to doze, talk, and read (provided as aforesaid), until +dinner-time. At five, another bell rings, and the stewardess +reappears with another dish of potatoes - boiled this time - and +store of hot meat of various kinds: not forgetting the roast pig, +to be taken medicinally. We sit down at table again (rather more +cheerfully than before); prolong the meal with a rather mouldy +dessert of apples, grapes, and oranges; and drink our wine and +brandy-and-water. The bottles and glasses are still upon the +table, and the oranges and so forth are rolling about according to +their fancy and the ship's way, when the doctor comes down, by +special nightly invitation, to join our evening rubber: +immediately on whose arrival we make a party at whist, and as it is +a rough night and the cards will not lie on the cloth, we put the +tricks in our pockets as we take them. At whist we remain with +exemplary gravity (deducting a short time for tea and toast) until +eleven o'clock, or thereabouts; when the captain comes down again, +in a sou'-wester hat tied under his chin, and a pilot-coat: making +the ground wet where he stands. By this time the card-playing is +over, and the bottles and glasses are again upon the table; and +after an hour's pleasant conversation about the ship, the +passengers, and things in general, the captain (who never goes to +bed, and is never out of humour) turns up his coat collar for the +deck again; shakes hands all round; and goes laughing out into the +weather as merrily as to a birthday party. + +As to daily news, there is no dearth of that commodity. This +passenger is reported to have lost fourteen pounds at Vingt-et-un +in the saloon yesterday; and that passenger drinks his bottle of +champagne every day, and how he does it (being only a clerk), +nobody knows. The head engineer has distinctly said that there +never was such times - meaning weather - and four good hands are +ill, and have given in, dead beat. Several berths are full of +water, and all the cabins are leaky. The ship's cook, secretly +swigging damaged whiskey, has been found drunk; and has been played +upon by the fire-engine until quite sober. All the stewards have +fallen down-stairs at various dinner-times, and go about with +plasters in various places. The baker is ill, and so is the +pastry-cook. A new man, horribly indisposed, has been required to +fill the place of the latter officer; and has been propped and +jammed up with empty casks in a little house upon deck, and +commanded to roll out pie-crust, which he protests (being highly +bilious) it is death to him to look at. News! A dozen murders on +shore would lack the interest of these slight incidents at sea. + +Divided between our rubber and such topics as these, we were +running (as we thought) into Halifax Harbour, on the fifteenth +night, with little wind and a bright moon - indeed, we had made the +Light at its outer entrance, and put the pilot in charge - when +suddenly the ship struck upon a bank of mud. An immediate rush on +deck took place of course; the sides were crowded in an instant; +and for a few minutes we were in as lively a state of confusion as +the greatest lover of disorder would desire to see. The +passengers, and guns, and water-casks, and other heavy matters, +being all huddled together aft, however, to lighten her in the +head, she was soon got off; and after some driving on towards an +uncomfortable line of objects (whose vicinity had been announced +very early in the disaster by a loud cry of 'Breakers a-head!') and +much backing of paddles, and heaving of the lead into a constantly +decreasing depth of water, we dropped anchor in a strange +outlandish-looking nook which nobody on board could recognise, +although there was land all about us, and so close that we could +plainly see the waving branches of the trees. + +It was strange enough, in the silence of midnight, and the dead +stillness that seemed to be created by the sudden and unexpected +stoppage of the engine which had been clanking and blasting in our +ears incessantly for so many days, to watch the look of blank +astonishment expressed in every face: beginning with the officers, +tracing it through all the passengers, and descending to the very +stokers and furnacemen, who emerged from below, one by one, and +clustered together in a smoky group about the hatchway of the +engine-room, comparing notes in whispers. After throwing up a few +rockets and firing signal guns in the hope of being hailed from the +land, or at least of seeing a light - but without any other sight +or sound presenting itself - it was determined to send a boat on +shore. It was amusing to observe how very kind some of the +passengers were, in volunteering to go ashore in this same boat: +for the general good, of course: not by any means because they +thought the ship in an unsafe position, or contemplated the +possibility of her heeling over in case the tide were running out. +Nor was it less amusing to remark how desperately unpopular the +poor pilot became in one short minute. He had had his passage out +from Liverpool, and during the whole voyage had been quite a +notorious character, as a teller of anecdotes and cracker of jokes. +Yet here were the very men who had laughed the loudest at his +jests, now flourishing their fists in his face, loading him with +imprecations, and defying him to his teeth as a villain! + +The boat soon shoved off, with a lantern and sundry blue lights on +board; and in less than an hour returned; the officer in command +bringing with him a tolerably tall young tree, which he had plucked +up by the roots, to satisfy certain distrustful passengers whose +minds misgave them that they were to be imposed upon and +shipwrecked, and who would on no other terms believe that he had +been ashore, or had done anything but fraudulently row a little way +into the mist, specially to deceive them and compass their deaths. +Our captain had foreseen from the first that we must be in a place +called the Eastern passage; and so we were. It was about the last +place in the world in which we had any business or reason to be, +but a sudden fog, and some error on the pilot's part, were the +cause. We were surrounded by banks, and rocks, and shoals of all +kinds, but had happily drifted, it seemed, upon the only safe speck +that was to be found thereabouts. Eased by this report, and by the +assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at three +o'clock in the morning. + +I was dressing about half-past nine next day, when the noise above +hurried me on deck. When I had left it overnight, it was dark, +foggy, and damp, and there were bleak hills all round us. Now, we +were gliding down a smooth, broad stream, at the rate of eleven +miles an hour: our colours flying gaily; our crew rigged out in +their smartest clothes; our officers in uniform again; the sun +shining as on a brilliant April day in England; the land stretched +out on either side, streaked with light patches of snow; white +wooden houses; people at their doors; telegraphs working; flags +hoisted; wharfs appearing; ships; quays crowded with people; +distant noises; shouts; men and boys running down steep places +towards the pier: all more bright and gay and fresh to our unused +eyes than words can paint them. We came to a wharf, paved with +uplifted faces; got alongside, and were made fast, after some +shouting and straining of cables; darted, a score of us along the +gangway, almost as soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and before +it had reached the ship - and leaped upon the firm glad earth +again! + +I suppose this Halifax would have appeared an Elysium, though it +had been a curiosity of ugly dulness. But I carried away with me a +most pleasant impression of the town and its inhabitants, and have +preserved it to this hour. Nor was it without regret that I came +home, without having found an opportunity of returning thither, and +once more shaking hands with the friends I made that day. + +It happened to be the opening of the Legislative Council and +General Assembly, at which ceremonial the forms observed on the +commencement of a new Session of Parliament in England were so +closely copied, and so gravely presented on a small scale, that it +was like looking at Westminster through the wrong end of a +telescope. The governor, as her Majesty's representative, +delivered what may be called the Speech from the Throne. He said +what he had to say manfully and well. The military band outside +the building struck up "God save the Queen" with great vigour +before his Excellency had quite finished; the people shouted; the +in's rubbed their hands; the out's shook their heads; the +Government party said there never was such a good speech; the +Opposition declared there never was such a bad one; the Speaker and +members of the House of Assembly withdrew from the bar to say a +great deal among themselves and do a little: and, in short, +everything went on, and promised to go on, just as it does at home +upon the like occasions. + +The town is built on the side of a hill, the highest point being +commanded by a strong fortress, not yet quite finished. Several +streets of good breadth and appearance extend from its summit to +the water-side, and are intersected by cross streets running +parallel with the river. The houses are chiefly of wood. The +market is abundantly supplied; and provisions are exceedingly +cheap. The weather being unusually mild at that time for the +season of the year, there was no sleighing: but there were plenty +of those vehicles in yards and by-places, and some of them, from +the gorgeous quality of their decorations, might have 'gone on' +without alteration as triumphal cars in a melodrama at Astley's. +The day was uncommonly fine; the air bracing and healthful; the +whole aspect of the town cheerful, thriving, and industrious. + +We lay there seven hours, to deliver and exchange the mails. At +length, having collected all our bags and all our passengers +(including two or three choice spirits, who, having indulged too +freely in oysters and champagne, were found lying insensible on +their backs in unfrequented streets), the engines were again put in +motion, and we stood off for Boston. + +Encountering squally weather again in the Bay of Fundy, we tumbled +and rolled about as usual all that night and all next day. On the +next afternoon, that is to say, on Saturday, the twenty-second of +January, an American pilot-boat came alongside, and soon afterwards +the Britannia steam-packet, from Liverpool, eighteen days out, was +telegraphed at Boston. + +The indescribable interest with which I strained my eyes, as the +first patches of American soil peeped like molehills from the green +sea, and followed them, as they swelled, by slow and almost +imperceptible degrees, into a continuous line of coast, can hardly +be exaggerated. A sharp keen wind blew dead against us; a hard +frost prevailed on shore; and the cold was most severe. Yet the +air was so intensely clear, and dry, and bright, that the +temperature was not only endurable, but delicious. + +How I remained on deck, staring about me, until we came alongside +the dock, and how, though I had had as many eyes as Argus, I should +have had them all wide open, and all employed on new objects - are +topics which I will not prolong this chapter to discuss. Neither +will I more than hint at my foreigner-like mistake in supposing +that a party of most active persons, who scrambled on board at the +peril of their lives as we approached the wharf, were newsmen, +answering to that industrious class at home; whereas, despite the +leathern wallets of news slung about the necks of some, and the +broad sheets in the hands of all, they were Editors, who boarded +ships in person (as one gentleman in a worsted comforter informed +me), 'because they liked the excitement of it.' Suffice it in this +place to say, that one of these invaders, with a ready courtesy for +which I thank him here most gratefully, went on before to order +rooms at the hotel; and that when I followed, as I soon did, I +found myself rolling through the long passages with an involuntary +imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new nautical +melodrama. + +'Dinner, if you please,' said I to the waiter. + +'When?' said the waiter. + +'As quick as possible,' said I. + +'Right away?' said the waiter. + +After a moment's hesitation, I answered 'No,' at hazard. + +'NOT right away?' cried the waiter, with an amount of surprise that +made me start. + +I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, 'No; I would rather have +it in this private room. I like it very much.' + +At this, I really thought the waiter must have gone out of his +mind: as I believe he would have done, but for the interposition +of another man, who whispered in his ear, 'Directly.' + +'Well! and that's a fact!' said the waiter, looking helplessly at +me: 'Right away.' + +I saw now that 'Right away' and 'Directly' were one and the same +thing. So I reversed my previous answer, and sat down to dinner in +ten minutes afterwards; and a capital dinner it was. + +The hotel (a very excellent one) is called the Tremont House. It +has more galleries, colonnades, piazzas, and passages than I can +remember, or the reader would believe. + + + +CHAPTER III - BOSTON + + + +IN all the public establishments of America, the utmost courtesy +prevails. Most of our Departments are susceptible of considerable +improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house above all others +would do well to take example from the United States and render +itself somewhat less odious and offensive to foreigners. The +servile rapacity of the French officials is sufficiently +contemptible; but there is a surly boorish incivility about our +men, alike disgusting to all persons who fall into their hands, and +discreditable to the nation that keeps such ill-conditioned curs +snarling about its gates. + +When I landed in America, I could not help being strongly impressed +with the contrast their Custom-house presented, and the attention, +politeness and good humour with which its officers discharged their +duty. + +As we did not land at Boston, in consequence of some detention at +the wharf, until after dark, I received my first impressions of the +city in walking down to the Custom-house on the morning after our +arrival, which was Sunday. I am afraid to say, by the way, how +many offers of pews and seats in church for that morning were made +to us, by formal note of invitation, before we had half finished +our first dinner in America, but if I may be allowed to make a +moderate guess, without going into nicer calculation, I should say +that at least as many sittings were proffered us, as would have +accommodated a score or two of grown-up families. The number of +creeds and forms of religion to which the pleasure of our company +was requested, was in very fair proportion. + +Not being able, in the absence of any change of clothes, to go to +church that day, we were compelled to decline these kindnesses, one +and all; and I was reluctantly obliged to forego the delight of +hearing Dr. Channing, who happened to preach that morning for the +first time in a very long interval. I mention the name of this +distinguished and accomplished man (with whom I soon afterwards had +the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted), that I may have +the gratification of recording my humble tribute of admiration and +respect for his high abilities and character; and for the bold +philanthropy with which he has ever opposed himself to that most +hideous blot and foul disgrace - Slavery. + +To return to Boston. When I got into the streets upon this Sunday +morning, the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay: +the signboards were painted in such gaudy colours; the gilded +letters were so very golden; the bricks were so very red, the stone +was so very white, the blinds and area railings were so very green, +the knobs and plates upon the street doors so marvellously bright +and twinkling; and all so slight and unsubstantial in appearance - +that every thoroughfare in the city looked exactly like a scene in +a pantomime. It rarely happens in the business streets that a +tradesman, if I may venture to call anybody a tradesman, where +everybody is a merchant, resides above his store; so that many +occupations are often carried on in one house, and the whole front +is covered with boards and inscriptions. As I walked along, I kept +glancing up at these boards, confidently expecting to see a few of +them change into something; and I never turned a corner suddenly +without looking out for the clown and pantaloon, who, I had no +doubt, were hiding in a doorway or behind some pillar close at +hand. As to Harlequin and Columbine, I discovered immediately that +they lodged (they are always looking after lodgings in a pantomime) +at a very small clockmaker's one story high, near the hotel; which, +in addition to various symbols and devices, almost covering the +whole front, had a great dial hanging out - to be jumped through, +of course. + +The suburbs are, if possible, even more unsubstantial-looking than +the city. The white wooden houses (so white that it makes one wink +to look at them), with their green jalousie blinds, are so +sprinkled and dropped about in all directions, without seeming to +have any root at all in the ground; and the small churches and +chapels are so prim, and bright, and highly varnished; that I +almost believed the whole affair could be taken up piecemeal like a +child's toy, and crammed into a little box. + +The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to +impress all strangers very favourably. The private dwelling-houses +are, for the most part, large and elegant; the shops extremely +good; and the public buildings handsome. The State House is built +upon the summit of a hill, which rises gradually at first, and +afterwards by a steep ascent, almost from the water's edge. In +front is a green enclosure, called the Common. The site is +beautiful: and from the top there is a charming panoramic view of +the whole town and neighbourhood. In addition to a variety of +commodious offices, it contains two handsome chambers; in one the +House of Representatives of the State hold their meetings: in the +other, the Senate. Such proceedings as I saw here, were conducted +with perfect gravity and decorum; and were certainly calculated to +inspire attention and respect. + +There is no doubt that much of the intellectual refinement and +superiority of Boston, is referable to the quiet influence of the +University of Cambridge, which is within three or four miles of the +city. The resident professors at that university are gentlemen of +learning and varied attainments; and are, without one exception +that I can call to mind, men who would shed a grace upon, and do +honour to, any society in the civilised world. Many of the +resident gentry in Boston and its neighbourhood, and I think I am +not mistaken in adding, a large majority of those who are attached +to the liberal professions there, have been educated at this same +school. Whatever the defects of American universities may be, they +disseminate no prejudices; rear no bigots; dig up the buried ashes +of no old superstitions; never interpose between the people and +their improvement; exclude no man because of his religious +opinions; above all, in their whole course of study and +instruction, recognise a world, and a broad one too, lying beyond +the college walls. + +It was a source of inexpressible pleasure to me to observe the +almost imperceptible, but not less certain effect, wrought by this +institution among the small community of Boston; and to note at +every turn the humanising tastes and desires it has engendered; the +affectionate friendships to which it has given rise; the amount of +vanity and prejudice it has dispelled. The golden calf they +worship at Boston is a pigmy compared with the giant effigies set +up in other parts of that vast counting-house which lies beyond the +Atlantic; and the almighty dollar sinks into something +comparatively insignificant, amidst a whole Pantheon of better +gods. + +Above all, I sincerely believe that the public institutions and +charities of this capital of Massachusetts are as nearly perfect, +as the most considerate wisdom, benevolence, and humanity, can make +them. I never in my life was more affected by the contemplation of +happiness, under circumstances of privation and bereavement, than +in my visits to these establishments. + +It is a great and pleasant feature of all such institutions in +America, that they are either supported by the State or assisted by +the State; or (in the event of their not needing its helping hand) +that they act in concert with it, and are emphatically the +people's. I cannot but think, with a view to the principle and its +tendency to elevate or depress the character of the industrious +classes, that a Public Charity is immeasurably better than a +Private Foundation, no matter how munificently the latter may be +endowed. In our own country, where it has not, until within these +later days, been a very popular fashion with governments to display +any extraordinary regard for the great mass of the people or to +recognise their existence as improvable creatures, private +charities, unexampled in the history of the earth, have arisen, to +do an incalculable amount of good among the destitute and +afflicted. But the government of the country, having neither act +nor part in them, is not in the receipt of any portion of the +gratitude they inspire; and, offering very little shelter or relief +beyond that which is to be found in the workhouse and the jail, has +come, not unnaturally, to be looked upon by the poor rather as a +stern master, quick to correct and punish, than a kind protector, +merciful and vigilant in their hour of need. + +The maxim that out of evil cometh good, is strongly illustrated by +these establishments at home; as the records of the Prerogative +Office in Doctors' Commons can abundantly prove. Some immensely +rich old gentleman or lady, surrounded by needy relatives, makes, +upon a low average, a will a-week. The old gentleman or lady, +never very remarkable in the best of times for good temper, is full +of aches and pains from head to foot; full of fancies and caprices; +full of spleen, distrust, suspicion, and dislike. To cancel old +wills, and invent new ones, is at last the sole business of such a +testator's existence; and relations and friends (some of whom have +been bred up distinctly to inherit a large share of the property, +and have been, from their cradles, specially disqualified from +devoting themselves to any useful pursuit, on that account) are so +often and so unexpectedly and summarily cut off, and reinstated, +and cut off again, that the whole family, down to the remotest +cousin, is kept in a perpetual fever. At length it becomes plain +that the old lady or gentleman has not long to live; and the +plainer this becomes, the more clearly the old lady or gentleman +perceives that everybody is in a conspiracy against their poor old +dying relative; wherefore the old lady or gentleman makes another +last will - positively the last this time - conceals the same in a +china teapot, and expires next day. Then it turns out, that the +whole of the real and personal estate is divided between half-a- +dozen charities; and that the dead and gone testator has in pure +spite helped to do a great deal of good, at the cost of an immense +amount of evil passion and misery. + +The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, at +Boston, is superintended by a body of trustees who make an annual +report to the corporation. The indigent blind of that state are +admitted gratuitously. Those from the adjoining state of +Connecticut, or from the states of Maine, Vermont, or New +Hampshire, are admitted by a warrant from the state to which they +respectively belong; or, failing that, must find security among +their friends, for the payment of about twenty pounds English for +their first year's board and instruction, and ten for the second. +'After the first year,' say the trustees, 'an account current will +be opened with each pupil; he will be charged with the actual cost +of his board, which will not exceed two dollars per week;' a trifle +more than eight shillings English; 'and he will be credited with +the amount paid for him by the state, or by his friends; also with +his earnings over and above the cost of the stock which he uses; so +that all his earnings over one dollar per week will be his own. By +the third year it will be known whether his earnings will more than +pay the actual cost of his board; if they should, he will have it +at his option to remain and receive his earnings, or not. Those +who prove unable to earn their own livelihood will not be retained; +as it is not desirable to convert the establishment into an alms- +house, or to retain any but working bees in the hive. Those who by +physical or mental imbecility are disqualified from work, are +thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious +community; and they can be better provided for in establishments +fitted for the infirm.' + +I went to see this place one very fine winter morning: an Italian +sky above, and the air so clear and bright on every side, that even +my eyes, which are none of the best, could follow the minute lines +and scraps of tracery in distant buildings. Like most other public +institutions in America, of the same class, it stands a mile or two +without the town, in a cheerful healthy spot; and is an airy, +spacious, handsome edifice. It is built upon a height, commanding +the harbour. When I paused for a moment at the door, and marked +how fresh and free the whole scene was - what sparkling bubbles +glanced upon the waves, and welled up every moment to the surface, +as though the world below, like that above, were radiant with the +bright day, and gushing over in its fulness of light: when I gazed +from sail to sail away upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of shining +white, the only cloud upon the still, deep, distant blue - and, +turning, saw a blind boy with his sightless face addressed that +way, as though he too had some sense within him of the glorious +distance: I felt a kind of sorrow that the place should be so very +light, and a strange wish that for his sake it were darker. It was +but momentary, of course, and a mere fancy, but I felt it keenly +for all that. + +The children were at their daily tasks in different rooms, except a +few who were already dismissed, and were at play. Here, as in many +institutions, no uniform is worn; and I was very glad of it, for +two reasons. Firstly, because I am sure that nothing but senseless +custom and want of thought would reconcile us to the liveries and +badges we are so fond of at home. Secondly, because the absence of +these things presents each child to the visitor in his or her own +proper character, with its individuality unimpaired; not lost in a +dull, ugly, monotonous repetition of the same unmeaning garb: +which is really an important consideration. The wisdom of +encouraging a little harmless pride in personal appearance even +among the blind, or the whimsical absurdity of considering charity +and leather breeches inseparable companions, as we do, requires no +comment. + +Good order, cleanliness, and comfort, pervaded every corner of the +building. The various classes, who were gathered round their +teachers, answered the questions put to them with readiness and +intelligence, and in a spirit of cheerful contest for precedence +which pleased me very much. Those who were at play, were gleesome +and noisy as other children. More spiritual and affectionate +friendships appeared to exist among them, than would be found among +other young persons suffering under no deprivation; but this I +expected and was prepared to find. It is a part of the great +scheme of Heaven's merciful consideration for the afflicted. + +In a portion of the building, set apart for that purpose, are work- +shops for blind persons whose education is finished, and who have +acquired a trade, but who cannot pursue it in an ordinary +manufactory because of their deprivation. Several people were at +work here; making brushes, mattresses, and so forth; and the +cheerfulness, industry, and good order discernible in every other +part of the building, extended to this department also. + +On the ringing of a bell, the pupils all repaired, without any +guide or leader, to a spacious music-hall, where they took their +seats in an orchestra erected for that purpose, and listened with +manifest delight to a voluntary on the organ, played by one of +themselves. At its conclusion, the performer, a boy of nineteen or +twenty, gave place to a girl; and to her accompaniment they all +sang a hymn, and afterwards a sort of chorus. It was very sad to +look upon and hear them, happy though their condition +unquestionably was; and I saw that one blind girl, who (being for +the time deprived of the use of her limbs, by illness) sat close +beside me with her face towards them, wept silently the while she +listened. + +It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how free +they are from all concealment of what is passing in their thoughts; +observing which, a man with eyes may blush to contemplate the mask +he wears. Allowing for one shade of anxious expression which is +never absent from their countenances, and the like of which we may +readily detect in our own faces if we try to feel our way in the +dark, every idea, as it rises within them, is expressed with the +lightning's speed and nature's truth. If the company at a rout, or +drawing-room at court, could only for one time be as unconscious of +the eyes upon them as blind men and women are, what secrets would +come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight, the loss of +which we so much pity, would appear to be! + +The thought occurred to me as I sat down in another room, before a +girl, blind, deaf, and dumb; destitute of smell; and nearly so of +taste: before a fair young creature with every human faculty, and +hope, and power of goodness and affection, inclosed within her +delicate frame, and but one outward sense - the sense of touch. +There she was, before me; built up, as it were, in a marble cell, +impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound; with her poor +white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some +good man for help, that an Immortal soul might be awakened. + +Long before I looked upon her, the help had come. Her face was +radiant with intelligence and pleasure. Her hair, braided by her +own hands, was bound about a head, whose intellectual capacity and +development were beautifully expressed in its graceful outline, and +its broad open brow; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern +of neatness and simplicity; the work she had knitted, lay beside +her; her writing-book was on the desk she leaned upon. - From the +mournful ruin of such bereavement, there had slowly risen up this +gentle, tender, guileless, grateful-hearted being. + +Like other inmates of that house, she had a green ribbon bound +round her eyelids. A doll she had dressed lay near upon the +ground. I took it up, and saw that she had made a green fillet +such as she wore herself, and fastened it about its mimic eyes. + +She was seated in a little enclosure, made by school-desks and +forms, writing her daily journal. But soon finishing this pursuit, +she engaged in an animated conversation with a teacher who sat +beside her. This was a favourite mistress with the poor pupil. If +she could see the face of her fair instructress, she would not love +her less, I am sure. + +I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history, from an +account, written by that one man who has made her what she is. It +is a very beautiful and touching narrative; and I wish I could +present it entire. + +Her name is Laura Bridgman. 'She was born in Hanover, New +Hampshire, on the twenty-first of December, 1829. She is described +as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue +eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble until she was a year +and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She was +subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost +beyond her power of endurance: and life was held by the feeblest +tenure: but when a year and a half old, she seemed to rally; the +dangerous symptoms subsided; and at twenty months old, she was +perfectly well. + +'Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in their growth, rapidly +developed themselves; and during the four months of health which +she enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance for a fond mother's +account) to have displayed a considerable degree of intelligence. + +'But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with great +violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed, +suppurated, and their contents were discharged. But though sight +and hearing were gone for ever, the poor child's sufferings were +not ended. The fever raged during seven weeks; for five months she +was kept in bed in a darkened room; it was a year before she could +walk unsupported, and two years before she could sit up all day. +It was now observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely +destroyed; and, consequently, that her taste was much blunted. + +'It was not until four years of age that the poor child's bodily +health seemed restored, and she was able to enter upon her +apprenticeship of life and the world. + +'But what a situation was hers! The darkness and the silence of +the tomb were around her: no mother's smile called forth her +answering smile, no father's voice taught her to imitate his +sounds:- they, brothers and sisters, were but forms of matter which +resisted her touch, but which differed not from the furniture of +the house, save in warmth, and in the power of locomotion; and not +even in these respects from the dog and the cat. + +'But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within her could +not die, nor be maimed nor mutilated; and though most of its +avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it began to +manifest itself through the others. As soon as she could walk, she +began to explore the room, and then the house; she became familiar +with the form, density, weight, and heat, of every article she +could lay her hands upon. She followed her mother, and felt her +hands and arms, as she was occupied about the house; and her +disposition to imitate, led her to repeat everything herself. She +even learned to sew a little, and to knit.' + +The reader will scarcely need to be told, however, that the +opportunities of communicating with her, were very, very limited; +and that the moral effects of her wretched state soon began to +appear. Those who cannot be enlightened by reason, can only be +controlled by force; and this, coupled with her great privations, +must soon have reduced her to a worse condition than that of the +beasts that perish, but for timely and unhoped-for aid. + +'At this time, I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and +immediately hastened to Hanover to see her. I found her with a +well-formed figure; a strongly-marked, nervous-sanguine +temperament; a large and beautifully-shaped head; and the whole +system in healthy action. The parents were easily induced to +consent to her coming to Boston, and on the 4th of October, 1837, +they brought her to the Institution. + +'For a while, she was much bewildered; and after waiting about two +weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality, and +somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to give +her knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could interchange +thoughts with others. + +'There was one of two ways to be adopted: either to go on to build +up a language of signs on the basis of the natural language which +she had already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely +arbitrary language in common use: that is, to give her a sign for +every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters by +combination of which she might express her idea of the existence, +and the mode and condition of existence, of any thing. The former +would have been easy, but very ineffectual; the latter seemed very +difficult, but, if accomplished, very effectual. I determined +therefore to try the latter. + +'The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use, +such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c., and pasting upon them +labels with their names printed in raised letters. These she felt +very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked +lines SPOON, differed as much from the crooked lines KEY, as the +spoon differed from the key in form. + +'Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, +were put into her hands; and she soon observed that they were +similar to the ones pasted on the articles.' She showed her +perception of this similarity by laying the label KEY upon the key, +and the label SPOON upon the spoon. She was encouraged here by the +natural sign of approbation, patting on the head. + +'The same process was then repeated with all the articles which she +could handle; and she very easily learned to place the proper +labels upon them. It was evident, however, that the only +intellectual exercise was that of imitation and memory. She +recollected that the label BOOK was placed upon a book, and she +repeated the process first from imitation, next from memory, with +only the motive of love of approbation, but apparently without the +intellectual perception of any relation between the things. + +'After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were +given to her on detached bits of paper: they were arranged side by +side so as to spell BOOK, KEY, &c.; then they were mixed up in a +heap and a sign was made for her to arrange them herself so as to +express the words BOOK, KEY, &c.; and she did so. + +'Hitherto, the process had been mechanical, and the success about +as great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks. The +poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated +everything her teacher did; but now the truth began to flash upon +her: her intellect began to work: she perceived that here was a +way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was +in her own mind, and show it to another mind; and at once her +countenance lighted up with a human expression: it was no longer a +dog, or parrot: it was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a +new link of union with other spirits! I could almost fix upon the +moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light +to her countenance; I saw that the great obstacle was overcome; and +that henceforward nothing but patient and persevering, but plain +and straightforward, efforts were to be used. + +'The result thus far, is quickly related, and easily conceived; but +not so was the process; for many weeks of apparently unprofitable +labour were passed before it was effected. + +'When it was said above that a sign was made, it was intended to +say, that the action was performed by her teacher, she feeling his +hands, and then imitating the motion. + +'The next step was to procure a set of metal types, with the +different letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends; also a +board, in which were square holes, into which holes she could set +the types; so that the letters on their ends could alone be felt +above the surface. + +'Then, on any article being handed to her, for instance, a pencil, +or a watch, she would select the component letters, and arrange +them on her board, and read them with apparent pleasure. + +'She was exercised for several weeks in this way, until her +vocabulary became extensive; and then the important step was taken +of teaching her how to represent the different letters by the +position of her fingers, instead of the cumbrous apparatus of the +board and types. She accomplished this speedily and easily, for +her intellect had begun to work in aid of her teacher, and her +progress was rapid. + +'This was the period, about three months after she had commenced, +that the first report of her case was made, in which it was stated +that "she has just learned the manual alphabet, as used by the deaf +mutes, and it is a subject of delight and wonder to see how +rapidly, correctly, and eagerly, she goes on with her labours. Her +teacher gives her a new object, for instance, a pencil, first lets +her examine it, and get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to +spell it by making the signs for the letters with her own fingers: +the child grasps her hand, and feels her fingers, as the different +letters are formed; she turns her head a little on one side like a +person listening closely; her lips are apart; she seems scarcely to +breathe; and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes +to a smile, as she comprehends the lesson. She then holds up her +tiny fingers, and spells the word in the manual alphabet; next, she +takes her types and arranges her letters; and last, to make sure +that she is right, she takes the whole of the types composing the +word, and places them upon or in contact with the pencil, or +whatever the object may be." + +'The whole of the succeeding year was passed in gratifying her +eager inquiries for the names of every object which she could +possibly handle; in exercising her in the use of the manual +alphabet; in extending in every possible way her knowledge of the +physical relations of things; and in proper care of her health. + +'At the end of the year a report of her case was made, from which +the following is an extract. + +'"It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt, that she +cannot see a ray of light, cannot hear the least sound, and never +exercises her sense of smell, if she have any. Thus her mind +dwells in darkness and stillness, as profound as that of a closed +tomb at midnight. Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and +pleasant odours, she has no conception; nevertheless, she seems as +happy and playful as a bird or a lamb; and the employment of her +intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her +a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her expressive +features. She never seems to repine, but has all the buoyancy and +gaiety of childhood. She is fond of fun and frolic, and when +playing with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds +loudest of the group. + +'"When left alone, she seems very happy if she have her knitting or +sewing, and will busy herself for hours; if she have no occupation, +she evidently amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by +recalling past impressions; she counts with her fingers, or spells +out names of things which she has recently learned, in the manual +alphabet of the deaf mutes. In this lonely self-communion she +seems to reason, reflect, and argue; if she spell a word wrong with +the fingers of her right hand, she instantly strikes it with her +left, as her teacher does, in sign of disapprobation; if right, +then she pats herself upon the head, and looks pleased. She +sometimes purposely spells a word wrong with the left hand, looks +roguish for a moment and laughs, and then with the right hand +strikes the left, as if to correct it. + +'"During the year she has attained great dexterity in the use of +the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes; and she spells out the words +and sentences which she knows, so fast and so deftly, that only +those accustomed to this language can follow with the eye the rapid +motions of her fingers. + +'"But wonderful as is the rapidity with which she writes her +thoughts upon the air, still more so is the ease and accuracy with +which she reads the words thus written by another; grasping their +hands in hers, and following every movement of their fingers, as +letter after letter conveys their meaning to her mind. It is in +this way that she converses with her blind playmates, and nothing +can more forcibly show the power of mind in forcing matter to its +purpose than a meeting between them. For if great talent and skill +are necessary for two pantomimes to paint their thoughts and +feelings by the movements of the body, and the expression of the +countenance, how much greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds +them both, and the one can hear no sound. + +'"When Laura is walking through a passage-way, with her hands +spread before her, she knows instantly every one she meets, and +passes them with a sign of recognition: but if it be a girl of her +own age, and especially if it be one of her favourites, there is +instantly a bright smile of recognition, a twining of arms, a +grasping of hands, and a swift telegraphing upon the tiny fingers; +whose rapid evolutions convey the thoughts and feelings from the +outposts of one mind to those of the other. There are questions +and answers, exchanges of joy or sorrow, there are kissings and +partings, just as between little children with all their senses." + +'During this year, and six months after she had left home, her +mother came to visit her, and the scene of their meeting was an +interesting one. + +'The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing eyes upon her +unfortunate child, who, all unconscious of her presence, was +playing about the room. Presently Laura ran against her, and at +once began feeling her hands, examining her dress, and trying to +find out if she knew her; but not succeeding in this, she turned +away as from a stranger, and the poor woman could not conceal the +pang she felt, at finding that her beloved child did not know her. + +'She then gave Laura a string of beads which she used to wear at +home, which were recognised by the child at once, who, with much +joy, put them around her neck, and sought me eagerly to say she +understood the string was from her home. + +'The mother now sought to caress her, but poor Laura repelled her, +preferring to be with her acquaintances. + +'Another article from home was now given her, and she began to look +much interested; she examined the stranger much closer, and gave me +to understand that she knew she came from Hanover; she even endured +her caresses, but would leave her with indifference at the +slightest signal. The distress of the mother was now painful to +behold; for, although she had feared that she should not be +recognised, the painful reality of being treated with cold +indifference by a darling child, was too much for woman's nature to +bear. + +'After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again, a vague +idea seemed to flit across Laura's mind, that this could not be a +stranger; she therefore felt her hands very eagerly, while her +countenance assumed an expression of intense interest; she became +very pale; and then suddenly red; hope seemed struggling with doubt +and anxiety, and never were contending emotions more strongly +painted upon the human face: at this moment of painful +uncertainty, the mother drew her close to her side, and kissed her +fondly, when at once the truth flashed upon the child, and all +mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, as with an +expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her +parent, and yielded herself to her fond embraces. + +'After this, the beads were all unheeded; the playthings which were +offered to her were utterly disregarded; her playmates, for whom +but a moment before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove +to pull her from her mother; and though she yielded her usual +instantaneous obedience to my signal to follow me, it was evidently +with painful reluctance. She clung close to me, as if bewildered +and fearful; and when, after a moment, I took her to her mother, +she sprang to her arms, and clung to her with eager joy. + +'The subsequent parting between them, showed alike the affection, +the intelligence, and the resolution of the child. + +'Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging close to her +all the way, until they arrived at the threshold, where she paused, +and felt around, to ascertain who was near her. Perceiving the +matron, of whom she is very fond, she grasped her with one hand, +holding on convulsively to her mother with the other; and thus she +stood for a moment: then she dropped her mother's hand; put her +handkerchief to her eyes; and turning round, clung sobbing to the +matron; while her mother departed, with emotions as deep as those +of her child. + +* * * * * * + +'It has been remarked in former reports, that she can distinguish +different degrees of intellect in others, and that she soon +regarded, almost with contempt, a new-comer, when, after a few +days, she discovered her weakness of mind. This unamiable part of +her character has been more strongly developed during the past +year. + +'She chooses for her friends and companions, those children who are +intelligent, and can talk best with her; and she evidently dislikes +to be with those who are deficient in intellect, unless, indeed, +she can make them serve her purposes, which she is evidently +inclined to do. She takes advantage of them, and makes them wait +upon her, in a manner that she knows she could not exact of others; +and in various ways shows her Saxon blood. + +'She is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the +teachers, and those whom she respects; but this must not be carried +too far, or she becomes jealous. She wants to have her share, +which, if not the lion's, is the greater part; and if she does not +get it, she says, "MY MOTHER WILL LOVE ME." + +'Her tendency to imitation is so strong, that it leads her to +actions which must be entirely incomprehensible to her, and which +can give her no other pleasure than the gratification of an +internal faculty. She has been known to sit for half an hour, +holding a book before her sightless eyes, and moving her lips, as +she has observed seeing people do when reading. + +'She one day pretended that her doll was sick; and went through all +the motions of tending it, and giving it medicine; she then put it +carefully to bed, and placed a bottle of hot water to its feet, +laughing all the time most heartily. When I came home, she +insisted upon my going to see it, and feel its pulse; and when I +told her to put a blister on its back, she seemed to enjoy it +amazingly, and almost screamed with delight. + +'Her social feelings, and her affections, are very strong; and when +she is sitting at work, or at her studies, by the side of one of +her little friends, she will break off from her task every few +moments, to hug and kiss them with an earnestness and warmth that +is touching to behold. + +'When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses herself, and +seems quite contented; and so strong seems to be the natural +tendency of thought to put on the garb of language, that she often +soliloquizes in the FINGER LANGUAGE, slow and tedious as it is. +But it is only when alone, that she is quiet: for if she becomes +sensible of the presence of any one near her, she is restless until +she can sit close beside them, hold their hand, and converse with +them by signs. + +'In her intellectual character it is pleasing to observe an +insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a quick perception of the +relations of things. In her moral character, it is beautiful to +behold her continual gladness, her keen enjoyment of existence, her +expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her sympathy with +suffering, her conscientiousness, truthfulness, and hopefulness.' + +Such are a few fragments from the simple but most interesting and +instructive history of Laura Bridgman. The name of her great +benefactor and friend, who writes it, is Dr. Howe. There are not +many persons, I hope and believe, who, after reading these +passages, can ever hear that name with indifference. + +A further account has been published by Dr. Howe, since the report +from which I have just quoted. It describes her rapid mental +growth and improvement during twelve months more, and brings her +little history down to the end of last year. It is very +remarkable, that as we dream in words, and carry on imaginary +conversations, in which we speak both for ourselves and for the +shadows who appear to us in those visions of the night, so she, +having no words, uses her finger alphabet in her sleep. And it has +been ascertained that when her slumber is broken, and is much +disturbed by dreams, she expresses her thoughts in an irregular and +confused manner on her fingers: just as we should murmur and +mutter them indistinctly, in the like circumstances. + +I turned over the leaves of her Diary, and found it written in a +fair legible square hand, and expressed in terms which were quite +intelligible without any explanation. On my saying that I should +like to see her write again, the teacher who sat beside her, bade +her, in their language, sign her name upon a slip of paper, twice +or thrice. In doing so, I observed that she kept her left hand +always touching, and following up, her right, in which, of course, +she held the pen. No line was indicated by any contrivance, but +she wrote straight and freely. + +She had, until now, been quite unconscious of the presence of +visitors; but, having her hand placed in that of the gentleman who +accompanied me, she immediately expressed his name upon her +teacher's palm. Indeed her sense of touch is now so exquisite, +that having been acquainted with a person once, she can recognise +him or her after almost any interval. This gentleman had been in +her company, I believe, but very seldom, and certainly had not seen +her for many months. My hand she rejected at once, as she does +that of any man who is a stranger to her. But she retained my +wife's with evident pleasure, kissed her, and examed her dress with +a girl's curiosity and interest. + +She was merry and cheerful, and showed much innocent playfulness in +her intercourse with her teacher. Her delight on recognising a +favourite playfellow and companion - herself a blind girl - who +silently, and with an equal enjoyment of the coming surprise, took +a seat beside her, was beautiful to witness. It elicited from her +at first, as other slight circumstances did twice or thrice during +my visit, an uncouth noise which was rather painful to hear. But +of her teacher touching her lips, she immediately desisted, and +embraced her laughingly and affectionately. + +I had previously been into another chamber, where a number of blind +boys were swinging, and climbing, and engaged in various sports. +They all clamoured, as we entered, to the assistant-master, who +accompanied us, 'Look at me, Mr. Hart! Please, Mr. Hart, look at +me!' evincing, I thought, even in this, an anxiety peculiar to +their condition, that their little feats of agility should be SEEN. +Among them was a small laughing fellow, who stood aloof, +entertaining himself with a gymnastic exercise for bringing the +arms and chest into play; which he enjoyed mightily; especially +when, in thrusting out his right arm, he brought it into contact +with another boy. Like Laura Bridgman, this young child was deaf, +and dumb, and blind. + +Dr. Howe's account of this pupil's first instruction is so very +striking, and so intimately connected with Laura herself, that I +cannot refrain from a short extract. I may premise that the poor +boy's name is Oliver Caswell; that he is thirteen years of age; and +that he was in full possession of all his faculties, until three +years and four months old. He was then attacked by scarlet fever; +in four weeks became deaf; in a few weeks more, blind; in six +months, dumb. He showed his anxious sense of this last +deprivation, by often feeling the lips of other persons when they +were talking, and then putting his hand upon his own, as if to +assure himself that he had them in the right position. + +'His thirst for knowledge,' says Dr. Howe, 'proclaimed itself as +soon as he entered the house, by his eager examination of +everything he could feel or smell in his new location. For +instance, treading upon the register of a furnace, he instantly +stooped down, and began to feel it, and soon discovered the way in +which the upper plate moved upon the lower one; but this was not +enough for him, so lying down upon his face, he applied his tongue +first to one, then to the other, and seemed to discover that they +were of different kinds of metal. + +'His signs were expressive: and the strictly natural language, +laughing, crying, sighing, kissing, embracing, &c., was perfect. + +'Some of the analogical signs which (guided by his faculty of +imitation) he had contrived, were comprehensible; such as the +waving motion of his hand for the motion of a boat, the circular +one for a wheel, &c. + +'The first object was to break up the use of these signs and to +substitute for them the use of purely arbitrary ones. + +'Profiting by the experience I had gained in the other cases, I +omitted several steps of the process before employed, and commenced +at once with the finger language. Taking, therefore, several +articles having short names, such as key, cup, mug, &c., and with +Laura for an auxiliary, I sat down, and taking his hand, placed it +upon one of them, and then with my own, made the letters KEY. He +felt my hands eagerly with both of his, and on my repeating the +process, he evidently tried to imitate the motions of my fingers. +In a few minutes he contrived to feel the motions of my fingers +with one hand, and holding out the other he tried to imitate them, +laughing most heartily when he succeeded. Laura was by, interested +even to agitation; and the two presented a singular sight: her +face was flushed and anxious, and her fingers twining in among ours +so closely as to follow every motion, but so slightly as not to +embarrass them; while Oliver stood attentive, his head a little +aside, his face turned up, his left hand grasping mine, and his +right held out: at every motion of my fingers his countenance +betokened keen attention; there was an expression of anxiety as he +tried to imitate the motions; then a smile came stealing out as he +thought he could do so, and spread into a joyous laugh the moment +he succeeded, and felt me pat his head, and Laura clap him heartily +upon the back, and jump up and down in her joy. + +'He learned more than a half-dozen letters in half an hour, and +seemed delighted with his success, at least in gaining approbation. +His attention then began to flag, and I commenced playing with him. +It was evident that in all this he had merely been imitating the +motions of my fingers, and placing his hand upon the key, cup, &c., +as part of the process, without any perception of the relation +between the sign and the object. + +'When he was tired with play I took him back to the table, and he +was quite ready to begin again his process of imitation. He soon +learned to make the letters for KEY, PEN, PIN; and by having the +object repeatedly placed in his hand, he at last perceived the +relation I wished to establish between them. This was evident, +because, when I made the letters PIN, or PEN, or CUP, he would +select the article. + +'The perception of this relation was not accompanied by that +radiant flash of intelligence, and that glow of joy, which marked +the delightful moment when Laura first perceived it. I then placed +all the articles on the table, and going away a little distance +with the children, placed Oliver's fingers in the positions to +spell KEY, on which Laura went and brought the article: the little +fellow seemed much amused by this, and looked very attentive and +smiling. I then caused him to make the letters BREAD, and in an +instant Laura went and brought him a piece: he smelled at it; put +it to his lips; cocked up his head with a most knowing look; seemed +to reflect a moment; and then laughed outright, as much as to say, +"Aha! I understand now how something may be made out of this." + +'It was now clear that he had the capacity and inclination to +learn, that he was a proper subject for instruction, and needed +only persevering attention. I therefore put him in the hands of an +intelligent teacher, nothing doubting of his rapid progress.' + +Well may this gentleman call that a delightful moment, in which +some distant promise of her present state first gleamed upon the +darkened mind of Laura Bridgman. Throughout his life, the +recollection of that moment will be to him a source of pure, +unfading happiness; nor will it shine less brightly on the evening +of his days of Noble Usefulness. + +The affection which exists between these two - the master and the +pupil - is as far removed from all ordinary care and regard, as the +circumstances in which it has had its growth, are apart from the +common occurrences of life. He is occupied now, in devising means +of imparting to her, higher knowledge; and of conveying to her some +adequate idea of the Great Creator of that universe in which, dark +and silent and scentless though it be to her, she has such deep +delight and glad enjoyment. + +Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not; ye who +are as the hypocrites of sad countenances, and disfigure your faces +that ye may seem unto men to fast; learn healthy cheerfulness, and +mild contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and blind! Self-elected +saints with gloomy brows, this sightless, earless, voiceless child +may teach you lessons you will do well to follow. Let that poor +hand of hers lie gently on your hearts; for there may be something +in its healing touch akin to that of the Great Master whose +precepts you misconstrue, whose lessons you pervert, of whose +charity and sympathy with all the world, not one among you in his +daily practice knows as much as many of the worst among those +fallen sinners, to whom you are liberal in nothing but the +preachment of perdition! + +As I rose to quit the room, a pretty little child of one of the +attendants came running in to greet its father. For the moment, a +child with eyes, among the sightless crowd, impressed me almost as +painfully as the blind boy in the porch had done, two hours ago. +Ah! how much brighter and more deeply blue, glowing and rich though +it had been before, was the scene without, contrasting with the +darkness of so many youthful lives within! + +* * * * * * + +At SOUTH BOSTON, as it is called, in a situation excellently +adapted for the purpose, several charitable institutions are +clustered together. One of these, is the State Hospital for the +insane; admirably conducted on those enlightened principles of +conciliation and kindness, which twenty years ago would have been +worse than heretical, and which have been acted upon with so much +success in our own pauper Asylum at Hanwell. 'Evince a desire to +show some confidence, and repose some trust, even in mad people,' +said the resident physician, as we walked along the galleries, his +patients flocking round us unrestrained. Of those who deny or +doubt the wisdom of this maxim after witnessing its effects, if +there be such people still alive, I can only say that I hope I may +never be summoned as a Juryman on a Commission of Lunacy whereof +they are the subjects; for I should certainly find them out of +their senses, on such evidence alone. + +Each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or +hall, with the dormitories of the patients opening from it on +either hand. Here they work, read, play at skittles, and other +games; and when the weather does not admit of their taking exercise +out of doors, pass the day together. In one of these rooms, +seated, calmly, and quite as a matter of course, among a throng of +mad-women, black and white, were the physician's wife and another +lady, with a couple of children. These ladies were graceful and +handsome; and it was not difficult to perceive at a glance that +even their presence there, had a highly beneficial influence on the +patients who were grouped about them. + +Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great assumption +of dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as +many scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire herself. Her head in +particular was so strewn with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits +of paper, and had so many queer odds and ends stuck all about it, +that it looked like a bird's-nest. She was radiant with imaginary +jewels; wore a rich pair of undoubted gold spectacles; and +gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we approached, a very old +greasy newspaper, in which I dare say she had been reading an +account of her own presentation at some Foreign Court. + +I have been thus particular in describing her, because she will +serve to exemplify the physician's manner of acquiring and +retaining the confidence of his patients. + +'This,' he said aloud, taking me by the hand, and advancing to the +fantastic figure with great politeness - not raising her suspicions +by the slightest look or whisper, or any kind of aside, to me: +'This lady is the hostess of this mansion, sir. It belongs to her. +Nobody else has anything whatever to do with it. It is a large +establishment, as you see, and requires a great number of +attendants. She lives, you observe, in the very first style. She +is kind enough to receive my visits, and to permit my wife and +family to reside here; for which it is hardly necessary to say, we +are much indebted to her. She is exceedingly courteous, you +perceive,' on this hint she bowed condescendingly, 'and will permit +me to have the pleasure of introducing you: a gentleman from +England, Ma'am: newly arrived from England, after a very +tempestuous passage: Mr. Dickens, - the lady of the house!' + +We exchanged the most dignified salutations with profound gravity +and respect, and so went on. The rest of the madwomen seemed to +understand the joke perfectly (not only in this case, but in all +the others, except their own), and be highly amused by it. The +nature of their several kinds of insanity was made known to me in +the same way, and we left each of them in high good humour. Not +only is a thorough confidence established, by those means, between +the physician and patient, in respect of the nature and extent of +their hallucinations, but it is easy to understand that +opportunities are afforded for seizing any moment of reason, to +startle them by placing their own delusion before them in its most +incongruous and ridiculous light. + +Every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day with a +knife and fork; and in the midst of them sits the gentleman, whose +manner of dealing with his charges, I have just described. At +every meal, moral influence alone restrains the more violent among +them from cutting the throats of the rest; but the effect of that +influence is reduced to an absolute certainty, and is found, even +as a means of restraint, to say nothing of it as a means of cure, a +hundred times more efficacious than all the strait-waistcoats, +fetters, and handcuffs, that ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty have +manufactured since the creation of the world. + +In the labour department, every patient is as freely trusted with +the tools of his trade as if he were a sane man. In the garden, +and on the farm, they work with spades, rakes, and hoes. For +amusement, they walk, run, fish, paint, read, and ride out to take +the air in carriages provided for the purpose. They have among +themselves a sewing society to make clothes for the poor, which +holds meetings, passes resolutions, never comes to fisty-cuffs or +bowie-knives as sane assemblies have been known to do elsewhere; +and conducts all its proceedings with the greatest decorum. The +irritability, which would otherwise be expended on their own flesh, +clothes, and furniture, is dissipated in these pursuits. They are +cheerful, tranquil, and healthy. + +Once a week they have a ball, in which the Doctor and his family, +with all the nurses and attendants, take an active part. Dances +and marches are performed alternately, to the enlivening strains of +a piano; and now and then some gentleman or lady (whose proficiency +has been previously ascertained) obliges the company with a song: +nor does it ever degenerate, at a tender crisis, into a screech or +howl; wherein, I must confess, I should have thought the danger +lay. At an early hour they all meet together for these festive +purposes; at eight o'clock refreshments are served; and at nine +they separate. + +Immense politeness and good breeding are observed throughout. They +all take their tone from the Doctor; and he moves a very +Chesterfield among the company. Like other assemblies, these +entertainments afford a fruitful topic of conversation among the +ladies for some days; and the gentlemen are so anxious to shine on +these occasions, that they have been sometimes found 'practising +their steps' in private, to cut a more distinguished figure in the +dance. + +It is obvious that one great feature of this system, is the +inculcation and encouragement, even among such unhappy persons, of +a decent self-respect. Something of the same spirit pervades all +the Institutions at South Boston. + +There is the House of Industry. In that branch of it, which is +devoted to the reception of old or otherwise helpless paupers, +these words are painted on the walls: 'WORTHY OF NOTICE. SELF- +GOVERNMENT, QUIETUDE, AND PEACE, ARE BLESSINGS.' It is not assumed +and taken for granted that being there they must be evil-disposed +and wicked people, before whose vicious eyes it is necessary to +flourish threats and harsh restraints. They are met at the very +threshold with this mild appeal. All within-doors is very plain +and simple, as it ought to be, but arranged with a view to peace +and comfort. It costs no more than any other plan of arrangement, +but it speaks an amount of consideration for those who are reduced +to seek a shelter there, which puts them at once upon their +gratitude and good behaviour. Instead of being parcelled out in +great, long, rambling wards, where a certain amount of weazen life +may mope, and pine, and shiver, all day long, the building is +divided into separate rooms, each with its share of light and air. +In these, the better kind of paupers live. They have a motive for +exertion and becoming pride, in the desire to make these little +chambers comfortable and decent. + +I do not remember one but it was clean and neat, and had its plant +or two upon the window-sill, or row of crockery upon the shelf, or +small display of coloured prints upon the whitewashed wall, or, +perhaps, its wooden clock behind the door. + +The orphans and young children are in an adjoining building +separate from this, but a part of the same Institution. Some are +such little creatures, that the stairs are of Lilliputian +measurement, fitted to their tiny strides. The same consideration +for their years and weakness is expressed in their very seats, +which are perfect curiosities, and look like articles of furniture +for a pauper doll's-house. I can imagine the glee of our Poor Law +Commissioners at the notion of these seats having arms and backs; +but small spines being of older date than their occupation of the +Board-room at Somerset House, I thought even this provision very +merciful and kind. + +Here again, I was greatly pleased with the inscriptions on the +wall, which were scraps of plain morality, easily remembered and +understood: such as 'Love one another' - 'God remembers the +smallest creature in his creation:' and straightforward advice of +that nature. The books and tasks of these smallest of scholars, +were adapted, in the same judicious manner, to their childish +powers. When we had examined these lessons, four morsels of girls +(of whom one was blind) sang a little song, about the merry month +of May, which I thought (being extremely dismal) would have suited +an English November better. That done, we went to see their +sleeping-rooms on the floor above, in which the arrangements were +no less excellent and gentle than those we had seen below. And +after observing that the teachers were of a class and character +well suited to the spirit of the place, I took leave of the infants +with a lighter heart than ever I have taken leave of pauper infants +yet. + +Connected with the House of Industry, there is also an Hospital, +which was in the best order, and had, I am glad to say, many beds +unoccupied. It had one fault, however, which is common to all +American interiors: the presence of the eternal, accursed, +suffocating, red-hot demon of a stove, whose breath would blight +the purest air under Heaven. + +There are two establishments for boys in this same neighbourhood. +One is called the Boylston school, and is an asylum for neglected +and indigent boys who have committed no crime, but who in the +ordinary course of things would very soon be purged of that +distinction if they were not taken from the hungry streets and sent +here. The other is a House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders. +They are both under the same roof, but the two classes of boys +never come in contact. + +The Boylston boys, as may be readily supposed, have very much the +advantage of the others in point of personal appearance. They were +in their school-room when I came upon them, and answered correctly, +without book, such questions as where was England; how far was it; +what was its population; its capital city; its form of government; +and so forth. They sang a song too, about a farmer sowing his +seed: with corresponding action at such parts as ''tis thus he +sows,' 'he turns him round,' 'he claps his hands;' which gave it +greater interest for them, and accustomed them to act together, in +an orderly manner. They appeared exceedingly well-taught, and not +better taught than fed; for a more chubby-looking full-waistcoated +set of boys, I never saw. + +The juvenile offenders had not such pleasant faces by a great deal, +and in this establishment there were many boys of colour. I saw +them first at their work (basket-making, and the manufacture of +palm-leaf hats), afterwards in their school, where they sang a +chorus in praise of Liberty: an odd, and, one would think, rather +aggravating, theme for prisoners. These boys are divided into four +classes, each denoted by a numeral, worn on a badge upon the arm. +On the arrival of a new-comer, he is put into the fourth or lowest +class, and left, by good behaviour, to work his way up into the +first. The design and object of this Institution is to reclaim the +youthful criminal by firm but kind and judicious treatment; to make +his prison a place of purification and improvement, not of +demoralisation and corruption; to impress upon him that there is +but one path, and that one sober industry, which can ever lead him +to happiness; to teach him how it may be trodden, if his footsteps +have never yet been led that way; and to lure him back to it if +they have strayed: in a word, to snatch him from destruction, and +restore him to society a penitent and useful member. The +importance of such an establishment, in every point of view, and +with reference to every consideration of humanity and social +policy, requires no comment. + +One other establishment closes the catalogue. It is the House of +Correction for the State, in which silence is strictly maintained, +but where the prisoners have the comfort and mental relief of +seeing each other, and of working together. This is the improved +system of Prison Discipline which we have imported into England, +and which has been in successful operation among us for some years +past. + +America, as a new and not over-populated country, has in all her +prisons, the one great advantage, of being enabled to find useful +and profitable work for the inmates; whereas, with us, the +prejudice against prison labour is naturally very strong, and +almost insurmountable, when honest men who have not offended +against the laws are frequently doomed to seek employment in vain. +Even in the United States, the principle of bringing convict labour +and free labour into a competition which must obviously be to the +disadvantage of the latter, has already found many opponents, whose +number is not likely to diminish with access of years. + +For this very reason though, our best prisons would seem at the +first glance to be better conducted than those of America. The +treadmill is conducted with little or no noise; five hundred men +may pick oakum in the same room, without a sound; and both kinds of +labour admit of such keen and vigilant superintendence, as will +render even a word of personal communication amongst the prisoners +almost impossible. On the other hand, the noise of the loom, the +forge, the carpenter's hammer, or the stonemason's saw, greatly +favour those opportunities of intercourse - hurried and brief no +doubt, but opportunities still - which these several kinds of work, +by rendering it necessary for men to be employed very near to each +other, and often side by side, without any barrier or partition +between them, in their very nature present. A visitor, too, +requires to reason and reflect a little, before the sight of a +number of men engaged in ordinary labour, such as he is accustomed +to out of doors, will impress him half as strongly as the +contemplation of the same persons in the same place and garb would, +if they were occupied in some task, marked and degraded everywhere +as belonging only to felons in jails. In an American state prison +or house of correction, I found it difficult at first to persuade +myself that I was really in a jail: a place of ignominious +punishment and endurance. And to this hour I very much question +whether the humane boast that it is not like one, has its root in +the true wisdom or philosophy of the matter. + +I hope I may not be misunderstood on this subject, for it is one in +which I take a strong and deep interest. I incline as little to +the sickly feeling which makes every canting lie or maudlin speech +of a notorious criminal a subject of newspaper report and general +sympathy, as I do to those good old customs of the good old times +which made England, even so recently as in the reign of the Third +King George, in respect of her criminal code and her prison +regulations, one of the most bloody-minded and barbarous countries +on the earth. If I thought it would do any good to the rising +generation, I would cheerfully give my consent to the disinterment +of the bones of any genteel highwayman (the more genteel, the more +cheerfully), and to their exposure, piecemeal, on any sign-post, +gate, or gibbet, that might be deemed a good elevation for the +purpose. My reason is as well convinced that these gentry were as +utterly worthless and debauched villains, as it is that the laws +and jails hardened them in their evil courses, or that their +wonderful escapes were effected by the prison-turnkeys who, in +those admirable days, had always been felons themselves, and were, +to the last, their bosom-friends and pot-companions. At the same +time I know, as all men do or should, that the subject of Prison +Discipline is one of the highest importance to any community; and +that in her sweeping reform and bright example to other countries +on this head, America has shown great wisdom, great benevolence, +and exalted policy. In contrasting her system with that which we +have modelled upon it, I merely seek to show that with all its +drawbacks, ours has some advantages of its own. + +The House of Correction which has led to these remarks, is not +walled, like other prisons, but is palisaded round about with tall +rough stakes, something after the manner of an enclosure for +keeping elephants in, as we see it represented in Eastern prints +and pictures. The prisoners wear a parti-coloured dress; and those +who are sentenced to hard labour, work at nail-making, or stone- +cutting. When I was there, the latter class of labourers were +employed upon the stone for a new custom-house in course of +erection at Boston. They appeared to shape it skilfully and with +expedition, though there were very few among them (if any) who had +not acquired the art within the prison gates. + +The women, all in one large room, were employed in making light +clothing, for New Orleans and the Southern States. They did their +work in silence like the men; and like them were over-looked by the +person contracting for their labour, or by some agent of his +appointment. In addition to this, they are every moment liable to +be visited by the prison officers appointed for that purpose. + +The arrangements for cooking, washing of clothes, and so forth, are +much upon the plan of those I have seen at home. Their mode of +bestowing the prisoners at night (which is of general adoption) +differs from ours, and is both simple and effective. In the centre +of a lofty area, lighted by windows in the four walls, are five +tiers of cells, one above the other; each tier having before it a +light iron gallery, attainable by stairs of the same construction +and material: excepting the lower one, which is on the ground. +Behind these, back to back with them and facing the opposite wall, +are five corresponding rows of cells, accessible by similar means: +so that supposing the prisoners locked up in their cells, an +officer stationed on the ground, with his back to the wall, has +half their number under his eye at once; the remaining half being +equally under the observation of another officer on the opposite +side; and all in one great apartment. Unless this watch be +corrupted or sleeping on his post, it is impossible for a man to +escape; for even in the event of his forcing the iron door of his +cell without noise (which is exceedingly improbable), the moment he +appears outside, and steps into that one of the five galleries on +which it is situated, he must be plainly and fully visible to the +officer below. Each of these cells holds a small truckle bed, in +which one prisoner sleeps; never more. It is small, of course; and +the door being not solid, but grated, and without blind or curtain, +the prisoner within is at all times exposed to the observation and +inspection of any guard who may pass along that tier at any hour or +minute of the night. Every day, the prisoners receive their +dinner, singly, through a trap in the kitchen wall; and each man +carries his to his sleeping cell to eat it, where he is locked up, +alone, for that purpose, one hour. The whole of this arrangement +struck me as being admirable; and I hope that the next new prison +we erect in England may be built on this plan. + +I was given to understand that in this prison no swords or fire- +arms, or even cudgels, are kept; nor is it probable that, so long +as its present excellent management continues, any weapon, +offensive or defensive, will ever be required within its bounds. + +Such are the Institutions at South Boston! In all of them, the +unfortunate or degenerate citizens of the State are carefully +instructed in their duties both to God and man; are surrounded by +all reasonable means of comfort and happiness that their condition +will admit of; are appealed to, as members of the great human +family, however afflicted, indigent, or fallen; are ruled by the +strong Heart, and not by the strong (though immeasurably weaker) +Hand. I have described them at some length; firstly, because their +worth demanded it; and secondly, because I mean to take them for a +model, and to content myself with saying of others we may come to, +whose design and purpose are the same, that in this or that respect +they practically fail, or differ. + +I wish by this account of them, imperfect in its execution, but in +its just intention, honest, I could hope to convey to my readers +one-hundredth part of the gratification, the sights I have +described, afforded me. + +* * * * * * + +To an Englishman, accustomed to the paraphernalia of Westminster +Hall, an American Court of Law is as odd a sight as, I suppose, an +English Court of Law would be to an American. Except in the +Supreme Court at Washington (where the judges wear a plain black +robe), there is no such thing as a wig or gown connected with the +administration of justice. The gentlemen of the bar being +barristers and attorneys too (for there is no division of those +functions as in England) are no more removed from their clients +than attorneys in our Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors +are, from theirs. The jury are quite at home, and make themselves +as comfortable as circumstances will permit. The witness is so +little elevated above, or put aloof from, the crowd in the court, +that a stranger entering during a pause in the proceedings would +find it difficult to pick him out from the rest. And if it chanced +to be a criminal trial, his eyes, in nine cases out of ten, would +wander to the dock in search of the prisoner, in vain; for that +gentleman would most likely be lounging among the most +distinguished ornaments of the legal profession, whispering +suggestions in his counsel's ear, or making a toothpick out of an +old quill with his penknife. + +I could not but notice these differences, when I visited the courts +at Boston. I was much surprised at first, too, to observe that the +counsel who interrogated the witness under examination at the time, +did so SITTING. But seeing that he was also occupied in writing +down the answers, and remembering that he was alone and had no +'junior,' I quickly consoled myself with the reflection that law +was not quite so expensive an article here, as at home; and that +the absence of sundry formalities which we regard as indispensable, +had doubtless a very favourable influence upon the bill of costs. + +In every Court, ample and commodious provision is made for the +accommodation of the citizens. This is the case all through +America. In every Public Institution, the right of the people to +attend, and to have an interest in the proceedings, is most fully +and distinctly recognised. There are no grim door-keepers to dole +out their tardy civility by the sixpenny-worth; nor is there, I +sincerely believe, any insolence of office of any kind. Nothing +national is exhibited for money; and no public officer is a +showman. We have begun of late years to imitate this good example. +I hope we shall continue to do so; and that in the fulness of time, +even deans and chapters may be converted. + +In the civil court an action was trying, for damages sustained in +some accident upon a railway. The witnesses had been examined, and +counsel was addressing the jury. The learned gentleman (like a few +of his English brethren) was desperately long-winded, and had a +remarkable capacity of saying the same thing over and over again. +His great theme was 'Warren the ENGINE driver,' whom he pressed +into the service of every sentence he uttered. I listened to him +for about a quarter of an hour; and, coming out of court at the +expiration of that time, without the faintest ray of enlightenment +as to the merits of the case, felt as if I were at home again. + +In the prisoner's cell, waiting to be examined by the magistrate on +a charge of theft, was a boy. This lad, instead of being committed +to a common jail, would be sent to the asylum at South Boston, and +there taught a trade; and in the course of time he would be bound +apprentice to some respectable master. Thus, his detection in this +offence, instead of being the prelude to a life of infamy and a +miserable death, would lead, there was a reasonable hope, to his +being reclaimed from vice, and becoming a worthy member of society. + +I am by no means a wholesale admirer of our legal solemnities, many +of which impress me as being exceedingly ludicrous. Strange as it +may seem too, there is undoubtedly a degree of protection in the +wig and gown - a dismissal of individual responsibility in dressing +for the part - which encourages that insolent bearing and language, +and that gross perversion of the office of a pleader for The Truth, +so frequent in our courts of law. Still, I cannot help doubting +whether America, in her desire to shake off the absurdities and +abuses of the old system, may not have gone too far into the +opposite extreme; and whether it is not desirable, especially in +the small community of a city like this, where each man knows the +other, to surround the administration of justice with some +artificial barriers against the 'Hail fellow, well met' deportment +of everyday life. All the aid it can have in the very high +character and ability of the Bench, not only here but elsewhere, it +has, and well deserves to have; but it may need something more: +not to impress the thoughtful and the well-informed, but the +ignorant and heedless; a class which includes some prisoners and +many witnesses. These institutions were established, no doubt, +upon the principle that those who had so large a share in making +the laws, would certainly respect them. But experience has proved +this hope to be fallacious; for no men know better than the judges +of America, that on the occasion of any great popular excitement +the law is powerless, and cannot, for the time, assert its own +supremacy. + +The tone of society in Boston is one of perfect politeness, +courtesy, and good breeding. The ladies are unquestionably very +beautiful - in face: but there I am compelled to stop. Their +education is much as with us; neither better nor worse. I had +heard some very marvellous stories in this respect; but not +believing them, was not disappointed. Blue ladies there are, in +Boston; but like philosophers of that colour and sex in most other +latitudes, they rather desire to be thought superior than to be so. +Evangelical ladies there are, likewise, whose attachment to the +forms of religion, and horror of theatrical entertainments, are +most exemplary. Ladies who have a passion for attending lectures +are to be found among all classes and all conditions. In the kind +of provincial life which prevails in cities such as this, the +Pulpit has great influence. The peculiar province of the Pulpit in +New England (always excepting the Unitarian Ministry) would appear +to be the denouncement of all innocent and rational amusements. +The church, the chapel, and the lecture-room, are the only means of +excitement excepted; and to the church, the chapel, and the +lecture-room, the ladies resort in crowds. + +Wherever religion is resorted to, as a strong drink, and as an +escape from the dull monotonous round of home, those of its +ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please. +They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of +brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and +leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous; +and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the +difficulty of getting into heaven, will be considered by all true +believers certain of going there: though it would be hard to say +by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at. It is +so at home, and it is so abroad. With regard to the other means of +excitement, the Lecture, it has at least the merit of being always +new. One lecture treads so quickly on the heels of another, that +none are remembered; and the course of this month may be safely +repeated next, with its charm of novelty unbroken, and its interest +unabated. + +The fruits of the earth have their growth in corruption. Out of +the rottenness of these things, there has sprung up in Boston a +sect of philosophers known as Transcendentalists. On inquiring +what this appellation might be supposed to signify, I was given to +understand that whatever was unintelligible would be certainly +transcendental. Not deriving much comfort from this elucidation, I +pursued the inquiry still further, and found that the +Transcendentalists are followers of my friend Mr. Carlyle, or I +should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. +This gentleman has written a volume of Essays, in which, among much +that is dreamy and fanciful (if he will pardon me for saying so), +there is much more that is true and manly, honest and bold. +Transcendentalism has its occasional vagaries (what school has +not?), but it has good healthful qualities in spite of them; not +least among the number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to +detect her in all the million varieties of her everlasting +wardrobe. And therefore if I were a Bostonian, I think I would be +a Transcendentalist. + +The only preacher I heard in Boston was Mr. Taylor, who addresses +himself peculiarly to seamen, and who was once a mariner himself. +I found his chapel down among the shipping, in one of the narrow, +old, water-side streets, with a gay blue flag waving freely from +its roof. In the gallery opposite to the pulpit were a little +choir of male and female singers, a violoncello, and a violin. The +preacher already sat in the pulpit, which was raised on pillars, +and ornamented behind him with painted drapery of a lively and +somewhat theatrical appearance. He looked a weather-beaten hard- +featured man, of about six or eight and fifty; with deep lines +graven as it were into his face, dark hair, and a stern, keen eye. +Yet the general character of his countenance was pleasant and +agreeable. The service commenced with a hymn, to which succeeded +an extemporary prayer. It had the fault of frequent repetition, +incidental to all such prayers; but it was plain and comprehensive +in its doctrines, and breathed a tone of general sympathy and +charity, which is not so commonly a characteristic of this form of +address to the Deity as it might be. That done he opened his +discourse, taking for his text a passage from the Song of Solomon, +laid upon the desk before the commencement of the service by some +unknown member of the congregation: 'Who is this coming up from +the wilderness, leaning on the arm of her beloved!' + +He handled his text in all kinds of ways, and twisted it into all +manner of shapes; but always ingeniously, and with a rude +eloquence, well adapted to the comprehension of his hearers. +Indeed if I be not mistaken, he studied their sympathies and +understandings much more than the display of his own powers. His +imagery was all drawn from the sea, and from the incidents of a +seaman's life; and was often remarkably good. He spoke to them of +'that glorious man, Lord Nelson,' and of Collingwood; and drew +nothing in, as the saying is, by the head and shoulders, but +brought it to bear upon his purpose, naturally, and with a sharp +mind to its effect. Sometimes, when much excited with his subject, +he had an odd way - compounded of John Bunyan, and Balfour of +Burley - of taking his great quarto Bible under his arm and pacing +up and down the pulpit with it; looking steadily down, meantime, +into the midst of the congregation. Thus, when he applied his text +to the first assemblage of his hearers, and pictured the wonder of +the church at their presumption in forming a congregation among +themselves, he stopped short with his Bible under his arm in the +manner I have described, and pursued his discourse after this +manner: + +'Who are these - who are they - who are these fellows? where do +they come from? Where are they going to? - Come from! What's the +answer?' - leaning out of the pulpit, and pointing downward with +his right hand: 'From below!' - starting back again, and looking +at the sailors before him: 'From below, my brethren. From under +the hatches of sin, battened down above you by the evil one. +That's where you came from!' - a walk up and down the pulpit: 'and +where are you going' - stopping abruptly: 'where are you going? +Aloft!' - very softly, and pointing upward: 'Aloft!' - louder: +'aloft!' - louder still: 'That's where you are going - with a fair +wind, - all taut and trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory, +where there are no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked +cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' - Another walk: +'That's where you're going to, my friends. That's it. That's the +place. That's the port. That's the haven. It's a blessed harbour +- still water there, in all changes of the winds and tides; no +driving ashore upon the rocks, or slipping your cables and running +out to sea, there: Peace - Peace - Peace - all peace!' - Another +walk, and patting the Bible under his left arm: 'What! These +fellows are coming from the wilderness, are they? Yes. From the +dreary, blighted wilderness of Iniquity, whose only crop is Death. +But do they lean upon anything - do they lean upon nothing, these +poor seamen?' - Three raps upon the Bible: 'Oh yes. - Yes. - They +lean upon the arm of their Beloved' - three more raps: 'upon the +arm of their Beloved' - three more, and a walk: 'Pilot, guiding- +star, and compass, all in one, to all hands - here it is' - three +more: 'Here it is. They can do their seaman's duty manfully, and +be easy in their minds in the utmost peril and danger, with this' - +two more: 'They can come, even these poor fellows can come, from +the wilderness leaning on the arm of their Beloved, and go up - up +- up!' - raising his hand higher, and higher, at every repetition +of the word, so that he stood with it at last stretched above his +head, regarding them in a strange, rapt manner, and pressing the +book triumphantly to his breast, until he gradually subsided into +some other portion of his discourse. + +I have cited this, rather as an instance of the preacher's +eccentricities than his merits, though taken in connection with his +look and manner, and the character of his audience, even this was +striking. It is possible, however, that my favourable impression +of him may have been greatly influenced and strengthened, firstly, +by his impressing upon his hearers that the true observance of +religion was not inconsistent with a cheerful deportment and an +exact discharge of the duties of their station, which, indeed, it +scrupulously required of them; and secondly, by his cautioning them +not to set up any monopoly in Paradise and its mercies. I never +heard these two points so wisely touched (if indeed I have ever +heard them touched at all), by any preacher of that kind before. + +Having passed the time I spent in Boston, in making myself +acquainted with these things, in settling the course I should take +in my future travels, and in mixing constantly with its society, I +am not aware that I have any occasion to prolong this chapter. +Such of its social customs as I have not mentioned, however, may be +told in a very few words. + +The usual dinner-hour is two o'clock. A dinner party takes place +at five; and at an evening party, they seldom sup later than +eleven; so that it goes hard but one gets home, even from a rout, +by midnight. I never could find out any difference between a party +at Boston and a party in London, saving that at the former place +all assemblies are held at more rational hours; that the +conversation may possibly be a little louder and more cheerful; and +a guest is usually expected to ascend to the very top of the house +to take his cloak off; that he is certain to see, at every dinner, +an unusual amount of poultry on the table; and at every supper, at +least two mighty bowls of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which a +half-grown Duke of Clarence might be smothered easily. + +There are two theatres in Boston, of good size and construction, +but sadly in want of patronage. The few ladies who resort to them, +sit, as of right, in the front rows of the boxes. + +The bar is a large room with a stone floor, and there people stand +and smoke, and lounge about, all the evening: dropping in and out +as the humour takes them. There too the stranger is initiated into +the mysteries of Gin-sling, Cock-tail, Sangaree, Mint Julep, +Sherry-cobbler, Timber Doodle, and other rare drinks. The house is +full of boarders, both married and single, many of whom sleep upon +the premises, and contract by the week for their board and lodging: +the charge for which diminishes as they go nearer the sky to roost. +A public table is laid in a very handsome hall for breakfast, and +for dinner, and for supper. The party sitting down together to +these meals will vary in number from one to two hundred: sometimes +more. The advent of each of these epochs in the day is proclaimed +by an awful gong, which shakes the very window-frames as it +reverberates through the house, and horribly disturbs nervous +foreigners. There is an ordinary for ladies, and an ordinary for +gentlemen. + +In our private room the cloth could not, for any earthly +consideration, have been laid for dinner without a huge glass dish +of cranberries in the middle of the table; and breakfast would have +been no breakfast unless the principal dish were a deformed beef- +steak with a great flat bone in the centre, swimming in hot butter, +and sprinkled with the very blackest of all possible pepper. Our +bedroom was spacious and airy, but (like every bedroom on this side +of the Atlantic) very bare of furniture, having no curtains to the +French bedstead or to the window. It had one unusual luxury, +however, in the shape of a wardrobe of painted wood, something +smaller than an English watch-box; or if this comparison should be +insufficient to convey a just idea of its dimensions, they may be +estimated from the fact of my having lived for fourteen days and +nights in the firm belief that it was a shower-bath. + + + +CHAPTER IV - AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY SYSTEM + + + +BEFORE leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell. +I assign a separate chapter to this visit; not because I am about +to describe it at any great length, but because I remember it as a +thing by itself, and am desirous that my readers should do the +same. + +I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this occasion, +for the first time. As these works are pretty much alike all +through the States, their general characteristics are easily +described. + +There are no first and second class carriages as with us; but there +is a gentleman's car and a ladies' car: the main distinction +between which is that in the first, everybody smokes; and in the +second, nobody does. As a black man never travels with a white +one, there is also a negro car; which is a great, blundering, +clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the kingdom of +Brobdingnag. There is a great deal of jolting, a great deal of +noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine, +a shriek, and a bell. + +The cars are like shabby omnibuses, but larger: holding thirty, +forty, fifty, people. The seats, instead of stretching from end to +end, are placed crosswise. Each seat holds two persons. There is +a long row of them on each side of the caravan, a narrow passage up +the middle, and a door at both ends. In the centre of the carriage +there is usually a stove, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal; +which is for the most part red-hot. It is insufferably close; and +you see the hot air fluttering between yourself and any other +object you may happen to look at, like the ghost of smoke. + +In the ladies' car, there are a great many gentlemen who have +ladies with them. There are also a great many ladies who have +nobody with them: for any lady may travel alone, from one end of +the United States to the other, and be certain of the most +courteous and considerate treatment everywhere. The conductor or +check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may be, wears no uniform. He +walks up and down the car, and in and out of it, as his fancy +dictates; leans against the door with his hands in his pockets and +stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger; or enters into +conversation with the passengers about him. A great many +newspapers are pulled out, and a few of them are read. Everybody +talks to you, or to anybody else who hits his fancy. If you are an +Englishman, he expects that that railroad is pretty much like an +English railroad. If you say 'No,' he says 'Yes?' +(interrogatively), and asks in what respect they differ. You +enumerate the heads of difference, one by one, and he says 'Yes?' +(still interrogatively) to each. Then he guesses that you don't +travel faster in England; and on your replying that you do, says +'Yes?' again (still interrogatively), and it is quite evident, +don't believe it. After a long pause he remarks, partly to you, +and partly to the knob on the top of his stick, that 'Yankees are +reckoned to be considerable of a go-ahead people too;' upon which +YOU say 'Yes,' and then HE says 'Yes' again (affirmatively this +time); and upon your looking out of window, tells you that behind +that hill, and some three miles from the next station, there is a +clever town in a smart lo-ca-tion, where he expects you have +concluded to stop. Your answer in the negative naturally leads to +more questions in reference to your intended route (always +pronounced rout); and wherever you are going, you invariably learn +that you can't get there without immense difficulty and danger, and +that all the great sights are somewhere else. + +If a lady take a fancy to any male passenger's seat, the gentleman +who accompanies her gives him notice of the fact, and he +immediately vacates it with great politeness. Politics are much +discussed, so are banks, so is cotton. Quiet people avoid the +question of the Presidency, for there will be a new election in +three years and a half, and party feeling runs very high: the +great constitutional feature of this institution being, that +directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of +the next one begins; which is an unspeakable comfort to all strong +politicians and true lovers of their country: that is to say, to +ninety-nine men and boys out of every ninety-nine and a quarter. + +Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom more +than one track of rails; so that the road is very narrow, and the +view, where there is a deep cutting, by no means extensive. When +there is not, the character of the scenery is always the same. +Mile after mile of stunted trees: some hewn down by the axe, some +blown down by the wind, some half fallen and resting on their +neighbours, many mere logs half hidden in the swamp, others +mouldered away to spongy chips. The very soil of the earth is made +up of minute fragments such as these; each pool of stagnant water +has its crust of vegetable rottenness; on every side there are the +boughs, and trunks, and stumps of trees, in every possible stage of +decay, decomposition, and neglect. Now you emerge for a few brief +minutes on an open country, glittering with some bright lake or +pool, broad as many an English river, but so small here that it +scarcely has a name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town, +with its clean white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New +England church and school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you +have seen them, comes the same dark screen: the stunted trees, the +stumps, the logs, the stagnant water - all so like the last that +you seem to have been transported back again by magic. + +The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild +impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is +only to be equalled by the apparently desperate hopelessness of +there being anybody to get in. It rushes across the turnpike road, +where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal: nothing but a +rough wooden arch, on which is painted 'WHEN THE BELL RINGS, LOOK +OUT FOR THE LOCOMOTIVE.' On it whirls headlong, dives through the +woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail arches, +rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge which +intercepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all +the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and +dashes on haphazard, pell-mell, neck-or-nothing, down the middle of +the road. There - with mechanics working at their trades, and +people leaning from their doors and windows, and boys flying kites +and playing marbles, and men smoking, and women talking, and +children crawling, and pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed horses +plunging and rearing, close to the very rails - there - on, on, on +- tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of cars; +scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks from its +wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting; until at last the +thirsty monster stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people +cluster round, and you have time to breathe again. + +I was met at the station at Lowell by a gentleman intimately +connected with the management of the factories there; and gladly +putting myself under his guidance, drove off at once to that +quarter of the town in which the works, the object of my visit, +were situated. Although only just of age - for if my recollection +serve me, it has been a manufacturing town barely one-and-twenty +years - Lowell is a large, populous, thriving place. Those +indications of its youth which first attract the eye, give it a +quaintness and oddity of character which, to a visitor from the old +country, is amusing enough. It was a very dirty winter's day, and +nothing in the whole town looked old to me, except the mud, which +in some parts was almost knee-deep, and might have been deposited +there, on the subsiding of the waters after the Deluge. In one +place, there was a new wooden church, which, having no steeple, and +being yet unpainted, looked like an enormous packing-case without +any direction upon it. In another there was a large hotel, whose +walls and colonnades were so crisp, and thin, and slight, that it +had exactly the appearance of being built with cards. I was +careful not to draw my breath as we passed, and trembled when I saw +a workman come out upon the roof, lest with one thoughtless stamp +of his foot he should crush the structure beneath him, and bring it +rattling down. The very river that moves the machinery in the +mills (for they are all worked by water power), seems to acquire a +new character from the fresh buildings of bright red brick and +painted wood among which it takes its course; and to be as light- +headed, thoughtless, and brisk a young river, in its murmurings and +tumblings, as one would desire to see. One would swear that every +'Bakery,' 'Grocery,' and 'Bookbindery,' and other kind of store, +took its shutters down for the first time, and started in business +yesterday. The golden pestles and mortars fixed as signs upon the +sun-blind frames outside the Druggists', appear to have been just +turned out of the United States' Mint; and when I saw a baby of +some week or ten days old in a woman's arms at a street corner, I +found myself unconsciously wondering where it came from: never +supposing for an instant that it could have been born in such a +young town as that. + +There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs to +what we should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they call in +America a Corporation. I went over several of these; such as a +woollen factory, a carpet factory, and a cotton factory: examined +them in every part; and saw them in their ordinary working aspect, +with no preparation of any kind, or departure from their ordinary +everyday proceedings. I may add that I am well acquainted with our +manufacturing towns in England, and have visited many mills in +Manchester and elsewhere in the same manner. + +I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner hour +was over, and the girls were returning to their work; indeed the +stairs of the mill were thronged with them as I ascended. They +were all well dressed, but not to my thinking above their +condition; for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful +of their dress and appearance, and even, if they please, decorated +with such little trinkets as come within the compass of their +means. Supposing it confined within reasonable limits, I would +always encourage this kind of pride, as a worthy element of self- +respect, in any person I employed; and should no more be deterred +from doing so, because some wretched female referred her fall to a +love of dress, than I would allow my construction of the real +intent and meaning of the Sabbath to be influenced by any warning +to the well-disposed, founded on his backslidings on that +particular day, which might emanate from the rather doubtful +authority of a murderer in Newgate. + +These girls, as I have said, were all well dressed: and that +phrase necessarily includes extreme cleanliness. They had +serviceable bonnets, good warm cloaks, and shawls; and were not +above clogs and pattens. Moreover, there were places in the mill +in which they could deposit these things without injury; and there +were conveniences for washing. They were healthy in appearance, +many of them remarkably so, and had the manners and deportment of +young women: not of degraded brutes of burden. If I had seen in +one of those mills (but I did not, though I looked for something of +this kind with a sharp eye), the most lisping, mincing, affected, +and ridiculous young creature that my imagination could suggest, I +should have thought of the careless, moping, slatternly, degraded, +dull reverse (I HAVE seen that), and should have been still well +pleased to look upon her. + +The rooms in which they worked, were as well ordered as themselves. +In the windows of some, there were green plants, which were trained +to shade the glass; in all, there was as much fresh air, +cleanliness, and comfort, as the nature of the occupation would +possibly admit of. Out of so large a number of females, many of +whom were only then just verging upon womanhood, it may be +reasonably supposed that some were delicate and fragile in +appearance: no doubt there were. But I solemnly declare, that +from all the crowd I saw in the different factories that day, I +cannot recall or separate one young face that gave me a painful +impression; not one young girl whom, assuming it to be a matter of +necessity that she should gain her daily bread by the labour of her +hands, I would have removed from those works if I had had the +power. + +They reside in various boarding-houses near at hand. The owners of +the mills are particularly careful to allow no persons to enter +upon the possession of these houses, whose characters have not +undergone the most searching and thorough inquiry. Any complaint +that is made against them, by the boarders, or by any one else, is +fully investigated; and if good ground of complaint be shown to +exist against them, they are removed, and their occupation is +handed over to some more deserving person. There are a few +children employed in these factories, but not many. The laws of +the State forbid their working more than nine months in the year, +and require that they be educated during the other three. For this +purpose there are schools in Lowell; and there are churches and +chapels of various persuasions, in which the young women may +observe that form of worship in which they have been educated. + +At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and +pleasantest ground in the neighbourhood, stands their hospital, or +boarding-house for the sick: it is the best house in those parts, +and was built by an eminent merchant for his own residence. Like +that institution at Boston, which I have before described, it is +not parcelled out into wards, but is divided into convenient +chambers, each of which has all the comforts of a very comfortable +home. The principal medical attendant resides under the same roof; +and were the patients members of his own family, they could not be +better cared for, or attended with greater gentleness and +consideration. The weekly charge in this establishment for each +female patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings English; but +no girl employed by any of the corporations is ever excluded for +want of the means of payment. That they do not very often want the +means, may be gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer +than nine hundred and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors +in the Lowell Savings Bank: the amount of whose joint savings was +estimated at one hundred thousand dollars, or twenty thousand +English pounds. + +I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large +class of readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much. + +Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the +boarding-houses. Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe +to circulating libraries. Thirdly, they have got up among +themselves a periodical called THE LOWELL OFFERING, 'A repository +of original articles, written exclusively by females actively +employed in the mills,' - which is duly printed, published, and +sold; and whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good +solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end. + +The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim, +with one voice, 'How very preposterous!' On my deferentially +inquiring why, they will answer, 'These things are above their +station.' In reply to that objection, I would beg to ask what +their station is. + +It is their station to work. And they DO work. They labour in +these mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is +unquestionably work, and pretty tight work too. Perhaps it is +above their station to indulge in such amusements, on any terms. +Are we quite sure that we in England have not formed our ideas of +the 'station' of working people, from accustoming ourselves to the +contemplation of that class as they are, and not as they might be? +I think that if we examine our own feelings, we shall find that the +pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the Lowell +Offering, startle us by their novelty, and not by their bearing +upon any abstract question of right or wrong. + +For myself, I know no station in which, the occupation of to-day +cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked +to, any one of these pursuits is not most humanising and laudable. +I know no station which is rendered more endurable to the person in +it, or more safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for +its associate. I know no station which has a right to monopolise +the means of mutual instruction, improvement, and rational +entertainment; or which has ever continued to be a station very +long, after seeking to do so. + +Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I +will only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the +articles having been written by these girls after the arduous +labours of the day, that it will compare advantageously with a +great many English Annuals. It is pleasant to find that many of +its Tales are of the Mills and of those who work in them; that they +inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach good +doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong feeling for the +beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the writers have +left at home, breathes through its pages like wholesome village +air; and though a circulating library is a favourable school for +the study of such topics, it has very scant allusion to fine +clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life. Some persons +might object to the papers being signed occasionally with rather +fine names, but this is an American fashion. One of the provinces +of the state legislature of Massachusetts is to alter ugly names +into pretty ones, as the children improve upon the tastes of their +parents. These changes costing little or nothing, scores of Mary +Annes are solemnly converted into Bevelinas every session. + +It is said that on the occasion of a visit from General Jackson or +General Harrison to this town (I forget which, but it is not to the +purpose), he walked through three miles and a half of these young +ladies all dressed out with parasols and silk stockings. But as I +am not aware that any worse consequence ensued, than a sudden +looking-up of all the parasols and silk stockings in the market; +and perhaps the bankruptcy of some speculative New Englander who +bought them all up at any price, in expectation of a demand that +never came; I set no great store by the circumstance. + +In this brief account of Lowell, and inadequate expression of the +gratification it yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any +foreigner to whom the condition of such people at home is a subject +of interest and anxious speculation, I have carefully abstained +from drawing a comparison between these factories and those of our +own land. Many of the circumstances whose strong influence has +been at work for years in our manufacturing towns have not arisen +here; and there is no manufacturing population in Lowell, so to +speak: for these girls (often the daughters of small farmers) come +from other States, remain a few years in the mills, and then go +home for good. + +The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between the +Good and Evil, the living light and deepest shadow. I abstain from +it, because I deem it just to do so. But I only the more earnestly +adjure all those whose eyes may rest on these pages, to pause and +reflect upon the difference between this town and those great +haunts of desperate misery: to call to mind, if they can in the +midst of party strife and squabble, the efforts that must be made +to purge them of their suffering and danger: and last, and +foremost, to remember how the precious Time is rushing by. + +I returned at night by the same railroad and in the same kind of +car. One of the passengers being exceedingly anxious to expound at +great length to my companion (not to me, of course) the true +principles on which books of travel in America should be written by +Englishmen, I feigned to fall asleep. But glancing all the way out +at window from the corners of my eyes, I found abundance of +entertainment for the rest of the ride in watching the effects of +the wood fire, which had been invisible in the morning but were now +brought out in full relief by the darkness: for we were travelling +in a whirlwind of bright sparks, which showered about us like a +storm of fiery snow. + + + +CHAPTER V - WORCESTER. THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. HARTFORD. NEW +HAVEN. TO NEW YORK + + + +LEAVING Boston on the afternoon of Saturday the fifth of February, +we proceeded by another railroad to Worcester: a pretty New +England town, where we had arranged to remain under the hospitable +roof of the Governor of the State, until Monday morning. + +These towns and cities of New England (many of which would be +villages in Old England), are as favourable specimens of rural +America, as their people are of rural Americans. The well-trimmed +lawns and green meadows of home are not there; and the grass, +compared with our ornamental plots and pastures, is rank, and +rough, and wild: but delicate slopes of land, gently-swelling +hills, wooded valleys, and slender streams, abound. Every little +colony of houses has its church and school-house peeping from among +the white roofs and shady trees; every house is the whitest of the +white; every Venetian blind the greenest of the green; every fine +day's sky the bluest of the blue. A sharp dry wind and a slight +frost had so hardened the roads when we alighted at Worcester, that +their furrowed tracks were like ridges of granite. There was the +usual aspect of newness on every object, of course. All the +buildings looked as if they had been built and painted that +morning, and could be taken down on Monday with very little +trouble. In the keen evening air, every sharp outline looked a +hundred times sharper than ever. The clean cardboard colonnades +had no more perspective than a Chinese bridge on a tea-cup, and +appeared equally well calculated for use. The razor-like edges of +the detached cottages seemed to cut the very wind as it whistled +against them, and to send it smarting on its way with a shriller +cry than before. Those slightly-built wooden dwellings behind +which the sun was setting with a brilliant lustre, could be so +looked through and through, that the idea of any inhabitant being +able to hide himself from the public gaze, or to have any secrets +from the public eye, was not entertainable for a moment. Even +where a blazing fire shone through the uncurtained windows of some +distant house, it had the air of being newly lighted, and of +lacking warmth; and instead of awakening thoughts of a snug +chamber, bright with faces that first saw the light round that same +hearth, and ruddy with warm hangings, it came upon one suggestive +of the smell of new mortar and damp walls. + +So I thought, at least, that evening. Next morning when the sun +was shining brightly, and the clear church bells were ringing, and +sedate people in their best clothes enlivened the pathway near at +hand and dotted the distant thread of road, there was a pleasant +Sabbath peacefulness on everything, which it was good to feel. It +would have been the better for an old church; better still for some +old graves; but as it was, a wholesome repose and tranquillity +pervaded the scene, which after the restless ocean and the hurried +city, had a doubly grateful influence on the spirits. + +We went on next morning, still by railroad, to Springfield. From +that place to Hartford, whither we were bound, is a distance of +only five-and-twenty miles, but at that time of the year the roads +were so bad that the journey would probably have occupied ten or +twelve hours. Fortunately, however, the winter having been +unusually mild, the Connecticut River was 'open,' or, in other +words, not frozen. The captain of a small steamboat was going to +make his first trip for the season that day (the second February +trip, I believe, within the memory of man), and only waited for us +to go on board. Accordingly, we went on board, with as little +delay as might be. He was as good as his word, and started +directly. + +It certainly was not called a small steamboat without reason. I +omitted to ask the question, but I should think it must have been +of about half a pony power. Mr. Paap, the celebrated Dwarf, might +have lived and died happily in the cabin, which was fitted with +common sash-windows like an ordinary dwelling-house. These windows +had bright-red curtains, too, hung on slack strings across the +lower panes; so that it looked like the parlour of a Lilliputian +public-house, which had got afloat in a flood or some other water +accident, and was drifting nobody knew where. But even in this +chamber there was a rocking-chair. It would be impossible to get +on anywhere, in America, without a rocking-chair. I am afraid to +tell how many feet short this vessel was, or how many feet narrow: +to apply the words length and width to such measurement would be a +contradiction in terms. But I may state that we all kept the +middle of the deck, lest the boat should unexpectedly tip over; and +that the machinery, by some surprising process of condensation, +worked between it and the keel: the whole forming a warm sandwich, +about three feet thick. + +It rained all day as I once thought it never did rain anywhere, but +in the Highlands of Scotland. The river was full of floating +blocks of ice, which were constantly crunching and cracking under +us; and the depth of water, in the course we took to avoid the +larger masses, carried down the middle of the river by the current, +did not exceed a few inches. Nevertheless, we moved onward, +dexterously; and being well wrapped up, bade defiance to the +weather, and enjoyed the journey. The Connecticut River is a fine +stream; and the banks in summer-time are, I have no doubt, +beautiful; at all events, I was told so by a young lady in the +cabin; and she should be a judge of beauty, if the possession of a +quality include the appreciation of it, for a more beautiful +creature I never looked upon. + +After two hours and a half of this odd travelling (including a +stoppage at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun +considerably bigger than our own chimney), we reached Hartford, and +straightway repaired to an extremely comfortable hotel: except, as +usual, in the article of bedrooms, which, in almost every place we +visited, were very conducive to early rising. + +We tarried here, four days. The town is beautifully situated in a +basin of green hills; the soil is rich, well-wooded, and carefully +improved. It is the seat of the local legislature of Connecticut, +which sage body enacted, in bygone times, the renowned code of +'Blue Laws,' in virtue whereof, among other enlightened provisions, +any citizen who could be proved to have kissed his wife on Sunday, +was punishable, I believe, with the stocks. Too much of the old +Puritan spirit exists in these parts to the present hour; but its +influence has not tended, that I know, to make the people less hard +in their bargains, or more equal in their dealings. As I never +heard of its working that effect anywhere else, I infer that it +never will, here. Indeed, I am accustomed, with reference to great +professions and severe faces, to judge of the goods of the other +world pretty much as I judge of the goods of this; and whenever I +see a dealer in such commodities with too great a display of them +in his window, I doubt the quality of the article within. + +In Hartford stands the famous oak in which the charter of King +Charles was hidden. It is now inclosed in a gentleman's garden. +In the State House is the charter itself. I found the courts of +law here, just the same as at Boston; the public institutions +almost as good. The Insane Asylum is admirably conducted, and so +is the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. + +I very much questioned within myself, as I walked through the +Insane Asylum, whether I should have known the attendants from the +patients, but for the few words which passed between the former, +and the Doctor, in reference to the persons under their charge. Of +course I limit this remark merely to their looks; for the +conversation of the mad people was mad enough. + +There was one little, prim old lady, of very smiling and good- +humoured appearance, who came sidling up to me from the end of a +long passage, and with a curtsey of inexpressible condescension, +propounded this unaccountable inquiry: + +'Does Pontefract still flourish, sir, upon the soil of England?' + +'He does, ma'am,' I rejoined. + +'When you last saw him, sir, he was - ' + +'Well, ma'am,' said I, 'extremely well. He begged me to present +his compliments. I never saw him looking better.' + +At this, the old lady was very much delighted. After glancing at +me for a moment, as if to be quite sure that I was serious in my +respectful air, she sidled back some paces; sidled forward again; +made a sudden skip (at which I precipitately retreated a step or +two); and said: + +'I am an antediluvian, sir.' + +I thought the best thing to say was, that I had suspected as much +from the first. Therefore I said so. + +'It is an extremely proud and pleasant thing, sir, to be an +antediluvian,' said the old lady. + +'I should think it was, ma'am,' I rejoined. + +The old lady kissed her hand, gave another skip, smirked and sidled +down the gallery in a most extraordinary manner, and ambled +gracefully into her own bed-chamber. + +In another part of the building, there was a male patient in bed; +very much flushed and heated. + +'Well,' said he, starting up, and pulling off his night-cap: 'It's +all settled at last. I have arranged it with Queen Victoria.' + +'Arranged what?' asked the Doctor. + +'Why, that business,' passing his hand wearily across his forehead, +'about the siege of New York.' + +'Oh!' said I, like a man suddenly enlightened. For he looked at me +for an answer. + +'Yes. Every house without a signal will be fired upon by the +British troops. No harm will be done to the others. No harm at +all. Those that want to be safe, must hoist flags. That's all +they'll have to do. They must hoist flags.' + +Even while he was speaking he seemed, I thought, to have some faint +idea that his talk was incoherent. Directly he had said these +words, he lay down again; gave a kind of a groan; and covered his +hot head with the blankets. + +There was another: a young man, whose madness was love and music. +After playing on the accordion a march he had composed, he was very +anxious that I should walk into his chamber, which I immediately +did. + +By way of being very knowing, and humouring him to the top of his +bent, I went to the window, which commanded a beautiful prospect, +and remarked, with an address upon which I greatly plumed myself: + +'What a delicious country you have about these lodgings of yours!' + +'Poh!' said he, moving his fingers carelessly over the notes of his +instrument: 'WELL ENOUGH FOR SUCH AN INSTITUTION AS THIS!' + +I don't think I was ever so taken aback in all my life. + +'I come here just for a whim,' he said coolly. 'That's all.' + +'Oh! That's all!' said I. + +'Yes. That's all. The Doctor's a smart man. He quite enters into +it. It's a joke of mine. I like it for a time. You needn't +mention it, but I think I shall go out next Tuesday!' + +I assured him that I would consider our interview perfectly +confidential; and rejoined the Doctor. As we were passing through +a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and +composed manners, came up, and proffering a slip of paper and a +pen, begged that I would oblige her with an autograph, I complied, +and we parted. + +'I think I remember having had a few interviews like that, with +ladies out of doors. I hope SHE is not mad?' + +'Yes.' + +'On what subject? Autographs?' + +'No. She hears voices in the air.' + +'Well!' thought I, 'it would be well if we could shut up a few +false prophets of these later times, who have professed to do the +same; and I should like to try the experiment on a Mormonist or two +to begin with.' + +In this place, there is the best jail for untried offenders in the +world. There is also a very well-ordered State prison, arranged +upon the same plan as that at Boston, except that here, there is +always a sentry on the wall with a loaded gun. It contained at +that time about two hundred prisoners. A spot was shown me in the +sleeping ward, where a watchman was murdered some years since in +the dead of night, in a desperate attempt to escape, made by a +prisoner who had broken from his cell. A woman, too, was pointed +out to me, who, for the murder of her husband, had been a close +prisoner for sixteen years. + +'Do you think,' I asked of my conductor, 'that after so very long +an imprisonment, she has any thought or hope of ever regaining her +liberty?' + +'Oh dear yes,' he answered. 'To be sure she has.' + +'She has no chance of obtaining it, I suppose?' + +'Well, I don't know:' which, by-the-bye, is a national answer. +'Her friends mistrust her.' + +'What have THEY to do with it?' I naturally inquired. + +'Well, they won't petition.' + +'But if they did, they couldn't get her out, I suppose?' + +'Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor yet the second, but tiring +and wearying for a few years might do it.' + +'Does that ever do it?' + +'Why yes, that'll do it sometimes. Political friends'll do it +sometimes. It's pretty often done, one way or another.' + +I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection +of Hartford. It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there, +whom I can never remember with indifference. We left it with no +little regret on the evening of Friday the 11th, and travelled that +night by railroad to New Haven. Upon the way, the guard and I were +formally introduced to each other (as we usually were on such +occasions), and exchanged a variety of small-talk. We reached New +Haven at about eight o'clock, after a journey of three hours, and +put up for the night at the best inn. + +New Haven, known also as the City of Elms, is a fine town. Many of +its streets (as its ALIAS sufficiently imports) are planted with +rows of grand old elm-trees; and the same natural ornaments +surround Yale College, an establishment of considerable eminence +and reputation. The various departments of this Institution are +erected in a kind of park or common in the middle of the town, +where they are dimly visible among the shadowing trees. The effect +is very like that of an old cathedral yard in England; and when +their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely picturesque. +Even in the winter time, these groups of well-grown trees, +clustering among the busy streets and houses of a thriving city, +have a very quaint appearance: seeming to bring about a kind of +compromise between town and country; as if each had met the other +half-way, and shaken hands upon it; which is at once novel and +pleasant. + +After a night's rest, we rose early, and in good time went down to +the wharf, and on board the packet New York FOR New York. This was +the first American steamboat of any size that I had seen; and +certainly to an English eye it was infinitely less like a steamboat +than a huge floating bath. I could hardly persuade myself, indeed, +but that the bathing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I +left a baby, had suddenly grown to an enormous size; run away from +home; and set up in foreign parts as a steamer. Being in America, +too, which our vagabonds do so particularly favour, it seemed the +more probable. + +The great difference in appearance between these packets and ours, +is, that there is so much of them out of the water: the main-deck +being enclosed on all sides, and filled with casks and goods, like +any second or third floor in a stack of warehouses; and the +promenade or hurricane-deck being a-top of that again. A part of +the machinery is always above this deck; where the connecting-rod, +in a strong and lofty frame, is seen working away like an iron top- +sawyer. There is seldom any mast or tackle: nothing aloft but two +tall black chimneys. The man at the helm is shut up in a little +house in the fore part of the boat (the wheel being connected with +the rudder by iron chains, working the whole length of the deck); +and the passengers, unless the weather be very fine indeed, usually +congregate below. Directly you have left the wharf, all the life, +and stir, and bustle of a packet cease. You wonder for a long time +how she goes on, for there seems to be nobody in charge of her; and +when another of these dull machines comes splashing by, you feel +quite indignant with it, as a sullen cumbrous, ungraceful, +unshiplike leviathan: quite forgetting that the vessel you are on +board of, is its very counterpart. + +There is always a clerk's office on the lower deck, where you pay +your fare; a ladies' cabin; baggage and stowage rooms; engineer's +room; and in short a great variety of perplexities which render the +discovery of the gentlemen's cabin, a matter of some difficulty. +It often occupies the whole length of the boat (as it did in this +case), and has three or four tiers of berths on each side. When I +first descended into the cabin of the New York, it looked, in my +unaccustomed eyes, about as long as the Burlington Arcade. + +The Sound which has to be crossed on this passage, is not always a +very safe or pleasant navigation, and has been the scene of some +unfortunate accidents. It was a wet morning, and very misty, and +we soon lost sight of land. The day was calm, however, and +brightened towards noon. After exhausting (with good help from a +friend) the larder, and the stock of bottled beer, I lay down to +sleep; being very much tired with the fatigues of yesterday. But I +woke from my nap in time to hurry up, and see Hell Gate, the Hog's +Back, the Frying Pan, and other notorious localities, attractive to +all readers of famous Diedrich Knickerbocker's History. We were +now in a narrow channel, with sloping banks on either side, +besprinkled with pleasant villas, and made refreshing to the sight +by turf and trees. Soon we shot in quick succession, past a light- +house; a madhouse (how the lunatics flung up their caps and roared +in sympathy with the headlong engine and the driving tide!); a +jail; and other buildings: and so emerged into a noble bay, whose +waters sparkled in the now cloudless sunshine like Nature's eyes +turned up to Heaven. + +Then there lay stretched out before us, to the right, confused +heaps of buildings, with here and there a spire or steeple, looking +down upon the herd below; and here and there, again, a cloud of +lazy smoke; and in the foreground a forest of ships' masts, cheery +with flapping sails and waving flags. Crossing from among them to +the opposite shore, were steam ferry-boats laden with people, +coaches, horses, waggons, baskets, boxes: crossed and recrossed by +other ferry-boats: all travelling to and fro: and never idle. +Stately among these restless Insects, were two or three large +ships, moving with slow majestic pace, as creatures of a prouder +kind, disdainful of their puny journeys, and making for the broad +sea. Beyond, were shining heights, and islands in the glancing +river, and a distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it +seemed to meet. The city's hum and buzz, the clinking of capstans, +the ringing of bells, the barking of dogs, the clattering of +wheels, tingled in the listening ear. All of which life and stir, +coming across the stirring water, caught new life and animation +from its free companionship; and, sympathising with its buoyant +spirits, glistened as it seemed in sport upon its surface, and +hemmed the vessel round, and plashed the water high about her +sides, and, floating her gallantly into the dock, flew off again to +welcome other comers, and speed before them to the busy port. + + + + +CHAPTER VI - NEW YORK + + + +THE beautiful metropolis of America is by no means so clean a city +as Boston, but many of its streets have the same characteristics; +except that the houses are not quite so fresh-coloured, the sign- +boards are not quite so gaudy, the gilded letters not quite so +golden, the bricks not quite so red, the stone not quite so white, +the blinds and area railings not quite so green, the knobs and +plates upon the street doors not quite so bright and twinkling. +There are many by-streets, almost as neutral in clean colours, and +positive in dirty ones, as by-streets in London; and there is one +quarter, commonly called the Five Points, which, in respect of +filth and wretchedness, may be safely backed against Seven Dials, +or any other part of famed St. Giles's. + +The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people know, is +Broadway; a wide and bustling street, which, from the Battery +Gardens to its opposite termination in a country road, may be four +miles long. Shall we sit down in an upper floor of the Carlton +House Hotel (situated in the best part of this main artery of New +York), and when we are tired of looking down upon the life below, +sally forth arm-in-arm, and mingle with the stream? + +Warm weather! The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window, +as though its rays were concentrated through a burning-glass; but +the day is in its zenith, and the season an unusual one. Was there +ever such a sunny street as this Broadway! The pavement stones are +polished with the tread of feet until they shine again; the red +bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the +roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on +them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched +fires. No stint of omnibuses here! Half-a-dozen have gone by +within as many minutes. Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too; +gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages - +rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public +vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement. +Negro coachmen and white; in straw hats, black hats, white hats, +glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue, +nankeen, striped jean and linen; and there, in that one instance +(look while it passes, or it will be too late), in suits of livery. +Some southern republican that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and +swells with Sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton with +the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped - standing at their +heads now - is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in +these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a companion pair of +top-boots, which he may traverse the city half a year without +meeting. Heaven save the ladies, how they dress! We have seen +more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen +elsewhere, in as many days. What various parasols! what rainbow +silks and satins! what pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of +thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, and display +of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings! The young gentlemen +are fond, you see, of turning down their shirt-collars and +cultivating their whiskers, especially under the chin; but they +cannot approach the ladies in their dress or bearing, being, to say +the truth, humanity of quite another sort. Byrons of the desk and +counter, pass on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind +ye: those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one carries in +his hand a crumpled scrap of paper from which he tries to spell out +a hard name, while the other looks about for it on all the doors +and windows. + +Irishmen both! You might know them, if they were masked, by their +long-tailed blue coats and bright buttons, and their drab trousers, +which they wear like men well used to working dresses, who are easy +in no others. It would be hard to keep your model republics going, +without the countrymen and countrywomen of those two labourers. +For who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic +work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of +Internal Improvement! Irishmen both, and sorely puzzled too, to +find out what they seek. Let us go down, and help them, for the +love of home, and that spirit of liberty which admits of honest +service to honest men, and honest work for honest bread, no matter +what it be. + +That's well! We have got at the right address at last, though it +is written in strange characters truly, and might have been +scrawled with the blunt handle of the spade the writer better knows +the use of, than a pen. Their way lies yonder, but what business +takes them there? They carry savings: to hoard up? No. They are +brothers, those men. One crossed the sea alone, and working very +hard for one half year, and living harder, saved funds enough to +bring the other out. That done, they worked together side by side, +contentedly sharing hard labour and hard living for another term, +and then their sisters came, and then another brother, and lastly, +their old mother. And what now? Why, the poor old crone is +restless in a strange land, and yearns to lay her bones, she says, +among her people in the old graveyard at home: and so they go to +pay her passage back: and God help her and them, and every simple +heart, and all who turn to the Jerusalem of their younger days, and +have an altar-fire upon the cold hearth of their fathers. + +This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in the sun, is Wall +Street: the Stock Exchange and Lombard Street of New York. Many a +rapid fortune has been made in this street, and many a no less +rapid ruin. Some of these very merchants whom you see hanging +about here now, have locked up money in their strong-boxes, like +the man in the Arabian Nights, and opening them again, have found +but withered leaves. Below, here by the water-side, where the +bowsprits of ships stretch across the footway, and almost thrust +themselves into the windows, lie the noble American vessels which +having made their Packet Service the finest in the world. They +have brought hither the foreigners who abound in all the streets: +not, perhaps, that there are more here, than in other commercial +cities; but elsewhere, they have particular haunts, and you must +find them out; here, they pervade the town. + +We must cross Broadway again; gaining some refreshment from the +heat, in the sight of the great blocks of clean ice which are being +carried into shops and bar-rooms; and the pine-apples and water- +melons profusely displayed for sale. Fine streets of spacious +houses here, you see! - Wall Street has furnished and dismantled +many of them very often - and here a deep green leafy square. Be +sure that is a hospitable house with inmates to be affectionately +remembered always, where they have the open door and pretty show of +plants within, and where the child with laughing eyes is peeping +out of window at the little dog below. You wonder what may be the +use of this tall flagstaff in the by-street, with something like +Liberty's head-dress on its top: so do I. But there is a passion +for tall flagstaffs hereabout, and you may see its twin brother in +five minutes, if you have a mind. + +Again across Broadway, and so - passing from the many-coloured +crowd and glittering shops - into another long main street, the +Bowery. A railroad yonder, see, where two stout horses trot along, +drawing a score or two of people and a great wooden ark, with ease. +The stores are poorer here; the passengers less gay. Clothes +ready-made, and meat ready-cooked, are to be bought in these parts; +and the lively whirl of carriages is exchanged for the deep rumble +of carts and waggons. These signs which are so plentiful, in shape +like river buoys, or small balloons, hoisted by cords to poles, and +dangling there, announce, as you may see by looking up, 'OYSTERS IN +EVERY STYLE.' They tempt the hungry most at night, for then dull +candles glimmering inside, illuminate these dainty words, and make +the mouths of idlers water, as they read and linger. + +What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an +enchanter's palace in a melodrama! - a famous prison, called The +Tombs. Shall we go in? + +So. A long, narrow, lofty building, stove-heated as usual, with +four galleries, one above the other, going round it, and +communicating by stairs. Between the two sides of each gallery, +and in its centre, a bridge, for the greater convenience of +crossing. On each of these bridges sits a man: dozing or reading, +or talking to an idle companion. On each tier, are two opposite +rows of small iron doors. They look like furnace-doors, but are +cold and black, as though the fires within had all gone out. Some +two or three are open, and women, with drooping heads bent down, +are talking to the inmates. The whole is lighted by a skylight, +but it is fast closed; and from the roof there dangle, limp and +drooping, two useless windsails. + +A man with keys appears, to show us round. A good-looking fellow, +and, in his way, civil and obliging. + +'Are those black doors the cells?' + +'Yes.' + +'Are they all full?' + +'Well, they're pretty nigh full, and that's a fact, and no two ways +about it.' + +'Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely?' + +'Why, we DO only put coloured people in 'em. That's the truth.' + +'When do the prisoners take exercise?' + +'Well, they do without it pretty much.' + +'Do they never walk in the yard?' + +'Considerable seldom.' + +'Sometimes, I suppose?' + +'Well, it's rare they do. They keep pretty bright without it.' + +'But suppose a man were here for a twelvemonth. I know this is +only a prison for criminals who are charged with grave offences, +while they are awaiting their trial, or under remand, but the law +here affords criminals many means of delay. What with motions for +new trials, and in arrest of judgment, and what not, a prisoner +might be here for twelve months, I take it, might he not?' + +'Well, I guess he might.' + +'Do you mean to say that in all that time he would never come out +at that little iron door, for exercise?' + +'He might walk some, perhaps - not much.' + +'Will you open one of the doors?' + +'All, if you like.' + +The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the doors turns slowly on +its hinges. Let us look in. A small bare cell, into which the +light enters through a high chink in the wall. There is a rude +means of washing, a table, and a bedstead. Upon the latter, sits a +man of sixty; reading. He looks up for a moment; gives an +impatient dogged shake; and fixes his eyes upon his book again. As +we withdraw our heads, the door closes on him, and is fastened as +before. This man has murdered his wife, and will probably be +hanged. + +'How long has he been here?' + +'A month.' + +'When will he be tried?' + +'Next term.' + +'When is that?' + +'Next month.' + +'In England, if a man be under sentence of death, even he has air +and exercise at certain periods of the day.' + +'Possible?' + +With what stupendous and untranslatable coolness he says this, and +how loungingly he leads on to the women's side: making, as he +goes, a kind of iron castanet of the key and the stair-rail! + +Each cell door on this side has a square aperture in it. Some of +the women peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps; +others shrink away in shame. - For what offence can that lonely +child, of ten or twelve years old, be shut up here? Oh! that boy? +He is the son of the prisoner we saw just now; is a witness against +his father; and is detained here for safe keeping, until the trial; +that's all. + +But it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days and +nights in. This is rather hard treatment for a young witness, is +it not? - What says our conductor? + +'Well, it an't a very rowdy life, and THAT'S a fact!' + +Again he clinks his metal castanet, and leads us leisurely away. I +have a question to ask him as we go. + +'Pray, why do they call this place The Tombs?' + +'Well, it's the cant name.' + +'I know it is. Why?' + +'Some suicides happened here, when it was first built. I expect it +come about from that.' + +'I saw just now, that that man's clothes were scattered about the +floor of his cell. Don't you oblige the prisoners to be orderly, +and put such things away?' + +'Where should they put 'em?' + +'Not on the ground surely. What do you say to hanging them up?' + +He stops and looks round to emphasise his answer: + +'Why, I say that's just it. When they had hooks they WOULD hang +themselves, so they're taken out of every cell, and there's only +the marks left where they used to be!' + +The prison-yard in which he pauses now, has been the scene of +terrible performances. Into this narrow, grave-like place, men are +brought out to die. The wretched creature stands beneath the +gibbet on the ground; the rope about his neck; and when the sign is +given, a weight at its other end comes running down, and swings him +up into the air - a corpse. + +The law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle, +the judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five. +From the community it is hidden. To the dissolute and bad, the +thing remains a frightful mystery. Between the criminal and them, +the prison-wall is interposed as a thick gloomy veil. It is the +curtain to his bed of death, his winding-sheet, and grave. From +him it shuts out life, and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood +in that last hour, which its mere sight and presence is often all- +sufficient to sustain. There are no bold eyes to make him bold; no +ruffians to uphold a ruffian's name before. All beyond the +pitiless stone wall, is unknown space. + +Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets. + +Once more in Broadway! Here are the same ladies in bright colours, +walking to and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder the very same light +blue parasol which passed and repassed the hotel-window twenty +times while we were sitting there. We are going to cross here. +Take care of the pigs. Two portly sows are trotting up behind this +carriage, and a select party of half-a-dozen gentlemen hogs have +just now turned the corner. + +Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself. He has only +one ear; having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs in the course +of his city rambles. But he gets on very well without it; and +leads a roving, gentlemanly, vagabond kind of life, somewhat +answering to that of our club-men at home. He leaves his lodgings +every morning at a certain hour, throws himself upon the town, gets +through his day in some manner quite satisfactory to himself, and +regularly appears at the door of his own house again at night, like +the mysterious master of Gil Blas. He is a free-and-easy, +careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a very large acquaintance +among other pigs of the same character, whom he rather knows by +sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and +exchange civilities, but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up +the news and small-talk of the city in the shape of cabbage-stalks +and offal, and bearing no tails but his own: which is a very short +one, for his old enemies, the dogs, have been at that too, and have +left him hardly enough to swear by. He is in every respect a +republican pig, going wherever he pleases, and mingling with the +best society, on an equal, if not superior footing, for every one +makes way when he appears, and the haughtiest give him the wall, if +he prefer it. He is a great philosopher, and seldom moved, unless +by the dogs before mentioned. Sometimes, indeed, you may see his +small eye twinkling on a slaughtered friend, whose carcase +garnishes a butcher's door-post, but he grunts out 'Such is life: +all flesh is pork!' buries his nose in the mire again, and waddles +down the gutter: comforting himself with the reflection that there +is one snout the less to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any +rate. + +They are the city scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are; +having, for the most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old +horsehair trunks: spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They +have long, gaunt legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that if one of +them could be persuaded to sit for his profile, nobody would +recognise it for a pig's likeness. They are never attended upon, +or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own +resources in early life, and become preternaturally knowing in +consequence. Every pig knows where he lives, much better than +anybody could tell him. At this hour, just as evening is closing +in, you will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their +way to the last. Occasionally, some youth among them who has over- +eaten himself, or has been worried by dogs, trots shrinkingly +homeward, like a prodigal son: but this is a rare case: perfect +self-possession and self-reliance, and immovable composure, being +their foremost attributes. + +The streets and shops are lighted now; and as the eye travels down +the long thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is +reminded of Oxford Street, or Piccadilly. Here and there a flight +of broad stone cellar-steps appears, and a painted lamp directs you +to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley; Ten-Pins being a game of +mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed an +act forbidding Nine-Pins. At other downward flights of steps, are +other lamps, marking the whereabouts of oyster-cellars - pleasant +retreats, say I: not only by reason of their wonderful cookery of +oysters, pretty nigh as large as cheese-plates (or for thy dear +sake, heartiest of Greek Professors!), but because of all kinds of +caters of fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes, the +swallowers of oysters alone are not gregarious; but subduing +themselves, as it were, to the nature of what they work in, and +copying the coyness of the thing they eat, do sit apart in +curtained boxes, and consort by twos, not by two hundreds. + +But how quiet the streets are! Are there no itinerant bands; no +wind or stringed instruments? No, not one. By day, are there no +Punches, Fantoccini, Dancing-dogs, Jugglers, Conjurers, +Orchestrinas, or even Barrel-organs? No, not one. Yes, I remember +one. One barrel-organ and a dancing-monkey - sportive by nature, +but fast fading into a dull, lumpish monkey, of the Utilitarian +school. Beyond that, nothing lively; no, not so much as a white +mouse in a twirling cage. + +Are there no amusements? Yes. There is a lecture-room across the +way, from which that glare of light proceeds, and there may be +evening service for the ladies thrice a week, or oftener. For the +young gentlemen, there is the counting-house, the store, the bar- +room: the latter, as you may see through these windows, pretty +full. Hark! to the clinking sound of hammers breaking lumps of +ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the +process of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass! No +amusements? What are these suckers of cigars and swallowers of +strong drinks, whose hats and legs we see in every possible variety +of twist, doing, but amusing themselves? What are the fifty +newspapers, which those precocious urchins are bawling down the +street, and which are kept filed within, what are they but +amusements? Not vapid, waterish amusements, but good strong stuff; +dealing in round abuse and blackguard names; pulling off the roofs +of private houses, as the Halting Devil did in Spain; pimping and +pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and gorging with coined +lies the most voracious maw; imputing to every man in public life +the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the stabbed +and prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience and +good deeds; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping +of foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey. - No +amusements! + +Let us go on again; and passing this wilderness of an hotel with +stores about its base, like some Continental theatre, or the London +Opera House shorn of its colonnade, plunge into the Five Points. +But it is needful, first, that we take as our escort these two +heads of the police, whom you would know for sharp and well-trained +officers if you met them in the Great Desert. So true it is, that +certain pursuits, wherever carried on, will stamp men with the same +character. These two might have been begotten, born, and bred, in +Bow Street. + +We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day; but of +other kinds of strollers, plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice, +are rife enough where we are going now. + +This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right and +left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as +are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse +and bloated faces at the doors, have counterparts at home, and all +the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses +prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and +how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes +that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of those pigs live +here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu +of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting? + +So far, nearly every house is a low tavern; and on the bar-room +walls, are coloured prints of Washington, and Queen Victoria of +England, and the American Eagle. Among the pigeon-holes that hold +the bottles, are pieces of plate-glass and coloured paper, for +there is, in some sort, a taste for decoration, even here. And as +seamen frequent these haunts, there are maritime pictures by the +dozen: of partings between sailors and their lady-loves, portraits +of William, of the ballad, and his Black-Eyed Susan; of Will Watch, +the Bold Smuggler; of Paul Jones the Pirate, and the like: on +which the painted eyes of Queen Victoria, and of Washington to +boot, rest in as strange companionship, as on most of the scenes +that are enacted in their wondering presence. + +What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A +kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only +by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies beyond this tottering +flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread? - a miserable room, +lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that +which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man: his +elbows on his knees: his forehead hidden in his hands. 'What ails +that man?' asks the foremost officer. 'Fever,' he sullenly +replies, without looking up. Conceive the fancies of a feverish +brain, in such a place as this! + +Ascend these pitch-dark stairs, heedful of a false footing on the +trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den, +where neither ray of light nor breath of air, appears to come. A +negro lad, startled from his sleep by the officer's voice - he +knows it well - but comforted by his assurance that he has not come +on business, officiously bestirs himself to light a candle. The +match flickers for a moment, and shows great mounds of dusty rags +upon the ground; then dies away and leaves a denser darkness than +before, if there can be degrees in such extremes. He stumbles down +the stairs and presently comes back, shading a flaring taper with +his hand. Then the mounds of rags are seen to be astir, and rise +slowly up, and the floor is covered with heaps of negro women, +waking from their sleep: their white teeth chattering, and their +bright eyes glistening and winking on all sides with surprise and +fear, like the countless repetition of one astonished African face +in some strange mirror. + +Mount up these other stairs with no less caution (there are traps +and pitfalls here, for those who are not so well escorted as +ourselves) into the housetop; where the bare beams and rafters meet +overhead, and calm night looks down through the crevices in the +roof. Open the door of one of these cramped hutches full of +sleeping negroes. Pah! They have a charcoal fire within; there is +a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, so close they gather round +the brazier; and vapours issue forth that blind and suffocate. +From every corner, as you glance about you in these dark retreats, +some figure crawls half-awakened, as if the judgment-hour were near +at hand, and every obscene grave were giving up its dead. Where +dogs would howl to lie, women, and men, and boys slink off to +sleep, forcing the dislodged rats to move away in quest of better +lodgings. + +Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep, +underground chambers, where they dance and game; the walls bedecked +with rough designs of ships, and forts, and flags, and American +eagles out of number: ruined houses, open to the street, whence, +through wide gaps in the walls, other ruins loom upon the eye, as +though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show: +hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder: +all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here. + +Our leader has his hand upon the latch of 'Almack's,' and calls to +us from the bottom of the steps; for the assembly-room of the Five +Point fashionables is approached by a descent. Shall we go in? It +is but a moment. + +Heyday! the landlady of Almack's thrives! A buxom fat mulatto +woman, with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with +a handkerchief of many colours. Nor is the landlord much behind +her in his finery, being attired in a smart blue jacket, like a +ship's steward, with a thick gold ring upon his little finger, and +round his neck a gleaming golden watch-guard. How glad he is to +see us! What will we please to call for? A dance? It shall be +done directly, sir: 'a regular break-down.' + +The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the +tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra +in which they sit, and play a lively measure. Five or six couple +come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the +wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known. He never +leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, +who grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two +young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and head- +gear after the fashion of the hostess, who are as shy, or feign to +be, as though they never danced before, and so look down before the +visitors, that their partners can see nothing but the long fringed +lashes. + +But the dance commences. Every gentleman sets as long as he likes +to the opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so +long about it that the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the +lively hero dashes in to the rescue. Instantly the fiddler grins, +and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new energy in the +tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles in the +landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness in the +very candles. + +Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his +fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the +backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels +like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine; dancing with +two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two +spring legs - all sorts of legs and no legs - what is this to him? +And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such +stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his +partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping +gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, +with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one +inimitable sound! + +The air, even in these distempered parts, is fresh after the +stifling atmosphere of the houses; and now, as we emerge into a +broader street, it blows upon us with a purer breath, and the stars +look bright again. Here are The Tombs once more. The city watch- +house is a part of the building. It follows naturally on the +sights we have just left. Let us see that, and then to bed. + +What! do you thrust your common offenders against the police +discipline of the town, into such holes as these? Do men and +women, against whom no crime is proved, lie here all night in +perfect darkness, surrounded by the noisome vapours which encircle +that flagging lamp you light us with, and breathing this filthy and +offensive stench! Why, such indecent and disgusting dungeons as +these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in +the world! Look at them, man - you, who see them every night, and +keep the keys. Do you see what they are? Do you know how drains +are made below the streets, and wherein these human sewers differ, +except in being always stagnant? + +Well, he don't know. He has had five-and-twenty young women locked +up in this very cell at one time, and you'd hardly realise what +handsome faces there were among 'em. + +In God's name! shut the door upon the wretched creature who is in +it now, and put its screen before a place, quite unsurpassed in all +the vice, neglect, and devilry, of the worst old town in Europe. + +Are people really left all night, untried, in those black sties? - +Every night. The watch is set at seven in the evening. The +magistrate opens his court at five in the morning. That is the +earliest hour at which the first prisoner can be released; and if +an officer appear against him, he is not taken out till nine +o'clock or ten. - But if any one among them die in the interval, as +one man did, not long ago? Then he is half-eaten by the rats in an +hour's time; as that man was; and there an end. + +What is this intolerable tolling of great bells, and crashing of +wheels, and shouting in the distance? A fire. And what that deep +red light in the opposite direction? Another fire. And what these +charred and blackened walls we stand before? A dwelling where a +fire has been. It was more than hinted, in an official report, not +long ago, that some of these conflagrations were not wholly +accidental, and that speculation and enterprise found a field of +exertion, even in flames: but be this as it may, there was a fire +last night, there are two to-night, and you may lay an even wager +there will be at least one, to-morrow. So, carrying that with us +for our comfort, let us say, Good night, and climb up-stairs to +bed. + +* * * * * * + +One day, during my stay in New York, I paid a visit to the +different public institutions on Long Island, or Rhode Island: I +forget which. One of them is a Lunatic Asylum. The building is +handsome; and is remarkable for a spacious and elegant staircase. +The whole structure is not yet finished, but it is already one of +considerable size and extent, and is capable of accommodating a +very large number of patients. + +I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection of +this charity. The different wards might have been cleaner and +better ordered; I saw nothing of that salutary system which had +impressed me so favourably elsewhere; and everything had a +lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful. The +moping idiot, cowering down with long dishevelled hair; the +gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh and pointed finger; the +vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the gloomy picking of the hands +and lips, and munching of the nails: there they were all, without +disguise, in naked ugliness and horror. In the dining-room, a +bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for the eye to rest on but +the empty walls, a woman was locked up alone. She was bent, they +told me, on committing suicide. If anything could have +strengthened her in her resolution, it would certainly have been +the insupportable monotony of such an existence. + +The terrible crowd with which these halls and galleries were +filled, so shocked me, that I abridged my stay within the shortest +limits, and declined to see that portion of the building in which +the refractory and violent were under closer restraint. I have no +doubt that the gentleman who presided over this establishment at +the time I write of, was competent to manage it, and had done all +in his power to promote its usefulness: but will it be believed +that the miserable strife of Party feeling is carried even into +this sad refuge of afflicted and degraded humanity? Will it be +believed that the eyes which are to watch over and control the +wanderings of minds on which the most dreadful visitation to which +our nature is exposed has fallen, must wear the glasses of some +wretched side in Politics? Will it be believed that the governor +of such a house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed +perpetually, as Parties fluctuate and vary, and as their despicable +weathercocks are blown this way or that? A hundred times in every +week, some new most paltry exhibition of that narrow-minded and +injurious Party Spirit, which is the Simoom of America, sickening +and blighting everything of wholesome life within its reach, was +forced upon my notice; but I never turned my back upon it with +feelings of such deep disgust and measureless contempt, as when I +crossed the threshold of this madhouse. + +At a short distance from this building is another called the Alms +House, that is to say, the workhouse of New York. This is a large +Institution also: lodging, I believe, when I was there, nearly a +thousand poor. It was badly ventilated, and badly lighted; was not +too clean; - and impressed me, on the whole, very uncomfortably. +But it must be remembered that New York, as a great emporium of +commerce, and as a place of general resort, not only from all parts +of the States, but from most parts of the world, has always a large +pauper population to provide for; and labours, therefore, under +peculiar difficulties in this respect. Nor must it be forgotten +that New York is a large town, and that in all large towns a vast +amount of good and evil is intermixed and jumbled up together. + +In the same neighbourhood is the Farm, where young orphans are +nursed and bred. I did not see it, but I believe it is well +conducted; and I can the more easily credit it, from knowing how +mindful they usually are, in America, of that beautiful passage in +the Litany which remembers all sick persons and young children. + +I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to +the Island jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed +in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like +faded tigers. They took me, by the same conveyance, to the jail +itself. + +It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer establishment, on the plan +I have already described. I was glad to hear this, for it is +unquestionably a very indifferent one. The most is made, however, +of the means it possesses, and it is as well regulated as such a +place can be. + +The women work in covered sheds, erected for that purpose. If I +remember right, there are no shops for the men, but be that as it +may, the greater part of them labour in certain stone-quarries near +at hand. The day being very wet indeed, this labour was suspended, +and the prisoners were in their cells. Imagine these cells, some +two or three hundred in number, and in every one a man locked up; +this one at his door for air, with his hands thrust through the +grate; this one in bed (in the middle of the day, remember); and +this one flung down in a heap upon the ground, with his head +against the bars, like a wild beast. Make the rain pour down, +outside, in torrents. Put the everlasting stove in the midst; hot, +and suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch's cauldron. Add a +collection of gentle odours, such as would arise from a thousand +mildewed umbrellas, wet through, and a thousand buck-baskets, full +of half-washed linen - and there is the prison, as it was that day. + +The prison for the State at Sing Sing is, on the other hand, a +model jail. That, and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest and best +examples of the silent system. + +In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute: an +Institution whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders, male and +female, black and white, without distinction; to teach them useful +trades, apprentice them to respectable masters, and make them +worthy members of society. Its design, it will be seen, is similar +to that at Boston; and it is a no less meritorious and admirable +establishment. A suspicion crossed my mind during my inspection of +this noble charity, whether the superintendent had quite sufficient +knowledge of the world and worldly characters; and whether he did +not commit a great mistake in treating some young girls, who were +to all intents and purposes, by their years and their past lives, +women, as though they were little children; which certainly had a +ludicrous effect in my eyes, and, or I am much mistaken, in theirs +also. As the Institution, however, is always under a vigilant +examination of a body of gentlemen of great intelligence and +experience, it cannot fail to be well conducted; and whether I am +right or wrong in this slight particular, is unimportant to its +deserts and character, which it would be difficult to estimate too +highly. + +In addition to these establishments, there are in New York, +excellent hospitals and schools, literary institutions and +libraries; an admirable fire department (as indeed it should be, +having constant practice), and charities of every sort and kind. +In the suburbs there is a spacious cemetery: unfinished yet, but +every day improving. The saddest tomb I saw there was 'The +Strangers' Grave. Dedicated to the different hotels in this city.' + +There are three principal theatres. Two of them, the Park and the +Bowery, are large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I +grieve to write it, generally deserted. The third, the Olympic, is +a tiny show-box for vaudevilles and burlesques. It is singularly +well conducted by Mr. Mitchell, a comic actor of great quiet humour +and originality, who is well remembered and esteemed by London +playgoers. I am happy to report of this deserving gentleman, that +his benches are usually well filled, and that his theatre rings +with merriment every night. I had almost forgotten a small summer +theatre, called Niblo's, with gardens and open air amusements +attached; but I believe it is not exempt from the general +depression under which Theatrical Property, or what is humorously +called by that name, unfortunately labours. + +The country round New York is surpassingly and exquisitely +picturesque. The climate, as I have already intimated, is somewhat +of the warmest. What it would be, without the sea breezes which +come from its beautiful Bay in the evening time, I will not throw +myself or my readers into a fever by inquiring. + +The tone of the best society in this city, is like that of Boston; +here and there, it may be, with a greater infusion of the +mercantile spirit, but generally polished and refined, and always +most hospitable. The houses and tables are elegant; the hours +later and more rakish; and there is, perhaps, a greater spirit of +contention in reference to appearances, and the display of wealth +and costly living. The ladies are singularly beautiful. + +Before I left New York I made arrangements for securing a passage +home in the George Washington packet ship, which was advertised to +sail in June: that being the month in which I had determined, if +prevented by no accident in the course of my ramblings, to leave +America. + +I never thought that going back to England, returning to all who +are dear to me, and to pursuits that have insensibly grown to be a +part of my nature, I could have felt so much sorrow as I endured, +when I parted at last, on board this ship, with the friends who had +accompanied me from this city. I never thought the name of any +place, so far away and so lately known, could ever associate itself +in my mind with the crowd of affectionate remembrances that now +cluster about it. There are those in this city who would brighten, +to me, the darkest winter-day that ever glimmered and went out in +Lapland; and before whose presence even Home grew dim, when they +and I exchanged that painful word which mingles with our every +thought and deed; which haunts our cradle-heads in infancy, and +closes up the vista of our lives in age. + + + + +CHAPTER VII - PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON + + + +THE journey from New York to Philadelphia, is made by railroad, and +two ferries; and usually occupies between five and six hours. It +was a fine evening when we were passengers in the train: and +watching the bright sunset from a little window near the door by +which we sat, my attention was attracted to a remarkable appearance +issuing from the windows of the gentleman's car immediately in +front of us, which I supposed for some time was occasioned by a +number of industrious persons inside, ripping open feather-beds, +and giving the feathers to the wind. At length it occurred to me +that they were only spitting, which was indeed the case; though how +any number of passengers which it was possible for that car to +contain, could have maintained such a playful and incessant shower +of expectoration, I am still at a loss to understand: +notwithstanding the experience in all salivatory phenomena which I +afterwards acquired. + +I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest young +quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a grave +whisper, that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor +oil. I mention the circumstance here, thinking it probable that +this is the first occasion on which the valuable medicine in +question was ever used as a conversational aperient. + +We reached the city, late that night. Looking out of my chamber- +window, before going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side of the +way, a handsome building of white marble, which had a mournful +ghost-like aspect, dreary to behold. I attributed this to the +sombre influence of the night, and on rising in the morning looked +out again, expecting to see its steps and portico thronged with +groups of people passing in and out. The door was still tight +shut, however; the same cold cheerless air prevailed: and the +building looked as if the marble statue of Don Guzman could alone +have any business to transact within its gloomy walls. I hastened +to inquire its name and purpose, and then my surprise vanished. It +was the Tomb of many fortunes; the Great Catacomb of investment; +the memorable United States Bank. + +The stoppage of this bank, with all its ruinous consequences, had +cast (as I was told on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia, under +the depressing effect of which it yet laboured. It certainly did +seem rather dull and out of spirits. + +It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular. After walking +about it for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the +world for a crooked street. The collar of my coat appeared to +stiffen, and the brim of my bat to expand, beneath its quakery +influence. My hair shrunk into a sleek short crop, my hands folded +themselves upon my breast of their own calm accord, and thoughts of +taking lodgings in Mark Lane over against the Market Place, and of +making a large fortune by speculations in corn, came over me +involuntarily. + +Philadelphia is most bountifully provided with fresh water, which +is showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured off, +everywhere. The Waterworks, which are on a height near the city, +are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a +public garden, and kept in the best and neatest order. The river +is dammed at this point, and forced by its own power into certain +high tanks or reservoirs, whence the whole city, to the top stories +of the houses, is supplied at a very trifling expense. + +There are various public institutions. Among them a most excellent +Hospital - a quaker establishment, but not sectarian in the great +benefits it confers; a quiet, quaint old Library, named after +Franklin; a handsome Exchange and Post Office; and so forth. In +connection with the quaker Hospital, there is a picture by West, +which is exhibited for the benefit of the funds of the institution. +The subject is, our Saviour healing the sick, and it is, perhaps, +as favourable a specimen of the master as can be seen anywhere. +Whether this be high or low praise, depends upon the reader's +taste. + +In the same room, there is a very characteristic and life-like +portrait by Mr. Sully, a distinguished American artist. + +My stay in Philadelphia was very short, but what I saw of its +society, I greatly liked. Treating of its general characteristics, +I should be disposed to say that it is more provincial than Boston +or New York, and that there is afloat in the fair city, an +assumption of taste and criticism, savouring rather of those +genteel discussions upon the same themes, in connection with +Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses, of which we read in the Vicar +of Wakefield. Near the city, is a most splendid unfinished marble +structure for the Girard College, founded by a deceased gentleman +of that name and of enormous wealth, which, if completed according +to the original design, will be perhaps the richest edifice of +modern times. But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and +pending them the work has stopped; so that like many other great +undertakings in America, even this is rather going to be done one +of these days, than doing now. + +In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern +Penitentiary: conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of +Pennsylvania. The system here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless +solitary confinement. I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel +and wrong. + +In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and +meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who devised +this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentlemen +who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are +doing. I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the +immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, +prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing +at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon +their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I +am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible +endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, +and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature. +I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the +brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and +because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye +and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are +not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can +hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment +which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay. I hesitated +once, debating with myself, whether, if I had the power of saying +'Yes' or 'No,' I would allow it to be tried in certain cases, where +the terms of imprisonment were short; but now, I solemnly declare, +that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy man beneath +the open sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night, with the +consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time, no +matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent +cell, and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree. + +I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially +connected with its management, and passed the day in going from +cell to cell, and talking with the inmates. Every facility was +afforded me, that the utmost courtesy could suggest. Nothing was +concealed or hidden from my view, and every piece of information +that I sought, was openly and frankly given. The perfect order of +the building cannot be praised too highly, and of the excellent +motives of all who are immediately concerned in the administration +of the system, there can be no kind of question. + +Between the body of the prison and the outer wall, there is a +spacious garden. Entering it, by a wicket in the massive gate, we +pursued the path before us to its other termination, and passed +into a large chamber, from which seven long passages radiate. On +either side of each, is a long, long row of low cell doors, with a +certain number over every one. Above, a gallery of cells like +those below, except that they have no narrow yard attached (as +those in the ground tier have), and are somewhat smaller. The +possession of two of these, is supposed to compensate for the +absence of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull strip +attached to each of the others, in an hour's time every day; and +therefore every prisoner in this upper story has two cells, +adjoining and communicating with, each other. + +Standing at the central point, and looking down these dreary +passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful. +Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver's +shuttle, or shoemaker's last, but it is stifled by the thick walls +and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general +stillness more profound. Over the head and face of every prisoner +who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in +this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and +the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again +comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has expired. He +never hears of wife and children; home or friends; the life or +death of any single creature. He sees the prison-officers, but +with that exception he never looks upon a human countenance, or +hears a human voice. He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in +the slow round of years; and in the mean time dead to everything +but torturing anxieties and horrible despair. + +His name, and crime, and term of suffering, are unknown, even to +the officer who delivers him his daily food. There is a number +over his cell-door, and in a book of which the governor of the +prison has one copy, and the moral instructor another: this is the +index of his history. Beyond these pages the prison has no record +of his existence: and though he live to be in the same cell ten +weary years, he has no means of knowing, down to the very last +hour, in which part of the building it is situated; what kind of +men there are about him; whether in the long winter nights there +are living people near, or he is in some lonely corner of the great +jail, with walls, and passages, and iron doors between him and the +nearest sharer in its solitary horrors. + +Every cell has double doors: the outer one of sturdy oak, the +other of grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his +food is handed. He has a Bible, and a slate and pencil, and, under +certain restrictions, has sometimes other books, provided for the +purpose, and pen and ink and paper. His razor, plate, and can, and +basin, hang upon the wall, or shine upon the little shelf. Fresh +water is laid on in every cell, and he can draw it at his pleasure. +During the day, his bedstead turns up against the wall, and leaves +more space for him to work in. His loom, or bench, or wheel, is +there; and there he labours, sleeps and wakes, and counts the +seasons as they change, and grows old. + +The first man I saw, was seated at his loom, at work. He had been +there six years, and was to remain, I think, three more. He had +been convicted as a receiver of stolen goods, but even after his +long imprisonment, denied his guilt, and said he had been hardly +dealt by. It was his second offence. + +He stopped his work when we went in, took off his spectacles, and +answered freely to everything that was said to him, but always with +a strange kind of pause first, and in a low, thoughtful voice. He +wore a paper hat of his own making, and was pleased to have it +noticed and commanded. He had very ingeniously manufactured a sort +of Dutch clock from some disregarded odds and ends; and his +vinegar-bottle served for the pendulum. Seeing me interested in +this contrivance, he looked up at it with a great deal of pride, +and said that he had been thinking of improving it, and that he +hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken glass beside it +'would play music before long.' He had extracted some colours from +the yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor figures on +the wall. One, of a female, over the door, he called 'The Lady of +the Lake.' + +He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to while away the time; +but when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip trembled, +and could have counted the beating of his heart. I forget how it +came about, but some allusion was made to his having a wife. He +shook his head at the word, turned aside, and covered his face with +his hands. + +'But you are resigned now!' said one of the gentlemen after a short +pause, during which he had resumed his former manner. He answered +with a sigh that seemed quite reckless in its hopelessness, 'Oh +yes, oh yes! I am resigned to it.' 'And are a better man, you +think?' 'Well, I hope so: I'm sure I hope I may be.' 'And time +goes pretty quickly?' 'Time is very long gentlemen, within these +four walls!' + +He gazed about him - Heaven only knows how wearily! - as he said +these words; and in the act of doing so, fell into a strange stare +as if he had forgotten something. A moment afterwards he sighed +heavily, put on his spectacles, and went about his work again. + +In another cell, there was a German, sentenced to five years' +imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just expired. With +colours procured in the same manner, he had painted every inch of +the walls and ceiling quite beautifully. He had laid out the few +feet of ground, behind, with exquisite neatness, and had made a +little bed in the centre, that looked, by-the-bye, like a grave. +The taste and ingenuity he had displayed in everything were most +extraordinary; and yet a more dejected, heart-broken, wretched +creature, it would be difficult to imagine. I never saw such a +picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind. My heart bled +for him; and when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he took one of +the visitors aside, to ask, with his trembling hands nervously +clutching at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of +his dismal sentence being commuted, the spectacle was really too +painful to witness. I never saw or heard of any kind of misery +that impressed me more than the wretchedness of this man. + +In a third cell, was a tall, strong black, a burglar, working at +his proper trade of making screws and the like. His time was +nearly out. He was not only a very dexterous thief, but was +notorious for his boldness and hardihood, and for the number of his +previous convictions. He entertained us with a long account of his +achievements, which he narrated with such infinite relish, that he +actually seemed to lick his lips as he told us racy anecdotes of +stolen plate, and of old ladies whom he had watched as they sat at +windows in silver spectacles (he had plainly had an eye to their +metal even from the other side of the street) and had afterwards +robbed. This fellow, upon the slightest encouragement, would have +mingled with his professional recollections the most detestable +cant; but I am very much mistaken if he could have surpassed the +unmitigated hypocrisy with which he declared that he blessed the +day on which he came into that prison, and that he never would +commit another robbery as long as he lived. + +There was one man who was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep +rabbits. His room having rather a close smell in consequence, they +called to him at the door to come out into the passage. He +complied of course, and stood shading his haggard face in the +unwonted sunlight of the great window, looking as wan and unearthly +as if he had been summoned from the grave. He had a white rabbit +in his breast; and when the little creature, getting down upon the +ground, stole back into the cell, and he, being dismissed, crept +timidly after it, I thought it would have been very hard to say in +what respect the man was the nobler animal of the two. + +There was an English thief, who had been there but a few days out +of seven years: a villainous, low-browed, thin-lipped fellow, with +a white face; who had as yet no relish for visitors, and who, but +for the additional penalty, would have gladly stabbed me with his +shoemaker's knife. There was another German who had entered the +jail but yesterday, and who started from his bed when we looked in, +and pleaded, in his broken English, very hard for work. There was +a poet, who after doing two days' work in every four-and-twenty +hours, one for himself and one for the prison, wrote verses about +ships (he was by trade a mariner), and 'the maddening wine-cup,' +and his friends at home. There were very many of them. Some +reddened at the sight of visitors, and some turned very pale. Some +two or three had prisoner nurses with them, for they were very +sick; and one, a fat old negro whose leg had been taken off within +the jail, had for his attendant a classical scholar and an +accomplished surgeon, himself a prisoner likewise. Sitting upon +the stairs, engaged in some slight work, was a pretty coloured boy. +'Is there no refuge for young criminals in Philadelphia, then?' +said I. 'Yes, but only for white children.' Noble aristocracy in +crime + +There was a sailor who had been there upwards of eleven years, and +who in a few months' time would be free. Eleven years of solitary +confinement! + +'I am very glad to hear your time is nearly out.' What does he +say? Nothing. Why does he stare at his hands, and pick the flesh +upon his fingers, and raise his eyes for an instant, every now and +then, to those bare walls which have seen his head turn grey? It +is a way he has sometimes. + +Does he never look men in the face, and does he always pluck at +those hands of his, as though he were bent on parting skin and +bone? It is his humour: nothing more. + +It is his humour too, to say that he does not look forward to going +out; that he is not glad the time is drawing near; that he did look +forward to it once, but that was very long ago; that he has lost +all care for everything. It is his humour to be a helpless, +crushed, and broken man. And, Heaven be his witness that he has +his humour thoroughly gratified! + +There were three young women in adjoining cells, all convicted at +the same time of a conspiracy to rob their prosecutor. In the +silence and solitude of their lives they had grown to be quite +beautiful. Their looks were very sad, and might have moved the +sternest visitor to tears, but not to that kind of sorrow which the +contemplation of the men awakens. One was a young girl; not +twenty, as I recollect; whose snow-white room was hung with the +work of some former prisoner, and upon whose downcast face the sun +in all its splendour shone down through the high chink in the wall, +where one narrow strip of bright blue sky was visible. She was +very penitent and quiet; had come to be resigned, she said (and I +believe her); and had a mind at peace. 'In a word, you are happy +here?' said one of my companions. She struggled - she did struggle +very hard - to answer, Yes; but raising her eyes, and meeting that +glimpse of freedom overhead, she burst into tears, and said, 'She +tried to be; she uttered no complaint; but it was natural that she +should sometimes long to go out of that one cell: she could not +help THAT,' she sobbed, poor thing! + +I went from cell to cell that day; and every face I saw, or word I +heard, or incident I noted, is present to my mind in all its +painfulness. But let me pass them by, for one, more pleasant, +glance of a prison on the same plan which I afterwards saw at +Pittsburg. + +When I had gone over that, in the same manner, I asked the governor +if he had any person in his charge who was shortly going out. He +had one, he said, whose time was up next day; but he had only been +a prisoner two years. + +Two years! I looked back through two years of my own life - out of +jail, prosperous, happy, surrounded by blessings, comforts, good +fortune - and thought how wide a gap it was, and how long those two +years passed in solitary captivity would have been. I have the +face of this man, who was going to be released next day, before me +now. It is almost more memorable in its happiness than the other +faces in their misery. How easy and how natural it was for him to +say that the system was a good one; and that the time went 'pretty +quick - considering;' and that when a man once felt that he had +offended the law, and must satisfy it, 'he got along, somehow:' and +so forth! + +'What did he call you back to say to you, in that strange flutter?' +I asked of my conductor, when he had locked the door and joined me +in the passage. + +'Oh! That he was afraid the soles of his boots were not fit for +walking, as they were a good deal worn when he came in; and that he +would thank me very much to have them mended, ready.' + +Those boots had been taken off his feet, and put away with the rest +of his clothes, two years before! + +I took that opportunity of inquiring how they conducted themselves +immediately before going out; adding that I presumed they trembled +very much. + +'Well, it's not so much a trembling,' was the answer - 'though they +do quiver - as a complete derangement of the nervous system. They +can't sign their names to the book; sometimes can't even hold the +pen; look about 'em without appearing to know why, or where they +are; and sometimes get up and sit down again, twenty times in a +minute. This is when they're in the office, where they are taken +with the hood on, as they were brought in. When they get outside +the gate, they stop, and look first one way and then the other; not +knowing which to take. Sometimes they stagger as if they were +drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence, they're +so bad:- but they clear off in course of time.' + +As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the faces of +the men within them, I tried to picture to myself the thoughts and +feelings natural to their condition. I imagined the hood just +taken off, and the scene of their captivity disclosed to them in +all its dismal monotony. + +At first, the man is stunned. His confinement is a hideous vision; +and his old life a reality. He throws himself upon his bed, and +lies there abandoned to despair. By degrees the insupportable +solitude and barrenness of the place rouses him from this stupor, +and when the trap in his grated door is opened, he humbly begs and +prays for work. 'Give me some work to do, or I shall go raving +mad!' + +He has it; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour; but +every now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the +years that must be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so +piercing in the recollection of those who are hidden from his view +and knowledge, that he starts from his seat, and striding up and +down the narrow room with both hands clasped on his uplifted head, +hears spirits tempting him to beat his brains out on the wall. + +Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning. Suddenly he +starts up, wondering whether any other man is near; whether there +is another cell like that on either side of him: and listens +keenly. + +There is no sound, but other prisoners may be near for all that. +He remembers to have heard once, when he little thought of coming +here himself, that the cells were so constructed that the prisoners +could not hear each other, though the officers could hear them. + +Where is the nearest man - upon the right, or on the left? or is +there one in both directions? Where is he sitting now - with his +face to the light? or is he walking to and fro? How is he dressed? +Has he been here long? Is he much worn away? Is he very white and +spectre-like? Does HE think of his neighbour too? + +Scarcely venturing to breathe, and listening while he thinks, he +conjures up a figure with his back towards him, and imagines it +moving about in this next cell. He has no idea of the face, but he +is certain of the dark form of a stooping man. In the cell upon +the other side, he puts another figure, whose face is hidden from +him also. Day after day, and often when he wakes up in the middle +of the night, he thinks of these two men until he is almost +distracted. He never changes them. There they are always as he +first imagined them - an old man on the right; a younger man upon +the left - whose hidden features torture him to death, and have a +mystery that makes him tremble. + +The weary days pass on with solemn pace, like mourners at a +funeral; and slowly he begins to feel that the white walls of the +cell have something dreadful in them: that their colour is +horrible: that their smooth surface chills his blood: that there +is one hateful corner which torments him. Every morning when he +wakes, he hides his head beneath the coverlet, and shudders to see +the ghastly ceiling looking down upon him. The blessed light of +day itself peeps in, an ugly phantom face, through the unchangeable +crevice which is his prison window. + +By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of that hateful corner swell +until they beset him at all times; invade his rest, make his dreams +hideous, and his nights dreadful. At first, he took a strange +dislike to it; feeling as though it gave birth in his brain to +something of corresponding shape, which ought not to be there, and +racked his head with pains. Then he began to fear it, then to +dream of it, and of men whispering its name and pointing to it. +Then he could not bear to look at it, nor yet to turn his back upon +it. Now, it is every night the lurking-place of a ghost: a +shadow:- a silent something, horrible to see, but whether bird, or +beast, or muffled human shape, he cannot tell. + +When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard without. +When he is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the cell. When night +comes, there stands the phantom in the corner. If he have the +courage to stand in its place, and drive it out (he had once: +being desperate), it broods upon his bed. In the twilight, and +always at the same hour, a voice calls to him by name; as the +darkness thickens, his Loom begins to live; and even that, his +comfort, is a hideous figure, watching him till daybreak. + +Again, by slow degrees, these horrible fancies depart from him one +by one: returning sometimes, unexpectedly, but at longer +intervals, and in less alarming shapes. He has talked upon +religious matters with the gentleman who visits him, and has read +his Bible, and has written a prayer upon his slate, and hung it up +as a kind of protection, and an assurance of Heavenly +companionship. He dreams now, sometimes, of his children or his +wife, but is sure that they are dead, or have deserted him. He is +easily moved to tears; is gentle, submissive, and broken-spirited. +Occasionally, the old agony comes back: a very little thing will +revive it; even a familiar sound, or the scent of summer flowers in +the air; but it does not last long, now: for the world without, +has come to be the vision, and this solitary life, the sad reality. + +If his term of imprisonment be short - I mean comparatively, for +short it cannot be - the last half year is almost worse than all; +for then he thinks the prison will take fire and he be burnt in the +ruins, or that he is doomed to die within the walls, or that he +will be detained on some false charge and sentenced for another +term: or that something, no matter what, must happen to prevent +his going at large. And this is natural, and impossible to be +reasoned against, because, after his long separation from human +life, and his great suffering, any event will appear to him more +probable in the contemplation, than the being restored to liberty +and his fellow-creatures. + +If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect of +release bewilders and confuses him. His broken heart may flutter +for a moment, when he thinks of the world outside, and what it +might have been to him in all those lonely years, but that is all. +The cell-door has been closed too long on all its hopes and cares. +Better to have hanged him in the beginning than bring him to this +pass, and send him forth to mingle with his kind, who are his kind +no more. + +On the haggard face of every man among these prisoners, the same +expression sat. I know not what to liken it to. It had something +of that strained attention which we see upon the faces of the blind +and deaf, mingled with a kind of horror, as though they had all +been secretly terrified. In every little chamber that I entered, +and at every grate through which I looked, I seemed to see the same +appalling countenance. It lives in my memory, with the fascination +of a remarkable picture. Parade before my eyes, a hundred men, +with one among them newly released from this solitary suffering, +and I would point him out. + +The faces of the women, as I have said, it humanises and refines. +Whether this be because of their better nature, which is elicited +in solitude, or because of their being gentler creatures, of +greater patience and longer suffering, I do not know; but so it is. +That the punishment is nevertheless, to my thinking, fully as cruel +and as wrong in their case, as in that of the men, I need scarcely +add. + +My firm conviction is that, independent of the mental anguish it +occasions - an anguish so acute and so tremendous, that all +imagination of it must fall far short of the reality - it wears the +mind into a morbid state, which renders it unfit for the rough +contact and busy action of the world. It is my fixed opinion that +those who have undergone this punishment, MUST pass into society +again morally unhealthy and diseased. There are many instances on +record, of men who have chosen, or have been condemned, to lives of +perfect solitude, but I scarcely remember one, even among sages of +strong and vigorous intellect, where its effect has not become +apparent, in some disordered train of thought, or some gloomy +hallucination. What monstrous phantoms, bred of despondency and +doubt, and born and reared in solitude, have stalked upon the +earth, making creation ugly, and darkening the face of Heaven! + +Suicides are rare among these prisoners: are almost, indeed, +unknown. But no argument in favour of the system, can reasonably +be deduced from this circumstance, although it is very often urged. +All men who have made diseases of the mind their study, know +perfectly well that such extreme depression and despair as will +change the whole character, and beat down all its powers of +elasticity and self-resistance, may be at work within a man, and +yet stop short of self-destruction. This is a common case. + +That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the bodily +faculties, I am quite sure. I remarked to those who were with me +in this very establishment at Philadelphia, that the criminals who +had been there long, were deaf. They, who were in the habit of +seeing these men constantly, were perfectly amazed at the idea, +which they regarded as groundless and fanciful. And yet the very +first prisoner to whom they appealed - one of their own selection +confirmed my impression (which was unknown to him) instantly, and +said, with a genuine air it was impossible to doubt, that he +couldn't think how it happened, but he WAS growing very dull of +hearing. + +That it is a singularly unequal punishment, and affects the worst +man least, there is no doubt. In its superior efficiency as a +means of reformation, compared with that other code of regulations +which allows the prisoners to work in company without communicating +together, I have not the smallest faith. All the instances of +reformation that were mentioned to me, were of a kind that might +have been - and I have no doubt whatever, in my own mind, would +have been - equally well brought about by the Silent System. With +regard to such men as the negro burglar and the English thief, even +the most enthusiastic have scarcely any hope of their conversion. + +It seems to me that the objection that nothing wholesome or good +has ever had its growth in such unnatural solitude, and that even a +dog or any of the more intelligent among beasts, would pine, and +mope, and rust away, beneath its influence, would be in itself a +sufficient argument against this system. But when we recollect, in +addition, how very cruel and severe it is, and that a solitary life +is always liable to peculiar and distinct objections of a most +deplorable nature, which have arisen here, and call to mind, +moreover, that the choice is not between this system, and a bad or +ill-considered one, but between it and another which has worked +well, and is, in its whole design and practice, excellent; there is +surely more than sufficient reason for abandoning a mode of +punishment attended by so little hope or promise, and fraught, +beyond dispute, with such a host of evils. + +As a relief to its contemplation, I will close this chapter with a +curious story arising out of the same theme, which was related to +me, on the occasion of this visit, by some of the gentlemen +concerned. + +At one of the periodical meetings of the inspectors of this prison, +a working man of Philadelphia presented himself before the Board, +and earnestly requested to be placed in solitary confinement. On +being asked what motive could possibly prompt him to make this +strange demand, he answered that he had an irresistible propensity +to get drunk; that he was constantly indulging it, to his great +misery and ruin; that he had no power of resistance; that he wished +to be put beyond the reach of temptation; and that he could think +of no better way than this. It was pointed out to him, in reply, +that the prison was for criminals who had been tried and sentenced +by the law, and could not be made available for any such fanciful +purposes; he was exhorted to abstain from intoxicating drinks, as +he surely might if he would; and received other very good advice, +with which he retired, exceedingly dissatisfied with the result of +his application. + +He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest and +importunate, that at last they took counsel together, and said, 'He +will certainly qualify himself for admission, if we reject him any +more. Let us shut him up. He will soon be glad to go away, and +then we shall get rid of him.' So they made him sign a statement +which would prevent his ever sustaining an action for false +imprisonment, to the effect that his incarceration was voluntary, +and of his own seeking; they requested him to take notice that the +officer in attendance had orders to release him at any hour of the +day or night, when he might knock upon his door for that purpose; +but desired him to understand, that once going out, he would not be +admitted any more. These conditions agreed upon, and he still +remaining in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison, and +shut up in one of the cells. + +In this cell, the man, who had not the firmness to leave a glass of +liquor standing untasted on a table before him - in this cell, in +solitary confinement, and working every day at his trade of +shoemaking, this man remained nearly two years. His health +beginning to fail at the expiration of that time, the surgeon +recommended that he should work occasionally in the garden; and as +he liked the notion very much, he went about this new occupation +with great cheerfulness. + +He was digging here, one summer day, very industriously, when the +wicket in the outer gate chanced to be left open: showing, beyond, +the well-remembered dusty road and sunburnt fields. The way was as +free to him as to any man living, but he no sooner raised his head +and caught sight of it, all shining in the light, than, with the +involuntary instinct of a prisoner, he cast away his spade, +scampered off as fast as his legs would carry him, and never once +looked back. + + + +CHAPTER VIII - WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE. AND THE PRESIDENT'S +HOUSE + + + +WE left Philadelphia by steamboat, at six o'clock one very cold +morning, and turned our faces towards Washington. + +In the course of this day's journey, as on subsequent occasions, we +encountered some Englishmen (small farmers, perhaps, or country +publicans at home) who were settled in America, and were travelling +on their own affairs. Of all grades and kinds of men that jostle +one in the public conveyances of the States, these are often the +most intolerable and the most insufferable companions. United to +every disagreeable characteristic that the worst kind of American +travellers possess, these countrymen of ours display an amount of +insolent conceit and cool assumption of superiority, quite +monstrous to behold. In the coarse familiarity of their approach, +and the effrontery of their inquisitiveness (which they are in +great haste to assert, as if they panted to revenge themselves upon +the decent old restraints of home), they surpass any native +specimens that came within my range of observation: and I often +grew so patriotic when I saw and heard them, that I would +cheerfully have submitted to a reasonable fine, if I could have +given any other country in the whole world, the honour of claiming +them for its children. + +As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured +saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, +that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and +expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, +and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public +places of America, this filthy custom is recognised. In the courts +of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, +and the prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided +for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit +incessantly. In the hospitals, the students of medicine are +requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice +into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to discolour the +stairs. In public buildings, visitors are implored, through the +same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or 'plugs,' as I +have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of +sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of +the marble columns. But in some parts, this custom is inseparably +mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the +transactions of social life. The stranger, who follows in the +track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory, +luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness, at Washington. And let +him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my shame) that previous +tourists have exaggerated its extent. The thing itself is an +exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone. + +On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with +shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big walking- +sticks; who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a +distance of some four paces apart; took out their tobacco-boxes; +and sat down opposite each other, to chew. In less than a quarter +of an hour's time, these hopeful youths had shed about them on the +clean boards, a copious shower of yellow rain; clearing, by that +means, a kind of magic circle, within whose limits no intruders +dared to come, and which they never failed to refresh and re- +refresh before a spot was dry. This being before breakfast, rather +disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but looking attentively at one +of the expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young in chewing, +and felt inwardly uneasy, himself. A glow of delight came over me +at this discovery; and as I marked his face turn paler and paler, +and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with his +suppressed agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat again, in +emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and +implored him to go on for hours. + +We all sat down to a comfortable breakfast in the cabin below, +where there was no more hurry or confusion than at such a meal in +England, and where there was certainly greater politeness exhibited +than at most of our stage-coach banquets. At about nine o'clock we +arrived at the railroad station, and went on by the cars. At noon +we turned out again, to cross a wide river in another steamboat; +landed at a continuation of the railroad on the opposite shore; and +went on by other cars; in which, in the course of the next hour or +so, we crossed by wooden bridges, each a mile in length, two +creeks, called respectively Great and Little Gunpowder. The water +in both was blackened with flights of canvas-backed ducks, which +are most delicious eating, and abound hereabouts at that season of +the year. + +These bridges are of wood, have no parapet, and are only just wide +enough for the passage of the trains; which, in the event of the +smallest accident, wound inevitably be plunged into the river. +They are startling contrivances, and are most agreeable when +passed. + +We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were +waited on, for the first time, by slaves. The sensation of +exacting any service from human creatures who are bought and sold, +and being, for the time, a party as it were to their condition, is +not an enviable one. The institution exists, perhaps, in its least +repulsive and most mitigated form in such a town as this; but it IS +slavery; and though I was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its +presence filled me with a sense of shame and self-reproach. + +After dinner, we went down to the railroad again, and took our +seats in the cars for Washington. Being rather early, those men +and boys who happened to have nothing particular to do, and were +curious in foreigners, came (according to custom) round the +carriage in which I sat; let down all the windows; thrust in their +heads and shoulders; hooked themselves on conveniently, by their +elbows; and fell to comparing notes on the subject of my personal +appearance, with as much indifference as if I were a stuffed +figure. I never gained so much uncompromising information with +reference to my own nose and eyes, and various impressions wrought +by my mouth and chin on different minds, and how my head looks when +it is viewed from behind, as on these occasions. Some gentlemen +were only satisfied by exercising their sense of touch; and the +boys (who are surprisingly precocious in America) were seldom +satisfied, even by that, but would return to the charge over and +over again. Many a budding president has walked into my room with +his cap on his head and his hands in his pockets, and stared at me +for two whole hours: occasionally refreshing himself with a tweak +of his nose, or a draught from the water-jug; or by walking to the +windows and inviting other boys in the street below, to come up and +do likewise: crying, 'Here he is!' 'Come on!' 'Bring all your +brothers!' with other hospitable entreaties of that nature. + +We reached Washington at about half-past six that evening, and had +upon the way a beautiful view of the Capitol, which is a fine +building of the Corinthian order, placed upon a noble and +commanding eminence. Arrived at the hotel; I saw no more of the +place that night; being very tired, and glad to get to bed. + +Breakfast over next morning, I walk about the streets for an hour +or two, and, coming home, throw up the window in the front and +back, and look out. Here is Washington, fresh in my mind and under +my eye. + +Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pentonville, or the +straggling outskirts of Paris, where the houses are smallest, +preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and +dwellings, occupied in Pentonville (but not in Washington) by +furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of +birds. Burn the whole down; build it up again in wood and plaster; +widen it a little; throw in part of St. John's Wood; put green +blinds outside all the private houses, with a red curtain and a +white one in every window; plough up all the roads; plant a great +deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought NOT to be; erect +three handsome buildings in stone and marble, anywhere, but the +more entirely out of everybody's way the better; call one the Post +Office; one the Patent Office, and one the Treasury; make it +scorching hot in the morning, and freezing cold in the afternoon, +with an occasional tornado of wind and dust; leave a brick-field +without the bricks, in all central places where a street may +naturally be expected: and that's Washington. + +The hotel in which we live, is a long row of small houses fronting +on the street, and opening at the back upon a common yard, in which +hangs a great triangle. Whenever a servant is wanted, somebody +beats on this triangle from one stroke up to seven, according to +the number of the house in which his presence is required; and as +all the servants are always being wanted, and none of them ever +come, this enlivening engine is in full performance the whole day +through. Clothes are drying in the same yard; female slaves, with +cotton handkerchiefs twisted round their heads are running to and +fro on the hotel business; black waiters cross and recross with +dishes in their hands; two great dogs are playing upon a mound of +loose bricks in the centre of the little square; a pig is turning +up his stomach to the sun, and grunting 'that's comfortable!'; and +neither the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pig, nor any +created creature, takes the smallest notice of the triangle, which +is tingling madly all the time. + +I walk to the front window, and look across the road upon a long, +straggling row of houses, one story high, terminating, nearly +opposite, but a little to the left, in a melancholy piece of waste +ground with frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece of country +that has taken to drinking, and has quite lost itself. Standing +anyhow and all wrong, upon this open space, like something meteoric +that has fallen down from the moon, is an odd, lop-sided, one-eyed +kind of wooden building, that looks like a church, with a flag- +staff as long as itself sticking out of a steeple something larger +than a tea-chest. Under the window is a small stand of coaches, +whose slave-drivers are sunning themselves on the steps of our +door, and talking idly together. The three most obtrusive houses +near at hand are the three meanest. On one - a shop, which never +has anything in the window, and never has the door open - is +painted in large characters, 'THE CITY LUNCH.' At another, which +looks like a backway to somewhere else, but is an independent +building in itself, oysters are procurable in every style. At the +third, which is a very, very little tailor's shop, pants are fixed +to order; or in other words, pantaloons are made to measure. And +that is our street in Washington. + +It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it +might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent +Intentions; for it is only on taking a bird's-eye view of it from +the top of the Capitol, that one can at all comprehend the vast +designs of its projector, an aspiring Frenchman. Spacious avenues, +that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that +only want houses, roads and inhabitants; public buildings that need +but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, +which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament - are its leading +features. One might fancy the season over, and most of the houses +gone out of town for ever with their masters. To the admirers of +cities it is a Barmecide Feast: a pleasant field for the +imagination to rove in; a monument raised to a deceased project, +with not even a legible inscription to record its departed +greatness. + +Such as it is, it is likely to remain. It was originally chosen +for the seat of Government, as a means of averting the conflicting +jealousies and interests of the different States; and very +probably, too, as being remote from mobs: a consideration not to +be slighted, even in America. It has no trade or commerce of its +own: having little or no population beyond the President and his +establishment; the members of the legislature who reside there +during the session; the Government clerks and officers employed in +the various departments; the keepers of the hotels and boarding- +houses; and the tradesmen who supply their tables. It is very +unhealthy. Few people would live in Washington, I take it, who +were not obliged to reside there; and the tides of emigration and +speculation, those rapid and regardless currents, are little likely +to flow at any time towards such dull and sluggish water. + +The principal features of the Capitol, are, of course, the two +houses of Assembly. But there is, besides, in the centre of the +building, a fine rotunda, ninety-six feet in diameter, and ninety- +six high, whose circular wall is divided into compartments, +ornamented by historical pictures. Four of these have for their +subjects prominent events in the revolutionary struggle. They were +painted by Colonel Trumbull, himself a member of Washington's staff +at the time of their occurrence; from which circumstance they +derive a peculiar interest of their own. In this same hall Mr. +Greenough's large statue of Washington has been lately placed. It +has great merits of course, but it struck me as being rather +strained and violent for its subject. I could wish, however, to +have seen it in a better light than it can ever be viewed in, where +it stands. + +There is a very pleasant and commodious library in the Capitol; and +from a balcony in front, the bird's-eye view, of which I have just +spoken, may be had, together with a beautiful prospect of the +adjacent country. In one of the ornamented portions of the +building, there is a figure of Justice; whereunto the Guide Book +says, 'the artist at first contemplated giving more of nudity, but +he was warned that the public sentiment in this country would not +admit of it, and in his caution he has gone, perhaps, into the +opposite extreme.' Poor Justice! she has been made to wear much +stranger garments in America than those she pines in, in the +Capitol. Let us hope that she has changed her dress-maker since +they were fashioned, and that the public sentiment of the country +did not cut out the clothes she hides her lovely figure in, just +now. + +The House of Representatives is a beautiful and spacious hall, of +semicircular shape, supported by handsome pillars. One part of the +gallery is appropriated to the ladies, and there they sit in front +rows, and come in, and go out, as at a play or concert. The chair +is canopied, and raised considerably above the floor of the House; +and every member has an easy chair and a writing desk to himself: +which is denounced by some people out of doors as a most +unfortunate and injudicious arrangement, tending to long sittings +and prosaic speeches. It is an elegant chamber to look at, but a +singularly bad one for all purposes of hearing. The Senate, which +is smaller, is free from this objection, and is exceedingly well +adapted to the uses for which it is designed. The sittings, I need +hardly add, take place in the day; and the parliamentary forms are +modelled on those of the old country. + +I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places, whether +I had not been very much impressed by the HEADS of the lawmakers at +Washington; meaning not their chiefs and leaders, but literally +their individual and personal heads, whereon their hair grew, and +whereby the phrenological character of each legislator was +expressed: and I almost as often struck my questioner dumb with +indignant consternation by answering 'No, that I didn't remember +being at all overcome.' As I must, at whatever hazard, repeat the +avowal here, I will follow it up by relating my impressions on this +subject in as few words as possible. + +In the first place - it may be from some imperfect development of +my organ of veneration - I do not remember having ever fainted +away, or having even been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight +of any legislative body. I have borne the House of Commons like a +man, and have yielded to no weakness, but slumber, in the House of +Lords. I have seen elections for borough and county, and have +never been impelled (no matter which party won) to damage my hat by +throwing it up into the air in triumph, or to crack my voice by +shouting forth any reference to our Glorious Constitution, to the +noble purity of our independent voters, or, the unimpeachable +integrity of our independent members. Having withstood such strong +attacks upon my fortitude, it is possible that I may be of a cold +and insensible temperament, amounting to iciness, in such matters; +and therefore my impressions of the live pillars of the Capitol at +Washington must be received with such grains of allowance as this +free confession may seem to demand. + +Did I see in this public body an assemblage of men, bound together +in the sacred names of Liberty and Freedom, and so asserting the +chaste dignity of those twin goddesses, in all their discussions, +as to exalt at once the Eternal Principles to which their names are +given, and their own character and the character of their +countrymen, in the admiring eyes of the whole world? + +It was but a week, since an aged, grey-haired man, a lasting honour +to the land that gave him birth, who has done good service to his +country, as his forefathers did, and who will be remembered scores +upon scores of years after the worms bred in its corruption, are +but so many grains of dust - it was but a week, since this old man +had stood for days upon his trial before this very body, charged +with having dared to assert the infamy of that traffic, which has +for its accursed merchandise men and women, and their unborn +children. Yes. And publicly exhibited in the same city all the +while; gilded, framed and glazed hung up for general admiration; +shown to strangers not with shame, but pride; its face not turned +towards the wall, itself not taken down and burned; is the +Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, +which solemnly declares that All Men are created Equal; and are +endowed by their Creator with the Inalienable Rights of Life, +Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness! + +It was not a month, since this same body had sat calmly by, and +heard a man, one of themselves, with oaths which beggars in their +drink reject, threaten to cut another's throat from ear to ear. +There he sat, among them; not crushed by the general feeling of the +assembly, but as good a man as any. + +There was but a week to come, and another of that body, for doing +his duty to those who sent him there; for claiming in a Republic +the Liberty and Freedom of expressing their sentiments, and making +known their prayer; would be tried, found guilty, and have strong +censure passed upon him by the rest. His was a grave offence +indeed; for years before, he had risen up and said, 'A gang of male +and female slaves for sale, warranted to breed like cattle, linked +to each other by iron fetters, are passing now along the open +street beneath the windows of your Temple of Equality! Look!' But +there are many kinds of hunters engaged in the Pursuit of +Happiness, and they go variously armed. It is the Inalienable +Right of some among them, to take the field after THEIR Happiness +equipped with cat and cartwhip, stocks, and iron collar, and to +shout their view halloa! (always in praise of Liberty) to the music +of clanking chains and bloody stripes. + +Where sat the many legislators of coarse threats; of words and +blows such as coalheavers deal upon each other, when they forget +their breeding? On every side. Every session had its anecdotes of +that kind, and the actors were all there. + +Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who, applying +themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and +vices of the old, purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the +dirty ways to Place and Power, debated and made laws for the Common +Good, and had no party but their Country? + +I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of +virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought. +Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with +public officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous +newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful +trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered, is, +that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal +types, which are the dragon's teeth of yore, in everything but +sharpness; aidings and abettings of every bad inclination in the +popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences: +such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most +depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of +the crowded hall. + +Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the true, +honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there, were drops of +its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of +desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay. +It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to +make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so +destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and +delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as +they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked. And +thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in +other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most +aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest from that +degradation. + +That there are, among the representatives of the people in both +Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character and great +abilities, I need not say. The foremost among those politicians +who are known in Europe, have been already described, and I see no +reason to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of +abstaining from all mention of individuals. It will be sufficient +to add, that to the most favourable accounts that have been written +of them, I more than fully and most heartily subscribe; and that +personal intercourse and free communication have bred within me, +not the result predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but +increased admiration and respect. They are striking men to look +at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in +varied accomplishments, Indians in fire of eye and gesture, +Americans in strong and generous impulse; and they as well +represent the honour and wisdom of their country at home, as the +distinguished gentleman who is now its Minister at the British +Court sustains its highest character abroad. + +I visited both houses nearly every day, during my stay in +Washington. On my initiatory visit to the House of +Representatives, they divided against a decision of the chair; but +the chair won. The second time I went, the member who was +speaking, being interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as one child +would in quarrelling with another, and added, 'that he would make +honourable gentlemen opposite, sing out a little more on the other +side of their mouths presently.' But interruptions are rare; the +speaker being usually heard in silence. There are more quarrels +than with us, and more threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed +to exchange in any civilised society of which we have record: but +farm-yard imitations have not as yet been imported from the +Parliament of the United Kingdom. The feature in oratory which +appears to be the most practised, and most relished, is the +constant repetition of the same idea or shadow of an idea in fresh +words; and the inquiry out of doors is not, 'What did he say?' but, +'How long did he speak?' These, however, are but enlargements of a +principle which prevails elsewhere. + +The Senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings +are conducted with much gravity and order. Both houses are +handsomely carpeted; but the state to which these carpets are +reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon with which every +honourable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary +improvements on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it +in every direction, do not admit of being described. I will merely +observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the +floor; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their +purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account. + +It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to see +so many honourable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely +less remarkable to discover that this appearance is caused by the +quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the +cheek. It is strange enough too, to see an honourable gentleman +leaning back in his tilted chair with his legs on the desk before +him, shaping a convenient 'plug' with his penknife, and when it is +quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth, as from a +pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place. + +I was surprised to observe that even steady old chewers of great +experience, are not always good marksmen, which has rather inclined +me to doubt that general proficiency with the rifle, of which we +have heard so much in England. Several gentlemen called upon me +who, in the course of conversation, frequently missed the spittoon +at five paces; and one (but he was certainly short-sighted) mistook +the closed sash for the open window, at three. On another +occasion, when I dined out, and was sitting with two ladies and +some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the company fell +short of the fireplace, six distinct times. I am disposed to +think, however, that this was occasioned by his not aiming at that +object; as there was a white marble hearth before the fender, which +was more convenient, and may have suited his purpose better. + +The Patent Office at Washington, furnishes an extraordinary example +of American enterprise and ingenuity; for the immense number of +models it contains are the accumulated inventions of only five +years; the whole of the previous collection having been destroyed +by fire. The elegant structure in which they are arranged is one +of design rather than execution, for there is but one side erected +out of four, though the works are stopped. The Post Office is a +very compact and very beautiful building. In one of the +departments, among a collection of rare and curious articles, are +deposited the presents which have been made from time to time to +the American ambassadors at foreign courts by the various +potentates to whom they were the accredited agents of the Republic; +gifts which by the law they are not permitted to retain. I confess +that I looked upon this as a very painful exhibition, and one by no +means flattering to the national standard of honesty and honour. +That can scarcely be a high state of moral feeling which imagines a +gentleman of repute and station, likely to be corrupted, in the +discharge of his duty, by the present of a snuff-box, or a richly- +mounted sword, or an Eastern shawl; and surely the Nation who +reposes confidence in her appointed servants, is likely to be +better served, than she who makes them the subject of such very +mean and paltry suspicions. + +At George Town, in the suburbs, there is a Jesuit College; +delightfully situated, and, so far as I had an opportunity of +seeing, well managed. Many persons who are not members of the +Romish Church, avail themselves, I believe, of these institutions, +and of the advantageous opportunities they afford for the education +of their children. The heights of this neighbourhood, above the +Potomac River, are very picturesque: and are free, I should +conceive, from some of the insalubrities of Washington. The air, +at that elevation, was quite cool and refreshing, when in the city +it was burning hot. + +The President's mansion is more like an English club-house, both +within and without, than any other kind of establishment with which +I can compare it. The ornamental ground about it has been laid out +in garden walks; they are pretty, and agreeable to the eye; though +they have that uncomfortable air of having been made yesterday, +which is far from favourable to the display of such beauties. + +My first visit to this house was on the morning after my arrival, +when I was carried thither by an official gentleman, who was so +kind as to charge himself with my presentation to the President. + +We entered a large hall, and having twice or thrice rung a bell +which nobody answered, walked without further ceremony through the +rooms on the ground floor, as divers other gentlemen (mostly with +their hats on, and their hands in their pockets) were doing very +leisurely. Some of these had ladies with them, to whom they were +showing the premises; others were lounging on the chairs and sofas; +others, in a perfect state of exhaustion from listlessness, were +yawning drearily. The greater portion of this assemblage were +rather asserting their supremacy than doing anything else, as they +had no particular business there, that anybody knew of. A few were +closely eyeing the movables, as if to make quite sure that the +President (who was far from popular) had not made away with any of +the furniture, or sold the fixtures for his private benefit. + +After glancing at these loungers; who were scattered over a pretty +drawing-room, opening upon a terrace which commanded a beautiful +prospect of the river and the adjacent country; and who were +sauntering, too, about a larger state-room called the Eastern +Drawing-room; we went up-stairs into another chamber, where were +certain visitors, waiting for audiences. At sight of my conductor, +a black in plain clothes and yellow slippers who was gliding +noiselessly about, and whispering messages in the ears of the more +impatient, made a sign of recognition, and glided off to announce +him. + +We had previously looked into another chamber fitted all round with +a great, bare, wooden desk or counter, whereon lay files of +newspapers, to which sundry gentlemen were referring. But there +were no such means of beguiling the time in this apartment, which +was as unpromising and tiresome as any waiting-room in one of our +public establishments, or any physician's dining-room during his +hours of consultation at home. + +There were some fifteen or twenty persons in the room. One, a +tall, wiry, muscular old man, from the west; sunburnt and swarthy; +with a brown white hat on his knees, and a giant umbrella resting +between his legs; who sat bolt upright in his chair, frowning +steadily at the carpet, and twitching the hard lines about his +mouth, as if he had made up his mind 'to fix' the President on what +he had to say, and wouldn't bate him a grain. Another, a Kentucky +farmer, six-feet-six in height, with his hat on, and his hands +under his coat-tails, who leaned against the wall and kicked the +floor with his heel, as though he had Time's head under his shoe, +and were literally 'killing' him. A third, an oval-faced, bilious- +looking man, with sleek black hair cropped close, and whiskers and +beard shaved down to blue dots, who sucked the head of a thick +stick, and from time to time took it out of his mouth, to see how +it was getting on. A fourth did nothing but whistle. A fifth did +nothing but spit. And indeed all these gentlemen were so very +persevering and energetic in this latter particular, and bestowed +their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for +granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages, or, to speak +more genteelly, an ample amount of 'compensation:' which is the +American word for salary, in the case of all public servants. + +We had not waited in this room many minutes, before the black +messenger returned, and conducted us into another of smaller +dimensions, where, at a business-like table covered with papers, +sat the President himself. He looked somewhat worn and anxious, +and well he might; being at war with everybody - but the expression +of his face was mild and pleasant, and his manner was remarkably +unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable. I thought that in his +whole carriage and demeanour, he became his station singularly +well. + +Being advised that the sensible etiquette of the republican court +admitted of a traveller, like myself, declining, without any +impropriety, an invitation to dinner, which did not reach me until +I had concluded my arrangements for leaving Washington some days +before that to which it referred, I only returned to this house +once. It was on the occasion of one of those general assemblies +which are held on certain nights, between the hours of nine and +twelve o'clock, and are called, rather oddly, Levees. + +I went, with my wife, at about ten. There was a pretty dense crowd +of carriages and people in the court-yard, and so far as I could +make out, there were no very clear regulations for the taking up or +setting down of company. There were certainly no policemen to +soothe startled horses, either by sawing at their bridles or +flourishing truncheons in their eyes; and I am ready to make oath +that no inoffensive persons were knocked violently on the head, or +poked acutely in their backs or stomachs; or brought to a +standstill by any such gentle means, and then taken into custody +for not moving on. But there was no confusion or disorder. Our +carriage reached the porch in its turn, without any blustering, +swearing, shouting, backing, or other disturbance: and we +dismounted with as much ease and comfort as though we had been +escorted by the whole Metropolitan Force from A to Z inclusive. + +The suite of rooms on the ground-floor were lighted up, and a +military band was playing in the hall. In the smaller drawing- +room, the centre of a circle of company, were the President and his +daughter-in-law, who acted as the lady of the mansion; and a very +interesting, graceful, and accomplished lady too. One gentleman +who stood among this group, appeared to take upon himself the +functions of a master of the ceremonies. I saw no other officers +or attendants, and none were needed. + +The great drawing-room, which I have already mentioned, and the +other chambers on the ground-floor, were crowded to excess. The +company was not, in our sense of the term, select, for it +comprehended persons of very many grades and classes; nor was there +any great display of costly attire: indeed, some of the costumes +may have been, for aught I know, grotesque enough. But the decorum +and propriety of behaviour which prevailed, were unbroken by any +rude or disagreeable incident; and every man, even among the +miscellaneous crowd in the hall who were admitted without any +orders or tickets to look on, appeared to feel that he was a part +of the Institution, and was responsible for its preserving a +becoming character, and appearing to the best advantage. + +That these visitors, too, whatever their station, were not without +some refinement of taste and appreciation of intellectual gifts, +and gratitude to those men who, by the peaceful exercise of great +abilities, shed new charms and associations upon the homes of their +countrymen, and elevate their character in other lands, was most +earnestly testified by their reception of Washington Irving, my +dear friend, who had recently been appointed Minister at the court +of Spain, and who was among them that night, in his new character, +for the first and last time before going abroad. I sincerely +believe that in all the madness of American politics, few public +men would have been so earnestly, devotedly, and affectionately +caressed, as this most charming writer: and I have seldom +respected a public assembly more, than I did this eager throng, +when I saw them turning with one mind from noisy orators and +officers of state, and flocking with a generous and honest impulse +round the man of quiet pursuits: proud in his promotion as +reflecting back upon their country: and grateful to him with their +whole hearts for the store of graceful fancies he had poured out +among them. Long may he dispense such treasures with unsparing +hand; and long may they remember him as worthily! + +* * * * * * + +The term we had assigned for the duration of our stay in Washington +was now at an end, and we were to begin to travel; for the railroad +distances we had traversed yet, in journeying among these older +towns, are on that great continent looked upon as nothing. + +I had at first intended going South - to Charleston. But when I +came to consider the length of time which this journey would +occupy, and the premature heat of the season, which even at +Washington had been often very trying; and weighed moreover, in my +own mind, the pain of living in the constant contemplation of +slavery, against the more than doubtful chances of my ever seeing +it, in the time I had to spare, stripped of the disguises in which +it would certainly be dressed, and so adding any item to the host +of facts already heaped together on the subject; I began to listen +to old whisperings which had often been present to me at home in +England, when I little thought of ever being here; and to dream +again of cities growing up, like palaces in fairy tales, among the +wilds and forests of the west. + +The advice I received in most quarters when I began to yield to my +desire of travelling towards that point of the compass was, +according to custom, sufficiently cheerless: my companion being +threatened with more perils, dangers, and discomforts, than I can +remember or would catalogue if I could; but of which it will be +sufficient to remark that blowings-up in steamboats and breakings- +down in coaches were among the least. But, having a western route +sketched out for me by the best and kindest authority to which I +could have resorted, and putting no great faith in these +discouragements, I soon determined on my plan of action. + +This was to travel south, only to Richmond in Virginia; and then to +turn, and shape our course for the Far West; whither I beseech the +reader's company, in a new chapter. + + + +CHAPTER IX - A NIGHT STEAMER ON THE POTOMAC RIVER. VIRGINIA ROAD, +AND A BLACK DRIVER. RICHMOND. BALTIMORE. THE HARRISBURG MAIL, +AND A GLIMPSE OF THE CITY. A CANAL BOAT + + + +WE were to proceed in the first instance by steamboat; and as it is +usual to sleep on board, in consequence of the starting-hour being +four o'clock in the morning, we went down to where she lay, at that +very uncomfortable time for such expeditions when slippers are most +valuable, and a familiar bed, in the perspective of an hour or two, +looks uncommonly pleasant. + +It is ten o'clock at night: say half-past ten: moonlight, warm, +and dull enough. The steamer (not unlike a child's Noah's ark in +form, with the machinery on the top of the roof) is riding lazily +up and down, and bumping clumsily against the wooden pier, as the +ripple of the river trifles with its unwieldy carcase. The wharf +is some distance from the city. There is nobody down here; and one +or two dull lamps upon the steamer's decks are the only signs of +life remaining, when our coach has driven away. As soon as our +footsteps are heard upon the planks, a fat negress, particularly +favoured by nature in respect of bustle, emerges from some dark +stairs, and marshals my wife towards the ladies' cabin, to which +retreat she goes, followed by a mighty bale of cloaks and great- +coats. I valiantly resolve not to go to bed at all, but to walk up +and down the pier till morning. + +I begin my promenade - thinking of all kinds of distant things and +persons, and of nothing near - and pace up and down for half-an- +hour. Then I go on board again; and getting into the light of one +of the lamps, look at my watch and think it must have stopped; and +wonder what has become of the faithful secretary whom I brought +along with me from Boston. He is supping with our late landlord (a +Field Marshal, at least, no doubt) in honour of our departure, and +may be two hours longer. I walk again, but it gets duller and +duller: the moon goes down: next June seems farther off in the +dark, and the echoes of my footsteps make me nervous. It has +turned cold too; and walking up and down without my companion in +such lonely circumstances, is but poor amusement. So I break my +staunch resolution, and think it may be, perhaps, as well to go to +bed. + +I go on board again; open the door of the gentlemen's cabin and +walk in. Somehow or other - from its being so quiet, I suppose - I +have taken it into my head that there is nobody there. To my +horror and amazement it is full of sleepers in every stage, shape, +attitude, and variety of slumber: in the berths, on the chairs, on +the floors, on the tables, and particularly round the stove, my +detested enemy. I take another step forward, and slip on the +shining face of a black steward, who lies rolled in a blanket on +the floor. He jumps up, grins, half in pain and half in +hospitality; whispers my own name in my ear; and groping among the +sleepers, leads me to my berth. Standing beside it, I count these +slumbering passengers, and get past forty. There is no use in +going further, so I begin to undress. As the chairs are all +occupied, and there is nothing else to put my clothes on, I deposit +them upon the ground: not without soiling my hands, for it is in +the same condition as the carpets in the Capitol, and from the same +cause. Having but partially undressed, I clamber on my shelf, and +hold the curtain open for a few minutes while I look round on all +my fellow-travellers again. That done, I let it fall on them, and +on the world: turn round: and go to sleep. + +I wake, of course, when we get under weigh, for there is a good +deal of noise. The day is then just breaking. Everybody wakes at +the same time. Some are self-possessed directly, and some are much +perplexed to make out where they are until they have rubbed their +eyes, and leaning on one elbow, looked about them. Some yawn, some +groan, nearly all spit, and a few get up. I am among the risers: +for it is easy to feel, without going into the fresh air, that the +atmosphere of the cabin is vile in the last degree. I huddle on my +clothes, go down into the fore-cabin, get shaved by the barber, and +wash myself. The washing and dressing apparatus for the passengers +generally, consists of two jack-towels, three small wooden basins, +a keg of water and a ladle to serve it out with, six square inches +of looking-glass, two ditto ditto of yellow soap, a comb and brush +for the head, and nothing for the teeth. Everybody uses the comb +and brush, except myself. Everybody stares to see me using my own; +and two or three gentlemen are strongly disposed to banter me on my +prejudices, but don't. When I have made my toilet, I go upon the +hurricane-deck, and set in for two hours of hard walking up and +down. The sun is rising brilliantly; we are passing Mount Vernon, +where Washington lies buried; the river is wide and rapid; and its +banks are beautiful. All the glory and splendour of the day are +coming on, and growing brighter every minute. + +At eight o'clock, we breakfast in the cabin where I passed the +night, but the windows and doors are all thrown open, and now it is +fresh enough. There is no hurry or greediness apparent in the +despatch of the meal. It is longer than a travelling breakfast +with us; more orderly, and more polite. + +Soon after nine o'clock we come to Potomac Creek, where we are to +land; and then comes the oddest part of the journey. Seven stage- +coaches are preparing to carry us on. Some of them are ready, some +of them are not ready. Some of the drivers are blacks, some +whites. There are four horses to each coach, and all the horses, +harnessed or unharnessed, are there. The passengers are getting +out of the steamboat, and into the coaches; the luggage is being +transferred in noisy wheelbarrows; the horses are frightened, and +impatient to start; the black drivers are chattering to them like +so many monkeys; and the white ones whooping like so many drovers: +for the main thing to be done in all kinds of hostlering here, is +to make as much noise as possible. The coaches are something like +the French coaches, but not nearly so good. In lieu of springs, +they are hung on bands of the strongest leather. There is very +little choice or difference between them; and they may be likened +to the car portion of the swings at an English fair, roofed, put +upon axle-trees and wheels, and curtained with painted canvas. +They are covered with mud from the roof to the wheel-tire, and have +never been cleaned since they were first built. + +The tickets we have received on board the steamboat are marked No. +1, so we belong to coach No. 1. I throw my coat on the box, and +hoist my wife and her maid into the inside. It has only one step, +and that being about a yard from the ground, is usually approached +by a chair: when there is no chair, ladies trust in Providence. +The coach holds nine inside, having a seat across from door to +door, where we in England put our legs: so that there is only one +feat more difficult in the performance than getting in, and that +is, getting out again. There is only one outside passenger, and he +sits upon the box. As I am that one, I climb up; and while they +are strapping the luggage on the roof, and heaping it into a kind +of tray behind, have a good opportunity of looking at the driver. + +He is a negro - very black indeed. He is dressed in a coarse +pepper-and-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly +at the knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, +and very short trousers. He has two odd gloves: one of parti- +coloured worsted, and one of leather. He has a very short whip, +broken in the middle and bandaged up with string. And yet he wears +a low-crowned, broad-brimmed, black hat: faintly shadowing forth a +kind of insane imitation of an English coachman! But somebody in +authority cries 'Go ahead!' as I am making these observations. The +mail takes the lead in a four-horse waggon, and all the coaches +follow in procession: headed by No. 1. + +By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry 'All right!' an +American cries 'Go ahead!' which is somewhat expressive of the +national character of the two countries. + +The first half-mile of the road is over bridges made of loose +planks laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels +roll over them; and IN the river. The river has a clayey bottom +and is full of holes, so that half a horse is constantly +disappearing unexpectedly, and can't be found again for some time. + +But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a +series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits. A tremendous place is +close before us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth +up very round, and looks straight between the two leaders, as if he +were saying to himself, 'We have done this often before, but NOW I +think we shall have a crash.' He takes a rein in each hand; jerks +and pulls at both; and dances on the splashboard with both feet +(keeping his seat, of course) like the late lamented Ducrow on two +of his fiery coursers. We come to the spot, sink down in the mire +nearly to the coach windows, tilt on one side at an angle of forty- +five degrees, and stick there. The insides scream dismally; the +coach stops; the horses flounder; all the other six coaches stop; +and their four-and-twenty horses flounder likewise: but merely for +company, and in sympathy with ours. Then the following +circumstances occur. + +BLACK DRIVER (to the horses). 'Hi!' + +Nothing happens. Insides scream again. + +BLACK DRIVER (to the horses). 'Ho!' + +Horses plunge, and splash the black driver. + +GENTLEMAN INSIDE (looking out). 'Why, what on airth - + +Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in +again, without finishing his question or waiting for an answer. + +BLACK DRIVER (still to the horses). 'Jiddy! Jiddy!' + +Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it +up a bank; so steep, that the black driver's legs fly up into the +air, and he goes back among the luggage on the roof. But he +immediately recovers himself, and cries (still to the horses), + +'Pill!' + +No effect. On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. +2, which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so +on, until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a +mile behind. + +BLACK DRIVER (louder than before). 'Pill!' + +Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the +coach rolls backward. + +BLACK DRIVER (louder than before). 'Pe-e-e-ill!' + +Horses make a desperate struggle. + +BLACK DRIVER (recovering spirits). 'Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill!' + +Horses make another effort. + +BLACK DRIVER (with great vigour). 'Ally Loo! Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. +Pill. Ally Loo!' + +Horses almost do it. + +BLACK DRIVER (with his eyes starting out of his head). 'Lee, den. +Lee, dere. Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. Lee-e-e-e-e!' + +They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a +fearful pace. It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom +there is a deep hollow, full of water. The coach rolls +frightfully. The insides scream. The mud and water fly about us. +The black driver dances like a madman. Suddenly we are all right +by some extraordinary means, and stop to breathe. + +A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a fence. The +black driver recognises him by twirling his head round and round +like a harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and +grinning from ear to ear. He stops short, turns to me, and says: + +'We shall get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you +when we get you through sa. Old 'ooman at home sa:' chuckling very +much. 'Outside gentleman sa, he often remember old 'ooman at home +sa,' grinning again. + +'Ay ay, we'll take care of the old woman. Don't be afraid.' + +The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond +that, another bank, close before us. So he stops short: cries (to +the horses again) 'Easy. Easy den. Ease. Steady. Hi. Jiddy. +Pill. Ally. Loo,' but never 'Lee!' until we are reduced to the +very last extremity, and are in the midst of difficulties, +extrication from which appears to be all but impossible. + +And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half; +breaking no bones, though bruising a great many; and in short +getting through the distance, 'like a fiddle.' + +This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburgh, +whence there is a railway to Richmond. The tract of country +through which it takes its course was once productive; but the soil +has been exhausted by the system of employing a great amount of +slave labour in forcing crops, without strengthening the land: and +it is now little better than a sandy desert overgrown with trees. +Dreary and uninteresting as its aspect is, I was glad to the heart +to find anything on which one of the curses of this horrible +institution has fallen; and had greater pleasure in contemplating +the withered ground, than the richest and most thriving cultivation +in the same place could possibly have afforded me. + +In this district, as in all others where slavery sits brooding, (I +have frequently heard this admitted, even by those who are its +warmest advocates:) there is an air of ruin and decay abroad, which +is inseparable from the system. The barns and outhouses are +mouldering away; the sheds are patched and half roofless; the log +cabins (built in Virginia with external chimneys made of clay or +wood) are squalid in the last degree. There is no look of decent +comfort anywhere. The miserable stations by the railway side, the +great wild wood-yards, whence the engine is supplied with fuel; the +negro children rolling on the ground before the cabin doors, with +dogs and pigs; the biped beasts of burden slinking past: gloom and +dejection are upon them all. + +In the negro car belonging to the train in which we made this +journey, were a mother and her children who had just been +purchased; the husband and father being left behind with their old +owner. The children cried the whole way, and the mother was +misery's picture. The champion of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit +of Happiness, who had bought them, rode in the same train; and, +every time we stopped, got down to see that they were safe. The +black in Sinbad's Travels with one eye in the middle of his +forehead which shone like a burning coal, was nature's aristocrat +compared with this white gentleman. + +It was between six and seven o'clock in the evening, when we drove +to the hotel: in front of which, and on the top of the broad +flight of steps leading to the door, two or three citizens were +balancing themselves on rocking-chairs, and smoking cigars. We +found it a very large and elegant establishment, and were as well +entertained as travellers need desire to be. The climate being a +thirsty one, there was never, at any hour of the day, a scarcity of +loungers in the spacious bar, or a cessation of the mixing of cool +liquors: but they were a merrier people here, and had musical +instruments playing to them o' nights, which it was a treat to hear +again. + +The next day, and the next, we rode and walked about the town, +which is delightfully situated on eight hills, overhanging James +River; a sparkling stream, studded here and there with bright +islands, or brawling over broken rocks. Although it was yet but +the middle of March, the weather in this southern temperature was +extremely warm; the peech-trees and magnolias were in full bloom; +and the trees were green. In a low ground among the hills, is a +valley known as 'Bloody Run,' from a terrible conflict with the +Indians which once occurred there. It is a good place for such a +struggle, and, like every other spot I saw associated with any +legend of that wild people now so rapidly fading from the earth, +interested me very much. + +The city is the seat of the local parliament of Virginia; and in +its shady legislative halls, some orators were drowsily holding +forth to the hot noon day. By dint of constant repetition, +however, these constitutional sights had very little more interest +for me than so many parochial vestries; and I was glad to exchange +this one for a lounge in a well-arranged public library of some ten +thousand volumes, and a visit to a tobacco manufactory, where the +workmen are all slaves. + +I saw in this place the whole process of picking, rolling, +pressing, drying, packing in casks, and branding. All the tobacco +thus dealt with, was in course of manufacture for chewing; and one +would have supposed there was enough in that one storehouse to have +filled even the comprehensive jaws of America. In this form, the +weed looks like the oil-cake on which we fatten cattle; and even +without reference to its consequences, is sufficiently uninviting. + +Many of the workmen appeared to be strong men, and it is hardly +necessary to add that they were all labouring quietly, then. After +two o'clock in the day, they are allowed to sing, a certain number +at a time. The hour striking while I was there, some twenty sang a +hymn in parts, and sang it by no means ill; pursuing their work +meanwhile. A bell rang as I was about to leave, and they all +poured forth into a building on the opposite side of the street to +dinner. I said several times that I should like to see them at +their meal; but as the gentleman to whom I mentioned this desire +appeared to be suddenly taken rather deaf, I did not pursue the +request. Of their appearance I shall have something to say, +presently. + +On the following day, I visited a plantation or farm, of about +twelve hundred acres, on the opposite bank of the river. Here +again, although I went down with the owner of the estate, to 'the +quarter,' as that part of it in which the slaves live is called, I +was not invited to enter into any of their huts. All I saw of +them, was, that they were very crazy, wretched cabins, near to +which groups of half-naked children basked in the sun, or wallowed +on the dusty ground. But I believe that this gentleman is a +considerate and excellent master, who inherited his fifty slaves, +and is neither a buyer nor a seller of human stock; and I am sure, +from my own observation and conviction, that he is a kind-hearted, +worthy man. + +The planter's house was an airy, rustic dwelling, that brought +Defoe's description of such places strongly to my recollection. +The day was very warm, but the blinds being all closed, and the +windows and doors set wide open, a shady coolness rustled through +the rooms, which was exquisitely refreshing after the glare and +heat without. Before the windows was an open piazza, where, in +what they call the hot weather - whatever that may be - they sling +hammocks, and drink and doze luxuriously. I do not know how their +cool rejections may taste within the hammocks, but, having +experience, I can report that, out of them, the mounds of ices and +the bowls of mint-julep and sherry-cobbler they make in these +latitudes, are refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in +summer, by those who would preserve contented minds. + +There are two bridges across the river: one belongs to the +railroad, and the other, which is a very crazy affair, is the +private property of some old lady in the neighbourhood, who levies +tolls upon the townspeople. Crossing this bridge, on my way back, +I saw a notice painted on the gate, cautioning all persons to drive +slowly: under a penalty, if the offender were a white man, of five +dollars; if a negro, fifteen stripes. + +The same decay and gloom that overhang the way by which it is +approached, hover above the town of Richmond. There are pretty +villas and cheerful houses in its streets, and Nature smiles upon +the country round; but jostling its handsome residences, like +slavery itself going hand in hand with many lofty virtues, are +deplorable tenements, fences unrepaired, walls crumbling into +ruinous heaps. Hinting gloomily at things below the surface, +these, and many other tokens of the same description, force +themselves upon the notice, and are remembered with depressing +influence, when livelier features are forgotten. + +To those who are happily unaccustomed to them, the countenances in +the streets and labouring-places, too, are shocking. All men who +know that there are laws against instructing slaves, of which the +pains and penalties greatly exceed in their amount the fines +imposed on those who maim and torture them, must be prepared to +find their faces very low in the scale of intellectual expression. +But the darkness - not of skin, but mind - which meets the +stranger's eye at every turn; the brutalizing and blotting out of +all fairer characters traced by Nature's hand; immeasurably outdo +his worst belief. That travelled creation of the great satirist's +brain, who fresh from living among horses, peered from a high +casement down upon his own kind with trembling horror, was scarcely +more repelled and daunted by the sight, than those who look upon +some of these faces for the first time must surely be. + +I left the last of them behind me in the person of a wretched +drudge, who, after running to and fro all day till midnight, and +moping in his stealthy winks of sleep upon the stairs +betweenwhiles, was washing the dark passages at four o'clock in the +morning; and went upon my way with a grateful heart that I was not +doomed to live where slavery was, and had never had my senses +blunted to its wrongs and horrors in a slave-rocked cradle. + +It had been my intention to proceed by James River and Chesapeake +Bay to Baltimore; but one of the steamboats being absent from her +station through some accident, and the means of conveyance being +consequently rendered uncertain, we returned to Washington by the +way we had come (there were two constables on board the steamboat, +in pursuit of runaway slaves), and halting there again for one +night, went on to Baltimore next afternoon. + +The most comfortable of all the hotels of which I had any +experience in the United States, and they were not a few, is +Barnum's, in that city: where the English traveller will find +curtains to his bed, for the first and probably the last time in +America (this is a disinterested remark, for I never use them); and +where he will be likely to have enough water for washing himself, +which is not at all a common case. + +This capital of the state of Maryland is a bustling, busy town, +with a great deal of traffic of various kinds, and in particular of +water commerce. That portion of the town which it most favours is +none of the cleanest, it is true; but the upper part is of a very +different character, and has many agreeable streets and public +buildings. The Washington Monument, which is a handsome pillar +with a statue on its summit; the Medical College; and the Battle +Monument in memory of an engagement with the British at North +Point; are the most conspicuous among them. + +There is a very good prison in this city, and the State +Penitentiary is also among its institutions. In this latter +establishment there were two curious cases. + +One was that of a young man, who had been tried for the murder of +his father. The evidence was entirely circumstantial, and was very +conflicting and doubtful; nor was it possible to assign any motive +which could have tempted him to the commission of so tremendous a +crime. He had been tried twice; and on the second occasion the +jury felt so much hesitation in convicting him, that they found a +verdict of manslaughter, or murder in the second degree; which it +could not possibly be, as there had, beyond all doubt, been no +quarrel or provocation, and if he were guilty at all, he was +unquestionably guilty of murder in its broadest and worst +signification. + +The remarkable feature in the case was, that if the unfortunate +deceased were not really murdered by this own son of his, he must +have been murdered by his own brother. The evidence lay in a most +remarkable manner, between those two. On all the suspicious +points, the dead man's brother was the witness: all the +explanations for the prisoner (some of them extremely plausible) +went, by construction and inference, to inculcate him as plotting +to fix the guilt upon his nephew. It must have been one of them: +and the jury had to decide between two sets of suspicions, almost +equally unnatural, unaccountable, and strange. + +The other case, was that of a man who once went to a certain +distiller's and stole a copper measure containing a quantity of +liquor. He was pursued and taken with the property in his +possession, and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. On +coming out of the jail, at the expiration of that term, he went +back to the same distiller's, and stole the same copper measure +containing the same quantity of liquor. There was not the +slightest reason to suppose that the man wished to return to +prison: indeed everything, but the commission of the offence, made +directly against that assumption. There are only two ways of +accounting for this extraordinary proceeding. One is, that after +undergoing so much for this copper measure he conceived he had +established a sort of claim and right to it. The other that, by +dint of long thinking about, it had become a monomania with him, +and had acquired a fascination which he found it impossible to +resist; swelling from an Earthly Copper Gallon into an Ethereal +Golden Vat. + +After remaining here a couple of days I bound myself to a rigid +adherence to the plan I had laid down so recently, and resolved to +set forward on our western journey without any more delay. +Accordingly, having reduced the luggage within the smallest +possible compass (by sending back to New York, to be afterwards +forwarded to us in Canada, so much of it as was not absolutely +wanted); and having procured the necessary credentials to banking- +houses on the way; and having moreover looked for two evenings at +the setting sun, with as well-defined an idea of the country before +us as if we had been going to travel into the very centre of that +planet; we left Baltimore by another railway at half-past eight in +the morning, and reached the town of York, some sixty miles off, by +the early dinner-time of the Hotel which was the starting-place of +the four-horse coach, wherein we were to proceed to Harrisburg. + +This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to secure, +had come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as muddy +and cumbersome as usual. As more passengers were waiting for us at +the inn-door, the coachman observed under his breath, in the usual +self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy harness +as if it were to that he was addressing himself, + +'I expect we shall want THE BIG coach.' + +I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this big +coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to hold; +for the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was something +larger than two English heavy night coaches, and might have been +the twin-brother of a French Diligence. My speculations were +speedily set at rest, however, for as soon as we had dined, there +came rumbling up the street, shaking its sides like a corpulent +giant, a kind of barge on wheels. After much blundering and +backing, it stopped at the door: rolling heavily from side to side +when its other motion had ceased, as if it had taken cold in its +damp stable, and between that, and the having been required in its +dropsical old age to move at any faster pace than a walk, were +distressed by shortness of wind. + +'If here ain't the Harrisburg mail at last, and dreadful bright and +smart to look at too,' cried an elderly gentleman in some +excitement, 'darn my mother!' + +I don't know what the sensation of being darned may be, or whether +a man's mother has a keener relish or disrelish of the process than +anybody else; but if the endurance of this mysterious ceremony by +the old lady in question had depended on the accuracy of her son's +vision in respect to the abstract brightness and smartness of the +Harrisburg mail, she would certainly have undergone its infliction. +However, they booked twelve people inside; and the luggage +(including such trifles as a large rocking-chair, and a good-sized +dining-table) being at length made fast upon the roof, we started +off in great state. + +At the door of another hotel, there was another passenger to be +taken up. + +'Any room, sir?' cries the new passenger to the coachman. + +'Well, there's room enough,' replies the coachman, without getting +down, or even looking at him. + +'There an't no room at all, sir,' bawls a gentleman inside. Which +another gentleman (also inside) confirms, by predicting that the +attempt to introduce any more passengers 'won't fit nohow.' + +The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks into +the coach, and then looks up at the coachman: 'Now, how do you +mean to fix it?' says he, after a pause: 'for I MUST go.' + +The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of his whip into +a knot, and takes no more notice of the question: clearly +signifying that it is anybody's business but his, and that the +passengers would do well to fix it, among themselves. In this +state of things, matters seem to be approximating to a fix of +another kind, when another inside passenger in a corner, who is +nearly suffocated, cries faintly, 'I'll get out.' + +This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the driver, +for his immovable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by anything +that happens in the coach. Of all things in the world, the coach +would seem to be the very last upon his mind. The exchange is +made, however, and then the passenger who has given up his seat +makes a third upon the box, seating himself in what he calls the +middle; that is, with half his person on my legs, and the other +half on the driver's. + +'Go a-head, cap'en,' cries the colonel, who directs. + +'Go-lang!' cries the cap'en to his company, the horses, and away we +go. + +We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles, an +intoxicated gentleman who climbed upon the roof among the luggage, +and subsequently slipping off without hurting himself, was seen in +the distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop where we had +found him. We also parted with more of our freight at different +times, so that when we came to change horses, I was again alone +outside. + +The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as +dirty as the coach. The first was dressed like a very shabby +English baker; the second like a Russian peasant: for he wore a +loose purple camlet robe, with a fur collar, tied round his waist +with a parti-coloured worsted sash; grey trousers; light blue +gloves: and a cap of bearskin. It had by this time come on to +rain very heavily, and there was a cold damp mist besides, which +penetrated to the skin. I was glad to take advantage of a stoppage +and get down to stretch my legs, shake the water off my great-coat, +and swallow the usual anti-temperance recipe for keeping out the +cold. + +When I mounted to my seat again, I observed a new parcel lying on +the coach roof, which I took to be a rather large fiddle in a brown +bag. In the course of a few miles, however, I discovered that it +had a glazed cap at one end and a pair of muddy shoes at the other +and further observation demonstrated it to be a small boy in a +snuff-coloured coat, with his arms quite pinioned to his sides, by +deep forcing into his pockets. He was, I presume, a relative or +friend of the coachman's, as he lay a-top of the luggage with his +face towards the rain; and except when a change of position brought +his shoes in contact with my hat, he appeared to be asleep. At +last, on some occasion of our stopping, this thing slowly upreared +itself to the height of three feet six, and fixing its eyes on me, +observed in piping accents, with a complaisant yawn, half quenched +in an obliging air of friendly patronage, 'Well now, stranger, I +guess you find this a'most like an English arternoon, hey?' + +The scenery, which had been tame enough at first, was, for the last +ten or twelve miles, beautiful. Our road wound through the +pleasant valley of the Susquehanna; the river, dotted with +innumerable green islands, lay upon our right; and on the left, a +steep ascent, craggy with broken rock, and dark with pine trees. +The mist, wreathing itself into a hundred fantastic shapes, moved +solemnly upon the water; and the gloom of evening gave to all an +air of mystery and silence which greatly enhanced its natural +interest. + +We crossed this river by a wooden bridge, roofed and covered in on +all sides, and nearly a mile in length. It was profoundly dark; +perplexed, with great beams, crossing and recrossing it at every +possible angle; and through the broad chinks and crevices in the +floor, the rapid river gleamed, far down below, like a legion of +eyes. We had no lamps; and as the horses stumbled and floundered +through this place, towards the distant speck of dying light, it +seemed interminable. I really could not at first persuade myself +as we rumbled heavily on, filling the bridge with hollow noises, +and I held down my head to save it from the rafters above, but that +I was in a painful dream; for I have often dreamed of toiling +through such places, and as often argued, even at the time, 'this +cannot be reality.' + +At length, however, we emerged upon the streets of Harrisburg, +whose feeble lights, reflected dismally from the wet ground, did +not shine out upon a very cheerful city. We were soon established +in a snug hotel, which though smaller and far less splendid than +many we put up at, it raised above them all in my remembrance, by +having for its landlord the most obliging, considerate, and +gentlemanly person I ever had to deal with. + +As we were not to proceed upon our journey until the afternoon, I +walked out, after breakfast the next morning, to look about me; and +was duly shown a model prison on the solitary system, just erected, +and as yet without an inmate; the trunk of an old tree to which +Harris, the first settler here (afterwards buried under it), was +tied by hostile Indians, with his funeral pile about him, when he +was saved by the timely appearance of a friendly party on the +opposite shore of the river; the local legislature (for there was +another of those bodies here again, in full debate); and the other +curiosities of the town. + +I was very much interested in looking over a number of treaties +made from time to time with the poor Indians, signed by the +different chiefs at the period of their ratification, and preserved +in the office of the Secretary to the Commonwealth. These +signatures, traced of course by their own hands, are rough drawings +of the creatures or weapons they were called after. Thus, the +Great Turtle makes a crooked pen-and-ink outline of a great turtle; +the Buffalo sketches a buffalo; the War Hatchet sets a rough image +of that weapon for his mark. So with the Arrow, the Fish, the +Scalp, the Big Canoe, and all of them. + +I could not but think - as I looked at these feeble and tremulous +productions of hands which could draw the longest arrow to the head +in a stout elk-horn bow, or split a bead or feather with a rifle- +ball - of Crabbe's musings over the Parish Register, and the +irregular scratches made with a pen, by men who would plough a +lengthy furrow straight from end to end. Nor could I help +bestowing many sorrowful thoughts upon the simple warriors whose +hands and hearts were set there, in all truth and honesty; and who +only learned in course of time from white men how to break their +faith, and quibble out of forms and bonds. I wonder, too, how many +times the credulous Big Turtle, or trusting Little Hatchet, had put +his mark to treaties which were falsely read to him; and had signed +away, he knew not what, until it went and cast him loose upon the +new possessors of the land, a savage indeed. + +Our host announced, before our early dinner, that some members of +the legislative body proposed to do us the honour of calling. He +had kindly yielded up to us his wife's own little parlour, and when +I begged that he would show them in, I saw him look with painful +apprehension at its pretty carpet; though, being otherwise occupied +at the time, the cause of his uneasiness did not occur to me. + +It certainly would have been more pleasant to all parties +concerned, and would not, I think, have compromised their +independence in any material degree, if some of these gentlemen had +not only yielded to the prejudice in favour of spittoons, but had +abandoned themselves, for the moment, even to the conventional +absurdity of pocket-handkerchiefs. + +It still continued to rain heavily, and when we went down to the +Canal Boat (for that was the mode of conveyance by which we were to +proceed) after dinner, the weather was as unpromising and +obstinately wet as one would desire to see. Nor was the sight of +this canal boat, in which we were to spend three or four days, by +any means a cheerful one; as it involved some uneasy speculations +concerning the disposal of the passengers at night, and opened a +wide field of inquiry touching the other domestic arrangements of +the establishment, which was sufficiently disconcerting. + +However, there it was - a barge with a little house in it, viewed +from the outside; and a caravan at a fair, viewed from within: the +gentlemen being accommodated, as the spectators usually are, in one +of those locomotive museums of penny wonders; and the ladies being +partitioned off by a red curtain, after the manner of the dwarfs +and giants in the same establishments, whose private lives are +passed in rather close exclusiveness. + +We sat here, looking silently at the row of little tables, which +extended down both sides of the cabin, and listening to the rain as +it dripped and pattered on the boat, and plashed with a dismal +merriment in the water, until the arrival of the railway train, for +whose final contribution to our stock of passengers, our departure +was alone deferred. It brought a great many boxes, which were +bumped and tossed upon the roof, almost as painfully as if they had +been deposited on one's own head, without the intervention of a +porter's knot; and several damp gentlemen, whose clothes, on their +drawing round the stove, began to steam again. No doubt it would +have been a thought more comfortable if the driving rain, which now +poured down more soakingly than ever, had admitted of a window +being opened, or if our number had been something less than thirty; +but there was scarcely time to think as much, when a train of three +horses was attached to the tow-rope, the boy upon the leader +smacked his whip, the rudder creaked and groaned complainingly, and +we had begun our journey. + + + +CHAPTER X - SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE CANAL BOAT, ITS DOMESTIC +ECONOMY, AND ITS PASSENGERS. JOURNEY TO PITTSBURG ACROSS THE +ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. PITTSBURG + + + +AS it continued to rain most perseveringly, we all remained below: +the damp gentlemen round the stove, gradually becoming mildewed by +the action of the fire; and the dry gentlemen lying at full length +upon the seats, or slumbering uneasily with their faces on the +tables, or walking up and down the cabin, which it was barely +possible for a man of the middle height to do, without making bald +places on his head by scraping it against the roof. At about six +o'clock, all the small tables were put together to form one long +table, and everybody sat down to tea, coffee, bread, butter, +salmon, shad, liver, steaks, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops, black- +puddings, and sausages. + +'Will you try,' said my opposite neighbour, handing me a dish of +potatoes, broken up in milk and butter, 'will you try some of these +fixings?' + +There are few words which perform such various duties as this word +'fix.' It is the Caleb Quotem of the American vocabulary. You +call upon a gentleman in a country town, and his help informs you +that he is 'fixing himself' just now, but will be down directly: +by which you are to understand that he is dressing. You inquire, +on board a steamboat, of a fellow-passenger, whether breakfast will +be ready soon, and he tells you he should think so, for when he was +last below, they were 'fixing the tables:' in other words, laying +the cloth. You beg a porter to collect your luggage, and he +entreats you not to be uneasy, for he'll 'fix it presently:' and if +you complain of indisposition, you are advised to have recourse to +Doctor So-and-so, who will 'fix you' in no time. + +One night, I ordered a bottle of mulled wine at an hotel where I +was staying, and waited a long time for it; at length it was put +upon the table with an apology from the landlord that he feared it +wasn't 'fixed properly.' And I recollect once, at a stage-coach +dinner, overhearing a very stern gentleman demand of a waiter who +presented him with a plate of underdone roast-beef, 'whether he +called THAT, fixing God A'mighty's vittles?' + +There is no doubt that the meal, at which the invitation was +tendered to me which has occasioned this digression, was disposed +of somewhat ravenously; and that the gentlemen thrust the broad- +bladed knives and the two-pronged forks further down their throats +than I ever saw the same weapons go before, except in the hands of +a skilful juggler: but no man sat down until the ladies were +seated; or omitted any little act of politeness which could +contribute to their comfort. Nor did I ever once, on any occasion, +anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the +slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inattention. + +By the time the meal was over, the rain, which seemed to have worn +itself out by coming down so fast, was nearly over too; and it +became feasible to go on deck: which was a great relief, +notwithstanding its being a very small deck, and being rendered +still smaller by the luggage, which was heaped together in the +middle under a tarpaulin covering; leaving, on either side, a path +so narrow, that it became a science to walk to and fro without +tumbling overboard into the canal. It was somewhat embarrassing at +first, too, to have to duck nimbly every five minutes whenever the +man at the helm cried 'Bridge!' and sometimes, when the cry was +'Low Bridge,' to lie down nearly flat. But custom familiarises one +to anything, and there were so many bridges that it took a very +short time to get used to this. + +As night came on, and we drew in sight of the first range of hills, +which are the outposts of the Alleghany Mountains, the scenery, +which had been uninteresting hitherto, became more bold and +striking. The wet ground reeked and smoked, after the heavy fall +of rain, and the croaking of the frogs (whose noise in these parts +is almost incredible) sounded as though a million of fairy teams +with bells were travelling through the air, and keeping pace with +us. The night was cloudy yet, but moonlight too: and when we +crossed the Susquehanna river - over which there is an +extraordinary wooden bridge with two galleries, one above the +other, so that even there, two boat teams meeting, may pass without +confusion - it was wild and grand. + +I have mentioned my having been in some uncertainty and doubt, at +first, relative to the sleeping arrangements on board this boat. I +remained in the same vague state of mind until ten o'clock or +thereabouts, when going below, I found suspended on either side of +the cabin, three long tiers of hanging bookshelves, designed +apparently for volumes of the small octavo size. Looking with +greater attention at these contrivances (wondering to find such +literary preparations in such a place), I descried on each shelf a +sort of microscopic sheet and blanket; then I began dimly to +comprehend that the passengers were the library, and that they were +to be arranged, edge-wise, on these shelves, till morning. + +I was assisted to this conclusion by seeing some of them gathered +round the master of the boat, at one of the tables, drawing lots +with all the anxieties and passions of gamesters depicted in their +countenances; while others, with small pieces of cardboard in their +hands, were groping among the shelves in search of numbers +corresponding with those they had drawn. As soon as any gentleman +found his number, he took possession of it by immediately +undressing himself and crawling into bed. The rapidity with which +an agitated gambler subsided into a snoring slumberer, was one of +the most singular effects I have ever witnessed. As to the ladies, +they were already abed, behind the red curtain, which was carefully +drawn and pinned up the centre; though as every cough, or sneeze, +or whisper, behind this curtain, was perfectly audible before it, +we had still a lively consciousness of their society. + +The politeness of the person in authority had secured to me a shelf +in a nook near this red curtain, in some degree removed from the +great body of sleepers: to which place I retired, with many +acknowledgments to him for his attention. I found it, on after- +measurement, just the width of an ordinary sheet of Bath post +letter-paper; and I was at first in some uncertainty as to the best +means of getting into it. But the shelf being a bottom one, I +finally determined on lying upon the floor, rolling gently in, +stopping immediately I touched the mattress, and remaining for the +night with that side uppermost, whatever it might be. Luckily, I +came upon my back at exactly the right moment. I was much alarmed +on looking upward, to see, by the shape of his half-yard of sacking +(which his weight had bent into an exceedingly tight bag), that +there was a very heavy gentleman above me, whom the slender cords +seemed quite incapable of holding; and I could not help reflecting +upon the grief of my wife and family in the event of his coming +down in the night. But as I could not have got up again without a +severe bodily struggle, which might have alarmed the ladies; and as +I had nowhere to go to, even if I had; I shut my eyes upon the +danger, and remained there. + +One of two remarkable circumstances is indisputably a fact, with +reference to that class of society who travel in these boats. +Either they carry their restlessness to such a pitch that they +never sleep at all; or they expectorate in dreams, which would be a +remarkable mingling of the real and ideal. All night long, and +every night, on this canal, there was a perfect storm and tempest +of spitting; and once my coat, being in the very centre of the +hurricane sustained by five gentlemen (which moved vertically, +strictly carrying out Reid's Theory of the Law of Storms), I was +fain the next morning to lay it on the deck, and rub it down with +fair water before it was in a condition to be worn again. + +Between five and six o'clock in the morning we got up, and some of +us went on deck, to give them an opportunity of taking the shelves +down; while others, the morning being very cold, crowded round the +rusty stove, cherishing the newly kindled fire, and filling the +grate with those voluntary contributions of which they had been so +liberal all night. The washing accommodations were primitive. +There was a tin ladle chained to the deck, with which every +gentleman who thought it necessary to cleanse himself (many were +superior to this weakness), fished the dirty water out of the +canal, and poured it into a tin basin, secured in like manner. +There was also a jack-towel. And, hanging up before a little +looking-glass in the bar, in the immediate vicinity of the bread +and cheese and biscuits, were a public comb and hair-brush. + +At eight o'clock, the shelves being taken down and put away and the +tables joined together, everybody sat down to the tea, coffee, +bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham, +chops, black-puddings, and sausages, all over again. Some were +fond of compounding this variety, and having it all on their plates +at once. As each gentleman got through his own personal amount of +tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, +pickles, ham, chops, black-puddings, and sausages, he rose up and +walked off. When everybody had done with everything, the fragments +were cleared away: and one of the waiters appearing anew in the +character of a barber, shaved such of the company as desired to be +shaved; while the remainder looked on, or yawned over their +newspapers. Dinner was breakfast again, without the tea and +coffee; and supper and breakfast were identical. + +There was a man on board this boat, with a light fresh-coloured +face, and a pepper-and-salt suit of clothes, who was the most +inquisitive fellow that can possibly be imagined. He never spoke +otherwise than interrogatively. He was an embodied inquiry. +Sitting down or standing up, still or moving, walking the deck or +taking his meals, there he was, with a great note of interrogation +in each eye, two in his cocked ears, two more in his turned-up nose +and chin, at least half a dozen more about the corners of his +mouth, and the largest one of all in his hair, which was brushed +pertly off his forehead in a flaxen clump. Every button in his +clothes said, 'Eh? What's that? Did you speak? Say that again, +will you?' He was always wide awake, like the enchanted bride who +drove her husband frantic; always restless; always thirsting for +answers; perpetually seeking and never finding. There never was +such a curious man. + +I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before we were well clear +of the wharf, he questioned me concerning it, and its price, and +where I bought it, and when, and what fur it was, and what it +weighed, and what it cost. Then he took notice of my watch, and +asked me what THAT cost, and whether it was a French watch, and +where I got it, and how I got it, and whether I bought it or had it +given me, and how it went, and where the key-hole was, and when I +wound it, every night or every morning, and whether I ever forgot +to wind it at all, and if I did, what then? Where had I been to +last, and where was I going next, and where was I going after that, +and had I seen the President, and what did he say, and what did I +say, and what did he say when I had said that? Eh? Lor now! do +tell! + +Finding that nothing would satisfy him, I evaded his questions +after the first score or two, and in particular pleaded ignorance +respecting the name of the fur whereof the coat was made. I am +unable to say whether this was the reason, but that coat fascinated +him afterwards; he usually kept close behind me as I walked, and +moved as I moved, that he might look at it the better; and he +frequently dived into narrow places after me at the risk of his +life, that he might have the satisfaction of passing his hand up +the back, and rubbing it the wrong way. + +We had another odd specimen on board, of a different kind. This +was a thin-faced, spare-figured man of middle age and stature, +dressed in a dusty drabbish-coloured suit, such as I never saw +before. He was perfectly quiet during the first part of the +journey: indeed I don't remember having so much as seen him until +he was brought out by circumstances, as great men often are. The +conjunction of events which made him famous, happened, briefly, +thus. + +The canal extends to the foot of the mountain, and there, of +course, it stops; the passengers being conveyed across it by land +carriage, and taken on afterwards by another canal boat, the +counterpart of the first, which awaits them on the other side. +There are two canal lines of passage-boats; one is called The +Express, and one (a cheaper one) The Pioneer. The Pioneer gets +first to the mountain, and waits for the Express people to come up; +both sets of passengers being conveyed across it at the same time. +We were the Express company; but when we had crossed the mountain, +and had come to the second boat, the proprietors took it into their +beads to draft all the Pioneers into it likewise, so that we were +five-and-forty at least, and the accession of passengers was not at +all of that kind which improved the prospect of sleeping at night. +Our people grumbled at this, as people do in such cases; but +suffered the boat to be towed off with the whole freight aboard +nevertheless; and away we went down the canal. At home, I should +have protested lustily, but being a foreigner here, I held my +peace. Not so this passenger. He cleft a path among the people on +deck (we were nearly all on deck), and without addressing anybody +whomsoever, soliloquised as follows: + +'This may suit YOU, this may, but it don't suit ME. This may be +all very well with Down Easters, and men of Boston raising, but it +won't suit my figure nohow; and no two ways about THAT; and so I +tell you. Now! I'm from the brown forests of Mississippi, I am, +and when the sun shines on me, it does shine - a little. It don't +glimmer where I live, the sun don't. No. I'm a brown forester, I +am. I an't a Johnny Cake. There are no smooth skins where I live. +We're rough men there. Rather. If Down Easters and men of Boston +raising like this, I'm glad of it, but I'm none of that raising nor +of that breed. No. This company wants a little fixing, IT does. +I'm the wrong sort of man for 'em, I am. They won't like me, THEY +won't. This is piling of it up, a little too mountainous, this +is.' At the end of every one of these short sentences he turned +upon his heel, and walked the other way; checking himself abruptly +when he had finished another short sentence, and turning back +again. + +It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in +the words of this brown forester, but I know that the other +passengers looked on in a sort of admiring horror, and that +presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as many of the +Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going away, were got +rid of. + +When we started again, some of the boldest spirits on board, made +bold to say to the obvious occasion of this improvement in our +prospects, 'Much obliged to you, sir;' whereunto the brown forester +(waving his hand, and still walking up and down as before), +replied, 'No you an't. You're none o' my raising. You may act for +yourselves, YOU may. I have pinted out the way. Down Easters and +Johnny Cakes can follow if they please. I an't a Johnny Cake, I +an't. I am from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am' - and +so on, as before. He was unanimously voted one of the tables for +his bed at night - there is a great contest for the tables - in +consideration for his public services: and he had the warmest +corner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey. But I +never could find out that he did anything except sit there; nor did +I hear him speak again until, in the midst of the bustle and +turmoil of getting the luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, I +stumbled over him as he sat smoking a cigar on the cabin steps, and +heard him muttering to himself, with a short laugh of defiance, 'I +an't a Johnny Cake, - I an't. I'm from the brown forests of the +Mississippi, I am, damme!' I am inclined to argue from this, that +he had never left off saying so; but I could not make an affidavit +of that part of the story, if required to do so by my Queen and +Country. + +As we have not reached Pittsburg yet, however, in the order of our +narrative, I may go on to remark that breakfast was perhaps the +least desirable meal of the day, as in addition to the many savoury +odours arising from the eatables already mentioned, there were +whiffs of gin, whiskey, brandy, and rum, from the little bar hard +by, and a decided seasoning of stale tobacco. Many of the +gentlemen passengers were far from particular in respect of their +linen, which was in some cases as yellow as the little rivulets +that had trickled from the corners of their mouths in chewing, and +dried there. Nor was the atmosphere quite free from zephyr +whisperings of the thirty beds which had just been cleared away, +and of which we were further and more pressingly reminded by the +occasional appearance on the table-cloth of a kind of Game, not +mentioned in the Bill of Fare. + +And yet despite these oddities - and even they had, for me at +least, a humour of their own - there was much in this mode of +travelling which I heartily enjoyed at the time, and look back upon +with great pleasure. Even the running up, bare-necked, at five +o'clock in the morning, from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck; +scooping up the icy water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing +it out, all fresh and glowing with the cold; was a good thing. The +fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, between that time and +breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health; +the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming +off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly +on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; +the gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, +sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red, burning +spot high up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the +shining out of the bright stars undisturbed by noise of wheels or +steam, or any other sound than the limpid rippling of the water as +the boat went on: all these were pure delights. + +Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and frame- +houses, full of interest for strangers from an old country: cabins +with simple ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs +nearly as good as many of the human quarters; broken windows, +patched with worn-out hats, old clothes, old boards, fragments of +blankets and paper; and home-made dressers standing in the open air +without the door, whereon was ranged the household store, not hard +to count, of earthen jars and pots. The eye was pained to see the +stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every field of wheat, and +seldom to lose the eternal swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of +rotten trunks and twisted branches steeped in its unwholesome +water. It was quite sad and oppressive, to come upon great tracts +where settlers had been burning down the trees, and where their +wounded bodies lay about, like those of murdered creatures, while +here and there some charred and blackened giant reared aloft two +withered arms, and seemed to call down curses on his foes. +Sometimes, at night, the way wound through some lonely gorge, like +a mountain pass in Scotland, shining and coldly glittering in the +light of the moon, and so closed in by high steep hills all round, +that there seemed to be no egress save through the narrower path by +which we had come, until one rugged hill-side seemed to open, and +shutting out the moonlight as we passed into its gloomy throat, +wrapped our new course in shade and darkness. + +We had left Harrisburg on Friday. On Sunday morning we arrived at +the foot of the mountain, which is crossed by railroad. There are +ten inclined planes; five ascending, and five descending; the +carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the +latter, by means of stationary engines; the comparatively level +spaces between, being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes +by engine power, as the case demands. Occasionally the rails are +laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice; and looking from +the carriage window, the traveller gazes sheer down, without a +stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths below. +The journey is very carefully made, however; only two carriages +travelling together; and while proper precautions are taken, is not +to be dreaded for its dangers. + +It was very pretty travelling thus, at a rapid pace along the +heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley +full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the tree- +tops, of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs +bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing: terrified +pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude +gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in +their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning +out to-morrow's work; and we riding onward, high above them, like a +whirlwind. It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled +down a steep pass, having no other moving power than the weight of +the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, long after +us, come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of green +and gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of +wings and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I +fancied, for the least surprise. But it stopped short of us in a +very business-like manner when we reached the canal: and, before +we left the wharf, went panting up this hill again, with the +passengers who had waited our arrival for the means of traversing +the road by which we had come. + +On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clanking hammers on the +banks of the canal, warned us that we approached the termination of +this part of our journey. After going through another dreamy place +- a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger +than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber +full of water - we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of +buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on +water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at +Pittsburg. + +Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople +say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons, +factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be. It +certainly has a great quantity of smoke hanging about it, and is +famous for its iron-works. Besides the prison to which I have +already referred, this town contains a pretty arsenal and other +institutions. It is very beautifully situated on the Alleghany +River, over which there are two bridges; and the villas of the +wealthier citizens sprinkled about the high grounds in the +neighbourhood, are pretty enough. We lodged at a most excellent +hotel, and were admirably served. As usual it was full of +boarders, was very large, and had a broad colonnade to every story +of the house. + +We tarried here three days. Our next point was Cincinnati: and as +this was a steamboat journey, and western steamboats usually blow +up one or two a week in the season, it was advisable to collect +opinions in reference to the comparative safety of the vessels +bound that way, then lying in the river. One called the Messenger +was the best recommended. She had been advertised to start +positively, every day for a fortnight or so, and had not gone yet, +nor did her captain seem to have any very fixed intention on the +subject. But this is the custom: for if the law were to bind down +a free and independent citizen to keep his word with the public, +what would become of the liberty of the subject? Besides, it is in +the way of trade. And if passengers be decoyed in the way of +trade, and people be inconvenienced in the way of trade, what man, +who is a sharp tradesman himself, shall say, 'We must put a stop to +this?' + +Impressed by the deep solemnity of the public announcement, I +(being then ignorant of these usages) was for hurrying on board in +a breathless state, immediately; but receiving private and +confidential information that the boat would certainly not start +until Friday, April the First, we made ourselves very comfortable +in the mean while, and went on board at noon that day. + + + +CHAPTER XI - FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCINNATI IN A WESTERN STEAMBOAT. +CINCINNATI + + + +THE Messenger was one among a crowd of high-pressure steamboats, +clustered together by a wharf-side, which, looked down upon from +the rising ground that forms the landing-place, and backed by the +lofty bank on the opposite side of the river, appeared no larger +than so many floating models. She had some forty passengers on +board, exclusive of the poorer persons on the lower deck; and in +half an hour, or less, proceeded on her way. + +We had, for ourselves, a tiny state-room with two berths in it, +opening out of the ladies' cabin. There was, undoubtedly, +something satisfactory in this 'location,' inasmuch as it was in +the stern, and we had been a great many times very gravely +recommended to keep as far aft as possible, 'because the steamboats +generally blew up forward.' Nor was this an unnecessary caution, +as the occurrence and circumstances of more than one such fatality +during our stay sufficiently testified. Apart from this source of +self-congratulation, it was an unspeakable relief to have any +place, no matter how confined, where one could be alone: and as +the row of little chambers of which this was one, had each a second +glass-door besides that in the ladies' cabin, which opened on a +narrow gallery outside the vessel, where the other passengers +seldom came, and where one could sit in peace and gaze upon the +shifting prospect, we took possession of our new quarters with much +pleasure. + +If the native packets I have already described be unlike anything +we are in the habit of seeing on water, these western vessels are +still more foreign to all the ideas we are accustomed to entertain +of boats. I hardly know what to liken them to, or how to describe +them. + +In the first place, they have no mast, cordage, tackle, rigging, or +other such boat-like gear; nor have they anything in their shape at +all calculated to remind one of a boat's head, stem, sides, or +keel. Except that they are in the water, and display a couple of +paddle-boxes, they might be intended, for anything that appears to +the contrary, to perform some unknown service, high and dry, upon a +mountain top. There is no visible deck, even: nothing but a long, +black, ugly roof covered with burnt-out feathery sparks; above +which tower two iron chimneys, and a hoarse escape valve, and a +glass steerage-house. Then, in order as the eye descends towards +the water, are the sides, and doors, and windows of the state- +rooms, jumbled as oddly together as though they formed a small +street, built by the varying tastes of a dozen men: the whole is +supported on beams and pillars resting on a dirty barge, but a few +inches above the water's edge: and in the narrow space between +this upper structure and this barge's deck, are the furnace fires +and machinery, open at the sides to every wind that blows, and +every storm of rain it drives along its path. + +Passing one of these boats at night, and seeing the great body of +fire, exposed as I have just described, that rages and roars +beneath the frail pile of painted wood: the machinery, not warded +off or guarded in any way, but doing its work in the midst of the +crowd of idlers and emigrants and children, who throng the lower +deck: under the management, too, of reckless men whose +acquaintance with its mysteries may have been of six months' +standing: one feels directly that the wonder is, not that there +should be so many fatal accidents, but that any journey should be +safely made. + +Within, there is one long narrow cabin, the whole length of the +boat; from which the state-rooms open, on both sides. A small +portion of it at the stern is partitioned off for the ladies; and +the bar is at the opposite extreme. There is a long table down the +centre, and at either end a stove. The washing apparatus is +forward, on the deck. It is a little better than on board the +canal boat, but not much. In all modes of travelling, the American +customs, with reference to the means of personal cleanliness and +wholesome ablution, are extremely negligent and filthy; and I +strongly incline to the belief that a considerable amount of +illness is referable to this cause. + +We are to be on board the Messenger three days: arriving at +Cincinnati (barring accidents) on Monday morning. There are three +meals a day. Breakfast at seven, dinner at half-past twelve, +supper about six. At each, there are a great many small dishes and +plates upon the table, with very little in them; so that although +there is every appearance of a mighty 'spread,' there is seldom +really more than a joint: except for those who fancy slices of +beet-root, shreds of dried beef, complicated entanglements of +yellow pickle; maize, Indian corn, apple-sauce, and pumpkin. + +Some people fancy all these little dainties together (and sweet +preserves beside), by way of relish to their roast pig. They are +generally those dyspeptic ladies and gentlemen who eat unheard-of +quantities of hot corn bread (almost as good for the digestion as a +kneaded pin-cushion), for breakfast, and for supper. Those who do +not observe this custom, and who help themselves several times +instead, usually suck their knives and forks meditatively, until +they have decided what to take next: then pull them out of their +mouths: put them in the dish; help themselves; and fall to work +again. At dinner, there is nothing to drink upon the table, but +great jugs full of cold water. Nobody says anything, at any meal, +to anybody. All the passengers are very dismal, and seem to have +tremendous secrets weighing on their minds. There is no +conversation, no laughter, no cheerfulness, no sociality, except in +spitting; and that is done in silent fellowship round the stove, +when the meal is over. Every man sits down, dull and languid; +swallows his fare as if breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, were +necessities of nature never to be coupled with recreation or +enjoyment; and having bolted his food in a gloomy silence, bolts +himself, in the same state. But for these animal observances, you +might suppose the whole male portion of the company to be the +melancholy ghosts of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at +the desk: such is their weary air of business and calculation. +Undertakers on duty would be sprightly beside them; and a collation +of funeral-baked meats, in comparison with these meals, would be a +sparkling festivity. + +The people are all alike, too. There is no diversity of character. +They travel about on the same errands, say and do the same things +in exactly the same manner, and follow in the same dull cheerless +round. All down the long table, there is scarcely a man who is in +anything different from his neighbour. It is quite a relief to +have, sitting opposite, that little girl of fifteen with the +loquacious chin: who, to do her justice, acts up to it, and fully +identifies nature's handwriting, for of all the small chatterboxes +that ever invaded the repose of drowsy ladies' cabin, she is the +first and foremost. The beautiful girl, who sits a little beyond +her - farther down the table there - married the young man with the +dark whiskers, who sits beyond HER, only last month. They are +going to settle in the very Far West, where he has lived four +years, but where she has never been. They were both overturned in +a stage-coach the other day (a bad omen anywhere else, where +overturns are not so common), and his head, which bears the marks +of a recent wound, is bound up still. She was hurt too, at the +same time, and lay insensible for some days; bright as her eyes +are, now. + +Further down still, sits a man who is going some miles beyond their +place of destination, to 'improve' a newly-discovered copper mine. +He carries the village - that is to be - with him: a few frame +cottages, and an apparatus for smelting the copper. He carries its +people too. They are partly American and partly Irish, and herd +together on the lower deck; where they amused themselves last +evening till the night was pretty far advanced, by alternately +firing off pistols and singing hymns. + +They, and the very few who have been left at table twenty minutes, +rise, and go away. We do so too; and passing through our little +state-room, resume our seats in the quiet gallery without. + +A fine broad river always, but in some parts much wider than in +others: and then there is usually a green island, covered with +trees, dividing it into two streams. Occasionally, we stop for a +few minutes, maybe to take in wood, maybe for passengers, at some +small town or village (I ought to say city, every place is a city +here); but the banks are for the most part deep solitudes, +overgrown with trees, which, hereabouts, are already in leaf and +very green. For miles, and miles, and miles, these solitudes are +unbroken by any sign of human life or trace of human footstep; nor +is anything seen to move about them but the blue jay, whose colour +is so bright, and yet so delicate, that it looks like a flying +flower. At lengthened intervals a log cabin, with its little space +of cleared land about it, nestles under a rising ground, and sends +its thread of blue smoke curling up into the sky. It stands in the +corner of the poor field of wheat, which is full of great unsightly +stumps, like earthy butchers'-blocks. Sometimes the ground is only +just now cleared: the felled trees lying yet upon the soil: and +the log-house only this morning begun. As we pass this clearing, +the settler leans upon his axe or hammer, and looks wistfully at +the people from the world. The children creep out of the temporary +hut, which is like a gipsy tent upon the ground, and clap their +hands and shout. The dog only glances round at us, and then looks +up into his master's face again, as if he were rendered uneasy by +any suspension of the common business, and had nothing more to do +with pleasurers. And still there is the same, eternal foreground. +The river has washed away its banks, and stately trees have fallen +down into the stream. Some have been there so long, that they are +mere dry, grizzly skeletons. Some have just toppled over, and +having earth yet about their roots, are bathing their green heads +in the river, and putting forth new shoots and branches. Some are +almost sliding down, as you look at them. And some were drowned so +long ago, that their bleached arms start out from the middle of the +current, and seem to try to grasp the boat, and drag it under +water. + +Through such a scene as this, the unwieldy machine takes its +hoarse, sullen way: venting, at every revolution of the paddles, a +loud high-pressure blast; enough, one would think, to waken up the +host of Indians who lie buried in a great mound yonder: so old, +that mighty oaks and other forest trees have struck their roots +into its earth; and so high, that it is a hill, even among the +hills that Nature planted round it. The very river, as though it +shared one's feelings of compassion for the extinct tribes who +lived so pleasantly here, in their blessed ignorance of white +existence, hundreds of years ago, steals out of its way to ripple +near this mound: and there are few places where the Ohio sparkles +more brightly than in the Big Grave Creek. + +All this I see as I sit in the little stern-gallery mentioned just +now. Evening slowly steals upon the landscape and changes it +before me, when we stop to set some emigrants ashore. + +Five men, as many women, and a little girl. All their worldly +goods are a bag, a large chest and an old chair: one, old, high- +backed, rush-bottomed chair: a solitary settler in itself. They +are rowed ashore in the boat, while the vessel stands a little off +awaiting its return, the water being shallow. They are landed at +the foot of a high bank, on the summit of which are a few log +cabins, attainable only by a long winding path. It is growing +dusk; but the sun is very red, and shines in the water and on some +of the tree-tops, like fire. + +The men get out of the boat first; help out the women; take out the +bag, the chest, the chair; bid the rowers 'good-bye;' and shove the +boat off for them. At the first plash of the oars in the water, +the oldest woman of the party sits down in the old chair, close to +the water's edge, without speaking a word. None of the others sit +down, though the chest is large enough for many seats. They all +stand where they landed, as if stricken into stone; and look after +the boat. So they remain, quite still and silent: the old woman +and her old chair, in the centre the bag and chest upon the shore, +without anybody heeding them all eyes fixed upon the boat. It +comes alongside, is made fast, the men jump on board, the engine is +put in motion, and we go hoarsely on again. There they stand yet, +without the motion of a hand. I can see them through my glass, +when, in the distance and increasing darkness, they are mere specks +to the eye: lingering there still: the old woman in the old +chair, and all the rest about her: not stirring in the least +degree. And thus I slowly lose them. + +The night is dark, and we proceed within the shadow of the wooded +bank, which makes it darker. After gliding past the sombre maze of +boughs for a long time, we come upon an open space where the tall +trees are burning. The shape of every branch and twig is expressed +in a deep red glow, and as the light wind stirs and ruffles it, +they seem to vegetate in fire. It is such a sight as we read of in +legends of enchanted forests: saving that it is sad to see these +noble works wasting away so awfully, alone; and to think how many +years must come and go before the magic that created them will rear +their like upon this ground again. But the time will come; and +when, in their changed ashes, the growth of centuries unborn has +struck its roots, the restless men of distant ages will repair to +these again unpeopled solitudes; and their fellows, in cities far +away, that slumber now, perhaps, beneath the rolling sea, will read +in language strange to any ears in being now, but very old to them, +of primeval forests where the axe was never heard, and where the +jungled ground was never trodden by a human foot. + +Midnight and sleep blot out these scenes and thoughts: and when +the morning shines again, it gilds the house-tops of a lively city, +before whose broad paved wharf the boat is moored; with other +boats, and flags, and moving wheels, and hum of men around it; as +though there were not a solitary or silent rood of ground within +the compass of a thousand miles. + +Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated. +I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably +and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does: +with its clean houses of red and white, its well-paved roads, and +foot-ways of bright tile. Nor does it become less prepossessing on +a closer acquaintance. The streets are broad and airy, the shops +extremely good, the private residences remarkable for their +elegance and neatness. There is something of invention and fancy +in the varying styles of these latter erections, which, after the +dull company of the steamboat, is perfectly delightful, as +conveying an assurance that there are such qualities still in +existence. The disposition to ornament these pretty villas and +render them attractive, leads to the culture of trees and flowers, +and the laying out of well-kept gardens, the sight of which, to +those who walk along the streets, is inexpressibly refreshing and +agreeable. I was quite charmed with the appearance of the town, +and its adjoining suburb of Mount Auburn: from which the city, +lying in an amphitheatre of hills, forms a picture of remarkable +beauty, and is seen to great advantage. + +There happened to be a great Temperance Convention held here on the +day after our arrival; and as the order of march brought the +procession under the windows of the hotel in which we lodged, when +they started in the morning, I had a good opportunity of seeing it. +It comprised several thousand men; the members of various +'Washington Auxiliary Temperance Societies;' and was marshalled by +officers on horseback, who cantered briskly up and down the line, +with scarves and ribbons of bright colours fluttering out behind +them gaily. There were bands of music too, and banners out of +number: and it was a fresh, holiday-looking concourse altogether. + +I was particularly pleased to see the Irishmen, who formed a +distinct society among themselves, and mustered very strong with +their green scarves; carrying their national Harp and their +Portrait of Father Mathew, high above the people's heads. They +looked as jolly and good-humoured as ever; and, working (here) the +hardest for their living and doing any kind of sturdy labour that +came in their way, were the most independent fellows there, I +thought. + +The banners were very well painted, and flaunted down the street +famously. There was the smiting of the rock, and the gushing forth +of the waters; and there was a temperate man with 'considerable of +a hatchet' (as the standard-bearer would probably have said), +aiming a deadly blow at a serpent which was apparently about to +spring upon him from the top of a barrel of spirits. But the chief +feature of this part of the show was a huge allegorical device, +borne among the ship-carpenters, on one side whereof the steamboat +Alcohol was represented bursting her boiler and exploding with a +great crash, while upon the other, the good ship Temperance sailed +away with a fair wind, to the heart's content of the captain, crew, +and passengers. + +After going round the town, the procession repaired to a certain +appointed place, where, as the printed programme set forth, it +would be received by the children of the different free schools, +'singing Temperance Songs.' I was prevented from getting there, in +time to hear these Little Warblers, or to report upon this novel +kind of vocal entertainment: novel, at least, to me: but I found +in a large open space, each society gathered round its own banners, +and listening in silent attention to its own orator. The speeches, +judging from the little I could hear of them, were certainly +adapted to the occasion, as having that degree of relationship to +cold water which wet blankets may claim: but the main thing was +the conduct and appearance of the audience throughout the day; and +that was admirable and full of promise. + +Cincinnati is honourably famous for its free schools, of which it +has so many that no person's child among its population can, by +possibility, want the means of education, which are extended, upon +an average, to four thousand pupils, annually. I was only present +in one of these establishments during the hours of instruction. In +the boys' department, which was full of little urchins (varying in +their ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the +master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the +pupils in algebra; a proposal, which, as I was by no means +confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I +declined with some alarm. In the girls' school, reading was +proposed; and as I felt tolerably equal to that art, I expressed my +willingness to hear a class. Books were distributed accordingly, +and some half-dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs +from English History. But it seemed to be a dry compilation, +infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through +three or four dreary passages concerning the Treaty of Amiens, and +other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without +comprehending ten words), I expressed myself quite satisfied. It +is very possible that they only mounted to this exalted stave in +the Ladder of Learning for the astonishment of a visitor; and that +at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have +been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them +exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood. + +As in every other place I visited, the judges here were gentlemen +of high character and attainments. I was in one of the courts for +a few minutes, and found it like those to which I have already +referred. A nuisance cause was trying; there were not many +spectators; and the witnesses, counsel, and jury, formed a sort of +family circle, sufficiently jocose and snug. + +The society with which I mingled, was intelligent, courteous, and +agreeable. The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city +as one of the most interesting in America: and with good reason: +for beautiful and thriving as it is now, and containing, as it +does, a population of fifty thousand souls, but two-and-fifty years +have passed away since the ground on which it stands (bought at +that time for a few dollars) was a wild wood, and its citizens were +but a handful of dwellers in scattered log huts upon the river's +shore. + + + +CHAPTER XII - FROM CINCINNATI TO LOUISVILLE IN ANOTHER WESTERN +STEAMBOAT; AND FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS IN ANOTHER. ST. LOUIS + + + +LEAVING Cincinnati at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, we embarked +for Louisville in the Pike steamboat, which, carrying the mails, +was a packet of a much better class than that in which we had come +from Pittsburg. As this passage does not occupy more than twelve +or thirteen hours, we arranged to go ashore that night: not +coveting the distinction of sleeping in a state-room, when it was +possible to sleep anywhere else. + +There chanced to be on board this boat, in addition to the usual +dreary crowd of passengers, one Pitchlynn, a chief of the Choctaw +tribe of Indians, who SENT IN HIS CARD to me, and with whom I had +the pleasure of a long conversation. + +He spoke English perfectly well, though he had not begun to learn +the language, he told me, until he was a young man grown. He had +read many books; and Scott's poetry appeared to have left a strong +impression on his mind: especially the opening of The Lady of the +Lake, and the great battle scene in Marmion, in which, no doubt +from the congeniality of the subjects to his own pursuits and +tastes, he had great interest and delight. He appeared to +understand correctly all he had read; and whatever fiction had +enlisted his sympathy in its belief, had done so keenly and +earnestly. I might almost say fiercely. He was dressed in our +ordinary everyday costume, which hung about his fine figure +loosely, and with indifferent grace. On my telling him that I +regretted not to see him in his own attire, he threw up his right +arm, for a moment, as though he were brandishing some heavy weapon, +and answered, as he let it fall again, that his race were losing +many things besides their dress, and would soon be seen upon the +earth no more: but he wore it at home, he added proudly. + +He told me that he had been away from his home, west of the +Mississippi, seventeen months: and was now returning. He had been +chiefly at Washington on some negotiations pending between his +Tribe and the Government: which were not settled yet (he said in a +melancholy way), and he feared never would be: for what could a +few poor Indians do, against such well-skilled men of business as +the whites? He had no love for Washington; tired of towns and +cities very soon; and longed for the Forest and the Prairie. + +I asked him what he thought of Congress? He answered, with a +smile, that it wanted dignity, in an Indian's eyes. + +He would very much like, he said, to see England before he died; +and spoke with much interest about the great things to be seen +there. When I told him of that chamber in the British Museum +wherein are preserved household memorials of a race that ceased to +be, thousands of years ago, he was very attentive, and it was not +hard to see that he had a reference in his mind to the gradual +fading away of his own people. + +This led us to speak of Mr. Catlin's gallery, which he praised +highly: observing that his own portrait was among the collection, +and that all the likenesses were 'elegant.' Mr. Cooper, he said, +had painted the Red Man well; and so would I, he knew, if I would +go home with him and hunt buffaloes, which he was quite anxious I +should do. When I told him that supposing I went, I should not be +very likely to damage the buffaloes much, he took it as a great +joke and laughed heartily. + +He was a remarkably handsome man; some years past forty, I should +judge; with long black hair, an aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones, a +sunburnt complexion, and a very bright, keen, dark, and piercing +eye. There were but twenty thousand of the Choctaws left, he said, +and their number was decreasing every day. A few of his brother +chiefs had been obliged to become civilised, and to make themselves +acquainted with what the whites knew, for it was their only chance +of existence. But they were not many; and the rest were as they +always had been. He dwelt on this: and said several times that +unless they tried to assimilate themselves to their conquerors, +they must be swept away before the strides of civilised society. + +When we shook hands at parting, I told him he must come to England, +as he longed to see the land so much: that I should hope to see +him there, one day: and that I could promise him he would be well +received and kindly treated. He was evidently pleased by this +assurance, though he rejoined with a good-humoured smile and an +arch shake of his head, that the English used to be very fond of +the Red Men when they wanted their help, but had not cared much for +them, since. + +He took his leave; as stately and complete a gentleman of Nature's +making, as ever I beheld; and moved among the people in the boat, +another kind of being. He sent me a lithographed portrait of +himself soon afterwards; very like, though scarcely handsome +enough; which I have carefully preserved in memory of our brief +acquaintance. + +There was nothing very interesting in the scenery of this day's +journey, which brought us at midnight to Louisville. We slept at +the Galt House; a splendid hotel; and were as handsomely lodged as +though we had been in Paris, rather than hundreds of miles beyond +the Alleghanies. + +The city presenting no objects of sufficient interest to detain us +on our way, we resolved to proceed next day by another steamboat, +the Fulton, and to join it, about noon, at a suburb called +Portland, where it would be delayed some time in passing through a +canal. + +The interval, after breakfast, we devoted to riding through the +town, which is regular and cheerful: the streets being laid out at +right angles, and planted with young trees. The buildings are +smoky and blackened, from the use of bituminous coal, but an +Englishman is well used to that appearance, and indisposed to +quarrel with it. There did not appear to be much business +stirring; and some unfinished buildings and improvements seemed to +intimate that the city had been overbuilt in the ardour of 'going- +a-head,' and was suffering under the re-action consequent upon such +feverish forcing of its powers. + +On our way to Portland, we passed a 'Magistrate's office,' which +amused me, as looking far more like a dame school than any police +establishment: for this awful Institution was nothing but a little +lazy, good-for-nothing front parlour, open to the street; wherein +two or three figures (I presume the magistrate and his myrmidons) +were basking in the sunshine, the very effigies of languor and +repose. It was a perfect picture of justice retired from business +for want of customers; her sword and scales sold off; napping +comfortably with her legs upon the table. + +Here, as elsewhere in these parts, the road was perfectly alive +with pigs of all ages; lying about in every direction, fast +asleep.; or grunting along in quest of hidden dainties. I had +always a sneaking kindness for these odd animals, and found a +constant source of amusement, when all others failed, in watching +their proceedings. As we were riding along this morning, I +observed a little incident between two youthful pigs, which was so +very human as to be inexpressibly comical and grotesque at the +time, though I dare say, in telling, it is tame enough. + +One young gentleman (a very delicate porker with several straws +sticking about his nose, betokening recent investigations in a +dung-hill) was walking deliberately on, profoundly thinking, when +suddenly his brother, who was lying in a miry hole unseen by him, +rose up immediately before his startled eyes, ghostly with damp +mud. Never was pig's whole mass of blood so turned. He started +back at least three feet, gazed for a moment, and then shot off as +hard as he could go: his excessively little tail vibrating with +speed and terror like a distracted pendulum. But before he had +gone very far, he began to reason with himself as to the nature of +this frightful appearance; and as he reasoned, he relaxed his speed +by gradual degrees; until at last he stopped, and faced about. +There was his brother, with the mud upon him glazing in the sun, +yet staring out of the very same hole, perfectly amazed at his +proceedings! He was no sooner assured of this; and he assured +himself so carefully that one may almost say he shaded his eyes +with his hand to see the better; than he came back at a round trot, +pounced upon him, and summarily took off a piece of his tail; as a +caution to him to be careful what he was about for the future, and +never to play tricks with his family any more. + +We found the steamboat in the canal, waiting for the slow process +of getting through the lock, and went on board, where we shortly +afterwards had a new kind of visitor in the person of a certain +Kentucky Giant whose name is Porter, and who is of the moderate +height of seven feet eight inches, in his stockings. + +There never was a race of people who so completely gave the lie to +history as these giants, or whom all the chroniclers have so +cruelly libelled. Instead of roaring and ravaging about the world, +constantly catering for their cannibal larders, and perpetually +going to market in an unlawful manner, they are the meekest people +in any man's acquaintance: rather inclining to milk and vegetable +diet, and bearing anything for a quiet life. So decidedly are +amiability and mildness their characteristics, that I confess I +look upon that youth who distinguished himself by the slaughter of +these inoffensive persons, as a false-hearted brigand, who, +pretending to philanthropic motives, was secretly influenced only +by the wealth stored up within their castles, and the hope of +plunder. And I lean the more to this opinion from finding that +even the historian of those exploits, with all his partiality for +his hero, is fain to admit that the slaughtered monsters in +question were of a very innocent and simple turn; extremely +guileless and ready of belief; lending a credulous ear to the most +improbable tales; suffering themselves to be easily entrapped into +pits; and even (as in the case of the Welsh Giant) with an excess +of the hospitable politeness of a landlord, ripping themselves +open, rather than hint at the possibility of their guests being +versed in the vagabond arts of sleight-of-hand and hocus-pocus. + +The Kentucky Giant was but another illustration of the truth of +this position. He had a weakness in the region of the knees, and a +trustfulness in his long face, which appealed even to five-feet +nine for encouragement and support. He was only twenty-five years +old, he said, and had grown recently, for it had been found +necessary to make an addition to the legs of his inexpressibles. +At fifteen he was a short boy, and in those days his English father +and his Irish mother had rather snubbed him, as being too small of +stature to sustain the credit of the family. He added that his +health had not been good, though it was better now; but short +people are not wanting who whisper that he drinks too hard. + +I understand he drives a hackney-coach, though how he does it, +unless he stands on the footboard behind, and lies along the roof +upon his chest, with his chin in the box, it would be difficult to +comprehend. He brought his gun with him, as a curiosity. + +Christened 'The Little Rifle,' and displayed outside a shop-window, +it would make the fortune of any retail business in Holborn. When +he had shown himself and talked a little while, he withdrew with +his pocket-instrument, and went bobbing down the cabin, among men +of six feet high and upwards, like a light-house walking among +lamp-posts. + +Within a few minutes afterwards, we were out of the canal, and in +the Ohio river again. + +The arrangements of the boat were like those of the Messenger, and +the passengers were of the same order of people. We fed at the +same times, on the same kind of viands, in the same dull manner, +and with the same observances. The company appeared to be +oppressed by the same tremendous concealments, and had as little +capacity of enjoyment or light-heartedness. I never in my life did +see such listless, heavy dulness as brooded over these meals: the +very recollection of it weighs me down, and makes me, for the +moment, wretched. Reading and writing on my knee, in our little +cabin, I really dreaded the coming of the hour that summoned us to +table; and was as glad to escape from it again, as if it had been a +penance or a punishment. Healthy cheerfulness and good spirits +forming a part of the banquet, I could soak my crusts in the +fountain with Le Sage's strolling player, and revel in their glad +enjoyment: but sitting down with so many fellow-animals to ward +off thirst and hunger as a business; to empty, each creature, his +Yahoo's trough as quickly as he can, and then slink sullenly away; +to have these social sacraments stripped of everything but the mere +greedy satisfaction of the natural cravings; goes so against the +grain with me, that I seriously believe the recollection of these +funeral feasts will be a waking nightmare to me all my life. + +There was some relief in this boat, too, which there had not been +in the other, for the captain (a blunt, good-natured fellow) had +his handsome wife with him, who was disposed to be lively and +agreeable, as were a few other lady-passengers who had their seats +about us at the same end of the table. But nothing could have made +head against the depressing influence of the general body. There +was a magnetism of dulness in them which would have beaten down the +most facetious companion that the earth ever knew. A jest would +have been a crime, and a smile would have faded into a grinning +horror. Such deadly, leaden people; such systematic plodding, +weary, insupportable heaviness; such a mass of animated indigestion +in respect of all that was genial, jovial, frank, social, or +hearty; never, sure, was brought together elsewhere since the world +began. + +Nor was the scenery, as we approached the junction of the Ohio and +Mississippi rivers, at all inspiriting in its influence. The trees +were stunted in their growth; the banks were low and flat; the +settlements and log cabins fewer in number: their inhabitants more +wan and wretched than any we had encountered yet. No songs of +birds were in the air, no pleasant scents, no moving lights and +shadows from swift passing clouds. Hour after hour, the changeless +glare of the hot, unwinking sky, shone upon the same monotonous +objects. Hour after hour, the river rolled along, as wearily and +slowly as the time itself. + +At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a spot +so much more desolate than any we had yet beheld, that the +forlornest places we had passed, were, in comparison with it, full +of interest. At the junction of the two rivers, on ground so flat +and low and marshy, that at certain seasons of the year it is +inundated to the house-tops, lies a breeding-place of fever, ague, +and death; vaunted in England as a mine of Golden Hope, and +speculated in, on the faith of monstrous representations, to many +people's ruin. A dismal swamp, on which the half-built houses rot +away: cleared here and there for the space of a few yards; and +teeming, then, with rank unwholesome vegetation, in whose baleful +shade the wretched wanderers who are tempted hither, droop, and +die, and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and +eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern course a slimy +monster hideous to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre, +a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise: a place without one +single quality, in earth or air or water, to commend it: such is +this dismal Cairo. + +But what words shall describe the Mississippi, great father of +rivers, who (praise be to Heaven) has no young children like him! +An enormous ditch, sometimes two or three miles wide, running +liquid mud, six miles an hour: its strong and frothy current +choked and obstructed everywhere by huge logs and whole forest +trees: now twining themselves together in great rafts, from the +interstices of which a sedgy, lazy foam works up, to float upon the +water's top; now rolling past like monstrous bodies, their tangled +roots showing like matted hair; now glancing singly by like giant +leeches; and now writhing round and round in the vortex of some +small whirlpool, like wounded snakes. The banks low, the trees +dwarfish, the marshes swarming with frogs, the wretched cabins few +and far apart, their inmates hollow-cheeked and pale, the weather +very hot, mosquitoes penetrating into every crack and crevice of +the boat, mud and slime on everything: nothing pleasant in its +aspect, but the harmless lightning which flickers every night upon +the dark horizon. + +For two days we toiled up this foul stream, striking constantly +against the floating timber, or stopping to avoid those more +dangerous obstacles, the snags, or sawyers, which are the hidden +trunks of trees that have their roots below the tide. When the +nights are very dark, the look-out stationed in the head of the +boat, knows by the ripple of the water if any great impediment be +near at hand, and rings a bell beside him, which is the signal for +the engine to be stopped: but always in the night this bell has +work to do, and after every ring, there comes a blow which renders +it no easy matter to remain in bed. + +The decline of day here was very gorgeous; tingeing the firmament +deeply with red and gold, up to the very keystone of the arch above +us. As the sun went down behind the bank, the slightest blades of +grass upon it seemed to become as distinctly visible as the +arteries in the skeleton of a leaf; and when, as it slowly sank, +the red and golden bars upon the water grew dimmer, and dimmer yet, +as if they were sinking too; and all the glowing colours of +departing day paled, inch by inch, before the sombre night; the +scene became a thousand times more lonesome and more dreary than +before, and all its influences darkened with the sky. + +We drank the muddy water of this river while we were upon it. It +is considered wholesome by the natives, and is something more +opaque than gruel. I have seen water like it at the Filter-shops, +but nowhere else. + +On the fourth night after leaving Louisville, we reached St. Louis, +and here I witnessed the conclusion of an incident, trifling enough +in itself, but very pleasant to see, which had interested me during +the whole journey. + +There was a little woman on board, with a little baby; and both +little woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking, bright- +eyed, and fair to see. The little woman had been passing a long +time with her sick mother in New York, and had left her home in St. +Louis, in that condition in which ladies who truly love their lords +desire to be. The baby was born in her mother's house; and she had +not seen her husband (to whom she was now returning), for twelve +months: having left him a month or two after their marriage. + +Well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of hope, +and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was: +and all day long she wondered whether 'He' would be at the wharf; +and whether 'He' had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the +baby ashore by somebody else, 'He' would know it, meeting it in the +street: which, seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his +life, was not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough, +to the young mother. She was such an artless little creature; and +was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state; and let out all this +matter clinging close about her heart, so freely; that all the +other lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as she; +and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was wondrous +sly, I promise you: inquiring, every time we met at table, as in +forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet her at St. +Louis, and whether she would want to go ashore the night we reached +it (but he supposed she wouldn't), and cutting many other dry jokes +of that nature. There was one little weazen, dried-apple-faced old +woman, who took occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands in such +circumstances of bereavement; and there was another lady (with a +lap-dog) old enough to moralize on the lightness of human +affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing the +baby, now and then, or laughing with the rest, when the little +woman called it by its father's name, and asked it all manner of +fantastic questions concerning him in the joy of her heart. + +It was something of a blow to the little woman, that when we were +within twenty miles of our destination, it became clearly necessary +to put this baby to bed. But she got over it with the same good +humour; tied a handkerchief round her head; and came out into the +little gallery with the rest. Then, such an oracle as she became +in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was +displayed by the married ladies! and such sympathy as was shown by +the single ones! and such peals of laughter as the little woman +herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest +with! + +At last, there were the lights of St. Louis, and here was the +wharf, and those were the steps: and the little woman covering her +face with her hands, and laughing (or seeming to laugh) more than +ever, ran into her own cabin, and shut herself up. I have no doubt +that in the charming inconsistency of such excitement, she stopped +her ears, lest she should hear 'Him' asking for her: but I did not +see her do it. + +Then, a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was +not yet made fast, but was wandering about, among the other boats, +to find a landing-place: and everybody looked for the husband: +and nobody saw him: when, in the midst of us all - Heaven knows +how she ever got there - there was the little woman clinging with +both arms tight round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy +young fellow! and in a moment afterwards, there she was again, +actually clapping her little hands for joy, as she dragged him +through the small door of her small cabin, to look at the baby as +he lay asleep! + +We went to a large hotel, called the Planter's House: built like +an English hospital, with long passages and bare walls, and sky- +lights above the room-doors for the free circulation of air. There +were a great many boarders in it; and as many lights sparkled and +glistened from the windows down into the street below, when we +drove up, as if it had been illuminated on some occasion of +rejoicing. It is an excellent house, and the proprietors have most +bountiful notions of providing the creature comforts. Dining alone +with my wife in our own room, one day, I counted fourteen dishes on +the table at once. + +In the old French portion of the town, the thoroughfares are narrow +and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and +picturesque: being built of wood, with tumble-down galleries +before the windows, approachable by stairs or rather ladders from +the street. There are queer little barbers' shops and drinking- +houses too, in this quarter; and abundance of crazy old tenements +with blinking casements, such as may be seen in Flanders. Some of +these ancient habitations, with high garret gable-windows perking +into the roofs, have a kind of French shrug about them; and being +lop-sided with age, appear to hold their heads askew, besides, as +if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American +Improvements. + +It is hardly necessary to say, that these consist of wharfs and +warehouses, and new buildings in all directions; and of a great +many vast plans which are still 'progressing.' Already, however, +some very good houses, broad streets, and marble-fronted shops, +have gone so far ahead as to be in a state of completion; and the +town bids fair in a few years to improve considerably: though it +is not likely ever to vie, in point of elegance or beauty, with +Cincinnati. + +The Roman Catholic religion, introduced here by the early French +settlers, prevails extensively. Among the public institutions are +a Jesuit college; a convent for 'the Ladies of the Sacred Heart;' +and a large chapel attached to the college, which was in course of +erection at the time of my visit, and was intended to be +consecrated on the second of December in the next year. The +architect of this building, is one of the reverend fathers of the +school, and the works proceed under his sole direction. The organ +will be sent from Belgium. + +In addition to these establishments, there is a Roman Catholic +cathedral, dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier; and a hospital, +founded by the munificence of a deceased resident, who was a member +of that church. It also sends missionaries from hence among the +Indian tribes. + +The Unitarian church is represented, in this remote place, as in +most other parts of America, by a gentleman of great worth and +excellence. The poor have good reason to remember and bless it; +for it befriends them, and aids the cause of rational education, +without any sectarian or selfish views. It is liberal in all its +actions; of kind construction; and of wide benevolence. + +There are three free-schools already erected, and in full operation +in this city. A fourth is building, and will soon be opened. + +No man ever admits the unhealthiness of the place he dwells in +(unless he is going away from it), and I shall therefore, I have no +doubt, be at issue with the inhabitants of St. Louis, in +questioning the perfect salubrity of its climate, and in hinting +that I think it must rather dispose to fever, in the summer and +autumnal seasons. Just adding, that it is very hot, lies among +great rivers, and has vast tracts of undrained swampy land around +it, I leave the reader to form his own opinion. + +As I had a great desire to see a Prairie before turning back from +the furthest point of my wanderings; and as some gentlemen of the +town had, in their hospitable consideration, an equal desire to +gratify me; a day was fixed, before my departure, for an expedition +to the Looking-Glass Prairie, which is within thirty miles of the +town. Deeming it possible that my readers may not object to know +what kind of thing such a gipsy party may be at that distance from +home, and among what sort of objects it moves, I will describe the +jaunt in another chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XIII - A JAUNT TO THE LOOKING-GLASS PRAIRIE AND BACK + + + +I MAY premise that the word Prairie is variously pronounced +PARAAER, PAREARER, PAROARER. The latter mode of pronunciation is +perhaps the most in favour. + +We were fourteen in all, and all young men: indeed it is a +singular though very natural feature in the society of these +distant settlements, that it is mainly composed of adventurous +persons in the prime of life, and has very few grey heads among it. +There were no ladies: the trip being a fatiguing one: and we were +to start at five o'clock in the morning punctually. + +I was called at four, that I might be certain of keeping nobody +waiting; and having got some bread and milk for breakfast, threw up +the window and looked down into the street, expecting to see the +whole party busily astir, and great preparations going on below. +But as everything was very quiet, and the street presented that +hopeless aspect with which five o'clock in the morning is familiar +elsewhere, I deemed it as well to go to bed again, and went +accordingly. + +I woke again at seven o'clock, and by that time the party had +assembled, and were gathered round, one light carriage, with a very +stout axletree; one something on wheels like an amateur carrier's +cart; one double phaeton of great antiquity and unearthly +construction; one gig with a great hole in its back and a broken +head; and one rider on horseback who was to go on before. I got +into the first coach with three companions; the rest bestowed +themselves in the other vehicles; two large baskets were made fast +to the lightest; two large stone jars in wicker cases, technically +known as demi-johns, were consigned to the 'least rowdy' of the +party for safe-keeping; and the procession moved off to the +ferryboat, in which it was to cross the river bodily, men, horses, +carriages, and all, as the manner in these parts is. + +We got over the river in due course, and mustered again before a +little wooden box on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass, with +'MERCHANT TAILOR' painted in very large letters over the door. +Having settled the order of proceeding, and the road to be taken, +we started off once more and began to make our way through an ill- +favoured Black Hollow, called, less expressively, the American +Bottom. + +The previous day had been - not to say hot, for the term is weak +and lukewarm in its power of conveying an idea of the temperature. +The town had been on fire; in a blaze. But at night it had come on +to rain in torrents, and all night long it had rained without +cessation. We had a pair of very strong horses, but travelled at +the rate of little more than a couple of miles an hour, through one +unbroken slough of black mud and water. It had no variety but in +depth. Now it was only half over the wheels, now it hid the +axletree, and now the coach sank down in it almost to the windows. +The air resounded in all directions with the loud chirping of the +frogs, who, with the pigs (a coarse, ugly breed, as unwholesome- +looking as though they were the spontaneous growth of the country), +had the whole scene to themselves. Here and there we passed a log +hut: but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly scattered, +for though the soil is very rich in this place, few people can +exist in such a deadly atmosphere. On either side of the track, if +it deserve the name, was the thick 'bush;' and everywhere was +stagnant, slimy, rotten, filthy water. + +As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or so +of cold water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted for +that purpose, at a log inn in the wood, far removed from any other +residence. It consisted of one room, bare-roofed and bare-walled +of course, with a loft above. The ministering priest was a swarthy +young savage, in a shirt of cotton print like bed-furniture, and a +pair of ragged trousers. There were a couple of young boys, too, +nearly naked, lying idle by the well; and they, and he, and THE +traveller at the inn, turned out to look at us. + +The traveller was an old man with a grey gristly beard two inches +long, a shaggy moustache of the same hue, and enormous eyebrows; +which almost obscured his lazy, semi-drunken glance, as he stood +regarding us with folded arms: poising himself alternately upon +his toes and heels. On being addressed by one of the party, he +drew nearer, and said, rubbing his chin (which scraped under his +horny hand like fresh gravel beneath a nailed shoe), that he was +from Delaware, and had lately bought a farm 'down there,' pointing +into one of the marshes where the stunted trees were thickest. He +was 'going,' he added, to St. Louis, to fetch his family, whom he +had left behind; but he seemed in no great hurry to bring on these +incumbrances, for when we moved away, he loitered back into the +cabin, and was plainly bent on stopping there so long as his money +lasted. He was a great politician of course, and explained his +opinions at some length to one of our company; but I only remember +that he concluded with two sentiments, one of which was, Somebody +for ever; and the other, Blast everybody else! which is by no means +a bad abstract of the general creed in these matters. + +When the horses were swollen out to about twice their natural +dimensions (there seems to be an idea here, that this kind of +inflation improves their going), we went forward again, through mud +and mire, and damp, and festering heat, and brake and bush, +attended always by the music of the frogs and pigs, until nearly +noon, when we halted at a place called Belleville. + +Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses, huddled +together in the very heart of the bush and swamp. Many of them had +singularly bright doors of red and yellow; for the place had been +lately visited by a travelling painter, 'who got along,' as I was +told, 'by eating his way.' The criminal court was sitting, and was +at that moment trying some criminals for horse-stealing: with whom +it would most likely go hard: for live stock of all kinds being +necessarily very much exposed in the woods, is held by the +community in rather higher value than human life; and for this +reason, juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted +for cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no. + +The horses belonging to the bar, the judge, and witnesses, were +tied to temporary racks set up roughly in the road; by which is to +be understood, a forest path, nearly knee-deep in mud and slime. + +There was an hotel in this place, which, like all hotels in +America, had its large dining-room for the public table. It was an +odd, shambling, low-roofed out-house, half-cowshed and half- +kitchen, with a coarse brown canvas table-cloth, and tin sconces +stuck against the walls, to hold candles at supper-time. The +horseman had gone forward to have coffee and some eatables +prepared, and they were by this time nearly ready. He had ordered +'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread and +common doings.' The latter kind of rejection includes only pork +and bacon. The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal +cutlets, steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be +supposed, by a tolerably wide poetical construction, 'to fix' a +chicken comfortably in the digestive organs of any lady or +gentleman. + +On one of the door-posts at this inn, was a tin plate, whereon was +inscribed in characters of gold, 'Doctor Crocus;' and on a sheet of +paper, pasted up by the side of this plate, was a written +announcement that Dr. Crocus would that evening deliver a lecture +on Phrenology for the benefit of the Belleville public; at a +charge, for admission, of so much a head. + +Straying up-stairs, during the preparation of the chicken fixings, +I happened to pass the doctor's chamber; and as the door stood wide +open, and the room was empty, I made bold to peep in. + +It was a bare, unfurnished, comfortless room, with an unframed +portrait hanging up at the head of the bed; a likeness, I take it, +of the Doctor, for the forehead was fully displayed, and great +stress was laid by the artist upon its phrenological developments. +The bed itself was covered with an old patch-work counterpane. The +room was destitute of carpet or of curtain. There was a damp +fireplace without any stove, full of wood ashes; a chair, and a +very small table; and on the last-named piece of furniture was +displayed, in grand array, the doctor's library, consisting of some +half-dozen greasy old books. + +Now, it certainly looked about the last apartment on the whole +earth out of which any man would be likely to get anything to do +him good. But the door, as I have said, stood coaxingly open, and +plainly said in conjunction with the chair, the portrait, the +table, and the books, 'Walk in, gentlemen, walk in! Don't be ill, +gentlemen, when you may be well in no time. Doctor Crocus is here, +gentlemen, the celebrated Dr. Crocus! Dr. Crocus has come all this +way to cure you, gentlemen. If you haven't heard of Dr. Crocus, +it's your fault, gentlemen, who live a little way out of the world +here: not Dr. Crocus's. Walk in, gentlemen, walk in!' + +In the passage below, when I went down-stairs again, was Dr. Crocus +himself. A crowd had flocked in from the Court House, and a voice +from among them called out to the landlord, 'Colonel! introduce +Doctor Crocus.' + +'Mr. Dickens,' says the colonel, 'Doctor Crocus.' + +Upon which Doctor Crocus, who is a tall, fine-looking Scotchman, +but rather fierce and warlike in appearance for a professor of the +peaceful art of healing, bursts out of the concourse with his right +arm extended, and his chest thrown out as far as it will possibly +come, and says: + +'Your countryman, sir!' + +Whereupon Doctor Crocus and I shake hands; and Doctor Crocus looks +as if I didn't by any means realise his expectations, which, in a +linen blouse, and a great straw hat, with a green ribbon, and no +gloves, and my face and nose profusely ornamented with the stings +of mosquitoes and the bites of bugs, it is very likely I did not. + +'Long in these parts, sir?' says I. + +'Three or four months, sir,' says the Doctor. + +'Do you think of soon returning to the old country?' says I. + +Doctor Crocus makes no verbal answer, but gives me an imploring +look, which says so plainly 'Will you ask me that again, a little +louder, if you please?' that I repeat the question. + +'Think of soon returning to the old country, sir!' repeats the +Doctor. + +'To the old country, sir,' I rejoin. + +Doctor Crocus looks round upon the crowd to observe the effect he +produces, rubs his hands, and says, in a very loud voice: + +'Not yet awhile, sir, not yet. You won't catch me at that just +yet, sir. I am a little too fond of freedom for THAT, sir. Ha, +ha! It's not so easy for a man to tear himself from a free country +such as this is, sir. Ha, ha! No, no! Ha, ha! None of that till +one's obliged to do it, sir. No, no!' + +As Doctor Crocus says these latter words, he shakes his head, +knowingly, and laughs again. Many of the bystanders shake their +heads in concert with the doctor, and laugh too, and look at each +other as much as to say, 'A pretty bright and first-rate sort of +chap is Crocus!' and unless I am very much mistaken, a good many +people went to the lecture that night, who never thought about +phrenology, or about Doctor Crocus either, in all their lives +before. + +From Belleville, we went on, through the same desolate kind of +waste, and constantly attended, without the interval of a moment, +by the same music; until, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we +halted once more at a village called Lebanon to inflate the horses +again, and give them some corn besides: of which they stood much +in need. Pending this ceremony, I walked into the village, where I +met a full-sized dwelling-house coming down-hill at a round trot, +drawn by a score or more of oxen. + +The public-house was so very clean and good a one, that the +managers of the jaunt resolved to return to it and put up there for +the night, if possible. This course decided on, and the horses +being well refreshed, we again pushed forward, and came upon the +Prairie at sunset. + +It would be difficult to say why, or how - though it was possibly +from having heard and read so much about it - but the effect on me +was disappointment. Looking towards the setting sun, there lay, +stretched out before my view, a vast expanse of level ground; +unbroken, save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted +to a scratch upon the great blank; until it met the glowing sky, +wherein it seemed to dip: mingling with its rich colours, and +mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or +lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day +going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there: and +solitude and silence reigning paramount around. But the grass was +not yet high; there were bare black patches on the ground; and the +few wild flowers that the eye could see, were poor and scanty. +Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left +nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. +I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration which a +Scottish heath inspires, or even our English downs awaken. It was +lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt +that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to +the scene, forgetful of all else; as I should do instinctively, +were the heather underneath my feet, or an iron-bound coast beyond; +but should often glance towards the distant and frequently-receding +line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a +scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all +events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure, or to covet +the looking-on again, in after-life. + +We encamped near a solitary log-house, for the sake of its water, +and dined upon the plain. The baskets contained roast fowls, +buffalo's tongue (an exquisite dainty, by the way), ham, bread, +cheese, and butter; biscuits, champagne, sherry; lemons and sugar +for punch; and abundance of rough ice. The meal was delicious, and +the entertainers were the soul of kindness and good humour. I have +often recalled that cheerful party to my pleasant recollection +since, and shall not easily forget, in junketings nearer home with +friends of older date, my boon companions on the Prairie. + +Returning to Lebanon that night, we lay at the little inn at which +we had halted in the afternoon. In point of cleanliness and +comfort it would have suffered by no comparison with any English +alehouse, of a homely kind, in England. + +Rising at five o'clock next morning, I took a walk about the +village: none of the houses were strolling about to-day, but it +was early for them yet, perhaps: and then amused myself by +lounging in a kind of farm-yard behind the tavern, of which the +leading features were, a strange jumble of rough sheds for stables; +a rude colonnade, built as a cool place of summer resort; a deep +well; a great earthen mound for keeping vegetables in, in winter +time; and a pigeon-house, whose little apertures looked, as they do +in all pigeon-houses, very much too small for the admission of the +plump and swelling-breasted birds who were strutting about it, +though they tried to get in never so hard. That interest +exhausted, I took a survey of the inn's two parlours, which were +decorated with coloured prints of Washington, and President +Madison, and of a white-faced young lady (much speckled by the +flies), who held up her gold neck-chain for the admiration of the +spectator, and informed all admiring comers that she was 'Just +Seventeen:' although I should have thought her older. In the best +room were two oil portraits of the kit-cat size, representing the +landlord and his infant son; both looking as bold as lions, and +staring out of the canvas with an intensity that would have been +cheap at any price. They were painted, I think, by the artist who +had touched up the Belleville doors with red and gold; for I seemed +to recognise his style immediately. + +After breakfast, we started to return by a different way from that +which we had taken yesterday, and coming up at ten o'clock with an +encampment of German emigrants carrying their goods in carts, who +had made a rousing fire which they were just quitting, stopped +there to refresh. And very pleasant the fire was; for, hot though +it had been yesterday, it was quite cold to-day, and the wind blew +keenly. Looming in the distance, as we rode along, was another of +the ancient Indian burial-places, called The Monks' Mound; in +memory of a body of fanatics of the order of La Trappe, who founded +a desolate convent there, many years ago, when there were no +settlers within a thousand miles, and were all swept off by the +pernicious climate: in which lamentable fatality, few rational +people will suppose, perhaps, that society experienced any very +severe deprivation. + +The track of to-day had the same features as the track of +yesterday. There was the swamp, the bush, and the perpetual chorus +of frogs, the rank unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth. +Here and there, and frequently too, we encountered a solitary +broken-down waggon, full of some new settler's goods. It was a +pitiful sight to see one of these vehicles deep in the mire; the +axle-tree broken; the wheel lying idly by its side; the man gone +miles away, to look for assistance; the woman seated among their +wandering household gods with a baby at her breast, a picture of +forlorn, dejected patience; the team of oxen crouching down +mournfully in the mud, and breathing forth such clouds of vapour +from their mouths and nostrils, that all the damp mist and fog +around seemed to have come direct from them. + +In due time we mustered once again before the merchant tailor's, +and having done so, crossed over to the city in the ferry-boat: +passing, on the way, a spot called Bloody Island, the duelling- +ground of St. Louis, and so designated in honour of the last fatal +combat fought there, which was with pistols, breast to breast. +Both combatants fell dead upon the ground; and possibly some +rational people may think of them, as of the gloomy madmen on the +Monks' Mound, that they were no great loss to the community. + + + +CHAPTER XIV - RETURN TO CINCINNATI. A STAGE-COACH RIDE FROM THAT +CITY TO COLUMBUS, AND THENCE TO SANDUSKY. SO, BY LAKE ERIE, TO THE +FALLS OF NIAGARA + + + +AS I had a desire to travel through the interior of the state of +Ohio, and to 'strike the lakes,' as the phrase is, at a small town +called Sandusky, to which that route would conduct us on our way to +Niagara, we had to return from St. Louis by the way we had come, +and to retrace our former track as far as Cincinnati. + +The day on which we were to take leave of St. Louis being very +fine; and the steamboat, which was to have started I don't know how +early in the morning, postponing, for the third or fourth time, her +departure until the afternoon; we rode forward to an old French +village on the river, called properly Carondelet, and nicknamed +Vide Poche, and arranged that the packet should call for us there. + +The place consisted of a few poor cottages, and two or three +public-houses; the state of whose larders certainly seemed to +justify the second designation of the village, for there was +nothing to eat in any of them. At length, however, by going back +some half a mile or so, we found a solitary house where ham and +coffee were procurable; and there we tarried to wait the advent of +the boat, which would come in sight from the green before the door, +a long way off. + +It was a neat, unpretending village tavern, and we took our repast +in a quaint little room with a bed in it, decorated with some old +oil paintings, which in their time had probably done duty in a +Catholic chapel or monastery. The fare was very good, and served +with great cleanliness. The house was kept by a characteristic old +couple, with whom we had a long talk, and who were perhaps a very +good sample of that kind of people in the West. + +The landlord was a dry, tough, hard-faced old fellow (not so very +old either, for he was but just turned sixty, I should think), who +had been out with the militia in the last war with England, and had +seen all kinds of service, - except a battle; and he had been very +near seeing that, he added: very near. He had all his life been +restless and locomotive, with an irresistible desire for change; +and was still the son of his old self: for if he had nothing to +keep him at home, he said (slightly jerking his hat and his thumb +towards the window of the room in which the old lady sat, as we +stood talking in front of the house), he would clean up his musket, +and be off to Texas to-morrow morning. He was one of the very many +descendants of Cain proper to this continent, who seem destined +from their birth to serve as pioneers in the great human army: who +gladly go on from year to year extending its outposts, and leaving +home after home behind them; and die at last, utterly regardless of +their graves being left thousands of miles behind, by the wandering +generation who succeed. + +His wife was a domesticated, kind-hearted old soul, who had come +with him, 'from the queen city of the world,' which, it seemed, was +Philadelphia; but had no love for this Western country, and indeed +had little reason to bear it any; having seen her children, one by +one, die here of fever, in the full prime and beauty of their +youth. Her heart was sore, she said, to think of them; and to talk +on this theme, even to strangers, in that blighted place, so far +from her old home, eased it somewhat, and became a melancholy +pleasure. + +The boat appearing towards evening, we bade adieu to the poor old +lady and her vagrant spouse, and making for the nearest landing- +place, were soon on board The Messenger again, in our old cabin, +and steaming down the Mississippi. + +If the coming up this river, slowly making head against the stream, +be an irksome journey, the shooting down it with the turbid current +is almost worse; for then the boat, proceeding at the rate of +twelve or fifteen miles an hour, has to force its passage through a +labyrinth of floating logs, which, in the dark, it is often +impossible to see beforehand or avoid. All that night, the bell +was never silent for five minutes at a time; and after every ring +the vessel reeled again, sometimes beneath a single blow, sometimes +beneath a dozen dealt in quick succession, the lightest of which +seemed more than enough to beat in her frail keel, as though it had +been pie-crust. Looking down upon the filthy river after dark, it +seemed to be alive with monsters, as these black masses rolled upon +the surface, or came starting up again, head first, when the boat, +in ploughing her way among a shoal of such obstructions, drove a +few among them for the moment under water. Sometimes the engine +stopped during a long interval, and then before her and behind, and +gathering close about her on all sides, were so many of these ill- +favoured obstacles that she was fairly hemmed in; the centre of a +floating island; and was constrained to pause until they parted, +somewhere, as dark clouds will do before the wind, and opened by +degrees a channel out. + +In good time next morning, however, we came again in sight of the +detestable morass called Cairo; and stopping there to take in wood, +lay alongside a barge, whose starting timbers scarcely held +together. It was moored to the bank, and on its side was painted +'Coffee House;' that being, I suppose, the floating paradise to +which the people fly for shelter when they lose their houses for a +month or two beneath the hideous waters of the Mississippi. But +looking southward from this point, we had the satisfaction of +seeing that intolerable river dragging its slimy length and ugly +freight abruptly off towards New Orleans; and passing a yellow line +which stretched across the current, were again upon the clear Ohio, +never, I trust, to see the Mississippi more, saving in troubled +dreams and nightmares. Leaving it for the company of its sparkling +neighbour, was like the transition from pain to ease, or the +awakening from a horrible vision to cheerful realities. + +We arrived at Louisville on the fourth night, and gladly availed +ourselves of its excellent hotel. Next day we went on in the Ben +Franklin, a beautiful mail steamboat, and reached Cincinnati +shortly after midnight. Being by this time nearly tired of +sleeping upon shelves, we had remained awake to go ashore +straightway; and groping a passage across the dark decks of other +boats, and among labyrinths of engine-machinery and leaking casks +of molasses, we reached the streets, knocked up the porter at the +hotel where we had stayed before, and were, to our great joy, +safely housed soon afterwards. + +We rested but one day at Cincinnati, and then resumed our journey +to Sandusky. As it comprised two varieties of stage-coach +travelling, which, with those I have already glanced at, comprehend +the main characteristics of this mode of transit in America, I will +take the reader as our fellow-passenger, and pledge myself to +perform the distance with all possible despatch. + +Our place of destination in the first instance is Columbus. It is +distant about a hundred and twenty miles from Cincinnati, but there +is a macadamised road (rare blessing!) the whole way, and the rate +of travelling upon it is six miles an hour. + +We start at eight o'clock in the morning, in a great mail-coach, +whose huge cheeks are so very ruddy and plethoric, that it appears +to be troubled with a tendency of blood to the head. Dropsical it +certainly is, for it will hold a dozen passengers inside. But, +wonderful to add, it is very clean and bright, being nearly new; +and rattles through the streets of Cincinnati gaily. + +Our way lies through a beautiful country, richly cultivated, and +luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest. Sometimes we pass +a field where the strong bristling stalks of Indian corn look like +a crop of walking-sticks, and sometimes an enclosure where the +green wheat is springing up among a labyrinth of stumps; the +primitive worm-fence is universal, and an ugly thing it is; but the +farms are neatly kept, and, save for these differences, one might +be travelling just now in Kent. + +We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and +silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it +to the horses' heads. There is scarcely ever any one to help him; +there are seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stable- +company with jokes to crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our +team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the +prevalent mode of breaking a young horse: which is to catch him, +harness him against his will, and put him in a stage-coach without +further notice: but we get on somehow or other, after a great many +kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before again. + +Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half- +drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their +pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or +lounging on the window-sill, or sitting on a rail within the +colonnade: they have not often anything to say though, either to +us or to each other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and +horses. The landlord of the inn is usually among them, and seems, +of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of +the house. Indeed he is with reference to the tavern, what the +driver is in relation to the coach and passengers: whatever +happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and +perfectly easy in his mind. + +The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the +coachman's character. He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn. +If he be capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he +has a faculty of concealing it which is truly marvellous. He never +speaks to you as you sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to +him, he answers (if at all) in monosyllables. He points out +nothing on the road, and seldom looks at anything: being, to all +appearance, thoroughly weary of it and of existence generally. As +to doing the honours of his coach, his business, as I have said, is +with the horses. The coach follows because it is attached to them +and goes on wheels: not because you are in it. Sometimes, towards +the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into a discordant +fragment of an election song, but his face never sings along with +him: it is only his voice, and not often that. + +He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with +a pocket-handkerchief. The consequences to the box passenger, +especially when the wind blows towards him, are not agreeable. + +Whenever the coach stops, and you can hear the voices of the inside +passengers; or whenever any bystander addresses them, or any one +among them; or they address each other; you will hear one phrase +repeated over and over and over again to the most extraordinary +extent. It is an ordinary and unpromising phrase enough, being +neither more nor less than 'Yes, sir;' but it is adapted to every +variety of circumstance, and fills up every pause in the +conversation. Thus:- + +The time is one o'clock at noon. The scene, a place where we are +to stay and dine, on this journey. The coach drives up to the door +of an inn. The day is warm, and there are several idlers lingering +about the tavern, and waiting for the public dinner. Among them, +is a stout gentleman in a brown hat, swinging himself to and fro in +a rocking-chair on the pavement. + +As the coach stops, a gentleman in a straw hat looks out of the +window: + +STRAW HAT. (To the stout gentleman in the rocking-chair.) I +reckon that's Judge Jefferson, an't it? + +BROWN HAT. (Still swinging; speaking very slowly; and without any +emotion whatever.) Yes, sir. + +STRAW HAT. Warm weather, Judge. + +BROWN HAT. Yes, sir. + +STRAW HAT. There was a snap of cold, last week. + +BROWN HAT. Yes, sir. + +STRAW HAT. Yes, sir. + +A pause. They look at each other, very seriously. + +STRAW HAT. I calculate you'll have got through that case of the +corporation, Judge, by this time, now? + +BROWN HAT. Yes, sir. + +STRAW HAT. How did the verdict go, sir? + +BROWN HAT. For the defendant, sir. + +STRAW HAT. (Interrogatively.) Yes, sir? + +BROWN HAT. (Affirmatively.) Yes, sir. + +BOTH. (Musingly, as each gazes down the street.) Yes, sir. + +Another pause. They look at each other again, still more seriously +than before. + +BROWN HAT. This coach is rather behind its time to-day, I guess. + +STRAW HAT. (Doubtingly.) Yes, sir. + +BROWN HAT. (Looking at his watch.) Yes, sir; nigh upon two hours. + +STRAW HAT. (Raising his eyebrows in very great surprise.) Yes, +sir! + +BROWN HAT. (Decisively, as he puts up his watch.) Yes, sir. + +ALL THE OTHER INSIDE PASSENGERS. (Among themselves.) Yes, sir. + +COACHMAN. (In a very surly tone.) No it an't. + +STRAW HAT. (To the coachman.) Well, I don't know, sir. We were a +pretty tall time coming that last fifteen mile. That's a fact. + +The coachman making no reply, and plainly declining to enter into +any controversy on a subject so far removed from his sympathies and +feelings, another passenger says, 'Yes, sir;' and the gentleman in +the straw hat in acknowledgment of his courtesy, says 'Yes, sir,' +to him, in return. The straw hat then inquires of the brown hat, +whether that coach in which he (the straw hat) then sits, is not a +new one? To which the brown hat again makes answer, 'Yes, sir.' + +STRAW HAT. I thought so. Pretty loud smell of varnish, sir? + +BROWN HAT. Yes, sir. + +ALL THE OTHER INSIDE PASSENGERS. Yes, sir. + +BROWN HAT. (To the company in general.) Yes, sir. + +The conversational powers of the company having been by this time +pretty heavily taxed, the straw hat opens the door and gets out; +and all the rest alight also. We dine soon afterwards with the +boarders in the house, and have nothing to drink but tea and +coffee. As they are both very bad and the water is worse, I ask +for brandy; but it is a Temperance Hotel, and spirits are not to be +had for love or money. This preposterous forcing of unpleasant +drinks down the reluctant throats of travellers is not at all +uncommon in America, but I never discovered that the scruples of +such wincing landlords induced them to preserve any unusually nice +balance between the quality of their fare, and their scale of +charges: on the contrary, I rather suspected them of diminishing +the one and exalting the other, by way of recompense for the loss +of their profit on the sale of spirituous liquors. After all, +perhaps, the plainest course for persons of such tender +consciences, would be, a total abstinence from tavern-keeping. + +Dinner over, we get into another vehicle which is ready at the door +(for the coach has been changed in the interval), and resume our +journey; which continues through the same kind of country until +evening, when we come to the town where we are to stop for tea and +supper; and having delivered the mail bags at the Post-office, ride +through the usual wide street, lined with the usual stores and +houses (the drapers always having hung up at their door, by way of +sign, a piece of bright red cloth), to the hotel where this meal is +prepared. There being many boarders here, we sit down, a large +party, and a very melancholy one as usual. But there is a buxom +hostess at the head of the table, and opposite, a simple Welsh +schoolmaster with his wife and child; who came here, on a +speculation of greater promise than performance, to teach the +classics: and they are sufficient subjects of interest until the +meal is over, and another coach is ready. In it we go on once +more, lighted by a bright moon, until midnight; when we stop to +change the coach again, and remain for half an hour or so in a +miserable room, with a blurred lithograph of Washington over the +smoky fire-place, and a mighty jug of cold water on the table: to +which refreshment the moody passengers do so apply themselves that +they would seem to be, one and all, keen patients of Dr. Sangrado. +Among them is a very little boy, who chews tobacco like a very big +one; and a droning gentleman, who talks arithmetically and +statistically on all subjects, from poetry downwards; and who +always speaks in the same key, with exactly the same emphasis, and +with very grave deliberation. He came outside just now, and told +me how that the uncle of a certain young lady who had been spirited +away and married by a certain captain, lived in these parts; and +how this uncle was so valiant and ferocious that he shouldn't +wonder if he were to follow the said captain to England, 'and shoot +him down in the street wherever he found him;' in the feasibility +of which strong measure I, being for the moment rather prone to +contradiction, from feeling half asleep and very tired, declined to +acquiesce: assuring him that if the uncle did resort to it, or +gratified any other little whim of the like nature, he would find +himself one morning prematurely throttled at the Old Bailey: and +that he would do well to make his will before he went, as he would +certainly want it before he had been in Britain very long. + +On we go, all night, and by-and-by the day begins to break, and +presently the first cheerful rays of the warm sun come slanting on +us brightly. It sheds its light upon a miserable waste of sodden +grass, and dull trees, and squalid huts, whose aspect is forlorn +and grievous in the last degree. A very desert in the wood, whose +growth of green is dank and noxious like that upon the top of +standing water: where poisonous fungus grows in the rare footprint +on the oozy ground, and sprouts like witches' coral, from the +crevices in the cabin wall and floor; it is a hideous thing to lie +upon the very threshold of a city. But it was purchased years ago, +and as the owner cannot be discovered, the State has been unable to +reclaim it. So there it remains, in the midst of cultivation and +improvement, like ground accursed, and made obscene and rank by +some great crime. + +We reached Columbus shortly before seven o'clock, and stayed there, +to refresh, that day and night: having excellent apartments in a +very large unfinished hotel called the Neill House, which were +richly fitted with the polished wood of the black walnut, and +opened on a handsome portico and stone verandah, like rooms in some +Italian mansion. The town is clean and pretty, and of course is +'going to be' much larger. It is the seat of the State legislature +of Ohio, and lays claim, in consequence, to some consideration and +importance. + +There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to +take, I hired 'an extra,' at a reasonable charge to carry us to +Tiffin; a small town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky. +This extra was an ordinary four-horse stage-coach, such as I have +described, changing horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would, +but was exclusively our own for the journey. To ensure our having +horses at the proper stations, and being incommoded by no +strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on the box, who was to +accompany us the whole way through; and thus attended, and bearing +with us, besides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats, and fruit, +and wine, we started off again in high spirits, at half-past six +o'clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and +disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey. + +It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road we +went over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken tempers +that were not resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below +Stormy. At one time we were all flung together in a heap at the +bottom of the coach, and at another we were crushing our heads +against the roof. Now, one side was down deep in the mire, and we +were holding on to the other. Now, the coach was lying on the +tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing up in the air, in +a frantic state, with all four horses standing on the top of an +insurmountable eminence, looking coolly back at it, as though they +would say 'Unharness us. It can't be done.' The drivers on these +roads, who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite +miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage, +corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a +common circumstance on looking out of the window, to see the +coachman with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, apparently +driving nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at +one unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some +idea of getting up behind. A great portion of the way was over +what is called a corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of +trees into a marsh, and leaving them to settle there. The very +slightest of the jolts with which the ponderous carriage fell from +log to log, was enough, it seemed, to have dislocated all the bones +in the human body. It would be impossible to experience a similar +set of sensations, in any other circumstances, unless perhaps in +attempting to go up to the top of St. Paul's in an omnibus. Never, +never once, that day, was the coach in any position, attitude, or +kind of motion to which we are accustomed in coaches. Never did it +make the smallest approach to one's experience of the proceedings +of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels. + +Still, it was a fine day, and the temperature was delicious, and +though we had left Summer behind us in the west, and were fast +leaving Spring, we were moving towards Niagara and home. We +alighted in a pleasant wood towards the middle of the day, dined on +a fallen tree, and leaving our best fragments with a cottager, and +our worst with the pigs (who swarm in this part of the country like +grains of sand on the sea-shore, to the great comfort of our +commissariat in Canada), we went forward again, gaily. + +As night came on, the track grew narrower and narrower, until at +last it so lost itself among the trees, that the driver seemed to +find his way by instinct. We had the comfort of knowing, at least, +that there was no danger of his falling asleep, for every now and +then a wheel would strike against an unseen stump with such a jerk, +that he was fain to hold on pretty tight and pretty quick, to keep +himself upon the box. Nor was there any reason to dread the least +danger from furious driving, inasmuch as over that broken ground +the horses had enough to do to walk; as to shying, there was no +room for that; and a herd of wild elephants could not have run away +in such a wood, with such a coach at their heels. So we stumbled +along, quite satisfied. + +These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American travelling. +The varying illusions they present to the unaccustomed eye as it +grows dark, are quite astonishing in their number and reality. +Now, there is a Grecian urn erected in the centre of a lonely +field; now there is a woman weeping at a tomb; now a very +commonplace old gentleman in a white waistcoat, with a thumb thrust +into each arm-hole of his coat; now a student poring on a book; now +a crouching negro; now, a horse, a dog, a cannon, an armed man; a +hunch-back throwing off his cloak and stepping forth into the +light. They were often as entertaining to me as so many glasses in +a magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bidding, but +seemed to force themselves upon me, whether I would or no; and +strange to say, I sometimes recognised in them counterparts of +figures once familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books, +forgotten long ago. + +It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and the +trees were so close together that their dry branches rattled +against the coach on either side, and obliged us all to keep our +heads within. It lightened too, for three whole hours; each flash +being very bright, and blue, and long; and as the vivid streaks +came darting in among the crowded branches, and the thunder rolled +gloomily above the tree tops, one could scarcely help thinking that +there were better neighbourhoods at such a time than thick woods +afforded. + +At length, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, a few feeble +lights appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian +village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before us. + +They were gone to bed at the log Inn, which was the only house of +entertainment in the place, but soon answered to our knocking, and +got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried +with old newspapers, pasted against the wall. The bed-chamber to +which my wife and I were shown, was a large, low, ghostly room; +with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors +without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening on the +black night and wild country, and so contrived, that one of them +always blew the other open: a novelty in domestic architecture, +which I do not remember to have seen before, and which I was +somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention after getting +into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our travelling +expenses, in my dressing-case. Some of the luggage, however, piled +against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep +would not have been very much affected that night, I believe, +though it had failed to do so. + +My Boston friend climbed up to bed, somewhere in the roof, where +another guest was already snoring hugely. But being bitten beyond +his power of endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter +to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house. This +was not a very politic step, as it turned out; for the pigs +scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some +manner of meat inside, grunted round it so hideously, that he was +afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering, till morning. +Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did come out, by means of +a glass of brandy: for in Indian villages, the legislature, with a +very good and wise intention, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern +keepers. The precaution, however, is quite inefficacious, for the +Indians never fail to procure liquor of a worse kind, at a dearer +price, from travelling pedlars. + +It is a settlement of the Wyandot Indians who inhabit this place. +Among the company at breakfast was a mild old gentleman, who had +been for many years employed by the United States Government in +conducting negotiations with the Indians, and who had just +concluded a treaty with these people by which they bound +themselves, in consideration of a certain annual sum, to remove +next year to some land provided for them, west of the Mississippi, +and a little way beyond St. Louis. He gave me a moving account of +their strong attachment to the familiar scenes of their infancy, +and in particular to the burial-places of their kindred; and of +their great reluctance to leave them. He had witnessed many such +removals, and always with pain, though he knew that they departed +for their own good. The question whether this tribe should go or +stay, had been discussed among them a day or two before, in a hut +erected for the purpose, the logs of which still lay upon the +ground before the inn. When the speaking was done, the ayes and +noes were ranged on opposite sides, and every male adult voted in +his turn. The moment the result was known, the minority (a large +one) cheerfully yielded to the rest, and withdrew all kind of +opposition. + +We met some of these poor Indians afterwards, riding on shaggy +ponies. They were so like the meaner sort of gipsies, that if I +could have seen any of them in England, I should have concluded, as +a matter of course, that they belonged to that wandering and +restless people. + +Leaving this town directly after breakfast, we pushed forward +again, over a rather worse road than yesterday, if possible, and +arrived about noon at Tiffin, where we parted with the extra. At +two o'clock we took the railroad; the travelling on which was very +slow, its construction being indifferent, and the ground wet and +marshy; and arrived at Sandusky in time to dine that evening. We +put up at a comfortable little hotel on the brink of Lake Erie, lay +there that night, and had no choice but to wait there next day, +until a steamboat bound for Buffalo appeared. The town, which was +sluggish and uninteresting enough, was something like the back of +an English watering-place, out of the season. + +Our host, who was very attentive and anxious to make us +comfortable, was a handsome middle-aged man, who had come to this +town from New England, in which part of the country he was +'raised.' When I say that he constantly walked in and out of the +room with his hat on; and stopped to converse in the same free-and- +easy state; and lay down on our sofa, and pulled his newspaper out +of his pocket, and read it at his ease; I merely mention these +traits as characteristic of the country: not at all as being +matter of complaint, or as having been disagreeable to me. I +should undoubtedly be offended by such proceedings at home, because +there they are not the custom, and where they are not, they would +be impertinencies; but in America, the only desire of a good- +natured fellow of this kind, is to treat his guests hospitably and +well; and I had no more right, and I can truly say no more +disposition, to measure his conduct by our English rule and +standard, than I had to quarrel with him for not being of the exact +stature which would qualify him for admission into the Queen's +grenadier guards. As little inclination had I to find fault with a +funny old lady who was an upper domestic in this establishment, and +who, when she came to wait upon us at any meal, sat herself down +comfortably in the most convenient chair, and producing a large pin +to pick her teeth with, remained performing that ceremony, and +steadfastly regarding us meanwhile with much gravity and composure +(now and then pressing us to eat a little more), until it was time +to clear away. It was enough for us, that whatever we wished done +was done with great civility and readiness, and a desire to oblige, +not only here, but everywhere else; and that all our wants were, in +general, zealously anticipated. + +We were taking an early dinner at this house, on the day after our +arrival, which was Sunday, when a steamboat came in sight, and +presently touched at the wharf. As she proved to be on her way to +Buffalo, we hurried on board with all speed, and soon left Sandusky +far behind us. + +She was a large vessel of five hundred tons, and handsomely fitted +up, though with high-pressure engines; which always conveyed that +kind of feeling to me, which I should be likely to experience, I +think, if I had lodgings on the first-floor of a powder-mill. She +was laden with flour, some casks of which commodity were stored +upon the deck. The captain coming up to have a little +conversation, and to introduce a friend, seated himself astride of +one of these barrels, like a Bacchus of private life; and pulling a +great clasp-knife out of his pocket, began to 'whittle' it as he +talked, by paring thin slices off the edges. And he whittled with +such industry and hearty good will, that but for his being called +away very soon, it must have disappeared bodily, and left nothing +in its place but grist and shavings. + +After calling at one or two flat places, with low dams stretching +out into the lake, whereon were stumpy lighthouses, like windmills +without sails, the whole looking like a Dutch vignette, we came at +midnight to Cleveland, where we lay all night, and until nine +o'clock next morning. + +I entertained quite a curiosity in reference to this place, from +having seen at Sandusky a specimen of its literature in the shape +of a newspaper, which was very strong indeed upon the subject of +Lord Ashburton's recent arrival at Washington, to adjust the points +in dispute between the United States Government and Great Britain: +informing its readers that as America had 'whipped' England in her +infancy, and whipped her again in her youth, so it was clearly +necessary that she must whip her once again in her maturity; and +pledging its credit to all True Americans, that if Mr. Webster did +his duty in the approaching negotiations, and sent the English Lord +home again in double quick time, they should, within two years, +sing 'Yankee Doodle in Hyde Park, and Hail Columbia in the scarlet +courts of Westminster!' I found it a pretty town, and had the +satisfaction of beholding the outside of the office of the journal +from which I have just quoted. I did not enjoy the delight of +seeing the wit who indited the paragraph in question, but I have no +doubt he is a prodigious man in his way, and held in high repute by +a select circle. + +There was a gentleman on board, to whom, as I unintentionally +learned through the thin partition which divided our state-room +from the cabin in which he and his wife conversed together, I was +unwittingly the occasion of very great uneasiness. I don't know +why or wherefore, but I appeared to run in his mind perpetually, +and to dissatisfy him very much. First of all I heard him say: +and the most ludicrous part of the business was, that he said it in +my very ear, and could not have communicated more directly with me, +if he had leaned upon my shoulder, and whispered me: 'Boz is on +board still, my dear.' After a considerable pause, he added, +complainingly, 'Boz keeps himself very close;' which was true +enough, for I was not very well, and was lying down, with a book. +I thought he had done with me after this, but I was deceived; for a +long interval having elapsed, during which I imagine him to have +been turning restlessly from side to side, and trying to go to +sleep; he broke out again, with 'I suppose THAT Boz will be writing +a book by-and-by, and putting all our names in it!' at which +imaginary consequence of being on board a boat with Boz, he +groaned, and became silent. + +We called at the town of Erie, at eight o'clock that night, and lay +there an hour. Between five and six next morning, we arrived at +Buffalo, where we breakfasted; and being too near the Great Falls +to wait patiently anywhere else, we set off by the train, the same +morning at nine o'clock, to Niagara. + +It was a miserable day; chilly and raw; a damp mist falling; and +the trees in that northern region quite bare and wintry. Whenever +the train halted, I listened for the roar; and was constantly +straining my eyes in the direction where I knew the Falls must be, +from seeing the river rolling on towards them; every moment +expecting to behold the spray. Within a few minutes of our +stopping, not before, I saw two great white clouds rising up slowly +and majestically from the depths of the earth. That was all. At +length we alighted: and then for the first time, I heard the +mighty rush of water, and felt the ground tremble underneath my +feet. + +The bank is very steep, and was slippery with rain, and half-melted +ice. I hardly know how I got down, but I was soon at the bottom, +and climbing, with two English officers who were crossing and had +joined me, over some broken rocks, deafened by the noise, half- +blinded by the spray, and wet to the skin. We were at the foot of +the American Fall. I could see an immense torrent of water tearing +headlong down from some great height, but had no idea of shape, or +situation, or anything but vague immensity. + +When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, and were crossing the +swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I began to feel +what it was: but I was in a manner stunned, and unable to +comprehend the vastness of the scene. It was not until I came on +Table Rock, and looked - Great Heaven, on what a fall of bright- +green water! - that it came upon me in its full might and majesty. + +Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the first +effect, and the enduring one - instant and lasting - of the +tremendous spectacle, was Peace. Peace of Mind, tranquillity, calm +recollections of the Dead, great thoughts of Eternal Rest and +Happiness: nothing of gloom or terror. Niagara was at once +stamped upon my heart, an Image of Beauty; to remain there, +changeless and indelible, until its pulses cease to beat, for ever. + +Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life receded from my view, +and lessened in the distance, during the ten memorable days we +passed on that Enchanted Ground! What voices spoke from out the +thundering water; what faces, faded from the earth, looked out upon +me from its gleaming depths; what Heavenly promise glistened in +those angels' tears, the drops of many hues, that showered around, +and twined themselves about the gorgeous arches which the changing +rainbows made! + +I never stirred in all that time from the Canadian side, whither I +had gone at first. I never crossed the river again; for I knew +there were people on the other shore, and in such a place it is +natural to shun strange company. To wander to and fro all day, and +see the cataracts from all points of view; to stand upon the edge +of the great Horse-Shoe Fall, marking the hurried water gathering +strength as it approached the verge, yet seeming, too, to pause +before it shot into the gulf below; to gaze from the river's level +up at the torrent as it came streaming down; to climb the +neighbouring heights and watch it through the trees, and see the +wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful +plunge; to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three miles +below; watching the river as, stirred by no visible cause, it +heaved and eddied and awoke the echoes, being troubled yet, far +down beneath the surface, by its giant leap; to have Niagara before +me, lighted by the sun and by the moon, red in the day's decline, +and grey as evening slowly fell upon it; to look upon it every day, +and wake up in the night and hear its ceaseless voice: this was +enough. + +I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and +leap, and roar and tumble, all day long; still are the rainbows +spanning them, a hundred feet below. Still, when the sun is on +them, do they shine and glow like molten gold. Still, when the day +is gloomy, do they fall like snow, or seem to crumble away like the +front of a great chalk cliff, or roll down the rock like dense +white smoke. But always does the mighty stream appear to die as it +comes down, and always from its unfathomable grave arises that +tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid: which has +haunted this place with the same dread solemnity since Darkness +brooded on the deep, and that first flood before the Deluge - Light +- came rushing on Creation at the word of God. + + + +CHAPTER XV - IN CANADA; TORONTO; KINGSTON; MONTREAL; QUEBEC; ST. +JOHN'S. IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN; LEBANON; THE SHAKER VILLAGE; +WEST POINT + + + +I wish to abstain from instituting any comparison, or drawing any +parallel whatever, between the social features of the United States +and those of the British Possessions in Canada. For this reason, I +shall confine myself to a very brief account of our journeyings in +the latter territory. + +But before I leave Niagara, I must advert to one disgusting +circumstance which can hardly have escaped the observation of any +decent traveller who has visited the Falls. + +On Table Rock, there is a cottage belonging to a Guide, where +little relics of the place are sold, and where visitors register +their names in a book kept for the purpose. On the wall of the +room in which a great many of these volumes are preserved, the +following request is posted: 'Visitors will please not copy nor +extract the remarks and poetical effusions from the registers and +albums kept here.' + +But for this intimation, I should have let them lie upon the tables +on which they were strewn with careful negligence, like books in a +drawing-room: being quite satisfied with the stupendous silliness +of certain stanzas with an anti-climax at the end of each, which +were framed and hung up on the wall. Curious, however, after +reading this announcement, to see what kind of morsels were so +carefully preserved, I turned a few leaves, and found them scrawled +all over with the vilest and the filthiest ribaldry that ever human +hogs delighted in. + +It is humiliating enough to know that there are among men brutes so +obscene and worthless, that they can delight in laying their +miserable profanations upon the very steps of Nature's greatest +altar. But that these should be hoarded up for the delight of +their fellow-swine, and kept in a public place where any eyes may +see them, is a disgrace to the English language in which they are +written (though I hope few of these entries have been made by +Englishmen), and a reproach to the English side, on which they are +preserved. + +The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara, are finely and airily +situated. Some of them are large detached houses on the plain +above the Falls, which were originally designed for hotels; and in +the evening time, when the women and children were leaning over the +balconies watching the men as they played at ball and other games +upon the grass before the door, they often presented a little +picture of cheerfulness and animation which made it quite a +pleasure to pass that way. + +At any garrisoned point where the line of demarcation between one +country and another is so very narrow as at Niagara, desertion from +the ranks can scarcely fail to be of frequent occurrence: and it +may be reasonably supposed that when the soldiers entertain the +wildest and maddest hopes of the fortune and independence that +await them on the other side, the impulse to play traitor, which +such a place suggests to dishonest minds, is not weakened. But it +very rarely happens that the men who do desert, are happy or +contented afterwards; and many instances have been known in which +they have confessed their grievous disappointment, and their +earnest desire to return to their old service if they could but be +assured of pardon, or lenient treatment. Many of their comrades, +notwithstanding, do the like, from time to time; and instances of +loss of life in the effort to cross the river with this object, are +far from being uncommon. Several men were drowned in the attempt +to swim across, not long ago; and one, who had the madness to trust +himself upon a table as a raft, was swept down to the whirlpool, +where his mangled body eddied round and round some days. + +I am inclined to think that the noise of the Falls is very much +exaggerated; and this will appear the more probable when the depth +of the great basin in which the water is received, is taken into +account. At no time during our stay there, was the wind at all +high or boisterous, but we never heard them, three miles off, even +at the very quiet time of sunset, though we often tried. + +Queenston, at which place the steamboats start for Toronto (or I +should rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is at +Lewiston, on the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious +valley, through which the Niagara river, in colour a very deep +green, pursues its course. It is approached by a road that takes +its winding way among the heights by which the town is sheltered; +and seen from this point is extremely beautiful and picturesque. +On the most conspicuous of these heights stood a monument erected +by the Provincial Legislature in memory of General Brock, who was +slain in a battle with the American forces, after having won the +victory. Some vagabond, supposed to be a fellow of the name of +Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in prison as a felon, blew up +this monument two years ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with +a long fragment of iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top, +and waving to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem. +It is of much higher importance than it may seem, that this statue +should be repaired at the public cost, as it ought to have been +long ago. Firstly, because it is beneath the dignity of England to +allow a memorial raised in honour of one of her defenders, to +remain in this condition, on the very spot where he died. +Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state, and the +recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this +pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among +English subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and +dislikes. + +I was standing on the wharf at this place, watching the passengers +embarking in a steamboat which preceded that whose coming we +awaited, and participating in the anxiety with which a sergeant's +wife was collecting her few goods together - keeping one distracted +eye hard upon the porters, who were hurrying them on board, and the +other on a hoopless washing-tub for which, as being the most +utterly worthless of all her movables, she seemed to entertain +particular affection - when three or four soldiers with a recruit +came up and went on board. + +The recruit was a likely young fellow enough, strongly built and +well made, but by no means sober: indeed he had all the air of a +man who had been more or less drunk for some days. He carried a +small bundle over his shoulder, slung at the end of a walking- +stick, and had a short pipe in his mouth. He was as dusty and +dirty as recruits usually are, and his shoes betokened that he had +travelled on foot some distance, but he was in a very jocose state, +and shook hands with this soldier, and clapped that one on the +back, and talked and laughed continually, like a roaring idle dog +as he was. + +The soldiers rather laughed at this blade than with him: seeming +to say, as they stood straightening their canes in their hands, and +looking coolly at him over their glazed stocks, 'Go on, my boy, +while you may! you'll know better by-and-by:' when suddenly the +novice, who had been backing towards the gangway in his noisy +merriment, fell overboard before their eyes, and splashed heavily +down into the river between the vessel and the dock. + +I never saw such a good thing as the change that came over these +soldiers in an instant. Almost before the man was down, their +professional manner, their stiffness and constraint, were gone, and +they were filled with the most violent energy. In less time than +is required to tell it, they had him out again, feet first, with +the tails of his coat flapping over his eyes, everything about him +hanging the wrong way, and the water streaming off at every thread +in his threadbare dress. But the moment they set him upright and +found that he was none the worse, they were soldiers again, looking +over their glazed stocks more composedly than ever. + +The half-sobered recruit glanced round for a moment, as if his +first impulse were to express some gratitude for his preservation, +but seeing them with this air of total unconcern, and having his +wet pipe presented to him with an oath by the soldier who had been +by far the most anxious of the party, he stuck it in his mouth, +thrust his hands into his moist pockets, and without even shaking +the water off his clothes, walked on board whistling; not to say as +if nothing had happened, but as if he had meant to do it, and it +had been a perfect success. + +Our steamboat came up directly this had left the wharf, and soon +bore us to the mouth of the Niagara; where the stars and stripes of +America flutter on one side and the Union Jack of England on the +other: and so narrow is the space between them that the sentinels +in either fort can often hear the watchword of the other country +given. Thence we emerged on Lake Ontario, an inland sea; and by +half-past six o'clock were at Toronto. + +The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic +interest; but the town itself is full of life and motion, bustle, +business, and improvement. The streets are well paved, and lighted +with gas; the houses are large and good; the shops excellent. Many +of them have a display of goods in their windows, such as may be +seen in thriving county towns in England; and there are some which +would do no discredit to the metropolis itself. There is a good +stone prison here; and there are, besides, a handsome church, a +court-house, public offices, many commodious private residences, +and a government observatory for noting and recording the magnetic +variations. In the College of Upper Canada, which is one of the +public establishments of the city, a sound education in every +department of polite learning can be had, at a very moderate +expense: the annual charge for the instruction of each pupil, not +exceeding nine pounds sterling. It has pretty good endowments in +the way of land, and is a valuable and useful institution. + +The first stone of a new college had been laid but a few days +before, by the Governor General. It will be a handsome, spacious +edifice, approached by a long avenue, which is already planted and +made available as a public walk. The town is well adapted for +wholesome exercise at all seasons, for the footways in the +thoroughfares which lie beyond the principal street, are planked +like floors, and kept in very good and clean repair. + +It is a matter of deep regret that political differences should +have run high in this place, and led to most discreditable and +disgraceful results. It is not long since guns were discharged +from a window in this town at the successful candidates in an +election, and the coachman of one of them was actually shot in the +body, though not dangerously wounded. But one man was killed on +the same occasion; and from the very window whence he received his +death, the very flag which shielded his murderer (not only in the +commission of his crime, but from its consequences), was displayed +again on the occasion of the public ceremony performed by the +Governor General, to which I have just adverted. Of all the +colours in the rainbow, there is but one which could be so +employed: I need not say that flag was orange. + +The time of leaving Toronto for Kingston is noon. By eight o'clock +next morning, the traveller is at the end of his journey, which is +performed by steamboat upon Lake Ontario, calling at Port Hope and +Coburg, the latter a cheerful, thriving little town. Vast +quantities of flour form the chief item in the freight of these +vessels. We had no fewer than one thousand and eighty barrels on +board, between Coburg and Kingston. + +The latter place, which is now the seat of government in Canada, is +a very poor town, rendered still poorer in the appearance of its +market-place by the ravages of a recent fire. Indeed, it may be +said of Kingston, that one half of it appears to be burnt down, and +the other half not to be built up. The Government House is neither +elegant nor commodious, yet it is almost the only house of any +importance in the neighbourhood. + +There is an admirable jail here, well and wisely governed, and +excellently regulated, in every respect. The men were employed as +shoemakers, ropemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters, and +stonecutters; and in building a new prison, which was pretty far +advanced towards completion. The female prisoners were occupied in +needlework. Among them was a beautiful girl of twenty, who had +been there nearly three years. She acted as bearer of secret +despatches for the self-styled Patriots on Navy Island, during the +Canadian Insurrection: sometimes dressing as a girl, and carrying +them in her stays; sometimes attiring herself as a boy, and +secreting them in the lining of her hat. In the latter character +she always rode as a boy would, which was nothing to her, for she +could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could drive +four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts. Setting forth on +one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to herself the +first horse she could lay her hands on; and this offence had +brought her where I saw her. She had quite a lovely face, though, +as the reader may suppose from this sketch of her history, there +was a lurking devil in her bright eye, which looked out pretty +sharply from between her prison bars. + +There is a bomb-proof fort here of great strength, which occupies a +bold position, and is capable, doubtless, of doing good service; +though the town is much too close upon the frontier to be long +held, I should imagine, for its present purpose in troubled times. +There is also a small navy-yard, where a couple of Government +steamboats were building, and getting on vigorously. + +We left Kingston for Montreal on the tenth of May, at half-past +nine in the morning, and proceeded in a steamboat down the St. +Lawrence river. The beauty of this noble stream at almost any +point, but especially in the commencement of this journey when it +winds its way among the thousand Islands, can hardly be imagined. +The number and constant successions of these islands, all green and +richly wooded; their fluctuating sizes, some so large that for half +an hour together one among them will appear as the opposite bank of +the river, and some so small that they are mere dimples on its +broad bosom; their infinite variety of shapes; and the numberless +combinations of beautiful forms which the trees growing on them +present: all form a picture fraught with uncommon interest and +pleasure. + +In the afternoon we shot down some rapids where the river boiled +and bubbled strangely, and where the force and headlong violence of +the current were tremendous. At seven o'clock we reached +Dickenson's Landing, whence travellers proceed for two or three +hours by stage-coach: the navigation of the river being rendered +so dangerous and difficult in the interval, by rapids, that +steamboats do not make the passage. The number and length of those +PORTAGES, over which the roads are bad, and the travelling slow, +render the way between the towns of Montreal and Kingston, somewhat +tedious. + +Our course lay over a wide, uninclosed tract of country at a little +distance from the river-side, whence the bright warning lights on +the dangerous parts of the St. Lawrence shone vividly. The night +was dark and raw, and the way dreary enough. It was nearly ten +o'clock when we reached the wharf where the next steamboat lay; and +went on board, and to bed. + +She lay there all night, and started as soon as it was day. The +morning was ushered in by a violent thunderstorm, and was very wet, +but gradually improved and brightened up. Going on deck after +breakfast, I was amazed to see floating down with the stream, a +most gigantic raft, with some thirty or forty wooden houses upon +it, and at least as many flag-masts, so that it looked like a +nautical street. I saw many of these rafts afterwards, but never +one so large. All the timber, or 'lumber,' as it is called in +America, which is brought down the St. Lawrence, is floated down in +this manner. When the raft reaches its place of destination, it is +broken up; the materials are sold; and the boatmen return for more. + +At eight we landed again, and travelled by a stage-coach for four +hours through a pleasant and well-cultivated country, perfectly +French in every respect: in the appearance of the cottages; the +air, language, and dress of the peasantry; the sign-boards on the +shops and taverns: and the Virgin's shrines, and crosses, by the +wayside. Nearly every common labourer and boy, though he had no +shoes to his feet, wore round his waist a sash of some bright +colour: generally red: and the women, who were working in the +fields and gardens, and doing all kinds of husbandry, wore, one and +all, great flat straw hats with most capacious brims. There were +Catholic Priests and Sisters of Charity in the village streets; and +images of the Saviour at the corners of cross-roads, and in other +public places. + +At noon we went on board another steamboat, and reached the village +of Lachine, nine miles from Montreal, by three o'clock. There, we +left the river, and went on by land. + +Montreal is pleasantly situated on the margin of the St. Lawrence, +and is backed by some bold heights, about which there are charming +rides and drives. The streets are generally narrow and irregular, +as in most French towns of any age; but in the more modern parts of +the city, they are wide and airy. They display a great variety of +very good shops; and both in the town and suburbs there are many +excellent private dwellings. The granite quays are remarkable for +their beauty, solidity, and extent. + +There is a very large Catholic cathedral here, recently erected +with two tall spires, of which one is yet unfinished. In the open +space in front of this edifice, stands a solitary, grim-looking, +square brick tower, which has a quaint and remarkable appearance, +and which the wiseacres of the place have consequently determined +to pull down immediately. The Government House is very superior to +that at Kingston, and the town is full of life and bustle. In one +of the suburbs is a plank road - not footpath - five or six miles +long, and a famous road it is too. All the rides in the vicinity +were made doubly interesting by the bursting out of spring, which +is here so rapid, that it is but a day's leap from barren winter, +to the blooming youth of summer. + +The steamboats to Quebec perform the journey in the night; that is +to say, they leave Montreal at six in the evening, and arrive at +Quebec at six next morning. We made this excursion during our stay +in Montreal (which exceeded a fortnight), and were charmed by its +interest and beauty. + +The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of America: +its giddy heights; its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air; +its picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the +splendid views which burst upon the eye at every turn: is at once +unique and lasting. + +It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed up in the mind with +other places, or altered for a moment in the crowd of scenes a +traveller can recall. Apart from the realities of this most +picturesque city, there are associations clustering about it which +would make a desert rich in interest. The dangerous precipice +along whose rocky front, Wolfe and his brave companions climbed to +glory; the Plains of Abraham, where he received his mortal wound; +the fortress so chivalrously defended by Montcalm; and his +soldier's grave, dug for him while yet alive, by the bursting of a +shell; are not the least among them, or among the gallant incidents +of history. That is a noble Monument too, and worthy of two great +nations, which perpetuates the memory of both brave generals, and +on which their names are jointly written. + +The city is rich in public institutions and in Catholic churches +and charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the site of +the Old Government House, and from the Citadel, that its surpassing +beauty lies. The exquisite expanse of country, rich in field and +forest, mountain-height and water, which lies stretched out before +the view, with miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long white +streaks, like veins along the landscape; the motley crowd of +gables, roofs, and chimney tops in the old hilly town immediately +at hand; the beautiful St. Lawrence sparkling and flashing in the +sunlight; and the tiny ships below the rock from which you gaze, +whose distant rigging looks like spiders' webs against the light, +while casks and barrels on their decks dwindle into toys, and busy +mariners become so many puppets; all this, framed by a sunken +window in the fortress and looked at from the shadowed room within, +forms one of the brightest and most enchanting pictures that the +eye can rest upon. + +In the spring of the year, vast numbers of emigrants who have newly +arrived from England or from Ireland, pass between Quebec and +Montreal on their way to the backwoods and new settlements of +Canada. If it be an entertaining lounge (as I very often found it) +to take a morning stroll upon the quay at Montreal, and see them +grouped in hundreds on the public wharfs about their chests and +boxes, it is matter of deep interest to be their fellow-passenger +on one of these steamboats, and mingling with the concourse, see +and hear them unobserved. + +The vessel in which we returned from Quebec to Montreal was crowded +with them, and at night they spread their beds between decks (those +who had beds, at least), and slept so close and thick about our +cabin door, that the passage to and fro was quite blocked up. They +were nearly all English; from Gloucestershire the greater part; and +had had a long winter-passage out; but it was wonderful to see how +clean the children had been kept, and how untiring in their love +and self-denial all the poor parents were. + +Cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it is +very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the +rich; and the good that is in them, shines the brighter for it. In +many a noble mansion lives a man, the best of husbands and of +fathers, whose private worth in both capacities is justly lauded to +the skies. But bring him here, upon this crowded deck. Strip from +his fair young wife her silken dress and jewels, unbind her braided +hair, stamp early wrinkles on her brow, pinch her pale cheek with +care and much privation, array her faded form in coarsely patched +attire, let there be nothing but his love to set her forth or deck +her out, and you shall put it to the proof indeed. So change his +station in the world, that he shall see in those young things who +climb about his knee: not records of his wealth and name: but +little wrestlers with him for his daily bread; so many poachers on +his scanty meal; so many units to divide his every sum of comfort, +and farther to reduce its small amount. In lieu of the endearments +of childhood in its sweetest aspect, heap upon him all its pains +and wants, its sicknesses and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and +querulous endurance: let its prattle be, not of engaging infant +fancies, but of cold, and thirst, and hunger: and if his fatherly +affection outlive all this, and he be patient, watchful, tender; +careful of his children's lives, and mindful always of their joys +and sorrows; then send him back to Parliament, and Pulpit, and to +Quarter Sessions, and when he hears fine talk of the depravity of +those who live from hand to mouth, and labour hard to do it, let +him speak up, as one who knows, and tell those holders forth that +they, by parallel with such a class, should be High Angels in their +daily lives, and lay but humble siege to Heaven at last. + +Which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities, with +small relief or change all through his days, were his! Looking +round upon these people: far from home, houseless, indigent, +wandering, weary with travel and hard living: and seeing how +patiently they nursed and tended their young children: how they +consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied their own; +what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women were; how the men +profited by their example; and how very, very seldom even a +moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them: I felt +a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart, and +wished to God there had been many Atheists in the better part of +human nature there, to read this simple lesson in the book of Life. + +* * * * * * + +We left Montreal for New York again, on the thirtieth of May, +crossing to La Prairie, on the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence, +in a steamboat; we then took the railroad to St. John's, which is +on the brink of Lake Champlain. Our last greeting in Canada was +from the English officers in the pleasant barracks at that place (a +class of gentlemen who had made every hour of our visit memorable +by their hospitality and friendship); and with 'Rule Britannia' +sounding in our ears, soon left it far behind. + +But Canada has held, and always will retain, a foremost place in my +remembrance. Few Englishmen are prepared to find it what it is. +Advancing quietly; old differences settling down, and being fast +forgotten; public feeling and private enterprise alike in a sound +and wholesome state; nothing of flush or fever in its system, but +health and vigour throbbing in its steady pulse: it is full of +hope and promise. To me - who had been accustomed to think of it +as something left behind in the strides of advancing society, as +something neglected and forgotten, slumbering and wasting in its +sleep - the demand for labour and the rates of wages; the busy +quays of Montreal; the vessels taking in their cargoes, and +discharging them; the amount of shipping in the different ports; +the commerce, roads, and public works, all made TO LAST; the +respectability and character of the public journals; and the amount +of rational comfort and happiness which honest industry may earn: +were very great surprises. The steamboats on the lakes, in their +conveniences, cleanliness, and safety; in the gentlemanly character +and bearing of their captains; and in the politeness and perfect +comfort of their social regulations; are unsurpassed even by the +famous Scotch vessels, deservedly so much esteemed at home. The +inns are usually bad; because the custom of boarding at hotels is +not so general here as in the States, and the British officers, who +form a large portion of the society of every town, live chiefly at +the regimental messes: but in every other respect, the traveller +in Canada will find as good provision for his comfort as in any +place I know. + +There is one American boat - the vessel which carried us on Lake +Champlain, from St. John's to Whitehall - which I praise very +highly, but no more than it deserves, when I say that it is +superior even to that in which we went from Queenston to Toronto, +or to that in which we travelled from the latter place to Kingston, +or I have no doubt I may add to any other in the world. This +steamboat, which is called the Burlington, is a perfectly exquisite +achievement of neatness, elegance, and order. The decks are +drawing-rooms; the cabins are boudoirs, choicely furnished and +adorned with prints, pictures, and musical instruments; every nook +and corner in the vessel is a perfect curiosity of graceful comfort +and beautiful contrivance. Captain Sherman, her commander, to +whose ingenuity and excellent taste these results are solely +attributable, has bravely and worthily distinguished himself on +more than one trying occasion: not least among them, in having the +moral courage to carry British troops, at a time (during the +Canadian rebellion) when no other conveyance was open to them. He +and his vessel are held in universal respect, both by his own +countrymen and ours; and no man ever enjoyed the popular esteem, +who, in his sphere of action, won and wore it better than this +gentleman. + +By means of this floating palace we were soon in the United States +again, and called that evening at Burlington; a pretty town, where +we lay an hour or so. We reached Whitehall, where we were to +disembark, at six next morning; and might have done so earlier, but +that these steamboats lie by for some hours in the night, in +consequence of the lake becoming very narrow at that part of the +journey, and difficult of navigation in the dark. Its width is so +contracted at one point, indeed, that they are obliged to warp +round by means of a rope. + +After breakfasting at Whitehall, we took the stage-coach for +Albany: a large and busy town, where we arrived between five and +six o'clock that afternoon; after a very hot day's journey, for we +were now in the height of summer again. At seven we started for +New York on board a great North River steamboat, which was so +crowded with passengers that the upper deck was like the box lobby +of a theatre between the pieces, and the lower one like Tottenham +Court Road on a Saturday night. But we slept soundly, +notwithstanding, and soon after five o'clock next morning reached +New York. + +Tarrying here, only that day and night, to recruit after our late +fatigues, we started off once more upon our last journey in +America. We had yet five days to spare before embarking for +England, and I had a great desire to see 'the Shaker Village,' +which is peopled by a religious sect from whom it takes its name. + +To this end, we went up the North River again, as far as the town +of Hudson, and there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon, thirty +miles distant: and of course another and a different Lebanon from +that village where I slept on the night of the Prairie trip. + +The country through which the road meandered, was rich and +beautiful; the weather very fine; and for many miles the Kaatskill +mountains, where Rip Van Winkle and the ghostly Dutchmen played at +ninepins one memorable gusty afternoon, towered in the blue +distance, like stately clouds. At one point, as we ascended a +steep hill, athwart whose base a railroad, yet constructing, took +its course, we came upon an Irish colony. With means at hand of +building decent cabins, it was wonderful to see how clumsy, rough, +and wretched, its hovels were. The best were poor protection from +the weather the worst let in the wind and rain through wide +breaches in the roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud; +some had neither door nor window; some had nearly fallen down, and +were imperfectly propped up by stakes and poles; all were ruinous +and filthy. Hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones, +pigs, dogs, men, children, babies, pots, kettles, dung-hills, vile +refuse, rank straw, and standing water, all wallowing together in +an inseparable heap, composed the furniture of every dark and dirty +hut. + +Between nine and ten o'clock at night, we arrived at Lebanon which +is renowned for its warm baths, and for a great hotel, well +adapted, I have no doubt, to the gregarious taste of those seekers +after health or pleasure who repair here, but inexpressibly +comfortless to me. We were shown into an immense apartment, +lighted by two dim candles, called the drawing-room: from which +there was a descent by a flight of steps, to another vast desert, +called the dining-room: our bed-chambers were among certain long +rows of little white-washed cells, which opened from either side of +a dreary passage; and were so like rooms in a prison that I half +expected to be locked up when I went to bed, and listened +involuntarily for the turning of the key on the outside. There +need be baths somewhere in the neighbourhood, for the other washing +arrangements were on as limited a scale as I ever saw, even in +America: indeed, these bedrooms were so very bare of even such +common luxuries as chairs, that I should say they were not provided +with enough of anything, but that I bethink myself of our having +been most bountifully bitten all night. + +The house is very pleasantly situated, however, and we had a good +breakfast. That done, we went to visit our place of destination, +which was some two miles off, and the way to which was soon +indicated by a finger-post, whereon was painted, 'To the Shaker +Village.' + +As we rode along, we passed a party of Shakers, who were at work +upon the road; who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed hats; and +were in all visible respects such very wooden men, that I felt +about as much sympathy for them, and as much interest in them, as +if they had been so many figure-heads of ships. Presently we came +to the beginning of the village, and alighting at the door of a +house where the Shaker manufactures are sold, and which is the +headquarters of the elders, requested permission to see the Shaker +worship. + +Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority, +we walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on +grim pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock which +uttered every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim +silence reluctantly, and under protest. Ranged against the wall +were six or eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so +strongly of the general grimness that one would much rather have +sat on the floor than incurred the smallest obligation to any of +them. + +Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old Shaker, +with eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal +buttons on his coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm goblin. Being +informed of our desire, he produced a newspaper wherein the body of +elders, whereof he was a member, had advertised but a few days +before, that in consequence of certain unseemly interruptions which +their worship had received from strangers, their chapel was closed +to the public for the space of one year. + +As nothing was to be urged in opposition to this reasonable +arrangement, we requested leave to make some trifling purchases of +Shaker goods; which was grimly conceded. We accordingly repaired +to a store in the same house and on the opposite side of the +passage, where the stock was presided over by something alive in a +russet case, which the elder said was a woman; and which I suppose +WAS a woman, though I should not have suspected it. + +On the opposite side of the road was their place of worship: a +cool, clean edifice of wood, with large windows and green blinds: +like a spacious summer-house. As there was no getting into this +place, and nothing was to be done but walk up and down, and look at +it and the other buildings in the village (which were chiefly of +wood, painted a dark red like English barns, and composed of many +stories like English factories), I have nothing to communicate to +the reader, beyond the scanty results I gleaned the while our +purchases were making, + +These people are called Shakers from their peculiar form of +adoration, which consists of a dance, performed by the men and +women of all ages, who arrange themselves for that purpose in +opposite parties: the men first divesting themselves of their hats +and coats, which they gravely hang against the wall before they +begin; and tying a ribbon round their shirt-sleeves, as though they +were going to be bled. They accompany themselves with a droning, +humming noise, and dance until they are quite exhausted, +alternately advancing and retiring in a preposterous sort of trot. +The effect is said to be unspeakably absurd: and if I may judge +from a print of this ceremony which I have in my possession; and +which I am informed by those who have visited the chapel, is +perfectly accurate; it must be infinitely grotesque. + +They are governed by a woman, and her rule is understood to be +absolute, though she has the assistance of a council of elders. +She lives, it is said, in strict seclusion, in certain rooms above +the chapel, and is never shown to profane eyes. If she at all +resemble the lady who presided over the store, it is a great +charity to keep her as close as possible, and I cannot too strongly +express my perfect concurrence in this benevolent proceeding. + +All the possessions and revenues of the settlement are thrown into +a common stock, which is managed by the elders. As they have made +converts among people who were well to do in the world, and are +frugal and thrifty, it is understood that this fund prospers: the +more especially as they have made large purchases of land. Nor is +this at Lebanon the only Shaker settlement: there are, I think, at +least, three others. + +They are good farmers, and all their produce is eagerly purchased +and highly esteemed. 'Shaker seeds,' 'Shaker herbs,' and 'Shaker +distilled waters,' are commonly announced for sale in the shops of +towns and cities. They are good breeders of cattle, and are kind +and merciful to the brute creation. Consequently, Shaker beasts +seldom fail to find a ready market. + +They eat and drink together, after the Spartan model, at a great +public table. There is no union of the sexes, and every Shaker, +male and female, is devoted to a life of celibacy. Rumour has been +busy upon this theme, but here again I must refer to the lady of +the store, and say, that if many of the sister Shakers resemble +her, I treat all such slander as bearing on its face the strongest +marks of wild improbability. But that they take as proselytes, +persons so young that they cannot know their own minds, and cannot +possess much strength of resolution in this or any other respect, I +can assert from my own observation of the extreme juvenility of +certain youthful Shakers whom I saw at work among the party on the +road. + +They are said to be good drivers of bargains, but to be honest and +just in their transactions, and even in horse-dealing to resist +those thievish tendencies which would seem, for some undiscovered +reason, to be almost inseparable from that branch of traffic. In +all matters they hold their own course quietly, live in their +gloomy, silent commonwealth, and show little desire to interfere +with other people. + +This is well enough, but nevertheless I cannot, I confess, incline +towards the Shakers; view them with much favour, or extend towards +them any very lenient construction. I so abhor, and from my soul +detest that bad spirit, no matter by what class or sect it may be +entertained, which would strip life of its healthful graces, rob +youth of its innocent pleasures, pluck from maturity and age their +pleasant ornaments, and make existence but a narrow path towards +the grave: that odious spirit which, if it could have had full +scope and sway upon the earth, must have blasted and made barren +the imaginations of the greatest men, and left them, in their power +of raising up enduring images before their fellow-creatures yet +unborn, no better than the beasts: that, in these very broad- +brimmed hats and very sombre coats - in stiff-necked, solemn- +visaged piety, in short, no matter what its garb, whether it have +cropped hair as in a Shaker village, or long nails as in a Hindoo +temple - I recognise the worst among the enemies of Heaven and +Earth, who turn the water at the marriage feasts of this poor +world, not into wine, but gall. And if there must be people vowed +to crush the harmless fancies and the love of innocent delights and +gaieties, which are a part of human nature: as much a part of it +as any other love or hope that is our common portion: let them, +for me, stand openly revealed among the ribald and licentious; the +very idiots know that THEY are not on the Immortal road, and will +despise them, and avoid them readily. + +Leaving the Shaker village with a hearty dislike of the old +Shakers, and a hearty pity for the young ones: tempered by the +strong probability of their running away as they grow older and +wiser, which they not uncommonly do: we returned to Lebanon, and +so to Hudson, by the way we had come upon the previous day. There, +we took the steamboat down the North River towards New York, but +stopped, some four hours' journey short of it, at West Point, where +we remained that night, and all next day, and next night too. + +In this beautiful place: the fairest among the fair and lovely +Highlands of the North River: shut in by deep green heights and +ruined forts, and looking down upon the distant town of Newburgh, +along a glittering path of sunlit water, with here and there a +skiff, whose white sail often bends on some new tack as sudden +flaws of wind come down upon her from the gullies in the hills: +hemmed in, besides, all round with memories of Washington, and +events of the revolutionary war: is the Military School of +America. + +It could not stand on more appropriate ground, and any ground more +beautiful can hardly be. The course of education is severe, but +well devised, and manly. Through June, July, and August, the young +men encamp upon the spacious plain whereon the college stands; and +all the year their military exercises are performed there, daily. +The term of study at this institution, which the State requires +from all cadets, is four years; but, whether it be from the rigid +nature of the discipline, or the national impatience of restraint, +or both causes combined, not more than half the number who begin +their studies here, ever remain to finish them. + +The number of cadets being about equal to that of the members of +Congress, one is sent here from every Congressional district: its +member influencing the selection. Commissions in the service are +distributed on the same principle. The dwellings of the various +Professors are beautifully situated; and there is a most excellent +hotel for strangers, though it has the two drawbacks of being a +total abstinence house (wines and spirits being forbidden to the +students), and of serving the public meals at rather uncomfortable +hours: to wit, breakfast at seven, dinner at one, and supper at +sunset. + +The beauty and freshness of this calm retreat, in the very dawn and +greenness of summer - it was then the beginning of June - were +exquisite indeed. Leaving it upon the sixth, and returning to New +York, to embark for England on the succeeding day, I was glad to +think that among the last memorable beauties which had glided past +us, and softened in the bright perspective, were those whose +pictures, traced by no common hand, are fresh in most men's minds; +not easily to grow old, or fade beneath the dust of Time: the +Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hollow, and the Tappaan Zee. + + + +CHAPTER XVI - THE PASSAGE HOME + + + +I NEVER had so much interest before, and very likely I shall never +have so much interest again, in the state of the wind, as on the +long-looked-for morning of Tuesday the Seventh of June. Some +nautical authority had told me a day or two previous, 'anything +with west in it, will do;' so when I darted out of bed at daylight, +and throwing up the window, was saluted by a lively breeze from the +north-west which had sprung up in the night, it came upon me so +freshly, rustling with so many happy associations, that I conceived +upon the spot a special regard for all airs blowing from that +quarter of the compass, which I shall cherish, I dare say, until my +own wind has breathed its last frail puff, and withdrawn itself for +ever from the mortal calendar. + +The pilot had not been slow to take advantage of this favourable +weather, and the ship which yesterday had been in such a crowded +dock that she might have retired from trade for good and all, for +any chance she seemed to have of going to sea, was now full sixteen +miles away. A gallant sight she was, when we, fast gaining on her +in a steamboat, saw her in the distance riding at anchor: her tall +masts pointing up in graceful lines against the sky, and every rope +and spar expressed in delicate and thread-like outline: gallant, +too, when, we being all aboard, the anchor came up to the sturdy +chorus 'Cheerily men, oh cheerily!' and she followed proudly in the +towing steamboat's wake: but bravest and most gallant of all, when +the tow-rope being cast adrift, the canvas fluttered from her +masts, and spreading her white wings she soared away upon her free +and solitary course. + +In the after cabin we were only fifteen passengers in all, and the +greater part were from Canada, where some of us had known each +other. The night was rough and squally, so were the next two days, +but they flew by quickly, and we were soon as cheerful and snug a +party, with an honest, manly-hearted captain at our head, as ever +came to the resolution of being mutually agreeable, on land or +water. + +We breakfasted at eight, lunched at twelve, dined at three, and +took our tea at half-past seven. We had abundance of amusements, +and dinner was not the least among them: firstly, for its own +sake; secondly, because of its extraordinary length: its duration, +inclusive of all the long pauses between the courses, being seldom +less than two hours and a half; which was a subject of never- +failing entertainment. By way of beguiling the tediousness of +these banquets, a select association was formed at the lower end of +the table, below the mast, to whose distinguished president modesty +forbids me to make any further allusion, which, being a very +hilarious and jovial institution, was (prejudice apart) in high +favour with the rest of the community, and particularly with a +black steward, who lived for three weeks in a broad grin at the +marvellous humour of these incorporated worthies. + +Then, we had chess for those who played it, whist, cribbage, books, +backgammon, and shovelboard. In all weathers, fair or foul, calm +or windy, we were every one on deck, walking up and down in pairs, +lying in the boats, leaning over the side, or chatting in a lazy +group together. We had no lack of music, for one played the +accordion, another the violin, and another (who usually began at +six o'clock A.M.) the key-bugle: the combined effect of which +instruments, when they all played different tunes in differents +parts of the ship, at the same time, and within hearing of each +other, as they sometimes did (everybody being intensely satisfied +with his own performance), was sublimely hideous. + +When all these means of entertainment failed, a sail would heave in +sight: looming, perhaps, the very spirit of a ship, in the misty +distance, or passing us so close that through our glasses we could +see the people on her decks, and easily make out her name, and +whither she was bound. For hours together we could watch the +dolphins and porpoises as they rolled and leaped and dived around +the vessel; or those small creatures ever on the wing, the Mother +Carey's chickens, which had borne us company from New York bay, and +for a whole fortnight fluttered about the vessel's stern. For some +days we had a dead calm, or very light winds, during which the crew +amused themselves with fishing, and hooked an unlucky dolphin, who +expired, in all his rainbow colours, on the deck: an event of such +importance in our barren calendar, that afterwards we dated from +the dolphin, and made the day on which he died, an era. + +Besides all this, when we were five or six days out, there began to +be much talk of icebergs, of which wandering islands an unusual +number had been seen by the vessels that had come into New York a +day or two before we left that port, and of whose dangerous +neighbourhood we were warned by the sudden coldness of the weather, +and the sinking of the mercury in the barometer. While these +tokens lasted, a double look-out was kept, and many dismal tales +were whispered after dark, of ships that had struck upon the ice +and gone down in the night; but the wind obliging us to hold a +southward course, we saw none of them, and the weather soon grew +bright and warm again. + +The observation every day at noon, and the subsequent working of +the vessel's course, was, as may be supposed, a feature in our +lives of paramount importance; nor were there wanting (as there +never are) sagacious doubters of the captain's calculations, who, +so soon as his back was turned, would, in the absence of compasses, +measure the chart with bits of string, and ends of pocket- +handkerchiefs, and points of snuffers, and clearly prove him to be +wrong by an odd thousand miles or so. It was very edifying to see +these unbelievers shake their heads and frown, and hear them hold +forth strongly upon navigation: not that they knew anything about +it, but that they always mistrusted the captain in calm weather, or +when the wind was adverse. Indeed, the mercury itself is not so +variable as this class of passengers, whom you will see, when the +ship is going nobly through the water, quite pale with admiration, +swearing that the captain beats all captains ever known, and even +hinting at subscriptions for a piece of plate; and who, next +morning, when the breeze has lulled, and all the sails hang useless +in the idle air, shake their despondent heads again, and say, with +screwed-up lips, they hope that captain is a sailor - but they +shrewdly doubt him. + +It even became an occupation in the calm, to wonder when the wind +WOULD spring up in the favourable quarter, where, it was clearly +shown by all the rules and precedents, it ought to have sprung up +long ago. The first mate, who whistled for it zealously, was much +respected for his perseverance, and was regarded even by the +unbelievers as a first-rate sailor. Many gloomy looks would be +cast upward through the cabin skylights at the flapping sails while +dinner was in progress; and some, growing bold in ruefulness, +predicted that we should land about the middle of July. There are +always on board ship, a Sanguine One, and a Despondent One. The +latter character carried it hollow at this period of the voyage, +and triumphed over the Sanguine One at every meal, by inquiring +where he supposed the Great Western (which left New York a week +after us) was NOW: and where he supposed the 'Cunard' steam-packet +was NOW: and what he thought of sailing vessels, as compared with +steamships NOW: and so beset his life with pestilent attacks of +that kind, that he too was obliged to affect despondency, for very +peace and quietude. + +These were additions to the list of entertaining incidents, but +there was still another source of interest. We carried in the +steerage nearly a hundred passengers: a little world of poverty: +and as we came to know individuals among them by sight, from +looking down upon the deck where they took the air in the daytime, +and cooked their food, and very often ate it too, we became curious +to know their histories, and with what expectations they had gone +out to America, and on what errands they were going home, and what +their circumstances were. The information we got on these heads +from the carpenter, who had charge of these people, was often of +the strangest kind. Some of them had been in America but three +days, some but three months, and some had gone out in the last +voyage of that very ship in which they were now returning home. +Others had sold their clothes to raise the passage-money, and had +hardly rags to cover them; others had no food, and lived upon the +charity of the rest: and one man, it was discovered nearly at the +end of the voyage, not before - for he kept his secret close, and +did not court compassion - had had no sustenance whatever but the +bones and scraps of fat he took from the plates used in the after- +cabin dinner, when they were put out to be washed. + +The whole system of shipping and conveying these unfortunate +persons, is one that stands in need of thorough revision. If any +class deserve to be protected and assisted by the Government, it is +that class who are banished from their native land in search of the +bare means of subsistence. All that could be done for these poor +people by the great compassion and humanity of the captain and +officers was done, but they require much more. The law is bound, +at least upon the English side, to see that too many of them are +not put on board one ship: and that their accommodations are +decent: not demoralising, and profligate. It is bound, too, in +common humanity, to declare that no man shall be taken on board +without his stock of provisions being previously inspected by some +proper officer, and pronounced moderately sufficient for his +support upon the voyage. It is bound to provide, or to require +that there be provided, a medical attendant; whereas in these ships +there are none, though sickness of adults, and deaths of children, +on the passage, are matters of the very commonest occurrence. +Above all it is the duty of any Government, be it monarchy or +republic, to interpose and put an end to that system by which a +firm of traders in emigrants purchase of the owners the whole +'tween-decks of a ship, and send on board as many wretched people +as they can lay hold of, on any terms they can get, without the +smallest reference to the conveniences of the steerage, the number +of berths, the slightest separation of the sexes, or anything but +their own immediate profit. Nor is even this the worst of the +vicious system: for, certain crimping agents of these houses, who +have a percentage on all the passengers they inveigle, are +constantly travelling about those districts where poverty and +discontent are rife, and tempting the credulous into more misery, +by holding out monstrous inducements to emigration which can never +be realised. + +The history of every family we had on board was pretty much the +same. After hoarding up, and borrowing, and begging, and selling +everything to pay the passage, they had gone out to New York, +expecting to find its streets paved with gold; and had found them +paved with very hard and very real stones. Enterprise was dull; +labourers were not wanted; jobs of work were to be got, but the +payment was not. They were coming back, even poorer than they +went. One of them was carrying an open letter from a young English +artisan, who had been in New York a fortnight, to a friend near +Manchester, whom he strongly urged to follow him. One of the +officers brought it to me as a curiosity. 'This is the country, +Jem,' said the writer. 'I like America. There is no despotism +here; that's the great thing. Employment of all sorts is going a- +begging, and wages are capital. You have only to choose a trade, +Jem, and be it. I haven't made choice of one yet, but I shall +soon. AT PRESENT I HAVEN'T QUITE MADE UP MY MIND WHETHER TO BE A +CARPENTER - OR A TAILOR.' + +There was yet another kind of passenger, and but one more, who, in +the calm and the light winds, was a constant theme of conversation +and observation among us. This was an English sailor, a smart, +thorough-built, English man-of-war's-man from his hat to his shoes, +who was serving in the American navy, and having got leave of +absence was on his way home to see his friends. When he presented +himself to take and pay for his passage, it had been suggested to +him that being an able seaman he might as well work it and save the +money, but this piece of advice he very indignantly rejected: +saying, 'He'd be damned but for once he'd go aboard ship, as a +gentleman.' Accordingly, they took his money, but he no sooner +came aboard, than he stowed his kit in the forecastle, arranged to +mess with the crew, and the very first time the hands were turned +up, went aloft like a cat, before anybody. And all through the +passage there he was, first at the braces, outermost on the yards, +perpetually lending a hand everywhere, but always with a sober +dignity in his manner, and a sober grin on his face, which plainly +said, 'I do it as a gentleman. For my own pleasure, mind you!' + +At length and at last, the promised wind came up in right good +earnest, and away we went before it, with every stitch of canvas +set, slashing through the water nobly. There was a grandeur in the +motion of the splendid ship, as overshadowed by her mass of sails, +she rode at a furious pace upon the waves, which filled one with an +indescribable sense of pride and exultation. As she plunged into a +foaming valley, how I loved to see the green waves, bordered deep +with white, come rushing on astern, to buoy her upward at their +pleasure, and curl about her as she stooped again, but always own +her for their haughty mistress still! On, on we flew, with +changing lights upon the water, being now in the blessed region of +fleecy skies; a bright sun lighting us by day, and a bright moon by +night; the vane pointing directly homeward, alike the truthful +index to the favouring wind and to our cheerful hearts; until at +sunrise, one fair Monday morning - the twenty-seventh of June, I +shall not easily forget the day - there lay before us, old Cape +Clear, God bless it, showing, in the mist of early morning, like a +cloud: the brightest and most welcome cloud, to us, that ever hid +the face of Heaven's fallen sister - Home. + +Dim speck as it was in the wide prospect, it made the sunrise a +more cheerful sight, and gave to it that sort of human interest +which it seems to want at sea. There, as elsewhere, the return of +day is inseparable from some sense of renewed hope and gladness; +but the light shining on the dreary waste of water, and showing it +in all its vast extent of loneliness, presents a solemn spectacle, +which even night, veiling it in darkness and uncertainty, does not +surpass. The rising of the moon is more in keeping with the +solitary ocean; and has an air of melancholy grandeur, which in its +soft and gentle influence, seems to comfort while it saddens. I +recollect when I was a very young child having a fancy that the +reflection of the moon in water was a path to Heaven, trodden by +the spirits of good people on their way to God; and this old +feeling often came over me again, when I watched it on a tranquil +night at sea. + +The wind was very light on this same Monday morning, but it was +still in the right quarter, and so, by slow degrees, we left Cape +Clear behind, and sailed along within sight of the coast of +Ireland. And how merry we all were, and how loyal to the George +Washington, and how full of mutual congratulations, and how +venturesome in predicting the exact hour at which we should arrive +at Liverpool, may be easily imagined and readily understood. Also, +how heartily we drank the captain's health that day at dinner; and +how restless we became about packing up: and how two or three of +the most sanguine spirits rejected the idea of going to bed at all +that night as something it was not worth while to do, so near the +shore, but went nevertheless, and slept soundly; and how to be so +near our journey's end, was like a pleasant dream, from which one +feared to wake. + +The friendly breeze freshened again next day, and on we went once +more before it gallantly: descrying now and then an English ship +going homeward under shortened sail, while we, with every inch of +canvas crowded on, dashed gaily past, and left her far behind. +Towards evening, the weather turned hazy, with a drizzling rain; +and soon became so thick, that we sailed, as it were, in a cloud. +Still we swept onward like a phantom ship, and many an eager eye +glanced up to where the Look-out on the mast kept watch for +Holyhead. + +At length his long-expected cry was heard, and at the same moment +there shone out from the haze and mist ahead, a gleaming light, +which presently was gone, and soon returned, and soon was gone +again. Whenever it came back, the eyes of all on board, brightened +and sparkled like itself: and there we all stood, watching this +revolving light upon the rock at Holyhead, and praising it for its +brightness and its friendly warning, and lauding it, in short, +above all other signal lights that ever were displayed, until it +once more glimmered faintly in the distance, far behind us. + +Then, it was time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its +smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead +came bearing down upon us, through the darkness, swiftly. And +presently, our sails being backed, she ran alongside; and the +hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in pea-coats and shawls to the +very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose, stood bodily among us +on the deck. And I think if that pilot had wanted to borrow fifty +pounds for an indefinite period on no security, we should have +engaged to lend it to him, among us, before his boat had dropped +astern, or (which is the same thing) before every scrap of news in +the paper he brought with him had become the common property of all +on board. + +We turned in pretty late that night, and turned out pretty early +next morning. By six o'clock we clustered on the deck, prepared to +go ashore; and looked upon the spires, and roofs, and smoke, of +Liverpool. By eight we all sat down in one of its Hotels, to eat +and drink together for the last time. And by nine we had shaken +hands all round, and broken up our social company for ever. + +The country, by the railroad, seemed, as we rattled through it, +like a luxuriant garden. The beauty of the fields (so small they +looked!), the hedge-rows, and the trees; the pretty cottages, the +beds of flowers, the old churchyards, the antique houses, and every +well-known object; the exquisite delights of that one journey, +crowding in the short compass of a summer's day, the joy of many +years, with the winding up with Home and all that makes it dear; no +tongue can tell, or pen of mine describe. + + + +CHAPTER XVI - SLAVERY + + + +THE upholders of slavery in America - of the atrocities of which +system, I shall not write one word for which I have not had ample +proof and warrant - may be divided into three great classes. + +The first, are those more moderate and rational owners of human +cattle, who have come into the possession of them as so many coins +in their trading capital, but who admit the frightful nature of the +Institution in the abstract, and perceive the dangers to society +with which it is fraught: dangers which however distant they may +be, or howsoever tardy in their coming on, are as certain to fall +upon its guilty head, as is the Day of Judgment. + +The second, consists of all those owners, breeders, users, buyers +and sellers of slaves, who will, until the bloody chapter has a +bloody end, own, breed, use, buy, and sell them at all hazards: +who doggedly deny the horrors of the system in the teeth of such a +mass of evidence as never was brought to bear on any other subject, +and to which the experience of every day contributes its immense +amount; who would at this or any other moment, gladly involve +America in a war, civil or foreign, provided that it had for its +sole end and object the assertion of their right to perpetuate +slavery, and to whip and work and torture slaves, unquestioned by +any human authority, and unassailed by any human power; who, when +they speak of Freedom, mean the Freedom to oppress their kind, and +to be savage, merciless, and cruel; and of whom every man on his +own ground, in republican America, is a more exacting, and a +sterner, and a less responsible despot than the Caliph Haroun +Alraschid in his angry robe of scarlet. + +The third, and not the least numerous or influential, is composed +of all that delicate gentility which cannot bear a superior, and +cannot brook an equal; of that class whose Republicanism means, 'I +will not tolerate a man above me: and of those below, none must +approach too near;' whose pride, in a land where voluntary +servitude is shunned as a disgrace, must be ministered to by +slaves; and whose inalienable rights can only have their growth in +negro wrongs. + +It has been sometimes urged that, in the unavailing efforts which +have been made to advance the cause of Human Freedom in the +republic of America (strange cause for history to treat of!), +sufficient regard has not been had to the existence of the first +class of persons; and it has been contended that they are hardly +used, in being confounded with the second. This is, no doubt, the +case; noble instances of pecuniary and personal sacrifice have +already had their growth among them; and it is much to be regretted +that the gulf between them and the advocates of emancipation should +have been widened and deepened by any means: the rather, as there +are, beyond dispute, among these slave-owners, many kind masters +who are tender in the exercise of their unnatural power. Still, it +is to be feared that this injustice is inseparable from the state +of things with which humanity and truth are called upon to deal. +Slavery is not a whit the more endurable because some hearts are to +be found which can partially resist its hardening influences; nor +can the indignant tide of honest wrath stand still, because in its +onward course it overwhelms a few who are comparatively innocent, +among a host of guilty. + +The ground most commonly taken by these better men among the +advocates of slavery, is this: 'It is a bad system; and for myself +I would willingly get rid of it, if I could; most willingly. But +it is not so bad, as you in England take it to be. You are +deceived by the representations of the emancipationists. The +greater part of my slaves are much attached to me. You will say +that I do not allow them to be severely treated; but I will put it +to you whether you believe that it can be a general practice to +treat them inhumanly, when it would impair their value, and would +be obviously against the interests of their masters.' + +Is it the interest of any man to steal, to game, to waste his +health and mental faculties by drunkenness, to lie, forswear +himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do murder? No. +All these are roads to ruin. And why, then, do men tread them? +Because such inclinations are among the vicious qualities of +mankind. Blot out, ye friends of slavery, from the catalogue of +human passions, brutal lust, cruelty, and the abuse of +irresponsible power (of all earthly temptations the most difficult +to be resisted), and when ye have done so, and not before, we will +inquire whether it be the interest of a master to lash and maim the +slaves, over whose lives and limbs he has an absolute control! + +But again: this class, together with that last one I have named, +the miserable aristocracy spawned of a false republic, lift up +their voices and exclaim 'Public opinion is all-sufficient to +prevent such cruelty as you denounce.' Public opinion! Why, +public opinion in the slave States IS slavery, is it not? Public +opinion, in the slave States, has delivered the slaves over, to the +gentle mercies of their masters. Public opinion has made the laws, +and denied the slaves legislative protection. Public opinion has +knotted the lash, heated the branding-iron, loaded the rifle, and +shielded the murderer. Public opinion threatens the abolitionist +with death, if he venture to the South; and drags him with a rope +about his middle, in broad unblushing noon, through the first city +in the East. Public opinion has, within a few years, burned a +slave alive at a slow fire in the city of St. Louis; and public +opinion has to this day maintained upon the bench that estimable +judge who charged the jury, impanelled there to try his murderers, +that their most horrid deed was an act of public opinion, and being +so, must not be punished by the laws the public sentiment had made. +Public opinion hailed this doctrine with a howl of wild applause, +and set the prisoners free, to walk the city, men of mark, and +influence, and station, as they had been before. + +Public opinion! what class of men have an immense preponderance +over the rest of the community, in their power of representing +public opinion in the legislature? the slave-owners. They send +from their twelve States one hundred members, while the fourteen +free States, with a free population nearly double, return but a +hundred and forty-two. Before whom do the presidential candidates +bow down the most humbly, on whom do they fawn the most fondly, and +for whose tastes do they cater the most assiduously in their +servile protestations? The slave-owners always. + +Public opinion! hear the public opinion of the free South, as +expressed by its own members in the House of Representatives at +Washington. 'I have a great respect for the chair,' quoth North +Carolina, 'I have a great respect for the chair as an officer of +the house, and a great respect for him personally; nothing but that +respect prevents me from rushing to the table and tearing that +petition which has just been presented for the abolition of slavery +in the district of Columbia, to pieces.' - 'I warn the +abolitionists,' says South Carolina, 'ignorant, infuriated +barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any of them into +our hands, he may expect a felon's death.' - 'Let an abolitionist +come within the borders of South Carolina,' cries a third; mild +Carolina's colleague; 'and if we can catch him, we will try him, +and notwithstanding the interference of all the governments on +earth, including the Federal government, we will HANG him.' + +Public opinion has made this law. - It has declared that in +Washington, in that city which takes its name from the father of +American liberty, any justice of the peace may bind with fetters +any negro passing down the street and thrust him into jail: no +offence on the black man's part is necessary. The justice says, 'I +choose to think this man a runaway:' and locks him up. Public +opinion impowers the man of law when this is done, to advertise the +negro in the newspapers, warning his owner to come and claim him, +or he will be sold to pay the jail fees. But supposing he is a +free black, and has no owner, it may naturally be presumed that he +is set at liberty. No: HE IS SOLD TO RECOMPENSE HIS JAILER. This +has been done again, and again, and again. He has no means of +proving his freedom; has no adviser, messenger, or assistance of +any sort or kind; no investigation into his case is made, or +inquiry instituted. He, a free man, who may have served for years, +and bought his liberty, is thrown into jail on no process, for no +crime, and on no pretence of crime: and is sold to pay the jail +fees. This seems incredible, even of America, but it is the law. + +Public opinion is deferred to, in such cases as the following: +which is headed in the newspapers:- + + +'INTERESTING LAW-CASE. + +'An interesting case is now on trial in the Supreme Court, arising +out of the following facts. A gentleman residing in Maryland had +allowed an aged pair of his slaves, substantial though not legal +freedom for several years. While thus living, a daughter was born +to them, who grew up in the same liberty, until she married a free +negro, and went with him to reside in Pennsylvania. They had +several children, and lived unmolested until the original owner +died, when his heir attempted to regain them; but the magistrate +before whom they were brought, decided that he had no jurisdiction +in the case. THE OWNER SEIZED THE WOMAN AND HER CHILDREN ITS THE +NIGHT, AND CARRIED THEM TO MARYLAND.' + + +'Cash for negroes,' 'cash for negroes,' 'cash for negroes,' is the +heading of advertisements in great capitals down the long columns +of the crowded journals. Woodcuts of a runaway negro with manacled +hands, crouching beneath a bluff pursuer in top boots, who, having +caught him, grasps him by the throat, agreeably diversify the +pleasant text. The leading article protests against 'that +abominable and hellish doctrine of abolition, which is repugnant +alike to every law of God and nature.' The delicate mamma, who +smiles her acquiescence in this sprightly writing as she reads the +paper in her cool piazza, quiets her youngest child who clings +about her skirts, by promising the boy 'a whip to beat the little +niggers with.' - But the negroes, little and big, are protected by +public opinion. + +Let us try this public opinion by another test, which is important +in three points of view: first, as showing how desperately timid +of the public opinion slave-owners are, in their delicate +descriptions of fugitive slaves in widely circulated newspapers; +secondly, as showing how perfectly contented the slaves are, and +how very seldom they run away; thirdly, as exhibiting their entire +freedom from scar, or blemish, or any mark of cruel infliction, as +their pictures are drawn, not by lying abolitionists, but by their +own truthful masters. + +The following are a few specimens of the advertisements in the +public papers. It is only four years since the oldest among them +appeared; and others of the same nature continue to be published +every day, in shoals. + +'Ran away, Negress Caroline. Had on a collar with one prong turned +down.' + +'Ran away, a black woman, Betsy. Had an iron bar on her right +leg.' + +'Ran away, the negro Manuel. Much marked with irons.' + +'Ran away, the negress Fanny. Had on an iron band about her neck.' + +'Ran away, a negro boy about twelve years old. Had round his neck +a chain dog-collar with "De Lampert" engraved on it.' + +'Ran away, the negro Hown. Has a ring of iron on his left foot. +Also, Grise, HIS WIFE, having a ring and chain on the left leg.' + +'Ran away, a negro boy named James. Said boy was ironed when he +left me.' + +'Committed to jail, a man who calls his name John. He has a clog +of iron on his right foot which will weigh four or five pounds.' + +'Detained at the police jail, the negro wench, Myra. Has several +marks of LASHING, and has irons on her feet.' + +'Ran away, a negro woman and two children. A few days before she +went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her +face. I tried to make the letter M.' + +'Ran away, a negro man named Henry; his left eye out, some scars +from a dirk on and under his left arm, and much scarred with the +whip.' + +'One hundred dollars reward, for a negro fellow, Pompey, 40 years +old. He is branded on the left jaw.' + +'Committed to jail, a negro man. Has no toes on the left foot.' + +'Ran away, a negro woman named Rachel. Has lost all her toes +except the large one.' + +'Ran away, Sam. He was shot a short time since through the hand, +and has several shots in his left arm and side.' + +'Ran away, my negro man Dennis. Said negro has been shot in the +left arm between the shoulder and elbow, which has paralysed the +left hand.' + +'Ran away, my negro man named Simon. He has been shot badly, in +his back and right arm.' + +'Ran away, a negro named Arthur. Has a considerable scar across +his breast and each arm, made by a knife; loves to talk much of the +goodness of God.' + +'Twenty-five dollars reward for my man Isaac. He has a scar on his +forehead, caused by a blow; and one on his back, made by a shot +from a pistol.' + +'Ran away, a negro girl called Mary. Has a small scar over her +eye, a good many teeth missing, the letter A is branded on her +cheek and forehead.' + +'Ran away, negro Ben. Has a scar on his right hand; his thumb and +forefinger being injured by being shot last fall. A part of the +bone came out. He has also one or two large scars on his back and +hips.' + +'Detained at the jail, a mulatto, named Tom. Has a scar on the +right cheek, and appears to have been burned with powder on the +face.' + +'Ran away, a negro man named Ned. Three of his fingers are drawn +into the palm of his hand by a cut. Has a scar on the back of his +neck, nearly half round, done by a knife.' + +'Was committed to jail, a negro man. Says his name is Josiah. His +back very much scarred by the whip; and branded on the thigh and +hips in three or four places, thus (J M). The rim of his right ear +has been bit or cut off.' + +'Fifty dollars reward, for my fellow Edward. He has a scar on the +corner of his mouth, two cuts on and under his arm, and the letter +E on his arm.' + +'Ran away, negro boy Ellie. Has a scar on one of his arms from the +bite of a dog.' + +'Ran away, from the plantation of James Surgette, the following +negroes: Randal, has one ear cropped; Bob, has lost one eye; +Kentucky Tom, has one jaw broken.' + +'Ran away, Anthony. One of his ears cut off, and his left hand cut +with an axe.' + +'Fifty dollars reward for the negro Jim Blake. Has a piece cut out +of each ear, and the middle finger of the left hand cut off to the +second joint.' + +'Ran away, a negro woman named Maria. Has a scar on one side of +her cheek, by a cut. Some scars on her back.' + +'Ran away, the Mulatto wench Mary. Has a cut on the left arm, a +scar on the left shoulder, and two upper teeth missing.' + +I should say, perhaps, in explanation of this latter piece of +description, that among the other blessings which public opinion +secures to the negroes, is the common practice of violently +punching out their teeth. To make them wear iron collars by day +and night, and to worry them with dogs, are practices almost too +ordinary to deserve mention. + +'Ran away, my man Fountain. Has holes in his ears, a scar on the +right side of his forehead, has been shot in the hind part of his +legs, and is marked on the back with the whip.' + +'Two hundred and fifty dollars reward for my negro man Jim. He is +much marked with shot in his right thigh. The shot entered on the +outside, halfway between the hip and knee joints.' + +'Brought to jail, John. Left ear cropt.' + +'Taken up, a negro man. Is very much scarred about the face and +body, and has the left ear bit off.' + +'Ran away, a black girl, named Mary. Has a scar on her cheek, and +the end of one of her toes cut off.' + +'Ran away, my Mulatto woman, Judy. She has had her right arm +broke.' + +'Ran away, my negro man, Levi. His left hand has been burnt, and I +think the end of his forefinger is off.' + +'Ran away, a negro man, NAMED WASHINGTON. Has lost a part of his +middle finger, and the end of his little finger.' + +'Twenty-five dollars reward for my man John. The tip of his nose +is bit off.' + +'Twenty-five dollars reward for the negro slave, Sally. Walks AS +THOUGH crippled in the back.' + +'Ran away, Joe Dennis. Has a small notch in one of his ears.' + +'Ran away, negro boy, Jack. Has a small crop out of his left ear.' + +'Ran away, a negro man, named Ivory. Has a small piece cut out of +the top of each ear.' + +While upon the subject of ears, I may observe that a distinguished +abolitionist in New York once received a negro's ear, which had +been cut off close to the head, in a general post letter. It was +forwarded by the free and independent gentleman who had caused it +to be amputated, with a polite request that he would place the +specimen in his 'collection.' + +I could enlarge this catalogue with broken arms, and broken legs, +and gashed flesh, and missing teeth, and lacerated backs, and bites +of dogs, and brands of red-hot irons innumerable: but as my +readers will be sufficiently sickened and repelled already, I will +turn to another branch of the subject. + +These advertisements, of which a similar collection might be made +for every year, and month, and week, and day; and which are coolly +read in families as things of course, and as a part of the current +news and small-talk; will serve to show how very much the slaves +profit by public opinion, and how tender it is in their behalf. +But it may be worth while to inquire how the slave-owners, and the +class of society to which great numbers of them belong, defer to +public opinion in their conduct, not to their slaves but to each +other; how they are accustomed to restrain their passions; what +their bearing is among themselves; whether they are fierce or +gentle; whether their social customs be brutal, sanguinary, and +violent, or bear the impress of civilisation and refinement. + +That we may have no partial evidence from abolitionists in this +inquiry, either, I will once more turn to their own newspapers, and +I will confine myself, this time, to a selection from paragraphs +which appeared from day to day, during my visit to America, and +which refer to occurrences happening while I was there. The +italics in these extracts, as in the foregoing, are my own. + +These cases did not ALL occur, it will be seen, in territory +actually belonging to legalised Slave States, though most, and +those the very worst among them did, as their counterparts +constantly do; but the position of the scenes of action in +reference to places immediately at hand, where slavery is the law; +and the strong resemblance between that class of outrages and the +rest; lead to the just presumption that the character of the +parties concerned was formed in slave districts, and brutalised by +slave customs. + + +'HORRIBLE TRAGEDY. + + +'By a slip from THE SOUTHPORT TELEGRAPH, Wisconsin, we learn that +the Hon. Charles C. P. Arndt, Member of the Council for Brown +county, was shot dead ON THE FLOOR OF THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, by James +R. Vinyard, Member from Grant county. THE AFFAIR grew out of a +nomination for Sheriff of Grant county. Mr. E. S. Baker was +nominated and supported by Mr. Arndt. This nomination was opposed +by Vinyard, who wanted the appointment to vest in his own brother. +In the course of debate, the deceased made some statements which +Vinyard pronounced false, and made use of violent and insulting +language, dealing largely in personalities, to which Mr. A. made no +reply. After the adjournment, Mr. A. stepped up to Vinyard, and +requested him to retract, which he refused to do, repeating the +offensive words. Mr. Arndt then made a blow at Vinyard, who +stepped back a pace, drew a pistol, and shot him dead. + +'The issue appears to have been provoked on the part of Vinyard, +who was determined at all hazards to defeat the appointment of +Baker, and who, himself defeated, turned his ire and revenge upon +the unfortunate Arndt.' + + +'THE WISCONSIN TRAGEDY. + + +Public indignation runs high in the territory of Wisconsin, in +relation to the murder of C. C. P. Arndt, in the Legislative Hall +of the Territory. Meetings have been held in different counties of +Wisconsin, denouncing THE PRACTICE OF SECRETLY BEARING ARMS IN THE +LEGISLATIVE CHAMBERS OF THE COUNTRY. We have seen the account of +the expulsion of James R. Vinyard, the perpetrator of the bloody +deed, and are amazed to hear, that, after this expulsion by those +who saw Vinyard kill Mr. Arndt in the presence of his aged father, +who was on a visit to see his son, little dreaming that he was to +witness his murder, JUDGE DUNN HAS DISCHARGED VINYARD ON BAIL. The +Miners' Free Press speaks IN TERMS OF MERITED REBUKE at the outrage +upon the feelings of the people of Wisconsin. Vinyard was within +arm's length of Mr. Arndt, when he took such deadly aim at him, +that he never spoke. Vinyard might at pleasure, being so near, +have only wounded him, but he chose to kill him.' + + +'MURDER. + + +By a letter in a St. Louis paper of the '4th, we notice a terrible +outrage at Burlington, Iowa. A Mr. Bridgman having had a +difficulty with a citizen of the place, Mr. Ross; a brother-in-law +of the latter provided himself with one of Colt's revolving +pistols, met Mr. B. in the street, AND DISCHARGED THE CONTENTS OF +FIVE OF THE BARRELS AT HIM: EACH SHOT TAKING EFFECT. Mr. B., +though horribly wounded, and dying, returned the fire, and killed +Ross on the spot.' + + +'TERRIBLE DEATH OF ROBERT POTTER. + + +'From the "Caddo Gazette," of the 12th inst., we learn the +frightful death of Colonel Robert Potter. . . . He was beset in his +house by an enemy, named Rose. He sprang from his couch, seized +his gun, and, in his night-clothes, rushed from the house. For +about two hundred yards his speed seemed to defy his pursuers; but, +getting entangled in a thicket, he was captured. Rose told him +THAT HE INTENDED TO ACT A GENEROUS PART, and give him a chance for +his life. He then told Potter he might run, and he should not be +interrupted till he reached a certain distance. Potter started at +the word of command, and before a gun was fired he had reached the +lake. His first impulse was to jump in the water and dive for it, +which he did. Rose was close behind him, and formed his men on the +bank ready to shoot him as he rose. In a few seconds he came up to +breathe; and scarce had his head reached the surface of the water +when it was completely riddled with the shot of their guns, and he +sunk, to rise no more!' + + +'MURDER IN ARKANSAS. + + +'We understand THAT A SEVERE RENCONTRE CAME OFF a few days since in +the Seneca Nation, between Mr. Loose, the sub-agent of the mixed +band of the Senecas, Quapaw, and Shawnees, and Mr. James Gillespie, +of the mercantile firm of Thomas G. Allison and Co., of Maysville, +Benton, County Ark, in which the latter was slain with a bowie- +knife. Some difficulty had for some time existed between the +parties. It is said that Major Gillespie brought on the attack +with a cane. A severe conflict ensued, during which two pistols +were fired by Gillespie and one by Loose. Loose then stabbed +Gillespie with one of those never-failing weapons, a bowie-knife. +The death of Major G. is much regretted, as he was a liberal-minded +and energetic man. Since the above was in type, we have learned +that Major Allison has stated to some of our citizens in town that +Mr. Loose gave the first blow. We forbear to give any particulars, +as THE MATTER WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF JUDICIAL INVESTIGATION.' + + +'FOUL DEED. + + +The steamer Thames, just from Missouri river, brought us a +handbill, offering a reward of 500 dollars, for the person who +assassinated Lilburn W. Baggs, late Governor of this State, at +Independence, on the night of the 6th inst. Governor Baggs, it is +stated in a written memorandum, was not dead, but mortally wounded. + +'Since the above was written, we received a note from the clerk of +the Thames, giving the following particulars. Gov. Baggs was shot +by some villain on Friday, 6th inst., in the evening, while sitting +in a room in his own house in Independence. His son, a boy, +hearing a report, ran into the room, and found the Governor sitting +in his chair, with his jaw fallen down, and his head leaning back; +on discovering the injury done to his father, he gave the alarm. +Foot tracks were found in the garden below the window, and a pistol +picked up supposed to have been overloaded, and thrown from the +hand of the scoundrel who fired it. Three buck shots of a heavy +load, took effect; one going through his mouth, one into the brain, +and another probably in or near the brain; all going into the back +part of the neck and head. The Governor was still alive on the +morning of the 7th; but no hopes for his recovery by his friends, +and but slight hopes from his physicians. + +'A man was suspected, and the Sheriff most probably has possession +of him by this time. + +'The pistol was one of a pair stolen some days previous from a +baker in Independence, and the legal authorities have the +description of the other.' + + +'RENCONTRE. + + +'An unfortunate AFFAIR took place on Friday evening in Chatres +Street, in which one of our most respectable citizens received a +dangerous wound, from a poignard, in the abdomen. From the Bee +(New Orleans) of yesterday, we learn the following particulars. It +appears that an article was published in the French side of the +paper on Monday last, containing some strictures on the Artillery +Battalion for firing their guns on Sunday morning, in answer to +those from the Ontario and Woodbury, and thereby much alarm was +caused to the families of those persons who were out all night +preserving the peace of the city. Major C. Gally, Commander of the +battalion, resenting this, called at the office and demanded the +author's name; that of Mr. P. Arpin was given to him, who was +absent at the time. Some angry words then passed with one of the +proprietors, and a challenge followed; the friends of both parties +tried to arrange the affair, but failed to do so. On Friday +evening, about seven o'clock, Major Gally met Mr. P. Arpin in +Chatres Street, and accosted him. "Are you Mr. Arpin?" + +'"Yes, sir." + +'"Then I have to tell you that you are a - " (applying an +appropriate epithet). + +'"I shall remind you of your words, sir." + +'"But I have said I would break my cane on your shoulders." + +'"I know it, but I have not yet received the blow." + +'At these words, Major Gally, having a cane in his hands, struck +Mr. Arpin across the face, and the latter drew a poignard from his +pocket and stabbed Major Gally in the abdomen. + +'Fears are entertained that the wound will be mortal. WE +UNDERSTAND THAT MR. ARPIN HAS GIVEN SECURITY FOR HIS APPEARANCE AT +THE CRIMINAL COURT TO ANSWER THE CHARGE.' + + +'AFFRAY IN MISSISSIPPI. + + +'On the 27th ult., in an affray near Carthage, Leake county, +Mississippi, between James Cottingham and John Wilburn, the latter +was shot by the former, and so horribly wounded, that there was no +hope of his recovery. On the 2nd instant, there was an affray at +Carthage between A. C. Sharkey and George Goff, in which the latter +was shot, and thought mortally wounded. Sharkey delivered himself +up to the authorities, BUT CHANGED HIS MIND AND ESCAPED!' + + +'PERSONAL ENCOUNTER. + + +'An encounter took place in Sparta, a few days since, between the +barkeeper of an hotel, and a man named Bury. It appears that Bury +had become somewhat noisy, AND THAT THE BARKEEPER, DETERMINED TO +PRESERVE ORDER, HAD THREATENED TO SHOOT BURY, whereupon Bury drew a +pistol and shot the barkeeper down. He was not dead at the last +accounts, but slight hopes were entertained of his recovery.' + + +'DUEL. + + +'The clerk of the steamboat TRIBUNE informs us that another duel +was fought on Tuesday last, by Mr. Robbins, a bank officer in +Vicksburg, and Mr. Fall, the editor of the Vicksburg Sentinel. +According to the arrangement, the parties had six pistols each, +which, after the word "Fire!" THEY WERE TO DISCHARGE AS FAST AS +THEY PLEASED. Fall fired two pistols without effect. Mr. Robbins' +first shot took effect in Fall's thigh, who fell, and was unable to +continue the combat.' + + +'AFFRAY IN CLARKE COUNTY. + + +'An UNFORTUNATE AFFRAY occurred in Clarke county (MO.), near +Waterloo, on Tuesday the 19th ult., which originated in settling +the partnership concerns of Messrs. M'Kane and M'Allister, who had +been engaged in the business of distilling, and resulted in the +death of the latter, who was shot down by Mr. M'Kane, because of +his attempting to take possession of seven barrels of whiskey, the +property of M'Kane, which had been knocked off to M'Allister at a +sheriff's sale at one dollar per barrel. M'Kane immediately fled +AND AT THE LATEST DATES HAD NOT BEEN TAKEN. + +'THIS UNFORTUNATE AFFRAY caused considerable excitement in the +neighbourhood, as both the parties were men with large families +depending upon them and stood well in the community.' + + +I will quote but one more paragraph, which, by reason of its +monstrous absurdity, may be a relief to these atrocious deeds. + + +'AFFAIR OF HONOUR. + + +'We have just heard the particulars of a meeting which took place +on Six Mile Island, on Tuesday, between two young bloods of our +city: Samuel Thurston, AGED FIFTEEN, and William Hine, AGED +THIRTEEN years. They were attended by young gentlemen of the same +age. The weapons used on the occasion, were a couple of Dickson's +best rifles; the distance, thirty yards. They took one fire, +without any damage being sustained by either party, except the ball +of Thurston's gun passing through the crown of Hine's hat. THROUGH +THE INTERCESSION OF THE BOARD OF HONOUR, the challenge was +withdrawn, and the difference amicably adjusted.' + +If the reader will picture to himself the kind of Board of Honour +which amicably adjusted the difference between these two little +boys, who in any other part of the world would have been amicably +adjusted on two porters' backs and soundly flogged with birchen +rods, he will be possessed, no doubt, with as strong a sense of its +ludicrous character, as that which sets me laughing whenever its +image rises up before me. + +Now, I appeal to every human mind, imbued with the commonest of +common sense, and the commonest of common humanity; to all +dispassionate, reasoning creatures, of any shade of opinion; and +ask, with these revolting evidences of the state of society which +exists in and about the slave districts of America before them, can +they have a doubt of the real condition of the slave, or can they +for a moment make a compromise between the institution or any of +its flagrant, fearful features, and their own just consciences? +Will they say of any tale of cruelty and horror, however aggravated +in degree, that it is improbable, when they can turn to the public +prints, and, running, read such signs as these, laid before them by +the men who rule the slaves: in their own acts and under their own +hands? + +Do we not know that the worst deformity and ugliness of slavery are +at once the cause and the effect of the reckless license taken by +these freeborn outlaws? Do we not know that the man who has been +born and bred among its wrongs; who has seen in his childhood +husbands obliged at the word of command to flog their wives; women, +indecently compelled to hold up their own garments that men might +lay the heavier stripes upon their legs, driven and harried by +brutal overseers in their time of travail, and becoming mothers on +the field of toil, under the very lash itself; who has read in +youth, and seen his virgin sisters read, descriptions of runaway +men and women, and their disfigured persons, which could not be +published elsewhere, of so much stock upon a farm, or at a show of +beasts:- do we not know that that man, whenever his wrath is +kindled up, will be a brutal savage? Do we not know that as he is +a coward in his domestic life, stalking among his shrinking men and +women slaves armed with his heavy whip, so he will be a coward out +of doors, and carrying cowards' weapons hidden in his breast, will +shoot men down and stab them when he quarrels? And if our reason +did not teach us this and much beyond; if we were such idiots as to +close our eyes to that fine mode of training which rears up such +men; should we not know that they who among their equals stab and +pistol in the legislative halls, and in the counting-house, and on +the marketplace, and in all the elsewhere peaceful pursuits of +life, must be to their dependants, even though they were free +servants, so many merciless and unrelenting tyrants? + +What! shall we declaim against the ignorant peasantry of Ireland, +and mince the matter when these American taskmasters are in +question? Shall we cry shame on the brutality of those who +hamstring cattle: and spare the lights of Freedom upon earth who +notch the ears of men and women, cut pleasant posies in the +shrinking flesh, learn to write with pens of red-hot iron on the +human face, rack their poetic fancies for liveries of mutilation +which their slaves shall wear for life and carry to the grave, +breaking living limbs as did the soldiery who mocked and slew the +Saviour of the world, and set defenceless creatures up for targets! +Shall we whimper over legends of the tortures practised on each +other by the Pagan Indians, and smile upon the cruelties of +Christian men! Shall we, so long as these things last, exult above +the scattered remnants of that race, and triumph in the white +enjoyment of their possessions? Rather, for me, restore the forest +and the Indian village; in lieu of stars and stripes, let some poor +feather flutter in the breeze; replace the streets and squares by +wigwams; and though the death-song of a hundred haughty warriors +fill the air, it will be music to the shriek of one unhappy slave. + +On one theme, which is commonly before our eyes, and in respect of +which our national character is changing fast, let the plain Truth +be spoken, and let us not, like dastards, beat about the bush by +hinting at the Spaniard and the fierce Italian. When knives are +drawn by Englishmen in conflict let it be said and known: 'We owe +this change to Republican Slavery. These are the weapons of +Freedom. With sharp points and edges such as these, Liberty in +America hews and hacks her slaves; or, failing that pursuit, her +sons devote them to a better use, and turn them on each other.' + + + +CHAPTER XVIII - CONCLUDING REMARKS + + + +THERE are many passages in this book, where I have been at some +pains to resist the temptation of troubling my readers with my own +deductions and conclusions: preferring that they should judge for +themselves, from such premises as I have laid before them. My only +object in the outset, was, to carry them with me faithfully +wheresoever I went: and that task I have discharged. + +But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general character +of the American people, and the general character of their social +system, as presented to a stranger's eyes, I desire to express my +own opinions in a few words, before I bring these volumes to a +close. + +They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and +affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their +warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of +these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders +an educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of +friends. I never was so won upon, as by this class; never yielded +up my full confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to +them; never can make again, in half a year, so many friends for +whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a life. + +These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole +people. That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their +growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which +endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of +their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told. + +It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself +mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its +wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the +popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable +brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen +plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently +dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce +it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great +sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness +and independence. + +'You carry,' says the stranger, 'this jealousy and distrust into +every transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from +your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates +for the suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your +Institutions and your people's choice. It has rendered you so +fickle, and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed +into a proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you +are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this, +because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public servant, you +distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and immediately apply +yourselves to find out, either that you have been too bountiful in +your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. Any man who +attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may +date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any +notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the +character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, +and is believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of +trustfulness and confidence, however fairly won and well deserved; +but you will swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden +with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. Is this well, think you, +or likely to elevate the character of the governors or the +governed, among you?' + +The answer is invariably the same: 'There's freedom of opinion +here, you know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be +easily overreached. That's how our people come to be suspicious.' + +Another prominent feature is the love of 'smart' dealing: which +gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a +defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold +his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter; though it +has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness +has done more in a few years to impair the public credit, and to +cripple the public resources, than dull honesty, however rash, +could have effected in a century. The merits of a broken +speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not +gauged by its or his observance of the golden rule, 'Do as you +would be done by,' but are considered with reference to their +smartness. I recollect, on both occasions of our passing that ill- +fated Cairo on the Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such +gross deceits must have when they exploded, in generating a want of +confidence abroad, and discouraging foreign investment: but I was +given to understand that this was a very smart scheme by which a +deal of money had been made: and that its smartest feature was, +that they forgot these things abroad, in a very short time, and +speculated again, as freely as ever. The following dialogue I have +held a hundred times: 'Is it not a very disgraceful circumstance +that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property +by the most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all the +crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted +by your Citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?' 'Yes, +sir.' 'A convicted liar?' 'Yes, sir.' 'He has been kicked, and +cuffed, and caned?' 'Yes, sir.' 'And he is utterly dishonourable, +debased, and profligate?' 'Yes, sir.' 'In the name of wonder, +then, what is his merit?' 'Well, sir, he is a smart man.' + +In like manner, all kinds of deficient and impolitic usages are +referred to the national love of trade; though, oddly enough, it +would be a weighty charge against a foreigner that he regarded the +Americans as a trading people. The love of trade is assigned as a +reason for that comfortless custom, so very prevalent in country +towns, of married persons living in hotels, having no fireside of +their own, and seldom meeting from early morning until late at +night, but at the hasty public meals. The love of trade is a +reason why the literature of America is to remain for ever +unprotected 'For we are a trading people, and don't care for +poetry:' though we DO, by the way, profess to be very proud of our +poets: while healthful amusements, cheerful means of recreation, +and wholesome fancies, must fade before the stern utilitarian joys +of trade. + +These three characteristics are strongly presented at every turn, +full in the stranger's view. But, the foul growth of America has a +more tangled root than this; and it strikes its fibres, deep in its +licentious Press. + +Schools may be erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be +taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands; +colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be +diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through +the land with giant strides: but while the newspaper press of +America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral +improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and +will go back; year by year, the tone of public feeling must sink +lower down; year by year, the Congress and the Senate must become +of less account before all decent men; and year by year, the memory +of the Great Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and +more, in the bad life of their degenerate child. + +Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there +are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and +credit. From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen +connected with publications of this class, I have derived both +pleasure and profit. But the name of these is Few, and of the +others Legion; and the influence of the good, is powerless to +counteract the moral poison of the bad. + +Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and moderate: +in the learned professions; at the bar and on the bench: there is, +as there can be, but one opinion, in reference to the vicious +character of these infamous journals. It is sometimes contended - +I will not say strangely, for it is natural to seek excuses for +such a disgrace - that their influence is not so great as a visitor +would suppose. I must be pardoned for saying that there is no +warrant for this plea, and that every fact and circumstance tends +directly to the opposite conclusion. + +When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can +climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, +without first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee +before this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is +safe from its attacks; when any social confidence is left unbroken +by it, or any tie of social decency and honour is held in the least +regard; when any man in that free country has freedom of opinion, +and presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without +humble reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance +and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and despises in his heart; +when those who most acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it +casts upon the nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare +to set their heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all +men: then, I will believe that its influence is lessening, and men +are returning to their manly senses. But while that Press has its +evil eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in +the state, from a president to a postman; while, with ribald +slander for its only stock in trade, it is the standard literature +of an enormous class, who must find their reading in a newspaper, +or they will not read at all; so long must its odium be upon the +country's head, and so long must the evil it works, be plainly +visible in the Republic. + +To those who are accustomed to the leading English journals, or to +the respectable journals of the Continent of Europe; to those who +are accustomed to anything else in print and paper; it would be +impossible, without an amount of extract for which I have neither +space nor inclination, to convey an adequate idea of this frightful +engine in America. But if any man desire confirmation of my +statement on this head, let him repair to any place in this city of +London, where scattered numbers of these publications are to be +found; and there, let him form his own opinion. (1) + +It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American people as +a whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat more. +It would be well, if there were greater encouragement to lightness +of heart and gaiety, and a wider cultivation of what is beautiful, +without being eminently and directly useful. But here, I think the +general remonstrance, 'we are a new country,' which is so often +advanced as an excuse for defects which are quite unjustifiable, as +being, of right, only the slow growth of an old one, may be very +reasonably urged: and I yet hope to hear of there being some other +national amusement in the United States, besides newspaper +politics. + +They certainly are not a humorous people, and their temperament +always impressed me is being of a dull and gloomy character. In +shrewdness of remark, and a certain cast-iron quaintness, the +Yankees, or people of New England, unquestionably take the lead; as +they do in most other evidences of intelligence. But in travelling +about, out of the large cities - as I have remarked in former parts +of these volumes - I was quite oppressed by the prevailing +seriousness and melancholy air of business: which was so general +and unvarying, that at every new town I came to, I seemed to meet +the very same people whom I had left behind me, at the last. Such +defects as are perceptible in the national manners, seem, to me, to +be referable, in a great degree, to this cause: which has +generated a dull, sullen persistence in coarse usages, and rejected +the graces of life as undeserving of attention. There is no doubt +that Washington, who was always most scrupulous and exact on points +of ceremony, perceived the tendency towards this mistake, even in +his time, and did his utmost to correct it. + +I cannot hold with other writers on these subjects that the +prevalence of various forms of dissent in America, is in any way +attributable to the non-existence there of an established church: +indeed, I think the temper of the people, if it admitted of such an +Institution being founded amongst them, would lead them to desert +it, as a matter of course, merely because it WAS established. But, +supposing it to exist, I doubt its probable efficacy in summoning +the wandering sheep to one great fold, simply because of the +immense amount of dissent which prevails at home; and because I do +not find in America any one form of religion with which we in +Europe, or even in England, are unacquainted. Dissenters resort +thither in great numbers, as other people do, simply because it is +a land of resort; and great settlements of them are founded, +because ground can be purchased, and towns and villages reared, +where there were none of the human creation before. But even the +Shakers emigrated from England; our country is not unknown to Mr. +Joseph Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or to his benighted +disciples; I have beheld religious scenes myself in some of our +populous towns which can hardly be surpassed by an American camp- +meeting; and I am not aware that any instance of superstitious +imposture on the one hand, and superstitious credulity on the +other, has had its origin in the United States, which we cannot +more than parallel by the precedents of Mrs. Southcote, Mary Tofts +the rabbit-breeder, or even Mr. Thorn of Canterbury: which latter +case arose, some time after the dark ages had passed away. + +The Republican Institutions of America undoubtedly lead the people +to assert their self-respect and their equality; but a traveller is +bound to bear those Institutions in his mind, and not hastily to +resent the near approach of a class of strangers, who, at home, +would keep aloof. This characteristic, when it was tinctured with +no foolish pride, and stopped short of no honest service, never +offended me; and I very seldom, if ever, experienced its rude or +unbecoming display. Once or twice it was comically developed, as +in the following case; but this was an amusing incident, and not +the rule, or near it. + +I wanted a pair of boots at a certain town, for I had none to +travel in, but those with the memorable cork soles, which were much +too hot for the fiery decks of a steamboat. I therefore sent a +message to an artist in boots, importing, with my compliments, that +I should be happy to see him, if he would do me the polite favour +to call. He very kindly returned for answer, that he would 'look +round' at six o'clock that evening. + +I was lying on the sofa, with a book and a wine-glass, at about +that time, when the door opened, and a gentleman in a stiff cravat, +within a year or two on either side of thirty, entered, in his hat +and gloves; walked up to the looking-glass; arranged his hair; took +off his gloves; slowly produced a measure from the uttermost depths +of his coat-pocket; and requested me, in a languid tone, to 'unfix' +my straps. I complied, but looked with some curiosity at his hat, +which was still upon his head. It might have been that, or it +might have been the heat - but he took it off. Then, he sat +himself down on a chair opposite to me; rested an arm on each knee; +and, leaning forward very much, took from the ground, by a great +effort, the specimen of metropolitan workmanship which I had just +pulled off: whistling, pleasantly, as he did so. He turned it +over and over; surveyed it with a contempt no language can express; +and inquired if I wished him to fix me a boot like THAT? I +courteously replied, that provided the boots were large enough, I +would leave the rest to him; that if convenient and practicable, I +should not object to their bearing some resemblance to the model +then before him; but that I would be entirely guided by, and would +beg to leave the whole subject to, his judgment and discretion. +'You an't partickler, about this scoop in the heel, I suppose +then?' says he: 'we don't foller that, here.' I repeated my last +observation. He looked at himself in the glass again; went closer +to it to dash a grain or two of dust out of the corner of his eye; +and settled his cravat. All this time, my leg and foot were in the +air. 'Nearly ready, sir?' I inquired. 'Well, pretty nigh,' he +said; 'keep steady.' I kept as steady as I could, both in foot and +face; and having by this time got the dust out, and found his +pencil-case, he measured me, and made the necessary notes. When he +had finished, he fell into his old attitude, and taking up the boot +again, mused for some time. 'And this,' he said, at last, 'is an +English boot, is it? This is a London boot, eh?' 'That, sir,' I +replied, 'is a London boot.' He mused over it again, after the +manner of Hamlet with Yorick's skull; nodded his head, as who +should say, 'I pity the Institutions that led to the production of +this boot!'; rose; put up his pencil, notes, and paper - glancing +at himself in the glass, all the time - put on his hat - drew on +his gloves very slowly; and finally walked out. When he had been +gone about a minute, the door reopened, and his hat and his head +reappeared. He looked round the room, and at the boot again, which +was still lying on the floor; appeared thoughtful for a minute; and +then said 'Well, good arternoon.' 'Good afternoon, sir,' said I: +and that was the end of the interview. + +There is but one other head on which I wish to offer a remark; and +that has reference to the public health. In so vast a country, +where there are thousands of millions of acres of land yet +unsettled and uncleared, and on every rood of which, vegetable +decomposition is annually taking place; where there are so many +great rivers, and such opposite varieties of climate; there cannot +fail to be a great amount of sickness at certain seasons. But I +may venture to say, after conversing with many members of the +medical profession in America, that I am not singular in the +opinion that much of the disease which does prevail, might be +avoided, if a few common precautions were observed. Greater means +of personal cleanliness, are indispensable to this end; the custom +of hastily swallowing large quantities of animal food, three times +a-day, and rushing back to sedentary pursuits after each meal, must +be changed; the gentler sex must go more wisely clad, and take more +healthful exercise; and in the latter clause, the males must be +included also. Above all, in public institutions, and throughout +the whole of every town and city, the system of ventilation, and +drainage, and removal of impurities requires to be thoroughly +revised. There is no local Legislature in America which may not +study Mr. Chadwick's excellent Report upon the Sanitary Condition +of our Labouring Classes, with immense advantage. + +* * * * * * + +I HAVE now arrived at the close of this book. I have little reason +to believe, from certain warnings I have had since I returned to +England, that it will be tenderly or favourably received by the +American people; and as I have written the Truth in relation to the +mass of those who form their judgments and express their opinions, +it will be seen that I have no desire to court, by any adventitious +means, the popular applause. + +It is enough for me, to know, that what I have set down in these +pages, cannot cost me a single friend on the other side of the +Atlantic, who is, in anything, deserving of the name. For the +rest, I put my trust, implicitly, in the spirit in which they have +been conceived and penned; and I can bide my time. + +I have made no reference to my reception, nor have I suffered it to +influence me in what I have written; for, in either case, I should +have offered but a sorry acknowledgment, compared with that I bear +within my breast, towards those partial readers of my former books, +across the Water, who met me with an open hand, and not with one +that closed upon an iron muzzle. + + +THE END + + + +POSTSCRIPT + + + +AT a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868, +in the City of New York, by two hundred representatives of the +Press of the United States of America, I made the following +observations among others: + +'So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I +might have been contented with troubling you no further from my +present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth +charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion, +whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense +of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony +to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how +astounded I have been by the amazing changes I have seen around me +on every side, - changes moral, changes physical, changes in the +amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new +cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of +recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes +in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take +place anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose +that in five and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and +that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct +when I was here first. And this brings me to a point on which I +have, ever since I landed in the United States last November, +observed a strict silence, though sometimes tempted to break it, +but in reference to which I will, with your good leave, take you +into my confidence now. Even the Press, being human, may be +sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have +in one or two rare instances observed its information to be not +strictly accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have, now +and again, been more surprised by printed news that I have read of +myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read in my +present state of existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with +which I have for some months past been collecting materials for, +and hammering away at, a new book on America has much astonished +me; seeing that all that time my declaration has been perfectly +well known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no +consideration on earth would induce me to write one. But what I +have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the +confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in +my own person, in my own journal, to bear, for the behoof of my +countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country +as I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record that wherever I have +been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been +received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, +hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the +privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here +and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and +so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall +cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two +books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will +do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but +because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour.' + +I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay +upon them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness. +So long as this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part +of it, and will be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences +and impressions of America. + +CHARLES DICKENS. + +MAY, 1868. + + + +Footnotes: + +(1) NOTE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. - Or let him refer to an able, +and perfectly truthful article, in THE FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW, +published in the present month of October; to which my attention +has been attracted, since these sheets have been passing through +the press. He will find some specimens there, by no means +remarkable to any man who has been in America, but sufficiently +striking to one who has not. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of American Notes, by Charles Dickens + +Project Gutenberg Etext of The Battle of Life by Charles Dickens +#10 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + + +The Battle of Life by Charles Dickens +Scanned and proofed by David Price +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +The Battle of Life + + + + + +CHAPTER I - Part The First + + + +Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, +it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought +upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a +wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for +the dew, felt its enamelled cup filled high with blood that day, +and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate colour +from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying +men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. The +painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its +wings. The stream ran red. The trodden ground became a quagmire, +whence, from sullen pools collected in the prints of human feet and +horses' hoofs, the one prevailing hue still lowered and glimmered +at the sun. + +Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the moon beheld upon +that field, when, coming up above the black line of distant rising- +ground, softened and blurred at the edge by trees, she rose into +the sky and looked upon the plain, strewn with upturned faces that +had once at mothers' breasts sought mothers' eyes, or slumbered +happily. Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the secrets whispered +afterwards upon the tainted wind that blew across the scene of that +day's work and that night's death and suffering! Many a lonely +moon was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star kept +mournful watch upon it, and many a wind from every quarter of the +earth blew over it, before the traces of the fight were worn away. + +They lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived in little +things; for, Nature, far above the evil passions of men, soon +recovered Her serenity, and smiled upon the guilty battle-ground as +she had done before, when it was innocent. The larks sang high +above it; the swallows skimmed and dipped and flitted to and fro; +the shadows of the flying clouds pursued each other swiftly, over +grass and corn and turnip-field and wood, and over roof and church- +spire in the nestling town among the trees, away into the bright +distance on the borders of the sky and earth, where the red sunsets +faded. Crops were sown, and grew up, and were gathered in; the +stream that had been crimsoned, turned a watermill; men whistled at +the plough; gleaners and haymakers were seen in quiet groups at +work; sheep and oxen pastured; boys whooped and called, in fields, +to scare away the birds; smoke rose from cottage chimneys; sabbath +bells rang peacefully; old people lived and died; the timid +creatures of the field, the simple flowers of the bush and garden, +grew and withered in their destined terms: and all upon the fierce +and bloody battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been +killed in the great fight. But, there were deep green patches in +the growing corn at first, that people looked at awfully. Year +after year they re-appeared; and it was known that underneath those +fertile spots, heaps of men and horses lay buried, +indiscriminately, enriching the ground. The husbandmen who +ploughed those places, shrunk from the great worms abounding there; +and the sheaves they yielded, were, for many a long year, called +the Battle Sheaves, and set apart; and no one ever knew a Battle +Sheaf to be among the last load at a Harvest Home. For a long +time, every furrow that was turned, revealed some fragments of the +fight. For a long time, there were wounded trees upon the battle- +ground; and scraps of hacked and broken fence and wall, where +deadly struggles had been made; and trampled parts where not a leaf +or blade would grow. For a long time, no village girl would dress +her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of +death: and after many a year had come and gone, the berries +growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon +the hand that plucked them. + +The Seasons in their course, however, though they passed as lightly +as the summer clouds themselves, obliterated, in the lapse of time, +even these remains of the old conflict; and wore away such +legendary traces of it as the neighbouring people carried in their +minds, until they dwindled into old wives' tales, dimly remembered +round the winter fire, and waning every year. Where the wild +flowers and berries had so long remained upon the stem untouched, +gardens arose, and houses were built, and children played at +battles on the turf. The wounded trees had long ago made Christmas +logs, and blazed and roared away. The deep green patches were no +greener now than the memory of those who lay in dust below. The +ploughshare still turned up from time to time some rusty bits of +metal, but it was hard to say what use they had ever served, and +those who found them wondered and disputed. An old dinted +corselet, and a helmet, had been hanging in the church so long, +that the same weak half-blind old man who tried in vain to make +them out above the whitewashed arch, had marvelled at them as a +baby. If the host slain upon the field, could have been for a +moment reanimated in the forms in which they fell, each upon the +spot that was the bed of his untimely death, gashed and ghastly +soldiers would have stared in, hundreds deep, at household door and +window; and would have risen on the hearths of quiet homes; and +would have been the garnered store of barns and granaries; and +would have started up between the cradled infant and its nurse; and +would have floated with the stream, and whirled round on the mill, +and crowded the orchard, and burdened the meadow, and piled the +rickyard high with dying men. So altered was the battle-ground, +where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight. + +Nowhere more altered, perhaps, about a hundred years ago, than in +one little orchard attached to an old stone house with a +honeysuckle porch; where, on a bright autumn morning, there were +sounds of music and laughter, and where two girls danced merrily +together on the grass, while some half-dozen peasant women standing +on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their +work to look down, and share their enjoyment. It was a pleasant, +lively, natural scene; a beautiful day, a retired spot; and the two +girls, quite unconstrained and careless, danced in the freedom and +gaiety of their hearts. + +If there were no such thing as display in the world, my private +opinion is, and I hope you agree with me, that we might get on a +great deal better than we do, and might be infinitely more +agreeable company than we are. It was charming to see how these +girls danced. They had no spectators but the apple-pickers on the +ladders. They were very glad to please them, but they danced to +please themselves (or at least you would have supposed so); and you +could no more help admiring, than they could help dancing. How +they did dance! + +Not like opera-dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame Anybody's +finished pupils. Not the least. It was not quadrille dancing, nor +minuet dancing, nor even country-dance dancing. It was neither in +the old style, nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the +English style: though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in +the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, I am told, +deriving a delightful air of off-hand inspiration, from the +chirping little castanets. As they danced among the orchard trees, +and down the groves of stems and back again, and twirled each other +lightly round and round, the influence of their airy motion seemed +to spread and spread, in the sun-lighted scene, like an expanding +circle in the water. Their streaming hair and fluttering skirts, +the elastic grass beneath their feet, the boughs that rustled in +the morning air - the flashing leaves, the speckled shadows on the +soft green ground - the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, +glad to turn the distant windmill, cheerily - everything between +the two girls, and the man and team at plough upon the ridge of +land, where they showed against the sky as if they were the last +things in the world - seemed dancing too. + +At last, the younger of the dancing sisters, out of breath, and +laughing gaily, threw herself upon a bench to rest. The other +leaned against a tree hard by. The music, a wandering harp and +fiddle, left off with a flourish, as if it boasted of its +freshness; though the truth is, it had gone at such a pace, and +worked itself to such a pitch of competition with the dancing, that +it never could have held on, half a minute longer. The apple- +pickers on the ladders raised a hum and murmur of applause, and +then, in keeping with the sound, bestirred themselves to work again +like bees. + +The more actively, perhaps, because an elderly gentleman, who was +no other than Doctor Jeddler himself - it was Doctor Jeddler's +house and orchard, you should know, and these were Doctor Jeddler's +daughters - came bustling out to see what was the matter, and who +the deuce played music on his property, before breakfast. For he +was a great philosopher, Doctor Jeddler, and not very musical. + +'Music and dancing TO-DAY!' said the Doctor, stopping short, and +speaking to himself. 'I thought they dreaded to-day. But it's a +world of contradictions. Why, Grace, why, Marion!' he added, +aloud, 'is the world more mad than usual this morning?' + +'Make some allowance for it, father, if it be,' replied his younger +daughter, Marion, going close to him, and looking into his face, +'for it's somebody's birth-day.' + +'Somebody's birth-day, Puss!' replied the Doctor. 'Don't you know +it's always somebody's birth-day? Did you never hear how many new +performers enter on this - ha! ha! ha! - it's impossible to speak +gravely of it - on this preposterous and ridiculous business called +Life, every minute?' + +'No, father!' + +'No, not you, of course; you're a woman - almost,' said the Doctor. +'By-the-by,' and he looked into the pretty face, still close to +his, 'I suppose it's YOUR birth-day.' + +'No! Do you really, father?' cried his pet daughter, pursing up +her red lips to be kissed. + +'There! Take my love with it,' said the Doctor, imprinting his +upon them; 'and many happy returns of the - the idea! - of the day. +The notion of wishing happy returns in such a farce as this,' said +the Doctor to himself, 'is good! Ha! ha! ha!' + +Doctor Jeddler was, as I have said, a great philosopher, and the +heart and mystery of his philosophy was, to look upon the world as +a gigantic practical joke; as something too absurd to be considered +seriously, by any rational man. His system of belief had been, in +the beginning, part and parcel of the battle-ground on which he +lived, as you shall presently understand. + +'Well! But how did you get the music?' asked the Doctor. +'Poultry-stealers, of course! Where did the minstrels come from?' + +'Alfred sent the music,' said his daughter Grace, adjusting a few +simple flowers in her sister's hair, with which, in her admiration +of that youthful beauty, she had herself adorned it half-an-hour +before, and which the dancing had disarranged. + +'Oh! Alfred sent the music, did he?' returned the Doctor. + +'Yes. He met it coming out of the town as he was entering early. +The men are travelling on foot, and rested there last night; and as +it was Marion's birth-day, and he thought it would please her, he +sent them on, with a pencilled note to me, saying that if I thought +so too, they had come to serenade her.' + +'Ay, ay,' said the Doctor, carelessly, 'he always takes your +opinion.' + +'And my opinion being favourable,' said Grace, good-humouredly; and +pausing for a moment to admire the pretty head she decorated, with +her own thrown back; 'and Marion being in high spirits, and +beginning to dance, I joined her. And so we danced to Alfred's +music till we were out of breath. And we thought the music all the +gayer for being sent by Alfred. Didn't we, dear Marion?' + +'Oh, I don't know, Grace. How you tease me about Alfred.' + +'Tease you by mentioning your lover?' said her sister. + +'I am sure I don't much care to have him mentioned,' said the +wilful beauty, stripping the petals from some flowers she held, and +scattering them on the ground. 'I am almost tired of hearing of +him; and as to his being my lover - ' + +'Hush! Don't speak lightly of a true heart, which is all your own, +Marion,' cried her sister, 'even in jest. There is not a truer +heart than Alfred's in the world!' + +'No-no,' said Marion, raising her eyebrows with a pleasant air of +careless consideration, 'perhaps not. But I don't know that +there's any great merit in that. I - I don't want him to be so +very true. I never asked him. If he expects that I - But, dear +Grace, why need we talk of him at all, just now!' + +It was agreeable to see the graceful figures of the blooming +sisters, twined together, lingering among the trees, conversing +thus, with earnestness opposed to lightness, yet, with love +responding tenderly to love. And it was very curious indeed to see +the younger sister's eyes suffused with tears, and something +fervently and deeply felt, breaking through the wilfulness of what +she said, and striving with it painfully. + +The difference between them, in respect of age, could not exceed +four years at most; but Grace, as often happens in such cases, when +no mother watches over both (the Doctor's wife was dead), seemed, +in her gentle care of her young sister, and in the steadiness of +her devotion to her, older than she was; and more removed, in +course of nature, from all competition with her, or participation, +otherwise than through her sympathy and true affection, in her +wayward fancies, than their ages seemed to warrant. Great +character of mother, that, even in this shadow and faint reflection +of it, purifies the heart, and raises the exalted nature nearer to +the angels! + +The Doctor's reflections, as he looked after them, and heard the +purport of their discourse, were limited at first to certain merry +meditations on the folly of all loves and likings, and the idle +imposition practised on themselves by young people, who believed +for a moment, that there could be anything serious in such bubbles, +and were always undeceived - always! + +But, the home-adorning, self-denying qualities of Grace, and her +sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet including so much +constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all expressed to him in the +contrast between her quiet household figure and that of his younger +and more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her sake - sorry for +them both - that life should be such a very ridiculous business as +it was. + +The Doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his children, or +either of them, helped in any way to make the scheme a serious one. +But then he was a Philosopher. + +A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over +that common Philosopher's stone (much more easily discovered than +the object of the alchemist's researches), which sometimes trips up +kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold +to dross and every precious thing to poor account. + +'Britain!' cried the Doctor. 'Britain! Holloa!' + +A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented face, emerged +from the house, and returned to this call the unceremonious +acknowledgment of 'Now then!' + +'Where's the breakfast table?' said the Doctor. + +'In the house,' returned Britain. + +'Are you going to spread it out here, as you were told last night?' +said the Doctor. 'Don't you know that there are gentlemen coming? +That there's business to be done this morning, before the coach +comes by? That this is a very particular occasion?' + +'I couldn't do anything, Dr. Jeddler, till the women had done +getting in the apples, could I?' said Britain, his voice rising +with his reasoning, so that it was very loud at last. + +'Well, have they done now?' replied the Doctor, looking at his +watch, and clapping his hands. 'Come! make haste! where's +Clemency?' + +'Here am I, Mister,' said a voice from one of the ladders, which a +pair of clumsy feet descended briskly. 'It's all done now. Clear +away, gals. Everything shall be ready for you in half a minute, +Mister.' + +With that she began to bustle about most vigorously; presenting, as +she did so, an appearance sufficiently peculiar to justify a word +of introduction. + +She was about thirty years old, and had a sufficiently plump and +cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an odd expression of +tightness that made it comical. But, the extraordinary homeliness +of her gait and manner, would have superseded any face in the +world. To say that she had two left legs, and somebody else's +arms, and that all four limbs seemed to be out of joint, and to +start from perfectly wrong places when they were set in motion, is +to offer the mildest outline of the reality. To say that she was +perfectly content and satisfied with these arrangements, and +regarded them as being no business of hers, and that she took her +arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of +themselves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to her +equanimity. Her dress was a prodigious pair of self-willed shoes, +that never wanted to go where her feet went; blue stockings; a +printed gown of many colours, and the most hideous pattern +procurable for money; and a white apron. She always wore short +sleeves, and always had, by some accident, grazed elbows, in which +she took so lively an interest, that she was continually trying to +turn them round and get impossible views of them. In general, a +little cap placed somewhere on her head; though it was rarely to be +met with in the place usually occupied in other subjects, by that +article of dress; but, from head to foot she was scrupulously +clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. Indeed, her +laudable anxiety to be tidy and compact in her own conscience as +well as in the public eye, gave rise to one of her most startling +evolutions, which was to grasp herself sometimes by a sort of +wooden handle (part of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk), +and wrestle as it were with her garments, until they fell into a +symmetrical arrangement. + +Such, in outward form and garb, was Clemency Newcome; who was +supposed to have unconsciously originated a corruption of her own +Christian name, from Clementina (but nobody knew, for the deaf old +mother, a very phenomenon of age, whom she had supported almost +from a child, was dead, and she had no other relation); who now +busied herself in preparing the table, and who stood, at intervals, +with her bare red arms crossed, rubbing her grazed elbows with +opposite hands, and staring at it very composedly, until she +suddenly remembered something else she wanted, and jogged off to +fetch it. + +'Here are them two lawyers a-coming, Mister!' said Clemency, in a +tone of no very great good-will. + +'Ah!' cried the Doctor, advancing to the gate to meet them. 'Good +morning, good morning! Grace, my dear! Marion! Here are Messrs. +Snitchey and Craggs. Where's Alfred!' + +'He'll be back directly, father, no doubt,' said Grace. 'He had so +much to do this morning in his preparations for departure, that he +was up and out by daybreak. Good morning, gentlemen.' + +'Ladies!' said Mr. Snitchey, 'for Self and Craggs,' who bowed, +'good morning! Miss,' to Marion, 'I kiss your hand.' Which he +did. 'And I wish you' - which he might or might not, for he didn't +look, at first sight, like a gentleman troubled with many warm +outpourings of soul, in behalf of other people, 'a hundred happy +returns of this auspicious day.' + +'Ha ha ha!' laughed the Doctor thoughtfully, with his hands in his +pockets. 'The great farce in a hundred acts!' + +'You wouldn't, I am sure,' said Mr. Snitchey, standing a small +professional blue bag against one leg of the table, 'cut the great +farce short for this actress, at all events, Doctor Jeddler.' + +'No,' returned the Doctor. 'God forbid! May she live to laugh at +it, as long as she CAN laugh, and then say, with the French wit, +"The farce is ended; draw the curtain."' + +'The French wit,' said Mr. Snitchey, peeping sharply into his blue +bag, 'was wrong, Doctor Jeddler, and your philosophy is altogether +wrong, depend upon it, as I have often told you. Nothing serious +in life! What do you call law?' + +'A joke,' replied the Doctor. + +'Did you ever go to law?' asked Mr. Snitchey, looking out of the +blue bag. + +'Never,' returned the Doctor. + +'If you ever do,' said Mr. Snitchey, 'perhaps you'll alter that +opinion.' + +Craggs, who seemed to be represented by Snitchey, and to be +conscious of little or no separate existence or personal +individuality, offered a remark of his own in this place. It +involved the only idea of which he did not stand seized and +possessed in equal moieties with Snitchey; but, he had some +partners in it among the wise men of the world. + +'It's made a great deal too easy,' said Mr. Craggs. + +'Law is?' asked the Doctor. + +'Yes,' said Mr. Craggs, 'everything is. Everything appears to me +to be made too easy, now-a-days. It's the vice of these times. If +the world is a joke (I am not prepared to say it isn't), it ought +to be made a very difficult joke to crack. It ought to be as hard +a struggle, sir, as possible. That's the intention. But, it's +being made far too easy. We are oiling the gates of life. They +ought to be rusty. We shall have them beginning to turn, soon, +with a smooth sound. Whereas they ought to grate upon their +hinges, sir.' + +Mr. Craggs seemed positively to grate upon his own hinges, as he +delivered this opinion; to which he communicated immense effect - +being a cold, hard, dry, man, dressed in grey and white, like a +flint; with small twinkles in his eyes, as if something struck +sparks out of them. The three natural kingdoms, indeed, had each a +fanciful representative among this brotherhood of disputants; for +Snitchey was like a magpie or raven (only not so sleek), and the +Doctor had a streaked face like a winter-pippin, with here and +there a dimple to express the peckings of the birds, and a very +little bit of pigtail behind that stood for the stalk. + +As the active figure of a handsome young man, dressed for a +journey, and followed by a porter bearing several packages and +baskets, entered the orchard at a brisk pace, and with an air of +gaiety and hope that accorded well with the morning, these three +drew together, like the brothers of the sister Fates, or like the +Graces most effectually disguised, or like the three weird prophets +on the heath, and greeted him. + +'Happy returns, Alf!' said the Doctor, lightly. + +'A hundred happy returns of this auspicious day, Mr. Heathfield!' +said Snitchey, bowing low. + +'Returns!' Craggs murmured in a deep voice, all alone. + +'Why, what a battery!' exclaimed Alfred, stopping short, 'and one - +two - three - all foreboders of no good, in the great sea before +me. I am glad you are not the first I have met this morning: I +should have taken it for a bad omen. But, Grace was the first - +sweet, pleasant Grace - so I defy you all!' + +'If you please, Mister, I was the first you know,' said Clemency +Newcome. 'She was walking out here, before sunrise, you remember. +I was in the house.' + +'That's true! Clemency was the first,' said Alfred. 'So I defy +you with Clemency.' + +'Ha, ha, ha, - for Self and Craggs,' said Snitchey. 'What a +defiance!' + +'Not so bad a one as it appears, may be,' said Alfred, shaking +hands heartily with the Doctor, and also with Snitchey and Craggs, +and then looking round. 'Where are the - Good Heavens!' + +With a start, productive for the moment of a closer partnership +between Jonathan Snitchey and Thomas Craggs than the subsisting +articles of agreement in that wise contemplated, he hastily betook +himself to where the sisters stood together, and - however, I +needn't more particularly explain his manner of saluting Marion +first, and Grace afterwards, than by hinting that Mr. Craggs may +possibly have considered it 'too easy.' + +Perhaps to change the subject, Dr. Jeddler made a hasty move +towards the breakfast, and they all sat down at table. Grace +presided; but so discreetly stationed herself, as to cut off her +sister and Alfred from the rest of the company. Snitchey and +Craggs sat at opposite corners, with the blue bag between them for +safety; the Doctor took his usual position, opposite to Grace. +Clemency hovered galvanically about the table, as waitress; and the +melancholy Britain, at another and a smaller board, acted as Grand +Carver of a round of beef and a ham. + +'Meat?' said Britain, approaching Mr. Snitchey, with the carving +knife and fork in his hands, and throwing the question at him like +a missile. + +'Certainly,' returned the lawyer. + +'Do YOU want any?' to Craggs. + +'Lean and well done,' replied that gentleman. + +Having executed these orders, and moderately supplied the Doctor +(he seemed to know that nobody else wanted anything to eat), he +lingered as near the Firm as he decently could, watching with an +austere eye their disposition of the viands, and but once relaxing +the severe expression of his face. This was on the occasion of Mr. +Craggs, whose teeth were not of the best, partially choking, when +he cried out with great animation, 'I thought he was gone!' + +'Now, Alfred,' said the Doctor, 'for a word or two of business, +while we are yet at breakfast.' + +'While we are yet at breakfast,' said Snitchey and Craggs, who +seemed to have no present idea of leaving off. + +Although Alfred had not been breakfasting, and seemed to have quite +enough business on his hands as it was, he respectfully answered: + +'If you please, sir.' + +'If anything could be serious,' the Doctor began, 'in such a - ' + +'Farce as this, sir,' hinted Alfred. + +'In such a farce as this,' observed the Doctor, 'it might be this +recurrence, on the eve of separation, of a double birthday, which +is connected with many associations pleasant to us four, and with +the recollection of a long and amicable intercourse. That's not to +the purpose.' + +'Ah! yes, yes, Dr. Jeddler,' said the young man. 'It is to the +purpose. Much to the purpose, as my heart bears witness this +morning; and as yours does too, I know, if you would let it speak. +I leave your house to-day; I cease to be your ward to-day; we part +with tender relations stretching far behind us, that never can be +exactly renewed, and with others dawning - yet before us,' he +looked down at Marion beside him, 'fraught with such considerations +as I must not trust myself to speak of now. Come, come!' he added, +rallying his spirits and the Doctor at once, 'there's a serious +grain in this large foolish dust-heap, Doctor. Let us allow to- +day, that there is One.' + +'To-day!' cried the Doctor. 'Hear him! Ha, ha, ha! Of all days +in the foolish year. Why, on this day, the great battle was fought +on this ground. On this ground where we now sit, where I saw my +two girls dance this morning, where the fruit has just been +gathered for our eating from these trees, the roots of which are +struck in Men, not earth, - so many lives were lost, that within my +recollection, generations afterwards, a churchyard full of bones, +and dust of bones, and chips of cloven skulls, has been dug up from +underneath our feet here. Yet not a hundred people in that battle +knew for what they fought, or why; not a hundred of the +inconsiderate rejoicers in the victory, why they rejoiced. Not +half a hundred people were the better for the gain or loss. Not +half-a-dozen men agree to this hour on the cause or merits; and +nobody, in short, ever knew anything distinct about it, but the +mourners of the slain. Serious, too!' said the Doctor, laughing. +'Such a system!' + +'But, all this seems to me,' said Alfred, 'to be very serious.' + +'Serious!' cried the Doctor. 'If you allowed such things to be +serious, you must go mad, or die, or climb up to the top of a +mountain, and turn hermit.' + +'Besides - so long ago,' said Alfred. + +'Long ago!' returned the Doctor. 'Do you know what the world has +been doing, ever since? Do you know what else it has been doing? +I don't!' + +'It has gone to law a little,' observed Mr. Snitchey, stirring his +tea. + +'Although the way out has been always made too easy,' said his +partner. + +'And you'll excuse my saying, Doctor,' pursued Mr. Snitchey, +'having been already put a thousand times in possession of my +opinion, in the course of our discussions, that, in its having gone +to law, and in its legal system altogether, I do observe a serious +side - now, really, a something tangible, and with a purpose and +intention in it - ' + +Clemency Newcome made an angular tumble against the table, +occasioning a sounding clatter among the cups and saucers. + +'Heyday! what's the matter there?' exclaimed the Doctor. + +'It's this evil-inclined blue bag,' said Clemency, 'always tripping +up somebody!' + +'With a purpose and intention in it, I was saying,' resumed +Snitchey, 'that commands respect. Life a farce, Dr. Jeddler? With +law in it?' + +The Doctor laughed, and looked at Alfred. + +'Granted, if you please, that war is foolish,' said Snitchey. +'There we agree. For example. Here's a smiling country,' pointing +it out with his fork, 'once overrun by soldiers - trespassers every +man of 'em - and laid waste by fire and sword. He, he, he! The +idea of any man exposing himself, voluntarily, to fire and sword! +Stupid, wasteful, positively ridiculous; you laugh at your fellow- +creatures, you know, when you think of it! But take this smiling +country as it stands. Think of the laws appertaining to real +property; to the bequest and devise of real property; to the +mortgage and redemption of real property; to leasehold, freehold, +and copyhold estate; think,' said Mr. Snitchey, with such great +emotion that he actually smacked his lips, 'of the complicated laws +relating to title and proof of title, with all the contradictory +precedents and numerous acts of parliament connected with them; +think of the infinite number of ingenious and interminable chancery +suits, to which this pleasant prospect may give rise; and +acknowledge, Dr. Jeddler, that there is a green spot in the scheme +about us! I believe,' said Mr. Snitchey, looking at his partner, +'that I speak for Self and Craggs?' + +Mr. Craggs having signified assent, Mr. Snitchey, somewhat +freshened by his recent eloquence, observed that he would take a +little more beef and another cup of tea. + +'I don't stand up for life in general,' he added, rubbing his hands +and chuckling, 'it's full of folly; full of something worse. +Professions of trust, and confidence, and unselfishness, and all +that! Bah, bah, bah! We see what they're worth. But, you mustn't +laugh at life; you've got a game to play; a very serious game +indeed! Everybody's playing against you, you know, and you're +playing against them. Oh! it's a very interesting thing. There +are deep moves upon the board. You must only laugh, Dr. Jeddler, +when you win - and then not much. He, he, he! And then not much,' +repeated Snitchey, rolling his head and winking his eye, as if he +would have added, 'you may do this instead!' + +'Well, Alfred!' cried the Doctor, 'what do you say now?' + +'I say, sir,' replied Alfred, 'that the greatest favour you could +do me, and yourself too, I am inclined to think, would be to try +sometimes to forget this battle-field and others like it in that +broader battle-field of Life, on which the sun looks every day.' + +'Really, I'm afraid that wouldn't soften his opinions, Mr. Alfred,' +said Snitchey. 'The combatants are very eager and very bitter in +that same battle of Life. There's a great deal of cutting and +slashing, and firing into people's heads from behind. There is +terrible treading down, and trampling on. It is rather a bad +business.' + +'I believe, Mr. Snitchey,' said Alfred, 'there are quiet victories +and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, +in it - even in many of its apparent lightnesses and contradictions +- not the less difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly +chronicle or audience - done every day in nooks and corners, and in +little households, and in men's and women's hearts - any one of +which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill +him with belief and hope in it, though two-fourths of its people +were at war, and another fourth at law; and that's a bold word.' + +Both the sisters listened keenly. + +'Well, well!' said the Doctor, 'I am too old to be converted, even +by my friend Snitchey here, or my good spinster sister, Martha +Jeddler; who had what she calls her domestic trials ages ago, and +has led a sympathising life with all sorts of people ever since; +and who is so much of your opinion (only she's less reasonable and +more obstinate, being a woman), that we can't agree, and seldom +meet. I was born upon this battle-field. I began, as a boy, to +have my thoughts directed to the real history of a battle-field. +Sixty years have gone over my head, and I have never seen the +Christian world, including Heaven knows how many loving mothers and +good enough girls like mine here, anything but mad for a battle- +field. The same contradictions prevail in everything. One must +either laugh or cry at such stupendous inconsistencies; and I +prefer to laugh.' + +Britain, who had been paying the profoundest and most melancholy +attention to each speaker in his turn, seemed suddenly to decide in +favour of the same preference, if a deep sepulchral sound that +escaped him might be construed into a demonstration of risibility. +His face, however, was so perfectly unaffected by it, both before +and afterwards, that although one or two of the breakfast party +looked round as being startled by a mysterious noise, nobody +connected the offender with it. + +Except his partner in attendance, Clemency Newcome; who rousing him +with one of those favourite joints, her elbows, inquired, in a +reproachful whisper, what he laughed at. + +'Not you!' said Britain. + +'Who then?' + +'Humanity,' said Britain. 'That's the joke!' + +'What between master and them lawyers, he's getting more and more +addle-headed every day!' cried Clemency, giving him a lunge with +the other elbow, as a mental stimulant. 'Do you know where you +are? Do you want to get warning?' + +'I don't know anything,' said Britain, with a leaden eye and an +immovable visage. 'I don't care for anything. I don't make out +anything. I don't believe anything. And I don't want anything.' + +Although this forlorn summary of his general condition may have +been overcharged in an access of despondency, Benjamin Britain - +sometimes called Little Britain, to distinguish him from Great; as +we might say Young England, to express Old England with a decided +difference - had defined his real state more accurately than might +be supposed. For, serving as a sort of man Miles to the Doctor's +Friar Bacon, and listening day after day to innumerable orations +addressed by the Doctor to various people, all tending to show that +his very existence was at best a mistake and an absurdity, this +unfortunate servitor had fallen, by degrees, into such an abyss of +confused and contradictory suggestions from within and without, +that Truth at the bottom of her well, was on the level surface as +compared with Britain in the depths of his mystification. The only +point he clearly comprehended, was, that the new element usually +brought into these discussions by Snitchey and Craggs, never served +to make them clearer, and always seemed to give the Doctor a +species of advantage and confirmation. Therefore, he looked upon +the Firm as one of the proximate causes of his state of mind, and +held them in abhorrence accordingly. + +'But, this is not our business, Alfred,' said the Doctor. 'Ceasing +to be my ward (as you have said) to-day; and leaving us full to the +brim of such learning as the Grammar School down here was able to +give you, and your studies in London could add to that, and such +practical knowledge as a dull old country Doctor like myself could +graft upon both; you are away, now, into the world. The first term +of probation appointed by your poor father, being over, away you go +now, your own master, to fulfil his second desire. And long before +your three years' tour among the foreign schools of medicine is +finished, you'll have forgotten us. Lord, you'll forget us easily +in six months!' + +'If I do - But you know better; why should I speak to you!' said +Alfred, laughing. + +'I don't know anything of the sort,' returned the Doctor. 'What do +you say, Marion?' + +Marion, trifling with her teacup, seemed to say - but she didn't +say it - that he was welcome to forget, if he could. Grace pressed +the blooming face against her cheek, and smiled. + +'I haven't been, I hope, a very unjust steward in the execution of +my trust,' pursued the Doctor; 'but I am to be, at any rate, +formally discharged, and released, and what not this morning; and +here are our good friends Snitchey and Craggs, with a bagful of +papers, and accounts, and documents, for the transfer of the +balance of the trust fund to you (I wish it was a more difficult +one to dispose of, Alfred, but you must get to be a great man and +make it so), and other drolleries of that sort, which are to be +signed, sealed, and delivered.' + +'And duly witnessed as by law required,' said Snitchey, pushing +away his plate, and taking out the papers, which his partner +proceeded to spread upon the table; 'and Self and Crags having been +co-trustees with you, Doctor, in so far as the fund was concerned, +we shall want your two servants to attest the signatures - can you +read, Mrs. Newcome?' + +'I an't married, Mister,' said Clemency. + +'Oh! I beg your pardon. I should think not,' chuckled Snitchey, +casting his eyes over her extraordinary figure. 'You CAN read?' + +'A little,' answered Clemency. + +'The marriage service, night and morning, eh?' observed the lawyer, +jocosely. + +'No,' said Clemency. 'Too hard. I only reads a thimble.' + +'Read a thimble!' echoed Snitchey. 'What are you talking about, +young woman?' + +Clemency nodded. 'And a nutmeg-grater.' + +'Why, this is a lunatic! a subject for the Lord High Chancellor!' +said Snitchey, staring at her. + +- 'If possessed of any property,' stipulated Craggs. + +Grace, however, interposing, explained that each of the articles in +question bore an engraved motto, and so formed the pocket library +of Clemency Newcome, who was not much given to the study of books. + +'Oh, that's it, is it, Miss Grace!' said Snitchey. + +'Yes, yes. Ha, ha, ha! I thought our friend was an idiot. She +looks uncommonly like it,' he muttered, with a supercilious glance. +'And what does the thimble say, Mrs. Newcome?' + +'I an't married, Mister,' observed Clemency. + +'Well, Newcome. Will that do?' said the lawyer. 'What does the +thimble say, Newcome?' + +How Clemency, before replying to this question, held one pocket +open, and looked down into its yawning depths for the thimble which +wasn't there, - and how she then held an opposite pocket open, and +seeming to descry it, like a pearl of great price, at the bottom, +cleared away such intervening obstacles as a handkerchief, an end +of wax candle, a flushed apple, an orange, a lucky penny, a cramp +bone, a padlock, a pair of scissors in a sheath more expressively +describable as promising young shears, a handful or so of loose +beads, several balls of cotton, a needle-case, a cabinet collection +of curl-papers, and a biscuit, all of which articles she entrusted +individually and separately to Britain to hold, - is of no +consequence. + +Nor how, in her determination to grasp this pocket by the throat +and keep it prisoner (for it had a tendency to swing, and twist +itself round the nearest corner), she assumed and calmly +maintained, an attitude apparently inconsistent with the human +anatomy and the laws of gravity. It is enough that at last she +triumphantly produced the thimble on her finger, and rattled the +nutmeg-grater: the literature of both those trinkets being +obviously in course of wearing out and wasting away, through +excessive friction. + +'That's the thimble, is it, young woman?' said Mr. Snitchey, +diverting himself at her expense. 'And what does the thimble say?' + +'It says,' replied Clemency, reading slowly round as if it were a +tower, 'For-get and For-give.' + +Snitchey and Craggs laughed heartily. 'So new!' said Snitchey. +'So easy!' said Craggs. 'Such a knowledge of human nature in it!' +said Snitchey. 'So applicable to the affairs of life!' said +Craggs. + +'And the nutmeg-grater?' inquired the head of the Firm. + +'The grater says,' returned Clemency, 'Do as you - wold - be - done +by.' + +'Do, or you'll be done brown, you mean,' said Mr. Snitchey. + +'I don't understand,' retorted Clemency, shaking her head vaguely. +'I an't no lawyer.' + +'I am afraid that if she was, Doctor,' said Mr. Snitchey, turning +to him suddenly, as if to anticipate any effect that might +otherwise be consequent on this retort, 'she'd find it to be the +golden rule of half her clients. They are serious enough in that - +whimsical as your world is - and lay the blame on us afterwards. +We, in our profession, are little else than mirrors after all, Mr. +Alfred; but, we are generally consulted by angry and quarrelsome +people who are not in their best looks, and it's rather hard to +quarrel with us if we reflect unpleasant aspects. I think,' said +Mr. Snitchey, 'that I speak for Self and Craggs?' + +'Decidedly,' said Craggs. + +'And so, if Mr. Britain will oblige us with a mouthful of ink,' +said Mr. Snitchey, returning to the papers, 'we'll sign, seal, and +deliver as soon as possible, or the coach will be coming past +before we know where we are.' + +If one might judge from his appearance, there was every probability +of the coach coming past before Mr. Britain knew where HE was; for +he stood in a state of abstraction, mentally balancing the Doctor +against the lawyers, and the lawyers against the Doctor, and their +clients against both, and engaged in feeble attempts to make the +thimble and nutmeg-grater (a new idea to him) square with anybody's +system of philosophy; and, in short, bewildering himself as much as +ever his great namesake has done with theories and schools. But, +Clemency, who was his good Genius - though he had the meanest +possible opinion of her understanding, by reason of her seldom +troubling herself with abstract speculations, and being always at +hand to do the right thing at the right time - having produced the +ink in a twinkling, tendered him the further service of recalling +him to himself by the application of her elbows; with which gentle +flappers she so jogged his memory, in a more literal construction +of that phrase than usual, that he soon became quite fresh and +brisk. + +How he laboured under an apprehension not uncommon to persons in +his degree, to whom the use of pen and ink is an event, that he +couldn't append his name to a document, not of his own writing, +without committing himself in some shadowy manner, or somehow +signing away vague and enormous sums of money; and how he +approached the deeds under protest, and by dint of the Doctor's +coercion, and insisted on pausing to look at them before writing +(the cramped hand, to say nothing of the phraseology, being so much +Chinese to him), and also on turning them round to see whether +there was anything fraudulent underneath; and how, having signed +his name, he became desolate as one who had parted with his +property and rights; I want the time to tell. Also, how the blue +bag containing his signature, afterwards had a mysterious interest +for him, and he couldn't leave it; also, how Clemency Newcome, in +an ecstasy of laughter at the idea of her own importance and +dignity, brooded over the whole table with her two elbows, like a +spread eagle, and reposed her head upon her left arm as a +preliminary to the formation of certain cabalistic characters, +which required a deal of ink, and imaginary counterparts whereof +she executed at the same time with her tongue. Also, how, having +once tasted ink, she became thirsty in that regard, as tame tigers +are said to be after tasting another sort of fluid, and wanted to +sign everything, and put her name in all kinds of places. In +brief, the Doctor was discharged of his trust and all its +responsibilities; and Alfred, taking it on himself, was fairly +started on the journey of life. + +'Britain!' said the Doctor. 'Run to the gate, and watch for the +coach. Time flies, Alfred.' + +'Yes, sir, yes,' returned the young man, hurriedly. 'Dear Grace! a +moment! Marion - so young and beautiful, so winning and so much +admired, dear to my heart as nothing else in life is - remember! I +leave Marion to you!' + +'She has always been a sacred charge to me, Alfred. She is doubly +so, now. I will be faithful to my trust, believe me.' + +'I do believe it, Grace. I know it well. Who could look upon your +face, and hear your voice, and not know it! Ah, Grace! If I had +your well-governed heart, and tranquil mind, how bravely I would +leave this place to-day!' + +'Would you?' she answered with a quiet smile. + +'And yet, Grace - Sister, seems the natural word.' + +'Use it!' she said quickly. 'I am glad to hear it. Call me +nothing else.' + +'And yet, sister, then,' said Alfred, 'Marion and I had better have +your true and steadfast qualities serving us here, and making us +both happier and better. I wouldn't carry them away, to sustain +myself, if I could!' + +'Coach upon the hill-top!' exclaimed Britain. + +'Time flies, Alfred,' said the Doctor. + +Marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the ground; but, +this warning being given, her young lover brought her tenderly to +where her sister stood, and gave her into her embrace. + +'I have been telling Grace, dear Marion,' he said, 'that you are +her charge; my precious trust at parting. And when I come back and +reclaim you, dearest, and the bright prospect of our married life +lies stretched before us, it shall be one of our chief pleasures to +consult how we can make Grace happy; how we can anticipate her +wishes; how we can show our gratitude and love to her; how we can +return her something of the debt she will have heaped upon us.' + +The younger sister had one hand in his; the other rested on her +sister's neck. She looked into that sister's eyes, so calm, +serene, and cheerful, with a gaze in which affection, admiration, +sorrow, wonder, almost veneration, were blended. She looked into +that sister's face, as if it were the face of some bright angel. +Calm, serene, and cheerful, the face looked back on her and on her +lover. + +'And when the time comes, as it must one day,' said Alfred, - 'I +wonder it has never come yet, but Grace knows best, for Grace is +always right - when SHE will want a friend to open her whole heart +to, and to be to her something of what she has been to us - then, +Marion, how faithful we will prove, and what delight to us to know +that she, our dear good sister, loves and is loved again, as we +would have her!' + +Still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and turned not - +even towards him. And still those honest eyes looked back, so +calm, serene, and cheerful, on herself and on her lover. + +'And when all that is past, and we are old, and living (as we +must!) together - close together - talking often of old times,' +said Alfred - 'these shall be our favourite times among them - this +day most of all; and, telling each other what we thought and felt, +and hoped and feared at parting; and how we couldn't bear to say +good bye - ' + +'Coach coming through the wood!' cried Britain. + +'Yes! I am ready - and how we met again, so happily in spite of +all; we'll make this day the happiest in all the year, and keep it +as a treble birth-day. Shall we, dear?' + +'Yes!' interposed the elder sister, eagerly, and with a radiant +smile. 'Yes! Alfred, don't linger. There's no time. Say good +bye to Marion. And Heaven be with you!' + +He pressed the younger sister to his heart. Released from his +embrace, she again clung to her sister; and her eyes, with the same +blended look, again sought those so calm, serene, and cheerful. + +'Farewell, my boy!' said the Doctor. 'To talk about any serious +correspondence or serious affections, and engagements and so forth, +in such a - ha ha ha! - you know what I mean - why that, of course, +would be sheer nonsense. All I can say is, that if you and Marion +should continue in the same foolish minds, I shall not object to +have you for a son-in-law one of these days.' + +'Over the bridge!' cried Britain. + +'Let it come!' said Alfred, wringing the Doctor's hand stoutly. +'Think of me sometimes, my old friend and guardian, as seriously as +you can! Adieu, Mr. Snitchey! Farewell, Mr. Craggs!' + +'Coming down the road!' cried Britain. + +'A kiss of Clemency Newcome for long acquaintance' sake! Shake +hands, Britain! Marion, dearest heart, good bye! Sister Grace! +remember!' + +The quiet household figure, and the face so beautiful in its +serenity, were turned towards him in reply; but Marion's look and +attitude remained unchanged. + +The coach was at the gate. There was a bustle with the luggage. +The coach drove away. Marion never moved. + +'He waves his hat to you, my love,' said Grace. 'Your chosen +husband, darling. Look!' + +The younger sister raised her head, and, for a moment, turned it. +Then, turning back again, and fully meeting, for the first time, +those calm eyes, fell sobbing on her neck. + +'Oh, Grace. God bless you! But I cannot bear to see it, Grace! +It breaks my heart.' + + + +CHAPTER II - Part The Second + + + +SNITCHEY AND CRAGGS had a snug little office on the old Battle +Ground, where they drove a snug little business, and fought a great +many small pitched battles for a great many contending parties. +Though it could hardly be said of these conflicts that they were +running fights - for in truth they generally proceeded at a snail's +pace - the part the Firm had in them came so far within the general +denomination, that now they took a shot at this Plaintiff, and now +aimed a chop at that Defendant, now made a heavy charge at an +estate in Chancery, and now had some light skirmishing among an +irregular body of small debtors, just as the occasion served, and +the enemy happened to present himself. The Gazette was an +important and profitable feature in some of their fields, as in +fields of greater renown; and in most of the Actions wherein they +showed their generalship, it was afterwards observed by the +combatants that they had had great difficulty in making each other +out, or in knowing with any degree of distinctness what they were +about, in consequence of the vast amount of smoke by which they +were surrounded. + +The offices of Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs stood convenient, with +an open door down two smooth steps, in the market-place; so that +any angry farmer inclining towards hot water, might tumble into it +at once. Their special council-chamber and hall of conference was +an old back-room up-stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which seemed +to be knitting its brows gloomily in the consideration of tangled +points of law. It was furnished with some high-backed leathern +chairs, garnished with great goggle-eyed brass nails, of which, +every here and there, two or three had fallen out - or had been +picked out, perhaps, by the wandering thumbs and forefingers of +bewildered clients. There was a framed print of a great judge in +it, every curl in whose dreadful wig had made a man's hair stand on +end. Bales of papers filled the dusty closets, shelves, and +tables; and round the wainscot there were tiers of boxes, padlocked +and fireproof, with people's names painted outside, which anxious +visitors felt themselves, by a cruel enchantment, obliged to spell +backwards and forwards, and to make anagrams of, while they sat, +seeming to listen to Snitchey and Craggs, without comprehending one +word of what they said. + +Snitchey and Craggs had each, in private life as in professional +existence, a partner of his own. Snitchey and Craggs were the best +friends in the world, and had a real confidence in one another; but +Mrs. Snitchey, by a dispensation not uncommon in the affairs of +life, was on principle suspicious of Mr. Craggs; and Mrs. Craggs +was on principle suspicious of Mr. Snitchey. 'Your Snitcheys +indeed,' the latter lady would observe, sometimes, to Mr. Craggs; +using that imaginative plural as if in disparagement of an +objectionable pair of pantaloons, or other articles not possessed +of a singular number; 'I don't see what you want with your +Snitcheys, for my part. You trust a great deal too much to your +Snitcheys, I think, and I hope you may never find my words come +true.' While Mrs. Snitchey would observe to Mr. Snitchey, of +Craggs, 'that if ever he was led away by man he was led away by +that man, and that if ever she read a double purpose in a mortal +eye, she read that purpose in Craggs's eye.' Notwithstanding this, +however, they were all very good friends in general: and Mrs. +Snitchey and Mrs. Craggs maintained a close bond of alliance +against 'the office,' which they both considered the Blue chamber, +and common enemy, full of dangerous (because unknown) machinations. + +In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made honey for +their several hives. Here, sometimes, they would linger, of a fine +evening, at the window of their council-chamber overlooking the old +battle-ground, and wonder (but that was generally at assize time, +when much business had made them sentimental) at the folly of +mankind, who couldn't always be at peace with one another and go to +law comfortably. Here, days, and weeks, and months, and years, +passed over them: their calendar, the gradually diminishing number +of brass nails in the leathern chairs, and the increasing bulk of +papers on the tables. Here, nearly three years' flight had thinned +the one and swelled the other, since the breakfast in the orchard; +when they sat together in consultation at night. + +Not alone; but, with a man of about thirty, or that time of life, +negligently dressed, and somewhat haggard in the face, but well- +made, well-attired, and well-looking, who sat in the armchair of +state, with one hand in his breast, and the other in his +dishevelled hair, pondering moodily. Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs +sat opposite each other at a neighbouring desk. One of the +fireproof boxes, unpadlocked and opened, was upon it; a part of its +contents lay strewn upon the table, and the rest was then in course +of passing through the hands of Mr. Snitchey; who brought it to the +candle, document by document; looked at every paper singly, as he +produced it; shook his head, and handed it to Mr. Craggs; who +looked it over also, shook his head, and laid it down. Sometimes, +they would stop, and shaking their heads in concert, look towards +the abstracted client. And the name on the box being Michael +Warden, Esquire, we may conclude from these premises that the name +and the box were both his, and that the affairs of Michael Warden, +Esquire, were in a bad way. + +'That's all,' said Mr. Snitchey, turning up the last paper. +'Really there's no other resource. No other resource.' + +'All lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed, and sold, eh?' said the +client, looking up. + +'All,' returned Mr. Snitchey. + +'Nothing else to be done, you say?' + +'Nothing at all.' + +The client bit his nails, and pondered again. + +'And I am not even personally safe in England? You hold to that, +do you?' + +'In no part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,' +replied Mr. Snitchey. + +'A mere prodigal son with no father to go back to, no swine to +keep, and no husks to share with them? Eh?' pursued the client, +rocking one leg over the other, and searching the ground with his +eyes. + +Mr. Snitchey coughed, as if to deprecate the being supposed to +participate in any figurative illustration of a legal position. +Mr. Craggs, as if to express that it was a partnership view of the +subject, also coughed. + +'Ruined at thirty!' said the client. 'Humph!' + +'Not ruined, Mr. Warden,' returned Snitchey. 'Not so bad as that. +You have done a good deal towards it, I must say, but you are not +ruined. A little nursing - ' + +'A little Devil,' said the client. + +'Mr. Craggs,' said Snitchey, 'will you oblige me with a pinch of +snuff? Thank you, sir.' + +As the imperturbable lawyer applied it to his nose with great +apparent relish and a perfect absorption of his attention in the +proceeding, the client gradually broke into a smile, and, looking +up, said: + +'You talk of nursing. How long nursing?' + +'How long nursing?' repeated Snitchey, dusting the snuff from his +fingers, and making a slow calculation in his mind. 'For your +involved estate, sir? In good hands? S. and C.'s, say? Six or +seven years.' + +'To starve for six or seven years!' said the client with a fretful +laugh, and an impatient change of his position. + +'To starve for six or seven years, Mr. Warden,' said Snitchey, +'would be very uncommon indeed. You might get another estate by +showing yourself, the while. But, we don't think you could do it - +speaking for Self and Craggs - and consequently don't advise it.' + +'What DO you advise?' + +'Nursing, I say,' repeated Snitchey. 'Some few years of nursing by +Self and Craggs would bring it round. But to enable us to make +terms, and hold terms, and you to keep terms, you must go away; you +must live abroad. As to starvation, we could ensure you some +hundreds a-year to starve upon, even in the beginning - I dare say, +Mr. Warden.' + +'Hundreds,' said the client. 'And I have spent thousands!' + +'That,' retorted Mr. Snitchey, putting the papers slowly back into +the cast-iron box, 'there is no doubt about. No doubt about,' he +repeated to himself, as he thoughtfully pursued his occupation. + +The lawyer very likely knew HIS man; at any rate his dry, shrewd, +whimsical manner, had a favourable influence on the client's moody +state, and disposed him to be more free and unreserved. Or, +perhaps the client knew HIS man, and had elicited such +encouragement as he had received, to render some purpose he was +about to disclose the more defensible in appearance. Gradually +raising his head, he sat looking at his immovable adviser with a +smile, which presently broke into a laugh. + +'After all,' he said, 'my iron-headed friend - ' + +Mr. Snitchey pointed out his partner. 'Self and - excuse me - +Craggs.' + +'I beg Mr. Craggs's pardon,' said the client. 'After all, my iron- +headed friends,' he leaned forward in his chair, and dropped his +voice a little, 'you don't know half my ruin yet.' + +Mr. Snitchey stopped and stared at him. Mr. Craggs also stared. + +'I am not only deep in debt,' said the client, 'but I am deep in - +' + +'Not in love!' cried Snitchey. + +'Yes!' said the client, falling back in his chair, and surveying +the Firm with his hands in his pockets. 'Deep in love.' + +'And not with an heiress, sir?' said Snitchey. + +'Not with an heiress.' + +'Nor a rich lady?' + +'Nor a rich lady that I know of - except in beauty and merit.' + +'A single lady, I trust?' said Mr. Snitchey, with great expression. + +'Certainly.' + +'It's not one of Dr. Jeddler's daughters?' said Snitchey, suddenly +squaring his elbows on his knees, and advancing his face at least a +yard. + +'Yes!' returned the client. + +'Not his younger daughter?' said Snitchey. + +'Yes!' returned the client. + +'Mr. Craggs,' said Snitchey, much relieved, 'will you oblige me +with another pinch of snuff? Thank you! I am happy to say it +don't signify, Mr. Warden; she's engaged, sir, she's bespoke. My +partner can corroborate me. We know the fact.' + +'We know the fact,' repeated Craggs. + +'Why, so do I perhaps,' returned the client quietly. 'What of +that! Are you men of the world, and did you never hear of a woman +changing her mind?' + +'There certainly have been actions for breach,' said Mr. Snitchey, +'brought against both spinsters and widows, but, in the majority of +cases - ' + +'Cases!' interposed the client, impatiently. 'Don't talk to me of +cases. The general precedent is in a much larger volume than any +of your law books. Besides, do you think I have lived six weeks in +the Doctor's house for nothing?' + +'I think, sir,' observed Mr. Snitchey, gravely addressing himself +to his partner, 'that of all the scrapes Mr. Warden's horses have +brought him into at one time and another - and they have been +pretty numerous, and pretty expensive, as none know better than +himself, and you, and I - the worst scrape may turn out to be, if +he talks in this way, this having ever been left by one of them at +the Doctor's garden wall, with three broken ribs, a snapped collar- +bone, and the Lord knows how many bruises. We didn't think so much +of it, at the time when we knew he was going on well under the +Doctor's hands and roof; but it looks bad now, sir. Bad? It looks +very bad. Doctor Jeddler too - our client, Mr. Craggs.' + +'Mr. Alfred Heathfield too - a sort of client, Mr. Snitchey,' said +Craggs. + +'Mr. Michael Warden too, a kind of client,' said the careless +visitor, 'and no bad one either: having played the fool for ten or +twelve years. However, Mr. Michael Warden has sown his wild oats +now - there's their crop, in that box; and he means to repent and +be wise. And in proof of it, Mr. Michael Warden means, if he can, +to marry Marion, the Doctor's lovely daughter, and to carry her +away with him.' + +'Really, Mr. Craggs,' Snitchey began. + +'Really, Mr. Snitchey, and Mr. Craggs, partners both,' said the +client, interrupting him; 'you know your duty to your clients, and +you know well enough, I am sure, that it is no part of it to +interfere in a mere love affair, which I am obliged to confide to +you. I am not going to carry the young lady off, without her own +consent. There's nothing illegal in it. I never was Mr. +Heathfield's bosom friend. I violate no confidence of his. I love +where he loves, and I mean to win where he would win, if I can.' + +'He can't, Mr. Craggs,' said Snitchey, evidently anxious and +discomfited. 'He can't do it, sir. She dotes on Mr. Alfred.' + +'Does she?' returned the client. + +'Mr. Craggs, she dotes on him, sir,' persisted Snitchey. + +'I didn't live six weeks, some few months ago, in the Doctor's +house for nothing; and I doubted that soon,' observed the client. +'She would have doted on him, if her sister could have brought it +about; but I watched them. Marion avoided his name, avoided the +subject: shrunk from the least allusion to it, with evident +distress.' + +'Why should she, Mr. Craggs, you know? Why should she, sir?' +inquired Snitchey. + +'I don't know why she should, though there are many likely +reasons,' said the client, smiling at the attention and perplexity +expressed in Mr. Snitchey's shining eye, and at his cautious way of +carrying on the conversation, and making himself informed upon the +subject; 'but I know she does. She was very young when she made +the engagement - if it may be called one, I am not even sure of +that - and has repented of it, perhaps. Perhaps - it seems a +foppish thing to say, but upon my soul I don't mean it in that +light - she may have fallen in love with me, as I have fallen in +love with her.' + +'He, he! Mr. Alfred, her old playfellow too, you remember, Mr. +Craggs,' said Snitchey, with a disconcerted laugh; 'knew her almost +from a baby!' + +'Which makes it the more probable that she may be tired of his +idea,' calmly pursued the client, 'and not indisposed to exchange +it for the newer one of another lover, who presents himself (or is +presented by his horse) under romantic circumstances; has the not +unfavourable reputation - with a country girl - of having lived +thoughtlessly and gaily, without doing much harm to anybody; and +who, for his youth and figure, and so forth - this may seem foppish +again, but upon my soul I don't mean it in that light - might +perhaps pass muster in a crowd with Mr. Alfred himself.' + +There was no gainsaying the last clause, certainly; and Mr. +Snitchey, glancing at him, thought so. There was something +naturally graceful and pleasant in the very carelessness of his +air. It seemed to suggest, of his comely face and well-knit +figure, that they might be greatly better if he chose: and that, +once roused and made earnest (but he never had been earnest yet), +he could be full of fire and purpose. 'A dangerous sort of +libertine,' thought the shrewd lawyer, 'to seem to catch the spark +he wants, from a young lady's eyes.' + +'Now, observe, Snitchey,' he continued, rising and taking him by +the button, 'and Craggs,' taking him by the button also, and +placing one partner on either side of him, so that neither might +evade him. 'I don't ask you for any advice. You are right to keep +quite aloof from all parties in such a matter, which is not one in +which grave men like you could interfere, on any side. I am +briefly going to review in half-a-dozen words, my position and +intention, and then I shall leave it to you to do the best for me, +in money matters, that you can: seeing, that, if I run away with +the Doctor's beautiful daughter (as I hope to do, and to become +another man under her bright influence), it will be, for the +moment, more chargeable than running away alone. But I shall soon +make all that up in an altered life.' + +'I think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. Craggs?' said +Snitchey, looking at him across the client. + +'I think not,' said Craggs. - Both listened attentively. + +'Well! You needn't hear it,' replied their client. 'I'll mention +it, however. I don't mean to ask the Doctor's consent, because he +wouldn't give it me. But I mean to do the Doctor no wrong or harm, +because (besides there being nothing serious in such trifles, as he +says) I hope to rescue his child, my Marion, from what I see - I +KNOW - she dreads, and contemplates with misery: that is, the +return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is +true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am +so harried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a +flying-fish. I skulk about in the dark, I am shut out of my own +house, and warned off my own grounds; but, that house, and those +grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as +you know and say; and Marion will probably be richer - on your +showing, who are never sanguine - ten years hence as my wife, than +as the wife of Alfred Heathfield, whose return she dreads (remember +that), and in whom or in any man, my passion is not surpassed. Who +is injured yet? It is a fair case throughout. My right is as good +as his, if she decide in my favour; and I will try my right by her +alone. You will like to know no more after this, and I will tell +you no more. Now you know my purpose, and wants. When must I +leave here?' + +'In a week,' said Snitchey. 'Mr. Craggs?' + +'In something less, I should say,' responded Craggs. + +'In a month,' said the client, after attentively watching the two +faces. 'This day month. To-day is Thursday. Succeed or fail, on +this day month I go.' + +'It's too long a delay,' said Snitchey; 'much too long. But let it +be so. I thought he'd have stipulated for three,' he murmured to +himself. 'Are you going? Good night, sir!' + +'Good night!' returned the client, shaking hands with the Firm. + +'You'll live to see me making a good use of riches yet. Henceforth +the star of my destiny is, Marion!' + +'Take care of the stairs, sir,' replied Snitchey; 'for she don't +shine there. Good night!' + +'Good night!' + +So they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of office-candles, +watching him down. When he had gone away, they stood looking at +each other. + +'What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs?' said Snitchey. + +Mr. Craggs shook his head. + +'It was our opinion, on the day when that release was executed, +that there was something curious in the parting of that pair; I +recollect,' said Snitchey. + +'It was,' said Mr. Craggs. + +'Perhaps he deceives himself altogether,' pursued Mr. Snitchey, +locking up the fireproof box, and putting it away; 'or, if he +don't, a little bit of fickleness and perfidy is not a miracle, Mr. +Craggs. And yet I thought that pretty face was very true. I +thought,' said Mr. Snitchey, putting on his great-coat (for the +weather was very cold), drawing on his gloves, and snuffing out one +candle, 'that I had even seen her character becoming stronger and +more resolved of late. More like her sister's.' + +'Mrs. Craggs was of the same opinion,' returned Craggs. + +'I'd really give a trifle to-night,' observed Mr. Snitchey, who was +a good-natured man, 'if I could believe that Mr. Warden was +reckoning without his host; but, light-headed, capricious, and +unballasted as he is, he knows something of the world and its +people (he ought to, for he has bought what he does know, dear +enough); and I can't quite think that. We had better not +interfere: we can do nothing, Mr. Craggs, but keep quiet.' + +'Nothing,' returned Craggs. + +'Our friend the Doctor makes light of such things,' said Mr. +Snitchey, shaking his head. 'I hope he mayn't stand in need of his +philosophy. Our friend Alfred talks of the battle of life,' he +shook his head again, 'I hope he mayn't be cut down early in the +day. Have you got your hat, Mr. Craggs? I am going to put the +other candle out.' Mr. Craggs replying in the affirmative, Mr. +Snitchey suited the action to the word, and they groped their way +out of the council-chamber, now dark as the subject, or the law in +general. + + +My story passes to a quiet little study, where, on that same night, +the sisters and the hale old Doctor sat by a cheerful fireside. +Grace was working at her needle. Marion read aloud from a book +before her. The Doctor, in his dressing-gown and slippers, with +his feet spread out upon the warm rug, leaned back in his easy- +chair, and listened to the book, and looked upon his daughters. + +They were very beautiful to look upon. Two better faces for a +fireside, never made a fireside bright and sacred. Something of +the difference between them had been softened down in three years' +time; and enthroned upon the clear brow of the younger sister, +looking through her eyes, and thrilling in her voice, was the same +earnest nature that her own motherless youth had ripened in the +elder sister long ago. But she still appeared at once the lovelier +and weaker of the two; still seemed to rest her head upon her +sister's breast, and put her trust in her, and look into her eyes +for counsel and reliance. Those loving eyes, so calm, serene, and +cheerful, as of old. + +'"And being in her own home,"' read Marion, from the book; '"her +home made exquisitely dear by these remembrances, she now began to +know that the great trial of her heart must soon come on, and could +not be delayed. O Home, our comforter and friend when others fall +away, to part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the +grave"'- + +'Marion, my love!' said Grace. + +'Why, Puss!' exclaimed her father, 'what's the matter?' + +She put her hand upon the hand her sister stretched towards her, +and read on; her voice still faltering and trembling, though she +made an effort to command it when thus interrupted. + +'"To part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave, +is always sorrowful. O Home, so true to us, so often slighted in +return, be lenient to them that turn away from thee, and do not +haunt their erring footsteps too reproachfully! Let no kind looks, +no well-remembered smiles, be seen upon thy phantom face. Let no +ray of affection, welcome, gentleness, forbearance, cordiality, +shine from thy white head. Let no old loving word, or tone, rise +up in judgment against thy deserter; but if thou canst look harshly +and severely, do, in mercy to the Penitent!"' + +'Dear Marion, read no more to-night,' said Grace for she was +weeping. + +'I cannot,' she replied, and closed the book. 'The words seem all +on fire!' + +The Doctor was amused at this; and laughed as he patted her on the +head. + +'What! overcome by a story-book!' said Doctor Jeddler. 'Print and +paper! Well, well, it's all one. It's as rational to make a +serious matter of print and paper as of anything else. But, dry +your eyes, love, dry your eyes. I dare say the heroine has got +home again long ago, and made it up all round - and if she hasn't, +a real home is only four walls; and a fictitious one, mere rags and +ink. What's the matter now?' + +'It's only me, Mister,' said Clemency, putting in her head at the +door. + +'And what's the matter with YOU?' said the Doctor. + +'Oh, bless you, nothing an't the matter with me,' returned Clemency +- and truly too, to judge from her well-soaped face, in which there +gleamed as usual the very soul of good-humour, which, ungainly as +she was, made her quite engaging. Abrasions on the elbows are not +generally understood, it is true, to range within that class of +personal charms called beauty-spots. But, it is better, going +through the world, to have the arms chafed in that narrow passage, +than the temper: and Clemency's was sound and whole as any +beauty's in the land. + +'Nothing an't the matter with me,' said Clemency, entering, 'but - +come a little closer, Mister.' + +The Doctor, in some astonishment, complied with this invitation. + +'You said I wasn't to give you one before them, you know,' said +Clemency. + +A novice in the family might have supposed, from her extraordinary +ogling as she said it, as well as from a singular rapture or +ecstasy which pervaded her elbows, as if she were embracing +herself, that 'one,' in its most favourable interpretation, meant a +chaste salute. Indeed the Doctor himself seemed alarmed, for the +moment; but quickly regained his composure, as Clemency, having had +recourse to both her pockets - beginning with the right one, going +away to the wrong one, and afterwards coming back to the right one +again - produced a letter from the Post-office. + +'Britain was riding by on a errand,' she chuckled, handing it to +the Doctor, 'and see the mail come in, and waited for it. There's +A. H. in the corner. Mr. Alfred's on his journey home, I bet. We +shall have a wedding in the house - there was two spoons in my +saucer this morning. Oh Luck, how slow he opens it!' + +All this she delivered, by way of soliloquy, gradually rising +higher and higher on tiptoe, in her impatience to hear the news, +and making a corkscrew of her apron, and a bottle of her mouth. At +last, arriving at a climax of suspense, and seeing the Doctor still +engaged in the perusal of the letter, she came down flat upon the +soles of her feet again, and cast her apron, as a veil, over her +head, in a mute despair, and inability to bear it any longer. + +'Here! Girls!' cried the Doctor. 'I can't help it: I never could +keep a secret in my life. There are not many secrets, indeed, +worth being kept in such a - well! never mind that. Alfred's +coming home, my dears, directly.' + +'Directly!' exclaimed Marion. + +'What! The story-book is soon forgotten!' said the Doctor, +pinching her cheek. 'I thought the news would dry those tears. +Yes. "Let it be a surprise," he says, here. But I can't let it be +a surprise. He must have a welcome.' + +'Directly!' repeated Marion. + +'Why, perhaps not what your impatience calls "directly,"' returned +the doctor; 'but pretty soon too. Let us see. Let us see. To-day +is Thursday, is it not? Then he promises to be here, this day +month.' + +'This day month!' repeated Marion, softly. + +'A gay day and a holiday for us,' said the cheerful voice of her +sister Grace, kissing her in congratulation. 'Long looked forward +to, dearest, and come at last.' + +She answered with a smile; a mournful smile, but full of sisterly +affection. As she looked in her sister's face, and listened to the +quiet music of her voice, picturing the happiness of this return, +her own face glowed with hope and joy. + +And with a something else; a something shining more and more +through all the rest of its expression; for which I have no name. +It was not exultation, triumph, proud enthusiasm. They are not so +calmly shown. It was not love and gratitude alone, though love and +gratitude were part of it. It emanated from no sordid thought, for +sordid thoughts do not light up the brow, and hover on the lips, +and move the spirit like a fluttered light, until the sympathetic +figure trembles. + +Dr. Jeddler, in spite of his system of philosophy - which he was +continually contradicting and denying in practice, but more famous +philosophers have done that - could not help having as much +interest in the return of his old ward and pupil as if it had been +a serious event. So he sat himself down in his easy-chair again, +stretched out his slippered feet once more upon the rug, read the +letter over and over a great many times, and talked it over more +times still. + +'Ah! The day was,' said the Doctor, looking at the fire, 'when you +and he, Grace, used to trot about arm-in-arm, in his holiday time, +like a couple of walking dolls. You remember?' + +'I remember,' she answered, with her pleasant laugh, and plying her +needle busily. + +'This day month, indeed!' mused the Doctor. 'That hardly seems a +twelve month ago. And where was my little Marion then!' + +'Never far from her sister,' said Marion, cheerily, 'however +little. Grace was everything to me, even when she was a young +child herself.' + +'True, Puss, true,' returned the Doctor. 'She was a staid little +woman, was Grace, and a wise housekeeper, and a busy, quiet, +pleasant body; bearing with our humours and anticipating our +wishes, and always ready to forget her own, even in those times. I +never knew you positive or obstinate, Grace, my darling, even then, +on any subject but one.' + +'I am afraid I have changed sadly for the worse, since,' laughed +Grace, still busy at her work. 'What was that one, father?' + +'Alfred, of course,' said the Doctor. 'Nothing would serve you but +you must be called Alfred's wife; so we called you Alfred's wife; +and you liked it better, I believe (odd as it seems now), than +being called a Duchess, if we could have made you one.' + +'Indeed?' said Grace, placidly. + +'Why, don't you remember?' inquired the Doctor. + +'I think I remember something of it,' she returned, 'but not much. +It's so long ago.' And as she sat at work, she hummed the burden +of an old song, which the Doctor liked. + +'Alfred will find a real wife soon,' she said, breaking off; 'and +that will be a happy time indeed for all of us. My three years' +trust is nearly at an end, Marion. It has been a very easy one. I +shall tell Alfred, when I give you back to him, that you have loved +him dearly all the time, and that he has never once needed my good +services. May I tell him so, love?' + +'Tell him, dear Grace,' replied Marion, 'that there never was a +trust so generously, nobly, steadfastly discharged; and that I have +loved YOU, all the time, dearer and dearer every day; and O! how +dearly now!' + +'Nay,' said her cheerful sister, returning her embrace, 'I can +scarcely tell him that; we will leave my deserts to Alfred's +imagination. It will be liberal enough, dear Marion; like your +own.' + +With that, she resumed the work she had for a moment laid down, +when her sister spoke so fervently: and with it the old song the +Doctor liked to hear. And the Doctor, still reposing in his easy- +chair, with his slippered feet stretched out before him on the rug, +listened to the tune, and beat time on his knee with Alfred's +letter, and looked at his two daughters, and thought that among the +many trifles of the trifling world, these trifles were agreeable +enough. + +Clemency Newcome, in the meantime, having accomplished her mission +and lingered in the room until she had made herself a party to the +news, descended to the kitchen, where her coadjutor, Mr. Britain, +was regaling after supper, surrounded by such a plentiful +collection of bright pot-lids, well-scoured saucepans, burnished +dinner-covers, gleaming kettles, and other tokens of her +industrious habits, arranged upon the walls and shelves, that he +sat as in the centre of a hall of mirrors. The majority did not +give forth very flattering portraits of him, certainly; nor were +they by any means unanimous in their reflections; as some made him +very long-faced, others very broad-faced, some tolerably well- +looking, others vastly ill-looking, according to their several +manners of reflecting: which were as various, in respect of one +fact, as those of so many kinds of men. But they all agreed that +in the midst of them sat, quite at his ease, an individual with a +pipe in his mouth, and a jug of beer at his elbow, who nodded +condescendingly to Clemency, when she stationed herself at the same +table. + +'Well, Clemmy,' said Britain, 'how are you by this time, and what's +the news?' + +Clemency told him the news, which he received very graciously. A +gracious change had come over Benjamin from head to foot. He was +much broader, much redder, much more cheerful, and much jollier in +all respects. It seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot +before, and was now untwisted and smoothed out. + +'There'll be another job for Snitchey and Craggs, I suppose,' he +observed, puffing slowly at his pipe. 'More witnessing for you and +me, perhaps, Clemmy!' + +'Lor!' replied his fair companion, with her favourite twist of her +favourite joints. 'I wish it was me, Britain!' + +'Wish what was you?' + +'A-going to be married,' said Clemency. + +Benjamin took his pipe out of his mouth and laughed heartily. +'Yes! you're a likely subject for that!' he said. 'Poor Clem!' +Clemency for her part laughed as heartily as he, and seemed as much +amused by the idea. 'Yes,' she assented, 'I'm a likely subject for +that; an't I?' + +'YOU'LL never be married, you know,' said Mr. Britain, resuming his +pipe. + +'Don't you think I ever shall though?' said Clemency, in perfect +good faith. + +Mr. Britain shook his head. 'Not a chance of it!' + +'Only think!' said Clemency. 'Well! - I suppose you mean to, +Britain, one of these days; don't you?' + +A question so abrupt, upon a subject so momentous, required +consideration. After blowing out a great cloud of smoke, and +looking at it with his head now on this side and now on that, as if +it were actually the question, and he were surveying it in various +aspects, Mr. Britain replied that he wasn't altogether clear about +it, but - ye-es - he thought he might come to that at last. + +'I wish her joy, whoever she may be!' cried Clemency. + +'Oh she'll have that,' said Benjamin, 'safe enough.' + +'But she wouldn't have led quite such a joyful life as she will +lead, and wouldn't have had quite such a sociable sort of husband +as she will have,' said Clemency, spreading herself half over the +table, and staring retrospectively at the candle, 'if it hadn't +been for - not that I went to do it, for it was accidental, I am +sure - if it hadn't been for me; now would she, Britain?' + +'Certainly not,' returned Mr. Britain, by this time in that high +state of appreciation of his pipe, when a man can open his mouth +but a very little way for speaking purposes; and sitting +luxuriously immovable in his chair, can afford to turn only his +eyes towards a companion, and that very passively and gravely. +'Oh! I'm greatly beholden to you, you know, Clem.' + +'Lor, how nice that is to think of!' said Clemency. + +At the same time, bringing her thoughts as well as her sight to +bear upon the candle-grease, and becoming abruptly reminiscent of +its healing qualities as a balsam, she anointed her left elbow with +a plentiful application of that remedy. + +'You see I've made a good many investigations of one sort and +another in my time,' pursued Mr. Britain, with the profundity of a +sage, 'having been always of an inquiring turn of mind; and I've +read a good many books about the general Rights of things and +Wrongs of things, for I went into the literary line myself, when I +began life.' + +'Did you though!' cried the admiring Clemency. + +'Yes,' said Mr. Britain: 'I was hid for the best part of two years +behind a bookstall, ready to fly out if anybody pocketed a volume; +and after that, I was light porter to a stay and mantua maker, in +which capacity I was employed to carry about, in oilskin baskets, +nothing but deceptions - which soured my spirits and disturbed my +confidence in human nature; and after that, I heard a world of +discussions in this house, which soured my spirits fresh; and my +opinion after all is, that, as a safe and comfortable sweetener of +the same, and as a pleasant guide through life, there's nothing +like a nutmeg-grater.' + +Clemency was about to offer a suggestion, but he stopped her by +anticipating it. + +'Com-bined,' he added gravely, 'with a thimble.' + +'Do as you wold, you know, and cetrer, eh!' observed Clemency, +folding her arms comfortably in her delight at this avowal, and +patting her elbows. 'Such a short cut, an't it?' + +'I'm not sure,' said Mr. Britain, 'that it's what would be +considered good philosophy. I've my doubts about that; but it +wears well, and saves a quantity of snarling, which the genuine +article don't always.' + +'See how you used to go on once, yourself, you know!' said +Clemency. + +'Ah!' said Mr. Britain. 'But the most extraordinary thing, Clemmy, +is that I should live to be brought round, through you. That's the +strange part of it. Through you! Why, I suppose you haven't so +much as half an idea in your head.' + +Clemency, without taking the least offence, shook it, and laughed +and hugged herself, and said, 'No, she didn't suppose she had.' + +'I'm pretty sure of it,' said Mr. Britain. + +'Oh! I dare say you're right,' said Clemency. 'I don't pretend to +none. I don't want any.' + +Benjamin took his pipe from his lips, and laughed till the tears +ran down his face. 'What a natural you are, Clemmy!' he said, +shaking his head, with an infinite relish of the joke, and wiping +his eyes. Clemency, without the smallest inclination to dispute +it, did the like, and laughed as heartily as he. + +'I can't help liking you,' said Mr. Britain; 'you're a regular good +creature in your way, so shake hands, Clem. Whatever happens, I'll +always take notice of you, and be a friend to you.' + +'Will you?' returned Clemency. 'Well! that's very good of you.' + +'Yes, yes,' said Mr. Britain, giving her his pipe to knock the +ashes out of it; 'I'll stand by you. Hark! That's a curious +noise!' + +'Noise!' repeated Clemency. + +'A footstep outside. Somebody dropping from the wall, it sounded +like,' said Britain. 'Are they all abed up-stairs?' + +'Yes, all abed by this time,' she replied. + +'Didn't you hear anything?' + +'No.' + +They both listened, but heard nothing. + +'I tell you what,' said Benjamin, taking down a lantern. 'I'll +have a look round, before I go to bed myself, for satisfaction's +sake. Undo the door while I light this, Clemmy.' + +Clemency complied briskly; but observed as she did so, that he +would only have his walk for his pains, that it was all his fancy, +and so forth. Mr. Britain said 'very likely;' but sallied out, +nevertheless, armed with the poker, and casting the light of the +lantern far and near in all directions. + +'It's as quiet as a churchyard,' said Clemency, looking after him; +'and almost as ghostly too!' + +Glancing back into the kitchen, she cried fearfully, as a light +figure stole into her view, 'What's that!' + +'Hush!' said Marion in an agitated whisper. 'You have always loved +me, have you not!' + +'Loved you, child! You may be sure I have.' + +'I am sure. And I may trust you, may I not? There is no one else +just now, in whom I CAN trust.' + +'Yes,' said Clemency, with all her heart. + +'There is some one out there,' pointing to the door, 'whom I must +see, and speak with, to-night. Michael Warden, for God's sake +retire! Not now!' + +Clemency started with surprise and trouble as, following the +direction of the speaker's eyes, she saw a dark figure standing in +the doorway. + +'In another moment you may be discovered,' said Marion. 'Not now! +Wait, if you can, in some concealment. I will come presently.' + +He waved his hand to her, and was gone. 'Don't go to bed. Wait +here for me!' said Marion, hurriedly. 'I have been seeking to +speak to you for an hour past. Oh, be true to me!' + +Eagerly seizing her bewildered hand, and pressing it with both her +own to her breast - an action more expressive, in its passion of +entreaty, than the most eloquent appeal in words, - Marion +withdrew; as the light of the returning lantern flashed into the +room. + +'All still and peaceable. Nobody there. Fancy, I suppose,' said +Mr. Britain, as he locked and barred the door. 'One of the effects +of having a lively imagination. Halloa! Why, what's the matter?' + +Clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her surprise and +concern, was sitting in a chair: pale, and trembling from head to +foot. + +'Matter!' she repeated, chafing her hands and elbows, nervously, +and looking anywhere but at him. 'That's good in you, Britain, +that is! After going and frightening one out of one's life with +noises and lanterns, and I don't know what all. Matter! Oh, yes!' + +'If you're frightened out of your life by a lantern, Clemmy,' said +Mr. Britain, composedly blowing it out and hanging it up again, +'that apparition's very soon got rid of. But you're as bold as +brass in general,' he said, stopping to observe her; 'and were, +after the noise and the lantern too. What have you taken into your +head? Not an idea, eh?' + +But, as Clemency bade him good night very much after her usual +fashion, and began to bustle about with a show of going to bed +herself immediately, Little Britain, after giving utterance to the +original remark that it was impossible to account for a woman's +whims, bade her good night in return, and taking up his candle +strolled drowsily away to bed. + +When all was quiet, Marion returned. + +'Open the door,' she said; 'and stand there close beside me, while +I speak to him, outside.' + +Timid as her manner was, it still evinced a resolute and settled +purpose, such as Clemency could not resist. She softly unbarred +the door: but before turning the key, looked round on the young +creature waiting to issue forth when she should open it. + +The face was not averted or cast down, but looking full upon her, +in its pride of youth and beauty. Some simple sense of the +slightness of the barrier that interposed itself between the happy +home and honoured love of the fair girl, and what might be the +desolation of that home, and shipwreck of its dearest treasure, +smote so keenly on the tender heart of Clemency, and so filled it +to overflowing with sorrow and compassion, that, bursting into +tears, she threw her arms round Marion's neck. + +'It's little that I know, my dear,' cried Clemency, 'very little; +but I know that this should not be. Think of what you do!' + +'I have thought of it many times,' said Marion, gently. + +'Once more,' urged Clemency. 'Till to-morrow.' Marion shook her +head. + +'For Mr. Alfred's sake,' said Clemency, with homely earnestness. +'Him that you used to love so dearly, once!' + +She hid her face, upon the instant, in her hands, repeating 'Once!' +as if it rent her heart. + +'Let me go out,' said Clemency, soothing her. 'I'll tell him what +you like. Don't cross the door-step to-night. I'm sure no good +will come of it. Oh, it was an unhappy day when Mr. Warden was +ever brought here! Think of your good father, darling - of your +sister.' + +'I have,' said Marion, hastily raising her head. 'You don't know +what I do. I MUST speak to him. You are the best and truest +friend in all the world for what you have said to me, but I must +take this step. Will you go with me, Clemency,' she kissed her on +her friendly face, 'or shall I go alone?' + +Sorrowing and wondering, Clemency turned the key, and opened the +door. Into the dark and doubtful night that lay beyond the +threshold, Marion passed quickly, holding by her hand. + +In the dark night he joined her, and they spoke together earnestly +and long; and the hand that held so fast by Clemeney's, now +trembled, now turned deadly cold, now clasped and closed on hers, +in the strong feeling of the speech it emphasised unconsciously. +When they returned, he followed to the door, and pausing there a +moment, seized the other hand, and pressed it to his lips. Then, +stealthily withdrew. + +The door was barred and locked again, and once again she stood +beneath her father's roof. Not bowed down by the secret that she +brought there, though so young; but, with that same expression on +her face for which I had no name before, and shining through her +tears. + +Again she thanked and thanked her humble friend, and trusted to +her, as she said, with confidence, implicitly. Her chamber safely +reached, she fell upon her knees; and with her secret weighing on +her heart, could pray! + +Could rise up from her prayers, so tranquil and serene, and bending +over her fond sister in her slumber, look upon her face and smile - +though sadly: murmuring as she kissed her forehead, how that Grace +had been a mother to her, ever, and she loved her as a child! + +Could draw the passive arm about her neck when lying down to rest - +it seemed to cling there, of its own will, protectingly and +tenderly even in sleep - and breathe upon the parted lips, God +bless her! + +Could sink into a peaceful sleep, herself; but for one dream, in +which she cried out, in her innocent and touching voice, that she +was quite alone, and they had all forgotten her. + +A month soon passes, even at its tardiest pace. The month +appointed to elapse between that night and the return, was quick of +foot, and went by, like a vapour. + +The day arrived. A raging winter day, that shook the old house, +sometimes, as if it shivered in the blast. A day to make home +doubly home. To give the chimney-corner new delights. To shed a +ruddier glow upon the faces gathered round the hearth, and draw +each fireside group into a closer and more social league, against +the roaring elements without. Such a wild winter day as best +prepares the way for shut-out night; for curtained rooms, and +cheerful looks; for music, laughter, dancing, light, and jovial +entertainment! + +All these the Doctor had in store to welcome Alfred back. They +knew that he could not arrive till night; and they would make the +night air ring, he said, as he approached. All his old friends +should congregate about him. He should not miss a face that he had +known and liked. No! They should every one be there! + +So, guests were bidden, and musicians were engaged, and tables +spread, and floors prepared for active feet, and bountiful +provision made, of every hospitable kind. Because it was the +Christmas season, and his eyes were all unused to English holly and +its sturdy green, the dancing-room was garlanded and hung with it; +and the red berries gleamed an English welcome to him, peeping from +among the leaves. + +It was a busy day for all of them: a busier day for none of them +than Grace, who noiselessly presided everywhere, and was the +cheerful mind of all the preparations. Many a time that day (as +well as many a time within the fleeting month preceding it), did +Clemency glance anxiously, and almost fearfully, at Marion. She +saw her paler, perhaps, than usual; but there was a sweet composure +on her face that made it lovelier than ever. + +At night when she was dressed, and wore upon her head a wreath that +Grace had proudly twined about it - its mimic flowers were Alfred's +favourites, as Grace remembered when she chose them - that old +expression, pensive, almost sorrowful, and yet so spiritual, high, +and stirring, sat again upon her brow, enhanced a hundred-fold. + +'The next wreath I adjust on this fair head, will be a marriage +wreath,' said Grace; 'or I am no true prophet, dear.' + +Her sister smiled, and held her in her arms. + +'A moment, Grace. Don't leave me yet. Are you sure that I want +nothing more?' + +Her care was not for that. It was her sister's face she thought +of, and her eyes were fixed upon it, tenderly. + +'My art,' said Grace, 'can go no farther, dear girl; nor your +beauty. I never saw you look so beautiful as now.' + +'I never was so happy,' she returned. + +'Ay, but there is a greater happiness in store. In such another +home, as cheerful and as bright as this looks now,' said Grace, +'Alfred and his young wife will soon be living.' + +She smiled again. 'It is a happy home, Grace, in your fancy. I +can see it in your eyes. I know it WILL be happy, dear. How glad +I am to know it.' + +'Well,' cried the Doctor, bustling in. 'Here we are, all ready for +Alfred, eh? He can't be here until pretty late - an hour or so +before midnight - so there'll be plenty of time for making merry +before he comes. He'll not find us with the ice unbroken. Pile up +the fire here, Britain! Let it shine upon the holly till it winks +again. It's a world of nonsense, Puss; true lovers and all the +rest of it - all nonsense; but we'll be nonsensical with the rest +of 'em, and give our true lover a mad welcome. Upon my word!' said +the old Doctor, looking at his daughters proudly, 'I'm not clear +to-night, among other absurdities, but that I'm the father of two +handsome girls.' + +'All that one of them has ever done, or may do - may do, dearest +father - to cause you pain or grief, forgive her,' said Marion, +'forgive her now, when her heart is full. Say that you forgive +her. That you will forgive her. That she shall always share your +love, and -,' and the rest was not said, for her face was hidden on +the old man's shoulder. + +'Tut, tut, tut,' said the Doctor gently. 'Forgive! What have I to +forgive? Heyday, if our true lovers come back to flurry us like +this, we must hold 'em at a distance; we must send expresses out to +stop 'em short upon the road, and bring 'em on a mile or two a day, +until we're properly prepared to meet 'em. Kiss me, Puss. +Forgive! Why, what a silly child you are! If you had vexed and +crossed me fifty times a day, instead of not at all, I'd forgive +you everything, but such a supplication. Kiss me again, Puss. +There! Prospective and retrospective - a clear score between us. +Pile up the fire here! Would you freeze the people on this bleak +December night! Let us be light, and warm, and merry, or I'll not +forgive some of you!' + +So gaily the old Doctor carried it! And the fire was piled up, and +the lights were bright, and company arrived, and a murmuring of +lively tongues began, and already there was a pleasant air of +cheerful excitement stirring through all the house. + +More and more company came flocking in. Bright eyes sparkled upon +Marion; smiling lips gave her joy of his return; sage mothers +fanned themselves, and hoped she mightn't be too youthful and +inconstant for the quiet round of home; impetuous fathers fell into +disgrace for too much exaltation of her beauty; daughters envied +her; sons envied him; innumerable pairs of lovers profited by the +occasion; all were interested, animated, and expectant. + +Mr. and Mrs. Craggs came arm in arm, but Mrs. Snitchey came alone. +'Why, what's become of HIM?' inquired the Doctor. + +The feather of a Bird of Paradise in Mrs. Snitchey's turban, +trembled as if the Bird of Paradise were alive again, when she said +that doubtless Mr. Craggs knew. SHE was never told. + +'That nasty office,' said Mrs. Craggs. + +'I wish it was burnt down,' said Mrs. Snitchey. + +'He's - he's - there's a little matter of business that keeps my +partner rather late,' said Mr. Craggs, looking uneasily about him. + +'Oh-h! Business. Don't tell me!' said Mrs. Snitchey. + +'WE know what business means,' said Mrs. Craggs. + +But their not knowing what it meant, was perhaps the reason why +Mrs. Snitchey's Bird of Paradise feather quivered so portentously, +and why all the pendant bits on Mrs. Craggs's ear-rings shook like +little bells. + +'I wonder YOU could come away, Mr. Craggs,' said his wife. + +'Mr. Craggs is fortunate, I'm sure!' said Mrs. Snitchey. + +'That office so engrosses 'em,' said Mrs. Craggs. + +'A person with an office has no business to be married at all,' +said Mrs. Snitchey. + +Then, Mrs. Snitchey said, within herself, that that look of hers +had pierced to Craggs's soul, and he knew it; and Mrs. Craggs +observed to Craggs, that 'his Snitcheys' were deceiving him behind +his back, and he would find it out when it was too late. + +Still, Mr. Craggs, without much heeding these remarks, looked +uneasily about until his eye rested on Grace, to whom he +immediately presented himself. + +'Good evening, ma'am,' said Craggs. 'You look charmingly. Your - +Miss - your sister, Miss Marion, is she - ' + +'Oh, she's quite well, Mr. Craggs.' + +'Yes - I - is she here?' asked Craggs. + +'Here! Don't you see her yonder? Going to dance?' said Grace. + +Mr. Craggs put on his spectacles to see the better; looked at her +through them, for some time; coughed; and put them, with an air of +satisfaction, in their sheath again, and in his pocket. + +Now the music struck up, and the dance commenced. The bright fire +crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it joined the dance +itself, in right good fellowship. Sometimes, it roared as if it +would make music too. Sometimes, it flashed and beamed as if it +were the eye of the old room: it winked too, sometimes, like a +knowing patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in corners. +Sometimes, it sported with the holly-boughs; and, shining on the +leaves by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the +cold winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. Sometimes its +genial humour grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds; and then it +cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a loud burst, a +shower of harmless little sparks, and in its exultation leaped and +bounded, like a mad thing, up the broad old chimney. + +Another dance was near its close, when Mr. Snitchey touched his +partner, who was looking on, upon the arm. + +Mr. Craggs started, as if his familiar had been a spectre. + +'Is he gone?' he asked. + +'Hush! He has been with me,' said Snitchey, 'for three hours and +more. He went over everything. He looked into all our +arrangements for him, and was very particular indeed. He - Humph!' + +The dance was finished. Marion passed close before him, as he +spoke. She did not observe him, or his partner; but, looked over +her shoulder towards her sister in the distance, as she slowly made +her way into the crowd, and passed out of their view. + +'You see! All safe and well,' said Mr. Craggs. 'He didn't recur +to that subject, I suppose?' + +'Not a word.' + +'And is he really gone? Is he safe away?' + +'He keeps to his word. He drops down the river with the tide in +that shell of a boat of his, and so goes out to sea on this dark +night! - a dare-devil he is - before the wind. There's no such +lonely road anywhere else. That's one thing. The tide flows, he +says, an hour before midnight - about this time. I'm glad it's +over.' Mr. Snitchey wiped his forehead, which looked hot and +anxious. + +'What do you think,' said Mr. Craggs, 'about - ' + +'Hush!' replied his cautious partner, looking straight before him. +'I understand you. Don't mention names, and don't let us, seem to +be talking secrets. I don't know what to think; and to tell you +the truth, I don't care now. It's a great relief. His self-love +deceived him, I suppose. Perhaps the young lady coquetted a +little. The evidence would seem to point that way. Alfred not +arrived?' + +'Not yet,' said Mr. Craggs. 'Expected every minute.' + +'Good.' Mr. Snitchey wiped his forehead again. 'It's a great +relief. I haven't been so nervous since we've been in partnership. +I intend to spend the evening now, Mr. Craggs.' + +Mrs. Craggs and Mrs. Snitchey joined them as he announced this +intention. The Bird of Paradise was in a state of extreme +vibration, and the little bells were ringing quite audibly. + +'It has been the theme of general comment, Mr. Snitchey,' said Mrs. +Snitchey. 'I hope the office is satisfied.' + +'Satisfied with what, my dear?' asked Mr. Snitchey. + +'With the exposure of a defenceless woman to ridicule and remark,' +returned his wife. 'That is quite in the way of the office, THAT +is.' + +'I really, myself,' said Mrs. Craggs, 'have been so long accustomed +to connect the office with everything opposed to domesticity, that +I am glad to know it as the avowed enemy of my peace. There is +something honest in that, at all events.' + +'My dear,' urged Mr. Craggs, 'your good opinion is invaluable, but +I never avowed that the office was the enemy of your peace.' + +'No,' said Mrs. Craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon the little +bells. 'Not you, indeed. You wouldn't be worthy of the office, if +you had the candour to.' + +'As to my having been away to-night, my dear,' said Mr. Snitchey, +giving her his arm, 'the deprivation has been mine, I'm sure; but, +as Mr. Craggs knows - ' + +Mrs. Snitchey cut this reference very short by hitching her husband +to a distance, and asking him to look at that man. To do her the +favour to look at him! + +'At which man, my dear?' said Mr. Snitchey. + +'Your chosen companion; I'M no companion to you, Mr. Snitchey.' + +'Yes, yes, you are, my dear,' he interposed. + +'No, no, I'm not,' said Mrs. Snitchey with a majestic smile. 'I +know my station. Will you look at your chosen companion, Mr. +Snitchey; at your referee, at the keeper of your secrets, at the +man you trust; at your other self, in short?' + +The habitual association of Self with Craggs, occasioned Mr. +Snitchey to look in that direction. + +'If you can look that man in the eye this night,' said Mrs. +Snitchey, 'and not know that you are deluded, practised upon, made +the victim of his arts, and bent down prostrate to his will by some +unaccountable fascination which it is impossible to explain and +against which no warning of mine is of the least avail, all I can +say is - I pity you!' + +At the very same moment Mrs. Craggs was oracular on the cross +subject. Was it possible, she said, that Craggs could so blind +himself to his Snitcheys, as not to feel his true position? Did he +mean to say that he had seen his Snitcheys come into that room, and +didn't plainly see that there was reservation, cunning, treachery, +in the man? Would he tell her that his very action, when he wiped +his forehead and looked so stealthily about him, didn't show that +there was something weighing on the conscience of his precious +Snitcheys (if he had a conscience), that wouldn't bear the light? +Did anybody but his Snitcheys come to festive entertainments like a +burglar? - which, by the way, was hardly a clear illustration of +the case, as he had walked in very mildly at the door. And would +he still assert to her at noon-day (it being nearly midnight), that +his Snitcheys were to be justified through thick and thin, against +all facts, and reason, and experience? + +Neither Snitchey nor Craggs openly attempted to stem the current +which had thus set in, but, both were content to be carried gently +along it, until its force abated. This happened at about the same +time as a general movement for a country dance; when Mr. Snitchey +proposed himself as a partner to Mrs. Craggs, and Mr. Craggs +gallantly offered himself to Mrs. Snitchey; and after some such +slight evasions as 'why don't you ask somebody else?' and 'you'll +be glad, I know, if I decline,' and 'I wonder you can dance out of +the office' (but this jocosely now), each lady graciously accepted, +and took her place. + +It was an old custom among them, indeed, to do so, and to pair off, +in like manner, at dinners and suppers; for they were excellent +friends, and on a footing of easy familiarity. Perhaps the false +Craggs and the wicked Snitchey were a recognised fiction with the +two wives, as Doe and Roe, incessantly running up and down +bailiwicks, were with the two husbands: or, perhaps the ladies had +instituted, and taken upon themselves, these two shares in the +business, rather than be left out of it altogether. But, certain +it is, that each wife went as gravely and steadily to work in her +vocation as her husband did in his, and would have considered it +almost impossible for the Firm to maintain a successful and +respectable existence, without her laudable exertions. + +But, now, the Bird of Paradise was seen to flutter down the middle; +and the little bells began to bounce and jingle in poussette; and +the Doctor's rosy face spun round and round, like an expressive +pegtop highly varnished; and breathless Mr. Craggs began to doubt +already, whether country dancing had been made 'too easy,' like the +rest of life; and Mr. Snitchey, with his nimble cuts and capers, +footed it for Self and Craggs, and half-a-dozen more. + +Now, too, the fire took fresh courage, favoured by the lively wind +the dance awakened, and burnt clear and high. It was the Genius of +the room, and present everywhere. It shone in people's eyes, it +sparkled in the jewels on the snowy necks of girls, it twinkled at +their ears as if it whispered to them slyly, it flashed about their +waists, it flickered on the ground and made it rosy for their feet, +it bloomed upon the ceiling that its glow might set off their +bright faces, and it kindled up a general illumination in Mrs. +Craggs's little belfry. + +Now, too, the lively air that fanned it, grew less gentle as the +music quickened and the dance proceeded with new spirit; and a +breeze arose that made the leaves and berries dance upon the wall, +as they had often done upon the trees; and the breeze rustled in +the room as if an invisible company of fairies, treading in the +foot-steps of the good substantial revellers, were whirling after +them. Now, too, no feature of the Doctor's face could be +distinguished as he spun and spun; and now there seemed a dozen +Birds of Paradise in fitful flight; and now there were a thousand +little bells at work; and now a fleet of flying skirts was ruffled +by a little tempest, when the music gave in, and the dance was +over. + +Hot and breathless as the Doctor was, it only made him the more +impatient for Alfred's coming. + +'Anything been seen, Britain? Anything been heard?' + +'Too dark to see far, sir. Too much noise inside the house to +hear.' + +'That's right! The gayer welcome for him. How goes the time?' + +'Just twelve, sir. He can't be long, sir.' + +'Stir up the fire, and throw another log upon it,' said the Doctor. +'Let him see his welcome blazing out upon the night - good boy! - +as he comes along!' + +He saw it - Yes! From the chaise he caught the light, as he turned +the corner by the old church. He knew the room from which it +shone. He saw the wintry branches of the old trees between the +light and him. He knew that one of those trees rustled musically +in the summer time at the window of Marion's chamber. + +The tears were in his eyes. His heart throbbed so violently that +he could hardly bear his happiness. How often he had thought of +this time - pictured it under all circumstances - feared that it +might never come - yearned, and wearied for it - far away! + +Again the light! Distinct and ruddy; kindled, he knew, to give him +welcome, and to speed him home. He beckoned with his hand, and +waved his hat, and cheered out, loud, as if the light were they, +and they could see and hear him, as he dashed towards them through +the mud and mire, triumphantly. + +Stop! He knew the Doctor, and understood what he had done. He +would not let it be a surprise to them. But he could make it one, +yet, by going forward on foot. If the orchard-gate were open, he +could enter there; if not, the wall was easily climbed, as he knew +of old; and he would be among them in an instant. + +He dismounted from the chaise, and telling the driver - even that +was not easy in his agitation - to remain behind for a few minutes, +and then to follow slowly, ran on with exceeding swiftness, tried +the gate, scaled the wall, jumped down on the other side, and stood +panting in the old orchard. + +There was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the faint light +of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller branches like dead +garlands. Withered leaves crackled and snapped beneath his feet, +as he crept softly on towards the house. The desolation of a +winter night sat brooding on the earth, and in the sky. But, the +red light came cheerily towards him from the windows; figures +passed and repassed there; and the hum and murmur of voices greeted +his ear sweetly. + +Listening for hers: attempting, as he crept on, to detach it from +the rest, and half believing that he heard it: he had nearly +reached the door, when it was abruptly opened, and a figure coming +out encountered his. It instantly recoiled with a half-suppressed +cry. + +'Clemency,' he said, 'don't you know me?' + +'Don't come in!' she answered, pushing him back. 'Go away. Don't +ask me why. Don't come in.' + +'What is the matter?' he exclaimed. + +'I don't know. I - I am afraid to think. Go back. Hark!' + +There was a sudden tumult in the house. She put her hands upon her +ears. A wild scream, such as no hands could shut out, was heard; +and Grace - distraction in her looks and manner - rushed out at the +door. + +'Grace!' He caught her in his arms. 'What is it! Is she dead!' + +She disengaged herself, as if to recognise his face, and fell down +at his feet. + +A crowd of figures came about them from the house. Among them was +her father, with a paper in his hand. + +'What is it!' cried Alfred, grasping his hair with his hands, and +looking in an agony from face to face, as he bent upon his knee +beside the insensible girl. 'Will no one look at me? Will no one +speak to me? Does no one know me? Is there no voice among you +all, to tell me what it is!' + +There was a murmur among them. 'She is gone.' + +'Gone!' he echoed. + +'Fled, my dear Alfred!' said the Doctor, in a broken voice, and +with his hands before his face. 'Gone from her home and us. To- +night! She writes that she has made her innocent and blameless +choice - entreats that we will forgive her - prays that we will not +forget her - and is gone.' + +'With whom? Where?' + +He started up, as if to follow in pursuit; but, when they gave way +to let him pass, looked wildly round upon them, staggered back, and +sunk down in his former attitude, clasping one of Grace's cold +hands in his own. + +There was a hurried running to and fro, confusion, noise, disorder, +and no purpose. Some proceeded to disperse themselves about the +roads, and some took horse, and some got lights, and some conversed +together, urging that there was no trace or track to follow. Some +approached him kindly, with the view of offering consolation; some +admonished him that Grace must be removed into the house, and that +he prevented it. He never heard them, and he never moved. + +The snow fell fast and thick. He looked up for a moment in the +air, and thought that those white ashes strewn upon his hopes and +misery, were suited to them well. He looked round on the whitening +ground, and thought how Marion's foot-prints would be hushed and +covered up, as soon as made, and even that remembrance of her +blotted out. But he never felt the weather and he never stirred. + + + +CHAPTER III - Part The Third + + + +THE world had grown six years older since that night of the return. +It was a warm autumn afternoon, and there had been heavy rain. The +sun burst suddenly from among the clouds; and the old battle- +ground, sparkling brilliantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one +green place, flashed a responsive welcome there, which spread along +the country side as if a joyful beacon had been lighted up, and +answered from a thousand stations. + +How beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and that +luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence, +brightening everything! The wood, a sombre mass before, revealed +its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red: its different forms +of trees, with raindrops glittering on their leaves and twinkling +as they fell. The verdant meadow-land, bright and glowing, seemed +as if it had been blind, a minute since, and now had found a sense +of sight where-with to look up at the shining sky. Corn-fields, +hedge-rows, fences, homesteads, and clustered roofs, the steeple of +the church, the stream, the water-mill, all sprang out of the +gloomy darkness smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers raised their +drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigorated ground; the +blue expanse above extended and diffused itself; already the sun's +slanting rays pierced mortally the sullen bank of cloud that +lingered in its flight; and a rainbow, spirit of all the colours +that adorned the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with its +triumphant glory. + +At such a time, one little roadside Inn, snugly sheltered behind a +great elm-tree with a rare seat for idlers encircling its capacious +bole, addressed a cheerful front towards the traveller, as a house +of entertainment ought, and tempted him with many mute but +significant assurances of a comfortable welcome. The ruddy sign- +board perched up in the tree, with its golden letters winking in +the sun, ogled the passer-by, from among the green leaves, like a +jolly face, and promised good cheer. The horse-trough, full of +clear fresh water, and the ground below it sprinkled with droppings +of fragrant hay, made every horse that passed, prick up his ears. +The crimson curtains in the lower rooms, and the pure white +hangings in the little bed-chambers above, beckoned, Come in! with +every breath of air. Upon the bright green shutters, there were +golden legends about beer and ale, and neat wines, and good beds; +and an affecting picture of a brown jug frothing over at the top. +Upon the window-sills were flowering plants in bright red pots, +which made a lively show against the white front of the house; and +in the darkness of the doorway there were streaks of light, which +glanced off from the surfaces of bottles and tankards. + +On the door-step, appeared a proper figure of a landlord, too; for, +though he was a short man, he was round and broad, and stood with +his hands in his pockets, and his legs just wide enough apart to +express a mind at rest upon the subject of the cellar, and an easy +confidence - too calm and virtuous to become a swagger - in the +general resources of the Inn. The superabundant moisture, +trickling from everything after the late rain, set him off well. +Nothing near him was thirsty. Certain top-heavy dahlias, looking +over the palings of his neat well-ordered garden, had swilled as +much as they could carry - perhaps a trifle more - and may have +been the worse for liquor; but the sweet-briar, roses, wall- +flowers, the plants at the windows, and the leaves on the old tree, +were in the beaming state of moderate company that had taken no +more than was wholesome for them, and had served to develop their +best qualities. Sprinkling dewy drops about them on the ground, +they seemed profuse of innocent and sparkling mirth, that did good +where it lighted, softening neglected corners which the steady rain +could seldom reach, and hurting nothing. + +This village Inn had assumed, on being established, an uncommon +sign. It was called The Nutmeg-Grater. And underneath that +household word, was inscribed, up in the tree, on the same flaming +board, and in the like golden characters, By Benjamin Britain. + +At a second glance, and on a more minute examination of his face, +you might have known that it was no other than Benjamin Britain +himself who stood in the doorway - reasonably changed by time, but +for the better; a very comfortable host indeed. + +'Mrs. B.,' said Mr. Britain, looking down the road, 'is rather +late. It's tea-time.' + +As there was no Mrs. Britain coming, he strolled leisurely out into +the road and looked up at the house, very much to his satisfaction. +'It's just the sort of house,' said Benjamin, 'I should wish to +stop at, if I didn't keep it.' + +Then, he strolled towards the garden-paling, and took a look at the +dahlias. They looked over at him, with a helpless drowsy hanging +of their heads: which bobbed again, as the heavy drops of wet +dripped off them. + +'You must be looked after,' said Benjamin. 'Memorandum, not to +forget to tell her so. She's a long time coming!' + +Mr. Britain's better half seemed to be by so very much his better +half, that his own moiety of himself was utterly cast away and +helpless without her. + +'She hadn't much to do, I think,' said Ben. 'There were a few +little matters of business after market, but not many. Oh! here we +are at last!' + +A chaise-cart, driven by a boy, came clattering along the road: +and seated in it, in a chair, with a large well-saturated umbrella +spread out to dry behind her, was the plump figure of a matronly +woman, with her bare arms folded across a basket which she carried +on her knee, several other baskets and parcels lying crowded around +her, and a certain bright good nature in her face and contented +awkwardness in her manner, as she jogged to and fro with the motion +of her carriage, which smacked of old times, even in the distance. +Upon her nearer approach, this relish of by-gone days was not +diminished; and when the cart stopped at the Nutmeg-Grater door, a +pair of shoes, alighting from it, slipped nimbly through Mr. +Britain's open arms, and came down with a substantial weight upon +the pathway, which shoes could hardly have belonged to any one but +Clemency Newcome. + +In fact they did belong to her, and she stood in them, and a rosy +comfortable-looking soul she was: with as much soap on her glossy +face as in times of yore, but with whole elbows now, that had grown +quite dimpled in her improved condition. + +'You're late, Clemmy!' said Mr. Britain. + +'Why, you see, Ben, I've had a deal to do!' she replied, looking +busily after the safe removal into the house of all the packages +and baskets: 'eight, nine, ten - where's eleven? Oh! my basket's +eleven! It's all right. Put the horse up, Harry, and if he coughs +again give him a warm mash to-night. Eight, nine, ten. Why, +where's eleven? Oh! forgot, it's all right. How's the children, +Ben?' + +'Hearty, Clemmy, hearty.' + +'Bless their precious faces!' said Mrs. Britain, unbonneting her +own round countenance (for she and her husband were by this time in +the bar), and smoothing her hair with her open hands. 'Give us a +kiss, old man!' + +Mr. Britain promptly complied. + +'I think,' said Mrs. Britain, applying herself to her pockets and +drawing forth an immense bulk of thin books and crumpled papers: a +very kennel of dogs'-ears: 'I've done everything. Bills all +settled - turnips sold - brewer's account looked into and paid - +'bacco pipes ordered - seventeen pound four, paid into the Bank - +Doctor Heathfield's charge for little Clem - you'll guess what that +is - Doctor Heathfield won't take nothing again, Ben.' + +'I thought he wouldn't,' returned Ben. + +'No. He says whatever family you was to have, Ben, he'd never put +you to the cost of a halfpenny. Not if you was to have twenty.' + +Mr. Britain's face assumed a serious expression, and he looked hard +at the wall. + +'An't it kind of him?' said Clemency. + +'Very,' returned Mr. Britain. 'It's the sort of kindness that I +wouldn't presume upon, on any account.' + +'No,' retorted Clemency. 'Of course not. Then there's the pony - +he fetched eight pound two; and that an't bad, is it?' + +'It's very good,' said Ben. + +'I'm glad you're pleased!' exclaimed his wife. 'I thought you +would be; and I think that's all, and so no more at present from +yours and cetrer, C. Britain. Ha ha ha! There! Take all the +papers, and lock 'em up. Oh! Wait a minute. Here's a printed +bill to stick on the wall. Wet from the printer's. How nice it +smells!' + +'What's this?' said Ben, looking over the document. + +'I don't know,' replied his wife. 'I haven't read a word of it.' + +'"To be sold by Auction,"' read the host of the Nutmeg-Grater, +'"unless previously disposed of by private contract."' + +'They always put that,' said Clemency. + +'Yes, but they don't always put this,' he returned. 'Look here, +"Mansion," &c. - "offices," &c., "shrubberies," &c., "ring fence," +&c. "Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs," &c., "ornamental portion of the +unencumbered freehold property of Michael Warden, Esquire, +intending to continue to reside abroad"!' + +'Intending to continue to reside abroad!' repeated Clemency. + +'Here it is,' said Britain. 'Look!' + +'And it was only this very day that I heard it whispered at the old +house, that better and plainer news had been half promised of her, +soon!' said Clemency, shaking her head sorrowfully, and patting her +elbows as if the recollection of old times unconsciously awakened +her old habits. 'Dear, dear, dear! There'll be heavy hearts, Ben, +yonder.' + +Mr. Britain heaved a sigh, and shook his head, and said he couldn't +make it out: he had left off trying long ago. With that remark, +he applied himself to putting up the bill just inside the bar +window. Clemency, after meditating in silence for a few moments, +roused herself, cleared her thoughtful brow, and bustled off to +look after the children. + +Though the host of the Nutmeg-Grater had a lively regard for his +good-wife, it was of the old patronising kind, and she amused him +mightily. Nothing would have astonished him so much, as to have +known for certain from any third party, that it was she who managed +the whole house, and made him, by her plain straightforward thrift, +good-humour, honesty, and industry, a thriving man. So easy it is, +in any degree of life (as the world very often finds it), to take +those cheerful natures that never assert their merit, at their own +modest valuation; and to conceive a flippant liking of people for +their outward oddities and eccentricities, whose innate worth, if +we would look so far, might make us blush in the comparison! + +It was comfortable to Mr. Britain, to think of his own +condescension in having married Clemency. She was a perpetual +testimony to him of the goodness of his heart, and the kindness of +his disposition; and he felt that her being an excellent wife was +an illustration of the old precept that virtue is its own reward. + +He had finished wafering up the bill, and had locked the vouchers +for her day's proceedings in the cupboard - chuckling all the time, +over her capacity for business - when, returning with the news that +the two Master Britains were playing in the coach-house under the +superintendence of one Betsey, and that little Clem was sleeping +'like a picture,' she sat down to tea, which had awaited her +arrival, on a little table. It was a very neat little bar, with +the usual display of bottles and glasses; a sedate clock, right to +the minute (it was half-past five); everything in its place, and +everything furbished and polished up to the very utmost. + +'It's the first time I've sat down quietly to-day, I declare,' said +Mrs. Britain, taking a long breath, as if she had sat down for the +night; but getting up again immediately to hand her husband his +tea, and cut him his bread-and-butter; 'how that bill does set me +thinking of old times!' + +'Ah!' said Mr. Britain, handling his saucer like an oyster, and +disposing of its contents on the same principle. + +'That same Mr. Michael Warden,' said Clemency, shaking her head at +the notice of sale, 'lost me my old place.' + +'And got you your husband,' said Mr. Britain. + +'Well! So he did,' retorted Clemency, 'and many thanks to him.' + +'Man's the creature of habit,' said Mr. Britain, surveying her, +over his saucer. 'I had somehow got used to you, Clem; and I found +I shouldn't be able to get on without you. So we went and got made +man and wife. Ha! ha! We! Who'd have thought it!' + +'Who indeed!' cried Clemency. 'It was very good of you, Ben.' + +'No, no, no,' replied Mr. Britain, with an air of self-denial. +'Nothing worth mentioning.' + +'Oh yes it was, Ben,' said his wife, with great simplicity; 'I'm +sure I think so, and am very much obliged to you. Ah!' looking +again at the bill; 'when she was known to be gone, and out of +reach, dear girl, I couldn't help telling - for her sake quite as +much as theirs - what I knew, could I?' + +'You told it, anyhow,' observed her husband. + +'And Dr. Jeddler,' pursued Clemency, putting down her tea-cup, and +looking thoughtfully at the bill, 'in his grief and passion turned +me out of house and home! I never have been so glad of anything in +all my life, as that I didn't say an angry word to him, and hadn't +any angry feeling towards him, even then; for he repented that +truly, afterwards. How often he has sat in this room, and told me +over and over again he was sorry for it! - the last time, only +yesterday, when you were out. How often he has sat in this room, +and talked to me, hour after hour, about one thing and another, in +which he made believe to be interested! - but only for the sake of +the days that are gone by, and because he knows she used to like +me, Ben!' + +'Why, how did you ever come to catch a glimpse of that, Clem?' +asked her husband: astonished that she should have a distinct +perception of a truth which had only dimly suggested itself to his +inquiring mind. + +'I don't know, I'm sure,' said Clemency, blowing her tea, to cool +it. 'Bless you, I couldn't tell you, if you was to offer me a +reward of a hundred pound.' + +He might have pursued this metaphysical subject but for her +catching a glimpse of a substantial fact behind him, in the shape +of a gentleman attired in mourning, and cloaked and booted like a +rider on horseback, who stood at the bar-door. He seemed attentive +to their conversation, and not at all impatient to interrupt it. + +Clemency hastily rose at this sight. Mr. Britain also rose and +saluted the guest. 'Will you please to walk up-stairs, sir? +There's a very nice room up-stairs, sir.' + +'Thank you,' said the stranger, looking earnestly at Mr. Britain's +wife. 'May I come in here?' + +'Oh, surely, if you like, sir,' returned Clemency, admitting him. + +'What would you please to want, sir?' + +The bill had caught his eye, and he was reading it. + +'Excellent property that, sir,' observed Mr. Britain. + +He made no answer; but, turning round, when he had finished +reading, looked at Clemency with the same observant curiosity as +before. 'You were asking me,' - he said, still looking at her, - +'What you would please to take, sir,' answered Clemency, stealing a +glance at him in return. + +'If you will let me have a draught of ale,' he said, moving to a +table by the window, 'and will let me have it here, without being +any interruption to your meal, I shall be much obliged to you.' He +sat down as he spoke, without any further parley, and looked out at +the prospect. He was an easy, well-knit figure of a man in the +prime of life. His face, much browned by the sun, was shaded by a +quantity of dark hair; and he wore a moustache. His beer being set +before him, he filled out a glass, and drank, good-humouredly, to +the house; adding, as he put the tumbler down again: + +'It's a new house, is it not?' + +'Not particularly new, sir,' replied Mr. Britain. + +'Between five and six years old,' said Clemency; speaking very +distinctly. + +'I think I heard you mention Dr. Jeddler's name, as I came in,' +inquired the stranger. 'That bill reminds me of him; for I happen +to know something of that story, by hearsay, and through certain +connexions of mine. - Is the old man living?' + +'Yes, he's living, sir,' said Clemency. + +'Much changed?' + +'Since when, sir?' returned Clemency, with remarkable emphasis and +expression. + +'Since his daughter - went away.' + +'Yes! he's greatly changed since then,' said Clemency. 'He's grey +and old, and hasn't the same way with him at all; but, I think he's +happy now. He has taken on with his sister since then, and goes to +see her very often. That did him good, directly. At first, he was +sadly broken down; and it was enough to make one's heart bleed, to +see him wandering about, railing at the world; but a great change +for the better came over him after a year or two, and then he began +to like to talk about his lost daughter, and to praise her, ay and +the world too! and was never tired of saying, with the tears in his +poor eyes, how beautiful and good she was. He had forgiven her +then. That was about the same time as Miss Grace's marriage. +Britain, you remember?' + +Mr. Britain remembered very well. + +'The sister is married then,' returned the stranger. He paused for +some time before he asked, 'To whom?' + +Clemency narrowly escaped oversetting the tea-board, in her emotion +at this question. + +'Did YOU never hear?' she said. + +'I should like to hear,' he replied, as he filled his glass again, +and raised it to his lips. + +'Ah! It would be a long story, if it was properly told,' said +Clemency, resting her chin on the palm of her left hand, and +supporting that elbow on her right hand, as she shook her head, and +looked back through the intervening years, as if she were looking +at a fire. 'It would be a long story, I am sure.' + +'But told as a short one,' suggested the stranger. + +Told as a short one,' repeated Clemency in the same thoughtful +tone, and without any apparent reference to him, or consciousness +of having auditors, 'what would there be to tell? That they +grieved together, and remembered her together, like a person dead; +that they were so tender of her, never would reproach her, called +her back to one another as she used to be, and found excuses for +her! Every one knows that. I'm sure I do. No one better,' added +Clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand. + +'And so,' suggested the stranger. + +'And so,' said Clemency, taking him up mechanically, and without +any change in her attitude or manner, 'they at last were married. +They were married on her birth-day - it comes round again to-morrow +- very quiet, very humble like, but very happy. Mr. Alfred said, +one night when they were walking in the orchard, "Grace, shall our +wedding-day be Marion's birth-day?" And it was.' + +'And they have lived happily together?' said the stranger. + +'Ay,' said Clemency. 'No two people ever more so. They have had +no sorrow but this.' + +She raised her head as with a sudden attention to the circumstances +under which she was recalling these events, and looked quickly at +the stranger. Seeing that his face was turned toward the window, +and that he seemed intent upon the prospect, she made some eager +signs to her husband, and pointed to the bill, and moved her mouth +as if she were repeating with great energy, one word or phrase to +him over and over again. As she uttered no sound, and as her dumb +motions like most of her gestures were of a very extraordinary +kind, this unintelligible conduct reduced Mr. Britain to the +confines of despair. He stared at the table, at the stranger, at +the spoons, at his wife - followed her pantomime with looks of deep +amazement and perplexity - asked in the same language, was it +property in danger, was it he in danger, was it she - answered her +signals with other signals expressive of the deepest distress and +confusion - followed the motions of her lips - guessed half aloud +'milk and water,' 'monthly warning,' 'mice and walnuts' - and +couldn't approach her meaning. + +Clemency gave it up at last, as a hopeless attempt; and moving her +chair by very slow degrees a little nearer to the stranger, sat +with her eyes apparently cast down but glancing sharply at him now +and then, waiting until he should ask some other question. She had +not to wait long; for he said, presently: + +'And what is the after history of the young lady who went away? +They know it, I suppose?' + +Clemency shook her head. 'I've heard,' she said, 'that Doctor +Jeddler is thought to know more of it than he tells. Miss Grace +has had letters from her sister, saying that she was well and +happy, and made much happier by her being married to Mr. Alfred: +and has written letters back. But there's a mystery about her life +and fortunes, altogether, which nothing has cleared up to this +hour, and which - ' + +She faltered here, and stopped. + +'And which' - repeated the stranger. + +'Which only one other person, I believe, could explain,' said +Clemency, drawing her breath quickly. + +'Who may that be?' asked the stranger. + +'Mr. Michael Warden!' answered Clemency, almost in a shriek: at +once conveying to her husband what she would have had him +understand before, and letting Michael Warden know that he was +recognised. + +'You remember me, sir?' said Clemency, trembling with emotion; 'I +saw just now you did! You remember me, that night in the garden. +I was with her!' + +'Yes. You were,' he said. + +'Yes, sir,' returned Clemency. 'Yes, to be sure. This is my +husband, if you please. Ben, my dear Ben, run to Miss Grace - run +to Mr. Alfred - run somewhere, Ben! Bring somebody here, +directly!' + +'Stay!' said Michael Warden, quietly interposing himself between +the door and Britain. 'What would you do?' + +'Let them know that you are here, sir,' answered Clemency, clapping +her hands in sheer agitation. 'Let them know that they may hear of +her, from your own lips; let them know that she is not quite lost +to them, but that she will come home again yet, to bless her father +and her loving sister - even her old servant, even me,' she struck +herself upon the breast with both hands, 'with a sight of her sweet +face. Run, Ben, run!' And still she pressed him on towards the +door, and still Mr. Warden stood before it, with his hand stretched +out, not angrily, but sorrowfully. + +'Or perhaps,' said Clemency, running past her husband, and catching +in her emotion at Mr. Warden's cloak, 'perhaps she's here now; +perhaps she's close by. I think from your manner she is. Let me +see her, sir, if you please. I waited on her when she was a little +child. I saw her grow to be the pride of all this place. I knew +her when she was Mr. Alfred's promised wife. I tried to warn her +when you tempted her away. I know what her old home was when she +was like the soul of it, and how it changed when she was gone and +lost. Let me speak to her, if you please!' + +He gazed at her with compassion, not unmixed with wonder: but, he +made no gesture of assent. + +'I don't think she CAN know,' pursued Clemency, 'how truly they +forgive her; how they love her; what joy it would be to them, to +see her once more. She may be timorous of going home. Perhaps if +she sees me, it may give her new heart. Only tell me truly, Mr. +Warden, is she with you?' + +'She is not,' he answered, shaking his head. + +This answer, and his manner, and his black dress, and his coming +back so quietly, and his announced intention of continuing to live +abroad, explained it all. Marion was dead. + +He didn't contradict her; yes, she was dead! Clemency sat down, +hid her face upon the table, and cried. + +At that moment, a grey-headed old gentleman came running in: quite +out of breath, and panting so much that his voice was scarcely to +be recognised as the voice of Mr. Snitchey. + +'Good Heaven, Mr. Warden!' said the lawyer, taking him aside, 'what +wind has blown - ' He was so blown himself, that he couldn't get +on any further until after a pause, when he added, feebly, 'you +here?' + +'An ill-wind, I am afraid,' he answered. 'If you could have heard +what has just passed - how I have been besought and entreated to +perform impossibilities - what confusion and affliction I carry +with me!' + +'I can guess it all. But why did you ever come here, my good sir?' +retorted Snitchey. + +'Come! How should I know who kept the house? When I sent my +servant on to you, I strolled in here because the place was new to +me; and I had a natural curiosity in everything new and old, in +these old scenes; and it was outside the town. I wanted to +communicate with you, first, before appearing there. I wanted to +know what people would say to me. I see by your manner that you +can tell me. If it were not for your confounded caution, I should +have been possessed of everything long ago.' + +'Our caution!' returned the lawyer, 'speaking for Self and Craggs - +deceased,' here Mr. Snitchey, glancing at his hat-band, shook his +head, 'how can you reasonably blame us, Mr. Warden? It was +understood between us that the subject was never to be renewed, and +that it wasn't a subject on which grave and sober men like us (I +made a note of your observations at the time) could interfere. Our +caution too! When Mr. Craggs, sir, went down to his respected +grave in the full belief - ' + +'I had given a solemn promise of silence until I should return, +whenever that might be,' interrupted Mr. Warden; 'and I have kept +it.' + +'Well, sir, and I repeat it,' returned Mr. Snitchey, 'we were bound +to silence too. We were bound to silence in our duty towards +ourselves, and in our duty towards a variety of clients, you among +them, who were as close as wax. It was not our place to make +inquiries of you on such a delicate subject. I had my suspicions, +sir; but, it is not six months since I have known the truth, and +been assured that you lost her.' + +'By whom?' inquired his client. + +'By Doctor Jeddler himself, sir, who at last reposed that +confidence in me voluntarily. He, and only he, has known the whole +truth, years and years.' + +'And you know it?' said his client. + +'I do, sir!' replied Snitchey; 'and I have also reason to know that +it will be broken to her sister to-morrow evening. They have given +her that promise. In the meantime, perhaps you'll give me the +honour of your company at my house; being unexpected at your own. +But, not to run the chance of any more such difficulties as you +have had here, in case you should be recognised - though you're a +good deal changed; I think I might have passed you myself, Mr. +Warden - we had better dine here, and walk on in the evening. It's +a very good place to dine at, Mr. Warden: your own property, by- +the-bye. Self and Craggs (deceased) took a chop here sometimes, +and had it very comfortably served. Mr. Craggs, sir,' said +Snitchey, shutting his eyes tight for an instant, and opening them +again, 'was struck off the roll of life too soon.' + +'Heaven forgive me for not condoling with you,' returned Michael +Warden, passing his hand across his forehead, 'but I'm like a man +in a dream at present. I seem to want my wits. Mr. Craggs - yes - +I am very sorry we have lost Mr. Craggs.' But he looked at +Clemency as he said it, and seemed to sympathise with Ben, +consoling her. + +'Mr. Craggs, sir,' observed Snitchey, 'didn't find life, I regret +to say, as easy to have and to hold as his theory made it out, or +he would have been among us now. It's a great loss to me. He was +my right arm, my right leg, my right ear, my right eye, was Mr. +Craggs. I am paralytic without him. He bequeathed his share of +the business to Mrs. Craggs, her executors, administrators, and +assigns. His name remains in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a +childish sort of a way, to make believe, sometimes, he's alive. +You may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs - deceased, sir - +deceased,' said the tender-hearted attorney, waving his pocket- +handkerchief. + +Michael Warden, who had still been observant of Clemency, turned to +Mr. Snitchey when he ceased to speak, and whispered in his ear. + +'Ah, poor thing!' said Snitchey, shaking his head. 'Yes. She was +always very faithful to Marion. She was always very fond of her. +Pretty Marion! Poor Marion! Cheer up, Mistress - you are married +now, you know, Clemency.' + +Clemency only sighed, and shook her head. + +'Well, well! Wait till to-morrow,' said the lawyer, kindly. + +'To-morrow can't bring back' the dead to life, Mister,' said +Clemency, sobbing. + +'No. It can't do that, or it would bring back Mr. Craggs, +deceased,' returned the lawyer. 'But it may bring some soothing +circumstances; it may bring some comfort. Wait till to-morrow!' + +So Clemency, shaking his proffered hand, said she would; and +Britain, who had been terribly cast down at sight of his despondent +wife (which was like the business hanging its head), said that was +right; and Mr. Snitchey and Michael Warden went up-stairs; and +there they were soon engaged in a conversation so cautiously +conducted, that no murmur of it was audible above the clatter of +plates and dishes, the hissing of the frying-pan, the bubbling of +saucepans, the low monotonous waltzing of the jack - with a +dreadful click every now and then as if it had met with some mortal +accident to its head, in a fit of giddiness - and all the other +preparations in the kitchen for their dinner. + + +To-morrow was a bright and peaceful day; and nowhere were the +autumn tints more beautifully seen, than from the quiet orchard of +the Doctor's house. The snows of many winter nights had melted +from that ground, the withered leaves of many summer times had +rustled there, since she had fled. The honey-suckle porch was +green again, the trees cast bountiful and changing shadows on the +grass, the landscape was as tranquil and serene as it had ever +been; but where was she! + +Not there. Not there. She would have been a stranger sight in her +old home now, even than that home had been at first, without her. +But, a lady sat in the familiar place, from whose heart she had +never passed away; in whose true memory she lived, unchanging, +youthful, radiant with all promise and all hope; in whose affection +- and it was a mother's now, there was a cherished little daughter +playing by her side - she had no rival, no successor; upon whose +gentle lips her name was trembling then. + +The spirit of the lost girl looked out of those eyes. Those eyes +of Grace, her sister, sitting with her husband in the orchard, on +their wedding-day, and his and Marion's birth-day. + +He had not become a great man; he had not grown rich; he had not +forgotten the scenes and friends of his youth; he had not fulfilled +any one of the Doctor's old predictions. But, in his useful, +patient, unknown visiting of poor men's homes; and in his watching +of sick beds; and in his daily knowledge of the gentleness and +goodness flowering the by-paths of this world, not to be trodden +down beneath the heavy foot of poverty, but springing up, elastic, +in its track, and making its way beautiful; he had better learned +and proved, in each succeeding year, the truth of his old faith. +The manner of his life, though quiet and remote, had shown him how +often men still entertained angels, unawares, as in the olden time; +and how the most unlikely forms - even some that were mean and ugly +to the view, and poorly clad - became irradiated by the couch of +sorrow, want, and pain, and changed to ministering spirits with a +glory round their heads. + +He lived to better purpose on the altered battle-ground, perhaps, +than if he had contended restlessly in more ambitious lists; and he +was happy with his wife, dear Grace. + +And Marion. Had HE forgotten her? + +'The time has flown, dear Grace,' he said, 'since then;' they had +been talking of that night; 'and yet it seems a long long while +ago. We count by changes and events within us. Not by years.' + +'Yet we have years to count by, too, since Marion was with us,' +returned Grace. 'Six times, dear husband, counting to-night as +one, we have sat here on her birth-day, and spoken together of that +happy return, so eagerly expected and so long deferred. Ah when +will it be! When will it be!' + +Her husband attentively observed her, as the tears collected in her +eyes; and drawing nearer, said: + +'But, Marion told you, in that farewell letter which she left for +you upon your table, love, and which you read so often, that years +must pass away before it COULD be. Did she not?' + +She took a letter from her breast, and kissed it, and said 'Yes.' + +'That through these intervening years, however happy she might be, +she would look forward to the time when you would meet again, and +all would be made clear; and that she prayed you, trustfully and +hopefully to do the same. The letter runs so, does it not, my +dear?' + +'Yes, Alfred.' + +'And every other letter she has written since?' + +'Except the last - some months ago - in which she spoke of you, and +what you then knew, and what I was to learn to-night.' + +He looked towards the sun, then fast declining, and said that the +appointed time was sunset. + +'Alfred!' said Grace, laying her hand upon his shoulder earnestly, +'there is something in this letter - this old letter, which you say +I read so often - that I have never told you. But, to-night, dear +husband, with that sunset drawing near, and all our life seeming to +soften and become hushed with the departing day, I cannot keep it +secret.' + +'What is it, love?' + +'When Marion went away, she wrote me, here, that you had once left +her a sacred trust to me, and that now she left you, Alfred, such a +trust in my hands: praying and beseeching me, as I loved her, and +as I loved you, not to reject the affection she believed (she knew, +she said) you would transfer to me when the new wound was healed, +but to encourage and return it.' + +' - And make me a proud, and happy man again, Grace. Did she say +so?' + +'She meant, to make myself so blest and honoured in your love,' was +his wife's answer, as he held her in his arms. + +'Hear me, my dear!' he said. - 'No. Hear me so!' - and as he +spoke, he gently laid the head she had raised, again upon his +shoulder. 'I know why I have never heard this passage in the +letter, until now. I know why no trace of it ever showed itself in +any word or look of yours at that time. I know why Grace, although +so true a friend to me, was hard to win to be my wife. And knowing +it, my own! I know the priceless value of the heart I gird within +my arms, and thank GOD for the rich possession!' + +She wept, but not for sorrow, as he pressed her to his heart. +After a brief space, he looked down at the child, who was sitting +at their feet playing with a little basket of flowers, and bade her +look how golden and how red the sun was. + +'Alfred,' said Grace, raising her head quickly at these words. +'The sun is going down. You have not forgotten what I am to know +before it sets.' + +'You are to know the truth of Marion's history, my love,' he +answered. + +'All the truth,' she said, imploringly. 'Nothing veiled from me, +any more. That was the promise. Was it not?' + +'It was,' he answered. + +'Before the sun went down on Marion's birth-day. And you see it, +Alfred? It is sinking fast.' + +He put his arm about her waist, and, looking steadily into her +eyes, rejoined: + +'That truth is not reserved so long for me to tell, dear Grace. It +is to come from other lips.' + +'From other lips!' she faintly echoed. + +'Yes. I know your constant heart, I know how brave you are, I know +that to you a word of preparation is enough. You have said, truly, +that the time is come. It is. Tell me that you have present +fortitude to bear a trial - a surprise - a shock: and the +messenger is waiting at the gate.' + +'What messenger?' she said. 'And what intelligence does he bring?' + +'I am pledged,' he answered her, preserving his steady look, 'to +say no more. Do you think you understand me?' + +'I am afraid to think,' she said. + +There was that emotion in his face, despite its steady gaze, which +frightened her. Again she hid her own face on his shoulder, +trembling, and entreated him to pause - a moment. + +'Courage, my wife! When you have firmness to receive the +messenger, the messenger is waiting at the gate. The sun is +setting on Marion's birth-day. Courage, courage, Grace!' + +She raised her head, and, looking at him, told him she was ready. +As she stood, and looked upon him going away, her face was so like +Marion's as it had been in her later days at home, that it was +wonderful to see. He took the child with him. She called her back +- she bore the lost girl's name - and pressed her to her bosom. +The little creature, being released again, sped after him, and +Grace was left alone. + +She knew not what she dreaded, or what hoped; but remained there, +motionless, looking at the porch by which they had disappeared. + +Ah! what was that, emerging from its shadow; standing on its +threshold! That figure, with its white garments rustling in the +evening air; its head laid down upon her father's breast, and +pressed against it to his loving heart! O God! was it a vision +that came bursting from the old man's arms, and with a cry, and +with a waving of its hands, and with a wild precipitation of itself +upon her in its boundless love, sank down in her embrace! + +'Oh, Marion, Marion! Oh, my sister! Oh, my heart's dear love! +Oh, joy and happiness unutterable, so to meet again!' + +It was no dream, no phantom conjured up by hope and fear, but +Marion, sweet Marion! So beautiful, so happy, so unalloyed by care +and trial, so elevated and exalted in her loveliness, that as the +setting sun shone brightly on her upturned face, she might have +been a spirit visiting the earth upon some healing mission. + +Clinging to her sister, who had dropped upon a seat and bent down +over her - and smiling through her tears - and kneeling, close +before her, with both arms twining round her, and never turning for +an instant from her face - and with the glory of the setting sun +upon her brow, and with the soft tranquillity of evening gathering +around them - Marion at length broke silence; her voice, so calm, +low, clear, and pleasant, well-tuned to the time. + +'When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now again - ' + +'Stay, my sweet love! A moment! O Marion, to hear you speak +again.' + +She could not bear the voice she loved so well, at first. + +'When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now again, I +loved him from my soul. I loved him most devotedly. I would have +died for him, though I was so young. I never slighted his +affection in my secret breast for one brief instant. It was far +beyond all price to me. Although it is so long ago, and past, and +gone, and everything is wholly changed, I could not bear to think +that you, who love so well, should think I did not truly love him +once. I never loved him better, Grace, than when he left this very +scene upon this very day. I never loved him better, dear one, than +I did that night when I left here.' + +Her sister, bending over her, could look into her face, and hold +her fast. + +'But he had gained, unconsciously,' said Marion, with a gentle +smile, 'another heart, before I knew that I had one to give him. +That heart - yours, my sister! - was so yielded up, in all its +other tenderness, to me; was so devoted, and so noble; that it +plucked its love away, and kept its secret from all eyes but mine - +Ah! what other eyes were quickened by such tenderness and +gratitude! - and was content to sacrifice itself to me. But, I +knew something of its depths. I knew the struggle it had made. I +knew its high, inestimable worth to him, and his appreciation of +it, let him love me as he would. I knew the debt I owed it. I had +its great example every day before me. What you had done for me, I +knew that I could do, Grace, if I would, for you. I never laid my +head down on my pillow, but I prayed with tears to do it. I never +laid my head down on my pillow, but I thought of Alfred's own words +on the day of his departure, and how truly he had said (for I knew +that, knowing you) that there were victories gained every day, in +struggling hearts, to which these fields of battle were nothing. +Thinking more and more upon the great endurance cheerfully +sustained, and never known or cared for, that there must be, every +day and hour, in that great strife of which he spoke, my trial +seemed to grow light and easy. And He who knows our hearts, my +dearest, at this moment, and who knows there is no drop of +bitterness or grief - of anything but unmixed happiness - in mine, +enabled me to make the resolution that I never would be Alfred's +wife. That he should be my brother, and your husband, if the +course I took could bring that happy end to pass; but that I never +would (Grace, I then loved him dearly, dearly!) be his wife!' + +'O Marion! O Marion!' + +'I had tried to seem indifferent to him;' and she pressed her +sister's face against her own; 'but that was hard, and you were +always his true advocate. I had tried to tell you of my +resolution, but you would never hear me; you would never understand +me. The time was drawing near for his return. I felt that I must +act, before the daily intercourse between us was renewed. I knew +that one great pang, undergone at that time, would save a +lengthened agony to all of us. I knew that if I went away then, +that end must follow which HAS followed, and which has made us both +so happy, Grace! I wrote to good Aunt Martha, for a refuge in her +house: I did not then tell her all, but something of my story, and +she freely promised it. While I was contesting that step with +myself, and with my love of you, and home, Mr. Warden, brought here +by an accident, became, for some time, our companion.' + +'I have sometimes feared of late years, that this might have been,' +exclaimed her sister; and her countenance was ashy-pale. 'You +never loved him - and you married him in your self-sacrifice to +me!' + +'He was then,' said Marion, drawing her sister closer to her, 'on +the eve of going secretly away for a long time. He wrote to me, +after leaving here; told me what his condition and prospects really +were; and offered me his hand. He told me he had seen I was not +happy in the prospect of Alfred's return. I believe he thought my +heart had no part in that contract; perhaps thought I might have +loved him once, and did not then; perhaps thought that when I tried +to seem indifferent, I tried to hide indifference - I cannot tell. +But I wished that you should feel me wholly lost to Alfred - +hopeless to him - dead. Do you understand me, love?' + +Her sister looked into her face, attentively. She seemed in doubt. + +'I saw Mr. Warden, and confided in his honour; charged him with my +secret, on the eve of his and my departure. He kept it. Do you +understand me, dear?' + +Grace looked confusedly upon her. She scarcely seemed to hear. + +'My love, my sister!' said Marion, 'recall your thoughts a moment; +listen to me. Do not look so strangely on me. There are +countries, dearest, where those who would abjure a misplaced +passion, or would strive, against some cherished feeling of their +hearts and conquer it, retire into a hopeless solitude, and close +the world against themselves and worldly loves and hopes for ever. +When women do so, they assume that name which is so dear to you and +me, and call each other Sisters. But, there may be sisters, Grace, +who, in the broad world out of doors, and underneath its free sky, +and in its crowded places, and among its busy life, and trying to +assist and cheer it and to do some good, - learn the same lesson; +and who, with hearts still fresh and young, and open to all +happiness and means of happiness, can say the battle is long past, +the victory long won. And such a one am I! You understand me +now?' + +Still she looked fixedly upon her, and made no reply. + +'Oh Grace, dear Grace,' said Marion, clinging yet more tenderly and +fondly to that breast from which she had been so long exiled, 'if +you were not a happy wife and mother - if I had no little namesake +here - if Alfred, my kind brother, were not your own fond husband - +from whence could I derive the ecstasy I feel to-night! But, as I +left here, so I have returned. My heart has known no other love, +my hand has never been bestowed apart from it. I am still your +maiden sister, unmarried, unbetrothed: your own loving old Marion, +in whose affection you exist alone and have no partner, Grace!' + +She understood her now. Her face relaxed: sobs came to her +relief; and falling on her neck, she wept and wept, and fondled her +as if she were a child again. + +When they were more composed, they found that the Doctor, and his +sister good Aunt Martha, were standing near at hand, with Alfred. + +'This is a weary day for me,' said good Aunt Martha, smiling +through her tears, as she embraced her nieces; 'for I lose my dear +companion in making you all happy; and what can you give me, in +return for my Marion?' + +'A converted brother,' said the Doctor. + +'That's something, to be sure,' retorted Aunt Martha, 'in such a +farce as - ' + +'No, pray don't,' said the doctor penitently. + +'Well, I won't,' replied Aunt Martha. 'But, I consider myself ill +used. I don't know what's to become of me without my Marion, after +we have lived together half-a-dozen years.' + +'You must come and live here, I suppose,' replied the Doctor. 'We +shan't quarrel now, Martha.' + +'Or you must get married, Aunt,' said Alfred. + +'Indeed,' returned the old lady, 'I think it might be a good +speculation if I were to set my cap at Michael Warden, who, I hear, +is come home much the better for his absence in all respects. But +as I knew him when he was a boy, and I was not a very young woman +then, perhaps he mightn't respond. So I'll make up my mind to go +and live with Marion, when she marries, and until then (it will not +be very long, I dare say) to live alone. What do YOU say, +Brother?' + +'I've a great mind to say it's a ridiculous world altogether, and +there's nothing serious in it,' observed the poor old Doctor. + +'You might take twenty affidavits of it if you chose, Anthony,' +said his sister; 'but nobody would believe you with such eyes as +those.' + +'It's a world full of hearts,' said the Doctor, hugging his +youngest daughter, and bending across her to hug Grace - for he +couldn't separate the sisters; 'and a serious world, with all its +folly - even with mine, which was enough to have swamped the whole +globe; and it is a world on which the sun never rises, but it looks +upon a thousand bloodless battles that are some set-off against the +miseries and wickedness of Battle-Fields; and it is a world we need +be careful how we libel, Heaven forgive us, for it is a world of +sacred mysteries, and its Creator only knows what lies beneath the +surface of His lightest image!' + + +You would not be the better pleased with my rude pen, if it +dissected and laid open to your view the transports of this family, +long severed and now reunited. Therefore, I will not follow the +poor Doctor through his humbled recollection of the sorrow he had +had, when Marion was lost to him; nor, will I tell how serious he +had found that world to be, in which some love, deep-anchored, is +the portion of all human creatures; nor, how such a trifle as the +absence of one little unit in the great absurd account, had +stricken him to the ground. Nor, how, in compassion for his +distress, his sister had, long ago, revealed the truth to him by +slow degrees, and brought him to the knowledge of the heart of his +self-banished daughter, and to that daughter's side. + +Nor, how Alfred Heathfield had been told the truth, too, in the +course of that then current year; and Marion had seen him, and had +promised him, as her brother, that on her birth-day, in the +evening, Grace should know it from her lips at last. + +'I beg your pardon, Doctor,' said Mr. Snitchey, looking into the +orchard, 'but have I liberty to come in?' + +Without waiting for permission, he came straight to Marion, and +kissed her hand, quite joyfully. + +'If Mr. Craggs had been alive, my dear Miss Marion,' said Mr. +Snitchey, 'he would have had great interest in this occasion. It +might have suggested to him, Mr. Alfred, that our life is not too +easy perhaps: that, taken altogether, it will bear any little +smoothing we can give it; but Mr. Craggs was a man who could endure +to be convinced, sir. He was always open to conviction. If he +were open to conviction, now, I - this is weakness. Mrs. Snitchey, +my dear,' - at his summons that lady appeared from behind the door, +'you are among old friends.' + +Mrs. Snitchey having delivered her congratulations, took her +husband aside. + +'One moment, Mr. Snitchey,' said that lady. 'It is not in my +nature to rake up the ashes of the departed.' + +'No, my dear,' returned her husband. + +'Mr. Craggs is - ' + +'Yes, my dear, he is deceased,' said Snitchey. + +'But I ask you if you recollect,' pursued his wife, 'that evening +of the ball? I only ask you that. If you do; and if your memory +has not entirely failed you, Mr. Snitchey; and if you are not +absolutely in your dotage; I ask you to connect this time with that +- to remember how I begged and prayed you, on my knees - ' + +'Upon your knees, my dear?' said Mr. Snitchey. + +'Yes,' said Mrs. Snitchey, confidently, 'and you know it - to +beware of that man - to observe his eye - and now to tell me +whether I was right, and whether at that moment he knew secrets +which he didn't choose to tell.' + +'Mrs. Snitchey,' returned her husband, in her ear, 'Madam. Did you +ever observe anything in MY eye?' + +'No,' said Mrs. Snitchey, sharply. 'Don't flatter yourself.' + +'Because, Madam, that night,' he continued, twitching her by the +sleeve, 'it happens that we both knew secrets which we didn't +choose to tell, and both knew just the same professionally. And so +the less you say about such things the better, Mrs. Snitchey; and +take this as a warning to have wiser and more charitable eyes +another time. Miss Marion, I brought a friend of yours along with +me. Here! Mistress!' + +Poor Clemency, with her apron to her eyes, came slowly in, escorted +by her husband; the latter doleful with the presentiment, that if +she abandoned herself to grief, the Nutmeg-Grater was done for. + +'Now, Mistress,' said the lawyer, checking Marion as she ran +towards her, and interposing himself between them, 'what's the +matter with YOU?' + +'The matter!' cried poor Clemency. - When, looking up in wonder, +and in indignant remonstrance, and in the added emotion of a great +roar from Mr. Britain, and seeing that sweet face so well +remembered close before her, she stared, sobbed, laughed, cried, +screamed, embraced her, held her fast, released her, fell on Mr. +Snitchey and embraced him (much to Mrs. Snitchey's indignation), +fell on the Doctor and embraced him, fell on Mr. Britain and +embraced him, and concluded by embracing herself, throwing her +apron over her head, and going into hysterics behind it. + +A stranger had come into the orchard, after Mr. Snitchey, and had +remained apart, near the gate, without being observed by any of the +group; for they had little spare attention to bestow, and that had +been monopolised by the ecstasies of Clemency. He did not appear +to wish to be observed, but stood alone, with downcast eyes; and +there was an air of dejection about him (though he was a gentleman +of a gallant appearance) which the general happiness rendered more +remarkable. + +None but the quick eyes of Aunt Martha, however, remarked him at +all; but, almost as soon as she espied him, she was in conversation +with him. Presently, going to where Marion stood with Grace and +her little namesake, she whispered something in Marion's ear, at +which she started, and appeared surprised; but soon recovering from +her confusion, she timidly approached the stranger, in Aunt +Martha's company, and engaged in conversation with him too. + +'Mr. Britain,' said the lawyer, putting his hand in his pocket, and +bringing out a legal-looking document, while this was going on, 'I +congratulate you. You are now the whole and sole proprietor of +that freehold tenement, at present occupied and held by yourself as +a licensed tavern, or house of public entertainment, and commonly +called or known by the sign of the Nutmeg-Grater. Your wife lost +one house, through my client Mr. Michael Warden; and now gains +another. I shall have the pleasure of canvassing you for the +county, one of these fine mornings.' + +'Would it make any difference in the vote if the sign was altered, +sir?' asked Britain. + +'Not in the least,' replied the lawyer. + +'Then,' said Mr. Britain, handing him back the conveyance, 'just +clap in the words, "and Thimble," will you be so good; and I'll +have the two mottoes painted up in the parlour instead of my wife's +portrait.' + +'And let me,' said a voice behind them; it was the stranger's - +Michael Warden's; 'let me claim the benefit of those inscriptions. +Mr. Heathfield and Dr. Jeddler, I might have deeply wronged you +both. That I did not, is no virtue of my own. I will not say that +I am six years wiser than I was, or better. But I have known, at +any rate, that term of self-reproach. I can urge no reason why you +should deal gently with me. I abused the hospitality of this +house; and learnt by my own demerits, with a shame I never have +forgotten, yet with some profit too, I would fain hope, from one,' +he glanced at Marion, 'to whom I made my humble supplication for +forgiveness, when I knew her merit and my deep unworthiness. In a +few days I shall quit this place for ever. I entreat your pardon. +Do as you would be done by! Forget and Forgive!' + + +TIME - from whom I had the latter portion of this story, and with +whom I have the pleasure of a personal acquaintance of some five- +and-thirty years' duration - informed me, leaning easily upon his +scythe, that Michael Warden never went away again, and never sold +his house, but opened it afresh, maintained a golden means of +hospitality, and had a wife, the pride and honour of that +countryside, whose name was Marion. But, as I have observed that +Time confuses facts occasionally, I hardly know what weight to give +to his authority. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of The Battle of Life by Charles Dickens + +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bleak House by Charles Dickens* +#33 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, Toronto, Canada +(charlie@idirect.com) + + + + + +BLEAK HOUSE + +by Charles Dickens + + + + +PREFACE + + +A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a +company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under +any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the +shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought +the judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. +There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of +progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to +the "parsimony of the public," which guilty public, it appeared, +had been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no +means enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed--I believe +by Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well. + +This seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of +this book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to +Mr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have +originated. In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt +quotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets: + +"My nature is subdued +To what it works in, like the dyer's hand: +Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!" + +But as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know +what has been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, I +mention here that everything set forth in these pages concerning +the Court of Chancery is substantially true, and within the truth. +The case of Gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual +occurrence, made public by a disinterested person who was +professionally acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong +from beginning to end. At the present moment (August, 1853) there +is a suit before the court which was commenced nearly twenty years +ago, in which from thirty to forty counsel have been known to +appear at one time, in which costs have been incurred to the amount +of seventy thousand pounds, which is A FRIENDLY SUIT, and which is +(I am assured) no nearer to its termination now than when it was +begun. There is another well-known suit in Chancery, not yet +decided, which was commenced before the close of the last century +and in which more than double the amount of seventy thousand pounds +has been swallowed up in costs. If I wanted other authorities for +Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I could rain them on these pages, to the +shame of--a parsimonious public. + +There is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark. +The possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been +denied since the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes +(quite mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have +been abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters +to me at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that +spontaneous combustion could not possibly be. I have no need to +observe that I do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers +and that before I wrote that description I took pains to +investigate the subject. There are about thirty cases on record, +of which the most famous, that of the Countess Cornelia de Baudi +Cesenate, was minutely investigated and described by Giuseppe +Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona, otherwise distinguished in +letters, who published an account of it at Verona in 1731, which he +afterwards republished at Rome. The appearances, beyond all +rational doubt, observed in that case are the appearances observed +in Mr. Krook's case. The next most famous instance happened at +Rheims six years earlier, and the historian in that case is Le Cat, +one of the most renowned surgeons produced by France. The subject +was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly convicted of having +murdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher court, he was +acquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that she had died +the death of which this name of spontaneous combustion is given. I +do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts, and that +general reference to the authorities which will be found at page +30, vol. ii.,* the recorded opinions and experiences of +distinguished medical professors, French, English, and Scotch, in +more modern days, contenting myself with observing that I shall not +abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable +spontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences +are usually received. + +In Bleak House I have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of +familiar things. + + +1853 + + +* Another case, very clearly described by a dentist, occurred at +the town of Columbus, in the United States of America, quite +recently. The subject was a German who kept a liquor-shop aud was +an inveterate drunkard. + + + +CHAPTER I + +In Chancery + + +London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor +sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As +much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from +the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a +Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine +lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, +making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as +full-grown snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for +the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, +scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, +jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill +temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of +thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding +since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits +to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points +tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. + +Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits +and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls deified among the +tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and +dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. +Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on +the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping +on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and +throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides +of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of +the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching +the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. +Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a +nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a +balloon and hanging in the misty clouds. + +Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much +as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by +husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours +before their time--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard +and unwilling look. + +The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the +muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, +appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old +corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn +Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor +in his High Court of Chancery. + +Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and +mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition +which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, +holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth. + +On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be +sitting her--as here he is--with a foggy glory round his head, +softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a +large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an +interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to +the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such +an afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery +bar ought to be--as here they are--mistily engaged in one of the +ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on +slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running +their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words +and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players +might. On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, +some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who +made a fortune by it, ought to be--as are they not?--ranged in a +line, in a long matted well (but you might look in vain for truth +at the bottom of it) between the registrar's red table and the silk +gowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, +affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters' reports, +mountains of costly nonsense, piled before them. Well may the +court be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the fog +hang heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may the +stained-glass windows lose their colour and admit no light of day +into the place; well may the uninitiated from the streets, who peep +in through the glass panes in the door, be deterred from entrance +by its owlish aspect and by the drawl, languidly echoing to the +roof from the padded dais where the Lord High Chancellor looks into +the lantern that has no light in it and where the attendant wigs +are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the Court of Chancery, which +has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, +which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in +every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod +heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round +of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means +abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, +patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the +heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners +who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer +any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!" + +Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky +afternoon besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, +two or three counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of +solicitors before mentioned? There is the registrar below the +judge, in wig and gown; and there are two or three maces, or petty- +bags, or privy purses, or whatever they may be, in legal court +suits. These are all yawning, for no crumb of amusement ever falls +from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the cause in hand), which was squeezed +dry years upon years ago. The short-hand writers, the reporters of +the court, and the reporters of the newspapers invariably decamp +with the rest of the regulars when Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. +Their places are a blank. Standing on a seat at the side of the +hall, the better to peer into the curtained sanctuary, is a little +mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is always in court, from its +sitting to its rising, and always expecting some incomprehensible +judgment to be given in her favour. Some say she really is, or +was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for certain because no one +cares. She carries some small litter in a reticule which she calls +her documents, principally consisting of paper matches and dry +lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in custody, for the half- +dozenth time to make a personal application "to purge himself of +his contempt," which, being a solitary surviving executor who has +fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts of which it is +not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is not at all +likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life are +ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from +Shropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at +the close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to +understand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence +after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself +in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out +"My Lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his +rising. A few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by +sight linger on the chance of his furnishing some fun and +enlivening the dismal weather a little. + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in +course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what +it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been +observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five +minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the +premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; +innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old +people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously +found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without +knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds +with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised +a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled +has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away +into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers +and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and +gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed +into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left +upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his +brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and +Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, +perennially hopeless. + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only +good that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it +is a joke in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a +reference out of it. Every Chancellor was "in it," for somebody or +other, when he was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said +about it by blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port- +wine committee after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in +the habit of fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord +Chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the +eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the +sky rained potatoes, he observed, "or when we get through Jarndyce +and Jarndyce, Mr. Blowers"--a pleasantry that particularly tickled +the maces, bags, and purses. + +How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched +forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very +wide question. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of +dusty warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into +many shapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks' Office +who has copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under +that eternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. +In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, +under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can +never come to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the +wretched suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. +Chizzle, Mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had +appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and +shuffle into themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver +in the cause has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has +acquired too a distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his +own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit +of vaguely promising themselves that they will look into that +outstanding little matter and see what can be done for Drizzle--who +was not well used--when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of +the office. Shirking and sharking in all their many varieties have +been sown broadcast by the ill-fated cause; and even those who have +contemplated its history from the outermost circle of such evil +have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of letting bad things +alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the +world go wrong it was in some off-hand manner never meant to go +right. + +Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the +Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. + +"Mr. Tangle," says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something +restless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman. + +"Mlud," says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and +Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it--supposed never to have +read anything else since he left school. + +"Have you nearly concluded your argument?" + +"Mlud, no--variety of points--feel it my duty tsubmit--ludship," is +the reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle. + +"Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?" says +the Chancellor with a slight smile. + +Eighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little +summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in +a pianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen +places of obscurity. + +"We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight," says the +Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, +a mere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will +come to a settlement one of these days. + +The Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought +forward in a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, "My lord!" +Maces, bags, and purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at +the man from Shropshire. + +"In reference," proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and +Jarndyce, "to the young girl--" + +"Begludship's pardon--boy," says Mr. Tangle prematurely. "In +reference," proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, "to +the young girl and boy, the two young people"--Mr. Tangle crushed-- +"whom I directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my +private room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the +expediency of making the order for their residing with their +uncle." + +Mr. Tangle on his legs again. "Begludship's pardon--dead." + +"With their"--Chancellor looking through his double eyeglass at the +papers on his desk--"grandfather." + +"Begludship's pardon--victim of rash action--brains." + +Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, +fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, "Will +your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several +times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court +in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin. + +Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing +in the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the +fog knows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see +him. + +"I will speak with both the young people," says the Chancellor +anew, "and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with +their cousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I +take my seat." + +The Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is +presented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner's +conglomeration but his being sent back to prison, which is soon +done. The man from Shropshire ventures another remonstrative "My +lord!" but the Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously +vanished. Everybody else quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue +bags is loaded with heavy charges of papers and carried off by +clerks; the little mad old woman marches off with her documents; +the empty court is locked up. If all the injustice it has +committed and all the misery it has caused could only be locked up +with it, and the whole burnt away in a great funeral pyre--why so +much the better for other parties than the parties in Jarndyce and +Jarndyce! + + + +CHAPTER II + +In Fashion + + +It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this +same miry afternoon. It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but +that we may pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow +flies. Both the world of fashion and the Court of Chancery are +things of precedent and usage: oversleeping Rip Van Winkles who +have played at strange games through a deal of thundery weather; +sleeping beauties whom the knight will wake one day, when all the +stopped spits in the kitchen shall begin to turn prodigiously! + +It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, +which has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have +made the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), +it is a very little speck. There is much good in it; there are +many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. But +the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much +jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the +larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. +It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for +want of air. + +My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days +previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to +stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. The +fashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the Parisians, +and it knows all fashionable things. To know things otherwise were +to be unfashionable. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she +calls, in familiar conversation, her "place" in Lincolnshire. The +waters are out in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park +has been sapped and sopped away. The adjacent low-lying ground for +half a mile in breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees +for islands in it and a surface punctured all over, all day long, +with falling rain. My Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely +dreary. The weather for many a day and night has been so wet that +the trees seem wet through, and the soft loppings and prunings of +the woodman's axe can make no crash or crackle as they fall. The +deer, looking soaked, leave quagmires where they pass. The shot of +a rifle loses its sharpness in the moist air, and its smoke moves +in a tardy little cloud towards the green rise, coppice-topped, +that makes a background for the falling rain. The view from my +Lady Dedlock's own windows is alternately a lead-coloured view and +a view in Indian ink. The vases on the stone terrace in the +foreground catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall--drip, +drip, drip--upon the broad flagged pavement, called from old time +the Ghost's Walk, all night. On Sundays the little church in the +park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit breaks out into a cold sweat; and +there is a general smell and taste as of the ancient Dedlocks in +their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is childless), looking out in +the early twilight from her boudoir at a keeper's lodge and seeing +the light of a fire upon the latticed panes, and smoke rising from +the chimney, and a child, chased by a woman, running out into the +rain to meet the shining figure of a wrapped-up man coming through +the gate, has been put quite out of temper. My Lady Dedlock says +she has been "bored to death." + +Therefore my Lady Dedlock has come away from the place in +Lincolnshire and has left it to the rain, and the crows, and the +rabbits, and the deer, and the partridges and pheasants. The +pictures of the Dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into +the damp walls in mere lowness of spirits, as the housekeeper has +passed along the old rooms shutting up the shutters. And when they +will next come forth again, the fashionable intelligence--which, +like the fiend, is omniscient of the past and present, but not the +future--cannot yet undertake to say. + +Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier +baronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely +more respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might +get on without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks. He +would on the whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, +perhaps, when not enclosed with a park-fence), but an idea +dependent for its execution on your great county families. He is a +gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and +meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may +please to mention rather than give occasion for the least +impeachment of his integrity. He is an honourable, obstinate, +truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly +unreasonable man. + +Sir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady. +He will never see sixty-five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet +sixty-seven. He has a twist of the gout now and then and walks a +little stiffly. He is of a worthy presence, with his light-grey +hair and whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure-white waistcoat, +and his blue coat with bright buttons always buttoned. He is +ceremonious, stately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and +holds her personal attractions in the highest estimation. His +gallantry to my Lady, which has never changed since he courted her, +is the one little touch of romantic fancy in him. + +Indeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that +she had not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family +that perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more. But +she had beauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough +to portion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth and station, added +to these, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady +Dedlock has been at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and +at the top of the fashionable tree. + +How Alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer, everybody +knows--or has some reason to know by this time, the matter having +been rather frequently mentioned. My Lady Dedlock, having +conquered HER world, fell not into the melting, but rather into the +freezing, mood. An exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity, an +equanimity of fatigue not to be ruffled by interest or satisfaction, +are the trophies of her victory. She is perfectly well-bred. +If she could be translated to heaven to-morrow, she might be +expected to ascend without any rapture. + +She has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet +in its autumn. She has a fine face--originally of a character that +would be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into +classicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. +Her figure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. Not that +she is so, but that "the most is made," as the Honourable Bob +Stables has frequently asserted upon oath, "of all her points." +The same authority observes that she is perfectly got up and +remarks in commendation of her hair especially that she is the +best-groomed woman in the whole stud. + +With all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up +from her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable +intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to +her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some +weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. And at her house +in town, upon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old- +fashioned old gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the +High Court of Chancery, who has the honour of acting as legal +adviser of the Dedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his +office with that name outside as if the present baronet were the +coin of the conjuror's trick and were constantly being juggled +through the whole set. Across the hall, and up the stairs, and +along the passages, and through the rooms, which are very brilliant +in the season and very dismal out of it--fairy-land to visit, but a +desert to live in--the old gentleman is conducted by a Mercury in +powder to my Lady's presence. + +The old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to have made +good thrift out of aristocratic marriage settlements and +aristocratic wills, and to be very rich. He is surrounded by a +mysterious halo of family confidences, of which he is known to be +the silent depository. There are noble mausoleums rooted for +centuries in retired glades of parks among the growing timber and +the fern, which perhaps hold fewer noble secrets than walk abroad +among men, shut up in the breast of Mr. Tulkinghorn. He is of what +is called the old school--a phrase generally meaning any school +that seems never to have been young--and wears knee-breeches tied +with ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. One peculiarity of his +black clothes and of his black stockings, be they silk or worsted, +is that they never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive to any +glancing light, his dress is like himself. He never converses when +not professionaly consulted. He is found sometimes, speechless but +quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables in great country houses +and near doors of drawing-rooms, concerning which the fashionable +intelligence is eloquent, where everybody knows him and where half +the Peerage stops to say "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" He +receives these salutations with gravity and buries them along with +the rest of his knowledge. + +Sir Leicester Dedlock is with my Lady and is happy to see Mr. +Tulkinghorn. There is an air of prescription about him which is +always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of +tribute. He likes Mr. Tulkinghorn's dress; there is a kind of +tribute in that too. It is eminently respectable, and likewise, in +a general way, retainer-like. It expresses, as it were, the +steward of the legal mysteries, the butler of the legal cellar, of +the Dedlocks. + +Has Mr. Tulkinghorn any idea of this himself? It may be so, or it +may not, but there is this remarkable circumstance to be noted in +everything associated with my Lady Dedlock as one of a class--as +one of the leaders and representatives of her little world. She +supposes herself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach +and ken of ordinary mortals--seeing herself in her glass, where +indeed she looks so. Yet every dim little star revolving about +her, from her maid to the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her +weaknesses, prejudices, follies, haughtinesses, and caprices and +lives upon as accurate a calculation and as nice a measure of her +moral nature as her dressmaker takes of her physical proportions. +Is a new dress, a new custom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new +form of jewellery, a new dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new +anything, to be set up? There are deferential people in a dozen +callings whom my Lady Dedlock suspects of nothing but prostration +before her, who can tell you how to manage her as if she were a +baby, who do nothing but nurse her all their lives, who, humbly +affecting to follow with profound subservience, lead her and her +whole troop after them; who, in hooking one, hook all and bear them +off as Lemuel Gulliver bore away the stately fleet of the majestic +Lilliput. "If you want to address our people, sir," say Blaze and +Sparkle, the jewellers--meaning by our people Lady Dedlock and the +rest--"you must remember that you are not dealing with the general +public; you must hit our people in their weakest place, and their +weakest place is such a place." "To make this article go down, +gentlemen," say Sheen and Gloss, the mercers, to their friends the +manufacturers, "you must come to us, because we know where to have +the fashionable people, and we can make it fashionable." "If you +want to get this print upon the tables of my high connexion, sir," +says Mr. Sladdery, the librarian, "or if you want to get this dwarf +or giant into the houses of my high connexion, sir, or if you want +to secure to this entertainment the patronage of my high connexion, +sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for I have been +accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion, sir, and I +may tell you without vanity that I can turn them round my finger"-- +in which Mr. Sladdery, who is an honest man, does not exaggerate at +all. + +Therefore, while Mr. Tulkinghorn may not know what is passing in +the Dedlock mind at present, it is very possible that he may. + +"My Lady's cause has been again before the Chancellor, has it, Mr. +Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his hand. + +"Yes. It has been on again to-day," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, +making one of his quiet bows to my Lady, who is on a sofa near the +fire, shading her face with a hand-screen. + +"It would be useless to ask," says my Lady with the dreariness of +the place in Lincolnshire still upon her, "whether anything has +been done." + +"Nothing that YOU would call anything has been done to-day," +replies Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Nor ever will be," says my Lady. + +Sir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit. +It is a slow, expensive, British, constitutional kind of thing. To +be sure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question, her +part in which was the only property my Lady brought him; and he has +a shadowy impression that for his name--the name of Dedlock--to be +in a cause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most +ridiculous accident. But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if +it should involve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling +amount of confusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a +variety of other somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for +the eternal settlement (humanly speaking) of everything. And he is +upon the whole of a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his +countenance to any complaints respecting it would be to encourage +some person in the lower classes to rise up somewhere--like Wat +Tyler. + +"As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file," says Mr. +Tulkinghorn, "and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the +troublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with +any new proceedings in a cause"--cautious man Mr. Tulkinghorn, +taking no more responsibility than necessary--"and further, as I +see you are going to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket." + +(Sir Leicester was going to Paris too, by the by, but the delight +of the fashionable intelligence was in his Lady.) + +Mr. Tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them +on a golden talisman of a table at my Lady's elbow, puts on his +spectacles, and begins to read by the light of a shaded lamp. + +"'In Chancery. Between John Jarndyce--'" + +My Lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal +horrors as he can. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn glances over his spectacles and begins again lower +down. My Lady carelessly and scornfully abstracts her attention. +Sir Leicester in a great chair looks at the file and appears to +have a stately liking for the legal repetitions and prolixities as +ranging among the national bulwarks. It happens that the fire is +hot where my Lady sits and that the hand-screen is more beautiful +than useful, being priceless but small. My Lady, changing her +position, sees the papers on the table--looks at them nearer--looks +at them nearer still--asks impulsively, "Who copied that?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn stops short, surprised by my Lady's animation and +her unusual tone. + +"Is it what you people call law-hand?" she asks, looking full at +him in her careless way again and toying with her screen. + +"Not quite. Probably"--Mr. Tulkinghorn examines it as he speaks-- +"the legal character which it has was acquired after the original +hand was formed. Why do you ask?" + +"Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh, go on, do!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn reads again. The heat is greater; my Lady screens +her face. Sir Leicester dozes, starts up suddenly, and cries, "Eh? +What do you say?" + +"I say I am afraid," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who had risen hastily, +"that Lady Dedlock is ill." + +"Faint," my Lady murmurs with white lips, "only that; but it is +like the faintness of death. Don't speak to me. Ring, and take me +to my room!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn retires into another chamber; bells ring, feet +shuffle and patter, silence ensues. Mercury at last begs Mr. +Tulkinghorn to return. + +"Better now," quoth Sir Leicester, motioning the lawyer to sit down +and read to him alone. "I have been quite alarmed. I never knew +my Lady swoon before. But the weather is extremely trying, and she +really has been bored to death down at our place in Lincolnshire." + + + +CHAPTER III + +A Progress + + +I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion +of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. I +can remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say +to my doll when we were alone together, "Now, Dolly, I am not +clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a +dear!" And so she used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, +with her beautiful complexion and rosy lips, staring at me--or not +so much at me, I think, as at nothing--while I busily stitched away +and told her every one of my secrets. + +My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom +dared to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody +else. It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be +to me when I came home from school of a day to run upstairs to my +room and say, "Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be +expecting me!" and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the +elbow of her great chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we +parted. I had always rather a noticing way--not a quick way, oh, +no!--a silent way of noticing what passed before me and thinking I +should like to understand it better. I have not by any means a +quick understanding. When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it +seems to brighten. But even that may be my vanity. + +I was brought up, from my earliest remembrance--like some of the +princesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming--by my +godmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, +good woman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to +morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever +there were lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if +she had ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an +angel--but she never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She +was so very good herself, I thought, that the badness of other +people made her frown all her life. I felt so different from her, +even making every allowance for the differences between a child and +a woman; I felt so poor, so trifling, and so far off that I never +could be unrestrained with her--no, could never even love her as I +wished. It made me very sorry to consider how good she was and how +unworthy of her I was, and I used ardently to hope that I might +have a better heart; and I talked it over very often with the dear +old doll, but I never loved my godmother as I ought to have loved +her and as I felt I must have loved her if I had been a better +girl. + +This made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally +was and cast me upon Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at +ease. But something happened when I was still quite a little thing +that helped it very much. + +I had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa +either, but I felt more interested about my mama. I had never worn +a black frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my +mama's grave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never +been taught to pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more +than once approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, +our only servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another +very good woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, +"Esther, good night!" and gone away and left me. + +Although there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I +was a day boarder, and although they called me little Esther +Summerson, I knew none of them at home. All of them were older +than I, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good deal), but +there seemed to be some other separation between us besides that, +and besides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much +more than I did. One of them in the first week of my going to the +school (I remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, +to my great joy. But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining +for me, and I never went. I never went out at all. + +It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other +birthdays--none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other +birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one +another--there were none on mine. My birthday was the most +melancholy day at home in the whole year. + +I have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know +it may, for I may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed +I don't), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. My +disposition is very affectionate, and perhaps I might still feel +such a wound if such a wound could be received more than once with +the quickness of that birthday. + +Dinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table +before the fire. The clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another +sound had been heard in the room or in the house for I don't know +how long. I happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across +the table at my godmother, and I saw in her face, looking gloomily +at me, "It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had +had no birthday, that you had never been born!" + +I broke out crying and sobbing, and I said, "Oh, dear godmother, +tell me, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?" + +"No," she returned. "Ask me no more, child!" + +"Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear +godmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose +her? Why am I so different from other children, and why is it my +fault, dear godmother? No, no, no, don't go away. Oh, speak to +me!" + +I was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and I caught hold of her +dress and was kneeling to her. She had been saying all the while, +"Let me go!" But now she stood still. + +Her darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the +midst of my vehemence. I put up my trembling little hand to clasp +hers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but +withdrew it as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering +heart. She raised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before +her, said slowly in a cold, low voice--I see her knitted brow and +pointed finger--"Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you +were hers. The time will come--and soon enough--when you will +understand this better and will feel it too, as no one save a woman +can. I have forgiven her"--but her face did not relent--"the wrong +she did to me, and I say no more of it, though it was greater than +you will ever know--than any one will ever know but I, the +sufferer. For yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded +from the first of these evil anniversaries, pray daily that the +sins of others be not visited upon your head, according to what is +written. Forget your mother and leave all other people to forget +her who will do her unhappy child that greatest kindness. Now, +go!" + +She checked me, however, as I was about to depart from her--so +frozen as I was!--and added this, "Submission, self-denial, +diligent work, are the preparations for a life begun with such a +shadow on it. You are different from other children, Esther, +because you were not born, like them, in common sinfulness and +wrath. You are set apart." + +I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek +against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon +my bosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of +my sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to +anybody's heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was +to me. + +Dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together +afterwards, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my +birthday and confided to her that I would try as hard as ever I +could to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I +confessedly felt guilty and yet innocent) and would strive as I +grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do +some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could. I +hope it is not self-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. +I am very thankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help +their coming to my eyes. + +There! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly. + +I felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more +after the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her +house which ought to have been empty, that I found her more +difficult of approach, though I was fervently grateful to her in my +heart, than ever. I felt in the same way towards my school +companions; I felt in the same way towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a +widow; and oh, towards her daughter, of whom she was proud, who +came to see her once a fortnight! I was very retired and quiet, +and tried to be very diligent. + +One sunny afternoon when I had come home from school with my books +and portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as I was +gliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of +the parlour-door and called me back. Sitting with her, I found-- +which was very unusual indeed--a stranger. A portly, important- +looking gentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large +gold watch seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring +upon his little finger. + +"This," said my godmother in an undertone, "is the child." Then +she said in her naturally stern way of speaking, "This is Esther, +sir." + +The gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, "Come +here, my dear!" He shook hands with me and asked me to take off my +bonnet, looking at me all the while. When I had complied, he said, +"Ah!" and afterwards "Yes!" And then, taking off his eye-glasses +and folding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair, +turning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a +nod. Upon that, my godmother said, "You may go upstairs, Esther!" +And I made him my curtsy and left him. + +It must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen, +when one dreadful night my godmother and I sat at the fireside. I +was reading aloud, and she was listening. I had come down at nine +o'clock as I always did to read the Bible to her, and was reading +from St. John how our Saviour stooped down, writing with his finger +in the dust, when they brought the sinful woman to him. + +"'So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said +unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a +stone at her!'" + +I was stopped by my godmother's rising, putting her hand to her +head, and crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of +the book, "'Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you +sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!'" + +In an instant, while she stood before me repeating these words, she +fell down on the floor. I had no need to cry out; her voice had +sounded through the house and been heard in the street. + +She was laid upon her bed. For more than a week she lay there, +little altered outwardly, with her old handsome resolute frown that +I so well knew carved upon her face. Many and many a time, in the +day and in the night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my +whispers might be plainer to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed +for her, asked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her +to give me the least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. +Her face was immovable. To the very last, and even afterwards, her +frown remained unsoftened. + +On the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman +in black with the white neckcloth reappeared. I was sent for by +Mrs. Rachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never +gone away. + +"My name is Kenge," he said; "you may remember it, my child; Kenge +and Carboy, Lincoln's Inn." + +I replied that I remembered to have seen him once before. + +"Pray be seated--here near me. Don't distress yourself; it's of no +use. Mrs. Rachael, I needn't inform you who were acquainted with +the late Miss Barbary's affairs, that her means die with her and +that this young lady, now her aunt is dead--" + +"My aunt, sir!" + +"It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is +to be gained by it," said Mr. Kenge smoothly, "Aunt in fact, though +not in law. Don't distress yourself! Don't weep! Don't tremble! +Mrs. Rachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of--the--a-- +Jarndyce and Jarndyce." + +"Never," said Mrs. Rachael. + +"Is it possible," pursued Mr. Kenge, putting up his eye-glasses, +"that our young friend--I BEG you won't distress yourself!--never +heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce!" + +I shook my head, wondering even what it was. + +"Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?" said Mr. Kenge, looking over his +glasses at me and softly turning the case about and about as if he +were petting something. "Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits +known? Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce--the--a--in itself a monument +of Chancery practice. In which (I would say) every difficulty, +every contingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure +known in that court, is represented over and over again? It is a +cause that could not exist out of this free and great country. I +should say that the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, +Mrs. Rachael"--I was afraid he addressed himself to her because I +appeared inattentive"--amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty +to SEVEN-ty THOUSAND POUNDS!" said Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his +chair. + +I felt very ignorant, but what could I do? I was so entirely +unacquainted with the subject that I understood nothing about it +even then. + +"And she really never heard of the cause!" said Mr. Kenge. +"Surprising!" + +"Miss Barbary, sir," returned Mrs. Rachael, "who is now among the +Seraphim--" + +"I hope so, I am sure," said Mr. Kenge politely. + +"--Wished Esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. +And she knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more." + +"Well!" said Mr. Kenge. "Upon the whole, very proper. Now to the +point," addressing me. "Miss Barbary, your sole relation (in fact +that is, for I am bound to observe that in law you had none) being +deceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs. +Rachael--" + +"Oh, dear no!" said Mrs. Rachael quickly. + +"Quite so," assented Mr. Kenge; "--that Mrs. Rachael should charge +herself with your maintenance and support (I beg you won't distress +yourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer +which I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary some two years ago +and which, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable +under the lamentable circumstances that have since occurred. Now, +if I avow that I represent, in Jarndyce and Jarndyce and otherwise, +a highly humane, but at the same time singular, man, shall I +compromise myself by any stretch of my professional caution?" said +Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair again and looking calmly at us +both. + +He appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. +I couldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave +great importance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself +with obvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own +music with his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. I was +very much impressed by him--even then, before I knew that he formed +himself on the model of a great lord who was his client and that he +was generally called Conversation Kenge. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he pursued, "being aware of the--I would say, +desolate--position of our young friend, offers to place her at a +first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, +where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants +shall be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to +discharge her duty in that station of life unto which it has +pleased--shall I say Providence?--to call her." + +My heart was filled so full, both by what he said and by his +affecting manner of saying it, that I was not able to speak, though +I tried. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he went on, "makes no condition beyond expressing +his expectation that our young friend will not at any time remove +herself from the establishment in question without his knowledge +and concurrence. That she will faithfully apply herself to the +acquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which +she will be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths +of virtue and honour, and--the--a--so forth." + +I was still less able to speak than before. + +"Now, what does our young friend say?" proceeded Mr, Kenge. "Take +time, take time! I pause for her reply. But take time!" + +What the destitute subject of such an offer tried to say, I need +not repeat. What she did say, I could more easily tell, if it were +worth the telling. What she felt, and will feel to her dying hour, +I could never relate. + +This interview took place at Windsor, where I had passed (as far as +I knew) my whole life. On that day week, amply provided with all +necessaries, I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading. + +Mrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was +not so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have +known her better after so many years and ought to have made myself +enough of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she +gave me one cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw-drop +from the stone porch--it was a very frosty day--I felt so miserable +and self-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my +fault, I knew, that she could say good-bye so easily! + +"No, Esther!" she returned. "It is your misfortune!" + +The coach was at the little lawn-gate--we had not come out until we +heard the wheels--and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She +went in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof and shut the +door. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from +the window through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael +all the little property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; +and an old hearth-rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me +the first thing in the world I had ever seen, was hanging outside +in the frost and snow. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear +old doll in her own shawl and quietly laid her--I am half ashamed +to tell it--in the garden-earth under the tree that shaded my old +window. I had no companion left but my bird, and him I carried +with me in his cage. + +When the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird-cage in the +straw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high +window, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces +of spar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's +snow, and the sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, +dark like metal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow +away. There was a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite +seat and looked very large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat +gazing out of the other window and took no notice of me. + +I thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of +her frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange +place I was going to, of the people I should find there, and what +they would be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in +the coach gave me a terrible start. + +It said, "What the de-vil are you crying for?" + +I was so frightened that I lost my voice and could only answer in a +whisper, "Me, sir?" For of course I knew it must have been the +gentleman in the quantity of wrappings, though he was still looking +out of his window. + +"Yes, you," he said, turning round. + +"I didn't know I was crying, sir," I faltered. + +"But you are!" said the gentleman. "Look here!" He came quite +opposite to me from the other corner of the coach, brushed one of +his large furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and +showed me that it was wet. + +"There! Now you know you are," he said. "Don't you?" + +"Yes, sir," I said. + +"And what are you crying for?" said the genfleman, "Don't you want +to go there?" + +"Where, sir?" + +"Where? Why, wherever you are going," said the gentleman. + +"I am very glad to go there, sir," I answered. + +"Well, then! Look glad!" said the gentleman. + +I thought he was very strange, or at least that what I could see of +him was very strange, for he was wrapped up to the chin, and his +face was almost hidden in a fur cap with broad fur straps at the +side of his head fastened under his chin; but I was composed again, +and not afraid of him. So I told him that I thought I must have +been crying because of my godmother's death and because of Mrs. +Rachael's not being sorry to part with me. + +"Confound Mrs. Rachael!" said the gentleman. "Let her fly away in +a high wind on a broomstick!" + +I began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the +greatest astonishment. But I thought that he had pleasant eyes, +although he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner and +calling Mrs. Rachael names. + +After a little while he opened his outer wrapper, which appeared to +me large enough to wrap up the whole coach, and put his arm down +into a deep pocket in the side. + +"Now, look here!" he said. "In this paper," which was nicely +folded, "is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for +money--sugar on the outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton +chops. Here's a little pie (a gem this is, both for size and +quality), made in France. And what do you suppose it's made of? +Livers of fat geese. There's a pie! Now let's see you eat 'em." + +"Thank you, sir," I replied; "thank you very much indeed, but I +hope you won't be offended--they are too rich for me." + +"Floored again!" said the gentleman, which I didn't at all +understand, and threw them both out of window. + +He did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach a +little way short of Reading, when he advised me to be a good girl +and to be studious, and shook hands with me. I must say I was +relieved by his departure. We left him at a milestone. I often +walked past it afterwards, and never for a long time without +thinking of him and half expecting to meet him. But I never did; +and so, as time went on, he passed out of my mind. + +When the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window +and said, "Miss Donny." + +"No, ma'am, Esther Summerson." + +"That is quite right," said the lady, "Miss Donny." + +I now understood that she introduced herself by that name, and +begged Miss Donny's pardon for my mistake, and pointed out my boxes +at her request. Under the direction of a very neat maid, they were +put outside a very small green carriage; and then Miss Donny, the +maid, and I got inside and were driven away. + +"Everything is ready for you, Esther," said Miss Donny, "and the +scheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with +the wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Of--did you say, ma'am?" + +"Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce," said Miss Donny. + +I was so bewildered that Miss Donny thought the cold had been too +severe for me and lent me her smelling-bottle. + +"Do you know my--guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma'am?" I asked after a +good deal of hesitation. + +"Not personally, Esther," said Miss Donny; "merely through his +solicitors, Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of London. A very superior +gentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods +quite majestic!" + +I felt this to be very true but was too confused to attend to it. +Our speedy arrival at our destination, before I had time to recover +myself, increased my confusion, and I never shall forget the +uncertain and the unreal air of everything at Greenleaf (Miss +Donny's house) that afternoon! + +But I soon became used to it. I was so adapted to the routine of +Greenleaf before long that I seemed to have been there a great +while and almost to have dreamed rather than really lived my old +life at my godmother's. Nothing could be more precise, exact, and +orderly than Greenleaf. There was a time for everything all round +the dial of the clock, and everything was done at its appointed +moment. + +We were twelve boarders, and there were two Miss Donnys, twins. It +was understood that I would have to depend, by and by, on my +qualifications as a governess, and I was not only instructed in +everything that was taught at Greenleaf, but was very soon engaged +in helping to instruct others. Although I was treated in every +other respect like the rest of the school, this single difference +was made in my case from the first. As I began to know more, I +taught more, and so in course of time I had plenty to do, which I +was very fond of doing because it made the dear girls fond of me. +At last, whenever a new pupil came who was a little downcast and +unhappy, she was so sure--indeed I don't know why--to make a friend +of me that all new-comers were confided to my care. They said I +was so gentle, but I am sure THEY were! I often thought of the +resolution I had made on my birthday to try to be industrious, +contented, and true-hearted and to do some good to some one and win +some love if I could; and indeed, indeed, I felt almost ashamed to +have done so little and have won so much. + +I passed at Greenleaf six happy, quiet years. I never saw in any +face there, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been +better if I had never been born. When the day came round, it +brought me so many tokens of affectionate remembrance that my room +was beautiful with them from New Year's Day to Christmas. + +In those six years I had never been away except on visits at +holiday time in the neighbourhood. After the first six months or +so I had taken Miss Donny's advice in reference to the propriety of +writing to Mr. Kenge to say that I was happy and grateful, and with +her approval I had written such a letter. I had received a formal +answer acknowledging its receipt and saying, "We note the contents +thereof, which shall be duly communicated to our client." After +that I sometimes heard Miss Donny and her sister mention how +regular my accounts were paid, and about twice a year I ventured to +write a similar letter. I always received by return of post +exactly the same answer in the same round hand, with the signature +of Kenge and Carboy in another writing, which I supposed to be Mr. +Kenge's. + +It seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about +myself! As if this narrative were the narrative of MY life! But +my little body will soon fall into the background now. + +Six quiet years (I find I am saying it for the second time) I had +passed at Greenleaf, seeing in those around me, as it might be in a +looking-glass, every stage of my own growth and change there, when, +one November morning, I received this letter. I omit the date. + + +Old Square, Lincoln's Inn + +Madam, + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce + +Our clt Mr. Jarndyce being abt to rece into his house, under an +Order of the Ct of Chy, a Ward of the Ct in this cause, for whom he +wishes to secure an elgble compn, directs us to inform you that he +will be glad of your serces in the afsd capacity. + +We have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr eight +o'clock coach from Reading, on Monday morning next, to White Horse +Cellar, Piccadilly, London, where one of our clks will be in +waiting to convey you to our offe as above. + +We are, Madam, Your obedt Servts, + +Kenge and Carboy + +Miss Esther Summerson + + +Oh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter +caused in the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for +me, it was so gracious in that father who had not forgotten me to +have made my orphan way so smooth and easy and to have inclined so +many youthful natures towards me, that I could hardly bear it. Not +that I would have had them less sorry--I am afraid not; but the +pleasure of it, and the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, +and the humble regret of it were so blended that my heart seemed +almost breaking while it was full of rapture. + +The letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When +every minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were +given me in those five days, and when at last the morning came and +when they took me through all the rooms that I might see them for +the last time, and when some cried, "Esther, dear, say good-bye to +me here at my bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and +when others asked me only to write their names, "With Esther's +love," and when they all surrounded me with their parting presents +and clung to me weeping and cried, "What shall we do when dear, +dear Esther's gone!" and when I tried to tell them how forbearing +and how good they had all been to me and how I blessed and thanked +them every one, what a heart I had! + +And when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the +least among them, and when the maids said, "Bless you, miss, +wherever you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I +thought had hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting +after the coach to give me a little nosegay of geraniums and told +me I had been the light of his eyes--indeed the old man said so!-- +what a heart I had then! + +And could I help it if with all this, and the coming to the little +school, and the unexpected sight of the poor children outside +waving their hats and bonnets to me, and of a grey-haired gentleman +and lady whose daughter I had helped to teach and at whose house I +had visited (who were said to be the proudest people in all that +country), caring for nothing but calling out, "Good-bye, Esther. +May you be very happy!"--could I help it if I was quite bowed down +in the coach by myself and said "Oh, I am so thankful, I am so +thankful!" many times over! + +But of course I soon considered that I must not take tears where I +was going after all that had been done for me. Therefore, of +course, I made myself sob less and persuaded myself to be quiet by +saying very often, "Esther, now you really must! This WILL NOT +do!" I cheered myself up pretty well at last, though I am afraid I +was longer about it than I ought to have been; and when I had +cooled my eyes with lavender water, it was time to watch for +London. + +I was quite persuaded that we were there when we were ten miles +off, and when we really were there, that we should never get there. +However, when we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and +particularly when every other conveyance seemed to be running into +us, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, I +began to believe that we really were approaching the end of our +journey. Very soon afterwards we stopped. + +A young gentleman who had inked himself by accident addressed me +from the pavement and said, "I am from Kenge and Carboy's, miss, of +Lincoln's Inn." + +"If you please, sir," said I. + +He was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after +superintending the removal of my boxes, I asked him whether there +was a great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense +brown smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen. + +"Oh, dear no, miss," he said. "This is a London particular." + +I had never heard of such a thing. + +"A fog, miss," said the young gentleman. + +"Oh, indeed!" said I. + +We drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever +were seen in the world (I thought) and in such a distracting state +of confusion that I wondered how the people kept their senses, +until we passed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove +on through a silent square until we came to an odd nook in a +corner, where there was an entrance up a steep, broad flight of +stairs, like an entrance to a church. And there really was a +churchyard outside under some cloisters, for I saw the gravestones +from the staircase window. + +This was Kenge and Carboy's. The young gentleman showed me through +an outer office into Mr. Kenge's room--there was no one in it--and +politely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my +attention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side +of the chimney-piece. + +"In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the +journey, as you're going before the Chancellor. Not that it's +requisite, I am sure," said the young gentleman civilly. + +"Going before the Chancellor?" I said, startled for a moment. + +"Only a matter of form, miss," returned the young gentleman. "Mr. +Kenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you +partake of some refreshment"--there were biscuits and a decanter of +wine on a small table--"and look over the paper," which the young +gentleman gave me as he spoke. He then stirred the fire and left +me. + +Everything was so strange--the stranger from its being night in the +day-time, the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw +and cold--that I read the words in the newspaper without knowing +what they meant and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. +As it was of no use going on in that way, I put the paper down, +took a peep at my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and +looked at the room, which was not half lighted, and at the shabby, +dusty tables, and at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full +of the most inexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to +say for themselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; +and the fire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles +went on flickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers--until +the young gentleman by and by brought a very dirty pair--for two +hours. + +At last Mr. Kenge came. HE was not altered, but he was surprised +to see how altered I was and appeared quite pleased. "As you are +going to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the +Chancellor's private room, Miss Summerson," he said, "we thought it +well that you should be in attendance also. You will not be +discomposed by the Lord Chancellor, I dare say?" + +"No, sir," I said, "I don't think I shall," really not seeing on +consideration why I should be. + +So Mr. Kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a +colonnade, and in at a side door. And so we came, along a passage, +into a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a young +gentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. A screen +was interposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the +screen, talking. + +They both looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady, +with the fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! With such +rich golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent, +trusting face! + +"Miss Ada," said Mr. Kenge, "this is Miss Summerson." + +She came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended, +but seemed to change her mind in a moment and kissed me. In short, +she had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few +minutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the +fire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be. + +What a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she +could confide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so +encouraging to me! + +The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his +name Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous +face and a most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to +where we sat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking +gaily, like a light-hearted boy. He was very young, not more than +nineteen then, if quite so much, but nearly two years older than +she was. They were both orphans and (what was very unexpected and +curious to me) had never met before that day. Our all three coming +together for the first time in such an unusual place was a thing to +talk about, and we talked about it; and the fire, which had left +off roaring, winked its red eyes at us--as Richard said--like a +drowsy old Chancery lion. + +We conversed in a low tone because a full-dressed gentleman in a +bag wig frequenfly came in and out, and when he did so, we could +hear a drawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the +counsel in our case addressing the Lord Chancellor. He told Mr. +Kenge that the Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and +presently we heard a bustle and a tread of feet, and Mr. Kenge said +that the Court had risen and his lordship was in the next room. + +The gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and +requested Mr. Kenge to come in. Upon that, we all went into the +next room, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling--it is so natural to me +now that I can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in +black and sitting in an arm-chair at a table near the fire, was his +lordship, whose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown +upon another chair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but +his manner was both courtly and kind. + +The gentleman in the bag wig laid bundles of papers on his +lordship's table, and his lordship silently selected one and turned +over the leaves. + +"Miss Clare," said the Lord Chancellor. "Miss Ada Clare?" + +Mr. Kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down +near him. That he admired her and was interested by her even I +could see in a moment. It touched me that the home of such a +beautiful young creature should be represented by that dry, +official place. The Lord High Chancellor, at his best, appeared so +poor a substitute for the love and pride of parents. + +"The Jarndyce in question," said the Lord Chancellor, still turning +over leaves, "is Jarndyce of Bleak House." + +"Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +"A dreary name," said the Lord Chancellor. + +"But not a dreary place at present, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +"And Bleak House," said his lordship, "is in--" + +"Hertfordshire, my lord." + +"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?" said his lordship. + +"He is not, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +A pause. + +"Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?" said the Lord Chancellor, +glancing towards him. + +Richard bowed and stepped forward. + +"Hum!" said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves. + +"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," Mr. Kenge observed in a low +voice, "if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a +suitable companion for--" + +"For Mr. Richard Carstone?" I thought (but I am not quite sure) I +heard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile. + +"For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson." + +His lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy +very graciously. + +"Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?" + +"No, my lord." + +Mr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. His +lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or +thrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again +until we were going away. + +Mr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near +the door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can't +help it!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship +spoke a little part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether +she had well reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she +thought she would be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak +House, and why she thought so? Presently he rose courteously and +released her, and then he spoke for a minute or two with Richard +Carstone, not seated, but standing, and altogether with more ease +and less ceremony, as if he still knew, though he WAS Lord +Chancellor, how to go straight to the candour of a boy. + +"Very well!" said his lordship aloud. "I shall make the order. +Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge," and +this was when he looked at me, "a very good companion for the young +lady, and the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the +circumstances admit." + +He dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very much obliged +to him for being so affable and polite, by which he had certainly +lost no dignity but seemed to us to have gained some. + +When we got under the colonnade, Mr. Kenge remembered that he must +go back for a moment to ask a question and left us in the fog, with +the Lord Chancellor's carriage and servants waiting for him to come +out. + +"Well!" said Richard Carstone. "THAT'S over! And where do we go +next, Miss Summerson?" + +"Don't you know?" I said. + +"Not in the least," said he. + +"And don't YOU know, my love?" I asked Ada. + +"No!" said she. "Don't you?" + +"Not at all!" said I. + +We looked at one another, half laughing at our being like the +children in the wood, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed +bonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsying and smiling up to us +with an air of great ceremony. + +"Oh!" said she. "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, +to have the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and +beauty when they find themselves in this place, and don't know +what's to come of it." + +"Mad!" whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him. + +"Right! Mad, young gentleman," she returned so quickly that he was +quite abashed. "I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time," +curtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. "I had +youth and hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. +Neither of the three served or saved me. I have the honour to +attend court regularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. +Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth +seal mentioned in the Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been +open a long time! Pray accept my blessing." + +As Ada was a little frightened, I said, to humour the poor old +lady, that we were much obliged to her. + +"Ye-es!" she said mincingly. "I imagine so. And here is +Conversation Kenge. With HIS documents! How does your honourable +worship do?" + +"Quite well, quite well! Now don't be troublesome, that's a good +soul!" said Mr. Kenge, leading the way back. + +"By no means," said the poor old lady, keeping up with Ada and me. +"Anything but troublesome. I shall confer estates on both--which +is not being troublesome, I trust? I expect a judgment. Shortly. +On the Day of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my +blessing!" + +She stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but +we looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, +still with a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, +"Youth. And hope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation +Kenge! Ha! Pray accept my blessing!" + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Telescopic Philanthropy + + +We were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us when we arrived in his +room, at Mrs. Jellyby's; and then he turned to me and said he took +it for granted I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was. + +"I really don't, sir," I returned. "Perhaps Mr. Carstone--or Miss +Clare--" + +But no, they knew nothing whatever about Mrs. Jellyby. "In-deed! +Mrs. Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire +and casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs. +Jellyby's biography, "is a lady of very remarkable strength of +character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has +devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at +various times and is at present (until something else attracts her) +devoted to the subject of Africa, with a view to the general +cultivation of the coffee berry--AND the natives--and the happy +settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our +superabundant home population. Mr. Jarndyce, who is desirous to +aid any work that is considered likely to be a good work and who is +much sought after by philanthropists, has, I believe, a very high +opinion of Mrs. Jellyby." + +Mr. Kenge, adjusting his cravat, then looked at us. + +"And Mr. Jellyby, sir?" suggested Richard. + +"Ah! Mr. Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, "is--a--I don't know that I can +describe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of +Mrs. Jellyby." + +"A nonentity, sir?" said Richard with a droll look. + +"I don't say that," returned Mr. Kenge gravely. "I can't say that, +indeed, for I know nothing whatever OF Mr. Jellyby. I never, to my +knowledge, had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a +very superior man, but he is, so to speak, merged--merged--in the +more shining qualities of his wife." Mr. Kenge proceeded to tell +us that as the road to Bleak House would have been very long, dark, +and tedious on such an evening, and as we had been travelling +already, Mr. Jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. A +carriage would be at Mrs. Jellyby's to convey us out of town early +in the forenoon of to-morrow. + +He then rang a little bell, and the young gentleman came in. +Addressing him by the name of Guppy, Mr. Kenge inquired whether +Miss Summerson's boxes and the rest of the baggage had been "sent +round." Mr. Guppy said yes, they had been sent round, and a coach +was waiting to take us round too as soon as we pleased. + +"Then it only remains," said Mr. Kenge, shaking hands with us, "for +me to express my lively satisfaction in (good day, Miss Clare!) the +arrangement this day concluded and my (GOOD-bye to you, Miss +Summerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the +(glad to have had the honour of making your acquaintance, Mr. +Carstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all +concerned! Guppy, see the party safely there." + +"Where IS 'there,' Mr. Guppy?" said Richard as we went downstairs. + +"No distance," said Mr. Guppy; "round in Thavies Inn, you know." + +"I can't say I know where it is, for I come from Winchester and am +strange in London." + +"Only round the corner," said Mr. Guppy. "We just twist up +Chancery Lane, and cut along Holborn, and there we are in four +minutes' time, as near as a toucher. This is about a London +particular NOW, ain't it, miss?" He seemed quite delighted with it +on my account. + +"The fog is very dense indeed!" said I. + +"Not that it affects you, though, I'm sure," said Mr. Guppy, +putting up the steps. "On the contrary, it seems to do you good, +miss, judging from your appearance." + +I knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at +myself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon +the box; and we all three laughed and chatted about our +inexperience and the strangeness of London until we turned up under +an archway to our destination--a narrow street of high houses like +an oblong cistern to hold the fog. There was a confused little +crowd of people, principally children, gathered about the house at +which we stopped, which had a tarnished brass plate on the door +with the inscription JELLYBY. + +"Don't be frightened!" said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the coach- +window. "One of the young Jellybys been and got his head through +the area railings!" + +"Oh, poor child," said I; "let me out, if you please!" + +"Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always +up to something," said Mr. Guppy. + +I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little +unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and +crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a +milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were +endeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general +impression that his skull was compressible by those means. As I +found (after pacifying him) that he was a little boy with a +naturally large head, I thought that perhaps where his head could +go, his body could follow, and mentioned that the best mode of +extrication might be to push him forward. This was so favourably +received by the milkman and beadle that he would immediately have +been pushed into the area if I had not held his pinafore while +Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down through the kitchen to catch him +when he should be released. At last he was happily got down +without any accident, and then he began to beat Mr. Guppy with a +hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner. + +Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in +pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; +I don't know with what object, and I don't think she did. I +therefore supposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home, and was quite +surprised when the person appeared in the passage without the +pattens, and going up to the back room on the first floor before +Ada and me, announced us as, "Them two young ladies, Missis +Jellyby!" We passed several more children on the way up, whom it +was difficult to avoid treading on in the dark; and as we came into +Mrs. Jellyby's presence, one of the poor little things fell +downstairs--down a whole flight (as it sounded to me), with a great +noise. + +Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we +could not help showing in our own faces as the dear child's head +recorded its passage with a bump on every stair--Richard afterwards +said he counted seven, besides one for the landing--received us +with perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump +woman of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a +curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if--I am +quoting Richard again--they could see nothing nearer than Africa! + +"I am very glad indeed," said Mrs. Jellyby in an agreeable voice, +"to have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for +Mr. Jarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object +of indifference to me." + +We expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, +where there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very +good hair but was too much occupied with her African duties to +brush it. The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped +onto her chair when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume +her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly +meet up the back and that the open space was railed across with a +lattice-work of stay-lace--like a summer-house. + +The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great +writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not +only very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of +that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of +hearing, we followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I +think into the back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him. + +But what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking +though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting +the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever +was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her +pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin +slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article +of dress upon her, from a pin upwards, that was in its proper +condition or its right place. + +"You find me, my dears," said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great +office candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste +strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was +nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), +"you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will +excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It +involves me in correspondence with public bodies and with private +individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the +country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time +next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy +families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of +Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger." + +As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very +gratifying. + +"It IS gratifying," said Mrs. Jellyby. "It involves the devotion +of all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that +it succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you +know, Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that YOU never turned your +thoughts to Africa." + +This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me that +I was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the +climate-- + +"The finest climate in the world!" said Mrs. Jellyby. + +"Indeed, ma'am?" + +"Certainly. With precaution," said Mrs. Jellyby. "You may go into +Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into +Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with +Africa." + +I said, "No doubt." I meant as to Holborn. + +"If you would like," said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers +towards us, "to look over some remarks on that head, and on the +general subject, which have been extensively circulated, while I +finish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my +amanuensis--" + +The girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to +our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky. + +"--I shall then have finished for the present," proceeded Mrs. +Jellyby with a sweet smile, "though my work is never done. Where +are you, Caddy?" + +"'Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs--'" said Caddy. + +"'And begs,'" said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, "'to inform him, in +reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project--' No, +Peepy! Not on my account!" + +Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen +downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting +himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his +wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most-- +the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the +serene composure with which she said everything, "Go along, you +naughty Peepy!" and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again. + +However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I +interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor +Peepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. He looked +very much astonished at it and at Ada's kissing him, but soon fell +fast asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, +until he was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the +letter in detail, though I derived such a general impression from +it of the momentous importance of Africa, and the utter +insignificance of all other places and things, that I felt quite +ashamed to have thought so little about it. + +"Six o'clock!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "And our dinner hour is +nominally (for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare +and Miss Summerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, +perhaps? You will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, +that very bad child! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!" + +I begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at +all troublesome, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. +Ada and I had two upper rooms with a door of communication between. +They were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my +window was fastened up with a fork. + +"You would like some hot water, wouldn't you?" said Miss Jellyby, +looking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain. + +"If it is not being troublesome," said we. + +"Oh, it's not the trouble," returned Miss Jellyby; "the question +is, if there IS any." + +The evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell +that I must confess it was a little miserable, and Ada was half +crying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when +Miss Jellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot +water, but they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of +order. + +We begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to +get down to the fire again. But all the little children had come +up to the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying +on my bed, and our attention was distracted by the constant +apparition of noses and fingers in situations of danger between the +hinges of the doors. It was impossible to shut the door of either +room, for my lock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be +wound up; and though the handle of Ada's went round and round with +the greatest smoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on +the door. Therefore I proposed to the children that they should +come in and be very good at my table, and I would tell them the +story of Little Red Riding Hood while I dressed; which they did, +and were as quiet as mice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely +before the appearance of the wolf. + +When we went downstairs we found a mug with "A Present from +Tunbridge Wells" on it lighted up in the staircase window with a +floating wick, and a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a +flannel bandage blowing the fire of the drawing-room (now connected +by an open door with Mrs. Jellyby's room) and choking dreadfully. +It smoked to that degree, in short, that we all sat coughing and +crying with the windows open for half an hour, during which Mrs. +Jellyby, with the same sweetness of temper, directed letters about +Africa. Her being so employed was, I must say, a great relief to +me, for Richard told us that he had washed his hands in a pie-dish +and that they had found the kettle on his dressing-table, and he +made Ada laugh so that they made me laugh in the most ridiculous +manner. + +Soon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by Mrs. +Jellyby's advice, for the stair-carpets, besides being very +deficient in stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We +had a fine cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and +a pudding; an excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak +of, but it was almost raw. The young woman with the flannel +bandage waited, and dropped everything on the table wherever it +happened to go, and never moved it again until she put it on the +stairs. The person I had seen in pattens, who I suppose to have +been the cook, frequently came and skirmished with her at the door, +and there appeared to be ill will between them. + +All through dinner--which was long, in consequence of such +accidents as the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal skuttle +and the handle of the corkscrew coming off and striking the young +woman in the chin--Mrs. Jellyby preserved the evenness of her +disposition. She told us a great deal that was interesting about +Borrioboola-Gha and the natives, and received so many letters that +Richard, who sat by her, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. +Some of the letters were proceedings of ladies' committees or +resolutions of ladies' meetings, which she read to us; others were +applications from people excited in various ways about the +cultivation of coffee, and natives; others required answers, and +these she sent her eldest daughter from the table three or four +times to write. She was full of business and undoubtedly was, as +she had told us, devoted to the cause. + +I was a little curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in +spectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top +or bottom in particular) after the fish was taken away and seemed +passively to submit himself to Borriohoola-Gha but not to be +actively interested in that settlement. As he never spoke a word, +he might have been a native but for his complexion. It was not +until we left the table and he remained alone with Richard that the +possibility of his being Mr. Jellyby ever entered my head. But he +WAS Mr. Jellyby; and a loquacious young man called Mr. Quale, with +large shining knobs for temples and his hair all brushed to the +back of his head, who came in the evening, and told Ada he was a +philanthropist, also informed her that he called the matrimonial +alliance of Mrs. Jellyby with Mr. Jellyby the union of mind and +matter. + +This young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself +about Africa and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists +to teach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an +export trade, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saving, "I +believe now, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as from one +hundred and fifty to two hundred letters respecting Africa in a +single day, have you not?" or, "If my memory does not deceive me, +Mrs. Jellyby, you once mentioned that you had sent off five +thousand circulars from one post-office at one time?"--always +repeating Mrs. Jellyby's answer to us like an interpreter. During +the whole evening, Mr. Jellyby sat in a corner with his head +against the wall as if he were subject to low spirits. It seemed +that he had several times opened his mouth when alone with Richard +after dinner, as if he had something on his mind, but had always +shut it again, to Richard's extreme confusion, without saying +anything. + +Mrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee +all the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. +She also held a discussion with Mr. Quale, of which the subject +seemed to be--if I understood it--the brotherhood of humanity, and +gave utterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so +attentive an auditor as I might have wished to be, however, for +Peepy and the other children came flocking about Ada and me in a +corner of the drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down +among them and told them in whispers "Puss in Boots" and I don't +know what else until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, +sent them to bed. As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I +carried him upstairs, where the young woman with the flannel +bandage charged into the midst of the little family like a dragon +and overturned them into cribs. + +After that I occupied myself in making our room a little tidy and +in coaxing a very cross fire that had been lighted to burn, which +at last it did, quite brightly. On my return downstairs, I felt +that Mrs. Jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so +frivolous, and I was sorry for it, though at the same time I knew +that I had no higher pretensions. + +It was nearly midnight before we found an opportunity of going to +bed, and even then we left Mrs. Jellyby among her papers drinking +coffee and Miss Jellyby biting the feather of her pen. + +"What a strange house!" said Ada when we got upstairs. "How +curious of my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!" + +"My love," said I, "it quite confuses me. I want to understand it, +and I can't understand it at all." + +"What?" asked Ada with her pretty smile. + +"All this, my dear," said I. "It MUST be very good of Mrs. Jellyby +to take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives--and +yet--Peepy and the housekeeping!" + +Ada laughed and put her arm about my neck as I stood looking at the +fire, and told me I was a quiet, dear, good creature and had won +her heart. "You are so thoughtful, Esther," she said, "and yet so +cheerful! And you do so much, so unpretendingly! You would make a +home out of even this house." + +My simple darling! She was quite unconscious that she only praised +herself and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she +made so much of me! + +"May I ask you a question?" said I when we had sat before the fire +a little while. + +"Five hundred," said Ada. + +"Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind +describing him to me?" + +Shaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such +laughing wonder that I was full of wonder too, partly at her +beauty, partly at her surprise. + +"Esther!" she cried. + +"My dear!" + +"You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?" + +"My dear, I never saw him." + +"And I never saw him!" returned Ada. + +Well, to be sure! + +No, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, +she remembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she +spoke of him and of the noble generosity of his character, which +she had said was to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada +trusted it. Her cousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months +ago--"a plain, honest letter," Ada said--proposing the arrangement +we were now to enter on and telling her that "in time it might heal +some of the wounds made by the miserable Chancery suit." She had +replied, gratefully accepting his proposal. Richard had received a +similar letter and had made a similar response. He HAD seen Mr. +Jarndyce once, but only once, five years ago, at Winchester school. +He had told Ada, when they were leaning on the screen before the +fire where I found them, that he recollected him as "a bluff, rosy +fellow." This was the utmost description Ada could give me. + +It set me thinking so that when Ada was asleep, I still remained +before the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and +wondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long +ago. I don't know where my thoughts had wandered when they were +recalled by a tap at the door. + +I opened it softly and found Miss Jellyby shivering there with a +broken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand and an egg-cup in +the other. + +"Good night!" she said very sulkily. + +"Good night!" said I. + +"May I come in?" she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same +sulky way. + +"Certainly," said I. "Don't wake Miss Clare." + +She would not sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky +middle finger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing +it over the ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time and +looking very gloomy. + +"I wish Africa was dead!" she said on a sudden. + +I was going to remonstrate. + +"I do!" she said "Don't talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and +detest it. It's a beast!" + +I told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her +head, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now but would +be cool tomorrow. She still stood pouting and frowning at me, but +presently put down her egg-cup and turned softly towards the bed +where Ada lay. + +"She is very pretty!" she said with the same knitted brow and in +the same uncivil manner. + +I assented with a smile. + +"An orphan. Ain't she?" + +"Yes." + +"But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and +sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and +globes, and needlework, and everything?" + +"No doubt," said I. + +"I can't," she returned. "I can't do anything hardly, except +write. I'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not +ashamed of yourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to +do nothing else. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think +yourselves very fine, I dare say!" + +I could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I resumed my +chair without speaking and looked at her (I hope) as mildly as I +felt towards her. + +"It's disgraceful," she said. "You know it is. The whole house is +disgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I'M disgraceful. Pa's +miserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks--she's always drinking. +It's a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn't +smell her today. It was as bad as a public-house, waiting at +dinner; you know it was!" + +"My dear, I don't know it," said I. + +"You do," she said very shortly. "You shan't say you don't. You +do!" + +"Oh, my dear!" said I. "If you won't let me speak--" + +"You're speaking now. You know you are. Don't tell stories, Miss +Summerson." + +"My dear," said I, "as long as you won't hear me out--" + +"I don't want to hear you out." + +"Oh, yes, I think you do," said I, "because that would be so very +unreasonable. I did not know what you tell me because the servant +did not come near me at dinner; but I don't doubt what you tell me, +and I am sorry to hear it." + +"You needn't make a merit of that," said she. + +"No, my dear," said I. "That would be very foolish." + +She was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still +with the same discontented face) and kissed Ada. That done, she +came softly back and stood by the side of my chair. Her bosom was +heaving in a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I +thought it better not to speak. + +"I wish I was dead!" she broke out. "I wish we were all dead. It +would be a great deal better for us. + +In a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her +face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I +comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she +wanted to stay there! + +"You used to teach girls," she said, "If you could only have taught +me, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I +like you so much!" + +I could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a +ragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still +hold my dress in the same manner. By degrees the poor tired girl +fell asleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it +should rest on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire +went out, and all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy +grate. At first I was painfully awake and vainly tried to lose +myself, with my eyes closed, among the scenes of the day. At +length, by slow degrees, they became indistinct and mingled. I +began to lose the identity of the sleeper resting on me. Now it +was Ada, now one of my old Reading friends from whom I could not +believe I had so recently parted. Now it was the little mad woman +worn out with curtsying and smiling, now some one in authority at +Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I was no one. + +The purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened +my eyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed +upon me. Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown +and cap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he +had cut them all. + + + +CHAPTER V + +A Morning Adventure + + +Although the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed +heavy--I say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirt +that they would have made midsummer sunshine dim--I was +sufficiently forewarned of the discomfort within doors at that +early hour and sufficiently curious about London to think it a good +idea on the part of Miss Jellyby when she proposed that we should +go out for a walk. + +"Ma won't be down for ever so long," she said, "and then it's a +chance if breakfast's ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so. +As to Pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. He never has +what you would call a regular breakfast. Priscilla leaves him out +the loaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. Sometimes +there isn't any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. But I'm +afraid you must be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you would +rather go to bed." + +"I am not at all tired, my dear," said I, "and would much prefer to +go out." + +"If you're sure you would," returned Miss Jellyby, "I'll get my +things on." + +Ada said she would go too, and was soon astir. I made a proposal +to Peepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, +that he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my +bed again. To this he submitted with the best grace possible, +staring at me during the whole operation as if he never had been, +and never could again be, so astonished in his life--looking very +miserable also, certainly, but making no complaint, and going +snugly to sleep as soon as it was over. At first I was in two +minds about taking such a liberty, but I soon reflected that nobody +in the house was likely to notice it. + +What with the bustle of dispatching Peepy and the bustle of getting +myself ready and helping Ada, I was soon quite in a glow. We found +Miss Jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing- +room, which Priscilla was then lighting with a smutty parlour +candlestick, throwing the candle in to make it burn better. +Everything was just as we had left it last night and was evidently +intended to remain so. Below-stairs the dinner-cloth had not been +taken away, but had been left ready for breakfast. Crumbs, dust, +and waste-paper were all over the house. Some pewter pots and a +milk-can hung on the area railings; the door stood open; and we met +the cook round the corner coming out of a public-house, wiping her +mouth. She mentioned, as she passed us, that she had been to see +what o'clock it was. + +But before we met the cook, we met Richard, who was dancing up and +down Thavies Inn to warm his feet. He was agreeably surprised to +see us stirring so soon and said he would gladly share our walk. +So he took care of Ada, and Miss Jellyby and I went first. I may +mention that Miss Jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner and +that I really should not have thought she liked me much unless she +had told me so. + +"Where would you wish to go?" she asked. + +"Anywhere, my dear," I replied. + +"Anywhere's nowhere," said Miss Jellyby, stopping perversely. + +"Let us go somewhere at any rate," said I. + +She then walked me on very fast. + +"I don't care!" she said. "Now, you are my witness, Miss +Summerson, I say I don't care-but if he was to come to our house +with his great, shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he +was as old as Methuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him. +Such ASSES as he and Ma make of themselves!" + +"My dear!" I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the +vigorous emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. "Your duty as a child--" + +"Oh! Don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's Ma's +duty as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I +suppose! Then let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's +much more their affair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! +Very well, so am I shocked too; so we are both shocked, and there's +an end of it!" + +She walked me on faster yet. + +"But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, +and I won't have anything to say to him. I can't bear him. If +there's any stuff in the world that I hate and detest, it's the +stuff he and Ma talk. I wonder the very paving-stones opposite our +house can have the patience to stay there and be a witness of such +inconsistencies and contradictions as all that sounding nonsense, +and Ma's management!" + +I could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young +gentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved the +disagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Ada +coming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to +run a race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and +walked moodily on at my side while I admired the long successions +and varieties of streets, the quantity of people already going to +and fro, the number of vehicles passing and repassing, the busy +preparations in the setting forth of shop windows and the sweeping +out of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretly +groping among the swept-out rubbish for pins and other refuse. + +"So, cousin," said the cheerful voice of Richard to Ada behind me. +"We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way +to our place of meeting yesterday, and--by the Great Seal, here's +the old lady again!" + +Truly, there she was, immediately in front of us, curtsying, and +smiling, and saying with her yesterday's air of patronage, "The +wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!" + +"You are out early, ma'am," said I as she curtsied to me. + +"Ye-es! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. It's +retired. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day," +said the old lady mincingly. "The business of the day requires a +great deal of thought. Chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult to +follow." + +"Who's this, Miss Summerson?" whispered Miss Jellyby, drawing my +arm tighter through her own. + +The little old lady's hearing was remarkably quick. She answered +for herself directly. + +"A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attend +court regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure of +addressing another of the youthful parties in Jarndyce?" said the +old lady, recovering herself, with her head on one side, from a +very low curtsy. + +Richard, anxious to atone for his thoughtlessness of yesterday, +good-naturedly explained that Miss Jellyby was not connected with +the suit. + +"Ha!" said the old lady. "She does not expect a judgment? She +will still grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is the +garden of Lincoln's Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bower +in the summer-time. Where the birds sing melodiously. I pass the +greater part of the long vacation here. In contemplation. You +find the long vacation exceedingly long, don't you?" + +We said yes, as she seemed to expect us to say so. + +"When the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no more +flowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the Lord Chancellor's +court," said the old lady, "the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth +seal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come and +see my lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, +and beauty are very seldom there. It is a long, long time since I +had a visit from either." + +She had taken my hand, and leading me and Miss Jellyby away, +beckoned Richard and Ada to come too. I did not know how to excuse +myself and looked to Richard for aid. As he was half amused and +half curious and all in doubt how to get rid of the old lady +without offence, she continued to lead us away, and he and Ada +continued to follow, our strange conductress informing us all the +time, with much smiling condescension, that she lived close by. + +It was quite true, as it soon appeared. She lived so close by that +we had not time to have done humouring her for a few moments before +she was at home. Slipping us out at a little side gate, the old +lady stopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part of +some courts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, and +said, "This is my lodging. Pray walk up!" + +She had stopped at a shop over which was written KROOK, RAG AND +BOTTLE WAREHOUSE. Also, in long thin letters, KROOK, DEALER IN +MARINE STORES. In one part of the window was a picture of a red +paper mill at which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old +rags. In another was the inscription BONES BOUGHT. In another, +KITCHEN-STUFF BOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, +WASTE-PAPER BOUGHT. In another, LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBES +BOUGHT. Everything seemed to be bought and nothing to be sold +there. In all parts of the window were quantities of dirty +bottles--blacking bottles, medicine bottles, ginger-beer and soda- +water bottles, pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles; I am +reminded by mentioning the latter that the shop had in several +little particulars the air of being in a legal neighbourhood and of +being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and disowned relation of the +law. There were a great many ink bottles. There was a little +tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the door, labelled +"Law Books, all at 9d." Some of the inscriptions I have enumerated +were written in law-hand, like the papers I had seen in Kenge and +Carboy's office and the letters I had so long received from the +firm. Among them was one, in the same writing, having nothing to +do with the business of the shop, but announcing that a respectable +man aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to execute with +neatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr. Krook, within. +There were several second-hand bags, blue and red, hanging up. A +little way within the shop-door lay heaps of old crackled parchment +scrolls and discoloured and dog's-eared law-papers. I could have +fancied that all the rusty keys, of which there must have been +hundreds huddled together as old iron, had once belonged to doors +of rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. The litter of rags +tumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged wooden scale, +hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might have been +counsellors' bands and gowns torn up. One had only to fancy, as +Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking in, that +yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very clean, +were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete. + +As it was still foggy and dark, and as the shop was blinded besides +by the wall of Lincoln's Inn, intercepting the light within a +couple of yards, we should not have seen so much but for a lighted +lantern that an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap was carrying +about in the shop. Turning towards the door, he now caught sight +of us. He was short, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunk +sideways between his shoulders and the breath issuing in visible +smoke from his mouth as if he were on fire within. His throat, +chin, and eyebrows were so frosted with white hairs and so gnarled +with veins and puckered skin that he looked from his breast upward +like some old root in a fall of snow. + +"Hi, hi!" said the old man, coming to the door. "Have you anything +to sell?" + +We naturally drew back and glanced at our conductress, who had been +trying to open the house-door with a key she had taken from her +pocket, and to whom Richard now said that as we had had the +pleasure of seeing where she lived, we would leave her, being +pressed for time. But she was not to be so easily left. She +became so fantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreaties +that we would walk up and see her apartment for an instant, and was +so bent, in her harmless way, on leading me in, as part of the good +omen she desired, that I (whatever the others might do) saw nothing +for it but to comply. I suppose we were all more or less curious; +at any rate, when the old man added his persuasions to hers and +said, "Aye, aye! Please her! It won't take a minute! Come in, +come in! Come in through the shop if t'other door's out of order!" +we all went in, stimulated by Richard's laughing encouragement and +relying on his protection. + +"My landlord, Krook," said the little old lady, condescending to +him from her lofty station as she presented him to us. "He is +called among the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop is +called the Court of Chancery. He is a very eccentric person. He +is very odd. Oh, I assure you he is very odd!" + +She shook her head a great many times and tapped her forehead with +her finger to express to us that we must have the goodness to +excuse him, "For he is a little--you know--M!" said the old lady +with great stateliness. The old man overheard, and laughed. + +"It's true enough," he said, going before us with the lantern, +"that they call me the lord chancellor and call my shop Chancery. +And why do you think they call me the Lord Chancellor and my shop +Chancery?" + +"I don't know, I am sure!" said Richard rather carelessly. + +"You see," said the old man, stopping and turning round, "they--Hi! +Here's lovely hair! I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, +but none so beautiful and fine as this. What colour, and what +texture!" + +"That'll do, my good friend!" said Richard, strongly disapproving +of his having drawn one of Ada's tresses through his yellow hand. +"You can admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty." + +The old man darted at him a sudden look which even called my +attention from Ada, who, startled and blushing, was so remarkably +beautiful that she seemed to fix the wandering attention of the +little old lady herself. But as Ada interposed and laughingly said +she could only feel proud of such genuine admiration, Mr. Krook +shrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it. + +"You see, I have so many things here," he resumed, holding up the +lantern, "of so many kinds, and all as the neighbours think (but +THEY know nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, that +that's why they have given me and my place a christening. And I +have so many old parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have a +liking for rust and must and cobwebs. And all's fish that comes to +my net. And I can't abear to part with anything I once lay hold of +(or so my neighbours think, but what do THEY know?) or to alter +anything, or to have any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor +repairing going on about me. That's the way I've got the ill name +of Chancery. I don't mind. I go to see my noble and learned +brother pretty well every day, when he sits in the Inn. He don't +notice me, but I notice him. There's no great odds betwixt us. We +both grub on in a muddle. Hi, Lady Jane!" + +A large grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf on his +shoulder and startled us all. + +"Hi! Show 'em how you scratch. Hi! Tear, my lady!" said her +master. + +The cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with her +tigerish claws, with a sound that it set my teeth on edge to hear. + +"She'd do as much for any one I was to set her on," said the old +man. "I deal in cat-skins among other general matters, and hers +was offered to me. It's a very fine skin, as you may see, but I +didn't have it stripped off! THAT warn't like Chancery practice +though, says you!" + +He had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a door +in the back part of it, leading to the house-entry. As he stood +with his hand upon the lock, the little old lady graciously +observed to him before passing out, "That will do, Krook. You mean +well, but are tiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. I +have none to spare myself, having to attend court very soon. My +young friends are the wards in Jarndyce." + +"Jarndyce!" said the old man with a start. + +"Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook," returned his +lodger. + +"Hi!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement and +with a wider stare than before. "Think of it!" + +He seemed so rapt all in a moment and looked so curiously at us +that Richard said, "Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal +about the causes before your noble and learned brother, the other +Chancellor!" + +"Yes," said the old man abstractedly. "Sure! YOUR name now will +be--" + +"Richard Carstone." + +"Carstone," he repeated, slowly checking off that name upon his +forefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a +separate finger. "Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the +name of Clare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think." + +"He knows as much of the cause as the real salaried Chancellor!" +said Richard, quite astonished, to Ada and me. + +"Aye!" said the old man, coming slowly out of his abstraction. +"Yes! Tom Jarndyce--you'll excuse me, being related; but he was +never known about court by any other name, and was as well known +there as--she is now," nodding slightly at his lodger. "Tom +Jarndyce was often in here. He got into a restless habit of +strolling about when the cause was on, or expected, talking to the +little shopkeepers and telling 'em to keep out of Chancery, +whatever they did. 'For,' says he, 'it's being ground to bits in a +slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to +death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad +by grains.' He was as near making away with himself, just where +the young lady stands, as near could be." + +We listened with horror. + +"He come in at the door," said the old man, slowly pointing an +imaginary track along the shop, "on the day he did it--the whole +neighbourhood had said for months before that he would do it, of a +certainty sooner or later--he come in at the door that day, and +walked along there, and sat himself on a bench that stood there, +and asked me (you'll judge I was a mortal sight younger then) to +fetch him a pint of wine. 'For,' says he, 'Krook, I am much +depressed; my cause is on again, and I think I'm nearer judgment +than I ever was.' I hadn't a mind to leave him alone; and I +persuaded him to go to the tavern over the way there, t'other side +my lane (I mean Chancery Lane); and I followed and looked in at the +window, and saw him, comfortable as I thought, in the arm-chair by +the fire, and company with him. I hadn't hardly got back here when +I heard a shot go echoing and rattling right away into the inn. I +ran out--neighbours ran out--twenty of us cried at once, 'Tom +Jarndyce!'" + +The old man stopped, looked hard at us, looked down into the +lantern, blew the light out, and shut the lantern up. + +"We were right, I needn't tell the present hearers. Hi! To be +sure, how the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while +the cause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all the +rest of 'em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look as +if they hadn't heard a word of the last fact in the case or as if +they had--Oh, dear me!--nothing at all to do with it if they had +heard of it by any chance!" + +Ada's colour had entirely left her, and Richard was scarcely less +pale. Nor could I wonder, judging even from my emotions, and I was +no party in the suit, that to hearts so untried and fresh it was a +shock to come into the inheritance of a protracted misery, attended +in the minds of many people with such dreadful recollections. I +had another uneasiness, in the application of the painful story to +the poor half-witted creature who had brought us there; but, to my +surprise, she seemed perfectly unconscious of that and only led the +way upstairs again, informing us with the toleration of a superior +creature for the infirmities of a common mortal that her landlord +was "a little M, you know!" + +She lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, from +which she had a glimpse of Lincoln's Inn Hall. This seemed to have +been her principal inducement, originally, for taking up her +residence there. She could look at it, she said, in the night, +especially in the moonshine. Her room was clean, but very, very +bare. I noticed the scantiest necessaries in the way of furniture; +a few old prints from books, of Chancellors and barristers, wafered +against the wall; and some half-dozen reticles and work-bags, +"containing documents," as she informed us. There were neither +coals nor ashes in the grate, and I saw no articles of clothing +anywhere, nor any kind of food. Upon a shelf in an open cupboard +were a plate or two, a cup or two, and so forth, but all dry and +empty. There was a more affecting meaning in her pinched +appearance, I thought as I looked round, than I had understood +before. + +"Extremely honoured, I am sure," said our poor hostess with the +greatest suavity, "by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And +very much indebted for the omen. It is a retired situation. +Considering. I am limited as to situation. In consequence of the +necessity of attending on the Chancellor. I have lived here many +years. I pass my days in court, my evenings and my nights here. I +find the nights long, for I sleep but little and think much. That +is, of course, unavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot +offer chocolate. I expect a judgment shortly and shall then place +my establishment on a superior footing. At present, I don't mind +confessing to the wards in Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that I +sometimes find it difficult to keep up a genteel appearance. I +have felt the cold here. I have felt something sharper than cold. +It matters very little. Pray excuse the introduction of such mean +topics." + +She partly drew aside the curtain of the long, low garret window +and called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there, +some containing several birds. There were larks, linnets, and +goldfinches--I should think at least twenty. + +"I began to keep the little creatures," she said, "with an object +that the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of +restoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye- +es! They die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, +are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by +one, the whole collection has died over and over again. I doubt, +do you know, whether one of these, though they are all young, will +live to be free! Ve-ry mortifying, is it not?" + +Although she sometimes asked a question, she never seemed to expect +a reply, but rambled on as if she were in the habit of doing so +when no one but herself was present. + +"Indeed," she pursued, "I positively doubt sometimes, I do assure +you, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth or +Great Seal still prevails, I may not one day be found lying stark +and senseless here, as I have found so many birds!" + +Richard, answering what he saw in Ada's compassionate eyes, took +the opportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on the +chimney-piece. We all drew nearer to the cages, feigning to +examine the birds. + +"I can't allow them to sing much," said the little old lady, "for +(you'll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the idea +that they are singing while I am following the arguments in court. +And my mind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time, +I'll tell you their names. Not at present. On a day of such good +omen, they shall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth," a +smile and curtsy, "hope," a smile and curtsy, "and beauty," a smile +and curtsy. "There! We'll let in the full light." + +The birds began to stir and chirp. + +"I cannot admit the air freely," said the little old lady--the room +was close, and would have been the better for it--"because the cat +you saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. +She crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I have +discovered," whispering mysteriously, "that her natural cruelty is +sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In +consequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is +sly and full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no +cat, but the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to +keep her from the door." + +Some neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was half- +past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to an +end than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedly +took up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the +table on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. On +our answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she +opened the door to attend us downstairs. + +"With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I +should be there before the Chancellor comes in," said she, "for he +might mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that +he WILL mention it the first thing this morning" + +She stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the +whole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had +bought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a +little M. This was on the first floor. But she had made a +previous stoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a +dark door there. + +"The only other lodger," she now whispered in explanation, "a law- +writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to +the devil. I don't know what he can have done with the money. +Hush!" + +She appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there, +and repeating "Hush!" went before us on tiptoe as though even the +sound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said. + +Passing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through +it on our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of +packets of waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemed +to be working hard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead, +and had a piece of chalk by him, with which, as he put each +separate package or bundle down, he made a crooked mark on the +panelling of the wall. + +Richard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone +by him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, +and chalked the letter J upon the wall--in a very curious manner, +beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It +was a capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as +any clerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's office would have made. + +"Can you read it?" he asked me with a keen glance. + +"Surely," said I. "It's very plain." + +"What is it?" + +"J." + +With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it +out and turned an "a" in its place (not a capital letter this +time), and said, "What's that?" + +I told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter "r," and +asked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed +in the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of +the letters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on +the wall together. + +"What does that spell?" he asked me. + +When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the +same rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the +letters forming the words Bleak House. These, in some +astonishment, I also read; and he laughed again. + +"Hi!" said the old man, laying aside the chalk. "I have a turn for +copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor +write." + +He looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as +if I were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite +relieved by Richard's appearing at the door and saying, "Miss +Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair. +Don't be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!" + +I lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining my +friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave +us her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of +yesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada +and me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked +back and saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his +spectacles, looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and +her tail sticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall +feather. + +"Quite an adventure for a morning in London!" said Richard with a +sigh. "Ah, cousin, cousin, it's a weary word this Chancery!" + +"It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember," returned +Ada. "I am grieved that I should be the enemy---as I suppose I am +--of a great number of relations and others, and that they should be +my enemies--as I suppose they are--and that we should all be +ruining one another without knowing how or why and be in constant +doubt and discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there +must be right somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has +not been able to find out through all these years where it is." + +"Ah, cousin!" said Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, +wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court +yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness +of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache +both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if +men were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think +they could possibly be either. But at all events, Ada--I may call +you Ada?" + +"Of course you may, cousin Richard." + +"At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on +US. We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good +kinsman, and it can't divide us now!" + +"Never, I hope, cousin Richard!" said Ada gently. + +Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. +I smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very +pleasantly. + +In half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and in +the course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast +straggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that +Mrs. Jellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but +she presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was +greatly occupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought a +heavy correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would +occasion her (she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled +about, and notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, +which were perfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost +for an hour and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a +policeman. The equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both +his absence and his restoration to the family circle surprised us +all. + +She was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy +was fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found +her. At one o'clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart +for our luggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to +her good friend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, +kissed me in the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on +the steps; Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain +of separation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to +Newgate market in search of me); and all the other children got up +behind the barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great +concern, scattered over the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out +of its precincts. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Quite at Home + + +The day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went +westward. We went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air, +wondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the +brilliancy of the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of +people whom the pleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like +many-coloured flowers. By and by we began to leave the wonderful +city and to proceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would +have made a pretty large town in my eyes; and at last we got into a +real country road again, with windmills, rick-yards, milestones, +farmers' waggons, scents of old hay, swinging signs, and horse +troughs: trees, fields, and hedge-rows. It was delightful to see +the green landscape before us and the immense metropolis behind; +and when a waggon with a train of beautiful horses, furnished with +red trappings and clear-sounding bells, came by us with its music, +I believe we could all three have sung to the bells, so cheerful +were the influences around. + +"The whole road has been reminding me of my name-sake Whittington," +said Richard, "and that waggon is the finishing touch. Halloa! +What's the matter?" + +We had stopped, and the waggon had stopped too. Its music changed +as the horses came to a stand, and subsided to a gentle tinkling, +except when a horse tossed his head or shook himself and sprinkled +off a little shower of bell-ringing. + +"Our postilion is looking after the waggoner," said Richard, "and +the waggoner is coming back after us. Good day, friend!" The +waggoner was at our coach-door. "Why, here's an extraordinary +thing!" added Richard, looking closely at the man. "He has got +your name, Ada, in his hat!" + +He had all our names in his hat. Tucked within the band were three +small notes--one addressed to Ada, one to Richard, one to me. +These the waggoner delivered to each of us respectively, reading +the name aloud first. In answer to Richard's inquiry from whom +they came, he briefly answered, "Master, sir, if you please"; and +putting on his hat again (which was like a soft bowl), cracked his +whip, re-awakened his music, and went melodiously away. + +"Is that Mr. Jarndyce's waggon?" said Richard, calling to our post- +boy. + +"Yes, sir," he replied. "Going to London." + +We opened the notes. Each was a counterpart of the other and +contained these words in a solid, plain hand. + + +"I look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and without +constraint on either side. I therefore have to propose that we +meet as old friends and take the past for granted. It will be a +relief to you possibly, and to me certainly, and so my love to you. + +John Jarndyce" + + +I had perhaps less reason to be surprised than either of my +companions, having never yet enjoyed an opportunity of thanking one +who had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so +many years. I had not considered how I could thank him, my +gratitude lying too deep in my heart for that; but I now began to +consider how I could meet him without thanking him, and felt it +would be very difficult indeed. + +The notes revived in Richard and Ada a general impression that they +both had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their +cousin Jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness +he performed and that sooner than receive any he would resort to +the most singular expedients and evasions or would even run away. +Ada dimly remembered to have heard her mother tell, when she was a +very little child, that he had once done her an act of uncommon +generosity and that on her going to his house to thank him, he +happened to see her through a window coming to the door, and +immediately escaped by the back gate, and was not heard of for +three months. This discourse led to a great deal more on the same +theme, and indeed it lasted us all day, and we talked of scarcely +anything else. If we did by any chance diverge into another +subject, we soon returned to this, and wondered what the house +would be like, and when we should get there, and whether we should +see Mr. Jarndyce as soon as we arrived or after a delay, and what +he would say to us, and what we should say to him. All of which we +wondered about, over and over again. + +The roads were very heavy for the horses, but the pathway was +generally good, so we alighted and walked up all the hills, and +liked it so well that we prolonged our walk on the level ground +when we got to the top. At Barnet there were other horses waiting +for us, but as they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them +too, and got a long fresh walk over a common and an old battle- +field before the carriage came up. These delays so protracted the +journey that the short day was spent and the long night had closed +in before we came to St. Albans, near to which town Bleak House +was, we knew. + +By that time we were so anxious and nervous that even Richard +confessed, as we rattled over the stones of the old street, to +feeling an irrational desire to drive back again. As to Ada and +me, whom he had wrapped up with great care, the night being sharp +and frosty, we trembled from head to foot. When we turned out of +the town, round a corner, and Richard told us that the post-boy, +who had for a long time sympathized with our heightened +expectation, was looking back and nodding, we both stood up in the +carriage (Richard holding Ada lest she should be jolted down) and +gazed round upon the open country and the starlight night for our +destination. There was a light sparkling on the top of a hill +before us, and the driver, pointing to it with his whip and crying, +"That's Bleak House!" put his horses into a canter and took us +forward at such a rate, uphill though it was, that the wheels sent +the road drift flying about our heads like spray from a water-mill. +Presently we lost the light, presently saw it, presently lost it, +presently saw it, and turned into an avenue of trees and cantered +up towards where it was beaming brightly. It was in a window of +what seemed to be an old-fashioned house with three peaks in the +roof in front and a circular sweep leading to the porch. A bell +was rung as we drew up, and amidst the sound of its deep voice in +the still air, and the distant barking of some dogs, and a gush of +light from the opened door, and the smoking and steaming of the +heated horses, and the quickened beating of our own hearts, we +alighted in no inconsiderable confusion. + +"Ada, my love, Esther, my dear, you are welcome. I rejoice to see +you! Rick, if I had a hand to spare at present, I would give it +you!" + +The gentleman who said these words in a clear, bright, hospitable +voice had one of his arms round Ada's waist and the other round +mine, and kissed us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the +hall into a ruddy little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire. +Here he kissed us again, and opening his arms, made us sit down +side by side on a sofa ready drawn out near the hearth. I felt +that if we had been at all demonstrative, he would have run away in +a moment. + +"Now, Rick!" said he. "I have a hand at liberty. A word in +earnest is as good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you. +You are at home. Warm yourself!" + +Richard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of +respect and frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness +that rather alarmed me, I was so afraid of Mr. Jarndyce's suddenly +disappearing), "You are very kind, sir! We are very much obliged +to you!" laid aside his hat and coat and came up to the fire. + +"And how did you like the ride? And how did you like Mrs. Jellyby, +my dear?" said Mr. Jarndyce to Ada. + +While Ada was speaking to him in reply, I glanced (I need not say +with how much interest) at his face. It was a handsome, lively, +quick face, full of change and motion; and his hair was a silvered +iron-grey. I took him to be nearer sixty than fifty, but he was +upright, hearty, and robust. From the moment of his first speaking +to us his voice had connected itself with an association in my mind +that I could not define; but now, all at once, a something sudden +in his manner and a pleasant expression in his eyes recalled the +gentleman in the stagecoach six years ago on the memorable day of +my journey to Reading. I was certain it was he. I never was so +frightened in my life as when I made the discovery, for he caught +my glance, and appearing to read my thoughts, gave such a look at +the door that I thought we had lost him. + +However, I am happy to say he remained where he was, and asked me +what I thought of Mrs. Jellyby. + +"She exerts herself very much for Africa, sir," I said. + +"Nobly!" returned Mr. Jarndyce. "But you answer like Ada." Whom I +had not heard. "You all think something else, I see." + +"We rather thought," said I, glancing at Richard and Ada, who +entreated me with their eyes to speak, "that perhaps she was a +little unmindful of her home." + +"Floored!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. + +I was rather alarmed again. + +"Well! I want to know your real thoughts, my dear. I may have +sent you there on purpose." + +"We thought that, perhaps," said I, hesitating, "it is right to +begin with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while +those are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be +substituted for them." + +"The little Jellybys," said Richard, coming to my relief, "are +really--I can't help expressing myself strongly, sir--in a devil of +a state." + +"She means well," said Mr. Jarndyce hastily. "The wind's in the +east." + +"It was in the north, sir, as we came down," observed Richard. + +"My dear Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, poking the fire, "I'll take an +oath it's either in the east or going to be. I am always conscious +of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing +in the east." + +"Rheumatism, sir?" said Richard. + +"I dare say it is, Rick. I believe it is. And so the little Jell +--I had my doubts about 'em--are in a--oh, Lord, yes, it's +easterly!" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +He had taken two or three undecided turns up and down while +uttering these broken sentences, retaining the poker in one hand +and rubbing his hair with the other, with a good-natured vexation +at once so whimsical and so lovable that I am sure we were more +delighted with him than we could possibly have expressed in any +words. He gave an arm to Ada and an arm to me, and bidding Richard +bring a candle, was leading the way out when he suddenly turned us +all back again. + +"Those little Jellybys. Couldn't you--didn't you--now, if it had +rained sugar-plums, or three-cornered raspberry tarts, or anything +of that sort!" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Oh, cousin--" Ada hastily began. + +"Good, my pretty pet. I like cousin. Cousin John, perhaps, is +better." + +"Then, cousin John--" Ada laughingly began again. + +"Ha, ha! Very good indeed!" said Mr. Jarndyce with great +enjoyment. "Sounds uncommonly natural. Yes, my dear?" + +"It did better than that. It rained Esther." + +"Aye?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "What did Esther do?" + +"Why, cousin John," said Ada, clasping her hands upon his arm and +shaking her head at me across him--for I wanted her to be quiet-- +"Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed them +to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them +quiet, bought them keepsakes"--My dear girl! I had only gone out +with Peepy after he was found and given him a little, tiny horse!-- +"and, cousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so +much and was so thoughtful for me and so amiable! No, no, I won't +be contradicted, Esther dear! You know, you know, it's true!" + +The warm-hearted darling leaned across her cousin John and kissed +me, and then looking up in his face, boldly said, "At all events, +cousin John, I WILL thank you for the companion you have given me." +I felt as if she challenged him to run away. But he didn't. + +"Where did you say the wind was, Rick?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"In the north as we came down, sir." + +"You are right. There's no east in it. A mistake of mine. Come, +girls, come and see your home!" + +It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up +and down steps out of one room into another, and where you come +upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and +where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages, +and where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places +with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them. Mine, +which we entered first, was of this kind, with an up-and-down roof +that had more corners in it than I ever counted afterwards and a +chimney (there was a wood fire on the hearth) paved all around with +pure white tiles, in every one of which a bright miniature of the +fire was blazing. Out of this room, you went down two steps into a +charming little sitting-room looking down upon a flower-garden, +which room was henceforth to belong to Ada and me. Out of this you +went up three steps into Ada's bedroom, which had a fine broad +window commanding a beautiful view (we saw a great expanse of +darkness lying underneath the stars), to which there was a hollow +window-seat, in which, with a spring-lock, three dear Adas might +have been lost at once. Out of this room you passed into a little +gallery, with which the other best rooms (only two) communicated, +and so, by a little staircase of shallow steps with a number of +corner stairs in it, considering its length, down into the hall. +But if instead of going out at Ada's door you came back into my +room, and went out at the door by which you had entered it, and +turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an unexpected +manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages, with mangles +in them, and three-cornered tables, and a native Hindu chair, which +was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked in every form +something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird-cage, and had +been brought from India nobody knew by whom or when. From these +you came on Richard's room, which was part library, part sitting- +room, part bedroom, and seemed indeed a comfortable compound of +many rooms. Out of that you went straight, with a little interval +of passage, to the plain room where Mr. Jarndyce slept, all the +year round, with his window open, his bedstead without any +furniture standing in the middle of the floor for more air, and his +cold bath gaping for him in a smaller room adjoining. Out of that +you came into another passage, where there were back-stairs and +where you could hear the horses being rubbed down outside the +stable and being told to "Hold up" and "Get over," as they slipped +about very much on the uneven stones. Or you might, if you came +out at another door (every room had at least two doors), go +straight down to the hall again by half-a-dozen steps and a low +archway, wondering how you got back there or had ever got out of +it. + +The furniture, old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was +as pleasantly irregular. Ada's sleeping-room was all flowers--in +chintz and paper, in velvet, in needlework, in the brocade of two +stiff courtly chairs which stood, each attended by a little page of +a stool for greater state, on either side of the fire-place. Our +sitting-room was green and had framed and glazed upon the walls +numbers of surprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures +at a real trout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been +served with gravy; at the death of Captain Cook; and at the whole +process of preparing tea in China, as depicted by Chinese artists. +In my room there were oval engravings of the months--ladies +haymaking in short waists and large hats tied under the chin, for +June; smooth-legged noblemen pointing with cocked-hats to village +steeples, for October. Half-length portraits in crayons abounded +all through the house, but were so dispersed that I found the +brother of a youthful officer of mine in the china-closet and the +grey old age of my pretty young bride, with a flower in her bodice, +in the breakfast-room. As substitutes, I had four angels, of Queen +Anne's reign, taking a complacent gentleman to heaven, in festoons, +with some difficulty; and a composition in needlework representing +fruit, a kettle, and an alphabet. All the movables, from the +wardrobes to the chairs and tables, hangings, glasses, even to the +pincushions and scent-bottles on the dressing-tables, displayed the +same quaint variety. They agreed in nothing but their perfect +neatness, their display of the whitest linen, and their storing-up, +wheresoever the existence of a drawer, small or large, rendered it +possible, of quantities of rose-leaves and sweet lavender. Such, +with its illuminated windows, softened here and there by shadows of +curtains, shining out upon the starlight night; with its light, and +warmth, and comfort; with its hospitable jingle, at a distance, of +preparations for dinner; with the face of its generous master +brightening everything we saw; and just wind enough without to +sound a low accompaniment to everything we heard, were our first +impressions of Bleak House. + +"I am glad you like it," said Mr. Jarndyce when he had brought us +round again to Ada's sitting-room. "It makes no pretensions, but +it is a comfortable little place, I hope, and will be more so with +such bright young looks in it. You have barely half an hour before +dinner. There's no one here but the finest creature upon earth--a +child." + +"More children, Esther!" said Ada. + +"I don't mean literally a child," pursued Mr. Jarndyce; "not a +child in years. He is grown up--he is at least as old as I am--but +in simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless +inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child." + +We felt that he must be very interesting. + +"He knows Mrs. Jellyby," said Mr. Jarndyce. "He is a musical man, +an amateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist +too, an amateur, but might have been a professional. He is a man +of attainments and of captivating manners. He has been unfortunate +in his affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in +his family; but he don't care--he's a child!" + +"Did you imply that he has children of his own, sir?" inquired +Richard. + +"Yes, Rick! Half-a-dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. +But he has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted +somebody to look after HIM. He is a child, you know!" said Mr. +Jarndyce. + +"And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?" +inquired Richard. + +"Why, just as you may suppose," said Mr. Jarndyce, his countenance +suddenly falling. "It is said that the children of the very poor +are not brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole's children +have tumbled up somehow or other. The wind's getting round again, +I am afraid. I feel it rather!" + +Richard observed that the situation was exposed on a sharp night. + +"It IS exposed," said Mr. Jarndyce. "No doubt that's the cause. +Bleak House has an exposed sound. But you are coming my way. Come +along!" + +Our luggage having arrived and being all at hand, I was dressed in +a few minutes and engaged in putting my worldly goods away when a +maid (not the one in attendance upon Ada, but another, whom I had +not seen) brought a basket into my room with two bunches of keys in +it, all labelled. + +"For you, miss, if you please," said she. + +"For me?" said I. + +"The housekeeping keys, miss." + +I showed my surprise, for she added with some little surprise on +her own part, "I was told to bring them as soon as you was alone, +miss. Miss Summerson, if I don't deceive myself?" + +"Yes," said I. "That is my name." + +"The large bunch is the housekeeping, and the little bunch is the +cellars, miss. Any time you was pleased to appoint tomorrow +morning, I was to show you the presses and things they belong to." + +I said I would be ready at half-past six, and after she was gone, +stood looking at the basket, quite lost in the magnitude of my +trust. Ada found me thus and had such a delightful confidence in +me when I showed her the keys and told her about them that it would +have been insensibility and ingratitude not to feel encouraged. I +knew, to be sure, that it was the dear girl's kindness, but I liked +to be so pleasantly cheated. + +When we went downstairs, we were presented to Mr. Skimpole, who was +standing before the fire telling Richard how fond he used to be, in +his school-time, of football. He was a little bright creature with +a rather large head, but a delicate face and a sweet voice, and +there was a perfect charm in him. All he said was so free from +effort and spontaneous and was said with such a captivating gaiety +that it was fascinating to hear him talk. Being of a more slender +figure than Mr. Jarndyce and having a richer complexion, with +browner hair, he looked younger. Indeed, he had more the +appearance in all respects of a damaged young man than a well- +preserved elderly one. There was an easy negligence in his manner +and even in his dress (his hair carelessly disposed, and his +neckkerchief loose and flowing, as I have seen artists paint their +own portraits) which I could not separate from the idea of a +romantic youth who had undergone some unique process of +depreciation. It struck me as being not at all like the manner or +appearance of a man who had advanced in life by the usual road of +years, cares, and experiences. + +I gathered from the conversation that Mr. Skimpole had been +educated for the medical profession and had once lived, in his +professional capacity, in the household of a German prince. He +told us, however, that as he had always been a mere child in point +of weights and measures and had never known anything about them +(except that they disgusted him), he had never been able to +prescribe with the requisite accuracy of detail. In fact, he said, +he had no head for detail. And he told us, with great humour, that +when he was wanted to bleed the prince or physic any of his people, +he was generally found lying on his back in bed, reading the +newspapers or making fancy-sketches in pencil, and couldn't come. +The prince, at last, objecting to this, "in which," said Mr. +Skimpole, in the frankest manner, "he was perfectly right," the +engagement terminated, and Mr. Skimpole having (as he added with +delightful gaiety) "nothing to live upon but love, fell in love, +and married, and surrounded himself with rosy cheeks." His good +friend Jarndyce and some other of his good friends then helped him, +in quicker or slower succession, to several openings in life, but +to no purpose, for he must confess to two of the oldest infirmities +in the world: one was that he had no idea of time, the other that +he had no idea of money. In consequence of which he never kept an +appointment, never could transact any business, and never knew the +value of anything! Well! So he had got on in life, and here he +was! He was very fond of reading the papers, very fond of making +fancy-sketches with a pencil, very fond of nature, very fond of +art. All he asked of society was to let him live. THAT wasn't +much. His wants were few. Give him the papers, conversation, +music, mutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in the season, a few sheets +of Bristol-board, and a little claret, and he asked no more. He +was a mere child in the world, but he didn't cry for the moon. He +said to the world, "Go your several ways in peace! Wear red coats, +blue coats, lawn sleeves; put pens behind your ears, wear aprons; +go after glory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; +only--let Harold Skimpole live!" + +All this and a great deal more he told us, not only with the utmost +brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious candour-- +speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair, as if +Skimpole were a third person, as if he knew that Skimpole had his +singularities but still had his claims too, which were the general +business of the community and must not be slighted. He was quite +enchanting. If I felt at all confused at that early time in +endeavouring to reconcile anything he said with anything I had +thought about the duties and accountabilities of life (which I am +far from sure of), I was confused by not exactly understanding why +he was free of them. That he WAS free of them, I scarcely doubted; +he was so very clear about it himself. + +"I covet nothing," said Mr. Skimpole in the same light way. +"Possession is nothing to me. Here is my friend Jarndyce's +excellent house. I feel obliged to him for possessing it. I can +sketch it and alter it. I can set it to music. When I am here, I +have sufficient possession of it and have neither trouble, cost, +nor responsibility. My steward's name, in short, is Jarndyce, and +he can't cheat me. We have been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby. There is +a bright-eyed woman, of a strong will and immense power of business +detail, who throws herself into objects with surprising ardour! I +don't regret that I have not a strong will and an immense power of +business detail to throw myself into objects with surprising +ardour. I can admire her without envy. I can sympathize with the +objects. I can dream of them. I can lie down on the grass--in +fine weather--and float along an African river, embracing all the +natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and sketching the +dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I were there. +I don't know that it's of any direct use my doing so, but it's all +I can do, and I do it thoroughly. Then, for heaven's sake, having +Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the world, an +agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to let him +live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other, like good +souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse!" + +It was plain enough that Mr. Jarndyce had not been neglectful of +the adjuration. Mr. Skimpole's general position there would have +rendered it so without the addition of what he presently said. + +"It's only you, the generous creatures, whom I envy," said Mr. +Skimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner. +"I envy you your power of doing what you do. It is what I should +revel in myself. I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I +almost feel as if YOU ought to be grateful to ME for giving you the +opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like +it. For anything I can tell, I may have come into the world +expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness. I +may have been born to be a benefactor to you by sometimes giving +you an opportunity of assisting me in my little perplexities. Why +should I regret my incapacity for details and worldly affairs when +it leads to such pleasant consequences? I don't regret it +therefore." + +Of all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what +they expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of Mr. Jarndyce +than this. I had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder +whether it was really singular, or only singular to me, that he, +who was probably the most grateful of mankind upon the least +occasion, should so desire to escape the gratitude of others. + +We were all enchanted. I felt it a merited tribute to the engaging +qualities of Ada and Richard that Mr. Skimpole, seeing them for the +first time, should he so unreserved and should lay himself out to +be so exquisitely agreeable. They (and especially Richard) were +naturally pleased; for similar reasons, and considered it no common +privilege to be so freely confided in by such an attractive man. +The more we listened, the more gaily Mr. Skimpole talked. And what +with his fine hilarious manner and his engaging candour and his +genial way of lightly tossing his own weaknesses about, as if he +had said, "I am a child, you know! You are designing people +compared with me" (he really made me consider myself in that light) +"but I am gay and innocent; forget your worldly arts and play with +me!" the effect was absolutely dazzling. + +He was so full of feeling too and had such a delicate sentiment for +what was beautiful or tender that he could have won a heart by that +alone. In the evening, when I was preparing to make tea and Ada +was touching the piano in the adjoining room and softly humming a +tune to her cousin Richard, which they had happened to mention, he +came and sat down on the sofa near me and so spoke of Ada that I +almost loved him. + +"She is like the morning," he said. "With that golden hair, those +blue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the +summer morning. The birds here will mistake her for it. We will +not call such a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all +mankind, an orphan. She is the child of the universe." + +Mr. Jarndyce, I found, was standing near us with his hands behind +him and an attentive smile upon his face. + +"The universe," he observed, "makes rather an indifferent parent, I +am afraid." + +"Oh! I don't know!" cried Mr. Skimpole buoyantly. + +"I think I do know," said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Well!" cried Mr. Skimpole. "You know the world (which in your +sense is the universe), and I know nothing of it, so you shall have +your way. But if I had mine," glancing at the cousins, "there +should be no brambles of sordid realities in such a path as that. +It should be strewn with roses; it should lie through bowers, where +there was no spring, autumn, nor winter, but perpetual summer. Age +or change should never wither it. The base word money should never +be breathed near it!" + +Mr. Jarndyce patted him on the head with a smile, as if he had been +really a child, and passing a step or two on, and stopping a +moment, glanced at the young cousins. His look was thoughtful, but +had a benignant expression in it which I often (how often!) saw +again, which has long been engraven on my heart. The room in which +they were, communicating with that in which he stood, was only +lighted by the fire. Ada sat at the piano; Richard stood beside +her, bending down. Upon the wall, their shadows blended together, +surrounded by strange forms, not without a ghostly motion caught +from the unsteady fire, though reflecting from motionless objects. +Ada touched the notes so softly and sang so low that the wind, +sighing away to the distant hills, was as audible as the music. +The mystery of the future and the little clue afforded to it by the +voice of the present seemed expressed in the whole picture. + +But it is not to recall this fancy, well as I remember it, that I +recall the scene. First, I was not quite unconscious of the +contrast in respect of meaning and intention between the silent +look directed that way and the flow of words that had preceded it. +Secondly, though Mr. Jarndyce's glance as he withdrew it rested for +but a moment on me, I felt as if in that moment he confided to me-- +and knew that he confided to me and that I received the confidence +--his hope that Ada and Richard might one day enter on a dearer +relationship. + +Mr. Skimpole could play on the piano and the violoncello, and he +was a composer--had composed half an opera once, but got tired of +it--and played what he composed with taste. After tea we had quite +a little concert, in which Richard--who was enthralled by Ada's +singing and told me that she seemed to know all the songs that ever +were written--and Mr. Jarndyce, and I were the audience. After a +little while I missed first Mr. Skimpole and afterwards Richard, +and while I was thinking how could Richard stay away so long and +lose so much, the maid who had given me the keys looked in at the +door, saying, "If you please, miss, could you spare a minute?" + +When I was shut out with her in the hall, she said, holding up her +hands, "Oh, if you please, miss, Mr. Carstone says would you come +upstairs to Mr. Skimpole's room. He has been took, miss!" + +"Took?" said I. + +"Took, miss. Sudden," said the maid. + +I was apprehensive that his illness might be of a dangerous kind, +but of course I begged her to be quiet and not disturb any one and +collected myself, as I followed her quickly upstairs, sufficiently +to consider what were the best remedies to be applied if it should +prove to be a fit. She threw open a door and I went into a +chamber, where, to my unspeakable surprise, instead of finding Mr. +Skimpole stretched upon the bed or prostrate on the floor, I found +him standing before the fire smiling at Richard, while Richard, +with a face of great embarrassment, looked at a person on the sofa, +in a white great-coat, with smooth hair upon his head and not much +of it, which he was wiping smoother and making less of with a +pocket-handkerchief. + +"Miss Summerson," said Richard hurriedly, "I am glad you are come. +You will be able to advise us. Our friend Mr. Skimpole--don't be +alarmed!--is arrested for debt." + +"And really, my dear Miss Summerson," said Mr. Skimpole with his +agreeable candour, "I never was in a situation in which that +excellent sense and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which +anybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a +quarter of an hour in your society, was more needed." + +The person on the sofa, who appeared to have a cold in his head, +gave such a very loud snort that he startled me. + +"Are you arrested for much, sir?" I inquired of Mr. Skimpole. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said he, shaking his head pleasantly, "I +don't know. Some pounds, odd shillings, and halfpence, I think, +were mentioned." + +"It's twenty-four pound, sixteen, and sevenpence ha'penny," +observed the stranger. "That's wot it is." + +"And it sounds--somehow it sounds," said Mr. Skimpole, "like a +small sum?" + +The strange man said nothing but made another snort. It was such a +powerful one that it seemed quite to lift him out of his seat. + +"Mr. Skimpole," said Richard to me, "has a delicacy in applying to +my cousin Jarndyce because he has lately--I think, sir, I +understood you that you had lately--" + +"Oh, yes!" returned Mr. Skimpole, smiling. "Though I forgot how +much it was and when it was. Jarndyce would readily do it again, +but I have the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty +in help, that I would rather," and he looked at Richard and me, +"develop generosity in a new soil and in a new form of flower." + +"What do you think will be best, Miss Summerson?" said Richard, +aside. + +I ventured to inquire, generally, before replying, what would +happen if the money were not produced. + +"Jail," said the strange man, coolly putting his handkerchief into +his hat, which was on the floor at his feet. "Or Coavinses." + +"May I ask, sir, what is--" + +"Coavinses?" said the strange man. "A 'ouse." + +Richard and I looked at one another again. It was a most singular +thing that the arrest was our embarrassment and not Mr. Skimpole's. +He observed us with a genial interest, but there seemed, if I may +venture on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. He had +entirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become +ours. + +"I thought," he suggested, as if good-naturedly to help us out, +"that being parties in a Chancery suit concerning (as people say) a +large amount of property, Mr. Richard or his beautiful cousin, or +both, could sign something, or make over something, or give some +sort of undertaking, or pledge, or bond? I don't know what the +business name of it may be, but I suppose there is some instrument +within their power that would settle this?" + +"Not a bit on it," said the strange man. + +"Really?" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That seems odd, now, to one who +is no judge of these things!" + +"Odd or even," said the stranger gruffly, "I tell you, not a bit on +it!" + +"Keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper!" Mr. Skimpole +gently reasoned with him as he made a little drawing of his head on +the fly-leaf of a book. "Don't be ruffled by your occupation. We +can separate you from your office; we can separate the individual +from the pursuit. We are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in +private life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a +great deal of poetry in your nature, of which you may not be +conscious. + +The stranger only answered with another violent snort, whether in +acceptance of the poetry-tribute or in disdainful rejection of it, +he did not express to me. + +"Now, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard," said Mr. +Skimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly as he looked at his +drawing with his head on one side, "here you see me utterly +incapable of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only +ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not +deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!" + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said Richard in a whisper, "I have ten +pounds that I received from Mr. Kenge. I must try what that will +do." + +I possessed fifteen pounds, odd shillings, which I had saved from +my quarterly allowance during several years. I had always thought +that some accident might happen which would throw me suddenly, +without any relation or any property, on the world and had always +tried to keep some little money by me that I might not be quite +penniless. I told Richard of my having this little store and +having no present need of it, and I asked him delicately to inform +Mr. Skimpole, while I should be gone to fetch it, that we would +have the pleasure of paying his debt. + +When I came back, Mr. Skimpole kissed my hand and seemed quite +touched. Not on his own account (I was again aware of that +perplexing and extraordinary contradiction), but on ours, as if +personal considerations were impossible with him and the +contemplation of our happiness alone affected him. Richard, +begging me, for the greater grace of the transaction, as he said, +to settle with Coavinses (as Mr. Skimpole now jocularly called +him), I counted out the money and received the necessary +acknowledgment. This, too, delighted Mr. Skimpole. + +His compliments were so delicately administered that I blushed less +than I might have done and settled with the stranger in the white +coat without making any mistakes. He put the money in his pocket +and shortly said, "Well, then, I'll wish you a good evening, miss. + +"My friend," said Mr. Skimpole, standing with his back to the fire +after giving up the sketch when it was half finished, "I should +like to ask you something, without offence." + +I think the reply was, "Cut away, then!" + +"Did you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this +errand?" said Mr. Skimpole. + +"Know'd it yes'day aft'noon at tea-time," said Coavinses. + +"It didn't affect your appetite? Didn't make you at all uneasy?" + +"Not a hit," said Coavinses. "I know'd if you wos missed to-day, +you wouldn't be missed to-morrow. A day makes no such odds." + +"But when you came down here," proceeded Mr. Skimpole, "it was a +fine day. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights +and shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were +singing." + +"Nobody said they warn't, in MY hearing," returned Coavinses. + +"No," observed Mr. Skimpole. "But what did you think upon the +road?" + +"Wot do you mean?" growled Coavinses with an appearance of strong +resentment. "Think! I've got enough to do, and little enough to +get for it without thinking. Thinking!" (with profound contempt). + +"Then you didn't think, at all events," proceeded Mr. Skimpole, "to +this effect: 'Harold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to +hear the wind blow, loves to watch the changing lights and shadows, +loves to hear the birds, those choristers in Nature's great +cathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive +Harold Skimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his +only birthright!' You thought nothing to that effect?" + +"I--certainly--did--NOT," said Coavinses, whose doggedness in +utterly renouncing the idea was of that intense kind that he could +only give adequate expression to it by putting a long interval +between each word, and accompanying the last with a jerk that might +have dislocated his neck. + +"Very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of +business!" said Mr. Skimpole thoughtfully. "Thank you, my friend. +Good night." + +As our absence had been long enough already to seem strange +downstairs, I returned at once and found Ada sitting at work by the +fireside talking to her cousin John. Mr. Skimpole presently +appeared, and Richard shortly after him. I was sufficiently +engaged during the remainder of the evening in taking my first +lesson in backgammon from Mr. Jarndyce, who was very fond of the +game and from whom I wished of course to learn it as quickly as I +could in order that I might be of the very small use of being able +to play when he had no better adversary. But I thought, +occasionally, when Mr. Skimpole played some fragments of his own +compositions or when, both at the piano and the violoncello, and at +our table, he preserved with an absence of all effort his +delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversation, that Richard +and I seemed to retain the transferred impression of having been +arrested since dinner and that it was very curious altogether. + +It was late before we separated, for when Ada was going at eleven +o'clock, Mr. Skimpole went to the piano and rattled hilariously +that the best of all ways to lengthen our days was to steal a few +hours from night, my dear! It was past twelve before he took his +candle and his radiant face out of the room, and I think he might +have kept us there, if he had seen fit, until daybreak. Ada and +Richard were lingering for a few moments by the fire, wondering +whether Mrs. Jellyby had yet finished her dictation for the day, +when Mr. Jarndyce, who had been out of the room, returned. + +"Oh, dear me, what's this, what's this!" he said, rubbing his head +and walking about with his good-humoured vexation. "What's this +they tell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been +doing? Why did you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece +was it? The wind's round again. I feel it all over me!" + +We neither of us quite knew what to answer. + +"Come, Rick, come! I must settle this before I sleep. How much +are you out of pocket? You two made the money up, you know! Why +did you? How could you? Oh, Lord, yes, it's due east--must be!" + +"Really, sir," said Richard, "I don't think it would be honourable +in me to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon us--" + +"Lord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!" said Mr. +Jarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short. + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"Everybody! And he'll be in the same scrape again next week!" said +Mr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his +hand that had gone out. "He's always in the same scrape. He was +born in the same scrape. I verily believe that the announcement in +the newspapers when his mother was confined was 'On Tuesday last, +at her residence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son +in difficulties.'" + +Richard laughed heartily but added, "Still, sir, I don't want to +shake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if I submit to +your better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I +hope you will consider before you press me any more. Of course, if +you do press me, sir, I shall know I am wrong and will tell you." + +"Well!" cried Mr. Jarndyce, stopping again, and making several +absent endeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket. "I--here! +Take it away, my dear. I don't know what I am about with it; it's +all the wind--invariably has that effect--I won't press you, Rick; +you may be right. But really--to get hold of you and Esther--and +to squeeze you like a couple of tender young Saint Michael's +oranges! It'll blow a gale in the course of the night!" + +He was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets as if he +were going to keep them there a long time, and taking them out +again and vehemently rubbing them all over his head. + +I ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that Mr. Skimpole, +being in all such matters quite a child-- + +"Eh, my dear?" said Mr. Jarndyce, catching at the word. + +Being quite a child, sir," said I, "and so different from other +people--" + +"You are right!" said Mr. Jarndyce, brightening. "Your woman's wit +hits the mark. He is a child--an absolute child. I told you he +was a child, you know, when I first mentioned him." + +Certainly! Certainly! we said. + +"And he IS a child. Now, isn't he?" asked Mr. Jarndyce, +brightening more and more. + +He was indeed, we said. + +"When you come to think of it, it's the height of childishness in +you--I mean me--" said Mr. Jarodyce, "to regard him for a moment as +a man. You can't make HIM responsible. The idea of Harold +Skimpole with designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, +ha, ha!" + +It was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face +clearing, and to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it +was impossible not to know, that the source of his pleasure was the +goodness which was tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or +secretly accusing any one, that I saw the tears in Ada's eyes, +while she echoed his laugh, and felt them in my own. + +"Why, what a cod's head and shoulders I am," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to +require reminding of it! The whole business shows the child from +beginning to end. Nobody but a child would have thought of +singling YOU two out for parties in the affair! Nobody but a child +would have thought of YOUR having the money! If it had been a +thousand pounds, it would have been just the same!" said Mr. +Jarndyce with his whole face in a glow. + +We all confirmed it from our night's experience. + +"To be sure, to be sure!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "However, Rick, +Esther, and you too, Ada, for I don't know that even your little +purse is safe from his inexperience--I must have a promise all +round that nothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. No +advances! Not even sixpences." + +We all promised faithfully, Richard with a merry glance at me +touching his pocket as if to remind me that there was no danger of +OUR transgressing. + +"As to Skimpole," said Mr. Jarndyce, "a habitable doll's house with +good board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow +money of would set the boy up in life. He is in a child's sleep by +this time, I suppose; it's time I should take my craftier head to +my more worldly pillow. Good night, my dears. God bless you!" + +He peeped in again, with a smiling face, before we had lighted our +candles, and said, "Oh! I have been looking at the weather-cock. I +find it was a false alarm about the wind. It's in the south!" And +went away singing to himself. + +Ada and I agreed, as we talked together for a little while +upstairs, that this caprice about the wind was a fiction and that +he used the pretence to account for any disappointment he could not +conceal, rather than he would blame the real cause of it or +disparage or depreciate any one. We thought this very +characteristic of his eccentric gentleness and of the difference +between him and those petulant people who make the weather and the +winds (particularly that unlucky wind which he had chosen for such +a different purpose) the stalking-horses of their splenetic and +gloomy humours. + +Indeed, so much affection for him had been added in this one +evening to my gratitude that I hoped I already began to understand +him through that mingled feeling. Any seeming inconsistencies in +Mr. Skimpole or in Mrs. Jellyby I could not expect to be able to +reconcile, having so little experience or practical knowledge. +Neither did I try, for my thoughts were busy when I was alone, with +Ada and Richard and with the confidence I had seemed to receive +concerning them. My fancy, made a little wild by the wind perhaps, +would not consent to be all unselfish, either, though I would have +persuaded it to be so if I could. It wandered back to my +godmother's house and came along the intervening track, raising up +shadowy speculations which had sometimes trembled there in the dark +as to what knowledge Mr. Jarndyce had of my earliest history--even +as to the possibility of his being my father, though that idle +dream was quite gone now. + +It was all gone now, I remembered, getting up from the fire. It was +not for me to muse over bygones, but to act with a cheerful spirit +and a grateful heart. So I said to myself, "Esther, Esther, Esther! +Duty, my dear!" and gave my little basket of housekeeping keys such +a shake that they sounded like little bells and rang me hopefully to +bed. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +The Ghost's Walk + + +While Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather +down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling--drip, +drip, drip--by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace- +pavement, the Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad down in +Lincolnshire that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend +its ever being fine again. Not that there is any superabundant life +of imagination on the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, +truly, even if he were, would not do much for it in that +particular), but is in Paris with my Lady; and solitude, with dusky +wings, sits brooding upon Chesney Wold. + +There may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at +Chesney Wold. The horses in the stables--the long stables in a +barren, red-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a +turret, and a clock with a large face, which the pigeons who live +near it and who love to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always +consulting--THEY may contemplate some mental pictures of fine +weather on occasions, and may be better artists at them than the +grooms. The old roan, so famous for cross-country work, turning his +large eyeball to the grated window near his rack, may remember the +fresh leaves that glisten there at other times and the scents that +stream in, and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human +helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his +pitchfork and birch-broom. The grey, whose place is opposite the +door and who with an impatient rattle of his halter pricks his ears +and turns his head so wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the +opener says, "'Woa grey, then, steady! Noabody wants you to-day!" +may know it quite as well as the man. The whole seemingly +monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen, stabled together, may +pass the long wet hours when the door is shut in livelier +communication than is held in the servants' hall or at the Dedlock +Arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps corrupting) +the pony in the loose-box in the corner. + +So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his +large head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the +shadows of the stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing +and leave him at one time of the day no broader refuge than the +shadow of his own house, where he sits on end, panting and growling +short, and very much wanting something to worry besides himself and +his chain. So now, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the +house full of company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the +stables fall of horses, and the out-buildings full of attendants +upon horses, until he is undecided about the present and comes forth +to see how it is. Then, with that impatient shake of himself, he +may growl in the spirit, "Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain--and +no family here!" as he goes in again and lies down with a gloomy +yawn. + +So with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have +their resfless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been +very obstinate have even made it known in the house itself-- +upstairs, downstairs, and in my Lady's chamber. They may hunt the +whole country-side, while the raindrops are pattering round their +inactivity. So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, +frisking in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with +ideas of the breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those +seasons of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The +turkey in the poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance +(probably Christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning +wrongfully taken from him when he got into the lane among the felled +trees, where there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, +who stoops to pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may +gabble out, if we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather +when the gateway casts its shadow on the ground. + +Be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at +Chesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, +like a little noise in that old echoing place, a long way and +usually leads off to ghosts and mystery. + +It has rained so hard and rained so long down in Lincolnshire that +Mrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several +times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain +that the drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might +have been sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is +rather deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a +fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a +back and such a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when +she dies to have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, +nobody who knows her would have cause to be surprised. Weather +affects Mrs. Rouncewell little. The house is there in all +weathers, and the house, as she expresses it, "is what she looks +at." She sits in her room (in a side passage on the ground floor, +with an arched window commanding a smooth quadrangle, adorned at +regular intervals with smooth round trees and smooth round blocks +of stone, as if the trees were going to play at bowls with the +stones), and the whole house reposes on her mind. She can open it +on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it is shut up now and +lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell's iron-bound bosom in a +majestic sleep. + +It is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine +Chesney Wold without Mrs. Rouncewell, but she has only been here +fifty years. Ask her how long, this rainy day, and she shall +answer "fifty year, three months, and a fortnight, by the blessing +of heaven, if I live till Tuesday." Mr. Rouncewell died some time +before the decease of the pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly +hid his own (if he took it with him) in a corner of the churchyard +in the park near the mouldy porch. He was born in the market-town, +and so was his young widow. Her progress in the family began in +the time of the last Sir Leicester and originated in the still-room. + +The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. +He supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual +characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was +born to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to +make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would +never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he +is an excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be +so. He has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a +most respectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with +her when he comes down to Chesney Wold and when he goes away; and +if he were very ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run +over, or placed in any situation expressive of a Dedlock at a +disadvantage, he would say if he could speak, "Leave me, and send +Mrs. Rouncewell here!" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer +with her than with anybody else. + +Mrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. She has had two sons, of whom +the younger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. +Even to this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their +composure when she speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her +stomacher, hover about her in an agitated manner as she says what a +likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad +he was! Her second son would have been provided for at Chesney +Wold and would have been made steward in due season, but he took, +when he was a schoolboy, to constructing steam-engines out of +saucepans and setting birds to draw their own water with the least +possible amount of labour, so assisting them with artful +contrivance of hydraulic pressure that a thirsty canary had only, +in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to the wheel and the job +was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell great uneasiness. +She felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in the Wat Tyler +direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that general +impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a tall +chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young rebel +(otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign of +grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model of +a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his +backslidings to the baronet. "Mrs. Rouncewell," said Sir +Leicester, "I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one +on any subject. You had better get rid of your boy; you had better +get him into some Works. The iron country farther north is, I +suppose, the congenial direction for a boy with these tendencies." +Farther north he went, and farther north he grew up; and if Sir +Leicester Dedlock ever saw him when he came to Chesney Wold to +visit his mother, or ever thought of him afterwards, it is certain +that he only regarded him as one of a body of some odd thousand +conspirators, swarthy and grim, who were in the habit of turning +out by torchlight two or three nights in the week for unlawful +purposes. + +Nevertheless, Mrs. Rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature +and art, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called +unto him Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, who, being out of his +apprenticeship, and home from a journey in far countries, whither +he was sent to enlarge his knowledge and complete his preparations +for the venture of this life, stands leaning against the chimney- +piece this very day in Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold. + +"And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once +again, I am glad to see you, Watt!" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "You are +a fine young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!" +Mrs. Rouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference. + +"They say I am like my father, grandmother." + +"Like him, also, my dear--but most like your poor uncle George! +And your dear father." Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. "He +is well?" + +"Thriving, grandmother, in every way." + +"I am thankful!" Mrs. Rouncewell is fond of her son but has a +plaintive feeling towards him, much as if he were a very honourable +soldier who had gone over to the enemy. + +"He is quite happy?" says she. + +"Quite." + +"I am thankful! So he has brought you up to follow in his ways and +has sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows +best. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't +understand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a +quantity of good company too!" + +"Grandmother," says the young man, changing the subject, "what a +very pretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called +her Rosa?" + +"Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are +so hard to teach, now-a-days, that I have put her about me young. +She's an apt scholar and will do well. She shows the house +already, very pretty. She lives with me at my table here." + +"I hope I have not driven her away?" + +"She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. +She is very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And +scarcer," says Mrs. Rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its +utmost limits, "than it formerly was!" + +The young man inclines his head in acknowledgment of the precepts +of experience. Mrs. Rouncewell listens. + +"Wheels!" says she. They have long been audible to the younger +ears of her companion. "What wheels on such a day as this, for +gracious sake?" + +After a short interval, a tap at the door. "Come in!" A dark- +eyed, dark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in--so fresh in her +rosy and yet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have +beaten on her hair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered. + +"What company is this, Rosa?" says Mrs. Rouncewell. + +"It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house-- +yes, and if you please, I told them so!" in quick reply to a +gesture of dissent from the housekeeper. "I went to the hall-door +and told them it was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the +young man who was driving took off his hat in the wet and begged me +to bring this card to you." + +"Read it, my dear Watt," says the housekeeper. + +Rosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between +them and almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. +Rosa is shyer than before. + +"Mr. Guppy" is all the information the card yields. + +"Guppy!" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell, "MR. Guppy! Nonsense, I never +heard of him!" + +"If you please, he told ME that!" says Rosa. "But he said that he +and the other young gentleman came from London only last night by +the mail, on business at the magistrates' meeting, ten miles off, +this morning, and that as their business was soon over, and they +had heard a great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn't know +what to do with themselves, they had come through the wet to see +it. They are lawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's +office, but he is sure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn's name if +necessary." Finding, now she leaves off, that she has been making +quite a long speech, Rosa is shyer than ever. + +Now, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place, +and besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The +old lady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a +favour, and dismisses Rosa. The grandson, however, being smitten +by a sudden wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the +party. The grandmother, who is pleased that he should have that +interest, accompanies him--though to do him justice, he is +exceedingly unwilling to trouble her. + +"Much obliged to you, ma'am!" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of +his wet dreadnought in the hall. "Us London lawyers don't often +get an out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you +know." + +The old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves +her hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend +follow Rosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young +gardener goes before to open the shutters. + +As is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy +and his friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They +straggle about in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care +for the right things, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit +profound depression of spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In +each successive chamber that they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as +upright as the house itself, rests apart in a window-seat or other +such nook and listens with stately approval to Rosa's exposition. +Her grandson is so attentive to it that Rosa is shyer than ever-- +and prettier. Thus they pass on from room to room, raising the +pictured Dedlocks for a few brief minutes as the young gardener +admits the light, and reconsigning them to their graves as he shuts +it out again. It appears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his +inconsolable friend that there is no end to the Dedlocks, whose +family greatness seems to consist in their never having done +anything to distinguish themselves for seven hundred years. + +Even the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. +Guppy's spirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold and +has hardly strength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the +chimney-piece, painted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts +upon him like a charm. He recovers in a moment. He stares at it +with uncommon interest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it. + +"Dear me!" says Mr. Guppy. "Who's that?" + +"The picture over the fire-place," says Rosa, "is the portrait of +the present Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and +the best work of the master." + +"'Blest," says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his +friend, "if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the +picture been engraved, miss?" + +"The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always +refused permission." + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy in a low voice. "I'll be shot if it ain't +very curious how well I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, +is it!" + +"The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. +The picture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester." + +Mr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. "It's +unaccountable to me," he says, still staring at the portrait, "how +well I know that picture! I'm dashed," adds Mr. Guppy, looking +round, "if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, +you know!" + +As no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy's +dreams, the probability is not pursued. But he still remains so +absorbed by the portrait that he stands immovable before it until +the young gardener has closed the shutters, when he comes out of +the room in a dazed state that is an odd though a sufficient +substitute for interest and follows into the succeeding rooms with +a confused stare, as if he were looking everywhere for Lady Dedlock +again. + +He sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last +shown, as being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from +which she looked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her +to death. All things have an end, even houses that people take +infinite pains to see and are tired of before they begin to see +them. He has come to the end of the sight, and the fresh village +beauty to the end of her description; which is always this: "The +terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in +the family, the Ghost's Walk." + +"No?" says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. "What's the story, miss? +Is it anything about a picture?" + +"Pray tell us the story," says Watt in a half whisper. + +"I don't know it, sir." Rosa is shyer than ever. + +"It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten," says the +housekeeper, advancing. "It has never been more than a family +anecdote." + +"You'll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a +picture, ma'am," observes Mr. Guppy, "because I do assure you that +the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without +knowing how I know it!" + +The story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can +guarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information +and is, moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, +guided down another staircase by the young gardener, and presently +is heard to drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust +to the discretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how +the terrace came to have that ghostly name. + +She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and +tells them: "In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the +First--I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who +leagued themselves against that excellent king--Sir Morbury Dedlock +was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a +ghost in the family before those days, I can't say. I should think +it very likely indeed." + +Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a +family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. +She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, +a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. + +"Sir Morbury Dedlock," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "was, I have no +occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS +supposed that his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her +veins, favoured the bad cause. It is said that she had relations +among King Charles's enemies, that she was in correspondence with +them, and that she gave them information. When any of the country +gentlemen who followed his Majesty's cause met here, it is said +that my Lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room +than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing +along the terrace, Watt?" + +Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. + +"I hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and I +hear a curious echo--I suppose an echo--which is very like a +halting step." + +The housekeeper gravely nods and continues: "Partly on account of +this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir +Morbury and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a +haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or +character, and they had no children to moderate between them. +After her favourite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the +civil wars (by Sir Morbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so +violent that she hated the race into which she had married. When +the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Chesney Wold in the king's +cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the +stables in the dead of night and lamed their horses; and the story +is that once at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the +stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite +horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist, and in a struggle +or in a fall or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, +she was lamed in the hip and from that hour began to pine away." + +The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a +whisper. + +"She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. +She never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of +being crippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to +walk upon the terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, +went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with +greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband +(to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since +that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon +the pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him +as he bent over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, +'I will die here where I have walked. And I will walk here, though +I am in my grave. I will walk here until the pride of this house +is humbled. And when calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, +let the Dedlocks listen for my step!' + +Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon +the ground, half frightened and half shy. + +"There and then she died. And from those days," says Mrs. +Rouncewell, "the name has come down--the Ghost's Walk. If the +tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and +is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back from +time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the +family, it will be heard then." + +"And disgrace, grandmother--" says Watt. + +"Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold," returns the housekeeper. + +Her grandson apologizes with "True. True." + +"That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying +sound," says Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; "and what +is to be noticed in it is that it MUST BE HEARD. My Lady, who is +afraid of nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. +You cannot shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind +you (placed there, 'a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in +motion and can play music. You understand how those things are +managed?" + +"Pretty well, grandmother, I think." + +"Set it a-going." + +Watt sets it a-going--music and all. + +"Now, come hither," says the housekeeper. "Hither, child, towards +my Lady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but +listen! Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the +music, and the beat, and everything?" + +"I certainly can!" + +"So my Lady says." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Covering a Multitude of Sins + + +It was interesting when I dressed before daylight to peep out of +window, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like two +beacons, and finding all beyond still enshrouded in the +indistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the +day came on. As the prospect gradually revealed itself and +disclosed the scene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, +like my memory over my life, I had a pleasure in discovering the +unknown objects that had been around me in my sleep. At first they +were faintly discernible in the mist, and above them the later +stars still glimmered. That pale interval over, the picture began +to enlarge and fill up so fast that at every new peep I could have +found enough to look at for an hour. Imperceptibly my candles +became the only incongruous part of the morning, the dark places in +my room all melted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful +landscape, prominent in which the old Abbey Church, with its +massive tower, threw a softer train of shadow on the view than +seemed compatible with its rugged character. But so from rough +outsides (I hope I have learnt), serene and gentle influences often +proceed. + +Every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so +attentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys, +though what with trying to remember the contents of each little +store-room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a +slate about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and +glass, and china, and a great many other things; and what with +being generally a methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little +person, I was so busy that I could not believe it was breakfast- +time when I heard the bell ring. Away I ran, however, and made +tea, as I had already been installed into the responsibility of the +tea-pot; and then, as they were all rather late and nobody was down +yet, I thought I would take a peep at the garden and get some +knowledge of that too. I found it quite a delightful place--in +front, the pretty avenue and drive by which we had approached (and +where, by the by, we had cut up the gravel so terribly with our +wheels that I asked the gardener to roll it); at the back, the +flower-garden, with my darling at her window up there, throwing it +open to smile out at me, as if she would have kissed me from that +distance. Beyond the flower-garden was a kitchen-garden, and then +a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard, and then a dear little +farm-yard. As to the house itself, with its three peaks in the +roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large, some so small, and +all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the southfront for roses +and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable, welcoming look--it +was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with her arm through +that of its master, worthy of her cousin John, a bold thing to say, +though he only pinched her dear cheek for it. + +Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been +overnight. There was honey on the table, and it led him into a +discourse about bees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I +should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he +protested against the overweening assumptions of bees. He didn't +at all see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him; +he supposed the bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it-- +nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the bee to make such a +merit of his tastes. If every confectioner went buzzing about the +world banging against everything that came in his way and +egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was +going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be +quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was a ridiculous +position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone as soon as +you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a +Manchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose. He must say +he thought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. +The drone said unaffectedly, "You will excuse me; I really cannot +attend to the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so +much to see and so short a time to see it in that I must take the +liberty of looking about me and begging to be provided for by +somebody who doesn't want to look about him." This appeared to Mr. +Skimpole to be the drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good +philosophy, always supposing the drone to be willing to be on good +terms with the bee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow +always was, if the consequential creature would only let him, and +not be so conceited about his honey! + +He pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of +ground and made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as +serious a meaning in what he said as he was capable of having. I +left them still listening to him when I withdrew to attend to my +new duties. They had occupied me for some time, and I was passing +through the passages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm +when Mr. Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bed-chamber, +which I found to be in part a little library of books and papers +and in part quite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hat- +boxes. + +"Sit down, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce. "This, you must know, is +the growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here." + +"You must be here very seldom, sir," said I. + +"Oh, you don't know me!" he returned. "When I am deceived or +disappointed in--the wind, and it's easterly, I take refuge here. +The growlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware +of half my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling!" + +I could not help it; I tried very hard, but being alone with that +benevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so +happy and so honoured there, and my heart so full-- + +I kissed his hand. I don't know what I said, or even that I spoke. +He was disconcerted and walked to the window; I almost believed +with an intention of jumping out, until he turned and I was +reassured by seeing in his eyes what he had gone there to hide. He +gently patted me on the head, and I sat down. + +"There! There!" he said. "That's over. Pooh! Don't be foolish." + +"It shall not happen again, sir," I returned, "but at first it is +difficult--" + +"Nonsense!" he said. "It's easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good +little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head +to be that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my +good opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is +there in all this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, +and I have before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again." + +I said to myself, "Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really +is not what I expected of you!" And it had such a good effect that +I folded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. Mr. +Jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me +as confidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with +him every morning for I don't know how long. I almost felt as if I +had. + +"Of course, Esther," he said, "you don't understand this Chancery +business?" + +And of course I shook my head. + +"I don't know who does," he returned. "The lawyers have twisted it +into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the +case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It's about +a will and the trusts under a will--or it was once. It's about +nothing but costs now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, +and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and +arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, +and revolving about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and +equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. +That's the great question. All the rest, by some extraordinary +means, has melted away." + +"But it was, sir," said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub +his head, "about a will?" + +"Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything," he +returned. "A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great +fortune, and made a great will. In the question how the trusts +under that will are to be administered, the fortune left by the +will is squandered away; the legatees under the will are reduced to +such a miserable condition that they would be sufficiently punished +if they had committed an enormous crime in having money left them, +and the will itself is made a dead letter. All through the +deplorable cause, everything that everybody in it, except one man, +knows already is referred to that only one man who don't know it to +find out--all through the deplorable cause, everybody must have +copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated +about it in the way of cartloads of papers (or must pay for them +without having them, which is the usual course, for nobody wants +them) and must go down the middle and up again through such an +infernal country-dance of costs and fees and nonsense and +corruption as was never dreamed of in the wildest visions of a +witch's Sabbath. Equity sends questions to law, law sends +questions back to equity; law finds it can't do this, equity finds +it can't do that; neither can so much as say it can't do anything, +without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for +A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel appearing for B; +and so on through the whole alphabet, like the history of the apple +pie. And thus, through years and years, and lives and lives, +everything goes on, constantly beginning over and over again, and +nothing ever ends. And we can't get out of the suit on any terms, +for we are made parties to it, and MUST BE parties to it, whether +we like it or not. But it won't do to think of it! When my great +uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the +beginning of the end!" + +"The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?" + +He nodded gravely. "I was his heir, and this was his house, +Esther. When I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the +signs of his misery upon it." + +"How changed it must be now!" I said. + +"It had been called, before his time, the Peaks. He gave it its +present name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the +wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to +disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In +the meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled +through the cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, +the weeds choked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought +what remained of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have +been blown out of the house too, it was so shattered and ruined." + +He walked a little to and fro after saying this to himself with a +shudder, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat +down again with his hands in his pockets. + +"I told you this was the growlery, my dear. Where was I?" + +I reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in Bleak House. + +"Bleak House; true. There is, in that city of London there, some +property of ours which is much at this day what Bleak House was +then; I say property of ours, meaning of the suit's, but I ought to +call it the property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth +that will ever get anything out of it now or will ever know it for +anything but an eyesore and a heartsore. It is a street of +perishing blind houses, with their eyes stoned out, without a pane +of glass, without so much as a window-frame, with the bare blank +shutters tumbling from their hinges and falling asunder, the iron +rails peeling away in flakes of rust, the chimneys sinking in, the +stone steps to every door (and every door might be death's door) +turning stagnant green, the very crutches on which the ruins are +propped decaying. Although Bleak House was not in Chancery, its +master was, and it was stamped with the same seal. These are the +Great Seal's impressions, my dear, all over England--the children +know them!" + +"How changed it is!" I said again. + +"Why, so it is," he answered much more cheerfully; "and it is +wisdom in you to keep me to the bright side of the picture." (The +idea of my wisdom!) "These are things I never talk about or even +think about, excepting in the growlery here. If you consider it +right to mention them to Rick and Ada," looking seriously at me, +"you can. I leave it to your discretion, Esther." + +"I hope, sir--" said I. + +"I think you had better call me guardian, my dear." + +I felt that I was choking again--I taxed myself with it, "Esther, +now, you know you are!"--when he feigned to say this slightly, as +if it were a whim instead of a thoughtful tenderness. But I gave +the housekeeping keys the least shake in the world as a reminder to +myself, and folding my hands in a still more determined manner on +the basket, looked at him quietly. + +"I hope, guardian," said I, "that you may not trust too much to my +discretion. I hope you may not mistake me. I am afraid it will be +a disappointment to you to know that I am not clever, but it really +is the truth, and you would soon find it out if I had not the +honesty to confess it." + +He did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary. He told +me, with a smile all over his face, that he knew me very well +indeed and that I was quite clever enough for him. + +"I hope I may turn out so," said I, "but I am much afraid of it, +guardian." + +"You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives +here, my dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the +child's (I don't mean Skimpole's) rhyme: + + + 'Little old woman, and whither so high?' + 'To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.' + + +You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your +housekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to +abandon the growlery and nail up the door." + +This was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Little Old +Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs. Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame +Durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became +quite lost among them. + +"However," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to return to our gossip. Here's +Rick, a fine young fellow full of promise. What's to be done with +him?" + +Oh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point! + +"Here he is, Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his +hands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. "He must have +a profession; he must make some choice for himself. There will be +a world more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be +done." + +"More what, guardian?" said I. + +"More wiglomeration," said he. "It's the only name I know for the +thing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will +have something to say about it; Master Somebody--a sort of +ridiculous sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a +back room at the end of Quality Court, Chancery Lane--will have +something to say about it; counsel will have something to say about +it; the Chancellor will have something to say about it; the +satellites will have something to say about it; they will all have +to be handsomely feed, all round, about it; the whole thing will be +vastly ceremonious, wordy, unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I +call it, in general, wiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be +afflicted with wiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people +ever fell into a pit of it, I don't know; so it is." + +He began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind. +But it was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that +whether he rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face +was sure to recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine; +and he was sure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his +pockets and stretch out his legs. + +"Perhaps it would be best, first of all," said I, "to ask Mr. +Richard what he inclines to himself." + +"Exactly so," he returned. "That's what I mean! You know, just +accustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet +way, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it. We are +sure to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little +woman." + +I really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was +attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. +I had not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to +Richard. But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would +do my best, though I feared (I realty felt it necessary to repeat +this) that he thought me much more sagacious than I was. At which +my guardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard. + +"Come!" he said, rising and pushing back his chair. "I think we +may have done with the growlery for one day! Only a concluding +word. Esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?" + +He looked so attentively at me that I looked attentively at him and +felt sure I understood him. + +"About myself, sir?" said I. + +"Yes." + +"Guardian," said I, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly +colder than I could have wished, in his, "nothing! I am quite sure +that if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to +know, I should not have to ask you to tell it to me. If my whole +reliance and confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard +heart indeed. I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world." + +He drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada. +From that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite +content to know no more, quite happy. + +We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had +to become acquainted with many residents in and out of the +neighbourhood who knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that +everybody knew him who wanted to do anything with anybody else's +money. It amazed us when we began to sort his letters and to +answer some of them for him in the growlery of a morning to find +how the great object of the lives of nearly all his correspondents +appeared to be to form themselves into committees for getting in +and laying out money. The ladies were as desperate as the +gentlemen; indeed, I think they were even more so. They threw +themselves into committees in the most impassioned manner and +collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite extraordinary. It +appeared to us that some of them must pass their whole lives in +dealing out subscription-cards to the whole post-office directory-- +shilling cards, half-crown cards, half-sovereign cards, penny +cards. They wanted everything. They wanted wearing apparel, they +wanted linen rags, they wanted money, they wanted coals, they +wanted soup, they wanted interest, they wanted autographs, they +wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. Jarndyce had--or had not. +Their objects were as various as their demands. They were going to +raise new buildings, they were going to pay off debts on old +buildings, they were going to establish in a picturesque building +(engraving of proposed west elevation attached) the Sisterhood of +Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a testimonial to Mrs. +Jellyby, they were going to have their secretary's portrait painted +and presented to his mother-in-law, whose deep devotion to him was +well known, they were going to get up everything, I really believe, +from five hundred thousand tracts to an annuity and from a marble +monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a multitude of titles. +They were the Women of England, the Daughters of Britain, the +Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the Females of +America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. They appeared to +be always excited about canvassing and electing. They seemed to +our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be +constantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing +their candidates in for anything. It made our heads ache to think, +on the whole, what feverish lives they must lead. + +Among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious +benevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who +seemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce, +to be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. +We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became +the subject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr. +Jarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked +that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people +who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the +people who did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were +therefore curious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a +type of the former class, and were glad when she called one day +with her five young sons. + +She was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent +nose, and a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal +of room. And she really did, for she knocked down little chairs +with her skirts that were quite a great way off. As only Ada and I +were at home, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in +like cold weather and to make the little Pardiggles blue as they +followed. + +"These, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility +after the first salutations, "are my five boys. You may have seen +their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) +in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my +eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the +amount of five and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, +my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and +nine-pence to the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my +third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), +eightpence to the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), +has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is +pledged never, through life, to use tobacco in any form." + +We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely +that they were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly +that to--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At +the mention of the Tockahoopo Indians, I could really have supposed +Eghert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave +me such a savage frown. The face of each child, as the amount of +his contribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive +manner, but his was by far the worst. I must except, however, the +little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and +evenly miserable. + +"You have been visiting, I understand," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "at +Mrs. Jellyby's?" + +We said yes, we had passed one night there. + +"Mrs. Jellyby," pursued the lady, always speaking in the same +demonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my +fancy as if it had a sort of spectacles on too--and I may take the +opportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less +engaging by her eyes being what Ada called "choking eyes," meaning +very prominent--"Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and +deserves a helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African +project--Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine +weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, +according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with +Mrs. Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her +treatment of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been +observed that her young family are excluded from participation in +the objects to which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be +wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course with MY young +family. I take them everywhere." + +I was afterwards convinced (and so was Ada) that from the ill- +conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell. He +turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell. + +"They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six +o'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the +depth of winter," said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, "and they are with +me during the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, I +am a Visiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady; +I am on the local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; +and my canvassing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more +so. But they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they +acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing +charitable business in general--in short, that taste for the sort +of thing--which will render them in after life a service to their +neighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are +not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in +subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many +public meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and +discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. +Alfred (five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined +the Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who +manifested consciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of +two hours from the chairman of the evening." + +Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the +injury of that night. + +"You may have observed, Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "in +some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of +our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family +are concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound. +That is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put +down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, +according to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. +Pardiggle brings up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in +his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made +not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to +others." + +Suppose Mr. Pardiggle were to dine with Mr. Jellyby, and suppose +Mr. Jellyby were to relieve his mind after dinner to Mr. Pardiggle, +would Mr. Pardiggle, in return, make any confidential communication +to Mr. Jellyby? I was quite confused to find myself thinking this, +but it came into my head. + +"You are very pleasantly situated here!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. + +We were glad to change the subject, and going to the window, +pointed out the beauties of the prospect, on which the spectacles +appeared to me to rest with curious indifference. + +"You know Mr. Gusher?" said our visitor. + +We were obliged to say that we had not the pleasure of Mr. Gusher's +acquaintance. + +"The loss is yours, I assure you," said Mrs. Pardiggle with her +commanding deportment. "He is a very fervid, impassioned speaker- +full of fire! Stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now, which, from +the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public meeting, he +would improve almost any occasion you could mention for hours and +hours! By this time, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle, moving +back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency, a +little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket +on it, "by this time you have found me out, I dare say?" + +This was really such a confusing question that Ada looked at me in +perfect dismay. As to the guilty nature of my own consciousness +after what I had been thinking, it must have been expressed in the +colour of my cheeks. + +"Found out, I mean," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "the prominent point in +my character. I am aware that it is so prominent as to be +discoverable immediately. I lay myself open to detection, I know. +Well! I freely admit, I am a woman of business. I love hard work; +I enjoy hard work. The excitement does me good. I am so +accustomed and inured to hard work that I don't know what fatigue +is." + +We murmured that it was very astonishing and very gratifying, or +something to that effect. I don't think we knew what it was +either, but this is what our politeness expressed. + +"I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if +you try!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. "The quantity of exertion (which is +no exertion to me), the amount of business (which I regard as +nothing), that I go through sometimes astonishes myself. I have +seen my young family, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with +witnessing it, when I may truly say I have been as fresh as a +lark!" + +If that dark-visaged eldest boy could look more malicious than he +had already looked, this was the time when he did it. I observed +that he doubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the +crown of his cap, which was under his left arm. + +"This gives me a great advantage when I am making my rounds," said +Mrs. Pardiggle. "If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have +to say, I tell that person directly, 'I am incapable of fatigue, my +good friend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have +done.' It answers admirably! Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have +your assistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and Miss Clare's +very soon." + +At first I tried to excuse myself for the present on the general +ground of having occupations to attend to which I must not neglect. +But as this was an ineffectual protest, I then said, more +particularly, that I was not sure of my qualifications. That I was +inexperienced in the art of adapting my mind to minds very +differently situated, and addressing them from suitable points of +view. That I had not that delicate knowledge of the heart which +must be essential to such a work. That I had much to learn, +myself, before I could teach others, and that I could not confide +in my good intentions alone. For these reasons I thought it best +to be as useful as I could, and to render what kind services I +could to those immediately about me, and to try to let that circle +of duty gradually and naturally expand itself. All this I said +with anything but confidence, because Mrs. Pardiggle was much older +than I, and had great experience, and was so very military in her +manners. + +"You are wrong, Miss Summerson," said she, "but perhaps you are not +equal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast +difference. If you would like to see how I go through my work, I +am now about--with my young family--to visit a brickmaker in the +neighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you +with me. Miss Clare also, if she will do me the favour." + +Ada and I interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case, +accepted the offer. When we hastily returned from putting on our +bonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and Mrs. +Pardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the +light objects it contained. Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada, +and I followed with the family. + +Ada told me afterwards that Mrs. Pardiggle talked in the same loud +tone (that, indeed, I overheard) all the way to the brickmaker's +about an exciting contest which she had for two or three years +waged against another lady relative to the bringing in of their +rival candidates for a pension somewhere. There had been a +quantity of printing, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and +it appeared to have imparted great liveliness to all concerned, +except the pensioners--who were not elected yet. + +I am very fond of being confided in by children and am happy in +being usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it +gave me great uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, +with the manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me on +the ground that his pocket-money was "boned" from him. On my +pointing out the great impropriety of the word, especially in +connexion with his parent (for he added sulkily "By her!"), he +pinched me and said, "Oh, then! Now! Who are you! YOU wouldn't +like it, I think? What does she make a sham for, and pretend to +give me money, and take it away again? Why do you call it my +allowance, and never let me spend it?" These exasperating +questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of Oswald and Francis +that they all pinched me at once, and in a dreadfully expert way-- +screwing up such little pieces of my arms that I could hardly +forbear crying out. Felix, at the same time, stamped upon my toes. +And the Bond of Joy, who on account of always having the whole of +his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to abstain from +cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we +passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming +purple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the +course of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally +constrained children when they paid me the compliment of being +natural. + +I was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was +one of a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties +close to the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the +doors growing nothing but stagnant pools. Here and there an old +tub was put to catch the droppings of rain-water from a roof, or +they were banked up with mud into a little pond like a large dirt- +pie. At the doors and windows some men and women lounged or +prowled about, and took little notice of us except to laugh to one +another or to say something as we passed about gentlefolks minding +their own business and not troubling their heads and muddying their +shoes with coming to look after other people's. + +Mrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral +determination and talking with much volubility about the untidy +habits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have +been tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the +farthest corner, the ground-floor room of which we nearly filled. +Besides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman +with a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a +man, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, +lying at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful +young man fastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some +kind of washing in very dirty water. They all looked up at us as +we came in, and the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire +as if to hide her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome. + +"Well, my friends," said Mrs. Pardiggle, but her voice had not a +friendly sound, I thought; it was much too businesslike and +systematic. "How do you do, all of you? I am here again. I told +you, you couldn't tire me, you know. I am fond of hard work, and +am true to my word." + +"There an't," growled the man on the floor, whose head rested on +his hand as he stared at us, "any more on you to come in, is +there?" + +"No, my friend," said Mrs. Pardiggle, seating herself on one stool +and knocking down another. "We are all here." + +"Because I thought there warn't enough of you, perhaps?" said the +man, with his pipe between his lips as he looked round upon us. + +The young man and the girl both laughed. Two friends of the young +man, whom we had attracted to the doorway and who stood there with +their hands in their pockets, echoed the laugh noisily. + +"You can't tire me, good people," said Mrs. Pardiggle to these +latter. "I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the +better I like it." + +"Then make it easy for her!" growled the man upon the floor. "I +wants it done, and over. I wants a end of these liberties took +with my place. I wants an end of being drawed like a badger. Now +you're a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--I know +what you're a-going to be up to. Well! You haven't got no +occasion to be up to it. I'll save you the trouble. Is my +daughter a-washin? Yes, she IS a-washin. Look at the water. +Smell it! That's wot we drinks. How do you like it, and what do +you think of gin instead! An't my place dirty? Yes, it is dirty-- +it's nat'rally dirty, and it's nat'rally onwholesome; and we've had +five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so +much the better for them, and for us besides. Have I read the +little book wot you left? No, I an't read the little book wot you +left. There an't nobody here as knows how to read it; and if there +wos, it wouldn't be suitable to me. It's a book fit for a babby, +and I'm not a babby. If you was to leave me a doll, I shouldn't +nuss it. How have I been conducting of myself? Why, I've been +drunk for three days; and I'da been drunk four if I'da had the +money. Don't I never mean for to go to church? No, I don't never +mean for to go to church. I shouldn't be expected there, if I did; +the beadle's too gen-teel for me. And how did my wife get that +black eye? Why, I give it her; and if she says I didn't, she's a +lie!" + +He had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now +turned over on his other side and smoked again. Mrs. Pardiggle, +who had been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible +composure, calculated, I could not help thinking, to increase his +antagonism, pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's +staff and took the whole family into custody. I mean into +religious custody, of course; but she really did it as if she were +an inexorable moral policeman carrying them all off to a station- +house. + +Ada and I were very uncomfortable. We both felt intrusive and out +of place, and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on +infinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of +taking possession of people. The children sulked and stared; the +family took no notice of us whatever, except when the young man +made the dog bark, which he usually did when Mrs. Pardiggle was +most emphatic. We both felt painfully sensible that between us and +these people there was an iron barrier which could not be removed +by our new friend. By whom or how it could be removed, we did not +know, but we knew that. Even what she read and said seemed to us +to be ill-chosen for such auditors, if it had been imparted ever so +modestly and with ever so much tact. As to the little book to +which the man on the floor had referred, we acqulred a knowledge of +it afterwards, and Mr. Jarndyce said he doubted if Robinson Crusoe +could have read it, though he had had no other on his desolate +island. + +We were much relieved, under these circumstances, when Mrs. +Pardiggle left off. + +The man on the floor, then turning his bead round again, said +morosely, "Well! You've done, have you?" + +"For to-day, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall +come to you again in your regular order," returned Mrs. Pardiggle +with demonstrative cheerfulness. + +"So long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting +his eyes with an oath, "you may do wot you like!" + +Mrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the +confined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped. +Taking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others +to follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and +all his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then +proceeded to another cottage. I hope it is not unkind in me to say +that she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show +that was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of +dealing in it to a large extent. + +She supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space +was left clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask +if the baby were ill. + +She only looked at it as it lay on her lap. We had observed before +that when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her +hand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise +and violence and ill treatment from the poor little child. + +Ada, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to +touch its little face. As she did so, I saw what happened and drew +her back. The child died. + +"Oh, Esther!" cried Ada, sinking on her knees beside it. "Look +here! Oh, Esther, my love, the little thing! The suffering, +quiet, pretty little thing! I am so sorry for it. I am so sorry +for the mother. I never saw a sight so pitiful as this before! +Oh, baby, baby!" + +Such compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down +weeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any +mother's heart that ever beat. The woman at first gazed at her in +astonishment and then burst into tears. + +Presently I took the light burden from her lap, did what I could to +make the baby's rest the prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf, +and covered it with my own handkerchief. We tried to comfort the +mother, and we whispered to her what Our Saviour said of children. +She answered nothing, but sat weeping--weeping very much. + +When I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog and +was standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but +quiet. The girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the +ground. The man had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air +of defiance, but he was silent. + +An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing +at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "Jenny! +Jenny!" The mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the +woman's neck. + +She also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. She +had no kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when +she condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no +beauty. I say condoled, but her only words were "Jenny! Jenny!" +All the rest was in the tone in which she said them. + +I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and +shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one +another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of +each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I +think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What +the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves +and God. + +We felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted. We +stole out quietly and without notice from any one except the man. +He was leaning against the wall near the door, and finding that +there was scarcely room for us to pass, went out before us. He +seemed to want to hide that he did this on our account, but we +perceived that be did, and thanked him. He made no answer. + +Ada was so full of grief all the way home, and Richard, whom we +found at home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he +said to me, when she was not present, how beautiful it was too!), +that we arranged to return at night with some little comforts and +repeat our visit at the brick-maker's house. We said as little as +we could to Mr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly. + +Richard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning +expedition. On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking- +house, where a number of men were flocking about the door. Among +them, and prominent in some dispute, was the father of the little +child. At a short distance, we passed the young man and the dog, +in congenial company. The sister was standing laughing and talking +with some other young women at the corner of the row of cottages, +but she seemed ashamed and turned away as we went by. + +We left our escort within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and +proceeded by ourselves. When we came to the door, we found the +woman who had brought such consolation with her standing there +looking anxiously out. + +"It's you, young ladies, is it?" she said in a whisper. "I'm a- +watching for my master. My heart's in my mouth. If he was to +catch me away from home, he'd pretty near murder me." + +"Do you mean your husband?" said I. + +"Yes, miss, my master. Jennys asleep, quite worn out. She's +scarcely had the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days +and nights, except when I've been able to take it for a minute or +two." + +As she gave way for us, she went softly in and put what we had +brought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. No +effort had been made to clean the room--it seemed in its nature +almost hopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which +so much solemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and +washed, and neatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on +my handkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch +of sweet herbs had been laid by the same rough, scarred hands, so +lightly, so tenderly! + +"May heaven reward you!" we said to her. "You are a good woman." + +"Me, young ladies?" she returned with surprise. "Hush! Jenny, +Jenny!" + +The mother had moaned in her sleep and moved. The sound of the +familiar voice seemed to calm her again. She was quiet once more. + +How little I thought, when I raised my handkerchief to look upon +the tiny sleeper underneath and seemed to see a halo shine around +the child through Ada's drooping hair as her pity bent her head-- +how little I thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would +come to lie after covering the motionless and peaceful breast! I +only thought that perhaps the Angel of the child might not be all +unconscious of the woman who replaced it with so compassionate a +hand; not all unconscious of her presently, when we had taken +leave, and left her at the door, by turns looking, and listening in +terror for herself, and saying in her old soothing manner, "Jenny, +Jenny!" + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Signs and Tokens + + +I don't know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself. I +mean all the time to write about other people, and I try to think +about myself as little as possible, and I am sure, when I find +myself coming into the story again, I am really vexed and say, +"Dear, dear, you tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn't!" +but it is all of no use. I hope any one who may read what I write +will understand that if these pages contain a great deal about me, +I can only suppose it must be because I have really something to do +with them and can't be kept out. + +My darling and I read together, and worked, and practised, and +found so much employment for our time that the winter days flew by +us like bright-winged birds. Generally in the afternoons, and +always in the evenings, Richard gave us his company. Although he +was one of the most restless creatures in the world, he certainly +was very fond of our society. + +He was very, very, very fond of Ada. I mean it, and I had better +say it at once. I had never seen any young people falling in love +before, but I found them out quite soon. I could not say so, of +course, or show that I knew anything about it. On the contrary, I +was so demure and used to seem so unconscious that sometimes I +considered within myself while I was sitting at work whether I was +not growing quite deceitful. + +But there was no help for it. All I had to do was to be quiet, and +I was as quiet as a mouse. They were as quiet as mice too, so far +as any words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they +relied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one +another was so charming that I had great difficulty in not showing +how it interested me. + +"Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman," Richard +would say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his +pleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, "that I +can't get on without her. Before I begin my harum-scarum day-- +grinding away at those books and instruments and then galloping up +hill and down dale, all the country round, like a highwayman--it +does me so much good to come and have a steady walk with our +comfortable friend, that here I am again!" + +"You know, Dame Durden, dear," Ada would say at night, with her +head upon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful +eyes, "I don't want to talk when we come upstairs here. Only to +sit a little while thinking, with your dear face for company, and +to hear the wind and remember the poor sailors at sea--" + +Ah! Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor. We had talked it +over very often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the +inclination of his childhood for the sea. Mr. Jarndyce had written +to a relation of the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his +interest in Richard's favour, generally; and Sir Leicester had +replied in a gracious manner that he would be happy to advance the +prospects of the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be +within his power, which was not at all probable, and that my Lady +sent her compliments to the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly +remembered that she was allied by remote consanguinity) and trusted +that he would ever do his duty in any honourable profession to +which he might devote himself. + +"So I apprehend it's pretty clear," said Richard to me, "that I +shall have to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have +had to do that before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the +command of a clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off +the Chancellor and keep him on short allowance until he gave +judgment in our cause. He'd find himself growing thin, if he +didn't look sharp!" + +With a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever +flagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite +perplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd +way, for prudence. It entered into all his calculations about +money in a singular manner which I don't think I can better explain +than by reverting for a moment to our loan to Mr. Skimpole. + +Mr. Jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole +himself or from Coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands +with instructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the +rest to Richard. The number of little acts of thoughtless +expenditure which Richard justified by the recovery of his ten +pounds, and the number of times he talked to me as if he had saved +or realized that amount, would form a sum in simple addition. + +"My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?" he said to me when he wanted, +without the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the +brickmaker. "I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses' +business." + +"How was that?" said I. + +"Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid +of and never expected to see any more. You don't deny that?" + +"No," said I. + +"Very well! Then I came into possession of ten pounds--" + +"The same ten pounds," I hinted. + +"That has nothing to do with it!" returned Richard. "I have got +ten pounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can +afford to spend it without being particular." + +In exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice +of these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good, +he carried that sum to his credit and drew upon it. + +"Let me see!" he would say. "I saved five pounds out of the +brickmaker's affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back +in a post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have +saved one. And it's a very good thing to save one, let me tell +you: a penny saved is a penny got!" + +I believe Richard's was as frank and generous a nature as there +possibly can be. He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all +his wild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother +in a few weeks. His gentleness was natural to him and would have +shown itself abundantly even without Ada's influence; but with it, +he became one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to +be interested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted. I +am sure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and +talking with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, +falling deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and +each shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, +perhaps not yet suspected even by the other--I am sure that I was +scarcely less enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased +with the pretty dream. + +We were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr. +Jarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, +said, "From Boythorn? Aye, aye!" and opened and read it with +evident pleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was +about half-way through, that Boythorn was "coming down" on a visit. +Now who was Boythorn, we all thought. And I dare say we all +thought too--I am sure I did, for one--would Boythorn at all +interfere with what was going forward? + +"I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr. +Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than +five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in +the world, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the +loudest boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was +then the heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now +the heartiest and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow." + +"In stature, sir?" asked Richard. + +"Pretty well, Rick, in that respect," said Mr. Jarndyce; "being +some ten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his +head thrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, +his hands like a clean blacksmith's, and his lungs! There's no +simile for his lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the +beams of the house shake." + +As Mr. Jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend Boythorn, we +observed the favourable omen that there was not the least +indication of any change in the wind. + +"But it's the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the +passion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick--and Ada, and +little Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor--that I +speak of," he pursued. "His language is as sounding as his voice. +He is always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. +In his condemnation he is all ferocity. You might suppose him to +be an ogre from what he says, and I believe he has the reputation +of one with some people. There! I tell you no more of him +beforehand. You must not be surprised to see him take me under his +protection, for he has never forgotten that I was a low boy at +school and that our friendship began in his knocking two of my head +tyrant's teeth out (he says six) before breakfast. Boythorn and +his man," to me, "will be here this afternoon, my dear." + +I took care that the necessary preparations were made for Mr. +Boythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with +some curiosity. The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not +appear. The dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. The +dinner was put back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire +with no light but the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open +and the hall resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest +vehemence and in a stentorian tone: "We have been misdirected, +Jarndyce, by a most abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the +turning to the right instead of to the left. He is the most +intolerable scoundrel on the face of the earth. His father must +have been a most consummate villain, ever to have such a son. I +would have had that fellow shot without the least remorse!" + +"Did he do it on purpose?" Mr. Jarndyce inquired. + +"I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his +whole existence in misdirecting travellers!" returned the other. +"By my soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld +when he was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I +stood before that fellow face to face and didn't knock his brains +out!" + +"Teeth, you mean?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, really making the +whole house vibrate. "What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, +ha, ha! And that was another most consummate vagabond! By my +soul, the countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the +blackest image of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a +scarecrow in a field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most +unparalleled despot in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like +a rotten tree!" + +"I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now, will you come +upstairs?" + +"By my soul, Jarndyce," returned his guest, who seemed to refer to +his watch, "if you had been married, I would have turned back at +the garden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the +Himalaya Mountains sooner than I would have presented myself at +this unseasonable hour." + +"Not quite so far, I hope?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"By my life and honour, yes!" cried the visitor. "I wouldn't be +guilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house +waiting all this time for any earthly consideration. I would +infinitely rather destroy myself--infinitely rather!" + +Talking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his +bedroom thundering "Ha, ha, ha!" and again "Ha, ha, ha!" until the +flattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion +and to laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him +laugh. + +We all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a +sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice, +and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word +he spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to +go off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly +prepared to have it so confirmed by his appearance when Mr. +Jarndyce presented him. He was not only a very handsome old +gentleman--upright and stalwart as he had been described to us-- +with a massive grey head, a fine composure of face when silent, a +figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so +continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that +might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement +emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was +such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his +face was lighted by a smile of so much sweetness and tenderness, +and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to hide, but showed +himself exactly as he was--incapable, as Richard said, of anything +on a limited scale, and firing away with those blank great guns +because he carried no small arms whatever--that really I could not +help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat at dinner, +whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led by Mr. +Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his +head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous "Ha, ha, ha!" + +"You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?" said Mr. +Jarndyce. + +"By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the +other. "He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten +thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his +sole support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and +attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the +most astonishing birds that ever lived!" + +The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so +tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his +forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, +alighted on his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently +expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this +fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to +have a good illustration of his character, I thought. + +"By my soul, Jarndyce," he said, very gently holding up a bit of +bread to the canary to peck at, "if I were in your place I would +seize every master in Chancery by the throat tomorrow morning and +shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones +rattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by +fair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would +do it for you with the greatest satisfaction!" (All this time the +very small canary was eating out of his hand.) + +"I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at +present," returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, "that it would be +greatly advanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and +the whole bar." + +"There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the +face of the earth!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Nothing but a mine below +it on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and +precedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it +also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the +Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to +atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it +in the least!" + +It was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which +he recommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he +threw up his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole +country seemed to echo to his "Ha, ha, ha!" It had not the least +effect in disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete +and who hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side +and now on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if +he were no more than another bird. + +"But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right +of way?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "You are not free from the toils of +the law yourself!" + +"The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have +brought actions against HIM for trespass," returned Mr. Boythorn. +"By heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally +impossible that his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir +Lucifer." + +"Complimentary to our distant relation!" said my guardian +laughingly to Ada and Richard. + +"I would beg Miss Clare's pardon and Mr. Carstone's pardon," +resumed our visitor, "if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair +face of the lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite +unnecessary and that they keep their distant relation at a +comfortable distance." + +"Or he keeps us," suggested Richard. + +"By my soul," exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another +volley, "that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather +was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, +ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station +of life but a walking-stick's! The whole of that family are the +most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads! But it's no +matter; he should not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets +melted into one and living in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within +another, like the ivory balls in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by +his agent, or secretary, or somebody, writes to me 'Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, presents his compliments to Mr. Lawrence +Boythorn, and has to call his attention to the fact that the green +pathway by the old parsonage-house, now the property of Mr. +Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir Leicester's right of way, being in fact a +portion of the park of chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds +it convenient to close up the same.' I write to the fellow, 'Mr. +Lawrence Boythorn presents his compliments to Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS attention to the fact that he +totally denies the whole of Sir Leicester Dedlock's positions on +every possible subject and has to add, in reference to closing up +the pathway, that he will be glad to see the man who may undertake +to do it.' The fellow sends a most abandoned villain with one eye +to construct a gateway. I play upon that execrable scoundrel with +a fire-engine until the breath is nearly driven out of his body. +The fellow erects a gate in the night. I chop it down and burn it +in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to come over the fence and +pass and repass. I catch them in humane man traps, fire split peas +at their legs, play upon them with the engine--resolve to free +mankind from the insupportable burden of the existence of those +lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass; I bring actions +for trespass. He brings actions for assault and battery; I defend +them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha, ha!" + +To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have +thought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same +time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly +smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought +him the gentlest. To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature +of his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in +the world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence +was a summer joke. + +"No, no," he said, "no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! +Though I willingly confess," here he softened in a moment, "that +Lady Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I +would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a +head seven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment +at twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and +presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the +breath of life through a tight waist--and got broke for it--is not +the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive, +locked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!" + +"Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?" said my +guardian. + +"Most assuredly not!" said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the +shoulder with an air of protection that had something serious in +it, though he laughed. "He will stand by the low boy, always. +Jarndyce, you may rely upon him! But speaking of this trespass-- +with apologies to Miss Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at +which I have pursued so dry a subject--is there nothing for me from +your men Kenge and Carboy?" + +"I think not, Esther?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Nothing, guardian." + +"Much obliged!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Had no need to ask, after even +my slight experience of Miss Summerson's forethought for every one +about her." (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do +it.) "I inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course +have not yet been in town, and I thought some letters might have +been sent down here. I dare say they will report progress to- +morrow morning." + +I saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very +pleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a +satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat +at a little distance from the piano listening to the music--and he +had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of +music, for his face showed it--that I asked my guardian as we sat +at the backgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married. + +"No," said he. "No." + +"But he meant to be!" said I. + +"How did you find out that?" he returned with a smile. "Why, +guardian," I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding +what was in my thoughts, "there is something so tender in his +manner, after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and +--" + +Mr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have +just described him. + +I said no more. + +"You are right, little woman," he answered. "He was all but +married once. Long ago. And once." + +"Did the lady die?" + +"No--but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all +his later life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart +full of romance yet?" + +"I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to +say that when you have told me so." + +"He has never since been what he might have been," said Mr. +Jarndyce, "and now you see him in his age with no one near him but +his servant and his little yellow friend. It's your throw, my +dear!" + +I felt, from my guardian's manner, that beyond this point I could +not pursue the subject without changing the wind. I therefore +forbore to ask any further questions. I was interested, but not +curious. I thought a little while about this old love story in the +night, when I was awakened by Mr. Boythorn's lusty snoring; and I +tried to do that very difficult thing, imagine old people young +again and invested with the graces of youth. But I fell asleep +before I had succeeded, and dreamed of the days when I lived in my +godmother's house. I am not sufficiently acquainted with such +subjects to know whether it is at all remarkable that I almost +always dreamed of that period of my life. + +With the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy +to Mr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait +upon him at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the +bills, and added up my books, and made all the household affairs as +compact as possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and +Richard took advantage of a very fine day to make a little +excursion, Mr. Boythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy's clerk and +then was to go on foot to meet them on their return. + +Well! I was full of business, examining tradesmen's books, adding +up columns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a +great bustle about it when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I +had had some idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be +the young gentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and I was +glad to see him, because he was associated with my present +happiness. + +I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an +entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid +gloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house +flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little +finger. Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with +bear's-grease and other perfumery. He looked at me with an +attention that quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat +until the servant should return; and as he sat there crossing and +uncrossing his legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a +pleasant ride, and hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at +him, but I found him looking at me in the same scrutinizing and +curious way. + +When the request was brought to him that he would go up-stairs to +Mr. Boythorn's room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared +for him when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would +partake. He said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the +door, '"Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?" I +replied yes, I should be there; and he went out with a bow and +another look. + +I thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much +embarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be +to wait until I saw that he had everything he wanted and then to +leave him to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained +for some time on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a +long one, and a stormy one too, I should think, for although his +room was at some distance I heard his loud voice rising every now +and then like a high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides +of denunciation. + +At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the +conference. "My eye, miss," he said in a low voice, "he's a +Tartar!" + +"Pray take some refreshment, sir," said I. + +Mr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the +carving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt +quite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. The +sharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation +on me to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under +which he seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off. + +He immediately looked at the dish and began to carve. + +"What will you take yourself, miss? You'll take a morsel of +something?" + +"No, thank you," said I. + +"Shan't I give you a piece of anything at all, miss?" said Mr. +Guppy, hurriedly drinking off a glass of wine. + +"Nothing, thank you," said I. "I have only waited to see that you +have everything you want. Is there anything I can order for you?" + +"No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure. I've everything that +I can require to make me comfortable--at least I--not comfortable-- +I'm never that." He drank off two more glasses of wine, one after +another. + +I thought I had better go. + +"I beg your pardon, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, rising when he saw me +rise. "But would you allow me the favour of a minute's private +conversation?" + +Not knowing what to say, I sat down again. + +"What follows is without prejudice, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, anxiously +bringing a chair towards my table. + +"I don't understand what you mean," said I, wondering. + +"It's one of our law terms, miss. You won't make any use of it to +my detriment at Kenge and Carboy's or elsewhere. If our +conversation shouldn't lead to anything, I am to be as I was and am +not to be prejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects. In +short, it's in total confidence." + +"I am at a loss, sir," said I, "to imagine what you can have to +communicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but +once; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury." + +"Thank you, miss. I'm sure of it--that's quite sufficient." All +this time Mr. Guppy was either planing his forehead with his +handkerchief or tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the +palm of his right. "If you would excuse my taking another glass of +wine, miss, I think it might assist me in getting on without a +continual choke that cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant." + +He did so, and came back again. I took the opportunity of moving +well behind my table. + +"You wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would you miss?" said Mr. +Guppy, apparently refreshed. + +"Not any," said I. + +"Not half a glass?" said Mr. Guppy. "Quarter? No! Then, to +proceed. My present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's, +is two pound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon +you, it was one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a +lengthened period. A rise of five has since taken place, and a +further rise of five is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not +exceeding twelve months from the present date. My mother has a +little property, which takes the form of a small life annuity, upon +which she lives in an independent though unassuming manner in the +Old Street Road. She is eminently calculated for a mother-in-law. +She never interferes, is all for peace, and her disposition easy. +She has her failings--as who has not?--but I never knew her do it +when company was present, at which time you may freely trust her +with wines, spirits, or malt liquors. My own abode is lodgings at +Penton Place, Pentonville. It is lowly, but airy, open at the back, +and considered one of the 'ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In +the mildest language, I adore you. Would you be so kind as to allow +me (as I may say) to file a declaration--to make an offer!" + +Mr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was well behind my table and +not much frightened. I said, "Get up from that ridiculous position +lmmediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise +and ring the bell!" + +"Hear me out, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, folding his hands. + +"I cannot consent to hear another word, sir," I returned, "Unless +you get up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table +as you ought to do if you have any sense at all." + +He looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so. + +"Yet what a mockery it is, miss," he said with his hand upon his +heart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the +tray, "to be stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul +recoils from food at such a moment, miss." + +"I beg you to conclude," said I; "you have asked me to hear you out, +and I beg you to conclude." + +"I will, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "As I love and honour, so likewise +I obey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before +the shrine!" + +"That is quite impossible," said I, "and entirely out of the +question." + +"I am aware," said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray and +regarding me, as I again strangely felt, though my eyes were not +directed to him, with his late intent look, "I am aware that in a +worldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a +poor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don't ring--I have been +brought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of +general practice. Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence, +got up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, what +means might I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your +fortunes! What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you? I +know nothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your +confidence, and you set me on?" + +I told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be +my interest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination, +and he would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to +go away immediately. + +"Cruel miss," said Mr. Guppy, "hear but another word! I think you +must have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I +waited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I +could not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps +of the 'ackney-coach. It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was +well meant. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I +have walked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby's house only +to look upon the bricks that once contained thee. This out of to- +day, quite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was +its pretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. +If I speak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my +respectful wretchedness. Love was before it, and is before it." + +"I should be pained, Mr. Guppy," said I, rising and putting my hand +upon the bell-rope, "to do you or any one who was sincere the +injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably +expressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good +opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to +thank you. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not +proud. I hope," I think I added, without very well knowing what I +said, "that you will now go away as if you had never been so +exceedingly foolish and attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's +business." + +"Half a minute, miss!" cried Mr. Guppy, checking me as I was about +to ring. "This has been without prejudice?" + +"I will never mention it," said I, "unless you should give me future +occasion to do so." + +"A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at +any time, however distant--THAT'S no consequence, for my feelings +can never alter--of anything I have said, particularly what might I +not do, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if +removed, or dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care +of Mrs. Guppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be +sufficient." + +I rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, laying his written +card upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed. Raising my +eyes as he went out, I once more saw him looking at me after he had +passed the door. + +I sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and +payments and getting through plenty of business. Then I arranged my +desk, and put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that +I thought I had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when +I went upstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to +laugh about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to +cry about it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and +felt as if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever +had been since the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the +garden. + + + +CHAPTER X + +The Law-Writer + + +On the eastern borders of Chancery Lane, that is to say, more +particularly in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby, law- +stationer, pursues his lawful calling. In the shade of Cook's +Court, at most times a shady place, Mr. Snagsby has dealt in all +sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls of +parchment; in paper--foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white, whitey- +brown, and blotting; in stamps; in office-quills, pens, ink, India- +rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and wafers; in red tape +and green ferret; in pocket-books, almanacs, diaries, and law lists; +in string boxes, rulers, inkstands--glass and leaden--pen-knives, +scissors, bodkins, and other small office-cutlery; in short, in +articles too numerous to mention, ever since he was out of his time +and went into partnership with Peffer. On that occasion, Cook's +Court was in a manner revolutionized by the new inscription in fresh +paint, PEFFER AND SNAGSBY, displacing the time-honoured and not +easily to be deciphered legend PEFFER only. For smoke, which is the +London ivy, had so wreathed itself round Peffer's name and clung to +his dwelling-place that the affectionate parasite quite overpowered +the parent tree. + +Peffer is never seen in Cook's Court now. He is not expected there, +for he has been recumbent this quarter of a century in the +churchyard of St. Andrews, Holborn, with the waggons and hackney- +coaches roaring past him all the day and half the night like one +great dragon. If he ever steal forth when the dragon is at rest to +air himself again in Cook's Court until admonished to return by the +crowing of the sanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in +Cursitor Street, whose ideas of daylight it would be curious to +ascertain, since he knows from his personal observation next to +nothing about it--if Peffer ever do revisit the pale glimpses of +Cook's Court, which no law-stationer in the trade can positively +deny, he comes invisibly, and no one is the worse or wiser. + +In his lifetime, and likewise in the period of Snagsby's "time" of +seven long years, there dwelt with Peffer in the same law- +stationering premises a niece--a short, shrewd niece, something too +violently compressed about the waist, and with a sharp nose like a +sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end. The +Cook's Courtiers had a rumour flying among them that the mother of +this niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a +solicitude that her figure should approach perfection, lace her up +every morning with her maternal foot against the bed-post for a +stronger hold and purchase; and further, that she exhibited +internally pints of vinegar and lemon-juice, which acids, they held, +had mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. With whichsoever +of the many tongues of Rumour this frothy report originated, it +either never reached or never influenced the ears of young Snagsby, +who, having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's +estate, entered into two partnerships at once. So now, in Cook's +Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby and the niece are one; and the +niece still cherishes her figure, which, however tastes may differ, +is unquestionably so far precious that there is mighty little of it. + +Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to +the neighbours' thinking, one voice too. That voice, appearing to +proceed from Mrs. Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook's Court very +often. Mr. Snagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through +these dulcet tones, is rarely heard. He is a mild, bald, timid man +with a shining head and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out +at the back. He tends to meekness and obesity. As he stands at his +door in Cook's Court in his grey shop-coat and black calico sleeves, +looking up at the clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop +with a heavy flat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in +company with his two 'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and +unassuming man. From beneath his feet, at such times, as from a +shrill ghost unquiet in its grave, there frequently arise +complainings and lamentations in the voice already mentioned; and +haply, on some occasions when these reach a sharper pitch than +usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to the 'prentices, "I think my little +woman is a-giving it to Guster!" + +This proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened +the wit of the Cook's Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the +name of Mrs. Snagsby, seeing that she might with great force and +expression be termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy +character. It is, however, the possession, and the only possession +except fifty shillings per annum and a very small box indifferently +filled with clothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by +some supposed to have been christened Augusta) who, although she was +farmed or contracted for during her growing time by an amiable +benefactor of his species resident at Tooting, and cannot fail to +have been developed under the most favourable circumstances, "has +fits," which the parish can't account for. + +Guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round +ten years older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of +fits, and is so apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her +patron saint that except when she is found with her head in the +pail, or the sink, or the copper, or the dinner, or anything else +that happens to be near her at the time of her seizure, she is +always at work. She is a satisfaction to the parents and guardians +of the 'prentices, who feel that there is little danger of her +inspiring tender emotions in the breast of youth; she is a +satisfaction to Mrs. Snagsby, who can always find fault with her; +she is a satisfaction to Mr. Snagsby, who thinks it a charity to +keep her. The law-stationer's establishment is, in Guster's eyes, a +temple of plenty and splendour. She believes the little drawing- +room upstairs, always kept, as one may say, with its hair in papers +and its pinafore on, to be the most elegant apartment in +Christendom. The view it commands of Cook's Court at one end (not +to mention a squint into Cursitor Street) and of Coavinses' the +sheriff's officer's backyard at the other she regards as a prospect +of unequalled beauty. The portraits it displays in oil--and plenty +of it too--of Mr. Snagsby looking at Mrs. Snagsby and of Mrs. +Snagsby looking at Mr. Snagsby are in her eyes as achievements of +Raphael or Titian. Guster has some recompenses for her many +privations. + +Mr. Snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the +business to Mrs. Snagsby. She manages the money, reproaches the +tax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays, +licenses Mr. Snagsby's entertainments, and acknowledges no +responsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner, +insomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the +neighbouring wives a long way down Chancery Lane on both sides, and +even out in Holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually +call upon their husbands to look at the difference between their +(the wives') position and Mrs. Snagsby's, and their (the husbands') +behaviour and Mr. Snagsby's. Rumour, always flying bat-like about +Cook's Court and skimming in and out at everybody's windows, does +say that Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that Mr. +Snagsby is sometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he +had the spirit of a mouse he wouldn't stand it. It is even observed +that the wives who quote him to their self-willed husbands as a +shining example in reality look down upon him and that nobody does +so with greater superciliousness than one particular lady whose lord +is more than suspected of laying his umbrella on her as an +instrument of correction. But these vague whisperings may arise +from Mr. Snagsby's being in his way rather a meditative and poetical +man, loving to walk in Staple Inn in the summer-time and to observe +how countrified the sparrows and the leaves are, also to lounge +about the Rolls Yard of a Sunday afternoon and to remark (if in good +spirits) that there were old times once and that you'd find a stone +coffin or two now under that chapel, he'll be bound, if you was to +dig for it. He solaces his imagination, too, by thinking of the +many Chancellors and Vices, and Masters of the Rolls who are +deceased; and he gets such a flavour of the country out of telling +the two 'prentices how he HAS heard say that a brook "as clear as +crystial" once ran right down the middle of Holborn, when Turnstile +really was a turnstile, leading slap away into the meadows--gets +such a flavour of the country out of this that he never wants to go +there. + +The day is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully +effective, for it is not quite dark. Mr. Snagsby standing at his +shop-door looking up at the clouds sees a crow who is out late skim +westward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court. The crow +flies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Garden into +Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +Here, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr. +Tulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those +shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in +nuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still +remain; and even its painted ceilings, where Allegory, in Roman +helmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars, +flowers, clouds, and big-legged boys, and makes the head ache--as +would seem to be Allegory's object always, more or less. Here, +among his many boxes labelled with transcendent names, lives Mr. +Tulkinghorn, when not speechlessly at home in country-houses where +the great ones of the earth are bored to death. Here he is to-day, +quiet at his table. An oyster of the old school whom nobody can +open. + +Like as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of the +present afternoon. Rusty, out of date, withdrawing from attention, +able to afford it. Heavy, broad-backed, old-fashioned, mahogany- +and-horsehair chairs, not easily lifted; obsolete tables with +spindle-legs and dusty baize covers; presentation prints of the +holders of great titles in the last generation or the last but one, +environ him. A thick and dingy Turkey-carpet muffles the floor +where he sits, attended by two candles in old-fashioned silver +candlesticks that give a very insufficient light to his large room. +The titles on the backs of his books have retired into the binding; +everything that can have a lock has got one; no key is visible. +Very few loose papers are about. He has some manuscript near him, +but is not referring to it. With the round top of an inkstand and +two broken bits of sealing-wax he is silently and slowly working out +whatever train of indecision is in his mind. Now tbe inkstand top +is in the middle, now the red bit of sealing-wax, now the black bit. +That's not it. Mr. Tulkinghorn must gather them all up and begin +again. + +Here, beneath the painted ceiling, with foreshortened Allegory +staring down at his intrusion as if it meant to swoop upon him, and +he cutting it dead, Mr. Tulkinghorn has at once his house and +office. He keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, usually a +little out at elbows, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is +rarely overburdened with business. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in a +common way. He wants no clerks. He is a great reservoir of +confidences, not to be so tapped. His clients want HIM; he is all +in all. Drafts that he requires to be drawn are drawn by special- +pleaders in the temple on mysterious instructions; fair copies that +he requires to be made are made at the stationers', expense being no +consideration. The middle-aged man in the pew knows scarcely more +of the affairs of the peerage than any crossing-sweeper in Holborn. + +The red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand +top, the little sand-box. So! You to the middle, you to the right, +you to the left. This train of indecision must surely be worked out +now or never. Now! Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his +spectacles, puts on his hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes +out, tells the middle-aged man out at elbows, "I shall be back +presently." Very rarely tells him anything more explicit. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came--not quite so straight, but +nearly--to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. To Snagsby's, Law- +Stationer's, Deeds engrossed and copied, Law-Writing executed in all +its branches, &c., &c., &c. + +It is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a +balmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. It hovers about +Snagsby's door. The hours are early there: dinner at half-past one +and supper at half-past nine. Mr. Snagsby was about to descend into +the subterranean regions to take tea when he looked out of his door +just now and saw the crow who was out late. + +"Master at home?" + +Guster is minding the shop, for the 'prentices take tea in the +kitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby; consequently, the robe-maker's +two daughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two +second-floor windows of the opposite house, are not driving the two +'prentices to distraction as they fondly suppose, but are merely +awakening the unprofitable admiration of Guster, whose hair won't +grow, and never would, and it is confidently thought, never will. + +"Master at home?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +Master is at home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, +glad to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread +and veneration as a storehouse of awful implements of the great +torture of the law--a place not to be entered after the gas is +turned off. + +Mr. Snagsby appears, greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. Bolts a +bit of bread and butter. Says, "Bless my soul, sir! Mr. +Tulkinghorn!" + +"I want half a word with you, Snagsby." + +"Certainly, sir! Dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man +round for me? Pray walk into the back shop, sir." Snagsby has +brightened in a moment. + +The confined room, strong of parchment-grease, is warehouse, +counting-house, and copying-office. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits, facing +round, on a stool at the desk. + +"Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby." + +"Yes, sir." Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas and coughs behind his +hand, modestly anticipating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is +accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save +words. + +"You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately." + +"Yes, sir, we did." + +"There was one of them," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, carelessly feeling-- +tight, unopenable oyster of the old school!--in the wrong coat- +pocket, "the handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather like. +As I happened to be passing, and thought I had it about me, I looked +in to ask you--but I haven't got it. No matter, any other time will +do. Ah! here it is! I looked in to ask you who copied this." + +'"Who copied this, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby, taking it, laying it flat +on the desk, and separating all the sheets at once with a twirl and +a twist of the left hand peculiar to lawstationers. "We gave this +out, sir. We were giving out rather a large quantity of work just +at that time. I can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by +referring to my book." + +Mr. Snagsby takes his book down from the safe, makes another bolt of +the bit of bread and butter which seemed to have stopped short, eyes +the affidavit aside, and brings his right forefinger travelling down +a page of the book, "Jewby--Packer--Jarndyce." + +"Jarndyce! Here we are, sir," says Mr. Snagsby. "To be sure! I +might have remembered it. This was given out, sir, to a writer who +lodges just over on the opposite side of the lane." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn has seen the entry, found it before the law- +stationer, read it while the forefinger was coming down the hill. + +"WHAT do you call him? Nemo?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo, sir. +Here it is. Forty-two folio. Given out on the Wednesday night at +eight o'clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after +nine." + +"Nemo!" repeats Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo is Latin for no one." + +"It must be English for some one, sir, I think," Mr. Snagsby submits +with his deferential cough. "It is a person's name. Here it is, +you see, sir! Forty-two folio. Given out Wednesday night, eight +o'clock; brought in Thursday morning, half after nine." + +The tail of Mr. Snagsby's eye becomes conscious of the head of Mrs. +Snagsby looking in at the shop-door to know what he means by +deserting his tea. Mr. Snagsby addresses an explanatory cough to +Mrs. Snagsby, as who should say, "My dear, a customer!" + +"Half after nine, sir," repeats Mr. Snagsby. "Our law-writers, who +live by job-work, are a queer lot; and this may not be his name, but +it's the name he goes by. I remember now, sir, that he gives it in +a written advertisement he sticks up down at the Rule Office, and +the King's Bench Office, and the Judges' Chambers, and so forth. +You know the kind of document, sir--wanting employ?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn glances through the little window at the back of +Coavinses', the sheriff's officer's, where lights shine in +Coavinses' windows. Coavinses' coffee-room is at the back, and the +shadows of several gentlemen under a cloud loom cloudily upon the +blinds. Mr. Snagsby takes the opportunity of slightly turning his +head to glance over his shoulder at his little woman and to make +apologetic motions with his mouth to this effect: "Tul-king-horn-- +rich--in-flu-en-tial!" + +"Have you given this man work before?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Oh, dear, yes, sir! Work of yours." + +"Thinking of more important matters, I forget where you said he +lived?" + +"Across the lane, sir. In fact, he lodges at a--" Mr. Snagsby makes +another bolt, as if the bit of bread and buffer were insurmountable +"--at a rag and bottle shop." + +"Can you show me the place as I go back?" + +"With the greatest pleasure, sir!" + +Mr. Snagsby pulls off his sleeves and his grey coat, pulls on his +black coat, takes his hat from its peg. "Oh! Here is my little +woman!" he says aloud. "My dear, will you be so kind as to tell one +of the lads to look after the shop while I step across the lane with +Mr. Tulkinghorn? Mrs. Snagsby, sir--I shan't be two minutes, my +love!" + +Mrs. Snagsby bends to the lawyer, retires behind the counter, peeps +at them through the window-blind, goes softly into the back office, +refers to the entries in the book still lying open. Is evidently +curious. + +"You will find that the place is rough, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, +walking deferentially in the road and leaving the narrow pavement to +the lawyer; "and the party is very rough. But they're a wild lot in +general, sir. The advantage of this particular man is that he never +wants sleep. He'll go at it right on end if you want him to, as +long as ever you like." + +It is quite dark now, and the gas-lamps have acquired their full +effect. Jostling against clerks going to post the day's letters, +and against counsel and attorneys going home to dinner, and against +plaintiffs and defendants and suitors of all sorts, and against the +general crowd, in whose way the forensic wisdom of ages has +interposed a million of obstacles to the transaction of the +commonest business of life; diving through law and equity, and +through that kindred mystery, the street mud, which is made of +nobody knows what and collects about us nobody knows whence or how-- +we only knowing in general that when there is too much of it we find +it necessary to shovel it away--the lawyer and the law-stationer +come to a rag and bottle shop and general emporium of much +disregarded merchandise, lying and being in the shadow of the wall +of Lincoln's Inn, and kept, as is announced in paint, to all whom it +may concern, by one Krook. + +"This is where he lives, sir," says the law-stationer. + +"This is where he lives, is it?" says the lawyer unconcernedly. +"Thank you." + +"Are you not going in, sir?" + +"No, thank you, no; I am going on to the Fields at present. Good +evening. Thank you!" Mr. Snagsby lifts his hat and returns to his +little woman and his tea. + +But Mr. Tulkinghorn does not go on to the Fields at present. He +goes a short way, turns back, comes again to the shop of Mr. Krook, +and enters it straight. It is dim enough, with a blot-headed candle +or so in the windows, and an old man and a cat sitting in the back +part by a fire. The old man rises and comes forward, with another +blot-headed candle in his hand. + +"Pray is your lodger within?" + +"Male or female, sir?" says Mr. Krook. + +"Male. The person who does copying." + +Mr. Krook has eyed his man narrowly. Knows him by sight. Has an +indistinct impression of his aristocratic repute. + +"Did you wish to see him, sir?" + +"Yes." + +"It's what I seldom do myself," says Mr. Krook with a grin. "Shall +I call him down? But it's a weak chance if he'd come, sir!" + +"I'll go up to him, then," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Second floor, sir. Take the candle. Up there!" Mr. Krook, with +his cat beside him, stands at the bottom of the staircase, looking +after Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Hi-hi!" he says when Mr. Tulkinghorn has +nearly disappeared. The lawyer looks down over the hand-rail. The +cat expands her wicked mouth and snarls at him. + +"Order, Lady Jane! Behave yourself to visitors, my lady! You know +what they say of my lodger?" whispers Krook, going up a step or two. + +"What do they say of him?" + +"They say he has sold himself to the enemy, but you and I know +better--he don't buy. I'll tell you what, though; my lodger is so +black-humoured and gloomy that I believe he'd as soon make that +bargain as any other. Don't put him out, sir. That's my advice!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn with a nod goes on his way. He comes to the dark +door on the second floor. He knocks, receives no answer, opens it, +and accidentally extinguishes his candle in doing so. + +The air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it if +he had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, +and dirt. In the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle +as if poverty had gripped it, a red coke fire burns low. In the +corner by the chimney stand a deal table and a broken desk, a +wilderness marked with a rain of ink. In another corner a ragged +old portmanteau on one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or +wardrobe; no larger one is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks +of a starved man. The floor is bare, except that one old mat, +trodden to shreds of rope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No +curtain veils the darkness of the night, but the discoloured +shutters are drawn together, and through the two gaunt holes pierced +in them, famine might be staring in--the banshee of the man upon the +bed. + +For, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork, +lean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just +within the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and +trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral +darkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length +of its wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of +winding-sheet above it. His hair is ragged, mingling with his +whiskers and his beard--the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the +scum and mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room +is, foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what +fumes those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the +general sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco, +there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of +opium. + +"Hallo, my friend!" he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick +against the door. + +He thinks he has awakened his friend. He lies a little turned away, +but his eyes are surely open. + +"Hallo, my friend!" he cries again. "Hallo! Hallo!" + +As he rattles on the door, the candle which has drooped so long goes +out and leaves him in the dark, with the gaunt eyes in the shutters +staring down upon the bed. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Our Dear Brother + + +A touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room, +irresolute, makes him start and say, "What's that?" + +"It's me," returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in his +ear. "Can't you wake him?" + +"No." + +"What have you done with your candle?" + +"It's gone out. Here it is." + +Krook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and +tries to get a light. The dying ashes have no light to spare, and +his endeavours are vain. Muttering, after an ineffectual call to +his lodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle +from the shop, the old man departs. Mr. Tulkinghorn, for some new +reason that he has, does not await his return in the room, but on +the stairs outside. + +The welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes slowly +up with his green-eyed cat following at his heels. "Does the man +generally sleep like this?" inquired the lawyer in a low voice. +"Hi! I don't know," says Krook, shaking his head and lifting his +eyebrows. "I know next to nothing of his habits except that he +keeps himself very close." + +Thus whispering, they both go in together. As the light goes in, +the great eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. Not so +the eyes upon the bed. + +"God save us!" exclaims Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He is dead!" Krook drops +the heavy hand he has taken up so suddenly that the arm swings over +the bedside. + +They look at one another for a moment. + +"Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir. +Here's poison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?" says +Krook, with his lean hands spread out above the body like a +vampire's wings. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, "Miss Flite! +Flite! Make haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!" Krook follows +him with his eyes, and while he is calling, finds opportunity to +steal to the old portmanteau and steal back again. + +"Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!" So Mr. Krook +addresses a crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears +and vanishes in a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy +medical man brought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip +and a broad Scotch tongue. + +"Ey! Bless the hearts o' ye," says the medical man, looking up at +them after a moment's examination. "He's just as dead as Phairy!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if he has +been dead any time. + +"Any time, sir?" says the medical gentleman. "It's probable he wull +have been dead aboot three hours." + +"About that time, I should say," observes a dark young man on the +other side of the bed. + +"Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?" inquires the +first. + +The dark young man says yes. + +"Then I'll just tak' my depairture," replies the other, "for I'm nae +gude here!" With which remark he finishes his brief attendance and +returns to finish his dinner. + +The dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face +and carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his +pretensions to his name by becoming indeed No one. + +"I knew this person by sight very well," says he. "He has purchased +opium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present +related to him?" glancing round upon the three bystanders. + +"I was his landlord," grimly answers Krook, taking the candle from +the surgeon's outstretched hand. "He told me once I was the nearest +relation he had." + +"He has died," says the surgeon, "of an over-dose of opium, there is +no doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enough +here now," taking an old teapot from Mr. Krook, "to kill a dozen +people." + +"Do you think he did it on purpose?" asks Krook. + +"Took the over-dose?" + +"Yes!" Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horrible +interest. + +"I can't say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the +habit of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I +suppose?" + +"I suppose he was. His room--don't look rich," says Krook, who +might have changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance +around. "But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was +too close to name his circumstances to me." + +"Did he owe you any rent?" + +"Six weeks." + +"He will never pay it!" says the young man, resuming his +examination. "It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as +Pharaoh; and to judge from his appearance and condition, I should +think it a happy release. Yet he must have been a good figure when +a youth, and I dare say, good-looking." He says this, not +unfeelingly, while sitting on the bedstead's edge with his face +towards that other face and his hand upon the region of the heart. +"I recollect once thinking there was something in his manner, +uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall in life. Was that so?" he +continues, looking round. + +Krook replies, "You might as well ask me to describe the ladies +whose heads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that he +was my lodger for a year and a half and lived--or didn't live--by +law-writing, I know no more of him." + +During this dialogue Mr. Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old +portmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to all +appearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near the +bed--from the young surgeon's professional interest in death, +noticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased as +an individual; from the old man's unction; and the little crazy +woman's awe. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as +his rusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking all +this while. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor +attention nor abstraction. He has shown nothing but his shell. As +easily might the tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred +from its case, as the tone of Mr. Tulkinghorn from his case. + +He now interposes, addressing the young surgeon in his unmoved, +professional way. + +"I looked in here," he observes, "just before you, with the +intention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive, some +employment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from my +stationer--Snagsby of Cook's Court. Since no one here knows +anything about him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!" +to the little crazy woman, who has often seen him in court, and +whom he has often seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-show, +to go for the law-stationer. "Suppose you do!" + +While she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigation +and covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krook +and he interchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, +but stands, ever, near the old portmanteau. + +Mr. Snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves. +"Dear me, dear me," he says; "and it has come to this, has it! +Bless my soul!" + +"Can you give the person of the house any information about this +unfortunate creature, Snagsby?" inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He was +in arrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you +know." + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behind +his hand, "I really don't know what advice I could offer, except +sending for the beadle." + +"I don't speak of advice," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I could +advise--" + +"No one better, sir, I am sure," says Mr. Snagsby, with his +deferential cough. + +"I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he +came from, or to anything concerning him." + +"I assure you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby after prefacing his reply +with his cough of general propitiation, "that I no more know where +he came from than I know--" + +"Where he has gone to, perhaps," suggests the surgeon to help him +out. + +A pause. Mr. Tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. Mr. Krook, +with his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next. + +"As to his connexions, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "if a person was to +say to me, "Snagsby, here's twenty thousand pound down, ready for +you in the Bank of England if you'll only name one of 'em,' I +couldn't do it, sir! About a year and a half ago--to the best of my +belief, at the time when he first came to lodge at the present rag +and bottle shop--" + +"That was the time!" says Krook with a nod. + +"About a year and a half ago," says Mr. Snagsby, strengthened, "he +came into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding my +little woman (which I name Mrs. Snagsby when I use that appellation) +in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to +understand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to +put too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plain +speaking with Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of +argumentative frankness, "hard up! My little woman is not in +general partial to strangers, particular--not to put too fine a +point upon it--when they want anything. But she was rather took by +something about this person, whether by his being unshaved, or by +his hair being in want of attention, or by what other ladies' +reasons, I leave you to judge; and she accepted of the specimen, and +likewise of the address. My little woman hasn't a good ear for +names," proceeds Mr. Snagsby after consulting his cough of +consideration behind his hand, "and she considered Nemo equally the +same as Nimrod. In consequence of which, she got into a habit of +saying to me at meals, 'Mr. Snagsby, you haven't found Nimrod any +work yet!' or 'Mr. Snagsby, why didn't you give that eight and +thirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce to Nimrod?' or such like. And +that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our place; and +that is the most I know of him except that he was a quick hand, and +a hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him out, say, +five and forty folio on the Wednesday night, you would have it +brought in on the Thursday morning. All of which--" Mr. Snagsby +concludes by politely motioning with his hat towards the bed, as +much as to add, "I have no doubt my honourable friend would confirm +if he were in a condition to do it." + +"Hadn't you better see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn to Krook, "whether he +had any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest, +and you will be asked the question. You can read?" + +"No, I can't," returns the old man with a sudden grin. + +"Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "look over the room for him. He +will get into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. Being here, +I'll wait if you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf, +if it should ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you +will hold the candle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he'll soon see +whether there is anything to help you." + +"In the first place, here's an old portmanteau, sir," says Snagsby. + +Ah, to be sure, so there is! Mr. Tulkinghorn does not appear to +have seen it before, though he is standing so close to it, and +though there is very little else, heaven knows. + +The marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-stationer +conducts the search. The surgeon leans against the corner of the +chimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within the door. +The apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black breeches +tied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat, his long- +sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief tied in +the bow the peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the same place +and attitude. + +There are some worthless articles of clothing in the old +portmanteau; there is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, those +turnpike tickets on the road of poverty; there is a crumpled paper, +smelling of opium, on which are scrawled rough memoranda--as, took, +such a day, so many grains; took, such another day, so many more-- +begun some time ago, as if with the intention of being regularly +continued, but soon left off. There are a few dirty scraps of +newspapers, all referring to coroners' inquests; there is nothing +else. They search the cupboard and the drawer of the ink-splashed +table. There is not a morsel of an old letter or of any other +writing in either. The young surgeon examines the dress on the law- +writer. A knife and some odd halfpence are all he finds. Mr. +Snagsby's suggestion is the practical suggestion after all, and the +beadle must be called in. + +So the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come +out of the room. "Don't leave the cat there!" says the surgeon; +"that won't do!" Mr. Krook therefore drives her out before him, and +she goes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and licking +her lips. + +"Good night!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, and goes home to Allegory and +meditation. + +By this time the news has got into the court. Groups of its +inhabitants assemble to discuss the thing, and the outposts of the +army of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to Mr. +Krook's window, which they closely invest. A policeman has already +walked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he +stands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base +occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall +back. Mrs. Perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speaking +terms with Mrs. Piper in consequence for an unpleasantness +originating in young Perkins' having "fetched" young Piper "a +crack," renews her friendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. +The potboy at the corner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing +official knowledge of life and having to deal with drunken men +occasionally, exchanges confidential communications with the +policeman and has the appearance of an impregnable youth, +unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable in station-houses. +People talk across the court out of window, and bare-headed scouts +come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's the matter. The +general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr. Krook warn't +made away with first, mingled with a little natural disappointment +that he was not. In the midst of this sensation, the beadle +arrives. + +The beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a +ridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for the +moment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. The +policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the +barbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that +must be borne with until government shall abolish him. The +sensation is heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouth +that the beadle is on the ground and has gone in. + +By and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the +sensation, which has rather languished in the interval. He is +understood to be in want of witnesses for the inquest to-morrow who +can tell the coroner and jury anything whatever respecting the +deceased. Is immediately referred to innumerable people who can +tell nothing whatever. Is made more imbecile by being constantly +informed that Mrs. Green's son "was a law-writer his-self and knowed +him better than anybody," which son of Mrs. Green's appears, on +inquiry, to be at the present time aboard a vessel bound for China, +three months out, but considered accessible by telegraph on +application to the Lords of the Admiralty. Beadle goes into various +shops and parlours, examining the inhabitants, always shutting the +door first, and by exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy +exasperating the public. Policeman seen to smile to potboy. Public +loses interest and undergoes reaction. Taunts the beadle in shrill +youthful voices with having boiled a boy, choruses fragments of a +popular song to that effect and importing that the boy was made into +soup for the workhouse. Policeman at last finds it necessary to +support the law and seize a vocalist, who is released upon the +flight of the rest on condition of his getting out of this then, +come, and cutting it--a condition he immediately observes. So the +sensation dies off for the time; and the unmoved policeman (to whom +a little opium, more or less, is nothing), with his shining hat, +stiff stock, inflexible great-coat, stout belt and bracelet, and all +things fitting, pursues his lounging way with a heavy tread, beating +the palms of his white gloves one against the other and stopping now +and then at a street-corner to look casually about for anything +between a lost child and a murder. + +Under cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flitting +about Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name +is wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's own +name, which nobody can read or wants to know. The summonses served +and his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to Mr. Krook's to keep +a small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presently +arriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes in +the shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape which +earthly lodgings take for No one--and for Every one. + +And all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau; +and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain +through five and forty years, lies there with no more track behind +him that any one can trace than a deserted infant. + +Next day the court is all alive--is like a fair, as Mrs. Perkins, +more than reconciled to Mrs. Piper, says in amicable conversation +with that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first-floor +room at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place twice +a week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional +celebrity, faced by Little Swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes +(according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rally +round him and support first-rate talent. The Sol's Arms does a +brisk stroke of business all the morning. Even children so require +sustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who has +established himself for the occasion at the corner of the court says +his brandy-balls go off like smoke. What time the beadle, hovering +between the door of Mr. Krook's establishment and the door of the +Sol's Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreet +spirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so in +return. + +At the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are +waiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good +dry skittle-ground attached to the Sol's Arms. The coroner +frequents more public-houses than any man alive. The smell of +sawdust, beer, tobacco-smoke, and spirits is inseparable in his +vocation from death in its most awful shapes. He is conducted by +the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he +puts his hat on the piano and takes a Windsor-chair at the head of a +long table formed of several short tables put together and +ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by pots +and glasses. As many of the jury as can crowd together at the table +sit there. The rest get among the spittoons and pipes or lean +against the piano. Over the coroner's head is a small iron garland, +the pendant handle of a bell, which rather gives the majesty of the +court the appearance of going to be hanged presently. + +Call over and swear the jury! While the ceremony is in progress, +sensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in a +large shirt-collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, who +modestly takes a position near the door as one of the general +public, but seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulates +that this is Little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that he +will get up an imitation of the coroner and make it the principal +feature of the Harmonic Meeting in the evenlng. + +"Well, gentlemen--" the coroner begins. + +"Silence there, will you!" says the beadle. Not to the coroner, +though it might appear so. + +"Well, gentlemen," resumes the coroner. "You are impanelled here to +inquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given +before you as to the circumstances attending that death, and you +will give your verdict according to the--skittles; they must be +stopped, you know, beadle!--evidence, and not according to anything +else. The first thing to be done is to view the body." + +"Make way there!" cries the beadle. + +So they go out in a loose procession, something after the manner of +a straggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr. Krook's back +second floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and +precipitately. The beadle is very careful that two gentlemen not +very neat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose accommodation he +has provided a special little table near the coroner in the Harmonic +Meeting Room) should see all that is to be seen. For they are the +public chroniclers of such inquiries by the line; and he is not +superior to the universal human infirmity, but hopes to read in +print what "Mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of the +district," said and did and even aspires to see the name of Mooney +as familiarly and patronizingly mentioned as the name of the hangman +is, according to the latest examples. + +Little Swills is waiting for the coroner and jury on their return. +Mr. Tulkinghorn, also. Mr. Tulkinghorn is received with distinction +and seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, a +bagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The jury +learn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about +him. "A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen," says +the coroner, "who, I am informed, was accidentally present when +discovery of the death was made, but he could only repeat the +evidence you have already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, the +lodger, and the law-stationer, and it is not necessary to trouble +him. Is anybody in attendance who knows anything more?" + +Mrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Piper sworn. + +Anastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper, what +have you got to say about this? + +Why, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses and +without punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in the +court (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been +well beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but +one before the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteen +months and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live +such was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the +plaintive--so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased--was +reported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the plaintive's air in +which that report originatinin. See the plaintive often and +considered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to go +about some children being timid (and if doubted hoping Mrs. Perkins +may be brought forard for she is here and will do credit to her +husband and herself and family). Has seen the plaintive wexed and +worrited by the children (for children they will ever be and you +cannot expect them specially if of playful dispositions to be +Methoozellers which you was not yourself). On accounts of this and +his dark looks has often dreamed as she see him take a pick-axe from +his pocket and split Johnny's head (which the child knows not fear +and has repeatually called after him close at his eels). Never +however see the plaintive take a pick-axe or any other wepping far +from it. Has seen him hurry away when run and called after as if +not partial to children and never see him speak to neither child nor +grown person at any time (excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing +down the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here +would tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent). + +Says the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he is +not here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then. In the absence +of the active and intelligent, the coroner converses with Mr. +Tulkinghorn. + +Oh! Here's the boy, gentlemen! + +Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But +stop a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few +preliminary paces. + +Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody +has two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don't know that Jo is +short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for HIM. HE don't +find no fault with it. Spell it? No. HE can't spell it. No +father, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. What's home? +Knows a broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't +recollect who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows +both. Can't exactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if +he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be +something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right--and so he'll +tell the truth. + +"This won't do, gentlemen!" says the coroner with a melancholy shake +of the head. + +"Don't you think you can receive his evidence, sir?" asks an +attentive juryman. + +"Out of the question," says the coroner. "You have heard the boy. +'Can't exactly say' won't do, you know. We can't take THAT in a +court of justice, gentlemen. It's terrible depravity. Put the boy +aside." + +Boy put aside, to the great edification of the audience, especially +of Little Swills, the comic vocalist. + +Now. Is there any other witness? No other witness. + +Very well, gentlemen! Here's a man unknown, proved to have been in +the habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half, +found dead of too much opium. If you think you have any evidence to +lead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will come +to that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death, +you will find a verdict accordingly. + +Verdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, you +are discharged. Good afternoon. + +While the coroner buttons his great-coat, Mr. Tulkinghorn and he +give private audience to the rejected witness in a corner. + +That graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom he +recognized just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimes +hooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night +when he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, the +man turned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned him +and found that he had not a friend in the world, said, "Neither have +I. Not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's +lodging. That the man had often spoken to him since and asked him +whether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, +and whether he ever wished to die, and similar strange questions. +That when the man had no money, he would say in passing, "I am as +poor as you to-day, Jo," but that when he had any, he had always (as +the boy most heartily believes) been glad to give him some. + +"He was wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with his +wretched sleeve. "Wen I see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, +I wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good to +me, he wos!" + +As he shuffles downstairs, Mr. Snagsby, lying in wait for him, puts +a half-crown in his hand. "If you ever see me coming past your +crossing with my little woman--I mean a lady--" says Mr. Snagsby +with his finger on his nose, "don't allude to it!" + +For some little time the jurymen hang about the Sol's Arms +colloquially. In the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloud +of pipe-smoke that pervades the parlour of the Sol's Arms; two +stroll to Hampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play at +night, and top up with oysters. Little Swills is treated on several +hands. Being asked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizes +them (his strength lying in a slangular direction) as "a rummy +start." The landlord of the Sol's Arms, finding Little Swills so +popular, commends him highly to the jurymen and public, observing +that for a song in character he don't know his equal and that that +man's character-wardrobe would fill a cart. + +Thus, gradually the Sol's Arms melts into the shadowy night and then +flares out of it strong in gas. The Harmonic Meeting hour arriving, +the gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair, is faced +(red-faced) by Little Swills; their friends rally round them and +support first-rate talent. In the zenith of the evening, Little +Swills says, "Gentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a short +description of a scene of real life that came off here to-day." Is +much applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comes +in as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes +the inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment, +to the refrain: With his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippy +tol lo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee! + +The jingling piano at last is silent, and the Harmonic friends rally +round their pillows. Then there is rest around the lonely figure, +now laid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by the +gaunt eyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night. If +this forlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here by +the mother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes +upraised to her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to +close upon the neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the +vision would have seemed! Oh, if in brighter days the now- +extinguished fire within him ever burned for one woman who held him +in her heart, where is she, while these ashes are above the ground! + +It is anything but a night of rest at Mr. Snagsby's, in Cook's +Court, where Guster murders sleep by going, as Mr. Snagsby himself +allows--not to put too fine a point upon it--out of one fit into +twenty. The occasion of this seizure is that Guster has a tender +heart and a susceptible something that possibly might have been +imagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it what it +may, now, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by Mr. Snagsby's +account of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper-time +she projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutch +cheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only came +out of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain of +fits, with short intervals between, of which she has pathetically +availed herself by consuming them in entreaties to Mrs. Snagsby not +to give her warning "when she quite comes to," and also in appeals +to the whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go to +bed. Hence, Mr. Snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the little +dairy in Cursitor Street go into that disinterested ecstasy of his +on the subject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though the +most patient of men, "I thought you was dead, I am sure!" + +What question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when he +strains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (so +men crow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about what +cannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is enough that +daylight comes, morning comes, noon comes. + +Then the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papers +as such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook's and bears off +the body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-in +churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are +communicated to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have +not departed, while our dear brothers and sisters who hang about +official back-stairs--would to heaven they HAD departed!--are very +complacent and agreeable. Into a beastly scrap of ground which a +Turk would reject as a savage abomination and a Caffre would shudder +at, they bring our dear brother here departed to receive Christian +burial. + +With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little +tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy +of life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of +death in action close on life--here they lower our dear brother down +a foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised in +corruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shameful +testimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked this +boastful island together. + +Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too +long by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into the +windows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do it +at least with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas, +burning so sullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air +deposits its witch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that you +should call to every passerby, "Look here!" + +With the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court to +the outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands and +looks in between the bars, stands looking in for a little while. + +It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step and +makes the archway clean. It does so very busily and trimly, looks +in again a little while, and so departs. + +Jo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who "can't +exactly say" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's, +thou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a +distant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this: "He wos wery +good to me, he wos!" + + + +CHAPTER XII + +On the Watch + + +It has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and Chesney +Wold has taken heart. Mrs. Rouncewell is full of hospitable cares, +for Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris. The +fashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the glad +tidings to benighted England. It has also found out that they will +entertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the ELITE of the +BEAU MONDE (the fashionable intelligence is weak in English, but a +giant refreshed in French) at the ancient and hospitable family seat +in Lincolnshire. + +For the greater honour of the brilliant and distinguished circle, +and of Chesney Wold into the bargain, the broken arch of the bridge +in the park is mended; and the water, now retired within its proper +limits and again spanned gracefully, makes a figure in the prospect +from the house. The clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittle +woods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves +and drying the moss. It glides over the park after the moving +shadows of the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, all +day. It looks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits +with bars and patches of brightness never contemplated by the +painters. Athwart the picture of my Lady, over the great chimney- +piece, it throws a broad bend-sinister of light that strikes down +crookedly into the hearth and seems to rend it. + +Through the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady and +Sir Leicester, in their travelling chariot (my Lady's woman and Sir +Leicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. With a +considerable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plunging +demonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and two +centaurs with glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails, +they rattle out of the yard of the Hotel Bristol in the Place +Vendome and canter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade of +the Rue de Rivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of a +headless king and queen, off by the Place of Concord, and the +Elysian Fields, and the Gate of the Star, out of Paris. + +Sooth to say, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my Lady +Dedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre, +drive, nothing is new to my Lady under the worn-out heavens. Only +last Sunday, when poor wretches were gay--within the walls playing +with children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace +Garden; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made more +Elysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whiles +filtering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say a +word or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little +gridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing +Paris with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking, +tomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, +and much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate--only last Sunday, +my Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant +Despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits. + +She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul +lies before her, as it lies behind--her Ariel has put a girdle of it +round the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped--but the imperfect +remedy is always to fly from the last place where it has been +experienced. Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging +it for endless avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when +next beheld, let it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star +a white speck glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a +plain--two dark square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow +descending on it aslant, like the angels in Jacob's dream! + +Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored. +When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own +greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have so +inexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans back +in his corner of the carriage and generally reviews his importance +to society. + +"You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?" says my +Lady after a long time. She is fatigued with reading. Has almost +read a page in twenty miles. + +"Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever." + +"I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn's long effusions, I think?" + +"You see everything," says Sir Leicester with admiration. + +"Ha!" sighs my Lady. "He is the most tiresome of men!" + +"He sends--I really beg your pardon--he sends," says Sir Leicester, +selecting the letter and unfolding it, "a message to you. Our +stopping to change horses as I came to his postscript drove it out +of my memory. I beg you'll excuse me. He says--" Sir Leicester is +so long in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it that my Lady +looks a little irritated. "He says 'In the matter of the right of +way--' I beg your pardon, that's not the place. He says--yes! +Here I have it! He says, 'I beg my respectful compliments to my +Lady, who, I hope, has benefited by the change. Will you do me the +favour to mention (as it may interest her) that I have something to +tell her on her return in reference to the person who copied the +affidavit in the Chancery suit, which so powerfully stimulated her +curiosity. I have seen him.'" + +My Lady, leaning forward, looks out of her window. + +"That's the message," observes Sir Leicester. + +"I should like to walk a little," says my Lady, still looking out of +her window. + +"Walk?" repeats Sir Leicester in a tone of surprise. + +"I should like to walk a little," says my Lady with unmistakable +distinctness. "Please to stop the carriage." + +The carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from the +rumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to an +impatient motion of my Lady's hand. My Lady alights so quickly and +walks away so quickly that Sir Leicester, for all his scrupulous +politeness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. A space of +a minute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. She +smiles, looks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a +quarter of a mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the +carriage. + +The rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of three +days, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and more +or less plunging of centaurs and bare-backed horses. Their courtly +politeness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the theme +of general admiration. Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady, +says Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might be +her amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each +other. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in +hand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my +Lady, how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination +of her gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! +It is ravishing! + +The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like +the small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whose +countenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese and in +whose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is the +Radical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over it +after stopping to refit, and he goes on with my Lady for Chesney +Wold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire. + +Through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and +through the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare +trees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touched +at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself +to coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in +their lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the +question of the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, +some agreeing that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some +arguing with malcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting to +consider the question disposed of, now all breaking out again in +violent debate, incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will +persist in putting in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to +swing and caw, the travelling chariot rolls on to the house, where +fires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not through +so many as to give an inhabited expression to the darkening mass of +front. But the brilliant and distinguished circle will soon do +that. + +Mrs. Rouncewell is in attendance and receives Sir Leicester's +customary shake of the hand with a profound curtsy. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you." + +"I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir +Leicester?" + +"In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell." + +"My Lady is looking charmingly well," says Mrs. Rouncewell with +another curtsy. + +My Lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she is +as wearily well as she can hope to be. + +But Rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my Lady, +who has not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever else +she may have conquered, asks, "Who is that girl?" + +"A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa." + +"Come here, Rosa!" Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even an +appearance of interest. "Why, do you know how pretty you are, +child?" she says, touching her shoulder with her two forefingers. + +Rosa, very much abashed, says, "No, if you please, my Lady!" and +glances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, but +looks all the prettier. + +"How old are you?" + +"Nineteen, my Lady." + +"Nineteen," repeats my Lady thoughtfully. "Take care they don't +spoil you by flattery." + +"Yes, my Lady." + +My Lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingers +and goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where Sir Leicester +pauses for her as her knightly escort. A staring old Dedlock in a +panel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know what +to make of it, which was probably his general state of mind in the +days of Queen Elizabeth. + +That evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing but +murmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, so +beautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling +touch that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rouncewell confirms all this, +not without personal pride, reserving only the one point of +affability. Mrs. Rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. Heaven +forbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member of +that excellent family, above all, of my Lady, whom the whole world +admires; but if my Lady would only be "a little more free," not +quite so cold and distant, Mrs. Rounceweil thinks she would be more +affable. + +"'Tis almost a pity," Mrs. Rouncewell adds--only "almost" because it +borders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than it +is, in such an express dispensation as the Dedlock affairs--"that my +Lady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown young +lady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of +excellence she wants." + +"Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?" says +Watt, who has been home and come back again, he is such a good +grandson. + +"More and most, my dear," returns the housekeeper with dignity, "are +words it's not my place to use--nor so much as to hear--applied to +any drawback on my Lady." + +"I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?" + +"If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always +reason to be." + +"Well," says Watt, "it's to be hoped they line out of their prayer- +books a certain passage for the common people about pride and +vainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!" + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for +joking." + +"Sir Leicester is no joke by any means," says Watt, "and I humbly +ask his pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the family +and their guests down here, there is no ojection to my prolonging my +stay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other traveller +might?" + +"Surely, none in the world, child." + +"I am glad of that," says Watt, "because I have an inexpressible +desire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood." + +He happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed. +But according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears that +burn, and not her fresh bright cheeks, for my Lady's maid is holding +forth about her at this moment with surpassing energy. + +My Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere in +the southern country about Avignon and Marseilles, a large-eyed +brown woman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certain +feline mouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering +the jaws too eager and the skull too prominent. There is something +indefinably keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful +way of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning her +head which could be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she +is in an ill humour and near knives. Through all the good taste of +her dress and little adornments, these objections so express +themselves that she seems to go about like a very neat she-wolf +imperfectly tamed. Besides being accomplished in all the knowledge +appertaining to her post, she is almost an Englishwoman in her +acquaintance with the language; consequently, she is in no want of +words to shower upon Rosa for having attracted my Lady's attention, +and she pours them out with such grim ridicule as she sits at dinner +that her companion, the affectionate man, is rather relieved when +she arrives at the spoon stage of that performance. + +Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five +years and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, +caressed--absolutely caressed--by my Lady on the moment of her +arriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! "And do you know how pretty you +are, child?" "No, my Lady." You are right there! "And how old are +you, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery, +child!" Oh, how droll! It is the BEST thing altogether. + +In short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense +can't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her +countrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of +visitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke--an enjoyment +expressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness +of face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, +which intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my +Lady's mirrors when my Lady is not among them. + +All the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many of +them after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simpering +faces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not +submit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to +pass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which the +fashionable intelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, hunts +with a keen scent, from their breaking cover at the Court of St. +James's to their being run down to death. The place in Lincolnshire +is all alive. By day guns and voices are heard ringing in the +woods, horsemen and carriages enliven the park roads, servants and +hangers-on pervade the village and the Dedlock Arms. Seen by night +from distant openings in the trees, the row of windows in the long +drawing-room, where my Lady's picture hangs over the great chimney- +piece, is like a row of jewels set in a black frame. On Sunday the +chill little church is almost warmed by so much gallant company, and +the general flavour of the Dedlock dust is quenched in delicate +perfumes. + +The brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it no +contracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and +virtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it in despite +of its immense advantages. What can it be? + +Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more the pity) to +set the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel +neckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. +There are no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed, +swooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by +other dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their +noses. There is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake +into his buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is +troubled with the self-reproach of having once consumed a pea. But +is there dandyism in the brilliant and distinguished circle +notwithstanding, dandyism of a more mischievous sort, that has got +below the surface and is doing less harmless things than jack- +towelling itself and stopping its own digestion, to which no +rational person need particularly object? + +Why, yes. It cannot be disguised. There ARE at Chesney Wold this +January week some ladies and gentlemen of the newest fashion, who +have set up a dandyism--in religion, for instance. Who in mere +lackadaisical want of an emotion have agreed upon a little dandy +talk about the vulgar wanting faith in things in general, meaning in +the things that have been tried and found wanting, as though a low +fellow should unaccountably lose faith in a bad shilling after +finding it out! Who would make the vulgar very picturesque and +faithful by putting back the hands upon the clock of time and +cancelling a few hundred years of history. + +There are also ladies and gentlemen of another fashion, not so new, +but very elegant, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world +and to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be +languid and pretty. Who have found out the perpetual stoppage. Who +are to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. Who are not to +be disturbed by ideas. On whom even the fine arts, attending in +powder and walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must array +themselves in the milliners' and tailors' patterns of past +generations and be particularly careful not to be in earnest or to +receive any impress from the moving age. + +Then there is my Lord Boodle, of considerable reputation with his +party, who has known what office is and who tells Sir Leicester +Dedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see +to what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate +used to be; the House is not what the House used to be; even a +Cabinet is not what it formerly was. He perceives with astonishment +that supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited +choice of the Crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie +between Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle--supposing it to be +impossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be +assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of +that affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the +leadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exchequer to +Koodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle, +what are you to do with Noodle? You can't offer him the Presidency +of the Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can't put him in +the Woods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What +follows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces +(as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock) +because you can't provide for Noodle! + +On the other hand, the Right Honourable William Buffy, M.P., +contends across the table with some one else that the shipwreck of +the country--about which there is no doubt; it is only the manner of +it that is in question--is attributable to Cuffy. If you had done +with Cuffy what you ought to have done when he first came into +Parliament, and had prevented him from going over to Duffy, you +would have got him into alliance with Fuffy, you would have had with +you the weight attaching as a smart debater to Guffy, you would have +brought to bear upon the elections the wealth of Huffy, you would +have got in for three counties Juffy, Kuffy, and Luffy, and you +would have strengthened your administration by the official +knowledge and the business habits of Muffy. All this, instead of +being as you now are, dependent on the mere caprice of Puffy! + +As to this point, and as to some minor topics, there are differences +of opinion; but it is perfectly clear to the brilliant and +distinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but +Boodle and his retinue, and Buffy and HIS retinue. These are the +great actors for whom the stage is reserved. A People there are, no +doubt--a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be +occasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as +on the theatrical stage; but Boodle and Buffy, their followers and +families, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are +the born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can +appear upon the scene for ever and ever. + +In this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at Chesney Wold than +the brilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in +the long run. For it is, even with the stillest and politest +circles, as with the circle the necromancer draws around him--very +strange appearances may be seen in active motion outside. With this +difference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the +greater danger of their breaking in. + +Chesney Wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of +injury arises in the breasts of ill-lodged ladies'-maids, and is not +to he extinguished. Only one room is empty. It is a turret chamber +of the third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and +having an old-fashioned business air. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's room, +and is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time. +He is not come yet. It is his quiet habit to walk across the park +from the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he +had never been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a +servant to inform Sir Leicester that he is arrived in case he should +be wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of +the library-door. He sleeps in his turret with a complaining flag- +staff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any fine +morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen walking +before breakfast like a larger species of rook. + +Every day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the +library, but he is not there. Every day at dinner, my Lady glances +down the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive +him if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. Every +night my Lady casually asks her maid, "Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?" + +Every night the answer is, "No, my Lady, not yet." + +One night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in +deep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face +in the opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing +her. + +"Be so good as to attend," says my Lady then, addressing the +reflection of Hortense, "to your business. You can contemplate your +beauty at another time." + +"Pardon! It was your Ladyship's beauty." + +"That," says my Lady, "you needn't contemplate at all." + +At length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright +groups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the +Ghost's Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady +remain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards +them at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never +slackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask--if it be a mask +--and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every +crease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great +or whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is +his personal secret. He keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his +clients; he is his own client in that matter, and will never betray +himself. + +"How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his +hand. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn is quite well. Sir Leicester is quite well. My +Lady is quite well. All highly satisfactory. The lawyer, with his +hands behind him, walks at Sir Leicester's side along the terrace. +My Lady walks upon the other side. + +"We expected you before," says Sir Leicester. A gracious +observation. As much as to say, "Mr. Tulkinghorn, we remember your +existence when you are not here to remind us of it by your presence. +We bestow a fragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, comprehending it, inclines his head and says he is +much obliged. + +"I should have come down sooner," he explains, "but that I have been +much engaged with those matters in the several suits between +yourself and Boythorn." + +"A man of a very ill-regulated mind," observes Sir Leicester with +severity. "An extremely dangerous person in any community. A man +of a very low character of mind." + +"He is obstinate," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"It is natural to such a man to be so," says Sir Leicester, looking +most profoundly obstinate himself. "I am not at all surprised to +hear it." + +"The only question is," pursues the lawyer, "whether you will give +up anything." + +"No, sir," replies Sir Leicester. "Nothing. I give up?" + +"I don't mean anything of importance. That, of course, I know you +would not abandon. I mean any minor point." + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn," returns Sir Leicester, "there can be no minor +point between myself and Mr. Boythorn. If I go farther, and observe +that I cannot readily conceive how ANY right of mine can be a minor +point, I speak not so much in reference to myself as an individual +as in reference to the family position I have it in charge to +maintain." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head again. "I have now my +instructions," he says. "Mr. Boythorn will give us a good deal of +trouble--" + +"It is the character of such a mind, Mr. Tulkinghorn," Sir Leicester +interrupts him, "TO give trouble. An exceedingly ill-conditioned, +levelling person. A person who, fifty years ago, would probably +have been tried at the Old Bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and +severely punished--if not," adds Sir Leicester after a moment's +pause, "if not hanged, drawn, and quartered." + +Sir Leicester appears to discharge his stately breast of a burden in +passing this capital sentence, as if it were the next satisfactory +thing to having the sentence executed. + +"But night is coming on," says he, "and my Lady will take cold. My +dear, let us go in." + +As they turn towards the hall-door, Lady Dedlock addresses Mr. +Tulkinghorn for the first time. + +"You sent me a message respecting the person whose writing I +happened to inquire about. It was like you to remember the +circumstance; I had quite forgotten it. Your message reminded me of +it again. I can't imagine what association I had with a hand like +that, but I surely had some." + +"You had some?" Mr. Tulkinghorn repeats. + +"Oh, yes!" returns my Lady carelessly. "I think I must have had +some. And did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of +that actual thing--what is it!--affidavit?" + +"Yes." + +"How very odd!" + +They pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted +in the day by two deep windows. It is now twilight. The fire glows +brightly on the panelled wall and palely on the window-glass, where, +through the cold reflection of the blaze, the colder landscape +shudders in the wind and a grey mist creeps along, the only +traveller besides the waste of clouds. + +My Lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and Sir +Leicester takes another great chair opposite. The lawyer stands +before the fire with his hand out at arm's length, shading his face. +He looks across his arm at my Lady. + +"Yes," he says, "I inquired about the man, and found him. And, what +is very strange, I found him--" + +"Not to be any out-of-the-way person, I am afraid!" Lady Dedlock +languidly anticipates. + +"I found him dead." + +"Oh, dear me!" remonstrated Sir Leicester. Not so much shocked by +the fact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned. + +"I was directed to his lodging--a miserable, poverty-stricken place +--and I found him dead." + +"You will excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn," observes Sir Leicester. "I +think the less said--" + +"Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out" (it is my Lady +speaking). "It is quite a story for twilight. How very shocking! +Dead?" + +Mr, Tulkinghorn re-asserts it by another inclination of his head. +"Whether by his own hand--" + +"Upon my honour!" cries Sir Leicester. "Really!" + +"Do let me hear the story!" says my Lady. + +"Whatever you desire, my dear. But, I must say--" + +"No, you mustn't say! Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn." + +Sir Leicester's gallantry concedes the point, though he still feels +that to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is +really--really-- + +"I was about to say," resumes the lawyer with undisturbed calmness, +"that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my +power to tell you. I should amend that phrase, however, by saying +that he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by +his own deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be +known. The coroner's jury found that he took the poison +accidentally." + +"And what kind of man," my Lady asks, "was this deplorable +creature?" + +"Very difficult to say," returns the lawyer, shaking his bead. "He +had lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour +and his wild black hair and beard, that I should have considered him +the commonest of the common. The surgeon had a notion that he had +once been something better, both in appearance and condition." + +"What did they call the wretched being?" + +"They called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his +name." + +"Not even any one who had attended on him?" + +"No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found +him." + +"Without any clue to anything more?" + +"Without any; there was," says the lawyer meditatively, "an old +portmanteau, but-- No, there were no papers." + +During the utterance of every word of this short dialogue, Lady +Dedlock and Mr. Tulkinghorn, without any other alteration in their +customary deportment, have looked very steadily at one another--as +was natural, perhaps, in the discussion of so unusual a subject. +Sir Leicester has looked at the fire, with the general expression of +the Dedlock on the staircase. The story being told, he renews his +stately protest, saying that as it is quite clear that no +association in my Lady's mind can possibly be traceable to this poor +wretch (unless he was a begging-letter writer), he trusts to hear no +more about a subject so far removed from my Lady's station. + +"Certainly, a collection of horrors," says my Lady, gathering up her +mantles and furs, "but they interest one for the moment! Have the +kindness, Mr. Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn does so with deference and holds it open while she +passes out. She passes close to him, with her usual fatigued manner +and insolent grace. They meet again at dinner--again, next day-- +again, for many days in succession. Lady Dedlock is always the same +exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable to +be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. Mr. +Tulkinghorn is always the same speechless repository of noble +confidences, so oddly but of place and yet so perfectly at home. +They appear to take as little note of one another as any two people +enclosed within the same walls could. But whether each evermore +watches and suspects the other, evermore mistrustful of some great +reservation; whether each is evermore prepared at all points for the +other, and never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know +how much the other knows--all this is hidden, for the time, in their +own hearts. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Esther's Narrative + + +We held many consultations about what Richard was to be, first +without Mr. Jarndyce, as he had requested, and afterwards with him, +but it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. Richard +said he was ready for anything. When Mr. Jarndyce doubted whether +he might not already be too old to enter the Navy, Richard said he +had thought of that, and perhaps he was. When Mr. Jarndyce asked +him what he thought of the Army, Richard said he had thought of +that, too, and it wasn't a bad idea. When Mr. Jarndyce advised him +to try and decide within himself whether his old preference for the +sea was an ordinary boyish inclination or a strong impulse, Richard +answered, Well he really HAD tried very often, and he couldn't make +out. + +"How much of this indecision of character," Mr. Jarndyce said to me, +"is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and +procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't +pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is +responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or +confirmed in him a habit of putting off--and trusting to this, that, +and the other chance, without knowing what chance--and dismissing +everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of +much older and steadier people may be even changed by the +circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that +a boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences +and escape them." + +I felt this to be true; though if I may venture to mention what I +thought besides, I thought it much to be regretted that Richard's +education had not counteracted those influences or directed his +character. He had been eight years at a public school and had +learnt, I understood, to make Latin verses of several sorts in the +most admirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's +business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his +failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to HIM. HE had been +adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such +perfection that if he had remained at school until he was of age, I +suppose he could only have gone on making them over and over again +unless he had enlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. +Still, although I had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and +very improving, and very sufficient for a great many purposes of +life, and always remembered all through life, I did doubt whether +Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, +instead of his studying them quite so much. + +To be sure, I knew nothing of the subject and do not even now know +whether the young gentlemen of classic Rome or Greece made verses to +the same extent--or whether the young gentlemen of any country ever +did. + +"I haven't the least idea," said Richard, musing, "what I had better +be. Except that I am quite sure I don't want to go into the Church, +it's a toss-up." + +"You have no inclination in Mr. Kenge's way?" suggested Mr. +Jarndyce. + +"I don't know that, sir!" replied Richard. "I am fond of boating. +Articled clerks go a good deal on the water. It's a capital +profession!" + +"Surgeon--" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. + +"That's the thing, sir!" cried Richard. + +I doubt if he had ever once thought of it before. + +"That's the thing, sir," repeated Richard with the greatest +enthusiasm. "We have got it at last. M.R.C.S.!" + +He was not to be laughed out of it, though he laughed at it +heartily. He said he had chosen his profession, and the more he +thought of it, the more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art +of healing was the art of all others for him. Mistrusting that he +only came to this conclusion because, having never had much chance +of finding out for himself what he was fitted for and having never +been guided to the discovery, he was taken by the newest idea and +was glad to get rid of the trouble of consideration, I wondered +whether the Latin verses often ended in this or whether Richard's +was a solitary case. + +Mr. Jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously and to put +it to his good sense not to deceive himself in so important a +matter. Richard was a little grave after these interviews, but +invariably told Ada and me that it was all right, and then began to +talk about something else. + +"By heaven!" cried Mr. Boythorn, who interested himself strongly in +the subject--though I need not say that, for he could do nothing +weakly; "I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry +devoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is +in it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary +task-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that +illustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. By all that is base +and despicable," cried Mr. Boythorn, "the treatment of surgeons +aboard ship is such that I would submit the legs--both legs--of +every member of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture and +render it a transportable offence in any qualified practitioner to +set them if the system were not wholly changed in eight and forty +hours!" + +"Wouldn't you give them a week?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"No!" cried Mr. Boythorn firmly. "Not on any consideration! Eight +and forty hours! As to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and +similar gatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange +such speeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in +quicksilver mines for the short remainder of their miserable +existence, if it were only to prevent their detestable English from +contaminating a language spoken in the presence of the sun--as to +those fellows, who meanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen +in the pursuit of knowledge to recompense the inestimable services +of the best years of their lives, their long study, and their +expensive education with pittances too small for the acceptance of +clerks, I would have the necks of every one of them wrung and their +skulls arranged in Surgeons' Hall for the contemplation of the whole +profession in order that its younger members might understand from +actual measurement, in early life, HOW thick skulls may become!" + +He wound up this vehement declaration by looking round upon us with +a most agreeable smile and suddenly thundering, "Ha, ha, ha!" over +and over again, until anybody else might have been expected to be +quite subdued by the exertion. + +As Richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice +after repeated periods for consideration had been recommended by Mr. +Jarndyce and had expired, and he still continued to assure Ada and +me in the same final manner that it was "all right," it became +advisable to take Mr. Kenge into council. Mr. Kenge, therefore, +came down to dinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and +turned his eye-glasses over and over, and spoke in a sonorous voice, +and did exactly what I remembered to have seen him do when I was a +little girl. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Kenge. "Yes. Well! A very good profession, Mr. +Jarndyce, a very good profession." + +"The course of study and preparation requires to be diligently +pursued," observed my guardian with a glance at Richard. + +"Oh, no doubt," said Mr. Kenge. "Diligently." + +"But that being the case, more or less, with all pursuits that are +worth much," said Mr. Jarndyce, "it is not a special consideration +which another choice would be likely to escape." + +"Truly," said Mr. Kenge. "And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so +meritoriously acquitted himself in the--shall I say the classic +shades?--in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply +the habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in +that tongue in which a poet was said (unless I mistake) to be born, +not made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which +he enters." + +"You may rely upon it," said Richard in his off-hand manner, "that I +shall go at it and do my best." + +"Very well, Mr. Jarndyce!" said Mr. Kenge, gently nodding his head. +"Really, when we are assured by Mr. Richard that he means to go at +it and to do his best," nodding feelingly and smoothly over those +expressions, "I would submit to you that we have only to inquire +into the best mode of carrying out the object of his ambition. Now, +with reference to placing Mr. Richard with some sufficiently eminent +practitioner. Is there any one in view at present?" + +"No one, Rick, I think?" said my guardian. + +"No one, sir," said Richard. + +"Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge. "As to situation, now. Is there +any particular feeling on that head?" + +"N--no," said Richard. + +"Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge again. + +"I should like a little variety," said Richard; "I mean a good range +of experience." + +"Very requisite, no doubt," returned Mr. Kenge. "I think this may +be easily arranged, Mr. Jarndyce? We have only, in the first place, +to discover a sufficiently eligible practitioner; and as soon as we +make our want--and shall I add, our ability to pay a premium?-- +known, our only difficulty will be in the selection of one from a +large number. We have only, in the second place, to observe those +little formalities which are rendered necessary by our time of life +and our being under the guardianship of the court. We shall soon +be--shall I say, in Mr. Richard's own light-hearted manner, 'going +at it'--to our heart's content. It is a coincidence," said Mr. +Kenge with a tinge of melancholy in his smile, "one of those +coincidences which may or may not require an explanation beyond our +present limited faculties, that I have a cousin in the medical +profession. He might be deemed eligible by you and might be +disposed to respond to this proposal. I can answer for him as +little as for you, but he MIGHT!" + +As this was an opening in the prospect, it was arranged that Mr. +Kenge should see his cousin. And as Mr. Jarndyce had before +proposed to take us to London for a few weeks, it was settled next +day that we should make our visit at once and combine Richard's +business with it. + +Mr. Boythorn leaving us within a week, we took up our abode at a +cheerful lodging near Oxford Street over an upholsterer's shop. +London was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours and hours +at a time, seeing the sights, which appeared to be less capable of +exhaustion than we were. We made the round of the principal +theatres, too, with great delight, and saw all the plays that were +worth seeing. I mention this because it was at the theatre that I +began to be made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy. + +I was sitting in front of the box one night with Ada, and Richard +was in the place he liked best, behind Ada's chair, when, happening +to look down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened +down upon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. +I felt all through the performance that he never looked at the +actors but constantly looked at me, and always with a carefully +prepared expression of the deepest misery and the profoundest +dejection. + +It quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very +embarrassing and so very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we +never went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, +always with his hair straight and flat, his shirt-collar turned +down, and a general feebleness about him. If he were not there when +we went in, and I began to hope he would not come and yielded myself +for a little while to the interest of the scene, I was certain to +encounter his languishing eyes when I least expected it and, from +that time, to be quite sure that they were fixed upon me all the +evening. + +I really cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only +have brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been +bad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at +me, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such +a constraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to +cry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing +naturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the +box, I could not bear to do that because I knew Richard and Ada +relied on having me next them and that they could never have talked +together so happily if anybody else had been in my place. So there +I sat, not knowing where to look--for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. +Guppy's eyes were following me--and thinking of the dreadful expense +to which this young man was putting himself on my account. + +Sometimes I thought of telling Mr. Jarndyce. Then I feared that the +young man would lose his situation and that I might ruin him. +Sometimes I thought of confiding in Richard, but was deterred by the +possibility of his fighting Mr. Guppy and giving him black eyes. +Sometimes I thought, should I frown at him or shake my head. Then I +felt I could not do it. Sometimes I considered whether I should +write to his mother, but that ended in my being convinced that to +open a correspondence would he to make the matter worse. I always +came to the conclusion, finally, that I could do nothing. Mr. +Guppy's perseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly +at any theatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the +crowd as we were coming out, and even to get up behind our fly-- +where I am sure I saw him, two or three times, struggling among the +most dreadful spikes. After we got home, he haunted a post opposite +our house. The upholsterer's where we lodged being at the corner of +two streets, and my bedroom window being opposite the post, I was +afraid to go near the window when I went upstairs, lest I should see +him (as I did one moonlight night) leaning against the post and +evidenfly catching cold. If Mr. Guppy had not been, fortunately for +me, engaged in the daytime, I really should have had no rest from +him. + +While we were making this round of gaieties, in which Mr. Guppy so +extraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring +us to town was not neglected. Mr. Kenge's cousin was a Mr. Bayham +Badger, who had a good practice at Chelsea and attended a large +public institution besides. He was quite willing to receive Richard +into his house and to superintend his studies, and as it seemed that +those could be pursued advantageously under Mr. Badger's roof, and +Mr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger +"well enough," an agreement was made, the Lord Chancellor's consent +was obtained, and it was all settled. + +On the day when matters were concluded between Richard and Mr. +Badger, we were all under engagement to dine at Mr. Badger's house. +We were to be "merely a family party," Mrs. Badger's note said; and +we found no lady there but Mrs. Badger herself. She was surrounded +in the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a +little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little, +playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little, +reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little. +She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed, +and of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her +accomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there +was any harm in it. + +Mr. Bayham Badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking +gentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised +eyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs. Bayham Badger. He +admired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the +curious ground (as it seemed to us) of her having had three +husbands. We had barely taken our seats when he said to Mr. +Jarndyce quite triumphantly, "You would hardly suppose that I am +Mrs. Bayham Badger's third!" + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Her third!" said Mr. Badger. "Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the +appearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former +husbands?" + +I said "Not at all!" + +"And most remarkable men!" said Mr. Badger in a tone of confidence. +"Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, who was Mrs. Badger's first +husband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of +Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European +reputation." + +Mrs. Badger overheard him and smiled. + +"Yes, my dear!" Mr. Badger replied to the smile, "I was observing to +Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson that you had had two former +husbands--both very distinguished men. And they found it, as people +generally do, difficult to believe." + +"I was barely twenty," said Mrs. Badger, "when I married Captain +Swosser of the Royal Navy. I was in the Mediterranean with him; I +am quite a sailor. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I +became the wife of Professor Dingo." + +"Of European reputation," added Mr. Badger in an undertone. + +"And when Mr. Badger and myself were married," pursued Mrs. Badger, +"we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached +to the day." + +"So that Mrs. Badger has been married to three husbands--two of them +highly distinguished men," said Mr. Badger, summing up the facts, +"and each time upon the twenty-first of March at eleven in the +forenoon!" + +We all expressed our admiration. + +"But for Mr. Badger's modesty," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I would take +leave to correct him and say three distinguished men." + +"Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce! What I always tell him!" observed Mrs. +Badger. + +"And, my dear," said Mr. Badger, "what do I always tell you? That +without any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction +as I may have attained (which our friend Mr. Carstone will have many +opportunities of estimating), I am not so weak--no, really," said +Mr. Badger to us generally, "so unreasonable--as to put my +reputation on the same footing with such first-rate men as Captain +Swosser and Professor Dingo. Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. +Jarndyce," continued Mr. Bayham Badger, leading the way into the +next drawing-room, "in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was +taken on his return home from the African station, where he had +suffered from the fever of the country. Mrs. Badger considers it +too yellow. But it's a very fine head. A very fine head!" + +We all echoed, "A very fine head!" + +"I feel when I look at it," said Mr. Badger, "'That's a man I should +like to have seen!' It strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that +Captain Swosser pre-eminently was. On the other side, Professor +Dingo. I knew him well--attended him in his last illness--a +speaking likeness! Over the piano, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. +Swosser. Over the sofa, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Dingo. Of +Mrs. Bayham Badger IN ESSE, I possess the original and have no +copy." + +Dinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. It was a very +genteel entertainment, very handsomely served. But the captain and +the professor still ran in Mr. Badger's head, and as Ada and I had +the honour of being under his particular care, we had the full +benefit of them. + +"Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Not in that tumbler, pray. +Bring me the professor's goblet, James!" + +Ada very much admired some artificial flowers under a glass. + +"Astonishing how they keep!" said Mr. Badger. "They were presented +to Mrs. Bayham Badger when she was in the Mediterranean." + +He invited Mr. Jarndyce to take a glass of claret. + +"Not that claret!" he said. "Excuse me! This is an occasion, and +ON an occasion I produce some very special claret I happen to have. +(James, Captain Swosser's wine!) Mr. Jarndyce, this is a wine that +was imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. +You will find it very curious. My dear, I shall he happy to take +some of this wine with you. (Captain Swosser's claret to your +mistress, James!) My love, your health!" + +After dinner, when we ladies retired, we took Mrs. Badger's first +and second husband with us. Mrs. Badger gave us in the drawing-room +a biographical sketch of the life and services of Captain Swosser +before his marriage and a more minute account of him dating from the +time when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the Crippler, +given to the officers of that ship when she lay in Plymouth Harbour. + +"The dear old Crippler!" said Mrs. Badger, shaking her head. "She +was a noble vessel. Trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as Captain +Swosser used to say. You must excuse me if I occasionally introduce +a nautical expression; I was quite a sailor once. Captain Swosser +loved that craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, +he frequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, +he would have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter- +deck where we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where +he fell--raked fore and aft (Captain Swosser used to say) by the +fire from my tops. It was his naval way of mentioning my eyes." + +Mrs. Badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass. + +"It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo," she +resumed with a plaintive smile. "I felt it a good deal at first. +Such an entire revolution in my mode of life! But custom, combined +with science--particularly science--inured me to it. Being the +professor's sole companion in his botanical excursions, I almost +forgot that I had ever been afloat, and became quite learned. It is +singular that the professor was the antipodes of Captain Swosser and +that Mr. Badger is not in the least like either!" + +We then passed into a narrative of the deaths of Captain Swosser and +Professor Dingo, both of whom seem to have had very bad complaints. +In the course of it, Mrs. Badger signified to us that she had never +madly loved but once and that the object of that wild affection, +never to be recalled in its fresh enthusiasm, was Captain Swosser. +The professor was yet dying by inches in the most dismal manner, and +Mrs. Badger was giving us imitations of his way of saying, with +great difficulty, "Where is Laura? Let Laura give me my toast and +water!" when the entrance of the gentlemen consigned him to the +tomb. + +Now, I observed that evening, as I had observed for some days past, +that Ada and Richard were more than ever attached to each other's +society, which was but natural, seeing that they were going to be +separated so soon. I was therefore not very much surprised when we +got home, and Ada and I retired upstairs, to find Ada more silent +than usual, though I was not quite prepared for her coming into my +arms and beginning to speak to me, with her face hidden. + +"My darling Esther!" murmured Ada. "I have a great secret to tell +you!" + +A mighty secret, my pretty one, no doubt! + +"What is it, Ada?" + +"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" + +"Shall I try to guess?" said I. + +"Oh, no! Don't! Pray don't!" cried Ada, very much startled by the +idea of my doing so. + +"Now, I wonder who it can be about?" said I, pretending to consider. + +"It's about--" said Ada in a whisper. "It's about--my cousin +Richard!" + +"Well, my own!" said I, kissing her bright hair, which was all I +could see. "And what about him?" + +"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" + +It was so pretty to have her clinging to me in that way, hiding her +face, and to know that she was not crying in sorrow but in a little +glow of joy, and pride, and hope, that I would not help her just +yet. + +"He says--I know it's very foolish, we are both so young--but he +says," with a burst of tears, "that he loves me dearly, Esther." + +"Does he indeed?" said I. "I never heard of such a thing! Why, my +pet of pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!" + +To see Ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise, and hold me +round the neck, and laugh, and cry, and blush, was so pleasant! + +"Why, my darling," said I, "what a goose you must take me for! Your +cousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I +don't know how long!" + +"And yet you never said a word about it!" cried Ada, kissing me. + +"No, my love," said I. "I waited to be told." + +"But now I have told you, you don't think it wrong of me, do you?" +returned Ada. She might have coaxed me to say no if I had been the +hardest-hearted duenna in the world. Not being that yet, I said no +very freely. + +"And now," said I, "I know the worst of it." + +"Oh, that's not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!" cried Ada, +holding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast. + +"No?" said I. "Not even that?" + +"No, not even that!" said Ada, shaking her head. + +"Why, you never mean to say--" I was beginning in joke. + +But Ada, looking up and smiling through her tear's, cried, "Yes, I +do! You know, you know I do!" And then sobbed out, "With all my +heart I do! With all my whole heart, Esther!" + +I told her, laughing, why I had known that, too, just as well as I +had known the other! And we sat before the fire, and I had all the +talking to myself for a little while (though there was not much of +it); and Ada was soon quiet and happy. + +"Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?" she asked. + +"Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet," said I, "I should think my +cousin John knows pretty well as much as we know." + +"We want to speak to him before Richard goes," said Ada timidly, +"and we wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. Perhaps you +wouldn't mind Richard's coming in, Dame Durden?" + +"Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?" said I. + +"I am not quite certain," returned Ada with a bashful simplicity +that would have won my heart if she had not won it long before, "but +I think he's waiting at the door." + +There he was, of course. They brought a chair on either side of me, +and put me between them, and really seemed to have fallen in love +with me instead of one another, they were so confiding, and so +trustful, and so fond of me. They went on in their own wild way for +a little while--I never stopped them; I enjoyed it too much myself-- +and then we gradually fell to considering how young they were, and +how there must be a lapse of several years before this early love +could come to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if +it were real and lasting and inspired them with a steady resolution +to do their duty to each other, with constancy, fortitude, and +perseverance, each always for the other's sake. Well! Richard said +that he would work his fingers to the bone for Ada, and Ada said +that she would work her fingers to the bone for Richard, and they +called me all sorts of endearing and sensible names, and we sat +there, advising and talking, half the night. Finally, before we +parted, I gave them my promise to speak to their cousin John to- +morrow. + +So, when to-morrow came, I went to my guardian after breakfast, in +the room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him +that I had it in trust to tell him something. + +"Well, little woman," said he, shutting up his book, "if you have +accepted the trust, there can be no harm in it." + +"I hope not, guardian," said I. "I can guarantee that there is no +secrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday." + +"Aye? And what is it, Esther?" + +"Guardian," said I, "you remember the happy night when first we came +down to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?" + +I wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then. +Unless I am much mistaken, I saw that I did so. + +"Because--" said I with a little hesitation. + +"Yes, my dear!" said he. "Don't hurry." + +"Because," said I, "Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have +told each other so." + +"Already!" cried my guardian, quite astonished. + +"Yes!" said I. "And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather +expected it." + +"The deuce you did!" said he. + +He sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so +handsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me +to let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he +encircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself +to Richard with a cheerful gravity. + +"Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am glad to have won your confidence. +I hope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between +us four which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new +interests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the +possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, Ada, +don't be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together. +I saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was +afar off, Rick, afar off!" + +"We look afar off, sir," returned Richard. + +"Well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "That's rational. Now, hear me, my +dears! I might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, +that a thousand things may happen to divert you from one another, +that it is well this chain of flowers you have taken up is very +easily broken, or it might become a chain of lead. But I will not +do that. Such wisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to +come at all. I will assume that a few years hence you will be in +your hearts to one another what you are to-day. All I say before +speaking to you according to that assumption is, if you DO change-- +if you DO come to find that you are more commonplace cousins to each +other as man and woman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood +will excuse me, Rick!)--don't be ashamed still to confide in me, for +there will be nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your +friend and distant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But +I wish and hope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit +it." + +"I am very sure, sir," returned Richard, "that I speak for Ada too +when I say that you have the strongest power over us both--rooted in +respect, gratitude, and affection--strengthening every day." + +"Dear cousin John," said Ada, on his shoulder, "my father's place +can never be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have +rendered to him is transferred to you." + +"Come!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now for our assumption. Now we lift +our eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is +before you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will +receive you. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own +efforts. Never separate the two, like the heathen waggoner. +Constancy in love is a good thing, but it means nothing, and is +nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. If you had the +abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do +nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If +you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things +or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from +Fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here or leave your +cousin Ada here." + +"I will leave IT here, sir," replied Richard smiling, "if I brought +it here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to +my cousin Ada in the hopeful distance." + +"Right!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "If you are not to make her happy, why +should you pursue her?" + +"I wouldn't make her unhappy--no, not even for her love," retorted +Richard proudly. + +"Well said!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. "That's well said! She remains +here, in her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no +less than in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well. +Otherwise, all will go ill. That's the end of my preaching. I +think you and Ada had better take a walk." + +Ada tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with +him, and then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again +directly, though, to say that they would wait for me. + +The door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as +they passed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining, +and out at its farther end. Richard with his head bent, and her +hand drawn through his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and +she looked up in his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing +else. So young, so beautiful, so full of hope and promise, they +went on lightly through the sunlight as their own happy thoughts +might then be traversing the years to come and making them all +years of brightness. So they passed away into the shadow and were +gone. It was only a burst of light that had been so radiant. The +room darkened as they went out, and the sun was clouded over. + +"Am I right, Esther?" said my guardian when they were gone. + +He was so good and wise to ask ME whether he was right! + +"Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the +core of so much that is good!" said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head. +"I have said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and +counsellor always near." And he laid his hand lovingly upon my +head. + +I could not help showing that I was a little moved, though I did +all I could to conceal it. + +"Tut tut!" said he. "But we must take care, too, that our little +woman's life is not all consumed in care for others." + +"Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in +the world!" + +"I believe so, too," said he. "But some one may find out what +Esther never will--that the little woman is to be held in +remembrance above all other people!" + +I have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else +at the family dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a +gentleman. It was a gentleman of a dark complexion--a young +surgeon. He was rather reserved, but I thought him very sensible +and agreeable. At least, Ada asked me if I did not, and I said +yes. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Deportment + + +Richard left us on the very next evening to begin his new career, +and committed Ada to my charge with great love for her and great +trust in me. It touched me then to reflect, and it touches me now, +more nearly, to remember (having what I have to tell) how they both +thought of me, even at that engrossing time. I was a part of all +their plans, for the present and the future, I was to write Richard +once a week, making my faithful report of Ada, who was to write to +him every alternate day. I was to be informed, under his own hand, +of all his labours and successes; I was to observe how resolute and +persevering he would be; I was to be Ada's bridesmaid when they +were married; I was to live with them afterwards; I was to keep all +the keys of their house; I was to be made happy for ever and a day. + +"And if the suit SHOULD make us rich, Esther--which it may, you +know!" said Richard to crown all. + +A shade crossed Ada's face. + +"My dearest Ada," asked Richard, "why not?" + +"It had better declare us poor at once," said Ada. + +"Oh! I don't know about that," returned Richard, "but at all +events, it won't declare anything at once. It hasn't declared +anything in heaven knows how many years." + +"Too true," said Ada. + +"Yes, but," urged Richard, answering what her look suggested rather +than her words, "the longer it goes on, dcar cousin, the nearer it +must be to a settlement one way or other. Now, is not that +reasonable?" + +"You know best, Richard. But I am afraid if we trust to it, it +will make us unhappy." + +"But, my Ada, we are not going to trust to it!" cried Richard +gaily. "We know it better than to trust to it. We only say that +if it SHOULD make us rich, we have no constitutional objection to +being rich. The court is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim +old guardian, and we are to suppose that what it gives us (when it +gives us anything) is our right. It is not necessary to quarrel +with our right." + +"No," Said Ada, "but it may be better to forget all about it." + +"Well, well," cried Richard, "then we will forget all about it! We +consign the whole thing to oblivion. Dame Durden puts on her +approving face, and it's done!" + +"Dame Durden's approving face," said I, looking out of the box in +which I was packing his books, "was not very visible when you +called it by that name; but it does approve, and she thinks you +can't do better." + +So, Richard said there was an end of it, and immediately began, on +no other foundation, to build as many castles in the air as would +man the Great Wall of China. He went away in high spirits. Ada +and I, prepared to miss him very much, commenced our quieter +career. + +On our arrival in London, we had called with Mr. Jarndyce at Mrs. +Jellyby's but had not been so fortunate as to find her at home. It +appeared that she had gone somewhere to a tea-drinking and had +taken Miss Jellyby with her. Besides the tea-drinking, there was +to be some considerable speech-making and letter-writing on the +general merits of the cultivation of coffee, conjointly with +natives, at the Settlement of Borrioboola-Gha. All this involved, +no doubt, sufficient active exercise of pen and ink to make her +daughter's part in the proceedings anything but a holiday. + +It being now beyond the time appointed for Mrs. Jellyby's return, +we called again. She was in town, but not at home, having gone to +Mile End directly after breakfast on some Borrioboolan business, +arising out of a society called the East London Branch Aid +Ramification. As I had not seen Peepy on the occasion of our last +call (when he was not to be found anywhere, and when the cook +rather thought he must have strolled away with the dustman's cart), +I now inquired for him again. The oyster shells he had been +building a house with were still in the passage, but he was nowhere +discoverable, and the cook supposed that he had "gone after the +sheep." When we repeated, with some surprise, "The sheep?" she +said, Oh, yes, on market days he sometimes followed them quite out +of town and came back in such a state as never was! + +I was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following +morning, and Ada was busy writing-of course to Richard--when Miss +Jellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical Peepy, +whom she had made some endeavours to render presentable by wiping +the dirt into corners of his face and hands and making his hair +very wet and then violently frizzling it with her fingers. +Everything the dear child wore was either too large for him or too +small. Among his other contradictory decorations he had the hat of +a bishop and the little gloves of a baby. His boots were, on a +small scale, the boots of a ploughman, while his legs, so crossed +and recrossed with scratches that they looked like maps, were bare +below a very short pair of plaid drawers finished off with two +frills of perfectly different patterns. The deficient buttons on +his plaid frock had evidently been supplied from one of Mr. +Jellyby's coats, they were so extremely brazen and so much too +large. Most extraordinary specimens of needlework appeared on +several parts of his dress, where it had been hastily mended, and I +recognized the same hand on Miss Jellyby's. She was, however, +unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked very pretty. +She was conscious of poor little Peepy being but a failure after +all her trouble, and she showed it as she came in by the way in +which she glanced first at him and then at us. + +"Oh, dear me!" said my guardian. "Due east!" + +Ada and I gave her a cordial welcome and presented her to Mr. +Jarndyce, to whom she said as she sat down, "Ma's compliments, and +she hopes you'll excuse her, because she's correcting proofs of the +plan. She's going to put out five thousand new circulars, and she +knows you'll be interested to hear that. I have brought one of +them with me. Ma's compliments." With which she presented it +sulkily enough. + +"Thank you," said my guardian. "I am much obliged to Mrs. Jellyby. +Oh, dear me! This is a very trying wind!" + +We were busy with Peepy, taking off his clerical hat, asking him if +he remembered us, and so on. Peepy retired behind his elbow at +first, but relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to +take him on my lap, where he sat munching quietly. Mr. Jarndyce +then withdrawing into the temporary growlery, Miss Jellyby opened a +conversation with her usual abruptness. + +"We are going on just as bad as ever in Thavies Inn," said she. "I +have no peace of my life. Talk of Africa! I couldn't be worse off +if I was a what's-his-name--man and a brother!" + +I tried to say something soothing. + +"Oh, it's of no use, Miss Summerson," exclaimed Miss Jellyby, +"though I thank you for the kind intention all the same. I know +how I am used, and I am not to be talked over. YOU wouldn't be +talked over if you were used so. Peepy, go and play at Wild Beasts +under the piano!" + +"I shan't!" said Peepy. + +"Very well, you ungrateful, naughty, hard-hearted boy!" returned +Miss Jellyby with tears in her eyes. "I'll never take pains to +dress you any more." + +"Yes, I will go, Caddy!" cried Peepy, who was really a good child +and who was so moved by his sister's vexation that he went at once. + +"It seems a little thing to cry about," said poor Miss Jellyby +apologetically, "but I am quite worn out. I was directing the new +circulars till two this morning. I detest the whole thing so that +that alone makes my head ache till I can't see out of my eyes. And +look at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright +as he is!" + +Peepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat on +the carpet behind one of the legs of the piano, looking calmly out +of his den at us while he ate his cake. + +"I have sent him to the other end of the room," observed Miss +Jellyby, drawing her chair nearer ours, "because I don't want him +to hear the conversation. Those little things are so sharp! I was +going to say, we really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a +bankrupt before long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. +There'll he nobody but Ma to thank for it." + +We said we hoped Mr. Jellyby's affairs were not in so bad a state +as that. + +"It's of no use hoping, though it's very kind of you," returned +Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. "Pa told me only yesterday morning +(and dreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn't weather the storm. +I should be surprised if he could. When all our tradesmen send +into our house any stuff they like, and the servants do what they +like with it, and I have no time to improve things if I knew how, +and Ma don't care about anything, I should like to make out how Pa +is to weather the storm. I declare if I was Pa, I'd run away." + +"My dear!" said I, smiling. "Your papa, no doubt, considers his +family." + +"Oh, yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson," replied +Miss Jellyby; "but what comfort is his family to him? His family +is nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, +confusion, and wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week's end +to week's end, is like one great washing-day--only nothing's +washed!" + +Miss Jellyby tapped her foot upon the floor and wiped her eyes. + +"I am sure I pity Pa to that degree," she said, "and am so angry +with Ma that I can't find words to express myself! However, I am +not going to bear it, I am determined. I won't be a slave all my +life, and I won't submit to be proposed to by Mr. Quale. A pretty +thing, indeed, to marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn't had enough +of THAT!" said poor Miss Jellyby. + +I must confess that I could not help feeling rather angry with Mrs. +Jellyby myself, seeing and hearing this neglected girl and knowing +how much of bitterly satirical truth there was in what she said. + +"If it wasn't that we had been intimate when you stopped at our +house," pursued Miss Jellyby, "I should have been ashamed to come +here to-day, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But +as it is, I made up my mind to call, especially as I am not likely +to see you again the next time you come to town." + +She said this with such great significance that Ada and I glanced +at one another, foreseeing something more. + +"No!" said Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. "Not at all likely! I +know I may trust you two. I am sure you won't betray me. I am +engaged." + +"Without their knowledge at home?" said I. + +"Why, good gracious me, Miss Summerson," she returned, justifying +herself in a fretful but not angry manner, "how can it be +otherwise? You know what Ma is--and I needn't make poor Pa more +miserable by telling HIM." + +"But would it not he adding to his unhappiness to marry without his +knowledge or consent, my dear?" said I. + +"No," said Miss Jellyby, softening. ""I hope not. I should try to +make him happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and Peepy +and the others should take it in turns to come and stay with me, +and they should have some care taken of them then." + +There was a good deal of affection in poor Caddy. She softened +more and more while saying this and cried so much over the unwonted +little home-picture she had raised in her mind that Peepy, in his +cave under the piano, was touched, and turned himself over on his +back with loud lamentations. It was not until I had brought him to +kiss his sister, and had restored him to his place on my lap, and +had shown him that Caddy was laughing (she laughed expressly for +the purpose), that we could recall his peace of mind; even then it +was for some time conditional on his taking us in turns by the chin +and smoothing our faces all over with his hand. At last, as his +spirits were not equal to the piano, we put him on a chair to look +out of window; and Miss Jellyby, holding him by one leg, resumed +her confidence. + +"It began in your coming to our house," she said. + +We naturally asked how. + +"I felt I was so awkward," she replied, "that I made up my mind to +be improved in that respect at all events and to learn to dance. I +told Ma I was ashamed of myself, and I must be taught to dance. Ma +looked at me in that provoking way of hers as if I wasn't in sight, +but I was quite determined to be taught to dance, and so I went to +Mr. Turveydrop's Academy in Newman Street." + +"And was it there, my dear--" I began. + +"Yes, it was there," said Caddy, "and I am engaged to Mr. +Turveydrop. There are two Mr. Turveydrops, father and son. My Mr. +Turveydrop is the son, of course. I only wish I had been better +brought up and was likely to make him a better wife, for I am very +fond of him." + +"I am sorry to hear this," said I, "I must confess." + +"I don't know why you should be sorry," she retorted a little +anxiously, "but I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop, whether or no, and +he is very fond of me. It's a secret as yet, even on his side, +because old Mr. Turveydrop has a share in the connexion and it +might break his heart or give him some other shock if he was told +of it abruptly. Old Mr. Turveydrop is a very gentlemanly man +indeed--very gentlemanly." + +"Does his wife know of it?" asked Ada. + +"Old Mr. Turveydrop's wife, Miss Clare?" returned Miss Jellyby, +opening her eyes. "There's no such person. He is a widower." + +We were here interrupted by Peepy, whose leg had undergone so much +on account of his sister's unconsciously jerking it like a bell- +rope whenever she was emphatic that the afflicted child now +bemoaned his sufferings with a very low-spirited noise. As he +appealed to me for compassion, and as I was only a listener, I +undertook to hold him. Miss Jellyby proceeded, after begging +Peepy's pardon with a kiss and assuring him that she hadn't meant +to do it. + +"That's the state of the case," said Caddy. "If I ever blame +myself, I still think it's Ma's fault. We are to be married +whenever we can, and then I shall go to Pa at the office and write +to Ma. It won't much agitate Ma; I am only pen and ink to HER. +One great comfort is," said Caddy with a sob, "that I shall never +hear of Africa after I am married. Young Mr. Turveydrop hates it +for my sake, and if old Mr. Turveydrop knows there is such a place, +it's as much as he does." + +"It was he who was very gentlemanly, I think!" said I. + +"Very gentlemanly indeed," said Caddy. "He is celebrated almost +everywhere for his deportment." + +"Does he teach?" asked Ada. + +"No, he don't teach anything in particular," replied Caddy. "But +his deportment is beautiful." + +Caddy went on to say with considerable hesitation and reluctance +that there was one thing more she wished us to know, and felt we +ought to know, and which she hoped would not offend us. It was +that she had improved her acquaintance with Miss Flite, the little +crazy old lady, and that she frequently went there early in the +morning and met her lover for a few minutes before breakfast--only +for a few minutes. "I go there at other times," said Caddy, "but +Prince does not come then. Young Mr. Turveydrop's name is Prince; +I wish it wasn't, because it sounds like a dog, but of course be +didn't christen himself. Old Mr. Turveydrop had him christened +Prince in remembrance of the Prince Regent. Old Mr. Turveydrop +adored the Prince Regent on account of his deportment. I hope you +won't think the worse of me for having made these little +appointments at Miss Flite's, where I first went with you, because +I like the poor thing for her own sake and I believe she likes me. +If you could see young Mr. Turveydrop, I am sure you would think +well of him--at least, I am sure you couldn't possibly think any +ill of him. I am going there now for my lesson. I couldn't ask +you to go with me, Miss Summerson; but if you would," said Caddy, +who had said all this earnestly and tremblingly, "I should be very +glad--very glad." + +It happened that we had arranged with my guardian to go to Miss +Flite's that day. We had told him of our former visit, and our +account had interested him; but something had always happened to +prevent our going there again. As I trusted that I might have +sufficient influence with Miss Jellyby to prevent her taking any +very rash step if I fully accepted the confidence she was so +willing to place in me, poor girl, I proposed that she and I and +Peepy should go to the academy and afterwards meet my guardian and +Ada at Miss Flite's, whose name I now learnt for the first time. +This was on condition that Miss Jellyby and Peepy should come back +with us to dinner. The last article of the agreement being +joyfully acceded to by both, we smartened Peepy up a little with +the assistance of a few pins, some soap and water, and a hair- +brush, and went out, bending our steps towards Newman Street, which +was very near. + +I found the academy established in a sufficiently dingy house at +the corner of an archway, with busts in all the staircase windows. +In the same house there were also established, as I gathered from +the plates on the door, a drawing-master, a coal-merchant (there +was, certainly, no room for his coals), and a lithographic artist. +On the plate which, in size and situation, took precedence of all +the rest, I read, MR. TURVEYDROP. The door was open, and the hall +was blocked up by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical +instruments in cases, all in progress of removal, and all looking +rakish in the daylight. Miss Jellyby informed me that the academy +had been lent, last night, for a concert. + +We went upstairs--it had been quite a fine house once, when it was +anybody's business to keep it clean and fresh, and nobody's +business to smoke in it all day--and into Mr. Turveydrop's great +room, which was built out into a mews at the back and was lighted +by a skylight. It was a bare, resounding room smelling of stables, +with cane forms along the walls, and the walls ornamented at +regular intervals with painted lyres and little cut-glass branches +for candles, which seemed to be shedding their old-fashioned drops +as other branches might shed autumn leaves. Several young lady +pupils, ranging from thirteen or fourteen years of age to two or +three and twenty, were assembled; and I was looking among them for +their instructor when Caddy, pinching my arm, repeated the ceremony +of introduction. "Miss Summerson, Mr. Prince Turveydrop!" + +I curtsied to a little blue-eyed fair man of youthful appearance +with flaxen hair parted in the middle and curling at the ends all +round his head. He had a little fiddle, which we used to call at +school a kit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same +hand. His little dancing-shoes were particularly diminutive, and +he had a little innocent, feminine manner which not only appealed +to me in an amiable way, but made this singular effect upon me, +that I received the impression that he was like his mother and that +his mother had not been much considered or well used. + +"I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby's friend," he said, bowing low +to me. "I began to fear," with timid tenderness, "as it was past +the usual time, that Miss Jellyby was not coming." + +"I beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have +detained her, and to receive my excuses, sir," said I. + +"Oh, dear!" said he. + +"And pray," I entreated, "do not allow me to be the cause of any +more delay." + +With that apology I withdrew to a seat between Peepy (who, being +well used to it, had already climbed into a corner place) and an +old lady of a censorious countenance whose two nieces were in the +class and who was very indignant with Peepy's boots. Prince +Turveydrop then tinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, +and the young ladies stood up to dance. Just then there appeared +from a side-door old Mr. Turveydrop, in the full lustre of his +deportment. + +He was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, +false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a +padded breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue +ribbon to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got +up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He had +such a neckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural +shape), and his chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it +seemed as though be must inevitably double up if it were cast +loose. He had under his arm a hat of great size and weight, +shelving downward from the crown to the brim, and in his hand a +pair of white gloves with which he flapped it as he stood poised on +one leg in a high-shouldered, round-elbowed state of elegance not +to be surpassed. He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a +snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but +any touch of nature; he was not like youth, he was not like age, he +was not like anything in the world but a model of deportment. + +"Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby's friend, Miss Summerson." + +"Distinguished," said Mr. Turveydrop, "by Miss Summerson's +presence." As he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe +I saw creases come into the whites of his eyes. + +"My father," said the son, aside, to me with quite an affecting +belief in him, "is a celebrated character. My father is greatly +admired." + +"Go on, Prince! Go on!" said Mr. Turveydrop, standing with his +back to the fire and waving his gloves condescendingly. "Go on, my +son!" + +At this command, or by this gracious permission, the lesson went +on. Prince Turveydrop sometimes played the kit, dancing; sometimes +played the piano, standing; sometimes hummed the tune with what +little breath he could spare, while he set a pupil right; always +conscientiously moved with the least proficient through every step +and every part of the figure; and never rested for an instant. His +distinguished father did nothing whatever but stand before the +fire, a model of deportment. + +"And he never does anything else," said the old lady of the +censorious countenance. "Yet would you believe that it's HIS name +on the door-plate?" + +"His son's name is the same, you know," said I. + +"He wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from +him," returned the old lady. "Look at the son's dress!" It +certainly was plain--threadbare--almost shabby. "Yet the father +must be garnished and tricked out," said the old lady, "because of +his deportment. I'd deport him! Transport him would be better!" + +I felt curious to know more concerning this person. I asked, "Does +he give lessons in deportment now?" + +"Now!" returned the old lady shortly. "Never did." + +After a moment's consideration, I suggested that perhaps fencing +had been his accomplishment. + +"I don't believe he can fence at all, ma'am," said the old lady. + +I looked surprised and inquisitive. The old lady, becoming more +and more incensed against the master of deportment as she dwelt +upon the subject, gave me some particulars of his career, with +strong assurances that they were mildly stated. + +He had married a meek little dancing-mistress, with a tolerable +connexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport +himself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, +suffered her to work herself to death, to maintain him in those +expenses which were indispensable to his position. At once to +exhibit his deportment to the best models and to keep the best +models constantly before himself, he had found it necessary to +frequent all public places of fashionable and lounging resort, to +be seen at Brighton and elsewhere at fashionable times, and to lead +an idle life in the very best clothes. To enable him to do this, +the affectionate little dancing-mistress had toiled and laboured +and would have toiled and laboured to that hour if her strength had +lasted so long. For the mainspring of the story was that in spite +of the man's absorbing selfishness, his wife (overpowered by his +deportment) had, to the last, believed in him and had, on her +death-bed, in the most moving terms, confided him to their son as +one who had an inextinguishable claim upon him and whom he could +never regard with too much pride and deference. The son, +inheriting his mother's belief, and having the deportment always +before him, had lived and grown in the same faith, and now, at +thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a day and +looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary pinnacle. + +"The airs the fellow gives himself!" said my informant, shaking her +head at old Mr. Turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew +on his tight gloves, of course unconscious of the homage she was +rendering. "He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And +he is so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that +you might suppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh!" said the +old lady, apostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. "I could +bite you!" + +I could not help being amused, though I heard the old lady out with +feelings of real concern. It was difficult to doubt her with the +father and son before me. What I might have thought of them +without the old lady's account, or what I might have thought of the +old lady's account without them, I cannot say. There was a fitness +of things in the whole that carried conviction with it. + +My eyes were yet wandering, from young Mr. Turveydrop working so +hard, to old Mr. Turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when +the latter came ambling up to me and entered into conversation. + +He asked me, first of all, whether I conferred a charm and a +distinction on London by residing in it? I did not think it +necessary to reply that I was perfectly aware I should not do that, +in any case, but merely told him where I did reside. + +"A lady so graceful and accomplished," he said, kissing his right +glove and afterwards extending it towards the pupils, "will look +leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to polish-- +polish--polish!" + +He sat down beside me, taking some pains to sit on the form. I +thought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the +sofa. And really he did look very like it. + +"To polish--polish--polish!" he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff +and gently fluttering his fingers. "But we are not, if I may say +so to one formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art--" with the +high-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make +without lifting up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes "--we are not +what we used to be in point of deportment." + +"Are we not, sir?" said I. + +"We have degenerated," he returned, shaking his head, which he +could do to a very limited extent in his cravat. "A levelling age +is not favourable to deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I +speak with some little partiality. It may not be for me to say +that I have been called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop, +or that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent did me the honour to +inquire, on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at +Brighton (that fine building), 'Who is he? Who the devil is he? +Why don't I know him? Why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?' But +these are little matters of anecdote--the general property, ma'am-- +still repeated occasionally among the upper classes." + +"Indeed?" said I. + +He replied with the high-shouldered bow. "Where what is left among +us of deportment," he added, "still lingers. England--alas, my +country!--has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. +She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to +succeed us but a race of weavers." + +"One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated +here," said I. + +"You are very good." He smiled with a high-shouldered bow again. +"You flatter me. But, no--no! I have never been able to imbue my +poor boy with that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should +disparage my dear child, but he has--no deportment." + +"He appears to be an excellent master," I observed. + +"Understand me, my dear madam, he IS an excellent master. All that +can be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can +impart. But there ARE things--" He took another pinch of snuff +and made the bow again, as if to add, "This kind of thing, for +instance." + +I glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby's +lover, now engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater +drudgery than ever. + +"My amiable child," murmured Mr. Turveydrop, adjusting his cravat. + +"Your son is indefatigable," said I. + +"It is my reward," said Mr. Turveydrop, "to hear you say so. In +some respects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. +She was a devoted creature. But wooman, lovely wooman," said Mr. +Turveydrop with very disagreeable gallantry, "what a sex you are!" + +I rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was by this time putting on her +bonnet. The time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there +was a general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the +unfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don't +know, but they certainly found none on this occasion to exchange a +dozen words. + +"My dear," said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, "do you know +the hour?" + +"No, father." The son had no watch. The father had a handsome +gold one, which he pulled out with an air that was an example to +mankind. + +"My son," said he, "it's two o'clock. Recollect your school at +Kensington at three." + +"That's time enough for me, father," said Prince. "I can take a +morsel of dinner standing and be off." + +"My dear boy," returned his father, "you must be very quick. You +will find the cold mutton on the table." + +"Thank you, father. Are YOU off now, father?" + +"Yes, my dear. I suppose," said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes +and lifting up his shoulders with modest consciousness, "that I +must show myself, as usual, about town." + +"You had better dine out comfortably somewhere," said his son. + +"My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, +at the French house, in the Opera Colonnade." + +"That's right. Good-bye, father!" said Prince, shaking hands. + +"Good-bye, my son. Bless you!" + +Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to +do his son good, who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, +so dutiful to him, and so proud of him that I almost felt as if it +were an unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe +implicitly in the elder. The few moments that were occupied by +Prince in taking leave of us (and particularly of one of us, as I +saw, being in the secret), enhanced my favourable impression of his +almost childish character. I felt a liking for him and a +compassion for him as he put his little kit in his pocket--and with +it his desire to stay a little while with Caddy--and went away +good-humouredly to his cold mutton and his school at Kensington, +that made me scarcely less irate with his father than the +censorious old lady. + +The father opened the room door for us and bowed us out in a +manner, I must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. In the +same style he presently passed us on the other side of the street, +on his way to the aristocratic part of the town, where he was going +to show himself among the few other gentlemen left. For some +moments, I was so lost in reconsidering what I had heard and seen +in Newman Street that I was quite unable to talk to Caddy or even +to fix my attention on what she said to me, especially when I began +to inquire in my mind whether there were, or ever had been, any +other gentlemen, not in the dancing profession, who lived and +founded a reputation entirely on their deportment. This became so +bewildering and suggested the possibility of so many Mr. +Turveydrops that I said, "Esther, you must make up your mind to +abandon this subject altogether and attend to Caddy." I +accordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to +Lincoln's Inn. + +Caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that +it was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not +so anxious about his spelling and took less pains to make it clear, +he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into +short words that they sometimes quite lost their English +appearance. "He does it with the best intention," observed Caddy, +"but it hasn't the effect he means, poor fellow!" Caddy then went +on to reason, how could he be expected to be a scholar when he had +passed his whole life in the dancing-school and had done nothing +but teach and fag, fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And +what did it matter? She could write letters enough for both, as +she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable +than learned. "Besides, it's not as if I was an accomplished girl +who had any right to give herself airs," said Caddy. "I know +little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma! + +"There's another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone," +continued Caddy, "which I should not have liked to mention unless +you had seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours +is. It's of no use my trying to learn anything that it would be +useful for Prince's wife to know in OUR house. We live in such a +state of muddle that it's impossible, and I have only been more +disheartened whenever I have tried. So I get a little practice +with--who do you think? Poor Miss Flite! Early in the morning I +help her to tidy her room and clean her birds, and I make her cup +of coffee for her (of course she taught me), and I have learnt to +make it so well that Prince says it's the very best coffee he ever +tasted, and would quite delight old Mr. Turveydrop, who is very +particular indeed about his coffee. I can make little puddings +too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and tea, and sugar, and +butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am not clever at my +needle, yet," said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on Peepy's frock, +"but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been engaged to +Prince and have been doing all this, I have felt better-tempered, I +hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me out at first this +morning to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat and pretty and to +feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too, but on the whole I hope I am +better-tempered than I was and more forgiving to Ma." + +The poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched +mine. "Caddy, my love," I replied, "I begin to have a great +affection for you, and I hope we shall become friends." + +"Oh, do you?" cried Caddy. "How happy that would make me!" + +"My dear Caddy," said I, "let us be friends from this time, and let +us often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right +way through them." Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could +in my old-fashioned way to comfort and encourage her, and I would +not have objected to old Mr. Turveydrop that day for any smaller +consideration than a settlement on his daughter-in-law. + +By this time we were come to Mr. Krook's, whose private door stood +open. There was a bill, pasted on the door-post, announcing a room +to let on the second floor. It reminded Caddy to tell me as we +proceeded upstairs that there had been a sudden death there and an +inquest and that our little friend had been ill of the fright. The +door and window of the vacant room being open, we looked in. It +was the room with the dark door to which Miss Flite had secretly +directed my attention when I was last in the house. A sad and +desolate place it was, a gloomy, sorrowful place that gave me a +strange sensation of mournfulness and even dread. "You look pale," +said Caddy when we came out, "and cold!" I felt as if the room had +chilled me. + +We had walked slowly while we were talking, and my guardian and Ada +were here before us. We found them in Miss Flite's garret. They +were looking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so +good as to attend Miss Flite with much solicitude and compassion +spoke with her cheerfully by the fire. + +"I have finished my professional visit," he said, coming forward. +"Miss Flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is +set upon it) to-morrow. She has been greatly missed there, I +understand." + +Miss Flite received the compliment with complacency and dropped a +general curtsy to us. + +"Honoured, indeed," said she, "by another visit from the wards in +Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath +my humble roof!" with a special curtsy. "Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear"-- +she had bestowed that name on Caddy, it appeared, and always called +her by it--"a double welcome!" + +"Has she been very ill?" asked Mr. Jarndyce of the gentleman whom +we had found in attendance on her. She answered for herself +directly, though he had put the question in a whisper. + +"Oh, decidedly unwell! Oh, very unwell indeed," she said +confidentially. "Not pain, you know--trouble. Not bodily so much +as nervous, nervous! The truth is," in a subdued voice and +trembling, "we have had death here. There was poison in the house. +I am very susceptible to such horrid things. It frightened me. +Only Mr. Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr, Woodcourt!" +with great stateliness. "The wards in Jarndyce--Jarndyce of Bleak +House--Fitz-Jarndyce!" + +"Miss Flite," said Mr. Woodcourt in a grave kind of voice, as if he +were appealing to her while speaking to us, and laying his hand +gently on her arm, "Miss Flite describes her illness with her usual +accuracy. She was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which +might have alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the +distress and agitation. She brought me here in the first hurry of +the discovery, though too late for me to be of any use to the +unfortunate man. I have compensated myself for that disappointment +by coming here since and being of some small use to her." + +"The kindest physician in the college," whispered Miss Flite to me. +"I expect a judgment. On the day of judgment. And shall then +confer estates." + +"She will be as well in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, looking +at her with an observant smile, "as she ever will be. In other +words, quite well of course. Have you heard of her good fortune?" + +"Most extraordinary!" said Miss Flite, smiling brightly. "You +never heard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Conversation +Kenge or Guppy (clerk to Conversation K.) places in my hand a paper +of shillings. Shillings. I assure you! Always the same number in +the paper. Always one for every day in the week. Now you know, +really! So well-timed, is it not? Ye-es! From whence do these +papers come, you say? That is the great question. Naturally. +Shall I tell you what I think? I think," said Miss Flite, drawing +herself back with a very shrewd look and shaking her right +forefinger in a most significant manner, "that the Lord Chancellor, +aware of the length of time during which the Great Seal has been +open (for it has been open a long time!), forwards them. Until the +judgment I expect is given. Now that's very creditable, you know. +To confess in that way that he IS a little slow for human life. So +delicate! Attending court the other day--I attend it regularly, +with my documents--I taxed him with it, and he almost confessed. +That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and HE smiled at me from +his bench. But it's great good fortune, is it not? And Fitz- +Jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage. Oh, I +assure you to the greatest advantage!" + +I congratulated her (as she addressed herself to me) upon this +fortunate addition to her income and wished her a long continuance +of it. I did not speculate upon the source from which it came or +wonder whose humanity was so considerate. My guardian stood before +me, contemplating the birds, and I had no need to look beyond him. + +"And what do you call these little fellows, ma'am?" said he in his +pleasant voice. "Have they any names?" + +"I can answer for Miss Elite that they have," said I, "for she +promised to tell us what they were. Ada remembers?" + +Ada remembered very well. + +"Did I?" said Miss Elite. "Who's that at my door? What are you +listening at my door for, Krook?" + +The old man of the house, pushing it open before him, appeared +there with his fur cap in his hand and his cat at his heels. + +"I warn't listening, Miss Flite," he said, "I was going to give a +rap with my knuckles, only you're so quick!" + +"Make your cat go down. Drive her away!" the old lady angrily +exclaimed. + +"Bah, bah! There ain't no danger, gentlefolks," said Mr. Krook, +looking slowly and sharply from one to another until he had looked +at all of us; "she'd never offer at the birds when I was here +unless I told her to it." + +"You will excuse my landlord," said the old lady with a dignified +air. "M, quite M! What do you want, Krook, when I have company?" + +"Hi!" said the old man. "You know I am the Chancellor." + +"Well?" returned Miss Elite. "What of that?" + +"For the Chancellor," said the old man with a chuckle, "not to be +acquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain't it, Miss Flite? +Mightn't I take the liberty? Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce +and Jarndyce a'most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire +Tom, sir. I never to my knowledge see you afore though, not even +in court. Yet, I go there a mortal sight of times in the course of +the year, taking one day with another." + +"I never go there," said Mr. Jarndyce (which he never did on any +consideration). "I would sooner go--somewhere else." + +"Would you though?" returned Krook, grinning. "You're bearing hard +upon my noble and learned brother in your meaning, sir, though +perhaps it is but nat'ral in a Jarndyce. The burnt child, sir! +What, you're looking at my lodger's birds, Mr. Jarndyce?" The old +man had come by little and little into the room until he now +touched my guardian with his elbow and looked close up into his +face with his spectacled eyes. "It's one of her strange ways that +she'll never tell the names of these birds if she can help it, +though she named 'em all." This was in a whisper. "Shall I run +'em over, Flite?" he asked aloud, winking at us and pointing at her +as she turned away, affecting to sweep the grate. + +"If you like," she answered hurriedly. + +The old man, looking up at the cages after another look at us, went +through the list. + +"Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, +Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, +Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That's +the whole collection," said the old man, "all cooped up together, +by my noble and learned brother." + +"This is a bitter wind!" muttered my guardian. + +"When my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they're to +be let go free," said Krook, winking at us again. "And then," he +added, whispering and grinning, "if that ever was to happen--which +it won't--the birds that have never been caged would kill 'em." + +"If ever the wind was in the east," said my guardian, pretending to +look out of the window for a weathercock, "I think it's there to- +day!" + +We found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not +Miss Flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature +in consulting the convenience of others as there possibly could be. +It was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr. +Jarndyce. If he had been linked to him, he could hardly have +attended him more closely. He proposed to show us his Court of +Chancery and all the strange medley it contained; during the whole +of our inspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to Mr. +Jarndyce and sometimes detained him under one pretence or other +until we had passed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination +to enter upon some secret subject which he could not make up his +mind to approach. I cannot imagine a countenance and manner more +singularly expressive of caution and indecision, and a perpetual +impulse to do something he could not resolve to venture on, than +Mr. Krook's was that day. His watchfulness of my guardian was +incessant. He rarely removed his eyes from his face. If he went +on beside him, he observed him with the slyness of an old white +fox. If he went before, he looked back. When we stood still, he +got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across and across his +open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of power, and +turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until they +appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face. + +At last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over the +house and having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous lumber, +which was certainly curious, we came into the back part of the +shop. Here on the head of an empty barrel stood on end were an +ink-bottle, some old stumps of pens, and some dirty playbills; and +against the wall were pasted several large printed alphabets in +several plain hands. + +"What are you doing here?" asked my guardian. + +"Trying to learn myself to read and write," said Krook. + +"And how do you get on?" + +"Slow. Bad," returned the old man impatiently. "It's hard at my +time of life." + +"It would be easier to be taught by some one," said my guardian. + +"Aye, but they might teach me wrong!" returned the old man with a +wonderfully suspicious flash of his eye. "I don't know what I may +have lost by not being learned afore. I wouldn't like to lose +anything by being learned wrong now." + +"Wrong?" said my guardian with his good-humoured smile. "Who do +you suppose would teach you wrong?" + +"I don't know, Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House!" replied the old man, +turning up his spectacles on his forehead and rubbing his hands. +"I don't suppose as anybody would, but I'd rather trust my own self +than another!" + +These answers and his manner were strange enough to cause my +guardian to inquire of Mr. Woodcourt, as we all walked across +Lincoln's Inn together, whether Mr. Krook were really, as his +lodger represented him, deranged. The young surgeon replied, no, +he had seen no reason to think so. He was exceedingly distrustful, +as ignorance usually was, and he was always more or less under the +influence of raw gin, of which he drank great quantities and of +which he and his back-shop, as we might have observed, smelt +strongly; but he did not think him mad as yet. + +On our way home, I so conciliated Peepy's affections by buying him +a windmill and two flour-sacks that he would suffer nobody else to +take off his hat and gloves and would sit nowhere at dinner but at +my side. Caddy sat upon the other side of me, next to Ada, to whom +we imparted the whole history of the engagement as soon as we got +back. We made much of Caddy, and Peepy too; and Caddy brightened +exceedingly; and my guardian was as merry as we were; and we were +all very happy indeed until Caddy went home at night in a hackney- +coach, with Peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill. + +I have forgotten to mention--at least I have not mentioned--that +Mr. Woodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at +Mr. Badger's. Or that Mr. Jarndyce invited him to dinner that day. +Or that he came. Or that when they were all gone and I said to +Ada, "Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!" +Ada laughed and said-- + +But I don't think it matters what my darling said. She was always +merry. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Bell Yard + + +While we were in London Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the +crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so +much astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after +our arrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project +those two shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went +on and to brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very +roots were almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable +philanthropy. All objects were alike to him, but he was always +particularly ready for anything in the way of a testimonial to any +one. His great power seemed to be his power of indiscriminate +admiration. He would sit for any length of time, with the utmost +enjoyment, bathing his temples in the light of any order of +luminary. Having first seen him perfectly swallowed up in +admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be the absorbing +object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake and found him +to be train-bearer and organ-blower to a whole procession of +people. + +Mrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and +with her, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale +repeated to us; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew +Mrs. Pardiggle out. Mrs. Pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction +to my guardian in behalf of her eloquent friend Mr. Gusher. With +Mr. Gusher appeared Mr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby +gentleman with a moist surface and eyes so much too small for his +moon of a face that they seemed to have been originally made for +somebody else, was not at first sight prepossessing; yet he was +scarcely seated before Mr. Quale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, +whether he was not a great creature--which he certainly was, +flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale meant in intellectual beauty-- +and whether we were not struck by his massive configuration of +brow. In short, we heard of a great many missions of various sorts +among this set of people, but nothing respecting them was half so +clear to us as that it was Mr. Quale's mission to be in ecstasies +with everybody else's mission and that it was the most popular +mission of all. + +Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his +heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but +that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where +benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a +regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap +notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, +servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of +one another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to +help the weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster +and self-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were +down, he plainly told us. When a testimonial was originated to Mr. +Quale by Mr. Gusher (who had already got one, originated by Mr. +Quale), and when Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the +subject to a meeting, including two charity schools of small boys +and girls, who were specially reminded of the widow's mite, and +requested to come forward with halfpence and be acceptable +sacrifices, I think the wind was in the east for three whole weeks. + +I mention this because I am coming to Mr. Skimpole again. It +seemed to me that his off-hand professions of childishness and +carelessness were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with +such things, and were the more readily believed in since to find +one perfectly undesigning and candid man among many opposites could +not fail to give him pleasure. I should be sorry to imply that Mr. +Skimpole divined this and was politic; I really never understood +him well enough to know. What he was to my guardian, he certainly +was to the rest of the world. + +He had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in London, we +had seen nothing of him until now. He appeared one morning in his +usual agreeable way and as full of pleasant spirits as ever. + +Well, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were +often bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he +was a man of property. So he was, in a certain point of view--in +his expansive intentions. He had been enriching his medical +attendant in the most lavish manner. He had always doubled, and +sometimes quadrupled, his fees. He had said to the doctor, "Now, +my dear doctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that +you attend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money--in my +expansive intentions--if you only knew it!" And really (he said) +he meant it to that degree that he thought it much the same as +doing it. If he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which +mankind attached so much importance to put in the doctor's hand, he +would have put them in the doctor's hand. Not having them, he +substituted the will for the deed. Very well! If he really meant +it--if his will were genuine and real, which it was--it appeared to +him that it was the same as coin, and cancelled the obligation. + +"It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money," +said Mr. Skimpole, "but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! +My butcher says to me he wants that little bill. It's a part of +the pleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature that he always +calls it a 'little' bill--to make the payment appear easy to both +of us. I reply to the butcher, 'My good friend, if you knew it, +you are paid. You haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the +little bill. You are paid. I mean it.'" + +"But, suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "he had meant the meat +in the bill, instead of providing it?" + +"My dear Jarndyce," he returned, "you surprise me. You take the +butcher's position. A butcher I once dealt with occupied that very +ground. Says he, 'Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen +pence a pound?' 'Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen-pence a +pound, my honest friend?' said I, naturally amazed by the question. +'I like spring lamb!' This was so far convincing. 'Well, sir,' +says he, 'I wish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!' 'My +good fellow,' said I, 'pray let us reason like intellectual beings. +How could that be? It was impossible. You HAD got the lamb, and I +have NOT got the money. You couldn't really mean the lamb without +sending it in, whereas I can, and do, really mean the money without +paying it!' He had not a word. There was an end of the subject." + +"Did he take no legal proceedings?" inquired my guardian. + +"Yes, he took legal proceedings," said Mr. Skimpole. "But in that +he was influenced by passion, not by reason. Passion reminds me of +Boythorn. He writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a +short visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire." + +"He is a great favourite with my girls," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and I +have promised for them." + +"Nature forgot to shade him off, I think," observed Mr. Skimpole to +Ada and me. "A little too boisterous--like the sea. A little too +vehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every +colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in +him!" + +I should have been surprised if those two could have thought very +highly of one another, Mr. Boythorn attaching so much importance to +many things and Mr. Skimpole caring so little for anything. +Besides which, I had noticed Mr. Boythorn more than once on the +point of breaking out into some strong opinion when Mr. Skimpole +was referred to. Of course I merely joined Ada in saying that we +had been greatly pleased with him. + +"He has invited me," said Mr. Skimpole; "and if a child may trust +himself in such hands--which the present child is encouraged to do, +with the united tenderness of two angels to guard him--I shall go. +He proposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will +cost money? Shillings perhaps? Or pounds? Or something of that +sort? By the by, Coavinses. You remember our friend Coavinses, +Miss Summerson?" + +He asked me as the subject arose in his mind, in his graceful, +light-hearted manner and without the least embarrassment. + +"Oh, yes!" said I. + +"Coavinses has been arrested by the Great Bailiff," said Mr. +Skimpole. "He will never do violence to the sunshine any more." + +It quite shocked me to hear it, for I had already recalled with +anything but a serious association the image of the man sitting on +the sofa that night wiping his head. + +"His successor informed me of it yesterday," said Mr. Skimpole. +"His successor is in my house now--in possession, I think he calls +it. He came yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. I put +it to him, 'This is unreasonable and inconvenient. If you had a +blue-eyed daughter you wouldn't like ME to come, uninvited, on HER +birthday?' But he stayed." + +Mr. Skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity and lightly touched +the piano by which he was seated. + +"And he told me," he said, playing little chords where I shall put +full stops, "The Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. +And that Coavinses' profession. Being unpopular. The rising +Coavinses. Were at a considerable disadvantage." + +Mr. Jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. +Mr. Skimpole played the melody of one of Ada's favourite songs. +Ada and I both looked at Mr. Jarndyce, thinking that we knew what +was passing in his mind. + +After walking and stopping, and several times leaving off rubbing +his head, and beginning again, my guardian put his hand upon the +keys and stopped Mr. Skimpole's playing. "I don't like this, +Skimpole," he said thoughtfully. + +Mr. Skimpole, who had quite forgotten the subject, looked up +surprised. + +"The man was necessary," pursued my guardian, walking backward and +forward in the very short space between the piano and the end of +the room and rubbing his hair up from the back of his head as if a +high east wind had blown it into that form. "If we make such men +necessary by our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly +knowledge, or by our misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves +upon them. There was no harm in his trade. He maintained his +children. One would like to know more about this." + +"Oh! Coavinses?" cried Mr. Skimpole, at length perceiving what he +meant. "Nothing easier. A walk to Coavinses' headquarters, and +you can know what you will." + +Mr. Jarndyce nodded to us, who were only waiting for the signal. +"Come! We will walk that way, my dears. Why not that way as soon +as another!" We were quickly ready and went out. Mr. Skimpole +went with us and quite enjoyed the expedition. It was so new and +so refreshing, he said, for him to want Coavinses instead of +Coavinses wanting him! + +He took us, first, to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, where there +was a house with barred windows, which he called Coavinses' Castle. +On our going into the entry and ringing a bell, a very hideous boy +came out of a sort of office and looked at us over a spiked wicket. + +"Who did you want?" said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into +his chin. + +"There was a follower, or an officer, or something, here," said Mr. +Jarndyce, "who is dead." + +"Yes?" said the boy. "Well?" + +"I want to know his name, if you please?" + +"Name of Neckett," said the boy. + +"And his address?" + +"Bell Yard," said the boy. "Chandler's shop, left hand side, name +of Blinder." + +"Was he--I don't know how to shape the question--" murmured my +guardian, "industrious?" + +"Was Neckett?" said the boy. "Yes, wery much so. He was never +tired of watching. He'd set upon a post at a street corner eight +or ten hours at a stretch if he undertook to do it." + +"He might have done worse," I heard my guardian soliloquize. "He +might have undertaken to do it and not done it. Thank you. That's +all I want." + +We left the boy, with his head on one side and his arms on the +gate, fondling and sucking the spikes, and went back to Lincoln's +Inn, where Mr. Skimpole, who had not cared to remain nearer +Coavinses, awaited us. Then we all went to Bell Yard, a narrow +alley at a very short distance. We soon found the chandler's shop. +In it was a good-natured-looking old woman with a dropsy, or an +asthma, or perhaps both. + +"Neckett's children?" said she in reply to my inquiry. "Yes, +Surely, miss. Three pair, if you please. Door right opposite the +stairs." And she handed me the key across the counter. + +I glanced at the key and glanced at her, but she took it for +granted that I knew what to do with it. As it could only be +intended for the children's door, I came out without askmg any more +questions and led the way up the dark stairs. We went as quietly +as we could, but four of us made some noise on the aged boards, and +when we came to the second story we found we had disturbed a man +who was standing there looking out of his room. + +"Is it Gridley that's wanted?" he said, fixing his eyes on me with +an angry stare. + +"No, sir," said I; "I am going higher up." + +He looked at Ada, and at Mr. Jarndyce, and at Mr. Skimpole, fixing +the same angry stare on each in succession as they passed and +followed me. Mr. Jarndyce gave him good day. "Good day!" he said +abruptly and fiercely. He was a tall, sallow man with a careworn +head on which but little hair remained, a deeply lined face, and +prominent eyes. He had a combative look and a chafing, irritable +manner which, associated with his figure--still large and powerful, +though evidently in its decline--rather alarmed me. He had a pen +in his hand, and in the glimpse I caught of his room in passing, I +saw that it was covered with a litter of papers. + +Leaving him standing there, we went up to the top room. I tapped +at the door, and a little shrill voice inside said, "We are locked +in. Mrs. Blinder's got the key!" + +I applied the key on hearing this and opened the door. In a poor +room with a sloping ceiling and containing very little furniture +was a mite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and +hushing a heavy child of eighteen months. There was no fire, +though the weather was cold; both children were wrapped in some +poor shawls and tippets as a substitute. Their clothing was not so +warm, however, but that their noses looked red and pinched and +their small figures shrunken as the boy walked up and down nursing +and hushing the child with its head on his shoulder. + +"Who has locked you up here alone?" we naturally asked. + +"Charley," said the boy, standing still to gaze at us. + +"Is Charley your brother?" + +"No. She's my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley." + +"Are there any more of you besides Charley?" + +"Me," said the boy, "and Emma," patting the limp bonnet of the +child he was nursing. "And Charley." + +"Where is Charley now?" + +"Out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again +and taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying +to gaze at us at the same time. + +We were looking at one another and at these two children when there +came into the room a very little girl, childish in figure but +shrewd and older-looking in the face--pretty-faced too--wearing a +womanly sort of bonnet much too large for her and drying her bare +arms on a womanly sort of apron. Her fingers were white and +wrinkled with washing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking which she +wiped off her arms. But for this, she might have been a child +playing at washing and imitating a poor working-woman with a quick +observation of the truth. + +She had come running from some place in the neighbourhood and had +made all the haste she could. Consequently, though she was very +light, she was out of breath and could not speak at first, as she +stood panting, and wiping her arms, and looking quietly at us. + +"Oh, here's Charley!" said the boy. + +The child he was nursing stretched forth its arms and cried out to +be taken by Charley. The little girl took it, in a womanly sort of +manner belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at +us over the burden that clung to her most affectionately. + +"Is it possible," whispered my guardian as we put a chair for the +little creature and got her to sit down with her load, the boy +keeping close to her, holding to her apron, "that this child works +for the rest? Look at this! For God's sake, look at this!" + +It was a thing to look at. The three children close together, and +two of them relying solely on the third, and the third so young and +yet with an air of age and steadiness that sat so strangely on the +childish figure. + +"Charley, Charley!" said my guardian. "How old are you?" + +"Over thirteen, sir," replied the child. + +"Oh! What a great age," said my guardian. "What a great age, +Charley!" + +I cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half +playfully yet all the more compassionately and mournfully. + +"And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?" said my +guardian. + +"Yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into his face with +perfect confidence, "since father died." + +"And how do you live, Charley? Oh! Charley," said my guardian, +turning his face away for a moment, "how do you live?" + +"Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. I'm out washing +to-day." + +"God help you, Charley!" said my guardian. "You're not tall enough +to reach the tub!" + +"In pattens I am, sir," she said quickly. "I've got a high pair as +belonged to mother." + +"And when did mother die? Poor mother!" + +"Mother died just after Emma was born," said the child, glancing at +the face upon her bosom. "Then father said I was to be as good a +mother to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I worked at home +and did cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before I +began to go out. And that's how I know how; don't you see, sir?" + +"And do you often go out?" + +"As often as I can," said Charley, opening her eyes and smiling, +"because of earning sixpences and shillings!" + +"And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?" + +'To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said Charley. "Mrs. +Blinder comes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, +and perhaps I can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and +Tom an't afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?" + +'"No-o!" said Tom stoutly. + +"When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, +and they show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. Don't +they, Tom?" + +"Yes, Charley," said Tom, "almost quite bright." + +"Then he's as good as gold," said the little creature--Oh, in such +a motherly, womanly way! "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to +bed. And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come +home and light the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again +and has it with me. Don't you, Tom?" + +"Oh, yes, Charley!" said Tom. "That I do!" And either in this +glimpse of the great pleasure of his life or in gratitude and love +for Charley, who was all in all to him, he laid his face among the +scanty folds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying. + +It was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed +among these children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their +father and their mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the +necessity of taking courage, and by her childish importance in +being able to work, and by her bustling busy way. But now, when +Tom cried, although she sat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, +and did not by any movement disturb a hair of the head of either of +her little charges, I saw two silent tears fall down her face. + +I stood at the window with Ada, pretending to look at the +housetops, and the blackened stack of chimneys, and the poor +plants, and the birds in little cages belonging to the neighbours, +when I found that Mrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come in +(perhaps it had taken her all this time to get upstairs) and was +talking to my guardian. + +"It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir," she said; "who could +take it from them!" + +'"Well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "It is enough that the +time will come when this good woman will find that it WAS much, and +that forasmuch as she did it unto the least of these--This child," +he added after a few moments, "could she possibly continue this?" + +"Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. Blinder, getting her +heavy breath by painful degrees. "She's as handy as it's possible +to be. Bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after +the mother died was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to +see her with him after he was took ill, it really was! 'Mrs. +Blinder,' he said to me the very last he spoke--he was lying there +--'Mrs. Blinder, whatever my calling may have been, I see a angel +sitting in this room last night along with my child, and I trust +her to Our Father!'" + +"He had no other calling?" said my guardian. + +"No, sir," returned Mrs. Blinder, "he was nothing but a follerers. +When he first came to lodge here, I didn't know what he was, and I +confess that when I found out I gave him notice. It wasn't liked +in the yard. It wasn't approved by the other lodgers. It is NOT a +genteel calling," said Mrs. Blinder, "and most people do object to +it. Mr. Gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good +lodger, though his temper has been hard tried." + +"So you gave him notice?" said my guardian. + +"So I gave him notice," said Mrs. Blinder. "But really when the +time came, and I knew no other ill of him, I was in doubts. He was +punctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir," said Mrs. +Blinder, unconsciously fixing Mr. Skimpole with her eye, "and it's +something in this world even to do that." + +"So you kept him after all?" + +"Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could +arrange it with the other lodgers and should not so much mind its +being liked or disliked in the yard. Mr. Gridley gave his consent +gruff--but gave it. He was always gruff with him, but he has been +kind to the children since. A person is never known till a person +is proved." + +"Have many people been kind to the children?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Upon the whole, not so bad, sir," said Mrs. Blinder; "but +certainly not so many as would have been if their father's calling +had been different. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers +made up a little purse. Some neighbours in the yard that had +always joked and tapped their shoulders when he went by came +forward with a little subscription, and--in general--not so bad. +Similarly with Charlotte. Some people won't employ her because she +was a follerer's child; some people that do employ her cast it at +her; some make a merit of having her to work for them, with that +and all her draw-backs upon her, and perhaps pay her less and put +upon her more. But she's patienter than others would be, and is +clever too, and always willing, up to the full mark of her strength +and over. So I should say, in general, not so bad, sir, but might +be better." + +Mrs. Blinder sat down to give herself a more favourable opportunity +of recovering her breath, exhausted anew by so much talking before +it was fully restored. Mr. Jarndyce was turning to speak to us +when his attention was attracted by the abrupt entrance into the +room of the Mr. Gridley who had been mentioned and whom we had seen +on our way up. + +"I don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen," he +said, as if he resented our presence, "but you'll excuse my coming +in. I don't come in to stare about me. Well, Charley! Well, Tom! +Well, little one! How is it with us all to-day?" + +He bent over the group in a caressing way and clearly was regarded +as a friend by the children, though his face retained its stern +character and his manner to us was as rude as it could be. My +guardian noticed it and respected it. + +"No one, surely, would come here to stare about him," he said +mildly. + +"May be so, sir, may be so," returned the other, taking Tom upon +his knee and waving him off impatiently. "I don't want to argue +with ladies and gentlemen. I have had enough of arguing to last +one man his life." + +"You have sufficient reason, I dare say," said Mr. Jarndyce, "for +being chafed and irritated--" + +"There again!" exclaimed the man, becoming violently angry. "I am +of a quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite!" + +"Not very, I think." + +"Sir," said Gridley, putting down the child and going up to him as +if he meant to strike him, "do you know anything of Courts of +Equity?" + +"Perhaps I do, to my sorrow." + +"To your sorrow?" said the man, pausing in his wrath. "if so, I +beg your pardon. I am not polite, I know. I beg your pardon! +Sir," with renewed violence, "I have been dragged for five and +twenty years over burning iron, and I have lost the habit of +treading upon velvet. Go into the Court of Chancery yonder and ask +what is one of the standing jokes that brighten up their business +sometimes, and they will tell you that the best joke they have is +the man from Shropshire. I," he said, beating one hand on the +other passionately, "am the man from Shropshire." + +"I believe I and my family have also had the honour of furnishing +some entertainment in the same grave place," said my guardian +composedly. "You may have heard my name--Jarndyce." + +"Mr. Jarndyce," said Gridley with a rough sort of salutation, "you +bear your wrongs more quietly than I can bear mine. More than +that, I tell you--and I tell this gentleman, and these young +ladies, if they are friends of yours--that if I took my wrongs in +any other way, I should be driven mad! It is only by resenting +them, and by revenging them in my mind, and by angrily demanding +the justice I never get, that I am able to keep my wits together. +It is only that!" he said, speaking in a homely, rustic way and +with great vehemence. "You may tell me that I over-excite myself. +I answer that it's in my nature to do it, under wrong, and I must +do it. There's nothing between doing it, and sinking into the +smiling state of the poor little mad woman that haunts the court. +If I was once to sit down under it, I should become imbecile." + +The passion and heat in which he was, and the manner in which his +face worked, and the violent gestures with which he accompanied +what he said, were most painful to see. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he said, "consider my case. As true as there is a +heaven above us, this is my case. I am one of two brothers. My +father (a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock and so +forth to my mother for her life. After my mother's death, all was +to come to me except a legacy of three hundred pounds that I was +then to pay my brother. My mother died. My brother some time +afterwards claimed his legacy. I and some of my relations said +that he had had a part of it already in board and lodging and some +other things. Now mind! That was the question, and nothing else. +No one disputed the will; no one disputed anything but whether part +of that three hundred pounds had been already paid or not. To +settle that question, my brother filing a bill, I was obliged to go +into this accursed Chancery; I was forced there because the law +forced me and would let me go nowhere else. Seventeen people were +made defendants to that simple suit! It first came on after two +years. It was then stopped for another two years while the master +(may his head rot off!) inquired whether I was my father's son, +about which there was no dispute at all with any mortal creature. +He then found out that there were not defendants enough--remember, +there were only seventeen as yet!--but that we must have another +who had been left out and must begin all over again. The costs at +that time--before the thing was begun!--were three times the +legacy. My brother would have given up the legacy, and joyful, to +escape more costs. My whole estate, left to me in that will of my +father's, has gone in costs. The suit, still undecided, has fallen +into rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else--and here I +stand, this day! Now, Mr. Jarndyce, in your suit there are +thousands and thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. +Is mine less hard to bear or is it harder to bear, when my whole +living was in it and has been thus shamefully sucked away?" + +Mr. Jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart and +that he set up no monopoly himself in being unjustly treated by +this monstrous system. + +"There again!" said Mr. Gridley with no diminution of his rage. +"The system! I am told on all hands, it's the system. I mustn't +look to individuals. It's the system. I mustn't go into court and +say, 'My Lord, I beg to know this from you--is this right or wrong? +Have you the face to tell me I have received justice and therefore +am dismissed?' My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to +administer the system. I mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the +solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me +furious by being so cool and satisfied--as they all do, for I know +they gain by it while I lose, don't I?--I mustn't say to him, 'I +will have something out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or +foul!' HE is not responsible. It's the system. But, if I do no +violence to any of them, here--I may! I don't know what may happen +if I am carried beyond myself at last! I will accuse the +individual workers of that system against me, face to face, before +the great eternal bar!" + +His passion was fearful. I could not have believed in such rage +without seeing it. + +"I have done!" he said, sitting down and wiping his face. "Mr. +Jarndyce, I have done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. +I have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison +for threatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and +that trouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, +and I sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it +amusing, too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in +custody and all that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if +I restrained myself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I +should become imbecile. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I +believe. People in my part of the country say they remember me so, +but now I must have this vent under my sense of injury or nothing +could hold my wits together. It would be far better for you, Mr. +Gridley,' the Lord Chancellor told me last week, 'not to waste your +time here, and to stay, usefully employed, down in Shropshire.' +'My Lord, my Lord, I know it would,' said I to him, 'and it would +have been far better for me never to have heard the name of your +high office, but unhappily for me, I can't undo the past, and the +past drives me here!' Besides," he added, breaking fiercely out, +"I'll shame them. To the last, I'll show myself in that court to +its shame. If I knew when I was going to die, and could be carried +there, and had a voice to speak with, I would die there, saying, +'You have brought me here and sent me from here many and many a +time. Now send me out feet foremost!'" + +His countenance had, perhaps for years, become so set in its +contentious expression that it did not soften, even now when he was +quiet. + +"I came to take these babies down to my room for an hour," he said, +going to them again, "and let them play about. I didn't mean to +say all this, but it don't much signify. You're not afraid of me, +Tom, are you?" + +"No!" said Tom. "You ain't angry with ME." + +"You are right, my child. You're going back, Charley? Aye? Come +then, little one!" He took the youngest child on his arm, where +she was willing enough to be carried. "I shouldn't wonder if we +found a ginger-bread soldier downstairs. Let's go and look for +him!" + +He made his former rough salutation, which was not deficient in a +certain respect, to Mr. Jarndyce, and bowing slightly to us, went +downstairs to his room. + +Upon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our +arrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really +very pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to +purposes. Here was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and +surprising energy--intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious +blacksmith--and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, +years ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his +superfluous combativeness upon--a sort of Young Love among the +thorns--when the Court of Chancery came in his way and accommodated +him with the exact thing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever +afterwards! Otherwise he might have been a great general, blowing +up all sorts of towns, or he might have been a great politician, +dealing in all sorts of parliamentary rhetoric; but as it was, he +and the Court of Chancery had fallen upon each other in the +pleasantest way, and nobody was much the worse, and Gridley was, so +to speak, from that hour provided for. Then look at Coavinses! +How delightfully poor Coavinses (father of these charming children) +illustrated the same principle! He, Mr. Skimpole, himself, had +sometimes repined at the existence of Coavinses. He had found +Coavinses in his way. He could had dispensed with Coavinses. +There had been times when, if he had been a sultan, and his grand +vizier had said one morning, "What does the Commander of the +Faithful require at the hands of his slave?" he might have even +gone so far as to reply, "The head of Coavinses!" But what turned +out to be the case? That, all that time, he had been giving +employment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor +to Coavinses, that he had actually been enabling Coavinses to bring +up these charming children in this agreeable way, developing these +social virtues! Insomuch that his heart had just now swelled and +the tears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room +and thought, "I was the great patron of Coavinses, and his little +comforts were MY work!" + +There was something so captivating in his light way of touching +these fantastic strings, and he was such a mirthful child by the +side of the graver childhood we had seen, that he made my guardian +smile even as he turned towards us from a little private talk with +Mrs. Blinder. We kissed Charley, and took her downstairs with us, +and stopped outside the house to see her run away to her work. I +don't know where she was going, but we saw her run, such a little, +little creature in her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered +way at the bottom of the court and melt into the city's strife and +sound like a dewdrop in an ocean. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Tom-all-Alone's + + +My Lady Dedlock is restless, very restless. The astonished +fashionable intelligence hardly knows where to have her. To-day +she is at Chesney Wold; yesterday she was at her house in town; to- +morrow she may be abroad, for anything the fashionable intelligence +can with confidence predict. Even Sir Leicester's gallantry has +some trouble to keep pace with her. It would have more but that +his other faithful ally, for better and for worse--the gout--darts +into the old oak bedchamber at Chesney Wold and grips him by both +legs. + +Sir Leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a +demon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male +line, through a course of time during and beyond which the memory +of man goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. It can be +proved, sir. Other men's fathers may have died of the rheumatism +or may have taken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick +vulgar, but the Dedlock family have communicated something +exclusive even to the levelling process of dying by dying of their +own family gout. It has come down through the illustrious line +like the plate, or the pictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It +is among their dignities. Sir Leicester is perhaps not wholly +without an impression, though he has never resolved it into words, +that the angel of death in the discharge of his necessary duties +may observe to the shades of the aristocracy, "My lords and +gentlemen, I have the honour to present to you another Dedlock +certified to have arrived per the family gout." + +Hence Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family +disorder as if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. +He feels that for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back and +spasmodically twitched and stabbed in his extremities is a liberty +taken somewhere, but he thinks, "We have all yielded to this; it +belongs to us; it has for some hundreds of years been understood +that we are not to make the vaults in the park interesting on more +ignoble terms; and I submit myself to the compromise. + +And a goodly show he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in +the midst of the great drawing-room before his favourite picture of +my Lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in, down the long +perspective, through the long line of windows, and alternating with +soft reliefs of shadow. Outside, the stately oaks, rooted for ages +in the green ground which has never known ploughshare, but was +still a chase when kings rode to battle with sword and shield and +rode a-hunting with bow and arrow, bear witness to his greatness. +Inside, his forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, "Each +of us was a passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of +himself and melted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices +of the rooks now lulling you to rest," and hear their testimony to +his greatness too. And he is very great this day. And woe to +Boythorn or other daring wight who shall presumptuously contest an +inch with him! + +My Lady is at present represented, near Sir Leicester, by her +portrait. She has flitted away to town, with no intention of +remaining there, and will soon flit hither again, to the confusion +of the fashionable intelligence. The house in town is not prepared +for her reception. It is muffled and dreary. Only one Mercury in +powder gapes disconsolate at the hall-window; and he mentioned last +night to another Mercury of his acquaintance, also accustomed to +good society, that if that sort of thing was to last--which it +couldn't, for a man of his spirits couldn't bear it, and a man of +his figure couldn't be expected to bear it--there would be no +resource for him, upon his honour, but to cut his throat! + +What connexion can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the +house in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the +outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him +when he swept the churchyard-step? What connexion can there have +been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world +who from opposite sides of great gulfs have, nevertheless, been +very curiously brought together! + +Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if +any link there be. He sums up his mental condition when asked a +question by replying that he "don't know nothink." He knows that +it's hard to keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and +harder still to live by doing it. Nobody taught him even that +much; he found it out. + +Jo lives--that is to say, Jo has not yet died--in a ruinous place +known to the like of him by the name of Tom-all-Alone's. It is a +black, dilapidated street, avoided by all decent people, where the +crazy houses were seized upon, when their decay was far advanced, +by some bold vagrants who after establishing their own possession +took to letting them out in lodgings. Now, these tumbling +tenements contain, by night, a swarm of misery. As on the ruined +human wretch vermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have +bred a crowd of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in +walls and boards; and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, +where the rain drips in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying +fever and sowing more evil in its every footprint than Lord Coodle, +and Sir Thomas Doodle, and the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine +gentlemen in office, down to Zoodle, shall set right in five +hundred years--though born expressly to do it. + +Twice lately there has been a crash and a cloud of dust, like the +springing of a mine, in Tom-all-Alone's; and each time a house has +fallen. These accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers +and have filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. The gaps +remain, and there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. As +several more houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in Tom- +all-Alone's may be expected to be a good one. + +This desirable property is in Chancery, of course. It would be an +insult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him +so. Whether "Tom" is the popular representative of the original +plaintiff or defendant in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or whether Tom +lived here when the suit had laid the street waste, all alone, +until other settlers came to join him, or whether the traditional +title is a comprehensive name for a retreat cut off from honest +company and put out of the pale of hope, perhaps nobody knows. +Certainly Jo don't know. + +"For I don't," says Jo, "I don't know nothink." + +It must be a strange state to be like Jo! To shuffle through the +streets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to +the meaning, of those mysterious symbols, so abundant over the +shops, and at the corners of streets, and on the doors, and in the +windows! To see people read, and to see people write, and to see +the postmen deliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all +that language--to be, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb! +It must be very puzzling to see the good company going to the +churches on Sundays, with their books in their hands, and to think +(for perhaps Jo DOES think at odd times) what does it all mean, and +if it means anything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing +to me? To be hustled, and jostled, and moved on; and really to +feel that it would appear to be perfectly true that I have no +business here, or there, or anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by +the consideration that I AM here somehow, too, and everybody +overlooked me until I became the creature that I am! It must be a +strange state, not merely to be told that I am scarcely human (as +in the case of my offering myself for a witness), but to feel it of +my own knowledge all my life! To see the horses, dogs, and cattle +go by me and to know that in ignorance I belong to them and not to +the superior beings in my shape, whose delicacy I offend! Jo's +ideas of a criminal trial, or a judge, or a bishop, or a govemment, +or that inestimable jewel to him (if he only knew it) the +Constitution, should be strange! His whole material and immaterial +life is wonderfully strange; his death, the strangest thing of all. + +Jo comes out of Tom-all-Alone's, meeting the tardy morning which is +always late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of +bread as he comes along. His way lying through many streets, and +the houses not yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the +door-step of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in +Foreign Parts and gives it a brush when he has finished as an +acknowledgment of the accommodation. He admires the size of the +edifice and wonders what it's all about. He has no idea, poor +wretch, of the spiritual destitution of a coral reef in the Pacific +or what it costs to look up the precious souls among the coco-nuts +and bread-fruit. + +He goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. The +town awakes; the great tee-totum is set up for its daily spin and +whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been +suspended for a few hours, recommences. Jo and the other lower +animals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is +market-day. The blinded oxen, over-goaded, over-driven, never +guided, run into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge red- +eyed and foaming at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the +innocent, and often sorely hurt themselves. Very like Jo and his +order; very, very like! + +A band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a dog +--a drover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, +and evidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind +for some hours and is happily rid of. He seems perplexed +respecting three or four, can't remember where he left them, looks +up and down the street as half expecting to see them astray, +suddenly pricks up his ears and remembers all about it. A +thoroughly vagabond dog, accustomed to low company and public- +houses; a terrific dog to sheep, ready at a whistle to scamper over +their backs and tear out mouthfuls of their wool; but an educated, +improved, developed dog who has been taught his duties and knows +how to discharge them. He and Jo listen to the music, probably +with much the same amount of animal satisfaction; likewise as to +awakened association, aspiration, or regret, melancholy or joyful +reference to things beyond the senses, they are probably upon a +par. But, otherwise, how far above the human listener is the +brute! + +Turn that dog's descendants wild, like Jo, and in a very few years +they will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark--but +not their bite. + +The day changes as it wears itself away and becomes dark and +drizzly. Jo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and +wheels, the horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum +to pay for the unsavoury shelter of Tom-all-Alone's. Twilight +comes on; gas begins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, +with his ladder, runs along the margin of the pavement. A wretched +evening is beginning to close in. + +In his chambers Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to +the nearest magistrate to-morrow morning for a warrant. Gridley, a +disappointed suitor, has been here to-day and has been alarming. +We are not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill-conditioned +fellow shall be held to bail again. From the ceiling, +foreshortened Allegory, in the person of one impossible Roman +upside down, points with the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an +odd one) obtrusively toward the window. Why should Mr. +Tulkinghorn, for such no reason, look out of window? Is the hand +not always pointing there? So he does not look out of window. + +And if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are +women enough in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks--too many; they +are at the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the +matter of that, they create business for lawyers. What would it be +to see a woman going by, even though she were going secretly? They +are all secret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that very well. + +But they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his +house behind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner +there is something exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an +upper servant by her attire, yet in her air and step, though both +are hurried and assumed--as far as she can assume in the muddy +streets, which she treads with an unaccustomed foot--she is a lady. +Her face is veiled, and still she sufficiently betrays herself to +make more than one of those who pass her look round sharply. + +She never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in +her and can follow it. She never turns her head until she comes to +the crossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her +and begs. Still, she does not turn her head until she has landed +on the other side. Then she slightly beckons to him and says, +"Come here!" + +Jo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court. + +"Are you the boy I've read of in the papers?" she asked behind her +veil. + +"I don't know," says Jo, staring moodily at the veil, "nothink +about no papers. I don't know nothink about nothink at all." + +"Were you examined at an inquest?" + +"I don't know nothink about no--where I was took by the beadle, do +you mean?" says Jo. "Was the boy's name at the inkwhich Jo?" + +"Yes." + +"That's me!" says Jo. + +"Come farther up." + +"You mean about the man?" says Jo, following. "Him as wos dead?" + +"Hush! Speak in a whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, +so very ill and poor?" + +"Oh, jist!" says Jo. + +"Did he look like--not like YOU?" says the woman with abhorrence. + +"Oh, not so bad as me," says Jo. "I'm a reg'lar one I am! You +didn't know him, did you?" + +"How dare you ask me if I knew him?" + +"No offence, my lady," says Jo with much humility, for even he has +got at the suspicion of her being a lady. + +"I am not a lady. I am a servant." + +"You are a jolly servant!" says Jo without the least idea of saying +anything offensive, merely as a tribute of admiration. + +"Listen and be silent. Don't talk to me, and stand farther from +me! Can you show me all those places that were spoken of in the +account I read? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the +place where you were taken to, and the place where he was buried? +Do you know the place where he was buried?" + +Jo answers with a nod, having also nodded as each other place was +mentioned. + +"Go before me and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite +to each, and don't speak to me unless I speak to you. Don't look +back. Do what I want, and I will pay you well." + +Jo attends closely while the words are being spoken; tells them off +on his broom-handle, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider +their meaning; considers it satisfactory; and nods his ragged head. + +"I'm fly," says Jo. "But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!" + +"What does the horrible creature mean?" exclaims the servant, +recoiling from him. + +"Stow cutting away, you know!" says Jo. + +"I don't understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money +than you ever had in your life." + +Jo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub, +takes his broom under his arm, and leads the way, passing deftly +with his bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and +mire. + +Cook's Court. Jo stops. A pause. + +"Who lives here?" + +"Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull," says Jo in +a whisper without looking over his shoulder. + +"Go on to the next." + +Krook's house. Jo stops again. A longer pause. + +"Who lives here?" + +"HE lived here," Jo answers as before. + +After a silence he is asked, "In which room?" + +"In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this +corner. Up there! That's where I see him stritched out. This is +the public-ouse where I was took to." + +"Go on to the next!" + +It is a longer walk to the next, but Jo, relieved of his first +suspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does not look +round. By many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, +they come to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp +(lighted now), and to the iron gate. + +"He was put there," says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in. + +"Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!" + +"There!" says Jo, pointing. "Over yinder. Arnong them piles of +bones, and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery +nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I +could unkiver it for you with my broom if the gate was open. +That's why they locks it, I s'pose," giving it a shake. "It's +always locked. Look at the rat!" cries Jo, excited. "Hi! Look! +There he goes! Ho! Into the ground!" + +The servant shrinks into a corner, into a corner of that hideous +archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and +putting out her two hands and passionately telling him to keep away +from her, for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. +Jo stands staring and is still staring when she recovers herself. + +"Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?" + +"I don't know nothink of consequential ground," says Jo, still +staring. + +"Is it blessed?" + +"Which?" says Jo, in the last degree amazed. + +"Is it blessed?" + +"I'm blest if I know," says Jo, staring more than ever; "but I +shouldn't think it warn't. Blest?" repeats Jo, something troubled +in his mind. "It an't done it much good if it is. Blest? I +should think it was t'othered myself. But I don't know nothink!" + +The servant takes as little heed of what he says as she seems to +take of what she has said herself. She draws off her glove to get +some money from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small +her hand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such +sparkling rings. + +She drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and +shuddering as their hands approach. "Now," she adds, "show me the +spot again!" + +Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, +and with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At +length, looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, +he finds that he is alone. + +His first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light +and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow--gold. His next +is to give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its +quality. His next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep +the step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off +for Tom-all-Alone's, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps +to produce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as +a reassurance of its being genuine. + +The Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my +Lady goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester +is fidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the +goat; he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a +monotonous pattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper +even by the fireside in his own snug dressing-room. + +"Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the +house, my dear," says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. "His dressing-room +is on my Lady's side. And in all these years I never heard the +step upon the Ghost's Walk more distinct than it is to-night!" + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Esther's Narrative + + +Richard very often came to see us while we remained in London +(though he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick +abilities, his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and +freshness, was always delightful. But though I liked him more and +more the better I knew him, I still felt more and more how much it +was to be regretted that he had been educated in no habits of +application and concentration. The system which had addressed him +in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other +boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to +dash through his tasks, always with fair credit and often with +distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his +reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most +desirable to direct and train. They were good qualities, without +which no high place can be meritoriously won, but like fire and +water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. If +they had been under Richard's direction, they would have been his +friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his +enemies. + +I write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any +other thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did +think so and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. +These were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed +besides how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the +uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his +nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that +he was part of a great gaming system. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian +was not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired +after Richard. + +"Why, Mr. Carstone," said Mrs. Badger, "is very well and is, I +assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser +used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a +breeze a-starn to the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had +become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his +naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any +society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. +Carstone. But I--you won't think me premature if I mention it?" + +I said no, as Mrs. Badger's insinuating tone seemed to require such +an answer. + +"Nor Miss Clare?" said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly. + +Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy. + +"Why, you see, my dears," said Mrs. Badger, "--you'll excuse me +calling you my dears?" + +We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it. + +"Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so," +pursued Mrs. Badger, "so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, +that although I am still young--or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the +compliment of saying so--" + +"No," Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public +meeting. "Not at all!" + +"Very well," smiled Mrs. Badger, "we will say still young." + +"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Badger. + +"My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of +observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old +Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain +Swosser in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of +knowing and befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser's +command. YOU never heard them called the young gentlemen, my +dears, and probably wonld not understand allusions to their pipe- +claying their weekly accounts, but it is otherwise with me, for +blue water has been a second home to me, and I have been quite a +sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo." + +"A man of European reputation," murmured Mr. Badger. + +"When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second," +said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were +parts of a charade, "I still enjoyed opportunities of observing +youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo's lectures was a +large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent +scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it +could impart, to throw our house open to the students as a kind of +Scientific Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and +a mixed biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. +And there was science to an unlimited extent." + +"Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Badger +reverentially. "There must have been great intellectual friction +going on there under the auspices of such a man!" + +"And now," pursued Mrs. Badger, "now that I am the wife of my dear +third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which +were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to +new and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. +I therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a +neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he +has not chosen his profession advisedly." + +Ada looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she +founded her supposition. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," she replied, "on Mr. Carstone's character +and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably +he would never think it worthwhile to mention how he really feels, +but he feels languid about the profession. He has not that +positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any +decided impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it +is a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like +Mr. Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that +it can do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work +for a very little money and through years of considerable endurance +and disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never +be the case with Mr. Carstone." + +"Does Mr. Badger think so too?" asked Ada timidly. + +"Why," said Mr. Badger, "to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view +of the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned +it. But when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave +great consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger's mind, in +addition to its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of +being formed by two such very distinguished (I will even say +illustrious) public men as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and +Professor Dingo. The conclusion at which I have arrived is--in +short, is Mrs. Badger's conclusion." + +"It was a maxim of Captain Swosser's," said Mrs. Badger, "speaking +in his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you +cannot make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, +you should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to +me that this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the +nautical profession. + +"To all professions," observed Mr. Badger. "It was admirably said +by Captain Swosser. Beautifully said." + +"People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the +north of Devon after our marriage," said Mrs. Badger, "that he +disfigured some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off +fragments of those edifices with his little geological hammer. But +the professor replied that he knew of no building save the Temple +of Science. The principle is the same, I think?" + +"Precisely the same," said Mr. Badger. "Finely expressed! The +professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last +illness, when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his +little hammer under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of +the attendants. The ruling passion!" + +Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and +Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was +disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated +to us and that there was a great probability of its being sound. +We agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to +Richard; and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a +very serious talk with him. + +So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found +my darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him +thoroughly right in whatever he said. + +"And how do you get on, Richard?" said I. I always sat down on the +other side of him. He made quite a sister of me. + +"Oh! Well enough!" said Richard. + +"He can't say better than that, Esther, can he?" cried my pet +triumphantly. + +I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I +couldn't. + +"Well enough?" I repeated. + +"Yes," said Richard, "well enough. It's rather jog-trotty and +humdrum. But it'll do as well as anything else!" + +"Oh! My dear Richard!" I remonstrated. + +"What's the matter?" said Richard. + +"Do as well as anything else!" + +"I don't think there's any harm in that, Dame Durden," said Ada, +looking so confidingly at me across him; "because if it will do as +well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope." + +"Oh, yes, I hope so," returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair +from his forehead. "After all, it may be only a kind of probation +till our suit is--I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit. +Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it's all right enough. Let us talk +about something else." + +Ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that +we had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I +thought it would be useless to stop there, so I began again. + +"No, but Richard," said I, "and my dear Ada! Consider how +important it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is +towards your cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest +without any reservation. I think we had better talk about this, +really, Ada. It will be too late very soon." + +"Oh, yes! We must talk about it!" said Ada. "But I think Richard +is right." + +What was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty, +and so engaging, and so fond of him! + +"Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard," said I, "and +they seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the +profession." + +"Did they though?" said Richard. "Oh! Well, that rather alters the +case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not +have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I +don't care much about it. But, oh, it don't matter! It'll do as +well as anything else!" + +"You hear him, Ada!" said I. + +"The fact is," Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half +jocosely, "it is not quite in my way. I don't take to it. And I +get too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger's first and second." + +"I am sure THAT'S very natural!" cried Ada, quite delighted. "The +very thing we both said yesterday, Esther!" + +"Then," pursued Richard, "it's monotonous, and to-day is too like +yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day." + +"But I am afraid," said I, "this is an objection to all kinds of +application--to life itself, except under some very uncommon +circumstances." + +"Do you think so?" returned Richard, still considering. "Perhaps! +Ha! Why, then, you know," he added, suddenly becoming gay again, +"we travel outside a circle to what I said just now. It'll do as +well as anything else. Oh, it's all right enough! Let us talk +about something else." + +But even Ada, with her loving face--and if it had seemed innocent +and trusting when I first saw it in that memorable November fog, +how much more did it seem now when I knew her innocent and trusting +heart--even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I +thought it a good opportunity to hint to Richard that if he were +sometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never +meant to be careless of Ada, and that it was a part of his +affectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of +a step that might influence both their lives. This made him almost +grave. + +"My dear Mother Hubbard," he said, "that's the very thing! I have +thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself +for meaning to be so much in earnest and--somehow--not exactly +being so. I don't know how it is; I seem to want something or +other to stand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my +darling cousin, I love you, so much!), but I don't settle down to +constancy in other things. It's such uphill work, and it takes +such a time!" said Richard with an air of vexation. + +"That may be," I suggested, "because you don't like what you have +chosen." + +"Poor fellow!" said Ada. "I am sure I don't wonder at it!" + +No. It was not of the least use my trying to look wise. I tried +again, but how could I do it, or how could it have any effect if I +could, while Ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and +while he looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at +him! + +"You see, my precious girl," said Richard, passing her golden curls +through and through his hand, "I was a little hasty perhaps; or I +misunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don't seem to lie +in that direction. I couldn't tell till I tried. Now the question +is whether it's worth-while to undo all that has been done. It +seems like making a great disturbance about nothing particular." + +"My dear Richard," said I, "how CAN you say about nothing +particular?" + +"I don't mean absolutely that," he returned. "I mean that it MAY +be nothing particular because I may never want it." + +Both Ada and I urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly +worth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. +I then asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial +pursuit. + +"There, my dear Mrs. Shipton," said Richard, "you touch me home. +Yes, I have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me." + +"The law!" repeated Ada as if she were afraid of the name. + +"If I went into Kenge's office," said Richard, "and if I were +placed under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the--hum!-- +the forbidden ground--and should be able to study it, and master +it, and to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being +properly conducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests +and my own interests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at +Blackstone and all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour." + +I was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering +after the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes +cast a shade on Ada's face. But I thought it best to encourage him +in any project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be +quite sure that his mind was made up now. + +"My dear Minerva," said Richard, "I am as steady as you are. I +made a mistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won't do so any +more, and I'll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, +you know," said Richard, relapsing into doubt, "if it really is +worth-while, after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing +particular!" + +This led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all +that we had said already and to our coming to much the same +conclusion afterwards. But we so strongly advised Richard to be +frank and open with Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment's delay, and his +disposition was naturally so opposed to concealment that he sought +him out at once (taking us with him) and made a full avowal. +"Rick," said my guardian, after hearing him attentively, "we can +retreat with honour, and we will. But we must he careful--for our +cousin s sake, Rick, for our cousin's sake--that we make no more +such mistakes. Therefore, in the matter of the law, we will have a +good trial before we decide. We will look before we leap, and take +plenty of time about it." + +Richard's energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he +would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge's +office in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on +the spot. Submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution +that we had shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with +sitting down among us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his +one unvarying purpose in life from childhood had been that one +which now held possession of him. My guardian was very kind and +cordial with him, but rather grave, enough so to cause Ada, when he +had departed and we were going upstairs to bed, to say, "Cousin +John, I hope you don't think the worse of Richard?" + +"No, my love," said he. + +"Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in +such a difficult case. It is not uncommon." + +"No, no, my love," said he. "Don't look unhappy." + +"Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!" said Ada, smiling cheerfully, +with her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding +him good night. "But I should be a little so if you thought at all +the worse of Richard." + +"My dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I should think the worse of him only +if you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should +be more disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor +Rick, for I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! +He has time before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of +him? Not I, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!" + +"No, indeed, cousin John," said Ada, "I am sure I could not--I am +sure I would not--think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. +I could, and I would, think better of him then than at any other +time!" + +So quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his +shoulders--both hands now--and looking up into his face, like the +picture of truth! + +"I think," said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, "I think +it must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall +occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the +father. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. +Pleasant slumbers! Happy dreams!" + +This was the first time I ever saw him follow Ada with his eyes +with something of a shadow on their benevolent expression. I well +remembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard +when she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little +while since he had watched them passing down the room in which the +sun was shining, and away into the shade; but his glance was +changed, and even the silent look of confidence in me which now +followed it once more was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it +had originally been. + +Ada praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised +him yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her +clasped upon her arm. I fancied she was dreaming of him when I +kissed her cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil +and happy she looked. + +For I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat +up working. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but +I was wakeful and rather low-spirited. I don't know why. At least +I don't think I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don't +think it matters. + +At any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that +I would leave myself not a moment's leisure to be low-spirited. +For I naturally said, "Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU!" And +it really was time to say so, for I--yes, I really did see myself +in the glass, almost crying. "As if you had anything to make you +unhappy, instead of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful +heart!" said I. + +If I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it +directly, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket +some ornamental work for our house (I mean Bleak House) that I was +busy with at that time and sat down to it with great determination. +It was necessary to count all the stitches in that work, and I +resolved to go on with it until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and +then to go to bed. + +I soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs +in a work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a +stop for want of it, I took my candle and went softly down to get +it. To my great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still +there, and sitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, +his book lay unheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was +scattered confusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been +wandering among it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face +looked worn. Almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, +I stood still for a moment and should have retired without speaking +had he not, in again passing his hand abstractedly through his +hair, seen me and started. + +"Esther!" + +I told him what I had come for. + +"At work so late, my dear?" + +"I am working late to-night," said I, "because I couldn't sleep and +wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and +look weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?" + +"None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand," said he. + +He spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated, +as if that would help me to his meaning, "That I could readily +understand!" + +"Remain a moment, Esther," said he, "You were in my thoughts." + +"I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?" + +He slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. The +change was so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so +much self-command, that I found myself again inwardly repeating, +"None that I could understand!" + +"Little woman," said my guardian, "I was thinking--that is, I have +been thinking since I have been sitting here--that you ought to +know of your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to +nothing." + +"Dear guardian," I replied, "when you spoke to me before on that +subject--" + +"But since then," he gravely interposed, anticipating what I meant +to say, "I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and +my having anything to tell you, are different considerations, +Esther. It is perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know." + +"If you think so, guardian, it is right." + +"I think so," he returned very gently, and kindly, and very +distinctly. "My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage +can attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a +thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not +magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature." + +I sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought +to be, "One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these +words: 'Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. +The time will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this +better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.'" I had +covered my face with my hands in repeating the words, but I took +them away now with a better kind of shame, I hope, and told him +that to him I owed the blessing that I had from my childhood to +that hour never, never, never felt it. He put up his hand as if to +stop me. I well knew that he was never to be thanked, and said no +more. + +"Nine years, my dear," he said after thinking for a little while, +"have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in +seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it +unlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me +(as it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the +writer's idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it +was mine to justify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then +twelve years old, in some such cruel words as those which live in +your remembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in +secrecy from her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, +and that if the writer were to die before the child became a woman, +she would be left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It +asked me to consider if I would, in that case, finish what the +writer had begun." + +I listened in silence and looked attentively at him. + +"Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium +through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and +the distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of +the need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she +was quite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in +her darkened life, and replied to the letter." + +I took his hand and kissed it. + +"It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see +the writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with +the world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would +appoint one. I accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own +accord and not of his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. +That she was, if there were any ties of blood in such a case, the +child's aunt. That more than this she would never (and he was well +persuaded of the steadfastness of her resolution) for any human +consideration disclose. My dear, I have told you all." + +I held his hand for a little while in mine. + +"I saw my ward oftener than she saw me," he added, cheerily making +light of it, "and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. +She repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every +hour in every day!" + +"And oftener still," said I, '"she blesses the guardian who is a +father to her!" + +At the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. +He subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had +been there and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as +if they had given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, +wondering, "That I could readily understand. None that I could +readily understand!" No, it was true. I did not understand it. +Not for many and many a day. + +"Take a fatherly good night, my dear," said he, kissing me on the +forehead, "and so to rest. These are late hours for working and +thinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little +housekeeper!" + +I neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my +grateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me +and its care of me, and fell asleep. + +We had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to +take leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going +to China and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be +away a long, long time. + +I believe--at least I know--that he was not rich. All his widowed +mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his +profession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with +very little influence in London; and although he was, night and +day, at the service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of +gentleness and skill for them, he gained very little by it in +money. He was seven years older than I. Not that I need mention +it, for it hardly seems to belong to anything. + +I think--I mean, he told us--that he had been in practice three or +four years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three +or four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was +bound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going +away. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought +it a pity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his +art among those who knew it best, and some of the greatest men +belonging to it had a high opinion of him. + +When he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for +the first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes, +but she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time +ago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan ap- +Kerrig--of some place that sounded like Gimlet--who was the most +illustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations +were a sort of royal family. He appeared to have passed his life +in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and a +bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his praises +in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it, +Mewlinnwillinwodd. + +Mrs. Woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great +kinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would +remember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance +below it. She told him that there were many handsome English +ladies in India who went out on speculation, and that there were +some to be picked up with property, but that neither charms nor +wealth would suffice for the descendant from such a line without +birth, which must ever be the first consideration. She talked so +much about birth that for a moment I half fancied, and with pain-- +But what an idle fancy to suppose that she could think or care what +MINE was! + +Mr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he +was too considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to +bring the conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my +guardian for his hospitality and for the very happy hours--he +called them the very happy hours--he had passed with us. The +recollection of them, he said, would go with him wherever he went +and would be always treasured. And so we gave him our hands, one +after another--at least, they did--and I did; and so he put his +lips to Ada's hand--and to mine; and so he went away upon his long, +long voyage! + +I was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the +servants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and +papers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and +another. I was still busy between the lights, singing and working +by the window, when who should come in but Caddy, whom I had no +expectation of seeing! + +"Why, Caddy, my dear," said I, "what beautiful flowers!" + +She had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand. + +"Indeed, I think so, Esther," replied Caddy. "They are the +loveliest I ever saw." + +"Prince, my dear?" said I in a whisper. + +"No," answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to +smell. "Not Prince." + +"Well, to be sure, Caddy!" said I. "You must have two lovers!" + +"What? Do they look like that sort of thing?" said Caddy. + +"Do they look like that sort of thing?" I repeated, pinching her +cheek. + +Caddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for +half an hour, at the expiration of which time Prince would be +waiting for her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the +window, every now and then handing me the flowers again or trying +how they looked against my hair. At last, when she was going, she +took me into my room and put them in my dress. + +"For me?" said I, surprised. + +"For you," said Caddy with a kiss. "They were left behind by +somebody." + +"Left behind?" + +"At poor Miss Flite's," said Caddy. "Somebody who has been very +good to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left +these flowers behind. No, no! Don't take them out. Let the +pretty little things lie here," said Caddy, adjusting them with a +careful hand, "because I was present myself, and I shouldn't wonder +if somebody left them on purpose!" + +"Do they look like that sort of thing?" said Ada, coming laughingly +behind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. "Oh, yes, +indeed they do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort +of thing. Oh, very like it indeed, my dear!" + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Lady Dedlock + + +It was not so easy as it had appeared at first to arrange for +Richard's making a trial of Mr. Kenge's office. Richard himself +was the chief impediment. As soon as he had it in his power to +leave Mr. Badger at any moment, he began to doubt whether he wanted +to leave him at all. He didn't know, he said, really. It wasn't a +bad profession; he couldn't assert that he disliked it; perhaps he +liked it as well as he liked any other--suppose he gave it one more +chance! Upon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some +books and some bones and seemed to acquire a considerable fund of +information with great rapidity. His fervour, after lasting about +a month, began to cool, and when it was quite cooled, began to grow +warm again. His vacillations between law and medicine lasted so +long that midsummer arrived before he finally separated from Mr. +Badger and entered on an experimental course of Messrs. Kenge and +Carboy. For all his waywardness, he took great credit to himself +as being determined to be in earnest "this time." And he was so +good-natured throughout, and in such high spirits, and so fond of +Ada, that it was very difficult indeed to be otherwise than pleased +with him. + +"As to Mr. Jarndyce," who, I may mention, found the wind much +given, during this period, to stick in the east; "As to Mr. +Jarndyce," Richard would say to me, "he is the finest fellow in the +world, Esther! I must be particularly careful, if it were only for +his satisfaction, to take myself well to task and have a regular +wind-up of this business now." + +The idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing +face and heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could +catch and nothing could hold, was ludicrously anomalous. However, +he told us between-whiles that he was doing it to such an extent +that he wondered his hair didn't turn grey. His regular wind-up of +the business was (as I have said) that he went to Mr. Kenge's about +midsummer to try how he liked it. + +All this time he was, in money affairs, what I have described him +in a former illustration--generous, profuse, wildly careless, but +fully persuaded that he was rather calculating and prudent. I +happened to say to Ada, in his presence, half jestingly, half +seriously, about the time of his going to Mr. Kenge's, that he +needed to have Fortunatus' purse, he made so light of money, which +he answered in this way, "My jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this +old woman! Why does she say that? Because I gave eight pounds odd +(or whatever it was) for a certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few +days ago. Now, if I had stayed at Badger's I should have been +obliged to spend twelve pounds at a blow for some heart-breaking +lecture-fees. So I make four pounds--in a lump--by the +transaction!" + +It was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what +arrangements should be made for his living in London while he +experimented on the law, for we had long since gone back to Bleak +House, and it was too far off to admit of his coming there oftener +than once a week. My guardian told me that if Richard were to +settle down at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments or +chambers where we too could occasionally stay for a few days at a +time; "but, little woman," he added, rubbing his head very +significantly, "he hasn't settled down there yet!" The discussions +ended in our hiring for him, by the month, a neat little furnished +lodging in a quiet old house near Queen Square. He immediately +began to spend all the money he had in buying the oddest little +ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; and so often as Ada and I +dissuaded him from making any purchase that he had in contemplation +which was particularly unnecessary and expensive, he took credit +for what it would have cost and made out that to spend anything +less on something else was to save the difference. + +While these affairs were in abeyance, our visit to Mr. Boythorn's +was postponed. At length, Richard having taken possession of his +lodging, there was nothing to prevent our departure. He could have +gone with us at that time of the year very well, but he was in the +full novelty of his new position and was making most energetic +attempts to unravel the mysteries of the fatal suit. Consequently +we went without him, and my darling was delighted to praise him for +being so busy. + +We made a pleasant journey down into Lincolnshire by the coach and +had an entertaining companion in Mr. Skimpole. His furniture had +been all cleared off, it appeared, by the person who took +possession of it on his blue-eyed daughter's birthday, but he +seemed quite relieved to think that it was gone. Chairs and table, +he said, were wearisome objects; they were monotonous ideas, they +had no variety of expression, they looked you out of countenance, +and you looked them out of countenance. How pleasant, then, to be +bound to no particular chairs and tables, but to sport like a +butterfly among all the furniture on hire, and to flit from +rosewood to mahogany, and from mahogany to walnut, and from this +shape to that, as the humour took one! + +"The oddity of the thing is," said Mr. Skimpole with a quickened +sense of the ludicrous, "that my chairs and tables were not paid +for, and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as +possible. Now, that seems droll! There is something grotesque in +it. The chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord +my rent. Why should my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a +pimple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar +ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair +and table merchant's nose, which has no pimple on it. His +reasoning seems defective!" + +"Well," said my guardian good-humouredly, "it's pretty clear that +whoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to +pay for them." + +"Exactly!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That's the crowning point of +unreason in the business! I said to my landlord, 'My good man, you +are not aware that my excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay +for those things that you are sweeping off in that indelicate +manner. Have you no consideration for HIS property?' He hadn't the +least." + +"And refused all proposals," said my guardian. + +"Refused all proposals," returned Mr. Skimpole. "I made him +business proposals. I had him into my room. I said, 'You are a +man of business, I believe?' He replied, 'I am,' 'Very well,' +said I, 'now let us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here +are pens and paper, here are wafers. What do you want? I have +occupied your house for a considerable period, I believe to our +mutual satisfaction until this unpleasant misunderstanding arose; +let us be at once friendly and business-like. What do you want?' +In reply to this, he made use of the figurative expression--which +has something Eastern about it--that he had never seen the colour +of my money. 'My amiable friend,' said I, 'I never have any money. +I never know anything about money.' 'Well, sir,' said he, 'what do +you offer if I give you time?' 'My good fellow,' said I, 'I have +no idea of time; but you say you are a man of business, and +whatever you can suggest to be done in a business-like way with +pen, and ink, and paper--and wafers--I am ready to do. Don't pay +yourself at another man's expense (which is foolish), but be +business-like!' However, he wouldn't be, and there was an end of +it." + +If these were some of the inconveniences of Mr. Skimpole's +childhood, it assuredly possessed its advantages too. On the +journey he had a very good appetite for such refreshment as came in +our way (including a basket of choice hothouse peaches), but never +thought of paying for anything. So when the coachman came round +for his fee, he pleasantly asked him what he considered a very good +fee indeed, now--a liberal one--and on his replying half a crown +for a single passenger, said it was little enough too, all things +considered, and left Mr. Jarndyce to give it him. + +It was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, +the larks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild +flowers, the trees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, +with a light wind blowing over them, filled the air with such a +delicious fragrance! Late in the afternoon we came to the market- +town where we were to alight from the coach--a dull little town +with a church-spire, and a marketplace, and a market-cross, and one +intensely sunny street, and a pond with an old horse cooling his +legs in it, and a very few men sleepily lying and standing about in +narrow little bits of shade. After the rustling of the leaves and +the waving of the corn all along the road, it looked as still, as +hot, as motionless a little town as England could produce. + +At the inn we found Mr. Boythorn on horseback, waiting with an open +carriage to take us to his house, which was a few miles off. He +was over-joyed to see us and dismounted with great alacrity. + +"By heaven!" said he after giving us a courteous greeting. This a +most infamous coach. It is the most flagrant example of an +abominable public vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the +earth. It is twenty-five minutes after its time this afternoon. +The coachman ought to be put to death!" + +"IS he after his time?" said Mr. Skimpole, to whom he happened to +address himself. "You know my infirmity." + +"Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-six minutes!" replied Mr. Boythorn, +referring to his watch. "With two ladies in the coach, this +scoundrel has deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty +minutes. Deliberately! It is impossible that it can be +accidental! But his father--and his uncle--were the most +profligate coachmen that ever sat upon a box." + +While he said this in tones of the greatest indignation, he handed +us into the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness and was all +smiles and pleasure. + +"I am sorry, ladies," he said, standing bare-headed at the +carriage-door when all was ready, "that I am obliged to conduct you +nearly two miles out of the way. But our direct road lies through +Sir Leicester Dedlock's park, and in that fellow's property I have +sworn never to set foot of mine, or horse's foot of mine, pending +the present relations between us, while I breathe the breath of +life!" And here, catching my guardian's eye, he broke into one of +his tremendous laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless +little market-town. + +"Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?" said my guardian as we +drove along and Mr. Boythorn trotted on the green turf by the +roadside. + +"Sir Arrogant Numskull is here," replied Mr. Boythorn. "Ha ha ha! +Sir Arrogant is here, and I am glad to say, has been laid by the +heels here. My Lady," in naming whom he always made a courtly +gesture as if particularly to exclude her from any part in the +quarrel, "is expected, I believe, daily. I am not in the least +surprised that she postpones her appearance as long as possible. +Whatever can have induced that transcendent woman to marry that +effigy and figure-head of a baronet is one of the most impenetrable +mysteries that ever baffled human inquiry. Ha ha ha ha!" + +"I suppose, said my guardian, laughing, "WE may set foot in the +park while we are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, +does it?" + +"I can lay no prohibition on my guests," he said, bending his head +to Ada and me with the smiling politeness which sat so gracefully +upon him, "except in the matter of their departure. I am only +sorry that I cannot have the happiness of being their escort about +Chesney Wold, which is a very fine place! But by the light of this +summer day, Jarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay +with me, you are likely to have but a cool reception. He carries +himself like an eight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of +eight-day clocks in gorgeous cases that never go and never went--Ha +ha ha!--but he will have some extra stiffness, I can promise you, +for the friends of his friend and neighbour Boythorn!" + +"I shall not put him to the proof," said my guardian. "He is as +indifferent to the honour of knowing me, I dare say, as I am to the +honour of knowing him. The air of the grounds and perhaps such a +view of the house as any other sightseer might get are quite enough +for me." + +"Well!" said Mr. Boythorn. "I am glad of it on the whole. It's in +better keeping. I am looked upon about here as a second Ajax +defying the lightning. Ha ha ha ha! When I go into our little +church on a Sunday, a considerable part of the inconsiderable +congregation expect to see me drop, scorched and withered, on the +pavement under the Dedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! I have no +doubt he is surprised that I don't. For he is, by heaven, the most +self-satisfied, and the shallowest, and the most coxcombical and +utterly brainless ass!" + +Our coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our +friend to point out Chesney Wold itself to us and diverted his +attention from its master. + +It was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded. Among +the trees and not far from the residence he pointed out the spire +of the little church of which he had spoken. Oh, the solemn woods +over which the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly +wings were sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air; +the smooth green slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the +flowers were so symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest +colours, how beautiful they looked! The house, with gable and +chimney, and tower, and turret, and dark doorway, and broad +terrace-walk, twining among the balustrades of which, and lying +heaped upon the vases, there was one great flush of roses, seemed +scarcely real in its light solidity and in the serene and peaceful +hush that rested on all around it. To Ada and to me, that above +all appeared the pervading influence. On everything, house, +garden, terrace, green slopes, water, old oaks, fern, moss, woods +again, and far away across the openings in the prospect to the +distance lying wide before us with a purple bloom upon it, there +seemed to be such undisturbed repose. + +When we came into the little village and passed a small inn with +the sign of the Dedlock Arms swinging over the road in front, Mr. +Boythorn interchanged greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a +bench outside the inn-door who had some fishing-tackle lying beside +him. + +"That's the housekeeper's grandson, Mr. Rouncewell by name," said, +he, "and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady +Dedlock has taken a fancy to the pretty girl and is going to keep +her about her own fair person--an honour which my young friend +himself does not at all appreciate. However, he can't marry just +yet, even if his Rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the +best of it. In the meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day +or two at a time to--fish. Ha ha ha ha!" + +"Are he and the pretty girl engaged, Mr. Boythorn?" asked Ada. + +"Why, my dear Miss Clare," he returned, "I think they may perhaps +understand each other; but you will see them soon, I dare say, and +I must learn from you on such a point--not you from me." + +Ada blushed, and Mr. Boythorn, trotting forward on his comely grey +horse, dismounted at his own door and stood ready with extended arm +and uncovered head to welcome us when we arrived. + +He lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a +lawn in front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well- +stocked orchard and kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a +venerable wall that had of itself a ripened ruddy look. But, +indeed, everything about the place wore an aspect of maturity and +abundance. The old lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the +very shadows of the cherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with +fruit, the gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches +arched and rested on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries +grew in like profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on +the wall. Tumbled about among the spread nets and the glass frames +sparkling and winking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping +pods, and marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground +appeared a vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and +all kinds of wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighbouring +meadows where the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great +nosegay. Such stillness and composure reigned within the orderly +precincts of the old red wall that even the feathers hung in +garlands to scare the birds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a +ripening influence that where, here and there high up, a disused +nail and scrap of list still clung to it, it was easy to fancy that +they had mellowed with the changing seasons and that they had +rusted and decayed according to the common fate. + +The house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the +garden, was a real old house with settles in the chimney of the +brick-floored kitchen and great beams across the ceilings. On one +side of it was the terrible piece of ground in dispute, where Mr. +Boythorn maintained a sentry in a smock-frock day and night, whose +duty was supposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to +ring a large bell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great +bull-dog established in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal +destruction on the enemy. Not content with these precautions, Mr. +Boythorn had himself composed and posted there, on painted boards +to which his name was attached in large letters, the following +solemn warnings: "Beware of the bull-dog. He is most ferocious. +Lawrence Boythorn." "The blunderbus is loaded with slugs. +Lawrence Boythorn." "Man-traps and spring-guns are set here at all +times of the day and night. Lawrence Boythorn." "Take notice. +That any person or persons audaciously presuming to trespass on +this property will be punished with the utmost severity of private +chastisement and prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. +Lawrence Boythorn." These he showed us from the drawing-room +window, while his bird was hopping about his head, and he laughed, +"Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!" to that extent as he pointed them out +that I really thought he would have hurt himself. + +"But this is taking a good deal of trouble," said Mr. Skimpole in +his light way, "when you are not in earnest after all." + +"Not in earnest!" returned Mr. Boythorn with unspeakable warmth. +"Not in earnest! If I could have hoped to train him, I would have +bought a lion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose +upon the first intolerable robber who should dare to make an +encroachment on my rights. Let Sir Leicester Dedlock consent to +come out and decide this question by single combat, and I will meet +him with any weapon known to mankind in any age or country. I am +that much in earnest. Not more!" + +We arrived at his house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we +all set forth to walk to the little church in the park. Entering +the park, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a +pleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful +trees until it brought us to the church-porch. + +The congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with +the exception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of +whom were already in their seats, while others were yet dropping +in. There were some stately footmen, and there was a perfect +picture of an old coachman, who looked as if he were the official +representative of all the pomps and vanities that had ever been put +into his coach. There was a very pretty show of young women, and +above them, the handsome old face and fine responsible portly +figure of the housekeeper towered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of +whom Mr. Boythorn had told us was close by her. She was so very +pretty that I might have known her by her beauty even if I had not +seen how blushingly conscious she was of the eyes of the young +fisherman, whom I discovered not far off. One face, and not an +agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed maliciously watchful +of this pretty girl, and indeed of every one and everything there. +It was a Frenchwoman's. + +As the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, +I had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a +grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it +was. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued +light that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old +brasses in the pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and +rendered the sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous +ringer was working at the bell, inestimably bright. But a stir in +that direction, a gathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces, +and a blandly ferocious assumption on the part of Mr. Boythorn of +being resolutely unconscious of somebody's existence forewarned me +that the great people were come and that the service was going to +begin. + +"'Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy +sight--'" + +Shall I ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by +the look I met as I stood up! Shall I ever forget the manner in +which those handsome proud eyes seemed to spring out of their +languor and to hold mine! It was only a moment before I cast mine +down--released again, if I may say so--on my book; but I knew the +beautiful face quite well in that short space of time. + +And, very strangely, there was something quickened within me, +associated with the lonely days at my godmother's; yes, away even +to the days when I had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little +glass after dressing my doll. And this, although I had never seen +this lady's face before in all my life--I was quite sure of it-- +absolutely certain. + +It was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired +gentleman, the only other occupant of the great pew, was Sir +Leicester Dedlock, and that the lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her +face should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me, in +which I saw scraps of old remembrances, and why I should be so +fluttered and troubled (for I was still) by having casually met her +eyes, I could not think. + +I felt it to be an unmeaning weakness in me and tried to overcome +it by attending to the words I heard. Then, very strangely, I +seemed to hear them, not in the reader's voice, but in the well- +remembered voice of my godmother. This made me think, did Lady +Dedlock's face accidentally resemble my godmother's? It might be +that it did, a little; but the expression was so different, and the +stern decision which had worn into my godmother's face, like +weather into rocks, was so completely wanting in the face before me +that it could not be that resemblance which had struck me. Neither +did I know the loftiness and haughtiness of Lady Dedlock's face, at +all, in any one. And yet I--I, little Esther Summerson, the child +who lived a life apart and on whose birthday there was no +rejoicing--seemed to arise before my own eyes, evoked out of the +past by some power in this fashionable lady, whom I not only +entertained no fancy that I had ever seen, but whom I perfectly +well knew I had never seen until that hour. + +It made me tremble so to be thrown into this unaccountable +agitation that I was conscious of being distressed even by the +observation of the French maid, though I knew she had been looking +watchfully here, and there, and everywhere, from the moment of her +coming into the church. By degrees, though very slowly, I at last +overcame my strange emotion. After a long time, I looked towards +Lady Dedlock again. It was while they were preparing to sing, +before the sermon. She took no heed of me, and the beating at my +heart was gone. Neither did it revive for more than a few moments +when she once or twice afterwards glanced at Ada or at me through +her glass. + +The service being concluded, Sir Leicester gave his arm with much +taste and gallantry to Lady Dedlock--though he was obliged to walk +by the help of a thick stick--and escorted her out of church to the +pony carriage in which they had come. The servants then dispersed, +and so did the congregation, whom Sir Leicester had contemplated +all along (Mr. Skimpole said to Mr. Boythorn's infinite delight) as +if he were a considerable landed proprietor in heaven. + +"He believes he is!" said Mr. Boythorn. "He firmly believes it. +So did his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!" + +"Do you know," pursued Mr. Skimpole very unexpectedly to Mr. +Boythorn, "it's agreeable to me to see a man of that sort." + +"IS it!" said Mr. Boytborn. + +"Say that he wants to patronize me," pursued Mr. Skimpole. "Very +well! I don't object." + +"I do," said Mr. Boythorn with great vigour. + +"Do you really?" returned Mr. Skimpole in his easy light vein. +"But that's taking trouble, surely. And why should you take +trouble? Here am I, content to receive things childishly as they +fall out, and I never take trouble! I come down here, for +instance, and I find a mighty potentate exacting homage. Very +well! I say 'Mighty potentate, here IS my homage! It's easier to +give it than to withhold it. Here it is. If you have anything of +an agreeable nature to show me, I shall be happy to see it; if you +have anything of an agreeable nature to give me, I shall be happy +to accept it.' Mighty potentate replies in effect, 'This is a +sensible fellow. I find him accord with my digestion and my +bilious system. He doesn't impose upon me the necessity of rolling +myself up like a hedgehog with my points outward. I expand, I +open, I turn my silver lining outward like Milton's cloud, and it's +more agreeable to both of us.' That's my view of such things, +speaking as a child!" + +"But suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow," said Mr. +Boythorn, "where there was the opposite of that fellow--or of this +fellow. How then?" + +"How then?" said Mr. Skimpole with an appearance of the utmost +simplicity and candour. "Just the same then! I should say, 'My +esteemed Boythorn'--to make you the personification of our +imaginary friend--'my esteemed Boythorn, you object to the mighty +potentate? Very good. So do I. I take it that my business in the +social system is to be agreeable; I take it that everybody's +business in the social system is to be agreeable. It's a system of +harmony, in short. Therefore if you object, I object. Now, +excellent Boythorn, let us go to dinner!'" + +"But excellent Boythorn might say," returned our host, swelling and +growing very red, "I'll be--" + +"I understand," said Mr. Skimpole. "Very likely he would." + +"--if I WILL go to dinner!" cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst +and stopping to strike his stick upon the ground. "And he would +probably add, 'Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold +Skimpole?'" + +"To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know," he returned in +his gayest manner and with his most ingenuous smile, "'Upon my life +I have not the least idea! I don't know what it is you call by +that name, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it +and find it comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you +heartily. But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a +mere child, and I lay no claim to it, and I don't want it!' So, +you see, excellent Boythorn and I would go to dinner after all!" + +This was one of many little dialogues between them which I always +expected to end, and which I dare say would have ended under other +circumstances, in some violent explosion on the part of our host. +But he had so high a sense of his hospitable and responsible +position as our entertainer, and my guardian laughed so sincerely +at and with Mr. Skimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke +them all day long, that matters never went beyond this point. Mr. +Skimpole, who always seemed quite unconscious of having been on +delicate ground, then betook himself to beginning some sketch in +the park which be never finished, or to playing fragments of airs +on the piano, or to singing scraps of songs, or to lying down on +his back under a tree and looking at the sky--which he couldn't +help thinking, he said, was what he was meant for; it suited him so +exactly. + +"Enterprise and effort," he would say to us (on his back), are +delightful to me. I believe I am truly cosmopolitan. I have the +deepest sympathy with them. I lie in a shady place like this and +think of adventurous spirits going to the North Pole or penetrating +to the heart of the Torrid Zone with admiration. Mercenary +creatures ask, 'What is the use of a man's going to the North Pole? +What good does it do?' I can't say; but, for anything I CAN say, +he may go for the purpose--though he don't know it--of employing my +thoughts as I lie here. Take an extreme case. Take the case of +the slaves on American plantations. I dare say they are worked +hard, I dare say they don't altogether like it. I dare say theirs +is an unpleasant experience on the whole; but they people the +landscape for me, they give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is +one of the pleasanter objects of their existence. I am very +sensible of it, if it be, and I shouldn't wonder if it were!" + +I always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of +Mrs. Skimpole and the children, and in what point of view they +presented themselves to his cosmopolitan mind. So far as I could +understand, they rarely presented themselves at all. + +The week had gone round to the Saturday following that beating of +my heart in the church; and every day had been so bright and blue +that to ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down +among the transparent leaves and sparkling in the beautiful +interlacings of the shadows of the trees, while the birds poured +out their songs and the air was drowsy with the hum of insects, had +been most delightful. We had one favourite spot, deep in moss and +last year's leaves, where there were some felled trees from which +the bark was all stripped off. Seated among these, we looked +through a green vista supported by thousands of natural columns, +the whitened stems of trees, upon a distant prospect made so +radiant by its contrast with the shade in which we sat and made so +precious by the arched perspective through which we saw it that it +was like a glimpse of the better land. Upon the Saturday we sat +here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we heard thunder muttering in +the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle through the +leaves. + +The weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm +broke so suddenly--upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot--that +before we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and +lightning were frequent and the rain came plunging through the +leaves as if every drop were a great leaden bead. As it was not a +time for standing among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and +down the moss-grown steps which crossed the plantation-fence like +two broad-staved ladders placed back to back, and made for a +keeper's lodge which was close at hand. We had often noticed the +dark beauty of this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, and +how the ivy clustered over it, and how there was a steep hollow +near, where we had once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the +fern as if it were water. + +The lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we +only clearly saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter +there and put two chairs for Ada and me. The lattice-windows were +all thrown open, and we sat just within the doorway watching the +storm. It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, +and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the +solemn thunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with +awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are +encompassed, to consider how beneficent they are and how upon the +smallest flower and leaf there was already a freshness poured from +all this seeming rage which seemed to make creation new again. + +"Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?" + +"Oh, no, Esther dear!" said Ada quietly. + +Ada said it to me, but I had not spoken. + +The beating of my heart came back again. I had never heard the +voice, as I had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same +strange way. Again, in a moment, there arose before my mind +innumerable pictures of myself. + +Lady Dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival +there and had come out of the gloom within. She stood behind my +chair with her hand upon it. I saw her with her hand close to my +shoulder when I turned my head. + +"I have frightened you?" she said. + +No. It was not fright. Why should I be frightened! + +"I believe," said Lady Dedlock to my guardian, "I have the pleasure +of speaking to Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Your remembrance does me more honour than I had supposed it would, +Lady Dedlock," he returned. + +"I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local +disputes of Sir Leicester's--they are not of his seeking, however, +I believe--should render it a matter of some absurd difficulty to +show you any attention here." + +"I am aware of the circumstances," returned my guardian with a +smile, "and am sufficiently obliged." + +She had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed +habitual to her and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, +though in a very pleasant voice. She was as graceful as she was +beautiful, perfectly self-possessed, and had the air, I thought, of +being able to attract and interest any one if she had thought it +worth her while. The keeper had brought her a chair on which she +sat in the middle of the porch between us. + +"Is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester +about and whose wishes Sir Leicester was sorry not to have it in +his power to advance in any way?" she said over her shoulder to my +guardian. + +"I hope so," said he. + +She seemed to respect him and even to wish to conciliate him. +There was something very winning in her haughty manner, and it +became more familiar--I was going to say more easy, but that could +hardly be--as she spoke to him over her shoulder. + +"I presume this is your other ward, Miss Clare?" + +He presented Ada, in form. + +"You will lose the disinterested part of your Don Quixote +character," said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce over her shoulder +again, "if you only redress the wrongs of beauty like this. But +present me," and she turned full upon me, "to this young lady too!" + +"Miss Summerson really is my ward," said Mr. Jarndyce. "I am +responsible to no Lord Chancellor in her case." + +"Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?" said my Lady. + +"Yes." + +"She is very fortunate in her guardian." + +Lady Dedlock looked at me, and I looked at her and said I was +indeed. All at once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost +expressive of displeasure or dislike, and spoke to him over her +shoulder again. + +"Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr. +Jarndyce." + +"A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw +you last Sunday," he returned. + +"What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become +one to me!" she said with some disdain. "I have achieved that +reputation, I suppose." + +"You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock," said my guardian, "that +you pay some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me." + +"So much!" she repeated, slightly laughing. "Yes!" + +With her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, and I know +not what, she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than +children. So, as she slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking +at the rain, she was as self-possessed and as free to occupy +herself with her own thoughts as if she had been alone. + +"I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better +than you know me?" she said, looking at him again. + +"Yes, we happened to meet oftener," he returned. + +"We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in +common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I +suppose, but it could not be helped." + +Lady Dedlock again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began +to pass upon its way. The shower greatly abated, the lightning +ceased, the thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun +began to glisten on the wet leaves and the falling rain. As we sat +there, silently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at +a merry pace. + +"The messenger is coming back, my Lady," said the keeper, "with the +carriage." + +As it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There +alighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the +Frenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty +girl, the Frenchwoman with a defiant confidence, the pretty girl +confused and hesitating. + +"What now?" said Lady Dedlock. "Two!" + +"I am your maid, my Lady, at the present," said the Frenchwoman. +"The message was for the attendant." + +"I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady," said the pretty girl. + +"I did mean you, child," replied her mistress calmly. "Put that +shawl on me." + +She slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty +girl lightly dropped it in its place. The Frenchwoman stood +unnoticed, looking on with her lips very tightly set. + +"I am sorry," said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce, "that we are not +likely to renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send +the carriage back for your two wards. It shall be here directly." + +But as he would on no account accept this offer, she took a +graceful leave of Ada--none of me--and put her hand upon his +proffered arm, and got into the carriage, which was a little, low, +park carriage with a hood. + +"Come in, child," she said to the pretty girl; "I shall want you. +Go on!" + +The carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the wrappers +she had brought hanging over her arm, remained standing where she +had alighted. + +I suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with as pride +itself, and that she was punished for her imperious manner. Her +retaliation was the most singular I could have imagined. She +remained perfectly still until the carriage had turned into the +drive, and then, without the least discomposure of countenance, +slipped off her shoes, left them on the ground, and walked +deliberately in the same direction through the wettest of the wet +grass. + +"Is that young woman mad?" said my guardian. + +"Oh, no, sir!" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking +after her. "Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a +head-piece as the best. But she's mortal high and passionate-- +powerful high and passionate; and what with having notice to leave, +and having others put above her, she don't take kindly to it." + +"But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?" said my +guardian. + +"Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!" said the man. + +"Or unless she fancies it's blood," said the woman. "She'd as soon +walk through that as anything else, I think, when her own's up!" + +We passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. +Peaceful as it had looked when we first saw it, it looked even more +so now, with a diamond spray glittering all about it, a light wind +blowing, the birds no longer hushed but singing strongly, +everything refreshed by the late rain, and the little carriage +shining at the doorway like a fairy carriage made of silver. +Still, very steadfastly and quietly walking towards it, a peaceful +figure too in the landscape, went Mademoiselle Hortense, shoeless, +through the wet grass. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Moving On + + +It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good +ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed, iron- +fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing clippers +are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of +ghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse +their papers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where. +The courts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep. +Westminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales +might sing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found +there, walk. + +The Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even +unto the Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where +stranded proceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on +lop-sided stools that will not recover their perpendicular until +the current of Term sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the +long vacation. Outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, +messages and parcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the +bushel. A crop of grass would grow in the chinks of the stone +pavement outside Lincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket-porters, +who have nothing to do beyond sitting in the shade there, with +their white aprons over their heads to keep the flies off, grub it +up and eat it thoughtfully. + +There is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week +to sit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on +his circuit could see him now! No full-bottomed wig, no red +petticoats, no fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. Merely a +close-shaved gentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea- +bronze on the judicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by +the solar rays from the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell- +fish shop as he comes along and drinks iced ginger-beer! + +The bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How +England can get on through four long summer months without its bar +--which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only +legitimate triumph in prosperity--is beside the question; assuredly +that shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. The +learned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the +unprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by +the opposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is +doing infinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. The +learned gentleman who does the withering business and who blights +all opponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a +French watering-place. The learned gentleman who weeps by the pint +on the smallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. +The very learned gentleman who has cooled the natural heat of his +gingery complexion in pools and fountains of law until he has +become great in knotty arguments for term-time, when he poses the +drowsy bench with legal "chaff," inexplicable to the uninitiated +and to most of the initiated too, is roaming, with a characteristic +delight in aridity and dust, about Constantinople. Other dispersed +fragments of the same great palladium are to be found on the canals +of Venice, at the second cataract of the Nile, in the baths of +Germany, and sprinkled on the sea-sand all over the English coast. +Scarcely one is to be encountered in the deserted region of +Chancery Lane. If such a lonely member of the bar do flit across +the waste and come upon a prowling suitor who is unable to leave +off haunting the scenes of his anxiety, they frighten one another +and retreat into opposite shades. + +It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the +young clerks are madly in love, and according to their various +degrees, pine for bliss with the beloved object, at Margate, +Ramsgate, or Gravesend. All the middle-aged clerks think their +families too large. All the unowned dogs who stray into the Inns +of Court and pant about staircases and other dry places seeking +water give short howls of aggravation. All the blind men's dogs in +the streets draw their masters against pumps or trip them over +buckets. A shop with a sun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a +bowl of gold and silver fish in the window, is a sanctuary. Temple +Bar gets so hot that it is, to the adjacent Strand and Fleet +Street, what a heater is in an urn, and keeps them simmering all +night. + +There are offices about the Inns of Court in which a man might be +cool, if any coolness were worth purchasing at such a price in +dullness; but the little thoroughfares immediately outside those +retirements seem to blaze. In Mr. Krook's court, it is so hot that +the people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the +pavement--Mr. Krook included, who there pursues his studies, with +his cat (who never is too hot) by his side. The Sol's Arms has +discontinued the Harmonic Meetings for the season, and Little +Swills is engaged at the Pastoral Gardens down the river, where he +comes out in quite an innocent manner and sings comic ditties of a +juvenile complexion calculated (as the bill says) not to wound the +feelings of the most fastidious mind. + +Over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil +of rust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the +long vacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer of Cook's Court, +Cursitor Street, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind +as a sympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as +a law-stationer aforesaid. He has more leisure for musing in +Staple Inn and in the Rolls Yard during the long vacation than at +other seasons, and he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it +is in such hot weather to think that you live in an island with the +sea a-rolling and a-bowling right round you. + +Guster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon +in the long vacation, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby have it in +contemplation to receive company. The expected guests are rather +select than numerous, being Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and no more. +From Mr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself, both +verbally and in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken +by strangers for a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, +as he expresses it, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to +no particular denomination and is considered by his persecutors to +have nothing so very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects +as to render his volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent +on his conscience; but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of +the number. Mrs. Snagsby has but recently taken a passage upward +by the vessel, Chadband; and her attention was attracted to that +Bark A 1 when she was something flushed by the hot weather. + +"My little woman," says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn, +"likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!" + +So Guster, much impressed by regarding herself for the time as the +handmaid of Chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of +holding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little +drawing-room for tea. All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the +portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth, +the best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision +made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin +slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows +of anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to +be brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. For +Chadband is rather a consuming vessel--the persecutors say a +gorging vessel--and can wield such weapons of the flesh as a knife +and fork remarkably well. + +Mr. Snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations when +they are completed and coughing his cough of deference behind his +hand, says to Mrs. Snagsby, "At what time did you expect Mr. and +Mrs. Chadband, my love?" + +"At six," says Mrs. Snagsby. + +Mr. Snagsby observes in a mild and casual way that "it's gone +that." + +"Perhaps you'd like to begin without them," is Mrs. Snagsby's +reproachful remark. + +Mr. Snagsby does look as if he would like it very much, but he +says, with his cough of mildness, "No, my dear, no. I merely named +the time." + +"What's time," says Mrs. Snagsby, "to eternity?" + +"Very true, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. "Only when a person lays +in victuals for tea, a person does it with a view--perhaps--more to +time. And when a time is named for having tea, it's better to come +up to it." + +"To come up to it!" Mrs. Snagsby repeats with severity. "Up to it! +As if Mr. Chadband was a fighter!" + +"Not at all, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. + +Here, Guster, who had been looking out of the bedroom window, comes +rustling and scratching down the little staircase like a popular +ghost, and falling flushed into the drawing-room, announces that +Mr. and Mrs. Chadband have appeared in the court. The bell at the +inner door in the passage immediately thereafter tinkling, she is +admonished by Mrs. Snagsby, on pain of instant reconsignment to her +patron saint, not to omit the ceremony of announcement. Much +discomposed in her nerves (which were previously in the best order) +by this threat, she so fearfully mutilates that point of state as +to announce "Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay, +whatsername!" and retires conscience-stricken from the presence. + +Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general +appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs. +Chadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband +moves softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught +to walk upright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if +they were inconvenient to him and he wanted to grovel, is very much +in a perspiration about the head, and never speaks without first +putting up his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers +that he is going to edify them. + +"My friends," says Mr. Chadband, "peace be on this house! On the +master thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and +on the young men! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is +peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and +gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, +yes! Therefore, my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon +yours." + +In consequence of Mrs. Snagsby looking deeply edified, Mr. Snagsby +thinks it expedient on the whole to say amen, which is well +received. + +"Now, my friends," proceeds Mr. Chadband, "since I am upon this +theme--" + +Guster presents herself. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice +and without removing her eyes from Chadband, says with dreadful +distinctness, "Go away!" + +"Now, my friends," says Chadband, "since I am upon this theme, and +in my lowly path improving it--" + +Guster is heard unaccountably to murmur "one thousing seven hundred +and eighty-two." The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, "Go +away!" + +"Now, my friends," says Mr. Chadband, "we will inquire in a spirit +of love--" + +Still Guster reiterates "one thousing seven hundred and eighty- +two." + +Mr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to +be persecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile, +says, "Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!" + +"One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. +Which he wish to know what the shilling ware for," says Guster, +breathless. + +"For?" returns Mrs. Chadband. "For his fare!" + +Guster replied that "he insistes on one and eightpence or on +summonsizzing the party." Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are +proceeding to grow shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets +the tumult by lifting up his hand. + +"My friends," says he, "I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. +It is right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought +not to murmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!" + +While Mrs. Snagsby, drawing her breath, looks hard at Mr. Snagsby, +as who should say, "You hear this apostle!" and while Mr. Chadband +glows with humility and train oil, Mrs. Chadband pays the money. +It is Mr. Chadband's habit--it is the head and front of his +pretensions indeed--to keep this sort of debtor and creditor +account in the smallest items and to post it publicly on the most +trivial occasions. + +"My friends," says Chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might +justly have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half +a crown. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!" + +With which remark, which appears from its sound to be an extract in +verse, Mr. Chadband stalks to the table, and before taking a chair, +lifts up his admonitory hand. + +"My friends," says he, "what is this which we now behold as being +spread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my +friends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? +Because we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we +are but of the earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, +my friends? We cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?" + +Mr. Snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures +to observe in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, "No wings." But +is immediately frowned down by Mrs. Snagsby. + +"I say, my friends," pursues Mr. Chadband, utterly rejecting and +obliterating Mr. Snagsby's suggestion, "why can we not fly? Is it +because we are calculated to walk? It is. Could we walk, my +friends, without strength? We could not. What should we do +without strength, my friends? Our legs would refuse to bear us, +our knees would double up, our ankles would turn over, and we +should come to the ground. Then from whence, my friends, in a +human point of view, do we derive the strength that is necessary to +our limbs? Is it," says Chadband, glancing over the table, "from +bread in various forms, from butter which is churned from the milk +which is yielded unto us by the cow, from the eggs which are laid +by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from sausage, and from such +like? It is. Then let us partake of the good things which are set +before us!" + +The persecutors denied that there was any particular gift in Mr. +Chadband's piling verbose flights of stairs, one upon another, +after this fashion. But this can only be received as a proof of +their determination to persecute, since it must be within +everybody's experience that the Chadband style of oratory is widely +received and much admired. + +Mr. Chadband, however, having concluded for the present, sits down +at Mr. Snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. The +conversion of nutriment of any sort into oil of the quality already +mentioned appears to be a process so inseparable from the +constitution of this exemplary vessel that in beginning to eat and +drink, he may be described as always becoming a kind of +considerable oil mills or other large factory for the production of +that article on a wholesale scale. On the present evening of the +long vacation, in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, he does such a +powerful stroke of business that the warehouse appears to be quite +full when the works cease. + +At this period of the entertainment, Guster, who has never +recovered her first failure, but has neglected no possible or +impossible means of bringing the establishment and herself into +contempt--among which may be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly +performing clashing military music on Mr. Chadband's head with +plates, and afterwards crowning that gentleman with muffins--at +which period of the entertainment, Guster whispers Mr. Snagsby that +he is wanted. + +"And being wanted in the--not to put too fine a point upon it--in +the shop," says Mr. Snagsby, rising, "perhaps this good company +will excuse me for half a minute." + +Mr. Snagsby descends and finds the two 'prentices intently +contemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the +arm. + +"Why, bless my heart," says Mr. Snagsby, "what's the matter!" + +"This boy," says the constable, "although he's repeatedly told to, +won't move on--" + +"I'm always a-moving on, sar, cries the boy, wiping away his grimy +tears with his arm. "I've always been a-moving and a-moving on, +ever since I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor +I do move!" + +"He won't move on," says the constable calmly, with a slight +professional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in +his stiff stock, "although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and +therefore I am obliged to take him into custody. He's as obstinate +a young gonoph as I know. He WON'T move on." + +"Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!" cries the boy, clutching quite +desperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of +Mr. Snagsby's passage. + +"Don't you come none of that or I shall make blessed short work of +you!" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "My +instructions are that you are to move on. I have told you so five +hundred times." + +"But where?" cries the boy. + +"Well! Really, constable, you know," says Mr. Snagsby wistfully, +and coughing behind his hand his cough of great perplexity and +doubt, "really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?" + +"My instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "My +instructions are that this boy is to move on." + +Do you hear, Jo? It is nothing to you or to any one else that the +great lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few +years in this business to set you the example of moving on. The +one grand recipe remains for you--the profound philosophical +prescription--the be-all and the end-all of your strange existence +upon earth. Move on! You are by no means to move off, Jo, for the +great lights can't at all agree about that. Move on! + +Mr. Snagsby says nothing to this effect, says nothing at all +indeed, but coughs his forlornest cough, expressive of no +thoroughfare in any direction. By this time Mr. and Mrs. Chadband +and Mrs. Snagsby, hearing the altercation, have appeared upon the +stairs. Guster having never left the end of the passage, the whole +household are assembled. + +"The simple question is, sir," says the constable, "whether you +know this boy. He says you do." + +Mrs. Snagsby, from her elevation, instantly cries out, "No he +don't!" + +"My lit-tle woman!" says Mr. Snagsby, looking up the staircase. +"My love, permit me! Pray have a moment's patience, my dear. I do +know something of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can't say +that there's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable." To +whom the law-stationer relates his Joful and woful experience, +suppressing the half-crown fact. + +"Well!" says the constable, "so far, it seems, he had grounds for +what he said. When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said +you knew him. Upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he +was acquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, +and if I'd call and make the inquiry, he'd appear. The young man +don't seem inclined to keep his word, but-- Oh! Here IS the young +man!" + +Enter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat with +the chivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs. + +"I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this +row going on," says Mr. Guppy to the law-stationer, "and as your +name was mentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be +looked into." + +"It was very good-natured of you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I am +obliged to you." And Mr. Snagsby again relates his experience, +again suppressing the half-crown fact. + +"Now, I know where you live," says the constable, then, to Jo. +"You live down in Tom-all-Alone's. That's a nice innocent place to +live in, ain't it?" + +"I can't go and live in no nicer place, sir," replies Jo. "They +wouldn't have nothink to say to me if I wos to go to a nice +innocent place fur to live. Who ud go and let a nice innocent +lodging to such a reg'lar one as me!" + +"You are very poor, ain't you?" says the constable. + +"Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral," replies Jo. "I +leave you to judge now! I shook these two half-crowns out of him," +says the constable, producing them to the company, "in only putting +my hand upon him!" + +"They're wot's left, Mr. Snagsby," says Jo, "out of a sov-ring as +wos give me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as +come to my crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse +and the ouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the +berrin-ground wot he's berrid in. She ses to me she ses 'are you +the boy at the inkwhich?' she ses. I ses 'yes' I ses. She ses to +me she ses 'can you show me all them places?' I ses 'yes I can' I +ses. And she ses to me 'do it' and I dun it and she giv me a +sov'ring and hooked it. And I an't had much of the sov'ring +neither," says Jo, with dirty tears, "fur I had to pay five bob, +down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd square it fur to give me +change, and then a young man he thieved another five while I was +asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence and the landlord he +stood drains round with a lot more on it." + +"You don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the +sovereign, do you?" says the constable, eyeing him aside with +ineffable disdain. + +"I don't know as I do, sir," replies Jo. "I don't expect nothink +at all, sir, much, but that's the true hist'ry on it." + +"You see what he is!" the constable observes to the audience. +"Well, Mr. Snagsby, if I don't lock him up this time, will you +engage for his moving on?" + +"No!" cries Mrs. Snagsby from the stairs. + +"My little woman!" pleads her husband. "Constable, I have no doubt +he'll move on. You know you really must do it," says Mr. Snagsby. + +"I'm everyways agreeable, sir," says the hapless Jo. + +"Do it, then," observes the constable. "You know what you have got +to do. Do it! And recollect you won't get off so easy next time. +Catch hold of your money. Now, the sooner you're five mile off, +the better for all parties." + +With this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun +as a likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors +good afternoon and makes the echoes of Cook's Court perform slow +music for him as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his +iron-bound hat in his hand for a little ventilation. + +Now, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign +has awakened more or less the curiosity of all the company. Mr. +Guppy, who has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has +been suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation, +takes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular cross- +examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by the +ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs and +drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of the +tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. Mr. Guppy +yielding his assent to this proposal, Jo is requested to follow +into the drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as +a witness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other +shape like a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying +him according to the best models. Nor is the examination unlike +many such model displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing +and of its being lengthy, for Mr. Guppy is sensible of his talent, +and Mrs. Snagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive +disposition, but that it lifts her husband's establishment higher +up in the law. During the progress of this keen encounter, the +vessel Chadband, being merely engaged in the oil trade, gets +aground and waits to be floated off. + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "Either this boy sticks to it like +cobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that +beats anything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's." + +Mrs. Chadband whispers Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims, "You don't say +so!" + +"For years!" replied Mrs. Chadband. + +"Has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years," Mrs. Snagsby +triumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy. "Mrs. Chadband--this +gentleman's wife--Reverend Mr. Chadband." + +"Oh, indeed!" says Mr. Guppy. + +"Before I married my present husband," says Mrs. Chadband. + +"Was you a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, transferring +his cross-examination. + +"No." + +"NOT a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy. + +Mrs. Chadband shakes her head. + +"Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in +something, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, who likes nothing better than to +model his conversation on forensic principles. + +"Not exactly that, either," replies Mrs. Chadband, humouring the +joke with a hard-favoured smile. + +"Not exactly that, either!" repeats Mr. Guppy. "Very good. Pray, +ma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions +(we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and +Carboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? Take +time, ma'am. We shall come to it presently. Man or woman, ma'am?" + +"Neither," says Mrs. Chadband as before. + +"Oh! A child!" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. +Snagsby the regular acute professional eye which is thrown on +British jurymen. "Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to +tell us WHAT child." + +"You have got it at last, sir," says Mrs. Chadband with another +hard-favoured smile. "Well, sir, it was before your time, most +likely, judging from your appearance. I was left in charge of a +child named Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. +Kenge and Carboy." + +"Miss Summerson, ma'am!" cries Mr. Guppy, excited. + +"I call her Esther Summerson," says Mrs. Chadband with austerity. +"There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther. +'Esther, do this! Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it." + +"My dear ma'am," returns Mr. Guppy, moving across the small +apartment, "the humble individual who now addresses you received +that young lady in London when she first came here from the +establishment to which you have alluded. Allow me to have the +pleasure of taking you by the hand." + +Mr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed +signal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his +pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Snagsby whispers "Hush!" + +"My friends," says Chadband, "we have partaken in moderation" +(which was certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) "of +the comforts which have been provided for us. May this house live +upon the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful +therein; may it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it +advance, may it proceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, +have we partaken of any-hing else? We have. My friends, of what +else have we partaken? Of spiritual profit? Yes. From whence +have we derived that spiritual profit? My young friend, stand +forth!" + +Jo, thus apostrophized, gives a slouch backward, and another slouch +forward, and another slouch to each side, and confronts the +eloquent Chadband with evident doubts of his intentions. + +"My young friend," says Chadband, "you are to us a pearl, you are +to us a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And +why, my young friend?" + +"I don't know," replies Jo. "I don't know nothink." + +"My young friend," says Chadband, "it is because you know nothing +that you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young +friend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? +No. A fish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my +young friend. A human boy. O glorious to be a human boy! And why +glorious, my young friend? Because you are capable of receiving +the lessons of wisdom, because you are capable of profiting by this +discourse which I now deliver for your good, because you are not a +stick, or a staff, or a stock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar. + + + O running stream of sparkling joy + To be a soaring human boy! + + +And do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? No. +Why do you not cool yourself in that stream now? Because you are +in a state of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, +because you are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a +state of bondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a +spirit of love, inquire." + +At this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo, who seems to have +been gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his +face and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses +her belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend. + +"My friends," says Mr. Chadband with his persecuted chin folding +itself into its fat smile again as he looks round, "it is right +that I should be humbled, it is right that I should be tried, it is +right that I should be mortified, it is right that I should be +corrected. I stumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride +of my three hours' improving. The account is now favourably +balanced: my creditor has accepted a composition. O let us be +joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!" + +Great sensation on the part of Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My friends," says Chadband, looking round him in conclusion, "I +will not proceed with my young friend now. Will you come to- +morrow, my young friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am +to be found to deliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like +the thirsty swallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, +and upon the day after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear +discourses?" (This with a cow-like lightness.) + +Jo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms, +gives a shuffling nod. Mr. Guppy then throws him a penny, and Mrs. +Snagsby calls to Guster to see him safely out of the house. But +before he goes downstairs, Mr. Snagsby loads him with some broken +meats from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms. + +So, Mr. Chadband--of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder +he should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable +nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave +off, having once the audacity to begin--retires into private life +until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. Jo +moves on, through the long vacation, down to Blackfriars Bridge, +where he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle to his +repast. + +And there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the +great cross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above +a red-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy's face one +might suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning +confusion of the great, confused city--so golden, so high up, so +far out of his reach. There he sits, the sun going down, the river +running fast, the crowd flowing by him in two streams--everything +moving on to some purpose and to one end--until he is stirred up +and told to "move on" too. + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A New Lodger + + +The long vacation saunters on towards term-time like an idle river +very leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy +saunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of +his penknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument +into his desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any +ill will, but he must do something, and it must be something of an +unexciting nature, which will lay neither his physical nor his +intellectual energies under too heavy contribution. He finds that +nothing agrees with him so well as to make little gyrations on one +leg of his stool, and stab his desk, and gape. + +Kenge and Carboy are out of town, and the articled clerk has taken +out a shooting license and gone down to his father's, and Mr. +Guppy's two fellow-stipendiaries are away on leave. Mr. Guppy and +Mr. Richard Carstone divide the dignity of the office. But Mr. +Carstone is for the time being established in Kenge's room, whereat +Mr. Guppy chafes. So exceedingly that he with biting sarcasm +informs his mother, in the confidential moments when he sups with +her off a lobster and lettuce in the Old Street Road, that he is +afraid the office is hardly good enough for swells, and that if he +had known there was a swell coming, he would have got it painted. + +Mr. Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a +stool in Kenge and Carboy's office of entertaining, as a matter of +course, sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such +person wants to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or +wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the +strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner +takes infinite pains to counterplot when there is no plot, and +plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary. + +It is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to +find the new-comer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce +and Jarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and +failure can come of that. His satisfaction communicates itself to +a third saunterer through the long vacation in Kenge and Carboy's +office, to wit, Young Smallweed. + +Whether Young Smallweed (metaphorically called Small and eke Chick +Weed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy +is much doubted in Lincoln's Inn. He is now something under +fifteen and an old limb of the law. He is facetiously understood +to entertain a passion for a lady at a cigar-shop in the +neighbourhood of Chancery Lane and for her sake to have broken off +a contract with another lady, to whom he had been engaged some +years. He is a town-made article, of small stature and weazen +features, but may be perceived from a considerable distance by +means of his very tall hat. To become a Guppy is the object of his +ambition. He dresses at that gentleman (by whom he is patronized), +talks at him, walks at him, founds himself entirely on him. He is +honoured with Mr. Guppy's particular confidence and occasionally +advises him, from the deep wells of his experience, on difficult +points in private life. + +Mr. Guppy has been lolling out of window all the morning after +trying all the stools in succession and finding none of them easy, +and after several times putting his head into the iron safe with a +notion of cooling it. Mr. Smallweed has been twice dispatched for +effervescent drinks, and has twice mixed them in the two official +tumblers and stirred them up with the ruler. Mr. Guppy propounds +for Mr. Smallweed's consideration the paradox that the more you +drink the thirstier you are and reclines his head upon the window- +sill in a state of hopeless languor. + +While thus looking out into the shade of Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, +surveying the intolerable bricks and mortar, Mr. Guppy becomes +conscious of a manly whisker emerging from the cloistered walk +below and turning itself up in the direction of his face. At the +same time, a low whistle is wafted through the Inn and a suppressed +voice cries, "Hip! Gup-py!" + +"Why, you don't mean it!" says Mr. Guppy, aroused. "Small! Here's +Jobling!" Small's head looks out of window too and nods to +Jobling. + +"Where have you sprung up from?" inquires Mr. Guppy. + +"From the market-gardens down by Deptford. I can't stand it any +longer. I must enlist. I say! I wish you'd lend me half a crown. +Upon my soul, I'm hungry." + +Jobling looks hungry and also has the appearance of having run to +seed in the market-gardens down by Deptford. + +"I say! Just throw out half a crown if you have got one to spare. +I want to get some dinner." + +"Will you come and dine with me?" says Mr. Guppy, throwing out the +coin, which Mr. Jobling catches neatly. + +"How long should I have to hold out?" says Jobling. + +"Not half an hour. I am only waiting here till the enemy goes, +returns Mr. Guppy, butting inward with his head. + +"What enemy?" + +"A new one. Going to be articled. Will you wait?" + +"Can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime?" says Mr +Jobling. + +Smallweed suggests the law list. But Mr. Jobling declares with +much earnestness that he "can't stand it." + +"You shall have the paper," says Mr. Guppy. "He shall bring it +down. But you had better not be seen about here. Sit on our +staircase and read. It's a quiet place." + +Jobling nods intelligence and acquiescence. The sagacious +Smallweed supplies him with the newspaper and occasionally drops +his eye upon him from the landing as a precaution against his +becoming disgusted with waiting and making an untimely departure. +At last the enemy retreats, and then Smallweed fetches Mr. Jobling +up. + +"Well, and how are you?" says Mr. Guppy, shaking hands with him. + +"So, so. How are you?" + +Mr. Guppy replying that he is not much to boast of, Mr. Jobling +ventures on the question, "How is SHE?" This Mr. Guppy resents as +a liberty, retorting, "Jobling, there ARE chords in the human +mind--" Jobling begs pardon. + +"Any subject but that!" says Mr. Guppy with a gloomy enjoyment of +his injury. "For there ARE chords, Jobling--" + +Mr. Jobling begs pardon again. + +During this short colloquy, the active Smallweed, who is of the +dinner party, has written in legal characters on a slip of paper, +"Return immediately." This notification to all whom it may +concern, he inserts in the letter-box, and then putting on the tall +hat at the angle of inclination at which Mr. Guppy wears his, +informs his patron that they may now make themselves scarce. + +Accordingly they betake themselves to a neighbouring dining-house, +of the class known among its frequenters by the denomination slap- +bang, where the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is +supposed to have made some impression on the susceptible Smallweed, +of whom it may be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom +years are nothing. He stands precociously possessed of centuries +of owlish wisdom. If he ever lay in a cradle, it seems as if he +must have lain there in a tail-coat. He has an old, old eye, has +Smallweed; and he drinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and his +neck is stiff in his collar; and he is never to be taken in; and he +knows all about it, whatever it is. In short, in his bringing up +he has been so nursed by Law and Equity that he has become a kind +of fossil imp, to account for whose terrestrial existence it is +reported at the public offices that his father was John Doe and his +mother the only female member of the Roe family, also that his +first long-clothes were made from a blue bag. + +Into the dining-house, unaffected by the seductive show in the +window of artificially whitened cauliflowers and poultry, verdant +baskets of peas, coolly blooming cucumbers, and joints ready for +the spit, Mr. Smallweed leads the way. They know him there and +defer to him. He has his favourite box, he bespeaks all the +papers, he is down upon bald patriarchs, who keep them more than +ten minutes afterwards. It is of no use trying him with anything +less than a full-sized "bread" or proposing to him any joint in cut +unless it is in the very best cut. In the matter of gravy he is +adamant. + +Conscious of his elfin power and submitting to his dread +experience, Mr. Guppy consults him in the choice of that day's +banquet, turning an appealing look towards him as the waitress +repeats the catalogue of viands and saying "What do YOU take, +Chick?" Chick, out of the profundity of his artfulness, preferring +"veal and ham and French beans--and don't you forget the stuffing, +Polly" (with an unearthly cock of his venerable eye), Mr. Guppy and +Mr. Jobling give the like order. Three pint pots of half-and-half +are superadded. Quickly the waitress returns bearing what is +apparently a model of the Tower of Babel but what is really a pile +of plates and flat tin dish-covers. Mr. Smallweed, approving of +what is set before him, conveys intelligent benignity into his +ancient eye and winks upon her. Then, amid a constant coming in, +and going out, and running about, and a clatter of crockery, and a +rumbling up and down of the machine which brings the nice cuts from +the kitchen, and a shrill crying for more nice cuts down the +speaking-pipe, and a shrill reckoning of the cost of nice cuts that +have been disposed of, and a general flush and steam of hot joints, +cut and uncut, and a considerably heated atmosphere in which the +soiled knives and tablecloths seem to break out spontaneously into +eruptions of grease and blotches of beer, the legal triumvirate +appease their appetites. + +Mr. Jobling is buttoned up closer than mere adornment might +require. His hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a +glistening nature, as if it had been a favourite snail-promenade. +The same phenomenon is visible on some parts of his coat, and +particularly at the seams. He has the faded appearance of a +gentleman in embarrassed circumstances; even his light whiskers +droop with something of a shabby air. + +His appetite is so vigorous that it suggests spare living for some +little time back. He makes such a speedy end of his plate of veal +and ham, bringing it to a close while his companions are yet midway +in theirs, that Mr. Guppy proposes another. "Thank you, Guppy," +says Mr. Jobling, "I really don't know but what I WILL take +another." + +Another being brought, he falls to with great goodwill. + +Mr. Guppy takes silent notice of him at intervals until he is half +way through this second plate and stops to take an enjoying pull at +his pint pot of half-and-half (also renewed) and stretches out his +legs and rubs his hands. Beholding him in which glow of +contentment, Mr. Guppy says, "You are a man again, Tony!" + +"Well, not quite yet," says Mr. Jobling. "Say, just born." + +"Will you take any other vegetables? Grass? Peas? Summer +cabbage?" + +"Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling. "I really don't know but +what I WILL take summer cabbage." + +Order given; with the sarcastic addition (from Mr. Smallweed) of +"Without slugs, Polly!" And cabbage produced. + +"I am growing up, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, plying his knife and +fork with a relishing steadiness. + +"Glad to hear it." + +"In fact, I have just turned into my teens," says Mr. Jobling. + +He says no more until he has performed his task, which he achieves +as Messrs. Guppy and Smallweed finish theirs, thus getting over the +ground in excellent style and beating those two gentlemen easily by +a veal and ham and a cabbage. + +"Now, Small," says Mr. Guppy, "what would you recommend about +pastry?" + +"Marrow puddings," says Mr. Smallweed instantly. + +"Aye, aye!" cries Mr. Jobling with an arch look. "You're there, +are you? Thank you, Mr. Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take a +marrow pudding." + +Three marrow puddings being produced, Mr. Jobling adds in a +pleasant humour that he is coming of age fast. To these succeed, +by command of Mr. Smallweed, "three Cheshires," and to those "three +small rums." This apex of the entertainment happily reached, Mr. +Jobling puts up his legs on the carpeted seat (having his own side +of the box to himself), leans against the wall, and says, "I am +grown up now, Guppy. I have arrived at maturity." + +"What do you think, now," says Mr. Guppy, "about--you don't mind +Smallweed?" + +"Not the least in the worid. I have the pleasure of drinking his +good health." + +"Sir, to you!" says Mr. Smallweed. + +"I was saying, what do you think NOW," pursues Mr. Guppy, "of +enlisting?" + +"Why, what I may think after dinner," returns Mr. Jobling, "is one +thing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another +thing. Still, even after dinner, I ask myself the question, What +am I to do? How am I to live? Ill fo manger, you know," says Mr. +Jobling, pronouncing that word as if he meant a necessary fixture +in an English stable. "Ill fo manger. That's the French saying, +and mangering is as necessary to me as it is to a Frenchman. Or +more so." + +Mr. Smallweed is decidedly of opinion "much more so." + +"If any man had told me," pursues Jobling, "even so lately as when +you and I had the frisk down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over +to see that house at Castle Wold--" + +Mr. Smallweed corrects him--Chesney Wold. + +"Chesney Wold. (I thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) If +any man had told me then that I should be as hard up at the present +time as I literally find myself, I should have--well, I should have +pitched into him," says Mr. Jobling, taking a little rum-and-water +with an air of desperate resignation; "I should have let fly at his +head." + +"Still, Tony, you were on the wrong side of the post then," +remonstrates Mr. Guppy. "You were talking about nothing else in +the gig." + +"Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, "I will not deny it. I was on the wrong +side of the post. But I trusted to things coming round." + +That very popular trust in flat things coming round! Not in their +being beaten round, or worked round, but in their "coming" round! +As though a lunatic should trust in the world's "coming" +triangular! + +"I had confident expectations that things would come round and be +all square," says Mr. Jobling with some vagueness of expression and +perhaps of meaning too. "But I was disappointed. They never did. +And when it came to creditors making rows at the office and to +people that the office dealt with making complaints about dirty +trifles of borrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. +And of any new professional connexion too, for if I was to give a +reference to-morrow, it would be mentioned and would sew me up. +Then what's a fellow to do? I have been keeping out of the way and +living cheap down about the market-gardens, but what's the use of +living cheap when you have got no money? You might as well live +dear." + +"Better," Mr. Smallweed thinks. + +"Certainly. It's the fashionable way; and fashion and whiskers +have been my weaknesses, and I don't care who knows it," says Mr. +Jobling. "They are great weaknesses--Damme, sir, they are great. +Well," proceeds Mr. Jobling after a defiant visit to his rum-and- +water, "what can a fellow do, I ask you, BUT enlist?" + +Mr. Guppy comes more fully into the conversation to state what, in +his opinion, a fellow can do. His manner is the gravely impressive +manner of a man who has not committed himself in life otherwise +than as he has become the victim of a tender sorrow of the heart. + +"Jobling," says Mr. Guppy, "myself and our mutual friend Smallweed--" + +Mr. Smallweed modestly observes, "Gentlemen both!" and drinks. + +"--Have had a little conversation on this matter more than once +since you--" + +"Say, got the sack!" cries Mr. Jobling bitterly. "Say it, Guppy. +You mean it." + +"No-o-o! Left the Inn," Mr. Smallweed delicately suggests. + +"Since you left the Inn, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy; "and I have +mentioned to our mutual friend Smallweed a plan I have lately +thought of proposing. You know Snagsby the stationer?" + +"I know there is such a stationer," returns Mr. Jobling. "He was +not ours, and I am not acquainted with him." + +"He IS ours, Jobling, and I AM acquainted with him," Mr. Guppy +retorts. "Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with +him through some accidental circumstances that have made me a +visitor of his in private life. Those circumstances it is not +necessary to offer in argument. They may--or they may not--have +some reference to a subject which may--or may not--have cast its +shadow on my existence." + +As it is Mr. Guppy's perplexing way with boastful misery to tempt +his particular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch +it, to turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords +in the human mind, both Mr. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed decline the +pitfall by remaining silent. + +"Such things may be," repeats Mr. Guppy, "or they may not be. They +are no part of the case. It is enough to mention that both Mr. and +Mrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that Snagsby has, in +busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. He has all +Tulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides. I believe if our +mutual friend Smallweed were put into the box, he could prove +this?" + +Mr. Smallweed nods and appears greedy to be sworn. + +"Now, gentlemen of the jury," says Mr. Guppy, "--I mean, now, +Jobling--you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted. +But it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want +time. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You +might live through it on much worse terms than by writing for +Snagsby." + +Mr. Jobling is about to interrupt when the sagacious Smallweed +checks him with a dry cough and the words, "Hem! Shakspeare!" + +"There are two branches to this subject, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy. +"That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the +Chancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy in his +encouraging cross-examination-tone, "I think you know Krook, the +Chancellor, across the lane?" + +"I know him by sight," says Mr. Jobling. + +"You know him by sight. Very well. And you know little Flite?" + +"Everybody knows her," says Mr. Jobling. + +"Everybody knows her. VERY well. Now it has been one of my duties +of late to pay Flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it +the amount of her weekly rent, which I have paid (in consequence of +instructions I have received) to Krook himself, regularly in her +presence. This has brought me into communication with Krook and +into a knowledge of his house and his habits. I know he has a room +to let. You may live there at a very low charge under any name you +like, as quietly as if you were a hundred miles off. He'll ask no +questions and would accept you as a tenant at a word from me-- +before the clock strikes, if you chose. And I tell you another +thing, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy, who has suddenly lowered his voice +and become familiar again, "he's an extraordinary old chap--always +rummaging among a litter of papers and grubbing away at teaching +himself to read and write, without getting on a bit, as it seems to +me. He is a most extraordinary old chap, sir. I don't know but +what it might be worth a fellow's while to look him up a bit." + +"You don't mean--" Mr. Jobling begins. + +"I mean," returns Mr. Guppy, shrugging his shoulders with becoming +modesty, "that I can't make him out. I appeal to our mutual friend +Smallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that I can't +make him out." + +Mr. Smallweed bears the concise testimony, "A few!" + +"I have seen something of the profession and something of life, +Tony," says Mr. Guppy, "and it's seldom I can't make a man out, +more or less. But such an old card as this, so deep, so sly, and +secret (though I don't believe he is ever sober), I never came +across. Now, he must be precious old, you know, and he has not a +soul about him, and he is reported to be immensely rich; and +whether he is a smuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed +pawnbroker, or a money-lender--all of which I have thought likely +at different times--it might pay you to knock up a sort of +knowledge of him. I don't see why you shouldn't go in for it, when +everything else suits." + +Mr. Jobling, Mr. Guppy, and Mr. Smallweed all lean their elbows on +the table and their chins upon their hands, and look at the +ceiling. After a time, they all drink, slowly lean back, put their +hands in their pockets, and look at one another. + +"If I had the energy I once possessed, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy with a +sigh. "But there are chords in the human mind--" + +Expressing the remainder of the desolate sentiment in rum-and- +water, Mr. Guppy concludes by resigning the adventure to Tony +Jobling and informing him that during the vacation and while things +are slack, his purse, "as far as three or four or even five pound +goes," will be at his disposal. "For never shall it be said," Mr. +Guppy adds with emphasis, "that William Guppy turned his back upon +his friend!" + +The latter part of the proposal is so directly to the purpose that +Mr. Jobling says with emotion, "Guppy, my trump, your fist!" Mr. +Guppy presents it, saying, "Jobling, my boy, there it is!" Mr. +Jobling returns, "Guppy, we have been pals now for some years!" +Mr. Guppy replies, "Jobling, we have." + +They then shake hands, and Mr. Jobling adds in a feeling manner, +"Thank you, Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take another glass +for old acquaintance sake." + +"Krook's last lodger died there," observes Mr. Guppy in an +incidental way. + +"Did he though!" says Mr. Jobling. + +"There was a verdict. Accidental death. You don't mind that?" + +"No," says Mr. Jobling, "I don't mind it; but he might as well have +died somewhere else. It's devilish odd that he need go and die at +MY place!" Mr. Jobling quite resents this liberty, several times +returning to it with such remarks as, "There are places enough to +die in, I should think!" or, "He wouldn't have liked my dying at +HIS place, I dare say!" + +However, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to +dispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home, +as in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. +Mr. Jobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat +and conveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. He +soon returns with the intelligence that Mr. Krook is at home and +that he has seen him through the shop-door, sitting in the back +premises, sleeping "like one o'clock." + +"Then I'll pay," says Mr. Guppy, "and we'll go and see him. Small, +what will it be?" + +Mr. Smallweed, compelling the attendance of the waitress with one +hitch of his eyelash, instantly replies as follows: "Four veals and +hams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer +cabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and +six breads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four +half-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums +is eight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and +six in half a sovereign, Polly, and eighteenpence out!" + +Not at all excited by these stupendous calculations, Smallweed +dismisses his friends with a cool nod and remains behind to take a +little admiring notice of Polly, as opportunity may serve, and to +read the daily papers, which are so very large in proportion to +himself, shorn of his hat, that when he holds up the Times to run +his eye over the columns, he seems to have retired for the night +and to have disappeared under the bedclothes. + +Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where +they find Krook still sleeping like one o'clock, that is to say, +breathing stertorously with his chin upon his breast and quite +insensible to any external sounds or even to gentle shaking. On +the table beside him, among the usual lumber, stand an empty gin- +bottle and a glass. The unwholesome air is so stained with this +liquor that even the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf, as they +open and shut and glimmer on the visitors, look drunk. + +"Hold up here!" says Mr. Guppy, giving the relaxed figure of the +old man another shake. "Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir!" + +But it would seem as easy to wake a bundle of old clothes with a +spirituous heat smouldering in it. "Did you ever see such a stupor +as he falls into, between drink and sleep?" says Mr. Guppy. + +"If this is his regular sleep," returns Jobling, rather alarmed, +"it'll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking." + +"It's always more like a fit than a nap," says Mr. Guppy, shaking +him again. "Halloa, your lordship! Why, he might be robbed fifty +times over! Open your eyes!" + +After much ado, he opens them, but without appearing to see his +visitors or any other objects. Though he crosses one leg on +another, and folds his hands, and several times closes and opens +his parched lips, he seems to all intents and purposes as +insensible as before. + +"He is alive, at any rate," says Mr. Guppy. "How are you, my Lord +Chancellor. I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little +matter of business." + +The old man still sits, often smacking his dry lips without the +least consciousness. After some minutes he makes an attempt to +rise. They help him up, and he staggers against the wall and +stares at them. + +"How do you do, Mr. Krook?" says Mr. Guppy in some discomfiture. +"How do you do, sir? You are looking charming, Mr. Krook. I hope +you are pretty well?" + +The old man, in aiming a purposeless blow at Mr. Guppy, or at +nothing, feebly swings himself round and comes with his face +against the wall. So he remains for a minute or two, heaped up +against it, and then staggers down the shop to the front door. The +air, the movement in the court, the lapse of time, or the +combination of these things recovers him. He comes back pretty +steadily, adjusting his fur cap on his head and looking keenly at +them. + +"Your servant, gentlemen; I've been dozing. Hi! I am hard to wake, +odd times." + +"Rather so, indeed, sir," responds Mr. Guppy. + +"What? You've been a-trying to do it, have you?" says the +suspicious Krook. + +"Only a little," Mr. Guppy explains. + +The old man's eye resting on the empty bottle, he takes it up, +examines it, and slowly tilts it upside down. + +"I say!" he cries like the hobgoblin in the story. "Somebody's +been making free here!" + +"I assure you we found it so," says Mr. Guppy. "Would you allow me +to get it filled for you?" + +"Yes, certainly I would!" cries Krook in high glee. "Certainly I +would! Don't mention it! Get it filled next door--Sol's Arms--the +Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. Bless you, they know ME!" + +He so presses the empty bottle upon Mr. Guppy that that gentleman, +with a nod to his friend, accepts the trust and hurries out and +hurries in again with the bottle filled. The old man receives it +in his arms like a beloved grandchild and pats it tenderly. + +"But, I say," he whispers, with his eyes screwed up, after tasting +it, "this ain't the Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. This is +eighteenpenny!" + +"I thought you might like that better," says Mr. Guppy. + +"You're a nobleman, sir," returns Krook with another taste, and his +hot breath seems to come towards them like a flame. "You're a +baron of the land." + +Taking advantage of this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his +friend under the impromptu name of Mr. Weevle and states the object +of their visit. Krook, with his bottle under his arm (he never +gets beyond a certain point of either drunkenness or sobriety), +takes time to survey his proposed lodger and seems to approve of +him. "You'd like to see the room, young man?" he says. "Ah! It's +a good room! Been whitewashed. Been cleaned down with soft soap +and soda. Hi! It's worth twice the rent, letting alone my company +when you want it and such a cat to keep the mice away." + +Commending the room after this manner, the old man takes them +upstairs, where indeed they do find it cleaner than it used to be +and also containing some old articles of furniture which he has dug +up from his inexhaustible stores. The terms are easily concluded-- +for the Lord Chancellor cannot be hard on Mr. Guppy, associated as +he is with Kenge and Carboy, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and other +famous claims on his professional consideration--and it is agreed +that Mr. Weevle shall take possession on the morrow. Mr. Weevle +and Mr. Guppy then repair to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, where +the personal introduction of the former to Mr. Snagsby is effected +and (more important) the vote and interest of Mrs. Snagsby are +secured. They then report progress to the eminent Smallweed, +waiting at the office in his tall hat for that purpose, and +separate, Mr. Guppy explaining that he would terminate his little +entertainment by standing treat at the play but that there are +chords in the human mind which would render it a hollow mockery. + +On the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears +at Krook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes +himself in his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters +stare at him in his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the +following day Mr. Weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of +young fellow, borrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite and a +hammer of his landlord and goes to work devising apologies for +window-curtains, and knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging +up his two teacups, milkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth +of little hooks, like a shipwrecked sailor making the best of it. + +But what Mr. Weevle prizes most of all his few possessions (next +after his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only +whiskers can awaken in the breast of man) is a choice collection of +copper-plate impressions from that truly national work The +Divinities of Albion, or Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, +representing ladies of title and fashion in every variety of smirk +that art, combined with capital, is capable of producing. With +these magnificent portraits, unworthily confined in a band-box +during his seclusion among the market-gardens, he decorates his +apartment; and as the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every +variety of fancy dress, plays every variety of musical instrument, +fondles every variety of dog, ogles every variety of prospect, and +is backed up by every variety of flower-pot and balustrade, the +result is very imposing. + +But fashion is Mr. Weevle's, as it was Tony Jobling's, weakness. +To borrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening and +read about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are +shooting across the fashionable sky in every direction is +unspeakable consolation to him. To know what member of what +brilliant and distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and +distinguished feat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no +less brilliant and distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow gives +him a thrill of joy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of +British Beauty is about, and means to be about, and what Galaxy +marriages are on the tapis, and what Galaxy rumours are in +circulation, is to become acquainted with the most glorious +destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle reverts from this intelligence to +the Galaxy portraits implicated, and seems to know the originals, +and to be known of them. + +For the rest he is a quiet lodger, full of handy shifts and devices +as before mentioned, able to cook and clean for himself as well as +to carpenter, and developing social inclinations after the shades +of evening have fallen on the court. At those times, when he is +not visited by Mr. Guppy or by a small light in his likeness +quenched in a dark hat, he comes out of his dull room--where he has +inherited the deal wilderness of desk bespattered with a rain of +ink--and talks to Krook or is "very free," as they call it in the +court, commendingly, with any one disposed for conversation. +Wherefore, Mrs. Piper, who leads the court, is impelled to offer +two remarks to Mrs. Perkins: firstly, that if her Johnny was to +have whiskers, she could wish 'em to be identically like that young +man's; and secondly, "Mark my words, Mrs. Perkins, ma'am, and don't +you be surprised, Lord bless you, if that young man comes in at +last for old Krook's money!" + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +The Smallweed Family + + +In a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one +of its rising grounds bears the name of Mount Pleasant, the Elfin +Smallweed, christened Bartholomew and known on the domestic hearth +as Bart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the +office and its contingencies have no claim. He dwells in a little +narrow street, always solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in +on all sides like a tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump of +an old forest tree whose flavour is about as fresh and natural as +the Smallweed smack of youth. + +There has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several +generations. Little old men and women there have been, but no +child, until Mr. Smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak +in her intellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish +state. With such infantine graces as a total want of observation, +memory, understanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to +fall asleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed's grandmother +has undoubtedly brightened the family. + +Mr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a +helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper, +limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever +held, the first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small +collection of the hardest facts. In respect of ideality, +reverence, wonder, and other such phrenological attributes, it is +no worse off than it used to be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed's +grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a +grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single +butterfly. + +The father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of +Mount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting +species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired +into holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's +god was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of +it. Meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in +which all the loss was intended to have been on the other side, he +broke something--something necessary to his existence, therefore it +couldn't have been his heart--and made an end of his career. As +his character was not good, and he had been bred at a charity +school in a complete course, according to question and answer, of +those ancient people the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequently +quoted as an example of the failure of education. + +His spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of +"going out" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp +scrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman +improved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and +developing the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the +discounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, +as his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and anxious- +minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and marrying +late, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed, twins. +During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this family +tree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late to +marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has +discarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books, fairy- +tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities whatsoever. +Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born to it and +that the complete little men and women whom it has produced have +been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something +depressing on their minds. + +At the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet below +the level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, only +ornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest +of sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character +no bad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's mind-- +seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side of +the fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while away +the rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the pots +and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation to +watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a sort +of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when it +is in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat and guarded +by his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain +property to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion with +which he is always provided in order that he may have something to +throw at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever she +makes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularly +sensitive. + +"And where's Bart?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's +twin sister. + +"He an't come in yet," says Judy. + +"It's his tea-time, isn't it?" + +"No." + +"How much do you mean to say it wants then?" + +"Ten minutes." + +"Hey?" + +"Ten minutes." (Loud on the part of Judy.) + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Ten minutes." + +Grandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head +at the trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money +and screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "Ten +ten-pound notes!" + +Grandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her. + +"Drat you, be quiet!" says the good old man. + +The effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not only +doubles up Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter's +chair and causes her to present, when extricated by her +granddaughter, a highly unbecoming state of cap, but the necessary +exertion recoils on Mr. Smallweed himself, whom it throws back into +HIS porter's chair like a broken puppet. The excellent old +gentleman being at these times a mere clothes-bag with a black +skull-cap on the top of it, does not present a very animated +appearance until he has undergone the two operations at the hands +of his granddaughter of being shaken up like a great bottle and +poked and punched like a great bolster. Some indication of a neck +being developed in him by these means, he and the sharer of his +life's evening again fronting one another in their two porter's +chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on their post by +the Black Serjeant, Death. + +Judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so +indubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the two +kneaded into one would hardly make a young person of average +proportions, while she so happily exemplifies the before-mentioned +family likeness to the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe +and cap she might walk about the table-land on the top of a barrel- +organ without exciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Under +existing circumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare +gown of brown stuff. + +Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at +any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she +was about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with +Judy, and Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an +animal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance on +both sides. It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. +She has so rarely seen the thing done that the probabilities are +strong the other way. Of anything like a youthful laugh, she +certainly can have no conception. If she were to try one, she +would find her teeth in her way, modelling that action of her face, +as she has unconsciously modelled all its other expressions, on her +pattern of sordid age. Such is Judy. + +And her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knows +no more of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than he +knows of the people in the stars. He could as soon play at leap- +frog or at cricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. But +he is so much the better off than his sister that on his narrow +world of fact an opening has dawned into such broader regions as +lie within the ken of Mr. Guppy. Hence his admiration and his +emulation of that shining enchanter. + +Judy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet- +iron tea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. The +bread she puts on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much +of it) in a small pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard +after the tea as it is served out and asks Judy where the girl is. + +"Charley, do you mean?" says Judy. + +"Hey?" from Grandfather Smallweed. + +"Charley, do you mean?" + +This touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling as +usual at the trivets, cries, "Over the water! Charley over the +water, Charley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley +over the water, over the water to Charley!" and becomes quite +energetic about it. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has not +sufficiently recovered his late exertion. + +"Ha!" he says when there is silence. "If that's her name. She +eats a deal. It would be better to allow her for her keep." + +Judy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up her +mouth into no without saying it. + +"No?" returns the old man. "Why not?" + +"She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less," says Judy. + +"Sure?" + +Judy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she +scrapes the butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste +and cuts it into slices, "You, Charley, where are you?" Timidly +obedient to the summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large +bonnet, with her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing +brush in one of them, appears, and curtsys. + +"What work are you about now?" says Judy, making an ancient snap at +her like a very sharp old beldame. + +"I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss," replies Charley. + +"Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Shirking won't do +for me. Make haste! Go along!" cries Judy with a stamp upon the +ground. "You girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half." + +On this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the +butter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother, +looking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, she +opens the street-door. + +"Aye, aye, Bart!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Here you are, hey?" + +"Here I am," says Bart. + +"Been along with your friend again, Bart?" + +Small nods. + +"Dining at his expense, Bart?" + +Small nods again. + +"That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and take +warning by his foolish example. That's the use of such a friend. +The only use you can put him to," says the venerable sage. + +His grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully as +he might, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in a +slight wink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The four +old faces then hover over teacups like a company of ghastly +cherubim, Mrs. Smallweed perpetually twitching her head and +chattering at the trivets and Mr. Smallweed requiring to be +repeatedly shaken up like a large black draught. + +"Yes, yes," says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson of +wisdom. "That's such advice as your father would have given you, +Bart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my true +son." Whether it is intended to be conveyed that he was +particularly pleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear. + +"He was my true son," repeats the old gentleman, folding his bread +and butter on his knee, "a good accountant, and died fifteen years +ago." + +Mrs. Smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with +"Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, +fifteen hundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and +hid!" Her worthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter, +immediately discharges the cushion at her, crushes her against the +side of her chair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. His +appearance, after visiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of these +admonitions, is particularly impressive and not wholly +prepossessing, firstly because the exertion generally twists his +black skull-cap over one eye and gives him an air of goblin +rakishness, secondly because he mutters violent imprecations +against Mrs. Smallweed, and thirdly because the contrast between +those powerful expressions and his powerless figure is suggestive +of a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if he could. +All this, however, is so common in the Smallweed family circle that +it produces no impression. The old gentleman is merely shaken and +has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is restored to its +usual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps with her cap +adjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again, ready to +be bowled down like a ninepin. + +Some time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman +is sufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he +mixes it up with several edifying expletives addressed to the +unconscious partner of his bosom, who holds communication with +nothing on earth but the trivets. As thus: "If your father, Bart, +had lived longer, he might have been worth a deal of money--you +brimstone chatterer!--but just as he was beginning to build up the +house that he had been making the foundations for, through many a +year--you jade of a magpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you +mean!--he took ill and died of a low fever, always being a sparing +and a spare man, fule been a good son, and I think I meant to +have been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, that's +the long and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody." + +"Surprising!" cries the old man. + +"However," Mr. George resumes, "the less said about it, the better +now. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two +months' interest! (Bosh! It's all correct. You needn't be afraid +to order the pipe. Here's the new bill, and here's the two months' +interest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it +together in my business.)" + +Mr. George sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and the +parlour while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to two +black leathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he +secures the document he has just received, and from the other takes +another similar document which hl of business care--I should like to throw a +cat at you instead of a cushion, and I will too if you make such a +confounded fool of yourself!--and your mother, who was a prudent +woman as dry as a chip, just dwindled away like touchwood after you +and Judy were born--you are an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. +You're a head of swine!" + +Judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect +in a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of +cups and saucers and from the bottom of the teapot for the little +charwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in the +iron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels of +loaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence. + +"But your father and me were partners, Bart," says the old +gentleman, "and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there +is. It's rare for you both that you went out early in life--Judy +to the flower business, and you to the law. You won't want to +spend it. You'll get your living without it, and put more to it. +When I am gone, Judy will go back to the flower business and you'll +still stick to the law." + +One might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay +with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been +apprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. A +close observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her +brother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being +gone, some little impatience to know when he may be going, and some +resentful opinion that it is time he went. + +"Now, if everybody has done," says Judy, completing her +preparations, "I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would never +leave off if she took it by herself in the kitchen." + +Charley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes, +sits down to her basin and a Druidical ruin of bread and butter. +In the active superintendence of this young person, Judy Smallweed +appears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from the +remotest periods. Her systematic manner of flying at her and +pouncing on her, with or without pretence, whether or no, is +wonderful, evincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-driving +seldom reached by the oldest practitioners. + +"Now, don't stare about you all the afternoon," cries Judy, shaking +her head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glance +which has been previously sounding the basin of tea, "but take your +victuals and get back to your work." + +"Yes, miss," says Charley. + +"Don't say yes," returns Miss Smallweed, "for I know what you girls +are. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe +you." + +Charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and so +disperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her not +to gormandize, which "in you girls," she observes, is disgusting. +Charley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on the +general subject of girls but for a knock at the door. + +"See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!" cries Judy. + +The object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, Miss +Smallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of the +bread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cups +into the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considers +the eating and drinking terminated. + +"Now! Who is it, and what's wanted?" says the snappish Judy. + +It is one Mr. George, it appears. Without other announcement or +ceremony, Mr. George walks in. + +"Whew!" says Mr. George. "You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? +Well! Perhaps you do right to get used to one." Mr. George makes +the latter remark to himself as he nods to Grandfather Smallweed. + +"Ho! It's you!" cries the old gentleman. "How de do? How de do?" + +"Middling," replies Mr. George, taking a chair. "Your +granddaughter I have had the honour of seeing before; my service to +you, miss." + +"This is my grandson," says Grandfather Smallweed. "You ha'n't +seen him before. He is in the law and not much at home." + +"My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like +his sister. He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George, +laying a great and not altogether complimentary stress on his last +adjective. + +"And how does the world use you, Mr. George?" Grandfather Smallweed +inquires, slowly rubbing his legs. + +"Pretty much as usual. Like a football." + +He is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, +with crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy +and powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been +used to a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that he +sits forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing +space for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid +aside. His step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a +weighty clash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his +mouth is set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a +great moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open +palm of his broad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. +Altogether one might guess Mr. George to have been a trooper once +upon a time. + +A special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. +Trooper was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. +It is a broadsword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure and +their stunted forms, his large manner filling any amount of room +and their little narrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their +sharp spare tones, are in the strongest and the strangest +opposition. As he sits in the middle of the grim parlour, leaning +a little forward, with his hands upon his thighs and his elbows +squared, he looks as though, if he remained there long, he would +absorb into himself the whole family and the whole four-roomed +house, extra little back-kitchen and all. + +"Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?" he asks of Grandfather +Smallweed after looking round the room. + +"Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and--yes--it partly helps +the circulation," he replies. + +"The cir-cu-la-tion!" repeats Mr. George, folding his arms upon his +chest and seeming to become two sizes larger. "Not much of that, I +should think." + +"Truly I'm old, Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed. "But I +can carry my years. I'm older than HER," nodding at his wife, "and +see what she is? You're a brimstone chatterer!" with a sudden +revival of his late hostility. + +"Unlucky old soul!" says Mr. George, turning his head in that +direction. "Don't scold the old lady. Look at her here, with her +poor cap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. Hold +up, ma'am. That's better. There we are! Think of your mother, +Mr. Smallweed," says Mr. George, coming back to his seat from +assisting her, "if your wife an't enough." + +"I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?" the old man +hints with a leer. + +The colour of Mr. George's face rather deepens as he replies, "Why +no. I wasn't." + +"I am astonished at it." + +"So am I. I ought to have hands to Mr. George, who twists +it up for a pipelight. As the old man inspects, through his +glasses, every up-stroke and down-stroke of both documents before +he releases them from their leathern prison, and as he counts the +money three times over and requires Judy to say every word she +utters at least twice, and is as tremulously slow of speech and +action as it is possible to be, this business is a long time in +progress. When it is quite concluded, and not before, he +disengages his ravenous eyes and fingers from it and answers Mr. +George's last remark by saying, "Afraid to order the pipe? We are +not so mercenary as that, sir. Judy, see directly to the pipe and +the glass of cold brandy-and-water for Mr. George." + +The sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all +this time except when they have been engrossed by the black +leathern cases, retire together, generally disdainful of the +visitor, but leaving him to the old man as two young cubs might +leave a traveller to the parental bear. + +"And there you sit, I suppose, all the day long, eh?" says Mr. +George with folded arms. + +"Just so, just so," the old man nods. + +"And don't you occupy yourself at all?" + +"I watch the fire--and the boiling and the roasting--" + +"When there is any," says Mr. George with great expression. + +"Just so. When there is any." + +"Don't you read or get read to?" + +The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. "No, no. We +have never been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. +Idleness. Folly. No, no!" + +"There's not much to choose between your two states," says the +visitor in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing as he looks +from him to the old woman and back again. "I say!" in a louder +voice. + +"I hear you." + +"You'll sell me up at last, I suppose, when I am a day in arrear." + +"My dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, stretching out both +hands to embrace him. "Never! Never, my dear friend! But my +friend in the city that I got to lend you the money--HE might!" + +"Oh! You can't answer for him?" says Mr. George, finishing the +inquiry in his lower key with the words "You lying old rascal!" + +"My dear friend, he is not to be depended on. I wouldn't trust +him. He will have his bond, my dear friend." + +"Devil doubt him," says Mr. George. Charley appearing with a tray, +on which are the pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the brandy- +and-water, he asks her, "How do you come here! You haven't got the +family face." + +"I goes out to work, sir," returns Charley. + +The trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off, +with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head. +"You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of +youth as much as it wants fresh air." Then he dismisses her, +lights his pipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city-- +the one solitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's +imagination. + +"So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?" + +"I think he might--I am afraid he would. I have known him do it," +says Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, "twenty times." + +Incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing +over the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers +"Twenty thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, +twenty guineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty--" and is +then cut short by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom +this singular experiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her +face as it crushes her in the usual manner. + +"You're a brimstone idiot. You're a scorpion--a brimstone +scorpion! You're a sweltering toad. You're a chattering +clattering broomstick witch that ought to be burnt!" gasps the old +man, prostrate in his chair. "My dear friend, will you shake me up +a little?" + +Mr. George, who has been looking first at one of them and then at +the other, as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance +by the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright +in his chalr as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds +whether or no to shake all future power of cushioning out of him +and shake him into his grave. Resisting the temptation, but +agitating him violently enough to make his head roll like a +harlequin's, he puts him smartly down in his chair again and +adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub that the old man winks with +both eyes for a minute afterwards. + +"O Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed. "That'll do. Thank you, my dear +friend, that'll do. Oh, dear me, I'm out of breath. O Lord!" And +Mr. Smallweed says it not without evident apprehensions of his dear +friend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever. + +The alarming presence, however, gradually subsides into its chair +and falls to smoking in long puffs, consoling itself with the +philosophical reflection, "The name of your friend in the city +begins with a D, comrade, and you're about right respecting the +bond." + +"Did you speak, Mr. George?" inquires the old man. + +The trooper shakes his head, and leaning forward with his right +elbow on his right knee and his pipe supported in that hand, while +his other hand, resting on his left leg, squares his left elbow in +a martial manner, continues to smoke. Meanwhile he looks at Mr. +Smallweed with grave attention and now and then fans the cloud of +smoke away in order that he may see him the more clearly. + +"I take it," he says, making just as much and as little change in +his position as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with +a round, full action, "that I am the only man alive (or dead +either) that gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?" + +"Well," returns the old man, "it's true that I don't see company, +Mr. George, and that I don't treat. I can't afford to it. But as +you, in your pleasant way, made your pipe a condition--" + +"Why, it's not for the value of it; that's no great thing. It was +a fancy to get it out of you. To have something in for my money." + +"Ha! You're prudent, prudent, sir!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, +rubbing his legs. + +"Very. I always was." Puff. "It's a sure sign of my prudence +that I ever found the way here." Puff. "Also, that I am what I +am." Puff. "I am well known to be prudent," says Mr. George, +composedly smoking. "I rose in life that way." + +"Don't he down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet." + +Mr. George laughs and drinks. + +"Ha'n't you no relations, now," asks Grandfather Smallweed with a +twinkle in his eyes, "who would pay off this little principal or +who would lend you a good name or two that I could persuade my +friend in the city to make you a further advance upon? Two good +names would be sufficient for my friend in the city. Ha'n't you no +such relations, Mr. George?" + +Mr. George, still composedly smoking, replies, "If I had, I +shouldn't trouble them. I have been trouble enough to my +belongings in my day. It MAY be a very good sort of penitence in a +vagabond, who has wasted the best time of his life, to go back then +to decent people that he never was a credit to and live upon them, +but it's not my sort. The best kind of amends then for having gone +away is to keep away, in my opinion." + +"But natural affection, Mr. George," hints Grandfather Smallweed. + +"For two good names, hey?" says Mr. George, shaking his head and +still composedly smoking. "No. That's not my sort either." + +Grandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair +since his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a +voice in it calling for Judy. That houri, appearing, shakes him up +in the usual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain +near him. For he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble +of repeating his late attentions. + +"Ha!" he observes when he is in trim again. "If you could have +traced out the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making +of you. If when you first came here, in consequence of our +advertisement in the newspapers--when I say 'our,' I'm alluding to +the advertisements of my friend in the city, and one or two others +who embark their capital in the same way, and are so friendly +towards me as sometimes to give me a lift with my little pittance-- +if at that time you could have helped us, Mr. George, it would have +been the making of you." + +"I was willing enough to be 'made,' as you call it," says Mr. +George, smoking not quite so placidly as before, for since the +entrance of Judy he has been in some measure disturbed by a +fascination, not of the admiring kind, which obliges him to look at +her as she stands by her grandfather's chair, "but on the whole, I +am glad I wasn't now." + +"Why, Mr. George? In the name of--of brimstone, why?" says +Grandfather Smallweed with a plain appearance of exasperation. +(Brimstone apparently suggested by his eye lighting on Mrs. +Smallweed in her slumber.) + +"For two reasons, comrade." + +"And what two reasons, Mr. George? In the name of the--" + +"Of our friend in the city?" suggests Mr. George, composedly +drinking. + +"Aye, if you like. What two reasons?" + +"In the first place," returns Mr. George, but still looking at Judy +as if she being so old and so like her grandfather it is +indifferent which of the two he addresses, "you gentlemen took me +in. You advertised that Mr. Hawdon (Captain Hawdon, if you hold to +the saying 'Once a captain, always a captain') was to hear of +something to his advantage." + +"Well?" returns the old man shrilly and sharply. + +"Well!" says Mr. George, smoking on. "It wouldn't have been much +to his advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill +and judgment trade of London." + +"How do you know that? Some of his rich relations might have paid +his debts or compounded for 'em. Besides, he had taken US in. He +owed us immense sums all round. I would sooner have strangled him +than had no return. If I sit here thinking of him," snarls the old +man, holding up his impotent ten fingers, "I want to strangle him +now." And in a sudden access of fury, he throws the cushion at the +unoffending Mrs. Smallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of +her chair. + +"I don't need to be told," returns the trooper, taking his pipe +from his lips for a moment and carrying his eyes back from +following the progress of the cushion to the pipe-bowl which is +burning low, "that he carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have +been at his right hand many a day when he was charging upon ruin +full-gallop. I was with him when he was sick and well, rich and +poor. I laid this hand upon him after he had run through +everything and broken down everything beneath him--when he held a +pistol to his head." + +"I wish he had let it off," says the benevolent old man, "and blown +his head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!" + +"That would have been a smash indeed," returns the trooper coolly; +"any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone +by, and I am glad I never found him, when he was neither, to lead +to a result so much to his advantage. That's reason number one." + +"I hope number two's as good?" snarls the old man. + +"Why, no. It's more of a selfish reason. If I had found him, I +must have gone to the other world to look. He was there." + +"How do you know he was there?" + +"He wasn't here." + +"How do you know he wasn't here?" + +"Don't lose your temper as well as your money," says Mr. George, +calmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "He was drowned long +before. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship's side. +Whether intentionally or accidentally, I don't know. Perhaps your +friend in the city does. Do you know what that tune is, Mr. +Smallweed?" he adds after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied +on the table with the empty pipe. + +"Tune!" replied the old man. "No. We never have tunes here." + +"That's the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it, so it's +the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty granddaughter +--excuse me, miss--will condescend to take care of this pipe for two +months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good evening, Mr. +Smallweed!" + +"My dear friend!" the old man gives him both his hands. + +"So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I +fall in a payment?" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a +giant. + +"My dear friend, I am afraid he will," returns the old man, looking +up at him like a pygmy. + +Mr. George laughs, and with a glance at Mr. Smallweed and a parting +salutation to the scornful Judy, strides out of the parlour, +clashing imaginary sabres and other metallic appurtenances as he +goes. + +"You're a damned rogue," says the old gentleman, making a hideous +grimace at the door as he shuts it. "But I'll lime you, you dog, +I'll lime you!" + +After this amiable remark, his spirit soars into those enchanting +regions of reflection which its education and pursuits have opened +to it, and again he and Mrs. Smallweed while away the rosy hours, +two unrelieved sentinels forgotten as aforesaid by the Black +Serjeant. + +While the twain are faithful to their post, Mr. George strides +through the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave- +enough face. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing +in. He stops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides +to go to Astley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the +horses and the feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a +critical eye; disapproves of the combats as giving evidences of +unskilful swordsmanship; but is touched home by the sentiments. In +the last scene, when the Emperor of Tartary gets up into a cart and +condescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with +the Union Jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion. + +The theatre over, Mr. George comes across the water again and makes +his way to that curious region lying about the Haymarket and +Leicester Square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent +foreign hotels and indifferent foreigners, racket-courts, fighting- +men, swordsmen, footguards, old china, gaming-houses, exhibitions, +and a large medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of sight. +Penetrating to the heart of this region, he arrives by a court and +a long whitewashed passage at a great brick building composed of +bare walls, floors, roof-rafters, and skylights, on the front of +which, if it can be said to have any front, is painted GEORGE'S +SHOOTING GALLERY, &c. + +Into George's Shooting Gallery, &c., he goes; and in it there are +gaslights (partly turned off now), and two whitened targets for +rifle-shooting, and archery accommodation, and fencing appliances, +and all necessaries for the British art of boxing. None of these +sports or exercises being pursued in George's Shooting Gallery to- +night, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man +with a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the +floor. + +The little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green- +baize apron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with +gunpowder and begrimed with the loading of guns. As he lies in the +light before a glaring white target, the black upon him shines +again. Not far off is the strong, rough, primitive table with a +vice upon it at which he has been working. He is a little man with +a face all crushed together, who appears, from a certain blue and +speckled appearance that one of his cheeks presents, to have been +blown up, in the way of business, at some odd time or times. + +"Phil!" says the trooper in a quiet voice. + +"All right!" cries Phil, scrambling to his feet. + +"Anything been doing?" + +"Flat as ever so much swipes," says Phil. "Five dozen rifle and a +dozen pistol. As to aim!" Phil gives a howl at the recollection. + +"Shut up shop, Phil!" + +As Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is +lame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of +his face he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy +black one, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and +rather sinister appearance. Everything seems to have happened to +his hands that could possibly take place consistently with the +retention of all the fingers, for they are notched, and seamed, and +crumpled all over. He appears to be very strong and lifts heavy +benches about as if he had no idea what weight was. He has a +curious way of limping round the gallery with his shoulder against +the wall and tacking off at objects he wants to lay hold of instead +of going straight to them, which has left a smear all round the +four walls, conventionally called "Phil's mark." + +This custodian of George's Gallery in George's absence concludes +his proceedings, when he has locked the great doors and turned out +all the lights but one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out +from a wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. These +being drawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his +own bed and Phil makes his. + +"Phil!" says the master, walking towards him without his coat and +waistcoat, and looking more soldierly than ever in his braces. +"You were found in a doorway, weren't you?" + +"Gutter," says Phil. "Watchman tumbled over me." + +"Then vagabondizing came natural to YOU from the beginning." + +"As nat'ral as possible," says Phil. + +"Good night!" + +"Good night, guv'ner." + +Phil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to +shoulder round two sides of the gallery and then tack off at his +mattress. The trooper, after taking a turn or two in the rifle- +distance and looking up at the moon now shining through the +skylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes +to bed too. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Mr. Bucket + + +Allegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the +evening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, +and the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be +desirable characteristics when November comes with fog and sleet or +January with ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry +long vacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks +like peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy +swellings for calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look +tolerably cool to-night. + +Plenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty +more has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick +everywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way +takes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings +as much dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law-or Mr. Tulkinghorn, +one of its trustiest representatives--may scatter, on occasion, in +the eyes of the laity. + +In his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which +his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of +earth, animate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits +at one of the open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a +hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine +with the best. He has a priceless bin of port in some artful +cellar under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he +dines alone in chambers, as he has dined to-day, and has his bit of +fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee-house, he +descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted +mansion, and heralded by a remote reverberation of thundering +doors, comes gravely back encircled by an earthy atmosphere and +carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score +and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so +famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern +grapes. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys +his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence +and seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than +ever, he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, +pondering at that twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows, +associated with darkening woods in the country, and vast blank +shut-up houses in town, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for +himself, and his family history, and his money, and his will--all a +mystery to every one--and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of +the same mould and a lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life +until he was seventy-five years old, and then suddenly conceiving +(as it is supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave +his gold watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked +leisurely home to the Temple and hanged himself. + +But Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone to-night to ponder at his usual +length. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly +and uncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild, +shining man who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer +bids him fill his glass. + +"Now, Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "to go over this odd story +again." + +"If you please, sir." + +"You told me when you were so good as to step round here last +night--" + +"For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; +but I remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that +person, and I thought it possible that you might--just--wish--to--" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion or to +admit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr. +Snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "I must ask +you to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure." + +"Not at all," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "You told me, Snagsby, that +you put on your hat and came round without mentioning your +intention to your wife. That was prudent I think, because it's not +a matter of such importance that it requires to be mentioned." + +"Well, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby, "you see, my little woman is--not +to put too fine a point upon it--inquisitive. She's inquisitive. +Poor little thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to +have her mind employed. In consequence of which she employs it--I +should say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether +it concerns her or not--especially not. My little woman has a very +active mind, sir." + +Mr. Snagsby drinks and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his +hand, "Dear me, very fine wine indeed!" + +"Therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night?" says Mr. +Tulkinghorn. "And to-night too?" + +"Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in-- +not to put too fine a point on it--in a pious state, or in what she +considers such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the +name they go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He +has a great deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am +not quite favourable to his style myself. That's neither here nor +there. My little woman being engaged in that way made it easier +for me to step round in a quiet manner." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn assents. "Fill your glass, Snagsby." + +"Thank you, sir, I am sure," returns the stationer with his cough +of deference. "This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!" + +"It is a rare wine now," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It is fifty years +old." + +"Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. +It might be--any age almost." After rendering this general tribute +to the port, Mr. Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind +his hand for drinking anything so precious. + +"Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" asks Mr. +Tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty +smallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair. + +"With pleasure, sir." + +Then, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-stationer +repeats Jo's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. +On coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and +breaks off with, "Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other +gentleman present!" + +Mr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face +between himself and the lawyer at a little distance from the table, +a person with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he +himself came in and has not since entered by the door or by either +of the windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges have +not creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet this +third person stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and +stick in his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet +listener. He is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in +black, of about the middle-age. Except that he looks at Mr. +Snagsby as if he were going to take his portrait, there is nothing +remarkable about him at first sight but his ghostly manner of +appearing. + +"Don't mind this gentleman," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his quiet way. +"This is only Mr. Bucket." + +"Oh, indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough +that he is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be. + +"I wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because I have +half a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very +intelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?" + +"It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, +and he's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don't +object to go down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we +can have him here in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do +it without Mr. Snagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way." + +"Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby," says the lawyer in +explanation. + +"Is he indeed, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby with a strong tendency in his +clump of hair to stand on end. + +"And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the +place in question," pursues the lawyer, "I shall feel obliged to +you if you will do so." + +In a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr. Snagsby, Bucket dips +down to the bottom of his mind. + +"Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," he says. "You won't do +that. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only +bring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, +and he'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It'll be a +good job for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the +boy sent away all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you +an't going to do that." + +"Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!" cries Mr. Snagsby cheerfully. And +reassured, "Since that's the case--" + +"Yes! And lookee here, Mr. Snagsby," resumes Bucket, taking him +aside by the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and +speaking in a confidential tone. "You're a man of the world, you +know, and a man of business, and a man of sense. That's what YOU +are." + +"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns +the stationer with his cough of modesty, "but--" + +"That's what YOU are, you know," says Bucket. "Now, it an't +necessary to say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which +is a business of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and +have his senses about him and his head screwed on tight (I had an +uncle in your business once)--it an't necessary to say to a man +like you that it's the best and wisest way to keep little matters +like this quiet. Don't you see? Quiet!" + +"Certainly, certainly," returns the other. + +"I don't mind telling YOU," says Bucket with an engaging appearance +of frankness, "that as far as I can understand it, there seems to +be a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little +property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games +respecting that property, don't you see?" + +"Oh!" says Mr. Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly. + +"Now, what YOU want," pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr. Snagsby on +the breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, "is that every +person should have their rights according to justice. That's what +YOU want." + +"To be sure," returns Mr. Snagsby with a nod. + +"On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a--do you call +it, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle +used to call it." + +"Why, I generally say customer myself," replies Mr. Snagsby. + +"You're right!" returns Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him quite +affectionately. "--On account of which, and at the same time to +oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in +confidence, to Tom-all-Alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet +ever afterwards and never mention it to any one. That's about your +intentions, if I understand you?" + +"You are right, sir. You are right," says Mr. Snagsby. + +"Then here's your hat," returns his new friend, quite as intimate +with it as if he had made it; "and if you're ready, I am." + +They leave Mr. Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his +unfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into the +streets. + +"You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of +Gridley, do you?" says Bucket in friendly converse as they descend +the stairs. + +"No," says Mr. Snagsby, considering, "I don't know anybody of that +name. Why?" + +"Nothing particular," says Bucket; "only having allowed his temper +to get a little the better of him and having been threatening some +respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I +have got against him--which it's a pity that a man of sense should +do." + +As they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that +however quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some +undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is +going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed +purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, +sharply, at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a +police-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the +constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come +towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and +to gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind +some under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek +hair twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost +without glancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the +young man, looking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part +Mr. Bucket notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as +the great mourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, +composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he +wears in his shirt. + +When they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a +moment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the +constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own +particular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, +Mr. Snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, +undrained, unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water-- +though the roads are dry elsewhere--and reeking with such smells +and sights that he, who has lived in London all his life, can +scarce believe his senses. Branching from this street and its +heaps of ruins are other streets and courts so infamous that Mr. +Snagsby sickens in body and mind and feels as if he were going +every moment deeper down into the infernal gulf. + +"Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby," says Bucket as a kind of shabby +palanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. +"Here's the fever coming up the street!" + +As the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of +attraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of +horrible faces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind +walls, and with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, +thenceforth flits about them until they leave the place. + +"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr. Bucket coolly asks as he +turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins. + +Darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for +months and months, the people "have been down by dozens" and have +been carried out dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." Bucket +observing to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little +poorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe +the dreadful air. + +There is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named Jo. As few +people are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is +much reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the +Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or +the Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are +conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some +think it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is +produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby +and his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from +its squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. +Whenever they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away +and flits about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind +the walls, as before. + +At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough +Subject, lays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough +Subject may be Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the +proprietress of the house--a drunken face tied up in a black +bundle, and flaring out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog- +hutch which is her private apartment--leads to the establishment of +this conclusion. Toughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle +of stuff for a sick woman but will be here anon. + +"And who have we got here to-night?" says Mr. Bucket, opening +another door and glaring in with his bull's-eye. "Two drunken men, +eh? And two women? The men are sound enough," turning back each +sleeper's arm from his face to look at him. "Are these your good +men, my dears?" + +"Yes, sir," returns one of the women. "They are our husbands." + +"Brickmakers, eh?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"What are you doing here? You don't belong to London." + +"No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire." + +"Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?" + +"Saint Albans." + +"Come up on the tramp?" + +"We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present, +but we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I +expect." + +"That's not the way to do much good," says Mr. Bucket, turning his +head in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground. + +"It an't indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "Jenny and me +knows it full well." + +The room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low +that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the +blackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every +sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted +air. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of +table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women +sit by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken +is a very young child. + +"Why, what age do you call that little creature?" says Bucket. "It +looks as if it was born yesterday." He is not at all rough about +it; and as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is +strangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he +has seen in pictures. + +"He is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman. + +"Is he your child?" + +"Mine." + +The other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops +down again and kisses it as it lies asleep. + +"You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says +Mr. Bucket. + +"I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died." + +"Ah, Jenny, Jenny!" says the other woman to her. "Better so. Much +better to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!" + +"Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope," returns Bucket +sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?" + +"God knows you are right, master," she returns. "I am not. I'd +stand between it and death with my own life if I could, as true as +any pretty lady." + +"Then don't talk in that wrong manner," says Mr. Bucket, mollified +again. "Why do you do it?" + +"It's brought into my head, master," returns the woman, her eyes +filling with tears, "when I look down at the child lying so. If it +was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so. +I know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers--warn't +I, Jenny?--and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this +place. Look at them," glancing at the sleepers on the ground. +"Look at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good +turn. Think of the children that your business lays with often and +often, and that YOU see grow up!" + +"Well, well," says Mr. Bucket, "you train him respectable, and +he'll be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you +know." + +"I mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "But I have +been a-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the +ague, of all the many things that'll come in his way. My master +will be against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to +fear his home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever +so much, and ever so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he +should be turned bad 'spite of all I could do, and the time should +come when I should sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, +an't it likely I should think of him as he lies in my lap now and +wish he had died as Jenny's child died!" + +"There, there!" says Jenny. "Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me +take him." + +In doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly +readjusts it over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has +been lying. + +"It's my dead child," says Jenny, walking up and down as she +nurses, "that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead +child that makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its +being taken away from her now. While she thinks that, I think what +fortune would I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same +thing, if we knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor +hearts!" + +As Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a +step is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the +doorway and says to Mr. Snagsby, "Now, what do you say to Toughy? +Will HE do?" + +"That's Jo," says Mr. Snagsby. + +Jo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a +magic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the +law in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, +giving him the consolatory assurance, "It's only a job you will be +paid for, Jo," he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr. +Bucket for a little private confabulation, tells his tale +satisfactorily, though out of breath. + +"I have squared it with the lad," says Mr. Bucket, returning, "and +it's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you." + +First, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over +the physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic +verbal direction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." Secondly, +Mr. Snagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual +panacea for an immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket +has to take Jo by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on +before him, without which observance neither the Tough Subject nor +any other Subject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's +Inn Fields. These arrangements completed, they give the women good +night and come out once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's. + +By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, +they gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, +and skulking about them until they come to the verge, where +restoration of the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, +like a concourse of imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is +seen no more. Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so +clear and fresh to Mr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride +until they come to Mr. Tulkinghorn's gate. + +As they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on +the first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the +outer door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a +man so expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to +open the door and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a +note of preparation. + +Howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning, +and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room--the room where he drank +his old wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned +candlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light. + +Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing +to Mr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a +little way into this room, when Jo starts and stops. + +"What's the matter?" says Bucket in a whisper. + +"There she is!" cries Jo. + +"Who!" + +"The lady!" + +A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room, +where the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The +front of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of +their entrance and remains like a statue. + +"Now, tell me," says Bucket aloud, "how you know that to be the +lady." + +"I know the wale," replies Jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the +gownd." + +"Be quite sure of what you say, Tough," returns Bucket, narrowly +observant of him. "Look again." + +"I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look," says Jo with starting +eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd." + +"What about those rings you told me of?" asks Bucket. + +"A-sparkling all over here," says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his +left hand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from +the figure. + +The figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand. + +"Now, what do you say to that?" asks Bucket. + +Jo shakes his head. "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like +that." + +"What are you talking of?" says Bucket, evidently pleased though, +and well pleased too. + +"Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller," +returns Jo. + +"Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next," says Mr. Bucket. "Do +you recollect the lady's voice?" + +"I think I does," says Jo. + +The figure speaks. "Was it at all like this? I will speak as long +as you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like +this voice?" + +Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. "Not a bit!" + +"Then, what," retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, "did you +say it was the lady for?" + +"Cos," says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all +shaken in his certainty, "cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, +and the gownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor +yet her rings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the +bonnet, and the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore +'em, and it's her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and +hooked it." + +"Well!" says Mr. Bucket slightly, "we haven't got much good out of +YOU. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how +you spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." Bucket +stealthily tells the coins from one hand into the other like +counters--which is a way he has, his principal use of them being in +these games of skill--and then puts them, in a little pile, into +the boy's hand and takes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby, +not by any means comfortable under these mysterious circumstances, +alone with the veiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into +the room, the veil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking +Frenchwoman is revealed, though her expression is something of the +intensest. + +"Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his +usual equanimity. "I will give you no further trouble about this +little wager." + +"You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at +present placed?" says mademoiselle. + +"Certainly, certainly!" + +"And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished +recommendation?" + +"By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense." + +"A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful." + +"It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle." + +"Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir." + +"Good night." + +Mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr. +Bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of +the ceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, +not without gallantry. + +"Well, Bucket?" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return. + +"It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There +an't a doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. +The boy was exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, +I promised you as a man that he should be sent away all right. +Don't say it wasn't done!" + +"You have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if I +can be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little +woman will be getting anxious--" + +"Thank you, Snagsby, no further use," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am +quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already." + +"Not at all, sir. I wish you good night." + +"You see, Mr. Snagsby," says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the +door and shaking hands with him over and over again, "what I like +in you is that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what YOU +are. When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, +and it's done with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what +YOU do." + +"That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir," returns Mr. +Snagsby. + +"No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavour to +do," says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in +the tenderest manner, "it's what you DO. That's what I estimate in +a man in your way of business." + +Mr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused +by the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake +and out--doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he +goes--doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. +He is presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable +reality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect +beehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched Guster to +the police-station with official intelligence of her husband's +being made away with, and who within the last two hours has passed +through every stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But as +the little woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it! + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Esther's Narrative + + +We came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were +often in the park and in the woods and seldom passed the lodge +where we had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the +keeper's wife; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church +on Sundays. There was company at Chesney Wold; and although +several beautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same +influence on me as at first. I do not quite know even now whether +it was painful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or +made me shrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of +fear, and I know that in her presence my thoughts always wandered +back, as they had done at first, to that old time of my life. + +I had a fancy, on more than one of these Sundays, that what this +lady so curiously was to me, I was to her--I mean that I disturbed +her thoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. +But when I stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and +distant and unapproachable, I felt this to be a foolish weakness. +Indeed, I felt the whole state of my mind in reference to her to be +weak and unreasonable, and I remonstrated with myself about it as +much as I could. + +One incident that occurred before we quitted Mr. Boythorn's house, +I had better mention in this place. + +I was walking in the garden with Ada and when I was told that some +one wished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room where this +person was waiting, I found it to be the French maid who had cast +off her shoes and walked through the wet grass on the day when it +thundered and lightened. + +"Mademoiselle," she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager +eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and +speaking neither with boldness nor servility, "I have taken a great +liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so +amiable, mademoiselle." + +"No excuse is necessary," I returned, "if you wish to speak to me." + +"That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the +permission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?" she said in a +quick, natural way. + +"Certainly," said I. + +"Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I +have left my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so +very high. Pardon! Mademoiselle, you are right!" Her quickness +anticipated what I might have said presently but as yet had only +thought. "It is not for me to come here to complain of my Lady. +But I say she is so high, so very high. I will not say a word +more. All the world knows that." + +"Go on, if you please," said I. + +"Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness. +Mademoiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a +young lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. You are good, +accomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the +honour of being your domestic!" + +"I am sorry--" I began. + +"Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!" she said with an +involuntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. "Let me hope a +moment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired +than that which I have quitted. Well! I wish that. I know this +service would be less distinguished than that which I have quitted. +Well! I wish that, I know that I should win less, as to wages here. +Good. I am content." + +"I assure you," said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of +having such an attendant, "that I keep no maid--" + +"Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? Why not, when you can have one so +devoted to you! Who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be +so true, so zealous, and so faithful every day! Mademoiselle, I +wish with all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at +present. Take me as I am. For nothing!" + +She was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of +her. Without appearing to notice it, in her ardour she still +pressed herself upon me, speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though +always with a certain grace and propriety. + +"Mademoiselle, I come from the South country where we are quick and +where we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for +me; I was too high for her. It is done--past--finlshed! Receive +me as your domestic, and I will serve you well. I will do more for +you than you figure to yourself now. Chut! Mademoiselle, I will-- +no matter, I will do my utmost possible in all things. If you +accept my service, you will not repent it. Mademoiselle, you will +not repent it, and I will serve you well. You don't know how +well!" + +There was a lowering energy in her face as she stood looking at me +while I explained the impossibility of my engagmg her (without +thinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so), +which seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets +of Paris in the reign of terror. + +She heard me out without interruption and then said with her pretty +accent and in her mildest voice, "Hey, mademoiselle, I have +received my answer! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere and +seek what I have not found here. Will you graciously let me kiss +your hand?" + +She looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take +note, with her momentary touch, of every vein in it. "I fear I +surprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?" she said +with a parting curtsy. + +I confessed that she had surprised us all. + +"I took an oath, mademoiselle," she said, smiling, "and I wanted to +stamp it on my mind so that I might keep it faithfully. And I +will! Adieu, mademoiselle!" + +So ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close. +I supposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more; +and nothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures +until six weeks were out and we returned home as I began just now +by saying. + +At that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, Richard +was constant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or +Sunday and remaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes +rode out on horseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us +and rode back again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever +and told us he was very industrious, but I was not easy in my mind +about him. It appeared to me that his industry was all +misdirected. I could not find that it led to anything but the +formation of delusive hopes in connexion with the suit already the +pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin. He had got at the +core of that mystery now, he told us, and nothing could be plainer +than that the will under which he and Ada were to take I don't know +how many thousands of pounds must be finally established if there +were any sense or justice in the Court of Chancery--but oh, what a +great IF that sounded in my ears--and that this happy conclusion +could not be much longer delayed. He proved this to himself by all +the weary arguments on that side he had read, and every one of them +sunk him deeper in the infatuation. He had even begun to haunt the +court. He told us how he saw Miss Flite there daily, how they +talked together, and how he did her little kindnesses, and how, +while he laughed at her, he pitied her from his heart. But he +never thought--never, my poor, dear, sanguine Richard, capable of +so much happiness then, and with such better things before him-- +what a fatal link was riveting between his fresh youth and her +faded age, between his free hopes and her caged birds, and her +hungry garret, and her wandering mind. + +Ada loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or +did, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east +wind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict +silence on the subject. So I thought one day when I went to London +to meet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Richard to +be in waiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a +little talk together. I found him there when I arrived, and we +walked away arm in arm. + +"Well, Richard," said I as soon as I could begin to be grave with +him, "are you beginning to feel more settled now?" + +"Oh, yes, my dear!" returned Richard. "I'm all right enough." + +"But settled?" said I. + +"How do you mean, settled?" returned Richard with his gay laugh. + +"Settled in the law," said I. + +"Oh, aye," replied Richard, "I'm all right enough." + +"You said that before, my dear Richard." + +"And you don't think it's an answer, eh? Well! Perhaps it's not. +Settled? You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?" + +"Yes." + +"Why, no, I can't say I am settling down," said Richard, strongly +emphasizing "down," as if that expressed the difficulty, "because +one can't settle down while this business remains in such an +unsettled state. When I say this business, of course I mean the-- +forbidden subject." + +"Do you think it will ever be in a settled state?" said I. + +"Not the least doubt of it," answered Richard. + +We walked a little way without speaking, and presently Richard +addressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus: "My +dear Esther, I understand you, and I wish to heaven I were a more +constant sort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love +her dearly--better and better every day--but constant to myself. +(Somehow, I mean something that I can't very well express, but +you'll make it out.) If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I +should have held on either to Badger or to Kenge and Carboy like +grim death, and should have begun to be steady and systematic by +this time, and shouldn't be in debt, and--" + +"ARE you in debt, Richard?" + +"Yes," said Richard, "I am a little so, my dear. Also, I have +taken rather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. Now the +murder's out; you despise me, Esther, don't you?" + +"You know I don't," said I. + +"You are kinder to me than I often am to myself," he returned. "My +dear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, +but how CAN I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished +house, you couldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to +leave everything you undertook unfinished, you would find it hard +to apply yourself to anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I +was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and +changes, and it began to unsettle me before I quite knew the +difference between a suit at law and a suit of clothes; and it has +gone on unsettling me ever since; and here I am now, conscious +sometimes that I am but a worthless fellow to love my confiding +cousin Ada." + +We were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes +and sobbed as he said the words. + +"Oh, Richard!" said I. "Do not be so moved. You have a noble +nature, and Ada's love may make you worthier every day." + +"I know, my dear," he replied, pressing my arm, "I know all that. +You mustn't mind my being a little soft now, for I have had all +this upon my mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to +you, and have sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage. +I know what the thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't +do it. I am too unsettled even for that. I love her most +devotedly, and yet I do her wrong, in doing myself wrong, every day +and hour. But it can't last for ever. We shall come on for a +final hearing and get judgment in our favour, and then you and Ada +shall see what I can really be!" + +It had given me a pang to hear him sob and see the tears start out +between his fingers, but that was infinitely less affecting to me +than the hopeful animation with which he said these words. + +"I have looked well into the papers, Esther. I have been deep in +them for months," he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a +moment, "and you may rely upon it that we shall come out +triumphant. As to years of delay, there has been no want of them, +heaven knows! And there is the greater probability of our bringing +the matter to a speedy close; in fact, it's on the paper now. It +will be all right at last, and then you shall see!" + +Recalling how he had just now placed Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in +the same category with Mr. Badger, I asked him when he intended to +be articled in Lincoln's Inn. + +"There again! I think not at all, Esther," he returned with an +effort. "I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at +Jarndyce and Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst +for the law and satisfied myself that I shouldn't like it. +Besides, I find it unsettles me more and more to be so constantly +upon the scene of action. So what," continued Richard, confident +again by this time, "do I naturally turn my thoughts to?" + +"I can't imagine," said I. + +"Don't look so serious," returned Richard, "because it's the best +thing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I +wanted a profession for life. These proceedings will come to a +termination, and then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a +pursuit which is in its nature more or less unsettled, and +therefore suited to my temporary condition--I may say, precisely +suited. What is it that I naturally turn my thoughts to?" + +I looked at him and shook my head. + +"What," said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, "but the +army!" + +"The army?" said I. + +"The army, of course. What I have to do is to get a commission; +and--there I am, you know!" said Richard. + +And then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his +pocket-book, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred +pounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he +contracted no debt at all within a corresponding period in the +army--as to which he had quite made up his mind; this step must +involve a saving of four hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand +pounds in five years, which was a considerable sum. And then he +spoke so ingenuously and sincerely of the sacrifice he made in +withdrawing himself for a time from Ada, and of the earnestness +with which he aspired--as in thought he always did, I know full +well--to repay her love, and to ensure her happiness, and to +conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire the very soul of +decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely. For, I +thought, how would this end, how could this end, when so soon and +so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal blight +that ruined everything it rested on! + +I spoke to Richard with all the earnestness I felt, and all the +hope I could not quite feel then, and implored him for Ada's sake +not to put any trust in Chancery. To all I said, Richard readily +assented, riding over the court and everything else in his easy way +and drawing the brightest pictures of the character he was to +settle into--alas, when the grievous suit should loose its hold +upon him! We had a long talk, but it always came back to that, in +substance. + +At last we came to Soho Square, where Caddy Jellyby had appointed +to wait for me, as a quiet place in the neighbourhood of Newman +Street. Caddy was in the garden in the centre and hurried out as +soon as I appeared. After a few cheerful words, Richard left us +together. + +"Prince has a pupil over the way, Esther," said Caddy, "and got the +key for us. So if you will walk round and round here with me, we +can lock ourselves in and I can tell you comfortably what I wanted +to see your dear good face about." + +"Very well, my dear," said I. "Nothing could be better." So +Caddy, after affectionately squeezing the dear good face as she +called it, locked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk +round the garden very cosily. + +"You see, Esther," said Caddy, who thoroughly enjoyed a little +confidence, "after you spoke to me about its being wrong to marry +without Ma's knowledge, or even to keep Ma long in the dark +respecting our engagement--though I don't believe Ma cares much for +me, I must say--I thought it right to mention your opinions to +Prince. In the first place because I want to profit by everything +you tell me, and in the second place because I have no secrets from +Prince." + +"I hope he approved, Caddy?" + +"Oh, my dear! I assure you he would approve of anything you could +say. You have no idea what an opimon he has of you!" + +"Indeed!" + +"Esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous," said Caddy, +laughing and shaking her head; "but it only makes me joyful, for +you are the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can +have, and nobody can respect and love you too much to please me." + +"Upon my word, Caddy," said I, "you are in the general conspiracy +to keep me in a good humour. Well, my dear?" + +"Well! I am going to tell you," replied Caddy, crossing her hands +confidentially upon my arm. "So we talked a good deal about it, +and so I said to Prince, 'Prince, as Miss Summerson--" + +"I hope you didn't say 'Miss Summerson'?" + +"No. I didn't!" cried Caddy, greatly pleased and with the +brightest of faces. "I said, 'Esther.' I said to Prince, 'As +Esther is decidedly of that opinion, Prince, and has expressed it +to me, and always hints it when she writes those kind notes, which +you are so fond of hearing me read to you, I am prepared to +disclose the truth to Ma whenever you think proper. And I think, +Prince,' said I, 'that Esther thinks that I should be in a better, +and truer, and more honourable position altogether if you did the +same to your papa.'" + +"Yes, my dear," said I. "Esther certainly does think so." + +"So I was right, you see!" exclaimed Caddy. "Well! This troubled +Prince a good deal, not because he had the least doubt about it, +but because he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr. +Turveydrop; and he had his apprehensions that old Mr. Turveydrop +might break his heart, or faint away, or be very much overcome in +some affecting manner or other if he made such an announcement. He +feared old Mr. Turveydrop might consider it undutiful and might +receive too great a shock. For old Mr. Turveydrop's deportment is +very beautiful, you know, Esther," said Caddy, "and his feelings +are extremely sensitive." + +"Are they, my dear?" + +"Oh, extremely sensitive. Prince says so. Now, this has caused my +darling child--I didn't mean to use the expression to you, Esther," +Caddy apologized, her face suffused with blushes, "but I generally +call Prince my darling child." + +I laughed; and Caddy laughed and blushed, and went on' + +"This has caused him, Esther--" + +"Caused whom, my dear?" + +"Oh, you tiresome thing!" said Caddy, laughing, with her pretty +face on fire. "My darling child, if you insist upon it! This has +caused him weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to +day, in a very anxious manner. At last he said to me, 'Caddy, if +Miss Summerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be +prevailed upon to be present when I broke the subject, I think I +could do it.' So I promised I would ask you. And I made up my +mind, besides," said Caddy, looking at me hopefully but timidly, +"that if you consented, I would ask you afterwards to come with me +to Ma. This is what I meant when I said in my note that I had a +great favour and a great assistance to beg of you. And if you +thought you could grant it, Esther, we should both be very +grateful." + +"Let me see, Caddy," said I, pretending to consider. "Really, I +think I could do a greater thing than that if the need were +pressing. I am at your service and the darling child's, my dear, +whenever you like." + +Caddy was quite transported by this reply of mine, being, I +believe, as susceptible to the least kindness or encouragement as +any tender heart that ever beat in this world; and after another +turn or two round the garden, during which she put on an entirely +new pair of gloves and made herself as resplendent as possible that +she might do no avoidable discredit to the Master of Deportment, we +went to Newman Street direct. + +Prince was teaching, of course. We found him engaged with a not +very hopeful pupil--a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead, a +deep voice, and an inanimate, dissatisfied mama--whose case was +certainly not rendered more hopeful by the confusion into which we +threw her preceptor. The lesson at last came to an end, after +proceeding as discordantly as possible; and when the little girl +had changed her shoes and had had her white muslin extinguished in +shawls, she was taken away. After a few words of preparation, we +then went in search of Mr. Turveydrop, whom we found, grouped with +his hat and gloves, as a model of deportment, on the sofa in his +private apartment--the only comfortable room in the house. He +appeared to have dressed at his leisure in the intervals of a light +collation, and his dressing-case, brushes, and so forth, all of +quite an elegant kind, lay about. + +"Father, Miss Summerson; Miss Jellyby." + +"Charmed! Enchanted!" said Mr. Turveydrop, rising with his high- +shouldered bow. "Permit me!" Handing chairs. "Be seated!" +Kissing the tips of his left fingers. "Overjoyed!" Shutting his +eyes and rolling. "My little retreat is made a paradise." +Recomposing himself on the sofa like the second gentleman in +Europe. + +"Again you find us, Miss Summerson," said he, "using our little +arts to polish, polish! Again the sex stimulates us and rewards us +by the condescension of its lovely presence. It is much in these +times (and we have made an awfully degenerating business of it +since the days of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent--my patron, +if I may presume to say so) to experience that deportment is not +wholly trodden under foot by mechanics. That it can yet bask in +the smile of beauty, my dear madam." + +I said nothing, which I thought a suitable reply; and he took a +pinch of snuff. + +"My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "you have four schools this +afternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich." + +"Thank you, father," returned Prince, "I will be sure to be +punctual. My dear father, may I beg you to prepare your mind for +what I am going to say?" + +"Good heaven!" exclaimed the model, pale and aghast as Prince and +Caddy, hand in hand, bent down before him. "What is this? Is this +lunacy! Or what is this?" + +"Father," returned Prince with great submission, "I love this young +lady, and we are engaged." + +"Engaged!" cried Mr. Turveydrop, reclining on the sofa and shutting +out the sight with his hand. "An arrow launched at my brain by my +own child!" + +"We have been engaged for some time, father," faltered Prince, "and +Miss Summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the +fact to you and was so very kind as to attend on the present +occasion. Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, +father." + +Mr. Turveydrop uttered a groan. + +"No, pray don't! Pray don't, father," urged his son. "Miss +Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, and our first +desire is to consider your comfort." + +Mr. Turveydrop sobbed. + +"No, pray don't, father!" cried his son. + +"Boy," said Mr. Turveydrop, "it is well that your sainted mother is +spared this pang. Strike deep, and spare not. Strike home, sir, +strike home!" + +"Pray don't say so, father," implored Prince, in tears. "It goes +to my heart. I do assure you, father, that our first wish and +intention is to consider your comfort. Caroline and I do not +forget our duty--what is my duty is Caroline's, as we have often +said together--and with your approval and consent, father, we will +devote ourselves to making your life agreeable." + +"Strike home," murmured Mr. Turveydrop. "Strike home!" But he +seemed to listen, I thought, too. + +"My dear father," returned Prince, "we well know what little +comforts you are accustomed to and have a right to, and it will +always be our study and our pride to provide those before anything. +If you will bless us with your approval and consent, father, we +shall not think of being married until it is quite agreeable to +you; and when we ARE married, we shall always make you--of course-- +our first consideration. You must ever be the head and master +here, father; and we feel how truly unnatural it would be in us if +we failed to know it or if we failed to exert ourselves in every +possible way to please you." + +Mr. Turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle and came +upright on the sofa again with his cheeks puffing over his stiff +cravat, a perfect model of parental deportment. + +"My son!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "My children! I cannot resist your +prayer. Be happy!" + +His benignity as he raised his future daughter-in-law and stretched +out his hand to his son (who kissed it with affectionate respect +and gratitude) was the most confusing sight I ever saw. + +"My children," said Mr. Turveydrop, paternally encircling Caddy +with his left arm as she sat beside him, and putting his right hand +gracefully on his hip. "My son and daughter, your happiness shall +be my care. I will watch over you. You shall always live with +me"--meaning, of course, I will always live with you--"this house +is henceforth as much yours as mine; consider it your home. May +you long live to share it with me!" + +The power of his deportment was such that they really were as much +overcome with thankfulness as if, instead of quartering himself +upon them for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent +sacrifice in their favour. + +"For myself, my children," said Mr. Turveydrop, "I am falling into +the sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the +last feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger in this +weaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to +society and will show myself, as usual, about town. My wants are +few and simple. My little apartment here, my few essentials for +the toilet, my frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will +suffice. I charge your dutiful affection with the supply of these +requirements, and I charge myself with all the rest." + +They were overpowered afresh by his uncommon generosity. + +"My son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "for those little points in which +you are deficient--points of deportment, which are born with a man, +which may be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated-- +you may still rely on me. I have been faithful to my post since +the days of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and I will not +desert it now. No, my son. If you have ever contemplated your +father's poor position with a feeling of pride, you may rest +assured that he will do nothing to tarnish it. For yourself, +Prince, whose character is different (we cannot be all alike, nor +is it advisable that we should), work, be industrious, earn money, +and extend the connexion as much as possible." + +"That you may depend I will do, dear father, with all my heart," +replied Prince. + +"I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Turveydrop. "Your qualities are +not shining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to +both of you, my children, I would merely observe, in the spirit of +a sainted wooman on whose path I had the happiness of casting, I +believe, SOME ray of light, take care of the establishment, take +care of my simple wants, and bless you both!" + +Old Mr. Turveydrop then became so very gallant, in honour of the +occasion, that I told Caddy we must really go to Thavies Inn at +once if we were to go at all that day. So we took our departure +after a very loving farewell between Caddy and her betrothed, and +during our walk she was so happy and so full of old Mr. +Turveydrop's praises that I would not have said a word in his +disparagement for any consideration. + +The house in Thavies Inn had bills in the windows annoucing that it +was to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier and ghastlier than +ever. The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of +bankrupts but a day or two before, and he was shut up in the +dining-room with two gentlemen and a heap of blue bags, account- +books, and papers, making the most desperate endeavours to +understand his affairs. They appeared to me to be quite beyond his +comprehension, for when Caddy took me into the dining-room by +mistake and we came upon Mr. Jellyby in his spectacles, forlornly +fenced into a corner by the great dining-table and the two +gentlemen, he seemed to have given up the whole thing and to be +speechless and insensible. + +Going upstairs to Mrs. Jellyby's room (the children were all +screaming in the kitchen, and there was no servant to be seen), we +found that lady in the midst of a voluminous correspondence, +opening, reading, and sorting letters, with a great accumulation of +torn covers on the floor. She was so preoccupied that at first she +did not know me, though she sat looking at me with that curious, +bright-eyed, far-off look of hers. + +"Ah! Miss Summerson!" she said at last. "I was thinking of +something so different! I hope you are well. I am happy to see +you. Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Clare quite well?" + +I hoped in return that Mr. Jellyby was quite well. + +"Why, not quite, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby in the calmest manner. +"He has been unfortunate in his affairs and is a little out of +spirits. Happily for me, I am so much engaged that I have no time +to think about it. We have, at the present moment, one hundred and +seventy families, Miss Summerson, averaging five persons in each, +either gone or going to the left bank of the Niger." + +I thought of the one family so near us who were neither gone nor +going to the left bank of the Niger, and wondered how she could be +so placid. + +"You have brought Caddy back, I see," observed Mrs. Jellyby with a +glance at her daughter. "It has become quite a novelty to see her +here. She has almost deserted her old employment and in fact +obliges me to employ a boy." + +"I am sure, Ma--" began Caddy. + +"Now you know, Caddy," her mother mildly interposed, "that I DO +employ a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your +contradicting?" + +"I was not going to contradict, Ma," returned Caddy. "I was only +going to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all +my life." + +"I believe, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters, +casting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as +she spoke, "that you have a business example before you in your +mother. Besides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the +destinies of the human race, it would raise you high above any such +idea. But you have none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have +no such sympathy." + +"Not if it's Africa, Ma, I have not." + +"Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much +engaged, Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, sweetly casting her +eyes for a moment on me and considering where to put the particular +letter she had just opened, "this would distress and disappoint me. +But I have so much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha +and it is so necessary I should concentrate myself that there is my +remedy, you see." + +As Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as Mrs. Jellyby was +looking far away into Africa straight through my bonnet and head, I +thought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit +and to attract Mrs. Jellyby's attention. + +"Perhaps," I began, "you will wonder what has brought me here to +interrupt you." + +"I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, +pursuing her employment with a placid smile. "Though I wish," and +she shook her head, "she was more interested in the Borrioboolan +project." + +"I have come with Caddy," said I, "because Caddy justly thinks she +ought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies I shall +encourage and aid her (though I am sure I don't know how) in +imparting one." + +"Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation +and then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, "you are +going to tell me some nonsense." + +Caddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and +letting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily, +said, "Ma, I am engaged." + +"Oh, you ridiculous child!" observed Mrs. Jellyby with an +abstracted air as she looked over the dispatch last opened; "what a +goose you are!" + +"I am engaged, Ma," sobbed Caddy, "to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the +academy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man +indeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you'll give us +yours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never, +never could!" sobbed Caddy, quite forgetful of her general +complainings and of everything but her natural affection. + +"You see again, Miss Summerson," observed Mrs. Jellyby serenely, +"what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am and to have +this necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is Caddy +engaged to a dancing-master's son--mixed up with people who have no +more sympathy with the destinies of the human race than she has +herself! This, too, when Mr. Quale, one of the first +philanthropists of our time, has mentioned to me that he was really +disposed to be interested in her!" + +"Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!" sobbed Caddy. + +"Caddy, Caddy!" returned Mrs. Jellyby, opening another letter with +the greatest complacency. "I have no doubt you did. How could you +do otherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which +he overflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child +to me, if I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale, +these petty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But +can I permit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy +(from whom I expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the +great African continent? No. No," repeated Mrs. Jellyby in a calm +clear voice, and with an agreeable smile, as she opened more +letters and sorted them. "No, indeed." + +I was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception, +though I might have expected it, that I did not know what to say. +Caddy seemed equally at a loss. Mrs. Jellyby continued to open and +sort letters and to repeat occasionally in quite a charming tone of +voice and with a smile of perfect composure, "No, indeed." + +"I hope, Ma," sobbed poor Caddy at last, "you are not angry?" + +"Oh, Caddy, you really are an absurd girl," returned Mrs. Jellyby, +"to ask such questions after what I have said of the preoccupation +of my mind." + +"And I hope, Ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?" said +Caddy. + +"You are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind," +said Mrs. Jellyby; "and a degenerate child, when you might have +devoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is +taken, and I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. +Now, pray, Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, for Caddy was kissing her, +"don't delay me in my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch +of papers before the afternoon post comes in!" + +I thought I could not do better than take my leave; I was detained +for a moment by Caddy's saying, "You won't object to my bringing +him to see you, Ma?" + +"Oh, dear me, Caddy," cried Mrs. Jellyby, who had relapsed into +that distant contemplation, "have you begun again? Bring whom?" + +"Him, Ma." + +"Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little +matters. "Then you must bring him some evening which is not a +Parent Society night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night. +You must accommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My +dear Miss Summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help +out this silly chit. Good-bye! When I tell you that I have fifty- +eight new letters from manufacturing families anxious to understand +the details of the native and coffee-cultivation question this +morning, I need not apologize for having very little leisure." + +I was not surprised by Caddy's being in low spirits when we went +downstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying +she would far rather have been scolded than treated with such +indifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in +clothes that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn't +know. I gradually cheered her up by dwelling on the many things +she would do for her unfortunate father and for Peepy when she had +a home of her own; and finally we went downstairs into the damp +dark kitchen, where Peepy and his little brothers and sisters were +grovelling on the stone floor and where we had such a game of play +with them that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces I +was obliged to fall back on my fairy-tales. From time to time I +heard loud voices in the parlour overhead, and occasionally a +violent tumbling about of the furniture. The last effect I am +afraid was caused by poor Mr. Jellyby's breaking away from the +dining-table and making rushes at the window with the intention of +throwing himself into the area whenever he made any new attempt to +understand his affairs. + +As I rode quietly home at night after the day's bustle, I thought a +good deal of Caddy's engagement and felt confirmed in my hopes (in +spite of the elder Mr. Turveydrop) that she would be the happier +and better for it. And if there seemed to be but a slender chance +of her and her husband ever finding out what the model of +deportment really was, why that was all for the best too, and who +would wish them to be wiser? I did not wish them to be any wiser +and indeed was half ashamed of not entirely believing in him +myself. And I looked up at the stars, and thought about travellers +in distant countries and the stars THEY saw, and hoped I might +always be so blest and happy as to be useful to some one in my +small way. + +They were so glad to see me when I got home, as they always were, +that I could have sat down and cried for joy if that had not been a +method of making myself disagreeable. Everybody in the house, from +the lowest to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome, +and spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that +I suppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the +world. + +We got into such a chatty state that night, through Ada and my +guardian drawing me out to tell them all about Caddy, that I went +on prose, prose, prosing for a length of time. At last I got up to +my own room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth, and +then I heard a soft tap at my door. So I said, "Come in!" and +there came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who +dropped a curtsy. + +"If you please, miss," said the little girl in a soft voice, "I am +Charley." + +"Why, so you are," said I, stooping down in astonishment and giving +her a kiss. "How glad am I to see you, Charley!" + +"If you please, miss," pursued Charley in the same soft voice, "I'm +your maid." + +"Charley?" + +"If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's +love." + +I sat down with my hand on Charley's neck and looked at Charley. + +"And oh, miss," says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears +starting down her dimpled cheeks, "Tom's at school, if you please, +and learning so good! And little Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder, +miss, a-being took such care of! And Tom, he would have been at +school--and Emma, she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder--and +me, I should have been here--all a deal sooner, miss; only Mr. +Jarndyce thought that Tom and Emma and me had better get a little +used to parting first, we was so small. Don't cry, if you please, +miss!" + +"I can't help it, Charley." + +"No, miss, nor I can't help it," says Charley. "And if you please, +miss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me +now and then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see +each other once a month. And I'm so happy and so thankful, miss," +cried Charley with a heaving heart, "and I'll try to be such a good +maid!" + +"Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all this!" + +"No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won't. Nor yet Emma. It was all +you, miss." + +"I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley." + +"Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you and that you +might be my mistress. If you please, miss, I am a little present +with his love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom +was to be sure to remember it." + +Charley dried her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her +matronly little way about and about the room and folding up +everything she could lay her hands upon. Presently Charley came +creeping back to my side and said, "Oh, don't cry, if you please, +miss." + +And I said again, "I can't help it, Charley." + +And Charley said again, "No, miss, nor I can't help it." And so, +after all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +An Appeal Case + + +As soon as Richard and I had held the conversation of which I have +given an account, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr. +Jarndyce. I doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise +when he received the representation, though it caused him much +uneasiness and disappointment. He and Richard were often closeted +together, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole +days in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, +and laboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. While +they were thus employed, my guardian, though he underwent +considerable inconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed +his head so constantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested +in its right place, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other +time, but maintained a steady reserve on these matters. And as our +utmost endeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping +assurances that everything was going on capitally and that it +really was all right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by +him. + +We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was +made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as an infant and a +ward, and I don't know what, and that there was a quantity of +talking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court +as a vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was +adjourned and readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and +petitioned about until Richard began to doubt (as he told us) +whether, if he entered the army at all, it would not be as a +veteran of seventy or eighty years of age. At last an appointment +was made for him to see the Lord Chancellor again in his private +room, and there the Lord Chancellor very seriously reproved him for +trifling with time and not knowing his mind--"a pretty good joke, I +think," said Richard, "from that quarter!"--and at last it was +settled that his application should be granted. His name was +entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for an ensign's +commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an agent's; and +Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a violent +course of military study and got up at five o'clock every morning +to practise the broadsword exercise. + +Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We +sometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce as being in the paper or +out of the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be +spoken to; and it came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now +in a professor's house in London, was able to be with us less +frequently than before; my guardian still maintained the same +reserve; and so time passed until the commission was obtained and +Richard received directions with it to join a regiment in Ireland. + +He arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a +long conference with my guardian. Upwards of an hour elapsed +before my guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were +sitting and said, "Come in, my dears!" We went in and found +Richard, whom we had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the +chimney-piece looking mortified and angry. + +"Rick and I, Ada," said Mr. Jarndyce, "are not quite of one mind. +Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!" + +"You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "The harder +because you have been so considerate to me in all other respects +and have done me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never +could have been set right without you, sir." + +"Well, well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "I want to set you more right +yet. I want to set you more right with yourself." + +"I hope you will excuse my saying, sir," returned Richard in a +fiery way, but yet respectfully, "that I think I am the best judge +about myself." + +"I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick," observed Mr. +Jarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, "that's +it's quite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so. I +must do my duty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool +blood; and I hope you will always care for me, cool and hot." + +Ada had turned so pale that he made her sit down in his reading- +chair and sat beside her. + +"It's nothing, my dear," he said, "it's nothing. Rick and I have +only had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you +are the theme. Now you are afraid of what's coming." + +"I am not indeed, cousin John," replied Ada with a smile, "if it is +to come from you." + +"Thank you, my dear. Do you give me a minute's calm attention, +without looking at Rick. And, little woman, do you likewise. My +dear girl," putting his hand on hers as it lay on the side of the +easy-chair, "you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little +woman told me of a little love affair?" + +"It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your +kindness that day, cousin John." + +"I can never forget it," said Richard. + +"And I can never forget it," said Ada. + +"So much the easier what I have to say, and so much the easier for +us to agree," returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the +gentleness and honour of his heart. "Ada, my bird, you should know +that Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. All +that he has of certainty will be expended when he is fully +equipped. He has exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward +to the tree he has planted." + +"Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am +quite content to know it. But what I have of certainty, sir," said +Richard, "is not all I have." + +"Rick, Rick!" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner, +and in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would +have stopped his ears. "For the love of God, don't found a hope or +expectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the +grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom +that has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to +beg, better to die!" + +We were all startled by the fervour of this warning. Richard bit +his lip and held his breath, and glanced at me as if he felt, and +knew that I felt too, how much he needed it. + +"Ada, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness, +"these are strong words of advice, but I live in Bleak House and +have seen a sight here. Enough of that. All Richard had to start +him in the race of life is ventured. I recommend to him and you, +for his sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the +understanding that there is no sort of contract between you. I +must go further. 1 will be plain with you both. You were to +confide freely in me, and I will confide freely in you. I ask you +wholly to relinquish, for the present, any tie but your +relationship." + +"Better to say at once, sir," returned Richard, "that you renounce +all confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same." + +"Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it." + +"You think I have begun ill, sir," retorted Richard. "I HAVE, I +know." + +"How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we +spoke of these things last," said Mr. Jarndyce in a cordial and +encouraging manner. "You have not made that beginning yet, but +there is a time for all things, and yours is not gone by; rather, +it is just now fully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You +two (very young, my dears) are cousins. As yet, you are nothing +more. What more may come must come of being worked out, Rick, and +no sooner." + +"You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "Harder than I +could have supposed you would be." + +"My dear boy," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am harder with myself when I +do anything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own +hands. Ada, it is better for him that he should be free and that +there should be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is +better for her, much better; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you +will do what is best for the other, if not what is best for +yourselves." + +"Why is it best, sir?" returned Richard hastily. "It was not when +we opened our hearts to you. You did not say so then." + +"I have had experience since. I don't blame you, Rick, but I have +had experience since." + +"You mean of me, sir." + +"Well! Yes, of both of you," said Mr. Jarndyce kindly. "The time +is not come for your standing pledged to one another. It is not +right, and I must not recognize it. Come, come, my young cousins, +begin afresh! Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for +you to write your lives in." + +Richard gave an anxious glance at Ada but said nothing. + +"I have avoided saying one word to either of you or to Esther," +said Mr. Jarndyce, "until now, in order that we might be open as +the day, and all on equal terms. I now affectionately advise, I +now most earnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here. +Leave all else to time, truth, and steadfastness. If you do +otherwise, you will do wrong, and you will have made me do wrong in +ever bringing you together." + +A long silence succeeded. + +"Cousin Richard," said Ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to +his face, "after what our cousin John has said, I think no choice +is left us. Your mind may he quite at ease about me, for you will +leave me here under his care and will be sure that I can have +nothing to wish for--quite sure if I guide myself by his advice. +I--I don't doubt, cousin Richard," said Ada, a little confused, +"that you are very fond of me, and I--I don't think you will fall +in love with anybody else. But I should like you to consider well +about it too, as I should like you to be in all things very happy. +You may trust in me, cousin Richard. I am not at all changeable; +but I am not unreasonable, and should never blame you. Even +cousins may be sorry to part; and in truth I am very, very sorry, +Richard, though I know it's for your welfare. I shall always think +of you affectionately, and often talk of you with Esther, and--and +perhaps you will sometimes think a little of me, cousin Richard. +So now," said Ada, going up to him and giving him her trembling +hand, "we are only cousins again, Richard--for the time perhaps-- +and I pray for a blessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!" + +It was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my +guardian for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he +himself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me. But +it was certainly the case. I observed with great regret that from +this hour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had +been before. He had every reason given him to be so, but he was +not; and solely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between +them. + +In the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself, +and even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in +Hertfordshire while he, Mr. Jarndyce, and I went up to London for a +week. He remembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of +tears, and at such times would confide to me the heaviest self- +reproaches. But in a few minutes he would recklessly conjure up +some undefinable means by which they were both to be made rich and +happy for ever, and would become as gay as possible. + +It was a busy time, and I trotted about with him all day long, +buying a variety of things of which he stood in need. Of the +things he would have bought if he had been left to his own ways I +say nothing. He was perfectly confidential with me, and often +talked so sensibly and feelingly about his faults and his vigorous +resolutions, and dwelt so much upon the encouragement he derived +from these conversations that I could never have been tired if I +had tried. + +There used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our +lodging to fence with Richard a person who had formerly been a +cavalry soldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free +bearing, with whom Richard had practised for some months. I heard +so much about him, not only from Richard, but from my guardian too, +that I was purposely in the room with my work one morning after +breakfast when he came. + +"Good morning, Mr. George," said my guardian, who happened to be +alone with me. "Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, +Miss Summerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down." + +He sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought, and +without looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and +across his upper lip. + +"You are as punctual as the sun," said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Military time, sir," he replied. "Force of habit. A mere habit +in me, sir. I am not at all business-like." + +"Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?" said Mr. +Jarndyce. + +"Not much of a one, sir. I keep a shooting gallery, but not much +of a one." + +"And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make +of Mr. Carstone?" said my guardian. + +"Pretty good, sir," he replied, folding his arms upon his broad +chest and looking very large. "If Mr. Carstone was to give his +full mind to it, he would come out very good." + +"But he don't, I suppose?" said my guardian. + +"He did at first, sir, but not afterwards. Not his full mind. +Perhaps he has something else upon it--some young lady, perhaps." +His bright dark eyes glanced at me for the first time. + +"He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George," said I, +laughing, "though you seem to suspect me." + +He reddened a little through his brown and made me a trooper's bow. +"No offence, I hope, miss. I am one of the roughs." + +"Not at all," said I. "I take it as a compliment." + +If he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or +four quick successive glances. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said +to my guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, "but you did me the +honour to mention the young lady's name--" + +"Miss Summerson." + +"Miss Summerson," he repeated, and looked at me again. + +"Do you know the name?" I asked. + +"No, miss. To my knowledge I never heard it. I thought I had seen +you somewhere." + +"I think not," I returned, raising my head from my work to look at +him; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner +that I was glad of the opportunity. "I remember faces very well." + +"So do I, miss!" he returned, meeting my look with the fullness of +his dark eyes and broad forehead. "Humph! What set me off, now, +upon that!" + +His once more reddening through his brown and being disconcerted by +his efforts to remember the association brought my guardian to his +relief. + +"Have you many pupils, Mr. George?" + +"They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they're but a small lot to +live by." + +"And what classes of chance people come to practise at your +gallery?" + +"All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to +'prentices. I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show +themselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of +course, but THEY go everywhere where the doors stand open." + +"People don't come with grudges and schemes of finishing their +practice with live targets, I hope?" said my guardian, smiling. + +"Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened. Mostly they come +for skill--or idleness. Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other. +I beg your pardon," said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright and +squaring an elbow on each knee, "but I believe you're a Chancery +suitor, if I have heard correct?" + +"I am sorry to say I am." + +"I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir." + +"A Chancery suitor?" returned my guardian. "How was that?" + +"Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being +knocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post," said +Mr. George, "that he got out of sorts. I don't believe he had any +idea of taking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of +resentment and violence that he would come and pay for fifty shots +and fire away till he was red hot. One day I said to him when +there was nobody by and he had been talking to me angrily about his +wrongs, 'If this practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and +good; but I don't altogether like your being so bent upon it in +your present state of mind; I'd rather you took to something else.' +I was on my guard for a blow, he was that passionate; but he +received it in very good part and left off directly. We shook +hands and struck up a sort of friendship." + +"What was that man?" asked my guardian in a new tone of interest. + +"Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made +a baited bull of him," said Mr. George. + +"Was his name Gridley?" + +"It was, sir." + +Mr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at +me as my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the +coincidence, and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name. +He made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what +he called my condescension. + +"I don't know," he said as he looked at me, "what it is that sets +me off again--but--bosh! What's my head running against!" He +passed one of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to +sweep the broken thoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward, +with one arm akimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a +brown study at the ground. + +"I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this +Gridley into new troubles and that he is in hiding," said my +guardian. + +"So I am told, sir," returned Mr. George, still musing and looking +on the ground. "So I am told." + +"You don't know where?" + +"No, sir," returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out +of his reverie. "I can't say anything about him. He will be worn +out soon, I expect. You may file a strong man's heart away for a +good many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last." + +Richard's entrance stopped the conversation. Mr. George rose, made +me another of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day, +and strode heavily out of the room. + +This was the morning of the day appointed for Richard's departure. +We had no more purchases to make now; I had completed all his +packing early in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until +night, when he was to go to Liverpool for Holyhead. Jarndyce and +Jarndyce being again expected to come on that day, Richard proposed +to me that we should go down to the court and hear what passed. As +it was his last day, and he was eager to go, and I had never been +there, I gave my consent and we walked down to Westminster, where +the court was then sitting. We beguiled the way with arrangements +concerning the letters that Richard was to write to me and the +letters that I was to write to him and with a great many hopeful +projects. My guardian knew where we were going and therefore was +not with us. + +When we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor--the same +whom I had seen in his private room in Lincoln's Inn--sitting in +great state and gravity on the bench, with the mace and seals on a +red table below him and an immense flat nosegay, like a little +garden, which scented the whole court. Below the table, again, was +a long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at +their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs +and gowns--some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody +paying much attention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned +back in his very easy chair with his elbow on the cushioned arm and +his forehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present +dozed; some read the newspapers; some walked about or whispered in +groups: all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, +very unconcerned, and extremely comfortable. + +To see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the +roughness of the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full +dress and ceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and +beggared misery it represented; to consider that while the sickness +of hope deferred was raging in so many hearts this polite show went +calmly on from day to day, and year to year, in such good order and +composure; to behold the Lord Chancellor and the whole array of +practitioners under him looking at one another and at the +spectators as if nobody had ever heard that all over England the +name in which they were assembled was a bitter jest, was held in +universal horror, contempt, and indignation, was known for +something so flagrant and bad that little short of a miracle could +bring any good out of it to any one--this was so curious and self- +contradictory to me, who had no experience of it, that it was at +first incredible, and I could not comprehend it. I sat where +Richard put me, and tried to listen, and looked about me; but there +seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor little Miss +Flite, the madwoman, standing on a bench and nodding at it. + +Miss Flite soon espied us and came to where we sat. She gave me a +gracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much +gratification and pride, its principal attractions. Mr. Kenge also +came to speak to us and did the honours of the place in much the +same way, with the bland modesty of a proprietor. It was not a +very good day for a visit, he said; he would have preferred the +first day of term; but it was imposing, it was imposing. + +When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress--if +I may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion--seemed to die +out of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody +expected to come, to any resuIt. The Lord Chancellor then threw +down a bundle of papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, +and somebody said, "Jarndyce and Jarndyce." Upon this there was a +buzz, and a laugh, and a general withdrawal of the bystanders, and +a bringing in of great heaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of +papers. + +I think it came on "for further directions"--about some bill of +costs, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough. +But I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were "in +it," and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I. +They chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted +and explained among themselves, and some of them said it was this +way, and some of them said it was that way, and some of them +jocosely proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was +more buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state +of idle entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. +After an hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun +and cut short, it was "referred back for the present," as Mr. Kenge +said, and the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had +finished bringing them in. + +I glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless +proceedings and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome +young face. "It can't last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck +next time!" was all he said. + +I had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for Mr. +Kenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered +me desirous to get out of the court. Richard had given me his arm +and was taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone," said he in a whisper, "and Miss +Summerson's also, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who +knows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands." As he +spoke, I saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape +from my remembrance, Mrs. Rachael of my godmother's house. + +"How do you do, Esther?" said she. "Do you recollect me?" + +I gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little +altered. + +"I wonder you remember those times, Esther," she returned with her +old asperity. "They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you, +and glad you are not too proud to know me." But indeed she seemed +disappointed that I was not. + +"Proud, Mrs. Rachael!" I remonstrated. + +"I am married, Esther," she returned, coldly correcting me, "and am +Mrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you'll do +well." + +Mr. Guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a +sigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael's way through +the confused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which +we were in the midst of and which the change in the business had +brought together. Richard and I were making our way through it, +and I was yet in the first chill of the late unexpected recognition +when I saw, coming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person +than Mr. George. He made nothing of the people about him as he +tramped on, staring over their heads into the body of the court. + +"George!" said Richard as I called his attention to him. + +"You are well met, sir," he returned. "And you, miss. Could you +point a person out for me, I want? I don't understand these +places." + +Turning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when +we were out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain. + +"There's a little cracked old woman," he began, "that--" + +I put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by me, having kept +beside me all the time and having called the attention of several +of her legal acquaintance to me (as I had overheard to my +confusion) by whispering in their ears, "Hush! Fitz Jarndyce on my +left!" + +"Hem!" said Mr. George. "You remember, miss, that we passed some +conversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley," in a low +whisper behind his hand. + +"Yes," said I. + +"He is hiding at my place. I couldn't mention it. Hadn't his +authority. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see +her. He says they can feel for one another, and she has been +almost as good as a friend to him here. I came down to look for +her, for when I sat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the +roll of the muffled drums." + +"Shall I tell her?" said I. + +"Would you be so good?" he returned with a glance of something like +apprehension at Miss Flite. "It's a providence I met you, miss; I +doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady." And he +put one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude +as I informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport of his +kind errand. + +"My angry friend from Shropshire! Almost as celebrated as myself!" +she exclaimed. "Now really! My dear, I will wait upon him with +the greatest pleasure." + +"He is living concealed at Mr. George's," said I. "Hush! This is +Mr. George." + +"In--deed!" returned Miss Flite. "Very proud to have the honour! +A military man, my dear. You know, a perfect general!" she +whispered to me. + +Poor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as +a mark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often +that it was no easy matter to get her out of the court. When this +was at last done, and addressing Mr. George as "General," she gave +him her arm, to the great entertainment of some idlers who were +looking on, he was so discomposed and begged me so respectfully +"not to desert him" that I could not make up my mind to do it, +especially as Miss Flite was always tractable with me and as she +too said, "Fitz Jarndyce, my dear, you will accompany us, of +course." As Richard seemed quite willing, and even anxious, that +we should see them safely to their destination, we agreed to do so. +And as Mr. George informed us that Gridley's mind had run on Mr. +Jarndyce all the afternoon after hearing of their interview in the +morning, I wrote a hasty note in pencil to my guardian to say where +we were gone and why. Mr. George sealed it at a coffee-house, that +it might lead to no discovery, and we sent it off by a ticket- +porter. + +We then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of +Leicester Square. We walked through some narrow courts, for which +Mr. George apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the +door of which was closed. As he pulled a bell-handle which hung by +a chain to the door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with +grey hair, wearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and +gaiters and a broad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded +cane, addressed him. + +"I ask your pardon, my good friend," said he, "but is this George's +Shooting Gallery?" + +"It is, sir," returned Mr. George, glancing up at the great letters +in which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall. + +"Oh! To be sure!" said the old gentleman, following his eyes. +"Thank you. Have you rung the bell?" + +"My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell." + +"Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Your name is George? Then +I am here as soon as you, you see. You came for me, no doubt?" + +"No, sir. You have the advantage of me." + +"Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Then it was your young man +who came for me. I am a physician and was requested--five minutes +ago--to come and visit a sick man at George's Shooting Gallery." + +"The muffled drums," said Mr. George, turning to Richard and me and +gravely shaking his head. "It's quite correct, sir. Will you +please to walk in." + +The door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking +little man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and +dress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage +into a large building with bare brick walls where there were +targets, and guns, and swords, and other things of that kind. When +we had all arrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his +hat, appeared to vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a +different man in his place. + +"Now lookee here, George," said the man, turning quickly round upon +him and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. "You +know me, and I know you. You're a man of the world, and I'm a man +of the world. My name's Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a +peace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a +long time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit." + +Mr. George, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head. + +"Now, George," said the other, keeping close to him, "you're a +sensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what YOU are, beyond +a doubt. And mind you, I don't talk to you as a common character, +because you have served your country and you know that when duty +calls we must obey. Consequently you're very far from wanting to +give trouble. If I required assistance, you'd assist me; that's +what YOU'D do. Phil Squod, don't you go a-sidling round the +gallery like that"--the dirty little man was shuffling about with +his shoulder against the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a +manner that looked threatening--"because I know you and won't have +it." + +"Phil!" said Mr. George. + +"Yes, guv'ner." + +"Be quiet." + +The little man, with a low growl, stood still. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Bucket, "you'll excuse anything +that may appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name's Inspector +Bucket of the Detective, and I have a duty to perform. George, I +know where my man is because I was on the roof last night and saw +him through the skylight, and you along with him. He is in there, +you know," pointing; "that's where HE is--on a sofy. Now I must +see my man, and I must tell my man to consider himself in custody; +but you know me, and you know I don't want to take any +uncomfortable measures. You give me your word, as from one man to +another (and an old soldier, mind you, likewise), that it's +honourable between us two, and I'll accommodate you to the utmost +of my power." + +"I give it," was the reply. '"But it wasn't handsome in you, Mr. +Bucket." + +"Gammon, George! Not handsome?" said Mr. Bucket, tapping him on +his broad breast again and shaking hands with him. "I don't say it +wasn't handsome in you to keep my man so close, do I? Be equally +good-tempered to me, old boy! Old William Tell, Old Shaw, the Life +Guardsman! Why, he's a model of the whole British army in himself, +ladies and gentlemen. I'd give a fifty-pun' note to be such a +figure of a man!" + +The affair being brought to this head, Mr. George, after a little +consideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called +him), taking Miss Flite with him. Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went +away to the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and +standing by a table covered with guns. Mr. Bucket took this +opportunity of entering into a little light conversation, asking me +if I were afraid of fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking +Richard if he were a good shot; asking Phil Squod which he +considered the best of those rifles and what it might be worth +first-hand, telling him in return that it was a pity he ever gave +way to his temper, for he was naturally so amiable that he might +have been a young woman, and making himself generally agreeable. + +After a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and +Richard and I were going quietly away when Mr. George came after +us. He said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he +would take a visit from us very kindly. The words had hardly +passed his lips when the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, +"on the chance," he slightly observed, "of being able to do any +little thing for a poor fellow involved in the same misfortune as +himself." We all four went back together and went into the place +where Gridley was. + +It was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted +wood. As the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high +and only enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high +gallery roof were overhead, and the skylight through which Mr. +Bucket had looked down. The sun was low--near setting--and its +light came redly in above, without descending to the ground. Upon +a plain canvas-covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, dressed +much as we had seen him last, but so changed that at first I +recognized no likeness in his colourless face to what I +recollected. + +He had been still writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling +on his grievances, hour after hour. A table and some shelves were +covered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of +such tokens. Touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the +little mad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone. She sat +on a chair holding his hand, and none of us went close to them. + +His voice had faded, with the old expression of his face, with his +strength, with his anger, with his resistance to the wrongs that +had at last subdued him. The faintest shadow of an object full of +form and colour is such a picture of it as he was of the man from +Shropshire whom we had spoken with before. + +He inclined his head to Richard and me and spoke to my guardian. + +"Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. I am not +long to be seen, I think. I am very glad to take your hand, sir. +You are a good man, superior to injustice, and God knows I honour +you." + +They shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of +comfort to him. + +"It may seem strange to you, sir," returned Gridley; "I should not +have liked to see you if this had been the flrst time of our +meeting. But you know I made a fight for it, you know I stood up +with my single hand against them all, you know I told them the +truth to the last, and told them what they were, and what they had +done to me; so I don't mind your seeing me, this wreck." + +"You have been courageous with them many and many a time," returned +my guardian. + +"Sir, I have been," with a faint smile. "I told you what would +come of it when I ceased to be so, and see here! Look at us--look +at us!" He drew the hand Miss Flite held through her arm and +brought her something nearer to him. + +"This ends it. Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits +and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul +alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of +many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever +had on earth that Chancery has not broken." + +"Accept my blessing, Gridley," said Miss Flite in tears. "Accept +my blessing!" + +"I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr. +Jarndyce. I was resolved that they should not. I did believe that +I could, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were +until I died of some bodily disorder. But I am worn out. How long +I have been wearing out, I don't know; I seemed to break down in an +hour. I hope they may never come to hear of it. I hope everybody +here will lead them to believe that I died defying them, +consistently and perseveringly, as I did through so many years." + +Here Mr. Bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door, good- +naturedly offered such consolation as he could administer. + +"Come, come!" he said from his corner. "Don't go on in that way, +Mr. Gridley. You are only a little low. We are all of us a little +low sometimes. I am. Hold up, hold up! You'll lose your temper +with the whole round of 'em, again and again; and I shall take you +on a score of warrants yet, if I have luck." + +He only shook his head. + +"Don't shake your head," said Mr. Bucket. "Nod it; that's what I +want to see you do. Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have +had together! Haven't I seen you in the Fleet over and over again +for contempt? Haven't I come into court, twenty afternoons for no +other purpose than to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog? +Don't you remember when you first began to threaten the lawyers, +and the peace was sworn against you two or three times a week? Ask +the little old lady there; she has been always present. Hold up, +Mr. Gridley, hold up, sir!" + +"What are you going to do about him?" asked George in a low voice. + +"I don't know yet," said Bucket in the same tone. Then resuming +his encouragement, he pursued aloud: "Worn out, Mr. Gridley? After +dodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof +here like a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor? That ain't +like being worn out. I should think not! Now I tell you what you +want. You want excitement, you know, to keep YOU up; that's what +YOU want. You're used to it, and you can't do without it. I +couldn't myself. Very well, then; here's this warrant got by Mr. +Tulkinghorn of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and backed into half-a-dozen +counties since. What do you say to coming along with me, upon this +warrant, and having a good angry argument before the magistrates? +It'll do you good; it'll freshen you up and get you into training +for another turn at the Chancellor. Give in? Why, I am surprised +to hear a man of your energy talk of giving in. You mustn't do +that. You're half the fun of the fair in the Court of Chancery. +George, you lend Mr. Gridley a hand, and let's see now whether he +won't be better up than down." + +"He is very weak," said the trooper in a low voice. + +"Is he?" returned Bucket anxiously. "I only want to rouse him. I +don't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. It +would cheer him up more than anything if I could make him a little +waxy with me. He's welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he +likes. I shall never take advantage of it." + +The roof rang with a scream from Miss Flite, which still rings in +my ears. + +"Oh, no, Gridley!" she cried as he fell heavily and calmly back +from before her. "Not without my blessing. After so many years!" + +The sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and +the shadow had crept upward. But to me the shadow of that pair, +one living and one dead, fell heavier on Richard's departure than +the darkness of the darkest night. And through Richard's farewell +words I heard it echoed: "Of all my old associations, of all my old +pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one +poor soul alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a +tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie +I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken!" + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All + + +There is disquietude in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Black +suspicion hides in that peaceful region. The mass of Cook's +Courtiers are in their usual state of mind, no better and no worse; +but Mr. Snagsby is changed, and his little woman knows it. + +For Tom-all-Alone's and Lincoln's Inn Fields persist in harnessing +themselves, a pair of ungovernable coursers, to the chariot of Mr. +Snagsby's imagination; and Mr. Bucket drives; and the passengers +are Jo and Mr. Tulkinghorn; and the complete equipage whirls though +the law-stationery business at wild speed all round the clock. +Even in the little front kitchen where the family meals are taken, +it rattles away at a smoking pace from the dinner-table, when Mr. +Snagsby pauses in carving the first slice of the leg of mutton +baked with potatoes and stares at the kitchen wall. + +Mr. Snagsby cannot make out what it is that he has had to do with. +Something is wrong somewhere, but what something, what may come of +it, to whom, when, and from which unthought of and unheard of +quarter is the puzzle of his life. His remote impressions of the +robes and coronets, the stars and garters, that sparkle through the +surface-dust of Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers; his veneration for the +mysteries presided over by that best and closest of his customers, +whom all the Inns of Court, all Chancery Lane, and all the legal +neighbourhood agree to hold in awe; his remembrance of Detective +Mr. Bucket with his forefinger and his confidential manner, +impossible to be evaded or declined, persuade him that he is a +party to some dangerous secret without knowing what it is. And it +is the fearful peculiarity of this condition that, at any hour of +his daily life, at any opening of the shop-door, at any pull of the +bell, at any entrance of a messenger, or any delivery of a letter, +the secret may take air and fire, explode, and blow up--Mr. Bucket +only knows whom. + +For which reason, whenever a man unknown comes into the shop (as +many men unknown do) and says, "Is Mr. Snagsby in?" or words to +that innocent effect, Mr. Snagsby's heart knocks hard at his guilty +breast. He undergoes so much from such inquiries that when they +are made by boys he revenges himself by flipping at their ears over +the counter and asking the young dogs what they mean by it and why +they can't speak out at once? More impracticable men and boys +persist in walking into Mr. Snagsby's sleep and terrifying him with +unaccountable questions, so that often when the cock at the little +dairy in Cursitor Street breaks out in his usual absurd way about +the morning, Mr. Snagsby finds himself in a crisis of nightmare, +with his little woman shaking him and saying "What's the matter +with the man!" + +The little woman herself is not the least item in his difficulty. +To know that he is always keeping a secret from her, that he has +under all circumstances to conceal and hold fast a tender double +tooth, which her sharpness is ever ready to twist out of his head, +gives Mr. Snagsby, in her dentistical presence, much of the air of +a dog who has a reservation from his master and will look anywhere +rather than meet his eye. + +These various signs and tokens, marked by the little woman, are not +lost upon her. They impel her to say, "Snagsby has something on +his mind!" And thus suspicion gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor +Street. From suspicion to jealousy, Mrs. Snagsby finds the road as +natural and short as from Cook's Court to Chancery Lane. And thus +jealousy gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Once there (and +it was always lurking thereabout), it is very active and nimble in +Mrs. Snagsby's breast, prompting her to nocturnal examinations of +Mr. Snagsby's pockets; to secret perusals of Mr. Snagsby's letters; +to private researches in the day book and ledger, till, cash-box, +and iron safe; to watchings at windows, listenings behind doors, +and a general putting of this and that together by the wrong end. + +Mrs. Snagsby is so perpetually on the alert that the house becomes +ghostly with creaking boards and rustling garments. The 'prentices +think somebody may have been murdered there in bygone times. +Guster holds certain loose atoms of an idea (picked up at Tooting, +where they were found floating among the orphans) that there is +buried money underneath the cellar, guarded by an old man with a +white beard, who cannot get out for seven thousand years because he +said the Lord's Prayer backwards. + +"Who was Nimrod?" Mrs. Snagsby repeatedly inquires of herself. +"Who was that lady--that creature? And who is that boy?" Now, +Nimrod being as dead as the mighty hunter whose name Mrs. Snagsby +has appropriated, and the lady being unproducible, she directs her +mental eye, for the present, with redoubled vigilance to the boy. +"And who," quoth Mrs. Snagsby for the thousand and first time, "is +that boy? Who is that--!" And there Mrs. Snagsby is seized with +an inspiration. + +He has no respect for Mr. Chadband. No, to be sure, and he +wouldn't have, of course. Naturally he wouldn't, under those +contagious circumstances. He was invited and appointed by Mr. +Chadband--why, Mrs. Snagsby heard it herself with her own ears!--to +come back, and be told where he was to go, to be addressed by Mr. +Chadband; and he never came! Why did he never come? Because he +was told not to come. Who told him not to come? Who? Ha, ha! +Mrs. Snagsby sees it all. + +But happily (and Mrs. Snagsby tightly shakes her head and tightly +smiles) that boy was met by Mr. Chadband yesterday in the streets; +and that boy, as affording a subject which Mr. Chadband desires to +improve for the spiritual delight of a select congregation, was +seized by Mr. Chadband and threatened with being delivered over to +the police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived +and unless he entered into, and fulfilled, an undertaking to appear +in Cook's Court to-morrow night, "'to--mor--row--night," Mrs. +Snagsby repeats for mere emphasis with another tight smile and +another tight shake of her head; and to-morrow night that boy will +be here, and to-morrow night Mrs. Snagsby will have her eye upon +him and upon some one else; and oh, you may walk a long while in +your secret ways (says Mrs. Snagsby with haughtiness and scorn), +but you can't blind ME! + +Mrs. Snagsby sounds no timbrel in anybody's ears, but holds her +purpose quietly, and keeps her counsel. To-morrow comes, the +savoury preparations for the Oil Trade come, the evening comes. +Comes Mr. Snagsby in his black coat; come the Chadbands; come (when +the gorging vessel is replete) the 'prentices and Guster, to be +edified; comes at last, with his slouching head, and his shuflle +backward, and his shuffle forward, and his shuffle to the right, +and his shuffle to the left, and his bit of fur cap in his muddy +hand, which he picks as if it were some mangy bird he had caught +and was plucking before eating raw, Jo, the very, very tough +subject Mr. Chadband is to improve. + +Mrs. Snagsby screws a watchful glance on Jo as he is brought into +the little drawing-room by Guster. He looks at Mr. Snagsby the +moment he comes in. Aha! Why does he look at Mr. Snagsby? Mr. +Snagsby looks at him. Why should he do that, but that Mrs. Snagsby +sees it all? Why else should that look pass between them, why else +should Mr. Snagsby be confused and cough a signal cough behind his +hand? It is as clear as crystal that Mr. Snagsby is that boy's +father. + +'"Peace, my friends," says Chadband, rising and wiping the oily +exudations from his reverend visage. "Peace be with us! My +friends, why with us? Because," with his fat smile, "it cannot be +against us, because it must be for us; because it is not hardening, +because it is softening; because it does not make war like the +hawk, but comes home unto us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, +peace be with us! My human boy, come forward!" + +Stretching forth his flabby paw, Mr. Chadband lays the same on Jo's +arm and considers where to station him. Jo, very doubtful of his +reverend friend's intentions and not at all clear but that +something practical and painful is going to be done to him, +mutters, "You let me alone. I never said nothink to you. You let +me alone." + +"No, my young friend," says Chadband smoothly, "I will not let you +alone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because I am a +toiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are +become as a precious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so +employ this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your +profit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! My +young friend, sit upon this stool." + +Jo, apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend +gentleman wants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms +and is got into the required position with great difficulty and +every possible manifestation of reluctance. + +When he is at last adjusted like a lay-figure, Mr. Chadband, +retiring behind the table, holds up his bear's-paw and says, "My +friends!" This is the signal for a general settlement of the +audience. The 'prentices giggle internally and nudge each other. +Guster falls into a staring and vacant state, compounded of a +stunned admiration of Mr. Chadband and pity for the friendless +outcast whose condition touches her nearly. Mrs. Snagsby silently +lays trains of gunpowder. Mrs. Chadband composes herself grimly by +the fire and warms her knees, finding that sensation favourable to +the reception of eloquence. + +It happens that Mr. Chadband has a pulpit habit of fixing some +member of his congregation with his eye and fatly arguing his +points with that particular person, who is understood to be +expected to be moved to an occasional grunt, groan, gasp, or other +audible expression of inward working, which expression of inward +working, being echoed by some elderly lady in the next pew and so +communicated like a game of forfeits through a circle of the more +fermentable sinners present, serves the purpose of parliamentary +cheering and gets Mr. Chadband's steam up. From mere force of +habit, Mr. Chadband in saying "My friends!" has rested his eye on +Mr. Snagsby and proceeds to make that ill-starred stationer, +already sufficiently confused, the immediate recipient of his +discourse. + +"We have here among us, my friends," says Chadband, "a Gentile and +a heathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone's and a mover-on +upon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends," +and Mr. Chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail, +bestows an oily smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw +him an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down, +"a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, +devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of +precious stones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of +these possessions? Why? Why is he?" Mr. Chadband states the +question as if he were propoundlng an entirely new riddle of much +ingenuity and merit to Mr. Snagsby and entreating him not to give +it up. + +Mr. Snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received +just now from his little woman--at about the period when Mr. +Chadband mentioned the word parents--is tempted into modestly +remarking, "I don't know, I'm sure, sir." On which interruption +Mrs. Chadband glares and Mrs. Snagsby says, "For shame!" + +"I hear a voice," says Chadband; "is it a still small voice, my +friends? I fear not, though I fain would hope so--" + +"Ah--h!" from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Which says, 'I don't know.' Then I will tell you why. I say this +brother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of +relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, +and of precious stones because he is devoid of the light that +shines in upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask +you, what is that light?" + +Mr. Chadband draws back his head and pauses, but Mr. Snagsby is not +to be lured on to his destruction again. Mr. Chadband, leaning +forward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow directly +into Mr. Snagsby with the thumb-nail already mentioned. + +"It is," says Chadband, "the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon +of moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth." + +Mr. Chadband draws himself up again and looks triumphantly at Mr. +Snagsby as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that. + +"Of Terewth," says Mr. Chadband, hitting him again. "Say not to me +that it is NOT the lamp of lamps. I say to you it is. I say to +you, a million of times over, it is. It is! I say to you that I +will proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the +less you like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a +speaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against +it, you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, +you shall be flawed, you shall be smashed." + +The present effect of this flight of oratory--much admired for its +general power by Mr. Chadband's followers--being not only to make +Mr. Chadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. +Snagsby in the light of a determined enemy to virtue, with a +forehead of brass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate +tradesman becomes yet more disconcerted and is in a very advanced +state of low spirits and false position when Mr. Chadband +accidentally finishes him. + +"My friends," he resumes after dabbing his fat head for some time-- +and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his pocket- +handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab--"to pursue +the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to improve, +let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to which I +have alluded. For, my young friends," suddenly addressing the +'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, "if I am told by the +doctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, I may naturally +ask what is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be +informed of that before I dose myself with either or with both. +Now, my young friends, what is this Terewth then? Firstly (in a +spirit of love), what is the common sort of Terewth--the working +clothes--the every-day wear, my young friends? Is it deception?" + +"Ah--h!" from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Is it suppression?" + +A shiver in the negative from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Is it reservation?" + +A shake of the head from Mrs. Snagsby--very long and very tight. + +"No, my friends, it is neither of these. Neither of these names +belongs to it. When this young heathen now among us--who is now, +my friends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being +set upon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that I +should have to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to +conquer, for his sake--when this young hardened heathen told us a +story of a cock, and of a bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, +was THAT the Terewth? No. Or if it was partly, was it wholly and +entirely? No, my friends, no!" + +If Mr. Snagsby could withstand his little woman's look as it enters +at his eyes, the windows of his soul, and searches the whole +tenement, he were other than the man he is. He cowers and droops. + +"Or, my juvenile friends," says Chadband, descending to the level +of their comprehension with a very obtrusive demonstration in his +greasily meek smile of coming a long way downstairs for the +purpose, "if the master of this house was to go forth into the city +and there see an eel, and was to come back, and was to call unto +him the mistress of this house, and was to say, 'Sarah, rejoice +with me, for I have seen an elephant!' would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby in tears. + +"Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and +returning said 'Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,' +would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby sobbing loudly. + +"Or put it, my juvenile friends," said Chadband, stimulated by the +sound, "that the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen--for +parents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt--after casting +him forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the +young gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and +had their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their +dancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher's meat and +poultry, would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby replies by delivering herself a prey to spasms, not an +unresisting prey, but a crying and a tearing one, so that Cook's +Court re-echoes with her shrieks. Finally, becoming cataleptic, +she has to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. +After unspeakable suffering, productive of the utmost +consternation, she is pronounced, by expresses from the bedroom, +free from pain, though much exhausted, in which state of affairs +Mr. Snagsby, trampled and crushed in the piano-forte removal, and +extremely timid and feeble, ventures to come out from behind the +door in the drawing-room. + +All this time Jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, +ever picking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He +spits them out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in +his nature to be an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good +HIS trying to keep awake, for HE won't never know nothink. Though +it may be, Jo, that there is a history so interesting and affecting +even to minds as near the brutes as thine, recording deeds done on +this earth for common men, that if the Chadbands, removing their +own persons from the light, would but show it thee in simple +reverence, would but leave it unimproved, would but regard it as +being eloquent enough without their modest aid--it might hold thee +awake, and thou might learn from it yet! + +Jo never heard of any such book. Its compilers and the Reverend +Chadband are all one to him, except that he knows the Reverend +Chadband and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear +him talk for five minutes. "It an't no good my waiting here no +longer," thinks Jo. "Mr. Snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me +to-night." And downstairs he shuffles. + +But downstairs is the charitable Guster, holding by the handrail of +the kitchen stairs and warding off a fit, as yet doubtfully, the +same having been induced by Mrs. Snagsby's screaming. She has her +own supper of bread and cheese to hand to Jo, with whom she +ventures to interchange a word or so for the first time. + +"Here's something to eat, poor boy," says Guster. + +"Thank'ee, mum," says Jo. + +"Are you hungry?" + +"Jist!" says Jo. + +"What's gone of your father and your mother, eh?" + +Jo stops in the middle of a bite and looks petrified. For this +orphan charge of the Christian saint whose shrine was at Tooting +has patted him on the shoulder, and it is the first time in his +life that any decent hand has been so laid upon him. + +"I never know'd nothink about 'em," says Jo. + +"No more didn't I of mine," cries Guster. She is repressing +symptoms favourable to the fit when she seems to take alarm at +something and vanishes down the stairs. + +"Jo," whispers the law-stationer softly as the boy lingers on the +step. + +"Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!" + +"I didn't know you were gone--there's another half-crown, Jo. It +was quite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other +night when we were out together. It would breed trouble. You +can't be too quiet, Jo." + +"I am fly, master!" + +And so, good night. + +A ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, follows the law- +stationer to the room he came from and glides higher up. And +henceforth he begins, go where he will, to be attended by another +shadow than his own, hardly less constant than his own, hardly less +quiet than his own. And into whatsoever atmosphere of secrecy his +own shadow may pass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! For +the watchful Mrs. Snagsby is there too--bone of his bone, flesh of +his flesh, shadow of his shadow. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Sharpshooters + + +Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the +neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling +to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the +brightest of times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is +high and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. +Behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking +more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false +jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their +first sleep. Gentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse +from personal experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; +spies of strong governments that eternally quake with weakness and +miserable fear, broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, +shufflers, swindlers, and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the +branding-iron beneath their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in +them than was in Nero, and more crime than is in Newgate. For +howsoever bad the devil can be in fustian or smock-frock (and he +can be very bad in both), he is a more designing, callous, and +intolerable devil when he sticks a pin in his shirt-front, calls +himself a gentleman, backs a card or colour, plays a game or so of +billiards, and knows a little about bills and promissory notes than +in any other form he wears. And in such form Mr. Bucket shall find +him, when he will, still pervading the tributary channels of +Leicester Square. + +But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes +Mr. George of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, +roll up and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved +himself before a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches +out, bare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard +and anon comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting +rain, and exceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large +jack-towel, blowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his +hair curling tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more +he rubs it so that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any +less coercive instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he +rubs, and puffs, and polishes, and blows, turning his head from +side to side the more conveniently to excoriate his throat, and +standing with his body well bent forward to keep the wet from his +martial legs, Phil, on his knees lighting a fire, looks round as if +it were enough washing for him to see all that done, and sufficient +renovation for one day to take in the superfluous health his master +throws off. + +When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two +hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil, +shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, +winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr. +George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, +and marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, +raising a powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares +breakfast. He smokes gravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps +this morning's pipe is devoted to the memory of Gridley in his +grave. + +"And so, Phil," says George of the shooting gallery after several +turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?" + +Phil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled +out of bed. + +"Yes, guv'ner." + +"What was it like?" + +"I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said Phil, considering. + +"How did you know it was the country?" + +"On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it," says +Phil after further consideration. + +"What were the swans doing on the grass?" + +"They was a-eating of it, I expect," says Phil. + +The master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation +of breakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, +being limited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast +requisites for two and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the +fire in the rusty grate; but as Phil has to sidle round a +considerable part of the gallery for every object he wants, and +never brings two objects at once, it takes time under the +circumstances. At length the breakfast is ready. Phil announcing +it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his pipe on the hob, stands +his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and sits down to the meal. +When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit, sitting at the +extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his plate on his +knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened hands, or +because it is his natural manner of eating. + +"The country," says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; "why, I +suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?" + +"I see the marshes once," says Phil, contentedly eating his +breakfast. + +"What marshes?" + +"THE marshes, commander," returns Phil. + +"Where are they?" + +"I don't know where they are," says Phil; "but I see 'em, guv'ner. +They was flat. And miste." + +Governor and commander are interchangeable terms with Phil, +expressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to +nobody but Mr. George. + +"I was born in the country, Phil." + +"Was you indeed, commander?" + +"Yes. And bred there." + +Phil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at +his master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, +still staring at him. + +"There's not a bird's note that I don't know," says Mr. George. +"Not many an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many +a tree that I couldn't climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real +country boy, once. My good mother lived in the country." + +"She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," Phil observes. + +"Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago," says Mr. +George. "But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as +upright as me, and near as broad across the shoulders." + +"Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires Phil. + +"No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!" says the +trooper. "What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and +good-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your +eyes upon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?" + +Phil shakes his head. + +"Do you want to see it?" + +"N-no, I don't know as I do, particular," says Phil. + +"The town's enough for you, eh?" + +"Why, you see, commander," says Phil, "I ain't acquainted with +anythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to +novelties." + +"How old ARE you, Phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys +his smoking saucer to his lips. + +"I'm something with a eight in it," says Phil. "It can't be +eighty. Nor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres." + +Mr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its +contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil--" +when he stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers. + +"I was just eight," says Phil, "agreeable to the parish +calculation, when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, +and I see him a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to +himself wery comfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come +along a me, my man?' I says 'Yes,' and him and me and the fire +goes home to Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was +able to count up to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, +I says to myself, 'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' +April Fool Day after that, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a +eight in it.' In course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; +two tens and a eight in it. When it got so high, it got the upper +hand of me, but this is how I always know there's a eight in it." + +"Ah!" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. "And where's the +tinker?" + +"Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him-- +in a glass-case, I HAVE heerd," Phil replies mysteriously. + +"By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?" + +"Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't +much of a beat--round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, +Smiffeld, and there--poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the +kettles till they're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers +used to come and lodge at our place; that was the best part of my +master's earnings. But they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. +He could sing 'em a good song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a +tune on any sort of pot you please, so as it was iron or block tin. +I never could do nothing with a pot but mend it or bile it--never +had a note of music in me. Besides, I was too ill-looking, and +their wives complained of me." + +"They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd, +Phil!" says the trooper with a pleasant smile. + +"No, guv'ner," returns Phil, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't. +I was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing +to boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when +I was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, +and swallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate +in the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich +means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got +older, almost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was +almost always--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. +As to since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men +was given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at +a gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling +at the firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!" + +Resigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied +manner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. While +drinking it, he says, "It was after the case-filling blow-up when I +first see you, commander. You remember?" + +"I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun." + +"Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall--" + +"True, Phil--shouldering your way on--" + +"In a night-cap!" exclaims Phil, excited. + +"In a night-cap--" + +"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more +excited. + +"With a couple of sticks. When--" + +"When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and +saucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to +me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much +to you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person +so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to +such a limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says +you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that +it was like a glass of something hot, 'What accident have you met +with? You have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, +and tell us about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says +as much to you, you says more to me, I says more to you, you says +more to me, and here I am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries +Phil, who has started from his chair and unaccountably begun to +sidle away. "If a mark's wanted, or if it will improve the +business, let the customers take aim at me. They can't spoil MY +beauty. I'M all right. Come on! If they want a man to box at, +let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me well about the head. I don't +mind. If they want a light-weight to be throwed for practice, +Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em throw me. They won't +hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of styles, all my life!" + +With this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and +accompanied by action illustrative of the various exercises +referred to, Phil Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the +gallery, and abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at +him with his head, intended to express devotion to his service. He +then begins to clear away the breakfast. + +Mr. George, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the +shoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the +gallery into business order. That done, he takes a turn at the +dumb-bells, and afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is +getting "too fleshy," engages with great gravity in solitary +broadsword practice. Meanwhile Phil has fallen to work at his +usual table, where he screws and unscrews, and cleans, and files, +and whistles into small apertures, and blackens himself more and +more, and seems to do and undo everything that can be done and +undone about a gun. + +Master and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage, +where they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual +company. These steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery, +bring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any +day in the year but the fifth of November. + +It consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two +bearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched +mask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular +verses commemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow Old +England up alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly +closed as the chair is put down. At which point the figure in it +gasping, "O Lord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!" adds, "How de do, my +dear friend, how de do?" Mr. George then descries, in the +procession, the venerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended +by his granddaughter Judy as body-guard. + +"Mr. George, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, removing +his right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has +nearly throttled coming along, "how de do? You're surprised to see +me, my dear friend." + +"I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend +in the city," returns Mr. George. + +"I am very seldom out," pants Mr. Smallweed. "I haven't been out +for many months. It's inconvenient--and it comes expensive. But I +longed so much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?" + +"I am well enough," says Mr. George. "I hope you are the same." + +"You can't be too well, my dear friend." Mr. Smallweed takes him +by both hands. "I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn't +keep her away. She longed so much to see you." + +"Hum! She hears it calmly!" mutters Mr. George. + +"So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the +corner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and +carried me here that I might see my dear friend in his own +establishment! This," says Grandfather Smallweed, alluding to the +bearer, who has been in danger of strangulation and who withdraws +adjusting his windpipe, "is the driver of the cab. He has nothing +extra. It is by agreement included in his fare. This person," the +other bearer, "we engaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. +Which is twopence. Judy, give the person twopence. I was not sure +you had a workman of your own here, my dear friend, or we needn't +have employed this person." + +Grandfather Smallweed refers to Phil with a glance of considerable +terror and a half-subdued "O Lord! Oh, dear me!" Nor in his +apprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for +Phil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap +before, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the +air of a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off as an ugly +old bird of the crow species. + +"Judy, my child," says Grandfather Smallweed, "give the person his +twopence. It's a great deal for what he has done." + +The person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human +fungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of +London, ready dressed in an old red jacket, with a "mission" for +holding horses and calling coaches, received his twopence with +anything but transport, tosses the money into the air, catches it +over-handed, and retires. + +"My dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, "would you be so +kind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, +and I am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!" + +His closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by +the suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up, +chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone. + +"O Lord!" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my +stars! My dear friend, your workman is very strong--and very +prompt. O Lord, he is very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. +I'm being scorched in the legs," which indeed is testified to the +noses of all present by the smell of his worsted stockings. + +The gentle Judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from +the fire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released +his overshadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, Mr. +Smallweed again says, "Oh, dear me! O Lord!" and looking about and +meeting Mr. George's glance, again stretches out both hands. + +"My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your +establishment? It's a delightful place. It's a picture! You +never find that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my +dear friend?" adds Grandfather Smallweed, very ill at ease. + +"No, no. No fear of that." + +"And your workman. He--Oh, dear me!--he never lets anything off +without meaning it, does he, my dear friend?" + +"He has never hurt anybody but himself," says Mr. George, smiling. + +"But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good +deal, and he might hurt somebody else," the old gentleman returns. +"He mightn't mean it--or he even might. Mr. George, will you order +him to leave his infernal firearms alone and go away?" + +Obedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires, empty-handed, to +the other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed, reassured, falls to +rubbing his legs. + +"And you're doing well, Mr. George?" he says to the trooper, +squarely standing faced about towards him with his broadsword in +his hand. "You are prospering, please the Powers?" + +Mr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, "Go on. You have not +come to say that, I know." + +"You are so sprightly, Mr. George," returns the venerable +grandfather. "You are such good company." + +"Ha ha! Go on!" says Mr. George. + +"My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. +It might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. +George. Curse him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy +as the trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "He owes +me money, and might think of paying off old scores in this +murdering place. I wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and +he'd shave her head off." + +Mr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old +man, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says +quietly, "Now for it!" + +"Ho!" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful +chuckle. "Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?" + +"For a pipe," says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his +chair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills +it and lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully. + +This tends to the discomfiture of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so +difficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes +exasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent +vindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the +visage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are +long and leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green +and watery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he +claws, to slide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless +bundle, he becomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed +eyes of Judy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something +more than the ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and +pokes him in divers parts of his body, but particularly in that +part which the science of self-defence would call his wind, that in +his grievous distress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's +rammer. + +When Judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a +white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out +her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. +The trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her +esteemed grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares +rigidly at the fire. + +"Aye, aye! Ho, ho! U--u--u--ugh!" chatters Grandfather Smallweed, +swallowing his rage. "My dear friend!" (still clawing). + +"I tell you what," says Mr. George. "If you want to converse with +me, you must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can't go +about and about. I haven't the art to do it. I am not clever +enough. It don't suit me. When you go winding round and round +me," says the trooper, putting his pipe between his lips again, +"damme, if I don't feel as if I was being smothered!" + +And he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to +assure himself that he is not smothered yet. + +"If you have come to give me a friendly call," continues Mr. +George, "I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see +whether there's any property on the premises, look about you; you +are welcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!" + +The blooming Judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives +her grandfather one ghostly poke. + +"You see! It's her opinion too. And why the devil that young +woman won't sit down like a Christian," says Mr. George with his +eyes musingly fixed on Judy, "I can't comprehend." + +"She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir," says Grandfather +Smallweed. "I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some +attention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot" +(snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), "but I need +attention, my dear friend." + +"Well!" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old +man. "Now then?" + +"My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with +a pupil of yours." + +"Has he?" says Mr. George. "I am sorry to hear it." + +"Yes, sir." Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. "He is a fine +young soldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends +came forward and paid it all up, honourable." + +"Did they?" returns Mr. George. "Do you think your friend in the +city would like a piece of advice?" + +"I think he would, my dear friend. From you." + +"I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. +There's no more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my +knowledge, is brought to a dead halt." + +"No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir," +remonstrates Grandfather Smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare +legs. "Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and +he is good for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his +commission, and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is +good for his chance in a wife, and--oh, do you know, Mr. George, I +think my friend would consider the young gentleman good for +something yet?" says Grandfather Smallweed, turning up his velvet +cap and scratching his ear like a monkey. + +Mr. George, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his +chair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if +he were not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has +taken. + +"But to pass from one subject to another," resumes Mr. Smallweed. +"'To promote the conversation, as a joker might say. To pass, Mr. +George, from the ensign to the captain." + +"What are you up to, now?" asks Mr. George, pausing with a frown in +stroking the recollection of his moustache. "What captain?" + +"Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon." + +"Oh! That's it, is it?" says Mr. George with a low whistle as he +sees both grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. "You +are there! Well? What about it? Come, I won't be smothered any +more. Speak!" + +"My dear friend," returns the old man, "I was applied--Judy, shake +me up a little!--I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and +my opinion still is that the captain is not dead." + +"Bosh!" observes Mr. George. + +"What was your remark, my dear friend?" inquires the old man with +his hand to his ear. + +"Bosh!" + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Mr. George, of my opinion you +can judge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and +the reasons given for asking 'em. Now, what do you think the +lawyer making the inquiries wants?" + +"A job," says Mr. George. + +"Nothing of the kind!" + +"Can't be a lawyer, then," says Mr. George, folding his arms with +an air of confirmed resolution. + +"My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see +some fragment in Captain Hawdon's writing. He don't want to keep +it. He only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his +possession." + +"Well?" + +"Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement +concerning Captain Hawdon and any information that could be given +respecting him, he looked it up and came to me--just as you did, my +dear friend. WILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I +should have missed forming such a friendship if you hadn't come!" + +"Well, Mr. Smallweed?" says Mr. George again after going through +the ceremony with some stiffness. + +"I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague +pestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him," +says the old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances +of a prayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry +hands, "I have half a million of his signatures, I think! But +you," breathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as Judy re- +adjusts the cap on his skittle-ball of a head, "you, my dear Mr. +George, are likely to have some letter or paper that would suit the +purpose. Anything would suit the purpose, written in the hand." + +"Some writing in that hand," says the trooper, pondering; "may be, +I have." + +"My dearest friend!" + +"May be, I have not." + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed, crest-fallen. + +"But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make +a cartridge without knowing why." + +"Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you +why." + +"Not enough," says the trooper, shaking his head. "I must know +more, and approve it." + +"Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come +and see the gentleman?" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a +lean old silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. "I +told him it was probable I might call upon him between ten and +eleven this forenoon, and it's now half after ten. Will you come +and see the gentleman, Mr. George?" + +"Hum!" says he gravely. "I don't mind that. Though why this +should concern you so much, I don't know." + +"Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing +anything to light about him. Didn't he take us all in? Didn't he +owe us immense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything +about him concern more than me? Not, my dear friend," says +Grandfather Smallweed, lowering his tone, "that I want YOU to +betray anything. Far from it. Are you ready to come, my dear +friend?" + +"Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know." + +"No, my dear Mr. George; no." + +"And you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place, +wherever it is, without charging for it?" Mr. George inquires, +getting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves. + +This pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs, long and +low, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over +his paralytic shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he +unlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the +gallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and +ultimately takes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, +and puts it in his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed once, and +Mr. Smallweed pokes Judy once. + +"I am ready," says the trooper, coming back. "Phil, you can carry +this old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him." + +"Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!" says Mr. Smallweed. "He's +so very prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy +man?" + +Phil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles +away, tightly bugged by the now speechless Mr. Smallweed, and bolts +along the passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry +the old gentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, +however, terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the +fair Judy takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the +roof, and Mr. George takes the vacant place upon the box. + +Mr. George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from +time to time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind +him, where the grim Judy is always motionless, and the old +gentleman with his cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat +into the straw and looking upward at him out of his other eye with +a helpless expression of being jolted in the back. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +More Old Soldiers Than One + + +Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for +their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops +his horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says, +"What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?" + +"Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?" + +"Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think. But I don't know +him, and he don't know me." + +There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done +to perfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr. +Tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the +fire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will +be back directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said +thus much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm +themselves. + +Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up +at the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, +contemplates the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the +names on the boxes. + +"'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully. +"Ha! 'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!" Mr. George stands looking +at these boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes +back to the fire repeating, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and +Manor of Chesney Wold, hey?" + +"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather +Smallweed, rubbing his legs. "Powerfully rich!" + +"Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?" + +"This gentleman, this gentleman." + +"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not +bad quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. "See +the strong-box yonder!" + +This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no +change in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in +his hand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close +and dry. In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a +blind; habitually not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The +peerage may have warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than +Mr. Tulkinghorn, after all, if everything were known. + +"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes +in. "You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant." + +As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, +he looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper +stands and says within himself perchance, "You'll do, my friend!" + +"Sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is +set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. "Cold and +raw this morning, cold and raw!" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the +bars, alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks +(from behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting +in a little semicircle before him. + +"Now, I can feel what I am about" (as perhaps he can in two +senses), "Mr. Smallweed." The old gentleman is newly shaken up by +Judy to bear his part in the conversation. "You have brought our +good friend the sergeant, I see." + +"Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's +wealth and influence. + +"And what does the sergeant say about this business?" + +"Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of +his shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir." + +Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright +and profoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full +complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, "Well, George--I believe your name is +George?" + +"It is so, Sir." + +"What do you say, George?" + +"I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish +to know what YOU say?" + +"Do you mean in point of reward?" + +"I mean in point of everything, sir." + +This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly +breaks out with "You're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks +pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the +tongue by saying to Judy, "I was thinking of your grandmother, my +dear." + +"I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one +side of his chair and crosses his legs, "that Mr. Smallweed might +have sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest +compass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and +were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little +services, and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is +so, is it not?" + +"Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George with military brevity. + +"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession something-- +anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, a letter, +anything--in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare his +writing with some that I have. If you can give me the opportunity, +you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four, five, +guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say." + +"Noble, my dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up +his eyes. + +"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you +can demand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, +against your inclination--though I should prefer to have it." + +Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the +painted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. +Smallweed scratches the air. + +"The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued, +uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's +writing?" + +"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir," +repeats Mr. George. + +"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?" + +"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it, +sir," repeats Mr. George. + +"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like +that," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of +written paper tied together. + +"Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so," repeats Mr. +George. + +All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner, +looking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance +at the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to +him for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but +continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation. + +"Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "What do you say?" + +"Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, +"I would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with +this." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?" + +"Why, sir," returns the trooper. "Except on military compulsion, I +am not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in +Scotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can +stand any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned +to Mr. Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into +things of this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that +is my sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, +"at the present moment." + +With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on +the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former +station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the +ground and now at the painted ceillhg, with his hands behind him as +if to prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever. + +Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of +disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words +"my dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the +possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment +in his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his +dear friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what +so eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace, +confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. +Mr. Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "You are +the best judge of your own interest, sergeant." "Take care you do +no harm by this." "Please yourself, please yourself." "If you +know what you mean, that's quite enough." These he utters with an +appearance of perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on +his table and prepares to write a letter. + +Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the +ground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. +Tulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again, +often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests. + +"I do assure you, sir," says Mr. George, "not to say it +offensively, that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am +being smothered fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a +match for you gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to +see the captain's hand, in the case that I could find any specimen +of it?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "No. If you were a man +of business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there +are confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many +such wants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are +afraid of doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind +at rest about that." + +"Aye! He is dead, sir." + +"IS he?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write. + +"Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another +disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more +satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I +should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing +to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for +business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to +consult with him. I--I really am so completely smothered myself at +present," says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his +brow, "that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to +me." + +Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so +strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel +with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of +five guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him. +Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing either way. + +"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the +trooper, "and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the +final answer in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish +to be carried downstairs--" + +"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me +speak half a word with this gentleman in private?" + +"Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account." The trooper +retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious +inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise. + +"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers +Grandfather Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the +lapel of his coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of +his angry eyes, "I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it +buttoned in his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put +it there. Speak up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking- +stick shop, and say you saw him put it there!" + +This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a +thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, +and he slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with +him, until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken. + +"Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn then +remarks coolly. + +"No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and galling--it's-- +it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a grandmother," +to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire, "to know he +has got what's wanted and won't give it up. He, not to give it up! +HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the most, he +has only his own way for a little while. I have him periodically +in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If he won't +do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one, sir! +Now, my dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at +the lawyer hideously as he releases him, "I am ready for your kind +assistance, my excellent friend!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting +itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with +his back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed +and acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod. + +It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George +finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he +is replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject +of the guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button +--having, in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob +him--that some degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part +to effect a separation. It is accomplished at last, and he +proceeds alone in quest of his adviser. + +By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a +glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in +his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. +George sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere +in that ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from +the bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has +lost his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a +stronger iron monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat +any day he dares. To one of the little shops in this street, which +is a musician's shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some +Pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated +scraps of music, Mr. George directs his massive tread. And halting +at a few paces from it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with +her outer skirts tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and +in that tub commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of +the pavement, Mr. George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing +greens. I never saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she +wasn't washing greens!" + +The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in +washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr. +George's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together +when she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him +standing near her. Her reception of him is not flattering. + +"George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!" + +The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the +musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens +upon the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms +upon it. + +"I never," she says, "George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute +when you're near him. You are that resfless and that roving--" + +"Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am." + +"You know you are!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "What's the use of that? +WHY are you?" + +"The nature of the animal, I suppose," returns the trooper good- +humouredly. + +"Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. "But what satisfaction +will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have +tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or +Australey?" + +Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large- +boned, a little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and +wind which have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, +wholesome, and bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced +woman of from forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so +economically dressed (though substantially) that the only article +of ornament of which she stands possessed appear's to be her +wedding-ring, around which her finger has grown to be so large +since it was put on that it will never come off again until it +shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust. + +"Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "I am on my parole with you. Mat +will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far." + +"Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling," +Mrs. Bagnet rejoins. "Ah, George, George! If you had only settled +down and married Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America, +SHE'D have combed your hair for you." + +"It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half +laughingly, half seriously, "but I shall never settle down into a +respectable man now. Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good-- +there was something in her, and something of her--but I couldn't +make up my mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a +wife as Mat found!" + +Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve +with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow +herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr. +George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into +the little room behind the shop. + +"Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following, on invitation, +into that department. "And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your +Bluffy!" + +These young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened +by the names applied to them, though always so called in the family +from the places of their birth in barracks--are respectively +employed on three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six +years old) in learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder +(eight or nine perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great +assiduity. Both hail Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend +and after some kissing and romping plant their stools beside him. + +"And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George. + +"Ah! There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her +saucepans (for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her +face. "Would you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, +with his father, to play the fife in a military piece." + +"Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh. + +"I believe you!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "He's a Briton. That's what +Woolwich is. A Briton!" + +"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable +civilians one and all," says Mr. George. "Family people. Children +growing up. Mat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father +somewhere else, corresponded with, and helped a little, and--well, +well! To be sure, I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred +mile away, for I have not much to do with all this!" + +Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the +whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and +contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or +dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin +pots and pannikins upon the dresser shelves--Mr. George is becoming +thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet +and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an ex- +artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers +like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a +torrid complexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at +all unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. +Indeed there may be generally observed in him an unbending, +unyielding, brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of +the human orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a +young drummer. + +Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due +season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet +hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after +dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without +first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to +this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic +preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little +street, which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, +as if it were a rampart. + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that +advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. +Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her +mind. Then we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do--do it!" + +"I intend to, Mat," replies the other. "I would sooner take her +opinion than that of a college." + +"College," returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. +"What college could you leave--in another quarter of the world-- +with nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home +to Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!" + +"You are right," says Mr. George. + +"What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life--with two +penn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth +of sand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? +That's what the old girl started on. In the present business." + +"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat." + +"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, "saves. Has a +stocking somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know +she's got it. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll +set you up." + +"She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George. + +"She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be +maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical +abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old +girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The +old girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of +flexibility; try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from +the bandmaster of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. +Got on, got another, get a living by it!" + +George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an +apple. + +"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine +woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer +as she gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own +to it before her. Discipline must be maintained!" + +Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and +down the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by +Quebec and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which +Mrs. Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the +distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household +duty, Mrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every +dish before her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion +of pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it +out complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and +thus supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet +proceeds to satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. +The kit of the mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, +is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty +in several parts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in +particular, which is of the oyster kind, with the additional +feature of a strong shutting-up movement which frequently balks the +appetite of that young musician, is mentioned as having gone in +various hands the complete round of foreign service. + +The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who +polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all +the dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all +away, first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the +visitor may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These +household cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the +backyard and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy +as to assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old +girl reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her +needlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be +considered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet requests the +trooper to state his case. + +This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address +himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all +the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies +herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet +resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline. + +"That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he. + +"That's the whole of it." + +"You act according to my opinion?" + +"I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it." + +"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it. +Tell him what it is." + +It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too +deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters +he does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the +dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never +to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, +is Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it +so relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and +banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe +on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with +the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of +experience. + +Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again +rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing +on when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at +the theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his +domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and +insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with +felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George +again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +"A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small +it is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made +that evolution of matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I +am such a vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I +couldn't hold to the gallery a month together if it was a regular +pursuit or if I didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I +disgrace nobody and cumber nobody; that's something. I have not +done that for many a long year!" + +So he whistles it off and marches on. + +Arrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's +stair, he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but +the trooper not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase +being dark besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to +discover a bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. +Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily +asks, "Who is that? What are you doing there?" + +"I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant." + +"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?" + +"Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't," says the +trooper, rather nettled. + +"Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?" Mr. +Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance. + +"In the same mind, sir." + +"I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the +man," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in +whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?" + +"Yes, I AM the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs +down. "What then, sir?" + +"What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have +seen the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your +being that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous +fellow." + +With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the +lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering +noise. + +Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater +because a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of +all and evidently applies them to him. "A pretty character to +bear," the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides +downstairs. "A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!" And +looking up, he sees the clerk looking down at him and marking him +as he passes a lamp. This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five +minutes he is in an ill humour. But he whistles that off like the +rest of it and marches home to the shooting gallery. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +The Ironmaster + + +Sir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of +the family gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in a +figurative point of view, upon his legs. He is at his place in +Lincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lying +grounds, and the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, though well +defended, and eke into Sir Leicester's bones. The blazing fires of +faggot and coal--Dedlock timber and antediluvian forest--that blaze +upon the broad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on the +frowning woods, sullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do not +exclude the enemy. The hot-water pipes that trail themselves all +over the house, the cushioned doors and windows, and the screens +and curtains fail to supply the fires' deficiencies and to satisfy +Sir Leicester's need. Hence the fashionable intelligence proclaims +one morning to the listening earth that Lady Dedlock is expected +shortly to return to town for a few weeks. + +It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor +relations. Indeed great men have often more than their fair share +of poor relations, inasmuch as very red blood of the superior +quality, like inferior blood unlawfully shed, WILL cry aloud and +WILL be heard. Sir Leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree, +are so many murders in the respect that they "will out." Among +whom there are cousins who are so poor that one might almost dare +to think it would have been the happier for them never to have been +plated links upon the Dedlock chain of gold, but to have been made +of common iron at first and done base service. + +Service, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not +profitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So +they visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, +and live but shabbily when they can't, and find--the women no +husbands, and the men no wives--and ride in borrowed carriages, and +sit at feasts that are never of their own making, and so go through +high life. The rich family sum has been divided by so many +figures, and they are the something over that nobody knows what to +do with. + +Everybody on Sir Leicester Dedlock's side of the question and of +his way of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less. +From my Lord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle, +Sir Leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of +relationship. But while he is stately in the cousinship of the +Everybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his +dignified way, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at the present +time, in despite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several +such cousins at Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr. + +Of these, foremost in the front rank stands Volumnia Dedlock, a +young lady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having the +honour to be a poor relation, by the mother's side, to another +great family. Miss Volumnia, displaying in early life a pretty +talent for cutting ornaments out of coloured paper, and also for +singing to the guitar in the Spanish tongue, and propounding French +conundrums in country houses, passed the twenty years of her +existence between twenty and forty in a sufficiently agreeable +manner. Lapsing then out of date and being considered to bore +mankind by her vocal performances in the Spanish language, she +retired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on an annual present +from Sir Leicester and whence she makes occasional resurrections in +the country houses of her cousins. She has an extensive +acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with thin legs +and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that dreary city. +But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of an +indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an +obsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs. + +In any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear case +for the pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it, and +when William Buffy came in, it was fully expected that her name +would be put down for a couple of hundred a year. But William +Buffy somehow discovered, contrary to all expectation, that these +were not the times when it could be done, and this was the first +clear indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the +country was going to pieces. + +There is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm +mashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot +than most gamekeepers. He has been for some time particularly +desirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments, +unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a well- +regulated body politic this natural desire on the part of a +spirited young gentleman so highly connected would be speedily +recognized, but somehow William Buffy found when he came in that +these were not times in which he could manage that little matter +either, and this was the second indication Sir Leicester Dedlock +had conveyed to him that the country was going to pieces. + +The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages +and capacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely to +have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their +cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, +and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite +as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can +be how to dispose of them. + +In this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme. +Beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world +(for the world of fashion does not stretch ALL the way from pole to +pole), her influence in Sir Leicester's house, however haughty and +indifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. +The cousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when Sir +Leicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob +Stables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast and +lunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomed +woman in the whole stud. + +Such the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this +dismal night when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here, +however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the +cold. It is near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over +the house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. +Bedroom candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and +cousins yawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at the +soda-water tray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins +gathered round the fire. Standing on one side of his own peculiar +fire (for there are two), Sir Leicester. On the opposite side of +the broad hearth, my Lady at her table. Volumnia, as one of the +more privileged cousins, in a luxurious chair between them. Sir +Leicester glancing, with magnificent displeasure, at the rouge and +the pearl necklace. + +"I occasionally meet on my staircase here," drawls Volumnia, whose +thoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long +evening of very desultory talk, "one of the prettiest girls, I +think, that I ever saw in my life." + +"A PROTEGEE of my Lady's," observes Sir Leicester. + +"I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked +that girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty +perhaps," says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, "but in its +way, perfect; such bloom I never saw!" + +Sir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the +rouge, appears to say so too. + +"Indeed," remarks my Lady languidly, "if there is any uncommon eye +in the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's, and not mine. Rosa is her +discovery." + +"Your maid, I suppose?" + +"No. My anything; pet--secretary--messenger--I don't know what." + +"You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a +flower, or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle--no, not a poodle, +though--or anything else that was equally pretty?" says Volumnia, +sympathizing. "Yes, how charming now! And how well that +delightful old soul Mrs. Rouncewell is looking. She must be an +immense age, and yet she is as active and handsome! She is the +dearest friend I have, positively!" + +Sir Leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeper +of Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person. Apart from that, he +has a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear her +praised. So he says, "You are right, Volumnia," which Volumnia is +extremely glad to hear. + +"She has no daughter of her own, has she?" + +"Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she had +two." + +My Lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravated +by Volumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticks +and heaves a noiseless sigh. + +"And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the +present age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the +opening of floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions," says Sir +Leicester with stately gloom, "that I have been informed by Mr. +Tulkinghorn that Mrs. Rouncewell's son has been invited to go into +Parliament." + +Miss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream. + +"Yes, indeed," repeats Sir Leicester. "Into Parliament." + +"I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?" +exclaims Volumnia. + +"He is called, I believe--an--ironmaster." Sir Leicester says it +slowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he is +called a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some other +word expressive of some other relationship to some other metal. + +Volumnia utters another little scream. + +"He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. +Tulkinghorn be correct, as I have no doubt it is. Mr. Tulkinghorn +being always correct and exact; still that does not," says Sir +Leicester, "that does not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with +strange considerations--startling considerations, as it appears to +me." + +Miss Volumnia rising with a look candlestick-wards, Sir Leicester +politely performs the grand tour of the drawing-room, brings one, +and lights it at my Lady's shaded lamp. + +"I must beg you, my Lady," he says while doing so, "to remain a few +moments, for this individual of whom I speak arrived this evening +shortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note"--Sir +Leicester, with his habitual regard to truth, dwells upon it--"I am +bound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, the +favour of a short interview with yourself and MYself on the subject +of this young girl. As it appeared that he wished to depart to- +night, I replied that we would see him before retiring." + +Miss Volumnia with a third little scream takes flight, wishing her +hosts--O Lud!--well rid of the--what is it?--ironmaster! + +The other cousins soon disperse, to the last cousin there. Sir +Leicester rings the bell, "Make my compliments to Mr. Rouncewell, +in the housekeeper's apartments, and say I can receive him now." + +My Lady, who has beard all this with slight attention outwardly, +looks towards Mr. Rouncewell as he comes in. He is a little over +fifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear +voice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and a +shrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentleman +dressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has a +perfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed +by the great presence into which he comes. + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized for +intruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thank +you, Sir Leicester." + +The head of the Dedlocks has motioned towards a sofa between +himself and my Lady. Mr. Rouncewell quietly takes his seat there. + +"In these busy times, when so many great undertakings are in +progress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places +that we are always on the flight." + +Sir Leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feel +that there is no hurry there; there, in that ancient house, rooted +in that quiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time to +mature, and the gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaks +stand deep in the fern and leaves of a hundred years; and where the +sun-dial on the terrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that time +which was as much the property of every Dedlock--while he lasted-- +as the house and lands. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair, +opposing his repose and that of Chesney Wold to the restless +flights of ironmasters. + +"Lady Dedlock has been so kind," proceeds Mr. Rouncewell with a +respectful glance and a bow that way, "as to place near her a young +beauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love with +Rosa and has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her and +to their becoming engaged if she will take him--which I suppose she +will. I have never seen Rosa until to-day, but I have some +confidence in my son's good sense--even in love. I find her what +he represents her, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks +of her with great commendation." + +"She in all respects deserves it," says my Lady. + +"I am happy, Lady Dedlock, that you say so, and I need not comment +on the value to me of your kind opinion of her." + +"That," observes Sir Leicester with unspeakable grandeur, for he +thinks the ironmaster a little too glib, "must be quite +unnecessary." + +"Quite unnecessary, Sir Leicester. Now, my son is a very young +man, and Rosa is a very young woman. As I made my way, so my son +must make his; and his being married at present is out of the +question. But supposing I gave my consent to his engaging himself +to this pretty girl, if this pretty girl will engage herself to +him, I think it a piece of candour to say at once--I am sure, Sir +Leicester and Lady Dedlock, you will understand and excuse me--I +should make it a condition that she did not remain at Chesney Wold. +Therefore, before communicating further with my son, I take the +liberty of saying that if her removal would be in any way +inconvenient or objectionable, I will hold the matter over with him +for any reasonable time and leave it precisely where it is." + +Not remain at Chesney Wold! Make it a condition! All Sir +Leicester's old misgivings relative to Wat Tyler and the people in +the iron districts who do nothing but turn out by torchlight come +in a shower upon his head, the fine grey hair of which, as well as +of his whiskers, actually stirs with indignation. + +"Am I to understand, sir," says Sir Leicester, "and is my Lady to +understand"--he brings her in thus specially, first as a point of +gallantry, and next as a point of prudence, having great reliance +on her sense--"am I to understand, Mr. Rouncewell, and is my Lady +to understand, sir, that you consider this young woman too good for +Chesney Wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?" + +"Certainly not, Sir Leicester," + +"I am glad to hear it." Sir Leicester very lofty indeed. + +"Pray, Mr. Rouncewell," says my Lady, warning Sir Leicester off +with the slightest gesture of her pretty hand, as if he were a fly, +"explain to me what you mean." + +"Willingly, Lady Dedlock. There is nothing I could desire more." + +Addressing her composed face, whose intelligence, however, is too +quick and active to be concealed by any studied impassiveness, +however habitual, to the strong Saxon face of the visitor, a +picture of resolution and perseverance, my Lady listens with +attention, occasionally slightly bending her head. + +"I am the son of your housekeeper, Lady Dedlock, and passed my +childhood about this house. My mother has lived here half a +century and will die here I have no doubt. She is one of those +examples--perhaps as good a one as there is--of love, and +attachment, and fidelity in such a nation, which England may well +be proud of, but of which no order can appropriate the whole pride +or the whole merit, because such an instance bespeaks high worth on +two sides--on the great side assuredly, on the small one no less +assuredly." + +Sir Leicester snorts a little to hear the law laid down in this +way, but in his honour and his love of truth, he freely, though +silently, admits the justice of the ironmaster's proposition. + +"Pardon me for saying what is so obvious, but I wouldn't have it +hastily supposed," with the least turn of his eyes towards Sir +Leicester, "that I am ashamed of my mother's position here, or +wanting in all just respect for Chesney Wold and the family. I +certainly may have desired--I certainly have desired, Lady Dedlock +--that my mother should retire after so many years and end her days +with me. But as I have found that to sever this strong bond would +be to break her heart, I have long abandoned that idea." + +Sir Leicester very magnificent again at the notion of Mrs. +Rouncewell being spirited off from her natural home to end her days +with an ironmaster. + +"I have been," proceeds the visitor in a modest, clear way, "an +apprentice and a workman. I have lived on workman's wages, years +and years, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. +My wife was a foreman's daughter, and plainly brought up. We have +three daughters besides this son of whom I have spoken, and being +fortunately able to give them greater advantages than we have had +ourselves, we have educated them well, very well. It has been one +of our great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any +station." + +A little boastfulness in his fatherly tone here, as if he added in +his heart, "even of the Chesney Wold station." Not a little more +magnificence, therefore, on the part of Sir Leicester. + +"All this is so frequent, Lady Dedlock, where I live, and among the +class to which I belong, that what would be generally called +unequal marriages are not of such rare occurrence with us as +elsewhere. A son will sometimes make it known to his father that +he has fallen in love, say, with a young woman in the factory. The +father, who once worked in a factory himself, will be a little +disappointed at first very possibly. It may be that he had other +views for his son. However, the chances are that having +ascertained the young woman to be of unblemished character, he will +say to his son, 'I must be quite sure you are in earnest here. +This is a serious matter for both of you. Therefore I shall have +this girl educated for two years,' or it may be, 'I shall place +this girl at the same school with your sisters for such a time, +during which you will give me your word and honour to see her only +so often. If at the expiration of that time, when she has so far +profited by her advantages as that you may be upon a fair equality, +you are both in the same mind, I will do my part to make you +happy.' I know of several cases such as I describe, my Lady, and I +think they indicate to me my own course now." + +Sir Leicester's magnificence explodes. Calmly, but terribly. + +"Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester with his right hand in the +breast of his blue coat, the attitude of state in which he is +painted in the gallery, "do you draw a parallel between Chesney +Wold and a--" Here he resists a disposition to choke, "a factory?" + +"I need not reply, Sir Leicester, that the two places are very +different; but for the purposes of this case, I think a parallel +may be justly drawn between them." + +Sir Leicester directs his majestic glance down one side of the long +drawing-room and up the other before he can believe that he is +awake. + +"Are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my Lady--my Lady-- +has placed near her person was brought up at the village school +outside the gates?" + +"Sir Leicester, I am quite aware of it. A very good school it is, +and handsomely supported by this family." + +"Then, Mr. Rouncewell," returns Sir Leicester, "the application of +what you have said is, to me, incomprehensible." + +"Will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say," the +ironmaster is reddening a little, "that I do not regard the village +school as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's +wife?" + +From the village school of Chesney Wold, intact as it is this +minute, to the whole framework of society; from the whole framework +of society, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks +in consequence of people (iron-masters, lead-mistresses, and what +not) not minding their catechism, and getting out of the station +unto which they are called--necessarily and for ever, according to +Sir Leicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen +to find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people +out of THEIR stations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and +opening the floodgates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift +progress of the Dedlock mind. + +"My Lady, I beg your pardon. Permit me, for one moment!" She has +given a faint indication of intending to speak. "Mr. Rouncewell, +our views of duty, and our views of station, and our views of +education, and our views of--in short, ALL our views--are so +diametrically opposed, that to prolong this discussion must be +repellent to your feelings and repellent to my own. This young +woman is honoured with my Lady's notice and favour. If she wishes +to withdraw herself from that notice and favour or if she chooses +to place herself under the influence of any one who may in his +peculiar opinions--you will allow me to say, in his peculiar +opinions, though I readily admit that he is not accountable for +them to me--who may, in his peculiar opinions, withdraw her from +that notice and favour, she is at any time at liberty to do so. We +are obliged to you for the plainness with which you have spoken. +It will have no effect of itself, one way or other, on the young +woman's position here. Beyond this, we can make no terms; and here +we beg--if you will be so good--to leave the subject." + +The visitor pauses a moment to give my Lady an opportunity, but she +says nothing. He then rises and replies, "Sir Leicester and Lady +Dedlock, allow me to thank you for your attention and only to +observe that I shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his +present inclinations. Good night!" + +"Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester with all the nature of a +gentleman shining in him, "it is late, and the roads are dark. I +hope your time is not so precious but that you will allow my Lady +and myself to offer you the hospitality of Chesney Wold, for to- +night at least." + +"I hope so," adds my Lady. + +"I am much obliged to you, but I have to travel all night in order +to reach a distant part of the country punctually at an appointed +time in the morning." + +Therewith the ironmaster takes his departure, Sir Leicester ringing +the bell and my Lady rising as he leaves the room. + +When my Lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the +fire, and inattentive to the Ghost's Walk, looks at Rosa, writing +in an inner room. Presently my Lady calls her. + +"Come to me, child. Tell me the truth. Are you in love?" + +"Oh! My Lady!" + +My Lady, looking at the downcast and blushing face, says smiling, +"Who is it? Is it Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson?" + +"Yes, if you please, my Lady. But I don't know that I am in love +with him--yet." + +"Yet, you silly little thing! Do you know that he loves YOU, yet?" + +"I think he likes me a little, my Lady." And Rosa bursts into +tears. + +Is this Lady Dedlock standing beside the village beauty, smoothing +her dark hair with that motherly touch, and watching her with eyes +so full of musing interest? Aye, indeed it is! + +"Listen to me, child. You are young and true, and I believe you +are attached to me." + +"Indeed I am, my Lady. Indeed there is nothing in the world I +wouldn't do to show how much." + +"And I don't think you would wish to leave me just yet, Rosa, even +for a lover?" + +"No, my Lady! Oh, no!" Rosa looks up for the first time, quite +frightened at the thought. + +"Confide in me, my child. Don't fear me. I wish you to be happy, +and will make you so--if I can make anybody happy on this earth." + +Rosa, with fresh tears, kneels at her feet and kisses her hand. My +Lady takes the hand with which she has caught it, and standing with +her eyes fixed on the fire, puts it about and about between her own +two hands, and gradually lets it fall. Seeing her so absorbed, +Rosa softly withdraws; but still my Lady's eyes are on the fire. + +In search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any hand that +never was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life? +Or does she listen to the Ghost's Walk and think what step does it +most resemble? A man's? A woman's? The pattering of a little +child's feet, ever coming on--on--on? Some melancholy influence is +upon her, or why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit +alone upon the hearth so desolate? + +Volumnia is away next day, and all the cousins are scattered before +dinner. Not a cousin of the batch but is amazed to hear from Sir +Leicester at breakfast-time of the obliteration of landmarks, and +opening of floodgates, and cracking of the framework of society, +manifested through Mrs. Rouncewell's son. Not a cousin of the +batch but is really indignant, and connects it with the feebleness +of William Buffy when in office, and really does feel deprived of a +stake in the country--or the pension list--or something--by fraud +and wrong. As to Volumnia, she is handed down the great staircase +by Sir Leicester, as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a +general rising in the north of England to obtain her rouge-pot and +pearl necklace. And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets--for +it is one appurtenance of their cousinship that however difficult +they may find it to keep themselves, they MUST keep maids and +valets--the cousins disperse to the four winds of heaven; and the +one wintry wind that blows to-day shakes a shower from the trees +near the deserted house, as if all the cousins had been changed +into leaves. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The Young Man + + +Chesney Wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great scrolls in +corners of comfortless rooms, bright damask does penance in brown +holland, carving and gilding puts on mortification, and the Dedlock +ancestors retire from the light of day again. Around and around +the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come +circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let +the gardener sweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the +leaves into full barrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle- +deep. Howls the shrill wind round Chesney Wold; the sharp rain +beats, the windows rattle, and the chimneys growl. Mists hide in +the avenues, veil the points of view, and move in funeral-wise +across the rising grounds. On all the house there is a cold, blank +smell like the smell of a little church, though something dryer, +suggesting that the dead and buried Dedlocks walk there in the long +nights and leave the flavour of their graves behind them. + +But the house in town, which is rarely in the same mind as Chesney +Wold at the same time, seldom rejoicing when it rejoices or +mourning when it mourns, expecting when a Dedlock dies--the house +in town shines out awakened. As warm and bright as so much state +may be, as delicately redolent of pleasant scents that bear no +trace of winter as hothouse flowers can make it, soft and hushed so +that the ticking of the clocks and the crisp burning of the fires +alone disturb the stillness in the rooms, it seems to wrap those +chilled bones of Sir Leicester's in rainbow-coloured wool. And Sir +Leicester is glad to repose in dignified contentment before the +great fire in the library, condescendingly perusing the backs of +his books or honouring the fine arts with a glance of approbation. +For he has his pictures, ancient and modern. Some of the Fancy +Ball School in which art occasionally condescends to become a +master, which would be best catalogued like the miscellaneous +articles in a sale. As '"Three high-backed chairs, a table and +cover, long-necked bottle (containing wine), one flask, one Spanish +female's costume, three-quarter face portrait of Miss Jogg the +model, and a suit of armour containing Don Quixote." Or "One stone +terrace (cracked), one gondola in distance, one Venetian senator's +dress complete, richly embroidered white satin costume with profile +portrait of Miss Jogg the model, one Scimitar superbly mounted in +gold with jewelled handle, elaborate Moorish dress (very rare), and +Othello." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often, there being estate +business to do, leases to be renewed, and so on. He sees my Lady +pretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as +indifferent, and take as little heed of one another, as ever. Yet +it may be that my Lady fears this Mr. Tulkinghorn and that he knows +it. It may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no +touch of compunction, remorse, or pity. It may be that her beauty +and all the state and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the +greater zest for what he is set upon and makes him the more +inflexible in it. Whether he be cold and cruel, whether immovable +in what he has made his duty, whether absorbed in love of power, +whether determined to have nothing hidden from him in ground where +he has burrowed among secrets all his life, whether he in his heart +despises the splendour of which he is a distant beam, whether he is +always treasuring up slights and offences in the affability of his +gorgeous clients--whether he be any of this, or all of this, it may +be that my Lady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionahle +eyes upon her, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this +rusty lawyer with his wisp of neckcloth and his dull black breeches +tied with ribbons at the knees. + +Sir Leicester sits in my Lady's room--that room in which Mr. +Tulkinghorn read the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce-- +particularly complacent. My Lady, as on that day, sits before the +fire with her screen in her hand. Sir Leicester is particularly +complacent because he has found in his newspaper some congenial +remarks bearing directly on the floodgates and the framework of +society. They apply so happily to the late case that Sir Leicester +has come from the library to my Lady's room expressly to read them +aloud. "The man who wrote this article," he observes by way of +preface, nodding at the fire as if he were nodding down at the man +from a mount, "has a well-balanced mind." + +The man's mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my Lady, +who, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid +resignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught +and falls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire +at Chesney Wold, and she had never left it. Sir Leicester, quite +unconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally +stopping to remove his glass and express approval, as "Very true +indeed," "Very properly put," "I have frequently made the same +remark myself," invariably losing his place after each observation, +and going up and down the column to find it again. + +Sir Leicester is reading with infinite gravity and state when the +door opens, and the Mercury in powder makes this strange +announcement, "The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy." + +Sir Leicester pauses, stares, repeats in a killing voice, "The +young man of the name of Guppy?" + +Looking round, he beholds the young man of the name of Guppy, much +discomfited and not presenting a very impressive letter of +introduction in his manner and appearance. + +"Pray," says Sir Leicester to Mercury, "what do you mean by +announcing with this abruptness a young man of the name of Guppy?" + +"I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see +the young man whenever he called. I was not aware that you were +here, Sir Leicester." + +With this apology, Mercury directs a scornful and indignant look at +the young man of the name of Guppy which plainly says, "What do you +come calling here for and getting ME into a row?" + +"It's quite right. I gave him those directions," says my Lady. +"Let the young man wait." + +"By no means, my Lady. Since he has your orders to come, I will +not interrupt you." Sir Leicester in his gallantry retires, rather +declining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and +majestically supposing him to be some shoemaker of intrusive +appearance. + +Lady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has +left the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot. She +suffers him to stand by the door and asks him what he wants. + +"That your ladyship would have the kindness to oblige me with a +little conversation," returns Mr. Guppy, embarrassed. + +"You are, of course, the person who has written me so many +letters?" + +"Several, your ladyship. Several before your ladyship condescended +to favour me with an answer." + +"And could you not take the same means of rendering a Conversation +unnecessary? Can you not still?" + +Mr. Guppy screws his mouth into a silent "No!" and shakes his head. + +"You have been strangely importunate. If it should appear, after +all, that what you have to say does not concern me--and I don't +know how it can, and don't expect that it will--you will allow me +to cut you short with but little ceremony. Say what you have to +say, if you please." + +My Lady, with a careless toss of her screen, turns herself towards +the fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man of +the name of Guppy. + +"With your ladyship's permission, then," says the young man, "I +will now enter on my business. Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship +in my first letter, in the law. Being in the law, I have learnt +the habit of not committing myself in writing, and therefore I did +not mention to your ladyship the name of the firm with which I am +connected and in which my standing--and I may add income--is +tolerably good. I may now state to your ladyship, in confidence, +that the name of that firm is Kenge and Carboy, of Lincoln's Inn, +which may not be altogether unknown to your ladyship in connexion +with the case in Chancery of Jarndyce and Jarndyce." + +My Lady's figure begins to be expressive of some attention. She +has ceased to toss the screen and holds it as if she were +listening. + +"Now, I may say to your ladyship at once," says Mr. Guppy, a little +emboldened, "it is no matter arising out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce +that made me so desirous to speak to your ladyship, which conduct I +have no doubt did appear, and does appear, obtrusive--in fact, +almost blackguardly." + +After waiting for a moment to receive some assurance to the +contrary, and not receiving any, Mr. Guppy proceeds, "If it had +been Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I should have gone at once to your +ladyship's solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, of the Fields. I have the +pleasure of being acquainted with Mr. Tulkinghorn--at least we move +when we meet one another--and if it had been any business of that +sort, I should have gone to him." + +My Lady turns a little round and says, "You had better sit down." + +"Thank your ladyship." Mr. Guppy does so. "Now, your ladyship"-- +Mr. Guppy refers to a little slip of paper on which he has made +small notes of his line of argument and which seems to involve him +in the densest obscurity whenever he looks at it--"I--Oh, yes!--I +place myself entirely in your ladyship's hands. If your ladyship +was to make any complaint to Kenge and Carboy or to Mr. Tulkinghorn +of the present visit, I should be placed in a very disagreeable +situation. That, I openly admit. Consequently, I rely upon your +ladyship's honour." + +My Lady, with a disdainful gesture of the hand that holds the +screen, assures him of his being worth no complaint from her. + +"Thank your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy; "quite satisfactory. Now-- +I--dash it!--The fact is that I put down a head or two here of the +order of the points I thought of touching upon, and they're written +short, and I can't quite make out what they mean. If your ladyship +will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, I--" + +Mr. Guppy, going to the window, tumbles into a pair of love-birds, +to whom he says in his confusion, "I beg your pardon, I am sure." +This does not tend to the greater legibility of his notes. He +murmurs, growing warm and red and holding the slip of paper now +close to his eyes, now a long way off, "C.S. What's C.S. for? Oh! +C.S.! Oh, I know! Yes, to be sure!" And comes back enlightened. + +"I am not aware," says Mr. Guppy, standing midway between my Lady +and his chair, "whether your ladyship ever happened to hear of, or +to see, a young lady of the name of Miss Esther Summerson." + +My Lady's eyes look at him full. "I saw a young lady of that name +not long ago. This past autumn." + +"Now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?" asks +Mr. Guppy, crossing his arms, holding his head on one side, and +scratching the corner of his mouth with his memoranda. + +My Lady removes her eyes from him no more. + +"No." + +"Not like your ladyship's family?" + +"No." + +"I think your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "can hardly remember Miss +Summerson's face?" + +"I remember the young lady very well. What has this to do with +me?" + +"Your ladyship, I do assure you that having Miss Summerson's image +imprinted on my 'eart--which I mention in confidence--I found, when +I had the honour of going over your ladyship's mansion of Chesney +Wold while on a short out in the county of Lincolnshire with a +friend, such a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your +ladyship's own portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much +so that I didn't at the moment even know what it WAS that knocked +me over. And now I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near +(I have often, since that, taken the liberty of looking at your +ladyship in your carriage in the park, when I dare say you was not +aware of me, but I never saw your ladyship so near), it's really +more surprising than I thought it." + +Young man of the name of Guppy! There have been times, when ladies +lived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call, +when that poor life of yours would NOT have been worth a minute's +purchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at +this moment. + +My Lady, slowly using her little hand-screen as a fan, asks him +again what he supposes that his taste for likenesses has to do with +her. + +"Your ladyship," replies Mr. Guppy, again referring to his paper, +"I am coming to that. Dash these notes! Oh! 'Mrs. Chadband.' +Yes." Mr. Guppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself +again. My Lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a +trifle less of graceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters +in her steady gaze. "A--stop a minute, though!" Mr. Guppy refers +again. "E.S. twice? Oh, yes! Yes, I see my way now, right on." + +Rolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech +with, Mr. Guppy proceeds. + +"Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson's +birth and bringing up. I am informed of that fact because--which I +mention in confidence--I know it in the way of my profession at +Kenge and Carboy's. Now, as I have already mentioned to your +ladyship, Miss Summerson's image is imprinted on my 'eart. If I +could clear this mystery for her, or prove her to be well related, +or find that having the honour to be a remote branch of your +ladyship's family she had a right to be made a party in Jarndyce +and Jarndyce, why, I might make a sort of a claim upon Miss +Summerson to look with an eye of more dedicated favour on my +proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In fact, as yet she +hasn't favoured them at all." + +A kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady's face. + +"Now, it's a very singular circumstance, your ladyship," says Mr. +Guppy, "though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way +of us professional men--which I may call myself, for though not +admitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by +Kenge and Carboy, on my mother's advancing from the principal of +her little income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy--that +I have encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady +who brought Miss Summerson up before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of +her. That lady was a Miss Barbary, your ladyship." + +Is the dead colour on my Lady's face reflected from the screen +which has a green silk ground and which she holds in her raised +hand as if she had forgotten it, or is it a dreadful paleness that +has fallen on her? + +"Did your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "ever happen to hear of Miss +Barbary?" + +"I don't know. I think so. Yes." + +"Was Miss Barbary at all connected with your ladyship's family?" + +My Lady's lips move, but they utter nothing. She shakes her head. + +"NOT connected?" says Mr. Guppy. "Oh! Not to your ladyship's +knowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Yes." After each of these +interrogatories, she has inclined her head. "Very good! Now, this +Miss Barbary was extremely close--seems to have been +extraordinarily close for a female, females being generally (in +common life at least) rather given to conversation--and my witness +never had an idea whether she possessed a single relative. On one +occasion, and only one, she seems to have been confidential to my +witness on a single point, and she then told her that the little +girl's real name was not Esther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon." + +"My God!" + +Mr. Guppy stares. Lady Dedlock sits before him looking him +through, with the same dark shade upon her face, in the same +attitude even to the holding of the screen, with her lips a little +apart, her brow a little contracted, but for the moment dead. He +sees her consciousness return, sees a tremor pass across her frame +like a ripple over water, sees her lips shake, sees her compose +them by a great effort, sees her force herself back to the +knowledge of his presence and of what he has said. All this, so +quickly, that her exclamation and her dead condition seem to have +passed away like the features of those long-preserved dead bodies +sometimes opened up in tombs, which, struck by the air like +lightning, vanish in a breath. + +"Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?" + +"I have heard it before." + +"Name of any collateral or remote branch of your ladyship's +family?" + +"No." + +"Now, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "I come to the last point of +the case, so far as I have got it up. It's going on, and I shall +gather it up closer and closer as it goes on. Your ladyship must +know--if your ladyship don't happen, by any chance, to know +already--that there was found dead at the house of a person named +Krook, near Chancery Lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great +distress. Upon which law-writer there was an inquest, and which +law-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown. +But, your ladyship, I have discovered very lately that that law- +writer's name was Hawdon." + +"And what is THAT to me?" + +"Aye, your ladyship, that's the question! Now, your ladyship, a +queer thing happened after that man's death. A lady started up, a +disguised lady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of +action and went to look at his grave. She hired a crossing- +sweeping boy to show it her. If your ladyship would wish to have +the boy produced in corroboration of this statement, I can lay my +hand upon him at any time." + +The wretched boy is nothing to my Lady, and she does NOT wish to +have him produced. + +"Oh, I assure your ladyship it's a very queer start indeed," says +Mr. Guppy. "If you was to hear him tell about the rings that +sparkled on her fingers when she took her glove off, you'd think it +quite romantic." + +There are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen. +My Lady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again +with that expression which in other times might have been so +dangerous to the young man of the name of Guppy. + +"It was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap +behind him by which he could be possibly identified. But he did. +He left a bundle of old letters." + +The screen still goes, as before. All this time her eyes never +once release him. + +"They were taken and secreted. And to-morrow night, your ladyship, +they will come into my possession." + +"Still I ask you, what is this to me?" + +"Your ladyship, I conclude with that." Mr. Guppy rises. "If you +think there's enough in this chain of circumstances put together-- +in the undoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your +ladyship, which is a positive fact for a jury; in her having been +brought up by Miss Barbary; in Miss Barbary stating Miss +Summerson's real name to be Hawdon; in your ladyship's knowing both +these names VERY WELL; and in Hawdon's dying as he did--to give +your ladyship a family interest in going further into the case, I +will bring these papers here. I don't know what they are, except +that they are old letters: I have never had them in my posession +yet. I will bring those papers here as soon as I get them and go +over them for the first time with your ladyship. I have told your +ladyship my object. I have told your ladyship that I should be +placed in a very disagreeable situation if any complaint was made, +and all is in strict confidence." + +Is this the full purpose of the young man of the name of Guppy, or +has he any other? Do his words disclose the length, breadth, +depth, of his object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what +do they hide? He is a match for my Lady there. She may look at +him, but he can look at the table and keep that witness-box face of +his from telling anything. + +"You may bring the letters," says my Lady, "if you choose." + +"Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour," +says Mr. Guppy, a little injured. + +"You may bring the letters," she repeats in the same tone, "if you +--please." + +"It shall he done. I wish your ladyship good day." + +On a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket, barred and +clasped like an old strong-chest. She, looking at him still, takes +it to her and unlocks it. + +"Oh! I assure your ladyship I am not actuated by any motives of +that sort," says Mr. Guppy, "and I couldn't accept anything of the +kind. I wish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you +all the same." + +So the young man makes his bow and goes downstairs, where the +supercilious Mercury does not consider himself called upon to leave +his Olympus by the hall-fire to let the young man out. + +As Sir Leicester basks in his library and dozes over his newspaper, +is there no influence in the house to startle him, not to say to +make the very trees at Chesney Wold fling up their knotted arms, +the very portraits frown, the very armour stir? + +No. Words, sobs, and cries are but air, and air is so shut in and +shut out throughout the house in town that sounds need be uttered +trumpet-tongued indeed by my Lady in her chamber to carry any faint +vibration to Sir Leicester's ears; and yet this cry is in the +house, going upward from a wild figure on its knees. + +"O my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as +my cruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had +renounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!" + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +Esther's Narrative + + +Richard had been gone away some time when a visitor came to pass a +few days with us. It was an elderly lady. It was Mrs. Woodcourt, +who, having come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger and +having written to my guardian, "by her son Allan's desire," to +report that she had heard from him and that he was well "and sent +his kind remembrances to all of us," had been invited by my +guardian to make a visit to Bleak House. She stayed with us nearly +three weeks. She took very kindly to me and was extremely +confidential, so much so that sometimes she almost made me +uncomfortable. I had no right, I knew very well, to be +uncomfortable because she confided in me, and I felt it was +unreasonable; still, with all I could do, I could not quite help it. + +She was such a sharp little lady and used to sit with her hands +folded in each other looking so very watchful while she talked to +me that perhaps I found that rather irksome. Or perhaps it was her +being so upright and trim, though I don't think it was that, +because I thought that quaintly pleasant. Nor can it have been the +general expression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty +for an old lady. I don't know what it was. Or at least if I do +now, I thought I did not then. Or at least--but it don't matter. + +Of a night when I was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me +into her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair; and, +dear me, she would tell me about Morgan ap-Kerrig until I was quite +low-spirited! Sometimes she recited a few verses from +Crumlinwallinwer and the Mewlinn-willinwodd (if those are the right +names, which I dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery +with the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they +were (being in Welsh), further than that they were highly +eulogistic of the lineage of Morgan ap-Kerrig. + +"So, Miss Summerson," she would say to me with stately triumph, +"this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my +son goes, he can claim kindred with Ap-Kerrig. He may not have +money, but he always has what is much better--family, my dear." + +I had my doubts of their caring so very much for Morgan ap-Kerrig +in India and China, but of course I never expressed them. I used +to say it was a great thing to be so highly connected. + +"It IS, my dear, a great thing," Mrs. Woodcourt would reply. "It +has its disadvantages; my son's choice of a wife, for instance, is +limited by it, but the matrimonial choice of the royal family is +limited in much the same manner." + +Then she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to +assure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between +us notwithstanding. + +"Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear," she would say, and always with some +emotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate +heart, "was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts +of MacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the +Royal Highlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the +last representatives of two old families. With the blessing of +heaven he will set them up again and unite them with another old +family." + +It was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as I used to +try, only for the sake of novelty or perhaps because--but I need +not be so particular. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me change it. + +"My dear," she said one night, "you have so much sense and you look +at the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life +that it is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family +matters of mine. You don't know much of my son, my dear; but you +know enough of him, I dare say, to recollect him?" + +"Yes, ma'am. I recollect him." + +"Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character, +and I should like to have your opinion of him." + +"Oh, Mrs. Woodcourt," said I, "that is so difficult!" + +"Why is it so difficult, my dear?" she returned. "I don't see it +myself." + +"To give an opinion--" + +"On so slight an acquaintance, my dear. THAT'S true." + +I didn't mean that, because Mr. Woodcourt had been at our house a +good deal altogether and had become quite intimate with my +guardian. I said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in +his profession--we thought--and that his kindness and gentleness to +Miss Flite were above all praise. + +"You do him justice!" said Mrs. Woodcourt, pressing my hand. "You +define him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession +faultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must +confess he is not without faults, love." + +"None of us are," said I. + +"Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to +correct," returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head. +"I am so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear, +as a third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness +itself." + +I said I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have +been otherwise than constant to his profession and zealous in the +pursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned. + +"You are right again, my dear," the old lady retorted, "but I don't +refer to his profession, look you." + +"Oh!" said I. + +"No," said she. "I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is +always paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and always has +been, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never +really cared for any one of them and has never meant in doing this +to do any harm or to express anything but politeness and good +nature. Still, it's not right, you know; is it?" + +"No," said I, as she seemed to wait for me. + +"And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear." + +I supposed it might. + +"Therefore, I have told him many times that he really should be +more careful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others. +And he has always said, 'Mother, I will be; but you know me better +than anybody else does, and you know I mean no harm--in short, mean +nothing.' All of which is very true, my dear, but is no +justification. However, as he is now gone so far away and for an +indefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and +introductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my +dear," said the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles, +"regarding your dear self, my love?" + +"Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?" + +"Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek +his fortune and to find a wife--when do you mean to seek YOUR +fortune and to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now +you blush!" + +I don't think I did blush--at all events, it was not important if I +did--and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me and I had +no wish to change it. + +"Shall I tell you what I always think of you and the fortune yet to +come for you, my love?" said Mrs. Woodcourt. + +"If you believe you are a good prophet," said I. + +"Why, then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very +worthy, much older--five and twenty years, perhaps--than yourself. +And you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very +happy." + +"That is a good fortune," said I. "But why is it to be mine?" + +"My dear," she returned, "there's suitability in it--you are so +busy, and so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that +there's suitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody, +my love, will congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage +than I shall." + +It was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but I think +it did. I know it did. It made me for some part of that night +uncomfortable. I was so ashamed of my folly that I did not like to +confess it even to Ada, and that made me more uncomfortable still. +I would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright +old lady's confidence if I could have possibly declined it. It +gave me the most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I +thought she was a story-teller, and at another time that she was +the pink of truth. Now I suspected that she was very cunning, next +moment I believed her honest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent +and simple. And after all, what did it matter to me, and why did +it matter to me? Why could not I, going up to bed with my basket +of keys, stop to sit down by her fire and accommodate myself for a +little while to her, at least as well as to anybody else, and not +trouble myself about the harmless things she said to me? Impelled +towards her, as I certainly was, for I was very anxious that she +should like me and was very glad indeed that she did, why should I +harp afterwards, with actual distress and pain, on every word she +said and weigh it over and over again in twenty scales? Why was it +so worrying to me to have her in our house, and confidential to me +every night, when I yet felt that it was better and safer somehow +that she should be there than anywhere else? These were +perplexities and contradictions that I could not account for. At +least, if I could--but I shall come to all that by and by, and it +is mere idleness to go on about it now. + +So when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her but was +relieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down, and Caddy brought +such a packet of domestic news that it gave us abundant occupation. + +First Caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that +I was the best adviser that ever was known. This, my pet said, was +no news at all; and this, I said, of course, was nonsense. Then +Caddy told us that she was going to be married in a month and that +if Ada and I would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in +the world. To be sure, this was news indeed; and I thought we +never should have done talking about it, we had so much to say to +Caddy, and Caddy had so much to say to us. + +It seemed that Caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his +bankruptcy--"gone through the Gazette," was the expression Caddy +used, as if it were a tunnel--with the general clemency and +commiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in +some blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and +had given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I +should think, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had +satisfied every one concerned that he could do no more, poor man. +So, he had been honourably dismissed to "the office" to begin the +world again. What he did at the office, I never knew; Caddy said +he was a "custom-house and general agent," and the only thing I +ever understood about that business was that when he wanted money +more than usual he went to the docks to look for it, and hardly +ever found it. + +As soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this +shorn lamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in Hatton +Garden (where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, +cutting the horse hair out of the seats of the chairs and choking +themselves with it), Caddy had brought about a meeting between him +and old Mr. Turveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and +meek, had deferred to Mr. Turveydrop's deportment so submissively +that they had become excellent friends. By degrees, old Mr. +Turveydrop, thus familiarized with the idea of his son's marriage, +had worked up his parental feelings to the height of contemplating +that event as being near at hand and had given his gracious consent +to the young couple commencing housekeeping at the academy in +Newman Street when they would. + +"And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?" + +"Oh! Poor Pa," said Caddy, "only cried and said he hoped we might +get on better than he and Ma had got on. He didn't say so before +Prince, he only said so to me. And he said, 'My poor girl, you +have not been very well taught how to make a home for your husband, +but unless you mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you bad +better murder him than marry him--if you really love him.'" + +"And how did you reassure him, Caddy?" + +"Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and +hear him say such terrible things, and I couldn't help crying +myself. But I told him that I DID mean it with all my heart and +that I hoped our house would be a place for him to come and find +some comfort in of an evening and that I hoped and thought I could +be a better daughter to him there than at home. Then I mentioned +Peepy's coming to stay with me, and then Pa began to cry again and +said the children were Indians." + +"Indians, Caddy?" + +"Yes," said Caddy, "wild Indians. And Pa said"--here she began to +sob, poor girl, not at all like the happiest girl in the world-- +"that he was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was +their being all tomahawked together." + +Ada suggested that it was comfortable to know that Mr. Jellyby did +not mean these destructive sentiments. + +"No, of course I know Pa wouldn't like his family to be weltering +in their blood," said Caddy, "but he means that they are very +unfortunate in being Ma's children and that he is very unfortunate +in being Ma's husband; and I am sure that's true, though it seems +unnatural to say so." + +I asked Caddy if Mrs. Jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed. + +"Oh! You know what Ma is, Esther," she returned. "It's impossible +to say whether she knows it or not. She has been told it often +enough; and when she IS told it, she only gives me a placid look, +as if I was I don't know what--a steeple in the distance," said +Caddy with a sudden idea; "and then she shakes her head and says +'Oh, Caddy, Caddy, what a tease you are!' and goes on with the +Borrioboola letters." + +"And about your wardrobe, Caddy?" said I. For she was under no +restraint with us. + +"Well, my dear Esther,'' she returned, drying her eyes, "I must do +the best I can and trust to my dear Prince never to have an unkind +remembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. If the question +concerned an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would know all about it and +would be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor +cares." + +Caddy was not at all deficient in natural affection for her mother, +but mentioned this with tears as an undeniable fact, which I am +afraid it was. We were sorry for the poor dear girl and found so +much to admire in the good disposition which had survived under +such discouragement that we both at once (I mean Ada and I) +proposed a little scheme that made her perfectly joyful. This was +her staying with us for three weeks, my staying with her for one, +and our all three contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and +sewing, and saving, and doing the very best we could think of to +make the most of her stock. My guardian being as pleased with the +idea as Caddy was, we took her home next day to arrange the matter +and brought her out again in triumph with her boxes and all the +purchases that could be squeezed out of a ten-pound note, which Mr. +Jellyby had found in the docks I suppose, but which he at all +events gave her. What my guardian would not have given her if we +had encouraged him, it would be difficult to say, but we thought it +right to compound for no more than her wedding-dress and bonnet. +He agreed to this compromise, and if Caddy had ever been happy in +her life, she was happy when we sat down to work. + +She was clumsy enough with her needle, poor girl, and pricked her +fingers as much as she had been used to ink them. She could not +help reddening a little now and then, partly with the smart and +partly with vexation at being able to do no better, but she soon +got over that and began to improve rapidly. So day after day she, +and my darling, and my little maid Charley, and a milliner out of +the town, and I, sat hard at work, as pleasantly as possible. + +Over and above this, Caddy was very anxious "to learn +housekeeping," as she said. Now, mercy upon us! The idea of her +learning housekeeping of a person of my vast experience was such a +joke that I laughed, and coloured up, and fell into a comical +confusion when she proposed it. However, I said, "Caddy, I am sure +you are very welcome to learn anything that you can learn of ME, my +dear," and I showed her all my books and methods and all my fidgety +ways. You would have supposed that I was showing her some +wonderful inventions, by her study of them; and if you had seen +her, whenever I jingled my housekeeping keys, get up and attend me, +certainly you might have thought that there never was a greater +imposter than I with a blinder follower than Caddy Jellyby. + +So what with working and housekeeping, and lessons to Charley, and +backgammon in the evening with my guardian, and duets with Ada, the +three weeks slipped fast away. Then I went home with Caddy to see +what could be done there, and Ada and Charley remained behind to +take care of my guardian. + +When I say I went home with Caddy, I mean to the furnished lodging +in Hatton Garden. We went to Newman Street two or three times, +where preparations were in progress too--a good many, I observed, +for enhancing the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop, and a few for +putting the newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the +house--but our great point was to make the furnished lodging decent +for the wedding-breakfast and to imbue Mrs. Jellyby beforehand with +some faint sense of the occasion. + +The latter was the more difficult thing of the two because Mrs. +Jellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting-room (the +back one was a mere closet), and it was littered down with waste- +paper and Borrioboolan documents, as an untidy stable might be +littered with straw. Mrs. Jellyby sat there all day drinking +strong coffee, dictating, and holding Borrioboolan interviews by +appointment. The unwholesome boy, who seemed to me to be going +into a decline, took his meals out of the house. When Mr. Jellyby +came home, he usually groaned and went down into the kitchen. +There he got something to eat if the servant would give him +anything, and then, feeling that he was in the way, went out and +walked about Hatton Garden in the wet. The poor children scrambled +up and tumbled down the house as they had always been accustomed to +do. + +The production of these devoted little sacrifices in any +presentable condition being quite out of the question at a week's +notice, I proposed to Caddy that we should make them as happy as we +could on her marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, +and should confine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's +room, and a clean breakfast. In truth Mrs. Jellyby required a good +deal of attention, the lattice-work up her back having widened +considerably since I first knew her and her hair looking like the +mane of a dustman's horse. + +Thinking that the display of Caddy's wardrobe would be the best +means of approaching the subject, I invited Mrs. Jellyby to come +and look at it spread out on Caddy's bed in the evening after the +unwholesome boy was gone. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said she, rising from her desk with her +usual sweetness of temper, "these are really ridiculous +preparations, though your assisting them is a proof of your +kindness. There is something so inexpressibly absurd to me in the +idea of Caddy being married! Oh, Caddy, you silly, silly, silly +puss!" + +She came upstairs with us notwithstanding and looked at the clothes +in her customary far-off manner. They suggested one distinct idea +to her, for she said with her placid smile, and shaking her head, +"My good Miss Summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might +have been equipped for Africa!" + +On our going downstairs again, Mrs. Jellyby asked me whether this +troublesome business was really to take place next Wednesday. And +on my replying yes, she said, "Will my room be required, my dear +Miss Summerson? For it's quite impossible that I can put my papers +away." + +I took the liberty of saying that the room would certainly be +wanted and that I thought we must put the papers away somewhere. +"Well, my dear Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, "you know best, +I dare say. But by obliging me to employ a boy, Caddy has +embarrassed me to that extent, overwhelmed as I am with public +business, that I don't know which way to turn. We have a +Ramification meeting, too, on Wednesday afternoon, and the +inconvenience is very serious." + +"It is not likely to occur again," said I, smiling. "Caddy will be +married but once, probably." + +"That's true," Mrs. Jellyby replied; "that's true, my dear. I +suppose we must make the best of it!" + +The next question was how Mrs. Jellyby should be dressed on the +occasion. I thought it very curious to see her looking on serenely +from her writing-table while Caddy and I discussed it, occasionally +shaking her head at us with a half-reproachful smile like a +superior spirit who could just bear with our trifling. + +The state in which her dresses were, and the extraordinary +confusion in which she kept them, added not a little to our +difficulty; but at length we devised something not very unlike what +a common-place mother might wear on such an occasion. The +abstracted manner in which Mrs. Jellyby would deliver herself up to +having this attire tried on by the dressmaker, and the sweetness +with which she would then observe to me how sorry she was that I +had not turned my thoughts to Africa, were consistent with the rest +of her behaviour. + +The lodging was rather confined as to space, but I fancied that if +Mrs. Jellyby's household had been the only lodgers in Saint Paul's +or Saint Peter's, the sole advantage they would have found in the +size of the building would have been its affording a great deal of +room to be dirty in. I believe that nothing belonging to the +family which it had been possible to break was unbroken at the time +of those preparations for Caddy's marriage, that nothing which it +had been possible to spoil in any way was unspoilt, and that no +domestic object which was capable of collecting dirt, from a dear +child's knee to the door-plate, was without as much dirt as could +well accumulate upon it. + +Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when +he was at home with his head against the wall, became interested +when he saw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some +order among all this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help. +But such wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when +they were opened--bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, Mrs. Jellyby's +caps, letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, +firewood, wafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of +paper bags, footstools, blacklead brushes, bread, Mrs. Jellyby's +bonnets, books with butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle +ends put out by being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, +nutshells, heads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee- +grounds, umbrellas--that he looked frightened, and left off again. +But he came regularly every evening and sat without his coat, with +his head against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he +had known how. + +"Poor Pa!" said Caddy to me on the night before the great day, when +we really had got things a little to rights. "It seems unkind to +leave him, Esther. But what could I do if I stayed! Since I first +knew you, I have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it's +useless. Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly. +We never have a servant who don't drink. Ma's ruinous to +everything." + +Mr. Jellyby could not hear what she said, but he seemed very low +indeed and shed tears, I thought. + +"My heart aches for him; that it does!" sobbed Caddy. "I can't +help thinking to-night, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with +Prince, and how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma. +What a disappointed life!" + +"My dear Caddy!" said Mr. Jellyby, looking slowly round from the +wail. It was the first time, I think, I ever heard him say three +words together. + +"Yes, Pa!" cried Caddy, going to him and embracing him +affectionately. + +"My dear Caddy," said Mr. Jellyby. "Never have--" + +"Not Prince, Pa?" faltered Caddy. "Not have Prince?" + +"Yes, my dear," said Mr. Jellyby. "Have him, certainly. But, +never have--" + +I mentioned in my account of our first visit in Thavies Inn that +Richard described Mr. Jellyby as frequently opening his mouth after +dinner without saying anything. It was a habit of his. He opened +his mouth now a great many times and shook his head in a melancholy +manner. + +"What do you wish me not to have? Don't have what, dear Pa?" asked +Caddy, coaxing him, with her arms round his neck. + +"Never have a mission, my dear child." + +Mr. Jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again, and +this was the only time I ever heard him make any approach to +expressing his sentiments on the Borrioboolan question. I suppose +he had been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have +been completely exhausted long before I knew him. + +I thought Mrs. Jellyby never would have left off serenely looking +over her papers and drinking coffee that night. It was twelve +o'clock before we could obtain possession of the room, and the +clearance it required then was so discouraging that Caddy, who was +almost tired out, sat down in the middle of the dust and cried. +But she soon cheered up, and we did wonders with it before we went +to bed. + +In the morning it looked, by the aid of a few flowers and a +quantity of soap and water and a little arrangement, quite gay. +The plain breakfast made a cheerful show, and Caddy was perfectly +charming. But when my darling came, I thought--and I think now-- +that I never had seen such a dear face as my beautiful pet's. + +We made a little feast for the children upstairs, and we put Peepy +at the head of the table, and we showed them Caddy in her bridal +dress, and they clapped their hands and hurrahed, and Caddy cried +to think that she was going away from them and hugged them over and +over again until we brought Prince up to fetch her away--when, I am +sorry to say, Peepy bit him. Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop +downstairs, in a state of deportment not to be expressed, benignly +blessing Caddy and giving my guardian to understand that his son's +happiness was his own parental work and that he sacrificed personal +considerations to ensure it. "My dear sir," said Mr. Turveydrop, +"these young people will live with me; my house is large enough for +their accommodation, and they shall not want the shelter of my +roof. I could have wished--you will understand the allusion, Mr. +Jarndyce, for you remember my illustrious patron the Prince Regent +--I could have wished that my son had married into a family where +there was more deportment, but the will of heaven be done!" + +Mr. and Mrs. Pardiggle were of the party--Mr. Pardiggle, an +obstinate-looking man with a large waistcoat and stubbly hair, who +was always talking in a loud bass voice about his mite, or Mrs. +Pardiggle's mite, or their five boys' mites. Mr. Quale, with his +hair brushed back as usual and his knobs of temples shining very +much, was also there, not in the character of a disappointed lover, +but as the accepted of a young--at least, an unmarried--lady, a +Miss Wisk, who was also there. Miss Wisk's mission, my guardian +said, was to show the world that woman's mission was man's mission +and that the only genuine mission of both man and woman was to be +always moving declaratory resolutions about things in general at +public meetings. The guests were few, but were, as one might +expect at Mrs. Jellyby's, all devoted to public objects only. +Besides those I have mentioned, there was an extremely dirty lady +with her bonnet all awry and the ticketed price of her dress still +sticking on it, whose neglected home, Caddy told me, was like a +filthy wilderness, but whose church was like a fancy fair. A very +contentious gentleman, who said it was his mission to be +everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms of coolness +with the whole of his large family, completed the party. + +A party, having less in common with such an occasion, could hardly +have been got together by any ingenuity. Such a mean mission as +the domestic mission was the very last thing to be endured among +them; indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before +we sat down to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying +chiefly in the narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on +the part of her tyrant, man. One other singularity was that nobody +with a mission--except Mr. Quale, whose mission, as I think I have +formerly said, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission-- +cared at all for anybody's mission. Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear +that the only one infallible course was her course of pouncing upon +the poor and applying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat; +as Miss Wisk was that the only practical thing for the world was +the emancipation of woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man. +Mrs. Jellyby, all the while, sat smiling at the limited vision that +could see anything but Borrioboola-Gha. + +But I am anticipating now the purport of our conversation on the +ride home instead of first marrying Caddy. We all went to church, +and Mr. Jellyby gave her away. Of the air with which old Mr. +Turveydrop, with his hat under his left arm (the inside presented +at the clergyman like a cannon) and his eyes creasing themselves up +into his wig, stood stiff and high-shouldered behind us bridesmaids +during the ceremony, and afterwards saluted us, I could never say +enough to do it justice. Miss Wisk, whom I cannot report as +prepossessing in appearance, and whose manner was grim, listened to +the proceedings, as part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. +Mrs. Jellyby, with her calm smile and her bright eyes, looked the +least concerned of all the company. + +We duly came back to breakfast, and Mrs. Jellyby sat at the head of +the table and Mr. Jellyby at the foot. Caddy had previously stolen +upstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was +Turveydrop. But this piece of information, instead of being an +agreeable surprise to Peepy, threw him on his back in such +transports of kicking grief that I could do nothing on being sent +for but accede to the proposal that he should be admitted to the +breakfast table. So he came down and sat in my lap; and Mrs. +Jellyby, after saying, in reference to the state of his pinafore, +"Oh, you naughty Peepy, what a shocking little pig you are!" was +not at all discomposed. He was very good except that he brought +down Noah with him (out of an ark I had given him before we went to +church) and WOULD dip him head first into the wine-glasses and then +put him in his mouth. + +My guardian, with his sweet temper and his quick perception and his +amiable face, made something agreeable even out of the ungenial +company. None of them seemed able to talk about anything but his, +or her, own one subject, and none of them seemed able to talk about +even that as part of a world in which there was anything else; but +my guardian turned it all to the merry encouragement of Caddy and +the honour of the occasion, and brought us through the breakfast +nobly. What we should have done without him, I am afraid to think, +for all the company despising the bride and bridegroom and old Mr. +Turveydrop--and old Mr. Thrveydrop, in virtue of his deportment, +considering himself vastly superior to all the company--it was a +very unpromising case. + +At last the time came when poor Caddy was to go and when all her +property was packed on the hired coach and pair that was to take +her and her husband to Gravesend. It affected us to see Caddy +clinging, then, to her deplorable home and hanging on her mother's +neck with the greatest tenderness. + +"I am very sorry I couldn't go on writing from dictation, Ma," +sobbed Caddy. "I hope you forgive me now." + +"Oh, Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "I have told you over and +over again that I have engaged a boy, and there's an end of it." + +"You are sure you are not the least angry with me, Ma? Say you are +sure before I go away, Ma?" + +"You foolish Caddy," returned Mrs. Jellyby, "do I look angry, or +have I inclination to be angry, or time to be angry? How CAN you?" + +"Take a little care of Pa while I am gone, Mama!" + +Mrs. Jellyby positively laughed at the fancy. "You romantic +child," said she, lightly patting Caddy's back. "Go along. I am +excellent friends with you. Now, good-bye, Caddy, and be very +happy!" + +Then Caddy hung upon her father and nursed his cheek against hers +as if he were some poor dull child in pain. All this took place in +the hall. Her father released her, took out his pocket +handkerchief, and sat down on the stairs with his head against the +wall. I hope he found some consolation in walls. I almost think +he did. + +And then Prince took her arm in his and turned with great emotion +and respect to his father, whose deportment at that moment was +overwhelming. + +"Thank you over and over again, father!" said Prince, kissing his +hand. "I am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration +regarding our marriage, and so, I can assure you, is Caddy." + +"Very," sobbed Caddy. "Ve-ry!" + +"My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "and dear daughter, I have done +my duty. If the spirit of a sainted wooman hovers above us and +looks down on the occasion, that, and your constant affection, will +be my recompense. You will not fail in YOUR duty, my son and +daughter, I believe?" + +"Dear father, never!" cried Prince. + +"Never, never, dear Mr. Turveydrop!" said Caddy. + +"This," returned Mr. Turveydrop, "is as it should be. My children, +my home is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. I will never +leave you; nothing but death shall part us. My dear son, you +contemplate an absence of a week, I think?" + +"A week, dear father. We shall return home this day week." + +"My dear child," said Mr. Turveydrop, "let me, even under the +present exceptional circumstances, recommend strict punctuality. +It is highly important to keep the connexion together; and schools, +if at all neglected, are apt to take offence." + +"This day week, father, we shall be sure to be home to dinner." + +"Good!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "You will find fires, my dear +Caroline, in your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. +Yes, yes, Prince!" anticipating some self-denying objection on his +son's part with a great air. "You and our Caroline will be strange +in the upper part of the premises and will, therefore, dine that +day in my apartment. Now, bless ye!" + +They drove away, and whether I wondered most at Mrs. Jellyby or at +Mr. Turveydrop, I did not know. Ada and my guardian were in the +same condition when we came to talk it over. But before we drove +away too, I received a most unexpected and eloquent compliment from +Mr. Jellyby. He came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, +pressed them earnestly, and opened his mouth twice. I was so sure +of his meaning that I said, quite flurried, "You are very welcome, +sir. Pray don't mention it!" + +"I hope this marriage is for the best, guardian," said I when we +three were on our road home. + +"I hope it is, little woman. Patience. We shall see." + +"Is the wind in the east to-day?" I ventured to ask him. + +He laughed heartily and answered, "No." + +"But it must have been this morning, I think," said I. + +He answered "No" again, and this time my dear girl confidently +answered "No" too and shook the lovely head which, with its +blooming flowers against the golden hair, was like the very spring. +"Much YOU know of east winds, my ugly darling," said I, kissing her +in my admiration--I couldn't help it. + +Well! It was only their love for me, I know very well, and it is a +long time ago. I must write it even if I rub it out again, because +it gives me so much pleasure. They said there could be no east +wind where Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden went, +there was sunshine and summer air. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +Nurse and Patient + + +I had not been at home again many days when one evening I went +upstairs into my own room to take a peep over Charley's shoulder +and see how she was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was a +trying business to Charley, who seemed to have no natural power +over a pen, but in whose hand every pen appeared to become +perversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and +splash, and sidle into corners like a saddle-donkey. It was very +odd to see what old letters Charley's young hand had made, they so +wrinkled, and shrivelled, and tottering, it so plump and round. +Yet Charley was uncommonly expert at other things and had as nimble +little fingers as I ever watched. + +"Well, Charley," said I, looking over a copy of the letter O in +which it was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and +collapsed in all kinds of ways, "we are improving. If we only get +to make it round, we shall be perfect, Charley." + +Then I made one, and Charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join +Charley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot. + +"Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time." + +Charley laid down her pen, the copy being finished, opened and shut +her cramped little hand, looked gravely at the page, half in pride +and half in doubt, and got up, and dropped me a curtsy. + +"Thank you, miss. If you please, miss, did you know a poor person +of the name of Jenny?" + +"A brickmaker's wife, Charley? Yes." + +"She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, and +said you knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn't the young lady's +little maid--meaning you for the young lady, miss--and I said yes, +miss." + +"I thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, Charley." + +"So she had, miss, but she's come back again to where she used to +live--she and Liz. Did you know another poor person of the name of +Liz, miss?" + +"I think I do, Charley, though not by name." + +"That's what she said!" returned Chariey. "They have both come +back, miss, and have been tramping high and low." + +"Tramping high and low, have they, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss." If Charley could only have made the letters in her +copy as round as the eyes with which she looked into my face, they +would have been excellent. "And this poor person came about the +house three or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss--all +she wanted, she said--but you were away. That was when she saw me. +She saw me a-going about, miss," said Charley with a short laugh of +the greatest delight and pride, "and she thought I looked like your +maid!" + +"Did she though, really, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss!" said Charley. "Really and truly." And Charley, with +another short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round +again and looked as serious as became my maid. I was never tired +of seeing Charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, +standing before me with her youthful face and figure, and her +steady manner, and her childish exultation breaking through it now +and then in the pleasantest way. + +"And where did you see her, Charley?" said I. + +My little maid's countenance fell as she replied, "By the doctor's +shop, miss." For Charley wore her black frock yet. + +I asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but Charley said no. It +was some one else. Some one in her cottage who had tramped down to +Saint Albans and was tramping he didn't know where. A poor boy, +Charley said. No father, no mother, no any one. "Like as Tom +might have been, miss, if Emma and me had died after father," said +Charley, her round eyes filling with tears. + +"And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?" + +"She said, miss," returned Charley, "how that he had once done as +much for her." + +My little maid's face was so eager and her quiet hands were folded +so closely in one another as she stood looking at me that I had no +great difficulty in reading her thoughts. "Well, Charley," said I, +"it appears to me that you and I can do no better than go round to +Jenny's and see what's the matter." + +The alacrity with which Charley brought my bonnet and veil, and +having dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl and +made herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressed +her readiness. So Charley and I, without saying anything to any +one, went out. + +It was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. +The rain had been thick and heavy all day, and with little +intermission for many days. None was falling just then, however. +The sky had partly cleared, but was very gloomy--even above us, +where a few stars were shining. In the north and north-west, where +the sun had set three hours before, there was a pale dead light +both beautiful and awful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud +waved up like a sea stricken immovable as it was heaving. Towards +London a lurid glare overhung the whole dark waste, and the +contrast between these two lights, and the fancy which the redder +light engendered of an unearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen +buildings of the city and on all the faces of its many thousands of +wondering inhabitants, was as solemn as might be. + +I had no thought that night--none, I am quite sure--of what was +soon to happen to me. But I have always remembered since that when +we had stopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, and when +we went upon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impression +of myself as being something different from what I then was. I +know it was then and there that I had it. I have ever since +connected the feeling with that spot and time and with everything +associated with that spot and time, to the distant voices in the +town, the barking of a dog, and the sound of wheels coming down the +miry hill. + +It was Saturday night, and most of the people belonging to the +place where we were going were drinking elsewhere. We found it +quieter than I had previously seen it, though quite as miserable. +The kilns were burning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a +pale-blue glare. + +We came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the +patched window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother of +the little child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of +the poor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy, +supported by the chimney-piece, was cowering on the floor. He held +under his arm, like a little bundle, a fragment of a fur cap; and +as he tried to warm himself, he shook until the crazy door and +window shook. The place was closer than before and had an +unhealthy and a very peculiar smell. + +I had not lifted by veil when I first spoke to the woman, which was +at the moment of our going in. The boy staggered up instantly and +stared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror. + +His action was so quick and my being the cause of it was so evident +that I stood still instead of advancing nearer. + +"I won't go no more to the berryin ground," muttered the boy; "I +ain't a-going there, so I tell you!" + +I lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. She said to me in a low +voice, "Don't mind him, ma'am. He'll soon come back to his head," +and said to him, "Jo, Jo, what's the matter?" + +"I know wot she's come for!" cried the boy. + +"Who?" + +"The lady there. She's come to get me to go along with her to the +berryin ground. I won't go to the berryin ground. I don't like +the name on it. She might go a-berryin ME." His shivering came on +again, and as he leaned against the wall, he shook the hovel. + +"He has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma'am," +said Jenny softly. "Why, how you stare! This is MY lady, Jo." + +"Is it?" returned the boy doubtfully, and surveying me with his arm +held out above his burning eyes. "She looks to me the t'other one. +It ain't the bonnet, nor yet it ain't the gownd, but she looks to +me the t'other one." + +My little Charley, with her premature experience of illness and +trouble, had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietly +up to him with a chair and sat him down in it like an old sick +nurse. Except that no such attendant could have shown him +Charley's youthful face, which seemed to engage his confidence. + +"I say!" said the boy. "YOU tell me. Ain't the lady the t'other +lady?" + +Charley shook her head as she methodically drew his rags about him +and made him as warm as she could. + +"Oh!" the boy muttered. "Then I s'pose she ain't." + +"I came to see if I could do you any good," said I. "What is the +matter with you?" + +"I'm a-being froze," returned the boy hoarsely, with his haggard +gaze wandering about me, "and then burnt up, and then froze, and +then burnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head's all +sleepy, and all a-going mad-like--and I'm so dry--and my bones +isn't half so much bones as pain. + +"When did he come here?" I asked the woman. + +"This morning, ma'am, I found him at the corner of the town. I had +known him up in London yonder. Hadn't I, Jo?" + +"Tom-all-Alone's," the boy replied. + +Whenever he fixed his attention or his eyes, it was only for a very +little while. He soon began to droop his head again, and roll it +heavily, and speak as if he were half awake. + +"When did he come from London?" I asked. + +"I come from London yes'day," said the boy himself, now flushed and +hot. "I'm a-going somewheres." + +"Where is he going?" I asked. + +"Somewheres," repeated the boy in a louder tone. "I have been +moved on, and moved on, more nor ever I was afore, since the +t'other one give me the sov'ring. Mrs. Snagsby, she's always a- +watching, and a-driving of me--what have I done to her?--and +they're all a-watching and a-driving of me. Every one of 'em's +doing of it, from the time when I don't get up, to the time when I +don't go to bed. And I'm a-going somewheres. That's where I'm a- +going. She told me, down in Tom-all-Alone's, as she came from +Stolbuns, and so I took the Stolbuns Road. It's as good as +another." + +He always concluded by addressing Charley. + +"What is to be done with him?" said I, taking the woman aside. "He +could not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knew +where he was going!" + +"I know no more, ma'am, than the dead," she replied, glancing +compassionately at him. "Perhaps the dead know better, if they +could only tell us. I've kept him here all day for pity's sake, +and I've given him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if any +one will take him in (here's my pretty in the bed--her child, but I +call it mine); but I can't keep him long, for if my husband was to +come home and find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out and +might do him a hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back!" + +The other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got up +with a half-obscured sense that he was expected to be going. When +the little child awoke, and when and how Charley got at it, took it +out of bed, and began to walk about hushing it, I don't know. +There she was, doing all this in a quiet motherly manner as if she +were living in Mrs. Blinder's attic with Tom and Emma again. + +The friend had been here and there, and had been played about from +hand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was too +early for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at +last it was too late. One official sent her to another, and the +other sent her back again to the first, and so backward and +forward, until it appeared to me as if both must have been +appointed for their skill in evading their duties instead of +performing them. And now, after all, she said, breathing quickly, +for she had been running and was frightened too, "Jenny, your +master's on the road home, and mine's not far behind, and the Lord +help the boy, for we can do no more for him!" They put a few +halfpence together and hurried them into his hand, and so, in an +oblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he shuffled out of +the house. + +"Give me the child, my dear," said its mother to Charley, "and +thank you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! + +Young lady, if my master don't fall out with me, I'll look down by +the kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like, and again in +the morning!" She hurried off, and presenfty we passed her hushing +and singing to her child at her own door and looking anxiously +along the road for her drunken husband. + +I was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest I +should bring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we must +not leave the boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much better +than I did, and whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, +glided on before me, and presently we came up with Jo, just short +of the brick-kiln. + +I think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under +his arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he still +carried his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he +went bareheaded through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped +when we called to him and again showed a dread of me when I came +up, standing with his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even +arrested in his shivering fit. + +I asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he had +some shelter for the night. + +"I don't want no shelter," he said; "I can lay amongst the warm +bricks." + +"But don't you know that people die there?" replied Charley. + +"They dies everywheres," said the boy. "They dies in their +lodgings--she knows where; I showed her--and they dies down in Tom- +all-Alone's in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according to +what I see." Then he hoarsely whispered Charley, "If she ain't the +t'other one, she ain't the forrenner. Is there THREE of 'em then?" + +Charley looked at me a little frightened. I felt half frightened +at myself when the boy glared on me so. + +But he turned and followed when I beckoned to him, and finding that +he acknowledged that influence in me, I led the way straight home. +It was not far, only at the summit of the hill. We passed but one +man. I doubted if we should have got home without assistance, the +boy's steps were so uncertain and tremulous. He made no complaint, +however, and was strangely unconcerned about himself, if I may say +so strange a thing. + +Leaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of the +window-seat and staring with an indifference that scarcely could be +called wonder at the comfort and brightness about him, I went into +the drawing-room to speak to my guardian. There I found Mr. +Skimpole, who had come down by the coach, as he frequently did +without notice, and never bringing any clothes with him, but always +borrowing everything he wanted. + +They came out with me directly to look at the boy. The servants +had gathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seat +with Charley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had +been found in a ditch. + +"This is a sorrowful case," said my guardian after asking him a +question or two and touching him and examining his eyes. "What do +you say, Harold?" + +"You had better turn him out," said Mr. Skimpole. + +"What do you mean?" inquired my guardian, almost sternly. + +"My dear Jarndyce," said Mr. Skimpole, "you know what I am: I am a +child. Be cross to me if I deserve it. But I have a +constitutional objection to this sort of thing. I always had, when +I was a medical man. He's not safe, you know. There's a very bad +sort of fever about him." + +Mr. Skimpole had retreated from the hall to the drawing-room again +and said this in his airy way, seated on the music-stool as we +stood by. + +"You'll say it's childish," observed Mr. Skimpole, looking gaily at +us. "Well, I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I never +pretend to be anything else. If you put him out in the road, you +only put him where he was before. He will be no worse off than he +was, you know. Even make him better off, if you like. Give him +sixpence, or five shillings, or five pound ten--you are +arithmeticians, and I am not--and get rid of him!" + +"And what is he to do then?" asked my guardian. + +"Upon my life," said Mr. Skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with his +engaging smile, "I have not the least idea what he is to do then. +But I have no doubt he'll do it." + +"Now, is it not a horrible reflection," said my guardian, to whom I +had hastily explained the unavailing efforts of the two women, "is +it not a horrible reflection," walking up and down and rumpling his +hair, "that if this wretched creature were a convicted prisoner, +his hospital would be wide open to him, and he would be as well +taken care of as any sick boy in the kingdom?" + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "you'll pardon the +simplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature who +is perfectly simple in worldly matters, but why ISN'T he a prisoner +then?" + +My guardian stopped and looked at him with a whimsical mixture of +amusement and indignation in his face. + +"Our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, I should +imagine," said Mr. Skimpole, unabashed and candid. "It seems to me +that it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way more +respectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into +prison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and +consequently more of a certain sort of poetry." + +"I believe," returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy walk, "that +there is not such another child on earth as yourself." + +"Do you really?" said Mr. Skimpole. "I dare say! But I confess I +don't see why our young friend, in his degree, should not seek to +invest himself with such poetry as is open to him. He is no doubt +born with an appetite--probably, when he is in a safer state of +health, he has an excellent appetite. Very well. At our young +friend's natural dinner hour, most likely about noon, our young +friend says in effect to society, 'I am hungry; will you have the +goodness to produce your spoon and feed me?' Society, which has +taken upon itself the general arrangement of the whole system of +spoons and professes to have a spoon for our young friend, does NOT +produce that spoon; and our young friend, therefore, says 'You +really must excuse me if I seize it.' Now, this appears to me a +case of misdirected energy, which has a certain amount of reason in +it and a certain amount of romance; and I don't know but what I +should be more interested in our young friend, as an illustration +of such a case, than merely as a poor vagabond--which any one can +be." + +"In the meantime," I ventured to observe, "he is getting worse." + +"In the meantime," said Mr. Skimpole cheerfully, "as Miss +Summerson, with her practical good sense, observes, he is getting +worse. Therefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets +still worse." + +The amiable face with which he said it, I think I shall never +forget. + +"Of course, little woman," observed my guardian, tuming to me, "I +can ensure his admission into the proper place by merely going +there to enforce it, though it's a bad state of things when, in his +condition, that is necessary. But it's growing late, and is a very +bad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the +wholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there +till morning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. We'll do +that." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole, with his hands upon the keys of the piano +as we moved away. "Are you going back to our young friend?" + +"Yes," said my guardian. + +"How I envy you your constitution, Jarndyce!" returned Mr. Skimpole +with playful admiration. "You don't mind these things; neither +does Miss Summerson. You are ready at all times to go anywhere, +and do anything. Such is will! I have no will at all--and no +won't--simply can't." + +"You can't recommend anything for the boy, I suppose?" said my +guardian, looking back over his shoulder half angrily; only half +angrily, for he never seemed to consider Mr. Skimpole an +accountable being. + +"My dear Jarndyce, I observed a bottle of cooling medicine in his +pocket, and it's impossible for him to do better than take it. You +can tell them to sprinkle a little vinegar about the place where he +sleeps and to keep it moderately cool and him moderately warm. But +it is mere impertinence in me to offer any recommendation. Miss +Summerson has such a knowledge of detail and such a capacity for +the administration of detail that she knows all about it." + +We went back into the hall and explained to Jo what we proposed to +do, which Charley explained to him again and which he received with +the languid unconcern I had already noticed, wearily looking on at +what was done as if it were for somebody else. The servants +compassionating his miserable state and being very anxious to help, +we soon got the loft-room ready; and some of the men about the +house carried him across the wet yard, well wrapped up. It was +pleasant to observe how kind they were to him and how there +appeared to be a general impression among them that frequently +calling him "Old Chap" was likely to revive his spirits. Charley +directed the operations and went to and fro between the loft-room +and the house with such little stimulants and comforts as we +thought it safe to give him. My guardian himself saw him before he +was left for the night and reported to me when he returned to the +growlery to write a letter on the boy's behalf, which a messenger +was charged to deliver at day-light in the morning, that he seemed +easier and inclined to sleep. They had fastened his door on the +outside, he said, in case of his being delirious, but had so +arranged that he could not make any noise without being heard. + +Ada being in our room with a cold, Mr. Skimpole was left alone all +this time and entertained himself by playing snatches of pathetic +airs and sometimes singing to them (as we heard at a distance) with +great expression and feeling. When we rejoined him in the drawing- +room he said he would give us a little ballad which had come into +his head "apropos of our young friend," and he sang one about a +peasant boy, + + + "Thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam, + Bereft of his parents, bereft of a home." + + +quite exquisitely. It was a song that always made him cry, he told +us. + +He was extremely gay all the rest of the evening, for he absolutely +chirped--those were his delighted words--when he thought by what a +happy talent for business he was surrounded. He gave us, in his +glass of negus, "Better health to our young friend!" and supposed +and gaily pursued the case of his being reserved like Whittington +to become Lord Mayor of London. In that event, no doubt, he would +establish the Jarndyce Institution and the Summerson Almshouses, +and a little annual Corporation Pilgrimage to St. Albans. He had +no doubt, he said, that our young friend was an excellent boy in +his way, but his way was not the Harold Skimpole way; what Harold +Skimpole was, Harold Skimpole had found himself, to his +considerable surprise, when he first made his own acquaintance; he +had accepted himself with all his failings and had thought it sound +philosophy to make the best of the bargain; and he hoped we would +do the same. + +Charley's last report was that the boy was quiet. I could see, +from my window, the lantern they had left him burning quietly; and +I went to bed very happy to think that he was sheltered. + +There was more movement and more talking than usual a little before +daybreak, and it awoke me. As I was dressing, I looked out of my +window and asked one of our men who had been among the active +sympathizers last night whether there was anything wrong about the +house. The lantern was still burning in the loft-window. + +"It's the boy, miss," said he. + +"Is he worse?" I inquired. + +"Gone, miss. + +"Dead!" + +"Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off." + +At what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed +hopeless ever to divine. The door remaining as it had been left, +and the lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed +that he had got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with +an empty cart-house below. But he had shut it down again, if that +were so; and it looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing of +any kind was missing. On this fact being clearly ascertained, we +all yielded to the painful belief that delirium had come upon him +in the night and that, allured by some imaginary object or pursued +by some imaginary horror, he had strayed away in that worse than +helpless state; all of us, that is to say, but Mr. Skimpole, who +repeatedly suggested, in his usual easy light style, that it had +occurred to our young friend that he was not a safe inmate, having +a bad kind of fever upon him, and that he had with great natural +politeness taken himself off. + +Every possible inquiry was made, and every place was searched. The +brick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the two women +were particularly questioned, but they knew nothing of him, and +nobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. The weather had +for some time been too wet and the night itself had been too wet to +admit of any tracing by footsteps. Hedge and ditch, and wall, and +rick and stack, were examined by our men for a long distance round, +lest the boy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; +but nothing was seen to indicate that he had ever been near. From +the time when he was left in the loft-room, he vanished. + +The search continued for five days. I do not mean that it ceased +even then, but that my attention was then diverted into a current +very memorable to me. + +As Charley was at her writing again in my room in the evening, and +as I sat opposite to her at work, I felt the table tremble. +Looking up, I saw my little maid shivering from head to foot. + +"Charley," said I, "are you so cold?" + +"I think I am, miss," she replied. "I don't know what it is. I +can't hold myself still. I felt so yesterday at about this same +time, miss. Don't be uneasy, I think I'm ill." + +I heard Ada's voice outside, and I hurried to the door of +communication between my room and our pretty sitting-room, and +locked it. Just in time, for she tapped at it while my hand was +yet upon the key. + +Ada called to me to let her in, but I said, "Not now, my dearest. +Go away. There's nothing the matter; I will come to you +presently." Ah! It was a long, long time before my darling girl +and I were companions again. + +Charley fell ill. In twelve hours she was very ill. I moved her +to my room, and laid her in my bed, and sat down quietly to nurse +her. I told my guardian all about it, and why I felt it was +necessary that I should seclude myself, and my reason for not +seeing my darling above all. At first she came very often to the +door, and called to me, and even reproached me with sobs and tears; +but I wrote her a long letter saying that she made me anxious and +unhappy and imploring her, as she loved me and wished my mind to be +at peace, to come no nearer than the garden. After that she came +beneath the window even oftener than she had come to the door, and +if I had learnt to love her dear sweet voice before when we were +hardly ever apart, how did I learn to love it then, when I stood +behind the window-curtain listening and replying, but not so much +as looking out! How did I learn to love it afterwards, when the +harder time came! + +They put a bed for me in our sitting-room; and by keeping the door +wide open, I turned the two rooms into one, now that Ada had +vacated that part of the house, and kept them always fresh and +airy. There was not a servant in or about the house but was so +good that they would all most gladly have come to me at any hour of +the day or night without the least fear or unwillingness, but I +thought it best to choose one worthy woman who was never to see Ada +and whom I could trust to come and go with all precaution. Through +her means I got out to take the air with my guardian when there was +no fear of meeting Ada, and wanted for nothing in the way of +attendance, any more than in any other respect. + +And thus poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy +danger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day +and night. So patient she was, so uncomplaining, and inspired by +such a gentle fortitude that very often as I sat by Charley holding +her head in my arms--repose would come to her, so, when it would +come to her in no other attitude--I silently prayed to our Father +in heaven that I might not forget the lesson which this little +sister taught me. + +I was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would +change and be disfigured, even if she recovered--she was such a +child with her dimpled face--but that thought was, for the greater +part, lost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, and +her mind rambled again to the cares of her father's sick bed and +the little children, she still knew me so far as that she would be +quiet in my arms when she could lie quiet nowhere else, and murmur +out the wanderings of her mind less restlessly. At those times I +used to think, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that +the baby who had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to +them in their need was dead! + +There were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me, +telling me that she sent her love to Tom and Emma and that she was +sure Tom would grow up to be a good man. At those times Charley +would speak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she +could to comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried +who was the only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the +ruler's daughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of +death. And Charley told me that when her father died she had +kneeled down and prayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might +be raised up and given back to his poor children, and that if she +should never get better and should die too, she thought it likely +that it might come into Tom's mind to offer the same prayer for +her. Then would I show Tom how these people of old days had been +brought back to life on earth, only that we might know our hope to +be restored to heaven! + +But of all the various times there were in Charley's illness, there +was not one when she lost the gentle qualities I have spoken of. +And there were many, many when I thought in the night of the last +high belief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in +God, on the part of her poor despised father. + +And Charley did not die. She flutteringiy and slowly turned the +dangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to +mend. The hope that never had been given, from the first, of +Charley being in outward appearance Charley any more soon began to +be encouraged; and even that prospered, and I saw her growing into +her old childish likeness again. + +It was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood +out in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at +last took tea together in the next room. But on that same evening, +I felt that I was stricken cold. + +Happily for both of us, it was not until Charley was safe in bed +again and placidly asleep that I began to think the contagion of +her illness was upon me. I had been able easily to hide what I +felt at tea-time, but I was past that already now, and I knew that +I was rapidly following in Charley's steps. + +I was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to +return my darling's cheerful blessing from the garden, and to talk +with her as long as usual. But I was not free from an impression +that I had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little +beside myself, though knowing where I was; and I felt confused at +times--with a curious sense of fullness, as if I were becoming too +large altogether. + +In the evening I was so much worse that I resolved to prepare +Charley, with which view I said, "You're getting quite strong, +Charley, are you not?' + +"Oh, quite!" said Charley. + +"Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?" + +"Quite strong enough for that, miss!" cried Charley. But Charley's +face fell in the height of her delight, for she saw the secret in +MY face; and she came out of the great chair, and fell upon my +bosom, and said "Oh, miss, it's my doing! It's my doing!" and a +great deal more out of the fullness of her grateful heart. + +"Now, Charley," said I after letting her go on for a little while, +"if I am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you. +And unless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were +for yourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley." + +"If you'll let me cry a little longer, miss," said Charley. "Oh, +my dear, my dear! If you'll only let me cry a little longer. Oh, +my dear!"--how affectionately and devotedly she poured this out as +she clung to my neck, I never can remember without tears--"I'll be +good." + +So I let Charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good. + +"Trust in me now, if you please, miss," said Charley quietly. "I +am listening to everything you say." + +"It's very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor +to-night that I don't think I am well and that you are going to +nurse me." + +For that the poor child thanked me with her whole heart. "And in +the morning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not +be quite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go, +Charley, and say I am asleep--that I have rather tired myself, and +am asleep. At all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley, +and let no one come." + +Charley promised, and I lay down, for I was very heavy. I saw the +doctor that night and asked the favour of him that I wished to ask +relative to his saying nothing of my illness in the house as yet. +I have a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into +day, and of day melting into night again; but I was just able on +the first morning to get to the window and speak to my darling. + +On the second morning I heard her dear voice--Oh, how dear now!-- +outside; and I asked Charley, with some difficulty (speech being +painful to me), to go and say I was asleep. I heard her answer +softly, "Don't disturb her, Charley, for the world!" + +"How does my own Pride look, Charley?" I inquired. + +"Disappointed, miss," said Charley, peeping through the curtain. + +"But I know she is very beautiful this morning." + +"She is indeed, miss," answered Charley, peeping. "Still looking +up at the window." + +With her blue clear eyes, God bless them, always loveliest when +raised like that! + +I called Charley to me and gave her her last charge. + +"Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her +way into the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly, to +the last! Charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon +me for one moment as I lie here, I shall die." + +"I never will! I never will!" she promised me. + +"I believe it, my dear Charley. And now come and sit beside me for +a little while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you, +Charley; I am blind." + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +The Appointed Time + + +It is night in Lincoln's Inn--perplexed and troublous valley of the +shadow of the law, where suitors generally find but little day--and +fat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks have rattled +down the crazy wooden stairs and dispersed. The bell that rings at +nine o'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the +gates are shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty +power of sleep, keeps guard in his lodge. From tiers of staircase +windows clogged lamps like the eyes of Equity, bleared Argus with a +fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at +the stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little +patches of candlelight reveal where some wise draughtsman and +conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes +of sheep-skin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an +acre of land. Over which bee-like industry these benefactors of +their species linger yet, though office-hours be past, that they +may give, for every day, some good account at last. + +In the neighbouring court, where the Lord Chancellor of the rag and +bottle shop dwells, there is a general tendency towards beer and +supper. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, whose respective sons, +engaged with a circle of acquaintance in the game of hide and seek, +have been lying in ambush about the by-ways of Chancery Lane for +some hours and scouring the plain of the same thoroughfare to the +confusion of passengers--Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins have but now +exchanged congratulations on the children being abed, and they +still linger on a door-step over a few parting words. Mr. Krook +and his lodger, and the fact of Mr. Krook's being "continually in +liquor," and the testamentary prospects of the young man are, as +usual, the staple of their conversation. But they have something +to say, likewise, of the Harmonic Meeting at the Sol's Arms, where +the sound of the piano through the partly opened windows jingles +out into the court, and where Little Swills, after keeping the +lovers of harmony in a roar like a very Yorick, may now be heard +taking the gruff line in a concerted piece and sentimentally +adjuring his friends and patrons to "Listen, listen, listen, tew +the wa-ter fall!" Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Piper compare opinions on +the subject of the young lady of professional celebrity who assists +at the Harmonic Meetings and who has a space to herself in the +manuscript announcement in the window, Mrs. Perkins possessing +information that she has been married a year and a half, though +announced as Miss M. Melvilleson, the noted siren, and that her +baby is clandestinely conveyed to the Sol's Arms every night to +receive its natural nourishment during the entertainments. "Sooner +than which, myself," says Mrs. Perkins, "I would get my living by +selling lucifers." Mrs. Piper, as in duty bound, is of the same +opinion, holding that a private station is better than public +applause, and thanking heaven for her own (and, by implication, +Mrs. Perkins') respectability. By this time the pot-boy of the +Sol's Arms appearing with her supper-pint well frothed, Mrs. Piper +accepts that tankard and retires indoors, first giving a fair good +night to Mrs. Perkins, who has had her own pint in her hand ever +since it was fetched from the same hostelry by young Perkins before +he was sent to bed. Now there is a sound of putting up shop- +shutters in the court and a smell as of the smoking of pipes; and +shooting stars are seen in upper windows, further indicating +retirement to rest. Now, too, the policeman begins to push at +doors; to try fastenings; to be suspicious of bundles; and to +administer his beat, on the hypothesis that every one is either +robbing or being robbed. + +It is a close night, though the damp cold is searching too, and +there is a laggard mist a little way up in the air. It is a fine +steaming night to turn the slaughter-houses, the unwholesome +trades, the sewerage, bad water, and burial-grounds to account, and +give the registrar of deaths some extra business. It may be +something in the air--there is plenty in it--or it may be something +in himself that is in fault; but Mr. Weevle, otherwise Jobling, is +very ill at ease. He comes and goes between his own room and the +open street door twenty times an hour. He has been doing so ever +since it fell dark. Since the Chancellor shut up his shop, which +he did very early to-night, Mr. Weevle has been down and up, and +down and up (with a cheap tight velvet skull-cap on his head, +making his whiskers look out of all proportion), oftener than +before. + +It is no phenomenon that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for +he always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of +the secret that is upon him. Impelled by the mystery of which he +is a partaker and yet in which he is not a sharer, Mr. Snagsby +haunts what seems to be its fountain-head--the rag and bottle shop +in the court. It has an irresistible attraction for him. Even +now, coming round by the Sol's Arms with the intention of passing +down the court, and out at the Chancery Lane end, and so +terminating his unpremeditated after-supper stroll of ten minutes' +long from his own door and back again, Mr. Snagsby approaches. + +"What, Mr. Weevle?" says the stationer, stopping to speak. "Are +YOU there?" + +"Aye!" says Weevle, "Here I am, Mr. Snagsby." + +"Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?" the +stationer inquires. + +"Why, there's not much air to be got here; and what there is, is +not very freshening," Weevle answers, glancing up and down the +court. + +"Very true, sir. Don't you observe," says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to +sniff and taste the air a little, "don't you observe, Mr. Weevle, +that you're--not to put too fine a point upon it--that you're +rather greasy here, sir?" + +"Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour +in the place to-night," Mr. Weevle rejoins. "I suppose it's chops +at the Sol's Arms." + +"Chops, do you think? Oh! Chops, eh?" Mr. Snagsby sniffs and +tastes again. "Well, sir, I suppose it is. But I should say their +cook at the Sol wanted a little looking after. She has been +burning 'em, sir! And I don't think"--Mr. Snagsby sniffs and +tastes again and then spits and wipes his mouth--"I don't think-- +not to put too fine a point upon it--that they were quite fresh +when they were shown the gridiron." + +"That's very likely. It's a tainting sort of weather." + +"It IS a tainting sort of weather," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I find +it sinking to the spirits." + +"By George! I find it gives me the horrors," returns Mr. Weevle. + +"Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room, +with a black circumstance hanging over it," says Mr. Snagsby, +looking in past the other's shoulder along the dark passage and +then falling back a step to look up at the house. "I couldn't live +in that room alone, as you do, sir. I should get so fidgety and +worried of an evening, sometimes, that I should be driven to come +to the door and stand here sooner than sit there. But then it's +very true that you didn't see, in your room, what I saw there. +That makes a difference." + +"I know quite enough about it," returns Tony. + +"It's not agreeable, is it?" pursues Mr. Snagsby, coughing his +cough of mild persuasion behind his hand. "Mr. Krook ought to +consider it in the rent. I hope he does, I am sure." + +"I hope he does," says Tony. "But I doubt it." + +"You find the rent too high, do you, sir?" returns the stationer. +"Rents ARE high about here. I don't know how it is exactly, but +the law seems to put things up in price. Not," adds Mr. Snagsby +with his apologetic cough, "that I mean to say a word against the +profession I get my living by." + +Mr. Weevle again glances up and down the court and then looks at +the stationer. Mr. Snagsby, blankly catching his eye, looks upward +for a star or so and coughs a cough expressive of not exactly +seeing his way out of this conversation. + +"It's a curious fact, sir," he observes, slowly rubbing his hands, +"that he should have been--" + +"Who's he?" interrupts Mr. Weevle. + +"The deceased, you know," says Mr. Snagsby, twitching his head and +right eyebrow towards the staircase and tapping his acquaintance on +the button. + +"Ah, to be sure!" returns the other as if he were not over-fond of +the subject. "I thought we had done with him." + +"I was only going to say it's a curious fact, sir, that he should +have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that +you should come and live here, and be one of my writers too. Which +there is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation," +says Mr. Snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he may have +unpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in Mr. Weevle, +"because I have known writers that have gone into brewers' houses +and done really very respectable indeed. Eminently respectable, +sir," adds Mr. Snagsby with a misgiving that he has not improved +the matter. + +"It's a curious coincidence, as you say," answers Weevle, once more +glancing up and down the court. + +"Seems a fate in it, don't there?" suggests the stationer. + +"There does." + +"Just so," observes the stationer with his confirmatory cough. +"Quite a fate in it. Quite a fate. Well, Mr. Weevle, I am afraid +I must bid you good night"--Mr. Snagsby speaks as if it made him +desolate to go, though he has been casting about for any means of +escape ever since he stopped to speak--"my little woman will be +looking for me else. Good night, sir!" + +If Mr. Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of +looking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. His +little woman has had her eye upon him round the Sol's Arms all this +time and now glides after him with a pocket handkerchief wrapped +over her head, honourmg Mr. Weevle and his doorway with a searching +glance as she goes past. + +"You'll know me again, ma'am, at all events," says Mr. Weevle to +himself; "and I can't compliment you on your appearance, whoever +you are, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow NEVER +coming!" + +This fellow approaches as he speaks. Mr. Weevle softly holds up +his finger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street +door. Then they go upstairs, Mr. Weevle heavily, and Mr. Guppy +(for it is he) very lightly indeed. When they are shut into the +back room, they speak low. + +"I thought you had gone to Jericho at least instead of coming +here," says Tony. + +"Why, I said about ten." + +"You said about ten," Tony repeats. "Yes, so you did say about +ten. But according to my count, it's ten times ten--it's a hundred +o'clock. I never had such a night in my life!" + +"What has been the matter?" + +"That's it!" says Tony. "Nothing has been the matter. But here +have I been stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib till I have +had the horrors falling on me as thick as hail. THERE'S a blessed- +looking candle!" says Tony, pointing to the heavily burning taper +on his table with a great cabbage head and a long winding-sheet. + +"That's easily improved," Mr. Guppy observes as he takes the +snuffers in hand. + +"IS it?" returns his friend. "Not so easily as you think. It has +been smouldering like that ever since it was lighted." + +"Why, what's the matter with you, Tony?" inquires Mr. Guppy, +looking at him, snuffers in hand, as he sits down with his elbow on +the table. + +"William Guppy," replies the other, "I am in the downs. It's this +unbearably dull, suicidal room--and old Boguey downstairs, I +suppose." Mr. Weevle moodily pushes the snuffers-tray from him +with his elbow, leans his head on his hand, puts his feet on the +fender, and looks at the fire. Mr. Guppy, observing him, slightly +tosses his head and sits down on the other side of the table in an +easy attitude. + +"Wasn't that Snagsby talking to you, Tony?" + +"Yes, and he--yes, it was Snagsby," said Mr. Weevle, altering the +construction of his sentence. + +"On business?" + +"No. No business. He was only sauntering by and stopped to +prose." + +"I thought it was Snagsby," says Mr. Guppy, "and thought it as well +that he shouldn't see me, so I waited till he was gone." + +"There we go again, William G.!" cried Tony, looking up for an +instant. "So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going +to commit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!" + +Mr. Guppy affects to smile, and with the view of changing the +conversation, looks with an admiration, real or pretended, round +the room at the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, terminating his +survey with the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantelshelf, in +which she is represented on a terrace, with a pedestal upon the +terrace, and a vase upon the pedestal, and her shawl upon the vase, +and a prodigious piece of fur upon the shawl, and her arm on the +prodigious piece of fur, and a bracelet on her arm. + +"That's very like Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Guppy. "It's a speaking +likeness." + +"I wish it was," growls Tony, without changing his position. "I +should have some fashionable conversation, here, then." + +Finding by this time that his friend is not to be wheedled into a +more sociable humour, Mr. Guppy puts about upon the ill-used tack +and remonstrates with him. + +"Tony," says he, "I can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for +no man knows what it is when it does come upon a man better than I +do, and no man perhaps has a better right to know it than a man who +has an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart. But there are +bounds to these things when an unoffending party is in question, +and I will acknowledge to you, Tony, that I don't think your manner +on the present occasion is hospitable or quite gentlemanly." + +"This is strong language, William Guppy," returns Mr. Weevle. + +"Sir, it may be," retorts Mr. William Guppy, "but I feel strongly +when I use it." + +Mr. Weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs Mr. William Guppy +to think no more about it. Mr. William Guppy, however, having got +the advantage, cannot quite release it without a little more +injured remonstrance. + +"No! Dash it, Tony," says that gentleman, "you really ought to be +careful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited +image imprinted on his 'eart and who is NOT altogether happy in +those chords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. You, Tony, +possess in yourself all that is calculated to charm the eye and +allure the taste. It is not--happily for you, perhaps, and I may +wish that I could say the same--it is not your character to hover +around one flower. The ole garden is open to you, and your airy +pinions carry you through it. Still, Tony, far be it from me, I am +sure, to wound even your feelings without a cause!" + +Tony again entreats that the subject may be no longer pursued, +saying emphatically, "William Guppy, drop it!" Mr. Guppy +acquiesces, with the reply, "I never should have taken it up, Tony, +of my own accord." + +"And now," says Tony, stirring the fire, "touching this same bundle +of letters. Isn't it an extraordinary thing of Krook to have +appointed twelve o'clock to-night to hand 'em over to me?" + +"Very. What did he do it for?" + +"What does he do anything for? HE don't know. Said to-day was his +birthday and he'd hand 'em over to-night at twelve o'clock. He'll +have drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it all day." + +"He hasn't forgotten the appointment, I hope?" + +"Forgotten? Trust him for that. He never forgets anything. I saw +him to-night, about eight--helped him to shut up his shop--and he +had got the letters then in his hairy cap. He pulled it off and +showed 'em me. When the shop was closed, he took them out of his +cap, hung his cap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over +before the fire. I heard him a little while afterwards, through +the floor here, humming like the wind, the only song he knows-- +about Bibo, and old Charon, and Bibo being drunk when he died, or +something or other. He has been as quiet since as an old rat +asleep in his hole." + +"And you are to go down at twelve?" + +"At twelve. And as I tell you, when you came it seemed to me a +hundred." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy after considering a little with his legs +crossed, "he can't read yet, can he?" + +"Read! He'll never read. He can make all the letters separately, +and he knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got +on that much, under me; but he can't put them together. He's too +old to acquire the knack of it now--and too drunk." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, "how do +you suppose he spelt out that name of Hawdon?" + +"He never spelt it out. You know what a curious power of eye he +has and how he has been used to employ himself in copying things by +eye alone. He imitated it, evidently from the direction of a +letter, and asked me what it meant." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs again, +"should you say that the original was a man's writing or a +woman's?" + +"A woman's. Fifty to one a lady's--slopes a good deal, and the end +of the letter 'n,' long and hasty." + +Mr. Guppy has been biting his thumb-nail during this dialogue, +generally changing the thumb when he has changed the cross leg. As +he is going to do so again, he happens to look at his coat-sleeve. +It takes his attention. He stares at it, aghast. + +"Why, Tony, what on earth is going on in this house to-night? Is +there a chimney on fire?" + +"Chimney on fire!" + +"Ah!" returns Mr. Guppy. "See how the soot's falling. See here, +on my arm! See again, on the table here! Confound the stuff, it +won't blow off--smears like black fat!" + +They look at one another, and Tony goes listening to the door, and +a little way upstairs, and a little way downstairs. Comes back and +says it's all right and all quiet, and quotes the remark he lately +made to Mr. Snagsby about their cooking chops at the Sol's Arms. + +"And it was then," resumes Mr. Guppy, still glancing with +remarkable aversion at the coat-sleeve, as they pursue their +conversation before the fire, leaning on opposite sides of the +table, with their heads very near together, "that he told you of +his having taken the bundle of letters from his lodger's +portmanteau?" + +"That was the time, sir," answers Tony, faintly adjusting his +whiskers. "Whereupon I wrote a line to my dear boy, the Honourable +William Guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night and +advising him not to call before, Boguey being a slyboots." + +The light vivacious tone of fashionable life which is usually +assumed by Mr. Weevle sits so ill upon him to-night that he +abandons that and his whiskers together, and after looking over his +shoulder, appears to yield himself up a prey to the horrors again. + +"You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and +to get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. That's +the arrangement, isn't it, Tony?" asks Mr. Guppy, anxiously biting +his thumb-nail. + +"You can't speak too low. Yes. That's what he and I agreed." + +"I tell you what, Tony--" + +"You can't speak too low," says Tony once more. Mr. Guppy nods his +sagacious head, advances it yet closer, and drops into a whisper. + +"I tell you what. The first thing to be done is to make another +packet like the real one so that if he should ask to see the real +one while it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy." + +"And suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it, which with +his biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely +than not," suggests Tony. + +"Then we'll face it out. They don't belong to him, and they never +did. You found that, and you placed them in my hands--a legal +friend of yours--for security. If he forces us to it, they'll be +producible, won't they?" + +"Ye-es," is Mr. Weevle's reluctant admission. + +"Why, Tony," remonstrates his friend, "how you look! You don't +doubt William Guppy? You don't suspect any harm?" + +"I don't suspect anything more than I know, William," returns the +other gravely. + +"And what do you know?" urges Mr. Guppy, raising his voice a +little; but on his friend's once more warning him, "I tell you, you +can't speak too low," he repeats his question without any sound at +all, forming with his lips only the words, "What do you know?" + +"I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in +secrecy, a pair of conspirators." + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "And we had better be that than a pair of +noodles, which we should be if we were doing anything else, for +it's the only way of doing what we want to do. Secondly?" + +"Secondly, it's not made out to me how it's likely to be +profitable, after all." + +Mr. Guppy casts up his eyes at the portrait of Lady Dedlock over +the mantelshelf and replies, "Tony, you are asked to leave that to +the honour of your friend. Besides its being calculated to serve +that friend in those chords of the human mind which--which need not +be called into agonizing vibration on the present occasion--your +friend is no fool. What's that?" + +"It's eleven o'clock striking by the bell of Saint Paul's. Listen +and you'll hear all the bells in the city jangling." + +Both sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant, +resounding from towers of various heights, in tones more various +than their situations. When these at length cease, all seems more +mysterious and quiet than before. One disagreeable result of +whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, +haunted by the ghosts of sound--strange cracks and tickings, the +rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread +of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the +winter snow. So sensitive the two friends happen to be that the +air is full of these phantoms, and the two look over their +shoulders by one consent to see that the door is shut. + +"Yes, Tony?" says Mr. Guppy, drawing nearer to the fire and biting +his unsteady thumb-nail. "You were going to say, thirdly?" + +"It's far from a pleasant thing to be plotting about a dead man in +the room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it." + +"But we are plotting nothing against him, Tony." + +"May be not, still I don't like it. Live here by yourself and see +how YOU like it." + +"As to dead men, Tony," proceeds Mr. Guppy, evading this proposal, +"there have been dead men in most rooms." + +"I know there have, but in most rooms you let them alone, and--and +they let you alone," Tony answers. + +The two look at each other again. Mr. Guppy makes a hurried remark +to the effect that they may be doing the deceased a service, that +he hopes so. There is an oppressive blank until Mr. Weevle, by +stirring the fire suddenly, makes Mr. Guppy start as if his heart +had been stirred instead. + +"Fah! Here's more of this hateful soot hanging about," says he. +"Let us open the window a bit and get a mouthful of air. It's too +close." + +He raises the sash, and they both rest on the window-sill, half in +and half out of the room. The neighbouring houses are too near to +admit of their seeing any sky without craning their necks and +looking up, but lights in frowsy windows here and there, and the +rolling of distant carriages, and the new expression that there is +of the stir of men, they find to be comfortable. Mr. Guppy, +noiselessly tapping on the window-sill, resumes his whisperirig in +quite a light-comedy tone. + +"By the by, Tony, don't forget old Smallweed," meaning the younger +of that name. "I have not let him into this, you know. That +grandfather of his is too keen by half. It runs in the family." + +"I remember," says Tony. "I am up to all that." + +"And as to Krook," resumes Mr. Guppy. "Now, do you suppose he +really has got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has +boasted to you, since you have been such allies?" + +Tony shakes his head. "I don't know. Can't Imagine. If we get +through this business without rousing his suspicions, I shall be +better informed, no doubt. How can I know without seeing them, +when he don't know himself? He is always spelling out words from +them, and chalking them over the table and the shop-wall, and +asking what this is and what that is; but his whole stock from +beginning to end may easily be the waste-paper he bought it as, for +anything I can say. It's a monomania with him to think he is +possessed of documents. He has been going to learn to read them +this last quarter of a century, I should judge, from what he tells +me." + +"How did he first come by that idea, though? That's the question," +Mr. Guppy suggests with one eye shut, after a little forensic +meditation. "He may have found papers in something he bought, +where papers were not supposed to be, and may have got it into his +shrewd head from the manner and place of their concealment that +they are worth something." + +"Or he may have been taken in, in some pretended bargain. Or he +may have been muddled altogether by long staring at whatever he HAS +got, and by drink, and by hanging about the Lord Chancellor's Court +and hearing of documents for ever," returns Mr. Weevle. + +Mr. Guppy sitting on the window-sill, nodding his head and +balancing all these possibilities in his mind, continues +thoughtfully to tap it, and clasp it, and measure it with his hand, +until he hastily draws his hand away. + +"What, in the devil's name," he says, "is this! Look at my +fingers!" + +A thick, yellow liquor defiles them, which is offensive to the +touch and sight and more offensive to the smell. A stagnant, +sickening oil with some natural repulsion in it that makes them +both shudder. + +"What have you been doing here? What have you been pouring out of +window?" + +"I pouring out of window! Nothing, I swear! Never, since I have +been here!" cries the lodger. + +And yet look here--and look here! When he brings the candle here, +from the corner of the window-sill, it slowly drips and creeps away +down the bricks, here lies in a little thick nauseous pool. + +"This is a horrible house," says Mr. Guppy, shutting down the +window. "Give me some water or I shall cut my hand off." + +He so washes, and rubs, and scrubs, and smells, and washes, that he +has not long restored himself with a glass of brandy and stood +silently before the fire when Saint Paul's bell strikes twelve and +all those other bells strike twelve from their towers of various +heights in the dark air, and in their many tones. When all is +quiet again, the lodger says, "It's the appointed time at last. +Shall I go?" + +Mr. Guppy nods and gives him a "lucky touch" on the back, but not +with the washed hand, though it is his right hand. + +He goes downstairs, and Mr. Guppy tries to compose himself before +the fire for waiting a long time. But in no more than a minute or +two the stairs creak and Tony comes swiftly back. + +"Have you got them?" + +"Got them! No. The old man's not there." + +He has been so horribly frightened in the short interval that his +terror seizes the other, who makes a rush at him and asks loudly, +"What's the matter?" + +"I couldn't make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked +in. And the burning smell is there--and the soot is there, and the +oil is there--and he is not there!" Tony ends this with a groan. + +Mr. Guppy takes the light. They go down, more dead than alive, and +holding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat +has retreated close to it and stands snarling, not at them, at +something on the ground before the fire. There is a very little +fire left in the grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating +vapour in the room and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and +ceiling. The chairs and table, and the bottle so rarely absent +from the table, all stand as usual. On one chair-back hang the old +man's hairy cap and coat. + +"Look!" whispers the lodger, pointing his friend's attention to +these objects with a trembling finger. "I told you so. When I saw +him last, he took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old +letters, hung his cap on the back of the chair--his coat was there +already, for he had pulled that off before he went to put the +shutters up--and I left him turning the letters over in his hand, +standing just where that crumbled black thing is upon the floor." + +Is he hanging somewhere? They look up. No. + +"See!" whispers Tony. "At the foot of the same chair there lies a +dirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. That went +round the letters. He undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me, +before he began to turn them over, and threw it there. I saw it +fall." + +"What's the matter with the cat?" says Mr. Guppy. "Look at her!" + +"Mad, I think. And no wonder in this evil place." + +They advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains +where they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground +before the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up +the light. + +Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a +little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to +be steeped in something; and here is--is it the cinder of a small +charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it +coal? Oh, horror, he IS here! And this from which we run away, +striking out the light and overturning one another into the street, +is all that represents him. + +Help, help, help! Come into this house for heaven's sake! Plenty +will come in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that +court, true to his title in his last act, has died the death of all +lord chancellors in all courts and of all authorities in all places +under all names soever, where false pretences are made, and where +injustice is done. Call the death by any name your Highness will, +attribute it to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented +how you will, it is the same death eternally--inborn, inbred, +engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and +that only--spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths +that can be died. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +Interlopers + + +Now do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and +buttons who attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms +reappear in the precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in +fact, breathlessly fetched by the active and intelligent beadle), +and institute perquisitions through the court, and dive into the +Sol's parlour, and write with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. +Now do they note down, in the watches of the night, how the +neighbourhood of Chancery Lane was yesterday, at about midnight, +thrown into a state of the most intense agitation and excitement by +the following alarming and horrible discovery. Now do they set +forth how it will doubtless be remembered that some time back a +painful sensation was created in the public mind by a case of +mysterious death from opium occurring in the first floor of the +house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general marine store shop, by +an eccentric individual of intemperate habits, far advanced in +life, named Krook; and how, by a remarkable coincidence, Krook was +examined at the inquest, which it may be recollected was held on +that occasion at the Sol's Arms, a well-conducted tavern +immediately adjoining the premises in question on the west side and +licensed to a highly respectable landlord, Mr. James George Bogsby. +Now do they show (in as many words as possible) how during some +hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was observed by +the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical occurrence +which forms the subject of that present account transpired; and +which odour was at one time so powerful that Mr. Swills, a comic +vocalist professionally engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby, has himself +stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M. Melvilleson, a +lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise engaged by +Mr. J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called Harmonic +Assemblies, or Meetings, which it would appear are held at the +Sol's Arms under Mr. Bogsby's direction pursuant to the Act of +George the Second, that he (Mr. Swills) found his voice seriously +affected by the impure state of the atmosphere, his jocose +expression at the time being that he was like an empty post-office, +for he hadn't a single note in him. How this account of Mr. Swills +is entirely corroborated by two intelligent married females +residing in the same court and known respectively by the names of +Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, both of whom observed the foetid +effluvia and regarded them as being emitted from the premises in +the occupation of Krook, the unfortunate deceased. All this and a +great deal more the two gentlemen who have formed an amicable +partnership in the melancholy catastrophe write down on the spot; +and the boy population of the court (out of bed in a moment) swarm +up the shutters of the Sol's Arms parlour, to behold the tops of +their heads while they are about it. + +The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night, +and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the ill- +fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued +from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a +bed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts +its door all night, for any kind of public excitement makes good +for the Sol and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The +house has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in +brandy-and-water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot-boy +heard what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to +his shoulders and said, "There'll be a run upon us!" In the first +outcry, young Piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in +triumph at a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and +holding on to that fabulous creature with all his might in the +midst of helmets and torches. One helmet remains behind after +careful investigation of all chinks and crannies and slowly paces +up and down before the house in company with one of the two +policemen who have likewise been left in charge thereof. To this +trio everybody in the court possessed of sixpence has an insatiate +desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid form. + +Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol +and are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they +will only stay there. "This is not a time, says Mr. Bogsby, "to +haggle about money," though he looks something sharply after it, +over the counter; "give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're +welcome to whatever you put a name to." + +Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names +to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to +put a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate +to all new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, +and of what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. +Meanwhile, one or other of the policemen often flits about the +door, and pushing it open a little way at the full length of his +arm, looks in from outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, +but that he may as well know what they are up to in there. + +Thus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out +of bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being +treated, still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had +a little money left it unexpectedly. Thus night at length with +slow-retreating steps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his +rounds, like an executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the +little heads of fire that have aspired to lessen the darkness. +Thus the day cometh, whether or no. + +And the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the +court has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have +fallen drowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard +floors instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the +very court itself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood, +waking up and beginning to hear of what has happened, comes +streaming in, half dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen +and the helmet (who are far less impressible externally than the +court) have enough to do to keep the door. + +"Good gracious, gentlemen!" says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. "What's +this I hear!" + +"Why, it's true," returns one of the policemen. "That's what it +is. Now move on here, come!" + +"Why, good gracious, gentlemen," says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat +promptly backed away, "I was at this door last night betwixt ten +and eleven o'clock in conversation with the young man who lodges +here." + +"Indeed?" returns the policeman. "You will find the young man next +door then. Now move on here, some of you," + +"Not hurt, I hope?" says Mr. Snagsby. + +"Hurt? No. What's to hurt him!" + +Mr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this or any question in his +troubled mind, repairs to the Sol's Arms and finds Mr. Weevle +languishing over tea and toast with a considerable expression on +him of exhausted excitement and exhausted tobacco-smoke. + +"And Mr. Guppy likewise!" quoth Mr. Snagsby. "Dear, dear, dear! +What a fate there seems in all this! And my lit--" + +Mr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the +words "my little woman." For to see that injured female walk into +the Sol's Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the +beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit, +strikes him dumb. + +"My dear," says Mr. Snagsby when his tongue is loosened, "will you +take anything? A little--not to put too fine a point upon it--drop +of shrub?" + +"No," says Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My love, you know these two gentlemen?" + +"Yes!" says Mrs. Snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their +presence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye. + +The devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs. +Snagsby by the hand and leads her aside to an adjacent cask. + +"My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don't do +it." + +"I can't help my looks," says Mrs. Snagsby, "and if I could I +wouldn't." + +Mr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins, "Wouldn't you +really, my dear?" and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble +and says, "This is a dreadful mystery, my love!" still fearfully +disconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye. + +"It IS," returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, "a dreadful +mystery." + +"My little woman," urges Mr. Snagsby in a piteous manner, "don't +for goodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look +at me in that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do +it. Good Lord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously +combusting any person, my dear?" + +"I can't say," returns Mrs. Snagsby. + +On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby "can't +say" either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may +have had something to do with it. He has had something--he don't +know what--to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious +that it is possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, +in the present transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his +handkerchief and gasps. + +"My life," says the unhappy stationer, "would you have any +objections to mention why, being in general so delicately +circumspect in your conduct, you come into a wine-vaults before +breakfast?" + +"Why do YOU come here?" inquires Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has +happened to the venerable party who has been--combusted." Mr. +Snagsby has made a pause to suppress a groan. "I should then have +related them to you, my love, over your French roll." + +"I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby." + +"Every--my lit--" + +"I should be glad," says Mrs. Snagsby after contemplating his +increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, "if you would +come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, +than anywhere else." + +"My love, I don't know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to +go." + +Mr. Snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs. +Weevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction +with which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby +from the Sol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be +responsible for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is +the talk of the whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into +certainty by Mrs. Snagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His +mental sufferings are so great that he entertains wandering ideas +of delivering himself up to justice and requiring to be cleared if +innocent and punished with the utmost rigour of the law if guilty. + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into +Lincoln's Inn to take a little walk about the square and clear as +many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may. + +"There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony," says +Mr. Guppy after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the +square, "for a word or two between us upon a point on which we +must, with very little delay, come to an understanding." + +"Now, I tell you what, William G.!" returns the other, eyeing his +companion with a bloodshot eye. "If it's a point of conspiracy, +you needn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of +that, and I ain't going to have any more. We shall have YOU taking +fire next or blowing up with a bang." + +This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy +that his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, "Tony, I should +have thought that what we went through last night would have been a +lesson to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived." +To which Mr. Weevle returns, "William, I should have thought it +would have been a lesson to YOU never to conspire any more as long +as you lived." To which Mr. Guppy says, "Who's conspiring?" To +which Mr. Jobling replies, "Why, YOU are!" To which Mr. Guppy +retorts, "No, I am not." To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, "Yes, +you are!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "Who says so?" To which Mr. +Jobling retorts, "I say so!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "Oh, +indeed?" To which Mr. Jobling retorts, "Yes, indeed!" And both +being now in a heated state, they walk on silently for a while to +cool down again. + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy then, "if you heard your friend out instead +of flying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. But your temper +is hasty and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, +Tony, all that is calculated to charm the eye--" + +"Oh! Blow the eye!" cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. "Say what +you have got to say!" + +Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy +only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of +injury in which he recommences, "Tony, when I say there is a point +on which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so +quite apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You +know it is professionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are +tried what facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not +desirable that we should know what facts we are to prove on the +inquiry into the death of this unfortunate old mo--gentleman?" +(Mr. Guppy was going to say "mogul," but thinks "gentleman" better +suited to the circumstances.) + +"What facts? THE facts." + +"The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are"--Mr. Guppy tells +them off on his fingers--"what we knew of his habits, when you saw +him last, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, +and how we made it." + +"Yes," says Mr. Weevle. "Those are about the facts." + +"We made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his +eccentric way, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, +when you were to explain some writing to him as you had often done +before on account of his not being able to read. I, spending the +evening with you, was called down--and so forth. The inquiry being +only into the circumstances touching the death of the deceased, +it's not necessary to go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll +agree?" + +"No!" returns Mr. Weevle. "I suppose not." + +"And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?" says the injured Guppy. + +"No," returns his friend; "if it's nothing worse than this, I +withdraw the observation." + +"Now, Tony," says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again and walking him +slowly on, "I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you +have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to +live at that place?" + +"What do you mean?" says Tony, stopping. + +"Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your +continuing to live at that place?" repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him +on again. + +"At what place? THAT place?" pointing in the direction of the rag +and bottle shop. + +Mr. Guppy nods. + +"Why, I wouldn't pass another night there for any consideration +that you could offer me," says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring. + +"Do you mean it though, Tony?" + +"Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know +that," says Mr. Weevle with a very genuine shudder. + +"Then the possibility or probability--for such it must be +considered--of your never being disturbed in possession of those +effects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no +relation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find +out what he really had got stored up there, don't weigh with you at +all against last night, Tony, if I understand you?" says Mr. Guppy, +biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation. + +"Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?" +cries Mr. Weevle indignantly. "Go and live there yourself." + +"Oh! I, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. "I have never lived +there and couldn't get a lodging there now, whereas you have got +one." + +"You are welcome to it," rejoins his friend, "and--ugh!--you may +make yourself at home in it." + +"Then you really and truly at this point," says Mr. Guppy, "give up +the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?" + +"You never," returns Tony with a most convincing steadfastness, +"said a truer word in all your life. I do!" + +While they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the +square, on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself +manifest to the public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so +manifest to the multitude, though sufficiently so to the two +friends, for the coach stops almost at their feet, are the +venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs. Smallweed, accompanied by their +granddaughter Judy. + +An air of haste and excitement pervades the party, and as the tall +hat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed +the elder pokes his head out of window and bawls to Mr. Guppy, "How +de do, sir! How de do!" + +"What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the +morning, I wonder!" says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar. + +"My dear sir," cries Grandfather Smallweed, "would you do me a +favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry +me into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister +bring their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good +turn, sir?" + +Mr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, "The public- +house in the court?" And they prepare to bear the venerable burden +to the Sol's Arms. + +"There's your fare!" says the patriarch to the coachman with a +fierce grin and shaking his incapable fist at him. "Ask me for a +penny more, and I'll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear +young men, be easy with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you +round the neck. I won't squeeze you tighter than I can help. Oh, +Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones!" + +It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an +apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. +With no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the +utterance of divers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed +respiration, he fulils his share of the porterage and the +benevolent old gentleman is deposited by his own desire in the +parlour of the Sol's Arms. + +"Oh, Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, +from an arm-chair. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, my +aches and pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, +scrambling poll-parrot! Sit down!" + +This little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a +propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady whenever she finds +herself on her feet to amble about and "set" to inanimate objects, +accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. +A nervous affection has probably as much to do with these +demonstrations as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman, but +on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in +connexion with the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. +Smallweed is seated, that she only quite desists when her +grandchildren have held her down in it, her lord in the meanwhile +bestowing upon her, with great volubility, the endearing epithet of +"a pig-headed jackdaw," repeated a surprising number of times. + +"My dear sir," Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr. +Guppy, "there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, +either of you?" + +"Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it." + +"You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, THEY discovered +it!" + +The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the +compliment. + +"My dear friends," whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both +his hands, "I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the +melancholy office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's +brother." + +"Eh?" says Mr. Guppy. + +"Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend--her only relation. We +were not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never WOULD +be on terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric--he was very +eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) +I shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to +look after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be +protected. I have come down," repeats Grandfather Smallweed, +hooking the air towards him with all his ten fingers at once, "to +look after the property." + +"I think, Small," says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, "you might have +mentioned that the old man was your uncle." + +"You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me +to be the same," returns that old bird with a secretly glistening +eye. "Besides, I wasn't proud of him." + +"Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or +not," says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye. + +"He never saw me in his life to know me," observed Small; "I don't +know why I should introduce HIM, I am sure!" + +"No, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored," the +old gentleman strikes in, "but I have come to look after the +property--to look over the papers, and to look after the property. +We shall make good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. +Mr. Tulkinghorn, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, over the way there, is so +good as to act as my solicitor; and grass don't grow under HIS +feet, I can tell ye. Krook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; she +had no relation but Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. +Smallweed. I am speaking of your brother, you brimstone black- +beetle, that was seventy-six years of age." + +Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head and pipe up, +"Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventysix thousand bags +of money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of bank- +notes!" + +"Will somebody give me a quart pot?" exclaims her exasperated +husband, looking helplessly about him and finding no missile within +his reach. "Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will +somebody hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You +hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!" Here Mr. Smallweed, +wrought up to the highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually +throws Judy at her grandmother in default of anything else, by +butting that young virgin at the old lady with such force as he can +muster and then dropping into his chair in a heap. + +"Shake me up, somebody, if you'll he so good," says the voice from +within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. +"I have come to look after the property. Shake me up, and call in +the police on duty at the next house to be explained to about the +property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the +property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall +touch the property!" As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, +panting, and putting him through the usual restorative process of +shaking and punching, he still repeats like an echo, "The--the +property! The property! Property!" + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other, the former as having +relinquished the whole affair, the latter with a discomfited +countenance as having entertained some lingering expectations yet. +But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed +interest. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew +in the chambers to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is +answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin and that +the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due +time and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to +assert his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into +the next house and upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where +he looks like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary. + +The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court +still makes good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle. +Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if +there really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought +to be made him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, +as members of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of +the foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the +pump and under the archway all day long, where wild yells and +hootings take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. +Melvilleson enter into affable conversation with their patrons, +feeling that these unusual occurrences level the barriers between +professionals and non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up "The +popular song of King Death, with chorus by the whole strength of +the company," as the great Harmonic feature of the week and +announces in the bill that "J. G. B. is induced to do so at a +considerable extra expense in consequence of a wish which has been +very generally expressed at the bar by a large body of respectable +individuals and in homage to a late melancholy event which has +aroused so much sensation." There is one point connected with the +deceased upon which the court is particularly anxious, namely, that +the fiction of a full-sized coffin should be preserved, though +there is so little to put in it. Upon the undertaker's stating in +the Sol's bar in the course of the day that he has received orders +to construct "a six-footer," the general solicitude is much +relieved, and it is considered that Mr. Smallweed's conduct does +him great honour. + +Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable +excitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and +carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same +intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and +phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of +these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that +the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and +being reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the +evidence for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the +Philosophical Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on +English medical jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of +the Countess Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one +Bianchini, prebendary of Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so +and was occasionally heard of in his time as having gleams of +reason in him; and also of the testimony of Messrs. Fodere and +Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who WOULD investigate the subject; +and further, of the corroborative testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a +rather celebrated French surgeon once upon a time, who had the +unpoliteness to live in a house where such a case occurred and even +to write an account of it--still they regard the late Mr. Krook's +obstinacy in going out of the world by any such by-way as wholly +unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the court +understands of all this, the more the court likes it, and the +greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms. +Then there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a +foreground and figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the +Cornish coast to a review in Hyde Park or a meeting in Manchester, +and in Mrs. Perkins' own room, memorable evermore, he then and +there throws in upon the block Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; +in fact, considerably larger, making a very temple of it. +Similarly, being permitted to look in at the door of the fatal +chamber, he depicts that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long +by fifty yards high, at which the court is particularly charmed. +All this time the two gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of +every house and assist at the philosophical disputations--go +everywhere and listen to everybody--and yet are always diving into +the Sol's parlour and writing with the ravenous little pens on the +tissue-paper. + +At last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except +that the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way +and tells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that +"that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a +destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are +mysteries we can't account for!" After which the six-footer comes +into action and is much admired. + +In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except +when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private +individual and can only haunt the secret house on the outside, +where he has the mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking +the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But +before these proceedings draw to a close, that is to say, on the +night next after the catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that +must be said to Lady Dedlock. + +For which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang-dog sense +of guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol's +Arms have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents +himself at the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening +and requests to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is +going out to dinner; don't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, +he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants to see my Lady +too. + +Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellow- +gentleman in waiting, "to pitch into the young man"; but his +instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the +young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young +man in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him. + +Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering +everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or +wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it--? No, it's no ghost, +but fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed. + +"I have to beg your ladyship's pardon," Mr. Guppy stammers, very +downcast. "This is an inconvenient time--" + +"I told you, you could come at any time." She takes a chair, +looking straight at him as on the last occasion. + +"Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable." + +"You can sit down." There is not much affability in her tone. + +"I don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down +and detaining you, for I--I have not got the letters that I +mentioned when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship." + +"Have you come merely to say so?" + +"Merely to say so, your ladyship." Mr. Guppy besides being +depressed, disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further +disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance. + +She knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss +a grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily +and coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the +least perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, +but also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further +and further from her. + +She will not speak, it is plain. So he must. + +"In short, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent +thief, "the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a +sudden end, and--" He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the +sentence. + +"And the letters are destroyed with the person?" + +Mr. Guppy would say no if he could--as he is unable to hide. + +"I believe so, your ladyship." + +If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, +he could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not +utterly put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about +it. + +He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure. + +"Is this all you have to say?" inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard +him out--or as nearly out as he can stumble. + +Mr. Guppy thinks that's all. + +"You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, +this being the last time you will have the opportunity." + +Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at +present, by any means. + +"That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to +you!" And she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name +of Guppy out. + +But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old +man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his +quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the +handle of the door--comes in--and comes face to face with the young +man as he is leaving the room. + +One glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the +blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, +looks out. Another instant, close again. + +"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand +times. It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I +supposed the room was empty. I beg your pardon!" + +"Stay!" She negligently calls him back. "Remain here, I beg. I +am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young +man!" + +The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly +hopes that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well. + +"Aye, aye?" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent +brows, though he has no need to look again--not he. "From Kenge +and Carboy's, surely?" + +"Kenge and Carboy's, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir." + +"To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!" + +"Happy to hear it, sir. You can't be too well, sir, for the credit +of the profession." + +"Thank you, Mr. Guppy!" + +Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his old- +fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock's brightness, hands her down +the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and +rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +A Turn of the Screw + + +"Now, what," says Mr. George, "may this be? Is it blank cartridge +or ball? A flash in the pan or a shot?" + +An open letter is the subject of the trooper's speculations, and it +seems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm's length, +brings it close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his +left hand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on +that side, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them, still cannot +satisfy himself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy +palm, and thoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a +halt before it every now and then to come upon it with a fresh eye. +Even that won't do. "Is it," Mr. George still muses, "blank +cartridge or ball?" + +Phil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in +the distance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march +time and in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back +again to the girl he left behind him. + +"Phil!" The trooper beckons as he calls him. + +Phil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he +were going anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander +like a bayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high +relief upon his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the +handle of the brush. + +"Attention, Phil! Listen to this." + +"Steady, commander, steady." + +"'Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity +for my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months' +date drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, +for the sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, +will become due to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take +up the same on presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.' What do +you make of that, Phil?" + +"Mischief, guv'ner." + +"Why?" + +"I think," replies Phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle +in his forehead with the brush-handle, "that mischeevious +consequences is always meant when money's asked for." + +"Lookye, Phil," says the trooper, sitting on the table. "First and +last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal +in interest and one thing and another." + +Phil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very +unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the +transaction as being made more promising by this incident. + +"And lookye further, Phil," says the trooper, staying his premature +conclusions with a wave of his hand. "There has always been an +understanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And +it has been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?" + +"I say that I think the times is come to a end at last." + +"You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself." + +"Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?" + +"The same." + +"Guv'ner," says Phil with exceeding gravity, "he's a leech in his +dispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in +his twistings, and a lobster in his claws." + +Having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after +waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of +him, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he +has in hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical +medium that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. +George, having folded the letter, walks in that direction. + +"There IS a way, commander," says Phil, looking cunningly at him, +"of settling this." + +"Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could." + +Phil shakes his head. "No, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. There +IS a way," says Phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush; +"what I'm a-doing at present." + +"Whitewashing." + +Phil nods. + +"A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the +Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off +my old scores? YOU'RE a moral character," says the trooper, eyeing +him in his large way with no small indignation; "upon my life you +are, Phil!" + +Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting +earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush +and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb, +that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so +much as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy +family when steps are audible in the long passage without, and a +cheerful voice is heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, +with a look at his master, hobbles up, saying, "Here's the guv'ner, +Mrs. Bagnet! Here he is!" and the old girl herself, accompanied by +Mr. Bagnet, appears. + +The old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the +year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very +clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so +interesting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe +from another quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and +an umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a +part of the old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no colour +known in this life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, +with a metallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a +little model of a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval +glasses out of a pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has +not that tenacious capacity of sticking to its post that might be +desired in an article long associated with the British army. The +old girl's umbrella is of a flabby habit of waist and seems to be +in need of stays--an appearance that is possibly referable to its +having served through a series of years at home as a cupboard and +on journeys as a carpet bag. She never puts it up, having the +greatest reliance on her well-proved cloak with its capacious hood, +but generally uses the instrument as a wand with which to point out +joints of meat or bunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the +attention of tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market- +basket, which is a sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she +never stirs abroad. Attended by these her trusty companions, +therefore, her honest sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough +straw bonnet, Mrs. Bagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright, +in George's Shooting Gallery. + +"Well, George, old fellow," says she, "and how do YOU do, this +sunshiny morning?" + +Giving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long +breath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a +faculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such +positions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough +bench, unties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses +her arms, and looks perfectly comfortable. + +Mr. Bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade +and with Phil, on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured +nod and smile. + +"Now, George," said Mrs. Bagnet briskly, "here we are, Lignum and +myself"--she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on +account, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitae having been his old +regimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in +compliment to the extreme hardness and toughness of his +physiognomy--"just looked in, we have, to make it all correct as +usual about that security. Give him the new bill to sign, George, +and he'll sign it like a man." + +"I was coming to you this morning," observes the trooper +reluctantly. + +"Yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out +early and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and +came to you instead--as you see! For Lignum, he's tied so close +now, and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But +what's the matter, George?" asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her +cheerful talk. "You don't look yourself." + +"I am not quite myself," returns the trooper; "I have been a little +put out, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Her bright quick eye catches the truth directly. "George!" holding +up her forefinger. "Don't tell me there's anything wrong about +that security of Lignum's! Don't do it, George, on account of the +children!" + +The trooper looks at her with a troubled visage. + +"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and +occasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. "If you +have allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum's, +and if you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger +of being sold up--and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain +as print--you have done a shameful action and have deceived us +cruelly. I tell you, cruelly, George. There!" + +Mr. Bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts +his large right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it +from a shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet. + +"George," says that old girl, "I wonder at you! George, I am +ashamed of you! George, I couldn't have believed you would have +done it! I always knew you to be a rolling sone that gathered no +moss, but I never thought you would have taken away what little +moss there was for Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know +what a hard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec +and Malta and Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or +could, have had the heart to serve us so. Oh, George!" Mrs. +Bagnet gathers up her cloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine +manner, "How could you do it?" + +Mrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as +if the shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at Mr. +George, who has turned quite white and looks distressfully at the +grey cloak and straw bonnet. + +"Mat," says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but +still looking at his wife, "I am sorry you take it so much to +heart, because I do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. I +certainly have, this morning, received this letter"--which he reads +aloud--"but I hope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, +why, what you say is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never +rolled in anybody's way, I fully believe, that I rolled the least +good to. But it's impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like +your wife and family better than I like 'em, Mat, and I trust +you'll look upon me as forgivingly as you can. Don't think I've +kept anything from you. I haven't had the letter more than a +quarter of an hour." + +"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet after a short silence, "will you +tell him my opinion?" + +"Oh! Why didn't he marry," Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and +half crying, "Joe Pouch's widder in North America? Then he +wouldn't have got himself into these troubles." + +"The old girl," says Mr. Baguet, "puts it correct--why didn't you?" + +"Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope," returns the +trooper. "Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to +Joe Pouch's widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about +me. It's not mine; it's yours. Give the word, and I'll sell off +every morsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in +nearly the sum wanted, I'd have sold all long ago. Don't believe +that I'll leave you or yours in the lurch, Mat. I'd sell myself +first. I only wish," says the trooper, giving himself a +disparaging blow in the chest, "that I knew of any one who'd buy +such a second-hand piece of old stores." + +"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet, "give him another bit of my mind." + +"George," says the old girl, "you are not so much to be blamed, on +full consideration, except for ever taking this business without +the means." + +"And that was like me!" observes the penitent trooper, shaking his +head. "Like me, I know." + +"Silence! The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "is correct--in her way +of giving my opinions--hear me out!" + +"That was when you never ought to have asked for the security, +George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things +considered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an +honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your +power, though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit +but what it's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging +over our heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! +Forget and forgive all round!" + +Mrs. Bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her +husband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his and +holds them while he speaks. + +"I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge +this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together +has gone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly +enough here, Phil and I. But the gallery don't quite do what was +expected of it, and it's not--in short, it's not the mint. It was +wrong in me to take it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner +drawn into that step, and I thought it might steady me, and set me +up, and you'll try to overlook my having such expectations, and +upon my soul, I am very much obliged to you, and very much ashamed +of myself." With these concluding words, Mr. George gives a shake +to each of the hands he holds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace +or two in a broad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a +final confession and were immediately going to be shot with all +military honours. + +"George, hear me out!" says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. "Old +girl, go on!" + +Mr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to +observe that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that +it is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr. +Smallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and +hold harmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George, +entirely assenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with Mr. +Bagnet to the enemy's camp. + +"Don't you mind a woman's hasty word, George," says Mrs. Bagnet, +patting him on the shoulder. "I trust my old Lignum to you, and I +am sure you'll bring him through it." + +The trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he WILL bring +Lignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak, +basket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of +her family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of +mollifying Mr. Smallweed. + +Whether there are two people in England less likely to come +satisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr. +George and Mr. Matthew Bagnet may be very reasonably questioned. +Also, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square +shoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same +limits two more simple and unaccustomed children in all the +Smallweedy affairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity +through the streets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr. +Bagnet, observing his companion to be thoughtful, considers it a +friendly part to refer to Mrs. Bagnet's late sally. + +"George, you know the old girl--she's as sweet and as mild as milk. +But touch her on the children--or myself--and she's off like +gunpowder." + +"It does her credit, Mat!" + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, "the old +girl--can't do anything--that don't do her credit. More or less. +I never say so. Discipline must he maintained." + +"She's worth her weight in gold," says the trooper. + +"In gold?" says Mr. Bagnet. "I'll tell you what. The old girl's +weight--is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight--in any +metal--for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl's +metal is far more precious---than the preciousest metal. And she's +ALL metal!" + +"You are right, Mat!" + +"When she took me--and accepted of the ring--she 'listed under me +and the children--heart and head, for life. She's that earnest," +says Mr. Bagnet, "and true to her colours--that, touch us with a +finger--and she turns out--and stands to her arms. If the old girl +fires wide--once in a way--at the call of duty--look over it, +George. For she's loyal!" + +"Why, bless her, Mat," returns the trooper, "I think the higher of +her for it!" + +"You are right!" says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, +though without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. "Think as +high of the old girl--as the rock of Gibraltar--and still you'll be +thinking low--of such merits. But I never own to it before her. +Discipline must be maintained." + +These encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant and to Grandfather +Smallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who, +having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but +indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she +consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be +inferred to give consent from the circumstance of her returning +with the words on her honey lips that they can come in if they want +to it. Thus privileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with +his feet in the drawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath +and Mrs. Smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is +not to sing. + +"My dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed with those two lean +affectionate arms of his stretched forth. "How de do? How de do? +Who is our friend, my dear friend?" + +"Why this," returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at +first, "is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of +ours, you know." + +"Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!" The old man looks at him under his +hand. + +"Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military +air, sir!" + +No chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet +and one for himself. They sit down, Mr. Bagnet as if he had no +power of bending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose. + +"Judy," says Mr. Smallweed, "bring the pipe." + +"Why, I don't know," Mr. George interposes, "that the young woman +need give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not +inclined to smoke it to-day." + +"Ain't you?" returns the old man. "Judy, bring the pipe." + +"The fact is, Mr. Smallweed," proceeds George, "that I find myself +in rather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that +your friend in the city has been playing tricks." + +"Oh, dear no!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "He never does that!" + +"Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might +be HIS doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter." + +Grandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way in recognition of +the letter. + +"What does it mean?" asks Mr. George. + +"Judy," says the old man. "Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. +Did you say what does it mean, my good friend?" + +"Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed," urges the +trooper, constraining himself to speak as smoothly and +confidentially as he can, holding the open letter in one hand and +resting the broad knuckles of the other on his thigh, "a good lot +of money has passed between us, and we are face to face at the +present moment, and are both well aware of the understanding there +has always been. I am prepared to do the usual thing which I have +done regularly and to keep this matter going. I never got a letter +like this from you before, and I have been a little put about by it +this morning, because here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you +know, had none of the money--" + +"I DON'T know it, you know," says the old man quietly. + +"Why, con-found you--it, I mean--I tell you so, don't I?" + +"Oh, yes, you tell me so," returns Grandfather Smallweed. "But I +don't know it." + +"Well!" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. "I know it." + +Mr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, "Ah! That's quite +another thing!" And adds, "But it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's +situation is all one, whether or no." + +The unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair +comfortably and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his +own terms. + +"That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's +Matthew Bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see, +that makes his good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for +whereas I'm a harurn-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more +kicks than halfpence come natural to, why he's a steady family man, +don't you see? Now, Mr. Smallweed," says the trooper, gaining +confidence as he proceeds in his soldierly mode of doing business, +"although you and I are good friends enough in a certain sort of a +way, I am well aware that I can't ask you to let my friend Bagnet +off entirely." + +"Oh, dear, you are too modest. You can ASK me anything, Mr. +George." (There is an ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather +Smallweed to-day.) + +"And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as +your friend in the city? Ha ha ha!" + +"Ha ha ha!" echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard +manner and with eyes so particularly green that Mr. Bagnet's +natural gravity is much deepened by the contemplation of that +venerable man. + +"Come!" says the sanguine George. "I am glad to find we can be +pleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my +friend Bagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot, +if you please, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my +friend Bagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal if you'll +just mention to him what our understanding is." + +Here some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, "Oh, good +gracious! Oh!" Unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is +found to be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose +chin has received a recent toss, expressive of derision and +contempt. Mr. Bagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound. + +"But I think you asked me, Mr. George"--old Smallweed, who all this +time has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now--"I think you +asked me, what did the letter mean?" + +"Why, yes, I did," returns the trooper in his off-hand way, "but I +don't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant." + +Mr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's +head, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces. + +"That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll +crumble you. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!" + +The two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity +has now attained its profoundest point. + +"Go to the devil!" repeats the old man. "I'll have no more of your +pipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent +dragoon, too! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been +there before) and show your independeuce now, will you? Come, my +dear friend, there's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; +put these blusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em +out!" + +He vociferates this so loudly that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on +the shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his +amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is +instantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr. +George awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a +perfect abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little +parlour window like a sentry and looks in every time he passes, +apparently revolving something in his mind. + +"Come, Mat," says Mr. George when he has recovered himself, "we +must try the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?" + +Mr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour, +replies with one shake of his head directed at the interior, "If my +old girl had been here--I'd have told him!" Having so discharged +himself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step and +marches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder. + +When they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. +Tulkinghorn is engaged and not to be seen. He is not at all +willing to see them, for when they have waited a full hour, and the +clerk, on his bell being rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning +as much, he brings forth no more encouraging message than that Mr. +Tulkinghorn has nothing to say to them and they had better not +wait. They do wait, however, with the perseverance of military +tactics, and at last the bell rings again and the client in +possession comes out of Mr. Tulkinghorn's room. + +The client is a handsome old lady, no other than Mrs. Rouncewell, +housekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a +fair old-fashioned curtsy and softly shuts the door. She is +treated with some distinction there, for the clerk steps out of his +pew to show her through the outer office and to let her out. The +old lady is thanking him for his attention when she observes the +comrades in waiting. + +"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?" + +The clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr. +George not turning round from the almanac over the fire-place. Mr. +Bagnet takes upon himself to reply, "Yes, ma'am. Formerly." + +"I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at +the sight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless +you, gentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman, but I had a son once +who went for a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in +his bold way, though some people did disparage him to his poor +mother. I ask your pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, +gentlemen!" + +"Same to you, ma'am!" returns Mr. Bagnet with right good will. + +There is something very touching in the earnestness of the old +lady's voice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old +figure. But Mr. George is so occupied with the almanac over the +fireplace (calculating the coming months by it perhaps) that he +does not look round until she has gone away and the door is closed +upon her. + +"George," Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the +almanac at last. "Don't be cast down! 'Why, soldiers, why--should +we be melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!" + +The clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there +and Mr. Tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility, +"Let 'em come in then!" they pass into the great room with the +painted ceiling and find him standing before the fire. + +"Now, you men, what do you want? Sergeant, I told you the last +time I saw you that I don't desire your company here." + +Sergeant replies--dashed within the last few minutes as to his +usual manner of speech, and even as to his usual carriage--that he +has received this letter, has been to Mr. Smallweed about it, and +has been referred there. + +"I have nothing to say to you," rejoins Mr. Tulkinghorn. "If you +get into debt, you must pay your debts or take the consequences. +You have no occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose?" + +Sergeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money. + +"Very well! Then the other man--this man, if this is he--must pay +it for you." + +Sergeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with +the money either. + +"Very well! Then you must pay it between you or you must both be +sued for it and both suffer. You have had the money and must +refund it. You are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, +and pence and escape scot-free." + +The lawyer sits down in his easy-chair and stirs the fire. Mr. +George hopes he will have the goodness to-- + +"I tell you, sergeant, I have nothing to say to you. I don't like +your associates and don't want you here. This matter is not at all +in my course of practice and is not in my office. Mr. Smallweed is +good enough to offer these affairs to me, but they are not in my +way. You must go to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn." + +"I must make an apology to you, sir," says Mr. George, "for +pressing myself upon you with so little encouragement--which is +almost as unpleasant to me as it can be to you--but would you let +me say a private word to you?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets and walks into +one of the window recesses. "Now! I have no time to waste." In +the midst of his perfect assumption of indifference, he directs a +sharp look at the trooper, taking care to stand with his own back +to the light and to have the other with his face towards it. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. George, "this man with me is the other party +implicated in this unfortunate affair--nominally, only nominally-- +and my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my +account. He is a most respectable man with a wife and family, +formerly in the Royal Artillery--" + +"My friend, I don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal +Artillery establishment--officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses, +guns, and ammunition." + +"'Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife +and family being injured on my account. And if I could bring them +through this matter, I should have no help for it but to give up +without any other consideration what you wanted of me the other +day." + +"Have you got it here?" + +"I have got it here, sir." + +"Sergeant," the lawyer proceeds in his dry passionless manner, far +more hopeless in the dealing with than any amount of vehemence, +"make up your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After +I have finished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won't re- +open it. Understand that. You can leave here, for a few days, +what you say you have brought here if you choose; you can take it +away at once if you choose. In case you choose to leave it here, I +can do this for you--I can replace this matter on its old footing, +and I can go so far besides as to give you a written undertaking +that this man Bagnet shall never be troubled in any way until you +have been proceeded against to the utmost, that your means shall be +exhausted before the creditor looks to his. This is in fact all +but freeing him. Have you decided?" + +The trooper puts his hand into his breast and answers with a long +breath, "I must do it, sir." + +So Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes +the undertaking, which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who +has all this time been staring at the ceiling and who puts his hand +on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and +seems exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express +his sentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a +folded paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's +elbow. "'Tis ouly a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever +had from him." + +Look at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression, +and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. +Tulkinghorn when he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it and +lays it in his desk with a countenance as unperturbable as death. + +Nor has he anything more to say or do but to nod once in the same +frigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, "You can go. +Show these men out, there!" Being shown out, they repair to Mr. +Bagnet's residence to dine. + +Boiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former +repast of boiled pork and greens, and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the +meal in the same way and seasons it with the best of temper, being +that rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms +without a hint that it might be Better and catches light from any +little spot of darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the +darkened brow of Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and +depressed. At first Mrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments +of Quebec and Malta to restore him, but finding those young ladies +sensible that their existing Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their +usual frolicsome acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry and +leaves him to deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic +hearth. + +But he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed. +During the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and +Mr. Bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he +was at dinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, +lets his pipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation +and dismay by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco. + +Therefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the +invigorating pail, and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls, +"Old girl!" and winks monitions to her to find out what's the +matter. + +"Why, George!" says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. +"How low you are!" + +"Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not." + +"He ain't at all like Blulfy, mother!" cries little Malta. + +"Because he ain't well, I think, mother," adds Quebec. + +"Sure that's a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!" returns the +trooper, kissing the young damsels. "But it's true," with a sigh, +"true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!" + +"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, working busily, "if I thought you cross +enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife--who +could have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done +it almost--said this morning, I don't know what I shouldn't say to +you now." + +"My kind soul of a darling," returns the trooper. "Not a morsel of +it." + +"Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say was +that I trusted Lignum to you and was sure you'd bring him through +it. And you HAVE brought him through it, noble!" + +"Thankee, my dear!" says George. "I am glad of your good opinion." + +In giving Mrs. Bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly +shake--for she took her seat beside him--the trooper's attention is +attracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as +she plies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his +stool in the corner, and beckons that fifer to him. + +"See there, my boy," says George, very gently smoothing the +mother's hair with his hand, "there's a good loving forehead for +you! All bright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the +sun and the weather through following your father about and taking +care of you, but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree." + +Mr. Bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies, +the highest approbation and acquiescence. + +"The time will come, my boy," pursues the trooper, "when this hair +of your mother's will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and +re-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take +care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I +never whitened a hair of her dear head--I never marked a sorrowful +line in her face!' For of all the many things that you can think +of when you are a man, you had better have THAT by you, Woolwich!" + +Mr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy +beside his mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry +about him, that he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +Esther's Narrative + + +I lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life +became like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of +time so much as of the change in all my habits made by the +helplessness and inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been +confined to it many days, everything else seemed to have retired +into a remote distance where there was little or no separation +between the various stages of my life which had been really divided +by years. In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake and +to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great +distance, on the healthy shore. + +My housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety +to think that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the +oldest of the old duties at Greenleaf or the summer afternoons when +I went home from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my +childish shadow at my side, to my godmother's house. I had never +known before how short life really was and into how small a space +the mind could put it. + +While I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time +became confused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. +At once a child, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so +happy as, I was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties +adapted to each station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly +trying to reconcile them. I suppose that few who have not been in +such a condition can quite understand what I mean or what painful +unrest arose from this source. + +For the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my +disorder--it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both +nights and days in it--when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever +striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm +in a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew +perfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I +was in my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and +knew her very well; yet I would find myself complaining, "Oh, more +of these never-ending stairs, Charley--more and more--piled up to +the sky', I think!" and labouring on again. + +Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in +great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry +circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my +only prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such +inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing? + +Perhaps the less I say of these sick experiences, the less tedious +and the more intelligible I shall be. I do not recall them to make +others unhappy or because I am now the least unhappy in remembering +them. It may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions +we might be the better able to alleviate their intensity. + +The repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful +rest, when in my weakness I was too calm to have any care for +myself and could have heard (or so I think now) that I was dying, +with no other emotion than with a pitying love for those I left +behind--this state can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in +this state when I first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me +once more, and knew with a boundless joy for which no words are +rapturous enough that I should see again. + +I had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night; I had heard +her calling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had +heard her praying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort +me and to leave my bedside no more; but I had only said, when I +could speak, "Never, my sweet girl, never!" and I had over and over +again reminded Charley that she was to keep my darling from the +room whether I lived or died. Charley had been true to me in that +time of need, and with her little hand and her great heart had kept +the door fast. + +But now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every +day more fully and brightly on me, I could read the letters that my +dear wrote to me every morning and evening and could put them to my +lips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. I +could see my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the +two rooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to +Ada from the open window again. I could understand the stillness +in the house and the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all +those who had always been so good to me. I could weep in the +exquisite felicity of my heart and be as happy in my weakness as +ever I had been in my strength. + +By and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with +so strange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were +done for some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a +little, and so on to a little more and much more, until I became +useful to myself, and interested, and attached to life again. + +How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed +with pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea-drinking with +Charley! The little creature--sent into the world, surely, to +minister to the weak and sick--was so happy, and so busy, and +stopped so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, +and fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was +so glad, that I was obliged to say, "Charley, if you go on in this +way, I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I +thought I was!" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her +bright face here and there across and across the two rooms, out of +the shade into the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into +the shade, while I watched her peacefully. When all her +preparations were concluded and the pretty tea-table with its +little delicacies to tempt me, and its white cloth, and its +flowers, and everything so lovingly and beautifully arranged for me +by Ada downstairs, was ready at the bedside, I felt sure I was +steady enough to say something to Charley that was not new to my +thoughts. + +First I complimented Charley on the room, and indeed it was so +fresh and airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I +had been lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face +was brighter than before. + +"Yet, Charley," said I, looking round, "I miss something, surely, +that I am accustomed to?" + +Poor little Charley looked round too and pretended to shake her +head as if there were nothing absent. + +"Are the pictures all as they used to be?" I asked her. + +"Every one of them, miss," said Charley. + +"And the furniture, Charley?" + +"Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss." + +"And yet," said I, "I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what +it is, Charley! It's the looking-glass." + +Charley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten +something, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there. + +I had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I +could thank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called +Charley back, and when she came--at first pretending to smile, but +as she drew nearer to me, looking grieved--I took her in my arms +and said, "It matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do +without my old face very well." + +I was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great +chair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on +Charley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room +too, but what I had to bear was none the harder to bear for that. + +My guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was +now no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He +came one morning, and when he first came in, could only hold me in +his embrace and say, "My dear, dear girl!" I had long known--who +could know better?--what a deep fountain of affection and +generosity his heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering +and change to fill such a place in it? "Oh, yes!" I thought. "He +has seen me, and he loves me better than he did; he has seen me and +is even fonder of me than he was before; and what have I to mourn +for!" + +He sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a +little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he +removed it, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, +there never can be, a pleasanter manner. + +"My little woman," said he, "what a sad time this has been. Such +an inflexible little woman, too, through all!" + +"Only for the best, guardian," said I. + +"For the best?" he repeated tenderly. "Of course, for the best. +But here have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here +has your friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here +has every one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here +has even poor Rick been writing--to ME too--in his anxiety for +you!" + +I had read of Caddy in Ada's letters, but not of Richard. I told +him so. + +"Why, no, my dear," he replied. "I have thought it better not to +mention it to her." + +"And you speak of his writing to YOU," said I, repeating his +emphasis. "As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; +as if he could write to a better friend!" + +"He thinks he could, my love," returned my guardian, "and to many a +better. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while +unable to write to you with any hope of an answer--wrote coldly, +haughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we +must look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and +Jarndyce has warped him out of himself and perverted me in his +eyes. I have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If +two angels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change +their nature." + +"It has not changed yours, guardian." + +"Oh, yes, it has, my dear," he said laughingly. "It has made the +south wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick mistrusts and +suspects me--goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect +me. Hears I have conflicting interests, claims clashing against +his and what not. Whereas, heaven knows that if I could get out of +the mountains of wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has +been so long bestowed (which I can't) or could level them by the +extinction of my own original right (which I can't either, and no +human power ever can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we +got), I would do it this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick +his proper nature than be endowed with all the money that dead +suitors, broken, heart and soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have +left unclaimed with the Accountant-General--and that's money +enough, my dear, to be cast into a pyramid, in memory of Chancery's +transcendent wickedness." + +"IS it possible, guardian," I asked, amazed, "that Richard can be +suspicious of you?" + +"Ah, my love, my love," he said, "it is in the subtle poison of +such abuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and +objects lose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not HIS +fault." + +"But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian." + +"It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within +the influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By +little and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed, +and it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything +around him. But again I say with all my soul, we must be patient +with poor Rick and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh +hearts like his have I seen in my time turned by the same means!" + +I could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that +his benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little. + +"We must not say so, Dame Durden," he cheerfully rephed; "Ada is +the happier, I hope, and that is much. I did think that I and both +these young creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes +and that we might so far counter-act the suit and prove too strong +for it. But it was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was +the curtain of Rick's cradle." + +"But, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach +him what a false and wretched thing it is?" + +"We WILL hope so, my Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and that it may +not teach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. +There are not many grown and matured men living while we speak, +good men too, who if they were thrown into this same court as +suitors would not be vitally changed and depreciated within three +years--within two--within one. How can we stand amazed at poor +Rick? A young man so unfortunate," here he fell into a lower tone, +as if he were thinking aloud, "cannot at first believe (who could?) +that Chancery is what it is. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, +to do something with his interests and bring them to some +settlement. It procrastinates, disappoints, tries, tortures him; +wears out his sanguine hopes and patience, thread by thread; but he +still looks to it, and hankers after it, and finds his whole world +treacherous and hollow. Well, well, well! Enough of this, my +dear!" + +He had supported me, as at first, all this time, and his tenderness +was so precious to me that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and +loved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind +in this little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew +strong and try to set him right. + +"There are better subjects than these," said my guardian, "for such +a joyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. And I had a +commission to broach one of them as soon as I should begin to talk. +When shall Ada come to see you, my love?" + +I had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the +absent mirrors, but not much, for I knew my loving girl would be +changed by no change in my looks. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "as I have shut her out so long--though +indeed, indeed, she is like the light to me--" + +"I know it well, Dame Durden, well." + +He was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and +affection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my +heart that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. +"Yes, yes, you are tired," said he, "Rest a little." + +"As I have kept Ada out so long," I began afresh after a short +while, "I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, +guardian. It would be best to be away from here before I see her. +If Charley and I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I +can move, and if I had a week there in which to grow stronger and +to be revived by the sweet air and to look forward to the happiness +of having Ada with me again, I think it would be better for us." + +I hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more +used to my altered self before I met the eyes of the dear girl I +longed so ardently to see, but it is the truth. I did. He +understood me, I was sure; but I was not afraid of that. If it +were a poor thing, I knew he would pass it over. + +"Our spoilt little woman," said my guardian, "shall have her own +way even in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of +tears downstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of +chivalry, breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on +paper before, that if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he +having already turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by +heaven and by earth he'll pull it down and not leave one brick +standing on another!" + +And my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary +beginning such as "My dear Jarndyce," but rushing at once into the +words, "I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take +possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one +o'clock, P.M.," and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the +most emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration +he had quoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for +laughing heartily over it, and we settled that I should send him a +letter of thanks on the morrow and accept his offer. It was a most +agreeable one to me, for all the places I could have thought of, I +should have liked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold. + +"Now, little housewife," said my guardian, looking at his watch, "I +was strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be +tired too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I +have one other petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that +you were ill, made nothing of walking down here--twenty miles, poor +soul, in a pair of dancing shoes--to inquire. It was heaven's +mercy we were at home, or she would have walked back again." + +The old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it! + +"Now, pet," said my guardian, "if it would not be irksome to you to +admit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save +Boythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you +would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I-- +though my eminent name is Jarndyce--could do in a lifetime." + +I have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple +image of the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle +lesson on my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I +could not tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. +I had always pitied her, never so much as now. I had always been +glad of my little power to soothe her under her calamity, but +never, never, half so glad before. + +We arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach and +share my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face +away upon my couch and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by +such blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had +to undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had +aspired to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do +good to some one and win some love to myself if I could came back +into my mind with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had +since enjoyed and all the affectionate hearts that had been turned +towards me. If I were weak now, what had I profited by those +mercies? I repeated the old childish prayer in its old childish +words and found that its old peace had not departed from it. + +My guardian now came every day. In a week or so more I could walk +about our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the +window-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the +courage to look at the dear face, though I could have done so +easily without her seeing me. + +On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature +ran into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying +from her very heart of hearts, "My dear Fitz Jarndyce!" fell upon +my neck and kissed me twenty times. + +"Dear me!" said she, putting her hand into her reticule, "I have +nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a +pocket handkerchief." + +Charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of +it, for she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so, +shedding tears for the next ten minutes. + +"With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce," she was careful to explain. +"Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at +having the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much +fonder of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend +court regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket +handkerchiefs--" + +Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the +place where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me and looked +unwilling to pursue the suggestion. + +"Ve-ry right!" said Miss Flite, "Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly +indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I +am afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) +a little--rambling you know," said Miss Flite, touching her +forehead. "Nothing more," + +"What were you going to tell me?" said I, smiling, for I saw she +wanted to go on. "You have roused my curiosity, and now you must +gratify it." + +Miss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis, +who said, "If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then," and +therein gratified Miss Flite beyond measure. + +"So sagacious, our young friend," said she to me in her mysterious +way. "Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it's a +pretty anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who +should follow us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor +person in a very ungenteel bonnet--" + +"Jenny, if you please, miss," said Charley. + +"Just so!" Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. +"Jenny. Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that +there has been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my +dear Fitz Jarndyce's health and taking a handkerchief away with her +as a little keepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz +Jarndyce's! Now, you know, so very prepossessing in the lady with +the veil!" + +"If you please, miss," said Charley, to whom I looked in some +astonishment, "Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a +handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the +baby's little things. I think, if you please, partly because it +was yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby." + +"Diminutive," whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions +about her own forehead to express intellect in Charley. "But ex- +ceedingly sagacious! And so dear! My love, she's clearer than any +counsel I ever heard!" + +"Yes, Charley," I returned. "I remember it. Well?" + +"Well, miss," said Charley, "and that's the handkerchief the lady +took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away +with it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and +left some money instead. Jenny don't know her at all, if you +please, miss!" + +"Why, who can she be?" said I. + +"My love," Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with +her most mysterious look, "in MY opinion--don't mention this to our +diminutive friend--she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. He's married, +you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws +his lordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the +jeweller!" + +I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an +impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was +diverted by my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked +hungry and who, our dinner being brought in, required some little +assistance in arraying herself with great satisfaction in a +pitiable old scarf and a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, +which she had brought down in a paper parcel. I had to preside, +too, over the entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast +fowl, a sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so +pleasant to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and +ceremony she did honour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing +else. + +When we had finished and had our little dessert before us, +embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the +superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite +was so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her +own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I +began by saying "You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many +years, Miss Flite?" + +"Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment. +Shortly." + +There was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful +if I had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would +say no more about it. + +"My father expected a judgment," said Miss Flite. "My brother. My +sister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect." + +"They are all--" + +"Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear," said she. + +As I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be +serviceable to her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it. + +"Would it not be wiser," said I, "to expect this judgment no more?" + +"Why, my dear," she answered promptly, "of course it would!" + +"And to attend the court no more?" + +"Equally of course," said she. "Very wearing to be always in +expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I +assure you, to the bone!" + +She slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed. + +"But, my dear," she went on in her mysterious way, "there's a +dreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don't mention it to our +diminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With +good reason. There's a cruel attraction in the place. You CAN'T +leave it. And you MUST expect." + +I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently +and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer. + +"Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve- +ry absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, +too. To the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there +many years, and I have noticed. It's the mace and seal upon the +table." + +What could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her. + +"Draw," returned Miss Flite. "Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace +out of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good +qualities out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away +in the night. Cold and glittering devils!" + +She tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly +as if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to +fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful +secrets to me. + +"Let me see," said she. "I'll tell you my own case. Before they +ever drew me--before I had ever seen them--what was it I used to +do? Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister +worked at tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder's +business. We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! +First, our father was drawn--slowly. Home was drawn with him. In +a few years he was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind +word or a kind look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz +Jarndyce. He was drawn to a debtors' prison. There he died. Then +our brother was drawn--swiftly--to drunkenness. And rags. And +death. Then my sister was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then +I was ill and in misery, and heard, as I had often heard before, +that this was all the work of Chancery. When I got better, I went +to look at the monster. And then I found out how it was, and I was +drawn to stay there." + +Having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which +she had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh +upon her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable +importance. + +"You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some +day. I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen +many new faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace +and seal in these many years. As my father's came there. As my +brother's. As my sister's. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge +and the rest of them say to the new faces, 'Here's little Miss +Flite. Oh, you are new here; and you must come and be presented to +little Miss Flite!' Ve-ry good. Proud I am sure to have the +honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz Jarndyce, I know what will +happen. I know, far better than they do, when the attraction has +begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them begin in Gridley. +And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love," speaking low again, +"I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in Jarndyce. Let some +one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin. + +She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face +gradually softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had +been too gloomy, and seeming also to lose the connexion in her +mind, she said politely as she sipped her glass of wine, "Yes, my +dear, as I was saying, I expect a judgment shortly. Then I shall +release my birds, you know, and confer estates." + +I was much impressed by her allusion to Richard and by the sad +meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made +its way through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was +quite complacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles. + +"But, my dear," she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it +upon mine. "You have not congratulated me on my physician. +Positively not once, yet!" + +I was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant. + +"My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly +attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite +gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that +will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal." + +"Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now," said I, "that I thought the +time for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite." + +"But, my child," she returned, "is it possible that you don't know +what has happened?" + +"No," said I. + +"Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!" + +"No," said I. "You forget how long I have been here." + +"True! My dear, for the moment--true. I blame myself. But my +memory has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I +mentioned. Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, +there has been a terrible shipwreck over in those East Indian +seas." + +"Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!" + +"Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death +in all shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and +darkness. Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and +through it all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave +through everything. Saved many lives, never complained in hunger +and thirst, wrapped naked people in his spare clothes, took the +lead, showed them what to do, governed them, tended the sick, +buried the dead, and brought the poor survivors safely off at last! +My dear, the poor emaciated creatures all but worshipped him. They +fell down at his feet when they got to the land and blessed him. +The whole country rings with it. Stay! Where's my bag of +documents? I have got it there, and you shall read it, you shall +read it!" + +And I DID read all the noble history, though very slowly and +imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see +the words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay +down the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so +triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous +and gallant deeds, I felt such glowing exultation in his renown, I +so admired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn +people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their +preserver. I could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and +blessed him in my rapture that he should be so truly good and +brave. I felt that no one--mother, sister, wife--could honour him +more than I. I did, indeed! + +My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when +as the evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest +she should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still +full of the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufflciently composed +myself to understand in all its details. + +"My dear," said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and +gloves, "my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon +him. And no doubt he will. You are of that opinlon?" + +That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no. + +"Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?" she asked rather sharply. + +I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men +distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless +occasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very +large amount of money. + +"Why, good gracious," said Miss Flite, "how can you say that? +Surely you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of +England in knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement +of every sort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, +and consider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you +don't know that this is the great reason why titles will always +last in the land!" + +I am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when +she was very mad indeed. + +And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to +keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and +that if he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he +loved me before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he +had done so, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it +was now that this had never happened! What should I have suffered +if I had had to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had +known as mine was quite gone from me and that I freely released him +from his bondage to one whom he had never seen! + +Oh, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully +spared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be +all he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be +undone: no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could +go, please God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could +go his nobler way upon its broader road; and though we were apart +upon the journey, I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, +innocently, better far than he had thought me when I found some +favour in his eyes, at the journey's end. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +Chesney Wold + + +Charley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into +Lincolnshire. My guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight +of me until I was safe in Mr. Boythorn's house, so he accompanied +us, and we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of +air, and every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, +and every passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful +and wonderful to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my +first gain from my illness. How little I had lost, when the wide +world was so full of delight for me. + +My guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our +way down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a +letter, of which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour +of our arrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the +early summer-time. + +If a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand, +and I had been a princess and her favoured god-child, I could not +have been more considered in it. So many preparations were made +for me and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little +tastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen +times before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than +that, however, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's +delight calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and +Charley had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, +I was as tranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great +comfort to be able to say to myself after tea, "Esther, my dear, I +think you are quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a +note of thanks to your host." He had left a note of welcome for +me, as sunny as his own face, and had confided his bird to my care, +which I knew to be his highest mark of confidence. Accordingly I +wrote a little note to him in London, telling him how all his +favourite plants and trees were looking, and how the most +astonishing of birds had chirped the honours of the house to me in +the most hospitable manner, and how, after singing on my shoulder, +to the inconceivable rapture of my little maid, he was then at +roost in the usual corner of his cage, but whether dreaming or no I +could not report. My note finished and sent off to the post, I +made myself very busy in unpacking and arranging; and I sent +Charley to bed in good time and told her I should want her no more +that night. + +For I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have +my own restored to me. I knew this to be a weakness which must be +overcome, but I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh +when I got to where I now was. Therefore I had wanted to be alone, +and therefore I said, now alone, in my own room, "Esther, if you +are to be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true- +hearted, you must keep your word, my dear." I was quite resolved +to keep it, but I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon +all my blessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little +more. + +My hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more +than once. It was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it +out, and went up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a +little muslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood +for a moment looking through such a veil of my own hair that I +could see nothing else. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the +reflection in the mirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it +looked at me. I was very much changed--oh, very, very much. At +first my face was so strange to me that I think I should have put +my hands before it and started back but for the encouragement I +have mentioned. Very soon it became more familiar, and then I knew +the extent of the alteration in it better than I had done at first. +It was not like what I had expected, but I had expected nothing +definite, and I dare say anything definite would have surprised me. + +I had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but I +had been very different from this. It was all gone now. Heaven +was so good to me that I could let it go with a few not bitter +tears and could stand there arranging my hair for the night quite +thankfully. + +One thing troubled me, and I considered it for a long time before I +went to sleep. I had kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. When they were +withered I had dried them and put them in a book that I was fond +of. Nobody knew this, not even Ada. I was doubtful whether I had +a right to preserve what he had sent to one so different--whether +it was generous towards him to do it. I wished to be generous to +him, even in the secret depths of my heart, which he would never +know, because I could have loved him--could have been devoted to +him. At last I came to the conclusion that I might keep them if I +treasured them only as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past +and gone, never to be looked back on any more, in any other light. +I hope this may not seem trivial. I was very much in earnest. + +I took care to be up early in the morning and to be before the +glass when Charley came in on tiptoe. + +"Dear, dear, miss!" cried Charley, starting. "Is that you?" + +"Yes, Charley," said I, quietly putting up my hair. "And I am very +well indeed, and very happy." + +I saw it was a weight off Charley's mind, but it was a greater +weight off mine. I knew the worst now and was composed to it. I +shall not conceal, as I go on, the weaknesses I could not quite +conquer, but they always passed from me soon and the happier frame +of mind stayed by me faithfully. + +Wishing to be fully re-established in my strength and my good +spirits before Ada came, I now laid down a little series of plans +with Charley for being in the fresh air all day long. We were to +be out before breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out +again before and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after +tea, and were to go to rest betimes, and were to climb every hill +and explore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. As +to restoratives and strengthening delicacies, Mr. Boythorn's good +housekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or +drink in her hand; I could not even be heard of as resting in the +park but she would come trotting after me with a basket, her +cheerful face shining with a lecture on the importance of frequent +nourishment. Then there was a pony expressly for my riding, a +chubby pony with a short neck and a mane all over his eyes who +could canter--when he would--so easily and quietly that he was a +treasure. In a very few days he would come to me in the paddock +when I called him, and eat out of my hand, and follow me about. We +arrived at such a capital understanding that when he was jogging +with me lazily, and rather obstinately, down some shady lane, if I +patted his neck and said, "Stubbs, I am surprised you don't canter +when you know how much I like it; and I think you might oblige me, +for you are only getting stupid and going to sleep," he would give +his head a comical shake or two and set off directly, while Charley +would stand still and laugh with such enjoyment that her laughter +was like music. I don't know who had given Stubbs his name, but it +seemed to belong to him as naturally as his rough coat. Once we +put him in a little chaise and drove him triumphantly through the +green lanes for five miles; but all at once, as we were extolling +him to the skies, he seemed to take it ill that he should have been +accompanied so far by the circle of tantalizing little gnats that +had been hovering round and round his ears the whole way without +appearing to advance an inch, and stopped to think about it. I +suppose he came to the decision that it was not to be borne, for he +steadily refused to move until I gave the reins to Charley and got +out and walked, when he followed me with a sturdy sort of good +humour, putting his head under my arm and rubbing his ear against +my sleeve. It was in vain for me to say, "Now, Stubbs, I feel +quite sure from what I know of you that you will go on if I ride a +little while," for the moment I left him, he stood stock still +again. Consequently I was obliged to lead the way, as before; and +in this order we returned home, to the great delight of the +village. + +Charley and I had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, +I am sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us +go by, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there +were faces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the +grown people before and almost all the children, but now the very +steeple began to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my +new friends was an old old woman who lived in such a little +thatched and whitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was +turned up on its hinges, it shut up the whole house-front. This +old lady had a grandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to +him for her and drew at the top of it the chimney-corner in which +she had brought him up and where his old stool yet occupied its old +place. This was considered by the whole village the most wonderful +achievement in the world, but when an answer came back all the way +from Plymouth, in which he mentioned that he was going to take the +picture all the way to America, and from America would write again, +I got all the credit that ought to have been given to the post- +office and was invested with the merit of the whole system. + +Thus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many +children, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in +so many cottages, going on with Charley's education, and writing +long letters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think +about that little loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If +I did think of it at odd moments now and then, I had only to be +busy and forget it. I felt it more than I had hoped I should once +when a child said, "Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now +like she used to be?" But when I found the child was not less fond +of me, and drew its soft hand over my face with a kind of pitying +protection in its touch, that soon set me up again. There were +many little occurrences which suggested to me, with great +consolation, how natural it is to gentle hearts to be considerate +and delicate towards any inferiority. One of these particularly +touched me. I happened to stroll into the little church when a +marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had to sign the +register. + +The bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross +for his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. Now, I had +known the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest +girl in the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the +school, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. +She came aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and +admiration stood in her bright eyes, "He's a dear good fellow, +miss; but he can't write yet--he's going to learn of me--and I +wouldn't shame him for the world!" Why, what had I to fear, I +thought, when there was this nobility in the soul of a labouring +man's daughter! + +The air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever +blown, and the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come +into my old one. Charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant +and so rosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly +the whole night. + +There was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of Chesney +Wold where a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. The +wood had been cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, +and the bright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that I +rested there at least once every day. A picturesque part of the +Hall, called the Ghost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this +higher ground; and the startling name, and the old legend in the +Dedlock family which I had heard from Mr. Boythorn accounting for +it, mingled with the view and gave it something of a mysterious +interest in addition to its real charms. There was a bank here, +too, which was a famous one for violets; and as it was a daily +delight of Charley's to gather wild flowers, she took as much to +the spot as I did. + +It would be idle to inquire now why I never went close to the house +or never went inside it. The family were not there, I had heard on +my arrival, and were not expected. I was far from being incurious +or uninterested about the building; on the contrary, I often sat in +this place wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like +a footstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the +lonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady +Dedlock had impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me +from the house even when she was absent. I am not sure. Her face +and figure were associated with it, naturally; but I cannot say +that they repelled me from it, though something did. For whatever +reason or no reason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day +at which my story now arrives. + +I was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and +Charley was gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had +been looking at the Ghost's Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry +afar off and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to +haunt it when I became aware of a figure approaching through the +wood. The perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and +the shadows of the branches on the ground made it so much more +intricate to the eye, that at first I could not discern what figure +it was. By little and little it revealed itself to be a woman's--a +lady's--Lady Dedlock's. She was alone and coming to where I sat +with a much quicker step, I observed to my surprise, than was usual +with her. + +I was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost +within speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to +continue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. +Not so much by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her +quick advance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great +change in her manner and the absence of her haughty self-restraint, +as by a something in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of +when I was a little child, something I had never seen in any face, +something I had never seen in hers before. + +A dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. Lady +Dedlock stopped upon the instant and changed back almost to what I +had known her. + +"Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you," she said, now +advancing slowly. "You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been +very ill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it." + +I could no more have removed my eyes from her pale face than I +could have stirred from the bench on which I sat. She gave me her +hand, and its deadly coldness, so at variance with the enforced +composure of her features, deepened the fascination that +overpowered me. I cannot say what was in my whirling thoughts. + +"You are recovering again?" she asked kindly. + +"I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock." + +"Is this your young attendant?" + +"Yes." + +"Will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?" + +"Charley," said I, "take your flowers home, and I will follow you +directly." + +Charley, with her best curtsy, blushingly tied on her bonnet and +went her way. When she was gone, Lady Dedlock sat down on the seat +beside me. + +I cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when I saw +in her hand my handkerchief with which I had covered the dead baby. + +I looked at her, but I could not see her, I could not hear her, I +could not draw my breath. The beating of my heart was so violent +and wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me. But when +she caught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, +compassionated me, and called me back to myself; when she fell down +on her knees and cried to me, "Oh, my child, my child, I am your +wicked and unhappy mother! Oh, try to forgive me!"--when I saw her +at my feet on the bare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt, +through all my tumult of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the +providence of God that I was so changed as that I never could +disgrace her by any trace of likeness, as that nobody could ever +now look at me and look at her and remotely think of any near tie +between us. + +I raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop +before me in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, +incoherent words, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened +me to see her at MY feet. I told her--or I tried to tell her--that +if it were for me, her child, under any circumstances to take upon +me to forgive her, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I +told her that my heart overflowed with love for her, that it was +natural love which nothing in the past had changed or could change. +That it was not for me, then resting for the first time on my +mother's bosom, to take her to account for having given me life, +but that my duty was to bless her and receive her, though the whole +world turned from her, and that I only asked her leave to do it. I +held my mother in my embrace, and she held me in hers, and among +the still woods in the silence of the summer day there seemed to be +nothing but our two troubled minds that was not at peace. + +"To bless and receive me," groaned my mother, "it is far too late. +I must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it +will. From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see +the way before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I +have brought upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it." + +Even in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of +proud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it +off again. + +"I must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not +wholly for myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring +creature that I am!" + +These words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more +terrible in its sound than any shriek. Covering her face with her +hands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that +I should touch her; nor could I, by my utmost persuasions or by any +endearments I could use, prevail upon her to rise. She said, no, +no, no, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud and +disdainful everywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, +in the only natural moments of her life. + +My unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly +frantic. She had but then known that her child was living. She +could not have suspected me to be that child before. She had +followed me down here to speak to me but once in all her life. We +never could associate, never could communicate, never probably from +that time forth could interchange another word on earth. She put +into my hands a letter she had written for my reading only and said +when I had read it and destroyed it--but not so much for her sake, +since she asked nothing, as for her husband's and my own--I must +evermore consider her as dead. If I could believe that she loved +me, in this agony in which I saw her, with a mother's love, she +asked me to do that, for then I might think of her with a greater +pity, imagining what she suffered. She had put herself beyond all +hope and beyond all help. Whether she preserved her secret until +death or it came to be discovered and she brought dishonour and +disgrace upon the name she had taken, it was her solitary struggle +always; and no affection could come near her, and no human creature +could render her any aid. + +"But is the secret safe so far?" I asked. "Is it safe now, dearest +mother?" + +"No," replied my mother. "It has been very near discovery. It was +saved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident--to- +morrow, any day." + +"Do you dread a particular person?" + +"Hush! Do not tremble and cry so much for me. I am not worthy of +these tears," said my mother, kissing my hands. "I dread one +person very much." + +"An enemy?" + +"Not a friend. One who is too passionless to be either. He is Sir +Leicester Dedlock's lawyer, mechanically faithful without +attachment, and very jealous of the profit, privilege, and +reputation of being master of the mysteries of great houses." + +"Has he any suspicions?" + +"Many." + +"Not of you?" I said alarmed. + +"Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at +a standstill, but I can never shake him off." + +"Has he so little pity or compunction?" + +"He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but +his calling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the +holding possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer +or opponent in it." + +"Could you trust in him?" + +"I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years +will end where it will. I follow it alone to the end, whatever the +end be. It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts, +nothing turns me." + +"Dear mother, are you so resolved?" + +"I AM resolved. I have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with +pride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have +outlived many vanities with many more. I will outlive this danger, +and outdie it, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully +as if these woods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but +my course through it is the same. I have but one; I can have but +one." + +"Mr. Jarndyce--" I was beginning when my mother hurriedly +inquired, "Does HE suspect?" + +"No," said I. "No, indeed! Be assured that he does not!" And I +told her what he had related to me as his knowledge of my story. +"But he is so good and sensible," said I, "that perhaps if he knew--" + +My mother, who until this time had made no change in her position, +raised her hand up to my lips and stopped me. + +"Confide fully in him," she said after a little while. "You have +my free consent--a small gift from such a mother to her injured +child!- -but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even +yet." + +I explained, as nearly as I could then, or can recall now--for my +agitation and distress throughout were so great that I scarcely +understood myself, though every word that was uttered in the +mother's voice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, which in my +childhood I had never learned to love and recognize, had never been +sung to sleep with, had never heard a blessing from, had never had +a hope inspired by, made an enduring impression on my memory--I say +I explained, or tried to do it, how I had only hoped that Mr. +Jarndyce, who had been the best of fathers to me, might be able to +afford some counsel and support to her. But my mother answered no, +it was impossible; no one could help her. Through the desert that +lay before her, she must go alone. + +"My child, my child!" she said. "For the last time! These kisses +for the last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We +shall meet no more. To hope to do what I seek to do, I must be +what I have been so long. Such is my reward and doom. If you hear +of Lady Dedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of +your wretched mother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! +Think that the reality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, +in her murdering within her breast the only love and truth of which +it is capable! And then forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven +to forgive her, which it never can!" + +We held one another for a little space yet, but she was so firm +that she took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, +and with a last kiss as she held them there, released them, and +went from me into the wood. I was alone, and calm and quiet below +me in the sun and shade lay the old house, with its terraces and +turrets, on which there had seemed to me to be such complete repose +when I first saw it, but which now looked like the obdurate and +unpitying watcher of my mother's misery. + +Stunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been +in my sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of +discovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. I +took such precautions as I could to hide from Charley that I had +been crying, and I constrained myself to think of every sacred +obligation that there was upon me to be careful and collected. It +was not a little while before I could succeed or could even +restrain bursts of grief, but after an hour or so I was better and +felt that I might return. I went home very slowly and told +Charley, whom I found at the gate looking for me, that I had been +tempted to extend my walk after Lady Dedlock had left me and that I +was over-tired and would lie down. Safe in my own room, I read the +letter. I clearly derived from it--and that was much then--that I +had not been abandoned by my mother. Her elder and only sister, +the godmother of my childhood, discovering signs of life in me when +I had been laid aside as dead, had in her stern sense of duty, with +no desire or willingness that I should live, reared me in rigid +secrecy and had never again beheld my mother's face from within a +few hours of my birth. So strangely did I hold my place in this +world that until within a short time back I had never, to my own +mother's knowledge, breathed--had been buried--had never been +endowed with life--had never borne a name. When she had first seen +me in the church she had been startled and had thought of what +would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on, but +that was all then. + +What more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has +its own times and places in my story. + +My first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume +even its ashes. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in +me that I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been +reared. That I felt as if I knew it would have been better and +happier for many people if indeed I had never breathed. That I had +a terror of myself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my +own mother and of a proud family name. That I was so confused and +shaken as to be possessed by a belief that it was right and had +been intended that I should die in my birth, and that it was wrong +and not intended that I should be then alive. + +These are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, +and when I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the +world with my load of trouble for others. I was more than ever +frightened of myself, thinking anew of her against whom I was a +witness, of the owner of Chesney Wold, of the new and terrible +meaning of the old words now moaning in my ear like a surge upon +the shore, "Your mother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are +hers. The time will come--and soon enough--when you will +understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a +woman can." With them, those other words returned, "Pray daily +that the sins of others be not visited upon your head." I could +not disentangle all that was about me, and I felt as if the blame +and the shame were all in me, and the visitation had come down. + +The day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still +contended with the same distress. I went out alone, and after +walking a little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on +the trees and the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost +touched me, was attracted to the house for the first time. Perhaps +I might not have gone near it if I had been in a stronger frame of +mind. As it was, I took the path that led close by it. + +I did not dare to linger or to look up, but I passed before the +terrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and +its well-kept beds and smooth turf; and I saw how beautiful and +grave it was, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and +wide flights of shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and +how the trained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old +stone pedestal of the sun-dial; and I heard the fountain falling. +Then the way went by long lines of dark windows diversified by +turreted towers and porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone +lions and grotesque monsters bristled outside dens of shadow and +snarled at the evening gloom over the escutcheons they held in +their grip. Thence the path wound underneath a gateway, and +through a court-yard where the principal entrance was (I hurried +quickly on), and by the stables where none but deep voices seemed +to be, whether in the murmuring of the wind through the strong mass +of ivy holding to a high red wall, or in the low complaining of the +weathercock, or in the barking of the dogs, or in the slow striking +of a clock. So, encountering presently a sweet smell of limes, +whose rustling I could hear, I turned with the turning of the path +to the south front, and there above me were the balustrades of the +Ghost's Walk and one lighted window that might be my mother's. + +The way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps +from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. +Stopping to look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I +was passing quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the +lighted window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into +my mind that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the +Ghost's Walk, that it was I who was to bring calamity upon the +stately house and that my warning feet were haunting it even then. +Seized with an augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I +ran from myself and everything, retraced the way by which I had +come, and never paused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the +park lay sullen and black behind me. + +Not before I was alone in my own room for the night and had again +been dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and +thankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on +the morrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving +anticipation that I must have been of marble if it had not moved +me; from my guardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to +tell Dame Durden, if I should see that little woman anywhere, that +they had moped most pitiably without her, that the housekeeping was +going to rack and ruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and +that everybody in and about the house declared it was not the same +house and was becoming rebellious for her return. Two such letters +together made me think how far beyond my deserts I was beloved and +how happy I ought to be. That made me think of all my past life; +and that brought me, as it ought to have done before, into a better +condition. + +For I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or +I should never have lived; not to say should never have been +reserved for such a happy life. I saw very well how many things +had worked together for my welfare, and that if the sins of the +fathers were sometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did +not mean what I had in the morning feared it meant. I knew I was +as innocent of my birth as a queen of hers and that before my +Heavenly Father I should not be punished for birth nor a queen +rewarded for it. I had had experience, in the shock of that very +day, that I could, even thus soon, find comforting reconcilements +to the change that had fallen on me. I renewed my resolutions and +prayed to be strengthened in them, pouring out my heart for myself +and for my unhappy mother and feeling that the darkness of the +morning was passing away. It was not upon my sleep; and when the +next day's light awoke me, it was gone. + +My dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. How +to help myself through the intermediate time better than by taking +a long walk along the road by which she was to come, I did not +know; so Charley and I and Stubbs--Stubbs saddled, for we never +drove him after the one great occasion--made a long expedition +along that road and back. On our return, we held a great review of +the house and garden and saw that everything was in its prettiest +condition, and had the bird out ready as an important part of the +establishment. + +There were more than two full hours yet to elapse before she could +come, and in that interval, which seemed a long one, I must confess +I was nervously anxious about my altered looks. I loved my darling +so well that I was more concerned for their effect on her than on +any one. I was not in this slight distress because I at all +repined--I am quite certain I did not, that day--but, I thought, +would she be wholly prepared? When she first saw me, might she not +be a little shocked and disappointed? Might it not prove a little +worse than she expected? Might she not look for her old Esther and +not find her? Might she not have to grow used to me and to begin +all over again? + +I knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and +it was such an honest face in its loveliness, that I was sure +beforehand she could not hide that first look from me. And I +considered whether, if it should signify any one of these meanings, +which was so very likely, could I quite answer for myself? + +Well, I thought I could. After last night, I thought I could. But +to wait and wait, and expect and expect, and think and think, was +such bad preparation that I resolved to go along the road again and +meet her. + +So I said to Charley, '"Charley, I will go by myself and walk along +the road until she comes." Charley highly approving of anything +that pleased me, I went and left her at home. + +But before I got to the second milestone, I had been in so many +palpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though I knew it was +not, and could not, be the coach yet) that I resolved to turn back +and go home again. And when I had turned, I was in such fear of +the coach coming up behind me (though I still knew that it neither +would, nor could, do any such thing) that I ran the greater part of +the way to avoid being overtaken. + +Then, I considered, when I had got safe back again, this was a nice +thing to have done! Now I was hot and had made the worst of it +instead of the best. + +At last, when I believed there was at least a quarter of an hour +more yet, Charley all at once cried out to me as I was trembling in +the garden, "Here she comes, miss! Here she is!" + +I did not mean to do it, but I ran upstairs into my room and hid +myself behind the door. There I stood trembling, even when I heard +my darling calling as she came upstairs, "Esther, my dear, my love, +where are you? Little woman, dear Dame Durden!" + +She ran in, and was running out again when she saw me. Ah, my +angel girl! The old dear look, all love, all fondness, all +affection. Nothing else in it--no, nothing, nothing! + +Oh, how happy I was, down upon the floor, with my sweet beautiful +girl down upon the floor too, holding my scarred face to her lovely +cheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me to and fro like +a child, calling me by every tender name that she could think of, +and pressing me to her faithful heart. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce + + +If the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it +to Ada before we had been long together. But it was not mine, and +I did not feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, +unless some great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; +still my present duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the +attachment of my dear, I did not want an impulse and encouragement +to do it. Though often when she was asleep and all was quiet, the +remembrance of my mother kept me waking and made the night +sorrowful, I did not yield to it at another time; and Ada found me +what I used to be--except, of course, in that particular of which I +have said enough and which I have no intention of mentioning any +more just now, if I can help it. + +The difficulty that I felt in being quite composed that first +evening when Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the +house, and when I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for +Lady Dedlock had spoken to me in the woods the day before +yesterday, was great. Greater still when Ada asked me what she had +said, and when I replied that she had been kind and interested, and +when Ada, while admitting her beauty and elegance, remarked upon +her proud manner and her imperious chilling air. But Charley +helped me through, unconsciously, by telling us that Lady Dedlock +had only stayed at the house two nights on her way from London to +visit at some other great house in the next county and that she had +left early on the morning after we had seen her at our view, as we +called it. Charley verified the adage about little pitchers, I am +sure, for she heard of more sayings and doings in a day than would +have come to my ears in a month. + +We were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely +been there a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening +after we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, +and just as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a +very important air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out +of the room. + +"Oh! If you please, miss," said Charley in a whisper, with her eyes +at their roundest and largest. "You're wanted at the Dedlock +Arms." + +"Why, Charley," said I, "who can possibly want me at the public- +house?" + +"I don't know, miss," returned Charley, putting her head forward +and folding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, +which she always did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or +confidential, "but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and +will you please to come without saying anything about it." + +"Whose compliments, Charley?" + +"His'n, miss," returned Charley, whose grammatical education was +advancing, but not very rapidly. + +"And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?" + +"I am not the messenger, if you please, miss," returned my little +maid. "It was W. Grubble, miss." + +"And who is W. Grubble, Charley?" + +"Mister Grubble, miss," returned Charley. "Don't you know, miss? +The Dedlock Arms, by W. Grubble," which Charley delivered as if she +were slowly spelling out the sign. + +"Aye? The landlord, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss. If you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, +but she broke her ankle, and it never joined. And her brother's +the sawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he'll +drink himself to death entirely on beer," said Charley. + +Not knowing what might be the matter, and being easily apprehensive +now, I thought it best to go to this place by myself. I bade +Charley be quick with my bonnet and veil and my shawl, and having +put them on, went away down the little hilly street, where I was as +much at home as in Mr. Boythorn's garden. + +Mr. Grubble was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door of his +very clean little tavern waiting for me. He lifted off his hat +with both hands when he saw me coming, and carrying it so, as if it +were an iron vessel (it looked as heavy), preceded me along the +sanded passage to his best parlour, a neat carpeted room with more +plants in it than were quite convenient, a coloured print of Queen +Caroline, several shells, a good many tea-trays, two stuffed and +dried fish in glass cases, and either a curious egg or a curious +pumpkin (but I don't know which, and I doubt if many people did) +hanging from his ceiling. I knew Mr. Grubble very well by sight, +from his often standing at his door. A pleasant-looking, stoutish, +middle-aged man who never seemed to consider himself cozily dressed +for his own fire-side without his hat and top-boots, but who never +wore a coat except at church. + +He snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see how it +looked, backed out of the room--unexpectedly to me, for I was going +to ask him by whom he had been sent. The door of the opposite +parlour being then opened, I heard some voices, familiar in my ears +I thought, which stopped. A quick light step approached the room +in which I was, and who should stand before me but Richard! + +"My dear Esther!" he said. "My best friend!" And he really was so +warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of +his brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him +that Ada was well. + +"Answering my very thoughts--always the same dear girl!" said +Richard, leading me to a chair and seating himself beside me. + +I put my veil up, but not quite. + +"Always the same dear girl!" said Richard just as heartily as +before. + +I put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on Richard's sleeve +and looking in his face, told him how much I thanked him for his +kind welcome and how greatly I rejoiced to see him, the more so +because of the determination I had made in my illness, which I now +conveyed to him. + +"My love," said Richard, "there is no one with whom I have a +greater wish to talk than you, for I want you to understand me." + +"And I want you, Richard," said I, shaking my head, "to understand +some one else." + +"Since you refer so immediately to John Jarndyce," said Richard, " +--I suppose you mean him?" + +"Of course I do." + +"Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that +subject that I am anxious to be understood. By you, mind--you, my +dear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody." + +I was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it. + +"Well, well, my dear," said Richard, "we won't go into that now. I +want to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under +my arm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your +loyalty to John Jarndyce will allow that?" + +"My dear Richard," I returned, "you know you would be heartily +welcome at his house--your home, if you will but consider it so; +and you are as heartily welcome here!" + +"Spoken like the best of little women!" cried Richard gaily. + +I asked him how he liked his profession. + +"Oh, I like it well enough!" said Richard. "It's all right. It +does as well as anything else, for a time. I don't know that I +shall care about it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out +then and--however, never mind all that botheration at present." + +So young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the +opposite of Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking +look that passed over him, so dreadfully like her! + +"I am in town on leave just now," said Richard. + +"Indeed?" + +"Yes. I have run over to look after my--my Chancery interests +before the long vacation," said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. +"We are beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I +promise you." + +No wonder that I shook my head! + +"As you say, it's not a pleasant subject." Richard spoke with the +same shade crossing his face as before. "Let it go to the four +winds for to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?" + +"Was it Mr. Skimpole's voice I heard?" + +"That's the man! He does me more good than anybody. What a +fascinating child it is!" + +I asked Richard if any one knew of their coming down together. He +answered, no, nobody. He had been to call upon the dear old +infant--so he called Mr. Skimpole--and the dear old infant had told +him where we were, and he had told the dear old infant he was bent +on coming to see us, and the dear old infant had directly wanted to +come too; and so he had brought him. "And he is worth--not to say +his sordid expenses--but thrice his weight in gold," said Richard. +"He is such a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and +green-hearted!" + +I certainly did not see the proof of Mr. Skimpole's worldliness in +his having his expenses paid by Richard, but I made no remark about +that. Indeed, he came in and turned our conversation. He was +charmed to see me, said he had been shedding delicious tears of joy +and sympathy at intervals for six weeks on my account, had never +been so happy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the +mixture of good and evil in the world now, felt that he appreciated +health the more when somebody else was ill, didn't know but what it +might be in the scheme of things that A should squint to make B +happier in looking straight or that C should carry a wooden leg to +make D better satisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk +stocking. + +"My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard," said Mr. +Skimpole, "full of the brightest visions of the future, which he +evokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that's delightful, +that's inspiriting, that's full of poetry! In old times the woods +and solitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary +piping and dancing of Pan and the nymphs. This present shepherd, +our pastoral Richard, brightens the dull Inns of Court by making +Fortune and her train sport through them to the melodious notes of +a judgment from the bench. That's very pleasant, you know! Some +ill-conditioned growling fellow may say to me, 'What's the use of +these legal and equitable abuses? How do you defend them?' I +reply, 'My growling friend, I DON'T defend them, but they are very +agreeable to me. There is a shepherd--youth, a friend of mine, who +transmutes them into something highly fascinating to my simplicity. +I don't say it is for this that they exist--for I am a child among +you worldly grumblers, and not called upon to account to you or +myself for anything--but it may be so.'" + +I began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a +worse friend than this. It made me uneasy that at such a time when +he most required some right principle and purpose he should have +this captivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy +dispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. I thought +I could understand how such a nature as my guardian's, experienced +in the world and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and +contentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in +Mr. Skimpole's avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless +candour; but I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as +it seemed or that it did not serve Mr. Skimpole's idle turn quite +as well as any other part, and with less trouble. + +They both walked back with me, and Mr. Skimpole leaving us at the +gate, I walked softly in with Richard and said, "Ada, my love, I +have brought a gentleman to visit you." It was not difficult to +read the blushing, startled face. She loved him dearly, and he +knew it, and I knew it. It was a very transparent business, that +meeting as cousins only. + +I almost mistrusted myself as growing quite wicked in my +suspicions, but I was not so sure that Richard loved her dearly. +He admired her very much--any one must have done that--and I dare +say would have renewed their youthful engagement with great pride +and ardour but that he knew how she would respect her promise to my +guardian. Still I had a tormenting idea that the influence upon +him extended even here, that he was postponing his best truth and +earnestness in this as in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce +should be off his mind. Ah me! What Richard would have been +without that blight, I never shall know now! + +He told Ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come to +make any secret inroad on the terms she had accepted (rather too +implicitly and confidingly, he thought) from Mr. Jarndyce, that he +had come openly to see her and to see me and to justify himself for +the present terms on which he stood with Mr. Jarndyce. As the dear +old infant would be with us directly, he begged that I would make +an appointment for the morning, when he might set himself right +through the means of an unreserved conversation with me. I +proposed to walk with him in the park at seven o'clock, and this +was arranged. Mr. Skimpole soon afterwards appeared and made us +merry for an hour. He particularly requested to see little +Coavinses (meaning Charley) and told her, with a patriarchal air, +that he had given her late father all the business in his power and +that if one of her little brothers would make haste to get set up +in the same profession, he hoped he should still be able to put a +good deal of employment in his way. + +"For I am constantly being taken in these nets," said Mr. Skimpole, +looking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, "and am +constantly being bailed out--like a boat. Or paid off--like a +ship's company. Somebody always does it for me. I can't do it, +you know, for I never have any money. But somebody does it. I get +out by somebody's means; I am not like the starling; I get out. If +you were to ask me who somebody is, upon my word I couldn't tell +you. Let us drink to somebody. God bless him!" + +Richard was a little late in the morning, but I had not to wait for +him long, and we turned into the park. The air was bright and dewy +and the sky without a cloud. The birds sang delightfully; the +sparkles in the fern, the grass, and trees, were exquisite to see; +the richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold +since yesterday, as if, in the still night when they had looked so +massively hushed in sleep, Nature, through all the minute details +of every wonderful leaf, had been more wakeful than usual for the +glory of that day. + +"This is a lovely place," said Richard, looking round. "None of +the jar and discord of law-suits here!" + +But there was other trouble. + +"I tell you what, my dear girl," said Richard, "when I get affairs +in general settled, I shall come down here, I think, and rest." + +"Would it not be better to rest now?" I asked. + +"Oh, as to resting NOW," said Richard, "or as to doing anything +very definite NOW, that's not easy. In short, it can't be done; I +can't do it at least." + +"Why not?" said I. + +"You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished +house, liable to have the roof put on or taken off--to be from top +to bottom pulled down or built up--to-morrow, next day, next week, +next month, next year--you would find it hard to rest or settle. +So do I. Now? There's no now for us suitors." + +I could almost have believed in the attraction on which my poor +little wandering friend had expatiated when I saw again the +darkened look of last night. Terrible to think it bad in it also a +shade of that unfortunate man who had died. + +"My dear Richard," said I, "this is a bad beginning of our +conversation." + +"I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden." + +"And not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you +once never to found a hope or expectation on the family curse." + +"There you come back to John Jarndyce!" said Richard impatiently. +"Well! We must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple +of what I have to say, and it's as well at once. My dear Esther, +how can you be so blind? Don't you see that he is an interested +party and that it may be very well for him to wish me to know +nothing of the suit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not +be quite so well for me?" + +"Oh, Richard," I remonstrated, "is it possible that you can ever +have seen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his +roof and known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this +solitary place where there is no one to hear us, such unworthy +suspicions?" + +He reddened deeply, as if his natural generosity felt a pang of +reproach. He was silent for a little while before he replied in a +subdued voice, "Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean +fellow and that I have some sense of suspicion and distrust being +poor qualities in one of my years." + +"I know it very well," said I. "I am not more sure of anything." + +"That's a dear girl," retorted Richard, "and like you, because it +gives me comfort. I had need to get some scrap of comfort out of +all this business, for it's a bad one at the best, as I have no +occasion to tell you." + +"I know perfectly," said I. "I know as well, Richard--what shall I +say? as well as you do--that such misconstructions are foreign to +your nature. And I know, as well as you know, what so changes it." + +"Come, sister, come," said Richard a little more gaily, "you will +be fair with me at all events. If I have the misfortune to be +under that influence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it +may have a little twisted him too. I don't say that he is not an +honourable man, out of all this complication and uncertainty; I am +sure he is. But it taints everybody. You know it taints +everybody. You have heard him say so fifty times. Then why should +HE escape?" + +"Because," said I, "his is an uncommon character, and he has +resolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard." + +"Oh, because and because!" replied Richard in his vivacious way. +"I am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious +to preserve that outward indifference. It may cause other parties +interested to become lax about their interests; and people may die +off, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things +may smoothly happen that are convenient enough." + +I was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach +him any more, even by a look. I remembered my guardian's +gentleness towards his errors and with what perfect freedom from +resentment he had spoken of them. + +"Esther," Richard resumed, "you are not to suppose that I have come +here to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce. I have +only come to justify myself. What I say is, it was all very well +and we got on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of +this same suit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it +and to look into it, then it was quite another thing. Then John +Jarndyce discovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I +don't amend that very objectionable course, I am not fit for her. +Now, Esther, I don't mean to amend that very objectionable course: +I will not hold John Jarndyce's favour on those unfair terms of +compromise, which he has no right to dictate. Whether it pleases +him or displeases him, I must maintain my rights and Ada's. I have +been thinking about it a good deal, and this is the conclusion I +have come to." + +Poor dear Richard! He had indeed been thinking about it a good +deal. His face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too +plainly. + +"So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him +about all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at +issue openly than covertly. I thank him for his goodwill and his +protection, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our +roads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I +should take much more than he. I don't mean to say that it is the +one to be established, but there it is, and it has its chance." + +"I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard," said I, "of your +letter. I had heard of it already without an offended or angry +word." + +"Indeed?" replied Richard, softening. "I am glad I said he was an +honourable man, out of all this wretched affair. But I always say +that and have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know these +views of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to Ada when +you tell her what has passed between us. But if you had gone into +the case as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers +as I did when I was at Kenge's, if you only knew what an +accumulation of charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and +cross-suspicions, they involve, you would think me moderate in +comparison." + +"Perhaps so," said I. "But do you think that, among those many +papers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?" + +"There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther--" + +"Or was once, long ago," said I. + +"Is--is--must be somewhere," pursued Richard impetuously, "and must +be brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of +is not the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; +John Jarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change +everybody who has any share in it. Then the greater right I have +on my side when I resolve to do all I can to bring it to an end." + +"All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no +others have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier +because of so many failures?" + +"It can't last for ever," returned Richard with a fierceness +kindling in him which again presented to me that last sad reminder. +"I am young and earnest, and energy and determination have done +wonders many a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into +it. I devote myself to it. I make it the object of my life." + +"Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!" + +"No, no, no, don't you be afraid for me," he returned +affectionately. "You're a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; +but you have your prepossessions. So I come round to John +Jarndyce. I tell you, my good Esther, when he and I were on those +terms which he found so convenient, we were not on natural terms." + +"Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?" + +"No, I don't say that. I mean that all this business puts us on +unnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. +See another reason for urging it on! I may find out when it's over +that I have been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer +when I am free of it, and I may then agree with what you say to- +day. Very well. Then I shall acknowledge it and make him +reparation." + +Everything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in +confusion and indecision until then! + +"Now, my best of confidantes," said Richard, "I want my cousin Ada +to understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John +Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I +wish to represent myself to her through you, because she has a +great esteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will +soften the course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and-- +and in short," said Richard, who had been hesitating through these +words, "I--I don't like to represent myself in this litigious, +contentious, doubting character to a confiding girl like Ada," + +I told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than +in anything he had said yet. + +"Why," acknowledged Richard, "that may be true enough, my love. I +rather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair- +play by and by. I shall come all right again, then, don't you be +afraid." + +I asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada. + +"Not quite," said Richard. "I am bound not to withhold from her +that John Jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner, +addressing me as 'My dear Rick,' trying to argue me out of my +opinions, and telling me that they should make no difference in +him. (All very well of course, but not altering the case.) I also +want Ada to know that if I see her seldom just now, I am looking +after her interests as well as my own--we two being in the same +boat exactly--and that I hope she will not suppose from any flying +rumours she may hear that I am at all light-headed or imprudent; on +the contrary, I am always looking forward to the termination of the +suit, and always planning in that direction. Being of age now and +having taken the step I have taken, I consider myself free from any +accountability to John Jarndyce; but Ada being still a ward of the +court, I don't yet ask her to renew our engagement. When she is +free to act for herself, I shall be myself once more and we shall +both be in very different worldly circumstances, I believe. If you +tell her all this with the advantage of your considerate way, you +will do me a very great and a very kind service, my dear Esther; +and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on the head with greater +vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak House." + +"Richard," said I, "you place great confidence in me, but I fear +you will not take advice from me?" + +"It's impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any +other, readily." + +As if there were any other in his life! As if his whole career and +character were not being dyed one colour! + +"But I may ask you a question, Richard?" + +"I think so," said he, laughing. "I don't know who may not, if you +may not." + +"You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life." + +"How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!" + +"Are you in debt again?" + +"Why, of course I am," said Richard, astonished at my simplicity. + +"Is it of course?" + +"My dear child, certainly. I can't throw myself into an object so +completely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don't know, +that under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It's only +a question between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be +within the mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl," +said Richard, quite amused with me, "I shall be all right! I shall +pull through, my dear!" + +I felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that I +tried, in Ada's name, in my guardian's, in my own, by every fervent +means that I could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some +of his mistakes. He received everything I said with patience and +gentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least +effect. I could not wonder at this after the reception his +preoccupied mind had given to my guardian's letter, but I +determined to try Ada's influence yet. + +So when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went +home to breakfast, I prepared Ada for the account I was going to +give her and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that +Richard was losing himself and scattering his whole life to the +winds. It made her very unhappy, of course, though she had a far, +far greater reliance on his correcting his errors than I could +have--which was so natural and loving in my dear!--and she +presently wrote him this little letter: + + +My dearest cousin, + +Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I write this +to repeat most earnestly for myself all that she said to you and to +let you know how sure I am that you will sooner or later find our +cousin John a pattern of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you +will deeply, deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) +so much wrong. + +I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next, but I +trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have some fears, my +dearest cousin, that it may be partly for my sake you are now +laying up so much unhappiness for yourself--and if for yourself, +for me. In case this should be so, or in case you should entertain +much thought of me in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat +and beg you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will +make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon the shadow +in which we both were born. Do not be angry with me for saying +this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my sake, and for your own, and +in a natural repugnance for that source of trouble which had its +share in making us both orphans when we were very young, pray, +pray, let it go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that +there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing to be got +from it but sorrow. + +My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you are quite +free and that it is very likely you may find some one whom you will +love much better than your first fancy. I am quite sure, if you +will let me say so, that the object of your choice would greatly +prefer to follow your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or +poor, and see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen +way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very rich with +you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost of dragging years +of procrastination and anxiety and of your indifference to other +aims. You may wonder at my saying this so confidently with so +little knowledge or experience, but I know it for a certainty from +my own heart. + +Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate + +Ada + + +This note brought Richard to us very soon, but it made little +change in him if any. We would fairly try, he said, who was right +and who was wrong--he would show us--we should see! He was +animated and glowing, as if Ada's tenderness had gratified him; but +I could only hope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some +stronger effect upon his mind on re-perusal than it assuredly had +then. + +As they were to remain with us that day and had taken their places +to return by the coach next morning, I sought an opportunity of +speaking to Mr. Skimpole. Our out-of-door life easily threw one in +my way, and I delicately said that there was a responsibility in +encouraging Richard. + +"Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson?" he repeated, catching at +the word with the pleasantest smile. "I am the last man in the +world for such a thing. I never was responsible in my life--I +can't be." + +"I am afraid everybody is obliged to be," said I timidly enough, he +being so much older and more clever than I. + +"No, really?" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with a +most agreeable jocularity of surprise. "But every man's not +obliged to be solvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss +Summerson," he took a handful of loose silver and halfpence from +his pocket, "there's so much money. I have not an idea how much. +I have not the power of counting. Call it four and ninepence--call +it four pound nine. They tell me I owe more than that. I dare say +I do. I dare say I owe as much as good-natured people will let me +owe. If they don't stop, why should I? There you have Harold +Skimpole in little. If that's responsibility, I am responsible." + +The perfect ease of manner with which he put the money up again and +looked at me with a smile on his refined face, as if he had been +mentioning a curious little fact about somebody else, almost made +me feel as if he really had nothing to do with it. + +"Now, when you mention responsibility," he resumed, "I am disposed +to say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I +should consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You +appear to me to be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I +see you, my dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of +the whole little orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel +inclined to say to myself--in fact I do say to myself very often-- +THAT'S responsibility!" + +It was difficult, after this, to explain what I meant; but I +persisted so far as to say that we all hoped he would check and not +confirm Richard in the sanguine views he entertained just then. + +"Most willingly," he retorted, "if I could. But, my dear Miss +Summerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand +and leads me through Westminster Hall in an airy procession after +fortune, I must go. If he says, 'Skimpole, join the dance!' I +must join it. Common sense wouldn't, I know, but I have NO common +sense." + +It was very unfortunate for Richard, I said. + +"Do you think so!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "Don't say that, don't +say that. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense--an +excellent man--a good deal wrinkled--dreadfully practical--change +for a ten-pound note in every pocket--ruled account-book in his +hand--say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear +Richard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with +poetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion, +'I see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very +beautiful, it's very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape +to come at it!' The respectable companion instantly knocks him +down with the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic +way that he sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, +fraud, horsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that's a +painful change--sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but +disagreeable. I can't do it. I haven't got the ruled account- +book, I have none of the tax-gatherlng elements in my composition, +I am not at all respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, +but so it is!" + +It was idle to say more, so I proposed that we should join Ada and +Richard, who were a little in advance, and I gave up Mr. Skimpole +in despair. He had been over the Hall in the course of the morning +and whimsically described the family pictures as we walked. There +were such portentous shepherdesses among the Ladies Dedlock dead +and gone, he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of +assault in their hands. They tended their flocks severely in +buckram and powder and put their sticking-plaster patches on to +terrify commoners as the chiefs of some other tribes put on their +war-paint. There was a Sir Somebody Dedlock, with a battle, a +sprung-mine, volumes of smoke, flashes of lightning, a town on +fire, and a stormed fort, all in full action between his horse's +two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how little a Dedlock made of +such trifles. The whole race he represented as having evidently +been, in life, what he called "stuffed people"--a large collection, +glassy eyed, set up in the most approved manner on their various +twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from animation, and +always in glass cases. + +I was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that I +felt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise, +hurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming +slowly towards us. + +"Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "Vholes!" + +We asked if that were a friend of Richard's. + +"Friend and legal adviser," said Mr. Skimpole. "Now, my dear Miss +Summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and +respectability, all united--if you want an exemplary man--Vholes is +THE man." + +We had not known, we said, that Richard was assisted by any +gentleman of that name. + +"When he emerged from legal infancy," returned Mr. Skimpole, "he +parted from our conversational friend Kenge and took up, I believe, +with Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to +Vholes." + +"Had you known him long?" asked Ada. + +"Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance +with him which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. +He had done something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner-- +taken proceedings, I think, is the expression--which ended in the +proceeding of his taking ME. Somebody was so good as to step in +and pay the money--something and fourpence was the amount; I forget +the pounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, +because it struck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe +anybody fourpence--and after that I brought them together. Vholes +asked me for the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think +of it," he looked inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he +made the discovery, "Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me +something and called it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do +you know, I think it MUST have been a five-pound note!" + +His further consideration of the point was prevented by Richard's +coming back to us in an excited state and hastily representing Mr. +Vholes--a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were +cold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin, +about fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed +in black, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing +so remarkable in him as a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way he +had of looking at Richard. + +"I hope I don't disturb you, ladies," said Mr. Vholes, and now I +observed that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of +speaking. "I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know +when his cause was in the Chancelor's paper, and being informed by +one of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather +unexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, I put myself into the +coach early this morning and came down to confer with him." + +"Yes," said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and +me, "we don't do these things in the old slow way now. We spin +along now! Mr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the +post town in, and catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!" + +"Anything you please, sir," returned Mr. Vholes. "I am quite at +your service." + +"Let me see," said Richard, looking at his watch. "If I run down +to the Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a +gig, or a chaise, or whatever's to be got, we shall have an hour +then before starting. I'll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you +and Esther take care of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?" + +He was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in +the dusk of evening. We who were left walked on towards the house. + +"Is Mr. Carstone's presence necessary to-morrow, Sir?" said I. +"Can it do any good?" + +"No, miss," Mr. Vholes replied. "I am not aware that it can." + +Both Ada and I expressed our regret that he should go, then, only +to be disappointed. + +"Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own +interests," said Mr. Vholes, "and when a client lays down his own +principle, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it +out. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with +three daughters--Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my desire is so to +discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This +appears to be a pleasant spot, miss." + +The remark being made to me in consequence of my being next him as +we walked, I assented and enumerated its chief attractions. + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Vholes. "I have the privilege of supporting an +aged father in the Vale of Taunton--his native place--and I admire +that country very much. I had no idea there was anything so +attractive here." + +To keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to +live altogether in the country. + +"There, miss," said he, "you touch me on a tender string. My +health is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had +only myself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits, +especially as the cares of business have prevented me from ever +coming much into contact with general society, and particularly +with ladies' society, which I have most wished to mix in. But with +my three daughters, Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my aged father--I +cannot afford to be selfish. It is true I have no longer to +maintain a dear grandmother who died in her hundred and second +year, but enough remains to render it indispensable that the mill +should be always going." + +It required some attention to hear him on account of his inward +speaking and his lifeless manner. + +"You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters," he said. "They +are my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little +independence, as well as a good name." + +We now arrived at Mr. Boythorn's house, where the tea-table, all +prepared, was awaiting us. Richard came in restless and hurried +shortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes's chair, whispered +something in his ear. Mr. Vholes replied aloud--or as nearly aloud +I suppose as he had ever replied to anything--"You will drive me, +will you, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you +please. I am quite at your service." + +We understood from what followed that Mr. Skimpole was to be left +until the morning to occupy the two places which had been already +paid for. As Ada and I were both in low spirits concerning Richard +and very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we +politely could that we should leave Mr. Skimpole to the Dedlock +Arms and retire when the night-travellers were gone. + +Richard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went +out together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had +ordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern +standing at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been +harnessed to it. + +I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's +light, Richard all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in +his hand; Mr. Vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, +looking at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. +I have before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the +summer lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows +and high trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and +the driving away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce. + +My dear girl told me that night how Richard's being thereafter +prosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this +difference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging +heart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him; +how he thought of her through his present errors, and she would +think of him at all times--never of herself if she could devote +herself to him, never of her own delights if she could minister to +his. + +And she kept her word? + +I look along the road before me, where the distance already +shortens and the journey's end is growing visible; and true and +good above the dead sea of the Chancery suit and all the ashy fruit +it cast ashore, I think I see my darling. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +A Struggle + + +When our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were +punctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome. +I was perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my +housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as +if I had been a new year, with a merry little peal. "Once more, +duty, duty, Esther," said I; "and if you are not overjoyed to do +it, more than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and +everything, you ought to be. That's all I have to say to you, my +dear!" + +The first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and +business, devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated +journeys to and fro between the growlery and all other parts of the +house, so many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a +general new beginning altogether, that I had not a moment's +leisure. But when these arrangements were completed and everything +was in order, I paid a visit of a few hours to London, which +something in the letter I had destroyed at Chesney Wold had induced +me to decide upon in my own mind. + +I made Caddy Jellyby--her maiden name was so natural to me that I +always called her by it--the pretext for this visit and wrote her a +note previously asking the favour of her company on a little +business expedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got +to London by stage-coach in such good time that I got to Newman +Street with the day before me. + +Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and +so affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her +husband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad--I mean as +good; and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me +any possibility of doing anything meritorious. + +The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was milling +his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an apprentice +--it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the trade of +dancing--was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law was +extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived most +happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she +meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the +good lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, +and were poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.) + +"And how is your mama, Caddy?" said I. + +"Why, I hear of her, Esther," replied Caddy, "through Pa, but I see +very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma +thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing- +master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her." + +It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural +duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a +telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best +precautions against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe +that I kept this to myself. + +"And your papa, Caddy?" + +"He comes here every evening," returned Caddy, "and is so fond of +sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him." + +Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. +Jellyby's head against the wall. It was consolatory to know that +he had found such a resting-place for it. + +"And you, Caddy," said I, "you are always busy, I'll be bound?" + +"Well, my dear," returned Caddy, "I am indeed, for to tell you a +grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince's +health is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What +with schools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the +apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow!" + +The notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked +Caddy if there were many of them. + +"Four," said Caddy. "One in-door, and three out. They are very +good children; only when they get together they WILL play-- +children-like--instead of attending to their work. So the little +boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, and +we distribute the others over the house as well as we can." + +"That is only for their steps, of course?" said I. + +"Only for their steps," said Caddy. "In that way they practise, so +many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They +dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at +five every morning." + +"Why, what a laborious life!" I exclaimed. + +"I assure you, my dear," returned Caddy, smiling, "when the out- +door apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our +room, not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the +window and see them standing on the door-step with their little +pumps under their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps." + +All this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure. +Caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully +recounted the particulars of her own studies. + +"You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the +piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and +consequently I have to practise those two instruments as well as +the details of our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I +might have had some little musical knowledge to begin upon. +However, I hadn't any; and that part of the work is, at first, a +little discouraging, I must allow. But I have a very good ear, and +I am used to drudgery--I have to thank Ma for that, at all events-- +and where there's a will there's a way, you know, Esther, the world +over." Saying these words, Caddy laughingly sat down at a little +jingling square piano and really rattled off a quadrille with great +spirit. Then she good-humouredly and blushingly got up again, and +while she still laughed herself, said, "Don't laugh at me, please; +that's a dear girl!" + +I would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and +praised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed, +dancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though +in her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a +natural, wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that +was quite as good as a mission. + +"My dear," said Caddy, delighted, "you can't think how you cheer +me. I shall owe you, you don't know how much. What changes, +Esther, even in my small world! You recollect that first night, +when I was so unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of +my ever teaching people to dance, of all other possibilities and +impossibilities!" + +Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming +back, preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, +Caddy informed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my +time yet, I was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to +take her away then. Therefore we three adjourned to the +apprentices together, and I made one in the dance. + +The apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the +melancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing +alone in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty +little limp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, +with such a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who +brought her sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. +Such mean little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and +marbles, and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs +and feet--and heels particularly. + +I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession +for them. Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed +for teachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in +humble circumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a +ginger-beer shop. + +We danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child +doing wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared +to be some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. +Caddy, while she was observant of her husband and was evidently +founded upon him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her +own, which, united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly +agreeable. She already relieved him of much of the instruction of +these young people, and he seldom interfered except to walk his +part in the figure if he had anything to do in it. He always +played the tune. The affectation of the gauzy child, and her +condescension to the boys, was a sight. And thus we danced an hour +by the clock. + +When the practice was concluded, Caddy's husband made himself ready +to go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to +go out with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, +contemplating the apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the +staircase to put on their half-boots and pull the in-door boy's +hair, as I judged from the nature of his objections. Returning +with their jackets buttoned and their pumps stuck in them, they +then produced packets of cold bread and meat and bivouacked under a +painted lyre on the wall. The little gauzy child, having whisked +her sandals into the reticule and put on a trodden-down pair of +shoes, shook her head into the dowdy bonnet at one shake, and +answering my inquiry whether she liked dancing by replying, "Not +with boys," tied it across her chin, and went home contemptuous. + +"Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry," said Caddy, "that he has not +finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you +before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther." + +I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it +necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention. + +"It takes him a long time to dress," said Caddy, "because he is +very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a +reputation to support. You can't think how kind he is to Pa. He +talks to Pa of an evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw +Pa so interested." + +There was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his +deportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy +if he brought her papa out much. + +"No," said Caddy, "I don't know that he does that, but he talks to +Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of +course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but +they get on together delightfully. You can't think what good +companions they make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, +but he takes one pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop's box regularly and +keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again all the +evening." + +That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of +life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha +appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities. + +"As to Peepy," said Caddy with a little hesitation, "whom I was +most afraid of--next to having any family of my own, Esther--as an +inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman +to that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! +He lets him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the +crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about +the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short," +said Caddy cheerily, "and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl +and ought to be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?" + +"To the Old Street Road," said I, "where I have a few words to say +to the solicitor's clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach- +office on the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my +dear. Now I think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your +house." + +"Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you," +returned Caddy. + +To the Old Street Road we went and there inquired at Mrs. Guppy's +residence for Mrs. Guppy. Mrs. Guppy, occupying the parlours and +having indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut +in the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for, +immediately presented herself and requested us to walk in. She was +an old lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an +unsteady eye, but smiling all over. Her close little sitting-room +was prepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it +which, I had almost written here, was more like than life: it +insisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to +let him off. + +Not only was the portrait there, but we found the original there +too. He was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at +a table reading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, rising, "this is indeed an oasis. +Mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady +and get out of the gangway." + +Mrs. Guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish +appearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner, +holding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation, +with both hands. + +I presented Caddy, and Mr. Guppy said that any friend of mine was +more than welcome. I then proceeded to the object of my visit. + +"I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir," said I. + +Mr. Guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his breast- +pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket with +a bow. Mr. Guppy's mother was so diverted that she rolled her head +as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow. + +"Could I speak to you alone for a moment?" said I. + +Anything like the jocoseness of Mr. Guppy's mother just now, I +think I never saw. She made no sound of laughter, but she rolled +her head, and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and +appealed to Caddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder, +and was so unspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some +difficulty she could marshal Caddy through the little folding-door +into her bedroom adjoining. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "you will excuse the waywardness +of a parent ever mindful of a son's appiness. My mother, though +highly exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal +dictates." + +I could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have +turned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did when I now put up +my veil. + +"I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here," said I, +"in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge's because, remembering what +you said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, I +feared I might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy." + +I caused him embarrassment enough as it was, I am sure. I never +saw such faltering, such confusion, such amazement and +apprehension. + +"Miss Summerson," stammered Mr. Guppy, "I--I--beg your pardon, but +in our profession--we--we--find it necessary to be explicit. You +have referred to an occasion, miss, when I--when I did myself the +honour of making a declaration which--" + +Something seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly +swallow. He put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again +to swallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round +the room, and fluttered his papers. + +"A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss," he explained, +"which rather knocks me over. I--er--a little subject to this sort +of thing--er--by George!" + +I gave him a little time to recover. He consumed it in putting his +hand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his +chair into the corner behind him. + +"My intention was to remark, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "dear me-- +something bronchial, I think--hem!--to remark that you was so good +on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration. You-- +you wouldn't perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses are +present, it might be a satisfaction to--to your mind--if you was to +put in that admission." + +"There can be no doubt," said I, "that I declined your proposal +without any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy." + +"Thank you, miss," he returned, measuring the table with his +troubled hands. "So far that's satisfactory, and it does you +credit. Er--this is certainly bronchial!--must be in the tubes-- +er--you wouldn't perhaps be offended if I was to mention--not that +it's necessary, for your own good sense or any person's sense must +show 'em that--if I was to mention that such declaration on my part +was final, and there terminated?" + +"I quite understand that," said I. + +"Perhaps--er--it may not be worth the form, but it might be a +satisfaction to your mind--perhaps you wouldn't object to admit +that, miss?" said Mr. Guppy. + +"I admit it most fully and freely," said I. + +"Thank you," returned Mr. Guppy. "Very honourable, I am sure. I +regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances +over which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to +fall back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form +whatever, but it will ever be a retrospect entwined--er--with +friendship's bowers." Mr. Guppy's bronchitis came to his relief +and stopped his measurement of the table. + +"I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?" I began. + +"I shall be honoured, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. "I am so +persuaded that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will-- +will keep you as square as possible--that I can have nothing but +pleasure, I am sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to +offer." + +"You were so good as to imply, on that occasion--" + +"Excuse me, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "but we had better not travel +out of the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied +anything." + +"You said on that occasion," I recommenced, "that you might +possibly have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my +fortunes by making discoveries of which I should be the subject. I +presume that you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of +my being an orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence +of Mr. Jarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have +come to beg of you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness +to relinquish all idea of so serving me. I have thought of this +sometimes, and I have thought of it most lately--since I have been +ill. At length I have decided, in case you should at any time +recall that purpose and act upon it in any way, to come to you and +assure you that you are altogether mistaken. You could make no +discovery in reference to me that would do me the least service or +give me the least pleasure. I am acquainted with my personal +history, and I have it in my power to assure you that you never can +advance my welfare by such means. You may, perhaps, have abandoned +this project a long time. If so, excuse my giving you unnecessary +trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the assurance I have given you, +henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to do this, for my peace." + +"I am bound to confess," said Mr. Guppy, "that you express +yourself, miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I +gave you credit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right +feeling, and if I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I +am prepared to tender a full apology. I should wish to be +understood, miss, as hereby offering that apology--limiting it, as +your own good sense and right feeling will point out the necessity +of, to the present proceedings." + +I must say for Mr. Guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon +him improved very much. He seemed truly glad to be able to do +something I asked, and he looked ashamed. + +"If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that +I may have no occasion to resume," I went on, seeing him about to +speak, "you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately +as possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in +a confidence which I have really wished to respect--and which I +always have respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my +illness. There really is no reason why I should hesitate to say +that I know very well that any little delicacy I might have had in +making a request to you is quite removed. Therefore I make the +entreaty I have now preferred, and I hope you will have sufficient +consideration for me to accede to it." + +I must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had +looked more and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and +very earnest when he now replied with a burning face, "Upon my word +and honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a +living man, I'll act according to your wish! I'll never go another +step in opposition to it. I'll take my oath to it if it will be +any satisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time +touching the matters now in question," continued Mr. Guppy rapidly, +as if he were repeating a familiar form of words, "I speak the +truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so--" + +"I am quite satisfied," said I, rising at this point, "and I thank +you very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!" + +Mr. Guppy's mother returned with Caddy (now making me the recipient +of her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave. Mr. +Guppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either +imperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there, +staring. + +But in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, +and with his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying +fervently, "Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend +upon me!" + +"I do," said I, "quite confidently." + +"I beg your pardon, miss," said Mr. Guppy, going with one leg and +staying with the other, "but this lady being present--your own +witness--it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should +wish to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions." + +"Well, Caddy," said I, turning to her, "perhaps you will not be +surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any +engagement--" + +"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," suggested Mr. +Guppy. + +"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," said I, "between +this gentleman--" + +"William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of +Middlesex," he murmured. + +"Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place, +Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself." + +"Thank you, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "Very full--er--excuse me-- +lady's name, Christian and surname both?" + +I gave them. + +"Married woman, I believe?" said Mr. Guppy. "Married woman. Thank +you. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, +within the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman +Street, Oxford Street. Much obliged." + +He ran home and came running back again. + +"Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry +that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over +which I have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was +wholly terminated some time back," said Mr. Guppy to me forlornly +and despondently, "but it couldn't be. Now COULD it, you know! I +only put it to you." + +I replied it certainly could not. The subject did not admit of a +doubt. He thanked me and ran to his mother's again--and back +again. + +"It's very honourable of you, miss, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. +"If an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship--but, +upon my soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except +the tender passion only!" + +The struggle in Mr. Guppy's breast and the numerous oscillations it +occasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently +conspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted +cutting) to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; +but when we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in +the same troubled state of mind. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +Attorney and Client + + +The name of Mr. Vholes, preceded by the legend Ground-Floor, is +inscribed upon a door-post in Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane--a +little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn like a large dust-binn of +two compartments and a sifter. It looks as if Symond were a +sparing man in his way and constructed his inn of old building +materials which took kindly to the dry rot and to dirt and all +things decaying and dismal, and perpetuated Symond's memory with +congenial shabbiness. Quartered in this dingy hatchment +commemorative of Symond are the legal bearings of Mr. Vholes. + +Mr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation +retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. +Three feet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. +Vholes's jet-black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the +brightest midsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk-head of +cellarage staircase against which belated civilians generally +strike their brows. Mr. Vholes's chambers are on so small a scale +that one clerk can open the door without getting off his stool, +while the other who elbows him at the same desk has equal +facilities for poking the fire. A smell as of unwholesome sheep +blending with the smell of must and dust is referable to the +nightly (and often daily) consumption of mutton fat in candles and +to the fretting of parchment forms and skins in greasy drawers. +The atmosphere is otherwise stale and close. The place was last +painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man, and the two +chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of soot +evervwhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames have +but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to be +always dirty and always shut unless coerced. This accounts for the +phenomenon of the weaker of the two usually having a bundle of +firewood thrust between its jaws in hot weather. + +Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large business, +but he is a very respectable man. He is allowed by the greater +attorneys who have made good fortunes or are making them to be a +most respectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice, +which is a mark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure, +which is another mark of respectability. He is reserved and +serious, which is another mark of respectability. His digestion is +impaired, which is highly respectable. And he is making hay of the +grass which is flesh, for his three daughters. And his father is +dependent on him in the Vale of Taunton. + +The one great principle of the English law is to make business for +itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and +consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by +this light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze +the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive +that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their +expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. + +But not perceiving this quite plainly--only seeing it by halves in +a confused way--the laity sometimes suffer in peace and pocket, +with a bad grace, and DO grumble very much. Then this +respectability of Mr. Vholes is brought into powerful play against +them. "Repeal this statute, my good sir?" says Mr. Kenge to a +smarting client. "Repeal it, my dear sir? Never, with my consent. +Alter this law, sir, and what will be the effect of your rash +proceeding on a class of practitioners very worthily represented, +allow me to say to you, by the opposite attorney in the case, Mr. +Vholes? Sir, that class of practitioners would be swept from the +face of the earth. Now you cannot afford--I will say, the social +system cannot afford--to lose an order of men like Mr. Vholes. +Diligent, persevering, steady, acute in business. My dear sir, I +understand your present feelings against the existing state of +things, which I grant to be a little hard in your case; but I can +never raise my voice for the demolition of a class of men like Mr. +Vholes." The respectability of Mr. Vholes has even been cited with +crushing effect before Parliamentary committees, as in the +following blue minutes of a distinguished attorney's evidence. +"Question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred +and sixty-nine): If I understand you, these forms of practice +indisputably occasion delay? Answer: Yes, some delay. Question: +And great expense? Answer: Most assuredly they cannot be gone +through for nothing. Question: And unspeakable vexation? Answer: +I am not prepared to say that. They have never given ME any +vexation; quite the contrary. Question: But you think that their +abolition would damage a class of practitioners? Answer: I have no +doubt of it. Question: Can you instance any type of that class? +Answer: Yes. I would unhesitatingly mention Mr. Vholes. He would +be ruined. Question: Mr. Vholes is considered, in the profession, +a respectable man? Answer: "--which proved fatal to the inquiry +for ten years--"Mr. Vholes is considered, in the profession, a MOST +respectable man." + +So in familiar conversation, private authorities no less +disinterested will remark that they don't know what this age is +coming to, that we are plunging down precipices, that now here is +something else gone, that these changes are death to people like +Vholes--a man of undoubted respectability, with a father in the +Vale of Taunton, and three daughters at home. Take a few steps +more in this direction, say they, and what is to become of Vholes's +father? Is he to perish? And of Vholes's daughters? Are they to +be shirt-makers, or governesses? As though, Mr. Vholes and his +relations being minor cannibal chiefs and it being proposed to +abolish cannibalism, indignant champions were to put the case thus: +Make man-eating unlawful, and you starve the Vholeses! + +In a word, Mr. Vholes, with his three daughters and his father in +the Vale of Taunton, is continually doing duty, like a piece of +timber, to shore up some decayed foundation that has become a +pitfall and a nuisance. And with a great many people in a great +many instances, the question is never one of a change from wrong to +right (which is quite an extraneous consideration), but is always +one of injury or advantage to that eminently respectable legion, +Vholes. + +The Chancellor is, within these ten minutes, "up" for the long +vacation. Mr. Vholes, and his young client, and several blue bags +hastily stuffed out of all regularity of form, as the larger sort +of serpents are in their first gorged state, have returned to the +official den. Mr. Vholes, quiet and unmoved, as a man of so much +respectability ought to be, takes off his close black gloves as if +he were skinning his hands, lifts off his tight hat as if he were +scalping himself, and sits down at his desk. The client throws his +hat and gloves upon the ground--tosses them anywhere, without +looking after them or caring where they go; flings himself into a +chair, half sighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon +his hand and looks the portrait of young despair. + +"Again nothing done!" says Richard. "Nothing, nothing done!" + +"Don't say nothing done, sir," returns the placid Vholes. "That is +scarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!" + +"Why, what IS done?" says Richard, turning gloomily upon him. + +"That may not be the whole question," returns Vholes, "The question +may branch off into what is doing, what is doing?" + +"And what is doing?" asks the moody client. + +Vholes, sitting with his arms on the desk, quietly bringing the +tips of his five right fingers to meet the tips of his five left +fingers, and quietly separating them again, and fixedly and slowly +looking at his client, replies, "A good deal is doing, sir. We +have put our shoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is +going round." + +"Yes, with Ixion on it. How am I to get through the next four or +five accursed months?" exclaims the young man, rising from his +chair and walking about the room. + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, following him close with his eyes +wherever he goes, "your spirits are hasty, and I am sorry for it on +your account. Excuse me if I recommend you not to chafe so much, +not to be so impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should +have more patience. You should sustain yourself better." + +"I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?" says Richard, +sitting down again with an impatient laugh and beating the devil's +tattoo with his boot on the patternless carpet. + +"Sir," returns Vholes, always looking at the client as if he were +making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his +professional appetite. "Sir," returns Vholes with his inward +manner of speech and his bloodless quietude, "I should not have had +the presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or +any man's. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, +and that is enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you +mention me so pointedly, I will acknowledge that I should like to +impart to you a little of my--come, sir, you are disposed to call +it insensibility, and I am sure I have no objection--say +insensibility--a little of my insensibility." + +"Mr. Vholes," explains the client, somewhat abashed, "I had no +intention to accuse you of insensibility." + +"I think you had, sir, without knowing it," returns the equable +Vholes. "Very naturally. It is my duty to attend to your +interests with a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your +excited feelings I may appear, at such times as the present, +insensible. My daughters may know me better; my aged father may +know me better. But they have known me much longer than you have, +and the confiding eye of affection is not the distrustful eye of +business. Not that I complain, sir, of the eye of business being +distrustful; quite the contrary. In attending to your interests, I +wish to have all possible checks upon me; it is right that I should +have them; I court inquiry. But your interests demand that I +should be cool and methodical, Mr. Carstone; and I cannot be +otherwise--no, sir, not even to please you." + +Mr. Vholes, after glancing at the official cat who is patiently +watching a mouse's hole, fixes his charmed gaze again on his young +client and proceeds in his buttoned-up, half-audible voice as if +there were an unclean spirit in him that will neither come out nor +speak out, "What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the +vacation. I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many +means of amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. If you +had asked me what I was to do during the vacation, I could have +answered you more readily. I am to attend to your interests. I am +to be found here, day by day, attending to your interests. That is +my duty, Mr. C., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to +me. If you wish to consult me as to your interests, you will find +me here at all times alike. Other professional men go out of town. +I don't. Not that I blame them for going; I merely say I don't go. +This desk is your rock, sir!" + +Mr. Vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. +Not to Richard, though. There is encouragement in the sound to +him. Perhaps Mr. Vholes knows there is. + +"I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes," says Richard, more familiarly +and good-humouredly, "that you are the most reliable fellow in the +world and that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man +of business who is not to be hoodwinked. But put yourself in my +case, dragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper +into difficulty every day, continually hoping and continually +disappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in +myself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you +will find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do." + +"You know," says Mr. Vholes, "that I never give hopes, sir. I told +you from the first, Mr. C., that I never give hopes. Particularly +in a case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out +of the estate, I should not be considerate of my good name if I +gave hopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when +you say there is no change for the better, I must, as a bare matter +of fact, deny that." + +"Aye?" returns Richard, brightening. "But how do you make it out?" + +"Mr. Carstone, you are represented by--" + +"You said just now--a rock." + +"Yes, sir," says Mr. Vholes, gently shaking his head and rapping +the hollow desk, with a sound as if ashes were falling on ashes, +and dust on dust, "a rock. That's something. You are separately +represented, and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of +others. THAT'S something. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, +we air it, we walk it about. THAT'S something. It's not all +Jarndyce, in fact as well as in name. THAT'S something. Nobody +has it all his own way now, sir. And THAT'S something, surely." + +Richard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his +clenched hand. + +"Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John +Jarndyce's house that he was anything but the disinterested friend +he seemed--that he was what he has gradually turned out to be--I +could have found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I +could not have defended him too ardently. So little did I know of +the world! Whereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me +the embodiment of the suit; that in place of its being an +abstraction, it is John Jarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more +indignant I am with him; that every new delay and every new +disappointment is only a new injury from John Jarndyce's hand." + +"No, no," says vholes. "Don't say so. We ought to have patience, +all of us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage." + +"Mr. Vholes," returns the angry client. "You know as well as I +that he would have strangled the suit if he could." + +"He was not active in it," Mr. Vholes admits with an appearance of +reluctance. "He certainly was not active in it. But however, but +however, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the +heart, Mr. C.!" + +"You can," returns Richard. + +"I, Mr. C.?" + +"Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our +interests conflicting? Tell--me--that!" says Richard, accompanying +his last three words with three raps on his rock of trust. + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, immovable in attitude and never winking +his hungry eyes, "I should be wanting in my duty as your +professional adviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to +your interests, if I represented those interests as identical with +the interests of Mr. Jarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I +never impute motives; I both have and am a father, and I never +impute motives. But I must not shrink from a professional duty, +even if it sows dissensions in families. I understand you to be +now consulting me professionally as to your interests? You are so? +I reply, then, they are not identical with those of Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Of course they are not!" cries Richard. "You found that out long +ago." + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, "I wish to say no more of any third party +than is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, +together with any little property of which I may become possessed +through industry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and +Caroline. I also desire to live in amity with my professional +brethren. When Mr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir--I will not say +the very high honour, for I never stoop to flattery--of bringing us +together in this room, I mentioned to you that I could offer no +opinion or advice as to your interests while those interests were +entrusted to another member of the profession. And I spoke in such +terms as I was bound to speak of Kenge and Carboy's office, which +stands high. You, sir, thought fit to withdraw your interests from +that keeping nevertheless and to offer them to me. You brought +them with clean hands, sir, and I accepted them with clean hands. +Those interests are now paramount in this office. My digestive +functions, as you may have heard me mention, are not in a good +state, and rest might improve them; but I shall not rest, sir, +while I am your representative. Whenever you want me, you will +find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come. During the +long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying your +interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for +moving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) +after Michaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, +sir," says Mr. Vholes with the severity of a determined man, "when +I ultimately congratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your +accession to fortune--which, but that I never give hopes, I might +say something further about--you will owe me nothing beyond +whatever little balance may be then outstanding of the costs as +between solicitor and client not included in the taxed costs +allowed out of the estate. I pretend to no claim upon you, Mr. C., +but for the zealous and active discharge--not the languid and +routine discharge, sir: that much credit I stipulate for--of my +professional duty. My duty prosperously ended, all between us is +ended." + +Vholes finally adds, by way of rider to this declaration of his +principles, that as Mr. Carstone is about to rejoin his regiment, +perhaps Mr. C. will favour him with an order on his agent for +twenty pounds on account. + +"For there have been many little consultations and attendances of +late, sir," observes Vholes, turning over the leaves of his diary, +"and these things mount up, and I don't profess to be a man of +capital. When we first entered on our present relations I stated +to you openly--it is a principle of mine that there never can be +too much openness between solicitor and client--that I was not a +man of capital and that if capital was your object you had better +leave your papers in Kenge's office. No, Mr. C., you will find +none of the advantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. +This," Vholes gives the desk one hollow blow again, "is your rock; +it pretends to be nothing more." + +The client, with his dejection insensibly relieved and his vague +hopes rekindled, takes pen and ink and writes the draft, not +without perplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may +bear, implying scant effects in the agent's hands. All the while, +Vholes, buttoned up in body and mind, looks at him attentively. +All the while, Vholes's official cat watches the mouse's hole. + +Lastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches Mr. Vholes, for +heaven's sake and earth's sake, to do his utmost to "pull him +through" the Court of Chancery. Mr. Vholes, who never gives hopes, +lays his palm upon the client's shoulder and answers with a smile, +"Always here, sir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find +me here, sir, with my shoulder to the wheel." Thus they part, and +Vholes, left alone, employs himself in carrying sundry little +matters out of his diary into his draft bill book for the ultimate +behoof of his three daughters. So might an industrious fox or bear +make up his account of chickens or stray travellers with an eye to +his cubs, not to disparage by that word the three raw-visaged, +lank, and buttoned-up maidens who dwell with the parent Vholes in +an earthy cottage situated in a damp garden at Kennington. + +Richard, emerging from the heavy shade of Symond's Inn into the +sunshine of Chancery Lane--for there happens to be sunshine there +to-day--walks thoughtfully on, and turns into Lincoln's Inn, and +passes under the shadow of the Lincoln's Inn trees. On many such +loungers have the speckled shadows of those trees often fallen; on +the like bent head, the bitten nail, the lowering eye, the +lingering step, the purposeless and dreamy air, the good consuming +and consumed, the life turned sour. This lounger is not shabby +yet, but that may come. Chancery, which knows no wisdom but in +precedent, is very rich in such precedents; and why should one be +different from ten thousand? + +Yet the time is so short since his depreciation began that as he +saunters away, reluctant to leave the spot for some long months +together, though he hates it, Richard himself may feel his own case +as if it were a startling one. While his heart is heavy with +corroding care, suspense, distrust, and doubt, it may have room for +some sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit +there, how different he, how different all the colours of his mind. +But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being +defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to +combat; from the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand, +the time for that being long gone by, it has become a gloomy relief +to turn to the palpable figure of the friend who would have saved +him from this ruin and make HIM his enemy. Richard has told Vholes +the truth. Is he in a hardened or a softened mood, he still lays +his injuries equally at that door; he was thwarted, in that +quarter, of a set purpose, and that purpose could only originate in +the one subject that is resolving his existence into itself; +besides, it is a justification to him in his own eyes to have an +embodied antagonist and oppressor. + +Is Richard a monster in all this, or would Chancery be found rich +in such precedents too if they could be got for citation from the +Recording Angel? + +Two pairs of eyes not unused to such people look after him, as, +biting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is +swallowed up by the shadow of the southern gateway. Mr. Guppy and +Mr. Weevle are the possessors of those eyes, and they have been +leaning in conversation against the low stone parapet under the +trees. He passes close by them, seeing nothing but the ground. + +"William," says Mr. Weevle, adjusting his whiskers, "there's +combustion going on there! It's not a case of spontaneous, but +it's smouldering combustion it is." + +"Ah!" says Mr. Guppy. "He wouldn't keep out of Jarndyce, and I +suppose he's over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. +He was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. +A good riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, +that as I was mentioning is what they're up to." + +Mr. Guppy, refolding his arms, resettles himself against the +parapet, as resuming a conversation of interest. + +"They are still up to it, sir," says Mr. Guppy, "still taking +stock, still examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps +of rubbish. At this rate they'll be at it these seven years." + +"And Small is helping?" + +"Small left us at a week's notice. Told Kenge his grandfather's +business was too much for the old gentleman and he could better +himself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between +myself and Small on account of his being so close. But he said you +and I began it, and as he had me there--for we did--I put our +acquaintance on the old footing. That's how I come to know what +they're up to." + +"You haven't looked in at all?" + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, a little disconcerted, "to be unreserved +with you, I don't greatly relish the house, except in your company, +and therefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little +appointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour +by the clock! Tony"--Mr. Guppy becomes mysteriously and tenderly +eloquent--"it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind +once more that circumstances over which I have no control have made +a melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that +unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. +That image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish +now in connexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying +out in the court with your aid as a friend is to let 'em alone and +bury 'em in oblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at +all likely (I put it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your +knowledge of that capricious and deep old character who fell a prey +to the--spontaneous element, do you, Tony, think it at all likely +that on second thoughts he put those letters away anywhere, after +you saw him alive, and that they were not destroyed that night?" + +Mr. Weevle reflects for some time. Shakes his head. Decidedly +thinks not. + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy as they walk towards the court, "once again +understand me, as a friend. Without entering into further +explanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no +purpose to serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have +pledged myself. I owe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered +image, as also to the circumstances over which I have no control. +If you was to express to me by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw +lying anywhere in your late lodgings any papers that so much as +looked like the papers in question, I would pitch them into the +fire, sir, on my own responsibility." + +Mr. Weevle nods. Mr. Guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by +having delivered these observations, with an air in part forensic +and in part romantic--this gentleman having a passion for +conducting anything in the form of an examination, or delivering +anything in the form of a summing up or a speech--accompanies his +friend with dignity to the court. + +Never since it has been a court has it had such a Fortunatus' purse +of gossip as in the proceedings at the rag and bottle shop. +Regularly, every morning at eight, is the elder Mr. Smallweed +brought down to the corner and carried in, accompanied by Mrs. +Smallweed, Judy, and Bart; and regularly, all day, do they all +remain there until nine at night, solaced by gipsy dinners, not +abundant in quantity, from the cook's shop, rummaging and +searching, digging, delving, and diving among the treasures of the +late lamented. What those treasures are they keep so secret that +the court is maddened. In its delirium it imagines guineas pouring +out of tea-pots, crown-pieces overflowing punch-bowls, old chairs +and mattresses stuffed with Bank of England notes. It possesses +itself of the sixpenny history (with highly coloured folding +frontispiece) of Mr. Daniel Dancer and his sister, and also of Mr. +Elwes, of Suffolk, and transfers all the facts from those authentic +narratives to Mr. Krook. Twice when the dustman is called in to +carry off a cartload of old paper, ashes, and broken bottles, the +whole court assembles and pries into the baskets as they come +forth. Many times the two gentlemen who write with the ravenous +little pens on the tissue-paper are seen prowling in the +neighbourhood--shy of each other, their late partnership being +dissolved. The Sol skilfully carries a vein of the prevailing +interest through the Harmonic nights. Little Swills, in what are +professionally known as "patter" allusions to the subject, is +received with loud applause; and the same vocalist "gags" in the +regular business like a man inspired. Even Miss M. Melvilleson, in +the revived Caledonian melody of "We're a-Nodding," points the +sentiment that "the dogs love broo" (whatever the nature of that +refreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head +towards next door that she is immediately understood to mean Mr. +Smallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a +double encore. For all this, the court discovers nothing; and as +Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins now communicate to the late lodger whose +appearance is the signal for a general rally, it is in one +continual ferment to discover everything, and more. + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, with every eye in the court's head upon +them, knock at the closed door of the late lamented's house, in a +high state of popularity. But being contrary to the court's +expectation admitted, they immediately become unpopular and are +considered to mean no good. + +The shutters are more or less closed all over the house, and the +ground-floor is sufficiently dark to require candles. Introduced +into the back shop by Mr. Smallweed the younger, they, fresh from +the sunlight, can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows; +but they gradually discern the elder Mr. Smallweed seated in his +chair upon the brink of a well or grave of waste-paper, the +virtuous Judy groping therein like a female sexton, and Mrs. +Smallweed on the level ground in the vicinity snowed up in a heap +of paper fragments, print, and manuscript which would appear to be +the accumulated compliments that have been sent flying at her in +the course of the day. The whole party, Small included, are +blackened with dust and dirt and present a fiendish appearance not +relieved by the general aspect of the room. There is more litter +and lumber in it than of old, and it is dirtier if possible; +likewise, it is ghostly with traces of its dead inhabitant and even +with his chalked writing on the wall. + +On the entrance of visitors, Mr. Smallweed and Judy simultaneously +fold their arms and stop in their researches. + +"Aha!" croaks the old gentleman. "How de do, gentlemen, how de do! +Come to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That's well, that's well. +Ha! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay +your warehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel +quite at home here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see +you!" + +Mr. Weevle, thanking him, casts an eye about. Mr. Guppy's eye +follows Mr. Weevle's eye. Mr. Weevle's eye comes back without any +new intelligence in it. Mr. Guppy's eye comes back and meets Mr. +Smallweed's eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, +like some wound-up instrument running down, "How de do, sir--how +de--how--" And then having run down, he lapses into grinning +silence, as Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in +the darkness opposite with his hands behind him. + +"Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor," says Grandfather +Smallweed. "I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such +note, but he is so good!" + +Mr. Guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look, makes +a shuffling bow to Mr. Tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy +nod. Mr. Tulkinghorn is looking on as if he had nothing else to do +and were rather amused by the novelty. + +"A good deal of property here, sir, I should say," Mr. Guppy +observes to Mr. Smallweed. + +"Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! +Me and Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out +an inventory of what's worth anything to sell. But we haven't come +to much as yet; we--haven't--come--to--hah!" + +Mr. Smallweed has run down again, while Mr. Weevle's eye, attended +by Mr. Guppy's eye, has again gone round the room and come back. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Weevle. "We won't intrude any longer if +you'll allow us to go upstairs." + +"Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You're at home. Make yourself +so, pray!" + +As they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and +looks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very +dull and dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on +that memorable night yet in the discoloured grate. They have a +great disinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the +dust from it first. Nor are they desirous to prolong their visit, +packing the few movables with all possible speed and never speaking +above a whisper. + +"Look here," says Tony, recoiling. "Here's that horrible cat +coming in!" + +Mr. Guppy retreats behind a chair. "Small told me of her. She +went leaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a +dragon, and got out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for +a fortnight, and then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. +Did you ever see such a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it, +don't she? Almost looks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out, +you goblin!" + +Lady Jane, in the doorway, with her tiger snarl from ear to ear and +her club of a tail, shows no intention of obeying; but Mr. +Tulkinghorn stumbling over her, she spits at his rusty legs, and +swearing wrathfully, takes her arched back upstairs. Possibly to +roam the house-tops again and return by the chimney. + +"Mr. Guppy," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "could I have a word with you?" + +Mr. Guppy is engaged in collecting the Galaxy Gallery of British +Beauty from the wall and depositing those works of art in their old +ignoble band-box. "Sir," he returns, reddening, "I wish to act +with courtesy towards every member of the profession, and +especially, I am sure, towards a member of it so well known as +yourself--I will truly add, sir, so distinguished as yourself. +Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir, I must stipulate that if you have any +word with me, that word is spoken in the presence of my friend." + +"Oh, indeed?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Yes, sir. My reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but +they are amply sufficient for myself." + +"No doubt, no doubt." Mr. Tulkinghorn is as imperturbable as the +hearthstone to which he has quietly walked. "The matter is not of +that consequence that I need put you to the trouble of making any +conditions, Mr. Guppy." He pauses here to smile, and his smile is +as dull and rusty as his pantaloons. "You are to be congratulated, +Mr. Guppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir." + +"Pretty well so, Mr. Tulkinghorn; I don't complain." + +"Complain? High friends, free admission to great houses, and +access to elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in +London who would give their ears to be you." + +Mr. Guppy, looking as if he would give his own reddening and still +reddening ears to be one of those people at present instead of +himself, replies, "Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is +right by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no +consequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not +excepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any +obligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you, +sir, and without offence--I repeat, without offence--" + +"Oh, certainly!" + +"--I don't intend to do it." + +"Quite so," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a calm nod. "Very good; I +see by these portraits that you take a strong interest in the +fashionable great, sir?" + +He addresses this to the astounded Tony, who admits the soft +impeachment. + +"A virtue in which few Englishmen are deficient," observes Mr. +Tulkinghorn. He has been standing on the hearthstone with his back +to the smoked chimney-piece, and now turns round with his glasses +to his eyes. "Who is this? 'Lady Dedlock.' Ha! A very good +likeness in its way, but it wants force of character. Good day to +you, gentlemen; good day!" + +When he has walked out, Mr. Guppy, in a great perspiration, nerves +himself to the hasty completion of the taking down of the Galaxy +Gallery, concluding with Lady Dedlock. + +"Tony," he says hurriedly to his astonished companion, "let us be +quick in putting the things together and in getting out of this +place. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that +between myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy +whom I now hold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication +and association. The time might have been when I might have +revealed it to you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the +oath I have taken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to +circumstances over which I have no control, that the whole should +be buried in oblivion. I charge you as a friend, by the interest +you have ever testified in the fashionable intelligence, and by any +little advances with which I may have been able to accommodate you, +so to bury it without a word of inquiry!" + +This charge Mr. Guppy delivers in a state little short of forensic +lunacy, while his friend shows a dazed mind in his whole head of +hair and even in his cultivated whiskers. + + + +CHAPTER XL + +National and Domestic + + +England has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle +would go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in, and there being +nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, +there has been no government. It is a mercy that the hostile +meeting between those two great men, which at one time seemed +inevitable, did not come off, because if both pistols had taken +effect, and Coodle and Doodle had killed each other, it is to be +presumed that England must have waited to be governed until young +Coodle and young Doodle, now in frocks and long stockings, were +grown up. This stupendous national calamity, however, was averted +by Lord Coodle's making the timely discovery that if in the heat of +debate he had said that he scorned and despised the whole ignoble +career of Sir Thomas Doodle, he had merely meant to say that party +differences should never induce him to withhold from it the tribute +of his warmest admiration; while it as opportunely turned out, on +the other hand, that Sir Thomas Doodle had in his own bosom +expressly booked Lord Coodle to go down to posterity as the mirror +of virtue and honour. Still England has been some weeks in the +dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well observed by Sir +Leicester Dedlock) to weather the storm; and the marvellous part of +the matter is that England has not appeared to care very much about +it, but has gone on eating and drinking and marrying and giving in +marriage as the old world did in the days before the flood. But +Coodle knew the danger, and Doodle knew the danger, and all their +followers and hangers-on had the clearest possible perception of +the danger. At last Sir Thomas Doodle has not only condescended to +come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing in with him all his +nephews, all his male cousins, and all his brothers-in-law. So +there is hope for the old ship yet. + +Doodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, +chiefly in the form of sovereigns and beer. In this metamorphosed +state he is available in a good many places simultaneously and can +throw himself upon a considerable portion of the country at one +time. Britannia being much occupied in pocketing Doodle in the +form of sovereigns, and swallowing Doodle in the form of beer, and +in swearing herself black in the face that she does neither-- +plainly to the advancement of her glory and morality--the London +season comes to a sudden end, through all the Doodleites and +Coodleites dispersing to assist Britannia in those religious +exercises. + +Hence Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, foresees, +though no instructions have yet come down, that the family may +shortly be expected, together with a pretty large accession of +cousins and others who can in any way assist the great +Constitutional work. And hence the stately old dame, taking Time +by the forelock, leads him up and down the staircases, and along +the galleries and passages, and through the rooms, to witness +before he grows any older that everything is ready, that floors are +rubbed bright, carpets spread, curtains shaken out, beds puffed and +patted, still-room and kitchen cleared for action--all things +prepared as beseems the Dedlock dignity. + +This present summer evening, as the sun goes down, the preparations +are complete. Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many +appliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the +pictured forms upon the walls. So did these come and go, a Dedlock +in possession might have ruminated passing along; so did they see +this gallery hushed and quiet, as I see it now; so think, as I +think, of the gap that they would make in this domain when they +were gone; so find it, as I find it, difficult to believe that it +could be without them; so pass from my world, as I pass from +theirs, now closing the reverberating door; so leave no blank to +miss them, and so die. + +Through some of the fiery windows beautiful from without, and set, +at this sunset hour, not in dull-grey stone but in a glorious house +of gold, the light excluded at other windows pours in rich, lavish, +overflowing like the summer plenty in the land. Then do the frozen +Dedlocks thaw. Strange movements come upon their features as the +shadows of leaves play there. A dense justice in a corner is +beguiled into a wink. A staring baronet, with a truncheon, gets a +dimple in his chin. Down into the bosom of a stony shepherdess +there steals a fleck of light and warmth that would have done it +good a hundred years ago. One ancestress of Volumnia, in high- +heeled shoes, very like her--casting the shadow of that virgin +event before her full two centuries--shoots out into a halo and +becomes a saint. A maid of honour of the court of Charles the +Second, with large round eyes (and other charms to correspond), +seems to bathe in glowing water, and it ripples as it glows. + +But the fire of the sun is dying. Even now the floor is dusky, and +shadow slowly mounts the walls, bringing the Dedlocks down like age +and death. And now, upon my Lady's picture over the great chimney- +piece, a weird shade falls from some old tree, that turns it pale, +and flutters it, and looks as if a great arm held a veil or hood, +watching an opportunity to draw it over her. Higher and darker +rises shadow on the wall--now a red gloom on the ceiling--now the +fire is out. + +All that prospect, which from the terrace looked so near, has moved +solemnly away and changed--not the first nor the last of beautiful +things that look so near and will so change--into a distant +phantom. Light mists arise, and the dew falls, and all the sweet +scents in the garden are heavv in the air. Now the woods settle +into great masses as if they were each one profound tree. And now +the moon rises to separate them, and to glimmer here and there in +horizontal lines behind their stems, and to make the avenue a +pavement of light among high cathedral arches fantastically broken. + +Now the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more +than ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful, +stealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in +the solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time +for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a +pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues +upon the floors, when anything and everything can be made of the +heavy staircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the +armour has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from +stealthy movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully +suggestive of heads inside. But of all the shadows in Chesney +Wold, the shadow in the long drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is +the first to come, the last to be disturbed. At this hour and by +this light it changes into threatening hands raised up and menacing +the handsome face with every breath that stirs. + +"She is not well, ma'am," says a groom in Mrs. Rouncewell's +audience-chamber. + +"My Lady not well! What's the matter?" + +"Why, my Lady has been but poorly, ma'am, since she was last here-- +I don't mean with the family, ma'am, but when she was here as a +bird of passage like. My Lady has not been out much for her and +has kept her room a good deal." + +"Chesney Wold, Thomas," rejoins the housekeeper with proud +complacency, "will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no +healthier soil in the world!" + +Thomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, probably +hints them in his manner of smoothing his sleek head from the nape +of his neck to his temples, but he forbears to express them further +and retires to the servants' hall to regale on cold meat-pie and +ale. + +This groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next +evening, down come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their largest +retinue, and down come the cousins and others from all the points +of the compass. Thenceforth for some weeks backward and forward +rush mysterious men with no names, who fly about all those +particular parts of the country on which Doodle is at present +throwing himself in an auriferous and malty shower, but who are +merely persons of a restless disposition and never do anything +anywhere. + +On these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. +A better man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at +dinner, there could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than +the other cousins to ride over to polling-booths and hustings here +and there, and show themselves on the side of England, it would be +hard to find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true +descent; and there are many who appreciate her sprightly +conversation, her French conundrums so old as to have become in the +cycles of time almost new again, the honour of taking the fair +Dedlock in to dinner, or even the privilege of her hand in the +dance. On these national occasions dancing may be a patriotic +service, and Volumnia is constantly seen hopping about for the good +of an ungrateful and unpensioning country. + +My Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and +being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at +all the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other +melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir +Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be +wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to +be received under that roof; and in a state of sublime +satisfaction, he moves among the company, a magnificent +refrigerator. + +Daily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf, +away to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and +hunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for +the boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester +holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no +occupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. +Daily Volumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the +state of the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to +conclude that Volumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had +thought her. + +"How are we getting on?" says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands. +"ARE we safe?" + +The mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will +throw himself off the country in a few days more. Sir Leicester +has just appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright +particular star surrounded by clouds of cousins. + +"Volumnia," replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, "we +are doing tolerably." + +"Only tolerably!" + +Although it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always has his own +particular fire in the evening. He takes his usual screened seat +near it and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as +who should say, I am not a common man, and when I say tolerably, it +must not be understood as a common expression, "Volumnia, we are +doing tolerably." + +"At least there is no opposition to YOU," Volumnia asserts with +confidence. + +"No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many +respects, I grieve to say, but--" + +"It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!" + +Volumnia's finishing the sentence restores her to favour. Sir +Leicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to +himself, "A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally +precipitate." + +In fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock's +observation was superfluous, Sir Leicester on these occasions +always delivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome +wholesale order to be promptly executed. Two other little seats +that belong to him he treats as retail orders of less importance, +merely sending down the men and signifying to the tradespeople, +"You will have the goodness to make these materials into two +members of Parliament and to send them home when done." + +"I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have +shown a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has +been of a most determined and most implacable description." + +"W-r-retches!" says Volumnia. + +"Even," proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent +cousins on sofas and ottomans, "even in many--in fact, in most--of +those places in which the government has carried it against a +faction--" + +(Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with +the Doodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same +position towards the Coodleites.) + +"--Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be +constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without +being put to an enormous expense. Hundreds," says Sir Leicester, +eyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling +indignation, "hundreds of thousands of pounds!" + +If Volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too +innocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well +with a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge +and pearl necklace. Howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks, +"What for?" + +"Volumnia," remonstrates Sir Leicester with his utmost severity. +"Volumnia!" + +"No, no, I don't mean what for," cries Volumnia with her favourite +little scream. "How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!" + +"I am glad," returns Sir Leicester, "that you do mean what a pity." + +Volumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people +ought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party. + +"I am glad, Volumnia," repeats Sir Leicester, unmindful of these +mollifying sentiments, "that you do mean what a pity. It is +disgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and +without intending so unreasonable a question, asked me 'what for?' +let me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your +good sense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or +elsewhere." + +Sir Leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing +aspect towards Volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these +necessary expenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be +unpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some +graceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the +Church service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the High +Court of Parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers +of the congregation be requested for six hundred and fifty-eight +gentlemen in a very unhealthy state. + +"I suppose," observes Volumnia, having taken a little time to +recover her spirits after her late castigation, "I suppose Mr. +Tulkinghorn has been worked to death." + +"I don't know," says Sir Leicester, opening his eyes, "why Mr. +Tulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don't know what Mr. +Tulkinghorn's engagements may be. He is not a candidate." + +Volumnia had thought he might have been employed. Sir Leicester +could desire to know by whom, and what for. Volumnia, abashed +again, suggests, by somebody--to advise and make arrangements. Sir +Leicester is not aware that any client of Mr. Tulkinghorn has been +in need of his assistance. + +Lady Dedlock, seated at an open window with her arm upon its +cushioned ledge and looking out at the evening shadows falling on +the park, has seemed to attend since the lawyer's name was +mentioned. + +A languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility +now observes from his couch that man told him ya'as'dy that +Tulkinghorn had gone down t' that iron place t' give legal 'pinion +'bout something, and that contest being over t' day, 'twould be +highly jawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should 'pear with news that +Coodle man was floored. + +Mercury in attendance with coffee informs Sir Leicester, hereupon, +that Mr. Tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. My Lady +turns her head inward for the moment, then looks out again as +before. + +Volumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. He is so +original, such a stolid creature, such an immense being for knowing +all sorts of things and never telling them! Volumnia is persuaded +that he must be a Freemason. Is sure he is at the head of a lodge, +and wears short aprons, and is made a perfect idol of with +candlesticks and trowels. These lively remarks the fair Dedlock +delivers in her youthful manner, while making a purse. + +"He has not been here once," she adds, "since I came. I really had +some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I +had almost made up my mind that he was dead." + +It may be the gathering gloom of evening, or it may be the darker +gloom within herself, but a shade is on my Lady's face, as if she +thought, "I would he were!" + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn," says Sir Leicester, "is always welcome here and +always discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and +deservedly respected." + +The debilitated cousin supposes he is "'normously rich fler." + +"He has a stake in the country," says Sir Leicester, "I have no +doubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost +on a footing of equality with the highest society." + +Everybody starts. For a gun is fired close by. + +"Good gracious, what's that?" cries Volumnia with her little +withered scream. + +"A rat," says my Lady. "And they have shot him." + +Enter Mr. Tulkinghorn, followed by Mercuries with lamps and +candles. + +"No, no," says Sir Leicester, "I think not. My Lady, do you object +to the twilight?" + +On the contrary, my Lady prefers it. + +"Volumnia?" + +Oh! Nothing is so delicious to Volumnia as to sit and talk in the +dark. + +"Then take them away," says Sir Leicester. "Tulkinghorn, I beg +your pardon. How do you do?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, renders his +passing homage to my Lady, shakes Sir Leicester's hand, and +subsides into the chair proper to him when he has anything to +communicate, on the opposite side of the Baronet's little +newspaper-table. Sir Leicester is apprehensive that my Lady, not +being very well, will take cold at that open window. My Lady is +obliged to him, but would rather sit there for the air. Sir +Leicester rises, adjusts her scarf about her, and returns to his +seat. Mr. Tulkinghorn in the meanwhile takes a pinch of snuff. + +"Now," says Sir Leicester. "How has that contest gone?" + +"Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought +in both their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to +one." + +It is a part of Mr. Tulkinghorn's policy and mastery to have no +political opinions; indeed, NO opinions. Therefore he says "you" +are beaten, and not "we." + +Sir Leicester is majestically wroth. Volumnia never heard of such +a thing. 'The debilitated cousin holds that it's sort of thing +that's sure tapn slongs votes--giv'n--Mob. + +"It's the place, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn goes on to say in the +fast-increasing darkness when there is silence again, "where they +wanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell's son." + +"A proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had +the becoming taste and perception," observes Sir Leicester, "to +decline. I cannot say that I by any means approve of the +sentiments expressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here for some +half-hour in this room, but there was a sense of propriety in his +decision which I am glad to acknowledge." + +"Ha!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It did not prevent him from being +very active in this election, though." + +Sir Leicester is distinctly heard to gasp before speaking. "Did I +understand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very +active in this election?" + +"Uncommonly active." + +"Against--" + +"Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and +emphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence. In +the business part of the proceedings he carried all before him." + +It is evident to the whole company, though nobody can see him, that +Sir Leicester is staring majestically. + +"And he was much assisted," says Mr. Tulkinghorn as a wind-up, "by +his son." + +"By his son, sir?" repeats Sir Leicester with awful politeness. + +"By his son." + +"The son who wished to marry the young woman in my Lady's service?" + +"That son. He has but one." + +"Then upon my honour," says Sir Leicester after a terrific pause +during which he has been heard to snort and felt to stare, "then +upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, +the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters have--a-- +obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion by which +things are held together!" + +General burst of cousinly indignation. Volumnia thinks it is +really high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in and do +something strong. Debilitated cousin thinks--country's going-- +Dayvle--steeple-chase pace. + +"I beg," says Sir Leicester in a breathless condition, "that we may +not comment further on this circumstance. Comment is superfluous. +My Lady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman--" + +"I have no intention," observes my Lady from her window in a low +but decided tone, "of parting with her." + +"That was not my meaning," returns Sir Leicester. "I am glad to +hear you say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of +your patronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from +these dangerous hands. You might show her what violence would be +done in such association to her duties and principles, and you +might preserve her for a better fate. You might point out to her +that she probably would, in good time, find a husband at Chesney +Wold by whom she would not be--" Sir Leicester adds, after a +moment's consideration, "dragged from the altars of her +forefathers." + +These remarks he offers with his unvarying politeness and deference +when he addresses himself to his wife. She merely moves her head +in reply. The moon is rising, and where she sits there is a little +stream of cold pale light, in which her head is seen. + +"It is worthy of remark," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "however, that +these people are, in their way, very proud." + +"Proud?" Sir Leicester doubts his hearing. + +"I should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the +girl--yes, lover and all--instead of her abandoning them, supposing +she remained at Chesney Wold under such circumstances." + +"Well!" says Sir Leicester tremulously. "Well! You should know, +Mr. Tulkinghorn. You have been among them." + +"Really, Sir Leicester," returns the lawyer, "I state the fact. +Why, I could tell you a story--with Lady Dedlock's permission." + +Her head concedes it, and Volumnia is enchanted. A story! Oh, he +is going to tell something at last! A ghost in it, Volumnia hopes? + +"No. Real flesh and blood." Mr. Tulkinghorn stops for an instant +and repeats with some little emphasis grafted upon his usual +monotony, "Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock. Sir Leicester, +these particulars have only lately become known to me. They are +very brief. They exemplify what I have said. I suppress names for +the present. Lady Dedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope?" + +By the light of the fire, which is low, he can be seen looking +towards the moonlight. By the light of the moon Lady Dedlock can +be seen, perfecfly still. + +"A townsman of this Mrs. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel +circumstances as I am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter +who attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a +great lady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of +your condition, Sir Leicester." + +Sir Leicester condescendingly says, "Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn," +implying that then she must have appeared of very considerable +moral dimensions indeed in the eyes of an iron-master. + +"The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl, +and treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her. +Now this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she +had preserved for many years. In fact, she had in early life been +engaged to marry a young rake--he was a captain in the army-- +nothing connected with whom came to any good. She never did marry +him, but she gave birth to a child of which he was the father." + +By the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the +moonlight. By the moonlight, Lady Dedlock can be seen in profile, +perfectly still. + +"The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but +a train of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to +discovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on +her own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows +how difficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be +always guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, +you may suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the +husband's grief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. +Rouncewell's townsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed +the girl to be patronized and honoured than he would have suffered +her to be trodden underfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, +that he indignantly took her away, as if from reproach and +disgrace. He had no sense of the honour done him and his daughter +by the lady's condescension; not the least. He resented the girl's +position, as if the lady had been the commonest of commoners. That +is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock will excuse its painful nature." + +There are various opinions on the merits, more or less conflicting +with Volumnia's. That fair young creature cannot believe there +ever was any such lady and rejects the whole history on the +threshold. The majority incline to the debilitated cousin's +sentiment, which is in few words--"no business--Rouncewell's fernal +townsman." Sir Leicester generally refers back in his mind to Wat +Tyler and arranges a sequence of events on a plan of his own. + +There is not much conversation in all, for late hours have been +kept at Chesney Wold since the necessary expenses elsewhere began, +and this is the first night in many on which the family have been +alone. It is past ten when Sir Leicester begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to +ring for candles. Then the stream of moonlight has swelled into a +lake, and then Lady Dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, +and comes forward to a table for a glass of water. Winking +cousins, bat-like in the candle glare, crowd round to give it; +Volumnia (always ready for something better if procurable) takes +another, a very mild sip of which contents her; Lady Dedlock, +graceful, self-possessed, looked after by admiring eyes, passes +away slowly down the long perspective by the side of that nymph, +not at all improving her as a question of contrast. + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room + + +Mr. Tulkinghorn arrives in his turret-room a little breathed by the +journey up, though leisurely performed. There is an expression on +his face as if he had discharged his mind of some grave matter and +were, in his close way, satisfied. To say of a man so severely and +strictly self-repressed that he is triumphant would be to do him as +great an injustice as to suppose him troubled with love or +sentiment or any romantic weakness. He is sedately satisfied. +Perhaps there is a rather increased sense of power upon him as he +loosely grasps one of his veinous wrists with his other hand and +holding it behind his back walks noiselessly up and down. + +There is a capacious writing-table in the room on which is a pretty +large accumulation of papers. The green lamp is lighted, his +reading-glasses lie upon the desk, the easy-chair is wheeled up to +it, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour +or so upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. But +he happens not to be in a business mind. After a glance at the +documents awaiting his notice--with his head bent low over the +table, the old man's sight for print or writing being defective at +night--he opens the French window and steps out upon the leads. +There he again walks slowly up and down in the same attitude, +subsiding, if a man so cool may have any need to subside, from the +story he has related downstairs. + +The time was once when men as knowing as Mr. Tulkinghorn would walk +on turret-tops in the starlight and look up into the sky to read +their fortunes there. Hosts of stars are visible to-night, though +their brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. If he +be seeking his own star as he methodically turns and turns upon the +leads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented +below. If he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in +other characters nearer to his hand. + +As he paces the leads with his eyes most probably as high above his +thoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped +in passing the window by two eyes that meet his own. The ceiling +of his room is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is +opposite the window, is of glass. There is an inner baize door, +too, but the night being warm he did not close it when he came +upstairs. These eyes that meet his own are looking in through the +glass from the corridor outside. He knows them well. The blood +has not flushed into his face so suddenly and redly for many a long +year as when he recognizes Lady Dedlock. + +He steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the +doors behind her. There is a wild disturbance--is it fear or +anger?--in her eyes. In her carriage and all else she looks as she +looked downstairs two hours ago. + +Is it fear or is it anger now? He cannot be sure. Both might be +as pale, both as intent. + +"Lady Dedlock?" + +She does not speak at first, nor even when she has slowly dropped +into the easy-chair by the table. They look at each other, like +two pictures. + +"Why have you told my story to so many persons?" + +"Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew +it." + +"How long have you known it?" + +"I have suspected it a long while--fully known it a little while." + +"Months?" + +"Days." + +He stands before her with one hand on a chair-back and the other in +his old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, exactly as he has +stood before her at any time since her marriage. The same formal +politeness, the same composed deference that might as well be +defiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same +distance, which nothing has ever diminished. + +"Is this true concerning the poor girl?" + +He slightly inclines and advances his head as not quite +understanding the question. + +"You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my +story also? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls +and cried in the streets?" + +So! Anger, and fear, and shame. All three contending. What power +this woman has to keep these raging passions down! Mr. +Tulkinghorn's thoughts take such form as he looks at her, with his +ragged grey eyebrows a hair's breadth more contracted than usual +under her gaze. + +"No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of +Sir Leicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a +hand. But it would be a real case if they knew--what we know." + +"Then they do not know it yet?" + +"No." + +"Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?" + +"Really, Lady Dedlock," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, "I cannot give a +satisfactory opinion on that point." + +And he thinks, with the interest of attentive curiosity, as he +watches the struggle in her breast, "The power and force of this +woman are astonishing!" + +"Sir," she says, for the moment obliged to set her lips with all +the energy she has, that she may speak distinctly, "I will make it +plainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated +it, and felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr. +Rouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the +power of seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl +tarnished by having for a moment been, although most innocently, +the subject of my great and distinguished patronage. But I have an +interest in her, or I should rather say--no longer belonging to +this place--I had, and if you can find so much consideration for +the woman under your foot as to remember that, she will be very +sensible of your mercy." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, throws this off with a shrug +of self-depreciation and contracts his eyebrows a little more. + +"You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that +too. Is there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim +that I can release or any charge or trouble that I can spare my +husband in obtaining HIS release by certifying to the exactness of +your discovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will +dictate. I am ready to do it." + +And she would do it, thinks the lawver, watchful of the firm hand +with which she takes the pen! + +"I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself." + +"I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare +myself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you +have done. Do what remains now." + +"Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to +say a few words when you have finished." + +Their need for watching one another should be over now, but they do +it all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened +window. Away in the moonlight lie the woodland fields at rest, and +the wide house is as quiet as the narrow one. The narrow one! +Where are the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined +to add the last great secret to the many secrets of the Tulkinghorn +existence? Is the man born yet, is the spade wrought yet? Curious +questions to consider, more curious perhaps not to consider, under +the watching stars upon a summer night. + +"Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine," Lady Dedlock +presently proceeds, "I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you +would be deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears." + +He makes a feint of offering a protest, but she sweeps it away with +her disdainful hand. + +"Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My +jewels are all in their proper places of keeping. They will be +found there. So, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some +ready money I had with me, please to say, but no large amount. I +did not wear my own dress, in order that I might avoid observation. +I went to be henceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other +charge with you." + +"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, quite unmoved. "I +am not sure that I understand you. You want--" + +"To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this +hour." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn shakes his head. She rises, but he, without moving +hand from chair-back or from old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt- +frill, shakes his head. + +"What? Not go as I have said?" + +"No, Lady Dedlock," he very calmly replies. + +"Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you +forgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and +who it is?" + +"No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means." + +Without deigning to rejoin, she moves to the inner door and has it +in her hand when he says to her, without himself stirring hand or +foot or raising his voice, "Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop +and hear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the +alarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before +every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it." + +He has conquered her. She falters, trembles, and puts her hand +confusedly to her head. Slight tokens these in any one else, but +when so practised an eye as Mr. Tulkinghorn's sees indecision for a +moment in such a subject, he thoroughly knows its value. + +He promptly says again, "Have the goodness to hear me, Lady +Dedlock," and motions to the chair from which she has risen. She +hesitates, but he motions again, and she sits down. + +"The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady +Dedlock; but as they are not of my making, I will not apologize for +them. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well +known to you that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have +appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery." + +"Sir," she returns without looking up from the ground on which her +eyes are now fixed, "I had better have gone. It would have been +far better not to have detained me. I have no more to say." + +"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add a little more to hear." + +"I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can't breathe where I +am." + +His jealous glance as she walks that way betrays an instant's +misgiving that she may have it in her thoughts to leap over, and +dashing against ledge and cornice, strike her life out upon the +terrace below. But a moment's observation of her figure as she +stands in the window without any support, looking out at the stars +--not up-gloomily out at those stars which are low in the heavens, +reassures him. By facing round as she has moved, he stands a +little behind her. + +"Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision +satisfactory to myself on the course before me. I am not clear +what to do or how to act next. I must request you, in the +meantime, to keep your secret as you have kept it so long and not +to wonder that I keep it too." + +He pauses, but she makes no reply. + +"Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are +honouring me with your attention?" + +"I am." + +"'Thank you. I might have known it from what I have seen of your +strength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but +I have the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go +on. The sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester." + +"'Then why," she asks in a low voice and without removing her +gloomy look from those distant stars, "do you detain me in his +house?" + +"Because he IS the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion +to tell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his +reliance upon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of +the sky would not amaze him more than your fall from your high +position as his wife." + +She breathes quickly and heavily, but she stands as unflinchingly +as ever he has seen her in the midst of her grandest company. + +"I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this +case that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up by means of +my own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as +to shake your hold upon Sir Leicester and Sir Leicester's trust and +confidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not +that he could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that +nothing can prepare him for the blow." + +"Not my flight?" she returned. "Think of it again." + +"Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a +hundred times the whole truth, far and wide. It would be +impossible to save the family credit for a day. It is not to be +thought of." + +There is a quiet decision in his reply which admits of no +remonstrance. + +"When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and +the family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir +Leicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his +patrimony"--Mr. Tulkinghorn very dry here--"are, I need not say to +you, Lady Dedlock, inseparable." + +"Go on!" + +"Therefore," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, pursuing his case in his jog- +trot style, "I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if +it can be. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his +wits or laid upon a death-bed? If I inflicted this shock upon him +to-morrow morning, how could the immediate change in him be +accounted for? What could have caused it? What could have divided +you? Lady Dedlock, the wall-chalking and the street-crying would +come on directly, and you are to remember that it would not affect +you merely (whom I cannot at all consider in this business) but +your husband, Lady Dedlock, your husband." + +He gets plainer as he gets on, but not an atom more emphatic or +animated. + +"There is another point of view," he continues, "in which the case +presents itself. Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to +infatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, +even knowing what we know. I am putting an extreme case, but it +might be so. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better +for common sense, better for him, better for me. I must take all +this into account, and it combines to render a decision very +difficult." + +She stands looking out at the same stars without a word. They are +beginning to pale, and she looks as if their coldness froze her. + +"My experience teaches me," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who has by this +time got his hands in his pockets and is going on in his business +consideration of the matter like a machine. "My experience teaches +me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far +better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three +fourths of their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester +married, and so I always have thought since. No more about that. +I must now be guided by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg +you to keep your own counsel, and I will keep mine." + +"I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your +pleasure, day by day?" she asks, still looking at the distant sky. + +"Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock." + +"It is necessary, you think, that I should be so tied to the +stake?" + +"I am sure that what I recommend is necessary." + +"I am to remain on this gaudy platforna on which my miserable +deception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when +you give the signal?" she said slowly. + +"Not without notice, Lady Dedlock. I shall take no step without +forewarning you." + +She asks all her questions as if she were repeating them from +memory or calling them over in her sleep. + +"We are to meet as usual?" + +"Precisely as usual, if you please." + +"And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?" + +"As you have done so many years. I should not have made that +reference myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your +secret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no +better than it was. I know it certainly, but I believe we have +never wholly trusted each other." + +She stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time +before asking, "Is there anything more to be sald to-night?" + +"Why," Mr. Tulkinghorn returns methodically as he softly rubs his +hands, "I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my +arrangements, Lady Dedlock." + +"You may be assured of it." + +"Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business +precaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in +any communication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview +I have expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester's +feelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been +happy to have made Lady Dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if +the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not." + +"I can attest your fidelity, sir." + +Both before and after saving it she remains absorbed, but at length +moves, and turns, unshaken in her natural and acquired presence, +towards the door. Mr. Tulkinghorn opens both the doors exactly as +he would have done yesterday, or as he would have done ten years +ago, and makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes out. It is not +an ordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it goes +into the darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a +very slight one, that acknowledges his courtesy. But as he +reflects when he is left alone, the woman has been putting no +common constraint upon herself. + +He would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own +rooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her +hands clasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. +He would think so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up +and down for hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed +by the faithful step upon the Ghost's Walk. But he shuts out the +now chilled air, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls +asleep. And truly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into +the turret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the +digger and the spade were both commissioned and would soon be +digging. + +The same wan day peeps in at Sir Leicester pardoning the repentant +country in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins +entering on various public employments, principally receipt of +salary; and at the chaste Volumnia, bestowing a dower of fifty +thousand pounds upon a hideous old general with a mouth of false +teeth like a pianoforte too full of keys, long the admiration of +Bath and the terror of every other commuuity. Also into rooms high +in the roof, and into offices in court-yards, and over stables, +where humbler ambition dreams of bliss, in keepers' lodges, and in +holy matrimony with Will or Sally. Up comes the bright sun, +drawing everything up with it--the Wills and Sallys, the latent +vapour in the earth, the drooping leaves and flowers, the birds and +beasts and creeping things, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf +and unfold emerald velvet where the roller passes, the smoke of the +great kitchen fire wreathing itself straight and high into the +lightsome air. Lastly, up comes the flag over Mr. Tulkinghorn's +unconscious head cheerfully proclaiming that Sir Leicester and Lady +Dedlock are in their happy home and that there is hospitality at +the place in Lincolnshire. + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers + + +From the verdant undulations and the spreading oaks of the Dedlock +property, Mr. Tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and +dust of London. His manner of coming and going between the two +places is one of his impenetrabilities. He walks into Chesney Wold +as if it were next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers +as if he had never been out of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He neither +changes his dress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. +He melted out of his turret-room this morning, just as now, in the +late twilight, he melts into his own square. + +Like a dingy London bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant +fields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into +wigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and +faded, dwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged +without experience of genial youth, and so long used to make his +cramped nest in holes and corners of human nature that he has +forgotten its broader and better range, comes sauntering home. In +the oven made by the hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked +himself dryer than usual; and he has in his thirsty mind his +mellowed port-wine half a century old. + +The lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on Mr. +Tulkinghorn's side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble +mysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the door- +steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on the +top step, a bowing and propitiatory little man. + +"Is that Snagsby?" + +"Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, +sir, and going home." + +"Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?" + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his +head in his deference towards his best customer, "I was wishful to +say a word to you, sir." + +"Can you say it here?" + +"Perfectly, sir." + +"Say it then." The lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron +railing at the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter +lighting the court-yard. + +"It is relating," says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, "it +is relating--not to put too fine a point upon it--to the foreigner, +sir!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. "What foreigner?" + +"The foreign female, sir. French, if I don't mistake? I am not +acquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her +manners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly +foreign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had +the honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night." + +"Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense." + +"Indeed, sir?" Mr. Snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind +his hat. "I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners +in general, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that." Mr. Snagsby +appears to have set out in this reply with some desperate design of +repeating the name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse +himself. + +"And what can you have to say, Snagsby," demands Mr. Tulkinghorn, +"about her?" + +"Well, sir," returns the stationer, shading his communication with +his hat, "it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is +very great--at least, it's as great as can be expected, I'm sure-- +but my little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too +fine a point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you +see, a foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the +shop, and hovering--I should be the last to make use of a strong +expression if I could avoid it, but hovering, sir--in the court-- +you know it is--now ain't it? I only put it to yourself, sir. + +Mr. Snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in +a cough of general application to fill up all the blanks. + +"Why, what do you mean?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Just so, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby; "I was sure you would feel it +yourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when +coupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. You see, +the foreign female--which you mentioned her name just now, with +quite a native sound I am sure--caught up the word Snagsby that +night, being uncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the +direction and come at dinner-time. Now Guster, our young woman, is +timid and has fits, and she, taking fright at the foreigner's +looks--which are fierce--and at a grinding manner that she has of +speaking--which is calculated to alarm a weak mind--gave way to it, +instead of bearing up against it, and tumbled down the kitchen +stairs out of one into another, such fits as I do sometimes think +are never gone into, or come out of, in any house but ours. +Consequently there was by good fortune ample occupation for my +little woman, and only me to answer the shop. When she DID say +that Mr. Tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his employer +(which I had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of viewing a +clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually calling at +my place until she was let in here. Since then she has been, as I +began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir"--Mr. Snagsby repeats the +word with pathetic emphasis--"in the court. The effects of which +movement it is impossible to calculate. I shouldn't wonder if it +might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even in +the neighbours' minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was +possible) my little woman. Whereas, goodness knows," says Mr. +Snagsby, shaking his head, "I never had an idea of a foreign +female, except as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms +and a baby, or at the present time with a tambourine and earrings. +I never had, I do assure you, sir!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires +when the stationer has finished, "And that's all, is it, Snagsby?" + +"Why yes, sir, that's all," says Mr. Snagsby, ending with a cough +that plainly adds, "and it's enough too--for me." + +"I don't know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless +she is mad," says the lawyer. + +"Even if she was, you know, sir," Mr. Snagsby pleads, "it wouldn't +be a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a +foreign dagger planted in the family." + +"No," says the other. "Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am +sorry you have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her +here." + +Mr. Snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes +his leave, lightened in heart. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes upstairs, +saying to himself, "These women were created to give trouble the +whole earth over. The mistress not being enough to deal with, +here's the maid now! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!" + +So saying, he unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky +rooms, lights his candles, and looks about him. It is too dark to +see much of the Allegory over-head there, but that importunate +Roman, who is for ever toppling out of the clouds and pointing, is +at his old work pretty distinctly. Not honouring him with much +attention, Mr. Tulkinghorn takes a small key from his pocket, +unlocks a drawer in which there is another key, which unlocks a +chest in which there is another, and so comes to the cellar-key, +with which he prepares to descend to the regions of old wine. He +is going towards the door with a candle in his hand when a knock +comes. + +"Who's this? Aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? You appear at a +good time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you +want?" + +He stands the candle on the chimney-piece in the clerk's hall and +taps his dry cheek with the key as he addresses these words of +welcome to Mademoiselle Hortense. That feline personage, with her +lips tightly shut and her eyes looking out at him sideways, softly +closes the door before replying. + +"I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir." + +"HAVE you!" + +"I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me, +he is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for +you." + +"Quite right, and quite true." + +"Not true. Lies!" + +At times there is a suddenness in the manner of Mademoiselle +Hortense so like a bodily spring upon the subject of it that such +subject involuntarily starts and fails back. It is Mr. +Tulkinghorn's case at present, though Mademoiselle Hortense, with +her eyes almost shut up (but still looking out sideways), is only +smiling contemptuously and shaking her head. + +"Now, mistress," says the lawyer, tapping the key hastily upon the +chimney-piece. "If you have anything to say, say it, say it." + +"Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby." + +"Mean and shabby, eh?" returns the lawyer, rubbing his nose with +the key. + +"Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have +attrapped me--catched me--to give you information; you have asked +me to show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, +you have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it +not?" Mademoiselle Hortense makes another spring. + +"You are a vixen, a vixen!" Mr. Tulkinghorn seems to meditate as +he looks distrustfully at her, then he replies, "Well, wench, well. +I paid you." + +"You paid me!" she repeats with fierce disdain. "Two sovereign! I +have not change them, I re-fuse them, I des-pise them, I throw them +from me!" Which she literally does, taking them out of her bosom +as she speaks and flinging them with such violence on the floor +that they jerk up again into the light before they roll away into +corners and slowly settle down there after spinning vehemently. + +"Now!" says Mademoiselle Hortense, darkening her large eyes again. +"You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn rubs his head with the key while she entertains +herself with a sarcastic laugh. + +"You must be rich, my fair friend," he composedly observes, "to +throw money about in that way!" + +"I AM rich," she returns. "I am very rich in hate. I hate my +Lady, of all my heart. You know that." + +"Know it? How should I know it?" + +"Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give +you that information. Because you have known perfectly that I was +en-r-r-r-raged!" It appears impossible for mademoiselle to roll +the letter "r" sufficiently in this word, notwithstanding that she +assists her energetic delivery by clenching both her hands and +setting all her teeth. + +"Oh! I knew that, did I?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, examining the wards +of the key. + +"Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me +because you knew that. You had reason! I det-est her." +Mademoiselle folds her arms and throws this last remark at him over +one of her shoulders. + +"Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?" + +"I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition! +If you cannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue +her, to chase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help +you well, and with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know +that?" + +"You appear to know a good deal," Mr. Tulkinghorn retorts. + +"Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child, +that I come here in that dress to rec-cive that boy only to decide +a little bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!" In this reply, down +to the word "wager" inclusive, mademoiselle has been ironically +polite and tender, then as suddenly dashed into the bitterest and +most defiant scorn, with her black eyes in one and the same moment +very nearly shut and staringly wide open. + +"Now, let us see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the +key and looking imperturbably at her, "how this matter stands." + +"Ah! Let us see," mademoiselle assents, with many angry and tight +nods of her head. + +"You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have +just stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again." + +"And again," says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods. +"And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, +for ever!" + +"And not only here, but you will go to Mr, Snagsby's too, perhaps? +That visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps?" + +"And again," repeats mademoiselle, cataleptic with determination. +"And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, +for ever!" + +"Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to +take the candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will +find it behind the clerk's partition in the corner yonder." + +She merely throws a laugh over her shoulder and stands her ground +with folded arms. + +"You will not, eh?" + +"No, I will not!" + +"So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress, +this is the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys +of prisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction +(where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very +strong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of +your spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one +of those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you +think?" + +"I think," mademoiselle replies without any action and in a clear, +obliging voice, "that you are a miserable wretch." + +"Probably," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose. +"But I don't ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of +the prison." + +"Nothing. What does it matter to me?" + +"Why, it matters this much, mistress," says the lawyer, +deliberately putting away his handkerchief and adjusting his frill; +"the law is so despotic here that it interferes to prevent any of +our good English citizens from being troubled, even by a lady's +visits against his desire. And on his complaining that he is so +troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in +prison under hard discipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress." +Illustrating with the cellar-key. + +"Truly?" returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. "That is +droll! But--my faith! --still what does it matter to me?" + +"My fair friend," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "make another visit here, +or at Mr. Snagsby's, and you shall learn." + +"In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?" + +"Perhaps." + +It would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle's state of +agreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish +expansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would +make her do it. + +"In a word, mistress," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "I am sorry to be +unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here--or +there--again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry +is great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in +an ignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench." + +"I will prove you," whispers mademoiselle, stretching out her hand, +"I will try if you dare to do it!" + +"And if," pursues the lawyer without minding her, "I place you in +that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some +time before you find yourself at liberty again." + +"I will prove you," repeats mademoiselle in her former whisper. + +"And now," proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, "you had +better go. Think twice before you come here again." + +"Think you," she answers, "twice two hundred times!" + +"You were dismissed by your lady, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn +observes, following her out upon the staircase, "as the most +implacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and +take warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and +what I threaten, I will do, mistress." + +She goes down without answering or looking behind her. When she is +gone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered +bottle, devotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents, +now and then, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching +sight of the pertinacious Roman pointing from the ceiling. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +Esther's Narrative + + +It matters little now how much I thought of my living mother who +had told me evermore to consider her dead. I could not venture to +approach her or to communicate with her in writing, for my sense of +the peril in which her life was passed was only to be equalled by +my fears of increasing it. Knowing that my mere existence as a +living creature was an unforeseen danger in her way, I could not +always conquer that terror of myself which had seized me when I +first knew the secret. At no time did I dare to utter her name. I +felt as if I did not even dare to hear it. If the conversation +anywhere, when I was present, took that direction, as it sometimes +naturally did, I tried not to hear: I mentally counted, repeated +something that I knew, or went out of the room. I am conscious now +that I often did these things when there can have been no danger of +her being spoken of, but I did them in the dread I had of hearing +anything that might lead to her betrayal, and to her betrayal +through me. + +It matters little now how often I recalled the tones of my mother's +voice, wondered whether I should ever hear it again as I so longed +to do, and thought how strange and desolate it was that it should +be so new to me. It matters little that I watched for every public +mention of my mother's name; that I passed and repassed the door of +her house in town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; that I once +sat in the theatre when my mother was there and saw me, and when we +were so wide asunder before the great company of all degrees that +any link or confidence between us seemed a dream. It is all, all +over. My lot has been so blest that I can relate little of myself +which is not a story of goodness and generosity in others. I may +well pass that little and go on. + +When we were settled at home again, Ada and I had many +conversations with my guardian of which Richard was the theme. My +dear girl was deeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so +much wrong, but she was so faithful to Richard that she could not +bear to blame him even for that. My guardian was assured of it, +and never coupled his name with a word of reproof. "Rick is +mistaken, my dear," he would say to her. "Well, well! We have all +been mistaken over and over again. We must trust to you and time +to set him right." + +We knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he did not trust to +time until he had often tried to open Richard's eyes. That he had +written to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle +and persuasive art his kindness could devise. Our poor devoted +Richard was deaf and blind to all. If he were wrong, he would make +amends when the Chancery suit was over. If he were groping in the +dark, he could not do better than do his utmost to clear away those +clouds in which so much was confused and obscured. Suspicion and +misunderstanding were the fault of the suit? Then let him work the +suit out and come through it to his right mind. This was his +unvarying reply. Jarndyce and Jarndyce had obtained such +possession of his whole nature that it was impossible to place any +consideration before him which he did not, with a distorted kind of +reason, make a new argument in favour of his doing what he did. +"So that it is even more mischievous," said my guardian once to me, +"to remonstrate with the poor dear fellow than to leave him alone." + +I took one of these opportunities of mentioning my doubts of Mr. +Skimpole as a good adviser for Richard. + +"Adviser!" returned my guardian, laughing, "My dear, who would +advise with Skimpole?" + +"Encourager would perhaps have been a better word," said I. + +"Encourager!" returned my guardian again. "Who could be encouraged +by Skimpole?" + +"Not Richard?" I asked. + +"No," he replied. "Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer +creature is a relief to him and an amusement. But as to advising +or encouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or +anything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as +Skimpole." + +"Pray, cousin John," said Ada, who had just joined us and now +looked over my shoulder, "what made him such a child?" + +"What made him such a child?" inquired my guardian, rubbing his +head, a little at a loss. + +"Yes, cousin John." + +"Why," he slowly replied, roughening his head more and more, "he is +all sentiment, and--and susceptibility, and--and sensibility, and-- +and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, +somehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his +youth attached too much importance to them and too little to any +training that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he +became what he is. Hey?" said my guardian, stopping short and +looking at us hopefully. "What do you think, you two?" + +Ada, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an +expense to Richard. + +"So it is, so it is," returned my guardian hurriedly. "That must +not be. We must arrange that. I must prevent it. That will never +do." + +And I said I thought it was to be regretted that he had ever +introduced Richard to Mr. Vholes for a present of five pounds. + +"Did he?" said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his +face. "But there you have the man. There you have the man! There +is nothing mercenary in that with him. He has no idea of the value +of money. He introduces Rick, and then he is good friends with Mr. +Vholes and borrows five pounds of him. He means nothing by it and +thinks nothing of it. He told you himself, I'll be bound, my +dear?" + +"Oh, yes!" said I. + +"Exactly!" cried my guardian, quite triumphant. "There you have +the man! If he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any +harm in it, he wouldn't tell it. He tells it as he does it in mere +simplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you'll +understand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and +caution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, +an infant!" + +In pursuance of this plan, we went into London on an early day and +presented ourselves at Mr. Skimpole's door. + +He lived in a place called the Polygon, in Somers Town, where there +were at that time a number of poor Spanish refugees walking about +in cloaks, smoking little paper cigars. Whether he was a better +tenant than one might have supposed, in consequence of his friend +Somebody always paying his rent at last, or whether his inaptitude +for business rendered it particularly difficult to turn him out, I +don't know; but he had occupied the same house some years. It was +in a state of dilapidation quite equal to our expectation. Two or +three of the area railings were gone, the water-butt was broken, +the knocker was loose, the bell-handle had been pulled off a long +time to judge from the rusty state of the wire, and dirty +footprints on the steps were the only signs of its being inhabited. + +A slatternly full-blown girl who seemed to be bursting out at the +rents in her gown and the cracks in her shoes like an over-ripe +berry answered our knock by opening the door a very little way and +stopping up the gap with her figure. As she knew Mr. Jarndyce +(indeed Ada and I both thought that she evidently associated him +with the receipt of her wages), she immediately relented and +allowed us to pass in. The lock of the door being in a disabled +condition, she then applied herself to securing it with the chain, +which was not in good action either, and said would we go upstairs? + +We went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other +furniture than the dirty footprints. Mr. Jarndyce without further +ceremony entered a room there, and we followed. It was dingy +enough and not at all clean, but furnished with an odd kind of +shabby luxury, with a large footstool, a sofa, and plenty of +cushions, an easy-chair, and plenty of pillows, a piano, books, +drawing materials, music, newspapers, and a few sketches and +pictures. A broken pane of glass in one of the dirty windows was +papered and wafered over, but there was a little plate of hothouse +nectarines on the table, and there was another of grapes, and +another of sponge-cakes, and there was a bottle of light wine. Mr. +Skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in a dressing-gown, +drinking some fragrant coffee from an old china cup--it was then +about mid-day--and looking at a collection of wallflowers in the +balcony. + +He was not in the least disconcerted by our appearance, but rose +and received us in his usual airy manner. + +"Here I am, you see!" he said when we were seated, not without some +little difficulty, the greater part of the chairs being broken. +"Here I am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of +beef and mutton for breakfast; I don't. Give me my peach, my cup +of coffee, and my claret; I am content. I don't want them for +themselves, but they remind me of the sun. There's nothing solar +about legs of beef and mutton. Mere animal satisfaction!" + +"This is our friend's consulting-room (or would be, if he ever +prescribed), his sanctum, his studio," said my guardian to us. + +"Yes," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his bright face about, "this is +the bird's cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They +pluck his feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, +he sings!" + +He handed us the grapes, repeating in his radiant way, "He sings! +Not an ambitious note, but still he sings." + +"These are very fine," said my guardian. "A present?" + +"No," he answered. "No! Some amiable gardener sells them. His man +wanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he +should wait for the money. 'Really, my friend,' I said, 'I think +not--if your time is of any value to you.' I suppose it was, for +he went away." + +My guardian looked at us with a smile, as though he asked us, "Is +it possible to be worldly with this baby?" + +"This is a day," said Mr. Skimpole, gaily taking a little claret in +a tumbler, "that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it +Saint Clare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I +have a blue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a +Sentiment daughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see +them all. They'll be enchanted." + +He was going to summon them when my guardian interposed and asked +him to pause a moment, as he wished to say a word to him first. +"My dear Jarndyce," he cheerfully replied, going back to his sofa, +"as many moments as you please. Time is no object here. We never +know what o'clock it is, and we never care. Not the way to get on +in life, you'll tell me? Certainly. But we DON'T get on in life. +We don't pretend to do it." + +My guardian looked at us again, plainly saying, "You hear him?" + +"Now, Harold," he began, "the word I have to say relates to Rick." + +"The dearest friend I have!" returned Mr. Skimpole cordially. "I +suppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms +with you. But he is, I can't help it; he is full of youthful +poetry, and I love him. If you don't like it, I can't help it. I +love him." + +The engaging frankness with which he made this declaration really +had a disinterested appearance and captivated my guardian, if not, +for the moment, Ada too. + +"You are welcome to love him as much as you like," returned Mr. +Jarndyce, "but we must save his pocket, Harold." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole. "His pocket? Now you are coming to what +I don't understand." Taking a little more claret and dipping one +of the cakes in it, he shook his head and smiled at Ada and me with +an ingenuous foreboding that he never could be made to understand. + +"If you go with him here or there," said my guardian plainly, "you +must not let him pay for both." + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, his genial face +irradiated by the comicality of this idea, "what am I to do? If he +takes me anywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any +money. If I had any money, I don't know anything about it. +Suppose I say to a man, how much? Suppose the man says to me seven +and sixpence? I know nothing about seven and sixpence. It is +impossible for me to pursue the subject with any consideration for +the man. I don't go about asking busy people what seven and +sixpence is in Moorish--which I don't understand. Why should I go +about asking them what seven and sixpence is in Money--which I +don't understand?" + +"Well," said my guardian, by no means displeased with this artless +reply, "if you come to any kind of journeying with Rick, you must +borrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that +circumstance), and leave the calculation to him." + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "I will do anything to +give you pleasure, but it seems an idle form--a superstition. +Besides, I give you my word, Miss Clare and my dear Miss Summerson, +I thought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only +to make over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, +or a bill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a +shower of money." + +"Indeed it is not so, sir," said Ada. "He is poor." + +"No, really?" returned Mr. Skimpole with his bright smile. "You +surprise me. + +"And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed," said my +guardian, laying his hand emphatically on the sleeve of Mr. +Skimpole's dressing-gown, "be you very careful not to encourage him +in that reliance, Harold." + +"My dear good friend," returned Mr. Skimpole, "and my dear Miss +Siunmerson, and my dear Miss Clare, how can I do that? It's +business, and I don't know business. It is he who encourages me. +He emerges from great feats of business, presents the brightest +prospects before me as their result, and calls upon me to admire +them. I do admire them--as bright prospects. But I know no more +about them, and I tell him so." + +The helpless kind of candour with which he presented this before +us, the light-hearted manner in which he was amused by his +innocence, the fantastic way in which he took himself under his own +protection and argued about that curious person, combined with the +delightful ease of everything he said exactly to make out my +guardian's case. The more I saw of him, the more unlikely it +seemed to me, when he was present, that he could design, conceal, +or influence anything; and yet the less likely that appeared when +he was not present, and the less agreeable it was to think of his +having anything to do with any one for whom I cared. + +Hearing that his examination (as he called it) was now over, Mr. +Skimpole left the room with a radiant face to fetch his daughters +(his sons had run away at various times), leaving my guardian quite +delighted by the manner in which he had vindicated his childish +character. He soon came back, bringing with him the three young +ladies and Mrs. Skimpole, who had once been a beauty but was now a +delicate high-nosed invalid suffering under a complication of +disorders. + +"This," said Mr. Skimpole, "is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa--plays +and sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment +daughter, Laura--plays a little but don't sing. This is my Comedy +daughter, Kitty--sings a little but don't play. We all draw a +little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time +or money." + +Mrs. Skimpole sighed, I thought, as if she would have been glad to +strike out this item in the family attainments. I also thought +that she rather impressed her sigh upon my guardian and that she +took every opportunity of throwing in another. + +"It is pleasant," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his sprightly eyes +from one to the other of us, "and it is whimsically interesting to +trace peculiarities in families. In this family we are all +children, and I am the youngest." + +The daughters, who appeared to be very fond of him, were amused by +this droll fact, particularly the Comedy daughter. + +"My dears, it is true," said Mr. Skimpole, "is it not? So it is, +and so it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, 'it is our +nature to.' Now, here is Miss Summerson with a fine administrative +capacity and a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will +sound very strange in Miss Summerson's ears, I dare say, that we +know nothing about chops in this house. But we don't, not the +least. We can't cook anything whatever. A needle and thread we +don't know how to use. We admire the people who possess the +practical wisdom we want, but we don't quarrel with them. Then why +should they quarrel with us? Live and let live, we say to them. +Live upon your practical wisdom, and let us live upon you!" + +He laughed, but as usual seemed quite candid and really to mean +what he said. + +"We have sympathy, my roses," said Mr. Skimpole, "sympathy for +everything. Have we not?" + +"Oh, yes, papa!" cried the three daughters. + +"In fact, that is our family department," said Mr. Skimpole, "in +this hurly-burly of life. We are capable of looking on and of +being interested, and we DO look on, and we ARE interested. What +more can we do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three +years. Now I dare say her marrying another child, and having two +more, was all wrong in point of political economy, but it was very +agreeable. We had our little festivities on those occasions and +exchanged social ideas. She brought her young husband home one +day, and they and their young fledglings have their nest upstairs. +I dare say at some time or other Sentiment and Comedy will bring +THEIR husbands home and have THEIR nests upstairs too. So we get +on, we don't know how, but somehow." + +She looked very young indeed to be the mother of two children, and +I could not help pitying both her and them. It was evident that +the three daughters had grown up as they could and had had just as +little haphazard instruction as qualified them to be their father's +playthings in his idlest hours. His pictorial tastes were +consulted, I observed, in their respective styles of wearing their +hair, the Beauty daughter being in the classic manner, the +Sentiment daughter luxuriant and flowing, and the Comedy daughter +in the arch style, with a good deal of sprightly forehead, and +vivacious little curls dotted about the corners of her eyes. They +were dressed to correspond, though in a most untidy and negligent +way. + +Ada and I conversed with these young ladies and found them +wonderfully like their father. In the meanwhile Mr. Jarndyce (who +had been rubbing his head to a great extent, and hinted at a change +in the wind) talked with Mrs. Skimpole in a corner, where we could +not help hearing the chink of money. Mr. Skimpole had previously +volunteered to go home with us and had withdrawn to dress himself +for the purpose. + +"My roses," he said when he came back, "take care of mama. She is +poorly to-day. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I +shall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been +tried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home." + +"That bad man!" said the Comedy daughter. + +"At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his +wallflowers, looking at the blue sky," Laura complained. + +"And when the smell of hay was in the air!" said Arethusa. + +"It showed a want of poetry in the man," Mr. Skimpole assented, but +with perfect good humour. "It was coarse. There was an absence of +the finer touches of humanity in it! My daughters have taken great +offence," he explained to us, "at an honest man--" + +"Not honest, papa. Impossible!" they all three protested. + +"At a rough kind of fellow--a sort of human hedgehog rolled up," +said Mr. Skimpole, "who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from +whom we borrowed a couple of armchairs. We wanted a couple of arm- +chairs, and we hadn't got them, and therefore of course we looked +to a man who HAD got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person +lent them, and we wore them out. When they were worn out, he +wanted them back. He had them back. He was contented, you will +say. Not at all. He objected to their being worn. I reasoned +with him, and pointed out his mistake. I said, 'Can you, at your +time of life, be so headstrong, my friend, as to persist that an +arm-chair is a thing to put upon a shelf and look at? That it is +an object to contemplate, to survey from a distance, to consider +from a point of sight? Don't you KNOW that these arm-chairs were +borrowed to be sat upon?' He was unreasonable and unpersuadable +and used intemperate language. Being as patient as I am at this +minute, I addressed another appeal to him. I said, 'Now, my good +man, however our business capacities may vary, we are all children +of one great mother, Nature. On this blooming summer morning here +you see me' (I was on the sofa) 'with flowers before me, fruit upon +the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air full of fragrance, +contemplating Nature. I entreat you, by our common brotherhood, +not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime, the absurd +figure of an angry baker!' But he did," said Mr. Skimpole, raising +his laughing eyes in playful astonishinent; "he did interpose that +ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. And therefore I +am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend +Jarndyce." + +It seemed to escape his consideration that Mrs. Skimpole and the +daughters remained behind to encounter the baker, but this was so +old a story to all of them that it had become a matter of course. +He took leave of his family with a tenderness as airy and graceful +as any other aspect in which he showed himself and rode away with +us in perfect harmony of mind. We had an opportunity of seeing +through some open doors, as we went downstairs, that his own +apartment was a palace to the rest of the house. + +I could have no anticipation, and I had none, that something very +startling to me at the moment, and ever memorable to me in what +ensued from it, was to happen before this day was out. Our guest +was in such spirits on the way home that I could do nothing but +listen to him and wonder at him; nor was I alone in this, for Ada +yielded to the same fascination. As to my guardian, the wind, +which had threatened to become fixed in the east when we left +Somers Town, veered completely round before we were a couple of +miles from it. + +Whether of questionable childishness or not in any other matters, +Mr. Skimpole had a child's enjoyment of change and bright weather. +In no way wearied by his sallies on the road, he was in the +drawing-room before any of us; and I heard him at the piano while I +was yet looking after my housekeeping, singing refrains of +barcaroles and drinking songs, Italian and German, by the score. + +We were all assembled shortly before dinner, and he was still at +the piano idly picking out in his luxurious way little strains of +music, and talking between whiles of finishing some sketches of the +ruined old Verulam wall to-morrow, which he had begun a year or two +ago and had got tired of, when a card was brought in and my +guardian read aloud in a surprised voice, "Sir Leicester Dedlock!" + +The visitor was in the room while it was yet turning round with me +and before I had the power to stir. If I had had it, I should have +hurried away. I had not even the presence of mind, in my +giddiness, to retire to Ada in the window, or to see the window, or +to know where it was. I heard my name and found that my guardian +was presenting me before I could move to a chair. + +"Pray be seated, Sir Leicester." + +"Mr. Jarndyce," said Sir Leicester in reply as he bowed and seated +himself, "I do myself the honour of calling here--" + +"You do ME the honour, Sir Leicester." + +"Thank you--of calling here on my road from Lincolnshire to express +my regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that I may +have against a gentleman who--who is known to you and has been your +host, and to whom therefore I will make no farther reference, +should have prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and +charge, from seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a +polite and refined taste at my house, Chesney Wold." + +"You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of +those ladies (who are present) and for myself, I thank you very +much." + +"It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the +reasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion-- +it is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me +the honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to +believe that you would not have been received by my local +establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, +which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and +gentlemen who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to +observe, sir, that the fact is the reverse." + +My guardian delicately dismissed this remark without making any +verbal answer. + +"It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce," Sir Leicester weightily +proceeded. "I assure you, sir, it has given--me--pain--to learn +from the housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was in +your company in that part of the county, and who would appear to +possess a cultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred +by some such cause from examining the family pictures with that +leisure, that attention, that care, which he might have desired to +bestow upon them and which some of them might possibly have +repaid." Here he produced a card and read, with much gravity and a +little trouble, through his eye-glass, "Mr. Hirrold--Herald-- +Harold--Skampling--Skumpling--I beg your pardon--Skimpole." + +"This is Mr. Harold Skimpole," said my guardian, evidently +surprised. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Sir Leicester, "I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole and +to have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope, +sir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, +you will be under no similar sense of restraint." + +"You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I +shall certainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another +visit to your beautiful house. The owners of such places as +Chesney Wold," said Mr. Skimpole with his usual happy and easy air, +"are public benefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number +of delightful objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor +men; and not to reap all the admiration and pleasure that they +yield is to be ungrateful to our benefactors." + +Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this sentiment highly. "An +artist, sir?" + +"No," returned Mr. Skimpole. "A perfectly idle man. A mere +amateur." + +Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this even more. He hoped he +might have the good fortune to be at Chesney Wold when Mr. Skimpole +next came down into Lincolnshire. Mr. Skimpole professed himself +much flattered and honoured. + +"Mr. Skimpole mentioned," pursued Sir Leicester, addressing himself +again to my guardian, "mentioned to the house-keeper, who, as he +may have observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family--" + +("That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the +occasion of my going down to visit Miss Summerson and Miss Clare," +Mr. Skimpole airily explained to us.) + +"--That the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was +Mr. Jarndyce." Sir Leicester bowed to the bearer of that name. +"And hence I became aware of the circumstance for which I have +professed my regret. That this should have occurred to any +gentleman, Mr. Jarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known +to Lady Dedlock, and indeed claiming some distant connexion with +her, and for whom (as I learn from my Lady herself) she entertains +a high respect, does, I assure you, give--me--pain." + +"Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester," returned my guardian. +"I am very sensible, as I am sure we all are, of your +consideration. Indeed the mistake was mine, and I ought to +apologize for it." + +I had not once looked up. I had not seen the visitor and had not +even appeared to myself to hear the conversation. It surprises me +to find that I can recall it, for it seemed to make no impression +on me as it passed. I heard them speaking, but my mind was so +confused and my instinctive avoidance of this gentleman made his +presence so distressing to me that I thought I understood nothing, +through the rushing in my head and the beating of my heart. + +"I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock," said Sir Leicester, +rising, "and my Lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of +exchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on the +occasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the +vicinity. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to +these ladies, the assurance I have already tendered to Mr. +Skimpole. Circumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it +would afford me any gratification to hear that Mr. Boythorn had +favoured my house with his presence, but those circumstances are +confined to that gentleman himself and do not extend beyond him." + +"You know my old opinion of him," said Mr. Skimpole, lightly +appealing to us. "An amiable bull who is detenined to make every +colour scarlet!" + +Sir Leicester Dedlock coughed as if he could not possibly hear +another word in reference to such an individual and took his leave +with great ceremony and politeness. I got to my own room with all +possible speed and remained there until I had recovered my self- +command. It had been very much disturbed, but I was thankful to +find when I went downstairs again that they only rallied me for +having been shy and mute before the great Lincolnshire baronet. + +By that time I had made up my mind that the period was come when I +must tell my guardian what I knew. The possibility of my being +brought into contact with my mother, of my being taken to her +house, even of Mr. Skimpole's, however distantly associated with +me, receiving kindnesses and obligations from her husband, was so +painful that I felt I could no longer guide myself without his +assistance. + +When we had retired for the night, and Ada and I had had our usual +talk in our pretty room, I went out at my door again and sought my +guardian among his books. I knew he always read at that hour, and +as I drew near I saw the light shining out into the passage from +his reading-lamp. + +"May I come in, guardian?" + +"Surely, little woman. What's the matter?" + +"Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet +time of saying a word to you about myself." + +He put a chair for me, shut his book, and put it by, and turned his +kind attentive face towards me. I could not help observing that it +wore that curious expression I had observed in it once before--on +that night when he had said that he was in no trouble which I could +readily understand. + +"What concerns you, my dear Esther," said he, "concerns us all. +You cannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear." + +"I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and +support. Oh! You don't know how much need I have to-night." + +He looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little +alarmed. + +"Or how anxious I have been to speak to you," said I, "ever since +the visitor was here to-day." + +"The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?" + +"Yes." + +He folded his arms and sat looking at me with an air of the +profoundest astonishment, awaiting what I should say next. I did +not know how to prepare him. + +"Why, Esther," said he, breaking into a smile, "our visitor and you +are the two last persons on earth I should have thought of +connecting together!" + +"Oh, yes, guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago." + +The smile passed from his face, and he became graver than before. +He crossed to the door to see that it was shut (but I had seen to +that) and resumed his seat before me. + +"Guardian," said I, "do you remensher, when we were overtaken by +the thunder-storm, Lady Dedlock's speaking to you of her sister?" + +"Of course. Of course I do." + +"And reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone +their several ways?" + +"Of course." + +"Why did they separate, guardian?" + +His face quite altered as he looked at me. "My child, what +questions are these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did +know, I believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two +handsome and proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you +had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as +resolute and haughty as she." + +"Oh, guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!" + +"Seen her?" + +He paused a little, biting his lip. "Then, Esther, when you spoke +to me long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but +married once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and +that that time had had its influence on his later life--did you +know it all, and know who the lady was?" + +"No, guardian," I returned, fearful of the light that dimly broke +upon me. "Nor do I know yet." + +"Lady Dedlock's sister." + +"And why," I could scarcely ask him, "why, guardian, pray tell me +why were THEY parted?" + +"It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. +He afterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some +injury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of +quarrel with her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she +wrote him that from the date of that letter she died to him--as in +literal truth she did--and that the resolution was exacted from her +by her knowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of +honour, which were both her nature too. In consideration for those +master points in him, and even in consideration for them in +herself, she made the sacrifice, she said, and would live in it and +die in it. She did both, I fear; certainly he never saw her, never +heard of her from that hour. Nor did any one." + +"Oh, guardian, what have I done!" I cried, giving way to my grief; +"what sorrow have I innocently caused!" + +"You caused, Esther?" + +"Yes, guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister +is my first remembrance." + +"No, no!" he cried, starting. + +"Yes, guardian, yes! And HER sister is my mother!" + +I would have told him all my mother's letter, but he would not hear +it then. He spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, and he put so +plainly before me all I had myself imperfectly thought and hoped in +my better state of mind, that, penetrated as I had been with +fervent gratitude towards him through so many years, I believed I +had never loved him so dearly, never thanked him in my heart so +fully, as I did that night. And when he had taken me to my room +and kissed me at the door, and when at last I lay down to sleep, my +thought was how could I ever be busy enough, how could I ever be +good enough, how in my little way could I ever hope to be forgetful +enough of myself, devoted enough to him, and useful enough to +others, to show him how I blessed and honoured him. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +The Letter and the Answer + + +My guardian called me into his room next morning, and then I told +him what had been left untold on the previous night. There was +nothing to be done, he said, but to keep the secret and to avoid +another such encounter as that of yesterday. He understood my +feeling and entirely shared it. He charged himself even with +restraining Mr. Skimpole from improving his opportunity. One +person whom he need not name to me, it was not now possible for him +to advise or help. He wished it were, but no such thing could be. +If her mistrust of the lawyer whom she had mentioned were well- +founded, which he scarcely doubted, he dreaded discovery. He knew +something of him, both by sight and by reputation, and it was +certain that he was a dangerous man. Whatever happened, he +repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and kindness, I +was as innocent of as himself and as unable to influence. + +"Nor do I understand," said he, "that any doubts tend towards you, +my dear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion." + +"With the lawyer," I returned. "But two other persons have come +into my mind since I have been anxious. Then I told him all about +Mr. Guppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I +little understood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last +interview I expressed perfect confidence. + +"Well," said my guardian. "Then we may dismiss him for the +present. Who is the other?" + +I called to his recollection the French maid and the eager offer of +herself she had made to me. + +"Ha!" he returned thoughtfully. "That is a more alarming person +than the clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a +new service. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and +it was natural that you should come into her head. She merely +proposed herself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more." + +"Her manner was strange," said I. + +"Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and +showed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her +death-bed," said my guardian. "It would be useless self-distress +and torment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are +very few harmless circumstances that would not seem full of +perilous meaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You +can be nothing better than yourself; be that, through this +knowledge, as you were before you had it. It is the best you can +do for everybody's sake. I, sharing the secret with you--" + +"And lightening it, guardian, so much," said I. + +"--will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can +observe it from my distance. And if the time should come when I +can stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it +is better not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her +dear daughter's sake." + +I thanked him with my whole heart. What could I ever do but thank +him! I was going out at the door when he asked me to stay a +moment. Quickly turning round, I saw that same expression on his +face again; and all at once, I don't know how, it flashed upon me +as a new and far-off possibility that I understood it. + +"My dear Esther," said my guardian, "I have long had something in +my thoughts that I have wished to say to you." + +"Indeed?" + +"I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I +should wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately +considered. Would you object to my writing it?" + +"Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for ME +to read?" + +"Then see, my love," said he with his cheery smile, "am I at this +moment quite as plain and easy--do I seem as open, as honest and +old-fashioned--as I am at any time?" + +I answered in all earnestness, "Quite." With the strictest truth, +for his momentary hesitation was gone (it had not lasted a minute), +and his fine, sensible, cordial, sterling manner was restored. + +"Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I +said, had any reservation at all, no matter what?" said he with his +bright clear eyes on mine. + +I answered, most assuredly he did not. + +"Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess, +Esther?" + +"Most thoroughly," said I with my whole heart. + +"My dear girl," returned my guardian, "give me your hand." + +He took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and looking +down into my face with the same genuine freshness and faithfulness +of manner--the old protecting manner which had made that house my +home in a moment--said, "You have wrought changes in me, little +woman, since the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you +have done me a world of good since that time." + +"Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!" + +"But," said he, "that is not to be remembered now." + +"It never can be forgotten." + +"Yes, Esther," said he with a gentle seriousness, "it is to be +forgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. You are only to +remember now that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you +feel quite assured of that, my dear?" + +"I can, and I do," I said. + +"That's much," he answered. "That's everything. But I must not +take that at a word. I will not write this something in my +thoughts until you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing +can change me as you know me. If you doubt that in the least +degree, I will never write it. If you are sure of that, on good +consideration, send Charley to me this night week--'for the +letter.' But if you are not quite certain, never send. Mind, I +trust to your truth, in this thing as in everything. If you are +not quite certain on that one point, never send!" + +"Guardian," said I, "I am already certain, I can no more be changed +in that conviction than you can be changed towards me. I shall +send Charley for the letter." + +He shook my hand and said no more. Nor was any more said in +reference to this conversation, either by him or me, through the +whole week. When the appointed night came, I said to Charley as +soon as I was alone, "Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce's door, Charley, +and say you have come from me--'for the letter.'" Charley went up +the stairs, and down the stairs, and along the passages--the zig- +zag way about the old-fashioned house seemed very long in my +listening ears that night--and so came back, along the passages, +and down the stairs, and up the stairs, and brought the letter. +"Lay it on the table, Charley," said I. So Charley laid it on the +table and went to bed, and I sat looking at it without taking it +up, thinking of many things. + +I began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those +timid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her +resolute face so cold and set, and when I was more solitary with +Mrs. Rachael than if I had had no one in the world to speak to or +to look at. I passed to the altered days when I was so blest as to +find friends in all around me, and to be beloved. I came to the +time when I first saw my dear girl and was received into that +sisterly affection which was the grace and beauty of my life. I +recalled the first bright gleam of welcome which had shone out of +those very windows upon our expectant faces on that cold bright +night, and which had never paled. I lived my happy life there over +again, I went through my illness and recovery, I thought of myself +so altered and of those around me so unchanged; and all this +happiness shone like a light from one central figure, represented +before me by the letter on the table. + +I opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, +and in the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it +showed for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to +read much at a time. But I read it through three times before I +laid it down. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, +and I did. It asked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House. + +It was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was +written just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his +face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind +protecting manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places +were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the +feelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he +past the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I +was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing +all this so well as to set it in full before me for mature +deliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a +marriage and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation +could enhance the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my +decision was, he was certain it would be right. But he had +considered this step anew since our late confidence and had decided +on taking it, if it only served to show me through one poor +instance that the whole world would readily unite to falsify the +stern prediction of my childhood. I was the last to know what +happiness I could bestow upon him, but of that he said no more, for +I was always to remember that I owed him nothing and that he was my +debtor, and for very much. He had often thought of our future, and +foreseeing that the time must come, and fearing that it might come +soon, when Ada (now very nearly of age) would leave us, and when +our present mode of life must be broken up, had become accustomed +to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it. If I felt that I +could ever give him the best right he could have to be my +protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly become the +dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter +chances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind +myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even +then I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or +in the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in +his old manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to +his bright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be +the same, he knew. + +This was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a +justice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian +impartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in +his integrity he stated the full case. + +But he did not hint to me that when I had been better looking he +had had this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from +it. That when my old face was gone from me, and I had no +attractions, he could love me just as well as in my fairer days. +That the discovery of my birth gave him no shock. That his +generosity rose above my disfigurement and my inheritance of shame. +That the more I stood in need of such fidelity, the more firmly I +might trust in him to the last. + +But I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of +the benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had +but one thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to +thank him poorly, and what had I wished for the other night but +some new means of thanking him? + +Still I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after +reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect-- +for it was strange though I had expected the contents--but as if +something for which there was no name or distinct idea were +indefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very +hopeful; but I cried very much. + +By and by I went to my old glass. My eyes were red and swollen, +and I said, "Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you!" I am afraid the +face in the glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but I +held up my finger at it, and it stopped. + +"That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my +dear, when you showed me such a change!" said I, beginning to let +down my hair. "When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be +as cheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so +let us begin for once and for all." + +I went on with my hair now, quite comfortably. I sobbed a little +still, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was +crying then. + +"And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your +best friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a +great deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of +men." + +I thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, +how should I have felt, and what should I have done! That would +have been a change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and +blank form that I rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss +before I laid them down in their basket again. + +Then I went on to think, as I dressed my hair before the glass, how +often had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my +illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why +I should be busy, busy, busy--useful, amiable, serviceable, in all +honest, unpretending ways. This was a good time, to be sure, to +sit down morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me +at first (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not) +that I was one day to be the mistress of Bleak House, why should it +seem strange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had +not. "Don't you remember, my plain dear," I asked myself, looking +at the glass, "what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were +there about your marrying--" + +Perhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. The dried remains +of the flowers. It would be better not to keep them now. They had +only been preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone, +but it would be better not to keep them now. + +They were in a book, and it happened to be in the next room--our +sitting-room, dividing Ada's chamber from mine. I took a candle +and went softly in to fetch it from its shelf. After I had it in +my hand, I saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying +asleep, and I stole in to kiss her. + +It was weak in me, I know, and I could have no reason for crying; +but I dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another, and another. +Weaker than that, I took the withered flowers out and put them for +a moment to her lips. I thought about her love for Richard, +though, indeed, the flowers had nothing to do with that. Then I +took them into my own room and burned them at the candle, and they +were dust in an instant. + +On entering the breakfast-room next morning, I found my guardian +just as usual, quite as frank, as open, and free. There being not +the least constraint in his manner, there was none (or I think +there was none) in mine. I was with him several times in the +course of the morning, in and out, when there was no one there, and +I thought it not unlikely that he might speak to me about the +letter, but he did not say a word. + +So, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week, +over which time Mr. Skimpole prolonged his stay. I expected, every +day, that my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he +never did. + +I thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I +tried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not +write an answer that at all began like a good answer, so I thought +each night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more +days, and he never said a word. + +At last, Mr. Skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon +going out for a ride; and I, being dressed before Ada and going +down, came upon my guardian, with his back towards me, standing at +the drawing-room window looking out. + +He turned on my coming in and said, smiling, "Aye, it's you, little +woman, is it?" and looked out again. + +I had made up my mind to speak to him now. In short, I had come +down on purpose. "Guardian," I said, rather hesitating and +trembling, "when would you like to have the answer to the letter +Charley came for?" + +"When it's ready, my dear," he replied. + +"I think it is ready," said I. + +"Is Charley to bring it?" he asked pleasantly. + +"No. I have brought it myself, guardian," I returned. + +I put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was +this the mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no +difference presently, and we all went out together, and I said +nothing to my precious pet about it. + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +In Trust + + +One morning when I had done jingling about with my baskets of keys, +as my beauty and I were walking round and round the garden I +happened to turn my eyes towards the house and saw a long thin +shadow going in which looked like Mr. Vholes. Ada had been telling +me only that morning of her hopes that Richard might exhaust his +ardour in the Chancery suit by being so very earnest in it; and +therefore, not to damp my dear girl's spirits, I said nothing about +Mr. Vholes's shadow. + +Presently came Charley, lightly winding among the bushes and +tripping along the paths, as rosy and pretty as one of Flora's +attendants instead of my maid, saying, "Oh, if you please, miss, +would you step and speak to Mr. Jarndyce!" + +It was one of Charley's peculiarities that whenever she was charged +with a message she always began to deliver it as soon as she +beheld, at any distance, the person for whom it was intended. +Therefore I saw Charley asking me in her usual form of words to +"step and speak" to Mr. Jarndyce long before I heard her. And when +I did hear her, she had said it so often that she was out of +breath. + +I told Ada I would make haste back and inquired of Charley as we +went in whether there was not a gentleman with Mr. Jarndyce. To +which Charley, whose grammar, I confess to my shame, never did any +credit to my educational powers, replied, "Yes, miss. Him as come +down in the country with Mr. Richard." + +A more complete contrast than my guardian and Mr. Vholes I suppose +there could not be. I found them looking at one another across a +table, the one so open and the other so close, the one so broad and +upright and the other so narrow and stooping, the one giving out +what he had to say in such a rich ringing voice and the other +keeping it in in such a cold-blooded, gasping, fish-like manner +that I thought I never had seen two people so unmatched. + +"You know Mr. Vholes, my dear," said my guardian. Not with the +greatest urbanity, I must say. + +Mr. Vholes rose, gloved and buttoned up as usual, and seated +himself again, just as he had seated himself beside Richard in the +gig. Not having Richard to look at, he looked straight before him. + +"Mr. Vholes," said my guardian, eyeing his black figure as if he +were a bird of ill omen, "has brought an ugly report of our most +unfortunate Rick." Laying a marked emphasis on "most unfortunate" +as if the words were rather descriptive of his connexion with Mr. +Vholes. + +I sat down between them; Mr. Vholes remained immovable, except that +he secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face +with his black glove. + +"And as Rick and you are happily good friends, I should like to +know," said my guardian, "what you think, my dear. Would you be so +good as to--as to speak up, Mr. Vholes?" + +Doing anything but that, Mr. Vholes observed, "I have been saying +that I have reason to know, Miss Summerson, as Mr. C.'s +professional adviser, that Mr. C.'s circumstances are at the +present moment in an embarrassed state. Not so much in point of +amount as owing to the peculiar and pressing nature of liabilities +Mr. C. has incurred and the means he has of liquidating or meeting +the same. I have staved off many little matters for Mr. C., but +there is a limit to staving off, and we have reached it. I have +made some advances out of pocket to accommodate these +unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to being repaid, for I do +not pretend to be a man of capital, and I have a father to support +in the Vale of Taunton, besides striving to realize some little +independence for three dear girls at home. My apprehension is, Mr. +C.'s circumstances being such, lest it should end in his obtaining +leave to part with his commission, which at all events is desirable +to be made known to his connexions." + +Mr. Vholes, who had looked at me while speaking, here emerged into +the silence he could hardly be said to have broken, so stifled was +his tone, and looked before him again. + +"Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource," said +my guardian to me. "Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He +would never accept of help from me now. To offer it or hint at it +would be to drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did." + +Mr. Vholes hereupon addressed me again. + +"What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the +difficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done, I do not say +that anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here +under the seal of confidence and mention it in order that +everything may be openly carried on and that it may not be said +afterwards that everything was not openly carried on. My wish is +that everything should be openly carried on. I desire to leave a +good name behind me. If I consulted merely my own interests with +Mr. C., I should not be here. So insurmountable, as you must well +know, would be his objections. This is not a professional +attendance. This can he charged to nobody. I have no interest in +it except as a member of society and a father--AND a son," said Mr. +Vholes, who had nearly forgotten that point. + +It appeared to us that Mr. Vholes said neither more nor less than +the truth in intimating that he sought to divide the +responsibility, such as it was, of knowing Richard's situation. I +could only suggest that I should go down to Deal, where Richard was +then stationed, and see him, and try if it were possible to avert +the worst. Without consulting Mr. Vholes on this point, I took my +guardian aside to propose it, while Mr. Vholes gauntly stalked to +the fire and warmed his funeral gloves. + +The fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my +guardian's part, but as I saw he had no other, and as I was only +too happy to go, I got his consent. We had then merely to dispose +of Mr. Vholes. + +"Well, sir," said Mr. Jarndyce, "Miss Summerson will communicate +with Mr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be +yet retrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your +journey, sir." + +"I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce," said Mr. Vholes, putting out his long +black sleeve to check the ringing of the bell, "not any. I thank +you, no, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but +a poor knife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid +food at this period of the day, I don't know what the consequences +might be. Everything having been openly carried on, sir, I will +now with your permission take my leave." + +"And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take +our leave, Mr. Vholes," returned my guardian bitterly, "of a cause +you know of." + +Mr. Vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it +had quite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant +perfume, made a short one-sided inclination of his head from the +neck and slowly shook it. + +"We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of +respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the +wheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to +think well of my professional brethren, one and all. You are +sensible of an obligation not to refer to me, miss, in +communicating with Mr. C.?" + +I said I would be careful not to do it. + +"Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir." +Mr. Vholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any +hand in it, on my fingers, and then on my guardian's fingers, and +took his long thin shadow away. I thought of it on the outside of +the coach, passing over all the sunny landscape between us and +London, chilling the seed in the ground as it glided along. + +Of course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why +I was going, and of course she was anxious and distressed. But she +was too true to Richard to say anything but words of pity and words +of excuse, and in a more loving spirit still--my dear devoted +girl!--she wrote him a long letter, of which I took charge. + +Charley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I +wanted none and would willingly have left her at home. We all went +to London that afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, +secured them. At our usual bed-time, Charley and I were rolling +away seaward with the Kentish letters. + +It was a night's journey in those coach times, but we had the mail +to ourselves and did not find the night very tedious. It passed +with me as I suppose it would with most people under such +circumstances. At one while my journey looked hopeful, and at +another hopeless. Now I thought I should do some good, and now I +wondered how I could ever have supposed so. Now it seemed one of +the most reasonable things in the world that I should have come, +and now one of the most unreasonable. In what state I should find +Richard, what I should say to him, and what he would say to me +occupied my mind by turns with these two states of feeling; and the +wheels seemed to play one tune (to which the burden of my +guardian's letter set itself) over and over again all night. + +At last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy +they were upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its +little irregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of +capstans, and great boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with +tackle and blocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with +grass and weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever +saw. The sea was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else +was moving but a few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted +round their bodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of +existence, they were spinning themselves into cordage. + +But when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat +down, comfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it +was too late to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more +cheerful. Our little room was like a ship's cabin, and that +delighted Charley very much. Then the fog began to rise like a +curtain, and numbers of ships that we had had no idea were near +appeared. I don't know how many sail the waiter told us were then +lying in the downs. Some of these vessels were of grand size--one +was a large Indiaman just come home; and when the sun shone through +the clouds, maktng silvery pools in the dark sea, the way in which +these ships brightened, and shadowed, and changed, amid a bustle of +boats pulling off from the shore to them and from them to the +shore, and a general life and motion in themselves and everything +around them, was most beautiful. + +The large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come +into the downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we +said how glad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. +Charley was curious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in +India, and the serpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such +information much faster than grammar, I told her what I knew on +those points. I told her, too, how people in such voyages were +sometimes wrecked and cast on rocks, where they were saved by the +intrepidity and humanity of one man. And Charley asking how that +could be, I told her how we knew at home of such a case. + +I had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it +seemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he +lived in barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was +feasible, but we went out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate +of the barrack-yard, we found everything very quiet at that time in +the morning, and I asked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse- +steps where he lived. He sent a man before to show me, who went up +some bare stairs, and knocked with his knuckles at a door, and left +us. + +"Now then!" cried Richard from within. So I left Charley in the +little passage, and going on to the half-open door, said, "Can I +come in, Richard? It's only Dame Durden." + +He was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin +cases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus strewn all about the +floor. He was only half dressed--in plain clothes, I observed, not +in uniform--and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as +his room. All this I saw after he had heartily welcomed me and I +was seated near him, for he started upon hearing my voice and +caught me in his arms in a moment. Dear Richard! He was ever the +same to me. Down to--ah, poor poor fellow!--to the end, he never +received me but with something of his old merry boyish manner. + +"Good heaven, my dear little woman," said he, "how do you come +here? Who could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? +Ada is well?" + +"Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!" + +"Ah!" he said, lenning back in his chair. "My poor cousin! I was +writing to you, Esther." + +So worn and haggard as he looked, even in the fullness of his +handsome youth, leaning back in his chair and crushing the closely +written sheet of paper in his hand! + +"Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to +read it after all?" I asked. + +"Oh, my dear," he returned with a hopeless gesture. "You may read +it in the whole room. It is all over here." + +I mildly entreated him not to be despondent. I told him that I had +heard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult +with him what could best be done. + +"Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you!" said he with +a melancholy smile. "I am away on leave this day--should have been +gone in another hour--and that is to smooth it over, for my selling +out. Well! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the +rest. I only want to have been in the church to have made the +round of all the professions." + +"Richard," I urged, "it is not so hopeless as that?" + +"Esther," he returned, "it is indeed. I am just so near disgrace +as that those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism +goes) would far rather be without me than with me. And they are +right. Apart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, I am not +fit even for this employment. I have no care, no mind, no heart, +no soul, but for one thing. Why, if this bubble hadn't broken +now," he said, tearing the letter he had written into fragments and +moodily casting them away, by driblets, "how could I have gone +abroad? I must have been ordered abroad, but how could I have +gone? How could I, with my experience of that thing, trust even +Vholes unless I was at his back!" + +I suppose he knew by my face what I was about to say, but he caught +the hand I had laid upon his arm and touched my own lips with it to +prevent me from going on. + +"No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid--must forbid. The first +is John Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, and +I tell you I can't help it now, and can't be sane. But it is no +such thing; it is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I +ever was prevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. It +would be wisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and +pains I have bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be +very agreeable, too, to some people; but I never will." + +He was in that mood in which I thought it best not to increase his +determination (if anything could increase it) by opposing him. I +took out Ada's letter and put it in his hand. + +"Am I to read it now?" he asked. + +As I told him yes, he laid it on the table, and resting his head +upon his hand, began. He had not read far when he rested his head +upon his two hands--to hide his face from me. In a little while he +rose as if the light were bad and went to the window. He finished +reading it there, with his back towards me, and after he had +finished and had folded it up, stood there for some minutes with +the letter in his hand. When he came back to his chair, I saw +tears in his eyes. + +"Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?" He spoke in a +softened voice and kissed the letter as he asked me. + +"Yes, Richard." + +"Offers me," he went on, tapping his foot upon the floor, "the +little inheritance she is certain of so soon--just as little and as +much as I have wasted--and begs and prays me to take it, set myself +right with it, and remain in the service." + +"I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart," said I. +"And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada's is a noble heart." + +"I am sure it is. I--I wish I was dead!" + +He went back to the window, and laying his arm across it, leaned +his head down on his arm. It greatly affected me to see him so, +but I hoped he might become more yielding, and I remained silent. +My experience was very limited; I was not at all prepared for his +rousing himself out of this emotion to a new sense of injury. + +"And this is the heart that the same John Jarndyce, who is not +otherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from +me," said he indignantly. "And the dear girl makes me this +generous offer from under the same John Jarndyce's roof, and with +the same John Jarndyce's gracious consent and connivance, I dare +say, as a new means of buying me off." + +"Richard!" I cried out, rising hastily. "I will not hear you say +such shameful words!" I was very angry with him indeed, for the +first time in my life, but it only lasted a moment. When I saw his +worn young face looking at me as if he were sorry, I put my hand on +his shoulder and said, "If you please, my dear Richard, do not +speak in such a tone to me. Consider!" + +He blamed himself exceedingly and told me in the most generous +manner that he had been very wrong and that he begged my pardon a +thousand times. At that I laughed, but trembled a little too, for +I was rather fluttered after being so fiery. + +"To accept this offer, my dear Esther," said he, sitting down +beside me and resuming our conversation, "--once more, pray, pray +forgive me; I am deeply grieved--to accept my dearest cousin's +offer is, I need not say, impossible. Besides, I have letters and +papers that I could show you which would convince you it is all +over here. I have done with the red coat, believe me. But it is +some satisfaction, in the midst of my troubles and perplexities, to +know that I am pressing Ada's interests in pressing my own. Vholes +has his shoulder to the wheel, and he cannot help urging it on as +much for her as for me, thank God!" + +His sanguine hopes were rising within him and lighting up his +features, but they made his face more sad to me than it had been +before. + +"No, no!" cried Richard exultingly. "If every farthing of Ada's +little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in +retaining me in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and +am weary of. It should be devoted to what promises a better +return, and should be used where she has a larger stake. Don't be +uneasy for me! I shall now have only one thing on my mind, and +Vholes and I will work it. I shall not be without means. Free of +my commission, I shall be able to compound with some small usurers +who will hear of nothing but their bond now--Vholes says so. I +should have a balance in my favour anyway, but that would swell it. +Come, come! You shall carry a letter to Ada from me, Esther, and +you must both of you be more hopeful of me and not believe that I +am quite cast away just yet, my dear." + +I will not repeat what I said to Richard. I know it was tiresome, +and nobody is to suppose for a moment that it was at all wise. It +only came from my heart. He heard it patiently and feelingly, but +I saw that on the two subjects he had reserved it was at present +hopeless to make any representation to him. I saw too, and had +experienced in this very interview, the sense of my guardian's +remark that it was even more mischievous to use persuasion with him +than to leave him as he was. + +Therefore I was driven at last to asking Richard if he would mind +convincing me that it really was all over there, as he had said, +and that it was not his mere impression. He showed me without +hesitation a correspondence making it quite plain that his +retirement was arranged. I found, from what he told me, that Mr. +Vholes had copies of these papers and had been in consultation with +him throughout. Beyond ascertaining this, and having been the +bearer of Ada's letter, and being (as I was going to be) Richard's +companion back to London, I had done no good by coming down. +Admitting this to myself with a reluctant heart, I said I would +return to the hotel and wait until he joined me there, so he threw +a cloak over his shoulders and saw me to the gate, and Charley and +I went back along the beach. + +There was a concourse of people in one spot, surrounding some naval +officers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with +unusual interest. I said to Charley this would be one of the great +Indiaman's boats now, and we stopped to look. + +The gentlemen came slowly up from the waterside, speaking good- +humouredly to each other and to the people around and glancing +about them as if they were glad to be in England again. "Charley, +Charley," said I, "come away!" And I hurried on so swiftly that my +little maid was surprised. + +It was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and I had had +time to take breath that I began to think why I had made such +haste. In one of the sunburnt faces I had recognized Mr. Allan +Woodcourt, and I had been afraid of his recognizing me. I had been +unwilling that he should see my altered looks. I had been taken by +surprise, and my courage had quite failed me. + +But I knew this would not do, and I now said to myself, "My dear, +there is no reason--there is and there can be no reason at all--why +it should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you +were last month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no +better. This is not your resolution; call it up, Esther, call it +up!" I was in a great tremble--with running--and at first was +quite unable to calm myself; but I got better, and I was very glad +to know it. + +The party came to the hotel. I heard them speaking on the +staircase. I was sure it was the same gentlemen because I knew +their voices again--I mean I knew Mr. Woodcourt's. It would still +have been a great relief to me to have gone away without making +myself known, but I was determined not to do so. "No, my dear, no. +No, no, no!" + +I untied my bonnet and put my veil half up--I think I mean half +down, but it matters very little--and wrote on one of my cards that +I happened to be there with Mr. Richard Carstone, and I sent it in +to Mr. Woodcourt. He came immediately. I told him I was rejoiced +to be by chance among the first to welcome him home to England. +And I saw that he was very sorry for me. + +"You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. +Woodcourt," said I, "but we can hardly call that a misfortune which +enabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the +truest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old +patient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe +illness." + +"Ah! Little Miss Flite!" he said. "She lives the same life yet?" + +"Just the same." + +I was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to +be able to put it aside. + +"Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most +affectionate creature, as I have reason to say." + +"You--you have found her so?" he returned. "I--I am glad of that." +He was so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak. + +"I assure you," said I, "that I was deeply touched by her sympathy +and pleasure at the time I have referred to." + +"I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill." + +"I was very ill." + +"But you have quite recovered?" + +"I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness," said I. +"You know how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, +and I have everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world +to desire." + +I felt as if he had greater commiseration for me than I had ever +had for myself. It inspired me with new fortitude and new calmness +to find that it was I who was under the necessity of reassuring +him. I spoke to him of his voyage out and home, and of his future +plans, and of his probable return to India. He said that was very +doubtful. He had not found himself more favoured by fortune there +than here. He had gone out a poor ship's surgeon and had come home +nothing better. While we were talking, and when I was glad to +believe that I had alleviated (if I may use such a term) the shock +he had had in seeing me, Richard came in. He had heard downstairs +who was with me, and they met with cordial pleasure. + +I saw that after their first greetings were over, and when they +spoke of Richard's career, Mr. Woodcourt had a perception that all +was not going well with him. He frequently glanced at his face as +if there were something in it that gave him pain, and more than +once he looked towards me as though he sought to ascertain whether +I knew what the truth was. Yet Richard was in one of his sanguine +states and in good spirits and was thoroughly pleased to see Mr. +Woodcourt again, whom he had always liked. + +Richard proposed that we all should go to London together; but Mr. +Woodcourt, having to remain by his ship a little longer, could not +join us. He dined with us, however, at an early hour, and became +so much more like what he used to be that I was still more at peace +to think I had been able to soften his regrets. Yet his mind was +not relieved of Richard. When the coach was almost ready and +Richard ran down to look after his luggage, he spoke to me about +him. + +I was not sure that I had a right to lay his whole story open, but +I referred in a few words to his estrangement from Mr Jarndyce and +to his being entangled in the ill-fated Chancery suit. Mr. +Woodcourt listened with interest and expressed his regret. + +"I saw you observe him rather closely," said I, "Do you think him +so changed?" + +"He is changed," he returned, shaking his head. + +I felt the blood rush into my face for the first time, but it was +only an instantaneous emotion. I turned my head aside, and it was +gone. + +"It is not," said Mr. Woodcourt, "his being so much younger or +older, or thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being +upon his face such a singular expression. I never saw so +remarkable a look in a young person. One cannot say that it is all +anxiety or all weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown +despair." + +"You do not think he is ill?" said I. + +No. He looked robust in body. + +"That he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to +know," I proceeded. "Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?" + +"To-morrow or the next day." + +"There is nothing Richard wants so much as a friend. He always +liked you. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him +sometimes with your companionship if you can. You do not know of +what service it might be. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. +Jarndyce, and even I--how we should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!" + +"Miss Summerson," he said, more moved than he had been from the +first, "before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will +accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!" + +"God bless you!" said I, with my eyes filling fast; but I thought +they might, when it was not for myself. "Ada loves him--we all +love him, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you +say. Thank you, and God bless you, in her name!" + +Richard came back as we finished exchanging these hurried words and +gave me his arm to take me to the coach. + +"Woodcourt," he said, unconscious with what application, "pray let +us meet in London!" + +"Meet?" returned the other. "I have scarcely a friend there now +but you. Where shall I find you?" + +"Why, I must get a lodging of some sort," said Richard, pondering. +"Say at Vholes's, Symond's Inn." + +"Good! Without loss of time." + +They shook hands heartily. When I was seated in the coach and +Richard was yet standing in the street, Mr. Woodcourt laid his +friendly hand on Richard's shoulder and looked at me. I understood +him and waved mine in thanks. + +And in his last look as we drove away, I saw that he was very sorry +for me. I was glad to see it. I felt for my old self as the dead +may feel if they ever revisit these scenes. I was glad to be +tenderly remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite +forgotten. + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +Stop Him! + + +Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating since +the sun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it +fills every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon +lights burning, as the lamp of life hums in Tom-all-Alone's, +heavily, heavily, in the nauseous air, and winking--as that lamp, +too, winks in Tom-all-Alone's--at many horrible things. But they +are blotted out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as +admitting some puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit +for life and blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and +is gone. The blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on +Tom-all-Alone's, and Tom is fast asleep. + +Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of +Parliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom +shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by +constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of +figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or +by low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to +splitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his +mind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the +midst of which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly +clear, to wit, that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be +reclaimed according to somebody's theory but nobody's practice. +And in the hopeful meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in +his old determined spirit. + +But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and +they serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of +Tom's corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion +somewhere. It shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream +(in which chemists on analysis would find the genuine nobility) of +a Norman house, and his Grace shall not be able to say nay to the +infamous alliance. There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a +cubic inch of any pestilential gas in which he lives, not one +obscenity or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a +wickedness, not a brutality of his committing, but shall work its +retribution through every order of society up to the proudest of +the proud and to the highest of the high. Verily, what with +tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has his revenge. + +It is a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by +night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the +more shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the +imagination is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day +carries it. The day begins to break now; and in truth it might be +better for the national glory even that the sun should sometimes +set upon the British dominions than that it should ever rise upon +so vile a wonder as Tom. + +A brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for +sleep to be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a +restless pillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attracted +by curiosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the +miserable by-ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright +dark eye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and +there, he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied +it before. + +On the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main +street of Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy +houses, shut up and silent. No waking creature save himself +appears except in one direction, where he sees the solitary figure +of a woman sitting on a door-step. He walks that way. +Approaching, he observes that she has journeyed a long distance and +is footsore and travel-stained. She sits on the door-step in the +manner of one who is waiting, with her elbow on her knee and her +head upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas bag, or bundle, she has +carried. She is dozing probably, for she gives no heed to his +steps as he comes toward her. + +The broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes to +where the woman sits, he has to turn into the road to pass her. +Looking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops. + +"What is the matter?" + +"Nothing, sir." + +"Can't you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?" + +"I'm walting till they get up at another house--a lodging-house-- +not here," the woman patiently returns. "I'm waiting here because +there will be sun here presently to warm me." + +"I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the +street." + +"Thank you, sir. It don't matter." + +A habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or +condescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many +people deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little +spelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily. + +"Let me look at your forehead," he says, bending down. "I am a +doctor. Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you for the world." + +He knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed hand +he can soothe her yet more readily. She makes a slight objection, +saying, "It's nothing"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the +wounded place when she lifts it up to the light. + +"Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very +sore." + +"It do ache a little, sir," returns the woman with a started tear +upon her cheek. + +"Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won't +hurt you." + +"Oh, dear no, sir, I'm sure of that!" + +He cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefully +examined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takes +a small case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. While +he is thus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing a +surgery in the street, "And so your husband is a brickmaker?" + +"How do you know that, sir?" asks the woman, astonished. + +"Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on +your dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework +in different places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel +to their wives too." + +The woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that her +injury is referable to such a cause. But feeling the hand upon her +forehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops +them again. + +"Where is he now?" asks the surgeon. + +"He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the +lodging-house." + +"He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and +heavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal +as he is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved +it. You have no young child?" + +The woman shakes her head. "One as I calls mine, sir, but it's +Liz's." + +"Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!" + +By this time he has finished and is putting up his case. "I +suppose you have some settled home. Is it far from here?" he asks, +good-humouredly making light of what he has done as she gets up and +curtsys. + +"It's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint +Albans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start +like, as if you did." + +"Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in +return. Have you money for your lodging?" + +"Yes, sir," she says, "really and truly." And she shows it. He +tells her, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that she +is very welcome, gives her good day, and walks away. Tom-all- +Alone's is still asleep, and nothing is astir. + +Yes, something is! As he retraces his way to the point from which +he descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a +ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the +soiled walls--which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid--and +furtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth +whose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is +so intent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a +stranger in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. He +shades his face with his ragged elbow as he passes on the other +side of the way, and goes shrinking and creeping on with his +anxious hand before him and his shapeless clothes hanging in +shreds. Clothes made for what purpose, or of what material, it +would be impossible to say. They look, in colour and in substance, +like a bundle of rank leaves of swampy growth that rotted long ago. + +Allan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a +shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall +how or where, but there is some association in his mind with such a +form. He imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or +refuge, still, cannot make out why it comes with any special force +on his remembrance. + +He is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light, +thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and +looking round, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed, +followed by the woman. + +"Stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breath less. "Stop +him, sir!" + +He darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is +quicker than he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes +up half-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still the +woman follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, not +knowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in +chase and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but +each time he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away +again. To strike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell +and disable him, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so +the grimly ridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive, +hard-pressed, takes to a narrow passage and a court which has no +thoroughfare. Here, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is +brought to bay and tumbles down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who +stands and gasps at him until the woman comes up. + +"Oh, you, Jo!" cries the woman. "What? I have found you at last!" + +"Jo," repeats Allan, looking at him with attention, "Jo! Stay. To +be sure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before +the coroner." + +"Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich," whimpers Jo. "What of +that? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I +unfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to +be? I've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt +by another on you, till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The +inkwhich warn't MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, +he wos; he wos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come +across my crossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to be +inkwhiched. I only wish I wos, myself. I don't know why I don't +go and make a hole in the water, I'm sure I don't." + +He says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so +real, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a +growth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in +neglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him. +He says to the woman, "Miserable creature, what has he done?" + +To which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure +more amazedly than angrily, "Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you +at last!" + +"What has he done?" says Allan. "Has he robbed you?" + +"No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted +by me, and that's the wonder of it." + +Allan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting +for one of them to unravel the riddle. + +"But he was along with me, sir," says the woman. "Oh, you Jo! He +was along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young +lady, Lord bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when +I durstn't, and took him home--" + +Allan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror. + +"Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like +a thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been +seen or heard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that +young lady that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her +beautiful looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young +lady now if it wasn't for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, +and her sweet voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do +you know that this is all along of you and of her goodness to you?" +demands the woman, beginning to rage at him as she recalls it and +breaking into passionate tears. + +The boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing +his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the +ground, and to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding +against which he leans rattles. + +Allan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but +effectually. + +"Richard told me--" He falters. "I mean, I have heard of this-- +don't mind me for a moment, I will speak presently." + +He turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered +passage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure, +except that he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is +so very remarkable that it absorbs the woman's attention. + +"You hear what she says. But get up, get up!" + +Jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the +manner of his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, +resting one of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing +his right hand over his left and his left foot over his right. + +"You hear what she says, and I know it's true. Have you been here +ever since?" + +"Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning," +replies Jo hoarsely. + +"Why have you come here now?" + +Jo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no +higher than the knees, and finally answers, "I don't know how to do +nothink, and I can't get nothink to do. I'm wery poor and ill, and +I thought I'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and +lay down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and +then go and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur +to give me somethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a- +chivying on me--like everybody everywheres." + +"Where have you come from?" + +Jo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner's knees +again, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in +a sort of resignation. + +"Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?" + +"Tramp then," says Jo. + +"Now tell me," proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome +his repugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with +an expression of confidence, "tell me how it came about that you +left that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as +to pity you and take you home." + +Jo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares, +addressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady, +that he never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her, +that he would sooner have hurt his own self, that he'd sooner have +had his unfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and +that she wos wery good to him, she wos. Conducting himself +throughout as if in his poor fashion he really meant it, and +winding up with some very miserable sobs. + +Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. He constrains +himself to touch him. "Come, Jo. Tell me." + +"No. I dustn't," says Jo, relapsing into the profile state. "I +dustn't, or I would." + +"But I must know," returns the other, "all the same. Come, Jo." + +After two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again, +looks round the court again, and says in a low voice, "Well, I'll +tell you something. I was took away. There!" + +"Took away? In the night?" + +"Ah!" Very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him and +even glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and +through the cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be +looking over or hidden on the other side. + +"Who took you away?" + +"I dustn't name him," says Jo. "I dustn't do it, sir. + +"But I want, in the young lady's name, to know. You may trust me. +No one else shall hear." + +"Ah, but I don't know," replies Jo, shaking his head fearfulty, "as +he DON'T hear." + +"Why, he is not in this place." + +"Oh, ain't he though?" says Jo. "He's in all manner of places, all +at wanst." + +Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning +and good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He +patiently awaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his +patience than by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name +in his ear. + +"Aye!" says Allan. "Why, what had you been doing?" + +"Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, +'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I'm a-moving on now. +I'm a-moving on to the berryin ground--that's the move as I'm up +to." + +"No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with +you?" + +"Put me in a horsepittle," replied Jo, whispering, "till I was +discharged, then giv me a little money--four half-bulls, wot you +may call half-crowns--and ses 'Hook it! Nobody wants you here,' he +ses. 'You hook it. You go and tramp,' he ses. 'You move on,' he +ses. 'Don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of +London, or you'll repent it.' So I shall, if ever he doos see me, +and he'll see me if I'm above ground," concludes Jo, nervously +repeating all his former precautions and investigations. + +Allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but +keeping an encouraging eye on Jo, "He is not so ungrateful as you +supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an +insufficient one." + +"Thankee, sir, thankee!" exclaims Jo. "There now! See how hard +you wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn +ses, and it's all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I +knows it." + +"Now, Jo," says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, "come with me and +I will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. +If I take one side of the way and you the other to avoid +observation, you will not run away, I know very well, if you make +me a promise." + +"I won't, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir." + +"Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this +time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come +along. Good day again, my good woman." + +"Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again." + +She has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises +and takes it up. Jo, repeating, "Ony you tell the young lady as I +never went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!" nods and +shambles and shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and +half cries, a farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along +after Allan Woodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of +the street. In this order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone's +into the broad rays of the sunlight and the purer air. + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +Jo's Will + + +As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets where the high +church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the +morning light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan +revolves in his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. +"It surely is a strange fact," he considers, "that in the heart of +a civilized world this creature in human form should be more +difficult to dispose of than an unowned dog." But it is none the +less a fact because of its strangeness, and the difficulty remains. + +At first he looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is +still really following. But look where he will, he still beholds +him close to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand +from brick to brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps +along, glancing over at him watchfully. Soon satisfied that the +last thing in his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on, +considering with a less divided attention what he shall do. + +A breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be +done. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses and +comes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his +right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, +kneading dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty +repast to Jo is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the +coffee and to gnaw the bread and butter, looking anxiously about +him in all directions as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal. + +But he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him. +"I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir," says Jo, soon putting down +his food, "but I don't know nothink--not even that. I don't care +for eating wittles nor yet for drinking on 'em." And Jo stands +shivering and looking at the breakfast wonderingly. + +Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. +"Draw breath, Jo!" "It draws," says Jo, "as heavy as a cart." He +might add, "And rattles like it," but he only mutters, "I'm a- +moving on, sir." + +Allan looks about for an apothecary's shop. There is none at hand, +but a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure +of wine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He +begins to revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. "We may +repeat that dose, Jo," observes Allan after watching him with his +attentive face. "So! Now we will take five minutes' rest, and +then go on again." + +Leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with +his back against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down +in the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him +without appearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to +perceive that he is warmed and refreshed. If a face so shaded can +brighten, his face brightens somewhat; and by little and little he +eats the slice of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant +of these signs of improvement, Allan engages him in conversation +and elicits to his no small wonder the adventure of the lady in the +veil, with all its consequences. Jo slowly munches as he slowly +tells it. When he has finished his story and his bread, they go on +again. + +Intending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of +refuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite, +Allan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first +foregathered. But all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss +Flite no longer lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured +female, much obscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is +indeed no other than the interesting Judy, is tart and spare in her +replies. These sufficing, however, to inform the visitor that Miss +Flite and her birds are domiciled with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell +Yard, he repairs to that neighbouring place, where Miss Flite (who +rises early that she may be punctual at the divan of justice held +by her excellent friend the Chancellor) comes running downstairs +with tears of welcome and with open arms. + +"My dear physician!" cries Miss Flite. "My meritorious, +distinguished, honourable officer!" She uses some odd expressions, +but is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be--more +so than it often is. Allan, very patient with her, waits until she +has no more raptures to express, then points out Jo, trembling in a +doorway, and tells her how he comes there. + +"Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a +fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me. + +Miss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to +consider; but it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. +Mrs. Blinder is entirely let, and she herself occupies poor +Gridley's room. "Gridley!" exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands +after a twentieth repetition of this remark. "Gridley! To be +sure! Of course! My dear physician! General George will help us +out." + +It is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, and +would be, though Miss Flite had not akeady run upstairs to put on +her pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself +with her reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician +in her disjointed manner on coming down in full array that General +George, whom she often calls upon, knows her dear Fitz Jarndyce and +takes a great interest in all connected with her, Allan is induced +to think that they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo, for +his encouragement, that this walking about will soon be over now; +and they repair to the general's. Fortunately it is not far. + +From the exterior of George's Shooting Gallery, and the long entry, +and the bare perspective beyond it, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. +He also descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, +striding towards them in his mornmg exercise with his pipe in his +mouth, no stock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword +and dumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light +shirt-sleeves. + +"Your servant, sir," says Mr. George with a military salute. Good- +humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp +hair, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, and +at some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. +He winds it up with another "Your servant, sir!" and another +salute. + +"Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?" says Mr. George. + +"I am proud to find I have the air of one," returns Allan; "but I +am only a sea-going doctor." + +"Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket +myself." + +Allan hopes Mr. George will forgive his intrusion the more readily +on that account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his +pipe, which, in his politeness, he has testifled some intention of +doing. "You are very good, sir," returns the trooper. "As I know +by experience that it's not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since +it's equally agreeable to yourself--" and finishes the sentence by +putting it between his lips again. Allan proceeds to tell him all +he knows about Jo, unto which the trooper listens with a grave +face. + +"And that's the lad, sir, is it?" he inquires, looking along the +entry to where Jo stands staring up at the great letters on the +whitewashed front, which have no meaning in his eyes. + +"That's he," says Allan. "And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty +about him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I +could procure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he +would not stay there many hours if he could be so much as got +there. The same objection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had +the patience to be evaded and shirked, and handed about from post +to pillar in trying to get him into one, which is a system that I +don't take kindly to." + +"No man does, sir," returns Mr. George. + +"I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because +he is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who +ordered him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes +this person to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything." + +"I ask your pardon, sir," says Mr. George. "But you have not +mentioned that party's name. Is it a secret, sir?" + +"The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket." + +"Bucket the detective, sir?" + +"The same man." + +"The man is known to me, sir," returns the trooper after blowing +out a cloud of smoke and squaring his chest, "and the boy is so far +correct that he undoubtedly is a--rum customer." Mr. George smokes +with a profound meaning after this and surveys Miss Flite in +silence. + +"Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that +this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have +it in their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so. +Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor +lodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent +people and Jo, Mr. George," says Allan, following the direction of +the trooper's eyes along the entry, "have not been much acquainted, +as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one +in this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my +paying for him beforehand?" + +As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little +man standing at the trooper's elbow and looking up, with an oddly +twisted figure and countenance, into the trooper's face. After a +few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the +little man, and the little man winks up at the trooper. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. George, "I can assure you that I would +willingiy be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all +agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a +privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. We are +naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You +see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for +the boy if the same would meet your views. No charge made, except +for rations. We are not in a flourishing state of circumstances +here, sir. We are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a +moment's notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long +as it lasts, here it is at your service." + +With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole +building at his visitor's disposal. + +"I take it for granted, sir," he adds, "you being one of the +medical staff, that there is no present infection about this +unfortunate subject?" + +Allan is quite sure of it. + +"Because, sir," says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, "we +have had enough of that." + +His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. +'Still I am bound to tell you," observes Allan after repeating his +former assurance, "that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and +that he may be--I do not say that he is--too far gone to recover." + +"Do you consider him in present danger, sir?" inquires the trooper. + +"Yes, I fear so." + +"Then, sir," returns the trooper in a decisive manner, "it appears +to me--being naturally in the vagabond way myself--that the sooner +he comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!" + +Mr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of +command; and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo +is brought in. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle's Tockahoopo +Indians; he is not one of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs, being wholly +unconnected with Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance +and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is +the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all +the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets, only +in soul a heathen. Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites +devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him; native +ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his +immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. Stand forth, +Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the sole of thy foot to the +crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee. + +He shuffles slowly into Mr. George's gallery and stands huddled +together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to +know that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for +what he is and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks +from them. He is not of the same order of things, not of the same +place in creation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the +beasts nor of humanity. + +"Look here, Jo!" says Allan. "This is Mr. George." + +Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a +moment, and then down again. + +"He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging +room here." + +Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. +After a little more consideration and some backing and changing of +the foot on which he rests, he mutters that he is "wery thankful." + +"You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be +obedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, +whatever you do, Jo." + +"Wishermaydie if I don't, sir," says Jo, reverting to his favourite +declaration. "I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to +get myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at +all, sir, 'sept not knowin' nothink and starwation." + +"I believe it, now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to +speak to you." + +"My intention merely was, sir," observes Mr. George, amazingly +broad and upright, "to point out to him where he can lie down and +get a thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here." As the +trooper speaks, he conducts them to the other end of the gallery +and opens one of the little cabins. "There you are, you see! Here +is a mattress, and here you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as +Mr., I ask your pardon, sir"--he refers apologetically to the card +Allan has given him--"Mr. Woodcourt pleases. Don't you be alarmed +if you hear shots; they'll be aimed at the target, and not you. +Now, there's another thing I would recommend, sir," says the +trooper, turning to his visitor. "Phil, come here!" + +Phil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. "Here is +a man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. +Consequently, it is to be expected that he takes a natural interest +in this poor creature. You do, don't you, Phil?" + +"Certainly and surely I do, guv'ner," is Phil's reply. + +"Now I was thinking, sir," says Mr. George in a martial sort of +confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at +a drum-head, "that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to +lay out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles--" + +"Mr. George, my considerate friend," returns Allan, taking out his +purse, "it is the very favour I would have asked." + +Phil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of +improvement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes +the best of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her +friend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the +judgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing +"which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many +years, would be too absurdly unfortunate!" Allan takes the +opportunity of going out to procure some restorative medicines, and +obtaining them near at hand, soon returns to find the trooper +walking up and down the gallery, and to fall into step and walk +with him. + +"I take it, sir," says Mr. George, "that you know Miss Summerson +pretty well?" + +Yes, it appears. + +"Not related to her, sir?" + +No, it appears. + +"Excuse the apparent curiosity," says Mr. George. "It seemed to me +probable that you might take more than a common interest in this +poor creature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate +interest in him. 'Tis MY case, sir, I assure you." + +"And mine, Mr. George." + +The trooper looks sideways at Allan's sunburnt cheek and bright +dark eye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to +approve of him. + +"Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I +unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Bucket +took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not +acquainted with the name, I can help you to it. It's Tulkinghorn. +That's what it is." + +Allan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name. + +"Tulkinghorn. That's the name, sir. I know the man, and know him +to have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a +deceased person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. +To my sorrow." + +Allan naturally asks what kind of man he is. + +"What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?" + +"I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally, +what kind of man?" + +"Why, then I'll tell you, sir," returns the trooper, stopping short +and folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face +fires and flushes all over; "he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. +He is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and +blood than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man--by +George!--that has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, +and more dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put +together. That's the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!" + +"I am sorry," says Allan, "to have touched so sore a place." + +"Sore?" The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of +his broad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. +"It's no fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a +power over me. He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to +tumble me out of this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a +constant see-saw. He won't hold off, and he won't come on. If I +have a payment to make him, or time to ask him for, or anything to +go to him about, he don't see me, don't hear me--passes me on to +Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn, Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn +passes me back again to him--he keeps me prowling and dangling +about him as if I was made of the same stone as himself. Why, I +spend half my life now, pretty well, loitering and dodging about +his door. What does he care? Nothing. Just as much as the rusty +old carbine I have compared him to. He chafes and goads me till-- +Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr. Woodcourt," the +trooper resumes his march, "all I say is, he is an old man; but I +am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs to my horse +and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that chance, in +one of the humours he drives me into--he'd go down, sir!" + +Mr. George has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe +his forehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his +impetuosity away with the national anthem, some involuntary +shakings of his head and heavings of his chest still linger behind, +not to mention an occasional hasty adjustment with both hands of +his open shirt-collar, as if it were scarcely open enough to +prevent his being troubled by a choking sensation. In short, Allan +Woodcourt has not much doubt about the going down of Mr. +Tulkinghorn on the field referred to. + +Jo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his +mattress by the careful Phil, to whom, after due administration of +medicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and +instructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He +repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without +seeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his +discovery. + +With him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him +that there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed +and showing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats +in substance what he said in the morning, without any material +variation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws +with a hollower sound. + +"Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more," falters Jo, +"and be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to +sleep, as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is +a-moving on right forards with his duty, and I'll be wery thankful. +I'd be more thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible +for an unfortnet to be it." + +He makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the +course of a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr. +Jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook's Court, the +rather, as the cart seems to be breaking down. + +To Cook's Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his +counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of +several skins which has just come in from the engrosser's, an +immense desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a +resting-place of a few large letters to break the awful monotony +and save the traveller from despair. Mr Snagsby puts up at one of +these inky wells and greets the stranger with his cough of general +preparation for business. + +"You don't remember me, Mr. Snagsby?" + +The stationer's heart begins to thump heavily, for his old +apprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to +answer, "No, sir, I can't say I do. I should have considered--not +to put too fine a point upon it--that I never saw you before, sir." + +"Twice before," says Allan Woodcourt. "Once at a poor bedside, and +once--" + +"It's come at last!" thinks the afflicted stationer, as +recollection breaks upon him. "It's got to a head now and is going +to burst!" But he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his +visitor into the little counting-house and to shut the door. + +"Are you a married man, sir?" + +"No, I am not." + +"Would you make the attempt, though single," says Mr. Snagsby in a +melancholy whisper, "to speak as low as you can? For my little +woman is a-listening somewheres, or I'll forfeit the business and +five hundred pound!" + +In deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back +against his desk, protesting, "I never had a secret of my own, sir. +I can't charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive +my little woman on my own account since she named the day. I +wouldn't have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I +couldn't have done it, I dursn't have done it. Whereas, and +nevertheless, I find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, +till my life is a burden to me." + +His visitor professes his regret to bear it and asks him does he +remember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, +don't he! + +"You couldn't name an individual human being--except myself--that +my little woman is more set and determined against than Jo," says +Mr. Snagsby. + +Allan asks why. + +"Why?" repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the +clump of hair at the back of his bald head. "How should 1 know +why? But you are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared +to ask a married person such a question!" + +With this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal +resignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to +communicate. + +"There again!" says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of +his feelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured +in the face. "At it again, in a new direction! A certain person +charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, +even my little woman. Then comes another certain person, in the +person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not +to mention Jo to that other certain person above all other persons. +Why, this is a private asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point +upon it, this is Bedlam, sir!" says Mr. Snagsby. + +But it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of +the mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has +fallen. And being tender-hearted and affected by the account he +hears of Jo's condition, he readily engages to "look round" as +early in the evening as he can manage it quietly. He looks round +very quietly when the evening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs. +Snagsby is as quiet a manager as he. + +Jo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left +alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so +far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, +touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the +table half a crown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of +wounds. + +"And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?" inquires the stationer +with his cough of sympathy. + +"I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am," returns Jo, "and don't want for +nothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think. Mr. Sangsby! I'm +wery sorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir." + +The stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what +it is that he is sorry for having done. + +"Mr. Sangsby," says Jo, "I went and giv a illness to the lady as +wos and yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says +nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser +good and my having been s'unfortnet. The lady come herself and see +me yesday, and she ses, 'Ah, Jo!' she ses. 'We thought we'd lost +you, Jo!' she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't +pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, +and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, +I see him a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he +come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' +on day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin +up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby." + +The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. +Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will +relieve his feelings. + +"Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, "wos, as you +wos able to write wery large, p'raps?" + +"Yes, Jo, please God," returns the stationer. + +"Uncommon precious large, p'raps?" says Jo with eagerness. + +"Yes, my poor boy." + +Jo laughs with pleasure. "Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. +Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go +and couldn't he moved no furder, whether you might be so good +p'raps as to write out, wery large so that any one could see it +anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and +that I never went fur to do it, and that though I didn't know +nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it and wos +allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he'd be able to forgive +me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it wery large, +he might." + +"It shall say it, Jo. Very large." + +Jo laughs again. "Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you, +sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore." + +The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, +slips down his fourth half-crown--he has never been so close to a +case requiring so many--and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon +this little earth, shall meet no more. No more. + +For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags +over stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken +steps, shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and +behold it still upon its weary road. + +Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse +and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often +looking round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an +encouraging elevation of his one eyebrow, "Hold up, my boy! Hold +up!" There, too, is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt +almost always, both thinking, much, how strangely fate has +entangled this rough outcast in the web of very different lives. +There, too, the trooper is a frequent visitor, filling the doorway +with his athletic figure and, from his superfluity of life and +strength, seeming to shed down temporary vigour upon Jo, who never +fails to speak more robustly in answer to his cheerful words. + +Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly +arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a +while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face +towards him--just as he sat in the law-writer's room--and touches +his chest and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but +labours on a little more. + +The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has +stopped in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his +hand. Mr. Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional +interest and attention on his face, and glancing significantly at +the trooper, signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little +hammer is next used, there will be a speck of rust upon it. + +"Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don't be frightened." + +"I thought," says Jo, who has started and is looking round, "I +thought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. Ain't there nobody here but +you, Mr. Woodcot?" + +"Nobody." + +"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am I, sir?" + +"No." Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I'm wery thankful." + +After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth +very near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, "Jo! +Did you ever know a prayer?" + +"Never knowd nothink, sir." + +"Not so much as one short prayer?" + +"No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at +Mr. Sangsby's and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a- +speakin to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't +make out nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen +come down Tom-all-Alone's a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the +t'other 'wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking +to theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t'others, and not a- +talkin to us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos +all about." + +It takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced +and attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. +After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, +a strong effort to get out of bed. + +"Stay, Jo! What now?" + +"It's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir," he +returns with a wild look. + +"Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?" + +"Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me +indeed, he wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin +ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there +and be berried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to- +day, Jo,' he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now +and have come there to be laid along with him." + +"By and by, Jo. By and by." + +"Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go myself. But will +you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" + +"I will, indeed." + +"Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the +gate afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's +a step there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It's turned +wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin?" + +"It is coming fast, Jo." + +Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is +very near its end. + +"Jo, my poor fellow!" + +"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin--a-gropin--let me +catch hold of your hand." + +"Jo, can you say what I say?" + +"I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good." + +"Our Father." + +"Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir." + +"Which art in heaven." + +"Art in heaven--is the light a-comin, sir?" + +"It is close at hand. Hallowed by thy name!" + +"Hallowed be--thy--" + +The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead! + +Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right +reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, +born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus +around us every day. + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +Closing in + + +The place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the +house in town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past +doze in their picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the +long drawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In +town the Dedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed +carriages through the darkness of the night, and the Dedlock +Mercuries, with ashes (or hair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic +of their great humility, loll away the drowsy mornings in the +little windows of the hall. The fashionable world--tremendous orb, +nearly five miles round--is in full swing, and the solar system +works respectfully at its appointed distances. + +Where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where +all the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and +refinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has +scaled and taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of +old reposed in herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would +under her mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no +assurance that what she is to those around her she will remain +another day, it is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking +on to yield or to droop. They say of her that she has lately grown +more handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of +her that she's beauty nough--tsetup shopofwomen--but rather +larming kind--remindingmanfact--inconvenient woman--who WILL +getoutofbedandbawthstahlishment--Shakespeare. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. Now, as heretofore, +he is to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat +loosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage +from the peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the +last who might be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of +all woman she is still the last who might be supposed to have any +dread of him. + +One thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in +his turret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared +to throw it off. + +It is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little +sun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are +reposing in the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous +creatures, like overblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to +run to a deal of seed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester, +in the library, has fallen asleep for the good of the country over +the report of a Parliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room +in which she gave audience to the young man of the name of Guppy. +Rosa is with her and has been writing for her and reading to her. +Rosa is now at work upon embroidery or some such pretty thing, and +as she bends her head over it, my Lady watches her in silence. Not +for the first time to-day. + +"Rosa." + +The pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how +serious my Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised. + +"See to the door. Is it shut?" + +Yes. She goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised. + +"I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may +trust your attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to +do, I will not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in +you. Say nothing to any one of what passes between us." + +The timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be +trustworthy. + +"Do you know," Lady Dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her +chair nearer, "do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from +what I am to any one?" + +"Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as +you really are." + +"You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor +child!" + +She says it with a kind of scorn--though not of Rosa--and sits +brooding, looking dreamily at her. + +"Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you +suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful +to me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?" + +"I don't know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my +heart, I wish it was so." + +"It is so, little one." + +The pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark +expression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an +explanation. + +"And if I were to say to-day, 'Go! Leave me!' I should say what +would give me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave +me very solitary." + +"My Lady! Have I offended you?" + +"In nothing. Come here." + +Rosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady's feet. My Lady, with +that motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand +upon her dark hair and gently keeps it there. + +"I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would +make you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot. +There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no +part, rendering it far better for you that you should not remain +here. You must not remain here. I have determined that you shall +not. I have written to the father of your lover, and he will be +here to-day. All this I have done for your sake." + +The weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall +she do, what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress +kisses her on the cheek and makes no other answer. + +"Now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. Be beloved and +happy!" + +"Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought--forgive my being so free-- +that YOU are not happy." + +"I!" + +"Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think +again. Let me stay a little while!" + +"I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my +own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now-- +not what I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep +my confidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between +us!" + +She detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves +the room. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the +staircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. As +indifferent as if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn +out in the earlier ages of the world and had perished from its +surface with its other departed monsters. + +Mercury has announced Mr. Rouncewell, which is the cause of her +appearance. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs +to the library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to +him first. + +"Sir Leicester, I am desirous--but you are engaged." + +Oh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +Always at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from +him for a moment. + +"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?" + +With a look that plainly says, "You know you have the power to +remain if you will," she tells him it is not necessary and moves +towards a chair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for +her with his clumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. +Interposed between her and the fading light of day in the now quiet +street, his shadow falls upon her, and he darkens all before her. +Even so does he darken her life. + +It is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long +rows of houses stare at each other with that severity that half-a- +dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared into +stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a +street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to +liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their +own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry +and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the +stone chargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work +entwines itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and +from these petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux +gasp at the upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, +through which bold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its +only present use), retains its place among the rusty foliage, +sacred to the memory of departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet +lingering at long intervals in a little absurd glass pot, with a +knob in the bottom like an oyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights +every night, like its high and dry master in the House of Lords. + +Therefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair, +could wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn +stands. And yet--and yet--she sends a look in that direction as if +it were her heart's desire to have that figure moved out of the +way. + +Sir Leicester begs his Lady's pardon. She was about to say? + +"Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment) +and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I +am tired to death of the matter." + +"What can I do--to--assist?" demands Sir Leicester in some +considerable doubt. + +"Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to +send him up?" + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request," +says Sir Leicester to Mercury, not immediately remembering the +business term, "request the iron gentleman to walk this way." + +Mercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and +produces him. Sir Leicester receives that ferruginous person +graciously. + +"I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, +Mr. Tulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell," Sir +Leicester skilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, +"was desirous to speak with you. Hem!" + +"I shall be very happy," returns the iron gentleman, "to give my +best attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say." + +As he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes +upon him is less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant +supercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is +nothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness. + +"Pray, sir," says Lady Dedlock listlessly, "may I be allowed to +inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son +respecting your son's fancy?" + +It is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look +upon him as she asks this question. + +"If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the +pleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my +son to conquer that--fancy." The ironmaster repeats her expression +with a little emphasis. + +"And did you?" + +"Oh! Of course I did." + +Sir Leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. Very +proper. The iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was +bound to do it. No difference in this respect between the base +metals and the precious. Highly proper. + +"And pray has he done so?" + +"Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear +not. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes +couple an intention with our--our fancies which renders them not +altogether easy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be +in earnest." + +Sir Leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden Wat +Tylerish meaning in this expression, and fumes a little. Mr. +Rouncewell is perfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such +limits, evidently adapts his tone to his reception. + +"Because," proceeds my Lady, "I have been thinking of the subject, +which is tiresome to me." + +"I am very sorry, I am sure." + +"And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite +concur"--Sir Leicester flattered--"and if you cannot give us the +assurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the +conclusion that the girl had better leave me." + +"I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind." + +"Then she had better go." + +"Excuse me, my Lady," Sir Leicester considerately interposes, "but +perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she +has not merited. Here is a young woman," says Sir Leicester, +magnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a +service of plate, "whose good fortune it is to have attracted the +notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the +protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various +advantages which such a position confers, and which are +unquestionably very great--I believe unquestionably very great, +sir--for a young woman in that station of life. The question then +arises, should that young woman be deprived of these many +advantages and that good fortune simply because she has"--Sir +Leicester, with an apologetic but dignified inclination of his head +towards the ironmaster, winds up his sentence--"has attracted the +notice of Mr Rouncewell's son? Now, has she deserved this +punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this our previous +understanding?" + +"I beg your pardon," interposes Mr. Rouncewell's son's father. +"Sir Leicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the +subject. Pray dismiss that from your consideration. If you +remember anything so unimportant--which is not to be expected--you +would recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly +opposed to her remaining here." + +Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir +Leicester is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed +down to him through such a family, or he really might have +mistrusted their report of the iron gentleman's observations. + +"It is not necessary," observes my Lady in her coldest manner +before he can do anything but breathe amazedly, "to enter into +these matters on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have +nothing whatever to say against her, but she is so far insensible +to her many advantages and her good fortune that she is in love--or +supposes she is, poor little fool--and unable to appreciate them." + +Sir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He +might have been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons +in support of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The +young woman had better go. + +"As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion +when we were fatigued by this business," Lady Dedlock languidly +proceeds, "we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, +and under present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here +and had better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her +sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you, +or what would you prefer?" + +"Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly--" + +"By all means." + +"--I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of +the incumbrance and remove her from her present position." + +"And to speak as plainly," she returns with the same studied +carelessness, "so should I. Do I understand that you will take her +with you?" + +The iron gentleman makes an iron bow. + +"Sir Leicester, will you ring?" Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from +his window and pulls the bell. "I had forgotten you. Thank you." +He makes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. Mercury, +swift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce, +skims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs. + +Rosa has been crying and is yet in distress. On her coming in, the +ironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with +her near the door ready to depart. + +"You are taken charge of, you see," says my Lady in her weary +manner, "and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that +you are a very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for." + +"She seems after all," observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, loitering a little +forward with his hands behind him, "as if she were crying at going +away." + +"Why, she is not well-bred, you see," returns Mr. Rouncewell with +some quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer +to retort upon, "and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows +no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, +no doubt." + +"No doubt," is Mr. Tulkinghorn's composed reply. + +Rosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she +was happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and +that she thanks my Lady over and over again. "Out, you silly +little puss!" says the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice, +though not angrily. "Have a spirit, if you're fond of Watt!" My +Lady merely waves her off with indifference, saying, "There, there, +child! You are a good girl. Go away!" Sir Leicester has +magnificently disengaged himself from the subject and retired into +the sanctuary of his blue coat. Mr. Tulkinghorn, an indistinct +form against the dark street now dotted with lamps, looms in my +Lady's view, bigger and blacker than before. + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Rouncewell after a pause +of a few moments, "I beg to take my leave, with an apology for +having again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this +tiresome subject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how +tiresome so small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I +am doubtful of my dealing with it, it is only because I did not at +first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here away +without troubling you at all. But it appeared to me--I dare say +magnifying the importance of the thing--that it was respectful to +explain to you how the matter stood and candid to consult your +wishes and convenience. I hope you will excuse my want of +acquaintance with the polite world." + +Sir Leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by +these remarks. "Mr. Rouncewell," he returns, "do not menfion it. +Justifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side." + +"I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a +last word, revert to what I said before of my mother's long +connexion with the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, +I would point out this little instance here on my arm who shows +herself so affectionate and faithful in parting and in whom my +mother, I dare say, has done something to awaken such feelings-- +though of course Lady Dedlock, by her heartfelt interest and her +genial condescension, has done much more. + +If he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. He +points it, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner +of speech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the +dim room where my Lady sits. Sir Leicester stands to return his +parting salutation, Mr. Tulkinghorn again rings, Mercury takes +another flight, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house. + +Then lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still +standing in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still +sitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the +night as well as of the day. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn, +observing it as she rises to retire, thinks, "Well she may be! The +power of this woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the +whole time." But he can act a part too--his one unchanging +character--and as he holds the door open for this woman, fifty +pairs of eyes, each fifty times sharper than Sir Leicester's pair, +should find no flaw in him. + +Lady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is +whipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture +of the Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to +dinner, still deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the +debilitated cousin's text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether +Mr. Tulkinghorn is gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he +gone YET? No. What is he doing? Mercury thinks he is writing +letters in the library. Would my Lady wish to see him? Anything +but that. + +But he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he is +reported as sending his respects, and could my Lady please to +receive him for a word or two after her dinner? My Lady will +receive him now. He comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by +her permission, while she is at table. When they are alone, my +Lady waves her hand to dispense with such mockeries. + +"What do you want, sir?" + +"Why, Lady Dedlock," says the lawyer, taking a chair at a little +distance from her and slowly rubbing his rusty legs up and down, up +and down, up and down, "I am rather surprised by the course you +have taken." + +"Indeed?" + +"Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a +departure from our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new +position, Lady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of +saying that I don't approve of it." + +He stops in his rubbing and looks at her, with his hands on his +knees. Imperturbable and unchangeable as he is, there is still an +indefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not +escape this woman's observation. + +"I do not quite understand you." + +"Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady +Dedlock, we must not fence and parry now. You know you like this +girl." + +"Well, sir?" + +"And you know--and I know--that you have not sent her away for the +reasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as +much as possible from--excuse my mentioning it as a matter of +business--any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself." + +"Well, sir?" + +"Well, Lady Dedlock," returns the lawyer, crossing his legs and +nursing the uppermost knee. "I object to that. I consider that a +dangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated +to awaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don't know what, in the +house. Besides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to +be exactly what you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to +yourself, as it is to me, that you have been this evening very +different from what you were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady +Dedlock, transparenfly so!" + +"If, sir," she begins, "in my knowledge of my secret--" But he +interrupts her. + +"Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter +of business the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer +your secret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my +secret, in trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your +secret, Lady Dedlock, we should not be here holding this +conversation." + +"That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I +can to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own +reference to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at +Chesney Wold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a +resolution I have taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the +world, could shake it or could move me." This she says with great +deliberation and distinctness and with no more outward passion than +himself. As for him, he methodically discusses his matter of +business as if she were any insensible instrument used in business. + +"Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock," he returns, "you are not to +be trusted. You have put the case in a perfecfly plain way, and +according to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not +to be trusted." + +"Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this +same point when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?" + +"Yes," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, coolly getting up and standing on the +hearth. "Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly +referred to the girl, but that was before we came to our +arrangement, and both the letter and the spirit of our arrangement +altogether precluded any action on your part founded upon my +discovery. There can be no doubt about that. As to sparing the +girl, of what importance or value is she? Spare! Lady Dedlock, +here is a family name compromised. One might have supposed that +the course was straight on--over everything, neither to the right +nor to the left, regardless of all considerations in the way, +sparing nothing, treading everything under foot." + +She has been looking at the table. She lifts up her eyes and looks +at him. There is a stern expression on her face and a part of her +lower lip is compressed under her teeth. "This woman understands +me," Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again. +"SHE cannot be spared. Why should she spare others?" + +For a little while they are silent. Lady Dedlock has eaten no +dinner, but has twice or thrice poured out water with a steady hand +and drunk it. She rises from table, takes a lounging-chair, and +reclines in it, shading her face. There is nothing in her manner +to express weakness or excite compassion. It is thoughtful, +gloomy, concentrated. "This woman," thinks Mr. Tulkinghorn, +standing on the hearth, again a dark object closing up her view, +"is a study." + +He studies her at his leisure, not speaking for a time. She too +studies something at her leisure. She is not the first to speak, +appearing indeed so unlikely to be so, though he stood there until +midnight, that even he is driven upon breaking silence. + +"Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business +interview remains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A +lady of your sense and strength of character will be prepared for +my now declaring it void and taking my own course." + +"I am quite prepared." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. "That is all I have to trouble +you with, Lady Dedlock." + +She stops him as he is moving out of the room by asking, "This is +the notice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you." + +"Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because +the contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been +observed. But virtually the same, virtually the same. The +difference is merely in a lawyer's mind." + +"You intend to give me no other notice?" + +"You are right. No." + +"Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?" + +"A home question!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a slight smile and +cautiously shaking his head at the shaded face. "No, not to- +night." + +"To-morrow?" + +"All things considered, I had better decline answering that +question, Lady Dedlock. If I were to say I don't know when, +exactly, you would not believe me, and it would answer no purpose. +It may be to-morrow. I would rather say no more. You are +prepared, and I hold out no expectations which circumstances might +fail to justify. I wish you good evening." + +She removes her hand, turns her pale face towards him as he walks +silently to the door, and stops him once again as he is about to +open it. + +"Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were +writing in the library. Are you going to return there?" + +"Only for my hat. I am going home." + +She bows her eyes rather than her head, the movement is so slight +and curious, and he withdraws. Clear of the room he looks at his +watch but is inclined to doubt it by a minute or thereabouts. +There is a splendid clock upon the staircase, famous, as splendid +clocks not often are, for its accuracy. "And what do YOU say," Mr. +Tulkinghorn inquires, referring to it. "What do you say?" + +If it said now, "Don't go home!" What a famous clock, hereafter, +if it said to-night of all the nights that it has counted off, to +this old man of all the young and old men who have ever stood +before it, "Don't go home!" With its sharp clear bell it strikes +three quarters after seven and ticks on again. "Why, you are worse +than I thought you," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, muttering reproof to his +watch. "Two minutes wrong? At this rate you won't last my time." +What a watch to return good for evil if it ticked in answer, "Don't +go home!" + +He passes out into the streets and walks on, with his hands behind +him, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries, +difficulties, mortgages, delicate affairs of all kinds, are +treasured up within his old black satin waistcoat. He is in the +confidence of the very bricks and mortar. The high chimney-stacks +telegraph family secrets to him. Yet there is not a voice in a +mile of them to whisper, "Don't go home!" + +Through the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the +roar and jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the +blazing shop-lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on, +and the crowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, +and nothing meets him murmuring, "Don't go home!" Arrived at last +in his dull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and +see the Roman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new +significance in the Roman's hand to-night or in the flutter of the +attendant groups to give him the late warning, "Don't come here!" + +It is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only +now rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are +shining as they shone above the turret-leads at Chesney Wold. This +woman, as he has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out +upon them. Her soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart +and restless. The large rooms are too cramped and close. She +cannot endure their restraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring +garden. + +Too capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of +much surprise in those about her as to anything she does, this +woman, loosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. Mercury +attends with the key. Having opened the garden-gate, he delivers +the key into his Lady's hands at her request and is bidden to go +back. She will walk there some time to ease her aching head. She +may be an hour, she may be more. She needs no further escort. The +gate shuts upon its spring with a clash, and he leaves her passing +on into the dark shade of some trees. + +A fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. +Mr. Tulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and +shutting those resounding doors, has to cross a little prison-like +yard. He looks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a +bright large moon, what multitudes of stars! A quiet night, too. + +A very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a +solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even +crowded places full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty +high roads and on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country +may be seen in repose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into +a fringe of trees against the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom +upon them; not only is it a still night in gardens and in woods, +and on the river where the water-meadows are fresh and green, and +the stream sparkles on among pleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and +whispering rushes; not only does the stillness attend it as it +flows where houses cluster thick, where many bridges are reflected +in it, where wharves and shipping make it black and awful, where it +winds from these disfigurements through marshes whose grim beacons +stand like skeletons washed ashore, where it expands through the +bolder region of rising grounds, rich in cornfield wind-mill and +steeple, and where it mingles with the ever-heaving sea; not only +is it a still night on the deep, and on the shore where the watcher +stands to see the ship with her spread wings cross the path of +light that appears to be presented to only him; but even on this +stranger's wilderness of London there is some rest. Its steeples +and towers and its one great dome grow more ethereal; its smoky +house-tops lose their grossness in the pale effulgence; the noises +that arise from the streets are fewer and are softened, and the +footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly away. In these +fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the shepherds play on +Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their sheep in the fold +by hook and by crook until they have shorn them exceeding close, +every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a distant ringing +hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating. + +What's that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it? + +The few foot-passengers start, stop, and stare about them. Some +windows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was +a loud report and echoed and rattled heavily. It shook one house, +or so a man says who was passing. It has aroused all the dogs in +the neighbourhood, who bark vehemently. Terrified cats scamper +across the road. While the dogs are yet barking and howling--there +is one dog howling like a demon--the church-clocks, as if they were +startled too, begin to strike. The hum from the streets, likewise, +seems to swell into a shout. But it is soon over. Before the last +clock begins to strike ten, there is a lull. When it has ceased, +the fine night, the bright large moon, and multitudes of stars, are +left at peace again. + +Has Mr. Tulkinghorn been disturbed? His windows are dark and +quiet, and his door is shut. It must be something unusual indeed +to bring him out of his shell. Nothing is heard of him, nothing is +seen of him. What power of cannon might it take to shake that +rusty old man out of his immovable composure? + +For many years the persistent Roman has been pointing, with no +particular meaning, from that ceiling. It is not likely that he +has any new meaning in him to-night. Once pointing, always +pointing--like any Roman, or even Briton, with a single idea. +There he is, no doubt, in his impossible attitude, pointing, +unavailingly, all night long. Moonlight, darkness, dawn, sunrise, +day. There he is still, eagerly pointing, and no one minds him. + +But a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the +rooms. And either the Roman has some new meaning in him, not +expressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up +at his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that +person shrieks and flies. The others, looking in as the first one +looked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street. + +What does it mean? No light is admitted into the darkened chamber, +and people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but +heavily, carry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down. There is +whispering and wondering all day, strict search of every corner, +careful tracing of steps, and careful noting of the disposition of +every article of furniture. All eyes look up at the Roman, and all +voices murmur, "If he could only tell what he saw!" + +He is pointing at a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a +glass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon +after being lighted. He is pointing at an empty chair and at a +stain upon the ground before it that might be almost covered with a +hand. These objects lie directly within his range. An excited +imagination might suppose that there was something in them so +terrific as to drive the rest of the composition, not only the +attendant big-legged boys, but the clouds and flowers and pillars +too--in short, the very body and soul of Allegory, and all the +brains it has--stark mad. It happens surely that every one who +comes into the darkened room and looks at these things looks up at +the Roman and that he is invested in all eyes with mystery and awe, +as if he were a paralysed dumb witness. + +So it shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly +stories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be +covered, so hard to be got out, and that the Roman, pointing from +the ceiling shall point, so long as dust and damp and spiders spare +him, with far greater significance than he ever had in Mr. +Tulkinghorn's time, and with a deadly meaning. For Mr. +Tulkinghorn's time is over for evermore, and the Roman pointed at +the murderous hand uplifted against his life, and pointed +helplessly at him, from night to morning, lying face downward on +the floor, shot through the heart. + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +Dutiful Friendship + + +A great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr. +Matthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present +bassoon-player. An occasion of feasting and festival. The +celebration of a birthday in the family. + +It is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday. Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes +that epoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the +children with an extra smack before breakfast, smoking an +additional pipe after dinner, and wondering towards evening what +his poor old mother is thinking about it--a subject of infinite +speculation, and rendered so by his mother having departed this +life twenty years. Some men rarely revert to their father, but +seem, in the bank-books of their remembrance, to have transferred +all the stock of filial affection into their mother's name. Mr. +Bagnet is one of like his trade the better for that. If I had kept +clear of his old girl causes him usually to make the noun- +substantive "goodness" of the feminine gender. + +It is not the birthday of one of the three children. Those +occasions are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely +overleap the bounds of happy returns and a pudding. On young +Woolwich's last birthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing +on his growth and general advancement, proceed, in a moment of +profound reflection on the changes wrought by time, to examine him +in the catechism, accomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions +number one and two, "What is your name?" and "Who gave you that +name?" but there failing in the exact precision of his memory and +substituting for number three the question "And how do you like +that name?" which he propounded with a sense of its importance, in +itself so edifying and improving as to give it quite an orthodox +air. This, however, was a speciality on that particular birthday, +and not a general solemnity. + +It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and +reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event +is always commemorated according to certain forms settled and +prescribed by Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being +deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to +attain the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth +himself very early in the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, +as invariably, taken in by the vendor and installed in the +possession of the oldest inhabitants of any coop in Europe. +Returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a clean blue +and white cotton handkerchief (essential to the arrangements), he +in a casual manner invites Mrs. Bagnet to declare at breakfast what +she would like for dinner. Mrs. Bagnet, by a coincidence never +known to fail, replying fowls, Mr. Bagnet instantly produces his +bundle from a place of concealment amidst general amazement and +rejoicing. He further requires that the old girl shall do nothing +all day long but sit in her very best gown and be served by himself +and the young people. As he is not illustrious for his cookery, +this may be supposed to be a matter of state rather than enjoyment +on the old girl's part, but she keeps her state with all imaginable +cheerfulness. + +On this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has accomplished the usual +preliminaries. He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if +there be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff, +to be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family +by their unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the +roasting of the poultry; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her wholesome brown +fingers itching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her +gown of ceremony, an honoured guest. + +Quebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving, +as beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving. To +these young scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a +shake of the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes. + +"At half after one." Says Mr. Bagnet. "To the minute. They'll be +done." + +Mrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill +before the fire and beginning to burn. + +"You shall have a dinner, old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Fit for a +queen." + +Mrs. Bagnet shows her white teeth cheerfully, but to the perception +of her son, betrays so much uneasiness of spirit that he is +impelled by the dictates of affection to ask her, with his eyes, +what is the matter, thus standing, with his eyes wide open, more +oblivious of the fowls than before, and not affording the least +hope of a return to consciousness. Fortunately his elder sister +perceives the cause of the agitation in Mrs. Bagnet's breast and +with an admonitory poke recalls him. The stopped fowls going round +again, Mrs. Bagnet closes her eyes in the intensity of her relief. + +"George will look us up," says Mr. Bagnet. "At half after four. +To the moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. +This afternoon?" + +"Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I +begin to think. Just about that, and no less," returns Mrs. +Bagnet, laughing and shaking her head. + +"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "never mind. You'd be as young as +ever you was. If you wasn't younger. Which you are. As everybody +knows." + +Quebec and Malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that Bluffy +is sure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what +it will be. + +"Do you know, Lignum," says Mrs. Bagnet, casting a glance on the +table-cloth, and winking "salt!" at Malta with her right eye, and +shaking the pepper away from Quebec with her head, "I begin to +think George is in the roving way again. + +"George," returns Mr. Bagnet, "will never desert. And leave his +old comrade. In the lurch. Don't be afraid of it." + +"No, Lignum. No. I don't say he will. I don't think he will. +But if he could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he +would be off." + +Mr. Bagnet asks why. + +"Well," returns his wife, considering, "George seems to me to be +getting not a little impatient and restless. I don't say but what +he's as free as ever. Of course he must be free or he wouldn't be +George, but he smarts and seems put out." + +"He's extra-drilled," says Mr. Bagnet. "By a lawyer. Who would +put the devil out." + +"There's something in that," his wife assents; "but so it is, +Lignum." + +Further conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity +under which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force +of his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry +humour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made +gravy acquiring no flavour and turning out of a flaxen complexion. +With a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the +process of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every +direction, as if they were subject to earthquakes. The legs of the +fowls, too, are longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly. +Overcoming these disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr. +Bagnet at last dishes and they sit down at table, Mrs. Bagnet +occupying the guest's place at his right hand. + +It is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a +year, for two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious. +Every kind of finer tendon and ligament that is in the nature of +poultry to possess is developed in these specimens in the singular +form of guitar-strings. Their limbs appear to have struck roots +into their breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the +earth. Their legs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they +must have devoted the greater part of their long and arduous lives +to pedestrian exercises and the walking of matches. But Mr. +Bagnet, unconscious of these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. +Bagnet eating a most severe quantity of the delicacies before her; +and as that good old girl would not cause him a moment's +disappointment on any day, least of all on such a day, for any +consideration, she imperils her digestion fearfully. How young +Woolwich cleans the drum-sticks without being of ostrich descent, +his anxious mother is at a loss to understand. + +The old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of +the repast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth +swept, and the dinner-service washed up and polished in the +backyard. The great delight and energy with which the two young +ladies apply themselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in +imitation of their mother and skating in and out on little +scaffolds of pattens, inspire the highest hopes for the future, but +some anxiety for the present. The same causes lead to confusion of +tongues, a clattering of crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a +whisking of brooms, and an expenditure of water, all in excess, +while the saturation of the young ladies themselves is almost too +moving a spectacle for Mrs. Bagnet to look upon with the calmness +proper to her position. At last the various cleansing processes +are triumphantly completed; Quebec and Malta appear in fresh +attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, and something to drink are +placed upon the table; and the old girl enjoys the first peace of +mind she ever knows on the day of this delightful entertainment. + +When Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are +very near to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet +announces, "George! Military time." + +It is George, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl +(whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and +for Mr. Bagnet. "Happy returns to all!" says Mr. George. + +"But, George, old man!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him +curiously. "What's come to you?" + +"Come to me?" + +"Ah! You are so white, George--for you--and look so shocked. Now +don't he, Lignum?" + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet, "tell the old girl. What's the matter." + +"I didn't know I looked white," says the trooper, passing his hand +over his brow, "and I didn't know I looked shocked, and I'm sorry I +do. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died +yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over." + +"Poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet with a mother's pity. "Is he +gone? Dear, dear!" + +"I didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday +talk, but you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I +should have roused up in a minute," says the trooper, making +himself speak more gaily, "but you're so quick, Mrs. Bagnet." + +"You're right. The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Is as quick. As +powder." + +"And what's more, she's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to +her," cries Mr. George. "See here, I have brought a little brooch +along with me. It's a poor thing, you know, but it's a keepsake. +That's all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Mr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring +leapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of +reverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. +"Tell him my opinion of it." + +"Why, it's a wonder, George!" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. "It's the +beautifullest thing that ever was seen!" + +"Good!" says Mr. Bagnet. "My opinion." + +"It's so pretty, George," cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it on all +sides and holding it out at arm's length, "that it seems too choice +for me." + +"Bad!" says Mr. Bagnet. "Not my opinlon." + +"But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow," says +Mrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand +stretched out to him; "and though I have been a crossgrained +soldier's wife to you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, +I am sure, in reality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on +yourself, for good luck, if you will, George." + +The children close up to see it done, and Mr. Bagnet looks over +young Woolwich's head to see it done with an interest so maturely +wooden, yet pleasantly childish, that Mrs. Bagnet cannot help +laughing in her airy way and saying, "Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a +precious old chap you are!" But the trooper fails to fasten the +brooch. His hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "Would +any one believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking +round. "I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like +this!" + +Mrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like +a pipe, and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the +trooper to be inducted into his usual snug place and the pipes to +be got into action. "If that don't bring you round, George," says +she, "just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, +and the two together MUST do it." + +"You ought to do it of yourself," George answers; "I know that very +well, Mrs. Bagnet. I'll tell you how, one way and another, the +blues have got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. +'Twas dull work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help +him." + +"What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under +your roof." + +"I helped him so far, but that's little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, +there he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than +to know his right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to +be helped out of that." + +"Ah, poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet. + +"Then," says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing +his heavy hand over his hair, "that brought up Gridley in a man's +mind. His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two +got mixed up in a man's mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do +with both. And to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, +standing up on end in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking +everything so evenly--it made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure +you." + +"My advice to you," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "is to light your pipe and +tingle that way. It's wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for +the health altogether." + +"You're right," says the trooper, "and I'll do it." + +So he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that +impresses the young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer +the ceremony of drinking Mrs. Bagnet's health, always given by +himself on these occasions in a speech of exemplary terseness. But +the young ladies having composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of +calling "the mixtur," and George's pipe being now in a glow, Mr. +Bagnet considers it his duty to proceed to the toast of the +evening. He addresses the assembled company in the following +terms. + +"George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a +day's march. And you won't find such another. Here's towards +her!" + +The toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns +thanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity. This model +composition is limited to the three words "And wishing yours!" +which the old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession +and a well-regulated swig of the mixture. This she again follows +up, on the present occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation, +"Here's a man!" + +Here IS a man, much to the astonishment of the little company, +looking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man--a quick +keen man--and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once, +individually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a +remarkable man. + +"George," says the man, nodding, "how do you find yourself?" + +"Why, it's Bucket!" cries Mr. George. + +"Yes," says the man, coming in and closing the door. "I was going +down the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the +musical instruments in the shop-window--a friend of mine is in want +of a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone--and I saw a party +enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I +thought I couldn't be mistaken. How goes the world with you, +George, at the present moment? Pretty smooth? And with you, +ma'am? And with you, governor? And Lord," says Mr. Bucket, +opening his arms, "here's children too! You may do anything with +me if you only show me children. Give us a kiss, my pets. No +occasion to inquire who YOUR father and mother is. Never saw such +a likeness in my life!" + +Mr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George +and taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. "You pretty dears," says +Mr. Bucket, "give us another kiss; it's the only thing I'm greedy +in. Lord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the +ages of these two, ma'am? I should put 'em down at the figures of +about eight and ten." + +"You're very near, sir," says Mrs. Bagnet. + +"I generally am near," returns Mr. Bucket, "being so fond of +children. A friend of mine has had nineteen of 'em, ma'am, all by +one mother, and she's still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not +so much so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And +what do you call these, my darling?" pursues Mr. Bucket, pinching +Malta's cheeks. "These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! +And what do you think about father? Do you think father could +recommend a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. +Bucket's friend, my dear? My name's Bucket. Ain't that a funny +name?" + +These blandishments have entirely won the family heart. Mrs. +Bagnet forgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass +for Mr. Bucket and waiting upon him hospitably. She would be glad +to receive so pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she +tells him that as a friend of George's she is particularly glad to +see him this evening, for George has not been in his usual spirits. + +"Not in his usual spirits?" exclaims Mr. Bucket. "Why, I never +heard of such a thing! What's the matter, George? You don't +intend to tell me you've been out of spirits. What should you be +out of spirits for? You haven't got anything on your mind, you +know." + +"Nothing particular," returns the trooper. + +"I should think not," rejoins Mr. Bucket. "What could you have on +your mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on THEIR +minds, eh? Not they, but they'll be upon the minds of some of the +young fellows, some of these days, and make 'em precious low- +spirited. I ain't much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, +ma'am." + +Mrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his +own. + +"There, ma'am!" says Mr. Bucket. "Would you believe it? No, I +haven't. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket +is as fond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but +no. So it is. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must +not repine. What a very nice backyard, ma'am! Any way out of that +yard, now?" + +There is no way out of that yard. + +"Ain't there really?" says Mr. Bucket. "I should have thought +there might have been. Well, I don't know as I ever saw a backyard +that took my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank +you. No, I see there's no way out. But what a very good- +proportioned yard it is!" + +Having cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his +chair next his friend Mr. George and pats Mr. George affectionately +on the shoulder. + +"How are your spirits now, George?" + +"All right now," returns the trooper. + +"That's your sort!" says Mr. Bucket. "Why should you ever have +been otherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no +right to be out of spirits. That ain't a chest to be out of +spirits, is it, ma'am? And you haven't got anything on your mind, +you know, George; what could you have on your mind!" + +Somewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety +of his conversational powers, Mr. Bucket twice or thrice repeats it +to the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is +particularly his own. But the sun of his sociality soon recovers +from this brief eclipse and shines again. + +"And this is brother, is it, my dears?" says Mr. Bucket, referring +to Quebec and Malta for information on the subject of young +Woolwich. "And a nice brother he is--half-brother I mean to say. +For he's too old to be your boy, ma'am." + +"I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else's," +returns Mrs. Bagnet, laughing. + +"Well, you do surprise me! Yet he's like you, there's no denying. +Lord, he's wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the +brow, you know, THERE his father comes out!" Mr. Bucket compares +the faces with one eye shut up, while Mr. Bagnet smokes in stolid +satisfaction. + +This is an opportunity for Mrs. Bagnet to inform him that the boy +is George's godson. + +"George's godson, is he?" rejoins Mr. Bucket with extreme +cordiality. "I must shake hands over again with George's godson. +Godfather and godson do credit to one another. And what do you +intend to make of him, ma'am? Does he show any turn for any +musical instrument?" + +Mr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, "Plays the fife. Beautiful." + +"Would you believe it, governor," says Mr. Bucket, struck by the +coincidence, "that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not +in a scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless +you! 'British Grenadiers'--there's a tune to warm an Englishman +up! COULD you give us 'British Grenadiers,' my fine fellow?" + +Nothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this +call upon young Woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and +performs the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, +much enlivened, beats time and never falls to come in sharp with +the burden, "British Gra-a-anadeers!" In short, he shows so much +musical taste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips +to express his conviction that he is a singer. Mr. Bucket receives +the harmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did +once chaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own +bosom, and with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends, +that he is asked to sing. Not to be behindhand in the sociality of +the evening, he complies and gives them "Believe Me, if All Those +Endearing Young Charms." This ballad, he informs Mrs. Bagnet, he +considers to have been his most powerful ally in moving the heart +of Mrs. Bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the +altar--Mr. Bucket's own words are "to come up to the scratch." + +This sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the +evening that Mr. George, who testified no great emotions of +pleasure on his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather +proud of him. He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources, +and so easy to get on with, that it is something to have made him +known there. Mr. Bagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible +of the value of his acquaintance that he solicits the honour of his +company on the old girl's next birthday. If anything can more +closely cement and consolidate the esteem which Mr. Bucket has +formed for the family, it is the discovery of the nature of the +occasion. He drinks to Mrs. Bagnet with a warmth approaching to +rapture, engages himself for that day twelvemonth more than +thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day in a large black pocket- +book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope that Mrs. Bucket and +Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner, sisters. As he +says himself, what is public life without private ties? He is in +his humble way a public man, but it is not in that sphere that he +finds happiness. No, it must be sought within the confines of +domestic bliss. + +It is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn, +should remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising +an acquaintance. And he does. He keeps very close to him. +Whatever the subject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye +upon him. He waits to walk home with him. He is interested in his +very boots and observes even them attentively as Mr. George sits +smoking cross-legged in the chimney-corner. + +At length Mr. George rises to depart. At the same moment Mr. +Bucket, with the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises. He +dotes upon the children to the last and remembers the commission he +has undertaken for an absent friend. + +"Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor--could you +recommend me such a thing?" + +"Scores," says Mr. Bagnet. + +"I am obliged to you," returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand. +"You're a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a +regular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the +rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn't," +says Mr. Bucket in a considerate and private voice, "you needn't +commit yourself to too low a figure, governor. I don't want to pay +too large a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper +percentage and be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but +fair. Every man must live, and ought to it." + +Mr. Bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they +have found a jewel of price. + +"Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten to- +morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few +wiolincellers of a good tone?" says Mr. Bucket. + +Nothing easier. Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet both engage to have the +requisite information ready and even hint to each other at the +practicability of having a small stock collected there for +approval. + +"Thank you," says Mr. Bucket, "thank you. Good night, ma'am. Good +night, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you +for one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life." + +They, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he +has given them in his company; and so they part with many +expressions of goodwill on both sides. "Now George, old boy," says +Mr. Bucket, taking his arm at the shop-door, "come along!" As they +go down the little street and the Bagnets pause for a minute +looking after them, Mrs. Bagnet remarks to the worthy Lignum that +Mr. Bucket "almost clings to George like, and seems to be really +fond of him." + +The neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little +inconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm. Mr. George +therefore soon proposes to walk singly. But Mr. Bucket, who cannot +make up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, "Wait +half a minute, George. I should wish to speak to you first." +Immediately afterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into +a parlour, where he confronts him and claps his own back against +the door. + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "duty is duty, and friendship is +friendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I +have endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to +you whether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in +custody, George." + +"Custody? What for?" returns the trooper, thunderstruck. + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, urging a sensible view of the case +upon him with his fat forefinger, "duty, as you know very well, is +one thing, and conversation is another. It's my duty to inform you +that any observations you may make will be liable to be used +against you. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You +don't happen to have heard of a murder?" + +"Murder!" + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger in an +impressive state of action, "bear in mind what I've said to you. I +ask you nothing. You've been in low spirits this afternoon. I +say, you don't happen to have heard of a murder?" + +"No. Where has there been a murder?" + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "don't you go and commit yourself. +I'm a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a +murder in Lincoln's Inn Fields--gentleman of the name of +Tulkinghorn. He was shot last night. I want you for that." + +The trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out +upon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face. + +"Bucket! It's not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed +and that you suspect ME?" + +"George," returns Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger going, "it is +certainly possible, because it's the case. This deed was done last +night at ten o'clock. Now, you know where you were last night at +ten o'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt." + +"Last night! Last night?" repeats the trooper thoughtfully. Then +it flashes upon him. "Why, great heaven, I was there last night!" + +"So I have understood, George," returns Mr. Bucket with great +deliberation. "So I have understood. Likewise you've been very +often there. You've been seen hanging about the place, and you've +been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible +--I don't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible--that +he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, +dangerous fellow." + +The trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak. + +"Now, George," continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table +with an air of business rather in the upholstery way than +otherwise, "my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make +things pleasant. I tell you plainly there's a reward out, of a +hundred guineas, offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You +and me have always been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to +discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as +well be made by me as any other man. On all of which accounts, I +should hope it was clear to you that I must have you, and that I'm +damned if I don't have you. Am I to call in any assistance, or is +the trick done?" + +Mr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier. +"Come," he says; "I am ready." + +"George," continues Mr. Bucket, "wait a bit!" With his upholsterer +manner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes +from his pocket a pair of handcuffs. "This is a serious charge, +George, and such is my duty." + +The trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out +his two hands, clasped together, and says, "There! Put them on!" + +Mr. Bucket adjusts them in a moment. "How do you find them? Are +they comfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as +pleasant as is consistent with my duty, and I've got another pair +in my pocket." This remark he offers like a most respectable +tradesman anxious to execute an order neatly and to the perfect +satisfaction of his customer. "They'll do as they are? Very well! +Now, you see, George"--he takes a cloak from a corner and begins +adjusting it about the trooper's neck--"I was mindful of your +feelings when I come out, and brought this on purpose. There! +Who's the wiser?" + +"Only I," returns the trooper, "but as I know it, do me one more +good turn and pull my hat over my eyes." + +"Really, though! Do you mean it? Ain't it a pity? It looks so." + +"I can't look chance men in the face with these things on," Mr. +George hurriedly replies. "Do, for God's sake, pull my hat +forward." + +So strongly entreated, Mr. Bucket complies, puts his own hat on, +and conducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as +steadily as usual, though with his head less erect, and Mr. Bucket +steering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings. + + + +CHAPTER L + +Esther's Narrative + + +It happened that when I came home from Deal I found a note from +Caddy Jellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me +that her health, which had been for some time very delicate, was +worse and that she would be more glad than she could tell me if I +would go to see her. It was a note of a few lines, written from +the couch on which she lay and enclosed to me in another from her +husband, in which he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. +Caddy was now the mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor +little baby--such a tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that +seemed to be scarcely anything but cap-border, and a little lean, +long-fingered hand, always clenched under its chin. It would lie +in this attitude all day, with its bright specks of eyes open, +wondering (as I used to imagine) how it came to be so small and +weak. Whenever it was moved it cried, but at all other times it +was so patient that the sole desire of its life appeared to be to +lie quiet and think. It had curious little dark veins in its face +and curious little dark marks under its eyes like faint +remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days, and altogether, to those +who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous little sight. + +But it was enough for Caddy that SHE was used to it. The projects +with which she beguiled her illness, for little Esther's education, +and little Esther's marriage, and even for her own old age as the +grandmother of little Esther's little Esthers, was so prettily +expressive of devotion to this pride of her life that I should be +tempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance that +I am getting on irregularly as it is. + +To return to the letter. Caddy had a superstition about me which +had been strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago +when she had lain asleep with her head in my lap. She almost--I +think I must say quite--believed that I did her good whenever I was +near her. Now although this was such a fancy of the affectionate +girl's that I am almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have +all the force of a fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set +off to Caddy, with my guardian's consent, post-haste; and she and +Prince made so much of me that there never was anything like it. + +Next day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. +It was a very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier +in the morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping +matters before leaving home. + +But when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on +my return at night, "Now, little woman, little woman, this will +never do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant +coaching will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a +while and take possession of our old lodgings." + +"Not for me, dear guardian," said I, "for I never feel tired," +which was strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such +request. + +"For me then," returned my guardian, "or for Ada, or for both of +us. It is somebody's birthday to-morrow, I think." + +"Truly I think it is," said I, kissing my darling, who would be +twenty-one to-morrow. + +"Well," observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously, +"that's a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some +necessary business to transact in assertion of her independence, +and will make London a more convenient place for all of us. So to +London we will go. That being settled, there is another thing--how +have you left Caddy?" + +"Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she +regains her health and strength." + +"What do you call some time, now?" asked my guardian thoughtfully. + +"Some weeks, I am afraid." + +"Ah!" He began to walk about the room with his hands in his +pockets, showing that he had been thinking as much. "Now, what do +you say about her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?" + +I felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but +that Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like +his opinion to be confirmed by some one. + +"Well, you know," returned my guardian quickly, "there's +Woodcourt." + +I had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a +moment all that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. +Woodcourt seemed to come back and confuse me. + +"You don't object to him, little woman?" + +"Object to him, guardian? Oh no!" + +"And you don't think the patient would object to him?" + +So far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a +great reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he +was no stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in +his kind attendance on Miss Flite. + +"Very good," said my guardian. "He has been here to-day, my dear, +and I will see him about it to-morrow." + +I felt in this short conversation--though I did not know how, for +she was quiet, and we interchanged no look--that my dear girl well +remembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no +other hands than Caddy's had brought me the little parting token. +This caused me to feel that I ought to tell her, and Caddy too, +that I was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that if I +avoided that disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my +own eyes of its master's love. Therefore, when we went upstairs +and had waited listening until the clock struck twelve in order +that only I might be the first to wish my darling all good wishes +on her birthday and to take her to my heart, I set before her, just +as I had set before myself, the goodness and honour of her cousin +John and the happy life that was in store for for me. If ever my +darling were fonder of me at one time than another in all our +intercourse, she was surely fondest of me that night. And I was so +rejoiced to know it and so comforted by the sense of having done +right in casting this last idle reservation away that I was ten +times happier than I had been before. I had scarcely thought it a +reservation a few hours ago, but now that it was gone I felt as if +I understood its nature better. + +Next day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and +in half an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never +gone away. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's +birthday, and we were as pleasant as we could be with the great +blank among us that Richard's absence naturally made on such an +occasion. After that day I was for some weeks--eight or nine as I +remember--very much with Caddy, and thus it fell out that I saw +less of Ada at this time than any other since we had first come +together, except the time of my own illness. She often came to +Caddy's, but our function there was to amuse and cheer her, and we +did not talk in our usual confidential manner. Whenever I went +home at night we were together, but Caddy's rest was broken by +pain, and I often remained to nurse her. + +With her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and +their home to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So self- +denying, so uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, +so afraid of giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted +labours of her husband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I +had never known the best of her until now. And it seemed so +curious that her pale face and helpless figure should be lying +there day after day where dancing was the business of life, where +the kit and the apprentices began early every morning in the ball- +room, and where the untidy little boy waltzed by himself in the +kitchen all the afternoon. + +At Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment, +trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and +more airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, +every day, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my +small small namesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or +read to her. It was at one of the first of these quiet times that +I told Caddy about Bleak House. + +We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who +in his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit +softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very +little child. Whatever Caddy's condition really was, she never +failed to declare to Prince that she was all but well--which I, +heaven forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince +in such good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his +pocket and play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never +knew it to do in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never +noticed it at all. + +Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her +usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her +grandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young +Borrioboolan on its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as +serene, and as untidy, she would say, "Well, Caddy, child, and how +do you do to-day?" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking +no notice of the reply or would sweetly glide off into a +calculation of the number of letters she had lately received and +answered or of the coffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This +she would always do with a serene contempt for our limited sphere +of action, not to be disguised. + +Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night +and from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. +If the baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make +him uncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it +was surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy +required any little comfort that the house contained, she first +carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In +return for this consideration he would come into the room once a +day, all but blessing it--showing a condescension, and a patronage, +and a grace of manner in dispensing the light of his high- +shouldered presence from which I might have supposed him (if I had +not known better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life. + +"My Caroline," he would say, making the nearest approach that he +could to bending over her. "Tell me that you are better to-day." + +"Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop," Caddy would reply. + +"Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not +qulte prostrated by fatigue?" Here he would crease up his eyelids +and kiss his fingers to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased +to be particular in his attentions since I had been so altered. + +"Not at all," I would assure him. + +"Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. +We must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. +My dear Caroline"--he would turn to his daughter-in-law with +infinite generosity and protection--"want for nothing, my love. +Frame a wish and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house +contains, everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. +Do not," he would sometimes add in a burst of deportment, "even +allow my simple requirements to be considered if they should at any +time interfere with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are +greater than mine." + +He had established such a long prescriptive right to this +deportment (his son's inheritance from his mother) that I several +times knew both Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by +these affectionate self-sacrifices. + +"Nay, my dears," he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy's thin +arm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though +not by the same process. "Nay, nay! I have promised never to +leave ye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no +other return. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park." + +He would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his +hotel dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never +saw any better traits in him than these I faithfully record, except +that he certainly conceived a liking for Peepy and would take the +child out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions +sending him home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally +with a halfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness +was attended with no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for +before Peepy was sufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with +the professor of deportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the +expense of Caddy and her husband, from top to toe. + +Last of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used +to come in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she +was, and then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no +attempt to say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found +me bustling about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took +his coat off, as if with an intention of helping by a great +exertion; but he never got any further. His sole occupation was to +sit with his head against the wall, looking hard at the thoughtful +baby; and I could not quite divest my mind of a fancy that they +understood one another. + +I have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was +now Caddy's regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his +care, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains +he took that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good +deal of Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might +be supposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often +slipped home at about the hours when he was expected. We +frequently met, notwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself +now, but I still felt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and +he still WAS sorry for me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his +professional engagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no +settled projects for the future. + +It was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change +in my dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me, +because I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing +in themselves and only became something when they were pieced +together. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada +was not so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her +tenderness for me was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a +moment doubt that; but there was a quiet sorrow about her which she +did not confide to me, and in which I traced some hidden regret. + +Now, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the +happiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set +me thinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed +this something from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came +into my head that she was a little grieved--for me--by what I had +told her about Bleak House. + +How I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don't know. I had +no idea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was +not grieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy. +Still, that Ada might be thinking--for me, though I had abandoned +all such thoughts--of what once was, but was now all changed, +seemed so easy to believe that I believed it. + +What could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show +her that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk +and busy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along. +However, as Caddy's illness had certainly interfered, more or less, +with my home duties--though I had always been there in the morning +to make my guardian's breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed +and said there must be two little women, for his little woman was +never missing--I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went +about the house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and +working in a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, +noon, and night. + +And still there was the same shade between me and my darling. + +"So, Dame Trot," observed my guardian, shutting up his book one +night when we were all three together, "so Woodcourt has restored +Caddy Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?" + +"Yes," I said; "and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be +made rich, guardian." + +"I wish it was," he returned, "with all my heart." + +So did I too, for that matter. I said so. + +"Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we +not, little woman?" + +I laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, +for it might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there +might be many who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy +herself, and many others. + +"True," said my guardian. "I had forgotten that. But we would +agree to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to +work with tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own +happy home and his own household gods--and household goddess, too, +perhaps?" + +That was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that. + +"To be sure," said my guardian. "All of us. I have a great regard +for Woodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him +delicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an +independent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. +And yet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He +seems half inclined for another voyage. But that appears like +casting such a man away." + +"It might open a new world to him," said I. + +''So it might, little woman," my guardian assented. ''I doubt if +he expects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that +he sometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune +encountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?" + +I shook my head. + +"Humph," said my guardian. "I am mistaken, I dare say." As there +was a little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl's +satisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked +which was a favourite with my guardian. + +"And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?" I asked +him when I had hummed it quietly all through. + +"I don't quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was +likely at present that he will give a long trip to another +country." + +"I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him +wherever he goes," said I; "and though they are not riches, he will +never be the poorer for them, guardian, at least." + +"Never, little woman," he replied. + +I was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian's +chair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it +was now. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, +as she looked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that +tears were falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be +placid and merry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her +loving heart at rest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but +to be myself. + +So I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder--how little thinking +what was heavy on her mind!--and I said she was not quite well, and +put my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our +own room, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so +unprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I +never thought she stood in need of it. + +"Oh, my dear good Esther," said Ada, "if I could only make up my +mind to speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!" + +"Why, my love!" I remonstrated. "Ada, why should you not speak to +us!" + +Ada only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart. + +"You surely don't forget, my beauty," said I, smiling, "what quiet, +old-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the +discreetest of dames? You don't forget how happily and peacefully +my life is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that +you don't forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never +be." + +"No, never, Esther." + +"Why then, my dear," said I, "there can be nothing amiss--and why +should you not speak to us?" + +"Nothing amiss, Esther?" returned Ada. "Oh, when I think of all +these years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old +relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!" + +I looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to +answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into +many little recollections of our life together and prevented her +from saying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I +returned to my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to +Ada and sat near her for a little while. + +She was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a +little changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could +not decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she +was changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face +looked different to me. My guardian's old hopes of her and Richard +arose sorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, "She has been +anxious about him," and I wondered how that love would end. + +When I had come home from Caddy's while she was ill, I had often +found Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had +never known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her, +which was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still +rather wondered what the work could he, for it was evidently +nothing for herself. + +And I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under +her pillow so that it was hidden. + +How much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how +much less amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with +my own cheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested +with me to put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace! + +But I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it +next day to find that there was still the same shade between me and +my darling. + + + +CHAPTER LI + +Enlightened + + +When Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went, that very same day, +to Mr. Vholes's in Symond's Inn. For he never once, from the +moment when I entreated him to be a friend to Richard, neglected or +forgot his promise. He had told me that he accepted the charge as +a sacred trust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit. + +He found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed Mr. Vholes of his +agreement with Richard that he should call there to learn his +address. + +"Just so, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Mr. C.'s address is not a +hundred miles from here, sir, Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred +miles from here. Would you take a seat, sir?" + +Mr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business with him +beyond what he had mentioned. + +"Just so, sir. I believe, sir," said Mr. Vholes, still quietly +insisting on the seat by not giving the address, "that you have +influence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have." + +"I was not aware of it myself," returned Mr. Woodcourt; "but I +suppose you know best." + +"Sir," rejoined Mr. Vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all, +"it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part +of my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who +confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not +be wanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be +wanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir." + +Mr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address. + +"Give me leave, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Bear with me for a moment. +Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play +without--need I say what?" + +"Money, I presume?" + +"Sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to be honest with you (honesty being my +golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I +generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of +Mr. C.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be +highly impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to +leave off; it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir," said +Mr. Vholes, bringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive +manner, "nothing." + +"You seem to forget," returned Mr, Woodcourt, "that I ask you to +say nothing and have no interest in anything you say." + +"Pardon me, sir!" retorted Mr. Vholes. "You do yourself an +injustice. No, sir! Pardon me! You shall not--shall not in my +office, if I know it--do yourself an injustice. You are interested +in anything, and in everything, that relates to your friend. I +know human nature much better, sir, than to admit for an instant +that a gentleman of your appearance is not interested in whatever +concerns his friend." + +"Well," replied Mr. Woodcourt, "that may be. I am particularly +interested in his address." + +"The number, sir," said Mr. Vholes parenthetically, "I believe I +have already mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this +considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There +are funds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds +in hand. But for the onward play, more funds must be provided, +unless Mr. C. is to throw away what he has already ventured, which +is wholly and solely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I +take the opportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr. +C. Without funds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr. +C. to the extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of +the estate, not beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir, +without wronging some one. I must either wrong my three dear girls +or my venerable father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the +Vale of Taunton; or some one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call +it weakness or folly if you please) to wrong no one." + +Mr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it. + +"I wish, sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to leave a good name behind me. +Therefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of +Mr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is +worthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the +wheel, I do it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose. +My name is painted on the door outside, with that object." + +"And Mr. Carstone's address, Mr. Vholes?" + +"Sir," returned Mr. Vholes, "as I believe I have already mentioned, +it is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.'s +apartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser, +and I am far from objecting, for I court inquiry." + +Upon this Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in +search of Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to +understand now but too well. + +He found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as I had found +him in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he +was not writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which +his eyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be +standing open, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments +without being perceived, and he told me that he never could forget +the haggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before +he was aroused from his dream. + +"Woodcourt, my dear fellow," cried Richard, starting up with +extended hands, "you come upon my vision like a ghost." + +"A friendly one," he replied, "and only waiting, as they say ghosts +do, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?" They were +seated now, near together. + +"Badly enough, and slowly enough," said Richard, "speaking at least +for my part of it." + +"What part is that?" + +"The Chancery part." + +"I never heard," returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, "of its +going well yet." + +"Nor I," said Richard moodily. "Who ever did?" He brightened +again in a moment and said with his natural openness, "Woodcourt, I +should be sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it +in your estimation. You must know that I have done no good this +long time. I have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have +been capable of nothing else. It may be that I should have done +better by keeping out of the net into which my destiny has worked +me, but I think not, though I dare say you will soon hear, if you +have not already heard, a very different opinion. To make short of +a long story, I am afraid I have wanted an object; but I have an +object now--or it has me--and it is too late to discuss it. Take +me as I am, and make the best of me." + +"A bargain," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Do as much by me in return." + +"Oh! You," returned Richard, "you can pursue your art for its own +sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can +strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different +creatures." + +He spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary +condition. + +"Well, well!" he cried, shaking it off. "Everything has an end. +We shall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of +me?" + +"Aye! Indeed I will." They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in +deep earnestness. I can answer for one of them with my heart of +hearts. + +"You come as a godsend," said Richard, "for I have seen nobody here +yet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to +mention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You +can hardly make the best of me if I don't. You know, I dare say, +that I have an attachment to my cousin Ada?" + +Mr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much to him. "Now +pray," returned Richard, "don't think me a heap of selfishness. +Don't suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my +heart over this miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and +interests alone. Ada's are bound up with mine; they can't be +separated; Vholes works for both of us. Do think of that!" + +He was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him +the strongest assurances that he did him no injustice. + +"You see," said Richard, with something pathetic in his manner of +lingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, "to +an upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours +here, I cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I +want to see Ada righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do +my utmost to right her, as well as myself; I venture what I can +scrape together to extricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech +you, think of that!" + +Afterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt came to reflect on what had passed, +he was so very much impressed by the strength of Richard's anxiety +on this point that in telling me generally of his first visit to +Symond's Inn he particularly dwelt upon it. It revived a fear I +had had before that my dear girl's little property would be +absorbed by Mr. Vholes and that Richard's justification to himself +would be sincerely this. It was just as I began to take care of +Caddy that the interview took place, and I now return to the time +when Caddy had recovered and the shade was still between me and my +darling. + +I proposed to Ada that morning that we should go and see Richard. +It a little surprised me to find that she hesitated and was not so +radiantly willing as I had expected. + +"My dear," said I, "you have not had any difference with Richard +since I have been so much away?" + +"No, Esther." + +"Not heard of him, perhaps?" said I. + +"Yes, I have heard of him," said Ada. + +Such tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. I could not +make my darling out. Should I go to Richard's by myself? I said. +No, Ada thought I had better not go by myself. Would she go with +me? Yes, Ada thought she had better go with me. Should we go now? +Yes, let us go now. Well, I could not understand my darling, with +the tears in her eyes and the love in her face! + +We were soon equipped and went out. It was a sombre day, and drops +of chill rain fell at intervals. It was one of those colourless +days when everything looks heavy and harsh. The houses frowned at +us, the dust rose at us, the smoke swooped at us, nothing made any +compromise about itself or wore a softened aspect. I fancied my +beautiful girl quite out of place in the rugged streets, and I +thought there were more funerals passing along the dismal pavements +than I had ever seen before. + +We had first to find out Symond's Inn. We were going to inquire in +a shop when Ada said she thought it was near Chancery Lane. "We +are not likely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction," +said I. So to Chancery Lane we went, and there, sure enough, we +saw it written up. Symond's Inn. + +We had next to find out the number. "Or Mr. Vholes's office will +do," I recollected, "for Mr. Vholes's office is next door." Upon +which Ada said, perhaps that was Mr. Vholes's office in the corner +there. And it really was. + +Then came the question, which of the two next doors? I was going +for the one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling +was right again. So up we went to the second story, when we came +to Richard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel. + +I should have knocked, but Ada said perhaps we had better turn the +handle and go in. Thus we came to Richard, poring over a table +covered with dusty bundles of papers which seemed to me like dusty +mirrors reflecting his own mind. Wherever I looked I saw the +ominous words that ran in it repeated. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. + +He received us very affectionately, and we sat down. "If you had +come a little earlier," he said, "you would have found Woodcourt +here. There never was such a good fellow as Woodcourt is. He +finds time to look in between-whiles, when anybody else with half +his work to do would be thinking about not being able to come. And +he is so cheery, so fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so--everything +that I am not, that the place brightens whenever he comes, and +darkens whenever he goes again." + +"God bless him," I thought, "for his truth to me!" + +"He is not so sanguine, Ada," continued Richard, casting his +dejected look over the bundles of papers, "as Vholes and I are +usually, but he is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. +We have gone into them, and he has not. He can't be expected to +know much of such a labyrinth." + +As his look wandered over the papers again and he passed his two +hands over his head, I noticed how sunken and how large his eyes +appeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all +bitten away. + +"Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?" said I. + +"Why, my dear Minerva," answered Richard with his old gay laugh, +"it is neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun +shines here, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining +brightly in an open spot. But it's well enough for the time. It's +near the offices and near Vholes." + +"Perhaps," I hinted, "a change from both--" + +"Might do me good?" said Richard, forcing a laugh as he finished +the sentence. "I shouldn't wonder! But it can only come in one +way now--in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit +must be ended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my +dear girl, the suit, my dear girl!" + +These latter words were addressed to Ada, who was sitting nearest +to him. Her face being turned away from me and towards him, I +could not see it. + +"We are doing very well," pursued Richard. "Vholes will tell you +so. We are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them +no rest. Vholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are +upon them everywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall +rouse up that nest of sleepers, mark my words!" + +His hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his +despondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce +in its determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so +conscious of being forced and unsustainable that it had long +touched me to the heart. But the commentary upon it now indelibly +written in his handsome face made it far more distressing than it +used to be. I say indelibly, for I felt persuaded that if the +fatal cause could have been for ever terminated, according to his +brightest visions, in that same hour, the traces of the premature +anxiety, self-reproach, and disappointment it had occasioned him +would have remained upon his features to the hour of his death. + +"The sight of our dear little woman," said Richard, Ada still +remaining silent and quiet, "is so natural to me, and her +compassionate face is so like the face of old days--" + +Ah! No, no. I smiled and shook my head. + +"--So exactly like the face of old days," said Richard in his +cordial voice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which +nothing ever changed, "that I can't make pretences with her. I +fluctuate a little; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, +and sometimes I--don't quite despair, but nearly. I get," said +Richard, relinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, +"so tired!" + +He took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. "I get," +he repeated gloomily, "so tired. It is such weary, weary work!" + +He was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice +and looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet, +kneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight +on his head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her +face to me. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw! + +"Esther, dear," she said very quietly, "I am not going home again." + +A light shone in upon me all at once. + +"Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have +been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; +I shall never go home any more!" With those words my darling drew +his head down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my +life I saw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it +then before me. + +"Speak to Esther, my dearest," said Richard, breaking the silence +presently. "Tell her how it was." + +I met her before she could come to me and folded her in my arms. +We neither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own I wanted +to hear nothing. "My pet," said I. "My love. My poor, poor +girl!" I pitied her so much. I was very fond of Richard, but the +impulse that I had upon me was to pity her so much. + +"Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?" + +"My dear," said I, "to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great +wrong. And as to me!" Why, as to me, what had I to forgive! + +I dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, +and Richard sat on my other side; and while I was reminded of that +so different night when they had first taken me into their +confidence and had gone on in their own wild happy way, they told +me between them how it was. + +"All I had was Richard's," Ada said; "and Richard would not take +it, Esther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him +dearly!" + +"And you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent Dame +Durden," said Richard, "that how could we speak to you at such a +time! And besides, it was not a long-considered step. We went out +one morning and were married." + +"And when it was done, Esther," said my darling, "I was always +thinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. And +sometimes I thought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes I +thought you ought not to know it and keep it from my cousin John; +and I could not tell what to do, and I fretted very much." + +How selfish I must have been not to have thought of this before! I +don't know what I said now. I was so sorry, and yet I was so fond +of them and so glad that they were fond of me; I pitied them so +much, and yet I felt a kind of pride in their loving one another. +I never had experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at one +time, and in my own heart I did not know which predominated. But I +was not there to darken their way; I did not do that. + +When I was less foolish and more composed, my darling took her +wedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. Then I +remembered last night and told Richard that ever since her marriage +she had worn it at night when there was no one to see. Then Ada +blushingly asked me how did I know that, my dear. Then I told Ada +how I had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little +thought why, my dear. Then they began telling me how it was all +over again, and I began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish +again, and to hide my plain old face as much as I could lest I +should put them out of heart. + +Thus the time went on until it became necessary for me to think of +returning. When that time arrived it was the worst of all, for +then my darling completely broke down. She clung round my neck, +calling me by every dear name she could think of and saying what +should she do without me! Nor was Richard much better; and as for +me, I should have been the worst of the three if I had not severely +said to myself, "Now Esther, if you do, I'll never speak to you +again!" + +"Why, I declare," said I, "I never saw such a wife. I don't think +she loves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for +goodness' sake." But I held her tight all the while, and could +have wept over her I don't know how long. + +"I give this dear young couple notice," said I, "that I am only +going away to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming +backwards and forwards until Symond's Inn is tired of the sight of +me. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the +use of that, you know, when I am coming back so soon!" + +I had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I +lingered for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to +rive my heart to turn from. + +So I said (in a merry, bustling manner) that unless they gave me +some encouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take +that liberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling +through her tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, +and gave it one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away. + +And when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed to me +that I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank +without her, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope +of seeing her there, that I could get no comfort for a little while +as I walked up and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying. + +I came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a +coach home. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had +reappeared a short time before and was lying at the point of death; +indeed, was then dead, though I did not know it. My guardian had +gone out to inquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being +quite alone, I cried a little again, though on the whole I don't +think I behaved so very, very ill. + +It was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the +loss of my darling yet. Three or four hours were not a long time +after years. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene +in which I had left her, and I pictured it as such an overshadowed +stony-hearted one, and I so longed to be near her and taking some +sort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening +only to look up at her windows. + +It was foolish, I dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to +me, and it does not seem quite so even now. I took Charley into my +confidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to +the new strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind +the yellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, +looking up, and narrowly missed encountering Mr. Vholes, who came +out of his office while we were there and turned his head to look +up too before going home. The sight of his lank black figure and +the lonesome air of that nook in the dark were favourable to the +state of my mind. I thought of the youth and love and beauty of my +dear girl, shut up in such an ill-assorted refuge, almost as if it +were a cruel place. + +It was very solitary and very dull, and I did not doubt that I +might safely steal upstairs. I left Charley below and went up with +a light foot, not distressed by any glare from the feeble oil +lanterns on the way. I listened for a few moments, and in the +musty rotting silence of the house believed that I could hear the +murmur of their young voices. I put my lips to the hearse-like +panel of the door as a kiss for my dear and came quietly down +again, thinking that one of these days I would confess to the +visit. + +And it really did me good, for though nobody but Charley and I knew +anything about it, I somehow felt as if it had diminished the +separation between Ada and me and had brought us together again for +those moments. I went back, not quite accustomed yet to the +change, but all the better for that hovering about my darling. + +My guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark +window. When I went in, his face cleared and he came to his seat, +but he caught the light upon my face as I took mine. + +"Little woman," said he, "You have been crying." + +"Why, yes, guardian," said I, "I am afraid I have been, a little. +Ada has been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian." + +I put my arm on the back of his chair, and I saw in his glance that +my words and my look at her empty place had prepared him. + +"Is she married, my dear?" + +I told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred +to his forgiveness. + +"She has no need of it," said he. "Heaven bless her and her +husband!" But just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so +was his. "Poor girl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada!" + +Neither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, "Well, +well, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast." + +"But its mistress remains, guardian." Though I was timid about +saying it, I ventured because of the sorrowful tone in which he had +spoken. "She will do all she can to make it happy," said I. + +"She will succeed, my love!" + +The letter had made no difference between us except that the seat +by his side had come to be mine; it made none now. He turned his +old bright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his +old way, and said again, "She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, +Bleak House is thinning fast, O little woman!" + +I was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. I was +rather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I +had meant to be since the letter and the answer. + + + +CHAPTER LII + +Obstinacy + + +But one other day had intervened when, early in the morning as we +were going to breakfast, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the +astounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which +Mr. George had been apprehended and was in custody. When he told +us that a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the +murderer's apprehension, I did not in my first consternation +understand why; but a few more words explained to me that the +murdered person was Sir Leicester's lawyer, and immediately my +mother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance. + +This unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long +watched and distrusted and who had long watched and distrusted her, +one for whom she could have had few intervals of kindness, always +dreading in him a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful +that my first thoughts were of her. How appalling to hear of such +a death and be able to feel no pity! How dreadful to remember, +perhaps, that she had sometimes even wished the old man away who +was so swiftly hurried out of life! + +Such crowding reflections, increasing the distress and fear I +always felt when the name was mentioned, made me so agitated that I +could scarcely hold my place at the table. I was quite unable to +follow the conversation until I had had a little time to recover. +But when I came to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and +found that they were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and +recalling every favourable impression we had formed of him out of +the good we had known of him, my interest and my fears were so +strongly aroused in his behalf that I was quite set up again. + +"Guardian, you don't think it possible that he is justly accused?" + +"My dear, I CAN'T think so. This man whom we have seen so open- +hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the +gentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived +and is so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such +a crime? I can't believe it. It's not that I don't or I won't. I +can't!" + +"And I can't," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Still, whatever we believe or +know of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are +against him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. +He has openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have +expressed himself violently towards him, and he certainly did about +him, to my knowledge. He admits that he was alone on the scene of +the murder within a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely +believe him to be as innocent of any participation in it as I am, +but these are all reasons for suspicion falling upon him." + +"True," said my guardian. And he added, turning to me, "It would +be doing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the +truth in any of these respects." + +I felt, of course, that we must admit, not only to ourselves but to +others, the full force of the circumstances against him. Yet I +knew withal (I could not help saying) that their weight would not +induce us to desert him in his need. + +"Heaven forbid!" returned my guardian. "We will stand by him, as +he himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone." He meant +Mr. Gridley and the boy, to both of whom Mr. George had given +shelter. + +Mr. Woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man had been with him +before day, after wandering about the streets all night like a +distracted creature. That one of the trooper's first anxieties was +that we should not suppose him guilty. That he had charged his +messenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn +assurance be could send us. That Mr. Woodcourt had only quieted +the man by undertaking to come to our house very early in the +morning with these representations. He added that he was now upon +his way to see the prisoner himself. + +My guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides that I +liked the retired soldier very much and that he liked me, I had +that secret interest in what had happened which was only known to +my guardian. I felt as if it came close and near to me. It seemed +to become personally important to myself that the truth should be +discovered and that no innocent people should be suspected, for +suspicion, once run wild, might run wilder. + +In a word, I felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with +them. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went. + +It was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one +another and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new +comprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary +prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year, +have had--as I have read--for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In +an arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so +glaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and +iron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found +the trooper standing in a corner. He had been sitting on a bench +there and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn. + +When he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread, +and there stopped and made a slight bow. But as I still advanced, +putting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment. + +"This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen," +said he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long +breath. "And now I don't so much care how it ends." + +He scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. What with his coolness and +his soldierly bearing, he looked far more like the prison guard. + +"This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady +in," said Mr. George, "but I know Miss Summerson will make the best +of it." As he handed me to the bench on which he had been sitting, +I sat down, which seemed to give him great satisfaction. + +"I thank you, miss," said he. + +"Now, George," observed my guardian, "as we require no new +assurances on your part, so I believe we need give you none on +ours." + +"Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not +innocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret +to myself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the +present visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but I +feel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply." + +He laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his bead +to us. Although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a +great amount of natural emotion by these simple means. + +"First," said my guardian, "can we do anything for your personal +comfort, George?" + +"For which, sir?" he inquired, clearing his throat. + +"For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would +lessen the hardship of this confinement?" + +"Well, sir," replied George, after a little cogitation, "I am +equally obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I +can't say that there is." + +"You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. +'Whenever you do, George, let us know." + +"Thank you, sir. Howsoever," observed Mr. George with one of his +sunburnt smiles, "a man who has been knocking about the world in a +vagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a +place like the present, so far as that goes." + +"Next, as to your case," observed my guardian. + +"Exactly so, sir," returned Mr. George, folding his arms upon his +breast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity. + +"How does it stand now?" + +"Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to +understand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from +time to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made +more complete I don't myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage +it somehow." + +"Why, heaven save us, man," exclaimed my guardian, surprised into +his old oddity and vehemence, "you talk of yourself as if you were +somebody else!" + +"No offence, sir," said Mr. George. "I am very sensible of your +kindness. But I don't see how an innocent man is to make up his +mind to this kind of thing without knocking his head against the +walls unless he takes it in that point of view. + +"That is true enough to a certain extent," returned my guardian, +softened. "But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take +ordinary precautions to defend himself." + +"Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the +magistrates, 'Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as +yourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is +perfectly true; I know no more about it.' I intend to continue +stating that, sir. What more can I do? It's the truth." + +"But the mere truth won't do," rejoined my guardian. + +"Won't it indeed., sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!" Mr. George +good-humouredly observed. + +"You must have a lawyer," pursued my guardian. "We must engage a +good one for you." + +"I ask your pardon, sir," said Mr. George with a step backward. "I +am equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from +anything of that sort." + +"You won't have a lawyer?" + +"No, sir." Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner. +"I thank you all the same, sir, but--no lawyer!" + +"Why not?" + +"I don't take kindly to the breed," said Mr. George. "Gridley +didn't. And--if you'll excuse my saying so much--I should hardly +have thought you did yourself, sir." + +"That's equity," my guardian explained, a little at a loss; "that's +equity, George." + +"Is it, indeed, sir?" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner. +"I am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a +general way I object to the breed." + +Unfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one +massive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a +picture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as +ever I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and +endeavoured to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which +went so well with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more +shaken by our representations that his place of confinement was. + +"Pray think, once more, Mr. George," said I. "Have you no wish in +reference to your case?" + +"I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss," he returned, "by +court-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware. +If you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a +couple of minutes, miss, not more, I'll endeavour to explain myself +as clearly as I can." + +He looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he +were adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and +after a moment's reflection went on. + +"You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and +brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My +shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such +property as I have--'tis small--is turned this way and that till it +don't know itself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don't +particular complain of that. Though I am in these present quarters +through no immediately preceding fault of mine, I can very well +understand that if I hadn't gone into the vagabond way in my youth, +this wouldn't have happened. It HAS happened. Then comes the +question how to meet it" + +He rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured +look and said apologetically, "I am such a short-winded talker that +I must think a bit." Having thought a bit, he looked up again and +resumed. + +"How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a +lawyer and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up +his ashes, but he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil +of a tight hold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that. +If I had kept clear of his trade, I should have kept outside this +place. But that's not what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. +Suppose I really had discharged into his body any one of those +pistols recently fired off that Bucket has found at my place, and +dear me, might have found there any day since it has been my place. +What should I have done as soon as I was hard and fast here? Got a +lawyer." + +He stopped on hearing some one at the locks and bolts and did not +resume until the door had been opened and was shut again. For what +purpose opened, I will mention presently. + +"I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have +often read in the newspapers), 'My client says nothing, my client +reserves his defence': my client this, that, and t'other. Well, +'tis not the custom of that breed to go straight, according to my +opinion, or to think that other men do. Say I am innocent and I +get a lawyer. He would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; +perhaps more. What would he do, whether or not? Act as if I was-- +shut my mouth up, tell me not to commit myself, keep circumstances +back, chop the evidence small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! +But, Miss Summerson, do I care for getting off in that way; or +would I rather be hanged in my own way--if you'll excuse my +mentioning anything so disagreeable to a lady?" + +He had warmed into his subject now, and was under no further +necessity to wait a bit. + +"I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I +don't intend to say," looking round upon us with his powerful arms +akimbo and his dark eyebrows raised, "that I am more partial to +being hanged than another man. What I say is, I must come off +clear and full or not at all. Therefore, when I hear stated +against me what is true, I say it's true; and when they tell me, +'whatever you say will be used,' I tell them I don't mind that; I +mean it to be used. If they can't make me innocent out of the +whole truth, they are not likely to do it out of anything less, or +anything else. And if they are, it's worth nothing to me." + +Taking a pace or two over the stone floor, he came back to the +table and finished what he had to say. + +"I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your +attention, and many times more for your interest. That's the plain +state of the matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with +a blunt broadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life +beyond my duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I +shall reap pretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first +crash of being seized as a murderer--it don't take a rover who has +knocked about so much as myself so very long to recover from a +crash--I worked my way round to what you find me now. As such I +shall remain. No relations will be disgraced by me or made unhappy +for me, and--and that's all I've got to say." + +The door had been opened to admit another soldier-looking man of +less prepossessing appearance at first sight and a weather-tanned, +bright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who, from her entrance, +had been exceedingly attentive to all Mr. George had said. Mr. +George had received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look, +but without any more particular greeting in the midst of his +address. He now shook them cordially by the hand and said, "Miss +Summerson and gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew +Bagnet. And this is his wife, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Mr. Bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and Mrs. Bagnet dropped us +a curtsy. + +"Real good friends of mine, they are," sald Mr. George. "It was at +their house I was taken." + +"With a second-hand wiolinceller," Mr. Bagnet put in, twitching his +head angrily. "Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no +object to." + +"Mat," said Mr. George, "you have heard pretty well all I have been +saying to this lady and these two gentlemen. I know it meets your +approval?" + +Mr. Bagnet, after considering, referred the point to his wife. +"Old girl," said he. "Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my +approval." + +"Why, George," exclaimed Mrs. Bagnet, who had been unpacking her +basket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little +tea and sugar, and a brown loaf, "you ought to know it don't. You +ought to know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You +won't be got off this way, and you won't be got off that way--what +do you mean by such picking and choosing? It's stuff and nonsense, +George." + +"Don't be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet," said the +trooper lightly. + +"Oh! Bother your misfortunes," cried Mrs. Bagnet, "if they don't +make you more reasonable than that comes to. I never was so +ashamed in my life to hear a man talk folly as I have been to hear +you talk this day to the present company. Lawyers? Why, what but +too many cooks should hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the +gentleman recommended them to you" + +"This is a very sensible woman," said my guardian. "I hope you +will persuade him, Mrs. Bagnet." + +"Persuade him, sir?" she returned. "Lord bless you, no. You don't +know George. Now, there!" Mrs. Bagnet left her basket to point +him out with both her bare brown hands. "There he stands! As +self-willed and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put +a human creature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon +take up and shoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own +strength as turn that man when he has got a thing into his head and +fixed it there. Why, don't I know him!" cried Mrs. Bagnet. "Don't +I know you, George! You don't mean to set up for a new character +with ME after all these years, I hope?" + +Her friendly indignation had an exemplary effect upon her husband, +who shook his head at the trooper several times as a silent +recommendation to him to yield. Between whiles, Mrs. Bagnet looked +at me; and I understood from the play of her eyes that she wished +me to do something, though I did not comprehend what. + +"But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years," +said Mrs. Bagnet as she blew a little dust off the pickled pork, +looking at me again; "and when ladies and gentlemen know you as +well as I do, they'll give up talking to you too. If you are not +too headstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is." + +"I accept it with many thanks," returned the trooper. + +"Do you though, indeed?" said Mrs. Bagnet, continuing to grumble on +good-humouredly. "I'm sure I'm surprised at that I wonder you +don't starve in your own way also. It would only be like you. +Perhaps you'll set your mind upon THAT next." Here she again +looked at me, and I now perceived from her glances at the door and +at me, by turns, that she wished us to retire and to await her +following us outside the prison. Communicating this by similar +means to my guardian and Mr. Woodcourt, I rose. + +"We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George," said I, "and we +shall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable." + +"More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can't find me," he returned. + +"But more persuadable we can, I hope," said I. "And let me entreat +you to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the +discovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last +importance to others besides yourself." + +He heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, +which I spoke a little turned from him, already on my way to the +door; he was observing (this they afterwards told me) my height and +figure, which seemed to catch his attention all at once. + +"'Tis curious," said he. "And yet I thought so at the time!" + +My guardian asked him what he meant. + +"Why, sir," he answered, "when my ill fortune took me to the dead +man's staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like +Miss Summerson's go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to +speak to it." + +For an instant I felt such a shudder as I never felt before or +since and hope I shall never feel again. + +"It came downstairs as I went up," said the trooper, "and crossed +the moonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; I noticed a +deep fringe to it. However, it has nothing to do with the present +subject, excepting that Miss Summerson looked so like it at the +moment that it came into my head." + +I cannot separate and define the feelings that arose in me after +this; it is enough that the vague duty and obligation I had felt +upon me from the first of following the investigation was, without +my distinctly daring to ask myself any question, increased, and +that I was indignantly sure of there being no possibility of a +reason for my being afraid. + +We three went out of the prison and walked up and down at some short +distance from the gate, which was in a retired place. We had not +waited long when Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet came out too and quickly +joined us. + +There was a tear in each of Mrs. Bagnet's eyes, and her face was +flushed and hurried. "I didn't let George see what I thought about +it, you know, miss," was her first remark when she came up, "but +he's in a bad way, poor old fellow!" + +"Not with care and prudence and good help," said my guardian. + +"A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir," returned Mrs. +Bagnet, hurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her grey cloak, +"but I am uneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much +that he never meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not +understand him as Lignum and me do. And then such a number of +circumstances have happened bad for him, and such a number of +people will be brought forward to speak against him, and Bucket is +so deep." + +"With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. +When a boy," Mr. Bagnet added with great solemnity. + +"Now, I tell you, miss," said Mrs. Bagnet; "and when I say miss, I +mean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I'll tell +you!" + +Mrs. Bagnet hurried us into a more secluded place and was at first +too breathless to proceed, occasioning Mr. Bagnet to say, "Old +girl! Tell 'em!" + +"Why, then, miss," the old girl proceeded, untying the strings of +her bonnet for more air, "you could as soon move Dover Castle as +move George on this point unless you had got a new power to move +him with. And I have got it!" + +"You are a jewel of a woman," said my guardian. "Go on!" + +"Now, I tell you, miss," she proceeded, clapping her hands in her +hurry and agitation a dozen times in every sentence, "that what he +says concerning no relations is all bosh. They don't know of him, +but he does know of them. He has said more to me at odd times than +to anybody else, and it warn't for nothing that he once spoke to my +Woolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. For fifty +pounds he had seen his mother that day. She's alive and must be +brought here straight!" + +Instantly Mrs. Bagnet put some pins into her mouth and began +pinning up her skirts all round a little higher than the level of +her grey cloak, which she accomplished with surpassing dispatch and +dexterity. + +"Lignum," said Mrs. Bagnet, "you take care of the children, old +man, and give me the umbrella! I'm away to Lincolnshire to bring +that old lady here." + +"But, bless the woman," cried my guardian with his hand in his +pocket, "how is she going? What money has she got?" + +Mrs. Bagnet made another application to her skirts and brought +forth a leathern purse in which she hastily counted over a few +shillings and which she then shut up with perfect satisfaction. + +"Never you mind for me, miss. I'm a soldier's wife and accustomed +to travel my own way. Lignum, old boy," kissing him, "one for +yourself, three for the children. Now I'm away into Lincolnshire +after George's mother!" + +And she actually set off while we three stood looking at one +another lost in amazement. She actually trudged away in her grey +cloak at a sturdy pace, and turned the corner, and was gone. + +"Mr. Bagnet," said my guardian. "Do you mean to let her go in that +way?" + +"Can't help it," he returned. "Made her way home once from another +quarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same +umbrella. Whatever the old girl says, do. Do it! Whenever the +old girl says, I'LL do it. She does it." + +"Then she is as honest and genuine as she looks," rejoined my +guardian, "and it is impossible to say more for her." + +"She's Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion," said Mr. +Bagnet, looking at us over his shoulder as he went his way also. +"And there's not such another. But I never own to it before her. +Discipline must be maintained." + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +The Track + + +Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together +under existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this +pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems +to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his +ears, and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it +enjoins him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens +his scent; he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to +his destruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably +predict that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much +conference, a terrible avenger will be heard of before long. + +Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on +the whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon +the follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses +and strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance +rather languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest +condition towards his species and will drink with most of them. He +is free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his +conversation--but through the placid stream of his life there +glides an under-current of forefinger. + +Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, +he is here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed, +he is here again the next day. This evening he will be casually +looking into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester +Dedlock's house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking +on the leads at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose +ghost is propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, +pockets, all things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few +hours afterwards, he and the Roman will be alone together comparing +forefingers. + +It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home +enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go +home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs. +Bucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been +improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, +but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds +himself aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on +their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an +interest) for companionship and conversation. + +A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the +funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person; +strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that +is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin +(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable +carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled +affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is +the assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the +Herald's College might be supposed to have lost its father and +mother at a blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust +and ashes, with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last +improvements, and three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on +behind, in a bunch of woe. All the state coachmen in London seem +plunged into mourning; and if that dead old man of the rusty garb +be not beyond a taste in horseflesh (which appears impossible), it +must be highly gratified this day. + +Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so +many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of +the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd +through the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd--as for +what not?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the +carriage, now from the other, now up at the house windows, now +along the people's heads, nothing escapes him. + +"And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself, +apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps +of the deceased's house. "And so you are. And so you are! And +very well indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!" + +The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of +its assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost +emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the +lattice a hair's breadth open while he looks. + +And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he +is still occupied with Mrs. B. "There you are, my partner, eh?" he +murmuringly repeats. "And our lodger with you. I'm taking notice +of you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my +dear!" + +Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive +eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought down-- +Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did they +fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession +moves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed. After which he composes +himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the +carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful. + +Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark +carriage and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable +track of space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into +the fixed sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the +streets, and the narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the +watchful state expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all +one to both; neither is troubled about that. + +Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and +glides from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with +himself arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at +present a sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes +at all hours', where he is always welcome and made much of, where +he knows the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of +mysterious greatness. + +No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be +provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is +crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, "Here's another letter for +you, Mr. Bucket, come by post," and gives it him. + +"Another one, eh?" says Mr. Bucket. + +If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity +as to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to +gratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of +some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same. + +"Do you happen to carry a box?" says Mr. Bucket. + +Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker. + +"Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?" says Mr. Bucket. +"Thankee. It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the +kind. Thankee!" + +Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from +somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable +show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with +the other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the +right sort and goes on, letter in hand. + +Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within +the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of +letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not +incidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his +pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always +convenient to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with +himself in others as being too artless and direct a way of doing +delicate business. Further, he often sees damaging letters +produced in evidence and has occasion to reflect that it was a +green thing to write them. For these reasons he has very little to +do with letters, either as sender or receiver. And yet he has +received a round half-dozen within the last twenty-four hours. + +"And this," says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in +the same hand, and consists of the same two words." + +What two words? + +He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book +of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly +written in each, "Lady Dedlock." + +"Yes, yes," says Mr. Bucket. "But I could have made the money +without this anonymous information." + +Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again, +he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is +brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket +frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no +restraint, that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East +Inder sherry better than anything you can offer him. Consequently +he fills and empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is +proceeding with his refreshment when an idea enters his mind. + +Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room +and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire +is sinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight +round the room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put +as they arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. +Mr. Bucket draws near and examines the directions. "No," he says, +"there's none in that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can +break it to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow." + +With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and +after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir +Leicester has received him there these several evenings past to +know whether he has anything to report. The debilitated cousin +(much exhausted by the funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance. + +Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three +people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to +Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to +whom it airily says, "You are a swell about town, and you know me, +and I know you." Having distributed these little specimens of his +tact, Mr. Bucket rubs his hands. + +"Have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires Sir +Leicester. "Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in +private?" + +"Why--not tonight, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +"Because my time," pursues Sir Leicester, "is wholly at your +disposal with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of +the law." + +Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as +though he would respectfully observe, "I do assure you, you're a +pretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of +life, I have indeed." + +The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing +influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes +and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices +that decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that +Volumnia is writing poetry. + +"If I have not," pursues Sir Leicester, "in the most emphatic +manner, adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this +atrocious case, I particularly desire to take the present +opportunity of rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no +expense be a consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. +You can incur none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken +that I shall hesitate for a moment to bear." + +Mr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this +liberality. + +"My mind," Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, "has not, as +may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late +diabolical occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. +But it is full of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal +of consigning to the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a +devoted adherent." + +Sir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his +head. Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is +aroused. + +"I declare," he says, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is +discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel +as if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted +a large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the +last day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at +my table and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, +and is struck down within an hour of his leaving my house. I +cannot say but that he may have been followed from my house, +watched at my house, even first marked because of his association +with my house--which may have suggested his possessing greater +wealth and being altogether of greater importance than his own +retiring demeanour would have indicated. If I cannot with my means +and influence and my position bring all the perpetrators of such a +crime to light, I fail in the assertion of my respect for that +gentleman's memory and of my fidelity towards one who was ever +faithful to me." + +While he makes this protestation with great emotion and +earnestness, looking round the room as if he were addressing an +assembly, Mr. Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in +which there might be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch +of compassion. + +"The ceremony of to-day," continues Sir Leicester, "strikingly +illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend"--he lays a +stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--"was held +by the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have +received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were +my brother who had committed it, I would not spare him." + +Mr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that +he was the trustiest and dearest person! + +"You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss, replies Mr. Bucket +soothingly, "no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm +sure he was." + +Volumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her +sensitive mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as +long as she lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that +she has not the least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile +she folds up a cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, +descriptive of her melancholy condition. + +"It gives a start to a delicate female," says Mr. Bucket +sympathetically, "but it'll wear off." + +Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they +are going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? +Whether he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in +the law? And a great deal more to the like artless purpose. + +"Why you see, miss," returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into +persuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had +almost said "my dear"--"it ain't easy to answer those questions at +the present moment. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself +on this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," whom Mr. Bucket +takes into the conversation in right of his importance, "morning, +noon, and night. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I +could have had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I +COULD answer your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with +all that has been traced. And I hope that he may find it"--Mr. +Bucket again looks grave--"to his satisfaction." + +The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample. +Thinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get +man place ten thousand a year. Hasn't a doubt--zample--far better +hang wrong fler than no fler. + +"YOU know life, you know, sir," says Mr. Bucket with a +complimentary twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you +can confirm what I've mentioned to this lady. YOU don't want to be +told that from information I have received I have gone to work. +You're up to what a lady can't be expected to be up to. Lord! +Especially in your elevated station of society, miss," says Mr. +Bucket, quite reddening at another narrow escape from "my dear." + +"The officer, Volumnia," observes Sir Leicester, "is faithful to +his duty, and perfectly right." + +Mr. Bucket murmurs, "Glad to have the honour of your approbation, +Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +"In fact, Volumnia," proceeds Sir Leicester, "it is not holding up +a good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as +you have put to him. He is the best judge of his own +responsibility; he acts upon his responsibility. And it does not +become us, who assist in making the laws, to impede or interfere +with those who carry them into execution. Or," says Sir Leicester +somewhat sternly, for Volumnia was going to cut in before he had +rounded his sentence, "or who vindicate their outraged majesty." + +Volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the +plea of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her +sex in general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and +interest for the darling man whose loss they all deplore. + +"Very well, Volumnia," returns Sir Leicester. "Then you cannot be +too discreet." + +Mr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling +this lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon +the case as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case--a +beautiful case--and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect +to be able to supply in a few hours." + +"I am very glad indeed to hear it," says Sir Leicester. "Highly +creditable to you." + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket very +seriously, "I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and +prove satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, +you see, miss," Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir +Leicester, "I mean from my point of view. As considered from other +points of view, such cases will always involve more or less +unpleasantness. Very strange things comes to our knowledge in +families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be +phenomenons, quite." + +Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so. + +"Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great +families," says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester +aside. "I have had the honour of being employed in high families +before, and you have no idea--come, I'll go so far as to say not +even YOU have any idea, sir," this to the debilitated cousin, "what +games goes on!" + +The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a +prostration of boredom yawns, "Vayli," being the used-up for "very +likely." + +Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here +majestically interposes with the words, "Very good. Thank you!" +and also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is +an end of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low +habits they must take the consequences. "You will not forget, +officer," he adds with condescension, "that I am at your disposal +when you please." + +Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would +suit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir +Leicester replies, "All times are alike to me." Mr. Bucket makes +his three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to +him. + +"Might I ask, by the by," he says in a low voice, cautiously +returning, "who posted the reward-bill on the staircase." + +"I ordered it to be put up there," replies Sir Leicester. + +"Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, +if I was to ask you why?" + +"Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I +think it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole +establishment. I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity +of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness +of escape. At the same time, officer, if you in your better +knowledge of the subject see any objection--" + +Mr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better +not be taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing +the door on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her +remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue +Chamber. + +In his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr. +Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm +on the early winter night--admiring Mercury. + +"Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?" says Mr. Bucket. + +"Three," says Mercury. + +"Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion +and don't look it. You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you +ain't. Was you ever modelled now?" Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the +expression of an artist into the turn of his eye and head. + +Mercury never was modelled. + +"Then you ought to be, you know," says Mr. Bucket; "and a friend of +mine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would +stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for +the marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?" + +"Out to dinner." + +"Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?" + +"Yes." + +"Not to be wondered at!" says Mr. Bucket. "Such a fine woman as +her, so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh +lemon on a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your +father in the same way of life as yourself?" + +Answer in the negative. + +"Mine was," says Mr. Bucket. "My father was first a page, then a +footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived +universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last +breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his +career, and so it was. I've a brother in service, AND a brother- +in-law. My Lady a good temper?" + +Mercury replies, "As good as you can expect." + +"Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. "A little spoilt? A little capricious? +Lord! What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? +And we like 'em all the better for it, don't we?" + +Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom +small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of +a man of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and +a violent ringing at the bell. "Talk of the angels," says Mr. +Bucket. "Here she is!" + +The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still +very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two +beautiful bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms +is particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an +eager eye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps. + +Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the +other Mercury who has brought her home. + +"Mr. Bucket, my Lady." + +Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar +demon over the region of his mouth. + +"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?" + +"No, my Lady, I've seen him!" + +"Have you anything to say to me?" + +"Not just at present, my Lady." + +"Have you made any new discoveries?" + +"A few, my Lady." + +This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps +upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot, +watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his +grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their +shadowy weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks +at going by, out of view. + +"She's a lovely woman, too, she really is," says Mr. Bucket, coming +back to Mercury. "Don't look quite healthy though." + +Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from +headaches. + +Really? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for +that. Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes +for two hours when she has them bad. By night, too. + +"Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?" asks Mr. +Bucket. "Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?" + +Not a doubt about it. + +"You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it. But +the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so +straggling. Walks by night, does she? When it's moonlight, +though?" + +Oh, yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course! +Conversational and acquiescent on both sides. + +"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?" says Mr. +Bucket. "Not much time for it, I should say?" + +Besides which, Mercury don't like it. Prefers carriage exercise. + +"To be sure," says Mr. Bucket. "That makes a difference. Now I +think of it," says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking +pleasantly at the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of +this business." + +"To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way. + +"And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it." + +"I didn't see YOU," says Mercury. + +"I was rather in a hurry," returns Mr. Bucket, "for I was going to +visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea--next door but two to +the old original Bun House--ninety year old the old lady is, a +single woman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be +passing at the time. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't +ten." + +"Half-past nine." + +"You're right. So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady +was muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?" + +"Of course she was." + +Of course she was. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has +to get on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in +acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is +all he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of +bestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of +both parties? + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +Springing a Mine + + +Refreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and +prepares for a field-day. Smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt +and a wet hairbrush, with which instrument, on occasions of +ceremony, he lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his +life of severe study, Mr. Bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton +chops as a foundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, +and marmalade on a corresponding scale. Having much enjoyed these +strengthening matters and having held subtle conference with his +familiar demon, he confidently instructs Mercury "just to mention +quietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he's ready +for me, I'm ready for him." A gracious message being returned that +Sir Leicester will expedite his dressing and join Mr. Bucket in the +library within ten minutes, Mr. Bucket repairs to that apartment +and stands before the fire with his finger on his chin, looking at +the blazing coals. + +Thoughtful Mr. Bucket is, as a man may be with weighty work to do, +but composed, sure, confident. From the expression of his face he +might be a famous whist-player for a large stake--say a hundred +guineas certain--with the game in his hand, but with a high +reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in +a masterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr. +Bucket when Sir Leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as +he comes slowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of +yesterday in which there might have been yesterday, but for the +audacity of the idea, a touch of compassion. + +"I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather +later than my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The +agitation and the indignation from which I have recently suffered +have been too much for me. I am subject to--gout"--Sir Leicester +was going to say indisposition and would have said it to anybody +else, but Mr. Bucket palpably knows all about it--"and recent +circumstances have brought it on." + +As he takes his seat with some difficulty and with an air of pain, +Mr. Bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large +hands on the library-table. + +"I am not aware, officer," Sir Leicester observes; raising his eyes +to his face, "whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely +as you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock +would be interested--" + +"Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket with his +head persuasively on one side and his forefinger pendant at one ear +like an earring, "we can't be too private just at present. You +will presently see that we can't be too private. A lady, under the +circumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock's elevated station of +society, can't but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view +to myself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we +can't be too private." + +"That is enough." + +"So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket resumes, +"that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key +in the door." + +"By all means." Mr. Bucket skilfully and softly takes that +precaution, stooping on his knee for a moment from mere force of +habit so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in +from the outerside. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that +I wanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now +completed it and collected proof against the person who did this +crime." + +"Against the soldier?" + +"No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier." + +Sir Leicester looks astounded and inquires, "Is the man in +custody?" + +Mr. Bucket tells him, after a pause, "It was a woman." + +Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates, +"Good heaven!" + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket begins, standing +over him with one hand spread out on the library-table and the +forefinger of the other in impressive use, "it's my duty to prepare +you for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to +say that will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, you are a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and +what a gentleman is capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock when +it must come, boldly and steadily. A gentleman can make up his +mind to stand up against almost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. If there's a blow to be inflicted on +you, you naturally think of your family. You ask yourself, how +would all them ancestors of yours, away to Julius Caesar--not to go +beyond him at present--have borne that blow; you remember scores of +them that would have borne it well; and you bear it well on their +accounts, and to maintain the family credit. That's the way you +argue, and that's the way you act, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +Sir Leicester, leaning back in his chair and grasping the elbows, +sits looking at him with a stony face. + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "thus preparing +you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to +anything having come to MY knowledge. I know so much about so many +characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less +don't signify a straw. I don't suppose there's a move on the board +that would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken +place, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move +whatever (provided it's in a wrong direction) being a probable move +according to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don't you go and let yourself be +put out of the way because of my knowing anything of your family +affairs." + +"I thank you for your preparation," returns Sir Leicester after a +silence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, "which I hope is +not necessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be +so good as to go on. Also"--Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the +shadow of his figure--"also, to take a seat, if you have no +objection." + +None at all. Mr. Bucket brings a chair and diminishes his shadow. +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I +come to the point. Lady Dedlock--" + +Sir Leicester raises himself in his seat and stares at him +fiercely. Mr. Bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient. + +"Lady Dedlock, you see she's universally admired. That's what her +ladyship is; she's universally admired," says Mr. Bucket. + +"I would greatly prefer, officer," Sir Leicester returns stiffly, +"my Lady's name being entirely omitted from this discussion." + +"So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but--it's impossible." + +"Impossible?" + +Mr. Bucket shakes his relentless head. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's altogether impossible. What +I have got to say is about her ladyship. She is the pivot it all +turns on." + +"Officer," retorts Sir Leicester with a fiery eye and a quivering +lip, "you know your duty. Do your duty, but be careful not to +overstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You +bring my Lady's name into this communication upon your +responsibility--upon your responsibility. My Lady's name is not a +name for common persons to trifle with!" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no +more." + +"I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!" +Glancing at the angry eyes which now avoid him and at the angry +figure trembling from head to foot, yet striving to be still, Mr. +Bucket feels his way with his forefinger and in a low voice +proceeds. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you +that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and +suspicions of Lady Dedlock." + +"If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir--which he never did--I +would have killed him myself!" exclaims Sir Leicester, striking his +hand upon the table. But in the very heat and fury of the act he +stops, fixed by the knowing eyes of Mr. Bucket, whose forefinger is +slowly going and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes +his head. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and +close, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I +can't quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips that +he long ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through +the sight of some handwriting--in this very house, and when you +yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present--the existence, in +great poverty, of a certain person who had been her lover before +you courted her and who ought to have been her husband." Mr. +Bucket stops and deliberately repeats, "Ought to have been her +husband, not a doubt about it. I know from his lips that when that +person soon afterwards died, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting +his wretched lodging and his wretched grave, alone and in secret. +I know from my own inquiries and through my eyes and ears that Lady +Dedlock did make such visit in the dress of her own maid, for the +deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed me to reckon up her ladyship--if +you'll excuse my making use of the term we commonly employ--and I +reckoned her up, so far, completely. I confronted the maid in the +chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a witness who had been Lady +Dedlock's guide, and there couldn't be the shadow of a doubt that +she had worn the young woman's dress, unknown to her. Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the way a +little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying +that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes. +All this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and +through your own Lady. It's my belief that the deceased Mr. +Tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death +and that he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon +the matter that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady +Dedlock, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship +whether, even after he had left here, she didn't go down to his +chambers with the intention of saying something further to him, +dressed in a loose black mantle with a deep fringe to it." + +Sir Leicester sits like a statue, gazing at the cruel finger that +is probing the life-blood of his heart. + +"You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from +me, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her ladyship makes +any difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it's no +use, that Inspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the +soldier as you called him (though he's not in the army now) and +knows that she knows she passed him on the staircase. Now, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, why do I relate all this?" + +Sir Leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a +single groan, requests him to pause for a moment. By and by he +takes his hands away, and so preserves his dignity and outward +calmness, though there is no more colour in his face than in his +white hair, that Mr. Bucket is a little awed by him. Something +frozen and fixed is upon his manner, over and above its usual shell +of haughtiness, and Mr. Bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in +his speech, with now and then a curious trouble in beginning, which +occasions him to utter inarticulate sounds. With such sounds he +now breaks silence, soon, however, controlling himself to say that +he does not comprehend why a gentleman so faithful and zealous as +the late Mr. Tulkinghorn should have communicated to him nothing of +this painful, this distressing, this unlooked-for, this +overwhelming, this incredible intelligence. + +"Again, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket, "put +it to her ladyship to clear that up. Put it to her ladyship, if +you think it right, from Inspector Bucket of the Detective. You'll +find, or I'm much mistaken, that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn had +the intention of communicating the whole to you as soon as he +considered it ripe, and further, that he had given her ladyship so +to understand. Why, he might have been going to reveal it the very +morning when I examined the body! You don't know what I'm going to +say and do five minutes from this present time, Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet; and supposing I was to be picked off now, you +might wonder why I hadn't done it, don't you see?" + +True. Sir Leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive +sounds, says, "True." At this juncture a considerable noise of +voices is heard in the hall. Mr. Bucket, after listening, goes to +the library-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again. +Then he draws in his head and whispers hurriedly but composedly, +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has +taken air, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn +being cut down so sudden. The chance to hush it is to let in these +people now in a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting +quiet--on the family account--while I reckon 'em up? And would you +just throw in a nod when I seem to ask you for it?" + +Sir Leicester indistinctly answers, "Officer. The best you can, +the best you can!" and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook +of the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices +quickly die away. He is not long in returning; a few paces ahead +of Mercury and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed +smalls, who bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old +man. Another man and two women come behind. Directing the +pitching of the chair in an affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket +dismisses the Mercuries and locks the door again. Sir Leicester +looks on at this invasion of the sacred precincts with an icy +stare. + +"Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen," says Mr. +Bucket in a confidential voice. "I am Inspector Bucket of the +Detective, I am; and this," producing the tip of his convenient +little staff from his breast-pocket, "is my authority. Now, you +wanted to see Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see +him, and mind you, it ain't every one as is admitted to that +honour. Your name, old gentleman, is Smallweed; that's what your +name is; I know it well." + +"Well, and you never heard any harm of it!" cries Mr. Smallweed in +a shrill loud voice. + +"You don't happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?" retorts +Mr. Bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper. + +"No!" + +"Why, they killed him," says Mr. Bucket, "on account of his having +so much cheek. Don't YOU get into the same position, because it +isn't worthy of you. You ain't in the habit of conversing with a +deaf person, are you?" + +"Yes," snarls Mr. Smallweed, "my wife's deaf." + +"That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she +ain't here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and +I'll not only be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit," +says Mr. Bucket. "This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I +think?" + +"Name of Chadband," Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a +much lower key. + +"Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name," says Mr. +Bucket, offering his hand, "and consequently feel a liking for it. +Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?" + +"And Mrs. Snagsby," Mr. Smallweed introduces. + +"Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own," says Mr. Bucket. +"Love him like a brother! Now, what's up?" + +"Do you mean what business have we come upon?" Mr. Smallweed asks, +a little dashed by the suddenness of this turn. + +"Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it's all about in +presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come." + +Mr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment's counsel +with him in a whisper. Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable +amount of oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his +hands, says aloud, "Yes. You first!" and retires to his former +place. + +"I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn," pipes Grandfather +Smallweed then; "I did business with him. I was useful to him, and +he was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. +He was own brother to a brimstone magpie--leastways Mrs. Smallweed. +I come into Krook's property. I examined all his papers and all +his effects. They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a +bundle of letters belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid +away at the back of a shelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed--his +cat's bed. He hid all manner of things away, everywheres. Mr. +Tulkinghorn wanted 'em and got 'em, but I looked 'em over first. +I'm a man of business, and I took a squint at 'em. They was +letters from the lodger's sweetheart, and she signed Honoria. Dear +me, that's not a common name, Honoria, is it? There's no lady in +this house that signs Honoria is there? Oh, no, I don't think so! +Oh, no, I don't think so! And not in the same hand, perhaps? Oh, +no, I don't think so!" + +Here Mr. Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of +his triumph, breaks off to ejaculate, "Oh, dear me! Oh, Lord! I'm +shaken all to pieces!" + +"Now, when you're ready," says Mr. Bucket after awaiting his +recovery, "to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know." + +"Haven't I come to it, Mr. Bucket?" cries Grandfather Smallweed. +"Isn't the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon, and +his ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? +Come, then, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns +me, if it don't concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where +they are. I won't have 'em disappear so quietly. I handed 'em +over to my friend and solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody +else." + +"Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too," says Mr. +Bucket. + +"I don't care for that. I want to know who's got 'em. And I tell +you what we want--what we all here want, Mr. Bucket. We want more +painstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the +interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If +George the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an +accomplice, and was set on. You know what I mean as well as any +man." + +"Now I tell you what," says Mr. Bucket, instantaneously altering +his manner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary +fascination to the forefinger, "I am damned if I am a-going to have +my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as +half a second of time by any human being in creation. YOU want +more painstaking and search-making! YOU do? Do you see this hand, +and do you think that I don't know the right time to stretch it out +and put it on the arm that fired that shot?" + +Such is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is +that he makes no idle boast, that Mr. Smallweed begins to +apologize. Mr. Bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him. + +"The advice I give you is, don't you trouble your head about the +murder. That's my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers, +and I shouldn't wonder if you was to read something about it before +long, if you look sharp. I know my business, and that's all I've +got to say to you on that subject. Now about those letters. You +want to know who's got 'em. I don't mind telling you. I have got +'em. Is that the packet?" + +Mr. Smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle Mr. +Bucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifles +it as the same. + +"What have you got to say next?" asks Mr. Bucket. "Now, don't open +your mouth too wide, because you don't look handsome when you do +it." + +"I want five hundred pound." + +"No, you don't; you mean fifty," says Mr. Bucket humorously. + +It appears, however, that Mr. Smallweed means five hundred. + +"That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to +consider (without admitting or promising anything) this bit of +business," says Mr. Bucket--Sir Leicester mechanically bows his +head--"and you ask me to consider a proposal of five hundred +pounds. Why, it's an unreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be +bad enough, but better than that. Hadn't you better say two +fifty?" + +Mr. Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not. + +"Then," says Mr. Bucket, "let's hear Mr. Chadband. Lord! Many a +time I've heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate +man he was in all respects, as ever I come across!" + +Thus invited, Mr. Chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek +smiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands, +delivers himself as follows, "My friends, we are now--Rachael, my +wife, and I--in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now +in the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because +we are invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because +we are bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play +the lute with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. +Then why are we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful +secret, and do we require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much +the same thing, money, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my +friends." + +"You're a man of business, you are," returns Mr. Bucket, very +attentive, "and consequently you're going on to mention what the +nature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn't do better." + +"Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love," says Mr. Chadband +with a cunning eye, "proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!" + +Mrs. Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her +husband into the background and confronts Mr. Bucket with a hard, +frowning smile. + +"Since you want to know what we know," says she, "I'll tell you. I +helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship's daughter. I was in +the service of her ladyship's sister, who was very sensitive to the +disgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her +ladyship, that the child was dead--she WAS very nearly so--when she +was born. But she's alive, and I know her." With these words, and +a laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word "ladyship," Mrs. +Chadband folds her arms and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket. + +"I suppose now," returns that officer, "YOU will he expecting a +twenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?" + +Mrs. Chadband merely laughs and contemptuously tells him he can +"offer" twenty pence. + +"My friend the law-stationer's good lady, over there," says Mr. +Bucket, luring Mrs. Snagsby forward with the finger. "What may +YOUR game be, ma'am?" + +Mrs. Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from +stating the nature of her game, but by degrees it confusedly comes +to light that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, +whom Mr. Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to +keep in darkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, +has been the sympathy of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, who showed so +much commiseration for her on one occasion of his calling in Cook's +Court in the absence of her perjured husband that she has of late +habitually carried to him all her woes. Everybody it appears, the +present company excepted, has plotted against Mrs. Snagsby's peace. +There is Mr. Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as +open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as +midnight, under the influence--no doubt--of Mr. Snagsby's suborning +and tampering. There is Mr. Weevle, friend of Mr. Guppy, who lived +mysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. There +was Krook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo, +deceased; and they were "all in it." In what, Mrs. Snagsby does +not with particularity express, but she knows that Jo was Mr. +Snagsby's son, "as well as if a trumpet had spoken it," and she +followed Mr. Snagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and +if he was not his son why did he go? The one occupation of her +life has been, for some time back, to follow Mr. Snagsby to and +fro, and up and down, and to piece suspicious circumstances +together--and every circumstance that has happened has been most +suspicious; and in this way she has pursued her object of detecting +and confounding her false husband, night and day. Thus did it come +to pass that she brought the Chadbands and Mr. Tulkinghorn +together, and conferred with Mr. Tulkinghorn on the change in Mr. +Guppy, and helped to turn up the circumstances in which the present +company are interested, casually, by the wayside, being still and +ever on the great high road that is to terminate in Mr. Snagsby's +full exposure and a matrimonial separation. All this, Mrs. +Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the friend of Mrs. Chadband, and +the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the mourner of the late Mr. +Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the seal of confidence, with +every possible confusion and involvement possible and impossible, +having no pecuniary motive whatever, no scheme or project but the +one mentioned, and bringing here, and taking everywhere, her own +dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the ceaseless working of her +mill of jealousy. + +While this exordium is in hand--and it takes some time--Mr. Bucket, +who has seen through the transparency of Mrs. Snagsby's vinegar at +a glance, confers with his familiar demon and bestows his shrewd +attention on the Chadbands and Mr. Smallweed. Sir Leicester +Dedlock remains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him, +except that he once or twice looks towards Mr. Bucket, as relying +on that officer alone of all mankind. + +"Very good," says Mr. Bucket. "Now I understand you, you know, and +being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this +little matter," again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in +confirmation of the statement, "can give it my fair and full +attention. Now I won't allude to conspiring to extort money or +anything of that sort, because we are men and women of the world +here, and our object is to make things pleasant. But I tell you +what I DO wonder at; I am surprised that you should think of making +a noise below in the hall. It was so opposed to your interests. +That's what I look at." + +"We wanted to get in," pleads Mr. Smallweed. + +"Why, of course you wanted to get in," Mr. Bucket asserts with +cheerfulness; "but for a old gentleman at your time of life--what I +call truly venerable, mind you!--with his wits sharpened, as I have +no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which +occasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to +consider that if he don't keep such a business as the present as +close as possible it can't be worth a mag to him, is so curious! +You see your temper got the better of you; that's where you lost +ground," says Mr. Bucket in an argumentative and friendly way. + +"I only said I wouldn't go without one of the servants came up to +Sir Leicester Dedlock," returns Mr. Smallweed. + +"That's it! That's where your temper got the better of you. Now, +you keep it under another time and you'll make money by it. Shall +I ring for them to carry you down?" + +"When are we to hear more of this?" Mrs. Chadband sternly demands. + +"Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your +delightful sex is!" replies Mr. Bucket with gallantry. "I shall +have the pleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day--not +forgetting Mr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty." + +"Five hundred!" exclaims Mr. Smallweed. + +"All right! Nominally five hundred." Mr. Bucket has his hand on +the bell-rope. "SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the +part of myself and the gentleman of the house?" he asks in an +insinuating tone. + +Nobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it, +and the party retire as they came up. Mr. Bucket follows them to +the door, and returning, says with an air of serious business, "Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not +to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it's being +bought up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You +see, that little pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used +by all sides of the speculation and has done a deal more harm in +bringing odds and ends together than if she had meant it. Mr. +Tulkinghorn, deceased, he held all these horses in his hand and +could have drove 'em his own way, I haven't a doubt; but he was +fetched off the box head-foremost, and now they have got their legs +over the traces, and are all dragging and pulling their own ways. +So it is, and such is life. The cat's away, and the mice they +play; the frost breaks up, and the water runs. Now, with regard to +the party to be apprehended." + +Sir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open, +and he looks intently at Mr. Bucket as Mr. Bucket refers to his +watch. + +"The party to be apprehended is now in this house," proceeds Mr. +Bucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand and with rising +spirits, "and I'm about to take her into custody in your presence. +Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don't you say a word nor yet stir. +There'll be no noise and no disturbance at all. I'll come back in +the course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to +meet your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the +nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, don't you be nervous on account of the apprehension at +present coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first +to last." + +Mr. Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury, shuts +the door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. After a +suspense of a minute or two the door slowly opens and a Frenchwoman +enters. Mademoiselle Hortense. + +The moment she is in the room Mr. Bucket claps the door to and puts +his back against it. The suddenness of the noise occasions her to +turn, and then for the first time she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in +his chair. + +"I ask you pardon," she mutters hurriedly. "They tell me there was +no one here." + +Her step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr. +Bucket. Suddenly a spasm shoots across her face and she turns +deadly pale. + +"This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock," says Mr. Bucket, +nodding at her. "This foreign young woman has been my lodger for +some weeks back." + +"What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?" returns +mademoiselle in a jocular strain. + +"Why, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket, "we shall see." + +Mademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face, +which gradually changes into a smile of scorn, "You are very +mysterieuse. Are you drunk?" + +"Tolerable sober, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket. + +"I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife. +Your wife have left me since some minutes. They tell me downstairs +that your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. +What is the intention of this fool's play, say then?" mademoiselle +demands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in +her dark cheek beating like a clock. + +Mr. Bucket merely shakes the finger at her. + +"Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot!" cries mademoiselle with a +toss of her head and a laugh. "Leave me to pass downstairs, great +pig." With a stamp of her foot and a menace. + +"Now, mademoiselle," says Mr. Bucket in a cool determined way, "you +go and sit down upon that sofy." + +"I will not sit down upon nothing," she replies with a shower of +nods. + +"Now, mademoiselle," repeats Mr. Bucket, making no demonstration +except with the finger, "you sit down upon that sofy." + +"Why?" + +"Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you +don't need to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your +sex and a foreigner if I can. If I can't, I must be rough, and +there's rougher ones outside. What I am to be depends on you. So +I recommend you, as a friend, afore another half a blessed moment +has passed over your head, to go and sit down upon that sofy." + +Mademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice while that +something in her cheek beats fast and hard, "You are a devil." + +"Now, you see," Mr. Bucket proceeds approvingly, "you're +comfortable and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign +young woman of your sense to do. So I'll give you a piece of +advice, and it's this, don't you talk too much. You're not +expected to say anything here, and you can't keep too quiet a +tongue in your head. In short, the less you PARLAY, the better, +you know." Mr. Bucket is very complacent over this French +explanation. + +Mademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth and her +black eyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a +rigid state, with her hands clenched--and her feet too, one might +suppose--muttering, "Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!" + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," says Mr. Bucket, and from +this time forth the finger never rests, "this young woman, my +lodger, was her ladyship's maid at the time I have mentioned to +you; and this young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and +passionate against her ladyship after being discharged--" + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "I discharge myself." + +"Now, why don't you take my advice?" returns Mr. Bucket in an +impressive, almost in an imploring, tone. "I'm surprised at the +indiscreetness you commit. You'll say something that'll be used +against you, you know. You're sure to come to it. Never you mind +what I say till it's given in evidence. It is not addressed to +you." + +"Discharge, too," cries mademoiselle furiously, "by her ladyship! +Eh, my faith, a pretty ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character hy +remaining with a ladyship so infame!" + +"Upon my soul I wonder at you!" Mr. Bucket remonstrates. "I +thought the French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to +hear a female going on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet!" + +"He is a poor abused!" cries mademoiselle. "I spit upon his house, +upon his name, upon his imbecility," all of which she makes the +carpet represent. "Oh, that he is a great man! Oh, yes, superb! +Oh, heaven! Bah!" + +"Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "this +intemperate foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she +had established a claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by +attending on the occasion I told you of at his chambers, though she +was liberally paid for her time and trouble." + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "I ref-use his money all togezzer." + +"If you WILL PARLAY, you know," says Mr. Bucket parenthetically, +"you must take the consequences. Now, whether she became my +lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then +of doing this deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she +lived in my house in that capacity at the time that she was +hovering about the chambers of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a +view to a wrangle, and likewise persecuting and half frightening +the life out of an unfortunate stationer." + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "All lie!" + +"The murder was commttted, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you +know under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me +close with your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and +the case was entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, +and the papers, and everything. From information I received (from +a clerk in the same house) I took George into custody as having +been seen hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the +time of the murder, also as having been overheard in high words +with the deceased on former occasions--even threatening him, as the +witness made out. If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether +from the first I believed George to be the murderer, I tell you +candidly no, but he might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough +against him to make it my duty to take him and get him kept under +remand. Now, observe!" + +As Mr. Bucket bends forward in some excitement--for him--and +inaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his +forefinger in the air, Mademoiselle Hortense fixes her black eyes +upon him with a dark frown and sets her dry lips closely and firmly +together. + +"I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found +this young woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket. She had +made a mighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first +offering herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than +ever--in fact, overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and +all that, for the lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn. +By the living Lord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at +the table and saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done +it!" + +Mademoiselle is hardly audible in straining through her teeth and +lips the words, "You are a devil." + +"Now where," pursues Mr. Bucket, "had she been on the night of the +murder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I +have since found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had +an artful customer to deal with and that proof would be very +difficult; and I laid a trap for her--such a trap as I never laid +yet, and such a venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my +mind while I was talking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to +bed, our house being small and this young woman's ears sharp, I +stuffed the sheet into Mrs. Bucket's mouth that she shouldn't say a +word of surprise and told her all about it. My dear, don't you +give your mind to that again, or I shall link your feet together at +the ankles." Mr. Bucket, breaking off, has made a noiseless +descent upon mademoiselle and laid his heavy hand upon her +shoulder. + +"What is the matter with you now?" she asks him. + +"Don't you think any more," returns Mr. Bucket with admonitory +finger, "of throwing yourself out of window. That's what's the +matter with me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn't get up; I'll +sit down by you. Now take my arm, will you? I'm a married man, +you know; you're acquainted with my wife. Just take my arm." + +Vaiuly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound +she struggles with herself and complies. + +"Now we're all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this +case could never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who +is a woman in fifty thousand--in a hundred and fifty thousand! To +throw this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our +house since, though I've communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the +baker's loaves and in the milk as often as required. My whispered +words to Mrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, 'My +dear, can you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my +suspicions against George, and this, and that, and t'other? Can +you do without rest and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you +undertake to say, "She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she +shall be my prisoner without suspecting it, she shall no more +escape from me than from death, and her life shall be my life, and +her soul my soul, till I have got her, if she did this murder?"' +Mrs. Bucket says to me, as well as she could speak on account of +the sheet, 'Bucket, I can!' And she has acted up to it glorious!" + +"Lies!" mademoiselle interposes. "All lies, my friend!" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out +under these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous +young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or +right? I was right. What does she try to do? Don't let it give +you a turn? To throw the murder on her ladyship." + +Sir Leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again. + +"And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always +here, which was done a-purpose. Now, open that pocket-book of +mine, Sir Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing +it towards you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the +two words 'Lady Dedlock' in it. Open the one directed to yourself, +which I stopped this very morning, and read the three words 'Lady +Dedlock, Murderess' in it. These letters have been falling about +like a shower of lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, +from her spy-place having seen them all 'written by this young +woman? What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having, within this half- +hour, secured the corresponding ink and paper, fellow half-sheets +and what not? What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having watched the +posting of 'em every one by this young woman, Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet?" Mr. Bucket asks, triumphant in his admiration +of his lady's genius. + +Two things are especially observable as Mr. Bucket proceeds to a +conclusion. First, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a +dreadful right of property in mademoiselle. Secondly, that the +very atmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about her +as if a close net or a pall were being drawn nearer and yet nearer +around her breathless figure. + +"There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the +eventful period," says Mr. Bucket, "and my foreign friend here saw +her, I believe, from the upper part of the staircase. Her ladyship +and George and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one +another's heels. But that don't signify any more, so I'll not go +into it. I found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased +Mr. Tulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description +of your house at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you'll say, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here +is so thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear +up the rest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces +together and finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like +Queer Street." + +"These are very long lies," mademoiselle interposes. "You prose +great deal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you +speaking always?" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," proceeds Mr. Bucket, who delights +in a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with +any fragment of it, "the last point in the case which I am now +going to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, +and never doing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman +yesterday without her knowledge when she was looking at the +funeral, in company with my wife, who planned to take her there; +and I had so much to convict her, and I saw such an expression in +her face, and my mind so rose against her malice towards her +ladyship, and the time was altogether such a time for bringing down +what you may call retribution upon her, that if I had been a +younger hand with less experience, I should have taken her, +certain. Equally, last night, when her ladyship, as is so +universally admired I am sure, come home looking--why, Lord, a man +might almost say like Venus rising from the ocean--it was so +unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being charged with a +murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to want to put +an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here +proposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that +they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea +at a very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of +entertainment there's a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up +to fetch her pocket handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets +was; she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of +wind. As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. +Bucket, along with her observations and suspicions. I had the +piece of water dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our +men, and the pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there +half-a-dozen hours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further +through mine, and hold it steady, and I shan't hurt you!" + +In a trice Mr. Bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. "That's one," +says Mr. Bucket. "Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!" + +He rises; she rises too. "Where," she asks him, darkening her +large eyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them--and yet +they stare, "where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed +wife?" + +"She's gone forrard to the Police Office," returns Mr. Bucket. +"You'll see her there, my dear." + +"I would like to kiss her!" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting +tigress-like. + +"You'd bite her, I suspect," says Mr. Bucket. + +"I would!" making her eyes very large. "I would love to tear her +limb from limb." + +"Bless you, darling," says Mr. Bucket with the greatest composure, +"I'm fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising +animosity against one another when you do differ. You don't mind +me half so much, do you?" + +"No. Though you are a devil still." + +"Angel and devil by turns, eh?" cries Mr. Bucket. "But I am in my +regular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy. +I've been lady's maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting +to the bonnet? There's a cab at the door." + +Mademoiselle Hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass, +shakes herself perfectly neat in one shake and looks, to do her +justice, uncommonly genteel. + +"Listen then, my angel," says she after several sarcastic nods. +"You are very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?" + +Mr. Bucket answers, "Not exactly." + +"That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can +you make a honourahle lady of her?" + +"Don't be so malicious," says Mr. Bucket. + +"Or a haughty gentleman of HIM?" cries mademoiselle, referring to +Sir Leicester with ineffable disdain. "Eh! Oh, then regard him! +The poor infant! Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +"Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other," says Mr. +Bucket. "Come along!" + +"You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with +me. It is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. +Adieu, you old man, grey. I pity you, and I despise you!" + +With these last words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth +closed with a spring. It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket +gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar +to himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering +away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of +his affections. + +Sir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though +he were still listening and his attention were still occupied. At +length he gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, +rises unsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a +few steps, supporting himself by the table. Then he stops, and +with more of those inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems +to stare at something. + +Heaven knows what he sees. The green, green woods of Chesney Wold, +the noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers +defacing them, officers of police coarsely handling his most +precious heirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands +of faces sneering at him. But if such shadows flit before him to +his bewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with +something like distinctness even yet and to which alone he +addresses his tearing of his white hair and his extended arms. + +It is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for +years a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has +never had a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired, +honoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she who, at +the core of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities +of his life, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, +susceptible as nothing else is of being struck with the agony he +feels. He sees her, almost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot +bear to look upon her cast down from the high place she has graced +so well. + +And even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of +his suffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like +distinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone +of mourning and compassion rather than reproach. + + + +CHAPTER LV + +Flight + + +Inspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his great +blow, as just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with +sleep preparatory to his field-day, when through the night and +along the freezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of +Lincolnshire, making its way towards London. + +Railroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle +and a glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over the +wide night-landscape, turning the moon paler; but as yet such +things are non-existent in these parts, though not wholly +unexpected. Preparations are afoot, measurements are made, ground +is staked out. Bridges are begun, and their not yet united piers +desolately look at one another over roads and streams like brick +and mortar couples with an obstacle to their union; fragments of +embankments are thrown up and left as precipices with torrents of +rusty carts and barrows tumbling over them; tripods of tall poles +appear on hilltops, where there are rumours of tunnels; everything +looks chaotic and abandoned in full hopelessness. Along the +freezing roads, and through the night, the post-chaise makes its +way without a railroad on its mind. + +Mrs. Rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits +within the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her grey +cloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, as +being exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more in +accordance with her usual course of travelling, but Mrs. Rouncewell +is too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. The +old lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her +stately manner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness, +puts it often to her lips. "You are a mother, my dear soul," says +she many times, "and you found out my George's mother!" + +"Why, George," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "was always free with me, +ma'am, and when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all the +things my Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, +the comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful +line into his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, then +I felt sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own +mother into his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past +times, that he had behaved bad to her." + +"Never, my dear!" returns Mrs. Rouncewell, bursting into tears. +"My blessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving +to me, was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a +little wild and went for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, +in letting us know about himself, till he should rise to be an +officer; and when he didn't rise, I know he considered himself +beneath us, and wouldn't be a disgrace to us. For he had a lion +heart, had my George, always from a baby!" + +The old lady's hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls, +all in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay +good-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him down at +Chesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him when he was a young +gentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people who had +been angry with him forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. +And now to see him after all, and in a prison too! And the broad +stomacher heaves, and the quaint upright old-fashioned figure bends +under its load of affectionate distress. + +Mrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, +leaves the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while--not +without passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes-- +and presently chirps up in her cheery manner, "So I says to George +when I goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his +pipe outside), 'What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious +sake? I have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in +season and out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you +so melancholy penitent.' 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, 'it's +because I AM melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you +see me so.' 'What have you done, old fellow?' I says. 'Why, Mrs. +Bagnet,' says George, shaking his head, 'what I have done has been +done this many a long year, and is best not tried to be undone now. +If I ever get to heaven it won't be for being a good son to a +widowed mother; I say no more.' Now, ma'am, when George says to me +that it's best not tried to be undone now, I have my thoughts as I +have often had before, and I draw it out of George how he comes to +have such things on him that afternoon. Then George tells me that +he has seen by chance, at the lawyer's office, a fine old lady that +has brought his mother plain before him, and he runs on about that +old lady till he quite forgets himself and paints her picture to me +as she used to be, years upon years back. So I says to George when +he has done, who is this old lady he has seen? And George tells me +it's Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper for more than half a century to +the Dedlock family down at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George +has frequently told me before that he's a Lincolnshire man, and I +says to my old Lignum that night, 'Lignum, that's his mother for +five and for-ty pound!'" + +All this Mrs. Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least +within the last four hours. Trilling it out like a kind of bird, +with a pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady +above the hum of the wheels. + +"Bless you, and thank you," says Mrs. Rouncewell. "Bless you, and +thank you, my worthy soul!" + +"Dear heart!" cries Mrs. Bagnet in the most natural manner. "No +thanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma'am, for being so +ready to pay 'em! And mind once more, ma'am, what you had best do +on finding George to be your own son is to make him--for your sake +--have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear +himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It +won't do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law +and lawyers," exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the +latter form a separate establishment and have dissolved partnership +with truth and justice for ever and a day. + +"He shall have," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "all the help that can be +got for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and +thankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the +whole family will do their best. I--I know something, my dear; and +will make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these +years, and finding him in a jail at last." + +The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner in saying +this, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make a +powerful impression on Mrs. Bagnet and would astonish her but that +she refers them all to her sorrow for her son's condition. And yet +Mrs. Bagnet wonders too why Mrs. Rouncewell should murmur so +distractedly, "My Lady, my Lady, my Lady!" over and over again. + +The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post- +chaise comes rolling on through the early mist like the ghost of a +chaise departed. It has plenty of spectral company in ghosts of +trees and hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the +realities of day. London reached, the travellers alight, the old +housekeeper in great tribulation and confusion, Mrs. Bagnet quite +fresh and collected--as she would be if her next point, with no new +equipage and outfit, were the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of +Ascension, Hong Kong, or any other military station. + +But when they set out for the prison where the trooper is confined, +the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her lavender- +coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its usual +accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece of +old china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacher +is ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has +ruffled it these many years. + +Approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in +the act of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of +entreaty to him to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers +them to enter as he shuts the door. + +So George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be +alone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old +housekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are +quite enough for Mrs. Bagnet's confirmation, even if she could see +the mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt +their relationship. + +Not a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a word +betrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, all +unconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her +emotions. But they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. Mrs. +Bagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of +grief, of hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no +return since this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son +loved less, and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they +speak in such touching language that Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim up +with tears and they run glistening down her sun-brown face. + +"George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!" + +The trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls +down on his knees before her. Whether in a late repentance, +whether in the first association that comes back upon him, he puts +his hands together as a child does when it says its prayers, and +raising them towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries. + +"My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite +still, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such +a man too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew +he must be, if it pleased God he was alive!" + +She can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. All +that time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against the +whitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyes +with her serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the +best of old girls as she is. + +"Mother," says the trooper when they are more composed, "forgive me +first of all, for I know my need of it." + +Forgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She always +has done it. She tells him how she has had it written in her will, +these many years, that he was her beloved son George. She has +never believed any ill of him, never. If she had died without this +happiness--and she is an old woman now and can't look to live very +long--she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she had +had her senses, as her beloved son George. + +"Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my +reward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a +purpose in me too. When I left home I didn't care much, mother--I +am afraid not a great deal--for leaving; and went away and 'listed, +harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no +not I, and that nobody cared for me." + +The trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, but +there is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of +expressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone in +which he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob. + +"So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had +'listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time +I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; +and when that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, +when I might be better off; and when that year was out again, +perhaps I didn't think much about it. So on, from year to year, +through a service of ten years, till I began to get older, and to +ask myself why should I ever write." + +"I don't find any fault, child--but not to ease my mind, George? +Not a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?" + +This almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself up +with a great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat. + +"Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small +consolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you, +respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance +North Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and +famous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made +like him, but self-unmade--all my earlier advantages thrown away, +all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what +unfitted me for most things that I could think of. What business +had I to make myself known? After letting all that time go by me, +what good could come of it? The worst was past with you, mother. +I knew by that time (being a man) how you had mourned for me, and +wept for me, and prayed for me; and the pain was over, or was +softened down, and I was better in your mind as it was." + +The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of his +powerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder. + +"No, I don't say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to +be so. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear +mother, some good might have come of it to myself--and there was +the meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have +purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney +Wold; you would have brought me and my brother and my brother's +family together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do +something for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how +could any of you feel sure of me when I couldn't so much as feel +sure of myself? How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and +a discredit to you an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance +and a discredit to himself, excepting under discipline? How could +I look my brother's children in the face and pretend to set them an +example--I, the vagabond boy who had run away from home and been +the grief and unhappiness of my mother's life? 'No, George.' Such +were my words, mother, when I passed this in review before me: 'You +have made your bed. Now, lie upon it.'" + +Mrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at +the old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, "I +told you so!" The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her +interest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke +between the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards +repeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never +failing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, +to resort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again. + +"This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best +amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I +should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once +down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old +comrade's wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I +thank her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my +heart and might." + +To which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes. + +And now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear +recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy +close of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he +must be governed by the best advice obtainable by money and +influence, that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers +that can be got, that he must act in this serious plight as he +shall be advised to act and must not be self-willed, however right, +but must promise to think only of his poor old mother's anxiety and +suffering until he is released, or he will break her heart. + +"Mother, 'tis little enough to consent to," returns the trooper, +stopping her with a kiss; "tell me what I shall do, and I'll make a +late beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you'll take care of my +mother, I know?" + +A very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella. + +"If you'll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss +Summerson, she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will +give her the best advice and assistance." + +"And, George," says the old lady, "we must send with all haste for +your brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me--out in +the world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don't know much of +it myself--and will be of great service." + +"Mother," returns the trooper, "is it too soon to ask a favour?" + +"Surely not, my dear." + +"Then grant me this one great favour. Don't let my brother know." + +"Not know what, my dear?" + +"Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can't bear it; I can't make up +my mmd to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has +done so much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that I +haven't brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and +under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have +any pleasure in such a discovery? It's impossible. No, keep my +secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve +and keep my secret from my brother, of all men." + +"But not always, dear George?" + +"Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all--though I may come to +ask that too--but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it's ever +broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could +wish," says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, "to +break it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating by +the way in which he seems to take it." + +As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the +depth of it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet's face, his mother yields +her implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her +kindly. + +"In all other respects, my dear mother, I'll be as tractable and +obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I +am ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up," he glances +at his writing on the table, "an exact account of what I knew of +the deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate +affair. It's entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not +a word in it but what's wanted for the facts. I did intend to read +it, straight on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything +in my defence. I hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no +longer a will of my own in this case, and whatever is said or done, +I give my promise not to have any." + +Matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time +being on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and +again the old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again +the trooper holds her to his broad chest. + +"Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?" + +"I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have +some business there that must be looked to directly," Mrs. +Rouncewell answers. + +"Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of +course I know you will. Why should I ask it!" + +Why indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella. + +"Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. +Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of +the hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten +thousand pound in gold, my dear!" So saying, the trooper puts his +lips to the old girl's tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him +in his cell. + +No entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce +Mrs. Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. +Jumping out cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion and +handing Mrs. Rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and +trudges off, arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet +family and falling to washing the greens as if nothing had +happened. + +My Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with +the murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is +looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so +leisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs. +Rouncewell. What has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so +unexpectedly? + +"Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word +with you?" + +What new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman +tremble so? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often +thought, why does she falter in this manner and look at her with +such strange mistrust? + +"What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath." + +"Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son--my youngest, who went +away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison." + +"For debt?" + +"Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful." + +"For what is he in prison then?" + +"Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as--as +I am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn." + +What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why +does she come so close? What is the letter that she holds? + +"Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must +have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. +I was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. +But think of my dear son wrongfully accused." + +"I do not accuse him." + +"No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in +danger. Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to +clear him, say it!" + +What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the +person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be +unjust? Her Lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, +almost with fear. + +"My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son +in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost's Walk was so constant +and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. +Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed +through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it +fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter." + +"What letter is it?" + +"Hush! Hush!" The housekeeper looks round and answers in a +frightened whisper, "My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I +don't believe what's written in it, I know it can't be true, I am +sure and certain that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and +you must have a heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is +not known to others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any +clue at all, and any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, +my dear Lady, think of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be +known! This is the most I consider possible. I know you are not a +hard lady, but you go your own way always without help, and you are +not familiar with your friends; and all who admire you--and all do +--as a beautiful and elegant lady, know you to be one far away from +themselves who can't be approached close. My Lady, you may have +some proud or angry reasons for disdaining to utter something that +you know; if so, pray, oh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose +whole life has been passed in this family which she dearly loves, +and relent, and help to clear my son! My Lady, my good Lady," the +old housekeeper pleads with genuine simplicity, "I am so humble in +my place and you are by nature so high and distant that you may not +think what I feel for my child, but I feel so much that I have come +here to make so bold as to beg and pray you not to be scornful of +us if you can do us any right or justice at this fearful time!" + +Lady Dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the +letter from her hand. + +"Am I to read this?" + +"When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the +most that I consider possible." + +"I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can +affect your son. I have never accused him." + +"My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after +reading the letter." + +The old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In +truth she is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when +the sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong +earnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But so long +accustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long +schooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which +shuts up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and +spreads one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the +feeling and the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had +subdued even her wonder until now. + +She opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed +account of the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the +floor, shot through the heart; and underneath is written her own +name, with the word "murderess" attached. + +It falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the +ground she knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant +stands before her announcing the young man of the name of Guppy. +The words have probably been repeated several times, for they are +ringing in her head before she begins to understand them. + +"Let him come in!" + +He comes in. Holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken +from the floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. In the eyes of +Mr. Guppy she is the same Lady Dedlock, holding the same prepared, +proud, chilling state. + +"Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit +from one who has never been welcome to your ladyship"--which he +don't complain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has +been any particular reason on the face of things why he should be-- +"but I hope when I mention my motives to your ladyship you will not +find fault with me," says Mr. Guppy. + +"Do so." + +"Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship," +Mr. Guppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the +carpet at his feet, "that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I +formerly mentioned to your ladyship, was at one period of my life +imprinted on my 'eart until erased by circumstances over which I +had no control, communicated to me, after I had the pleasure of +waiting on your ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to +take no steps whatever in any manner at all relating to her. And +Miss Summerson's wishes being to me a law (except as connected with +circumstances over which I have no control), I consequently never +expected to have the distinguished honour of waiting on your +ladyship again." + +And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him. + +"And yet I am here now," Mr. Guppy admits. "My object being to +communicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I +am here." + +He cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly. "Nor +can I," Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him, "too +particularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that +it's no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no +interested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not +for my promise to Miss Summerson and my keeping of it sacred--I, in +point of fact, shouldn't have darkened these doors again, but +should have seen 'em further first." + +Mr. Guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his +hair with both hands. + +"Your ladyship will remember when I mention it that the last time I +was here I run against a party very eminent in our profession and +whose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time +apply himself to cutting in against me in a way that I will call +sharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely +difficult for me to be sure that I hadn't inadvertently led up to +something contrary to Miss Summerson's wishes. Self-praise is no +recommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man +of business neither." + +Lady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr. Guppy immediately +withdraws his eyes from her face and looks anywhere else. + +"Indeed, it has been made so hard," he goes on, "to have any idea +what that party was up to in combination with others that until the +loss which we all deplore I was gravelled--an expression which your +ladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to +consider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise--a name by +which I refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship +is not acquainted with--got to be so close and double-faced that at +times it wasn't easy to keep one's hands off his 'ead. However, +what with the exertion of my humble abilities, and what with the +help of a mutual friend by the name of Mr. Tony Weevle (who is of a +high aristocratic turn and has your ladyship's portrait always +hanging up in his room), I have now reasons for an apprehension as +to which I come to put your ladyship upon your guard. First, will +your ladyship allow me to ask you whether you have had any strange +visitors this morning? I don't mean fashionable visitors, but such +visitors, for instance, as Miss Barbary's old servant, or as a +person without the use of his lower extremities, carried upstairs +similarly to a guy?" + +"No!" + +"Then I assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here and +have been received here. Because I saw them at the door, and +waited at the corner of the square till they came out, and took +half an hour's turn afterwards to avoid them." + +"What have I to do with that, or what have you? I do not +understand you. What do you mean?" + +"Your ladyship, I come to put you on your guard. There may be no +occasion for it. Very well. Then I have only done my best to keep +my promise to Miss Summerson. I strongly suspect (from what Small +has dropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that +those letters I was to have brought to your ladyship were not +destroyed when I supposed they were. That if there was anything to +be blown upon, it IS blown upon. That the visitors I have alluded +to have been here this morning to make money of it. And that the +money is made, or making." + +Mr. Guppy picks up his hat and rises. + +"Your ladyship, you know best whether there's anything in what I +say or whether there's nothing. Something or nothing, I have acted +up to Miss Summerson's wishes in letting things alone and in +undoing what I had begun to do, as far as possible; that's +sufficient for me. In case I should be taking a liberty in putting +your ladyship on your guard when there's no necessity for it, you +will endeavour, I should hope, to outlive my presumption, and I +shall endeavour to outlive your disapprobation. I now take my +farewell of your ladyship, and assure you that there's no danger of +your ever being waited on by me again." + +She scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look, but when +he has been gone a little while, she rings her bell. + +"Where is Sir Leicester?" + +Mercury reports that he is at present shut up in the library alone. + +"Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?" + +Several, on business. Mercury proceeds to a description of them, +which has been anticipated by Mr. Guppy. Enough; he may go. + +So! All is broken down. Her name is in these many mouths, her +husband knows his wrongs, her shame will be published--may be +spreading while she thinks about it--and in addition to the +thunderbolt so long foreseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is +denounced by an invisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy. + +Her enemy he was, and she has often, often, often wished him dead. +Her enemy he is, even in his grave. This dreadful accusation comes +upon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she +recalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she +may be represented to have sent her favourite girl away so soon +before merely to release herself from observation, she shudders as +if the hangman's hands were at her neck. + +She has thrown herself upon the floor and lies with her hair all +wildly scattered and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. +She rises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and +rocks and moans. The horror that is upon her is unutterable. If +she really were the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, +more intense. + +For as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed, +however subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been +closed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, +preventing her from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those +consequences would have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the +moment the figure was laid low--which always happens when a murder +is done; so, now she sees that when he used to be on the watch +before her, and she used to think, "if some mortal stroke would but +fall on this old man and take him from my way!" it was but wishing +that all he held against her in his hand might be flung to the +winds and chance-sown in many places. So, too, with the wicked +relief she has felt in his death. What was his death but the key- +stone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the arch begins to fall in +a thousand fragments, each crushing and mangling piecemeal! + +Thus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her that +from this pursuer, living or dead--obdurate and imperturbable +before her in his well-remembered shape, or not more obdurate and +imperturbable in his coffin-bed--there is no escape but in death. +Hunted, she flies. The complication of her shame, her dread, +remorse, and misery, overwhelms her at its height; and even her +strength of self-reliance is overturned and whirled away like a +leaf before a mighty wind. + +She hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband, seals, and +leaves them on her table: + + +If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe that I am +wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me, for I am innocent of +nothing else that you have heard, or will hear, laid to my charge. +He prepared me, on that fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt +to you. After he had left me, I went out on pretence of walking in +the garden where I sometimes walk, but really to follow him and +make one last petition that he would not protract the dreadful +suspense on which I have been racked by him, you do not know how +long, but would mercifully strike next morning. + +I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his door, but +there was no reply, and I came home. + +I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May you, in +your just resentment, be able to forget the unworthy woman on whom +you have wasted a most generous devotion--who avoids you only with +a deeper shame than that with which she hurries from herself--and +who writes this last adieu. + + +She veils and dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money, +listens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens +and shuts the great door, flutters away in the shrill frosty wind. + + +CHAPTER LVI + +Pursuit + + +Impassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house +stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and +gives no outward sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages +rattle, doors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient +charmers with skeleton throats and peachy cheeks that have a rather +ghastly bloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these +fascinating creatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, +dazzle the eyes of men. Forth from the frigid mews come easily +swinging carriages guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, +deep sunk into downy hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious +Mercuries bearing sticks of state and wearing cocked hats +broadwise, a spectacle for the angels. + +The Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass +before its exalted dullness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the +fair, being subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and +finding that disorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, +ventures at length to repair to the library for change of scene. +Her gentle tapping at the door producing no response, she opens it +and peeps in; seeing no one there, takes possession. + +The sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the +ancients, Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which +impels her on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle +about with a golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every +description. Certain it is that she avails herself of the present +opportunity of hovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like +a bird, taking a short peck at this document and a blink with her +head on one side at that document, and hopping about from table to +table with her glass at her eye in an inquisitive and restless +manner. In the course of these researches she stumbles over +something, and turning her glass in that direction, sees her +kinsman lying on the ground like a felled tree. + +Volumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation +of reality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in +commotion. Servants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently +rung, doctors are sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought in all +directions, but not found. Nobody has seen or heard her since she +last rang her bell. Her letter to Sir Leicester is discovered on +her table, but it is doubtful yet whether he has not received +another missive from another world requiring to be personally +answered, and all the living languages, and all the dead, are as +one to him. + +They lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and +put ice to his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit, +the day has ebbed away, and it is night in his room before his +stertorous breathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness +of the candle that is occasionally passed before them. But when +this change begins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves his +eyes or even his hand in token that he hears and comprehends. + +He fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat +infirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He +lies upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit +shadow of himself. His voice was rich and mellow and he had so +long been thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind +of any word he said that his words really had come to sound as if +there were something in them. But now he can only whisper, and +what he whispers sounds like what it is--mere jumble and jargon. + +His favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It +is the first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from +it. After vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he +makes signs for a pencil. So inexpressively that they cannot at +first understand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what +he wants and brings in a slate. + +After pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand +that is not his, "Chesney Wold?" + +No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the +library this morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to +come to London and is able to attend upon him. + +"It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. +You will be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the +gentlemen say so." This, with the tears coursing down her fair old +face. + +After making a survey of the room and looking with particular +attention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, "My +Lady." + +"My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and +don't know of your illness yet." + +He points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all +try to quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On +their looking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the +slate once more and writes "My Lady. For God's sake, where?" And +makes an imploring moan. + +It is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady +Dedlock's letter, the contents of which no one knows or can +surmise. She opens it for him and puts it out for his perusal. +Having read it twice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it +shall not be seen and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of +relapse or into a swoon, and it is an hour before he opens his +eyes, reclining on his faithful and attached old servant's arm. +The doctors know that he is best with her, and when not actively +engaged about him, stand aloof. + +The slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to +write he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and +affliction at this pass are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he +must go mad in the necessity he feels for haste and the inability +under which he labours of expressing to do what or to fetch whom. +He has written the letter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in +the height of his misery, he puts Mr. before it. The old +housekeeper suggests Bucket. Thank heaven! That's his meaning. + +Mr. Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he +come up? + +There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning +wish to see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared +of every one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. +Bucket appears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen +from his high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this +man. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'm sorry to see you like this. I +hope you'll cheer up. I'm sure you will, on account of the family +credit." + +Leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his +face while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket's +eye as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is +still glancing over the words, he indicates, "Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, I understand you." + +Sir Leicester writes upon the slate. "Full forgiveness. Find--" +Mr. Bucket stops his hand. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'll find her. But my search +after her must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost." + +With the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock's +look towards a little box upon a table. + +"Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open +it with one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO +be sure. Take the notes out? So I will. Count 'em? That's soon +done. Twenty and thirty's fifty, and twenty's seventy, and fifty's +one twenty, and forty's one sixty. Take 'em for expenses? That +I'll do, and render an account of course. Don't spare money? No I +won't." + +The velocity and certainty of Mr. Bucket's interpretation on all +these heads is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who +holds the light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands +as he starts up, furnished for his journey. + +"You're George's mother, old lady; that's about what you are, I +believe?" says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and +buttoning his coat. + +"Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother." + +"So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. +Well, then, I'll tell you something. You needn't be distressed no +more. Your son's all right. Now, don't you begin a-crying, +because what you've got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, and you won't do that by crying. As to your son, +he's all right, I tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and +hoping you're the same. He's discharged honourable; that's about +what HE is; with no more imputation on his character than there is +on yours, and yours is a tidy one, I'LL bet a pound. You may trust +me, for I took your son. He conducted himself in a game way, too, +on that occasion; and he's a fine-made man, and you're a fine-made +old lady, and you're a mother and son, the pair of you, as might be +showed for models in a caravan. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, +what you've trusted to me I'll go through with. Don't you be +afraid of my turing out of my way, right or left, or taking a +sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have found what I go in search +of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on your part? Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you better, and +these family affairs smoothed over--as, Lord, many other family +affairs equally has been, and equally wlll be, to the end of time." + +With this peroration, Mr. Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out, +looking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the +night in quest of the fugitive. + +His first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock's rooms and look +all over them for any trifling indication that may help him. The +rooms are in darkness now; and to see Mr. Bucket with a wax-light +in his hand, holding it above his head and taking a sharp mental +inventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance +with himself, would be to see a sight--which nobody DOES see, as he +is particular to lock himself in. + +"A spicy boudoir, this," says Mr. Bucket, who feels in a manner +furbished up in his French by the blow of the morning. "Must have +cost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she +must have been hard put to it!" + +Opening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and +jewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors, +and moralizes thereon. + +"One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and +getting myself up for almac's," says Mr. Bucket. "I begin to think +I must be a swell in the Guards without knowing it." + +Ever looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner +drawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can +scarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a +white handkerchief. + +"Hum! Let's have a look at YOU," says Mr. Bucket, putting down the +light. "What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What's YOUR +motive? Are you her ladyship's property, or somebody else's? +You've got a mark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose?" + +He finds it as he speaks, "Esther Summerson." + +"Oh!" says Mr. Bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. "Come, +I'll take YOU." + +He completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has +carried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it, +glides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the +street. With a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of Sir +Leicester's room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest coach- +stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be driven +to the shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a +scientific judge of horses, but he lays out a little money on the +principal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge +of the subject in the remark that when he sees a horse as can go, +he knows him. + +His knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering +over the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his +keen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the +midnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where +people are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he +rattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the +snow lies thin--for something may present itself to assist him, +anywhere--he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he +stops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam. + +"Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I'll be back." + +He runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his +pipe. + +"I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my +lad. I haven't a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a +woman. Miss Summerson that was here when Gridley died--that was +the name, I know--all right--where does she live?" + +The trooper has just come from there and gives him the address, +near Oxford Street. + +"You won't repent it, George. Good night!" + +He is off again, with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by +the frosty fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away +again, and gets out in a cloud of steam again. + +Mr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to +bed, rises from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell, +and comes down to the door in his dressing-gown. + +"Don't be alarmed, sir." In a moment his visitor is confidential +with him in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand +upon the lock. "I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. +Inspector Bucket. Look at that handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther +Summerson's. Found it myself put away in a drawer of Lady +Dedlock's, quarter of an hour ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter +of life or death. You know Lady Dedlock?" + +"Yes." + +"There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come +out. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit--apoplexy or +paralysis--and couldn't be brought to, and precious time has been +lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter +for him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!" + +Mr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks. + +"I don't know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there's more and +more danger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I'd give a +hundred pound an hour to have got the start of the present time. +Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, +to follow her and find her, to save her and take her his +forgiveness. I have money and full power, but I want something +else. I want Miss Summerson." + +Mr. Jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, "Miss Summerson?" + +"Now, Mr. Jarndyce"--Mr. Bucket has read his face with the greatest +attention all along--"I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane +heart, and under such pressing circumstances as don't often happen. +If ever delay was dangerous, it's dangerous now; and if ever you +couldn't afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the +time. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound +apiece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I +am charged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the +rest that's heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, +suspicion of murder. If I follow her alone, she, being in +ignorance of what Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated +to me, may be driven to desperation. But if I follow her in +company with a young lady, answering to the description of a young +lady that she has a tenderness for--I ask no question, and I say no +more than that--she will give me credit for being friendly. Let me +come up with her and be able to have the hold upon her of putting +that young lady for'ard, and I'll save her and prevail with her if +she is alive. Let me come up with her alone--a hard matter--and +I'll do my best, but I don't answer for what the best may be. Time +flies; it's getting on for one o'clock. When one strikes, there's +another hour gone, and it's worth a thousand pound now instead of a +hundred." + +This is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be +questioned. Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks +to Miss Summerson. Mr. Bucket says he will, but acting on his +usual principle, does no such thing, following upstairs instead and +keeping his man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about +in the gloom of the staircase while they confer. In a very little +time Mr. Jarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will +join him directly and place herself under his protection to +accompany him where he pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses +high approval and awaits her coming at the door. + +There he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and +wide. Many solitary figures he perceives creeping through the +streets; many solitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying +under haystacks. But the figure that he seeks is not among them. +Other solitaries he perceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; +and in shadowed places down by the river's level; and a dark, dark, +shapeless object drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, +clings with a drowning hold on his attention. + +Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the +handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an +enchanted power to bring before him the place where she found it +and the night-landscape near the cottage where it covered the +little child, would he descry her there? On the waste where the +brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare, where the straw- +roofs of the wretched huts in which the bricks are made are being +scattered by the wind, where the clay and water are hard frozen and +the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks +like an instrument of human torture--traversing this deserted, +blighted spot there is a lonely figure with the sad world to +itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it +would seem, from all companionship. It is the figure of a woman, +too; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came +through the hall and out at the great door of the Dedlock mansion. + + + +CHAPTER LVII + +Esther's Narrative + + +I had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the +door of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying +to speak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a +word or two of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir +Leicester Dedlock's. That my mother had fled, that a person was +now at our door who was empowered to convey to her the fullest +assurances of affectionate protection and forgiveness if he could +possibly find her, and that I was sought for to accompany him in +the hope that my entreaties might prevail upon her if his failed. +Something to this general purpose I made out, but I was thrown into +such a tumult of alarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of +every effort I could make to subdue my agitation, I did not seem, +to myself, fully to recover my right mind until hours had passed. + +But I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley +or any one and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person +entrusted with the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me +this, and also explained how it was that he had come to think of +me. Mr. Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian's +candle, read to me in the hall a letter that my mother had left +upon her table; and I suppose within ten minutes of my having been +aroused I was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the +streets. + +His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to +me that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, +without confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These +were, chiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother +(to whom he only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had +spoken with her last, and how she had become possessed of my +handkerchief. When I had satisfied him on these points, he asked +me particularly to consider--taking time to think--whether within +my knowledge there was any one, no matter where, in whom she might +be at all likely to confide under circumstances of the last +necessity. I could think of no one but my guardian. But by and by +I mentioned Mr. Boythorn. He came into my mind as connected with +his old chivalrous manner of mentioning my mother's name and with +what my guardian had informed me of his engagement to her sister +and his unconscious connexion with her unhappy story. + +My companion had stopped the driver while we held this +conversation, that we might the better hear each other. He now +told him to go on again and said to me, after considering within +himself for a few moments, that he had made up his mind how to +proceed. He was quite willing to tell me what his plan was, but I +did not feel clear enough to understand it. + +We had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a +by-street at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr. +Bucket took me in and sat me in an armchair by a bright fire. It +was now past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two +police officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all +like people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; +and the place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating +and calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid +any attention. + +A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he +whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others +advised together while one wrote from Mr. Bucket's subdued +dictation. It was a description of my mother that they were busy +with, for Mr. Bucket brought it to me when it was done and read it +in a whisper. It was very accurate indeed. + +The second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it +out and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an +outer room), who took it up and went away with it. All this was +done with the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment; +yet nobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out +upon its travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work +of writing with neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came +and warmed the soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at +the fire. + +"Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?" he asked me as his eyes +met mine. "It's a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out +in." + +I told him I cared for no weather and was warmly clothed. + +"It may be a long job," he observed; "but so that it ends well, +never mind, miss." + +"I pray to heaven it may end well!" said I. + +He nodded comfortingly. "You see, whatever you do, don't you go +and fret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything +that may happen, and it'll be the better for you, the better for +me, the better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet." + +He was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire +warming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt +a confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a +quarter to two when I heard horses' feet and wheels outside. "Now, +Miss Summerson," said he, "we are off, if you please!" + +He gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out, +and we found at the door a phaeton or barouche with a postilion and +post horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the +box. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage +then handed him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had +given a few directions to the driver, we rattled away. + +I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with +great rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost +all idea where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed +the river, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, +waterside, dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by +docks and basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and +masts of ships. At length we stopped at the corner of a little +slimy turning, which the wind from the river, rushing up it, did +not purify; and I saw my companion, by the light of his lantern, in +conference with several men who looked like a mixture of police and +sailors. Against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there +was a bill, on which I could discern the words, "Found Drowned"; +and this and an inscription about drags possessed me with the awful +suspicion shadowed forth in our visit to that place. + +I had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the +indulgence of any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of +the search, or to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I +remained quiet, but what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never +can forget. And still it was like the horror of a dream. A man +yet dark and muddy, in long swollen sodden boots and a hat like +them, was called out of a boat and whispered with Mr. Bucket, who +went away with him down some slippery steps--as if to look at +something secret that he had to show. They came back, wiping their +hands upon their coats, after turning over something wet; but thank +God it was not what I feared! + +After some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to +know and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in +the carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to +warm himself. The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound +it made, and I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a +little rush towards me. It never did so--and I thought it did so, +hundreds of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of +an hour, and probably was less--but the thought shuddered through +me that it would cast my mother at the horses' feet. + +Mr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, +darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. "Don't you be +alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here," he +said, turning to me. "I only want to have everything in train and +to know that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my +lad!" + +We appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken +note of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but +judging from the general character of the streets. We called at +another office or station for a minute and crossed the river again. +During the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my +companion, wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a +single moment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if +possible, to be more on the alert than before. He stood up to look +over the parapet, he alighted and went back after a shadowy female +figure that flitted past us, and he gazed into the profound black +pit of water with a face that made my heart die within me. The +river had a fearful look, so overcast and secret, creeping away so +fast between the low flat lines of shore--so heavy with indistinct +and awful shapes, both of substance and shadow; so death-like and +mysterious. I have seen it many times since then, by sunlight and +by moonlight, but never free from the impressions of that journey. +In my memory the lights upon the bridge are always burning dim, the +cutting wind is eddying round the homeless woman whom we pass, the +monotonous wheels are whirling on, and the light of the carriage- +lamps reflected back looks palely in upon me--a face rising out of +the dreaded water. + +Clattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at +length from the pavement on to dark smooth roads and began to leave +the houses behind us. After a while I recognized the familiar way +to Saint Albans. At Barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we +changed and went on. It was very cold indeed, and the open country +was white with snow, though none was falling then. + +"An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson," said Mr. +Bucket cheerfully. + +"Yes," I returned. "Have you gathered any intelligence?" + +"None that can be quite depended on as yet," he answered, "but it's +early times as yet." + +He had gone into every late or early public-house where there was a +light (they were not a few at that time, the road being then much +frequented by drovers) and had got down to talk to the turnpike- +keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, and +making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took +his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady +look, and he always said to the driver in the same business tone, +"Get on, my lad!" + +With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock and +we were yet a few miles short of Saint Albans when he came out of +one of these houses and handed me in a cup of tea. + +"Drink it, Miss Summerson, it'll do you good. You're beginning to +get more yourself now, ain't you?" + +I thanked him and said I hoped so. + +"You was what you may call stunned at first," he returned; "and +Lord, no wonder! Don't speak loud, my dear. It's all right. +She's on ahead." + +I don't know what joyful exclamation I made or was going to make, +but he put up his finger and I stopped myself. + +"Passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. I +heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but +couldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. +Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's +before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. +Now, if you wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see +if you can catch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, two, +three, and there you are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!" + +We were soon in Saint Albans and alighted a little before day, when +I was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of +the night and really to believe that they were not a dream. +Leaving the carriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses +to be ready, my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards +home. + +"As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see," he +observed, "I should like to know whether you've been asked for by +any stranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce +has. I don't much expect it, but it might be." + +As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye--the +day was now breaking--and reminded me that I had come down it one +night, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and +poor Jo, whom he called Toughey. + +I wondered how he knew that. + +"When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know," said +Mr. Bucket. + +Yes, I remembered that too, very well. + +"That was me," said Mr. Bucket. + +Seeing my surprise, he went on, "I drove down in a gig that +afternoon to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels +when you came out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of +you and your little maid going up when I was walking the horse +down. Making an inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard +what company he was in and was coming among the brick-fields to +look for him when I observed you bringing him home here." + +"Had he committed any crime?" I asked. + +"None was charged against him," said Mr. Bucket, coolly lifting off +his hat, "but I suppose he wasn't over-particular. No. What I +wanted him for was in connexion with keeping this very matter of +Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than +welcome as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by +the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn't do, at any sort of +price, to have him playing those games. So having warned him out +of London, I made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it +now he WAS away, and go farther from it, and maintain a bright +look-out that I didn't catch him coming back again." + +"Poor creature!" said I. + +"Poor enough," assented Mr. Bucket, "and trouble enough, and well +enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned +on my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do +assure you. + +I asked him why. "Why, my dear?" said Mr. Bucket. "Naturally +there was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been +born with a yard and a half of it, and a remnant over." + +Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion +at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable +me to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert +me. With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me +of indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object +that we had in view. He still pursued this subject as we turned in +at the garden-gate. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Bucket. "Here we are, and a nice retired place it +is. Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker- +tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. +They're early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good +servants. But what you've always got to be careful of with +servants is who comes to see 'em; you never know what they're up to +if you don't know that. And another thing, my dear. Whenever you +find a young man behind the kitchen-door, you give that young man +in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a dwelling-house with +an unlawful purpose." + +We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and +closely at the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to +the windows. + +"Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room +when he's on a visit here, Miss Summerson?" he inquired, glancing +at Mr. Skimpole's usual chamber. + +"You know Mr. Skimpole!" said I. + +"What do you call him again?" returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his +ear. "Skimpole, is it? I've often wondered what his name might +be. Skimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?" + +"Harold," I told him. + +"Harold. Yes. He's a queer bird is Harold," said Mr. Bucket, +eyeing me with great expression. + +"He is a singular character," said I. + +"No idea of money," observed Mr. Bucket. "He takes it, though!" + +I involuntarily returned for answer that I perceived Mr. Bucket +knew him. + +"Why, now I'll tell you, Miss Summerson," he replied. "Your mind +will be all the better for not running on one point too +continually, and I'll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed +out to me where Toughey was. I made up my mind that night to come +to the door and ask for Toughey, if that was all; but willing to +try a move or so first, if any such was on the board, I just +pitched up a morsel of gravel at that window where I saw a shadow. +As soon as Harold opens it and I have had a look at him, thinks I, +you're the man for me. So I smoothed him down a bit about not +wanting to disturb the family after they was gone to bed and about +its being a thing to be regretted that charitable young ladies +should harbour vagrants; and then, when I pretty well understood +his ways, I said I should consider a fypunnote well bestowed if I +could relieve the premises of Toughey without causing any noise or +trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, +'It's no use menfioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because I'm a +mere child in such matters and have no idea of money.' Of course I +understood what his taking it so easy meant; and being now quite +sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round a little stone +and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and looks as +innocent as you like, and says, 'But I don't know the value of +these things. What am I to DO with this?' 'Spend it, sir,' says +I. 'But I shall be taken in,' he says, 'they won't give me the +right change, I shall lose it, it's no use to me.' Lord, you never +saw such a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where +to find Toughey, and I found him." + +I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole +towards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish +innocence. + +"Bounds, my dear?" returned Mr. Bucket. "Bounds? Now, Miss +Summerson, I'll give you a piece of advice that your husband will +find useful when you are happily married and have got a family +about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent +as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, +for they are dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a +person proclaims to you 'In worldly matters I'm a child,' you +consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held +accountable and that you have got that person's number, and it's +Number One. Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal +way when it goes round a company, but I'm a practical one, and +that's my experience. So's this rule. Fast and loose in one +thing, fast and loose in everything. I never knew it fail. No +more will you. Nor no one. With which caution to the unwary, my +dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back +to our business." + +I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more +than it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole +household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time +in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not +diminished by my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It +could not be doubted that this was the truth. + +"Then, Miss Summerson," said my companion, "we can't be too soon at +the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most +inquiries there I leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make +'em. The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is +your own way." + +We set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found +it shut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who +knew me and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear +informed me that the two women and their husbands now lived +together in another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood +on the margin of the piece of ground where the kilns were and where +the long rows of bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing +to this place, which was within a few hundred yards; and as the +door stood ajar, I pushed it open. + +There were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying +asleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the +dead child, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and +the men, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me +a morose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr. +Bucket followed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman +evidently knew him. + +I had asked leave to enter of course. Liz (the only name by which +I knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a +stool near the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. +Now that I had to speak and was among people with whom I was not +familiar, I became conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was +very difficult to begin, and I could not help bursting into tears. + +"Liz," said I, "I have come a long way in the night and through the +snow to inquire after a lady--" + +"Who has been here, you know," Mr. Bucket struck in, addressing the +whole group with a composed propitiatory face; "that's the lady the +young lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know." + +"And who told YOU as there was anybody here?" inquired Jenny's +husband, who had made a surly stop in his eating to listen and now +measured him with his eye. + +"A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen +waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons," Mr. Bucket +immediately answered. + +"He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is," growled the +man. + +"He's out of employment, I believe," said Mr. Bucket apologetically +for Michael Jackson, "and so gets talking." + +The woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her +hand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have +spoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this +attitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a +lump of bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other, +struck the handle of his knife violently on the table and told her +with an oath to mind HER own business at any rate and sit down. + +"I should like to have seen Jenny very much," said I, "for I am +sure she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I +am very anxious indeed--you cannot think how anxious--to overtake. +Will Jenny be here soon? Where is she?" + +The woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another +oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to +Jenny's husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence +the latter turned his shaggy head towards me. + +"I'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you've +heerd me say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and +it's curious they can't let my place be. There'd be a pretty shine +made if I was to go a-wisitin THEM, I think. Howsoever, I don't so +much complain of you as of some others, and I'm agreeable to make +you a civil answer, though I give notice that I'm not a-going to be +drawed like a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won't. +Where is she? She's gone up to Lunnun." + +"Did she go last night?" I asked. + +"Did she go last night? Ah! She went last night," he answered with +a sulky jerk of his head. + +"But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to +her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind +as to tell me," said I, "for I am in great distress to know." + +"If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm--" the +woman timidly began. + +"Your master," said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow +emphasis, "will break your neck if you meddle with wot don't +concern you." + +After another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to +me again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness. + +"Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the +lady come. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I'll tell you wot +the lady said to her. She said, 'You remember me as come one time +to talk to you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? +You remember me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher +wot she had left?' Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well, +then, wos that young lady up at the house now? No, she warn't up +at the house now. Well, then, lookee here. The lady was upon a +journey all alone, strange as we might think it, and could she rest +herself where you're a setten for a hour or so. Yes she could, and +so she did. Then she went--it might be at twenty minutes past +eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve; we ain't got +no watches here to know the time by, nor yet clocks. Where did she +go? I don't know where she go'd. She went one way, and Jenny went +another; one went right to Lunnun, and t'other went right from it. +That's all about it. Ask this man. He heerd it all, and see it +all. He knows." + +The other man repeated, "That's all about it." + +"Was the lady crying?" I inquired. + +"Devil a bit," returned the first man. "Her shoes was the worse, +and her clothes was the worse, but she warn't--not as I see." + +The woman sat with her arms crossed and her eyes upon the ground. +Her husband had turned his seat a little so as to face her and kept +his hammer-like hand upon the table as if it were in readiness to +execute his threat if she disobeyed him. + +"I hope you will not object to my asking your wife," said I, "how +the lady looked." + +"Come, then!" he gruffly cried to her. "You hear what she says. +Cut it short and tell her." + +"Bad," replied the woman. "Pale and exhausted. Very bad." + +"Did she speak much?" + +"Not much, but her voice was hoarse." + +She answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave. + +"Was she faint?" said I. "Did she eat or drink here?" + +"Go on!" said the husband in answer to her look. "Tell her and cut +it short." + +"She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and +tea. But she hardly touched it." + +"And when she went from here," I was proceeding, when Jenny's +husband impatiently took me up. + +"When she went from here, she went right away nor'ard by the high +road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn't so. +Now, there's the end. That's all about it." + +I glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen +and was ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, +and took my leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went +out, and he looked full at her. + +"Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me as we walked quickly away. +"They've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. That's a positive +fact." + +"You saw it?" I exclaimed. + +"Just as good as saw it," he returned. "Else why should he talk +about his 'twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch to +tell the time by? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time +so fine as that. If he comes to half-hours, it's as much as HE +does. Now, you see, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he +took it. I think she gave it him. Now, what should she give it +him for? What should she give it him for?" + +He repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried +on, appearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in +his mind. + +"If time could be spared," said Mr. Bucket, "which is the only +thing that can't be spared in this case, I might get it out of that +woman; but it's too doubtful a chance to trust to under present +circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and +any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and +scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband +that ill uses her through thick and thin. There's something kept +back. It's a pity but what we had seen the other woman." + +I regretted it exceedingly, for she was very grateful, and I felt +sure would have resisted no entreaty of mine. + +"It's possible, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it, +"that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, +and it's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It +don't come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the +cards. Now, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, on these roughs, and I don't see my way +to the usefulness of it at present. No! So far our road, Miss +Summerson, is for'ard--straight ahead--and keeping everything +quiet!" + +We called at home once more that I might send a hasty note to my +guardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the +carriage. The horses were brought out as soon as we were seen +coming, and we were on the road again in a few minutes. + +It had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air +was so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the +fall that we could see but a very little way in any direction. +Although it was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, +and it churned--with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells +--under the hoofs of the horses into mire and water. They sometimes +slipped and floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to +come to a standstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in +this first stage, and trembled so and was so shaken that the driver +had to dismount from his saddle and lead him at last. + +I could eat nothing and could not sleep, and I grew so nervous +under those delays and the slow pace at which we travelled that I +had an unreasonable desire upon me to get out and walk. Yielding +to my companion's better sense, however, I remained where I was. +All this time, kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in +which he was engaged, he was up and down at every house we came to, +addressing people whom he had never beheld before as old +acquaintances, running in to warm himself at every fire he saw, +talking and drinking and shaking hands at every bar and tap, +friendly with every waggoner, wheelwright, blacksmith, and toll- +taker, yet never seeming to lose time, and always mounting to the +box again with his watchful, steady face and his business-like "Get +on, my lad!" + +When we were changing horses the next time, he came from the +stable-yard, with the wet snow encrusted upon him and dropping off +him--plashing and crashing through it to his wet knees as he had +been doing frequently since we left Saint Albans--and spoke to me +at the carriage side. + +"Keep up your spirits. It's certainly true that she came on here, +Miss Summerson. There's not a doubt of the dress by this time, and +the dress has been seen here." + +"Still on foot?" said I. + +"Still on foot. I think the gentleman you mentioned must be the +point she's aiming at, and yet I don't like his living down in her +own part of the country neither." + +"I know so little," said I. "There may be some one else nearer +here, of whom I never heard." + +"That's true. But whatever you do, don't you fall a-crying, my +dear; and don't you worry yourself no more than you can help. Get +on, my lad!" + +The sleet fell all that day unceasingly, a thick mist came on +early, and it never rose or lightened for a moment. Such roads I +had never seen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got +into the ploughed grounds or the marshes. If I ever thought of the +time I had been out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of +great duration, and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been +free from the anxiety under which I then laboured. + +As we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost +confidence. He was the same as before with all the roadside +people, but he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I +saw his finger uneasily going across and across his mouth during +the whole of one long weary stage. I overheard that he began to +ask the drivers of coaches and other vehicles coming towards us +what passengers they had seen in other coaches and vehicles that +were in advance. Their replies did not encourage him. He always +gave me a reassuring beck of his finger and lift of his eyelid as +he got upon the box again, but he seemed perplexed now when he +said, "Get on, my lad!" + +At last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the +track of the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It was +nothing, he said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take +it up for another while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in +an unaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. This +corroborated the apprehensions I had formed, when he began to look +at direction-posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a +quarter of an hour at a time while he explored them. But I was not +to be down-hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that +the next stage might set us right again. + +The next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new +clue. There was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable +substantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway +before I knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to +the carriage-door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while +the horses were making ready, I thought it would be uncharitable to +refuse. They took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there. + +It was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways. +On one side to a stable-yard open to a by-road, where the ostlers +were unharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy +carriage, and beyond that to the by-road itself, across which the +sign was heavily swinging; on the other side to a wood of dark +pine-trees. Their branches were encumbered with snow, and it +silently dropped off in wet heaps while I stood at the window. +Night was setting in, and its bleakness was enhanced by the +contrast of the pictured fire glowing and gleaming in the window- +pane. As I looked among the stems of the trees and followed the +discoloured marks in the snow where the thaw was sinking into it +and undermining it, I thought of the motherly face brightly set off +by daughters that had just now welcomed me and of MY mother lying +down in such a wood to die. + +I was frightened when I found them all about me, but I remembered +that before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it; and that was +some little comfort. They cushioned me up on a large sofa by the +fire, and then the comely landlady told me that I must travel no +further to-night, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a +tremble lest they should detain me there that she soon recalled her +words and compromised for a rest of half an hour. + +A good endearing creature she was. She and her three fair girls, +all so busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, +while Mr. Bucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but I could not +do it when a snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, +though I was very unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could +take some toast and some hot negus, and as I really enjoyed that +refreshment, it made some recompense. + +Punctual to the time, at the half-hour's end the carriage came +rumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, +refreshed, comforted by kindness, and safe (I assured them) not to +faint any more. After I had got in and had taken a grateful leave +of them all, the youngest daughter--a blooming girl of nineteen, +who was to be the first married, they had told me--got upon the +carriage step, reached in, and kissed me. I have never seen her, +from that hour, but I think of her to this hour as my friend. + +The transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so bright +and warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and +again we were crushing and churning the loose snow. We went on +with toil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than +they had been, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion +smoking on the box--I had thought at the last inn of begging him to +do so when I saw him standing at a great fire in a comfortable +cloud of tobacco--was as vigilant as ever and as quickly down and +up again when we came to any human abode or any human creature. He +had lighted his little dark lantern, which seemed to be a favourite +with him, for we had lamps to the carriage; and every now and then +he turned it upon me to see that I was doing well. There was a +folding-window to the carriage-head, but I never closed it, for it +seemed like shutting out hope. + +We came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not +recovered. I looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change, +but I knew by his yet graver face as he stood watching the ostlers +that he had heard nothing. Almost in an instant afterwards, as I +leaned back in my seat, he looked in, with his lighted lantern in +his hand, an excited and quite different man. + +"What is it?" said I, starting. "Is she here?" + +"No, no. Don't deceive yourself, my dear. Nobody's here. But +I've got it!" + +The crystallized snow was in his eyelashes, in his hair, lying in +ridges on his dress. He had to shake it from his face and get his +breath before he spoke to me. + +"Now, Miss Summerson," said he, beating his finger on the apron, +"don't you be disappointed at what I'm a-going to do. You know me. +I'm Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. We've come a long way; +never mind. Four horses out there for the next stage up! Quick!" + +There was a commotion in the yard, and a man came running out of +the stables to know if he meant up or down. + +"Up, I tell you! Up! Ain't it English? Up!" + +"Up?" said I, astonished. "To London! Are we going back?" + +"Miss Summerson," he answered, "back. Straight back as a die. You +know me. Don't be afraid. I'll follow the other, by G--" + +"The other?" I repeated. "Who?" + +"You called her Jenny, didn't you? I'll follow her. Bring those +two pair out here for a crown a man. Wake up, some of you!" + +"You will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not +abandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind as I know +her to be in!" said I, in an agony, and grasping his hand. + +"You are right, my dear, I won't. But I'll follow the other. Look +alive here with them horses. Send a man for'ard in the saddle to +the next stage, and let him send another for'ard again, and order +four on, up, right through. My darling, don't you be afraid!" + +These orders and the way in which he ran about the yard urging them +caused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to +me than the sudden change. But in the height of the confusion, a +mounted man galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were +put to with great speed. + +"My dear," said Mr. Bucket, jumping to his seat and looking in +again, "--you'll excuse me if I'm too familiar--don't you fret and +worry yourself no more than you can help. I say nothing else at +present; but you know me, my dear; now, don't you?" + +I endeavoured to say that I knew he was far more capable than I of +deciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right? +Could I not go forward by myself in search of--I grasped his hand +again in my distress and whispered it to him--of my own mother. + +"My dear," he answered, "I know, I know, and would I put you wrong, +do you think? Inspector Bucket. Now you know me, don't you?" + +What could I say but yes! + +"Then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me +for standing by you, no less than by Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet. Now, are you right there?" + +"All right, sir!" + +"Off she goes, then. And get on, my lads!" + +We were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come, +tearing up the miry sleet and thawing snow as if they were torn up +by a waterwheel. + + + +CHAPTER LVIII + +A Wintry Day and Night + + +Still impassive, as behoves its breeding, the Dedlock town house +carries itself as usual towards the street of dismal grandeur. +There are powdered heads from time to time in the little windows of +the hall, looking out at the untaxed powder falling all day from +the sky; and in the same conservatory there is peach blossom +turning itself exotically to the great hall fire from the nipping +weather out of doors. It is given out that my Lady has gone down +into Lincolnshire, but is expected to return presently. + +Rumour, busy overmuch, however, will not go down into Lincolnshire. +It persists in flitting and chattering about town. It knows that +that poor unfortunate man, Sir Leicester, has been sadly used. It +hears, my dear child, all sorts of shocking things. It makes the +world of five miles round quite merry. Not to know that there is +something wrong at the Dedlocks' is to augur yourself unknown. One +of the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats is already +apprised of all the principal circumstances that will come out +before the Lords on Sir Leicester's application for a bill of +divorce. + +At Blaze and Sparkle's the jewellers and at Sheen and Gloss's the +mercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age, +the feature of the century. The patronesses of those +establishments, albeit so loftily inscrutable, being as nicely +weighed and measured there as any other article of the stock-in- +trade, are perfectly understood in this new fashion by the rawest +hand behind the counter. "Our people, Mr. Jones," said Blaze and +Sparkle to the hand in question on engaging him, "our people, sir, +are sheep--mere sheep. Where two or three marked ones go, all the +rest follow. Keep those two or three in your eye, Mr. Jones, and +you have the flock." So, likewise, Sheen and Gloss to THEIR Jones, +in reference to knowing where to have the fashionable people and +how to bring what they (Sheen and Gloss) choose into fashion. On +similar unerring principles, Mr. Sladdery the librarian, and indeed +the great farmer of gorgeous sheep, admits this very day, "Why yes, +sir, there certainly ARE reports concerning Lady Dedlock, very +current indeed among my high connexion, sir. You see, my high +connexion must talk about something, sir; and it's only to get a +subject into vogue with one or two ladies I could name to make it +go down with the whole. Just what I should have done with those +ladies, sir, in the case of any novelty you had left to me to bring +in, they have done of themselves in this case through knowing Lady +Dedlock and being perhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, +sir. You'll find, sir, that this topic will be very popular among +my high connexion. If it had been a speculation, sir, it would +have brought money. And when I say so, you may trust to my being +right, sir, for I have made it my business to study my high +connexion and to be able to wind it up like a clock, sir." + +Thus rumour thrives in the capital, and will not go down into +Lincolnshire. By half-past five, post meridian, Horse Guards' +time, it has even elicited a new remark from the Honourable Mr. +Stables, which bids fair to outshine the old one, on which he has +so long rested his colloquial reputation. This sparkling sally is +to the effect that although he always knew she was the best-groomed +woman in the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is +immensely received in turf-circles. + +At feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, +and among constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still +the prevalent subject. What is it? Who is it? When was it? +Where was it? How was it? She is discussed by her dear friends +with all the genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the +last new manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite +indifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is that it is +found to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who +never came out before--positively say things! William Buffy +carries one of these smartnesses from the place where he dines down +to the House, where the Whip for his party hands it about with his +snuff-box to keep men together who want to be off, with such effect +that the Speaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own +ear under the corner of his wig) cries, "Order at the bar!" three +times without making an impression. + +And not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being +vaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of +Mr. Sladdery's high connexion, people who know nothing and ever did +know nothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to +pretend that she is their topic too, and to retail her at second- +hand with the last new word and the last new manner, and the last +new drawl, and the last new polite indifference, and all the rest +of it, all at second-hand but considered equal to new in inferior +systems and to fainter stars. If there be any man of letters, art, +or science among these little dealers, how noble in him to support +the feeble sisters on such majestic crutches! + +So goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How within it? + +Sir Leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with +difficulty and indistinctness. He is enjoined to silence and to +rest, and they have given him some opiate to lull his pain, for his +old enemy is very hard with him. He is never asleep, though +sometimes he seems to fall into a dull waking doze. He caused his +bedstead to be moved out nearer to the window when he heard it was +such inclement weather, and his head to be so adjusted that he +could see the driving snow and sleet. He watches it as it falls, +throughout the whole wintry day. + +Upon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand +is at the pencil. The old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what +he would write and whispers, "No, he has not come back yet, Sir +Leicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been but a +little time gone yet." + +He withdraws his hand and falls to looking at the sleet and snow +again until they seem, by being long looked at, to fall so thick +and fast that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the +giddy whirl of white flakes and icy blots. + +He began to look at them as soon as it was light. The day is not +yet far spent when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms +should be prepared for her. It is very cold and wet. Let there be +good fires. Let them know that she is expected. Please see to it +yourself. He writes to this purpose on his slate, and Mrs. +Rouncewell with a heavy heart obeys. + +"For I dread, George," the old lady says to her son, who waits +below to keep her company when she has a little leisure, "I dread, +my dear, that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls." + +"That's a bad presentiment, mother." + +"Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear." + +"That's worse. But why, mother?" + +"When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me--and I may +say at me too--as if the step on the Ghost's Walk had almost walked +her down." + +"Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother." + +"No I don't, my dear. No I don't. It's going on for sixty year +that I have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it +before. But it's breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock +family is breaking up." + +"I hope not, mother." + +"I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in +this illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too +useless to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place +would be. But the step on the Ghost's Walk will walk my Lady down, +George; it has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her +and go on." + +"Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not." + +"Ah, so do I, George," the old lady returns, shaking her head and +parting her folded hands. "But if my fears come true, and he has +to know it, who will tell him!" + +"Are these her rooms?" + +"These are my Lady's rooms, just as she left them." + +"Why, now," says the trooper, glancing round him and speaking in a +lower voice, "I begin to understand how you come to think as you do +think, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are +fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, +and that person is away under any shadow, let alone being God knows +where." + +He is not far out. As all partings foreshadow the great final one, +so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper +what your room and what mine must one day be. My Lady's state has +a hollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned; and in the inner +apartment, where Mr. Bucket last night made his secret +perquisition, the traces of her dresses and her ornaments, even the +mirrors accustomed to reflect them when they were a portion of +herself, have a desolate and vacant air. Dark and cold as the +wintry day is, it is darker and colder in these deserted chambers +than in many a hut that will barely exclude the weather; and though +the servants heap fires in the grates and set the couches and the +chairs within the warm glass screens that let their ruddy light +shoot through to the furthest corners, there is a heavy cloud upon +the rooms which no light will dispel. + +The old housekeeper and her son remain until the preparations are +complete, and then she returns upstairs. Volumnia has taken Mrs. +Rouncewell's place in the meantime, though pearl necklaces and +rouge pots, however calculated to embellish Bath, are but +indifferent comforts to the invalid under present circumstances. +Volumnia, not being supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what +is the matter, has found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate +observations and consequently has supplied their place with +distracting smoothings of the bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on +tiptoe, vigilant peeping at her kinsman's eyes, and one +exasperating whisper to herself of, "He is asleep." In disproof of +which superfluous remark Sir Leicester has indignantly written on +the slate, "I am not." + +Yielding, therefore, the chair at the bedside to the quaint old +housekeeper, Volumnia sits at a table a little removed, +sympathetically sighing. Sir Leicester watches the sleet and snow +and listens for the returning steps that he expects. In the ears +of his old servant, looking as if she had stepped out of an old +picture-frame to attend a summoned Dedlock to another world, the +silence is fraught with echoes of her own words, "who will tell +him!" + +He has been under his valet's hands this morning to be made +presentable and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. +He is propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual +manner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a +responsible dressing-gown. His eye-glass and his watch are ready +to his hand. It is necessary--less to his own dignity now perhaps +than for her sake--that he should be seen as little disturbed and +as much himself as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia, though a +Dedlock, is no exceptional case. He keeps her here, there is +little doubt, to prevent her talking somewhere else. He is very +ill, but he makes his present stand against distress of mind and +body most courageously. + +The fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot +long continue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the +dragon Boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a +series of undisguisable yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress +those yawns by any other process than conversation, she compliments +Mrs. Rouncewell on her son, declaring that he positively is one of +the finest figures she ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, +she should think, as what's his name, her favourite Life Guardsman +--the man she dotes on, the dearest of creatures--who was killed at +Waterloo. + +Sir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise and stares +about him in such a confused way that Mrs. Rouncewell feels it +necesary to explain. + +"Miss Dedlock don't speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my +youngest. I have found him. He has come home." + +Sir Leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. "George? Your son +George come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?" + +The old housekeeper wipes her eyes. "Thank God. Yes, Sir +Leicester." + +Does this discovery of some one lost, this return of some one so +long gone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? +Does he think, "Shall I not, with the aid I have, recall her safely +after this, there being fewer hours in her case than there are +years in his?" + +It is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and +he does. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough +to be understood. + +"Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?" + +"It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your +being well enough to be talked to of such things." + +Besides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with her little scream +that nobody was to have known of his being Mrs. Rouncewell's son +and that she was not to have told. But Mrs. Rouncewell protests, +with warmth enough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would +have told Sir Leicester as soon as he got better. + +"Where is your son George, Mrs. Rouncewell?" asks Sir Leicester, + +Mrs. Rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the +doctor's injunctions, replies, in London. + +"Where in London?" + +Mrs. Rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house. + +"Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly." + +The old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir +Leicester, with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself +a little to receive him. When he has done so, he looks out again +at the falling sleet and snow and listens again for the returning +steps. A quantity of straw has been tumbled down in the street to +deaden the noises there, and she might be driven to the door +perhaps without his hearing wheels. + +He is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor +surprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper +son. Mr. George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow, +squares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily +ashamed of himself. + +"Good heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell!" exclaims Sir +Leicester. "Do you remember me, George?" + +The trooper needs to look at him and to separate this sound from +that sound before he knows what he has said, but doing this and +being a little helped by his mother, he replies, "I must have a +very bad memory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember +you." + +"When I look at you, George Rouncewell," Sir Leicester observes +with difficulty, "I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold--I +remember well--very well." + +He looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he +looks at the sleet and snow again. + +"I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester," says the trooper, "but would +you accept of my arms to raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir +Leicester, if you would allow me to move you." + +"If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good." + +The trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him, +and turns him with his face more towards the window. "Thank you. +You have your mother's gentleness," returns Sir Leicester, "and +your own strength. Thank you." + +He signs to him with his hand not to go away. George quietly +remains at the bedside, waiting to be spoken to. + +"Why did you wish for secrecy?" It takes Sir Leicester some time +to ask this. + +"Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I--I should +still, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed--which I hope +you will not be long--I should still hope for the favour of being +allowed to remain unknown in general. That involves explanations +not very hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not +very creditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a +variety of subjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, +Sir Leicester, that I am not much to boast of." + +"You have been a soldier," observes Sir Leicester, "and a faithful +one." + +George makes his military how. "As far as that goes, Sir +Leicester, I have done my duty under discipline, and it was the +least I could do." + +"You find me," says Sir Leicester, whose eyes are much attracted +towards him, "far from well, George Rouncewell." + +"I am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, Sir Leicester." + +"I am sure you are. No. In addition to my older malady, I have +had a sudden and bad attack. Something that deadens," making an +endeavour to pass one hand down one side, "and confuses," touching +his lips. + +George, with a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. The +different times when they were both young men (the trooper much the +younger of the two) and looked at one another down at Chesney Wold +arise before them both and soften both. + +Sir Leicester, evidently with a great determination to say, in his +own manner, something that is on his mind before relapsing into +silence, tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more. +George, observant of the action, takes him in his arms again and +places him as he desires to be. "Thank you, George. You are +another self to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney +Wold, George. You are familiar to me in these strange +circumstances, very familiar." He has put Sir Leicester's sounder +arm over his shoulder in lifting him up, and Sir Leicester is slow +in drawing it away again as he says these words. + +"I was about to add," he presently goes on, "I was about to add, +respecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with +a slight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself. I do not +mean that there was any difference between us (for there has been +none), but that there was a misunderstanding of certain +circumstances important only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a +little while, of my Lady's society. She has found it necessary to +make a journey--I trust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make +myself intelligible? The words are not quite under my command in +the manner of pronouncing them." + +Volumnia understands him perfectly, and in truth be delivers +himself with far greater plainness than could have been supposed +possible a minute ago. The effort by which he does so is written +in the anxious and labouring expression of his face. Nothing but +the strength of his purpose enables him to make it. + +"Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence--and in the +presence of my old retainer and friend, Mrs. Rouncewell, whose +truth and fidelity no one can question, and in the presence of her +son George, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth +in the home of my ancestors at Chesney Wold--in case I should +relapse, in case I should not recover, in case I should lose both +my speech and the power of writing, though I hope for better +things--" + +The old housekeeper weeping silently; Volumnia in the greatest +agitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with +his arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive. + +"Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to witness-- +beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly--that I am on +unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I assert no cause whatever +of complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest +affection for her, and that I retain it undiminished. Say this to +herself, and to every one. If you ever say less than this, you +will be guilty of deliberate falsehood to me." + +Volumnia tremblingly protests that she will observe his injunctions +to the letter. + +"My Lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, +too superior in most respects to the best of those by whom she is +surrounded, not to have her enemies and traducers, I dare say. Let +it be known to them, as I make it known to you, that being of sound +mind, memory, and understanding, I revoke no disposition I have +made in her favour. I abridge nothing I have ever bestowed upon +her. I am on unaltered terms with her, and I recall--having the +full power to do it if I were so disposed, as you see--no act I +have done for her advantage and happiness." + +His formal array of words might have at any other time, as it has +often had, something ludicrous in it, but at this time it is +serious and affecting. His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his +gallant shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong +and his own pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and +true. Nothing less worthy can be seen through the lustre of such +qualities in the commonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be +seen in the best-born gentleman. In such a light both aspire +alike, both rise alike, both children of the dust shine equally. + +Overpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows +and closes his eyes for not more than a minute, when he again +resumes his watching of the weather and his attention to the +muffled sounds. In the rendering of those little services, and in +the manner of their acceptance, the trooper has become installed as +necessary to him. Nothing has been said, but it is quite +understood. He falls a step or two backward to be out of sight and +mounts guard a little behind his mother's chair. + +The day is now beginning to decline. The mist and the sleet into +which the snow has all resolved itself are darker, and the blaze +begins to tell more vividly upon the room walls and furniture. The +gloom augments; the bright gas springs up in the streets; and the +pertinacious oil lamps which yet hold their ground there, with +their source of life half frozen and half thawed, twinkle gaspingly +like fiery fish out of water--as they are. The world, which has +been rumbling over the straw and pulling at the bell, "to inquire," +begins to go home, begins to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear +friend with all the last new modes, as already mentioned. + +Now does Sir Leicester become worse, restless, uneasy, and in great +pain. Volumnia, lighting a candle (with a predestined aptitude for +doing something objectionable), is bidden to put it out again, for +it is not yet dark enough. Yet it is very dark too, as dark as it +will be all night. By and by she tries again. No! Put it out. +It is not dark enough yet. + +His old housekeeper is the first to understand that he is striving +to uphold the fiction with himself that it is not growing late. + +"Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master," she softly whispers, "I +must, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging +and praying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness +watching and waiting and dragging through the time. Let me draw +the curtains, and light the candles, and make things more +comfortable about you. The church-clocks will strike the hours +just the same, Sir Leicester, and the night will pass away just the +same. My Lady will come back, just the same." + +"I know it, Mrs. Rouncewell, but I am weak--and he has been so long +gone." + +"Not so very long, Sir Leicester. Not twenty-four hours yet." + +"But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time!" + +He says it with a groan that wrings her heart. + +She knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light +upon him; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her. +Therefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then +gently begins to move about, now stirring the fire, now standing at +the dark window looking out. Finally he tells her, with recovered +self-command, "As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is no worse for +being confessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light +the room!" When it is lighted and the weather shut out, it is only +left to him to listen. + +But they find that however dejected and ill he is, he brightens +when a quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms +and being sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor +pretence as it is, these allusions to her being expected keep up +hope within him. + +Midnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the +streets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there +are none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into +the frigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. +Upon this wintry night it is so still that listening to the intense +silence is like looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound +be audible in this case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble +light in that, and all is heavier than before. + +The corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to +go, for they were up all last night), and only Mrs. Rouncewell and +George keep watch in Sir Leicester's room. As the night lags +tardily on--or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between +two and three o'clock--they find a restless craving on him to know +more about the weather, now he cannot see it. Hence George, +patrolling regularly every half-hour to the rooms so carefully +looked after, extends his march to the hall-door, looks about him, +and brings back the best report he can make of the worst of nights, +the sleet still falling and even the stone footways lying ankle- +deep in icy sludge. + +Volumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the stair-case--the +second turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly +room containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester +banished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard +planted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black +tea--is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not last nor least among +them, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in +the event, as she expresses it, "of anything happening" to Sir +Leicester. Anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only; and +that the last thing that can happen to the consciousness of any +baronet in the known world. + +An effect of these horrors is that Volumnia finds she cannot go to +bed in her own room or sit by the fire in her own room, but must +come forth with her fair head tied up in a profusion of shawl, and +her fair form enrobed in drapery, and parade the mansion like a +ghost, particularly haunting the rooms, warm and luxurious, +prepared for one who still does not return. Solitude under such +circumstances being not to be thought of, Volumnia is attended by +her maid, who, impressed from her own bed for that purpose, +extremely cold, very sleepy, and generally an injured maid as +condemned by circumstances to take office with a cousin, when she +had resolved to be maid to nothing less than ten thousand a year, +has not a sweet expression of countenance. + +The periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, in +the course of his patrolling is an assurance of protection and +company both to mistress and maid, which renders them very +acceptable in the small hours of the night. Whenever he is heard +advancing, they both make some little decorative preparation to +receive him; at other times they divide their watches into short +scraps of oblivion and dialogues not wholly free from acerbity, as +to whether Miss Dedlock, sitting with her feet upon the fender, was +or was not falling into the fire when rescued (to her great +displeasure) by her guardian genius the maid. + +"How is Sir Leicester now, Mr. George?" inquires Volumnia, +adjusting her cowl over her head. + +"Why, Sir Leicester is much the same, miss. He is very low and +ill, and he even wanders a little sometimes." + +"Has he asked for me?" inquires Volumnia tenderly. + +"Why, no, I can't say he has, miss. Not within my hearing, that is +to say." + +"This is a truly sad time, Mr. George." + +"It is indeed, miss. Hadn't you better go to bed?" + +"You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock," quoth the maid +sharply. + +But Volumnia answers No! No! She may be asked for, she may be +wanted at a moment's notice. She never should forgive herself "if +anything was to happen" and she was not on the spot. She declines +to enter on the question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to +be there, and not in her room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester's), +but staunchly declares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia +further makes a merit of not having "closed an eye"--as if she had +twenty or thirty--though it is hard to reconcile this statement +with her having most indisputably opened two within five minutes. + +But when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank, +Volumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to +strengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready +for the morrow, when much may be expected of her, that, in fact, +howsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of +her, as an act of self-devotion, to desert the spot. So when the +trooper reappears with his, "Hadn't you better go to bed, miss?" +and when the maid protests, more sharply than before, "You had a +deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock!" she meekly rises and says, +"Do with me what you think best!" + +Mr. George undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to +the door of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly +thinks it best to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. +Accordingly, these steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his +rounds, has the house to himself. + +There is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the +eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, +drips the thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the +lintels of the great door--under it, into the corners of the +windows, into every chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes +and dies. It is falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, +even through the skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the +regularity of the Ghost's Walk, on the stone floor below. + +The trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary +grandeur of a great house--no novelty to him once at Chesney Wold-- +goes up the stairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his +light at arm's length. Thinking of his varied fortunes within the +last few weeks, and of his rustic boyhood, and of the two periods +of his life so strangely brought together across the wide +intermediate space; thinking of the murdered man whose image is +fresh in his mind; thinking of the lady who has disappeared from +these very rooms and the tokens of whose recent presence are all +here; thinking of the master of the house upstairs and of the +foreboding, "Who will tell him!" he looks here and looks there, and +reflects how he MIGHT see something now, which it would tax his +boldness to walk up to, lay his hand upon, and prove to be a fancy. +But it is all blank, blank as the darkness above and below, while +he goes up the great staircase again, blank as the oppressive +silence. + +"All is still in readiness, George Rouncewell?" + +"Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester." + +"No word of any kind?" + +The trooper shakes his head. + +"No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?" + +But he knows there is no such hope as that and lays his head down +without looking for an answer. + +Very familiar to him, as he said himself some hours ago, George +Rouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long +remainder of the blank wintry night, and equally familiar with his +unexpressed wish, extinguishes the light and undraws the curtains +at the first late break of day. The day comes like a phantom. +Cold, colourless, and vague, it sends a warning streak before it of +a deathlike hue, as if it cried out, "Look what I am bringing you +who watch there! Who will tell him!" + + + +CHAPTER LIX + +Esther's Narrative + + +It was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside London +did at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with +streets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition +than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the +thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never +slackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than +the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had +stopped exhausted halfway up hills, they had been driven through +streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become +entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been +always ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard +any variation in his cool, "Get on, my lads!" + +The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our +journey back I could not account for. Never wavering, he never +even stopped to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of +London. A very few words, here and there, were then enough for +him; and thus we came, at between three and four o'clock in the +morning, into Islington. + +I will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected +all this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther +behind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must +be right and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in +following this woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it +and discussing it during the whole journey. What was to ensue when +we found her and what could compensate us for this loss of time +were questions also that I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was +quite tortured by long dwelling on such reflections when we +stopped. + +We stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. My +companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with +splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the +carriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take +it, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from +the rest. + +"Why, my dear!" he said as he did this. "How wet you are!" + +I had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its +way into the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a +fallen horse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had +penetrated my dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the +driver, who knew him, would not be dissuaded by me from running +down the street to his stable, whence he brought an armful of clean +dry straw. They shook it out and strewed it well about me, and I +found it warm and comfortable. + +"Now, my dear," said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window +after I was shut up. "We're a-going to mark this person down. It +may take a little time, but you don't mind that. You're pretty +sure that I've got a motive. Ain't you?" + +I little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time I +should understand it better, but I assured him that I had +confidence in him. + +"So you may have, my dear," he returned. "And I tell you what! If +you only repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you +after what I've experienced of you, that'll do. Lord! You're no +trouble at all. I never see a young woman in any station of +society--and I've seen many elevated ones too--conduct herself like +you have conducted yourself since you was called out of your bed. +You're a pattern, you know, that's what you are," said Mr. Bucket +warmly; "you're a pattern." + +I told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no +hindrance to him, and that I hoped I should be none now. + +"My dear," he returned, "when a young lady is as mild as she's +game, and as game as she's mild, that's all I ask, and more than I +expect. She then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are +yourself." + +With these encouraging words--they really were encouraging to me +under those lonely and anxious circumstances--he got upon the box, +and we once more drove away. Where we drove I neither knew then +nor have ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the +narrowest and worst streets in London. Whenever I saw him +directing the driver, I was prepared for our descending into a +deeper complication of such streets, and we never failed to do so. + +Sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger +building than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at +offices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I +saw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down +by an archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light +of his little lantern. This would attract similar lights from +various dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh +consultation would be held. By degrees we appeared to contract our +search within narrower and easier limits. Single police-officers +on duty could now tell Mr. Bucket what he wanted to know and point +to him where to go. At last we stopped for a rather long +conversation between him and one of these men, which I supposed to +be satisfactory from his manner of nodding from time to time. When +it was finished he came to me looking very busy and very attentive. + +"Now, Miss Summerson, he said to me, "you won't be alarmed whatever +comes off, I know. It's not necessary for me to give you any +further caution than to tell you that we have marked this person +down and that you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I +don't like to ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a +little way?" + +Of course I got out directly and took his arm. + +"It ain't so easy to keep your feet," said Mr. Bucket, "but take +time." + +Although I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed +the street, I thought I knew the place. "Are we in Holborn?" I +asked him. + +"Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "Do you know this turning?" + +"It looks like Chancery Lane." + +"And was christened so, my dear," said Mr. Bucket. + +We turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I +heard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on in silence +and as quickly as we could with such a foothold, when some one +coming towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, +stopped and stood aside to give me room. In the same moment I +heard an exclamation of wonder and my own name from Mr. Woodcourt. +I knew his voice very well. + +It was so unexpected and so--I don't know what to call it, whether +pleasant or painful--to come upon it after my feverish wandering +journey, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back +the tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange +country. + +"My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and +in such weather!" + +He had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some +uncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. I +told him that we had but just left a coach and were going--but then +I was obliged to look at my companion. + +"Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt"--he had caught the name from me--"we +are a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket." + +Mr. Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken +off his cloak and was putting it about me. "That's a good move, +too," said Mr. Bucket, assisting, "a very good move." + +"May I go with you?" said Mr. Woodcourt. I don't know whether to +me or to my companion. + +"Why, Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Bucket, taking the answer on himself. +"Of course you may." + +It was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped +in the cloak. + +"I have just left Richard," said Mr. Woodcourt. "I have been +sitting with him since ten o'clock last night." + +"Oh, dear me, he is ill!" + +"No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed +and faint--you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes--and +Ada sent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and +came straight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little +while, and Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, +though God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained +with him until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep +as she is now, I hope!" + +His friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected +devotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he had +inspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I +separate all this from his promise to me? How thankless I must +have been if it had not recalled the words he said to me when he +was so moved by the change in my appearance: "I will accept him as +a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!" + +We now turned into another narrow street. "Mr. Woodcourt," said +Mr. Bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, "our +business takes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain Mr. +Snagsby's. What, you know him, do you?" He was so quick that he +saw it in an instant. + +"Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this +place." + +"Indeed, sir?" said Mr. Bucket. "Then you will be so good as to +let me leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and +have half a word with him?" + +The last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing +silently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in on my +saying I heard some one crying. + +"Don't be alarmed, miss," he returned. "It's Snagsby's servant." + +"Why, you see," said Mr. Bucket, "the girl's subject to fits, and +has 'em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is, +for I want certain information out of that girl, and she must be +brought to reason somehow." + +"At all events, they wouldn't be up yet if it wasn't for her, Mr. +Bucket," said the other man. "She's been at it pretty well all +night, sir." + +"Well, that's true," he returned. "My light's burnt out. Show +yours a moment." + +All this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which +I could faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of +light produced for the purpose, Mr. Bucket went up to the door and +knocked. The door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he +went in, leaving us standing in the street. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Woodcourt, "if without obtruding myself +on your confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so." + +"You are truly kind," I answered. "I need wish to keep no secret +of my own from you; if I keep any, it is another's." + +"I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long +as I can fully respect it." + +"I trust implicitly to you," I said. "I know and deeply feel how +sacredly you keep your promise. + +After a short time the little round of light shone out again, and +Mr. Bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face. +"Please to come in, Miss Summerson," he said, "and sit down by the +fire. Mr. Woodcourt, from information I have received I understand +you are a medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if +anything can be done to bring her round. She has a letter +somewhere that I particularly want. It's not in her box, and I +think it must be about her; but she is so twisted and clenched up +that she is difficult to handle without hurting." + +We all three went into the house together; although it was cold and +raw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage +behind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a +grey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke +meekly. + +"Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket," said he. "The lady will +excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. +The back is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor +thing, to a frightful extent!" + +We went downstairs, followed by Mr. Snagsby, as I soon found the +little man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was +Mrs. Snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of +face. + +"My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, "to wave-- +not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear--hostilities for one +single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is +Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady." + +She looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and +looked particularly hard at me. + +"My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest +corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, "it is not +unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr. +Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook's Court, Cursitor +Street, at the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least +idea. If I was to be informed, I should despair of understanding, +and I'd rather not be told." + +He appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and +I appeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when +Mr. Bucket took the matter on himself. + +"Now, Mr. Snagsby," said he, "the best thing you can do is to go +along with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster--" + +"My Guster, Mr. Bucket!" cried Mr. Snagsby. "Go on, sir, go on. I +shall be charged with that next." + +"And to hold the candle," pursued Mr. Bucket without correcting +himself, "or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you're +asked. Which there's not a man alive more ready to do, for you're +a man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you've got the sort of +heart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so +good as see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let +me have it as soon as ever you can?" + +As they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the +fire and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the +fender, talking all the time. + +"Don't you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable +look from Mrs. Snagsby there, because she's under a mistake +altogether. She'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to +a lady of her generally correct manner of forming her thoughts, +because I'm a-going to explain it to her." Here, standing on the +hearth with his wet hat and shawls in his hand, himself a pile of +wet, he turned to Mrs. Snagsby. "Now, the first thing that I say +to you, as a married woman possessing what you may call charms, you +know--'Believe Me, if All Those Endearing,' and cetrer--you're well +acquainted with the song, because it's in vain for you to tell me +that you and good society are strangers--charms--attractions, mind +you, that ought to give you confidence in yourself--is, that you've +done it." + +Mrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered, +what did Mr. Bucket mean. + +"What does Mr. Bucket mean?" he repeated, and I saw by his face +that all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of +the letter, to my own great agitation, for I knew then how +important it must be; "I'll tell you what he means, ma'am. Go and +see Othello acted. That's the tragedy for you." + +Mrs. Snagsby consciously asked why. + +"Why?" said Mr. Bucket. "Because you'll come to that if you don't +look out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your +mind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall +I tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you're what I call +an intellectual woman--with your soul too large for your body, if +you come to that, and chafing it--and you know me, and you +recollect where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that +circle. Don't you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that +young lady." + +Mrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did +at the time. + +"And Toughey--him as you call Jo--was mixed up in the same +business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was +mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with +no more knowledge of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up +(by Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, his best customer) in the same +business, and no other; and the whole bileing of people was mixed +up in the same business, and no other. And yet a married woman, +possessing your attractions, shuts her eyes (and sparklers too), +and goes and runs her delicate-formed head against a wall. Why, I +am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr. Woodcourt might have got it by +this time.)" + +Mrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"Is that all?" said Mr. Bucket excitedly. "No. See what happens. +Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in +a wretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to +your maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there +passes a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What +do you do? You hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that +maid-servant--knowing what she's subject to and what a little thing +will bring 'em on--in that surprising manner and with that severity +that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be +hanging upon that girl's words!" + +He so thoroughly meant what he said now that I involuntarily +clasped my hands and felt the room turning away from me. But it +stopped. Mr. Woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and +went away again. + +"Now, Mrs, Snagsby, the only amends you can make," said Mr. Bucket, +rapidly glancing at it, "is to let me speak a word to this young +lady in private here. And if you know of any help that you can +give to that gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of +any one thing that's likelier than another to bring the girl round, +do your swiftest and best!" In an instant she was gone, and he had +shut the door. "Now my dear, you're steady and quite sure of +yourself?" + +"Quite," said I. + +"Whose writing is that?" + +It was my mother's. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece +of paper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and +directed to me at my guardian's. + +"You know the hand," he said, "and if you are firm enough to read +it to me, do! But be particular to a word." + +It had been written in portions, at different times. I read what +follows: + + +"I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the dear +one, if I could, once more--but only to see her--not to speak to +her or let her know that I was near. The other object, to elude +pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the mother for her share. +The assistance that she rendered me, she rendered on my strongest +assurance that it was for the dear one's good. You remember her +dead child. The men's consent I bought, but her help was freely +given." + + +"'I came.' That was written," said my companion, "when she rested +there. It bears out what I made of it. I was right." + +The next was written at another time: + + +"I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and I know +that I must soon die. These streets! I have no purpose but to +die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am saved from adding that +guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and fatigue are sufficient causes +for my being found dead, but I shall die of others, though I suffer +from these. It was right that all that had sustained me should +give way at once and that I should die of terror and my conscience. + + +"Take courage," said Mr. Bucket. "There's only a few words more." + +Those, too, were written at another time. To all appearance, +almost in the dark: + + +"I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon forgotten +so, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing about me by which +I can be recognized. This paper I part with now. The place where +I shall lie down, if I can get so far, has been often in my mind. +Farewell. Forgive." + + +Mr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my +chair. "Cheer up! Don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as +soon as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready." + +I did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for +my unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and +I heard Mr. Woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. At +length he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important +to address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for +whatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that +she could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not +alarmed. The questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the +letter, what passed between her and the person who gave her the +letter, and where the person went. Holding my mind as steadily as +I could to these points, I went into the next room with them. Mr. +Woodcourt would have remained outside, but at my solicitation went +in with us. + +The poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her +down. They stood around her, though at a little distance, that she +might have air. She was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but +she had a plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little +wild. I kneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head +upon my shoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and +burst into tears. + +"My poor girl," said I, laying my face against her forehead, for +indeed I was crying too, and trembling, "it seems cruel to trouble +you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this +letter than I could tell you in an hour." + +She began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she +didn't mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby! + +"We are all sure of that," said I. "But pray tell me how you got +it." + +"Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I'll tell true, +indeed, Mrs. Snagsby." + +"I am sure of that," said I. "And how was it?" + +"I had been out on an errand, dear lady--long after it was dark-- +quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking person, +all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me coming +in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here. And I +said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about here, +but had lost her way and couldn't find them. Oh, what shall I do, +what shall I do! They won't believe me! She didn't say any harm +to me, and I didn't say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!" + +It was necessary for her mistress to comfort her--which she did, I +must say, with a good deal of contrition--before she could be got +beyond this. + +"She could not find those places," said I. + +"No!" cried the girl, shaking her head. "No! Couldn't find them. +And she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that +if you had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you'd have given her half a +crown, I know!" + +"Well, Guster, my girl," said he, at first not knowing what to say. +"I hope I should." + +"And yet she was so well spoken," said the girl, looking at me with +wide open eyes, "that it made a person's heart bleed. And so she +said to me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked +her which burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground. +And so I told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was +according to parishes. But she said she meant a poor burying +ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a +step, and an iron gate." + +As I watched her face and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. +Bucket received this with a look which I could not separate from +one of alarm. + +"Oh, dear, dear!" cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her +hands. "What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying +ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff--that +you came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby--that frightened me so, +Mrs. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!" + +"You are so much better now," sald I. "Pray, pray tell me more." + +"Yes I will, yes I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear +lady, because I have been so ill." + +Angry with her, poor soul! + +"There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how +to find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me +with eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving +back. And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said +if she was to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out +and not minded and never sent; and would I take it from her, and +send it, and the messenger would be paid at the house. And so I +said yes, if it was no harm, and she said no--no harm. And so I +took it from her, and she said she had nothing to give me, and I +said I was poor myself and consequently wanted nothing. And so she +said God bless you, and went." + +"And did she go--" + +"Yes," cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry. "Yes! She went +the way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came +behind me from somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was +frightened." + +Mr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up, +and immediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated, +but I said, "Don't leave me now!" and Mr. Bucket added, "You'll be +better with us, we may want you; don't lose time!" + +I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect +that it was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the +street-lamps were not yet put out, that the sleet was still falling +and that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled +people passing in the streets. I recollect the wet house-tops, the +clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of +blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the +courts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor +girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my +hearing, that I could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained +house-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great +water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the +air, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the +real. + +At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one +lamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly +struggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground +--a dreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but +where I could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, +hemmed in by filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows +and on whose walls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On +the step at the gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, +which oozed and splashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity +and horror, a woman lying--Jenny, the mother of the dead child. + +I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me +with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to +the figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did +so, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure. + +"Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They +changed clothes at the cottage." + +They changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in +my mind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached +no meaning to them in any other connexion. + +"And one returned," said Mr. Bucket, "and one went on. And the one +that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and +then turned across country and went home. Think a moment!" + +I could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea +what it meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of +the dead child. She lay there with one arm creeping round a bar of +the iron gate and seeming to embrace it. She lay there, who had so +lately spoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed, +unsheltered, senseless creature. She who had brought my mother's +letter, who could give me the only clue to where my mother was; +she, who was to guide us to rescue and save her whom we had sought +so far, who had come to this condition by some means connected with +my mother that I could not follow, and might be passing beyond our +reach and help at that moment; she lay there, and they stopped me! +I saw but did not comprehend the solemn and compassionate look in +Mr. Woodcourt's face. I saw but did not comprehend his touching +the other on the breast to keep him back. I saw him stand +uncovered in the bitter air, with a reverence for something. But +my understanding for all this was gone. + +I even heard it said between them, "Shall she go?" + +"She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her. +They have a higher right than ours." + +I passed on to the gate and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head, +put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my +mother, cold and dead. + + + +CHAPTER LX + +Perspective + + +I proceed to other passages of my narrative. From the goodness of +all about me I derived such consolation as I can never think of +unmoved. I have already said so much of myself, and so much still +remains, that I will not dwell upon my sorrow. I had an illness, +but it was not a long one; and I would avoid even this mention of +it if I could quite keep down the recollection of their sympathy. + +I proceed to other passages of my narrative. + +During the time of my illness, we were still in London, where Mrs. +Woodcourt had come, on my guardian's invitation, to stay with us. +When my guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with +him in our old way--though I could have done that sooner if he +would have believed me--I resumed my work and my chair beside his. +He had appointed the time himself, and we were alone. + +"Dame Trot," said he, receiving me with a kiss, "welcome to the +growlery again, my dear. I have a scheme to develop, little woman. +I propose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a +longer time--as it may be. Quite to settle here for a while, in +short." + +"And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?" said I. + +"Aye, my dear? Bleak House," he returned, "must learn to take care +of itself." + +I thought his tone sounded sorrowful, but looking at him, I saw his +kind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile. + +"Bleak House," he repeated--and his tone did NOT sound sorrowful, I +found--"must learn to take care of itself. It is a long way from +Ada, my dear, and Ada stands much in need of you." + +"It's like you, guardian," said I, "to have been taking that into +consideration for a happy surprise to both of us." + +"Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for +that virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be +seldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often +of Ada as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. +Not of her alone, but of him too, poor fellow." + +"Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt, this morning, guardian?" + +"I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden." + +"Does he still say the same of Richard?" + +"Just the same. He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; +on the contrary, he believes that he has none. Yet he is not easy +about him; who CAN be?" + +My dear girl had been to see us lately every day, some times twice +in a day. But we had foreseen, all along, that this would only +last until I was quite myself. We knew full well that her fervent +heart was as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin +John as it had ever been, and we acquitted Richard of laying any +injunctions upon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand +that she felt it a part of her duty to him to be sparing of her +visits at our house. My guardian's delicacy had soon perceived +this and had tried to convey to her that he thought she was right. + +"Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard," said I. "When will he awake +from his delusion!" + +"He is not in the way to do so now, my dear," replied my guardian. +"The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made +me the principal representative of the great occasion of his +suffering." + +I could not help adding, "So unreasonably!" + +"Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot," returned my guardian, "what shall we +find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice +at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, +unreason and injustice from beginning to end--if it ever has an +end--how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason +out of it? He no more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from +thistles than older men did in old times." + +His gentleness and consideration for Richard whenever we spoke of +him touched me so that I was always silent on this subject very +soon. + +"I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the +whole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished +by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors," pursued my +guardian. "When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses +from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be +astonished too!" + +He checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the +wind was and leaned on the back of my chair instead. + +"Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must +leave to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not +shipwreck Ada upon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, +the remotest chance of another separation from a friend. Therefore +I have particularly begged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg +of you, my dear, not to move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. +Next week, next month, next year, sooner or later, he will see me +with clearer eyes. I can wait." + +But I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I +thought, had Mr. Woodcourt. + +"So he tells me," returned my guardian. "Very good. He has made +his protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing +more to be said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do +you like her, my dear?" + +In answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked +her very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to +be. + +"I think so too," said my guardian. "Less pedigree? Not so much +of Morgan ap--what's his name?" + +That was what I meant, I acknowledged, though he was a very +harmless person, even when we had had more of him. + +"Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains," +said my guardian. "I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do +better for a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?" + +No. And yet-- + +My guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say. + +I had nothing to say. At least I had nothing in my mind that I +could say. I had an undefined impression that it might have been +better if we had had some other inmate, but I could hardly have +explained why even to myself. Or, if to myself, certainly not to +anybody else. + +"You see," said my guardian, "our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt's +way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is +agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you." + +Yes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it. I +could not have suggested a better arrangement, but I was not quite +easy in my mind. Esther, Esther, why not? Esther, think! + +"It is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do +better." + +"Sure, little woman?" + +Quite sure. I had had a moment's time to think, since I had urged +that duty on myself, and I was quite sure. + +"Good," said my guardian. "It shall be done. Carried +unanimously." + +"Carried unanimously," I repeated, going on with my work. + +It was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be +ornamenting. It had been laid by on the night preceding my sad +journey and never resumed. I showed it to him now, and he admired +it highly. After I had explained the pattern to him and all the +great effects that were to come out by and by, I thought I would go +back to our last theme. + +"You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt before Ada +left us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another +country. Have you been advising him since?" + +"Yes, little woman, pretty often." + +"Has he decided to do so?" + +"I rather think not." + +"Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?" said I. + +"Why--yes--perhaps," returned my guardian, beginning his answer in +a very deliberate manner. "About half a year hence or so, there is +a medical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place +in Yorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated--streams +and streets, town and country, mill and moor--and seems to present +an opening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may +sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the +ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough +after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good +service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I +suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, +instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I +care for. It is Woodcourt's kind." + +"And will he get this appointment?" I asked. + +"Why, little woman," returned my guardian, smiling, "not being an +oracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation +stands very high; there were people from that part of the country +in the shipwreck; and strange to say, I believe the best man has +the best chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. +It is a very, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a +great amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things +will gather about it, it may be fairly hoped." + +"The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it +falls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian." + +"You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will." + +We said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of +Bleak House. But it was the first time I had taken my seat at his +side in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, I considered. + +I now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner +where she lived. The morning was my usual time, but whenever I +found I had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled +off to Chancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all +hours, and used to brighten up so when they heard me opening the +door and coming in (being quite at home, I never knocked), that I +had no fear of becoming troublesome just yet. + +On these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other +times he would be writing or reading papers in the cause at that +table of his, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed. +Sometimes I would come upon him lingering at the door of Mr. +Vholes's office. Sometimes I would meet him in the neighbourhood +lounging about and biting his nails. I often met him wandering in +Lincoln's Inn, near the place where I had first seen him, oh how +different, how different! + +That the money Ada brought him was melting away with the candles I +used to see burning after dark in Mr. Vholes's office I knew very +well. It was not a large amount in the beginning, he had married +in debt, and I could not fail to understand, by this time, what was +meant by Mr. Vholes's shoulder being at the wheel--as I still heard +it was. My dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to +save, but I knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every +day. + +She shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She +adorned and graced it so that it became another place. Paler than +she had been at home, and a little quieter than I had thought +natural when she was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so +unshadowed that I half believed she was blinded by her love for +Richard to his ruinous career. + +I went one day to dine with them while I was under this impression. +As I turned into Symond's Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out. +She had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as +she still called them, and had derived the highest gratification +from that ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every +Monday at five o'clock, with one little extra white bow in her +bonnet, which never appeared there at any other time, and with her +largest reticule of documents on her arm. + +"My dear!" she began. "So delighted! How do you do! So glad to +see you. And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce +wards? TO be sure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be +charmed to see you." + +"Then Richard is not come in yet?" said I. "I am glad of that, for +I was afraid of being a little late." + +"No, he is not come in," returned Miss Flite. "He has had a long +day in court. I left him there with Vholes. You don't like +Vholes, I hope? DON'T like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!" + +"I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now," said I. + +"My dearest," returned Miss Flite, "daily and hourly. You know +what I told you of the attraction on the Chancellor's table? My +dear, next to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He +begins quite to amuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little +party, are we not?" + +It was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was +no surprise. + +"In short, my valued friend," pursued Miss Flite, advancing her +lips to my ear with an air of equal patronage and mystery, "I must +tell you a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated, +constituted, and appointed him. In my will. Ye-es." + +"Indeed?" said I. + +"Ye-es," repeated Miss Flite in her most genteel accents, "my +executor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my +love.) I have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able +to watch that judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance." + +It made me sigh to think of him. + +"I did at one time mean," said Miss Flite, echoing the sigh, "to +nominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, +my charming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out, +poor man, so I have appointed his successor. Don't mention it. +This is in confidence." + +She carefully opened her reticule a little way and showed me a +folded piece of paper inside as the appointment of which she spoke. + +"Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds." + +"Really, Miss Flite?" said I, knowing how it pleased her to have +her confidence received with an appearance of interest. + +She nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy. +"Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up +with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, +Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, +Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, +Gammon, and Spinach!" + +The poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look I had ever seen +in her and went her way. Her manner of running over the names of +her birds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own +lips, quite chilled me. + +This was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have +dispensed with the company of Mr. Vholes, when Richard (who arrived +within a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner. +Although it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some +minutes both out of the room together helping to get ready what we +were to eat and drink. Mr. Vholes took that opportunity of holding +a little conversation in a low voice with me. He came to the +window where I was sitting and began upon Symond's Inn. + +"A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official +one," said Mr. Vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove to +make it clearer for me. + +"There is not much to see here," said I. + +"Nor to hear, miss," returned Mr. Vholes. "A little music does +occasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon +eject it. I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish +him?" + +I thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well. + +"I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his +friends myself," said Mr. Vholes, "and I am aware that the +gentlemen of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters +with an unfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good +report and evil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the +victims of prejudice), is to have everything openly carried on. +How do you find Mr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?" + +"He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious." + +"Just so," said Mr. Vholes. + +He stood behind me with his long black figure reaching nearly to +the ceiling of those low rooms, feeling the pimples on his face as +if they were ornaments and speaking inwardly and evenly as though +there were not a human passion or emotion in his nature. + +"Mr. Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr. C., I believe?" he +resumed. + +"Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend," I answered. + +"But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance." + +"That can do little for an unhappy mind," said I. + +"Just so," said Mr. Vholes. + +So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard +were wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser and there were +something of the vampire in him. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved +hands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same +in black kid or out of it, "this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr. +C.'s." + +I begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been +engaged when they were both very young, I told him (a little +indignantly) and when the prospect before them was much fairer and +brighter. When Richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy +influence which now darkened his life. + +"Just so," assented Mr. Vholes again. "Still, with a view to +everything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission, +Miss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very ill- +advised marriage indeed. I owe the opinion not only to Mr. C.'s +connexions, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself, +but also to my own reputation--dear to myself as a professional man +aiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for +whom I am striving to realize some little independence; dear, I +will even say, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to +support." + +"It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and +better marriage, another marriage altogether, Mr. Vholes," said I, +"if Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in +which you are engaged with him." + +Mr. Vholes, with a noiseless cough--or rather gasp--into one of his +black gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute +even that. + +"Miss Summerson," he said, "it may be so; and I freely admit that +the young lady who has taken Mr. C.'s name upon herself in so ill- +advised a manner--you will I am sure not quarrel with me for +throwing out that remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr. C.'s +connexions--is a highly genteel young lady. Business has prevented +me from mixing much with general society in any but a professional +character; still I trust I am competent to perceive that she is a +highly genteel young lady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that +myself, and I never did give much attention to it from a boy, but I +dare say the young lady is equally eligible in that point of view. +She is considered so (I have heard) among the clerks in the Inn, +and it is a point more in their way than in mine. In reference to +Mr. C.'s pursult of his interests--" + +"Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!" + +"Pardon me," returned Mr. Vholes, going on in exactly the same +inward and dispassionate manner. "Mr. C. takes certain interests +under certain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In +reference to Mr. C,'s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, +Miss Summerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in +my desire that everything should he openly carried on--I used those +words, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is +producible at any time--I mentioned to you that Mr. C. had laid +down the principle of watching his own interests, and that when a +client of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral +(that is to say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it +out. I HAVE carried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not +smooth things over to any connexion of Mr. C.'s on any account. As +open as I was to Mr. Jarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the +light of a professional duty to be so, though it can be charged to +no one. I openly say, unpalatable as it may be, that I consider +Mr. C.'s affairs in a very bad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself +in a very bad way, and that I regard this as an exceedingly ill- +advised marriage. Am I here, sir? Yes, I thank you; I am here, +Mr. C., and enjoying the pleasure of some agreeable conversation +with Miss Summerson, for which I have to thank you very much, sir!" + +He broke off thus in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he +came into the room. By this time I too well understood Mr. +Vholes's scrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability +not to feel that our worst fears did but keep pace with his +client's progress. + +We sat down to dinner, and I had an opportunity of observing +Richard, anxiously. I was not disturbed by Mr. Vholes (who took +off his gloves to dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small +table, for I doubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes +from his host's face. I found Richard thin and languid, slovenly +in his dress, abstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and +then, and at other intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. +About his large bright eyes that used to be so merry there was a +wanness and a restlessness that changed them altogether. 1 cannot +use the expression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth +which is not like age, and into such a ruin Richard's youth and +youthful beauty had all fallen away. + +He ate little and seemed indifferent what it was, showed himself to +be much more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with +Ada. I thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all +gone, but it shone out of him sometimes as I had occasionally known +little momentary glimpses of my own old face to look out upon me +from the glass. His laugh had not quite left him either, but it +was like the echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful. + +Yet he was as glad as ever, in his old affectionate way, to have me +there, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not +appear to be interesting to Mr. Vholes, though he occasionally made +a gasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner +and said that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to +his office. + +"Always devoted to business, Vholes!" cried Richard. + +"Yes, Mr. C.," he returned, "the interests of clients are never to +be neglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a +professional man like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name +among his fellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying +myself the pleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not +be wholly irrespective of your own interests, Mr. C." + +Richard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted Mr. Vholes +out. On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a +good fellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, +a very good fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it that it +struck me he had begun to doubt Mr. Vholes. + +Then he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I put +things to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who +attended to the chambers. My dear girl had a cottage piano there +and quietly sat down to sing some of Richard's favourites, the lamp +being first removed into the next room, as he complained of its +hurting his eyes. + +I sat between them, at my dear girl's side, and felt very +melancholy listening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too; +I think he darkened the room for that reason. She had been singing +some time, rising between whiles to bend over him and speak to him, +when Mr. Woodcourt came in. Then he sat down by Richard and half +playfully, half earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out +how he felt and where he had been all day. Presently he proposed +to accompany him in a short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a +moonlight airy night; and Richard readily consenting, they went out +together. + +They left my dear girl still sitting at the piano and me still +sitting beside her. When they were gone out, I drew my arm round +her waist. She put her left hand in mine (I was sitting on that +side), but kept her right upon the keys, going over and over them +without striking any note. + +"Esther, my dearest," she said, breaking silence, "Richard is never +so well and I am never so easy about him as when he is with Allan +Woodcourt. We have to thank you for that." + +I pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because Mr. +Woodcourt had come to her cousin John's house and had known us all +there, and because he had always liked Richard, and Richard had +always liked him, and--and so forth. + +"All true," said Ada, "but that he is such a devoted friend to us +we owe to you." + +I thought it best to let my dear girl have her way and to say no +more about it. So I said as much. I said it lightly, because I +felt her trembling. + +"Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good +wife indeed. You shall teach me." + +I teach! I said no more, for I noticed the hand that was +fluttering over the keys, and I knew that it was not I who ought to +speak, that it was she who had something to say to me. + +"When I married Richard I was not insensible to what was before +him. I had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I +had never known any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but +I understood the danger he was in, dear Esther." + +"I know, I know, my darling." + +"When we were married I had some little hope that I might be able +to convince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in +a new way as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately +for my sake--as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would +have married him just the same, Esther. Just the same!" + +In the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still--a +firmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying +away with them--I saw the confirmation of her earnest tones. + +"You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what +you see and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better +than I do. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could +scarcely know Richard better than my love does." + +She spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed +such agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My +dear, dear girl! + +"I see him at his worst every day. I watch him in his sleep. I +know every change of his face. But when I married Richard I was +quite determined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show +him that I grieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy. +I want him, when he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I +want him, when he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I +married him to do this, and this supports me." + +I felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and +I now thought I began to know what it was. + +"And something else supports me, Esther." + +She stopped a minute. Stopped speaking only; her hand was still in +motion. + +"I look forward a little while, and I don't know what great aid may +come to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be +something lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with +greater power than mine to show him his true course and win him +back." + +Her hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped +her in mine. + +"If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look +forward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and +think that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps, +a beautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of +him and a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as +handsome as he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk +in the sunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to +himself, 'I thank God this is my father! Ruined by a fatal +inheritance, and restored through me!'" + +Oh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against +me! + +"These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will. +Though sometimes even they depart from me before a dread that +arises when I look at Richard." + +I tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. Sobbing +and weeping, she replied, "That he may not live to see his child." + + + +CHAPTER LXI + +A Discovery + + +The days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl +brightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I +never wish to see it now; I have been there only once since, but in +my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will +shine for ever. + +Not a day passed without my going there, of course. At first I +found Mr. Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing +the piano and talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides +my very much mistrusting the probability of his being there without +making Richard poorer, I felt as if there were something in his +careless gaiety too inconsistent with what I knew of the depths of +Ada's life. I clearly perceived, too, that Ada shared my feelings. +I therefore resolved, after much thinking of it, to make a private +visit to Mr. Skimpole and try delicately to explain myself. My +dear girl was the great consideration that made me bold. + +I set off one morning, accompanied by Charley, for Somers Town. As +I approached the house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I +felt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr. +Skimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would signally +defeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through +with it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole's door-- +literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone--and after a long +parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area +when I knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to +light the fire with. + +Mr. Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a +little, was enchanted to see me. Now, who should receive me, he +asked. Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? Would I +have his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment +daughter? Or would I have all the daughters at once in a perfect +nosegay? + +I replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself +only if he would give me leave. + +'My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course," he said, +bringing his chair nearer mine and breaking into his fascinating +smile, of course it's not business. Then it's pleasure!" + +I said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was +not quite a pleasant matter. + +"Then, my dear Miss Summerson," said he with the frankest gaiety, +"don't allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is NOT +a pleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter +creature, in every point of view, than I. You are perfectly +pleasant; I am imperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an +unpleasant matter, how much less should you! So that's disposed +of, and we will talk of something else." + +Although I was embarrassed, I took courage to intimate that I still +wished to pursue the subject. + +"I should think it a mistake," said Mr. Skimpole with his airy +laugh, "if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I +don't!" + +"Mr. Skimpole," said I, raising my eyes to his, "I have so often +heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of +life--" + +"Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who's the +junior partner? D?" said Mr. Skimpole, brightly. "Not an idea of +them!" + +"--That perhaps," I went on, "you will excuse my boldness on that +account. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is +poorer than he was." + +"Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "So am I, they tell me." + +"And in very embarrassed circumstances." + +"Parallel case, exactly!" said Mr. Skimpole with a delighted +countenance. + +"This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety, and as I +think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by +visitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his +mind, it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that--if +you would--not--" + +I was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by +both hands and with a radiant face and in the liveliest way +anticipated it. + +"Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most +assuredly not. Why SHOULD I go there? When I go anywhere, I go +for pleasure. I don't go anywhere for pain, because I was made for +pleasure. Pain comes to ME when it wants me. Now, I have had very +little pleasure at our dear Richard's lately, and your practical +sagacity demonstrates why. Our young friends, losing the youthful +poetry which was once so captivating in them, begin to think, 'This +is a man who wants pounds.' So I am; I always want pounds; not for +myself, but because tradespeople always want them of me. Next, our +young friends begin to think, becoming mercenary, 'This is the man +who HAD pounds, who borrowed them,' which I did. I always borrow +pounds. So our young friends, reduced to prose (which is much to +be regretted), degenerate in their power of imparting pleasure to +me. Why should I go to see them, therefore? Absurd!" + +Through the beaming smile with which he regarded me as he reasoned +thus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence +quite astonishing. + +"Besides," he said, pursuing his argument in his tone of light- +hearted conviction, "if I don't go anywhere for pain--which would +be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous thing +to do--why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I went +to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of +mind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be +disagreeable. They might say, 'This is the man who had pounds and +who can't pay pounds,' which I can't, of course; nothing could be +more out of the question! Then kindness requires that I shouldn't +go near them--and I won't." + +He finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. Nothing +but Miss Summerson's fine tact, he said, would have found this out +for him. + +I was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point +were gained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted +everything leading to it. I had determined to mention something +else, however, and I thought I was not to be put off in that. + +"Mr. Skimpole," said I, "I must take the liberty of saying before I +conclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best +authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor +boy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that +occasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it +would hurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much +surprised." + +"No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?" he returned +inquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows. + +"Greatly surprised." + +He thought about it for a little while with a highly agreeable and +whimsical expression of face, then quite gave it up and said in his +most engaging manner, "You know what a child I am. Why surprised?" + +I was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he +begged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to +understand in the gentlest words I could use that his conduct +seemed to involve a disregard of several moral obligations. He was +much amused and interested when he heard this and said, "No, +really?" with ingenuous simplicity. + +"You know I don't intend to be responsible. I never could do it. +Responsibility is a thing that has always been above me--or below +me," said Mr. Skimpole. "I don't even know which; but as I +understand the way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always +remarkable for her practical good sense and clearness) puts this +case, I should imagine it was chiefly a question of money, do you +know?" + +I incautiously gave a qualified assent to this. + +"Ah! Then you see," said Mr. Skimpole, shaking his head, "I am +hopeless of understanding it." + +I suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my +guardian's confidence for a bribe. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," he returned with a candid hilarity that +was all his own, "I can't be bribed." + +"Not by Mr. Bucket?" said I. + +"No," said he. "Not by anybody. I don't attach any value to +money. I don't care about it, I don't know about it, I don't want +it, I don't keep it--it goes away from me directly. How can I be +bribed?" + +I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the +capacity for arguing the question. + +"On the contrary," said Mr. Skimpole, "I am exactly the man to be +placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above +the rest of mankind in such a case as that. I can act with +philosophy in such a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, +as an Italian baby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I +feel myself as far above suspicion as Caesar's wife." + +Anything to equal the lightness of his manner and the playful +impartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed +the matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in +anybody else! + +"Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received +into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. +The boy being in bed, a man arrives--like the house that Jack +built. Here is the man who demands the boy who is received into +the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. +Here is a bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is +received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly +object to. Here is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced +by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and +put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Those are the +facts. Very well. Should the Skimpole have refused the note? WHY +should the Skimpole have refused the note? Skimpole protests to +Bucket, 'What's this for? I don't understand it, it is of no use +to me, take it away.' Bucket still entreats Skimpole to accept it. +Are there reasons why Skimpole, not being warped by prejudices, +should accept it? Yes. Skimpole perceives them. What are they? +Skimpole reasons with himself, this is a tamed lynx, an active +police-officer, an intelligent man, a person of a peculiarly +directed energy and great subtlety both of conception and +execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they +run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges +us comfortably when we are murdered. This active police-officer +and intelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a +strong faith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes +it very useful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket +because I want it myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of +Bucket's weapons; shall I positively paralyse Bucket in his next +detective operation? And again. If it is blameable in Skimpole to +take the note, it is blameable in Bucket to offer the note--much +more blameable in Bucket, because he is the knowing man. Now, +Skimpole wishes to think well of Bucket; Skimpole deems it +essential, in its little place, to the general cohesion of things, +that he SHOULD think well of Bucket. The state expressly asks him +to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that's all he does!" + +I had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore +took my leave. Mr. Skimpole, however, who was in excellent +spirits, would not hear of my returning home attended only by +"Little Coavinses," and accompanied me himself. He entertained me +on the way with a variety of delightful conversation and assured +me, at parting, that he should never forget the fine tact with +which I had found that out for him about our young friends. + +As it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at +once finish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between +him and my guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and +on his having heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as +we afterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being +heavily in my guardian's debt had nothing to do with their +separation. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary +behind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, +which was published and which showed him to have been the victim of +a combination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It +was considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it +myself than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the +book. It was this: "Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have +known, is the incarnation of selfishness." + +And now I come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly +indeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance +occurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived +in my mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as +belonging to a part of my life that was gone--gone like my infancy +or my childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on +that subject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has +recalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to +the last words of these pages, which I see now not so very far +before me. + +The months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the +hopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the +miserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the +court day after day, listlessly sat there the whole day long when +he knew there was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned, and +became one of the stock sights of the place. I wonder whether any +of the gentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there. + +So completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to +avow in his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the +fresh air now "but for Woodcourt." It was only Mr. Woodcourt who +could occasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time +and rouse him, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body +that alarmed us greatly, and the returns of which became more +frequent as the months went on. My dear girl was right in saying +that he only pursued his errors the more desperately for her sake. +I have no doubt that his desire to retrieve what he had lost was +rendered the more intense by his grief for his young wife, and +became like the madness of a gamester. + +I was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there +at night, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes +my guardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk +home together. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight +o'clock. I could not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually at +the time, for I was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches +more to do to finish what I was about; but it was within a few +minutes of the hour when I bundled up my little work-basket, gave +my darling my last kiss for the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. +Woodcourt went with me, as it was dusk. + +When we came to the usual place of meeting--it was close by, and +Mr. Woodcourt had often accompanied me before--my guardian was not +there. We waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were +no signs of him. We agreed that he was either prevented from +coming or that he had come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt +proposed to walk home with me. + +It was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very +short one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and +Ada the whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had +done--my appreciation of it had risen above all words then--but I +hoped he might not be without some understanding of what I felt so +strongly. + +Arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was +out and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same +room into which I had brought my blushing girl when her youthful +lover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young +heart, the very same room from which my guardian and I had watched +them going away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their +hope and promise. + +We were standing by the opened window looking down into the street +when Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he +loved me. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all +unchanged to him. I learned in a moment that what I had thought +was pity and compassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, +too late to know it now, too late, too late. That was the first +ungrateful thought I had. Too late. + +"When I returned," he told me, "when I came back, no richer than +when I went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so +inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a +selfish thought--" + +"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!" I entreated him. "I do not +deserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that +time, many!" + +"Heaven knows, beloved of my life," said he, "that my praise is not +a lover's praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around +you see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and +awakens, what sacred admiration and what love she wins." + +"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt," cried I, "it is a great thing to win love, it +is a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by +it; and the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled +joy and sorrow--joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not +deserved it better; but I am not free to think of yours." + +I said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and +when I heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was +true, I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for +that. Although I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, +I could be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a +comfort to me, and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up +within me that was derived from him when I thought so. + +He broke the silence. + +"I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who +will evermore be as dear to me as now"--and the deep earnestness +with which he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep-- +"if, after her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, +I urged it. Dear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea +of you which I took abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came +home. I have always hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to +stand in any ray of good fortune, to tell you this. I have always +feared that I should tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are +both fulfilled to-night. I distress you. I have said enough." + +Something seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he +thought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! +I wished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to do when he +showed that first commiseration for me. + +"Dear Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "before we part to-night, something +is left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish--I never +shall--but--" + +I had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his +affliction before I could go on. + +"--I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure +its remembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I +am, I know you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know +what a noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said +to me could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there +are none that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be +lost. It shall make me better." + +He covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How +could I ever be worthy of those tears? + +"If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together--in +tending Richard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life +--you ever find anything in me which you can honestly think is +better than it used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from +to-night and that I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear +dear Mr. Woodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that +while my heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of +having been beloved by you." + +He took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I +felt still more encouraged. + +"I am induced by what you said just now," said I, "to hope that you +have succeeded in your endeavour." + +"I have," he answered. "With such help from Mr. Jarndyce as you +who know him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I have +succeeded." + +"Heaven bless him for it," said I, giving him my hand; "and heaven +bless you in all you do!" + +"I shall do it better for the wish," he answered; "it will make me +enter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you." + +"Ah! Richard!" I exclaimed involuntarily, "What will he do when +you are gone!" + +"I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss +Summerson, even if I were." + +One other thing I felt it needful to touch upon before he left me. +I knew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take +if I reserved it. + +"Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "you will be glad to know from my lips +before I say good night that in the future, which is clear and +bright before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to +regret or desire." + +It was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied. + +"From my childhood I have been," said I, "the object of the +untiring goodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so +bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing +I could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a +single day." + +"I share those feelings," he returned. "You speak of Mr. +Jarndyce." + +"You know his virtues well," said I, "but few can know the +greatness of his character as I know it. All its highest and best +qualities have been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in +the shaping out of that future in which I am so happy. And if your +highest homage and respect had not been his already--which I know +they are--they would have been his, I think, on this assurance and +in the feeling it would have awakened in you towards him for my +sake." + +He fervently replied that indeed indeed they would have been. I +gave him my hand again. + +"Good night," I said, "Good-bye." + +"The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to +this theme between us for ever." + +"Yes." + +"Good night; good-bye." + +He left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. +His love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly +upon me that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way +again and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears. + +But they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called +me the beloved of his life and had said I would be evermore as dear +to him as I was then, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the +triumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had +died away. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too +late to be animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and +contented. How easy my path, how much easier than his! + + + +CHAPTER LXII + +Another Discovery + + +I had not the courage to see any one that night. I had not even +the courage to see myself, for I was afraid that my tears might a +little reproach me. I went up to my room in the dark, and prayed +in the dark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. I had no need of +any light to read my guardian's letter by, for I knew it by heart. +I took it from the place where I kept it, and repeated its contents +by its own clear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep +with it on my pillow. + +I was up very early in the morning and called Charley to come for a +walk. We bought flowers for the breakfast-table, and came back and +arranged them, and were as busy as possible. We were so early that +I had a good time still for Charley's lesson before breakfast; +Charley (who was not in the least improved in the old defective +article of grammar) came through it with great applause; and we +were altogether very notable. When my guardian appeared he said, +"Why, little woman, you look fresher than your flowers!" And Mrs. +Woodcourt repeated and translated a passage from the +Mewlinnwillinwodd expressive of my being like a mountain with the +sun upon it. + +This was all so pleasant that I hope it made me still more like the +mountain than I had been before. After breakfast I waited my +opportunity and peeped about a little until I saw my guardian in +his own room--the room of last night--by himself. Then I made an +excuse to go in with my housekeeping keys, shutting the door after +me. + +"Well, Dame Durden?" said my guardian; the post had brought him +several letters, and he was writing. "You want money?" + +"No, indeed, I have plenty in hand." + +"There never was such a Dame Durden," said my guardian, "for making +money last." + +He had laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair looking at +me. I have often spoken of his bright face, but I thought I had +never seen it look so bright and good. There was a high happiness +upon it which made me think, "He has been doing some great kindness +this morning." + +"There never was," said my guardian, musing as he smiled upon me, +"such a Dame Durden for making money last." + +He had never yet altered his old manner. I loved it and him so +much that when I now went up to him and took my usual chair, which +was always put at his side--for sometimes I read to him, and +sometimes I talked to him, and sometimes I silently worked by him-- +I hardly liked to disturb it by laying my hand on his breast. But +I found I did not disturb it at all. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "I want to speak to you. Have I been +remiss in anything?" + +"Remiss in anything, my dear!" + +"Have I not been what I have meant to be since--I brought the +answer to your letter, guardian?" + +"You have been everything I could desire, my love." + +"I am very glad indeed to hear that," I returned. "You know, you +said to me, was this the mistress of Bleak House. And I said, +yes." + +"Yes," said my guardian, nodding his head. He had put his arm +about me as if there were something to protect me from and looked +in my face, smiling. + +"Since then," said I, "we have never spoken on the subject except +once." + +"And then I said Bleak House was thinning fast; and so it was, my +dear." + +"And I said," I timidly reminded him, "but its mistress remained." + +He still held me in the same protecting manner and with the same +bright goodness in his face. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "I know how you have felt all that has +happened, and how considerate you have been. As so much time has +passed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well +again, perhaps you expect me to renew the subject. Perhaps I ought +to do so. I will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please." + +"See," he returned gaily, "what a sympathy there must be between +us! I have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted--it's a large +exception--in my mind. When you came in, I was full of it. When +shall we give Bleak House its mistress, little woman?" + +"When you please." + +"Next month?" + +"Next month, dear guardian." + +"The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life--the +day on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than +any other man in the world--the day on which I give Bleak House its +little mistress--shall be next month then," said my guardian. + +I put my arms round his neck and kissed him just as I had done on +the day when I brought my answer. + +A servant came to the door to announce Mr. Bucket, which was quite +unnecessary, for Mr. Bucket was already looking in over the +servant's shoulder. "Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson," said he, +rather out of breath, "with all apologies for intruding, WILL you +allow me to order up a person that's on the stairs and that objects +to being left there in case of becoming the subject of observations +in his absence? Thank you. Be so good as chair that there member +in this direction, will you?" said Mr. Bucket, beckoning over the +banisters. + +This singular request produced an old man in a black skull-cap, +unable to walk, who was carried up by a couple of bearers and +deposited in the room near the door. Mr. Bucket immediately got +rid of the bearers, mysteriously shut the door, and bolted it. + +"Now you see, Mr. Jarndyce," he then began, putting down his hat +and opening his subject with a flourish of his well-remembered +finger, "you know me, and Miss Summerson knows me. This gentleman +likewise knows me, and his name is Smallweed. The discounting line +is his line principally, and he's what you may call a dealer in +bills. That's about what YOU are, you know, ain't you?" said Mr. +Bucket, stopping a little to address the gentleman in question, who +was exceedingly suspicious of him. + +He seemed about to dispute this designation of himself when he was +seized with a violent fit of coughing. + +"Now, moral, you know!" said Mr. Bucket, improving the accident. +"Don't you contradict when there ain't no occasion, and you won't +be took in that way. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I address myself to you. +I've been negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and one way and another I've been in +and out and about his premises a deal. His premises are the +premises formerly occupied by Krook, marine store dealer--a +relation of this gentleman's that you saw in his life-time if I +don't mistake?" + +My guardian replied, "Yes." + +"Well! You are to understand," said Mr. Bucket, "that this +gentleman he come into Krook's property, and a good deal of magpie +property there was. Vast lots of waste-paper among the rest. Lord +bless you, of no use to nobody!" + +The cunning of Mr. Bucket's eye and the masterly manner in which he +contrived, without a look or a word against which his watchful +auditor could protest, to let us know that he stated the case +according to previous agreement and could say much more of Mr. +Smallweed if he thought it advisable, deprived us of any merit in +quite understanding him. His difficulty was increased by Mr. +Smallweed's being deaf as well as suspicious and watching his face +with the closest attention. + +"Among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes +into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?" +said Mr. Bucket. + +"To which? Say that again," cried Mr. Smallweed in a shrill, sharp +voice. + +"To rummage," repeated Mr. Bucket. "Being a prudent man and +accustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage +among the papers as you have come into; don't you?" + +"Of course I do," cried Mr. Smallweed. + +"Of course you do," said Mr. Bucket conversationally, "and much to +blame you would be if you didn't. And so you chance to find, you +know," Mr. Bucket went on, stooping over him with an air of +cheerful raillery which Mr. Smallweed by no means reciprocated, +"and so you chance to find, you know, a paper with the signature of +Jarndyce to it. Don't you?" + +Mr. Smallweed glanced with a troubled eye at us and grudgingly +nodded assent. + +"And coming to look at that paper at your full leisure and +convenience--all in good time, for you're not curious to read it, +and why should you be?--what do you find it to be but a will, you +see. That's the drollery of it," said Mr. Bucket with the same +lively air of recalling a joke for the enjoyment of Mr. Smallweed, +who still had the same crest-fallen appearance of not enjoying it +at all; "what do you find it to be but a will?" + +"I don't know that it's good as a will or as anything else," +snarled Mr. Smallweed. + +Mr. Bucket eyed the old man for a moment--he had slipped and shrunk +down in his chair into a mere bundle--as if he were much disposed +to pounce upon him; nevertheless, he continued to bend over him +with the same agreeable air, keeping the corner of one of his eyes +upon us. + +"Notwithstanding which," said Mr. Bucket, "you get a little +doubtful and uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very +tender mind of your own." + +"Eh? What do you say I have got of my own?" asked Mr. Smallweed +with his hand to his ear. + +"A very tender mind." + +"Ho! Well, go on," said Mr. Smallweed. + +"And as you've heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated +Chancery will case of the same name, and as you know what a card +Krook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniter, and +books, and papers, and what not, and never liking to part with 'em, +and always a-going to teach himself to read, you begin to think-- +and you never was more correct in your born days--'Ecod, if I don't +look about me, I may get into trouble regarding this will.'" + +"Now, mind how you put it, Bucket," cried the old man anxiously +with his hand at his ear. "Speak up; none of your brimstone +tricks. Pick me up; I want to hear better. Oh, Lord, I am shaken +to bits!" + +Mr. Bucket had certainly picked him up at a dart. However, as soon +as he could be heard through Mr. Smallweed's coughing and his +vicious ejaculations of "Oh, my bones! Oh, dear! I've no breath +in my body! I'm worse than the chattering, clattering, brimstone +pig at home!" Mr. Bucket proceeded in the same convivial manner as +before. + +"So, as I happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises, +you take me into your confidence, don't you?" + +I think it would be impossible to make an admission with more ill +will and a worse grace than Mr. Smallweed displayed when he +admitted this, rendering it perfectly evident that Mr. Bucket was +the very last person he would have thought of taking into his +confidence if he could by any possibility have kept him out of it. + +"And I go into the business with you--very pleasant we are over it; +and I confirm you in your well-founded fears that you will get +yourself into a most precious line if you don't come out with that +there will," said Mr. Bucket emphatically; "and accordingly you +arrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present Mr. +Jarndyce, on no conditions. If it should prove to be valuable, you +trusting yourself to him for your reward; that's about where it is, +ain't it?" + +"That's what was agreed," Mr. Smallweed assented with the same bad +grace. + +"In consequence of which," said Mr. Bucket, dismissing his +agreeable manner all at once and becoming strictly businesslike, +"you've got that will upon your person at the present time, and the +only thing that remains for you to do is just to out with it!" + +Having given us one glance out of the watching corner of his eye, +and having given his nose one triumphant rub with his forefinger, +Mr. Bucket stood with his eyes fastened on his confidential friend +and his hand stretched forth ready to take the paper and present it +to my guardian. It was not produced without much reluctance and +many declarations on the part of Mr. Smallweed that he was a poor +industrious man and that he left it to Mr. Jarndyce's honour not to +let him lose by his honesty. Little by little he very slowly took +from a breast-pocket a stained, discoloured paper which was much +singed upon the outside and a little burnt at the edges, as if it +had long ago been thrown upon a fire and hastily snatched off +again. Mr. Bucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with +the dexterity of a conjuror, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Jarndyce. +As he gave it to my guardian, he whispered behind his fingers, +"Hadn't settled how to make their market of it. Quarrelled and +hinted about it. I laid out twenty pound upon it. First the +avaricious grandchildren split upon him on account of their +objections to his living so unreasonably long, and then they split +on one another. Lord! There ain't one of the family that wouldn't +sell the other for a pound or two, except the old lady--and she's +only out of it because she's too weak in her mind to drive a +bargain." + +"Mr Bucket," said my guardian aloud, "whatever the worth of this +paper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it +be of any worth, I hold myself bound to see Mr. Smallweed +remunerated accordingly." + +"Not according to your merits, you know," said Mr. Bucket in +friendly explanation to Mr. Smallweed. "Don't you be afraid of +that. According to its value." + +"That is what I mean," said my guardian. "You may observe, Mr. +Bucket, that I abstain from examining this paper myself. The plain +truth is, I have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many +years, and my soul is sick of it. But Miss Summerson and I will +immediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the +cause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all +other parties interested." + +"Mr. Jarndyce can't say fairer than that, you understand," observed +Mr. Bucket to his fellow-visitor. "And it being now made clear to +you that nobody's a-going to be wronged--which must be a great +relief to YOUR mind--we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing +you home again." + +He unbolted the door, called in the bearers, wished us good +morning, and with a look full of meaning and a crook of his finger +at parting went his way. + +We went our way too, which was to Lincoln's Inn, as quickly as +possible. Mr. Kenge was disengaged, and we found him at his table +in his dusty room with the inexpressive-looking books and the piles +of papers. Chairs having been placed for us by Mr. Guppy, Mr. +Kenge expressed the surprise and gratification he felt at the +unusual sight of Mr. Jarndyce in his office. He turned over his +double eye-glass as he spoke and was more Conversation Kenge than +ever. + +"I hope," said Mr. Kenge, "that the genial influence of Miss +Summerson," he bowed to me, "may have induced Mr. Jarndyce," he +bowed to him, "to forego some little of his animosity towards a +cause and towards a court which are--shall I say, which take their +place in the stately vista of the pillars of our profession?" + +"I am inclined to think," returned my guardian, "that Miss +Summerson has seen too much of the effects of the court and the +cause to exert any influence in their favour. Nevertheless, they +are a part of the occasion of my being here. Mr. Kenge, before I +lay this paper on your desk and have done with it, let me tell you +how it has come into my hands." + +He did so shortly and distinctly. + +"It could not, sir," said Mr. Kenge, "have been stated more plainly +and to the purpose if it had been a case at law." + +"Did you ever know English law, or equity either, plain and to the +purpose?" said my guardian. + +"Oh, fie!" said Mr. Kenge. + +At first he had not seemed to attach much importance to the paper, +but when he saw it he appeared more interested, and when he had +opened and read a little of it through his eye-glass, he became +amazed. "Mr. Jarndyce," he said, looking off it, "you have perused +this?" + +"Not I!" returned my guardian. + +"But, my dear sir," said Mr. Kenge, "it is a will of later date +than any in the suit. It appears to be all in the testator's +handwriting. It is duly executed and attested. And even if +intended to be cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be +denoted by these marks of fire, it is NOT cancelled. Here it is, a +perfect instrument!" + +"Well!" said my guardian. "What is that to me?" + +"Mr. Guppy!" cried Mr. Kenge, raising his voice. "I beg your +pardon, Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Sir." + +"Mr. Vholes of Symond's Inn. My compliments. Jarndyce and +Jarndyce. Glad to speak with him." + +Mr. Guppy disappeared. + +"You ask me what is this to you, Mr. Jarndyce. If you had perused +this document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest +considerably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still +leaving it a very handsome one," said Mr. Kenge, waving his hand +persuasively and blandly. "You would further have seen that the +interests of Mr. Richard Carstone and of Miss Ada Clare, now Mrs. +Richard Carstone, are very materially advanced by it." + +"Kenge," said my guardian, "if all the flourishing wealth that the +suit brought into this vile court of Chancery could fall to my two +young cousins, I should be well contented. But do you ask ME to +believe that any good is to come of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?" + +"Oh, really, Mr. Jarndyce! Prejudice, prejudice. My dear sir, +this is a very great country, a very great country. Its system of +equity is a very great system, a very great system. Really, +really!" + +My guardian said no more, and Mr. Vholes arrived. He was modestly +impressed by Mr. Kenge's professional eminence. + +"How do you do, Mr. Vholes? Willl you be so good as to take a +chair here by me and look over this paper?" + +Mr. Vholes did as he was asked and seemed to read it every word. +He was not excited by it, but he was not excited by anything. When +he had well examined it, he retired with Mr. Kenge into a window, +and shading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some +length. I was not surprised to observe Mr. Kenge inclined to +dispute what he said before he had said much, for I knew that no +two people ever did agree about anything in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. +But he seemed to get the better of Mr. Kenge too in a conversation +that sounded as if it were almost composed of the words "Receiver- +General," "Accountant-General," "report," "estate," and "costs." +When they had finished, they came back to Mr. Kenge's table and +spoke aloud. + +"Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr. Vholes," said +Mr. Kenge. + +Mr. Vholes said, "Very much so." + +"And a very important document, Mr. Vholes," said Mr. Kenge. + +Again Mr. Vholes said, "Very much so." + +"And as you say, Mr. Vholes, when the cause is in the paper next +term, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature +in it," said Mr. Kenge, looking loftily at my guardian. + +Mr. Vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to +keep respectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such +an authority. + +"And when," asked my guardian, rising after a pause, during which +Mr. Kenge had rattled his money and Mr. Vholes had picked his +pimples, "when is next term?" + +"Next term, Mr. Jarndyce, will be next month," said Mr. Kenge. "Of +course we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this +document and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and +of course you will receive our usual notification of the cause +being in the paper." + +"To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention." + +"Still bent, my dear sir," said Mr. Kenge, showing us through the +outer office to the door, "still bent, even with your enlarged +mind, on echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous +community, Mr. Jarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a +great country, Mr. Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is +a great system, Mr. Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to +have a little system? Now, really, really!" + +He said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if +it were a silver trowel with which to spread the cement of his +words on the structure of the system and consolidate it for a +thousand ages. + + + +CHAPTER LXIII + +Steel and Iron + + +George's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and +George himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his +rides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertain +hand with which he guides his horse. But not to-day is George so +occupied. He is journeying to-day into the iron country farther +north to look about him. + +As he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green +woods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits and +ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching +fires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become the +features of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper, +looking about him and always looking for something he has come to +find. + +At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of +iron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the +trooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse +and asks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts. + +"Why, master," quoth the workman, "do I know my own name?" + +"'Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?" asks the trooper. + +"Rouncewell's? Ah! You're right." + +"And where might it be now?" asks the trooper with a glance before +him. + +"The bank, the factory, or the house?" the workman wants to know. + +"Hum! Rouncewell's is so great apparently," mutters the trooper, +stroking his chin, "that I have as good as half a mind to go back +again. Why, I don't know which I want. Should I find Mr. +Rouncewell at the factory, do you think?" + +"Tain't easy to say where you'd find him--at this time of the day +you might find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but +his contracts take him away." + +And which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys--the tallest +ones! Yes, he sees THEM. Well! Let him keep his eye on those +chimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'll +see 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall +which forms one side of the street. That's Rouncewell's. + +The trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking about +him. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much +disposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of +Rouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some of +Rouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem +to be invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, +are Rouncewell's hands--a little sooty too. + +He comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great +perplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast variety +of shapes--in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in +axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and +wrenched into eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of +machinery; mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant +furnaces of it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks +of it showering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot +iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron +smell, and a Babel of iron sounds. + +"This is a place to make a man's head ache too!" says the trooper, +looking about him for a counting-house. "Who comes here? This is +very like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if +likenesses run in families. Your servant, sir." + +"Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?" + +"Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?" + +"Yes." + +"I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with +him." + +The young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time, +for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to +be found. "Very like me before I was set up--devilish like me!" +thinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in the +yard with an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman +in the office, Mr. George turns very red. + +"What name shall I say to my father?" asks the young man. + +George, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers "Steel," +and is so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the +office, who sits at a table with account-books before him and some +sheets of paper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of +cunning shapes. It is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on +the iron view below. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces +of iron, purposely broken to be tested at various periods of their +service, in various capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; +and the smoke is seen through the windows rolling heavily out of +the tall chimneys to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon +of other chimneys. + +"I am at your service, Mr. Steel," says the gentleman when his +visitor has taken a rusty chair. + +"Well, Mr. Rouncewell," George replies, leaning forward with his +left arm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary of +meeting his brother's eye, "I am not without my expectations that +in the present visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. I +have served as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that I +was once rather partial to was, if I don't deceive myself, a +brother of yours. I believe you had a brother who gave his family +some trouble, and ran away, and never did any good but in keeping +away?" + +"Are you quite sure," returns the ironmaster in an altered voice, +"that your name is Steel?" + +The trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, calls +him by his name, and grasps him by both hands. + +"You are too quick for me!" cries the trooper with the tears +springing out of his eyes. "How do you do, my dear old fellow? I +never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me +as all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!" + +They shake hands and embrace each other over and over again, the +trooper still coupling his "How do you do, my dear old fellow!" +with his protestation that he never thought his brother would have +been half so glad to see him as all this! + +"So far from it," he declares at the end of a full account of what +has preceded his arrival there, "I had very little idea of making +myself known. I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my +name I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a +letter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had +considered it anything but welcome news to hear of me." + +"We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George," +returns his brother. "This is a great day at home, and you could +not have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make an +agreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he +shall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all +your travels. She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of your +nieces for a little polishing up in her education. We make a feast +of the event, and you will be made the hero of it." + +Mr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that +he resists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Being +overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew--concerning whom +he renews his protestations that he never could have thought they +would have been half so glad to see him--he is taken home to an +elegant house in all the arrangements of which there is to be +observed a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the +father and mother with such as are suited to their altered station +and the higher fortunes of their children. Here Mr. George is much +dismayed by the graces and accomplishments of his nieces that are +and by the beauty of Rosa, his niece that is to be, and by the +affectionate salutations of these young ladies, which he receives +in a sort of dream. He is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful +behaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness upon him of +being a scapegrace. However, there is great rejoicing and a very +hearty company and infinite enjoyment, and Mr. George comes bluff +and martial through it all, and his pledge to be present at the +marriage and give away the bride is received with universal favour. +A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in the +state-bed of his brother's house to think of all these things and +to see the images of his nieces (awful all the evening in their +floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, over his +counterpane. + +The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room, +where the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show +how he thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when +George squeezes his hand and stops him. + +"Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly +welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than +brotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word +as to them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How," +says the trooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable +firmness at his brother, "how is my mother to be got to scratch +me?" + +"I am not sure that I understand you, George," replies the +ironmaster. + +"I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? She +must be got to do it somehow." + +"Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?" + +"Of course I do. In short," says the trooper, folding his arms +more resolutely yet, "I mean--TO--scratch me!" + +"My dear George," returns his brother, "is it so indispensable that +you should undergo that process?" + +"Quite! Absolutely! I couldn't be guilty of the meanness of +coming back without it. I should never be safe not to be off +again. I have not sneaked home to rob your children, if not +yourself, brother, of your rights. I, who forfeited mine long ago! +If I am to remain and hold up my head, I must be scratched. Come. +You are a man of celebrated penetration and intelligence, and you +can tell me how it's to be brought about." + +"I can tell you, George," replies the ironmaster deliberately, "how +it is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose +as well. Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when +she recovered you. Do you believe there is a consideration in the +world that would induce her to take such a step against her +favourite son? Do you believe there is any chance of her consent, +to balance against the outrage it would be to her (loving dear old +lady!) to propose it? If you do, you are wrong. No, George! You +must make up your mind to remain UNscratched, I think." There is +an amused smile on the ironmaster's face as he watches his brother, +who is pondering, deeply disappointed. "I think you may manage +almost as well as if the thing were done, though." + +"How, brother?" + +"Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have +the misfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know." + +"That's true!" says the trooper, pondering again. Then he +wistfully asks, with his hand on his brother's, "Would you mind +mentioning that, brother, to your wife and family?" + +"Not at all." + +"Thank you. You wouldn't object to say, perhaps, that although an +undoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and +not of the mean sort?" + +The ironmaster, repressing his amused smile, assents. + +"Thank you. Thank you. It's a weight off my mind," says the +trooper with a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms and puts a +hand on each leg, "though I had set my heart on being scratched, +too!" + +The brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a +certain massive simplicity and absence of usage in the ways of the +world is all on the trooper's side. + +"Well," he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, "next and +last, those plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to +propose to me to fall in here and take my place among the products +of your perseverance and sense. I thank you heartily. It's more +than brotherly, as I said before, and I thank you heartily for it," +shaking him a long time by the hand. "But the truth is, brother, I +am a--I am a kind of a weed, and it's too late to plant me in a +regular garden." + +"My dear George," returns the elder, concentrating his strong +steady brow upon him and smiling confidently, "leave that to me, +and let me try." + +George shakes his head. "You could do it, I have not a doubt, if +anybody could; but it's not to be done. Not to be done, sir! +Whereas it so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of +some trifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness-- +brought on by family sorrows--and that he would rather have that +help from our mother's son than from anybody else." + +"Well, my dear George," returns the other with a very slight shade +upon his open face, "if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester +Dedlock's household brigade--" + +"There it is, brother," cries the trooper, checking him, with his +hand upon his knee again; "there it is! You don't take kindly to +that idea; I don't mind it. You are not used to being officered; I +am. Everything about you is in perfect order and discipline; +everything about me requires to be kept so. We are not accustomed +to carry things with the same hand or to look at 'em from the same +point. I don't say much about my garrison manners because I found +myself pretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn't be +noticed here, I dare say, once and away. But I shall get on best +at Chesney Wold, where there's more room for a weed than there is +here; and the dear old lady will be made happy besides. Therefore +I accept of Sir Leicester Dedlock's proposals. When I come over +next year to give away the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have +the sense to keep the household brigade in ambuscade and not to +manoeuvre it on your ground. I thank you heartily again and am +proud to think of the Rouncewells as they'll be founded by you." + +"You know yourself, George," says the elder brother, returning the +grip of his hand, "and perhaps you know me better than I know +myself. Take your way. So that we don't quite lose one another +again, take your way." + +"No fear of that!" returns the trooper. "Now, before I turn my +horse's head homewards, brother, I will ask you--if you'll be so +good--to look over a letter for me. I brought it with me to send +from these parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now +to the person it's written to. I am not much accustomed to +correspondence myself, and I am particular respecting this present +letter because I want it to be both straightforward and delicate." + +Herewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink +but in a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows: + + +Miss Esther Summerson, + +A communication having been made to me by Inspector Bucket of a +letter to myself being found among the papers of a certain person, +I take the liberty to make known to you that it was but a few lines +of instruction from abroad, when, where, and how to deliver an +enclosed letter to a young and beautiful lady, then unmarried, in +England. I duly observed the same. + +I further take the liberty to make known to you that it was got +from me as a proof of handwriting only and that otherwise I would +not have given it up, as appearing to be the most harmless in my +possession, without being previously shot through the heart. + +I further take the liberty to mention that if I could have supposed +a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in existence, I never +could and never would have rested until I had discovered his +retreat and shared my last farthing with him, as my duty and my +inclination would have equally been. But he was (officially) +reported drowned, and assuredly went over the side of a transport- +ship at night in an Irish harbour within a few hours of her arrival +from the West Indies, as I have myself heard both from officers and +men on board, and know to have been (officially) confirmed. + +I further take the liberty to state that in my humble quality as +one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever continue to be, your +thoroughly devoted and admiring servant and that I esteem the +qualities you possess above all others far beyond the limits of the +present dispatch. + +I have the honour to be, + +GEORGE + + +"A little formal," observes the elder brother, refolding it with a +puzzled face. + +"But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?" asks +the younger. + +"Nothing at all." + +Therefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron +correspondence of the day. This done, Mr. George takes a hearty +farewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount. His +brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to +ride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will +bait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a +servant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old +grey from Chesney Wold. The offer, being gladly accepted, is +followed by a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant +breakfast, all in brotherly communion. Then they once more shake +hands long and heartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face +to the smoke and fires, and the trooper to the green country. +Early in the afternoon the subdued sound of his heavy military trot +is heard on the turf in the avenue as he rides on with imaginary +clank and jingle of accoutrements under the old elm-trees. + + + +CHAPTER LXIV + +Esther's Narrative + + +Soon after I had that convertion with my guardian, he put a sealed +paper in my hand one morning and said, "This is for next month, my +dear." I found in it two hundred pounds. + +I now began very quietly to make such preparations as I thought +were necessary. Regulating my purchases by my guardian's taste, +which I knew very well of course, I arranged my wardrobe to please +him and hoped I should be highly successful. I did it all so +quietly because I was not quite free from my old apprehension that +Ada would be rather sorry and because my guardian was so quiet +himself. I had no doubt that under all the circumstances we should +be married in the most private and simple manner. Perhaps I should +only have to say to Ada, "Would you like to come and see me married +to-morrow, my pet?" Perhaps our wedding might even be as +unpretending as her own, and I might not find it necessary to say +anything about it until it was over. I thought that if I were to +choose, I would like this best. + +The only exception I made was Mrs. Woodcourt. I told her that I +was going to be married to my guardian and that we had been engaged +some time. She highly approved. She could never do enough for me +and was remarkably softened now in comparison with what she had +been when we first knew her. There was no trouble she would not +have taken to have been of use to me, but I need hardly say that I +only allowed her to take as little as gratified her kindness +without tasking it. + +Of course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course +it was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of +occupation, which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was +absolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with +great heaps of it--baskets full and tables full--and do a little, +and spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at +what there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do +it, were Charley's great dignities and delights. + +Meanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the +subject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and +Jarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly +did encourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave +occasion for a burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up +for a little time, but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now +and seemed to me to retain only its feverish anxieties. From +something my guardian said one day when we were talking about this, +I understood that my marriage would not take place until after the +term-time we had been told to look forward to; and I thought the +more, for that, how rejoiced I should be if I could be married when +Richard and Ada were a little more prosperous. + +The term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of +town and went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt's business. He +had told me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. +I had just come in one night from my dear girl's and was sitting in +the midst of all my new clothes, looking at them all around me and +thinking, when a letter from my guardian was brought to me. It +asked me to join him in the country and mentioned by what stage- +coach my place was taken and at what time in the morning I should +have to leave town. It added in a postscript that I would not be +many hours from Ada. + +I expected few things less than a journey at that tinae, but I was +ready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next +morning. I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be +wanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this +purpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose, but I was +never, never, never near the truth. + +It was night when I came to my journey's end and found my guardian +waiting for me. This was a great relief, for towards evening I had +begun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that +he might be ill. However, there he was, as well as it was possible +to be; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and +best, I said to myself, he has been doing some other great +kindness. Not that it required much penetration to say that, +because I knew that his being there at all was an act of kindness. + +Supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he +said, "Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I +have brought you here?" + +"Well, guardian," said I, "without thinking myself a Fatima or you +a Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it." + +"Then to ensure your night's rest, my love," he returned gaily, "I +won't wait until to-morrow to tell you. I have very much wished to +express to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor +unfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and +his value to us all. When it was decided that he should settle +here, it came into my head that I might ask his acceptance of some +unpretending and suitable little place to lay his own head in. I +therefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a +place was found on very easy terms, and I have been touching it up +for him and making it habitable. However, when I walked over it +the day before yesterday and it was reported ready, I found that I +was not housekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they +ought to be. So I sent off for the best little housekeeper that +could possibly be got to come and give me her advice and opinion. +And here she is," said my guardian, "laughing and crying both +together!" + +Because he was so dear, so good, so admirable. I tried to tell him +what I thought of him, but I could not articulate a word. + +"Tut, tut!" said my guardian. "You make too much of it, little +woman. Why, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!" + +"It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian--with a heart full of +thanks." + +"Well, well," said he. "I am delighted that you approve. I +thought you would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the +little mistress of Bleak House." + +I kissed him and dried my eyes. "I know now!" said I. "I have +seen this in your face a long while." + +"No; have you really, my dear?" said he. "What a Dame Durden it is +to read a face!" + +He was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and +was almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to +bed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it +was with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure. +I repeated every word of the letter twice over. + +A most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we +went out arm in arm to see the house of which I was to give my +mighty housekeeping opinion. We entered a flower-garden by a gate +in a side wall, of which he had the key, and the first thing I saw +was that the beds and flowers were all laid out according to the +manner of my beds and flowers at home. + +"You see, my dear," observed my guardian, standing still with a +delighted face to watch my looks, "knowing there could be no better +plan, I borrowed yours." + +We went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were +nestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple-trees +were sporting on the grass, to the house itself--a cottage, quite a +rustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so +tranquil and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country +spread around it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here +all overhung with summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at +its nearest point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, +where cricket-players were assembling in bright groups and a flag +was flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. +And still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little +rustic verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades +garlanded with woodbine, jasmine, and honey-suckle, I saw in the +papering on the walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the +arrangement of all the pretty objects, MY little tastes and +fancies, MY little methods and inventions which they used to laugh +at while they praised them, my odd ways everywhere. + +I could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful, +but one secret doubt arose in my mind when I saw this, I thought, +oh, would he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better +for his peace that I should not have been so brought before him? +Because although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me +very dearly, and it might remind him mournfully of what be believed +he had lost. I did not wish him to forget me--perhaps he might not +have done so, without these aids to his memory--but my way was +easier than his, and I could have reconciled myself even to that so +that he had been the happier for it. + +"And now, little woman," said my guardian, whom I had never seen so +proud and joyful as in showing me these things and watching my +appreciation of them, "now, last of all, for the name of this +house." + +"What is it called, dear guardian?" + +"My child," said he, "come and see," + +He took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said, +pausing before we went out, "My dear child, don't you guess the +name?" + +"No!" said I. + +We went out of the porch and he showed me written over it, Bleak +House. + +He led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down +beside me and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus, "My darling +girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been +really solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter +to which you brought the answer," smiling as he referred to it, "I +had my own too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under +different circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I +sometimes dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife +one day, I need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my +letter, and you brought your answer. You are following what I say, +my child?" + +I was cold, and I trembled violently, but not a word he uttered was +lost. As I sat looking fixedly at him and the sun's rays +descended, softly shining through the leaves upon his bare head, I +felt as if the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the +angels. + +"Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. +When it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would +really make you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I +soon had no doubt at all." + +I clasped him round the neck and hung my bead upon his breast and +wept. "Lie lightly, confidently here, my child," said he, pressing +me gently to him. "I am your guardian and your father now. Rest +confidently here." + +Soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially, +like the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the +sunshine, he went on. + +"Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being +contented and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I +saw with whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret +when Dame Durden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good +that could never change in her better far than she did. Well! I +have long been in Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was +not, until yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. +But I would not have my Esther's bright example lost; I would not +have a jot of my dear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I +would not have her admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan +ap-Kerrig, no, not for the weight in gold of all the mountains in +Wales!" + +He stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept +afresh. For I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of +his praise. + +"Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I +have looked forward to it," he said exultingly, "for months on +months! A few words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. +Determined not to throw away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took +Mrs. Woodcourt into a separate confidence. 'Now, madam,' said I, +'I clearly perceive--and indeed I know, to boot--that your son +loves my ward. I am further very sure that my ward loves your son, +but will sacrifice her love to a sense of duty and affection, and +will sacrifice it so completely, so entirely, so religiously, that +you should never suspect it though you watched her night and day.' +Then I told her all our story--ours--yours and mine. 'Now, madam,' +said I, 'come you, knowing this, and live with us. Come you, and +see my child from hour to hour; set what you see against her +pedigree, which is this, and this'--for I scorned to mince it--'and +tell me what is the true legitimacy when you shall have quite made +up your mind on that subject.' Why, honour to her old Welsh blood, +my dear," cried my guardian with enthusiasm, "I believe the heart +it animates beats no less warmly, no less admiringly, no less +lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own!" + +He tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his +old fatherly way again and again. What a light, now, on the +protecting manner I had thought about! + +"One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, +he spoke with my knowledge and consent--but I gave him no +encouragement, not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and +I was too miserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come and +tell me all that passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My +dearest, Allan Woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead +--stood beside your mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give +this house its little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest +day in all my life!" + +He rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My +husband--I have called him by that name full seven happy years now +--stood at my side. + +"Allan," said my guardian, "take from me a willing gift, the best +wife that ever man had. What more can I say for you than that I +know you deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings +you. You know what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has +made its namesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what +do I sacrifice? Nothing, nothing." + +He kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he +said more softly, "Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there +is a kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has +caused you some distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring +him to his old place in your affections; and blot it out of your +memory. Allan, take my dear." + +He moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in +the sunlight outside and turning cheerfully towards us, said, "I +shall be found about here somewhere. It's a west wind, little +woman, due west! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to +revert to my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this +warning, I'll run away and never come back!" + +What happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope, +what gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the month +was out, but when we were to come and take possession of our own +house was to depend on Richard and Ada. + +We all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in +town, Allan went straight to see Richard and to carry our joyful +news to him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her +for a few minutes before lying down to sleep, but I went home with +my guardian first to make his tea for him and to occupy the old +chair by his side, for I did not like to think of its being empty +so soon. + +When we came home we found that a young man had called three times +in the course of that one day to see me and that having been told +on the occasion of his third call that I was not expected to return +before ten o'clock at night, he had left word that he would call +about then. He had left his card three times. Mr. Guppy. + +As I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as I +always associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out +that in laughing about Mr. Guppy I told my guardian of his old +proposal and his subsequent retraction. "After that," said my +guardian, "we will certainly receive this hero." So instructions +were given that Mr. Guppy should be shown in when he came again, +and they were scarcely given when he did come again. + +He was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered +himself and said, "How de do, sir?" + +"How do you do, sir?" returned my guardian. + +"Thank you, sir, I am tolerable," returned Mr. Guppy. "Will you +allow me to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy of the Old Street Road, +and my particular friend, Mr. Weevle. That is to say, my friend +has gone by the name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly +Jobling." + +My guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down. + +"Tony," said Mr. Guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. +"Will you open the case?" + +"Do it yourself," returned the friend rather tartly. + +"Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir," Mr. Guppy, after a moment's +consideration, began, to the great diversion of his mother, which +she displayed by nudging Mr. Jobling with her elbow and winking at +me in a most remarkable manner, "I had an idea that I should see +Miss Summerson by herself and was not quite prepared for your +esteemed presence. But Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, +perhaps, that something has passed between us on former occasions?" + +"Miss Summerson," returned my guardian, smiling, "has made a +communication to that effect to me." + +"That," said Mr. Guppy, "makes matters easier. Sir, I have come +out of my articles at Kenge and Carboy's, and I believe with +satisfaction to all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing +an examination that's enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack +of nonsense that he don't want to know) on the roll of attorneys +and have taken out my certificate, if it would be any satisfaction +to you to see it." + +"Thank you, Mr. Guppy," returned my guardian. "I am quite willing +--I believe I use a legal phrase--to admit the certificate." + +Mr. Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his +pocket and proceeded without it. + +I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which +takes the form of an annuity"--here Mr. Guppy's mother rolled her +head as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and +put her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me--"and a +few pounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will +never be wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you +know," said Mr. Guppy feelingly. + +"Certainly an advantage," returned my guardian. + +"I HAVE some connexion," pursued Mr. Guppy, "and it lays in the +direction of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a +'ouse in that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a +hollow bargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in +the rent), and intend setting up professionally for myself there +forthwith." + +Here Mr. Guppy's mother fell into an extraordinary passion of +rolling her head and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at +her. + +"It's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens," said Mr. Guppy, "and in +the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention +my friends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe +has known me," Mr. Guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, +"from boyhood's hour." + +Mr. Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs. + +"My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of +clerk and will live in the 'ouse," said Mr. Guppy. "My mother will +likewise live in the 'ouse when her present quarter in the Old +Street Road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there +will be no want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally +aristocratic by taste, and besides being acquainted with the +movements of the upper circles, fully backs me in the intentions I +am now developing." + +Mr. Jobling said "Certainly" and withdrew a little from the elbow +of Mr Guppy's mother. + +"Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the +confidence of Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "(mother, I wish +you'd be so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson's image was +formerly imprinted on my 'eart and that I made her a proposal of +marriage." + +"That I have heard," returned my guardian. + +"Circumstances," pursued Mr. Guppy, "over which I had no control, +but quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a +time. At which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel; I +may even add, magnanimous." + +My guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused. + +"Now, sir," said Mr. Guppy, "I have got into that state of mind +myself that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I +wish to prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a heighth of +which perhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image +which I did suppose had been eradicated from my 'eart is NOT +eradicated. Its influence over me is still tremenjous, and +yielding to it, I am willing to overlook the circumstances over +which none of us have had any control and to renew those proposals +to Miss Summerson which I had the honour to make at a former +period. I beg to lay the 'ouse in Walcot Square, the business, and +myself before Miss Summerson for her acceptance." + +"Very magnanimous indeed, sir," observed my guardian. + +"Well, sir," replied Mr. Guppy with candour, "my wish is to BE +magnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss +Summerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that +the opinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I +submit may be taken into account as a set off against any little +drawbacks of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at." + +"I take upon myself, sir," said my guardian, laughing as he rang +the bell, "to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. +She is very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you +good evening, and wishes you well." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. "Is that tantamount, sir, +to acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?" + +"To decided rejection, if you please," returned my guardian. + +Mr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, +who suddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the +ceiling. + +"Indeed?" said he. "Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you +represent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of +the gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain't +wanted." + +But Mrs. Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She +wouldn't hear of it. "Why, get along with you," said she to my +guardian, "what do you mean? Ain't my son good enough for you? +You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!" + +"My good lady," returned my guardian, "it is hardly reasonable to +ask me to get out of my own room." + +"I don't care for that," said Mrs. Guppy. "Get out with you. If +we ain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good +enough. Go along and find 'em." + +I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's +power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest +offence. + +"Go along and find somebody that's good enough for you," repeated +Mrs. Guppy. "Get out!" Nothing seemed to astonish Mr. Guppy's +mother so much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting +out. "Why don't you get out?" said Mrs. Guppy. "What are you +stopping here for?" + +"Mother," interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing +her back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, "WILL you +hold your tongue?" + +"No, William," she returned, "I won't! Not unless he gets out, I +won't!" + +However, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy's +mother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much +against her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every +time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should +immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and +above all things that we should get out. + + + +CHAPTER LXV + +Beginning the World + + +The term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from +Mr. Kenge that the cause would come on in two days. As I had +sufficient hopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and +I agreed to go down to the court that morning. Richard was +extremely agitated and was so weak and low, though his illness was +still of the mind, that my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be +supported. But she looked forward--a very little way now--to the +help that was to come to her, and never drooped. + +It was at Westminster that the cause was to come on. It had come +on there, I dare say, a hundred times before, but I could not +divest myself of an idea that it MIGHT lead to some result now. We +left home directly after breakfast to be at Westminster Hall in +good time and walked down there through the lively streets--so +happily and strangely it seemed!--together. + +As we were going along, planning what we should do for Richard and +Ada, I heard somebody calling "Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!" +And there was Caddy Jellyby, with her head out of the window of a +little carriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils +(she had so many), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred +yards' distance. I had written her a note to tell her of all that +my guardian had done, but had not had a moment to go and see her. +Of course we turned back, and the affectionate girl was in that +state of rapture, and was so overjoyed to talk about the night when +she brought me the flowers, and was so determined to squeeze my +face (bonnet and all) between her hands, and go on in a wild manner +altogether, calling me all kinds of precious names, and telling +Allan I had done I don't know what for her, that I was just obliged +to get into the little carriage and caln her down by letting her +say and do exactly what she liked. Allan, standing at the window, +was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased as either of them; +and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than that I came off +laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking after Caddy, +who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as she could +see us. + +This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to +Westminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse +than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery +that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear +what was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for +occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "Silence!" It appeared +to be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving +to get nearer. It appeared to be something that made the +professional gentlemen very merry, for there were several young +counsellors in wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and +when one of them told the others about it, they put their hands in +their pockets, and quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and +went stamping about the pavement of the Hall. + +We asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told +us Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing +in it. He said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well +as he could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. +No, he said, over for good. + +Over for good! + +When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another +quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had +set things right at last and that Richard and Ada were going to be +rich? It seemed too good to be true. Alas it was! + +Our suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the +crowd, and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot +and bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all +exceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a +farce or a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, +watching for any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles +of paper began to be carried out--bundles in bags, bundles too +large to be got into any bags, immense masses of papers of all +shapes and no shapes, which the bearers staggered under, and threw +down for the time being, anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they +went back to bring out more. Even these clerks were laughing. We +glanced at the papers, and seeing Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, +asked an official-looking person who was standing in the midst of +them whether the cause was over. Yes, he said, it was all up with +it at last, and burst out laughing too. + +At this juncture we perceived Mr. Kenge coming out of court with an +affable dignity upon him, listening to Mr. Vholes, who was +deferential and carried his own bag. Mr. Vholes was the first to +see us. "Here is Miss Summerson, sir," he said. "And Mr. +Woodcourt." + +"Oh, indeed! Yes. Truly!" said Mr. Kenge, raising his hat to me +with polished politeness. "How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr. +Jarndyce is not here?" + +No. He never came there, I reminded him. + +"Really," returned Mr. Kenge, "it is as well that he is NOT here +to-day, for his--shall I say, in my good friend's absence, his +indomitable singularity of opinion?--might have been strengthened, +perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened." + +"Pray what has been done to-day?" asked Allan. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Kenge with excessive urbanity. + +"What has been done to-day?" + +"What has been done," repeated Mr. Kenge. "Quite so. Yes. Why, +not much has been done; not much. We have been checked--brought up +suddenly, I would say--upon the--shall I term it threshold?" + +"Is this will considered a genuine document, sir?" said Allan. +"Will you tell us that?" + +"Most certainly, if I could," said Mr. Kenge; "but we have not gone +into that, we have not gone into that." + +"We have not gone into that," repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low +inward voice were an echo. + +"You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," observed Mr. Kenge, using his +silver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, "that this has been a +great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has +been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not +inaptly, a monument of Chancery practice." + +"And patience has sat upon it a long time," said Allan. + +"Very well indeed, sir," returned Mr. Kenge with a certain +condeseending laugh he had. "Very well! You are further to +reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," becoming dignified almost to severity, +"that on the numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly +fictions, and forms of procedure in this great cause, there has +been expended study, ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. +Woodcourt, high intellect. For many years, the--a--I would say the +flower of the bar, and the--a--I would presume to add, the matured +autumnal fruits of the woolsack--have been lavished upon Jarndyce +and Jarndyce. If the public have the benefit, and if the country +have the adornment, of this great grasp, it must be paid for in +money or money's worth, sir." + +"Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. +"Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole +estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?" + +"Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do YOU +say?" + +"I believe so," said Mr. Vholes. + +"And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" + +"Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?" + +"Probably," said Mr. Vholes. + +"My dearest life," whispered Allan, "this will break Richard's +heart!" + +There was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew +Richard so perfectly, and I too had seen so much of his gradual +decay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fullness of her +foreboding love sounded like a knell in my ears. + +"In case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir," said Mr. Vholes, +coming after us, "you'll find him in court. I left him there +resting himself a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss +Summerson." As he gave me that slowly devouring look of his, while +twisting up the strings of his bag before he hastened with it after +Mr. Kenge, the benignant shadow of whose conversational presence he +seemed afraid to leave, he gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the +last morsel of his client, and his black buttoned-up unwholesome +figure glided away to the low door at the end of the Hall. + +"My dear love," said Allan, "leave to me, for a little while, the +charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to +Ada's by and by!" + +I would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to +Richard without a moment's delay and leave me to do as he wished. +Hurrying home, I found my guardian and told him gradually with what +news I had returned. "Little woman," said he, quite unmoved for +himself, "to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater +blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!" + +We talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was +possible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to +Symond's Inn and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my +darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and +threw her arms round my neck, but she composed herself direcfly and +said that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found +him sitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone +figure. On being roused, he had broken away and made as if he +would have spoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped +by his mouth being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home. + +He was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. There +were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as +possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan +stood behind him watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to +be quite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his +seeing me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. +But he looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day. + +I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he +said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, "Dame Durden, kiss +me, my dear!" + +It was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low +state cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in +our intended marriage than he could find words to tell me. My +husband had been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us +both and wished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost +felt as if my own heart would have broken when I saw him take my +husband's hand and hold it to his breast. + +We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several +times that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand +upon his feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. +"Yes, surely, dearest Richard!" But as my darling answered him +thus hopefully, so serene and beautiful, with the help that was to +come to her so near--I knew--I knew! + +It was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, +we were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of +working for my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my +being busy. Ada leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her +arm. He dozed often, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, +said first of all, "Where is Woodcourt?" + +Evening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian +standing in the little hall. "Who is that, Dame Durden?" Richard +asked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face +that some one was there. + +I looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded "Yes," bent over +Richard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by +me in a moment, and laid his hand on Richard's. "Oh, sir," said +Richard, "you are a good man, you are a good man!" and burst into +tears for the first time. + +My guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, +keeping his hand on Richard's. + +"My dear Rick," said he, "the clouds have cleared away, and it is +bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or +less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?" + +"I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to +begin the world." + +"Aye, truly; well said!" cried my guardian. + +"I will not begin it in the old way now," said Richard with a sad +smile. "I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but +you shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it." + +"Well, well," said my guardian, comforting him; "well, well, well, +dear boy!" + +"I was thinking, sir," resumed Richard, "that there is nothing on +earth I should so much like to see as their house--Dame Durden's +and Woodcourt's house. If I could be removed there when I begin to +recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner +than anywhere." + +"Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick," said my guardian, "and +our little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this +very day. I dare say her husband won't object. What do you +think?" + +Richard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood +behind the head of the couch. + +"I say nothing of Ada," said Richard, "but I think of her, and have +thought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending +over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, +my dear love, my poor girl!" + +He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually +released her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and +moved her lips. + +"When I get down to Bleak House," said Richard, "I shall have much +to tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, +won't you?" + +"Undoubtedly, dear Rick." + +"Thank you; like you, like you," said Richard. "But it's all like +you. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you +remembered all Esther's familiar tastes and ways. It will be like +coming to the old Bleak House again." + +"And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man +now, you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity +to come to me, my love!" he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his +hand over her golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I +think he vowed within himself to cherish her if she were left +alone.) + +"It was a troubled dream?" said Richard, clasping both my +guardian's hands eagerly. + +"Nothing more, Rick; nothing more." + +"And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and +pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?" + +"Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?" + +"I will begin the world!" said Richard with a light in his eyes. + +My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly +lift up his hand to warn my guardian. + +"When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the +old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has +been to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and +blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my +unborn child?" said Richard. "When shall I go?" + +"Dear Rick, when you are strong enough," returned my guardian. + +"Ada, my darling!" + +He sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she +could hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted. + +"I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor +stray shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and +trouble, I have scattered your means to the winds. You will +forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?" + +A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly +laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her +neck, and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, +oh, not this! The world that sets this right. + +When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came +weeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty. + + + +CHAPTER LXVI + +Down in Lincolnshire + + +There is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there +is upon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir +Leicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace; +but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and +any brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known +for certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in +the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is +heard at night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought +home to be laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she +died, is all mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be +found among the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, +did once occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with +large fans--like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, +after losing all their other beaux--did once occasionally say, when +the world assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the +Dedlocks, entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the +profanation of her company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it +very calmly and have never been known to object. + +Up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle- +road among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound +of horses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester--invalided, bent, +and almost blind, but of worthy presence yet--riding with a +stalwart man beside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they +come to a certain spot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's +accustomed horse stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, +pulling off his hat, is still for a few moments before they ride +away. + +War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain +intervals, and now hotly, and now coolly, flickering like an +unsteady fire. The truth is said to be that when Sir Leicester +came down to Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest +desire to abandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester +would, which Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his +illness or misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so +magnificently aggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under +the necessity of committing a flagrant trespass to restore his +neighbour to himself. Similarly, Mr. Boythorn continues to post +tremendous placards on the disputed thoroughfare and (with his bird +upon his head) to hold forth vehemently against Sir Leicester in +the sanctuary of his own home; similarly, also, he defies him as of +old in the little church by testifying a bland unconsciousness of +his existence. But it is whispered that when he is most ferocious +towards his old foe, he is really most considerate, and that Sir +Leicester, in the dignity of being implacable, little supposes how +much he is humoured. As little does he think how near together he +and his antagonist have suffered in the fortunes of two sisters, +and his antagonist, who knows it now, is not the man to tell him. +So the quarrel goes on to the satisfaction of both. + +In one of the lodges of the park--that lodge within sight of the +house where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in +Lincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child--the stalwart +man, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old +calling hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation +of a little lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. +A busy little man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house +doors, of stirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, +anything in the way of a stable-yard that will take a polish, +leading a life of friction. A shaggy little damaged man, withal, +not unlike an old dog of some mongrel breed, who has been +considerably knocked about. He answers to the name of Phil. + +A goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of +hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to observe-- +which few do, for the house is scant of company in these times--the +relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards them. +They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey cloak +and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are seen +among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found +gambolling in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and +when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening +air from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard trolling within +the lodge on the inspiring topic of the "British Grenadiers"; and +as the evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, +while two men pace together up and down, "But I never own to it +before the old girl. Discipline must be maintained." + +The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no +longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long +drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my +Lady's picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and +illumined only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems +gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A +little more, in truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir +Leicester; and the damp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, +and looks so obdurate, will have opened and received him. + +Volumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in +her face, and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in +the long evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her +yawns, of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of +the pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Long-winded treatises on +the Buffy and Boodle question, showing how Buffy is immaculate and +Boodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all Boodle +and no Buffy, or saved by being all Buffy and no Boodle (it must be +one of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her +reading. Sir Leicester is not particular what it is and does not +appear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes +broad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and +sonorously repeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to +know if she finds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the +course of her bird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has +alighted on a memorandum concerning herself in the event of +"anything happening" to her kinsman, which is handsome compensation +for an extensive course of reading and holds even the dragon +Boredom at bay. + +The cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its +dullness, but take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns +are heard in the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and +keepers wait at the old places of appointment for low-spirited twos +and threes of cousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by +the dreariness of the place, gets into a fearful state of +depression, groaning under penitential sofa-pillows in his gunless +hours and protesting that such fernal old jail's--nough t'sew fler +up--frever. + +The only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the +place in Lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely +separated, when something is to be done for the county or the +country in the way of gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does +the tuckered sylph come out in fairy form and proceed with joy +under cousinly escort to the exhausted old assembly-room, fourteen +heavy miles off, which, during three hundred and sixty-four days +and nights of every ordinary year, is a kind of antipodean lumber- +room full of old chairs and tables upside down. Then, indeed, does +she captivate all hearts by her condescension, by her girlish +vivacity, and by her skipping about as in the days when the hideous +old general with the mouth too full of teeth had not cut one of +them at two guineas each. Then does she twirl and twine, a +pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes of the dance. +Then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with sandwiches, +with homage. Then is she kind and cruel, stately and unassuming, +various, beautifully wilful. Then is there a singular kind of +parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of another +age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre +stems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no +drops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have +both departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all +seem Volumnias. + +For the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of +overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their +hands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the window- +panes in monotonous depressions. A labyrinth of grandeur, less the +property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly +likenesses than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which +start out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding +through the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases in +which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a +stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where +few people care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash +drops from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, +becomes the victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives +warning and departs. + +Thus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness +and vacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the +wintry lowering; so sombre and motionless always--no flag flying +now by day, no rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to +come and go, no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of +rooms, no stir of life about it--passion and pride, even to the +stranger's eye, have died away from the place in Lincolnshire and +yielded it to dull repose. + + + +CHAPTER LXVII + +The Close of Esther's Narrative + + +Full seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. +The few words that I have to add to what I have written are soon +penned; then I and the unknown friend to whom I write will part for +ever. Not without much dear remembrance on my side. Not without +some, I hope, on his or hers. + +They gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never +left her. The little child who was to have done so much was born +before the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; +and I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name. + +The help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, +in the eternal wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and +restore his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, +its power was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak +little hand and how its touch could heal my darling's heart and +raised hope within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the +tenderness of God. + +They throve, and by degrees I saw my dear girl pass into my country +garden and walk there with her infant in her arms. I was married +then. I was the happiest of the happy. + +It was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked Ada when +she would come home. + +"Both houses are your home, my dear," said he, "but the older Bleak +House claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do +it, come and take possession of your home." + +Ada called him "her dearest cousin, John." But he said, no, it +must be guardian now. He was her guardian henceforth, and the +boy's; and he had an old association with the name. So she called +him guardian, and has called him guardian ever since. The children +know him by no other name. I say the children; I have two little +daughters. + +It is difficult to believe that Charley (round-eyed still, and not +at all grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; +yet so it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write +early in the morning at my summer window, I see the very mill +beginning to go round. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; +but he is very fond of her, and Charley is rather vain of such a +match, for he is well to do and was in great request. So far as my +small maid is concerned, I might suppose time to have stood for +seven years as still as the mill did half an hour ago, since little +Emma, Charley's sister, is exactly what Charley used to be. As to +Tom, Charley's brother, I am really afraid to say what he did at +school in ciphering, but I think it was decimals. He is +apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a good bashful +fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being ashamed of +it. + +Caddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a +dearer creature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the +house with the children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson +in her life. Caddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of +hiring one, and lives full two miles further westward than Newman +Street. She works very hard, her husband (an excellent one) being +lame and able to do very little. Still, she is more than contented +and does all she has to do with all her heart. Mr. Jellyby spends +his evenings at her new house with his head against the wall as he +used to do in her old one. I have heard that Mrs. Jellyby was +understood to suffer great mortification from her daughter's +ignoble marriage and pursuits, but I hope she got over it in time. +She has been disappointed in Borrioboola-Gha, which turned out a +failure in consequence of the king of Boorioboola wanting to sell +everybody--who survived the climate--for rum, but she has taken up +with the rights of women to sit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me +it is a mission involving more correspondence than the old one. I +had almost forgotten Caddy's poor little girl. She is not such a +mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. I believe there never was a +better mother than Caddy, who learns, in her scanty intervals of +leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts to soften the affliction of +her child. + +As if I were never to have done with Caddy, I am reminded here of +Peepy and old Mr. Turveydrop. Peepy is in the Custom House, and +doing extremely well. Old Mr. Turveydrop, very apoplectic, still +exhibits his deportment about town, still enjoys himself in the old +manner, is still believed in in the old way. He is constant in his +patronage of Peepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a +favourite French clock in his dressing-room--which is not his +property. + +With the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house +by throwing out a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which +we inaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to +see us. I try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full +in drawing to an end, but when I write of him, my tears will have +their way. + +I never look at him but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a +good man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to +me he is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? +He is my husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's +darling, he is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet +while I feel towards him as if he were a superior being, I am so +familiar with him and so easy with him that I almost wonder at +myself. I have never lost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor +do I ever, when he is with us, sit in any other place than in my +old chair at his side, Dame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman--all +just the same as ever; and I answer, "Yes, dear guardian!" just the +same. + +I have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment +since the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I +remarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, +and he said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter +on that very day. + +I think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow +that has been in her face--for it is not there now--seems to have +purified even its innocent expression and to have given it a +diviner quality. Sometimes when I raise my eyes and see her in the +black dress that she still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel--it +is difficult to express--as if it were so good to know that she +remembers her dear Esther in her prayers. + +I call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am +one. + +We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we +have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the +people bless him. I never go into a house of any degree but I hear +his praises or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie down at +night but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated +pain and soothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. I know +that from the beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have +often, often gone up, in the last hour, for his patient +ministration. Is not this to be rich? + +The people even praise me as the doctor's wife. The people even +like me as I go about, and make so much of me that I am quite +abashed. I owe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for +his sake, as I do everything I do in life for his sake. + +A night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling +and my guardian and little Richard, who are coming to-morrow, I was +sitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable +porch, when Allan came home. So he said, "My precious little +woman, what are you doing here?" And I said, "The moon is shining +so brightly, Allan, and the night is so delicious, that I have been +sitting here thinking." + +"What have you been thinking about, my dear?" said Allan then. + +"How curious you are!" said I. "I am almost ashamed to tell you, +but I will. I have been thinking about my old looks--such as they +were." + +"And what have you been thinking about THEM, my busy bee?" said +Allan. + +"I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you +COULD have loved me any better, even if I had retained them." + +"'Such as they were'?" said Allan, laughing. + +"Such as they were, of course." + +"My dear Dame Durden," said Allan, drawing my arm through his, "do +you ever look in the glass?" + +"You know I do; you see me do it." + +"And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?" + +"I did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I +know that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my +darling is very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, +and that my guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face +that ever was seen, and that they can very well do without much +beauty in me--even supposing--. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bleak House by Charles Dickens + +********The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Christmas Carol.******** +#1 in our series by Charles Dickens +*******This file should be named carol12.txt or carol12.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, carol13.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, carol10a.txt. + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about one million dollars for each hour we work. 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We can be reached at: + +Project Gutenberg Director of Communications (DIRCOMPG) + +Internet: dircompg@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu +Bitnet: dircom@uiucux1 +CompuServe: >internet:dircompg@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu +Attmail: internet!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!dircompg + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07.02.92*END* + + + + + + + +A CHRISTMAS CAROL + +by Charles Dickens + + + + + + +I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, +to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my +readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, +with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses +pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. + +Their faithful Friend and Servant, + C. D. +December, 1843. + + + + + + +Stave 1: Marley's Ghost + +Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt +whatever about that. The register of his burial was +signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, +and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And +Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he +chose to put his hand to. + +Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. + +Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my +own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about +a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to +regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery +in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors +is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands +shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You +will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that +Marley was as dead as a door-nail. + +Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. +How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were +partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge +was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole +assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and +sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully +cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent +man of business on the very day of the funeral, +and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. +The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to +the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley +was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or +nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going +to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that +Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there +would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a +stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, +than there would be in any other middle-aged +gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy +spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- +literally to astonish his son's weak mind. + +Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. +There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse +door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as +Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the +business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, +but he answered to both names. It was all the +same to him. + +Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- +stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, +scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and +sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out +generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary +as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, +nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, +stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; +and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty +rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his +wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always +about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and +didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. + +External heat and cold had little influence on +Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather +chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, +no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no +pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't +know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and +snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage +over him in only one respect. They often `came down' +handsomely, and Scrooge never did. + +Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with +gladsome looks, `My dear Scrooge, how are you? +When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored +him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him +what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all +his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of +Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to +know him; and when they saw him coming on, would +tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and +then would wag their tails as though they said, `No +eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!' + +But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing +he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths +of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, +was what the knowing ones call `nuts' to Scrooge. + +Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, +on Christmas Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his +counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy +withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, +go wheezing up and down, beating their hands +upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the +pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had +only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- +it had not been light all day -- and candles were flaring +in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like +ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog +came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was +so dense without, that although the court was of the +narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. +To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring +everything, one might have thought that Nature +lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. + +The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open +that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a +dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying +letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's +fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one +coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept +the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the +clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted +that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore +the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to +warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being +a man of a strong imagination, he failed. + +`A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried +a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's +nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was +the first intimation he had of his approach. + +`Bah!' said Scrooge, `Humbug!' + +He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the +fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was +all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his +eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. +`Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's +nephew. `You don't mean that, I am sure?' + +`I do,' said Scrooge. `Merry Christmas! What +right have you to be merry? What reason have you +to be merry? You're poor enough.' + +`Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. `What +right have you to be dismal? What reason have you +to be morose? You're rich enough.' + +Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur +of the moment, said `Bah!' again; and followed it up +with `Humbug.' + +`Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew. + +`What else can I be,' returned the uncle, `when I +live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! +Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas +time to you but a time for paying bills without +money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but +not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books +and having every item in 'em through a round dozen +of months presented dead against you? If I could +work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, `every idiot +who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips, +should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried +with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!' + +`Uncle!' pleaded the nephew. + +`Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, `keep Christmas +in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.' + +`Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. `But you +don't keep it.' + +`Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. `Much +good may it do you! Much good it has ever done +you!' + +`There are many things from which I might have +derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare +say,' returned the nephew. `Christmas among the +rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas +time, when it has come round -- apart from the +veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything +belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a +good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant +time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar +of the year, when men and women seem by one consent +to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think +of people below them as if they really were +fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race +of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, +uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or +silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me +good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!' + +The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded. +Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, +he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark +for ever. + +`Let me hear another sound from you,' said +Scrooge, `and you'll keep your Christmas by losing +your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, +sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. `I wonder you +don't go into Parliament.' + +`Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.' + +Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he +did. He went the whole length of the expression, +and said that he would see him in that extremity first. + +`But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. `Why?' + +`Why did you get married?' said Scrooge. + +`Because I fell in love.' + +`Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if +that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous +than a merry Christmas. `Good afternoon!' + +`Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before +that happened. Why give it as a reason for not +coming now?' + +`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. + +`I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; +why cannot we be friends?' + +`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. + +`I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so +resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I +have been a party. But I have made the trial in +homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas +humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!' + +`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. + +`And A Happy New Year!' + +`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. + +His nephew left the room without an angry word, +notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to +bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who +cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned +them cordially. + +`There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge; who +overheard him: `my clerk, with fifteen shillings a +week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry +Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.' + +This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had +let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, +pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, +in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in +their hands, and bowed to him. + +`Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the +gentlemen, referring to his list. `Have I the pleasure +of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?' + +`Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,' +Scrooge replied. `He died seven years ago, this very +night.' + +`We have no doubt his liberality is well represented +by his surviving partner,' said the gentleman, presenting +his credentials. + +It certainly was; for they had been two kindred +spirits. At the ominous word `liberality,' Scrooge +frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials +back. + +`At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' +said the gentleman, taking up a pen, `it is more than +usually desirable that we should make some slight +provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer +greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in +want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands +are in want of common comforts, sir.' + +`Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge. + +`Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down +the pen again. + +`And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. +`Are they still in operation?' + +`They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, `I wish +I could say they were not.' + +`The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, +then?' said Scrooge. + +`Both very busy, sir.' + +`Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, +that something had occurred to stop them in their +useful course,' said Scrooge. `I'm very glad to +hear it.' + +`Under the impression that they scarcely furnish +Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,' +returned the gentleman, `a few of us are endeavouring +to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink. +and means of warmth. We choose this time, because +it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, +and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down +for?' + +`Nothing!' Scrooge replied. + +`You wish to be anonymous?' + +`I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. `Since you +ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. +I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't +afford to make idle people merry. I help to support +the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost +enough; and those who are badly off must go there.' + +`Many can't go there; and many would rather die.' + +`If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, `they had +better do it, and decrease the surplus population. +Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.' + +`But you might know it,' observed the gentleman. + +`It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. `It's +enough for a man to understand his own business, and +not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies +me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!' + +Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue +their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge returned +his labours with an improved opinion of himself, +and in a more facetious temper than was usual +with him. + +Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that +people ran about with flaring links, proffering their +services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct +them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, +whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down +at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became +invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the +clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if +its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. +The cold became intense. In the main street at the +corner of the court, some labourers were repairing +the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, +round which a party of ragged men and boys were +gathered: warming their hands and winking their +eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug +being left in solitude, its overflowing sullenly congealed, +and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness +of the shops where holly sprigs and berries +crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale +faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' +trades became a splendid joke; a glorious pageant, +with which it was next to impossible to believe that +such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything +to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the +mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks +and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's +household should; and even the little tailor, whom he +had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for +being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up +to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean +wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef. + +Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting +cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped +the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather +as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then +indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The +owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled +by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, +stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with +a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of + +`God bless you, merry gentleman! +May nothing you dismay!' + +Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, +that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to +the fog and even more congenial frost. + +At length the hour of shutting up the counting- +house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted +from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the +expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed +his candle out, and put on his hat. + +`You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?' said +Scrooge. + +`If quite convenient, sir.' + +`It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, `and it's not +fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think +yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?' + +The clerk smiled faintly. + +`And yet,' said Scrooge, `you don't think me ill-used, +when I pay a day's wages for no work.' + +The clerk observed that it was only once a year. + +`A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every +twenty-fifth of December!' said Scrooge, buttoning +his great-coat to the chin. `But I suppose you must +have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next +morning.' + +The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge +walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a +twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his +white comforter dangling below his waist (for he +boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, +at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in +honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home +to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play +at blindman's-buff. + +Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual +melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and +beguiled the rest of the evening with his +banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in +chambers which had once belonged to his deceased +partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a +lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so +little business to be, that one could scarcely help +fancying it must have run there when it was a young +house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, +and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough +now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but +Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. +The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew +its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. +The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway +of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of +the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the +threshold. + +Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all +particular about the knocker on the door, except that it +was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had +seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence +in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what +is called fancy about him as any man in the city of +London, even including -- which is a bold word -- the +corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be +borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one +thought on Marley, since his last mention of his +seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then +let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened +that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, +saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate +process of change -- not a knocker, but Marley's face. + +Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow +as the other objects in the yard were, but had a +dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark +cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked +at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly +spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The +hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; +and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly +motionless. That, and its livid colour, made +it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the +face and beyond its control, rather than a part or +its own expression. + +As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it +was a knocker again. + +To say that he was not startled, or that his blood +was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it +had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. +But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, +turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. + +He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before +he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind +it first, as if he half-expected to be terrified with the +sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. +But there was nothing on the back of the door, except +the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he +said `Pooh, pooh!' and closed it with a bang. + +The sound resounded through the house like thunder. +Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's +cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal +of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to +be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and +walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: +trimming his candle as he went. + +You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six +up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad +young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you +might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken +it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall +and the door towards the balustrades: and done it +easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room +to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge +thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before +him in the gloom. Half a dozen gas-lamps out of +the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, +so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with +Scrooge's dip. + +Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. +Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before +he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms +to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection +of the face to desire to do that. + +Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they +should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under +the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin +ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had +a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the +bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, +which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude +against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, +old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three +legs, and a poker. + +Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked +himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his +custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off +his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and +his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take +his gruel. + +It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a +bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and +brood over it, before he could extract the least +sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. +The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch +merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint +Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. +There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters; +Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending +through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, +Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, +hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts -- +and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came +like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the +whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, +with power to shape some picture on its surface from +the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would +have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one. + +`Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the +room. + +After several turns, he sat down again. As he +threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened +to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the +room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten +with a chamber in the highest story of the +building. It was with great astonishment, and with +a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he +saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in +the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it +rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. + +This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, +but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had +begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking +noise, deep down below; as if some person were +dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine +merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have +heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described +as dragging chains. + +The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, +and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors +below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight +towards his door. + +`It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. `I won't believe it.' + +His colour changed though, when, without a pause, +it came on through the heavy door, and passed into +the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the +dying flame leaped up, as though it cried `I know +him; Marley's Ghost!' and fell again. + +The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, +usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on +the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, +and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was +clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound +about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge +observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, +ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. +His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, +and looking through his waistcoat, could see +the two buttons on his coat behind. + +Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no +bowels, but he had never believed it until now. + +No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he +looked the phantom through and through, and saw +it standing before him; though he felt the chilling +influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very +texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head +and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; +he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. + +`How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. +`What do you want with me?' + +`Much!' -- Marley's voice, no doubt about it. + +`Who are you?' + +`Ask me who I was.' + +`Who were you then?' said Scrooge, raising his +voice. `You're particular, for a shade.' He was going +to say `to a shade,' but substituted this, as more +appropriate. + +`In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.' + +`Can you -- can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking +doubtfully at him. + +`I can.' + +`Do it, then.' + +Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know +whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in +a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event +of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity +of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat +down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he +were quite used to it. + +`You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost. + +`I don't.' said Scrooge. + +`What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of +your senses?' + +`I don't know,' said Scrooge. + +`Why do you doubt your senses?' + +`Because,' said Scrooge, `a little thing affects them. +A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may +be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of +cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of +gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!' + +Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking +jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means +waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be +smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, +and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice +disturbed the very marrow in his bones. + +To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence +for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very +deuce with him. There was something very awful, +too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal +atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it +himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the +Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, +and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour +from an oven. + +`You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning +quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; +and wishing, though it were only for a second, to +divert the vision's stony gaze from himself. + +`I do,' replied the Ghost. + +`You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge. + +`But I see it,' said the Ghost, `notwithstanding.' + +`Well!' returned Scrooge, `I have but to swallow +this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a +legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, +I tell you! humbug!' + +At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook +its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that +Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself +from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was +his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage +round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, +its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast! + +Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands +before his face. + +`Mercy!' he said. `Dreadful apparition, why do +you trouble me?' + +`Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, `do +you believe in me or not?' + +`I do,' said Scrooge. `I must. But why do spirits +walk the earth, and why do they come to me?' + +`It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, +`that the spirit within him should walk abroad among +his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that +spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so +after death. It is doomed to wander through the +world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot +share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to +happiness!' + +Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain +and wrung its shadowy hands. + +`You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. `Tell +me why?' + +`I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. +`I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded +it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I +wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?' + +Scrooge trembled more and more. + +`Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, `the +weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? +It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven +Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. +It is a ponderous chain!' + +Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the +expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty +or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see +nothing. + +`Jacob,' he said, imploringly. `Old Jacob Marley, +tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!' + +`I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. `It comes +from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed +by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor +can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is +all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I +cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked +beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my +spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our +money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before +me!' + +It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became +thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. +Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, +but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his +knees. + +`You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,' +Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though +with humility and deference. + +`Slow!' the Ghost repeated. + +`Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. `And travelling +all the time!' + +`The whole time,' said the Ghost. `No rest, no +peace. Incessant torture of remorse.' + +`You travel fast?' said Scrooge. + +`On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost. + +`You might have got over a great quantity of +ground in seven years,' said Scrooge. + +The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and +clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of +the night, that the Ward would have been justified in +indicting it for a nuisance. + +`Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the +phantom, `not to know, that ages of incessant labour, +by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into +eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is +all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit +working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may +be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast +means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of +regret can make amends for one life's opportunity +misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!' + +`But you were always a good man of business, +Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this +to himself. + +`Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands +again. `Mankind was my business. The common +welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, +and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings +of my trade were but a drop of water in the +comprehensive ocean of my business!' + +It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were +the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it +heavily upon the ground again. + +`At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said +`I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of +fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never +raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise +Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to +which its light would have conducted me!' + +Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the +spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake +exceedingly. + +`Hear me!' cried the Ghost. `My time is nearly +gone.' + +`I will,' said Scrooge. `But don't be hard upon +me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!' +`How it is that I appear before you in a shape that +you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible +beside you many and many a day.' + +It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, +and wiped the perspiration from his brow. + +`That is no light part of my penance,' pursued +the Ghost. `I am here to-night to warn you, that you +have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A +chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.' + +`You were always a good friend to me,' said +Scrooge. `Thank 'ee!' + +`You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, `by +Three Spirits.' + +Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the +Ghost's had done. + +`Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, +Jacob?' he demanded, in a faltering voice. + +`It is.' + +`I -- I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge. + +`Without their visits,' said the Ghost, `you cannot +hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, +when the bell tolls One.' + +`Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over, +Jacob?' hinted Scrooge. + +`Expect the second on the next night at the same +hour. The third upon the next night when the last +stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see +me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you +remember what has passed between us!' + +When it had said these words, the spectre took its +wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, +as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its +teeth made, when the jaws were brought together +by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, +and found his supernatural visitor confronting him +in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and +about its arm. + +The apparition walked backward from him; and at +every step it took, the window raised itself a little, +so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. +It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. +When they were within two paces of each other, +Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to +come no nearer. Scrooge stopped. + +Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: +for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible +of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of +lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and +self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, +joined in the mournful dirge; +and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. + +Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his +curiosity. He looked out. + +The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither +and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they +went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's +Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) +were linked together; none were free. Many had +been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He +had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white +waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to +its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist +a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, +upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, +clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in +human matters, and had lost the power for ever. + +Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist +enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and +their spirit voices faded together; and the night became +as it had been when he walked home. + +Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door +by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, +as he had locked it with his own hands, and +the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say `Humbug!' +but stopped at the first syllable. And being, +from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues +of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or +the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of +the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to +bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the +instant. + + +Stave 2: The First of the Three Spirits + +When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, +he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from +the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to +pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a +neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened +for the hour. + +To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from +six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to +twelve; then stopped. Twelve. It was past two when he +went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have +got into the works. Twelve. + +He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most +preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: +and stopped. + +`Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, `that I can have +slept through a whole day and far into another night. It +isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and +this is twelve at noon.' + +The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, +and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub +the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he +could see anything; and could see very little then. All he +could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely +cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, +and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been +if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the +world. This was a great relief, because "Three days after sight +of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge on his +order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States +security if there were no days to count by. + +Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought +it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he +thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured +not to think, the more he thought. + +Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved +within himself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his +mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first +position, andpresented the same problem to be worked all through, +"Was it a dream or not?" + +Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three-quarters +more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost hadwarned +him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie +awake until the hour +was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep +than go to heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in +his power. + +The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he +must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. +At length it broke upon his listening ear. + +"Ding, dong!" + +"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting. + +"Ding, dong!" + +"Half past," said Scrooge. + +"Ding, dong!" + +"A quarter to it," said Scrooge. +"Ding, dong!" + +"The hour itself," said Scrooge triumphantly, "and nothing else!" + +He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a +deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room +upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. + +The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a +hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his +back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains +of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a +half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the +unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now +to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow. + +It was a strange figure -- like a child: yet not so like a +child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural +medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded +from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. +Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was +white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in +it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were +very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold +were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately +formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic +of the purest white, and round its waist was bound +a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held +a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular +contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed +with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, +that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear +jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was +doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a +great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. + +Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing +steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt +sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, +and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so +the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a +thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, +now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a +body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible +in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the +very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and +clear as ever. + +`Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to +me.' asked Scrooge. + +`I am.' + +The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if +instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. + +`Who, and what are you.' Scrooge demanded. + +`I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.' + +`Long Past.' inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish +stature. + +`No. Your past.' + +Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if +anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire +to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered. + +`What.' exclaimed the Ghost, `would you so soon put out, +with worldly hands, the light I give. Is it not enough +that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and +force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon +my brow.' + +Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend +or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted the Spirit at +any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what +business brought him there. + +`Your welfare.' said the Ghost. + +Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not +help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been +more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard +him thinking, for it said immediately: + +`Your reclamation, then. Take heed.' + +It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him +gently by the arm. + +`Rise. and walk with me.' + +It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the +weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; +that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below +freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, +dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at +that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, +was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit +made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication. + +`I am mortal,' Scrooge remonstrated, `and liable to fall.' + +`Bear but a touch of my hand there,' said the Spirit, +laying it upon his heart,' and you shall be upheld in more +than this.' + +As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, +and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either +hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it +was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished +with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon +the ground. + +`Good Heaven!' said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, +as he looked about him. `I was bred in this place. I was +a boy here.' + +The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, +though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still +present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious +of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected +with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares +long, long, forgotten. + +`Your lip is trembling,' said the Ghost. `And what is +that upon your cheek.' + +Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, +that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him +where he would. + +`You recollect the way.' inquired the Spirit. + +`Remember it.' cried Scrooge with fervour; `I could +walk it blindfold.' + +`Strange to have forgotten it for so many years.' observed +the Ghost. `Let us go on.' + +They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every +gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared +in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. +Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them +with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in +country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys +were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the +broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air +laughed to hear it. + +`These are but shadows of the things that have been,' said +the Ghost. `They have no consciousness of us.' + +The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge +knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond +all bounds to see them. Why did his cold eye glisten, and +his heart leap up as they went past. Why was he filled +with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry +Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for +their several homes. What was merry Christmas to Scrooge. +Out upon merry Christmas. What good had it ever done +to him. + +`The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. `A +solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.' + +Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. + +They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and +soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little +weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell +hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken +fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls +were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their +gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; +and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. +Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for +entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open +doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, +cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a +chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow +with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too +much to eat. + +They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a +door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and +disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by +lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely +boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down +upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he +used to be. + +Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle +from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the +half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among +the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle +swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in +the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening +influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. + +The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his +younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in +foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: +stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and +leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. + +`Why, it's Ali Baba.' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. `It's +dear old honest Ali Baba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas +time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, +he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy. And +Valentine,' said Scrooge,' and his wild brother, Orson; there +they go. And what's his name, who was put down in his +drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him. +And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; +there he is upon his head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it. +What business had he to be married to the Princess.' + +To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature +on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between +laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited +face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in +the city, indeed. + +`There's the Parrot.' cried Scrooge. `Green body and +yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the +top of his head; there he is. Poor Robin Crusoe, he called +him, when he came home again after sailing round the +island. `Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin +Crusoe.' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. +It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running +for his life to the little creek. Halloa. Hoop. Hallo.' + +Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his +usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, `Poor +boy.' and cried again. + +`I wish,' Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his +pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his +cuff: `but it's too late now.' + +`What is the matter.' asked the Spirit. + +`Nothing,' said Scrooge. `Nothing. There was a boy +singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should +like to have given him something: that's all.' + +The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: +saying as it did so, `Let us see another Christmas.' + +Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the +room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, +the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the +ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how +all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you +do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything +had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all +the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. + +He was not reading now, but walking up and down +despairingly. + +Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful +shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. + +It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, +came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and +often kissing him, addressed him as her `Dear, dear +brother.' + +`I have come to bring you home, dear brother.' said the +child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. +`To bring you home, home, home.' + +`Home, little Fan.' returned the boy. + +`Yes.' said the child, brimful of glee. `Home, for good +and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder +than he used to be, that home's like Heaven. He spoke so +gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that +I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come +home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach +to bring you. And you're to be a man.' said the child, +opening her eyes,' and are never to come back here; but +first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have +the merriest time in all the world.' + +`You are quite a woman, little Fan.' exclaimed the boy. + +She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his +head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on +tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her +childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to +go, accompanied her. + +A terrible voice in the hall cried. `Bring down Master +Scrooge's box, there.' and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster +himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious +condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind +by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his +sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that +ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial +and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. +Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a +block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments +of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, +sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of something +to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, +but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had +rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied +on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster +good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove +gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the +hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens +like spray. + +`Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have +withered,' said the Ghost. `But she had a large heart.' + +`So she had,' cried Scrooge. `You're right. I will not +gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid.' + +`She died a woman,' said the Ghost, `and had, as I think, +children.' + +`One child,' Scrooge returned. + +`True,' said the Ghost. `Your nephew.' + +Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, +`Yes.' + +Although they had but that moment left the school behind +them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, +where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy +carts and coaches battle for the way, and all the strife and +tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by +the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas +time again; but it was evening, and the streets were +lighted up. + +The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked +Scrooge if he knew it. + +`Know it.' said Scrooge. `I was apprenticed here.' + +They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh +wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two +inches taller he must have knocked his head against the +ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement: + +`Why, it's old Fezziwig. Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig +alive again.' + +Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the +clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his +hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over +himself, from his shows to his organ of benevolence; and +called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: + +`Yo ho, there. Ebenezer. Dick.' + +Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly +in, accompanied by his fellow-prentice. + +`Dick Wilkins, to be sure.' said Scrooge to the Ghost. +`Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached +to me, was Dick. Poor Dick. Dear, dear.' + +`Yo ho, my boys.' said Fezziwig. `No more work to-night. +Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer. Let's +have the shutters up,' cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap +of his hands,' before a man can say Jack Robinson.' + +You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it. +They charged into the street with the shutters -- one, two, +three -- had them up in their places -- four, five, six -- barred +them and pinned then -- seven, eight, nine -- and came back +before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses. + +`Hilli-ho!' cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the +high desk, with wonderful agility. `Clear away, my lads, +and let's have lots of room here. Hilli-ho, Dick. Chirrup, +Ebenezer.' + +Clear away. There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared +away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking +on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if +it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was +swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon +the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and +bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's +night. + +In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the +lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty +stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial +smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and +lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they +broke. In came all the young men and women employed in +the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the +baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, +the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was +suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying +to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who +was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. +In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, +some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; +in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, +twenty couples at once; hands half round and back again +the other way; down the middle and up again; round +and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old +top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top +couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top +couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When +this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his +hands to stop the dance, cried out,' Well done.' and the +fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially +provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his +reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no +dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, +exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man +resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish. + +There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more +dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there +was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece +of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. +But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast +and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind. The sort +of man who knew his business better than you or I could +have told it him.) struck up Sir Roger de Coverley.' Then +old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs Fezziwig. Top +couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; +three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were +not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no +notion of walking. + +But if they had been twice as many -- ah, four times -- +old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would +Mrs Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner +in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me +higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue +from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the +dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given +time, what would have become of them next. And when old +Fezziwig and Mrs Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; +advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and +curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to +your place; Fezziwig cut -- cut so deftly, that he appeared +to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without +a stagger. + +When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. +Mr and Mrs Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side +of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually +as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. +When everybody had retired but the two prentices, they did +the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, +and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a +counter in the back-shop. + +During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a +man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, +and with his former self. He corroborated everything, +remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent +the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the +bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from +them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious +that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its +head burnt very clear. + +`A small matter,' said the Ghost, `to make these silly +folks so full of gratitude.' + +`Small.' echoed Scrooge. + +The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, +who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: +and when he had done so, said, + +`Why. Is it not. He has spent but a few pounds of +your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so +much that he deserves this praise.' + +`It isn't that,' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and +speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. +`It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy +or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a +pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and +looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is +impossible +to add and count them up: what then. The happiness +he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.' + +He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. + +`What is the matter.' asked the Ghost. + +`Nothing in particular,' said Scrooge. + +`Something, I think.' the Ghost insisted. + +`No,' said Scrooge,' No. I should like to be able to say +a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all.' + +His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance +to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by +side in the open air. + +`My time grows short,' observed the Spirit. `Quick.' + +This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he +could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again +Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime +of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later +years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. +There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which +showed the passion that had taken root, and where the +shadow of the growing tree would fall. + +He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young +girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, +which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of +Christmas Past. + +`It matters little,' she said, softly. `To you, very little. +Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort +you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have +no just cause to grieve.' + +`What Idol has displaced you.' he rejoined. + +`A golden one.' + +`This is the even-handed dealing of the world.' he said. +`There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and +there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity +as the pursuit of wealth.' + +`You fear the world too much,' she answered, gently. +`All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being +beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your +nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, +Gain, engrosses you. Have I not.' + +`What then.' he retorted. `Even if I have grown so +much wiser, what then. I am not changed towards you.' + +She shook her head. + +`Am I.' + +`Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were +both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could +improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You +are changed. When it was made, you were another man.' + +`I was a boy,' he said impatiently. + +`Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you +are,' she returned. `I am. That which promised happiness +when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that +we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of +this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, +and can release you.' + +`Have I ever sought release.' + +`In words. No. Never.' + +`In what, then.' + +`In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another +atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In +everything that made my love of any worth or value in your +sight. If this had never been between us,' said the girl, +looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him;' tell me, +would you seek me out and try to win me now. Ah, no.' + +He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in +spite of himself. But he said with a struggle,' You think +not.' + +`I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered, +`Heaven knows. When I have learned a Truth like this, +I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you +were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe +that you would choose a dowerless girl -- you who, in your +very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, +choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your +one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your +repentance and regret would surely follow. I do; and I +release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you +once were.' + +He was about to speak; but with her head turned from +him, she resumed. + +`You may -- the memory of what is past half makes me +hope you will -- have pain in this. A very, very brief time, +and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an +unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you +awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen.' + +She left him, and they parted. + +`Spirit.' said Scrooge,' show me no more. Conduct +me home. Why do you delight to torture me.' + +`One shadow more.' exclaimed the Ghost. + +`No more.' cried Scrooge. `No more, I don't wish to +see it. Show me no more.' + +But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, +and forced him to observe what happened next. + +They were in another scene and place; a room, not very +large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter +fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge +believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely +matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this +room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children +there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; +and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not +forty children conducting themselves like one, but every +child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences +were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; +on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, +and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to +mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands +most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to one of +them. Though I never could have been so rude, no, no. I +wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that +braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little +shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul. to +save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they +did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should +have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, +and never come straight again. And yet I should +have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have +questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have +looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never +raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of +which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should +have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence +of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its +value. + +But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a +rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and +plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed +and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who +came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys +and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and +the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter. +The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his +pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight +by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back, +and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of +wonder and delight with which the development of every +package was received. The terrible announcement that the +baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan +into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having +swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter. +The immense relief of finding this a false alarm. The joy, +and gratitude, and ecstasy. They are all indescribable alike. +It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions +got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the +top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided. + +And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, +when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning +fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his +own fireside; and when he thought that such another +creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might +have called him father, and been a spring-time in the +haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. + +`Belle,' said the husband, turning to his wife with a +smile,' I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.' + +`Who was it.' + +`Guess.' + +`How can I. Tut, don't I know.' she added in the +same breath, laughing as he laughed. `Mr Scrooge.' + +`Mr Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as +it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could +scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point +of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in +the world, I do believe.' + +`Spirit.' said Scrooge in a broken voice,' remove me +from this place.' + +`I told you these were shadows of the things that have +been,' said the Ghost. `That they are what they are, do +not blame me.' + +`Remove me.' Scrooge exclaimed,' I cannot bear it.' + +He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon +him with a face, in which in some strange way there were +fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it. + +`Leave me. Take me back. Haunt me no longer.' + +In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which +the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was +undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed +that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly +connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the +extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down +upon its head. + +The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher +covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down +with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed +from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground. + +He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an +irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own +bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand +relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank +into a heavy sleep. + + +Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits + +Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and +sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had +no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the +stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness +in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding +a conference with the second messenger despatched to him +through Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he +turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which +of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put +them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down +again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For, +he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its +appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and +made nervous. + +Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves +on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually +equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their +capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for +anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which +opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and +comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for +Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you +to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of +strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and +rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. + +Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by +any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the +Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a +violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter +of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay +upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy +light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the +hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than +a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it +meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive +that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of +spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of +knowing it. At last, however, he began to think -- as you or +I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not +in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done +in it, and would unquestionably have done it too -- at last, I +say, he began to think that the source and secret of this +ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, +on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking +full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in +his slippers to the door. + +The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange +voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He +obeyed. + +It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. +But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls +and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a +perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming +berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and +ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had +been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring +up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had +never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and +many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form +a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, +great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, +mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, +cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, +immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that +made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy +state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to +see, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's +horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, +as he came peeping round the door. + +`Come in.' exclaimed the Ghost. `Come in, and know +me better, man.' + +Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this +Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and +though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like +to meet them. + +`I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit. +`Look upon me.' + +Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple +green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment +hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was +bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any +artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the +garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other +covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining +icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its +genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, +its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded +round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword +was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. + +`You have never seen the like of me before.' exclaimed +the Spirit. + +`Never,' Scrooge made answer to it. + +`Have never walked forth with the younger members of +my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers +born in these later years.' pursued the Phantom. + +`I don't think I have,' said Scrooge. `I am afraid I have +not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit.' + +`More than eighteen hundred,' said the Ghost. + +`A tremendous family to provide for.' muttered Scrooge. + +The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. + +`Spirit,' said Scrooge submissively,' conduct me where +you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt +a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught +to teach me, let me profit by it.' + +`Touch my robe.' + +Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. + +Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, +poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, +fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, +the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood +in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the +weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and +not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the +pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of +their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see +it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting +into artificial little snow-storms. + +The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows +blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow +upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; +which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by +the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed +and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great +streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace +in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, +and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, +half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended +in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great +Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away +to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful +in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of +cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest +summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. + +For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops +were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another +from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious +snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest -- +laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it +went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the +fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, +round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats +of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out +into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were +ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in +the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking +from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went +by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were +pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there +were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence +to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might +water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy +and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among +the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered +leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting +off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great +compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and +beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after +dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among +these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and +stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was +something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and +round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. + +The Grocers'. oh the Grocers'. nearly closed, with perhaps +two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such +glimpses. It was not alone that the scales descending on the +counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller +parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled +up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended +scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even +that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so +extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, +the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and +spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on +feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs +were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in +modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that +everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but +the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful +promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other +at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left +their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to +fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in +the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people +were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which +they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, +worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws +to peck at if they chose. + +But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and +chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in +their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the +same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and +nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners +to the baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers +appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with +Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the +covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their +dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind +of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words +between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he +shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good +humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame +to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love +it, so it was. + +In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and +yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners +and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of +wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as +if its stones were cooking too. + +`Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from +your torch.' asked Scrooge. + +`There is. My own.' + +`Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.' +asked Scrooge. + +`To any kindly given. To a poor one most.' + +`Why to a poor one most.' asked Scrooge. + +`Because it needs it most.' + +`Spirit,' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought,' I wonder +you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should +desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent +enjoyment.' + +`I.' cried the Spirit. + +`You would deprive them of their means of dining every +seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said +to dine at all,' said Scrooge. `Wouldn't you.' + +`I.' cried the Spirit. + +`You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day.' said +Scrooge. `And it comes to the same thing.' + +`I seek.' exclaimed the Spirit. + +`Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your +name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge. + +`There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit,' +who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, +pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness +in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and +kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge +their doings on themselves, not us.' + +Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, +invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the +town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which +Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding +his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place +with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as +gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible +he could have done in any lofty hall. + +And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in +showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, +generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor +men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he +went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and +on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped +to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his +torch. Think of that. Bob had but fifteen bob a-week +himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his +Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present +blessed his four-roomed house. + +Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out +but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, +which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and +she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of +her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter +Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and +getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private +property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the +day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly +attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. +And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing +in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the +goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious +thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced +about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the +skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked +him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, +knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and +peeled. + +`What has ever got your precious father then.' said Mrs +Cratchit. `And your brother, Tiny Tim. And Martha +warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour.' + + +`Here's Martha, mother.' said a girl, appearing as she +spoke. + +`Here's Martha, mother.' cried the two young Cratchits. +`Hurrah. There's such a goose, Martha.' + +`Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are.' +said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off +her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. + +`We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,' replied the +girl,' and had to clear away this morning, mother.' + +`Well. Never mind so long as you are come,' said Mrs +Cratchit. `Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have +a warm, Lord bless ye.' + +`No, no. There's father coming,' cried the two young +Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. `Hide, Martha, +hide.' + +So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, +with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, +hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned +up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his +shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and +had his limbs supported by an iron frame. + +`Why, where's our Martha.' cried Bob Cratchit, looking +round. + +`Not coming,' said Mrs Cratchit. + +`Not coming.' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his +high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way +from church, and had come home rampant. `Not coming +upon Christmas Day.' + +Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only +in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet +door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits +hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, +that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. + +`And how did little Tim behave. asked Mrs Cratchit, +when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had +hugged his daughter to his heart's content. + +`As good as gold,' said Bob,' and better. Somehow he +gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the +strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, +that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he +was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember +upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind +men see.' + +Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and +trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing +strong and hearty. + +His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back +came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by +his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while +Bob, turning up his cuffs -- as if, poor fellow, they were +capable of being made more shabby -- compounded some hot +mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round +and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter, +and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the +goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. + +Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose +the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a +black swan was a matter of course -- and in truth it was +something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made +the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; +Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; +Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted +the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny +corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for +everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard +upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest +they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be +helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was +said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs +Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared +to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the +long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of +delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, +excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with +the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah. + +There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe +there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and +flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal +admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, +it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as +Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small +atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at +last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest +Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to +the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss +Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to +bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up and bring it in. + +Suppose it should not be done enough. Suppose it should +break in turning out. Suppose somebody should have got +over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they +were merry with the goose -- a supposition at which the two +young Cratchits became livid. All sorts of horrors were +supposed. + +Hallo. A great deal of steam. The pudding was out of +the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the +cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next +door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. +That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit +entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding, +like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half +of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with +Christmas holly stuck into the top. + +Oh, a wonderful pudding. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly +too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by +Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that +now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had +had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had +something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it +was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have +been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed +to hint at such a thing. + +At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the +hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the +jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges +were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the +fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in +what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and +at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. +Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle. + +These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as +golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with +beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and +cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: + +`A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.' + +Which all the family re-echoed. + +`God bless us every one.' said Tiny Tim, the last of all. + +He sat very close to his father's side upon his little +stool. +Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the +child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that +he might be taken from him. + +`Spirit,' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt +before, `tell me if Tiny Tim will live.' + +`I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, `in the poor +chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully +preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, +the child will die.' + +`No, no,' said Scrooge. `Oh, no, kind Spirit. say he +will be spared.' + +`If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none +other of my race,' returned the Ghost, `will find him here. +What then. If he be like to die, he had better do it, and +decrease the surplus population.' + +Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by +the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. +`Man,' said the Ghost, `if man you be in heart, not +adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered +What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what +men shall live, what men shall die. It may be, that in the +sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live +than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God. to hear +the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life +among his hungry brothers in the dust.' + +Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast +his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on +hearing his own name. + +`Mr Scrooge.' said Bob; `I'll give you Mr Scrooge, the +Founder of the Feast.' + +`The Founder of the Feast indeed.' cried Mrs Cratchit, +reddening. `I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece +of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good +appetite for it.' + +`My dear,' said Bob, `the children. Christmas Day.' + +`It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, `on +which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, +unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. You know he is, Robert. +Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow.' + +`My dear,' was Bob's mild answer, `Christmas Day.' + +`I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said +Mrs Cratchit, `not for his. Long life to him. A merry +Christmas and a happy new year. He'll be very merry and +very happy, I have no doubt.' + +The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of +their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank +it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge +was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast +a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full +five minutes. + +After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than +before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done +with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his +eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full +five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed +tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; +and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from +between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular +investments he should favour when he came into the receipt +of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor +apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work +she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, +and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a +good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at +home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some +days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as +Peter; at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you +couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this +time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and +by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in +the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, +and sang it very well indeed. + +There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not +a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes +were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; +and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside +of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased +with one another, and contented with the time; and when +they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings +of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon +them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. + +By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty +heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, +the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and +all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of +the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot +plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep +red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. +There all the children of the house were running out +into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, +uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, +were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and +there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, +and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near +neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw +them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it -- in a glow. + +But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on +their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought +that no one was at home to give them welcome when they +got there, instead of every house expecting company, and +piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how +the Ghost exulted. How it bared its breadth of breast, and +opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with +a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything +within its reach. The very lamplighter, who ran on before, +dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was +dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly +as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter +that he had any company but Christmas. + +And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they +stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses +of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place +of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, +or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; +and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. +Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery +red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a +sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in +the thick gloom of darkest night. + +`What place is this.' asked Scrooge. + +`A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of +the earth,' returned the Spirit. `But they know me. See.' + +A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they +advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and +stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a +glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their +children and their children's children, and another generation +beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. +The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling +of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a +Christmas song -- it had been a very old song when he was a +boy -- and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. +So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite +blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour +sank again. + +The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his +robe, and passing on above the moor, sped -- whither. Not +to sea. To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw +the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; +and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it +rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it +had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. + +Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league +or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, +the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. +Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds +-- born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the +water -- rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. + +But even here, two men who watched the light had made +a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed +out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their +horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they +wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and +one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and +scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship +might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in +itself. + +Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea +-- on, on -- until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any +shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman +at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who +had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; +but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or +had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his +companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward +hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or +sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another +on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared +to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those +he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted +to remember him. + +It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the +moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it +was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown +abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it +was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear +a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge +to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a +bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling +by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving +affability. + +`Ha, ha.' laughed Scrooge's nephew. `Ha, ha, ha.' + +If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a +man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can +say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, +and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. + +It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that +while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing +in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and +good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding +his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the +most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage, +laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being +not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. + +`Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.' + +`He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live.' cried +Scrooge's nephew. `He believed it too.' + +`More shame for him, Fred.' said Scrooge's niece, +indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by +halves. They are always in earnest. + +She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, +surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that +seemed made to be kissed -- as no doubt it was; all kinds of +good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another +when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever +saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what +you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory. + +`He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that's +the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, +his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing +to say against him.' + +`I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece. +`At least you always tell me so.' + +`What of that, my dear.' said Scrooge's nephew. `His +wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. +He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the +satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha. -- that he is ever going +to benefit us with it.' + +`I have no patience with him,' observed Scrooge's niece. +Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed +the same opinion. + +`Oh, I have.' said Scrooge's nephew. `I am sorry for +him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers +by his ill whims. Himself, always. Here, he takes it into +his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. +What's the consequence. He don't lose much of a dinner.' + +`Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,' interrupted +Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they +must be allowed to have been competent judges, because +they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the +table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. + +`Well. I'm very glad to hear it,' said Scrooge's nephew, +`because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. +What do you say, Topper.' + +Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's +sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, +who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. +Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister -- the plump one with the lace +tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed. + +`Do go on, Fred,' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. +`He never finishes what he begins to say. He is such a +ridiculous fellow.' + +Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was +impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister +tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was +unanimously followed. + +`I was only going to say,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that +the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making +merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant +moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses +pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, +either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I +mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he +likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas +till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it -- I defy +him -- if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after +year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you. If it only +puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, +that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday.' + +It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking +Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much +caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any +rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the +bottle joyously. + +After tea. they had some music. For they were a musical +family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a +Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who +could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never +swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face +over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and +played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: +you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had +been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the +boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of +Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the +things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he +softened more and more; and thought that if he could have +listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the +kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, +without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob +Marley. + +But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After +a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children +sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its +mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop. There was first +a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I +no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he +had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done +thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the +Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after +that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the +credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, +tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, +smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, +there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was. +He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up +against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would +have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would +have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly +have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. +She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. +But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her +silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got +her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his +conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to +know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her +head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by +pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain +about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told +him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in +office, they were so very confidential together, behind the +curtains. + +Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party, +but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, +in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close +behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her +love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. +Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was +very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat +her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as +could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, +young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge, for, +wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on, that +his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with +his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; +for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut +in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in +his head to be. + +The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, +and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like +a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But +this the Spirit said could not be done. + +`Here is a new game,' said Scrooge. `One half hour, +Spirit, only one.' + +It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew +had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; +he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case +was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, +elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live +animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an +animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, +and lived in London, and walked about the streets, +and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and +didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, +and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a +tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh +question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a +fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that +he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last +the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out: + +`I have found it out. I know what it is, Fred. I know +what it is.' + +`What is it.' cried Fred. + +`It's your Uncle Scrooge.' + +Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal +sentiment, though some objected that the reply to `Is it a +bear.' ought to have been `Yes;' inasmuch as an answer +in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts +from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency +that way. + +`He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,' said +Fred,' and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. +Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the +moment; and I say, "Uncle Scrooge."' + +`Well. Uncle Scrooge.' they cried. + +`A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old +man, whatever he is.' said Scrooge's nephew. `He wouldn't +take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle +Scrooge.' + +Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light +of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious +company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, +if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene +passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his +nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. + +Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they +visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood +beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, +and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they +were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was +rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every +refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not +made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his +blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts. + +It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge +had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared +to be condensed into the space of time they passed +together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained +unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly +older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of +it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, +looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, +he noticed that its hair was grey. + +`Are spirits' lives so short.' asked Scrooge. + +`My life upon this globe, is very brief,' replied the Ghost. +`It ends to-night.' + +`To-night.' cried Scrooge. + +`To-night at midnight. Hark. The time is drawing +near.' + +The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at +that moment. + +`Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said +Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe,' but I see +something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding +from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.' + +`It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was +the Spirit's sorrowful reply. `Look here.' + +From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; +wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt +down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. + +`Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed +the Ghost. + +They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, +scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where +graceful youth should have filled their features out, and +touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled +hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and +pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat +enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No +change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any +grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has +monsters half so horrible and dread. + +Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to +him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but +the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie +of such enormous magnitude. + +`Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more. + +`They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon +them. `And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. +This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, +and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for +on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the +writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out +its hand towards the city. `Slander those who tell it ye. +Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. +And abide the end.' + +`Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge. + +`Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him +for the last time with his own words. `Are there no workhouses.' +The bell struck twelve. + +Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it +not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the +prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting +up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and +hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards +him. + + +Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits + +The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When +it came, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in +the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to +scatter gloom and mystery. + +It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed +its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible +save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been +difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it +from the darkness by which it was surrounded. + +He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside +him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a +solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither +spoke nor moved. + +`I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To +Come.' said Scrooge. + +The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its +hand. + +`You are about to show me shadows of the things that +have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,' +Scrooge pursued. `Is that so, Spirit.' + +The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an +instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. +That was the only answer he received. + +Although well used to ghostly company by this time, +Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled +beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when +he prepared to follow it. The Spirit pauses a moment, as +observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. + +But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him +with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the +dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon +him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, +could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap +of black. + +`Ghost of the Future.' he exclaimed,' I fear you more +than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose +is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another +man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, +and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak +to me.' + +It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight +before them. + +`Lead on.' said Scrooge. `Lead on. The night is +waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead +on, Spirit.' + +The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. +Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him +up, he thought, and carried him along. + +They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather +seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its +own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on +Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, +and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in +groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully +with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had +seen them often. + +The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. +Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge +advanced to listen to their talk. + +`No,' said a great fat man with a monstrous chin,' I +don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's +dead.' + +`When did he die.' inquired another. + +`Last night, I believe.' + +`Why, what was the matter with him.' asked a third, +taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. +`I thought he'd never die.' + +`God knows,' said the first, with a yawn. + +`What has he done with his money.' asked a red-faced +gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his +nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock. + +`I haven't heard,' said the man with the large chin, +yawning again. `Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't +left it to me. That's all I know.' + +This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. + +`It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,' said the same +speaker;' for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go +to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer.' + +`I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,' observed the +gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. `But I must +be fed, if I make one.' + +Another laugh. + +`Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,' +said the first speaker,' for I never wear black gloves, and I +never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. +When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't +his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak +whenever we met. Bye, bye.' + +Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with +other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the +Spirit for an explanation. + +The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed +to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking +that the explanation might lie here. + +He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye +business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made +a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business +point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view. + +`How are you.' said one. + +`How are you.' returned the other. + +`Well.' said the first. `Old Scratch has got his own at +last, hey.' + +`So I am told,' returned the second. `Cold, isn't it.' + +`Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I +suppose.' + +`No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning.' + +Not another word. That was their meeting, their +conversation, and their parting. + +Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the +Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so +trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden +purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. +They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the +death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this +Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any +one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could +apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever +they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, +he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, +and everything he saw; and especially to observe the +shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation +that the conduct of his future self would give him +the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these +riddles easy. + +He looked about in that very place for his own image; but +another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the +clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he +saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured +in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; +for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and +thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried +out in this. + +Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its +outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his +thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and +its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes +were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel +very cold. + +They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part +of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, +although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The +ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; +the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and +archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of +smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the +whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery. + +Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, +beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, +bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor +within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, +files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets +that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in +mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and +sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a +charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, +nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the +cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous +tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury +of calm retirement. + +Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this +man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the +shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, +similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by +a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight +of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each +other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which +the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three +burst into a laugh. + +`Let the charwoman alone to be the first.' cried she who +had entered first. `Let the laundress alone to be the second; +and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look +here, old Joe, here's a chance. If we haven't all three met +here without meaning it.' + +`You couldn't have met in a better place,' said old Joe, +removing his pipe from his mouth. `Come into the parlour. +You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other +two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. +Ah. How it skreeks. There an't such a rusty bit of metal +in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's +no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha. We're all suitable +to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the +parlour. Come into the parlour.' + +The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The +old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and +having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the +stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again. + +While he did this, the woman who had already spoken +threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting +manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and +looking with a bold defiance at the other two. + +`What odds then. What odds, Mrs Dilber.' said the +woman. `Every person has a right to take care of themselves. +He always did.' + +`That's true, indeed.' said the laundress. `No man +more so.' + +`Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, +woman; who's the wiser. We're not going to pick holes in +each other's coats, I suppose.' + +`No, indeed.' said Mrs Dilber and the man together. +`We should hope not.' + +`Very well, then.' cried the woman. `That's enough. +Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these. +Not a dead man, I suppose.' + +`No, indeed,' said Mrs Dilber, laughing. + +`If he wanted to keep them after he was dead, a wicked old +screw,' pursued the woman,' why wasn't he natural in his +lifetime. If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look +after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying +gasping out his last there, alone by himself.' + +`It's the truest word that ever was spoke,' said Mrs +Dilber. `It's a judgment on him.' + +`I wish it was a little heavier judgment,' replied the +woman;' and it should have been, you may depend upon it, +if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that +bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out +plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to +see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, +before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, +Joe.' + +But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; +and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, +produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, +a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no +great value, were all. They were severally examined and +appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed +to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a +total when he found there was nothing more to come. + +`That's your account,' said Joe,' and I wouldn't give +another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. +Who's next.' + +Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing +apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of +sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall +in the same manner. + +`I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, +and that's the way I ruin myself,' said old Joe. `That's +your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made +it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock +off half-a-crown.' + +`And now undo my bundle, Joe,' said the first woman. + +Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience +of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, +dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff. + +`What do you call this.' said Joe. `Bed-curtains.' + +`Ah.' returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward +on her crossed arms. `Bed-curtains.' + +`You don't mean to say you took them down, rings and +all, with him lying there.' said Joe. + +`Yes I do,' replied the woman. `Why not.' + +`You were born to make your fortune,' said Joe,' and +you'll certainly do it.' + +`I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything +in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he +was, I promise you, Joe,' returned the woman coolly. `Don't +drop that oil upon the blankets, now.' + +`His blankets.' asked Joe. + +`Whose else's do you think.' replied the woman. `He +isn't likely to take cold without them, I dare say.' + +`I hope he didn't die of any thing catching. Eh.' said +old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. + +`Don't you be afraid of that,' returned the woman. `I +an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for +such things, if he did. Ah. you may look through that +shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor +a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. +They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.' + +`What do you call wasting of it.' asked old Joe. + +`Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,' replied +the woman with a laugh. `Somebody was fool enough to +do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for +such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite +as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did +in that one.' + +Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat +grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by +the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and +disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though the +demons, marketing the corpse itself. + +`Ha, ha.' laughed the same woman, when old Joe, +producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their +several gains upon the ground. `This is the end of it, you +see. He frightened every one away from him when he was +alive, to profit us when he was dead. Ha, ha, ha.' + +`Spirit.' said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. `I +see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. +My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is +this.' + +He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now +he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, +beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, +which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful +language. + +The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with +any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience +to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it +was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon +the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, +uncared for, was the body of this man. + +Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand +was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted +that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon +Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought +of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; +but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss +the spectre at his side. + +Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar +here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy +command: for this is thy dominion. But of the loved, +revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair +to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is +not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; +it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the +hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, +and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike. +And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow +the world with life immortal. + +No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and +yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He +thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be +his foremost thoughts. Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares. +They have brought him to a rich end, truly. + +He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a +woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this +or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be +kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was +a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What +they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so +restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think. + +`Spirit.' he said,' this is a fearful place. In leaving it, +I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go.' + +Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the +head. + +`I understand you,' Scrooge returned,' and I would do +it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have +not the power.' + +Again it seemed to look upon him. + +`If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion +caused by this man's death,' said Scrooge quite agonised, +`show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you.' + +The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a +moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room +by daylight, where a mother and her children were. + +She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; +for she walked up and down the room; started at every +sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; +tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly +bear the voices of the children in their play. + +At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried +to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was +careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was +a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight +of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. + +He sat down to the dinner that had been boarding for +him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news +(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared +embarrassed how to answer. + +`Is it good.' she said, `or bad?' -- to help him. + +`Bad,' he answered. + +`We are quite ruined.' + +`No. There is hope yet, Caroline.' + +`If he relents,' she said, amazed, `there is. Nothing is +past hope, if such a miracle has happened.' + +`He is past relenting,' said her husband. `He is dead.' + +She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke +truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she +said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next +moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of +her heart. + +`What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last +night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a +week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid +me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only +very ill, but dying, then.' + +`To whom will our debt be transferred.' + +`I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready +with the money; and even though we were not, it would be +a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his +successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline.' + +Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. +The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what +they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier +house for this man's death. The only emotion that the +Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of +pleasure. + +`Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,' said +Scrooge;' or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just +now, will be for ever present to me.' + +The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar +to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and +there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They +entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had +visited before; and found the mother and the children seated +round the fire. + +Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as +still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, +who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters +were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet. + +`And he took a child, and set him in the midst of +them.' + +Where had Scrooge heard those words. He had not +dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he +and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not +go on. + +The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her +hand up to her face. + +`The colour hurts my eyes,' she said. + +The colour. Ah, poor Tiny Tim. + +`They're better now again,' said Cratchit's wife. `It +makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak +eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It +must be near his time.' + +`Past it rather,' Peter answered, shutting up his book. +`But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, +these few last evenings, mother.' + +They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a +steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: + +`I have known him walk with -- I have known him walk +with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.' + +`And so have I,' cried Peter. `Often.' + +`And so have I,' exclaimed another. So had all. + +`But he was very light to carry,' she resumed, intent upon +her work,' and his father loved him so, that it was no +trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door.' + +She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter +-- he had need of it, poor fellow -- came in. His tea +was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should +help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got +upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against +his face, as if they said,' Don't mind it, father. Don't be +grieved.' + +Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to +all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and +praised the industry and speed of Mrs Cratchit and the girls. +They would be done long before Sunday, he said. + +`Sunday. You went to-day, then, Robert.' said his +wife. + +`Yes, my dear,' returned Bob. `I wish you could have +gone. It would have done you good to see how green a +place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I +would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child.' +cried Bob. `My little child.' + +He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he +could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther +apart perhaps than they were. + +He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, +which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. +There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were +signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat +down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed +himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what +had happened, and went down again quite happy. + +They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother +working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness +of Mr Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but +once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing +that he looked a little -' just a little down you know,' said +Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. `On +which,' said Bob,' for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman +you ever heard, I told him. `I am heartily sorry for it, Mr +Cratchit,' he said,' and heartily sorry for your good wife.' +By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know.' + +`Knew what, my dear.' + +`Why, that you were a good wife,' replied Bob. + +`Everybody knows that.' said Peter. + +`Very well observed, my boy.' cried Bob. `I hope they +do. `Heartily sorry,' he said,' for your good wife. If I +can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me +his card,' that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it +wasn't,' cried Bob,' for the sake of anything he might be +able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was +quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our +Tiny Tim, and felt with us.' + +`I'm sure he's a good soul.' said Mrs Cratchit. + +`You would be surer of it, my dear,' returned Bob,' if +you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised +- mark what I say. -- if he got Peter a better situation.' + +`Only hear that, Peter,' said Mrs Cratchit. + +`And then,' cried one of the girls,' Peter will be keeping +company with some one, and setting up for himself.' + +`Get along with you.' retorted Peter, grinning. + +`It's just as likely as not,' said Bob,' one of these days; +though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however +and when ever we part from one another, I am sure we +shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim -- shall we -- or this +first parting that there was among us.' + +`Never, father.' cried they all. + +`And I know,' said Bob,' I know, my dears, that when +we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he +was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among +ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.' + +`No, never, father.' they all cried again. + +`I am very happy,' said little Bob,' I am very happy.' + +Mrs Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the +two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook +hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from +God. + +`Spectre,' said Scrooge,' something informs me that our +parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not +how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead.' + +The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as +before -- though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there +seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were +in the Future -- into the resorts of business men, but showed +him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, +but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, +until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. + +`This courts,' said Scrooge,' through which we hurry now, +is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length +of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, +in days to come.' + +The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. + +`The house is yonder,' Scrooge exclaimed. `Why do you +point away.' + +The inexorable finger underwent no change. + +Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked +in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was +not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. +The Phantom pointed as before. + +He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither +he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. +He paused to look round before entering. + +A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name +he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a +worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and +weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up +with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A +worthy place. + +The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to +One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was +exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new +meaning in its solemn shape. + +`Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' +said Scrooge, `answer me one question. Are these the +shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of +things that May be, only.' + +Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which +it stood. + +`Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if +persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. `But if the +courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is +thus with what you show me.' + +The Spirit was immovable as ever. + +Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and +following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected +grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge. + +`Am I that man who lay upon the bed.' he cried, upon +his knees. + +The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. + +`No, Spirit. Oh no, no.' + +The finger still was there. + +`Spirit.' he cried, tight clutching at its robe,' hear me. +I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must +have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I +am past all hope.' + +For the first time the hand appeared to shake. + +`Good Spirit,' he pursued, as down upon the ground he +fell before it:' Your nature intercedes for me, and pities +me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you +have shown me, by an altered life.' + +The kind hand trembled. + +`I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it +all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the +Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I +will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I +may sponge away the writing on this stone.' + +In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to +free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. +The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. + +Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye +reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. +It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. + + +Stave 5: The End of It + +Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, +the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time +before him was his own, to make amends in! + +`I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.' +Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. `The Spirits +of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley. +Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I say +it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees.' + +He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, +that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his +call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the +Spirit, and his face was wet with tears. + +`They are not torn down.' cried Scrooge, folding one of +his bed-curtains in his arms,' they are not torn down, rings +and all. They are here -- I am here -- the shadows of the +things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will +be. I know they will.' + +His hands were busy with his garments all this time; +turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, +tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every +kind of extravagance. + +`I don't know what to do.' cried Scrooge, laughing and +crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of +himself with his stockings. `I am as light as a feather, I +am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I +am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to +everybody. A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo +here. Whoop. Hallo.' + +He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing +there: perfectly winded. + +`There's the saucepan that the gruel was in.' cried +Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. +`There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley +entered. There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas +Present, sat. There's the window where I saw the wandering +Spirits. It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. +Ha ha ha.' + +Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so +many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. +The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs. + +`I don't know what day of the month it is.' said +Scrooge. `I don't know how long I've been among the +Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never +mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo. Whoop. +Hallo here.' + +He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing +out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, +hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, +clash. Oh, glorious, glorious. + +Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his +head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; +cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; +Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. +Glorious. + +`What's to-day.' cried Scrooge, calling downward to a +boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look +about him. + +`Eh.' returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. + +`What's to-day, my fine fellow.' said Scrooge. + +`To-day.' replied the boy. `Why, Christmas Day.' + +`It's Christmas Day.' said Scrooge to himself. `I +haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. +They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of +course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow.' + +`Hallo.' returned the boy. + +`Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, +at the corner.' Scrooge inquired. + +`I should hope I did,' replied the lad. + +`An intelligent boy.' said Scrooge. `A remarkable boy. +Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that +was hanging up there -- Not the little prize Turkey: the +big one.' + +`What, the one as big as me.' returned the boy. + +`What a delightful boy.' said Scrooge. `It's a pleasure +to talk to him. Yes, my buck.' + +`It's hanging there now,' replied the boy. + +`Is it.' said Scrooge. `Go and buy it.' + +`Walk-er.' exclaimed the boy. + +`No, no,' said Scrooge, `I am in earnest. Go and buy +it, and tell them to bring it here, that I may give them the +direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and +I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than +five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown.' + +The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady +hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast. + +`I'll send it to Bon Cratchit's.' whispered Scrooge, +rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. `He shan't +know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe +Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's +will be.' + +The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady +one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to +open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's +man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker +caught his eye. + +`I shall love it, as long as I live.' cried Scrooge, patting +it with his hand. `I scarcely ever looked at it before. +What an honest expression it has in its face. It's a +wonderful knocker. -- Here's the Turkey. Hallo. Whoop. +How are you. Merry Christmas.' + +It was a Turkey. He never could have stood upon his +legs, that bird. He would have snapped them short off in a +minute, like sticks of sealing-wax. + +`Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,' +said Scrooge. `You must have a cab.' + +The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with +which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which +he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed +the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle +with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and +chuckled till he cried. + +Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to +shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when +you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the +end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of +sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. + +He dressed himself all in his best, and at last got out +into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, +as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; +and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded +every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly +pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows +said,' Good morning, sir. A merry Christmas to you.' +And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe +sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. + +He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he +beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his +counting-house the day before, and said,' Scrooge and Marley's, I +believe.' It sent a pang across his heart to think how this +old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he +knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it. + +`My dear sir,' said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and +taking the old gentleman by both his hands. `How do you +do. I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of +you. A merry Christmas to you, sir.' + +`Mr Scrooge.' + +`Yes,' said Scrooge. `That is my name, and I fear it +may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. +And will you have the goodness' -- here Scrooge whispered in +his ear. + +`Lord bless me.' cried the gentleman, as if his breath +were taken away. `My dear Mr Scrooge, are you serious.' + +`If you please,' said Scrooge. `Not a farthing less. A +great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. +Will you do me that favour.' + +`My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him. +`I don't know what to say to such munificence.' + +`Don't say anything please,' retorted Scrooge. `Come +and see me. Will you come and see me.' + +`I will.' cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he +meant to do it. + +`Thank you,' said Scrooge. `I am much obliged to you. +I thank you fifty times. Bless you.' + +He went to church, and walked about the streets, and +watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children +on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into +the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found +that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never +dreamed that any walk -- that anything -- could give him so +much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps +towards his nephew's house. + +He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the +courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and +did it: + +`Is your master at home, my dear.' said Scrooge to the +girl. Nice girl. Very. + +`Yes, sir.' + +`Where is he, my love.' said Scrooge. + +`He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll +show you up-stairs, if you please.' + +`Thank you. He knows me,' said Scrooge, with his hand +already on the dining-room lock. `I'll go in here, my dear.' + +He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. +They were looking at the table (which was spread out in +great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous +on such points, and like to see that everything is right. + +`Fred.' said Scrooge. + +Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started. +Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting +in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done +it, on any account. + +`Why bless my soul.' cried Fred,' who's that.' + +`It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. +Will you let me in, Fred.' + +Let him in. It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. +He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. +His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he +came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did +every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful +games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness. + +But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was +early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob +Cratchit coming late. That was the thing he had set his +heart upon. + +And he did it; yes, he did. The clock struck nine. No +Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen +minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his +door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank. + +His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter +too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his +pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. + +`Hallo.' growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as +near as he could feign it. `What do you mean by coming +here at this time of day.' + +`I am very sorry, sir,' said Bob. `I am behind my time.' + +`You are.' repeated Scrooge. `Yes. I think you are. +Step this way, sir, if you please.' + +`It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing from +the Tank. `It shall not be repeated. I was making rather +merry yesterday, sir.' + +`Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge,' I +am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And +therefore,' he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving +Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into +the Tank again;' and therefore I am about to raise your +salary.' + +Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He +had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, +holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help +and a strait-waistcoat. + +`A merry Christmas, Bob,' said Scrooge, with an earnestness +that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the +back. `A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I +have given you for many a year. I'll raise your salary, and +endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss +your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of +smoking bishop, Bob. Make up the fires, and buy another +coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.' + +Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and +infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was +a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a +master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or +any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old +world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, +but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was +wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this +globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill +of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these +would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they +should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in +less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was +quite enough for him. + +He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon +the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was +always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas +well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that +be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim +observed, God bless Us, Every One! + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Christmas Carol. + +Project Gutenberg Etext of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens +#14 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Benedictine University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +DAVID COPPERFIELD + + +by CHARLES DICKENS + + + +AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO +THE HON. Mr. AND Mrs. RICHARD WATSON, +OF ROCKINGHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. I Am Born +II. I Observe +III. I Have a Change +IV. I Fall into Disgrace +V. I Am Sent Away +VI. I Enlarge My Circle of Acquaintance +VII. My 'First Half' at Salem House +VIII. My Holidays. Especially One Happy Afternoon +IX. I Have a Memorable Birthday +X. I Become Neglected, and Am Provided For +XI. I Begin Life on My Own Account, and Don't Like It +XII. Liking Life on My Own Account No Better, I Form a Great Resolution +XIII. The Sequel of My Resolution +XIV. My Aunt Makes up Her Mind About Me +XV. I Make Another Beginning +XVI. I Am a New Boy in More Senses Than One +XVII. Somebody Turns Up +XVIII. A Retrospect +XIX. I Look About Me and Make a Discovery +XX. Steerforth's Home +XXI. Little Em'ly +XXII. Some Old Scenes, and Some New People +XXIII. I Corroborate Mr. Dick, and Choose a Profession +XXIV. My First Dissipation +XXV. Good and Bad Angels +XXVI. I Fall into Captivity +XXVII. Tommy Traddles +XXVIII. Mr. Micawber's Gauntlet +XXIX. I Visit Steerforth at His Home, Again +XXX. A Loss +XXXI. A Greater Loss +XXXII. The Beginning of a Long Journey +XXXIII. Blissful +XXXIV. My Aunt Astonishes Me +XXXV. Depression +XXXVI. Enthusiasm +XXXVII. A Little Cold Water +XXXVIII. A Dissolution of Partnership +XXXIX. Wickfield and Heep +XL. The Wanderer +XLI. Dora's Aunts +XLII. Mischief +XLIII. Another Retrospect +XLIV. Our Housekeeping +XLV. Mr. Dick Fulfils My Aunt's Predictions +XLVI. Intelligence +XLVII. Martha +XLVIII. Domestic +XLIX. I Am Involved in Mystery +L. Mr. Peggotty's Dream Comes True +LI. The Beginning of a Longer Journey +LII. I Assist at an Explosion +LIII. Another Retrospect +LIV. Mr. Micawber's Transactions +LV. Tempest +LVI. The New Wound, and the Old +LVII. The Emigrants +LVIII. Absence +LIX. Return +LX. Agnes +LXI. I Am Shown Two Interesting Penitents +LXII. A Light Shines on My Way +LXIII. A Visitor +LXIV. A Last Retrospect + + + + +PREFACE TO 1850 EDITION + + +I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this Book, +in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with +the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My +interest in it, is so recent and strong; and my mind is so divided +between pleasure and regret - pleasure in the achievement of a long +design, regret in the separation from many companions - that I am +in danger of wearying the reader whom I love, with personal +confidences, and private emotions. + +Besides which, all that I could say of the Story, to any purpose, +I have endeavoured to say in it. + +It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how +sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years' +imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing +some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the +creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet, I have +nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which +might be of less moment still) that no one can ever believe this +Narrative, in the reading, more than I have believed it in the +writing. + +Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. I cannot +close this Volume more agreeably to myself, than with a hopeful +glance towards the time when I shall again put forth my two green +leaves once a month, and with a faithful remembrance of the genial +sun and showers that have fallen on these leaves of David +Copperfield, and made me happy. + London, October, 1850. + + +PREFACE TO +THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION + + +I REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book, that I did not +find it easy to get sufficiently far away from it, in the first +sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure +which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it +was so recent and strong, and my mind was so divided between +pleasure and regret - pleasure in the achievement of a long design, +regret in the separation from many companions - that I was in +danger of wearying the reader with personal confidences and private +emotions. + +Besides which, all that I could have said of the Story to any +purpose, I had endeavoured to say in it. + +It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how +sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years' +imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing +some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the +creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet, I had +nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which +might be of less moment still), that no one can ever believe this +Narrative, in the reading, more than I believed it in the writing. + +So true are these avowals at the present day, that I can now only +take the reader into one confidence more. Of all my books, I like +this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent +to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that +family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I +have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is +DAVID COPPERFIELD. + 1869 + + + + +THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND +EXPERIENCE OF +DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER + + + +CHAPTER 1 +I AM BORN + + + +Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether +that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. +To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was +born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve +o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, +and I began to cry, simultaneously. + +In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared +by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had +taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any +possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I +was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was +privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably +attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either +gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night. + +I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can +show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or +falsified by the result. On the second branch of the question, I +will only remark, that unless I ran through that part of my +inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into it yet. +But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this +property; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of +it, he is heartily welcome to keep it. + +I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the +newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going +people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith +and preferred cork jackets, I don't know; all I know is, that there +was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney +connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in +cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from +drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the advertisement was +withdrawn at a dead loss - for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's +own sherry was in the market then - and ten years afterwards, the +caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to +fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five +shillings. I was present myself, and I remember to have felt quite +uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of +in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a +hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated +five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short - as +it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to +endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which +will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was +never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have +understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she +never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; and +that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial) she, to the +last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and +others, who had the presumption to go 'meandering' about the world. +It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea +perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She +always returned, with greater emphasis and with an instinctive +knowledge of the strength of her objection, 'Let us have no +meandering.' + +Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back to my birth. + +I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or 'there by', as they say +in Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father's eyes had +closed upon the light of this world six months, when mine opened on +it. There is something strange to me, even now, in the reflection +that he never saw me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy +remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his +white grave-stone in the churchyard, and of the indefinable +compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark +night, when our little parlour was warm and bright with fire and +candle, and the doors of our house were - almost cruelly, it seemed +to me sometimes - bolted and locked against it. + +An aunt of my father's, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of +whom I shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal +magnate of our family. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor +mother always called her, when she sufficiently overcame her dread +of this formidable personage to mention her at all (which was +seldom), had been married to a husband younger than herself, who +was very handsome, except in the sense of the homely adage, +'handsome is, that handsome does' - for he was strongly suspected +of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of having once, on a +disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined +arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window. +These evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betsey +to pay him off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He went +to India with his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in +our family, he was once seen riding on an elephant, in company with +a Baboon; but I think it must have been a Baboo - or a Begum. +Anyhow, from India tidings of his death reached home, within ten +years. How they affected my aunt, nobody knew; for immediately +upon the separation, she took her maiden name again, bought a +cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off, established +herself there as a single woman with one servant, and was +understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible +retirement. + +My father had once been a favourite of hers, I believe; but she was +mortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother +was 'a wax doll'. She had never seen my mother, but she knew her +to be not yet twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never met again. +He was double my mother's age when he married, and of but a +delicate constitution. He died a year afterwards, and, as I have +said, six months before I came into the world. + +This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what I may be +excused for calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can +make no claim therefore to have known, at that time, how matters +stood; or to have any remembrance, founded on the evidence of my +own senses, of what follows. + +My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very +low in spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding +heavily about herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was +already welcomed by some grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer +upstairs, to a world not at all excited on the subject of his +arrival; my mother, I say, was sitting by the fire, that bright, +windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and very doubtful of +ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her, when, +lifting her eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite, she saw +a strange lady coming up the garden. + +MY mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was +Miss Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over +the garden-fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell +rigidity of figure and composure of countenance that could have +belonged to nobody else. + +When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity. +My father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like +any ordinary Christian; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she +came and looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of +her nose against the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother +used to say it became perfectly flat and white in a moment. + +She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced +I am indebted to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday. + +My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it +in the corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the room, slowly and +inquiringly, began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like +a Saracen's Head in a Dutch clock, until they reached my mother. +Then she made a frown and a gesture to my mother, like one who was +accustomed to be obeyed, to come and open the door. My mother +went. + +'Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,' said Miss Betsey; the emphasis +referring, perhaps, to my mother's mourning weeds, and her +condition. + +'Yes,' said my mother, faintly. + +'Miss Trotwood,' said the visitor. 'You have heard of her, I dare +say?' + +My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And she had a +disagreeable consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had +been an overpowering pleasure. + +'Now you see her,' said Miss Betsey. My mother bent her head, and +begged her to walk in. + +They went into the parlour my mother had come from, the fire in the +best room on the other side of the passage not being lighted - not +having been lighted, indeed, since my father's funeral; and when +they were both seated, and Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, +after vainly trying to restrain herself, began to cry. +'Oh tut, tut, tut!' said Miss Betsey, in a hurry. 'Don't do that! +Come, come!' + +My mother couldn't help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she +had had her cry out. + +'Take off your cap, child,' said Miss Betsey, 'and let me see you.' + +MY mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this +odd request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she +did as she was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her +hair (which was luxuriant and beautiful) fell all about her face. + +'Why, bless my heart!' exclaimed Miss Betsey. 'You are a very +Baby!' + +My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance even for +her years; she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, +and said, sobbing, that indeed she was afraid she was but a +childish widow, and would be but a childish mother if she lived. +In a short pause which ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss +Betsey touch her hair, and that with no ungentle hand; but, looking +at her, in her timid hope, she found that lady sitting with the +skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands folded on one knee, and her +feet upon the fender, frowning at the fire. + +'In the name of Heaven,' said Miss Betsey, suddenly, 'why Rookery?' + +'Do you mean the house, ma'am?' asked my mother. + +'Why Rookery?' said Miss Betsey. 'Cookery would have been more to +the purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of +you.' + +'The name was Mr. Copperfield's choice,' returned my mother. 'When +he bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks about +it.' + +The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall +old elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother +nor Miss Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent +to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after +a few seconds of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing +their wild arms about, as if their late confidences were really too +wicked for their peace of mind, some weatherbeaten ragged old +rooks'-nests, burdening their higher branches, swung like wrecks +upon a stormy sea. + +'Where are the birds?' asked Miss Betsey. + +'The -? ' My mother had been thinking of something else. + +'The rooks - what has become of them?' asked Miss Betsey. + +'There have not been any since we have lived here,' said my mother. +'We thought - Mr. Copperfield thought - it was quite a large +rookery; but the nests were very old ones, and the birds have +deserted them a long while.' + +'David Copperfield all over!' cried Miss Betsey. 'David +Copperfield from head to foot! Calls a house a rookery when +there's not a rook near it, and takes the birds on trust, because +he sees the nests!' + +'Mr. Copperfield,' returned my mother, 'is dead, and if you dare to +speak unkindly of him to me -' + +My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention of +committing an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily +have settled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far +better training for such an encounter than she was that evening. +But it passed with the action of rising from her chair; and she sat +down again very meekly, and fainted. + +When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsey had restored her, +whichever it was, she found the latter standing at the window. The +twilight was by this time shading down into darkness; and dimly as +they saw each other, they could not have done that without the aid +of the fire. + +'Well?' said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had +only been taking a casual look at the prospect; 'and when do you +expect -' + +'I am all in a tremble,' faltered my mother. 'I don't know what's +the matter. I shall die, I am sure!' + +'No, no, no,' said Miss Betsey. 'Have some tea.' + +'Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good?' cried +my mother in a helpless manner. + +'Of course it will,' said Miss Betsey. 'It's nothing but fancy. +What do you call your girl?' + +'I don't know that it will be a girl, yet, ma'am,' said my mother +innocently. + +'Bless the Baby!' exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting the +second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer upstairs, but +applying it to my mother instead of me, 'I don't mean that. I mean +your servant-girl.' + +'Peggotty,' said my mother. + +'Peggotty!' repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. 'Do you +mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian +church, and got herself named Peggotty?' +'It's her surname,' said my mother, faintly. 'Mr. Copperfield +called her by it, because her Christian name was the same as mine.' + +'Here! Peggotty!' cried Miss Betsey, opening the parlour door. +'Tea. Your mistress is a little unwell. Don't dawdle.' + +Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had +been a recognized authority in the house ever since it had been a +house, and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggotty coming +along the passage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, +Miss Betsey shut the door again, and sat down as before: with her +feet on the fender, the skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands +folded on one knee. + +'You were speaking about its being a girl,' said Miss Betsey. 'I +have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it +must be a girl. Now child, from the moment of the birth of this +girl -' + +'Perhaps boy,' my mother took the liberty of putting in. + +'I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl,' returned +Miss Betsey. 'Don't contradict. From the moment of this girl's +birth, child, I intend to be her friend. I intend to be her +godmother, and I beg you'll call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. +There must be no mistakes in life with THIS Betsey Trotwood. There +must be no trifling with HER affections, poor dear. She must be +well brought up, and well guarded from reposing any foolish +confidences where they are not deserved. I must make that MY +care.' + +There was a twitch of Miss Betsey's head, after each of these +sentences, as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and +she repressed any plainer reference to them by strong constraint. +So my mother suspected, at least, as she observed her by the low +glimmer of the fire: too much scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in +herself, and too subdued and bewildered altogether, to observe +anything very clearly, or to know what to say. + +'And was David good to you, child?' asked Miss Betsey, when she had +been silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had +gradually ceased. 'Were you comfortable together?' + +'We were very happy,' said my mother. 'Mr. Copperfield was only +too good to me.' + +'What, he spoilt you, I suppose?' returned Miss Betsey. + +'For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world +again, yes, I fear he did indeed,' sobbed my mother. + +'Well! Don't cry!' said Miss Betsey. 'You were not equally +matched, child - if any two people can be equally matched - and so +I asked the question. You were an orphan, weren't you?' +'Yes.' + +'And a governess?' + +'I was nursery-governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield came to +visit. Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal +of notice of me, and paid me a good deal of attention, and at last +proposed to me. And I accepted him. And so we were married,' said +my mother simply. + +'Ha! Poor Baby!' mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon +the fire. 'Do you know anything?' + +'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' faltered my mother. + +'About keeping house, for instance,' said Miss Betsey. + +'Not much, I fear,' returned my mother. 'Not so much as I could +wish. But Mr. Copperfield was teaching me -' + +('Much he knew about it himself!') said Miss Betsey in a +parenthesis. + +- 'And I hope I should have improved, being very anxious to learn, +and he very patient to teach me, if the great misfortune of his +death' - my mother broke down again here, and could get no farther. + +'Well, well!' said Miss Betsey. + +-'I kept my housekeeping-book regularly, and balanced it with Mr. +Copperfield every night,' cried my mother in another burst of +distress, and breaking down again. + +'Well, well!' said Miss Betsey. 'Don't cry any more.' + +- 'And I am sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, +except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being +too much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens +and nines,' resumed my mother in another burst, and breaking down +again. + +'You'll make yourself ill,' said Miss Betsey, 'and you know that +will not be good either for you or for my god-daughter. Come! You +mustn't do it!' + +This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her +increasing indisposition had a larger one. There was an interval +of silence, only broken by Miss Betsey's occasionally ejaculating +'Ha!' as she sat with her feet upon the fender. + +'David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know,' +said she, by and by. 'What did he do for you?' + +'Mr. Copperfield,' said my mother, answering with some difficulty, +'was so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part +of it to me.' + +'How much?' asked Miss Betsey. + +'A hundred and five pounds a year,' said my mother. + +'He might have done worse,' said my aunt. + +The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much +worse that Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and +seeing at a glance how ill she was, - as Miss Betsey might have +done sooner if there had been light enough, - conveyed her upstairs +to her own room with all speed; and immediately dispatched Ham +Peggotty, her nephew, who had been for some days past secreted in +the house, unknown to my mother, as a special messenger in case of +emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor. + +Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived +within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of +portentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet +tied over her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers' cotton. +Peggotty knowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing +about her, she was quite a mystery in the parlour; and the fact of +her having a magazine of jewellers' cotton in her pocket, and +sticking the article in her ears in that way, did not detract from +the solemnity of her presence. + +The doctor having been upstairs and come down again, and having +satisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of this +unknown lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for +some hours, laid himself out to be polite and social. He was the +meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and +out of a room, to take up the less space. He walked as softly as +the Ghost in Hamlet, and more slowly. He carried his head on one +side, partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest +propitiation of everybody else. It is nothing to say that he +hadn't a word to throw at a dog. He couldn't have thrown a word at +a mad dog. He might have offered him one gently, or half a one, or +a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as he walked; but he +wouldn't have been rude to him, and he couldn't have been quick +with him, for any earthly consideration. + +Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt with his head on one side, +and making her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers' +cotton, as he softly touched his left ear: + +'Some local irritation, ma'am?' + +'What!' replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a +cork. + +Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness - as he told my mother +afterwards - that it was a mercy he didn't lose his presence of +mind. But he repeated sweetly: + +'Some local irritation, ma'am?' + +'Nonsense!' replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one blow. + +Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her +feebly, as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was called +upstairs again. After some quarter of an hour's absence, he +returned. + +'Well?' said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to +him. + +'Well, ma'am,' returned Mr. Chillip, 'we are- we are progressing +slowly, ma'am.' + +'Ba--a--ah!' said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the contemptuous +interjection. And corked herself as before. + +Really - really - as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was almost +shocked; speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was +almost shocked. But he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for +nearly two hours, as she sat looking at the fire, until he was +again called out. After another absence, he again returned. + +'Well?' said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again. + +'Well, ma'am,' returned Mr. Chillip, 'we are - we are progressing + +slowly, ma'am.' + +'Ya--a--ah!' said my aunt. With such a snarl at him, that Mr. +Chillip absolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to +break his spirit, he said afterwards. He preferred to go and sit +upon the stairs, in the dark and a strong draught, until he was +again sent for. + +Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very +dragon at his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a +credible witness, reported next day, that happening to peep in at +the parlour-door an hour after this, he was instantly descried by +Miss Betsey, then walking to and fro in a state of agitation, and +pounced upon before he could make his escape. That there were now +occasional sounds of feet and voices overhead which he inferred the +cotton did not exclude, from the circumstance of his evidently +being clutched by the lady as a victim on whom to expend her +superabundant agitation when the sounds were loudest. That, +marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he had +been taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, +rumpled his hair, made light of his linen, stopped his ears as if +she confounded them with her own, and otherwise tousled and +maltreated him. This was in part confirmed by his aunt, who saw +him at half past twelve o'clock, soon after his release, and +affirmed that he was then as red as I was. + +The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, +if at any time. He sidled into the parlour as soon as he was at +liberty, and said to my aunt in his meekest manner: + +'Well, ma'am, I am happy to congratulate you.' + +'What upon?' said my aunt, sharply. + +Mr. Chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my +aunt's manner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little +smile, to mollify her. + +'Mercy on the man, what's he doing!' cried my aunt, impatiently. +'Can't he speak?' + +'Be calm, my dear ma'am,' said Mr. Chillip, in his softest accents. + +'There is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma'am. Be calm.' + +It has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn't +shake him, and shake what he had to say, out of him. She only +shook her own head at him, but in a way that made him quail. + +'Well, ma'am,' resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had courage, 'I +am happy to congratulate you. All is now over, ma'am, and well +over.' + +During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the +delivery of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly. + +'How is she?' said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still +tied on one of them. + +'Well, ma'am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope,' returned +Mr. Chillip. 'Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother +to be, under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot +be any objection to your seeing her presently, ma'am. It may do +her good.' + +'And SHE. How is SHE?' said my aunt, sharply. + +Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at +my aunt like an amiable bird. + +'The baby,' said my aunt. 'How is she?' + +'Ma'am,' returned Mr. Chillip, 'I apprehended you had known. It's +a boy.' + +My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in +the manner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip's head with it, +put it on bent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like +a discontented fairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, +whom it was popularly supposed I was entitled to see; and never +came back any more. + +No. I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed; but Betsey +Trotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and +shadows, the tremendous region whence I had so lately travelled; +and the light upon the window of our room shone out upon the +earthly bourne of all such travellers, and the mound above the +ashes and the dust that once was he, without whom I had never been. + + + +CHAPTER 2 +I OBSERVE + + +The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I +look far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her +pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all, +and eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole +neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that +I wondered the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples. + +I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, +dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and +I going unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression +on my mind which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of +the touch of Peggotty's forefinger as she used to hold it out to +me, and of its being roughened by needlework, like a pocket +nutmeg-grater. + +This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go +farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I +believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children +to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I +think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may +with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than +to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to +retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being +pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from +their childhood. + +I might have a misgiving that I am 'meandering' in stopping to say +this, but that it brings me to remark that I build these +conclusions, in part upon my own experience of myself; and if it +should appear from anything I may set down in this narrative that +I was a child of close observation, or that as a man I have a +strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim to both of +these characteristics. + +Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the +first objects I can remember as standing out by themselves from a +confusion of things, are my mother and Peggotty. What else do I +remember? Let me see. + + +There comes out of the cloud, our house - not new to me, but quite +familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground-floor is +Peggotty's kitchen, opening into a back yard; with a pigeon-house +on a pole, in the centre, without any pigeons in it; a great dog- +kennel in a corner, without any dog; and a quantity of fowls that +look terribly tall to me, walking about, in a menacing and +ferocious manner. There is one cock who gets upon a post to crow, +and seems to take particular notice of me as I look at him through +the kitchen window, who makes me shiver, he is so fierce. Of the +geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after me with their +long necks stretched out when I go that way, I dream at night: as +a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions. + +Here is a long passage - what an enormous perspective I make of it! +- leading from Peggotty's kitchen to the front door. A dark +store-room opens out of it, and that is a place to be run past at +night; for I don't know what may be among those tubs and jars and +old tea-chests, when there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning +light, letting a mouldy air come out of the door, in which there is +the smell of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all at one +whiff. Then there are the two parlours: the parlour in which we +sit of an evening, my mother and I and Peggotty - for Peggotty is +quite our companion, when her work is done and we are alone - and +the best parlour where we sit on a Sunday; grandly, but not so +comfortably. There is something of a doleful air about that room +to me, for Peggotty has told me - I don't know when, but apparently +ages ago - about my father's funeral, and the company having their +black cloaks put on. One Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty +and me in there, how Lazarus was raised up from the dead. And I am +so frightened that they are afterwards obliged to take me out of +bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, +with the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn +moon. + +There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as the grass +of that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing +half so quiet as its tombstones. The sheep are feeding there, when +I kneel up, early in the morning, in my little bed in a closet +within my mother's room, to look out at it; and I see the red light +shining on the sun-dial, and think within myself, 'Is the sun-dial +glad, I wonder, that it can tell the time again?' + +Here is our pew in the church. What a high-backed pew! With a +window near it, out of which our house can be seen, and IS seen +many times during the morning's service, by Peggotty, who likes to +make herself as sure as she can that it's not being robbed, or is +not in flames. But though Peggotty's eye wanders, she is much +offended if mine does, and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, +that I am to look at the clergyman. But I can't always look at him +- I know him without that white thing on, and I am afraid of his +wondering why I stare so, and perhaps stopping the service to +inquire - and what am I to do? It's a dreadful thing to gape, but +I must do something. I look at my mother, but she pretends not to +see me. I look at a boy in the aisle, and he makes faces at me. +I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the +porch, and there I see a stray sheep - I don't mean a sinner, but +mutton - half making up his mind to come into the church. I feel +that if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted to say +something out loud; and what would become of me then! I look up at +the monumental tablets on the wall, and try to think of Mr. Bodgers +late of this parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must +have been, when affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and +physicians were in vain. I wonder whether they called in Mr. +Chillip, and he was in vain; and if so, how he likes to be reminded +of it once a week. I look from Mr. Chillip, in his Sunday +neckcloth, to the pulpit; and think what a good place it would be +to play in, and what a castle it would make, with another boy +coming up the stairs to attack it, and having the velvet cushion +with the tassels thrown down on his head. In time my eyes +gradually shut up; and, from seeming to hear the clergyman singing +a drowsy song in the heat, I hear nothing, until I fall off the +seat with a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by +Peggotty. + +And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed +bedroom-windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and +the ragged old rooks'-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the +bottom of the front garden. Now I am in the garden at the back, +beyond the yard where the empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are - +a very preserve of butterflies, as I remember it, with a high +fence, and a gate and padlock; where the fruit clusters on the +trees, riper and richer than fruit has ever been since, in any +other garden, and where my mother gathers some in a basket, while +I stand by, bolting furtive gooseberries, and trying to look +unmoved. A great wind rises, and the summer is gone in a moment. +We are playing in the winter twilight, dancing about the parlour. +When my mother is out of breath and rests herself in an +elbow-chair, I watch her winding her bright curls round her +fingers, and straitening her waist, and nobody knows better than I +do that she likes to look so well, and is proud of being so pretty. + +That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and a sense that +we were both a little afraid of Peggotty, and submitted ourselves +in most things to her direction, were among the first opinions - if +they may be so called - that I ever derived from what I saw. + +Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlour fire, alone. +I had been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I must have read +very perspicuously, or the poor soul must have been deeply +interested, for I remember she had a cloudy impression, after I had +done, that they were a sort of vegetable. I was tired of reading, +and dead sleepy; but having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until +my mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbour's, I +would rather have died upon my post (of course) than have gone to +bed. I had reached that stage of sleepiness when Peggotty seemed +to swell and grow immensely large. I propped my eyelids open with +my two forefingers, and looked perseveringly at her as she sat at +work; at the little bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread - how +old it looked, being so wrinkled in all directions! - at the little +house with a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived; at her +work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of St. Paul's Cathedral +(with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her +finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so sleepy, that +I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment, I was gone. + +'Peggotty,' says I, suddenly, 'were you ever married?' + +'Lord, Master Davy,' replied Peggotty. 'What's put marriage in +your head?' + +She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. And then +she stopped in her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn +out to its thread's length. + +'But WERE you ever married, Peggotty?' says I. 'You are a very +handsome woman, an't you?' + +I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly; but +of another school of beauty, I considered her a perfect example. +There was a red velvet footstool in the best parlour, on which my +mother had painted a nosegay. The ground-work of that stool, and +Peggotty's complexion appeared to me to be one and the same thing. +The stool was smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that made no +difference. + +'Me handsome, Davy!' said Peggotty. 'Lawk, no, my dear! But what +put marriage in your head?' + +'I don't know! - You mustn't marry more than one person at a time, +may you, Peggotty?' + +'Certainly not,' says Peggotty, with the promptest decision. + +'But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may +marry another person, mayn't you, Peggotty?' + +'YOU MAY,' says Peggotty, 'if you choose, my dear. That's a matter +of opinion.' + +'But what is your opinion, Peggotty?' said I. + +I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so +curiously at me. + +'My opinion is,' said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a +little indecision and going on with her work, 'that I never was +married myself, Master Davy, and that I don't expect to be. That's +all I know about the subject.' + +'You an't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?' said I, after +sitting quiet for a minute. + +I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was +quite mistaken: for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking +of her own), and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within +them, and gave it a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, +because, being very plump, whenever she made any little exertion +after she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back of her gown +flew off. And I recollect two bursting to the opposite side of the +parlour, while she was hugging me. + +'Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills,' said Peggotty, +who was not quite right in the name yet, 'for I an't heard half +enough.' + +I couldn't quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why +she was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we +returned to those monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and +we left their eggs in the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran +away from them, and baffled them by constantly turning, which they +were unable to do quickly, on account of their unwieldy make; and +we went into the water after them, as natives, and put sharp pieces +of timber down their throats; and in short we ran the whole +crocodile gauntlet. I did, at least; but I had my doubts of +Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into various +parts of her face and arms, all the time. + +We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, +when the garden-bell rang. We went out to the door; and there was +my mother, looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a +gentleman with beautiful black hair and whiskers, who had walked +home with us from church last Sunday. + +As my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me in her arms +and kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged +little fellow than a monarch - or something like that; for my later +understanding comes, I am sensible, to my aid here. + +'What does that mean?' I asked him, over her shoulder. + +He patted me on the head; but somehow, I didn't like him or his +deep voice, and I was jealous that his hand should touch my +mother's in touching me - which it did. I put it away, as well as +I could. + +'Oh, Davy!' remonstrated my mother. + +'Dear boy!' said the gentleman. 'I cannot wonder at his devotion!' + +I never saw such a beautiful colour on my mother's face before. +She gently chid me for being rude; and, keeping me close to her +shawl, turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as +to bring her home. She put out her hand to him as she spoke, and, +as he met it with his own, she glanced, I thought, at me. + +'Let us say "good night", my fine boy,' said the gentleman, when he +had bent his head - I saw him! - over my mother's little glove. + +'Good night!' said I. + +'Come! Let us be the best friends in the world!' said the +gentleman, laughing. 'Shake hands!' + +My right hand was in my mother's left, so I gave him the other. + +'Why, that's the Wrong hand, Davy!' laughed the gentleman. + +MY mother drew my right hand forward, but I was resolved, for my +former reason, not to give it him, and I did not. I gave him the +other, and he shook it heartily, and said I was a brave fellow, and +went away. + +At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a +last look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut. + +Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the +fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlour. My mother, +contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair +by the fire, remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing +to herself. + +- 'Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma'am,' said Peggotty, +standing as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a +candlestick in her hand. + +'Much obliged to you, Peggotty,' returned my mother, in a cheerful +voice, 'I have had a VERY pleasant evening.' + +'A stranger or so makes an agreeable change,' suggested Peggotty. + +'A very agreeable change, indeed,' returned my mother. + +Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, +and my mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not +so sound asleep but that I could hear voices, without hearing what +they said. When I half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found +Peggotty and my mother both in tears, and both talking. + +'Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn't have liked,' said +Peggotty. 'That I say, and that I swear!' + +'Good Heavens!' cried my mother, 'you'll drive me mad! Was ever +any poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do +myself the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been +married, Peggotty?' + +'God knows you have, ma'am,' returned Peggotty. +'Then, how can you dare,' said my mother - 'you know I don't mean +how can you dare, Peggotty, but how can you have the heart - to +make me so uncomfortable and say such bitter things to me, when you +are well aware that I haven't, out of this place, a single friend +to turn to?' + +'The more's the reason,' returned Peggotty, 'for saying that it +won't do. No! That it won't do. No! No price could make it do. +No!' - I thought Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, +she was so emphatic with it. + +'How can you be so aggravating,' said my mother, shedding more +tears than before, 'as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can +you go on as if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I +tell you over and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the +commonest civilities nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. +What am I to do? If people are so silly as to indulge the +sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to do, I ask you? Would you +wish me to shave my head and black my face, or disfigure myself +with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I dare say you +would, Peggotty. I dare say you'd quite enjoy it.' + +Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I +thought. + +'And my dear boy,' cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in +which I was, and caressing me, 'my own little Davy! Is it to be +hinted to me that I am wanting in affection for my precious +treasure, the dearest little fellow that ever was!' + +'Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing,' said Peggotty. + +'You did, Peggotty!' returned my mother. 'You know you did. What +else was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind +creature, when you know as well as I do, that on his account only +last quarter I wouldn't buy myself a new parasol, though that old +green one is frayed the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly +mangy? You know it is, Peggotty. You can't deny it.' Then, +turning affectionately to me, with her cheek against mine, 'Am I a +naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty, cruel, selfish, bad mama? +Say I am, my child; say "yes", dear boy, and Peggotty will love +you; and Peggotty's love is a great deal better than mine, Davy. +I don't love you at all, do I?' + +At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest +of the party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was +quite heart-broken myself, and am afraid that in the first +transports of wounded tenderness I called Peggotty a 'Beast'. That +honest creature was in deep affliction, I remember, and must have +become quite buttonless on the occasion; for a little volley of +those explosives went off, when, after having made it up with my +mother, she kneeled down by the elbow-chair, and made it up with +me. + +We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a +long time; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, +I found my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I +fell asleep in her arms, after that, and slept soundly. + +Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again, +or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he +reappeared, I cannot recall. I don't profess to be clear about +dates. But there he was, in church, and he walked home with us +afterwards. He came in, too, to look at a famous geranium we had, +in the parlour-window. It did not appear to me that he took much +notice of it, but before he went he asked my mother to give him a +bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it for himself, but +he refused to do that - I could not understand why - so she plucked +it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would never, +never part with it any more; and I thought he must be quite a fool +not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two. + +Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had +always been. My mother deferred to her very much - more than +usual, it occurred to me - and we were all three excellent friends; +still we were different from what we used to be, and were not so +comfortable among ourselves. Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty +perhaps objected to my mother's wearing all the pretty dresses she +had in her drawers, or to her going so often to visit at that +neighbour's; but I couldn't, to my satisfaction, make out how it +was. + +Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black +whiskers. I liked him no better than at first, and had the same +uneasy jealousy of him; but if I had any reason for it beyond a +child's instinctive dislike, and a general idea that Peggotty and +I could make much of my mother without any help, it certainly was +not THE reason that I might have found if I had been older. No +such thing came into my mind, or near it. I could observe, in +little pieces, as it were; but as to making a net of a number of +these pieces, and catching anybody in it, that was, as yet, beyond +me. + +One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when +Mr. Murdstone - I knew him by that name now - came by, on +horseback. He reined up his horse to salute my mother, and said he +was going to Lowestoft to see some friends who were there with a +yacht, and merrily proposed to take me on the saddle before him if +I would like the ride. + +The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the +idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing +at the garden-gate, that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent +upstairs to Peggotty to be made spruce; and in the meantime Mr. +Murdstone dismounted, and, with his horse's bridle drawn over his +arm, walked slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar +fence, while my mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to +keep him company. I recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them +from my little window; I recollect how closely they seemed to be +examining the sweetbriar between them, as they strolled along; and +how, from being in a perfectly angelic temper, Peggotty turned +cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong way, excessively +hard. + +Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green +turf by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one +arm, and I don't think I was restless usually; but I could not make +up my mind to sit in front of him without turning my head +sometimes, and looking up in his face. He had that kind of shallow +black eye - I want a better word to express an eye that has no +depth in it to be looked into - which, when it is abstracted, seems +from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured, for a moment at a +time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced at him, I observed +that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what he was +thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker and +thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit for +being. A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the +dotted indication of the strong black beard he shaved close every +day, reminded me of the wax-work that had travelled into our +neighbourhood some half-a-year before. This, his regular eyebrows, +and the rich white, and black, and brown, of his complexion - +confound his complexion, and his memory! - made me think him, in +spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no doubt that +my poor dear mother thought him so too. + +We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking +cigars in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least +four chairs, and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a +heap of coats and boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together. + +They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner, when +we came in, and said, 'Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were +dead!' + +'Not yet,' said Mr. Murdstone. + +'And who's this shaver?' said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of +me. + +'That's Davy,' returned Mr. Murdstone. + +'Davy who?' said the gentleman. 'Jones?' + +'Copperfield,' said Mr. Murdstone. + +'What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield's encumbrance?' cried the +gentleman. 'The pretty little widow?' + +'Quinion,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'take care, if you please. +Somebody's sharp.' + +'Who is?' asked the gentleman, laughing. +I looked up, quickly; being curious to know. + +'Only Brooks of Sheffield,' said Mr. Murdstone. + +I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield; +for, at first, I really thought it was I. + +There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr. +Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when +he was mentioned, and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. +After some laughing, the gentleman whom he had called Quinion, +said: + +'And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to +the projected business?' + +'Why, I don't know that Brooks understands much about it at +present,' replied Mr. Murdstone; 'but he is not generally +favourable, I believe.' + +There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring +the bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; +and when the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, +and, before I drank it, stand up and say, 'Confusion to Brooks of +Sheffield!' The toast was received with great applause, and such +hearty laughter that it made me laugh too; at which they laughed +the more. In short, we quite enjoyed ourselves. + +We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and +looked at things through a telescope - I could make out nothing +myself when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could - and +then we came back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we +were out, the two gentlemen smoked incessantly - which, I thought, +if I might judge from the smell of their rough coats, they must +have been doing, ever since the coats had first come home from the +tailor's. I must not forget that we went on board the yacht, where +they all three descended into the cabin, and were busy with some +papers. I saw them quite hard at work, when I looked down through +the open skylight. They left me, during this time, with a very +nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very small shiny +hat upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat on, with +'Skylark' in capital letters across the chest. I thought it was +his name; and that as he lived on board ship and hadn't a street +door to put his name on, he put it there instead; but when I called +him Mr. Skylark, he said it meant the vessel. + +I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than +the two gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked +freely with one another, but seldom with him. It appeared to me +that he was more clever and cold than they were, and that they +regarded him with something of my own feeling. I remarked that, +once or twice when Mr. Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. +Murdstone sideways, as if to make sure of his not being displeased; +and that once when Mr. Passnidge (the other gentleman) was in high +spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave him a secret caution with +his eyes, to observe Mr. Murdstone, who was sitting stern and +silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. Murdstone laughed at all that +day, except at the Sheffield joke - and that, by the by, was his +own. + +We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening, and +my mother and he had another stroll by the sweetbriar, while I was +sent in to get my tea. When he was gone, my mother asked me all +about the day I had had, and what they had said and done. I +mentioned what they had said about her, and she laughed, and told +me they were impudent fellows who talked nonsense - but I knew it +pleased her. I knew it quite as well as I know it now. I took the +opportunity of asking if she was at all acquainted with Mr. Brooks +of Sheffield, but she answered No, only she supposed he must be a +manufacturer in the knife and fork way. + +Can I say of her face - altered as I have reason to remember it, +perished as I know it is - that it is gone, when here it comes +before me at this instant, as distinct as any face that I may +choose to look on in a crowded street? Can I say of her innocent +and girlish beauty, that it faded, and was no more, when its breath +falls on my cheek now, as it fell that night? Can I say she ever +changed, when my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only; +and, truer to its loving youth than I have been, or man ever is, +still holds fast what it cherished then? + +I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this +talk, and she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down +playfully by the side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her +hands, and laughing, said: + +'What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I can't believe it.' + +'"Bewitching -"' I began. + +My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me. + +'It was never bewitching,' she said, laughing. 'It never could +have been bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn't!' + +'Yes, it was. "Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield",' I repeated stoutly. +'And, "pretty."' + +'No, no, it was never pretty. Not pretty,' interposed my mother, +laying her fingers on my lips again. + +'Yes it was. "Pretty little widow."' + +'What foolish, impudent creatures!' cried my mother, laughing and +covering her face. 'What ridiculous men! An't they? Davy dear -' + +'Well, Ma.' + +'Don't tell Peggotty; she might be angry with them. I am +dreadfully angry with them myself; but I would rather Peggotty +didn't know.' + +I promised, of course; and we kissed one another over and over +again, and I soon fell fast asleep. + +It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next +day when Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition +I am about to mention; but it was probably about two months +afterwards. + +We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as +before), in company with the stocking and the yard-measure, and the +bit of wax, and the box with St. Paul's on the lid, and the +crocodile book, when Peggotty, after looking at me several times, +and opening her mouth as if she were going to speak, without doing +it - which I thought was merely gaping, or I should have been +rather alarmed - said coaxingly: + +'Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a +fortnight at my brother's at Yarmouth? Wouldn't that be a treat?' + +'Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?' I inquired, +provisionally. + +'Oh, what an agreeable man he is!' cried Peggotty, holding up her +hands. 'Then there's the sea; and the boats and ships; and the +fishermen; and the beach; and Am to play with -' + +Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but +she spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar. + +I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would +indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say? + +'Why then I'll as good as bet a guinea,' said Peggotty, intent upon +my face, 'that she'll let us go. I'll ask her, if you like, as +soon as ever she comes home. There now!' + +'But what's she to do while we're away?' said I, putting my small +elbows on the table to argue the point. 'She can't live by +herself.' + +If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel +of that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and +not worth darning. + +'I say! Peggotty! She can't live by herself, you know.' + +'Oh, bless you!' said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. +'Don't you know? She's going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. +Grayper. Mrs. Grayper's going to have a lot of company.' + +Oh! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited, in the +utmost impatience, until my mother came home from Mrs. Grayper's +(for it was that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get +leave to carry out this great idea. Without being nearly so much +surprised as I had expected, my mother entered into it readily; and +it was all arranged that night, and my board and lodging during the +visit were to be paid for. + +The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it +came soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half +afraid that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great +convulsion of nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. We +were to go in a carrier's cart, which departed in the morning after +breakfast. I would have given any money to have been allowed to +wrap myself up over-night, and sleep in my hat and boots. + +It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect +how eager I was to leave my happy home; to think how little I +suspected what I did leave for ever. + +I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's cart was at the +gate, and my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for +her and for the old place I had never turned my back upon before, +made me cry. I am glad to know that my mother cried too, and that +I felt her heart beat against mine. + +I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my +mother ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she +might kiss me once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness +and love with which she lifted up her face to mine, and did so. + +As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came up to where +she was, and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. I +was looking back round the awning of the cart, and wondered what +business it was of his. Peggotty, who was also looking back on the +other side, seemed anything but satisfied; as the face she brought +back in the cart denoted. + +I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this +supposititious case: whether, if she were employed to lose me like +the boy in the fairy tale, I should be able to track my way home +again by the buttons she would shed. + + + +CHAPTER 3 +I HAVE A CHANGE + + +The carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should +hope, and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to +keep people waiting to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, +indeed, that he sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, +but the carrier said he was only troubled with a cough. +The carrier had a way of keeping his head down, like his horse, and +of drooping sleepily forward as he drove, with one of his arms on +each of his knees. I say 'drove', but it struck me that the cart +would have gone to Yarmouth quite as well without him, for the +horse did all that; and as to conversation, he had no idea of it +but whistling. + +Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have +lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the +same conveyance. We ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. +Peggotty always went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the +basket, her hold of which never relaxed; and I could not have +believed unless I had heard her do it, that one defenceless woman +could have snored so much. + +We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a long +time delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other +places, that I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw +Yarmouth. It looked rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I +carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay across the river; +and I could not help wondering, if the world were really as round +as my geography book said, how any part of it came to be so flat. +But I reflected that Yarmouth might be situated at one of the +poles; which would account for it. + +As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect +lying a straight low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that +a mound or so might have improved it; and also that if the land had +been a little more separated from the sea, and the town and the +tide had not been quite so much mixed up, like toast and water, it +would have been nicer. But Peggotty said, with greater emphasis +than usual, that we must take things as we found them, and that, +for her part, she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth Bloater. + +When we got into the street (which was strange enough to me) and +smelt the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors +walking about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, +I felt that I had done so busy a place an injustice; and said as +much to Peggotty, who heard my expressions of delight with great +complacency, and told me it was well known (I suppose to those who +had the good fortune to be born Bloaters) that Yarmouth was, upon +the whole, the finest place in the universe. + +'Here's my Am!' screamed Peggotty, 'growed out of knowledge!' + +He was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house; and asked me +how I found myself, like an old acquaintance. I did not feel, at +first, that I knew him as well as he knew me, because he had never +come to our house since the night I was born, and naturally he had +the advantage of me. But our intimacy was much advanced by his +taking me on his back to carry me home. He was, now, a huge, +strong fellow of six feet high, broad in proportion, and +round-shouldered; but with a simpering boy's face and curly light +hair that gave him quite a sheepish look. He was dressed in a +canvas jacket, and a pair of such very stiff trousers that they +would have stood quite as well alone, without any legs in them. +And you couldn't so properly have said he wore a hat, as that he +was covered in a-top, like an old building, with something pitchy. + +Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm, +and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down +lanes bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand, and +went past gas-works, rope-walks, boat-builders' yards, shipwrights' +yards, ship-breakers' yards, caulkers' yards, riggers' lofts, +smiths' forges, and a great litter of such places, until we came +out upon the dull waste I had already seen at a distance; when Ham +said, + +'Yon's our house, Mas'r Davy!' + +I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the +wilderness, and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no +house could I make out. There was a black barge, or some other +kind of superannuated boat, not far off, high and dry on the +ground, with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney and +smoking very cosily; but nothing else in the way of a habitation +that was visible to me. + +'That's not it?' said I. 'That ship-looking thing?' + +'That's it, Mas'r Davy,' returned Ham. + +If it had been Aladdin's palace, roc's egg and all, I suppose I +could not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living +in it. There was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was +roofed in, and there were little windows in it; but the wonderful +charm of it was, that it was a real boat which had no doubt been +upon the water hundreds of times, and which had never been intended +to be lived in, on dry land. That was the captivation of it to me. +If it had ever been meant to be lived in, I might have thought it +small, or inconvenient, or lonely; but never having been designed +for any such use, it became a perfect abode. + +It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as possible. There +was a table, and a Dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on the +chest of drawers there was a tea-tray with a painting on it of a +lady with a parasol, taking a walk with a military-looking child +who was trundling a hoop. The tray was kept from tumbling down, by +a bible; and the tray, if it had tumbled down, would have smashed +a quantity of cups and saucers and a teapot that were grouped +around the book. On the walls there were some common coloured +pictures, framed and glazed, of scripture subjects; such as I have +never seen since in the hands of pedlars, without seeing the whole +interior of Peggotty's brother's house again, at one view. Abraham +in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and Daniel in yellow cast +into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of these. Over +the little mantelshelf, was a picture of the 'Sarah Jane' lugger, +built at Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck on to +it; a work of art, combining composition with carpentry, which I +considered to be one of the most enviable possessions that the +world could afford. There were some hooks in the beams of the +ceiling, the use of which I did not divine then; and some lockers +and boxes and conveniences of that sort, which served for seats and +eked out the chairs. + +All this I saw in the first glance after I crossed the threshold - +child-like, according to my theory - and then Peggotty opened a +little door and showed me my bedroom. It was the completest and +most desirable bedroom ever seen - in the stern of the vessel; with +a little window, where the rudder used to go through; a little +looking-glass, just the right height for me, nailed against the +wall, and framed with oyster-shells; a little bed, which there was +just room enough to get into; and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue +mug on the table. The walls were whitewashed as white as milk, and +the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite ache with its +brightness. One thing I particularly noticed in this delightful +house, was the smell of fish; which was so searching, that when I +took out my pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it smelt +exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster. On my imparting this +discovery in confidence to Peggotty, she informed me that her +brother dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and I afterwards +found that a heap of these creatures, in a state of wonderful +conglomeration with one another, and never leaving off pinching +whatever they laid hold of, were usually to be found in a little +wooden outhouse where the pots and kettles were kept. + +We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron, whom I had +seen curtseying at the door when I was on Ham's back, about a +quarter of a mile off. Likewise by a most beautiful little girl +(or I thought her so) with a necklace of blue beads on, who +wouldn't let me kiss her when I offered to, but ran away and hid +herself. By and by, when we had dined in a sumptuous manner off +boiled dabs, melted butter, and potatoes, with a chop for me, a +hairy man with a very good-natured face came home. As he called +Peggotty 'Lass', and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek, I had no +doubt, from the general propriety of her conduct, that he was her +brother; and so he turned out - being presently introduced to me as +Mr. Peggotty, the master of the house. + +'Glad to see you, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'You'll find us rough, +sir, but you'll find us ready.' + +I thanked him, and replied that I was sure I should be happy in +such a delightful place. + +'How's your Ma, sir?' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Did you leave her pretty +jolly?' + +I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as I could +wish, and that she desired her compliments - which was a polite +fiction on my part. + +'I'm much obleeged to her, I'm sure,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Well, +sir, if you can make out here, fur a fortnut, 'long wi' her,' +nodding at his sister, 'and Ham, and little Em'ly, we shall be +proud of your company.' + +Having done the honours of his house in this hospitable manner, Mr. +Peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, +remarking that 'cold would never get his muck off'. He soon +returned, greatly improved in appearance; but so rubicund, that I +couldn't help thinking his face had this in common with the +lobsters, crabs, and crawfish, - that it went into the hot water +very black, and came out very red. + +After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights +being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious +retreat that the imagination of man could conceive. To hear the +wind getting up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over +the desolate flat outside, and to look at the fire, and think that +there was no house near but this one, and this one a boat, was like +enchantment. Little Em'ly had overcome her shyness, and was +sitting by my side upon the lowest and least of the lockers, which +was just large enough for us two, and just fitted into the chimney +corner. Mrs. Peggotty with the white apron, was knitting on the +opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at her needlework was as much +at home with St. Paul's and the bit of wax-candle, as if they had +never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my first +lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling +fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy +impressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty +was smoking his pipe. I felt it was a time for conversation and +confidence. + +'Mr. Peggotty!' says I. + +'Sir,' says he. + +'Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort +of ark?' + +Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered: + +'No, sir. I never giv him no name.' + +'Who gave him that name, then?' said I, putting question number two +of the catechism to Mr. Peggotty. + +'Why, sir, his father giv it him,' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'I thought you were his father!' + +'My brother Joe was his father,' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'Dead, Mr. Peggotty?' I hinted, after a respectful pause. + +'Drowndead,' said Mr. Peggotty. + +I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham's father, +and began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship +to anybody else there. I was so curious to know, that I made up my +mind to have it out with Mr. Peggotty. + +'Little Em'ly,' I said, glancing at her. 'She is your daughter, +isn't she, Mr. Peggotty?' + +'No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was her father.' + +I couldn't help it. '- Dead, Mr. Peggotty?' I hinted, after +another respectful silence. + +'Drowndead,' said Mr. Peggotty. + +I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to +the bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I +said: + +'Haven't you ANY children, Mr. Peggotty?' + +'No, master,' he answered with a short laugh. 'I'm a bacheldore.' + +'A bachelor!' I said, astonished. 'Why, who's that, Mr. Peggotty?' +pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting. + +'That's Missis Gummidge,' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?' + +But at this point Peggotty - I mean my own peculiar Peggotty - made +such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that +I could only sit and look at all the silent company, until it was +time to go to bed. Then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, +she informed me that Ham and Em'ly were an orphan nephew and niece, +whom my host had at different times adopted in their childhood, +when they were left destitute: and that Mrs. Gummidge was the widow +of his partner in a boat, who had died very poor. He was but a +poor man himself, said Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as +steel - those were her similes. The only subject, she informed me, +on which he ever showed a violent temper or swore an oath, was this +generosity of his; and if it were ever referred to, by any one of +them, he struck the table a heavy blow with his right hand (had +split it on one such occasion), and swore a dreadful oath that he +would be 'Gormed' if he didn't cut and run for good, if it was ever +mentioned again. It appeared, in answer to my inquiries, that +nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb +passive to be gormed; but that they all regarded it as constituting +a most solemn imprecation. + +I was very sensible of my entertainer's goodness, and listened to +the women's going to bed in another little crib like mine at the +opposite end of the boat, and to him and Ham hanging up two +hammocks for themselves on the hooks I had noticed in the roof, in +a very luxurious state of mind, enhanced by my being sleepy. As +slumber gradually stole upon me, I heard the wind howling out at +sea and coming on across the flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy +apprehension of the great deep rising in the night. But I +bethought myself that I was in a boat, after all; and that a man +like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad person to have on board if anything +did happen. + +Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Almost as soon as +it shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, +and out with little Em'ly, picking up stones upon the beach. + +'You're quite a sailor, I suppose?' I said to Em'ly. I don't know +that I supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it an act of +gallantry to say something; and a shining sail close to us made +such a pretty little image of itself, at the moment, in her bright +eye, that it came into my head to say this. + +'No,' replied Em'ly, shaking her head, 'I'm afraid of the sea.' + +'Afraid!' I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very +big at the mighty ocean. 'I an't!' + +'Ah! but it's cruel,' said Em'ly. 'I have seen it very cruel to +some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house, +all to pieces.' + +'I hope it wasn't the boat that -' + +'That father was drownded in?' said Em'ly. 'No. Not that one, I +never see that boat.' + +'Nor him?' I asked her. + +Little Em'ly shook her head. 'Not to remember!' + +Here was a coincidence! I immediately went into an explanation how +I had never seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always +lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so +then, and always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in +the churchyard near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the +boughs of which I had walked and heard the birds sing many a +pleasant morning. But there were some differences between Em'ly's +orphanhood and mine, it appeared. She had lost her mother before +her father; and where her father's grave was no one knew, except +that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea. + +'Besides,' said Em'ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, +'your father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my +father was a fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, +and my uncle Dan is a fisherman.' + +'Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he?' said I. + +'Uncle Dan - yonder,' answered Em'ly, nodding at the boat-house. + +'Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think?' + +'Good?' said Em'ly. 'If I was ever to be a lady, I'd give him a +sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet +waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a +box of money.' + +I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these +treasures. I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture +him quite at his ease in the raiment proposed for him by his +grateful little niece, and that I was particularly doubtful of the +policy of the cocked hat; but I kept these sentiments to myself. + +Little Em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her +enumeration of these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. +We went on again, picking up shells and pebbles. + +'You would like to be a lady?' I said. + +Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded 'yes'. + +'I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, +then. Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn't mind +then, when there comes stormy weather. - Not for our own sakes, I +mean. We would for the poor fishermen's, to be sure, and we'd help +'em with money when they come to any hurt.' This seemed to me to +be a very satisfactory and therefore not at all improbable picture. +I expressed my pleasure in the contemplation of it, and little +Em'ly was emboldened to say, shyly, + +'Don't you think you are afraid of the sea, now?' + +It was quiet enough to reassure me, but I have no doubt if I had +seen a moderately large wave come tumbling in, I should have taken +to my heels, with an awful recollection of her drowned relations. +However, I said 'No,' and I added, 'You don't seem to be either, +though you say you are,' - for she was walking much too near the +brink of a sort of old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled +upon, and I was afraid of her falling over. + +'I'm not afraid in this way,' said little Em'ly. 'But I wake when +it blows, and tremble to think of Uncle Dan and Ham and believe I +hear 'em crying out for help. That's why I should like so much to +be a lady. But I'm not afraid in this way. Not a bit. Look +here!' + +She started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber which +protruded from the place we stood upon, and overhung the deep water +at some height, without the least defence. The incident is so +impressed on my remembrance, that if I were a draughtsman I could +draw its form here, I dare say, accurately as it was that day, and +little Em'ly springing forward to her destruction (as it appeared +to me), with a look that I have never forgotten, directed far out +to sea. + +The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe +to me, and I soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry I had +uttered; fruitlessly in any case, for there was no one near. But +there have been times since, in my manhood, many times there have +been, when I have thought, Is it possible, among the possibilities +of hidden things, that in the sudden rashness of the child and her +wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into +danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her +dead father, that her life might have a chance of ending that day? +There has been a time since when I have wondered whether, if the +life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance, and so +revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her +preservation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I ought to +have held it up to save her. There has been a time since - I do +not say it lasted long, but it has been - when I have asked myself +the question, would it have been better for little Em'ly to have +had the waters close above her head that morning in my sight; and +when I have answered Yes, it would have been. + +This may be premature. I have set it down too soon, perhaps. But +let it stand. + +We strolled a long way, and loaded ourselves with things that we +thought curious, and put some stranded starfish carefully back into +the water - I hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be +quite certain whether they had reason to feel obliged to us for +doing so, or the reverse - and then made our way home to Mr. +Peggotty's dwelling. We stopped under the lee of the +lobster-outhouse to exchange an innocent kiss, and went in to +breakfast glowing with health and pleasure. + +'Like two young mavishes,' Mr. Peggotty said. I knew this meant, +in our local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as +a compliment. + +Of course I was in love with little Em'ly. I am sure I loved that +baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity and +more disinterestedness, than can enter into the best love of a +later time of life, high and ennobling as it is. I am sure my +fancy raised up something round that blue-eyed mite of a child, +which etherealized, and made a very angel of her. If, any sunny +forenoon, she had spread a little pair of wings and flown away +before my eyes, I don't think I should have regarded it as much +more than I had had reason to expect. + +We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loving +manner, hours and hours. The days sported by us, as if Time had +not grown up himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play. +I told Em'ly I adored her, and that unless she confessed she adored +me I should be reduced to the necessity of killing myself with a +sword. She said she did, and I have no doubt she did. + +As to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty +in our way, little Em'ly and I had no such trouble, because we had +no future. We made no more provision for growing older, than we +did for growing younger. We were the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge +and Peggotty, who used to whisper of an evening when we sat, +lovingly, on our little locker side by side, 'Lor! wasn't it +beautiful!' Mr. Peggotty smiled at us from behind his pipe, and +Ham grinned all the evening and did nothing else. They had +something of the sort of pleasure in us, I suppose, that they might +have had in a pretty toy, or a pocket model of the Colosseum. + +I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself so +agreeable as she might have been expected to do, under the +circumstances of her residence with Mr. Peggotty. Mrs. Gummidge's +was rather a fretful disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes +than was comfortable for other parties in so small an +establishment. I was very sorry for her; but there were moments +when it would have been more agreeable, I thought, if Mrs. Gummidge +had had a convenient apartment of her own to retire to, and had +stopped there until her spirits revived. + +Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public-house called The Willing +Mind. I discovered this, by his being out on the second or third +evening of our visit, and by Mrs. Gummidge's looking up at the +Dutch clock, between eight and nine, and saying he was there, and +that, what was more, she had known in the morning he would go +there. + +Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had burst into +tears in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. 'I am a lone lorn +creetur',' were Mrs. Gummidge's words, when that unpleasant +occurrence took place, 'and everythink goes contrary with me.' + +'Oh, it'll soon leave off,' said Peggotty - I again mean our +Peggotty - 'and besides, you know, it's not more disagreeable to +you than to us.' + +'I feel it more,' said Mrs. Gummidge. + +It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. +Gummidge's peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the +warmest and snuggest in the place, as her chair was certainly the +easiest, but it didn't suit her that day at all. She was +constantly complaining of the cold, and of its occasioning a +visitation in her back which she called 'the creeps'. At last she +shed tears on that subject, and said again that she was 'a lone +lorn creetur' and everythink went contrary with her'. + +'It is certainly very cold,' said Peggotty. 'Everybody must feel +it so.' + +'I feel it more than other people,' said Mrs. Gummidge. + +So at dinner; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped immediately +after me, to whom the preference was given as a visitor of +distinction. The fish were small and bony, and the potatoes were +a little burnt. We all acknowledged that we felt this something of +a disappointment; but Mrs. Gummidge said she felt it more than we +did, and shed tears again, and made that former declaration with +great bitterness. + +Accordingly, when Mr. Peggotty came home about nine o'clock, this +unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in her corner, in a very +wretched and miserable condition. Peggotty had been working +cheerfully. Ham had been patching up a great pair of waterboots; +and I, with little Em'ly by my side, had been reading to them. +Mrs. Gummidge had never made any other remark than a forlorn sigh, +and had never raised her eyes since tea. + +'Well, Mates,' said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat, 'and how are +you?' + +We all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except +Mrs. Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting. + +'What's amiss?' said Mr. Peggotty, with a clap of his hands. +'Cheer up, old Mawther!' (Mr. Peggotty meant old girl.) + +Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She took out +an old black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but instead of +putting it in her pocket, kept it out, and wiped them again, and +still kept it out, ready for use. + +'What's amiss, dame?' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'Nothing,' returned Mrs. Gummidge. 'You've come from The Willing +Mind, Dan'l?' + +'Why yes, I've took a short spell at The Willing Mind tonight,' +said Mr. Peggotty. + +'I'm sorry I should drive you there,' said Mrs. Gummidge. + +'Drive! I don't want no driving,' returned Mr. Peggotty with an +honest laugh. 'I only go too ready.' + +'Very ready,' said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her +eyes. 'Yes, yes, very ready. I am sorry it should be along of me +that you're so ready.' + +'Along o' you! It an't along o' you!' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Don't +ye believe a bit on it.' + +'Yes, yes, it is,' cried Mrs. Gummidge. 'I know what I am. I know +that I am a lone lorn creetur', and not only that everythink goes +contrary with me, but that I go contrary with everybody. Yes, yes. +I feel more than other people do, and I show it more. It's my +misfortun'.' + +I really couldn't help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that +the misfortune extended to some other members of that family +besides Mrs. Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only +answering with another entreaty to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up. + +'I an't what I could wish myself to be,' said Mrs. Gummidge. 'I am +far from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrary. +I feel my troubles, and they make me contrary. I wish I didn't +feel 'em, but I do. I wish I could be hardened to 'em, but I an't. +I make the house uncomfortable. I don't wonder at it. I've made +your sister so all day, and Master Davy.' + +Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out, 'No, you haven't, Mrs. +Gummidge,' in great mental distress. + +'It's far from right that I should do it,' said Mrs. Gummidge. 'It +an't a fit return. I had better go into the house and die. I am +a lone lorn creetur', and had much better not make myself contrary +here. If thinks must go contrary with me, and I must go contrary +myself, let me go contrary in my parish. Dan'l, I'd better go into +the house, and die and be a riddance!' + +Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words, and betook herself to bed. +When she was gone, Mr. Peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of +any feeling but the profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and +nodding his head with a lively expression of that sentiment still +animating his face, said in a whisper: + +'She's been thinking of the old 'un!' + +I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge was supposed +to have fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty, on seeing me to bed, +explained that it was the late Mr. Gummidge; and that her brother +always took that for a received truth on such occasions, and that +it always had a moving effect upon him. Some time after he was in +his hammock that night, I heard him myself repeat to Ham, 'Poor +thing! She's been thinking of the old 'un!' And whenever Mrs. +Gummidge was overcome in a similar manner during the remainder of +our stay (which happened some few times), he always said the same +thing in extenuation of the circumstance, and always with the +tenderest commiseration. + +So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation +of the tide, which altered Mr. Peggotty's times of going out and +coming in, and altered Ham's engagements also. When the latter was +unemployed, he sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and +ships, and once or twice he took us for a row. I don't know why +one slight set of impressions should be more particularly +associated with a place than another, though I believe this obtains +with most people, in reference especially to the associations of +their childhood. I never hear the name, or read the name, of +Yarmouth, but I am reminded of a certain Sunday morning on the +beach, the bells ringing for church, little Em'ly leaning on my +shoulder, Ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and the sun, +away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist, and showing us +the ships, like their own shadows. + +At last the day came for going home. I bore up against the +separation from Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but my agony of +mind at leaving little Em'ly was piercing. We went arm-in-arm to +the public-house where the carrier put up, and I promised, on the +road, to write to her. (I redeemed that promise afterwards, in +characters larger than those in which apartments are usually +announced in manuscript, as being to let.) We were greatly overcome +at parting; and if ever, in my life, I have had a void made in my +heart, I had one made that day. + +Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to +my home again, and had thought little or nothing about it. But I +was no sooner turned towards it, than my reproachful young +conscience seemed to point that way with a ready finger; and I +felt, all the more for the sinking of my spirits, that it was my +nest, and that my mother was my comforter and friend. + +This gained upon me as we went along; so that the nearer we drew, +the more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more +excited I was to get there, and to run into her arms. But +Peggotty, instead of sharing in those transports, tried to check +them (though very kindly), and looked confused and out of sorts. + +Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the +carrier's horse pleased - and did. How well I recollect it, on a +cold grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain! + +The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my +pleasant agitation, for my mother. It was not she, but a strange +servant. + +'Why, Peggotty!' I said, ruefully, 'isn't she come home?' + +'Yes, yes, Master Davy,' said Peggotty. 'She's come home. Wait a +bit, Master Davy, and I'll - I'll tell you something.' + +Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out +of the cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of +herself, but I felt too blank and strange to tell her so. When she +had got down, she took me by the hand; led me, wondering, into the +kitchen; and shut the door. + +'Peggotty!' said I, quite frightened. 'What's the matter?' + +'Nothing's the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!' she answered, +assuming an air of sprightliness. + +'Something's the matter, I'm sure. Where's mama?' + +'Where's mama, Master Davy?' repeated Peggotty. + +'Yes. Why hasn't she come out to the gate, and what have we come +in here for? Oh, Peggotty!' My eyes were full, and I felt as if +I were going to tumble down. + +'Bless the precious boy!' cried Peggotty, taking hold of me. 'What +is it? Speak, my pet!' + +'Not dead, too! Oh, she's not dead, Peggotty?' + +Peggotty cried out No! with an astonishing volume of voice; and +then sat down, and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn. + +I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn +in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her +in anxious inquiry. + +'You see, dear, I should have told you before now,' said Peggotty, +'but I hadn't an opportunity. I ought to have made it, perhaps, +but I couldn't azackly' - that was always the substitute for +exactly, in Peggotty's militia of words - 'bring my mind to it.' + +'Go on, Peggotty,' said I, more frightened than before. + +'Master Davy,' said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking +hand, and speaking in a breathless sort of way. 'What do you +think? You have got a Pa!' + +I trembled, and turned white. Something - I don't know what, or +how - connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising +of the dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind. + +'A new one,' said Peggotty. + +'A new one?' I repeated. + +Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was +very hard, and, putting out her hand, said: + +'Come and see him.' + +'I don't want to see him.' + +- 'And your mama,' said Peggotty. + +I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour, +where she left me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the +other, Mr. Murdstone. My mother dropped her work, and arose +hurriedly, but timidly I thought. + +'Now, Clara my dear,' said Mr. Murdstone. 'Recollect! control +yourself, always control yourself! Davy boy, how do you do?' + +I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed +my mother: she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat +down again to her work. I could not look at her, I could not look +at him, I knew quite well that he was looking at us both; and I +turned to the window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were +drooping their heads in the cold. + +As soon as I could creep away, I crept upstairs. My old dear +bedroom was changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled +downstairs to find anything that was like itself, so altered it all +seemed; and roamed into the yard. I very soon started back from +there, for the empty dog-kennel was filled up with a great dog - +deep mouthed and black-haired like Him - and he was very angry at +the sight of me, and sprang out to get at me. + + + +CHAPTER 4 +I FALL INTO DISGRACE + + +If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that +could give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day - who sleeps +there now, I wonder! - to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I +carried to it. I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark +after me all the way while I climbed the stairs; and, looking as +blank and strange upon the room as the room looked upon me, sat +down with my small hands crossed, and thought. + +I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the +cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in +the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the +washing-stand being rickety on its three legs, and having a +discontented something about it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge +under the influence of the old one. I was crying all the time, +but, except that I was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am +sure I never thought why I cried. At last in my desolation I began +to consider that I was dreadfully in love with little Em'ly, and +had been torn away from her to come here where no one seemed to +want me, or to care about me, half as much as she did. This made +such a very miserable piece of business of it, that I rolled myself +up in a corner of the counterpane, and cried myself to sleep. + +I was awoke by somebody saying 'Here he is!' and uncovering my hot +head. My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me, and it was +one of them who had done it. + +'Davy,' said my mother. 'What's the matter?' + +I thought it was very strange that she should ask me, and answered, +'Nothing.' I turned over on my face, I recollect, to hide my +trembling lip, which answered her with greater truth. +'Davy,' said my mother. 'Davy, my child!' + +I dare say no words she could have uttered would have affected me +so much, then, as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the +bedclothes, and pressed her from me with my hand, when she would +have raised me up. + +'This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing!' said my mother. +'I have no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your +conscience, I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or +against anybody who is dear to me? What do you mean by it, +Peggotty?' + +Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in +a sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner, +'Lord forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said +this minute, may you never be truly sorry!' + +'It's enough to distract me,' cried my mother. 'In my honeymoon, +too, when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, +and not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you +naughty boy! Peggotty, you savage creature! Oh, dear me!' cried +my mother, turning from one of us to the other, in her pettish +wilful manner, 'what a troublesome world this is, when one has the +most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible!' + +I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers nor +Peggotty's, and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It was Mr. +Murdstone's hand, and he kept it on my arm as he said: + +'What's this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten? - Firmness, my +dear!' + +'I am very sorry, Edward,' said my mother. 'I meant to be very +good, but I am so uncomfortable.' + +'Indeed!' he answered. 'That's a bad hearing, so soon, Clara.' + +'I say it's very hard I should be made so now,' returned my mother, +pouting; 'and it is - very hard - isn't it?' + +He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew +as well, when I saw my mother's head lean down upon his shoulder, +and her arm touch his neck - I knew as well that he could mould her +pliant nature into any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did +it. + +'Go you below, my love,' said Mr. Murdstone. 'David and I will +come down, together. My friend,' turning a darkening face on +Peggotty, when he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with +a nod and a smile; 'do you know your mistress's name?' + +'She has been my mistress a long time, sir,' answered Peggotty, 'I +ought to know it.' +'That's true,' he answered. 'But I thought I heard you, as I came +upstairs, address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken +mine, you know. Will you remember that?' + +Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of +the room without replying; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected +to go, and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left +alone, he shut the door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me +standing before him, looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own +attracted, no less steadily, to his. As I recall our being opposed +thus, face to face, I seem again to hear my heart beat fast and +high. + +'David,' he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, +'if I have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you +think I do?' + +'I don't know.' + +'I beat him.' + +I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my +silence, that my breath was shorter now. + +'I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, "I'll conquer that +fellow"; and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should +do it. What is that upon your face?' + +'Dirt,' I said. + +He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked +the question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe +my baby heart would have burst before I would have told him so. + +'You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,' he +said, with a grave smile that belonged to him, 'and you understood +me very well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me.' + +He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like +Mrs. Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. +I had little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would +have knocked me down without the least compunction, if I had +hesitated. + +'Clara, my dear,' he said, when I had done his bidding, and he +walked me into the parlour, with his hand still on my arm; 'you +will not be made uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon +improve our youthful humours.' + +God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might +have been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word +at that season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity +for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me +that it was home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart +henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have +made me respect instead of hate him. I thought my mother was sorry +to see me standing in the room so scared and strange, and that, +presently, when I stole to a chair, she followed me with her eyes +more sorrowfully still - missing, perhaps, some freedom in my +childish tread - but the word was not spoken, and the time for it +was gone. + +We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my +mother - I am afraid I liked him none the better for that - and she +was very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an +elder sister of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was +expected that evening. I am not certain whether I found out then, +or afterwards, that, without being actively concerned in any +business, he had some share in, or some annual charge upon the +profits of, a wine-merchant's house in London, with which his +family had been connected from his great-grandfather's time, and in +which his sister had a similar interest; but I may mention it in +this place, whether or no. + +After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was +meditating an escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to +slip away, lest it should offend the master of the house, a coach +drove up to the garden-gate and he went out to receive the visitor. +My mother followed him. I was timidly following her, when she +turned round at the parlour door, in the dusk, and taking me in her +embrace as she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new +father and be obedient to him. She did this hurriedly and +secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and, putting out her +hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near to where he +was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew hers +through his arm. + +It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady +she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face +and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her +large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from +wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. She +brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her +initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the +coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept +the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a +heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, +seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was. + +She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome, and +there formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation. +Then she looked at me, and said: + +'Is that your boy, sister-in-law?' + +My mother acknowledged me. + +'Generally speaking,' said Miss Murdstone, 'I don't like boys. How +d'ye do, boy?' + +Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very +well, and that I hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent +grace, that Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words: + +'Wants manner!' + +Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the +favour of being shown to her room, which became to me from that +time forth a place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes +were never seen open or known to be left unlocked, and where (for +I peeped in once or twice when she was out) numerous little steel +fetters and rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself +when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-glass in +formidable array. + +As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no +intention of ever going again. She began to 'help' my mother next +morning, and was in and out of the store-closet all day, putting +things to rights, and making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost +the first remarkable thing I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her +being constantly haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man +secreted somewhere on the premises. Under the influence of this +delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely +hours, and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cupboard without +clapping it to again, in the belief that she had got him. + +Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a +perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe +to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was +stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with +one eye open; but I could not concur in this idea; for I tried it +myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it +couldn't be done. + +On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing +her bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and +was going to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck +on the cheek, which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said: + +'Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of +all the trouble I can. You're much too pretty and thoughtless' - +my mother blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this +character - 'to have any duties imposed upon you that can be +undertaken by me. If you'll be so good as give me your keys, my +dear, I'll attend to all this sort of thing in future.' + +From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail +all day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more +to do with them than I had. + +My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a +shadow of protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been +developing certain household plans to her brother, of which he +signified his approbation, my mother suddenly began to cry, and +said she thought she might have been consulted. + +'Clara!' said Mr. Murdstone sternly. 'Clara! I wonder at you.' + +'Oh, it's very well to say you wonder, Edward!' cried my mother, +'and it's very well for you to talk about firmness, but you +wouldn't like it yourself.' + +Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. +and Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have +expressed my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called +upon, I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it +was another name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, +devil's humour, that was in them both. The creed, as I should +state it now, was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in his +world was to be so firm as Mr. Murdstone; nobody else in his world +was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his +firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception. She might be firm, but +only by relationship, and in an inferior and tributary degree. My +mother was another exception. She might be firm, and must be; but +only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing there was no +other firmness upon earth. + +'It's very hard,' said my mother, 'that in my own house -' + +'My own house?' repeated Mr. Murdstone. 'Clara!' + +'OUR own house, I mean,' faltered my mother, evidently frightened +- 'I hope you must know what I mean, Edward - it's very hard that +in YOUR own house I may not have a word to say about domestic +matters. I am sure I managed very well before we were married. +There's evidence,' said my mother, sobbing; 'ask Peggotty if I +didn't do very well when I wasn't interfered with!' + +'Edward,' said Miss Murdstone, 'let there be an end of this. I go +tomorrow.' + +'Jane Murdstone,' said her brother, 'be silent! How dare you to +insinuate that you don't know my character better than your words +imply?' + +'I am sure,' my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage, +and with many tears, 'I don't want anybody to go. I should be very +miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don't ask much. I +am not unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am +very much obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to be +consulted as a mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased, +once, with my being a little inexperienced and girlish, Edward - I +am sure you said so - but you seem to hate me for it now, you are +so severe.' + +'Edward,' said Miss Murdstone, again, 'let there be an end of this. +I go tomorrow.' + +'Jane Murdstone,' thundered Mr. Murdstone. 'Will you be silent? +How dare you?' + +Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and +held it before her eyes. + +'Clara,' he continued, looking at my mother, 'you surprise me! You +astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying +an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and +infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which +it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come +to my assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake, a +condition something like a housekeeper's, and when she meets with +a base return -' + +'Oh, pray, pray, Edward,' cried my mother, 'don't accuse me of +being ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said +I was before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don't, my +dear!' + +'When Jane Murdstone meets, I say,' he went on, after waiting until +my mother was silent, 'with a base return, that feeling of mine is +chilled and altered.' + +'Don't, my love, say that!' implored my mother very piteously. +'Oh, don't, Edward! I can't bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am +affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn't say it, if I +wasn't sure that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she'll tell you +I'm affectionate.' + +'There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone in +reply, 'that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath.' + +'Pray let us be friends,' said my mother, 'I couldn't live under +coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many +defects, I know, and it's very good of you, Edward, with your +strength of mind, to endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I +don't object to anything. I should be quite broken-hearted if you +thought of leaving -' My mother was too much overcome to go on. + +'Jane Murdstone,' said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, 'any harsh +words between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so +unusual an occurrence has taken place tonight. I was betrayed into +it by another. Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by +another. Let us both try to forget it. And as this,' he added, +after these magnanimous words, 'is not a fit scene for the boy - +David, go to bed!' + +I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my +eyes. I was so sorry for my mother's distress; but I groped my way +out, and groped my way up to my room in the dark, without even +having the heart to say good night to Peggotty, or to get a candle +from her. When her coming up to look for me, an hour or so +afterwards, awoke me, she said that my mother had gone to bed +poorly, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were sitting alone. + +Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside +the parlour door, on hearing my mother's voice. She was very +earnestly and humbly entreating Miss Murdstone's pardon, which that +lady granted, and a perfect reconciliation took place. I never +knew my mother afterwards to give an opinion on any matter, without +first appealing to Miss Murdstone, or without having first +ascertained by some sure means, what Miss Murdstone's opinion was; +and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out of temper (she was infirm +that way), move her hand towards her bag as if she were going to +take out the keys and offer to resign them to my mother, without +seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright. + +The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the +Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have +thought, since, that its assuming that character was a necessary +consequence of Mr. Murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him +to let anybody off from the utmost weight of the severest penalties +he could find any excuse for. Be this as it may, I well remember +the tremendous visages with which we used to go to church, and the +changed air of the place. Again, the dreaded Sunday comes round, +and I file into the old pew first, like a guarded captive brought +to a condemned service. Again, Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet +gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, follows +close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. There is no +Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen to Miss +Murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread +words with a cruel relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round +the church when she says 'miserable sinners', as if she were +calling all the congregation names. Again, I catch rare glimpses +of my mother, moving her lips timidly between the two, with one of +them muttering at each ear like low thunder. Again, I wonder with +a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can +be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right, and that all the angels +in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I move a finger or +relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with her +prayer-book, and makes my side ache. + +Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at +my mother and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on +arm-in-arm, and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those +looks, and wonder if my mother's step be really not so light as I +have seen it, and if the gaiety of her beauty be really almost +worried away. Again, I wonder whether any of the neighbours call +to mind, as I do, how we used to walk home together, she and I; and +I wonder stupidly about that, all the dreary dismal day. + +There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding- +school. Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother +had of course agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on +the subject yet. In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home. +Shall I ever forget those lessons! They were presided over +nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, +who were always present, and found them a favourable occasion for +giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the +bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept at home for that +purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when +my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly remember +learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look upon +the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their +shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present +themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no +feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have +walked along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to +have been cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner +all the way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I +remember as the death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily +drudgery and misery. They were very long, very numerous, very hard +- perfectly unintelligible, some of them, to me - and I was +generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother +was herself. + +Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back +again. + +I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books, +and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at +her writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his +easy-chair by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), +or as Miss Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. +The very sight of these two has such an influence over me, that I +begin to feel the words I have been at infinite pains to get into +my head, all sliding away, and going I don't know where. I wonder +where they do go, by the by? + +I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, +perhaps a history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at +the page as I give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a +racing pace while I have got it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. +Murdstone looks up. I trip over another word. Miss Murdstone +looks up. I redden, tumble over half-a-dozen words, and stop. I +think my mother would show me the book if she dared, but she does +not dare, and she says softly: + +'Oh, Davy, Davy!' + +'Now, Clara,' says Mr. Murdstone, 'be firm with the boy. Don't +say, "Oh, Davy, Davy!" That's childish. He knows his lesson, or +he does not know it.' + +'He does NOT know it,' Miss Murdstone interposes awfully. + +'I am really afraid he does not,' says my mother. + +'Then, you see, Clara,' returns Miss Murdstone, 'you should just +give him the book back, and make him know it.' + +'Yes, certainly,' says my mother; 'that is what I intend to do, my +dear Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid.' + +I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but +am not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I +tumble down before I get to the old place, at a point where I was +all right before, and stop to think. But I can't think about the +lesson. I think of the number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's +cap, or of the price of Mr. Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such +ridiculous problem that I have no business with, and don't want to +have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone makes a movement of +impatience which I have been expecting for a long time. Miss +Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at them, +shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when +my other tasks are done. + +There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a +rolling snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The +case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog +of nonsense, that I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon +myself to my fate. The despairing way in which my mother and I +look at each other, as I blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the +greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother +(thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the +motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has been +lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning +voice: + +'Clara!' + +My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes +out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears +with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. + +Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the +shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered +to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a +cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester +cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment' - at which I +see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses +without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having +made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the +pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help me out with the +cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening. + +It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate +studies generally took this course. I could have done very well if +I had been without the Murdstones; but the influence of the +Murdstones upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a +wretched young bird. Even when I did get through the morning with +tolerable credit, there was not much gained but dinner; for Miss +Murdstone never could endure to see me untasked, and if I rashly +made any show of being unemployed, called her brother's attention +to me by saying, 'Clara, my dear, there's nothing like work - give +your boy an exercise'; which caused me to be clapped down to some +new labour, there and then. As to any recreation with other +children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy +theology of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of +little vipers (though there WAS a child once set in the midst of +the Disciples), and held that they contaminated one another. + +The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for +some six months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. +I was not made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more +shut out and alienated from my mother. I believe I should have +been almost stupefied but for one circumstance. + +It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a +little room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my +own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that +blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey +Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, +and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. +They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that +place and time, - they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of +the Genii, - and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of +them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it. It is astonishing +to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings and +blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It +is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my +small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating +my favourite characters in them - as I did - and by putting Mr. and +Miss Murdstone into all the bad ones - which I did too. I have +been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a +week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for +a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for +a few volumes of Voyages and Travels - I forget what, now - that +were on those shelves; and for days and days I can remember to have +gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece out +of an old set of boot-trees - the perfect realization of Captain +Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by +savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. The +Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the +Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in +despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead +or alive. + +This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the +picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at +play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for +life. Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, +and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, +in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality +made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the +church-steeple; I have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his +back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and I know +that Commodore Trunnion held that club with Mr. Pickle, in the +parlour of our little village alehouse. + +The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was when I came +to that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming +again. + +One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my +mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. +Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane - a lithe +and limber cane, which he left off binding when I came in, and +poised and switched in the air. + +'I tell you, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'I have been often flogged +myself.' + +'To be sure; of course,' said Miss Murdstone. + +'Certainly, my dear Jane,' faltered my mother, meekly. 'But - but +do you think it did Edward good?' + +'Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?' asked Mr. Murdstone, +gravely. + +'That's the point,' said his sister. + +To this my mother returned, 'Certainly, my dear Jane,' and said no +more. + +I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this +dialogue, and sought Mr. Murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine. + +'Now, David,' he said - and I saw that cast again as he said it - +'you must be far more careful today than usual.' He gave the cane +another poise, and another switch; and having finished his +preparation of it, laid it down beside him, with an impressive +look, and took up his book. + +This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. +I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or +line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; +but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and +to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking. + +We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of +distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well +prepared; but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book +was added to the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly +watchful of us all the time. And when we came at last to the five +thousand cheeses (canes he made it that day, I remember), my mother +burst out crying. + +'Clara!' said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice. + +'I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think,' said my mother. + +I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, +taking up the cane: + +'Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect +firmness, the worry and torment that David has occasioned her +today. That would be stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and +improved, but we can hardly expect so much from her. David, you +and I will go upstairs, boy.' + +As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss +Murdstone said, 'Clara! are you a perfect fool?' and interfered. +I saw my mother stop her ears then, and I heard her crying. + +He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely - I am certain he had +a delight in that formal parade of executing justice - and when we +got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm. + +'Mr. Murdstone! Sir!' I cried to him. 'Don't! Pray don't beat +me! I have tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and +Miss Murdstone are by. I can't indeed!' + +'Can't you, indeed, David?' he said. 'We'll try that.' + +He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and +stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was +only a moment that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant +afterwards, and in the same instant I caught the hand with which he +held me in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through. It sets +my teeth on edge to think of it. + +He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all +the noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying +out - I heard my mother crying out - and Peggotty. Then he was +gone; and the door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and +hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. + +How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural +stillness seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I +remember, when my smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I +began to feel! + +I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I +crawled up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so +swollen, red, and ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes +were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they +were nothing to the guilt I felt. It lay heavier on my breast than +if I had been a most atrocious criminal, I dare say. + +It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been +lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns +crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out), when the key was +turned, and Miss Murdstone came in with some bread and meat, and +milk. These she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at +me the while with exemplary firmness, and then retired, locking the +door after her. + +Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else +would come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I +undressed, and went to bed; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully +what would be done to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had +committed? Whether I should be taken into custody, and sent to +prison? Whether I was at all in danger of being hanged? + +I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful +and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by +the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone +reappeared before I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that +I was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer; +and retired, leaving the door open, that I might avail myself of +that permission. + +I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted +five days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have +gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but I +saw no one, Miss Murdstone excepted, during the whole time - except +at evening prayers in the parlour; to which I was escorted by Miss +Murdstone after everybody else was placed; where I was stationed, +a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the door; and whence I was +solemnly conducted by my jailer, before any one arose from the +devotional posture. I only observed that my mother was as far off +from me as she could be, and kept her face another way so that I +never saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone's hand was bound up in a large +linen wrapper. + +The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. +They occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which +I listened to all the incidents of the house that made themselves +audible to me; the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of +doors, the murmuring of voices, the footsteps on the stairs; to any +laughing, whistling, or singing, outside, which seemed more dismal +than anything else to me in my solitude and disgrace - the +uncertain pace of the hours, especially at night, when I would wake +thinking it was morning, and find that the family were not yet gone +to bed, and that all the length of night had yet to come - the +depressed dreams and nightmares I had - the return of day, noon, +afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the churchyard, and I +watched them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to show +myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner - the +strange sensation of never hearing myself speak - the fleeting +intervals of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating +and drinking, and went away with it - the setting in of rain one +evening, with a fresh smell, and its coming down faster and faster +between me and the church, until it and gathering night seemed to +quench me in gloom, and fear, and remorse - all this appears to +have gone round and round for years instead of days, it is so +vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance. +On the last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own +name spoken in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my +arms in the dark, said: + +'Is that you, Peggotty?' + +There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, +in a tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have +gone into a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have +come through the keyhole. + +I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the +keyhole, whispered: 'Is that you, Peggotty dear?' + +'Yes, my own precious Davy,' she replied. 'Be as soft as a mouse, +or the Cat'll hear us.' + +I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the +urgency of the case; her room being close by. + +'How's mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me?' + +I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as +I was doing on mine, before she answered. 'No. Not very.' + +'What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do you know?' + +'School. Near London,' was Peggotty's answer. I was obliged to +get her to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my +throat, in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away +from the keyhole and put my ear there; and though her words tickled +me a good deal, I didn't hear them. + +'When, Peggotty?' + +'Tomorrow.' + +'Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my +drawers?' which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention +it. + +'Yes,' said Peggotty. 'Box.' + +'Shan't I see mama?' + +'Yes,' said Peggotty. 'Morning.' + +Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered +these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a +keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture +to assert: shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive +little burst of its own. + +'Davy, dear. If I ain't been azackly as intimate with you. +Lately, as I used to be. It ain't because I don't love you. just +as well and more, my pretty poppet. It's because I thought it +better for you. And for someone else besides. Davy, my darling, +are you listening? Can you hear?' + +'Ye-ye-ye-yes, Peggotty!' I sobbed. + +'My own!' said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. 'What I want to +say, is. That you must never forget me. For I'll never forget +you. And I'll take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I +took of you. And I won't leave her. The day may come when she'll +be glad to lay her poor head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's +arm again. And I'll write to you, my dear. Though I ain't no +scholar. And I'll - I'll -' Peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, +as she couldn't kiss me. + +'Thank you, dear Peggotty!' said I. 'Oh, thank you! Thank you! +Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell +Mr. Peggotty and little Em'ly, and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am +not so bad as they might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my love +- especially to little Em'ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?' + +The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with +the greatest affection - I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as +if it had been her honest face - and parted. From that night there +grew up in my breast a feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very +well define. She did not replace my mother; no one could do that; +but she came into a vacancy in my heart, which closed upon her, and +I felt towards her something I have never felt for any other human +being. It was a sort of comical affection, too; and yet if she had +died, I cannot think what I should have done, or how I should have +acted out the tragedy it would have been to me. + +In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was +going to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she +supposed. She also informed me that when I was dressed, I was to +come downstairs into the parlour, and have my breakfast. There, I +found my mother, very pale and with red eyes: into whose arms I +ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul. + +'Oh, Davy!' she said. 'That you could hurt anyone I love! Try to +be better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved, +Davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart.' + +They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more +sorry for that than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried +to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread- +and-butter, and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me +sometimes, and then glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone, and than +look down, or look away. + +'Master Copperfield's box there!' said Miss Murdstone, when wheels +were heard at the gate. + +I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr. +Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at +the door. the box was taken out to his cart, and lifted in. + +'Clara!' said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note. + +'Ready, my dear Jane,' returned my mother. 'Good-bye, Davy. You +are going for your own good. Good-bye, my child. You will come +home in the holidays, and be a better boy.' + +'Clara!' Miss Murdstone repeated. + +'Certainly, my dear Jane,' replied my mother, who was holding me. +'I forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you!' + +'Clara!' Miss Murdstone repeated. + +Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to +say on the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a +bad end; and then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked +off with it. + + + +CHAPTER 5 +I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME + + +We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief +was quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. Looking out +to ascertain for what, I saw, to MY amazement, Peggotty burst from +a hedge and climb into the cart. She took me in both her arms, and +squeezed me to her stays until the pressure on my nose was +extremely painful, though I never thought of that till afterwards +when I found it very tender. Not a single word did Peggotty speak. +Releasing one of her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the +elbow, and brought out some paper bags of cakes which she crammed +into my pockets, and a purse which she put into my hand, but not +one word did she say. After another and a final squeeze with both +arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief is, +and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. I +picked up one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it +as a keepsake for a long time. + +The carrier looked at me, as if to inquire if she were coming back. +I shook my head, and said I thought not. 'Then come up,' said the +carrier to the lazy horse; who came up accordingly. + +Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to +think it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither +Roderick Random, nor that Captain in the Royal British Navy, had +ever cried, that I could remember, in trying situations. The +carrier, seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my pocket- +handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry. I +thanked him, and assented; and particularly small it looked, under +those circumstances. + +I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather +purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which +Peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater +delight. But its most precious contents were two half-crowns +folded together in a bit of paper, on which was written, in my +mother's hand, 'For Davy. With my love.' I was so overcome by +this, that I asked the carrier to be so good as to reach me my +pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I had better do +without it, and I thought I really had, so I wiped my eyes on my +sleeve and stopped myself. + +For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I +was still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had +jogged on for some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going +all the way. + +'All the way where?' inquired the carrier. + +'There,' I said. + +'Where's there?' inquired the carrier. + +'Near London,' I said. + +'Why that horse,' said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him +out, 'would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.' + +'Are you only going to Yarmouth then?' I asked. + +'That's about it,' said the carrier. 'And there I shall take you +to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that'll take you to - +wherever it is.' + +As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. +Barkis) to say - he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a +phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational - I offered +him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, +exactly like an elephant, and which made no more impression on his +big face than it would have done on an elephant's. + +'Did SHE make 'em, now?' said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, +in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on +each knee. + +'Peggotty, do you mean, sir?' + +'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis. 'Her.' + +'Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking.' + +'Do she though?' said Mr. Barkis. +He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn't whistle. He +sat looking at the horse's ears, as if he saw something new there; +and sat so, for a considerable time. By and by, he said: + +'No sweethearts, I b'lieve?' + +'Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?' For I thought he wanted +something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that +description of refreshment. + +'Hearts,' said Mr. Barkis. 'Sweet hearts; no person walks with +her!' + +'With Peggotty?' + +'Ah!' he said. 'Her.' + +'Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.' + +'Didn't she, though!' said Mr. Barkis. + +Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn't whistle, +but sat looking at the horse's ears. + +'So she makes,' said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of +reflection, 'all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do +she?' + +I replied that such was the fact. + +'Well. I'll tell you what,' said Mr. Barkis. 'P'raps you might be +writin' to her?' + +'I shall certainly write to her,' I rejoined. + +'Ah!' he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. 'Well! If you +was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that Barkis was +willin'; would you?' + +'That Barkis is willing,' I repeated, innocently. 'Is that all the +message?' + +'Ye-es,' he said, considering. 'Ye-es. Barkis is willin'.' + +'But you will be at Blunderstone again tomorrow, Mr. Barkis,' I +said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it +then, and could give your own message so much better.' + +As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, +and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with +profound gravity, 'Barkis is willin'. That's the message,' I +readily undertook its transmission. While I was waiting for the +coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a +sheet of paper and an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which +ran thus: 'My dear Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is +willing. My love to mama. Yours affectionately. P.S. He says he +particularly wants you to know - BARKIS IS WILLING.' + +When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. +Barkis relapsed into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out +by all that had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and +fell asleep. I slept soundly until we got to Yarmouth; which was +so entirely new and strange to me in the inn-yard to which we +drove, that I at once abandoned a latent hope I had had of meeting +with some of Mr. Peggotty's family there, perhaps even with little +Em'ly herself. + +The coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without +any horses to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing +was more unlikely than its ever going to London. I was thinking +this, and wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which +Mr. Barkis had put down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having +driven up the yard to turn his cart), and also what would +ultimately become of me, when a lady looked out of a bow-window +where some fowls and joints of meat were hanging up, and said: + +'Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone?' + +'Yes, ma'am,' I said. + +'What name?' inquired the lady. + +'Copperfield, ma'am,' I said. + +'That won't do,' returned the lady. 'Nobody's dinner is paid for +here, in that name.' + +'Is it Murdstone, ma'am?' I said. + +'If you're Master Murdstone,' said the lady, 'why do you go and +give another name, first?' + +I explained to the lady how it was, who than rang a bell, and +called out, 'William! show the coffee-room!' upon which a waiter +came running out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to +show it, and seemed a good deal surprised when he was only to show +it to me. + +It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I doubt if I +could have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign +countries, and I cast away in the middle of them. I felt it was +taking a liberty to sit down, with my cap in my hand, on the corner +of the chair nearest the door; and when the waiter laid a cloth on +purpose for me, and put a set of castors on it, I think I must have +turned red all over with modesty. + +He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off +in such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him +some offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair +for me at the table, and saying, very affably, 'Now, six-foot! come +on!' + +I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it +extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like +dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he +was standing opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the +most dreadful manner every time I caught his eye. After watching +me into the second chop, he said: + +'There's half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?' + +I thanked him and said, 'Yes.' Upon which he poured it out of a +jug into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and +made it look beautiful. + +'My eye!' he said. 'It seems a good deal, don't it?' + +'It does seem a good deal,' I answered with a smile. For it was +quite delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. He was a +twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright +all over his head; and as he stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up +the glass to the light with the other hand, he looked quite +friendly. + +'There was a gentleman here, yesterday,' he said - 'a stout +gentleman, by the name of Topsawyer - perhaps you know him?' + +'No,' I said, 'I don't think -' + +'In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled +choker,' said the waiter. + +'No,' I said bashfully, 'I haven't the pleasure -' + +'He came in here,' said the waiter, looking at the light through +the tumbler, 'ordered a glass of this ale - WOULD order it - I told +him not - drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It +oughtn't to be drawn; that's the fact.' + +I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and +said I thought I had better have some water. + +'Why you see,' said the waiter, still looking at the light through +the tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, 'our people don't like +things being ordered and left. It offends 'em. But I'll drink it, +if you like. I'm used to it, and use is everything. I don't think +it'll hurt me, if I throw my head back, and take it off quick. +Shall I?' + +I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he +thought he could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he +did throw his head back, and take it off quick, I had a horrible +fear, I confess, of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented Mr. +Topsawyer, and fall lifeless on the carpet. But it didn't hurt +him. On the contrary, I thought he seemed the fresher for it. + +'What have we got here?' he said, putting a fork into my dish. +'Not chops?' + +'Chops,' I said. + +'Lord bless my soul!' he exclaimed, 'I didn't know they were chops. +Why, a chop's the very thing to take off the bad effects of that +beer! Ain't it lucky?' + +So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the +other, and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme +satisfaction. He afterwards took another chop, and another potato; +and after that, another chop and another potato. When we had done, +he brought me a pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to +ruminate, and to become absent in his mind for some moments. + +'How's the pie?' he said, rousing himself. + +'It's a pudding,' I made answer. + +'Pudding!' he exclaimed. 'Why, bless me, so it is! What!' looking +at it nearer. 'You don't mean to say it's a batter-pudding!' + +'Yes, it is indeed.' + +'Why, a batter-pudding,' he said, taking up a table-spoon, 'is my +favourite pudding! Ain't that lucky? Come on, little 'un, and +let's see who'll get most.' + +The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to +come in and win, but what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his +dispatch to my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was +left far behind at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him. +I never saw anyone enjoy a pudding so much, I think; and he +laughed, when it was all gone, as if his enjoyment of it lasted +still. + +Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I +asked for the pen and ink and paper, to write to Peggotty. He not +only brought it immediately, but was good enough to look over me +while I wrote the letter. When I had finished it, he asked me +where I was going to school. + +I said, 'Near London,' which was all I knew. + +'Oh! my eye!' he said, looking very low-spirited, 'I am sorry for +that.' + +'Why?' I asked him. + +'Oh, Lord!' he said, shaking his head, 'that's the school where +they broke the boy's ribs - two ribs - a little boy he was. I +should say he was - let me see - how old are you, about?' + +I told him between eight and nine. + +'That's just his age,' he said. 'He was eight years and six months +old when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old +when they broke his second, and did for him.' + +I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was +an uncomfortable coincidence, and inquired how it was done. His +answer was not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two +dismal words, 'With whopping.' + +The blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a seasonable +diversion, which made me get up and hesitatingly inquire, in the +mingled pride and diffidence of having a purse (which I took out of +my pocket), if there were anything to pay. + +'There's a sheet of letter-paper,' he returned. 'Did you ever buy +a sheet of letter-paper?' + +I could not remember that I ever had. + +'It's dear,' he said, 'on account of the duty. Threepence. That's +the way we're taxed in this country. There's nothing else, except +the waiter. Never mind the ink. I lose by that.' + +'What should you - what should I - how much ought I to - what would +it be right to pay the waiter, if you please?' I stammered, +blushing. + +'If I hadn't a family, and that family hadn't the cowpock,' said +the waiter, 'I wouldn't take a sixpence. If I didn't support a +aged pairint, and a lovely sister,' - here the waiter was greatly +agitated - 'I wouldn't take a farthing. If I had a good place, and +was treated well here, I should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead +of taking of it. But I live on broken wittles - and I sleep on the +coals' - here the waiter burst into tears. + +I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any +recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness +of heart. Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, +which he received with much humility and veneration, and spun up +with his thumb, directly afterwards, to try the goodness of. + +It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being +helped up behind the coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all +the dinner without any assistance. I discovered this, from +overhearing the lady in the bow-window say to the guard, 'Take care +of that child, George, or he'll burst!' and from observing that the +women-servants who were about the place came out to look and giggle +at me as a young phenomenon. My unfortunate friend the waiter, who +had quite recovered his spirits, did not appear to be disturbed by +this, but joined in the general admiration without being at all +confused. If I had any doubt of him, I suppose this half awakened +it; but I am inclined to believe that with the simple confidence of +a child, and the natural reliance of a child upon superior years +(qualities I am very sorry any children should prematurely change +for worldly wisdom), I had no serious mistrust of him on the whole, +even then. + +I felt it rather hard, I must own, to be made, without deserving +it, the subject of jokes between the coachman and guard as to the +coach drawing heavy behind, on account of my sitting there, and as +to the greater expediency of my travelling by waggon. The story of +my supposed appetite getting wind among the outside passengers, +they were merry upon it likewise; and asked me whether I was going +to be paid for, at school, as two brothers or three, and whether I +was contracted for, or went upon the regular terms; with other +pleasant questions. But the worst of it was, that I knew I should +be ashamed to eat anything, when an opportunity offered, and that, +after a rather light dinner, I should remain hungry all night - for +I had left my cakes behind, at the hotel, in my hurry. My +apprehensions were realized. When we stopped for supper I couldn't +muster courage to take any, though I should have liked it very +much, but sat by the fire and said I didn't want anything. This +did not save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced +gentleman with a rough face, who had been eating out of a +sandwich-box nearly all the way, except when he had been drinking +out of a bottle, said I was like a boa-constrictor who took enough +at one meal to last him a long time; after which, he actually +brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef. + +We had started from Yarmouth at three o'clock in the afternoon, and +we were due in London about eight next morning. It was Mid-summer +weather, and the evening was very pleasant. When we passed through +a village, I pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were +like, and what the inhabitants were about; and when boys came +running after us, and got up behind and swung there for a little +way, I wondered whether their fathers were alive, and whether they +Were happy at home. I had plenty to think of, therefore, besides +my mind running continually on the kind of place I was going to - +which was an awful speculation. Sometimes, I remember, I resigned +myself to thoughts of home and Peggotty; and to endeavouring, in a +confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and what sort of boy +I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone: which I couldn't satisfy +myself about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him in such a +remote antiquity. + +The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly; +and being put between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and +another) to prevent my tumbling off the coach, I was nearly +smothered by their falling asleep, and completely blocking me up. +They squeezed me so hard sometimes, that I could not help crying +out, 'Oh! If you please!' - which they didn't like at all, because +it woke them. Opposite me was an elderly lady in a great fur +cloak, who looked in the dark more like a haystack than a lady, she +was wrapped up to such a degree. This lady had a basket with her, +and she hadn't known what to do with it, for a long time, until she +found that on account of my legs being short, it could go +underneath me. It cramped and hurt me so, that it made me +perfectly miserable; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass +that was in the basket rattle against something else (as it was +sure to do), she gave me the cruellest poke with her foot, and +said, 'Come, don't YOU fidget. YOUR bones are young enough, I'm +sure!' + +At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep +easier. The difficulties under which they had laboured all night, +and which had found utterance in the most terrific gasps and +snorts, are not to be conceived. As the sun got higher, their +sleep became lighter, and so they gradually one by one awoke. I +recollect being very much surprised by the feint everybody made, +then, of not having been to sleep at all, and by the uncommon +indignation with which everyone repelled the charge. I labour +under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having invariably +observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to which our common +nature is the least disposed to confess (I cannot imagine why) is +the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach. + +What an amazing place London was to me when I saw it in the +distance, and how I believed all the adventures of all my favourite +heroes to be constantly enacting and re-enacting there, and how I +vaguely made it out in my own mind to be fuller of wonders and +wickedness than all the cities of the earth, I need not stop here +to relate. We approached it by degrees, and got, in due time, to +the inn in the Whitechapel district, for which we were bound. I +forget whether it was the Blue Bull, or the Blue Boar; but I know +it was the Blue Something, and that its likeness was painted up on +the back of the coach. + +The guard's eye lighted on me as he was getting down, and he said +at the booking-office door: + +'Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the name of +Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, to be left till called +for?' + +Nobody answered. + +'Try Copperfield, if you please, sir,' said I, looking helplessly +down. + +'Is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the name of +Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, but owning to the name of +Copperfield, to be left till called for?' said the guard. 'Come! +IS there anybody?' + +No. There was nobody. I looked anxiously around; but the inquiry +made no impression on any of the bystanders, if I except a man in +gaiters, with one eye, who suggested that they had better put a +brass collar round my neck, and tie me up in the stable. + +A ladder was brought, and I got down after the lady, who was like +a haystack: not daring to stir, until her basket was removed. The +coach was clear of passengers by that time, the luggage was very +soon cleared out, the horses had been taken out before the luggage, +and now the coach itself was wheeled and backed off by some +hostlers, out of the way. Still, nobody appeared, to claim the +dusty youngster from Blunderstone, Suffolk. + +More solitary than Robinson Crusoe, who had nobody to look at him +and see that he was solitary, I went into the booking-office, and, +by invitation of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and +sat down on the scale at which they weighed the luggage. Here, as +I sat looking at the parcels, packages, and books, and inhaling the +smell of stables (ever since associated with that morning), a +procession of most tremendous considerations began to march through +my mind. Supposing nobody should ever fetch me, how long would +they consent to keep me there? Would they keep me long enough to +spend seven shillings? Should I sleep at night in one of those +wooden bins, with the other luggage, and wash myself at the pump in +the yard in the morning; or should I be turned out every night, and +expected to come again to be left till called for, when the office +opened next day? Supposing there was no mistake in the case, and +Mr. Murdstone had devised this plan to get rid of me, what should +I do? If they allowed me to remain there until my seven shillings +were spent, I couldn't hope to remain there when I began to starve. +That would obviously be inconvenient and unpleasant to the +customers, besides entailing on the Blue Whatever-it-was, the risk +of funeral expenses. If I started off at once, and tried to walk +back home, how could I ever find my way, how could I ever hope to +walk so far, how could I make sure of anyone but Peggotty, even if +I got back? If I found out the nearest proper authorities, and +offered myself to go for a soldier, or a sailor, I was such a +little fellow that it was most likely they wouldn't take me in. +These thoughts, and a hundred other such thoughts, turned me +burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and dismay. I was +in the height of my fever when a man entered and whispered to the +clerk, who presently slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over +to him, as if I were weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for. + +As I went out of the office, hand in hand with this new +acquaintance, I stole a look at him. He was a gaunt, sallow young +man, with hollow cheeks, and a chin almost as black as Mr. +Murdstone's; but there the likeness ended, for his whiskers were +shaved off, and his hair, instead of being glossy, was rusty and +dry. He was dressed in a suit of black clothes which were rather +rusty and dry too, and rather short in the sleeves and legs; and he +had a white neck-kerchief on, that was not over-clean. I did not, +and do not, suppose that this neck-kerchief was all the linen he +wore, but it was all he showed or gave any hint of. + +'You're the new boy?' he said. +'Yes, sir,' I said. + +I supposed I was. I didn't know. + +'I'm one of the masters at Salem House,' he said. + +I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. I was so ashamed to +allude to a commonplace thing like my box, to a scholar and a +master at Salem House, that we had gone some little distance from +the yard before I had the hardihood to mention it. We turned back, +on my humbly insinuating that it might be useful to me hereafter; +and he told the clerk that the carrier had instructions to call for +it at noon. + +'If you please, sir,' I said, when we had accomplished about the +same distance as before, 'is it far?' + +'It's down by Blackheath,' he said. + +'Is that far, sir?' I diffidently asked. + +'It's a good step,' he said. 'We shall go by the stage-coach. +It's about six miles.' + +I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six +miles more, was too much for me. I took heart to tell him that I +had had nothing all night, and that if he would allow me to buy +something to eat, I should be very much obliged to him. He +appeared surprised at this - I see him stop and look at me now - +and after considering for a few moments, said he wanted to call on +an old person who lived not far off, and that the best way would be +for me to buy some bread, or whatever I liked best that was +wholesome, and make my breakfast at her house, where we could get +some milk. + +Accordingly we looked in at a baker's window, and after I had made +a series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the +shop, and he had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of +a nice little loaf of brown bread, which cost me threepence. Then, +at a grocer's shop, we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon; +which still left what I thought a good deal of change, out of the +second of the bright shillings, and made me consider London a very +cheap place. These provisions laid in, we went on through a great +noise and uproar that confused my weary head beyond description, +and over a bridge which, no doubt, was London Bridge (indeed I +think he told me so, but I was half asleep), until we came to the +poor person's house, which was a part of some alms-houses, as I +knew by their look, and by an inscription on a stone over the gate +which said they were established for twenty-five poor women. + +The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of a number of +little black doors that were all alike, and had each a little +diamond-paned window on one side, and another little diamond- paned +window above; and we went into the little house of one of these +poor old women, who was blowing a fire to make a little saucepan +boil. On seeing the master enter, the old woman stopped with the +bellows on her knee, and said something that I thought sounded like +'My Charley!' but on seeing me come in too, she got up, and rubbing +her hands made a confused sort of half curtsey. + +'Can you cook this young gentleman's breakfast for him, if you +please?' said the Master at Salem House. + +'Can I?' said the old woman. 'Yes can I, sure!' + +'How's Mrs. Fibbitson today?' said the Master, looking at another +old woman in a large chair by the fire, who was such a bundle of +clothes that I feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon +her by mistake. + +'Ah, she's poorly,' said the first old woman. 'It's one of her bad +days. If the fire was to go out, through any accident, I verily +believe she'd go out too, and never come to life again.' + +As they looked at her, I looked at her also. Although it was a +warm day, she seemed to think of nothing but the fire. I fancied +she was jealous even of the saucepan on it; and I have reason to +know that she took its impressment into the service of boiling my +egg and broiling my bacon, in dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own +discomfited eyes, shake her fist at me once, when those culinary +operations were going on, and no one else was looking. The sun +streamed in at the little window, but she sat with her own back and +the back of the large chair towards it, screening the fire as if +she were sedulously keeping IT warm, instead of it keeping her +warm, and watching it in a most distrustful manner. The completion +of the preparations for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, gave +her such extreme joy that she laughed aloud - and a very +unmelodious laugh she had, I must say. + +I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with +a basin of milk besides, and made a most delicious meal. While I +was yet in the full enjoyment of it, the old woman of the house +said to the Master: + +'Have you got your flute with you?' + +'Yes,' he returned. + +'Have a blow at it,' said the old woman, coaxingly. 'Do!' + +The Master, upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his +coat, and brought out his flute in three pieces, which he screwed +together, and began immediately to play. My impression is, after +many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody +in the world who played worse. He made the most dismal sounds I +have ever heard produced by any means, natural or artificial. I +don't know what the tunes were - if there were such things in the +performance at all, which I doubt - but the influence of the strain +upon me was, first, to make me think of all my sorrows until I +could hardly keep my tears back; then to take away my appetite; and +lastly, to make me so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open. +They begin to close again, and I begin to nod, as the recollection +rises fresh upon me. Once more the little room, with its open +corner cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, and its angular +little staircase leading to the room above, and its three peacock's +feathers displayed over the mantelpiece - I remember wondering when +I first went in, what that peacock would have thought if he had +known what his finery was doomed to come to - fades from before me, +and I nod, and sleep. The flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of +the coach are heard instead, and I am on my journey. The coach +jolts, I wake with a start, and the flute has come back again, and +the Master at Salem House is sitting with his legs crossed, playing +it dolefully, while the old woman of the house looks on delighted. +She fades in her turn, and he fades, and all fades, and there is no +flute, no Master, no Salem House, no David Copperfield, no anything +but heavy sleep. + +I dreamed, I thought, that once while he was blowing into this +dismal flute, the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and +nearer to him in her ecstatic admiration, leaned over the back of +his chair and gave him an affectionate squeeze round the neck, +which stopped his playing for a moment. I was in the middle state +between sleeping and waking, either then or immediately afterwards; +for, as he resumed - it was a real fact that he had stopped playing +- I saw and heard the same old woman ask Mrs. Fibbitson if it +wasn't delicious (meaning the flute), to which Mrs. Fibbitson +replied, 'Ay, ay! yes!' and nodded at the fire: to which, I am +persuaded, she gave the credit of the whole performance. + +When I seemed to have been dozing a long while, the Master at Salem +House unscrewed his flute into the three pieces, put them up as +before, and took me away. We found the coach very near at hand, +and got upon the roof; but I was so dead sleepy, that when we +stopped on the road to take up somebody else, they put me inside +where there were no passengers, and where I slept profoundly, until +I found the coach going at a footpace up a steep hill among green +leaves. Presently, it stopped, and had come to its destination. + +A short walk brought us - I mean the Master and me - to Salem +House, which was enclosed with a high brick wall, and looked very +dull. Over a door in this wall was a board with SALEM HousE upon +it; and through a grating in this door we were surveyed when we +rang the bell by a surly face, which I found, on the door being +opened, belonged to a stout man with a bull-neck, a wooden leg, +overhanging temples, and his hair cut close all round his head. + +'The new boy,' said the Master. + +The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over - it didn't take long, +for there was not much of me - and locked the gate behind us, and +took out the key. We were going up to the house, among some dark +heavy trees, when he called after my conductor. +'Hallo!' + +We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge, +where he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand. + +'Here! The cobbler's been,' he said, 'since you've been out, Mr. +Mell, and he says he can't mend 'em any more. He says there ain't +a bit of the original boot left, and he wonders you expect it.' + +With these words he threw the boots towards Mr. Mell, who went back +a few paces to pick them up, and looked at them (very +disconsolately, I was afraid), as we went on together. I observed +then, for the first time, that the boots he had on were a good deal +the worse for wear, and that his stocking was just breaking out in +one place, like a bud. + +Salem House was a square brick building with wings; of a bare and +unfurnished appearance. All about it was so very quiet, that I +said to Mr. Mell I supposed the boys were out; but he seemed +surprised at my not knowing that it was holiday-time. That all the +boys were at their several homes. That Mr. Creakle, the +proprietor, was down by the sea-side with Mrs. and Miss Creakle; +and that I was sent in holiday-time as a punishment for my +misdoing, all of which he explained to me as we went along. + +I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most +forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long +room with three long rows of desks, and six of forms, and bristling +all round with pegs for hats and slates. Scraps of old copy-books +and exercises litter the dirty floor. Some silkworms' houses, made +of the same materials, are scattered over the desks. Two miserable +little white mice, left behind by their owner, are running up and +down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire, looking in all +the corners with their red eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a +cage very little bigger than himself, makes a mournful rattle now +and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from +it; but neither sings nor chirps. There is a strange unwholesome +smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting +air, and rotten books. There could not well be more ink splashed +about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction, and +the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the +varying seasons of the year. + +Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots +upstairs, I went softly to the upper end of the room, observing all +this as I crept along. Suddenly I came upon a pasteboard placard, +beautifully written, which was lying on the desk, and bore these +words: 'TAKE CARE OF HIM. HE BITES.' + +I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great +dog underneath. But, though I looked all round with anxious eyes, +I could see nothing of him. I was still engaged in peering about, +when Mr. Mell came back, and asked me what I did up there? + +'I beg your pardon, sir,' says I, 'if you please, I'm looking for +the dog.' + +'Dog?' he says. 'What dog?' + +'Isn't it a dog, sir?' + +'Isn't what a dog?' + +'That's to be taken care of, sir; that bites.' + +'No, Copperfield,' says he, gravely, 'that's not a dog. That's a +boy. My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your +back. I am sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do +it.' With that he took me down, and tied the placard, which was +neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a +knapsack; and wherever I went, afterwards, I had the consolation of +carrying it. + +What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. Whether it +was possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that +somebody was reading it. It was no relief to turn round and find +nobody; for wherever my back was, there I imagined somebody always +to be. That cruel man with the wooden leg aggravated my +sufferings. He was in authority; and if he ever saw me leaning +against a tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared out from his +lodge door in a stupendous voice, 'Hallo, you sir! You +Copperfield! Show that badge conspicuous, or I'll report you!' +The playground was a bare gravelled yard, open to all the back of +the house and the offices; and I knew that the servants read it, +and the butcher read it, and the baker read it; that everybody, in +a word, who came backwards and forwards to the house, of a morning +when I was ordered to walk there, read that I was to be taken care +of, for I bit, I recollect that I positively began to have a dread +of myself, as a kind of wild boy who did bite. + +There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a +custom of carving their names. It was completely covered with such +inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the vacation and their +coming back, I could not read a boy's name, without inquiring in +what tone and with what emphasis HE would read, 'Take care of him. +He bites.' There was one boy - a certain J. Steerforth - who cut +his name very deep and very often, who, I conceived, would read it +in a rather strong voice, and afterwards pull my hair. There was +another boy, one Tommy Traddles, who I dreaded would make game of +it, and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me. There was a +third, George Demple, who I fancied would sing it. I have looked, +a little shrinking creature, at that door, until the owners of all +the names - there were five-and-forty of them in the school then, +Mr. Mell said - seemed to send me to Coventry by general +acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, 'Take care of +him. He bites!' + +It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the +same with the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way +to, and when I was in, my own bed. I remember dreaming night after +night, of being with my mother as she used to be, or of going to a +party at Mr. Peggotty's, or of travelling outside the stage-coach, +or of dining again with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in +all these circumstances making people scream and stare, by the +unhappy disclosure that I had nothing on but my little night-shirt, +and that placard. + +In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the +re-opening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction! +I had long tasks every day to do with Mr. Mell; but I did them, +there being no Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them +without disgrace. Before, and after them, I walked about - +supervised, as I have mentioned, by the man with the wooden leg. +How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green +cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the +discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have +dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less +in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of +a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat. +Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out of a +blue teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven +or eight in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the +schoolroom, worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing- +paper, making out the bills (as I found) for last half-year. When +he had put up his things for the night he took out his flute, and +blew at it, until I almost thought he would gradually blow his +whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away at the +keys. + +I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my +head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. +Mell, and conning tomorrow's lessons. I picture myself with my +books shut up, still listening to the doleful performance of Mr. +Mell, and listening through it to what used to be at home, and to +the blowing of the wind on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and +solitary. I picture myself going up to bed, among the unused +rooms, and sitting on my bed-side crying for a comfortable word +from Peggotty. I picture myself coming downstairs in the morning, +and looking through a long ghastly gash of a staircase window at +the school-bell hanging on the top of an out-house with a +weathercock above it; and dreading the time when it shall ring J. +Steerforth and the rest to work: which is only second, in my +foreboding apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden +leg shall unlock the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr. +Creakle. I cannot think I was a very dangerous character in any of +these aspects, but in all of them I carried the same warning on my +back. + +Mr. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I +suppose we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot +to mention that he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and +clench his fist, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an +unaccountable manner. But he had these peculiarities: and at first +they frightened me, though I soon got used to them. + + + +CHAPTER 6 +I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE + + +I HAD led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg +began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which +I inferred that preparations were making to receive Mr. Creakle and +the boys. I was not mistaken; for the mop came into the schoolroom +before long, and turned out Mr. Mell and me, who lived where we +could, and got on how we could, for some days, during which we were +always in the way of two or three young women, who had rarely shown +themselves before, and were so continually in the midst of dust +that I sneezed almost as much as if Salem House had been a great +snuff-box. + +One day I was informed by Mr. Mell that Mr. Creakle would be home +that evening. In the evening, after tea, I heard that he was come. +Before bedtime, I was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to +appear before him. + +Mr. Creakle's part of the house was a good deal more comfortable +than ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant +after the dusty playground, which was such a desert in miniature, +that I thought no one but a camel, or a dromedary, could have felt +at home in it. It seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice +that the passage looked comfortable, as I went on my way, +trembling, to Mr. Creakle's presence: which so abashed me, when I +was ushered into it, that I hardly saw Mrs. Creakle or Miss Creakle +(who were both there, in the parlour), or anything but Mr. Creakle, +a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain and seals, in an +arm-chair, with a tumbler and bottle beside him. + +'So!' said Mr. Creakle. 'This is the young gentleman whose teeth +are to be filed! Turn him round.' + +The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard; +and having afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about +again, with my face to Mr. Creakle, and posted himself at Mr. +Creakle's side. Mr. Creakle's face was fiery, and his eyes were +small, and deep in his head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a +little nose, and a large chin. He was bald on the top of his head; +and had some thin wet-looking hair that was just turning grey, +brushed across each temple, so that the two sides interlaced on his +forehead. But the circumstance about him which impressed me most, +was, that he had no voice, but spoke in a whisper. The exertion +this cost him, or the consciousness of talking in that feeble way, +made his angry face so much more angry, and his thick veins so much +thicker, when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on looking back, +at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. +'Now,' said Mr. Creakle. 'What's the report of this boy?' + +'There's nothing against him yet,' returned the man with the wooden +leg. 'There has been no opportunity.' + +I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought Mrs. and Miss +Creakle (at whom I now glanced for the first time, and who were, +both, thin and quiet) were not disappointed. + +'Come here, sir!' said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me. + +'Come here!' said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the +gesture. + +'I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law,' whispered Mr. +Creakle, taking me by the ear; 'and a worthy man he is, and a man +of a strong character. He knows me, and I know him. Do YOU know +me? Hey?' said Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious +playfulness. + +'Not yet, sir,' I said, flinching with the pain. + +'Not yet? Hey?' repeated Mr. Creakle. 'But you will soon. Hey?' + +'You will soon. Hey?' repeated the man with the wooden leg. I +afterwards found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as +Mr. Creakle's interpreter to the boys. + +I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he pleased. +I felt, all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so +hard. + +'I'll tell you what I am,' whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it go at +last, with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. +'I'm a Tartar.' + +'A Tartar,' said the man with the wooden leg. + +'When I say I'll do a thing, I do it,' said Mr. Creakle; 'and when +I say I will have a thing done, I will have it done.' + +'- Will have a thing done, I will have it done,' repeated the man +with the wooden leg. + +'I am a determined character,' said Mr. Creakle. 'That's what I +am. I do my duty. That's what I do. My flesh and blood' - he +looked at Mrs. Creakle as he said this - 'when it rises against me, +is not my flesh and blood. I discard it. Has that fellow' - to +the man with the wooden leg -'been here again?' + +'No,' was the answer. + +'No,' said Mr. Creakle. 'He knows better. He knows me. Let him +keep away. I say let him keep away,' said Mr. Creakle, striking +his hand upon the table, and looking at Mrs. Creakle, 'for he knows +me. Now you have begun to know me too, my young friend, and you +may go. Take him away.' + +I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss Creakle were +both wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncomfortable for them as I +did for myself. But I had a petition on my mind which concerned me +so nearly, that I couldn't help saying, though I wondered at my own +courage: + +'If you please, sir -' + +Mr. Creakle whispered, 'Hah! What's this?' and bent his eyes upon +me, as if he would have burnt me up with them. + +'If you please, sir,' I faltered, 'if I might be allowed (I am very +sorry indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, before +the boys come back -' + +Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to +frighten me, I don't know, but he made a burst out of his chair, +before which I precipitately retreated, without waiting for the +escort Of the man with the wooden leg, and never once stopped until +I reached my own bedroom, where, finding I was not pursued, I went +to bed, as it was time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours. + +Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the first master, +and superior to Mr. Mell. Mr. Mell took his meals with the boys, +but Mr. Sharp dined and supped at Mr. Creakle's table. He was a +limp, delicate-looking gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of +nose, and a way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a +little too heavy for him. His hair was very smooth and wavy; but +I was informed by the very first boy who came back that it was a +wig (a second-hand one HE said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every +Saturday afternoon to get it curled. + +It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this piece of +intelligence. He was the first boy who returned. He introduced +himself by informing me that I should find his name on the right- +hand corner of the gate, over the top-bolt; upon that I said, +'Traddles?' to which he replied, 'The same,' and then he asked me +for a full account of myself and family. + +It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back first. +He enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from the +embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me +to every other boy who came back, great or small, immediately on +his arrival, in this form of introduction, 'Look here! Here's a +game!' Happily, too, the greater part of the boys came back +low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as I had +expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild +Indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation of +pretending that I was a dog, and patting and soothing me, lest I +should bite, and saying, 'Lie down, sir!' and calling me Towzer. +This was naturally confusing, among so many strangers, and cost me +some tears, but on the whole it was much better than I had +anticipated. + +I was not considered as being formally received into the school, +however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was +reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at +least half-a-dozen years my senior, I was carried as before a +magistrate. He inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the +particulars of my punishment, and was pleased to express his +opinion that it was 'a jolly shame'; for which I became bound to +him ever afterwards. + +'What money have you got, Copperfield?' he said, walking aside with +me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. I told him +seven shillings. + +'You had better give it to me to take care of,' he said. 'At +least, you can if you like. You needn't if you don't like.' + +I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and opening +Peggotty's purse, turned it upside down into his hand. + +'Do you want to spend anything now?' he asked me. + +'No thank you,' I replied. + +'You can, if you like, you know,' said Steerforth. 'Say the word.' + +'No, thank you, sir,' I repeated. + +'Perhaps you'd like to spend a couple of shillings or so, in a +bottle of currant wine by and by, up in the bedroom?' said +Steerforth. 'You belong to my bedroom, I find.' + +It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I +should like that. + +'Very good,' said Steerforth. 'You'll be glad to spend another +shilling or so, in almond cakes, I dare say?' + +I said, Yes, I should like that, too. + +'And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?' +said Steerforth. 'I say, young Copperfield, you're going it!' + +I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in my mind, +too. + +'Well!' said Steerforth. 'We must make it stretch as far as we +can; that's all. I'll do the best in my power for you. I can go +out when I like, and I'll smuggle the prog in.' With these words +he put the money in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make +myself uneasy; he would take care it should be all right. +He was as good as his word, if that were all right which I had a +secret misgiving was nearly all wrong - for I feared it was a waste +of my mother's two half-crowns - though I had preserved the piece +of paper they were wrapped in: which was a precious saving. When +we went upstairs to bed, he produced the whole seven +shillings'worth, and laid it out on my bed in the moonlight, +saying: + +'There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you've got.' + +I couldn't think of doing the honours of the feast, at my time of +life, while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. I +begged him to do me the favour of presiding; and my request being +seconded by the other boys who were in that room, he acceded to it, +and sat upon my pillow, handing round the viands - with perfect +fairness, I must say - and dispensing the currant wine in a little +glass without a foot, which was his own property. As to me, I sat +on his left hand, and the rest were grouped about us, on the +nearest beds and on the floor. + +How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or +their talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to +say; the moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the +window, painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part +of us in shadow, except when Steerforth dipped a match into a +phosphorus-box, when he wanted to look for anything on the board, +and shed a blue glare over us that was gone directly! A certain +mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secrecy of the +revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals over me +again, and I listen to all they tell me with a vague feeling of +solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that they are all so near, +and frightens me (though I feign to laugh) when Traddles pretends +to see a ghost in the corner. + +I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to +it. I heard that Mr. Creakle had not preferred his claim to being +a Tartar without reason; that he was the sternest and most severe +of masters; that he laid about him, right and left, every day of +his life, charging in among the boys like a trooper, and slashing +away, unmercifully. That he knew nothing himself, but the art of +slashing, being more ignorant (J. Steerforth said) than the lowest +boy in the school; that he had been, a good many years ago, a small +hop-dealer in the Borough, and had taken to the schooling business +after being bankrupt in hops, and making away with Mrs. Creakle's +money. With a good deal more of that sort, which I wondered how +they knew. + +I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was Tungay, +was an obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted in the hop +business, but had come into the scholastic line with Mr. Creakle, +in consequence, as was supposed among the boys, of his having +broken his leg in Mr. Creakle's service, and having done a deal of +dishonest work for him, and knowing his secrets. I heard that with +the single exception of Mr. Creakle, Tungay considered the whole +establishment, masters and boys, as his natural enemies, and that +the only delight of his life was to be sour and malicious. I heard +that Mr. Creakle had a son, who had not been Tungay's friend, and +who, assisting in the school, had once held some remonstrance with +his father on an occasion when its discipline was very cruelly +exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have protested against his +father's usage of his mother. I heard that Mr. Creakle had turned +him out of doors, in consequence; and that Mrs. and Miss Creakle +had been in a sad way, ever since. + +But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was, there +being one boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay a +hand, and that boy being J. Steerforth. Steerforth himself +confirmed this when it was stated, and said that he should like to +begin to see him do it. On being asked by a mild boy (not me) how +he would proceed if he did begin to see him do it, he dipped a +match into his phosphorus-box on purpose to shed a glare over his +reply, and said he would commence by knocking him down with a blow +on the forehead from the seven-and-sixpenny ink-bottle that was +always on the mantelpiece. We sat in the dark for some time, +breathless. + +I heard that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both supposed to be +wretchedly paid; and that when there was hot and cold meat for +dinner at Mr. Creakle's table, Mr. Sharp was always expected to say +he preferred cold; which was again corroborated by J. Steerforth, +the only parlour-boarder. I heard that Mr. Sharp's wig didn't fit +him; and that he needn't be so 'bounceable' - somebody else said +'bumptious' - about it, because his own red hair was very plainly +to be seen behind. + +I heard that one boy, who was a coal-merchant's son, came as a +set-off against the coal-bill, and was called, on that account, +'Exchange or Barter' - a name selected from the arithmetic book as +expressing this arrangement. I heard that the table beer was a +robbery of parents, and the pudding an imposition. I heard that +Miss Creakle was regarded by the school in general as being in love +with Steerforth; and I am sure, as I sat in the dark, thinking of +his nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy manner, and his +curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard that Mr. Mell was +not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence to bless himself +with; and that there was no doubt that old Mrs. Mell, his mother, +was as poor as job. I thought of my breakfast then, and what had +sounded like 'My Charley!' but I was, I am glad to remember, as +mute as a mouse about it. + +The hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted the +banquet some time. The greater part of the guests had gone to bed +as soon as the eating and drinking were over; and we, who had +remained whispering and listening half-undressed, at last betook +ourselves to bed, too. + +'Good night, young Copperfield,' said Steerforth. 'I'll take care +of you.' +'You're very kind,' I gratefully returned. 'I am very much obliged +to you.' + +'You haven't got a sister, have you?' said Steerforth, yawning. + +'No,' I answered. + +'That's a pity,' said Steerforth. 'If you had had one, I should +think she would have been a pretty, timid, little, bright-eyed sort +of girl. I should have liked to know her. Good night, young +Copperfield.' + +'Good night, sir,' I replied. + +I thought of him very much after I went to bed, and raised myself, +I recollect, to look at him where he lay in the moonlight, with his +handsome face turned up, and his head reclining easily on his arm. +He was a person of great power in my eyes; that was, of course, the +reason of my mind running on him. No veiled future dimly glanced +upon him in the moonbeams. There was no shadowy picture of his +footsteps, in the garden that I dreamed of walking in all night. + + + +CHAPTER 7 +MY 'FIRST HALF' AT SALEM HOUSE + + +School began in earnest next day. A profound impression was made +upon me, I remember, by the roar of voices in the schoolroom +suddenly becoming hushed as death when Mr. Creakle entered after +breakfast, and stood in the doorway looking round upon us like a +giant in a story-book surveying his captives. + +Tungay stood at Mr. Creakle's elbow. He had no occasion, I +thought, to cry out 'Silence!' so ferociously, for the boys were +all struck speechless and motionless. + +Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay was heard, to this +effect. + +'Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you're about, in +this new half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, for I +come fresh up to the punishment. I won't flinch. It will be of no +use your rubbing yourselves; you won't rub the marks out that I +shall give you. Now get to work, every boy!' + +When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had stumped out +again, Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and told me that if I were +famous for biting, he was famous for biting, too. He then showed +me the cane, and asked me what I thought of THAT, for a tooth? Was +it a sharp tooth, hey? Was it a double tooth, hey? Had it a deep +prong, hey? Did it bite, hey? Did it bite? At every question he +gave me a fleshy cut with it that made me writhe; so I was very +soon made free of Salem House (as Steerforth said), and was very +soon in tears also. + +Not that I mean to say these were special marks of distinction, +which only I received. On the contrary, a large majority of the +boys (especially the smaller ones) were visited with similar +instances of notice, as Mr. Creakle made the round of the +schoolroom. Half the establishment was writhing and crying, before +the day's work began; and how much of it had writhed and cried +before the day's work was over, I am really afraid to recollect, +lest I should seem to exaggerate. + +I should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed his +profession more than Mr. Creakle did. He had a delight in cutting +at the boys, which was like the satisfaction of a craving appetite. +I am confident that he couldn't resist a chubby boy, especially; +that there was a fascination in such a subject, which made him +restless in his mind, until he had scored and marked him for the +day. I was chubby myself, and ought to know. I am sure when I +think of the fellow now, my blood rises against him with the +disinterested indignation I should feel if I could have known all +about him without having ever been in his power; but it rises +hotly, because I know him to have been an incapable brute, who had +no more right to be possessed of the great trust he held, than to +be Lord High Admiral, or Commander-in-Chief - in either of which +capacities it is probable that he would have done infinitely less +mischief. + +Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how abject we +were to him! What a launch in life I think it now, on looking +back, to be so mean and servile to a man of such parts and +pretensions! + +Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye - humbly watching +his eye, as he rules a ciphering-book for another victim whose +hands have just been flattened by that identical ruler, and who is +trying to wipe the sting out with a pocket-handkerchief. I have +plenty to do. I don't watch his eye in idleness, but because I am +morbidly attracted to it, in a dread desire to know what he will do +next, and whether it will be my turn to suffer, or somebody else's. +A lane of small boys beyond me, with the same interest in his eye, +watch it too. I think he knows it, though he pretends he don't. +He makes dreadful mouths as he rules the ciphering-book; and now he +throws his eye sideways down our lane, and we all droop over our +books and tremble. A moment afterwards we are again eyeing him. +An unhappy culprit, found guilty of imperfect exercise, approaches +at his command. The culprit falters excuses, and professes a +determination to do better tomorrow. Mr. Creakle cuts a joke +before he beats him, and we laugh at it, - miserable little dogs, +we laugh, with our visages as white as ashes, and our hearts +sinking into our boots. + +Here I sit at the desk again, on a drowsy summer afternoon. A buzz +and hum go up around me, as if the boys were so many bluebottles. +A cloggy sensation of the lukewarm fat of meat is upon me (we dined +an hour or two ago), and my head is as heavy as so much lead. I +would give the world to go to sleep. I sit with my eye on Mr. +Creakle, blinking at him like a young owl; when sleep overpowers me +for a minute, he still looms through my slumber, ruling those +ciphering-books, until he softly comes behind me and wakes me to +plainer perception of him, with a red ridge across my back. + +Here I am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated by him, +though I can't see him. The window at a little distance from which +I know he is having his dinner, stands for him, and I eye that +instead. If he shows his face near it, mine assumes an imploring +and submissive expression. If he looks out through the glass, the +boldest boy (Steerforth excepted) stops in the middle of a shout or +yell, and becomes contemplative. One day, Traddles (the most +unfortunate boy in the world) breaks that window accidentally, with +a ball. I shudder at this moment with the tremendous sensation of +seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has bounded on to Mr. +Creakle's sacred head. + +Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and +legs like German sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the +merriest and most miserable of all the boys. He was always being +caned - I think he was caned every day that half-year, except one +holiday Monday when he was only ruler'd on both hands - and was +always going to write to his uncle about it, and never did. After +laying his head on the desk for a little while, he would cheer up, +somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his +slate, before his eyes were dry. I used at first to wonder what +comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some time +looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded himself by those +symbols of mortality that caning couldn't last for ever. But I +believe he only did it because they were easy, and didn't want any +features. + +He was very honourable, Traddles was, and held it as a solemn duty +in the boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this on +several occasions; and particularly once, when Steerforth laughed +in church, and the Beadle thought it was Traddles, and took him +out. I see him now, going away in custody, despised by the +congregation. He never said who was the real offender, though he +smarted for it next day, and was imprisoned so many hours that he +came forth with a whole churchyard-full of skeletons swarming all +over his Latin Dictionary. But he had his reward. Steerforth said +there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and we all felt that to +be the highest praise. For my part, I could have gone through a +good deal (though I was much less brave than Traddles, and nothing +like so old) to have won such a recompense. + +To see Steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with Miss +Creakle, was one of the great sights of my life. I didn't think +Miss Creakle equal to little Em'ly in point of beauty, and I didn't +love her (I didn't dare); but I thought her a young lady of +extraordinary attractions, and in point of gentility not to be +surpassed. When Steerforth, in white trousers, carried her parasol +for her, I felt proud to know him; and believed that she could not +choose but adore him with all her heart. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell +were both notable personages in my eyes; but Steerforth was to them +what the sun was to two stars. + +Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very useful +friend; since nobody dared to annoy one whom he honoured with his +countenance. He couldn't - or at all events he didn't - defend me +from Mr. Creakle, who was very severe with me; but whenever I had +been treated worse than usual, he always told me that I wanted a +little of his pluck, and that he wouldn't have stood it himself; +which I felt he intended for encouragement, and considered to be +very kind of him. There was one advantage, and only one that I +know of, in Mr. Creakle's severity. He found my placard in his way +when he came up or down behind the form on which I sat, and wanted +to make a cut at me in passing; for this reason it was soon taken +off, and I saw it no more. + +An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth +and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and +satisfaction, though it sometimes led to inconvenience. It +happened on one occasion, when he was doing me the honour of +talking to me in the playground, that I hazarded the observation +that something or somebody - I forget what now - was like something +or somebody in Peregrine Pickle. He said nothing at the time; but +when I was going to bed at night, asked me if I had got that book? + +I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read it, and all +those other books of which I have made mention. + +'And do you recollect them?' Steerforth said. + +'Oh yes,' I replied; I had a good memory, and I believed I +recollected them very well. + +'Then I tell you what, young Copperfield,' said Steerforth, 'you +shall tell 'em to me. I can't get to sleep very early at night, +and I generally wake rather early in the morning. We'll go over +'em one after another. We'll make some regular Arabian Nights of +it.' + +I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced +carrying it into execution that very evening. What ravages I +committed on my favourite authors in the course of my +interpretation of them, I am not in a condition to say, and should +be very unwilling to know; but I had a profound faith in them, and +I had, to the best of my belief, a simple, earnest manner of +narrating what I did narrate; and these qualities went a long way. + +The drawback was, that I was often sleepy at night, or out of +spirits and indisposed to resume the story; and then it was rather +hard work, and it must be done; for to disappoint or to displease +Steerforth was of course out of the question. In the morning, too, +when I felt weary, and should have enjoyed another hour's repose +very much, it was a tiresome thing to be roused, like the Sultana +Scheherazade, and forced into a long story before the getting-up +bell rang; but Steerforth was resolute; and as he explained to me, +in return, my sums and exercises, and anything in my tasks that was +too hard for me, I was no loser by the transaction. Let me do +myself justice, however. I was moved by no interested or selfish +motive, nor was I moved by fear of him. I admired and loved him, +and his approval was return enough. It was so precious to me that +I look back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart. + +Steerforth was considerate, too; and showed his consideration, in +one particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little +tantalizing, I suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest. Peggotty's +promised letter - what a comfortable letter it was! - arrived +before 'the half' was many weeks old; and with it a cake in a +perfect nest of oranges, and two bottles of cowslip wine. This +treasure, as in duty bound, I laid at the feet of Steerforth, and +begged him to dispense. + +'Now, I'll tell you what, young Copperfield,' said he: 'the wine +shall be kept to wet your whistle when you are story-telling.' + +I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think +of it. But he said he had observed I was sometimes hoarse - a +little roopy was his exact expression - and it should be, every +drop, devoted to the purpose he had mentioned. Accordingly, it was +locked up in his box, and drawn off by himself in a phial, and +administered to me through a piece of quill in the cork, when I was +supposed to be in want of a restorative. Sometimes, to make it a +more sovereign specific, he was so kind as to squeeze orange juice +into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or dissolve a peppermint +drop in it; and although I cannot assert that the flavour was +improved by these experiments, or that it was exactly the compound +one would have chosen for a stomachic, the last thing at night and +the first thing in the morning, I drank it gratefully and was very +sensible of his attention. + +We seem, to me, to have been months over Peregrine, and months more +over the other stories. The institution never flagged for want of +a story, I am certain; and the wine lasted out almost as well as +the matter. Poor Traddles - I never think of that boy but with a +strange disposition to laugh, and with tears in my eyes - was a +sort of chorus, in general; and affected to be convulsed with mirth +at the comic parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was any +passage of an alarming character in the narrative. This rather put +me out, very often. It was a great jest of his, I recollect, to +pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from chattering, whenever +mention was made of an Alguazill in connexion with the adventures +of Gil Blas; and I remember that when Gil Blas met the captain of +the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited such an +ague of terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who was +prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly +conduct in the bedroom. +Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy, was +encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and in that +respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable to me. But +the being cherished as a kind of plaything in my room, and the +consciousness that this accomplishment of mine was bruited about +among the boys, and attracted a good deal of notice to me though I +was the youngest there, stimulated me to exertion. In a school +carried on by sheer cruelty, whether it is presided over by a dunce +or not, there is not likely to be much learnt. I believe our boys +were, generally, as ignorant a set as any schoolboys in existence; +they were too much troubled and knocked about to learn; they could +no more do that to advantage, than any one can do anything to +advantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment, and worry. +But my little vanity, and Steerforth's help, urged me on somehow; +and without saving me from much, if anything, in the way of +punishment, made me, for the time I was there, an exception to the +general body, insomuch that I did steadily pick up some crumbs of +knowledge. + +In this I was much assisted by Mr. Mell, who had a liking for me +that I am grateful to remember. It always gave me pain to observe +that Steerforth treated him with systematic disparagement, and +seldom lost an occasion of wounding his feelings, or inducing +others to do so. This troubled me the more for a long time, +because I had soon told Steerforth, from whom I could no more keep +such a secret, than I could keep a cake or any other tangible +possession, about the two old women Mr. Mell had taken me to see; +and I was always afraid that Steerforth would let it out, and twit +him with it. + +We little thought, any one of us, I dare say, when I ate my +breakfast that first morning, and went to sleep under the shadow of +the peacock's feathers to the sound of the flute, what consequences +would come of the introduction into those alms-houses of my +insignificant person. But the visit had its unforeseen +consequences; and of a serious sort, too, in their way. + +One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indisposition, which +naturally diffused a lively joy through the school, there was a +good deal of noise in the course of the morning's work. The great +relief and satisfaction experienced by the boys made them difficult +to manage; and though the dreaded Tungay brought his wooden leg in +twice or thrice, and took notes of the principal offenders' names, +no great impression was made by it, as they were pretty sure of +getting into trouble tomorrow, do what they would, and thought it +wise, no doubt, to enjoy themselves today. + +It was, properly, a half-holiday; being Saturday. But as the noise +in the playground would have disturbed Mr. Creakle, and the weather +was not favourable for going out walking, we were ordered into +school in the afternoon, and set some lighter tasks than usual, +which were made for the occasion. It was the day of the week on +which Mr. Sharp went out to get his wig curled; so Mr. Mell, who +always did the drudgery, whatever it was, kept school by himself. +If I could associate the idea of a bull or a bear with anyone so +mild as Mr. Mell, I should think of him, in connexion with that +afternoon when the uproar was at its height, as of one of those +animals, baited by a thousand dogs. I recall him bending his +aching head, supported on his bony hand, over the book on his desk, +and wretchedly endeavouring to get on with his tiresome work, +amidst an uproar that might have made the Speaker of the House of +Commons giddy. Boys started in and out of their places, playing at +puss in the corner with other boys; there were laughing boys, +singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, howling boys; boys +shuffled with their feet, boys whirled about him, grinning, making +faces, mimicking him behind his back and before his eyes; mimicking +his poverty, his boots, his coat, his mother, everything belonging +to him that they should have had consideration for. + +'Silence!' cried Mr. Mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his +desk with the book. 'What does this mean! It's impossible to bear +it. It's maddening. How can you do it to me, boys?' + +It was my book that he struck his desk with; and as I stood beside +him, following his eye as it glanced round the room, I saw the boys +all stop, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry +perhaps. + +Steerforth's place was at the bottom of the school, at the opposite +end of the long room. He was lounging with his back against the +wall, and his hands in his pockets, and looked at Mr. Mell with his +mouth shut up as if he were whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him. + +'Silence, Mr. Steerforth!' said Mr. Mell. + +'Silence yourself,' said Steerforth, turning red. 'Whom are you +talking to?' + +'Sit down,' said Mr. Mell. + +'Sit down yourself,' said Steerforth, 'and mind your business.' + +There was a titter, and some applause; but Mr. Mell was so white, +that silence immediately succeeded; and one boy, who had darted out +behind him to imitate his mother again, changed his mind, and +pretended to want a pen mended. + +'If you think, Steerforth,' said Mr. Mell, 'that I am not +acquainted with the power you can establish over any mind here' - +he laid his hand, without considering what he did (as I supposed), +upon my head - 'or that I have not observed you, within a few +minutes, urging your juniors on to every sort of outrage against +me, you are mistaken.' + +'I don't give myself the trouble of thinking at all about you,' +said Steerforth, coolly; 'so I'm not mistaken, as it happens.' + +'And when you make use of your position of favouritism here, sir,' +pursued Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very much, 'to insult a +gentleman -' + +'A what? - where is he?' said Steerforth. + +Here somebody cried out, 'Shame, J. Steerforth! Too bad!' It was +Traddles; whom Mr. Mell instantly discomfited by bidding him hold +his tongue. + +- 'To insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who never +gave you the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting +whom you are old enough and wise enough to understand,' said Mr. +Mell, with his lips trembling more and more, 'you commit a mean and +base action. You can sit down or stand up as you please, sir. +Copperfield, go on.' + +'Young Copperfield,' said Steerforth, coming forward up the room, +'stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for all. When you +take the liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that +sort, you are an impudent beggar. You are always a beggar, you +know; but when you do that, you are an impudent beggar.' + +I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell, or Mr. Mell +was going to strike him, or there was any such intention on either +side. I saw a rigidity come upon the whole school as if they had +been turned into stone, and found Mr. Creakle in the midst of us, +with Tungay at his side, and Mrs. and Miss Creakle looking in at +the door as if they were frightened. Mr. Mell, with his elbows on +his desk and his face in his hands, sat, for some moments, quite +still. + +'Mr. Mell,' said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm; and his +whisper was so audible now, that Tungay felt it unnecessary to +repeat his words; 'you have not forgotten yourself, I hope?' + +'No, sir, no,' returned the Master, showing his face, and shaking +his head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation. 'No, sir. No. +I have remembered myself, I - no, Mr. Creakle, I have not forgotten +myself, I - I have remembered myself, sir. I - I - could wish you +had remembered me a little sooner, Mr. Creakle. It - it - would +have been more kind, sir, more just, sir. It would have saved me +something, sir.' + +Mr. Creakle, looking hard at Mr. Mell, put his hand on Tungay's +shoulder, and got his feet upon the form close by, and sat upon the +desk. After still looking hard at Mr. Mell from his throne, as he +shook his head, and rubbed his hands, and remained in the same +state of agitation, Mr. Creakle turned to Steerforth, and said: + +'Now, sir, as he don't condescend to tell me, what is this?' + +Steerforth evaded the question for a little while; looking in scorn +and anger on his opponent, and remaining silent. I could not help +thinking even in that interval, I remember, what a noble fellow he +was in appearance, and how homely and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed +to him. + +'What did he mean by talking about favourites, then?' said +Steerforth at length. + +'Favourites?' repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in his forehead +swelling quickly. 'Who talked about favourites?' + +'He did,' said Steerforth. + +'And pray, what did you mean by that, sir?' demanded Mr. Creakle, +turning angrily on his assistant. + +'I meant, Mr. Creakle,' he returned in a low voice, 'as I said; +that no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position of +favouritism to degrade me.' + +'To degrade YOU?' said Mr. Creakle. 'My stars! But give me leave +to ask you, Mr. What's-your-name'; and here Mr. Creakle folded his +arms, cane and all, upon his chest, and made such a knot of his +brows that his little eyes were hardly visible below them; +'whether, when you talk about favourites, you showed proper respect +to me? To me, sir,' said Mr. Creakle, darting his head at him +suddenly, and drawing it back again, 'the principal of this +establishment, and your employer.' + +'It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to admit,' said Mr. Mell. +'I should not have done so, if I had been cool.' + +Here Steerforth struck in. + +'Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base, and then I +called him a beggar. If I had been cool, perhaps I shouldn't have +called him a beggar. But I did, and I am ready to take the +consequences of it.' + +Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any consequences +to be taken, I felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. It +made an impression on the boys too, for there was a low stir among +them, though no one spoke a word. + +'I am surprised, Steerforth - although your candour does you +honour,' said Mr. Creakle, 'does you honour, certainly - I am +surprised, Steerforth, I must say, that you should attach such an +epithet to any person employed and paid in Salem House, sir.' + +Steerforth gave a short laugh. + +'That's not an answer, sir,' said Mr. Creakle, 'to my remark. I +expect more than that from you, Steerforth.' + +If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome boy, it +would be quite impossible to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked. +'Let him deny it,' said Steerforth. + +'Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?' cried Mr. Creakle. 'Why, +where does he go a-begging?' + +'If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation's one,' said +Steerforth. 'It's all the same.' + +He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell's hand gently patted me upon the +shoulder. I looked up with a flush upon my face and remorse in my +heart, but Mr. Mell's eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued +to pat me kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him. + +'Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,' said +Steerforth, 'and to say what I mean, - what I have to say is, that +his mother lives on charity in an alms-house.' + +Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the +shoulder, and said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right: +'Yes, I thought so.' + +Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and +laboured politeness: + +'Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the +goodness, if you please, to set him right before the assembled +school.' + +'He is right, sir, without correction,' returned Mr. Mell, in the +midst of a dead silence; 'what he has said is true.' + +'Be so good then as declare publicly, will you,' said Mr. Creakle, +putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the +school, 'whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?' + +'I believe not directly,' he returned. + +'Why, you know not,' said Mr. Creakle. 'Don't you, man?' + +'I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very +good,' replied the assistant. 'You know what my position is, and +always has been, here.' + +'I apprehend, if you come to that,' said Mr. Creakle, with his +veins swelling again bigger than ever, 'that you've been in a wrong +position altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. +Mell, we'll part, if you please. The sooner the better.' + +'There is no time,' answered Mr. Mell, rising, 'like the present.' + +'Sir, to you!' said Mr. Creakle. + +'I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and all of you,' said Mr. +Mell, glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the +shoulders. 'James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is +that you may come to be ashamed of what you have done today. At +present I would prefer to see you anything rather than a friend, to +me, or to anyone in whom I feel an interest.' + +Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and then taking his +flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for +his successor, he went out of the school, with his property under +his arm. Mr. Creakle then made a speech, through Tungay, in which +he thanked Steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the +independence and respectability of Salem House; and which he wound +up by shaking hands with Steerforth, while we gave three cheers - +I did not quite know what for, but I supposed for Steerforth, and +so joined in them ardently, though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle +then caned Tommy Traddles for being discovered in tears, instead of +cheers, on account of Mr. Mell's departure; and went back to his +sofa, or his bed, or wherever he had come from. + +We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I recollect, +on one another. For myself, I felt so much self-reproach and +contrition for my part in what had happened, that nothing would +have enabled me to keep back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, +who often looked at me, I saw, might think it unfriendly - or, I +should rather say, considering our relative ages, and the feeling +with which I regarded him, undutiful - if I showed the emotion +which distressed me. He was very angry with Traddles, and said he +was glad he had caught it. + +Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon +the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of +skeletons, said he didn't care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. + +'Who has ill-used him, you girl?' said Steerforth. + +'Why, you have,' returned Traddles. + +'What have I done?' said Steerforth. + +'What have you done?' retorted Traddles. 'Hurt his feelings, and +lost him his situation.' + +'His feelings?' repeated Steerforth disdainfully. 'His feelings +will soon get the better of it, I'll be bound. His feelings are +not like yours, Miss Traddles. As to his situation - which was a +precious one, wasn't it? - do you suppose I am not going to write +home, and take care that he gets some money? Polly?' + +We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother +was a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, +that he asked her. We were all extremely glad to see Traddles so +put down, and exalted Steerforth to the skies: especially when he +told us, as he condescended to do, that what he had done had been +done expressly for us, and for our cause; and that he had conferred +a great boon upon us by unselfishly doing it. +But I must say that when I was going on with a story in the dark +that night, Mr. Mell's old flute seemed more than once to sound +mournfully in my ears; and that when at last Steerforth was tired, +and I lay down in my bed, I fancied it playing so sorrowfully +somewhere, that I was quite wretched. + +I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in an +easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know +everything by heart), took some of his classes until a new master +was found. The new master came from a grammar school; and before +he entered on his duties, dined in the parlour one day, to be +introduced to Steerforth. Steerforth approved of him highly, and +told us he was a Brick. Without exactly understanding what learned +distinction was meant by this, I respected him greatly for it, and +had no doubt whatever of his superior knowledge: though he never +took the pains with me - not that I was anybody - that Mr. Mell had +taken. + +There was only one other event in this half-year, out of the daily +school-life, that made an impression upon me which still survives. +It survives for many reasons. + +One afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state of dire +confusion, and Mr. Creakle was laying about him dreadfully, Tungay +came in, and called out in his usual strong way: 'Visitors for +Copperfield!' + +A few words were interchanged between him and Mr. Creakle, as, who +the visitors were, and what room they were to be shown into; and +then I, who had, according to custom, stood up on the announcement +being made, and felt quite faint with astonishment, was told to go +by the back stairs and get a clean frill on, before I repaired to +the dining-room. These orders I obeyed, in such a flutter and +hurry of my young spirits as I had never known before; and when I +got to the parlour door, and the thought came into my head that it +might be my mother - I had only thought of Mr. or Miss Murdstone +until then - I drew back my hand from the lock, and stopped to have +a sob before I went in. + +At first I saw nobody; but feeling a pressure against the door, I +looked round it, and there, to my amazement, were Mr. Peggotty and +Ham, ducking at me with their hats, and squeezing one another +against the wall. I could not help laughing; but it was much more +in the pleasure of seeing them, than at the appearance they made. +We shook hands in a very cordial way; and I laughed and laughed, +until I pulled out my pocket-handkerchief and wiped my eyes. + +Mr. Peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, I remember, during the +visit) showed great concern when he saw me do this, and nudged Ham +to say something. + +'Cheer up, Mas'r Davy bor'!' said Ham, in his simpering way. 'Why, +how you have growed!' + +'Am I grown?' I said, drying my eyes. I was not crying at anything +in particular that I know of; but somehow it made me cry, to see +old friends. + +'Growed, Mas'r Davy bor'? Ain't he growed!' said Ham. + +'Ain't he growed!' said Mr. Peggotty. + +They made me laugh again by laughing at each other, and then we all +three laughed until I was in danger of crying again. + +'Do you know how mama is, Mr. Peggotty?' I said. 'And how my dear, +dear, old Peggotty is?' + +'Oncommon,' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'And little Em'ly, and Mrs. Gummidge?' + +'On - common,' said Mr. Peggotty. + +There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took two +prodigious lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag +of shrimps, out of his pockets, and piled them up in Ham's arms. + +'You see,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'knowing as you was partial to a +little relish with your wittles when you was along with us, we took +the liberty. The old Mawther biled 'em, she did. Mrs. Gummidge +biled 'em. Yes,' said Mr. Peggotty, slowly, who I thought appeared +to stick to the subject on account of having no other subject +ready, 'Mrs. Gummidge, I do assure you, she biled 'em.' + +I expressed my thanks; and Mr. Peggotty, after looking at Ham, who +stood smiling sheepishly over the shellfish, without making any +attempt to help him, said: + +'We come, you see, the wind and tide making in our favour, in one +of our Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen'. My sister she wrote to me the +name of this here place, and wrote to me as if ever I chanced to +come to Gravesen', I was to come over and inquire for Mas'r Davy +and give her dooty, humbly wishing him well and reporting of the +fam'ly as they was oncommon toe-be-sure. Little Em'ly, you see, +she'll write to my sister when I go back, as I see you and as you +was similarly oncommon, and so we make it quite a merry- +go-rounder.' + +I was obliged to consider a little before I understood what Mr. +Peggotty meant by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of +intelligence. I then thanked him heartily; and said, with a +consciousness of reddening, that I supposed little Em'ly was +altered too, since we used to pick up shells and pebbles on the +beach? + +'She's getting to be a woman, that's wot she's getting to be,' said +Mr. Peggotty. 'Ask HIM.' +He meant Ham, who beamed with delight and assent over the bag of +shrimps. + +'Her pretty face!' said Mr. Peggotty, with his own shining like a +light. + +'Her learning!' said Ham. + +'Her writing!' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Why it's as black as jet! And +so large it is, you might see it anywheres.' + +It was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm Mr. +Peggotty became inspired when he thought of his little favourite. +He stands before me again, his bluff hairy face irradiating with a +joyful love and pride, for which I can find no description. His +honest eyes fire up, and sparkle, as if their depths were stirred +by something bright. His broad chest heaves with pleasure. His +strong loose hands clench themselves, in his earnestness; and he +emphasizes what he says with a right arm that shows, in my pigmy +view, like a sledge-hammer. + +Ham was quite as earnest as he. I dare say they would have said +much more about her, if they had not been abashed by the unexpected +coming in of Steerforth, who, seeing me in a corner speaking with +two strangers, stopped in a song he was singing, and said: 'I +didn't know you were here, young Copperfield!' (for it was not the +usual visiting room) and crossed by us on his way out. + +I am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such a friend +as Steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him how I came to +have such a friend as Mr. Peggotty, that I called to him as he was +going away. But I said, modestly - Good Heaven, how it all comes +back to me this long time afterwards! - + +'Don't go, Steerforth, if you please. These are two Yarmouth +boatmen - very kind, good people - who are relations of my nurse, +and have come from Gravesend to see me.' + +'Aye, aye?' said Steerforth, returning. 'I am glad to see them. +How are you both?' + +There was an ease in his manner - a gay and light manner it was, +but not swaggering - which I still believe to have borne a kind of +enchantment with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this +carriage, his animal spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome +face and figure, and, for aught I know, of some inborn power of +attraction besides (which I think a few people possess), to have +carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weakness to +yield, and which not many persons could withstand. I could not but +see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed to open +their hearts to him in a moment. + +'You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty,' I +said, 'when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind +to me, and that I don't know what I should ever do here without +him.' + +'Nonsense!' said Steerforth, laughing. 'You mustn't tell them +anything of the sort.' + +'And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or Suffolk, Mr. +Peggotty,' I said, 'while I am there, you may depend upon it I +shall bring him to Yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. +You never saw such a good house, Steerforth. It's made out of a +boat!' + +'Made out of a boat, is it?' said Steerforth. 'It's the right sort +of a house for such a thorough-built boatman.' + +'So 'tis, sir, so 'tis, sir,' said Ham, grinning. 'You're right, +young gen'l'm'n! Mas'r Davy bor', gen'l'm'n's right. A thorough- +built boatman! Hor, hor! That's what he is, too!' + +Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his +modesty forbade him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously. + +'Well, sir,' he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends +of his neckerchief at his breast: 'I thankee, sir, I thankee! I do +my endeavours in my line of life, sir.' + +'The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty,' said Steerforth. +He had got his name already. + +'I'll pound it, it's wot you do yourself, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty, +shaking his head, 'and wot you do well - right well! I thankee, +sir. I'm obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. +I'm rough, sir, but I'm ready - least ways, I hope I'm ready, you +unnerstand. My house ain't much for to see, sir, but it's hearty +at your service if ever you should come along with Mas'r Davy to +see it. I'm a reg'lar Dodman, I am,' said Mr. Peggotty, by which +he meant snail, and this was in allusion to his being slow to go, +for he had attempted to go after every sentence, and had somehow or +other come back again; 'but I wish you both well, and I wish you +happy!' + +Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest +manner. I was almost tempted that evening to tell Steerforth about +pretty little Em'ly, but I was too timid of mentioning her name, +and too much afraid of his laughing at me. I remember that I +thought a good deal, and in an uneasy sort of way, about Mr. +Peggotty having said that she was getting on to be a woman; but I +decided that was nonsense. + +We transported the shellfish, or the 'relish' as Mr. Peggotty had +modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great +supper that evening. But Traddles couldn't get happily out of it. +He was too unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody +else. He was taken ill in the night - quite prostrate he was - in +consequence of Crab; and after being drugged with black draughts +and blue pills, to an extent which Demple (whose father was a +doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse's constitution, +received a caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for refusing +to confess. + +The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the +daily strife and struggle of our lives; of the waning summer and +the changing season; of the frosty mornings when we were rung out +of bed, and the cold, cold smell of the dark nights when we were +rung into bed again; of the evening schoolroom dimly lighted and +indifferently warmed, and the morning schoolroom which was nothing +but a great shivering-machine; of the alternation of boiled beef +with roast beef, and boiled mutton with roast mutton; of clods of +bread-and-butter, dog's-eared lesson-books, cracked slates, +tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings, hair-cuttings, rainy +Sundays, suet-puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of ink, surrounding +all. + +I well remember though, how the distant idea of the holidays, after +seeming for an immense time to be a stationary speck, began to come +towards us, and to grow and grow. How from counting months, we +came to weeks, and then to days; and how I then began to be afraid +that I should not be sent for and when I learnt from Steerforth +that I had been sent for, and was certainly to go home, had dim +forebodings that I might break my leg first. How the breaking-up +day changed its place fast, at last, from the week after next to +next week, this week, the day after tomorrow, tomorrow, today, +tonight - when I was inside the Yarmouth mail, and going home. + +I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an +incoherent dream of all these things. But when I awoke at +intervals, the ground outside the window was not the playground of +Salem House, and the sound in my ears was not the sound of Mr. +Creakle giving it to Traddles, but the sound of the coachman +touching up the horses. + + + +CHAPTER 8 +MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON + + +When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which +was not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to +a nice little bedroom, with DOLPHIN painted on the door. Very cold +I was, I know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before +a large fire downstairs; and very glad I was to turn into the +Dolphin's bed, pull the Dolphin's blankets round my head, and go to +sleep. + +Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine +o'clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of +my night's rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time. +He received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we +were last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get +change for sixpence, or something of that sort. + +As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated, +the lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace. + +'You look very well, Mr. Barkis,' I said, thinking he would like to +know it. + +Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his +cuff as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made +no other acknowledgement of the compliment. + +'I gave your message, Mr. Barkis,' I said: 'I wrote to Peggotty.' + +'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis. + +Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily. + +'Wasn't it right, Mr. Barkis?' I asked, after a little hesitation. + +'Why, no,' said Mr. Barkis. + +'Not the message?' + +'The message was right enough, perhaps,' said Mr. Barkis; 'but it +come to an end there.' + +Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively: 'Came to +an end, Mr. Barkis?' + +'Nothing come of it,' he explained, looking at me sideways. 'No +answer.' + +'There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis?' said I, +opening my eyes. For this was a new light to me. + +'When a man says he's willin',' said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance +slowly on me again, 'it's as much as to say, that man's a-waitin' +for a answer.' + +'Well, Mr. Barkis?' + +'Well,' said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse's +ears; 'that man's been a-waitin' for a answer ever since.' + +'Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?' + +'No - no,' growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. 'I ain't got +no call to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her +myself, I ain't a-goin' to tell her so.' + +'Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?' said I, doubtfully. +'You might tell her, if you would,' said Mr. Barkis, with another +slow look at me, 'that Barkis was a-waitin' for a answer. Says you +- what name is it?' + +'Her name?' + +'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head. + +'Peggotty.' + +'Chrisen name? Or nat'ral name?' said Mr. Barkis. + +'Oh, it's not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara.' + +'Is it though?' said Mr. Barkis. + +He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this +circumstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some +time. + +'Well!' he resumed at length. 'Says you, "Peggotty! Barkis is +waitin' for a answer." Says she, perhaps, "Answer to what?" Says +you, "To what I told you." "What is that?" says she. "Barkis is +willin'," says you.' + +This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a +nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After +that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no +other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, +taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing up, inside the +tilt of the cart, 'Clara Peggotty' - apparently as a private +memorandum. + +Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not +home, and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the +happy old home, which was like a dream I could never dream again! +The days when my mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one +another, and there was no one to come between us, rose up before me +so sorrowfully on the road, that I am not sure I was glad to be +there - not sure but that I would rather have remained away, and +forgotten it in Steerforth's company. But there I was; and soon I +was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees wrung their many +hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old rooks'-nests +drifted away upon the wind. + +The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I +walked along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, +and fearing at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone +lowering out of one of them. No face appeared, however; and being +come to the house, and knowing how to open the door, before dark, +without knocking, I went in with a quiet, timid step. + +God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened +within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlour, +when I set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I +think I must have lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me +when I was but a baby. The strain was new to me, and yet it was so +old that it filled my heart brim-full; like a friend come back from +a long absence. + +I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother +murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the +room. She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny +hand she held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon +its face, and she sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she +had no other companion. + +I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she +called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the +room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and +laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was +nestling there, and put its hand to my lips. + +I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my +heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have +been since. + +'He is your brother,' said my mother, fondling me. 'Davy, my +pretty boy! My poor child!' Then she kissed me more and more, and +clasped me round the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came +running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad +about us both for a quarter of an hour. + +It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being +much before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss +Murdstone had gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would +not return before night. I had never hoped for this. I had never +thought it possible that we three could be together undisturbed, +once more; and I felt, for the time, as if the old days were come +back. + +We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to +wait upon us, but my mother wouldn't let her do it, and made her +dine with us. I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a +man-of-war in full sail upon it, which Peggotty had hoarded +somewhere all the time I had been away, and would not have had +broken, she said, for a hundred pounds. I had my own old mug with +David on it, and my own old little knife and fork that wouldn't +cut. + +While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion to tell +Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to +tell her, began to laugh, and throw her apron over her face. + +'Peggotty,' said my mother. 'What's the matter?' + +Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her +face when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head +were in a bag. + +'What are you doing, you stupid creature?' said my mother, +laughing. + +'Oh, drat the man!' cried Peggotty. 'He wants to marry me.' + +'It would be a very good match for you; wouldn't it?' said my +mother. + +'Oh! I don't know,' said Peggotty. 'Don't ask me. I wouldn't +have him if he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn't have anybody.' + +'Then, why don't you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?' said my +mother. + +'Tell him so,' retorted Peggotty, looking out of her apron. 'He +has never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was +to make so bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face.' + +Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think; +but she only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when +she was taken with a violent fit of laughter; and after two or +three of those attacks, went on with her dinner. + +I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked +at her, became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first +that she was changed. Her face was very pretty still, but it +looked careworn, and too delicate; and her hand was so thin and +white that it seemed to me to be almost transparent. But the +change to which I now refer was superadded to this: it was in her +manner, which became anxious and fluttered. At last she said, +putting out her hand, and laying it affectionately on the hand of +her old servant, + +'Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?' + +'Me, ma'am?' returned Peggotty, staring. 'Lord bless you, no!' + +'Not just yet?' said my mother, tenderly. + +'Never!' cried Peggotty. + +My mother took her hand, and said: + +'Don't leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long, +perhaps. What should I ever do without you!' + +'Me leave you, my precious!' cried Peggotty. 'Not for all the +world and his wife. Why, what's put that in your silly little +head?' - For Peggotty had been used of old to talk to my mother +sometimes like a child. + +But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty +went running on in her own fashion. + +'Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you? +I should like to catch her at it! No, no, no,' said Peggotty, +shaking her head, and folding her arms; 'not she, my dear. It +isn't that there ain't some Cats that would be well enough pleased +if she did, but they sha'n't be pleased. They shall be aggravated. +I'll stay with you till I am a cross cranky old woman. And when +I'm too deaf, and too lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want +of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be found fault with, +than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me in.' + +'And, Peggotty,' says I, 'I shall be glad to see you, and I'll make +you as welcome as a queen.' + +'Bless your dear heart!' cried Peggotty. 'I know you will!' And +she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgement of my +hospitality. After that, she covered her head up with her apron +again and had another laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took +the baby out of its little cradle, and nursed it. After that, she +cleared the dinner table; after that, came in with another cap on, +and her work-box, and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax-candle, +all just the same as ever. + +We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what +a hard master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I +told them what a fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of +mine, and Peggotty said she would walk a score of miles to see him. +I took the little baby in my arms when it was awake, and nursed it +lovingly. When it was asleep again, I crept close to my mother's +side according to my old custom, broken now a long time, and sat +with my arms embracing her waist, and my little red cheek on her +shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful hair drooping over me - +like an angel's wing as I used to think, I recollect - and was very +happy indeed. + +While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the +red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that +Mr. and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when +the fire got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I +remembered, save my mother, Peggotty, and I. + +Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and +then sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her +needle in her right, ready to take another stitch whenever there +was a blaze. I cannot conceive whose stockings they can have been +that Peggotty was always darning, or where such an unfailing supply +of stockings in want of darning can have come from. From my +earliest infancy she seems to have been always employed in that +class of needlework, and never by any chance in any other. + +'I wonder,' said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of +wondering on some most unexpected topic, 'what's become of Davy's +great-aunt?' +'Lor, Peggotty!' observed my mother, rousing herself from a +reverie, 'what nonsense you talk!' + +'Well, but I really do wonder, ma'am,' said Peggotty. + +'What can have put such a person in your head?' inquired my mother. +'Is there nobody else in the world to come there?' + +'I don't know how it is,' said Peggotty, 'unless it's on account of +being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people. +They come and they go, and they don't come and they don't go, just +as they like. I wonder what's become of her?' + +'How absurd you are, Peggotty!' returned my mother. 'One would +suppose you wanted a second visit from her.' + +'Lord forbid!' cried Peggotty. + +'Well then, don't talk about such uncomfortable things, there's a +good soul,' said my mother. 'Miss Betsey is shut up in her cottage +by the sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she is +not likely ever to trouble us again.' + +'No!' mused Peggotty. 'No, that ain't likely at all. - I wonder, +if she was to die, whether she'd leave Davy anything?' + +'Good gracious me, Peggotty,' returned my mother, 'what a +nonsensical woman you are! when you know that she took offence at +the poor dear boy's ever being born at all.' + +'I suppose she wouldn't be inclined to forgive him now,' hinted +Peggotty. + +'Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?' said my mother, +rather sharply. + +'Now that he's got a brother, I mean,' said Peggotty. + +MY mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty dared +to say such a thing. + +'As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any +harm to you or anybody else, you jealous thing!' said she. 'You +had much better go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don't +you?' + +'I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to,' said Peggotty. + +'What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty!' returned my mother. +'You are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a +ridiculous creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and +give out all the things, I suppose? I shouldn't be surprised if +you did. When you know that she only does it out of kindness and +the best intentions! You know she does, Peggotty - you know it +well.' + +Peggotty muttered something to the effect of 'Bother the best +intentions!' and something else to the effect that there was a +little too much of the best intentions going on. + +'I know what you mean, you cross thing,' said my mother. 'I +understand you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder +you don't colour up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss +Murdstone is the point now, Peggotty, and you sha'n't escape from +it. Haven't you heard her say, over and over again, that she +thinks I am too thoughtless and too - a - a -' + +'Pretty,' suggested Peggotty. + +'Well,' returned my mother, half laughing, 'and if she is so silly +as to say so, can I be blamed for it?' + +'No one says you can,' said Peggotty. + +'No, I should hope not, indeed!' returned my mother. 'Haven't you +heard her say, over and over again, that on this account she wished +to spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not +suited for, and which I really don't know myself that I AM suited +for; and isn't she up early and late, and going to and fro +continually - and doesn't she do all sorts of things, and grope +into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and I don't know +where, that can't be very agreeable - and do you mean to insinuate +that there is not a sort of devotion in that?' + +'I don't insinuate at all,' said Peggotty. + +'You do, Peggotty,' returned my mother. 'You never do anything +else, except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in +it. And when you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions -' + +'I never talked of 'em,' said Peggotty. + +'No, Peggotty,' returned my mother, 'but you insinuated. That's +what I told you just now. That's the worst of you. You WILL +insinuate. I said, at the moment, that I understood you, and you +see I did. When you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions, and +pretend to slight them (for I don't believe you really do, in your +heart, Peggotty), you must be as well convinced as I am how good +they are, and how they actuate him in everything. If he seems to +have been at all stern with a certain person, Peggotty - you +understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not alluding to +anybody present - it is solely because he is satisfied that it is +for a certain person's benefit. He naturally loves a certain +person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person's good. +He is better able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know +that I am a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, +grave, serious man. And he takes,' said my mother, with the tears +which were engendered in her affectionate nature, stealing down her +face, 'he takes great pains with me; and I ought to be very +thankful to him, and very submissive to him even in my thoughts; +and when I am not, Peggotty, I worry and condemn myself, and feel +doubtful of my own heart, and don't know what to do.' + +Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking +silently at the fire. + +'There, Peggotty,' said my mother, changing her tone, 'don't let us +fall out with one another, for I couldn't bear it. You are my true +friend, I know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a +ridiculous creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that +sort, Peggotty, I only mean that you are my true friend, and always +have been, ever since the night when Mr. Copperfield first brought +me home here, and you came out to the gate to meet me.' + +Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratify the treaty of +friendship by giving me one of her best hugs. I think I had some +glimpses of the real character of this conversation at the time; +but I am sure, now, that the good creature originated it, and took +her part in it, merely that my mother might comfort herself with +the little contradictory summary in which she had indulged. The +design was efficacious; for I remember that my mother seemed more +at ease during the rest of the evening, and that Peggotty observed +her less. + +When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the +candles snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile +Book, in remembrance of old times - she took it out of her pocket: +I don't know whether she had kept it there ever since - and then we +talked about Salem House, which brought me round again to +Steerforth, who was my great subject. We were very happy; and that +evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to close +that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory. + +It was almost ten o'clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We +all got up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so +late, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved of early hours for young +people, perhaps I had better go to bed. I kissed her, and went +upstairs with my candle directly, before they came in. It appeared +to my childish fancy, as I ascended to the bedroom where I had been +imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the house +which blew away the old familiar feeling like a feather. + +I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, +as I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I +committed my memorable offence. However, as it must be done, I +went down, after two or three false starts half-way, and as many +runs back on tiptoe to my own room, and presented myself in the +parlour. + +He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss +Murdstone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but +made no sign of recognition whatever. +I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said: 'I beg +your pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I did, and I hope you +will forgive me.' + +'I am glad to hear you are sorry, David,' he replied. + +The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not +restrain my eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it; +but it was not so red as I turned, when I met that sinister +expression in his face. + +'How do you do, ma'am?' I said to Miss Murdstone. + +'Ah, dear me!' sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop +instead of her fingers. 'How long are the holidays?' + +'A month, ma'am.' + +'Counting from when?' + +'From today, ma'am.' + +'Oh!' said Miss Murdstone. 'Then here's one day off.' + +She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning +checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily +until she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became +more hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular. + +It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw +her, though she was not subject to such weakness in general, into +a state of violent consternation. I came into the room where she +and my mother were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks +old) being on my mother's lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. +Suddenly Miss Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but dropped +it. + +'My dear Jane!' cried my mother. + +'Good heavens, Clara, do you see?' exclaimed Miss Murdstone. + +'See what, my dear Jane?' said my mother; 'where?' + +'He's got it!' cried Miss Murdstone. 'The boy has got the baby!' + +She was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at +me, and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint; and was so +very ill that they were obliged to give her cherry brandy. I was +solemnly interdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my +brother any more on any pretence whatever; and my poor mother, who, +I could see, wished otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by +saying: 'No doubt you are right, my dear Jane.' + +On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear +baby - it was truly dear to me, for our mother's sake - was the +innocent occasion of Miss Murdstone's going into a passion. My +mother, who had been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, +said: + +'Davy! come here!' and looked at mine. + +I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down. + +'I declare,' said my mother, gently, 'they are exactly alike. I +suppose they are mine. I think they are the colour of mine. But +they are wonderfully alike.' + +'What are you talking about, Clara?' said Miss Murdstone. + +'My dear Jane,' faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh +tone of this inquiry, 'I find that the baby's eyes and Davy's are +exactly alike.' + +'Clara!' said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, 'you are a positive +fool sometimes.' + +'My dear Jane,' remonstrated my mother. + +'A positive fool,' said Miss Murdstone. 'Who else could compare my +brother's baby with your boy? They are not at all alike. They are +exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I +hope they will ever remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such +comparisons made.' With that she stalked out, and made the door +bang after her. + +In short, I was not a favourite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I +was not a favourite there with anybody, not even with myself; for +those who did like me could not show it, and those who did not, +showed it so plainly that I had a sensitive consciousness of always +appearing constrained, boorish, and dull. + +I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I +came into the room where they were, and they were talking together +and my mother seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over +her face from the moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in +his best humour, I checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her +worst, I intensified it. I had perception enough to know that my +mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or +to be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her +manner of doing so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was +not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, but of my +offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I only moved. +Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as I +could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church clock strike, +when I was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little +great-coat, poring over a book. + +In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the +kitchen. There I was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. +But neither of these resources was approved of in the parlour. The +tormenting humour which was dominant there stopped them both. I +was still held to be necessary to my poor mother's training, and, +as one of her trials, could not be suffered to absent myself. + +'David,' said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going +to leave the room as usual; 'I am sorry to observe that you are of +a sullen disposition.' + +'As sulky as a bear!' said Miss Murdstone. + +I stood still, and hung my head. + +'Now, David,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'a sullen obdurate disposition +is, of all tempers, the worst.' + +'And the boy's is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen,' +remarked his sister, 'the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my +dear Clara, even you must observe it?' + +'I beg your pardon, my dear Jane,' said my mother, 'but are you +quite sure - I am certain you'll excuse me, my dear Jane - that you +understand Davy?' + +'I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara,' returned Miss +Murdstone, 'if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don't +profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.' + +'No doubt, my dear Jane,' returned my mother, 'your understanding +is very vigorous -' + +'Oh dear, no! Pray don't say that, Clara,' interposed Miss +Murdstone, angrily. + +'But I am sure it is,' resumed my mother; 'and everybody knows it +is. I profit so much by it myself, in many ways - at least I ought +to - that no one can be more convinced of it than myself; and +therefore I speak with great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure +you.' + +'We'll say I don't understand the boy, Clara,' returned Miss +Murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. 'We'll +agree, if you please, that I don't understand him at all. He is +much too deep for me. But perhaps my brother's penetration may +enable him to have some insight into his character. And I believe +my brother was speaking on the subject when we - not very decently +- interrupted him.' + +'I think, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, 'that +there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a +question than you.' + +'Edward,' replied my mother, timidly, 'you are a far better judge +of all questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I +only said -' + +'You only said something weak and inconsiderate,' he replied. 'Try +not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself.' + +MY mother's lips moved, as if she answered 'Yes, my dear Edward,' +but she said nothing aloud. + +'I was sorry, David, I remarked,' said Mr. Murdstone, turning his +head and his eyes stiffly towards me, 'to observe that you are of +a sullen disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to +develop itself beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. +You must endeavour, sir, to change it. We must endeavour to change +it for you.' + +'I beg your pardon, sir,' I faltered. 'I have never meant to be +sullen since I came back.' + +'Don't take refuge in a lie, sir!' he returned so fiercely, that I +saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to +interpose between us. 'You have withdrawn yourself in your +sullenness to your own room. You have kept your own room when you +ought to have been here. You know now, once for all, that I +require you to be here, and not there. Further, that I require you +to bring obedience here. You know me, David. I will have it +done.' + +Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle. + +'I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards +myself,' he continued, 'and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards +your mother. I will not have this room shunned as if it were +infected, at the pleasure of a child. Sit down.' + +He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog. + +'One thing more,' he said. 'I observe that you have an attachment +to low and common company. You are not to associate with servants. +The kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you +need improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing - +since you, Clara,' addressing my mother in a lower voice, 'from old +associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness +respecting her which is not yet overcome.' + +'A most unaccountable delusion it is!' cried Miss Murdstone. + +'I only say,' he resumed, addressing me, 'that I disapprove of your +preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be +abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will +be the consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter.' + +I knew well - better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor +mother was concerned - and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated +to my own room no more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more; but +sat wearily in the parlour day after day, looking forward to night, +and bedtime. + +What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude +hours upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss +Murdstone should complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my +restlessness, and afraid to move an eye lest she should light on +some look of dislike or scrutiny that would find new cause for +complaint in mine! What intolerable dulness to sit listening to +the ticking of the clock; and watching Miss Murdstone's little +shiny steel beads as she strung them; and wondering whether she +would ever be married, and if so, to what sort of unhappy man; and +counting the divisions in the moulding of the chimney-piece; and +wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among the curls and +corkscrews in the paper on the wall! + +What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter +weather, carrying that parlour, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, +everywhere: a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare +that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded +on my wits, and blunted them! + +What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that +there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite +too many, and that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those +mine; a somebody too many, and that I! + +What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ +myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over +some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the +tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as 'Rule +Britannia', or 'Away with Melancholy'; when they wouldn't stand +still to be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother's needle +through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the other! +What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care; what +starts I came out of concealed sleeps with; what answers I never +got, to little observations that I rarely made; what a blank space +I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody's +way; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the +first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed! + +Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss +Murdstone said: 'Here's the last day off!' and gave me the closing +cup of tea of the vacation. + +I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was +recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. +Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, +and again Miss Murdstone in her warning voice, said: 'Clara!' when +my mother bent over me, to bid me farewell. + +I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not +sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the +parting was there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace +she gave me, that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as +could be, as what followed the embrace. + +I was in the carrier's cart when I heard her calling to me. I +looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her +baby up in her arms for me to see. It was cold still weather; and +not a hair of her head, nor a fold of her dress, was stirred, as +she looked intently at me, holding up her child. + +So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school - a +silent presence near my bed - looking at me with the same intent +face - holding up her baby in her arms. + + + +CHAPTER 9 +I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY + + +I PASS over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of +my birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more +to be admired than ever, I remember nothing. He was going away at +the end of the half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and +independent than before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging +than before; but beyond this I remember nothing. The great +remembrance by which that time is marked in my mind, seems to have +swallowed up all lesser recollections, and to exist alone. + +It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full +two months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that +birthday. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I +know it must have been so; otherwise I should feel convinced that +there was no interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the +other's heels. + +How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that +hung about the place; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I +feel my rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim +perspective of the schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and +there to light up the foggy morning, and the breath of the boys +wreathing and smoking in the raw cold as they blow upon their +fingers, and tap their feet upon the floor. It was after +breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the playground, when +Mr. Sharp entered and said: + +'David Copperfield is to go into the parlour.' + +I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. +Some of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in +the distribution of the good things, as I got out of my seat with +great alacrity. + +'Don't hurry, David,' said Mr. Sharp. 'There's time enough, my +boy, don't hurry.' + +I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, +if I had given it a thought; but I gave it none until afterwards. +I hurried away to the parlour; and there I found Mr. Creakle, +sitting at his breakfast with the cane and a newspaper before him, +and Mrs. Creakle with an opened letter in her hand. But no hamper. + +'David Copperfield,' said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and +sitting down beside me. 'I want to speak to you very particularly. +I have something to tell you, my child.' + +Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without +looking at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of +buttered toast. + +'You are too young to know how the world changes every day,' said +Mrs. Creakle, 'and how the people in it pass away. But we all have +to learn it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when +we are old, some of us at all times of our lives.' + +I looked at her earnestly. + +'When you came away from home at the end of the vacation,' said +Mrs. Creakle, after a pause, 'were they all well?' After another +pause, 'Was your mama well?' + +I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her +earnestly, making no attempt to answer. + +'Because,' said she, 'I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning +your mama is very ill.' + +A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to +move in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down +my face, and it was steady again. + +'She is very dangerously ill,' she added. + +I knew all now. + +'She is dead.' + +There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a +desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world. + +She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me +alone sometimes; and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke +and cried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think; and +then the oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull +pain that there was no ease for. + +And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that +weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of +our house shut up and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, +Mrs. Creakle said, had been pining away for some time, and who, +they believed, would die too. I thought of my father's grave in +the churchyard, by our house, and of my mother lying there beneath +the tree I knew so well. I stood upon a chair when I was left +alone, and looked into the glass to see how red my eyes were, and +how sorrowful my face. I considered, after some hours were gone, +if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be, +what, in connexion with my loss, it would affect me most to think +of when I drew near home - for I was going home to the funeral. I +am sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the +rest of the boys, and that I was important in my affliction. + +If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I +remember that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, +when I walked in the playground that afternoon while the boys were +in school. When I saw them glancing at me out of the windows, as +they went up to their classes, I felt distinguished, and looked +more melancholy, and walked slower. When school was over, and they +came out and spoke to me, I felt it rather good in myself not to be +proud to any of them, and to take exactly the same notice of them +all, as before. + +I was to go home next night; not by the mail, but by the heavy +night-coach, which was called the Farmer, and was principally used +by country-people travelling short intermediate distances upon the +road. We had no story-telling that evening, and Traddles insisted +on lending me his pillow. I don't know what good he thought it +would do me, for I had one of my own: but it was all he had to +lend, poor fellow, except a sheet of letter-paper full of +skeletons; and that he gave me at parting, as a soother of my +sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind. + +I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought +then that I left it, never to return. We travelled very slowly all +night, and did not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o'clock in +the morning. I looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there; +and instead of him a fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old +man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of +his breeches, black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came +puffing up to the coach window, and said: + +'Master Copperfield?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'Will you come with me, young sir, if you please,' he said, opening +the door, 'and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home.' + +I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to +a shop in a narrow street, on which was written OMER, DRAPER, +TAILOR, HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &c. It was a close and +stifling little shop; full of all sorts of clothing, made and +unmade, including one window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. We +went into a little back-parlour behind the shop, where we found +three young women at work on a quantity of black materials, which +were heaped upon the table, and little bits and cuttings of which +were littered all over the floor. There was a good fire in the +room, and a breathless smell of warm black crape - I did not know +what the smell was then, but I know now. + +The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and +comfortable, raised their heads to look at me, and then went on +with their work. Stitch, stitch, stitch. At the same time there +came from a workshop across a little yard outside the window, a +regular sound of hammering that kept a kind of tune: RAT - tat-tat, +RAT - tat-tat, RAT - tat-tat, without any variation. + +'Well,' said my conductor to one of the three young women. 'How do +you get on, Minnie?' + +'We shall be ready by the trying-on time,' she replied gaily, +without looking up. 'Don't you be afraid, father.' + +Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. +He was so fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could +say: + +'That's right.' + +'Father!' said Minnie, playfully. 'What a porpoise you do grow!' + +'Well, I don't know how it is, my dear,' he replied, considering +about it. 'I am rather so.' + +'You are such a comfortable man, you see,' said Minnie. 'You take +things so easy.' + +'No use taking 'em otherwise, my dear,' said Mr. Omer. + +'No, indeed,' returned his daughter. 'We are all pretty gay here, +thank Heaven! Ain't we, father?' + +'I hope so, my dear,' said Mr. Omer. 'As I have got my breath now, +I think I'll measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the +shop, Master Copperfield?' + +I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request; and after +showing me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too +good mourning for anything short of parents, he took my various +dimensions, and put them down in a book. While he was recording +them he called my attention to his stock in trade, and to certain +fashions which he said had 'just come up', and to certain other +fashions which he said had 'just gone out'. + +'And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of +money,' said Mr. Omer. 'But fashions are like human beings. They +come in, nobody knows when, why, or how; and they go out, nobody +knows when, why, or how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, +if you look at it in that point of view.' + +I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly +have been beyond me under any circumstances; and Mr. Omer took me +back into the parlour, breathing with some difficulty on the way. + +He then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a +door: 'Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter!' which, after some +time, during which I sat looking about me and thinking, and +listening to the stitching in the room and the tune that was being +hammered across the yard, appeared on a tray, and turned out to be +for me. + +'I have been acquainted with you,' said Mr. Omer, after watching me +for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on +the breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite, 'I have +been acquainted with you a long time, my young friend.' + +'Have you, sir?' + +'All your life,' said Mr. Omer. 'I may say before it. I knew your +father before you. He was five foot nine and a half, and he lays +in five-and-twen-ty foot of ground.' + +'RAT - tat-tat, RAT - tat-tat, RAT - tat-tat,' across the yard. + +'He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a +fraction,' said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. 'It was either his request +or her direction, I forget which.' + +'Do you know how my little brother is, sir?' I inquired. + +Mr. Omer shook his head. + +'RAT - tat-tat, RAT - tat-tat, RAT - tat-tat.' + +'He is in his mother's arms,' said he. + +'Oh, poor little fellow! Is he dead?' + +'Don't mind it more than you can help,' said Mr. Omer. 'Yes. The +baby's dead.' + +My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left the +scarcely-tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head on another +table, in a corner of the little room, which Minnie hastily +cleared, lest I should spot the mourning that was lying there with +my tears. She was a pretty, good-natured girl, and put my hair +away from my eyes with a soft, kind touch; but she was very +cheerful at having nearly finished her work and being in good time, +and was so different from me! + +Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came +across the yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand, and +his mouth was full of little nails, which he was obliged to take +out before he could speak. + +'Well, Joram!' said Mr. Omer. 'How do you get on?' + +'All right,' said Joram. 'Done, sir.' + +Minnie coloured a little, and the other two girls smiled at one +another. + +'What! you were at it by candle-light last night, when I was at the +club, then? Were you?' said Mr. Omer, shutting up one eye. + +'Yes,' said Joram. 'As you said we could make a little trip of it, +and go over together, if it was done, Minnie and me - and you.' + +'Oh! I thought you were going to leave me out altogether,' said +Mr. Omer, laughing till he coughed. + +'- As you was so good as to say that,' resumed the young man, 'why +I turned to with a will, you see. Will you give me your opinion of +it?' + +'I will,' said Mr. Omer, rising. 'My dear'; and he stopped and +turned to me: 'would you like to see your -' + +'No, father,' Minnie interposed. + +'I thought it might be agreeable, my dear,' said Mr. Omer. 'But +perhaps you're right.' + +I can't say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother's coffin that +they went to look at. I had never heard one making; I had never +seen one that I know of.- but it came into my mind what the noise +was, while it was going on; and when the young man entered, I am +sure I knew what he had been doing. + +The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names I had not +heard, brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses, and went +into the shop to put that to rights, and wait for customers. +Minnie stayed behind to fold up what they had made, and pack it in +two baskets. This she did upon her knees, humming a lively little +tune the while. Joram, who I had no doubt was her lover, came in +and stole a kiss from her while she was busy (he didn't appear to +mind me, at all), and said her father was gone for the chaise, and +he must make haste and get himself ready. Then he went out again; +and then she put her thimble and scissors in her pocket, and stuck +a needle threaded with black thread neatly in the bosom of her +gown, and put on her outer clothing smartly, at a little glass +behind the door, in which I saw the reflection of her pleased face. + +All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my +head leaning on my hand, and my thoughts running on very different +things. The chaise soon came round to the front of the shop, and +the baskets being put in first, I was put in next, and those three +followed. I remember it as a kind of half chaise-cart, half +pianoforte-van, painted of a sombre colour, and drawn by a black +horse with a long tail. There was plenty of room for us all. + +I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my +life (I am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, +remembering how they had been employed, and seeing them enjoy the +ride. I was not angry with them; I was more afraid of them, as if +I were cast away among creatures with whom I had no community of +nature. They were very cheerful. The old man sat in front to +drive, and the two young people sat behind him, and whenever he +spoke to them leaned forward, the one on one side of his chubby +face and the other on the other, and made a great deal of him. +They would have talked to me too, but I held back, and moped in my +corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though it was far +from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgement came upon +them for their hardness of heart. + +So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and +enjoyed themselves, I could touch nothing that they touched, but +kept my fast unbroken. So, when we reached home, I dropped out of +the chaise behind, as quickly as possible, that I might not be in +their company before those solemn windows, looking blindly on me +like closed eyes once bright. And oh, how little need I had had to +think what would move me to tears when I came back - seeing the +window of my mother's room, and next it that which, in the better +time, was mine! + +I was in Peggotty's arms before I got to the door, and she took me +into the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she +controlled it soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if +the dead could be disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for +a long time. She sat up at night still, and watched. As long as +her poor dear pretty was above the ground, she said, she would +never desert her. + +Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlour where +he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in +his elbow-chair. Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, +which was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold +finger-nails, and asked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been +measured for my mourning. + +I said: 'Yes.' + +'And your shirts,' said Miss Murdstone; 'have you brought 'em +home?' + +'Yes, ma'am. I have brought home all my clothes.' + +This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. +I do not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what +she called her self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of +mind, and her common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of +her unamiable qualities, on such an occasion. She was particularly +proud of her turn for business; and she showed it now in reducing +everything to pen and ink, and being moved by nothing. All the +rest of that day, and from morning to night afterwards, she sat at +that desk, scratching composedly with a hard pen, speaking in the +same imperturbable whisper to everybody; never relaxing a muscle of +her face, or softening a tone of her voice, or appearing with an +atom of her dress astray. + +Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. +He would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would +remain for a whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it +down and walk to and fro in the room. I used to sit with folded +hands watching him, and counting his footsteps, hour after hour. +He very seldom spoke to her, and never to me. He seemed to be the +only restless thing, except the clocks, in the whole motionless +house. + +In these days before the funeral, I saw but little of Peggotty, +except that, in passing up or down stairs, I always found her close +to the room where my mother and her baby lay, and except that she +came to me every night, and sat by my bed's head while I went to +sleep. A day or two before the burial - I think it was a day or +two before, but I am conscious of confusion in my mind about that +heavy time, with nothing to mark its progress - she took me into +the room. I only recollect that underneath some white covering on +the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness and freshness all around it, +there seemed to me to lie embodied the solemn stillness that was in +the house; and that when she would have turned the cover gently +back, I cried: 'Oh no! oh no!' and held her hand. + +If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. +The very air of the best parlour, when I went in at the door, the +bright condition of the fire, the shining of the wine in the +decanters, the patterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet +smell of cake, the odour of Miss Murdstone's dress, and our black +clothes. Mr. Chillip is in the room, and comes to speak to me. + +'And how is Master David?' he says, kindly. + +I cannot tell him very well. I give him my hand, which he holds in +his. + +'Dear me!' says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with something shining +in his eye. 'Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out +of our knowledge, ma'am?' This is to Miss Murdstone, who makes no +reply. + +'There is a great improvement here, ma'am?' says Mr. Chillip. + +Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend: Mr. +Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and +opens his mouth no more. + +I remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not +because I care about myself, or have done since I came home. And +now the bell begins to sound, and Mr. Omer and another come to make +us ready. As Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers +of my father to the same grave were made ready in the same room. + +There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper, Mr. Chillip, +and I. When we go out to the door, the Bearers and their load are +in the garden; and they move before us down the path, and past the +elms, and through the gate, and into the churchyard, where I have +so often heard the birds sing on a summer morning. + +We stand around the grave. The day seems different to me from +every other day, and the light not of the same colour - of a sadder +colour. Now there is a solemn hush, which we have brought from +home with what is resting in the mould; and while we stand +bareheaded, I hear the voice of the clergyman, sounding remote in +the open air, and yet distinct and plain, saying: 'I am the +Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord!' Then I hear sobs; and, +standing apart among the lookers-on, I see that good and faithful +servant, whom of all the people upon earth I love the best, and +unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord will one day +say: 'Well done.' + +There are many faces that I know, among the little crowd; faces +that I knew in church, when mine was always wondering there; faces +that first saw my mother, when she came to the village in her +youthful bloom. I do not mind them - I mind nothing but my grief +- and yet I see and know them all; and even in the background, far +away, see Minnie looking on, and her eye glancing on her +sweetheart, who is near me. + +It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. +Before us stands our house, so pretty and unchanged, so linked in +my mind with the young idea of what is gone, that all my sorrow has +been nothing to the sorrow it calls forth. But they take me on; +and Mr. Chillip talks to me; and when we get home, puts some water +to my lips; and when I ask his leave to go up to my room, dismisses +me with the gentleness of a woman. + +All this, I say, is yesterday's event. Events of later date have +floated from me to the shore where all forgotten things will +reappear, but this stands like a high rock in the ocean. + +I knew that Peggotty would come to me in my room. The Sabbath +stillness of the time (the day was so like Sunday! I have +forgotten that) was suited to us both. She sat down by my side +upon my little bed; and holding my hand, and sometimes putting it +to her lips, and sometimes smoothing it with hers, as she might +have comforted my little brother, told me, in her way, all that she +had to tell concerning what had happened. + +'She was never well,' said Peggotty, 'for a long time. She was +uncertain in her mind, and not happy. When her baby was born, I +thought at first she would get better, but she was more delicate, +and sunk a little every day. She used to like to sit alone before +her baby came, and then she cried; but afterwards she used to sing +to it - so soft, that I once thought, when I heard her, it was like +a voice up in the air, that was rising away. + +'I think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-like, of +late; and that a hard word was like a blow to her. But she was +always the same to me. She never changed to her foolish Peggotty, +didn't my sweet girl.' + +Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand a little while. + +'The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was the night +when you came home, my dear. The day you went away, she said to +me, "I never shall see my pretty darling again. Something tells me +so, that tells the truth, I know." + +'She tried to hold up after that; and many a time, when they told +her she was thoughtless and light-hearted, made believe to be so; +but it was all a bygone then. She never told her husband what she +had told me - she was afraid of saying it to anybody else - till +one night, a little more than a week before it happened, when she +said to him: "My dear, I think I am dying." + +'"It's off my mind now, Peggotty," she told me, when I laid her in +her bed that night. "He will believe it more and more, poor +fellow, every day for a few days to come; and then it will be past. +I am very tired. If this is sleep, sit by me while I sleep: don't +leave me. God bless both my children! God protect and keep my +fatherless boy!" + +'I never left her afterwards,' said Peggotty. 'She often talked to +them two downstairs - for she loved them; she couldn't bear not to +love anyone who was about her - but when they went away from her +bed-side, she always turned to me, as if there was rest where +Peggotty was, and never fell asleep in any other way. + +'On the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said: "If my +baby should die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, +and bury us together." (It was done; for the poor lamb lived but +a day beyond her.) "Let my dearest boy go with us to our +resting-place," she said, "and tell him that his mother, when she +lay here, blessed him not once, but a thousand times."' + +Another silence followed this, and another gentle beating on my +hand. + +'It was pretty far in the night,' said Peggotty, 'when she asked me +for some drink; and when she had taken it, gave me such a patient +smile, the dear! - so beautiful! + +'Daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she said to me, +how kind and considerate Mr. Copperfield had always been to her, +and how he had borne with her, and told her, when she doubted +herself, that a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom, +and that he was a happy man in hers. "Peggotty, my dear," she said +then, "put me nearer to you," for she was very weak. "Lay your +good arm underneath my neck," she said, "and turn me to you, for +your face is going far off, and I want it to be near." I put it as +she asked; and oh Davy! the time had come when my first parting +words to you were true - when she was glad to lay her poor head on +her stupid cross old Peggotty's arm - and she died like a child +that had gone to sleep!' + + +Thus ended Peggotty's narration. From the moment of my knowing of +the death of my mother, the idea of her as she had been of late had +vanished from me. I remembered her, from that instant, only as the +young mother of my earliest impressions, who had been used to wind +her bright curls round and round her finger, and to dance with me +at twilight in the parlour. What Peggotty had told me now, was so +far from bringing me back to the later period, that it rooted the +earlier image in my mind. It may be curious, but it is true. In +her death she winged her way back to her calm untroubled youth, and +cancelled all the rest. + +The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the +little creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed +for ever on her bosom. + + + +CHAPTER 10 +I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR + + +The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed when the day of +the solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the +house, was to give Peggotty a month's warning. Much as Peggotty +would have disliked such a service, I believe she would have +retained it, for my sake, in preference to the best upon earth. +She told me we must part, and told me why; and we condoled with one +another, in all sincerity. + +As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken. Happy +they would have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed me +at a month's warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss +Murdstone when I was going back to school; and she answered dryly, +she believed I was not going back at all. I was told nothing more. +I was very anxious to know what was going to be done with me, and +so was Peggotty; but neither she nor I could pick up any +information on the subject. + +There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me +of a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had +been capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable +about the future. It was this. The constraint that had been put +upon me, was quite abandoned. I was so far from being required to +keep my dull post in the parlour, that on several occasions, when +I took my seat there, Miss Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I +was so far from being warned off from Peggotty's society, that, +provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone's, I was never sought out or +inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of his taking my +education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone's devoting herself to +it; but I soon began to think that such fears were groundless, and +that all I had to anticipate was neglect. + +I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I +was still giddy with the shock of my mother's death, and in a kind +of stunned state as to all tributary things. I can recollect, +indeed, to have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of my +not being taught any more, or cared for any more; and growing up to +be a shabby, moody man, lounging an idle life away, about the +village; as well as on the feasibility of my getting rid of this +picture by going away somewhere, like the hero in a story, to seek +my fortune: but these were transient visions, daydreams I sat +looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly painted or written on +the wall of my room, and which, as they melted away, left the wall +blank again. + +'Peggotty,' I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was +warming my hands at the kitchen fire, 'Mr. Murdstone likes me less +than he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would +rather not even see me now, if he can help it.' + +'Perhaps it's his sorrow,' said Peggotty, stroking my hair. + +'I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his +sorrow, I should not think of it at all. But it's not that; oh, +no, it's not that.' + +'How do you know it's not that?' said Peggotty, after a silence. + +'Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is +sorry at this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone; +but if I was to go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides.' + +'What would he be?' said Peggotty. + +'Angry,' I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark +frown. 'If he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does. +I am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder.' + +Peggotty said nothing for a little while; and I warmed my hands, as +silent as she. + +'Davy,' she said at length. + +'Yes, Peggotty?' +'I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of - all the ways +there are, and all the ways there ain't, in short - to get a +suitable service here, in Blunderstone; but there's no such a +thing, my love.' + +'And what do you mean to do, Peggotty,' says I, wistfully. 'Do you +mean to go and seek your fortune?' + +'I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth,' replied Peggotty, +'and live there.' + +'You might have gone farther off,' I said, brightening a little, +'and been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old +Peggotty, there. You won't be quite at the other end of the world, +will you?' + +'Contrary ways, please God!' cried Peggotty, with great animation. +'As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of +my life to see you. One day, every week of my life!' + +I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise: but even +this was not all, for Peggotty went on to say: + +'I'm a-going, Davy, you see, to my brother's, first, for another +fortnight's visit - just till I have had time to look about me, and +get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking +that perhaps, as they don't want you here at present, you might be +let to go along with me.' + +If anything, short of being in a different relation to every one +about me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of +pleasure at that time, it would have been this project of all +others. The idea of being again surrounded by those honest faces, +shining welcome on me; of renewing the peacefulness of the sweet +Sunday morning, when the bells were ringing, the stones dropping in +the water, and the shadowy ships breaking through the mist; of +roaming up and down with little Em'ly, telling her my troubles, and +finding charms against them in the shells and pebbles on the beach; +made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next moment, to be sure, +by a doubt of Miss Murdstone's giving her consent; but even that +was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening grope in +the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and Peggotty, +with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot. + +'The boy will be idle there,' said Miss Murdstone, looking into a +pickle-jar, 'and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be +sure, he would be idle here - or anywhere, in my opinion.' + +Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see; but she swallowed +it for my sake, and remained silent. + +'Humph!' said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles; +'it is of more importance than anything else - it is of paramount +importance - that my brother should not be disturbed or made +uncomfortable. I suppose I had better say yes.' + +I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it +should induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help +thinking this a prudent course, since she looked at me out of the +pickle-jar, with as great an access of sourness as if her black +eyes had absorbed its contents. However, the permission was given, +and was never retracted; for when the month was out, Peggotty and +I were ready to depart. + +Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty's boxes. I had never +known him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he +came into the house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the +largest box and went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if +meaning could ever be said to find its way into Mr. Barkis's +visage. + +Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her +home so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her +life - for my mother and myself - had been formed. She had been +walking in the churchyard, too, very early; and she got into the +cart, and sat in it with her handkerchief at her eyes. + +So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign +of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude like a +great stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her, and to +speak to me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have +not the least notion at whom, or what he meant by it. + +'It's a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!' I said, as an act of +politeness. + +'It ain't bad,' said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his +speech, and rarely committed himself. + +'Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis,' I remarked, for +his satisfaction. + +'Is she, though?' said Mr. Barkis. + +After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed +her, and said: + +'ARE you pretty comfortable?' + +Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative. + +'But really and truly, you know. Are you?' growled Mr. Barkis, +sliding nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. +'Are you? Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?' + +At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and +gave her another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded +together in the left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed +that I could hardly bear it. + +Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me +a little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could +not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a +wonderful expedient for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, +and pointed manner, without the inconvenience of inventing +conversation. He manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By +and by he turned to Peggotty again, and repeating, 'Are you pretty +comfortable though?' bore down upon us as before, until the breath +was nearly edged out of my body. By and by he made another descent +upon us with the same inquiry, and the same result. At length, I +got up whenever I saw him coming, and standing on the foot-board, +pretended to look at the prospect; after which I did very well. + +He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our +account, and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when +Peggotty was in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of +those approaches, and almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to +the end of our journey, he had more to do and less time for +gallantry; and when we got on Yarmouth pavement, we were all too +much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have any leisure for +anything else. + +Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received +me and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. +Barkis, who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a +shame-faced leer upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, +presented but a vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one +of Peggotty's trunks, and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis +solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an +archway. + +'I say,' growled Mr. Barkis, 'it was all right.' + +I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very +profound: 'Oh!' + +'It didn't come to a end there,' said Mr. Barkis, nodding +confidentially. 'It was all right.' + +Again I answered, 'Oh!' + +'You know who was willin',' said my friend. 'It was Barkis, and +Barkis only.' + +I nodded assent. + +'It's all right,' said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; 'I'm a friend of +your'n. You made it all right, first. It's all right.' + +In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so +extremely mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face +for an hour, and most assuredly should have got as much information +out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for +Peggotty's calling me away. As we were going along, she asked me +what he had said; and I told her he had said it was all right. + +'Like his impudence,' said Peggotty, 'but I don't mind that! Davy +dear, what should you think if I was to think of being married?' + +'Why - I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you +do now?' I returned, after a little consideration. + +Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as +well as of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged +to stop and embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her +unalterable love. + +'Tell me what should you say, darling?' she asked again, when this +was over, and we were walking on. + +'If you were thinking of being married - to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?' + +'Yes,' said Peggotty. + +'I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know, +Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you +over to see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming.' + +'The sense of the dear!' cried Peggotty. 'What I have been +thinking of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I +should be more independent altogether, you see; let alone my +working with a better heart in my own house, than I could in +anybody else's now. I don't know what I might be fit for, now, as +a servant to a stranger. And I shall be always near my pretty's +resting-place,' said Peggotty, musing, 'and be able to see it when +I like; and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid not far off from +my darling girl!' + +We neither of us said anything for a little while. + +'But I wouldn't so much as give it another thought,' said Peggotty, +cheerily 'if my Davy was anyways against it - not if I had been +asked in church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out +the ring in my pocket.' + +'Look at me, Peggotty,' I replied; 'and see if I am not really +glad, and don't truly wish it!' As indeed I did, with all my +heart. + +'Well, my life,' said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, 'I have +thought of it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right +way; but I'll think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, +and in the meantime we'll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. +Barkis is a good plain creature,' said Peggotty, 'and if I tried to +do my duty by him, I think it would be my fault if I wasn't - if I +wasn't pretty comfortable,' said Peggotty, laughing heartily. +This quotation from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate, and tickled us +both so much, that we laughed again and again, and were quite in a +pleasant humour when we came within view of Mr. Peggotty's cottage. + +It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk +a little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as +if she had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down +to the seaweed in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the +out-house to look about me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and +crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in +general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the + +same old corner. + +But there was no little Em'ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty +where she was. + +'She's at school, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat +consequent on the porterage of Peggotty's box from his forehead; +'she'll be home,' looking at the Dutch clock, 'in from twenty +minutes to half-an-hour's time. We all on us feel the loss of her, +bless ye!' + +Mrs. Gummidge moaned. + +'Cheer up, Mawther!' cried Mr. Peggotty. + +'I feel it more than anybody else,' said Mrs. Gummidge; 'I'm a lone +lorn creetur', and she used to be a'most the only thing that didn't +go contrary with me.' + +Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to +blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she +was so engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: +'The old 'un!' From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement +had taken place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge's +spirits. + +Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as +delightful a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the +same way. I felt rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was +because little Em'ly was not at home. I knew the way by which she +would come, and presently found myself strolling along the path to +meet her. + +A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it +to be Em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she +was grown. But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes +looking bluer, and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole +self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made +me pretend not to know her, and pass by as if I were looking at +something a long way off. I have done such a thing since in later +life, or I am mistaken. + +Little Em'ly didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough; but +instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. +This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were +very near the cottage before I caught her. + +'Oh, it's you, is it?' said little Em'ly. + +'Why, you knew who it was, Em'ly,' said I. + +'And didn't YOU know who it was?' said Em'ly. I was going to kiss +her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she +wasn't a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the +house. + +She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I +wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little +locker was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit +by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. +Gummidge: and on Mr. Peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all +over her face to hide it, and could do nothing but laugh. + +'A little puss, it is!' said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his +great hand. + +'So sh' is! so sh' is!' cried Ham. 'Mas'r Davy bor', so sh' is!' +and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled +admiration and delight, that made his face a burning red. + +Little Em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more +than Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into +anything, by only going and laying her cheek against his rough +whisker. That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and +I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so +affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of +being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than +ever. + +She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire +after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to +the loss I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she +looked at me so kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful +to her. + +'Ah!' said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over +his hand like water, 'here's another orphan, you see, sir. And +here,' said Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the +chest, 'is another of 'em, though he don't look much like it.' + +'If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,' said I, shaking my +head, 'I don't think I should FEEL much like it.' + +'Well said, Mas'r Davy bor'!' cried Ham, in an ecstasy. 'Hoorah! +Well said! Nor more you wouldn't! Hor! Hor!' - Here he returned +Mr. Peggotty's back-hander, and little Em'ly got up and kissed Mr. +Peggotty. 'And how's your friend, sir?' said Mr. Peggotty to me. + +'Steerforth?' said I. + +'That's the name!' cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. 'I knowed +it was something in our way.' + +'You said it was Rudderford,' observed Ham, laughing. + +'Well!' retorted Mr. Peggotty. 'And ye steer with a rudder, don't +ye? It ain't fur off. How is he, sir?' + +'He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty.' + +'There's a friend!' said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. +'There's a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my heart +alive, if it ain't a treat to look at him!' + +'He is very handsome, is he not?' said I, my heart warming with +this praise. + +'Handsome!' cried Mr. Peggotty. 'He stands up to you like - like +a - why I don't know what he don't stand up to you like. He's so +bold!' + +'Yes! That's just his character,' said I. 'He's as brave as a +lion, and you can't think how frank he is, Mr. Peggotty.' + +'And I do suppose, now,' said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through +the smoke of his pipe, 'that in the way of book-larning he'd take +the wind out of a'most anything.' + +'Yes,' said I, delighted; 'he knows everything. He is +astonishingly clever.' + +'There's a friend!' murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his +head. + +'Nothing seems to cost him any trouble,' said I. 'He knows a task +if he only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He +will give you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat +you easily.' + +Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: 'Of +course he will.' + +'He is such a speaker,' I pursued, 'that he can win anybody over; +and I don't know what you'd say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. +Peggotty.' + +Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: 'I have +no doubt of it.' + +'Then, he's such a generous, fine, noble fellow,' said I, quite +carried away by my favourite theme, 'that it's hardly possible to +give him as much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel +thankful enough for the generosity with which he has protected me, +so much younger and lower in the school than himself.' + +I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little +Em'ly's face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with +the deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling +like jewels, and the colour mantling in her cheeks. She looked so +extraordinarily earnest and pretty, that I stopped in a sort of +wonder; and they all observed her at the same time, for as I +stopped, they laughed and looked at her. + +'Em'ly is like me,' said Peggotty, 'and would like to see him.' + +Em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her +head, and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently +through her stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her +still (I am sure I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), +she ran away, and kept away till it was nearly bedtime. + +I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the +wind came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I +could not help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were +gone; and instead of thinking that the sea might rise in the night +and float the boat away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since +I last heard those sounds, and drowned my happy home. I recollect, +as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a +short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to +marry little Em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep. + +The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except - it +was a great exception- that little Em'ly and I seldom wandered on +the beach now. She had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do; and +was absent during a great part of each day. But I felt that we +should not have had those old wanderings, even if it had been +otherwise. Wild and full of childish whims as Em'ly was, she was +more of a little woman than I had supposed. She seemed to have got +a great distance away from me, in little more than a year. She +liked me, but she laughed at me, and tormented me; and when I went +to meet her, stole home another way, and was laughing at the door +when I came back, disappointed. The best times were when she sat +quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on the wooden step at her +feet, reading to her. It seems to me, at this hour, that I have +never seen such sunlight as on those bright April afternoons; that +I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see, +sitting in the doorway of the old boat; that I have never beheld +such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden +air. + +On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in +an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of +oranges tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any +kind to this property, he was supposed to have left it behind him +by accident when he went away; until Ham, running after him to +restore it, came back with the information that it was intended for +Peggotty. After that occasion he appeared every evening at exactly +the same hour, and always with a little bundle, to which he never +alluded, and which he regularly put behind the door and left there. +These offerings of affection were of a most various and eccentric +description. Among them I remember a double set of pigs' trotters, +a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet +earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird and +cage, and a leg of pickled pork. + +Mr. Barkis's wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar +kind. He very seldom said anything; but would sit by the fire in +much the same attitude as he sat in his cart, and stare heavily at +Peggotty, who was opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, +inspired by love, he made a dart at the bit of wax-candle she kept +for her thread, and put it in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it +off. After that, his great delight was to produce it when it was +wanted, sticking to the lining of his pocket, in a partially melted +state, and pocket it again when it was done with. He seemed to +enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all called upon to +talk. Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the flats, he +had no uneasiness on that head, I believe; contenting himself with +now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I +remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty would throw +her apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour. Indeed, we +were all more or less amused, except that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, +whose courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel +nature, she was so continually reminded by these transactions of +the old one. + +At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was +given out that Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day's +holiday together, and that little Em'ly and I were to accompany +them. I had but a broken sleep the night before, in anticipation +of the pleasure of a whole day with Em'ly. We were all astir +betimes in the morning; and while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. +Barkis appeared in the distance, driving a chaise-cart towards the +object of his affections. + +Peggotty was dressed as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning; but +Mr. Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had +given him such good measure, that the cuffs would have rendered +gloves unnecessary in the coldest weather, while the collar was so +high that it pushed his hair up on end on the top of his head. His +bright buttons, too, were of the largest size. Rendered complete +by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkis a +phenomenon of respectability. + +When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. +Peggotty was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown +after us for luck, and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that +purpose. + +'No. It had better be done by somebody else, Dan'l,' said Mrs. +Gummidge. 'I'm a lone lorn creetur' myself, and everythink that +reminds me of creetur's that ain't lone and lorn, goes contrary +with me.' + +'Come, old gal!' cried Mr. Peggotty. 'Take and heave it.' + +'No, Dan'l,' returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her +head. 'If I felt less, I could do more. You don't feel like me, +Dan'l; thinks don't go contrary with you, nor you with them; you +had better do it yourself.' + +But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in +a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in +which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, +side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did +it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive +character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and +sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she +knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at +once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might +have acted on. + +Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first +thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the +horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little +Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my +arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so +very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one +another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and +allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I +recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared +to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. + +How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure +assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy +little woman said I was 'a silly boy'; and then laughed so +charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that +disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. + +Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came +out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were +going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink, - by +the by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he could wink: + +'What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?' + +'Clara Peggotty,' I answered. + +'What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a +tilt here?' + +'Clara Peggotty, again?' I suggested. + +'Clara Peggotty BARKIS!' he returned, and burst into a roar of +laughter that shook the chaise. + +In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no +other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly +done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no +witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. +Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not +hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon +became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. + +We drove to a little inn in a by-road, where we were expected, and +where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with +great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the +last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about +it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as +ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before +tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed +himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If +so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, +although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and +had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold +boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any +emotion. + +I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way +kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again +soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, +and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. +Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he +would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to +impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, +and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I +was 'a young Roeshus' - by which I think he meant prodigy. + +When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I +had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and +I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of +the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if +we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the +trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, +children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among +flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet +sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were +dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the +light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my +mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless +hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am +glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its +homely procession. + +Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and +there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly +to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had +lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed +under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. + +Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, +and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive +it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker for the +only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful +close to a wonderful day. + +It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty +and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in +the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and +only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, +would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover +myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be +walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best +substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. + +With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my +window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a +dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a +beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must +have been impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in +the parlour (the tile-floored kitchen was the general +sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and +became a desk, within which was a large quarto edition of Foxe's +Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect +one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself +to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a +chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my +arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was +chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, +and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and +Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and +are now. + +I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and +little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a +little room in the roof (with the Crocodile Book on a shelf by the +bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should +always be kept for me in exactly the same state. + +'Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house +over my head,' said Peggotty, 'you shall find it as if I expected +you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to +keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to +China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the +time you were away.' + +I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my +heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, +for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the +morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in +the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me +at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to +me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me +under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no +face to look on mine with love or liking any more. + +And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back +upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition, +- apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all +other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own +spiritless thoughts, - which seems to cast its gloom upon this +paper as I write. + +What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school +that ever was kept! - to have been taught something, anyhow, +anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they +sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. +Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is +little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me +from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had +any claim upon him - and succeeded. + +I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the +wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was +done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week +after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder +sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had +been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my +lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or +whether anybody would have helped me out. + +When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with +them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I +lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except +that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, +that if I did, I might complain to someone. For this reason, +though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a +widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small +light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own +thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I +enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a +surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of +the whole Pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in +a mortar under his mild directions. + +For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I +was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she +either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, +and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the +disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit +to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, +I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was +something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was 'a +little near', and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, +which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this +coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, +that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by +artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate +scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. + +All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had +given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been +perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They +were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, +and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. + +I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the +remembrance of, while I remember anything: and the recollection of +which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a +ghost, and haunted happier times. + +I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, +meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the +corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking +with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the +gentleman cried: + +'What! Brooks!' + +'No, sir, David Copperfield,' I said. + +'Don't tell me. You are Brooks,' said the gentleman. 'You are +Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name.' + +At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His +laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, +whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before +- it is no matter - I need not recall when. + +'And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?' +said Mr. Quinion. + +He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk +with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at +Mr. Murdstone. + +'He is at home at present,' said the latter. 'He is not being +educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a +difficult subject.' + +That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eyes +darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. + +'Humph!' said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. 'Fine +weather!' + +Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my +shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: + +'I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?' + +'Aye! He is sharp enough,' said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. 'You +had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him.' + +On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my +way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw +Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. +Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I +felt that they were speaking of me. + +Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next +morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, +when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to +another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. +Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of +window; and I stood looking at them all. + +'David,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'to the young this is a world for +action; not for moping and droning in.' + +- 'As you do,' added his sister. + +'Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to +the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and +droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your +disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to +which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to +the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it.' + +'For stubbornness won't do here,' said his sister 'What it wants +is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!' + +He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and +went on: + +'I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you +know it now. You have received some considerable education +already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could +afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous +to you to be kept at school. What is before you, is a fight with +the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better.' + +I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor +way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. + +'You have heard the "counting-house" mentioned sometimes,' said Mr. +Murdstone. + +'The counting-house, sir?' I repeated. +'Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade,' he replied. + +I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: + +'You have heard the "counting-house" mentioned, or the business, or +the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it.' + +'I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir,' I said, +remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. +'But I don't know when.' + +'It does not matter when,' he returned. 'Mr. Quinion manages that +business.' + +I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of +window. + +'Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, +and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, +give employment to you.' + +'He having,' Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning +round, 'no other prospect, Murdstone.' + +Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, +without noticing what he had said: + +'Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide +for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging +(which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your +washing -' + +'- Which will be kept down to my estimate,' said his sister. + +'Your clothes will be looked after for you, too,' said Mr. +Murdstone; 'as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for +yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, +to begin the world on your own account.' + +'In short, you are provided for,' observed his sister; 'and will +please to do your duty.' + +Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was +to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased +or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of +confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, +touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my +thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. + +Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a +black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of +hard, stiff corduroy trousers - which Miss Murdstone considered the +best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now +to come off. behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all +before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. +Gummidge might have said), in the post-chaise that was carrying Mr. +Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and +church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the +tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points +upwards from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! + + + +CHAPTER 11 +I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT + + +I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of +being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise +to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such +an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of +observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or +mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any +sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years +old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and +Grinby. + +Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside. It was down +in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it +was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down +hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took +boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting +on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was +out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, +discoloured with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; +its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of +the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness +of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of +the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in +the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my +trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. + +Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, +but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits +to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but +I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the +East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were +one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and +boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject +those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty +bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or +corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or +finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, +and of the boys employed upon it I was one. + +There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was +established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could +see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool +in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the +desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning +life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned +to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a +ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was +a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord +Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate +would be another boy whom he introduced by the - to me - +extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that +this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had +been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his +complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a +waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, +and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some +young relation of Mealy's - I think his little sister - did Imps in +the Pantomimes. + +No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into +this companionship; compared these henceforth everyday associates +with those of my happier childhood - not to say with Steerforth, +Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing +up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The +deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope +now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my +young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and +thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up +by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought +back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went +away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the +water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there +were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. + +The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was +general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at +the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, +and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout +and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which +was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and +with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His +clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He +carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty +tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat, - for +ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, +and couldn't see anything when he did. + +'This,' said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, 'is he.' + +'This,' said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his +voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, +which impressed me very much, 'is Master Copperfield. I hope I see +you well, sir?' + +I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill +at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much +at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he +was. + +'I am,' said the stranger, 'thank Heaven, quite well. I have +received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he +would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my +house, which is at present unoccupied - and is, in short, to be let +as a - in short,' said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of +confidence, 'as a bedroom - the young beginner whom I have now the +pleasure to -' and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his +chin in his shirt-collar. + +'This is Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion to me. + +'Ahem!' said the stranger, 'that is my name.' + +'Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion, 'is known to Mr. Murdstone. He +takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has +been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, +and he will receive you as a lodger.' + +'My address,' said Mr. Micawber, 'is Windsor Terrace, City Road. +I - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in +another burst of confidence - 'I live there.' + +I made him a bow. + +'Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your +peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, +and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana +of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road, - in +short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, 'that +you might lose yourself - I shall be happy to call this evening, +and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.' + +I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to +offer to take that trouble. + +'At what hour,' said Mr. Micawber, 'shall I -' + +'At about eight,' said Mr. Quinion. + +'At about eight,' said Mr. Micawber. 'I beg to wish you good day, +Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer.' + +So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: +very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the +counting-house. + +Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in +the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six +shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I +am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it +was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down +(from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of +it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace that night: it being +too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more +for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring +pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in +walking about the streets. + +At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I +washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his +gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call +it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the name of streets, and the +shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might +find my way back, easily, in the morning. + +Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was +shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it +could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, +not at all young, who was sitting in the parlour (the first floor +was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude +the neighbours), with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of +twins; and I may remark here that I hardly ever, in all my +experience of the family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs. +Micawber at the same time. One of them was always taking +refreshment. + +There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four, +and Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a +dark-complexioned young woman, with a habit of snorting, who was +servant to the family, and informed me, before half an hour had +expired, that she was 'a Orfling', and came from St. Luke's +workhouse, in the neighbourhood, completed the establishment. My +room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close chamber; +stencilled all over with an ornament which my young imagination +represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished. + +'I never thought,' said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and +all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, 'before +I was married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever +find it necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in +difficulties, all considerations of private feeling must give way.' + +I said: 'Yes, ma'am.' + +'Mr. Micawber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just at +present,' said Mrs. Micawber; 'and whether it is possible to bring +him through them, I don't know. When I lived at home with papa and +mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant, +in the sense in which I now employ it, but experientia does it, - +as papa used to say.' + +I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had +been an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I +only know that I believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines +once upon a time, without knowing why. He was a sort of town +traveller for a number of miscellaneous houses, now; but made +little or nothing of it, I am afraid. + +'If Mr. Micawber's creditors will not give him time,' said Mrs. +Micawber, 'they must take the consequences; and the sooner they +bring it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a +stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present (not +to mention law expenses) from Mr. Micawber.' + +I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence +confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was +so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the +very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but +this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly +all the time I knew her. + +Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself, and +so, I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street door was +perfectly covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved +'Mrs. Micawber's Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies': but I +never found that any young lady had ever been to school there; or +that any young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the +least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. The +only visitors I ever saw, or heard of, were creditors. THEY used +to come at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. One +dirty-faced man, I think he was a boot-maker, used to edge himself +into the passage as early as seven o'clock in the morning, and call +up the stairs to Mr. Micawber - 'Come! You ain't out yet, you +know. Pay us, will you? Don't hide, you know; that's mean. I +wouldn't be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, +d'ye hear? Come!' Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would +mount in his wrath to the words 'swindlers' and 'robbers'; and +these being ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of +crossing the street, and roaring up at the windows of the second +floor, where he knew Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. +Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to +the length (as I was once made aware by a scream from his wife) of +making motions at himself with a razor; but within half-an-hour +afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, +and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than +ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known her to be +thrown into fainting fits by the king's taxes at three o'clock, and +to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for with two +tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker's) at four. On one +occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home +through some chance as early as six o'clock, I saw her lying (of +course with a twin) under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all +torn about her face; but I never knew her more cheerful than she +was, that very same night, over a veal cutlet before the kitchen +fire, telling me stories about her papa and mama, and the company +they used to keep. + +In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time. My +own exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, +I provided myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of +cheese, on a particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my +supper on when I came back at night. This made a hole in the six +or seven shillings, I know well; and I was out at the warehouse all +day, and had to support myself on that money all the week. From +Monday morning until Saturday night, I had no advice, no counsel, +no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any +kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to +heaven! + +I was so young and childish, and so little qualified - how could I +be otherwise? - to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, +that often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby's, of a morning, I +could not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at +the pastrycooks' doors, and spent in that the money I should have +kept for my dinner. Then, I went without my dinner, or bought a +roll or a slice of pudding. I remember two pudding shops, between +which I was divided, according to my finances. One was in a court +close to St. Martin's Church - at the back of the church, - which +is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of +currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, +twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary +pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand - somewhere +in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale +pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck +in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time +every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined +regularly and handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a +fourpenny plate of red beef from a cook's shop; or a plate of bread +and cheese and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house +opposite our place of business, called the Lion, or the Lion and +something else that I have forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my +own bread (which I had brought from home in the morning) under my +arm, wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, and going to a +famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, and ordering a 'small +plate' of that delicacy to eat with it. What the waiter thought of +such a strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don't know; +but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, and +bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for +himself, and I wish he hadn't taken it. + +We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I +used to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread +and butter. When I had none, I used to look at a venison shop in +Fleet Street; or I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent +Garden Market, and stared at the pineapples. I was fond of +wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, +with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from +some of these arches, on a little public-house close to the river, +with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; +to look at whom I sat down upon a bench. I wonder what they +thought of me! + +I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into +the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to +moisten what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. +I remember one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, +and said to the landlord: +'What is your best - your very best - ale a glass?' For it was a +special occasion. I don't know what. It may have been my +birthday. + +'Twopence-halfpenny,' says the landlord, 'is the price of the +Genuine Stunning ale.' + +'Then,' says I, producing the money, 'just draw me a glass of the +Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.' + +The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to +foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the +beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She +came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him +in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The +landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar +window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in +some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. +They asked me a good many questions; as, what my name was, how old +I was, where I lived, how I was employed, and how I came there. To +all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid, +appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I suspect +it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord's wife, opening +the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave me my money +back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half +compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure. + +I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the +scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know +that if a shilling were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I +spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked, from morning +until night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that +I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily +fed. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have +been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a +little vagabond. + +Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby's too. Besides +that Mr. Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing +with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a +different footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how +it was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication of +being sorry that I was there. That I suffered in secret, and that +I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but I. How much I +suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to +tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. I knew from +the first, that, if I could not do my work as well as any of the +rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon +became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the +other boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and +manner were different enough from theirs to place a space between +us. They and the men generally spoke of me as 'the little gent', +or 'the young Suffolker.' A certain man named Gregory, who was +foreman of the packers, and another named Tipp, who was the carman, +and wore a red jacket, used to address me sometimes as 'David': but +I think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and when I +had made some efforts to entertain them, over our work, with some +results of the old readings; which were fast perishing out of my +remembrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and rebelled against my +being so distinguished; but Mick Walker settled him in no time. + +My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, +and abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that +I never for one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than +miserably unhappy; but I bore it; and even to Peggotty, partly for +the love of her and partly for shame, never in any letter (though +many passed between us) revealed the truth. + +Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed +state of my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to +the family, and used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's +calculations of ways and means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. +Micawber's debts. On a Saturday night, which was my grand treat, +- partly because it was a great thing to walk home with six or +seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the shops and thinking +what such a sum would buy, and partly because I went home early, - +Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences to me; +also on a Sunday morning, when I mixed the portion of tea or coffee +I had bought over-night, in a little shaving-pot, and sat late at +my breakfast. It was nothing at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to +sob violently at the beginning of one of these Saturday night +conversations, and sing about jack's delight being his lovely Nan, +towards the end of it. I have known him come home to supper with +a flood of tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but +a jail; and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of +putting bow-windows to the house, 'in case anything turned up', +which was his favourite expression. And Mrs. Micawber was just the +same. + +A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our +respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people, +notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never +allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat +and drink with them out of their stock (knowing that they got on +badly with the butcher and baker, and had often not too much for +themselves), until Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire +confidence. This she did one evening as follows: + +'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I make no stranger of +you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber's +difficulties are coming to a crisis.' + +It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. +Micawber's red eyes with the utmost sympathy. + +'With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese - which is not +adapted to the wants of a young family' - said Mrs. Micawber, +'there is really not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was +accustomed to speak of the larder when I lived with papa and mama, +and I use the word almost unconsciously. What I mean to express +is, that there is nothing to eat in the house.' + +'Dear me!' I said, in great concern. + +I had two or three shillings of my week's money in my pocket - from +which I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we +held this conversation - and I hastily produced them, and with +heartfelt emotion begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan. +But that lady, kissing me, and making me put them back in my +pocket, replied that she couldn't think of it. + +'No, my dear Master Copperfield,' said she, 'far be it from my +thoughts! But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can +render me another kind of service, if you will; and a service I +will thankfully accept of.' + +I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it. + +'I have parted with the plate myself,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'Six +tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times +borrowed money on, in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are +a great tie; and to me, with my recollections, of papa and mama, +these transactions are very painful. There are still a few trifles +that we could part with. Mr. Micawber's feelings would never allow +him to dispose of them; and Clickett' - this was the girl from the +workhouse - 'being of a vulgar mind, would take painful liberties +if so much confidence was reposed in her. Master Copperfield, if +I might ask you -' + +I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to +any extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles of +property that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition +almost every morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby's. + +Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he +called the library; and those went first. I carried them, one +after another, to a bookstall in the City Road - one part of which, +near our house, was almost all bookstalls and bird shops then - and +sold them for whatever they would bring. The keeper of this +bookstall, who lived in a little house behind it, used to get tipsy +every night, and to be violently scolded by his wife every morning. +More than once, when I went there early, I had audience of him in +a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black eye, +bearing witness to his excesses over-night (I am afraid he was +quarrelsome in his drink), and he, with a shaking hand, +endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the +pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife, +with a baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off +rating him. Sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask +me to call again; but his wife had always got some - had taken his, +I dare say, while he was drunk - and secretly completed the bargain +on the stairs, as we went down together. +At the pawnbroker's shop, too, I began to be very well known. The +principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took a good +deal of notice of me; and often got me, I recollect, to decline a +Latin noun or adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb, in his ear, +while he transacted my business. After all these occasions Mrs. +Micawber made a little treat, which was generally a supper; and +there was a peculiar relish in these meals which I well remember. + +At last Mr. Micawber's difficulties came to a crisis, and he was +arrested early one morning, and carried over to the King's Bench +Prison in the Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house, +that the God of day had now gone down upon him - and I really +thought his heart was broken and mine too. But I heard, +afterwards, that he was seen to play a lively game at skittles, +before noon. + +On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and see +him, and have dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a +place, and just short of that place I should see such another +place, and just short of that I should see a yard, which I was to +cross, and keep straight on until I saw a turnkey. All this I did; +and when at last I did see a turnkey (poor little fellow that I +was!), and thought how, when Roderick Random was in a debtors' +prison, there was a man there with nothing on him but an old rug, +the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my beating heart. + +Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to +his room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly +conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to +observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and +spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be +happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be +miserable. After which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter, +gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for the amount, and put +away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up. + +We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted +grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; +until another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came +in from the bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our +joint-stock repast. Then I was sent up to 'Captain Hopkins' in the +room overhead, with Mr. Micawber's compliments, and I was his young +friend, and would Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and fork. + +Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to +Mr. Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and +two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought +it was better to borrow Captain Hopkins's knife and fork, than +Captain Hopkins's comb. The Captain himself was in the last +extremity of shabbiness, with large whiskers, and an old, old brown +great-coat with no other coat below it. I saw his bed rolled up in +a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots he had, on a shelf; +and I divined (God knows how) that though the two girls with the +shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins's children, the dirty lady +was not married to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his +threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; +but I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as +the knife and fork were in my hand. + +There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after +all. I took back Captain Hopkins's knife and fork early in the +afternoon, and went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account +of my visit. She fainted when she saw me return, and made a little +jug of egg-hot afterwards to console us while we talked it over. + +I don't know how the household furniture came to be sold for the +family benefit, or who sold it, except that I did not. Sold it +was, however, and carried away in a van; except the bed, a few +chairs, and the kitchen table. With these possessions we encamped, +as it were, in the two parlours of the emptied house in Windsor +Terrace; Mrs. Micawber, the children, the Orfling, and myself; and +lived in those rooms night and day. I have no idea for how long, +though it seems to me for a long time. At last Mrs. Micawber +resolved to move into the prison, where Mr. Micawber had now +secured a room to himself. So I took the key of the house to the +landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the beds were sent over +to the King's Bench, except mine, for which a little room was hired +outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that Institution, very +much to my satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too +used to one another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was +likewise accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same +neighbourhood. Mine was a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof, +commanding a pleasant prospect of a timberyard; and when I took +possession of it, with the reflection that Mr. Micawber's troubles +had come to a crisis at last, I thought it quite a paradise. + +All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's in the same +common way, and with the same common companions, and with the same +sense of unmerited degradation as at first. But I never, happily +for me no doubt, made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the +many boys whom I saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming +from it, and in prowling about the streets at meal-times. I led +the same secretly unhappy life; but I led it in the same lonely, +self-reliant manner. The only changes I am conscious of are, +firstly, that I had grown more shabby, and secondly, that I was now +relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber's cares; +for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them at their +present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison than +they had lived for a long while out of it. I used to breakfast +with them now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have +forgotten the details. I forget, too, at what hour the gates were +opened in the morning, admitting of my going in; but I know that I +was often up at six o'clock, and that my favourite lounging-place +in the interval was old London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in +one of the stone recesses, watching the people going by, or to look +over the balustrades at the sun shining in the water, and lighting +up the golden flame on the top of the Monument. The Orfling met me +here sometimes, to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the +wharves and the Tower; of which I can say no more than that I hope +I believed them myself. In the evening I used to go back to the +prison, and walk up and down the parade with Mr. Micawber; or play +casino with Mrs. Micawber, and hear reminiscences of her papa and +mama. Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I am unable to say. +I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby's. + +Mr. Micawber's affairs, although past their crisis, were very much +involved by reason of a certain 'Deed', of which I used to hear a +great deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former +composition with his creditors, though I was so far from being +clear about it then, that I am conscious of having confounded it +with those demoniacal parchments which are held to have, once upon +a time, obtained to a great extent in Germany. At last this +document appeared to be got out of the way, somehow; at all events +it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been; and Mrs. Micawber +informed me that 'her family' had decided that Mr. Micawber should +apply for his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act, which would +set him free, she expected, in about six weeks. + +'And then,' said Mr. Micawber, who was present, 'I have no doubt I +shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to +live in a perfectly new manner, if - in short, if anything turns +up.' + +By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I call +to mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to +the House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of +imprisonment for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because +it is an instance to myself of the manner in which I fitted my old +books to my altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the +streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the +character I shall unconsciously develop, I suppose, in writing my +life, were gradually forming all this while. + +There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a +gentleman, was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea +of this petition to the club, and the club had strongly approved of +the same. Wherefore Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly +good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but his +own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy +about something that could never be of any profit to him) set to +work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet +of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a time for all +the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come up to his +room and sign it. + +When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see +them all come in, one after another, though I knew the greater part +of them already, and they me, that I got an hour's leave of absence +from Murdstone and Grinby's, and established myself in a corner for +that purpose. As many of the principal members of the club as +could be got into the small room without filling it, supported Mr. +Micawber in front of the petition, while my old friend Captain +Hopkins (who had washed himself, to do honour to so solemn an +occasion) stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were +unacquainted with its contents. The door was then thrown open, and +the general population began to come in, in a long file: several +waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, and went +out. To everybody in succession, Captain Hopkins said: 'Have you +read it?' - 'No.' - 'Would you like to hear it read?' If he +weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain Hopkins, in +a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain +would have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people +would have heard him, one by one. I remember a certain luscious +roll he gave to such phrases as 'The people's representatives in +Parliament assembled,' 'Your petitioners therefore humbly approach +your honourable house,' 'His gracious Majesty's unfortunate +subjects,' as if the words were something real in his mouth, and +delicious to taste; Mr. Micawber, meanwhile, listening with a +little of an author's vanity, and contemplating (not severely) the +spikes on the opposite wall. + +As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars, and +lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which +may, for anything I know, be worn at this moment by my childish +feet, I wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd +that used to come filing before me in review again, to the echo of +Captain Hopkins's voice! When my thoughts go back, now, to that +slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I +invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over +well-remembered facts! When I tread the old ground, I do not +wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent +romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange +experiences and sordid things! + + + +CHAPTER 12 +LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, + I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION + + +In due time, Mr. Micawber's petition was ripe for hearing; and that +gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great +joy. His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed +me that even the revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court +that he bore him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he +liked to be paid. He said he thought it was human nature. + +M r Micawber returned to the King's Bench when his case was over, +as some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, +before he could be actually released. The club received him with +transport, and held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honour; +while Mrs. Micawber and I had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded +by the sleeping family. + +'On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,' said +Mrs. Micawber, 'in a little more flip,' for we had been having some +already, 'the memory of my papa and mama.' + +'Are they dead, ma'am?' I inquired, after drinking the toast in a +wine-glass. + +'My mama departed this life,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'before Mr. +Micawber's difficulties commenced, or at least before they became +pressing. My papa lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and +then expired, regretted by a numerous circle.' + +Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the +twin who happened to be in hand. + +As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting +a question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber: + +'May I ask, ma'am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that +Mr. Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you +settled yet?' + +'My family,' said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words +with an air, though I never could discover who came under the +denomination, 'my family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should +quit London, and exert his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is +a man of great talent, Master Copperfield.' + +I said I was sure of that. + +'Of great talent,' repeated Mrs. Micawber. 'My family are of +opinion, that, with a little interest, something might be done for +a man of his ability in the Custom House. The influence of my +family being local, it is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go +down to Plymouth. They think it indispensable that he should be +upon the spot.' + +'That he may be ready?' I suggested. + +'Exactly,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'That he may be ready - in case +of anything turning up.' + +'And do you go too, ma'am?' + +The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with +the flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as +she replied: + +'I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed +his difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine +temper may have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The +pearl necklace and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been +disposed of for less than half their value; and the set of coral, +which was the wedding gift of my papa, has been actually thrown +away for nothing. But I never will desert Mr. Micawber. No!' +cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than before, 'I never will do +it! It's of no use asking me!' + +I felt quite uncomfortable - as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had +asked her to do anything of the sort! - and sat looking at her in +alarm. + +'Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is +improvident. I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to +his resources and his liabilities both,' she went on, looking at +the wall; 'but I never will desert Mr. Micawber!' + +Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I +was so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed +Mr. Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading +the chorus of + + Gee up, Dobbin, + Gee ho, Dobbin, + Gee up, Dobbin, + Gee up, and gee ho - o - o! + +with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon +which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with +his waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he +had been partaking. + +'Emma, my angel!' cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; 'what +is the matter?' + +'I never will desert you, Micawber!' she exclaimed. + +'My life!' said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. 'I am +perfectly aware of it.' + +'He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins! +He is the husband of my affections,' cried Mrs. Micawber, +struggling; 'and I ne - ver - will - desert Mr. Micawber!' + +Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion +(as to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a +passionate manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But +the more he asked Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her +eyes on nothing; and the more he asked her to compose herself, the +more she wouldn't. Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome, +that he mingled his tears with hers and mine; until he begged me to +do him the favour of taking a chair on the staircase, while he got +her into bed. I would have taken my leave for the night, but he +would not hear of my doing that until the strangers' bell should +ring. So I sat at the staircase window, until he came out with +another chair and joined me. + +'How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?' I said. + +'Very low,' said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; 'reaction. Ah, +this has been a dreadful day! We stand alone now - everything is +gone from us!' + +Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed +tears. I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had +expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and +long-looked-for occasion. But Mr. and Mrs. Micawber were so used +to their old difficulties, I think, that they felt quite +shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from +them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw them half +so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell rang, and +Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me there +with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he +was so profoundly miserable. + +But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we +had been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that +Mr. and Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London, +and that a parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk +home that night, and in the sleepless hours which followed when I +lay in bed, that the thought first occurred to me - though I don't +know how it came into my head - which afterwards shaped itself into +a settled resolution. + +I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so +intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly +friendless without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon +some new shift for a lodging, and going once more among unknown +people, was like being that moment turned adrift into my present +life, with such a knowledge of it ready made as experience had +given me. All the sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all +the shame and misery it kept alive within my breast, became more +poignant as I thought of this; and I determined that the life was +unendurable. + +That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my +own act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone, +and never from Mr. Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or +mended clothes had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in +each there was a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. +C. was applying himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to +his duties - not the least hint of my ever being anything else than +the common drudge into which I was fast settling down. + +The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first +agitation of what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not +spoken of their going away without warrant. They took a lodging in +the house where I lived, for a week; at the expiration of which +time they were to start for Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came +down to the counting-house, in the afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion +that he must relinquish me on the day of his departure, and to give +me a high character, which I am sure I deserved. And Mr. Quinion, +calling in Tipp the carman, who was a married man, and had a room +to let, quartered me prospectively on him - by our mutual consent, +as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing, though my +resolution was now taken. + +I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the +remaining term of our residence under the same roof; and I think we +became fonder of one another as the time went on. On the last +Sunday, they invited me to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and +apple sauce, and a pudding. I had bought a spotted wooden horse +over-night as a parting gift to little Wilkins Micawber - that was +the boy - and a doll for little Emma. I had also bestowed a +shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded. + +We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state +about our approaching separation. + +'I shall never, Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'revert to +the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking +of you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and +obliging description. You have never been a lodger. You have been +a friend.' + +'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber; 'Copperfield,' for so he had been +accustomed to call me, of late, 'has a heart to feel for the +distresses of his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud, +and a head to plan, and a hand to - in short, a general ability to +dispose of such available property as could be made away with.' + +I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very +sorry we were going to lose one another. + +'My dear young friend,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I am older than you; a +man of some experience in life, and - and of some experience, in +short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until +something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I +have nothing to bestow but advice. Still my advice is so far worth +taking, that - in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am +the' - here Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all +over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself +and frowned - 'the miserable wretch you behold.' + +'My dear Micawber!' urged his wife. + +'I say,' returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and +smiling again, 'the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, +never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the +thief of time. Collar him!' + +'My poor papa's maxim,' Mrs. Micawber observed. + +'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'your papa was very well in his way, +and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in +all, we ne'er shall - in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of +anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for +gaiters, and able to read the same description of print, without +spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear; +and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that +I never recovered the expense.' Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. +Micawber, and added: 'Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the +contrary, my love.' After which, he was grave for a minute or so. + +'My other piece of advice, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'you +know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen +nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, +annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The +blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down +upon the dreary scene, and - and in short you are for ever floored. +As I am!' + +To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass +of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and +whistled the College Hornpipe. + +I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in +my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, +they affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at +the coach office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their +places outside, at the back. + +'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'God bless you! I never +can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.' + +'Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'farewell! Every happiness and +prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could +persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, +I should feel that I had not occupied another man's place in +existence altogether in vain. In case of anything turning up (of +which I am rather confident), I shall be extremely happy if it +should be in my power to improve your prospects.' + +I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the +children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist +cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really +was. I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with +quite a new and motherly expression in her face, and put her arm +round my neck, and gave me just such a kiss as she might have given +to her own boy. I had barely time to get down again before the +coach started, and I could hardly see the family for the +handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute. The Orfling +and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the +road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back, I +suppose, to St. Luke's workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day +at Murdstone and Grinby's. + +But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. +I had resolved to run away. - To go, by some means or other, down +into the country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell +my story to my aunt, Miss Betsey. +I have already observed that I don't know how this desperate idea +came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there; and +hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more +determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed +there was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made +up that it must be carried into execution. + +Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when +the thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone +over that old story of my poor mother's about my birth, which it +had been one of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, +and which I knew by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and +walked out of it, a dread and awful personage; but there was one +little trait in her behaviour which I liked to dwell on, and which +gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not forget how +my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with +no ungentle hand; and though it might have been altogether my +mother's fancy, and might have had no foundation whatever in fact, +I made a little picture, out of it, of my terrible aunt relenting +towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so well and loved so +much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very possible that +it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my +determination. + +As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long +letter to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; +pretending that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain +place I named at random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the +same. In the course of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a +particular occasion for half a guinea; and that if she could lend +me that sum until I could repay it, I should be very much obliged +to her, and would tell her afterwards what I had wanted it for. + +Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of +affectionate devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid +she must have had a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's +box), and told me that Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at +Dover itself, at Hythe, Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say. +One of our men, however, informing me on my asking him about these +places, that they were all close together, I deemed this enough for +my object, and resolved to set out at the end of that week. + +Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the +memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, I +considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I +had been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there, +not to present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to +receive my stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the +half-guinea, that I might not be without a fund for my +travelling-expenses. Accordingly, when the Saturday night came, +and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid, and Tipp the +carman, who always took precedence, went in first to draw his +money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him, when it came to +his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had gone to move +my box to Tipp's; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy Potatoes, +ran away. + +My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a +direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we +nailed on the casks: 'Master David, to be left till called for, at +the Coach Office, Dover.' This I had in my pocket ready to put on +the box, after I should have got it out of the house; and as I went +towards my lodging, I looked about me for someone who would help me +to carry it to the booking-office. + +There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty +donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, +whose eye I caught as I was going by, and who, addressing me as +'Sixpenn'orth of bad ha'pence,' hoped 'I should know him agin to +swear to' - in allusion, I have no doubt, to my staring at him. I +stopped to assure him that I had not done so in bad manners, but +uncertain whether he might or might not like a job. + +'Wot job?' said the long-legged young man. + +'To move a box,' I answered. + +'Wot box?' said the long-legged young man. + +I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I +wanted him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence. + +'Done with you for a tanner!' said the long-legged young man, and +directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden +tray on wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as +much as I could do to keep pace with the donkey. + +There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly +about the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I +did not much like; as the bargain was made, however, I took him +upstairs to the room I was leaving, and we brought the box down, +and put it on his cart. Now, I was unwilling to put the +direction-card on there, lest any of my landlord's family should +fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so I said to the young man +that I would be glad if he would stop for a minute, when he came to +the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison. The words were no sooner +out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my box, the cart, +and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite out of breath +with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the place +appointed. + +Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my +pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, +and though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on +very much to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked +under the chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea +fly out of my mouth into his hand. + +'Wot!' said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a +frightful grin. 'This is a pollis case, is it? You're a-going to +bolt, are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the +pollis!' + +'You give me my money back, if you please,' said I, very much +frightened; 'and leave me alone.' + +'Come to the pollis!' said the young man. 'You shall prove it +yourn to the pollis.' + +'Give me my box and money, will you,' I cried, bursting into tears. + +The young man still replied: 'Come to the pollis!' and was dragging +me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any +affinity between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his +mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that +he would drive to the pollis straight, rattled away harder than +ever. + +I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out +with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I +narrowly escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a +mile. Now I lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut +at with a whip, now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, +now running into somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post. +At length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half +London might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension, +I left the young man to go where he would with my box and money; +and, panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for +Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover Road: taking +very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt, +Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the night when my +arrival gave her so much umbrage. + + + +CHAPTER 13 +THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION + + +For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all +the way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with +the donkey-cart, and started for Greenwich. My scattered senses +were soon collected as to that point, if I had; for I came to a +stop in the Kent Road, at a terrace with a piece of water before +it, and a great foolish image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. +Here I sat down on a doorstep, quite spent and exhausted with the +efforts I had already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry +for the loss of my box and half-guinea. + +It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I sat +resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. +When I had recovered my breath, and had got rid of a stifling +sensation in my throat, I rose up and went on. In the midst of my +distress, I had no notion of going back. I doubt if I should have +had any, though there had been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road. + +But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and +I am sure I wonder how they came to be left in my pocket on a +Saturday night!) troubled me none the less because I went on. I +began to picture to myself, as a scrap of newspaper intelligence, +my being found dead in a day or two, under some hedge; and I +trudged on miserably, though as fast as I could, until I happened +to pass a little shop, where it was written up that ladies' and +gentlemen's wardrobes were bought, and that the best price was +given for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master of this shop +was sitting at the door in his shirt-sleeves, smoking; and as there +were a great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling from the low +ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show what +they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful +disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying +himself. + +My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that +here might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. +I went up the next by-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it +neatly under my arm, and came back to the shop door. + +'If you please, sir,' I said, 'I am to sell this for a fair price.' + +Mr. Dolloby - Dolloby was the name over the shop door, at least - +took the waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head, against the +door-post, went into the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two +candles with his fingers, spread the waistcoat on the counter, and +looked at it there, held it up against the light, and looked at it +there, and ultimately said: + +'What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit?' + +'Oh! you know best, sir,' I returned modestly. + +'I can't be buyer and seller too,' said Mr. Dolloby. 'Put a price +on this here little weskit.' + +'Would eighteenpence be?'- I hinted, after some hesitation. + +Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. 'I should rob +my family,' he said, 'if I was to offer ninepence for it.' + +This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it +imposed upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking +Mr. Dolloby to rob his family on my account. My circumstances +being so very pressing, however, I said I would take ninepence for +it, if he pleased. Mr. Dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave +ninepence. I wished him good night, and walked out of the shop the +richer by that sum, and the poorer by a waistcoat. But when I +buttoned my jacket, that was not much. +Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go next, and +that I should have to make the best of my way to Dover in a shirt +and a pair of trousers, and might deem myself lucky if I got there +even in that trim. But my mind did not run so much on this as +might be supposed. Beyond a general impression of the distance +before me, and of the young man with the donkey-cart having used me +cruelly, I think I had no very urgent sense of my difficulties when +I once again set off with my ninepence in my pocket. + +A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going +to carry into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the +back of my old school, in a corner where there used to be a +haystack. I imagined it would be a kind of company to have the +boys, and the bedroom where I used to tell the stories, so near me: +although the boys would know nothing of my being there, and the +bedroom would yield me no shelter. + +I had had a hard day's work, and was pretty well jaded when I came +climbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me +some trouble to find out Salem House; but I found it, and I found +a haystack in the corner, and I lay down by it; having first walked +round the wall, and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was +dark and silent within. Never shall I forget the lonely sensation +of first lying down, without a roof above my head! + +Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom +house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night - and I +dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my +room; and found myself sitting upright, with Steerforth's name upon +my lips, looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and +glimmering above me. When I remembered where I was at that +untimely hour, a feeling stole upon me that made me get up, afraid +of I don't know what, and walk about. But the fainter glimmering +of the stars, and the pale light in the sky where the day was +coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very heavy, I lay down +again and slept - though with a knowledge in my sleep that it was +cold - until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of the +getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped +that Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came +out alone; but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles still +remained, perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and I had not +sufficient confidence in his discretion or good luck, however +strong my reliance was on his good nature, to wish to trust him +with my situation. So I crept away from the wall as Mr. Creakle's +boys were getting up, and struck into the long dusty track which I +had first known to be the Dover Road when I was one of them, and +when I little expected that any eyes would ever see me the wayfarer +I was now, upon it. + +What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at +Yarmouth! In due time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I +plodded on; and I met people who were going to church; and I passed +a church or two where the congregation were inside, and the sound +of singing came out into the sunshine, while the beadle sat and +cooled himself in the shade of the porch, or stood beneath the +yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead, glowering at me going by. +But the peace and rest of the old Sunday morning were on +everything, except me. That was the difference. I felt quite +wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled hair. But for the +quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and +beauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly +think I should have had the courage to go on until next day. But +it always went before me, and I followed. + +I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight +road, though not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. +I see myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at +Rochester, footsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought +for supper. One or two little houses, with the notice, 'Lodgings +for Travellers', hanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of +spending the few pence I had, and was even more afraid of the +vicious looks of the trampers I had met or overtaken. I sought no +shelter, therefore, but the sky; and toiling into Chatham, - which, +in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, +and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like Noah's arks, - +crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery overhanging a +lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here I lay down, near +a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps, +though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys at Salem +House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until +morning. + +Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite dazed +by the beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem +me in on every side when I went down towards the long narrow +street. Feeling that I could go but a very little way that day, if +I were to reserve any strength for getting to my journey's end, I +resolved to make the sale of my jacket its principal business. +Accordingly, I took the jacket off, that I might learn to do +without it; and carrying it under my arm, began a tour of +inspection of the various slop-shops. + +It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers in +second-hand clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on +the look-out for customers at their shop doors. But as most of +them had, hanging up among their stock, an officer's coat or two, +epaulettes and all, I was rendered timid by the costly nature of +their dealings, and walked about for a long time without offering +my merchandise to anyone. + +This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store +shops, and such shops as Mr. Dolloby's, in preference to the +regular dealers. At last I found one that I thought looked +promising, at the corner of a dirty lane, ending in an enclosure +full of stinging-nettles, against the palings of which some +second-hand sailors' clothes, that seemed to have overflowed the +shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns, and oilskin +hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so many +sizes that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the +world. + +Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened +rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and +was descended into by some steps, I went with a palpitating heart; +which was not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of +his face all covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a +dirty den behind it, and seized me by the hair of my head. He was +a dreadful old man to look at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and +smelling terribly of rum. His bedstead, covered with a tumbled and +ragged piece of patchwork, was in the den he had come from, where +another little window showed a prospect of more stinging-nettles, +and a lame donkey. + +'Oh, what do you want?' grinned this old man, in a fierce, +monotonous whine. 'Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, +my lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo, goroo!' + +I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the +repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in +his throat, that I could make no answer; hereupon the old man, +still holding me by the hair, repeated: + +'Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? +Oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo!' - which he +screwed out of himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in +his head. + +'I wanted to know,' I said, trembling, 'if you would buy a jacket.' + +'Oh, let's see the jacket!' cried the old man. 'Oh, my heart on +fire, show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the +jacket out!' + +With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of +a great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not +at all ornamental to his inflamed eyes. + +'Oh, how much for the jacket?' cried the old man, after examining +it. 'Oh - goroo! - how much for the jacket?' + +'Half-a-crown,' I answered, recovering myself. + +'Oh, my lungs and liver,' cried the old man, 'no! Oh, my eyes, no! +Oh, my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo!' + +Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in +danger of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered +in a sort of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of +wind, which begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any +other comparison I can find for it. + +'Well,' said I, glad to have closed the bargain, 'I'll take +eighteenpence.' + +'Oh, my liver!' cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. +'Get out of the shop! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! Oh, my +eyes and limbs - goroo! - don't ask for money; make it an +exchange.' I never was so frightened in my life, before or since; +but I told him humbly that I wanted money, and that nothing else +was of any use to me, but that I would wait for it, as he desired, +outside, and had no wish to hurry him. So I went outside, and sat +down in the shade in a corner. And I sat there so many hours, that +the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight became shade again, and +still I sat there waiting for the money. + +There never was such another drunken madman in that line of +business, I hope. That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and +enjoyed the reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon +understood from the visits he received from the boys, who +continually came skirmishing about the shop, shouting that legend, +and calling to him to bring out his gold. 'You ain't poor, you +know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out your gold. Bring out +some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil for. Come! It's +in the lining of the mattress, Charley. Rip it open and let's have +some!' This, and many offers to lend him a knife for the purpose, +exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a +succession of rushes on his part, and flights on the part of the +boys. Sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and +come at me, mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; +then, remembering me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and +lie upon his bed, as I thought from the sound of his voice, yelling +in a frantic way, to his own windy tune, the 'Death of Nelson'; +with an Oh! before every line, and innumerable Goroos interspersed. +As if this were not bad enough for me, the boys, connecting me with +the establishment, on account of the patience and perseverance with +which I sat outside, half-dressed, pelted me, and used me very ill +all day. + +He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at +one time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, +at another with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I +resisted all these overtures, and sat there in desperation; each +time asking him, with tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. +At last he began to pay me in halfpence at a time; and was full two +hours getting by easy stages to a shilling. + +'Oh, my eyes and limbs!' he then cried, peeping hideously out of +the shop, after a long pause, 'will you go for twopence more?' + +'I can't,' I said; 'I shall be starved.' + +'Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence?' + +'I would go for nothing, if I could,' I said, 'but I want the money +badly.' + +'Oh, go-roo!' (it is really impossible to express how he twisted +this ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the door-post +at me, showing nothing but his crafty old head); 'will you go for +fourpence?' + +I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer; and taking +the money out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more +hungry and thirsty than I had ever been, a little before sunset. +But at an expense of threepence I soon refreshed myself completely; +and, being in better spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road. + +My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested +comfortably, after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and +dressed them as well as I was able, with some cool leaves. When I +took the road again next morning, I found that it lay through a +succession of hop-grounds and orchards. It was sufficiently late +in the year for the orchards to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in +a few places the hop-pickers were already at work. I thought it +all extremely beautiful, and made up my mind to sleep among the +hops that night: imagining some cheerful companionship in the long +perspectives of poles, with the graceful leaves twining round them. + +The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a +dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most +ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and +stopped, perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to +them, and when I took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one +young fellow - a tinker, I suppose, from his wallet and brazier - +who had a woman with him, and who faced about and stared at me +thus; and then roared to me in such a tremendous voice to come +back, that I halted and looked round. + +'Come here, when you're called,' said the tinker, 'or I'll rip your +young body open.' + +I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to +propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a +black eye. + +'Where are you going?' said the tinker, gripping the bosom of my +shirt with his blackened hand. + +'I am going to Dover,' I said. + +'Where do you come from?' asked the tinker, giving his hand another +turn in my shirt, to hold me more securely. + +'I come from London,' I said. + +'What lay are you upon?' asked the tinker. 'Are you a prig?' + +'N-no,' I said. + +'Ain't you, by G--? If you make a brag of your honesty to me,' +said the tinker, 'I'll knock your brains out.' + +With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then +looked at me from head to foot. + +'Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?' said the +tinker. 'If you have, out with it, afore I take it away!' + +I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman's +look, and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form 'No!' with +her lips. + +'I am very poor,' I said, attempting to smile, 'and have got no +money.' + +'Why, what do you mean?' said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, +that I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket. + +'Sir!' I stammered. + +'What do you mean,' said the tinker, 'by wearing my brother's silk +handkerchief! Give it over here!' And he had mine off my neck in +a moment, and tossed it to the woman. + +The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a +joke, and tossed it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, +and made the word 'Go!' with her lips. Before I could obey, +however, the tinker seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a +roughness that threw me away like a feather, and putting it loosely +round his own neck, turned upon the woman with an oath, and knocked +her down. I never shall forget seeing her fall backward on the +hard road, and lie there with her bonnet tumbled off, and her hair +all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked back from a distance, +seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a bank by the +roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of her +shawl, while he went on ahead. + +This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any +of these people coming, I turned back until I could find a +hiding-place, where I remained until they had gone out of sight; +which happened so often, that I was very seriously delayed. But +under this difficulty, as under all the other difficulties of my +journey, I seemed to be sustained and led on by my fanciful picture +of my mother in her youth, before I came into the world. It always +kept me company. It was there, among the hops, when I lay down to +sleep; it was with me on my waking in the morning; it went before +me all day. I have associated it, ever since, with the sunny +street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light; and with +the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately, grey +Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. When I came, +at last, upon the bare, wide downs near Dover, it relieved the +solitary aspect of the scene with hope; and not until I reached +that first great aim of my journey, and actually set foot in the +town itself, on the sixth day of my flight, did it desert me. But +then, strange to say, when I stood with my ragged shoes, and my +dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed figure, in the place so long desired, +it seemed to vanish like a dream, and to leave me helpless and +dispirited. + +I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received +various answers. One said she lived in the South Foreland Light, +and had singed her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was made +fast to the great buoy outside the harbour, and could only be +visited at half-tide; a third, that she was locked up in Maidstone +jail for child-stealing; a fourth, that she was seen to mount a +broom in the last high wind, and make direct for Calais. The +fly-drivers, among whom I inquired next, were equally jocose and +equally disrespectful; and the shopkeepers, not liking my +appearance, generally replied, without hearing what I had to say, +that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and +destitute than I had done at any period of my running away. My +money was all gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, +thirsty, and worn out; and seemed as distant from my end as if I +had remained in London. + +The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on +the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the +market-place, deliberating upon wandering towards those other +places which had been mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with +his carriage, dropped a horsecloth. Something good-natured in the +man's face, as I handed it up, encouraged me to ask him if he could +tell me where Miss Trotwood lived; though I had asked the question +so often, that it almost died upon my lips. + +'Trotwood,' said he. 'Let me see. I know the name, too. Old +lady?' + +'Yes,' I said, 'rather.' + +'Pretty stiff in the back?' said he, making himself upright. + +'Yes,' I said. 'I should think it very likely.' + +'Carries a bag?' said he - 'bag with a good deal of room in it - is +gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp?' + +My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of +this description. + +'Why then, I tell you what,' said he. 'If you go up there,' +pointing with his whip towards the heights, 'and keep right on till +you come to some houses facing the sea, I think you'll hear of her. +My opinion is she won't stand anything, so here's a penny for you.' + +I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. +Dispatching this refreshment by the way, I went in the direction my +friend had indicated, and walked on a good distance without coming +to the houses he had mentioned. At length I saw some before me; +and approaching them, went into a little shop (it was what we used +to call a general shop, at home), and inquired if they could have +the goodness to tell me where Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed +myself to a man behind the counter, who was weighing some rice for +a young woman; but the latter, taking the inquiry to herself, +turned round quickly. + +'My mistress?' she said. 'What do you want with her, boy?' + +'I want,' I replied, 'to speak to her, if you please.' + +'To beg of her, you mean,' retorted the damsel. + +'No,' I said, 'indeed.' But suddenly remembering that in truth I +came for no other purpose, I held my peace in confusion, and felt +my face burn. + +MY aunt's handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, +put her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling +me that I could follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood +lived. I needed no second permission; though I was by this time in +such a state of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook +under me. I followed the young woman, and we soon came to a very +neat little cottage with cheerful bow-windows: in front of it, a +small square gravelled court or garden full of flowers, carefully +tended, and smelling deliciously. + +'This is Miss Trotwood's,' said the young woman. 'Now you know; +and that's all I have got to say.' With which words she hurried +into the house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my +appearance; and left me standing at the garden-gate, looking +disconsolately over the top of it towards the parlour window, where +a muslin curtain partly undrawn in the middle, a large round green +screen or fan fastened on to the windowsill, a small table, and a +great chair, suggested to me that my aunt might be at that moment +seated in awful state. + +My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The soles had +shed themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and +burst until the very shape and form of shoes had departed from +them. My hat (which had served me for a night-cap, too) was so +crushed and bent, that no old battered handleless saucepan on a +dunghill need have been ashamed to vie with it. My shirt and +trousers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and the Kentish soil on +which I had slept - and torn besides - might have frightened the +birds from my aunt's garden, as I stood at the gate. My hair had +known no comb or brush since I left London. My face, neck, and +hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, were burnt to +a berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered almost as white +with chalk and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In this +plight, and with a strong consciousness of it, I waited to +introduce myself to, and make my first impression on, my formidable +aunt. + +The unbroken stillness of the parlour window leading me to infer, +after a while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the +window above it, where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, +with a grey head, who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded +his head at me several times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and +went away. + +I had been discomposed enough before; but I was so much the more +discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point +of slinking off, to think how I had best proceed, when there came +out of the house a lady with her handkerchief tied over her cap, +and a pair of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening +pocket like a toll-man's apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew +her immediately to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking out of the +house exactly as my poor mother had so often described her stalking +up our garden at Blunderstone Rookery. + +'Go away!' said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant +chop in the air with her knife. 'Go along! No boys here!' + +I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner +of her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, +without a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, +I went softly in and stood beside her, touching her with my finger. + +'If you please, ma'am,' I began. + +She started and looked up. + +'If you please, aunt.' + +'EH?' exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never +heard approached. + +'If you please, aunt, I am your nephew.' + +'Oh, Lord!' said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path. + +'I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk - where you +came, on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have +been very unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught +nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. +It made me run away to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and +have walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since I +began the journey.' Here my self-support gave way all at once; and +with a movement of my hands, intended to show her my ragged state, +and call it to witness that I had suffered something, I broke into +a passion of crying, which I suppose had been pent up within me all +the week. + +My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from +her countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to +cry; when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me +into the parlour. Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall +press, bring out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of +each into my mouth. I think they must have been taken out at +random, for I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and +salad dressing. When she had administered these restoratives, as +I was still quite hysterical, and unable to control my sobs, she +put me on the sofa, with a shawl under my head, and the +handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I should sully +the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green fan or +screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her face, +ejaculated at intervals, 'Mercy on us!' letting those exclamations +off like minute guns. + +After a time she rang the bell. 'Janet,' said my aunt, when her +servant came in. 'Go upstairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, +and say I wish to speak to him.' + +Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa +(I was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), +but went on her errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked +up and down the room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me +from the upper window came in laughing. + +'Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, 'don't be a fool, because nobody can be +more discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So +don't be a fool, whatever you are.' + +The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, +as if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window. + +'Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, 'you have heard me mention David +Copperfield? Now don't pretend not to have a memory, because you +and I know better.' + +'David Copperfield?' said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to +remember much about it. 'David Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. +David, certainly.' + +'Well,' said my aunt, 'this is his boy - his son. He would be as +like his father as it's possible to be, if he was not so like his +mother, too.' + +'His son?' said Mr. Dick. 'David's son? Indeed!' + +'Yes,' pursued my aunt, 'and he has done a pretty piece of +business. He has run away. Ah! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, +never would have run away.' My aunt shook her head firmly, +confident in the character and behaviour of the girl who never was +born. + +'Oh! you think she wouldn't have run away?' said Mr. Dick. + +'Bless and save the man,' exclaimed my aunt, sharply, 'how he +talks! Don't I know she wouldn't? She would have lived with her +god-mother, and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, +in the name of wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run +from, or to?' + +'Nowhere,' said Mr. Dick. + +'Well then,' returned my aunt, softened by the reply, 'how can you +pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a +surgeon's lancet? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and +the question I put to you is, what shall I do with him?' + +'What shall you do with him?' said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his +head. 'Oh! do with him?' + +'Yes,' said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up. +'Come! I want some very sound advice.' + +'Why, if I was you,' said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking +vacantly at me, 'I should -' The contemplation of me seemed to +inspire him with a sudden idea, and he added, briskly, 'I should +wash him!' + +'Janet,' said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I +did not then understand, 'Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the +bath!' + +Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help +observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, +and completing a survey I had already been engaged in making of the +room. + +MY aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means +ill-looking. There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, +in her gait and carriage, amply sufficient to account for the +effect she had made upon a gentle creature like my mother; but her +features were rather handsome than otherwise, though unbending and +austere. I particularly noticed that she had a very quick, bright +eye. Her hair, which was grey, was arranged in two plain +divisions, under what I believe would be called a mob-cap; I mean +a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces fastening +under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and perfectly +neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little +encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, +more like a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than +anything else. She wore at her side a gentleman's gold watch, if +I might judge from its size and make, with an appropriate chain and +seals; she had some linen at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, +and things at her wrists like little shirt-wristbands. + +Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I +should have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been +curiously bowed - not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr. +Creakle's boys' heads after a beating - and his grey eyes prominent +and large, with a strange kind of watery brightness in them that +made me, in combination with his vacant manner, his submission to +my aunt, and his childish delight when she praised him, suspect him +of being a little mad; though, if he were mad, how he came to be +there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed like any other ordinary +gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and waistcoat, and white +trousers; and had his watch in his fob, and his money in his +pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it. + +Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and +a perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further +observation of her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not +discover until afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of +protegees whom my aunt had taken into her service expressly to +educate in a renouncement of mankind, and who had generally +completed their abjuration by marrying the baker. + +The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, +a moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing +in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the +old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt's +inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the +bow-window, the drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, +the two canaries, the old china, the punchbowl full of dried +rose-leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, +and, wonderfully out of keeping with the rest, my dusty self upon +the sofa, taking note of everything. + +Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my +great alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had +hardly voice to cry out, 'Janet! Donkeys!' + +Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were +in flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and +warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to +set hoof upon it; while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized +the bridle of a third animal laden with a bestriding child, turned +him, led him forth from those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears +of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane that +hallowed ground. + +To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any lawful right of +way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own +mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great +outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the +passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. In whatever +occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the +conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the +current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. +Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret places ready +to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush +behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war +prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the +donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, +understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional +obstinacy in coming that way. I only know that there were three +alarms before the bath was ready; and that on the occasion of the +last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage, +single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his +sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend +what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more +ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a +table-spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was +actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very +small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the +spoon, she would put it back into the basin, cry 'Janet! Donkeys!' +and go out to the assault. + +The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute +pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so +tired and low that I could hardly keep myself awake for five +minutes together. When I had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and +Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a pair of trousers belonging to +Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three great shawls. What sort +of bundle I looked like, I don't know, but I felt a very hot one. +Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down on the sofa +again and fell asleep. + +It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had +occupied my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my +aunt had come and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my +face, and laid my head more comfortably, and had then stood looking +at me. The words, 'Pretty fellow,' or 'Poor fellow,' seemed to be +in my ears, too; but certainly there was nothing else, when I +awoke, to lead me to believe that they had been uttered by my aunt, +who sat in the bow-window gazing at the sea from behind the green +fan, which was mounted on a kind of swivel, and turned any way. + +We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I +sitting at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my +arms with considerable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me +up, I made no complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time I +was deeply anxious to know what she was going to do with me; but +she took her dinner in profound silence, except when she +occasionally fixed her eyes on me sitting opposite, and said, +'Mercy upon us!' which did not by any means relieve my anxiety. + +The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which +I had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, +and looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to +my story, which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of +questions. During my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who +I thought would have gone to sleep but for that, and who, +whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was checked by a frown from my +aunt. + +'Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go +and be married again,' said my aunt, when I had finished, 'I can't +conceive.' + +'Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,' Mr. Dick +suggested. + +'Fell in love!' repeated my aunt. 'What do you mean? What +business had she to do it?' + +'Perhaps,' Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, 'she did it +for pleasure.' + +'Pleasure, indeed!' replied my aunt. 'A mighty pleasure for the +poor Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain +to ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to +herself, I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had +seen David Copperfield out of the world, who was always running +after wax dolls from his cradle. She had got a baby - oh, there +were a pair of babies when she gave birth to this child sitting +here, that Friday night! - and what more did she want?' + +Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was +no getting over this. + +'She couldn't even have a baby like anybody else,' said my aunt. +'Where was this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not forthcoming. +Don't tell me!' + +Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened. + +'That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,' said my +aunt, 'Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All +he could do, was to say to me, like a robin redbreast - as he is - +"It's a boy." A boy! Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of +'em!' + +The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; +and me, too, if I am to tell the truth. + +'And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood +sufficiently in the light of this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood,' +said my aunt, 'she marries a second time - goes and marries a +Murderer - or a man with a name like it - and stands in THIS +child's light! And the natural consequence is, as anybody but a +baby might have foreseen, that he prowls and wanders. He's as like +Cain before he was grown up, as he can be.' + +Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character. + +'And then there's that woman with the Pagan name,' said my aunt, +'that Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has +not seen enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and +gets married next, as the child relates. I only hope,' said my +aunt, shaking her head, 'that her husband is one of those Poker +husbands who abound in the newspapers, and will beat her well with +one.' + +I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the +subject of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was +mistaken. That Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most +faithful, most devoted, and most self-denying friend and servant in +the world; who had ever loved me dearly, who had ever loved my +mother dearly; who had held my mother's dying head upon her arm, on +whose face my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And my +remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down as I was trying +to say that her home was my home, and that all she had was mine, +and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her humble +station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on her +- I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face +in my hands upon the table. + +'Well, well!' said my aunt, 'the child is right to stand by those +who have stood by him - Janet! Donkeys!' + +I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we +should have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her +hand on my shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, +to embrace her and beseech her protection. But the interruption, +and the disorder she was thrown into by the struggle outside, put +an end to all softer ideas for the present, and kept my aunt +indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick about her determination to +appeal for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions +for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship of Dover, +until tea-time. + +After tea, we sat at the window - on the look-out, as I imagined, +from my aunt's sharp expression of face, for more invaders - until +dusk, when Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, +and pulled down the blinds. + +'Now, Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, with her grave look, and her +forefinger up as before, 'I am going to ask you another question. +Look at this child.' + +'David's son?' said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face. + +'Exactly so,' returned my aunt. 'What would you do with him, now?' + +'Do with David's son?' said Mr. Dick. + +'Ay,' replied my aunt, 'with David's son.' + +'Oh!' said Mr. Dick. 'Yes. Do with - I should put him to bed.' + +'Janet!' cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had +remarked before. 'Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is +ready, we'll take him up to it.' + +Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, +but in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet +bringing up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new +hope, was my aunt's stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell +of fire that was prevalent there; and janet's replying that she had +been making tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there +were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of things I +wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper which my aunt +forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes, I heard them lock my +door on the outside. Turning these things over in my mind I deemed +it possible that my aunt, who could know nothing of me, might +suspect I had a habit of running away, and took precautions, on +that account, to have me in safe keeping. + +The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking +the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had +said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I +still sat looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope +to read my fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother +with her child, coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to +look upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I +remember how the solemn feeling with which at length I turned my +eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest which the +sight of the white-curtained bed - and how much more the lying +softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white sheets! - inspired. +I remember how I thought of all the solitary places under the night +sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never might be +houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I +remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of +that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams. + + + +CHAPTER 14 +MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME + + +On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly +over the breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, that the +contents of the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the +whole table-cloth under water, when my entrance put her meditations +to flight. I felt sure that I had been the subject of her +reflections, and was more than ever anxious to know her intentions +towards me. Yet I dared not express my anxiety, lest it should +give her offence. + +My eyes, however, not being so much under control as my tongue, +were attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I +never could look at her for a few moments together but I found her +looking at me - in an odd thoughtful manner, as if I were an +immense way off, instead of being on the other side of the small +round table. When she had finished her breakfast, my aunt very +deliberately leaned back in her chair, knitted her brows, folded +her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure, with such a fixedness +of attention that I was quite overpowered by embarrassment. Not +having as yet finished my own breakfast, I attempted to hide my +confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife tumbled over my fork, +my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a surprising +height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and +choked myself with my tea, which persisted in going the wrong way +instead of the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat +blushing under my aunt's close scrutiny. + +'Hallo!' said my aunt, after a long time. + +I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully. + +'I have written to him,' said my aunt. + +'To -?' + +'To your father-in-law,' said my aunt. 'I have sent him a letter +that I'll trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I +can tell him!' + +'Does he know where I am, aunt?' I inquired, alarmed. + +'I have told him,' said my aunt, with a nod. + +'Shall I - be - given up to him?' I faltered. + +'I don't know,' said my aunt. 'We shall see.' + +'Oh! I can't think what I shall do,' I exclaimed, 'if I have to go +back to Mr. Murdstone!' + +'I don't know anything about it,' said my aunt, shaking her head. +'I can't say, I am sure. We shall see.' + +My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and +heavy of heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of +me, put on a coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the +press; washed up the teacups with her own hands; and, when +everything was washed and set in the tray again, and the cloth +folded and put on the top of the whole, rang for Janet to remove +it. She next swept up the crumbs with a little broom (putting on +a pair of gloves first), until there did not appear to be one +microscopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged the +room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair'sbreadth already. +When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she took +off the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the +particular corner of the press from which they had been taken, +brought out her work-box to her own table in the open window, and +sat down, with the green fan between her and the light, to work. + +'I wish you'd go upstairs,' said my aunt, as she threaded her +needle, 'and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I'll be glad to +know how he gets on with his Memorial.' + +I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission. + +'I suppose,' said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed +the needle in threading it, 'you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh?' + +'I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday,' I confessed. + +'You are not to suppose that he hasn't got a longer name, if he +chose to use it,' said my aunt, with a loftier air. 'Babley - Mr. +Richard Babley - that's the gentleman's true name.' + +I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the +familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had better give +him the full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say: + +'But don't you call him by it, whatever you do. He can't bear his +name. That's a peculiarity of his. Though I don't know that it's +much of a peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by +some that bear it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. +Mr. Dick is his name here, and everywhere else, now - if he ever +went anywhere else, which he don't. So take care, child, you don't +call him anything BUT Mr. Dick.' + +I promised to obey, and went upstairs with my message; thinking, as +I went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at +the same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open +door, when I came down, he was probably getting on very well +indeed. I found him still driving at it with a long pen, and his +head almost laid upon the paper. He was so intent upon it, that I +had ample leisure to observe the large paper kite in a corner, the +confusion of bundles of manuscript, the number of pens, and, above +all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed to have in, in +half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my being +present. + +'Ha! Phoebus!' said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. 'How does the +world go? I'll tell you what,' he added, in a lower tone, 'I +shouldn't wish it to be mentioned, but it's a -' here he beckoned +to me, and put his lips close to my ear - 'it's a mad world. Mad +as Bedlam, boy!' said Mr. Dick, taking snuff from a round box on +the table, and laughing heartily. + +Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered +my message. + +'Well,' said Mr. Dick, in answer, 'my compliments to her, and I - +I believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start,' said +Mr. Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting +anything but a confident look at his manuscript. 'You have been to +school?' + +'Yes, sir,' I answered; 'for a short time.' + +'Do you recollect the date,' said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at +me, and taking up his pen to note it down, 'when King Charles the +First had his head cut off?' +I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and +forty-nine. + +'Well,' returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and +looking dubiously at me. 'So the books say; but I don't see how +that can be. Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people +about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out +of his head, after it was taken off, into mine?' + +I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no +information on this point. + +'It's very strange,' said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his +papers, and with his hand among his hair again, 'that I never can +get that quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But +no matter, no matter!' he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, +'there's time enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am +getting on very well indeed.' + +I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite. + +'What do you think of that for a kite?' he said. + +I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must +have been as much as seven feet high. + +'I made it. We'll go and fly it, you and I,' said Mr. Dick. 'Do +you see this?' + +He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and +laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the +lines, I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First's +head again, in one or two places. + +'There's plenty of string,' said Mr. Dick, 'and when it flies high, +it takes the facts a long way. That's my manner of diffusing 'em. +I don't know where they may come down. It's according to +circumstances, and the wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of +that.' + +His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so +reverend in it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure +but that he was having a good-humoured jest with me. So I laughed, +and he laughed, and we parted the best friends possible. + +'Well, child,' said my aunt, when I went downstairs. 'And what of +Mr. Dick, this morning?' + +I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on +very well indeed. + +'What do you think of him?' said my aunt. + +I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by +replying that I thought him a very nice gentleman; but my aunt was +not to be so put off, for she laid her work down in her lap, and +said, folding her hands upon it: + +'Come! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told me what she +thought of anyone, directly. Be as like your sister as you can, +and speak out!' + +'Is he - is Mr. Dick - I ask because I don't know, aunt - is he at +all out of his mind, then?' I stammered; for I felt I was on +dangerous ground. + +'Not a morsel,' said my aunt. + +'Oh, indeed!' I observed faintly. + +'If there is anything in the world,' said my aunt, with great +decision and force of manner, 'that Mr. Dick is not, it's that.' + +I had nothing better to offer, than another timid, 'Oh, indeed!' + +'He has been CALLED mad,' said my aunt. 'I have a selfish pleasure +in saying he has been called mad, or I should not have had the +benefit of his society and advice for these last ten years and +upwards - in fact, ever since your sister, Betsey Trotwood, +disappointed me.' + +'So long as that?' I said. + +'And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad,' +pursued my aunt. 'Mr. Dick is a sort of distant connexion of mine +- it doesn't matter how; I needn't enter into that. If it hadn't +been for me, his own brother would have shut him up for life. +That's all.' + +I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt +strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt strongly too. + +'A proud fool!' said my aunt. 'Because his brother was a little +eccentric - though he is not half so eccentric as a good many +people - he didn't like to have him visible about his house, and +sent him away to some private asylum-place: though he had been left +to his particular care by their deceased father, who thought him +almost a natural. And a wise man he must have been to think so! +Mad himself, no doubt.' + +Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured to look +quite convinced also. + +'So I stepped in,' said my aunt, 'and made him an offer. I said, +"Your brother's sane - a great deal more sane than you are, or ever +will be, it is to be hoped. Let him have his little income, and +come and live with me. I am not afraid of him, I am not proud, I +am ready to take care of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some +people (besides the asylum-folks) have done." After a good deal of +squabbling,' said my aunt, 'I got him; and he has been here ever +since. He is the most friendly and amenable creature in existence; +and as for advice! - But nobody knows what that man's mind is, +except myself.' + +My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed +defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the +other. + +'He had a favourite sister,' said my aunt, 'a good creature, and +very kind to him. But she did what they all do - took a husband. +And HE did what they all do - made her wretched. It had such an +effect upon the mind of Mr. Dick (that's not madness, I hope!) +that, combined with his fear of his brother, and his sense of his +unkindness, it threw him into a fever. That was before he came to +me, but the recollection of it is oppressive to him even now. Did +he say anything to you about King Charles the First, child?' + +'Yes, aunt.' + +'Ah!' said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed. +'That's his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his +illness with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that's +the figure, or the simile, or whatever it's called, which he +chooses to use. And why shouldn't he, if he thinks proper!' + +I said: 'Certainly, aunt.' + +'It's not a business-like way of speaking,' said my aunt, 'nor a +worldly way. I am aware of that; and that's the reason why I +insist upon it, that there shan't be a word about it in his +Memorial.' + +'Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?' + +'Yes, child,' said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. 'He is +memorializing the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other - +one of those people, at all events, who are paid to be memorialized +- about his affairs. I suppose it will go in, one of these days. +He hasn't been able to draw it up yet, without introducing that +mode of expressing himself; but it don't signify; it keeps him +employed.' + +In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards +of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the +Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there +now. + +'I say again,' said my aunt, 'nobody knows what that man's mind is +except myself; and he's the most amenable and friendly creature in +existence. If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that! +Franklin used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that +sort, if I am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much +more ridiculous object than anybody else.' + +If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these +particulars for my especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in +me, I should have felt very much distinguished, and should have +augured favourably from such a mark of her good opinion. But I +could hardly help observing that she had launched into them, +chiefly because the question was raised in her own mind, and with +very little reference to me, though she had addressed herself to me +in the absence of anybody else. + +At the same time, I must say that the generosity of her +championship of poor harmless Mr. Dick, not only inspired my young +breast with some selfish hope for myself, but warmed it unselfishly +towards her. I believe that I began to know that there was +something about my aunt, notwithstanding her many eccentricities +and odd humours, to be honoured and trusted in. Though she was +just as sharp that day as on the day before, and was in and out +about the donkeys just as often, and was thrown into a tremendous +state of indignation, when a young man, going by, ogled Janet at a +window (which was one of the gravest misdemeanours that could be +committed against my aunt's dignity), she seemed to me to command +more of my respect, if not less of my fear. + +The anxiety I underwent, in the interval which necessarily elapsed +before a reply could be received to her letter to Mr. Murdstone, +was extreme; but I made an endeavour to suppress it, and to be as +agreeable as I could in a quiet way, both to my aunt and Mr. Dick. +The latter and I would have gone out to fly the great kite; but +that I had still no other clothes than the anything but ornamental +garments with which I had been decorated on the first day, and +which confined me to the house, except for an hour after dark, when +my aunt, for my health's sake, paraded me up and down on the cliff +outside, before going to bed. At length the reply from Mr. +Murdstone came, and my aunt informed me, to my infinite terror, +that he was coming to speak to her herself on the next day. On the +next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, I sat +counting the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking +hopes and rising fears within me; and waiting to be startled by the +sight of the gloomy face, whose non-arrival startled me every +minute. + +MY aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I +observed no other token of her preparing herself to receive the +visitor so much dreaded by me. She sat at work in the window, and +I sat by, with my thoughts running astray on all possible and +impossible results of Mr. Murdstone's visit, until pretty late in +the afternoon. Our dinner had been indefinitely postponed; but it +was growing so late, that my aunt had ordered it to be got ready, +when she gave a sudden alarm of donkeys, and to my consternation +and amazement, I beheld Miss Murdstone, on a side-saddle, ride +deliberately over the sacred piece of green, and stop in front of +the house, looking about her. + +'Go along with you!' cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist +at the window. 'You have no business there. How dare you +trespass? Go along! Oh! you bold-faced thing!' + +MY aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which Miss +Murdstone looked about her, that I really believe she was +motionless, and unable for the moment to dart out according to +custom. I seized the opportunity to inform her who it was; and +that the gentleman now coming near the offender (for the way up was +very steep, and he had dropped behind), was Mr. Murdstone himself. + +'I don't care who it is!' cried my aunt, still shaking her head and +gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-window. 'I won't +be trespassed upon. I won't allow it. Go away! Janet, turn him +round. Lead him off!' and I saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of +hurried battle-piece, in which the donkey stood resisting +everybody, with all his four legs planted different ways, while +Janet tried to pull him round by the bridle, Mr. Murdstone tried to +lead him on, Miss Murdstone struck at Janet with a parasol, and +several boys, who had come to see the engagement, shouted +vigorously. But my aunt, suddenly descrying among them the young +malefactor who was the donkey's guardian, and who was one of the +most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in his teens, +rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured him, +dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding +the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the +constables and justices, that he might be taken, tried, and +executed on the spot, held him at bay there. This part of the +business, however, did not last long; for the young rascal, being +expert at a variety of feints and dodges, of which my aunt had no +conception, soon went whooping away, leaving some deep impressions +of his nailed boots in the flower-beds, and taking his donkey in +triumph with him. + +Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest, had +dismounted, and was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of +the steps, until my aunt should be at leisure to receive them. My +aunt, a little ruffled by the combat, marched past them into the +house, with great dignity, and took no notice of their presence, +until they were announced by Janet. + +'Shall I go away, aunt?' I asked, trembling. + +'No, sir,' said my aunt. 'Certainly not!' With which she pushed +me into a corner near her, and fenced Me in with a chair, as if it +were a prison or a bar of justice. This position I continued to +occupy during the whole interview, and from it I now saw Mr. and +Miss Murdstone enter the room. + +'Oh!' said my aunt, 'I was not aware at first to whom I had the +pleasure of objecting. But I don't allow anybody to ride over that +turf. I make no exceptions. I don't allow anybody to do it.' + +'Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers,' said Miss +Murdstone. + +'Is it!' said my aunt. + +Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and +interposing began: + +'Miss Trotwood!' + +'I beg your pardon,' observed my aunt with a keen look. 'You are +the Mr. Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, David +Copperfield, of Blunderstone Rookery! - Though why Rookery, I don't +know!' + +'I am,' said Mr. Murdstone. + +'You'll excuse my saying, sir,' returned my aunt, 'that I think it +would have been a much better and happier thing if you had left +that poor child alone.' + +'I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked,' observed +Miss Murdstone, bridling, 'that I consider our lamented Clara to +have been, in all essential respects, a mere child.' + +'It is a comfort to you and me, ma'am,' said my aunt, 'who are +getting on in life, and are not likely to be made unhappy by our +personal attractions, that nobody can say the same of us.' + +'No doubt!' returned Miss Murdstone, though, I thought, not with a +very ready or gracious assent. 'And it certainly might have been, +as you say, a better and happier thing for my brother if he had +never entered into such a marriage. I have always been of that +opinion.' + +'I have no doubt you have,' said my aunt. 'Janet,' ringing the +bell, 'my compliments to Mr. Dick, and beg him to come down.' + +Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff, frowning at +the wall. When he came, my aunt performed the ceremony of +introduction. + +'Mr. Dick. An old and intimate friend. On whose judgement,' said +my aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to Mr. Dick, who was +biting his forefinger and looking rather foolish, 'I rely.' + +Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood +among the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face. + +My aunt inclined her head to Mr. Murdstone, who went on: + +'Miss Trotwood: on the receipt of your letter, I considered it an +act of greater justice to myself, and perhaps of more respect to +you-' + +'Thank you,' said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. 'You needn't +mind me.' + +'To answer it in person, however inconvenient the journey,' pursued +Mr. Murdstone, 'rather than by letter. This unhappy boy who has +run away from his friends and his occupation -' + +'And whose appearance,' interposed his sister, directing general +attention to me in my indefinable costume, 'is perfectly scandalous +and disgraceful.' + +'Jane Murdstone,' said her brother, 'have the goodness not to +interrupt me. This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood, has been the +occasion of much domestic trouble and uneasiness; both during the +lifetime of my late dear wife, and since. He has a sullen, +rebellious spirit; a violent temper; and an untoward, intractable +disposition. Both my sister and myself have endeavoured to correct +his vices, but ineffectually. And I have felt - we both have felt, +I may say; my sister being fully in my confidence - that it is +right you should receive this grave and dispassionate assurance +from our lips.' + +'It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my +brother,' said Miss Murdstone; 'but I beg to observe, that, of all +the boys in the world, I believe this is the worst boy.' + +'Strong!' said my aunt, shortly. + +'But not at all too strong for the facts,' returned Miss Murdstone. + +'Ha!' said my aunt. 'Well, sir?' + +'I have my own opinions,' resumed Mr. Murdstone, whose face +darkened more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each +other, which they did very narrowly, 'as to the best mode of +bringing him up; they are founded, in part, on my knowledge of him, +and in part on my knowledge of my own means and resources. I am +responsible for them to myself, I act upon them, and I say no more +about them. It is enough that I place this boy under the eye of a +friend of my own, in a respectable business; that it does not +please him; that he runs away from it; makes himself a common +vagabond about the country; and comes here, in rags, to appeal to +you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, honourably, the +exact consequences - so far as they are within my knowledge - of +your abetting him in this appeal.' + +'But about the respectable business first,' said my aunt. 'If he +had been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, +I suppose?' + +'If he had been my brother's own boy,' returned Miss Murdstone, +striking in, 'his character, I trust, would have been altogether +different.' + +'Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still +have gone into the respectable business, would he?' said my aunt. + +'I believe,' said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head, +'that Clara would have disputed nothing which myself and my sister +Jane Murdstone were agreed was for the best.' + +Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible murmur. + +'Humph!' said my aunt. 'Unfortunate baby!' + +Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was +rattling it so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check +him with a look, before saying: + +'The poor child's annuity died with her?' + +'Died with her,' replied Mr. Murdstone. + +'And there was no settlement of the little property - the house and +garden - the what's-its-name Rookery without any rooks in it - upon +her boy?' + +'It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband,' +Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest +irascibility and impatience. + +'Good Lord, man, there's no occasion to say that. Left to her +unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward +to any condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him +point-blank in the face! Of course it was left to her +unconditionally. But when she married again - when she took that +most disastrous step of marrying you, in short,' said my aunt, 'to +be plain - did no one put in a word for the boy at that time?' + +'My late wife loved her second husband, ma'am,' said Mr. Murdstone, +'and trusted implicitly in him.' + +'Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most +unfortunate baby,' returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. +'That's what she was. And now, what have you got to say next?' + +'Merely this, Miss Trotwood,' he returned. 'I am here to take +David back - to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as +I think proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not +here to make any promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may +possibly have some idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his +running away, and in his complaints to you. Your manner, which I +must say does not seem intended to propitiate, induces me to think +it possible. Now I must caution you that if you abet him once, you +abet him for good and all; if you step in between him and me, now, +you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever. I cannot trifle, or be +trifled with. I am here, for the first and last time, to take him +away. Is he ready to go? If he is not - and you tell me he is +not; on any pretence; it is indifferent to me what - my doors are +shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted, are +open to him.' + +To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention, +sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and +looking grimly on the speaker. When he had finished, she turned +her eyes so as to command Miss Murdstone, without otherwise +disturbing her attitude, and said: + +'Well, ma'am, have YOU got anything to remark?' + +'Indeed, Miss Trotwood,' said Miss Murdstone, 'all that I could say +has been so well said by my brother, and all that I know to be the +fact has been so plainly stated by him, that I have nothing to add +except my thanks for your politeness. For your very great +politeness, I am sure,' said Miss Murdstone; with an irony which no +more affected my aunt, than it discomposed the cannon I had slept +by at Chatham. + +'And what does the boy say?' said my aunt. 'Are you ready to go, +David?' + +I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I said that +neither Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been +kind to me. That they had made my mama, who always loved me +dearly, unhappy about me, and that I knew it well, and that +Peggotty knew it. I said that I had been more miserable than I +thought anybody could believe, who only knew how young I was. And +I begged and prayed my aunt - I forget in what terms now, but I +remember that they affected me very much then - to befriend and +protect me, for my father's sake. + +'Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, 'what shall I do with this child?' + +Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, 'Have him +measured for a suit of clothes directly.' + +'Mr. Dick,' said my aunt triumphantly, 'give me your hand, for your +common sense is invaluable.' Having shaken it with great +cordiality, she pulled me towards her and said to Mr. Murdstone: + +'You can go when you like; I'll take my chance with the boy. If +he's all you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as +you have done. But I don't believe a word of it.' + +'Miss Trotwood,' rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging his shoulders, +as he rose, 'if you were a gentleman -' + +'Bah! Stuff and nonsense!' said my aunt. 'Don't talk to me!' + +'How exquisitely polite!' exclaimed Miss Murdstone, rising. +'Overpowering, really!' + +'Do you think I don't know,' said my aunt, turning a deaf ear to +the sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her +head at him with infinite expression, 'what kind of life you must +have led that poor, unhappy, misdirected baby? Do you think I +don't know what a woeful day it was for the soft little creature +when you first came in her way - smirking and making great eyes at +her, I'll be bound, as if you couldn't say boh! to a goose!' + +'I never heard anything so elegant!' said Miss Murdstone. + +'Do you think I can't understand you as well as if I had seen you,' +pursued my aunt, 'now that I DO see and hear you - which, I tell +you candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me? Oh yes, bless us! +who so smooth and silky as Mr. Murdstone at first! The poor, +benighted innocent had never seen such a man. He was made of +sweetness. He worshipped her. He doted on her boy - tenderly +doted on him! He was to be another father to him, and they were +all to live together in a garden of roses, weren't they? Ugh! Get +along with you, do!' said my aunt. + +'I never heard anything like this person in my life!' exclaimed +Miss Murdstone. + +'And when you had made sure of the poor little fool,' said my aunt +- 'God forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where YOU +won't go in a hurry - because you had not done wrong enough to her +and hers, you must begin to train her, must you? begin to break +her, like a poor caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in +teaching her to sing YOUR notes?' + +'This is either insanity or intoxication,' said Miss Murdstone, in +a perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt's +address towards herself; 'and my suspicion is that it's +intoxication.' + +Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption, +continued to address herself to Mr. Murdstone as if there had been +no such thing. + +'Mr. Murdstone,' she said, shaking her finger at him, 'you were a +tyrant to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a +loving baby - I know that; I knew it, years before you ever saw her +- and through the best part of her weakness you gave her the wounds +she died of. There is the truth for your comfort, however you like +it. And you and your instruments may make the most of it.' + +'Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood,' interposed Miss Murdstone, +'whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which I am +not experienced, my brother's instruments?' + +'It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before YOU ever saw +her - and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you +ever did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend - it was +clear enough that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, +at some time or other; but I did hope it wouldn't have been as bad +as it has turned out. That was the time, Mr. Murdstone, when she +gave birth to her boy here,' said my aunt; 'to the poor child you +sometimes tormented her through afterwards, which is a disagreeable +remembrance and makes the sight of him odious now. Aye, aye! you +needn't wince!' said my aunt. 'I know it's true without that.' + +He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her with a +smile upon his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily +contracted. I remarked now, that, though the smile was on his face +still, his colour had gone in a moment, and he seemed to breathe as +if he had been running. + +'Good day, sir,' said my aunt, 'and good-bye! Good day to you, +too, ma'am,' said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. 'Let +me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you +have a head upon your shoulders, I'll knock your bonnet off, and +tread upon it!' + +It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my +aunt's face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected +sentiment, and Miss Murdstone's face as she heard it. But the +manner of the speech, no less than the matter, was so fiery, that +Miss Murdstone, without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm +through her brother's, and walked haughtily out of the cottage; my +aunt remaining in the window looking after them; prepared, I have +no doubt, in case of the donkey's reappearance, to carry her threat +into instant execution. + +No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually +relaxed, and became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and +thank her; which I did with great heartiness, and with both my arms +clasped round her neck. I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who +shook hands with me a great many times, and hailed this happy close +of the proceedings with repeated bursts of laughter. + +'You'll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, +Mr. Dick,' said my aunt. + +'I shall be delighted,' said Mr. Dick, 'to be the guardian of +David's son.' + +'Very good,' returned my aunt, 'that's settled. I have been +thinking, do you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood?' + +'Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly,' said Mr. +Dick. 'David's son's Trotwood.' + +'Trotwood Copperfield, you mean,' returned my aunt. + +'Yes, to be sure. Yes. Trotwood Copperfield,' said Mr. Dick, a +little abashed. + +My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes, +which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked 'Trotwood +Copperfield', in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink, +before I put them on; and it was settled that all the other clothes +which were ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke +that afternoon) should be marked in the same way. + +Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new +about me. Now that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many +days, like one in a dream. I never thought that I had a curious +couple of guardians, in my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of +anything about myself, distinctly. The two things clearest in my +mind were, that a remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone +life - which seemed to lie in the haze of an immeasurable distance; +and that a curtain had for ever fallen on my life at Murdstone and +Grinby's. No one has ever raised that curtain since. I have +lifted it for a moment, even in this narrative, with a reluctant +hand, and dropped it gladly. The remembrance of that life is +fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering and +want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to examine how +long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or +more, or less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased +to be; and that I have written, and there I leave it. + + + +CHAPTER 15 +I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING + + +Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, +when his day's work was done, went out together to fly the great +kite. Every day of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, +which never made the least progress, however hard he laboured, for +King Charles the First always strayed into it, sooner or later, and +then it was thrown aside, and another one begun. The patience and +hope with which he bore these perpetual disappointments, the mild +perception he had that there was something wrong about King Charles +the First, the feeble efforts he made to keep him out, and the +certainty with which he came in, and tumbled the Memorial out of +all shape, made a deep impression on me. What Mr. Dick supposed +would come of the Memorial, if it were completed; where he thought +it was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no more than +anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he +should trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were +certain under the sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would +be finished. It was quite an affecting sight, I used to think, to +see him with the kite when it was up a great height in the air. +What he had told me, in his room, about his belief in its +disseminating the statements pasted on it, which were nothing but +old leaves of abortive Memorials, might have been a fancy with him +sometimes; but not when he was out, looking up at the kite in the +sky, and feeling it pull and tug at his hand. He never looked so +serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as I sat by him of an +evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the kite high in the +quiet air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore +it (such was my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the +string in and it came lower and lower down out of the beautiful +light, until it fluttered to the ground, and lay there like a dead +thing, he seemed to wake gradually out of a dream; and I remember +to have seen him take it up, and look about him in a lost way, as +if they had both come down together, so that I pitied him with all +my heart. + +While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr. Dick, I did +not go backward in the favour of his staunch friend, my aunt. She +took so kindly to me, that, in the course of a few weeks, she +shortened my adopted name of Trotwood into Trot; and even +encouraged me to hope, that if I went on as I had begun, I might +take equal rank in her affections with my sister Betsey Trotwood. + +'Trot,' said my aunt one evening, when the backgammon-board was +placed as usual for herself and Mr. Dick, 'we must not forget your +education.' + +This was my only subject of anxiety, and I felt quite delighted by +her referring to it. + +'Should you like to go to school at Canterbury?' said my aunt. + +I replied that I should like it very much, as it was so near her. + +'Good,' said my aunt. 'Should you like to go tomorrow?' + +Being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my aunt's +evolutions, I was not surprised by the suddenness of the proposal, +and said: 'Yes.' + +'Good,' said my aunt again. 'Janet, hire the grey pony and chaise +tomorrow morning at ten o'clock, and pack up Master Trotwood's +clothes tonight.' + +I was greatly elated by these orders; but my heart smote me for my +selfishness, when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so +low-spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill +in consequence, that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory +raps on the knuckles with her dice-box, shut up the board, and +declined to play with him any more. But, on hearing from my aunt +that I should sometimes come over on a Saturday, and that he could +sometimes come and see me on a Wednesday, he revived; and vowed to +make another kite for those occasions, of proportions greatly +surpassing the present one. In the morning he was downhearted +again, and would have sustained himself by giving me all the money +he had in his possession, gold and silver too, if my aunt had not +interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings, which, at his +earnest petition, were afterwards increased to ten. We parted at +the garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick did not +go into the house until my aunt had driven me out of sight of it. + +My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the +grey pony through Dover in a masterly manner; sitting high and +stiff like a state coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever +he went, and making a point of not letting him have his own way in +any respect. When we came into the country road, she permitted him +to relax a little, however; and looking at me down in a valley of +cushion by her side, asked me whether I was happy? + +'Very happy indeed, thank you, aunt,' I said. + +She was much gratified; and both her hands being occupied, patted +me on the head with her whip. + +'Is it a large school, aunt?' I asked. + +'Why, I don't know,' said my aunt. 'We are going to Mr. +Wickfield's first.' + +'Does he keep a school?' I asked. + +'No, Trot,' said my aunt. 'He keeps an office.' + +I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered +none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to +Canterbury, where, as it was market-day, my aunt had a great +opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, +vegetables, and huckster's goods. The hair-breadth turns and +twists we made, drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the +people standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my +aunt drove on with perfect indifference, and I dare say would have +taken her own way with as much coolness through an enemy's country. + +At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the +road; a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still +farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, +so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to +see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite +spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on +the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and +flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to +the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; +and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and +quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though +as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon +the hills. + +When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent +upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on +the ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of +the house), and quickly disappear. The low arched door then +opened, and the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it +had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that +tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of +red-haired people. It belonged to a red-haired person - a youth of +fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older - whose hair was +cropped as close as the closest stubble; who had hardly any +eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown, so unsheltered +and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He +was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white +wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, +lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as +he stood at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking +up at us in the chaise. + +'Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep?' said my aunt. + +'Mr. Wickfield's at home, ma'am,' said Uriah Heep, 'if you'll +please to walk in there' - pointing with his long hand to the room +he meant. + +We got out; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low +parlour looking towards the street, from the window of which I +caught a glimpse, as I went in, of Uriah Heep breathing into the +pony's nostrils, and immediately covering them with his hand, as if +he were putting some spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old +chimney-piece were two portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair +(though not by any means an old man) and black eyebrows, who was +looking over some papers tied together with red tape; the other, of +a lady, with a very placid and sweet expression of face, who was +looking at me. + +I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah's picture, when, +a door at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, +at sight of whom I turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to +make quite sure that it had not come out of its frame. But it was +stationary; and as the gentleman advanced into the light, I saw +that he was some years older than when he had had his picture +painted. + +'Miss Betsey Trotwood,' said the gentleman, 'pray walk in. I was +engaged for a moment, but you'll excuse my being busy. You know my +motive. I have but one in life.' + +Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was +furnished as an office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so +forth. It looked into a garden, and had an iron safe let into the +wall; so immediately over the mantelshelf, that I wondered, as I +sat down, how the sweeps got round it when they swept the chimney. + +'Well, Miss Trotwood,' said Mr. Wickfield; for I soon found that it +was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a +rich gentleman of the county; 'what wind blows you here? Not an +ill wind, I hope?' + +'No,' replied my aunt. 'I have not come for any law.' + +'That's right, ma'am,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'You had better come +for anything else.' +His hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were still black. +He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought, was handsome. There +was a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been long +accustomed, under Peggotty's tuition, to connect with port wine; +and I fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing +corpulency to the same cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a +blue coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen trousers; and his fine +frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked unusually soft and +white, reminding my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of the plumage +on the breast of a swan. + +'This is my nephew,' said my aunt. + +'Wasn't aware you had one, Miss Trotwood,' said Mr. Wickfield. + +'My grand-nephew, that is to say,' observed my aunt. + +'Wasn't aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my word,' said Mr. +Wickfield. + +'I have adopted him,' said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, +importing that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, +'and I have brought him here, to put to a school where he may be +thoroughly well taught, and well treated. Now tell me where that +school is, and what it is, and all about it.' + +'Before I can advise you properly,' said Mr. Wickfield - 'the old +question, you know. What's your motive in this?' + +'Deuce take the man!' exclaimed my aunt. 'Always fishing for +motives, when they're on the surface! Why, to make the child happy +and useful.' + +'It must be a mixed motive, I think,' said Mr. Wickfield, shaking +his head and smiling incredulously. + +'A mixed fiddlestick,' returned my aunt. 'You claim to have one +plain motive in all you do yourself. You don't suppose, I hope, +that you are the only plain dealer in the world?' + +'Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood,' he +rejoined, smiling. 'Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. +I have only one. There's the difference. However, that's beside +the question. The best school? Whatever the motive, you want the +best?' + +My aunt nodded assent. + +'At the best we have,' said Mr. Wickfield, considering, 'your +nephew couldn't board just now.' + +'But he could board somewhere else, I suppose?' suggested my aunt. + +Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he +proposed to take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and +judge for herself; also, to take her, with the same object, to two +or three houses where he thought I could be boarded. My aunt +embracing the proposal, we were all three going out together, when +he stopped and said: + +'Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for +objecting to the arrangements. I think we had better leave him +behind?' + +My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point; but to facilitate +matters I said I would gladly remain behind, if they pleased; and +returned into Mr. Wickfield's office, where I sat down again, in +the chair I had first occupied, to await their return. + +It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which +ended in the little circular room where I had seen Uriah Heep's +pale face looking out of the window. Uriah, having taken the pony +to a neighbouring stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which +had a brass frame on the top to hang paper upon, and on which the +writing he was making a copy of was then hanging. Though his face +was towards me, I thought, for some time, the writing being between +us, that he could not see me; but looking that way more +attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now +and then, his sleepless eyes would come below the writing, like two +red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare say a whole minute +at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to go, as +cleverly as ever. I made several attempts to get out of their way +- such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of +the room, and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper - but +they always attracted me back again; and whenever I looked towards +those two red suns, I was sure to find them, either just rising or +just setting. + +At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield came back, +after a pretty long absence. They were not so successful as I +could have wished; for though the advantages of the school were +undeniable, my aunt had not approved of any of the boarding-houses +proposed for me. + +'It's very unfortunate,' said my aunt. 'I don't know what to do, +Trot.' + +'It does happen unfortunately,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'But I'll tell +you what you can do, Miss Trotwood.' + +'What's that?' inquired my aunt. + +'Leave your nephew here, for the present. He's a quiet fellow. He +won't disturb me at all. It's a capital house for study. As quiet +as a monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here.' + +My aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate of +accepting it. So did I. +'Come, Miss Trotwood,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'This is the way out of +the difficulty. It's only a temporary arrangement, you know. If +it don't act well, or don't quite accord with our mutual +convenience, he can easily go to the right-about. There will be +time to find some better place for him in the meanwhile. You had +better determine to leave him here for the present!' + +'I am very much obliged to you,' said my aunt; 'and so is he, I +see; but -' + +'Come! I know what you mean,' cried Mr. Wickfield. 'You shall not +be oppressed by the receipt of favours, Miss Trotwood. You may pay +for him, if you like. We won't be hard about terms, but you shall +pay if you will.' + +'On that understanding,' said my aunt, 'though it doesn't lessen +the real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him.' + +'Then come and see my little housekeeper,' said Mr. Wickfield. + +We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase; with a balustrade +so broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily; and +into a shady old drawing-room, lighted by some three or four of the +quaint windows I had looked up at from the street: which had old +oak seats in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as +the shining oak floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It was +a prettily furnished room, with a piano and some lively furniture +in red and green, and some flowers. It seemed to be all old nooks +and corners; and in every nook and corner there was some queer +little table, or cupboard, or bookcase, or seat, or something or +other, that made me think there was not such another good corner in +the room; until I looked at the next one, and found it equal to it, +if not better. On everything there was the same air of retirement +and cleanliness that marked the house outside. + +Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, +and a girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On +her face, I saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of the +lady whose picture had looked at me downstairs. It seemed to my +imagination as if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original +remained a child. Although her face was quite bright and happy, +there was a tranquillity about it, and about her - a quiet, good, +calm spirit - that I never have forgotten; that I shall never +forget. This was his little housekeeper, his daughter Agnes, Mr. +Wickfield said. When I heard how he said it, and saw how he held +her hand, I guessed what the one motive of his life was. + +She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in +it; and she looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the +old house could have. She listened to her father as he told her +about me, with a pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed +to my aunt that we should go upstairs and see my room. We all went +together, she before us: and a glorious old room it was, with more +oak beams, and diamond panes; and the broad balustrade going all +the way up to it. + +I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a +stained glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. +But I know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of +the old staircase, and wait for us, above, I thought of that +window; and I associated something of its tranquil brightness with +Agnes Wickfield ever afterwards. + +My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me; and +we went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified. +As she would not hear of staying to dinner, lest she should by any +chance fail to arrive at home with the grey pony before dark; and +as I apprehend Mr. Wickfield knew her too well to argue any point +with her; some lunch was provided for her there, and Agnes went +back to her governess, and Mr. Wickfield to his office. So we were +left to take leave of one another without any restraint. + +She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. +Wickfield, and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the +kindest words and the best advice. + +'Trot,' said my aunt in conclusion, 'be a credit to yourself, to +me, and Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!' + +I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again and again, +and send my love to Mr. Dick. + +'Never,' said my aunt, 'be mean in anything; never be false; never +be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be +hopeful of you.' + +I promised, as well as I could, that I would not abuse her kindness +or forget her admonition. + +'The pony's at the door,' said my aunt, 'and I am off! Stay here.' +With these words she embraced me hastily, and went out of the room, +shutting the door after her. At first I was startled by so abrupt +a departure, and almost feared I had displeased her; but when I +looked into the street, and saw how dejectedly she got into the +chaise, and drove away without looking up, I understood her better +and did not do her that injustice. + +By five o'clock, which was Mr. Wickfield's dinner-hour, I had +mustered up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. +The cloth was only laid for us two; but Agnes was waiting in the +drawing-room before dinner, went down with her father, and sat +opposite to him at table. I doubted whether he could have dined +without her. + +We did not stay there, after dinner, but came upstairs into the +drawing-room again: in one snug corner of which, Agnes set glasses +for her father, and a decanter of port wine. I thought he would +have missed its usual flavour, if it had been put there for him by +any other hands. + +There he sat, taking his wine, and taking a good deal of it, for +two hours; while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to +him and me. He was, for the most part, gay and cheerful with us; +but sometimes his eyes rested on her, and he fell into a brooding +state, and was silent. She always observed this quickly, I +thought, and always roused him with a question or caress. Then he +came out of his meditation, and drank more wine. + +Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away +after it, as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father +took her in his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered +candles in his office. Then I went to bed too. + +But in the course of the evening I had rambled down to the door, +and a little way along the street, that I might have another peep +at the old houses, and the grey Cathedral; and might think of my +coming through that old city on my journey, and of my passing the +very house I lived in, without knowing it. As I came back, I saw +Uriah Heep shutting up the office; and feeling friendly towards +everybody, went in and spoke to him, and at parting, gave him my +hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his was! as ghostly to the touch +as to the sight! I rubbed mine afterwards, to warm it, AND TO RUB +HIS OFF. + +It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went to my room, it +was still cold and wet upon my memory. Leaning out of the window, +and seeing one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me +sideways, I fancied it was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, and +shut him out in a hurry. + + + +CHAPTER 16 +I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE + + +Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I +went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future +studies - a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about +it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who +came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing +on the grass-plot - and was introduced to my new master, Doctor +Strong. + +Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall +iron rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and +heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, +on the top of the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round +the court, like sublimated skittles, for Time to play at. He was +in his library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not +particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly well +combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his long black gaiters +unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on the +hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of +a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, +and tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he +was glad to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which I didn't +know what to do with, as it did nothing for itself. + +But, sitting at work, not far from Doctor Strong, was a very pretty +young lady - whom he called Annie, and who was his daughter, I +supposed - who got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to put +Doctor Strong's shoes on, and button his gaiters, which she did +with great cheerfulness and quickness. When she had finished, and +we were going out to the schoolroom, I was much surprised to hear +Mr. Wickfield, in bidding her good morning, address her as 'Mrs. +Strong'; and I was wondering could she be Doctor Strong's son's +wife, or could she be Mrs. Doctor Strong, when Doctor Strong +himself unconsciously enlightened me. + +'By the by, Wickfield,' he said, stopping in a passage with his +hand on my shoulder; 'you have not found any suitable provision for +my wife's cousin yet?' + +'No,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'No. Not yet.' + +'I could wish it done as soon as it can be done, Wickfield,' said +Doctor Strong, 'for Jack Maldon is needy, and idle; and of those +two bad things, worse things sometimes come. What does Doctor +Watts say,' he added, looking at me, and moving his head to the +time of his quotation, '"Satan finds some mischief still, for idle +hands to do."' + +'Egad, Doctor,' returned Mr. Wickfield, 'if Doctor Watts knew +mankind, he might have written, with as much truth, "Satan finds +some mischief still, for busy hands to do." The busy people achieve +their full share of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. +What have the people been about, who have been the busiest in +getting money, and in getting power, this century or two? No +mischief?' + +'Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect,' +said Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. + +'Perhaps not,' said Mr. Wickfield; 'and you bring me back to the +question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able +to dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe,' he said this with +some hesitation, 'I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing +more difficult.' + +'My motive,' returned Doctor Strong, 'is to make some suitable +provision for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of Annie's.' + +'Yes, I know,' said Mr. Wickfield; 'at home or abroad.' + +'Aye!' replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasized +those words so much. 'At home or abroad.' + +'Your own expression, you know,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'Or abroad.' + +'Surely,' the Doctor answered. 'Surely. One or other.' + +'One or other? Have you no choice?' asked Mr. Wickfield. + +'No,' returned the Doctor. + +'No?' with astonishment. + +'Not the least.' + +'No motive,' said Mr. Wickfield, 'for meaning abroad, and not at +home?' + +'No,' returned the Doctor. + +'I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you,' said +Mr. Wickfield. 'It might have simplified my office very much, if +I had known it before. But I confess I entertained another +impression.' + +Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look, which +almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great +encouragement; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and +there was a simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when +the studious, pondering frost upon it was got through, very +attractive and hopeful to a young scholar like me. Repeating 'no', +and 'not the least', and other short assurances to the same +purport, Doctor Strong jogged on before us, at a queer, uneven +pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield, looking grave, I observed, +and shaking his head to himself, without knowing that I saw him. + +The schoolroom was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the +house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the +great urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden +belonging to the Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the +sunny south wall. There were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf +outside the windows; the broad hard leaves of which plant (looking +as if they were made of painted tin) have ever since, by +association, been symbolical to me of silence and retirement. +About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books +when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor good morning, and +remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me. + +'A new boy, young gentlemen,' said the Doctor; 'Trotwood +Copperfield.' + +One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and +welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white +cravat, but he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me +my place, and presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way +that would have put me at my ease, if anything could. + +It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, +or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy +Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in my life. +I was so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they +could have no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign +to my age, appearance, and condition as one of them, that I half +believed it was an imposture to come there as an ordinary little +schoolboy. I had become, in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however +short or long it may have been, so unused to the sports and games +of boys, that I knew I was awkward and inexperienced in the +commonest things belonging to them. Whatever I had learnt, had so +slipped away from me in the sordid cares of my life from day to +night, that now, when I was examined about what I knew, I knew +nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school. But, +troubled as I was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning +too, I was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration, +that, in what I did know, I was much farther removed from my +companions than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they +would think, if they knew of my familiar acquaintance with the +King's Bench Prison? Was there anything about me which would +reveal my proceedings in connexion with the Micawber family - all +those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers - in spite of myself? +Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through Canterbury, +wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? What would they say, +who made so light of money, if they could know how I had scraped my +halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, +or my slices of pudding? How would it affect them, who were so +innocent of London life, and London streets, to discover how +knowing I was (and was ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases +of both? All this ran in my head so much, on that first day at +Doctor Strong's, that I felt distrustful of my slightest look and +gesture; shrunk within myself whensoever I was approached by one of +my new schoolfellows; and hurried off the minute school was over, +afraid of committing myself in my response to any friendly notice +or advance. + +But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield's old house, that +when I knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, I +began to feel my uneasiness softening away. As I went up to my +airy old room, the grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall +upon my doubts and fears, and to make the past more indistinct. I +sat there, sturdily conning my books, until dinner-time (we were +out of school for good at three); and went down, hopeful of +becoming a passable sort of boy yet. + +Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father, who was +detained by someone in his office. She met me with her pleasant +smile, and asked me how I liked the school. I told her I should +like it very much, I hoped; but I was a little strange to it at +first. + +'You have never been to school,' I said, 'have you?' +'Oh yes! Every day.' + +'Ah, but you mean here, at your own home?' + +'Papa couldn't spare me to go anywhere else,' she answered, smiling +and shaking her head. 'His housekeeper must be in his house, you +know.' + +'He is very fond of you, I am sure,' I said. + +She nodded 'Yes,' and went to the door to listen for his coming up, +that she might meet him on the stairs. But, as he was not there, +she came back again. + +'Mama has been dead ever since I was born,' she said, in her quiet +way. 'I only know her picture, downstairs. I saw you looking at +it yesterday. Did you think whose it was?' + +I told her yes, because it was so like herself. + +'Papa says so, too,' said Agnes, pleased. 'Hark! That's papa +now!' + +Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet +him, and as they came in, hand in hand. He greeted me cordially; +and told me I should certainly be happy under Doctor Strong, who +was one of the gentlest of men. + +'There may be some, perhaps - I don't know that there are - who +abuse his kindness,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'Never be one of those, +Trotwood, in anything. He is the least suspicious of mankind; and +whether that's a merit, or whether it's a blemish, it deserves +consideration in all dealings with the Doctor, great or small.' + +He spoke, I thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied with +something; but I did not pursue the question in my mind, for dinner +was just then announced, and we went down and took the same seats +as before. + +We had scarcely done so, when Uriah Heep put in his red head and +his lank hand at the door, and said: + +'Here's Mr. Maldon begs the favour of a word, sir.' + +'I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon,' said his master. + +'Yes, sir,' returned Uriah; 'but Mr. Maldon has come back, and he +begs the favour of a word.' + +As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked at me, and +looked at Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the +plates, and looked at every object in the room, I thought, - yet +seemed to look at nothing; he made such an appearance all the while +of keeping his red eyes dutifully on his master. +'I beg your pardon. It's only to say, on reflection,' observed a +voice behind Uriah, as Uriah's head was pushed away, and the +speaker's substituted - 'pray excuse me for this intrusion - that +as it seems I have no choice in the matter, the sooner I go abroad +the better. My cousin Annie did say, when we talked of it, that +she liked to have her friends within reach rather than to have them +banished, and the old Doctor -' + +'Doctor Strong, was that?' Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely. + +'Doctor Strong, of course,' returned the other; 'I call him the old +Doctor; it's all the same, you know.' + +'I don't know,' returned Mr. Wickfield. + +'Well, Doctor Strong,' said the other - 'Doctor Strong was of the +same mind, I believed. But as it appears from the course you take +with me he has changed his mind, why there's no more to be said, +except that the sooner I am off, the better. Therefore, I thought +I'd come back and say, that the sooner I am off the better. When +a plunge is to be made into the water, it's of no use lingering on +the bank.' + +'There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, Mr. +Maldon, you may depend upon it,' said Mr. Wickfield. + +'Thank'ee,' said the other. 'Much obliged. I don't want to look +a gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious thing to do; +otherwise, I dare say, my cousin Annie could easily arrange it in +her own way. I suppose Annie would only have to say to the old +Doctor -' + +'Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to her husband - +do I follow you?' said Mr. Wickfield. + +'Quite so,' returned the other, '- would only have to say, that she +wanted such and such a thing to be so and so; and it would be so +and so, as a matter of course.' + +'And why as a matter of course, Mr. Maldon?' asked Mr. Wickfield, +sedately eating his dinner. + +'Why, because Annie's a charming young girl, and the old Doctor - +Doctor Strong, I mean - is not quite a charming young boy,' said +Mr. Jack Maldon, laughing. 'No offence to anybody, Mr. Wickfield. +I only mean that I suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable +in that sort of marriage.' + +'Compensation to the lady, sir?' asked Mr. Wickfield gravely. + +'To the lady, sir,' Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But +appearing to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in +the same sedate, immovable manner, and that there was no hope of +making him relax a muscle of his face, he added: +'However, I have said what I came to say, and, with another apology +for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of course I shall +observe your directions, in considering the matter as one to be +arranged between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up +at the Doctor's.' + +'Have you dined?' asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion of his hand +towards the table. + +'Thank'ee. I am going to dine,' said Mr. Maldon, 'with my cousin +Annie. Good-bye!' + +Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he +went out. He was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, I +thought, with a handsome face, a rapid utterance, and a confident, +bold air. And this was the first I ever saw of Mr. Jack Maldon; +whom I had not expected to see so soon, when I heard the Doctor +speak of him that morning. + +When we had dined, we went upstairs again, where everything went on +exactly as on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and +decanters in the same corner, and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink, +and drank a good deal. Agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, +and worked and talked, and played some games at dominoes with me. +In good time she made tea; and afterwards, when I brought down my +books, looked into them, and showed me what she knew of them (which +was no slight matter, though she said it was), and what was the +best way to learn and understand them. I see her, with her modest, +orderly, placid manner, and I hear her beautiful calm voice, as I +write these words. The influence for all good, which she came to +exercise over me at a later time, begins already to descend upon my +breast. I love little Em'ly, and I don't love Agnes - no, not at +all in that way - but I feel that there are goodness, peace, and +truth, wherever Agnes is; and that the soft light of the coloured +window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me +when I am near her, and on everything around. + +The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she +having left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going +away myself. But he checked me and said: 'Should you like to stay +with us, Trotwood, or to go elsewhere?' + +'To stay,' I answered, quickly. + +'You are sure?' + +'If you please. If I may!' + +'Why, it's but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am afraid,' he +said. + +'Not more dull for me than Agnes, sir. Not dull at all!' + +'Than Agnes,' he repeated, walking slowly to the great +chimney-piece, and leaning against it. 'Than Agnes!' + +He had drank wine that evening (or I fancied it), until his eyes +were bloodshot. Not that I could see them now, for they were cast +down, and shaded by his hand; but I had noticed them a little while +before. + +'Now I wonder,' he muttered, 'whether my Agnes tires of me. When +should I ever tire of her! But that's different, that's quite +different.' + +He was musing, not speaking to me; so I remained quiet. + +'A dull old house,' he said, 'and a monotonous life; but I must +have her near me. I must keep her near me. If the thought that I +may die and leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave +me, comes like a spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is +only to be drowned in -' + +He did not supply the word; but pacing slowly to the place where he +had sat, and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine +from the empty decanter, set it down and paced back again. + +'If it is miserable to bear, when she is here,' he said, 'what +would it be, and she away? No, no, no. I cannot try that.' + +He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that I could +not decide whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or +to remain quietly where I was, until he should come out of his +reverie. At length he aroused himself, and looked about the room +until his eyes encountered mine. + +'Stay with us, Trotwood, eh?' he said in his usual manner, and as +if he were answering something I had just said. 'I am glad of it. +You are company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. +Wholesome for me, wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of +us.' + +'I am sure it is for me, sir,' I said. 'I am so glad to be here.' + +'That's a fine fellow!' said Mr. Wickfield. 'As long as you are +glad to be here, you shall stay here.' He shook hands with me upon +it, and clapped me on the back; and told me that when I had +anything to do at night after Agnes had left us, or when I wished +to read for my own pleasure, I was free to come down to his room, +if he were there and if I desired it for company's sake, and to sit +with him. I thanked him for his consideration; and, as he went +down soon afterwards, and I was not tired, went down too, with a +book in my hand, to avail myself, for half-an-hour, of his +permission. + +But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately +feeling myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of +fascination for me, I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading +a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank +forefinger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy +tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail. + +'You are working late tonight, Uriah,' says I. + +'Yes, Master Copperfield,' says Uriah. + +As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more +conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile +about him, and that he could only widen his mouth and make two hard +creases down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one. + +'I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah. + +'What work, then?' I asked. + +'I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,' said +Uriah. 'I am going through Tidd's Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. +Tidd is, Master Copperfield!' + +My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him +reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following +up the lines with his forefinger, I observed that his nostrils, +which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a +singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting +themselves - that they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, which +hardly ever twinkled at all. + +'I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?' I said, after looking at +him for some time. + +'Me, Master Copperfield?' said Uriah. 'Oh, no! I'm a very umble +person.' + +It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he +frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze +them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on +his pocket-handkerchief. + +'I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,' said Uriah +Heep, modestly; 'let the other be where he may. My mother is +likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master +Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father's former +calling was umble. He was a sexton.' + +'What is he now?' I asked. + +'He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,' said +Uriah Heep. 'But we have much to be thankful for. How much have +I to be thankful for in living with Mr. Wickfield!' + +I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long? + +'I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield,' +said Uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place +where he had left off. 'Since a year after my father's death. How +much have I to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be +thankful for, in Mr. Wickfield's kind intention to give me my +articles, which would otherwise not lay within the umble means of +mother and self!' + +'Then, when your articled time is over, you'll be a regular lawyer, +I suppose?' said I. + +'With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield,' returned +Uriah. + +'Perhaps you'll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield's business, one of +these days,' I said, to make myself agreeable; 'and it will be +Wickfield and Heep, or Heep late Wickfield.' + +'Oh no, Master Copperfield,' returned Uriah, shaking his head, 'I +am much too umble for that!' + +He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam +outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, +with his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks. + +'Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield,' said +Uriah. 'If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much +better than I can inform you.' + +I replied that I was certain he was; but that I had not known him +long myself, though he was a friend of my aunt's. + +'Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah. 'Your aunt is a +sweet lady, Master Copperfield!' + +He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, +which was very ugly; and which diverted my attention from the +compliment he had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his +throat and body. + +'A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!' said Uriah Heep. 'She has a +great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?' + +I said, 'Yes,' boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven +forgive me! + +'I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah. 'But I am +sure you must have.' + +'Everybody must have,' I returned. + +'Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah Heep, 'for that +remark! It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, +thank you, Master Copperfield!' +He writhed himself quite off his stool in the excitement of his +feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements for going +home. + +'Mother will be expecting me,' he said, referring to a pale, +inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, 'and getting uneasy; for +though we are very umble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached +to one another. If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and +take a cup of tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud +of your company as I should be.' + +I said I should be glad to come. + +'Thank you, Master Copperfield,' returned Uriah, putting his book +away upon the shelf - 'I suppose you stop here, some time, Master +Copperfield?' + +I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as +I remained at school. + +'Oh, indeed!' exclaimed Uriah. 'I should think YOU would come into +the business at last, Master Copperfield!' + +I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such +scheme was entertained in my behalf by anybody; but Uriah insisted +on blandly replying to all my assurances, 'Oh, yes, Master +Copperfield, I should think you would, indeed!' and, 'Oh, indeed, +Master Copperfield, I should think you would, certainly!' over and +over again. Being, at last, ready to leave the office for the +night, he asked me if it would suit my convenience to have the +light put out; and on my answering 'Yes,' instantly extinguished +it. After shaking hands with me - his hand felt like a fish, in +the dark - he opened the door into the street a very little, and +crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into the +house: which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool. This +was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for +what appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other +things, that he had launched Mr. Peggotty's house on a piratical +expedition, with a black flag at the masthead, bearing the +inscription 'Tidd's Practice', under which diabolical ensign he was +carrying me and little Em'ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned. + +I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school +next day, and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off +by degrees, that in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and +happy, among my new companions. I was awkward enough in their +games, and backward enough in their studies; but custom would +improve me in the first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the +second. Accordingly, I went to work very hard, both in play and in +earnest, and gained great commendation. And, in a very little +while, the Murdstone and Grinby life became so strange to me that +I hardly believed in it, while my present life grew so familiar, +that I seemed to have been leading it a long time. + +Doctor Strong's was an excellent school; as different from Mr. +Creakle's as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously +ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to +the honour and good faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to +rely on their possession of those qualities unless they proved +themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that +we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its +character and dignity. Hence, we soon became warmly attached to it +- I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any +other boy being otherwise - and learnt with a good will, desiring +to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of +liberty; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of in +the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, +to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong's boys. + +Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor's house, and +through them I learned, at second hand, some particulars of the +Doctor's history - as, how he had not yet been married twelve +months to the beautiful young lady I had seen in the study, whom he +had married for love; for she had not a sixpence, and had a world +of poor relations (so our fellows said) ready to swarm the Doctor +out of house and home. Also, how the Doctor's cogitating manner +was attributable to his being always engaged in looking out for +Greek roots; which, in my innocence and ignorance, I supposed to be +a botanical furor on the Doctor's part, especially as he always +looked at the ground when he walked about, until I understood that +they were roots of words, with a view to a new Dictionary which he +had in contemplation. Adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for +mathematics, had made a calculation, I was informed, of the time +this Dictionary would take in completing, on the Doctor's plan, and +at the Doctor's rate of going. He considered that it might be done +in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the +Doctor's last, or sixty-second, birthday. + +But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school: and it +must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything +else, for he was the kindest of men; with a simple faith in him +that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the +wall. As he walked up and down that part of the courtyard which +was at the side of the house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws +looking after him with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew +how much more knowing they were in worldly affairs than he, if any +sort of vagabond could only get near enough to his creaking shoes +to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale of distress, +that vagabond was made for the next two days. It was so notorious +in the house, that the masters and head-boys took pains to cut +these marauders off at angles, and to get out of windows, and turn +them out of the courtyard, before they could make the Doctor aware +of their presence; which was sometimes happily effected within a +few yards of him, without his knowing anything of the matter, as he +jogged to and fro. Outside his own domain, and unprotected, he was +a very sheep for the shearers. He would have taken his gaiters off +his legs, to give away. In fact, there was a story current among +us (I have no idea, and never had, on what authority, but I have +believed it for so many years that I feel quite certain it is +true), that on a frosty day, one winter-time, he actually did +bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who occasioned some scandal +in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant from door to door, +wrapped in those garments, which were universally recognized, being +as well known in the vicinity as the Cathedral. The legend added +that the only person who did not identify them was the Doctor +himself, who, when they were shortly afterwards displayed at the +door of a little second-hand shop of no very good repute, where +such things were taken in exchange for gin, was more than once +observed to handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious +novelty in the pattern, and considering them an improvement on his +own. + +It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty young wife. +He had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, +which seemed in itself to express a good man. I often saw them +walking in the garden where the peaches were, and I sometimes had +a nearer observation of them in the study or the parlour. She +appeared to me to take great care of the Doctor, and to like him +very much, though I never thought her vitally interested in the +Dictionary: some cumbrous fragments of which work the Doctor always +carried in his pockets, and in the lining of his hat, and generally +seemed to be expounding to her as they walked about. + +I saw a good deal of Mrs. Strong, both because she had taken a +liking for me on the morning of my introduction to the Doctor, and +was always afterwards kind to me, and interested in me; and because +she was very fond of Agnes, and was often backwards and forwards at +our house. There was a curious constraint between her and Mr. +Wickfield, I thought (of whom she seemed to be afraid), that never +wore off. When she came there of an evening, she always shrunk +from accepting his escort home, and ran away with me instead. And +sometimes, as we were running gaily across the Cathedral yard +together, expecting to meet nobody, we would meet Mr. Jack Maldon, +who was always surprised to see us. + +Mrs. Strong's mama was a lady I took great delight in. Her name +was Mrs. Markleham; but our boys used to call her the Old Soldier, +on account of her generalship, and the skill with which she +marshalled great forces of relations against the Doctor. She was +a little, sharp-eyed woman, who used to wear, when she was dressed, +one unchangeable cap, ornamented with some artificial flowers, and +two artificial butterflies supposed to be hovering above the +flowers. There was a superstition among us that this cap had come +from France, and could only originate in the workmanship of that +ingenious nation: but all I certainly know about it, is, that it +always made its appearance of an evening, wheresoever Mrs. +Markleham made HER appearance; that it was carried about to +friendly meetings in a Hindoo basket; that the butterflies had the +gift of trembling constantly; and that they improved the shining +hours at Doctor Strong's expense, like busy bees. + +I observed the Old Soldier - not to adopt the name disrespectfully +- to pretty good advantage, on a night which is made memorable to +me by something else I shall relate. It was the night of a little +party at the Doctor's, which was given on the occasion of Mr. Jack +Maldon's departure for India, whither he was going as a cadet, or +something of that kind: Mr. Wickfield having at length arranged the +business. It happened to be the Doctor's birthday, too. We had +had a holiday, had made presents to him in the morning, had made a +speech to him through the head-boy, and had cheered him until we +were hoarse, and until he had shed tears. And now, in the evening, +Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I, went to have tea with him in his +private capacity. + +Mr. Jack Maldon was there, before us. Mrs. Strong, dressed in +white, with cherry-coloured ribbons, was playing the piano, when we +went in; and he was leaning over her to turn the leaves. The clear +red and white of her complexion was not so blooming and flower-like +as usual, I thought, when she turned round; but she looked very +pretty, Wonderfully pretty. + +'I have forgotten, Doctor,' said Mrs. Strong's mama, when we were +seated, 'to pay you the compliments of the day - though they are, +as you may suppose, very far from being mere compliments in my +case. Allow me to wish you many happy returns.' + +'I thank you, ma'am,' replied the Doctor. + +'Many, many, many, happy returns,' said the Old Soldier. 'Not only +for your own sake, but for Annie's, and John Maldon's, and many +other people's. It seems but yesterday to me, John, when you were +a little creature, a head shorter than Master Copperfield, making +baby love to Annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the +back-garden.' + +'My dear mama,' said Mrs. Strong, 'never mind that now.' + +'Annie, don't be absurd,' returned her mother. 'If you are to +blush to hear of such things now you are an old married woman, when +are you not to blush to hear of them?' + +'Old?' exclaimed Mr. Jack Maldon. 'Annie? Come!' + +'Yes, John,' returned the Soldier. 'Virtually, an old married +woman. Although not old by years - for when did you ever hear me +say, or who has ever heard me say, that a girl of twenty was old by +years! - your cousin is the wife of the Doctor, and, as such, what +I have described her. It is well for you, John, that your cousin +is the wife of the Doctor. You have found in him an influential +and kind friend, who will be kinder yet, I venture to predict, if +you deserve it. I have no false pride. I never hesitate to admit, +frankly, that there are some members of our family who want a +friend. You were one yourself, before your cousin's influence +raised up one for you.' + +The Doctor, in the goodness of his heart, waved his hand as if to +make light of it, and save Mr. Jack Maldon from any further +reminder. But Mrs. Markleham changed her chair for one next the +Doctor's, and putting her fan on his coat-sleeve, said: + +'No, really, my dear Doctor, you must excuse me if I appear to +dwell on this rather, because I feel so very strongly. I call it +quite my monomania, it is such a subject of mine. You are a +blessing to us. You really are a Boon, you know.' + +'Nonsense, nonsense,' said the Doctor. + +'No, no, I beg your pardon,' retorted the Old Soldier. 'With +nobody present, but our dear and confidential friend Mr. Wickfield, +I cannot consent to be put down. I shall begin to assert the +privileges of a mother-in-law, if you go on like that, and scold +you. I am perfectly honest and outspoken. What I am saying, is +what I said when you first overpowered me with surprise - you +remember how surprised I was? - by proposing for Annie. Not that +there was anything so very much out of the way, in the mere fact of +the proposal - it would be ridiculous to say that! - but because, +you having known her poor father, and having known her from a baby +six months old, I hadn't thought of you in such a light at all, or +indeed as a marrying man in any way, - simply that, you know.' + +'Aye, aye,' returned the Doctor, good-humouredly. 'Never mind.' + +'But I DO mind,' said the Old Soldier, laying her fan upon his +lips. 'I mind very much. I recall these things that I may be +contradicted if I am wrong. Well! Then I spoke to Annie, and I +told her what had happened. I said, "My dear, here's Doctor Strong +has positively been and made you the subject of a handsome +declaration and an offer." Did I press it in the least? No. I +said, "Now, Annie, tell me the truth this moment; is your heart +free?" "Mama," she said crying, "I am extremely young" - which was +perfectly true - "and I hardly know if I have a heart at all." +"Then, my dear," I said, "you may rely upon it, it's free. At all +events, my love," said I, "Doctor Strong is in an agitated state of +mind, and must be answered. He cannot be kept in his present state +of suspense." "Mama," said Annie, still crying, "would he be +unhappy without me? If he would, I honour and respect him so much, +that I think I will have him." So it was settled. And then, and +not till then, I said to Annie, "Annie, Doctor Strong will not only +be your husband, but he will represent your late father: he will +represent the head of our family, he will represent the wisdom and +station, and I may say the means, of our family; and will be, in +short, a Boon to it." I used the word at the time, and I have used +it again, today. If I have any merit it is consistency.' + +The daughter had sat quite silent and still during this speech, +with her eyes fixed on the ground; her cousin standing near her, +and looking on the ground too. She now said very softly, in a +trembling voice: + +'Mama, I hope you have finished?' +'No, my dear Annie,' returned the Old Soldier, 'I have not quite +finished. Since you ask me, my love, I reply that I have not. I +complain that you really are a little unnatural towards your own +family; and, as it is of no use complaining to you. I mean to +complain to your husband. Now, my dear Doctor, do look at that +silly wife of yours.' + +As the Doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of simplicity +and gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head more. I noticed +that Mr. Wickfield looked at her steadily. + +'When I happened to say to that naughty thing, the other day,' +pursued her mother, shaking her head and her fan at her, playfully, +'that there was a family circumstance she might mention to you - +indeed, I think, was bound to mention - she said, that to mention +it was to ask a favour; and that, as you were too generous, and as +for her to ask was always to have, she wouldn't.' + +'Annie, my dear,' said the Doctor. 'That was wrong. It robbed me +of a pleasure.' + +'Almost the very words I said to her!' exclaimed her mother. 'Now +really, another time, when I know what she would tell you but for +this reason, and won't, I have a great mind, my dear Doctor, to +tell you myself.' + +'I shall be glad if you will,' returned the Doctor. + +'Shall I?' + +'Certainly.' + +'Well, then, I will!' said the Old Soldier. 'That's a bargain.' +And having, I suppose, carried her point, she tapped the Doctor's +hand several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and +returned triumphantly to her former station. + +Some more company coming in, among whom were the two masters and +Adams, the talk became general; and it naturally turned on Mr. Jack +Maldon, and his voyage, and the country he was going to, and his +various plans and prospects. He was to leave that night, after +supper, in a post-chaise, for Gravesend; where the ship, in which +he was to make the voyage, lay; and was to be gone - unless he came +home on leave, or for his health - I don't know how many years. I +recollect it was settled by general consent that India was quite a +misrepresented country, and had nothing objectionable in it, but a +tiger or two, and a little heat in the warm part of the day. For +my own part, I looked on Mr. Jack Maldon as a modern Sindbad, and +pictured him the bosom friend of all the Rajahs in the East, +sitting under canopies, smoking curly golden pipes - a mile long, +if they could be straightened out. + +Mrs. Strong was a very pretty singer: as I knew, who often heard +her singing by herself. But, whether she was afraid of singing +before people, or was out of voice that evening, it was certain +that she couldn't sing at all. She tried a duet, once, with her +cousin Maldon, but could not so much as begin; and afterwards, when +she tried to sing by herself, although she began sweetly, her voice +died away on a sudden, and left her quite distressed, with her head +hanging down over the keys. The good Doctor said she was nervous, +and, to relieve her, proposed a round game at cards; of which he +knew as much as of the art of playing the trombone. But I remarked +that the Old Soldier took him into custody directly, for her +partner; and instructed him, as the first preliminary of +initiation, to give her all the silver he had in his pocket. + +We had a merry game, not made the less merry by the Doctor's +mistakes, of which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite +of the watchfulness of the butterflies, and to their great +aggravation. Mrs. Strong had declined to play, on the ground of +not feeling very well; and her cousin Maldon had excused himself +because he had some packing to do. When he had done it, however, +he returned, and they sat together, talking, on the sofa. From +time to time she came and looked over the Doctor's hand, and told +him what to play. She was very pale, as she bent over him, and I +thought her finger trembled as she pointed out the cards; but the +Doctor was quite happy in her attention, and took no notice of +this, if it were so. + +At supper, we were hardly so gay. Everyone appeared to feel that +a parting of that sort was an awkward thing, and that the nearer it +approached, the more awkward it was. Mr. Jack Maldon tried to be +very talkative, but was not at his ease, and made matters worse. +And they were not improved, as it appeared to me, by the Old +Soldier: who continually recalled passages of Mr. Jack Maldon's +youth. + +The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was making +everybody happy, was well pleased, and had no suspicion but that we +were all at the utmost height of enjoyment. + +'Annie, my dear,' said he, looking at his watch, and filling his +glass, 'it is past your cousin jack's time, and we must not detain +him, since time and tide - both concerned in this case - wait for +no man. Mr. Jack Maldon, you have a long voyage, and a strange +country, before you; but many men have had both, and many men will +have both, to the end of time. The winds you are going to tempt, +have wafted thousands upon thousands to fortune, and brought +thousands upon thousands happily back.' + +'It's an affecting thing,' said Mrs. Markleham - 'however it's +viewed, it's affecting, to see a fine young man one has known from +an infant, going away to the other end of the world, leaving all he +knows behind, and not knowing what's before him. A young man +really well deserves constant support and patronage,' looking at +the Doctor, 'who makes such sacrifices.' + +'Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon,' pursued the Doctor, +'and fast with all of us. Some of us can hardly expect, perhaps, +in the natural course of things, to greet you on your return. The +next best thing is to hope to do it, and that's my case. I shall +not weary you with good advice. You have long had a good model +before you, in your cousin Annie. Imitate her virtues as nearly as +you can.' + +Mrs. Markleham fanned herself, and shook her head. + +'Farewell, Mr. Jack,' said the Doctor, standing up; on which we all +stood up. 'A prosperous voyage out, a thriving career abroad, and +a happy return home!' + +We all drank the toast, and all shook hands with Mr. Jack Maldon; +after which he hastily took leave of the ladies who were there, and +hurried to the door, where he was received, as he got into the +chaise, with a tremendous broadside of cheers discharged by our +boys, who had assembled on the lawn for the purpose. Running in +among them to swell the ranks, I was very near the chaise when it +rolled away; and I had a lively impression made upon me, in the +midst of the noise and dust, of having seen Mr. Jack Maldon rattle +past with an agitated face, and something cherry-coloured in his +hand. + +After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for the +Doctor's wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into the house, +where I found the guests all standing in a group about the Doctor, +discussing how Mr. Jack Maldon had gone away, and how he had borne +it, and how he had felt it, and all the rest of it. In the midst +of these remarks, Mrs. Markleham cried: 'Where's Annie?' + +No Annie was there; and when they called to her, no Annie replied. +But all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the +matter, we found her lying on the hall floor. There was great +alarm at first, until it was found that she was in a swoon, and +that the swoon was yielding to the usual means of recovery; when +the Doctor, who had lifted her head upon his knee, put her curls +aside with his hand, and said, looking around: + +'Poor Annie! She's so faithful and tender-hearted! It's the +parting from her old playfellow and friend - her favourite cousin +- that has done this. Ah! It's a pity! I am very sorry!' + +When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we were +all standing about her, she arose with assistance: turning her +head, as she did so, to lay it on the Doctor's shoulder - or to +hide it, I don't know which. We went into the drawing-room, to +leave her with the Doctor and her mother; but she said, it seemed, +that she was better than she had been since morning, and that she +would rather be brought among us; so they brought her in, looking +very white and weak, I thought, and sat her on a sofa. + +'Annie, my dear,' said her mother, doing something to her dress. +'See here! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find +a ribbon; a cherry-coloured ribbon?' + +It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We all looked for it; I +myself looked everywhere, I am certain - but nobody could find it. + +'Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie?' said her mother. + +I wondered how I could have thought she looked white, or anything +but burning red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a +little while ago, she thought, but it was not worth looking for. + +Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. She +entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still +sought for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the +company took their departure. + +We walked very slowly home, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I - Agnes and +I admiring the moonlight, and Mr. Wickfield scarcely raising his +eyes from the ground. When we, at last, reached our own door, +Agnes discovered that she had left her little reticule behind. +Delighted to be of any service to her, I ran back to fetch it. + +I went into the supper-room where it had been left, which was +deserted and dark. But a door of communication between that and +the Doctor's study, where there was a light, being open, I passed +on there, to say what I wanted, and to get a candle. + +The Doctor was sitting in his easy-chair by the fireside, and his +young wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a +complacent smile, was reading aloud some manuscript explanation or +statement of a theory out of that interminable Dictionary, and she +was looking up at him. But with such a face as I never saw. It +was so beautiful in its form, it was so ashy pale, it was so fixed +in its abstraction, it was so full of a wild, sleep-walking, dreamy +horror of I don't know what. The eyes were wide open, and her +brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her shoulders, and on her +white dress, disordered by the want of the lost ribbon. Distinctly +as I recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was expressive, I +cannot even say of what it is expressive to me now, rising again +before my older judgement. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, +love, and trustfulness - I see them all; and in them all, I see +that horror of I don't know what. + +My entrance, and my saying what I wanted, roused her. It disturbed +the Doctor too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had +taken from the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, +and saying he was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into +reading on; and he would have her go to bed. + +But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay - to +let her feel assured (I heard her murmur some broken words to this +effect) that she was in his confidence that night. And, as she +turned again towards him, after glancing at me as I left the room +and went out at the door, I saw her cross her hands upon his knee, +and look up at him with the same face, something quieted, as he +resumed his reading. + +It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it a long time +afterwards; as I shall have occasion to narrate when the time +comes. + + + +CHAPTER 17 +SOMEBODY TURNS UP + + +It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since I ran away; +but, of course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed +at Dover, and another, and a longer letter, containing all +particulars fully related, when my aunt took me formally under her +protection. On my being settled at Doctor Strong's I wrote to her +again, detailing my happy condition and prospects. I never could +have derived anything like the pleasure from spending the money Mr. +Dick had given me, that I felt in sending a gold half-guinea to +Peggotty, per post, enclosed in this last letter, to discharge the +sum I had borrowed of her: in which epistle, not before, I +mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart. + +To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly, if not as +concisely, as a merchant's clerk. Her utmost powers of expression +(which were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the +attempt to write what she felt on the subject of my journey. Four +sides of incoherent and interjectional beginnings of sentences, +that had no end, except blots, were inadequate to afford her any +relief. But the blots were more expressive to me than the best +composition; for they showed me that Peggotty had been crying all +over the paper, and what could I have desired more? + +I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite +kindly to my aunt yet. The notice was too short after so long a +prepossession the other way. We never knew a person, she wrote; +but to think that Miss Betsey should seem to be so different from +what she had been thought to be, was a Moral! - that was her word. +She was evidently still afraid of Miss Betsey, for she sent her +grateful duty to her but timidly; and she was evidently afraid of +me, too, and entertained the probability of my running away again +soon: if I might judge from the repeated hints she threw out, that +the coach-fare to Yarmouth was always to be had of her for the +asking. + +She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much, +namely, that there had been a sale of the furniture at our old +home, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were gone away, and the house +was shut up, to be let or sold. God knows I had no part in it +while they remained there, but it pained me to think of the dear +old place as altogether abandoned; of the weeds growing tall in the +garden, and the fallen leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. +I imagined how the winds of winter would howl round it, how the +cold rain would beat upon the window-glass, how the moon would make +ghosts on the walls of the empty rooms, watching their solitude all +night. I thought afresh of the grave in the churchyard, underneath +the tree: and it seemed as if the house were dead too, now, and all +connected with my father and mother were faded away. + +There was no other news in Peggotty's letters. Mr. Barkis was an +excellent husband, she said, though still a little near; but we all +had our faults, and she had plenty (though I am sure I don't know +what they were); and he sent his duty, and my little bedroom was +always ready for me. Mr. Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and +Mrs.. Gummidge was but poorly, and little Em'ly wouldn't send her +love, but said that Peggotty might send it, if she liked. + +All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only +reserving to myself the mention of little Em'ly, to whom I +instinctively felt that she would not very tenderly incline. While +I was yet new at Doctor Strong's, she made several excursions over +to Canterbury to see me, and always at unseasonable hours: with the +view, I suppose, of taking me by surprise. But, finding me well +employed, and bearing a good character, and hearing on all hands +that I rose fast in the school, she soon discontinued these visits. +I saw her on a Saturday, every third or fourth week, when I went +over to Dover for a treat; and I saw Mr. Dick every alternate +Wednesday, when he arrived by stage-coach at noon, to stay until +next morning. + +On these occasions Mr. Dick never travelled without a leathern +writing-desk, containing a supply of stationery and the Memorial; +in relation to which document he had a notion that time was +beginning to press now, and that it really must be got out of hand. + +Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread. To render his visits the +more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him +at a cake shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he +should not be served with more than one shilling's-worth in the +course of any one day. This, and the reference of all his little +bills at the county inn where he slept, to my aunt, before they +were paid, induced me to suspect that he was only allowed to rattle +his money, and not to spend it. I found on further investigation +that this was so, or at least there was an agreement between him +and my aunt that he should account to her for all his +disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her, and always +desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into +expense. On this point, as well as on all other possible points, +Mr. Dick was convinced that my aunt was the wisest and most +wonderful of women; as he repeatedly told me with infinite secrecy, +and always in a whisper. + +'Trotwood,' said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting +this confidence to me, one Wednesday; 'who's the man that hides +near our house and frightens her?' + +'Frightens my aunt, sir?' + +Mr. Dick nodded. 'I thought nothing would have frightened her,' he +said, 'for she's -' here he whispered softly, 'don't mention it - +the wisest and most wonderful of women.' Having said which, he +drew back, to observe the effect which this description of her made +upon me. + +'The first time he came,' said Mr. Dick, 'was- let me see- sixteen +hundred and forty-nine was the date of King Charles's execution. +I think you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'I don't know how it can be,' said Mr. Dick, sorely puzzled and +shaking his head. 'I don't think I am as old as that.' + +'Was it in that year that the man appeared, sir?' I asked. + +'Why, really' said Mr. Dick, 'I don't see how it can have been in +that year, Trotwood. Did you get that date out of history?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'I suppose history never lies, does it?' said Mr. Dick, with a +gleam of hope. + +'Oh dear, no, sir!' I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous +and young, and I thought so. + +'I can't make it out,' said Mr. Dick, shaking his head. 'There's +something wrong, somewhere. However, it was very soon after the +mistake was made of putting some of the trouble out of King +Charles's head into my head, that the man first came. I was +walking out with Miss Trotwood after tea, just at dark, and there +he was, close to our house.' + +'Walking about?' I inquired. + +'Walking about?' repeated Mr. Dick. 'Let me see, I must recollect +a bit. N-no, no; he was not walking about.' + +I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he WAS doing. + +'Well, he wasn't there at all,' said Mr. Dick, 'until he came up +behind her, and whispered. Then she turned round and fainted, and +I stood still and looked at him, and he walked away; but that he +should have been hiding ever since (in the ground or somewhere), is +the most extraordinary thing!' + +'HAS he been hiding ever since?' I asked. + +'To be sure he has,' retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely. +'Never came out, till last night! We were walking last night, and +he came up behind her again, and I knew him again.' + +'And did he frighten my aunt again?' + +'All of a shiver,' said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and +making his teeth chatter. 'Held by the palings. Cried. But, +Trotwood, come here,' getting me close to him, that he might +whisper very softly; 'why did she give him money, boy, in the +moonlight?' + +'He was a beggar, perhaps.' + +Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the suggestion; and +having replied a great many times, and with great confidence, 'No +beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir!' went on to say, that from his +window he had afterwards, and late at night, seen my aunt give this +person money outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then +slunk away - into the ground again, as he thought probable - and +was seen no more: while my aunt came hurriedly and secretly back +into the house, and had, even that morning, been quite different +from her usual self; which preyed on Mr. Dick's mind. + +I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that the +unknown was anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and one of the +line of that ill-fated Prince who occasioned him so much +difficulty; but after some reflection I began to entertain the +question whether an attempt, or threat of an attempt, might have +been twice made to take poor Mr. Dick himself from under my aunt's +protection, and whether my aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling +towards him I knew from herself, might have been induced to pay a +price for his peace and quiet. As I was already much attached to +Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his welfare, my fears favoured +this supposition; and for a long time his Wednesday hardly ever +came round, without my entertaining a misgiving that he would not +be on the coach-box as usual. There he always appeared, however, +grey-headed, laughing, and happy; and he never had anything more to +tell of the man who could frighten my aunt. + +These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick's life; they +were far from being the least happy of mine. He soon became known +to every boy in the school; and though he never took an active part +in any game but kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our +sports as anyone among us. How often have I seen him, intent upon +a match at marbles or pegtop, looking on with a face of unutterable +interest, and hardly breathing at the critical times! How often, +at hare and hounds, have I seen him mounted on a little knoll, +cheering the whole field on to action, and waving his hat above his +grey head, oblivious of King Charles the Martyr's head, and all +belonging to it! How many a summer hour have I known to be but +blissful minutes to him in the cricket-field! How many winter days +have I seen him, standing blue-nosed, in the snow and east wind, +looking at the boys going down the long slide, and clapping his +worsted gloves in rapture! + +He was an universal favourite, and his ingenuity in little things +was transcendent. He could cut oranges into such devices as none +of us had an idea of. He could make a boat out of anything, from +a skewer upwards. He could turn cramp-bones into chessmen; fashion +Roman chariots from old court cards; make spoked wheels out of +cotton reels, and bird-cages of old wire. But he was greatest of +all, perhaps, in the articles of string and straw; with which we +were all persuaded he could do anything that could be done by +hands. + +Mr. Dick's renown was not long confined to us. After a few +Wednesdays, Doctor Strong himself made some inquiries of me about +him, and I told him all my aunt had told me; which interested the +Doctor so much that he requested, on the occasion of his next +visit, to be presented to him. This ceremony I performed; and the +Doctor begging Mr. Dick, whensoever he should not find me at the +coach office, to come on there, and rest himself until our +morning's work was over, it soon passed into a custom for Mr. Dick +to come on as a matter of course, and, if we were a little late, as +often happened on a Wednesday, to walk about the courtyard, waiting +for me. Here he made the acquaintance of the Doctor's beautiful +young wife (paler than formerly, all this time; more rarely seen by +me or anyone, I think; and not so gay, but not less beautiful), and +so became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last, he +would come into the school and wait. He always sat in a particular +corner, on a particular stool, which was called 'Dick', after him; +here he would sit, with his grey head bent forward, attentively +listening to whatever might be going on, with a profound veneration +for the learning he had never been able to acquire. + +This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought +the most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was +long before Mr. Dick ever spoke to him otherwise than bareheaded; +and even when he and the Doctor had struck up quite a friendship, +and would walk together by the hour, on that side of the courtyard +which was known among us as The Doctor's Walk, Mr. Dick would pull +off his hat at intervals to show his respect for wisdom and +knowledge. How it ever came about that the Doctor began to read +out scraps of the famous Dictionary, in these walks, I never knew; +perhaps he felt it all the same, at first, as reading to himself. +However, it passed into a custom too; and Mr. Dick, listening with +a face shining with pride and pleasure, in his heart of hearts +believed the Dictionary to be the most delightful book in the +world. + +As I think of them going up and down before those schoolroom +windows - the Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an +occasional flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head; +and Mr. Dick listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits +calmly wandering God knows where, upon the wings of hard words - I +think of it as one of the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that +I have ever seen. I feel as if they might go walking to and fro +for ever, and the world might somehow be the better for it - as if +a thousand things it makes a noise about, were not one half so good +for it, or me. + +Agnes was one of Mr. Dick's friends, very soon; and in often coming +to the house, he made acquaintance with Uriah. The friendship +between himself and me increased continually, and it was maintained +on this odd footing: that, while Mr. Dick came professedly to look +after me as my guardian, he always consulted me in any little +matter of doubt that arose, and invariably guided himself by my +advice; not only having a high respect for my native sagacity, but +considering that I inherited a good deal from my aunt. + +One Thursday morning, when I was about to walk with Mr. Dick from +the hotel to the coach office before going back to school (for we +had an hour's school before breakfast), I met Uriah in the street, +who reminded me of the promise I had made to take tea with himself +and his mother: adding, with a writhe, 'But I didn't expect you to +keep it, Master Copperfield, we're so very umble.' + +I really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether I liked +Uriah or detested him; and I was very doubtful about it still, as +I stood looking him in the face in the street. But I felt it quite +an affront to be supposed proud, and said I only wanted to be +asked. + +' Oh, if that's all, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah, 'and it +really isn't our umbleness that prevents you, will you come this +evening? But if it is our umbleness, I hope you won't mind owning +to it, Master Copperfield; for we are well aware of our condition.' + +I said I would mention it to Mr. Wickfield, and if he approved, as +I had no doubt he would, I would come with pleasure. So, at six +o'clock that evening, which was one of the early office evenings, +I announced myself as ready, to Uriah. + +'Mother will be proud, indeed,' he said, as we walked away +together. 'Or she would be proud, if it wasn't sinful, Master +Copperfield.' + +'Yet you didn't mind supposing I was proud this morning,' I +returned. + +'Oh dear, no, Master Copperfield!' returned Uriah. 'Oh, believe +me, no! Such a thought never came into my head! I shouldn't have +deemed it at all proud if you had thought US too umble for you. +Because we are so very umble.' + +'Have you been studying much law lately?' I asked, to change the +subject. + +'Oh, Master Copperfield,' he said, with an air of self-denial, 'my +reading is hardly to be called study. I have passed an hour or two +in the evening, sometimes, with Mr. Tidd.' + +'Rather hard, I suppose?' said I. +'He is hard to me sometimes,' returned Uriah. 'But I don't know +what he might be to a gifted person.' + +After beating a little tune on his chin as he walked on, with the +two forefingers of his skeleton right hand, he added: + +'There are expressions, you see, Master Copperfield - Latin words +and terms - in Mr. Tidd, that are trying to a reader of my umble +attainments.' + +'Would you like to be taught Latin?' I said briskly. 'I will teach +it you with pleasure, as I learn it.' + +'Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,' he answered, shaking his head. +'I am sure it's very kind of you to make the offer, but I am much +too umble to accept it.' + +'What nonsense, Uriah!' + +'Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield! I am greatly +obliged, and I should like it of all things, I assure you; but I am +far too umble. There are people enough to tread upon me in my +lowly state, without my doing outrage to their feelings by +possessing learning. Learning ain't for me. A person like myself +had better not aspire. If he is to get on in life, he must get on +umbly, Master Copperfield!' + +I never saw his mouth so wide, or the creases in his cheeks so +deep, as when he delivered himself of these sentiments: shaking his +head all the time, and writhing modestly. + +'I think you are wrong, Uriah,' I said. 'I dare say there are +several things that I could teach you, if you would like to learn +them.' + +'Oh, I don't doubt that, Master Copperfield,' he answered; 'not in +the least. But not being umble yourself, you don't judge well, +perhaps, for them that are. I won't provoke my betters with +knowledge, thank you. I'm much too umble. Here is my umble +dwelling, Master Copperfield!' + +We entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the +street, and found there Mrs. Heep, who was the dead image of Uriah, +only short. She received me with the utmost humility, and +apologized to me for giving her son a kiss, observing that, lowly +as they were, they had their natural affections, which they hoped +would give no offence to anyone. It was a perfectly decent room, +half parlour and half kitchen, but not at all a snug room. The +tea-things were set upon the table, and the kettle was boiling on +the hob. There was a chest of drawers with an escritoire top, for +Uriah to read or write at of an evening; there was Uriah's blue bag +lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of Uriah's +books commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner cupboard: and there +were the usual articles of furniture. I don't remember that any +individual object had a bare, pinched, spare look; but I do +remember that the whole place had. + +It was perhaps a part of Mrs. Heep's humility, that she still wore +weeds. Notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since +Mr. Heep's decease, she still wore weeds. I think there was some +compromise in the cap; but otherwise she was as weedy as in the +early days of her mourning. + +'This is a day to be remembered, my Uriah, I am sure,' said Mrs. +Heep, making the tea, 'when Master Copperfield pays us a visit.' + +'I said you'd think so, mother,' said Uriah. + +'If I could have wished father to remain among us for any reason,' +said Mrs. Heep, 'it would have been, that he might have known his +company this afternoon.' + +I felt embarrassed by these compliments; but I was sensible, too, +of being entertained as an honoured guest, and I thought Mrs. Heep +an agreeable woman. + +'My Uriah,' said Mrs. Heep, 'has looked forward to this, sir, a +long while. He had his fears that our umbleness stood in the way, +and I joined in them myself. Umble we are, umble we have been, +umble we shall ever be,' said Mrs. Heep. + +'I am sure you have no occasion to be so, ma'am,' I said, 'unless +you like.' + +'Thank you, sir,' retorted Mrs. Heep. 'We know our station and are +thankful in it.' + +I found that Mrs. Heep gradually got nearer to me, and that Uriah +gradually got opposite to me, and that they respectfully plied me +with the choicest of the eatables on the table. There was nothing +particularly choice there, to be sure; but I took the will for the +deed, and felt that they were very attentive. Presently they began +to talk about aunts, and then I told them about mine; and about +fathers and mothers, and then I told them about mine; and then Mrs. +Heep began to talk about fathers-in-law, and then I began to tell +her about mine - but stopped, because my aunt had advised me to +observe a silence on that subject. A tender young cork, however, +would have had no more chance against a pair of corkscrews, or a +tender young tooth against a pair of dentists, or a little +shuttlecock against two battledores, than I had against Uriah and +Mrs. Heep. They did just what they liked with me; and wormed +things out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty I +blush to think of. the more especially, as in my juvenile +frankness, I took some credit to myself for being so confidential +and felt that I was quite the patron of my two respectful +entertainers. + +They were very fond of one another: that was certain. I take it, +that had its effect upon me, as a touch of nature; but the skill +with which the one followed up whatever the other said, was a touch +of art which I was still less proof against. When there was +nothing more to be got out of me about myself (for on the Murdstone +and Grinby life, and on my journey, I was dumb), they began about +Mr. Wickfield and Agnes. Uriah threw the ball to Mrs. Heep, Mrs. +Heep caught it and threw it back to Uriah, Uriah kept it up a +little while, then sent it back to Mrs. Heep, and so they went on +tossing it about until I had no idea who had got it, and was quite +bewildered. The ball itself was always changing too. Now it was +Mr. Wickfield, now Agnes, now the excellence of Mr. Wickfield, now +my admiration of Agnes; now the extent of Mr. Wickfield's business +and resources, now our domestic life after dinner; now, the wine +that Mr. Wickfield took, the reason why he took it, and the pity +that it was he took so much; now one thing, now another, then +everything at once; and all the time, without appearing to speak +very often, or to do anything but sometimes encourage them a +little, for fear they should be overcome by their humility and the +honour of my company, I found myself perpetually letting out +something or other that I had no business to let out and seeing the +effect of it in the twinkling of Uriah's dinted nostrils. + +I had begun to be a little uncomfortable, and to wish myself well +out of the visit, when a figure coming down the street passed the +door - it stood open to air the room, which was warm, the weather +being close for the time of year - came back again, looked in, and +walked in, exclaiming loudly, 'Copperfield! Is it possible?' + +It was Mr. Micawber! It was Mr. Micawber, with his eye-glass, and +his walking-stick, and his shirt-collar, and his genteel air, and +the condescending roll in his voice, all complete! + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, putting out his hand, +'this is indeed a meeting which is calculated to impress the mind +with a sense of the instability and uncertainty of all human - in +short, it is a most extraordinary meeting. Walking along the +street, reflecting upon the probability of something turning up (of +which I am at present rather sanguine), I find a young but valued +friend turn up, who is connected with the most eventful period of +my life; I may say, with the turning-point of my existence. +Copperfield, my dear fellow, how do you do?' + +I cannot say - I really cannot say - that I was glad to see Mr. +Micawber there; but I was glad to see him too, and shook hands with +him, heartily, inquiring how Mrs. Micawber was. + +'Thank you,' said Mr. Micawber, waving his hand as of old, and +settling his chin in his shirt-collar. 'She is tolerably +convalescent. The twins no longer derive their sustenance from +Nature's founts - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in one of his +bursts of confidence, 'they are weaned - and Mrs. Micawber is, at +present, my travelling companion. She will be rejoiced, +Copperfield, to renew her acquaintance with one who has proved +himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of +friendship.' + +I said I should be delighted to see her. + +'You are very good,' said Mr. Micawber. + +Mr. Micawber then smiled, settled his chin again, and looked about +him. + +'I have discovered my friend Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber +genteelly, and without addressing himself particularly to anyone, +'not in solitude, but partaking of a social meal in company with a +widow lady, and one who is apparently her offspring - in short,' +said Mr. Micawber, in another of his bursts of confidence, 'her +son. I shall esteem it an honour to be presented.' + +I could do no less, under these circumstances, than make Mr. +Micawber known to Uriah Heep and his mother; which I accordingly +did. As they abased themselves before him, Mr. Micawber took a +seat, and waved his hand in his most courtly manner. + +'Any friend of my friend Copperfield's,' said Mr. Micawber, 'has a +personal claim upon myself.' + +'We are too umble, sir,' said Mrs. Heep, 'my son and me, to be the +friends of Master Copperfield. He has been so good as take his tea +with us, and we are thankful to him for his company, also to you, +sir, for your notice.' + +'Ma'am,' returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, 'you are very obliging: +and what are you doing, Copperfield? Still in the wine trade?' + +I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away; and replied, +with my hat in my hand, and a very red face, I have no doubt, that +I was a pupil at Doctor Strong's. + +'A pupil?' said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows. 'I am +extremely happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend +Copperfield's' - to Uriah and Mrs. Heep - 'does not require that +cultivation which, without his knowledge of men and things, it +would require, still it is a rich soil teeming with latent +vegetation - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, smiling, in another +burst of confidence, 'it is an intellect capable of getting up the +classics to any extent.' + +Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a +ghastly writhe from the waist upwards, to express his concurrence +in this estimation of me. + +'Shall we go and see Mrs. Micawber, sir?' I said, to get Mr. +Micawber away. + +'If you will do her that favour, Copperfield,' replied Mr. +Micawber, rising. 'I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of +our friends here, that I am a man who has, for some years, +contended against the pressure of pecuniary difficulties.' I knew +he was certain to say something of this kind; he always would be so +boastful about his difficulties. 'Sometimes I have risen superior +to my difficulties. Sometimes my difficulties have - in short, +have floored me. There have been times when I have administered a +succession of facers to them; there have been times when they have +been too many for me, and I have given in, and said to Mrs. +Micawber, in the words of Cato, "Plato, thou reasonest well. It's +all up now. I can show fight no more." But at no time of my life,' +said Mr. Micawber, 'have I enjoyed a higher degree of satisfaction +than in pouring my griefs (if I may describe difficulties, chiefly +arising out of warrants of attorney and promissory notes at two and +four months, by that word) into the bosom of my friend +Copperfield.' + +Mr. Micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying, 'Mr. Heep! +Good evening. Mrs. Heep! Your servant,' and then walking out with +me in his most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on +the pavement with his shoes, and humming a tune as we went. + +It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a +little room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and +strongly flavoured with tobacco-smoke. I think it was over the +kitchen, because a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through +the chinks in the floor, and there was a flabby perspiration on the +walls. I know it was near the bar, on account of the smell of +spirits and jingling of glasses. Here, recumbent on a small sofa, +underneath a picture of a race-horse, with her head close to the +fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at the +other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr. Micawber +entered first, saying, 'My dear, allow me to introduce to you a +pupil of Doctor Strong's.' + +I noticed, by the by, that although Mr. Micawber was just as much +confused as ever about my age and standing, he always remembered, +as a genteel thing, that I was a pupil of Doctor Strong's. + +Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. I was very glad +to see her too, and, after an affectionate greeting on both sides, +sat down on the small sofa near her. + +'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'if you will mention to Copperfield +what our present position is, which I have no doubt he will like to +know, I will go and look at the paper the while, and see whether +anything turns up among the advertisements.' + +'I thought you were at Plymouth, ma'am,' I said to Mrs. Micawber, +as he went out. + +'My dear Master Copperfield,' she replied, 'we went to Plymouth.' + +'To be on the spot,' I hinted. + +'Just so,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'To be on the spot. But, the truth +is, talent is not wanted in the Custom House. The local influence +of my family was quite unavailing to obtain any employment in that +department, for a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities. They would +rather NOT have a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities. He would only +show the deficiency of the others. Apart from which,' said Mrs. +Micawber, 'I will not disguise from you, my dear Master +Copperfield, that when that branch of my family which is settled in +Plymouth, became aware that Mr. Micawber was accompanied by myself, +and by little Wilkins and his sister, and by the twins, they did +not receive him with that ardour which he might have expected, +being so newly released from captivity. In fact,' said Mrs. +Micawber, lowering her voice, - 'this is between ourselves - our +reception was cool.' + +'Dear me!' I said. + +'Yes,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'It is truly painful to contemplate +mankind in such an aspect, Master Copperfield, but our reception +was, decidedly, cool. There is no doubt about it. In fact, that +branch of my family which is settled in Plymouth became quite +personal to Mr. Micawber, before we had been there a week.' + +I said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves. + +'Still, so it was,' continued Mrs. Micawber. 'Under such +circumstances, what could a man of Mr. Micawber's spirit do? But +one obvious course was left. To borrow, of that branch of my +family, the money to return to London, and to return at any +sacrifice.' + +'Then you all came back again, ma'am?' I said. + +'We all came back again,' replied Mrs. Micawber. 'Since then, I +have consulted other branches of my family on the course which it +is most expedient for Mr. Micawber to take - for I maintain that he +must take some course, Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, +argumentatively. 'It is clear that a family of six, not including +a domestic, cannot live upon air.' + +'Certainly, ma'am,' said I. + +'The opinion of those other branches of my family,' pursued Mrs. +Micawber, 'is, that Mr. Micawber should immediately turn his +attention to coals.' + +'To what, ma'am?' + +'To coals,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'To the coal trade. Mr. Micawber +was induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening +for a man of his talent in the Medway Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. +Micawber very properly said, the first step to be taken clearly +was, to come and see the Medway. Which we came and saw. I say +"we", Master Copperfield; for I never will,' said Mrs. Micawber +with emotion, 'I never will desert Mr. Micawber.' + +I murmured my admiration and approbation. + +'We came,' repeated Mrs. Micawber, 'and saw the Medway. My opinion +of the coal trade on that river is, that it may require talent, but +that it certainly requires capital. Talent, Mr. Micawber has; +capital, Mr. Micawber has not. We saw, I think, the greater part +of the Medway; and that is my individual conclusion. Being so near +here, Mr. Micawber was of opinion that it would be rash not to come +on, and see the Cathedral. Firstly, on account of its being so +well worth seeing, and our never having seen it; and secondly, on +account of the great probability of something turning up in a +cathedral town. We have been here,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'three +days. Nothing has, as yet, turned up; and it may not surprise you, +my dear Master Copperfield, so much as it would a stranger, to know +that we are at present waiting for a remittance from London, to +discharge our pecuniary obligations at this hotel. Until the +arrival of that remittance,' said Mrs. Micawber with much feeling, +'I am cut off from my home (I allude to lodgings in Pentonville), +from my boy and girl, and from my twins.' + +I felt the utmost sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in this +anxious extremity, and said as much to Mr. Micawber, who now +returned: adding that I only wished I had money enough, to lend +them the amount they needed. Mr. Micawber's answer expressed the +disturbance of his mind. He said, shaking hands with me, +'Copperfield, you are a true friend; but when the worst comes to +the worst, no man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving +materials.' At this dreadful hint Mrs. Micawber threw her arms +round Mr. Micawber's neck and entreated him to be calm. He wept; +but so far recovered, almost immediately, as to ring the bell for +the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney pudding and a plate of shrimps +for breakfast in the morning. + +When I took my leave of them, they both pressed me so much to come +and dine before they went away, that I could not refuse. But, as +I knew I could not come next day, when I should have a good deal to +prepare in the evening, Mr. Micawber arranged that he would call at +Doctor Strong's in the course of the morning (having a presentiment +that the remittance would arrive by that post), and propose the day +after, if it would suit me better. Accordingly I was called out of +school next forenoon, and found Mr. Micawber in the parlour; who +had called to say that the dinner would take place as proposed. +When I asked him if the remittance had come, he pressed my hand and +departed. + +As I was looking out of window that same evening, it surprised me, +and made me rather uneasy, to see Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep walk +past, arm in arm: Uriah humbly sensible of the honour that was done +him, and Mr. Micawber taking a bland delight in extending his +patronage to Uriah. But I was still more surprised, when I went to +the little hotel next day at the appointed dinner-hour, which was +four o'clock, to find, from what Mr. Micawber said, that he had +gone home with Uriah, and had drunk brandy-and-water at Mrs. +Heep's. + +'And I'll tell you what, my dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, +'your friend Heep is a young fellow who might be attorney-general. +If I had known that young man, at the period when my difficulties +came to a crisis, all I can say is, that I believe my creditors +would have been a great deal better managed than they were.' + +I hardly understood how this could have been, seeing that Mr. +Micawber had paid them nothing at all as it was; but I did not like +to ask. Neither did I like to say, that I hoped he had not been +too communicative to Uriah; or to inquire if they had talked much +about me. I was afraid of hurting Mr. Micawber's feelings, or, at +all events, Mrs. Micawber's, she being very sensitive; but I was +uncomfortable about it, too, and often thought about it afterwards. + +We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; +the kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a +partridge, and a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong +ale; and after dinner Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl of hot punch +with her own hands. + +Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good +company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked +as if it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully +sentimental about the town, and proposed success to it; observing +that Mrs. Micawber and himself had been made extremely snug and +comfortable there and that he never should forget the agreeable +hours they had passed in Canterbury. He proposed me afterwards; +and he, and Mrs. Micawber, and I, took a review of our past +acquaintance, in the course of which we sold the property all over +again. Then I proposed Mrs. Micawber: or, at least, said, +modestly, 'If you'll allow me, Mrs. Micawber, I shall now have the +pleasure of drinking your health, ma'am.' On which Mr. Micawber +delivered an eulogium on Mrs. Micawber's character, and said she +had ever been his guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he would +recommend me, when I came to a marrying time of life, to marry such +another woman, if such another woman could be found. + +As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber became still more friendly +and convivial. Mrs. Micawber's spirits becoming elevated, too, we +sang 'Auld Lang Syne'. When we came to 'Here's a hand, my trusty +frere', we all joined hands round the table; and when we declared +we would 'take a right gude Willie Waught', and hadn't the least +idea what it meant, we were really affected. + +In a word, I never saw anybody so thoroughly jovial as Mr. Micawber +was, down to the very last moment of the evening, when I took a +hearty farewell of himself and his amiable wife. Consequently, I +was not prepared, at seven o'clock next morning, to receive the +following communication, dated half past nine in the evening; a +quarter of an hour after I had left him: - + +'My DEAR YOUNG FRIEND, + +'The die is cast - all is over. Hiding the ravages of care with a +sickly mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this evening, that +there is no hope of the remittance! Under these circumstances, +alike humiliating to endure, humiliating to contemplate, and +humiliating to relate, I have discharged the pecuniary liability +contracted at this establishment, by giving a note of hand, made +payable fourteen days after date, at my residence, Pentonville, +London. When it becomes due, it will not be taken up. The result +is destruction. The bolt is impending, and the tree must fall. + +'Let the wretched man who now addresses you, my dear Copperfield, +be a beacon to you through life. He writes with that intention, +and in that hope. If he could think himself of so much use, one +gleam of day might, by possibility, penetrate into the cheerless +dungeon of his remaining existence - though his longevity is, at +present (to say the least of it), extremely problematical. + +'This is the last communication, my dear Copperfield, you will ever +receive + + 'From + + 'The + + 'Beggared Outcast, + + 'WILKINS MICAWBER.' + + +I was so shocked by the contents of this heart-rending letter, that +I ran off directly towards the little hotel with the intention of +taking it on my way to Doctor Strong's, and trying to soothe Mr. +Micawber with a word of comfort. But, half-way there, I met the +London coach with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, +the very picture of tranquil enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micawber's +conversation, eating walnuts out of a paper bag, with a bottle +sticking out of his breast pocket. As they did not see me, I +thought it best, all things considered, not to see them. So, with +a great weight taken off my mind, I turned into a by-street that +was the nearest way to school, and felt, upon the whole, relieved +that they were gone; though I still liked them very much, +nevertheless. + + + +CHAPTER 18 +A RETROSPECT + + +My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence - the +unseen, unfelt progress of my life - from childhood up to youth! +Let me think, as I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry +channel overgrown with leaves, whether there are any marks along +its course, by which I can remember how it ran. + +A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went +together, every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that +purpose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the +world being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black +and white arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back, +and hold me hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping and +half-waking dream. + +I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen in a few months, +over several heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty +creature, dwelling afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable. +Agnes says 'No,' but I say 'Yes,' and tell her that she little +thinks what stores of knowledge have been mastered by the wonderful +Being, at whose place she thinks I, even I, weak aspirant, may +arrive in time. He is not my private friend and public patron, as +Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential respect. I chiefly +wonder what he'll be, when he leaves Doctor Strong's, and what +mankind will do to maintain any place against him. + +But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom +I love. + +Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls' +establishment. I adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a +spencer, with a round face and curly flaxen hair. The Misses +Nettingalls' young ladies come to the Cathedral too. I cannot look +upon my book, for I must look upon Miss Shepherd. When the +choristers chaunt, I hear Miss Shepherd. In the service I mentally +insert Miss Shepherd's name - I put her in among the Royal Family. +At home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out, 'Oh, Miss +Shepherd!' in a transport of love. + +For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd's feelings, but, at +length, Fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. I +have Miss Shepherd for my partner. I touch Miss Shepherd's glove, +and feel a thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at +my hair. I say nothing to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each +other. Miss Shepherd and myself live but to be united. + +Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a +present, I wonder? They are not expressive of affection, they are +difficult to pack into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard +to crack, even in room doors, and they are oily when cracked; yet +I feel that they are appropriate to Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy +biscuits, also, I bestow upon Miss Shepherd; and oranges +innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in the cloak-room. +Ecstasy! What are my agony and indignation next day, when I hear +a flying rumour that the Misses Nettingall have stood Miss Shepherd +in the stocks for turning in her toes! + +Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, +how do I ever come to break with her? I can't conceive. And yet +a coolness grows between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach +me of Miss Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn't stare so, and +having avowed a preference for Master Jones - for Jones! a boy of +no merit whatever! The gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens. +At last, one day, I meet the Misses Nettingalls' establishment out +walking. Miss Shepherd makes a face as she goes by, and laughs to +her companion. All is over. The devotion of a life - it seems a +life, it is all the same - is at an end; Miss Shepherd comes out of +the morning service, and the Royal Family know her no more. + +I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at +all polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls' young ladies, and +shouldn't dote on any of them, if they were twice as many and +twenty times as beautiful. I think the dancing-school a tiresome +affair, and wonder why the girls can't dance by themselves and +leave us alone. I am growing great in Latin verses, and neglect +the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong refers to me in public as a +promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild with joy, and my aunt +remits me a guinea by the next post. + +The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed +head in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of +the youth of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the +beef suet with which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural +strength, and that he is a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, +bull-necked, young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an +ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. His main use of +this tongue, is, to disparage Doctor Strong's young gentlemen. He +says, publicly, that if they want anything he'll give it 'em. He +names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could +undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. +He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and +calls challenges after me in the open streets. For these +sufficient reasons I resolve to fight the butcher. + +It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a +wall. I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a +select body of our boys; the butcher, by two other butchers, a +young publican, and a sweep. The preliminaries are adjusted, and +the butcher and myself stand face to face. In a moment the butcher +lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. In another +moment, I don't know where the wall is, or where I am, or where +anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the butcher, +we are always in such a tangle and tussle, knocking about upon the +trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident; +sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second's knee; +sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open +against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. At +last I awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and +see the butcher walking off, congratulated by the two other +butchers and the sweep and publican, and putting on his coat as he +goes; from which I augur, justly, that the victory is his. + +I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my +eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great puffy +place bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. For +three or four days I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, +with a green shade over my eyes; and I should be very dull, but +that Agnes is a sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to +me, and makes the time light and happy. Agnes has my confidence +completely, always; I tell her all about the butcher, and the +wrongs he has heaped upon me; she thinks I couldn't have done +otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks and trembles at +my having fought him. + +Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the +days that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. +Adams has left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a +visit to Doctor Strong, there are not many there, besides myself, +who know him. Adams is going to be called to the bar almost +directly, and is to be an advocate, and to wear a wig. I am +surprised to find him a meeker man than I had thought, and less +imposing in appearance. He has not staggered the world yet, +either; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) pretty much the +same as if he had never joined it. + +A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on +in stately hosts that seem to have no end - and what comes next! +I am the head-boy, now! I look down on the line of boys below me, +with a condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind +the boy I was myself, when I first came there. That little fellow +seems to be no part of me; I remember him as something left behind +upon the road of life - as something I have passed, rather than +have actually been - and almost think of him as of someone else. + +And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wickfield's, +where is she? Gone also. In her stead, the perfect likeness of +the picture, a child likeness no more, moves about the house; and +Agnes - my sweet sister, as I call her in my thoughts, my +counsellor and friend, the better angel of the lives of all who +come within her calm, good, self-denying influence - is quite a +woman. + +What other changes have come upon me, besides the changes in my +growth and looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this +while? I wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little +finger, and a long-tailed coat; and I use a great deal of bear's +grease - which, taken in conjunction with the ring, looks bad. Am +I in love again? I am. I worship the eldest Miss Larkins. + +The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark, +black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not +a chicken; for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the +eldest must be three or four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss +Larkins may be about thirty. My passion for her is beyond all +bounds. + +The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful thing to +bear. I see them speaking to her in the street. I see them cross +the way to meet her, when her bonnet (she has a bright taste in +bonnets) is seen coming down the pavement, accompanied by her +sister's bonnet. She laughs and talks, and seems to like it. I +spend a good deal of my own spare time in walking up and down to +meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I know her to bow +to, knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow now and +then. The raging agonies I suffer on the night of the Race Ball, +where I know the eldest Miss Larkins will be dancing with the +military, ought to have some compensation, if there be even-handed +justice in the world. + +My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest silk +neckerchief continually. I have no relief but in putting on my +best clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over again. I +seem, then, to be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything +that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. +Mr. Larkins (a gruff old gentleman with a double chin, and one of +his eyes immovable in his head) is fraught with interest to me. +When I can't meet his daughter, I go where I am likely to meet him. +To say 'How do you do, Mr. Larkins? Are the young ladies and all +the family quite well?' seems so pointed, that I blush. + +I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that +seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that? +Besides, I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly +take walks outside Mr. Larkins's house in the evening, though it +cuts me to the heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up +in the drawing-room, where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. +I even walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner, +round and round the house after the family are gone to bed, +wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins's chamber (and pitching, +I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins's instead); wishing that a fire +would burst out; that the assembled crowd would stand appalled; +that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might rear it against +her window, save her in my arms, go back for something she had left +behind, and perish in the flames. For I am generally disinterested +in my love, and think I could be content to make a figure before +Miss Larkins, and expire. + +Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before +me. When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball +given at the Larkins's (the anticipation of three weeks), I indulge +my fancy with pleasing images. I picture myself taking courage to +make a declaration to Miss Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking +her head upon my shoulder, and saying, 'Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I +believe my ears!' I picture Mr. Larkins waiting on me next morning, +and saying, 'My dear Copperfield, my daughter has told me all. +Youth is no objection. Here are twenty thousand pounds. Be +happy!' I picture my aunt relenting, and blessing us; and Mr. Dick +and Doctor Strong being present at the marriage ceremony. I am a +sensible fellow, I believe - I believe, on looking back, I mean - +and modest I am sure; but all this goes on notwithstanding. +I repair to the enchanted house, where there are lights, +chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and the +eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue, +with blue flowers in her hair - forget-me-nots - as if SHE had any +need to wear forget-me-nots. It is the first really grown-up party +that I have ever been invited to, and I am a little uncomfortable; +for I appear not to belong to anybody, and nobody appears to have +anything to say to me, except Mr. Larkins, who asks me how my +schoolfellows are, which he needn't do, as I have not come there to +be insulted. + +But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and feasted my +eyes upon the goddess of my heart, she approaches me - she, the +eldest Miss Larkins! - and asks me pleasantly, if I dance? + +I stammer, with a bow, 'With you, Miss Larkins.' + +'With no one else?' inquires Miss Larkins. + +'I should have no pleasure in dancing with anyone else.' + +Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes), and says, +'Next time but one, I shall be very glad.' + +The time arrives. 'It is a waltz, I think,' Miss Larkins +doubtfully observes, when I present myself. 'Do you waltz? If +not, Captain Bailey -' + +But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss +Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. +He is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have +been wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don't +know where, among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about +in space, with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until +I find myself alone with her in a little room, resting on a sofa. +She admires a flower (pink camellia japonica, price half-a-crown), +in my button-hole. I give it her, and say: + +'I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.' + +'Indeed! What is that?' returns Miss Larkins. + +'A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold.' + +'You're a bold boy,' says Miss Larkins. 'There.' + +She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then +into my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my +arm, and says, 'Now take me back to Captain Bailey.' + +I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the +waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman +who has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says: + +'Oh! here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr. +Copperfield.' + +I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much +gratified. + +'I admire your taste, sir,' says Mr. Chestle. 'It does you credit. +I suppose you don't take much interest in hops; but I am a pretty +large grower myself; and if you ever like to come over to our +neighbourhood - neighbourhood of Ashford - and take a run about our +place, -we shall be glad for you to stop as long as you like.' + +I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think I am in a +happy dream. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again. She +says I waltz so well! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, +and waltz in imagination, all night long, with my arm round the +blue waist of my dear divinity. For some days afterwards, I am +lost in rapturous reflections; but I neither see her in the street, +nor when I call. I am imperfectly consoled for this disappointment +by the sacred pledge, the perished flower. + +'Trotwood,' says Agnes, one day after dinner. 'Who do you think is +going to be married tomorrow? Someone you admire.' + +'Not you, I suppose, Agnes?' + +'Not me!' raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying. +'Do you hear him, Papa? - The eldest Miss Larkins.' + +'To - to Captain Bailey?' I have just enough power to ask. + +'No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower.' + +I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take off my +ring, I wear my worst clothes, I use no bear's grease, and I +frequently lament over the late Miss Larkins's faded flower. +Being, by that time, rather tired of this kind of life, and having +received new provocation from the butcher, I throw the flower away, +go out with the butcher, and gloriously defeat him. + +This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear's +grease in moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my +progress to seventeen. + + + +CHAPTER 19 +I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY + + +I am doubtful whether I was at heart glad or sorry, when my +school-days drew to an end, and the time came for my leaving Doctor +Strong's. I had been very happy there, I had a great attachment +for the Doctor, and I was eminent and distinguished in that little +world. For these reasons I was sorry to go; but for other reasons, +unsubstantial enough, I was glad. Misty ideas of being a young man +at my own disposal, of the importance attaching to a young man at +his own disposal, of the wonderful things to be seen and done by +that magnificent animal, and the wonderful effects he could not +fail to make upon society, lured me away. So powerful were these +visionary considerations in my boyish mind, that I seem, according +to my present way of thinking, to have left school without natural +regret. The separation has not made the impression on me, that +other separations have. I try in vain to recall how I felt about +it, and what its circumstances were; but it is not momentous in my +recollection. I suppose the opening prospect confused me. I know +that my juvenile experiences went for little or nothing then; and +that life was more like a great fairy story, which I was just about +to begin to read, than anything else. + +MY aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to +which I should be devoted. For a year or more I had endeavoured to +find a satisfactory answer to her often-repeated question, 'What I +would like to be?' But I had no particular liking, that I could +discover, for anything. If I could have been inspired with a +knowledge of the science of navigation, taken the command of a +fast-sailing expedition, and gone round the world on a triumphant +voyage of discovery, I think I might have considered myself +completely suited. But, in the absence of any such miraculous +provision, my desire was to apply myself to some pursuit that would +not lie too heavily upon her purse; and to do my duty in it, +whatever it might be. + +Mr. Dick had regularly assisted at our councils, with a meditative +and sage demeanour. He never made a suggestion but once; and on +that occasion (I don't know what put it in his head), he suddenly +proposed that I should be 'a Brazier'. My aunt received this +proposal so very ungraciously, that he never ventured on a second; +but ever afterwards confined himself to looking watchfully at her +for her suggestions, and rattling his money. + +'Trot, I tell you what, my dear,' said my aunt, one morning in the +Christmas season when I left school: 'as this knotty point is still +unsettled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we +can help it, I think we had better take a little breathing-time. +In the meanwhile, you must try to look at it from a new point of +view, and not as a schoolboy.' + +'I will, aunt.' + +'It has occurred to me,' pursued my aunt, 'that a little change, +and a glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful in helping you to +know your own mind, and form a cooler judgement. Suppose you were +to go down into the old part of the country again, for instance, +and see that - that out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of +names,' said my aunt, rubbing her nose, for she could never +thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so called. + +'Of all things in the world, aunt, I should like it best!' + +'Well,' said my aunt, 'that's lucky, for I should like it too. But +it's natural and rational that you should like it. And I am very +well persuaded that whatever you do, Trot, will always be natural +and rational.' + +'I hope so, aunt.' + +'Your sister, Betsey Trotwood,' said my aunt, 'would have been as +natural and rational a girl as ever breathed. You'll be worthy of +her, won't you?' + +'I hope I shall be worthy of YOU, aunt. That will be enough for +me.' + +'It's a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours didn't +live,' said my aunt, looking at me approvingly, 'or she'd have been +so vain of her boy by this time, that her soft little head would +have been completely turned, if there was anything of it left to +turn.' (My aunt always excused any weakness of her own in my +behalf, by transferring it in this way to my poor mother.) 'Bless +me, Trotwood, how you do remind me of her!' + +'Pleasantly, I hope, aunt?' said I. + +'He's as like her, Dick,' said my aunt, emphatically, 'he's as like +her, as she was that afternoon before she began to fret - bless my +heart, he's as like her, as he can look at me out of his two eyes!' + +'Is he indeed?' said Mr. Dick. + +'And he's like David, too,' said my aunt, decisively. + +'He is very like David!' said Mr. Dick. + +'But what I want you to be, Trot,' resumed my aunt, '- I don't mean +physically, but morally; you are very well physically - is, a firm +fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With +resolution,' said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her +hand. 'With determination. With character, Trot - with strength +of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, +by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be. That's +what your father and mother might both have been, Heaven knows, and +been the better for it.' + +I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described. + +'That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon +yourself, and to act for yourself,' said my aunt, 'I shall send you +upon your trip, alone. I did think, once, of Mr. Dick's going with +you; but, on second thoughts, I shall keep him to take care of me.' + +Mr. Dick, for a moment, looked a little disappointed; until the +honour and dignity of having to take care of the most wonderful +woman in the world, restored the sunshine to his face. + +'Besides,' said my aunt, 'there's the Memorial -' + +'Oh, certainly,' said Mr. Dick, in a hurry, 'I intend, Trotwood, to +get that done immediately - it really must be done immediately! +And then it will go in, you know - and then -' said Mr. Dick, after +checking himself, and pausing a long time, 'there'll be a pretty +kettle of fish!' + +In pursuance of my aunt's kind scheme, I was shortly afterwards +fitted out with a handsome purse of money, and a portmanteau, and +tenderly dismissed upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me +some good advice, and a good many kisses; and said that as her +object was that I should look about me, and should think a little, +she would recommend me to stay a few days in London, if I liked it, +either on my way down into Suffolk, or in coming back. In a word, +I was at liberty to do what I would, for three weeks or a month; +and no other conditions were imposed upon my freedom than the +before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, and a pledge to +write three times a week and faithfully report myself. + +I went to Canterbury first, that I might take leave of Agnes and +Mr. Wickfield (my old room in whose house I had not yet +relinquished), and also of the good Doctor. Agnes was very glad to +see me, and told me that the house had not been like itself since +I had left it. + +'I am sure I am not like myself when I am away,' said I. 'I seem +to want my right hand, when I miss you. Though that's not saying +much; for there's no head in my right hand, and no heart. Everyone +who knows you, consults with you, and is guided by you, Agnes.' + +'Everyone who knows me, spoils me, I believe,' she answered, +smiling. + +'No. it's because you are like no one else. You are so good, and +so sweet-tempered. You have such a gentle nature, and you are +always right.' + +'You talk,' said Agnes, breaking into a pleasant laugh, as she sat +at work, 'as if I were the late Miss Larkins.' + +'Come! It's not fair to abuse my confidence,' I answered, +reddening at the recollection of my blue enslaver. 'But I shall +confide in you, just the same, Agnes. I can never grow out of +that. Whenever I fall into trouble, or fall in love, I shall +always tell you, if you'll let me - even when I come to fall in +love in earnest.' + +'Why, you have always been in earnest!' said Agnes, laughing again. + +'Oh! that was as a child, or a schoolboy,' said I, laughing in my +turn, not without being a little shame-faced. 'Times are altering +now, and I suppose I shall be in a terrible state of earnestness +one day or other. My wonder is, that you are not in earnest +yourself, by this time, Agnes.' + +Agnes laughed again, and shook her head. + +'Oh, I know you are not!' said I, 'because if you had been you +would have told me. Or at least' - for I saw a faint blush in her +face, 'you would have let me find it out for myself. But there is +no one that I know of, who deserves to love you, Agnes. Someone of +a nobler character, and more worthy altogether than anyone I have +ever seen here, must rise up, before I give my consent. In the +time to come, I shall have a wary eye on all admirers; and shall +exact a great deal from the successful one, I assure you.' + +We had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest and +earnest, that had long grown naturally out of our familiar +relations, begun as mere children. But Agnes, now suddenly lifting +up her eyes to mine, and speaking in a different manner, said: + +'Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you, and that I +may not have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps +- something I would ask, I think, of no one else. Have you +observed any gradual alteration in Papa?' + +I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. I +must have shown as much, now, in my face; for her eyes were in a +moment cast down, and I saw tears in them. + +'Tell me what it is,' she said, in a low voice. + +'I think - shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much?' + +'Yes,' she said. + +'I think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased +upon him since I first came here. He is often very nervous - or I +fancy so.' + +'It is not fancy,' said Agnes, shaking her head. + +'His hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look +wild. I have remarked that at those times, and when he is least +like himself, he is most certain to be wanted on some business.' + +'By Uriah,' said Agnes. + +'Yes; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having +understood it, or of having shown his condition in spite of +himself, seems to make him so uneasy, that next day he is worse, +and next day worse, and so he becomes jaded and haggard. Do not be +alarmed by what I say, Agnes, but in this state I saw him, only the +other evening, lay down his head upon his desk, and shed tears like +a child.' + +Her hand passed softly before my lips while I was yet speaking, and +in a moment she had met her father at the door of the room, and was +hanging on his shoulder. The expression of her face, as they both +looked towards me, I felt to be very touching. There was such deep +fondness for him, and gratitude to him for all his love and care, +in her beautiful look; and there was such a fervent appeal to me to +deal tenderly by him, even in my inmost thoughts, and to let no +harsh construction find any place against him; she was, at once, so +proud of him and devoted to him, yet so compassionate and sorry, +and so reliant upon me to be so, too; that nothing she could have +said would have expressed more to me, or moved me more. + +We were to drink tea at the Doctor's. We went there at the usual +hour; and round the study fireside found the Doctor, and his young +wife, and her mother. The Doctor, who made as much of my going +away as if I were going to China, received me as an honoured guest; +and called for a log of wood to be thrown on the fire, that he +might see the face of his old pupil reddening in the blaze. + +'I shall not see many more new faces in Trotwood's stead, +Wickfield,' said the Doctor, warming his hands; 'I am getting lazy, +and want ease. I shall relinquish all my young people in another +six months, and lead a quieter life.' + +'You have said so, any time these ten years, Doctor,' Mr. Wickfield +answered. + +'But now I mean to do it,' returned the Doctor. 'My first master +will succeed me - I am in earnest at last - so you'll soon have to +arrange our contracts, and to bind us firmly to them, like a couple +of knaves.' + +'And to take care,' said Mr. Wickfield, 'that you're not imposed +on, eh? As you certainly would be, in any contract you should make +for yourself. Well! I am ready. There are worse tasks than that, +in my calling.' + +'I shall have nothing to think of then,' said the Doctor, with a +smile, 'but my Dictionary; and this other contract-bargain - +Annie.' + +As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea table by +Agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted +hesitation and timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, +as if something were suggested to his thoughts. + +'There is a post come in from India, I observe,' he said, after a +short silence. + +'By the by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!' said the Doctor. + +'Indeed!' +'Poor dear Jack!' said Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head. 'That +trying climate! - like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, +underneath a burning-glass! He looked strong, but he wasn't. My +dear Doctor, it was his spirit, not his constitution, that he +ventured on so boldly. Annie, my dear, I am sure you must +perfectly recollect that your cousin never was strong - not what +can be called ROBUST, you know,' said Mrs. Markleham, with +emphasis, and looking round upon us generally, '- from the time +when my daughter and himself were children together, and walking +about, arm-in-arm, the livelong day.' + +Annie, thus addressed, made no reply. + +'Do I gather from what you say, ma'am, that Mr. Maldon is ill?' +asked Mr. Wickfield. + +'Ill!' replied the Old Soldier. 'My dear sir, he's all sorts of +things.' + +'Except well?' said Mr. Wickfield. + +'Except well, indeed!' said the Old Soldier. 'He has had dreadful +strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and +every kind of thing you can mention. As to his liver,' said the +Old Soldier resignedly, 'that, of course, he gave up altogether, +when he first went out!' + +'Does he say all this?' asked Mr. Wickfield. + +'Say? My dear sir,' returned Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head and +her fan, 'you little know my poor Jack Maldon when you ask that +question. Say? Not he. You might drag him at the heels of four +wild horses first.' + +'Mama!' said Mrs. Strong. + +'Annie, my dear,' returned her mother, 'once for all, I must really +beg that you will not interfere with me, unless it is to confirm +what I say. You know as well as I do that your cousin Maldon would +be dragged at the heels of any number of wild horses - why should +I confine myself to four! I WON'T confine myself to four - eight, +sixteen, two-and-thirty, rather than say anything calculated to +overturn the Doctor's plans.' + +'Wickfield's plans,' said the Doctor, stroking his face, and +looking penitently at his adviser. 'That is to say, our joint +plans for him. I said myself, abroad or at home.' + +'And I said' added Mr. Wickfield gravely, 'abroad. I was the means +of sending him abroad. It's my responsibility.' + +'Oh! Responsibility!' said the Old Soldier. 'Everything was done +for the best, my dear Mr. Wickfield; everything was done for the +kindest and best, we know. But if the dear fellow can't live +there, he can't live there. And if he can't live there, he'll die +there, sooner than he'll overturn the Doctor's plans. I know him,' +said the Old Soldier, fanning herself, in a sort of calm prophetic +agony, 'and I know he'll die there, sooner than he'll overturn the +Doctor's plans.' + +'Well, well, ma'am,' said the Doctor cheerfully, 'I am not bigoted +to my plans, and I can overturn them myself. I can substitute some +other plans. If Mr. Jack Maldon comes home on account of ill +health, he must not be allowed to go back, and we must endeavour to +make some more suitable and fortunate provision for him in this +country.' + +Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech - which, I +need not say, she had not at all expected or led up to - that she +could only tell the Doctor it was like himself, and go several +times through that operation of kissing the sticks of her fan, and +then tapping his hand with it. After which she gently chid her +daughter Annie, for not being more demonstrative when such +kindnesses were showered, for her sake, on her old playfellow; and +entertained us with some particulars concerning other deserving +members of her family, whom it was desirable to set on their +deserving legs. + +All this time, her daughter Annie never once spoke, or lifted up +her eyes. All this time, Mr. Wickfield had his glance upon her as +she sat by his own daughter's side. It appeared to me that he +never thought of being observed by anyone; but was so intent upon +her, and upon his own thoughts in connexion with her, as to be +quite absorbed. He now asked what Mr. Jack Maldon had actually +written in reference to himself, and to whom he had written? + +'Why, here,' said Mrs. Markleham, taking a letter from the +chimney-piece above the Doctor's head, 'the dear fellow says to the +Doctor himself - where is it? Oh! - "I am sorry to inform you that +my health is suffering severely, and that I fear I may be reduced +to the necessity of returning home for a time, as the only hope of +restoration." That's pretty plain, poor fellow! His only hope of +restoration! But Annie's letter is plainer still. Annie, show me +that letter again.' + +'Not now, mama,' she pleaded in a low tone. + +'My dear, you absolutely are, on some subjects, one of the most +ridiculous persons in the world,' returned her mother, 'and perhaps +the most unnatural to the claims of your own family. We never +should have heard of the letter at all, I believe, unless I had +asked for it myself. Do you call that confidence, my love, towards +Doctor Strong? I am surprised. You ought to know better.' + +The letter was reluctantly produced; and as I handed it to the old +lady, I saw how the unwilling hand from which I took it, trembled. + +'Now let us see,' said Mrs. Markleham, putting her glass to her +eye, 'where the passage is. "The remembrance of old times, my +dearest Annie" - and so forth - it's not there. "The amiable old +Proctor" - who's he? Dear me, Annie, how illegibly your cousin +Maldon writes, and how stupid I am! "Doctor," of course. Ah! +amiable indeed!' Here she left off, to kiss her fan again, and +shake it at the Doctor, who was looking at us in a state of placid +satisfaction. 'Now I have found it. "You may not be surprised to +hear, Annie," - no, to be sure, knowing that he never was really +strong; what did I say just now? - "that I have undergone so much +in this distant place, as to have decided to leave it at all +hazards; on sick leave, if I can; on total resignation, if that is +not to be obtained. What I have endured, and do endure here, is +insupportable." And but for the promptitude of that best of +creatures,' said Mrs. Markleham, telegraphing the Doctor as before, +and refolding the letter, 'it would be insupportable to me to think +of.' + +Mr. Wickfield said not one word, though the old lady looked to him +as if for his commentary on this intelligence; but sat severely +silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground. Long after the subject +was dismissed, and other topics occupied us, he remained so; seldom +raising his eyes, unless to rest them for a moment, with a +thoughtful frown, upon the Doctor, or his wife, or both. + +The Doctor was very fond of music. Agnes sang with great sweetness +and expression, and so did Mrs. Strong. They sang together, and +played duets together, and we had quite a little concert. But I +remarked two things: first, that though Annie soon recovered her +composure, and was quite herself, there was a blank between her and +Mr. Wickfield which separated them wholly from each other; +secondly, that Mr. Wickfield seemed to dislike the intimacy between +her and Agnes, and to watch it with uneasiness. And now, I must +confess, the recollection of what I had seen on that night when Mr. +Maldon went away, first began to return upon me with a meaning it +had never had, and to trouble me. The innocent beauty of her face +was not as innocent to me as it had been; I mistrusted the natural +grace and charm of her manner; and when I looked at Agnes by her +side, and thought how good and true Agnes was, suspicions arose +within me that it was an ill-assorted friendship. + +She was so happy in it herself, however, and the other was so happy +too, that they made the evening fly away as if it were but an hour. +It closed in an incident which I well remember. They were taking +leave of each other, and Agnes was going to embrace her and kiss +her, when Mr. Wickfield stepped between them, as if by accident, +and drew Agnes quickly away. Then I saw, as though all the +intervening time had been cancelled, and I were still standing in +the doorway on the night of the departure, the expression of that +night in the face of Mrs. Strong, as it confronted his. + +I cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or how +impossible I found it, when I thought of her afterwards, to +separate her from this look, and remember her face in its innocent +loveliness again. It haunted me when I got home. I seemed to have +left the Doctor's roof with a dark cloud lowering on it. The +reverence that I had for his grey head, was mingled with +commiseration for his faith in those who were treacherous to him, +and with resentment against those who injured him. The impending +shadow of a great affliction, and a great disgrace that had no +distinct form in it yet, fell like a stain upon the quiet place +where I had worked and played as a boy, and did it a cruel wrong. +I had no pleasure in thinking, any more, of the grave old +broad-leaved aloe-trees, which remained shut up in themselves a +hundred years together, and of the trim smooth grass-plot, and the +stone urns, and the Doctor's walk, and the congenial sound of the +Cathedral bell hovering above them all. It was as if the tranquil +sanctuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face, and its +peace and honour given to the winds. + +But morning brought with it my parting from the old house, which +Agnes had filled with her influence; and that occupied my mind +sufficiently. I should be there again soon, no doubt; I might +sleep again - perhaps often - in my old room; but the days of my +inhabiting there were gone, and the old time was past. I was +heavier at heart when I packed up such of my books and clothes as +still remained there to be sent to Dover, than I cared to show to +Uriah Heep; who was so officious to help me, that I uncharitably +thought him mighty glad that I was going. + +I got away from Agnes and her father, somehow, with an indifferent +show of being very manly, and took my seat upon the box of the +London coach. I was so softened and forgiving, going through the +town, that I had half a mind to nod to my old enemy the butcher, +and throw him five shillings to drink. But he looked such a very +obdurate butcher as he stood scraping the great block in the shop, +and moreover, his appearance was so little improved by the loss of +a front tooth which I had knocked out, that I thought it best to +make no advances. + +The main object on my mind, I remember, when we got fairly on the +road, was to appear as old as possible to the coachman, and to +speak extremely gruff. The latter point I achieved at great +personal inconvenience; but I stuck to it, because I felt it was a +grown-up sort of thing. + +'You are going through, sir?' said the coachman. + +'Yes, William,' I said, condescendingly (I knew him); 'I am going +to London. I shall go down into Suffolk afterwards.' + +'Shooting, sir?' said the coachman. + +He knew as well as I did that it was just as likely, at that time +of year, I was going down there whaling; but I felt complimented, +too. + +'I don't know,' I said, pretending to be undecided, 'whether I +shall take a shot or not.' +'Birds is got wery shy, I'm told,' said William. + +'So I understand,' said I. + +'Is Suffolk your county, sir?' asked William. + +'Yes,' I said, with some importance. 'Suffolk's my county.' + +'I'm told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there,' said William. + +I was not aware of it myself, but I felt it necessary to uphold the +institutions of my county, and to evince a familiarity with them; +so I shook my head, as much as to say, 'I believe you!' + +'And the Punches,' said William. 'There's cattle! A Suffolk +Punch, when he's a good un, is worth his weight in gold. Did you +ever breed any Suffolk Punches yourself, sir?' + +'N-no,' I said, 'not exactly.' + +'Here's a gen'lm'n behind me, I'll pound it,' said William, 'as has +bred 'em by wholesale.' + +The gentleman spoken of was a gentleman with a very unpromising +squint, and a prominent chin, who had a tall white hat on with a +narrow flat brim, and whose close-fitting drab trousers seemed to +button all the way up outside his legs from his boots to his hips. +His chin was cocked over the coachman's shoulder, so near to me, +that his breath quite tickled the back of my head; and as I looked +at him, he leered at the leaders with the eye with which he didn't +squint, in a very knowing manner. + +'Ain't you?' asked William. + +'Ain't I what?' said the gentleman behind. + +'Bred them Suffolk Punches by wholesale?' + +'I should think so,' said the gentleman. 'There ain't no sort of +orse that I ain't bred, and no sort of dorg. Orses and dorgs is +some men's fancy. They're wittles and drink to me - lodging, wife, +and children - reading, writing, and Arithmetic - snuff, tobacker, +and sleep.' + +'That ain't a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it +though?' said William in my ear, as he handled the reins. + +I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should +have my place, so I blushingly offered to resign it. + +'Well, if you don't mind, sir,' said William, 'I think it would be +more correct.' + +I have always considered this as the first fall I had in life. +When I booked my place at the coach office I had had 'Box Seat' +written against the entry, and had given the book-keeper +half-a-crown. I was got up in a special great-coat and shawl, +expressly to do honour to that distinguished eminence; had +glorified myself upon it a good deal; and had felt that I was a +credit to the coach. And here, in the very first stage, I was +supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other merit +than smelling like a livery-stables, and being able to walk across +me, more like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a +canter! + +A distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on small +occasions, when it would have been better away, was assuredly not +stopped in its growth by this little incident outside the +Canterbury coach. It was in vain to take refuge in gruffness of +speech. I spoke from the pit of my stomach for the rest of the +journey, but I felt completely extinguished, and dreadfully young. + +It was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting up +there behind four horses: well educated, well dressed, and with +plenty of money in my pocket; and to look out for the places where +I had slept on my weary journey. I had abundant occupation for my +thoughts, in every conspicuous landmark on the road. When I looked +down at the trampers whom we passed, and saw that well-remembered +style of face turned up, I felt as if the tinker's blackened hand +were in the bosom of my shirt again. When we clattered through the +narrow street of Chatham, and I caught a glimpse, in passing, of +the lane where the old monster lived who had bought my jacket, I +stretched my neck eagerly to look for the place where I had sat, in +the sun and in the shade, waiting for my money. When we came, at +last, within a stage of London, and passed the veritable Salem +House where Mr. Creakle had laid about him with a heavy hand, I +would have given all I had, for lawful permission to get down and +thrash him, and let all the boys out like so many caged sparrows. + +We went to the Golden Cross at Charing Cross, then a mouldy sort of +establishment in a close neighbourhood. A waiter showed me into +the coffee-room; and a chambermaid introduced me to my small +bedchamber, which smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like +a family vault. I was still painfully conscious of my youth, for +nobody stood in any awe of me at all: the chambermaid being utterly +indifferent to my opinions on any subject, and the waiter being +familiar with me, and offering advice to my inexperience. + +'Well now,' said the waiter, in a tone of confidence, 'what would +you like for dinner? Young gentlemen likes poultry in general: +have a fowl!' + +I told him, as majestically as I could, that I wasn't in the humour +for a fowl. + +'Ain't you?' said the waiter. 'Young gentlemen is generally tired +of beef and mutton: have a weal cutlet!' + +I assented to this proposal, in default of being able to suggest +anything else. + +'Do you care for taters?' said the waiter, with an insinuating +smile, and his head on one side. 'Young gentlemen generally has +been overdosed with taters.' + +I commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal cutlet and +potatoes, and all things fitting; and to inquire at the bar if +there were any letters for Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire - which I +knew there were not, and couldn't be, but thought it manly to +appear to expect. + +He soon came back to say that there were none (at which I was much +surprised) and began to lay the cloth for my dinner in a box by the +fire. While he was so engaged, he asked me what I would take with +it; and on my replying 'Half a pint of sherry,'thought it a +favourable opportunity, I am afraid, to extract that measure of +wine from the stale leavings at the bottoms of several small +decanters. I am of this opinion, because, while I was reading the +newspaper, I observed him behind a low wooden partition, which was +his private apartment, very busy pouring out of a number of those +vessels into one, like a chemist and druggist making up a +prescription. When the wine came, too, I thought it flat; and it +certainly had more English crumbs in it, than were to be expected +in a foreign wine in anything like a pure state, but I was bashful +enough to drink it, and say nothing. + +Being then in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I infer that +poisoning is not always disagreeable in some stages of the +process), I resolved to go to the play. It was Covent Garden +Theatre that I chose; and there, from the back of a centre box, I +saw Julius Caesar and the new Pantomime. To have all those noble +Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my +entertainment, instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been +at school, was a most novel and delightful effect. But the mingled +reality and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon me of the +poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth stupendous +changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, were so dazzling, and +opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out +into the rainy street, at twelve o'clock at night, I felt as if I +had come from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life +for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, +umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, +muddy, miserable world. + +I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little +while, as if I really were a stranger upon earth: but the +unceremonious pushing and hustling that I received, soon recalled +me to myself, and put me in the road back to the hotel; whither I +went, revolving the glorious vision all the way; and where, after +some porter and oysters, I sat revolving it still, at past one +o'clock, with my eyes on the coffee-room fire. + +I was so filled with the play, and with the past - for it was, in +a manner, like a shining transparency, through which I saw my +earlier life moving along - that I don't know when the figure of a +handsome well-formed young man dressed with a tasteful easy +negligence which I have reason to remember very well, became a real +presence to me. But I recollect being conscious of his company +without having noticed his coming in - and my still sitting, +musing, over the coffee-room fire. + +At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy +waiter, who had got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, +and hitting them, and putting them through all kinds of contortions +in his small pantry. In going towards the door, I passed the +person who had come in, and saw him plainly. I turned directly, +came back, and looked again. He did not know me, but I knew him in +a moment. + +At another time I might have wanted the confidence or the decision +to speak to him, and might have put it off until next day, and +might have lost him. But, in the then condition of my mind, where +the play was still running high, his former protection of me +appeared so deserving of my gratitude, and my old love for him +overflowed my breast so freshly and spontaneously, that I went up +to him at once, with a fast-beating heart, and said: + +'Steerforth! won't you speak to me?' + +He looked at me - just as he used to look, sometimes -but I saw no +recognition in his face. + +'You don't remember me, I am afraid,' said I. + +'My God!' he suddenly exclaimed. 'It's little Copperfield!' + +I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But for +very shame, and the fear that it might displease him, I could have +held him round the neck and cried. + +'I never, never, never was so glad! My dear Steerforth, I am so +overjoyed to see you!' + +'And I am rejoiced to see you, too!' he said, shaking my hands +heartily. 'Why, Copperfield, old boy, don't be overpowered!' And +yet he was glad, too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in +meeting him affected me. + +I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been +able to keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down +together, side by side. + +'Why, how do you come to be here?' said Steerforth, clapping me on +the shoulder. + +'I came here by the Canterbury coach, today. I have been adopted +by an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished +my education there. How do YOU come to be here, Steerforth?' + +'Well, I am what they call an Oxford man,' he returned; 'that is to +say, I get bored to death down there, periodically - and I am on my +way now to my mother's. You're a devilish amiable-looking fellow, +Copperfield. just what you used to be, now I look at you! Not +altered in the least!' + +'I knew you immediately,' I said; 'but you are more easily +remembered.' + +He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his +hair, and said gaily: + +'Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives a little way +out of town; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our +house tedious enough, I remained here tonight instead of going on. +I have not been in town half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been +dozing and grumbling away at the play.' + +'I have been at the play, too,' said I. 'At Covent Garden. What +a delightful and magnificent entertainment, Steerforth!' + +Steerforth laughed heartily. + +'My dear young Davy,' he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, +'you are a very Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not +fresher than you are. I have been at Covent Garden, too, and there +never was a more miserable business. Holloa, you sir!' + +This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to +our recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially. + +'Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield?' said Steerforth. + +'Beg your pardon, sir?' + +'Where does he sleep? What's his number? You know what I mean,' +said Steerforth. + +'Well, sir,' said the waiter, with an apologetic air. 'Mr. +Copperfield is at present in forty-four, sir.' + +'And what the devil do you mean,' retorted Steerforth, 'by putting +Mr. Copperfield into a little loft over a stable?' + +'Why, you see we wasn't aware, sir,' returned the waiter, still +apologetically, 'as Mr. Copperfield was anyways particular. We can +give Mr. Copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. +Next you, sir.' + +'Of course it would be preferred,' said Steerforth. 'And do it at +once.' +The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. Steerforth, +very much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed +again, and clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to +breakfast with him next morning at ten o'clock - an invitation I +was only too proud and happy to accept. It being now pretty late, +we took our candles and went upstairs, where we parted with +friendly heartiness at his door, and where I found my new room a +great improvement on my old one, it not being at all musty, and +having an immense four-post bedstead in it, which was quite a +little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for six, I soon +fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient Rome, +Steerforth, and friendship, until the early morning coaches, +rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of thunder +and the gods. + + + +CHAPTER 20 +STEERFORTH'S HOME + + +When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o'clock, and +informed me that my shaving-water was outside, I felt severely the +having no occasion for it, and blushed in my bed. The suspicion +that she laughed too, when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the +time I was dressing; and gave me, I was conscious, a sneaking and +guilty air when I passed her on the staircase, as I was going down +to breakfast. I was so sensitively aware, indeed, of being younger +than I could have wished, that for some time I could not make up my +mind to pass her at all, under the ignoble circumstances of the +case; but, hearing her there with a broom, stood peeping out of +window at King Charles on horseback, surrounded by a maze of +hackney-coaches, and looking anything but regal in a drizzling rain +and a dark-brown fog, until I was admonished by the waiter that the +gentleman was waiting for me. + +It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me, +but in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted, +where the fire burnt bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth +on a table covered with a clean cloth; and a cheerful miniature of +the room, the fire, the breakfast, Steerforth, and all, was shining +in the little round mirror over the sideboard. I was rather +bashful at first, Steerforth being so self-possessed, and elegant, +and superior to me in all respects (age included); but his easy +patronage soon put that to rights, and made me quite at home. I +could not enough admire the change he had wrought in the Golden +Cross; or compare the dull forlorn state I had held yesterday, with +this morning's comfort and this morning's entertainment. As to the +waiter's familiarity, it was quenched as if it had never been. He +attended on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes. + +'Now, Copperfield,' said Steerforth, when we were alone, 'I should +like to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all +about you. I feel as if you were my property.' +Glowing with pleasure to find that he had still this interest in +me, I told him how my aunt had proposed the little expedition that +I had before me, and whither it tended. + +'As you are in no hurry, then,' said Steerforth, 'come home with me +to Highgate, and stay a day or two. You will be pleased with my +mother - she is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can +forgive her - and she will be pleased with you.' + +'I should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind enough to say +you are,' I answered, smiling. + +'Oh!' said Steerforth, 'everyone who likes me, has a claim on her +that is sure to be acknowledged.' + +'Then I think I shall be a favourite,' said I. + +'Good!' said Steerforth. 'Come and prove it. We will go and see +the lions for an hour or two - it's something to have a fresh +fellow like you to show them to, Copperfield - and then we'll +journey out to Highgate by the coach.' + +I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and that I should +wake presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the +coffee-room and the familiar waiter again. After I had written to +my aunt and told her of my fortunate meeting with my admired old +schoolfellow, and my acceptance of his invitation, we went out in +a hackney-chariot, and saw a Panorama and some other sights, and +took a walk through the Museum, where I could not help observing +how much Steerforth knew, on an infinite variety of subjects, and +of how little account he seemed to make his knowledge. + +'You'll take a high degree at college, Steerforth,' said I, 'if you +have not done so already; and they will have good reason to be +proud of you.' + +'I take a degree!' cried Steerforth. 'Not I! my dear Daisy - will +you mind my calling you Daisy?' + +'Not at all!' said I. + +'That's a good fellow! My dear Daisy,' said Steerforth, laughing. +'I have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself in +that way. I have done quite sufficient for my purpose. I find +that I am heavy company enough for myself as I am.' + +'But the fame -' I was beginning. + +'You romantic Daisy!' said Steerforth, laughing still more +heartily: 'why should I trouble myself, that a parcel of +heavy-headed fellows may gape and hold up their hands? Let them do +it at some other man. There's fame for him, and he's welcome to +it.' + +I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to +change the subject. Fortunately it was not difficult to do, for +Steerforth could always pass from one subject to another with a +carelessness and lightness that were his own. + +Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore +away so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us +at an old brick house at Highgate on the summit of the hill. An +elderly lady, though not very far advanced in years, with a proud +carriage and a handsome face, was in the doorway as we alighted; +and greeting Steerforth as 'My dearest James,' folded him in her +arms. To this lady he presented me as his mother, and she gave me +a stately welcome. + +It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. From +the windows of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like +a great vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through +it. I had only time, in dressing, to glance at the solid +furniture, the framed pieces of work (done, I supposed, by +Steerforth's mother when she was a girl), and some pictures in +crayons of ladies with powdered hair and bodices, coming and going +on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and sputtered, +when I was called to dinner. + +There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short +figure, dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some +appearance of good looks too, who attracted my attention: perhaps +because I had not expected to see her; perhaps because I found +myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps because of something really +remarkable in her. She had black hair and eager black eyes, and +was thin, and had a scar upon her lip. It was an old scar - I +should rather call it seam, for it was not discoloured, and had +healed years ago - which had once cut through her mouth, downward +towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table, +except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had +altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty +years of age, and that she wished to be married. She was a little +dilapidated - like a house - with having been so long to let; yet +had, as I have said, an appearance of good looks. Her thinness +seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which +found a vent in her gaunt eyes. + +She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his +mother called her Rosa. I found that she lived there, and had been +for a long time Mrs. Steerforth's companion. It appeared to me +that she never said anything she wanted to say, outright; but +hinted it, and made a great deal more of it by this practice. For +example, when Mrs. Steerforth observed, more in jest than earnest, +that she feared her son led but a wild life at college, Miss Dartle +put in thus: + +'Oh, really? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for +information, but isn't it always so? I thought that kind of life +was on all hands understood to be - eh?' +'It is education for a very grave profession, if you mean that, +Rosa,' Mrs. Steerforth answered with some coldness. + +'Oh! Yes! That's very true,' returned Miss Dartle. 'But isn't +it, though? - I want to be put right, if I am wrong - isn't it, +really?' + +'Really what?' said Mrs. Steerforth. + +'Oh! You mean it's not!' returned Miss Dartle. 'Well, I'm very +glad to hear it! Now, I know what to do! That's the advantage of +asking. I shall never allow people to talk before me about +wastefulness and profligacy, and so forth, in connexion with that +life, any more.' + +'And you will be right,' said Mrs. Steerforth. 'My son's tutor is +a conscientious gentleman; and if I had not implicit reliance on my +son, I should have reliance on him.' + +'Should you?' said Miss Dartle. 'Dear me! Conscientious, is he? +Really conscientious, now?' + +'Yes, I am convinced of it,' said Mrs. Steerforth. + +'How very nice!' exclaimed Miss Dartle. 'What a comfort! Really +conscientious? Then he's not - but of course he can't be, if he's +really conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my opinion +of him, from this time. You can't think how it elevates him in my +opinion, to know for certain that he's really conscientious!' + +Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything +that was said to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in +the same way: sometimes, I could not conceal from myself, with +great power, though in contradiction even of Steerforth. An +instance happened before dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking +to me about my intention of going down into Suffolk, I said at +hazard how glad I should be, if Steerforth would only go there with +me; and explaining to him that I was going to see my old nurse, and +Mr. Peggotty's family, I reminded him of the boatman whom he had +seen at school. + +'Oh! That bluff fellow!' said Steerforth. 'He had a son with him, +hadn't he?' + +'No. That was his nephew,' I replied; 'whom he adopted, though, as +a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as +a daughter. In short, his house - or rather his boat, for he lives +in one, on dry land - is full of people who are objects of his +generosity and kindness. You would be delighted to see that +household.' + +'Should I?' said Steerforth. 'Well, I think I should. I must see +what can be done. It would be worth a journey (not to mention the +pleasure of a journey with you, Daisy), to see that sort of people +together, and to make one of 'em.' + +My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in +reference to the tone in which he had spoken of 'that sort of +people', that Miss Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful +of us, now broke in again. + +'Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?' she said. + +'Are they what? And are who what?' said Steerforth. + +'That sort of people. - Are they really animals and clods, and +beings of another order? I want to know SO much.' + +'Why, there's a pretty wide separation between them and us,' said +Steerforth, with indifference. 'They are not to be expected to be +as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or +hurt easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say - some +people contend for that, at least; and I am sure I don't want to +contradict them - but they have not very fine natures, and they may +be thankful that, like their coarse rough skins, they are not +easily wounded.' + +'Really!' said Miss Dartle. 'Well, I don't know, now, when I have +been better pleased than to hear that. It's so consoling! It's +such a delight to know that, when they suffer, they don't feel! +Sometimes I have been quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now +I shall just dismiss the idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. +I had my doubts, I confess, but now they're cleared up. I didn't +know, and now I do know, and that shows the advantage of asking - +don't it?' + +I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to +draw Miss Dartle out; and I expected him to say as much when she +was gone, and we two were sitting before the fire. But he merely +asked me what I thought of her. + +'She is very clever, is she not?' I asked. + +'Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone,' said Steerforth, +and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these +years past. She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She +is all edge.' + +'What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!' I said. + +Steerforth's face fell, and he paused a moment. + +'Why, the fact is,' he returned, 'I did that.' + +'By an unfortunate accident!' + +'No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a +hammer at her. A promising young angel I must have been!' +I was deeply sorry to have touched on such a painful theme, but +that was useless now. + +'She has borne the mark ever since, as you see,' said Steerforth; +'and she'll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one - though +I can hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the +motherless child of a sort of cousin of my father's. He died one +day. My mother, who was then a widow, brought her here to be +company to her. She has a couple of thousand pounds of her own, +and saves the interest of it every year, to add to the principal. +There's the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for you.' + +'And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?' said I. + +'Humph!' retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. 'Some brothers +are not loved over much; and some love - but help yourself, +Copperfield! We'll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment +to you; and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they +spin, in compliment to me - the more shame for me!' A moody smile +that had overspread his features cleared off as he said this +merrily, and he was his own frank, winning self again. + +I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when +we went in to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was +the most susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned +pale, that mark altered first, and became a dull, lead-coloured +streak, lengthening out to its full extent, like a mark in +invisible ink brought to the fire. There was a little altercation +between her and Steerforth about a cast of the dice at back gammon +- when I thought her, for one moment, in a storm of rage; and then +I saw it start forth like the old writing on the wall. + +It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth devoted to +her son. She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing +else. She showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket, with +some of his baby-hair in it; she showed me his picture as he had +been when I first knew him; and she wore at her breast his picture +as he was now. All the letters he had ever written to her, she +kept in a cabinet near her own chair by the fire; and she would +have read me some of them, and I should have been very glad to hear +them too, if he had not interposed, and coaxed her out of the +design. + +'It was at Mr. Creakle's, my son tells me, that you first became +acquainted,' said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one +table, while they played backgammon at another. 'Indeed, I +recollect his speaking, at that time, of a pupil younger than +himself who had taken his fancy there; but your name, as you may +suppose, has not lived in my memory.' + +'He was very generous and noble to me in those days, I assure you, +ma'am,' said I, 'and I stood in need of such a friend. I should +have been quite crushed without him.' + +'He is always generous and noble,' said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly. + +I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She knew I did; +for the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except +when she spoke in praise of him, and then her air was always lofty. + +'It was not a fit school generally for my son,' said she; 'far from +it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the +time, of more importance even than that selection. My son's high +spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who +felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before +it; and we found such a man there.' + +I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not despise him the +more for it, but thought it a redeeming quality in him if he could +be allowed any grace for not resisting one so irresistible as +Steerforth. + +'My son's great capacity was tempted on, there, by a feeling of +voluntary emulation and conscious pride,' the fond lady went on to +say. 'He would have risen against all constraint; but he found +himself the monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be +worthy of his station. It was like himself.' + +I echoed, with all my heart and soul, that it was like himself. + +'So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the +course in which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip +every competitor,' she pursued. 'My son informs me, Mr. +Copperfield, that you were quite devoted to him, and that when you +met yesterday you made yourself known to him with tears of joy. I +should be an affected woman if I made any pretence of being +surprised by my son's inspiring such emotions; but I cannot be +indifferent to anyone who is so sensible of his merit, and I am +very glad to see you here, and can assure you that he feels an +unusual friendship for you, and that you may rely on his +protection.' + +Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything +else. If I had seen her, first, at the board, I should have +fancied that her figure had got thin, and her eyes had got large, +over that pursuit, and no other in the world. But I am very much +mistaken if she missed a word of this, or lost a look of mine as I +received it with the utmost pleasure, and honoured by Mrs. +Steerforth's confidence, felt older than I had done since I left +Canterbury. + +When the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of glasses and +decanters came in, Steerforth promised, over the fire, that he +would seriously think of going down into the country with me. +There was no hurry, he said; a week hence would do; and his mother +hospitably said the same. While we were talking, he more than once +called me Daisy; which brought Miss Dartle out again. + +'But really, Mr. Copperfield,' she asked, 'is it a nickname? And +why does he give it you? Is it - eh? - because he thinks you young +and innocent? I am so stupid in these things.' + +I coloured in replying that I believed it was. + +'Oh!' said Miss Dartle. 'Now I am glad to know that! I ask for +information, and I am glad to know it. He thinks you young and +innocent; and so you are his friend. Well, that's quite +delightful!' + +She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs. Steerforth retired too. +Steerforth and I, after lingering for half-an-hour over the fire, +talking about Traddles and all the rest of them at old Salem House, +went upstairs together. Steerforth's room was next to mine, and I +went in to look at it. It was a picture of comfort, full of +easy-chairs, cushions and footstools, worked by his mother's hand, +and with no sort of thing omitted that could help to render it +complete. Finally, her handsome features looked down on her +darling from a portrait on the wall, as if it were even something +to her that her likeness should watch him while he slept. + +I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time, and +the curtains drawn before the windows and round the bed, giving it +a very snug appearance. I sat down in a great chair upon the +hearth to meditate on my happiness; and had enjoyed the +contemplation of it for some time, when I found a likeness of Miss +Dartle looking eagerly at me from above the chimney-piece. + +It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look. +The painter hadn't made the scar, but I made it; and there it was, +coming and going; now confined to the upper lip as I had seen it at +dinner, and now showing the whole extent of the wound inflicted by +the hammer, as I had seen it when she was passionate. + +I wondered peevishly why they couldn't put her anywhere else +instead of quartering her on me. To get rid of her, I undressed +quickly, extinguished my light, and went to bed. But, as I fell +asleep, I could not forget that she was still there looking, 'Is it +really, though? I want to know'; and when I awoke in the night, I +found that I was uneasily asking all sorts of people in my dreams +whether it really was or not - without knowing what I meant. + + + +CHAPTER 21 +LITTLE EM'LY + + +There was a servant in that house, a man who, I understood, was +usually with Steerforth, and had come into his service at the +University, who was in appearance a pattern of respectability. I +believe there never existed in his station a more +respectable-looking man. He was taciturn, soft-footed, very quiet +in his manner, deferential, observant, always at hand when wanted, +and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to +consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he +had rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair +clinging to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a +peculiar habit of whispering the letter S so distinctly, that he +seemed to use it oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity +that he had he made respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, +he would have made that respectable. He surrounded himself with an +atmosphere of respectability, and walked secure in it. It would +have been next to impossible to suspect him of anything wrong, he +was so thoroughly respectable. Nobody could have thought of +putting him in a livery, he was so highly respectable. To have +imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have been to inflict a +wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable man. And of +this, I noticed- the women-servants in the household were so +intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, +and generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire. + +Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in +every other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more +respectable. Even the fact that no one knew his Christian name, +seemed to form a part of his respectability. Nothing could be +objected against his surname, Littimer, by which he was known. +Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported; but Littimer was +perfectly respectable. + +It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of +respectability in the abstract, but I felt particularly young in +this man's presence. How old he was himself, I could not guess - +and that again went to his credit on the same score; for in the +calmness of respectability he might have numbered fifty years as +well as thirty. + +Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me +that reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I +undrew the curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable +temperature of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of +January, and not even breathing frostily, standing my boots right +and left in the first dancing position, and blowing specks of dust +off my coat as he laid it down like a baby. + +I gave him good morning, and asked him what o'clock it was. He +took out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever +saw, and preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, +looked in at the face as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, +shut it up again, and said, if I pleased, it was half past eight. + +'Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir.' + +'Thank you,' said I, 'very well indeed. Is Mr. Steerforth quite +well?' + +'Thank you, sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well.' Another of his +characteristics - no use of superlatives. A cool calm medium +always. + +'Is there anything more I can have the honour of doing for you, +sir? The warning-bell will ring at nine; the family take breakfast +at half past nine.' + +'Nothing, I thank you.' + +'I thank YOU, sir, if you please'; and with that, and with a little +inclination of his head when he passed the bed-side, as an apology +for correcting me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as +if I had just fallen into a sweet sleep on which my life depended. + +Every morning we held exactly this conversation: never any more, +and never any less: and yet, invariably, however far I might have +been lifted out of myself over-night, and advanced towards maturer +years, by Steerforth's companionship, or Mrs. Steerforth's +confidence, or Miss Dartle's conversation, in the presence of this +most respectable man I became, as our smaller poets sing, 'a boy +again'. + +He got horses for us; and Steerforth, who knew everything, gave me +lessons in riding. He provided foils for us, and Steerforth gave +me lessons in fencing - gloves, and I began, of the same master, to +improve in boxing. It gave me no manner of concern that Steerforth +should find me a novice in these sciences, but I never could bear +to show my want of skill before the respectable Littimer. I had no +reason to believe that Littimer understood such arts himself; he +never led me to suppose anything of the kind, by so much as the +vibration of one of his respectable eyelashes; yet whenever he was +by, while we were practising, I felt myself the greenest and most +inexperienced of mortals. + +I am particular about this man, because he made a particular effect +on me at that time, and because of what took place thereafter. + +The week passed away in a most delightful manner. It passed +rapidly, as may be supposed, to one entranced as I was; and yet it +gave me so many occasions for knowing Steerforth better, and +admiring him more in a thousand respects, that at its close I +seemed to have been with him for a much longer time. A dashing way +he had of treating me like a plaything, was more agreeable to me +than any behaviour he could have adopted. It reminded me of our +old acquaintance; it seemed the natural sequel of it; it showed me +that he was unchanged; it relieved me of any uneasiness I might +have felt, in comparing my merits with his, and measuring my claims +upon his friendship by any equal standard; above all, it was a +familiar, unrestrained, affectionate demeanour that he used towards +no one else. As he had treated me at school differently from all +the rest, I joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike any +other friend he had. I believed that I was nearer to his heart +than any other friend, and my own heart warmed with attachment to +him. +He made up his mind to go with me into the country, and the day +arrived for our departure. He had been doubtful at first whether +to take Littimer or not, but decided to leave him at home. The +respectable creature, satisfied with his lot whatever it was, +arranged our portmanteaux on the little carriage that was to take +us into London, as if they were intended to defy the shocks of +ages, and received my modestly proffered donation with perfect +tranquillity. + +We bade adieu to Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, with many thanks +on my part, and much kindness on the devoted mother's. The last +thing I saw was Littimer's unruffled eye; fraught, as I fancied, +with the silent conviction that I was very young indeed. + +What I felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old familiar +places, I shall not endeavour to describe. We went down by the +Mail. I was so concerned, I recollect, even for the honour of +Yarmouth, that when Steerforth said, as we drove through its dark +streets to the inn, that, as well as he could make out, it was a +good, queer, out-of-the-way kind of hole, I was highly pleased. We +went to bed on our arrival (I observed a pair of dirty shoes and +gaiters in connexion with my old friend the Dolphin as we passed +that door), and breakfasted late in the morning. Steerforth, who +was in great spirits, had been strolling about the beach before I +was up, and had made acquaintance, he said, with half the boatmen +in the place. Moreover, he had seen, in the distance, what he was +sure must be the identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming +out of the chimney; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk +in and swear he was myself grown out of knowledge. + +'When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy?' he said. 'I am +at your disposal. Make your own arrangements.' + +'Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a good time, +Steerforth, when they are all sitting round the fire. I should +like you to see it when it's snug, it's such a curious place.' + +'So be it!' returned Steerforth. 'This evening.' + +'I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know,' said +I, delighted. 'We must take them by surprise.' + +'Oh, of course! It's no fun,' said Steerforth, 'unless we take +them by surprise. Let us see the natives in their aboriginal +condition.' + +'Though they ARE that sort of people that you mentioned,' I +returned. + +'Aha! What! you recollect my skirmishes with Rosa, do you?' he +exclaimed with a quick look. 'Confound the girl, I am half afraid +of her. She's like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what +are you going to do? You are going to see your nurse, I suppose?' + +'Why, yes,' I said, 'I must see Peggotty first of all.' + +'Well,' replied Steerforth, looking at his watch. 'Suppose I +deliver you up to be cried over for a couple of hours. Is that +long enough?' + +I answered, laughing, that I thought we might get through it in +that time, but that he must come also; for he would find that his +renown had preceded him, and that he was almost as great a +personage as I was. + +'I'll come anywhere you like,' said Steerforth, 'or do anything you +like. Tell me where to come to; and in two hours I'll produce +myself in any state you please, sentimental or comical.' + +I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. +Barkis, carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere; and, on this +understanding, went out alone. There was a sharp bracing air; the +ground was dry; the sea was crisp and clear; the sun was diffusing +abundance of light, if not much warmth; and everything was fresh +and lively. I was so fresh and lively myself, in the pleasure of +being there, that I could have stopped the people in the streets +and shaken hands with them. + +The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only +seen as children always do, I believe, when we go back to them. +But I had forgotten nothing in them, and found nothing changed, +until I came to Mr. Omer's shop. OMER AND Joram was now written +up, where OMER used to be; but the inscription, DRAPER, TAILOR, +HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &c., remained as it was. + +My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop door, after I +had read these words from over the way, that I went across the road +and looked in. There was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, +dancing a little child in her arms, while another little fellow +clung to her apron. I had no difficulty in recognizing either +Minnie or Minnie's children. The glass door of the parlour was not +open; but in the workshop across the yard I could faintly hear the +old tune playing, as if it had never left off. + +'Is Mr. Omer at home?' said I, entering. 'I should like to see +him, for a moment, if he is.' + +'Oh yes, sir, he is at home,' said Minnie; 'the weather don't suit +his asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grandfather!' + +The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty +shout, that the sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his +face in her skirts, to her great admiration. I heard a heavy +puffing and blowing coming towards us, and soon Mr. Omer, +shorter-winded than of yore, but not much older-looking, stood +before me. + +'Servant, sir,' said Mr. Omer. 'What can I do for you, sir?' +'You can shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you please,' said I, +putting out my own. 'You were very good-natured to me once, when +I am afraid I didn't show that I thought so.' + +'Was I though?' returned the old man. 'I'm glad to hear it, but I +don't remember when. Are you sure it was me?' + +'Quite.' + +'I think my memory has got as short as my breath,' said Mr. Omer, +looking at me and shaking his head; 'for I don't remember you.' + +'Don't you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my +having breakfast here, and our riding out to Blunderstone together: +you, and I, and Mrs. Joram, and Mr. Joram too - who wasn't her +husband then?' + +'Why, Lord bless my soul!' exclaimed Mr. Omer, after being thrown +by his surprise into a fit of coughing, 'you don't say so! Minnie, +my dear, you recollect? Dear me, yes; the party was a lady, I +think?' + +'My mother,' I rejoined. + +'To - be - sure,' said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat with his +forefinger, 'and there was a little child too! There was two +parties. The little party was laid along with the other party. +Over at Blunderstone it was, of course. Dear me! And how have you +been since?' + +Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too. + +'Oh! nothing to grumble at, you know,' said Mr. Omer. 'I find my +breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. +I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That's the best +way, ain't it?' + +Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was +assisted out of his fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside +us, dancing her smallest child on the counter. + +'Dear me!' said Mr. Omer. 'Yes, to be sure. Two parties! Why, in +that very ride, if you'll believe me, the day was named for my +Minnie to marry Joram. "Do name it, sir," says Joram. "Yes, do, +father," says Minnie. And now he's come into the business. And +look here! The youngest!' + +Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as +her father put one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child +she was dancing on the counter. + +'Two parties, of course!' said Mr. Omer, nodding his head +retrospectively. 'Ex-actly so! And Joram's at work, at this +minute, on a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement' - +the measurement of the dancing child upon the counter - 'by a good +two inches. - Will you take something?' + +I thanked him, but declined. + +'Let me see,' said Mr. Omer. 'Barkis's the carrier's wife - +Peggotty's the boatman's sister - she had something to do with your +family? She was in service there, sure?' + +My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction. + +'I believe my breath will get long next, my memory's getting so +much so,' said Mr. Omer. 'Well, sir, we've got a young relation of +hers here, under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the +dress-making business - I assure you I don't believe there's a +Duchess in England can touch her.' + +'Not little Em'ly?' said I, involuntarily. + +'Em'ly's her name,' said Mr. Omer, 'and she's little too. But if +you'll believe me, she has such a face of her own that half the +women in this town are mad against her.' + +'Nonsense, father!' cried Minnie. + +'My dear,' said Mr. Omer, 'I don't say it's the case with you,' +winking at me, 'but I say that half the women in Yarmouth - ah! and +in five mile round - are mad against that girl.' + +'Then she should have kept to her own station in life, father,' +said Minnie, 'and not have given them any hold to talk about her, +and then they couldn't have done it.' + +'Couldn't have done it, my dear!' retorted Mr. Omer. 'Couldn't +have done it! Is that YOUR knowledge of life? What is there that +any woman couldn't do, that she shouldn't do - especially on the +subject of another woman's good looks?' + +I really thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had +uttered this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and +his breath eluded all his attempts to recover it with that +obstinacy, that I fully expected to see his head go down behind the +counter, and his little black breeches, with the rusty little +bunches of ribbons at the knees, come quivering up in a last +ineffectual struggle. At length, however, he got better, though he +still panted hard, and was so exhausted that he was obliged to sit +on the stool of the shop-desk. + +'You see,' he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, +'she hasn't taken much to any companions here; she hasn't taken +kindly to any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention +sweethearts. In consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that +Em'ly wanted to be a lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into +circulation principally on account of her sometimes saying, at the +school, that if she was a lady she would like to do so-and-so for +her uncle - don't you see? - and buy him such-and-such fine +things.' + +'I assure you, Mr. Omer, she has said so to me,' I returned +eagerly, 'when we were both children.' + +Mr. Omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. 'Just so. Then out +of a very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than +most others could out of a deal, and that made things unpleasant. +Moreover, she was rather what might be called wayward - I'll go so +far as to say what I should call wayward myself,' said Mr. Omer; '- +didn't know her own mind quite - a little spoiled - and couldn't, +at first, exactly bind herself down. No more than that was ever +said against her, Minnie?' + +'No, father,' said Mrs. Joram. 'That's the worst, I believe.' + +'So when she got a situation,' said Mr. Omer, 'to keep a fractious +old lady company, they didn't very well agree, and she didn't stop. +At last she came here, apprenticed for three years. Nearly two of +'em are over, and she has been as good a girl as ever was. Worth +any six! Minnie, is she worth any six, now?' + +'Yes, father,' replied Minnie. 'Never say I detracted from her!' + +'Very good,' said Mr. Omer. 'That's right. And so, young +gentleman,' he added, after a few moments' further rubbing of his +chin, 'that you may not consider me long-winded as well as +short-breathed, I believe that's all about it.' + +As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of Em'ly, I +had no doubt that she was near. On my asking now, if that were not +so, Mr. Omer nodded yes, and nodded towards the door of the +parlour. My hurried inquiry if I might peep in, was answered with +a free permission; and, looking through the glass, I saw her +sitting at her work. I saw her, a most beautiful little creature, +with the cloudless blue eyes, that had looked into my childish +heart, turned laughingly upon another child of Minnie's who was +playing near her; with enough of wilfulness in her bright face to +justify what I had heard; with much of the old capricious coyness +lurking in it; but with nothing in her pretty looks, I am sure, but +what was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what was on a +good and + +happy course. + +The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off - +alas! it was the tune that never DOES leave off - was beating, +softly, all the while. + +'Wouldn't you like to step in,' said Mr. Omer, 'and speak to her? +Walk in and speak to her, sir! Make yourself at home!' + +I was too bashful to do so then - I was afraid of confusing her, +and I was no less afraid of confusing myself.- but I informed +myself of the hour at which she left of an evening, in order that +our visit might be timed accordingly; and taking leave of Mr. Omer, +and his pretty daughter, and her little children, went away to my +dear old Peggotty's. + +Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! The moment I +knocked at the door she opened it, and asked me what I pleased to +want. I looked at her with a smile, but she gave me no smile in +return. I had never ceased to write to her, but it must have been +seven years since we had met. + +'Is Mr. Barkis at home, ma'am?' I said, feigning to speak roughly +to her. + +'He's at home, sir,' returned Peggotty, 'but he's bad abed with the +rheumatics.' + +'Don't he go over to Blunderstone now?' I asked. + +'When he's well he do,' she answered. + +'Do YOU ever go there, Mrs. Barkis?' + +She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement +of her hands towards each other. + +'Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they +call the - what is it? - the Rookery,' said I. + +She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided +frightened way, as if to keep me off. + +'Peggotty!' I cried to her. + +She cried, 'My darling boy!' and we both burst into tears, and were +locked in one another's arms. + +What extravagances she committed; what laughing and crying over me; +what pride she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride +and joy I might have been, could never hold me in a fond embrace; +I have not the heart to tell. I was troubled with no misgiving +that it was young in me to respond to her emotions. I had never +laughed and cried in all my life, I dare say - not even to her - +more freely than I did that morning. + +'Barkis will be so glad,' said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her +apron, 'that it'll do him more good than pints of liniment. May I +go and tell him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my +dear?' + +Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as +easily as she meant to, for as often as she got to the door and +looked round at me, she came back again to have another laugh and +another cry upon my shoulder. At last, to make the matter easier, +I went upstairs with her; and having waited outside for a minute, +while she said a word of preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented +myself before that invalid. + +He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to +be shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the +top of his nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down +by the side of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to +feel as if he was driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he +lay in bed, face upward, and so covered, with that exception, that +he seemed to be nothing but a face - like a conventional cherubim +- he looked the queerest object I ever beheld. + +'What name was it, as I wrote up in the cart, sir?' said Mr. +Barkis, with a slow rheumatic smile. + +'Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn't +we?' + +'I was willin' a long time, sir?' said Mr. Barkis. + +'A long time,' said I. + +'And I don't regret it,' said Mr. Barkis. 'Do you remember what +you told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing +all the cooking?' + +'Yes, very well,' I returned. + +'It was as true,' said Mr. Barkis, 'as turnips is. It was as +true,' said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only +means of emphasis, 'as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them.' + +Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this +result of his reflections in bed; and I gave it. + +'Nothing's truer than them,' repeated Mr. Barkis; 'a man as poor as +I am, finds that out in his mind when he's laid up. I'm a very +poor man, sir!' + +'I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis.' + +'A very poor man, indeed I am,' said Mr. Barkis. + +Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the +bedclothes, and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a +stick which was loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some +poking about with this instrument, in the course of which his face +assumed a variety of distracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it +against a box, an end of which had been visible to me all the time. +Then his face became composed. + +'Old clothes,' said Mr. Barkis. + +'Oh!' said I. + +'I wish it was Money, sir,' said Mr. Barkis. + +'I wish it was, indeed,' said I. + +'But it AIN'T,' said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as +he possibly could. + +I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis, turning his +eyes more gently to his wife, said: + +'She's the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis. All the +praise that anyone can give to C. P. Barkis, she deserves, and +more! My dear, you'll get a dinner today, for company; something +good to eat and drink, will you?' + +I should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in +my honour, but that I saw Peggotty, on the opposite side of the +bed, extremely anxious I should not. So I held my peace. + +'I have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear,' said +Mr. Barkis, 'but I'm a little tired. If you and Mr. David will +leave me for a short nap, I'll try and find it when I wake.' + +We left the room, in compliance with this request. When we got +outside the door, Peggotty informed me that Mr. Barkis, being now +'a little nearer' than he used to be, always resorted to this same +device before producing a single coin from his store; and that he +endured unheard-of agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking +it from that unlucky box. In effect, we presently heard him +uttering suppressed groans of the most dismal nature, as this +magpie proceeding racked him in every joint; but while Peggotty's +eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his generous impulse +would do him good, and it was better not to check it. So he +groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering, I have no +doubt, a martyrdom; and then called us in, pretending to have just +woke up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under +his pillow. His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and +in having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to +be a sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures. + +I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth's arrival and it was not long +before he came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his +having been a personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, +and that she would have received him with the utmost gratitude and +devotion in any case. But his easy, spirited good humour; his +genial manner, his handsome looks, his natural gift of adapting +himself to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he cared +to do it, to the main point of interest in anybody's heart; bound +her to him wholly in five minutes. His manner to me, alone, would +have won her. But, through all these causes combined, I sincerely +believe she had a kind of adoration for him before he left the +house that night. + +He stayed there with me to dinner - if I were to say willingly, I +should not half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. +Barkis's room like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as +if he were healthy weather. There was no noise, no effort, no +consciousness, in anything he did; but in everything an +indescribable lightness, a seeming impossibility of doing anything +else, or doing anything better, which was so graceful, so natural, +and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even now, in the remembrance. + +We made merry in the little parlour, where the Book of Martyrs, +unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and +where I now turned over its terrific pictures, remembering the old +sensations they had awakened, but not feeling them. When Peggotty +spoke of what she called my room, and of its being ready for me at +night, and of her hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much +as look at Steerforth, hesitating, he was possessed of the whole +case. + +'Of course,' he said. 'You'll sleep here, while we stay, and I +shall sleep at the hotel.' + +'But to bring you so far,' I returned, 'and to separate, seems bad +companionship, Steerforth.' + +'Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally belong?' he +said. 'What is "seems", compared to that?' It was settled at +once. + +He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we +started forth, at eight o'clock, for Mr. Peggotty's boat. Indeed, +they were more and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on; +for I thought even then, and I have no doubt now, that the +consciousness of success in his determination to please, inspired +him with a new delicacy of perception, and made it, subtle as it +was, more easy to him. If anyone had told me, then, that all this +was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for +the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of +superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was +worthless to him, and next minute thrown away - I say, if anyone +had told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of +receiving it my indignation would have found a vent! Probably only +in an increase, had that been possible, of the romantic feelings of +fidelity and friendship with which I walked beside him, over the +dark wintry sands towards the old boat; the wind sighing around us +even more mournfully, than it had sighed and moaned upon the night +when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty's door. + +'This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not?' + +'Dismal enough in the dark,' he said: 'and the sea roars as if it +were hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder?' +'That's the boat,' said I. + +'And it's the same I saw this morning,' he returned. 'I came +straight to it, by instinct, I suppose.' + +We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the +door. I laid my hand upon the latch; and whispering Steerforth to +keep close to me, went in. + +A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the +moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands: which latter noise, I +was surprised to see, proceeded from the generally disconsolate +Mrs. Gummidge. But Mrs. Gummidge was not the only person there who +was unusually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with +uncommon satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his +rough arms wide open, as if for little Em'ly to run into them; Ham, +with a mixed expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and +a lumbering sort of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held +little Em'ly by the hand, as if he were presenting her to Mr. +Peggotty; little Em'ly herself, blushing and shy, but delighted +with Mr. Peggotty's delight, as her joyous eyes expressed, was +stopped by our entrance (for she saw us first) in the very act of +springing from Ham to nestle in Mr. Peggotty's embrace. In the +first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of our passing +from the dark cold night into the warm light room, this was the way +in which they were all employed: Mrs. Gummidge in the background, +clapping her hands like a madwoman. + +The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going +in, that one might have doubted whether it had ever been. I was in +the midst of the astonished family, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, +and holding out my hand to him, when Ham shouted: + +'Mas'r Davy! It's Mas'r Davy!' + +In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking +one another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to +meet, and all talking at once. Mr. Peggotty was so proud and +overjoyed to see us, that he did not know what to say or do, but +kept over and over again shaking hands with me, and then with +Steerforth, and then with me, and then ruffling his shaggy hair all +over his head, and laughing with such glee and triumph, that it was +a treat to see him. + +'Why, that you two gent'lmen - gent'lmen growed - should come to +this here roof tonight, of all nights in my life,' said Mr. +Peggotty, 'is such a thing as never happened afore, I do rightly +believe! Em'ly, my darling, come here! Come here, my little +witch! There's Mas'r Davy's friend, my dear! There's the +gent'lman as you've heerd on, Em'ly. He comes to see you, along +with Mas'r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle's life as +ever was or will be, Gorm the t'other one, and horroar for it!' + +After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with +extraordinary animation and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one of his +large hands rapturously on each side of his niece's face, and +kissing it a dozen times, laid it with a gentle pride and love upon +his broad chest, and patted it as if his hand had been a lady's. +Then he let her go; and as she ran into the little chamber where I +used to sleep, looked round upon us, quite hot and out of breath +with his uncommon satisfaction. + +'If you two gent'lmen - gent'lmen growed now, and such gent'lmen -' +said Mr. Peggotty. + +'So th' are, so th' are!' cried Ham. 'Well said! So th' are. +Mas'r Davy bor' - gent'lmen growed - so th' are!' + +'If you two gent'lmen, gent'lmen growed,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'don't +ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand +matters, I'll arks your pardon. Em'ly, my dear! - She knows I'm a +going to tell,' here his delight broke out again, 'and has made +off. Would you be so good as look arter her, Mawther, for a +minute?' + +Mrs. Gummidge nodded and disappeared. + +'If this ain't,' said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among us by the +fire, 'the brightest night o' my life, I'm a shellfish - biled too +- and more I can't say. This here little Em'ly, sir,' in a low +voice to Steerforth, '- her as you see a blushing here just now -' + +Steerforth only nodded; but with such a pleased expression of +interest, and of participation in Mr. Peggotty's feelings, that the +latter answered him as if he had spoken. + +'To be sure,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'That's her, and so she is. +Thankee, sir.' + +Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too. + +'This here little Em'ly of ours,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'has been, in +our house, what I suppose (I'm a ignorant man, but that's my +belief) no one but a little bright-eyed creetur can be in a house. +She ain't my child; I never had one; but I couldn't love her more. +You understand! I couldn't do it!' + +'I quite understand,' said Steerforth. + +'I know you do, sir,' returned Mr. Peggotty, 'and thankee again. +Mas'r Davy, he can remember what she was; you may judge for your +own self what she is; but neither of you can't fully know what she +has been, is, and will be, to my loving art. I am rough, sir,' +said Mr. Peggotty, 'I am as rough as a Sea Porkypine; but no one, +unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can know, I think, what our little +Em'ly is to me. And betwixt ourselves,' sinking his voice lower +yet, 'that woman's name ain't Missis Gummidge neither, though she +has a world of merits.' +Mr. Peggotty ruffled his hair again, with both hands, as a further +preparation for what he was going to say, and went on, with a hand +upon each of his knees: + +'There was a certain person as had know'd our Em'ly, from the time +when her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a +babby, when a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to +look at, he warn't,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'something o' my own build +- rough - a good deal o' the sou'-wester in him - wery salt - but, +on the whole, a honest sort of a chap, with his art in the right +place.' + +I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to +which he sat grinning at us now. + +'What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do,' said Mr. +Peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, 'but he loses +that there art of his to our little Em'ly. He follers her about, +he makes hisself a sort o' servant to her, he loses in a great +measure his relish for his wittles, and in the long-run he makes it +clear to me wot's amiss. Now I could wish myself, you see, that +our little Em'ly was in a fair way of being married. I could wish +to see her, at all ewents, under articles to a honest man as had a +right to defend her. I don't know how long I may live, or how soon +I may die; but I know that if I was capsized, any night, in a gale +of wind in Yarmouth Roads here, and was to see the town-lights +shining for the last time over the rollers as I couldn't make no +head against, I could go down quieter for thinking "There's a man +ashore there, iron-true to my little Em'ly, God bless her, and no +wrong can touch my Em'ly while so be as that man lives."' + +Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he +were waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, +exchanging a nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as +before. + +'Well! I counsels him to speak to Em'ly. He's big enough, but he's +bashfuller than a little un, and he don't like. So I speak. +"What! Him!" says Em'ly. "Him that I've know'd so intimate so +many years, and like so much. Oh, Uncle! I never can have him. +He's such a good fellow!" I gives her a kiss, and I says no more to +her than, "My dear, you're right to speak out, you're to choose for +yourself, you're as free as a little bird." Then I aways to him, +and I says, "I wish it could have been so, but it can't. But you +can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, Be as you was with +her, like a man." He says to me, a-shaking of my hand, "I will!" he +says. And he was - honourable and manful - for two year going on, +and we was just the same at home here as afore.' + +Mr. Peggotty's face, which had varied in its expression with the +various stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former +triumphant delight, as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon +Steerforth's (previously wetting them both, for the greater +emphasis of the action), and divided the following speech between +us: + +'All of a sudden, one evening - as it might be tonight - comes +little Em'ly from her work, and him with her! There ain't so much +in that, you'll say. No, because he takes care on her, like a +brother, arter dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But +this tarpaulin chap, he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to +me, joyful, "Look here! This is to be my little wife!" And she +says, half bold and half shy, and half a laughing and half a +crying, "Yes, Uncle! If you please." - If I please!' cried Mr. +Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstasy at the idea; 'Lord, as if +I should do anythink else! - "If you please, I am steadier now, and +I have thought better of it, and I'll be as good a little wife as +I can to him, for he's a dear, good fellow!" Then Missis Gummidge, +she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. Theer! the +murder's out!' said Mr. Peggotty - 'You come in! It took place +this here present hour; and here's the man that'll marry her, the +minute she's out of her time.' + +Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt +him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; +but feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much +faltering and great difficulty: + +'She warn't no higher than you was, Mas'r Davy - when you first +come - when I thought what she'd grow up to be. I see her grown up +- gent'lmen - like a flower. I'd lay down my life for her - Mas'r +Davy - Oh! most content and cheerful! She's more to me - gent'lmen +- than - she's all to me that ever I can want, and more than ever +I - than ever I could say. I - I love her true. There ain't a +gent'lman in all the land - nor yet sailing upon all the sea - that +can love his lady more than I love her, though there's many a +common man - would say better - what he meant.' + +I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham was now, +trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little +creature who had won his heart. I thought the simple confidence +reposed in us by Mr. Peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, +affecting. I was affected by the story altogether. How far my +emotions were influenced by the recollections of my childhood, I +don't know. Whether I had come there with any lingering fancy that +I was still to love little Em'ly, I don't know. I know that I was +filled with pleasure by all this; but, at first, with an +indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have +changed to pain. + +Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord +among them with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. +But it depended upon Steerforth; and he did it with such address, +that in a few minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was +possible to be. + +'Mr. Peggotty,' he said, 'you are a thoroughly good fellow, and +deserve to be as happy as you are tonight. My hand upon it! Ham, +I give you joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Daisy, stir the +fire, and make it a brisk one! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can +induce your gentle niece to come back (for whom I vacate this seat +in the corner), I shall go. Any gap at your fireside on such a +night - such a gap least of all - I wouldn't make, for the wealth +of the Indies!' + +So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch little Em'ly. At +first little Em'ly didn't like to come, and then Ham went. +Presently they brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and +very shy, - but she soon became more assured when she found how +gently and respectfully Steerforth spoke to her; how skilfully he +avoided anything that would embarrass her; how he talked to Mr. +Peggotty of boats, and ships, and tides, and fish; how he referred +to me about the time when he had seen Mr. Peggotty at Salem House; +how delighted he was with the boat and all belonging to it; how +lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought us, by degrees, +into a charmed circle, and we were all talking away without any +reserve. + +Em'ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked, and +listened, and her face got animated, and she was charming. +Steerforth told a story of a dismal shipwreck (which arose out of +his talk with Mr. Peggotty), as if he saw it all before him - and +little Em'ly's eyes were fastened on him all the time, as if she +saw it too. He told us a merry adventure of his own, as a relief +to that, with as much gaiety as if the narrative were as fresh to +him as it was to us - and little Em'ly laughed until the boat rang +with the musical sounds, and we all laughed (Steerforth too), in +irresistible sympathy with what was so pleasant and light-hearted. +He got Mr. Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, 'When the stormy +winds do blow, do blow, do blow'; and he sang a sailor's song +himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that I could have almost +fancied that the real wind creeping sorrowfully round the house, +and murmuring low through our unbroken silence, was there to +listen. + +As to Mrs. Gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a +success never attained by anyone else (so Mr. Peggotty informed +me), since the decease of the old one. He left her so little +leisure for being miserable, that she said next day she thought she +must have been bewitched. + +But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the +conversation. When little Em'ly grew more courageous, and talked +(but still bashfully) across the fire to me, of our old wanderings +upon the beach, to pick up shells and pebbles; and when I asked her +if she recollected how I used to be devoted to her; and when we +both laughed and reddened, casting these looks back on the pleasant +old times, so unreal to look at now; he was silent and attentive, +and observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at this time, and all the +evening, on the old locker in her old little corner by the fire - +Ham beside her, where I used to sit. I could not satisfy myself +whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly +reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away +from him; but I observed that she did so, all the evening. + +As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We +had had some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had +produced from his pocket a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I +may say we men, now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted +merrily; and as they all stood crowded round the door to light us +as far as they could upon our road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of +little Em'ly peeping after us, from behind Ham, and heard her soft +voice calling to us to be careful how we went. + +'A most engaging little Beauty!' said Steerforth, taking my arm. +'Well! It's a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it's +quite a new sensation to mix with them.' + +'How fortunate we are, too,' I returned, 'to have arrived to +witness their happiness in that intended marriage! I never saw +people so happy. How delightful to see it, and to be made the +sharers in their honest joy, as we have been!' + +'That's rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn't he?' +said Steerforth. + +He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that I felt a +shock in this unexpected and cold reply. But turning quickly upon +him, and seeing a laugh in his eyes, I answered, much relieved: + +'Ah, Steerforth! It's well for you to joke about the poor! You +may skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in +jest from me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you +understand them, how exquisitely you can enter into happiness like +this plain fisherman's, or humour a love like my old nurse's, I +know that there is not a joy or sorrow, not an emotion, of such +people, that can be indifferent to you. And I admire and love you +for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more!' + +He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, 'Daisy, I believe you +are in earnest, and are good. I wish we all were!' Next moment he +was gaily singing Mr. Peggotty's song, as we walked at a round pace +back to Yarmouth. + + + +CHAPTER 22 +SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE + + +Steerforth and I stayed for more than a fortnight in that part of +the country. We were very much together, I need not say; but +occasionally we were asunder for some hours at a time. He was a +good sailor, and I was but an indifferent one; and when he went out +boating with Mr. Peggotty, which was a favourite amusement of his, +I generally remained ashore. My occupation of Peggotty's +spare-room put a constraint upon me, from which he was free: for, +knowing how assiduously she attended on Mr. Barkis all day, I did +not like to remain out late at night; whereas Steerforth, lying at +the Inn, had nothing to consult but his own humour. Thus it came +about, that I heard of his making little treats for the fishermen +at Mr. Peggotty's house of call, 'The Willing Mind', after I was in +bed, and of his being afloat, wrapped in fishermen's clothes, whole +moonlight nights, and coming back when the morning tide was at +flood. By this time, however, I knew that his restless nature and +bold spirits delighted to find a vent in rough toil and hard +weather, as in any other means of excitement that presented itself +freshly to him; so none of his proceedings surprised me. + +Another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that I had +naturally an interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting +the old familiar scenes of my childhood; while Steerforth, after +being there once, had naturally no great interest in going there +again. Hence, on three or four days that I can at once recall, we +went our several ways after an early breakfast, and met again at a +late dinner. I had no idea how he employed his time in the +interval, beyond a general knowledge that he was very popular in +the place, and had twenty means of actively diverting himself where +another man might not have found one. + +For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to +recall every yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt +the old spots, of which I never tired. I haunted them, as my +memory had often done, and lingered among them as my younger +thoughts had lingered when I was far away. The grave beneath the +tree, where both my parents lay - on which I had looked out, when +it was my father's only, with such curious feelings of compassion, +and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it was opened to +receive my pretty mother and her baby - the grave which Peggotty's +own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden of, +I walked near, by the hour. It lay a little off the churchyard +path, in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I could read the +names upon the stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the sound +of the church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a +departed voice to me. My reflections at these times were always +associated with the figure I was to make in life, and the +distinguished things I was to do. My echoing footsteps went to no +other tune, but were as constant to that as if I had come home to +build my castles in the air at a living mother's side. + +There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long +deserted by the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and +topped out of their remembered shapes. The garden had run wild, +and half the windows of the house were shut up. It was occupied, +but only by a poor lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care +of him. He was always sitting at my little window, looking out +into the churchyard; and I wondered whether his rambling thoughts +ever went upon any of the fancies that used to occupy mine, on the +rosy mornings when I peeped out of that same little window in my +night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly feeding in the light of +the rising sun. + +Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South +America, and the rain had made its way through the roof of their +empty house, and stained the outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married +again to a tall, raw-boned, high-nosed wife; and they had a weazen +little baby, with a heavy head that it couldn't hold up, and two +weak staring eyes, with which it seemed to be always wondering why +it had ever been born. + +It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used +to linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun +admonished me that it was time to start on my returning walk. But, +when the place was left behind, and especially when Steerforth and +I were happily seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was +delicious to think of having been there. So it was, though in a +softened degree, when I went to my neat room at night; and, turning +over the leaves of the crocodile-book (which was always there, upon +a little table), remembered with a grateful heart how blest I was +in having such a friend as Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty, +and such a substitute for what I had lost as my excellent and +generous aunt. + +MY nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, +was by a ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the +sea, which I could make straight across, and so save myself a +considerable circuit by the high road. Mr. Peggotty's house being +on that waste-place, and not a hundred yards out of my track, I +always looked in as I went by. Steerforth was pretty sure to be +there expecting me, and we went on together through the frosty air +and gathering fog towards the twinkling lights of the town. + +One dark evening, when I was later than usual - for I had, that +day, been making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now +about to return home - I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty's house, +sitting thoughtfully before the fire. He was so intent upon his +own reflections that he was quite unconscious of my approach. +This, indeed, he might easily have been if he had been less +absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the sandy ground +outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was standing +close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he was +lost in his meditations. + +He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he +made me start too. + +'You come upon me,' he said, almost angrily, 'like a reproachful +ghost!' + +'I was obliged to announce myself, somehow,' I replied. 'Have I +called you down from the stars?' + +'No,' he answered. 'No.' + +'Up from anywhere, then?' said I, taking my seat near him. + +'I was looking at the pictures in the fire,' he returned. + +'But you are spoiling them for me,' said I, as he stirred it +quickly with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of +red-hot sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and +roaring out into the air. + +'You would not have seen them,' he returned. 'I detest this +mongrel time, neither day nor night. How late you are! Where have +you been?' + +'I have been taking leave of my usual walk,' said I. + +'And I have been sitting here,' said Steerforth, glancing round the +room, 'thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night +of our coming down, might - to judge from the present wasted air of +the place - be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don't know what +harm. David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last +twenty years!' + +'My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?' + +'I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!' he exclaimed. +'I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!' + +There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed +me. He was more unlike himself than I could have supposed +possible. + +'It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a +nephew,' he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the +chimney-piece, with his face towards the fire, 'than to be myself, +twenty times richer and twenty times wiser, and be the torment to +myself that I have been, in this Devil's bark of a boat, within the +last half-hour!' + +I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could +only observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his +hand, and looking gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged +him, with all the earnestness I felt, to tell me what had occurred +to cross him so unusually, and to let me sympathize with him, if I +could not hope to advise him. Before I had well concluded, he +began to laugh - fretfully at first, but soon with returning +gaiety. + +'Tut, it's nothing, Daisy! nothing!' he replied. 'I told you at +the inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I +have been a nightmare to myself, just now - must have had one, I +think. At odd dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory, +unrecognized for what they are. I believe I have been confounding +myself with the bad boy who "didn't care", and became food for +lions - a grander kind of going to the dogs, I suppose. What old +women call the horrors, have been creeping over me from head to +foot. I have been afraid of myself.' + +'You are afraid of nothing else, I think,' said I. + +'Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too,' he +answered. 'Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped +again, David; but I tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it +would have been well for me (and for more than me) if I had had a +steadfast and judicious father!' + +His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express +such a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with +his glance bent on the fire. + +'So much for that!' he said, making as if he tossed something light +into the air, with his hand. "'Why, being gone, I am a man again," +like Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like) +broken up the feast with most admired disorder, Daisy.' + +'But where are they all, I wonder!' said I. + +'God knows,' said Steerforth. 'After strolling to the ferry +looking for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. +That set me thinking, and you found me thinking.' + +The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house +had happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something +that was needed, against Mr. Peggotty's return with the tide; and +had left the door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em'ly, +with whom it was an early night, should come home while she was +gone. Steerforth, after very much improving Mrs. Gummidge's +spirits by a cheerful salutation and a jocose embrace, took my arm, +and hurried me away. + +He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge's, for +they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious +conversation as we went along. + +'And so,' he said, gaily, 'we abandon this buccaneer life tomorrow, +do we?' + +'So we agreed,' I returned. 'And our places by the coach are +taken, you know.' + +'Ay! there's no help for it, I suppose,' said Steerforth. 'I have +almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to +go out tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not.' + +'As long as the novelty should last,' said I, laughing. + +'Like enough,' he returned; 'though there's a sarcastic meaning in +that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young +friend. Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know +I am; but while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. +I could pass a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in +these waters, I think.' + +'Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder,' I returned. + +'A nautical phenomenon, eh?' laughed Steerforth. + +'Indeed he does, and you know how truly; I know how ardent you are +in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And +that amazes me most in you, Steerforth- that you should be +contented with such fitful uses of your powers.' + +'Contented?' he answered, merrily. 'I am never contented, except +with your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have +never learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on +which the Ixions of these days are turning round and round. I +missed it somehow in a bad apprenticeship, and now don't care about +it. - You know I have bought a boat down here?' + +'What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!' I exclaimed, +stopping - for this was the first I had heard of it. 'When you may +never care to come near the place again!' + +'I don't know that,' he returned. 'I have taken a fancy to the +place. At all events,' walking me briskly on, 'I have bought a +boat that was for sale - a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she +is - and Mr. Peggotty will be master of her in my absence.' + +'Now I understand you, Steerforth!' said I, exultingly. 'You +pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so +to confer a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, +knowing you. My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I +think of your generosity?' + +'Tush!' he answered, turning red. 'The less said, the better.' + +'Didn't I know?' cried I, 'didn't I say that there was not a joy, +or sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was +indifferent to you?' + +'Aye, aye,' he answered, 'you told me all that. There let it rest. +We have said enough!' + +Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so +light of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even +a quicker pace than before. + +'She must be newly rigged,' said Steerforth, 'and I shall leave +Littimer behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite +complete. Did I tell you Littimer had come down?' + +' No.' + +'Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother.' + +As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, +though he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some +difference between him and his mother might have led to his being +in the frame of mind in which I had found him at the solitary +fireside. I hinted so. + +'Oh no!' he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. +'Nothing of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine.' + +'The same as ever?' said I. + +'The same as ever,' said Steerforth. 'Distant and quiet as the +North Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She's the +"Stormy Petrel" now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy +Petrels! I'll have her christened again.' + +'By what name?' I asked. + +'The "Little Em'ly".' + +As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder +that he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could +not help showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said +little, and he resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved. + +'But see here,' he said, looking before us, 'where the original +little Em'ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, +he's a true knight. He never leaves her!' + +Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural +ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled +workman. He was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, +but manly withal, and a very fit protector for the blooming little +creature at his side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, +an honesty, and an undisguised show of his pride in her, and his +love for her, which were, to me, the best of good looks. I +thought, as they came towards us, that they were well matched even +in that particular. + +She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak +to them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When +they passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not +like to replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and +constrained, walked by herself. I thought all this very pretty and +engaging, and Steerforth seemed to think so too, as we looked after +them fading away in the light of a young moon. + +Suddenly there passed us - evidently following them - a young woman +whose approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she +went by, and thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly +dressed; looked bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but +seemed, for the time, to have given all that to the wind which was +blowing, and to have nothing in her mind but going after them. As +the dark distant level, absorbing their figures into itself, left +but itself visible between us and the sea and clouds, her figure +disappeared in like manner, still no nearer to them than before. + +'That is a black shadow to be following the girl,' said Steerforth, +standing still; 'what does it mean?' + +He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to Me. + +'She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,' said I. + +'A beggar would be no novelty,' said Steerforth; 'but it is a +strange thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight.' + +'Why?' I asked. + +'For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking,' he +said, after a pause, 'of something like it, when it came by. Where +the Devil did it come from, I wonder!' + +'From the shadow of this wall, I think,' said I, as we emerged upon +a road on which a wall abutted. + +'It's gone!' he returned, looking over his shoulder. 'And all ill +go with it. Now for our dinner!' + +But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line +glimmering afar off, and yet again. And he wondered about it, in +some broken expressions, several times, in the short remainder of +our walk; and only seemed to forget it when the light of fire and +candle shone upon us, seated warm and merry, at table. + +Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said +to him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he +answered respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were +tolerably well, he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. +This was all, and yet he seemed to me to say as plainly as a man +could say: 'You are very young, sir; you are exceedingly young.' + +We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards +the table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather +upon me, as I felt, he said to his master: + +'I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here.' + +'Who?' cried Steerforth, much astonished. + +'Miss Mowcher, sir.' + +'Why, what on earth does she do here?' said Steerforth. + +'It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs +me that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, +sir. I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to +know if she might have the honour of waiting on you after dinner, +sir.' + +'Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?' inquired Steerforth. + +I was obliged to confess - I felt ashamed, even of being at this +disadvantage before Littimer - that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly +unacquainted. + +'Then you shall know her,' said Steerforth, 'for she is one of the +seven wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in.' + +I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as +Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and +positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the +subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable +expectation until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and +we were sitting over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the +door opened, and Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite +undisturbed, announced: + +'Miss Mowcher!' + +I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at +the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her +appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling +round a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about +forty or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of +roguish grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable +herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled +Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay +her nose against it. Her chin, which was what is called a double +chin, was so fat that it entirely swallowed up the strings of her +bonnet, bow and all. Throat she had none; waist she had none; legs +she had none, worth mentioning; for though she was more than +full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had had +any, and though she terminated, as human beings generally do, in a +pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized +chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. This +lady - dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and +her forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described; +standing with her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of +her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face - after +ogling Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent of words. + +'What! My flower!' she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at +him. 'You're there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, +what do you do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I'll be +bound. Oh, you're a downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I'm +another, ain't I? Ha, ha, ha! You'd have betted a hundred pound +to five, now, that you wouldn't have seen me here, wouldn't you? +Bless you, man alive, I'm everywhere. I'm here and there, and +where not, like the conjurer's half-crown in the lady's +handkercher. Talking of handkerchers - and talking of ladies - +what a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain't you, my dear +boy, over one of my shoulders, and I don't say which!' + +Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, +threw back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in +front of the fire - making a kind of arbour of the dining table, +which spread its mahogany shelter above her head. + +'Oh my stars and what's-their-names!' she went on, clapping a hand +on each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, 'I'm of +too full a habit, that's the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of +stairs, it gives me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as +if it was a bucket of water. If you saw me looking out of an upper +window, you'd think I was a fine woman, wouldn't you?' + +'I should think that, wherever I saw you,' replied Steerforth. + +'Go along, you dog, do!' cried the little creature, making a whisk +at him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, +'and don't be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at +Lady Mithers's last week - THERE'S a woman! How SHE wears! - and +Mithers himself came into the room where I was waiting for her - +THERE'S a man! How HE wears! and his wig too, for he's had it +these ten years - and he went on at that rate in the complimentary +line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring the bell. +Ha! ha! ha! He's a pleasant wretch, but he wants principle.' + +'What were you doing for Lady Mithers?' asked Steerforth. + +'That's tellings, my blessed infant,' she retorted, tapping her +nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an +imp of supernatural intelligence. 'Never YOU mind! You'd like to +know whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch +up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so +you shall, my darling - when I tell you! Do you know what my great +grandfather's name was?' + +'No,' said Steerforth. + +'It was Walker, my sweet pet,' replied Miss Mowcher, 'and he came +of a long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates +from.' + +I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher's wink except +Miss Mowcher's self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when +listening to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to +what she had said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on +one side, and one eye turned up like a magpie's. Altogether I was +lost in amazement, and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am +afraid, of the laws of politeness. + +She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily +engaged in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the +shoulder, at every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, +brushes, bits of flannel, little pairs of curling-irons, and other +instruments, which she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this +employment she suddenly desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to +my confusion: + +'Who's your friend?' + +'Mr. Copperfield,' said Steerforth; 'he wants to know you.' + +'Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!' returned +Miss Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as +she came. 'Face like a peach!' standing on tiptoe to pinch my +cheek as I sat. 'Quite tempting! I'm very fond of peaches. Happy +to make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure.' + +I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour to make +hers, and that the happiness was mutual. + +'Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!' exclaimed Miss Mowcher, +making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her +morsel of a hand. 'What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, +though, ain't it!' + +This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of +a hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in +the bag again. + +'What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?' said Steerforth. + +'Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, +ain't we, my sweet child?' replied that morsel of a woman, feeling +in the bag with her head on one side and her eye in the air. 'Look +here!' taking something out. 'Scraps of the Russian Prince's +nails. Prince Alphabet turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his +name's got all the letters in it, higgledy-piggledy.' + +'The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?' said Steerforth. + +'I believe you, my pet,' replied Miss Mowcher. 'I keep his nails +in order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes.' + +'He pays well, I hope?' said Steerforth. + +'Pays, as he speaks, my dear child - through the nose,' replied +Miss Mowcher. 'None of your close shavers the Prince ain't. You'd +say so, if you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art.' + +'By your art, of course,' said Steerforth. + +Miss Mowcher winked assent. 'Forced to send for me. Couldn't help +it. The climate affected his dye; it did very well in Russia, but +it was no go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your +born days as he was. Like old iron!' +'Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?' inquired +Steerforth. + +'Oh, you're a broth of a boy, ain't you?' returned Miss Mowcher, +shaking her head violently. 'I said, what a set of humbugs we were +in general, and I showed you the scraps of the Prince's nails to +prove it. The Prince's nails do more for me in private families of +the genteel sort, than all my talents put together. I always carry +'em about. They're the best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts +the Prince's nails, she must be all right. I give 'em away to the +young ladies. They put 'em in albums, I believe. Ha! ha! ha! +Upon my life, "the whole social system" (as the men call it when +they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of Prince's nails!' +said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and +nodding her large head. + +Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher +continuing all the time to shake her head (which was very much on +one side), and to look into the air with one eye, and to wink with +the other. + +'Well, well!' she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, 'this +is not business. Come, Steerforth, let's explore the polar +regions, and have it over.' + +She then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a +little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. +On Steerforth's replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair +against it, and begging the assistance of my hand, mounted up, +pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it were a stage. + +'If either of you saw my ankles,' she said, when she was safely +elevated, 'say so, and I'll go home and destroy myself!' + +'I did not,' said Steerforth. + +'I did not,' said I. + +'Well then,' cried Miss Mowcher,' I'll consent to live. Now, +ducky, ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed.' + +This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself under her +hands; who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the +table, and his laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to +her inspection, evidently for no other purpose than our +entertainment. To see Miss Mowcher standing over him, looking at +his rich profusion of brown hair through a large round magnifying +glass, which she took out of her pocket, was a most amazing +spectacle. + +'You're a pretty fellow!' said Miss Mowcher, after a brief +inspection. 'You'd be as bald as a friar on the top of your head +in twelve months, but for me. just half a minute, my young friend, +and we'll give you a polishing that shall keep your curls on for +the next ten years!' + +With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on +to one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of +the virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began +rubbing and scraping away with both on the crown of Steerforth's +head in the busiest manner I ever witnessed, talking all the time. + +'There's Charley Pyegrave, the duke's son,' she said. 'You know +Charley?' peeping round into his face. + +'A little,' said Steerforth. + +'What a man HE is! THERE'S a whisker! As to Charley's legs, if +they were only a pair (which they ain't), they'd defy competition. +Would you believe he tried to do without me - in the Life-Guards, +too?' + +'Mad!' said Steerforth. + +'It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried,' returned Miss +Mowcher. 'What does he do, but, lo and behold you, he goes into a +perfumer's shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the Madagascar +Liquid.' + +'Charley does?' said Steerforth. + +'Charley does. But they haven't got any of the Madagascar Liquid.' + +'What is it? Something to drink?' asked Steerforth. + +'To drink?' returned Miss Mowcher, stopping to slap his cheek. 'To +doctor his own moustachios with, you know. There was a woman in +the shop - elderly female - quite a Griffin - who had never even +heard of it by name. "Begging pardon, sir," said the Griffin to +Charley, "it's not - not - not ROUGE, is it?" "Rouge," said +Charley to the Griffin. "What the unmentionable to ears polite, do +you think I want with rouge?" "No offence, sir," said the Griffin; +"we have it asked for by so many names, I thought it might be." Now +that, my child,' continued Miss Mowcher, rubbing all the time as +busily as ever, 'is another instance of the refreshing humbug I was +speaking of. I do something in that way myself - perhaps a good +deal - perhaps a little - sharp's the word, my dear boy - never +mind!' + +'In what way do you mean? In the rouge way?' said Steerforth. + +'Put this and that together, my tender pupil,' returned the wary +Mowcher, touching her nose, 'work it by the rule of Secrets in all +trades, and the product will give you the desired result. I say I +do a little in that way myself. One Dowager, SHE calls it +lip-salve. Another, SHE calls it gloves. Another, SHE calls it +tucker-edging. Another, SHE calls it a fan. I call it whatever +THEY call it. I supply it for 'em, but we keep up the trick so, to +one another, and make believe with such a face, that they'd as soon +think of laying it on, before a whole drawing-room, as before me. +And when I wait upon 'em, they'll say to me sometimes - WITH IT ON +- thick, and no mistake - "How am I looking, Mowcher? Am I pale?" +Ha! ha! ha! ha! Isn't THAT refreshing, my young friend!' + +I never did in my days behold anything like Mowcher as she stood +upon the dining table, intensely enjoying this refreshment, rubbing +busily at Steerforth's head, and winking at me over it. + +'Ah!' she said. 'Such things are not much in demand hereabouts. +That sets me off again! I haven't seen a pretty woman since I've +been here, jemmy.' + +'No?' said Steerforth. + +'Not the ghost of one,' replied Miss Mowcher. + +'We could show her the substance of one, I think?' said Steerforth, +addressing his eyes to mine. 'Eh, Daisy?' + +'Yes, indeed,' said I. + +'Aha?' cried the little creature, glancing sharply at my face, and +then peeping round at Steerforth's. 'Umph?' + +The first exclamation sounded like a question put to both of us, +and the second like a question put to Steerforth only. She seemed +to have found no answer to either, but continued to rub, with her +head on one side and her eye turned up, as if she were looking for +an answer in the air and were confident of its appearing presently. + +'A sister of yours, Mr. Copperfield?' she cried, after a pause, and +still keeping the same look-out. 'Aye, aye?' + +'No,' said Steerforth, before I could reply. 'Nothing of the sort. +On the contrary, Mr. Copperfield used - or I am much mistaken - to +have a great admiration for her.' + +'Why, hasn't he now?' returned Miss Mowcher. 'Is he fickle? Oh, +for shame! Did he sip every flower, and change every hour, until +Polly his passion requited? - Is her name Polly?' + +The Elfin suddenness with which she pounced upon me with this +question, and a searching look, quite disconcerted me for a moment. + +'No, Miss Mowcher,' I replied. 'Her name is Emily.' + +'Aha?' she cried exactly as before. 'Umph? What a rattle I am! +Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile?' + +Her tone and look implied something that was not agreeable to me in +connexion with the subject. So I said, in a graver manner than any +of us had yet assumed: +'She is as virtuous as she is pretty. She is engaged to be married +to a most worthy and deserving man in her own station of life. I +esteem her for her good sense, as much as I admire her for her good +looks.' + +'Well said!' cried Steerforth. 'Hear, hear, hear! Now I'll quench +the curiosity of this little Fatima, my dear Daisy, by leaving her +nothing to guess at. She is at present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, +or articled, or whatever it may be, to Omer and Joram, +Haberdashers, Milliners, and so forth, in this town. Do you +observe? Omer and Joram. The promise of which my friend has +spoken, is made and entered into with her cousin; Christian name, +Ham; surname, Peggotty; occupation, boat-builder; also of this +town. She lives with a relative; Christian name, unknown; surname, +Peggotty; occupation, seafaring; also of this town. She is the +prettiest and most engaging little fairy in the world. I admire +her - as my friend does - exceedingly. If it were not that I might +appear to disparage her Intended, which I know my friend would not +like, I would add, that to me she seems to be throwing herself +away; that I am sure she might do better; and that I swear she was +born to be a lady.' + +Miss Mowcher listened to these words, which were very slowly and +distinctly spoken, with her head on one side, and her eye in the +air as if she were still looking for that answer. When he ceased +she became brisk again in an instant, and rattled away with +surprising volubility. + +'Oh! And that's all about it, is it?' she exclaimed, trimming his +whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that went +glancing round his head in all directions. 'Very well: very well! +Quite a long story. Ought to end "and they lived happy ever +afterwards"; oughtn't it? Ah! What's that game at forfeits? I +love my love with an E, because she's enticing; I hate her with an +E, because she's engaged. I took her to the sign of the exquisite, +and treated her with an elopement, her name's Emily, and she lives +in the east? Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile?' + +Merely looking at me with extravagant slyness, and not waiting for +any reply, she continued, without drawing breath: + +'There! If ever any scapegrace was trimmed and touched up to +perfection, you are, Steerforth. If I understand any noddle in the +world, I understand yours. Do you hear me when I tell you that, my +darling? I understand yours,' peeping down into his face. 'Now +you may mizzle, jemmy (as we say at Court), and if Mr. Copperfield +will take the chair I'll operate on him.' + +'What do you say, Daisy?' inquired Steerforth, laughing, and +resigning his seat. 'Will you be improved?' + +'Thank you, Miss Mowcher, not this evening.' + +'Don't say no,' returned the little woman, looking at me with the +aspect of a connoisseur; 'a little bit more eyebrow?' + +'Thank you,' I returned, 'some other time.' + +'Have it carried half a quarter of an inch towards the temple,' +said Miss Mowcher. 'We can do it in a fortnight.' + +'No, I thank you. Not at present.' + +'Go in for a tip,' she urged. 'No? Let's get the scaffolding up, +then, for a pair of whiskers. Come!' + +I could not help blushing as I declined, for I felt we were on my +weak point, now. But Miss Mowcher, finding that I was not at +present disposed for any decoration within the range of her art, +and that I was, for the time being, proof against the blandishments +of the small bottle which she held up before one eye to enforce her +persuasions, said we would make a beginning on an early day, and +requested the aid of my hand to descend from her elevated station. +Thus assisted, she skipped down with much agility, and began to tie +her double chin into her bonnet. + +'The fee,' said Steerforth, 'is -' + +'Five bob,' replied Miss Mowcher, 'and dirt cheap, my chicken. +Ain't I volatile, Mr. Copperfield?' + +I replied politely: 'Not at all.' But I thought she was rather so, +when she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught +them, dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap. + +'That's the Till!' observed Miss Mowcher, standing at the chair +again, and replacing in the bag a miscellaneous collection of +little objects she had emptied out of it. 'Have I got all my +traps? It seems so. It won't do to be like long Ned Beadwood, +when they took him to church "to marry him to somebody", as he +says, and left the bride behind. Ha! ha! ha! A wicked rascal, +Ned, but droll! Now, I know I'm going to break your hearts, but I +am forced to leave you. You must call up all your fortitude, and +try to bear it. Good-bye, Mr. Copperfield! Take care of yourself, +jockey of Norfolk! How I have been rattling on! It's all the +fault of you two wretches. I forgive you! "Bob swore!" - as the +Englishman said for "Good night", when he first learnt French, and +thought it so like English. "Bob swore," my ducks!' + +With the bag slung over her arm, and rattling as she waddled away, +she waddled to the door, where she stopped to inquire if she should +leave us a lock of her hair. 'Ain't I volatile?' she added, as a +commentary on this offer, and, with her finger on her nose, +departed. + +Steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible for me to +help laughing too; though I am not sure I should have done so, but +for this inducement. When we had had our laugh quite out, which +was after some time, he told me that Miss Mowcher had quite an +extensive connexion, and made herself useful to a variety of people +in a variety of ways. Some people trifled with her as a mere +oddity, he said; but she was as shrewdly and sharply observant as +anyone he knew, and as long-headed as she was short-armed. He told +me that what she had said of being here, and there, and everywhere, +was true enough; for she made little darts into the provinces, and +seemed to pick up customers everywhere, and to know everybody. I +asked him what her disposition was: whether it was at all +mischievous, and if her sympathies were generally on the right side +of things: but, not succeeding in attracting his attention to these +questions after two or three attempts, I forbore or forgot to +repeat them. He told me instead, with much rapidity, a good deal +about her skill, and her profits; and about her being a scientific +cupper, if I should ever have occasion for her service in that +capacity. + +She was the principal theme of our conversation during the evening: +and when we parted for the night Steerforth called after me over +the banisters, 'Bob swore!' as I went downstairs. + +I was surprised, when I came to Mr. Barkis's house, to find Ham +walking up and down in front of it, and still more surprised to +learn from him that little Em'ly was inside. I naturally inquired +why he was not there too, instead of pacing the streets by himself? + +'Why, you see, Mas'r Davy,' he rejoined, in a hesitating manner, +'Em'ly, she's talking to some 'un in here.' + +'I should have thought,' said I, smiling, 'that that was a reason +for your being in here too, Ham.' + +'Well, Mas'r Davy, in a general way, so 't would be,' he returned; +'but look'ee here, Mas'r Davy,' lowering his voice, and speaking +very gravely. 'It's a young woman, sir - a young woman, that Em'ly +knowed once, and doen't ought to know no more.' + +When I heard these words, a light began to fall upon the figure I +had seen following them, some hours ago. + +'It's a poor wurem, Mas'r Davy,' said Ham, 'as is trod under foot +by all the town. Up street and down street. The mowld o' the +churchyard don't hold any that the folk shrink away from, more.' + +'Did I see her tonight, Ham, on the sand, after we met you?' + +'Keeping us in sight?' said Ham. 'It's like you did, Mas'r Davy. +Not that I know'd then, she was theer, sir, but along of her +creeping soon arterwards under Em'ly's little winder, when she see +the light come, and whispering "Em'ly, Em'ly, for Christ's sake, +have a woman's heart towards me. I was once like you!" Those was +solemn words, Mas'r Davy, fur to hear!' + +'They were indeed, Ham. What did Em'ly do?' +'Says Em'ly, "Martha, is it you? Oh, Martha, can it be you?" - for +they had sat at work together, many a day, at Mr. Omer's.' + +'I recollect her now!' cried I, recalling one of the two girls I +had seen when I first went there. 'I recollect her quite well!' + +'Martha Endell,' said Ham. 'Two or three year older than Em'ly, +but was at the school with her.' + +'I never heard her name,' said I. 'I didn't mean to interrupt +you.' + +'For the matter o' that, Mas'r Davy,' replied Ham, 'all's told +a'most in them words, "Em'ly, Em'ly, for Christ's sake, have a +woman's heart towards me. I was once like you!" She wanted to +speak to Em'ly. Em'ly couldn't speak to her theer, for her loving +uncle was come home, and he wouldn't - no, Mas'r Davy,' said Ham, +with great earnestness, 'he couldn't, kind-natur'd, tender-hearted +as he is, see them two together, side by side, for all the +treasures that's wrecked in the sea.' + +I felt how true this was. I knew it, on the instant, quite as well +as Ham. + +'So Em'ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper,' he pursued, 'and +gives it to her out o' winder to bring here. "Show that," she +says, "to my aunt, Mrs. Barkis, and she'll set you down by her +fire, for the love of me, till uncle is gone out, and I can come." +By and by she tells me what I tell you, Mas'r Davy, and asks me to +bring her. What can I do? She doen't ought to know any such, but +I can't deny her, when the tears is on her face.' + +He put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and took out +with great care a pretty little purse. + +'And if I could deny her when the tears was on her face, Mas'r +Davy,' said Ham, tenderly adjusting it on the rough palm of his +hand, 'how could I deny her when she give me this to carry for her +- knowing what she brought it for? Such a toy as it is!' said Ham, +thoughtfully looking on it. 'With such a little money in it, Em'ly +my dear.' + +I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again - for +that was more satisfactory to me than saying anything - and we +walked up and down, for a minute or two, in silence. The door +opened then, and Peggotty appeared, beckoning to Ham to come in. +I would have kept away, but she came after me, entreating me to +come in too. Even then, I would have avoided the room where they +all were, but for its being the neat-tiled kitchen I have mentioned +more than once. The door opening immediately into it, I found +myself among them before I considered whither I was going. + +The girl - the same I had seen upon the sands - was near the fire. +She was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on +a chair. I fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that Em'ly +had but newly risen from the chair, and that the forlorn head might +perhaps have been lying on her lap. I saw but little of the girl's +face, over which her hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had +been disordering it with her own hands; but I saw that she was +young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been crying. So had +little Em'ly. Not a word was spoken when we first went in; and the +Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick twice as +loud as usual. Em'ly spoke first. + +'Martha wants,' she said to Ham, 'to go to London.' + +'Why to London?' returned Ham. + +He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture +of compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any +companionship with her whom he loved so well, which I have always +remembered distinctly. They both spoke as if she were ill; in a +soft, suppressed tone that was plainly heard, although it hardly +rose above a whisper. + +'Better there than here,' said a third voice aloud - Martha's, +though she did not move. 'No one knows me there. Everybody knows +me here.' + +'What will she do there?' inquired Ham. + +She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a +moment; then laid it down again, and curved her right arm about her +neck, as a woman in a fever, or in an agony of pain from a shot, +might twist herself. + +'She will try to do well,' said little Em'ly. 'You don't know what +she has said to us. Does he - do they - aunt?' + +Peggotty shook her head compassionately. + +'I'll try,' said Martha, 'if you'll help me away. I never can do +worse than I have done here. I may do better. Oh!' with a +dreadful shiver, 'take me out of these streets, where the whole +town knows me from a child!' + +As Em'ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little +canvas bag. She took it, as if she thought it were her purse, and +made a step or two forward; but finding her mistake, came back to +where he had retired near me, and showed it to him. + +'It's all yourn, Em'ly,' I could hear him say. 'I haven't nowt in +all the wureld that ain't yourn, my dear. It ain't of no delight +to me, except for you!' + +The tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away and went to +Martha. What she gave her, I don't know. I saw her stooping over +her, and putting money in her bosom. She whispered something, as +she asked was that enough? 'More than enough,' the other said, and +took her hand and kissed it. + +Then Martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her, covering her +face with it, and weeping aloud, went slowly to the door. She +stopped a moment before going out, as if she would have uttered +something or turned back; but no word passed her lips. Making the +same low, dreary, wretched moaning in her shawl, she went away. + +As the door closed, little Em'ly looked at us three in a hurried +manner and then hid her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing. + +'Doen't, Em'ly!' said Ham, tapping her gently on the shoulder. +'Doen't, my dear! You doen't ought to cry so, pretty!' + +'Oh, Ham!' she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, 'I am not so +good a girl as I ought to be! I know I have not the thankful +heart, sometimes, I ought to have!' + +'Yes, yes, you have, I'm sure,' said Ham. + +'No! no! no!' cried little Em'ly, sobbing, and shaking her head. +'I am not as good a girl as I ought to be. Not near! not near!' +And still she cried, as if her heart would break. + +'I try your love too much. I know I do!' she sobbed. 'I'm often +cross to you, and changeable with you, when I ought to be far +different. You are never so to me. Why am I ever so to you, when +I should think of nothing but how to be grateful, and to make you +happy!' + +'You always make me so,' said Ham, 'my dear! I am happy in the +sight of you. I am happy, all day long, in the thoughts of you.' + +'Ah! that's not enough!' she cried. 'That is because you are good; +not because I am! Oh, my dear, it might have been a better fortune +for you, if you had been fond of someone else - of someone steadier +and much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you, and never +vain and changeable like me!' + +'Poor little tender-heart,' said Ham, in a low voice. 'Martha has +overset her, altogether.' + +'Please, aunt,' sobbed Em'ly, 'come here, and let me lay my head +upon you. Oh, I am very miserable tonight, aunt! Oh, I am not as +good a girl as I ought to be. I am not, I know!' + +Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em'ly, with +her arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly +into her face. + +'Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to help me! Mr. +David, for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me! I +want to be a better girl than I am. I want to feel a hundred times +more thankful than I do. I want to feel more, what a blessed thing +it is to be the wife of a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. +Oh me, oh me! Oh my heart, my heart!' + +She dropped her face on my old nurse's breast, and, ceasing this +supplication, which in its agony and grief was half a woman's, half +a child's, as all her manner was (being, in that, more natural, and +better suited to her beauty, as I thought, than any other manner +could have been), wept silently, while my old nurse hushed her like +an infant. + +She got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her; now talking +encouragingly, and now jesting a little with her, until she began +to raise her head and speak to us. So we got on, until she was +able to smile, and then to laugh, and then to sit up, half ashamed; +while Peggotty recalled her stray ringlets, dried her eyes, and +made her neat again, lest her uncle should wonder, when she got +home, why his darling had been crying. + +I saw her do, that night, what I had never seen her do before. I +saw her innocently kiss her chosen husband on the cheek, and creep +close to his bluff form as if it were her best support. When they +went away together, in the waning moonlight, and I looked after +them, comparing their departure in my mind with Martha's, I saw +that she held his arm with both her hands, and still kept close to +him. + + + +CHAPTER 23 +I CORROBORATE Mr. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION + + +When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em'ly, +and her emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I +had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and +tendernesses in a sacred confidence, and that to disclose them, +even to Steerforth, would be wrong. I had no gentler feeling +towards anyone than towards the pretty creature who had been my +playmate, and whom I have always been persuaded, and shall always +be persuaded, to my dying day, I then devotedly loved. The +repetition to any ears - even to Steerforth's - of what she had +been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an +accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself, +unworthy of the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw +encircling her head. I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in +my own breast; and there it gave her image a new grace. + +While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my +aunt. As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could +advise me as well as anyone, and on which I knew I should be +delighted to consult him, I resolved to make it a subject of +discussion on our journey home. For the present we had enough to +do, in taking leave of all our friends. Mr. Barkis was far from +being the last among them, in his regret at our departure; and I +believe would even have opened the box again, and sacrificed +another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty hours in +Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of grief at our +going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us +good-bye; and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance +on Steerforth, when our portmanteaux went to the coach, that if we +had had the baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have +wanted porters to carry it. In a word, we departed to the regret +and admiration of all concerned, and left a great many people very +sorry behind US. + +Do you stay long here, Littimer?' said I, as he stood waiting to +see the coach start. + +'No, sir,' he replied; 'probably not very long, sir.' + +'He can hardly say, just now,' observed Steerforth, carelessly. +'He knows what he has to do, and he'll do it.' + +'That I am sure he will,' said I. + +Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgement of my good opinion, and +I felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us +a good journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as +respectable a mystery as any pyramid in Egypt. + +For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being +unusually silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering, +within myself, when I should see the old places again, and what new +changes might happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length +Steerforth, becoming gay and talkative in a moment, as he could +become anything he liked at any moment, pulled me by the arm: + +'Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of +at breakfast?' + +'Oh!' said I, taking it out of my pocket. 'It's from my aunt.' + +'And what does she say, requiring consideration?' + +'Why, she reminds me, Steerforth,' said I, 'that I came out on +this expedition to look about me, and to think a little.' + +'Which, of course, you have done?' + +'Indeed I can't say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth, +I am afraid I have forgotten it.' + +'Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,' said +Steerforth. 'Look to the right, and you'll see a flat country, +with a good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you'll see +the same. Look to the front, and you'll find no difference; look +to the rear, and there it is still.' +I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable profession in the +whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness. + +'What says our aunt on the subject?' inquired Steerforth, glancing +at the letter in my hand. 'Does she suggest anything?' + +'Why, yes,' said I. 'She asks me, here, if I think I should like +to be a proctor? What do you think of it?' + +'Well, I don't know,' replied Steerforth, coolly. 'You may as well +do that as anything else, I suppose?' + +I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and +professions so equally; and I told him so. + +'What is a proctor, Steerforth?' said I. + +'Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,' replied Steerforth. 'He +is, to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons, - a lazy old +nook near St. Paul's Churchyard - what solicitors are to the courts +of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the +natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred +years ago. I can tell you best what he is, by telling you what +Doctors' Commons is. It's a little out-of-the-way place, where +they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all +kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament, +which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other +fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days +of the Edwards. It's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits +about people's wills and people's marriages, and disputes among +ships and boats.' + +'Nonsense, Steerforth!' I exclaimed. 'You don't mean to say that +there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical +matters?' + +'I don't, indeed, my dear boy,' he returned; 'but I mean to say +that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down +in that same Doctors' Commons. You shall go there one day, and +find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's +Dictionary, apropos of the "Nancy" having run down the "Sarah +Jane", or Mr. Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in +a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the "Nelson" Indiaman in +distress; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in +the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has +misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the nautical +case, the advocate in the clergyman's case, or contrariwise. They +are like actors: now a man's a judge, and now he is not a judge; +now he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something else, +change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant, +profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an +uncommonly select audience.' + +'But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?' said I, a +little puzzled. 'Are they?' + +'No,' returned Steerforth, 'the advocates are civilians - men who +have taken a doctor's degree at college - which is the first reason +of my knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the +advocates. Both get very comfortable fees, and altogether they +make a mighty snug little party. On the whole, I would recommend +you to take to Doctors' Commons kindly, David. They plume them- +selves on their gentility there, I can tell you, if that's any +satisfaction.' + +I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the +subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of +gravity and antiquity which I associated with that 'lazy old nook +near St. Paul's Churchyard', did not feel indisposed towards my +aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no +scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately +visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of +settling her will in my favour. + +'That's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all +events,' said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; 'and one deserving +of all encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to +Doctors' Commons.' + +I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my +aunt was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that +she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at +Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a +convenient door in the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that +every house in London was going to be burnt down every night. + +We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring +to Doctors' Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I +should be a proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety +of humorous and whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we +came to our journey's end, he went home, engaging to call upon me +next day but one; and I drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I +found my aunt up, and waiting supper. + +If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have +been better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she +embraced me; and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother +had been alive, that silly little creature would have shed tears, +she had no doubt. + +'So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?' said I. 'I am sorry for +that. Ah, Janet, how do you do?' + +As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt's visage +lengthen very much. + +'I am sorry for it, too,' said my aunt, rubbing her nose. 'I have +had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.' +Before I could ask why, she told me. + +'I am convinced,' said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy +firmness on the table, 'that Dick's character is not a character to +keep the donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. +I ought to have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might +perhaps have been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing +on my green,' said my aunt, with emphasis, 'there was one this +afternoon at four o'clock. A cold feeling came over me from head +to foot, and I know it was a donkey!' + +I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation. + +'It was a donkey,' said my aunt; 'and it was the one with the +stumpy tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she +came to my house.' This had been, ever since, the only name my +aunt knew for Miss Murdstone. 'If there is any Donkey in Dover, +whose audacity it is harder to me to bear than another's, that,' +said my aunt, striking the table, 'is the animal!' + +Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself +unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was +then engaged in the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not +available for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn't hear of +it. + +Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were +very high up - whether that she might have more stone stairs for +her money, or might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don't know +- and consisted of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to +all of which I did ample justice, and which were all excellent. +But my aunt had her own ideas concerning London provision, and ate +but little. + +'I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a +cellar,' said my aunt, 'and never took the air except on a hackney +coach-stand. I hope the steak may be beef, but I don't believe it. +Nothing's genuine in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt.' + +'Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?' +I hinted. + +'Certainly not,' returned my aunt. 'It would be no pleasure to a +London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it +was.' + +I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good +supper, which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the +table was cleared, Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put +on her nightcap, which was of a smarter construction than usual +('in case of fire', my aunt said), and to fold her gown back over +her knees, these being her usual preparations for warming herself +before going to bed. I then made her, according to certain +established regulations from which no deviation, however slight, +could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and water, and a slice +of toast cut into long thin strips. With these accompaniments we +were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting opposite to +me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast in it, +one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me, from +among the borders of her nightcap. + +'Well, Trot,' she began, 'what do you think of the proctor plan? +Or have you not begun to think about it yet?' + +'I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have +talked a good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much +indeed. I like it exceedingly.' + +'Come!' said my aunt. 'That's cheering!' + +'I have only one difficulty, aunt.' + +'Say what it is, Trot,' she returned. + +'Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, +to be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not +be very expensive?' + +'It will cost,' returned my aunt, 'to article you, just a thousand +pounds.' + +'Now, my dear aunt,' said I, drawing my chair nearer, 'I am uneasy +in my mind about that. It's a large sum of money. You have +expended a great deal on my education, and have always been as +liberal to me in all things as it was possible to be. You have +been the soul of generosity. Surely there are some ways in which +I might begin life with hardly any outlay, and yet begin with a +good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion. Are you sure +that it would not be better to try that course? Are you certain +that you can afford to part with so much money, and that it is +right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second +mother, to consider. Are you certain?' + +My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then +engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then +setting her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon +her folded skirts, replied as follows: + +'Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for +your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it +- so is Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick's +conversation on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no +one knows the resources of that man's intellect, except myself!' + +She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on: + +'It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some +influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better +friends with your poor father. Perhaps I might have been better +friends with that poor child your mother, even after your sister +Betsey Trotwood disappointed me. When you came to me, a little +runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn, perhaps I thought so. From +that time until now, Trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a +pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means; at +least' - here to my surprise she hesitated, and was confused - 'no, +I have no other claim upon my means - and you are my adopted child. +Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my whims and +fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life +was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever +that old woman did for you.' + +It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past +history. There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and +of dismissing it, which would have exalted her in my respect and +affection, if anything could. + +'All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,' said my aunt, +'and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we'll go to +the Commons after breakfast tomorrow.' + +We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in +a room on the same floor with my aunt's, and was a little disturbed +in the course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as +she was agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or +market-carts, and inquiring, 'if I heard the engines?' But towards +morning she slept better, and suffered me to do so too. + +At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and +Jorkins, in Doctors' Commons. My aunt, who had this other general +opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a +pickpocket, gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten +guineas in it and some silver. + +We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants +of Saint Dunstan's strike upon the bells - we had timed our going, +so as to catch them at it, at twelve o'clock - and then went on +towards Ludgate Hill, and St. Paul's Churchyard. We were crossing +to the former place, when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated +her speed, and looked frightened. I observed, at the same time, +that a lowering ill-dressed man who had stopped and stared at us in +passing, a little before, was coming so close after us as to brush +against her. + +'Trot! My dear Trot!' cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and +pressing my arm. 'I don't know what I am to do.' + +'Don't be alarmed,' said I. 'There's nothing to be afraid of. +Step into a shop, and I'll soon get rid of this fellow.' + +'No, no, child!' she returned. 'Don't speak to him for the world. +I entreat, I order you!' + +'Good Heaven, aunt!' said I. 'He is nothing but a sturdy +beggar.' + +'You don't know what he is!' replied my aunt. 'You don't know who +he is! You don't know what you say!' + +We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he +had stopped too. + +'Don't look at him!' said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly, +'but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul's +Churchyard.' + +'Wait for you?' I replied. + +'Yes,' rejoined my aunt. 'I must go alone. I must go with him.' + +'With him, aunt? This man?' + +'I am in my senses,' she replied, 'and I tell you I must. Get mea +coach!' + +However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no +right to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I +hurried away a few paces, and called a hackney-chariot which was +passing empty. Almost before I could let down the steps, my aunt +sprang in, I don't know how, and the man followed. She waved her +hand to me to go away, so earnestly, that, all confounded as I was, +I turned from them at once. In doing so, I heard her say to the +coachman, 'Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!' and presently the +chariot passed me, going up the hill. + +What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion +of his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person +was the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though +what the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was +quite unable to imagine. After half an hour's cooling in the +churchyard, I saw the chariot coming back. The driver stopped +beside me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone. + +She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be +quite prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get +into the chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and +down a little while. She said no more, except, 'My dear child, +never ask me what it was, and don't refer to it,' until she had +perfectly regained her composure, when she told me she was quite +herself now, and we might get out. On her giving me her purse to +pay the driver, I found that all the guineas were gone, and only +the loose silver remained. + +Doctors' Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we +had taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the +city seemed to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A +few dull courts and narrow ways brought us to the sky-lighted +offices of Spenlow and Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple, +accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking, three or +four clerks were at work as copyists. One of these, a little dry +man, sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as +if it were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my aunt, and show +us into Mr. Spenlow's room. + +'Mr. Spenlow's in Court, ma'am,' said the dry man; 'it's an Arches +day; but it's close by, and I'll send for him directly.' + +As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I +availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was +old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the +writing-table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale +as an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it, +some endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, +and some as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches +Court, and some in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty +Court, and some in the Delegates' Court; giving me occasion to +wonder much, how many Courts there might be in the gross, and how +long it would take to understand them all. Besides these, there +were sundry immense manuscript Books of Evidence taken on +affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in massive sets, a set +to each cause, as if every cause were a history in ten or twenty +volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave +me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business. I was casting my +eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar +objects, when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and +Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying +in, taking off his hat as he came. + +He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and +the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned +up, mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of +pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold +watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came across me, that he +ought to have a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, like those +which are put up over the goldbeaters' shops. He was got up with +such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself; +being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after +sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body, from the bottom +of his spine, like Punch. + +I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been +courteously received. He now said: + +'And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our +profession? I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the +pleasure of an interview with her the other day,' - with another +inclination of his body - Punch again - 'that there was a vacancy +here. Miss Trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a +nephew who was her peculiar care, and for whom she was seeking to +provide genteelly in life. That nephew, I believe, I have now the +pleasure of' - Punch again. +I bowed my acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me +that there was that opening, and that I believed I should like it +very much. That I was strongly inclined to like it, and had taken +immediately to the proposal. That I could not absolutely pledge +myself to like it, until I knew something more about it. That +although it was little else than a matter of form, I presumed I +should have an opportunity of trying how I liked it, before I bound +myself to it irrevocably. + +'Oh surely! surely!' said Mr. Spenlow. 'We always, in this house, +propose a month - an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, +to propose two months - three - an indefinite period, in fact - but +I have a partner. Mr. Jorkins.' + +'And the premium, sir,' I returned, 'is a thousand pounds?' + +'And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,' said Mr. +Spenlow. 'As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by +no mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but +Mr. Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to +respect Mr. Jorkins's opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand +pounds too little, in short.' + +'I suppose, sir,' said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, 'that it +is not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly +useful, and made himself a perfect master of his profession' - I +could not help blushing, this looked so like praising myself - 'I +suppose it is not the custom, in the later years of his time, to +allow him any -' + +Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out +of his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word +'salary': + +'No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point +myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is +immovable.' + +I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I +found out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, +whose place in the business was to keep himself in the background, +and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and +ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins +wouldn't listen to such a proposition. If a client were slow to +settle his bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was resolved to have it paid; +and however painful these things might be (and always were) to the +feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would have his bond. The +heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would have been always +open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have grown +older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing +business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins! + +It was settled that I should begin my month's probation as soon as +I pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return +at its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to +be the subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her +signature. When we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me +into Court then and there, and show me what sort of place it was. +As I was willing enough to know, we went out with this object, +leaving my aunt behind; who would trust herself, she said, in no +such place, and who, I think, regarded all Courts of Law as a sort +of powder-mills that might blow up at any time. + +Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave +brick houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors' names upon the +doors, to be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates +of whom Steerforth had told me; and into a large dull room, not +unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the left hand. The upper part +of this room was fenced off from the rest; and there, on the two +sides of a raised platform of the horse-shoe form, sitting on easy +old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red +gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the Doctors aforesaid. +Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the +horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen him in an +aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who, I +learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the +horse-shoe, lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of +the floor, were sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow's rank, and +dressed like him in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting +at a long green table. Their cravats were in general stiff, I +thought, and their looks haughty; but in this last respect I +presently conceived I had done them an injustice, for when two or +three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding +dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. The public, +represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel man +secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself +at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid stillness of +the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the +voice of one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a +perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to +time, at little roadside inns of argument on the journey. +Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made one at such a +cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little +family-party in all my life; and I felt it would be quite a +soothing opiate to belong to it in any character - except perhaps +as a suitor. + +Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I +informed Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we +rejoined my aunt; in company with whom I presently departed from +the Commons, feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and +Jorkins's, on account of the clerks poking one another with their +pens to point me out. + +We arrived at Lincoln's Inn Fields without any new adventures, +except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger's cart, who +suggested painful associations to my aunt. We had another long +talk about my plans, when we were safely housed; and as I knew she +was anxious to get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets, +could never be considered at her ease for half-an-hour in London, +I urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me +to take care of myself. + +'I have not been here a week tomorrow, without considering that +too, my dear,' she returned. 'There is a furnished little set of +chambers to be let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to +a marvel.' + +With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an +advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that +in Buckingham Street in the Adelphi there was to be let furnished, +with a view of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set +of chambers, forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a +member of one of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate +possession. Terms moderate, and could be taken for a month only, +if required. + +'Why, this is the very thing, aunt!' said I, flushed with the +possible dignity of living in chambers. + +'Then come,' replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she +had a minute before laid aside. 'We'll go and look at 'em.' + +Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp +on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to +communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or +four times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with +us, but at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of +flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown. + +'Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma'am,' said my +aunt. + +'For this gentleman?' said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for +her keys. + +'Yes, for my nephew,' said my aunt. + +'And a sweet set they is for sich!' said Mrs. Crupp. + +So we went upstairs. + +They were on the top of the house - a great point with my aunt, +being near the fire-escape - and consisted of a little half-blind +entry where you could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind +pantry where you could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a +bedroom. The furniture was rather faded, but quite good enough for +me; and, sure enough, the river was outside the windows. + +As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew +into the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the +sitting-room sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could +be destined to live in such a noble residence. After a single +combat of some duration they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both +in Mrs. Crupp's countenance and in my aunt's, that the deed was +done. + +'Is it the last occupant's furniture?' inquired my aunt. + +'Yes, it is, ma'am,' said Mrs. Crupp. + +'What's become of him?' asked my aunt. + +Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of +which she articulated with much difficulty. 'He was took ill here, +ma'am, and - ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me! - and he died!' + +'Hey! What did he die of?' asked my aunt. + +'Well, ma'am, he died of drink,' said Mrs. Crupp, in confidence. +'And smoke.' + +'Smoke? You don't mean chimneys?' said my aunt. + +'No, ma'am,' returned Mrs. Crupp. 'Cigars and pipes.' + +'That's not catching, Trot, at any rate,' remarked my aunt, turning +to me. + +'No, indeed,' said I. + +In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, +took them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when +that time was out. Mrs. Crupp was to find linen, and to cook; +every other necessary was already provided; and Mrs. Crupp +expressly intimated that she should always yearn towards me as a +son. I was to take possession the day after tomorrow, and Mrs. +Crupp said, thank Heaven she had now found summun she could care +for! + +On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted +that the life I was now to lead would make me firm and +self-reliant, which was all I wanted. She repeated this several +times next day, in the intervals of our arranging for the +transmission of my clothes and books from Mr. Wickfield's; relative +to which, and to all my late holiday, I wrote a long letter to +Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was to leave on the +succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I need only +add, that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants +during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great +disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she +went away; that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, +exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with +Janet at her side; and that when the coach was gone, I turned my +face to the Adelphi, pondering on the old days when I used to roam +about its subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which had +brought me to the surface. + + + +CHAPTER 24 +MY FIRST DISSIPATION + + +It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to +myself, and to feel, when I shut my outer door, like Robinson +Crusoe, when he had got into his fortification, and pulled his +ladder up after him. It was a wonderfully fine thing to walk about +town with the key of my house in my pocket, and to know that I +could ask any fellow to come home, and make quite sure of its being +inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me. It was a +wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to come and go +without a word to anyone, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping, from +the depths of the earth, when I wanted her - and when she was +disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully fine; but I +must say, too, that there were times when it was very dreary. + +It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It +looked a very fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and +more free, by sunlight. But as the day declined, the life seemed +to go down too. I don't know how it was; it seldom looked well by +candle-light. I wanted somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. +I found a tremendous blank, in the place of that smiling repository +of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp appeared to be a long way off. I +thought about my predecessor, who had died of drink and smoke; and +I could have wished he had been so good as to live, and not bother +me with his decease. + +After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a +year, and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much +tormented by my own youthfulness as ever. + +Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he +must be ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked +out to Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said +that he had gone away with one of his Oxford friends to see another +who lived near St. Albans, but that she expected him to return +tomorrow. I was so fond of him, that I felt quite jealous of his +Oxford friends. + +As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we +talked about nothing but him all day. I told her how much the +people liked him at Yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he +had been. Miss Dartle was full of hints and mysterious questions, +but took a great interest in all our proceedings there, and said, +'Was it really though?' and so forth, so often, that she got +everything out of me she wanted to know. Her appearance was +exactly what I have described it, when I first saw her; but the +society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so natural to +me, that I felt myself falling a little in love with her. I could +not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening, and +particularly when I walked home at night, what delightful company +she would be in Buckingham Street. + +I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the +Commons - and I may observe in this place that it is surprising how +much coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and how weak it was, considering - +when Steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy. + +'My dear Steerforth,' cried I, 'I began to think I should never see +you again!' + +'I was carried off, by force of arms,' said Steerforth, 'the very +next morning after I got home. Why, Daisy, what a rare old +bachelor you are here!' + +I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with +no little pride, and he commended it highly. 'I tell you what, old +boy,' he added, 'I shall make quite a town-house of this place, +unless you give me notice to quit.' + +This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited for that, +he would have to wait till doomsday. + +'But you shall have some breakfast!' said I, with my hand on the +bell-rope, 'and Mrs. Crupp shall make you some fresh coffee, and +I'll toast you some bacon in a bachelor's Dutch-oven, that I have +got here.' + +'No, no!' said Steerforth. 'Don't ring! I can't! I am going to +breakfast with one of these fellows who is at the Piazza Hotel, in +Covent Garden.' + +'But you'll come back to dinner?' said I. + +'I can't, upon my life. There's nothing I should like better, but +I must remain with these two fellows. We are all three off +together tomorrow morning.' + +'Then bring them here to dinner,' I returned. 'Do you think they +would come?' + +'Oh! they would come fast enough,' said Steerforth; 'but we should +inconvenience you. You had better come and dine with us +somewhere.' + +I would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred to me +that I really ought to have a little house-warming, and that there +never could be a better opportunity. I had a new pride in my rooms +after his approval of them, and burned with a desire to develop +their utmost resources. I therefore made him promise positively in +the names of his two friends, and we appointed six o'clock as the +dinner-hour. + +When he was gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted her with my +desperate design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the first place, of course +it was well known she couldn't be expected to wait, but she knew a +handy young man, who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, +and whose terms would be five shillings, and what I pleased. I +said, certainly we would have him. Next Mrs. Crupp said it was +clear she couldn't be in two places at once (which I felt to be +reasonable), and that 'a young gal' stationed in the pantry with a +bedroom candle, there never to desist from washing plates, would be +indispensable. I said, what would be the expense of this young +female? and Mrs. Crupp said she supposed eighteenpence would +neither make me nor break me. I said I supposed not; and THAT was +settled. Then Mrs. Crupp said, Now about the dinner. + +It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of +the ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp's kitchen fireplace, that it +was capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. As +to a fish-kittle, Mrs. Crupp said, well! would I only come and look +at the range? She couldn't say fairer than that. Would I come and +look at it? As I should not have been much the wiser if I HAD +looked at it, I declined, and said, 'Never mind fish.' But Mrs. +Crupp said, Don't say that; oysters was in, why not them? So THAT +was settled. Mrs. Crupp then said what she would recommend would +be this. A pair of hot roast fowls - from the pastry-cook's; a +dish of stewed beef, with vegetables - from the pastry-cook's; two +little corner things, as a raised pie and a dish of kidneys - from +the pastrycook's; a tart, and (if I liked) a shape of jelly - from +the pastrycook's. This, Mrs. Crupp said, would leave her at full +liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes, and to serve up +the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done. + +I acted on Mrs. Crupp's opinion, and gave the order at the +pastry-cook's myself. Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and +observing a hard mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef +shop, which resembled marble, but was labelled 'Mock Turtle', I +went in and bought a slab of it, which I have since seen reason to +believe would have sufficed for fifteen people. This preparation, +Mrs. Crupp, after some difficulty, consented to warm up; and it +shrunk so much in a liquid state, that we found it what Steerforth +called 'rather a tight fit' for four. + +These preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in +Covent Garden Market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail +wine-merchant's in that vicinity. When I came home in the +afternoon, and saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry +floor, they looked so numerous (though there were two missing, +which made Mrs. Crupp very uncomfortable), that I was absolutely +frightened at them. + +One of Steerforth's friends was named Grainger, and the other +Markham. They were both very gay and lively fellows; Grainger, +something older than Steerforth; Markham, youthful-looking, and I +should say not more than twenty. I observed that the latter always +spoke of himself indefinitely, as 'a man', and seldom or never in +the first person singular. + +'A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperfield,' said Markham +- meaning himself. + +'It's not a bad situation,' said I, 'and the rooms are really +commodious.' + +'I hope you have both brought appetites with you?' said Steerforth. + +'Upon my honour,' returned Markham, 'town seems to sharpen a man's +appetite. A man is hungry all day long. A man is perpetually +eating.' + +Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to +preside, I made Steerforth take the head of the table when dinner +was announced, and seated myself opposite to him. Everything was +very good; we did not spare the wine; and he exerted himself so +brilliantly to make the thing pass off well, that there was no +pause in our festivity. I was not quite such good company during +dinner as I could have wished to be, for my chair was opposite the +door, and my attention was distracted by observing that the handy +young man went out of the room very often, and that his shadow +always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the wall of the +entry, with a bottle at its mouth. The 'young gal' likewise +occasioned me some uneasiness: not so much by neglecting to wash +the plates, as by breaking them. For being of an inquisitive +disposition, and unable to confine herself (as her positive +instructions were) to the pantry, she was constantly peering in at +us, and constantly imagining herself detected; in which belief, she +several times retired upon the plates (with which she had carefully +paved the floor), and did a great deal of destruction. + +These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the +cloth was cleared, and the dessert put on the table; at which +period of the entertainment the handy young man was discovered to +be speechless. Giving him private directions to seek the society +of Mrs. Crupp, and to remove the 'young gal' to the basement also, +I abandoned myself to enjoyment. + +I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts +of half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, +and made me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I laughed +heartily at my own jokes, and everybody else's; called Steerforth +to order for not passing the wine; made several engagements to go +to Oxford; announced that I meant to have a dinner-party exactly +like that, once a week, until further notice; and madly took so +much snuff out of Grainger's box, that I was obliged to go into the +pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten minutes long. + +I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and +continually starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long +before any was needed. I proposed Steerforth's health. I said he +was my dearest friend, the protector of my boyhood, and the +companion of my prime. I said I was delighted to propose his +health. I said I owed him more obligations than I could ever +repay, and held him in a higher admiration than I could ever +express. I finished by saying, 'I'll give you Steerforth! God +bless him! Hurrah!' We gave him three times three, and another, +and a good one to finish with. I broke my glass in going round the +table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two words) +'Steerforth - you'retheguidingstarofmyexistence.' + +I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of +a song. Markham was the singer, and he sang 'When the heart of a +man is depressed with care'. He said, when he had sung it, he +would give us 'Woman!' I took objection to that, and I couldn't +allow it. I said it was not a respectful way of proposing the +toast, and I would never permit that toast to be drunk in my house +otherwise than as 'The Ladies!' I was very high with him, mainly I +think because I saw Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me - or at +him - or at both of us. He said a man was not to be dictated to. +I said a man was. He said a man was not to be insulted, then. I +said he was right there - never under my roof, where the Lares were +sacred, and the laws of hospitality paramount. He said it was no +derogation from a man's dignity to confess that I was a devilish +good fellow. I instantly proposed his health. + +Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. I was smoking, and +trying to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had +made a speech about me, in the course of which I had been affected +almost to tears. I returned thanks, and hoped the present company +would dine with me tomorrow, and the day after - each day at five +o'clock, that we might enjoy the pleasures of conversation and +society through a long evening. I felt called upon to propose an +individual. I would give them my aunt. Miss Betsey Trotwood, the +best of her sex! + +Somebody was leaning out of my bedroom window, refreshing his +forehead against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air +upon his face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as +'Copperfield', and saying, 'Why did you try to smoke? You might +have known you couldn't do it.' Now, somebody was unsteadily +contemplating his features in the looking-glass. That was I too. +I was very pale in the looking-glass; my eyes had a vacant +appearance; and my hair - only my hair, nothing else - looked +drunk. + +Somebody said to me, 'Let us go to the theatre, Copperfield!' There +was no bedroom before me, but again the jingling table covered with +glasses; the lamp; Grainger on my right hand, Markham on my left, +and Steerforth opposite - all sitting in a mist, and a long way +off. The theatre? To be sure. The very thing. Come along! But +they must excuse me if I saw everybody out first, and turned the +lamp off - in case of fire. + +Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was +feeling for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, +took me by the arm and led me out. We went downstairs, one behind +another. Near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. +Somebody else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that false +report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to +think there might be some foundation for it. + +A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the +streets! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. I +considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and +put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from somewhere in a +most extraordinary manner, for I hadn't had it on before. +Steerforth then said, 'You are all right, Copperfield, are you +not?' and I told him, 'Neverberrer.' + +A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and +took money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen +paid for, and appearing rather doubtful (as I remember in the +glimpse I had of him) whether to take the money for me or not. +Shortly afterwards, we were very high up in a very hot theatre, +looking down into a large pit, that seemed to me to smoke; the +people with whom it was crammed were so indistinct. There was a +great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth after the streets; +and there were people upon it, talking about something or other, +but not at all intelligibly. There was an abundance of bright +lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the +boxes, and I don't know what more. The whole building looked to me +as if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an +unaccountable manner, when I tried to steady it. + +On somebody's motion, we resolved to go downstairs to the +dress-boxes, where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full +dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before +my view, and also my own figure at full length in a glass. Then I +was being ushered into one of these boxes, and found myself saying +something as I sat down, and people about me crying 'Silence!' to +somebody, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, and - what! +yes! - Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in the same box, with +a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn't know. I see her +face now, better than I did then, I dare say, with its indelible +look of regret and wonder turned upon me. + +'Agnes!' I said, thickly, 'Lorblessmer! Agnes!' + +'Hush! Pray!' she answered, I could not conceive why. 'You +disturb the company. Look at the stage!' + +I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of +what was going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again +by and by, and saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved +hand to her forehead. + +'Agnes!' I said. 'I'mafraidyou'renorwell.' + +'Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood,' she returned. 'Listen! Are +you going away soon?' + +'Amigoarawaysoo?' I repeated. + +'Yes.' + +I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to +hand her downstairs. I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for after +she had looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared +to understand, and replied in a low tone: + +'I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest +in it. Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to +take you home.' + +She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I was angry +with her, I felt ashamed, and with a short 'Goori!' (which I +intended for 'Good night!') got up and went away. They followed, +and I stepped at once out of the box-door into my bedroom, where +only Steerforth was with me, helping me to undress, and where I was +by turns telling him that Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to +bring the corkscrew, that I might open another bottle of wine. + +How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over +again, at cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night - the bed +a rocking sea that was never still! How, as that somebody slowly +settled down into myself, did I begin to parch, and feel as if my +outer covering of skin were a hard board; my tongue the bottom of +an empty kettle, furred with long service, and burning up over a +slow fire; the palms of my hands, hot plates of metal which no ice +could cool! + +But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt when I became +conscious next day! My horror of having committed a thousand +offences I had forgotten, and which nothing could ever expiate - my +recollection of that indelible look which Agnes had given me - the +torturing impossibility of communicating with her, not knowing, +Beast that I was, how she came to be in London, or where she stayed +- my disgust of the very sight of the room where the revel had been +held - my racking head - the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, +the impossibility of going out, or even getting up! Oh, what a day +it was! + +Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a basin of +mutton broth, dimpled all over with fat, and thought I was going +the way of my predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story +as well as to his chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to +Dover and reveal all! What an evening, when Mrs. Crupp, coming in +to take away the broth-basin, produced one kidney on a cheese-plate +as the entire remains of yesterday's feast, and I was really +inclined to fall upon her nankeen breast and say, in heartfelt +penitence, 'Oh, Mrs. Crupp, Mrs. Crupp, never mind the broken +meats! I am very miserable!' - only that I doubted, even at that +pass, if Mrs. Crupp were quite the sort of woman to confide in! + + +CHAPTER 25 +GOOD AND BAD ANGELS + + +I was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day +of headache, sickness, and repentance, with an odd confusion in my +mind relative to the date of my dinner-party, as if a body of +Titans had taken an enormous lever and pushed the day before +yesterday some months back, when I saw a ticket-porter coming +upstairs, with a letter in his hand. He was taking his time about +his errand, then; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase, +looking at him over the banisters, he swung into a trot, and came +up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion. + +'T. Copperfield, Esquire,' said the ticket-porter, touching his hat +with his little cane. + +I could scarcely lay claim to the name: I was so disturbed by the +conviction that the letter came from Agnes. However, I told him I +was T. Copperfield, Esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the +letter, which he said required an answer. I shut him out on the +landing to wait for the answer, and went into my chambers again, in +such a nervous state that I was fain to lay the letter down on my +breakfast table, and familiarize myself with the outside of it a +little, before I could resolve to break the seal. + +I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note, +containing no reference to my condition at the theatre. All it +said was, 'My dear Trotwood. I am staying at the house of papa's +agent, Mr. Waterbrook, in Ely Place, Holborn. Will you come and +see me today, at any time you like to appoint? Ever yours +affectionately, AGNES. ' + +It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my +satisfaction, that I don't know what the ticket-porter can have +thought, unless he thought I was learning to write. I must have +written half-a-dozen answers at least. I began one, 'How can I +ever hope, my dear Agnes, to efface from your remembrance the +disgusting impression' - there I didn't like it, and then I tore it +up. I began another, 'Shakespeare has observed, my dear Agnes, how +strange it is that a man should put an enemy into his mouth' - that +reminded me of Markham, and it got no farther. I even tried +poetry. I began one note, in a six-syllable line, 'Oh, do not +remember' - but that associated itself with the fifth of November, +and became an absurdity. After many attempts, I wrote, 'My dear +Agnes. Your letter is like you, and what could I say of it that +would be higher praise than that? I will come at four o'clock. +Affectionately and sorrowfully, T.C.' With this missive (which I +was in twenty minds at once about recalling, as soon as it was out +of my hands), the ticket-porter at last departed. + +If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional +gentleman in Doctors' Commons as it was to me, I sincerely believe +he made some expiation for his share in that rotten old +ecclesiastical cheese. Although I left the office at half past +three, and was prowling about the place of appointment within a few +minutes afterwards, the appointed time was exceeded by a full +quarter of an hour, according to the clock of St. Andrew's, +Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient desperation to pull +the private bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of Mr. +Waterbrook's house. + +The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook's establishment was +done on the ground-floor, and the genteel business (of which there +was a good deal) in the upper part of the building. I was shown +into a pretty but rather close drawing-room, and there sat Agnes, +netting a purse. + +She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my +airy fresh school days at Canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid +wretch I had been the other night, that, nobody being by, I yielded +to my self-reproach and shame, and - in short, made a fool of +myself. I cannot deny that I shed tears. To this hour I am +undecided whether it was upon the whole the wisest thing I could +have done, or the most ridiculous. + +'If it had been anyone but you, Agnes,' said I, turning away my +head, 'I should not have minded it half so much. But that it +should have been you who saw me! I almost wish I had been dead, +first.' + +She put her hand - its touch was like no other hand - upon my arm +for a moment; and I felt so befriended and comforted, that I could +not help moving it to my lips, and gratefully kissing it. + +'Sit down,' said Agnes, cheerfully. 'Don't be unhappy, Trotwood. +If you cannot confidently trust me, whom will you trust?' + +'Ah, Agnes!' I returned. 'You are my good Angel!' + +She smiled rather sadly, I thought, and shook her head. + +'Yes, Agnes, my good Angel! Always my good Angel!' + +'If I were, indeed, Trotwood,' she returned, 'there is one thing +that I should set my heart on very much.' + +I looked at her inquiringly; but already with a foreknowledge of +her meaning. + +'On warning you,' said Agnes, with a steady glance, 'against your +bad Angel.' + +'My dear Agnes,' I began, 'if you mean Steerforth -' + +'I do, Trotwood,' she returned. +'Then, Agnes, you wrong him very much. He my bad Angel, or +anyone's! He, anything but a guide, a support, and a friend to me! +My dear Agnes! Now, is it not unjust, and unlike you, to judge him +from what you saw of me the other night?' + +'I do not judge him from what I saw of you the other night,' she +quietly replied. + +'From what, then?' + +'From many things - trifles in themselves, but they do not seem to +me to be so, when they are put together. I judge him, partly from +your account of him, Trotwood, and your character, and the +influence he has over you.' + +There was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch +a chord within me, answering to that sound alone. It was always +earnest; but when it was very earnest, as it was now, there was a +thrill in it that quite subdued me. I sat looking at her as she +cast her eyes down on her work; I sat seeming still to listen to +her; and Steerforth, in spite of all my attachment to him, darkened +in that tone. + +'It is very bold in me,' said Agnes, looking up again, 'who have +lived in such seclusion, and can know so little of the world, to +give you my advice so confidently, or even to have this strong +opinion. But I know in what it is engendered, Trotwood, - in how +true a remembrance of our having grown up together, and in how true +an interest in all relating to you. It is that which makes me +bold. I am certain that what I say is right. I am quite sure it +is. I feel as if it were someone else speaking to you, and not I, +when I caution you that you have made a dangerous friend.' + +Again I looked at her, again I listened to her after she was +silent, and again his image, though it was still fixed in my heart, +darkened. + +'I am not so unreasonable as to expect,' said Agnes, resuming her +usual tone, after a little while, 'that you will, or that you can, +at once, change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you; +least of all a sentiment that is rooted in your trusting +disposition. You ought not hastily to do that. I only ask you, +Trotwood, if you ever think of me - I mean,' with a quiet smile, +for I was going to interrupt her, and she knew why, 'as often as +you think of me - to think of what I have said. Do you forgive me +for all this?' + +'I will forgive you, Agnes,' I replied, 'when you come to do +Steerforth justice, and to like him as well as I do.' + +'Not until then?' said Agnes. + +I saw a passing shadow on her face when I made this mention of him, +but she returned my smile, and we were again as unreserved in our +mutual confidence as of old. + +'And when, Agnes,' said I, 'will you forgive me the other night?' + +'When I recall it,' said Agnes. + +She would have dismissed the subject so, but I was too full of it +to allow that, and insisted on telling her how it happened that I +had disgraced myself, and what chain of accidental circumstances +had had the theatre for its final link. It was a great relief to +me to do this, and to enlarge on the obligation that I owed to +Steerforth for his care of me when I was unable to take care of +myself. + +'You must not forget,' said Agnes, calmly changing the conversation +as soon as I had concluded, 'that you are always to tell me, not +only when you fall into trouble, but when you fall in love. Who +has succeeded to Miss Larkins, Trotwood?' + +'No one, Agnes.' + +'Someone, Trotwood,' said Agnes, laughing, and holding up her +finger. + +'No, Agnes, upon my word! There is a lady, certainly, at Mrs. +Steerforth's house, who is very clever, and whom I like to talk to +- Miss Dartle - but I don't adore her.' + +Agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me that if I +were faithful to her in my confidence she thought she should keep +a little register of my violent attachments, with the date, +duration, and termination of each, like the table of the reigns of +the kings and queens, in the History of England. Then she asked me +if I had seen Uriah. + +'Uriah Heep?' said I. 'No. Is he in London?' + +'He comes to the office downstairs, every day,' returned Agnes. +'He was in London a week before me. I am afraid on disagreeable +business, Trotwood.' + +'On some business that makes you uneasy, Agnes, I see,' said I. +'What can that be?' + +Agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands upon one +another, and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft +eyes of hers: + +'I believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa.' + +'What? Uriah? That mean, fawning fellow, worm himself into such +promotion!' I cried, indignantly. 'Have you made no remonstrance +about it, Agnes? Consider what a connexion it is likely to be. +You must speak out. You must not allow your father to take such a +mad step. You must prevent it, Agnes, while there's time.' + +Still looking at me, Agnes shook her head while I was speaking, +with a faint smile at my warmth: and then replied: + +'You remember our last conversation about papa? It was not long +after that - not more than two or three days - when he gave me the +first intimation of what I tell you. It was sad to see him +struggling between his desire to represent it to me as a matter of +choice on his part, and his inability to conceal that it was forced +upon him. I felt very sorry.' + +'Forced upon him, Agnes! Who forces it upon him?' + +'Uriah,' she replied, after a moment's hesitation, 'has made +himself indispensable to papa. He is subtle and watchful. He has +mastered papa's weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of +them, until - to say all that I mean in a word, Trotwood, - until +papa is afraid of him.' + +There was more that she might have said; more that she knew, or +that she suspected; I clearly saw. I could not give her pain by +asking what it was, for I knew that she withheld it from me, to +spare her father. It had long been going on to this, I was +sensible: yes, I could not but feel, on the least reflection, that +it had been going on to this for a long time. I remained silent. + +'His ascendancy over papa,' said Agnes, 'is very great. He +professes humility and gratitude - with truth, perhaps: I hope so +- but his position is really one of power, and I fear he makes a +hard use of his power.' + +I said he was a hound, which, at the moment, was a great +satisfaction to me. + +'At the time I speak of, as the time when papa spoke to me,' +pursued Agnes, 'he had told papa that he was going away; that he +was very sorry, and unwilling to leave, but that he had better +prospects. Papa was very much depressed then, and more bowed down +by care than ever you or I have seen him; but he seemed relieved by +this expedient of the partnership, though at the same time he +seemed hurt by it and ashamed of it.' + +'And how did you receive it, Agnes?' + +'I did, Trotwood,' she replied, 'what I hope was right. Feeling +sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the sacrifice +should be made, I entreated him to make it. I said it would +lighten the load of his life - I hope it will! - and that it would +give me increased opportunities of being his companion. Oh, +Trotwood!' cried Agnes, putting her hands before her face, as her +tears started on it, 'I almost feel as if I had been papa's enemy, +instead of his loving child. For I know how he has altered, in his +devotion to me. I know how he has narrowed the circle of his +sympathies and duties, in the concentration of his whole mind upon +me. I know what a multitude of things he has shut out for my sake, +and how his anxious thoughts of me have shadowed his life, and +weakened his strength and energy, by turning them always upon one +idea. If I could ever set this right! If I could ever work out +his restoration, as I have so innocently been the cause of his +decline!' + +I had never before seen Agnes cry. I had seen tears in her eyes +when I had brought new honours home from school, and I had seen +them there when we last spoke about her father, and I had seen her +turn her gentle head aside when we took leave of one another; but +I had never seen her grieve like this. It made me so sorry that I +could only say, in a foolish, helpless manner, 'Pray, Agnes, don't! +Don't, my dear sister!' + +But Agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose, as I +know well now, whatever I might know or not know then, to be long +in need of my entreaties. The beautiful, calm manner, which makes +her so different in my remembrance from everybody else, came back +again, as if a cloud had passed from a serene sky. + +'We are not likely to remain alone much longer,' said Agnes, 'and +while I have an opportunity, let me earnestly entreat you, +Trotwood, to be friendly to Uriah. Don't repel him. Don't resent +(as I think you have a general disposition to do) what may be +uncongenial to you in him. He may not deserve it, for we know no +certain ill of him. In any case, think first of papa and me!' + +Agnes had no time to say more, for the room door opened, and Mrs. +Waterbrook, who was a large lady - or who wore a large dress: I +don't exactly know which, for I don't know which was dress and +which was lady - came sailing in. I had a dim recollection of +having seen her at the theatre, as if I had seen her in a pale +magic lantern; but she appeared to remember me perfectly, and still +to suspect me of being in a state of intoxication. + +Finding by degrees, however, that I was sober, and (I hope) that I +was a modest young gentleman, Mrs. Waterbrook softened towards me +considerably, and inquired, firstly, if I went much into the parks, +and secondly, if I went much into society. On my replying to both +these questions in the negative, it occurred to me that I fell +again in her good opinion; but she concealed the fact gracefully, +and invited me to dinner next day. I accepted the invitation, and +took my leave, making a call on Uriah in the office as I went out, +and leaving a card for him in his absence. + +When I went to dinner next day, and on the street door being +opened, plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, I divined +that I was not the only guest, for I immediately identified the +ticket-porter in disguise, assisting the family servant, and +waiting at the foot of the stairs to carry up my name. He looked, +to the best of his ability, when he asked me for it confidentially, +as if he had never seen me before; but well did I know him, and +well did he know me. Conscience made cowards of us both. + +I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short +throat, and a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black +nose to be the portrait of a pug-dog. He told me he was happy to +have the honour of making my acquaintance; and when I had paid my +homage to Mrs. Waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a +very awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet +hat, whom I remember as looking like a near relation of Hamlet's - +say his aunt. + +Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady's name; and her husband was there +too: so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to +be sprinkled with hoar-frost. Immense deference was shown to the +Henry Spikers, male and female; which Agnes told me was on account +of Mr. Henry Spiker being solicitor to something Or to Somebody, I +forget what or which, remotely connected with the Treasury. + +I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in +deep humility. He told me, when I shook hands with him, that he +was proud to be noticed by me, and that he really felt obliged to +me for my condescension. I could have wished he had been less +obliged to me, for he hovered about me in his gratitude all the +rest of the evening; and whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, +with his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly +down upon us from behind. + +There were other guests - all iced for the occasion, as it struck +me, like the wine. But there was one who attracted my attention +before he came in, on account of my hearing him announced as Mr. +Traddles! My mind flew back to Salem House; and could it be Tommy, +I thought, who used to draw the skeletons! + +I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual interest. He was a sober, +steady-looking young man of retiring manners, with a comic head of +hair, and eyes that were rather wide open; and he got into an +obscure corner so soon, that I had some difficulty in making him +out. At length I had a good view of him, and either my vision +deceived me, or it was the old unfortunate Tommy. + +I made my way to Mr. Waterbrook, and said, that I believed I had +the pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow there. + +'Indeed!' said Mr. Waterbrook, surprised. 'You are too young to +have been at school with Mr. Henry Spiker?' + +'Oh, I don't mean him!' I returned. 'I mean the gentleman named +Traddles.' + +'Oh! Aye, aye! Indeed!' said my host, with much diminished +interest. 'Possibly.' + +'If it's really the same person,' said I, glancing towards him, 'it +was at a place called Salem House where we were together, and he +was an excellent fellow.' + +'Oh yes. Traddles is a good fellow,' returned my host nodding his +head with an air of toleration. 'Traddles is quite a good fellow.' + +'It's a curious coincidence,' said I. + +'It is really,' returned my host, 'quite a coincidence, that +Traddles should be here at all: as Traddles was only invited this +morning, when the place at table, intended to be occupied by Mrs. +Henry Spiker's brother, became vacant, in consequence of his +indisposition. A very gentlemanly man, Mrs. Henry Spiker's +brother, Mr. Copperfield.' + +I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that +I knew nothing at all about him; and I inquired what Mr. Traddles +was by profession. + +'Traddles,' returned Mr. Waterbrook, 'is a young man reading for +the bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow - nobody's enemy but his +own.' + +'Is he his own enemy?' said I, sorry to hear this. + +'Well,' returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing +with his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. 'I +should say he was one of those men who stand in their own light. +Yes, I should say he would never, for example, be worth five +hundred pound. Traddles was recommended to me by a professional +friend. Oh yes. Yes. He has a kind of talent for drawing briefs, +and stating a case in writing, plainly. I am able to throw +something in Traddles's way, in the course of the year; something +- for him - considerable. Oh yes. Yes.' + +I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied +manner in which Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself of this little +word 'Yes', every now and then. There was wonderful expression in +it. It completely conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, +not to say with a silver spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had +gone on mounting all the heights of life one after another, until +now he looked, from the top of the fortifications, with the eye of +a philosopher and a patron, on the people down in the trenches. + +My reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was +announced. Mr. Waterbrook went down with Hamlet's aunt. Mr. Henry +Spiker took Mrs. Waterbrook. Agnes, whom I should have liked to +take myself, was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs. +Uriah, Traddles, and I, as the junior part of the company, went +down last, how we could. I was not so vexed at losing Agnes as I +might have been, since it gave me an opportunity of making myself +known to Traddles on the stairs, who greeted me with great fervour; +while Uriah writhed with such obtrusive satisfaction and +self-abasement, that I could gladly have pitched him over the +banisters. +Traddles and I were separated at table, being billeted in two +remote corners: he in the glare of a red velvet lady; I, in the +gloom of Hamlet's aunt. The dinner was very long, and the +conversation was about the Aristocracy - and Blood. Mrs. +Waterbrook repeatedly told us, that if she had a weakness, it was +Blood. + +It occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, +if we had not been quite so genteel. We were so exceedingly +genteel, that our scope was very limited. A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge +were of the party, who had something to do at second-hand (at +least, Mr. Gulpidge had) with the law business of the Bank; and +what with the Bank, and what with the Treasury, we were as +exclusive as the Court Circular. To mend the matter, Hamlet's aunt +had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in +a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced. +These were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell back upon +Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her +nephew himself. + +We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such +a sanguine complexion. + +'I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook's opinion,' said Mr. Waterbrook, +with his wine-glass at his eye. 'Other things are all very well in +their way, but give me Blood!' + +'Oh! There is nothing,' observed Hamlet's aunt, 'so satisfactory +to one! There is nothing that is so much one's beau-ideal of - of +all that sort of thing, speaking generally. There are some low +minds (not many, I am happy to believe, but there are some) that +would prefer to do what I should call bow down before idols. +Positively Idols! Before service, intellect, and so on. But these +are intangible points. Blood is not so. We see Blood in a nose, +and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and we say, "There it +is! That's Blood!" It is an actual matter of fact. We point it +out. It admits of no doubt.' + +The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down, +stated the question more decisively yet, I thought. + +'Oh, you know, deuce take it,' said this gentleman, looking round +the board with an imbecile smile, 'we can't forego Blood, you know. +We must have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be +a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and +behaviour, and may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves +and other people into a variety of fixes - and all that - but deuce +take it, it's delightful to reflect that they've got Blood in 'em! +Myself, I'd rather at any time be knocked down by a man who had got +Blood in him, than I'd be picked up by a man who hadn't!' + +This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a +nutshell, gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman +into great notice until the ladies retired. After that, I observed +that Mr. Gulpidge and Mr. Henry Spiker, who had hitherto been very +distant, entered into a defensive alliance against us, the common +enemy, and exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for our +defeat and overthrow. + +'That affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred +pounds has not taken the course that was expected, Spiker,' said +Mr. Gulpidge. + +'Do you mean the D. of A.'s?' said Mr. Spiker. + +'The C. of B.'s!' said Mr. Gulpidge. + +Mr. Spiker raised his eyebrows, and looked much concerned. + +'When the question was referred to Lord - I needn't name him,' said +Mr. Gulpidge, checking himself - + +'I understand,' said Mr. Spiker, 'N.' + +Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded - 'was referred to him, his answer was, +"Money, or no release."' + +'Lord bless my soul!' cried Mr. Spiker. + +"'Money, or no release,"' repeated Mr. Gulpidge, firmly. 'The next +in reversion - you understand me?' + +'K.,' said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look. + +'- K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended at +Newmarket for that purpose, and he point-blank refused to do it.' + +Mr. Spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony. + +'So the matter rests at this hour,' said Mr. Gulpidge, throwing +himself back in his chair. 'Our friend Waterbrook will excuse me +if I forbear to explain myself generally, on account of the +magnitude of the interests involved.' + +Mr. Waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to me, to have +such interests, and such names, even hinted at, across his table. +He assumed an expression of gloomy intelligence (though I am +persuaded he knew no more about the discussion than I did), and +highly approved of the discretion that had been observed. Mr. +Spiker, after the receipt of such a confidence, naturally desired +to favour his friend with a confidence of his own; therefore the +foregoing dialogue was succeeded by another, in which it was Mr. +Gulpidge's turn to be surprised, and that by another in which the +surprise came round to Mr. Spiker's turn again, and so on, turn and +turn about. All this time we, the outsiders, remained oppressed by +the tremendous interests involved in the conversation; and our host +regarded us with pride, as the victims of a salutary awe and +astonishment. +I was very glad indeed to get upstairs to Agnes, and to talk with +her in a corner, and to introduce Traddles to her, who was shy, but +agreeable, and the same good-natured creature still. As he was +obliged to leave early, on account of going away next morning for +a month, I had not nearly so much conversation with him as I could +have wished; but we exchanged addresses, and promised ourselves the +pleasure of another meeting when he should come back to town. He +was greatly interested to hear that I knew Steerforth, and spoke of +him with such warmth that I made him tell Agnes what he thought of +him. But Agnes only looked at me the while, and very slightly +shook her head when only I observed her. + +As she was not among people with whom I believed she could be very +much at home, I was almost glad to hear that she was going away +within a few days, though I was sorry at the prospect of parting +from her again so soon. This caused me to remain until all the +company were gone. Conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was +such a delightful reminder to me of my happy life in the grave old +house she had made so beautiful, that I could have remained there +half the night; but, having no excuse for staying any longer, when +the lights of Mr. Waterbrook's society were all snuffed out, I took +my leave very much against my inclination. I felt then, more than +ever, that she was my better Angel; and if I thought of her sweet +face and placid smile, as though they had shone on me from some +removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought no harm. + +I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have +excepted Uriah, whom I don't include in that denomination, and who +had never ceased to hover near us. He was close behind me when I +went downstairs. He was close beside me, when I walked away from +the house, slowly fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still +longer fingers of a great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves. + +It was in no disposition for Uriah's company, but in remembrance of +the entreaty Agnes had made to me, that I asked him if he would +come home to my rooms, and have some coffee. + +'Oh, really, Master Copperfield,' he rejoined - 'I beg your pardon, +Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural, I don't like +that you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble +person like me to your ouse.' + +'There is no constraint in the case,' said I. 'Will you come?' + +'I should like to, very much,' replied Uriah, with a writhe. + +'Well, then, come along!' said I. + +I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not +to mind it. We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon +the road; and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow +gloves, that he was still putting them on, and seemed to have made +no advance in that labour, when we got to my place. + +I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head +against anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog +in mine, that I was tempted to drop it and run away. Agnes and +hospitality prevailed, however, and I conducted him to my fireside. +When I lighted my candles, he fell into meek transports with the +room that was revealed to him; and when I heated the coffee in an +unassuming block-tin vessel in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to +prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because it was not intended for the +purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because there was a patent +invention of great price mouldering away in the pantry), he +professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have scalded him. + +'Oh, really, Master Copperfield, - I mean Mister Copperfield,' said +Uriah, 'to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have +expected! But, one way and another, so many things happen to me +which I never could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, +that it seems to rain blessings on my ed. You have heard +something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations, Master +Copperfield, - I should say, Mister Copperfield?' + +As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his +coffee-cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his +spoon going softly round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which +looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me +without looking at me, the disagreeable dints I have formerly +described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a +snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots, I +decided in my own mind that I disliked him intensely. It made me +very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I was young then, +and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt. + +'You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my +expectations, Master Copperfield, - I should say, Mister +Copperfield?' observed Uriah. + +'Yes,' said I, 'something.' + +'Ah! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it!' he quietly returned. +'I'm glad to find Miss Agnes knows of it. Oh, thank you, Master - +Mister Copperfield!' + +I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), +for having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning +Agnes, however immaterial. But I only drank my coffee. + +'What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Copperfield!' +pursued Uriah. 'Dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself +to be! Don't you remember saying to me once, that perhaps I should +be a partner in Mr. Wickfield's business, and perhaps it might be +Wickfield and Heep? You may not recollect it; but when a person is +umble, Master Copperfield, a person treasures such things up!' + +'I recollect talking about it,' said I, 'though I certainly did not +think it very likely then.' +'Oh! who would have thought it likely, Mister Copperfield!' +returned Uriah, enthusiastically. 'I am sure I didn't myself. I +recollect saying with my own lips that I was much too umble. So I +considered myself really and truly.' + +He sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as +I looked at him. + +'But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield,' he presently +resumed, 'may be the instruments of good. I am glad to think I +have been the instrument of good to Mr. Wickfield, and that I may +be more so. Oh what a worthy man he is, Mister Copperfield, but +how imprudent he has been!' + +'I am sorry to hear it,' said I. I could not help adding, rather +pointedly, 'on all accounts.' + +'Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield,' replied Uriah. 'On all +accounts. Miss Agnes's above all! You don't remember your own +eloquent expressions, Master Copperfield; but I remember how you +said one day that everybody must admire her, and how I thanked you +for it! You have forgot that, I have no doubt, Master +Copperfield?' + +'No,' said I, drily. + +'Oh how glad I am you have not!' exclaimed Uriah. 'To think that +you should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my +umble breast, and that you've not forgot it! Oh! - Would you +excuse me asking for a cup more coffee?' + +Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those +sparks, and something in the glance he directed at me as he said +it, had made me start as if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze +of light. Recalled by his request, preferred in quite another tone +of voice, I did the honours of the shaving-pot; but I did them with +an unsteadiness of hand, a sudden sense of being no match for him, +and a perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what he might be going to +say next, which I felt could not escape his observation. + +He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and round, he +sipped it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked +at the fire, he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled +at me, he writhed and undulated about, in his deferential +servility, he stirred and sipped again, but he left the renewal of +the conversation to me. + +'So, Mr. Wickfield,' said I, at last, 'who is worth five hundred of +you - or me'; for my life, I think, I could not have helped +dividing that part of the sentence with an awkward jerk; 'has been +imprudent, has he, Mr. Heep?' + +'Oh, very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield,' returned Uriah, +sighing modestly. 'Oh, very much so! But I wish you'd call me +Uriah, if you please. It's like old times.' + +'Well! Uriah,' said I, bolting it out with some difficulty. + +'Thank you,' he returned, with fervour. 'Thank you, Master +Copperfield! It's like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing +of old bellses to hear YOU say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I +making any observation?' + +'About Mr. Wickfield,' I suggested. + +'Oh! Yes, truly,' said Uriah. 'Ah! Great imprudence, Master +Copperfield. It's a topic that I wouldn't touch upon, to any soul +but you. Even to you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If +anyone else had been in my place during the last few years, by this +time he would have had Mr. Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, +Master Copperfield, too!) under his thumb. Un--der--his thumb,' +said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched out his cruel-looking hand +above my table, and pressed his own thumb upon it, until it shook, +and shook the room. + +If I had been obliged to look at him with him splay foot on Mr. +Wickfield's head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more. + +'Oh, dear, yes, Master Copperfield,' he proceeded, in a soft voice, +most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did +not diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, 'there's no +doubt of it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I don't know +what at all. Mr. Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of +umbly serving him, and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could +have hoped to reach. How thankful should I be!' With his face +turned towards me, as he finished, but without looking at me, he +took his crooked thumb off the spot where he had planted it, and +slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with it, as if he were +shaving himself. + +I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his crafty +face, with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, +preparing for something else. + +'Master Copperfield,' he began - 'but am I keeping you up?' + +'You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late.' + +'Thank you, Master Copperfield! I have risen from my umble station +since first you used to address me, it is true; but I am umble +still. I hope I never shall be otherwise than umble. You will not +think the worse of my umbleness, if I make a little confidence to +you, Master Copperfield? Will you?' + +'Oh no,' said I, with an effort. + +'Thank you!' He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping +the palms of his hands. 'Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield -' +'Well, Uriah?' + +'Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously!' he cried; and +gave himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. 'You thought her +looking very beautiful tonight, Master Copperfield?' + +'I thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all +respects, to everyone around her,' I returned. + +'Oh, thank you! It's so true!' he cried. 'Oh, thank you very much +for that!' + +'Not at all,' I said, loftily. 'There is no reason why you should +thank me.' + +'Why that, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah, 'is, in fact, the +confidence that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble +as I am,' he wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the +fire by turns, 'umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but +honest roof has ever been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don't mind +trusting you with my secret, Master Copperfield, for I have always +overflowed towards you since the first moment I had the pleasure of +beholding you in a pony-shay) has been in my breast for years. Oh, +Master Copperfield, with what a pure affection do I love the ground +my Agnes walks on!' + +I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out +of the fire, and running him through with it. It went from me with +a shock, like a ball fired from a rifle: but the image of Agnes, +outraged by so much as a thought of this red-headed animal's, +remained in my mind when I looked at him, sitting all awry as if +his mean soul griped his body, and made me giddy. He seemed to +swell and grow before my eyes; the room seemed full of the echoes +of his voice; and the strange feeling (to which, perhaps, no one is +quite a stranger) that all this had occurred before, at some +indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to say next, +took possession of me. + +A timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his +face, did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of +Agnes, in its full force, than any effort I could have made. I +asked him, with a better appearance of composure than I could have +thought possible a minute before, whether he had made his feelings +known to Agnes. + +'Oh no, Master Copperfield!' he returned; 'oh dear, no! Not to +anyone but you. You see I am only just emerging from my lowly +station. I rest a good deal of hope on her observing how useful I +am to her father (for I trust to be very useful to him indeed, +Master Copperfield), and how I smooth the way for him, and keep him +straight. She's so much attached to her father, Master Copperfield +(oh, what a lovely thing it is in a daughter!), that I think she +may come, on his account, to be kind to me.' + +I fathomed the depth of the rascal's whole scheme, and understood +why he laid it bare. + +'If you'll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master +Copperfield,' he pursued, 'and not, in general, to go against me, +I shall take it as a particular favour. You wouldn't wish to make +unpleasantness. I know what a friendly heart you've got; but +having only known me on my umble footing (on my umblest I should +say, for I am very umble still), you might, unbeknown, go against +me rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine, you see, Master +Copperfield. There's a song that says, "I'd crowns resign, to call +her mine!" I hope to do it, one of these days.' + +Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for anyone that I +could think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the +wife of such a wretch as this! + +'There's no hurry at present, you know, Master Copperfield,' Uriah +proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this +thought in my mind. 'My Agnes is very young still; and mother and +me will have to work our way upwards, and make a good many new +arrangements, before it would be quite convenient. So I shall have +time gradually to make her familiar with my hopes, as opportunities +offer. Oh, I'm so much obliged to you for this confidence! Oh, +it's such a relief, you can't think, to know that you understand +our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn't wish to make +unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!' + +He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having given it a +damp squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch. + +'Dear me!' he said, 'it's past one. The moments slip away so, in +the confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it's almost +half past one!' + +I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really +thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually +scattered. + +'Dear me!' he said, considering. 'The ouse that I am stopping at +- a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, +near the New River ed - will have gone to bed these two hours.' + +'I am sorry,' I returned, 'that there is only one bed here, and +that I -' + +'Oh, don't think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!' he +rejoined ecstatically, drawing up one leg. 'But would you have any +objections to my laying down before the fire?' + +'If it comes to that,' I said, 'pray take my bed, and I'll lie down +before the fire.' + +His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the +excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears +of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, +situated at about the level of low-water mark, soothed in her +slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock, to which she +always referred me when we had any little difference on the score +of punctuality, and which was never less than three-quarters of an +hour too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the +best authorities. As no arguments I could urge, in my bewildered +condition, had the least effect upon his modesty in inducing him to +accept my bedroom, I was obliged to make the best arrangements I +could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of the sofa +(which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the sofa +pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and +a great-coat, made him a bed and covering, for which he was more +than thankful. Having lent him a night-cap, which he put on at +once, and in which he made such an awful figure, that I have never +worn one since, I left him to his rest. + +I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned +and tumbled; how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and +this creature; how I considered what could I do, and what ought I +to do; how I could come to no other conclusion than that the best +course for her peace was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what +I had heard. If I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of +Agnes with her tender eyes, and of her father looking fondly on +her, as I had so often seen him look, arose before me with +appealing faces, and filled me with vague terrors. When I awoke, +the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next room, sat heavy +on me like a waking nightmare; and oppressed me with a leaden +dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger. + +The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn't come +out. I thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red +hot, and I had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the +body. I was so haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there +was nothing in it, that I stole into the next room to look at him. +There I saw him, lying on his back, with his legs extending to I +don't know where, gurglings taking place in his throat, stoppages +in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office. He was so much +worse in reality than in my distempered fancy, that afterwards I +was attracted to him in very repulsion, and could not help +wandering in and out every half-hour or so, and taking another look +at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and hopeless as +ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky. + +When I saw him going downstairs early in the morning (for, thank +Heaven! he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if +the night was going away in his person. When I went out to the +Commons, I charged Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave +the windows open, that my sitting-room might be aired, and purged +of his presence. + + + +CHAPTER 26 +I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY + + +I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes left town. +I was at the coach office to take leave of her and see her go; and +there was he, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It +was some small satisfaction to me to observe his spare, +short-waisted, high-shouldered, mulberry-coloured great-coat +perched up, in company with an umbrella like a small tent, on the +edge of the back seat on the roof, while Agnes was, of course, +inside; but what I underwent in my efforts to be friendly with him, +while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little recompense. At +the coach window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered about us +without a moment's intermission, like a great vulture: gorging +himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes, or Agnes said to +me. + +In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had +thrown me, I had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in +reference to the partnership. 'I did what I hope was right. +Feeling sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the +sacrifice should be made, I entreated him to make it.' A miserable +foreboding that she would yield to, and sustain herself by, the +same feeling in reference to any sacrifice for his sake, had +oppressed me ever since. I knew how she loved him. I knew what +the devotion of her nature was. I knew from her own lips that she +regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors, and as owing +him a great debt she ardently desired to pay. I had no consolation +in seeing how different she was from this detestable Rufus with the +mulberry-coloured great-coat, for I felt that in the very +difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and +the sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay. All this, +doubtless, he knew thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered +well. + +Yet I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar +off, must destroy the happiness of Agnes; and I was so sure, from +her manner, of its being unseen by her then, and having cast no +shadow on her yet; that I could as soon have injured her, as given +her any warning of what impended. Thus it was that we parted +without explanation: she waving her hand and smiling farewell from +the coach window; her evil genius writhing on the roof, as if he +had her in his clutches and triumphed. + +I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. +When Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable +as when I saw her going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful +state, this subject was sure to present itself, and all my +uneasiness was sure to be redoubled. Hardly a night passed without +my dreaming of it. It became a part of my life, and as inseparable +from my life as my own head. + +I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness: for Steerforth +was at Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the +Commons, I was very much alone. I believe I had at this time some +lurking distrust of Steerforth. I wrote to him most affectionately +in reply to his, but I think I was glad, upon the whole, that he +could not come to London just then. I suspect the truth to be, +that the influence of Agnes was upon me, undisturbed by the sight +of him; and that it was the more powerful with me, because she had +so large a share in my thoughts and interest. + +In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was articled to +Spenlow and Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my +house-rent and sundry collateral matters) from my aunt. My rooms +were engaged for twelve months certain: and though I still found +them dreary of an evening, and the evenings long, I could settle +down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to +coffee; which I seem, on looking back, to have taken by the gallon +at about this period of my existence. At about this time, too, I +made three discoveries: first, that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a +curious disorder called 'the spazzums', which was generally +accompanied with inflammation of the nose, and required to be +constantly treated with peppermint; secondly, that something +peculiar in the temperature of my pantry, made the brandy-bottles +burst; thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much given to +record that circumstance in fragments of English versification. + +On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my +having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and +going alone to the theatre at night. I went to see The Stranger, +as a Doctors' Commons sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up, +that I hardly knew myself in my own glass when I got home. Mr. +Spenlow remarked, on this occasion, when we concluded our business, +that he should have been happy to have seen me at his house at +Norwood to celebrate our becoming connected, but for his domestic +arrangements being in some disorder, on account of the expected +return of his daughter from finishing her education at Paris. But, +he intimated that when she came home he should hope to have the +pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that he was a widower with one +daughter, and expressed my acknowledgements. + +Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week or two, he referred +to this engagement, and said, that if I would do him the favour to +come down next Saturday, and stay till Monday, he would be +extremely happy. Of course I said I would do him the favour; and +he was to drive me down in his phaeton, and to bring me back. + +When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of +veneration to the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at Norwood +was a sacred mystery. One of them informed me that he had heard +that Mr. Spenlow ate entirely off plate and china; and another +hinted at champagne being constantly on draught, after the usual +custom of table-beer. The old clerk with the wig, whose name was +Mr. Tiffey, had been down on business several times in the course +of his career, and had on each occasion penetrated to the +breakfast-parlour. He described it as an apartment of the most +sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown East India +sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. We +had an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day - about +excommunicating a baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a +paving-rate - and as the evidence was just twice the length of +Robinson Crusoe, according to a calculation I made, it was rather +late in the day before we finished. However, we got him +excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in no end of costs; and +then the baker's proctor, and the judge, and the advocates on both +sides (who were all nearly related), went out of town together, and +Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton. + +The phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses arched their +necks and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to +Doctors' Commons. There was a good deal of competition in the +Commons on all points of display, and it turned out some very +choice equipages then; though I always have considered, and always +shall consider, that in my time the great article of competition +there was starch: which I think was worn among the proctors to as +great an extent as it is in the nature of man to bear. + +We were very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some +hints in reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest +profession in the world, and must on no account be confounded with +the profession of a solicitor: being quite another sort of thing, +infinitely more exclusive, less mechanical, and more profitable. +We took things much more easily in the Commons than they could be +taken anywhere else, he observed, and that set us, as a privileged +class, apart. He said it was impossible to conceal the +disagreeable fact, that we were chiefly employed by solicitors; but +he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race of men, +universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretensions. + +I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of +professional business? He replied, that a good case of a disputed +will, where there was a neat little estate of thirty or forty +thousand pounds, was, perhaps, the best of all. In such a case, he +said, not only were there very pretty pickings, in the way of +arguments at every stage of the proceedings, and mountains upon +mountains of evidence on interrogatory and counter-interrogatory +(to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to the Delegates, and +then to the Lords), but, the costs being pretty sure to come out of +the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively and spirited +manner, and expense was no consideration. Then, he launched into +a general eulogium on the Commons. What was to be particularly +admired (he said) in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the +most conveniently organized place in the world. It was the +complete idea of snugness. It lay in a nutshell. For example: You +brought a divorce case, or a restitution case, into the Consistory. +Very good. You tried it in the Consistory. You made a quiet +little round game of it, among a family group, and you played it +out at leisure. Suppose you were not satisfied with the +Consistory, what did you do then? Why, you went into the Arches. +What was the Arches? The same court, in the same room, with the +same bar, and the same practitioners, but another judge, for there +the Consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. +Well, you played your round game out again. Still you were not +satisfied. Very good. What did you do then? Why, you went to the +Delegates. Who were the Delegates? Why, the Ecclesiastical +Delegates were the advocates without any business, who had looked +on at the round game when it was playing in both courts, and had +seen the cards shuffled, and cut, and played, and had talked to all +the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges, to settle the +matter to the satisfaction of everybody! Discontented people might +talk of corruption in the Commons, closeness in the Commons, and +the necessity of reforming the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow solemnly, +in conclusion; but when the price of wheat per bushel had been +highest, the Commons had been busiest; and a man might lay his hand +upon his heart, and say this to the whole world, - 'Touch the +Commons, and down comes the country!' + +I listened to all this with attention; and though, I must say, I +had my doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the +Commons as Mr. Spenlow made out, I respectfully deferred to his +opinion. That about the price of wheat per bushel, I modestly felt +was too much for my strength, and quite settled the question. I +have never, to this hour, got the better of that bushel of wheat. +It has reappeared to annihilate me, all through my life, in +connexion with all kinds of subjects. I don't know now, exactly, +what it has to do with me, or what right it has to crush me, on an +infinite variety of occasions; but whenever I see my old friend the +bushel brought in by the head and shoulders (as he always is, I +observe), I give up a subject for lost. + +This is a digression. I was not the man to touch the Commons, and +bring down the country. I submissively expressed, by my silence, +my acquiescence in all I had heard from my superior in years and +knowledge; and we talked about The Stranger and the Drama, and the +pairs of horses, until we came to Mr. Spenlow's gate. + +There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow's house; and though that +was not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so +beautifully kept, that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming +lawn, there were clusters of trees, and there were perspective +walks that I could just distinguish in the dark, arched over with +trellis-work, on which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing +season. 'Here Miss Spenlow walks by herself,' I thought. 'Dear +me!' + +We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into +a hall where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, +plaids, gloves, whips, and walking-sticks. 'Where is Miss Dora?' +said Mr. Spenlow to the servant. 'Dora!' I thought. 'What a +beautiful name!' + +We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical +breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown East Indian sherry), +and I heard a voice say, 'Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my +daughter Dora's confidential friend!' It was, no doubt, Mr. +Spenlow's voice, but I didn't know it, and I didn't care whose it +was. All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was +a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! + +She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don't +know what she was - anything that no one ever saw, and everything +that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love +in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, +or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a +word to her. + +'I,' observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and +murmured something, 'have seen Mr. Copperfield before.' + +The speaker was not Dora. No; the confidential friend, Miss +Murdstone! + +I don't think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgement, +no capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing +worth mentioning in the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be +astonished about. I said, 'How do you do, Miss Murdstone? I hope +you are well.' She answered, 'Very well.' I said, 'How is Mr. +Murdstone?' She replied, 'My brother is robust, I am obliged to +you.' + +Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognize +each other, then put in his word. + +'I am glad to find,' he said, 'Copperfield, that you and Miss +Murdstone are already acquainted.' + +'Mr. Copperfield and myself,' said Miss Murdstone, with severe +composure, 'are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted. It +was in his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. +I should not have known him.' + +I replied that I should have known her, anywhere. Which was true +enough. + +'Miss Murdstone has had the goodness,' said Mr. Spenlow to me, 'to +accept the office - if I may so describe it - of my daughter Dora's +confidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no +mother, Miss Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion +and protector.' + +A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the +pocket instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed +for purposes of protection as of assault. But as I had none but +passing thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, +directly afterwards, and was thinking that I saw, in her prettily +pettish manner, that she was not very much inclined to be +particularly confidential to her companion and protector, when a +bell rang, which Mr. Spenlow said was the first dinner-bell, and so +carried me off to dress. + +The idea of dressing one's self, or doing anything in the way of +action, in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. I +could only sit down before my fire, biting the key of my +carpet-bag, and think of the captivating, girlish, bright-eyed +lovely Dora. What a form she had, what a face she had, what a +graceful, variable, enchanting manner! + +The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my +dressing, instead of the careful operation I could have wished +under the circumstances, and went downstairs. There was some +company. Dora was talking to an old gentleman with a grey head. +Grey as he was - and a great-grandfather into the bargain, for he +said so - I was madly jealous of him. + +What a state of mind I was in! I was jealous of everybody. I +couldn't bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr. Spenlow better than +I did. It was torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in +which I had had no share. When a most amiable person, with a +highly polished bald head, asked me across the dinner table, if +that were the first occasion of my seeing the grounds, I could have +done anything to him that was savage and revengeful. + +I don't remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least +idea what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that +I dined off Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates +untouched. I sat next to her. I talked to her. She had the most +delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest +and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost youth into +hopeless slavery. She was rather diminutive altogether. So much +the more precious, I thought. + +When she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone (no other ladies +were of the party), I fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the +cruel apprehension that Miss Murdstone would disparage me to her. +The amiable creature with the polished head told me a long story, +which I think was about gardening. I think I heard him say, 'my +gardener', several times. I seemed to pay the deepest attention to +him, but I was wandering in a garden of Eden all the while, with +Dora. + +My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing +affection were revived when we went into the drawing-room, by the +grim and distant aspect of Miss Murdstone. But I was relieved of +them in an unexpected manner. + +'David Copperfield,' said Miss Murdstone, beckoning me aside into +a window. 'A word.' + +I confronted Miss Murdstone alone. + +'David Copperfield,' said Miss Murdstone, 'I need not enlarge upon +family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject.' +'Far from it, ma'am,' I returned. + +'Far from it,' assented Miss Murdstone. 'I do not wish to revive +the memory of past differences, or of past outrages. I have +received outrages from a person - a female I am sorry to say, for +the credit of my sex - who is not to be mentioned without scorn and +disgust; and therefore I would rather not mention her.' + +I felt very fiery on my aunt's account; but I said it would +certainly be better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, not to mention her. +I could not hear her disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without +expressing my opinion in a decided tone. + +Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head; +then, slowly opening her eyes, resumed: + +'David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that +I formed an unfavourable opinion of you in your childhood. It may +have been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. +That is not in question between us now. I belong to a family +remarkable, I believe, for some firmness; and I am not the creature +of circumstance or change. I may have my opinion of you. You may +have your opinion of me.' + +I inclined my head, in my turn. + +'But it is not necessary,' said Miss Murdstone, 'that these +opinions should come into collision here. Under existing +circumstances, it is as well on all accounts that they should not. +As the chances of life have brought us together again, and may +bring us together on other occasions, I would say, let us meet here +as distant acquaintances. Family circumstances are a sufficient +reason for our only meeting on that footing, and it is quite +unnecessary that either of us should make the other the subject of +remark. Do you approve of this?' + +'Miss Murdstone,' I returned, 'I think you and Mr. Murdstone used +me very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I +shall always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in +what you propose.' + +Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. Then, just +touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff +fingers, she walked away, arranging the little fetters on her +wrists and round her neck; which seemed to be the same set, in +exactly the same state, as when I had seen her last. These +reminded me, in reference to Miss Murdstone's nature, of the +fetters over a jail door; suggesting on the outside, to all +beholders, what was to be expected within. + +All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress +of my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, +generally to the effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought +always to dance, Ta ra la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a +glorified instrument, resembling a guitar. That I was lost in +blissful delirium. That I refused refreshment. That my soul +recoiled from punch particularly. That when Miss Murdstone took +her into custody and led her away, she smiled and gave me her +delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror, +looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in +a most maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble +infatuation. + +It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take +a stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my +passion by dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall, I +encountered her little dog, who was called Jip - short for Gipsy. +I approached him tenderly, for I loved even him; but he showed his +whole set of teeth, got under a chair expressly to snarl, and +wouldn't hear of the least familiarity. + +The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what +my feelings of happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged +to this dear wonder. As to marriage, and fortune, and all that, I +believe I was almost as innocently undesigning then, as when I +loved little Em'ly. To be allowed to call her 'Dora', to write to +her, to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that +when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, seemed to +me the summit of human ambition - I am sure it was the summit of +mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was a lackadaisical young +spooney; but there was a purity of heart in all this, that prevents +my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it, let me laugh as +I may. + +I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner, and met her. +I tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that +corner, and my pen shakes in my hand. + +'You - are - out early, Miss Spenlow,' said I. + +'It's so stupid at home,' she replied, 'and Miss Murdstone is so +absurd! She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the +day to be aired, before I come out. Aired!' (She laughed, here, in +the most melodious manner.) 'On a Sunday morning, when I don't +practise, I must do something. So I told papa last night I must +come out. Besides, it's the brightest time of the whole day. +Don't you think so?' + +I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it +was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a +minute before. + +'Do you mean a compliment?' said Dora, 'or that the weather has +really changed?' + +I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no +compliment, but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any +change having taken place in the weather. It was in the state of +my own feelings, I added bashfully: to clench the explanation. + +I never saw such curls - how could I, for there never were such +curls! - as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the +straw hat and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I +could only have hung it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a +priceless possession it would have been! + +'You have just come home from Paris,' said I. + +'Yes,' said she. 'Have you ever been there?' + +'No.' + +'Oh! I hope you'll go soon! You would like it so much!' + +Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she +should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I could +go, was insupportable. I depreciated Paris; I depreciated France. +I said I wouldn't leave England, under existing circumstances, for +any earthly consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, +she was shaking the curls again, when the little dog came running +along the walk to our relief. + +He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She +took him up in her arms - oh my goodness! - and caressed him, but +he persisted upon barking still. He wouldn't let me touch him, +when I tried; and then she beat him. It increased my sufferings +greatly to see the pats she gave him for punishment on the bridge +of his blunt nose, while he winked his eyes, and licked her hand, +and still growled within himself like a little double-bass. At +length he was quiet - well he might be with her dimpled chin upon +his head! - and we walked away to look at a greenhouse. + +'You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you?' said +Dora. -'My pet.' + +(The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to +me!) + +'No,' I replied. 'Not at all so.' + +'She is a tiresome creature,' said Dora, pouting. 'I can't think +what papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing +to be my companion. Who wants a protector? I am sure I don't want +a protector. Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss +Murdstone, - can't you, Jip, dear?' + +He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head. + +'Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no +such thing - is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such +cross people, Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we +like, and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found +out for us - don't we, Jip?' + +jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle +when it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, +riveted above the last. + +'It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to +have, instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, +always following us about - isn't it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We +won't be confidential, and we'll make ourselves as happy as we can +in spite of her, and we'll tease her, and not please her - won't +we, Jip?' + +If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my +knees on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing +them, and of being presently ejected from the premises besides. +But, by good fortune the greenhouse was not far off, and these +words brought us to it. + +It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered +along in front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one +or that one, and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, +laughing, held the dog up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if +we were not all three in Fairyland, certainly I was. The scent of +a geranium leaf, at this day, strikes me with a half comical half +serious wonder as to what change has come over me in a moment; and +then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons, and a quantity of curls, +and a little black dog being held up, in two slender arms, against +a bank of blossoms and bright leaves. + +Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here; and +presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled +with hair powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora's arm +in hers, and marched us into breakfast as if it were a soldier's +funeral. + +How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I don't know. +But, I perfectly remember that I sat swilling tea until my whole +nervous system, if I had had any in those days, must have gone by +the board. By and by we went to church. Miss Murdstone was +between Dora and me in the pew; but I heard her sing, and the +congregation vanished. A sermon was delivered - about Dora, of +course - and I am afraid that is all I know of the service. + +We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four, +and an evening of looking over books and pictures; Miss Murdstone +with a homily before her, and her eye upon us, keeping guard +vigilantly. Ah! little did Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat +opposite to me after dinner that day, with his pocket-handkerchief +over his head, how fervently I was embracing him, in my fancy, as +his son-in-law! Little did he think, when I took leave of him at +night, that he had just given his full consent to my being engaged +to Dora, and that I was invoking blessings on his head! + +We departed early in the morning, for we had a Salvage case coming +on in the Admiralty Court, requiring a rather accurate knowledge of +the whole science of navigation, in which (as we couldn't be +expected to know much about those matters in the Commons) the judge +had entreated two old Trinity Masters, for charity's sake, to come +and help him out. Dora was at the breakfast-table to make the tea +again, however; and I had the melancholy pleasure of taking off my +hat to her in the phaeton, as she stood on the door-step with Jip +in her arms. + +What the Admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense I made of our +case in my mind, as I listened to it; how I saw 'DORA' engraved +upon the blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as +the emblem of that high jurisdiction; and how I felt when Mr. +Spenlow went home without me (I had had an insane hope that he +might take me back again), as if I were a mariner myself, and the +ship to which I belonged had sailed away and left me on a desert +island; I shall make no fruitless effort to describe. If that +sleepy old court could rouse itself, and present in any visible +form the daydreams I have had in it about Dora, it would reveal my +truth. + +I don't mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day +after day, from week to week, and term to term. I went there, not +to attend to what was going on, but to think about Dora. If ever +I bestowed a thought upon the cases, as they dragged their slow +length before me, it was only to wonder, in the matrimonial cases +(remembering Dora), how it was that married people could ever be +otherwise than happy; and, in the Prerogative cases, to consider, +if the money in question had been left to me, what were the +foremost steps I should immediately have taken in regard to Dora. +Within the first week of my passion, I bought four sumptuous +waistcoats - not for myself; I had no pride in them; for Dora - and +took to wearing straw-coloured kid gloves in the streets, and laid +the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the boots I +wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the +natural size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart +was, in a most affecting manner. + +And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to +Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. +Not only was I soon as well known on the Norwood Road as the +postmen on that beat, but I pervaded London likewise. I walked +about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted +the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park again +and again, long after I was quite knocked up. Sometimes, at long +intervals and on rare occasions, I saw her. Perhaps I saw her +glove waved in a carriage window; perhaps I met her, walked with +her and Miss Murdstone a little way, and spoke to her. In the +latter case I was always very miserable afterwards, to think that +I had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no idea of the +extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was +always looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to +Mr. Spenlow's house. I was always being disappointed, for I got +none. + +Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this +attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage +to write more explicitly even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr. +Spenlow's house, 'whose family,' I added, 'consists of one +daughter'; - I say Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of +penetration, for, even in that early stage, she found it out. She +came up to me one evening, when I was very low, to ask (she being +then afflicted with the disorder I have mentioned) if I could +oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums mixed with rhubarb, +and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of cloves, which was +the best remedy for her complaint; - or, if I had not such a thing +by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It was not, +she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As I +had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second +in the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that +I might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) +she began to take in my presence. + +'Cheer up, sir,' said Mrs. Crupp. 'I can't abear to see you so, +sir: I'm a mother myself.' + +I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, +but I smiled on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power. + +'Come, sir,' said Mrs. Crupp. 'Excuse me. I know what it is, sir. +There's a lady in the case.' + +'Mrs. Crupp?' I returned, reddening. + +'Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir!' said Mrs. Crupp, nodding +encouragement. 'Never say die, sir! If She don't smile upon you, +there's a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, +Mr. Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir.' + +Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull: firstly, no doubt, +because it was not my name; and secondly, I am inclined to think, +in some indistinct association with a washing-day. + +'What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs. +Crupp?' said I. + +'Mr. Copperfull,' said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, +'I'm a mother myself.' + +For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen +bosom, and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her +medicine. At length she spoke again. + +'When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr. +Copperfull,' said Mrs. Crupp, 'my remark were, I had now found +summun I could care for. "Thank Ev'in!" were the expression, "I +have now found summun I can care for!" - You don't eat enough, sir, +nor yet drink.' + +'Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp?' said I. + +'Sir,' said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, 'I've +laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young +gentleman may be over-careful of himself, or he may be +under-careful of himself. He may brush his hair too regular, or +too un-regular. He may wear his boots much too large for him, or +much too small. That is according as the young gentleman has his +original character formed. But let him go to which extreme he may, +sir, there's a young lady in both of 'em.' + +Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had +not an inch of vantage-ground left. + +'It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself,' said +Mrs. Crupp, 'that fell in love - with a barmaid - and had his +waistcoats took in directly, though much swelled by drinking.' + +'Mrs. Crupp,' said I, 'I must beg you not to connect the young lady +in my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you +please.' + +'Mr. Copperfull,' returned Mrs. Crupp, 'I'm a mother myself, and +not likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never +wish to intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young +gentleman, Mr. Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, +sir, to keep a good heart, and to know your own walue. If you was +to take to something, sir,' said Mrs. Crupp, 'if you was to take to +skittles, now, which is healthy, you might find it divert your +mind, and do you good.' + +With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the +brandy - which was all gone - thanked me with a majestic curtsey, +and retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the +entry, this counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the +light of a slight liberty on Mrs. Crupp's part; but, at the same +time, I was content to receive it, in another point of view, as a +word to the wise, and a warning in future to keep my secret better. + + + +CHAPTER 27 +TOMMY TRADDLES + + +It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp's advice, and, +perhaps, for no better reason than because there was a certain +similarity in the sound of the word skittles and Traddles, that it +came into my head, next day, to go and look after Traddles. The +time he had mentioned was more than out, and he lived in a little +street near the Veterinary College at Camden Town, which was +principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who lived in that +direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought live +donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private +apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the +academic grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit +my old schoolfellow. + +I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have +wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants +appeared to have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were +not in want of, into the road: which not only made it rank and +sloppy, but untidy too, on account of the cabbage-leaves. The +refuse was not wholly vegetable either, for I myself saw a shoe, a +doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet, and an umbrella, in various +stages of decomposition, as I was looking out for the number I +wanted. + +The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when +I lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of +faded gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it +unlike all the other houses in the street - though they were all +built on one monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies +of a blundering boy who was learning to make houses, and had not +yet got out of his cramped brick-and-mortar pothooks - reminded me +still more of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Happening to arrive at the +door as it was opened to the afternoon milkman, I was reminded of +Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly yet. + +'Now,' said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. 'Has that +there little bill of mine been heerd on?' + +'Oh, master says he'll attend to it immediate,' was the reply. + +'Because,' said the milkman, going on as if he had received no +answer, and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the +edification of somebody within the house, than of the youthful +servant - an impression which was strengthened by his manner of +glaring down the passage - 'because that there little bill has been +running so long, that I begin to believe it's run away altogether, +and never won't be heerd of. Now, I'm not a going to stand it, you +know!' said the milkman, still throwing his voice into the house, +and glaring down the passage. + +As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by the by, there +never was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce +in a butcher or a brandy-merchant. + +The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to +me, from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be +attended to immediate. + +'I tell you what,' said the milkman, looking hard at her for the +first time, and taking her by the chin, 'are you fond of milk?' + +'Yes, I likes it,' she replied. +'Good,' said the milkman. 'Then you won't have none tomorrow. +D'ye hear? Not a fragment of milk you won't have tomorrow.' + +I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved by the prospect of +having any today. The milkman, after shaking his head at her +darkly, released her chin, and with anything rather than good-will +opened his can, and deposited the usual quantity in the family jug. +This done, he went away, muttering, and uttered the cry of his +trade next door, in a vindictive shriek. + +'Does Mr. Traddles live here?' I then inquired. + +A mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied 'Yes.' Upon +which the youthful servant replied 'Yes.' + +'Is he at home?' said I. + +Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again +the servant echoed it. Upon this, I walked in, and in pursuance of +the servant's directions walked upstairs; conscious, as I passed +the back parlour-door, that I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, +probably belonging to the mysterious voice. + +When I got to the top of the stairs - the house was only a story +high above the ground floor - Traddles was on the landing to meet +me. He was delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great +heartiness, to his little room. It was in the front of the house, +and extremely neat, though sparely furnished. It was his only +room, I saw; for there was a sofa-bedstead in it, and his +blacking-brushes and blacking were among his books - on the top +shelf, behind a dictionary. His table was covered with papers, and +he was hard at work in an old coat. I looked at nothing, that I +know of, but I saw everything, even to the prospect of a church +upon his china inkstand, as I sat down - and this, too, was a +faculty confirmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various +ingenious arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest +of drawers, and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, +and so forth, particularly impressed themselves upon me, as +evidences of the same Traddles who used to make models of +elephants' dens in writing-paper to put flies in; and to comfort +himself under ill usage, with the memorable works of art I have so +often mentioned. + +In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a +large white cloth. I could not make out what that was. + +'Traddles,' said I, shaking hands with him again, after I had sat +down, 'I am delighted to see you.' + +'I am delighted to see YOU, Copperfield,' he returned. 'I am very +glad indeed to see you. It was because I was thoroughly glad to +see you when we met in Ely Place, and was sure you were thoroughly +glad to see me, that I gave you this address instead of my address +at chambers.' +'Oh! You have chambers?' said I. + +'Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of +a clerk,' returned Traddles. 'Three others and myself unite to +have a set of chambers - to look business-like - and we quarter the +clerk too. Half-a-crown a week he costs me.' + +His old simple character and good temper, and something of his old +unlucky fortune also, I thought, smiled at me in the smile with +which he made this explanation. + +'It's not because I have the least pride, Copperfield, you +understand,' said Traddles, 'that I don't usually give my address +here. It's only on account of those who come to me, who might not +like to come here. For myself, I am fighting my way on in the +world against difficulties, and it would be ridiculous if I made a +pretence of doing anything else.' + +'You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed me?' said I. + +'Why, yes,' said Traddles, rubbing his hands slowly over one +another. 'I am reading for the bar. The fact is, I have just +begun to keep my terms, after rather a long delay. It's some time +since I was articled, but the payment of that hundred pounds was a +great pull. A great pull!' said Traddles, with a wince, as if he +had had a tooth out. + +'Do you know what I can't help thinking of, Traddles, as I sit here +looking at you?' I asked him. + +'No,' said he. + +'That sky-blue suit you used to wear.' + +'Lord, to be sure!' cried Traddles, laughing. 'Tight in the arms +and legs, you know? Dear me! Well! Those were happy times, +weren't they?' + +'I think our schoolmaster might have made them happier, without +doing any harm to any of us, I acknowledge,' I returned. + +'Perhaps he might,' said Traddles. 'But dear me, there was a good +deal of fun going on. Do you remember the nights in the bedroom? +When we used to have the suppers? And when you used to tell the +stories? Ha, ha, ha! And do you remember when I got caned for +crying about Mr. Mell? Old Creakle! I should like to see him +again, too!' + +'He was a brute to you, Traddles,' said I, indignantly; for his +good humour made me feel as if I had seen him beaten but yesterday. + +'Do you think so?' returned Traddles. 'Really? Perhaps he was +rather. But it's all over, a long while. Old Creakle!' + +'You were brought up by an uncle, then?' said I. + +'Of course I was!' said Traddles. 'The one I was always going to +write to. And always didn't, eh! Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I had an uncle +then. He died soon after I left school.' + +'Indeed!' + +'Yes. He was a retired - what do you call it! - draper - +cloth-merchant - and had made me his heir. But he didn't like me +when I grew up.' + +'Do you really mean that?' said I. He was so composed, that I +fancied he must have some other meaning. + +'Oh dear, yes, Copperfield! I mean it,' replied Traddles. 'It was +an unfortunate thing, but he didn't like me at all. He said I +wasn't at all what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper.' + +'And what did you do?' I asked. + +'I didn't do anything in particular,' said Traddles. 'I lived with +them, waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout +unfortunately flew to his stomach - and so he died, and so she +married a young man, and so I wasn't provided for.' + +'Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all?' + +'Oh dear, yes!' said Traddles. 'I got fifty pounds. I had never +been brought up to any profession, and at first I was at a loss +what to do for myself. However, I began, with the assistance of +the son of a professional man, who had been to Salem House - +Yawler, with his nose on one side. Do you recollect him?' + +No. He had not been there with me; all the noses were straight in +my day. + +'It don't matter,' said Traddles. 'I began, by means of his +assistance, to copy law writings. That didn't answer very well; +and then I began to state cases for them, and make abstracts, and +that sort of work. For I am a plodding kind of fellow, +Copperfield, and had learnt the way of doing such things pithily. +Well! That put it in my head to enter myself as a law student; and +that ran away with all that was left of the fifty pounds. Yawler +recommended me to one or two other offices, however - Mr. +Waterbrook's for one - and I got a good many jobs. I was fortunate +enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the publishing +way, who was getting up an Encyclopaedia, and he set me to work; +and, indeed' (glancing at his table), 'I am at work for him at this +minute. I am not a bad compiler, Copperfield,' said Traddles, +preserving the same air of cheerful confidence in all he said, 'but +I have no invention at all; not a particle. I suppose there never +was a young man with less originality than I have.' + +As Traddles seemed to expect that I should assent to this as a +matter of course, I nodded; and he went on, with the same sprightly +patience - I can find no better expression - as before. + +'So, by little and little, and not living high, I managed to scrape +up the hundred pounds at last,' said Traddles; 'and thank Heaven +that's paid - though it was - though it certainly was,' said +Traddles, wincing again as if he had had another tooth out, 'a +pull. I am living by the sort of work I have mentioned, still, and +I hope, one of these days, to get connected with some newspaper: +which would almost be the making of my fortune. Now, Copperfield, +you are so exactly what you used to be, with that agreeable face, +and it's so pleasant to see you, that I sha'n't conceal anything. +Therefore you must know that I am engaged.' + +Engaged! Oh, Dora! + +'She is a curate's daughter,' said Traddles; 'one of ten, down in +Devonshire. Yes!' For he saw me glance, involuntarily, at the +prospect on the inkstand. 'That's the church! You come round here +to the left, out of this gate,' tracing his finger along the +inkstand, 'and exactly where I hold this pen, there stands the +house - facing, you understand, towards the church.' + +The delight with which he entered into these particulars, did not +fully present itself to me until afterwards; for my selfish +thoughts were making a ground-plan of Mr. Spenlow's house and +garden at the same moment. + +'She is such a dear girl!' said Traddles; 'a little older than me, +but the dearest girl! I told you I was going out of town? I have +been down there. I walked there, and I walked back, and I had the +most delightful time! I dare say ours is likely to be a rather +long engagement, but our motto is "Wait and hope!" We always say +that. "Wait and hope," we always say. And she would wait, +Copperfield, till she was sixty - any age you can mention - for +me!' + +Traddles rose from his chair, and, with a triumphant smile, put his +hand upon the white cloth I had observed. + +'However,' he said, 'it's not that we haven't made a beginning +towards housekeeping. No, no; we have begun. We must get on by +degrees, but we have begun. Here,' drawing the cloth off with +great pride and care, 'are two pieces of furniture to commence +with. This flower-pot and stand, she bought herself. You put that +in a parlour window,' said Traddles, falling a little back from it +to survey it with the greater admiration, 'with a plant in it, and +- and there you are! This little round table with the marble top +(it's two feet ten in circumference), I bought. You want to lay a +book down, you know, or somebody comes to see you or your wife, and +wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, and - and there you are +again!' said Traddles. 'It's an admirable piece of workmanship - +firm as a rock!' +I praised them both, highly, and Traddles replaced the covering as +carefully as he had removed it. + +'It's not a great deal towards the furnishing,' said Traddles, 'but +it's something. The table-cloths, and pillow-cases, and articles +of that kind, are what discourage me most, Copperfield. So does +the ironmongery - candle-boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of +necessaries - because those things tell, and mount up. However, +"wait + +and hope!" And I assure you she's the dearest girl!' + +'I am quite certain of it,' said I. + +'In the meantime,' said Traddles, coming back to his chair; 'and +this is the end of my prosing about myself, I get on as well as I +can. I don't make much, but I don't spend much. In general, I +board with the people downstairs, who are very agreeable people +indeed. Both Mr. and Mrs. Micawber have seen a good deal of life, +and are excellent company.' + +'My dear Traddles!' I quickly exclaimed. 'What are you talking +about?' + +Traddles looked at me, as if he wondered what I was talking about. + +'Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!' I repeated. 'Why, I am intimately +acquainted with them!' + +An opportune double knock at the door, which I knew well from old +experience in Windsor Terrace, and which nobody but Mr. Micawber +could ever have knocked at that door, resolved any doubt in my mind +as to their being my old friends. I begged Traddles to ask his +landlord to walk up. Traddles accordingly did so, over the +banister; and Mr. Micawber, not a bit changed - his tights, his +stick, his shirt-collar, and his eye-glass, all the same as ever - +came into the room with a genteel and youthful air. + +'I beg your pardon, Mr. Traddles,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old +roll in his voice, as he checked himself in humming a soft tune. +'I was not aware that there was any individual, alien to this +tenement, in your sanctum.' + +Mr. Micawber slightly bowed to me, and pulled up his shirt-collar. + +'How do you do, Mr. Micawber?' said I. + +'Sir,' said Mr. Micawber, 'you are exceedingly obliging. I am in +statu quo.' + +'And Mrs. Micawber?' I pursued. + +'Sir,' said Mr. Micawber, 'she is also, thank God, in statu quo.' + +'And the children, Mr. Micawber?' + +'Sir,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I rejoice to reply that they are, +likewise, in the enjoyment of salubrity.' + +All this time, Mr. Micawber had not known me in the least, though +he had stood face to face with me. But now, seeing me smile, he +examined my features with more attention, fell back, cried, 'Is it +possible! Have I the pleasure of again beholding Copperfield!' and +shook me by both hands with the utmost fervour. + +'Good Heaven, Mr. Traddles!' said Mr. Micawber, 'to think that I +should find you acquainted with the friend of my youth, the +companion of earlier days! My dear!' calling over the banisters to +Mrs. Micawber, while Traddles looked (with reason) not a little +amazed at this description of me. 'Here is a gentleman in Mr. +Traddles's apartment, whom he wishes to have the pleasure of +presenting to you, my love!' + +Mr. Micawber immediately reappeared, and shook hands with me again. + +'And how is our good friend the Doctor, Copperfield?' said Mr. +Micawber, 'and all the circle at Canterbury?' + +'I have none but good accounts of them,' said I. + +'I am most delighted to hear it,' said Mr. Micawber. 'It was at +Canterbury where we last met. Within the shadow, I may +figuratively say, of that religious edifice immortalized by +Chaucer, which was anciently the resort of Pilgrims from the +remotest corners of - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, 'in the +immediate neighbourhood of the Cathedral.' + +I replied that it was. Mr. Micawber continued talking as volubly +as he could; but not, I thought, without showing, by some marks of +concern in his countenance, that he was sensible of sounds in the +next room, as of Mrs. Micawber washing her hands, and hurriedly +opening and shutting drawers that were uneasy in their action. + +'You find us, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, with one eye on +Traddles, 'at present established, on what may be designated as a +small and unassuming scale; but, you are aware that I have, in the +course of my career, surmounted difficulties, and conquered +obstacles. You are no stranger to the fact, that there have been +periods of my life, when it has been requisite that I should pause, +until certain expected events should turn up; when it has been +necessary that I should fall back, before making what I trust I +shall not be accused of presumption in terming - a spring. The +present is one of those momentous stages in the life of man. You +find me, fallen back, FOR a spring; and I have every reason to +believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result.' + +I was expressing my satisfaction, when Mrs. Micawber came in; a +little more slatternly than she used to be, or so she seemed now, +to my unaccustomed eyes, but still with some preparation of herself +for company, and with a pair of brown gloves on. + +'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, leading her towards me, 'here is a +gentleman of the name of Copperfield, who wishes to renew his +acquaintance with you.' + +It would have been better, as it turned out, to have led gently up +to this announcement, for Mrs. Micawber, being in a delicate state +of health, was overcome by it, and was taken so unwell, that Mr. +Micawber was obliged, in great trepidation, to run down to the +water-butt in the backyard, and draw a basinful to lave her brow +with. She presently revived, however, and was really pleased to +see me. We had half-an-hour's talk, all together; and I asked her +about the twins, who, she said, were 'grown great creatures'; and +after Master and Miss Micawber, whom she described as 'absolute +giants', but they were not produced on that occasion. + +Mr. Micawber was very anxious that I should stay to dinner. I +should not have been averse to do so, but that I imagined I +detected trouble, and calculation relative to the extent of the +cold meat, in Mrs. Micawber's eye. I therefore pleaded another +engagement; and observing that Mrs. Micawber's spirits were +immediately lightened, I resisted all persuasion to forego it. + +But I told Traddles, and Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, that before I could +think of leaving, they must appoint a day when they would come and +dine with me. The occupations to which Traddles stood pledged, +rendered it necessary to fix a somewhat distant one; but an +appointment was made for the purpose, that suited us all, and then +I took my leave. + +Mr. Micawber, under pretence of showing me a nearer way than that +by which I had come, accompanied me to the corner of the street; +being anxious (he explained to me) to say a few words to an old +friend, in confidence. + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I need hardly tell you +that to have beneath our roof, under existing circumstances, a mind +like that which gleams - if I may be allowed the expression - which +gleams - in your friend Traddles, is an unspeakable comfort. With +a washerwoman, who exposes hard-bake for sale in her +parlour-window, dwelling next door, and a Bow-street officer +residing over the way, you may imagine that his society is a source +of consolation to myself and to Mrs. Micawber. I am at present, my +dear Copperfield, engaged in the sale of corn upon commission. It +is not an avocation of a remunerative description - in other words, +it does not pay - and some temporary embarrassments of a pecuniary +nature have been the consequence. I am, however, delighted to add +that I have now an immediate prospect of something turning up (I am +not at liberty to say in what direction), which I trust will enable +me to provide, permanently, both for myself and for your friend +Traddles, in whom I have an unaffected interest. You may, perhaps, +be prepared to hear that Mrs. Micawber is in a state of health +which renders it not wholly improbable that an addition may be +ultimately made to those pledges of affection which - in short, to +the infantine group. Mrs. Micawber's family have been so good as +to express their dissatisfaction at this state of things. I have +merely to observe, that I am not aware that it is any business of +theirs, and that I repel that exhibition of feeling with scorn, and +with defiance!' + +Mr. Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me. + + + +CHAPTER 28 +Mr. MICAWBER'S GAUNTLET + + +Until the day arrived on which I was to entertain my newly-found +old friends, I lived principally on Dora and coffee. In my +love-lorn condition, my appetite languished; and I was glad of it, +for I felt as though it would have been an act of perfidy towards +Dora to have a natural relish for my dinner. The quantity of +walking exercise I took, was not in this respect attended with its +usual consequence, as the disappointment counteracted the fresh +air. I have my doubts, too, founded on the acute experience +acquired at this period of my life, whether a sound enjoyment of +animal food can develop itself freely in any human subject who is +always in torment from tight boots. I think the extremities +require to be at peace before the stomach will conduct itself with +vigour. + +On the occasion of this domestic little party, I did not repeat my +former extensive preparations. I merely provided a pair of soles, +a small leg of mutton, and a pigeon-pie. Mrs. Crupp broke out into +rebellion on my first bashful hint in reference to the cooking of +the fish and joint, and said, with a dignified sense of injury, +'No! No, sir! You will not ask me sich a thing, for you are +better acquainted with me than to suppose me capable of doing what +I cannot do with ampial satisfaction to my own feelings!' But, in +the end, a compromise was effected; and Mrs. Crupp consented to +achieve this feat, on condition that I dined from home for a +fortnight afterwards. + +And here I may remark, that what I underwent from Mrs. Crupp, in +consequence of the tyranny she established over me, was dreadful. +I never was so much afraid of anyone. We made a compromise of +everything. If I hesitated, she was taken with that wonderful +disorder which was always lying in ambush in her system, ready, at +the shortest notice, to prey upon her vitals. If I rang the bell +impatiently, after half-a-dozen unavailing modest pulls, and she +appeared at last - which was not by any means to be relied upon - +she would appear with a reproachful aspect, sink breathless on a +chair near the door, lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and +become so ill, that I was glad, at any sacrifice of brandy or +anything else, to get rid of her. If I objected to having my bed +made at five o'clock in the afternoon - which I do still think an +uncomfortable arrangement - one motion of her hand towards the same +nankeen region of wounded sensibility was enough to make me falter +an apology. In short, I would have done anything in an honourable +way rather than give Mrs. Crupp offence; and she was the terror of +my life. + +I bought a second-hand dumb-waiter for this dinner-party, in +preference to re-engaging the handy young man; against whom I had +conceived a prejudice, in consequence of meeting him in the Strand, +one Sunday morning, in a waistcoat remarkably like one of mine, +which had been missing since the former occasion. The 'young gal' +was re-engaged; but on the stipulation that she should only bring +in the dishes, and then withdraw to the landing-place, beyond the +outer door; where a habit of sniffing she had contracted would be +lost upon the guests, and where her retiring on the plates would be +a physical impossibility. + +Having laid in the materials for a bowl of punch, to be compounded +by Mr. Micawber; having provided a bottle of lavender-water, two +wax-candles, a paper of mixed pins, and a pincushion, to assist +Mrs. Micawber in her toilette at my dressing-table; having also +caused the fire in my bedroom to be lighted for Mrs. Micawber's +convenience; and having laid the cloth with my own hands, I awaited +the result with composure. + +At the appointed time, my three visitors arrived together. Mr. +Micawber with more shirt-collar than usual, and a new ribbon to his +eye-glass; Mrs. Micawber with her cap in a whitey-brown paper +parcel; Traddles carrying the parcel, and supporting Mrs. Micawber +on his arm. They were all delighted with my residence. When I +conducted Mrs. Micawber to my dressing-table, and she saw the scale +on which it was prepared for her, she was in such raptures, that +she called Mr. Micawber to come in and look. + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'this is luxurious. This +is a way of life which reminds me of the period when I was myself +in a state of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been +solicited to plight her faith at the Hymeneal altar.' + +'He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, +archly. 'He cannot answer for others.' + +'My dear,' returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, 'I have +no desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in +the inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is +possible you may have been reserved for one, destined, after a +protracted struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary +involvements of a complicated nature. I understand your allusion, +my love. I regret it, but I can bear it.' + +'Micawber!' exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. 'Have I deserved +this! I, who never have deserted you; who never WILL desert you, +Micawber!' +'My love,' said Mr. Micawber, much affected, 'you will forgive, and +our old and tried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive, the +momentary laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by a +recent collision with the Minion of Power - in other words, with a +ribald Turncock attached to the water-works - and will pity, not +condemn, its excesses.' + +Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and pressed my hand; +leaving me to infer from this broken allusion that his domestic +supply of water had been cut off that afternoon, in consequence of +default in the payment of the company's rates. + +To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. +Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to +the lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone +in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid +the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, +and the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. +It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud +of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and +looked as if he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his +family down to the latest posterity. As to Mrs. Micawber, I don't +know whether it was the effect of the cap, or the lavender-water, +or the pins, or the fire, or the wax-candles, but she came out of +my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark was never +gayer than that excellent woman. + +I suppose - I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose - that Mrs. +Crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke +down at that point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and +very pale without: besides having a foreign substance of a gritty +nature sprinkled over it, as if if had had a fall into the ashes of +that remarkable kitchen fireplace. But we were not in condition to +judge of this fact from the appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as +the 'young gal' had dropped it all upon the stairs - where it +remained, by the by, in a long train, until it was worn out. The +pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the crust being +like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps +and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. In short, the +banquet was such a failure that I should have been quite unhappy - +about the failure, I mean, for I was always unhappy about Dora - if +I had not been relieved by the great good humour of my company, and +by a bright suggestion from Mr. Micawber. + +'My dear friend Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'accidents will +occur in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated +by that pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the +- a - I would say, in short, by the influence of Woman, in the +lofty character of Wife, they may be expected with confidence, and +must be borne with philosophy. If you will allow me to take the +liberty of remarking that there are few comestibles better, in +their way, than a Devil, and that I believe, with a little division +of labour, we could accomplish a good one if the young person in +attendance could produce a gridiron, I would put it to you, that +this little misfortune may be easily repaired.' + +There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of +bacon was cooked. We had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately +applied ourselves to carrying Mr. Micawber's idea into effect. The +division of labour to which he had referred was this: - Traddles +cut the mutton into slices; Mr. Micawber (who could do anything of +this sort to perfection) covered them with pepper, mustard, salt, +and cayenne; I put them on the gridiron, turned them with a fork, +and took them off, under Mr. Micawber's direction; and Mrs. +Micawber heated, and continually stirred, some mushroom ketchup in +a little saucepan. When we had slices enough done to begin upon, +we fell-to, with our sleeves still tucked up at the wrist, more +slices sputtering and blazing on the fire, and our attention +divided between the mutton on our plates, and the mutton then +preparing. + +What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the +bustle of it, the frequent starting up to look after it, the +frequent sitting down to dispose of it as the crisp slices came off +the gridiron hot and hot, the being so busy, so flushed with the +fire, so amused, and in the midst of such a tempting noise and +savour, we reduced the leg of mutton to the bone. My own appetite +came back miraculously. I am ashamed to record it, but I really +believe I forgot Dora for a little while. I am satisfied that Mr. +and Mrs. Micawber could not have enjoyed the feast more, if they +had sold a bed to provide it. Traddles laughed as heartily, almost +the whole time, as he ate and worked. Indeed we all did, all at +once; and I dare say there was never a greater success. + +We were at the height of our enjoyment, and were all busily +engaged, in our several departments, endeavouring to bring the last +batch of slices to a state of perfection that should crown the +feast, when I was aware of a strange presence in the room, and my +eyes encountered those of the staid Littimer, standing hat in hand +before me. + +'What's the matter?' I involuntarily asked. + +'I beg your pardon, sir, I was directed to come in. Is my master +not here, sir?' + +'No.' + +'Have you not seen him, sir?' + +'No; don't you come from him?' + +'Not immediately so, sir.' + +'Did he tell you you would find him here?' + +'Not exactly so, sir. But I should think he might be here +tomorrow, as he has not been here today.' +'Is he coming up from Oxford?' + +'I beg, sir,' he returned respectfully, 'that you will be seated, +and allow me to do this.' With which he took the fork from my +unresisting hand, and bent over the gridiron, as if his whole +attention were concentrated on it. + +We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say, by the +appearance of Steerforth himself, but we became in a moment the +meekest of the meek before his respectable serving-man. Mr. +Micawber, humming a tune, to show that he was quite at ease, +subsided into his chair, with the handle of a hastily concealed +fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as if he had stabbed +himself. Mrs. Micawber put on her brown gloves, and assumed a +genteel languor. Traddles ran his greasy hands through his hair, +and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion on the +table-cloth. As for me, I was a mere infant at the head of my own +table; and hardly ventured to glance at the respectable phenomenon, +who had come from Heaven knows where, to put my establishment to +rights. + +Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed +it round. We all took some, but our appreciation of it was gone, +and we merely made a show of eating it. As we severally pushed +away our plates, he noiselessly removed them, and set on the +cheese. He took that off, too, when it was done with; cleared the +table; piled everything on the dumb-waiter; gave us our +wine-glasses; and, of his own accord, wheeled the dumb-waiter into +the pantry. All this was done in a perfect manner, and he never +raised his eyes from what he was about. Yet his very elbows, when +he had his back towards me, seemed to teem with the expression of +his fixed opinion that I was extremely young. + +'Can I do anything more, sir?' + +I thanked him and said, No; but would he take no dinner himself? + +'None, I am obliged to you, sir.' + +'Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?' + +'I beg your pardon, sir?' + +'Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?' + +'I should imagine that he might be here tomorrow, sir. I rather +thought he might have been here today, sir. The mistake is mine, +no doubt, sir.' + +'If you should see him first -' said I. + +'If you'll excuse me, sir, I don't think I shall see him first.' + +'In case you do,' said I, 'pray say that I am sorry he was not here +today, as an old schoolfellow of his was here.' + +'Indeed, sir!' and he divided a bow between me and Traddles, with +a glance at the latter. + +He was moving softly to the door, when, in a forlorn hope of saying +something naturally - which I never could, to this man - I said: + +'Oh! Littimer!' + +'Sir!' + +'Did you remain long at Yarmouth, that time?' + +'Not particularly so, sir.' + +'You saw the boat completed?' + +'Yes, sir. I remained behind on purpose to see the boat +completed.' + +'I know!' He raised his eyes to mine respectfully. + +'Mr. Steerforth has not seen it yet, I suppose?' + +'I really can't say, sir. I think - but I really can't say, sir. +I wish you good night, sir.' + +He comprehended everybody present, in the respectful bow with which +he followed these words, and disappeared. My visitors seemed to +breathe more freely when he was gone; but my own relief was very +great, for besides the constraint, arising from that extraordinary +sense of being at a disadvantage which I always had in this man's +presence, my conscience had embarrassed me with whispers that I had +mistrusted his master, and I could not repress a vague uneasy dread +that he might find it out. How was it, having so little in reality +to conceal, that I always DID feel as if this man were finding me +out? + +Mr. Micawber roused me from this reflection, which was blended with +a certain remorseful apprehension of seeing Steerforth himself, by +bestowing many encomiums on the absent Littimer as a most +respectable fellow, and a thoroughly admirable servant. Mr. +Micawber, I may remark, had taken his full share of the general +bow, and had received it with infinite condescension. + +'But punch, my dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, tasting it, +'like time and tide, waits for no man. Ah! it is at the present +moment in high flavour. My love, will you give me your opinion?' + +Mrs. Micawber pronounced it excellent. + +'Then I will drink,' said Mr. Micawber, 'if my friend Copperfield +will permit me to take that social liberty, to the days when my +friend Copperfield and myself were younger, and fought our way in +the world side by side. I may say, of myself and Copperfield, in +words we have sung together before now, that + + +We twa hae run about the braes +And pu'd the gowans' fine + + +- in a figurative point of view - on several occasions. I am not +exactly aware,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll in his voice, +and the old indescribable air of saying something genteel, 'what +gowans may be, but I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself +would frequently have taken a pull at them, if it had been +feasible.' + +Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull at his punch. +So we all did: Traddles evidently lost in wondering at what distant +time Mr. Micawber and I could have been comrades in the battle of +the world. + +'Ahem!' said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat, and warming with +the punch and with the fire. 'My dear, another glass?' + +Mrs. Micawber said it must be very little; but we couldn't allow +that, so it was a glassful. + +'As we are quite confidential here, Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. +Micawber, sipping her punch, 'Mr. Traddles being a part of our +domesticity, I should much like to have your opinion on Mr. +Micawber's prospects. For corn,' said Mrs. Micawber +argumentatively, 'as I have repeatedly said to Mr. Micawber, may be +gentlemanly, but it is not remunerative. Commission to the extent +of two and ninepence in a fortnight cannot, however limited our +ideas, be considered remunerative.' + +We were all agreed upon that. + +'Then,' said Mrs. Micawber, who prided herself on taking a clear +view of things, and keeping Mr. Micawber straight by her woman's +wisdom, when he might otherwise go a little crooked, 'then I ask +myself this question. If corn is not to be relied upon, what is? +Are coals to be relied upon? Not at all. We have turned our +attention to that experiment, on the suggestion of my family, and +we find it fallacious.' + +Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his +pockets, eyed us aside, and nodded his head, as much as to say that +the case was very clearly put. + +'The articles of corn and coals,' said Mrs. Micawber, still more +argumentatively, 'being equally out of the question, Mr. +Copperfield, I naturally look round the world, and say, "What is +there in which a person of Mr. Micawber's talent is likely to +succeed?" And I exclude the doing anything on commission, because +commission is not a certainty. What is best suited to a person of +Mr. Micawber's peculiar temperament is, I am convinced, a +certainty.' + +Traddles and I both expressed, by a feeling murmur, that this great +discovery was no doubt true of Mr. Micawber, and that it did him +much credit. + +'I will not conceal from you, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. +Micawber, 'that I have long felt the Brewing business to be +particularly adapted to Mr. Micawber. Look at Barclay and Perkins! +Look at Truman, Hanbury, and Buxton! It is on that extensive +footing that Mr. Micawber, I know from my own knowledge of him, is +calculated to shine; and the profits, I am told, are e-NOR-MOUS! +But if Mr. Micawber cannot get into those firms - which decline to +answer his letters, when he offers his services even in an inferior +capacity - what is the use of dwelling upon that idea? None. I +may have a conviction that Mr. Micawber's manners -' + +'Hem! Really, my dear,' interposed Mr. Micawber. + +'My love, be silent,' said Mrs. Micawber, laying her brown glove on +his hand. 'I may have a conviction, Mr. Copperfield, that Mr. +Micawber's manners peculiarly qualify him for the Banking business. +I may argue within myself, that if I had a deposit at a +banking-house, the manners of Mr. Micawber, as representing that +banking-house, would inspire confidence, and must extend the +connexion. But if the various banking-houses refuse to avail +themselves of Mr. Micawber's abilities, or receive the offer of +them with contumely, what is the use of dwelling upon THAT idea? +None. As to originating a banking-business, I may know that there +are members of my family who, if they chose to place their money in +Mr. Micawber's hands, might found an establishment of that +description. But if they do NOT choose to place their money in Mr. +Micawber's hands - which they don't - what is the use of that? +Again I contend that we are no farther advanced than we were +before.' + +I shook my head, and said, 'Not a bit.' Traddles also shook his +head, and said, 'Not a bit.' + +'What do I deduce from this?' Mrs. Micawber went on to say, still +with the same air of putting a case lucidly. 'What is the +conclusion, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to which I am irresistibly +brought? Am I wrong in saying, it is clear that we must live?' + +I answered 'Not at all!' and Traddles answered 'Not at all!' and I +found myself afterwards sagely adding, alone, that a person must +either live or die. + +'Just so,' returned Mrs. Micawber, 'It is precisely that. And the +fact is, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that we can not live without +something widely different from existing circumstances shortly +turning up. Now I am convinced, myself, and this I have pointed +out to Mr. Micawber several times of late, that things cannot be +expected to turn up of themselves. We must, in a measure, assist +to turn them up. I may be wrong, but I have formed that opinion.' + +Both Traddles and I applauded it highly. + +'Very well,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'Then what do I recommend? Here +is Mr. Micawber with a variety of qualifications - with great +talent -' + +'Really, my love,' said Mr. Micawber. + +'Pray, my dear, allow me to conclude. Here is Mr. Micawber, with +a variety of qualifications, with great talent - I should say, with +genius, but that may be the partiality of a wife -' + +Traddles and I both murmured 'No.' + +'And here is Mr. Micawber without any suitable position or +employment. Where does that responsibility rest? Clearly on +society. Then I would make a fact so disgraceful known, and boldly +challenge society to set it right. It appears to me, my dear Mr. +Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, forcibly, 'that what Mr. Micawber +has to do, is to throw down the gauntlet to society, and say, in +effect, "Show me who will take that up. Let the party immediately +step forward."' + +I ventured to ask Mrs. Micawber how this was to be done. + +'By advertising,' said Mrs. Micawber - 'in all the papers. It +appears to me, that what Mr. Micawber has to do, in justice to +himself, in justice to his family, and I will even go so far as to +say in justice to society, by which he has been hitherto +overlooked, is to advertise in all the papers; to describe himself +plainly as so-and-so, with such and such qualifications and to put +it thus: "Now employ me, on remunerative terms, and address, +post-paid, to W. M., Post Office, Camden Town."' + +'This idea of Mrs. Micawber's, my dear Copperfield,' said Mr. +Micawber, making his shirt-collar meet in front of his chin, and +glancing at me sideways, 'is, in fact, the Leap to which I alluded, +when I last had the pleasure of seeing you.' + +'Advertising is rather expensive,' I remarked, dubiously. + +'Exactly so!' said Mrs. Micawber, preserving the same logical air. +'Quite true, my dear Mr. Copperfield! I have made the identical +observation to Mr. Micawber. It is for that reason especially, +that I think Mr. Micawber ought (as I have already said, in justice +to himself, in justice to his family, and in justice to society) to +raise a certain sum of money - on a bill.' + +Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass +and cast his eyes up at the ceiling; but I thought him observant of +Traddles, too, who was looking at the fire. + +'If no member of my family,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'is possessed of +sufficient natural feeling to negotiate that bill - I believe there +is a better business-term to express what I mean -' + +Mr. Micawber, with his eyes still cast up at the ceiling, suggested +'Discount.' + +'To discount that bill,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'then my opinion is, +that Mr. Micawber should go into the City, should take that bill +into the Money Market, and should dispose of it for what he can +get. If the individuals in the Money Market oblige Mr. Micawber to +sustain a great sacrifice, that is between themselves and their +consciences. I view it, steadily, as an investment. I recommend +Mr. Micawber, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to do the same; to regard it +as an investment which is sure of return, and to make up his mind +to any sacrifice.' + +I felt, but I am sure I don't know why, that this was self-denying +and devoted in Mrs. Micawber, and I uttered a murmur to that +effect. Traddles, who took his tone from me, did likewise, still +looking at the fire. + +'I will not,' said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch, and +gathering her scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her +withdrawal to my bedroom: 'I will not protract these remarks on the +subject of Mr. Micawber's pecuniary affairs. At your fireside, my +dear Mr. Copperfield, and in the presence of Mr. Traddles, who, +though not so old a friend, is quite one of ourselves, I could not +refrain from making you acquainted with the course I advise Mr. +Micawber to take. I feel that the time is arrived when Mr. +Micawber should exert himself and - I will add - assert himself, +and it appears to me that these are the means. I am aware that I +am merely a female, and that a masculine judgement is usually +considered more competent to the discussion of such questions; +still I must not forget that, when I lived at home with my papa and +mama, my papa was in the habit of saying, "Emma's form is fragile, +but her grasp of a subject is inferior to none." That my papa was +too partial, I well know; but that he was an observer of character +in some degree, my duty and my reason equally forbid me to doubt.' + +With these words, and resisting our entreaties that she would grace +the remaining circulation of the punch with her presence, Mrs. +Micawber retired to my bedroom. And really I felt that she was a +noble woman - the sort of woman who might have been a Roman matron, +and done all manner of heroic things, in times of public trouble. + +In the fervour of this impression, I congratulated Mr. Micawber on +the treasure he possessed. So did Traddles. Mr. Micawber extended +his hand to each of us in succession, and then covered his face +with his pocket-handkerchief, which I think had more snuff upon it +than he was aware of. He then returned to the punch, in the +highest state of exhilaration. + +He was full of eloquence. He gave us to understand that in our +children we lived again, and that, under the pressure of pecuniary +difficulties, any accession to their number was doubly welcome. He +said that Mrs. Micawber had latterly had her doubts on this point, +but that he had dispelled them, and reassured her. As to her +family, they were totally unworthy of her, and their sentiments +were utterly indifferent to him, and they might - I quote his own +expression - go to the Devil. + +Mr. Micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on Traddles. He said +Traddles's was a character, to the steady virtues of which he (Mr. +Micawber) could lay no claim, but which, he thanked Heaven, he +could admire. He feelingly alluded to the young lady, unknown, +whom Traddles had honoured with his affection, and who had +reciprocated that affection by honouring and blessing Traddles with +her affection. Mr. Micawber pledged her. So did I. Traddles +thanked us both, by saying, with a simplicity and honesty I had +sense enough to be quite charmed with, 'I am very much obliged to +you indeed. And I do assure you, she's the dearest girl! -' + +Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting, +with the utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the state of MY +affections. Nothing but the serious assurance of his friend +Copperfield to the contrary, he observed, could deprive him of the +impression that his friend Copperfield loved and was beloved. +After feeling very hot and uncomfortable for some time, and after +a good deal of blushing, stammering, and denying, I said, having my +glass in my hand, 'Well! I would give them D.!' which so excited +and gratified Mr. Micawber, that he ran with a glass of punch into +my bedroom, in order that Mrs. Micawber might drink D., who drank +it with enthusiasm, crying from within, in a shrill voice, 'Hear, +hear! My dear Mr. Copperfield, I am delighted. Hear!' and tapping +at the wall, by way of applause. + +Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn; Mr. +Micawber telling us that he found Camden Town inconvenient, and +that the first thing he contemplated doing, when the advertisement +should have been the cause of something satisfactory turning up, +was to move. He mentioned a terrace at the western end of Oxford +Street, fronting Hyde Park, on which he had always had his eye, but +which he did not expect to attain immediately, as it would require +a large establishment. There would probably be an interval, he +explained, in which he should content himself with the upper part +of a house, over some respectable place of business - say in +Piccadilly, - which would be a cheerful situation for Mrs. +Micawber; and where, by throwing out a bow-window, or carrying up +the roof another story, or making some little alteration of that +sort, they might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years. +Whatever was reserved for him, he expressly said, or wherever his +abode might be, we might rely on this - there would always be a +room for Traddles, and a knife and fork for me. We acknowledged +his kindness; and he begged us to forgive his having launched into +these practical and business-like details, and to excuse it as +natural in one who was making entirely new arrangements in life. + +Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again to know if tea were ready, +broke up this particular phase of our friendly conversation. She +made tea for us in a most agreeable manner; and, whenever I went +near her, in handing about the tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked +me, in a whisper, whether D. was fair, or dark, or whether she was +short, or tall: or something of that kind; which I think I liked. +After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and +Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat +voice, which I remembered to have considered, when I first knew +her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favourite ballads of +'The Dashing White Sergeant', and 'Little Tafflin'. For both of +these songs Mrs. Micawber had been famous when she lived at home +with her papa and mama. Mr. Micawber told us, that when he heard +her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her +beneath the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an +extraordinary degree; but that when it came to Little Tafflin, he +had resolved to win that woman or perish in the attempt. + +It was between ten and eleven o'clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to +replace her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her +bonnet. Mr. Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on +his great-coat, to slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered +request that I would read it at my leisure. I also took the +opportunity of my holding a candle over the banisters to light them +down, when Mr. Micawber was going first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and +Traddles was following with the cap, to detain Traddles for a +moment on the top of the stairs. + +'Traddles,' said I, 'Mr. Micawber don't mean any harm, poor fellow: +but, if I were you, I wouldn't lend him anything.' + +'My dear Copperfield,' returned Traddles, smiling, 'I haven't got +anything to lend.' + +'You have got a name, you know,' said I. + +'Oh! You call THAT something to lend?' returned Traddles, with a +thoughtful look. + +'Certainly.' + +'Oh!' said Traddles. 'Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged to +you, Copperfield; but - I am afraid I have lent him that already.' + +'For the bill that is to be a certain investment?' I inquired. + +'No,' said Traddles. 'Not for that one. This is the first I have +heard of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely +propose that one, on the way home. Mine's another.' + +'I hope there will be nothing wrong about it,' said I. +'I hope not,' said Traddles. 'I should think not, though, because +he told me, only the other day, that it was provided for. That was +Mr. Micawber's expression, "Provided for."' + +Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, +I had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and +descended. But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured +manner in which he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave +Mrs. Micawber his arm, that he would be carried into the Money +Market neck and heels. + +I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half +laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations +between us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs. At +first, I thought it was Traddles coming back for something Mrs. +Micawber had left behind; but as the step approached, I knew it, +and felt my heart beat high, and the blood rush to my face, for it +was Steerforth's. + +I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary +in my thoughts - if I may call it so - where I had placed her from +the first. But when he entered, and stood before me with his hand +out, the darkness that had fallen on him changed to light, and I +felt confounded and ashamed of having doubted one I loved so +heartily. I loved her none the less; I thought of her as the same +benignant, gentle angel in my life; I reproached myself, not her, +with having done him an injury; and I would have made him any +atonement if I had known what to make, and how to make it. + +'Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!' laughed Steerforth, shaking +my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. 'Have I detected you +in another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors' Commons fellows are +the gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people +all to nothing!' His bright glance went merrily round the room, as +he took the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber +had recently vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze. + +'I was so surprised at first,' said I, giving him welcome with all +the cordiality I felt, 'that I had hardly breath to greet you with, +Steerforth.' + +'Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say,' +replied Steerforth, 'and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full +bloom. How are you, my Bacchanal?' + +'I am very well,' said I; 'and not at all Bacchanalian tonight, +though I confess to another party of three.' + +'All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise,' +returned Steerforth. 'Who's our friend in the tights?' + +I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber. +He laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and +said he was a man to know, and he must know him. +'But who do you suppose our other friend is?' said I, in my turn. + +'Heaven knows,' said Steerforth. 'Not a bore, I hope? I thought +he looked a little like one.' + +'Traddles!' I replied, triumphantly. + +'Who's he?' asked Steerforth, in his careless way. + +'Don't you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem +House?' + +'Oh! That fellow!' said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the +top of the fire, with the poker. 'Is he as soft as ever? And +where the deuce did you pick him up?' + +I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that +Steerforth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject +with a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad +to see the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish, +inquired if I could give him anything to eat? During most of this +short dialogue, when he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious +manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker. +I observed that he did the same thing while I was getting out the +remains of the pigeon-pie, and so forth. + +'Why, Daisy, here's a supper for a king!' he exclaimed, starting +out of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. +'I shall do it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth.' + +'I thought you came from Oxford?' I returned. + +'Not I,' said Steerforth. 'I have been seafaring - better +employed.' + +'Littimer was here today, to inquire for you,' I remarked, 'and I +understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it, +he certainly did not say so.' + +'Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been +inquiring for me at all,' said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a +glass of wine, and drinking to me. 'As to understanding him, you +are a cleverer fellow than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that.' + +'That's true, indeed,' said I, moving my chair to the table. 'So +you have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth!' interested to know all +about it. 'Have you been there long?' + +'No,' he returned. 'An escapade of a week or so.' + +'And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not married +yet?' + +'Not yet. Going to be, I believe - in so many weeks, or months, or +something or other. I have not seen much of 'em. By the by'; he +laid down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great +diligence, and began feeling in his pockets; 'I have a letter for +you.' + +'From whom?' + +'Why, from your old nurse,' he returned, taking some papers out of +his breast pocket. "'J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to The +Willing Mind"; that's not it. Patience, and we'll find it +presently. Old what's-his-name's in a bad way, and it's about +that, I believe.' + +'Barkis, do you mean?' + +'Yes!' still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their +contents: 'it's all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a +little apothecary there - surgeon, or whatever he is - who brought +your worship into the world. He was mighty learned about the case, +to me; but the upshot of his opinion was, that the carrier was +making his last journey rather fast. - Put your hand into the +breast pocket of my great-coat on the chair yonder, and I think +you'll find the letter. Is it there?' + +'Here it is!' said I. + +'That's right!' + +It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. +It informed me of her husband's hopeless state, and hinted at his +being 'a little nearer' than heretofore, and consequently more +difficult to manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her +weariness and watching, and praised him highly. It was written +with a plain, unaffected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine, +and ended with 'my duty to my ever darling' - meaning myself. + +While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink. + +'It's a bad job,' he said, when I had done; 'but the sun sets every +day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the +common lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot +at all men's doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in +this world would slip from us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need +be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all +obstacles, and win the race!' + +'And win what race?' said I. + +'The race that one has started in,' said he. 'Ride on!' + +I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with his +handsome head a little thrown back, and his glass raised in his +hand, that, though the freshness of the sea-wind was on his face, +and it was ruddy, there were traces in it, made since I last saw +it, as if he had applied himself to some habitual strain of the +fervent energy which, when roused, was so passionately roused +within him. I had it in my thoughts to remonstrate with him upon +his desperate way of pursuing any fancy that he took - such as this +buffeting of rough seas, and braving of hard weather, for example +- when my mind glanced off to the immediate subject of our +conversation again, and pursued that instead. + +'I tell you what, Steerforth,' said I, 'if your high spirits will +listen to me -' + +'They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like,' he +answered, moving from the table to the fireside again. + +'Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see +my old nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her +any real service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will +have as much effect on her, as if I could do both. She will take +it so kindly that it will be a comfort and support to her. It is +no great effort to make, I am sure, for such a friend as she has +been to me. Wouldn't you go a day's journey, if you were in my +place?' + +His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he +answered, in a low voice, 'Well! Go. You can do no harm.' + +'You have just come back,' said I, 'and it would be in vain to ask +you to go with me?' + +'Quite,' he returned. 'I am for Highgate tonight. I have not seen +my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for it's +something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son. - Bah! +Nonsense! - You mean to go tomorrow, I suppose?' he said, holding +me out at arm's length, with a hand on each of my shoulders. + +'Yes, I think so.' + +'Well, then, don't go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay +a few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly +off to Yarmouth!' + +'You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are +always running wild on some unknown expedition or other!' + +He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, +still holding me as before, and giving me a shake: + +'Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of tomorrow as you can +with us! Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the +next day! I want you to stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep +us asunder.' + +'Would you love each other too much, without me?' + +'Yes; or hate,' laughed Steerforth; 'no matter which. Come! Say +the next day!' + +I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat and lighted his +cigar, and set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I +put on my own great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having +had enough of that for one while) and walked with him as far as the +open road: a dull road, then, at night. He was in great spirits +all the way; and when we parted, and I looked after him going so +gallantly and airily homeward, I thought of his saying, 'Ride on +over all obstacles, and win the race!' and wished, for the first +time, that he had some worthy race to run. + +I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber's letter tumbled +on the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as +follows. It was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not +sure whether I have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any +particularly desperate crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology, +which he seemed to think equivalent to winding up his affairs. + + +'SIR - for I dare not say my dear Copperfield, + +'It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is +Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature +knowledge of his calamitous position, you may observe in him this +day; but hope has sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is +Crushed. + +'The present communication is penned within the personal range (I +cannot call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely +bordering on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual +is in legal possession of the premises, under a distress for rent. +His inventory includes, not only the chattels and effects of every +description belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this +habitation, but also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, +lodger, a member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. + +'If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is +now "commended" (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips +of the undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly +acceptance granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. +Thomas Traddles, for the sum Of 23l 4s 9 1/2d is over due, and is +NOT provided for. Also, in the fact that the living +responsibilities clinging to the undersigned will, in the course of +nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless victim; whose +miserable appearance may be looked for - in round numbers - at the +expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months from the +present date. + +'After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to +add, that dust and ashes are for ever scattered + + 'On + 'The + 'Head + 'Of + 'WILKINS MICAWBER.' + + +Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to +foresee that he might be expected to recover the blow; but my +night's rest was sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of +the curate's daughter, who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and +who was such a dear girl, and who would wait for Traddles (ominous +praise!) until she was sixty, or any age that could be mentioned. + + + +CHAPTER 29 +I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN + + +I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of +absence for a short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any +salary, and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable +Jorkins, there was no difficulty about it. I took that +opportunity, with my voice sticking in my throat, and my sight +failing as I uttered the words, to express my hope that Miss +Spenlow was quite well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied, with no more +emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human being, +that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well. + +We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, +were treated with so much consideration, that I was almost my own +master at all times. As I did not care, however, to get to +Highgate before one or two o'clock in the day, and as we had +another little excommunication case in court that morning, which +was called The office of the judge promoted by Tipkins against +Bullock for his soul's correction, I passed an hour or two in +attendance on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably. It arose out of +a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was alleged to +have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which pump +projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a +gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence. +It was an amusing case; and sent me up to Highgate, on the box of +the stage-coach, thinking about the Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow +had said about touching the Commons and bringing down the country. + +Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle. I +was agreeably surprised to find that Littimer was not there, and +that we were attended by a modest little parlour-maid, with blue +ribbons in her cap, whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much +less disconcerting, to catch by accident, than the eye of that +respectable man. But what I particularly observed, before I had +been half-an-hour in the house, was the close and attentive watch +Miss Dartle kept upon me; and the lurking manner in which she +seemed to compare my face with Steerforth's, and Steerforth's with +mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out between the two. +So surely as I looked towards her, did I see that eager visage, +with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on mine; or +passing suddenly from mine to Steerforth's; or comprehending both +of us at once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from +faltering when she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only +fixed her piercing look upon me with a more intent expression +still. Blameless as I was, and knew that I was, in reference to +any wrong she could possibly suspect me of, I shrunk before her +strange eyes, quite unable to endure their hungry lustre. + +All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to +Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little +gallery outside. When he and I engaged in some of our old +exercises on the lawn behind the house, I saw her face pass from +window to window, like a wandering light, until it fixed itself in +one, and watched us. When we all four went out walking in the +afternoon, she closed her thin hand on my arm like a spring, to +keep me back, while Steerforth and his mother went on out of +hearing: and then spoke to me. + +'You have been a long time,' she said, 'without coming here. Is +your profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb +your whole attention? I ask because I always want to be informed, +when I am ignorant. Is it really, though?' + +I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could +not claim so much for it. + +'Oh! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right +when I am wrong,' said Rosa Dartle. 'You mean it is a little dry, +perhaps?' + +'Well,' I replied; 'perhaps it was a little dry.' + +'Oh! and that's a reason why you want relief and change - +excitement and all that?' said she. 'Ah! very true! But isn't it +a little - Eh? - for him; I don't mean you?' + +A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was +walking, with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she +meant; but beyond that, I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have +no doubt. + +'Don't it - I don't say that it does, mind I want to know - don't +it rather engross him? Don't it make him, perhaps, a little more +remiss than usual in his visits to his blindly-doting - eh?' With +another quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to +look into my innermost thoughts. + +'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'pray do not think -' + +'I don't!' she said. 'Oh dear me, don't suppose that I think +anything! I am not suspicious. I only ask a question. I don't +state any opinion. I want to found an opinion on what you tell me. +Then, it's not so? Well! I am very glad to know it.' + +'It certainly is not the fact,' said I, perplexed, 'that I am +accountable for Steerforth's having been away from home longer than +usual - if he has been: which I really don't know at this moment, +unless I understand it from you. I have not seen him this long +while, until last night.' + +'No?' + +'Indeed, Miss Dartle, no!' + +As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler, +and the marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through +the disfigured lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down +the face. There was something positively awful to me in this, and +in the brightness of her eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me: + +'What is he doing?' + +I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed. + +'What is he doing?' she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough +to consume her like a fire. 'In what is that man assisting him, +who never looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? +If you are honourable and faithful, I don't ask you to betray your +friend. I ask you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is +it pride, is it restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love, +what is it, that is leading him?' + +'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'how shall I tell you, so that you will +believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from +what there was when I first came here? I can think of nothing. I +firmly believe there is nothing. I hardly understand even what you +mean.' + +As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, +from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that +cruel mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, +or with a pity that despised its object. She put her hand upon it +hurriedly - a hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her +hold it up before the fire to shade her face, I had compared it in +my thoughts to fine porcelain - and saying, in a quick, fierce, +passionate way, 'I swear you to secrecy about this!' said not a +word more. + +Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son's society, and +Steerforth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and +respectful to her. It was very interesting to me to see them +together, not only on account of their mutual affection, but +because of the strong personal resemblance between them, and the +manner in which what was haughty or impetuous in him was softened +by age and sex, in her, to a gracious dignity. I thought, more +than once, that it was well no serious cause of division had ever +come between them; or two such natures - I ought rather to express +it, two such shades of the same nature - might have been harder to +reconcile than the two extremest opposites in creation. The idea +did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but +in a speech of Rosa Dartle's. + +She said at dinner: + +'Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking +about it all day, and I want to know.' + +'You want to know what, Rosa?' returned Mrs. Steerforth. 'Pray, +pray, Rosa, do not be mysterious.' + +'Mysterious!' she cried. 'Oh! really? Do you consider me so?' + +'Do I constantly entreat you,' said Mrs. Steerforth, 'to speak +plainly, in your own natural manner?' + +'Oh! then this is not my natural manner?' she rejoined. 'Now you +must really bear with me, because I ask for information. We never +know ourselves.' + +'It has become a second nature,' said Mrs. Steerforth, without any +displeasure; 'but I remember, - and so must you, I think, - when +your manner was different, Rosa; when it was not so guarded, and +was more trustful.' + +'I am sure you are right,' she returned; 'and so it is that bad +habits grow upon one! Really? Less guarded and more trustful? +How can I, imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder! Well, that's +very odd! I must study to regain my former self.' + +'I wish you would,' said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile. + +'Oh! I really will, you know!' she answered. 'I will learn +frankness from - let me see - from James.' + +'You cannot learn frankness, Rosa,' said Mrs. Steerforth quickly - +for there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle +said, though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious +manner in the world - 'in a better school.' + +'That I am sure of,' she answered, with uncommon fervour. 'If I am +sure of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that.' + +Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little +nettled; for she presently said, in a kind tone: + +'Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to +be satisfied about?' + +'That I want to be satisfied about?' she replied, with provoking +coldness. 'Oh! It was only whether people, who are like each +other in their moral constitution - is that the phrase?' + +'It's as good a phrase as another,' said Steerforth. + +'Thank you: - whether people, who are like each other in their +moral constitution, are in greater danger than people not so +circumstanced, supposing any serious cause of variance to arise +between them, of being divided angrily and deeply?' + +'I should say yes,' said Steerforth. + +'Should you?' she retorted. 'Dear me! Supposing then, for +instance - any unlikely thing will do for a supposition - that you +and your mother were to have a serious quarrel.' + +'My dear Rosa,' interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing +good-naturedly, 'suggest some other supposition! James and I know +our duty to each other better, I pray Heaven!' + +'Oh!' said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully. 'To be +sure. That would prevent it? Why, of course it would. Exactly. +Now, I am glad I have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is +so very good to know that your duty to each other would prevent it! +Thank you very much.' + +One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle I must not +omit; for I had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the +irremediable past was rendered plain. During the whole of this +day, but especially from this period of it, Steerforth exerted +himself with his utmost skill, and that was with his utmost ease, +to charm this singular creature into a pleasant and pleased +companion. That he should succeed, was no matter of surprise to +me. That she should struggle against the fascinating influence of +his delightful art - delightful nature I thought it then - did not +surprise me either; for I knew that she was sometimes jaundiced and +perverse. I saw her features and her manner slowly change; I saw +her look at him with growing admiration; I saw her try, more and +more faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned a weakness in +herself, to resist the captivating power that he possessed; and +finally, I saw her sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite +gentle, and I ceased to be afraid of her as I had really been all +day, and we all sat about the fire, talking and laughing together, +with as little reserve as if we had been children. + +Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because +Steerforth was resolved not to lose the advantage he had gained, I +do not know; but we did not remain in the dining-room more than +five minutes after her departure. 'She is playing her harp,' said +Steerforth, softly, at the drawing-room door, 'and nobody but my +mother has heard her do that, I believe, these three years.' He +said it with a curious smile, which was gone directly; and we went +into the room and found her alone. + +'Don't get up,' said Steerforth (which she had already done)' my +dear Rosa, don't! Be kind for once, and sing us an Irish song.' + +'What do you care for an Irish song?' she returned. + +'Much!' said Steerforth. 'Much more than for any other. Here is +Daisy, too, loves music from his soul. Sing us an Irish song, +Rosa! and let me sit and listen as I used to do.' + +He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but +sat himself near the harp. She stood beside it for some little +while, in a curious way, going through the motion of playing it +with her right hand, but not sounding it. At length she sat down, +and drew it to her with one sudden action, and played and sang. + +I don't know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that +song the most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can +imagine. There was something fearful in the reality of it. It was +as if it had never been written, or set to music, but sprung out of +passion within her; which found imperfect utterance in the low +sounds of her voice, and crouched again when all was still. I was +dumb when she leaned beside the harp again, playing it, but not +sounding it, with her right hand. + +A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance: - Steerforth +had left his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly +about her, and had said, 'Come, Rosa, for the future we will love +each other very much!' And she had struck him, and had thrown him +off with the fury of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room. + +'What is the matter with Rosa?' said Mrs. Steerforth, coming in. + +'She has been an angel, mother,' returned Steerforth, 'for a little +while; and has run into the opposite extreme, since, by way of +compensation.' + +'You should be careful not to irritate her, James. Her temper has +been soured, remember, and ought not to be tried.' + +Rosa did not come back; and no other mention was made of her, until +I went with Steerforth into his room to say Good night. Then he +laughed about her, and asked me if I had ever seen such a fierce +little piece of incomprehensibility. + +I expressed as much of my astonishment as was then capable of +expression, and asked if he could guess what it was that she had +taken so much amiss, so suddenly. + +'Oh, Heaven knows,' said Steerforth. 'Anything you like - or +nothing! I told you she took everything, herself included, to a +grindstone, and sharpened it. She is an edge-tool, and requires +great care in dealing with. She is always dangerous. Good night!' + +'Good night!' said I, 'my dear Steerforth! I shall be gone before +you wake in the morning. Good night!' + +He was unwilling to let me go; and stood, holding me out, with a +hand on each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room. + +'Daisy,' he said, with a smile - 'for though that's not the name +your godfathers and godmothers gave you, it's the name I like best +to call you by - and I wish, I wish, I wish, you could give it to +me!' + +'Why so I can, if I choose,' said I. + +'Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me +at my best, old boy. Come! Let us make that bargain. Think of me +at my best, if circumstances should ever part us!' + +'You have no best to me, Steerforth,' said I, 'and no worst. You +are always equally loved, and cherished in my heart.' + +So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a +shapeless thought, did I feel within me, that the confession of +having done so was rising to my lips. But for the reluctance I had +to betray the confidence of Agnes, but for my uncertainty how to +approach the subject with no risk of doing so, it would have +reached them before he said, 'God bless you, Daisy, and good +night!' In my doubt, it did NOT reach them; and we shook hands, and +we parted. + +I was up with the dull dawn, and, having dressed as quietly as I +could, looked into his room. He was fast asleep; lying, easily, +with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. + +The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost +wondered that nothing troubled his repose, as I looked at him. But +he slept - let me think of him so again - as I had often seen him +sleep at school; and thus, in this silent hour, I left him. + +- Never more, oh God forgive you, Steerforth! to touch that passive +hand in love and friendship. Never, never more! + + + +CHAPTER 30 +A LOSS + + +I got down to Yarmouth in the evening, and went to the inn. I knew +that Peggotty's spare room - my room - was likely to have +occupation enough in a little while, if that great Visitor, before +whose presence all the living must give place, were not already in +the house; so I betook myself to the inn, and dined there, and +engaged my bed. + +It was ten o'clock when I went out. Many of the shops were shut, +and the town was dull. When I came to Omer and Joram's, I found +the shutters up, but the shop door standing open. As I could +obtain a perspective view of Mr. Omer inside, smoking his pipe by +the parlour door, I entered, and asked him how he was. + +'Why, bless my life and soul!' said Mr. Omer, 'how do you find +yourself? Take a seat. - Smoke not disagreeable, I hope?' + +'By no means,' said I. 'I like it - in somebody else's pipe.' + +'What, not in your own, eh?' Mr. Omer returned, laughing. 'All the +better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke, +myself, for the asthma.' + +Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. He now sat down +again very much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it +contained a supply of that necessary, without which he must perish. + +'I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkis,' said I. + +Mr. Omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his +head. + +'Do you know how he is tonight?' I asked. + +'The very question I should have put to you, sir,' returned Mr. +Omer, 'but on account of delicacy. It's one of the drawbacks of +our line of business. When a party's ill, we can't ask how the +party is.' + +The difficulty had not occurred to me; though I had had my +apprehensions too, when I went in, of hearing the old tune. On its +being mentioned, I recognized it, however, and said as much. + +'Yes, yes, you understand,' said Mr. Omer, nodding his head. 'We +dursn't do it. Bless you, it would be a shock that the generality +of parties mightn't recover, to say "Omer and Joram's compliments, +and how do you find yourself this morning?" - or this afternoon - +as it may be.' + +Mr. Omer and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omer recruited his +wind by the aid of his pipe. + +'It's one of the things that cut the trade off from attentions they +could often wish to show,' said Mr. Omer. 'Take myself. If I have +known Barkis a year, to move to as he went by, I have known him +forty years. But I can't go and say, "how is he?"' + +I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omer, and I told him so. + +'I'm not more self-interested, I hope, than another man,' said Mr. +Omer. 'Look at me! My wind may fail me at any moment, and it +ain't likely that, to my own knowledge, I'd be self-interested +under such circumstances. I say it ain't likely, in a man who +knows his wind will go, when it DOES go, as if a pair of bellows +was cut open; and that man a grandfather,' said Mr. Omer. + +I said, 'Not at all.' + +'It ain't that I complain of my line of business,' said Mr. Omer. +'It ain't that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all +callings. What I wish is, that parties was brought up +stronger-minded.' + +Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several +puffs in silence; and then said, resuming his first point: + +'Accordingly we're obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis goes on, to +limit ourselves to Em'ly. She knows what our real objects are, and +she don't have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we +was so many lambs. Minnie and Joram have just stepped down to the +house, in fact (she's there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), +to ask her how he is tonight; and if you was to please to wait till +they come back, they'd give you full partic'lers. Will you take +something? A glass of srub and water, now? I smoke on srub and +water, myself,' said Mr. Omer, taking up his glass, 'because it's +considered softening to the passages, by which this troublesome +breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord bless you,' said Mr. +Omer, huskily, 'it ain't the passages that's out of order! "Give +me breath enough," said I to my daughter Minnie, "and I'll find +passages, my dear."' + +He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see +him laugh. When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I +thanked him for the proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I +had just had dinner; and, observing that I would wait, since he was +so good as to invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came +back, I inquired how little Emily was? + +'Well, sir,' said Mr. Omer, removing his pipe, that he might rub +his chin: 'I tell you truly, I shall be glad when her marriage has +taken place.' + +'Why so?' I inquired. + +'Well, she's unsettled at present,' said Mr. Omer. 'It ain't that +she's not as pretty as ever, for she's prettier - I do assure you, +she is prettier. It ain't that she don't work as well as ever, for +she does. She WAS worth any six, and she IS worth any six. But +somehow she wants heart. If you understand,' said Mr. Omer, after +rubbing his chin again, and smoking a little, 'what I mean in a +general way by the expression, "A long pull, and a strong pull, and +a pull altogether, my hearties, hurrah!" I should say to you, that +that was - in a general way - what I miss in Em'ly.' + +Mr. Omer's face and manner went for so much, that I could +conscientiously nod my head, as divining his meaning. My quickness +of apprehension seemed to please him, and he went on: +'Now I consider this is principally on account of her being in an +unsettled state, you see. We have talked it over a good deal, her +uncle and myself, and her sweetheart and myself, after business; +and I consider it is principally on account of her being unsettled. +You must always recollect of Em'ly,' said Mr. Omer, shaking his +head gently, 'that she's a most extraordinary affectionate little +thing. The proverb says, "You can't make a silk purse out of a +sow's ear." Well, I don't know about that. I rather think you may, +if you begin early in life. She has made a home out of that old +boat, sir, that stone and marble couldn't beat.' + +'I am sure she has!' said I. + +'To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle,' +said Mr. Omer; 'to see the way she holds on to him, tighter and +tighter, and closer and closer, every day, is to see a sight. Now, +you know, there's a struggle going on when that's the case. Why +should it be made a longer one than is needful?' + +I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with +all my heart, in what he said. + +'Therefore, I mentioned to them,' said Mr. Omer, in a comfortable, +easy-going tone, 'this. I said, "Now, don't consider Em'ly nailed +down in point of time, at all. Make it your own time. Her +services have been more valuable than was supposed; her learning +has been quicker than was supposed; Omer and Joram can run their +pen through what remains; and she's free when you wish. If she +likes to make any little arrangement, afterwards, in the way of +doing any little thing for us at home, very well. If she don't, +very well still. We're no losers, anyhow." For - don't you see,' +said Mr. Omer, touching me with his pipe, 'it ain't likely that a +man so short of breath as myself, and a grandfather too, would go +and strain points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom, like +her?' + +'Not at all, I am certain,' said I. + +'Not at all! You're right!' said Mr. Omer. 'Well, sir, her cousin +- you know it's a cousin she's going to be married to?' + +'Oh yes,' I replied. 'I know him well.' + +'Of course you do,' said Mr. Omer. 'Well, sir! Her cousin being, +as it appears, in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very +manly sort of manner for this (conducting himself altogether, I +must say, in a way that gives me a high opinion of him), and went +and took as comfortable a little house as you or I could wish to +clap eyes on. That little house is now furnished right through, as +neat and complete as a doll's parlour; and but for Barkis's illness +having taken this bad turn, poor fellow, they would have been man +and wife - I dare say, by this time. As it is, there's a +postponement.' + +'And Emily, Mr. Omer?' I inquired. 'Has she become more settled?' + +'Why that, you know,' he returned, rubbing his double chin again, +'can't naturally be expected. The prospect of the change and +separation, and all that, is, as one may say, close to her and far +away from her, both at once. Barkis's death needn't put it off +much, but his lingering might. Anyway, it's an uncertain state of +matters, you see.' + +'I see,' said I. + +'Consequently,' pursued Mr. Omer, 'Em'ly's still a little down, and +a little fluttered; perhaps, upon the whole, she's more so than she +was. Every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her uncle, +and more loth to part from all of us. A kind word from me brings +the tears into her eyes; and if you was to see her with my daughter +Minnie's little girl, you'd never forget it. Bless my heart +alive!' said Mr. Omer, pondering, 'how she loves that child!' + +Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask Mr. +Omer, before our conversation should be interrupted by the return +of his daughter and her husband, whether he knew anything of +Martha. + +'Ah!' he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much +dejected. 'No good. A sad story, sir, however you come to know +it. I never thought there was harm in the girl. I wouldn't wish +to mention it before my daughter Minnie - for she'd take me up +directly - but I never did. None of us ever did.' + +Mr. Omer, hearing his daughter's footstep before I heard it, +touched me with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a caution. She +and her husband came in immediately afterwards. + +Their report was, that Mr. Barkis was 'as bad as bad could be'; +that he was quite unconscious; and that Mr. Chillip had mournfully +said in the kitchen, on going away just now, that the College of +Physicians, the College of Surgeons, and Apothecaries' Hall, if +they were all called in together, couldn't help him. He was past +both Colleges, Mr. Chillip said, and the Hall could only poison +him. + +Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Peggotty was there, I +determined to go to the house at once. I bade good night to Mr. +Omer, and to Mr. and Mrs. Joram; and directed my steps thither, +with a solemn feeling, which made Mr. Barkis quite a new and +different creature. + +My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Peggotty. He was not so +much surprised to see me as I had expected. I remarked this in +Peggotty, too, when she came down; and I have seen it since; and I +think, in the expectation of that dread surprise, all other changes +and surprises dwindle into nothing. + +I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while +he softly closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire, +with her hands before her face. Ham was standing near her. + +We spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for any sound in +the room above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last +visit, but how strange it was to me, now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of +the kitchen! + +'This is very kind of you, Mas'r Davy,' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'It's oncommon kind,' said Ham. + +'Em'ly, my dear,' cried Mr. Peggotty. 'See here! Here's Mas'r +Davy come! What, cheer up, pretty! Not a wured to Mas'r Davy?' + +There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now. The coldness +of her hand when I touched it, I can feel yet. Its only sign of +animation was to shrink from mine; and then she glided from the +chair, and creeping to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself, +silently and trembling still, upon his breast. + +'It's such a loving art,' said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing her rich +hair with his great hard hand, 'that it can't abear the sorrer of +this. It's nat'ral in young folk, Mas'r Davy, when they're new to +these here trials, and timid, like my little bird, - it's nat'ral.' + +She clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor +spoke a word. + +'It's getting late, my dear,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'and here's Ham +come fur to take you home. Theer! Go along with t'other loving +art! What' Em'ly? Eh, my pretty?' + +The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as +if he listened to her, and then said: + +'Let you stay with your uncle? Why, you doen't mean to ask me +that! Stay with your uncle, Moppet? When your husband that'll be +so soon, is here fur to take you home? Now a person wouldn't think +it, fur to see this little thing alongside a rough-weather chap +like me,' said Mr. Peggotty, looking round at both of us, with +infinite pride; 'but the sea ain't more salt in it than she has +fondness in her for her uncle - a foolish little Em'ly!' + +'Em'ly's in the right in that, Mas'r Davy!' said Ham. 'Lookee +here! As Em'ly wishes of it, and as she's hurried and frightened, +like, besides, I'll leave her till morning. Let me stay too!' + +'No, no,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'You doen't ought - a married man +like you - or what's as good - to take and hull away a day's work. +And you doen't ought to watch and work both. That won't do. You +go home and turn in. You ain't afeerd of Em'ly not being took good +care on, I know.' +Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. Even when +he kissed her. - and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that +nature had given him the soul of a gentleman - she seemed to cling +closer to her uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband. +I shut the door after him, that it might cause no disturbance of +the quiet that prevailed; and when I turned back, I found Mr. +Peggotty still talking to her. + +'Now, I'm a going upstairs to tell your aunt as Mas'r Davy's here, +and that'll cheer her up a bit,' he said. 'Sit ye down by the +fire, the while, my dear, and warm those mortal cold hands. You +doen't need to be so fearsome, and take on so much. What? You'll +go along with me? - Well! come along with me - come! If her uncle +was turned out of house and home, and forced to lay down in a dyke, +Mas'r Davy,' said Mr. Peggotty, with no less pride than before, +'it's my belief she'd go along with him, now! But there'll be +someone else, soon, - someone else, soon, Em'ly!' + +Afterwards, when I went upstairs, as I passed the door of my little +chamber, which was dark, I had an indistinct impression of her +being within it, cast down upon the floor. But, whether it was +really she, or whether it was a confusion of the shadows in the +room, I don't know now. + +I had leisure to think, before the kitchen fire, of pretty little +Emily's dread of death - which, added to what Mr. Omer had told me, +I took to be the cause of her being so unlike herself - and I had +leisure, before Peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of +the weakness of it: as I sat counting the ticking of the clock, and +deepening my sense of the solemn hush around me. Peggotty took me +in her arms, and blessed and thanked me over and over again for +being such a comfort to her (that was what she said) in her +distress. She then entreated me to come upstairs, sobbing that Mr. +Barkis had always liked me and admired me; that he had often talked +of me, before he fell into a stupor; and that she believed, in case +of his coming to himself again, he would brighten up at sight of +me, if he could brighten up at any earthly thing. + +The probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me, when I saw +him, to be very small. He was lying with his head and shoulders +out of bed, in an uncomfortable attitude, half resting on the box +which had cost him so much pain and trouble. I learned, that, when +he was past creeping out of bed to open it, and past assuring +himself of its safety by means of the divining rod I had seen him +use, he had required to have it placed on the chair at the +bed-side, where he had ever since embraced it, night and day. His +arm lay on it now. Time and the world were slipping from beneath +him, but the box was there; and the last words he had uttered were +(in an explanatory tone) 'Old clothes!' + +'Barkis, my dear!' said Peggotty, almost cheerfully: bending over +him, while her brother and I stood at the bed's foot. 'Here's my +dear boy - my dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together, +Barkis! That you sent messages by, you know! Won't you speak to +Master Davy?' + +He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form +derived the only expression it had. + +'He's a going out with the tide,' said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind +his hand. + +My eyes were dim and so were Mr. Peggotty's; but I repeated in a +whisper, 'With the tide?' + +'People can't die, along the coast,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'except +when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's +pretty nigh in - not properly born, till flood. He's a going out +with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an +hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the +flood, and go out with the next tide.' + +We remained there, watching him, a long time - hours. What +mysterious influence my presence had upon him in that state of his +senses, I shall not pretend to say; but when he at last began to +wander feebly, it is certain he was muttering about driving me to +school. + +'He's coming to himself,' said Peggotty. + +Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence. +'They are both a-going out fast.' + +'Barkis, my dear!' said Peggotty. + +'C. P. Barkis,' he cried faintly. 'No better woman anywhere!' + +'Look! Here's Master Davy!' said Peggotty. For he now opened his +eyes. + +I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to +stretch out his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant +smile: + +'Barkis is willin'!' + +And, it being low water, he went out with the tide. + + + +CHAPTER 31 +A GREATER LOSS + + +It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty's solicitation, to resolve +to stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier +should have made their last journey to Blunderstone. She had long +ago bought, out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our +old churchyard near the grave of 'her sweet girl', as she always +called my mother; and there they were to rest. + +In keeping Peggotty company, and doing all I could for her (little +enough at the utmost), I was as grateful, I rejoice to think, as +even now I could wish myself to have been. But I am afraid I had +a supreme satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature, in +taking charge of Mr. Barkis's will, and expounding its contents. + +I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the +will should be looked for in the box. After some search, it was +found in the box, at the bottom of a horse's nose-bag; wherein +(besides hay) there was discovered an old gold watch, with chain +and seals, which Mr. Barkis had worn on his wedding-day, and which +had never been seen before or since; a silver tobacco-stopper, in +the form of a leg; an imitation lemon, full of minute cups and +saucers, which I have some idea Mr. Barkis must have purchased to +present to me when I was a child, and afterwards found himself +unable to part with; eighty-seven guineas and a half, in guineas +and half-guineas; two hundred and ten pounds, in perfectly clean +Bank notes; certain receipts for Bank of England stock; an old +horseshoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an oyster-shell. +From the circumstance of the latter article having been much +polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside, I +conclude that Mr. Barkis had some general ideas about pearls, which +never resolved themselves into anything definite. + +For years and years, Mr. Barkis had carried this box, on all his +journeys, every day. That it might the better escape notice, he +had invented a fiction that it belonged to 'Mr. Blackboy', and was +'to be left with Barkis till called for'; a fable he had +elaborately written on the lid, in characters now scarcely legible. + +He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good purpose. His +property in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of +this he bequeathed the interest of one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for +his life; on his decease, the principal to be equally divided +between Peggotty, little Emily, and me, or the survivor or +survivors of us, share and share alike. All the rest he died +possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty; whom he left residuary +legatee, and sole executrix of that his last will and testament. + +I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document aloud with +all possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of +times, to those whom they concerned. I began to think there was +more in the Commons than I had supposed. I examined the will with +the deepest attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all +respects, made a pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it +rather extraordinary that I knew so much. + +In this abstruse pursuit; in making an account for Peggotty, of all +the property into which she had come; in arranging all the affairs +in an orderly manner; and in being her referee and adviser on every +point, to our joint delight; I passed the week before the funeral. +I did not see little Emily in that interval, but they told me she +was to be quietly married in a fortnight. + +I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say +so. I mean I was not dressed up in a black coat and a streamer, to +frighten the birds; but I walked over to Blunderstone early in the +morning, and was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by +Peggotty and her brother. The mad gentleman looked on, out of my +little window; Mr. Chillip's baby wagged its heavy head, and rolled +its goggle eyes, at the clergyman, over its nurse's shoulder; Mr. +Omer breathed short in the background; no one else was there; and +it was very quiet. We walked about the churchyard for an hour, +after all was over; and pulled some young leaves from the tree +above my mother's grave. + +A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the distant town, +towards which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. +I cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; +of what must come again, if I go on. + +It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if +I stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo +it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was. + +My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on the business +of the will. Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer's. We +were all to meet in the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring +Emily at the usual hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The +brother and sister would return as they had come, and be expecting +us, when the day closed in, at the fireside. + +I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary Strap had +rested with Roderick Random's knapsack in the days of yore; and, +instead of going straight back, walked a little distance on the +road to Lowestoft. Then I turned, and walked back towards +Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at a decent alehouse, some mile or two +from the Ferry I have mentioned before; and thus the day wore away, +and it was evening when I reached it. Rain was falling heavily by +that time, and it was a wild night; but there was a moon behind the +clouds, and it was not dark. + +I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty's house, and of the light +within it shining through the window. A little floundering across +the sand, which was heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in. + +It looked very comfortable indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his +evening pipe and there were preparations for some supper by and by. +The fire was bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready +for little Emily in her old place. In her own old place sat +Peggotty, once more, looking (but for her dress) as if she had +never left it. She had fallen back, already, on the society of the +work-box with St. Paul's upon the lid, the yard-measure in the +cottage, and the bit of wax-candle; and there they all were, just +as if they had never been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge appeared to be +fretting a little, in her old corner; and consequently looked quite +natural, too. + +'You're first of the lot, Mas'r Davy!' said Mr. Peggotty with a +happy face. 'Doen't keep in that coat, sir, if it's wet.' + +'Thank you, Mr. Peggotty,' said I, giving him my outer coat to hang +up. 'It's quite dry.' + +'So 'tis!' said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders. 'As a chip! +Sit ye down, sir. It ain't o' no use saying welcome to you, but +you're welcome, kind and hearty.' + +'Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well, Peggotty!' said +I, giving her a kiss. 'And how are you, old woman?' + +'Ha, ha!' laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing +his hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the +genuine heartiness of his nature; 'there's not a woman in the +wureld, sir - as I tell her - that need to feel more easy in her +mind than her! She done her dooty by the departed, and the +departed know'd it; and the departed done what was right by her, as +she done what was right by the departed; - and - and - and it's all +right!' + +Mrs. Gummidge groaned. + +'Cheer up, my pritty mawther!' said Mr. Peggotty. (But he shook +his head aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the +late occurrences to recall the memory of the old one.) 'Doen't be +down! Cheer up, for your own self, on'y a little bit, and see if +a good deal more doen't come nat'ral!' + +'Not to me, Dan'l,' returned Mrs. Gummidge. 'Nothink's nat'ral to +me but to be lone and lorn.' + +'No, no,' said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows. + +'Yes, yes, Dan'l!' said Mrs. Gummidge. 'I ain't a person to live +with them as has had money left. Thinks go too contrary with me. +I had better be a riddance.' + +'Why, how should I ever spend it without you?' said Mr. Peggotty, +with an air of serious remonstrance. 'What are you a talking on? +Doen't I want you more now, than ever I did?' + +'I know'd I was never wanted before!' cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a +pitiable whimper, 'and now I'm told so! How could I expect to be +wanted, being so lone and lorn, and so contrary!' + +Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a +speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented +from replying, by Peggotty's pulling his sleeve, and shaking her +head. After looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore +distress of mind, he glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the +candle, and put it in the window. + +'Theer!'said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily.'Theer we are, Missis +Gummidge!' Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. 'Lighted up, accordin' +to custom! You're a wonderin' what that's fur, sir! Well, it's +fur our little Em'ly. You see, the path ain't over light or +cheerful arter dark; and when I'm here at the hour as she's a +comin' home, I puts the light in the winder. That, you see,' said +Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with great glee, 'meets two objects. +She says, says Em'ly, "Theer's home!" she says. And likewise, says +Em'ly, "My uncle's theer!" Fur if I ain't theer, I never have no +light showed.' + +'You're a baby!' said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she +thought so. + +'Well,' returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide +apart, and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable +satisfaction, as he looked alternately at us and at the fire. 'I +doen't know but I am. Not, you see, to look at.' + +'Not azackly,' observed Peggotty. + +'No,' laughed Mr. Peggotty, 'not to look at, but to - to consider +on, you know. I doen't care, bless you! Now I tell you. When I +go a looking and looking about that theer pritty house of our +Em'ly's, I'm - I'm Gormed,' said Mr. Peggotty, with sudden emphasis +- 'theer! I can't say more - if I doen't feel as if the littlest +things was her, a'most. I takes 'em up and I put 'em down, and I +touches of 'em as delicate as if they was our Em'ly. So 'tis with +her little bonnets and that. I couldn't see one on 'em rough used +a purpose - not fur the whole wureld. There's a babby fur you, in +the form of a great Sea Porkypine!' said Mr. Peggotty, relieving +his earnestness with a roar of laughter. + +Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud. + +'It's my opinion, you see,' said Mr. Peggotty, with a delighted +face, after some further rubbing of his legs, 'as this is along of +my havin' played with her so much, and made believe as we was +Turks, and French, and sharks, and every wariety of forinners - +bless you, yes; and lions and whales, and I doen't know what all! +- when she warn't no higher than my knee. I've got into the way on +it, you know. Why, this here candle, now!' said Mr. Peggotty, +gleefully holding out his hand towards it, 'I know wery well that +arter she's married and gone, I shall put that candle theer, just +the same as now. I know wery well that when I'm here o' nights +(and where else should I live, bless your arts, whatever fortun' I +come into!) and she ain't here or I ain't theer, I shall put the +candle in the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending I'm +expecting of her, like I'm a doing now. THERE'S a babby for you,' +said Mr. Peggotty, with another roar, 'in the form of a Sea +Porkypine! Why, at the present minute, when I see the candle +sparkle up, I says to myself, "She's a looking at it! Em'ly's a +coming!" THERE'S a babby for you, in the form of a Sea Porkypine! +Right for all that,' said Mr. Peggotty, stopping in his roar, and +smiting his hands together; 'fur here she is!' + +It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I +came in, for he had a large sou'wester hat on, slouched over his +face. + +'Wheer's Em'ly?' said Mr. Peggotty. + +Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. Mr. +Peggotty took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the +table, and was busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not +moved, said: + +'Mas'r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em'ly and me +has got to show you?' + +We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to my +astonishment and fright, that he was deadly pale. He pushed me +hastily into the open air, and closed the door upon us. Only upon +us two. + +'Ham! what's the matter?' + +'Mas'r Davy! -' Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept! + +I was paralysed by the sight of such grief. I don't know what I +thought, or what I dreaded. I could only look at him. + +'Ham! Poor good fellow! For Heaven's sake, tell me what's the +matter!' + +'My love, Mas'r Davy - the pride and hope of my art - her that I'd +have died for, and would die for now - she's gone!' + +'Gone!' + +'Em'ly's run away! Oh, Mas'r Davy, think HOW she's run away, when +I pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear +above all things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace!' + +The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his +clasped hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with the +lonely waste, in my remembrance, to this hour. It is always night +there, and he is the only object in the scene. + +'You're a scholar,' he said, hurriedly, 'and know what's right and +best. What am I to say, indoors? How am I ever to break it to +him, Mas'r Davy?' + +I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on +the outside, to gain a moment's time. It was too late. Mr. +Peggotty thrust forth his face; and never could I forget the change +that came upon it when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred +years. + +I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, +and we all standing in the room; I with a paper in my hand, which +Ham had given me; Mr. Peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair +wild, his face and lips quite white, and blood trickling down his +bosom (it had sprung from his mouth, I think), looking fixedly at +me. + +'Read it, sir,' he said, in a low shivering voice. 'Slow, please. +I doen't know as I can understand.' + +In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus, from a blotted +letter: + + +'"When you, who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, +even when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away."' + + +'I shall be fur away,' he repeated slowly. 'Stop! Em'ly fur away. +Well!' + + +'"When I leave my dear home - my dear home - oh, my dear home! - in +the morning,"' + +the letter bore date on the previous night: + + +'"- it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. +This will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, +if you knew how my heart is torn. If even you, that I have wronged +so much, that never can forgive me, could only know what I suffer! +I am too wicked to write about myself! Oh, take comfort in +thinking that I am so bad. Oh, for mercy's sake, tell uncle that +I never loved him half so dear as now. Oh, don't remember how +affectionate and kind you have all been to me - don't remember we +were ever to be married - but try to think as if I died when I was +little, and was buried somewhere. Pray Heaven that I am going away +from, have compassion on my uncle! Tell him that I never loved him +half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good girl that will be +what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, +and know no shame but me. God bless all! I'll pray for all, +often, on my knees. If he don't bring me back a lady, and I don't +pray for my own self, I'll pray for all. My parting love to uncle. +My last tears, and my last thanks, for uncle!"' + +That was all. + +He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me. At +length I ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as +I could, to endeavour to get some command of himself. He replied, +'I thankee, sir, I thankee!' without moving. + +Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible of HIS +affliction, that he wrung his hand; but, otherwise, he remained in +the same state, and no one dared to disturb him. + +Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were +waking from a vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said, +in a low voice: + +'Who's the man? I want to know his name.' + +Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back. + +'There's a man suspected,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Who is it?' + +'Mas'r Davy!' implored Ham. 'Go out a bit, and let me tell him +what I must. You doen't ought to hear it, sir.' + +I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter +some reply; but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak. + +'I want to know his name!' I heard said once more. + +'For some time past,' Ham faltered, 'there's been a servant about +here, at odd times. There's been a gen'lm'n too. Both of 'em +belonged to one another.' + +Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him. + +'The servant,' pursued Ham, 'was seen along with - our poor girl - +last night. He's been in hiding about here, this week or over. He +was thought to have gone, but he was hiding. Doen't stay, Mas'r +Davy, doen't!' + +I felt Peggotty's arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if +the house had been about to fall upon me. + +'A strange chay and hosses was outside town, this morning, on the +Norwich road, a'most afore the day broke,' Ham went on. 'The +servant went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When +he went to it again, Em'ly was nigh him. The t'other was inside. +He's the man.' + +'For the Lord's love,' said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and putting +out his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. 'Doen't tell me +his name's Steerforth!' + +'Mas'r Davy,' exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, 'it ain't no fault +of yourn - and I am far from laying of it to you - but his name is +Steerforth, and he's a damned villain!' + +Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, +until he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his +rough coat from its peg in a corner. + +'Bear a hand with this! I'm struck of a heap, and can't do it,' he +said, impatiently. 'Bear a hand and help me. Well!' when somebody +had done so. 'Now give me that theer hat!' + +Ham asked him whither he was going. + +'I'm a going to seek my niece. I'm a going to seek my Em'ly. I'm +a going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where I +would have drownded him, as I'm a living soul, if I had had one +thought of what was in him! As he sat afore me,' he said, wildly, +holding out his clenched right hand, 'as he sat afore me, face to +face, strike me down dead, but I'd have drownded him, and thought +it right! - I'm a going to seek my niece.' + +'Where?' cried Ham, interposing himself before the door. + +'Anywhere! I'm a going to seek my niece through the wureld. I'm +a going to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No +one stop me! I tell you I'm a going to seek my niece!' + +'No, no!' cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of +crying. 'No, no, Dan'l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little +while, my lone lorn Dan'l, and that'll be but right! but not as you +are now. Sit ye down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever +been a worrit to you, Dan'l - what have my contraries ever been to +this! - and let us speak a word about them times when she was first +an orphan, and when Ham was too, and when I was a poor widder +woman, and you took me in. It'll soften your poor heart, Dan'l,' +laying her head upon his shoulder, 'and you'll bear your sorrow +better; for you know the promise, Dan'l, "As you have done it unto +one of the least of these, you have done it unto me",- and that can +never fail under this roof, that's been our shelter for so many, +many year!' + +He was quite passive now; and when I heard him crying, the impulse +that had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their +pardon for the desolation I had caused, and curse Steer- forth, +yielded to a better feeling, My overcharged heart found the same +relief, and I cried too. + + + +CHAPTER 32 +THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY + + +What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and +so I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth +better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the +keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more +of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that +was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might +have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever +I had done in the height of my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt +my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home, I +believed that if I had been brought face to face with him, I could +not have uttered one reproach. I should have loved him so well +still - though he fascinated me no longer - I should have held in +so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that I think +I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all but +the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united. +That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at +an end between us. What his remembrances of me were, I have never +known - they were light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed - but +mine of him were as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was +dead. + +Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! +My sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement +Throne; but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know! + +The news of what had happened soon spread through the town; +insomuch that as I passed along the streets next morning, I +overheard the people speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard +upon her, some few were hard upon him, but towards her second +father and her lover there was but one sentiment. Among all kinds +of people a respect for them in their distress prevailed, which was +full of gentleness and delicacy. The seafaring men kept apart, +when those two were seen early, walking with slow steps on the +beach; and stood in knots, talking compassionately among +themselves. + +It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It +would have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last +night, even if Peggotty had failed to tell me of their still +sitting just as I left them, when it was broad day. They looked +worn; and I thought Mr. Peggotty's head was bowed in one night more +than in all the years I had known him. But they were both as grave +and steady as the sea itself, then lying beneath a dark sky, +waveless - yet with a heavy roll upon it, as if it breathed in its +rest - and touched, on the horizon, with a strip of silvery light +from the unseen sun. + +'We have had a mort of talk, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty to me, when we +had all three walked a little while in silence, 'of what we ought +and doen't ought to do. But we see our course now.' + +I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the +distant light, and a frightful thought came into my mind - not that +his face was angry, for it was not; I recall nothing but an +expression of stern determination in it - that if ever he +encountered Steerforth, he would kill him. + +'My dooty here, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'is done. I'm a going to +seek my -' he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: 'I'm a going +to seek her. That's my dooty evermore.' + +He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and +inquired if I were going to London tomorrow? I told him I had not +gone today, fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to +him; but that I was ready to go when he would. + +'I'll go along with you, sir,' he rejoined, 'if you're agreeable, +tomorrow.' + +We walked again, for a while, in silence. + +'Ham,'he presently resumed,'he'll hold to his present work, and go +and live along with my sister. The old boat yonder -' + +'Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?' I gently interposed. + +'My station, Mas'r Davy,' he returned, 'ain't there no longer; and +if ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of +the deep, that one's gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen't mean as +it should be deserted. Fur from that.' + +We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained: + +'My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and +summer, as it has always looked, since she fust know'd it. If ever +she should come a wandering back, I wouldn't have the old place +seem to cast her off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw +nigher to 't, and to peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind +and rain, through the old winder, at the old seat by the fire. +Then, maybe, Mas'r Davy, seein' none but Missis Gummidge there, she +might take heart to creep in, trembling; and might come to be laid +down in her old bed, and rest her weary head where it was once so +gay.' + +I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried. + +'Every night,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'as reg'lar as the night comes, +the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she +should see it, it may seem to say "Come back, my child, come back!" +If ever there's a knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft knock), arter dark, +at your aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. Let it be her - not +you - that sees my fallen child!' + +He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some +minutes. During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and +observing the same expression on his face, and his eyes still +directed to the distant light, I touched his arm. + +Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have +tried to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last +inquired on what his thoughts were so bent, he replied: + +'On what's afore me, Mas'r Davy; and over yon.' +'On the life before you, do you mean?' He had pointed confusedly +out to sea. + +'Ay, Mas'r Davy. I doen't rightly know how 'tis, but from over yon +there seemed to me to come - the end of it like,' looking at me as +if he were waking, but with the same determined face. + +'What end?' I asked, possessed by my former fear. + +'I doen't know,'he said, thoughtfully; 'I was calling to mind that +the beginning of it all did take place here - and then the end +come. But it's gone! Mas'r Davy,' he added; answering, as I +think, my look; 'you han't no call to be afeerd of me: but I'm +kiender muddled; I don't fare to feel no matters,' - which was as +much as to say that he was not himself, and quite confounded. + +Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said no +more. The remembrance of this, in connexion with my former +thought, however, haunted me at intervals, even until the +inexorable end came at its appointed time. + +We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, +no longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing +breakfast. She took Mr. Peggotty's hat, and placed his seat for +him, and spoke so comfortably and softly, that I hardly knew her. + +'Dan'l, my good man,' said she, 'you must eat and drink, and keep +up your strength, for without it you'll do nowt. Try, that's a +dear soul! An if I disturb you with my clicketten,' she meant her +chattering, 'tell me so, Dan'l, and I won't.' + +When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she +sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other +clothes belonging to Mr. Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing +them in an old oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she +continued talking, in the same quiet manner: + +'All times and seasons, you know, Dan'l,' said Mrs. Gummidge, 'I +shall be allus here, and everythink will look accordin' to your +wishes. I'm a poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times, +when you're away, and send my letters to Mas'r Davy. Maybe you'll +write to me too, Dan'l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel +upon your lone lorn journies.' + +'You'll be a solitary woman heer, I'm afeerd!' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'No, no, Dan'l,' she returned, 'I shan't be that. Doen't you mind +me. I shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you' (Mrs. +Gummidge meant a home), 'again you come back - to keep a Beein here +for any that may hap to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I +shall set outside the door as I used to do. If any should come +nigh, they shall see the old widder woman true to 'em, a long way +off.' + +What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another +woman. She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what +it would be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid; +she was so forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow +about her, that I held her in a sort of veneration. The work she +did that day! There were many things to be brought up from the +beach and stored in the outhouse - as oars, nets, sails, cordage, +spars, lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though +there was abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair +of working hands on all that shore but would have laboured hard for +Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being asked to do it, yet she +persisted, all day long, in toiling under weights that she was +quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all sorts of +unnecessary errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she appeared +to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any. She +preserved an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy, +which was not the least astonishing part of the change that had +come over her. Querulousness was out of the question. I did not +even observe her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her +eyes, the whole day through, until twilight; when she and I and Mr. +Peggotty being alone together, and he having fallen asleep in +perfect exhaustion, she broke into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing +and crying, and taking me to the door, said, 'Ever bless you, Mas'r +Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!' Then, she immediately ran out +of the house to wash her face, in order that she might sit quietly +beside him, and be found at work there, when he should awake. In +short I left her, when I went away at night, the prop and staff of +Mr. Peggotty's affliction; and I could not meditate enough upon the +lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new experience she +unfolded to me. + +It was between nine and ten o'clock when, strolling in a melancholy +manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer's door. Mr. Omer +had taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had +been very low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his +pipe. + +'A deceitful, bad-hearted girl,' said Mrs. Joram. 'There was no +good in her, ever!' + +'Don't say so,' I returned. 'You don't think so.' + +'Yes, I do!' cried Mrs. Joram, angrily. + +'No, no,' said I. + +Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and +cross; but she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. +I was young, to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for +this sympathy, and fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and +mother, very well indeed. + +'What will she ever do!' sobbed Minnie. 'Where will she go! What +will become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and +him!' + +I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and +I was glad she remembered it too, so feelingly. + +'My little Minnie,' said Mrs. Joram, 'has only just now been got to +sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em'ly. All day long, +little Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, +whether Em'ly was wicked? What can I say to her, when Em'ly tied +a ribbon off her own neck round little Minnie's the last night she +was here, and laid her head down on the pillow beside her till she +was fast asleep! The ribbon's round my little Minnie's neck now. +It ought not to be, perhaps, but what can I do? Em'ly is very bad, +but they were fond of one another. And the child knows nothing!' + +Mrs. Joram was so unhappy that her husband came out to take care of +her. Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty's; more +melancholy myself, if possible, than I had been yet. + +That good creature - I mean Peggotty - all untired by her late +anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her brother's, where she +meant to stay till morning. An old woman, who had been employed +about the house for some weeks past, while Peggotty had been unable +to attend to it, was the house's only other occupant besides +myself. As I had no occasion for her services, I sent her to bed, +by no means against her will, and sat down before the kitchen fire +a little while, to think about all this. + +I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Barkis, and was +driving out with the tide towards the distance at which Ham had +looked so singularly in the morning, when I was recalled from my +wanderings by a knock at the door. There was a knocker upon the +door, but it was not that which made the sound. The tap was from +a hand, and low down upon the door, as if it were given by a child. + +It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman +to a person of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked +down, to my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that +appeared to be walking about of itself. But presently I discovered +underneath it, Miss Mowcher. + +I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very +kind reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost +efforts were unable to shut up, she had shown me the 'volatile' +expression of face which had made so great an impression on me at +our first and last meeting. But her face, as she turned it up to +mine, was so earnest; and when I relieved her of the umbrella +(which would have been an inconvenient one for the Irish Giant), +she wrung her little hands in such an afflicted manner; that I +rather inclined towards her. + +'Miss Mowcher!' said I, after glancing up and down the empty +street, without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; +'how do you come here? What is the matter?' +She motioned to me with her short right arm, to shut the umbrella +for her; and passing me hurriedly, went into the kitchen. When I +had closed the door, and followed, with the umbrella in my hand, I +found her sitting on the corner of the fender - it was a low iron +one, with two flat bars at top to stand plates upon - in the shadow +of the boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and chafing +her hands upon her knees like a person in pain. + +Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, +and the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed +again, 'Pray tell me, Miss Mowcher, what is the matter! are you +ill?' + +'My dear young soul,' returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands +upon her heart one over the other. 'I am ill here, I am very ill. +To think that it should come to this, when I might have known it +and perhaps prevented it, if I hadn't been a thoughtless fool!' + +Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to the figure) went +backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and +fro; while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon +the wall. + +'I am surprised,' I began, 'to see you so distressed and serious'- +when she interrupted me. + +'Yes, it's always so!' she said. 'They are all surprised, these +inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any +natural feeling in a little thing like me! They make a plaything +of me, use me for their amusement, throw me away when they are +tired, and wonder that I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden +soldier! Yes, yes, that's the way. The old way!' + +'It may be, with others,' I returned, 'but I do assure you it is +not with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all surprised to see you +as you are now: I know so little of you. I said, without +consideration, what I thought.' + +'What can I do?' returned the little woman, standing up, and +holding out her arms to show herself. 'See! What I am, my father +was; and my sister is; and my brother is. I have worked for sister +and brother these many years - hard, Mr. Copperfield - all day. I +must live. I do no harm. If there are people so unreflecting or +so cruel, as to make a jest of me, what is left for me to do but to +make a jest of myself, them, and everything? If I do so, for the +time, whose fault is that? Mine?' + +No. Not Miss Mowcher's, I perceived. + +'If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend,' +pursued the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful +earnestness, 'how much of his help or good will do you think I +should ever have had? If little Mowcher (who had no hand, young +gentleman, in the making of herself) addressed herself to him, or +the like of him, because of her misfortunes, when do you suppose +her small voice would have been heard? Little Mowcher would have +as much need to live, if she was the bitterest and dullest of +pigmies; but she couldn't do it. No. She might whistle for her +bread and butter till she died of Air.' + +Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her +handkerchief, and wiped her eyes. + +'Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart, as I think you +have,' she said, 'that while I know well what I am, I can be +cheerful and endure it all. I am thankful for myself, at any rate, +that I can find my tiny way through the world, without being +beholden to anyone; and that in return for all that is thrown at +me, in folly or vanity, as I go along, I can throw bubbles back. +If I don't brood over all I want, it is the better for me, and not +the worse for anyone. If I am a plaything for you giants, be +gentle with me.' + +Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me +with very intent expression all the while, and pursued: + +'I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able +to walk as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and I +couldn't overtake you; but I guessed where you came, and came after +you. I have been here before, today, but the good woman wasn't at +home.' + +'Do you know her?' I demanded. + +'I know of her, and about her,' she replied, 'from Omer and Joram. +I was there at seven o'clock this morning. Do you remember what +Steerforth said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when +I saw you both at the inn?' + +The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher's head, and the greater bonnet on +the wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked +this question. + +I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my +thoughts many times that day. I told her so. + +'May the Father of all Evil confound him,' said the little woman, +holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, 'and +ten times more confound that wicked servant; but I believed it was +YOU who had a boyish passion for her!' + +'I?' I repeated. + +'Child, child! In the name of blind ill-fortune,' cried Miss +Mowcher, wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro +again upon the fender, 'why did you praise her so, and blush, and +look disturbed? ' + +I could not conceal from myself that I had done this, though for a +reason very different from her supposition. + +'What did I know?' said Miss Mowcher, taking out her handkerchief +again, and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short +intervals, she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. 'He +was crossing you and wheedling you, I saw; and you were soft wax in +his hands, I saw. Had I left the room a minute, when his man told +me that "Young Innocence" (so he called you, and you may call him +"Old Guilt" all the days of your life) had set his heart upon her, +and she was giddy and liked him, but his master was resolved that +no harm should come of it - more for your sake than for hers - and +that that was their business here? How could I BUT believe him? +I saw Steerforth soothe and please you by his praise of her! You +were the first to mention her name. You owned to an old admiration +of her. You were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once when +I spoke to you of her. What could I think - what DID I think - but +that you were a young libertine in everything but experience, and +had fallen into hands that had experience enough, and could manage +you (having the fancy) for your own good? Oh! oh! oh! They were +afraid of my finding out the truth,' exclaimed Miss Mowcher, +getting off the fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with +her two short arms distressfully lifted up, 'because I am a sharp +little thing - I need be, to get through the world at all! - and +they deceived me altogether, and I gave the poor unfortunate girl +a letter, which I fully believe was the beginning of her ever +speaking to Littimer, who was left behind on purpose!' + +I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at +Miss Mowcher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was +out of breath: when she sat upon the fender again, and, drying her +face with her handkerchief, shook her head for a long time, without +otherwise moving, and without breaking silence. + +'My country rounds,' she added at length, 'brought me to Norwich, +Mr. Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find +there, about their secret way of coming and going, without you - +which was strange - led to my suspecting something wrong. I got +into the coach from London last night, as it came through Norwich, +and was here this morning. Oh, oh, oh! too late!' + +Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and +fretting, that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor +little wet feet in among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at +the fire, like a large doll. I sat in a chair on the other side of +the hearth, lost in unhappy reflections, and looking at the fire +too, and sometimes at her. + +'I must go,' she said at last, rising as she spoke. 'It's late. +You don't mistrust me?' + +Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked +me, I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly. + +'Come!' said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over +the fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, 'you know you +wouldn't mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman!' + +I felt that there was much truth in this; and I felt rather ashamed +of myself. + +'You are a young man,' she said, nodding. 'Take a word of advice, +even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects +with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.' + +She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. +I told her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of +herself, and that we had both been hapless instruments in designing +hands. She thanked me, and said I was a good fellow. + +'Now, mind!' she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, +and looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again.- 'I have +some reason to suspect, from what I have heard - my ears are always +open; I can't afford to spare what powers I have - that they are +gone abroad. But if ever they return, if ever any one of them +returns, while I am alive, I am more likely than another, going +about as I do, to find it out soon. Whatever I know, you shall +know. If ever I can do anything to serve the poor betrayed girl, +I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer had better +have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!' + +I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the +look with which it was accompanied. + +'Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a +full-sized woman,' said the little creature, touching me +appealingly on the wrist. 'If ever you see me again, unlike what +I am now, and like what I was when you first saw me, observe what +company I am in. Call to mind that I am a very helpless and +defenceless little thing. Think of me at home with my brother like +myself and sister like myself, when my day's work is done. Perhaps +you won't, then, be very hard upon me, or surprised if I can be +distressed and serious. Good night!' + +I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her +from that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to +let her out. It was not a trifling business to get the great +umbrella up, and properly balanced in her grasp; but at last I +successfully accomplished this, and saw it go bobbing down the +street through the rain, without the least appearance of having +anybody underneath it, except when a heavier fall than usual from +some over-charged water-spout sent it toppling over, on one side, +and discovered Miss Mowcher struggling violently to get it right. +After making one or two sallies to her relief, which were rendered +futile by the umbrella's hopping on again, like an immense bird, +before I could reach it, I came in, went to bed, and slept till +morning. + +In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse, +and we went at an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. +Gummidge and Ham were waiting to take leave of us. + +'Mas'r Davy,' Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty +was stowing his bag among the luggage, 'his life is quite broke up. +He doen't know wheer he's going; he doen't know -what's afore him; +he's bound upon a voyage that'll last, on and off, all the rest of +his days, take my wured for 't, unless he finds what he's a seeking +of. I am sure you'll be a friend to him, Mas'r Davy?' + +'Trust me, I will indeed,' said I, shaking hands with Ham +earnestly. + +'Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I'm in good +employ, you know, Mas'r Davy, and I han't no way now of spending +what I gets. Money's of no use to me no more, except to live. If +you can lay it out for him, I shall do my work with a better art. +Though as to that, sir,' and he spoke very steadily and mildly, +'you're not to think but I shall work at all times, like a man, and +act the best that lays in my power!' + +I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped +the time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely +life he naturally contemplated now. + +'No, sir,' he said, shaking his head, 'all that's past and over +with me, sir. No one can never fill the place that's empty. But +you'll bear in mind about the money, as theer's at all times some +laying by for him?' + +Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, +though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his +late brother-in-law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of +each other. I cannot leave him even now, without remembering with +a pang, at once his modest fortitude and his great sorrow. + +As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran +down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. +Peggotty on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and +dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite +direction, I should enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore +I had better leave her sitting on a baker's door-step, out of +breath, with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of +her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance. + +When we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was to look +about for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could +have a bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean +and cheap description, over a chandler's shop, only two streets +removed from me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some +cold meat at an eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to +tea; a proceeding, I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. +Crupp's approval, but quite the contrary. I ought to observe, +however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind, that she was +much offended by Peggotty's tucking up her widow's gown before she +had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my +bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and +a liberty, she said, was a thing she never allowed. + +Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London +for which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first +seeing Mrs. Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and +also to mediate between them; with the view of sparing the mother's +feelings as much as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told +her as mildly as I could what his wrong was, and what my own share +in his injury. I said he was a man in very common life, but of a +most gentle and upright character; and that I ventured to express +a hope that she would not refuse to see him in his heavy trouble. +I mentioned two o'clock in the afternoon as the hour of our coming, +and I sent the letter myself by the first coach in the morning. + +At the appointed time, we stood at the door - the door of that +house where I had been, a few days since, so happy: where my +youthful confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so +freely: which was closed against me henceforth: which was now a +waste, a ruin. + +No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced his, +on the occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went +before us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. +Rosa Dartle glided, as we went in, from another part of the room +and stood behind her chair. + +I saw, directly, in his mother's face, that she knew from himself +what he had done. It was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper +emotion than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness +would have raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I +thought her more like him than ever I had thought her; and I felt, +rather than saw, that the resemblance was not lost on my companion. + +She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immovable, +passionless air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She +looked very steadfastly at Mr. Peggotty when he stood before her; +and he looked quite as steadfastly at her. Rosa Dartle's keen +glance comprehended all of us. For some moments not a word was +spoken. + +She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low +voice, 'I shouldn't feel it nat'ral, ma'am, to sit down in this +house. I'd sooner stand.' And this was succeeded by another +silence, which she broke thus: + +'I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do you +want of me? What do you ask me to do?' + +He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily's +letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. +'Please to read that, ma'am. That's my niece's hand!' + +She read it, in the same stately and impassive way, - untouched by +its contents, as far as I could see, - and returned it to him. + +'"Unless he brings me back a lady,"' said Mr. Peggotty, tracing out +that part with his finger. 'I come to know, ma'am, whether he will +keep his wured?' + +'No,' she returned. + +'Why not?' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to +know that she is far below him.' + +'Raise her up!' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'She is uneducated and ignorant.' + +'Maybe she's not; maybe she is,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'I think not, +ma'am; but I'm no judge of them things. Teach her better!' + +'Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very +unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing +impossible, if nothing else did.' + +'Hark to this, ma'am,' he returned, slowly and quietly. 'You know +what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred +times my child, I couldn't love her more. You doen't know what it +is to lose your child. I do. All the heaps of riches in the +wureld would be nowt to me (if they was mine) to buy her back! +But, save her from this disgrace, and she shall never be disgraced +by us. Not one of us that she's growed up among, not one of us +that's lived along with her and had her for their all in all, these +many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again. We'll be +content to let her be; we'll be content to think of her, far off, +as if she was underneath another sun and sky; we'll be content to +trust her to her husband, - to her little children, p'raps, - and +bide the time when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our +God!' + +The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all +effect. She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a +touch of softness in her voice, as she answered: + +'I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry +to repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably +blight my son's career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more +certain than that it never can take place, and never will. If +there is any other compensation -' + +'I am looking at the likeness of the face,' interrupted Mr. +Peggotty, with a steady but a kindling eye, 'that has looked at me, +in my home, at my fireside, in my boat - wheer not? - smiling and +friendly, when it was so treacherous, that I go half wild when I +think of it. If the likeness of that face don't turn to burning +fire, at the thought of offering money to me for my child's blight +and ruin, it's as bad. I doen't know, being a lady's, but what +it's worse.' + +She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her +features; and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the +arm-chair tightly with her hands: + +'What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit +between me and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your +separation to ours?' + +Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, +but she would not hear a word. + +'No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, +who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has +been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, +from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth, - to +take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay +my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me +for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother's claims +upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude - claims that every day and +hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing +could be proof against! Is this no injury?' + +Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually. + +'I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the +lightest object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let +him go where he will, with the means that my love has secured to +him! Does he think to reduce me by long absence? He knows his +mother very little if he does. Let him put away his whim now, and +he is welcome back. Let him not put her away now, and he never +shall come near me, living or dying, while I can raise my hand to +make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her for ever, he comes +humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This is my right. This +is the acknowledgement I WILL HAVE. This is the separation that +there is between us! And is this,' she added, looking at her +visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, 'no +injury?' + +While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed +to hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in +him of an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the +understanding that I had now of his misdirected energy, became an +understanding of her character too, and a perception that it was, +in its strongest springs, the same. + +She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that +it was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to +put an end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to +leave the room, when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless. + +'Doen't fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say, +ma'am,' he remarked, as he moved towards the door. 'I come beer +with no hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt +should be done, but I never looked fur any good to come of my +stan'ning where I do. This has been too evil a house fur me and +mine, fur me to be in my right senses and expect it.' + +With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow-chair, a +picture of a noble presence and a handsome face. + +We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and +roof, over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were +green then, and the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading +to the garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way +with a noiseless step, when we were close to them, addressed +herself to me: + +'You do well,' she said, 'indeed, to bring this fellow here!' + +Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and +flashed in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought +compressible even into that face. The scar made by the hammer was, +as usual in this excited state of her features, strongly marked. +When the throbbing I had seen before, came into it as I looked at +her, she absolutely lifted up her hand, and struck it. + +'This is a fellow,' she said, 'to champion and bring here, is he +not? You are a true man!' + +'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'you are surely not so unjust as to +condemn ME!' + +'Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?' she +returned. 'Don't you know that they are both mad with their own +self-will and pride?' + +'Is it my doing?' I returned. + +'Is it your doing!' she retorted. 'Why do you bring this man +here?' + +'He is a deeply-injured man, Miss Dartle,' I replied. 'You may not +know it.' + +'I know that James Steerforth,' she said, with her hand on her +bosom, as if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being +loud, 'has a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need +I know or care about this fellow, and his common niece?' + +'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'you deepen the injury. It is +sufficient already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him +a great wrong.' + +'I do him no wrong,' she returned. 'They are a depraved, worthless +set. I would have her whipped!' + +Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door. + +'Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame!' I said indignantly. 'How can you +bear to trample on his undeserved affliction!' + +'I would trample on them all,' she answered. 'I would have his +house pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed +in rags, and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power +to sit in judgement on her, I would see it done. See it done? I +would do it! I detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her +infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt +her to her grave, I would. If there was any word of comfort that +would be a solace to her in her dying hour, and only I possessed +it, I wouldn't part with it for Life itself.' + +The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a +weak impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and +which made itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, +instead of being raised, was lower than usual. No description I +could give of her would do justice to my recollection of her, or to +her entire deliverance of herself to her anger. I have seen +passion in many forms, but I have never seen it in such a form as +that. + +When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully +down the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that +having now discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in +London, he meant 'to set out on his travels', that night. I asked +him where he meant to go? He only answered, 'I'm a going, sir, to +seek my niece.' + +We went back to the little lodging over the chandler's shop, and +there I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had +said to me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the same +to her that morning. She knew no more than I did, where he was +going, but she thought he had some project shaped out in his mind. + +I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all +three dined together off a beefsteak pie - which was one of the +many good things for which Peggotty was famous - and which was +curiously flavoured on this occasion, I recollect well, by a +miscellaneous taste of tea, coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new +loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut ketchup, continually +ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an hour or so +near the window, without talking much; and then Mr. Peggotty got +up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them +on the table. + +He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small sum on +account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to +keep him for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when +anything befell him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat +and stick, and bade us both 'Good-bye!' + +'All good attend you, dear old woman,' he said, embracing Peggotty, +'and you too, Mas'r Davy!' shaking hands with me. 'I'm a-going to +seek her, fur and wide. If she should come home while I'm away - +but ah, that ain't like to be! - or if I should bring her back, my +meaning is, that she and me shall live and die where no one can't +reproach her. If any hurt should come to me, remember that the +last words I left for her was, "My unchanged love is with my +darling child, and I forgive her!"' + +He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he +went down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was +a warm, dusty evening, just the time when, in the great main +thoroughfare out of which that by-way turned, there was a temporary +lull in the eternal tread of feet upon the pavement, and a strong +red sunshine. He turned, alone, at the corner of our shady street, +into a glow of light, in which we lost him. + +Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at +night, rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the +falling rain, or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary +figure toiling on, poor pilgrim, and recalled the words: + +'I'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to +me, remember that the last words I left for her was, "My unchanged +love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!"' + + + +CHAPTER 33 +BLISSFUL + + +All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than ever. Her +idea was my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some +amends to me, even for the loss of my friend. The more I pitied +myself, or pitied others, the more I sought for consolation in the +image of Dora. The greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble +in the world, the brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora +high above the world. I don't think I had any definite idea where +Dora came from, or in what degree she was related to a higher order +of beings; but I am quite sure I should have scouted the notion of +her being simply human, like any other young lady, with indignation +and contempt. + +If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely +over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through +and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, +metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would +have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my +entire existence. + +The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to +take a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable +riddle of my childhood, to go 'round and round the house, without +ever touching the house', thinking about Dora. I believe the theme +of this incomprehensible conundrum was the moon. No matter what it +was, I, the moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round and round +the house and garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the +palings, getting my chin by dint of violent exertion above the +rusty nails on the top, blowing kisses at the lights in the +windows, and romantically calling on the night, at intervals, to +shield my Dora - I don't exactly know what from, I suppose from +fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great objection. + +My love was so much in my mind and it was so natural to me to +confide in Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an +evening with the old set of industrial implements, busily making +the tour of my wardrobe, that I imparted to her, in a sufficiently +roundabout way, my great secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, +but I could not get her into my view of the case at all. She was +audaciously prejudiced in my favour, and quite unable to understand +why I should have any misgivings, or be low-spirited about it. +'The young lady might think herself well off,' she observed, 'to +have such a beau. And as to her Pa,' she said, 'what did the +gentleman expect, for gracious sake!' + +I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow's proctorial gown and stiff +cravat took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater +reverence for the man who was gradually becoming more and more +etherealized in my eyes every day, and about whom a reflected +radiance seemed to me to beam when he sat erect in Court among his +papers, like a little lighthouse in a sea of stationery. And by +the by, it used to be uncommonly strange to me to consider, I +remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old judges and +doctors wouldn't have cared for Dora, if they had known her; how +they wouldn't have gone out of their senses with rapture, if +marriage with Dora had been proposed to them; how Dora might have +sung, and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led me to +the verge of madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers +an inch out of his road! + +I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the +flower-beds of the heart, I took a personal offence against them +all. The Bench was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The +Bar had no more tenderness or poetry in it, than the bar of a +public-house. + +Taking the management of Peggotty's affairs into my own hands, with +no little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with +the Legacy Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got +everything into an orderly train. We varied the legal character of +these proceedings by going to see some perspiring Wax-work, in +Fleet Street (melted, I should hope, these twenty years); and by +visiting Miss Linwood's Exhibition, which I remember as a Mausoleum +of needlework, favourable to self-examination and repentance; and +by inspecting the Tower of London; and going to the top of St. +Paul's. All these wonders afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as +she was able to enjoy, under existing circumstances: except, I +think, St. Paul's, which, from her long attachment to her work-box, +became a rival of the picture on the lid, and was, in some +particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that work of art. + +Peggotty's business, which was what we used to call 'common-form +business' in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the +common-form business was), being settled, I took her down to the +office one morning to pay her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, +old Tiffey said, to get a gentleman sworn for a marriage licence; +but as I knew he would be back directly, our place lying close to +the Surrogate's, and to the Vicar-General's office too, I told +Peggotty to wait. + +We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded +Probate transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or +less cut up, when we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a +similar feeling of delicacy, we were always blithe and +light-hearted with the licence clients. Therefore I hinted to +Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow much recovered from the +shock of Mr. Barkis's decease; and indeed he came in like a +bridegroom. + +But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in +company with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His +hair looked as thick, and was certainly as black, as ever; and his +glance was as little to be trusted as of old. + +'Ah, Copperfield?' said Mr. Spenlow. 'You know this gentleman, I +believe?' + +I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognized +him. He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two +together; but quickly decided what to do, and came up to me. + +'I hope,' he said, 'that you are doing well?' + +'It can hardly be interesting to you,' said I. 'Yes, if you wish +to know.' + +We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty. + +'And you,' said he. 'I am sorry to observe that you have lost your +husband.' + +'It's not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. Murdstone,' +replied Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. 'I am glad to hope +that there is nobody to blame for this one, - nobody to answer for +it.' + +'Ha!' said he; 'that's a comfortable reflection. You have done +your duty?' + +'I have not worn anybody's life away,' said Peggotty, 'I am +thankful to think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and +frightened any sweet creetur to an early grave!' + +He eyed her gloomily - remorsefully I thought - for an instant; and +said, turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead +of my face: + +'We are not likely to encounter soon again; - a source of +satisfaction to us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can +never be agreeable. I do not expect that you, who always rebelled +against my just authority, exerted for your benefit and +reformation, should owe me any good-will now. There is an +antipathy between us -' + +'An old one, I believe?' said I, interrupting him. + +He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his +dark eyes. + +'It rankled in your baby breast,' he said. 'It embittered the life +of your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, +yet; I hope you may correct yourself.' + +Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low +voice, in a corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. +Spenlow's room, and saying aloud, in his smoothest manner: + +'Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow's profession are accustomed to family +differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always +are!' With that, he paid the money for his licence; and, receiving +it neatly folded from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the +hand, and a polite wish for his happiness and the lady's, went out +of the office. + +I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be +silent under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing +upon Peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature!) +that we were not in a place for recrimination, and that I besought +her to hold her peace. She was so unusually roused, that I was +glad to compound for an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival +in her mind of our old injuries, and to make the best I could of +it, before Mr. Spenlow and the clerks. + +Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between Mr. +Murdstone and myself was; which I was glad of, for I could not bear +to acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what I did +of the history of my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if +he thought anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader +of the state party in our family, and that there was a rebel party +commanded by somebody else - so I gathered at least from what he +said, while we were waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty's +bill of costs. + +'Miss Trotwood,' he remarked, 'is very firm, no doubt, and not +likely to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her +character, and I may congratulate you, Copperfield, on being on the +right side. Differences between relations are much to be deplored +- but they are extremely general - and the great thing is, to be on +the right side': meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed +interest. + +'Rather a good marriage this, I believe?' said Mr. Spenlow. + +I explained that I knew nothing about it. + +'Indeed!' he said. 'Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone +dropped - as a man frequently does on these occasions - and from +what Miss Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good +marriage.' + +'Do you mean that there is money, sir?' I asked. + +'Yes,' said Mr. Spenlow, 'I understand there's money. Beauty too, +I am told.' + +'Indeed! Is his new wife young?' + +'Just of age,' said Mr. Spenlow. 'So lately, that I should think +they had been waiting for that.' + +'Lord deliver her!' said Peggotty. So very emphatically and +unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed; until Tiffey came +in with the bill. + +Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to +look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and +rubbing it softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air - as +if it were all Jorkins's doing - and handed it back to Tiffey with +a bland sigh. + +'Yes,' he said. 'That's right. Quite right. I should have been +extremely happy, Copperfield, to have limited these charges to the +actual expenditure out of pocket, but it is an irksome incident in +my professional life, that I am not at liberty to consult my own +wishes. I have a partner - Mr. Jorkins.' + +As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing +to making no charge at all, I expressed my acknowledgements on +Peggotty's behalf, and paid Tiffey in banknotes. Peggotty then +retired to her lodging, and Mr. Spenlow and I went into Court, +where we had a divorce-suit coming on, under an ingenious little +statute (repealed now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have +seen several marriages annulled), of which the merits were these. +The husband, whose name was Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his +marriage licence as Thomas only; suppressing the Benjamin, in case +he should not find himself as comfortable as he expected. NOT +finding himself as comfortable as he expected, or being a little +fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he now came forward, by a +friend, after being married a year or two, and declared that his +name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not married at all. +Which the Court confirmed, to his great satisfaction. + +I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this, +and was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat +which reconciles all anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter +with me. He said, Look at the world, there was good and evil in +that; look at the ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in +THAT. It was all part of a system. Very good. There you were! + +I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora's father that possibly +we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the +morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that +I thought we might improve the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that +he would particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, +as not being worthy of my gentlemanly character; but that he would +be glad to hear from me of what improvement I thought the Commons +susceptible? + +Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to us +- for our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, +and strolling past the Prerogative Office - I submitted that I +thought the Prerogative Office rather a queerly managed +institution. Mr. Spenlow inquired in what respect? I replied, +with all due deference to his experience (but with more deference, +I am afraid, to his being Dora's father), that perhaps it was a +little nonsensical that the Registry of that Court, containing the +original wills of all persons leaving effects within the immense +province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries, should be an +accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased by the +registrars for their Own private emolument, unsafe, not even +ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents +it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary +speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, +and crammed the public's wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no +other object than to get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it +was a little unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of +profits amounting to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say +nothing of the profits of the deputy registrars, and clerks of +seats), should not be obliged to spend a little of that money, in +finding a reasonably safe place for the important documents which +all classes of people were compelled to hand over to them, whether +they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little unjust, that all +the great offices in this great office should be magnificent +sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold dark +room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered +men, doing important services, in London. That perhaps it was a +little indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it +was to find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all +needful accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue +of that post (and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the +holder of a staff in a cathedral, and what not), - while the public +was put to the inconvenience of which we had a specimen every +afternoon when the office was busy, and which we knew to be quite +monstrous. That, perhaps, in short, this Prerogative Office of the +diocese of Canterbury was altogether such a pestilent job, and such +a pernicious absurdity, that but for its being squeezed away in a +corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, which few people knew, it must +have been turned completely inside out, and upside down, long ago. + +Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and +then argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He +said, what was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If the +public felt that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for +granted that the office was not to be made better, who was the +worse for it? Nobody. Who was the better for it? All the +Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good predominated. It might not +be a perfect system; nothing was perfect; but what he objected to, +was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the Prerogative Office, the +country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into the Prerogative +Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. He considered +it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them; +and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I +deferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. +I find he was right, however; for it has not only lasted to the +present moment, but has done so in the teeth of a great +parliamentary report made (not too willingly) eighteen years ago, +when all these objections of mine were set forth in detail, and +when the existing stowage for wills was described as equal to the +accumulation of only two years and a half more. What they have +done with them since; whether they have lost many, or whether they +sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; I don't know. I am +glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet awhile. + +I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because +here it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling +into this conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, +until we diverged into general topics. And so it came about, in +the end, that Mr. Spenlow told me this day week was Dora's +birthday, and he would be glad if I would come down and join a +little picnic on the occasion. I went out of my senses +immediately; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt of a +little lace-edged sheet of note-paper, 'Favoured by papa. To +remind'; and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage. + +I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of +preparation for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the +cravat I bought. My boots might be placed in any collection of +instruments of torture. I provided, and sent down by the Norwood +coach the night before, a delicate little hamper, amounting in +itself, I thought, almost to a declaration. There were crackers in +it with the tenderest mottoes that could be got for money. At six +in the morning, I was in Covent Garden Market, buying a bouquet for +Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired a gallant grey, for the +occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it fresh, trotting +down to Norwood. + +I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to +see her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking +for it, I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen +in my circumstances might have committed - because they came so +very natural to me. But oh! when I DID find the house, and DID +dismount at the garden-gate, and drag those stony-hearted boots +across the lawn to Dora sitting on a garden-seat under a lilac +tree, what a spectacle she was, upon that beautiful morning, among +the butterflies, in a white chip bonnet and a dress of celestial +blue! There was a young lady with her - comparatively stricken in +years - almost twenty, I should say. Her name was Miss Mills. and +Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom friend of Dora. Happy +Miss Mills! + +Jip was there, and Jip WOULD bark at me again. When I presented my +bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he +had the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might! + +'Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!' said Dora. + +I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best +form of words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before +I saw them so near HER. But I couldn't manage it. She was too +bewildering. To see her lay the flowers against her little dimpled +chin, was to lose all presence of mind and power of language in a +feeble ecstasy. I wonder I didn't say, 'Kill me, if you have a +heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!' + +Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and +wouldn't smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little +closer to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of +geranium with his teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then +Dora beat him, and pouted, and said, 'My poor beautiful flowers!' +as compassionately, I thought, as if Jip had laid hold of me. I +wished he had! + +'You'll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield,' said Dora, 'that that +cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother's +marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn't that +delightful?' + +I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was +delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of +superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us. + +'She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw,' said Dora. 'You +can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.' + +'Yes, I can, my dear!' said Julia. + +'YOU can, perhaps, love,' returned Dora, with her hand on julia's. +'Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first.' + +I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the +course of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I +might refer that wise benignity of manner which I had already +noticed. i found, in the course of the day, that this was the +case: Miss Mills having been unhappy in a misplaced affection, and +being understood to have retired from the world on her awful stock +of experience, but still to take a calm interest in the unblighted +hopes and loves of youth. + +But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him, +saying, 'Look, papa, what beautiful flowers!' And Miss Mills smiled +thoughtfully, as who should say, 'Ye Mayflies, enjoy your brief +existence in the bright morning of life!' And we all walked from +the lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready. + +I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such +another. There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and +the guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was +open; and I rode behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the +horses, looking towards me. She kept the bouquet close to her on +the cushion, and wouldn't allow Jip to sit on that side of her at +all, for fear he should crush it. She often carried it in her +hand, often refreshed herself with its fragrance. Our eyes at +those times often met; and my great astonishment is that I didn't +go over the head of my gallant grey into the carriage. + +There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I +believe. I have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated +with me for riding in it; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a +mist of love and beauty about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood +up sometimes, and asked me what I thought of the prospect. I said +it was delightful, and I dare say it was; but it was all Dora to +me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds sang Dora. The south wind +blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges were all Doras, to a +bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills understood me. Miss Mills alone +could enter into my feelings thoroughly. + +I don't know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as +little where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some +Arabian-night magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut +it up for ever when we came away. It was a green spot, on a hill, +carpeted with soft turf. There were shady trees, and heather, and, +as far as the eye could see, a rich landscape. + +It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and my +jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own +sex - especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with +a red whisker, on which he established an amount of presumption not +to be endured - were my mortal foes. + +We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting +dinner ready. Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which +I don't believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of +the young ladies washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under +his directions. Dora was among these. I felt that fate had pitted +me against this man, and one of us must fall. + +Red Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it. +Nothing should have induced ME to touch it!) and voted himself into +the charge of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an +ingenious beast, in the hollow trunk of a tree. By and by, I saw +him, with the majority of a lobster on his plate, eating his dinner +at the feet of Dora! + +I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after +this baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, +I know; but it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to a young +creature in pink, with little eyes, and flirted with her +desperately. She received my attentions with favour; but whether +on my account solely, or because she had any designs on Red +Whisker, I can't say. Dora's health was drunk. When I drank it, +I affected to interrupt my conversation for that purpose, and to +resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora's eye as I bowed +to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me +over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant. + +The young creature in pink had a mother in green; and I rather +think the latter separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, +there was a general breaking up of the party, while the remnants of +the dinner were being put away; and I strolled off by myself among +the trees, in a raging and remorseful state. I was debating +whether I should pretend that I was not well, and fly - I don't +know where - upon my gallant grey, when Dora and Miss Mills met me. + +'Mr. Copperfield,' said Miss Mills, 'you are dull.' + +I begged her pardon. Not at all. + +'And Dora,' said Miss Mills, 'YOU are dull.' + +Oh dear no! Not in the least. + +'Mr. Copperfield and Dora,' said Miss Mills, with an almost +venerable air. 'Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial +misunderstanding to wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put +forth and blighted, cannot be renewed. I speak,' said Miss Mills, +'from experience of the past - the remote, irrevocable past. The +gushing fountains which sparkle in the sun, must not be stopped in +mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of Sahara must not be plucked +up idly.' + +I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that +extraordinary extent; but I took Dora's little hand and kissed it +- and she let me! I kissed Miss Mills's hand; and we all seemed, +to my thinking, to go straight up to the seventh heaven. +We did not come down again. We stayed up there all the evening. +At first we strayed to and fro among the trees: I with Dora's shy +arm drawn through mine: and Heaven knows, folly as it all was, it +would have been a happy fate to have been struck immortal with +those foolish feelings, and have stayed among the trees for ever! + +But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and +calling 'where's Dora?' So we went back, and they wanted Dora to +sing. Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the +carriage, but Dora told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So +Red Whisker was done for in a moment; and I got it, and I unlocked +it, and I took the guitar out, and I sat by her, and I held her +handkerchief and gloves, and I drank in every note of her dear +voice, and she sang to ME who loved her, and all the others might +applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing to do with it! + +I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to be +real, and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently, and +hear Mrs. Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready. +But Dora sang, and others sang, and Miss Mills sang - about the +slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory; as if she were a +hundred years old - and the evening came on; and we had tea, with +the kettle boiling gipsy-fashion; and I was still as happy as ever. + +I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other +people, defeated Red Whisker and all, went their several ways, and +we went ours through the still evening and the dying light, with +sweet scents rising up around us. Mr. Spenlow being a little +drowsy after the champagne - honour to the soil that grew the +grape, to the grape that made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, +and to the merchant who adulterated it! - and being fast asleep in +a corner of the carriage, I rode by the side and talked to Dora. +She admired my horse and patted him - oh, what a dear little hand +it looked upon a horse! - and her shawl would not keep right, and +now and then I drew it round her with my arm; and I even fancied +that Jip began to see how it was, and to understand that he must +make up his mind to be friends with me. + +That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up, +recluse; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who +had done with the world, and mustn't on any account have the +slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind +thing she did! + +'Mr. Copperfield,' said Miss Mills, 'come to this side of the +carriage a moment - if you can spare a moment. I want to speak to +you.' + +Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of Miss Mills, +with my hand upon the carriage door! + +'Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home with me the +day after tomorrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa +would be happy to see you.' +What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss Mills's head, +and store Miss Mills's address in the securest corner of my memory! +What could I do but tell Miss Mills, with grateful looks and +fervent words, how much I appreciated her good offices, and what an +inestimable value I set upon her friendship! + +Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, 'Go back to +Dora!' and I went; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to +me, and we talked all the rest of the way; and I rode my gallant +grey so close to the wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against +it, and 'took the bark off', as his owner told me, 'to the tune of +three pun' sivin' - which I paid, and thought extremely cheap for +so much joy. What time Miss Mills sat looking at the moon, +murmuring verses- and recalling, I suppose, the ancient days when +she and earth had anything in common. + +Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours too +soon; but Mr. Spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and +said, 'You must come in, Copperfield, and rest!' and I consenting, +we had sandwiches and wine-and-water. In the light room, Dora +blushing looked so lovely, that I could not tear myself away, but +sat there staring, in a dream, until the snoring of Mr. Spenlow +inspired me with sufficient consciousness to take my leave. So we +parted; I riding all the way to London with the farewell touch of +Dora's hand still light on mine, recalling every incident and word +ten thousand times; lying down in my own bed at last, as enraptured +a young noodle as ever was carried out of his five wits by love. + +When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare my passion to +Dora, and know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the question. +There was no other question that I knew of in the world, and only +Dora could give the answer to it. I passed three days in a luxury +of wretchedness, torturing myself by putting every conceivable +variety of discouraging construction on all that ever had taken +place between Dora and me. At last, arrayed for the purpose at a +vast expense, I went to Miss Mills's, fraught with a declaration. + +How many times I went up and down the street, and round the square +- painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle +than the original one - before I could persuade myself to go up the +steps and knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had +knocked, and was waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought +of asking if that were Mr. Blackboy's (in imitation of poor +Barkis), begging pardon, and retreating. But I kept my ground. + +Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be. Nobody +wanted HIM. Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do. + +I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were. +Jip was there. Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect, it was +a new song, called 'Affection's Dirge'), and Dora was painting +flowers. What were my feelings, when I recognized my own flowers; +the identical Covent Garden Market purchase! I cannot say that +they were very like, or that they particularly resembled any +flowers that have ever come under my observation; but I knew from +the paper round them which was accurately copied, what the +composition was. + +Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not +at home: though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss +Mills was conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down +her pen upon 'Affection's Dirge', got up, and left the room. + +I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow. + +'I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night,' +said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. 'It was a long way for +him.' + +I began to think I would do it today. + +'It was a long way for him,' said I, 'for he had nothing to uphold +him on the journey.' + +'Wasn't he fed, poor thing?' asked Dora. + +I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow. + +'Ye-yes,' I said, 'he was well taken care of. I mean he had not +the unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you.' + +Dora bent her head over her drawing and said, after a little while +- I had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with my legs +in a very rigid state - + +'You didn't seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself, at one +time of the day.' + +I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot. + +'You didn't care for that happiness in the least,' said Dora, +slightly raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head, 'when you were +sitting by Miss Kitt.' + +Kitt, I should observe, was the name of the creature in pink, with +the little eyes. + +'Though certainly I don't know why you should,' said Dora, or why +you should call it a happiness at all. But of course you don't +mean what you say. And I am sure no one doubts your being at +liberty to do whatever you like. Jip, you naughty boy, come here!' + +I don't know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted +Jip. I had Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never +stopped for a word. I told her how I loved her. I told her I +should die without her. I told her that I idolized and worshipped +her. Jip barked madly all the time. + +When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence +increased so much the more. If she would like me to die for her, +she had but to say the word, and I was ready. Life without Dora's +love was not a thing to have on any terms. I couldn't bear it, and +I wouldn't. I had loved her every minute, day and night, since I +first saw her. I loved her at that minute to distraction. I +should always love her, every minute, to distraction. Lovers had +loved before, and lovers would love again; but no lover had loved, +might, could, would, or should ever love, as I loved Dora. The +more I raved, the more Jip barked. Each of us, in his own way, got +more mad every moment. + +Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by and by, quiet +enough, and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. It +was off my mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I +were engaged. + +I suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage. We +must have had some, because Dora stipulated that we were never to +be married without her papa's consent. But, in our youthful +ecstasy, I don't think that we really looked before us or behind +us; or had any aspiration beyond the ignorant present. We were to +keep our secret from Mr. Spenlow; but I am sure the idea never +entered my head, then, that there was anything dishonourable in +that. + +Miss Mills was more than usually pensive when Dora, going to find +her, brought her back; - I apprehend, because there was a tendency +in what had passed to awaken the slumbering echoes in the caverns +of Memory. But she gave us her blessing, and the assurance of her +lasting friendship, and spoke to us, generally, as became a Voice +from the Cloister. + +What an idle time it was! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish +time it was! + +When I measured Dora's finger for a ring that was to be made of +Forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom I took the measure, +found me out, and laughed over his order-book, and charged me +anything he liked for the pretty little toy, with its blue stones +- so associated in my remembrance with Dora's hand, that yesterday, +when I saw such another, by chance, on the finger of my own +daughter, there was a momentary stirring in my heart, like pain! + +When I walked about, exalted with my secret, and full of my own +interest, and felt the dignity of loving Dora, and of being +beloved, so much, that if I had walked the air, I could not have +been more above the people not so situated, who were creeping on +the earth! + +When we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat +within the dingy summer-house, so happy, that I love the London +sparrows to this hour, for nothing else, and see the plumage of the +tropics in their smoky feathers! +When we had our first great quarrel (within a week of our +betrothal), and when Dora sent me back the ring, enclosed in a +despairing cocked-hat note, wherein she used the terrible +expression that 'our love had begun in folly, and ended in +madness!' which dreadful words occasioned me to tear my hair, and +cry that all was over! + +When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills, whom I saw by +stealth in a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored +Miss Mills to interpose between us and avert insanity. When Miss +Mills undertook the office and returned with Dora, exhorting us, +from the pulpit of her own bitter youth, to mutual concession, and +the avoidance of the Desert of Sahara! + +When we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again, that the +back kitchen, mangle and all, changed to Love's own temple, where +we arranged a plan of correspondence through Miss Mills, always to +comprehend at least one letter on each side every day! + +What an idle time! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish time! Of +all the times of mine that Time has in his grip, there is none that +in one retrospect I can smile at half so much, and think of half so +tenderly. + + + +CHAPTER 34 +MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME + + +I wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged. I wrote her +a long letter, in which I tried to make her comprehend how blest I +was, and what a darling Dora was. I entreated Agnes not to regard +this as a thoughtless passion which could ever yield to any other, +or had the least resemblance to the boyish fancies that we used to +joke about. I assured her that its profundity was quite +unfathomable, and expressed my belief that nothing like it had ever +been known. + +Somehow, as I wrote to Agnes on a fine evening by my open window, +and the remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came +stealing over me, it shed such a peaceful influence upon the hurry +and agitation in which I had been living lately, and of which my +very happiness partook in some degree, that it soothed me into +tears. I remember that I sat resting my head upon my hand, when +the letter was half done, cherishing a general fancy as if Agnes +were one of the elements of my natural home. As if, in the +retirement of the house made almost sacred to me by her presence, +Dora and I must be happier than anywhere. As if, in love, joy, +sorrow, hope, or disappointment; in all emotions; my heart turned +naturally there, and found its refuge and best friend. + +Of Steerforth I said nothing. I only told her there had been sad +grief at Yarmouth, on account of Emily's flight; and that on me it +made a double wound, by reason of the circumstances attending it. +I knew how quick she always was to divine the truth, and that she +would never be the first to breathe his name. + +To this letter, I received an answer by return of post. As I read +it, I seemed to hear Agnes speaking to me. It was like her cordial +voice in my ears. What can I say more! + +While I had been away from home lately, Traddles had called twice +or thrice. Finding Peggotty within, and being informed by Peggotty +(who always volunteered that information to whomsoever would +receive it), that she was my old nurse, he had established a +good-humoured acquaintance with her, and had stayed to have a +little chat with her about me. So Peggotty said; but I am afraid +the chat was all on her own side, and of immoderate length, as she +was very difficult indeed to stop, God bless her! when she had me +for her theme. + +This reminds me, not only that I expected Traddles on a certain +afternoon of his own appointing, which was now come, but that Mrs. +Crupp had resigned everything appertaining to her office (the +salary excepted) until Peggotty should cease to present herself. +Mrs. Crupp, after holding divers conversations respecting Peggotty, +in a very high-pitched voice, on the staircase - with some +invisible Familiar it would appear, for corporeally speaking she +was quite alone at those times - addressed a letter to me, +developing her views. Beginning it with that statement of +universal application, which fitted every occurrence of her life, +namely, that she was a mother herself, she went on to inform me +that she had once seen very different days, but that at all periods +of her existence she had had a constitutional objection to spies, +intruders, and informers. She named no names, she said; let them +the cap fitted, wear it; but spies, intruders, and informers, +especially in widders' weeds (this clause was underlined), she had +ever accustomed herself to look down upon. If a gentleman was the +victim of spies, intruders, and informers (but still naming no +names), that was his own pleasure. He had a right to please +himself; so let him do. All that she, Mrs. Crupp, stipulated for, +was, that she should not be 'brought in contract' with such +persons. Therefore she begged to be excused from any further +attendance on the top set, until things were as they formerly was, +and as they could be wished to be; and further mentioned that her +little book would be found upon the breakfast-table every Saturday +morning, when she requested an immediate settlement of the same, +with the benevolent view of saving trouble 'and an ill-conwenience' +to all parties. + +After this, Mrs. Crupp confined herself to making pitfalls on the +stairs, principally with pitchers, and endeavouring to delude +Peggotty into breaking her legs. I found it rather harassing to +live in this state of siege, but was too much afraid of Mrs. Crupp +to see any way out of it. + +'My dear Copperfield,' cried Traddles, punctually appearing at my +door, in spite of all these obstacles, 'how do you do?' + +'My dear Traddles,' said I, 'I am delighted to see you at last, and +very sorry I have not been at home before. But I have been so much +engaged -' + +'Yes, yes, I know,' said Traddles, 'of course. Yours lives in +London, I think.' + +'What did you say?' + +'She - excuse me - Miss D., you know,' said Traddles, colouring in +his great delicacy, 'lives in London, I believe?' + +'Oh yes. Near London.' + +'Mine, perhaps you recollect,' said Traddles, with a serious look, +'lives down in Devonshire - one of ten. Consequently, I am not so +much engaged as you - in that sense.' + +'I wonder you can bear,' I returned, 'to see her so seldom.' + +'Hah!' said Traddles, thoughtfully. 'It does seem a wonder. I +suppose it is, Copperfield, because there is no help for it?' + +'I suppose so,' I replied with a smile, and not without a blush. +'And because you have so much constancy and patience, Traddles.' + +'Dear me!' said Traddles, considering about it, 'do I strike you in +that way, Copperfield? Really I didn't know that I had. But she +is such an extraordinarily dear girl herself, that it's possible +she may have imparted something of those virtues to me. Now you +mention it, Copperfield, I shouldn't wonder at all. I assure you +she is always forgetting herself, and taking care of the other +nine.' + +'Is she the eldest?' I inquired. + +'Oh dear, no,' said Traddles. 'The eldest is a Beauty.' + +He saw, I suppose, that I could not help smiling at the simplicity +of this reply; and added, with a smile upon his own ingenuous face: + +'Not, of course, but that my Sophy - pretty name, Copperfield, I +always think?' + +'Very pretty!' said I. + +'Not, of course, but that Sophy is beautiful too in my eyes, and +would be one of the dearest girls that ever was, in anybody's eyes +(I should think). But when I say the eldest is a Beauty, I mean +she really is a -' he seemed to be describing clouds about himself, +with both hands: 'Splendid, you know,' said Traddles, +energetically. +'Indeed!' said I. + +'Oh, I assure you,' said Traddles, 'something very uncommon, +indeed! Then, you know, being formed for society and admiration, +and not being able to enjoy much of it in consequence of their +limited means, she naturally gets a little irritable and exacting, +sometimes. Sophy puts her in good humour!' + +'Is Sophy the youngest?' I hazarded. + +'Oh dear, no!' said Traddles, stroking his chin. 'The two youngest +are only nine and ten. Sophy educates 'em.' + +'The second daughter, perhaps?' I hazarded. + +'No,' said Traddles. 'Sarah's the second. Sarah has something the +matter with her spine, poor girl. The malady will wear out by and +by, the doctors say, but in the meantime she has to lie down for a +twelvemonth. Sophy nurses her. Sophy's the fourth.' + +'Is the mother living?' I inquired. + +'Oh yes,' said Traddles, 'she is alive. She is a very superior +woman indeed, but the damp country is not adapted to her +constitution, and - in fact, she has lost the use of her limbs.' + +'Dear me!' said I. + +'Very sad, is it not?' returned Traddles. 'But in a merely +domestic view it is not so bad as it might be, because Sophy takes +her place. She is quite as much a mother to her mother, as she is +to the other nine.' + +I felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this young lady; +and, honestly with the view of doing my best to prevent the +good-nature of Traddles from being imposed upon, to the detriment +of their joint prospects in life, inquired how Mr. Micawber was? + +'He is quite well, Copperfield, thank you,' said Traddles. 'I am +not living with him at present.' + +'No?' + +'No. You see the truth is,' said Traddles, in a whisper, 'he had +changed his name to Mortimer, in consequence of his temporary +embarrassments; and he don't come out till after dark - and then in +spectacles. There was an execution put into our house, for rent. +Mrs. Micawber was in such a dreadful state that I really couldn't +resist giving my name to that second bill we spoke of here. You +may imagine how delightful it was to my feelings, Copperfield, to +see the matter settled with it, and Mrs. Micawber recover her +spirits.' + +'Hum!' said I. +'Not that her happiness was of long duration,' pursued Traddles, +'for, unfortunately, within a week another execution came in. It +broke up the establishment. I have been living in a furnished +apartment since then, and the Mortimers have been very private +indeed. I hope you won't think it selfish, Copperfield, if I +mention that the broker carried off my little round table with the +marble top, and Sophy's flower-pot and stand?' + +'What a hard thing!' I exclaimed indignantly. + +'It was a - it was a pull,' said Traddles, with his usual wince at +that expression. 'I don't mention it reproachfully, however, but +with a motive. The fact is, Copperfield, I was unable to +repurchase them at the time of their seizure; in the first place, +because the broker, having an idea that I wanted them, ran the +price up to an extravagant extent; and, in the second place, +because I - hadn't any money. Now, I have kept my eye since, upon +the broker's shop,' said Traddles, with a great enjoyment of his +mystery, 'which is up at the top of Tottenham Court Road, and, at +last, today I find them put out for sale. I have only noticed them +from over the way, because if the broker saw me, bless you, he'd +ask any price for them! What has occurred to me, having now the +money, is, that perhaps you wouldn't object to ask that good nurse +of yours to come with me to the shop - I can show it her from round +the corner of the next street - and make the best bargain for them, +as if they were for herself, that she can!' + +The delight with which Traddles propounded this plan to me, and the +sense he had of its uncommon artfulness, are among the freshest +things in my remembrance. + +I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him, and +that we would all three take the field together, but on one +condition. That condition was, that he should make a solemn +resolution to grant no more loans of his name, or anything else, to +Mr. Micawber. + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, 'I have already done so, +because I begin to feel that I have not only been inconsiderate, +but that I have been positively unjust to Sophy. My word being +passed to myself, there is no longer any apprehension; but I pledge +it to you, too, with the greatest readiness. That first unlucky +obligation, I have paid. I have no doubt Mr. Micawber would have +paid it if he could, but he could not. One thing I ought to +mention, which I like very much in Mr. Micawber, Copperfield. It +refers to the second obligation, which is not yet due. He don't +tell me that it is provided for, but he says it WILL BE. Now, I +think there is something very fair and honest about that!' + +I was unwilling to damp my good friend's confidence, and therefore +assented. After a little further conversation, we went round to +the chandler's shop, to enlist Peggotty; Traddles declining to pass +the evening with me, both because he endured the liveliest +apprehensions that his property would be bought by somebody else +before he could re-purchase it, and because it was the evening he +always devoted to writing to the dearest girl in the world. + +I never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in +Tottenham Court Road, while Peggotty was bargaining for the +precious articles; or his agitation when she came slowly towards us +after vainly offering a price, and was hailed by the relenting +broker, and went back again. The end of the negotiation was, that +she bought the property on tolerably easy terms, and Traddles was +transported with pleasure. + +'I am very much obliged to you, indeed,' said Traddles, on hearing +it was to be sent to where he lived, that night. 'If I might ask +one other favour, I hope you would not think it absurd, +Copperfield?' + +I said beforehand, certainly not. + +'Then if you WOULD be good enough,' said Traddles to Peggotty, 'to +get the flower-pot now, I think I should like (it being Sophy's, +Copperfield) to carry it home myself!' + +Peggotty was glad to get it for him, and he overwhelmed her with +thanks, and went his way up Tottenham Court Road, carrying the +flower-pot affectionately in his arms, with one of the most +delighted expressions of countenance I ever saw. + +We then turned back towards my chambers. As the shops had charms +for Peggotty which I never knew them possess in the same degree for +anybody else, I sauntered easily along, amused by her staring in at +the windows, and waiting for her as often as she chose. We were +thus a good while in getting to the Adelphi. + +On our way upstairs, I called her attention to the sudden +disappearance of Mrs. Crupp's pitfalls, and also to the prints of +recent footsteps. We were both very much surprised, coming higher +up, to find my outer door standing open (which I had shut) and to +hear voices inside. + +We looked at one another, without knowing what to make of this, and +went into the sitting-room. What was my amazement to find, of all +people upon earth, my aunt there, and Mr. Dick! My aunt sitting on +a quantity of luggage, with her two birds before her, and her cat +on her knee, like a female Robinson Crusoe, drinking tea. Mr. Dick +leaning thoughtfully on a great kite, such as we had often been out +together to fly, with more luggage piled about him! + +'My dear aunt!' cried I. 'Why, what an unexpected pleasure!' + +We cordially embraced; and Mr. Dick and I cordially shook hands; +and Mrs. Crupp, who was busy making tea, and could not be too +attentive, cordially said she had knowed well as Mr. Copperfull +would have his heart in his mouth, when he see his dear relations. + +'Holloa!' said my aunt to Peggotty, who quailed before her awful +presence. 'How are YOU?' + +'You remember my aunt, Peggotty?' said I. + +'For the love of goodness, child,' exclaimed my aunt, 'don't call +the woman by that South Sea Island name! If she married and got +rid of it, which was the best thing she could do, why don't you +give her the benefit of the change? What's your name now, - P?' +said my aunt, as a compromise for the obnoxious appellation. + +'Barkis, ma'am,' said Peggotty, with a curtsey. + +'Well! That's human,' said my aunt. 'It sounds less as if you +wanted a missionary. How d'ye do, Barkis? I hope you're well?' + +Encouraged by these gracious words, and by my aunt's extending her +hand, Barkis came forward, and took the hand, and curtseyed her +acknowledgements. + +'We are older than we were, I see,' said my aunt. 'We have only +met each other once before, you know. A nice business we made of +it then! Trot, my dear, another cup.' + +I handed it dutifully to my aunt, who was in her usual inflexible +state of figure; and ventured a remonstrance with her on the +subject of her sitting on a box. + +'Let me draw the sofa here, or the easy-chair, aunt,' said I. 'Why +should you be so uncomfortable?' + +'Thank you, Trot,' replied my aunt, 'I prefer to sit upon my +property.' Here my aunt looked hard at Mrs. Crupp, and observed, +'We needn't trouble you to wait, ma'am.' + +'Shall I put a little more tea in the pot afore I go, ma'am?' said +Mrs. Crupp. + +'No, I thank you, ma'am,' replied my aunt. + +'Would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma'am?' said Mrs. +Crupp. 'Or would you be persuaded to try a new-laid hegg? or +should I brile a rasher? Ain't there nothing I could do for your +dear aunt, Mr. Copperfull?' + +'Nothing, ma'am,' returned my aunt. 'I shall do very well, I thank +you.' + +Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet +temper, and incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a +general feebleness of constitution, and incessantly rubbing her +hands, to express a desire to be of service to all deserving +objects, gradually smiled herself, one-sided herself, and rubbed +herself, out of the room. +'Dick!' said my aunt. 'You know what I told you about time-servers +and wealth-worshippers?' + +Mr. Dick - with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten it - +returned a hasty answer in the affirmative. + +'Mrs. Crupp is one of them,' said my aunt. 'Barkis, I'll trouble +you to look after the tea, and let me have another cup, for I don't +fancy that woman's pouring-out!' + +I knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something of +importance on her mind, and that there was far more matter in this +arrival than a stranger might have supposed. I noticed how her eye +lighted on me, when she thought my attention otherwise occupied; +and what a curious process of hesitation appeared to be going on +within her, while she preserved her outward stiffness and +composure. I began to reflect whether I had done anything to +offend her; and my conscience whispered me that I had not yet told +her about Dora. Could it by any means be that, I wondered! + +As I knew she would only speak in her own good time, I sat down +near her, and spoke to the birds, and played with the cat, and was +as easy as I could be. But I was very far from being really easy; +and I should still have been so, even if Mr. Dick, leaning over the +great kite behind my aunt, had not taken every secret opportunity +of shaking his head darkly at me, and pointing at her. + +'Trot,' said my aunt at last, when she had finished her tea, and +carefully smoothed down her dress, and wiped her lips - 'you +needn't go, Barkis! - Trot, have you got to be firm and +self-reliant?' + +'I hope so, aunt.' + +'What do you think?' inquired Miss Betsey. + +'I think so, aunt.' + +'Then why, my love,' said my aunt, looking earnestly at me, 'why do +you think I prefer to sit upon this property of mine tonight?' + +I shook my head, unable to guess. + +'Because,' said my aunt, 'it's all I have. Because I'm ruined, my +dear!' + +If the house, and every one of us, had tumbled out into the river +together, I could hardly have received a greater shock. + +'Dick knows it,' said my aunt, laying her hand calmly on my +shoulder. 'I am ruined, my dear Trot! All I have in the world is +in this room, except the cottage; and that I have left Janet to +let. Barkis, I want to get a bed for this gentleman tonight. To +save expense, perhaps you can make up something here for myself. +Anything will do. It's only for tonight. We'll talk about this, +more, tomorrow.' + +I was roused from my amazement, and concern for her - I am sure, +for her - by her falling on my neck, for a moment, and crying that +she only grieved for me. In another moment she suppressed this +emotion; and said with an aspect more triumphant than dejected: + +'We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, +my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live +misfortune down, Trot!' + + + +CHAPTER 35 +DEPRESSION + + +As soon as I could recover my presence of mind, which quite +deserted me in the first overpowering shock of my aunt's +intelligence, I proposed to Mr. Dick to come round to the +chandler's shop, and take possession of the bed which Mr. Peggotty +had lately vacated. The chandler's shop being in Hungerford +Market, and Hungerford Market being a very different place in those +days, there was a low wooden colonnade before the door (not very +unlike that before the house where the little man and woman used to +live, in the old weather-glass), which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. +The glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated +him, I dare say, for many inconveniences; but, as there were really +few to bear, beyond the compound of flavours I have already +mentioned, and perhaps the want of a little more elbow-room, he was +perfectly charmed with his accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had +indignantly assured him that there wasn't room to swing a cat +there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me, sitting down on the +foot of the bed, nursing his leg, 'You know, Trotwood, I don't want +to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that +signify to ME!' + +I tried to ascertain whether Mr. Dick had any understanding of the +causes of this sudden and great change in my aunt's affairs. As I +might have expected, he had none at all. The only account he could +give of it was, that my aunt had said to him, the day before +yesterday, 'Now, Dick, are you really and truly the philosopher I +take you for?' That then he had said, Yes, he hoped so. That then +my aunt had said, 'Dick, I am ruined.' That then he had said, 'Oh, +indeed!' That then my aunt had praised him highly, which he was +glad of. And that then they had come to me, and had had bottled +porter and sandwiches on the road. + +Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, +nursing his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and +a surprised smile, that I am sorry to say I was provoked into +explaining to him that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; +but I was soon bitterly reproved for this harshness, by seeing his +face turn pale, and tears course down his lengthened cheeks, while +he fixed upon me a look of such unutterable woe, that it might have +softened a far harder heart than mine. I took infinitely greater +pains to cheer him up again than I had taken to depress him; and I +soon understood (as I ought to have known at first) that he had +been so confident, merely because of his faith in the wisest and +most wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my +intellectual resources. The latter, I believe, he considered a +match for any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal. + +'What can we do, Trotwood?' said Mr. Dick. 'There's the Memorial +-' + +'To be sure there is,' said I. 'But all we can do just now, Mr. +Dick, is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not let my aunt see +that we are thinking about it.' + +He assented to this in the most earnest manner; and implored me, if +I should see him wandering an inch out of the right course, to +recall him by some of those superior methods which were always at +my command. But I regret to state that the fright I had given him +proved too much for his best attempts at concealment. All the +evening his eyes wandered to my aunt's face, with an expression of +the most dismal apprehension, as if he saw her growing thin on the +spot. He was conscious of this, and put a constraint upon his +head; but his keeping that immovable, and sitting rolling his eyes +like a piece of machinery, did not mend the matter at all. I saw +him look at the loaf at supper (which happened to be a small one), +as if nothing else stood between us and famine; and when my aunt +insisted on his making his customary repast, I detected him in the +act of pocketing fragments of his bread and cheese; I have no doubt +for the purpose of reviving us with those savings, when we should +have reached an advanced stage of attenuation. + +My aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of mind, which +was a lesson to all of us - to me, I am sure. She was extremely +gracious to Peggotty, except when I inadvertently called her by +that name; and, strange as I knew she felt in London, appeared +quite at home. She was to have my bed, and I was to lie in the +sitting-room, to keep guard over her. She made a great point of +being so near the river, in case of a conflagration; and I suppose +really did find some satisfaction in that circumstance. + +'Trot, my dear,' said my aunt, when she saw me making preparations +for compounding her usual night-draught, 'No!' + +'Nothing, aunt?' + +'Not wine, my dear. Ale.' + +'But there is wine here, aunt. And you always have it made of +wine.' + +'Keep that, in case of sickness,' said my aunt. 'We mustn't use it +carelessly, Trot. Ale for me. Half a pint.' + +I thought Mr. Dick would have fallen, insensible. My aunt being +resolute, I went out and got the ale myself. As it was growing +late, Peggotty and Mr. Dick took that opportunity of repairing to +the chandler's shop together. I parted from him, poor fellow, at +the corner of the street, with his great kite at his back, a very +monument of human misery. + +My aunt was walking up and down the room when I returned, crimping +the borders of her nightcap with her fingers. I warmed the ale and +made the toast on the usual infallible principles. When it was +ready for her, she was ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the +skirt of her gown turned back on her knees. + +'My dear,' said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; 'it's a +great deal better than wine. Not half so bilious.' + +I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added: + +'Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are +well off.' + +'I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure,' said I. + +'Well, then, why DON'T you think so?' said my aunt. + +'Because you and I are very different people,' I returned. + +'Stuff and nonsense, Trot!' replied my aunt. + +MY aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very +little affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a tea-spoon, +and soaking her strips of toast in it. + +'Trot,' said she, 'I don't care for strange faces in general, but +I rather like that Barkis of yours, do you know!' + +'It's better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so!' said I. + +'It's a most extraordinary world,' observed my aunt, rubbing her +nose; 'how that woman ever got into it with that name, is +unaccountable to me. It would be much more easy to be born a +Jackson, or something of that sort, one would think.' + +'Perhaps she thinks so, too; it's not her fault,' said I. + +'I suppose not,' returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission; +'but it's very aggravating. However, she's Barkis now. That's +some comfort. Barkis is uncommonly fond of you, Trot.' + +'There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it,' said I. + +'Nothing, I believe,' returned my aunt. 'Here, the poor fool has +been begging and praying about handing over some of her money - +because she has got too much of it. A simpleton!' + +My aunt's tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the +warm ale. + +'She's the most ridiculous creature that ever was born,' said my +aunt. 'I knew, from the first moment when I saw her with that poor +dear blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most +ridiculous of mortals. But there are good points in Barkis!' + +Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to +her eyes. Having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and +her discourse together. + +'Ah! Mercy upon us!' sighed my aunt. 'I know all about it, Trot! +Barkis and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with Dick. +I know all about it. I don't know where these wretched girls +expect to go to, for my part. I wonder they don't knock out their +brains against - against mantelpieces,' said my aunt; an idea which +was probably suggested to her by her contemplation of mine. + +'Poor Emily!' said I. + +'Oh, don't talk to me about poor,' returned my aunt. 'She should +have thought of that, before she caused so much misery! Give me a +kiss, Trot. I am sorry for your early experience.' + +As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me, and +said: + +'Oh, Trot, Trot! And so you fancy yourself in love! Do you?' + +'Fancy, aunt!' I exclaimed, as red as I could be. 'I adore her +with my whole soul!' + +'Dora, indeed!' returned my aunt. 'And you mean to say the little +thing is very fascinating, I suppose?' + +'My dear aunt,' I replied, 'no one can form the least idea what she +is!' + +'Ah! And not silly?' said my aunt. + +'Silly, aunt!' + +I seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single +moment, to consider whether she was or not. I resented the idea, +of course; but I was in a manner struck by it, as a new one +altogether. + +'Not light-headed?' said my aunt. + +'Light-headed, aunt!' I could only repeat this daring speculation +with the same kind of feeling with which I had repeated the +preceding question. + +'Well, well!' said my aunt. 'I only ask. I don't depreciate her. +Poor little couple! And so you think you were formed for one +another, and are to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, +like two pretty pieces of confectionery, do you, Trot?' + +She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half +playful and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched. + +'We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know,' I replied; 'and I +dare say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. But +we love one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever +love anybody else, or cease to love me; or that I could ever love +anybody else, or cease to love her; I don't know what I should do +- go out of my mind, I think!' + +'Ah, Trot!' said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely; +'blind, blind, blind!' + +'Someone that I know, Trot,' my aunt pursued, after a pause, +'though of a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of +affection in him that reminds me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what +that Somebody must look for, to sustain him and improve him, Trot. +Deep, downright, faithful earnestness.' + +'If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt!' I cried. + +'Oh, Trot!' she said again; 'blind, blind!' and without knowing +why, I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me +like a cloud. + +'However,' said my aunt, 'I don't want to put two young creatures +out of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy; so, though +it is a girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very +often - mind! I don't say always! - come to nothing, still we'll be +serious about it, and hope for a prosperous issue one of these +days. There's time enough for it to come to anything!' + +This was not upon the whole very comforting to a rapturous lover; +but I was glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and I was mindful +of her being fatigued. So I thanked her ardently for this mark of +her affection, and for all her other kindnesses towards me; and +after a tender good night, she took her nightcap into my bedroom. + +How miserable I was, when I lay down! How I thought and thought +about my being poor, in Mr. Spenlow's eyes; about my not being what +I thought I was, when I proposed to Dora; about the chivalrous +necessity of telling Dora what my worldly condition was, and +releasing her from her engagement if she thought fit; about how I +should contrive to live, during the long term of my articles, when +I was earning nothing; about doing something to assist my aunt, and +seeing no way of doing anything; about coming down to have no money +in my pocket, and to wear a shabby coat, and to be able to carry +Dora no little presents, and to ride no gallant greys, and to show +myself in no agreeable light! Sordid and selfish as I knew it was, +and as I tortured myself by knowing that it was, to let my mind run +on my own distress so much, I was so devoted to Dora that I could +not help it. I knew that it was base in me not to think more of my +aunt, and less of myself; but, so far, selfishness was inseparable +from Dora, and I could not put Dora on one side for any mortal +creature. How exceedingly miserable I was, that night! + +As to sleep, I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, but I +seemed to dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. +Now I was ragged, wanting to sell Dora matches, six bundles for a +halfpenny; now I was at the office in a nightgown and boots, +remonstrated with by Mr. Spenlow on appearing before the clients in +that airy attire; now I was hungrily picking up the crumbs that +fell from old Tiffey's daily biscuit, regularly eaten when St. +Paul's struck one; now I was hopelessly endeavouring to get a +licence to marry Dora, having nothing but one of Uriah Heep's +gloves to offer in exchange, which the whole Commons rejected; and +still, more or less conscious of my own room, I was always tossing +about like a distressed ship in a sea of bed-clothes. + +My aunt was restless, too, for I frequently heard her walking to +and fro. Two or,three times in the course of the night, attired in +a long flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she +appeared, like a disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side +of the sofa on which I lay. On the first occasion I started up in +alarm, to learn that she inferred from a particular light in the +sky, that Westminster Abbey was on fire; and to be consulted in +reference to the probability of its igniting Buckingham Street, in +case the wind changed. Lying still, after that, I found that she +sat down near me, whispering to herself 'Poor boy!' And then it +made me twenty times more wretched, to know how unselfishly mindful +she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was of myself. + +It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be +short to anybody else. This consideration set me thinking and +thinking of an imaginary party where people were dancing the hours +away, until that became a dream too, and I heard the music +incessantly playing one tune, and saw Dora incessantly dancing one +dance, without taking the least notice of me. The man who had been +playing the harp all night, was trying in vain to cover it with an +ordinary-sized nightcap, when I awoke; or I should rather say, when +I left off trying to go to sleep, and saw the sun shining in +through the window at last. + +There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of +the streets out of the Strand - it may be there still - in which I +have had many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quietly as I +could, and leaving Peggotty to look after my aunt, I tumbled head +foremost into it, and then went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a +hope that this brisk treatment might freshen my wits a little; and +I think it did them good, for I soon came to the conclusion that +the first step I ought to take was, to try if my articles could be +cancelled and the premium recovered. I got some breakfast on the +Heath, and walked back to Doctors' Commons, along the watered roads + +and through a pleasant smell of summer flowers, growing in gardens +and carried into town on hucksters' heads, intent on this first +effort to meet our altered circumstances. + +I arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half an +hour's loitering about the Commons, before old Tiffey, who was +always first, appeared with his key. Then I sat down in my shady +corner, looking up at the sunlight on the opposite chimney-pots, +and thinking about Dora; until Mr. Spenlow came in, crisp and +curly. + +'How are you, Copperfield?' said he. 'Fine morning!' + +'Beautiful morning, sir,' said I. 'Could I say a word to you +before you go into Court?' + +'By all means,' said he. 'Come into my room.' + +I followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and +touching himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a +closet door. + +'I am sorry to say,' said I, 'that I have some rather disheartening +intelligence from my aunt.' + +'No!' said he. 'Dear me! Not paralysis, I hope?' + +'It has no reference to her health, sir,' I replied. 'She has met +with some large losses. In fact, she has very little left, +indeed.' + +'You as-tound me, Copperfield!' cried Mr. Spenlow. + +I shook my head. 'Indeed, sir,' said I, 'her affairs are so +changed, that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible - at +a sacrifice on our part of some portion of the premium, of course,' +I put in this, on the spur of the moment, warned by the blank +expression of his face - 'to cancel my articles?' + +What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like +asking, as a favour, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora. + +'To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?' + +I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know +where my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could +earn them for myself. I had no fear for the future, I said - and +I laid great emphasis on that, as if to imply that I should still +be decidedly eligible for a son-in-law one of these days - but, for +the present, I was thrown upon my own resources. +'I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield,' said Mr. Spenlow. +'Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for any such +reason. It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is not +a convenient precedent at all. Far from it. At the same time -' + +'You are very good, sir,' I murmured, anticipating a concession. + +'Not at all. Don't mention it,' said Mr. Spenlow. 'At the same +time, I was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands +unfettered - if I had not a partner - Mr. Jorkins -' + +My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort. + +'Do you think, sir,' said I, 'if I were to mention it to Mr. +Jorkins -' + +Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. 'Heaven forbid, +Copperfield,' he replied, 'that I should do any man an injustice: +still less, Mr. jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfield. Mr. +jorkins is not a man to respond to a proposition of this peculiar +nature. Mr. jorkins is very difficult to move from the beaten +track. You know what he is!' + +I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally +been alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house +near Montagu Square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that +he came very late of a day, and went away very early; that he never +appeared to be consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy +little black-hole of his own upstairs, where no business was ever +done, and where there was a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his +desk, unsoiled by ink, and reported to be twenty years of age. + +'Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?' I asked. + +'By no means,' said Mr. Spenlow. 'But I have some experience of +Mr. jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should +be happy to meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the +objection to your mentioning it to Mr. jorkins, Copperfield, if you +think it worth while.' + +Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm +shake of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the +sunlight stealing from the chimney-pots down the wall of the +opposite house, until Mr. jorkins came. I then went up to Mr. +jorkins's room, and evidently astonished Mr. jorkins very much by +making my appearance there. + +'Come in, Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. jorkins. 'Come in!' + +I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr. jorkins pretty +much as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any +means the awful creature one might have expected, but a large, +mild, smooth-faced man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there +was a tradition in the Commons that he lived principally on that +stimulant, having little room in his system for any other article +of diet. + +'You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose?' said Mr. +jorkins; when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end. + +I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced his +name. + +'He said I should object?' asked Mr. jorkins. + +I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable. + +'I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can't advance your object,' +said Mr. jorkins, nervously. 'The fact is - but I have an +appointment at the Bank, if you'll have the goodness to excuse me.' + +With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, +when I made bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of +arranging the matter? + +'No!' said Mr. jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. +'Oh, no! I object, you know,' which he said very rapidly, and went +out. 'You must be aware, Mr. Copperfield,' he added, looking +restlessly in at the door again, 'if Mr. Spenlow objects -' + +'Personally, he does not object, sir,' said I. + +'Oh! Personally!' repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. +'I assure you there's an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! +What you wish to be done, can't be done. I - I really have got an +appointment at the Bank.' With that he fairly ran away; and to the +best of my knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in +the Commons again. + +Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr. +Spenlow came in, and then described what had passed; giving him to +understand that I was not hopeless of his being able to soften the +adamantine jorkins, if he would undertake the task. + +'Copperfield,' returned Mr. Spenlow, with a gracious smile, 'you +have not known my partner, Mr. jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing +is farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of +artifice to Mr. jorkins. But Mr. jorkins has a way of stating his +objections which often deceives people. No, Copperfield!' shaking +his head. 'Mr. jorkins is not to be moved, believe me!' + +I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. jorkins, as +to which of them really was the objecting partner; but I saw with +sufficient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, +and that the recovery of my aunt's thousand pounds was out of the +question. In a state of despondency, which I remember with +anything but satisfaction, for I know it still had too much +reference to myself (though always in connexion with Dora), I left +the office, and went homeward. + +I was trying to familiarize my mind with the worst, and to present +to myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in +their sternest aspect, when a hackney-chariot coming after me, and +stopping at my very feet, occasioned me to look up. A fair hand +was stretched forth to me from the window; and the face I had never +seen without a feeling of serenity and happiness, from the moment +when it first turned back on the old oak staircase with the great +broad balustrade, and when I associated its softened beauty with +the stained-glass window in the church, was smiling on me. + +'Agnes!' I joyfully exclaimed. 'Oh, my dear Agnes, of all people +in the world, what a pleasure to see you!' + +'Is it, indeed?' she said, in her cordial voice. + +'I want to talk to you so much!' said I. 'It's such a lightening +of my heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror's cap, +there is no one I should have wished for but you!' + +'What?' returned Agnes. + +'Well! perhaps Dora first,' I admitted, with a blush. + +'Certainly, Dora first, I hope,' said Agnes, laughing. + +'But you next!' said I. 'Where are you going?' + +She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, +she was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head +in it all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I +dismissed the coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on +together. She was like Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt +in one short minute, having Agnes at my side! + +My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes - very little +longer than a Bank note - to which her epistolary efforts were +usually limited. She had stated therein that she had fallen into +adversity, and was leaving Dover for good, but had quite made up +her mind to it, and was so well that nobody need be uncomfortable +about her. Agnes had come to London to see my aunt, between whom +and herself there had been a mutual liking these many years: +indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up my residence in Mr. +Wickfield's house. She was not alone, she said. Her papa was with +her - and Uriah Heep. + +'And now they are partners,' said I. 'Confound him!' + +'Yes,' said Agnes. 'They have some business here; and I took +advantage of their coming, to come too. You must not think my +visit all friendly and disinterested, Trotwood, for - I am afraid +I may be cruelly prejudiced - I do not like to let papa go away +alone, with him.' +'Does he exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, +Agnes?' + +Agnes shook her head. 'There is such a change at home,' said she, +'that you would scarcely know the dear old house. They live with +us now.' + +'They?' said I. + +'Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room,' said Agnes, +looking up into my face. + +'I wish I had the ordering of his dreams,' said I. 'He wouldn't +sleep there long.' + +'I keep my own little room,' said Agnes, 'where I used to learn my +lessons. How the time goes! You remember? The little panelled +room that opens from the drawing-room?' + +'Remember, Agnes? When I saw you, for the first time, coming out +at the door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your +side?' + +'It is just the same,' said Agnes, smiling. 'I am glad you think +of it so pleasantly. We were very happy.' + +'We were, indeed,' said I. + +'I keep that room to myself still; but I cannot always desert Mrs. +Heep, you know. And so,' said Agnes, quietly, 'I feel obliged to +bear her company, when I might prefer to be alone. But I have no +other reason to complain of her. If she tires me, sometimes, by +her praises of her son, it is only natural in a mother. He is a +very good son to her.' + +I looked at Agnes when she said these words, without detecting in +her any consciousness of Uriah's design. Her mild but earnest eyes +met mine with their own beautiful frankness, and there was no +change in her gentle face. + +'The chief evil of their presence in the house,' said Agnes, 'is +that I cannot be as near papa as I could wish - Uriah Heep being so +much between us - and cannot watch over him, if that is not too +bold a thing to say, as closely as I would. But if any fraud or +treachery is practising against him, I hope that simple love and +truth will be strong in the end. I hope that real love and truth +are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.' + +A certain bright smile, which I never saw on any other face, died +away, even while I thought how good it was, and how familiar it had +once been to me; and she asked me, with a quick change of +expression (we were drawing very near my street), if I knew how the +reverse in my aunt's circumstances had been brought about. On my +replying no, she had not told me yet, Agnes became thoughtful, and +I fancied I felt her arm tremble in mine. + +We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. A +difference of opinion had arisen between herself and Mrs. Crupp, on +an abstract question (the propriety of chambers being inhabited by +the gentler sex); and my aunt, utterly indifferent to spasms on the +part of Mrs. Crupp, had cut the dispute short, by informing that +lady that she smelt of my brandy, and that she would trouble her to +walk out. Both of these expressions Mrs. Crupp considered +actionable, and had expressed her intention of bringing before a +'British Judy' - meaning, it was supposed, the bulwark of our +national liberties. + +MY aunt, however, having had time to cool, while Peggotty was out +showing Mr. Dick the soldiers at the Horse Guards - and being, +besides, greatly pleased to see Agnes - rather plumed herself on +the affair than otherwise, and received us with unimpaired good +humour. When Agnes laid her bonnet on the table, and sat down +beside her, I could not but think, looking on her mild eyes and her +radiant forehead, how natural it seemed to have her there; how +trustfully, although she was so young and inexperienced, my aunt +confided in her; how strong she was, indeed, in simple love and +truth. + +We began to talk about my aunt's losses, and I told them what I had +tried to do that morning. + +'Which was injudicious, Trot,' said my aunt, 'but well meant. You +are a generous boy - I suppose I must say, young man, now - and I +am proud of you, my dear. So far, so good. Now, Trot and Agnes, +let us look the case of Betsey Trotwood in the face, and see how it +stands.' + +I observed Agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively at my +aunt. My aunt, patting her cat, looked very attentively at Agnes. + +'Betsey Trotwood,' said my aunt, who had always kept her money +matters to herself. '- I don't mean your sister, Trot, my dear, +but myself - had a certain property. It don't matter how much; +enough to live on. More; for she had saved a little, and added to +it. Betsey funded her property for some time, and then, by the +advice of her man of business, laid it out on landed security. +That did very well, and returned very good interest, till Betsey +was paid off. I am talking of Betsey as if she was a man-of-war. +Well! Then, Betsey had to look about her, for a new investment. +She thought she was wiser, now, than her man of business, who was +not such a good man of business by this time, as he used to be - I +am alluding to your father, Agnes - and she took it into her head +to lay it out for herself. So she took her pigs,' said my aunt, +'to a foreign market; and a very bad market it turned out to be. +First, she lost in the mining way, and then she lost in the diving +way - fishing up treasure, or some such Tom Tiddler nonsense,' +explained my aunt, rubbing her nose; 'and then she lost in the +mining way again, and, last of all, to set the thing entirely to +rights, she lost in the banking way. I don't know what the Bank +shares were worth for a little while,' said my aunt; 'cent per cent +was the lowest of it, I believe; but the Bank was at the other end +of the world, and tumbled into space, for what I know; anyhow, it +fell to pieces, and never will and never can pay sixpence; and +Betsey's sixpences were all there, and there's an end of them. +Least said, soonest mended!' + +My aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing her eyes +with a kind of triumph on Agnes, whose colour was gradually +returning. + +'Dear Miss Trotwood, is that all the history?' said Agnes. + +'I hope it's enough, child,' said my aunt. 'If there had been more +money to lose, it wouldn't have been all, I dare say. Betsey would +have contrived to throw that after the rest, and make another +chapter, I have little doubt. But there was no more money, and +there's no more story.' + +Agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. Her colour +still came and went, but she breathed more freely. I thought I +knew why. I thought she had had some fear that her unhappy father +might be in some way to blame for what had happened. My aunt took +her hand in hers, and laughed. + +'Is that all?' repeated my aunt. 'Why, yes, that's all, except, +"And she lived happy ever afterwards." Perhaps I may add that of +Betsey yet, one of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. +So have you, Trot, in some things, though I can't compliment you +always'; and here my aunt shook her own at me, with an energy +peculiar to herself. 'What's to be done? Here's the cottage, +taking one time with another, will produce say seventy pounds a +year. I think we may safely put it down at that. Well! - That's +all we've got,' said my aunt; with whom it was an idiosyncrasy, as +it is with some horses, to stop very short when she appeared to be +in a fair way of going on for a long while. + +'Then,' said my aunt, after a rest, 'there's Dick. He's good for +a hundred a-year, but of course that must be expended on himself. +I would sooner send him away, though I know I am the only person +who appreciates him, than have him, and not spend his money on +himself. How can Trot and I do best, upon our means? What do you +say, Agnes?' + +'I say, aunt,' I interposed, 'that I must do something!' + +'Go for a soldier, do you mean?' returned my aunt, alarmed; 'or go +to sea? I won't hear of it. You are to be a proctor. We're not +going to have any knockings on the head in THIS family, if you +please, sir.' + +I was about to explain that I was not desirous of introducing that +mode of provision into the family, when Agnes inquired if my rooms +were held for any long term? + +'You come to the point, my dear,' said my aunt. 'They are not to +be got rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be +underlet, and that I don't believe. The last man died here. Five +people out of six would die - of course - of that woman in nankeen +with the flannel petticoat. I have a little ready money; and I +agree with you, the best thing we can do, is, to live the term out +here, and get a bedroom hard by.' + +I thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would +sustain, from living in a continual state of guerilla warfare with +Mrs. Crupp; but she disposed of that objection summarily by +declaring that, on the first demonstration of hostilities, she was +prepared to astonish Mrs. Crupp for the whole remainder of her +natural life. + +'I have been thinking, Trotwood,' said Agnes, diffidently, 'that if +you had time -' + +'I have a good deal of time, Agnes. I am always disengaged after +four or five o'clock, and I have time early in the morning. In one +way and another,' said I, conscious of reddening a little as I +thought of the hours and hours I had devoted to fagging about town, +and to and fro upon the Norwood Road, 'I have abundance of time.' + +'I know you would not mind,' said Agnes, coming to me, and speaking +in a low voice, so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that I +hear it now, 'the duties of a secretary.' + +'Mind, my dear Agnes?' + +'Because,' continued Agnes, 'Doctor Strong has acted on his +intention of retiring, and has come to live in London; and he asked +papa, I know, if he could recommend him one. Don't you think he +would rather have his favourite old pupil near him, than anybody +else?' + +'Dear Agnes!' said I. 'What should I do without you! You are +always my good angel. I told you so. I never think of you in any +other light.' + +Agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good Angel +(meaning Dora) was enough; and went on to remind me that the Doctor +had been used to occupy himself in his study, early in the morning, +and in the evening - and that probably my leisure would suit his +requirements very well. I was scarcely more delighted with the +prospect of earning my own bread, than with the hope of earning it +under my old master; in short, acting on the advice of Agnes, I sat +down and wrote a letter to the Doctor, stating my object, and +appointing to call on him next day at ten in the forenoon. This I +addressed to Highgate - for in that place, so memorable to me, he +lived - and went and posted, myself, without losing a minute. + +Wherever Agnes was, some agreeable token of her noiseless presence +seemed inseparable from the place. When I came back, I found my +aunt's birds hanging, just as they had hung so long in the parlour +window of the cottage; and my easy-chair imitating my aunt's much +easier chair in its position at the open window; and even the round +green fan, which my aunt had brought away with her, screwed on to +the window-sill. I knew who had done all this, by its seeming to +have quietly done itself; and I should have known in a moment who +had arranged my neglected books in the old order of my school days, +even if I had supposed Agnes to be miles away, instead of seeing +her busy with them, and smiling at the disorder into which they had +fallen. + +My aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the Thames (it really +did look very well with the sun upon it, though not like the sea +before the cottage), but she could not relent towards the London +smoke, which, she said, 'peppered everything'. A complete +revolution, in which Peggotty bore a prominent part, was being +effected in every corner of my rooms, in regard of this pepper; and +I was looking on, thinking how little even Peggotty seemed to do +with a good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes did without any +bustle at all, when a knock came at the door. + +'I think,' said Agnes, turning pale, 'it's papa. He promised me +that he would come.' + +I opened the door, and admitted, not only Mr. Wickfield, but Uriah +Heep. I had not seen Mr. Wickfield for some time. I was prepared +for a great change in him, after what I had heard from Agnes, but +his appearance shocked me. + +It was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed +with the old scrupulous cleanliness; or that there was an +unwholesome ruddiness upon his face; or that his eyes were full and +bloodshot; or that there was a nervous trembling in his hand, the +cause of which I knew, and had for some years seen at work. It was +not that he had lost his good looks, or his old bearing of a +gentleman - for that he had not - but the thing that struck me +most, was, that with the evidences of his native superiority still +upon him, he should submit himself to that crawling impersonation +of meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the two natures, in their +relative positions, Uriah's of power and Mr. Wickfield's of +dependence, was a sight more painful to me than I can express. If +I had seen an Ape taking command of a Man, I should hardly have +thought it a more degrading spectacle. + +He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came +in, he stood still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. +This was only for a moment; for Agnes softly said to him, 'Papa! +Here is Miss Trotwood - and Trotwood, whom you have not seen for a +long while!' and then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt +his hand, and shook hands more cordially with me. In the moment's +pause I speak of, I saw Uriah's countenance form itself into a most +ill-favoured smile. Agnes saw it too, I think, for she shrank from +him. + +What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy +to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never +was anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. +Her face might have been a dead-wall on the occasion in question, +for any light it threw upon her thoughts; until she broke silence +with her usual abruptness. + +'Well, Wickfield!' said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the +first time. 'I have been telling your daughter how well I have +been disposing of my money for myself, because I couldn't trust it +to you, as you were growing rusty in business matters. We have +been taking counsel together, and getting on very well, all things +considered. Agnes is worth the whole firm, in my opinion.' + +'If I may umbly make the remark,' said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, +'I fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too +appy if Miss Agnes was a partner.' + +'You're a partner yourself, you know,' returned my aunt, 'and +that's about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, +sir?' + +In acknowledgement of this question, addressed to him with +extraordinary curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue +bag he carried, replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my +aunt, and hoped she was the same. + +'And you, Master - I should say, Mister Copperfield,' pursued +Uriah. 'I hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister +Copperfield, even under present circumstances.' I believed that; +for he seemed to relish them very much. 'Present circumstances is +not what your friends would wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but +it isn't money makes the man: it's - I am really unequal with my +umble powers to express what it is,' said Uriah, with a fawning +jerk, 'but it isn't money!' + +Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at +a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a +pump handle, that he was a little afraid of. + +'And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield, - I +should say, Mister?' fawned Uriah. 'Don't you find Mr. Wickfield +blooming, sir? Years don't tell much in our firm, Master +Copperfield, except in raising up the umble, namely, mother and +self - and in developing,' he added, as an afterthought, 'the +beautiful, namely, Miss Agnes.' + +He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an +intolerable manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at +him, lost all patience. + +'Deuce take the man!' said my aunt, sternly, 'what's he about? +Don't be galvanic, sir!' + +'I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,' returned Uriah; 'I'm aware +you're nervous.' + +'Go along with you, sir!' said my aunt, anything but appeased. +'Don't presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you're an +eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you're a man, control your +limbs, sir! Good God!' said my aunt, with great indignation, 'I am +not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!' + +Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by +this explosion; which derived great additional force from the +indignant manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, +and shook her head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. +But he said to me aside in a meek voice: + +'I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an +excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the +pleasure of knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, +Master Copperfield), and it's only natural, I am sure, that it +should be made quicker by present circumstances. The wonder is, +that it isn't much worse! I only called to say that if there was +anything we could do, in present circumstances, mother or self, or +Wickfield and Heep, -we should be really glad. I may go so far?' +said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his partner. + +'Uriah Heep,' said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, 'is +active in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. +You know I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah +says I quite concur in!' + +'Oh, what a reward it is,' said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the +risk of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, +'to be so trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to +relieve him from the fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!' + +'Uriah Heep is a great relief to me,' said Mr. Wickfield, in the +same dull voice. 'It's a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such +a partner.' + +The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in +the light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. +I saw the same ill-favoured smile upon his face again, and saw how +he watched me. + +'You are not going, papa?' said Agnes, anxiously. 'Will you not +walk back with Trotwood and me?' + +He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that +worthy had not anticipated him. + +'I am bespoke myself,' said Uriah, 'on business; otherwise I should +have been appy to have kept with my friends. But I leave my +partner to represent the firm. Miss Agnes, ever yours! I wish you +good-day, Master Copperfield, and leave my umble respects for Miss +Betsey Trotwood.' + +With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering +at us like a mask. + +We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury days, an +hour or two. Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon became more like +his former self; though there was a settled depression upon him, +which he never shook off. For all that, he brightened; and had an +evident pleasure in hearing us recall the little incidents of our +old life, many of which he remembered very well. He said it was +like those times, to be alone with Agnes and me again; and he +wished to Heaven they had never changed. I am sure there was an +influence in the placid face of Agnes, and in the very touch of her +hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him. + +My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peggotty, in the +inner room) would not accompany us to the place where they were +staying, but insisted on my going; and I went. We dined together. +After dinner, Agnes sat beside him, as of old, and poured out his +wine. He took what she gave him, and no more - like a child - and +we all three sat together at a window as the evening gathered in. +When it was almost dark, he lay down on a sofa, Agnes pillowing his +head and bending over him a little while; and when she came back to +the window, it was not so dark but I could see tears glittering in +her eyes. + +I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl in her love and +truth, at that time of my life; for if I should, I must be drawing +near the end, and then I would desire to remember her best! She +filled my heart with such good resolutions, strengthened my +weakness so, by her example, so directed - I know not how, she was +too modest and gentle to advise me in many words - the wandering +ardour and unsettled purpose within me, that all the little good I +have done, and all the harm I have forborne, I solemnly believe I +may refer to her. + +And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark; +listened to my praises of her; praised again; and round the little +fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it +yet more precious and more innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my +boyhood, if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards! - + +There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; and as I turned +my head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he +made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: +'Blind! Blind! Blind!' + + + +CHAPTER 36 +ENTHUSIASM + +I began the next day with another dive into the Roman bath, and +then started for Highgate. I was not dispirited now. I was not +afraid of the shabby coat, and had no yearnings after gallant +greys. My whole manner of thinking of our late misfortune was +changed. What I had to do, was, to show my aunt that her past +goodness to me had not been thrown away on an insensible, +ungrateful object. What I had to do, was, to turn the painful +discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with a +resolute and steady heart. What I had to do, was, to take my +woodman's axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest +of difficulty, by cutting down the trees until I came to Dora. And +I went on at a mighty rate, as if it could be done by walking. + +When I found myself on the familiar Highgate road, pursuing such a +different errand from that old one of pleasure, with which it was +associated, it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole +life. But that did not discourage me. With the new life, came new +purpose, new intention. Great was the labour; priceless the +reward. Dora was the reward, and Dora must be won. + +I got into such a transport, that I felt quite sorry my coat was +not a little shabby already. I wanted to be cutting at those trees +in the forest of difficulty, under circumstances that should prove +my strength. I had a good mind to ask an old man, in wire +spectacles, who was breaking stones upon the road, to lend me his +hammer for a little while, and let me begin to beat a path to Dora +out of granite. I stimulated myself into such a heat, and got so +out of breath, that I felt as if I had been earning I don't know +how much. + +In this state, I went into a cottage that I saw was to let, and +examined it narrowly, - for I felt it necessary to be practical. +It would do for me and Dora admirably: with a little front garden +for Jip to run about in, and bark at the tradespeople through the +railings, and a capital room upstairs for my aunt. I came out +again, hotter and faster than ever, and dashed up to Highgate, at +such a rate that I was there an hour too early; and, though I had +not been, should have been obliged to stroll about to cool myself, +before I was at all presentable. + +My first care, after putting myself under this necessary course of +preparation, was to find the Doctor's house. It was not in that +part of Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth lived, but quite on the +opposite side of the little town. When I had made this discovery, +I went back, in an attraction I could not resist, to a lane by Mrs. +Steerforth's, and looked over the corner of the garden wall. His +room was shut up close. The conservatory doors were standing open, +and Rosa Dartle was walking, bareheaded, with a quick, impetuous +step, up and down a gravel walk on one side of the lawn. She gave +me the idea of some fierce thing, that was dragging the length of +its chain to and fro upon a beaten track, and wearing its heart +out. + +I came softly away from my place of observation, and avoiding that +part of the neighbourhood, and wishing I had not gone near it, +strolled about until it was ten o'clock. The church with the +slender spire, that stands on the top of the hill now, was not +there then to tell me the time. An old red-brick mansion, used as +a school, was in its place; and a fine old house it must have been +to go to school at, as I recollect it. + +When I approached the Doctor's cottage - a pretty old place, on +which he seemed to have expended some money, if I might judge from +the embellishments and repairs that had the look of being just +completed - I saw him walking in the garden at the side, gaiters +and all, as if he had never left off walking since the days of my +pupilage. He had his old companions about him, too; for there were +plenty of high trees in the neighbourhood, and two or three rooks +were on the grass, looking after him, as if they had been written +to about him by the Canterbury rooks, and were observing him +closely in consequence. + +Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from +that distance, I made bold to open the gate, and walk after him, so +as to meet him when he should turn round. When he did, and came +towards me, he looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, +evidently without thinking about me at all; and then his benevolent +face expressed extraordinary pleasure, and he took me by both +hands. + +'Why, my dear Copperfield,' said the Doctor, 'you are a man! How +do you do? I am delighted to see you. My dear Copperfield, how +very much you have improved! You are quite - yes - dear me!' + +I hoped he was well, and Mrs. Strong too. + +'Oh dear, yes!' said the Doctor; 'Annie's quite well, and she'll be +delighted to see you. You were always her favourite. She said so, +last night, when I showed her your letter. And - yes, to be sure +- you recollect Mr. Jack Maldon, Copperfield?' + +'Perfectly, sir.' + +'Of course,' said the Doctor. 'To be sure. He's pretty well, +too.' + +'Has he come home, sir?' I inquired. + +'From India?' said the Doctor. 'Yes. Mr. Jack Maldon couldn't +bear the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markleham - you have not forgotten +Mrs. Markleham?' + +Forgotten the Old Soldier! And in that short time! + +'Mrs. Markleham,' said the Doctor, 'was quite vexed about him, poor +thing; so we have got him at home again; and we have bought him a +little Patent place, which agrees with him much better.' +I knew enough of Mr. Jack Maldon to suspect from this account that +it was a place where there was not much to do, and which was pretty +well paid. The Doctor, walking up and down with his hand on my +shoulder, and his kind face turned encouragingly to mine, went on: + +'Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this proposal of yours. +It's very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am sure; but don't you +think you could do better? You achieved distinction, you know, +when you were with us. You are qualified for many good things. +You have laid a foundation that any edifice may be raised upon; and +is it not a pity that you should devote the spring-time of your +life to such a poor pursuit as I can offer?' + +I became very glowing again, and, expressing myself in a +rhapsodical style, I am afraid, urged my request strongly; +reminding the Doctor that I had already a profession. + +'Well, well,' said the Doctor, 'that's true. Certainly, your +having a profession, and being actually engaged in studying it, +makes a difference. But, my good young friend, what's seventy +pounds a year?' + +'It doubles our income, Doctor Strong,' said I. + +'Dear me!' replied the Doctor. 'To think of that! Not that I mean +to say it's rigidly limited to seventy pounds a-year, because I +have always contemplated making any young friend I might thus +employ, a present too. Undoubtedly,' said the Doctor, still +walking me up and down with his hand on my shoulder. 'I have +always taken an annual present into account.' + +'My dear tutor,' said I (now, really, without any nonsense), 'to +whom I owe more obligations already than I ever can acknowledge -' + +'No, no,' interposed the Doctor. 'Pardon me!' + +'If you will take such time as I have, and that is my mornings and +evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a year, you will do +me such a service as I cannot express.' + +'Dear me!' said the Doctor, innocently. 'To think that so little +should go for so much! Dear, dear! And when you can do better, +you will? On your word, now?' said the Doctor, - which he had +always made a very grave appeal to the honour of us boys. + +'On my word, sir!' I returned, answering in our old school manner. + +'Then be it so,' said the Doctor, clapping me on the shoulder, and +still keeping his hand there, as we still walked up and down. + +'And I shall be twenty times happier, sir,' said I, with a little +- I hope innocent - flattery, 'if my employment is to be on the +Dictionary.' + +The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and +exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had +penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, 'My dear +young friend, you have hit it. It IS the Dictionary!' + +How could it be anything else! His pockets were as full of it as +his head. It was sticking out of him in all directions. He told +me that since his retirement from scholastic life, he had been +advancing with it wonderfully; and that nothing could suit him +better than the proposed arrangements for morning and evening work, +as it was his custom to walk about in the daytime with his +considering cap on. His papers were in a little confusion, in +consequence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately proffered his +occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being accustomed to +that occupation; but we should soon put right what was amiss, and +go on swimmingly. Afterwards, when we were fairly at our work, I +found Mr. Jack Maldon's efforts more troublesome to me than I had +expected, as he had not confined himself to making numerous +mistakes, but had sketched so many soldiers, and ladies' heads, +over the Doctor's manuscript, that I often became involved in +labyrinths of obscurity. + +The Doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work +together on that wonderful performance, and we settled to begin +next morning at seven o'clock. We were to work two hours every +morning, and two or three hours every night, except on Saturdays, +when I was to rest. On Sundays, of course, I was to rest also, and +I considered these very easy terms. + +Our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction, the +Doctor took me into the house to present me to Mrs. Strong, whom we +found in the Doctor's new study, dusting his books, - a freedom +which he never permitted anybody else to take with those sacred +favourites. + +They had postponed their breakfast on my account, and we sat down +to table together. We had not been seated long, when I saw an +approaching arrival in Mrs. Strong's face, before I heard any sound +of it. A gentleman on horseback came to the gate, and leading his +horse into the little court, with the bridle over his arm, as if he +were quite at home, tied him to a ring in the empty coach-house +wall, and came into the breakfast parlour, whip in hand. It was +Mr. Jack Maldon; and Mr. Jack Maldon was not at all improved by +India, I thought. I was in a state of ferocious virtue, however, +as to young men who were not cutting down trees in the forest of +difficulty; and my impression must be received with due allowance. + +'Mr. Jack!' said the Doctor. 'Copperfield!' + +Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me; but not very warmly, I +believed; and with an air of languid patronage, at which I secretly +took great umbrage. But his languor altogether was quite a +wonderful sight; except when he addressed himself to his cousin +Annie. +'Have you breakfasted this morning, Mr. Jack?' said the Doctor. + +'I hardly ever take breakfast, sir,' he replied, with his head +thrown back in an easy-chair. 'I find it bores me.' + +'Is there any news today?' inquired the Doctor. + +'Nothing at all, sir,' replied Mr. Maldon. 'There's an account +about the people being hungry and discontented down in the North, +but they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere.' + +The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change +the subject, 'Then there's no news at all; and no news, they say, +is good news.' + +'There's a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder,' +observed Mr. Maldon. 'But somebody is always being murdered, and +I didn't read it.' + +A display of indifference to all the actions and passions of +mankind was not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that +time, I think, as I have observed it to be considered since. I +have known it very fashionable indeed. I have seen it displayed +with such success, that I have encountered some fine ladies and +gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars. Perhaps +it impressed me the more then, because it was new to me, but it +certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of, or to strengthen my +confidence in, Mr. Jack Maldon. + +'I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera +tonight,' said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. 'It's the last good +night there will be, this season; and there's a singer there, whom +she really ought to hear. She is perfectly exquisite. Besides +which, she is so charmingly ugly,' relapsing into languor. + +The Doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please his young +wife, turned to her and said: + +'You must go, Annie. You must go.' + +'I would rather not,' she said to the Doctor. 'I prefer to remain +at home. I would much rather remain at home.' + +Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me, and asked me +about Agnes, and whether she should see her, and whether she was +not likely to come that day; and was so much disturbed, that I +wondered how even the Doctor, buttering his toast, could be blind +to what was so obvious. + +But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly, that she was +young and ought to be amused and entertained, and must not allow +herself to be made dull by a dull old fellow. Moreover, he said, +he wanted to hear her sing all the new singer's songs to him; and +how could she do that well, unless she went? So the Doctor +persisted in making the engagement for her, and Mr. Jack Maldon was +to come back to dinner. This concluded, he went to his Patent +place, I suppose; but at all events went away on his horse, looking +very idle. + +I was curious to find out next morning, whether she had been. She +had not, but had sent into London to put her cousin off; and had +gone out in the afternoon to see Agnes, and had prevailed upon the +Doctor to go with her; and they had walked home by the fields, the +Doctor told me, the evening being delightful. I wondered then, +whether she would have gone if Agnes had not been in town, and +whether Agnes had some good influence over her too! + +She did not look very happy, I thought; but it was a good face, or +a very false one. I often glanced at it, for she sat in the window +all the time we were at work; and made our breakfast, which we took +by snatches as we were employed. When I left, at nine o'clock, she +was kneeling on the ground at the Doctor's feet, putting on his +shoes and gaiters for him. There was a softened shade upon her +face, thrown from some green leaves overhanging the open window of +the low room; and I thought all the way to Doctors' Commons, of the +night when I had seen it looking at him as he read. + +I was pretty busy now; up at five in the morning, and home at nine +or ten at night. But I had infinite satisfaction in being so +closely engaged, and never walked slowly on any account, and felt +enthusiastically that the more I tired myself, the more I was doing +to deserve Dora. I had not revealed myself in my altered character +to Dora yet, because she was coming to see Miss Mills in a few +days, and I deferred all I had to tell her until then; merely +informing her in my letters (all our communications were secretly +forwarded through Miss Mills), that I had much to tell her. In the +meantime, I put myself on a short allowance of bear's grease, +wholly abandoned scented soap and lavender water, and sold off +three waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice, as being too luxurious +for my stern career. + +Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with +impatience to do something more, I went to see Traddles, now +lodging up behind the parapet of a house in Castle Street, Holborn. +Mr. Dick, who had been with me to Highgate twice already, and had +resumed his companionship with the Doctor, I took with me. + +I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt's +reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave or convict +worked as I did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of +spirits and appetite, as having nothing useful to do. In this +condition, he felt more incapable of finishing the Memorial than +ever; and the harder he worked at it, the oftener that unlucky head +of King Charles the First got into it. Seriously apprehending that +his malady would increase, unless we put some innocent deception +upon him and caused him to believe that he was useful, or unless we +could put him in the way of being really useful (which would be +better), I made up my mind to try if Traddles could help us. +Before we went, I wrote Traddles a full statement of all that had +happened, and Traddles wrote me back a capital answer, expressive +of his sympathy and friendship. + +We found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers, refreshed +by the sight of the flower-pot stand and the little round table in +a corner of the small apartment. He received us cordially, and +made friends with Mr. Dick in a moment. Mr. Dick professed an +absolute certainty of having seen him before, and we both said, +'Very likely.' + +The first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was this, - I +had heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun +life by reporting the debates in Parliament. Traddles having +mentioned newspapers to me, as one of his hopes, I had put the two +things together, and told Traddles in my letter that I wished to +know how I could qualify myself for this pursuit. Traddles now +informed me, as the result of his inquiries, that the mere +mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare cases, for +thorough excellence in it, that is to say, a perfect and entire +command of the mystery of short-hand writing and reading, was about +equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages; and that it +might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the course +of a few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would +settle the business; but I, only feeling that here indeed were a +few tall trees to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way +on to Dora through this thicket, axe in hand. + +'I am very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles!' said I. 'I'll +begin tomorrow.' + +Traddles looked astonished, as he well might; but he had no notion +as yet of my rapturous condition. + +'I'll buy a book,' said I, 'with a good scheme of this art in it; +I'll work at it at the Commons, where I haven't half enough to do; +I'll take down the speeches in our court for practice - Traddles, +my dear fellow, I'll master it!' + +'Dear me,' said Traddles, opening his eyes, 'I had no idea you were +such a determined character, Copperfield!' + +I don't know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me. +I passed that off, and brought Mr. Dick on the carpet. + +'You see,' said Mr. Dick, wistfully, 'if I could exert myself, Mr. +Traddles - if I could beat a drum- or blow anything!' + +Poor fellow! I have little doubt he would have preferred such an +employment in his heart to all others. Traddles, who would not +have smiled for the world, replied composedly: + +'But you are a very good penman, sir. You told me so, +Copperfield?' +'Excellent!' said I. And indeed he was. He wrote with +extraordinary neatness. + +'Don't you think,' said Traddles, 'you could copy writings, sir, if +I got them for you?' + +Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. 'Eh, Trotwood?' + +I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his, and sighed. 'Tell him about +the Memorial,' said Mr. Dick. + +I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping King +Charles the First out of Mr. Dick's manuscripts; Mr. Dick in the +meanwhile looking very deferentially and seriously at Traddles, and +sucking his thumb. + +'But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are already drawn +up and finished,' said Traddles after a little consideration. 'Mr. +Dick has nothing to do with them. Wouldn't that make a difference, +Copperfield? At all events, wouldn't it be well to try?' + +This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads together +apart, while Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from his chair, we +concocted a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day, +with triumphant success. + +On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work +Traddles procured for him - which was to make, I forget how many +copies of a legal document about some right of way - and on another +table we spread the last unfinished original of the great Memorial. +Our instructions to Mr. Dick were that he should copy exactly what +he had before him, without the least departure from the original; +and that when he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion +to King Charles the First, he should fly to the Memorial. We +exhorted him to be resolute in this, and left my aunt to observe +him. My aunt reported to us, afterwards, that, at first, he was +like a man playing the kettle-drums, and constantly divided his +attentions between the two; but that, finding this confuse and +fatigue him, and having his copy there, plainly before his eyes, he +soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and postponed +the Memorial to a more convenient time. In a word, although we +took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for +him, and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week, he +earned by the following Saturday night ten shillings and +nine-pence; and never, while I live, shall I forget his going about +to all the shops in the neighbourhood to change this treasure into +sixpences, or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of +a heart upon a waiter, with tears of joy and pride in his eyes. He +was like one under the propitious influence of a charm, from the +moment of his being usefully employed; and if there were a happy +man in the world, that Saturday night, it was the grateful creature +who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence, and me +the most wonderful young man. + +'No starving now, Trotwood,' said Mr. Dick, shaking hands with me +in a corner. 'I'll provide for her, Sir!' and he flourished his +ten fingers in the air, as if they were ten banks. + +I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or I. 'It +really,' said Traddles, suddenly, taking a letter out of his +pocket, and giving it to me, 'put Mr. Micawber quite out of my +head!' + +The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible opportunity of +writing a letter) was addressed to me, 'By the kindness of T. +Traddles, Esquire, of the Inner Temple.' It ran thus: - + + +'MY DEAR COPPERFIELD, + +'You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that +something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former +occasion that I was in expectation of such an event. + +'I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of +our favoured island (where the society may be described as a happy +admixture of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate +connexion with one of the learned professions. Mrs. Micawber and +our offspring will accompany me. Our ashes, at a future period, +will probably be found commingled in the cemetery attached to a +venerable pile, for which the spot to which I refer has acquired a +reputation, shall I say from China to Peru? + +'In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we have undergone +many vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs. Micawber and myself +cannot disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years +and it may be for ever, with an individual linked by strong +associations to the altar of our domestic life. If, on the eve of +such a departure, you will accompany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas +Traddles, to our present abode, and there reciprocate the wishes +natural to the occasion, you will confer a Boon + + 'On + 'One + 'Who + 'Is + 'Ever yours, + 'WILKINS MICAWBER.' + + +I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of his dust and +ashes, and that something really had turned up at last. Learning +from Traddles that the invitation referred to the evening then +wearing away, I expressed my readiness to do honour to it; and we +went off together to the lodging which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. +Mortimer, and which was situated near the top of the Gray's Inn +Road. + +The resources of this lodging were so limited, that we found the +twins, now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up +bedstead in the family sitting-room, where Mr. Micawber had +prepared, in a wash-hand-stand jug, what he called 'a Brew' of the +agreeable beverage for which he was famous. I had the pleasure, on +this occasion, of renewing the acquaintance of Master Micawber, +whom I found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very +subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an unfrequent +phenomenon in youths of his age. I also became once more known to +his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr. Micawber told us, 'her +mother renewed her youth, like the Phoenix'. + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'yourself and Mr. +Traddles find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any +little discomforts incidental to that position.' + +Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I observed that the +family effects were already packed, and that the amount of luggage +was by no means overwhelming. I congratulated Mrs. Micawber on the +approaching change. + +'My dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'of your friendly +interest in all our affairs, I am well assured. My family may +consider it banishment, if they please; but I am a wife and mother, +and I never will desert Mr. Micawber.' + +Traddles, appealed to by Mrs. Micawber's eye, feelingly acquiesced. + +'That,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'that, at least, is my view, my dear +Mr. Copperfield and Mr. Traddles, of the obligation which I took +upon myself when I repeated the irrevocable words, "I, Emma, take +thee, Wilkins." I read the service over with a flat-candle on the +previous night, and the conclusion I derived from it was, that I +never could desert Mr. Micawber. And,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'though +it is possible I may be mistaken in my view of the ceremony, I +never will!' + +'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, a little impatiently, 'I am not +conscious that you are expected to do anything of the sort.' + +'I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' pursued Mrs. Micawber, 'that +I am now about to cast my lot among strangers; and I am also aware +that the various members of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has +written in the most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have +not taken the least notice of Mr. Micawber's communication. Indeed +I may be superstitious,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'but it appears to me +that Mr. Micawber is destined never to receive any answers whatever +to the great majority of the communications he writes. I may +augur, from the silence of my family, that they object to the +resolution I have taken; but I should not allow myself to be +swerved from the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield, even by my papa and +mama, were they still living.' + +I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. +'It may be a sacrifice,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'to immure one's-self +in a Cathedral town; but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if it is a +sacrifice in me, it is much more a sacrifice in a man of Mr. +Micawber's abilities.' + +'Oh! You are going to a Cathedral town?' said I. + +Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the +wash-hand-stand jug, replied: + +'To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I have entered into +arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged and contracted to +our friend Heep, to assist and serve him in the capacity of - and +to be - his confidential clerk.' + +I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed my surprise. + +'I am bound to state to you,' he said, with an official air, 'that +the business habits, and the prudent suggestions, of Mrs. Micawber, +have in a great measure conduced to this result. The gauntlet, to +which Mrs. Micawber referred upon a former occasion, being thrown +down in the form of an advertisement, was taken up by my friend +Heep, and led to a mutual recognition. Of my friend Heep,' said +Mr. Micawber, 'who is a man of remarkable shrewdness, I desire to +speak with all possible respect. My friend Heep has not fixed the +positive remuneration at too high a figure, but he has made a great +deal, in the way of extrication from the pressure of pecuniary +difficulties, contingent on the value of my services; and on the +value of those services I pin my faith. Such address and +intelligence as I chance to possess,' said Mr. Micawber, boastfully +disparaging himself, with the old genteel air, 'will be devoted to +my friend Heep's service. I have already some acquaintance with +the law - as a defendant on civil process - and I shall immediately +apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most eminent and +remarkable of our English jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to +add that I allude to Mr. justice Blackstone.' + +These observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations +made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber's discovering +that Master Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head +on with both arms as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking +Traddles under the table, or shuffling his feet over one another, +or producing them at distances from himself apparently outrageous +to nature, or lying sideways with his hair among the wine-glasses, +or developing his restlessness of limb in some other form +incompatible with the general interests of society; and by Master +Micawber's receiving those discoveries in a resentful spirit. I +sat all the while, amazed by Mr. Micawber's disclosure, and +wondering what it meant; until Mrs. Micawber resumed the thread of +the discourse, and claimed my attention. + +'What I particularly request Mr. Micawber to be careful of, is,' +said Mrs. Micawber, 'that he does not, my dear Mr. Copperfield, in +applying himself to this subordinate branch of the law, place it +out of his power to rise, ultimately, to the top of the tree. I am +convinced that Mr. Micawber, giving his mind to a profession so +adapted to his fertile resources, and his flow of language, must +distinguish himself. Now, for example, Mr. Traddles,' said Mrs. +Micawber, assuming a profound air, 'a judge, or even say a +Chancellor. Does an individual place himself beyond the pale of +those preferments by entering on such an office as Mr. Micawber has +accepted?' + +'My dear,' observed Mr. Micawber - but glancing inquisitively at +Traddles, too; 'we have time enough before us, for the +consideration of those questions.' + +'Micawber,' she returned, 'no! Your mistake in life is, that you +do not look forward far enough. You are bound, in justice to your +family, if not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance +the extremest point in the horizon to which your abilities may lead +you.' + +Mr. Micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air of exceeding +satisfaction - still glancing at Traddles, as if he desired to have +his opinion. + +'Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Micawber,' said Traddles, +mildly breaking the truth to her. 'I mean the real prosaic fact, +you know -' + +'Just so,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'my dear Mr. Traddles, I wish to be +as prosaic and literal as possible on a subject of so much +importance.' + +'- Is,' said Traddles, 'that this branch of the law, even if Mr. +Micawber were a regular solicitor -' + +'Exactly so,' returned Mrs. Micawber. ('Wilkins, you are +squinting, and will not be able to get your eyes back.') + +'- Has nothing,' pursued Traddles, 'to do with that. Only a +barrister is eligible for such preferments; and Mr. Micawber could +not be a barrister, without being entered at an inn of court as a +student, for five years.' + +'Do I follow you?' said Mrs. Micawber, with her most affable air of +business. 'Do I understand, my dear Mr. Traddles, that, at the +expiration of that period, Mr. Micawber would be eligible as a +Judge or Chancellor?' + +'He would be ELIGIBLE,' returned Traddles, with a strong emphasis +on that word. + +'Thank you,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'That is quite sufficient. If +such is the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no privilege by +entering on these duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I speak,' +said Mrs. Micawber, 'as a female, necessarily; but I have always +been of opinion that Mr. Micawber possesses what I have heard my +papa call, when I lived at home, the judicial mind; and I hope Mr. +Micawber is now entering on a field where that mind will develop +itself, and take a commanding station.' + +I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in his judicial +mind's eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand complacently over +his bald head, and said with ostentatious resignation: + +'My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. If I am +reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared, externally,' in +allusion to his baldness, 'for that distinction. I do not,' said +Mr. Micawber, 'regret my hair, and I may have been deprived of it +for a specific purpose. I cannot say. It is my intention, my dear +Copperfield, to educate my son for the Church; I will not deny that +I should be happy, on his account, to attain to eminence.' + +'For the Church?' said I, still pondering, between whiles, on Uriah +Heep. + +'Yes,' said Mr. Micawber. 'He has a remarkable head-voice, and +will commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury, and our +local connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of +any vacancy that may arise in the Cathedral corps.' + +On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he had a certain +expression of face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows; where +it presently appeared to be, on his singing us (as an alternative +between that and bed) 'The Wood-Pecker tapping'. After many +compliments on this performance, we fell into some general +conversation; and as I was too full of my desperate intentions to +keep my altered circumstances to myself, I made them known to Mr. +and Mrs. Micawber. I cannot express how extremely delighted they +both were, by the idea of my aunt's being in difficulties; and how +comfortable and friendly it made them. + +When we were nearly come to the last round of the punch, I +addressed myself to Traddles, and reminded him that we must not +separate, without wishing our friends health, happiness, and +success in their new career. I begged Mr. Micawber to fill us +bumpers, and proposed the toast in due form: shaking hands with him +across the table, and kissing Mrs. Micawber, to commemorate that +eventful occasion. Traddles imitated me in the first particular, +but did not consider himself a sufficiently old friend to venture +on the second. + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, rising with one of his +thumbs in each of his waistcoat pockets, 'the companion of my +youth: if I may be allowed the expression - and my esteemed friend +Traddles: if I may be permitted to call him so - will allow me, on +the part of Mrs. Micawber, myself, and our offspring, to thank them +in the warmest and most uncompromising terms for their good wishes. +It may be expected that on the eve of a migration which will +consign us to a perfectly new existence,' Mr. Micawber spoke as if +they were going five hundred thousand miles, 'I should offer a few +valedictory remarks to two such friends as I see before me. But +all that I have to say in this way, I have said. Whatever station +in society I may attain, through the medium of the learned +profession of which I am about to become an unworthy member, I +shall endeavour not to disgrace, and Mrs. Micawber will be safe to +adorn. Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities, +contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation, but +remaining unliquidated through a combination of circumstances, I +have been under the necessity of assuming a garb from which my +natural instincts recoil - I allude to spectacles - and possessing +myself of a cognomen, to which I can establish no legitimate +pretensions. All I have to say on that score is, that the cloud +has passed from the dreary scene, and the God of Day is once more +high upon the mountain tops. On Monday next, on the arrival of the +four o'clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot will be on my +native heath - my name, Micawber!' + +Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these remarks, and +drank two glasses of punch in grave succession. He then said with +much solemnity: + +'One thing more I have to do, before this separation is complete, +and that is to perform an act of justice. My friend Mr. Thomas +Traddles has, on two several occasions, "put his name", if I may +use a common expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. +On the first occasion Mr. Thomas Traddles was left - let me say, in +short, in the lurch. The fulfilment of the second has not yet +arrived. The amount of the first obligation,' here Mr. Micawber +carefully referred to papers, 'was, I believe, twenty-three, four, +nine and a half, of the second, according to my entry of that +transaction, eighteen, six, two. These sums, united, make a total, +if my calculation is correct, amounting to forty-one, ten, eleven +and a half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do me the favour to +check that total?' + +I did so and found it correct. + +'To leave this metropolis,' said Mr. Micawber, 'and my friend Mr. +Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of +this obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable +extent. I have, therefore, prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas +Traddles, and I now hold in my hand, a document, which accomplishes +the desired object. I beg to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles +my I.O.U. for forty-one, ten, eleven and a half, and I am happy to +recover my moral dignity, and to know that I can once more walk +erect before my fellow man!' + +With this introduction (which greatly affected him), Mr. Micawber +placed his I.O.U. in the hands of Traddles, and said he wished him +well in every relation of life. I am persuaded, not only that this +was quite the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that +Traddles himself hardly knew the difference until he had had time +to think about it. +Mr. Micawber walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength +of this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again +when he lighted us downstairs. We parted with great heartiness on +both sides; and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was +going home alone, I thought, among the other odd and contradictory +things I mused upon, that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was +probably indebted to some compassionate recollection he retained of +me as his boy-lodger, for never having been asked by him for money. +I certainly should not have had the moral courage to refuse it; and +I have no doubt he knew that (to his credit be it written), quite +as well as I did. + + + +CHAPTER 37 +A LITTLE COLD WATER + + +My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger +than ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the +crisis required. I continued to walk extremely fast, and to have +a general idea that I was getting on. I made it a rule to take as +much out of myself as I possibly could, in my way of doing +everything to which I applied my energies. I made a perfect victim +of myself. I even entertained some idea of putting myself on a +vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that, in becoming a +graminivorous animal, I should sacrifice to Dora. + +As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness, +otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. But another +Saturday came, and on that Saturday evening she was to be at Miss +Mills's; and when Mr. Mills had gone to his whist-club (telegraphed +to me in the street, by a bird-cage in the drawing-room middle +window), I was to go there to tea. + +By this time, we were quite settled down in Buckingham Street, +where Mr. Dick continued his copying in a state of absolute +felicity. My aunt had obtained a signal victory over Mrs. Crupp, +by paying her off, throwing the first pitcher she planted on the +stairs out of window, and protecting in person, up and down the +staircase, a supernumerary whom she engaged from the outer world. +These vigorous measures struck such terror to the breast of Mrs. +Crupp, that she subsided into her own kitchen, under the impression +that my aunt was mad. My aunt being supremely indifferent to Mrs. +Crupp's opinion and everybody else's, and rather favouring than +discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp, of late the bold, became within +a few days so faint-hearted, that rather than encounter my aunt +upon the staircase, she would endeavour to hide her portly form +behind doors - leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel +petticoat - or would shrink into dark corners. This gave my aunt +such unspeakable satisfaction, that I believe she took a delight in +prowling up and down, with her bonnet insanely perched on the top +of her head, at times when Mrs. Crupp was likely to be in the way. + +My aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made so many little +improvements in our domestic arrangements, that I seemed to be +richer instead of poorer. Among the rest, she converted the pantry +into a dressing-room for me; and purchased and embellished a +bedstead for my occupation, which looked as like a bookcase in the +daytime as a bedstead could. I was the object of her constant +solicitude; and my poor mother herself could not have loved me +better, or studied more how to make me happy. + +Peggotty had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed +to participate in these labours; and, although she still retained +something of her old sentiment of awe in reference to my aunt, had +received so many marks of encouragement and confidence, that they +were the best friends possible. But the time had now come (I am +speaking of the Saturday when I was to take tea at Miss Mills's) +when it was necessary for her to return home, and enter on the +discharge of the duties she had undertaken in behalf of Ham. 'So +good-bye, Barkis,' said my aunt, 'and take care of yourself! I am +sure I never thought I could be sorry to lose you!' + +I took Peggotty to the coach office and saw her off. She cried at +parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done. +We had heard nothing of him since he went away, that sunny +afternoon. + +'And now, my own dear Davy,' said Peggotty, 'if, while you're a +prentice, you should want any money to spend; or if, when you're +out of your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up (and +you must do one or other, or both, my darling); who has such a good +right to ask leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl's own old +stupid me!' + +I was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply, but +that if ever I borrowed money of anyone, I would borrow it of her. +Next to accepting a large sum on the spot, I believe this gave +Peggotty more comfort than anything I could have done. + +'And, my dear!' whispered Peggotty, 'tell the pretty little angel +that I should so have liked to see her, only for a minute! And +tell her that before she marries my boy, I'll come and make your +house so beautiful for you, if you'll let me!' + +I declared that nobody else should touch it; and this gave Peggotty +such delight that she went away in good spirits. + +I fatigued myself as much as I possibly could in the Commons all +day, by a variety of devices, and at the appointed time in the +evening repaired to Mr. Mills's street. Mr. Mills, who was a +terrible fellow to fall asleep after dinner, had not yet gone out, +and there was no bird-cage in the middle window. + +He kept me waiting so long, that I fervently hoped the Club would +fine him for being late. At last he came out; and then I saw my +own Dora hang up the bird-cage, and peep into the balcony to look +for me, and run in again when she saw I was there, while Jip +remained behind, to bark injuriously at an immense butcher's dog in +the street, who could have taken him like a pill. + +Dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me; and Jip came +scrambling out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression +that I was a Bandit; and we all three went in, as happy and loving +as could be. I soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys +- not that I meant to do it, but that I was so full of the subject +- by asking Dora, without the smallest preparation, if she could +love a beggar? + +My pretty, little, startled Dora! Her only association with the +word was a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a +wooden leg, or a dog with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or +something of that kind; and she stared at me with the most +delightful wonder. + +'How can you ask me anything so foolish?' pouted Dora. 'Love a +beggar!' + +'Dora, my own dearest!' said I. 'I am a beggar!' + +'How can you be such a silly thing,' replied Dora, slapping my +hand, 'as to sit there, telling such stories? I'll make Jip bite +you!' + +Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but +it was necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly repeated: + +'Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David!' + +'I declare I'll make Jip bite you!' said Dora, shaking her curls, +'if you are so ridiculous.' + +But I looked so serious, that Dora left off shaking her curls, and +laid her trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked +scared and anxious, then began to cry. That was dreadful. I fell +upon my knees before the sofa, caressing her, and imploring her not +to rend my heart; but, for some time, poor little Dora did nothing +but exclaim Oh dear! Oh dear! And oh, she was so frightened! And +where was Julia Mills! And oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go +away, please! until I was almost beside myself. + +At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, I got +Dora to look at me, with a horrified expression of face, which I +gradually soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty +cheek was lying against mine. Then I told her, with my arms +clasped round her, how I loved her, so dearly, and so dearly; how +I felt it right to offer to release her from her engagement, +because now I was poor; how I never could bear it, or recover it, +if I lost her; how I had no fears of poverty, if she had none, my +arm being nerved and my heart inspired by her; how I was already +working with a courage such as none but lovers knew; how I had +begun to be practical, and look into the future; how a crust well +earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited; and much more to the +same purpose, which I delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence +quite surprising to myself, though I had been thinking about it, +day and night, ever since my aunt had astonished me. + +'Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?' said I, rapturously, for I +knew by her clinging to me that it was. + +'Oh, yes!' cried Dora. 'Oh, yes, it's all yours. Oh, don't be +dreadful!' + +I dreadful! To Dora! + +'Don't talk about being poor, and working hard!' said Dora, +nestling closer to me. 'Oh, don't, don't!' + +'My dearest love,' said I, 'the crust well-earned -' + +'Oh, yes; but I don't want to hear any more about crusts!' said +Dora. 'And Jip must have a mutton-chop every day at twelve, or +he'll die.' + +I was charmed with her childish, winning way. I fondly explained +to Dora that Jip should have his mutton-chop with his accustomed +regularity. I drew a picture of our frugal home, made independent +by my labour - sketching in the little house I had seen at +Highgate, and my aunt in her room upstairs. + +'I am not dreadful now, Dora?' said I, tenderly. + +'Oh, no, no!' cried Dora. 'But I hope your aunt will keep in her +own room a good deal. And I hope she's not a scolding old thing!' + +If it were possible for me to love Dora more than ever, I am sure +I did. But I felt she was a little impracticable. It damped my +new-born ardour, to find that ardour so difficult of communication +to her. I made another trial. When she was quite herself again, +and was curling Jip's ears, as he lay upon her lap, I became grave, +and said: + +'My own! May I mention something?' + +'Oh, please don't be practical!' said Dora, coaxingly. 'Because it +frightens me so!' + +'Sweetheart!' I returned; 'there is nothing to alarm you in all +this. I want you to think of it quite differently. I want to make +it nerve you, and inspire you, Dora!' + +'Oh, but that's so shocking!' cried Dora. + +'My love, no. Perseverance and strength of character will enable +us to bear much worse things.' +'But I haven't got any strength at all,' said Dora, shaking her +curls. 'Have I, Jip? Oh, do kiss Jip, and be agreeable!' + +It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held him up to me +for that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into +kissing form, as she directed the operation, which she insisted +should be performed symmetrically, on the centre of his nose. I +did as she bade me - rewarding myself afterwards for my obedience +- and she charmed me out of my graver character for I don't know +how long. + +'But, Dora, my beloved!' said I, at last resuming it; 'I was going +to mention something.' + +The judge of the Prerogative Court might have fallen in love with +her, to see her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and +praying me not to be dreadful any more. + +'Indeed I am not going to be, my darling!' I assured her. 'But, +Dora, my love, if you will sometimes think, - not despondingly, you +know; far from that! - but if you will sometimes think - just to +encourage yourself - that you are engaged to a poor man -' + +'Don't, don't! Pray don't!' cried Dora. 'It's so very dreadful!' + +'My soul, not at all!' said I, cheerfully. 'If you will sometimes +think of that, and look about now and then at your papa's +housekeeping, and endeavour to acquire a little habit - of +accounts, for instance -' + +Poor little Dora received this suggestion with something that was +half a sob and half a scream. + +'- It would be so useful to us afterwards,' I went on. 'And if you +would promise me to read a little - a little Cookery Book that I +would send you, it would be so excellent for both of us. For our +path in life, my Dora,' said I, warming with the subject, 'is stony +and rugged now, and it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight +our way onward. We must be brave. There are obstacles to be met, +and we must meet, and crush them!' + +I was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand, and a most +enthusiastic countenance; but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. +I had said enough. I had done it again. Oh, she was so +frightened! Oh, where was Julia Mills! Oh, take her to Julia +Mills, and go away, please! So that, in short, I was quite +distracted, and raved about the drawing-room. + +I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water on her +face. I went down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced +myself as a remorseless brute and a ruthless beast. I implored her +forgiveness. I besought her to look up. I ravaged Miss Mills's +work-box for a smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an +ivory needle-case instead, and dropped all the needles over Dora. +I shook my fists at Jip, who was as frantic as myself. I did every +wild extravagance that could be done, and was a long way beyond the +end of my wits when Miss Mills came into the room. + +'Who has done this?' exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring her friend. + +I replied, 'I, Miss Mills! I have done it! Behold the destroyer!' +- or words to that effect - and hid my face from the light, in the +sofa cushion. + +At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were +verging on the Desert of Sahara; but she soon found out how matters +stood, for my dear affectionate little Dora, embracing her, began +exclaiming that I was 'a poor labourer'; and then cried for me, and +embraced me, and asked me would I let her give me all her money to +keep, and then fell on Miss Mills's neck, sobbing as if her tender +heart were broken. + +Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She +ascertained from me in a few words what it was all about, comforted +Dora, and gradually convinced her that I was not a labourer - from +my manner of stating the case I believe Dora concluded that I was +a navigator, and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day +with a wheelbarrow - and so brought us together in peace. When we +were quite composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put some +rose-water to her eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing +interval, I told Miss Mills that she was evermore my friend, and +that my heart must cease to vibrate ere I could forget her +sympathy. + +I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very +unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general +principles, that the Cottage of content was better than the Palace +of cold splendour, and that where love was, all was. + +I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who should know +it better than I, who loved Dora with a love that never mortal had +experienced yet? But on Miss Mills observing, with despondency, +that it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so, I +explained that I begged leave to restrict the observation to +mortals of the masculine gender. + +I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered that +there was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had +been anxious to make, concerning the accounts, the housekeeping, +and the Cookery Book? + +Miss Mills, after some consideration, thus replied: + +'Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you. Mental suffering and +trial supply, in some natures, the place of years, and I will be as +plain with you as if I were a Lady Abbess. No. The suggestion is +not appropriate to our Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favourite child +of nature. She is a thing of light, and airiness, and joy. I am +free to confess that if it could be done, it might be well, but -' +And Miss Mills shook her head. + +I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of Miss +Mills to ask her, whether, for Dora's sake, if she had any +opportunity of luring her attention to such preparations for an +earnest life, she would avail herself of it? Miss Mills replied in +the affirmative so readily, that I further asked her if she would +take charge of the Cookery Book; and, if she ever could insinuate +it upon Dora's acceptance, without frightening her, undertake to do +me that crowning service. Miss Mills accepted this trust, too; but +was not sanguine. + +And Dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature, that I +really doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so +ordinary. And she loved me so much, and was so captivating +(particularly when she made Jip stand on his hind legs for toast, +and when she pretended to hold that nose of his against the hot +teapot for punishment because he wouldn't), that I felt like a sort +of Monster who had got into a Fairy's bower, when I thought of +having frightened her, and made her cry. + +After tea we had the guitar; and Dora sang those same dear old +French songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving +off dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I felt a much greater +Monster than before. + +We had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little +while before I took my leave, when, Miss Mills chancing to make +some allusion to tomorrow morning, I unluckily let out that, being +obliged to exert myself now, I got up at five o'clock. Whether +Dora had any idea that I was a Private Watchman, I am unable to +say; but it made a great impression on her, and she neither played +nor sang any more. + +It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu; and she said to me, +in her pretty coaxing way - as if I were a doll, I used to think: + +'Now don't get up at five o'clock, you naughty boy. It's so +nonsensical!' + +'My love,' said I, 'I have work to do.' + +'But don't do it!' returned Dora. 'Why should you?' + +It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, +otherwise than lightly and playfully, that we must work to live. + +'Oh! How ridiculous!' cried Dora. + +'How shall we live without, Dora?' said I. + +'How? Any how!' said Dora. + +She seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me +such a triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that +I would hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer, for a +fortune. + +Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly, +entirely, and completely. But going on, too, working pretty hard, +and busily keeping red-hot all the irons I now had in the fire, I +would sit sometimes of a night, opposite my aunt, thinking how I +had frightened Dora that time, and how I could best make my way +with a guitar-case through the forest of difficulty, until I used +to fancy that my head was turning quite grey. + + + +CHAPTER 38 +A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP + + +I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parliamentary +Debates, to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat +immediately, and one of the irons I kept hot, and hammered at, with +a perseverance I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme +of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and +sixpence); and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in +a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were +rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in +such another position something else, entirely different; the +wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable +consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the +tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only troubled +my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had +groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had +mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself, +there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary +characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known; who +insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a +cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket, stood +for disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, +I found that they had driven everything else out of it; then, +beginning again, I forgot them; while I was picking them up, I +dropped the other fragments of the system; in short, it was almost +heart-breaking. + +It might have been quite heart-breaking, but for Dora, who was the +stay and anchor of my tempest-driven bark. Every scratch in the +scheme was a gnarled oak in the forest of difficulty, and I went on +cutting them down, one after another, with such vigour, that in +three or four months I was in a condition to make an experiment on +one of our crack speakers in the Commons. Shall I ever forget how +the crack speaker walked off from me before I began, and left my +imbecile pencil staggering about the paper as if it were in a fit! + +This would not do, it was quite clear. I was flying too high, and +should never get on, so. I resorted to Traddles for advice; who +suggested that he should dictate speeches to me, at a pace, and +with occasional stoppages, adapted to my weakness. Very grateful +for this friendly aid, I accepted the proposal; and night after +night, almost every night, for a long time, we had a sort of +Private Parliament in Buckingham Street, after I came home from the +Doctor's. + +I should like to see such a Parliament anywhere else! My aunt and +Mr. Dick represented the Government or the Opposition (as the case +might be), and Traddles, with the assistance of Enfield's Speakers, +or a volume of parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing +invectives against them. Standing by the table, with his finger in +the page to keep the place, and his right arm flourishing above his +head, Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord +Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself +into the most violent heats, and deliver the most withering +denunciations of the profligacy and corruption of my aunt and Mr. +Dick; while I used to sit, at a little distance, with my notebook +on my knee, fagging after him with all my might and main. The +inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not to be exceeded +by any real politician. He was for any description of policy, in +the compass of a week; and nailed all sorts of colours to every +denomination of mast. My aunt, looking very like an immovable +Chancellor of the Exchequer, would occasionally throw in an +interruption or two, as 'Hear!' or 'No!' or 'Oh!' when the text +seemed to require it: which was always a signal to Mr. Dick (a +perfect country gentleman) to follow lustily with the same cry. +But Mr. Dick got taxed with such things in the course of his +Parliamentary career, and was made responsible for such awful +consequences, that he became uncomfortable in his mind sometimes. +I believe he actually began to be afraid he really had been doing +something, tending to the annihilation of the British constitution, +and the ruin of the country. + +Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to +midnight, and the candles were burning down. The result of so much +good practice was, that by and by I began to keep pace with +Traddles pretty well, and should have been quite triumphant if I +had had the least idea what my notes were about. But, as to +reading them after I had got them, I might as well have copied the +Chinese inscriptions of an immense collection of tea-chests, or the +golden characters on all the great red and green bottles in the +chemists' shops! + +There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over +again. It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy +heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same +tedious ground at a snail's pace; stopping to examine minutely +every speck in the way, on all sides, and making the most desperate +efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever I met +them. I was always punctual at the office; at the Doctor's too: +and I really did work, as the common expression is, like a +cart-horse. +One day, when I went to the Commons as usual, I found Mr. Spenlow +in the doorway looking extremely grave, and talking to himself. As +he was in the habit of complaining of pains in his head - he had +naturally a short throat, and I do seriously believe he +over-starched himself - I was at first alarmed by the idea that he +was not quite right in that direction; but he soon relieved my +uneasiness. + +Instead of returning my 'Good morning' with his usual affability, +he looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly +requested me to accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which, in +those days, had a door opening into the Commons, just within the +little archway in St. Paul's Churchyard. I complied, in a very +uncomfortable state, and with a warm shooting all over me, as if my +apprehensions were breaking out into buds. When I allowed him to +go on a little before, on account of the narrowness of the way, I +observed that he carried his head with a lofty air that was +particularly unpromising; and my mind misgave me that he had found +out about my darling Dora. + +If I had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house, I could +hardly have failed to know what was the matter when I followed him +into an upstairs room, and found Miss Murdstone there, supported by +a background of sideboard, on which were several inverted tumblers +sustaining lemons, and two of those extraordinary boxes, all +corners and flutings, for sticking knives and forks in, which, +happily for mankind, are now obsolete. + +Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat severely +rigid. Mr. Spenlow shut the door, motioned me to a chair, and +stood on the hearth-rug in front of the fireplace. + +'Have the goodness to show Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. Spenlow, what +you have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone.' + +I believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of my +childhood, that shut up like a bite. Compressing her lips, in +sympathy with the snap, Miss Murdstone opened it - opening her +mouth a little at the same time - and produced my last letter to +Dora, teeming with expressions of devoted affection. + +'I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield?' said Mr. +Spenlow. + +I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike mine, when I +said, 'It is, sir!' + +'If I am not mistaken,' said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss Murdstone brought +a parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the +dearest bit of blue ribbon, 'those are also from your pen, Mr. +Copperfield?' + +I took them from her with a most desolate sensation; and, glancing +at such phrases at the top, as 'My ever dearest and own Dora,' 'My +best beloved angel,' 'My blessed one for ever,' and the like, +blushed deeply, and inclined my head. + +'No, thank you!' said Mr. Spenlow, coldly, as I mechanically +offered them back to him. 'I will not deprive you of them. Miss +Murdstone, be so good as to proceed!' + +That gentle creature, after a moment's thoughtful survey of the +carpet, delivered herself with much dry unction as follows. + +'I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of Miss +Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I +observed Miss Spenlow and David Copperfield, when they first met; +and the impression made upon me then was not agreeable. The +depravity of the human heart is such -' + +'You will oblige me, ma'am,' interrupted Mr. Spenlow, 'by confining +yourself to facts.' + +Miss Murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if protesting +against this unseemly interruption, and with frowning dignity +resumed: + +'Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will state them as dryly +as I can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of +proceeding. I have already said, sir, that I have had my +suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for +some time. I have frequently endeavoured to find decisive +corroboration of those suspicions, but without effect. I have +therefore forborne to mention them to Miss Spenlow's father'; +looking severely at him- 'knowing how little disposition there +usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the conscientious +discharge of duty.' + +Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss +Murdstone's manner, and deprecated her severity with a conciliatory +little wave of his hand. + +'On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by +my brother's marriage,' pursued Miss Murdstone in a disdainful +voice, 'and on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her +friend Miss Mills, I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave +me greater occasion for suspicion than before. Therefore I watched +Miss Spenlow closely.' + +Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon's eye! + +'Still,' resumed Miss Murdstone, 'I found no proof until last +night. It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many +letters from her friend Miss Mills; but Miss Mills being her friend +with her father's full concurrence,' another telling blow at Mr. +Spenlow, 'it was not for me to interfere. If I may not be +permitted to allude to the natural depravity of the human heart, at +least I may - I must - be permitted, so far to refer to misplaced +confidence.' + +Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent. + +'Last evening after tea,' pursued Miss Murdstone, 'I observed the +little dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, +worrying something. I said to Miss Spenlow, "Dora, what is that +the dog has in his mouth? It's paper." Miss Spenlow immediately +put her hand to her frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. +I interposed, and said, "Dora, my love, you must permit me." ' + +Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work! + +'Miss Spenlow endeavoured,' said Miss Murdstone, 'to bribe me with +kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery - that, of +course, I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my +approaching him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the +fire-irons. Even when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his +mouth; and on my endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent +risk of being bitten, he kept it between his teeth so +pertinaciously as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air +by means of the document. At length I obtained possession of it. +After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with having many such +letters in her possession; and ultimately obtained from her the +packet which is now in David Copperfield's hand.' + +Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her +mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent. + +'You have heard Miss Murdstone,' said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. +'I beg to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything to say in +reply?' + +The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my +heart, sobbing and crying all night - of her being alone, +frightened, and wretched, then - of her having so piteously begged +and prayed that stony-hearted woman to forgive her - of her having +vainly offered her those kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets - of her +being in such grievous distress, and all for me - very much +impaired the little dignity I had been able to muster. I am afraid +I was in a tremulous state for a minute or so, though I did my best +to disguise it. + +'There is nothing I can say, sir,' I returned, 'except that all the +blame is mine. Dora -' + +'Miss Spenlow, if you please,' said her father, majestically. + +'- was induced and persuaded by me,' I went on, swallowing that +colder designation, 'to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly +regret it.' + +'You are very much to blame, sir,' said Mr. Spenlow, walking to and +fro upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his +whole body instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his +cravat and spine. 'You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, +Mr. Copperfield. When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter +whether he is nineteen, twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in +a spirit of confidence. If he abuses my confidence, he commits a +dishonourable action, Mr. Copperfield.' + +'I feel it, sir, I assure you,' I returned. 'But I never thought +so, before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never +thought so, before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent -' + +'Pooh! nonsense!' said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. 'Pray don't tell me +to my face that you love my daughter, Mr. Copperfield!' + +'Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir?' I returned, with all +humility. + +'Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir?' said Mr. Spenlow, +stopping short upon the hearth-rug. 'Have you considered your +years, and my daughter's years, Mr. Copperfield? Have you +considered what it is to undermine the confidence that should +subsist between my daughter and myself? Have you considered my +daughter's station in life, the projects I may contemplate for her +advancement, the testamentary intentions I may have with reference +to her? Have you considered anything, Mr. Copperfield?' + +'Very little, sir, I am afraid;' I answered, speaking to him as +respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt; 'but pray believe me, I +have considered my own worldly position. When I explained it to +you, we were already engaged -' + +'I BEG,' said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen +him, as he energetically struck one hand upon the other - I could +not help noticing that even in my despair; 'that YOU Will NOT talk +to me of engagements, Mr. Copperfield!' + +The otherwise immovable Miss Murdstone laughed contemptuously in +one short syllable. + +'When I explained my altered position to you, sir,' I began again, +substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable +to him, 'this concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have +led Miss Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered +position, I have strained every nerve, I have exerted every energy, +to improve it. I am sure I shall improve it in time. Will you +grant me time - any length of time? We are both so young, sir, -' + +'You are right,' interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great +many times, and frowning very much, 'you are both very young. It's +all nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away +those letters, and throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow's +letters to throw in the fire; and although our future intercourse +must, you are aware, be restricted to the Commons here, we will +agree to make no further mention of the past. Come, Mr. +Copperfield, you don't want sense; and this is the sensible +course.' + +No. I couldn't think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but +there was a higher consideration than sense. Love was above all +earthly considerations, and I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora +loved me. I didn't exactly say so; I softened it down as much as +I could; but I implied it, and I was resolute upon it. I don't +think I made myself very ridiculous, but I know I was resolute. + +'Very well, Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. Spenlow, 'I must try my +influence with my daughter.' + +Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, +which was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as +her opinion that he should have done this at first. + +'I must try,' said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, 'my +influence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, +Mr. Copperfield?' For I had laid them on the table. + +Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I +couldn't possibly take them from Miss Murdstone. + +'Nor from me?' said Mr. Spenlow. + +No, I replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him. + +'Very well!' said Mr. Spenlow. + +A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At +length I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of +saying that perhaps I should consult his feelings best by +withdrawing: when he said, with his hands in his coat pockets, into +which it was as much as he could do to get them; and with what I +should call, upon the whole, a decidedly pious air: + +'You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether +destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my +nearest and dearest relative?' + +I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error +into which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, +did not induce him to think me mercenary too? + +'I don't allude to the matter in that light,' said Mr. Spenlow. +'It would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you WERE +mercenary, Mr. Copperfield - I mean, if you were more discreet and +less influenced by all this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, +with quite another view, you are probably aware I have some +property to bequeath to my child?' + +I certainly supposed so. + +'And you can hardly think,' said Mr. Spenlow, 'having experience of +what we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various +unaccountable and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their +testamentary arrangements - of all subjects, the one on which +perhaps the strangest revelations of human inconsistency are to be +met with - but that mine are made?' + +I inclined my head in acquiescence. + +'I should not allow,' said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of +pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself +upon his toes and heels alternately, 'my suitable provision for my +child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the +present. It is mere folly. Mere nonsense. In a little while, it +will weigh lighter than any feather. But I might - I might - if +this silly business were not completely relinquished altogether, be +induced in some anxious moment to guard her from, and surround her +with protections against, the consequences of any foolish step in +the way of marriage. Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that you will +not render it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an +hour, that closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even for +a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long since composed.' + +There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm sunset air about him, +which quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned - clearly +had his affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound +up - that he was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I +really think I saw tears rise to his eyes, from the depth of his +own feeling of all this. + +But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. When +he told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had +said, how could I say I wouldn't take a week, yet how could I fail +to know that no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine? + +'In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person +with any knowledge of life,' said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat +with both hands. 'Take a week, Mr. Copperfield.' + +I submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to +make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. +Miss Murdstone's heavy eyebrows followed me to the door - I say her +eyebrows rather than her eyes, because they were much more +important in her face - and she looked so exactly as she used to +look, at about that hour of the morning, in our parlour at +Blunderstone, that I could have fancied I had been breaking down in +my lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind was that +horrible old spelling-book, with oval woodcuts, shaped, to my +youthful fancy, like the glasses out of spectacles. + +When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest +of them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, +thinking of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, +and in the bitterness of my spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a +state of torment about Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat +and rush insanely to Norwood. The idea of their frightening her, +and making her cry, and of my not being there to comfort her, was +so excruciating, that it impelled me to write a wild letter to Mr. +Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit upon her the consequences of +my awful destiny. I implored him to spare her gentle nature - not +to crush a fragile flower - and addressed him generally, to the +best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her father, he had +been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley.3 This letter I sealed and +laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he came in, I saw +him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read +it. + +He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away +in the afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make +myself at all uneasy about his daughter's happiness. He had +assured her, he said, that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing +more to say to her. He believed he was an indulgent father (as +indeed he was), and I might spare myself any solicitude on her +account. + +'You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr. +Copperfield,' he observed, 'for me to send my daughter abroad +again, for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you +will be wiser than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone,' for +I had alluded to her in the letter, 'I respect that lady's +vigilance, and feel obliged to her; but she has strict charge to +avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr. Copperfield, is, that it +should be forgotten. All you have got to do, Mr. Copperfield, is +to forget it.' + +All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this +sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to +forget Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss +Mills to see me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. +Mills's sanction and concurrence, I besought a clandestine +interview in the back kitchen where the Mangle was. I informed her +that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss +Mills, could prevent its being deposed. I signed myself, hers +distractedly; and I couldn't help feeling, while I read this +composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was +something in the style of Mr. Micawber. + +However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills's street, +and walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss +Mills's maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have +since seen reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to +prevent my going in at the front door, and being shown up into the +drawing-room, except Miss Mills's love of the romantic and +mysterious. + +In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I +suppose, to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. +Miss Mills had received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that +all was discovered, and saying. 'Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, +do!' But Miss Mills, mistrusting the acceptability of her presence +to the higher powers, had not yet gone; and we were all benighted +in the Desert of Sahara. + +Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them +out. I could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with +mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She +petted them, as I may say, and made the most of them. A deep gulf, +she observed, had opened between Dora and me, and Love could only +span it with its rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern world; it +ever had been so, it ever would be so. No matter, Miss Mills +remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last, and then +Love was avenged. + +This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn't encourage +fallacious hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was +before, and I felt (and told her with the deepest gratitude) that +she was indeed a friend. We resolved that she should go to Dora +the first thing in the morning, and find some means of assuring +her, either by looks or words, of my devotion and misery. We +parted, overwhelmed with grief; and I think Miss Mills enjoyed +herself completely. + +I confided all to my aunt when I got home; and in spite of all she +could say to me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and +went out despairing. It was Saturday morning, and I went straight +to the Commons. + +I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-door, to +see the ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some +half-dozen stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I +quickened my pace, and, passing among them, wondering at their +looks, went hurriedly in. + +The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. Old Tiffey, +for the first time in his life I should think, was sitting on +somebody else's stool, and had not hung up his hat. + +'This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield,' said he, as I +entered. + +'What is?' I exclaimed. 'What's the matter?' + +'Don't you know?' cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them, coming +round me. + +'No!' said I, looking from face to face. + +'Mr. Spenlow,' said Tiffey. + +'What about him!' + +'Dead!' +I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of the +clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my +neck-cloth, and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this +took any time. + +'Dead?' said I. + +'He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by +himself,' said Tiffey, 'having sent his own groom home by the +coach, as he sometimes did, you know -' + +'Well?' + +'The phaeton went home without him. The horses stopped at the +stable-gate. The man went out with a lantern. Nobody in the +carriage.' + +'Had they run away?' + +'They were not hot,' said Tiffey, putting on his glasses; 'no +hotter, I understand, than they would have been, going down at the +usual pace. The reins were broken, but they had been dragging on +the ground. The house was roused up directly, and three of them +went out along the road. They found him a mile off.' + +'More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey,' interposed a junior. + +'Was it? I believe you are right,' said Tiffey, - 'more than a +mile off - not far from the church - lying partly on the roadside, +and partly on the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a +fit, or got out, feeling ill before the fit came on - or even +whether he was quite dead then, though there is no doubt he was +quite insensible - no one appears to know. If he breathed, +certainly he never spoke. Medical assistance was got as soon as +possible, but it was quite useless.' + +I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was thrown by this +intelligence. The shock of such an event happening so suddenly, +and happening to one with whom I had been in any respect at +variance - the appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so +lately, where his chair and table seemed to wait for him, and his +handwriting of yesterday was like a ghost - the in- definable +impossibility of separating him from the place, and feeling, when +the door opened, as if he might come in - the lazy hush and rest +there was in the office, and the insatiable relish with which our +people talked about it, and other people came in and out all day, +and gorged themselves with the subject - this is easily +intelligible to anyone. What I cannot describe is, how, in the +innermost recesses of my own heart, I had a lurking jealousy even +of Death. How I felt as if its might would push me from my ground +in Dora's thoughts. How I was, in a grudging way I have no words +for, envious of her grief. How it made me restless to think of her +weeping to others, or being consoled by others. How I had a +grasping, avaricious wish to shut out everybody from her but +myself, and to be all in all to her, at that unseasonable time of +all times. + +In the trouble of this state of mind - not exclusively my own, I +hope, but known to others - I went down to Norwood that night; and +finding from one of the servants, when I made my inquiries at the +door, that Miss Mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to +her, which I wrote. I deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow, +most sincerely, and shed tears in doing so. I entreated her to +tell Dora, if Dora were in a state to hear it, that he had spoken +to me with the utmost kindness and consideration; and had coupled +nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful word, with her +name. I know I did this selfishly, to have my name brought before +her; but I tried to believe it was an act of justice to his memory. +Perhaps I did believe it. + +My aunt received a few lines next day in reply; addressed, outside, +to her; within, to me. Dora was overcome by grief; and when her +friend had asked her should she send her love to me, had only +cried, as she was always crying, 'Oh, dear papa! oh, poor papa!' +But she had not said No, and that I made the most of. + +Mr. jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to +the office a few days afterwards. He and Tiffey were closeted +together for some few moments, and then Tiffey looked out at the +door and beckoned me in. + +'Oh!' said Mr. jorkins. 'Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr. Copperfield, +are about to examine the desks, the drawers, and other such +repositories of the deceased, with the view of sealing up his +private papers, and searching for a Will. There is no trace of +any, elsewhere. It may be as well for you to assist us, if you +please.' + +I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances +in which my Dora would be placed - as, in whose guardianship, and +so forth - and this was something towards it. We began the search +at once; Mr. jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all +taking out the papers. The office-papers we placed on one side, +and the private papers (which were not numerous) on the other. We +were very grave; and when we came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, +or ring, or any little article of that kind which we associated +personally with him, we spoke very low. + +We had sealed up several packets; and were still going on dustily +and quietly, when Mr. jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same +words to his late partner as his late partner had applied to him: + +'Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You +know what he was! I am disposed to think he had made no will.' + +'Oh, I know he had!' said I. + +They both stopped and looked at me. +'On the very day when I last saw him,' said I, 'he told me that he +had, and that his affairs were long since settled.' + +Mr. jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one accord. + +'That looks unpromising,' said Tiffey. + +'Very unpromising,' said Mr. jorkins. + +'Surely you don't doubt -' I began. + +'My good Mr. Copperfield!' said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my +arm, and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: 'if you +had been in the Commons as long as I have, you would know that +there is no subject on which men are so inconsistent, and so little +to be trusted.' + +'Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!' I replied +persistently. + +'I should call that almost final,' observed Tiffey. 'My opinion is +- no will.' + +It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there +was no will. He had never so much as thought of making one, so far +as his papers afforded any evidence; for there was no kind of hint, +sketch, or memorandum, of any testamentary intention whatever. +What was scarcely less astonishing to me, was, that his affairs +were in a most disordered state. It was extremely difficult, I +heard, to make out what he owed, or what he had paid, or of what he +died possessed. It was considered likely that for years he could +have had no clear opinion on these subjects himself. By little and +little it came out, that, in the competition on all points of +appearance and gentility then running high in the Commons, he had +spent more than his professional income, which was not a very large +one, and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been great +(which was exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed. There +was a sale of the furniture and lease, at Norwood; and Tiffey told +me, little thinking how interested I was in the story, that, paying +all the just debts of the deceased, and deducting his share of +outstanding bad and doubtful debts due to the firm, he wouldn't +give a thousand pounds for all the assets remaining. + +This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had suffered +tortures all the time; and thought I really must have laid violent +hands upon myself, when Miss Mills still reported to me, that my +broken-hearted little Dora would say nothing, when I was mentioned, +but 'Oh, poor papa! Oh, dear papa!' Also, that she had no other +relations than two aunts, maiden sisters of Mr. Spenlow, who lived +at Putney, and who had not held any other than chance communication +with their brother for many years. Not that they had ever +quarrelled (Miss Mills informed me); but that having been, on the +occasion of Dora's christening, invited to tea, when they +considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner, they had +expressed their opinion in writing, that it was 'better for the +happiness of all parties' that they should stay away. Since which +they had gone their road, and their brother had gone his. + +These two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and proposed to +take Dora to live at Putney. Dora, clinging to them both, and +weeping, exclaimed, 'O yes, aunts! Please take Julia Mills and me +and Jip to Putney!' So they went, very soon after the funeral. + +How I found time to haunt Putney, I am sure I don't know; but I +contrived, by some means or other, to prowl about the neighbourhood +pretty often. Miss Mills, for the more exact discharge of the +duties of friendship, kept a journal; and she used to meet me +sometimes, on the Common, and read it, or (if she had not time to +do that) lend it to me. How I treasured up the entries, of which +I subjoin a sample! - + +'Monday. My sweet D. still much depressed. Headache. Called +attention to J. as being beautifully sleek. D. fondled J. +Associations thus awakened, opened floodgates of sorrow. Rush of +grief admitted. (Are tears the dewdrops of the heart? J. M.) + +'Tuesday. D. weak and nervous. Beautiful in pallor. (Do we not +remark this in moon likewise? J. M.) D., J. M. and J. took airing +in carriage. J. looking out of window, and barking violently at +dustman, occasioned smile to overspread features of D. (Of such +slight links is chain of life composed! J. M.) + +'Wednesday. D. comparatively cheerful. Sang to her, as congenial +melody, "Evening Bells". Effect not soothing, but reverse. D. +inexpressibly affected. Found sobbing afterwards, in own room. +Quoted verses respecting self and young Gazelle. Ineffectually. +Also referred to Patience on Monument. (Qy. Why on monument? J. +M.) + +'Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of +damask revisiting cheek. Resolved to mention name of D. C. +Introduced same, cautiously, in course of airing. D. immediately +overcome. "Oh, dear, dear Julia! Oh, I have been a naughty and +undutiful child!" Soothed and caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. +C. on verge of tomb. D. again overcome. "Oh, what shall I do, +what shall I do? Oh, take me somewhere!" Much alarmed. Fainting +of D. and glass of water from public-house. (Poetical affinity. +Chequered sign on door-post; chequered human life. Alas! J. M.) + +'Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen, with blue bag, +"for lady's boots left out to heel". Cook replies, "No such +orders." Man argues point. Cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man +alone with J. On Cook's return, man still argues point, but +ultimately goes. J. missing. D. distracted. Information sent to +police. Man to be identified by broad nose, and legs like +balustrades of bridge. Search made in every direction. No J. D. +weeping bitterly, and inconsolable. Renewed reference to young +Gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards evening, strange +boy calls. Brought into parlour. Broad nose, but no balustrades. +Says he wants a pound, and knows a dog. Declines to explain +further, though much pressed. Pound being produced by D. takes +Cook to little house, where J. alone tied up to leg of table. joy +of D. who dances round J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by +this happy change, mention D. C. upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries +piteously, "Oh, don't, don't, don't! It is so wicked to think of +anything but poor papa!" - embraces J. and sobs herself to sleep. +(Must not D. C. confine himself to the broad pinions of Time? J. +M.)' + +Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period. +To see her, who had seen Dora but a little while before - to trace +the initial letter of Dora's name through her sympathetic pages - +to be made more and more miserable by her - were my only comforts. +I felt as if I had been living in a palace of cards, which had +tumbled down, leaving only Miss Mills and me among the ruins; I +felt as if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic circle round the +innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but those same +strong pinions, capable of carrying so many people over so much, +would enable me to enter! + + + +CHAPTER 39 +WICKFIELD AND HEEP + + +My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable +by my prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I +should go to Dover, to see that all was working well at the +cottage, which was let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same +tenant, for a longer term of occupation. Janet was drafted into +the service of Mrs. Strong, where I saw her every day. She had +been undecided, on leaving Dover, whether or no to give the +finishing touch to that renunciation of mankind in which she had +been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she decided against that +venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I believe, as +because she happened not to like him. + +Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather +willingly into my aunt's pretence, as a means of enabling me to +pass a few tranquil hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor +relative to an absence of three days; and the Doctor wishing me to +take that relaxation, - he wished me to take more; but my energy +could not bear that, - I made up my mind to go. + +As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about +my duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no +very good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly +sliding down to but a doubtful position. The business had been +indifferent under Mr. jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow's time; and +although it had been quickened by the infusion of new blood, and by +the display which Mr. Spenlow made, still it was not established on +a sufficiently strong basis to bear, without being shaken, such a +blow as the sudden loss of its active manager. It fell off very +much. Mr. jorkins, notwithstanding his reputation in the firm, was +an easy-going, incapable sort of man, whose reputation out of doors +was not calculated to back it up. I was turned over to him now, +and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business go, I +regretted my aunt's thousand pounds more than ever. + +But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of +hangers-on and outsiders about the Commons, who, without being +proctors themselves, dabbled in common-form business, and got it +done by real proctors, who lent their names in consideration of a +share in the spoil; - and there were a good many of these too. As +our house now wanted business on any terms, we joined this noble +band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on and outsiders, to bring +their business to us. Marriage licences and small probates were +what we all looked for, and what paid us best; and the competition +for these ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and inveiglers were +planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons, with +instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning, +and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and +entice them to the offices in which their respective employers were +interested; which instructions were so well observed, that I +myself, before I was known by sight, was twice hustled into the +premises of our principal opponent. The conflicting interests of +these touting gentlemen being of a nature to irritate their +feelings, personal collisions took place; and the Commons was even +scandalized by our principal inveigler (who had formerly been in +the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery line) walking +about for some days with a black eye. Any one of these scouts used +to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in black out of +a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for, representing +his employer as the lawful successor and representative of that +proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected) +to his employer's office. Many captives were brought to me in this +way. As to marriage licences, the competition rose to such a +pitch, that a shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but +submit himself to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become +the prey of the strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, +used, in the height of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that +he might be ready to rush out and swear before a surrogate any +victim who was brought in. The system of inveigling continues, I +believe, to this day. The last time I was in the Commons, a civil +able-bodied person in a white apron pounced out upon me from a +doorway, and whispering the word 'Marriage-licence' in my ear, was +with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in his arms and +lifting me into a proctor's. From this digression, let me proceed +to Dover. + +I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was +enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant +inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkeys. +Having settled the little business I had to transact there, and +slept there one night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the +morning. It was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, +and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little. + +Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a +sober pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There +were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people +serving in them. It appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy +there, that I wondered the place was so little changed, until I +reflected how little I was changed myself. Strange to say, that +quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed +to pervade even the city where she dwelt. The venerable cathedral +towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose airy voices made them +more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered +gateways, one stuck full with statues, long thrown down, and +crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon +them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept +over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral +landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere - on everything +- I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening +spirit. + +Arrived at Mr. Wickfield's house, I found, in the little lower room +on the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to +sit, Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was +dressed in a legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and +large, in that small office. + +Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused +too. He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of +Uriah, but I declined. + +'I know the house of old, you recollect,' said I, 'and will find my +way upstairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber?' + +'My dear Copperfield,' he replied. 'To a man possessed of the +higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the +amount of detail which they involve. Even in our professional +correspondence,' said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was +writing, 'the mind is not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of +expression. Still, it is a great pursuit. A great pursuit!' + +He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep's old +house; and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, +once more, under her own roof. + +'It is humble,' said Mr. Micawber, '- to quote a favourite +expression of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone +to more ambitious domiciliary accommodation.' + +I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his +friend Heep's treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door +were close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice: + +'My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of +pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a +disadvantage. That disadvantage is not diminished, when that +pressure necessitates the drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before +those emoluments are strictly due and payable. All I can say is, +that my friend Heep has responded to appeals to which I need not +more particularly refer, in a manner calculated to redound equally +to the honour of his head, and of his heart.' + +'I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money +either,' I observed. + +'Pardon me!' said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, 'I speak +of my friend Heep as I have experience.' + +'I am glad your experience is so favourable,' I returned. + +'You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber; +and hummed a tune. + +'Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield?' I asked, to change the subject. + +'Not much,' said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. 'Mr. Wickfield is, I +dare say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is - in short, +he is obsolete.' + +'I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so,' said I. + +'My dear Copperfield!' returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy +evolutions on his stool, 'allow me to offer a remark! I am here, +in a capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. +The discussion of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so +long the partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a +remarkable lucidity of intellect), is, I am led to consider, +incompatible with the functions now devolving on me. I would +therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in our friendly +intercourse - which I trust will never be disturbed! - we draw a +line. On one side of this line,' said Mr. Micawber, representing +it on the desk with the office ruler, 'is the whole range of the +human intellect, with a trifling exception; on the other, IS that +exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs Wickfield and +Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I trust I +give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this +proposition to his cooler judgement?' + +Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on +him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to +be offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he +shook hands with me. + +'I am charmed, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'let me assure you, +with Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very +remarkable attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour,' said +Mr. Micawber, indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his +genteelest air, 'I do Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem!' +'I am glad of that, at least,' said I. + +'If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of +that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, +that D. was your favourite letter,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I should +unquestionably have supposed that A. had been so.' + +We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us +occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and +done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim +ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances - of our +knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly +remembered it! I never had this mysterious impression more +strongly in my life, than before he uttered those words. + +I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my +best remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his +stool and his pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it +into easier writing order, I clearly perceived that there was +something interposed between him and me, since he had come into his +new functions, which prevented our getting at each other as we used +to do, and quite altered the character of our intercourse. + +There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it +presented tokens of Mrs. Heep's whereabouts. I looked into the +room still belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at +a pretty old-fashioned desk she had, writing. + +My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the +cause of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object +of that sweet regard and welcome! + +'Ah, Agnes!' said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; +'I have missed you so much, lately!' + +'Indeed?' she replied. 'Again! And so soon?' + +I shook my head. + +'I don't know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind +that I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking +for me, in the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you +for counsel and support, that I really think I have missed +acquiring it.' + +'And what is it?' said Agnes, cheerfully. + +'I don't know what to call it,' I replied. 'I think I am earnest +and persevering?' + +'I am sure of it,' said Agnes. + +'And patient, Agnes?' I inquired, with a little hesitation. + +'Yes,' returned Agnes, laughing. 'Pretty well.' + +'And yet,' said I, 'I get so miserable and worried, and am so +unsteady and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know +I must want - shall I call it - reliance, of some kind?' + +'Call it so, if you will,' said Agnes. + +'Well!' I returned. 'See here! You come to London, I rely on you, +and I have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, +I come here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The +circumstances that distressed me are not changed, since I came into +this room; but an influence comes over me in that short interval +that alters me, oh, how much for the better! What is it? What is +your secret, Agnes?' + +Her head was bent down, looking at the fire. + +'It's the old story,' said I. 'Don't laugh, when I say it was +always the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old +troubles were nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I +have gone away from my adopted sister -' + +Agnes looked up - with such a Heavenly face! - and gave me her +hand, which I kissed. + +'Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the +beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of +difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always +done), I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like +a tired traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!' + +I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my +voice failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into +tears. I write the truth. Whatever contradictions and +inconsistencies there were within me, as there are within so many +of us; whatever might have been so different, and so much better; +whatever I had done, in which I had perversely wandered away from +the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing of. I only knew that I +was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest and peace of having +Agnes near me. + +In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her +tender voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago +made the house that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon +won me from this weakness, and led me on to tell all that had +happened since our last meeting. + +'And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,' said I, when I had +made an end of my confidence. 'Now, my reliance is on you.' + +'But it must not be on me, Trotwood,' returned Agnes, with a +pleasant smile. 'It must be on someone else.' + +'On Dora?' said I. + +'Assuredly.' + +'Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes,' said I, a little embarrassed, +'that Dora is rather difficult to - I would not, for the world, +say, to rely upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth - +but rather difficult to - I hardly know how to express it, really, +Agnes. She is a timid little thing, and easily disturbed and +frightened. Some time ago, before her father's death, when I +thought it right to mention to her - but I'll tell you, if you will +bear with me, how it was.' + +Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about +the cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of +it. + +'Oh, Trotwood!' she remonstrated, with a smile. 'Just your old +headlong way! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on +in the world, without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, +inexperienced girl. Poor Dora!' + +I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice, +as she expressed in making this reply. It was as if I had seen her +admiringly and tenderly embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, +by her considerate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that +little heart. It was as if I had seen Dora, in all her fascinating +artlessness, caressing Agnes, and thanking her, and coaxingly +appealing against me, and loving me with all her childish +innocence. + +I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so! I saw those two +together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, +each adorning the other so much! + +'What ought I to do then, Agnes?' I inquired, after looking at the +fire a little while. 'What would it be right to do?' + +'I think,' said Agnes, 'that the honourable course to take, would +be to write to those two ladies. Don't you think that any secret +course is an unworthy one?' + +'Yes. If YOU think so,' said I. + +'I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters,' replied Agnes, +with a modest hesitation, 'but I certainly feel - in short, I feel +that your being secret and clandestine, is not being like +yourself.' + +'Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am +afraid,' said I. + +'Like yourself, in the candour of your nature,' she returned; 'and +therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as +plainly and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and I +would ask their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. +Considering that you are young, and striving for a place in life, +I think it would be well to say that you would readily abide by any +conditions they might impose upon you. I would entreat them not to +dismiss your request, without a reference to Dora; and to discuss +it with her when they should think the time suitable. I would not +be too vehement,' said Agnes, gently, 'or propose too much. I +would trust to my fidelity and perseverance - and to Dora.' + +'But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to +her,' said I. 'And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about me!' + +'Is that likely?' inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration +in her face. + +'God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird,' said I. 'It +might be! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort +are odd characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to +address in that way!' + +'I don't think, Trotwood,' returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes to +mine, 'I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to +consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it.' + +I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, +though with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, +I devoted the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of +this letter; for which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk +to me. But first I went downstairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah +Heep. + +I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, +built out in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst +of a quantity of books and papers. He received me in his usual +fawning way, and pretended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. +Micawber; a pretence I took the liberty of disbelieving. He +accompanied me into Mr. Wickfield's room, which was the shadow of +its former self - having been divested of a variety of +conveniences, for the accommodation of the new partner - and stood +before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his chin with his +bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged greetings. + +'You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury?' said +Mr. Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval. + +'Is there room for me?' said I. + +'I am sure, Master Copperfield - I should say Mister, but the other +comes so natural,' said Uriah, -'I would turn out of your old room +with pleasure, if it would be agreeable.' + +'No, no,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'Why should you be inconvenienced? +There's another room. There's another room.' +'Oh, but you know,' returned Uriah, with a grin, 'I should really +be delighted!' + +To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none +at all; so it was settled that I should have the other room; and, +taking my leave of the firm until dinner, I went upstairs again. + +I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep +had asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the +fire, in that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more +favourable for her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the +drawing-room or dining-parlour. Though I could almost have +consigned her to the mercies of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of +the Cathedral, without remorse, I made a virtue of necessity, and +gave her a friendly salutation. + +'I'm umbly thankful to you, sir,' said Mrs. Heep, in +acknowledgement of my inquiries concerning her health, 'but I'm +only pretty well. I haven't much to boast of. If I could see my +Uriah well settled in life, I couldn't expect much more I think. +How do you think my Ury looking, sir?' + +I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I replied that I +saw no change in him. + +'Oh, don't you think he's changed?' said Mrs. Heep. 'There I must +umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don't you see a thinness in +him?' + +'Not more than usual,' I replied. + +'Don't you though!' said Mrs. Heep. 'But you don't take notice of +him with a mother's eye!' + +His mother's eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I +thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I +believe she and her son were devoted to one another. It passed me, +and went on to Agnes. + +'Don't YOU see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield?' +inquired Mrs. Heep. + +'No,' said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was +engaged. 'You are too solicitous about him. He is very well.' + +Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting. + +She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early +in the day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but +she sat there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an +hour-glass might have poured out its sands. She sat on one side of +the fire; I sat at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on +the other side, sat Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my +letter, I lifted up my eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of +Agnes, saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon me, with its own +angelic expression, I was conscious presently of the evil eye +passing me, and going on to her, and coming back to me again, and +dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the knitting was, I +don't know, not being learned in that art; but it looked like a +net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of +knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking +enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but +getting ready for a cast of her net by and by. + +At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. +After dinner, her son took his turn; and when Mr. Wickfield, +himself, and I were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed +until I could hardly bear it. In the drawing-room, there was the +mother knitting and watching again. All the time that Agnes sang +and played, the mother sat at the piano. Once she asked for a +particular ballad, which she said her Ury (who was yawning in a +great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked round at him, +and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the music. But +she hardly ever spoke - I question if she ever did - without making +some mention of him. It was evident to me that this was the duty +assigned to her. + +This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like +two great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with +their ugly forms, made me so uncomfortable, that I would rather +have remained downstairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. I +hardly got any sleep. Next day the knitting and watching began +again, and lasted all day. + +I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I +could barely show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out +with me; but Mrs. Heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, +Agnes charitably remained within, to bear her company. Towards the +twilight I went out by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and +whether I was justified in withholding from Agnes, any longer, what +Uriah Heep had told me in London; for that began to trouble me +again, very much. + +I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon +the Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, +through the dust, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and +the scanty great-coat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and +Uriah Heep came up. + +'Well?' said I. + +'How fast you walk!' said he. 'My legs are pretty long, but you've +given 'em quite a job.' + +'Where are you going?' said I. + +'I am going with you, Master Copperfield, if you'll allow me the +pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.' Saying this, with a +jerk of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or +derisive, he fell into step beside me. + +'Uriah!' said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence. + +'Master Copperfield!' said Uriah. + +'To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came +Out to walk alone, because I have had so much company.' + +He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, 'You mean +mother.' + +'Why yes, I do,' said I. + +'Ah! But you know we're so very umble,' he returned. 'And having +such a knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care +that we're not pushed to the wall by them as isn't umble. All +stratagems are fair in love, sir.' + +Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them +softly, and softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, +I thought, as anything human could look. + +'You see,' he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way, +and shaking his head at me, 'you're quite a dangerous rival, Master +Copperfield. You always was, you know.' + +'Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no home, +because of me?' said I. + +'Oh! Master Copperfield! Those are very arsh words,' he replied. + +'Put my meaning into any words you like,' said I. 'You know what +it is, Uriah, as well as I do.' + +'Oh no! You must put it into words,' he said. 'Oh, really! I +couldn't myself.' + +'Do you suppose,' said I, constraining myself to be very temperate +and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, 'that I regard Miss +Wickfield otherwise than as a very dear sister?' + +'Well, Master Copperfield,' he replied, 'you perceive I am not +bound to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, +you see, you may!' + +Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his +shadowless eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw. + +'Come then!' said I. 'For the sake of Miss Wickfield -' + +'My Agnes!' he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of +himself. 'Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master +Copperfield!' + +'For the sake of Agnes Wickfield - Heaven bless her!' + +'Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield!'he interposed. + +'I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as +soon have thought of telling to - Jack Ketch.' + +'To who, sir?' said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his +ear with his hand. + +'To the hangman,' I returned. 'The most unlikely person I could +think of,' - though his own face had suggested the allusion quite +as a natural sequence. 'I am engaged to another young lady. I +hope that contents you.' + +'Upon your soul?' said Uriah. + +I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he +required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze. + +'Oh, Master Copperfield!' he said. 'If you had only had the +condescension to return my confidence when I poured out the fulness +of my art, the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping +before your sitting-room fire, I never should have doubted you. As +it is, I'm sure I'll take off mother directly, and only too appy. +I know you'll excuse the precautions of affection, won't you? What +a pity, Master Copperfield, that you didn't condescend to return my +confidence! I'm sure I gave you every opportunity. But you never +have condescended to me, as much as I could have wished. I know +you have never liked me, as I have liked you!' + +All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishy fingers, +while I made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I +was quite unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his +mulberry-coloured great-coat, and I walked on, almost upon +compulsion, arm-in-arm with him. + +'Shall we turn?' said Uriah, by and by wheeling me face about +towards the town, on which the early moon was now shining, +silvering the distant windows. + +'Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand,' said I, +breaking a pretty long silence, 'that I believe Agnes Wickfield to +be as far above you, and as far removed from all your aspirations, +as that moon herself!' + +'Peaceful! Ain't she!' said Uriah. 'Very! Now confess, Master +Copperfield, that you haven't liked me quite as I have liked you. +All along you've thought me too umble now, I shouldn't wonder?' + +'I am not fond of professions of humility,' I returned, 'or +professions of anything else.' +'There now!' said Uriah, looking flabby and lead-coloured in the +moonlight. 'Didn't I know it! But how little you think of the +rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master Copperfield! +Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; +and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of +charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness +- not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to +be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our +caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, +and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of +betters! Father got the monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. +Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, +among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they +were determined to bring him in. "Be umble, Uriah," says father to +me, "and you'll get on. It was what was always being dinned into +you and me at school; it's what goes down best. Be umble," says +father," and you'll do!" And really it ain't done bad!' + +It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this +detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the +Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the +seed. + +'When I was quite a young boy,' said Uriah, 'I got to know what +umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. +I stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, "Hold +hard!" When you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. "People +like to be above you," says father, "keep yourself down." I am very +umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I've got a +little power!' + +And he said all this - I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight +- that I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by +using his power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and +malice; but I fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a +base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered +by this early, and this long, suppression. + +His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable +result, that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he +might have another hug of himself under the chin. Once apart from +him, I was determined to keep apart; and we walked back, side by +side, saying very little more by the way. Whether his spirits were +elevated by the communication I had made to him, or by his having +indulged in this retrospect, I don't know; but they were raised by +some influence. He talked more at dinner than was usual with him; +asked his mother (off duty, from the moment of our re-entering the +house) whether he was not growing too old for a bachelor; and once +looked at Agnes so, that I would have given all I had, for leave to +knock him down. + +When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a +more adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine; and I +presume it was the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, +flushed perhaps by the temptation my presence furnished to its +exhibition. + +I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to +drink; and, interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she +went out, had limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that +we should follow her. I would have done so again today; but Uriah +was too quick for me. + +'We seldom see our present visitor, sir,' he said, addressing Mr. +Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the +table, 'and I should propose to give him welcome in another glass +or two of wine, if you have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your +elth and appiness!' + +I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across +to me; and then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of +the broken gentleman, his partner. + +'Come, fellow-partner,' said Uriah, 'if I may take the liberty, - +now, suppose you give us something or another appropriate to +Copperfield!' + +I pass over Mr. Wickfield's proposing my aunt, his proposing Mr. +Dick, his proposing Doctors' Commons, his proposing Uriah, his +drinking everything twice; his consciousness of his own weakness, +the ineffectual effort that he made against it; the struggle +between his shame in Uriah's deportment, and his desire to +conciliate him; the manifest exultation with which Uriah twisted +and turned, and held him up before me. It made me sick at heart to +see, and my hand recoils from writing it. + +'Come, fellow-partner!' said Uriah, at last, 'I'll give you another +one, and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend to make it the +divinest of her sex.' + +Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw him set it down, +look at the picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, +and shrink back in his elbow-chair. + +'I'm an umble individual to give you her elth,' proceeded Uriah, +'but I admire - adore her.' + +No physical pain that her father's grey head could have borne, I +think, could have been more terrible to me, than the mental +endurance I saw compressed now within both his hands. + +'Agnes,' said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what +the nature of his action was, 'Agnes Wickfield is, I am safe to +say, the divinest of her sex. May I speak out, among friends? To +be her father is a proud distinction, but to be her usband -' + +Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her +father rose up from the table! +'What's the matter?' said Uriah, turning of a deadly colour. 'You +are not gone mad, after all, Mr. Wickfield, I hope? If I say I've +an ambition to make your Agnes my Agnes, I have as good a right to +it as another man. I have a better right to it than any other +man!' + +I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that +I could think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm +himself a little. He was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, +beating his head, trying to force me from him, and to force himself +from me, not answering a word, not looking at or seeing anyone; +blindly striving for he knew not what, his face all staring and +distorted - a frightful spectacle. + +I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, +not to abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. I +besought him to think of Agnes, to connect me with Agnes, to +recollect how Agnes and I had grown up together, how I honoured her +and loved her, how she was his pride and joy. I tried to bring her +idea before him in any form; I even reproached him with not having +firmness to spare her the knowledge of such a scene as this. I may +have effected something, or his wildness may have spent itself; but +by degrees he struggled less, and began to look at me - strangely +at first, then with recognition in his eyes. At length he said, 'I +know, Trotwood! My darling child and you - I know! But look at +him!' + +He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very +much out in his calculations, and taken by surprise. + +'Look at my torturer,' he replied. 'Before him I have step by step +abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home.' + +'I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and +quiet, and your house and home too,' said Uriah, with a sulky, +hurried, defeated air of compromise. 'Don't be foolish, Mr. +Wickfield. If I have gone a little beyond what you were prepared +for, I can go back, I suppose? There's no harm done.' + +'I looked for single motives in everyone,' said Mr. Wickfield, and +I was satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But +see what he is - oh, see what he is!' + +'You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can,' cried Uriah, +with his long forefinger pointing towards me. 'He'll say something +presently - mind you! - he'll be sorry to have said afterwards, and +you'll be sorry to have heard!' + +'I'll say anything!' cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate air. +'Why should I not be in all the world's power if I am in yours?' + +'Mind! I tell you!' said Uriah, continuing to warn me. 'If you +don't stop his mouth, you're not his friend! Why shouldn't you be +in all the world's power, Mr. Wickfield? Because you have got a +daughter. You and me know what we know, don't we? Let sleeping +dogs lie - who wants to rouse 'em? I don't. Can't you see I am as +umble as I can be? I tell you, if I've gone too far, I'm sorry. +What would you have, sir?' + +'Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!'exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his +hands. 'What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this +house! I was on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary road +I have traversed since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence +in remembrance, and indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief +for my child's mother turned to disease; my natural love for my +child turned to disease. I have infected everything I touched. I +have brought misery on what I dearly love, I know -you know! I +thought it possible that I could truly love one creature in the +world, and not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could +truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have +some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons of my +life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid coward +heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my +love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, +oh see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!' + +He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitement into +which he had been roused was leaving him. Uriah came out of his +corner. + +'I don't know all I have done, in my fatuity,' said Mr. Wickfield, +putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. 'He +knows best,' meaning Uriah Heep, 'for he has always been at my +elbow, whispering me. You see the millstone that he is about my +neck. You find him in my house, you find him in my business. You +heard him, but a little time ago. What need have I to say more!' + +'You haven't need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at +all,' observed Uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. 'You +wouldn't have took it up so, if it hadn't been for the wine. +You'll think better of it tomorrow, sir. If I have said too much, +or more than I meant, what of it? I haven't stood by it!' + +The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour +in her face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, 'Papa, +you are not well. Come with me!' + +He laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed with +heavy shame, and went out with her. Her eyes met mine for but an +instant, yet I saw how much she knew of what had passed. + +'I didn't expect he'd cut up so rough, Master Copperfield,' said +Uriah. 'But it's nothing. I'll be friends with him tomorrow. +It's for his good. I'm umbly anxious for his good.' + +I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where +Agnes had so often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me +until late at night. I took up a book, and tried to read. I heard +the clocks strike twelve, and was still reading, without knowing +what I read, when Agnes touched me. + +'You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood! Let us say +good-bye, now!' + +She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful! + +'Heaven bless you!' she said, giving me her hand. + +'Dearest Agnes!' I returned, 'I see you ask me not to speak of +tonight - but is there nothing to be done?' + +'There is God to trust in!' she replied. + +'Can I do nothing- I, who come to you with my poor sorrows?' + +'And make mine so much lighter,' she replied. 'Dear Trotwood, no!' + +'Dear Agnes,' I said, 'it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in +all in which you are so rich - goodness, resolution, all noble +qualities - to doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love +you, and how much I owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to +a mistaken sense of duty, Agnes?' + +More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her +hands from me, and moved a step back. + +'Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister! +Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a +love as yours!' + +Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with +its momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. +Oh, long, long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, +into the lovely smile, with which she told me she had no fear for +herself - I need have none for her - and parted from me by the name +of Brother, and was gone! + +It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn +door. The day was just breaking when we were about to start, and +then, as I sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, +through the mingled day and night, Uriah's head. + +'Copperfield!' said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the +iron on the roof, 'I thought you'd be glad to hear before you went +off, that there are no squares broke between us. I've been into +his room already, and we've made it all smooth. Why, though I'm +umble, I'm useful to him, you know; and he understands his interest +when he isn't in liquor! What an agreeable man he is, after all, +Master Copperfield!' + +I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology. + +'Oh, to be sure!' said Uriah. 'When a person's umble, you know, +what's an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose,' with a jerk, 'you +have sometimes plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master +Copperfield?' + +'I suppose I have,' I replied. + +'I did that last night,' said Uriah; 'but it'll ripen yet! It only +wants attending to. I can wait!' + +Profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coachman got up. +For anything I know, he was eating something to keep the raw +morning air out; but he made motions with his mouth as if the pear +were ripe already, and he were smacking his lips over it. + + + +CHAPTER 40 +THE WANDERER + + +We had a very serious conversation in Buckingham Street that night, +about the domestic occurrences I have detailed in the last chapter. +My aunt was deeply interested in them, and walked up and down the +room with her arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards. +Whenever she was particularly discomposed, she always performed one +of these pedestrian feats; and the amount of her discomposure might +always be estimated by the duration of her walk. On this occasion +she was so much disturbed in mind as to find it necessary to open +the bedroom door, and make a course for herself, comprising the +full extent of the bedrooms from wall to wall; and while Mr. Dick +and I sat quietly by the fire, she kept passing in and out, along +this measured track, at an unchanging pace, with the regularity of +a clock-pendulum. + +When my aunt and I were left to ourselves by Mr. Dick's going out +to bed, I sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies. By +that time she was tired of walking, and sat by the fire with her +dress tucked up as usual. But instead of sitting in her usual +manner, holding her glass upon her knee, she suffered it to stand +neglected on the chimney-piece; and, resting her left elbow on her +right arm, and her chin on her left hand, looked thoughtfully at +me. As often as I raised my eyes from what I was about, I met +hers. 'I am in the lovingest of tempers, my dear,' she would +assure me with a nod, 'but I am fidgeted and sorry!' + +I had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone to bed, +that she had left her night-mixture, as she always called it, +untasted on the chimney-piece. She came to her door, with even +more than her usual affection of manner, when I knocked to acquaint +her with this discovery; but only said, 'I have not the heart to +take it, Trot, tonight,' and shook her head, and went in again. + +She read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning, and +approved of it. I posted it, and had nothing to do then, but wait, +as patiently as I could, for the reply. I was still in this state +of expectation, and had been, for nearly a week; when I left the +Doctor's one snowy night, to walk home. + +It had been a bitter day, and a cutting north-east wind had blown +for some time. The wind had gone down with the light, and so the +snow had come on. It was a heavy, settled fall, I recollect, in +great flakes; and it lay thick. The noise of wheels and tread of +people were as hushed, as if the streets had been strewn that depth +with feathers. + +My shortest way home, - and I naturally took the shortest way on +such a night - was through St. Martin's Lane. Now, the church +which gives its name to the lane, stood in a less free situation at +that time; there being no open space before it, and the lane +winding down to the Strand. As I passed the steps of the portico, +I encountered, at the corner, a woman's face. It looked in mine, +passed across the narrow lane, and disappeared. I knew it. I had +seen it somewhere. But I could not remember where. I had some +association with it, that struck upon my heart directly; but I was +thinking of anything else when it came upon me, and was confused. + +On the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure of a man, +who had put down some burden on the smooth snow, to adjust it; my +seeing the face, and my seeing him, were simultaneous. I don't +think I had stopped in my surprise; but, in any case, as I went on, +he rose, turned, and came down towards me. I stood face to face +with Mr. Peggotty! + +Then I remembered the woman. It was Martha, to whom Emily had +given the money that night in the kitchen. Martha Endell - side by +side with whom, he would not have seen his dear niece, Ham had told +me, for all the treasures wrecked in the sea. + +We shook hands heartily. At first, neither of us could speak a +word. + +'Mas'r Davy!' he said, gripping me tight, 'it do my art good to see +you, sir. Well met, well met!' + +'Well met, my dear old friend!' said I. + +'I had my thowts o' coming to make inquiration for you, sir, +tonight,' he said, 'but knowing as your aunt was living along wi' +you - fur I've been down yonder - Yarmouth way - I was afeerd it +was too late. I should have come early in the morning, sir, afore +going away.' + +'Again?' said I. + +'Yes, sir,' he replied, patiently shaking his head, 'I'm away +tomorrow.' + +'Where were you going now?' I asked. + +'Well!' he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair, 'I was +a-going to turn in somewheers.' + +In those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-yard of the +Golden Cross, the inn so memorable to me in connexion with his +misfortune, nearly opposite to where we stood. I pointed out the +gateway, put my arm through his, and we went across. Two or three +public-rooms opened out of the stable-yard; and looking into one of +them, and finding it empty, and a good fire burning, I took him in +there. + +When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that his hair was +long and ragged, but that his face was burnt dark by the sun. He +was greyer, the lines in his face and forehead were deeper, and he +had every appearance of having toiled and wandered through all +varieties of weather; but he looked very strong, and like a man +upheld by steadfastness of purpose, whom nothing could tire out. +He shook the snow from his hat and clothes, and brushed it away +from his face, while I was inwardly making these remarks. As he +sat down opposite to me at a table, with his back to the door by +which we had entered, he put out his rough hand again, and grasped +mine warmly. + +'I'll tell you, Mas'r Davy,' he said, - 'wheer all I've been, and +what-all we've heerd. I've been fur, and we've heerd little; but +I'll tell you!' + +I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would have nothing +stronger than ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed +at the fire, he sat thinking. There was a fine, massive gravity in +his face, I did not venture to disturb. + +'When she was a child,' he said, lifting up his head soon after we +were left alone, 'she used to talk to me a deal about the sea, and +about them coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and to lay +a-shining and a-shining in the sun. I thowt, odd times, as her +father being drownded made her think on it so much. I doen't know, +you see, but maybe she believed - or hoped - he had drifted out to +them parts, where the flowers is always a-blowing, and the country +bright.' + +'It is likely to have been a childish fancy,' I replied. + +'When she was - lost,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'I know'd in my mind, as +he would take her to them countries. I know'd in my mind, as he'd +have told her wonders of 'em, and how she was to be a lady theer, +and how he got her to listen to him fust, along o' sech like. When +we see his mother, I know'd quite well as I was right. I went +across-channel to France, and landed theer, as if I'd fell down +from the sky.' + +I saw the door move, and the snow drift in. I saw it move a little +more, and a hand softly interpose to keep it open. + +'I found out an English gen'leman as was in authority,' said Mr. +Peggotty, 'and told him I was a-going to seek my niece. He got me +them papers as I wanted fur to carry me through - I doen't rightly +know how they're called - and he would have give me money, but that +I was thankful to have no need on. I thank him kind, for all he +done, I'm sure! "I've wrote afore you," he says to me, "and I +shall speak to many as will come that way, and many will know you, +fur distant from here, when you're a-travelling alone." I told him, +best as I was able, what my gratitoode was, and went away through +France.' + +'Alone, and on foot?' said I. + +'Mostly a-foot,' he rejoined; 'sometimes in carts along with people +going to market; sometimes in empty coaches. Many mile a day +a-foot, and often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to +see his friends. I couldn't talk to him,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'nor +he to me; but we was company for one another, too, along the dusty +roads.' + +I should have known that by his friendly tone. + +'When I come to any town,' he pursued, 'I found the inn, and waited +about the yard till someone turned up (someone mostly did) as +know'd English. Then I told how that I was on my way to seek my +niece, and they told me what manner of gentlefolks was in the +house, and I waited to see any as seemed like her, going in or out. +When it warn't Em'ly, I went on agen. By little and little, when +I come to a new village or that, among the poor people, I found +they know'd about me. They would set me down at their cottage +doors, and give me what-not fur to eat and drink, and show me where +to sleep; and many a woman, Mas'r Davy, as has had a daughter of +about Em'ly's age, I've found a-waiting fur me, at Our Saviour's +Cross outside the village, fur to do me sim'lar kindnesses. Some +has had daughters as was dead. And God only knows how good them +mothers was to me!' + +It was Martha at the door. I saw her haggard, listening face +distinctly. My dread was lest he should turn his head, and see her +too. + +'They would often put their children - particular their little +girls,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'upon my knee; and many a time you might +have seen me sitting at their doors, when night was coming in, +a'most as if they'd been my Darling's children. Oh, my Darling!' + +Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. I laid my trembling +hand upon the hand he put before his face. 'Thankee, sir,' he +said, 'doen't take no notice.' + +In a very little while he took his hand away and put it on his +breast, and went on with his story. +'They often walked with me,' he said, 'in the morning, maybe a mile +or two upon my road; and when we parted, and I said, "I'm very +thankful to you! God bless you!" they always seemed to understand, +and answered pleasant. At last I come to the sea. It warn't hard, +you may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way over +to Italy. When I got theer, I wandered on as I had done afore. +The people was just as good to me, and I should have gone from town +to town, maybe the country through, but that I got news of her +being seen among them Swiss mountains yonder. One as know'd his +servant see 'em there, all three, and told me how they travelled, +and where they was. I made fur them mountains, Mas'r Davy, day and +night. Ever so fur as I went, ever so fur the mountains seemed to +shift away from me. But I come up with 'em, and I crossed 'em. +When I got nigh the place as I had been told of, I began to think +within my own self, "What shall I do when I see her?"' + +The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still +drooped at the door, and the hands begged me - prayed me - not to +cast it forth. + +'I never doubted her,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'No! Not a bit! On'y +let her see my face - on'y let her beer my voice - on'y let my +stanning still afore her bring to her thoughts the home she had +fled away from, and the child she had been - and if she had growed +to be a royal lady, she'd have fell down at my feet! I know'd it +well! Many a time in my sleep had I heerd her cry out, "Uncle!" +and seen her fall like death afore me. Many a time in my sleep had +I raised her up, and whispered to her, "Em'ly, my dear, I am come +fur to bring forgiveness, and to take you home!"' + +He stopped and shook his head, and went on with a sigh. + +'He was nowt to me now. Em'ly was all. I bought a country dress +to put upon her; and I know'd that, once found, she would walk +beside me over them stony roads, go where I would, and never, +never, leave me more. To put that dress upon her, and to cast off +what she wore - to take her on my arm again, and wander towards +home - to stop sometimes upon the road, and heal her bruised feet +and her worse-bruised heart - was all that I thowt of now. I +doen't believe I should have done so much as look at him. But, +Mas'r Davy, it warn't to be - not yet! I was too late, and they +was gone. Wheer, I couldn't learn. Some said beer, some said +theer. I travelled beer, and I travelled theer, but I found no +Em'ly, and I travelled home.' + +'How long ago?' I asked. + +'A matter o' fower days,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'I sighted the old +boat arter dark, and the light a-shining in the winder. When I +come nigh and looked in through the glass, I see the faithful +creetur Missis Gummidge sittin' by the fire, as we had fixed upon, +alone. I called out, "Doen't be afeerd! It's Dan'l!" and I went +in. I never could have thowt the old boat would have been so +strange!' +From some pocket in his breast, he took out, with a very careful +hand a small paper bundle containing two or three letters or little +packets, which he laid upon the table. + +'This fust one come,' he said, selecting it from the rest, 'afore +I had been gone a week. A fifty pound Bank note, in a sheet of +paper, directed to me, and put underneath the door in the night. +She tried to hide her writing, but she couldn't hide it from Me!' + +He folded up the note again, with great patience and care, in +exactly the same form, and laid it on one side. + +'This come to Missis Gummidge,' he said, opening another, 'two or +three months ago.'After looking at it for some moments, he gave it +to me, and added in a low voice, 'Be so good as read it, sir.' + +I read as follows: + + +'Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes +from my wicked hand! But try, try - not for my sake, but for +uncle's goodness, try to let your heart soften to me, only for a +little little time! Try, pray do, to relent towards a miserable +girl, and write down on a bit of paper whether he is well, and what +he said about me before you left off ever naming me among +yourselves - and whether, of a night, when it is my old time of +coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one he used +to love so dear. Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about it! +I am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not to be as +hard with me as I deserve - as I well, well, know I deserve - but +to be so gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and +to send it to me. You need not call me Little, you need not call +me by the name I have disgraced; but oh, listen to my agony, and +have mercy on me so far as to write me some word of uncle, never, +never to be seen in this world by my eyes again! + +'Dear, if your heart is hard towards me - justly hard, I know - +but, listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most +- him whose wife I was to have been - before you quite decide +against my poor poor prayer! If he should be so compassionate as +to say that you might write something for me to read - I think he +would, oh, I think he would, if you would only ask him, for he +always was so brave and so forgiving - tell him then (but not +else), that when I hear the wind blowing at night, I feel as if it +was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was going up to +God against me. Tell him that if I was to die tomorrow (and oh, if +I was fit, I would be so glad to die!) I would bless him and uncle +with my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last +breath!' + + +Some money was enclosed in this letter also. Five pounds. It was +untouched like the previous sum, and he refolded it in the same +way. Detailed instructions were added relative to the address of +a reply, which, although they betrayed the intervention of several +hands, and made it difficult to arrive at any very probable +conclusion in reference to her place of concealment, made it at +least not unlikely that she had written from that spot where she +was stated to have been seen. + +'What answer was sent?' I inquired of Mr. Peggotty. + +'Missis Gummidge,' he returned, 'not being a good scholar, sir, Ham +kindly drawed it out, and she made a copy on it. They told her I +was gone to seek her, and what my parting words was.' + +'Is that another letter in your hand?' said I. + +'It's money, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty, unfolding it a little way. +'Ten pound, you see. And wrote inside, "From a true friend," like +the fust. But the fust was put underneath the door, and this come +by the post, day afore yesterday. I'm a-going to seek her at the +post-mark.' + +He showed it to me. It was a town on the Upper Rhine. He had +found out, at Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, +and they had drawn him a rude map on paper, which he could very +well understand. He laid it between us on the table; and, with his +chin resting on one hand, tracked his course upon it with the +other. + +I asked him how Ham was? He shook his head. + +'He works,' he said, 'as bold as a man can. His name's as good, in +all that part, as any man's is, anywheres in the wureld. Anyone's +hand is ready to help him, you understand, and his is ready to help +them. He's never been heerd fur to complain. But my sister's +belief is ('twixt ourselves) as it has cut him deep.' + +'Poor fellow, I can believe it!' + +'He ain't no care, Mas'r Davy,' said Mr. Peggotty in a solemn +whisper - 'kinder no care no-how for his life. When a man's wanted +for rough sarvice in rough weather, he's theer. When there's hard +duty to be done with danger in it, he steps for'ard afore all his +mates. And yet he's as gentle as any child. There ain't a child +in Yarmouth that doen't know him.' + +He gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them with his +hand; put them into their little bundle; and placed it tenderly in +his breast again. The face was gone from the door. I still saw +the snow drifting in; but nothing else was there. + +'Well!' he said, looking to his bag, 'having seen you tonight, +Mas'r Davy (and that doos me good!), I shall away betimes tomorrow +morning. You have seen what I've got heer'; putting his hand on +where the little packet lay; 'all that troubles me is, to think +that any harm might come to me, afore that money was give back. If +I was to die, and it was lost, or stole, or elseways made away +with, and it was never know'd by him but what I'd took it, I +believe the t'other wureld wouldn't hold me! I believe I must come +back!' + +He rose, and I rose too; we grasped each other by the hand again, +before going out. + +'I'd go ten thousand mile,' he said, 'I'd go till I dropped dead, +to lay that money down afore him. If I do that, and find my Em'ly, +I'm content. If I doen't find her, maybe she'll come to hear, +sometime, as her loving uncle only ended his search for her when he +ended his life; and if I know her, even that will turn her home at +last!' + +As he went out into the rigorous night, I saw the lonely figure +flit away before us. I turned him hastily on some pretence, and +held him in conversation until it was gone. + +He spoke of a traveller's house on the Dover Road, where he knew he +could find a clean, plain lodging for the night. I went with him +over Westminster Bridge, and parted from him on the Surrey shore. +Everything seemed, to my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for +him, as he resumed his solitary journey through the snow. + +I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the +face, looked awfully around for it. It was not there. The snow +had covered our late footprints; my new track was the only one to +be seen; and even that began to die away (it snowed so fast) as I +looked back over my shoulder. + + + +CHAPTER 41 +DORA'S AUNTS + + +At last, an answer came from the two old ladies. They presented +their compliments to Mr. Copperfield, and informed him that they +had given his letter their best consideration, 'with a view to the +happiness of both parties' - which I thought rather an alarming +expression, not only because of the use they had made of it in +relation to the family difference before-mentioned, but because I +had (and have all my life) observed that conventional phrases are +a sort of fireworks, easily let off, and liable to take a great +variety of shapes and colours not at all suggested by their +original form. The Misses Spenlow added that they begged to +forbear expressing, 'through the medium of correspondence', an +opinion on the subject of Mr. Copperfield's communication; but that +if Mr. Copperfield would do them the favour to call, upon a certain +day (accompanied, if he thought proper, by a confidential friend), +they would be happy to hold some conversation on the subject. + +To this favour, Mr. Copperfield immediately replied, with his +respectful compliments, that he would have the honour of waiting on +the Misses Spenlow, at the time appointed; accompanied, in +accordance with their kind permission, by his friend Mr. Thomas +Traddles of the Inner Temple. Having dispatched which missive, Mr. +Copperfield fell into a condition of strong nervous agitation; and +so remained until the day arrived. + +It was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be bereaved, at +this eventful crisis, of the inestimable services of Miss Mills. +But Mr. Mills, who was always doing something or other to annoy me +- or I felt as if he were, which was the same thing - had brought +his conduct to a climax, by taking it into his head that he would +go to India. Why should he go to India, except to harass me? To +be sure he had nothing to do with any other part of the world, and +had a good deal to do with that part; being entirely in the India +trade, whatever that was (I had floating dreams myself concerning +golden shawls and elephants' teeth); having been at Calcutta in his +youth; and designing now to go out there again, in the capacity of +resident partner. But this was nothing to me. However, it was so +much to him that for India he was bound, and Julia with him; and +Julia went into the country to take leave of her relations; and the +house was put into a perfect suit of bills, announcing that it was +to be let or sold, and that the furniture (Mangle and all) was to +be taken at a valuation. So, here was another earthquake of which +I became the sport, before I had recovered from the shock of its +predecessor! + +I was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day; +being divided between my desire to appear to advantage, and my +apprehensions of putting on anything that might impair my severely +practical character in the eyes of the Misses Spenlow. I +endeavoured to hit a happy medium between these two extremes; my +aunt approved the result; and Mr. Dick threw one of his shoes after +Traddles and me, for luck, as we went downstairs. + +Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly attached to +him as I was, I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, +that he had never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very +upright. It gave him a surprised look - not to say a hearth-broomy +kind of expression - which, my apprehensions whispered, might be +fatal to us. + +I took the liberty of mentioning it to Traddles, as we were walking +to Putney; and saying that if he WOULD smooth it down a little - + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, lifting off his hat, and +rubbing his hair all kinds of ways, 'nothing would give me greater +pleasure. But it won't.' + +'Won't be smoothed down?' said I. + +'No,' said Traddles. 'Nothing will induce it. If I was to carry +a half-hundred-weight upon it, all the way to Putney, it would be +up again the moment the weight was taken off. You have no idea +what obstinate hair mine is, Copperfield. I am quite a fretful +porcupine.' + +I was a little disappointed, I must confess, but thoroughly charmed +by his good-nature too. I told him how I esteemed his good-nature; +and said that his hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his +character, for he had none. + +'Oh!' returned Traddles, laughing. 'I assure you, it's quite an +old story, my unfortunate hair. My uncle's wife couldn't bear it. +She said it exasperated her. It stood very much in my way, too, +when I first fell in love with Sophy. Very much!' + +'Did she object to it?' + +'SHE didn't,' rejoined Traddles; 'but her eldest sister - the one +that's the Beauty - quite made game of it, I understand. In fact, +all the sisters laugh at it.' + +'Agreeable!' said I. + +'Yes,' returned Traddles with perfect innocence, 'it's a joke for +us. They pretend that Sophy has a lock of it in her desk, and is +obliged to shut it in a clasped book, to keep it down. We laugh +about it.' + +'By the by, my dear Traddles,' said I, 'your experience may suggest +something to me. When you became engaged to the young lady whom +you have just mentioned, did you make a regular proposal to her +family? Was there anything like - what we are going through today, +for instance?' I added, nervously. + +'Why,' replied Traddles, on whose attentive face a thoughtful shade +had stolen, 'it was rather a painful transaction, Copperfield, in +my case. You see, Sophy being of so much use in the family, none +of them could endure the thought of her ever being married. +Indeed, they had quite settled among themselves that she never was +to be married, and they called her the old maid. Accordingly, when +I mentioned it, with the greatest precaution, to Mrs. Crewler -' + +'The mama?' said I. + +'The mama,' said Traddles - 'Reverend Horace Crewler - when I +mentioned it with every possible precaution to Mrs. Crewler, the +effect upon her was such that she gave a scream and became +insensible. I couldn't approach the subject again, for months.' + +'You did at last?' said I. + +'Well, the Reverend Horace did,' said Traddles. 'He is an +excellent man, most exemplary in every way; and he pointed out to +her that she ought, as a Christian, to reconcile herself to the +sacrifice (especially as it was so uncertain), and to bear no +uncharitable feeling towards me. As to myself, Copperfield, I give +you my word, I felt a perfect bird of prey towards the family.' + +'The sisters took your part, I hope, Traddles?' + +'Why, I can't say they did,' he returned. 'When we had +comparatively reconciled Mrs. Crewler to it, we had to break it to +Sarah. You recollect my mentioning Sarah, as the one that has +something the matter with her spine?' + +'Perfectly!' + +'She clenched both her hands,' said Traddles, looking at me in +dismay; 'shut her eyes; turned lead-colour; became perfectly stiff; +and took nothing for two days but toast-and-water, administered +with a tea-spoon.' + +'What a very unpleasant girl, Traddles!' I remarked. + +'Oh, I beg your pardon, Copperfield!' said Traddles. 'She is a +very charming girl, but she has a great deal of feeling. In fact, +they all have. Sophy told me afterwards, that the self-reproach +she underwent while she was in attendance upon Sarah, no words +could describe. I know it must have been severe, by my own +feelings, Copperfield; which were like a criminal's. After Sarah +was restored, we still had to break it to the other eight; and it +produced various effects upon them of a most pathetic nature. The +two little ones, whom Sophy educates, have only just left off +de-testing me.' + +'At any rate, they are all reconciled to it now, I hope?' said I. + +'Ye-yes, I should say they were, on the whole, resigned to it,' +said Traddles, doubtfully. 'The fact is, we avoid mentioning the +subject; and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances +are a great consolation to them. There will be a deplorable scene, +whenever we are married. It will be much more like a funeral, than +a wedding. And they'll all hate me for taking her away!' + +His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his +head, impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the +reality, for I was by this time in a state of such excessive +trepidation and wandering of mind, as to be quite unable to fix my +attention on anything. On our approaching the house where the +Misses Spenlow lived, I was at such a discount in respect of my +personal looks and presence of mind, that Traddles proposed a +gentle stimulant in the form of a glass of ale. This having been +administered at a neighbouring public-house, he conducted me, with +tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlow's door. + +I had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view, when the +maid opened it; and of wavering, somehow, across a hall with a +weather-glass in it, into a quiet little drawing-room on the +ground-floor, commanding a neat garden. Also of sitting down here, +on a sofa, and seeing Traddles's hair start up, now his hat was +removed, like one of those obtrusive little figures made of +springs, that fly out of fictitious snuff-boxes when the lid is +taken off. Also of hearing an old-fashioned clock ticking away on +the chimney-piece, and trying to make it keep time to the jerking +of my heart, - which it wouldn't. Also of looking round the room +for any sign of Dora, and seeing none. Also of thinking that Jip +once barked in the distance, and was instantly choked by somebody. +Ultimately I found myself backing Traddles into the fireplace, and +bowing in great confusion to two dry little elderly ladies, dressed +in black, and each looking wonderfully like a preparation in chip +or tan of the late Mr. Spenlow. + +'Pray,' said one of the two little ladies, 'be seated.' + +When I had done tumbling over Traddles, and had sat upon something +which was not a cat - my first seat was - I so far recovered my +sight, as to perceive that Mr. Spenlow had evidently been the +youngest of the family; that there was a disparity of six or eight +years between the two sisters; and that the younger appeared to be +the manager of the conference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her +hand - so familiar as it looked to me, and yet so odd! - and was +referring to it through an eye-glass. They were dressed alike, but +this sister wore her dress with a more youthful air than the other; +and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or tucker, or brooch, or +bracelet, or some little thing of that kind, which made her look +more lively. They were both upright in their carriage, formal, +precise, composed, and quiet. The sister who had not my letter, +had her arms crossed on her breast, and resting on each other, like +an Idol. + +'Mr. Copperfield, I believe,' said the sister who had got my +letter, addressing herself to Traddles. + +This was a frightful beginning. Traddles had to indicate that I +was Mr. Copperfield, and I had to lay claim to myself, and they had +to divest themselves of a preconceived opinion that Traddles was +Mr. Copperfield, and altogether we were in a nice condition. To +improve it, we all distinctly heard Jip give two short barks, and +receive another choke. + +'Mr. Copperfield!' said the sister with the letter. + +I did something - bowed, I suppose - and was all attention, when +the other sister struck in. + +'My sister Lavinia,' said she 'being conversant with matters of +this nature, will state what we consider most calculated to promote +the happiness of both parties.' + +I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an authority in +affairs of the heart, by reason of there having anciently existed +a certain Mr. Pidger, who played short whist, and was supposed to +have been enamoured of her. My private opinion is, that this was +entirely a gratuitous assumption, and that Pidger was altogether +innocent of any such sentiments - to which he had never given any +sort of expression that I could ever hear of. Both Miss Lavinia +and Miss Clarissa had a superstition, however, that he would have +declared his passion, if he had not been cut short in his youth (at +about sixty) by over-drinking his constitution, and over-doing an +attempt to set it right again by swilling Bath water. They had a +lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though I must +say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, +which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon. + +'We will not,' said Miss Lavinia, 'enter on the past history of +this matter. Our poor brother Francis's death has cancelled that.' + +'We had not,' said Miss Clarissa, 'been in the habit of frequent +association with our brother Francis; but there was no decided +division or disunion between us. Francis took his road; we took +ours. We considered it conducive to the happiness of all parties +that it should be so. And it was so.' + +Each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak, shook her +head after speaking, and became upright again when silent. Miss +Clarissa never moved her arms. She sometimes played tunes upon +them with her fingers - minuets and marches I should think - but +never moved them. + +'Our niece's position, or supposed position, is much changed by our +brother Francis's death,' said Miss Lavinia; 'and therefore we +consider our brother's opinions as regarded her position as being +changed too. We have no reason to doubt, Mr. Copperfield, that you +are a young gentleman possessed of good qualities and honourable +character; or that you have an affection - or are fully persuaded +that you have an affection - for our niece.' + +I replied, as I usually did whenever I had a chance, that nobody +had ever loved anybody else as I loved Dora. Traddles came to my +assistance with a confirmatory murmur. + +Miss Lavinia was going on to make some rejoinder, when Miss +Clarissa, who appeared to be incessantly beset by a desire to refer +to her brother Francis, struck in again: + +'If Dora's mama,' she said, 'when she married our brother Francis, +had at once said that there was not room for the family at the +dinner-table, it would have been better for the happiness of all +parties.' + +'Sister Clarissa,' said Miss Lavinia. 'Perhaps we needn't mind +that now.' + +'Sister Lavinia,' said Miss Clarissa, 'it belongs to the subject. +With your branch of the subject, on which alone you are competent +to speak, I should not think of interfering. On this branch of the +subject I have a voice and an opinion. It would have been better +for the happiness of all parties, if Dora's mama, when she married +our brother Francis, had mentioned plainly what her intentions +were. We should then have known what we had to expect. We should +have said "Pray do not invite us, at any time"; and all possibility +of misunderstanding would have been avoided.' + +When Miss Clarissa had shaken her head, Miss Lavinia resumed: again +referring to my letter through her eye-glass. They both had little +bright round twinkling eyes, by the way, which were like birds' +eyes. They were not unlike birds, altogether; having a sharp, +brisk, sudden manner, and a little short, spruce way of adjusting +themselves, like canaries. + +Miss Lavinia, as I have said, resumed: + +'You ask permission of my sister Clarissa and myself, Mr. +Copperfield, to visit here, as the accepted suitor of our niece.' + +'If our brother Francis,' said Miss Clarissa, breaking out again, +if I may call anything so calm a breaking out, 'wished to surround +himself with an atmosphere of Doctors' Commons, and of Doctors' +Commons only, what right or desire had we to object? None, I am +sure. We have ever been far from wishing to obtrude ourselves on +anyone. But why not say so? Let our brother Francis and his wife +have their society. Let my sister Lavinia and myself have our +society. We can find it for ourselves, I hope.' + +As this appeared to be addressed to Traddles and me, both Traddles +and I made some sort of reply. Traddles was inaudible. I think I +observed, myself, that it was highly creditable to all concerned. +I don't in the least know what I meant. + +'Sister Lavinia,' said Miss Clarissa, having now relieved her mind, +'you can go on, my dear.' + +Miss Lavinia proceeded: + +'Mr. Copperfield, my sister Clarissa and I have been very careful +indeed in considering this letter; and we have not considered it +without finally showing it to our niece, and discussing it with our +niece. We have no doubt that you think you like her very much.' + +'Think, ma'am,' I rapturously began, 'oh! -' + +But Miss Clarissa giving me a look (just like a sharp canary), as +requesting that I would not interrupt the oracle, I begged pardon. + +'Affection,' said Miss Lavinia, glancing at her sister for +corroboration, which she gave in the form of a little nod to every +clause, 'mature affection, homage, devotion, does not easily +express itself. Its voice is low. It is modest and retiring, it +lies in ambush, waits and waits. Such is the mature fruit. +Sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still ripening in the +shade.' + +Of course I did not understand then that this was an allusion to +her supposed experience of the stricken Pidger; but I saw, from the +gravity with which Miss Clarissa nodded her head, that great weight +was attached to these words. + +'The light - for I call them, in comparison with such sentiments, +the light - inclinations of very young people,' pursued Miss +Lavinia, 'are dust, compared to rocks. It is owing to the +difficulty of knowing whether they are likely to endure or have any +real foundation, that my sister Clarissa and myself have been very +undecided how to act, Mr. Copperfield, and Mr. -' + +'Traddles,' said my friend, finding himself looked at. + +'I beg pardon. Of the Inner Temple, I believe?' said Miss +Clarissa, again glancing at my letter. + +Traddles said 'Exactly so,' and became pretty red in the face. + +Now, although I had not received any express encouragement as yet, +I fancied that I saw in the two little sisters, and particularly in +Miss Lavinia, an intensified enjoyment of this new and fruitful +subject of domestic interest, a settling down to make the most of +it, a disposition to pet it, in which there was a good bright ray +of hope. I thought I perceived that Miss Lavinia would have +uncommon satisfaction in superintending two young lovers, like Dora +and me; and that Miss Clarissa would have hardly less satisfaction +in seeing her superintend us, and in chiming in with her own +particular department of the subject whenever that impulse was +strong upon her. This gave me courage to protest most vehemently +that I loved Dora better than I could tell, or anyone believe; that +all my friends knew how I loved her; that my aunt, Agnes, Traddles, +everyone who knew me, knew how I loved her, and how earnest my love +had made me. For the truth of this, I appealed to Traddles. And +Traddles, firing up as if he were plunging into a Parliamentary +Debate, really did come out nobly: confirming me in good round +terms, and in a plain sensible practical manner, that evidently +made a favourable impression. + +'I speak, if I may presume to say so, as one who has some little +experience of such things,' said Traddles, 'being myself engaged to +a young lady - one of ten, down in Devonshire - and seeing no +probability, at present, of our engagement coming to a +termination.' + +'You may be able to confirm what I have said, Mr. Traddles,' +observed Miss Lavinia, evidently taking a new interest in him, 'of +the affection that is modest and retiring; that waits and waits?' + +'Entirely, ma'am,' said Traddles. + +Miss Clarissa looked at Miss Lavinia, and shook her head gravely. +Miss Lavinia looked consciously at Miss Clarissa, and heaved a +little sigh. +'Sister Lavinia,' said Miss Clarissa, 'take my smelling-bottle.' + +Miss Lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aromatic vinegar +- Traddles and I looking on with great solicitude the while; and +then went on to say, rather faintly: + +'My sister and myself have been in great doubt, Mr. Traddles, what +course we ought to take in reference to the likings, or imaginary +likings, of such very young people as your friend Mr. Copperfield +and our niece.' + +'Our brother Francis's child,' remarked Miss Clarissa. 'If our +brother Francis's wife had found it convenient in her lifetime +(though she had an unquestionable right to act as she thought best) +to invite the family to her dinner-table, we might have known our +brother Francis's child better at the present moment. Sister +Lavinia, proceed.' + +Miss Lavinia turned my letter, so as to bring the superscription +towards herself, and referred through her eye-glass to some +orderly-looking notes she had made on that part of it. + +'It seems to us,' said she, 'prudent, Mr. Traddles, to bring these +feelings to the test of our own observation. At present we know +nothing of them, and are not in a situation to judge how much +reality there may be in them. Therefore we are inclined so far to +accede to Mr. Copperfield's proposal, as to admit his visits here.' + +'I shall never, dear ladies,' I exclaimed, relieved of an immense +load of apprehension, 'forget your kindness!' + +'But,' pursued Miss Lavinia, - 'but, we would prefer to regard +those visits, Mr. Traddles, as made, at present, to us. We must +guard ourselves from recognizing any positive engagement between +Mr. Copperfield and our niece, until we have had an opportunity -' + +'Until YOU have had an opportunity, sister Lavinia,' said Miss +Clarissa. + +'Be it so,' assented Miss Lavinia, with a sigh - 'until I have had +an opportunity of observing them.' + +'Copperfield,' said Traddles, turning to me, 'you feel, I am sure, +that nothing could be more reasonable or considerate.' + +'Nothing!' cried I. 'I am deeply sensible of it.' + +'In this position of affairs,' said Miss Lavinia, again referring +to her notes, 'and admitting his visits on this understanding only, +we must require from Mr. Copperfield a distinct assurance, on his +word of honour, that no communication of any kind shall take place +between him and our niece without our knowledge. That no project +whatever shall be entertained with regard to our niece, without +being first submitted to us -' +'To you, sister Lavinia,' Miss Clarissa interposed. + +'Be it so, Clarissa!' assented Miss Lavinia resignedly - 'to me - +and receiving our concurrence. We must make this a most express +and serious stipulation, not to be broken on any account. We +wished Mr. Copperfield to be accompanied by some confidential +friend today,' with an inclination of her head towards Traddles, +who bowed, 'in order that there might be no doubt or misconception +on this subject. If Mr. Copperfield, or if you, Mr. Traddles, feel +the least scruple, in giving this promise, I beg you to take time +to consider it.' + +I exclaimed, in a state of high ecstatic fervour, that not a +moment's consideration could be necessary. I bound myself by the +required promise, in a most impassioned manner; called upon +Traddles to witness it; and denounced myself as the most atrocious +of characters if I ever swerved from it in the least degree. + +'Stay!' said Miss Lavinia, holding up her hand; 'we resolved, +before we had the pleasure of receiving you two gentlemen, to leave +you alone for a quarter of an hour, to consider this point. You +will allow us to retire.' + +It was in vain for me to say that no consideration was necessary. +They persisted in withdrawing for the specified time. Accordingly, +these little birds hopped out with great dignity; leaving me to +receive the congratulations of Traddles, and to feel as if I were +translated to regions of exquisite happiness. Exactly at the +expiration of the quarter of an hour, they reappeared with no less +dignity than they had disappeared. They had gone rustling away as +if their little dresses were made of autumn-leaves: and they came +rustling back, in like manner. + +I then bound myself once more to the prescribed conditions. + +'Sister Clarissa,' said Miss Lavinia, 'the rest is with you.' + +Miss Clarissa, unfolding her arms for the first time, took the +notes and glanced at them. + +'We shall be happy,' said Miss Clarissa, 'to see Mr. Copperfield to +dinner, every Sunday, if it should suit his convenience. Our hour +is three.' + +I bowed. + +'In the course of the week,' said Miss Clarissa, 'we shall be happy +to see Mr. Copperfield to tea. Our hour is half-past six.' + +I bowed again. + +'Twice in the week,' said Miss Clarissa, 'but, as a rule, not +oftener.' + +I bowed again. + +'Miss Trotwood,' said Miss Clarissa, 'mentioned in Mr. +Copperfield's letter, will perhaps call upon us. When visiting is +better for the happiness of all parties, we are glad to receive +visits, and return them. When it is better for the happiness of +all parties that no visiting should take place, (as in the case of +our brother Francis, and his establishment) that is quite +different.' + +I intimated that my aunt would be proud and delighted to make their +acquaintance; though I must say I was not quite sure of their +getting on very satisfactorily together. The conditions being now +closed, I expressed my acknowledgements in the warmest manner; and, +taking the hand, first of Miss Clarissa, and then of Miss Lavinia, +pressed it, in each case, to my lips. + +Miss Lavinia then arose, and begging Mr. Traddles to excuse us for +a minute, requested me to follow her. I obeyed, all in a tremble, +and was conducted into another room. There I found my blessed +darling stopping her ears behind the door, with her dear little +face against the wall; and Jip in the plate-warmer with his head +tied up in a towel. + +Oh! How beautiful she was in her black frock, and how she sobbed +and cried at first, and wouldn't come out from behind the door! +How fond we were of one another, when she did come out at last; and +what a state of bliss I was in, when we took Jip out of the +plate-warmer, and restored him to the light, sneezing very much, +and were all three reunited! + +'My dearest Dora! Now, indeed, my own for ever!' + +'Oh, DON'T!' pleaded Dora. 'Please!' + +'Are you not my own for ever, Dora?' + +'Oh yes, of course I am!' cried Dora, 'but I am so frightened!' + +'Frightened, my own?' + +'Oh yes! I don't like him,' said Dora. 'Why don't he go?' + +'Who, my life?' + +'Your friend,' said Dora. 'It isn't any business of his. What a +stupid he must be!' + +'My love!' (There never was anything so coaxing as her childish +ways.) 'He is the best creature!' + +'Oh, but we don't want any best creatures!' pouted Dora. + +'My dear,' I argued, 'you will soon know him well, and like him of +all things. And here is my aunt coming soon; and you'll like her +of all things too, when you know her.' + +'No, please don't bring her!' said Dora, giving me a horrified +little kiss, and folding her hands. 'Don't. I know she's a +naughty, mischief-making old thing! Don't let her come here, +Doady!' which was a corruption of David. + +Remonstrance was of no use, then; so I laughed, and admired, and +was very much in love and very happy; and she showed me Jip's new +trick of standing on his hind legs in a corner - which he did for +about the space of a flash of lightning, and then fell down - and +I don't know how long I should have stayed there, oblivious of +Traddles, if Miss Lavinia had not come in to take me away. Miss +Lavinia was very fond of Dora (she told me Dora was exactly like +what she had been herself at her age - she must have altered a good +deal), and she treated Dora just as if she had been a toy. I +wanted to persuade Dora to come and see Traddles, but on my +proposing it she ran off to her own room and locked herself in; so +I went to Traddles without her, and walked away with him on air. + +'Nothing could be more satisfactory,' said Traddles; 'and they are +very agreeable old ladies, I am sure. I shouldn't be at all +surprised if you were to be married years before me, Copperfield.' + +'Does your Sophy play on any instrument, Traddles?' I inquired, in +the pride of my heart. + +'She knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters,' +said Traddles. + +'Does she sing at all?' I asked. + +'Why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to freshen up the others a +little when they're out of spirits,' said Traddles. 'Nothing +scientific.' + +'She doesn't sing to the guitar?' said I. + +'Oh dear no!' said Traddles. + +'Paint at all?' + +'Not at all,' said Traddles. + +I promised Traddles that he should hear Dora sing, and see some of +her flower-painting. He said he should like it very much, and we +went home arm in arm in great good humour and delight. I +encouraged him to talk about Sophy, on the way; which he did with +a loving reliance on her that I very much admired. I compared her +in my mind with Dora, with considerable inward satisfaction; but I +candidly admitted to myself that she seemed to be an excellent kind +of girl for Traddles, too. + +Of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted with the +successful issue of the conference, and with all that had been said +and done in the course of it. She was happy to see me so happy, +and promised to call on Dora's aunts without loss of time. But she +took such a long walk up and down our rooms that night, while I was +writing to Agnes, that I began to think she meant to walk till +morning. + +My letter to Agnes was a fervent and grateful one, narrating all +the good effects that had resulted from my following her advice. +She wrote, by return of post, to me. Her letter was hopeful, +earnest, and cheerful. She was always cheerful from that time. + +I had my hands more full than ever, now. My daily journeys to +Highgate considered, Putney was a long way off; and I naturally +wanted to go there as often as I could. The proposed tea-drinkings +being quite impracticable, I compounded with Miss Lavinia for +permission to visit every Saturday afternoon, without detriment to +my privileged Sundays. So, the close of every week was a delicious +time for me; and I got through the rest of the week by looking +forward to it. + +I was wonderfully relieved to find that my aunt and Dora's aunts +rubbed on, all things considered, much more smoothly than I could +have expected. My aunt made her promised visit within a few days +of the conference; and within a few more days, Dora's aunts called +upon her, in due state and form. Similar but more friendly +exchanges took place afterwards, usually at intervals of three or +four weeks. I know that my aunt distressed Dora's aunts very much, +by utterly setting at naught the dignity of fly-conveyance, and +walking out to Putney at extraordinary times, as shortly after +breakfast or just before tea; likewise by wearing her bonnet in any +manner that happened to be comfortable to her head, without at all +deferring to the prejudices of civilization on that subject. But +Dora's aunts soon agreed to regard my aunt as an eccentric and +somewhat masculine lady, with a strong understanding; and although +my aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of Dora's aunts, by +expressing heretical opinions on various points of ceremony, she +loved me too well not to sacrifice some of her little peculiarities +to the general harmony. + +The only member of our small society who positively refused to +adapt himself to circumstances, was Jip. He never saw my aunt +without immediately displaying every tooth in his head, retiring +under a chair, and growling incessantly: with now and then a +doleful howl, as if she really were too much for his feelings. All +kinds of treatment were tried with him, coaxing, scolding, +slapping, bringing him to Buckingham Street (where he instantly +dashed at the two cats, to the terror of all beholders); but he +never could prevail upon himself to bear my aunt's society. He +would sometimes think he had got the better of his objection, and +be amiable for a few minutes; and then would put up his snub nose, +and howl to that extent, that there was nothing for it but to blind +him and put him in the plate-warmer. At length, Dora regularly +muffled him in a towel and shut him up there, whenever my aunt was +reported at the door. + +One thing troubled me much, after we had fallen into this quiet +train. It was, that Dora seemed by one consent to be regarded like +a pretty toy or plaything. My aunt, with whom she gradually became +familiar, always called her Little Blossom; and the pleasure of +Miss Lavinia's life was to wait upon her, curl her hair, make +ornaments for her, and treat her like a pet child. What Miss +Lavinia did, her sister did as a matter of course. It was very odd +to me; but they all seemed to treat Dora, in her degree, much as +Dora treated Jip in his. + +I made up my mind to speak to Dora about this; and one day when we +were out walking (for we were licensed by Miss Lavinia, after a +while, to go out walking by ourselves), I said to her that I wished +she could get them to behave towards her differently. + +'Because you know, my darling,' I remonstrated, 'you are not a +child.' + +'There!' said Dora. 'Now you're going to be cross!' + +'Cross, my love?' + +'I am sure they're very kind to me,' said Dora, 'and I am very +happy -' + +'Well! But my dearest life!' said I, 'you might be very happy, and +yet be treated rationally.' + +Dora gave me a reproachful look - the prettiest look! - and then +began to sob, saying, if I didn't like her, why had I ever wanted +so much to be engaged to her? And why didn't I go away, now, if I +couldn't bear her? + +What could I do, but kiss away her tears, and tell her how I doted +on her, after that! + +'I am sure I am very affectionate,' said Dora; 'you oughtn't to be +cruel to me, Doady!' + +'Cruel, my precious love! As if I would - or could - be cruel to +you, for the world!' + +'Then don't find fault with me,' said Dora, making a rosebud of her +mouth; 'and I'll be good.' + +I was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own accord, to +give her that cookery-book I had once spoken of, and to show her +how to keep accounts as I had once promised I would. I brought the +volume with me on my next visit (I got it prettily bound, first, to +make it look less dry and more inviting); and as we strolled about +the Common, I showed her an old housekeeping-book of my aunt's, and +gave her a set of tablets, and a pretty little pencil-case and box +of leads, to practise housekeeping with. + +But the cookery-book made Dora's head ache, and the figures made +her cry. They wouldn't add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, +and drew little nosegays and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the +tablets. + +Then I playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic matters, as +we walked about on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes, for example, +when we passed a butcher's shop, I would say: + +'Now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you were going to +buy a shoulder of mutton for dinner, would you know how to buy it?' + +My pretty little Dora's face would fall, and she would make her +mouth into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut +mine with a kiss. + +'Would you know how to buy it, my darling?' I would repeat, +perhaps, if I were very inflexible. + +Dora would think a little, and then reply, perhaps, with great +triumph: + +'Why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what need I know? +Oh, you silly boy!' + +So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the cookery-book, what +she would do, if we were married, and I were to say I should like +a nice Irish stew, she replied that she would tell the servant to +make it; and then clapped her little hands together across my arm, +and laughed in such a charming manner that she was more delightful +than ever. + +Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was +devoted, was being put down in the corner for Jip to stand upon. +But Dora was so pleased, when she had trained him to stand upon it +without offering to come off, and at the same time to hold the +pencil-case in his mouth, that I was very glad I had bought it. + +And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-painting, and +the songs about never leaving off dancing, Ta ra la! and were as +happy as the week was long. I occasionally wished I could venture +to hint to Miss Lavinia, that she treated the darling of my heart +a little too much like a plaything; and I sometimes awoke, as it +were, wondering to find that I had fallen into the general fault, +and treated her like a plaything too - but not often. + + + +CHAPTER 42 +MISCHIEF + +I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this +manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at +that tremendous short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, +in my sense of responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only +add, to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time +of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began +to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of +my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on +looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very +fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and +not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have +done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, +without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a +time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its +heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no +spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I +do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been +a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of +many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and +perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and +defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I +have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried +to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that +whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to +completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been +thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any +natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the +companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and +hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on +this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may +form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the +rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; +and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere +earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could +throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, +whatever it was; I find, now, to have been my golden rules. + +How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to +Agnes, I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, +with a thankful love. + +She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor's. Mr. Wickfield +was the Doctor's old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with +him, and do him good. It had been matter of conversation with +Agnes when she was last in town, and this visit was the result. +She and her father came together. I was not much surprised to hear +from her that she had engaged to find a lodging in the +neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic complaint required +change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in such company. +Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day, Uriah, like a +dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession. + +'You see, Master Copperfield,' said he, as he forced himself upon +my company for a turn in the Doctor's garden, 'where a person +loves, a person is a little jealous - leastways, anxious to keep an +eye on the beloved one.' + +'Of whom are you jealous, now?' said I. + +'Thanks to you, Master Copperfield,' he returned, 'of no one in +particular just at present - no male person, at least.' + +'Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?' + +He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and +laughed. + +'Really, Master Copperfield,' he said, '- I should say Mister, but +I know you'll excuse the abit I've got into - you're so +insinuating, that you draw me like a corkscrew! Well, I don't mind +telling you,' putting his fish-like hand on mine, 'I'm not a lady's +man in general, sir, and I never was, with Mrs. Strong.' + +His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally +cunning. + +'What do you mean?' said I. + +'Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield,' he replied, with +a dry grin, 'I mean, just at present, what I say.' + +'And what do you mean by your look?' I retorted, quietly. + +'By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that's sharp practice! What do +I mean by my look?' + +'Yes,' said I. 'By your look.' + +He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in +his nature to laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his +hand, he went on to say, with his eyes cast downward - still +scraping, very slowly: + +'When I was but an umble clerk, she always looked down upon me. +She was for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her +ouse, and she was for ever being a friend to you, Master +Copperfield; but I was too far beneath her, myself, to be noticed.' + +'Well?' said I; 'suppose you were!' + +'- And beneath him too,' pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a +meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin. + +'Don't you know the Doctor better,' said I, 'than to suppose him +conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?' + +He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he +made his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of +scraping, as he answered: + +'Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I +mean Mr. Maldon!' + +My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions +on that subject, all the Doctor's happiness and peace, all the +mingled possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not +unravel, I saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow's +twisting. + +'He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving +me about,' said Uriah. 'One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was +very meek and umble - and I am. But I didn't like that sort of +thing - and I don't!' + +He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they +seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the +while. + +'She is one of your lovely women, she is,' he pursued, when he had +slowly restored his face to its natural form; 'and ready to be no +friend to such as me, I know. She's just the person as would put +my Agnes up to higher sort of game. Now, I ain't one of your +lady's men, Master Copperfield; but I've had eyes in my ed, a +pretty long time back. We umble ones have got eyes, mostly +speaking - and we look out of 'em.' + +I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw +in his face, with poor success. + +'Now, I'm not a-going to let myself be run down, Copperfield,' he +continued, raising that part of his countenance, where his red +eyebrows would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, +'and I shall do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I +don't approve of it. I don't mind acknowledging to you that I've +got rather a grudging disposition, and want to keep off all +intruders. I ain't a-going, if I know it, to run the risk of being +plotted against.' + +'You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that +everybody else is doing the like, I think,' said I. + +'Perhaps so, Master Copperfield,' he replied. 'But I've got a +motive, as my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and +nail. I mustn't be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I +can't allow people in my way. Really they must come out of the +cart, Master Copperfield!' + +'I don't understand you,' said I. + +'Don't you, though?' he returned, with one of his jerks. 'I'm +astonished at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick! +I'll try to be plainer, another time. - Is that Mr. Maldon +a-norseback, ringing at the gate, sir?' + +'It looks like him,' I replied, as carelessly as I could. + +Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of +knees, and doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent +laughter. Not a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his +odious behaviour, particularly by this concluding instance, that I +turned away without any ceremony; and left him doubled up in the +middle of the garden, like a scarecrow in want of support. + +It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next +evening but one, which was a Sunday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. +I had arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes +was expected to tea. + +I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little +betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to +Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I +pictured Dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks I knew so +well; now making up my mind that I should like her to look exactly +as she looked at such a time, and then doubting whether I should +not prefer her looking as she looked at such another time; and +almost worrying myself into a fever about it. + +I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; +but it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was +not in the drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, +but was shyly keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for +her, now; and sure enough I found her stopping her ears again, +behind the same dull old door. + +At first she wouldn't come at all; and then she pleaded for five +minutes by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, +to be taken to the drawing-room, her charming little face was +flushed, and had never been so pretty. But, when we went into the +room, and it turned pale, she was ten thousand times prettier yet. + +Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was +'too clever'. But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and +so earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little +cry of pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round +Agnes's neck, and laid her innocent cheek against her face. + +I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those +two sit down together, side by side. As when I saw my little +darling looking up so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I +saw the tender, beautiful regard which Agnes cast upon her. + +Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. +It was the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa +presided. I cut and handed the sweet seed-cake - the little +sisters had a bird-like fondness for picking up seeds and pecking +at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked on with benignant patronage, as if +our happy love were all her work; and we were perfectly contented +with ourselves and one another. + +The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her +quiet interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of +making acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly); her +pleasant way, when Dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat +by me; her modest grace and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing +little marks of confidence from Dora; seemed to make our circle +quite complete. + +'I am so glad,' said Dora, after tea, 'that you like me. I didn't +think you would; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now Julia +Mills is gone.' + +I have omitted to mention it, by the by. Miss Mills had sailed, +and Dora and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend +to see her; and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other +delicacies of that sort for lunch; and we had left Miss Mills +weeping on a camp-stool on the quarter-deck, with a large new diary +under her arm, in which the original reflections awakened by the +contemplation of Ocean were to be recorded under lock and key. + +Agnes said she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising +character; but Dora corrected that directly. + +'Oh no!' she said, shaking her curls at me; 'it was all praise. He +thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of it.' + +'My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people +whom he knows,' said Agnes, with a smile; 'it is not worth their +having.' + +'But please let me have it,' said Dora, in her coaxing way, 'if you +can!' + +We made merry about Dora's wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was +a goose, and she didn't like me at any rate, and the short evening +flew away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach +was to call for us. I was standing alone before the fire, when +Dora came stealing softly in, to give me that usual precious little +kiss before I went. + +'Don't you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, +Doady,' said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her +little right hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my +coat, 'I might have been more clever perhaps?' + +'My love!' said I, 'what nonsense!' + +'Do you think it is nonsense?' returned Dora, without looking at +me. 'Are you sure it is?' + +'Of course I am!' +'I have forgotten,' said Dora, still turning the button round and +round, 'what relation Agnes is to you, you dear bad boy.' + +'No blood-relation,' I replied; 'but we were brought up together, +like brother and sister.' + +'I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?' said Dora, beginning +on another button of my coat. + +'Perhaps because I couldn't see you, and not love you, Dora!' + +'Suppose you had never seen me at all,' said Dora, going to another +button. + +'Suppose we had never been born!' said I, gaily. + +I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring +silence at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on +my coat, and at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and +at the lashes of her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they +followed her idle fingers. At length her eyes were lifted up to +mine, and she stood on tiptoe to give me, more thoughtfully than +usual, that precious little kiss - once, twice, three times - and +went out of the room. + +They all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and +Dora's unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. She was +laughingly resolved to put Jip through the whole of his +performances, before the coach came. They took some time (not so +much on account of their variety, as Jip's reluctance), and were +still unfinished when it was heard at the door. There was a +hurried but affectionate parting between Agnes and herself; and +Dora was to write to Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being +foolish, she said), and Agnes was to write to Dora; and they had a +second parting at the coach door, and a third when Dora, in spite +of the remonstrances of Miss Lavinia, would come running out once +more to remind Agnes at the coach window about writing, and to +shake her curls at me on the box. + +The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we +were to take another stage-coach for Highgate. I was impatient for +the short walk in the interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. +Ah! what praise it was! How lovingly and fervently did it commend +the pretty creature I had won, with all her artless graces best +displayed, to my most gentle care! How thoughtfully remind me, yet +with no pretence of doing so, of the trust in which I held the +orphan child! + +Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as I loved her +that night. When we had again alighted, and were walking in the +starlight along the quiet road that led to the Doctor's house, I +told Agnes it was her doing. + +'When you were sitting by her,' said I, 'you seemed to be no less +her guardian angel than mine; and you seem so now, Agnes.' + +'A poor angel,' she returned, 'but faithful.' + +The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it +natural to me to say: + +'The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no one else +that ever I have seen), is so restored, I have observed today, that +I have begun to hope you are happier at home?' + +'I am happier in myself,' she said; 'I am quite cheerful and +light-hearted.' + +I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the +stars that made it seem so noble. + +'There has been no change at home,' said Agnes, after a few +moments. + +'No fresh reference,' said I, 'to - I wouldn't distress you, Agnes, +but I cannot help asking - to what we spoke of, when we parted +last?' + +'No, none,' she answered. + +'I have thought so much about it.' + +'You must think less about it. Remember that I confide in simple +love and truth at last. Have no apprehensions for me, Trotwood,' +she added, after a moment; 'the step you dread my taking, I shall +never take.' + +Although I think I had never really feared it, in any season of +cool reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me to have this +assurance from her own truthful lips. I told her so, earnestly. + +'And when this visit is over,' said I, - 'for we may not be alone +another time, - how long is it likely to be, my dear Agnes, before +you come to London again?' + +'Probably a long time,' she replied; 'I think it will be best - for +papa's sake - to remain at home. We are not likely to meet often, +for some time to come; but I shall be a good correspondent of +Dora's, and we shall frequently hear of one another that way.' + +We were now within the little courtyard of the Doctor's cottage. +It was growing late. There was a light in the window of Mrs. +Strong's chamber, and Agnes, pointing to it, bade me good night. + +'Do not be troubled,' she said, giving me her hand, 'by our +misfortunes and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in +your happiness. If you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will +ask you for it. God bless you always!' +In her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her cheerful +voice, I seemed again to see and hear my little Dora in her +company. I stood awhile, looking through the porch at the stars, +with a heart full of love and gratitude, and then walked slowly +forth. I had engaged a bed at a decent alehouse close by, and was +going out at the gate, when, happening to turn my head, I saw a +light in the Doctor's study. A half-reproachful fancy came into my +mind, that he had been working at the Dictionary without my help. +With the view of seeing if this were so, and, in any case, of +bidding him good night, if he were yet sitting among his books, I +turned back, and going softly across the hall, and gently opening +the door, looked in. + +The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of +the shaded lamp, was Uriah. He was standing close beside it, with +one of his skeleton hands over his mouth, and the other resting on +the Doctor's table. The Doctor sat in his study chair, covering +his face with his hands. Mr. Wickfield, sorely troubled and +distressed, was leaning forward, irresolutely touching the Doctor's +arm. + +For an instant, I supposed that the Doctor was ill. I hastily +advanced a step under that impression, when I met Uriah's eye, and +saw what was the matter. I would have withdrawn, but the Doctor +made a gesture to detain me, and I remained. + +'At any rate,' observed Uriah, with a writhe of his ungainly +person, 'we may keep the door shut. We needn't make it known to +ALL the town.' + +Saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which I had left +open, and carefully closed it. He then came back, and took up his +former position. There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal +in his voice and manner, more intolerable - at least to me - than +any demeanour he could have assumed. + +'I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah, +'to point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked +about. You didn't exactly understand me, though?' + +I gave him a look, but no other answer; and, going to my good old +master, said a few words that I meant to be words of comfort and +encouragement. He put his hand upon my shoulder, as it had been +his custom to do when I was quite a little fellow, but did not lift +his grey head. + +'As you didn't understand me, Master Copperfield,' resumed Uriah in +the same officious manner, 'I may take the liberty of umbly +mentioning, being among friends, that I have called Doctor Strong's +attention to the goings-on of Mrs. Strong. It's much against the +grain with me, I assure you, Copperfield, to be concerned in +anything so unpleasant; but really, as it is, we're all mixing +ourselves up with what oughtn't to be. That was what my meaning +was, sir, when you didn't understand me.' +I wonder now, when I recall his leer, that I did not collar him, +and try to shake the breath out of his body. + +'I dare say I didn't make myself very clear,' he went on, 'nor you +neither. Naturally, we was both of us inclined to give such a +subject a wide berth. Hows'ever, at last I have made up my mind to +speak plain; and I have mentioned to Doctor Strong that - did you +speak, sir?' + +This was to the Doctor, who had moaned. The sound might have +touched any heart, I thought, but it had no effect upon Uriah's. + +'- mentioned to Doctor Strong,' he proceeded, 'that anyone may see +that Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Doctor +Strong's wife, are too sweet on one another. Really the time is +come (we being at present all mixing ourselves up with what +oughtn't to be), when Doctor Strong must be told that this was full +as plain to everybody as the sun, before Mr. Maldon went to India; +that Mr. Maldon made excuses to come back, for nothing else; and +that he's always here, for nothing else. When you come in, sir, I +was just putting it to my fellow-partner,' towards whom he turned, +'to say to Doctor Strong upon his word and honour, whether he'd +ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. Come, Mr. Wickfield, +sir! Would you be so good as tell us? Yes or no, sir? Come, +partner!' + +'For God's sake, my dear Doctor,' said Mr. Wickfield again laying +his irresolute hand upon the Doctor's arm, 'don't attach too much +weight to any suspicions I may have entertained.' + +'There!' cried Uriah, shaking his head. 'What a melancholy +confirmation: ain't it? Him! Such an old friend! Bless your +soul, when I was nothing but a clerk in his office, Copperfield, +I've seen him twenty times, if I've seen him once, quite in a +taking about it - quite put out, you know (and very proper in him +as a father; I'm sure I can't blame him), to think that Miss Agnes +was mixing herself up with what oughtn't to be.' + +'My dear Strong,' said Mr. Wickfield in a tremulous voice, 'my good +friend, I needn't tell you that it has been my vice to look for +some one master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one +narrow test. I may have fallen into such doubts as I have had, +through this mistake.' + +'You have had doubts, Wickfield,' said the Doctor, without lifting +up his head. 'You have had doubts.' + +'Speak up, fellow-partner,' urged Uriah. + +'I had, at one time, certainly,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'I - God +forgive me - I thought YOU had.' + +'No, no, no!' returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic +grief. +'I thought, at one time,' said Mr. Wickfield, 'that you wished to +send Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation.' + +'No, no, no!' returned the Doctor. 'To give Annie pleasure, by +making some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing +else.' + +'So I found,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'I couldn't doubt it, when you +told me so. But I thought - I implore you to remember the narrow +construction which has been my besetting sin - that, in a case +where there was so much disparity in point of years -' + +'That's the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield!' observed +Uriah, with fawning and offensive pity. + +'- a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her +respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly +considerations only. I make no allowance for innumerable feelings +and circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven's +sake remember that!' + +'How kind he puts it!' said Uriah, shaking his head. + +'Always observing her from one point of view,' said Mr. Wickfield; +'but by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to +consider what it was; I am forced to confess now, having no escape +-' + +'No! There's no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir,' observed +Uriah, 'when it's got to this.' + +'- that I did,' said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and +distractedly at his partner, 'that I did doubt her, and think her +wanting in her duty to you; and that I did sometimes, if I must say +all, feel averse to Agnes being in such a familiar relation towards +her, as to see what I saw, or in my diseased theory fancied that I +saw. I never mentioned this to anyone. I never meant it to be +known to anyone. And though it is terrible to you to hear,' said +Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, 'if you knew how terrible it is for +me to tell, you would feel compassion for me!' + +The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his +hand. Mr. Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his +head bowed down. + +'I am sure,' said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a +Conger-eel, 'that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to +everybody. But since we have got so far, I ought to take the +liberty of mentioning that Copperfield has noticed it too.' + +I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me! + +'Oh! it's very kind of you, Copperfield,' returned Uriah, +undulating all over, 'and we all know what an amiable character +yours is; but you know that the moment I spoke to you the other +night, you knew what I meant. You know you knew what I meant, +Copperfield. Don't deny it! You deny it with the best intentions; +but don't do it, Copperfield.' + +I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a +moment, and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and +remembrances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. +It was of no use raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would, +I could not unsay it. + +We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and +walked twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to +where his chair stood; and, leaning on the back of it, and +occasionally putting his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple +honesty that did him more honour, to my thinking, than any disguise +he could have effected, said: + +'I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to +blame. I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart, to trials and +aspersions - I call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in +anybody's inmost mind - of which she never, but for me, could have +been the object.' + +Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy. + +'Of which my Annie,' said the Doctor, 'never, but for me, could +have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know; I do +not feel, tonight, that I have much to live for. But my life - my +Life - upon the truth and honour of the dear lady who has been the +subject of this conversation!' + +I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the +realization of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever +imagined by painter, could have said this, with a more impressive +and affecting dignity than the plain old Doctor did. + +'But I am not prepared,' he went on, 'to deny - perhaps I may have +been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit - that +I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. +I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe +that the observation of several people, of different ages and +positions, all too plainly tending in one direction (and that so +natural), is better than mine.' + +I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant +manner towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness he +manifested in every reference to her on this occasion, and the +almost reverential manner in which he put away from him the +lightest doubt of her integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond +description. + +'I married that lady,' said the Doctor, 'when she was extremely +young. I took her to myself when her character was scarcely +formed. So far as it was developed, it had been my happiness to +form it. I knew her father well. I knew her well. I had taught +her what I could, for the love of all her beautiful and virtuous +qualities. If I did her wrong; as I fear I did, in taking +advantage (but I never meant it) of her gratitude and her +affection; I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!' + +He walked across the room, and came back to the same place; holding +the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in +its earnestness. + +'I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and +vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we +were in years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. +I did not shut out of my consideration the time when I should leave +her free, and still young and still beautiful, but with her +judgement more matured - no, gentlemen - upon my truth!' + +His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and +generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace +could have imparted to it. + +'My life with this lady has been very happy. Until tonight, I have +had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her +great injustice.' + +His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, +stopped for a few moments; then he went on: + +'Once awakened from my dream - I have been a poor dreamer, in one +way or other, all my life - I see how natural it is that she should +have some regretful feeling towards her old companion and her +equal. That she does regard him with some innocent regret, with +some blameless thoughts of what might have been, but for me, is, I +fear, too true. Much that I have seen, but not noted, has come +back upon me with new meaning, during this last trying hour. But, +beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady's name never must be coupled +with a word, a breath, of doubt.' + +For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a +little while he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as +before: + +'It only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness +I have occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should +reproach; not I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel +misconstruction, that even my friends have not been able to avoid, +becomes my duty. The more retired we live, the better I shall +discharge it. And when the time comes - may it come soon, if it be +His merciful pleasure! - when my death shall release her from +constraint, I shall close my eyes upon her honoured face, with +unbounded confidence and love; and leave her, with no sorrow then, +to happier and brighter days.' + +I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and +goodness, so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of +his manner, brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door, when +he added: + +'Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect +it. What we have said tonight is never to be said more. +Wickfield, give me an old friend's arm upstairs!' + +Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they +went slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them. + +'Well, Master Copperfield!' said Uriah, meekly turning to me. 'The +thing hasn't took quite the turn that might have been expected, for +the old Scholar - what an excellent man! - is as blind as a +brickbat; but this family's out of the cart, I think!' + +I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I +never was before, and never have been since. + +'You villain,' said I, 'what do you mean by entrapping me into your +schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as +if we had been in discussion together?' + +As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy +exultation of his face, what I already so plainly knew; I mean that +he forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, +and had set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter; that I +couldn't bear it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly +before me, and I struck it with my open hand with that force that +my fingers tingled as if I had burnt them. + +He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connexion, looking +at each other. We stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see +the white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, +and leave it a deeper red. + +'Copperfield,' he said at length, in a breathless voice, 'have you +taken leave of your senses?' + +'I have taken leave of you,' said I, wresting my hand away. 'You +dog, I'll know no more of you.' + +'Won't you?' said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put +his hand there. 'Perhaps you won't be able to help it. Isn't this +ungrateful of you, now?' + +'I have shown you often enough,' said I, 'that I despise you. I +have shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread +your doing your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?' + +He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that +had hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather +think that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped +me, but for the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is +no matter. + +There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed +to take every shade of colour that could make eyes ugly. + +'Copperfield,' he said, removing his hand from his cheek, 'you have +always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at +Mr. Wickfield's.' + +'You may think what you like,' said I, still in a towering rage. +'If it is not true, so much the worthier you.' + +'And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!' he rejoined. + +I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going +out to bed, when he came between me and the door. + +'Copperfield,' he said, 'there must be two parties to a quarrel. +I won't be one.' + +'You may go to the devil!' said I. + +'Don't say that!' he replied. 'I know you'll be sorry afterwards. +How can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad +spirit? But I forgive you.' + +'You forgive me!' I repeated disdainfully. + +'I do, and you can't help yourself,' replied Uriah. 'To think of +your going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you! +But there can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be +one. I will be a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know +what you've got to expect.' + +The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was +very slow; mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not +be disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper; +though my passion was cooling down. Merely telling him that I +should expect from him what I always had expected, and had never +yet been disappointed in, I opened the door upon him, as if he had +been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out of the +house. But he slept out of the house too, at his mother's lodging; +and before I had gone many hundred yards, came up with me. + +'You know, Copperfield,' he said, in my ear (I did not turn my +head), 'you're in quite a wrong position'; which I felt to be true, +and that made me chafe the more; 'you can't make this a brave +thing, and you can't help being forgiven. I don't intend to +mention it to mother, nor to any living soul. I'm determined to +forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand +against a person that you knew to be so umble!' + +I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew +myself. If he had retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have +been a relief and a justification; but he had put me on a slow +fire, on which I lay tormented half the night. + +In the morning, when I came out, the early church-bell was ringing, +and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as +if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had +struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At +all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, +which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far from +improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist's in +London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was +a double one. + +The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and remained alone, +for a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the +visit. Agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we +resumed our usual work. On the day preceding its resumption, the +Doctor gave me with his own hands a folded note not sealed. It was +addressed to myself; and laid an injunction on me, in a few +affectionate words, never to refer to the subject of that evening. +I had confided it to my aunt, but to no one else. It was not a +subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly had not the +least suspicion of what had passed. + +Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks +elapsed before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, +like a cloud when there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder +at the gentle compassion with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at +his wish that she should have her mother with her, to relieve the +dull monotony of her life. Often, when we were at work, and she +was sitting by, I would see her pausing and looking at him with +that memorable face. Afterwards, I sometimes observed her rise, +with her eyes full of tears, and go out of the room. Gradually, an +unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and deepened every day. Mrs. +Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then; but she talked +and talked, and saw nothing. + +As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor's +house, the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but +the sweetness of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and +his benevolent solicitude for her, if they were capable of any +increase, were increased. I saw him once, early on the morning of +her birthday, when she came to sit in the window while we were at +work (which she had always done, but now began to do with a timid +and uncertain air that I thought very touching), take her forehead +between his hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly away, too much moved +to remain. I saw her stand where he had left her, like a statue; +and then bend down her head, and clasp her hands, and weep, I +cannot say how sorrowfully. + +Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak even to +me, in intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered a +word. The Doctor always had some new project for her participating +in amusements away from home, with her mother; and Mrs. Markleham, +who was very fond of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with +anything else, entered into them with great good-will, and was loud +in her commendations. But Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only +went whither she was led, and seemed to have no care for anything. + +I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt; who must have +walked, at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What +was strangest of all was, that the only real relief which seemed to +make its way into the secret region of this domestic unhappiness, +made its way there in the person of Mr. Dick. + +What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, +I am as unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to +assist me in the task. But, as I have recorded in the narrative of +my school days, his veneration for the Doctor was unbounded; and +there is a subtlety of perception in real attachment, even when it +is borne towards man by one of the lower animals, which leaves the +highest intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may call +it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight. + +He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours, +of walking up and down the garden with the Doctor; as he had been +accustomed to pace up and down The Doctor's Walk at Canterbury. +But matters were no sooner in this state, than he devoted all his +spare time (and got up earlier to make it more) to these +perambulations. If he had never been so happy as when the Doctor +read that marvellous performance, the Dictionary, to him; he was +now quite miserable unless the Doctor pulled it out of his pocket, +and began. When the Doctor and I were engaged, he now fell into +the custom of walking up and down with Mrs. Strong, and helping her +to trim her favourite flowers, or weed the beds. I dare say he +rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour: but his quiet interest, and +his wistful face, found immediate response in both their breasts; +each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both; and he +became what no one else could be - a link between them. + +When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up +and down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard +words in the Dictionary; when I think of him carrying huge +watering-pots after Annie; kneeling down, in very paws of gloves, +at patient microscopic work among the little leaves; expressing as +no philosopher could have expressed, in everything he did, a +delicate desire to be her friend; showering sympathy, trustfulness, +and affection, out of every hole in the watering-pot; when I think +of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which +unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate King +Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service, +never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong, +or from his wish to set it right- I really feel almost ashamed of +having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of +the utmost I have done with mine. + +'Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is!' my aunt would +proudly remark, when we conversed about it. 'Dick will distinguish +himself yet!' + +I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter. While +the visit at the Doctor's was still in progress, I observed that +the postman brought two or three letters every morning for Uriah +Heep, who remained at Highgate until the rest went back, it being +a leisure time; and that these were always directed in a +business-like manner by Mr. Micawber, who now assumed a round legal +hand. I was glad to infer, from these slight premises, that Mr. +Micawber was doing well; and consequently was much surprised to +receive, about this time, the following letter from his amiable +wife. + + + + 'CANTERBURY, Monday Evening. + +'You will doubtless be surprised, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to +receive this communication. Still more so, by its contents. Still +more so, by the stipulation of implicit confidence which I beg to +impose. But my feelings as a wife and mother require relief; and +as I do not wish to consult my family (already obnoxious to the +feelings of Mr. Micawber), I know no one of whom I can better ask +advice than my friend and former lodger. + +'You may be aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that between myself and +Mr. Micawber (whom I will never desert), there has always been +preserved a spirit of mutual confidence. Mr. Micawber may have +occasionally given a bill without consulting me, or he may have +misled me as to the period when that obligation would become due. +This has actually happened. But, in general, Mr. Micawber has had +no secrets from the bosom of affection - I allude to his wife - and +has invariably, on our retirement to rest, recalled the events of +the day. + +'You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield, what the +poignancy of my feelings must be, when I inform you that Mr. +Micawber is entirely changed. He is reserved. He is secret. His +life is a mystery to the partner of his joys and sorrows - I again +allude to his wife - and if I should assure you that beyond knowing +that it is passed from morning to night at the office, I now know +less of it than I do of the man in the south, connected with whose +mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale respecting cold +plum porridge, I should adopt a popular fallacy to express an +actual fact. + +'But this is not all. Mr. Micawber is morose. He is severe. He +is estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in +his twins, he looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending +stranger who last became a member of our circle. The pecuniary +means of meeting our expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing, +are obtained from him with great difficulty, and even under fearful +threats that he will Settle himself (the exact expression); and he +inexorably refuses to give any explanation whatever of this +distracting policy. + +'This is hard to bear. This is heart-breaking. If you will advise +me, knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it +will be best to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add +another friendly obligation to the many you have already rendered +me. With loves from the children, and a smile from the +happily-unconscious stranger, I remain, dear Mr. Copperfield, + + Your afflicted, + + 'EMMA MICAWBER.' + + +I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber's +experience any other recommendation, than that she should try to +reclaim Mr. Micawber by patience and kindness (as I knew she would +in any case); but the letter set me thinking about him very much. + + + +CHAPTER 43 +ANOTHER RETROSPECT + + +Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let +me stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, +accompanying the shadow of myself, in dim procession. + +Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a +summer day and a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with +Dora is all in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen +heather lies in mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. +In a breath, the river that flows through our Sunday walks is +sparkling in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or +thickened with drifting heaps of ice. Faster than ever river ran +towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and rolls away. + +Not a thread changes, in the house of the two little bird-like +ladies. The clock ticks over the fireplace, the weather-glass +hangs in the hall. Neither clock nor weather-glass is ever right; +but we believe in both, devoutly. + +I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained the dignity +of twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust +upon one. Let me think what I have achieved. + +I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a +respectable income by it. I am in high repute for my +accomplishment in all pertaining to the art, and am joined with +eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a Morning +Newspaper. Night after night, I record predictions that never come +to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that +are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that +unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: +skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and +foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know +the worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and +shall never be converted. + +My dear old Traddles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it +is not in Traddles's way. He is perfectly good-humoured respecting +his failure, and reminds me that he always did consider himself +slow. He has occasional employment on the same newspaper, in +getting up the facts of dry subjects, to be written about and +embellished by more fertile minds. He is called to the bar; and +with admirable industry and self-denial has scraped another hundred +pounds together, to fee a Conveyancer whose chambers he attends. +A great deal of very hot port wine was consumed at his call; and, +considering the figure, I should think the Inner Temple must have +made a profit by it. + +I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and +trembling to authorship. I wrote a little something, in secret, +and sent it to a magazine, and it was published in the magazine. +Since then, I have taken heart to write a good many trifling +pieces. Now, I am regularly paid for them. Altogether, I am well +off, when I tell my income on the fingers of my left hand, I pass +the third finger and take in the fourth to the middle joint. + +We have removed, from Buckingham Street, to a pleasant little +cottage very near the one I looked at, when my enthusiasm first +came on. My aunt, however (who has sold the house at Dover, to +good advantage), is not going to remain here, but intends removing +herself to a still more tiny cottage close at hand. What does this +portend? My marriage? Yes! + +Yes! I am going to be married to Dora! Miss Lavinia and Miss +Clarissa have given their consent; and if ever canary birds were in +a flutter, they are. Miss Lavinia, self-charged with the +superintendence of my darling's wardrobe, is constantly cutting out +brown-paper cuirasses, and differing in opinion from a highly +respectable young man, with a long bundle, and a yard measure under +his arm. A dressmaker, always stabbed in the breast with a needle +and thread, boards and lodges in the house; and seems to me, +eating, drinking, or sleeping, never to take her thimble off. They +make a lay-figure of my dear. They are always sending for her to +come and try something on. We can't be happy together for five +minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at the +door, and says, 'Oh, if you please, Miss Dora, would you step +upstairs!' + +Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find out +articles of furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be +better for them to buy the goods at once, without this ceremony of +inspection; for, when we go to see a kitchen fender and +meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for Jip, with little bells +on the top, and prefers that. And it takes a long time to accustom +Jip to his new residence, after we have bought it; whenever he goes +in or out, he makes all the little bells ring, and is horribly +frightened. + +Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work +immediately. Her department appears to be, to clean everything +over and over again. She rubs everything that can be rubbed, until +it shines, like her own honest forehead, with perpetual friction. +And now it is, that I begin to see her solitary brother passing +through the dark streets at night, and looking, as he goes, among +the wandering faces. I never speak to him at such an hour. I know +too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what he seeks, and +what he dreads. + +Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon me this +afternoon in the Commons - where I still occasionally attend, for +form's sake, when I have time? The realization of my boyish +day-dreams is at hand. I am going to take out the licence. + +It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles contemplates +it, as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. +There are the names, in the sweet old visionary connexion, David +Copperfield and Dora Spenlow; and there, in the corner, is that +Parental Institution, the Stamp Office, which is so benignantly +interested in the various transactions of human life, looking down +upon our Union; and there is the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking +a blessing on us in print, and doing it as cheap as could possibly +be expected. + +Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. +I can't believe that it is going to be; and yet I can't believe but +that everyone I pass in the street, must have some kind of +perception, that I am to be married the day after tomorrow. The +Surrogate knows me, when I go down to be sworn; and disposes of me +easily, as if there were a Masonic understanding between us. +Traddles is not at all wanted, but is in attendance as my general +backer. + +'I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow,' I say to +Traddles, 'it will be on the same errand for yourself. And I hope +it will be soon.' + +'Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield,' he replies. +'I hope so too. It's a satisfaction to know that she'll wait for +me any length of time, and that she really is the dearest girl -' + +'When are you to meet her at the coach?' I ask. + +'At seven,' says Traddles, looking at his plain old silver watch - +the very watch he once took a wheel out of, at school, to make a +water-mill. 'That is about Miss Wickfield's time, is it not?' + +'A little earlier. Her time is half past eight.' +'I assure you, my dear boy,' says Traddles, 'I am almost as pleased +as if I were going to be married myself, to think that this event +is coming to such a happy termination. And really the great +friendship and consideration of personally associating Sophy with +the joyful occasion, and inviting her to be a bridesmaid in +conjunction with Miss Wickfield, demands my warmest thanks. I am +extremely sensible of it.' + +I hear him, and shake hands with him; and we talk, and walk, and +dine, and so on; but I don't believe it. Nothing is real. + +Sophy arrives at the house of Dora's aunts, in due course. She has +the most agreeable of faces, - not absolutely beautiful, but +extraordinarily pleasant, - and is one of the most genial, +unaffected, frank, engaging creatures I have ever seen. Traddles +presents her to us with great pride; and rubs his hands for ten +minutes by the clock, with every individual hair upon his head +standing on tiptoe, when I congratulate him in a corner on his +choice. + +I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and her cheerful +and beautiful face is among us for the second time. Agnes has a +great liking for Traddles, and it is capital to see them meet, and +to observe the glory of Traddles as he commends the dearest girl in +the world to her acquaintance. + +Still I don't believe it. We have a delightful evening, and are +supremely happy; but I don't believe it yet. I can't collect +myself. I can't check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel +in a misty and unsettled kind of state; as if I had got up very +early in the morning a week or two ago, and had never been to bed +since. I can't make out when yesterday was. I seem to have been +carrying the licence about, in my pocket, many months. + +Next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house - our +house - Dora's and mine - I am quite unable to regard myself as its +master. I seem to be there, by permission of somebody else. I +half expect the real master to come home presently, and say he is +glad to see me. Such a beautiful little house as it is, with +everything so bright and new; with the flowers on the carpets +looking as if freshly gathered, and the green leaves on the paper +as if they had just come out; with the spotless muslin curtains, +and the blushing rose-coloured furniture, and Dora's garden hat +with the blue ribbon - do I remember, now, how I loved her in such +another hat when I first knew her! - already hanging on its little +peg; the guitar-case quite at home on its heels in a corner; and +everybody tumbling over Jip's pagoda, which is much too big for the +establishment. Another happy evening, quite as unreal as all the +rest of it, and I steal into the usual room before going away. +Dora is not there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet. +Miss Lavinia peeps in, and tells me mysteriously that she will not +be long. She is rather long, notwithstanding; but by and by I hear +a rustling at the door, and someone taps. + +I say, 'Come in!' but someone taps again. + +I go to the door, wondering who it is; there, I meet a pair of +bright eyes, and a blushing face; they are Dora's eyes and face, +and Miss Lavinia has dressed her in tomorrow's dress, bonnet and +all, for me to see. I take my little wife to my heart; and Miss +Lavinia gives a little scream because I tumble the bonnet, and Dora +laughs and cries at once, because I am so pleased; and I believe it +less than ever. + +'Do you think it pretty, Doady?' says Dora. + +Pretty! I should rather think I did. + +'And are you sure you like me very much?' says Dora. + +The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that Miss +Lavinia gives another little scream, and begs me to understand that +Dora is only to be looked at, and on no account to be touched. So +Dora stands in a delightful state of confusion for a minute or two, +to be admired; and then takes off her bonnet - looking so natural +without it! - and runs away with it in her hand; and comes dancing +down again in her own familiar dress, and asks Jip if I have got a +beautiful little wife, and whether he'll forgive her for being +married, and kneels down to make him stand upon the cookery-book, +for the last time in her single life. + +I go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that I have +hard by; and get up very early in the morning, to ride to the +Highgate road and fetch my aunt. + +I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in +lavender-coloured silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. +Janet has dressed her, and is there to look at me. Peggotty is +ready to go to church, intending to behold the ceremony from the +gallery. Mr. Dick, who is to give my darling to me at the altar, +has had his hair curled. Traddles, whom I have taken up by +appointment at the turnpike, presents a dazzling combination of +cream colour and light blue; and both he and Mr. Dick have a +general effect about them of being all gloves. + +No doubt I see this, because I know it is so; but I am astray, and +seem to see nothing. Nor do I believe anything whatever. Still, +as we drive along in an open carriage, this fairy marriage is real +enough to fill me with a sort of wondering pity for the unfortunate +people who have no part in it, but are sweeping out the shops, and +going to their daily occupations. + +My aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. When we stop a +little way short of the church, to put down Peggotty, whom we have +brought on the box, she gives it a squeeze, and me a kiss. + +'God bless you, Trot! My own boy never could be dearer. I think +of poor dear Baby this morning.' +'So do I. And of all I owe to you, dear aunt.' + +'Tut, child!' says my aunt; and gives her hand in overflowing +cordiality to Traddles, who then gives his to Mr. Dick, who then +gives his to me, who then gives mine to Traddles, and then we come +to the church door. + +The church is calm enough, I am sure; but it might be a steam-power +loom in full action, for any sedative effect it has on me. I am +too far gone for that. + +The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream. + +A dream of their coming in with Dora; of the pew-opener arranging +us, like a drill-sergeant, before the altar rails; of my wondering, +even then, why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable +females procurable, and whether there is any religious dread of a +disastrous infection of good-humour which renders it indispensable +to set those vessels of vinegar upon the road to Heaven. + +Of the clergyman and clerk appearing; of a few boatmen and some +other people strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, +strongly flavouring the church with rum; of the service beginning +in a deep voice, and our all being very attentive. + +Of Miss Lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid, being the +first to cry, and of her doing homage (as I take it) to the memory +of Pidger, in sobs; of Miss Clarissa applying a smelling-bottle; of +Agnes taking care of Dora; of my aunt endeavouring to represent +herself as a model of sternness, with tears rolling down her face; +of little Dora trembling very much, and making her responses in +faint whispers. + +Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora's trembling +less and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand; of the +service being got through, quietly and gravely; of our all looking +at each other in an April state of smiles and tears, when it is +over; of my young wife being hysterical in the vestry, and crying +for her poor papa, her dear papa. + +Of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the register all +round. Of my going into the gallery for Peggotty to bring her to +sign it; of Peggotty's hugging me in a corner, and telling me she +saw my own dear mother married; of its being over, and our going +away. + +Of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet +wife upon my arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, +monuments, pews, fonts, organs, and church windows, in which there +flutter faint airs of association with my childish church at home, +so long ago. + +Of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple we are, and +what a pretty little wife she is. Of our all being so merry and +talkative in the carriage going back. Of Sophy telling us that +when she saw Traddles (whom I had entrusted with the licence) asked +for it, she almost fainted, having been convinced that he would +contrive to lose it, or to have his pocket picked. Of Agnes +laughing gaily; and of Dora being so fond of Agnes that she will +not be separated from her, but still keeps her hand. + +Of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things, pretty and +substantial, to eat and drink, whereof I partake, as I should do in +any other dream, without the least perception of their flavour; +eating and drinking, as I may say, nothing but love and marriage, +and no more believing in the viands than in anything else. + +Of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion, without having an +idea of what I want to say, beyond such as may be comprehended in +the full conviction that I haven't said it. Of our being very +sociably and simply happy (always in a dream though); and of Jip's +having wedding cake, and its not agreeing with him afterwards. + +Of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of Dora's going +away to change her dress. Of my aunt and Miss Clarissa remaining +with us; and our walking in the garden; and my aunt, who has made +quite a speech at breakfast touching Dora's aunts, being mightily +amused with herself, but a little proud of it too. + +Of Dora's being ready, and of Miss Lavinia's hovering about her, +loth to lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant +occupation. Of Dora's making a long series of surprised +discoveries that she has forgotten all sorts of little things; and +of everybody's running everywhere to fetch them. + +Of their all closing about Dora, when at last she begins to say +good-bye, looking, with their bright colours and ribbons, like a +bed of flowers. Of my darling being almost smothered among the +flowers, and coming out, laughing and crying both together, to my +jealous arms. + +Of my wanting to carry Jip (who is to go along with us), and Dora's +saying no, that she must carry him, or else he'll think she don't +like him any more, now she is married, and will break his heart. +Of our going, arm in arm, and Dora stopping and looking back, and +saying, 'If I have ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don't +remember it!' and bursting into tears. + +Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. Of +her once more stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to Agnes, +and giving Agnes, above all the others, her last kisses and +farewells. + +We drive away together, and I awake from the dream. I believe it +at last. It is my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom I love +so well! + +'Are you happy now, you foolish boy?' says Dora, 'and sure you +don't repent?' + + +I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. +They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story. + + + +CHAPTER 44 +OUR HOUSEKEEPING + + +It was a strange condition of things, the honeymoon being over, and +the bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my +own small house with Dora; quite thrown out of employment, as I may +say, in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love. + +It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. +It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not +to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have +to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of +being alone with her. Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up +from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in +my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone +together as a matter of course - nobody's business any more - all +the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf, to rust - no +one to please but one another - one another to please, for life. + +When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so +strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at +home! It was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming +softly down to talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a +stupendous thing to know for certain that she put her hair in +papers. It was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do +it! + +I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping +house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. +She kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must +have been Mrs. Crupp's daughter in disguise, we had such an awful +time of it with Mary Anne. + +Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we +engaged her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a +written character, as large as a proclamation; and, according to +this document, could do everything of a domestic nature that ever +I heard of, and a great many things that I never did hear of. She +was a woman in the prime of life; of a severe countenance; and +subject (particularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual measles +or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the Life-Guards, with such long +legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else. +His shell-jacket was as much too little for him as he was too big +for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it need have +been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides +which, the walls were not thick, and, whenever he passed the +evening at our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual +growl in the kitchen. + +Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore +willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under +the boiler; and that the deficient tea-spoons were attributable to +the dustman. + +But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our +inexperience, and were unable to help ourselves. We should have +been at her mercy, if she had had any; but she was a remorseless +woman, and had none. She was the cause of our first little +quarrel. + +'My dearest life,' I said one day to Dora, 'do you think Mary Anne +has any idea of time?' + +'Why, Doady?' inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her +drawing. + +'My love, because it's five, and we were to have dined at four.' + +Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it +was too fast. + +'On the contrary, my love,' said I, referring to my watch, 'it's a +few minutes too slow.' + +My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, +and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I +couldn't dine off that, though it was very agreeable. + +'Don't you think, my dear,' said I, 'it would be better for you to +remonstrate with Mary Anne?' + +'Oh no, please! I couldn't, Doady!' said Dora. + +'Why not, my love?' I gently asked. + +'Oh, because I am such a little goose,' said Dora, 'and she knows +I am!' + +I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of +any system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little. + +'Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead!' said Dora, and +still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it +to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my +forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious, that +quite delighted me in spite of myself. + +'There's a good child,' said Dora, 'it makes its face so much +prettier to laugh.' +'But, my love,' said I. + +'No, no! please!' cried Dora, with a kiss, 'don't be a naughty Blue +Beard! Don't be serious!' + +'my precious wife,' said I, 'we must be serious sometimes. Come! +Sit down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! +There! Now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear'; what a little +hand it was to hold, and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see! +'You know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out +without one's dinner. Now, is it?' + +'N-n-no!' replied Dora, faintly. + +'My love, how you tremble!' + +'Because I KNOW you're going to scold me,' exclaimed Dora, in a +piteous voice. + +'My sweet, I am only going to reason.' + +'Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!' exclaimed Dora, in +despair. 'I didn't marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to +reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have +told me so, you cruel boy!' + +I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her +curls from side to side, and said, 'You cruel, cruel boy!' so many +times, that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a +few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back +again. + +'Dora, my darling!' + +'No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you +married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!' returned Dora. + +I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, +that it gave me courage to be grave. + +'Now, my own Dora,' said I, 'you are very childish, and are talking +nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go +out yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, +I was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in +a hurry; today, I don't dine at all - and I am afraid to say how +long we waited for breakfast - and then the water didn't boil. I +don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.' + +'Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!' cried +Dora. + +'Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!' + +'You said, I wasn't comfortable!' cried Dora. +'I said the housekeeping was not comfortable!' + +'It's exactly the same thing!' cried Dora. And she evidently +thought so, for she wept most grievously. + +I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty +wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my +head against the door. I sat down again, and said: + +'I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. +I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must - you really +must' (I was resolved not to give this up) - 'accustom yourself to +look after Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and +me.' + +'I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,' sobbed +Dora. 'When you know that the other day, when you said you would +like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and +ordered it, to surprise you.' + +'And it was very kind of you, my own darling,' said I. 'I felt it +so much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you +bought a Salmon - which was too much for two. Or that it cost one +pound six - which was more than we can afford.' + +'You enjoyed it very much,' sobbed Dora. 'And you said I was a +Mouse.' + +'And I'll say so again, my love,' I returned, 'a thousand times!' + +But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be +comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that +I felt as if I had said I don't know what to hurt her. I was +obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night +such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience +of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous +wickedness. + +It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found +my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me. + +'Is anything the matter, aunt?' said I, alarmed. + +'Nothing, Trot,' she replied. 'Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom +has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her +company. That's all.' + +I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as +I sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so +soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat +thinking, I happened to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on +my face. There was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared +directly. + +'I assure you, aunt,' said I, 'I have been quite unhappy myself all +night, to think of Dora's being so. But I had no other intention +than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs.' + +MY aunt nodded encouragement. + +'You must have patience, Trot,' said she. + +'Of course. Heaven knows I don't mean to be unreasonable, aunt!' + +'No, no,' said my aunt. 'But Little Blossom is a very tender +little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her.' + +I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my +wife; and I was sure that she knew I did. + +'Don't you think, aunt,' said I, after some further contemplation +of the fire, 'that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for +our mutual advantage, now and then?' + +'Trot,' returned my aunt, with some emotion, 'no! Don't ask me +such a thing.' + +Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise. + +'I look back on my life, child,' said my aunt, 'and I think of some +who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder +terms. If I judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage, +it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my +own. Let that pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of +a woman, a good many years. I am still, and I always shall be. +But you and I have done one another some good, Trot, - at all +events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come +between us, at this time of day.' + +'Division between us!' cried I. + +'Child, child!' said my aunt, smoothing her dress, 'how soon it +might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little +Blossom, if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn't say. I want +our pet to like me, and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your +own home, in that second marriage; and never do both me and her the +injury you have hinted at!' + +I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended +the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife. + +'These are early days, Trot,' she pursued, 'and Rome was not built +in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself'; a +cloud passed over her face for a moment, I thought; 'and you have +chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be +your duty, and it will be your pleasure too - of course I know +that; I am not delivering a lecture - to estimate her (as you chose +her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not +have. The latter you must develop in her, if you can. And if you +cannot, child,' here my aunt rubbed her nose, 'you must just +accustom yourself to do without 'em. But remember, my dear, your +future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are to work +it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless +you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!' + +My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify +the blessing. + +'Now,' said she, 'light my little lantern, and see me into my +bandbox by the garden path'; for there was a communication between +our cottages in that direction. 'Give Betsey Trotwood's love to +Blossom, when you come back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream +of setting Betsey up as a scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the +glass, she's quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private +capacity!' + +With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which +she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I +escorted her home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her +little lantern to light me back, I thought her observation of me +had an anxious air again; but I was too much occupied in pondering +on what she had said, and too much impressed - for the first time, +in reality - by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed to work +out our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us, to +take much notice of it. + +Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now +that I was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been +hard-hearted and she had been naughty; and I said much the same +thing in effect, I believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our +first little difference was to be our last, and that we were never +to have another if we lived a hundred years. + +The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of +Servants. Mary Anne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was +brought out, to our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions +in arms, who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered +our front-garden with ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary +Anne, who went so mildly, on receipt of wages, that I was +surprised, until I found out about the tea-spoons, and also about +the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople +without authority. After an interval of Mrs. Kidgerbury - the +oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went out charing, +but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art - we +found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of women, +but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the +kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour, +as into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this +unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded +(with intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; +terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to +Greenwich Fair in Dora's bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but +an average equality of failure. + +Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our +appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be +brought out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of +water. All our meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly +any crust to our loaves. In search of the principle on which +joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough, and not too much, +I myself referred to the Cookery Book, and found it there +established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every +pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always failed us +by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between +redness and cinders. + +I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we +incurred a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of +triumphs. It appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen's +books, as if we might have kept the basement storey paved with +butter, such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that +article. I don't know whether the Excise returns of the period may +have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper; but if our +performances did not affect the market, I should say several +families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact +of all was, that we never had anything in the house. + +As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of +penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have +happened several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the +parish engine, and perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I +apprehend that we were personally fortunate in engaging a servant +with a taste for cordials, who swelled our running account for +porter at the public-house by such inexplicable items as 'quartern +rum shrub (Mrs. C.)'; 'Half-quartern gin and cloves (Mrs. C.)'; +'Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)' - the parentheses always +referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation, to +have imbibed the whole of these refreshments. + +One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner +to Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me +that afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I +would bring him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we +made my domestic happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was +very full of it; and said, that, picturing himself with such a +home, and Sophy waiting and preparing for him, he could think of +nothing wanting to complete his bliss. + +I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite +end of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat +down, for a little more room. I did not know how it was, but +though there were only two of us, we were at once always cramped +for room, and yet had always room enough to lose everything in. I +suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its own, +except Jip's pagoda, which invariably blocked up the main +thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles was so hemmed in +by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and Dora's flower-painting, and +my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the possibility of +his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his own +good-humour, 'Oceans of room, Copperfield! I assure you, Oceans!' + +There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had +never been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. +I began to think there was something disorderly in his being there +at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in +the salt or the melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think +he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked +at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with such +undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have engrossed the +conversation. + +However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how +sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted +no objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the +skirmishing plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable +appearance of the castors, which were all at sixes and sevens, and +looked drunk; or to the further blockade of Traddles by wandering +vegetable dishes and jugs. I could not help wondering in my own +mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me, +previous to carving it, how it came to pass that our joints of meat +were of such extraordinary shapes - and whether our butcher +contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but +I kept my reflections to myself. + +'My love,' said I to Dora, 'what have you got in that dish?' + +I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces +at me, as if she wanted to kiss me. + +'Oysters, dear,' said Dora, timidly. + +'Was that YOUR thought?' said I, delighted. + +'Ye-yes, Doady,' said Dora. + +'There never was a happier one!' I exclaimed, laying down the +carving-knife and fork. 'There is nothing Traddles likes so much!' + +'Ye-yes, Doady,' said Dora, 'and so I bought a beautiful little +barrel of them, and the man said they were very good. But I - I am +afraid there's something the matter with them. They don't seem +right.' Here Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her +eyes. + +'They are only opened in both shells,' said I. 'Take the top one +off, my love.' + +'But it won't come off!' said Dora, trying very hard, and looking +very much distressed. + +'Do you know, Copperfield,' said Traddles, cheerfully examining the +dish, 'I think it is in consequence - they are capital oysters, but +I think it is in consequence - of their never having been opened.' + +They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives - and +couldn't have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and +ate the mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and +made up with capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that +Traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a +plateful of raw meat, to express enjoyment of the repast; but I +would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship, and we +had a course of bacon instead; there happening, by good fortune, to +be cold bacon in the larder. + +My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I +should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was +not, that the discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and +we passed a happy evening; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair +while Traddles and I discussed a glass of wine, and taking every +opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not +to be a cruel, cross old boy. By and by she made tea for us; which +it was so pretty to see her do, as if she was busying herself with +a set of doll's tea-things, that I was not particular about the +quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played a game or two +at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while, it seemed to +me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine, +and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet over. + +When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlour from +seeing him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat +down by my side. 'I am very sorry,' she said. 'Will you try to +teach me, Doady?' + +'I must teach myself first, Dora,' said I. 'I am as bad as you, +love.' + +'Ah! But you can learn,' she returned; 'and you are a clever, +clever man!' + +'Nonsense, mouse!' said I. + +'I wish,' resumed my wife, after a long silence, 'that I could have +gone down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes!' + +Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on +them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine. + +'Why so?' I asked. + +'I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have +learned from her,' said Dora. + +'All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care +of for these many years, you should remember. Even when she was +quite a child, she was the Agnes whom we know,' said I. + +'Will you call me a name I want you to call me?' inquired Dora, +without moving. + +'What is it?' I asked with a smile. + +'It's a stupid name,' she said, shaking her curls for a moment. +'Child-wife.' + +I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to +be so called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the +arm I twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me: + +'I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name +instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. +When you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, "it's only +my child-wife!" When I am very disappointing, say, "I knew, a long +time ago, that she would make but a child-wife!" When you miss what +I should like to be, and I think can never be, say, "still my +foolish child-wife loves me!" For indeed I do.' + +I had not been serious with her; having no idea until now, that she +was serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in +what I now said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a +laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my +child-wife indeed; sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese +House, ringing all the little bells one after another, to punish +Jip for his recent bad behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the +doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased. + +This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me. I look back +on the time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly +loved, to come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn +its gentle head towards me once again; and I can still declare that +this one little speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have +used it to the best account; I was young and inexperienced; but I +never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading. + +Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a +wonderful housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets, +pointed the pencil, bought an immense account-book, carefully +stitched up with a needle and thread all the leaves of the Cookery +Book which Jip had torn, and made quite a desperate little attempt +'to be good', as she called it. But the figures had the old +obstinate propensity - they WOULD NOT add up. When she had entered +two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk +over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own +little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in +ink; and I think that was the only decided result obtained. + +Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work - for I +wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known +as a writer - I would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife +trying to be good. First of all, she would bring out the immense +account-book, and lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh. +Then she would open it at the place where Jip had made it illegible +last night, and call Jip up, to look at his misdeeds. This would +occasion a diversion in Jip's favour, and some inking of his nose, +perhaps, as a penalty. Then she would tell Jip to lie down on the +table instantly, 'like a lion' - which was one of his tricks, +though I cannot say the likeness was striking - and, if he were in +an obedient humour, he would obey. Then she would take up a pen, +and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then she would take up +another pen, and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. Then +she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and say in a low +voice, 'Oh, it's a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!' And then +she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book away, +after pretending to crush the lion with it. + +Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she +would sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and +other documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything +else, and endeavour to get some result out of them. After severely +comparing one with another, and making entries on the tablets, and +blotting them out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand +over and over again, backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed +and discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to +see her bright face clouded - and for me! - and I would go softly +to her, and say: + +'What's the matter, Dora?' + +Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, 'They won't come right. +They make my head ache so. And they won't do anything I want!' + +Then I would say, 'Now let us try together. Let me show you, +Dora.' + +Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora +would pay profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she +would begin to be dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject +by curling my hair, or trying the effect of my face with my +shirt-collar turned down. If I tacitly checked this playfulness, +and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as she +became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her +natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path, and of her being +my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; and I would lay +the pencil down, and call for the guitar. + +I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the +same considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from +sure, now, that it was right to do this, but I did it for my +child-wife's sake. I search my breast, and I commit its secrets, +if I know them, without any reservation to this paper. The old +unhappy loss or want of something had, I am conscious, some place +in my heart; but not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked +alone in the fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all +the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment, I did miss +something of the realization of my dreams; but I thought it was a +softened glory of the Past, which nothing could have thrown upon +the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that +I could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more +character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been +endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be +about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of +my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have +been. + +I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening +influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in +these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did +it in mistaken love, and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact +truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now. + +Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our +life, and had no partner in them. We lived much as before, in +reference to our scrambling household arrangements; but I had got +used to those, and Dora I was pleased to see was seldom vexed now. +She was bright and cheerful in the old childish way, loved me +dearly, and was happy with her old trifles. + +When the debates were heavy - I mean as to length, not quality, for +in the last respect they were not often otherwise - and I went home +late, Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would +always come downstairs to meet me. When my evenings were +unoccupied by the pursuit for which I had qualified myself with so +much pains, and I was engaged in writing at home, she would sit +quietly near me, however late the hour, and be so mute, that I +would often think she had dropped asleep. But generally, when I +raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet +attention of which I have already spoken. + +'Oh, what a weary boy!' said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as +I was shutting up my desk. + +'What a weary girl!' said I. 'That's more to the purpose. You +must go to bed another time, my love. It's far too late for you.' + +'No, don't send me to bed!' pleaded Dora, coming to my side. +'Pray, don't do that!' + +'Dora!' To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. 'Not well, my +dear! not happy!' + +'Yes! quite well, and very happy!' said Dora. 'But say you'll let +me stop, and see you write.' + +'Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!' I replied. + +'Are they bright, though?' returned Dora, laughing. 'I'm so glad +they're bright.' +'Little Vanity!' said I. + +But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my +admiration. I knew that very well, before she told me so. + +'If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you +write!' said Dora. 'Do you think them pretty?' + +'Very pretty.' + +'Then let me always stop and see you write.' + +'I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora.' + +'Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then, +while you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say +something very, very silly? - more than usual?' inquired Dora, +peeping over my shoulder into my face. + +'What wonderful thing is that?' said I. + +'Please let me hold the pens,' said Dora. 'I want to have +something to do with all those many hours when you are so +industrious. May I hold the pens?' + +The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears +into my eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly +afterwards, she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens +at her side. Her triumph in this connexion with my work, and her +delight when I wanted a new pen - which I very often feigned to do +- suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. I +occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of manuscript +copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations she made for +this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from +the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable +stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if he understood it +all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she signed +her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me, +like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round the +neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear +to other men. + +She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling +about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to +her slender waist. I seldom found that the places to which they +belonged were locked, or that they were of any use except as a +plaything for Jip - but Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She +was quite satisfied that a good deal was effected by this +make-belief of housekeeping; and was as merry as if we had been +keeping a baby-house, for a joke. + +So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than +to me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was +'a cross old thing'. I never saw my aunt unbend more +systematically to anyone. She courted Jip, though Jip never +responded; listened, day after day, to the guitar, though I am +afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked the Incapables, +though the temptation must have been severe; went wonderful +distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she +found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed +her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the +stairs, in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house: + +'Where's Little Blossom?' + + + +CHAPTER 45 +Mr. Dick fulfils my aunt's Predictions + + +It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his +neighbourhood, I saw him frequently; and we all went to his house +on two or three occasions to dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in +permanent quarters under the Doctor's roof. She was exactly the +same as ever, and the same immortal butterflies hovered over her +cap. + +Like some other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my +life, Mrs. Markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her +daughter was. She required a great deal of amusement, and, like a +deep old soldier, pretended, in consulting her own inclinations, to +be devoting herself to her child. The Doctor's desire that Annie +should be entertained, was therefore particularly acceptable to +this excellent parent; who expressed unqualified approval of his +discretion. + +I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor's wound without +knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and +selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think +she confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his +young wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling between +them, by so strongly commending his design of lightening the load +of her life. + +'My dear soul,' she said to him one day when I was present, 'you +know there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for Annie to be +always shut up here.' + +The Doctor nodded his benevolent head. 'When she comes to her +mother's age,' said Mrs. Markleham, with a flourish of her fan, +'then it'll be another thing. You might put ME into a Jail, with +genteel society and a rubber, and I should never care to come out. +But I am not Annie, you know; and Annie is not her mother.' + +'Surely, surely,' said the Doctor. + +'You are the best of creatures - no, I beg your pardon!' for the +Doctor made a gesture of deprecation, 'I must say before your face, +as I always say behind your back, you are the best of creatures; +but of course you don't - now do you? - enter into the same +pursuits and fancies as Annie?' + +'No,' said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone. + +'No, of course not,' retorted the Old Soldier. 'Take your +Dictionary, for example. What a useful work a Dictionary is! What +a necessary work! The meanings of words! Without Doctor Johnson, +or somebody of that sort, we might have been at this present moment +calling an Italian-iron, a bedstead. But we can't expect a +Dictionary - especially when it's making - to interest Annie, can +we?' + +The Doctor shook his head. + +'And that's why I so much approve,' said Mrs. Markleham, tapping +him on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, 'of your thoughtfulness. +It shows that you don't expect, as many elderly people do expect, +old heads on young shoulders. You have studied Annie's character, +and you understand it. That's what I find so charming!' + +Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some +little sense of pain, I thought, under the infliction of these +compliments. + +'Therefore, my dear Doctor,' said the Old Soldier, giving him +several affectionate taps, 'you may command me, at all times and +seasons. Now, do understand that I am entirely at your service. +I am ready to go with Annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all +kinds of places; and you shall never find that I am tired. Duty, +my dear Doctor, before every consideration in the universe!' + +She was as good as her word. She was one of those people who can +bear a great deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her +perseverance in the cause. She seldom got hold of the newspaper +(which she settled herself down in the softest chair in the house +to read through an eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but she +found out something that she was certain Annie would like to see. +It was in vain for Annie to protest that she was weary of such +things. Her mother's remonstrance always was, 'Now, my dear Annie, +I am sure you know better; and I must tell you, my love, that you +are not making a proper return for the kindness of Doctor Strong.' + +This was usually said in the Doctor's presence, and appeared to me +to constitute Annie's principal inducement for withdrawing her +objections when she made any. But in general she resigned herself +to her mother, and went where the Old Soldier would. + +It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Sometimes +my aunt and Dora were invited to do so, and accepted the +invitation. Sometimes Dora only was asked. The time had been, +when I should have been uneasy in her going; but reflection on what +had passed that former night in the Doctor's study, had made a +change in my mistrust. I believed that the Doctor was right, and +I had no worse suspicions. + +My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone +with me, and said she couldn't make it out; she wished they were +happier; she didn't think our military friend (so she always called +the Old Soldier) mended the matter at all. My aunt further +expressed her opinion, 'that if our military friend would cut off +those butterflies, and give 'em to the chimney-sweepers for +May-day, it would look like the beginning of something sensible on +her part.' + +But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently +an idea in his head, she said; and if he could only once pen it up +into a corner, which was his great difficulty, he would distinguish +himself in some extraordinary manner. + +Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy +precisely the same ground in reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. +Strong. He seemed neither to advance nor to recede. He appeared +to have settled into his original foundation, like a building; and +I must confess that my faith in his ever Moving, was not much +greater than if he had been a building. + +But one night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put +his head into the parlour, where I was writing alone (Dora having +gone out with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and +said, with a significant cough: + +'You couldn't speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, +Trotwood, I am afraid?' + +'Certainly, Mr. Dick,' said I; 'come in!' + +'Trotwood,' said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his +nose, after he had shaken hands with me. 'Before I sit down, I +wish to make an observation. You know your aunt?' + +'A little,' I replied. + +'She is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir!' + +After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of +himself as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with +greater gravity than usual, and looked at me. + +'Now, boy,' said Mr. Dick, 'I am going to put a question to you.' + +'As many as you please,' said I. + +'What do you consider me, sir?' asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms. + +'A dear old friend,' said I. +'Thank you, Trotwood,' returned Mr. Dick, laughing, and reaching +across in high glee to shake hands with me. 'But I mean, boy,' +resuming his gravity, 'what do you consider me in this respect?' +touching his forehead. + +I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word. + +'Weak?' said Mr. Dick. + +'Well,' I replied, dubiously. 'Rather so.' + +'Exactly!' cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. +'That is, Trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of +you-know-who's head, and put it you know where, there was a -' Mr. +Dick made his two hands revolve very fast about each other a great +number of times, and then brought them into collision, and rolled +them over and over one another, to express confusion. 'There was +that sort of thing done to me somehow. Eh?' + +I nodded at him, and he nodded back again. + +'In short, boy,' said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, 'I +am simple.' + +I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me. + +'Yes, I am! She pretends I am not. She won't hear of it; but I +am. I know I am. If she hadn't stood my friend, sir, I should +have been shut up, to lead a dismal life these many years. But +I'll provide for her! I never spend the copying money. I put it +in a box. I have made a will. I'll leave it all to her. She +shall be rich - noble!' + +Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He +then folded it up with great care, pressed it smooth between his +two hands, put it in his pocket, and seemed to put my aunt away +with it. + +'Now you are a scholar, Trotwood,' said Mr. Dick. 'You are a fine +scholar. You know what a learned man, what a great man, the Doctor +is. You know what honour he has always done me. Not proud in his +wisdom. Humble, humble - condescending even to poor Dick, who is +simple and knows nothing. I have sent his name up, on a scrap of +paper, to the kite, along the string, when it has been in the sky, +among the larks. The kite has been glad to receive it, sir, and +the sky has been brighter with it.' + +I delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the Doctor was +deserving of our best respect and highest esteem. + +'And his beautiful wife is a star,' said Mr. Dick. 'A shining +star. I have seen her shine, sir. But,' bringing his chair +nearer, and laying one hand upon my knee - 'clouds, sir - clouds.' + +I answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by conveying +the same expression into my own, and shaking my head. + +'What clouds?' said Mr. Dick. + +He looked so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious to +understand, that I took great pains to answer him slowly and +distinctly, as I might have entered on an explanation to a child. + +'There is some unfortunate division between them,' I replied. +'Some unhappy cause of separation. A secret. It may be +inseparable from the discrepancy in their years. It may have grown +up out of almost nothing.' + +Mr. Dick, who had told off every sentence with a thoughtful nod, +paused when I had done, and sat considering, with his eyes upon my +face, and his hand upon my knee. + +'Doctor not angry with her, Trotwood?' he said, after some time. + +'No. Devoted to her.' + +'Then, I have got it, boy!' said Mr. Dick. + +The sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the knee, and +leaned back in his chair, with his eyebrows lifted up as high as he +could possibly lift them, made me think him farther out of his wits +than ever. He became as suddenly grave again, and leaning forward +as before, said - first respectfully taking out his +pocket-handkerchief, as if it really did represent my aunt: + +'Most wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood. Why has she done +nothing to set things right?' + +'Too delicate and difficult a subject for such interference,' I +replied. + +'Fine scholar,' said Mr. Dick, touching me with his finger. 'Why +has HE done nothing?' + +'For the same reason,' I returned. + +'Then, I have got it, boy!' said Mr. Dick. And he stood up before +me, more exultingly than before, nodding his head, and striking +himself repeatedly upon the breast, until one might have supposed +that he had nearly nodded and struck all the breath out of his +body. + +'A poor fellow with a craze, sir,' said Mr. Dick, 'a simpleton, a +weak-minded person - present company, you know!' striking himself +again, 'may do what wonderful people may not do. I'll bring them +together, boy. I'll try. They'll not blame me. They'll not +object to me. They'll not mind what I do, if it's wrong. I'm only +Mr. Dick. And who minds Dick? Dick's nobody! Whoo!' He blew a +slight, contemptuous breath, as if he blew himself away. + +It was fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mystery, for we +heard the coach stop at the little garden gate, which brought my +aunt and Dora home. + +'Not a word, boy!' he pursued in a whisper; 'leave all the blame +with Dick - simple Dick - mad Dick. I have been thinking, sir, for +some time, that I was getting it, and now I have got it. After +what you have said to me, I am sure I have got it. All right!' Not +another word did Mr. Dick utter on the subject; but he made a very +telegraph of himself for the next half-hour (to the great +disturbance of my aunt's mind), to enjoin inviolable secrecy on me. + +To my surprise, I heard no more about it for some two or three +weeks, though I was sufficiently interested in the result of his +endeavours; descrying a strange gleam of good sense - I say nothing +of good feeling, for that he always exhibited - in the conclusion +to which he had come. At last I began to believe, that, in the +flighty and unsettled state of his mind, he had either forgotten +his intention or abandoned it. + +One fair evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and +I strolled up to the Doctor's cottage. It was autumn, when there +were no debates to vex the evening air; and I remember how the +leaves smelt like our garden at Blunderstone as we trod them under +foot, and how the old, unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the +sighing wind. + +It was twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs. Strong was just +coming out of the garden, where Mr. Dick yet lingered, busy with +his knife, helping the gardener to point some stakes. The Doctor +was engaged with someone in his study; but the visitor would be +gone directly, Mrs. Strong said, and begged us to remain and see +him. We went into the drawing-room with her, and sat down by the +darkening window. There was never any ceremony about the visits of +such old friends and neighbours as we were. + +We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually +contrived to be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with +her newspaper in her hand, and said, out of breath, 'My goodness +gracious, Annie, why didn't you tell me there was someone in the +Study!' + +'My dear mama,' she quietly returned, 'how could I know that you +desired the information?' + +'Desired the information!' said Mrs. Markleham, sinking on the +sofa. 'I never had such a turn in all my life!' + +'Have you been to the Study, then, mama?' asked Annie. + +'BEEN to the Study, my dear!' she returned emphatically. 'Indeed +I have! I came upon the amiable creature - if you'll imagine my +feelings, Miss Trotwood and David - in the act of making his will.' + +Her daughter looked round from the window quickly. + +'In the act, my dear Annie,' repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the +newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon +it, 'of making his last Will and Testament. The foresight and +affection of the dear! I must tell you how it was. I really must, +in justice to the darling - for he is nothing less! - tell you how +it was. Perhaps you know, Miss Trotwood, that there is never a +candle lighted in this house, until one's eyes are literally +falling out of one's head with being stretched to read the paper. +And that there is not a chair in this house, in which a paper can +be what I call, read, except one in the Study. This took me to the +Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with +the dear Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected +with the law, and they were all three standing at the table: the +darling Doctor pen in hand. "This simply expresses then," said the +Doctor - Annie, my love, attend to the very words - "this simply +expresses then, gentlemen, the confidence I have in Mrs. Strong, +and gives her all unconditionally?" One of the professional people +replied, "And gives her all unconditionally." Upon that, with the +natural feelings of a mother, I said, "Good God, I beg your +pardon!" fell over the door-step, and came away through the little +back passage where the pantry is.' + +Mrs. Strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, +where she stood leaning against a pillar. + +'But now isn't it, Miss Trotwood, isn't it, David, invigorating,' +said Mrs. Markleham, mechanically following her with her eyes, 'to +find a man at Doctor Strong's time of life, with the strength of +mind to do this kind of thing? It only shows how right I was. I +said to Annie, when Doctor Strong paid a very flattering visit to +myself, and made her the subject of a declaration and an offer, I +said, "My dear, there is no doubt whatever, in my opinion, with +reference to a suitable provision for you, that Doctor Strong will +do more than he binds himself to do."' + +Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors' feet as +they went out. + +'It's all over, no doubt,' said the Old Soldier, after listening; +'the dear creature has signed, sealed, and delivered, and his +mind's at rest. Well it may be! What a mind! Annie, my love, I +am going to the Study with my paper, for I am a poor creature +without news. Miss Trotwood, David, pray come and see the Doctor.' + +I was conscious of Mr. Dick's standing in the shadow of the room, +shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her to the Study; and of +my aunt's rubbing her nose violently, by the way, as a mild vent +for her intolerance of our military friend; but who got first into +the Study, or how Mrs. Markleham settled herself in a moment in her +easy-chair, or how my aunt and I came to be left together near the +door (unless her eyes were quicker than mine, and she held me +back), I have forgotten, if I ever knew. But this I know, - that +we saw the Doctor before he saw us, sitting at his table, among the +folio volumes in which he delighted, resting his head calmly on his +hand. That, in the same moment, we saw Mrs. Strong glide in, pale +and trembling. That Mr. Dick supported her on his arm. That he +laid his other hand upon the Doctor's arm, causing him to look up +with an abstracted air. That, as the Doctor moved his head, his +wife dropped down on one knee at his feet, and, with her hands +imploringly lifted, fixed upon his face the memorable look I had +never forgotten. That at this sight Mrs. Markleham dropped the +newspaper, and stared more like a figure-head intended for a ship +to be called The Astonishment, than anything else I can think of. + +The gentleness of the Doctor's manner and surprise, the dignity +that mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the +amiable concern of Mr. Dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt +said to herself, 'That man mad!' (triumphantly expressive of the +misery from which she had saved him) - I see and hear, rather than +remember, as I write about it. + +'Doctor!' said Mr. Dick. 'What is it that's amiss? Look here!' + +'Annie!' cried the Doctor. 'Not at my feet, my dear!' + +'Yes!' she said. 'I beg and pray that no one will leave the room! +Oh, my husband and father, break this long silence. Let us both +know what it is that has come between us!' + +Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and +seeming to swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here +exclaimed, 'Annie, get up immediately, and don't disgrace everybody +belonging to you by humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to +see me go out of my mind on the spot!' + +'Mama!' returned Annie. 'Waste no words on me, for my appeal is to +my husband, and even you are nothing here.' + +'Nothing!' exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. 'Me, nothing! The child has +taken leave of her senses. Please to get me a glass of water!' + +I was too attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give any heed to +this request; and it made no impression on anybody else; so Mrs. +Markleham panted, stared, and fanned herself. + +'Annie!' said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. 'My +dear! If any unavoidable change has come, in the sequence of time, +upon our married life, you are not to blame. The fault is mine, +and only mine. There is no change in my affection, admiration, and +respect. I wish to make you happy. I truly love and honour you. +Rise, Annie, pray!' + +But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she +sank down closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping +her head upon it, said: + +'If I have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for +my husband in this matter; if I have any friend here, who can give +a voice to any suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to +me; if I have any friend here, who honours my husband, or has ever +cared for me, and has anything within his knowledge, no matter what +it is, that may help to mediate between us, I implore that friend +to speak!' + +There was a profound silence. After a few moments of painful +hesitation, I broke the silence. + +'Mrs. Strong,' I said, 'there is something within my knowledge, +which I have been earnestly entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, +and have concealed until tonight. But, I believe the time has come +when it would be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any +longer, and when your appeal absolves me from his injunction.' + +She turned her face towards me for a moment, and I knew that I was +right. I could not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance +that it gave me had been less convincing. + +'Our future peace,' she said, 'may be in your hands. I trust it +confidently to your not suppressing anything. I know beforehand +that nothing you, or anyone, can tell me, will show my husband's +noble heart in any other light than one. Howsoever it may seem to +you to touch me, disregard that. I will speak for myself, before +him, and before God afterwards.' + +Thus earnestly besought, I made no reference to the Doctor for his +permission, but, without any other compromise of the truth than a +little softening of the coarseness of Uriah Heep, related plainly +what had passed in that same room that night. The staring of Mrs. +Markleham during the whole narration, and the shrill, sharp +interjections with which she occasionally interrupted it, defy +description. + +When I had finished, Annie remained, for some few moments, silent, +with her head bent down, as I have described. Then, she took the +Doctor's hand (he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had +entered the room), and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. +Mr. Dick softly raised her; and she stood, when she began to speak, +leaning on him, and looking down upon her husband - from whom she +never turned her eyes. + +'All that has ever been in my mind, since I was married,' she said +in a low, submissive, tender voice, 'I will lay bare before you. +I could not live and have one reservation, knowing what I know +now.' + +'Nay, Annie,' said the Doctor, mildly, 'I have never doubted you, +my child. There is no need; indeed there is no need, my dear.' + +'There is great need,' she answered, in the same way, 'that I +should open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, +whom, year by year, and day by day, I have loved and venerated more +and more, as Heaven knows!' + +'Really,' interrupted Mrs. Markleham, 'if I have any discretion at +all -' + +('Which you haven't, you Marplot,' observed my aunt, in an +indignant whisper.) + +- 'I must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite to +enter into these details.' + +'No one but my husband can judge of that, mama,' said Annie without +removing her eyes from his face, 'and he will hear me. If I say +anything to give you pain, mama, forgive me. I have borne pain +first, often and long, myself.' + +'Upon my word!' gasped Mrs. Markleham. + +'When I was very young,' said Annie, 'quite a little child, my +first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from +a patient friend and teacher - the friend of my dead father - who +was always dear to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without +remembering him. He stored my mind with its first treasures, and +stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, +I think, as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from +any other hands.' + +'Makes her mother nothing!' exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. + +'Not so mama,' said Annie; 'but I make him what he was. I must do +that. As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was proud +of his interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I +looked up to him, I can hardly describe how - as a father, as a +guide, as one whose praise was different from all other praise, as +one in whom I could have trusted and confided, if I had doubted all +the world. You know, mama, how young and inexperienced I was, when +you presented him before me, of a sudden, as a lover.' + +'I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody +here!' said Mrs. Markleham. + +('Then hold your tongue, for the Lord's sake, and don't mention it +any more!' muttered my aunt.) + +'It was so great a change: so great a loss, I felt it, at first,' +said Annie, still preserving the same look and tone, 'that I was +agitated and distressed. I was but a girl; and when so great a +change came in the character in which I had so long looked up to +him, I think I was sorry. But nothing could have made him what he +used to be again; and I was proud that he should think me so +worthy, and we were married.' +'- At Saint Alphage, Canterbury,' observed Mrs. Markleham. + +('Confound the woman!' said my aunt, 'she WON'T be quiet!') + +'I never thought,' proceeded Annie, with a heightened colour, 'of +any worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart +had no room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama, +forgive me when I say that it was you who first presented to my +mind the thought that anyone could wrong me, and wrong him, by such +a cruel suspicion.' + +'Me!' cried Mrs. Markleham. + +('Ah! You, to be sure!' observed my aunt, 'and you can't fan it +away, my military friend!') + +'It was the first unhappiness of my new life,' said Annie. 'It was +the first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. These +moments have been more, of late, than I can count; but not - my +generous husband! - not for the reason you suppose; for in my heart +there is not a thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any power +could separate from you!' + +She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful +and true, I thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her, +henceforth, as steadfastly as she on him. + +'Mama is blameless,' she went on, 'of having ever urged you for +herself, and she is blameless in intention every way, I am sure, - +but when I saw how many importunate claims were pressed upon you in +my name; how you were traded on in my name; how generous you were, +and how Mr. Wickfield, who had your welfare very much at heart, +resented it; the first sense of my exposure to the mean suspicion +that my tenderness was bought - and sold to you, of all men on +earth - fell upon me like unmerited disgrace, in which I forced you +to participate. I cannot tell you what it was - mama cannot +imagine what it was - to have this dread and trouble always on my +mind, yet know in my own soul that on my marriage-day I crowned the +love and honour of my life!' + +'A specimen of the thanks one gets,' cried Mrs. Markleham, in +tears, 'for taking care of one's family! I wish I was a Turk!' + +('I wish you were, with all my heart - and in your native country!' +said my aunt.) + +'It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin +Maldon. I had liked him': she spoke softly, but without any +hesitation: 'very much. We had been little lovers once. If +circumstances had not happened otherwise, I might have come to +persuade myself that I really loved him, and might have married +him, and been most wretched. There can be no disparity in marriage +like unsuitability of mind and purpose.' + +I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to +what followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some +strange application that I could not divine. 'There can be no +disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose' -'no +disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.' + +'There is nothing,' said Annie, 'that we have in common. I have +long found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband +for no more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him +for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my +undisciplined heart.' + +She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an +earnestness that thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as quiet as +before. + +'When he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so +freely bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the +mercenary shape I was made to wear, I thought it would have become +him better to have worked his own way on. I thought that if I had +been he, I would have tried to do it, at the cost of almost any +hardship. But I thought no worse of him, until the night of his +departure for India. That night I knew he had a false and +thankless heart. I saw a double meaning, then, in Mr. Wickfield's +scrutiny of me. I perceived, for the first time, the dark +suspicion that shadowed my life.' + +'Suspicion, Annie!' said the Doctor. 'No, no, no!' + +'In your mind there was none, I know, my husband!' she returned. +'And when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of +shame and grief, and knew that I had to tell that, underneath your +roof, one of my own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for +the love of me, had spoken to me words that should have found no +utterance, even if I had been the weak and mercenary wretch he +thought me - my mind revolted from the taint the very tale +conveyed. It died upon my lips, and from that hour till now has +never passed them.' + +Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy-chair; +and retired behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any +more. + +'I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him +from that time; then, only when it has been necessary for the +avoidance of this explanation. Years have passed since he knew, +from me, what his situation here was. The kindnesses you have +secretly done for his advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my +surprise and pleasure, have been, you will believe, but +aggravations of the unhappiness and burden of my secret.' + +She sunk down gently at the Doctor's feet, though he did his utmost +to prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face: + +'Do not speak to me yet! Let me say a little more! Right or +wrong, if this were to be done again, I think I should do just the +same. You never can know what it was to be devoted to you, with +those old associations; to find that anyone could be so hard as to +suppose that the truth of my heart was bartered away, and to be +surrounded by appearances confirming that belief. I was very +young, and had no adviser. Between mama and me, in all relating to +you, there was a wide division. If I shrunk into myself, hiding +the disrespect I had undergone, it was because I honoured you so +much, and so much wished that you should honour me!' + +'Annie, my pure heart!' said the Doctor, 'my dear girl!' + +'A little more! a very few words more! I used to think there were +so many whom you might have married, who would not have brought +such charge and trouble on you, and who would have made your home +a worthier home. I used to be afraid that I had better have +remained your pupil, and almost your child. I used to fear that I +was so unsuited to your learning and wisdom. If all this made me +shrink within myself (as indeed it did), when I had that to tell, +it was still because I honoured you so much, and hoped that you +might one day honour me.' + +'That day has shone this long time, Annie,' said the Doctor, and +can have but one long night, my dear.' + +'Another word! I afterwards meant - steadfastly meant, and +purposed to myself - to bear the whole weight of knowing the +unworthiness of one to whom you had been so good. And now a last +word, dearest and best of friends! The cause of the late change in +you, which I have seen with so much pain and sorrow, and have +sometimes referred to my old apprehension - at other times to +lingering suppositions nearer to the truth - has been made clear +tonight; and by an accident I have also come to know, tonight, the +full measure of your noble trust in me, even under that mistake. +I do not hope that any love and duty I may render in return, will +ever make me worthy of your priceless confidence; but with all this +knowledge fresh upon me, I can lift my eyes to this dear face, +revered as a father's, loved as a husband's, sacred to me in my +childhood as a friend's, and solemnly declare that in my lightest +thought I have never wronged you; never wavered in the love and the +fidelity I owe you!' + +She had her arms around the Doctor's neck, and he leant his head +down over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses. + +'Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband! Never cast me out! Do not +think or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except +in all my many imperfections. Every succeeding year I have known +this better, as I have esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to +your heart, my husband, for my love was founded on a rock, and it +endures!' + +In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick, +without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding +kiss. And it was very fortunate, with a view to his credit, that +she did so; for I am confident that I detected him at that moment +in the act of making preparations to stand on one leg, as an +appropriate expression of delight. + +'You are a very remarkable man, Dick!' said my aunt, with an air of +unqualified approbation; 'and never pretend to be anything else, +for I know better!' + +With that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and +we three stole quietly out of the room, and came away. + +'That's a settler for our military friend, at any rate,' said my +aunt, on the way home. 'I should sleep the better for that, if +there was nothing else to be glad of!' + +'She was quite overcome, I am afraid,' said Mr. Dick, with great +commiseration. + +'What! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?' inquired my aunt. + +'I don't think I ever saw a crocodile,' returned Mr. Dick, mildly. + +'There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn't been +for that old Animal,' said my aunt, with strong emphasis. 'It's +very much to be wished that some mothers would leave their +daughters alone after marriage, and not be so violently +affectionate. They seem to think the only return that can be made +them for bringing an unfortunate young woman into the world - God +bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought, or wanted to come! - +is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What are you +thinking of, Trot?' + +I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still +running on some of the expressions used. 'There can be no +disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.' +'The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.' 'My love +was founded on a rock.' But we were at home; and the trodden +leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind was blowing. + + + +CHAPTER 46 +Intelligence + + +I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for +dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning +from a solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing - for +my success had steadily increased with my steady application, and +I was engaged at that time upon my first work of fiction - I came +past Mrs. Steerforth's house. I had often passed it before, during +my residence in that neighbourhood, though never when I could +choose another road. Howbeit, it did sometimes happen that it was +not easy to find another, without making a long circuit; and so I +had passed that way, upon the whole, pretty often. + +I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with +a quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of +the best rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed +old-fashioned windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, +looked very dismal, close shut, and with their blinds always drawn +down. There was a covered way across a little paved court, to an +entrance that was never used; and there was one round staircase +window, at odds with all the rest, and the only one unshaded by a +blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look. I do not remember +that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had been a casual +passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some childless +person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge of +the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should +have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say. + +As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could +not go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened +a long train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular +evening that I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and +later fancies, the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows +of disappointments dimly seen and understood, the blending of +experience and imagination, incidental to the occupation with which +my thoughts had been busy, it was more than commonly suggestive. +I fell into a brown study as I walked on, and a voice at my side +made me start. + +It was a woman's voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs. +Steerforth's little parlour-maid, who had formerly worn blue +ribbons in her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, +I suppose, to the altered character of the house; and wore but one +or two disconsolate bows of sober brown. + +'If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and +speak to Miss Dartle?' + +'Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?' I inquired. + +'Not tonight, sir, but it's just the same. Miss Dartle saw you +pass +a night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and +when I saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her.' + +I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how +Mrs. Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept +her own room a good deal. + +When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the +garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was +sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the +great city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the +sky; and as I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here +and there some larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I +fancied it was no inapt companion to the memory of this fierce +woman. + +She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I +thought her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had +seen her last; the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still +plainer. + +Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last +occasion; and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took +no pains to conceal. + +'I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,' said I, standing +near her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her +gesture of invitation to sit down. + +'If you please,' said she. 'Pray has this girl been found?' + +'No.' + +'And yet she has run away!' + +I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were +eager to load her with reproaches. + +'Run away?' I repeated. + +'Yes! From him,' she said, with a laugh. 'If she is not found, +perhaps she never will be found. She may be dead!' + +The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw +expressed in any other face that ever I have seen. + +'To wish her dead,' said I, 'may be the kindest wish that one of +her own sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has +softened you so much, Miss Dartle.' + +She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another +scornful laugh, said: + +'The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are +friends of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. +Do you wish to know what is known of her?' + +'Yes,' said I. + +She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards +a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a +kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, 'Come here!' - as if she +were calling to some unclean beast. + +'You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in +this place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?' said she, looking over her +shoulder at me with the same expression. + +I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, +'Come here!' again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. +Littimer, who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and +took up his position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of +triumph, in which, strange to say, there was yet something feminine +and alluring: with which she reclined upon the seat between us, and +looked at me, was worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend. + +'Now,' said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching +the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with +pleasure rather than pain. 'Tell Mr. Copperfield about the +flight.' + +'Mr. James and myself, ma'am -' + +'Don't address yourself to me!' she interrupted with a frown. + +'Mr. James and myself, sir -' + +'Nor to me, if you please,' said I. + +Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a +slight obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was +most agreeable to him; and began again. + +'Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever +since she left Yarmouth under Mr. james's protection. We have been +in a variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We +have been in France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all +parts.' + +He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself +to that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were +striking chords upon a dumb piano. + +'Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more +settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I +have been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and +spoke the languages; and wouldn't have been known for the same +country-person. I noticed that she was much admired wherever we +went.' + +Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance +at her, and slightly smile to himself. + +'Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her +dress; what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; +what with this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted +general notice.' + +He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the +distant prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy +mouth. + +Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the +other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, +with his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little +advanced, and a little on one side: + +'The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being +occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary +Mr. James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that +kind; and things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be +restless again. The more restless he got, the worse she got; and +I must say, for myself, that I had a very difficult time of it +indeed between the two. Still matters were patched up here, and +made good there, over and over again; and altogether lasted, I am +sure, for a longer time than anybody could have expected.' + +Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, +with her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his +hand with a respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on: + +'At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words +and reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the +neighbourhood of Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman +being very partial to the sea), and, under pretence of coming back +in a day or so, left it in charge with me to break it out, that, +for the general happiness of all concerned, he was' - here an +interruption of the short cough - 'gone. But Mr. James, I must +say, certainly did behave extremely honourable; for he proposed +that the young woman should marry a very respectable person, who +was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as +good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular +way: her connexions being very common.' + +He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that +the scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected +in Miss Dartle's face. + +'This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do +anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore +harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has +undergone so much on his account. Therefore I undertook the +commission. The young woman's violence when she came to, after I +broke the fact of his departure, was beyond all expectations. She +was quite mad, and had to be held by force; or, if she couldn't +have got to a knife, or got to the sea, she'd have beaten her head +against the marble floor.' + +Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation +in her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had +uttered. + +'But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to +me,' said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands uneasily, 'which anybody +might have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as +a kind intention, then the young woman came out in her true +colours. A more outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct +was surprisingly bad. She had no more gratitude, no more feeling, +no more patience, no more reason in her, than a stock or a stone. +If I hadn't been upon my guard, I am convinced she would have had +my blood.' + +'I think the better of her for it,' said I, indignantly. + +Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, 'Indeed, sir? But +you're young!' and resumed his narrative. + +'It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything +nigh her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury +with, and to shut her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out +in the night; forced the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up +myself; dropped on a vine that was trailed below; and never has +been seen or heard of, to my knowledge, since.' + +'She is dead, perhaps,' said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she +could have spurned the body of the ruined girl. + +'She may have drowned herself, miss,' returned Mr. Littimer, +catching at an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. 'It's +very possible. Or, she may have had assistance from the boatmen, +and the boatmen's wives and children. Being given to low company, +she was very much in the habit of talking to them on the beach, +Miss Dartle, and sitting by their boats. I have known her do it, +when Mr. James has been away, whole days. Mr. James was far from +pleased to find out, once, that she had told the children she was +a boatman's daughter, and that in her own country, long ago, she +had roamed about the beach, like them.' + +Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her +sitting on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when +she was innocent, listening to little voices such as might have +called her Mother had she been a poor man's wife; and to the great +voice of the sea, with its eternal 'Never more!' + +'When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle -' + +'Did I tell you not to speak to me?' she said, with stern contempt. + +'You spoke to me, miss,' he replied. 'I beg your pardon. But it +is my service to obey.' + +'Do your service,' she returned. 'Finish your story, and go!' + +'When it was clear,' he said, with infinite respectability and an +obedient bow, 'that she was not to be found, I went to Mr. James, +at the place where it had been agreed that I should write to him, +and informed him of what had occurred. Words passed between us in +consequence, and I felt it due to my character to leave him. I +could bear, and I have borne, a great deal from Mr. James; but he +insulted me too far. He hurt me. Knowing the unfortunate +difference between himself and his mother, and what her anxiety of +mind was likely to be, I took the liberty of coming home to +England, and relating -' + +'For money which I paid him,' said Miss Dartle to me. + +'Just so, ma'am - and relating what I knew. I am not aware,' said +Mr. Littimer, after a moment's reflection, 'that there is anything +else. I am at present out of employment, and should be happy to +meet with a respectable situation.' + +Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there +were anything that I desired to ask. As there was something which +had occurred to my mind, I said in reply: + +'I could wish to know from this - creature,' I could not bring +myself to utter any more conciliatory word, 'whether they +intercepted a letter that was written to her from home, or whether +he supposes that she received it.' + +He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and +the tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against +the tip of every finger of his left. + +Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him. + +'I beg your pardon, miss,' he said, awakening from his abstraction, +'but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a +servant. Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If +Mr. Copperfield wishes to know anything from me, I take the liberty +of reminding Mr. Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I +have a character to maintain.' + +After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, +and said, 'You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to +yourself, if you choose. What answer do you make?' + +'Sir,' he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of +those delicate tips, 'my answer must be qualified; because, to +betray Mr. james's confidence to his mother, and to betray it to +you, are two different actions. It is not probable, I consider, +that Mr. James would encourage the receipt of letters likely to +increase low spirits and unpleasantness; but further than that, +sir, I should wish to avoid going.' + +'Is that all?' inquired Miss Dartle of me. + +I indicated that I had nothing more to say. 'Except,' I added, as +I saw him moving off, 'that I understand this fellow's part in the +wicked story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man +who has been her father from her childhood, I would recommend him +to avoid going too much into public.' + +He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened with his usual +repose of manner. + +'Thank you, sir. But you'll excuse me if I say, sir, that there +are neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that +people are not allowed to take the law into their own hands. If +they do, it is more to their own peril, I believe, than to other +people's. Consequently speaking, I am not at all afraid of going +wherever I may wish, sir.' + +With that, he made a polite bow; and, with another to Miss Dartle, +went away through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had +come. Miss Dartle and I regarded each other for a little while in +silence; her manner being exactly what it was, when she had +produced the man. + +'He says besides,' she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, +'that his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain; and this done, is +away to gratify his seafaring tastes till he is weary. But this is +of no interest to you. Between these two proud persons, mother and +son, there is a wider breach than before, and little hope of its +healing, for they are one at heart, and time makes each more +obstinate and imperious. Neither is this of any interest to you; +but it introduces what I wish to say. This devil whom you make an +angel of. I mean this low girl whom he picked out of the +tide-mud,' with her black eyes full upon me, and her passionate +finger up, 'may be alive, - for I believe some common things are +hard to die. If she is, you will desire to have a pearl of such +price found and taken care of. We desire that, too; that he may +not by any chance be made her prey again. So far, we are united in +one interest; and that is why I, who would do her any mischief that +so coarse a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to hear +what you have heard.' + +I saw, by the change in her face, that someone was advancing behind +me. It was Mrs. Steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than +of yore, and with an augmentation of her former stateliness of +manner, but still, I perceived - and I was touched by it - with an +ineffaceable remembrance of my old love for her son. She was +greatly altered. Her fine figure was far less upright, her +handsome face was deeply marked, and her hair was almost white. +But when she sat down on the seat, she was a handsome lady still; +and well I knew the bright eye with its lofty look, that had been +a light in my very dreams at school. + +'Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything, Rosa?' + +'Yes.' + +'And has he heard Littimer himself?' + +'Yes; I have told him why you wished it.' +'You are a good girl. I have had some slight correspondence with +your former friend, sir,' addressing me, 'but it has not restored +his sense of duty or natural obligation. Therefore I have no other +object in this, than what Rosa has mentioned. If, by the course +which may relieve the mind of the decent man you brought here (for +whom I am sorry - I can say no more), my son may be saved from +again falling into the snares of a designing enemy, well!' + +She drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her, far away. + +'Madam,' I said respectfully, 'I understand. I assure you I am in +no danger of putting any strained construction on your motives. +But I must say, even to you, having known this injured family from +childhood, that if you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not +been cruelly deluded, and would not rather die a hundred deaths +than take a cup of water from your son's hand now, you cherish a +terrible mistake.' + +'Well, Rosa, well!' said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other was about to +interpose, 'it is no matter. Let it be. You are married, sir, I +am told?' + +I answered that I had been some time married. + +'And are doing well? I hear little in the quiet life I lead, but +I understand you are beginning to be famous.' + +'I have been very fortunate,' I said, 'and find my name connected +with some praise.' + +'You have no mother?' - in a softened voice. + +'No.' + +'It is a pity,' she returned. 'She would have been proud of you. +Good night!' + +I took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending air, and +it was as calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace. Her +pride could still its very pulses, it appeared, and draw the placid +veil before her face, through which she sat looking straight before +her on the far distance. + +As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could not help +observing how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and +how it thickened and closed around them. Here and there, some +early lamps were seen to twinkle in the distant city; and in the +eastern quarter of the sky the lurid light still hovered. But, +from the greater part of the broad valley interposed, a mist was +rising like a sea, which, mingling with the darkness, made it seem +as if the gathering waters would encompass them. I have reason to +remember this, and think of it with awe; for before I looked upon +those two again, a stormy sea had risen to their feet. + +Reflecting on what had been thus told me, I felt it right that it +should be communicated to Mr. Peggotty. On the following evening +I went into London in quest of him. He was always wandering about +from place to place, with his one object of recovering his niece +before him; but was more in London than elsewhere. Often and +often, now, had I seen him in the dead of night passing along the +streets, searching, among the few who loitered out of doors at +those untimely hours, for what he dreaded to find. + +He kept a lodging over the little chandler's shop in Hungerford +Market, which I have had occasion to mention more than once, and +from which he first went forth upon his errand of mercy. Hither I +directed my walk. On making inquiry for him, I learned from the +people of the house that he had not gone out yet, and I should find +him in his room upstairs. + +He was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants. +The room was very neat and orderly. I saw in a moment that it was +always kept prepared for her reception, and that he never went out +but he thought it possible he might bring her home. He had not +heard my tap at the door, and only raised his eyes when I laid my +hand upon his shoulder. + +'Mas'r Davy! Thankee, sir! thankee hearty, for this visit! Sit ye +down. You're kindly welcome, sir!' + +'Mr. Peggotty,' said I, taking the chair he handed me, 'don't +expect much! I have heard some news.' + +'Of Em'ly!' + +He put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth, and turned +pale, as he fixed his eyes on mine. + +'It gives no clue to where she is; but she is not with him.' + +He sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in profound +silence to all I had to tell. I well remember the sense of +dignity, beauty even, with which the patient gravity of his face +impressed me, when, having gradually removed his eyes from mine, he +sat looking downward, leaning his forehead on his hand. He offered +no interruption, but remained throughout perfectly still. He +seemed to pursue her figure through the narrative, and to let every +other shape go by him, as if it were nothing. + +When I had done, he shaded his face, and continued silent. I +looked out of the window for a little while, and occupied myself +with the plants. + +'How do you fare to feel about it, Mas'r Davy?' he inquired at +length. + +'I think that she is living,' I replied. + +'I doen't know. Maybe the first shock was too rough, and in the +wildness of her art -! That there blue water as she used to speak +on. Could she have thowt o' that so many year, because it was to +be her grave!' + +He said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice; and walked across +the little room. + +'And yet,' he added, 'Mas'r Davy, I have felt so sure as she was +living - I have know'd, awake and sleeping, as it was so trew that +I should find her - I have been so led on by it, and held up by it +- that I doen't believe I can have been deceived. No! Em'ly's +alive!' + +He put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his sunburnt face +into a resolute expression. + +'My niece, Em'ly, is alive, sir!' he said, steadfastly. 'I doen't +know wheer it comes from, or how 'tis, but I am told as she's +alive!' + +He looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. I waited for +a few moments, until he could give me his undivided attention; and +then proceeded to explain the precaution, that, it had occurred to +me last night, it would be wise to take. + +'Now, my dear friend -'I began. + +'Thankee, thankee, kind sir,' he said, grasping my hand in both of +his. + +'If she should make her way to London, which is likely - for where +could she lose herself so readily as in this vast city; and what +would she wish to do, but lose and hide herself, if she does not go +home? -' + +'And she won't go home,' he interposed, shaking his head +mournfully. 'If she had left of her own accord, she might; not as +It was, sir.' + +'If she should come here,' said I, 'I believe there is one person, +here, more likely to discover her than any other in the world. Do +you remember - hear what I say, with fortitude - think of your +great object! - do you remember Martha?' + +'Of our town?' + +I needed no other answer than his face. + +'Do you know that she is in London?' + +'I have seen her in the streets,' he answered, with a shiver. + +'But you don't know,' said I, 'that Emily was charitable to her, +with Ham's help, long before she fled from home. Nor, that, when +we met one night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the +way, she listened at the door.' + +'Mas'r Davy!' he replied in astonishment. 'That night when it snew +so hard?' + +'That night. I have never seen her since. I went back, after +parting from you, to speak to her, but she was gone. I was +unwilling to mention her to you then, and I am now; but she is the +person of whom I speak, and with whom I think we should +communicate. Do you understand?' + +'Too well, sir,' he replied. We had sunk our voices, almost to a +whisper, and continued to speak in that tone. + +'You say you have seen her. Do you think that you could find her? +I could only hope to do so by chance.' + +'I think, Mas'r Davy, I know wheer to look.' + +'It is dark. Being together, shall we go out now, and try to find +her tonight?' + +He assented, and prepared to accompany me. Without appearing to +observe what he was doing, I saw how carefully he adjusted the +little room, put a candle ready and the means of lighting it, +arranged the bed, and finally took out of a drawer one of her +dresses (I remember to have seen her wear it), neatly folded with +some other garments, and a bonnet, which he placed upon a chair. +He made no allusion to these clothes, neither did I. There they +had been waiting for her, many and many a night, no doubt. + +'The time was, Mas'r Davy,' he said, as we came downstairs, 'when +I thowt this girl, Martha, a'most like the dirt underneath my +Em'ly's feet. God forgive me, theer's a difference now!' + +As we went along, partly to hold him in conversation, and partly to +satisfy myself, I asked him about Ham. He said, almost in the same +words as formerly, that Ham was just the same, 'wearing away his +life with kiender no care nohow for 't; but never murmuring, and +liked by all'. + +I asked him what he thought Ham's state of mind was, in reference +to the cause of their misfortunes? Whether he believed it was +dangerous? What he supposed, for example, Ham would do, if he and +Steerforth ever should encounter? + +'I doen't know, sir,' he replied. 'I have thowt of it oftentimes, +but I can't awize myself of it, no matters.' + +I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when +we were all three on the beach. 'Do you recollect,' said I, 'a +certain wild way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about +"the end of it"?' + +'Sure I do!' said he. + +'What do you suppose he meant?' + +'Mas'r Davy,' he replied, 'I've put the question to myself a mort +o' times, and never found no answer. And theer's one curious thing +- that, though he is so pleasant, I wouldn't fare to feel +comfortable to try and get his mind upon 't. He never said a wured +to me as warn't as dootiful as dootiful could be, and it ain't +likely as he'd begin to speak any other ways now; but it's fur from +being fleet water in his mind, where them thowts lays. It's deep, +sir, and I can't see down.' + +'You are right,' said I, 'and that has sometimes made me anxious.' + +'And me too, Mas'r Davy,' he rejoined. 'Even more so, I do assure +you, than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the +alteration in him. I doen't know as he'd do violence under any +circumstances, but I hope as them two may be kep asunders.' + +We had come, through Temple Bar, into the city. Conversing no more +now, and walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim +of his devoted life, and went on, with that hushed concentration of +his faculties which would have made his figure solitary in a +multitude. We were not far from Blackfriars Bridge, when he turned +his head and pointed to a solitary female figure flitting along the +opposite side of the street. I knew it, readily, to be the figure +that we sought. + +We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it +occurred to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman's +interest in the lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, +aloof from the crowd, and where we should be less observed. I +advised my companion, therefore, that we should not address her +yet, but follow her; consulting in this, likewise, an indistinct +desire I had, to know where she went. + +He acquiescing, we followed at a distance: never losing sight of +her, but never caring to come very near, as she frequently looked +about. Once, she stopped to listen to a band of music; and then we +stopped too. + +She went on a long way. Still we went on. It was evident, from +the manner in which she held her course, that she was going to some +fixed destination; and this, and her keeping in the busy streets, +and I suppose the strange fascination in the secrecy and mystery of +so following anyone, made me adhere to my first purpose. At length +she turned into a dull, dark street, where the noise and crowd were +lost; and I said, 'We may speak to her now'; and, mending our pace, +we went after her. + + +CHAPTER 47 +MARTHA + + +We were now down in Westminster. We had turned back to follow her, +having encountered her coming towards us; and Westminster Abbey was +the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the +leading streets. She proceeded so quickly, when she got free of +the two currents of passengers setting towards and from the bridge, +that, between this and the advance she had of us when she struck +off, we were in the narrow water-side street by Millbank before we +came up with her. At that moment she crossed the road, as if to +avoid the footsteps that she heard so close behind; and, without +looking back, passed on even more rapidly. + +A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons +were housed for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. I touched my +companion without speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her, +and both followed on that opposite side of the way; keeping as +quietly as we could in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very +near her. + +There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying +street, a dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete +old ferry-house. Its position is just at that point where the +street ceases, and the road begins to lie between a row of houses +and the river. As soon as she came here, and saw the water, she +stopped as if she had come to her destination; and presently went +slowly along by the brink of the river, looking intently at it. + +All the way here, I had supposed that she was going to some house; +indeed, I had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be +in some way associated with the lost girl. But that one dark +glimpse of the river, through the gateway, had instinctively +prepared me for her going no farther. + +The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, +sad, and solitary by night, as any about London. There were +neither wharves nor houses on the melancholy waste of road near the +great blank Prison. A sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the +prison walls. Coarse grass and rank weeds straggled over all the +marshy land in the vicinity. In one part, carcases of houses, +inauspiciously begun and never finished, rotted away. In another, +the ground was cumbered with rusty iron monsters of steam-boilers, +wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles, anchors, diving-bells, +windmill-sails, and I know not what strange objects, accumulated by +some speculator, and grovelling in the dust, underneath which - +having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet weather - they +had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves. The clash +and glare of sundry fiery Works upon the river-side, arose by night +to disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that +poured out of their chimneys. Slimy gaps and causeways, winding +among old wooden piles, with a sickly substance clinging to the +latter, like green hair, and the rags of last year's handbills +offering rewards for drowned men fluttering above high-water mark, +led down through the ooze and slush to the ebb-tide. There was a +story that one of the pits dug for the dead in the time of the +Great Plague was hereabout; and a blighting influence seemed to +have proceeded from it over the whole place. Or else it looked as +if it had gradually decomposed into that nightmare condition, out +of the overflowings of the polluted stream. + +As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to +corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the +river's brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely +and still, looking at the water. + +There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these +enabled us to come within a few yards of her without being seen. +I then signed to Mr. Peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged +from their shade to speak to her. I did not approach her solitary +figure without trembling; for this gloomy end to her determined +walk, and the way in which she stood, almost within the cavernous +shadow of the iron bridge, looking at the lights crookedly +reflected in the strong tide, inspired a dread within me. + +I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although absorbed +in gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and +that she was muffling her hands in it, in an unsettled and +bewildered way, more like the action of a sleep-walker than a +waking person. I know, and never can forget, that there was that +in her wild manner which gave me no assurance but that she would +sink before my eyes, until I had her arm within my grasp. + +At the same moment I said 'Martha!' + +She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such +strength that I doubt if I could have held her alone. But a +stronger hand than mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her +frightened eyes and saw whose it was, she made but one more effort +and dropped down between us. We carried her away from the water to +where there were some dry stones, and there laid her down, crying +and moaning. In a little while she sat among the stones, holding +her wretched head with both her hands. + +'Oh, the river!' she cried passionately. 'Oh, the river!' + +'Hush, hush!' said I. 'Calm yourself.' + +But she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, 'Oh, +the river!' over and over again. + +'I know it's like me!' she exclaimed. 'I know that I belong to it. +I know that it's the natural company of such as I am! It comes from +country places, where there was once no harm in it - and it creeps +through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable - and it goes +away, like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled - and +I feel that I must go with it!' +I have never known what despair was, except in the tone of those +words. + +'I can't keep away from it. I can't forget it. It haunts me day +and night. It's the only thing in all the world that I am fit for, +or that's fit for me. Oh, the dreadful river!' + +The thought passed through my mind that in the face of my +companion, as he looked upon her without speech or motion, I might +have read his niece's history, if I had known nothing of it. I +never saw, in any painting or reality, horror and compassion so +impressively blended. He shook as if he would have fallen; and his +hand - I touched it with my own, for his appearance alarmed me - +was deadly cold. + +'She is in a state of frenzy,' I whispered to him. 'She will speak +differently in a little time.' + +I don't know what he would have said in answer. He made some +motion with his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken; but he +had only pointed to her with his outstretched hand. + +A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid +her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of +humiliation and ruin. Knowing that this state must pass, before we +could speak to her with any hope, I ventured to restrain him when +he would have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she +became more tranquil. + +'Martha,' said I then, leaning down, and helping her to rise - she +seemed to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, but +she was weak, and leaned against a boat. 'Do you know who this is, +who is with me?' + +She said faintly, 'Yes.' + +'Do you know that we have followed you a long way tonight?' + +She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at me, but stood +in a humble attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand, +without appearing conscious of them, and pressing the other, +clenched, against her forehead. + +'Are you composed enough,' said I, 'to speak on the subject which +so interested you - I hope Heaven may remember it! - that snowy +night?' + +Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate +thanks to me for not having driven her away from the door. + +'I want to say nothing for myself,' she said, after a few moments. +'I am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all. But tell him, sir,' +she had shrunk away from him, 'if you don't feel too hard to me to +do it, that I never was in any way the cause of his misfortune.' +'It has never been attributed to you,' I returned, earnestly +responding to her earnestness. + +'It was you, if I don't deceive myself,' she said, in a broken +voice, 'that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity on +me; was so gentle to me; didn't shrink away from me like all the +rest, and gave me such kind help! Was it you, sir?' + +'It was,' said I. + +'I should have been in the river long ago,' she said, glancing at +it with a terrible expression, 'if any wrong to her had been upon +my mind. I never could have kept out of it a single winter's +night, if I had not been free of any share in that!' + +'The cause of her flight is too well understood,' I said. 'You are +innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe, - we know.' + +'Oh, I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a +better heart!' exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; 'for +she was always good to me! She never spoke a word to me but what +was pleasant and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what +I am myself, knowing what I am myself, so well? When I lost +everything that makes life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was +that I was parted for ever from her!' + +Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, +and his eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face. + +'And when I heard what had happened before that snowy night, from +some belonging to our town,' cried Martha, 'the bitterest thought +in all my mind was, that the people would remember she once kept +company with me, and would say I had corrupted her! When, Heaven +knows, I would have died to have brought back her good name!' + +Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse +and grief was terrible. + +'To have died, would not have been much - what can I say? - I +would have lived!' she cried. 'I would have lived to be old, in +the wretched streets - and to wander about, avoided, in the dark - +and to see the day break on the ghastly line of houses, and +remember how the same sun used to shine into my room, and wake me +once - I would have done even that, to save her!' + +Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched +them up, as if she would have ground them. She writhed into some +new posture constantly: stiffening her arms, twisting them before +her face, as though to shut out from her eyes the little light +there was, and drooping her head, as if it were heavy with +insupportable recollections. + +'What shall I ever do!' she said, fighting thus with her despair. +'How can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living +disgrace to everyone I come near!' Suddenly she turned to my +companion. 'Stamp upon me, kill me! When she was your pride, you +would have thought I had done her harm if I had brushed against her +in the street. You can't believe - why should you? - a syllable +that comes out of my lips. It would be a burning shame upon you, +even now, if she and I exchanged a word. I don't complain. I +don't say she and I are alike - I know there is a long, long way +between us. I only say, with all my guilt and wretchedness upon my +head, that I am grateful to her from my soul, and love her. Oh, +don't think that all the power I had of loving anything is quite +worn out! Throw me away, as all the world does. Kill me for being +what I am, and having ever known her; but don't think that of me!' + +He looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild +distracted manner; and, when she was silent, gently raised her. + +'Martha,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'God forbid as I should judge you. +Forbid as I, of all men, should do that, my girl! You doen't know +half the change that's come, in course of time, upon me, when you +think it likely. Well!' he paused a moment, then went on. 'You +doen't understand how 'tis that this here gentleman and me has +wished to speak to you. You doen't understand what 'tis we has +afore us. Listen now!' + +His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly, +before him, as if she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her +passionate sorrow was quite hushed and mute. + +'If you heerd,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'owt of what passed between +Mas'r Davy and me, th' night when it snew so hard, you know as I +have been - wheer not - fur to seek my dear niece. My dear niece,' +he repeated steadily. 'Fur she's more dear to me now, Martha, than +she was dear afore.' + +She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet. + +'I have heerd her tell,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'as you was early left +fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough +seafaring-way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you'd had +such a friend, you'd have got into a way of being fond of him in +course of time, and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me.' + +As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about +her, taking it up from the ground for that purpose. + +'Whereby,' said he, 'I know, both as she would go to the wureld's +furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she +would fly to the wureld's furdest end to keep off seeing me. For +though she ain't no call to doubt my love, and doen't - and +doen't,' he repeated, with a quiet assurance of the truth of what +he said, 'there's shame steps in, and keeps betwixt us.' + +I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering +himself, new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in +every feature it presented. + +'According to our reckoning,' he proceeded, 'Mas'r Davy's here, and +mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to +London. We believe - Mas'r Davy, me, and all of us - that you are +as innocent of everything that has befell her, as the unborn child. +You've spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. Bless +her, I knew she was! I knew she always was, to all. You're +thankful to her, and you love her. Help us all you can to find +her, and may Heaven reward you!' + +She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were +doubtful of what he had said. + +'Will you trust me?' she asked, in a low voice of astonishment. + +'Full and free!' said Mr. Peggotty. + +'To speak to her, if I should ever find her; shelter her, if I have +any shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge, +come to you, and bring you to her?' she asked hurriedly. + +We both replied together, 'Yes!' + +She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote +herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would +never waver in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it, +while there was any chance of hope. If she were not true to it, +might the object she now had in life, which bound her to something +devoid of evil, in its passing away from her, leave her more +forlorn and more despairing, if that were possible, than she had +been upon the river's brink that night; and then might all help, +human and Divine, renounce her evermore! + +She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but +said this to the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at +the gloomy water. + +We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which I +recounted at length. She listened with great attention, and with +a face that often changed, but had the same purpose in all its +varying expressions. Her eyes occasionally filled with tears, but +those she repressed. It seemed as if her spirit were quite +altered, and she could not be too quiet. + +She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated +with, if occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I +wrote our two addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore +out and gave to her, and which she put in her poor bosom. I asked +her where she lived herself. She said, after a pause, in no place +long. It were better not to know. + +Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already +occurred to myself, I took out my purse; but I could not prevail +upon her to accept any money, nor could I exact any promise from +her that she would do so at another time. I represented to her +that Mr. Peggotty could not be called, for one in his condition, +poor; and that the idea of her engaging in this search, while +depending on her own resources, shocked us both. She continued +steadfast. In this particular, his influence upon her was equally +powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him but remained +inexorable. + +'There may be work to be got,' she said. 'I'll try.' + +'At least take some assistance,' I returned, 'until you have +tried.' + +'I could not do what I have promised, for money,' she replied. 'I +could not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to +take away your trust, to take away the object that you have given +me, to take away the only certain thing that saves me from the +river.' + +'In the name of the great judge,' said I, 'before whom you and all +of us must stand at His dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We +can all do some good, if we will.' + +She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she +answered: + +'It has been put into your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched +creature for repentance. I am afraid to think so; it seems too +bold. If any good should come of me, I might begin to hope; for +nothing but harm has ever come of my deeds yet. I am to be +trusted, for the first time in a long while, with my miserable +life, on account of what you have given me to try for. I know no +more, and I can say no more.' + +Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting +out her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there was +some healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. She +had been ill, probably for a long time. I observed, upon that +closer opportunity of observation, that she was worn and haggard, +and that her sunken eyes expressed privation and endurance. + +We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same +direction, until we came back into the lighted and populous +streets. I had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that +I then put it to Mr. Peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the +onset, like distrusting her, to follow her any farther. He being +of the same mind, and equally reliant on her, we suffered her to +take her own road, and took ours, which was towards Highgate. He +accompanied me a good part of the way; and when we parted, with a +prayer for the success of this fresh effort, there was a new and +thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no loss to interpret. + +It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate, +and was standing listening for the deep bell of St. Paul's, the +sound of which I thought had been borne towards me among the +multitude of striking clocks, when I was rather surprised to see +that the door of my aunt's cottage was open, and that a faint light +in the entry was shining out across the road. + +Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old +alarms, and might be watching the progress of some imaginary +conflagration in the distance, I went to speak to her. It was with +very great surprise that I saw a man standing in her little garden. + +He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of +drinking. I stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for +the moon was up now, though obscured; and I recognized the man whom +I had once supposed to be a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and had once +encountered with my aunt in the streets of the city. + +He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry +appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it +were the first time he had seen it. After stooping to put the +bottle on the ground, he looked up at the windows, and looked +about; though with a covert and impatient air, as if he was anxious +to be gone. + +The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt +came out. She was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I +heard it chink. + +'What's the use of this?' he demanded. + +'I can spare no more,' returned my aunt. + +'Then I can't go,' said he. 'Here! You may take it back!' + +'You bad man,' returned my aunt, with great emotion; 'how can you +use me so? But why do I ask? It is because you know how weak I +am! What have I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but +to abandon you to your deserts?' + +'And why don't you abandon me to my deserts?' said he. + +'You ask me why!' returned my aunt. 'What a heart you must have!' + +He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at +length he said: + +'Is this all you mean to give me, then?' + +'It is all I CAN give you,' said my aunt. 'You know I have had +losses, and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so. +Having got it, why do you give me the pain of looking at you for +another moment, and seeing what you have become?' + +'I have become shabby enough, if you mean that,' he said. 'I lead +the life of an owl.' + +'You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had,' said my +aunt. 'You closed my heart against the whole world, years and +years. You treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and +repent of it. Don't add new injuries to the long, long list of +injuries you have done me!' + +'Aye!' he returned. 'It's all very fine - Well! I must do the best +I can, for the present, I suppose.' + +In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt's indignant +tears, and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three +quick steps, as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and +went in as he came out. We eyed one another narrowly in passing, +and with no favour. + +'Aunt,' said I, hurriedly. 'This man alarming you again! Let me +speak to him. Who is he?' + +'Child,' returned my aunt, taking my arm, 'come in, and don't speak +to me for ten minutes.' + +We sat down in her little parlour. My aunt retired behind the +round green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a +chair, and occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an +hour. Then she came out, and took a seat beside me. + +'Trot,' said my aunt, calmly, 'it's my husband.' + +'Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead!' + +'Dead to me,' returned my aunt, 'but living.' + +I sat in silent amazement. + +'Betsey Trotwood don't look a likely subject for the tender +passion,' said my aunt, composedly, 'but the time was, Trot, when +she believed in that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, +right well. When there was no proof of attachment and affection +that she would not have given him. He repaid her by breaking her +fortune, and nearly breaking her heart. So she put all that sort +of sentiment, once and for ever, in a grave, and filled it up, and +flattened it down.' + +'My dear, good aunt!' + +'I left him,' my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the +back of mine, 'generously. I may say at this distance of time, +Trot, that I left him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that +I might have effected a separation on easy terms for myself; but I +did not. He soon made ducks and drakes of what I gave him, sank +lower and lower, married another woman, I believe, became an +adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he is now, you see. But +he was a fine-looking man when I married him,' said my aunt, with +an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; 'and I +believed him - I was a fool! - to be the soul of honour!' + +She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head. + +'He is nothing to me now, Trot- less than nothing. But, sooner +than have him punished for his offences (as he would be if he +prowled about in this country), I give him more money than I can +afford, at intervals when he reappears, to go away. I was a fool +when I married him; and I am so far an incurable fool on that +subject, that, for the sake of what I once believed him to be, I +wouldn't have even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt with. +For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman was.' + +MY aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her +dress. + +'There, my dear!' she said. 'Now you know the beginning, middle, +and end, and all about it. We won't mention the subject to one +another any more; neither, of course, will you mention it to +anybody else. This is my grumpy, frumpy story, and we'll keep it +to ourselves, Trot!' + + + +CHAPTER 48 +DOMESTIC + + +I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with +the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and +was very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded +in my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and +thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt, than +anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human +nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself +never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order +that they may believe in him. For this reason, I retained my +modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise I got, the more +I tried to deserve. + +It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other +essentials it is my written memory, to pursue the history of my own +fictions. They express themselves, and I leave them to themselves. +When I refer to them, incidentally, it is only as a part of my +progress. + +Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and +accident had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with +confidence. Without such assurance I should certainly have left it +alone, and bestowed my energy on some other endeavour. I should +have tried to find out what nature and accident really had made me, +and to be that, and nothing else. +I had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere, so +prosperously, that when my new success was achieved, I considered +myself reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. One +joyful night, therefore, I noted down the music of the +parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have never heard it +since; though I still recognize the old drone in the newspapers, +without any substantial variation (except, perhaps, that there is +more of it), all the livelong session. + +I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about +a year and a half. After several varieties of experiment, we had +given up the housekeeping as a bad job. The house kept itself, and +we kept a page. The principal function of this retainer was to +quarrel with the cook; in which respect he was a perfect +Whittington, without his cat, or the remotest chance of being made +Lord Mayor. + +He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. His +whole existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the +most improper occasions, - as when we had a little dinner-party, or +a few friends in the evening, - and would come tumbling out of the +kitchen, with iron missiles flying after him. We wanted to get rid +of him, but he was very much attached to us, and wouldn't go. He +was a tearful boy, and broke into such deplorable lamentations, +when a cessation of our connexion was hinted at, that we were +obliged to keep him. He had no mother - no anything in the way of +a relative, that I could discover, except a sister, who fled to +America the moment we had taken him off her hands; and he became +quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. He had a lively +perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing his +eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on +the extreme corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never +would take completely out of his pocket, but always economized and +secreted. + +This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per +annum, was a source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as +he grew - and he grew like scarlet beans - with painful +apprehensions of the time when he would begin to shave; even of the +days when he would be bald or grey. I saw no prospect of ever +getting rid of him; and, projecting myself into the future, used to +think what an inconvenience he would be when he was an old man. + +I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate's manner of +getting me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora's watch, which, +like everything else belonging to us, had no particular place of +its own; and, converting it into money, spent the produce (he was +always a weak-minded boy) in incessantly riding up and down between +London and Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, +as well as I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey; +when four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn't +play, were found upon his person. + +The surprise and its consequences would have been much less +disagreeable to me if he had not been penitent. But he was very +penitent indeed, and in a peculiar way - not in the lump, but by +instalments. For example: the day after that on which I was +obliged to appear against him, he made certain revelations touching +a hamper in the cellar, which we believed to be full of wine, but +which had nothing in it except bottles and corks. We supposed he +had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew of the cook; +but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a new +twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early +every morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had +been suborned to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three +days more, I was informed by the authorities of his having led to +the discovery of sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and +sheets in the rag-bag. A little while afterwards, he broke out in +an entirely new direction, and confessed to a knowledge of +burglarious intentions as to our premises, on the part of the +pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so ashamed of +being such a victim, that I would have given him any money to hold +his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being +permitted to run away. It was an aggravating circumstance in the +case that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making +me amends in every new discovery: not to say, heaping obligations +on my head. + +At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police +approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life +until he was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he +couldn't be quiet, but was always writing us letters; and wanted so +much to see Dora before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, +and fainted when she found herself inside the iron bars. In short, +I had no peace of my life until he was expatriated, and made (as I +afterwards heard) a shepherd of, 'up the country' somewhere; I have +no geographical idea where. + +All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our +mistakes in a new aspect; as I could not help communicating to Dora +one evening, in spite of my tenderness for her. + +'My love,' said I, 'it is very painful to me to think that our want +of system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we +have got used to), but other people.' + +'You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be +cross!' said Dora. + +'No, my dear, indeed! Let me explain to you what I mean.' + +'I think I don't want to know,' said Dora. + +'But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down.' + +Dora put his nose to mine, and said 'Boh!' to drive my seriousness +away; but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat +looking at me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little +expression of countenance. + +'The fact is, my dear,' I began, 'there is contagion in us. We +infect everyone about us.' + +I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora's face had +not admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether +I was going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other +medical remedy, for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I +checked myself, and made my meaning plainer. + +'It is not merely, my pet,' said I, 'that we lose money and +comfort, and even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more +careful; but that we incur the serious responsibility of spoiling +everyone who comes into our service, or has any dealings with us. +I begin to be afraid that the fault is not entirely on one side, +but that these people all turn out ill because we don't turn out +very well ourselves.' + +'Oh, what an accusation,' exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; +'to say that you ever saw me take gold watches! Oh!' + +'My dearest,' I remonstrated, 'don't talk preposterous nonsense! +Who has made the least allusion to gold watches?' + +'You did,' returned Dora. 'You know you did. You said I hadn't +turned out well, and compared me to him.' + +'To whom?' I asked. + +'To the page,' sobbed Dora. 'Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your +affectionate wife to a transported page! Why didn't you tell me +your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn't you say, you +hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a +transported page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh, +my goodness!' + +'Now, Dora, my love,' I returned, gently trying to remove the +handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, 'this is not only very +ridiculous of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it's not +true.' + +'You always said he was a story-teller,' sobbed Dora. 'And now you +say the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!' + +'My darling girl,' I retorted, 'I really must entreat you to be +reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear +Dora, unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they +will never learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present +opportunities to people to do wrong, that never ought to be +presented. Even if we were as lax as we are, in all our +arrangements, by choice - which we are not - even if we liked it, +and found it agreeable to be so - which we don't - I am persuaded +we should have no right to go on in this way. We are positively +corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can't help +thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss, +and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. There, dear, that's all. +Come now. Don't be foolish!' + +Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the +handkerchief. She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I +was uneasy, why had I ever been married? Why hadn't I said, even +the day before we went to church, that I knew I should be uneasy, +and I would rather not? If I couldn't bear her, why didn't I send +her away to her aunts at Putney, or to Julia Mills in India? Julia +would be glad to see her, and would not call her a transported +page; Julia never had called her anything of the sort. In short, +Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being in that +condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind of +effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some other course. + +What other course was left to take? To 'form her mind'? This was +a common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and +I resolved to form Dora's mind. + +I began immediately. When Dora was very childish, and I would have +infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave - and +disconcerted her, and myself too. I talked to her on the subjects +which occupied my thoughts; and I read Shakespeare to her - and +fatigued her to the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving +her, as it were quite casually, little scraps of useful +information, or sound opinion - and she started from them when I +let them off, as if they had been crackers. No matter how +incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to form my little wife's +mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive +perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest +apprehensions. In particular, it was clear to me, that she thought +Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly. + +I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowledge; and +whenever he came to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the +edification of Dora at second hand. The amount of practical wisdom +I bestowed upon Traddles in this manner was immense, and of the +best quality; but it had no other effect upon Dora than to depress +her spirits, and make her always nervous with the dread that it +would be her turn next. I found myself in the condition of a +schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall; of always playing spider to Dora's +fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her infinite +disturbance. + +Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time +when there should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and +when I should have 'formed her mind' to my entire satisfaction, I +persevered, even for months. Finding at last, however, that, +although I had been all this time a very porcupine or hedgehog, +bristling all over with determination, I had effected nothing, it +began to occur to me that perhaps Dora's mind was already formed. + +On further consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned +my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than +in action; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, +and to try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was +heartily tired of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of +seeing my darling under restraint; so I bought a pretty pair of +ear-rings for her, and a collar for Jip, and went home one day to +make myself agreeable. + +Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me +joyfully; but there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I +had made up my mind that it should not be there. If there must be +such a shadow anywhere, I would keep it for the future in my own +breast. + +I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her +ears; and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as +good company lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine. +Which I sincerely felt, and which indeed it was. + +'The truth is, Dora, my life,' I said; 'I have been trying to be +wise.' + +'And to make me wise too,' said Dora, timidly. 'Haven't you, +Doady?' + +I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and +kissed the parted lips. + +'It's of not a bit of use,' said Dora, shaking her head, until the +ear-rings rang again. 'You know what a little thing I am, and what +I wanted you to call me from the first. If you can't do so, I am +afraid you'll never like me. Are you sure you don't think, +sometimes, it would have been better to have -' + +'Done what, my dear?' For she made no effort to proceed. + +'Nothing!' said Dora. + +'Nothing?' I repeated. + +She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by +her favourite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in +such a profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them +away and see it. + +'Don't I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than +to have tried to form my little wife's mind?' said I, laughing at +myself. 'Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do.' + +'Is that what you have been trying?' cried Dora. 'Oh what a +shocking boy!' + +'But I shall never try any more,' said I. 'For I love her dearly +as she is.' + +'Without a story - really?' inquired Dora, creeping closer to me. + +'Why should I seek to change,' said I, 'what has been so precious +to me for so long! You never can show better than as your own +natural self, my sweet Dora; and we'll try no conceited +experiments, but go back to our old way, and be happy.' + +'And be happy!' returned Dora. 'Yes! All day! And you won't mind +things going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?' + +'No, no,' said I. 'We must do the best we can.' + +'And you won't tell me, any more, that we make other people bad,' +coaxed Dora; 'will you? Because you know it's so dreadfully +cross!' + +'No, no,' said I. + +'it's better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn't it?' +said Dora. + +'Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world.' + +'In the world! Ah, Doady, it's a large place!' + +She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, +kissed me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on +Jip's new collar. + +So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been +unhappy in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I +could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my +child-wife. I resolved to do what I could, in a quiet way, to +improve our proceedings myself, but I foresaw that my utmost would +be very little, or I must degenerate into the spider again, and be +for ever lying in wait. + +And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any +more, but was to rest wholly on my own heart? How did that fall? + +The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it +were changed at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed +me like a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I +loved my wife dearly, and I was happy; but the happiness I had +vaguely anticipated, once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and +there was always something wanting. + +In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself, to reflect my +mind on this paper, I again examine it, closely, and bring its +secrets to the light. What I missed, I still regarded - I always +regarded - as something that had been a dream of my youthful fancy; +that was incapable of realization; that I was now discovering to be +so, with some natural pain, as all men did. But that it would have +been better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and shared +the many thoughts in which I had no partner; and that this might +have been; I knew. + +Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one, that what I +felt was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular +to me, and might have been different: I balanced curiously, with no +distinct sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought +of the airy dreams of youth that are incapable of realization, I +thought of the better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown; +and then the contented days with Agnes, in the dear old house, +arose before me, like spectres of the dead, that might have some +renewal in another world, but never more could be reanimated here. + +Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, What might have +happened, or what would have happened, if Dora and I had never +known each other? But she was so incorporated with my existence, +that it was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of +my reach and sight, like gossamer floating in the air. + +I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered, and half +awoke, and slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind. +There was no evidence of it in me; I know of no influence it had in +anything I said or did. I bore the weight of all our little cares, +and all my projects; Dora held the pens; and we both felt that our +shares were adjusted as the case required. She was truly fond of +me, and proud of me; and when Agnes wrote a few earnest words in +her letters to Dora, of the pride and interest with which my old +friends heard of my growing reputation, and read my book as if they +heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them out to me with tears +of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear old clever, famous +boy. + +'The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.' Those +words of Mrs. Strong's were constantly recurring to me, at this +time; were almost always present to my mind. I awoke with them, +often, in the night; I remember to have even read them, in dreams, +inscribed upon the walls of houses. For I knew, now, that my own +heart was undisciplined when it first loved Dora; and that if it +had been disciplined, it never could have felt, when we were +married, what it had felt in its secret experience. + +'There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind +and purpose.' Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to +adapt Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for +me to adapt myself to Dora; to share with her what I could, and be +happy; to bear on my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still. +This was the discipline to which I tried to bring my heart, when I +began to think. It made my second year much happier than my first; +and, what was better still, made Dora's life all sunshine. + +But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that +lighter hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that +a baby-smile upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman. +It was not to be. The spirit fluttered for a moment on the +threshold of its little prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took +wing. + +'When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt,' said Dora, 'I +shall make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy.' + +'I suspect, my dear,' said my aunt quietly working by her side, 'he +has a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora.' + +'Do you think he is old?' said Dora, astonished. 'Oh, how strange +it seems that Jip should be old!' + +'It's a complaint we are all liable to, Little One, as we get on in +life,' said my aunt, cheerfully; 'I don't feel more free from it +than I used to be, I assure you.' + +'But Jip,' said Dora, looking at him with compassion, 'even little +Jip! Oh, poor fellow!' + +'I dare say he'll last a long time yet, Blossom,' said my aunt, +patting Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look +at Jip, who responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking +himself in various asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head +and shoulders. 'He must have a piece of flannel in his house this +winter, and I shouldn't wonder if he came out quite fresh again, +with the flowers in the spring. Bless the little dog!' exclaimed +my aunt, 'if he had as many lives as a cat, and was on the point of +losing 'em all, he'd bark at me with his last breath, I believe!' + +Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my +aunt to such a furious extent, that he couldn't keep straight, but +barked himself sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more +he reproached her; for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for +some inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal. + +Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion; and +when he was quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through +her hand, repeating thoughtfully, 'Even little Jip! Oh, poor +fellow!' + +'His lungs are good enough,' said my aunt, gaily, 'and his dislikes +are not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no +doubt. But if you want a dog to race with, Little Blossom, he has +lived too well for that, and I'll give you one.' + +'Thank you, aunt,' said Dora, faintly. 'But don't, please!' + +'No?' said my aunt, taking off her spectacles. + +'I couldn't have any other dog but Jip,' said Dora. 'It would be +so unkind to Jip! Besides, I couldn't be such friends with any +other dog but Jip; because he wouldn't have known me before I was +married, and wouldn't have barked at Doady when he first came to +our house. I couldn't care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid, +aunt.' + +'To be sure!' said my aunt, patting her cheek again. 'You are +right.' + +'You are not offended,' said Dora. 'Are you?' + +'Why, what a sensitive pet it is!' cried my aunt, bending over her +affectionately. 'To think that I could be offended!' + +'No, no, I didn't really think so,' returned Dora; 'but I am a +little tired, and it made me silly for a moment - I am always a +silly little thing, you know, but it made me more silly - to talk +about Jip. He has known me in all that has happened to me, haven't +you, Jip? And I couldn't bear to slight him, because he was a +little altered - could I, Jip?' + +Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand. + +'You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you'll leave your mistress +yet?' said Dora. 'We may keep one another company a little +longer!' + +My pretty Dora! When she came down to dinner on the ensuing Sunday, +and was so glad to see old Traddles (who always dined with us on +Sunday), we thought she would be 'running about as she used to do', +in a few days. But they said, wait a few days more; and then, wait +a few days more; and still she neither ran nor walked. She looked +very pretty, and was very merry; but the little feet that used to +be so nimble when they danced round Jip, were dull and motionless. + +I began to carry her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every +night. She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as +if I did it for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go +on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see +that we were coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of +nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows. +Mr. Dick would not have relinquished his post of candle-bearer to +anyone alive. Traddles would be often at the bottom of the +staircase, looking on, and taking charge of sportive messages from +Dora to the dearest girl in the world. We made quite a gay +procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there. + +But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter +in my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were +approaching to some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life. +I avoided the recognition of this feeling by any name, or by any +communing with myself; until one night, when it was very strong +upon me, and my aunt had left her with a parting cry of 'Good +night, Little Blossom,' I sat down at my desk alone, and cried to +think, Oh what a fatal name it was, and how the blossom withered in +its bloom upon the tree! + + +CHAPTER 49 +I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY + + +I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated +Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctor's Commons; which I read +with some surprise: + + +'MY DEAR SIR, + +'Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a +considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy +which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of +my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of +the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded +me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no +common description. This fact, my dear sir, combined with the +distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you, +deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the +companion of my youth, by the familiar appellation of Copperfield! +It is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself the +honour to refer, will ever be treasured among the muniments of our +house (I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers, +preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem +amounting to affection. + +'It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a +fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered +Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), +who now takes up the pen to address you - it is not, I repeat, for +one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of +congratulation. That he leaves to abler and to purer hands. + +'If your more important avocations should admit of your ever +tracing these imperfect characters thus far - which may be, or may +not be, as circumstances arise - you will naturally inquire by what +object am I influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? +Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of +that inquiry, and proceed to develop it; premising that it is not +an object of a pecuniary nature. + +'Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may +possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or +directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be +permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for +ever dispelled - that my peace is shattered and my power of +enjoyment destroyed - that my heart is no longer in the right place +- and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker +is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at +his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the +better. But I will not digress. +'Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the +assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised +in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my +intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a +respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan +scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic +tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards +the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the +outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil +process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, +precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is +accomplished. + +'I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr. +Copperfield, or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner +Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to +condescend to meet me, and renew (so far as may be) our past +relations of the olden time. I confine myself to throwing out the +observation, that, at the hour and place I have indicated, may be +found such ruined vestiges as yet + 'Remain, + 'Of + 'A + 'Fallen Tower, + 'WILKINS MICAWBER. + +'P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement +that Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential possession of my +intentions.' + + +I read the letter over several times. Making due allowance for Mr. +Micawber's lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary +relish with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all +possible and impossible occasions, I still believed that something +important lay hidden at the bottom of this roundabout +communication. I put it down, to think about it; and took it up +again, to read it once more; and was still pursuing it, when +Traddles found me in the height of my perplexity. + +'My dear fellow,' said I, 'I never was better pleased to see you. +You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgement at a most +opportune time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles, +from Mr. Micawber.' + +'No?' cried Traddles. 'You don't say so? And I have received one +from Mrs. Micawber!' + +With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, +under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end +as if he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an +exchange with me. I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber's +letter, and returned the elevation of eyebrows with which he said +"'Wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging +flame!" Bless me, Copperfield!'- and then entered on the perusal of +Mrs. Micawber's epistle. + +It ran thus: + + +'My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still +remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well +acquainted with him, may I beg a few moments of his leisure time? +I assure Mr. T. T. that I would not intrude upon his kindness, were +I in any other position than on the confines of distraction. + +'Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr. +Micawber (formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is +the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and +soliciting his best indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea +of the change in Mr. Micawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his +violence. It has gradually augmented, until it assumes the +appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes, I +assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take place. +Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him +that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he +has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have long been his +principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence. +The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he +would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a +separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for +twopence, to buy 'lemon-stunners' - a local sweetmeat - he +presented an oyster-knife at the twins! + +'I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these +details. Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to +form the faintest conception of my heart-rending situation. + +'May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter? +Will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? +Oh yes, for I know his heart! + +'The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the +female sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously +concealed his hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the +direction-card which he attached to the little brown valise of +happier days, the eagle-glance of matrimonial anxiety detected, d, +o, n, distinctly traced. The West-End destination of the coach, is +the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T. to see my +misguided husband, and to reason with him? Dare I ask Mr. T. to +endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his agonized family? +Oh no, for that would be too much! + +'If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will +Mr. T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar +entreaties? In any case, he will have the benevolence to consider +this communication strictly private, and on no account whatever to +be alluded to, however distantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber. +If Mr. T. should ever reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be +most improbable), a letter addressed to M. E., Post Office, +Canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any +addressed immediately to one, who subscribes herself, in extreme +distress, + +'Mr. Thomas Traddles's respectful friend and suppliant, + + 'EMMA MICAWBER.' + + +'What do you think of that letter?' said Traddles, casting his eyes +upon me, when I had read it twice. + +'What do you think of the other?' said I. For he was still reading +it with knitted brows. + +'I think that the two together, Copperfield,' replied Traddles, +'mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their +correspondence - but I don't know what. They are both written in +good faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor +thing!' he was now alluding to Mrs. Micawber's letter, and we were +standing side by side comparing the two; 'it will be a charity to +write to her, at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to +see Mr. Micawber.' + +I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself +with having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set +me thinking a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its +place; but my absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the +family, and my hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my +dismissing the subject. I had often thought of the Micawbers, but +chiefly to wonder what 'pecuniary liabilities' they were +establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy Mr. Micawber was +of me when he became clerk to Uriah Heep. + +However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our +joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post +it, Traddles and I held a long conference, and launched into a +number of speculations, which I need not repeat. We took my aunt +into our counsels in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion +was, that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber's +appointment. + +Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour +before the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was +standing with his arms folded, over against the wall, looking at +the spikes on the top, with a sentimental expression, as if they +were the interlacing boughs of trees that had shaded him in his +youth. + +When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and +something less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his +legal suit of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore +the old surtout and tights, but not quite with the old air. He +gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed with him; +but, his very eye-glass seemed to hang less easily, and his +shirt-collar, though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather +drooped. + +'Gentlemen!' said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, 'you +are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my +inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. +Copperfield in esse, and Mrs. Traddles in posse, - presuming, that +is to say, that my friend Mr. Traddles is not yet united to the +object of his affections, for weal and for woe.' + +We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then +directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning, 'I assure +you, gentlemen,' when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form +of address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. + +'My dear Copperfield,' he returned, pressing my hand, 'your +cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment +of the Temple once called Man - if I may be permitted so to express +myself - bespeaks a heart that is an honour to our common nature. +I was about to observe that I again behold the serene spot where +some of the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by.' + +'Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber,' said I. 'I hope she is +well?' + +'Thank you,' returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this +reference, 'she is but so-so. And this,' said Mr. Micawber, +nodding his head sorrowfully, 'is the Bench! Where, for the first +time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of +pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed, from day to day, by +importune voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was +no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where +personal service of process was not required, and detainees were +merely lodged at the gate! Gentlemen,' said Mr. Micawber, 'when the +shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure has +been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children +thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. +I have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray +weakness, you will know how to excuse me.' + +'We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber,' said I. + +'Mr. Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, 'when I was an +inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and +punch his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no +longer on those glorious terms!' + +Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber +accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of +Traddles on the other, and walked away between us. + +'There are some landmarks,' observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly +back over his shoulder, 'on the road to the tomb, which, but for +the impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have +passed. Such is the Bench in my chequered career.' + +'Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber,' said Traddles. + +'I am, sir,' interposed Mr. Micawber. + +'I hope,' said Traddles, 'it is not because you have conceived a +dislike to the law - for I am a lawyer myself, you know.' + +Mr. Micawber answered not a word. + +'How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber?' said I, after a silence. + +'My dear Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state +of much excitement, and turning pale, 'if you ask after my employer +as your friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as MY +friend, I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask +after my employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply +to this - that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance +is foxy: not to say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private +individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to +the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity.' + +I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme +that roused him so much. 'May I ask,' said I, 'without any hazard +of repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield +are?' + +'Miss Wickfield,' said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, 'is, as she +always is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, +she is the only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect +for that young lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to +her for her love and truth, and goodness! - Take me,' said Mr. +Micawber, 'down a turning, for, upon my soul, in my present state +of mind I am not equal to this!' + +We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his +pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I +looked as gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our +company by no means inspiriting. + +'It is my fate,' said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing +even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something +genteel; 'it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our +nature have become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield, +is a flight of arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you +please, to walk the earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle my +business in double-quick time.' + +Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up +his pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude +any person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, +hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned +- not knowing what might be lost if we lost sight of him yet - that +it would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he +would ride out to Highgate, where a bed was at his service. + +'You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber,' said +I, 'and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter +reminiscences.' + +'Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to +relieve you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber,' said +Traddles, prudently. + +'Gentlemen,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'do with me as you will! I am +a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all +directions by the elephants - I beg your pardon; I should have said +the elements.' + +We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of +starting; and arrived at Highgate without encountering any +difficulties by the way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in +my mind what to say or do for the best - so was Traddles, +evidently. Mr. Micawber was for the most part plunged into deep +gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself, and hum +the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound melancholy +were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat +exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes. + +We went to my aunt's house rather than to mine, because of Dora's +not being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and +welcomed Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber +kissed her hand, retired to the window, and pulling out his +pocket-handkerchief, had a mental wrestle with himself. + +Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly +compassionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so +quick to find any such person out, that he shook hands with Mr. +Micawber, at least half-a-dozen times in five minutes. To Mr. +Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on the part of a stranger, +was so extremely touching, that he could only say, on the occasion +of each successive shake, 'My dear sir, you overpower me!' Which +gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went at it again with greater +vigour than before. + +'The friendliness of this gentleman,' said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, +'if you will allow me, ma'am, to cull a figure of speech from the +vocabulary of our coarser national sports - floors me. To a man +who is struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and +disquiet, such a reception is trying, I assure you.' + +'My friend Mr. Dick,' replied my aunt proudly, 'is not a common +man.' + +'That I am convinced of,' said Mr. Micawber. 'My dear sir!' for +Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him again; 'I am deeply sensible of +your cordiality!' + +'How do you find yourself?' said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look. + +'Indifferent, my dear sir,' returned Mr. Micawber, sighing. + +'You must keep up your spirits,' said Mr. Dick, 'and make yourself +as comfortable as possible.' + +Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by +finding Mr. Dick's hand again within his own. 'It has been my +lot,' he observed, 'to meet, in the diversified panorama of human +existence, with an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, +so gushing, as the present!' + +At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that +we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so +anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to +reveal something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that +I was in a perfect fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his +chair, with his eyes wide open, and his hair more emphatically +erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at Mr. Micawber, +without so much as attempting to put in a word. My aunt, though I +saw that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new +guest, had more useful possession of her wits than either of us; +for she held him in conversation, and made it necessary for him to +talk, whether he liked it or not. + +'You are a very old friend of my nephew's, Mr. Micawber,' said my +aunt. 'I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before.' + +'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'I wish I had had the honour of +knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you +at present behold.' + +'I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir,' said my aunt. + +Mr. Micawber inclined his head. 'They are as well, ma'am,' he +desperately observed after a pause, 'as Aliens and Outcasts can +ever hope to be.' + +'Lord bless you, sir!' exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. 'What +are you talking about?' + +'The subsistence of my family, ma'am,' returned Mr. Micawber, +'trembles in the balance. My employer -' + +Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the +lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together +with all the other appliances he used in making punch. + +'Your employer, you know,' said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a +gentle reminder. + +'My good sir,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'you recall me, I am obliged +to you.' They shook hands again. 'My employer, ma'am - Mr. Heep +- once did me the favour to observe to me, that if I were not in +the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my +engagement with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the +country, swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring +element. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is +still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood +by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural +feats by playing the barrel-organ.' + +Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, +signified that these performances might be expected to take place +after he was no more; then resumed his peeling with a desperate +air. + +My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually +kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the +aversion with which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any +disclosure he was not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have +taken him up at this point, but for the strange proceedings in +which I saw him engaged; whereof his putting the lemon-peel into +the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer-tray, the spirit into the +empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of +a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. I saw that a crisis +was at hand, and it came. He clattered all his means and +implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his +pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears. + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief, +'this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled +mind, and self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the +question.' + +'Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'what is the matter? Pray speak out. You +are among friends.' + +'Among friends, sir!' repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had +reserved came breaking out of him. 'Good heavens, it is +principally because I AM among friends that my state of mind is +what it is. What is the matter, gentlemen? What is NOT the +matter? Villainy is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, +fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole +atrocious mass is - HEEP!' + +MY aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were +possessed. + +'The struggle is over!' said Mr. Micawber violently gesticulating +with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to +time with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman +difficulties. 'I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched +being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. I have +been under a Taboo in that infernal scoundrel's service. Give me +back my wife, give me back my family, substitute Micawber for the +petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet, +and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and I'll do it. With +an appetite!' + +I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we +might come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and +wouldn't hear a word. + +'I'll put my hand in no man's hand,' said Mr. Micawber, gasping, +puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man +fighting with cold water, 'until I have - blown to fragments - the +- a - detestable - serpent - HEEP! I'll partake of no one's +hospitality, until I have - a - moved Mount Vesuvius - to eruption +- on - a - the abandoned rascal - HEEP! Refreshment - a - +underneath this roof - particularly punch - would - a - choke me - +unless - I had - previously - choked the eyes - out of the head - +a - of - interminable cheat, and liar - HEEP! I - a- I'll know +nobody - and - a - say nothing - and - a - live nowhere - until I +have crushed - to - a - undiscoverable atoms - the - transcendent +and immortal hypocrite and perjurer - HEEP!' + +I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber's dying on the spot. The +manner in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, +and, whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep, +fought his way on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and +brought it out with a vehemence little less than marvellous, was +frightful; but now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked +at us, with every possible colour in his face that had no business +there, and an endless procession of lumps following one another in +hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to shoot into his +forehead, he had the appearance of being in the last extremity. I +would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me off, and +wouldn't hear a word. + +'No, Copperfield! - No communication - a - until - Miss Wickfield +- a - redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel - +HEEP!' (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words, +but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when +he felt it coming.) 'Inviolable secret - a - from the whole world +- a - no exceptions - this day week - a - at breakfast-time - a - +everybody present - including aunt - a - and extremely friendly +gentleman - to be at the hotel at Canterbury - a - where - Mrs. +Micawber and myself - Auld Lang Syne in chorus - and - a - will +expose intolerable ruffian - HEEP! No more to say - a - or listen +to persuasion - go immediately - not capable - a - bear society - +upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor - HEEP!' + +With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going +at all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. +Micawber rushed out of the house; leaving us in a state of +excitement, hope, and wonder, that reduced us to a condition little +better than his own. But even then his passion for writing letters +was too strong to be resisted; for while we were yet in the height +of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note +was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he had +called to write it: - + + + 'Most secret and confidential. +'MY DEAR SIR, + +'I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your +excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a +smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal +contest more easily conceived than described. + +'I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the +morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at +Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honour of +uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the +Immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed. + +'The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone +enable me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no +more. I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of +universal resort, where + + Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, + The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep, + + '- With the plain Inscription, + + 'WILKINS MICAWBER.' + + + +CHAPTER 50 +Mr. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE + + +By this time, some months had passed since our interview on the +bank of the river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she +had communicated with Mr. Peggotty on several occasions. Nothing +had come of her zealous intervention; nor could I infer, from what +he told me, that any clue had been obtained, for a moment, to +Emily's fate. I confess that I began to despair of her recovery, +and gradually to sink deeper and deeper into the belief that she +was dead. + +His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know - and I +believe his honest heart was transparent to me - he never wavered +again, in his solemn certainty of finding her. His patience never +tired. And, although I trembled for the agony it might one day be +to him to have his strong assurance shivered at a blow, there was +something so religious in it, so affectingly expressive of its +anchor being in the purest depths of his fine nature, that the +respect and honour in which I held him were exalted every day. + +His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He +had been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in +all things wherein he wanted help he must do his own part +faithfully, and help himself. I have known him set out in the +night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some +accident, in the window of the old boat, and walk to Yarmouth. I +have known him, on reading something in the newspaper that might +apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a journey of +three- or four-score miles. He made his way by sea to Naples, and +back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle had assisted +me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always +steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily's sake, when she +should be found. In all this long pursuit, I never heard him +repine; I never heard him say he was fatigued, or out of heart. + +Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of +him. I fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, +with his rough cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife +raised, with a timid wonder, to his face. Sometimes of an evening, +about twilight, when he came to talk with me, I would induce him to +smoke his pipe in the garden, as we slowly paced to and fro +together; and then, the picture of his deserted home, and the +comfortable air it used to have in my childish eyes of an evening +when the fire was burning, and the wind moaning round it, came most +vividly into my mind. + +One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha +waiting near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out, +and that she had asked him not to leave London on any account, +until he should have seen her again. + +'Did she tell you why?' I inquired. + +'I asked her, Mas'r Davy,' he replied, 'but it is but few words as +she ever says, and she on'y got my promise and so went away.' + +'Did she say when you might expect to see her again?' I demanded. + +'No, Mas'r Davy,' he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down +his face. 'I asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she +could tell.' + +As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on +threads, I made no other comment on this information than that I +supposed he would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered +within me I kept to myself, and those were faint enough. + +I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight +afterwards. I remember that evening well. It was the second in +Mr. Micawber's week of suspense. There had been rain all day, and +there was a damp feeling in the air. The leaves were thick upon +the trees, and heavy with wet; but the rain had ceased, though the +sky was still dark; and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. +As I walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began to +close around me, their little voices were hushed; and that peculiar +silence which belongs to such an evening in the country when the +lightest trees are quite still, save for the occasional droppings +from their boughs, prevailed. + +There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the +side of our cottage, through which I could see, from the garden +where I was walking, into the road before the house. I happened to +turn my eyes towards this place, as I was thinking of many things; +and I saw a figure beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was +bending eagerly towards me, and beckoning. + +'Martha!' said I, going to it. + +'Can you come with me?' she inquired, in an agitated whisper. 'I +have been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was +to come, and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he +would not be out long. I have tidings for him. Can you come +directly?' + +My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a +hasty gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my +silence, and turned towards London, whence, as her dress betokened, +she had come expeditiously on foot. + +I asked her if that were not our destination? On her motioning +Yes, with the same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty +coach that was coming by, and we got into it. When I asked her +where the coachman was to drive, she answered, 'Anywhere near +Golden Square! And quick!' - then shrunk into a corner, with one +trembling hand before her face, and the other making the former +gesture, as if she could not bear a voice. + +Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and +dread, I looked at her for some explanation. But seeing how +strongly she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my +own natural inclination too, at such a time, I did not attempt to +break the silence. We proceeded without a word being spoken. +Sometimes she glanced out of the window, as though she thought we +were going slowly, though indeed we were going fast; but otherwise +remained exactly as at first. + +We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had +mentioned, where I directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that +we might have some occasion for it. She laid her hand on my arm, +and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets, of which there are +several in that part, where the houses were once fair dwellings in +the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long +degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. Entering at the +open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to +follow her up the common staircase, which was like a tributary +channel to the street. + +The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were +opened and people's heads put out; and we passed other people on +the stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, +before we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the +windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their +curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out +of their doors. It was a broad panelled staircase, with massive +balustrades of some dark wood; cornices above the doors, ornamented +with carved fruit and flowers; and broad seats in the windows. But +all these tokens of past grandeur were miserably decayed and dirty; +rot, damp, and age, had weakened the flooring, which in many places +was unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had been made, I +noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by +repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal; +but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian +pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from +the other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had been +darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that remained, there was +scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by which the +bad air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw, +through other glassless windows, into other houses in a similar +condition, and looked giddily down into a wretched yard, which was +the common dust-heap of the mansion. + +We proceeded to the top-storey of the house. Two or three times, +by the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts +of a female figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the +last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full +view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it +turned the handle, and went in. + +'What's this!' said Martha, in a whisper. 'She has gone into my +room. I don't know her!' + +I knew her. I had recognized her with amazement, for Miss Dartle. + +I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen +before, in a few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done +so, when we heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we +stood, what she was saying. Martha, with an astonished look, +repeated her former action, and softly led me up the stairs; and +then, by a little back-door which seemed to have no lock, and which +she pushed open with a touch, into a small empty garret with a low +sloping roof, little better than a cupboard. Between this, and the +room she had called hers, there was a small door of communication, +standing partly open. Here we stopped, breathless with our ascent, +and she placed her hand lightly on my lips. I could only see, of +the room beyond, that it was pretty large; that there was a bed in +it; and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the +walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom we had +heard her address. Certainly, my companion could not, for my +position was the best. +A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha kept one hand on +my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude. + +'It matters little to me her not being at home,' said Rosa Dartle +haughtily, 'I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see.' + +'Me?' replied a soft voice. + +At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was +Emily's! + +'Yes,' returned Miss Dartle, 'I have come to look at you. What? +You are not ashamed of the face that has done so much?' + +The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern +sharpness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I +had seen her standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes, +and the passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar, with its white +track cutting through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she +spoke. + +'I have come to see,' she said, 'James Steerforth's fancy; the girl +who ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people +of her native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of +persons like James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is +like.' + +There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped +these taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly +interposed herself before it. It was succeeded by a moment's +pause. + +When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and +with a stamp upon the ground. + +'Stay there!' she said, 'or I'll proclaim you to the house, and the +whole street! If you try to evade me, I'll stop you, if it's by the +hair, and raise the very stones against you!' + +A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A +silence succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired +to put an end to the interview, I felt that I had no right to +present myself; that it was for Mr. Peggotty alone to see her and +recover her. Would he never come? I thought impatiently. + +'So!' said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, 'I see her at +last! Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate +mock-modesty, and that hanging head!' + +'Oh, for Heaven's sake, spare me!' exclaimed Emily. 'Whoever you +are, you know my pitiable story, and for Heaven's sake spare me, if +you would be spared yourself!' + +'If I would be spared!' returned the other fiercely; 'what is there +in common between US, do you think!' + +'Nothing but our sex,' said Emily, with a burst of tears. + +'And that,' said Rosa Dartle, 'is so strong a claim, preferred by +one so infamous, that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn +and abhorrence of you, it would freeze it up. Our sex! You are an +honour to our sex!' + +'I have deserved this,' said Emily, 'but it's dreadful! Dear, dear +lady, think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha, +come back! Oh, home, home!' + +Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and +looked downward, as if Emily were crouching on the floor before +her. Being now between me and the light, I could see her curled +lip, and her cruel eyes intently fixed on one place, with a greedy +triumph. + +'Listen to what I say!' she said; 'and reserve your false arts for +your dupes. Do you hope to move me by your tears? No more than +you could charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave.' + +'Oh, have some mercy on me!' cried Emily. 'Show me some +compassion, or I shall die mad!' + +'It would be no great penance,' said Rosa Dartle, 'for your crimes. +Do you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you +have laid waste?' + +'Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don't think of it!' cried +Emily; and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head +thrown back, her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped +and held out, and her hair streaming about her. 'Has there ever +been a single minute, waking or sleeping, when it hasn't been +before me, just as it used to be in the lost days when I turned my +back upon it for ever and for ever! Oh, home, home! Oh dear, dear +uncle, if you ever could have known the agony your love would cause +me when I fell away from good, you never would have shown it to me +so constant, much as you felt it; but would have been angry to me, +at least once in my life, that I might have had some comfort! I +have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them were always +fond of me!' She dropped on her face, before the imperious figure +in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her +dress. + +Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of +brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she +must keep a strong constraint upon herself - I write what I +sincerely believe - or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful +form with her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of +her face and character seemed forced into that expression. - Would +he never come? + +'The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!' she said, when she had +so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could +trust herself to speak. 'YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow +a thought on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low +place, which money would not pay for, and handsomely? YOUR home! +You were a part of the trade of your home, and were bought and sold +like any other vendible thing your people dealt in.' + +'Oh, not that!' cried Emily. 'Say anything of me; but don't visit +my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as +honourable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, +if you have no mercy for me.' + +'I speak,' she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, +and drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily's touch, +'I speak of HIS home - where I live. Here,' she said, stretching +out her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the +prostrate girl, 'is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother +and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn't have been +admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach. +This piece of pollution, picked up from the water-side, to be made +much of for an hour, and then tossed back to her original place!' + +'No! no!' cried Emily, clasping her hands together. 'When he first +came into my way - that the day had never dawned upon me, and he +had met me being carried to my grave! - I had been brought up as +virtuous as you or any lady, and was going to be the wife of as +good a man as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If you +live in his home and know him, you know, perhaps, what his power +with a weak, vain girl might be. I don't defend myself, but I know +well, and he knows well, or he will know when he comes to die, and +his mind is troubled with it, that he used all his power to deceive +me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved him!' + +Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling +struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and +disfigured by passion, that I had almost thrown myself between +them. The blow, which had no aim, fell upon the air. As she now +stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation that she +was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with +rage and scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never +could see such another. + +'YOU love him? You?' she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering +as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath. + +Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply. + +'And tell that to ME,' she added, 'with your shameful lips? Why +don't they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done, +I would have this girl whipped to death.' + +And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her +with the rack itself, while that furious look lasted. +She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily +with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for gods and men. + +'SHE love!' she said. 'THAT carrion! And he ever cared for her, +she'd tell me. Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!' + +Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I +would have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But, +when she suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She +had chained it up again, and however it might tear her within, she +subdued it to herself. + +'I came here, you pure fountain of love,' she said, 'to see - as I +began by telling you - what such a thing as you was like. I was +curious. I am satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek +that home of yours, with all speed, and hide your head among those +excellent people who are expecting you, and whom your money will +console. When it's all gone, you can believe, and trust, and love +again, you know! I thought you a broken toy that had lasted its +time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished, and thrown away. +But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and an ill-used innocent, +with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness - which you look +like, and is quite consistent with your story! - I have something +more to say. Attend to it; for what I say I'll do. Do you hear +me, you fairy spirit? What I say, I mean to do!' + +Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed +over her face like a spasm, and left her smiling. + +'Hide yourself,' she pursued, 'if not at home, somewhere. Let it +be somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life - or, better still, +in some obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not +break, you have found no way of helping it to be still! I have +heard of such means sometimes. I believe they may be easily +found.' + +A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She +stopped, and listened to it as if it were music. + +'I am of a strange nature, perhaps,' Rosa Dartle went on; 'but I +can't breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly. +Therefore, I will have it cleared; I will have it purified of you. +If you live here tomorrow, I'll have your story and your character +proclaimed on the common stair. There are decent women in the +house, I am told; and it is a pity such a light as you should be +among them, and concealed. If, leaving here, you seek any refuge +in this town in any character but your true one (which you are +welcome to bear, without molestation from me), the same service +shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being assisted by a +gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favour of your hand, I am +sanguine as to that.' + +Would he never, never come? How long was I to bear this? How long +could I bear it? +'Oh me, oh me!' exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that might +have touched the hardest heart, I should have thought; but there +was no relenting in Rosa Dartle's smile. 'What, what, shall I do!' + +'Do?' returned the other. 'Live happy in your own reflections! +Consecrate your existence to the recollection of James Steerforth's +tenderness - he would have made you his serving-man's wife, would +he not? - or to feeling grateful to the upright and deserving +creature who would have taken you as his gift. Or, if those proud +remembrances, and the consciousness of your own virtues, and the +honourable position to which they have raised you in the eyes of +everything that wears the human shape, will not sustain you, marry +that good man, and be happy in his condescension. If this will not +do either, die! There are doorways and dust-heaps for such deaths, +and such despair - find one, and take your flight to Heaven!' + +I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain. +It was his, thank God! + +She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and +passed out of my sight. + +'But mark!' she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door +to go away, 'I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds +that I entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my +reach altogether, or drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to +say; and what I say, I mean to do!' + +The foot upon the stairs came nearer - nearer - passed her as she +went down - rushed into the room! + +'Uncle!' + +A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking +in, saw him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed +for a few seconds in the face; then stooped to kiss it - oh, how +tenderly! - and drew a handkerchief before it. + +'Mas'r Davy,' he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was +covered, 'I thank my Heav'nly Father as my dream's come true! I +thank Him hearty for having guided of me, in His own ways, to my +darling!' + +With those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled +face lying on his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried +her, motionless and unconscious, down the stairs. + + + +CHAPTER 51 +THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY + + +It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as I +was walking in my garden with my aunt (who took little other +exercise now, being so much in attendance on my dear Dora), I was +told that Mr. Peggotty desired to speak with me. He came into the +garden to meet me half-way, on my going towards the gate; and bared +his head, as it was always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, +for whom he had a high respect. I had been telling her all that +had happened overnight. Without saying a word, she walked up with +a cordial face, shook hands with him, and patted him on the arm. +It was so expressively done, that she had no need to say a word. +Mr. Peggotty understood her quite as well as if she had said a +thousand. + +'I'll go in now, Trot,' said my aunt, 'and look after Little +Blossom, who will be getting up presently.' + +'Not along of my being heer, ma'am, I hope?' said Mr. Peggotty. +'Unless my wits is gone a bahd's neezing' - by which Mr. Peggotty +meant to say, bird's-nesting - 'this morning, 'tis along of me as +you're a-going to quit us?' + +'You have something to say, my good friend,' returned my aunt, 'and +will do better without me.' + +'By your leave, ma'am,' returned Mr. Peggotty, 'I should take it +kind, pervising you doen't mind my clicketten, if you'd bide heer.' + +'Would you?' said my aunt, with short good-nature. 'Then I am sure +I will!' + +So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty's, and walked with him to +a leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden, +where she sat down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat +for Mr. Peggotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand +on the small rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap for a +little while before beginning to speak, I could not help observing +what power and force of character his sinewy hand expressed, and +what a good and trusty companion it was to his honest brow and +iron-grey hair. + +'I took my dear child away last night,' Mr. Peggotty began, as he +raised his eyes to ours, 'to my lodging, wheer I have a long time +been expecting of her and preparing fur her. It was hours afore +she knowed me right; and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, +and kiender said to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come +to be. You may believe me, when I heerd her voice, as I had heerd +at home so playful - and see her humbled, as it might be in the +dust our Saviour wrote in with his blessed hand - I felt a wownd go +to my 'art, in the midst of all its thankfulness.' + +He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of +concealing why; and then cleared his voice. + +'It warn't for long as I felt that; for she was found. I had on'y +to think as she was found, and it was gone. I doen't know why I do +so much as mention of it now, I'm sure. I didn't have it in my +mind a minute ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so +nat'ral, that I yielded to it afore I was aweer.' + +'You are a self-denying soul,' said my aunt, 'and will have your +reward.' + +Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his +face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as +an acknowledgement of her good opinion; then took up the thread he +had relinquished. + +'When my Em'ly took flight,' he said, in stern wrath for the +moment, 'from the house wheer she was made a prisoner by that theer +spotted snake as Mas'r Davy see, - and his story's trew, and may +GOD confound him! - she took flight in the night. It was a dark +night, with a many stars a-shining. She was wild. She ran along +the sea beach, believing the old boat was theer; and calling out to +us to turn away our faces, for she was a-coming by. She heerd +herself a-crying out, like as if it was another person; and cut +herself on them sharp-pinted stones and rocks, and felt it no more +than if she had been rock herself. Ever so fur she run, and there +was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her ears. Of a sudden - +or so she thowt, you unnerstand - the day broke, wet and windy, and +she was lying b'low a heap of stone upon the shore, and a woman was +a-speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country, what +was it as had gone so much amiss?' + +He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, +so vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented +what he described to me, with greater distinctness than I can +express. I can hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but +that I was actually present in these scenes; they are impressed +upon me with such an astonishing air of fidelity. + +'As Em'ly's eyes - which was heavy - see this woman better,' Mr. +Peggotty went on, 'she know'd as she was one of them as she had +often talked to on the beach. Fur, though she had run (as I have +said) ever so fur in the night, she had oftentimes wandered long +ways, partly afoot, partly in boats and carriages, and know'd all +that country, 'long the coast, miles and miles. She hadn't no +children of her own, this woman, being a young wife; but she was a- +looking to have one afore long. And may my prayers go up to Heaven +that 'twill be a happiness to her, and a comfort, and a honour, all +her life! May it love her and be dootiful to her, in her old age; +helpful of her at the last; a Angel to her heer, and heerafter!' + +'Amen!' said my aunt. + +'She had been summat timorous and down,' said Mr. Peggotty, and had +sat, at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work as +it was, when Em'ly talked to the children. But Em'ly had took +notice of her, and had gone and spoke to her; and as the young +woman was partial to the children herself, they had soon made +friends. Sermuchser, that when Em'ly went that way, she always giv +Em'ly flowers. This was her as now asked what it was that had gone +so much amiss. Em'ly told her, and she - took her home. She did +indeed. She took her home,' said Mr. Peggotty, covering his face. + +He was more affected by this act of kindness, than I had ever seen +him affected by anything since the night she went away. My aunt +and I did not attempt to disturb him. + +'It was a little cottage, you may suppose,' he said, presently, +'but she found space for Em'ly in it, - her husband was away at +sea, - and she kep it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbours as +she had (they was not many near) to keep it secret too. Em'ly was +took bad with fever, and, what is very strange to me is, - maybe +'tis not so strange to scholars, - the language of that country +went out of her head, and she could only speak her own, that no one +unnerstood. She recollects, as if she had dreamed it, that she lay +there always a-talking her own tongue, always believing as the old +boat was round the next pint in the bay, and begging and imploring +of 'em to send theer and tell how she was dying, and bring back a +message of forgiveness, if it was on'y a wured. A'most the whole +time, she thowt, - now, that him as I made mention on just now was +lurking for her unnerneath the winder; now that him as had brought +her to this was in the room, - and cried to the good young woman +not to give her up, and know'd, at the same time, that she couldn't +unnerstand, and dreaded that she must be took away. Likewise the +fire was afore her eyes, and the roarings in her ears; and theer +was no today, nor yesterday, nor yet tomorrow; but everything in +her life as ever had been, or as ever could be, and everything as +never had been, and as never could be, was a crowding on her all at +once, and nothing clear nor welcome, and yet she sang and laughed +about it! How long this lasted, I doen't know; but then theer come +a sleep; and in that sleep, from being a many times stronger than +her own self, she fell into the weakness of the littlest child.' + +Here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his own +description. After being silent for a few moments, he pursued his +story. + +'It was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke; and so quiet, that +there warn't a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a +tide, upon the shore. It was her belief, at first, that she was at +home upon a Sunday morning; but the vine leaves as she see at the +winder, and the hills beyond, warn't home, and contradicted of her. +Then, come in her friend to watch alongside of her bed; and then +she know'd as the old boat warn't round that next pint in the bay +no more, but was fur off; and know'd where she was, and why; and +broke out a-crying on that good young woman's bosom, wheer I hope +her baby is a-lying now, a-cheering of her with its pretty eyes!' + +He could not speak of this good friend of Emily's without a flow of +tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down again, endeavouring +to bless her! + +'That done my Em'ly good,' he resumed, after such emotion as I +could not behold without sharing in; and as to my aunt, she wept +with all her heart; 'that done Em'ly good, and she begun to mend. +But, the language of that country was quite gone from her, and she +was forced to make signs. So she went on, getting better from day +to day, slow, but sure, and trying to learn the names of common +things - names as she seemed never to have heerd in all her life - +till one evening come, when she was a-setting at her window, +looking at a little girl at play upon the beach. And of a sudden +this child held out her hand, and said, what would be in English, +"Fisherman's daughter, here's a shell!" - for you are to unnerstand +that they used at first to call her "Pretty lady", as the general +way in that country is, and that she had taught 'em to call her +"Fisherman's daughter" instead. The child says of a sudden, +"Fisherman's daughter, here's a shell!" Then Em'ly unnerstands her; +and she answers, bursting out a-crying; and it all comes back! + +'When Em'ly got strong again,' said Mr. Peggotty, after another +short interval of silence, 'she cast about to leave that good young +creetur, and get to her own country. The husband was come home, +then; and the two together put her aboard a small trader bound to +Leghorn, and from that to France. She had a little money, but it +was less than little as they would take for all they done. I'm +a'most glad on it, though they was so poor! What they done, is laid +up wheer neither moth or rust doth corrupt, and wheer thieves do +not break through nor steal. Mas'r Davy, it'll outlast all the +treasure in the wureld. + +'Em'ly got to France, and took service to wait on travelling ladies +at a inn in the port. Theer, theer come, one day, that snake. - +Let him never come nigh me. I doen't know what hurt I might do +him! - Soon as she see him, without him seeing her, all her fear +and wildness returned upon her, and she fled afore the very breath +he draw'd. She come to England, and was set ashore at Dover. + +'I doen't know," said Mr. Peggotty, 'for sure, when her 'art begun +to fail her; but all the way to England she had thowt to come to +her dear home. Soon as she got to England she turned her face +tow'rds it. But, fear of not being forgiv, fear of being pinted +at, fear of some of us being dead along of her, fear of many +things, turned her from it, kiender by force, upon the road: +"Uncle, uncle," she says to me, "the fear of not being worthy to do +what my torn and bleeding breast so longed to do, was the most +fright'ning fear of all! I turned back, when my 'art was full of +prayers that I might crawl to the old door-step, in the night, kiss +it, lay my wicked face upon it, and theer be found dead in the +morning." + +'She come,' said Mr. Peggotty, dropping his voice to an +awe-stricken whisper, 'to London. She - as had never seen it in +her life - alone - without a penny - young - so pretty - come to +London. A'most the moment as she lighted heer, all so desolate, +she found (as she believed) a friend; a decent woman as spoke to +her about the needle-work as she had been brought up to do, about +finding plenty of it fur her, about a lodging fur the night, and +making secret inquiration concerning of me and all at home, +tomorrow. When my child,' he said aloud, and with an energy of +gratitude that shook him from head to foot, 'stood upon the brink +of more than I can say or think on - Martha, trew to her promise, +saved her.' + +I could not repress a cry of joy. + +'Mas'r Davy!' said he, gripping my hand in that strong hand of his, +'it was you as first made mention of her to me. I thankee, sir! +She was arnest. She had know'd of her bitter knowledge wheer to +watch and what to do. She had done it. And the Lord was above +all! She come, white and hurried, upon Em'ly in her sleep. She +says to her, "Rise up from worse than death, and come with me!" +Them belonging to the house would have stopped her, but they might +as soon have stopped the sea. "Stand away from me," she says, "I +am a ghost that calls her from beside her open grave!" She told +Em'ly she had seen me, and know'd I loved her, and forgive her. +She wrapped her, hasty, in her clothes. She took her, faint and +trembling, on her arm. She heeded no more what they said, than if +she had had no ears. She walked among 'em with my child, minding +only her; and brought her safe out, in the dead of the night, from +that black pit of ruin! + +'She attended on Em'ly,' said Mr. Peggotty, who had released my +hand, and put his own hand on his heaving chest; 'she attended to +my Em'ly, lying wearied out, and wandering betwixt whiles, till +late next day. Then she went in search of me; then in search of +you, Mas'r Davy. She didn't tell Em'ly what she come out fur, lest +her 'art should fail, and she should think of hiding of herself. +How the cruel lady know'd of her being theer, I can't say. Whether +him as I have spoke so much of, chanced to see 'em going theer, or +whether (which is most like, to my thinking) he had heerd it from +the woman, I doen't greatly ask myself. My niece is found. + +'All night long,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'we have been together, Em'ly +and me. 'Tis little (considering the time) as she has said, in +wureds, through them broken-hearted tears; 'tis less as I have seen +of her dear face, as grow'd into a woman's at my hearth. But, all +night long, her arms has been about my neck; and her head has laid +heer; and we knows full well, as we can put our trust in one +another, ever more.' + +He ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested there in +perfect repose, with a resolution in it that might have conquered +lions. + +'It was a gleam of light upon me, Trot,' said my aunt, drying her +eyes, 'when I formed the resolution of being godmother to your +sister Betsey Trotwood, who disappointed me; but, next to that, +hardly anything would have given me greater pleasure, than to be +godmother to that good young creature's baby!' + +Mr. Peggotty nodded his understanding of my aunt's feelings, but +could not trust himself with any verbal reference to the subject of +her commendation. We all remained silent, and occupied with our +own reflections (my aunt drying her eyes, and now sobbing +convulsively, and now laughing and calling herself a fool); until +I spoke. + +'You have quite made up your mind,' said I to Mr. Peggotty, 'as to +the future, good friend? I need scarcely ask you.' + +'Quite, Mas'r Davy,' he returned; 'and told Em'ly. Theer's mighty +countries, fur from heer. Our future life lays over the sea.' + +'They will emigrate together, aunt,' said I. + +'Yes!' said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. 'No one can't +reproach my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over +theer!' + +I asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for going away. + +'I was down at the Docks early this morning, sir,' he returned, 'to +get information concerning of them ships. In about six weeks or +two months from now, there'll be one sailing - I see her this +morning - went aboard - and we shall take our passage in her.' + +'Quite alone?' I asked. + +'Aye, Mas'r Davy!' he returned. 'My sister, you see, she's that +fond of you and yourn, and that accustomed to think on'y of her own +country, that it wouldn't be hardly fair to let her go. Besides +which, theer's one she has in charge, Mas'r Davy, as doen't ought +to be forgot.' + +'Poor Ham!' said I. + +'My good sister takes care of his house, you see, ma'am, and he +takes kindly to her,' Mr. Peggotty explained for my aunt's better +information. 'He'll set and talk to her, with a calm spirit, wen +it's like he couldn't bring himself to open his lips to another. +Poor fellow!' said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, 'theer's not so +much left him, that he could spare the little as he has!' + +'And Mrs. Gummidge?' said I. + +'Well, I've had a mort of consideration, I do tell you,' returned +Mr. Peggotty, with a perplexed look which gradually cleared as he +went on, 'concerning of Missis Gummidge. You see, wen Missis +Gummidge falls a-thinking of the old 'un, she an't what you may +call good company. Betwixt you and me, Mas'r Davy - and you, ma'am +- wen Mrs. Gummidge takes to wimicking,' - our old country word for +crying, - 'she's liable to be considered to be, by them as didn't +know the old 'un, peevish-like. Now I DID know the old 'un,' said +Mr. Peggotty, 'and I know'd his merits, so I unnerstan' her; but +'tan't entirely so, you see, with others - nat'rally can't be!' + +My aunt and I both acquiesced. + +'Wheerby,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'my sister might - I doen't say she +would, but might - find Missis Gummidge give her a leetle trouble +now-and-again. Theerfur 'tan't my intentions to moor Missis +Gummidge 'long with them, but to find a Beein' fur her wheer she +can fisherate for herself.' (A Beein' signifies, in that dialect, +a home, and to fisherate is to provide.) 'Fur which purpose,' said +Mr. Peggotty, 'I means to make her a 'lowance afore I go, as'll +leave her pretty comfort'ble. She's the faithfullest of creeturs. +'Tan't to be expected, of course, at her time of life, and being +lone and lorn, as the good old Mawther is to be knocked about +aboardship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and fur-away +country. So that's what I'm a-going to do with her.' + +He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody's claims and strivings, +but his own. + +'Em'ly,' he continued, 'will keep along with me - poor child, she's +sore in need of peace and rest! - until such time as we goes upon +our voyage. She'll work at them clothes, as must be made; and I +hope her troubles will begin to seem longer ago than they was, wen +she finds herself once more by her rough but loving uncle.' + +MY aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great +satisfaction to Mr. Peggotty. + +'Theer's one thing furder, Mas'r Davy,' said he, putting his hand +in his breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper +bundle I had seen before, which he unrolled on the table. 'Theer's +these here banknotes - fifty pound, and ten. To them I wish to add +the money as she come away with. I've asked her about that (but +not saying why), and have added of it up. I an't a scholar. Would +you be so kind as see how 'tis?' + +He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, +and observed me while I looked it over. It was quite right. + +'Thankee, sir,' he said, taking it back. 'This money, if you +doen't see objections, Mas'r Davy, I shall put up jest afore I go, +in a cover directed to him; and put that up in another, directed to +his mother. I shall tell her, in no more wureds than I speak to +you, what it's the price on; and that I'm gone, and past receiving +of it back.' + +I told him that I thought it would be right to do so - that I was +thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. + +'I said that theer was on'y one thing furder,' he proceeded with a +grave smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put +it in his pocket; 'but theer was two. I warn't sure in my mind, +wen I come out this morning, as I could go and break to Ham, of my +own self, what had so thankfully happened. So I writ a letter +while I was out, and put it in the post-office, telling of 'em how +all was as 'tis; and that I should come down tomorrow to unload my +mind of what little needs a-doing of down theer, and, most-like, +take my farewell leave of Yarmouth.' + +'And do you wish me to go with you?' said I, seeing that he left +something unsaid. + +'If you could do me that kind favour, Mas'r Davy,' he replied. 'I +know the sight on you would cheer 'em up a bit.' + +My little Dora being in good spirits, and very desirous that I +should go - as I found on talking it over with her - I readily +pledged myself to accompany him in accordance with his wish. Next +morning, consequently, we were on the Yarmouth coach, and again +travelling over the old ground. + +As we passed along the familiar street at night - Mr. Peggotty, in +despite of all my remonstrances, carrying my bag - I glanced into +Omer and Joram's shop, and saw my old friend Mr. Omer there, +smoking his pipe. I felt reluctant to be present, when Mr. +Peggotty first met his sister and Ham; and made Mr. Omer my excuse +for lingering behind. + +'How is Mr. Omer, after this long time?' said I, going in. + +He fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might get a better +view of me, and soon recognized me with great delight. + +'I should get up, sir, to acknowledge such an honour as this +visit,' said he, 'only my limbs are rather out of sorts, and I am +wheeled about. With the exception of my limbs and my breath, +howsoever, I am as hearty as a man can be, I'm thankful to say.' + +I congratulated him on his contented looks and his good spirits, +and saw, now, that his easy-chair went on wheels. + +'It's an ingenious thing, ain't it?' he inquired, following the +direction of my glance, and polishing the elbow with his arm. 'It +runs as light as a feather, and tracks as true as a mail-coach. +Bless you, my little Minnie - my grand-daughter you know, Minnie's +child - puts her little strength against the back, gives it a +shove, and away we go, as clever and merry as ever you see +anything! And I tell you what - it's a most uncommon chair to smoke +a pipe in.' + +I never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of a thing, and +find out the enjoyment of it, as Mr. Omer. He was as radiant, as +if his chair, his asthma, and the failure of his limbs, were the +various branches of a great invention for enhancing the luxury of +a pipe. + +'I see more of the world, I can assure you,' said Mr. Omer, 'in +this chair, than ever I see out of it. You'd be surprised at the +number of people that looks in of a day to have a chat. You really +would! There's twice as much in the newspaper, since I've taken to +this chair, as there used to be. As to general reading, dear me, +what a lot of it I do get through! That's what I feel so strong, +you know! If it had been my eyes, what should I have done? If it +had been my ears, what should I have done? Being my limbs, what +does it signify? Why, my limbs only made my breath shorter when I +used 'em. And now, if I want to go out into the street or down to +the sands, I've only got to call Dick, Joram's youngest 'prentice, +and away I go in my own carriage, like the Lord Mayor of London.' + +He half suffocated himself with laughing here. + +'Lord bless you!' said Mr. Omer, resuming his pipe, 'a man must +take the fat with the lean; that's what he must make up his mind +to, in this life. Joram does a fine business. Ex-cellent +business!' + +'I am very glad to hear it,' said I. + +'I knew you would be,' said Mr. Omer. 'And Joram and Minnie are +like Valentines. What more can a man expect? What's his limbs to +that!' + +His supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smoking, was one +of the pleasantest oddities I have ever encountered. + +'And since I've took to general reading, you've took to general +writing, eh, sir?' said Mr. Omer, surveying me admiringly. 'What +a lovely work that was of yours! What expressions in it! I read it +every word - every word. And as to feeling sleepy! Not at all!' + +I laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but I must confess that I +thought this association of ideas significant. + +'I give you my word and honour, sir,' said Mr. Omer, 'that when I +lay that book upon the table, and look at it outside; compact in +three separate and indiwidual wollumes - one, two, three; I am as +proud as Punch to think that I once had the honour of being +connected with your family. And dear me, it's a long time ago, +now, ain't it? Over at Blunderstone. With a pretty little party +laid along with the other party. And you quite a small party then, +yourself. Dear, dear!' + +I changed the subject by referring to Emily. After assuring him +that I did not forget how interested he had always been in her, and +how kindly he had always treated her, I gave him a general account +of her restoration to her uncle by the aid of Martha; which I knew +would please the old man. He listened with the utmost attention, +and said, feelingly, when I had done: + +'I am rejoiced at it, sir! It's the best news I have heard for many +a day. Dear, dear, dear! And what's going to be undertook for that +unfortunate young woman, Martha, now?' + +'You touch a point that my thoughts have been dwelling on since +yesterday,' said I, 'but on which I can give you no information +yet, Mr. Omer. Mr. Peggotty has not alluded to it, and I have a +delicacy in doing so. I am sure he has not forgotten it. He +forgets nothing that is disinterested and good.' + +'Because you know,' said Mr. Omer, taking himself up, where he had +left off, 'whatever is done, I should wish to be a member of. Put +me down for anything you may consider right, and let me know. I +never could think the girl all bad, and I am glad to find she's +not. So will my daughter Minnie be. Young women are contradictory +creatures in some things - her mother was just the same as her - +but their hearts are soft and kind. It's all show with Minnie, +about Martha. Why she should consider it necessary to make any +show, I don't undertake to tell you. But it's all show, bless you. +She'd do her any kindness in private. So, put me down for whatever +you may consider right, will you be so good? and drop me a line +where to forward it. Dear me!' said Mr. Omer, 'when a man is +drawing on to a time of life, where the two ends of life meet; when +he finds himself, however hearty he is, being wheeled about for the +second time, in a speeches of go-cart; he should be over-rejoiced +to do a kindness if he can. He wants plenty. And I don't speak of +myself, particular,' said Mr. Omer, 'because, sir, the way I look +at it is, that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, +whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a +single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be +over-rejoiced. To be sure!' + +He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a ledge in the +back of his chair, expressly made for its reception. + +'There's Em'ly's cousin, him that she was to have been married to,' +said Mr. Omer, rubbing his hands feebly, 'as fine a fellow as there +is in Yarmouth! He'll come and talk or read to me, in the evening, +for an hour together sometimes. That's a kindness, I should call +it! All his life's a kindness.' + +'I am going to see him now,' said I. + +'Are you?' said Mr. Omer. 'Tell him I was hearty, and sent my +respects. Minnie and Joram's at a ball. They would be as proud to +see you as I am, if they was at home. Minnie won't hardly go out +at all, you see, "on account of father", as she says. So I swore +tonight, that if she didn't go, I'd go to bed at six. In +consequence of which,' Mr. Omer shook himself and his chair with +laughter at the success of his device, 'she and Joram's at a ball.' + +I shook hands with him, and wished him good night. + +'Half a minute, sir,' said Mr. Omer. 'If you was to go without +seeing my little elephant, you'd lose the best of sights. You +never see such a sight! Minnie!' +A musical little voice answered, from somewhere upstairs, 'I am +coming, grandfather!' and a pretty little girl with long, flaxen, +curling hair, soon came running into the shop. + +'This is my little elephant, sir,' said Mr. Omer, fondling the +child. 'Siamese breed, sir. Now, little elephant!' + +The little elephant set the door of the parlour open, enabling me +to see that, in these latter days, it was converted into a bedroom +for Mr. Omer who could not be easily conveyed upstairs; and then +hid her pretty forehead, and tumbled her long hair, against the +back of Mr. Omer's chair. + +'The elephant butts, you know, sir,' said Mr. Omer, winking, 'when +he goes at a object. Once, elephant. Twice. Three times!' + +At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next +to marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with +Mr. Omer in it, and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlour, +without touching the door-post: Mr. Omer indescribably enjoying the +performance, and looking back at me on the road as if it were the +triumphant issue of his life's exertions. + +After a stroll about the town I went to Ham's house. Peggotty had +now removed here for good; and had let her own house to the +successor of Mr. Barkis in the carrying business, who had paid her +very well for the good-will, cart, and horse. I believe the very +same slow horse that Mr. Barkis drove was still at work. + +I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs. Gummidge, who +had been fetched from the old boat by Mr. Peggotty himself. I +doubt if she could have been induced to desert her post, by anyone +else. He had evidently told them all. Both Peggotty and Mrs. +Gummidge had their aprons to their eyes, and Ham had just stepped +out 'to take a turn on the beach'. He presently came home, very +glad to see me; and I hope they were all the better for my being +there. We spoke, with some approach to cheerfulness, of Mr. +Peggotty's growing rich in a new country, and of the wonders he +would describe in his letters. We said nothing of Emily by name, +but distantly referred to her more than once. Ham was the serenest +of the party. + +But, Peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little chamber +where the Crocodile book was lying ready for me on the table, that +he always was the same. She believed (she told me, crying) that he +was broken-hearted; though he was as full of courage as of +sweetness, and worked harder and better than any boat-builder in +any yard in all that part. There were times, she said, of an +evening, when he talked of their old life in the boat-house; and +then he mentioned Emily as a child. But, he never mentioned her as +a woman. + +I thought I had read in his face that he would like to speak to me +alone. I therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, +as he came home from his work. Having settled this with myself, I +fell asleep. That night, for the first time in all those many +nights, the candle was taken out of the window, Mr. Peggotty swung +in his old hammock in the old boat, and the wind murmured with the +old sound round his head. + +All next day, he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-boat and +tackle; in packing up, and sending to London by waggon, such of his +little domestic possessions as he thought would be useful to him; +and in parting with the rest, or bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. +She was with him all day. As I had a sorrowful wish to see the old +place once more, before it was locked up, I engaged to meet them +there in the evening. But I so arranged it, as that I should meet +Ham first. + +It was easy to come in his way, as I knew where he worked. I met +him at a retired part of the sands, which I knew he would cross, +and turned back with him, that he might have leisure to speak to me +if he really wished. I had not mistaken the expression of his +face. We had walked but a little way together, when he said, +without looking at me: + +'Mas'r Davy, have you seen her?' + +'Only for a moment, when she was in a swoon,' I softly answered. + +We walked a little farther, and he said: + +'Mas'r Davy, shall you see her, d'ye think?' + +'It would be too painful to her, perhaps,' said I. + +'I have thowt of that,' he replied. 'So 'twould, sir, so 'twould.' + +'But, Ham,' said I, gently, 'if there is anything that I could +write to her, for you, in case I could not tell it; if there is +anything you would wish to make known to her through me; I should +consider it a sacred trust.' + +'I am sure on't. I thankee, sir, most kind! I think theer is +something I could wish said or wrote.' + +'What is it?' + +We walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke. + +''Tan't that I forgive her. 'Tan't that so much. 'Tis more as I +beg of her to forgive me, for having pressed my affections upon +her. Odd times, I think that if I hadn't had her promise fur to +marry me, sir, she was that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that +she'd have told me what was struggling in her mind, and would have +counselled with me, and I might have saved her.' + +I pressed his hand. 'Is that all?' +'Theer's yet a something else,' he returned, 'if I can say it, +Mas'r Davy.' + +We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke +again. He was not crying when he made the pauses I shall express +by lines. He was merely collecting himself to speak very plainly. + +'I loved her - and I love the mem'ry of her - too deep - to be able +to lead her to believe of my own self as I'm a happy man. I could +only be happy - by forgetting of her - and I'm afeerd I couldn't +hardly bear as she should be told I done that. But if you, being +so full of learning, Mas'r Davy, could think of anything to say as +might bring her to believe I wasn't greatly hurt: still loving of +her, and mourning for her: anything as might bring her to believe +as I was not tired of my life, and yet was hoping fur to see her +without blame, wheer the wicked cease from troubling and the weary +are at rest - anything as would ease her sorrowful mind, and yet +not make her think as I could ever marry, or as 'twas possible that +anyone could ever be to me what she was - I should ask of you to +say that - with my prayers for her - that was so dear.' + +I pressed his manly hand again, and told him I would charge myself +to do this as well as I could. + +'I thankee, sir,' he answered. ''Twas kind of you to meet me. +'Twas kind of you to bear him company down. Mas'r Davy, I +unnerstan' very well, though my aunt will come to Lon'on afore they +sail, and they'll unite once more, that I am not like to see him +agen. I fare to feel sure on't. We doen't say so, but so 'twill +be, and better so. The last you see on him - the very last - will +you give him the lovingest duty and thanks of the orphan, as he was +ever more than a father to?' + +This I also promised, faithfully. + +'I thankee agen, sir,' he said, heartily shaking hands. 'I know +wheer you're a-going. Good-bye!' + +With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he +could not enter the old place, he turned away. As I looked after +his figure, crossing the waste in the moonlight, I saw him turn his +face towards a strip of silvery light upon the sea, and pass on, +looking at it, until he was a shadow in the distance. + +The door of the boat-house stood open when I approached; and, on +entering, I found it emptied of all its furniture, saving one of +the old lockers, on which Mrs. Gummidge, with a basket on her knee, +was seated, looking at Mr. Peggotty. He leaned his elbow on the +rough chimney-piece, and gazed upon a few expiring embers in the +grate; but he raised his head, hopefully, on my coming in, and +spoke in a cheery manner. + +'Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to 't, eh, Mas'r +Davy?' he said, taking up the candle. 'Bare enough, now, an't it?' +'Indeed you have made good use of the time,' said I. + +'Why, we have not been idle, sir. Missis Gummidge has worked like +a - I doen't know what Missis Gummidge an't worked like,' said Mr. +Peggotty, looking at her, at a loss for a sufficiently approving +simile. + +Mrs. Gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no observation. + +'Theer's the very locker that you used to sit on, 'long with +Em'ly!' said Mr. Peggotty, in a whisper. 'I'm a-going to carry it +away with me, last of all. And heer's your old little bedroom, +see, Mas'r Davy! A'most as bleak tonight, as 'art could wish!' + +In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and +crept around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was +very mournful. Everything was gone, down to the little mirror with +the oyster-shell frame. I thought of myself, lying here, when that +first great change was being wrought at home. I thought of the +blue-eyed child who had enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth: and +a foolish, fearful fancy came upon me of his being near at hand, +and liable to be met at any turn. + +''Tis like to be long,' said Mr. Peggotty, in a low voice, 'afore +the boat finds new tenants. They look upon 't, down beer, as being +unfortunate now!' + +'Does it belong to anybody in the neighbourhood?' I asked. + +'To a mast-maker up town,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'I'm a-going to give +the key to him tonight.' + +We looked into the other little room, and came back to Mrs. +Gummidge, sitting on the locker, whom Mr. Peggotty, putting the +light on the chimney-piece, requested to rise, that he might carry +it outside the door before extinguishing the candle. + +'Dan'l,' said Mrs. Gummidge, suddenly deserting her basket, and +clinging to his arm 'my dear Dan'l, the parting words I speak in +this house is, I mustn't be left behind. Doen't ye think of +leaving me behind, Dan'l! Oh, doen't ye ever do it!' + +Mr. Peggotty, taken aback, looked from Mrs. Gummidge to me, and +from me to Mrs. Gummidge, as if he had been awakened from a sleep. + +'Doen't ye, dearest Dan'l, doen't ye!' cried Mrs. Gummidge, +fervently. 'Take me 'long with you, Dan'l, take me 'long with you +and Em'ly! I'll be your servant, constant and trew. If there's +slaves in them parts where you're a-going, I'll be bound to you for +one, and happy, but doen't ye leave me behind, Dan'l, that's a +deary dear!' + +'My good soul,' said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, 'you doen't +know what a long voyage, and what a hard life 'tis!' +'Yes, I do, Dan'l! I can guess!' cried Mrs. Gummidge. 'But my +parting words under this roof is, I shall go into the house and +die, if I am not took. I can dig, Dan'l. I can work. I can live +hard. I can be loving and patient now - more than you think, +Dan'l, if you'll on'y try me. I wouldn't touch the 'lowance, not +if I was dying of want, Dan'l Peggotty; but I'll go with you and +Em'ly, if you'll on'y let me, to the world's end! I know how 'tis; +I know you think that I am lone and lorn; but, deary love, 'tan't +so no more! I ain't sat here, so long, a-watching, and a-thinking +of your trials, without some good being done me. Mas'r Davy, speak +to him for me! I knows his ways, and Em'ly's, and I knows their +sorrows, and can be a comfort to 'em, some odd times, and labour +for 'em allus! Dan'l, deary Dan'l, let me go 'long with you!' + +And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos +and affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that +he well deserved. + +We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the +door on the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark +speck in the cloudy night. Next day, when we were returning to +London outside the coach, Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the +seat behind, and Mrs. Gummidge was happy. + + + +CHAPTER 52 +I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION + + +When the time Mr. Micawber had appointed so mysteriously, was +within four-and-twenty hours of being come, my aunt and I consulted +how we should proceed; for my aunt was very unwilling to leave +Dora. Ah! how easily I carried Dora up and down stairs, now! + +We were disposed, notwithstanding Mr. Micawber's stipulation for my +aunt's attendance, to arrange that she should stay at home, and be +represented by Mr. Dick and me. In short, we had resolved to take +this course, when Dora again unsettled us by declaring that she +never would forgive herself, and never would forgive her bad boy, +if my aunt remained behind, on any pretence. + +'I won't speak to you,' said Dora, shaking her curls at my aunt. +'I'll be disagreeable! I'll make Jip bark at you all day. I shall +be sure that you really are a cross old thing, if you don't go!' + +'Tut, Blossom!' laughed my aunt. 'You know you can't do without +me!' + +'Yes, I can,' said Dora. 'You are no use to me at all. You never +run up and down stairs for me, all day long. You never sit and +tell me stories about Doady, when his shoes were worn out, and he +was covered with dust - oh, what a poor little mite of a fellow! +You never do anything at all to please me, do you, dear?' Dora made +haste to kiss my aunt, and say, 'Yes, you do! I'm only joking!'- +lest my aunt should think she really meant it. + +'But, aunt,' said Dora, coaxingly, 'now listen. You must go. I +shall tease you, 'till you let me have my own way about it. I +shall lead my naughty boy such a life, if he don't make you go. I +shall make myself so disagreeable - and so will Jip! You'll wish +you had gone, like a good thing, for ever and ever so long, if you +don't go. Besides,' said Dora, putting back her hair, and looking +wonderingly at my aunt and me, 'why shouldn't you both go? I am +not very ill indeed. Am I?' + +'Why, what a question!' cried my aunt. + +'What a fancy!' said I. + +'Yes! I know I am a silly little thing!' said Dora, slowly looking +from one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to +kiss us as she lay upon her couch. 'Well, then, you must both go, +or I shall not believe you; and then I shall cry!' + +I saw, in my aunt's face, that she began to give way now, and Dora +brightened again, as she saw it too. + +'You'll come back with so much to tell me, that it'll take at least +a week to make me understand!' said Dora. 'Because I know I shan't +understand, for a length of time, if there's any business in it. +And there's sure to be some business in it! If there's anything to +add up, besides, I don't know when I shall make it out; and my bad +boy will look so miserable all the time. There! Now you'll go, +won't you? You'll only be gone one night, and Jip will take care +of me while you are gone. Doady will carry me upstairs before you +go, and I won't come down again till you come back; and you shall +take Agnes a dreadfully scolding letter from me, because she has +never been to see us!' + +We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, +and that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather +unwell, because she liked to be petted. She was greatly pleased, +and very merry; and we four, that is to say, my aunt, Mr. Dick, +Traddles, and I, went down to Canterbury by the Dover mail that +night. + +At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, +which we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, +I found a letter, importing that he would appear in the morning +punctually at half past nine. After which, we went shivering, at +that uncomfortable hour, to our respective beds, through various +close passages; which smelt as if they had been steeped, for ages, +in a solution of soup and stables. + +Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil +streets, and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable +gateways and churches. The rooks were sailing about the cathedral +towers; and the towers themselves, overlooking many a long +unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant streams, were +cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as +change on earth. Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me +sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and +my pretty Dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived +and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had +hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up +within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in +air, as circles do in water. + +I looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did +not go nearer to it, lest, being observed, I might unwittingly do +any harm to the design I had come to aid. The early sun was +striking edgewise on its gables and lattice-windows, touching them +with gold; and some beams of its old peace seemed to touch my +heart. + +I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by +the main street, which in the interval had shaken off its last +night's sleep. Among those who were stirring in the shops, I saw +my ancient enemy the butcher, now advanced to top-boots and a baby, +and in business for himself. He was nursing the baby, and appeared +to be a benignant member of society. + +We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to +breakfast. As it approached nearer and nearer to half past nine +o'clock, our restless expectation of Mr. Micawber increased. At +last we made no more pretence of attending to the meal, which, +except with Mr. Dick, had been a mere form from the first; but my +aunt walked up and down the room, Traddles sat upon the sofa +affecting to read the paper with his eyes on the ceiling; and I +looked out of the window to give early notice of Mr. Micawber's +coming. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime of the +half hour, he appeared in the street. + +'Here he is,' said I, 'and not in his legal attire!' + +My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to +breakfast in it), and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for +anything that was resolute and uncompromising. Traddles buttoned +his coat with a determined air. Mr. Dick, disturbed by these +formidable appearances, but feeling it necessary to imitate them, +pulled his hat, with both hands, as firmly over his ears as he +possibly could; and instantly took it off again, to welcome Mr. +Micawber. + +'Gentlemen, and madam,' said Mr. Micawber, 'good morning! My dear +sir,' to Mr. Dick, who shook hands with him violently, 'you are +extremely good.' + +'Have you breakfasted?' said Mr. Dick. 'Have a chop!' + +'Not for the world, my good sir!' cried Mr. Micawber, stopping him +on his way to the bell; 'appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon, have long +been strangers.' + +Mr. Dixon was so well pleased with his new name, and appeared to +think it so obliging in Mr. Micawber to confer it upon him, that he +shook hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly. + +'Dick,' said my aunt, 'attention!' + +Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush. + +'Now, sir,' said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves, +'we are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as YOU +please.' + +'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'I trust you will shortly witness +an eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to +mention here that we have been in communication together?' + +'It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield,' said Traddles, to whom +I looked in surprise. 'Mr. Micawber has consulted me in reference +to what he has in contemplation; and I have advised him to the best +of my judgement.' + +'Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles,' pursued Mr. Micawber, +'what I contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature.' + +'Highly so,' said Traddles. + +'Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen,' said Mr. +Micawber, 'you will do me the favour to submit yourselves, for the +moment, to the direction of one who, however unworthy to be +regarded in any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore +of human nature, is still your fellow-man, though crushed out of +his original form by individual errors, and the accumulative force +of a combination of circumstances?' + +'We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'and +will do what you please.' + +'Mr. Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'your confidence is not, +at the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed +a start of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the +present company, inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of +Wickfield and Heep, whose Stipendiary I am.' + +My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval. + +'I have no more,' observed Mr. Micawber, 'to say at present.' + +With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a +comprehensive bow, and disappeared; his manner being extremely +distant, and his face extremely pale. + +Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing +upright on the top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation; +so I took out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the +five minutes. My aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the +like. When the time was expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we +all went out together to the old house, without saying one word on +the way. + +We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the +ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The +large office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so +well concealed but that a foot or more of that instrument protruded +from his bosom, like a new kind of shirt-frill. + +As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud: + +'How do you do, Mr. Micawber?' + +'Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, gravely, 'I hope I see you +well?' + +'Is Miss Wickfield at home?' said I. + +'Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever,' he +returned; 'but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to +see old friends. Will you walk in, sir?' + +He preceded us to the dining-room - the first room I had entered in +that house - and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield's former +office, said, in a sonorous voice: + +'Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and Mr. +Dixon!' + +I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit +astonished him, evidently; not the less, I dare say, because it +astonished ourselves. He did not gather his eyebrows together, for +he had none worth mentioning; but he frowned to that degree that he +almost closed his small eyes, while the hurried raising of his +grisly hand to his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. +This was only when we were in the act of entering his room, and +when I caught a glance at him over my aunt's shoulder. A moment +afterwards, he was as fawning and as humble as ever. + +'Well, I am sure,' he said. 'This is indeed an unexpected +pleasure! To have, as I may say, all friends round St. Paul's at +once, is a treat unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you +well, and - if I may umbly express myself so - friendly towards +them as is ever your friends, whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, +sir, I hope she's getting on. We have been made quite uneasy by +the poor accounts we have had of her state, lately, I do assure +you.' + +I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what +else to do. + +'Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was an +umble clerk, and held your pony; ain't they?' said Uriah, with his +sickliest smile. 'But I am not changed, Miss Trotwood.' + +'Well, sir,' returned my aunt, 'to tell you the truth, I think you +are pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that's any +satisfaction to you.' + +'Thank you, Miss Trotwood,' said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly +manner, 'for your good opinion! Micawber, tell 'em to let Miss +Agnes know - and mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she +sees the present company!' said Uriah, setting chairs. + +'You are not busy, Mr. Heep?' said Traddles, whose eye the cunning +red eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinized and evaded +us. + +'No, Mr. Traddles,' replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and +squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm between his bony knees. +'Not so much so as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, +are not easily satisfied, you know! Not but what myself and +Micawber have our hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr. +Wickfield's being hardly fit for any occupation, sir. But it's a +pleasure as well as a duty, I am sure, to work for him. You've not +been intimate with Mr. Wickfield, I think, Mr. Traddles? I believe +I've only had the honour of seeing you once myself?' + +'No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield,' returned +Traddles; 'or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr. +Heep.' + +There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah +look at the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious +expression. But, seeing only Traddles, with his good-natured face, +simple manner, and hair on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with +a jerk of his whole body, but especially his throat: + +'I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as +much as we all do. His little failings would only have endeared +him to you the more. But if you would like to hear my +fellow-partner eloquently spoken of, I should refer you to +Copperfield. The family is a subject he's very strong upon, if you +never heard him.' + +I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have +done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by +Mr. Micawber. She was not quite so self-possessed as usual, I +thought; and had evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. But her +earnest cordiality, and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler +lustre for it. + +I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of +an ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the +meanwhile, some slight sign passed between Mr. Micawber and +Traddles; and Traddles, unobserved except by me, went out. + +'Don't wait, Micawber,' said Uriah. + +Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood +erect before the door, most unmistakably contemplating one of his +fellow-men, and that man his employer. + +'What are you waiting for?' said Uriah. 'Micawber! did you hear me +tell you not to wait?' + +'Yes!' replied the immovable Mr. Micawber. + +'Then why DO you wait?' said Uriah. + +'Because I - in short, choose,' replied Mr. Micawber, with a burst. + +Uriah's cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still +faintly tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at +Mr. Micawber attentively, with his whole face breathing short and +quick in every feature. + +'You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows,' he said, +with an effort at a smile, 'and I am afraid you'll oblige me to get +rid of you. Go along! I'll talk to you presently.' + +'If there is a scoundrel on this earth,' said Mr. Micawber, +suddenly breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, 'with whom +I have already talked too much, that scoundrel's name is - HEEP!' + +Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly +round upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his +face could wear, he said, in a lower voice: + +'Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here by appointment! You +are playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take +care. You'll make nothing of this. We understand each other, you +and me. There's no love between us. You were always a puppy with +a proud stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my +rise, do you? None of your plots against me; I'll counterplot you! +Micawber, you be off. I'll talk to you presently.' + +'Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'there is a sudden change in this fellow. +in more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the +truth in one particular, which assures me that he is brought to +bay. Deal with him as he deserves!' + +'You are a precious set of people, ain't you?' said Uriah, in the +same low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped +from his forehead, with his long lean hand, 'to buy over my clerk, +who is the very scum of society, - as you yourself were, +Copperfield, you know it, before anyone had charity on you, - to +defame me with his lies? Miss Trotwood, you had better stop this; +or I'll stop your husband shorter than will be pleasant to you. I +won't know your story professionally, for nothing, old lady! Miss +Wickfield, if you have any love for your father, you had better not +join that gang. I'll ruin him, if you do. Now, come! I have got +some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before it goes over +you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don't want to be crushed. +I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to presently, +you fool! while there's time to retreat. Where's mother?' he said, +suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles, +and pulling down the bell-rope. 'Fine doings in a person's own +house!' + +'Mrs. Heep is here, sir,' said Traddles, returning with that worthy +mother of a worthy son. 'I have taken the liberty of making myself +known to her.' + +'Who are you to make yourself known?' retorted Uriah. 'And what do +you want here?' + +'I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir,' said Traddles, +in a composed and business-like way. 'And I have a power of +attorney from him in my pocket, to act for him in all matters.' + +'The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,' said Uriah, +turning uglier than before, 'and it has been got from him by +fraud!' + +'Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,' returned +Traddles quietly; 'and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that +question, if you please, to Mr. Micawber.' + +'Ury -!' Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture. + +'YOU hold your tongue, mother,' he returned; 'least said, soonest +mended.' + +'But, my Ury -' + +'Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?' + +Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his +pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of +the extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. +The suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it +was useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; +the leer with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he +had done - all this time being desperate too, and at his wits' end +for the means of getting the better of us - though perfectly +consistent with the experience I had of him, at first took even me +by surprise, who had known him so long, and disliked him so +heartily. + +I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing +us, one after another; for I had always understood that he hated +me, and I remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when +his eyes passed on to Agnes, and I saw the rage with which he felt +his power over her slipping away, and the exhibition, in their +disappointment, of the odious passions that had led him to aspire +to one whose virtues he could never appreciate or care for, I was +shocked by the mere thought of her having lived, an hour, within +sight of such a man. + +After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking +at us with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one +more address to me, half whining, and half abusive. + +'You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride +yourself so much on your honour and all the rest of it, to sneak +about my place, eaves-dropping with my clerk? If it had been ME, +I shouldn't have wondered; for I don't make myself out a gentleman +(though I never was in the streets either, as you were, according +to Micawber), but being you! - And you're not afraid of doing this, +either? You don't think at all of what I shall do, in return; or +of getting yourself into trouble for conspiracy and so forth? Very +well. We shall see! Mr. What's-your-name, you were going to refer +some question to Micawber. There's your referee. Why don't you +make him speak? He has learnt his lesson, I see.' + +Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat +on the edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of +his splay feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for +what might follow. + +Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the +greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the +first syllable Of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now +burst forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a +defensive weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap +document, folded in the form of a large letter. Opening this +packet, with his old flourish, and glancing at the contents, as if +he cherished an artistic admiration of their style of composition, +he began to read as follows: + + +'"Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen -"' + +'Bless and save the man!' exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. 'He'd +write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!' + +Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on. + +'"In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate +Villain that has ever existed,"' Mr. Micawber, without looking off +the letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah +Heep, '"I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my +cradle, of pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to +respond, I have ever been the sport and toy of debasing +circumstances. Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, have, +collectively or separately, been the attendants of my career."' + +The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to +these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis +with which he read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered +to it with a roll of his head, when he thought he had hit a +sentence very hard indeed. + +'"In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I +entered the office - or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would +term it, the Bureau - of the Firm, nominally conducted under the +appellation of Wickfield and - HEEP, but in reality, wielded by - +HEEP alone. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the mainspring of that +machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the Forger and the Cheat."' + +Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the +letter, as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect +miracle of dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with +the ruler, and disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, +as if it were broken. The blow sounded as if it had fallen on +wood. + +'The Devil take you!' said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. +'I'll be even with you.' + +'Approach me again, you - you - you HEEP of infamy,' gasped Mr. +Micawber, 'and if your head is human, I'll break it. Come on, come +on! ' + +I think I never saw anything more ridiculous - I was sensible of +it, even at the time - than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards +with the ruler, and crying, 'Come on!' while Traddles and I pushed +him back into a corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, +he persisted in emerging again. + +His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand +for sometime, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; +then held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his +sullen face looking down. + +Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his +letter. + +'"The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered +into the service of - HEEP,"' always pausing before that word and +uttering it with astonishing vigour, '"were not defined, beyond the +pittance of twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was +left contingent on the value of my professional exertions; in other +and more expressive words, on the baseness of my nature, the +cupidity of my motives, the poverty of my family, the general moral +(or rather immoral) resemblance between myself and - HEEP. Need I +say, that it soon became necessary for me to solicit from - HEEP - +pecuniary advances towards the support of Mrs. Micawber, and our +blighted but rising family? Need I say that this necessity had +been foreseen by - HEEP? That those advances were secured by +I.O.U.'s and other similar acknowledgements, known to the legal +institutions of this country? And that I thus became immeshed in +the web he had spun for my reception?"' + +Mr. Micawber's enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing +this unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any +pain or anxiety that the reality could have caused him. He read +on: + +'"Then it was that - HEEP - began to favour me with just so much of +his confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal +business. Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly +express myself, to dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my +services were constantly called into requisition for the +falsification of business, and the mystification of an individual +whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, kept +in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all +this while, the ruffian - HEEP - was professing unbounded gratitude +to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused gentleman. This +was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes, with that +universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious +ornament of the Elizabethan Era, worse remains behind!"' + +Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off +with a quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second +reading of the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place. + +'"It is not my intention,"' he continued reading on, '"to enter on +a detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though +it is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor +nature, affecting the individual whom I have denominated Mr. W., to +which I have been a tacitly consenting party. My object, when the +contest within myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and no +baker, existence and non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage +of my opportunities to discover and expose the major malpractices +committed, to that gentleman's grievous wrong and injury, by - +HEEP. Stimulated by the silent monitor within, and by a no less +touching and appealing monitor without - to whom I will briefly +refer as Miss W. - I entered on a not unlaborious task of +clandestine investigation, protracted - now, to the best of my +knowledge, information, and belief, over a period exceeding twelve +calendar months."' + +He read this passage as if it were from an Act of Parliament; and +appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words. + +'"My charges against - HEEP,"' he read on, glancing at him, and +drawing the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in +case of need, '"are as follows."' + +We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his. + +'"First,"' said Mr. Micawber, '"When Mr. W.'s faculties and memory +for business became, through causes into which it is not necessary +or expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused, - HEEP - +designedly perplexed and complicated the whole of the official +transactions. When Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business, - +HEEP was always at hand to force him to enter on it. He obtained +Mr. W.'s signature under such circumstances to documents of +importance, representing them to be other documents of no +importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw out, thus, +one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six +fourteen, two and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business +charges and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or +had never really existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, the +appearance of having originated in Mr. W.'s own dishonest +intention, and of having been accomplished by Mr. W.'s own +dishonest act; and has used it, ever since, to torture and +constrain him."' + +'You shall prove this, you Copperfield!' said Uriah, with a +threatening shake of the head. 'All in good time!' + +'Ask - HEEP - Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after him,' said +Mr. Micawber, breaking off from the letter; 'will you?' + +'The fool himself- and lives there now,' said Uriah, disdainfully. + +'Ask - HEEP - if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house,' said +Mr. Micawber; 'will you?' + +I saw Uriah's lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his +chin. + +'Or ask him,' said Mr. Micawber,'if he ever burnt one there. If he +says yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins +Micawber, and he will hear of something not at all to his +advantage!' + +The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself +of these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who +cried out, in much agitation: + +'Ury, Ury! Be umble, and make terms, my dear!' + +'Mother!' he retorted, 'will you keep quiet? You're in a fright, +and don't know what you say or mean. Umble!' he repeated, looking +at me, with a snarl; 'I've umbled some of 'em for a pretty long +time back, umble as I was!' + +Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently +proceeded with his composition. + +'"Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my +knowledge, information, and belief -"' + +'But that won't do,' muttered Uriah, relieved. 'Mother, you keep +quiet.' + +'We will endeavour to provide something that WILL do, and do for +you finally, sir, very shortly,' replied Mr. Micawber. + +'"Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my +knowledge, information, and belief, systematically forged, to +various entries, books, and documents, the signature of Mr. W.; and +has distinctly done so in one instance, capable of proof by me. To +wit, in manner following, that is to say:"' + +Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, +which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, +not at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of +my life, in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. +In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy +themselves mightily when they come to several good words in +succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly +detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas +were made relishing on the same principle. We talk about the +tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them too; we are +fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait +upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds +well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries +on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, +the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, +if there be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get +into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves +when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so I think +I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, +and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a +retinue of words. + +Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips: + +'"To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W. being +infirm, and it being within the bounds of probability that his +decease might lead to some discoveries, and to the downfall of - +HEEP'S - power over the W. family, - as I, Wilkins Micawber, the +undersigned, assume - unless the filial affection of his daughter +could be secretly influenced from allowing any investigation of the +partnership affairs to be ever made, the said - HEEP - deemed it +expedient to have a bond ready by him, as from Mr. W., for the +before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and nine, with +interest, stated therein to have been advanced by - HEEP - to Mr. +W. to save Mr. W. from dishonour; though really the sum was never +advanced by him, and has long been replaced. The signatures to +this instrument purporting to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by +Wilkins Micawber, are forgeries by - HEEP. I have, in my +possession, in his hand and pocket-book, several similar imitations +of Mr. W.'s signature, here and there defaced by fire, but legible +to anyone. I never attested any such document. And I have the +document itself, in my possession."' +Uriah Heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys, +and opened a certain drawer; then, suddenly bethought himself of +what he was about, and turned again towards us, without looking in +it. + +'"And I have the document,"' Mr. Micawber read again, looking about +as if it were the text of a sermon, '"in my possession, - that is +to say, I had, early this morning, when this was written, but have +since relinquished it to Mr. Traddles."' + +'It is quite true,' assented Traddles. + +'Ury, Ury!' cried the mother, 'be umble and make terms. I know my +son will be umble, gentlemen, if you'll give him time to think. +Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure you know that he was always very umble, +sir!' + +It was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick, +when the son had abandoned it as useless. + +'Mother,' he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in +which his hand was wrapped, 'you had better take and fire a loaded +gun at me.' + +'But I love you, Ury,' cried Mrs. Heep. And I have no doubt she +did; or that he loved her, however strange it may appear; though, +to be sure, they were a congenial couple. 'And I can't bear to +hear you provoking the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more. +I told the gentleman at first, when he told me upstairs it was come +to light, that I would answer for your being umble, and making +amends. Oh, see how umble I am, gentlemen, and don't mind him!' + +'Why, there's Copperfield, mother,' he angrily retorted, pointing +his lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled, +as the prime mover in the discovery; and I did not undeceive him; +'there's Copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say +less than you've blurted out!' + +'I can't help it, Ury,' cried his mother. 'I can't see you running +into danger, through carrying your head so high. Better be umble, +as you always was.' + +He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to +me with a scowl: + +'What more have you got to bring forward? If anything, go on with +it. What do you look at me for?' + +Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, glad to revert to a +performance with which he was so highly satisfied. + +'"Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show, by - HEEP'S +- false books, and - HEEP'S - real memoranda, beginning with the +partially destroyed pocket-book (which I was unable to comprehend, +at the time of its accidental discovery by Mrs. Micawber, on our +taking possession of our present abode, in the locker or bin +devoted to the reception of the ashes calcined on our domestic +hearth), that the weaknesses, the faults, the very virtues, the +parental affections, and the sense of honour, of the unhappy Mr. W. +have been for years acted on by, and warped to the base purposes of +- HEEP. That Mr. W. has been for years deluded and plundered, in +every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement of the +avaricious, false, and grasping - HEEP. That the engrossing object +of- HEEP - was, next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss W. (of his +ulterior views in reference to the latter I say nothing) entirely +to himself. That his last act, completed but a few months since, +was to induce Mr. W. to execute a relinquishment of his share in +the partnership, and even a bill of sale on the very furniture of +his house, in consideration of a certain annuity, to be well and +truly paid by - HEEP - on the four common quarter-days in each and +every year. That these meshes; beginning with alarming and +falsified accounts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the receiver, +at a period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and ill-judged +speculations, and may not have had the money, for which he was +morally and legally responsible, in hand; going on with pretended +borrowings of money at enormous interest, really coming from - HEEP +- and by - HEEP - fraudulently obtained or withheld from Mr. W. +himself, on pretence of such speculations or otherwise; perpetuated +by a miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous chicaneries - +gradually thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. could see no world +beyond. Bankrupt, as he believed, alike in circumstances, in all +other hope, and in honour, his sole reliance was upon the monster +in the garb of man,"' - Mr. Micawber made a good deal of this, as +a new turn of expression, - '"who, by making himself necessary to +him, had achieved his destruction. All this I undertake to show. +Probably much more!"' + +I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully, +half sorrowfully, at my side; and there was a movement among us, as +if Mr. Micawber had finished. He said, with exceeding gravity, +'Pardon me,' and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits +and the most intense enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter. + +'"I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to substantiate +these accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to +disappear from the landscape on which we appear to be an +encumbrance. That is soon done. It may be reasonably inferred +that our baby will first expire of inanition, as being the frailest +member of our circle; and that our twins will follow next in order. +So be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has done much; +imprisonment on civil process, and want, will soon do more. I +trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation - of which the +smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure +of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at +rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the +watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon - +combined with the struggle of parental Poverty to turn it, when +completed, to the right account, may be as the sprinkling of a few +drops of sweet water on my funeral pyre. I ask no more. Let it +be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and eminent +naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that what I +have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objects, + + For England, home, and Beauty. + + '"Remaining always, &c. &c., WILKINS MICAWBER."' + + +Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber +folded up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as +something she might like to keep. + +There was, as I had noticed on my first visit long ago, an iron +safe in the room. The key was in it. A hasty suspicion seemed to +strike Uriah; and, with a glance at Mr. Micawber, he went to it, +and threw the doors clanking open. It was empty. + +'Where are the books?' he cried, with a frightful face. 'Some +thief has stolen the books!' + +Mr. Micawber tapped himself with the ruler. 'I did, when I got the +key from you as usual - but a little earlier - and opened it this +morning.' + +'Don't be uneasy,' said Traddles. 'They have come into my +possession. I will take care of them, under the authority I +mentioned.' + +'You receive stolen goods, do you?' cried Uriah. + +'Under such circumstances,' answered Traddles, 'yes.' + +What was my astonishment when I beheld my aunt, who had been +profoundly quiet and attentive, make a dart at Uriah Heep, and +seize him by the collar with both hands! + +'You know what I want?' said my aunt. + +'A strait-waistcoat,' said he. + +'No. My property!' returned my aunt. 'Agnes, my dear, as long as +I believed it had been really made away with by your father, I +wouldn't - and, my dear, I didn't, even to Trot, as he knows - +breathe a syllable of its having been placed here for investment. +But, now I know this fellow's answerable for it, and I'll have it! +Trot, come and take it away from him!' + +Whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he kept her property +in his neck-kerchief, I am sure I don't know; but she certainly +pulled at it as if she thought so. I hastened to put myself +between them, and to assure her that we would all take care that he +should make the utmost restitution of everything he had wrongly +got. This, and a few moments' reflection, pacified her; but she +was not at all disconcerted by what she had done (though I cannot +say as much for her bonnet) and resumed her seat composedly. + +During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clamouring to her +son to be 'umble'; and had been going down on her knees to all of +us in succession, and making the wildest promises. Her son sat her +down in his chair; and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm +with his hand, but not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look: + +'What do you want done?' + +'I will tell you what must be done,' said Traddles. + +'Has that Copperfield no tongue?' muttered Uriah, 'I would do a +good deal for you if you could tell me, without lying, that +somebody had cut it out.' + +'My Uriah means to be umble!' cried his mother. 'Don't mind what +he says, good gentlemen!' + +'What must be done,' said Traddles, 'is this. First, the deed of +relinquishment, that we have heard of, must be given over to me now +- here.' + +'Suppose I haven't got it,' he interrupted. + +'But you have,' said Traddles; 'therefore, you know, we won't +suppose so.' And I cannot help avowing that this was the first +occasion on which I really did justice to the clear head, and the +plain, patient, practical good sense, of my old schoolfellow. +'Then,' said Traddles, 'you must prepare to disgorge all that your +rapacity has become possessed of, and to make restoration to the +last farthing. All the partnership books and papers must remain in +our possession; all your books and papers; all money accounts and +securities, of both kinds. In short, everything here.' + +'Must it? I don't know that,' said Uriah. 'I must have time to +think about that.' + +'Certainly,' replied Traddles; 'but, in the meanwhile, and until +everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall maintain +possession of these things; and beg you - in short, compel you - to +keep to your own room, and hold no communication with anyone.' + +'I won't do it!' said Uriah, with an oath. + +'Maidstone jail is a safer place of detention,' observed Traddles; +'and though the law may be longer in righting us, and may not be +able to right us so completely as you can, there is no doubt of its +punishing YOU. Dear me, you know that quite as well as I! +Copperfield, will you go round to the Guildhall, and bring a couple +of officers?' + +Here, Mrs. Heep broke out again, crying on her knees to Agnes to +interfere in their behalf, exclaiming that he was very humble, and +it was all true, and if he didn't do what we wanted, she would, and +much more to the same purpose; being half frantic with fears for +her darling. To inquire what he might have done, if he had had any +boldness, would be like inquiring what a mongrel cur might do, if +it had the spirit of a tiger. He was a coward, from head to foot; +and showed his dastardly nature through his sullenness and +mortification, as much as at any time of his mean life. + +'Stop!' he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand. +'Mother, hold your noise. Well! Let 'em have that deed. Go and +fetch it!' + +'Do you help her, Mr. Dick,' said Traddles, 'if you please.' + +Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick accompanied +her as a shepherd's dog might accompany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep +gave him little trouble; for she not only returned with the deed, +but with the box in which it was, where we found a banker's book +and some other papers that were afterwards serviceable. + +'Good!' said Traddles, when this was brought. 'Now, Mr. Heep, you +can retire to think: particularly observing, if you please, that I +declare to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one +thing to be done; that it is what I have explained; and that it +must be done without delay.' + +Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across +the room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said: + +'Copperfield, I have always hated you. You've always been an +upstart, and you've always been against me.' + +'As I think I told you once before,' said I, 'it is you who have +been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be +profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were +greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and +overreach themselves. It is as certain as death.' + +'Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school +where I picked up so much umbleness), from nine o'clock to eleven, +that labour was a curse; and from eleven o'clock to one, that it +was a blessing and a cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don't know +what all, eh?' said he with a sneer. 'You preach, about as +consistent as they did. Won't umbleness go down? I shouldn't have +got round my gentleman fellow-partner without it, I think. - +Micawber, you old bully, I'll pay YOU!' + +Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and +making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the +door, then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the +satisfaction of 'witnessing the re-establishment of mutual +confidence between himself and Mrs. Micawber'. After which, he +invited the company generally to the contemplation of that +affecting spectacle. + +'The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs. Micawber and +myself, is now withdrawn,' said Mr. Micawber; 'and my children and +the Author of their Being can once more come in contact on equal +terms.' + +As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that +we were, as well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would +permit, I dare say we should all have gone, but that it was +necessary for Agnes to return to her father, as yet unable to bear +more than the dawn of hope; and for someone else to hold Uriah in +safe keeping. So, Traddles remained for the latter purpose, to be +presently relieved by Mr. Dick; and Mr. Dick, my aunt, and I, went +home with Mr. Micawber. As I parted hurriedly from the dear girl +to whom I owed so much, and thought from what she had been saved, +perhaps, that morning - her better resolution notwithstanding - I +felt devoutly thankful for the miseries of my younger days which +had brought me to the knowledge of Mr. Micawber. + +His house was not far off; and as the street door opened into the +sitting-room, and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own, +we found ourselves at once in the bosom of the family. Mr. +Micawber exclaiming, 'Emma! my life!' rushed into Mrs. Micawber's +arms. Mrs. Micawber shrieked, and folded Mr. Micawber in her +embrace. Miss Micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of Mrs. +Micawber's last letter to me, was sensibly affected. The stranger +leaped. The twins testified their joy by several inconvenient but +innocent demonstrations. Master Micawber, whose disposition +appeared to have been soured by early disappointment, and whose +aspect had become morose, yielded to his better feelings, and +blubbered. + +'Emma!' said Mr. Micawber. 'The cloud is past from my mind. +Mutual confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored, +to know no further interruption. Now, welcome poverty!' cried Mr. +Micawber, shedding tears. 'Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, +welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will +sustain us to the end!' + +With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a +chair, and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of +bleak prospects, which appeared, to the best of my judgement, to be +anything but welcome to them; and calling upon them to come out +into Canterbury and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for +their support. + +But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted +away, the first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be +considered complete, was to recover her. This my aunt and Mr. +Micawber did; and then my aunt was introduced, and Mrs. Micawber +recognized me. + +'Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield,' said the poor lady, giving me +her hand, 'but I am not strong; and the removal of the late +misunderstanding between Mr. Micawber and myself was at first too +much for me.' + +'Is this all your family, ma'am?' said my aunt. + +'There are no more at present,' returned Mrs. Micawber. + +'Good gracious, I didn't mean that, ma'am,' said my aunt. 'I mean, +are all these yours?' + +'Madam,' replied Mr. Micawber, 'it is a true bill.' + +'And that eldest young gentleman, now,' said my aunt, musing, 'what +has he been brought up to?' + +'It was my hope when I came here,' said Mr. Micawber, 'to have got +Wilkins into the Church: or perhaps I shall express my meaning more +strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor +in the venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and +he has - in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in +public-houses, rather than in sacred edifices.' + +'But he means well,' said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly. + +'I dare say, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'that he means +particularly well; but I have not yet found that he carries out his +meaning, in any given direction whatsoever.' + +Master Micawber's moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and +he demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? Whether he had +been born a carpenter, or a coach-painter, any more than he had +been born a bird? Whether he could go into the next street, and +open a chemist's shop? Whether he could rush to the next assizes, +and proclaim himself a lawyer? Whether he could come out by force +at the opera, and succeed by violence? Whether he could do +anything, without being brought up to something? + +My aunt mused a little while, and then said: + +'Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to +emigration.' + +'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'it was the dream of my youth, and +the fallacious aspiration of my riper years.' I am thoroughly +persuaded, by the by, that he had never thought of it in his life. + +'Aye?' said my aunt, with a glance at me. 'Why, what a thing it +would be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if +you were to emigrate now.' + +'Capital, madam, capital,' urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily. + +'That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr. +Copperfield,' assented his wife. + +'Capital?' cried my aunt. 'But you are doing us a great service - +have done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come +out of the fire - and what could we do for you, that would be half +so good as to find the capital?' + +'I could not receive it as a gift,' said Mr. Micawber, full of fire +and animation, 'but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at +five per cent interest, per annum, upon my personal liability - say +my notes of hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, +respectively, to allow time for something to turn up -' + +'Could be? Can be and shall be, on your own terms,' returned my +aunt, 'if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here +are some people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If +you decide to go, why shouldn't you go in the same ship? You may +help each other. Think of this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take +your time, and weigh it well.' + +'There is but one question, my dear ma'am, I could wish to ask,' +said Mrs. Micawber. 'The climate, I believe, is healthy?' + +'Finest in the world!' said my aunt. + +'Just so,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'Then my question arises. Now, +are the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr. +Micawber's abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the +social scale? I will not say, at present, might he aspire to be +Governor, or anything of that sort; but would there be a reasonable +opening for his talents to develop themselves - that would be amply +sufficient - and find their own expansion?' + +'No better opening anywhere,' said my aunt, 'for a man who conducts +himself well, and is industrious.' + +'For a man who conducts himself well,' repeated Mrs. Micawber, with +her clearest business manner, 'and is industrious. Precisely. It +is evident to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action +for Mr. Micawber!' + +'I entertain the conviction, my dear madam,' said Mr. Micawber, +'that it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, +for myself and family; and that something of an extraordinary +nature will turn up on that shore. It is no distance - +comparatively speaking; and though consideration is due to the +kindness of your proposal, I assure you that is a mere matter of +form.' + +Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of +men, looking on to fortune; or how Mrs. Micawber presently +discoursed about the habits of the kangaroo! Shall I ever recall +that street of Canterbury on a market-day, without recalling him, +as he walked back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner +he assumed, the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the +land; and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of +an Australian farmer! + + + +CHAPTER 53 +ANOTHER RETROSPECT + + +I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure +in the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in +its innocent love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me - turn +to look upon the Little Blossom, as it flutters to the ground! + +I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, +in our cottage. I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so +used to it in feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is not +really long, in weeks or months; but, in my usage and experience, +it is a weary, weary while. + +They have left off telling me to 'wait a few days more'. I have +begun to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall +see my child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip. + +He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be that he +misses in his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him +younger; but he mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are +feeble, and my aunt is sorry that he objects to her no more, but +creeps near her as he lies on Dora's bed - she sitting at the +bedside - and mildly licks her hand. + +Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or +complaining word. She says that we are very good to her; that her +dear old careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt +has no sleep, yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, +the little bird-like ladies come to see her; and then we talk about +our wedding-day, and all that happy time. + +What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be - and in +all life, within doors and without - when I sit in the quiet, +shaded, orderly room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned +towards me, and her little fingers twining round my hand! Many and +many an hour I sit thus; but, of all those times, three times come +the freshest on my mind. + + +It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt's hands, shows me +how her pretty hair will curl upon the pillow yet, an how long and +bright it is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that +net she wears. + +'Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy,' she says, when I +smile; 'but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; +and because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep +in the glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have +a lock of it. Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I +gave you one!' + +'That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given +you, Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was.' + +'Ah! but I didn't like to tell you,' says Dora, 'then, how I had +cried over them, because I believed you really liked me! When I can +run about again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those +places where we were such a silly couple, shall we? And take some +of the old walks? And not forget poor papa?' + +'Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must make haste to +get well, my dear.' + +'Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you don't know!' + + +It is evening; and I sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with +the same face turned towards me. We have been silent, and there is +a smile upon her face. I have ceased to carry my light burden up +and down stairs now. She lies here all the day. + +'Doady!' + +'My dear Dora!' + +'You won't think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what +you told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield's not being +well? I want to see Agnes. Very much I want to see her.' + +'I will write to her, my dear.' + +'Will you?' + +'Directly.' + +'What a good, kind boy! Doady, take me on your arm. Indeed, my +dear, it's not a whim. It's not a foolish fancy. I want, very +much indeed, to see her!' + +'I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she is sure +to come.' + +'You are very lonely when you go downstairs, now?' Dora whispers, +with her arm about my neck. + +'How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your empty chair?' + +'My empty chair!' She clings to me for a little while, in silence. +'And you really miss me, Doady?' looking up, and brightly smiling. +'Even poor, giddy, stupid me?' + +'My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss so much?' + +'Oh, husband! I am so glad, yet so sorry!' creeping closer to me, +and folding me in both her arms. She laughs and sobs, and then is +quiet, and quite happy. + +'Quite!' she says. 'Only give Agnes my dear love, and tell her +that I want very, very, much to see her; and I have nothing left to +wish for.' + +'Except to get well again, Dora.' + +'Ah, Doady! Sometimes I think - you know I always was a silly +little thing! - that that will never be!' + +'Don't say so, Dora! Dearest love, don't think so!' + +'I won't, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy; though my +dear boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife's empty +chair!' + + +It is night; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived; has been +among us for a whole day and an evening. She, my aunt, and I, have +sat with Dora since the morning, all together. We have not talked +much, but Dora has been perfectly contented and cheerful. We are +now alone. + +Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me? They have +told me so; they have told me nothing new to my thoughts- but I am +far from sure that I have taken that truth to heart. I cannot +master it. I have withdrawn by myself, many times today, to weep. +I have remembered Who wept for a parting between the living and the +dead. I have bethought me of all that gracious and compassionate +history. I have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and +that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly +settle in my mind is, that the end will absolutely come. I hold +her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me, +alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a pale lingering +shadow of belief that she will be spared. + +'I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I +have often thought of saying, lately. You won't mind?' with a +gentle look. + +'Mind, my darling?' + +'Because I don't know what you will think, or what you may have +thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. +Doady, dear, I am afraid I was too young.' + +I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, +and speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a +stricken heart, that she is speaking of herself as past. + +'I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don't mean in years only, +but in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a +silly little creature! I am afraid it would have been better, if we +had only loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I +have begun to think I was not fit to be a wife.' + +I try to stay my tears, and to reply, 'Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I +to be a husband!' + +'I don't know,' with the old shake of her curls. 'Perhaps! But if +I had been more fit to be married I might have made you more so, +too. Besides, you are very clever, and I never was.' + +'We have been very happy, my sweet Dora.' + +'I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would +have wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less +a companion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of +what was wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is +better as it is.' + +'Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word +seems a reproach!' + +'No, not a syllable!' she answers, kissing me. 'Oh, my dear, you +never deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a +reproachful word to you, in earnest - it was all the merit I had, +except being pretty - or you thought me so. Is it lonely, down- +stairs, Doady?' + +'Very! Very!' + +'Don't cry! Is my chair there?' + +'In its old place.' + +'Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise. +I want to speak to Agnes. When you go downstairs, tell Agnes so, +and send her up to me; and while I speak to her, let no one come - +not even aunt. I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to +speak to Agnes, quite alone.' + +I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for +my grief. + +'I said that it was better as it is!' she whispers, as she holds me +in her arms. 'Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have +loved your child-wife better than you do; and, after more years, +she would so have tried and disappointed you, that you might not +have been able to love her half so well! I know I was too young and +foolish. It is much better as it is!' + +Agnes is downstairs, when I go into the parlour; and I give her the +message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip. + +His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed +of flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high +and clear. As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my +undisciplined heart is chastened heavily - heavily. + +I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those +secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of +every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that +trifles make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my +remembrance, is the image of the dear child as I knew her first, +graced by my young love, and by her own, with every fascination +wherein such love is rich. Would it, indeed, have been better if +we had loved each other as a boy and a girl, and forgotten it? +Undisciplined heart, reply! + +How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my +child-wife's old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls +out of his house, and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and +whines to go upstairs. + +'Not tonight, Jip! Not tonight!' + +He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim +eyes to my face. + +'Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!' + +He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and +with a plaintive cry, is dead. + +'Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here!' + +- That face, so full of pity, and of grief, that rain of tears, +that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards +Heaven! + +'Agnes?' + +It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all +things are blotted out of my remembrance. + + + +CHAPTER 54 +Mr. MICAWBER'S TRANSACTIONS + + +This is not the time at which I am to enter on the state of my mind +beneath its load of sorrow. I came to think that the Future was +walled up before me, that the energy and action of my life were at +an end, that I never could find any refuge but in the grave. I +came to think so, I say, but not in the first shock of my grief. +It slowly grew to that. If the events I go on to relate, had not +thickened around me, in the beginning to confuse, and in the end to +augment, my affliction, it is possible (though I think not +probable), that I might have fallen at once into this condition. +As it was, an interval occurred before I fully knew my own +distress; an interval, in which I even supposed that its sharpest +pangs were past; and when my mind could soothe itself by resting on +all that was most innocent and beautiful, in the tender story that +was closed for ever. + +When it was first proposed that I should go abroad, or how it came +to be agreed among us that I was to seek the restoration of my +peace in change and travel, I do not, even now, distinctly know. +The spirit of Agnes so pervaded all we thought, and said, and did, +in that time of sorrow, that I assume I may refer the project to +her influence. But her influence was so quiet that I know no more. + +And now, indeed, I began to think that in my old association of her +with the stained-glass window in the church, a prophetic +foreshadowing of what she would be to me, in the calamity that was +to happen in the fullness of time, had found a way into my mind. +In all that sorrow, from the moment, never to be forgotten, when +she stood before me with her upraised hand, she was like a sacred +presence in my lonely house. When the Angel of Death alighted +there, my child-wife fell asleep - they told me so when I could +bear to hear it - on her bosom, with a smile. From my swoon, I +first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears, her +words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down as from a +purer region nearer Heaven, over my undisciplined heart, and +softening its pain. + +Let me go on. + +I was to go abroad. That seemed to have been determined among us +from the first. The ground now covering all that could perish of +my departed wife, I waited only for what Mr. Micawber called the +'final pulverization of Heep'; and for the departure of the +emigrants. + +At the request of Traddles, most affectionate and devoted of +friends in my trouble, we returned to Canterbury: I mean my aunt, +Agnes, and I. We proceeded by appointment straight to Mr. +Micawber's house; where, and at Mr. Wickfield's, my friend had been +labouring ever since our explosive meeting. When poor Mrs. +Micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes, she was sensibly +affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs. Micawber's heart, +which had not been dunned out of it in all those many years. + +'Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber,' was my aunt's first salutation after +we were seated. 'Pray, have you thought about that emigration +proposal of mine?' + +'My dear madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'perhaps I cannot better +express the conclusion at which Mrs. Micawber, your humble servant, +and I may add our children, have jointly and severally arrived, +than by borrowing the language of an illustrious poet, to reply +that our Boat is on the shore, and our Bark is on the sea.' + +'That's right,' said my aunt. 'I augur all sort of good from your +sensible decision.' + +'Madam, you do us a great deal of honour,' he rejoined. He then +referred to a memorandum. 'With respect to the pecuniary +assistance enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of +enterprise, I have reconsidered that important business-point; and +would beg to propose my notes of hand - drawn, it is needless to +stipulate, on stamps of the amounts respectively required by the +various Acts of Parliament applying to such securities - at +eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months. The proposition I +originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but I +am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow sufficient +time for the requisite amount of - Something - to turn up. We +might not,' said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it +represented several hundred acres of highly cultivated land, 'on +the first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our +harvest, or we might not have got our harvest in. Labour, I +believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our +colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the +teeming soil.' + +'Arrange it in any way you please, sir,' said my aunt. + +'Madam,' he replied, 'Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible +of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What +I wish is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. +Turning over, as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; +and falling back, as we are now in the act of falling back, for a +Spring of no common magnitude; it is important to my sense of +self-respect, besides being an example to my son, that these +arrangements should be concluded as between man and man.' + +I don't know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last +phrase; I don't know that anybody ever does, or did; but he +appeared to relish it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive +cough, 'as between man and man'. + +'I propose,' said Mr. Micawber, 'Bills - a convenience to the +mercantile world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted +to the Jews, who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much +to do with them ever since - because they are negotiable. But if +a Bond, or any other description of security, would be preferred, +I should be happy to execute any such instrument. As between man +and man.' + +MY aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to +agree to anything, she took it for granted there would be no +difficulty in settling this point. Mr. Micawber was of her +opinion. + +'In reference to our domestic preparations, madam,' said Mr. +Micawber, with some pride, 'for meeting the destiny to which we are +now understood to be self-devoted, I beg to report them. My eldest +daughter attends at five every morning in a neighbouring +establishment, to acquire the process - if process it may be called +- of milking cows. My younger children are instructed to observe, +as closely as circumstances will permit, the habits of the pigs and +poultry maintained in the poorer parts of this city: a pursuit from +which they have, on two occasions, been brought home, within an +inch of being run over. I have myself directed some attention, +during the past week, to the art of baking; and my son Wilkins has +issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle, when +permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to +render any voluntary service in that direction - which I regret to +say, for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being +generally warned, with imprecations, to desist.' + +'All very right indeed,' said my aunt, encouragingly. 'Mrs. +Micawber has been busy, too, I have no doubt.' + +'My dear madam,' returned Mrs. Micawber, with her business-like +air. 'I am free to confess that I have not been actively engaged +in pursuits immediately connected with cultivation or with stock, +though well aware that both will claim my attention on a foreign +shore. Such opportunities as I have been enabled to alienate from +my domestic duties, I have devoted to corresponding at some length +with my family. For I own it seems to me, my dear Mr. +Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, who always fell back on me, I +suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might address her +discourse at starting, 'that the time is come when the past should +be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by +the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take my family by the hand; when +the lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms +with Mr. Micawber.' + +I said I thought so too. + +'This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' pursued +Mrs. Micawber, 'in which I view the subject. When I lived at home +with my papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any +point was under discussion in our limited circle, "In what light +does my Emma view the subject?" That my papa was too partial, I +know; still, on such a point as the frigid coldness which has ever +subsisted between Mr. Micawber and my family, I necessarily have +formed an opinion, delusive though it may be.' + +'No doubt. Of course you have, ma'am,' said my aunt. + +'Precisely so,' assented Mrs. Micawber. 'Now, I may be wrong in my +conclusions; it is very likely that I am, but my individual +impression is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may +be traced to an apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr. +Micawber would require pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help +thinking,' said Mrs. Micawber, with an air of deep sagacity, 'that +there are members of my family who have been apprehensive that Mr. +Micawber would solicit them for their names. - I do not mean to be +conferred in Baptism upon our children, but to be inscribed on +Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money Market.' + +The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this +discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed +rather to astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, 'Well, ma'am, +upon the whole, I shouldn't wonder if you were right!' + +'Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary +shackles that have so long enthralled him,' said Mrs. Micawber, +'and of commencing a new career in a country where there is +sufficient range for his abilities, - which, in my opinion, is +exceedingly important; Mr. Micawber's abilities peculiarly +requiring space, - it seems to me that my family should signalize +the occasion by coming forward. What I could wish to see, would be +a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at a festive +entertainment, to be given at my family's expense; where Mr. +Micawber's health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading +member of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of +developing his views.' + +'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, 'it may be better for +me to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views +to that assembled group, they would possibly be found of an +offensive nature: my impression being that your family are, in the +aggregate, impertinent Snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated +Ruffians.' + +'Micawber,' said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, 'no! You have +never understood them, and they have never understood you.' + +Mr. Micawber coughed. + +'They have never understood you, Micawber,' said his wife. 'They +may be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can +pity their misfortune.' + +'I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,' said Mr. Micawber, relenting, +'to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even +remotely, have the appearance of being strong expressions. All I +would say is, that I can go abroad without your family coming +forward to favour me, - in short, with a parting Shove of their +cold shoulders; and that, upon the whole, I would rather leave +England with such impetus as I possess, than derive any +acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my dear, +if they should condescend to reply to your communications - which +our joint experience renders most improbable - far be it from me to +be a barrier to your wishes.' + +The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. +Micawber his arm, and glancing at the heap of books and papers +lying before Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to +ourselves; which they ceremoniously did. + +'My dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, leaning back in his chair +when they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made +his eyes red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, 'I don't make any +excuse for troubling you with business, because I know you are +deeply interested in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear +boy, I hope you are not worn out?' + +'I am quite myself,' said I, after a pause. 'We have more cause to +think of my aunt than of anyone. You know how much she has done.' + +'Surely, surely,' answered Traddles. 'Who can forget it!' + +'But even that is not all,' said I. 'During the last fortnight, +some new trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of +London every day. Several times she has gone out early, and been +absent until evening. Last night, Traddles, with this journey +before her, it was almost midnight before she came home. You know +what her consideration for others is. She will not tell me what +has happened to distress her.' + +My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable +until I had finished; when some stray tears found their way to her +cheeks, and she put her hand on mine. + +'It's nothing, Trot; it's nothing. There will be no more of it. +You shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to +these affairs.' + +'I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say,' Traddles began, 'that +although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for +himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. +I never saw such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, +he must be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. +The heat into which he has been continually putting himself; and +the distracted and impetuous manner in which he has been diving, +day and night, among papers and books; to say nothing of the +immense number of letters he has written me between this house and +Mr. Wickfield's, and often across the table when he has been +sitting opposite, and might much more easily have spoken; is quite +extraordinary.' + +'Letters!' cried my aunt. 'I believe he dreams in letters!' + +'There's Mr. Dick, too,' said Traddles, 'has been doing wonders! As +soon as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept +in such charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself +to Mr. Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the +investigations we have been making, and his real usefulness in +extracting, and copying, and fetching, and carrying, have been +quite stimulating to us.' + +'Dick is a very remarkable man,' exclaimed my aunt; 'and I always +said he was. Trot, you know it.' + +'I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield,' pursued Traddles, at once with +great delicacy and with great earnestness, 'that in your absence +Mr. Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus +that had fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful +apprehensions under which he had lived, he is hardly the same +person. At times, even his impaired power of concentrating his +memory and attention on particular points of business, has +recovered itself very much; and he has been able to assist us in +making some things clear, that we should have found very difficult +indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But what I have to do is to +come to results; which are short enough; not to gossip on all the +hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall never have done.' +His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it transparent +that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable Agnes to +hear her father mentioned with greater confidence; but it was not +the less pleasant for that. + +'Now, let me see,' said Traddles, looking among the papers on the +table. 'Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great +mass of unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful +confusion and falsification in the second, we take it to be clear +that Mr. Wickfield might now wind up his business, and his +agency-trust, and exhibit no deficiency or defalcation whatever.' + +'Oh, thank Heaven!' cried Agnes, fervently. + +'But,' said Traddles, 'the surplus that would be left as his means +of support - and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying +this - would be so small, not exceeding in all probability some +hundreds of pounds, that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best +to consider whether he might not retain his agency of the estate to +which he has so long been receiver. His friends might advise him, +you know; now he is free. You yourself, Miss Wickfield - +Copperfield - I -' + +'I have considered it, Trotwood,' said Agnes, looking to me, 'and +I feel that it ought not to be, and must not be; even on the +recommendation of a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so +much.' + +'I will not say that I recommend it,' observed Traddles. 'I think +it right to suggest it. No more.' + +'I am happy to hear you say so,' answered Agnes, steadily, 'for it +gives me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear Mr. +Traddles and dear Trotwood, papa once free with honour, what could +I wish for! I have always aspired, if I could have released him +from the toils in which he was held, to render back some little +portion of the love and care I owe him, and to devote my life to +him. It has been, for years, the utmost height of my hopes. To +take our future on myself, will be the next great happiness - the +next to his release from all trust and responsibility - that I can +know.' + +'Have you thought how, Agnes?' + +'Often! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success. +So many people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am +certain. Don't mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent +the dear old house, and keep a school, I shall be useful and +happy.' + +The calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, +first the dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my +heart was too full for speech. Traddles pretended for a little +while to be busily looking among the papers. + +'Next, Miss Trotwood,' said Traddles, 'that property of yours.' + +'Well, sir,' sighed my aunt. 'All I have got to say about it is, +that if it's gone, I can bear it; and if it's not gone, I shall be +glad to get it back.' + +'It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?' said +Traddles. + +'Right!' replied my aunt. + +'I can't account for more than five,' said Traddles, with an air of +perplexity. + +'- thousand, do you mean?' inquired my aunt, with uncommon +composure, 'or pounds?' + +'Five thousand pounds,' said Traddles. + +'It was all there was,' returned my aunt. 'I sold three, myself. +One, I paid for your articles, Trot, my dear; and the other two I +have by me. When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing +about that sum, but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted +to see how you would come out of the trial, Trot; and you came out +nobly - persevering, self-reliant, self-denying! So did Dick. +Don't speak to me, for I find my nerves a little shaken!' + +Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her +arms folded; but she had wonderful self-command. + +'Then I am delighted to say,' cried Traddles, beaming with joy, +'that we have recovered the whole money!' + +'Don't congratulate me, anybody!' exclaimed my aunt. 'How so, +sir?' + +'You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wickfield?' said +Traddles. + +'Of course I did,' said my aunt, 'and was therefore easily +silenced. Agnes, not a word!' + +'And indeed,' said Traddles, 'it was sold, by virtue of the power +of management he held from you; but I needn't say by whom sold, or +on whose actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr. +Wickfield, by that rascal, - and proved, too, by figures, - that he +had possessed himself of the money (on general instructions, he +said) to keep other deficiencies and difficulties from the light. +Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and helpless in his hands as to pay +you, afterwards, several sums of interest on a pretended principal +which he knew did not exist, made himself, unhappily, a party to +the fraud.' + +'And at last took the blame upon himself,' added my aunt; 'and +wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong +unheard of. Upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, +called for a candle, burnt the letter, and told him if he ever +could right me and himself, to do it; and if he couldn't, to keep +his own counsel for his daughter's sake. - If anybody speaks to +me, I'll leave the house!' + +We all remained quiet; Agnes covering her face. + +'Well, my dear friend,' said my aunt, after a pause, 'and you have +really extorted the money back from him?' + +'Why, the fact is,' returned Traddles, 'Mr. Micawber had so +completely hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new +points if an old one failed, that he could not escape from us. A +most remarkable circumstance is, that I really don't think he +grasped this sum even so much for the gratification of his avarice, +which was inordinate, as in the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He +said so to me, plainly. He said he would even have spent as much, +to baulk or injure Copperfield.' + +'Ha!' said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing +at Agnes. 'And what's become of him?' + +'I don't know. He left here,' said Traddles, 'with his mother, who +had been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole +time. They went away by one of the London night coaches, and I +know no more about him; except that his malevolence to me at +parting was audacious. He seemed to consider himself hardly less +indebted to me, than to Mr. Micawber; which I consider (as I told +him) quite a compliment.' + +'Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles?' I asked. + +'Oh dear, yes, I should think so,' he replied, shaking his head, +seriously. 'I should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one +way or other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had +an opportunity of observing his course, that money would never keep +that man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that +whatever object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It's his +only compensation for the outward restraints he puts upon himself. +Always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he +will always magnify every object in the way; and consequently will +hate and suspect everybody that comes, in the most innocent manner, +between him and it. So the crooked courses will become crookeder, +at any moment, for the least reason, or for none. It's only +necessary to consider his history here,' said Traddles, 'to know +that.' + +'He's a monster of meanness!' said my aunt. + +'Really I don't know about that,' observed Traddles thoughtfully. +'Many people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it.' + +'And now, touching Mr. Micawber,' said my aunt. + +'Well, really,' said Traddles, cheerfully, 'I must, once more, give +Mr. Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and +persevering for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do +anything worth speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that +Mr. Micawber did right, for right's sake, when we reflect what +terms he might have made with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence.' + +'I think so too,' said I. + +'Now, what would you give him?' inquired my aunt. + +'Oh! Before you come to that,' said Traddles, a little +disconcerted, 'I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being +able to carry everything before me) two points, in making this +lawless adjustment - for it's perfectly lawless from beginning to +end - of a difficult affair. Those I.O.U.'s, and so forth, which +Mr. Micawber gave him for the advances he had -' + +'Well! They must be paid,' said my aunt. + +'Yes, but I don't know when they may be proceeded on, or where they +are,' rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes; 'and I anticipate, that, +between this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be +constantly arrested, or taken in execution.' + +'Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of +execution,' said my aunt. 'What's the amount altogether?' + +'Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions - he calls them +transactions - with great form, in a book,' rejoined Traddles, +smiling; 'and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, +five.' + +'Now, what shall we give him, that sum included?' said my aunt. +'Agnes, my dear, you and I can talk about division of it +afterwards. What should it be? Five hundred pounds?' + +Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both +recommended a small sum in money, and the payment, without +stipulation to Mr. Micawber, of the Uriah claims as they came in. +We proposed that the family should have their passage and their +outfit, and a hundred pounds; and that Mr. Micawber's arrangement +for the repayment of the advances should be gravely entered into, +as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that +responsibility. To this, I added the suggestion, that I should +give some explanation of his character and history to Mr. Peggotty, +who I knew could be relied on; and that to Mr. Peggotty should be +quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another hundred. I +further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in Mr. Peggotty, by +confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty's story to him as I might feel +justified in relating, or might think expedient; and to endeavour +to bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common +advantage. We all entered warmly into these views; and I may +mention at once, that the principals themselves did so, shortly +afterwards, with perfect good will and harmony. + +Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, I +reminded him of the second and last point to which he had adverted. + +'You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I touch upon a +painful theme, as I greatly fear I shall,' said Traddles, +hesitating; 'but I think it necessary to bring it to your +recollection. On the day of Mr. Micawber's memorable denunciation +a threatening allusion was made by Uriah Heep to your aunt's - +husband.' + +My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure, +assented with a nod. + +'Perhaps,' observed Traddles, 'it was mere purposeless +impertinence?' + +'No,' returned my aunt. + +'There was - pardon me - really such a person, and at all in his +power?' hinted Traddles. + +'Yes, my good friend,' said my aunt. + +Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained +that he had not been able to approach this subject; that it had +shared the fate of Mr. Micawber's liabilities, in not being +comprehended in the terms he had made; that we were no longer of +any authority with Uriah Heep; and that if he could do us, or any +of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt he would. + +My aunt remained quiet; until again some stray tears found their +way to her cheeks. +'You are quite right,' she said. 'It was very thoughtful to +mention it.' + +'Can I - or Copperfield - do anything?' asked Traddles, gently. + +'Nothing,' said my aunt. 'I thank you many times. Trot, my dear, +a vain threat! Let us have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber back. And don't +any of you speak to me!' With that she smoothed her dress, and sat, +with her upright carriage, looking at the door. + +'Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!' said my aunt, when they entered. +'We have been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to +you for keeping you out of the room so long; and I'll tell you what +arrangements we propose.' + +These she explained to the unbounded satisfaction of the family, - +children and all being then present, - and so much to the awakening +of Mr. Micawber's punctual habits in the opening stage of all bill +transactions, that he could not be dissuaded from immediately +rushing out, in the highest spirits, to buy the stamps for his +notes of hand. But, his joy received a sudden check; for within +five minutes, he returned in the custody of a sheriff 's officer, +informing us, in a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, being +quite prepared for this event, which was of course a proceeding of +Uriah Heep's, soon paid the money; and in five minutes more Mr. +Micawber was seated at the table, filling up the stamps with an +expression of perfect joy, which only that congenial employment, or +the making of punch, could impart in full completeness to his +shining face. To see him at work on the stamps, with the relish of +an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them sideways, +taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, and +contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of their +precious value, was a sight indeed. + +'Now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you'll allow me to advise +you,' said my aunt, after silently observing him, 'is to abjure +that occupation for evermore.' + +'Madam,' replied Mr. Micawber, 'it is my intention to register such +a vow on the virgin page of the future. Mrs. Micawber will attest +it. I trust,' said Mr. Micawber, solemnly, 'that my son Wilkins +will ever bear in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist +in the fire, than use it to handle the serpents that have poisoned +the life-blood of his unhappy parent!' Deeply affected, and changed +in a moment to the image of despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the +serpents with a look of gloomy abhorrence (in which his late +admiration of them was not quite subdued), folded them up and put +them in his pocket. + +This closed the proceedings of the evening. We were weary with +sorrow and fatigue, and my aunt and I were to return to London on +the morrow. It was arranged that the Micawbers should follow us, +after effecting a sale of their goods to a broker; that Mr. +Wickfield's affairs should be brought to a settlement, with all +convenient speed, under the direction of Traddles; and that Agnes +should also come to London, pending those arrangements. We passed +the night at the old house, which, freed from the presence of the +Heeps, seemed purged of a disease; and I lay in my old room, like +a shipwrecked wanderer come home. + +We went back next day to my aunt's house - not to mine- and when +she and I sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said: + +'Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon my mind +lately?' + +'Indeed I do, aunt. If there ever was a time when I felt unwilling +that you should have a sorrow or anxiety which I could not share, +it is now.' + +'You have had sorrow enough, child,' said my aunt, affectionately, +'without the addition of my little miseries. I could have no other +motive, Trot, in keeping anything from you.' + +'I know that well,' said I. 'But tell me now.' + +'Would you ride with me a little way tomorrow morning?' asked my +aunt. + +'Of course.' + +'At nine,' said she. 'I'll tell you then, my dear.' + +At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to +London. We drove a long way through the streets, until we came to +one of the large hospitals. Standing hard by the building was a +plain hearse. The driver recognized my aunt, and, in obedience to +a motion of her hand at the window, drove slowly off; we following. + +'You understand it now, Trot,' said my aunt. 'He is gone!' + +'Did he die in the hospital?' + +'Yes.' + +She sat immovable beside me; but, again I saw the stray tears on +her face. + +'He was there once before,' said my aunt presently. 'He was ailing +a long time - a shattered, broken man, these many years. When he +knew his state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me. +He was sorry then. Very sorry.' + +'You went, I know, aunt.' + +'I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards.' + +'He died the night before we went to Canterbury?' said I. +My aunt nodded. 'No one can harm him now,' she said. 'It was a +vain threat.' + +We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Hornsey. 'Better +here than in the streets,' said my aunt. 'He was born here.' + +We alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I remember +well, where the service was read consigning it to the dust. + +'Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear,' said my aunt, as we +walked back to the chariot, 'I was married. God forgive us all!' +We took our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long +time, holding my hand. At length she suddenly burst into tears, +and said: + +'He was a fine-looking man when I married him, Trot - and he was +sadly changed!' + +It did not last long. After the relief of tears, she soon became +composed, and even cheerful. Her nerves were a little shaken, she +said, or she would not have given way to it. God forgive us all! + +So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found +the following short note, which had arrived by that morning's post +from Mr. Micawber: + + + 'Canterbury, + + 'Friday. + +'My dear Madam, and Copperfield, + +'The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again +enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the +eyes of a drifting wretch whose Doom is sealed! + +'Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty's High Court of +King's Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP V. +MICAWBER, and the defendant in that cause is the prey of the +sheriff having legal jurisdiction in this bailiwick. + + 'Now's the day, and now's the hour, + See the front of battle lower, + See approach proud EDWARD'S power - + Chains and slavery! + +'Consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture is not +supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I feel I have +attained), my course is run. Bless you, bless you! Some future +traveller, visiting, from motives of curiosity, not unmingled, let +us hope, with sympathy, the place of confinement allotted to +debtors in this city, may, and I trust will, Ponder, as he traces +on its wall, inscribed with a rusty nail, + 'The obscure initials, + + 'W. M. + +'P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas +Traddles (who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), +has paid the debt and costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood; +and that myself and family are at the height of earthly bliss.' + + + +CHAPTER 55 +TEMPEST + + +I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so +bound by an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, +in these pages, that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have +seen it growing larger and larger as I advanced, like a great tower +in a plain, and throwing its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents +of my childish days. + +For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started +up so vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging +in my quiet room, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, +though at lengthened and uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have +an association between it and a stormy wind, or the lightest +mention of a sea-shore, as strong as any of which my mind is +conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened, I will try to +write it down. I do not recall it, but see it done; for it happens +again before me. + +The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, +my good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) +came up to London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and +the Micawbers (they being very much together); but Emily I never +saw. + +One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with +Peggotty and her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She +described to us how tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how +manfully and quietly he had borne himself. Most of all, of late, +when she believed he was most tried. It was a subject of which the +affectionate creature never tired; and our interest in hearing the +many examples which she, who was so much with him, had to relate, +was equal to hers in relating them. + +MY aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at +Highgate; I intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house +at Dover. We had a temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I +walked home to it, after this evening's conversation, reflecting on +what had passed between Ham and myself when I was last at Yarmouth, +I wavered in the original purpose I had formed, of leaving a letter +for Emily when I should take leave of her uncle on board the ship, +and thought it would be better to write to her now. She might +desire, I thought, after receiving my communication, to send some +parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to give her the +opportunity. + +I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to +her. I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me +to tell her what I have already written in its place in these +sheets. I faithfully repeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon +it, if I had had the right. Its deep fidelity and goodness were +not to be adorned by me or any man. I left it out, to be sent +round in the morning; with a line to Mr. Peggotty, requesting him +to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak. + +I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the +sun was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by +the silent presence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my +sleep, as I suppose we all do feel such things. + +'Trot, my dear,' she said, when I opened my eyes, 'I couldn't make +up my mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come +up?' + +I replied yes, and he soon appeared. + +'Mas'r Davy,' he said, when we had shaken hands, 'I giv Em'ly your +letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask +you to read it, and if you see no hurt in't, to be so kind as take +charge on't.' + +'Have you read it?' said I. + +He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows: + + +'I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for +your good and blessed kindness to me! + +'I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I +die. They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have +prayed over them, oh, I have prayed so much. When I find what you +are, and what uncle is, I think what God must be, and can cry to +him. + +'Good-bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good-bye for ever in +this world. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child +and come to you. All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore.' + + +This, blotted with tears, was the letter. + +'May I tell her as you doen't see no hurt in't, and as you'll be so +kind as take charge on't, Mas'r Davy?' said Mr. Peggotty, when I +had read it. +'Unquestionably,' said I - 'but I am thinking -' + +'Yes, Mas'r Davy?' + +'I am thinking,' said I, 'that I'll go down again to Yarmouth. +There's time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the +ship sails. My mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude; +to put this letter of her writing in his hand at this time, and to +enable you to tell her, in the moment of parting, that he has got +it, will be a kindness to both of them. I solemnly accepted his +commission, dear good fellow, and cannot discharge it too +completely. The journey is nothing to me. I am restless, and +shall be better in motion. I'll go down tonight.' + +Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was +of my mind; and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my +intention, would have had the effect. He went round to the coach +office, at my request, and took the box-seat for me on the mail. +In the evening I started, by that conveyance, down the road I had +traversed under so many vicissitudes. + +'Don't you think that,' I asked the coachman, in the first stage +out of London, 'a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have +seen one like it.' + +'Nor I - not equal to it,' he replied. 'That's wind, sir. +There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long.' + +It was a murky confusion - here and there blotted with a colour +like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel - of flying clouds, +tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in +the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the +deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to +plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of +nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. There had been +a wind all day; and it was rising then, with an extraordinary great +sound. In another hour it had much increased, and the sky was more +overcast, and blew hard. + +But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely +over-spreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, +harder and harder. It still increased, until our horses could +scarcely face the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night +(it was then late in September, when the nights were not short), +the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often +in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over. +Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm, like showers of +steel; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of trees or +lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility +of continuing the struggle. + +When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in +Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never +known the like of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to +Ipswich - very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since +we were ten miles out of London; and found a cluster of people in +the market-place, who had risen from their beds in the night, +fearful of falling chimneys. Some of these, congregating about the +inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead +having been ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a +by-street, which they then blocked up. Others had to tell of +country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen +great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered +about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the +storm, but it blew harder. + +As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this +mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and +more terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our +lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over +miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every +sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little +breakers setting heavily towards us. When we came within sight of +the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the +rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and +buildings. When at last we got into the town, the people came out +to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair, making a +wonder of the mail that had come through such a night. + +I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; +staggering along the street, which was strewn with sand and +seaweed, and with flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling +slates and tiles; and holding by people I met, at angry corners. +Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the +people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then +braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer +out of their course in trying to get zigzag back. + +joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were +away in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to +think might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for +safety. Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their +heads, as they looked from water to sky, and muttering to one +another; ship-owners, excited and uneasy; children, huddling +together, and peering into older faces; even stout mariners, +disturbed and anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from +behind places of shelter, as if they were surveying an enemy. + +The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to +look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying +stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high +watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into +surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town. As the +receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out +deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the +earth. When some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed +themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment +of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, +rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster. +Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with +a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted +up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a +booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, +to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place +away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and +buildings, rose and fell; the clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed +to see a rending and upheaving of all nature. + +Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind - for it +is still remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow +upon that coast - had brought together, I made my way to his house. +It was shut; and as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back +ways and by-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there, +that he had gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of +ship-repairing in which his skill was required; but that he would +be back tomorrow morning, in good time. + +I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and +tried to sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. +I had not sat five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the +waiter, coming to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that +two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and +that some other ships had been seen labouring hard in the Roads, +and trying, in great distress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them, +and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the +last! + +I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an +uneasiness in Ham's not being there, disproportionate to the +occasion. I was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by +late events; and my long exposure to the fierce wind had confused +me. There was that jumble in my thoughts and recollections, that +I had lost the clear arrangement of time and distance. Thus, if I +had gone out into the town, I should not have been surprised, I +think, to encounter someone who I knew must be then in London. So +to speak, there was in these respects a curious inattention in my +mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances the place +naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct and vivid. + +In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the ships +immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, +with my uneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an +apprehension of his returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being +lost. This grew so strong with me, that I resolved to go back to +the yard before I took my dinner, and ask the boat-builder if he +thought his attempting to return by sea at all likely? If he gave +me the least reason to think so, I would go over to Lowestoft and +prevent it by bringing him with me. + +I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none +too soon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was +locking the yard-gate. He quite laughed when I asked him the +question, and said there was no fear; no man in his senses, or out +of them, would put off in such a gale of wind, least of all Ham +Peggotty, who had been born to seafaring. + +So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of +doing what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the +inn. If such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl +and roar, the rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in +the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered +me, and the prodigious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in +the morning. But there was now a great darkness besides; and that +invested the storm with new terrors, real and fanciful. + +I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue +steadfast to anything. Something within me, faintly answering to +the storm without, tossed up the depths of my memory and made a +tumult in them. Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running +with the thundering sea, - the storm, and my uneasiness regarding +Ham were always in the fore-ground. + +My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself +with a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber +before the fire, without losing my consciousness, either of the +uproar out of doors, or of the place in which I was. Both became +overshadowed by a new and indefinable horror; and when I awoke - or +rather when I shook off the lethargy that bound me in my chair- my +whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelligible fear. + +I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to +the awful noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire. +At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall +tormented me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed. + +It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the +inn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went +to bed, exceedingly weary and heavy; but, on my lying down, all +such sensations vanished, as if by magic, and I was broad awake, +with every sense refined. + +For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, +now, that I heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard +the firing of signal guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. +I got up, several times, and looked out; but could see nothing, +except the reflection in the window-panes of the faint candle I had +left burning, and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the +black void. + +At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried +on my clothes, and went downstairs. In the large kitchen, where I +dimly saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the +watchers were clustered together, in various attitudes, about a +table, purposely moved away from the great chimney, and brought +near the door. A pretty girl, who had her ears stopped with her +apron, and her eyes upon the door, screamed when I appeared, +supposing me to be a spirit; but the others had more presence of +mind, and were glad of an addition to their company. One man, +referring to the topic they had been discussing, asked me whether +I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone down, were +out in the storm? + +I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the +yard-gate, and looked into the empty street. The sand, the +sea-weed, and the flakes of foam, were driving by; and I was +obliged to call for assistance before I could shut the gate again, +and make it fast against the wind. + +There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length +returned to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, +fell - off a tower and down a precipice - into the depths of sleep. +I have an impression that for a long time, though I dreamed of +being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing +in my dream. At length, I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and +was engaged with two dear friends, but who they were I don't know, +at the siege of some town in a roar of cannonading. + +The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could +not hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great +exertion and awoke. It was broad day - eight or nine o'clock; the +storm raging, in lieu of the batteries; and someone knocking and +calling at my door. + +'What is the matter?' I cried. + +'A wreck! Close by!' + +I sprung out of bed, and asked, what wreck? + +'A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. +Make haste, sir, if you want to see her! It's thought, down on the +beach, she'll go to pieces every moment.' + +The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I +wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into +the street. + +Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one +direction, to the beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good +many, and soon came facing the wild sea. + +The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more +sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been +diminished by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. +But the sea, having upon it the additional agitation of the whole +night, was infinitely more terrific than when I had seen it last. +Every appearance it had then presented, bore the expression of +being swelled; and the height to which the breakers rose, and, +looking over one another, bore one another down, and rolled in, in +interminable hosts, was most appalling. +In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, and in +the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless +efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I +looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming +heads of the great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next +me, pointed with his bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in +the same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, +close in upon us! + +One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and +lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all +that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat - which she did without a +moment's pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable - beat the +side as if it would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being +made, to cut this portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, +which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly +descried her people at work with axes, especially one active figure +with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But a great +cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the +shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck, +made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, +bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge. + +The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and +a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship +had struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then +lifted in and struck again. I understood him to add that she was +parting amidships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling +and beating were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. +As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the beach; +four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the +rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with +the curling hair. + +There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like +a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of +her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now +nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards +the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy +men, was borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and +again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony on the shore +increased. Men groaned, and clasped their hands; women shrieked, +and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly up and down along the +beach, crying for help where no help could be. I found myself one +of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom I knew, not +to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes. + +They were making out to me, in an agitated way - I don't know how, +for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to +understand - that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago, +and could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as +to attempt to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication +with the shore, there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that +some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and saw them +part, and Ham come breaking through them to the front. + +I ran to him - as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. +But, distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, +the determination in his face, and his look out to sea - exactly +the same look as I remembered in connexion with the morning after +Emily's flight - awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him +back with both arms; and implored the men with whom I had been +speaking, not to listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him +stir from off that sand! + +Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the +cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, +and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the +mast. + +Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the +calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the +people present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. +'Mas'r Davy,' he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, 'if my +time is come, 'tis come. If 'tan't, I'll bide it. Lord above +bless you, and bless all! Mates, make me ready! I'm a-going off!' + +I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the +people around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, +that he was bent on going, with help or without, and that I should +endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with +whom they rested. I don't know what I answered, or what they +rejoined; but I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes +from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of +figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing alone, in +a seaman's frock and trousers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his +wrist: another round his body: and several of the best men holding, +at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, +slack upon the shore, at his feet. + +The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that +she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary +man upon the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had +a singular red cap on, - not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer +colour; and as the few yielding planks between him and destruction +rolled and bulged, and his anticipative death-knell rung, he was +seen by all of us to wave it. I saw him do it now, and thought I +was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to +my mind of a once dear friend. + +Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended +breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great +retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the +rope which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and +in a moment was buffeting with the water; rising with the hills, +falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again +to land. They hauled in hastily. + +He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he +took no thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some +directions for leaving him more free - or so I judged from the +motion of his arm - and was gone as before. + +And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with +the valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the +shore, borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The +distance was nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the +strife deadly. At length he neared the wreck. He was so near, +that with one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to +it, - when a high, green, vast hill-side of water, moving on +shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with +a mighty bound, and the ship was gone! + +Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been +broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. +Consternation was in every face. They drew him to my very feet - +insensible - dead. He was carried to the nearest house; and, no +one preventing me now, I remained near him, busy, while every means +of restoration were tried; but he had been beaten to death by the +great wave, and his generous heart was stilled for ever. + +As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, +a fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and +ever since, whispered my name at the door. + +'Sir,' said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, +which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, 'will you come over +yonder?' + +The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. +I asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to +support me: + +'Has a body come ashore?' + +He said, 'Yes.' + +'Do I know it?' I asked then. + +He answered nothing. + +But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and +I had looked for shells, two children - on that part of it where +some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had +been scattered by the wind - among the ruins of the home he had +wronged - I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had +often seen him lie at school. + + + +CHAPTER 56 +THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD + +No need, O Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, +in that hour which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour - no +need to have said, 'Think of me at my best!' I had done that ever; +and could I change now, looking on this sight! + +They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with +a flag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All +the men who carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him, +and seen him merry and bold. They carried him through the wild +roar, a hush in the midst of all the tumult; and took him to the +cottage where Death was already. + +But when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at +one another, and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as +if it were not right to lay him down in the same quiet room. + +We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as +I could at all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged +him to provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to London +in the night. I knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of +preparing his mother to receive it, could only rest with me; and I +was anxious to discharge that duty as faithfully as I could. + +I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less +curiosity when I left the town. But, although it was nearly +midnight when I came out of the yard in a chaise, followed by what +I had in charge, there were many people waiting. At intervals, +along the town, and even a little way out upon the road, I saw +more: but at length only the bleak night and the open country were +around me, and the ashes of my youthful friendship. + +Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed +by fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, +and brown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was +shining, I arrived at Highgate. I walked the last mile, thinking +as I went along of what I had to do; and left the carriage that had +followed me all through the night, awaiting orders to advance. + +The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind +was raised; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its +covered way leading to the disused door. The wind had quite gone +down, and nothing moved. + +I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when I +did ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound +of the bell. The little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her +hand; and looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said: + +'I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill?' + +'I have been much agitated, and am fatigued.' + +'Is anything the matter, sir? - Mr. James? -' +'Hush!' said I. 'Yes, something has happened, that I have to break +to Mrs. Steerforth. She is at home?' + +The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out +now, even in a carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no +company, but would see me. Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss +Dartle was with her. What message should she take upstairs? + +Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to +carry in my card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room +(which we had now reached) until she should come back. Its former +pleasant air of occupation was gone, and the shutters were half +closed. The harp had not been used for many and many a day. His +picture, as a boy, was there. The cabinet in which his mother had +kept his letters was there. I wondered if she ever read them now; +if she would ever read them more! + +The house was so still that I heard the girl's light step upstairs. +On her return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs. +Steerforth was an invalid and could not come down; but that if I +would excuse her being in her chamber, she would be glad to see me. +In a few moments I stood before her. + +She was in his room; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she +had taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many +tokens of his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was +surrounded, remained there, just as he had left them, for the same +reason. She murmured, however, even in her reception of me, that +she was out of her own chamber because its aspect was unsuited to +her infirmity; and with her stately look repelled the least +suspicion of the truth. + +At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first moment of +her dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of +evil tidings. The scar sprung into view that instant. She +withdrew herself a step behind the chair, to keep her own face out +of Mrs. Steerforth's observation; and scrutinized me with a +piercing gaze that never faltered, never shrunk. + +'I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir,' said Mrs. +Steerforth. + +'I am unhappily a widower,' said I. + +'You are very young to know so great a loss,' she returned. 'I am +grieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be +good to you.' + +'I hope Time,' said I, looking at her, 'will be good to all of us. +Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest +misfortunes.' + +The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed +her. The whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and +change. + +I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it +trembled. She repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low +tone. Then, addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness: + +'My son is ill.' + +'Very ill.' + +'You have seen him?' + +'I have.' + +'Are you reconciled?' + +I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her +head towards the spot where Rosa Dartle had been standing at her +elbow, and in that moment I said, by the motion of my lips, to +Rosa, 'Dead!' + +That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and +read, plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met +her look quickly; but I had seen Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in +the air with vehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them +on her face. + +The handsome lady - so like, oh so like! - regarded me with a fixed +look, and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm, +and prepare herself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather +have entreated her to weep, for she sat like a stone figure. + +'When I was last here,' I faltered, 'Miss Dartle told me he was +sailing here and there. The night before last was a dreadful one +at sea. If he were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, +as it is said he was; and if the vessel that was seen should really +be the ship which -' + +'Rosa!' said Mrs. Steerforth, 'come to me!' + +She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed +like fire as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful +laugh. + +'Now,' she said, 'is your pride appeased, you madwoman? Now has he +made atonement to you - with his life! Do you hear? - His life!' + +Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no +sound but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare. + +'Aye!' cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, +'look at me! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here!' striking +the scar, 'at your dead child's handiwork!' + +The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to My heart. +Always the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always +accompanied with an incapable motion of the head, but with no +change of face. Always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed +teeth, as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up in pain. + +'Do you remember when he did this?' she proceeded. 'Do you +remember when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your +pampering of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me +for life? Look at me, marked until I die with his high +displeasure; and moan and groan for what you made him!' + +'Miss Dartle,' I entreated her. 'For Heaven's sake -' + +'I WILL speak!' she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. +'Be silent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud, false +son! Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, +moan for your loss of him, moan for mine!' + +She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, +as if her passion were killing her by inches. + +'You, resent his self-will!' she exclaimed. 'You, injured by his +haughty temper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, +the qualities which made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who +from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he +should have been! Are you rewarded, now, for your years of +trouble?' + +'Oh, Miss Dartle, shame! Oh cruel!' + +'I tell you,' she returned, 'I WILL speak to her. No power on +earth should stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent +all these years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better +than you ever loved him!' turning on her fiercely. 'I could have +loved him, and asked no return. If I had been his wife, I could +have been the slave of his caprices for a word of love a year. I +should have been. Who knows it better than I? You were exacting, +proud, punctilious, selfish. My love would have been devoted - +would have trod your paltry whimpering under foot!' + +With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually +did it. + +'Look here!' she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless +hand. 'When he grew into the better understanding of what he had +done, he saw it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk +to him, and show the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain +with labour to such knowledge as most interested him; and I +attracted him. When he was freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, +he did! Many a time, when you were put off with a slight word, he +has taken Me to his heart!' + +She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy - for +it was little less - yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which +the smouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment. + +'I descended - as I might have known I should, but that he +fascinated me with his boyish courtship - into a doll, a trifle for +the occupation of an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and +trifled with, as the inconstant humour took him. When he grew +weary, I grew weary. As his fancy died out, I would no more have +tried to strengthen any power I had, than I would have married him +on his being forced to take me for his wife. We fell away from one +another without a word. Perhaps you saw it, and were not sorry. +Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece of furniture +between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings, no +remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you made him; not for your +love. I tell you that the time was, when I loved him better than +you ever did!' + +She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, +and the set face; and softened no more, when the moaning was +repeated, than if the face had been a picture. + +'Miss Dartle,' said I, 'if you can be so obdurate as not to feel +for this afflicted mother -' + +'Who feels for me?' she sharply retorted. 'She has sown this. Let +her moan for the harvest that she reaps today!' + +'And if his faults -' I began. + +'Faults!' she cried, bursting into passionate tears. 'Who dares +malign him? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he +stooped!' + +'No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer +remembrance than I,' I replied. 'I meant to say, if you have no +compassion for his mother; or if his faults - you have been bitter +on them -' + +'It's false,' she cried, tearing her black hair; 'I loved him!' + +'- if his faults cannot,' I went on, 'be banished from your +remembrance, in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you +have never seen before, and render it some help!' + +All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable. +Motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time +to time, with the same helpless motion of the head; but giving no +other sign of life. Miss Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, +and began to loosen the dress. + +'A curse upon you!' she said, looking round at me, with a mingled +expression of rage and grief. 'It was in an evil hour that you +ever came here! A curse upon you! Go!' + +After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, the +sooner to alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive +figure in her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, +kissing it, calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom +like a child, and trying every tender means to rouse the dormant +senses. No longer afraid of leaving her, I noiselessly turned back +again; and alarmed the house as I went out. + +Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother's room. +She was just the same, they told me; Miss Dartle never left her; +doctors were in attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay +like a statue, except for the low sound now and then. + +I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The +windows of the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up +the leaden hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed +death and silence, broken only by his mother's moaning. + + + +CHAPTER 57 +THE EMIGRANTS + + +One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of +these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those +who were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy +ignorance. In this, no time was to be lost. + +I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the +task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late +catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any +newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach +him. + +'If it penetrates to him, sir,' said Mr. Micawber, striking himself +on the breast, 'it shall first pass through this body!' + +Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new +state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not +absolutely lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have +supposed him a child of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out +of the confines of civilization, and about to return to his native +wilds. + +He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit +of oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or +caulked on the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common +mariner's telescope under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up +his eye at the sky as looking out for dirty weather, he was far +more nautical, after his manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole +family, if I may so express it, were cleared for action. I found +Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most uncompromising of bonnets, +made fast under the chin; and in a shawl which tied her up (as I +had been tied up, when my aunt first received me) like a bundle, +and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong knot. Miss +Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same manner; +with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly +visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever +saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in +impervious cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their +sleeves loosely turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend +a hand in any direction, and to 'tumble up', or sing out, 'Yeo - +Heave - Yeo!' on the shortest notice. + +Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the +wooden steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the +departure of a boat with some of their property on board. I had +told Traddles of the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked +him; but there could be no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a +secret, and he had come to help me in this last service. It was +here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and received his promise. + +The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down +public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and +whose protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as +emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, +attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in +their room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the +tide flowing underneath. My aunt and Agnes were there, busily +making some little extra comforts, in the way of dress, for the +children. Peggotty was quietly assisting, with the old insensible +work-box, yard-measure, and bit of wax-candle before her, that had +now outlived so much. + +It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr. +Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the +letter, and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If +I showed any trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient +to account for it. + +'And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?' asked my aunt. + +Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or +his wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected +yesterday. + +'The boat brought you word, I suppose?' said my aunt. + +'It did, ma'am,' he returned. + +'Well?' said my aunt. 'And she sails -' + +'Madam,' he replied, 'I am informed that we must positively be on +board before seven tomorrow morning.' + +'Heyday!' said my aunt, 'that's soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr. +Peggotty?' +''Tis so, ma'am. She'll drop down the river with that theer tide. +If Mas'r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen', arternoon o' +next day, they'll see the last on us.' + +'And that we shall do,' said I, 'be sure!' + +'Until then, and until we are at sea,' observed Mr. Micawber, with +a glance of intelligence at me, 'Mr. Peggotty and myself will +constantly keep a double look-out together, on our goods and +chattels. Emma, my love,' said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat +in his magnificent way, 'my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so +obliging as to solicit, in my ear, that he should have the +privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary to the composition +of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is peculiarly +associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England. I +allude to - in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I +should scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss +Wickfield, but-' + +'I can only say for myself,' said my aunt, 'that I will drink all +happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost +pleasure.' + +'And I too!' said Agnes, with a smile. + +Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to +be quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I +could not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his +own clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, +was about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without +ostentation, on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two +elder members of the family I now found to be provided with similar +formidable instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon +attached to its body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation +of life afloat, and in the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping +Mrs. Micawber and his eldest son and daughter to punch, in +wine-glasses, which he might easily have done, for there was a +shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a series of +villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything so +much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it +in his pocket at the close of the evening. + +'The luxuries of the old country,' said Mr. Micawber, with an +intense satisfaction in their renouncement, 'we abandon. The +denizens of the forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in +the refinements of the land of the Free.' + +Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs. + +'I have a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin +pot, 'that it is a member of my family!' + +'If so, my dear,' observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness +of warmth on that subject, 'as the member of your family - whoever +he, she, or it, may be - has kept us waiting for a considerable +period, perhaps the Member may now wait MY convenience.' + +'Micawber,' said his wife, in a low tone, 'at such a time as +this -' + +'"It is not meet,"' said Mr. Micawber, rising, '"that every nice +offence should bear its comment!" Emma, I stand reproved.' + +'The loss, Micawber,' observed his wife, 'has been my family's, not +yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to +which their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now +desire to extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.' + +'My dear,' he returned, 'so be it!' + +'If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,' said his wife. + +'Emma,' he returned, 'that view of the question is, at such a +moment, irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself +to fall upon your family's neck; but the member of your family, who +is now in attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.' + +Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the +course of which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an +apprehension that words might have arisen between him and the +Member. At length the same boy reappeared, and presented me with +a note written in pencil, and headed, in a legal manner, 'Heep v. +Micawber'. From this document, I learned that Mr. Micawber being +again arrested, 'Was in a final paroxysm of despair; and that he +begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by bearer, as they +might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of his +existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of +friendship, that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, +and forget that such a Being ever lived. + +Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay +the money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking +darkly at the Sheriff 's Officer who had effected the capture. On +his release, he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an +entry of the transaction in his pocket-book - being very +particular, I recollect, about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted +from my statement of the total. + +This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another +transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he +accounted for his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by +circumstances over which he had no control), he took out of it a +large sheet of paper, folded small, and quite covered with long +sums, carefully worked. From the glimpse I had of them, I should +say that I never saw such sums out of a school ciphering-book. +These, it seemed, were calculations of compound interest on what he +called 'the principal amount of forty-one, ten, eleven and a half', +for various periods. After a careful consideration of these, and +an elaborate estimate of his resources, he had come to the +conclusion to select that sum which represented the amount with +compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and +fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a +note-of-hand with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles +on the spot, a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and +man), with many acknowledgements. + +'I have still a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, pensively +shaking her head, 'that my family will appear on board, before we +finally depart.' + +Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but +he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it. + +'If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your +passage, Mrs. Micawber,' said my aunt, 'you must let us hear from +you, you know.' + +'My dear Miss Trotwood,' she replied, 'I shall only be too happy to +think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to +correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar +friend, will not object to receive occasional intelligence, +himself, from one who knew him when the twins were yet +unconscious?' + +I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity +of writing. + +'Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,' said Mr. +Micawber. 'The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; +and we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is +merely crossing,' said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, +'merely crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.' + +I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. +Micawber, that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should +have talked as if he were going to the farthest limits of the +earth; and, when he went from England to Australia, as if he were +going for a little trip across the channel. + +'On the voyage, I shall endeavour,' said Mr. Micawber, +'occasionally to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins +will, I trust, be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. +Micawber has her sea-legs on - an expression in which I hope there +is no conventional impropriety - she will give them, I dare say, +"Little Tafflin". Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be +frequently observed athwart our Bows; and, either on the starboard +or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually +descried. In short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air, +'the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft, +that when the lookout, stationed in the main-top, cries Land-oh! we +shall be very considerably astonished!' + +With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as +if he had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination +before the highest naval authorities. + +' What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. +Micawber, 'is, that in some branches of our family we may live +again in the old country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now +refer to my own family, but to our children's children. However +vigorous the sapling,' said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, 'I +cannot forget the parent-tree; and when our race attains to +eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that fortune to flow into +the coffers of Britannia.' + +'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'Britannia must take her chance. I +am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I +have no particular wish upon the subject.' + +'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber, 'there, you are wrong. You are +going out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to +weaken, the connexion between yourself and Albion.' + +'The connexion in question, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'has +not laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that +I am at all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.' + +'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'There, I again say, you are +wrong. You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which +will strengthen, even in this step you are about to take, the +connexion between yourself and Albion.' + +Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half +receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber's views as they were +stated, but very sensible of their foresight. + +'My dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I wish Mr. Micawber +to feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. +Micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his +position. Your old knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will +have told you that I have not the sanguine disposition of Mr. +Micawber. My disposition is, if I may say so, eminently practical. +I know that this is a long voyage. I know that it will involve +many privations and inconveniences. I cannot shut my eyes to those +facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is. I know the latent +power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it vitally +important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position.' + +'My love,' he observed, 'perhaps you will allow me to remark that +it is barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present +moment.' + +'I think not, Micawber,' she rejoined. 'Not fully. My dear Mr. +Copperfield, Mr. Micawber's is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is +going to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully +understood and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber +to take his stand upon that vessel's prow, and firmly say, "This +country I am come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches? +Have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be +brought forward. They are mine!"' + +Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good +deal in this idea. + +'I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood,' said Mrs. +Micawber, in her argumentative tone, 'to be the Caesar of his own +fortunes. That, my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his +true position. From the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. +Micawber to stand upon that vessel's prow and say, "Enough of +delay: enough of disappointment: enough of limited means. That was +in the old country. This is the new. Produce your reparation. +Bring it forward!"' + +Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner, as if he were +then stationed on the figure-head. + +'And doing that,' said Mrs. Micawber, '- feeling his position - am +I not right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not +weaken, his connexion with Britain? An important public character +arising in that hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will +not be felt at home? Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. +Micawber, wielding the rod of talent and of power in Australia, +will be nothing in England? I am but a woman; but I should be +unworthy of myself and of my papa, if I were guilty of such absurd +weakness.' + +Mrs. Micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, +gave a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard +in it before. + +'And therefore it is,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'that I the more wish, +that, at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. +Mr. Micawber may be - I cannot disguise from myself that the +probability is, Mr. Micawber will be - a page of History; and he +ought then to be represented in the country which gave him birth, +and did NOT give him employment!' + +'My love,' observed Mr. Micawber, 'it is impossible for me not to +be touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your +good sense. What will be - will be. Heaven forbid that I should +grudge my native country any portion of the wealth that may be +accumulated by our descendants!' + +'That's well,' said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, 'and I +drink my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend +you!' + +Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on +each knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us +in return; and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as +comrades, and his brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that +he would make his way, establish a good name, and be beloved, go +where he would. + +Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into +Mr. Micawber's pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was +done, my aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It +was a sorrowful farewell. They were all crying; the children hung +about Agnes to the last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very +distressed condition, sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that +must have made the room look, from the river, like a miserable +light-house. + +I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They +had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a +wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that +although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house +and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed +dreary and deserted, now that they were gone. + +In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to +Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd +of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her +mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and +getting through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the +centre, went on board. + +Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. +Micawber had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) +at the suit of Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had +made to him, he had paid the money, which I repaid him. He then +took us down between decks; and there, any lingering fears I had of +his having heard any rumours of what had happened, were dispelled +by Mr. Micawber's coming out of the gloom, taking his arm with an +air of friendship and protection, and telling me that they had +scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the night before last. + +It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, +at first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it +cleared, as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I +seemed to stand in a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams, +bulks, and ringbolts of the ship, and the emigrant-berths, and +chests, and bundles, and barrels, and heaps of miscellaneous +baggage -'lighted up, here and there, by dangling lanterns; and +elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail or a +hatchway - were crowded groups of people, making new friendships, +taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and +drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their +few feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny +children established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others, +despairing of a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. From +babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to crooked +old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life +before them; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of England +on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke +upon their skins; every age and occupation appeared to be crammed +into the narrow compass of the 'tween decks. + +As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an +open port, with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure +like Emily's; it first attracted my attention, by another figure +parting from it with a kiss; and as it glided calmly away through +the disorder, reminding me of - Agnes! But in the rapid motion and +confusion, and in the unsettlement of my own thoughts, I lost it +again; and only knew that the time was come when all visitors were +being warned to leave the ship; that my nurse was crying on a chest +beside me; and that Mrs. Gummidge, assisted by some younger +stooping woman in black, was busily arranging Mr. Peggotty's goods. + +'Is there any last wured, Mas'r Davy?' said he. 'Is there any one +forgotten thing afore we parts?' + +'One thing!' said I. 'Martha!' + +He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and +Martha stood before me. + +'Heaven bless you, you good man!' cried I. 'You take her with +you!' + +She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more +at that time, but I wrung his hand; and if ever I have loved and +honoured any man, I loved and honoured that man in my soul. + +The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that +I had, remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone, +had given me in charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply. +But when he charged me, in return, with many messages of affection +and regret for those deaf ears, he moved me more. + +The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my +arm, and hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs. +Micawber. She was looking distractedly about for her family, even +then; and her last words to me were, that she never would desert +Mr. Micawber. + +We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance, +to see the ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant +sunset. She lay between us, and the red light; and every taper +line and spar was visible against the glow. A sight at once so +beautiful, so mournful, and so hopeful, as the glorious ship, +lying, still, on the flushed water, with all the life on board her +crowded at the bulwarks, and there clustering, for a moment, +bare-headed and silent, I never saw. + +Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the +ship began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding +cheers, which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which +were echoed and re-echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the +sound, and beheld the waving of the hats and handkerchiefs - and +then I saw her! + +Then I saw her, at her uncle's side, and trembling on his shoulder. +He pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her +last good-bye to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to +him with the utmost trust of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to +thee, with all the might of his great love! + +Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck, +apart together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they +solemnly passed away. The night had fallen on the Kentish hills +when we were rowed ashore - and fallen darkly upon me. + + + +CHAPTER 58 +ABSENCE + + +It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the +ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many +unavailing sorrows and regrets. + +I went away from England; not knowing, even then, how great the +shock was, that I had to bear. I left all who were dear to me, and +went away; and believed that I had borne it, and it was past. As +a man upon a field of battle will receive a mortal hurt, and +scarcely know that he is struck, so I, when I was left alone with +my undisciplined heart, had no conception of the wound with which +it had to strive. + +The knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by little, and +grain by grain. The desolate feeling with which I went abroad, +deepened and widened hourly. At first it was a heavy sense of loss +and sorrow, wherein I could distinguish little else. By +imperceptible degrees, it became a hopeless consciousness of all +that I had lost - love, friendship, interest; of all that had been +shattered - my first trust, my first affection, the whole airy +castle of my life; of all that remained - a ruined blank and waste, +lying wide around me, unbroken, to the dark horizon. + +If my grief were selfish, I did not know it to be so. I mourned +for my child-wife, taken from her blooming world, so young. I +mourned for him who might have won the love and admiration of +thousands, as he had won mine long ago. I mourned for the broken +heart that had found rest in the stormy sea; and for the wandering +remnants of the simple home, where I had heard the night-wind +blowing, when I was a child. + +From the accumulated sadness into which I fell, I had at length no +hope of ever issuing again. I roamed from place to place, carrying +my burden with me everywhere. I felt its whole weight now; and I +drooped beneath it, and I said in my heart that it could never be +lightened. + +When this despondency was at its worst, I believed that I should +die. Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die at home; and +actually turned back on my road, that I might get there soon. At +other times, I passed on farther away, -from city to city, seeking +I know not what, and trying to leave I know not what behind. + +It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases +of distress of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams +that can only be imperfectly and vaguely described; and when I +oblige myself to look back on this time of my life, I seem to be +recalling such a dream. I see myself passing on among the +novelties of foreign towns, palaces, cathedrals, temples, pictures, +castles, tombs, fantastic streets - the old abiding places of +History and Fancy - as a dreamer might; bearing my painful load +through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade +before me. Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was +the night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from +it - as at last I did, thank Heaven! - and from its long, sad, +wretched dream, to dawn. + +For many months I travelled with this ever-darkening cloud upon my +mind. Some blind reasons that I had for not returning home - +reasons then struggling within me, vainly, for more distinct +expression - kept me on my pilgrimage. Sometimes, I had proceeded +restlessly from place to place, stopping nowhere; sometimes, I had +lingered long in one spot. I had had no purpose, no sustaining +soul within me, anywhere. + +I was in Switzerland. I had come out of Italy, over one of the +great passes of the Alps, and had since wandered with a guide among +the by-ways of the mountains. If those awful solitudes had spoken +to my heart, I did not know it. I had found sublimity and wonder +in the dread heights and precipices, in the roaring torrents, and +the wastes of ice and snow; but as yet, they had taught me nothing +else. + +I came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley, where I was +to rest. In the course of my descent to it, by the winding track +along the mountain-side, from which I saw it shining far below, I +think some long-unwonted sense of beauty and tranquillity, some +softening influence awakened by its peace, moved faintly in my +breast. I remember pausing once, with a kind of sorrow that was +not all oppressive, not quite despairing. I remember almost hoping +that some better change was possible within me. + +I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the +remote heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds. +The bases of the mountains forming the gorge in which the little +village lay, were richly green; and high above this gentler +vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry +snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche. Above these, +were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and +smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually blending with the +crowning snow. Dotted here and there on the mountain's-side, each +tiny dot a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so dwarfed by the +towering heights that they appeared too small for toys. So did +even the clustered village in the valley, with its wooden bridge +across the stream, where the stream tumbled over broken rocks, and +roared away among the trees. In the quiet air, there was a sound +of distant singing - shepherd voices; but, as one bright evening +cloud floated midway along the mountain's-side, I could almost have +believed it came from there, and was not earthly music. All at +once, in this serenity, great Nature spoke to me; and soothed me to +lay down my weary head upon the grass, and weep as I had not wept +yet, since Dora died! + +I had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes +before, and had strolled out of the village to read them while my +supper was making ready. Other packets had missed me, and I had +received none for a long time. Beyond a line or two, to say that +I was well, and had arrived at such a place, I had not had +fortitude or constancy to write a letter since I left home. + +The packet was in my hand. I opened it, and read the writing of +Agnes. + +She was happy and useful, was prospering as she had hoped. That +was all she told me of herself. The rest referred to me. + +She gave me no advice; she urged no duty on me; she only told me, +in her own fervent manner, what her trust in me was. She knew (she +said) how such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good. She +knew how trial and emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was +sure that in my every purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher +tendency, through the grief I had undergone. She, who so gloried +in my fame, and so looked forward to its augmentation, well knew +that I would labour on. She knew that in me, sorrow could not be +weakness, but must be strength. As the endurance of my childish +days had done its part to make me what I was, so greater calamities +would nerve me on, to be yet better than I was; and so, as they had +taught me, would I teach others. She commended me to God, who had +taken my innocent darling to His rest; and in her sisterly +affection cherished me always, and was always at my side go where +I would; proud of what I had done, but infinitely prouder yet of +what I was reserved to do. + +I put the letter in my breast, and thought what had I been an hour +ago! When I heard the voices die away, and saw the quiet evening +cloud grow dim, and all the colours in the valley fade, and the +golden snow upon the mountain-tops become a remote part of the pale +night sky, yet felt that the night was passing from my mind, and +all its shadows clearing, there was no name for the love I bore +her, dearer to me, henceforward, than ever until then. + +I read her letter many times. I wrote to her before I slept. I +told her that I had been in sore need of her help; that without her +I was not, and I never had been, what she thought me; but that she +inspired me to be that, and I would try. + +I did try. In three months more, a year would have passed since +the beginning of my sorrow. I determined to make no resolutions +until the expiration of those three months, but to try. I lived in +that valley, and its neighbourhood, all the time. + +The three months gone, I resolved to remain away from home for some +time longer; to settle myself for the present in Switzerland, which +was growing dear to me in the remembrance of that evening; to +resume my pen; to work. + +I resorted humbly whither Agnes had commended me; I sought out +Nature, never sought in vain; and I admitted to my breast the human +interest I had lately shrunk from. It was not long, before I had +almost as many friends in the valley as in Yarmouth: and when I +left it, before the winter set in, for Geneva, and came back in the +spring, their cordial greetings had a homely sound to me, although +they were not conveyed in English words. + +I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a Story, with +a purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience, and sent it +to Traddles, and he arranged for its publication very +advantageously for me; and the tidings of my growing reputation +began to reach me from travellers whom I encountered by chance. +After some rest and change, I fell to work, in my old ardent way, +on a new fancy, which took strong possession of me. As I advanced +in the execution of this task, I felt it more and more, and roused +my utmost energies to do it well. This was my third work of +fiction. It was not half written, when, in an interval of rest, I +thought of returning home. + +For a long time, though studying and working patiently, I had +accustomed myself to robust exercise. My health, severely impaired +when I left England, was quite restored. I had seen much. I had +been in many countries, and I hope I had improved my store of +knowledge. + +I have now recalled all that I think it needful to recall here, of +this term of absence - with one reservation. I have made it, thus +far, with no purpose of suppressing any of my thoughts; for, as I +have elsewhere said, this narrative is my written memory. I have +desired to keep the most secret current of my mind apart, and to +the last. I enter on it now. I cannot so completely penetrate the +mystery of my own heart, as to know when I began to think that I +might have set its earliest and brightest hopes on Agnes. I cannot +say at what stage of my grief it first became associated with the +reflection, that, in my wayward boyhood, I had thrown away the +treasure of her love. I believe I may have heard some whisper of +that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss or want of something +never to be realized, of which I had been sensible. But the +thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when I +was left so sad and lonely in the world. + +If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the +weakness of my desolation, have betrayed this. It was what I +remotely dreaded when I was first impelled to stay away from +England. I could not have borne to lose the smallest portion of +her sisterly affection; yet, in that betrayal, I should have set a +constraint between us hitherto unknown. + +I could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded me +had grown up in my own free choice and course. That if she had +ever loved me with another love - and I sometimes thought the time +was when she might have done so - I had cast it away. It was +nothing, now, that I had accustomed myself to think of her, when we +were both mere children, as one who was far removed from my wild +fancies. I had bestowed my passionate tenderness upon another +object; and what I might have done, I had not done; and what Agnes +was to me, I and her own noble heart had made her. + +In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I +tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, +I did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when +I might possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so +blessed as to marry her. But, as time wore on, this shadowy +prospect faded, and departed from me. If she had ever loved me, +then, I should hold her the more sacred; remembering the +confidences I had reposed in her, her knowledge of my errant heart, +the sacrifice she must have made to be my friend and sister, and +the victory she had won. If she had never loved me, could I +believe that she would love me now? + +I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and +fortitude; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have +been to her, or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long +ago, I was not now, and she was not. The time was past. I had let +it go by, and had deservedly lost her. + +That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with +unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that +it was required of me, in right and honour, to keep away from +myself, with shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the +withering of my hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they +were bright and fresh - which consideration was at the root of +every thought I had concerning her - is all equally true. I made +no effort to conceal from myself, now, that I loved her, that I was +devoted to her; but I brought the assurance home to myself, that it +was now too late, and that our long-subsisting relation must be +undisturbed. + +I had thought, much and often, of my Dora's shadowing out to me +what might have happened, in those years that were destined not to +try us; I had considered how the things that never happen, are +often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are +accomplished. The very years she spoke of, were realities now, for +my correction; and would have been, one day, a little later +perhaps, though we had parted in our earliest folly. I endeavoured +to convert what might have been between myself and Agnes, into a +means of making me more self-denying, more resolved, more conscious +of myself, and my defects and errors. Thus, through the reflection +that it might have been, I arrived at the conviction that it could +never be. + +These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the +shifting quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to +the time of my return home, three years afterwards. Three years +had elapsed since the sailing of the emigrant ship; when, at that +same hour of sunset, and in the same place, I stood on the deck of +the packet vessel that brought me home, looking on the rosy water +where I had seen the image of that ship reflected. + +Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. +And home was very dear to me, and Agnes too - but she was not mine +- she was never to be mine. She might have been, but that was +past! + + + +CHAPTER 59 +RETURN + + +I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and +raining, and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in +a year. I walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I +found a coach; and although the very house-fronts, looking on the +swollen gutters, were like old friends to me, I could not but admit +that they were very dingy friends. + +I have often remarked - I suppose everybody has - that one's going +away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change +in it. As I looked out of the coach window, and observed that an +old house on Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by +painter, carpenter, or bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled +down in my absence; and that a neighbouring street, of +time-honoured insalubrity and inconvenience, was being drained and +widened; I half expected to find St. Paul's Cathedral looking +older. + +For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My +aunt had long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun +to get into some little practice at the Bar, in the very first term +after my departure. He had chambers in Gray's Inn, now; and had +told me, in his last letters, that he was not without hopes of +being soon united to the dearest girl in the world. + +They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my +returning so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have +the pleasure of taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse +enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, +and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets. + +The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did +something for me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray's Inn +Coffee-house, I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first, +that so-different time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and +reminded me of the changes that had come to pass since then; but +that was natural. + +'Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?' I asked the +waiter, as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire. + +'Holborn Court, sir. Number two.' + +'Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I +believe?' said I. + +'Well, sir,' returned the waiter, 'probably he has, sir; but I am +not aware of it myself.' + +This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a +waiter of more authority - a stout, potential old man, with a +double chin, in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a +place like a churchwarden's pew, at the end of the coffee-room, +where he kept company with a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and +other books and papers. + +'Mr. Traddles,' said the spare waiter. 'Number two in the Court.' + +The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me. + +'I was inquiring,' said I, 'whether Mr. Traddles, at number two in +the Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?' + +'Never heard his name,' said the waiter, in a rich husky voice. + +I felt quite apologetic for Traddles. + +'He's a young man, sure?' said the portentous waiter, fixing his +eyes severely on me. 'How long has he been in the Inn?' + +'Not above three years,' said I. + +The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden's pew for +forty years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He +asked me what I would have for dinner? + +I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on +Traddles's account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly +ordered a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing +on his obscurity. + +As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help +thinking that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the +flower he was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a +prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. +I glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no +doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy +- if he ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the +shining tables, where I saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths +of old mahogany; and at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimming +or cleaning; and at the comfortable green curtains, with their pure +brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes; and at the two large coal +fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of decanters, burly as if +with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below; +and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult +indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bedroom to change my +wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscoted apartment +(which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember), and +the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable +gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly +frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth. +I came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the +meal, and the orderly silence of the place - which was bare of +guests, the Long Vacation not yet being over - were eloquent on the +audacity of Traddles, and his small hopes of a livelihood for +twenty years to come. + +I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed +my hopes for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He +came near me no more; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in +long gaiters, to meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come +out of the cellar of its own accord, for he gave no order. The +second waiter informed me, in a whisper, that this old gentleman +was a retired conveyancer living in the Square, and worth a mint of +money, which it was expected he would leave to his laundress's +daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had a service of +plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more than +one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by +mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost; +and settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him. + +Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I +dispatched my dinner, in a manner not at all calculated to raise me +in the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back +way. Number two in the Court was soon reached; and an inscription +on the door-post informing me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of +chambers on the top storey, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old +staircase I found it to be, feebly lighted on each landing by a +club- headed little oil wick, dying away in a little dungeon of +dirty glass. + +In the course of my stumbling upstairs, I fancied I heard a +pleasant sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or +barrister, or attorney's clerk or barrister's clerk, but of two or +three merry girls. Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to +put my foot in a hole where the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn +had left a plank deficient, I fell down with some noise, and when +I recovered my footing all was silent. + +Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my +heart beat high when I found the outer door, which had Mr. TRADDLES +painted on it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within +ensued, but nothing else. I therefore knocked again. + +A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was +very much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to +prove it legally, presented himself. + +'Is Mr. Traddles within?' I said. + +'Yes, sir, but he's engaged.' + +'I want to see him.' + +After a moment's survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let +me in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, +first, into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little +sitting-room; where I came into the presence of my old friend (also +out of breath), seated at a table, and bending over papers. + +'Good God!' cried Traddles, looking up. 'It's Copperfield!' and +rushed into my arms, where I held him tight. + +'All well, my dear Traddles?' + +'All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!' + +We cried with pleasure, both of us. + +'My dear fellow,' said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his +excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation, 'my dearest +Copperfield, my long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to +see you! How brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honour, +I never was so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!' + +I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable +to speak, at first. + +'My dear fellow!' said Traddles. 'And grown so famous! My glorious +Copperfield! Good gracious me, WHEN did you come, WHERE have you +come from, WHAT have you been doing?' + +Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had +clapped me into an easy-chair by the fire, all this time +impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my +neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild delusion that it was +a great-coat. Without putting down the poker, he now hugged me +again; and I hugged him; and, both laughing, and both wiping our +eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands across the hearth. + +'To think,' said Traddles, 'that you should have been so nearly +coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the +ceremony!' + +'What ceremony, my dear Traddles?' + +'Good gracious me!' cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old +way. 'Didn't you get my last letter?' + +'Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony.' + +'Why, my dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, sticking his hair +upright with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, 'I +am married!' + +'Married!' I cried joyfully. + +'Lord bless me, yes,!' said Traddles - 'by the Reverend Horace - to +Sophy - down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she's behind the +window curtain! Look here!' + +To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same +instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And +a more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I +believe (as I could not help saying on the spot) the world never +saw. I kissed her as an old acquaintance should, and wished them +joy with all my might of heart. + +'Dear me,' said Traddles, 'what a delightful re-union this is! You +are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how +happy I am!' + +'And so am I,' said I. + +'And I am sure I am!' said the blushing and laughing Sophy. + +'We are all as happy as possible!' said Traddles. 'Even the girls +are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them!' + +'Forgot?' said I. + +'The girls,' said Traddles. 'Sophy's sisters. They are staying +with us. They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, +when - was it you that tumbled upstairs, Copperfield?' + +'It was,' said I, laughing. + +'Well then, when you tumbled upstairs,' said Traddles, 'I was +romping with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss +in the Corner. But as that wouldn't do in Westminster Hall, and as +it wouldn't look quite professional if they were seen by a client, +they decamped. And they are now - listening, I have no doubt,' +said Traddles, glancing at the door of another room. + +'I am sorry,' said I, laughing afresh, 'to have occasioned such a +dispersion.' + +'Upon my word,' rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, 'if you had +seen them running away, and running back again, after you had +knocked, to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, +and going on in the maddest manner, you wouldn't have said so. My +love, will you fetch the girls?' + +Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room +with a peal of laughter. + +'Really musical, isn't it, my dear Copperfield?' said Traddles. +'It's very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms. +To an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his +life, you know, it's positively delicious. It's charming. Poor +things, they have had a great loss in Sophy - who, I do assure you, +Copperfield is, and ever was, the dearest girl! - and it gratifies +me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. The +society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not +professional, but it's very delightful.' + +Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the +goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what +he had said, I expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that +evidently relieved and pleased him greatly. + +'But then,' said Traddles, 'our domestic arrangements are, to say +the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. +Even Sophy's being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other +place of abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite +prepared to rough it. And Sophy's an extraordinary manager! You'll +be surprised how those girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly +know how it's done!' + +'Are many of the young ladies with you?' I inquired. + +'The eldest, the Beauty is here,' said Traddles, in a low +confidential voice, 'Caroline. And Sarah's here - the one I +mentioned to you as having something the matter with her spine, you +know. Immensely better! And the two youngest that Sophy educated +are with us. And Louisa's here.' + +'Indeed!' cried I. + +'Yes,' said Traddles. 'Now the whole set - I mean the chambers - +is only three rooms; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the most +wonderful way, and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in +that room,' said Traddles, pointing. 'Two in that.' + +I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation +remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me. + +'Well!' said Traddles, 'we are prepared to rough it, as I said just +now, and we did improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here. +But there's a little room in the roof - a very nice room, when +you're up there - which Sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and +that's our room at present. It's a capital little gipsy sort of +place. There's quite a view from it.' + +'And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles!' said I. +'How rejoiced I am!' + +'Thank you, my dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, as we shook hands +once more. 'Yes, I am as happy as it's possible to be. There's +your old friend, you see,' said Traddles, nodding triumphantly at +the flower-pot and stand; 'and there's the table with the marble +top! All the other furniture is plain and serviceable, you +perceive. And as to plate, Lord bless you, we haven't so much as +a tea-spoon.' + +'All to be earned?' said I, cheerfully. + +'Exactly so,' replied Traddles, 'all to be earned. Of course we +have something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea. +But they're Britannia metal." + +'The silver will be the brighter when it comes,' said I. + +'The very thing we say!' cried Traddles. 'You see, my dear +Copperfield,' falling again into the low confidential tone, 'after +I had delivered my argument in DOE dem. JIPES versus WIGZIELL, +which did me great service with the profession, I went down into +Devonshire, and had some serious conversation in private with the +Reverend Horace. I dwelt upon the fact that Sophy - who I do +assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest girl! -' + +'I am certain she is!' said I. + +'She is, indeed!' rejoined Traddles. 'But I am afraid I am +wandering from the subject. Did I mention the Reverend Horace?' + +'You said that you dwelt upon the fact -' + +'True! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long +period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was +more than content to take me - in short,' said Traddles, with his +old frank smile, 'on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very +well. I then proposed to the Reverend Horace - who is a most +excellent clergyman, Copperfield, and ought to be a Bishop; or at +least ought to have enough to live upon, without pinching himself +- that if I could turn the corner, say of two hundred and fifty +pounds, in one year; and could see my way pretty clearly to that, +or something better, next year; and could plainly furnish a little +place like this, besides; then, and in that case, Sophy and I +should be united. I took the liberty of representing that we had +been patient for a good many years; and that the circumstance of +Sophy's being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not to operate +with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in life - +don't you see?' + +'Certainly it ought not,' said I. + +'I am glad you think so, Copperfield,' rejoined Traddles, 'because, +without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think parents, +and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such +cases. Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, +to be useful to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and +anything should happen to him - I refer to the Reverend Horace -' + +'I understand,' said I. + +'- Or to Mrs. Crewler - it would be the utmost gratification of my +wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most +admirable manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and +undertook to obtain the consent of Mrs. Crewler to this +arrangement. They had a dreadful time of it with her. It mounted +from her legs into her chest, and then into her head -' + +'What mounted?' I asked. + +'Her grief,' replied Traddles, with a serious look. 'Her feelings +generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very +superior woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs +to harass her, usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it +mounted to the chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded +the whole system in a most alarming manner. However, they brought +her through it by unremitting and affectionate attention; and we +were married yesterday six weeks. You have no idea what a Monster +I felt, Copperfield, when I saw the whole family crying and +fainting away in every direction! Mrs. Crewler couldn't see me +before we left - couldn't forgive me, then, for depriving her of +her child - but she is a good creature, and has done so since. I +had a delightful letter from her, only this morning.' + +'And in short, my dear friend,' said I, 'you feel as blest as you +deserve to feel!' + +'Oh! That's your partiality!' laughed Traddles. 'But, indeed, I am +in a most enviable state. I work hard, and read Law insatiably. +I get up at five every morning, and don't mind it at all. I hide +the girls in the daytime, and make merry with them in the evening. +And I assure you I am quite sorry that they are going home on +Tuesday, which is the day before the first day of Michaelmas Term. +But here,' said Traddles, breaking off in his confidence, and +speaking aloud, 'ARE the girls! Mr. Copperfield, Miss Crewler - +Miss Sarah - Miss Louisa - Margaret and Lucy!' + +They were a perfect nest of roses; they looked so wholesome and +fresh. They were all pretty, and Miss Caroline was very handsome; +but there was a loving, cheerful, fireside quality in Sophy's +bright looks, which was better than that, and which assured me that +my friend had chosen well. We all sat round the fire; while the +sharp boy, who I now divined had lost his breath in putting the +papers out, cleared them away again, and produced the tea-things. +After that, he retired for the night, shutting the outer door upon +us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, with perfect pleasure and composure +beaming from her household eyes, having made the tea, then quietly +made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire. + +She had seen Agnes, she told me while she was toasting. 'Tom' had +taken her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen +my aunt, too; and both my aunt and Agnes were well, and they had +all talked of nothing but me. 'Tom' had never had me out of his +thoughts, she really believed, all the time I had been away. 'Tom' +was the authority for everything. 'Tom' was evidently the idol of +her life; never to be shaken on his pedestal by any commotion; +always to be believed in, and done homage to with the whole faith +of her heart, come what might. + +The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the +Beauty, pleased me very much. I don't know that I thought it very +reasonable; but I thought it very delightful, and essentially a +part of their character. If Traddles ever for an instant missed +the tea-spoons that were still to be won, I have no doubt it was +when he handed the Beauty her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife +could have got up any self-assertion against anyone, I am satisfied +it could only have been because she was the Beauty's sister. A few +slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which +I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly considered, by Traddles +and his wife, as her birthright and natural endowment. If she had +been born a Queen Bee, and they labouring Bees, they could not have +been more satisfied of that. + +But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these +girls, and their submission of themselves to all their whims, was +the pleasantest little testimony to their own worth I could have +desired to see. If Traddles were addressed as 'a darling', once in +the course of that evening; and besought to bring something here, +or carry something there, or take something up, or put something +down, or find something, or fetch something, he was so addressed, +by one or other of his sisters-in-law, at least twelve times in an +hour. Neither could they do anything without Sophy. Somebody's +hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up. Somebody +forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but Sophy could hum +that tune right. Somebody wanted to recall the name of a place in +Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to be +written home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before +breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of +knitting, and no one but Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the +right direction. They were entire mistresses of the place, and +Sophy and Traddles waited on them. How many children Sophy could +have taken care of in her time, I can't imagine; but she seemed to +be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to +a child in the English tongue; and she sang dozens to order with +the clearest little voice in the world, one after another (every +sister issuing directions for a different tune, and the Beauty +generally striking in last), so that I was quite fascinated. The +best of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, all the +sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy and +Traddles. I am sure, when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming +out to walk with me to the coffee-house, I thought I had never seen +an obstinate head of hair, or any other head of hair, rolling about +in such a shower of kisses. + +Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with +pleasure, for a long time after I got back and had wished Traddles +good night. If I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set +of chambers, in that withered Gray's Inn, they could not have +brightened it half so much. The idea of those Devonshire girls, +among the dry law-stationers and the attorneys' offices; and of the +tea and toast, and children's songs, in that grim atmosphere of +pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars, brief and +draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of costs; +seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the +Sultan's famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys, +and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the golden +water into Gray's Inn Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken +leave of Traddles for the night, and come back to the coffee-house, +with a great change in my despondency about him. I began to think +he would get on, in spite of all the many orders of chief waiters +in England. + +Drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to think about +him at my leisure, I gradually fell from the consideration of his +happiness to tracing prospects in the live-coals, and to thinking, +as they broke and changed, of the principal vicissitudes and +separations that had marked my life. I had not seen a coal fire, +since I had left England three years ago: though many a wood fire +had I watched, as it crumbled into hoary ashes, and mingled with +the feathery heap upon the hearth, which not inaptly figured to me, +in my despondency, my own dead hopes. + +I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could +contemplate the future in a brave spirit. Home, in its best sense, +was for me no more. She in whom I might have inspired a dearer +love, I had taught to be my sister. She would marry, and would +have new claimants on her tenderness; and in doing it, would never +know the love for her that had grown up in my heart. It was right +that I should pay the forfeit of my headlong passion. What I +reaped, I had sown. + +I was thinking. And had I truly disciplined my heart to this, and +could I resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home +which she had calmly held in mine, - when I found my eyes resting +on a countenance that might have arisen out of the fire, in its +association with my early remembrances. + +Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted +in the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper +in the shadow of an opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in +years by this time; but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had +worn so easily, that I thought he looked at that moment just as he +might have looked when he sat in our parlour, waiting for me to be +born. + +Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had +never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with +his little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at +his elbow. He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he +seemed to apologize to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of +reading it. + +I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, 'How do you do, Mr. +Chillip?' + +He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a +stranger, and replied, in his slow way, 'I thank you, sir, you are +very good. Thank you, sir. I hope YOU are well.' + +'You don't remember me?' said I. + +'Well, sir,' returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking +his head as he surveyed me, 'I have a kind of an impression that +something in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but I +couldn't lay my hand upon your name, really.' + +'And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself,' I returned. + +'Did I indeed, sir?' said Mr. Chillip. 'Is it possible that I had +the honour, sir, of officiating when -?' + +'Yes,' said I. + +'Dear me!' cried Mr. Chillip. 'But no doubt you are a good deal +changed since then, sir?' + +'Probably,' said I. + +'Well, sir,' observed Mr. Chillip, 'I hope you'll excuse me, if I +am compelled to ask the favour of your name?' + +On my telling him my name, he was really moved. He quite shook +hands with me - which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual +course being to slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in +advance of his hip, and evince the greatest discomposure when +anybody grappled with it. Even now, he put his hand in his +coat-pocket as soon as he could disengage it, and seemed relieved +when he had got it safe back. + +'Dear me, sir!' said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one +side. 'And it's Mr. Copperfield, is it? Well, sir, I think I +should have known you, if I had taken the liberty of looking more +closely at you. There's a strong resemblance between you and your +poor father, sir.' + +'I never had the happiness of seeing my father,' I observed. + +'Very true, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. 'And very +much to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant, +sir,' said Mr. Chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, 'down +in our part of the country, of your fame. There must be great +excitement here, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the +forehead with his forefinger. 'You must find it a trying +occupation, sir!' + +'What is your part of the country now?' I asked, seating myself +near him. + +'I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmund's, sir,' +said Mr. Chillip. 'Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little property in +that neighbourhood, under her father's will, I bought a practice +down there, in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My +daughter is growing quite a tall lass now, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, +giving his little head another little shake. 'Her mother let down +two tucks in her frocks only last week. Such is time, you see, +sir!' + +As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made +this reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would +keep him company with another. 'Well, sir,' he returned, in his +slow way, 'it's more than I am accustomed to; but I can't deny +myself the pleasure of your conversation. It seems but yesterday +that I had the honour of attending you in the measles. You came +through them charmingly, sir!' + +I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was +soon produced. 'Quite an uncommon dissipation!' said Mr. Chillip, +stirring it, 'but I can't resist so extraordinary an occasion. You +have no family, sir?' + +I shook my head. + +'I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago,' +said Mr. Chillip. 'I heard it from your father-in-law's sister. +Very decided character there, sir?' + +'Why, yes,' said I, 'decided enough. Where did you see her, Mr. +Chillip?' + +'Are you not aware, sir,' returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest +smile, 'that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?' + +'No,' said I. + +'He is indeed, sir!' said Mr. Chillip. 'Married a young lady of +that part, with a very good little property, poor thing. - And +this action of the brain now, sir? Don't you find it fatigue you?' +said Mr. Chillip, looking at me like an admiring Robin. + +I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. 'I was +aware of his being married again. Do you attend the family?' I +asked. + +'Not regularly. I have been called in,' he replied. 'Strong +phrenological developments of the organ of firmness, in Mr. +Murdstone and his sister, sir.' + +I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was +emboldened by that, and the negus together, to give his head +several short shakes, and thoughtfully exclaim, 'Ah, dear me! We +remember old times, Mr. Copperfield!' + +'And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are +they?' said I. + +'Well, sir,' replied Mr. Chillip, 'a medical man, being so much in +families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his +profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir: both as +to this life and the next.' + +'The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare +say,' I returned: 'what are they doing as to this?' + +Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it. + +'She was a charming woman, sir!' he observed in a plaintive manner. + +'The present Mrs. Murdstone?' + +A charming woman indeed, sir,' said Mr. Chillip; 'as amiable, I am +sure, as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip's opinion is, that her +spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is +all but melancholy mad. And the ladies,' observed Mr. Chillip, +timorously, 'are great observers, sir.' + +'I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable +mould, Heaven help her!' said I. 'And she has been.' + +'Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you,' +said Mr. Chillip; 'but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be +considered forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that +since the sister came to help, the brother and sister between them +have nearly reduced her to a state of imbecility?' + +I told him I could easily believe it. + +'I have no hesitation in saying,' said Mr. Chillip, fortifying +himself with another sip of negus, 'between you and me, sir, that +her mother died of it - or that tyranny, gloom, and worry have made +Mrs. Murdstone nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, +before marriage, and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They +go about with her, now, more like her keepers than her husband and +sister-in-law. That was Mrs. Chillip's remark to me, only last +week. And I assure you, sir, the ladies are great observers. Mrs. +Chillip herself is a great observer!' + +'Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in +such association) religious still?' I inquired. + +'You anticipate, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite +red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. 'One of +Mrs. Chillip's most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip,' he +proceeded, in the calmest and slowest manner, 'quite electrified +me, by pointing out that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, +and calls it the Divine Nature. You might have knocked me down on +the flat of my back, sir, with the feather of a pen, I assure you, +when Mrs. Chillip said so. The ladies are great observers, sir?' + +'Intuitively,' said I, to his extreme delight. + +'I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir,' he +rejoined. 'It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical +opinion, I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses +sometimes, and it is said, - in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. +Chillip, - that the darker tyrant he has lately been, the more +ferocious is his doctrine.' + +'I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right,' said I. + +'Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say,' pursued the meekest of +little men, much encouraged, 'that what such people miscall their +religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance. And do +you know I must say, sir,' he continued, mildly laying his head on +one side, 'that I DON'T find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone +in the New Testament?' + +'I never found it either!' said I. + +'In the meantime, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, 'they are much disliked; +and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them +to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in +our neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo +a continual punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon +their own hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now, +sir, about that brain of yours, if you'll excuse my returning to +it. Don't you expose it to a good deal of excitement, sir?' + +I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip's own +brain, under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from +this topic to his own affairs, on which, for the next half-hour, he +was quite loquacious; giving me to understand, among other pieces +of information, that he was then at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house to +lay his professional evidence before a Commission of Lunacy, +touching the state of mind of a patient who had become deranged +from excessive drinking. +'And I assure you, sir,' he said, 'I am extremely nervous on such +occasions. I could not support being what is called Bullied, sir. +It would quite unman me. Do you know it was some time before I +recovered the conduct of that alarming lady, on the night of your +birth, Mr. Copperfield?' + +I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that +night, early in the morning; and that she was one of the most +tender-hearted and excellent of women, as he would know full well +if he knew her better. The mere notion of the possibility of his +ever seeing her again, appeared to terrify him. He replied with a +small pale smile, 'Is she so, indeed, sir? Really?' and almost +immediately called for a candle, and went to bed, as if he were not +quite safe anywhere else. He did not actually stagger under the +negus; but I should think his placid little pulse must have made +two or three more beats in a minute, than it had done since the +great night of my aunt's disappointment, when she struck at him +with her bonnet. + +Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next +day on the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt's old +parlour while she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was +received by her, and Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as +housekeeper, with open arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily +amused, when we began to talk composedly, by my account of my +meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of his holding her in such dread +remembrance; and both she and Peggotty had a great deal to say +about my poor mother's second husband, and 'that murdering woman of +a sister', - on whom I think no pain or penalty would have induced +my aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper Name, or any other +designation. + + + +CHAPTER 60 +AGNES + + +My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. +How the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and +hopefully; how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums +of money, on account of those 'pecuniary liabilities', in reference +to which he had been so business-like as between man and man; how +Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to +Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by +entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper; and how my +aunt had finally set her seal on the same great principle, by +aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony +with her presence; were among our topics - already more or less +familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick, as usual, +was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied +himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept +King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance +of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her +life that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous +restraint; and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she +could ever fully know what he was. + +'And when, Trot,' said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we +sat in our old way before the fire, 'when are you going over to +Canterbury?' + +'I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, aunt, unless +you will go with me?' + +'No!' said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. 'I mean to stay where +I am.' + +Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through +Canterbury today without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone +but her. + +She was pleased, but answered, 'Tut, Trot; MY old bones would have +kept till tomorrow!' and softly patted my hand again, as I sat +looking thoughtfully at the fire. + +Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes, +without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been +occupied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had +failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the +less regrets. 'Oh, Trot,' I seemed to hear my aunt say once more; +and I understood her better now - 'Blind, blind, blind!' + +We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I +found that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had +followed the current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to +track now, wilful as it had been once. + +'You will find her father a white-haired old man,' said my aunt, +'though a better man in all other respects - a reclaimed man. +Neither will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys, +and sorrows, with his one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me, +child, such things must shrink very much, before they can be +measured off in that way.' + +'Indeed they must,' said I. + +'You will find her,' pursued my aunt, 'as good, as beautiful, as +earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew +higher praise, Trot, I would bestow it on her.' + +There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. Oh, +how had I strayed so far away! + +'If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like +herself,' said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes +with tears, 'Heaven knows, her life will be well employed! Useful +and happy, as she said that day! How could she be otherwise than +useful and happy!' + +'Has Agnes any -' I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking. + +'Well? Hey? Any what?' said my aunt, sharply. + +'Any lover,' said I. + +'A score,' cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. 'She +might have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been +gone!' + +'No doubt,' said I. 'No doubt. But has she any lover who is +worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other.' + +My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand. +Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said: + +'I suspect she has an attachment, Trot.' + +'A prosperous one?' said I. + +'Trot,' returned my aunt gravely, 'I can't say. I have no right to +tell you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I +suspect it.' + +She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her +tremble), that I felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my +late thoughts. I summoned all the resolutions I had made, in all +those many days and nights, and all those many conflicts of my +heart. + +'If it should be so,' I began, 'and I hope it is-' + +'I don't know that it is,' said my aunt curtly. 'You must not be +ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very +slight, perhaps. I have no right to speak.' + +'If it should be so,' I repeated, 'Agnes will tell me at her own +good time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, aunt, will +not be reluctant to confide in me.' + +My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned +them upon me; and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and +by she put her other hand on my shoulder; and so we both sat, +looking into the past, without saying another word, until we parted +for the night. + +I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old +school-days. I cannot say that I was yet quite happy, in the hope +that I was gaining a victory over myself; even in the prospect of +so soon looking on her face again. + +The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the +quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's book to me. I went on +foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to +enter. I returned; and looking, as I passed, through the low +window of the turret-room where first Uriah Heep, and afterwards +Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit, saw that it was a little +parlour now, and that there was no office. Otherwise the staid old +house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had +been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid who admitted +me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from +a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown up the grave old +staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the +unchanged drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read +together, were on their shelves; and the desk where I had laboured +at my lessons, many a night, stood yet at the same old corner of +the table. All the little changes that had crept in when the Heeps +were there, were changed again. Everything was as it used to be, +in the happy time. + +I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the +opposite houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet +afternoons, when I first came there; and how I had used to +speculate about the people who appeared at any of the windows, and +had followed them with my eyes up and down stairs, while women went +clicking along the pavement in pattens, and the dull rain fell in +slanting lines, and poured out of the water-spout yonder, and +flowed into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch the +tramps, as they came into the town on those wet evenings, at dusk, +and limped past, with their bundles drooping over their shoulders +at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught, as then, +with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the +sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome +journey. + +The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made me start +and turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards +me. She stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her +in my arms. + +'Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon you.' + +'No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood!' + +'Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!' + +I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both +silent. Presently we sat down, side by side; and her angel-face +was turned upon me with the welcome I had dreamed of, waking and +sleeping, for whole years. + +She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good, - I owed +her so much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no +utterance for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank +her, tried to tell her (as I had often done in letters) what an +influence she had upon me; but all my efforts were in vain. My +love and joy were dumb. + +With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me +back to the time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had +visited, in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora's +grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched +the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one +jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, +and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. How could I, when, +blended with it all, was her dear self, the better angel of my +life? + +'And you, Agnes,' I said, by and by. 'Tell me of yourself. You +have hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of +time!' + +'What should I tell?' she answered, with her radiant smile. 'Papa +is well. You see us here, quiet in our own home; our anxieties set +at rest, our home restored to us; and knowing that, dear Trotwood, +you know all.' + +'All, Agnes?' said I. + +She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face. + +'Is there nothing else, Sister?' I said. + +Her colour, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again. +She smiled; with a quiet sadness, I thought; and shook her head. + +I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at; for, +sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I +was to discipline my heart, and do my duty to her. I saw, however, +that she was uneasy, and I let it pass. + +'You have much to do, dear Agnes?' + +'With my school?' said she, looking up again, in all her bright +composure. + +'Yes. It is laborious, is it not?' + +'The labour is so pleasant,' she returned, 'that it is scarcely +grateful in me to call it by that name.' + +'Nothing good is difficult to you,' said I. + +Her colour came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her +head, I saw the same sad smile. + +'You will wait and see papa,' said Agnes, cheerfully, 'and pass the +day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room? We always +call it yours.' + +I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt's at +night; but I would pass the day there, joyfully. + +'I must be a prisoner for a little while,' said Agnes, 'but here +are the old books, Trotwood, and the old music.' + +'Even the old flowers are here,' said I, looking round; 'or the old +kinds.' + +'I have found a pleasure,' returned Agnes, smiling, 'while you have +been absent, in keeping everything as it used to be when we were +children. For we were very happy then, I think.' + +'Heaven knows we were!' said I. + +'And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother,' said +Agnes, with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, 'has been +a welcome companion. Even this,' showing me the basket-trifle, +full of keys, still hanging at her side, 'seems to jingle a kind of +old tune!' + +She smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come. + +It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care. +It was all that I had left myself, and it was a treasure. If I +once shook the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage, in +virtue of which it was given to me, it was lost, and could never be +recovered. I set this steadily before myself. The better I loved +her, the more it behoved me never to forget it. + +I walked through the streets; and, once more seeing my old +adversary the butcher - now a constable, with his staff hanging up +in the shop - went down to look at the place where I had fought +him; and there meditated on Miss Shepherd and the eldest Miss +Larkins, and all the idle loves and likings, and dislikings, of +that time. Nothing seemed to have survived that time but Agnes; +and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and higher. + +When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home, from a garden he had, +a couple of miles or so out of town, where he now employed himself +almost every day. I found him as my aunt had described him. We +sat down to dinner, with some half-dozen little girls; and he +seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall. + +The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground +in my memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. +Wickfield taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went up-stairs; +where Agnes and her little charges sang and played, and worked. +After tea the children left us; and we three sat together, talking +of the bygone days. + +'My part in them,' said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, 'has +much matter for regret - for deep regret, and deep contrition, +Trotwood, you well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in +my power.' + +I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him. + +'I should cancel with it,' he pursued, 'such patience and devotion, +such fidelity, such a child's love, as I must not forget, no! even +to forget myself.' + +'I understand you, sir,' I softly said. 'I hold it - I have always +held it - in veneration.' + +'But no one knows, not even you,' he returned, 'how much she has +done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear +Agnes!' + +She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was +very, very pale. + +'Well, well!' he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some +trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my +aunt had told me. 'Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her +mother. Has anyone?' + +'Never, sir.' + +'It's not much - though it was much to suffer. She married me in +opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed +him to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was +a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed +her. He broke her heart.' + +Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck. + +'She had an affectionate and gentle heart,' he said; 'and it was +broken. I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I +did not. She loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always +labouring, in secret, under this distress; and being delicate and +downcast at the time of his last repulse - for it was not the +first, by many - pined away and died. She left me Agnes, two weeks +old; and the grey hair that you recollect me with, when you first +came.' He kissed Agnes on her cheek. + +'My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all +unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of +myself, Trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any +clue to what I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I +know. What Agnes is, I need not say. I have always read something +of her poor mother's story, in her character; and so I tell it you +tonight, when we three are again together, after such great +changes. I have told it all.' + +His bowed head, and her angel-face and filial duty, derived a more +pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted +anything by which to mark this night of our re-union, I should have +found it in this. + +Agnes rose up from her father's side, before long; and going softly +to her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often +listened in that place. + +'Have you any intention of going away again?' Agnes asked me, as I +was standing by. + +'What does my sister say to that?' + +'I hope not.' + +'Then I have no such intention, Agnes.' + +'I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me,' she said, +mildly. 'Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of +doing good; and if I could spare my brother,' with her eyes upon +me, 'perhaps the time could not.' + +'What I am, you have made me, Agnes. You should know best.' + +'I made you, Trotwood?' + +'Yes! Agnes, my dear girl!' I said, bending over her. 'I tried to +tell you, when we met today, something that has been in my thoughts +since Dora died. You remember, when you came down to me in our +little room - pointing upward, Agnes?' + +'Oh, Trotwood!' she returned, her eyes filled with tears. 'So +loving, so confiding, and so young! Can I ever forget?' + +'As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since, you have +ever been to me. Ever pointing upward, Agnes; ever leading me to +something better; ever directing me to higher things!' + +She only shook her head; through her tears I saw the same sad quiet +smile. + +'And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that +there is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to +know, yet don't know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall +look up to you, and be guided by you, as I have been through the +darkness that is past. Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may +form, whatever changes may come between us, I shall always look to +you, and love you, as I do now, and have always done. You will +always be my solace and resource, as you have always been. Until +I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always before me, +pointing upward!' + +She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of +what I said; although I praised her very far beyond her worth. +Then she went on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from +me. +'Do you know, what I have heard tonight, Agnes,' said I, strangely +seems to be a part of the feeling with which I regarded you when I +saw you first - with which I sat beside you in my rough +school-days?' + +'You knew I had no mother,' she replied with a smile, 'and felt +kindly towards me.' + +'More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost as if I had known this +story, that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened, +surrounding you; something that might have been sorrowful in +someone else (as I can now understand it was), but was not so in +you.' + +She softly played on, looking at me still. + +'Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?' + +'No!' + +'Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you +could be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and +never cease to be so, until you ceased to live? - Will you laugh +at such a dream?' + +'Oh, no! Oh, no!' + +For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in +the start it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and +looking at me with her own calm smile. + +As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a +restless memory, I thought of this, and feared she was not happy. +I was not happy; but, thus far, I had faithfully set the seal upon +the Past, and, thinking of her, pointing upward, thought of her as +pointing to that sky above me, where, in the mystery to come, I +might yet love her with a love unknown on earth, and tell her what +the strife had been within me when I loved her here. + + + +CHAPTER 61 +I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS + + +For a time - at all events until my book should be completed, which +would be the work of several months - I took up my abode in my +aunt's house at Dover; and there, sitting in the window from which +I had looked out at the moon upon the sea, when that roof first +gave me shelter, I quietly pursued my task. + +In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only +when their course should incidentally connect itself with the +progress of my story, I do not enter on the aspirations, the +delights, anxieties, and triumphs of my art. That I truly devoted +myself to it with my strongest earnestness, and bestowed upon it +every energy of my soul, I have already said. If the books I have +written be of any worth, they will supply the rest. I shall +otherwise have written to poor purpose, and the rest will be of +interest to no one. + +Occasionally, I went to London; to lose myself in the swarm of life +there, or to consult with Traddles on some business point. He had +managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgement; and my +worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety began to bring +upon me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom I had +no knowledge - chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult to +answer - I agreed with Traddles to have my name painted up on his +door. There, the devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels of +letters for me; and there, at intervals, I laboured through them, +like a Home Secretary of State without the salary. + +Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an +obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking +about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would +take the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself), +and pay me a percentage on the profits. But I declined these +offers; being already aware that there were plenty of such covert +practitioners in existence, and considering the Commons quite bad +enough, without my doing anything to make it worse. + +The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on +Traddles's door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had +never heard of Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from +her work into a sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it. +But there I always found her, the same bright housewife; often +humming her Devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming up +the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with +melody. + +I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a +copy-book; and why she always shut it up when I appeared, and +hurried it into the table-drawer. But the secret soon came out. +One day, Traddles (who had just come home through the drizzling +sleet from Court) took a paper out of his desk, and asked me what +I thought of that handwriting? + +'Oh, DON'T, Tom!' cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers before +the fire. + +'My dear,' returned Tom, in a delighted state, 'why not? What do +you say to that writing, Copperfield?' + +'It's extraordinarily legal and formal,' said I. 'I don't think I +ever saw such a stiff hand.' + +'Not like a lady's hand, is it?' said Traddles. + +'A lady's!' I repeated. 'Bricks and mortar are more like a lady's +hand!' + +Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was +Sophy's writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a +copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had +acquired this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off - +I forget how many folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by +my being told all this, and said that when 'Tom' was made a judge +he wouldn't be so ready to proclaim it. Which 'Tom' denied; +averring that he should always be equally proud of it, under all +circumstances. + +'What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear +Traddles!' said I, when she had gone away, laughing. + +'My dear Copperfield,' returned Traddles, 'she is, without any +exception, the dearest girl! The way she manages this place; her +punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her +cheerfulness, Copperfield!' + +'Indeed, you have reason to commend her!' I returned. 'You are a +happy fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two +of the happiest people in the world.' + +'I am sure we ARE two of the happiest people,' returned Traddles. +'I admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her +getting up by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself +in the day's arrangements, going out to market before the clerks +come into the Inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital +little dinners out of the plainest materials, making puddings and +pies, keeping everything in its right place, always so neat and +ornamental herself, sitting up at night with me if it's ever so +late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for me, I +positively sometimes can't believe it, Copperfield!' + +He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put +them on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender. + +'I positively sometimes can't believe it,' said Traddles. 'Then +our pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite +wonderful! When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the +outer door, and draw those curtains - which she made - where could +we be more snug? When it's fine, and we go out for a walk in the +evening, the streets abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the +glittering windows of the jewellers' shops; and I show Sophy which +of the diamond-eyed serpents, coiled up on white satin rising +grounds, I would give her if I could afford it; and Sophy shows me +which of the gold watches that are capped and jewelled and +engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal lever- +escape-movement, and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if +she could afford it; and we pick out the spoons and forks, +fish-slices, butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer +if we could both afford it; and really we go away as if we had got +them! Then, when we stroll into the squares, and great streets, and +see a house to let, sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would +THAT do, if I was made a judge? And we parcel it out - such a room +for us, such rooms for the girls, and so forth; until we settle to +our satisfaction that it would do, or it wouldn't do, as the case +may be. Sometimes, we go at half-price to the pit of the theatre +- the very smell of which is cheap, in my opinion, at the money - +and there we thoroughly enjoy the play: which Sophy believes every +word of, and so do I. In walking home, perhaps we buy a little bit +of something at a cook's-shop, or a little lobster at the +fishmongers, and bring it here, and make a splendid supper, +chatting about what we have seen. Now, you know, Copperfield, if +I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn't do this!' + +'You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles,' +thought I, 'that would be pleasant and amiable. And by the way,' +I said aloud, 'I suppose you never draw any skeletons now?' + +'Really,' replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, 'I can't +wholly deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For being in one of +the back rows of the King's Bench the other day, with a pen in my +hand, the fancy came into my head to try how I had preserved that +accomplishment. And I am afraid there's a skeleton - in a wig - on +the ledge of the desk.' + +After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking +with a smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, 'Old +Creakle!' + +'I have a letter from that old - Rascal here,' said I. For I never +was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter +Traddles, than when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself. + +'From Creakle the schoolmaster?' exclaimed Traddles. 'No!' + +'Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and +fortune,' said I, looking over my letters, 'and who discover that +they were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle. He +is not a schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a +Middlesex Magistrate.' + +I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so +at all. + +'How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate?' said I. + +'Oh dear me!' replied Traddles, 'it would be very difficult to +answer that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money +to somebody, or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged +somebody, or jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the +lieutenant of the county to nominate him for the commission.' + +'On the commission he is, at any rate,' said I. 'And he writes to +me here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only +true system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of +making sincere and lasting converts and penitents - which, you +know, is by solitary confinement. What do you say?' + +'To the system?' inquired Traddles, looking grave. + +'No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?' + +'I don't object,' said Traddles. + +'Then I'll write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our +treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors, I +suppose, and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter?' + +'Perfectly,' said Traddles. + +'Yet, if you'll read his letter, you'll find he is the tenderest of +men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies,' said +I; 'though I can't find that his tenderness extends to any other +class of created beings.' + +Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I +had not expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my +observation of similar practical satires would have been but +scanty. We arranged the time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly +to Mr. Creakle that evening. + +On the appointed day - I think it was the next day, but no matter +- Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was +powerful. It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast +expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, +what an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded +man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the +erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of +refuge for the deserving old. + +In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the Tower +of Babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our +old schoolmaster; who was one of a group, composed of two or three +of the busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had +brought. He received me, like a man who had formed my mind in +bygone years, and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing +Traddles, Mr. Creakle expressed, in like manner, but in an inferior +degree, that he had always been Traddles's guide, philosopher, and +friend. Our venerable instructor was a great deal older, and not +improved in appearance. His face was as fiery as ever; his eyes +were as small, and rather deeper set. The scanty, wet-looking grey +hair, by which I remembered him, was almost gone; and the thick +veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at. + +After some conversation among these gentlemen, from which I might +have supposed that there was nothing in the world to be +legitimately taken into account but the supreme comfort of +prisoners, at any expense, and nothing on the wide earth to be done +outside prison-doors, we began our inspection. It being then just +dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen, where every +prisoner's dinner was in course of being set out separately (to be +handed to him in his cell), with the regularity and precision of +clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered whether it +occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast between +these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not to +say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers, the great bulk +of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five +hundred ever dined half so well. But I learned that the 'system' +required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once +for all, I found that on that head and on all others, 'the system' +put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody +appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system, +but THE system, to be considered. + +As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I +inquired of Mr. Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be +the main advantages of this all-governing and universally +over-riding system? I found them to be the perfect isolation of +prisoners - so that no one man in confinement there, knew anything +about another; and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state +of mind, leading to sincere contrition and repentance. + +Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their +cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and +to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained +to us, that there was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing +a good deal about each other, and of their carrying on a pretty +complete system of intercourse. This, at the time I write, has +been proved, I believe, to be the case; but, as it would have been +flat blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then, +I looked out for the penitence as diligently as I could. + +And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a +fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the +forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors' +shops. I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little in +character: varying very little (which I thought exceedingly +suspicious), even in words. I found a great many foxes, +disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes; but I found +very few foxes whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch. +Above all, I found that the most professing men were the greatest +objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity, their +want of excitement, and their love of deception (which many of them +possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories +showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified +by them. + +However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and +fro, of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favourite, and +who really appeared to be a Model Prisoner, that I resolved to +suspend my judgement until I should see Twenty Seven. Twenty +Eight, I understood, was also a bright particular star; but it was +his misfortune to have his glory a little dimmed by the +extraordinary lustre of Twenty Seven. I heard so much of Twenty +Seven, of his pious admonitions to everybody around him, and of the +beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he seemed +to consider in a very bad way), that I became quite impatient to +see him. + +I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of Twenty +Seven being reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last, we +came to the door of his cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through a +little hole in it, reported to us, in a state of the greatest +admiration, that he was reading a Hymn Book. + +There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty +Seven reading his Hymn Book, that the little hole was blocked up, +six or seven heads deep. To remedy this inconvenience, and give us +an opportunity of conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity, +Mr. Creakle directed the door of the cell to be unlocked, and +Twenty Seven to be invited out into the passage. This was done; +and whom should Traddles and I then behold, to our amazement, in +this converted Number Twenty Seven, but Uriah Heep! + +He knew us directly; and said, as he came out - with the old +writhe, - + +'How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do, Mr. Traddles?' + +This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I +rather thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and +taking notice of us. + +'Well, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him. +'How do you find yourself today?' + +'I am very umble, sir!' replied Uriah Heep. + +'You are always so, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle. + +Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: 'Are you quite +comfortable?' + +'Yes, I thank you, sir!' said Uriah Heep, looking in that +direction. 'Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside. +I see my follies, now, sir. That's what makes me comfortable.' + +Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner, +forcing himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling: 'How +do you find the beef?' + +'Thank you, sir,' replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction of +this voice, 'it was tougher yesterday than I could wish; but it's +my duty to bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen,' said Uriah, +looking round with a meek smile, 'and I ought to bear the +consequences without repining.' +A murmur, partly of gratification at Twenty Seven's celestial state +of mind, and partly of indignation against the Contractor who had +given him any cause of complaint (a note of which was immediately +made by Mr. Creakle), having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the +midst of us, as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in +a highly meritorious museum. That we, the neophytes, might have an +excess of light shining upon us all at once, orders were given to +let out Twenty Eight. + +I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind of +resigned wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth, reading a good +book! + +'Twenty Eight,' said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet +spoken, 'you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa. +How has it been since?' + +'I thank you, sir,' said Mr. Littimer, 'it has been better made. +If I might take the liberty of saying so, sir, I don't think the +milk which is boiled with it is quite genuine; but I am aware, sir, +that there is a great adulteration of milk, in London, and that the +article in a pure state is difficult to be obtained.' + +It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his +Twenty Eight against Mr. Creakle's Twenty Seven, for each of them +took his own man in hand. + +'What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?' said the questioner in +spectacles. + +'I thank you, sir,' returned Mr. Littimer; 'I see my follies now, +sir. I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my +former companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness.' + +'You are quite happy yourself?' said the questioner, nodding +encouragement. + +'I am much obliged to you, sir,' returned Mr. Littimer. 'Perfectly +so.' + +'Is there anything at all on your mind now?' said the questioner. +'If so, mention it, Twenty Eight.' + +'Sir,' said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, 'if my eyes have not +deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with +me in my former life. It may be profitable to that gentleman to +know, sir, that I attribute my past follies, entirely to having +lived a thoughtless life in the service of young men; and to having +allowed myself to be led by them into weaknesses, which I had not +the strength to resist. I hope that gentleman will take warning, +sir, and will not be offended at my freedom. It is for his good. +I am conscious of my own past follies. I hope he may repent of all +the wickedness and sin to which he has been a party.' + +I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each +with one hand, as if they had just come into church. + +'This does you credit, Twenty Eight,' returned the questioner. 'I +should have expected it of you. Is there anything else?' + +'Sir,' returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but +not his eyes, 'there was a young woman who fell into dissolute +courses, that I endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue. I +beg that gentleman, if he has it in his power, to inform that young +woman from me that I forgive her her bad conduct towards myself, +and that I call her to repentance - if he will be so good.' + +'I have no doubt, Twenty Eight,' returned the questioner, 'that the +gentleman you refer to feels very strongly - as we all must - what +you have so properly said. We will not detain you.' + +'I thank you, sir,' said Mr. Littimer. 'Gentlemen, I wish you a +good day, and hoping you and your families will also see your +wickedness, and amend!' + +With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between him +and Uriah; as if they were not altogether unknown to each other, +through some medium of communication; and a murmur went round the +group, as his door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable +man, and a beautiful case. + +'Now, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage +with his man, 'is there anything that anyone can do for you? If +so, mention it.' + +'I would umbly ask, sir,' returned Uriah, with a jerk of his +malevolent head, 'for leave to write again to mother.' + +'It shall certainly be granted,' said Mr. Creakle. + +'Thank you, sir! I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain't +safe.' + +Somebody incautiously asked, what from? But there was a +scandalized whisper of 'Hush!' + +'Immortally safe, sir,' returned Uriah, writhing in the direction +of the voice. 'I should wish mother to be got into my state. I +never should have been got into my present state if I hadn't come +here. I wish mother had come here. It would be better for +everybody, if they got took up, and was brought here.' + +This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction - greater satisfaction, +I think, than anything that had passed yet. + +'Before I come here,' said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he +would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he +could, 'I was given to follies; but now I am sensible of my +follies. There's a deal of sin outside. There's a deal of sin in +mother. There's nothing but sin everywhere - except here.' + +'You are quite changed?' said Mr. Creakle. + +'Oh dear, yes, sir!' cried this hopeful penitent. + +'You wouldn't relapse, if you were going out?' asked somebody else. + +'Oh de-ar no, sir!' + +'Well!' said Mr. Creakle, 'this is very gratifying. You have +addressed Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven. Do you wish to say +anything further to him?' + +'You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed, Mr. +Copperfield,' said Uriah, looking at me; and a more villainous look +I never saw, even on his visage. 'You knew me when, in spite of my +follies, I was umble among them that was proud, and meek among them +that was violent - you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield. +Once, you struck me a blow in the face, you know.' + +General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at me. + +'But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield,' said Uriah, making his +forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel, +which I shall not record. 'I forgive everybody. It would ill +become me to bear malice. I freely forgive you, and I hope you'll +curb your passions in future. I hope Mr. W. will repent, and Miss +W., and all of that sinful lot. You've been visited with +affliction, and I hope it may do you good; but you'd better have +come here. Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss W. too. The +best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of you +gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I +think of my past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would +be best for you. I pity all who ain't brought here!' + +He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of +approbation; and both Traddles and I experienced a great relief +when he was locked in. + +It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that I was fain +to ask what these two men had done, to be there at all. That +appeared to be the last thing about which they had anything to say. +I addressed myself to one of the two warders, who, I suspected from +certain latent indications in their faces, knew pretty well what +all this stir was worth. + +'Do you know,' said I, as we walked along the passage, 'what felony +was Number Twenty Seven's last "folly"?' + +The answer was that it was a Bank case. + +'A fraud on the Bank of England?' I asked. +'Yes, sir. Fraud, forgery, and conspiracy. He and some others. +He set the others on. It was a deep plot for a large sum. +Sentence, transportation for life. Twenty Seven was the knowingest +bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself safe; but not +quite. The Bank was just able to put salt upon his tail - and only +just.' + +'Do you know Twenty Eight's offence?' + +'Twenty Eight,' returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low +tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage, +to guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful +reference to these Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest; 'Twenty +Eight (also transportation) got a place, and robbed a young master +of a matter of two hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables, +the night before they were going abroad. I particularly recollect +his case, from his being took by a dwarf.' + +'A what?' + +'A little woman. I have forgot her name?' + +'Not Mowcher?' + +'That's it! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a +flaxen wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never you +see in all your born days; when the little woman, being in +Southampton, met him walking along the street - picked him out with +her sharp eye in a moment - ran betwixt his legs to upset him - and +held on to him like grim Death.' + +'Excellent Miss Mowcher!' cried I. + +'You'd have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in +the witness-box at the trial, as I did,' said my friend. 'He cut +her face right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner, +when she took him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked +up. She held so tight to him, in fact, that the officers were +obliged to take 'em both together. She gave her evidence in the +gamest way, and was highly complimented by the Bench, and cheered +right home to her lodgings. She said in Court that she'd have took +him single-handed (on account of what she knew concerning him), if +he had been Samson. And it's my belief she would!' + +It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it. + +We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain +to represent to such a man as the Worshipful Mr. Creakle, that +Twenty Seven and Twenty Eight were perfectly consistent and +unchanged; that exactly what they were then, they had always been; +that the hypocritical knaves were just the subjects to make that +sort of profession in such a place; that they knew its market-value +at least as well as we did, in the immediate service it would do +them when they were expatriated; in a word, that it was a rotten, +hollow, painfully suggestive piece of business altogether. We left +them to their system and themselves, and went home wondering. + +'Perhaps it's a good thing, Traddles,' said I, 'to have an unsound +Hobby ridden hard; for it's the sooner ridden to death.' + +'I hope so,' replied Traddles. + + + +CHAPTER 62 +A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY + + +The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home above +two months. I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general +voice might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the +emotions and endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest +word of praise as I heard nothing else. + +At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, and +passed the evening. I usually rode back at night; for the old +unhappy sense was always hovering about me now - most sorrowfully +when I left her - and I was glad to be up and out, rather than +wandering over the past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. +I wore away the longest part of many wild sad nights, in those +rides; reviving, as I went, the thoughts that had occupied me in my +long absence. + +Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those +thoughts, I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from +afar off. I had put them at a distance, and accepted my inevitable +place. When I read to Agnes what I wrote; when I saw her listening +face; moved her to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so +earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which I +lived; I thought what a fate mine might have been - but only +thought so, as I had thought after I was married to Dora, what I +could have wished my wife to be. + +My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted, +I wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my +matured assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and +won what I had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, +and must bear; comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But +I loved her: and now it even became some consolation to me, vaguely +to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avow it; when +all this should be over; when I could say 'Agnes, so it was when I +came home; and now I am old, and I never have loved since!' + +She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always +had been to me, she still was; wholly unaltered. + +Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion, +since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or +an avoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding +that we thought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into +words. When, according to our old custom, we sat before the fire +at night, we often fell into this train; as naturally, and as +consciously to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so. But +we preserved an unbroken silence. I believed that she had read, or +partly read, my thoughts that night; and that she fully +comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression. + +This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new +confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind +- whether she could have that perception of the true state of my +breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me +pain - began to oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice +was nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every +poor action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to +set this right beyond all doubt; - if such a barrier were between +us, to break it down at once with a determined hand. + +It was - what lasting reason have I to remember it! - a cold, +harsh, winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it +lay, not deep, but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond +my window, the wind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been +thinking of it, sweeping over those mountain wastes of snow in +Switzerland, then inaccessible to any human foot; and had been +speculating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a +deserted ocean. + +'Riding today, Trot?' said my aunt, putting her head in at the +door. + +'Yes,' said I, 'I am going over to Canterbury. It's a good day for +a ride.' + +'I hope your horse may think so too,' said my aunt; 'but at present +he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door +there, as if he thought his stable preferable.' + +My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, +but had not at all relented towards the donkeys. + +'He will be fresh enough, presently!' said I. + +'The ride will do his master good, at all events,' observed my +aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. 'Ah, child, you pass a +good many hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books, +what work it was to write them.' + +'It's work enough to read them, sometimes,' I returned. 'As to the +writing, it has its own charms, aunt.' + +'Ah! I see!' said my aunt. 'Ambition, love of approbation, +sympathy, and much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!' + +'Do you know anything more,' said I, standing composedly before her +- she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair - 'of +that attachment of Agnes?' + +She looked up in my face a little while, before replying: + +'I think I do, Trot.' + +'Are you confirmed in your impression?' I inquired. + +'I think I am, Trot.' + +She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or +suspense in her affection: that I summoned the stronger +determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face. + +'And what is more, Trot -' said my aunt. + +'Yes!' + +'I think Agnes is going to be married.' + +'God bless her!' said I, cheerfully. + +'God bless her!' said my aunt, 'and her husband too!' + +I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, +mounted, and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do +what I had resolved to do. + +How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of ice, +brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my +face; the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon +the ground; the stiff-tilled soil; the snowdrift, lightly eddying +in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with +the waggon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and +shaking their bells musically; the whitened slopes and sweeps of +Down-land lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a +huge slate! + +I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes +now, and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book +on seeing me come in; and having welcomed me as usual, took her +work-basket and sat in one of the old-fashioned windows. + +I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was +doing, and when it would be done, and of the progress I had made +since my last visit. Agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly +predicted that I should soon become too famous to be talked to, on +such subjects. + +'So I make the most of the present time, you see,' said Agnes, 'and +talk to you while I may.' + +As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she +raised her mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her. + +'You are thoughtful today, Trotwood!' + +'Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you.' + +She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were +seriously discussing anything; and gave me her whole attention. + +'My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?' + +'No!' she answered, with a look of astonishment. + +'Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?' + +'No!' she answered, as before. + +'Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what +a debt of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I +felt towards you?' + +'I remember it,' she said, gently, 'very well.' + +'You have a secret,' said I. 'Let me share it, Agnes.' + +She cast down her eyes, and trembled. + +'I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard - but from +other lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange - that there is +someone upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do +not shut me out of what concerns your happiness so nearly! If you +can trust me, as you say you can, and as I know you may, let me be +your friend, your brother, in this matter, of all others!' + +With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the +window; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, +put her hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote +me to the heart. + +And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my +heart. Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with +the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and +shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow. + +'Agnes! Sister! Dearest! What have I done?' + +'Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I +will speak to you by and by - another time. I will write to you. +Don't speak to me now. Don't! don't!' + +I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her +on that former night, of her affection needing no return. It +seemed a very world that I must search through in a moment. +'Agnes, I cannot bear to see you so, and think that I have been the +cause. My dearest girl, dearer to me than anything in life, if you +are unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. If you are in need of +help or counsel, let me try to give it to you. If you have indeed +a burden on your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I +live now, Agnes, if it is not for you!' + +'Oh, spare me! I am not myself! Another time!' was all I could +distinguish. + +Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or, having once +a clue to hope, was there something opening to me that I had not +dared to think of? + +'I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For Heaven's sake, +Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and all +that has come and gone with them! I must speak plainly. If you +have any lingering thought that I could envy the happiness you will +confer; that I could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your +own choosing; that I could not, from my removed place, be a +contented witness of your joy; dismiss it, for I don't deserve it! +I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not taught me quite in +vain. There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you.' + +She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face +towards me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but +very clear: + +'I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood - which, indeed, +I do not doubt - to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more. +If I have sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and +counsel, they have come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, +the feeling has passed away. If I have ever had a burden on my +heart, it has been lightened for me. If I have any secret, it is +- no new one; and is - not what you suppose. I cannot reveal it, +or divide it. It has long been mine, and must remain mine.' + +'Agnes! Stay! A moment!' + +She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her +waist. 'In the course of years!' 'It is not a new one!' New +thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the +colours of my life were changing. + +'Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honour - whom I so devotedly +love! When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have +wrested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in +my bosom all our lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have +indeed any new-born hope that I may ever call you something more +than Sister, widely different from Sister! -' + +Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately +shed, and I saw my hope brighten in them. + +'Agnes! Ever my guide, and best support! If you had been more +mindful of yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together, +I think my heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But +you were so much better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish +hope and disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely +upon in everything, became a second nature, supplanting for the +time the first and greater one of loving you as I do!' + +Still weeping, but not sadly - joyfully! And clasped in my arms as +she had never been, as I had thought she never was to be! + +'When I loved Dora - fondly, Agnes, as you know -' + +'Yes!' she cried, earnestly. 'I am glad to know it!' + +'When I loved her - even then, my love would have been incomplete, +without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when +I lost her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!' + +Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon my +shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine! + +'I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. +I returned home, loving you!' + +And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and the +conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her, +truly, and entirely. I tried to show her how I had hoped I had +come into the better knowledge of myself and of her; how I had +resigned myself to what that better knowledge brought; and how I +had come there, even that day, in my fidelity to this. If she did +so love me (I said) that she could take me for her husband, she +could do so, on no deserving of mine, except upon the truth of my +love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened to be what it +was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And O, Agnes, even out +of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife +looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, +to tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its +bloom! + +'I am so blest, Trotwood - my heart is so overcharged - but there +is one thing I must say.' + +'Dearest, what?' + +She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in +my face. + +'Do you know, yet, what it is?' + +'I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear.' + +'I have loved you all my life!' + +O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials +(hers so much the greater) through which we had come to be thus, +but for the rapture of being thus, never to be divided more! + +We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the +blessed calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. +The early stars began to shine while we were lingering on, and +looking up to them, we thanked our GOD for having guided us to this +tranquillity. + +We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when +the moon was shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; I +following her glance. Long miles of road then opened out before my +mind; and, toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and +neglected, who should come to call even the heart now beating +against mine, his own. + + +It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. +She was up in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride to +keep in readiness and order for me. We found her, in her +spectacles, sitting by the fire. + +'Goodness me!' said my aunt, peering through the dusk, 'who's this +you're bringing home?' + +'Agnes,' said I. + +As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a +little discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said +'Agnes'; but seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her +spectacles in despair, and rubbed her nose with them. + +She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the +lighted parlour downstairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her +spectacles twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as +often took them off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with +them. Much to the discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a +bad symptom. + +'By the by, aunt,' said I, after dinner; 'I have been speaking to +Agnes about what you told me.' + +'Then, Trot,' said my aunt, turning scarlet, 'you did wrong, and +broke your promise.' + +'You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won't be, when +you learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment.' + +'Stuff and nonsense!' said my aunt. + +As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to +cut her annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her +chair, and we both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her +hands, and one look through her spectacles, immediately went into +hysterics, for the first and only time in all my knowledge of her. + +The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored, +she flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged +her with all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was +highly honoured, but a good deal surprised); and after that, told +them why. Then, we were all happy together. + +I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short +conversation with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really +mistaken the state of my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that +she had told me Agnes was going to be married; and that I now knew +better than anyone how true it was. + + +We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor +and Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We +left them full of joy; and drove away together. Clasped in my +embrace, I held the source of every worthy aspiration I had ever +had; the centre of myself, the circle of my life, my own, my wife; +my love of whom was founded on a rock! + +'Dearest husband!' said Agnes. 'Now that I may call you by that +name, I have one thing more to tell you.' + +'Let me hear it, love.' + +'It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me.' + +'She did.' + +'She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it +was?' + +I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me, +closer to my side. + +'She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last +charge.' + +'And it was -' + +'That only I would occupy this vacant place.' + +And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept with +her, though we were so happy. + + + + +CHAPTER 63 +A VISITOR + +What I have purposed to record is nearly finished; but there is yet +an incident conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with +delight, and without which one thread in the web I have spun would +have a ravelled end. + +I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, I +had been married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the +fire, in our house in London, one night in spring, and three of our +children were playing in the room, when I was told that a stranger +wished to see me. + +He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered No; he +had come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. +He was an old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer. + +As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like +the beginning of a favourite story Agnes used to tell them, +introductory to the arrival of a wicked old Fairy in a cloak who +hated everybody, it produced some commotion. One of our boys laid +his head in his mother's lap to be out of harm's way, and little +Agnes (our eldest child) left her doll in a chair to represent her, +and thrust out her little heap of golden curls from between the +window-curtains, to see what happened next. + +'Let him come in here!' said I. + +There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a +hale, grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, +had run to bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face, +when my wife, starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and +agitated voice, that it was Mr. Peggotty! + +It WAS Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, +strong old age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before +the fire with the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on +his face, he looked, to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as +handsome, an old man, as ever I had seen. + +'Mas'r Davy,' said he. And the old name in the old tone fell so +naturally on my ear! 'Mas'r Davy, 'tis a joyful hour as I see you, +once more, 'long with your own trew wife!' + +'A joyful hour indeed, old friend!' cried I. + +'And these heer pretty ones,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'To look at these +heer flowers! Why, Mas'r Davy, you was but the heighth of the +littlest of these, when I first see you! When Em'ly warn't no +bigger, and our poor lad were BUT a lad!' + +'Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then,' said +I. 'But let these dear rogues go to bed; and as no house in +England but this must hold you, tell me where to send for your +luggage (is the old black bag among it, that went so far, I +wonder!), and then, over a glass of Yarmouth grog, we will have the +tidings of ten years!' + +'Are you alone?' asked Agnes. + +'Yes, ma'am,' he said, kissing her hand, 'quite alone.' + +We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough; +and as I began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have +fancied he was still pursuing his long journey in search of his +darling niece. + +'It's a mort of water,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'fur to come across, and +on'y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water ('specially when 'tis +salt) comes nat'ral to me; and friends is dear, and I am heer. - +Which is verse,' said Mr. Peggotty, surprised to find it out, +'though I hadn't such intentions.' + +'Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?' asked +Agnes. + +'Yes, ma'am,' he returned. 'I giv the promise to Em'ly, afore I +come away. You see, I doen't grow younger as the years comes +round, and if I hadn't sailed as 'twas, most like I shouldn't never +have done 't. And it's allus been on my mind, as I must come and +see Mas'r Davy and your own sweet blooming self, in your wedded +happiness, afore I got to be too old.' + +He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us +sufficiently. Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of +his grey hair, that he might see us better. + +'And now tell us,' said I, 'everything relating to your fortunes.' + +'Our fortuns, Mas'r Davy,' he rejoined, 'is soon told. We haven't +fared nohows, but fared to thrive. We've allus thrived. We've +worked as we ought to 't, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at first +or so, but we have allus thrived. What with sheep-farming, and +what with stock-farming, and what with one thing and what with +t'other, we are as well to do, as well could be. Theer's been +kiender a blessing fell upon us,' said Mr. Peggotty, reverentially +inclining his head, 'and we've done nowt but prosper. That is, in +the long run. If not yesterday, why then today. If not today, why +then tomorrow.' + +'And Emily?' said Agnes and I, both together. + +'Em'ly,' said he, 'arter you left her, ma'am - and I never heerd +her saying of her prayers at night, t'other side the canvas screen, +when we was settled in the Bush, but what I heerd your name - and +arter she and me lost sight of Mas'r Davy, that theer shining +sundown - was that low, at first, that, if she had know'd then what +Mas'r Davy kep from us so kind and thowtful, 'tis my opinion she'd +have drooped away. But theer was some poor folks aboard as had +illness among 'em, and she took care of them; and theer was the +children in our company, and she took care of them; and so she got +to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her.' + +'When did she first hear of it?' I asked. + +'I kep it from her arter I heerd on 't,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'going +on nigh a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among +the beautifullest trees, and with the roses a-covering our Beein to +the roof. Theer come along one day, when I was out a-working on +the land, a traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England (I +doen't rightly mind which), and of course we took him in, and giv +him to eat and drink, and made him welcome. We all do that, all +the colony over. He'd got an old newspaper with him, and some +other account in print of the storm. That's how she know'd it. +When I came home at night, I found she know'd it.' + +He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so +well remembered overspread his face. + +'Did it change her much?' we asked. + +'Aye, for a good long time,' he said, shaking his head; 'if not to +this present hour. But I think the solitoode done her good. And +she had a deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and +minded of it, and come through. I wonder,' he said thoughtfully, +'if you could see my Em'ly now, Mas'r Davy, whether you'd know +her!' + +'Is she so altered?' I inquired. + +'I doen't know. I see her ev'ry day, and doen't know; But, +odd-times, I have thowt so. A slight figure,' said Mr. Peggotty, +looking at the fire, 'kiender worn; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes; a +delicate face; a pritty head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice +and way - timid a'most. That's Em'ly!' + +We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire. + +'Some thinks,' he said, 'as her affection was ill-bestowed; some, +as her marriage was broken off by death. No one knows how 'tis. +She might have married well, a mort of times, "but, uncle," she +says to me, "that's gone for ever." Cheerful along with me; retired +when others is by; fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, +or fur to tend a sick person, or fur to do some kindness tow'rds a +young girl's wedding (and she's done a many, but has never seen +one); fondly loving of her uncle; patient; liked by young and old; +sowt out by all that has any trouble. That's Em'ly!' + +He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh +looked up from the fire. + +'Is Martha with you yet?' I asked. + +'Martha,' he replied, 'got married, Mas'r Davy, in the second year. +A young man, a farm-labourer, as come by us on his way to market +with his mas'r's drays - a journey of over five hundred mile, theer +and back - made offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very +scarce theer), and then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush. +She spoke to me fur to tell him her trew story. I did. They was +married, and they live fower hundred mile away from any voices but +their own and the singing birds.' + +'Mrs. Gummidge?' I suggested. + +It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty suddenly burst +into a roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, +as he had been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the +long-shipwrecked boat. + +'Would you believe it!' he said. 'Why, someun even made offer fur +to marry her! If a ship's cook that was turning settler, Mas'r +Davy, didn't make offers fur to marry Missis Gummidge, I'm Gormed +- and I can't say no fairer than that!' + +I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstasy on the part of Mr. +Peggotty was so delightful to her, that she could not leave off +laughing; and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh, and +the greater Mr. Peggotty's ecstasy became, and the more he rubbed +his legs. + +'And what did Mrs. Gummidge say?' I asked, when I was grave enough. + +'If you'll believe me,' returned Mr. Peggotty, 'Missis Gummidge, +'stead of saying "thank you, I'm much obleeged to you, I ain't +a-going fur to change my condition at my time of life," up'd with +a bucket as was standing by, and laid it over that theer ship's +cook's head 'till he sung out fur help, and I went in and reskied +of him.' + +Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I +both kept him company. + +'But I must say this, for the good creetur,' he resumed, wiping his +face, when we were quite exhausted; 'she has been all she said +she'd be to us, and more. She's the willingest, the trewest, the +honestest-helping woman, Mas'r Davy, as ever draw'd the breath of +life. I have never know'd her to be lone and lorn, for a single +minute, not even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new +to it. And thinking of the old 'un is a thing she never done, I do +assure you, since she left England!' + +'Now, last, not least, Mr. Micawber,' said I. 'He has paid off +every obligation he incurred here - even to Traddles's bill, you +remember my dear Agnes - and therefore we may take it for granted +that he is doing well. But what is the latest news of him?' + +Mr. Peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-pocket, and +produced a flat-folded, paper parcel, from which he took out, with +much care, a little odd-looking newspaper. + +'You are to understan', Mas'r Davy,' said he, 'as we have left the +Bush now, being so well to do; and have gone right away round to +Port Middlebay Harbour, wheer theer's what we call a town.' + +'Mr. Micawber was in the Bush near you?' said I. + +'Bless you, yes,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'and turned to with a will. +I never wish to meet a better gen'l'man for turning to with a will. +I've seen that theer bald head of his a perspiring in the sun, +Mas'r Davy, till I a'most thowt it would have melted away. And now +he's a Magistrate.' + +'A Magistrate, eh?' said I. + +Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where +I read aloud as follows, from the Port Middlebay Times: + + +'The public dinner to our distinguished fellow-colonist and +townsman, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, Port Middlebay District +Magistrate, came off yesterday in the large room of the Hotel, +which was crowded to suffocation. It is estimated that not fewer +than forty-seven persons must have been accommodated with dinner at +one time, exclusive of the company in the passage and on the +stairs. The beauty, fashion, and exclusiveness of Port Middlebay, +flocked to do honour to one so deservedly esteemed, so highly +talented, and so widely popular. Doctor Mell (of Colonial +Salem-House Grammar School, Port Middlebay) presided, and on his +right sat the distinguished guest. After the removal of the cloth, +and the singing of Non Nobis (beautifully executed, and in which we +were at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted +amateur, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR), the usual loyal and +patriotic toasts were severally given and rapturously received. +Doctor Mell, in a speech replete with feeling, then proposed "Our +distinguished Guest, the ornament of our town. May he never leave +us but to better himself, and may his success among us be such as +to render his bettering himself impossible!" The cheering with +which the toast was received defies description. Again and again +it rose and fell, like the waves of ocean. At length all was +hushed, and WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, presented himself to return +thanks. Far be it from us, in the present comparatively imperfect +state of the resources of our establishment, to endeavour to follow +our distinguished townsman through the smoothly-flowing periods of +his polished and highly-ornate address! Suffice it to observe, that +it was a masterpiece of eloquence; and that those passages in which +he more particularly traced his own successful career to its +source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory from the +shoals of ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they were +unable to liquidate, brought a tear into the manliest eye present. +The remaining toasts were DOCTOR MELL; Mrs. MICAWBER (who +gracefully bowed her acknowledgements from the side-door, where a +galaxy of beauty was elevated on chairs, at once to witness and +adorn the gratifying scene), Mrs. RIDGER BEGS (late Miss Micawber); +Mrs. MELL; WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR (who convulsed the +assembly by humorously remarking that he found himself unable to +return thanks in a speech, but would do so, with their permission, +in a song); Mrs. MICAWBER'S FAMILY (well known, it is needless to +remark, in the mother-country), &c. &c. &c. At the conclusion of +the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art-magic for +dancing. Among the votaries of TERPSICHORE, who disported +themselves until Sol gave warning for departure, Wilkins Micawber, +Esquire, Junior, and the lovely and accomplished Miss Helena, +fourth daughter of Doctor Mell, were particularly remarkable.' + + +I was looking back to the name of Doctor Mell, pleased to have +discovered, in these happier circumstances, Mr. Mell, formerly poor +pinched usher to my Middlesex magistrate, when Mr. Peggotty +pointing to another part of the paper, my eyes rested on my own +name, and I read thus: + + +' TO DAVID COPPERFIELD, ESQUIRE, + + 'THE EMINENT AUTHOR. + +'My Dear Sir, + +'Years have elapsed, since I had an opportunity of ocularly +perusing the lineaments, now familiar to the imaginations of a +considerable portion of the civilized world. + +'But, my dear Sir, though estranged (by the force of circumstances +over which I have had no control) from the personal society of the +friend and companion of my youth, I have not been unmindful of his +soaring flight. Nor have I been debarred, + + Though seas between us braid ha' roared, + +(BURNS) from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread +before us. + +'I cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this place of an +individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear +Sir, taking this public opportunity of thanking you, on my own +behalf, and, I may undertake to add, on that of the whole of the +Inhabitants of Port Middlebay, for the gratification of which you +are the ministering agent. + +'Go on, my dear Sir! You are not unknown here, you are not +unappreciated. Though "remote", we are neither "unfriended", +"melancholy", nor (I may add) "slow". Go on, my dear Sir, in your +Eagle course! The inhabitants of Port Middlebay may at least aspire +to watch it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction! + +'Among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the +globe, will ever be found, while it has light and life, + + 'The + 'Eye + 'Appertaining to + + 'WILKINS MICAWBER, + 'Magistrate.' + + +I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper, +that Mr. Micawber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that +journal. There was another letter from him in the same paper, +touching a bridge; there was an advertisement of a collection of +similar letters by him, to be shortly republished, in a neat +volume, 'with considerable additions'; and, unless I am very much +mistaken, the Leading Article was his also. + +We talked much of Mr. Micawber, on many other evenings while Mr. +Peggotty remained with us. He lived with us during the whole term +of his stay, - which, I think, was something less than a month, - +and his sister and my aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I +parted from him aboard-ship, when he sailed; and we shall never +part from him more, on earth. + +But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little +tablet I had put up in the churchyard to the memory of Ham. While +I was copying the plain inscription for him at his request, I saw +him stoop, and gather a tuft of grass from the grave and a little +earth. + +'For Em'ly,' he said, as he put it in his breast. 'I promised, +Mas'r Davy.' + + + +CHAPTER 64 +A LAST RETROSPECT + + +And now my written story ends. I look back, once more - for the +last time - before I close these leaves. + +I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of +life. I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the +roar of many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on. + +What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo, +these; all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question! + +Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score +years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles +at a stretch in winter weather. + +Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise +in spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to +the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, +a yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of +St. Paul's upon the lid. + +The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish +days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference +to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken +their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they +glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated +with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my +least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I +think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk. +My aunt's old disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother +to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora (the next in order) says +she spoils her. + +There is something bulky in Peggotty's pocket. It is nothing +smaller than the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated +condition by this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched +across, but which Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious +relic. I find it very curious to see my own infant face, looking +up at me from the Crocodile stories; and to be reminded by it of my +old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield. + +Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making +giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for +which there are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, +with many nods and winks, 'Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that +I shall finish the Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and +that your aunt's the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir!' + +Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing +me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and +beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful +wandering of the mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a +sharp, dark, withered woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me +hear what they say. + +'Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman's name.' + +Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, 'Mr. Copperfield.' + +'I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in +mourning. I hope Time will be good to you.' + +Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, +bids her look again, tries to rouse her. + +'You have seen my son, sir,' says the elder lady. 'Are you +reconciled?' + +Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and +moans. Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, 'Rosa, come to +me. He is dead!' Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, +and quarrels with her; now fiercely telling her, 'I loved him +better than you ever did!'- now soothing her to sleep on her +breast, like a sick child. Thus I leave them; thus I always find +them; thus they wear their time away, from year to year. + +What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is +this, married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of +ears? Can this be Julia Mills? + +Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to +carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a +copper-coloured woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round +her head, to serve her Tiffin in her dressing-room. But Julia +keeps no diary in these days; never sings Affection's Dirge; +eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus, who is a sort of +yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in money to the +throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her better +in the Desert of Sahara. + +Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a +stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, +I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit +or flower. What Julia calls 'society', I see; among it Mr. Jack +Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it +him, and speaking to me of the Doctor as 'so charmingly antique'. +But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, +Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to +everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must +have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better +find the way out. + +And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his +Dictionary (somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home +and wife. Also the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, +and by no means so influential as in days of yore! + +Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his +hair (where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the +constant friction of his lawyer's-wig, I come, in a later time, +upon my dear old Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles +of papers; and I say, as I look around me: + +'If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to +do!' + +'You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital +days, too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?' + +'When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town +talk then!' + +'At all events,' says Traddles, 'if I ever am one -' +'Why, you know you will be.' + +'Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story, +as I said I would.' + +We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with +Traddles. It is Sophy's birthday; and, on our road, Traddles +discourses to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed. + +'I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had +most at heart. There's the Reverend Horace promoted to that living +at four hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys +receiving the very best education, and distinguishing themselves as +steady scholars and good fellows; there are three of the girls +married very comfortably; there are three more living with us; +there are three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace since +Mrs. Crewler's decease; and all of them happy.' + +'Except -' I suggest. + +'Except the Beauty,' says Traddles. 'Yes. It was very unfortunate +that she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain +dash and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have got +her safe at our house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up +again.' + +Traddles's house is one of the very houses - or it easily may have +been - which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening +walks. It is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his +dressing-room and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy +squeeze themselves into upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms +for the Beauty and the girls. There is no room to spare in the +house; for more of 'the girls' are here, and always are here, by +some accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, when we go +in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door, and handing +Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here, +established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow with a +little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy's birthday, are the three +married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband's +brothers, and another husband's cousin, and another husband's +sister, who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles, +exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at +the foot of the large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon +him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not +glittering with Britannia metal. + +And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, +these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly +light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond +them all. And that remains. + +I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. + +My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the +dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company. + +O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life +indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the +shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing +upward! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens + +***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Dombey and Son, by Dickens*** +#19 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Dombey and Son was contributed by: +Neil McLachlan, nmclachlan@delphi.com +and Ted Davis, 101515.3105@compuserve.com +on behalf of the Talking Newspaper of the UK (TNAUK). + +Production: +A Kurzweil flatbed scanner and Xerox Discover software was used to +produce the raw text files, which were edited using the TSEJR ASCII +text editor, with a user lexicon specially developed for this purpose. +Words split at the end of lines have been re-united, maintaining +hyphenation where appropriate; except for the Prefaces, the text has +been reformatted to 70 columns. + + + + +Structure: +Contents +Chapters 1 to 62 +Preface of 1848 +Preface of 1867 + + + + + + + +Dombey and Son + +by Charles Dickens + + + + + +CONTENTS + + 1. Dombey and Son + 2. In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that + will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families + 3. In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the + Head of the Home-Department + 4. In which some more First Appearances are made on the + Stage of these Adventures + 5. Paul's Progress and Christening + 6. Paul's Second Deprivation + 7. A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place; also + of the State of Miss Tox's Affections + 8. Paul's further Progress, Growth, and Character + 9. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble +10. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster +11. Paul's Introduction to a New Scene +12. Paul's Education +13. Shipping Intelligence and Office Business +14. Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home + for the holidays +15. Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit + for Walter Gay +16. What the Waves were always saying +17. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young people +18. Father and Daughter +19. Walter goes away +20. Mr Dombey goes upon a journey +21. New Faces +22. A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager +23. Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious +24. The Study of a Loving Heart +25. Strange News of Uncle Sol +26. Shadows of the Past and Future +27. Deeper shadows +28. Alterations +29. The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick +30. The Interval before the Marriage +31. The Wedding +32. The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces +33. Contrasts +34. Another Mother and Daughter +35. The Happy Pair +36. Housewarming +37. More Warnings than One +38. Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance +39. Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner +40. Domestic Relations +41. New Voices in the Waves +42. Confidential and Accidental +43. The Watches of the Night +44. A Separation +45. The Trusty Agent +46. Recognizant and Reflective +47. The Thunderbolt +48. The Flight of Florence +49. The Midshipman makes a Discovery +50. Mr Toots's Complaint +51. Mr Dombey and the World +52. Secret Intelligence +53. More Intelligence +54. The Fugitives +55. Rob the Grinder loses his Place +56. Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted +57. Another Wedding +58. After a Lapse +59. Retribution +60. Chiefly Matrimonial +61. Relenting +62. Final + + + + +CHAPTER 1. + +Dombey and Son + + + +Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great +arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little +basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in +front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were +analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown +while he was very new. + +Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about +eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and +though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, +to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of +course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his +general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother +Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good +time - remorseless twins they are for striding through their human +forests, notching as they go - while the countenance of Son was +crossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time +would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat +part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper +operations. + +Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for event, jingled and jingled +the heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue +coat, whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays +of the distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and +clenched, seemed, in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for +having come upon him so unexpectedly. + +'The House will once again, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, 'be not +only in name but in fact Dombey and Son;' and he added, in a tone of +luxurious satisfaction, with his eyes half-closed as if he were +reading the name in a device of flowers, and inhaling their fragrance +at the same time; 'Dom-bey and Son!' + +The words had such a softening influence, that he appended a term +of endearment to Mrs Dombey's name (though not without some +hesitation, as being a man but little used to that form of address): +and said, 'Mrs Dombey, my - my dear.' + +A transient flush of faint surprise overspread the sick lady's face +as she raised her eyes towards him. + +'He will be christened Paul, my - Mrs Dombey - of course.' + +She feebly echoed, 'Of course,' or rather expressed it by the +motion of her lips, and closed her eyes again. + +'His father's name, Mrs Dombey, and his grandfather's! I wish his +grandfather were alive this day! There is some inconvenience in the +necessity of writing Junior,' said Mr Dombey, making a fictitious +autograph on his knee; 'but it is merely of a private and personal +complexion. It doesn't enter into the correspondence of the House. Its +signature remains the same.' And again he said 'Dombey and Son, in +exactly the same tone as before. + +Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr Dombey's life. The +earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon +were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float +their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew +for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their +orbits, to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre. +Common abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole +reference to them. A. D. had no concern with Anno Domini, but stood +for anno Dombey - and Son. + +He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life +and death, from Son to Dombey, and for nearly twenty years had been +the sole representative of the Firm. Of those years he had been +married, ten - married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give +him; whose happiness was in the past, and who was content to bind her +broken spirit to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present. Such +idle talk was little likely to reach the ears of Mr Dombey, whom it +nearly concerned; and probably no one in the world would have received +it with such utter incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey +and Son had often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that +fancy ware to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr +Dombey would have reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself +must, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any +woman of common sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner +in such a House, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring +ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex. That Mrs +Dombey had entered on that social contract of matrimony: almost +necessarily part of a genteel and wealthy station, even without +reference to the perpetuation of family Firms: with her eyes fully +open to these advantages. That Mrs Dombey had had daily practical +knowledge of his position in society. That Mrs Dombey had always sat +at the head of his table, and done the honours of his house in a +remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs Dombey must have +been happy. That she couldn't help it. + +Or, at all events, with one drawback. Yes. That he would have +allowed. With only one; but that one certainly involving much. With +the drawback of hope deferred. That hope deferred, which, (as the +Scripture very correctly tells us, Mr Dombey would have added in a +patronising way; for his highest distinct idea even of Scripture, if +examined, would have been found to be; that as forming part of a +general whole, of which Dombey and Son formed another part, it was +therefore to be commended and upheld) maketh the heart sick. They had +been married ten years, and until this present day on which Mr Dombey +sat jingling and jingling his heavy gold watch-chain in the great +arm-chair by the side of the bed, had had no issue. + +- To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some +six years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chamber +unobserved, was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could +see her mother's face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the +capital of the House's name and dignity, such a child was merely a +piece of base coin that couldn't be invested - a bad Boy - nothing +more. + +Mr Dombey's cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, +however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, +even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter. + +So he said, 'Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother, +if you lIke, I daresay. Don't touch him!' + +The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat, +which, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch, +embodied her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother's +face immediately, and she neither moved nor answered. + +'Her insensibility is as proof against a brother as against every +thing else,' said Mr Dombey to himself He seemed so confirmed in a +previous opinion by the discovery, as to be quite glad of it' + +Next moment, the lady had opened her eyes and seen the child; and +the child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to +hide her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate +affection very much at variance with her years. + +'Oh Lord bless me!' said Mr Dombey, rising testily. 'A very +illadvised and feverish proceeding this, I am sure. Please to ring +there for Miss Florence's nurse. Really the person should be more +care-' + +'Wait! I - had better ask Doctor Peps if he'll have the goodness to +step upstairs again perhaps. I'll go down. I'll go down. I needn't beg +you,' he added, pausing for a moment at the settee before the fire, +'to take particular care of this young gentleman, Mrs - ' + +'Blockitt, Sir?' suggested the nurse, a simpering piece of faded +gentility, who did not presume to state her name as a fact, but merely +offered it as a mild suggestion. + +'Of this young gentleman, Mrs Blockitt.' + +'No, Sir, indeed. I remember when Miss Florence was born - ' + +'Ay, ay, ay,' said Mr Dombey, bending over the basket bedstead, and +slightly bending his brows at the same time. 'Miss Florence was all +very well, but this is another matter. This young gentleman has to +accomplish a destiny. A destiny, little fellow!' As he thus +apostrophised the infant he raised one of his hands to his lips, and +kissed it; then, seeming to fear that the action involved some +compromise of his dignity, went, awkwardly enough, away. + +Doctor Parker Peps, one of the Court Physicians, and a man of +immense reputation for assisting at the increase of great families, +was walking up and down the drawing-room with his hands behind him, to +the unspeakable admiration of the family Surgeon, who had regularly +puffed the case for the last six weeks, among all his patients, +friends, and acquaintances, as one to which he was in hourly +expectation day and night of being summoned, in conjunction with +Doctor Parker Pep. + +'Well, Sir,' said Doctor Parker Peps in a round, deep, sonorous +voice, muffled for the occasion, like the knocker; 'do you find that +your dear lady is at all roused by your visit?' + +'Stimulated as it were?' said the family practitioner faintly: +bowing at the same time to the Doctor, as much as to say, 'Excuse my +putting in a word, but this is a valuable connexion.' + +Mr Dombey was quite discomfited by the question. He had thought so +little of the patient, that he was not in a condition to answer it. He +said that it would be a satisfaction to him, if Doctor Parker Peps +would walk upstairs again. + +'Good! We must not disguise from you, Sir,' said Doctor Parker +Peps, 'that there is a want of power in Her Grace the Duchess - I beg +your pardon; I confound names; I should say, in your amiable lady. +That there is a certain degree of languor, and a general absence of +elasticity, which we would rather - not - + +'See,' interposed the family practitioner with another inclination +of the head. + +'Quite so,' said Doctor Parker Peps,' which we would rather not +see. It would appear that the system of Lady Cankaby - excuse me: I +should say of Mrs Dombey: I confuse the names of cases - ' + +'So very numerous,' murmured the family practitioner - 'can't be +expected I'm sure - quite wonderful if otherwise - Doctor Parker +Peps's West-End practice - ' + +'Thank you,' said the Doctor, 'quite so. It would appear, I was +observing, that the system of our patient has sustained a shock, from +which it can only hope to rally by a great and strong - ' + +'And vigorous,' murmured the family practitioner. + +'Quite so,' assented the Doctor - 'and vigorous effort. Mr Pilkins +here, who from his position of medical adviser in this family - no one +better qualified to fill that position, I am sure.' + +'Oh!' murmured the family practitioner. '"Praise from Sir Hubert +Stanley!"' + +'You are good enough,' returned Doctor Parker Peps, 'to say so. Mr +Pilkins who, from his position, is best acquainted with the patient's +constitution in its normal state (an acquaintance very valuable to us +in forming our opinions in these occasions), is of opinion, with me, +that Nature must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in this +instance; and that if our interesting friend the Countess of Dombey - +I beg your pardon; Mrs Dombey - should not be - ' + +'Able,' said the family practitioner. + +'To make,' said Doctor Parker Peps. + +'That effort,' said the family practitioner. + +'Successfully,' said they both together. + +'Then,' added Doctor Parker Peps, alone and very gravely, a crisis +might arise, which we should both sincerely deplore.' + +With that, they stood for a few seconds looking at the ground. +Then, on the motion - made in dumb show - of Doctor Parker Peps, they +went upstairs; the family practitioner opening the room door for that +distinguished professional, and following him out, with most +obsequious politeness. + +To record of Mr Dombey that he was not in his way affected by this +intelligence, would be to do him an injustice. He was not a man of +whom it could properly be said that he was ever startled, or shocked; +but he certainly had a sense within him, that if his wife should +sicken and decay, he would be very sorry, and that he would find a +something gone from among his plate and furniture, and other household +possessions, which was well worth the having, and could not be lost +without sincere regret. Though it would be a cool,. business-like, +gentlemanly, self-possessed regret, no doubt. + +His meditations on the subject were soon interrupted, first by the +rustling of garments on the staircase, and then by the sudden whisking +into the room of a lady rather past the middle age than otherwise but +dressed in a very juvenile manner, particularly as to the tightness of +her bodice, who, running up to him with a kind of screw in her face +and carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion, flung her arms around +his neck, and said, in a choking voice, + +'My dear Paul! He's quite a Dombey!' + +'Well, well!' returned her brother - for Mr Dombey was her brother +- 'I think he is like the family. Don't agitate yourself, Louisa.' + +'It's very foolish of me,' said Louisa, sitting down, and taking +out her pocket~handkerchief, 'but he's - he's such a perfect Dombey!' + +Mr Dombey coughed. + +'It's so extraordinary,' said Louisa; smiling through her tears, +which indeed were not overpowering, 'as to be perfectly ridiculous. So +completely our family. I never saw anything like it in my life!' + +'But what is this about Fanny, herself?' said Mr Dombey. 'How is +Fanny?' + +'My dear Paul,' returned Louisa, 'it's nothing whatever. Take my +word, it's nothing whatever. There is exhaustion, certainly, but +nothing like what I underwent myself, either with George or Frederick. +An effort is necessary. That's all. If dear Fanny were a Dombey! - But +I daresay she'll make it; I have no doubt she'll make it. Knowing it +to be required of her, as a duty, of course she'll make it. My dear +Paul, it's very weak and silly of me, I know, to be so trembly and +shaky from head to foot; but I am so very queer that I must ask you +for a glass of wine and a morsel of that cake.' + +Mr Dombey promptly supplied her with these refreshments from a tray +on the table. + +'I shall not drink my love to you, Paul,' said Louisa: 'I shall +drink to the little Dombey. Good gracious me! - it's the most +astonishing thing I ever knew in all my days, he's such a perfect +Dombey.' + +Quenching this expression of opinion in a short hysterical laugh +which terminated in tears, Louisa cast up her eyes, and emptied her +glass. + +'I know it's very weak and silly of me,' she repeated, 'to be so +trembly and shaky from head to foot, and to allow my feelings so +completely to get the better of me, but I cannot help it. I thought I +should have fallen out of the staircase window as I came down from +seeing dear Fanny, and that tiddy ickle sing.' These last words +originated in a sudden vivid reminiscence of the baby. + +They were succeeded by a gentle tap at the door. + +'Mrs Chick,' said a very bland female voice outside, 'how are you +now, my dear friend?' + +'My dear Paul,' said Louisa in a low voice, as she rose from her +seat, 'it's Miss Tox. The kindest creature! I never could have got +here without her! Miss Tox, my brother Mr Dombey. Paul, my dear, my +very particular friend Miss Tox.' + +The lady thus specially presented, was a long lean figure, wearing +such a faded air that she seemed not to have been made in what +linen-drapers call 'fast colours' originally, and to have, by little +and little, washed out. But for this she might have been described as +the very pink of general propitiation and politeness. From a long +habit of listening admiringly to everything that was said in her +presence, and looking at the speakers as if she were mentally engaged +in taking off impressions of their images upon her soul, never to part +with the same but with life, her head had quite settled on one side. +Her hands had contracted a spasmodic habit of raising themselves of +their own accord as in involuntary admiration. Her eyes were liable to +a similar affection. She had the softest voice that ever was heard; +and her nose, stupendously aquiline, had a little knob in the very +centre or key-stone of the bridge, whence it tended downwards towards +her face, as in an invincible determination never to turn up at +anything. + +Miss Tox's dress, though perfectly genteel and good, had a certain +character of angularity and scantiness. She was accustomed to wear odd +weedy little flowers in her bonnets and caps. Strange grasses were +sometimes perceived in her hair; and it was observed by the curious, +of all her collars, frills, tuckers, wristbands, and other gossamer +articles - indeed of everything she wore which had two ends to it +intended to unite - that the two ends were never on good terms, and +wouldn't quite meet without a struggle. She had furry articles for +winter wear, as tippets, boas, and muffs, which stood up on end in +rampant manner, and were not at all sleek. She was much given to the +carrying about of small bags with snaps to them, that went off like +little pistols when they were shut up; and when full-dressed, she wore +round her neck the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy old eye, +with no approach to speculation in it. These and other appearances of +a similar nature, had served to propagate the opinion, that Miss Tox +was a lady of what is called a limited independence, which she turned +to the best account. Possibly her mincing gait encouraged the belief, +and suggested that her clipping a step of ordinary compass into two or +three, originated in her habit of making the most of everything. + +'I am sure,' said Miss Tox, with a prodigious curtsey, 'that to +have the honour of being presented to Mr Dombey is a distinction which +I have long sought, but very little expected at the present moment. My +dear Mrs Chick - may I say Louisa!' + +Mrs Chick took Miss Tox's hand in hers, rested the foot of her +wine-glass upon it, repressed a tear, and said in a low voice, 'God +bless you!' + +'My dear Louisa then,' said Miss Tox, 'my sweet friend, how are you +now?' + +'Better,' Mrs Chick returned. 'Take some wine. You have been almost +as anxious as I have been, and must want it, I am sure.' + +Mr Dombey of course officiated, and also refilled his sister's +glass, which she (looking another way, and unconscious of his +intention) held straight and steady the while, and then regarded with +great astonishment, saying, 'My dear Paul, what have you been doing!' + +'Miss Tox, Paul,' pursued Mrs Chick, still retaining her hand, +'knowing how much I have been interested in the anticipation of the +event of to-day, and how trembly and shaky I have been from head to +foot in expectation of it, has been working at a little gift for +Fanny, which I promised to present. Miss Tox is ingenuity itself.' + +'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox. 'Don't say so. + +'It is only a pincushion for the toilette table, Paul,' resumed his +sister; 'one of those trifles which are insignificant to your sex in +general, as it's very natural they should be - we have no business to +expect they should be otherwise - but to which we attach some +interest. + +'Miss Tox is very good,' said Mr Dombey. + +'And I do say, and will say, and must say,' pursued his sister, +pressing the foot of the wine-glass on Miss Tox's hand, at each of the +three clauses, 'that Miss Tox has very prettily adapted the sentiment +to the occasion. I call "Welcome little Dombey" Poetry, myself!' + +'Is that the device?' inquired her brother. + +'That is the device,' returned Louisa. + +'But do me the justice to remember, my dear Louisa,' said Miss +Toxin a tone of low and earnest entreaty, 'that nothing but the - I +have some difficulty in expressing myself - the dubiousness of the +result would have induced me to take so great a liberty: "Welcome, +Master Dombey," would have been much more congenial to my feelings, as +I am sure you know. But the uncertainty attendant on angelic +strangers, will, I hope, excuse what must otherwise appear an +unwarrantable familiarity.' Miss Tox made a graceful bend as she +spoke, in favour of Mr Dombey, which that gentleman graciously +acknowledged. Even the sort of recognition of Dombey and Son, conveyed +in the foregoing conversation, was so palatable to him, that his +sister, Mrs Chick - though he affected to consider her a weak +good-natured person - had perhaps more influence over him than anybody +else. + +'My dear Paul,' that lady broke out afresh, after silently +contemplating his features for a few moments, 'I don't know whether to +laugh or cry when I look at you, I declare, you do so remind me of +that dear baby upstairs.' + +'Well!' said Mrs Chick, with a sweet smile, 'after this, I forgive +Fanny everything!' + +It was a declaration in a Christian spirit, and Mrs Chick felt that +it did her good. Not that she had anything particular to forgive in +her sister-in-law, nor indeed anything at all, except her having +married her brother - in itself a species of audacity - and her +having, in the course of events, given birth to a girl instead of a +boy: which, as Mrs Chick had frequently observed, was not quite what +she had expected of her, and was not a pleasant return for all the +attention and distinction she had met with. + +Mr Dombey being hastily summoned out of the room at this moment, +the two ladies were left alone together. Miss Tox immediately became +spasmodic. + +'I knew you would admire my brother. I told you so beforehand, my +dear,' said Louisa. Miss Tox's hands and eyes expressed how much. 'And +as to his property, my dear!' + +'Ah!' said Miss Tox, with deep feeling. 'Im-mense!' + +'But his deportment, my dear Louisa!' said Miss Tox. 'His presence! +His dignity! No portrait that I have ever seen of anyone has been half +so replete with those qualities. Something so stately, you know: so +uncompromising: so very wide across the chest: so upright! A pecuniary +Duke of York, my love, and nothing short of it!' said Miss Tox. +'That's what I should designate him.' + +'Why, my dear Paul!' exclaimed his sister, as he returned, 'you +look quite pale! There's nothing the matter?' + +'I am sorry to say, Louisa, that they tell me that Fanny - ' + +'Now, my dear Paul,' returned his sister rising, 'don't believe it. +Do not allow yourself to receive a turn unnecessarily. Remember of +what importance you are to society, and do not allow yourself to be +worried by what is so very inconsiderately told you by people who +ought to know better. Really I'm surprised at them.' + +'I hope I know, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, stiffly, 'how to bear +myself before the world.' + +'Nobody better, my dear Paul. Nobody half so well. They would be +ignorant and base indeed who doubted it.' + +'Ignorant and base indeed!' echoed Miss Tox softly. + +'But,' pursued Louisa, 'if you have any reliance on my experience, +Paul, you may rest assured that there is nothing wanting but an effort +on Fanny's part. And that effort,' she continued, taking off her +bonnet, and adjusting her cap and gloves, in a business-like manner, +'she must be encouraged, and really, if necessary, urged to make. Now, +my dear Paul, come upstairs with me.' + +Mr Dombey, who, besides being generally influenced by his sister +for the reason already mentioned, had really faith in her as an +experienced and bustling matron, acquiesced; and followed her, at +once, to the sick chamber. + +The lady lay upon her bed as he had left her, clasping her little +daughter to her breast. The child clung close about her, with the same +intensity as before, and never raised her head, or moved her soft +cheek from her mother's face, or looked on those who stood around, or +spoke, or moved, or shed a tear. + +'Restless without the little girl,' the Doctor whispered Mr Dombey. +'We found it best to have her in again.' + +'Can nothing be done?' asked Mr Dombey. + +The Doctor shook his head. 'We can do no more.' + +The windows stood open, and the twilight was gathering without. + +The scent of the restoratives that had been tried was pungent in +the room, but had no fragrance in the dull and languid air the lady +breathed. + +There was such a solemn stillness round the bed; and the two +medical attendants seemed to look on the impassive form with so much +compassion and so little hope, that Mrs Chick was for the moment +diverted from her purpose. But presently summoning courage, and what +she called presence of mind, she sat down by the bedside, and said in +the low precise tone of one who endeavours to awaken a sleeper: + +'Fanny! Fanny!' + +There was no sound in answer but the loud ticking of Mr Dombey's +watch and Doctor Parker Peps's watch, which seemed in the silence to +be running a race. + +'Fanny, my dear,' said Mrs Chick, with assumed lightness, 'here's +Mr Dombey come to see you. Won't you speak to him? They want to lay +your little boy - the baby, Fanny, you know; you have hardly seen him +yet, I think - in bed; but they can't till you rouse yourself a +little. Don't you think it's time you roused yourself a little? Eh?' + +She bent her ear to the bed, and listened: at the same time looking +round at the bystanders, and holding up her finger. + +'Eh?' she repeated, 'what was it you said, Fanny? I didn't hear +you.' + +No word or sound in answer. Mr Dombey's watch and Dr Parker Peps's +watch seemed to be racing faster. + +'Now, really, Fanny my dear,' said the sister-in-law, altering her +position, and speaking less confidently, and more earnestly, in spite +of herself, 'I shall have to be quite cross with you, if you don't +rouse yourself. It's necessary for you to make an effort, and perhaps +a very great and painful effort which you are not disposed to make; +but this is a world of effort you know, Fanny, and we must never +yield, when so much depends upon us. Come! Try! I must really scold +you if you don't!' + +The race in the ensuing pause was fierce and furious. The watches +seemed to jostle, and to trip each other up. + +'Fanny!' said Louisa, glancing round, with a gathering alarm. 'Only +look at me. Only open your eyes to show me that you hear and +understand me; will you? Good Heaven, gentlemen, what is to be done!' + +The two medical attendants exchanged a look across the bed; and the +Physician, stooping down, whispered in the child's ear. Not having +understood the purport of his whisper, the little creature turned her +perfectly colourless face and deep dark eyes towards him; but without +loosening her hold in the least + +The whisper was repeated. + +'Mama!' said the child. + +The little voice, familiar and dearly loved, awakened some show of +consciousness, even at that ebb. For a moment, the closed eye lids +trembled, and the nostril quivered, and the faintest shadow of a smile +was seen. + +'Mama!' cried the child sobbing aloud. 'Oh dear Mama! oh dear +Mama!' + +The Doctor gently brushed the scattered ringlets of the child, +aside from the face and mouth of the mother. Alas how calm they lay +there; how little breath there was to stir them! + +Thus, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother +drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the +world. + + + +CHAPTER 2. + +In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that +will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families + + + +'I shall never cease to congratulate myself,' said Mrs Chick,' on +having said, when I little thought what was in store for us, - really +as if I was inspired by something, - that I forgave poor dear Fanny +everything. Whatever happens, that must always be a comfort to me!' + +Mrs Chick made this impressive observation in the drawing-room, +after having descended thither from the inspection of the +mantua-makers upstairs, who were busy on the family mourning. She +delivered it for the behoof of Mr Chick, who was a stout bald +gentleman, with a very large face, and his hands continually in his +pockets, and who had a tendency in his nature to whistle and hum +tunes, which, sensible of the indecorum of such sounds in a house of +grief, he was at some pains to repress at present. + +'Don't you over-exert yourself, Loo,' said Mr Chick, 'or you'll be +laid up with spasms, I see. Right tol loor rul! Bless my soul, I +forgot! We're here one day and gone the next!' + +Mrs Chick contented herself with a glance of reproof, and then +proceeded with the thread of her discourse. + +'I am sure,' she said, 'I hope this heart-rending occurrence will +be a warning to all of us, to accustom ourselves to rouse ourselves, +and to make efforts in time where they're required of us. There's a +moral in everything, if we would only avail ourselves of it. It will +be our own faults if we lose sight of this one.' + +Mr Chick invaded the grave silence which ensued on this remark with +the singularly inappropriate air of 'A cobbler there was;' and +checking himself, in some confusion, observed, that it was undoubtedly +our own faults if we didn't improve such melancholy occasions as the +present. + +'Which might be better improved, I should think, Mr C.,' retorted +his helpmate, after a short pause, 'than by the introduction, either +of the college hornpipe, or the equally unmeaning and unfeeling remark +of rump-te-iddity, bow-wow-wow!' - which Mr Chick had indeed indulged +in, under his breath, and which Mrs Chick repeated in a tone of +withering scorn. + +'Merely habit, my dear,' pleaded Mr Chick. + +'Nonsense! Habit!' returned his wife. 'If you're a rational being, +don't make such ridiculous excuses. Habit! If I was to get a habit (as +you call it) of walking on the ceiling, like the flies, I should hear +enough of it, I daresay. + +It appeared so probable that such a habit might be attended with +some degree of notoriety, that Mr Chick didn't venture to dispute the +position. + +'Bow-wow-wow!' repeated Mrs Chick with an emphasis of blighting +contempt on the last syllable. 'More like a professional singer with +the hydrophobia, than a man in your station of life!' + +'How's the Baby, Loo?' asked Mr Chick: to change the subject. + +'What Baby do you mean?' answered Mrs Chick. + +'The poor bereaved little baby,' said Mr Chick. 'I don't know of +any other, my dear.' + +'You don't know of any other,'retorted Mrs Chick. 'More shame for +you, I was going to say. + +Mr Chick looked astonished. + +'I am sure the morning I have had, with that dining-room +downstairs, one mass of babies, no one in their senses would believe.' + +'One mass of babies!' repeated Mr Chick, staring with an alarmed +expression about him. + +'It would have occurred to most men,' said Mrs Chick, 'that poor +dear Fanny being no more, - those words of mine will always be a balm +and comfort to me,' here she dried her eyes; 'it becomes necessary to +provide a Nurse.' + +'Oh! Ah!' said Mr Chick. 'Toor-ru! - such is life, I mean. I hope +you are suited, my dear.' + +'Indeed I am not,' said Mrs Chick; 'nor likely to be, so far as I +can see, and in the meantime the poor child seems likely to be starved +to death. Paul is so very particular - naturally so, of course, having +set his whole heart on this one boy - and there are so many objections +to everybody that offers, that I don't see, myself, the least chance +of an arrangement. Meanwhile, of course, the child is - ' + +'Going to the Devil,' said Mr Chick, thoughtfully, 'to be sure.' + +Admonished, however, that he had committed himself, by the +indignation expressed in Mrs Chick's countenance at the idea of a +Dombey going there; and thinking to atone for his misconduct by a +bright suggestion, he added: + +'Couldn't something temporary be done with a teapot?' + +If he had meant to bring the subject prematurely to a close, he +could not have done it more effectually. After looking at him for some +moments in silent resignation, Mrs Chick said she trusted he hadn't +said it in aggravation, because that would do very little honour to +his heart. She trusted he hadn't said it seriously, because that would +do very little honour to his head. As in any case, he couldn't, +however sanguine his disposition, hope to offer a remark that would be +a greater outrage on human nature in general, we would beg to leave +the discussion at that point. + +Mrs Chick then walked majestically to the window and peeped through +the blind, attracted by the sound of wheels. Mr Chick, finding that +his destiny was, for the time, against him, said no more, and walked +off. But it was not always thus with Mr Chick. He was often in the +ascendant himself, and at those times punished Louisa roundly. In +their matrimonial bickerings they were, upon the whole, a +well-matched, fairly-balanced, give-and-take couple. It would have +been, generally speaking, very difficult to have betted on the winner. +Often when Mr Chick seemed beaten, he would suddenly make a start, +turn the tables, clatter them about the ears of Mrs Chick, and carry +all before him. Being liable himself to similar unlooked for checks +from Mrs Chick, their little contests usually possessed a character of +uncertainty that was very animating. + +Miss Tox had arrived on the wheels just now alluded to, and came +running into the room in a breathless condition. 'My dear Louisa,'said +Miss Tox, 'is the vacancy still unsupplied?' + +'You good soul, yes,' said Mrs Chick. + +'Then, my dear Louisa,' returned Miss Tox, 'I hope and believe - +but in one moment, my dear, I'll introduce the party.' + +Running downstairs again as fast as she had run up, Miss Tox got +the party out of the hackney-coach, and soon returned with it under +convoy. + +It then appeared that she had used the word, not in its legal or +business acceptation, when it merely expresses an individual, but as a +noun of multitude, or signifying many: for Miss Tox escorted a plump +rosy-cheeked wholesome apple-faced young woman, with an infant in her +arms; a younger woman not so plump, but apple-faced also, who led a +plump and apple-faced child in each hand; another plump and also +apple-faced boy who walked by himself; and finally, a plump and +apple-faced man, who carried in his arms another plump and apple-faced +boy, whom he stood down on the floor, and admonished, in a husky +whisper, to 'kitch hold of his brother Johnny.' + +'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'knowing your great anxiety, and +wishing to relieve it, I posted off myself to the Queen Charlotte's +Royal Married Females,' which you had forgot, and put the question, +Was there anybody there that they thought would suit? No, they said +there was not. When they gave me that answer, I do assure you, my +dear, I was almost driven to despair on your account. But it did so +happen, that one of the Royal Married Females, hearing the inquiry, +reminded the matron of another who had gone to her own home, and who, +she said, would in all likelihood be most satisfactory. The moment I +heard this, and had it corroborated by the matron - excellent +references and unimpeachable character - I got the address, my dear, +and posted off again.' + +'Like the dear good Tox, you are!' said Louisa. + +'Not at all,' returned Miss Tox. 'Don't say so. Arriving at the +house (the cleanest place, my dear! You might eat your dinner off the +floor), I found the whole family sitting at table; and feeling that no +account of them could be half so comfortable to you and Mr Dombey as +the sight of them all together, I brought them all away. This +gentleman,' said Miss Tox, pointing out the apple-faced man, 'is the +father. Will you have the goodness to come a little forward, Sir?' + +The apple-faced man having sheepishly complied with this request, +stood chuckling and grinning in a front row. + +'This is his wife, of course,' said Miss Tox, singling out the +young woman with the baby. 'How do you do, Polly?' + +'I'm pretty well, I thank you, Ma'am,' said Polly. + +By way of bringing her out dexterously, Miss Tox had made the +inquiry as in condescension to an old acquaintance whom she hadn't +seen for a fortnight or so. + +'I'm glad to hear it,' said Miss Tox. 'The other young woman is her +unmarried sister who lives with them, and would take care of her +children. Her name's Jemima. How do you do, Jemima?' + +'I'm pretty well, I thank you, Ma'am,' returned Jemima. + +'I'm very glad indeed to hear it,' said Miss Tox. 'I hope you'll +keep so. Five children. Youngest six weeks. The fine little boy with +the blister on his nose is the eldest The blister, I believe,' said +Miss Tox, looking round upon the family, 'is not constitutional, but +accidental?' + +The apple-faced man was understood to growl, 'Flat iron. + +'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Miss Tox, 'did you? + +'Flat iron,' he repeated. + +'Oh yes,' said Miss Tox. 'Yes! quite true. I forgot. The little +creature, in his mother's absence, smelt a warm flat iron. You're +quite right, Sir. You were going to have the goodness to inform me, +when we arrived at the door that you were by trade a - ' + +'Stoker,' said the man. + +'A choker!' said Miss Tox, quite aghast. + +'Stoker,' said the man. 'Steam ingine.' + +'Oh-h! Yes!' returned Miss Tox, looking thoughtfully at him, and +seeming still to have but a very imperfect understanding of his +meaning. + +'And how do you like it, Sir?' + +'Which, Mum?' said the man. + +'That,' replied Miss Tox. 'Your trade.' + +'Oh! Pretty well, Mum. The ashes sometimes gets in here;' touching +his chest: 'and makes a man speak gruff, as at the present time. But +it is ashes, Mum, not crustiness.' + +Miss Tox seemed to be so little enlightened by this reply, as to +find a difficulty in pursuing the subject. But Mrs Chick relieved her, +by entering into a close private examination of Polly, her children, +her marriage certificate, testimonials, and so forth. Polly coming out +unscathed from this ordeal, Mrs Chick withdrew with her report to her +brother's room, and as an emphatic comment on it, and corroboration of +it, carried the two rosiest little Toodles with her. Toodle being the +family name of the apple-faced family. + +Mr Dombey had remained in his own apartment since the death of his +wife, absorbed in visions of the youth, education, and destination of +his baby son. Something lay at the bottom of his cool heart, colder +and heavier than its ordinary load; but it was more a sense of the +child's loss than his own, awakening within him an almost angry +sorrow. That the life and progress on which he built such hopes, +should be endangered in the outset by so mean a want; that Dombey and +Son should be tottering for a nurse, was a sore humiliation. And yet +in his pride and jealousy, he viewed with so much bitterness the +thought of being dependent for the very first step towards the +accomplishment of his soul's desire, on a hired serving-woman who +would be to the child, for the time, all that even his alliance could +have made his own wife, that in every new rejection of a candidate he +felt a secret pleasure. The time had now come, however, when he could +no longer be divided between these two sets of feelings. The less so, +as there seemed to be no flaw in the title of Polly Toodle after his +sister had set it forth, with many commendations on the indefatigable +friendship of Miss Tox. + +'These children look healthy,' said Mr Dombey. 'But my God, to +think of their some day claiming a sort of relationship to Paul!' + +' But what relationship is there!' Louisa began - + +'Is there!' echoed Mr Dombey, who had not intended his sister to +participate in the thought he had unconsciously expressed. 'Is there, +did you say, Louisa!' + +'Can there be, I mean - ' + +'Why none,' said Mr Dombey, sternly. 'The whole world knows that, I +presume. Grief has not made me idiotic, Louisa. Take them away, +Louisa! Let me see this woman and her husband.' + +Mrs Chick bore off the tender pair of Toodles, and presently +returned with that tougher couple whose presence her brother had +commanded. + +'My good woman,' said Mr Dombey, turning round in his easy chair, +as one piece, and not as a man with limbs and joints, 'I understand +you are poor, and wish to earn money by nursing the little boy, my +son, who has been so prematurely deprived of what can never be +replaced. I have no objection to your adding to the comforts of your +family by that means. So far as I can tell, you seem to be a deserving +object. But I must impose one or two conditions on you, before you +enter my house in that capacity. While you are here, I must stipulate +that you are always known as - say as Richards - an ordinary name, and +convenient. Have you any objection to be known as Richards? You had +better consult your husband.' + +'Well?' said Mr Dombey, after a pretty long pause. 'What does your +husband say to your being called Richards?' + +As the husband did nothing but chuckle and grin, and continually +draw his right hand across his mouth, moistening the palm, Mrs Toodle, +after nudging him twice or thrice in vain, dropped a curtsey and +replied 'that perhaps if she was to be called out of her name, it +would be considered in the wages.' + +'Oh, of course,' said Mr Dombey. 'I desire to make it a question of +wages, altogether. Now, Richards, if you nurse my bereaved child, I +wish you to remember this always. You will receive a liberal stipend +in return for the discharge of certain duties, in the performance of +which, I wish you to see as little of your family as possible. When +those duties cease to be required and rendered, and the stipend ceases +to be paid, there is an end of all relations between us. Do you +understand me?' + +Mrs Toodle seemed doubtful about it; and as to Toodle himself, he +had evidently no doubt whatever, that he was all abroad. + +'You have children of your own,' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not at all +in this bargain that you need become attached to my child, or that my +child need become attached to you. I don't expect or desire anything +of the kind. Quite the reverse. When you go away from here, you will +have concluded what is a mere matter of bargain and sale, hiring and +letting: and will stay away. The child will cease to remember you; and +you will cease, if you please, to remember the child.' + +Mrs Toodle, with a little more colour in her cheeks than she had +had before, said 'she hoped she knew her place.' + +'I hope you do, Richards,' said Mr Dombey. 'I have no doubt you +know it very well. Indeed it is so plain and obvious that it could +hardly be otherwise. Louisa, my dear, arrange with Richards about +money, and let her have it when and how she pleases. Mr what's-your +name, a word with you, if you please!' + +Thus arrested on the threshold as he was following his wife out of +the room, Toodle returned and confronted Mr Dombey alone. He was a +strong, loose, round-shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his +clothes sat negligently: with a good deal of hair and whisker, +deepened in its natural tint, perhaps by smoke and coal-dust: hard +knotty hands: and a square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of +an oak. A thorough contrast in all respects, to Mr Dombey, who was one +of those close-shaved close-cut moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and +crisp like new bank-notes, and who seem to be artificially braced and +tightened as by the stimulating action of golden showerbaths. + +'You have a son, I believe?' said Mr Dombey. + +'Four on 'em, Sir. Four hims and a her. All alive!' + +'Why, it's as much as you can afford to keep them!' said Mr Dombey. + +'I couldn't hardly afford but one thing in the world less, Sir.' + +'What is that?' + +'To lose 'em, Sir.' + +'Can you read?' asked Mr Dombey. + +'Why, not partick'ler, Sir.' + +'Write?' + +'With chalk, Sir?' + +'With anything?' + +'I could make shift to chalk a little bit, I think, if I was put to +it,' said Toodle after some reflection. + +'And yet,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are two or three and thirty, I +suppose?' + +'Thereabouts, I suppose, Sir,' answered Toodle, after more +reflection + +'Then why don't you learn?' asked Mr Dombey. + +'So I'm a going to, Sir. One of my little boys is a going to learn +me, when he's old enough, and been to school himself.' + +'Well,' said Mr Dombey, after looking at him attentively, and with +no great favour, as he stood gazing round the room (principally round +the ceiling) and still drawing his hand across and across his mouth. +'You heard what I said to your wife just now?' + +'Polly heerd it,' said Toodle, jerking his hat over his shoulder in +the direction of the door, with an air of perfect confidence in his +better half. 'It's all right.' + +'But I ask you if you heard it. You did, I suppose, and understood +it?' pursued Mr Dombey. + +'I heerd it,' said Toodle, 'but I don't know as I understood it +rightly Sir, 'account of being no scholar, and the words being - ask +your pardon - rayther high. But Polly heerd it. It's all right.' + +'As you appear to leave everything to her,' said Mr Dombey, +frustrated in his intention of impressing his views still more +distinctly on the husband, as the stronger character, 'I suppose it is +of no use my saying anything to you.' + +'Not a bit,' said Toodle. 'Polly heerd it. She's awake, Sir.' + +'I won't detain you any longer then,' returned Mr Dombey, +disappointed. 'Where have you worked all your life?' + +'Mostly underground, Sir, 'till I got married. I come to the level +then. I'm a going on one of these here railroads when they comes into +full play.' + +As he added in one of his hoarse whispers, 'We means to bring up +little Biler to that line,' Mr Dombey inquired haughtily who little +Biler was. + +'The eldest on 'em, Sir,' said Toodle, with a smile. 'It ain't a +common name. Sermuchser that when he was took to church the gen'lm'n +said, it wam't a chris'en one, and he couldn't give it. But we always +calls him Biler just the same. For we don't mean no harm. Not we. + +'Do you mean to say, Man,' inquired Mr Dombey; looking at him with +marked displeasure, 'that you have called a child after a boiler?' + +'No, no, Sir,' returned Toodle, with a tender consideration for his +mistake. 'I should hope not! No, Sir. Arter a BILER Sir. The +Steamingine was a'most as good as a godfather to him, and so we called +him Biler, don't you see!' + +As the last straw breaks the laden camel's back, this piece of +information crushed the sinking spirits of Mr Dombey. He motioned his +child's foster-father to the door, who departed by no means +unwillingly: and then turning the key, paced up and down the room in +solitary wretchedness. + +It would be harsh, and perhaps not altogether true, to say of him +that he felt these rubs and gratings against his pride more keenly +than he had felt his wife's death: but certainly they impressed that +event upon him with new force, and communicated to it added weight and +bitterness. It was a rude shock to his sense of property in his child, +that these people - the mere dust of the earth, as he thought them - +should be necessary to him; and it was natural that in proportion as +he felt disturbed by it, he should deplore the occurrence which had +made them so. For all his starched, impenetrable dignity and +composure, he wiped blinding tears from his eyes as he paced up and +down his room; and often said, with an emotion of which he would not, +for the world, have had a witness, 'Poor little fellow!' + +It may have been characteristic of Mr Dombey's pride, that he +pitied himself through the child. Not poor me. Not poor widower, +confiding by constraint in the wife of an ignorant Hind who has been +working 'mostly underground' all his life, and yet at whose door Death +had never knocked, and at whose poor table four sons daily sit - but +poor little fellow! + +Those words being on his lips, it occurred to him - and it is an +instance of the strong attraction with which his hopes and fears and +all his thoughts were tending to one centre - that a great temptation +was being placed in this woman's way. Her infant was a boy too. Now, +would it be possIble for her to change them? + +Though he was soon satisfied that he had dismissed the idea as +romantic and unlikely - though possible, there was no denying - he +could not help pursuing it so far as to entertain within himself a +picture of what his condition would be, if he should discover such an +imposture when he was grown old. Whether a man so situated would be +able to pluck away the result of so many years of usage, confidence, +and belief, from the impostor, and endow a stranger with it? + +But it was idle speculating thus. It couldn't happen. In a moment +afterwards he determined that it could, but that such women were +constantly observed, and had no opportunity given them for the +accomplishment of such a design, even when they were so wicked as to +entertain it. In another moment, he was remembering how few such cases +seemed to have ever happened. In another moment he was wondering +whether they ever happened and were not found out. + +As his unusual emotion subsided, these misgivings gradually melted +away, though so much of their shadow remained behind, that he was +constant in his resolution to look closely after Richards himself, +without appearing to do so. Being now in an easier frame of mind, he +regarded the woman's station as rather an advantageous circumstance +than otherwise, by placing, in itself, a broad distance between her +and the child, and rendering their separation easy and natural. Thence +he passed to the contemplation of the future glories of Dombey and +Son, and dismissed the memory of his wife, for the time being, with a +tributary sigh or two. + +Meanwhile terms were ratified and agreed upon between Mrs Chick and +Richards, with the assistance of Miss Tox; and Richards being with +much ceremony invested with the Dombey baby, as if it were an Order, +resigned her own, with many tears and kisses, to Jemima. Glasses of +wine were then produced, to sustain the drooping spirits of the +family; and Miss Tox, busying herself in dispensing 'tastes' to the +younger branches, bred them up to their father's business with such +surprising expedition, that she made chokers of four of them in a +quarter of a minute. + +'You'll take a glass yourself, Sir, won't you?' said Miss Tox, as +Toodle appeared. + +'Thankee, Mum,' said Toodle, 'since you are suppressing.' + +'And you're very glad to leave your dear good wife in such a +comfortable home, ain't you, Sir?'said Miss Tox, nodding and winking +at him stealthily. + +'No, Mum,' said Toodle. 'Here's wishing of her back agin.' + +Polly cried more than ever at this. So Mrs Chick, who had her +matronly apprehensions that this indulgence in grief might be +prejudicial to the little Dombey ('acid, indeed,' she whispered Miss +Tox), hastened to the rescue. + +'Your little child will thrive charmingly with your sister Jemima, +Richards,' said Mrs Chick; 'and you have only to make an effort - this +is a world of effort, you know, Richards - to be very happy indeed. +You have been already measured for your mourning, haven't you, +Richards?' + +'Ye - es, Ma'am,' sobbed Polly. + +'And it'll fit beautifully. I know,' said Mrs Chick, 'for the same +young person has made me many dresses. The very best materials, too!' + +'Lor, you'll be so smart,' said Miss Tox, 'that your husband won't +know you; will you, Sir?' + +'I should know her,' said Toodle, gruffly, 'anyhows and anywheres.' + +Toodle was evidently not to be bought over. + +'As to living, Richards, you know,' pursued Mrs Chick, 'why, the +very best of everything will be at your disposal. You will order your +little dinner every day; and anything you take a fancy to, I'm sure +will be as readily provided as if you were a Lady.' + +'Yes to be sure!' said Miss Tox, keeping up the ball with great +sympathy. 'And as to porter! - quite unlimited, will it not, Louisa?' + +'Oh, certainly!' returned Mrs Chick in the same tone. 'With a +little abstinence, you know, my dear, in point of vegetables.' + +'And pickles, perhaps,' suggested Miss Tox. + +'With such exceptions,' said Louisa, 'she'll consult her choice +entirely, and be under no restraint at all, my love.' + +'And then, of course, you know,' said Miss Tox, 'however fond she +is of her own dear little child - and I'm sure, Louisa, you don't +blame her for being fond of it?' + +'Oh no!' cried Mrs Chick, benignantly. + +'Still,' resumed Miss Tox, 'she naturally must be interested in her +young charge, and must consider it a privilege to see a little cherub +connected with the superior classes, gradually unfolding itself from +day to day at one common fountain- is it not so, Louisa?' + +'Most undoubtedly!' said Mrs Chick. 'You see, my love, she's +already quite contented and comfortable, and means to say goodbye to +her sister Jemima and her little pets, and her good honest husband, +with a light heart and a smile; don't she, my dear?' + +'Oh yes!' cried Miss Tox. 'To be sure she does!' + +Notwithstanding which, however, poor Polly embraced them all round +in great distress, and coming to her spouse at last, could not make up +her mind to part from him, until he gently disengaged himself, at the +close of the following allegorical piece of consolation: + +'Polly, old 'ooman, whatever you do, my darling, hold up your head +and fight low. That's the only rule as I know on, that'll carry anyone +through life. You always have held up your head and fought low, Polly. +Do it now, or Bricks is no longer so. God bless you, Polly! Me and +J'mima will do your duty by you; and with relating to your'n, hold up +your head and fight low, Polly, and you can't go wrong!' + +Fortified by this golden secret, Folly finally ran away to avoid +any more particular leave-taking between herself and the children. But +the stratagem hardly succeeded as well as it deserved; for the +smallest boy but one divining her intent, immediately began swarming +upstairs after her - if that word of doubtful etymology be admissible +- on his arms and legs; while the eldest (known in the family by the +name of Biler, in remembrance of the steam engine) beat a demoniacal +tattoo with his boots, expressive of grief; in which he was joined by +the rest of the family. + +A quantity of oranges and halfpence thrust indiscriminately on each +young Toodle, checked the first violence of their regret, and the +family were speedily transported to their own home, by means of the +hackney-coach kept in waiting for that purpose. The children, under +the guardianship of Jemima, blocked up the window, and dropped out +oranges and halfpence all the way along. Mr Toodle himself preferred +to ride behind among the spikes, as being the mode of conveyance to +which he was best accustomed. + + + +CHAPTER 3. + +In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the +Head of the Home-Department + + + +The funeral of the deceased lady having been 'performed to the +entire satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighbourhood +at large, which is generally disposed to be captious on such a point, +and is prone to take offence at any omissions or short-comings in the +ceremonies, the various members of Mr Dombey's household subsided into +their several places in the domestic system. That small world, like +the great one out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its +dead; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tempered lady, and +the house-keeper had said it was the common lot, and the butler had +said who'd have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn't +hardly believe it, and the footman had said it seemed exactly like a +dream, they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their +mourning was wearing rusty too. + +On Richards, who was established upstairs in a state of honourable +captivity, the dawn of her new life seemed to break cold and grey. Mr +Dombey's house was a large one, on the shady side of a tall, dark, +dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland Place and +Bryanstone Square.' It was a corner house, with great wide areas +containing cellars frowned upon by barred windows, and leered at by +crooked-eyed doors leading to dustbins. It was a house of dismal +state, with a circular back to it, containing a whole suite of +drawing-rooms looking upon a gravelled yard, where two gaunt trees, +with blackened trunks and branches, rattled rather than rustled, their +leaves were so smoked-dried. The summer sun was never on the street, +but in the morning about breakfast-time, when it came with the +water-carts and the old clothes men, and the people with geraniums, +and the umbrella-mender, and the man who trilled the little bell of +the Dutch clock as he went along. It was soon gone again to return no +more that day; and the bands of music and the straggling Punch's shows +going after it, left it a prey to the most dismal of organs, and white +mice; with now and then a porcupine, to vary the entertainments; until +the butlers whose families were dining out, began to stand at the +house-doors in the twilight, and the lamp-lighter made his nightly +failure in attempting to brighten up the street with gas. + +It was as blank a house inside as outside. When the funeral was +over, Mr Dombey ordered the furniture to be covered up - perhaps to +preserve it for the son with whom his plans were all associated - and +the rooms to be ungarnished, saving such as he retained for himself on +the ground floor. Accordingly, mysterious shapes were made of tables +and chairs, heaped together in the middle of rooms, and covered over +with great winding-sheets. Bell-handles, window-blinds, and +looking-glasses, being papered up in journals, daily and weekly, +obtruded fragmentary accounts of deaths and dreadful murders. Every +chandelier or lustre, muffled in holland, looked like a monstrous tear +depending from the ceiling's eye. Odours, as from vaults and damp +places, came out of the chimneys. The dead and buried lady was awful +in a picture-frame of ghastly bandages. Every gust of wind that rose, +brought eddying round the corner from the neighbouring mews, some +fragments of the straw that had been strewn before the house when she +was ill, mildewed remains of which were still cleaving to the +neighbourhood: and these, being always drawn by some invisible +attraction to the threshold of the dirty house to let immediately +opposite, addressed a dismal eloquence to Mr Dombey's windows. + +The apartments which Mr Dombey reserved for his own inhabiting, +were attainable from the hall, and consisted of a sitting-room; a +library, which was in fact a dressing-room, so that the smell of +hot-pressed paper, vellum, morocco, and Russia leather, contended in +it with the smell of divers pairs of boots; and a kind of conservatory +or little glass breakfast-room beyond, commanding a prospect of the +trees before mentioned, and, generally speaking, of a few prowling +cats. These three rooms opened upon one another. In the morning, when +Mr Dombey was at his breakfast in one or other of the two +first-mentioned of them, as well as in the afternoon when he came home +to dinner, a bell was rung for Richards to repair to this glass +chamber, and there walk to and fro with her young charge. From the +glimpses she caught of Mr Dombey at these times, sitting in the dark +distance, looking out towards the infant from among the dark heavy +furniture - the house had been inhabited for years by his father, and +in many of its appointments was old-fashioned and grim - she began to +entertain ideas of him in his solitary state, as if he were a lone +prisoner in a cell, or a strange apparition that was not to be +accosted or understood. Mr Dombey came to be, in the course of a few +days, invested in his own person, to her simple thinking, with all the +mystery and gloom of his house. As she walked up and down the glass +room, or sat hushing the baby there - which she very often did for +hours together, when the dusk was closing in, too - she would +sometimes try to pierce the gloom beyond, and make out how he was +looking and what he was doing. Sensible that she was plainly to be +seen by him' however, she never dared to pry in that direction but +very furtively and for a moment at a time. Consequently she made out +nothing, and Mr Dombey in his den remained a very shade. + +Little Paul Dombey's foster-mother had led this life herself, and +had carried little Paul through it for some weeks; and had returned +upstairs one day from a melancholy saunter through the dreary rooms of +state (she never went out without Mrs Chick, who called on fine +mornings, usually accompanied by Miss Tox, to take her and Baby for an +airing - or in other words, to march them gravely up and down the +pavement, like a walking funeral); when, as she was sitting in her own +room, the door was slowly and quietly opened, and a dark-eyed little +girl looked in. + +'It's Miss Florence come home from her aunt's, no doubt,' thought +Richards, who had never seen the child before. 'Hope I see you well, +Miss.' + +'Is that my brother?' asked the child, pointing to the Baby. + +'Yes, my pretty,' answered Richards. 'Come and kiss him.' + +But the child, instead of advancing, looked her earnestly in the +face, and said: + +'What have you done with my Mama?' + +'Lord bless the little creeter!' cried Richards, 'what a sad +question! I done? Nothing, Miss.' + +'What have they done with my Mama?' inquired the child, with +exactly the same look and manner. + +'I never saw such a melting thing in all my life!' said Richards, +who naturally substituted 'for this child one of her own, inquiring +for herself in like circumstances. 'Come nearer here, my dear Miss! +Don't be afraid of me.' + +'I am not afraid of you,' said the child, drawing nearer. 'But I +want to know what they have done with my Mama.' + +Her heart swelled so as she stood before the woman, looking into +her eyes, that she was fain to press her little hand upon her breast +and hold it there. Yet there was a purpose in the child that prevented +both her slender figure and her searching gaze from faltering. + +'My darling,' said Richards, 'you wear that pretty black frock in +remembrance of your Mama.' + +'I can remember my Mama,' returned the child, with tears springing +to her eyes, 'in any frock.' + +'But people put on black, to remember people when they're gone.' + +'Where gone?' asked the child. + +'Come and sit down by me,' said Richards, 'and I'll tell you a +story.' + +With a quick perception that it was intended to relate to what she +had asked, little Florence laid aside the bonnet she had held in her +hand until now, and sat down on a stool at the Nurse's feet, looking +up into her face. + +'Once upon a time,' said Richards, 'there was a lady - a very good +lady, and her little daughter dearly loved her.' + +'A very good lady and her little daughter dearly loved her,' +repeated the child. + +'Who, when God thought it right that it should be so, was taken ill +and died.' + +The child shuddered. + +'Died, never to be seen again by anyone on earth, and was buried in +the ground where the trees grow. + +'The cold ground?' said the child, shuddering again. 'No! The warm +ground,' returned Polly, seizing her advantage, 'where the ugly little +seeds turn into beautiful flowers, and into grass, and corn, and I +don't know what all besides. Where good people turn into bright +angels, and fly away to Heaven!' + +The child, who had dropped her head, raised it again, and sat +looking at her intently. + +'So; let me see,' said Polly, not a little flurried between this +earnest scrutiny, her desire to comfort the child, her sudden success, +and her very slight confidence in her own powers.' So, when this lady +died, wherever they took her, or wherever they put her, she went to +GOD! and she prayed to Him, this lady did,' said Polly, affecting +herself beyond measure; being heartily in earnest, 'to teach her +little daughter to be sure of that in her heart: and to know that she +was happy there and loved her still: and to hope and try - Oh, all her +life - to meet her there one day, never, never, never to part any +more.' + +'It was my Mama!' exclaimed the child, springing up, and clasping +her round the neck. + +'And the child's heart,' said Polly, drawing her to her breast: +'the little daughter's heart was so full of the truth of this, that +even when she heard it from a strange nurse that couldn't tell it +right, but was a poor mother herself and that was all, she found a +comfort in it - didn't feel so lonely - sobbed and cried upon her +bosom - took kindly to the baby lying in her lap - and - there, there, +there!' said Polly, smoothing the child's curls and dropping tears +upon them. 'There, poor dear!' + +'Oh well, Miss Floy! And won't your Pa be angry neither!' cried a +quick voice at the door, proceeding from a short, brown, womanly girl +of fourteen, with a little snub nose, and black eyes like jet beads. +'When it was 'tickerlerly given out that you wasn't to go and worrit +the wet nurse. + +'She don't worry me,' was the surprised rejoinder of Polly. 'I am +very fond of children.' + +'Oh! but begging your pardon, Mrs Richards, that don't matter, you +know,' returned the black-eyed girl, who was so desperately sharp and +biting that she seemed to make one's eyes water. 'I may be very fond +of pennywinkles, Mrs Richards, but it don't follow that I'm to have +'em for tea. 'Well, it don't matter,' said Polly. 'Oh, thank'ee, Mrs +Richards, don't it!' returned the sharp girl. 'Remembering, however, +if you'll be so good, that Miss Floy's under my charge, and Master +Paul's under your'n.' + +'But still we needn't quarrel,' said Polly. + +'Oh no, Mrs Richards,' rejoined Spitfire. 'Not at all, I don't wish +it, we needn't stand upon that footing, Miss Floy being a permanency, +Master Paul a temporary.' Spitfire made use of none but comma pauses; +shooting out whatever she had to say in one sentence, and in one +breath, if possible. + +'Miss Florence has just come home, hasn't she?' asked Polly. + +'Yes, Mrs Richards, just come, and here, Miss Floy, before you've +been in the house a quarter of an hour, you go a smearing your wet +face against the expensive mourning that Mrs Richards is a wearing for +your Ma!' With this remonstrance, young Spitfire, whose real name was +Susan Nipper, detached the child from her new friend by a wrench - as +if she were a tooth. But she seemed to do it, more in the excessively +sharp exercise of her official functions, than with any deliberate +unkindness. + +'She'll be quite happy, now she has come home again,' said Polly, +nodding to her with an encouraging smile upon her wholesome face, 'and +will be so pleased to see her dear Papa to-night.' + +'Lork, Mrs Richards!' cried Miss Nipper, taking up her words with a +jerk. 'Don't. See her dear Papa indeed! I should like to see her do +it!' + +'Won't she then?' asked Polly. + +'Lork, Mrs Richards, no, her Pa's a deal too wrapped up in somebody +else, and before there was a somebody else to be wrapped up in she +never was a favourite, girls are thrown away in this house, Mrs +Richards, I assure you. + +The child looked quickly from one nurse to the other, as if she +understood and felt what was said. + +'You surprise me!' cried Folly. 'Hasn't Mr Dombey seen her since - +' + +'No,' interrupted Susan Nipper. 'Not once since, and he hadn't +hardly set his eyes upon her before that for months and months, and I +don't think he'd have known her for his own child if he had met her in +the streets, or would know her for his own child if he was to meet her +in the streets to-morrow, Mrs Richards, as to me,' said Spitfire, with +a giggle, 'I doubt if he's aweer of my existence.' + +'Pretty dear!' said Richards; meaning, not Miss Nipper, but the +little Florence. + +'Oh! there's a Tartar within a hundred miles of where we're now in +conversation, I can tell you, Mrs Richards, present company always +excepted too,' said Susan Nipper; 'wish you good morning, Mrs +Richards, now Miss Floy, you come along with me, and don't go hanging +back like a naughty wicked child that judgments is no example to, +don't!' + +In spite of being thus adjured, and in spite also of some hauling +on the part of Susan Nipper, tending towards the dislocation of her +right shoulder, little Florence broke away, and kissed her new friend, +affectionately. + +'Oh dear! after it was given out so 'tickerlerly, that Mrs Richards +wasn't to be made free with!' exclaimed Susan. 'Very well, Miss Floy!' + +'God bless the sweet thing!' said Richards, 'Good-bye, dear!' + +'Good-bye!' returned the child. 'God bless you! I shall come to see +you again soon, and you'll come to see me? Susan will let us. Won't +you, Susan?' + +Spitfire seemed to be in the main a good-natured little body, +although a disciple of that school of trainers of the young idea which +holds that childhood, like money, must be shaken and rattled and +jostled about a good deal to keep it bright. For, being thus appealed +to with some endearing gestures and caresses, she folded her small +arms and shook her head, and conveyed a relenting expression into her +very-wide-open black eyes. + +'It ain't right of you to ask it, Miss Floy, for you know I can't +refuse you, but Mrs Richards and me will see what can be done, if Mrs +Richards likes, I may wish, you see, to take a voyage to Chaney, Mrs +Richards, but I mayn't know how to leave the London Docks.' + +Richards assented to the proposition. + +'This house ain't so exactly ringing with merry-making,' said Miss +Nipper, 'that one need be lonelier than one must be. Your Toxes and +your Chickses may draw out my two front double teeth, Mrs Richards, +but that's no reason why I need offer 'em the whole set.' + +This proposition was also assented to by Richards, as an obvious +one. + +'So I'm able, I'm sure,'said Susan Nipper, 'to live friendly, Mrs +Richards, while Master Paul continues a permanency, if the means can +be planned out without going openly against orders, but goodness +gracious Miss Floy, you haven't got your things off yet, you naughty +child, you haven't, come along!' + +With these words, Susan Nipper, in a transport of coercion, made a +charge at her young ward, and swept her out of the room. + +The child, in her grief and neglect, was so gentle, so quiet, and +uncomplaining; was possessed of so much affection that no one seemed +to care to have, and so much sorrowful intelligence that no one seemed +to mind or think about the wounding of, that Polly's heart was sore +when she was left alone again. In the simple passage that had taken +place between herself and the motherless little girl, her own motherly +heart had been touched no less than the child's; and she felt, as the +child did, that there was something of confidence and interest between +them from that moment. + +Notwithstanding Mr Toodle's great reliance on Polly, she was +perhaps in point of artificial accomplishments very little his +superior. She had been good-humouredly working and drudging for her +life all her life, and was a sober steady-going person, with +matter-of-fact ideas about the butcher and baker, and the division of +pence into farthings. But she was a good plain sample of a nature that +is ever, in the mass, better, truer, higher, nobler, quicker to feel, +and much more constant to retain, all tenderness and pity, self-denial +and devotion, than the nature of men. And, perhaps, unlearned as she +was, she could have brought a dawning knowledge home to Mr Dombey at +that early day, which would not then have struck him in the end like +lightning. + +But this is from the purpose. Polly only thought, at that time, of +improving on her successful propitiation of Miss Nipper, and devising +some means of having little Florence aide her, lawfully, and without +rebellion. An opening happened to present itself that very night. + +She had been rung down into the glass room as usual, and had walked +about and about it a long time, with the baby in her arms, when, to +her great surprise and dismay, Mr Dombey - whom she had seen at first +leaning on his elbow at the table, and afterwards walking up and down +the middle room, drawing, each time, a little nearer, she thought, to +the open folding doors - came out, suddenly, and stopped before her. + +'Good evening, Richards.' + +Just the same austere, stiff gentleman, as he had appeared to her +on that first day. Such a hard-looking gentleman, that she +involuntarily dropped her eyes and her curtsey at the same time. + +'How is Master Paul, Richards?' + +'Quite thriving, Sir, and well.' + +'He looks so,' said Mr Dombey, glancing with great interest at the +tiny face she uncovered for his observation, and yet affecting to be +half careless of it. 'They give you everything you want, I hope?' + +'Oh yes, thank you, Sir.' + +She suddenly appended such an obvious hesitation to this reply, +however, that Mr Dombey, who had turned away; stopped, and turned +round again, inquiringly. + +'If you please, Sir, the child is very much disposed to take notice +of things,' said Richards, with another curtsey, 'and - upstairs is a +little dull for him, perhaps, Sir.' + +'I begged them to take you out for airings, constantly,' said Mr +Dombey. 'Very well! You shall go out oftener. You're quite right to +mention it.' + +'I beg your pardon, Sir,' faltered Polly, 'but we go out quite +plenty Sir, thank you.' + +'What would you have then?' asked Mr Dombey. + +'Indeed Sir, I don't exactly know,' said Polly, 'unless - ' + +'Yes?' + +'I believe nothing is so good for making children lively and +cheerful, Sir, as seeing other children playing about 'em,' observed +Polly, taking courage. + +'I think I mentioned to you, Richards, when you came here,' said Mr +Dombey, with a frown, 'that I wished you to see as little of your +family as possible.' + +'Oh dear yes, Sir, I wasn't so much as thinking of that.' + +'I am glad of it,' said Mr Dombey hastily. 'You can continue your +walk if you please.' + +With that, he disappeared into his inner room; and Polly had the +satisfaction of feeling that he had thoroughly misunderstood her +object, and that she had fallen into disgrace without the least +advancement of her purpose. + +Next night, she found him walking about the conservatory when she +came down. As she stopped at the door, checked by this unusual sight, +and uncertain whether to advance or retreat, he called her in. His +mind was too much set on Dombey and Son, it soon appeared, to admit of +his having forgotten her suggestion. + +'If you really think that sort of society is good for the child,' +he said sharply, as if there had been no interval since she proposed +it, 'where's Miss Florence?' + +'Nothing could be better than Miss Florence, Sir,' said Polly +eagerly, 'but I understood from her maid that they were not to - ' + +Mr Dombey rang the bell, and walked till it was answered. + +'Tell them always to let Miss Florence be with Richards when she +chooses, and go out with her, and so forth. Tell them to let the +children be together, when Richards wishes it.' + +The iron was now hot, and Richards striking on it boldly - it was a +good cause and she bold in it, though instinctively afraid of Mr +Dombey - requested that Miss Florence might be sent down then and +there, to make friends with her little brother. + +She feigned to be dandling the child as the servant retired on this +errand, but she thought that she saw Mr Dombey's colour changed; that +the expression of his face quite altered; that he turned, hurriedly, +as if to gainsay what he had said, or she had said, or both, and was +only deterred by very shame. + +And she was right. The last time he had seen his slighted child, +there had been that in the sad embrace between her and her dying +mother, which was at once a revelation and a reproach to him. Let him +be absorbed as he would in the Son on whom he built such high hopes, +he could not forget that closing scene. He could not forget that he +had had no part in it. That, at the bottom of its clear depths of +tenderness and truth' lay those two figures clasped in each other's +arms, while he stood on the bank above them, looking down a mere +spectator - not a sharer with them - quite shut out. + +Unable to exclude these things from his remembrance, or to keep his +mind free from such imperfect shapes of the meaning with which they +were fraught, as were able to make themselves visible to him through +the mist of his pride, his previous feeling of indifference towards +little Florence changed into an uneasiness of an extraordinary kind. +Young as she was, and possessing in any eyes but his (and perhaps in +his too) even more than the usual amount of childish simplicity and +confidence, he almost felt as if she watched and distrusted him. As if +she held the clue to something secret in his breast, of the nature of +which he was hardly informed himself. As if she had an innate +knowledge of one jarring and discordant string within him, and her +very breath could sound it. + +His feeling about the child had been negative from her birth. He +had never conceived an aversion to her: it had not been worth his +while or in his humour. She had never been a positively disagreeable +object to him. But now he was ill at ease about her. She troubled his +peace. He would have preferred to put her idea aside altogether, if he +had known how. Perhaps - who shall decide on such mysteries! - he was +afraid that he might come to hate her. + +When little Florence timidly presented herself, Mr Dombey stopped +in his pacing up and down and looked towards her. Had he looked with +greater interest and with a father's eye, he might have read in her +keen glance the impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate +desire to run clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his +embrace, 'Oh father, try to love me! there's no one else!' the dread +of a repulse; the fear of being too bold, and of offending him; the +pitiable need in which she stood of some assurance and encouragement; +and how her overcharged young heart was wandering to find some natural +resting-place, for its sorrow and affection. + +But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the +door and look towards him; and he saw no more. + +'Come in,' he said, 'come in: what is the child afraid of?' + +She came in; and after glancing round her for a moment with an +uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close +within the door. + +'Come here, Florence,' said her father, coldly. 'Do you know who I +am?' + +'Yes, Papa.' + +'Have you nothing to say to me?' + +The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his +face, were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again, +and put out her trembling hand. + +Mr Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon +her for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child, what to say or +do. + +'There! Be a good girl,' he said, patting her on the head, and +regarding her as it were by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful +look. 'Go to Richards! Go!' + +His little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she +would have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he +might raise her in his arms and kiss her. She looked up in his face +once more. He thought how like her expression was then, to what it had +been when she looked round at the Doctor - that night - and +instinctively dropped her hand and turned away. + +It was not difficult to perceive that Florence was at a great +disadvantage in her father's presence. It was not only a constraint +upon the child's mind, but even upon the natural grace and freedom of +her actions. As she sported and played about her baby brother that +night, her manner was seldom so winning and so pretty as it naturally +was, and sometimes when in his pacing to and fro, he came near her +(she had, perhaps, for the moment, forgotten him) it changed upon the +instant and became forced and embarrassed. + +Still, Polly persevered with all the better heart for seeing this; +and, judging of Mr Dombey by herself, had great confidence in the mute +appeal of poor little Florence's mourning dress.' It's hard indeed,' +thought Polly, 'if he takes only to one little motherless child, when +he has another, and that a girl, before his eyes.' + +So, Polly kept her before his eyes, as long as she could, and +managed so well with little Paul, as to make it very plain that he was +all the livelier for his sister's company. When it was time to +withdraw upstairs again, she would have sent Florence into the inner +room to say good-night to her father, but the child was timid and drew +back; and when she urged her again, said, spreading her hands before +her eyes, as if to shut out her own unworthiness, 'Oh no, no! He don't +want me. He don't want me!' + +The little altercation between them had attracted the notice of Mr +Dombey, who inquired from the table where he was sitting at his wine, +what the matter was. + +'Miss Florence was afraid of interrupting, Sir, if she came in to +say good-night,' said Richards. + +'It doesn't matter,' returned Mr Dombey. 'You can let her come and +go without regarding me.' + +The child shrunk as she listened - and was gone, before her humble +friend looked round again. + +However, Polly triumphed not a little in the success of her +well-intentioned scheme, and in the address with which she had brought +it to bear: whereof she made a full disclosure to Spitfire when she +was once more safely entrenched upstairs. Miss Nipper received that +proof of her confidence, as well as the prospect of their free +association for the future, rather coldly, and was anything but +enthusiastic in her demonstrations of joy. + +'I thought you would have been pleased,' said Polly. + +'Oh yes, Mrs Richards, I'm very well pleased, thank you,' returned +Susan, who had suddenly become so very upright that she seemed to have +put an additional bone in her stays. + +'You don't show it,' said Polly. + +'Oh! Being only a permanency I couldn't be expected to show it like +a temporary,' said Susan Nipper. 'Temporaries carries it all before +'em here, I find, but though there's a excellent party-wall between +this house and the next, I mayn't exactly like to go to it, Mrs +Richards, notwithstanding!' + + + +CHAPTER 4. + +In which some more First Appearances are made on the Stage of these +Adventures + + + +Though the offices of Dombey and Son were within the liberties of +the City of London, and within hearing of Bow Bells, when their +clashing voices were not drowned by the uproar in the streets, yet +were there hints of adventurous and romantic story to be observed in +some of the adjacent objects. Gog and Magog held their state within +ten minutes' walk; the Royal Exchange was close at hand; the Bank of +England, with its vaults of gold and silver 'down among the dead men' +underground, was their magnificent neighbour. Just round the corner +stood the rich East India House, teeming with suggestions of precious +stuffs and stones, tigers, elephants, howdahs, hookahs, umbrellas, +palm trees, palanquins, and gorgeous princes of a brown complexion +sitting on carpets, with their slippers very much turned up at the +toes. Anywhere in the immediate vicinity there might be seen pictures +of ships speeding away full sail to all parts of the world; outfitting +warehouses ready to pack off anybody anywhere, fully equipped in half +an hour; and little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, +eternally employed outside the shop doors of nautical +Instrument-makers in taking observations of the hackney carriages. + +Sole master and proprietor of one of these effigies - of that which +might be called, familiar!y, the woodenest - of that which thrust +itself out above the pavement, right leg foremost, with a suavity the +least endurable, and had the shoe buckles and flapped waistcoat the +least reconcileable to human reason, and bore at its right eye the +most offensively disproportionate piece of machinery - sole master and +proprietor of that Midshipman, and proud of him too, an elderly +gentleman in a Welsh wig had paid house-rent, taxes, rates, and dues, +for more years than many a full-grown midshipman of flesh and blood +has numbered in his life; and midshipmen who have attained a pretty +green old age, have not been wanting in the English Navy. + +The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers, +barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants, +and specimens of every kind of instrument used in the working of a +ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the +prosecuting of a ship's discoveries. Objects in brass and glass were +in his drawers and on his shelves, which none but the initiated could +have found the top of, or guessed the use of, or having once examined, +could have ever got back again into their mahogany nests without +assistance. Everything was jammed into the tightest cases, fitted into +the narrowest corners, fenced up behind the most impertinent cushions, +and screwed into the acutest angles, to prevent its philosophical +composure from being disturbed by the rolling of the sea. Such +extraordinary precautions were taken in every instance to save room, +and keep the thing compact; and so much practical navigation was +fitted, and cushioned, and screwed into every box (whether the box was +a mere slab, as some were, or something between a cocked hat and a +star-fish, as others were, and those quite mild and modest boxes as +compared with others); that the shop itself, partaking of the general +infection, seemed almost to become a snug, sea-going, ship-shape +concern, wanting only good sea-room, in the event of an unexpected +launch, to work its way securely to any desert island in the world. + +Many minor incidents in the household life of the Ships' + +Instrument-maker who was proud of his little Midshipman, assisted +and bore out this fancy. His acquaintance lying chiefly among +ship-chandlers and so forth, he had always plenty of the veritable +ships' biscuit on his table. It was familiar with dried meats and +tongues, possessing an extraordinary flavour of rope yarn. Pickles +were produced upon it, in great wholesale jars, with 'dealer in all +kinds of Ships' Provisions' on the label; spirits were set forth in +case bottles with no throats. Old prints of ships with alphabetical +references to their various mysteries, hung in frames upon the walls; +the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was on the plates; outlandish shells, +seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the chimney-piece; the little +wainscotted back parlour was lighted by a sky-light, like a cabin. + +Here he lived too, in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew +Walter: a boy of fourteen who looked quite enough like a midshipman, +to carry out the prevailing idea. But there it ended, for Solomon +Gills himself (more generally called old Sol) was far from having a +maritime appearance. To say nothing of his Welsh wig, which was as +plain and stubborn a Welsh wig as ever was worn, and in which he +looked like anything but a Rover, he was a slow, quiet-spoken, +thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as red as if they had been small suns +looking at you through a fog; and a newly-awakened manner, such as he +might have acquired by having stared for three or four days +successively through every optical instrument in his shop, and +suddenly came back to the world again, to find it green. The only +change ever known in his outward man, was from a complete suit of +coffee-colour cut very square, and ornamented with glaring buttons, to +the same suit of coffee-colour minus the inexpressibles, which were +then of a pale nankeen. He wore a very precise shirt-frill, and +carried a pair of first-rate spectacles on his forehead, and a +tremendous chronometer in his fob, rather than doubt which precious +possession, he would have believed in a conspiracy against it on part +of all the clocks and watches in the City, and even of the very Sun +itself. Such as he was, such he had been in the shop and parlour +behind the little Midshipman, for years upon years; going regularly +aloft to bed every night in a howling garret remote from the lodgers, +where, when gentlemen of England who lived below at ease had little or +no idea of the state of the weather, it often blew great guns. + +It is half-past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon, when the +reader and Solomon Gills become acquainted. Solomon Gills is in the +act of seeing what time it is by the unimpeachable chronometer. The +usual daily clearance has been making in the City for an hour or more; +and the human tide is still rolling westward. 'The streets have +thinned,' as Mr Gills says, 'very much.' It threatens to be wet +to-night. All the weatherglasses in the shop are in low spirits, and +the rain already shines upon the cocked hat of the wooden Midshipman. + +'Where's Walter, I wonder!' said Solomon Gills, after he had +carefully put up the chronometer again. 'Here's dinner been ready, +half an hour, and no Walter!' + +Turning round upon his stool behind the counter, Mr Gills looked +out among the instruments in the window, to see if his nephew might be +crossing the road. No. He was not among the bobbing umbrellas, and he +certainly was not the newspaper boy in the oilskin cap who was slowly +working his way along the piece of brass outside, writing his name +over Mr Gills's name with his forefinger. + +'If I didn't know he was too fond of me to make a run of it, and go +and enter himself aboard ship against my wishes, I should begin to be +fidgetty,' said Mr Gills, tapping two or three weather-glasses with +his knuckles. 'I really should. All in the Downs, eh! Lots of +moisture! Well! it's wanted.' + +I believe,' said Mr Gills, blowing the dust off the glass top of a +compass-case, 'that you don't point more direct and due to the back +parlour than the boy's inclination does after all. And the parlour +couldn't bear straighter either. Due north. Not the twentieth part of +a point either way.' + +'Halloa, Uncle Sol!' + +'Halloa, my boy!' cried the Instrument-maker, turning briskly +round. 'What! you are here, are you?' + +A cheerful looking, merry boy, fresh with running home in the rain; +fair-faced, bright-eyed, and curly-haired. + +'Well, Uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner +ready? I'm so hungry.' + +'As to getting on,' said Solomon good-naturedly, 'it would be odd +if I couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better +than with you. As to dinner being ready, it's been ready this half +hour and waiting for you. As to being hungry, I am!' + +'Come along then, Uncle!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral!' + +'Confound the admiral!' returned Solomon Gills. 'You mean the Lord +Mayor.' + +'No I don't!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral! Hurrah for +the admiral! For-ward!' + +At this word of command, the Welsh wig and its wearer were borne +without resistance into the back parlour, as at the head of a boarding +party of five hundred men; and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily +engaged on a fried sole with a prospect of steak to follow. + +'The Lord Mayor, Wally,' said Solomon, 'for ever! No more admirals. +The Lord Mayor's your admiral.' + +'Oh, is he though!' said the boy, shaking his head. 'Why, the Sword +Bearer's better than him. He draws his sword sometimes. + +'And a pretty figure he cuts with it for his pains,' returned the +Uncle. 'Listen to me, Wally, listen to me. Look on the mantelshelf.' + +'Why who has cocked my silver mug up there, on a nail?' exclaimed +the boy. + +I have,' said his Uncle. 'No more mugs now. We must begin to drink +out of glasses to-day, Walter. We are men of business. We belong to +the City. We started in life this morning. + +'Well, Uncle,' said the boy, 'I'll drink out of anything you like, +so long as I can drink to you. Here's to you, Uncle Sol, and Hurrah +for the + +'Lord Mayor,' interrupted the old man. + +'For the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Common Council, and Livery,' said +the boy. 'Long life to 'em!' + +The uncle nodded his head with great satisfaction. 'And now,' he +said, 'let's hear something about the Firm.' + +'Oh! there's not much to be told about the Firm, Uncle,' said the +boy, plying his knife and fork.' It's a precious dark set of offices, +and in the room where I sit, there's a high fender, and an iron safe, +and some cards about ships that are going to sail, and an almanack, +and some desks and stools, and an inkbottle, and some books, and some +boxes, and a lot of cobwebs, and in one of 'em, just over my head, a +shrivelled-up blue-bottle that looks as if it had hung there ever so +long.' + +'Nothing else?' said the Uncle. + +'No, nothing else, except an old birdcage (I wonder how that ever +came there!) and a coal-scuttle.' + +'No bankers' books, or cheque books, or bills, or such tokens of +wealth rolling in from day to day?' said old Sol, looking wistfully at +his nephew out of the fog that always seemed to hang about him, and +laying an unctuous emphasis upon the words. + +'Oh yes, plenty of that I suppose,' returned his nephew carelessly; +'but all that sort of thing's in Mr Carker's room, or Mr Morfin's, or +MR Dombey's.' + +'Has Mr Dombey been there to-day?' inquired the Uncle. + +'Oh yes! In and out all day.' + +'He didn't take any notice of you, I suppose?'. + +'Yes he did. He walked up to my seat, - I wish he wasn't so solemn +and stiff, Uncle, - and said, "Oh! you are the son of Mr Gills the +Ships' Instrument-maker." "Nephew, Sir," I said. "I said nephew, boy," +said he. But I could take my oath he said son, Uncle.' + +'You're mistaken I daresay. It's no matter. + +'No, it's no matter, but he needn't have been so sharp, I thought. +There was no harm in it though he did say son. Then he told me that +you had spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in +the House accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and +punctual, and then he went away. I thought he didn't seem to like me +much.' + +'You mean, I suppose,' observed the Instrument-maker, 'that you +didn't seem to like him much?' + +'Well, Uncle,' returned the boy, laughing. 'Perhaps so; I never +thought of that.' + +Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and +glanced from time to time at the boy's bright face. When dinner was +done, and the cloth was cleared away (the entertainment had been +brought from a neighbouring eating-house), he lighted a candle, and +went down below into a little cellar, while his nephew, standing on +the mouldy staircase, dutifully held the light. After a moment's +groping here and there, he presently returned with a very +ancient-looking bottle, covered with dust and dirt. + +'Why, Uncle Sol!' said the boy, 'what are you about? that's the +wonderful Madeira! - there's only one more bottle!' + +Uncle Sol nodded his head, implying that he knew very well what he +was about; and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two +glasses and set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table. + +'You shall drink the other bottle, Wally,' he said, 'when you come +to good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when +the start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you, as I +pray Heaven it may! - to a smooth part of the course you have to run, +my child. My love to you!' + +Some of the fog that hung about old Sol seemed to have got into his +throat; for he spoke huskily. His hand shook too, as he clinked his +glass against his nephew's. But having once got the wine to his lips, +he tossed it off like a man, and smacked them afterwards. + +'Dear Uncle,' said the boy, affecting to make light of it, while +the tears stood in his eyes, 'for the honour you have done me, et +cetera, et cetera. I shall now beg to propose Mr Solomon Gills with +three times three and one cheer more. Hurrah! and you'll return +thanks, Uncle, when we drink the last bottle together; won't you?' + +They clinked their glasses again; and Walter, who was hoarding his +wine, took a sip of it, and held the glass up to his eye with as +critical an air as he could possibly assume. + +His Uncle sat looking at him for some time in silence. When their +eyes at last met, he began at once to pursue the theme that had +occupied his thoughts, aloud, as if he had been speaking all the time. + +'You see, Walter,' he said, 'in truth this business is merely a +habit with me. I am so accustomed to the habit that I could hardly +live if I relinquished it: but there's nothing doing, nothing doing. +When that uniform was worn,' pointing out towards the little +Midshipman, 'then indeed, fortunes were to be made, and were made. But +competition, competition - new invention, new invention - alteration, +alteration - the world's gone past me. I hardly know where I am +myself, much less where my customers are. + +'Never mind 'em, Uncle!' + +'Since you came home from weekly boarding-school at Peckham, for +instance - and that's ten days,' said Solomon, 'I don't remember more +than one person that has come into the shop.' + +'Two, Uncle, don't you recollect? There was the man who came to ask +for change for a sovereign - ' + +'That's the one,' said Solomon. + +'Why Uncle! don't you call the woman anybody, who came to ask the +way to Mile-End Turnpike?' + +'Oh! it's true,' said Solomon, 'I forgot her. Two persons.' + +'To be sure, they didn't buy anything,' cried the boy. + +'No. They didn't buy anything,' said Solomon, quietly. + +'Nor want anything,' cried the boy. + +'No. If they had, they'd gone to another shop,' said Solomon, in +the same tone. + +'But there were two of 'em, Uncle,' cried the boy, as if that were +a great triumph. 'You said only one.' + +'Well, Wally,' resumed the old man, after a short pause: 'not being +like the Savages who came on Robinson Crusoe's Island, we can't live +on a man who asks for change for a sovereign, and a woman who inquires +the way to Mile-End Turnpike. As I said just now, the world has gone +past me. I don't blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen +are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, +business is not the same, business commodities are not the same. +Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man +in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I +remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it +again. Even the noise it makes a long way ahead, confuses me.' + +Walter was going to speak, but his Uncle held up his hand. + +'Therefore, Wally - therefore it is that I am anxious you should be +early in the busy world, and on the world's track. I am only the ghost +of this business - its substance vanished long ago; and when I die, +its ghost will be laid. As it is clearly no inheritance for you then, +I have thought it best to use for your advantage, almost the only +fragment of the old connexion that stands by me, through long habit. +Some people suppose me to be wealthy. I wish for your sake they were +right. But whatever I leave behind me, or whatever I can give you, you +in such a House as Dombey's are in the road to use well and make the +most of. Be diligent, try to like it, my dear boy, work for a steady +independence, and be happy!' + +'I'll do everything I can, Uncle, to deserve your affection. Indeed +I will,' said the boy, earnestly + +'I know it,' said Solomon. 'I am sure of it,' and he applied +himself to a second glass of the old Madeira, with increased relish. +'As to the Sea,' he pursued, 'that's well enough in fiction, Wally, +but it won't do in fact: it won't do at all. It's natural enough that +you should think about it, associating it with all these familiar +things; but it won't do, it won't do.' + +Solomon Gills rubbed his hands with an air of stealthy enjoyment, +as he talked of the sea, though; and looked on the seafaring objects +about him with inexpressible complacency. + +'Think of this wine for instance,' said old Sol, 'which has been to +the East Indies and back, I'm not able to say how often, and has been +once round the world. Think of the pitch-dark nights, the roaring +winds, and rolling seas:' + +'The thunder, lightning, rain, hail, storm of all kinds,' said the +boy. + +'To be sure,' said Solomon, - 'that this wine has passed through. +Think what a straining and creaking of timbers and masts: what a +whistling and howling of the gale through ropes and rigging:' + +'What a clambering aloft of men, vying with each other who shall +lie out first upon the yards to furl the icy sails, while the ship +rolls and pitches, like mad!' cried his nephew. + +'Exactly so,' said Solomon: 'has gone on, over the old cask that +held this wine. Why, when the Charming Sally went down in the - ' + +'In the Baltic Sea, in the dead of night; five-and-twenty minutes +past twelve when the captain's watch stopped in his pocket; he lying +dead against the main-mast - on the fourteenth of February, seventeen +forty-nine!' cried Walter, with great animation. + +'Ay, to be sure!' cried old Sol, 'quite right! Then, there were +five hundred casks of such wine aboard; and all hands (except the +first mate, first lieutenant, two seamen, and a lady, in a leaky boat) +going to work to stave the casks, got drunk and died drunk, singing +"Rule Britannia", when she settled and went down, and ending with one +awful scream in chorus.' + +'But when the George the Second drove ashore, Uncle, on the coast +of Cornwall, in a dismal gale, two hours before daybreak, on the +fourth of March, 'seventy-one, she had near two hundred horses aboard; +and the horses breaking loose down below, early in the gale, and +tearing to and fro, and trampling each other to death, made such +noises, and set up such human cries, that the crew believing the ship +to be full of devils, some of the best men, losing heart and head, +went overboard in despair, and only two were left alive, at last, to +tell the tale.' + +'And when,' said old Sol, 'when the Polyphemus - ' + +'Private West India Trader, burden three hundred and fifty tons, +Captain, John Brown of Deptford. Owners, Wiggs and Co.,' cried Walter. + +'The same,' said Sol; 'when she took fire, four days' sail with a +fair wind out of Jamaica Harbour, in the night - ' + +'There were two brothers on board,' interposed his nephew, speaking +very fast and loud, 'and there not being room for both of them in the +only boat that wasn't swamped, neither of them would consent to go, +until the elder took the younger by the waist, and flung him in. And +then the younger, rising in the boat, cried out, "Dear Edward, think +of your promised wife at home. I'm only a boy. No one waits at home +for me. Leap down into my place!" and flung himself in the sea!' + +The kindling eye and heightened colour of the boy, who had risen +from his seat in the earnestness of what he said and felt, seemed to +remind old Sol of something he had forgotten, or that his encircling +mist had hitherto shut out. Instead of proceeding with any more +anecdotes, as he had evidently intended but a moment before, he gave a +short dry cough, and said, 'Well! suppose we change the subject.' + +The truth was, that the simple-minded Uncle in his secret +attraction towards the marvellous and adventurous - of which he was, +in some sort, a distant relation, by his trade - had greatly +encouraged the same attraction in the nephew; and that everything that +had ever been put before the boy to deter him from a life of +adventure, had had the usual unaccountable effect of sharpening his +taste for it. This is invariable. It would seem as if there never was +a book written, or a story told, expressly with the object of keeping +boys on shore, which did not lure and charm them to the ocean, as a +matter of course. + +But an addition to the little party now made its appearance, in the +shape of a gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a hook instead of a +hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a +thick stick in his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with +knobs. He wore a loose black silk handkerchief round his neck, and +such a very large coarse shirt collar, that it looked like a small +sail. He was evidently the person for whom the spare wine-glass was +intended, and evidently knew it; for having taken off his rough outer +coat, and hung up, on a particular peg behind the door, such a hard +glazed hat as a sympathetic person's head might ache at the sight of, +and which left a red rim round his own forehead as if he had been +wearing a tight basin, he brought a chair to where the clean glass +was, and sat himself down behind it. He was usually addressed as +Captain, this visitor; and had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a +privateersman, or all three perhaps; and was a very salt-looking man +indeed. + +His face, remarkable for a brown solidity, brightened as he shook +hands with Uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic +disposition, and merely said: + +'How goes it?' + +'All well,' said Mr Gills, pushing the bottle towards him. + +He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with +extraordinary expression: + +'The?' + +'The,' returned the Instrument-maker. + +Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think +they were making holiday indeed. + +'Wal'r!' he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his +hook, and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, 'Look at him! +Love! Honour! And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that +passage, and when found turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!' + +He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his +reference to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a +low voice, and saying he had forgotten 'em these forty year. + +'But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn't +know where to lay my hand upon 'em, Gills,' he observed. 'It comes of +not wasting language as some do.' + +The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young +Norval's father, '"ncrease his store." At any rate he became silent, +and remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up, +when he turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark: + +'I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?' + +'I shouldn't wonder, Captain Cuttle,' returned the boy. + +'And it would go!' said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent +in the air with his hook. 'Lord, how that clock would go!' + +For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace +of this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face +were the dial. + +'But he's chockful of science,' he observed, waving his hook +towards the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em. +Earth, air, or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up +in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want +to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll do it +for you.' + +It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle's +reverence for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his +philosophy knew little or no distinction between trading in it and +inventing it. + +'Ah!' he said, with a sigh, 'it's a fine thing to understand 'em. +And yet it's a fine thing not to understand 'em. I hardly know which +is best. It's so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be +weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very +devil with: and never know how.' + +Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion +(which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter's mind), +could have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance +to this prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the +manner in which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn +delight he had had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten +years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser man, he mused and held his peace. + +'Come!' cried the subject of this admiration, returning. 'Before +you have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.' + +'Stand by!' said Ned, filling his glass. 'Give the boy some more.' + +'No more, thank'e, Uncle!' + +'Yes, yes,' said Sol, 'a little more. We'll finish the bottle, to +the House, Ned - Walter's House. Why it may be his House one of these +days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's +daughter.' + +'"Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are +old you will never depart from it,"' interposed the Captain. 'Wal'r! +Overhaul the book, my lad.' + +'And although Mr Dombey hasn't a daughter,' Sol began. + +'Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,' said the boy, reddening and laughing. + +'Has he?' cried the old man. 'Indeed I think he has too. + +'Oh! I know he has,' said the boy. 'Some of 'em were talking about +it in the office today. And they do say, Uncle and Captain Cuttle,' +lowering his voice, 'that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's +left, unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind's so set all +the while upon having his son in the House, that although he's only a +baby now, he is going to have balances struck oftener than formerly, +and the books kept closer than they used to be, and has even been seen +(when he thought he wasn't) walking in the Docks, looking at his ships +and property and all that, as if he was exulting like, over what he +and his son will possess together. That's what they say. Of course, I +don't know. + +'He knows all about her already, you see,' said the +instrument-maker. + +'Nonsense, Uncle,' cried the boy, still reddening and laughing, +boy-like. 'How can I help hearing what they tell me?' + +'The Son's a little in our way at present, I'm afraid, Ned,' said +the old man, humouring the joke. + +'Very much,' said the Captain. + +'Nevertheless, we'll drink him,' pursued Sol. 'So, here's to Dombey +and Son.' + +'Oh, very well, Uncle,' said the boy, merrily. 'Since you have +introduced the mention of her, and have connected me with her and have +said that I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the toast. +So here's to Dombey - and Son - and Daughter!' + + + +CHAPTER 5. + +Paul's Progress and Christening + + + +Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the +Toodles, grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was +more and more ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so +far appreciated by Mr Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of +great natural good sense, whose feelings did her credit and deserved +encouragement. He was so lavish of this condescension, that he not +only bowed to her, in a particular manner, on several occasions, but +even entrusted such stately recognitions of her to his sister as 'pray +tell your friend, Louisa, that she is very good,' or 'mention to Miss +Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to her;'specialities which made a deep +impression on the lady thus distinguished. + +Whether Miss Tox conceived that having been selected by the Fates +to welcome the little Dombey before he was born, in Kirby, Beard and +Kirby's Best Mixed Pins, it therefore naturally devolved upon her to +greet him with all other forms of welcome in all other early stages of +his existence - or whether her overflowing goodness induced her to +volunteer into the domestic militia as a substitute in some sort for +his deceased Mama - or whether she was conscious of any other motives +- are questions which in this stage of the Firm's history herself only +could have solved. Nor have they much bearing on the fact (of which +there is no doubt), that Miss Tox's constancy and zeal were a heavy +discouragement to Richards, who lost flesh hourly under her patronage, +and was in some danger of being superintended to death. + +Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs Chick, that nothing +could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of +that sweet child;' and an observer of Miss Tox's proceedings might +have inferred so much without declaratory confirmation. She would +preside over the innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable +satisfaction, almost with an air of joint proprietorship with Richards +in the entertainment. At the little ceremonies of the bath and +toilette, she assisted with enthusiasm. The administration of +infantine doses of physic awakened all the active sympathy of her +character; and being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard (whither +she had fled in modesty), when Mr Dombey was introduced into the +nursery by his sister, to behold his son, in the course of preparation +for bed, taking a short walk uphill over Richards's gown, in a short +and airy linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant +present as to be unable to refrain from crying out, 'Is he not +beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he not a Cupid, Sir!' and then almost sinking +behind the closet door with confusion and blushes. + +'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, one day, to his sister, 'I really think I +must present your friend with some little token, on the occasion of +Paul's christening. She has exerted herself so warmly in the child's +behalf from the first, and seems to understand her position so +thoroughly (a very rare merit in this world, I am sorry to say), that +it would really be agreeable to me to notice her.' + +Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that +in Mr Dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the +light, they only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the +understanding of their own position, who showed a fitting reverence +for his. It was not so much their merit that they knew themselves, as +that they knew him, and bowed low before him. + +'My dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'you do Miss Tox but justice, +as a man of your penetration was sure, I knew, to do. I believe if +there are three words in the English language for which she has a +respect amounting almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and +Son.' + +'Well,' said Mr Dombey, 'I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.' + +'And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,' pursued +his sister, 'all I can say is that anything you give Miss Tox will be +hoarded and prized, I am sure, like a relic. But there is a way, my +dear Paul, of showing your sense of Miss Tox's friendliness in a still +more flattering and acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined.' + +'How is that?' asked Mr Dombey. + +'Godfathers, of course,' continued Mrs Chick, 'are important in +point of connexion and influence.' + +'I don't know why they should be, to my son, said Mr Dombey, +coldly. + +'Very true, my dear Paul,' retorted Mrs Chick, with an +extraordinary show of animation, to cover the suddenness of her +conversion; 'and spoken like yourself. I might have expected nothing +else from you. I might have known that such would have been your +opinion. Perhaps;' here Mrs Chick faltered again, as not quite +comfortably feeling her way; 'perhaps that is a reason why you might +have the less objection to allowing Miss Tox to be godmother to the +dear thing, if it were only as deputy and proxy for someone else. That +it would be received as a great honour and distinction, Paul, I need +not say. + +'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, after a short pause, 'it is not to be +supposed - ' + +'Certainly not,' cried Mrs Chick, hastening to anticipate a +refusal, 'I never thought it was.' + +Mr Dombey looked at her impatiently. + +'Don't flurry me, my dear Paul,' said his sister; 'for that +destroys me. I am far from strong. I have not been quite myself, since +poor dear Fanny departed.' + +Mr Dombey glanced at the pocket-handkerchief which his sister +applied to her eyes, and resumed: + +'It is not be supposed, I say 'And I say,' murmured Mrs Chick, +'that I never thought it was.' + +'Good Heaven, Louisa!' said Mr Dombey. + +'No, my dear Paul,' she remonstrated with tearful dignity, 'I must +really be allowed to speak. I am not so clever, or so reasoning, or so +eloquent, or so anything, as you are. I know that very well. So much +the worse for me. But if they were the last words I had to utter - and +last words should be very solemn to you and me, Paul, after poor dear +Fanny - I would still say I never thought it was. And what is more,' +added Mrs Chick with increased dignity, as if she had withheld her +crushing argument until now, 'I never did think it was.' Mr Dombey +walked to the window and back again. + +'It is not to be supposed, Louisa,' he said (Mrs Chick had nailed +her colours to the mast, and repeated 'I know it isn't,' but he took +no notice of it), 'but that there are many persons who, supposing that +I recognised any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me +superior to Miss Tox's. But I do not. I recognise no such thing. Paul +and myself will be able, when the time comes, to hold our own - the +House, in other words, will be able to hold its own, and maintain its +own, and hand down its own of itself, and without any such +common-place aids. The kind of foreign help which people usually seek +for their children, I can afford to despise; being above it, I hope. +So that Paul's infancy and childhood pass away well, and I see him +becoming qualified without waste of time for the career on which he is +destined to enter, I am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends +he pleases in after-life, when he is actively maintaining - and +extending, if that is possible - the dignity and credit of the Firm. +Until then, I am enough for him, perhaps, and all in all. I have no +wish that people should step in between us. I would much rather show +my sense of the obliging conduct of a deserving person like your +friend. Therefore let it be so; and your husband and myself will do +well enough for the other sponsors, I daresay.' + +In the course of these remarks, delivered with great majesty and +grandeur, Mr Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his +breast. An indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in between +himself and his son; a haughty dread of having any rival or partner in +the boy's respect and deference; a sharp misgiving, recently acquired, +that he was not infallible in his power of bending and binding human +wills; as sharp a jealousy of any second check or cross; these were, +at that time the master keys of his soul. In all his life, he had +never made a friend. His cold and distant nature had neither sought +one, nor found one. And now, when that nature concentrated its whole +force so strongly on a partial scheme of parental interest and +ambition, it seemed as if its icy current, instead of being released +by this influence, and running clear and free, had thawed for but an +instant to admit its burden, and then frozen with it into one +unyielding block. + +Elevated thus to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her +insignificance, Miss Tox was from that hour chosen and appointed to +office; and Mr Dombey further signified his pleasure that the +ceremony, already long delayed, should take place without further +postponement. His sister, who had been far from anticipating so signal +a success, withdrew as soon as she could, to communicate it to her +best of friends; and Mr Dombey was left alone in his library. He had +already laid his hand upon the bellrope to convey his usual summons to +Richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk, belonging to his +deceased wife, which had been taken, among other things, from a +cabinet in her chamber. It was not the first time that his eye had +lighted on it He carried the key in his pocket; and he brought it to +his table and opened it now - having previously locked the room door - +with a well-accustomed hand. + +From beneath a leaf of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took +one letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as +he opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something +of his arrogant demeanour, he s at down, resting his head upon one +hand, and read it through. + +He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity to +every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed +unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he +allowed no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through, +he folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully +into fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away, +he put them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the +chances of being re-united and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as +usual, for little Paul, he sat solitary, all the evening, in his +cheerless room. + +There was anything but solitude in the nursery; for there, Mrs +Chick and Miss Tox were enjoying a social evening, so much to the +disgust of Miss Susan Nipper, that that young lady embraced every +opportunity of making wry faces behind the door. Her feelings were so +much excited on the occasion, that she found it indispensable to +afford them this relief, even without having the comfort of any +audience or sympathy whatever. As the knight-errants of old relieved +their minds by carving their mistress's names in deserts, and +wildernesses, and other savage places where there was no probability +of there ever being anybody to read them, so did Miss Susan Nipper +curl her snub nose into drawers and wardrobes, put away winks of +disparagement in cupboards, shed derisive squints into stone pitchers, +and contradict and call names out in the passage. + +The two interlopers, however, blissfully unconscious of the young +lady's sentiments, saw little Paul safe through all the stages of +undressing, airy exercise, supper and bed; and then sat down to tea +before the fire. The two children now lay, through the good offices of +Polly, in one room; and it was not until the ladies were established +at their tea-table that, happening to look towards the little beds, +they thought of Florence. + +'How sound she sleeps!' said Miss Tox. + +'Why, you know, my dear, she takes a great deal of exercise in the +course of the day,' returned Mrs Chick, 'playing about little Paul so +much.' + +'She is a curious child,' said Miss Tox. + +'My dear,' retorted Mrs Chick, in a low voice: 'Her Mama, all +over!' + +'In deed!' said Miss Tox. 'Ah dear me!' + +A tone of most extraordinary compassion Miss Tox said it in, though +she had no distinct idea why, except that it was expected of her. + +'Florence will never, never, never be a Dombey,'said Mrs Chick, +'not if she lives to be a thousand years old.' + +Miss Tox elevated her eyebrows, and was again full of + +commiseration. + +'I quite fret and worry myself about her,' said Mrs Chick, with a +sigh of modest merit. 'I really don't see what is to become of her +when she grows older, or what position she is to take. She don't gain +on her Papa in the least. How can one expect she should, when she is +so very unlike a Dombey?' + +Miss Tox looked as if she saw no way out of such a cogent argument +as that, at all. + +'And the child, you see,' said Mrs Chick, in deep confidence, 'has +poor dear Fanny's nature. She'll never make an effort in after-life, +I'll venture to say. Never! She'll never wind and twine herself about +her Papa's heart like - ' + +'Like the ivy?' suggested Miss Tox. + +'Like the ivy,' Mrs Chick assented. 'Never! She'll never glide and +nestle into the bosom of her Papa's affections like - the - ' + +'Startled fawn?' suggested Miss Tox. + +'Like the startled fawn,' said Mrs Chick. 'Never! Poor Fanny! Yet, +how I loved her!' + +'You must not distress yourself, my dear,' said Miss Tox, in a +soothing voice. 'Now really! You have too much feeling.' + +'We have all our faults,' said Mrs Chick, weeping and shaking her +head. 'I daresay we have. I never was blind to hers. I never said I +was. Far from it. Yet how I loved her!' + +What a satisfaction it was to Mrs Chick - a common-place piece of +folly enough, compared with whom her sister-in-law had been a very +angel of womanly intelligence and gentleness - to patronise and be +tender to the memory of that lady: in exact pursuance of her conduct +to her in her lifetime: and to thoroughly believe herself, and take +herself in, and make herself uncommonly comfortable on the strength of +her toleration! What a mighty pleasant virtue toleration should be +when we are right, to be so very pleasant when we are wrong, and quite +unable to demonstrate how we come to be invested with the privilege of +exercising it! + +Mrs Chick was yet drying her eyes and shaking her head, when +Richards made bold to caution her that Miss Florence was awake and +sitting in her bed. She had risen, as the nurse said, and the lashes +of her eyes were wet with tears. But no one saw them glistening save +Polly. No one else leant over her, and whispered soothing words to +her, or was near enough to hear the flutter of her beating heart. + +'Oh! dear nurse!' said the child, looking earnestly up in her face, +'let me lie by my brother!' + +'Why, my pet?' said Richards. + +'Oh! I think he loves me,' cried the child wildly. 'Let me lie by +him. Pray do!' + +Mrs Chick interposed with some motherly words about going to sleep +like a dear, but Florence repeated her supplication, with a frightened +look, and in a voice broken by sobs and tears. + +'I'll not wake him,' she said, covering her face and hanging down +her head. 'I'll only touch him with my hand, and go to sleep. Oh, +pray, pray, let me lie by my brother to-night, for I believe he's fond +of me!' + +Richards took her without a word, and carrying her to the little +bed in which the infant was sleeping, laid her down by his side. She +crept as near him as she could without disturbing his rest; and +stretching out one arm so that it timidly embraced his neck, and +hiding her face on the other, over which her damp and scattered hair +fell loose, lay motionless. + +'Poor little thing,' said Miss Tox; 'she has been dreaming, I +daresay.' + +Dreaming, perhaps, of loving tones for ever silent, of loving eyes +for ever closed, of loving arms again wound round her, and relaxing in +that dream within the dam which no tongue can relate. Seeking, perhaps +- in dreams - some natural comfort for a heart, deeply and sorely +wounded, though so young a child's: and finding it, perhaps, in +dreams, if not in waking, cold, substantial truth. This trivial +incident had so interrupted the current of conversation, that it was +difficult of resumption; and Mrs Chick moreover had been so affected +by the contemplation of her own tolerant nature, that she was not in +spirits. The two friends accordingly soon made an end of their tea, +and a servant was despatched to fetch a hackney cabriolet for Miss +Tox. Miss Tox had great experience in hackney cabs, and her starting +in one was generally a work of time, as she was systematic in the +preparatory arrangements. + +'Have the goodness, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox, +'first of all, to carry out a pen and ink and take his number +legibly.' + +'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson. + +'Then, if you please, Towlinson,'said Miss Tox, 'have the goodness + +to turn the cushion. Which,' said Miss Tox apart to Mrs Chick, 'is +generally damp, my dear.' + +'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson. + +'I'll trouble you also, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox, +'with this card and this shilling. He's to drive to the card, and is +to understand that he will not on any account have more than the +shilling.' + +'No, Miss,' said Towlinson. + +'And - I'm sorry to give you so much trouble, Towlinson,' said Miss +Tox, looking at him pensively. + +'Not at all, Miss,' said Towlinson. + +'Mention to the man, then, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss +Tox, 'that the lady's uncle is a magistrate, and that if he gives her +any of his impertinence he will be punished terribly. You can pretend +to say that, if you please, Towlinson, in a friendly way, and because +you know it was done to another man, who died.' + +'Certainly, Miss,' said Towlinson. + +'And now good-night to my sweet, sweet, sweet, godson,' said Miss +Tox, with a soft shower of kisses at each repetition of the adjective; +'and Louisa, my dear friend, promise me to take a little something +warm before you go to bed, and not to distress yourself!' + +It was with extreme difficulty that Nipper, the black-eyed, who +looked on steadfastly, contained herself at this crisis, and until the +subsequent departure of Mrs Chick. But the nursery being at length +free of visitors, she made herself some recompense for her late +restraint. + +'You might keep me in a strait-waistcoat for six weeks,' said +Nipper, 'and when I got it off I'd only be more aggravated, who ever +heard the like of them two Griffins, Mrs Richards?' + +'And then to talk of having been dreaming, poor dear!' said Polly. + +'Oh you beauties!' cried Susan Nipper, affecting to salute the door +by which the ladies had departed. 'Never be a Dombey won't she? It's +to be hoped she won't, we don't want any more such, one's enough.' + +'Don't wake the children, Susan dear,' said Polly. + +'I'm very much beholden to you, Mrs Richards,' said Susan, who was +not by any means discriminating in her wrath, 'and really feel it as a +honour to receive your commands, being a black slave and a mulotter. +Mrs Richards, if there's any other orders, you can give me, pray +mention 'em.' + +'Nonsense; orders,' said Polly. + +'Oh! bless your heart, Mrs Richards,' cried Susan, 'temporaries +always orders permanencies here, didn't you know that, why wherever +was you born, Mrs Richards? But wherever you was born, Mrs Richards,' +pursued Spitfire, shaking her head resolutely, 'and whenever, and +however (which is best known to yourself), you may bear in mind, +please, that it's one thing to give orders, and quite another thing to +take 'em. A person may tell a person to dive off a bridge head +foremost into five-and-forty feet of water, Mrs Richards, but a person +may be very far from diving.' + +'There now,' said Polly, 'you're angry because you're a good little +thing, and fond of Miss Florence; and yet you turn round on me, +because there's nobody else.' + +'It's very easy for some to keep their tempers, and be soft-spoken, +Mrs Richards,' returned Susan, slightly mollified, 'when their child's +made as much of as a prince, and is petted and patted till it wishes +its friends further, but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that +never ought to have a cross word spoken to or of it, is rundown, the +case is very different indeed. My goodness gracious me, Miss Floy, you +naughty, sinful child, if you don't shut your eyes this minute, I'll +call in them hobgoblins that lives in the cock-loft to come and eat +you up alive!' + +Here Miss Nipper made a horrible lowing, supposed to issue from a +conscientious goblin of the bull species, impatient to discharge the +severe duty of his position. Having further composed her young charge +by covering her head with the bedclothes, and making three or four +angry dabs at the pillow, she folded her arms, and screwed up her +mouth, and sat looking at the fire for the rest of the evening. + +Though little Paul was said, in nursery phrase, 'to take a deal of +notice for his age,' he took as little notice of all this as of the +preparations for his christening on the next day but one; which +nevertheless went on about him, as to his personal apparel, and that +of his sister and the two nurses, with great activity. Neither did he, +on the arrival of the appointed morning, show any sense of its +importance; being, on the contrary, unusually inclined to sleep, and +unusually inclined to take it ill in his attendants that they dressed +him to go out. + +It happened to be an iron-grey autumnal day, with a shrewd east +wind blowing - a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr Dombey +represented in himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of the +christening. He stood in his library to receive the company, as hard +and cold as the weather; and when he looked out through the glass +room, at the trees in the little garden, their brown and yellow leaves +came fluttering down, as if he blighted them. + +Ugh! They were black, cold rooms; and seemed to be in mourning, +like the inmates of the house. The books precisely matched as to size, +and drawn up in line, like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard, +slippery uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that +was a freezer. The bookcase, glazed and locked, repudiated all +familiarities. Mr Pitt, in bronze, on the top, with no trace of his +celestial origin' about him, guarded the unattainable treasure like an +enchanted Moor. A dusty urn at each high corner, dug up from an +ancient tomb, preached desolation and decay, as from two pulpits; and +the chimney-glass, reflecting Mr Dombey and his portrait at one blow, +seemed fraught with melancholy meditations. + +The stiff and stark fire-irons appeared to claim a nearer +relationship than anything else there to Mr Dombey, with his buttoned +coat, his white cravat, his heavy gold watch-chain, and his creaking +boots. + +But this was before the arrival of Mr and Mrs Chick, his lawful +relatives, who soon presented themselves. + +'My dear Paul,' Mrs Chick murmured, as she embraced him, 'the +beginning, I hope, of many joyful days!' + +'Thank you, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, grimly. 'How do you do, Mr +John?' + +'How do you do, Sir?' said Chick. + +He gave Mr Dombey his hand, as if he feared it might electrify him. +Mr Dombey tool: it as if it were a fish, or seaweed, or some such +clammy substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted +politeness. + +'Perhaps, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, slightly turning his head in his +cravat, as if it were a socket, 'you would have preferred a fire?' + +'Oh, my dear Paul, no,' said Mrs Chick, who had much ado to keep +her teeth from chattering; 'not for me.' + +'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are not sensible of any chill?' + +Mr John, who had already got both his hands in his pockets over the +wrists, and was on the very threshold of that same canine chorus which +had given Mrs Chick so much offence on a former occasion, protested +that he was perfectly comfortable. + +He added in a low voice, 'With my tiddle tol toor rul' - when he +was providentially stopped by Towlinson, who announced: + +'Miss Tox!' + +And enter that fair enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably +frosty face, referable to her being very thinly clad in a maze of +fluttering odds and ends, to do honour to the ceremony. + +'How do you do, Miss Tox?' said Mr Dombey. + +Miss Tox, in the midst of her spreading gauzes, went down +altogether like an opera-glass shutting-up; she curtseyed so low, in +acknowledgment of Mr Dombey's advancing a step or two to meet her. + +'I can never forget this occasion, Sir,' said Miss Tox, softly. +''Tis impossible. My dear Louisa, I can hardly believe the evidence of +my senses.' + +If Miss Tox could believe the evidence of one of her senses, it was +a very cold day. That was quite clear. She took an early opportunity +of promoting the circulation in the tip of her nose by secretly +chafing it with her pocket handkerchief, lest, by its very low +temperature, it should disagreeably astonish the baby when she came to +kiss it. + +The baby soon appeared, carried in great glory by Richards; while +Florence, in custody of that active young constable, Susan Nipper, +brought up the rear. Though the whole nursery party were dressed by +this time in lighter mourning than at first, there was enough in the +appearance of the bereaved children to make the day no brighter. The +baby too - it might have been Miss Tox's nose - began to cry. Thereby, +as it happened, preventing Mr Chick from the awkward fulfilment of a +very honest purpose he had; which was, to make much of Florence. For +this gentleman, insensible to the superior claims of a perfect Dombey +(perhaps on account of having the honour to be united to a Dombey +himself, and being familiar with excellence), really liked her, and +showed that he liked her, and was about to show it in his own way now, +when Paul cried, and his helpmate stopped him short + +'Now Florence, child!' said her aunt, briskly, 'what are you doing, +love? Show yourself to him. Engage his attention, my dear!' + +The atmosphere became or might have become colder and colder, when +Mr Dombey stood frigidly watching his little daughter, who, clapping +her hands, and standing On tip-toe before the throne of his son and +heir, lured him to bend down from his high estate, and look at her. +Some honest act of Richards's may have aided the effect, but he did +look down, and held his peace. As his sister hid behind her nurse, he +followed her with his eyes; and when she peeped out with a merry cry +to him, he sprang up and crowed lustily - laughing outright when she +ran in upon him; and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny hands, +while she smothered him with kisses. + +Was Mr Dombey pleased to see this? He testified no pleasure by the +relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were +unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the +children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so +fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the +laughing eyes of little Florence, when, at last, they happened to meet +his. + +It was a dull, grey, autumn day indeed, and in a minute's pause and +silence that took place, the leaves fell sorrowfully. + +'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, referring to his watch, and assuming his +hat and gloves. 'Take my sister, if you please: my arm today is Miss +Tox's. You had better go first with Master Paul, Richards. Be very +careful.' + +In Mr Dombey's carriage, Dombey and Son, Miss Tox, Mrs Chick, +Richards, and Florence. In a little carriage following it, Susan +Nipper and the owner Mr Chick. Susan looking out of window, without +intermission, as a relief from the embarrassment of confronting the +large face of that gentleman, and thinking whenever anything rattled +that he was putting up in paper an appropriate pecuniary compliment +for herself. + +Once upon the road to church, Mr Dombey clapped his hands for the +amusement of his son. At which instance of parental enthusiasm Miss +Tox was enchanted. But exclusive of this incident, the chief +difference between the christening party and a party in a mourning +coach consisted in the colours of the carriage and horses. + +Arrived at the church steps, they were received by a portentous +beadle.' Mr Dombey dismounting first to help the ladies out, and +standing near him at the church door, looked like another beadle. A +beadle less gorgeous but more dreadful; the beadle of private life; +the beadle of our business and our bosoms. + +Miss Tox's hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr Dombey's arm, +and felt herself escorted up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and a +Babylonian collar. It seemed for a moment like that other solemn +institution, 'Wilt thou have this man, Lucretia?' 'Yes, I will.' + +'Please to bring the child in quick out of the air there,' +whispered the beadle, holding open the inner door of the church. + +Little Paul might have asked with Hamlet 'into my grave?' so chill +and earthy was the place. The tall shrouded pulpit and reading desk; +the dreary perspective of empty pews stretching away under the +galleries, and empty benches mounting to the roof and lost in the +shadow of the great grim organ; the dusty matting and cold stone +slabs; the grisly free seats' in the aisles; and the damp corner by +the bell-rope, where the black trestles used for funerals were stowed +away, along with some shovels and baskets, and a coil or two of +deadly-looking rope; the strange, unusual, uncomfortable smell, and +the cadaverous light; were all in unison. It was a cold and dismal +scene. + +'There's a wedding just on, Sir,' said the beadle, 'but it'll be +over directly, if you'll walk into the westry here. + +Before he turned again to lead the way, he gave Mr Dombey a bow and +a half smile of recognition, importing that he (the beadle) remembered +to have had the pleasure of attending on him when he buried his wife, +and hoped he had enjoyed himself since. + +The very wedding looked dismal as they passed in front of the +altar. The bride was too old and the bridegroom too young, and a +superannuated beau with one eye and an eyeglass stuck in its blank +companion, was giving away the lady, while the friends were shivering. +In the vestry the fire was smoking; and an over-aged and over-worked +and under-paid attorney's clerk, 'making a search,' was running his +forefinger down the parchment pages of an immense register (one of a +long series of similar volumes) gorged with burials. Over the +fireplace was a ground-plan of the vaults underneath the church; and +Mr Chick, skimming the literary portion of it aloud, by way of +enlivening the company, read the reference to Mrs Dombey's tomb in +full, before he could stop himself. + +After another cold interval, a wheezy little pew-opener afflicted +with an asthma, appropriate to the churchyard, if not to the church, +summoned them to the font - a rigid marble basin which seemed to have +been playing a churchyard game at cup and ball with its matter of fact +pedestal, and to have been just that moment caught on the top of it. +Here they waited some little time while the marriage party enrolled +themselves; and meanwhile the wheezy little pew-opener - partly in +consequence of her infirmity, and partly that the marriage party might +not forget her - went about the building coughing like a grampus. + +Presently the clerk (the only cheerful-looking object there, and he +was an undertaker) came up with a jug of warm water, and said +something, as he poured it into the font, about taking the chill off; +which millions of gallons boiling hot could not have done for the +occasion. Then the clergyman, an amiable and mild-looking young +curate, but obviously afraid of the baby, appeared like the principal +character in a ghost-story, 'a tall figure all in white;' at sight of +whom Paul rent the air with his cries, and never left off again till +he was taken out black in the face. + +Even when that event had happened, to the great relief of +everybody, he was heard under the portico, during the rest of the +ceremony, now fainter, now louder, now hushed, now bursting forth +again with an irrepressible sense of his wrongs. This so distracted +the attention of the two ladies, that Mrs Chick was constantly +deploying into the centre aisle, to send out messages by the +pew-opener, while Miss Tox kept her Prayer-book open at the Gunpowder +Plot, and occasionally read responses from that service. + +During the whole of these proceedings, Mr Dombey remained as +impassive and gentlemanly as ever, and perhaps assisted in making it +so cold, that the young curate smoked at the mouth as he read. The +only time that he unbent his visage in the least, was when the +clergyman, in delivering (very unaffectedly and simply) the closing +exhortation, relative to the future examination of the child by the +sponsors, happened to rest his eye on Mr Chick; and then Mr Dombey +might have been seen to express by a majestic look, that he would like +to catch him at it. + +It might have been well for Mr Dombey, if he had thought of his own +dignity a little less; and had thought of the great origin and purpose +of the ceremony in which he took so formal and so stiff a part, a +little more. His arrogance contrasted strangely with its history. + +When it was all over, he again gave his arm to Miss Tox, and +conducted her to the vestry, where he informed the clergyman how much +pleasure it would have given him to have solicited the honour of his +company at dinner, but for the unfortunate state of his household +affairs. The register signed, and the fees paid, and the pew-opener +(whose cough was very bad again) remembered, and the beadle gratified, +and the sexton (who was accidentally on the doorsteps, looking with +great interest at the weather) not forgotten, they got into the +carriage again, and drove home in the same bleak fellowship. + +There they found Mr Pitt turning up his nose at a cold collation, +set forth in a cold pomp of glass and silver, and looking more like a +dead dinner lying in state than a social refreshment. On their arrival +Miss Tox produced a mug for her godson, and Mr Chick a knife and fork +and spoon in a case. Mr Dombey also produced a bracelet for Miss Tox; +and, on the receipt of this token, Miss Tox was tenderly affected. + +'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'will you take the bottom of the table, +if you please? What have you got there, Mr John?' + +'I have got a cold fillet of veal here, Sir,' replied Mr Chick, +rubbing his numbed hands hard together. 'What have you got there, +Sir?' + +'This,' returned Mr Dombey, 'is some cold preparation of calf's +head, I think. I see cold fowls - ham - patties - salad - lobster. +Miss Tox will do me the honour of taking some wine? Champagne to Miss +Tox.' + +There was a toothache in everything. The wine was so bitter cold +that it forced a little scream from Miss Tox, which she had great +difficulty in turning into a 'Hem!' The veal had come from such an +airy pantry, that the first taste of it had struck a sensation as of +cold lead to Mr Chick's extremities. Mr Dombey alone remained unmoved. +He might have been hung up for sale at a Russian fair as a specimen of +a frozen gentleman. + +The prevailing influence was too much even for his sister. She made +no effort at flattery or small talk, and directed all her efforts to +looking as warm as she could. + +'Well, Sir,' said Mr Chick, making a desperate plunge, after a long +silence, and filling a glass of sherry; 'I shall drink this, if you'll +allow me, Sir, to little Paul.' + +'Bless him!' murmured Miss Tox, taking a sip of wine. + +'Dear little Dombey!' murmured Mrs Chick. + +'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, with severe gravity, 'my son would feel +and express himself obliged to you, I have no doubt, if he could +appreciate the favour you have done him. He will prove, in time to +come, I trust, equal to any responsibility that the obliging +disposition of his relations and friends, in private, or the onerous +nature of our position, in public, may impose upon him.' + +The tone in which this was said admitting of nothing more, Mr Chick +relapsed into low spirits and silence. Not so Miss Tox, who, having +listened to Mr Dombey with even a more emphatic attention than usual, +and with a more expressive tendency of her head to one side, now leant +across the table, and said to Mrs Chick softly: + +'Louisa!' + +'My dear,' said Mrs Chick. + +'Onerous nature of our position in public may - I have forgotten + +the exact term.' + +'Expose him to,' said Mrs Chick. + +'Pardon me, my dear,' returned Miss Tox, 'I think not. It was more +rounded and flowing. Obliging disposition of relations and friends in +private, or onerous nature of position in public - may - impose upon +him!' + +'Impose upon him, to be sure,' said Mrs Chick. + +Miss Tox struck her delicate hands together lightly, in triumph; +and added, casting up her eyes, 'eloquence indeed!' + +Mr Dombey, in the meanwhile, had issued orders for the attendance +of Richards, who now entered curtseying, but without the baby; Paul +being asleep after the fatigues of the morning. Mr Dombey, having +delivered a glass of wine to this vassal, addressed her in the +following words: Miss Tox previously settling her head on one side, +and making other little arrangements for engraving them on her heart. + +'During the six months or so, Richards, which have seen you an +inmate of this house, you have done your duty. Desiring to connect +some little service to you with this occasion, I considered how I +could best effect that object, and I also advised with my sister, Mrs +- ' + +'Chick,' interposed the gentleman of that name. + +'Oh, hush if you please!' said Miss Tox. + +'I was about to say to you, Richards,' resumed Mr Dombey, with an +appalling glance at Mr John, 'that I was further assisted in my +decision, by the recollection of a conversation I held with your +husband in this room, on the occasion of your being hired, when he +disclosed to me the melancholy fact that your family, himself at the +head, were sunk and steeped in ignorance. + +Richards quailed under the magnificence of the reproof. + +'I am far from being friendly,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'to what is +called by persons of levelling sentiments, general education. But it +is necessary that the inferior classes should continue to be taught to +know their position, and to conduct themselves properly. So far I +approve of schools. Having the power of nominating a child on the +foundation of an ancient establishment, called (from a worshipful +company) the Charitable Grinders; where not only is a wholesome +education bestowed upon the scholars, but where a dress and badge is +likewise provided for them; I have (first communicating, through Mrs +Chick, with your family) nominated your eldest son to an existing +vacancy; and he has this day, I am informed, assumed the habit. The +number of her son, I believe,' said Mr Dombey, turning to his sister +and speaking of the child as if he were a hackney-coach, is one +hundred and forty-seven. Louisa, you can tell her.' + +'One hundred and forty-seven,' said Mrs Chick 'The dress, Richards, +is a nice, warm, blue baize tailed coat and cap, turned up with orange +coloured binding; red worsted stockings; and very strong leather +small-clothes. One might wear the articles one's self,' said Mrs +Chick, with enthusiasm, 'and be grateful.' + +'There, Richards!' said Miss Tox. 'Now, indeed, you may be proud. +The Charitable Grinders!' + +'I am sure I am very much obliged, Sir,' returned Richards faintly, +'and take it very kind that you should remember my little ones.' At +the same time a vision of Biler as a Charitable Grinder, with his very +small legs encased in the serviceable clothing described by Mrs Chick, +swam before Richards's eyes, and made them water. + +'I am very glad to see you have so much feeling, Richards,' said +Miss Tox. + +'It makes one almost hope, it really does,' said Mrs Chick, who +prided herself on taking trustful views of human nature, 'that there +may yet be some faint spark of gratitude and right feeling in the +world.' + +Richards deferred to these compliments by curtseying and murmuring + +her thanks; but finding it quite impossible to recover her spirits +from the disorder into which they had been thrown by the image of her +son in his precocious nether garments, she gradually approached the +door and was heartily relieved to escape by it. + +Such temporary indications of a partial thaw that had appeared with +her, vanished with her; and the frost set in again, as cold and hard +as ever. Mr Chick was twice heard to hum a tune at the bottom of the +table, but on both occasions it was a fragment of the Dead March in +Saul. The party seemed to get colder and colder, and to be gradually +resolving itself into a congealed and solid state, like the collation +round which it was assembled. At length Mrs Chick looked at Miss Tox, +and Miss Tox returned the look, and they both rose and said it was +really time to go. Mr Dombey receiving this announcement with perfect +equanimity, they took leave of that gentleman, and presently departed +under the protection of Mr Chick; who, when they had turned their +backs upon the house and left its master in his usual solitary state, +put his hands in his pockets, threw himself back in the carriage, and +whistled 'With a hey ho chevy!' all through; conveying into his face +as he did so, an expression of such gloomy and terrible defiance, that +Mrs Chick dared not protest, or in any way molest him. + +Richards, though she had little Paul on her lap, could not forget +her own first-born. She felt it was ungrateful; but the influence of +the day fell even on the Charitable Grinders, and she could hardly +help regarding his pewter badge, number one hundred and forty-seven, +as, somehow, a part of its formality and sternness. She spoke, too, in +the nursery, of his 'blessed legs,' and was again troubled by his +spectre in uniform. + +'I don't know what I wouldn't give,' said Polly, 'to see the poor +little dear before he gets used to 'em.' + +'Why, then, I tell you what, Mrs Richards,' retorted Nipper, who +had been admitted to her confidence, 'see him and make your mind +easy.' + +'Mr Dombey wouldn't like it,' said Polly. + +'Oh, wouldn't he, Mrs Richards!' retorted Nipper, 'he'd like it +very much, I think when he was asked.' + +'You wouldn't ask him, I suppose, at all?' said Polly. + +'No, Mrs Richards, quite contrairy,' returned Susan, 'and them two +inspectors Tox and Chick, not intending to be on duty tomorrow, as I +heard 'em say, me and Mid Floy will go along with you tomorrow +morning, and welcome, Mrs Richards, if you like, for we may as well +walk there as up and down a street, and better too.' + +Polly rejected the idea pretty stoutly at first; but by little and +little she began to entertain it, as she entertained more and more +distinctly the forbidden pictures of her children, and her own home. +At length, arguing that there could be no great harm in calling for a +moment at the door, she yielded to the Nipper proposition. + +The matter being settled thus, little Paul began to cry most +piteously, as if he had a foreboding that no good would come of it. + +'What's the matter with the child?' asked Susan. + +'He's cold, I think,' said Polly, walking with him to and fro, and +hushing him. + +It was a bleak autumnal afternoon indeed; and as she walked, and +hushed, and, glancing through the dreary windows, pressed the little +fellow closer to her breast, the withered leaves came showering down. + + + +CHAPTER 6. + +Paul's Second Deprivation + + + +Polly was beset by so many misgivings in the morning, that but for +the incessant promptings of her black-eyed companion, she would have +abandoned all thoughts of the expedition, and formally petitioned for +leave to see number one hundred and forty-seven, under the awful +shadow of Mr Dombey's roof. But Susan who was personally disposed in +favour of the excursion, and who (like Tony Lumpkin), if she could +bear the disappointments of other people with tolerable fortitude, +could not abide to disappoint herself, threw so many ingenious doubts +in the way of this second thought, and stimulated the original +intention with so many ingenious arguments, that almost as soon as Mr +Dombey's stately back was turned, and that gentleman was pursuing his +daily road towards the City, his unconscious son was on his way to +Staggs's Gardens. + +This euphonious locality was situated in a suburb, known by the +inhabitants of Staggs's Gardens by the name of Camberling Town; a +designation which the Strangers' Map of London, as printed (with a +view to pleasant and commodious reference) on pocket handkerchiefs, +condenses, with some show of reason, into Camden Town. Hither the two +nurses bent their steps, accompanied by their charges; Richards +carrying Paul, of course, and Susan leading little Florence by the +hand, and giving her such jerks and pokes from time to time, as she +considered it wholesome to administer. + +The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, +rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were +visible on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken +through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; +enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were +undermined and shaking, propped by great beams of wood. Here, a chaos +of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the +bottom of a steep unnatural hill; there, confused treasures of iron +soaked and rusted in something that had accidentally become a pond. +Everywhere were bridges that led nowhere; thoroughfares that were +wholly impassable; Babel towers of chimneys, wanting half their +height; temporary wooden houses and enclosures, in the most unlikely +situations; carcases of ragged tenements, and fragments of unfinished +walls and arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of +bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and tripods straddling above +nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes and substances of +incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places, upside down, +burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, mouldering in the water, +and unintelligible as any dream. Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the +usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of +confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved within +dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames came +issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and +wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood. + +In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress; +and, from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly +away, upon its mighty course of civilisation and improvement. + +But as yet, the neighbourhood was shy to own the Railroad. One or +two bold speculators had projected streets; and one had built a +little, but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider farther of +it. A bran-new Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting +nothing at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms; but that +might be rash enterprise - and then it hoped to sell drink to the +workmen. So, the Excavators' House of Call had sprung up from a +beer-shop; and the old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the +Railway Eating House, with a roast leg of pork daily, through +interested motives of a similar immediate and popular description. +Lodging-house keepers were favourable in like manner; and for the like +reasons were not to be trusted. The general belief was very slow. +There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and +dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer-houses, and +carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli +of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster shells in the +lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded cabbage leaves in all +seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts, and rails, and old +cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses, and patches of +wretched vegetation, stared it out of countenance. Nothing was the +better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable waste ground +lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to scorn, +like many of the miserable neighbours. + +Staggs's Gardens was uncommonly incredulous. It was a little row of +houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off +with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes; +with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into +the gaps. Here, the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept +fowls and rabbits, erected rotten summer-houses (one was an old boat), +dried clothes, and smoked pipes. Some were of opinion that Staggs's +Gardens derived its name from a deceased capitalist, one Mr Staggs, +who had built it for his delectation. Others, who had a natural taste +for the country, held that it dated from those rural times when the +antlered herd, under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had +resorted to its shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs's Gardens +was regarded by its population as a sacred grove not to be withered by +Railroads; and so confident were they generally of its long outliving +any such ridiculous inventions, that the master chimney-sweeper at the +corner, who was understood to take the lead in the local politics of +the Gardens, had publicly declared that on the occasion of the +Railroad opening, if ever it did open, two of his boys should ascend +the flues of his dwelling, with instructions to hail the failure with +derisive cheers from the chimney-pots. + +To this unhallowed spot, the very name of which had hitherto been +carefully concealed from Mr Dombey by his sister, was little Paul now +borne by Fate and Richards + +'That's my house, Susan,' said Polly, pointing it out. + +'Is it, indeed, Mrs Richards?' said Susan, condescendingly. + +'And there's my sister Jemima at the door, I do declare' cried +Polly, 'with my own sweet precious baby in her arms!' + +The sight added such an extensive pair of wings to Polly's +impatience, that she set off down the Gardens at a run, and bouncing +on Jemima, changed babies with her in a twinkling; to the unutterable +astonishment of that young damsel, on whom the heir of the Dombeys +seemed to have fallen from the clouds. + +'Why, Polly!' cried Jemima. 'You! what a turn you have given me! +who'd have thought it! come along in Polly! How well you do look to be +sure! The children will go half wild to see you Polly, that they +will.' + +That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the +way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in +the chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately +the centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks +close to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. As to +Polly, she was full as noisy and vehement as the children; and it was +not until she was quite out of breath, and her hair was hanging all +about her flushed face, and her new christening attire was very much +dishevelled, that any pause took place in the confusion. Even then, +the smallest Toodle but one remained in her lap, holding on tight with +both arms round her neck; while the smallest Toodle but two mounted on +the back of the chair, and made desperate efforts, with one leg in the +air, to kiss her round the corner. + +'Look! there's a pretty little lady come to see you,' said Polly; +'and see how quiet she is! what a beautiful little lady, ain't she?' + +This reference to Florence, who had been standing by the door not +unobservant of what passed, directed the attention of the younger +branches towards her; and had likewise the happy effect of leading to +the formal recognition of Miss Nipper, who was not quite free from a +misgiving that she had been already slighted. + +'Oh do come in and sit down a minute, Susan, please,' said Polly. +'This is my sister Jemima, this is. Jemima, I don't know what I should +ever do with myself, if it wasn't for Susan Nipper; I shouldn't be +here now but for her.' + +'Oh do sit down, Miss Nipper, if you please,' quoth Jemima. + +Susan took the extreme corner of a chair, with a stately and +ceremonious aspect. + +'I never was so glad to see anybody in all my life; now really I +never was, Miss Nipper,' said Jemima. + +Susan relaxing, took a little more of the chair, and smiled +graciously. + +'Do untie your bonnet-strings, and make yourself at home, Miss +Nipper, please,' entreated Jemima. 'I am afraid it's a poorer place +than you're used to; but you'll make allowances, I'm sure.' + +The black-eyed was so softened by this deferential behaviour, that +she caught up little Miss Toodle who was running past, and took her to +Banbury Cross immediately. + +'But where's my pretty boy?' said Polly. 'My poor fellow? I came +all this way to see him in his new clothes.' + +'Ah what a pity!' cried Jemima. 'He'll break his heart, when he +hears his mother has been here. He's at school, Polly.' + +'Gone already!' + +'Yes. He went for the first time yesterday, for fear he should lose +any learning. But it's half-holiday, Polly: if you could only stop +till he comes home - you and Miss Nipper, leastways,' said Jemima, +mindful in good time of the dignity of the black-eyed. + +'And how does he look, Jemima, bless him!' faltered Polly. + +'Well, really he don't look so bad as you'd suppose,' returned +Jemima. + +'Ah!' said Polly, with emotion, 'I knew his legs must be too +short.' + +His legs is short,' returned Jemima; 'especially behind; but +they'll get longer, Polly, every day.' + +It was a slow, prospective kind of consolation; but the +cheerfulness and good nature with which it was administered, gave it a +value it did not intrinsically possess. After a moment's silence, +Polly asked, in a more sprightly manner: + +'And where's Father, Jemima dear?' - for by that patriarchal +appellation, Mr Toodle was generally known in the family. + +'There again!' said Jemima. 'What a pity! Father took his dinner +with him this morning, and isn't coming home till night. But he's +always talking of you, Polly, and telling the children about you; and +is the peaceablest, patientest, best-temperedest soul in the world, as +he always was and will be!' + +'Thankee, Jemima,' cried the simple Polly; delighted by the speech, +and disappointed by the absence. + +'Oh you needn't thank me, Polly,' said her sister, giving her a +sounding kiss upon the cheek, and then dancing little Paul cheerfully. +'I say the same of you sometimes, and think it too.' + +In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard +in the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a +reception; so the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and +about Biler, and about all his brothers and sisters: while the +black-eyed, having performed several journeys to Banbury Cross and +back, took sharp note of the furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard, +the castle on the mantel-piece with red and green windows in it, +susceptible of illumination by a candle-end within; and the pair of +small black velvet kittens, each with a lady's reticule in its mouth; +regarded by the Staggs's Gardeners as prodigies of imitative art. The +conversation soon becoming general lest the black-eyed should go off +at score and turn sarcastic, that young lady related to Jemima a +summary of everything she knew concerning Mr Dombey, his prospects, +family, pursuits, and character. Also an exact inventory of her +personal wardrobe, and some account of her principal relations and +friends. Having relieved her mind of these disclosures, she partook of +shrimps and porter, and evinced a disposition to swear eternal +friendship. + +Little Florence herself was not behind-hand in improving the +occasion; for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect +some toad-stools and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered +with them, heart and soul, on the formation of a temporary breakwater +across a small green pool that had collected in a corner. She was +still busily engaged in that labour, when sought and found by Susan; +who, such was her sense of duty, even under the humanizing influence +of shrimps, delivered a moral address to her (punctuated with thumps) +on her degenerate nature, while washing her face and hands; and +predicted that she would bring the grey hairs of her family in +general, with sorrow to the grave. After some delay, occasioned by a +pretty long confidential interview above stairs on pecuniary subjects, +between Polly and Jemima, an interchange of babies was again effected +- for Polly had all this timeretained her own child, and Jemima little +Paul - and the visitors took leave. + +But first the young Toodles, victims of a pious fraud, were deluded +into repairing in a body to a chandler's shop in the neighbourhood, +for the ostensible purpose of spending a penny; and when the coast was +quite clear, Polly fled: Jemima calling after her that if they could +only go round towards the City Road on their way back, they would be +sure to meet little Biler coming from school. + +'Do you think that we might make time to go a little round in that +direction, Susan?' inquired Polly, when they halted to take breath. + +'Why not, Mrs Richards?' returned Susan. + +'It's getting on towards our dinner time you know,' said Polly. + +But lunch had rendered her companion more than indifferent to this +grave consideration, so she allowed no weight to it, and they resolved +to go 'a little round.' + +Now, it happened that poor Biler's life had been, since yesterday +morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The +youth of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be +brought to bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing +himself upon the unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His +social existence had been more like that of an early Christian, than +an innocent child of the nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the +streets. He had been overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud; +violently flattened against posts. Entire strangers to his person had +lifted his yellow cap off his head, and cast it to the winds. His legs +had not only undergone verbal criticisms and revilings, but had been +handled and pinched. That very morning, he had received a perfectly +unsolicited black eye on his way to the Grinders' establishment, and +had been punished for it by the master: a superannuated old Grinder of +savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he +didn't know anything, and wasn't fit for anything, and for whose cruel +cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination.' + +Thus it fell out that Biler, on his way home, sought unfrequented +paths; and slunk along by narrow passages and back streets, to avoid +his tormentors. Being compelled to emerge into the main road, his ill +fortune brought him at last where a small party of boys, headed by a +ferocious young butcher, were lying in wait for any means of +pleasurable excitement that might happen. These, finding a Charitable +Grinder in the midst of them - unaccountably delivered over, as it +were, into their hands - set up a general yell and rushed upon him. + +But it so fell out likewise, that, at the same time, Polly, looking +hopelessly along the road before her, after a good hour's walk, had +said it was no use going any further, when suddenly she saw this +sight. She no sooner saw it than, uttering a hasty exclamation, and +giving Master Dombey to the black-eyed, she started to the rescue of +her unhappy little son. + +Surprises, like misfortunes, rarely come alone. The astonished +Susan Nipper and her two young charges were rescued by the bystanders +from under the very wheels of a passing carriage before they knew what +had happened; and at that moment (it was market day) a thundering +alarm of 'Mad Bull!' was raised. + +With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down, +and shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad +bulls coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being +torn to pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was +exhausted, urging Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and +wringing her hands as she remembered they had left the other nurse +behind, found, with a sensation of terror not to be described, that +she was quite alone. + +'Susan! Susan!' cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very +ecstasy of her alarm. 'Oh, where are they? where are they?' + +'Where are they?' said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast +as she could from the opposite side of the way. 'Why did you run away +from 'em?' + +'I was frightened,' answered Florence. 'I didn't know what I did. I +thought they were with me. Where are they?' + +The old woman took her by the wrist, and said, 'I'll show you.' + +She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a +mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking. +She was miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She +seemed to have followed Florence some little way at all events, for +she had lost her breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood +trying to regain it: working her shrivelled yellow face and throat +into all sorts of contortions. + +Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street, +of which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place - +more a back road than a street - and there was no one in it but her- +self and the old woman. + +'You needn't be frightened now,' said the old woman, still holding +her tight. 'Come along with me.' + +'I - I don't know you. What's your name?' asked Florence. + +'Mrs Brown,' said the old woman. 'Good Mrs Brown.' + +'Are they near here?' asked Florence, beginning to be led away. + +'Susan ain't far off,' said Good Mrs Brown; 'and the others are +close to her.' + +'Is anybody hurt?' cried Florence. + +'Not a bit of it,' said Good Mrs Brown. + +The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied +the old woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her +face as they went along - particularly at that industrious mouth - and +wondering whether Bad Mrs Brown, if there were such a person, was at +all like her. + +They had not gone far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable +places, such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned +down a dirty lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle +of the road. She stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut +up as a house that was full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening +the door with a key she took out of her bonnet, she pushed the child +before her into a back room, where there was a great heap of rags of +different colours lying on the floor; a heap of bones, and a heap of +sifted dust or cinders; but there was no furniture at all, and the +walls and ceiling were quite black. + +The child became so terrified the she was stricken speechless, and +looked as though about to swoon. + +'Now don't be a young mule,' said Good Mrs Brown, reviving her with +a shake. 'I'm not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.' + +Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute +supplication. + +'I'm not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,' said Mrs Brown. +'D'ye understand what I say?' + +The child answered with great difficulty, 'Yes.' + +'Then,' said Good Mrs Brown, taking her own seat on the bones, +'don't vex me. If you don't, I tell you I won't hurt you. But if you +do, I'll kill you. I could have you killed at any time - even if you +was in your own bed at home. Now let's know who you are, and what you +are, and all about it.' + +The old woman's threats and promises; the dread of giving her +offence; and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to +Florence now, of being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and +feared, and hoped; enabled her to do this bidding, and to tell her +little history, or what she knew of it. Mrs Brown listened +attentively, until she had finished. + +'So your name's Dombey, eh?' said Mrs Brown. + +'I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,' said Good Mrs Brown, 'and +that little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can +spare. Come! Take 'em off.' + +Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow; +keeping, all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs Brown. When she had +divested herself of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that +lady, Mrs B. examined them at leisure, and seemed tolerably well +satisfied with their quality and value. + +'Humph!' she said, running her eyes over the child's slight figure, +'I don't see anything else - except the shoes. I must have the shoes, +Miss Dombey.' + +Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too +glad to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman +then produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of +rags, which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl's +cloak, quite worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a +bonnet that had probably been picked up from some ditch or dunghill. +In this dainty raiment, she instructed Florence to dress herself; and +as such preparation seemed a prelude to her release, the child +complied with increased readiness, if possible. + +In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet +which was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair +which grew luxuriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good +Mrs Brown whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an +unaccountable state of excitement. + +'Why couldn't you let me be!' said Mrs Brown, 'when I was +contented? You little fool!' + +'I beg your pardon. I don't know what I have done,' panted +Florence. 'I couldn't help it.' + +'Couldn't help it!' cried Mrs Brown. 'How do you expect I can help +it? Why, Lord!' said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious +pleasure, 'anybody but me would have had 'em off, first of all.' +Florence was so relieved to find that it was only her hair and not her +head which Mrs Brown coveted, that she offered no resistance or +entreaty, and merely raised her mild eyes towards the face of that +good soul. + +'If I hadn't once had a gal of my own - beyond seas now- that was +proud of her hair,' said Mrs Brown, 'I'd have had every lock of it. +She's far away, she's far away! Oho! Oho!' + +Mrs Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild +tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and +thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever. +It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after +hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind +of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of +them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over +herself, Mrs Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very +short black pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she were +eating the stem. + +When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to +carry, that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and +told her that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence +she could inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with +threats of summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not +to talk to strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have +been too near for Mrs Brown's convenience), but to her father's office +in the City; also to wait at the street corner where she would be +left, until the clock struck three. These directions Mrs Brown +enforced with assurances that there would be potent eyes and ears in +her employment cognizant of all she did; and these directions Florence +promised faithfully and earnestly to observe. + +At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and +ragged little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes +and alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with +a gateway at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made +itself audible. Pointing out this gateway, and informing Florence that +when the clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown, +after making a parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and +quite beyond her own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade +her go and do it: remembering that she was watched. + +With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself +released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she +looked back and saw the head of Good Mrs Brown peeping out of the low +wooden passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise +the fist of Good Mrs Brown shaking towards her. But though she often +looked back afterwards - every minute, at least, in her nervous +recollection of the old woman - she could not see her again. + +Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and +more and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks +appeared to have made up their minds never to strike three any more. +At last the steeples rang out three o'clock; there was one close by, +so she couldn't be mistaken; and - after often looking over her +shoulder, and often going a little way, and as often coming back +again, lest the all-powerful spies of Mrs Brown should take offence - +she hurried off, as fast as she could in her slipshod shoes, holding +the rabbit-skin tight in her hand. + +All she knew of her father's offices was that they belonged to +Dombey and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City. +So she could only ask the way to Dombey and Son's in the City; and as +she generally made inquiry of children - being afraid to ask grown +people - she got very little satisfaction indeed. But by dint of +asking her way to the City after a while, and dropping the rest of her +inquiry for the present, she really did advance, by slow degrees, +towards the heart of that great region which is governed by the +terrible Lord Mayor. + +Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise +and confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by +what she had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry +father in such an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by +what had passed, and what was passing, and what was yet before her; +Florence went upon her weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice +could not help stopping to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly. +But few people noticed her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if +they did, believed that she was tutored to excite compassion, and +passed on. Florence, too, called to her aid all the firmness and +self-reliance of a character that her sad experience had prematurely +formed and tried: and keeping the end she had in view steadily before +her, steadily pursued it. + +It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had +started on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and +clangour of a narrow street full of carts and waggons, she peeped into +a kind of wharf or landing-place upon the river-side, where there were +a great many packages, casks, and boxes, strewn about; a large pair of +wooden scales; and a little wooden house on wheels, outside of which, +looking at the neighbouring masts and boats, a stout man stood +whistling, with his pen behind his ear, and his hands in his pockets, +as if his day's work were nearly done. + +'Now then! 'said this man, happening to turn round. 'We haven't got +anything for you, little girl. Be off!' + +'If you please, is this the City?' asked the trembling daughter of +the Dombeys. + +'Ah! It's the City. You know that well enough, I daresay. Be off! +We haven't got anything for you.' + +'I don't want anything, thank you,' was the timid answer. 'Except +to know the way to Dombey and Son's.' + +The man who had been strolling carelessly towards her, seemed +surprised by this reply, and looking attentively in her face, +rejoined: + +'Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son's?' + +'To know the way there, if you please.' + +The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of +his head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off. + +'Joe!' he called to another man - a labourer- as he picked it up +and put it on again. + +'Joe it is!' said Joe. + +'Where's that young spark of Dombey's who's been watching the +shipment of them goods?' + +'Just gone, by t'other gate,' said Joe. + +'Call him back a minute.' + +Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned + +with a blithe-looking boy. + +'You're Dombey's jockey, ain't you?' said the first man. + +'I'm in Dombey's House, Mr Clark,' returned the boy. + +'Look'ye here, then,' said Mr Clark. + +Obedient to the indication of Mr Clark's hand, the boy approached +towards Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with +her. But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief +of so suddenly considering herself safe at her journey's end, felt +reassured beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner, +ran eagerly up to him, leaving one of the slipshod shoes upon the +ground and caught his hand in both of hers. + +'I am lost, if you please!' said Florence. + +'Lost!' cried the boy. + +'Yes, I was lost this morning, a long way from here - and I have +had my clothes taken away, since - and I am not dressed in my own now +- and my name is Florence Dombey, my little brother's only sister - +and, oh dear, dear, take care of me, if you please!' sobbed Florence, +giving full vent to the childish feelings she had so long suppressed, +and bursting into tears. At the same time her miserable bonnet falling +off, her hair came tumbling down about her face: moving to speechless +admiration and commiseration, young Walter, nephew of Solomon Gills, +Ships' Instrument-maker in general. + +Mr Clark stood rapt in amazement: observing under his breath, I +never saw such a start on this wharf before. Walter picked up the +shoe, and put it on the little foot as the Prince in the story might +have fitted Cinderella's slipper on. He hung the rabbit-skin over his +left arm; gave the right to Florence; and felt, not to say like +Richard Whittington - that is a tame comparison - but like Saint +George of England, with the dragon lying dead before him. + +'Don't cry, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, in a transport of + +enthusiasm. + +'What a wonderful thing for me that I am here! You are as safe now +as if you were guarded by a whole boat's crew of picked men from a +man-of-war. Oh, don't cry.' + +'I won't cry any more,' said Florence. 'I am only crying for joy.' + +'Crying for joy!' thought Walter, 'and I'm the cause of it! Come +along, Miss Dombey. There's the other shoe off now! Take mine, Miss +Dombey.' + +'No, no, no,' said Florence, checking him in the act of impetuously + +pulling off his own. 'These do better. These do very well.' + +'Why, to be sure,' said Walter, glancing at her foot, 'mine are a +mile too large. What am I thinking about! You never could walk in +mine! Come along, Miss Dombey. Let me see the villain who will dare +molest you now.' + +So Walter, looking immensely fierce, led off Florence, looking very +happy; and they went arm-in-arm along the streets, perfectly +indifferent to any astonishment that their appearance might or did +excite by the way. + +It was growing dark and foggy, and beginning to rain too; but they +cared nothing for this: being both wholly absorbed in the late +adventures of Florence, which she related with the innocent good faith +and confidence of her years, while Walter listened as if, far from the +mud and grease of Thames Street, they were rambling alone among the +broad leaves and tall trees of some desert island in the tropics - as +he very likely fancied, for the time, they were. + +'Have we far to go?' asked Florence at last, lilting up her eyes to +her companion's face. + +'Ah! By-the-bye,' said Walter, stopping, 'let me see; where are we? +Oh! I know. But the offices are shut up now, Miss Dombey. There's +nobody there. Mr Dombey has gone home long ago. I suppose we must go +home too? or, stay. Suppose I take you to my Uncle's, where I live - +it's very near here - and go to your house in a coach to tell them you +are safe, and bring you back some clothes. Won't that be best?' + +'I think so,' answered Florence. 'Don't you? What do you think?' + +As they stood deliberating in the street, a man passed them, who +glanced quickly at Walter as he went by, as if he recognised him; but +seeming to correct that first impression, he passed on without +stopping. + +'Why, I think it's Mr Carker,' said Walter. 'Carker in our House. +Not Carker our Manager, Miss Dombey - the other Carker; the Junior - +Halloa! Mr Carker!' + +'Is that Walter Gay?' said the other, stopping and returning. 'I +couldn't believe it, with such a strange companion. + +As he stood near a lamp, listening with surprise to Walter's +hurried explanation, he presented a remarkable contrast to the two +youthful figures arm-in-arm before him. He was not old, but his hair +was white; his body was bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some +great trouble: and there were deep lines in his worn and melancholy +face. The fire of his eyes, the expression of his features, the very +voice in which he spoke, were all subdued and quenched, as if the +spirit within him lay in ashes. He was respectably, though very +plainly dressed, in black; but his clothes, moulded to the general +character of his figure, seemed to shrink and abase themselves upon +him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation which the whole man +from head to foot expressed, to be left unnoticed, and alone in his +humility. + +And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished +with the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy's earnest +countenance as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an +inexplicable show of trouble and compassion, which escaped into his +looks, however hard he strove to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in +conclusion, put to him the question he had put to Florence, he still +stood glancing at him with the same expression, as if he had read some +fate upon his face, mournfully at variance with its present +brightness. + +'What do you advise, Mr Carker?' said Walter, smiling. 'You always +give me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That's not +often, though.' + +'I think your own idea is the best,' he answered: looking from +Florence to Walter, and back again. + +'Mr Carker,' said Walter, brightening with a generous thought, +'Come! Here's a chance for you. Go you to Mr Dombey's, and be the +messenger of good news. It may do you some good, Sir. I'll remain at +home. You shall go.' + +'I!' returned the other. + +'Yes. Why not, Mr Carker?' said the boy. + +He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner +ashamed and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and +advising him to make haste, turned away. + +'Come, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, looking after him as they turned +away also, 'we'll go to my Uncle's as quick as we can. Did you ever +hear Mr Dombey speak of Mr Carker the Junior, Miss Florence?' + +'No,' returned the child, mildly, 'I don't often hear Papa speak.' + +'Ah! true! more shame for him,' thought Walter. After a minute's +pause, during which he had been looking down upon the gentle patient +little face moving on at his side, he said, 'The strangest man, Mr +Carker the Junior is, Miss Florence, that ever you heard of. If you +could understand what an extraordinary interest he takes in me, and +yet how he shuns me and avoids me; and what a low place he holds in +our office, and how he is never advanced, and never complains, though +year after year he sees young men passed over his head, and though his +brother (younger than he is), is our head Manager, you would be as +much puzzled about him as I am.' + +As Florence could hardly be expected to understand much about it, +Walter bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and +restlessness to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes +coming off again opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his +uncle's in his arms. Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined +the proposal, lest he should let her fall; and as they were already +near the wooden Midshipman, and as Walter went on to cite various +precedents, from shipwrecks and other moving accidents, where younger +boys than he had triumphantly rescued and carried off older girls than +Florence, they were still in full conversation about it when they +arrived at the Instrument-maker's door. + +'Holloa, Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and +speaking incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the +rest of the evening. 'Here's a wonderful adventure! Here's Mr Dombey's +daughter lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old +witch of a woman - found by me - brought home to our parlour to rest - +look here!' + +'Good Heaven!' said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite +compass-case. 'It can't be! Well, I - ' + +'No, nor anybody else,' said Walter, anticipating the rest. 'Nobody +would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa +near the fire, will you, Uncle Sol - take care of the plates - cut +some dinner for her, will you, Uncle - throw those shoes under the +grate. Miss Florence - put your feet on the fender to dry - how damp +they are - here's an adventure, Uncle, eh? - God bless my soul, how +hot I am!' + +Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive +bewilderment. He patted Florence's head, pressed her to eat, pressed +her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his +pocket-handkerchief heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew +with his eyes, and ears, and had no clear perception of anything +except that he was being constantly knocked against and tumbled over +by that excited young gentleman, as he darted about the room +attempting to accomplish twenty things at once, and doing nothing at +all. + +'Here, wait a minute, Uncle,' he continued, catching up a candle, +'till I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I'll be off. +I say, Uncle, isn't this an adventure?' + +'My dear boy,' said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his +forehead and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly +oscillating between Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts +of the parlour, 'it's the most extraordinary - ' + +'No, but do, Uncle, please - do, Miss Florence - dinner, you know, +Uncle.' + +'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of +mutton, as if he were catering for a giant. 'I'll take care of her, +Wally! I understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get +ready. Lord bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of +London.' + +Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and +descending from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue, +had sunk into a doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet, +though only a few minutes in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to +collect his wits as to make some little arrangements for her comfort, +and to darken the room, and to screen her from the blaze. Thus, when +the boy returned, she was sleeping peacefully. + +'That's capital!' he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it +squeezed a new expression into his face. 'Now I'm off. I'll just take +a crust of bread with me, for I'm very hungry - and don't wake her, +Uncle Sol.' + +'No, no,' said Solomon. 'Pretty child.' + +'Pretty, indeed!' cried Walter. 'I never saw such a face, Uncle +Sol. Now I'm off.' + +'That's right,' said Solomon, greatly relieved. + +'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, putting his face in at the door. + +'Here he is again,' said Solomon. + +'How does she look now?' + +'Quite happy,' said Solomon. + +'That's famous! now I'm off.' + +'I hope you are,' said Solomon to himself. + +'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, reappearing at the door. + +'Here he is again!' said Solomon. + +'We met Mr Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He +bade me good-bye, but came behind us here - there's an odd thing! - +for when we reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going +quietly away, like a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog. +How does she look now, Uncle?' + +'Pretty much the same as before, Wally,' replied Uncle Sol. + +'That's right. Now I am off!' + +And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite +for dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in +her slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic +architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity +of all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a +suit of coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep. + +In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr Dombey's house at a +pace seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his +head out of window every two or three minutes, in impatient +remonstrance with the driver. Arriving at his journey's end, he leaped +out, and breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, followed +him straight into the library, we there was a great confusion of +tongues, and where Mr Dombey, his sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and +Nipper, were all congregated together. + +'Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Walter, rushing up to him, 'but +I'm happy to say it's all right, Sir. Miss Dombey's found!' + +The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes, +panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr +Dombey, as he sat confronting him in his library chair. + +'I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,' said Mr +Dombey, looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in +company with Miss Tox. 'Let the servants know that no further steps +are necessary. This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from +the office. How was my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.' +Here he looked majestically at Richards. 'But how was she found? Who +found her?' + +'Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,' said Walter modestly, +'at least I don't know that I can claim the merit of having exactly +found her, Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of - ' + +'What do you mean, Sir,' interrupted Mr Dombey, regarding the boy's +evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an +instinctive dislike, 'by not having exactly found my daughter, and by +being a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.' + +It was quite out of Walter's power to be coherent; but he rendered +himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and +stated why he had come alone. + +'You hear this, girl?' said Mr Dombey sternly to the black-eyed. +'Take what is necessary, and return immediately with this young man to +fetch Miss Florence home. Gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow. + +'Oh! thank you, Sir,' said Walter. 'You are very kind. I'm sure I +was not thinking of any reward, Sir.' + +'You are a boy,' said Mr Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; 'and +what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. +You have done well, Sir. Don't undo it. Louisa, please to give the lad +some wine.' + +Mr Dombey's glance followed Walter Gay with sharp disfavour, as he +left the room under the pilotage of Mrs Chick; and it may be that his +mind's eye followed him with no greater relish, as he rode back to his +Uncle's with Miss Susan Nipper. + +There they found that Florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined, +and greatly improved the acquaintance of Solomon Gills, with whom she +was on terms of perfect confidence and ease. The black-eyed (who had +cried so much that she might now be called the red-eyed, and who was +very silent and depressed) caught her in her arms without a word of +contradiction or reproach, and made a very hysterical meeting of it. +Then converting the parlour, for the nonce, into a private tiring +room, she dressed her, with great care, in proper clothes; and +presently led her forth, as like a Dombey as her natural +disqualifications admitted of her being made. + +'Good-night!' said Florence, running up to Solomon. 'You have been +very good to me. + +Old Sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grand-father. + +'Good-night, Walter! Good-bye!' said Florence. + +'Good-bye!' said Walter, giving both his hands. + +'I'll never forget you,' pursued Florence. 'No! indeed I never +will. Good-bye, Walter!' In the innocence of her grateful heart, the +child lifted up her face to his. Walter, bending down his own, raised +it again, all red and burning; and looked at Uncle Sol, quite +sheepishly. + +'Where's Walter?' 'Good-night, Walter!' 'Good-bye, Walter!' 'Shake +hands once more, Walter!' This was still Florence's cry, after she was +shut up with her little maid, in the coach. And when the coach at +length moved off, Walter on the door-step gaily turned the waving of +her handkerchief, while the wooden Midshipman behind him seemed, like +himself, intent upon that coach alone, excluding all the other passing +coaches from his observation. + +In good time Mr Dombey's mansion was gained again, and again there +was a noise of tongues in the library. Again, too, the coach was +ordered to wait - 'for Mrs Richards,' one of Susan's fellow-servants +ominously whispered, as she passed with Florence. + +The entrance of the lost child made a slight sensation, but not +much. Mr Dombey, who had never found her, kissed her once upon the +forehead, and cautioned her not to run away again, or wander anywhere +with treacherous attendants. Mrs Chick stopped in her lamentations on +the corruption of human nature, even when beckoned to the paths of +virtue by a Charitable Grinder; and received her with a welcome +something short of the reception due to none but perfect Dombeys. Miss +Tox regulated her feelings by the models before her. Richards, the +culprit Richards, alone poured out her heart in broken words of +welcome, and bowed herself over the little wandering head as if she +really loved it. + +'Ah, Richards!' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh. 'It would have been +much more satisfactory to those who wish to think well of their fellow +creatures, and much more becoming in you, if you had shown some proper +feeling, in time, for the little child that is now going to be +prematurely deprived of its natural nourishment. + +'Cut off,' said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, 'from one common +fountain!' + +'If it was ungrateful case,' said Mrs Chick, solemnly, 'and I had +your reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable +Grinders' dress would blight my child, and the education choke him.' + +For the matter of that - but Mrs Chick didn't know it - he had been +pretty well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education, +even its retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a +storm of sobs and blows. + +'Louisa!' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not necessary to prolong these +observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house, +Richards, for taking my son - my son,' said Mr Dombey, emphatically +repeating these two words, 'into haunts and into society which are not +to be thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel +Miss Florence this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a +happy and fortunate circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that +occurrence, I never could have known - and from your own lips too - of +what you had been guilty. I think, Louisa, the other nurse, the young +person,' here Miss Nipper sobbed aloud, 'being so much younger, and +necessarily influenced by Paul's nurse, may remain. Have the goodness +to direct that this woman's coach is paid to' - Mr Dombey stopped and +winced - 'to Staggs's Gardens.' + +Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress, +and crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a +dagger in the haughty father's heart, an arrow in his brain, to see +how the flesh and blood he could not disown clung to this obscure +stranger, and he sitting by. Not that he cared to whom his daughter +turned, or from whom turned away. The swift sharp agony struck through +him, as he thought of what his son might do. + +His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor +Paul had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have, +for he had lost his second mother - his first, so far as he knew - by +a stroke as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the +beginning of his life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried +herself to sleep so mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend. +But that is quite beside the question. Let us waste no words about it. + + + +CHAPTER 7. + +A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place: also +of the State of Miss Tox's Affections + + + +Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house that had been squeezed, at +some remote period of English History, into a fashionable +neighbourhood at the west end of the town, where it stood in the shade +like a poor relation of the great street round the corner, coldly +looked down upon by mighty mansions. It was not exactly in a court, +and it was not exactly in a yard; but it was in the dullest of +No-Thoroughfares, rendered anxious and haggard by distant double +knocks. The name of this retirement, where grass grew between the +chinks in the stone pavement, was Princess's Place; and in Princess's +Place was Princess's Chapel, with a tinkling bell, where sometimes as +many as five-and-twenty people attended service on a Sunday. The +Princess's Arms was also there, and much resorted to by splendid +footmen. A sedan chair was kept inside the railing before the +Princess's Arms, but it had never come out within the memory of man; +and on fine mornings, the top of every rail (there were +eight-and-forty, as Miss Tox had often counted) was decorated with a +pewter-pot. + +There was another private house besides Miss Tox's in Princess's +Place: not to mention an immense Pair of gates, with an immense pair +of lion-headed knockers on them, which were never opened by any +chance, and were supposed to constitute a disused entrance to +somebody's stables. Indeed, there was a smack of stabling in the air +of Princess's Place; and Miss Tox's bedroom (which was at the back) +commanded a vista of Mews, where hostlers, at whatever sort of work +engaged, were continually accompanying themselves with effervescent +noises; and where the most domestic and confidential garments of +coachmen and their wives and families, usually hung, like Macbeth's +banners, on the outward walls.' + +At this other private house in Princess's Place, tenanted by a +retired butler who had married a housekeeper, apartments were let +Furnished, to a single gentleman: to wit, a wooden-featured, +blue-faced Major, with his eyes starting out of his head, in whom Miss +Tox recognised, as she herself expressed it, 'something so truly +military;' and between whom and herself, an occasional interchange of +newspapers and pamphlets, and such Platonic dalliance, was effected +through the medium of a dark servant of the Major's who Miss Tox was +quite content to classify as a 'native,' without connecting him with +any geographical idea whatever. + +Perhaps there never was a smaller entry and staircase, than the +entry and staircase of Miss Tox's house. Perhaps, taken altogether, +from top to bottom, it was the most inconvenient little house in +England, and the crookedest; but then, Miss Tox said, what a +situation! There was very little daylight to be got there in the +winter: no sun at the best of times: air was out of the question, and +traffic was walled out. Still Miss Tox said, think of the situation! +So said the blue-faced Major, whose eyes were starting out of his +head: who gloried in Princess's Place: and who delighted to turn the +conversation at his club, whenever he could, to something connected +with some of the great people in the great street round the corner, +that he might have the satisfaction of saying they were his +neighbours. + +In short, with Miss Tox and the blue-faced Major, it was enough for +Princess's Place - as with a very small fragment of society, it is +enough for many a little hanger-on of another sort - to be well +connected, and to have genteel blood in its veins. It might be poor, +mean, shabby, stupid, dull. No matter. The great street round the +corner trailed off into Princess's Place; and that which of High +Holborn would have become a choleric word, spoken of Princess's Place +became flat blasphemy. + +The dingy tenement inhabited by Miss Tox was her own; having been +devised and bequeathed to her by the deceased owner of the fishy eye +in the locket, of whom a miniature portrait, with a powdered head and +a pigtail, balanced the kettle-holder on opposite sides of the parlour +fireplace. The greater part of the furniture was of the powdered-head +and pig-tail period: comprising a plate-warmer, always languishing and +sprawling its four attenuated bow legs in somebody's way; and an +obsolete harpsichord, illuminated round the maker's name with a +painted garland of sweet peas. In any part of the house, visitors were +usually cognizant of a prevailing mustiness; and in warm weather Miss +Tox had been seen apparently writing in sundry chinks and crevices of +the wainscoat with the the wrong end of a pen dipped in spirits of +turpentine. + +Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite +literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his +journey downhill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of +jaw-bones, and long-flapped elephantine ears, and his eyes and +complexion in the state of artificial excitement already mentioned, he +was mightily proud of awakening an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled +his vanity with the fiction that she was a splendid woman who had her +eye on him. This he had several times hinted at the club: in connexion +with little jocularities, of which old Joe Bagstock, old Joey +Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock, or so forth, was the +perpetual theme: it being, as it were, the Major's stronghold and +donjon-keep of light humour, to be on the most familiar terms with his +own name. + +'Joey B., Sir,'the Major would say, with a flourish of his +walking-stick, 'is worth a dozen of you. If you had a few more of the +Bagstock breed among you, Sir, you'd be none the worse for it. Old +Joe, Sir, needn't look far for a wile even now, if he was on the +look-out; but he's hard-hearted, Sir, is Joe - he's tough, Sir, tough, +and de-vilish sly!' After such a declaration, wheezing sounds would be +heard; and the Major's blue would deepen into purple, while his eyes +strained and started convulsively. + +Notwithstanding his very liberal laudation of himself, however, the +Major was selfish. It may be doubted whether there ever was a more +entirely selfish person at heart; or at stomach is perhaps a better +expression, seeing that he was more decidedly endowed with that latter +organ than with the former. He had no idea of being overlooked or +slighted by anybody; least of all, had he the remotest comprehension +of being overlooked and slighted by Miss Tox. + +And yet, Miss Tox, as it appeared, forgot him - gradually forgot +him. She began to forget him soon after her discovery of the Toodle +family. She continued to forget him up to the time of the christening. +She went on forgetting him with compound interest after that. +Something or somebody had superseded him as a source of interest. + +'Good morning, Ma'am,' said the Major, meeting Miss Tox in +Princess's Place, some weeks after the changes chronicled in the last +chapter. + +'Good morning, Sir,' said Miss Tox; very coldly. + +'Joe Bagstock, Ma'am,' observed the Major, with his usual +gallantry, 'has not had the happiness of bowing to you at your window, +for a considerable period. Joe has been hardly used, Ma'am. His sun +has been behind a cloud.' + +Miss Tox inclined her head; but very coldly indeed. + +'Joe's luminary has been out of town, Ma'am, perhaps,' inquired the +Major. + +'I? out of town? oh no, I have not been out of town,' said Miss +Tox. 'I have been much engaged lately. My time is nearly all devoted +to some very intimate friends. I am afraid I have none to spare, even +now. Good morning, Sir!' + +As Miss Tox, with her most fascinating step and carriage, +disappeared from Princess's Place, the Major stood looking after her +with a bluer face than ever: muttering and growling some not at all +complimentary remarks. + +'Why, damme, Sir,' said the Major, rolling his lobster eyes round +and round Princess's Place, and apostrophizing its fragrant air, 'six +months ago, the woman loved the ground Josh Bagstock walked on. What's +the meaning of it?' + +The Major decided, after some consideration, that it meant +mantraps; that it meant plotting and snaring; that Miss Tox was +digging pitfalls. 'But you won't catch Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major. +'He's tough, Ma'am, tough, is J.B. Tough, and de-vilish sly!' over +which reflection he chuckled for the rest of the day. + +But still, when that day and many other days were gone and past, it +seemed that Miss Tox took no heed whatever of the Major, and thought +nothing at all about him. She had been wont, once upon a time, to look +out at one of her little dark windows by accident, and blushingly +return the Major's greeting; but now, she never gave the Major a +chance, and cared nothing at all whether he looked over the way or +not. Other changes had come to pass too. The Major, standing in the +shade of his own apartment, could make out that an air of greater +smartness had recently come over Miss Tox's house; that a new cage +with gilded wires had been provided for the ancient little canary +bird; that divers ornaments, cut out of coloured card-boards and +paper, seemed to decorate the chimney-piece and tables; that a plant +or two had suddenly sprung up in the windows; that Miss Tox +occasionally practised on the harpsichord, whose garland of sweet peas +was always displayed ostentatiously, crowned with the Copenhagen and +Bird Waltzes in a Music Book of Miss Tox's own copying. + +Over and above all this, Miss Tox had long been dressed with +uncommon care and elegance in slight mourning. But this helped the +Major out of his difficulty; and be determined within himself that she +had come into a small legacy, and grown proud. + +It was on the very next day after he had eased his mind by arriving +at this decision, that the Major, sitting at his breakfast, saw an +apparition so tremendous and wonderful in Miss Tox's little +drawing-room, that he remained for some time rooted to his chair; +then, rushing into the next room, returned with a double-barrelled +opera-glass, through which he surveyed it intently for some minutes. + +'It's a Baby, Sir,' said the Major, shutting up the glass again, +'for fifty thousand pounds!' + +The Major couldn't forget it. He could do nothing but whistle, and +stare to that extent, that his eyes, compared with what they now +became, had been in former times quite cavernous and sunken. Day after +day, two, three, four times a week, this Baby reappeared. The Major +continued to stare and whistle. To all other intents and purposes he +was alone in Princess's Place. Miss Tox had ceased to mind what he +did. He might have been black as well as blue, and it would have been +of no consequence to her. + +The perseverance with which she walked out of Princess's Place to +fetch this baby and its nurse, and walked back with them, and walked +home with them again, and continually mounted guard over them; and the +perseverance with which she nursed it herself, and fed it, and played +with it, and froze its young blood with airs upon the harpsichord, was +extraordinary. At about this same period too, she was seized with a +passion for looking at a certain bracelet; also with a passion for +looking at the moon, of which she would take long observations from +her chamber window. But whatever she looked at; sun, moon, stars, or +bracelet; she looked no more at the Major. And the Major whistled, and +stared, and wondered, and dodged about his room, and could make +nothing of it. + +'You'll quite win my brother Paul's heart, and that's the truth, my +dear,' said Mrs Chick, one day. + +Miss Tox turned pale. + +'He grows more like Paul every day,' said Mrs Chick. + +Miss Tox returned no other reply than by taking the little Paul in +her arms, and making his cockade perfectly flat and limp with her +caresses. + +'His mother, my dear,' said Miss Tox, 'whose acquaintance I was to +have made through you, does he at all resemble her?' + +'Not at all,' returned Louisa + +'She was - she was pretty, I believe?' faltered Miss Tox. + +'Why, poor dear Fanny was interesting,' said Mrs Chick, after some +judicial consideration. 'Certainly interesting. She had not that air +of commanding superiority which one would somehow expect, almost as a +matter of course, to find in my brother's wife; nor had she that +strength and vigour of mind which such a man requires.' + +Miss Tox heaved a deep sigh. + +'But she was pleasing:' said Mrs Chick: 'extremely so. And she +meant! - oh, dear, how well poor Fanny meant!' + +'You Angel!' cried Miss Tox to little Paul. 'You Picture of your +own Papa!' + +If the Major could have known how many hopes and ventures, what a +multitude of plans and speculations, rested on that baby head; and +could have seen them hovering, in all their heterogeneous confusion +and disorder, round the puckered cap of the unconscious little Paul; +he might have stared indeed. Then would he have recognised, among the +crowd, some few ambitious motes and beams belonging to Miss Tox; then +would he perhaps have understood the nature of that lady's faltering +investment in the Dombey Firm. + +If the child himself could have awakened in the night, and seen, +gathered about his cradle-curtains, faint reflections of the dreams +that other people had of him, they might have scared him, with good +reason. But he slumbered on, alike unconscious of the kind intentions +of Miss Tox, the wonder of the Major, the early sorrows of his sister, +and the stern visions of his father; and innocent that any spot of +earth contained a Dombey or a Son. + + + +CHAPTER 8. + +Paul's Further Progress, Growth and Character + + + +Beneath the watching and attentive eyes of Time - so far another +Major - Paul's slumbers gradually changed. More and more light broke +in upon them; distincter and distincter dreams disturbed them; an +accumulating crowd of objects and impressions swarmed about his rest; +and so he passed from babyhood to childhood, and became a talking, +walking, wondering Dombey. + +On the downfall and banishment of Richards, the nursery may be said +to have been put into commission: as a Public Department is sometimes, +when no individual Atlas can be found to support it The Commissioners +were, of course, Mrs Chick and Miss Tox: who devoted themselves to +their duties with such astonishing ardour that Major Bagstock had +every day some new reminder of his being forsaken, while Mr Chick, +bereft of domestic supervision, cast himself upon the gay world, dined +at clubs and coffee-houses, smelt of smoke on three different +occasions, went to the play by himself, and in short, loosened (as Mrs +Chick once told him) every social bond, and moral obligation. + +Yet, in spite of his early promise, all this vigilance and care +could not make little Paul a thriving boy. Naturally delicate, +perhaps, he pined and wasted after the dismissal of his nurse, and, +for a long time, seemed but to wait his opportunity of gliding through +their hands, and seeking his lost mother. This dangerous ground in his +steeple-chase towards manhood passed, he still found it very rough +riding, and was grievously beset by all the obstacles in his course. +Every tooth was a break-neck fence, and every pimple in the measles a +stone wall to him. He was down in every fit of the hooping-cough, and +rolled upon and crushed by a whole field of small diseases, that came +trooping on each other's heels to prevent his getting up again. Some +bird of prey got into his throat instead of the thrush; and the very +chickens turning ferocious - if they have anything to do with that +infant malady to which they lend their name - worried him like +tiger-cats. + +The chill of Paul's christening had struck home, perhaps to some +sensitive part of his nature, which could not recover itself in the +cold shade of his father; but he was an unfortunate child from that +day. Mrs Wickam often said she never see a dear so put upon. + +Mrs Wickam was a waiter's wife - which would seem equivalent to +being any other man's widow - whose application for an engagement in +Mr Dombey's service had been favourably considered, on account of the +apparent impossibility of her having any followers, or anyone to +follow; and who, from within a day or two of Paul's sharp weaning, had +been engaged as his nurse. Mrs Wickam was a meek woman, of a fair +complexion, with her eyebrows always elevated, and her head always +drooping; who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to +pity anybody else; and who had a surprising natural gift of viewing +all subjects in an utterly forlorn and pitiable light, and bringing +dreadful precedents to bear upon them, and deriving the greatest +consolation from the exercise of that talent. + +It is hardly necessary to observe, that no touch of this quality +ever reached the magnificent knowledge of Mr Dombey. It would have +been remarkable, indeed, if any had; when no one in the house - not +even Mrs Chick or Miss Tox - dared ever whisper to him that there had, +on any one occasion, been the least reason for uneasiness in reference +to little Paul. He had settled, within himself, that the child must +necessarily pass through a certain routine of minor maladies, and that +the sooner he did so the better. If he could have bought him off, or +provided a substitute, as in the case of an unlucky drawing for the +militia, he would have been glad to do so, on liberal terms. But as +this was not feasible, he merely wondered, in his haughty-manner, now +and then, what Nature meant by it; and comforted himself with the +reflection that there was another milestone passed upon the road, and +that the great end of the journey lay so much the nearer. For the +feeling uppermost in his mind, now and constantly intensifying, and +increasing in it as Paul grew older, was impatience. Impatience for +the time to come, when his visions of their united consequence and +grandeur would be triumphantly realized. + +Some philosophers tell us that selfishness is at the root of our +best loves and affections.' Mr Dombey's young child was, from the +beginning, so distinctly important to him as a part of his own +greatness, or (which is the same thing) of the greatness of Dombey and +Son, that there is no doubt his parental affection might have been +easily traced, like many a goodly superstructure of fair fame, to a +very low foundation. But he loved his son with all the love he had. If +there were a warm place in his frosty heart, his son occupied it; if +its very hard surface could receive the impression of any image, the +image of that son was there; though not so much as an infant, or as a +boy, but as a grown man - the 'Son' of the Firm. Therefore he was +impatient to advance into the future, and to hurry over the +intervening passages of his history. Therefore he had little or no +anxiety' about them, in spite of his love; feeling as if the boy had a +charmed life, and must become the man with whom he held such constant +communication in his thoughts, and for whom he planned and projected, +as for an existing reality, every day. + +Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old. He was a pretty little +fellow; though there was something wan and wistful in his small face, +that gave occasion to many significant shakes of Mrs Wickam's head, +and many long-drawn inspirations of Mrs Wickam's breath. His temper +gave abundant promise of being imperious in after-life; and he had as +hopeful an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful +subservience of all other things and persons to it, as heart could +desire. He was childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a +sullen disposition; but he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful +way, at other times, of sitting brooding in his miniature arm-chair, +when he looked (and talked) like one of those terrible little Beings +in the Fairy tales, who, at a hundred and fifty or two hundred years +of age, fantastically represent the children for whom they have been +substituted. He would frequently be stricken with this precocious mood +upstairs in the nursery; and would sometimes lapse into it suddenly, +exclaiming that he was tired: even while playing with Florence, or +driving Miss Tox in single harness. But at no time did he fall into it +so surely, as when, his little chair being carried down into his +father's room, he sat there with him after dinner, by the fire. They +were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon. +Mr Dombey so erect and solemn, gazing at the blare; his little image, +with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed +and rapt attention of a sage. Mr Dombey entertaining complicated +worldly schemes and plans; the little image entertaining Heaven knows +what wild fancies, half-formed thoughts, and wandering speculations. +Mr Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance; the little image by +inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike, +and yet so monstrously contrasted. + +On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet +for a long time, and Mr Dombey only knew that the child was awake by +occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling +like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus: + +'Papa! what's money?' + +The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of +Mr Dombey's thoughts, that Mr Dombey was quite disconcerted. + +'What is money, Paul?' he answered. 'Money?' + +'Yes,' said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his +little chair, and turning the old face up towards Mr Dombey's; 'what +is money?' + +Mr Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some +explanation involving the terms circulating-medium, currency, +depreciation of currency', paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of +precious metals in the market, and so forth; but looking down at the +little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered: +'Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, shillings, half-pence. You +know what they are?' + +'Oh yes, I know what they are,' said Paul. 'I don't mean that, +Papa. I mean what's money after all?' + +Heaven and Earth, how old his face was as he turned it up again +towards his father's! + +'What is money after all!' said Mr Dombey, backing his chair a +little, that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the +presumptuous atom that propounded such an inquiry. + +'I mean, Papa, what can it do?' returned Paul, folding his arms +(they were hardly long enough to fold), and looking at the fire, and +up at him, and at the fire, and up at him again. + +Mr Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him +on the head. 'You'll know better by-and-by, my man,' he said. 'Money, +Paul, can do anything.' He took hold of the little hand, and beat it +softly against one of his own, as he said so. + +But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could; and rubbing it +gently to and fro on the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were in the +palm, and he were sharpening it - and looking at the fire again, as +though the fire had been his adviser and prompter - repeated, after a +short pause: + +'Anything, Papa?' + +'Yes. Anything - almost,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Anything means everything, don't it, Papa?' asked his son: not +observing, or possibly not understanding, the qualification. + +'It includes it: yes,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Why didn't money save me my Mama?' returned the child. 'It isn't +cruel, is it?' + +'Cruel!' said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth, and seeming to +resent the idea. 'No. A good thing can't be cruel.' + +'If it's a good thing, and can do anything,' said the little +fellow, thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, 'I wonder why it +didn't save me my Mama.' + +He didn't ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had +seen, with a child's quickness, that it had already made his father +uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it were quite +an old one to him, and had troubled him very much; and sat with his +chin resting on his hand, still cogitating and looking for an +explanation in the fire. + +Mr Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not to say his alarm +(for it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever +broached the subject of his mother to him, though he had had him +sitting by his side, in this same manner, evening after evening), +expounded to him how that money, though a very potent spirit, never to +be disparaged on any account whatever, could not keep people alive +whose time was come to die; and how that we must all die, +unfortunately, even in the City, though we were never so rich. But how +that money caused us to be honoured, feared, respected, courted, and +admired, and made us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men; and +how that it could, very often, even keep off death, for a long time +together. How, for example, it had secured to his Mama the services of +Mr Pilkins, by which be, Paul, had often profited himself; likewise of +the great Doctor Parker Peps, whom he had never known. And how it +could do all, that could be done. This, with more to the same purpose, +Mr Dombey instilled into the mind of his son, who listened +attentively, and seemed to understand the greater part of what was +said to him. + +'It can't make me strong and quite well, either, Papa; can it?' +asked Paul, after a short silence; rubbing his tiny hands. + +'Why, you are strong and quite well,' returned Mr Dombey. 'Are you +not?' + +Oh! the age of the face that was turned up again, with an +expression, half of melancholy, half of slyness, on it! + +'You are as strong and well as such little people usually are? Eh?' +said Mr Dombey. + +'Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong and well as +Florence, 'I know,' returned the child; 'and I believe that when +Florence was as little as me, she could play a great deal longer at a +time without tiring herself. I am so tired sometimes,' said little +Paul, warming his hands, and looking in between the bars of the grate, +as if some ghostly puppet-show were performing there, 'and my bones +ache so (Wickam says it's my bones), that I don't know what to do.' + +'Ay! But that's at night,' said Mr Dombey, drawing his own chair +closer to his son's, and laying his hand gently on his back; 'little +people should be tired at night, for then they sleep well.' + +'Oh, it's not at night, Papa,' returned the child, 'it's in the +day; and I lie down in Florence's lap, and she sings to me. At night I +dream about such cu-ri-ous things!' + +And he went on, warming his hands again, and thinking about them, +like an old man or a young goblin. + +Mr Dombey was so astonished, and so uncomfortable, and so perfectly +at a loss how to pursue the conversation, that he could only sit +looking at his son by the light of the fire, with his hand resting on +his back, as if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction. +Once he advanced his other hand, and turned the contemplative face +towards his own for a moment. But it sought the fire again as soon as +he released it; and remained, addressed towards the flickering blaze, +until the nurse appeared, to summon him to bed. + +'I want Florence to come for me,' said Paul. + +'Won't you come with your poor Nurse Wickam, Master Paul?' inquired +that attendant, with great pathos. + +'No, I won't,' replied Paul, composing himself in his arm-chair +again, like the master of the house. + +Invoking a blessing upon his innocence, Mrs Wickam withdrew, and +presently Florence appeared in her stead. The child immediately +started up with sudden readiness and animation, and raised towards his +father in bidding him good-night, a countenance so much brighter, so +much younger, and so much more child-like altogether, that Mr Dombey, +while he felt greatly reassured by the change, was quite amazed at it. + +After they had left the room together, he thought he heard a soft +voice singing; and remembering that Paul had said his sister sung to +him, he had the curiosity to open the door and listen, and look after +them. She was toiling up the great, wide, vacant staircase, with him +in her arms; his head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms +thrown negligently round her neck. So they went, toiling up; she +singing all the way, and Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble +accompaniment. Mr Dombey looked after them until they reached the top +of the staircase - not without halting to rest by the way - and passed +out of his sight; and then he still stood gazing upwards, until the +dull rays of the moon, glimmering in a melancholy manner through the +dim skylight, sent him back to his room. + +Mrs Chick and Miss Tox were convoked in council at dinner next day; +and when the cloth was removed, Mr Dombey opened the proceedings by +requiring to be informed, without any gloss or reservation, whether +there was anything the matter with Paul, and what Mr Pilkins said +about him. + +'For the child is hardly,' said Mr Dombey, 'as stout as I could +wish.' + +'My dear Paul,' returned Mrs Chick, 'with your usual happy +discrimination, which I am weak enough to envy you, every time I am in +your company; and so I think is Miss Tox + +'Oh my dear!' said Miss Tox, softly, 'how could it be otherwise? +Presumptuous as it is to aspire to such a level; still, if the bird of +night may - but I'll not trouble Mr Dombey with the sentiment. It +merely relates to the Bulbul.' + +Mr Dombey bent his head in stately recognition of the Bulbuls as an +old-established body. + +'With your usual happy discrimination, my dear Paul,' resumed Mrs +Chick, 'you have hit the point at once. Our darling is altogether as +stout as we could wish. The fact is, that his mind is too much for +him. His soul is a great deal too large for his frame. I am sure the +way in which that dear child talks!'said Mrs Chick, shaking her head; +'no one would believe. His expressions, Lucretia, only yesterday upon +the subject of Funerals! + +'I am afraid,' said Mr Dombey, interrupting her testily, 'that some +of those persons upstairs suggest improper subjects to the child. He +was speaking to me last night about his - about his Bones,' said Mr +Dombey, laying an irritated stress upon the word. 'What on earth has +anybody to do with the - with the - Bones of my son? He is not a +living skeleton, I suppose. + +'Very far from it,' said Mrs Chick, with unspeakable expression. + +'I hope so,' returned her brother. 'Funerals again! who talks to +the child of funerals? We are not undertakers, or mutes, or +grave-diggers, I believe.' + +'Very far from it,' interposed Mrs Chick, with the same profound +expression as before. + +'Then who puts such things into his head?' said Mr Dombey. 'Really +I was quite dismayed and shocked last night. Who puts such things into +his head, Louisa?' + +'My dear Paul,' said Mrs Chick, after a moment's silence, 'it is of +no use inquiring. I do not think, I will tell you candidly that Wickam +is a person of very cheerful spirit, or what one would call a - ' + +'A daughter of Momus,' Miss Tox softly suggested. + +'Exactly so,' said Mrs Chick; 'but she is exceedingly attentive and +useful, and not at all presumptuous; indeed I never saw a more +biddable woman. I would say that for her, if I was put upon my trial +before a Court of Justice.' + +'Well! you are not put upon your trial before a Court of Justice, +at present, Louisa,' returned Mr Dombey, chafing,' and therefore it +don't matter. + +'My dear Paul,' said Mrs Chick, in a warning voice, 'I must be +spoken to kindly, or there is an end of me,' at the same time a +premonitory redness developed itself in Mrs Chick's eyelids which was +an invariable sign of rain, unless the weather changed directly. + +'I was inquiring, Louisa,' observed Mr Dombey, in an altered voice, +and after a decent interval, 'about Paul's health and actual state. + +'If the dear child,' said Mrs Chick, in the tone of one who was +summing up what had been previously quite agreed upon, instead of +saying it all for the first time, 'is a little weakened by that last +attack, and is not in quite such vigorous health as we could wish; and +if he has some temporary weakness in his system, and does occasionally +seem about to lose, for the moment, the use of his - ' + +Mrs Chick was afraid to say limbs, after Mr Dombey's recent +objection to bones, and therefore waited for a suggestion from Miss +Tox, who, true to her office, hazarded 'members.' + +'Members!' repeated Mr Dombey. + +'I think the medical gentleman mentioned legs this morning, my dear +Louisa, did he not?' said Miss Tox. + +'Why, of course he did, my love,' retorted Mrs Chick, mildly +reproachful. 'How can you ask me? You heard him. I say, if our dear +Paul should lose, for the moment, the use of his legs, these are +casualties common to many children at his time of life, and not to be +prevented by any care or caution. The sooner you understand that, +Paul, and admit that, the better. If you have any doubt as to the +amount of care, and caution, and affection, and self-sacrifice, that +has been bestowed upon little Paul, I should wish to refer the +question to your medical attendant, or to any of your dependants in +this house. Call Towlinson,' said Mrs Chick, 'I believe he has no +prejudice in our favour; quite the contrary. I should wish to hear +what accusation Towlinson can make!' + +'Surely you must know, Louisa,' observed Mr Dombey, 'that I don't +question your natural devotion to, and regard for, the future head of +my house.' + +'I am glad to hear it, Paul,' said Mrs Chick; 'but really you are +very odd, and sometimes talk very strangely, though without meaning +it, I know. If your dear boy's soul is too much for his body, Paul, +you should remember whose fault that is - who he takes after, I mean - +and make the best of it. He's as like his Papa as he can be. People +have noticed it in the streets. The very beadle, I am informed, +observed it, so long ago as at his christening. He's a very +respectable man, with children of his own. He ought to know.' + +'Mr Pilkins saw Paul this morning, I believe?' said Mr Dombey. + +'Yes, he did,' returned his sister. 'Miss Tox and myself were +present. Miss Tox and myself are always present. We make a point of +it. Mr Pilkins has seen him for some days past, and a very clever man +I believe him to be. He says it is nothing to speak of; which I can +confirm, if that is any consolation; but he recommended, to-day, +sea-air. Very wisely, Paul, I feel convinced.' + +'Sea-air,' repeated Mr Dombey, looking at his sister. + +'There is nothing to be made uneasy by, in that,'said Mrs Chick. +'My George and Frederick were both ordered sea-air, when they were +about his age; and I have been ordered it myself a great many times. I +quite agree with you, Paul, that perhaps topics may be incautiously +mentioned upstairs before him, which it would be as well for his +little mind not to expatiate upon; but I really don't see how that is +to be helped, in the case of a child of his quickness. If he were a +common child, there would be nothing in it. I must say I think, with +Miss Tox, that a short absence from this house, the air of Brighton, +and the bodily and mental training of so judicious a person as Mrs +Pipchin for instance - ' + +'Who is Mrs Pipchin, Louisa?' asked Mr Dombey; aghast at this +familiar introduction of a name he had never heard before. + +'Mrs Pipchin, my dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'is an elderly +lady - Miss Tox knows her whole history - who has for some time +devoted all the energies of her mind, with the greatest success, to +the study and treatment of infancy, and who has been extremely well +connected. Her husband broke his heart in - how did you say her +husband broke his heart, my dear? I forget the precise circumstances. + +'In pumping water out of the Peruvian Mines,' replied Miss Tox. + +'Not being a Pumper himself, of course,' said Mrs Chick, glancing +at her brother; and it really did seem necessary to offer the +explanation, for Miss Tox had spoken of him as if he had died at the +handle; 'but having invested money in the speculation, which failed. I +believe that Mrs Pipchin's management of children is quite +astonishing. I have heard it commended in private circles ever since I +was - dear me - how high!' Mrs Chick's eye wandered about the bookcase +near the bust of Mr Pitt, which was about ten feet from the ground. + +'Perhaps I should say of Mrs Pipchin, my dear Sir,' observed Miss +Tox, with an ingenuous blush, 'having been so pointedly referred to, +that the encomium which has been passed upon her by your sweet sister +is well merited. Many ladies and gentleman, now grown up to be +interesting members of society, have been indebted to her care. The +humble individual who addresses you was once under her charge. I +believe juvenile nobility itself is no stranger to her establishment.' + +'Do I understand that this respectable matron keeps an +establishment, Miss Tox?' the Mr Dombey, condescendingly. + +'Why, I really don't know,' rejoined that lady, 'whether I am +justified in calling it so. It is not a Preparatory School by any +means. Should I express my meaning,' said Miss Tox, with peculiar +sweetness,'if I designated it an infantine Boarding-House of a very +select description?' + +'On an exceedingly limited and particular scale,' suggested Mrs +Chick, with a glance at her brother. + +'Oh! Exclusion itself!' said Miss Tox. + +There was something in this. Mrs Pipchin's husband having broken +his heart of the Peruvian mines was good. It had a rich sound. +Besides, Mr Dombey was in a state almost amounting to consternation at +the idea of Paul remaining where he was one hour after his removal had +been recommended by the medical practitioner. It was a stoppage and +delay upon the road the child must traverse, slowly at the best, +before the goal was reached. Their recommendation of Mrs Pipchin had +great weight with him; for he knew that they were jealous of any +interference with their charge, and he never for a moment took it into +account that they might be solicitous to divide a responsibility, of +which he had, as shown just now, his own established views. Broke his +heart of the Peruvian mines, mused Mr Dombey. Well! a very respectable +way of doing It. + +'Supposing we should decide, on to-morrow's inquiries, to send Paul +down to Brighton to this lady, who would go with him?' inquired Mr +Dombey, after some reflection. + +'I don't think you could send the child anywhere at present without +Florence, my dear Paul,' returned his sister, hesitating. 'It's quite +an infatuation with him. He's very young, you know, and has his +fancies.' + +Mr Dombey turned his head away, and going slowly to the bookcase, +and unlocking it, brought back a book to read. + +'Anybody else, Louisa?' he said, without looking up, and turning +over the leaves. + +'Wickam, of course. Wickam would be quite sufficient, I should +say,' returned his sister. 'Paul being in such hands as Mrs Pipchin's, +you could hardly send anybody who would be a further check upon her. +You would go down yourself once a week at least, of course.' + +'Of course,' said Mr Dombey; and sat looking at one page for an +hour afterwards, without reading one word. + +This celebrated Mrs Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured, +ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled face, +like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard grey eye, that looked as if +it might have been hammered at on an anvil without sustaining any +injury. Forty years at least had elapsed since the Peruvian mines had +been the death of Mr Pipchin; but his relict still wore black +bombazeen, of such a lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade, that gas +itself couldn't light her up after dark, and her presence was a +quencher to any number of candles. She was generally spoken of as 'a +great manager' of children; and the secret of her management was, to +give them everything that they didn't like, and nothing that they did +- which was found to sweeten their dispositions very much. She was +such a bitter old lady, that one was tempted to believe there had been +some mistake in the application of the Peruvian machinery, and that +all her waters of gladness and milk of human kindness, had been pumped +out dry, instead of the mines. + +The Castle of this ogress and child-queller was in a steep +by-street at Brighton; where the soil was more than usually chalky, +flinty, and sterile, and the houses were more than usually brittle and +thin; where the small front-gardens had the unaccountable property of +producing nothing but marigolds, whatever was sown in them; and where +snails were constantly discovered holding on to the street doors, and +other public places they were not expected to ornament, with the +tenacity of cupping-glasses. In the winter time the air couldn't be +got out of the Castle, and in the summer time it couldn't be got in. +There was such a continual reverberation of wind in it, that it +sounded like a great shell, which the inhabitants were obliged to hold +to their ears night and day, whether they liked it or no. It was not, +naturally, a fresh-smelling house; and in the window of the front +parlour, which was never opened, Mrs Pipchin kept a collection of +plants in pots, which imparted an earthy flavour of their own to the +establishment. However choice examples of their kind, too, these +plants were of a kind peculiarly adapted to the embowerment of Mrs +Pipchin. There were half-a-dozen specimens of the cactus, writhing +round bits of lath, like hairy serpents; another specimen shooting out +broad claws, like a green lobster; several creeping vegetables, +possessed of sticky and adhesive leaves; and one uncomfortable +flower-pot hanging to the ceiling, which appeared to have boiled over, +and tickling people underneath with its long green ends, reminded them +of spiders - in which Mrs Pipchin's dwelling was uncommonly prolific, +though perhaps it challenged competition still more proudly, in the +season, in point of earwigs. + +Mrs Pipchin's scale of charges being high, however, to all who +could afford to pay, and Mrs Pipchin very seldom sweetening the +equable acidity of her nature in favour of anybody, she was held to be +an old 'lady of remarkable firmness, who was quite scientific in her +knowledge of the childish character.' On this reputation, and on the +broken heart of Mr Pipchin, she had contrived, taking one year with +another, to eke out a tolerable sufficient living since her husband's +demise. Within three days after Mrs Chick's first allusion to her, +this excellent old lady had the satisfaction of anticipating a +handsome addition to her current receipts, from the pocket of Mr +Dombey; and of receiving Florence and her little brother Paul, as +inmates of the Castle. + +Mrs Chick and Miss Tox, who had brought them down on the previous +night (which they all passed at an Hotel), had just driven away from +the door, on their journey home again; and Mrs Pipchin, with her back +to the fire, stood, reviewing the new-comers, like an old soldier. Mrs +Pipchin's middle-aged niece, her good-natured and devoted slave, but +possessing a gaunt and iron-bound aspect, and much afflicted with +boils on her nose, was divesting Master Bitherstone of the clean +collar he had worn on parade. Miss Pankey, the only other little +boarder at present, had that moment been walked off to the Castle +Dungeon (an empty apartment at the back, devoted to correctional +purposes), for having sniffed thrice, in the presence of visitors. + +'Well, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin to Paul, 'how do you think you shall +like me?' + +'I don't think I shall like you at all,' replied Paul. 'I want to +go away. This isn't my house.' + +'No. It's mine,' retorted Mrs Pipchin. + +'It's a very nasty one,' said Paul. + +'There's a worse place in it than this though,' said Mrs Pipchin, +'where we shut up our bad boys.' + +'Has he ever been in it?' asked Paul: pointing out Master +Bitherstone. + +Mrs Pipchin nodded assent; and Paul had enough to do, for the rest +of that day, in surveying Master Bitherstone from head to foot, and +watching all the workings of his countenance, with the interest +attaching to a boy of mysterious and terrible experiences. + +At one o'clock there was a dinner, chiefly of the farinaceous and +vegetable kind, when Miss Pankey (a mild little blue-eyed morsel of a +child, who was shampoo'd every morning, and seemed in danger of being +rubbed away, altogether) was led in from captivity by the ogress +herself, and instructed that nobody who sniffed before visitors ever +went to Heaven. When this great truth had been thoroughly impressed +upon her, she was regaled with rice; and subsequently repeated the +form of grace established in the Castle, in which there was a special +clause, thanking Mrs Pipchin for a good dinner. Mrs Pipchin's niece, +Berinthia, took cold pork. Mrs Pipchin, whose constitution required +warm nourishment, made a special repast of mutton-chops, which were +brought in hot and hot, between two plates, and smelt very nice. + +As it rained after dinner, and they couldn't go out walking on the +beach, and Mrs Pipchin's constitution required rest after chops, they +went away with Berry (otherwise Berinthia) to the Dungeon; an empty +room looking out upon a chalk wall and a water-butt, and made ghastly +by a ragged fireplace without any stove in it. Enlivened by company, +however, this was the best place after all; for Berry played with them +there, and seemed to enjoy a game at romps as much as they did; until +Mrs Pipchin knocking angrily at the wall, like the Cock Lane Ghost' +revived, they left off, and Berry told them stories in a whisper until +twilight. + +For tea there was plenty of milk and water, and bread and butter, +with a little black tea-pot for Mrs Pipchin and Berry, and buttered +toast unlimited for Mrs Pipchin, which was brought in, hot and hot, +like the chops. Though Mrs Pipchin got very greasy, outside, over this +dish, it didn't seem to lubricate her internally, at all; for she was +as fierce as ever, and the hard grey eye knew no softening. + +After tea, Berry brought out a little work-box, with the Royal +Pavilion on the lid, and fell to working busily; while Mrs Pipchin, +having put on her spectacles and opened a great volume bound in green +baize, began to nod. And whenever Mrs Pipchin caught herself falling +forward into the fire, and woke up, she filliped Master Bitherstone on +the nose for nodding too. + +At last it was the children's bedtime, and after prayers they went +to bed. As little Miss Pankey was afraid of sleeping alone in the +dark, Mrs Pipchin always made a point of driving her upstairs herself, +like a sheep; and it was cheerful to hear Miss Pankey moaning long +afterwards, in the least eligible chamber, and Mrs Pipchin now and +then going in to shake her. At about half-past nine o'clock the odour +of a warm sweet-bread (Mrs Pipchin's constitution wouldn't go to sleep +without sweet-bread) diversified the prevailing fragrance of the +house, which Mrs Wickam said was 'a smell of building;' and slumber +fell upon the Castle shortly after. + +The breakfast next morning was like the tea over night, except that +Mrs Pipchin took her roll instead of toast, and seemed a little more +irate when it was over. Master Bitherstone read aloud to the rest a +pedigree from Genesis judiciously selected by Mrs Pipchin), getting +over the names with the ease and clearness of a person tumbling up the +treadmill. That done, Miss Pankey was borne away to be shampoo'd; and +Master Bitherstone to have something else done to him with salt water, +from which he always returned very blue and dejected. Paul and +Florence went out in the meantime on the beach with Wickam - who was +constantly in tears - and at about noon Mrs Pipchin presided over some +Early Readings. It being a part of Mrs Pipchin's system not to +encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young +flower, but to open it by force like an oyster, the moral of these +lessons was usually of a violent and stunning character: the hero - a +naughty boy - seldom, in the mildest catastrophe, being finished off +anything less than a lion, or a bear. + +Such was life at Mrs Pipchin's. On Saturday Mr Dombey came down; +and Florence and Paul would go to his Hotel, and have tea They passed +the whole of Sunday with him, and generally rode out before dinner; +and on these occasions Mr Dombey seemed to grow, like Falstaff's +assailants, and instead of being one man in buckram, to become a +dozen. Sunday evening was the most melancholy evening in the week; for +Mrs Pipchin always made a point of being particularly cross on Sunday +nights. Miss Pankey was generally brought back from an aunt's at +Rottingdean, in deep distress; and Master Bitherstone, whose relatives +were all in India, and who was required to sit, between the services, +in an erect position with his head against the parlour wall, neither +moving hand nor foot, suffered so acutely in his young spirits that he +once asked Florence, on a Sunday night, if she could give him any idea +of the way back to Bengal. + +But it was generally said that Mrs Pipchin was a woman of system +with children; and no doubt she was. Certainly the wild ones went home +tame enough, after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable +roof. It was generally said, too, that it was highly creditable of Mrs +Pipchin to have devoted herself to this way of life, and to have made +such a sacrifice of her feelings, and such a resolute stand against +her troubles, when Mr Pipchin broke his heart in the Peruvian mines. + +At this exemplary old lady, Paul would sit staring in his little +arm-chair by the fire, for any length of time. He never seemed to know +what weariness was, when he was looking fixedly at Mrs Pipchin. He was +not fond of her; he was not afraid of her; but in those old, old moods +of his, she seemed to have a grotesque attraction for him. There he +would sit, looking at her, and warming his hands, and looking at her, +until he sometimes quite confounded Mrs Pipchin, Ogress as she was. +Once she asked him, when they were alone, what he was thinking about. + +'You,' said Paul, without the least reserve. + +'And what are you thinking about me?' asked Mrs Pipchin. + +'I'm thinking how old you must be,' said Paul. + +'You mustn't say such things as that, young gentleman,' returned +the dame. 'That'll never do.' + +'Why not?' asked Paul. + +'Because it's not polite,' said Mrs Pipchin, snappishly. + +'Not polite?' said Paul. + +'No.' + +'It's not polite,' said Paul, innocently, 'to eat all the mutton +chops and toast, Wickam says. + +'Wickam,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, colouring, 'is a wicked, impudent, +bold-faced hussy.' + +'What's that?' inquired Paul. + +'Never you mind, Sir,' retorted Mrs Pipchin. 'Remember the story of +the little boy that was gored to death by a mad bull for asking +questions.' + +'If the bull was mad,' said Paul, 'how did he know that the boy had +asked questions? Nobody can go and whisper secrets to a mad bull. I +don't believe that story. + +'You don't believe it, Sir?' repeated Mrs Pipchin, amazed. + +'No,' said Paul. + +'Not if it should happen to have been a tame bull, you little +Infidel?' said Mrs Pipchin. + +As Paul had not considered the subject in that light, and had +founded his conclusions on the alleged lunacy of the bull, he allowed +himself to be put down for the present. But he sat turning it over in +his mind, with such an obvious intention of fixing Mrs Pipchin +presently, that even that hardy old lady deemed it prudent to retreat +until he should have forgotten the subject. + +From that time, Mrs Pipchin appeared to have something of the same +odd kind of attraction towards Paul, as Paul had towards her. She +would make him move his chair to her side of the fire, instead of +sitting opposite; and there he would remain in a nook between Mrs +Pipchin and the fender, with all the light of his little face absorbed +into the black bombazeen drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of +her countenance, and peering at the hard grey eye, until Mrs Pipchin +was sometimes fain to shut it, on pretence of dozing. Mrs Pipchin had +an old black cat, who generally lay coiled upon the centre foot of the +fender, purring egotistically, and winking at the fire until the +contracted pupils of his eyes were like two notes of admiration. The +good old lady might have been - not to record it disrespectfully - a +witch, and Paul and the cat her two familiars, as they all sat by the +fire together. It would have been quite in keeping with the appearance +of the party if they had all sprung up the chimney in a high wind one +night, and never been heard of any more. + +This, however, never came to pass. The cat, and Paul, and Mrs +Pipchin, were constantly to be found in their usual places after dark; +and Paul, eschewing the companionship of Master Bitherstone, went on +studying Mrs Pipchin, and the cat, and the fire, night after night, as +if they were a book of necromancy, in three volumes. + +Mrs Wickam put her own construction on Paul's eccentricities; and +being confirmed in her low spirits by a perplexed view of chimneys +from the room where she was accustomed to sit, and by the noise of the +wind, and by the general dulness (gashliness was Mrs Wickam's strong +expression) of her present life, deduced the most dismal reflections +from the foregoing premises. It was a part of Mrs Pipchin's policy to +prevent her own 'young hussy' - that was Mrs Pipchin's generic name +for female servant - from communicating with Mrs Wickam: to which end +she devoted much of her time to concealing herself behind doors, and +springing out on that devoted maiden, whenever she made an approach +towards Mrs Wickam's apartment. But Berry was free to hold what +converse she could in that quarter, consistently with the discharge of +the multifarious duties at which she toiled incessantly from morning +to night; and to Berry Mrs Wickam unburdened her mind. + +'What a pretty fellow he is when he's asleep!' said Berry, stopping +to look at Paul in bed, one night when she took up Mrs Wickam's +supper. + +'Ah!' sighed Mrs Wickam. 'He need be.' + +'Why, he's not ugly when he's awake,' observed Berry. + +'No, Ma'am. Oh, no. No more was my Uncle's Betsey Jane,' said Mrs +Wickam. + +Berry looked as if she would like to trace the connexion of ideas +between Paul Dombey and Mrs Wickam's Uncle's Betsey Jane + +'My Uncle's wife,' Mrs Wickam went on to say, 'died just like his +Mama. My Uncle's child took on just as Master Paul do.' + +'Took on! You don't think he grieves for his Mama, sure?' argued +Berry, sitting down on the side of the bed. 'He can't remember +anything about her, you know, Mrs Wickam. It's not possible.' + +'No, Ma'am,' said Mrs Wickam 'No more did my Uncle's child. But my +Uncle's child said very strange things sometimes, and looked very +strange, and went on very strange, and was very strange altogether. My +Uncle's child made people's blood run cold, some times, she did!' + +'How?' asked Berry. + +'I wouldn't have sat up all night alone with Betsey Jane!' said Mrs +Wickam, 'not if you'd have put Wickam into business next morning for +himself. I couldn't have done it, Miss Berry. + +Miss Berry naturally asked why not? But Mrs Wickam, agreeably to +the usage of some ladies in her condition, pursued her own branch of +the subject, without any compunction. + +'Betsey Jane,' said Mrs Wickam, 'was as sweet a child as I could +wish to see. I couldn't wish to see a sweeter. Everything that a child +could have in the way of illnesses, Betsey Jane had come through. The +cramps was as common to her,' said Mrs Wickam, 'as biles is to +yourself, Miss Berry.' Miss Berry involuntarily wrinkled her nose. + +'But Betsey Jane,' said Mrs Wickam, lowering her voice, and looking +round the room, and towards Paul in bed, 'had been minded, in her +cradle, by her departed mother. I couldn't say how, nor I couldn't say +when, nor I couldn't say whether the dear child knew it or not, but +Betsey Jane had been watched by her mother, Miss Berry!' and Mrs +Wickam, with a very white face, and with watery eyes, and with a +tremulous voice, again looked fearfully round the room, and towards +Paul in bed. + +'Nonsense!' cried Miss Berry - somewhat resentful of the idea. + +'You may say nonsense! I ain't offended, Miss. I hope you may be +able to think in your own conscience that it is nonsense; you'll find +your spirits all the better for it in this - you'll excuse my being so +free - in this burying-ground of a place; which is wearing of me down. +Master Paul's a little restless in his sleep. Pat his back, if you +please.' + +'Of course you think,' said Berry, gently doing what she was asked, +'that he has been nursed by his mother, too?' + +'Betsey Jane,' returned Mrs Wickam in her most solemn tones, 'was +put upon as that child has been put upon, and changed as that child +has changed. I have seen her sit, often and often, think, think, +thinking, like him. I have seen her look, often and often, old, old, +old, like him. I have heard her, many a time, talk just like him. I +consider that child and Betsey Jane on the same footing entirely, Miss +Berry.' + +'Is your Uncle's child alive?' asked Berry. + +'Yes, Miss, she is alive,' returned Mrs Wickam with an air of +triumph, for it was evident. Miss Berry expected the reverse; 'and is +married to a silver-chaser. Oh yes, Miss, SHE is alive,' said Mrs +Wickam, laying strong stress on her nominative case. + +It being clear that somebody was dead, Mrs Pipchin's niece inquired +who it was. + +'I wouldn't wish to make you uneasy,' returned Mrs Wickam, pursuing +her supper. Don't ask me.' + +This was the surest way of being asked again. Miss Berry repeated +her question, therefore; and after some resistance, and reluctance, +Mrs Wickam laid down her knife, and again glancing round the room and +at Paul in bed, replied: + +'She took fancies to people; whimsical fancies, some of them; +others, affections that one might expect to see - only stronger than +common. They all died.' + +This was so very unexpected and awful to Mrs Pipchin's niece, that +she sat upright on the hard edge of the bedstead, breathing short, and +surveying her informant with looks of undisguised alarm. + +Mrs Wickam shook her left fore-finger stealthily towards the bed +where Florence lay; then turned it upside down, and made several +emphatic points at the floor; immediately below which was the parlour +in which Mrs Pipchin habitually consumed the toast. + +'Remember my words, Miss Berry,' said Mrs Wickam, 'and be thankful +that Master Paul is not too fond of you. I am, that he's not too fond +of me, I assure you; though there isn't much to live for - you'll +excuse my being so free - in this jail of a house!' + +Miss Berry's emotion might have led to her patting Paul too hard on +the back, or might have produced a cessation of that soothing +monotony, but he turned in his bed just now, and, presently awaking, +sat up in it with his hair hot and wet from the effects of some +childish dream, and asked for Florence. + +She was out of her own bed at the first sound of his voice; and +bending over his pillow immediately, sang him to sleep again. Mrs +Wickam shaking her head, and letting fall several tears, pointed out +the little group to Berry, and turned her eyes up to the ceiling. + +'He's asleep now, my dear,' said Mrs Wickam after a pause, 'you'd +better go to bed again. Don't you feel cold?' + +'No, nurse,' said Florence, laughing. 'Not at all.' + +'Ah!' sighed Mrs Wickam, and she shook her head again, expressing +to the watchful Berry, 'we shall be cold enough, some of us, by and +by!' + +Berry took the frugal supper-tray, with which Mrs Wickam had by +this time done, and bade her good-night. + +'Good-night, Miss!' returned Wickam softly. 'Good-night! Your aunt +is an old lady, Miss Berry, and it's what you must have looked for, +often.' + +This consolatory farewell, Mrs Wickam accompanied with a look of +heartfelt anguish; and being left alone with the two children again, +and becoming conscious that the wind was blowing mournfully, she +indulged in melancholy - that cheapest and most accessible of luxuries +- until she was overpowered by slumber. + +Although the niece of Mrs Pipchin did not expect to find that +exemplary dragon prostrate on the hearth-rug when she went downstairs, +she was relieved to find her unusually fractious and severe, and with +every present appearance of intending to live a long time to be a +comfort to all who knew her. Nor had she any symptoms of declining, in +the course of the ensuing week, when the constitutional viands still +continued to disappear in regular succession, notwithstanding that +Paul studied her as attentively as ever, and occupied his usual seat +between the black skirts and the fender, with unwavering constancy. + +But as Paul himself was no stronger at the expiration of that time +than he had been on his first arrival, though he looked much healthier +in the face, a little carriage was got for him, in which he could lie +at his ease, with an alphabet and other elementary works of reference, +and be wheeled down to the sea-side. Consistent in his odd tastes, the +child set aside a ruddy-faced lad who was proposed as the drawer of +this carriage, and selected, instead, his grandfather - a weazen, old, +crab-faced man, in a suit of battered oilskin, who had got tough and +stringy from long pickling in salt water, and who smelt like a weedy +sea-beach when the tide is out. + +With this notable attendant to pull him along, and Florence always +walking by his side, and the despondent Wickam bringing up the rear, +he went down to the margin of the ocean every day; and there he would +sit or lie in his carriage for hours together: never so distressed as +by the company of children - Florence alone excepted, always. + +'Go away, if you please,' he would say to any child who came to +bear him company. Thank you, but I don't want you.' + +Some small voice, near his ear, would ask him how he was, perhaps. + +'I am very well, I thank you,' he would answer. 'But you had better +go and play, if you please.' + +Then he would turn his head, and watch the child away, and say to +Florence, 'We don't want any others, do we? Kiss me, Floy.' + +He had even a dislike, at such times, to the company of Wickam, and +was well pleased when she strolled away, as she generally did, to pick +up shells and acquaintances. His favourite spot was quite a lonely +one, far away from most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his +side at work, or reading to him, or talking to him, and the wind +blowing on his face, and the water coming up among the wheels of his +bed, he wanted nothing more. + +'Floy,' he said one day, 'where's India, where that boy's friends +live?' + +'Oh, it's a long, long distance off,' said Florence, raising her +eyes from her work. + +'Weeks off?' asked Paul. + +'Yes dear. Many weeks' journey, night and day.' + +'If you were in India, Floy,' said Paul, after being silent for a +minute, 'I should - what is it that Mama did? I forget.' + +'Loved me!' answered Florence. + +'No, no. Don't I love you now, Floy? What is it? - Died. in you +were in India, I should die, Floy.' + +She hurriedly put her work aside, and laid her head down on his +pillow, caressing him. And so would she, she said, if he were there. +He would be better soon. + +'Oh! I am a great deal better now!' he answered. 'I don't mean +that. I mean that I should die of being so sorry and so lonely, Floy!' + +Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep, and slept quietly +for a long time. Awaking suddenly, he listened, started up, and sat +listening. + +Florence asked him what he thought he heard. + +'I want to know what it says,' he answered, looking steadily in her +face. 'The sea' Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?' + +She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves. + +'Yes, yes,' he said. 'But I know that they are always saying +something. Always the same thing. What place is over there?' He rose +up, looking eagerly at the horizon. + +She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said +he didn't mean that: he meant further away - farther away! + +Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break +off, to try to understand what it was that the waves were always +saying; and would rise up in his couch to look towards that invisible +region, far away. + + + +CHAPTER 9. + +In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble + + + +That spice of romance and love of the marvellous, of which there +was a pretty strong infusion in the nature of young Walter Gay, and +which the guardianship of his Uncle, old Solomon Gills, had not very +much weakened by the waters of stern practical experience, was the +occasion of his attaching an uncommon and delightful interest to the +adventure of Florence with Good Mrs Brown. He pampered and cherished +it in his memory, especially that part of it with which he had been +associated: until it became the spoiled child of his fancy, and took +its own way, and did what it liked with it. + +The recollection of those incidents, and his own share in them, may +have been made the more captivating, perhaps, by the weekly dreamings +of old Sol and Captain Cuttle on Sundays. Hardly a Sunday passed, +without mysterious references being made by one or other of those +worthy chums to Richard Whittington; and the latter gentleman had even +gone so far as to purchase a ballad of considerable antiquity, that +had long fluttered among many others, chiefly expressive of maritime +sentiments, on a dead wall in the Commercial Road: which poetical +performance set forth the courtship and nuptials of a promising young +coal-whipper with a certain 'lovely Peg,' the accomplished daughter of +the master and part-owner of a Newcastle collier. In this stirring +legend, Captain Cuttle descried a profound metaphysical bearing on the +case of Walter and Florence; and it excited him so much, that on very +festive occasions, as birthdays and a few other non-Dominical +holidays, he would roar through the whole song in the little back +parlour; making an amazing shake on the word Pe-e-eg, with which every +verse concluded, in compliment to the heroine of the piece. + +But a frank, free-spirited, open-hearted boy, is not much given to +analysing the nature of his own feelings, however strong their hold +upon him: and Walter would have found it difficult to decide this +point. He had a great affection for the wharf where he had encountered +Florence, and for the streets (albeit not enchanting in themselves) by +which they had come home. The shoes that had so often tumbled off by +the way, he preserved in his own room; and, sitting in the little back +parlour of an evening, he had drawn a whole gallery of fancy portraits +of Good Mrs Brown. It may be that he became a little smarter in his +dress after that memorable occasion; and he certainly liked in his +leisure time to walk towards that quarter of the town where Mr +Dombey's house was situated, on the vague chance of passing little +Florence in the street. But the sentiment of all this was as boyish +and innocent as could be. Florence was very pretty, and it is pleasant +to admire a pretty face. Florence was defenceless and weak, and it was +a proud thought that he had been able to render her any protection and +assistance. Florence was the most grateful little creature in the +world, and it was delightful to see her bright gratitude beaming in +her face. Florence was neglected and coldly looked upon, and his +breast was full of youthful interest for the slighted child in her +dull, stately home. + +Thus it came about that, perhaps some half-a-dozen times in the +course of the year, Walter pulled off his hat to Florence in the +street, and Florence would stop to shake hands. Mrs Wickam (who, with +a characteristic alteration of his name, invariably spoke of him as +'Young Graves') was so well used to this, knowing the story of their +acquaintance, that she took no heed of it at all. Miss Nipper, on the +other hand, rather looked out for these occasions: her sensitive young +heart being secretly propitiated by Walter's good looks, and inclining +to the belief that its sentiments were responded to. + +In this way, Walter, so far from forgetting or losing sight of his +acquaintance with Florence, only remembered it better and better. As +to its adventurous beginning, and all those little circumstances which +gave it a distinctive character and relish, he took them into account, +more as a pleasant story very agreeable to his imagination, and not to +be dismissed from it, than as a part of any matter of fact with which +he was concerned. They set off Florence very much, to his fancy; but +not himself. Sometimes he thought (and then he walked very fast) what +a grand thing it would have been for him to have been going to sea on +the day after that first meeting, and to have gone, and to have done +wonders there, and to have stopped away a long time, and to have come +back an Admiral of all the colours of the dolphin, or at least a +Post-Captain with epaulettes of insupportable brightness, and have +married Florence (then a beautiful young woman) in spite of Mr +Dombey's teeth, cravat, and watch-chain, and borne her away to the +blue shores of somewhere or other, triumphantly. But these flights of +fancy seldom burnished the brass plate of Dombey and Son's Offices +into a tablet of golden hope, or shed a brilliant lustre on their +dirty skylights; and when the Captain and Uncle Sol talked about +Richard Whittington and masters' daughters, Walter felt that he +understood his true position at Dombey and Son's, much better than +they did. + +So it was that he went on doing what he had to do from day to day, +in a cheerful, pains-taking, merry spirit; and saw through the +sanguine complexion of Uncle Sol and Captain Cuttle; and yet +entertained a thousand indistinct and visionary fancies of his own, to +which theirs were work-a-day probabilities. Such was his condition at +the Pipchin period, when he looked a little older than of yore, but +not much; and was the same light-footed, light-hearted, light-headed +lad, as when he charged into the parlour at the head of Uncle Sol and +the imaginary boarders, and lighted him to bring up the Madeira. + +'Uncle Sol,' said Walter, 'I don't think you're well. You haven't +eaten any breakfast. I shall bring a doctor to you, if you go on like +this.' + +'He can't give me what I want, my boy,' said Uncle Sol. 'At least +he is in good practice if he can - and then he wouldn't.' + +'What is it, Uncle? Customers?' + +'Ay,' returned Solomon, with a sigh. 'Customers would do.' + +'Confound it, Uncle!' said Walter, putting down his breakfast cup +with a clatter, and striking his hand on the table: 'when I see the +people going up and down the street in shoals all day, and passing and +re-passing the shop every minute, by scores, I feel half tempted to +rush out, collar somebody, bring him in, and make him buy fifty +pounds' worth of instruments for ready money. What are you looking in +at the door for? - ' continued Walter, apostrophizing an old gentleman +with a powdered head (inaudibly to him of course), who was staring at +a ship's telescope with all his might and main. 'That's no use. I +could do that. Come in and buy it!' + +The old gentleman, however, having satiated his curiosity, walked +calmly away. + +'There he goes!' said Walter. 'That's the way with 'em all. But, +Uncle - I say, Uncle Sol' - for the old man was meditating and had not +responded to his first appeal. 'Don't be cast down. Don't be out of +spirits, Uncle. When orders do come, they'll come in such a crowd, you +won't be able to execute 'em.' + +'I shall be past executing 'em, whenever they come, my boy,' +returned Solomon Gills. 'They'll never come to this shop again, till I +am out of t.' + +'I say, Uncle! You musn't really, you know!' urged Walter. 'Don't!' + +Old Sol endeavoured to assume a cheery look, and smiled across the +little table at him as pleasantly as he could. + +'There's nothing more than usual the matter; is there, Uncle?' said +Walter, leaning his elbows on the tea tray, and bending over, to speak +the more confidentially and kindly. 'Be open with me, Uncle, if there +is, and tell me all about it.' + +'No, no, no,' returned Old Sol. 'More than usual? No, no. What +should there be the matter more than usual?' + +Walter answered with an incredulous shake of his head. 'That's what +I want to know,' he said, 'and you ask me! I'll tell you what, Uncle, +when I see you like this, I am quite sorry that I live with you.' + +Old Sol opened his eyes involuntarily. + +'Yes. Though nobody ever was happier than I am and always have been +with you, I am quite sorry that I live with you, when I see you with +anything in your mind.' + +'I am a little dull at such times, I know,' observed Solomon, +meekly rubbing his hands. + +'What I mean, Uncle Sol,' pursued Walter, bending over a little +more to pat him on the shoulder, 'is, that then I feel you ought to +have, sitting here and pouring out the tea instead of me, a nice +little dumpling of a wife, you know, - a comfortable, capital, cosy +old lady, who was just a match for you, and knew how to manage you, +and keep you in good heart. Here am I, as loving a nephew as ever was +(I am sure I ought to be!) but I am only a nephew, and I can't be such +a companion to you when you're low and out of sorts as she would have +made herself, years ago, though I'm sure I'd give any money if I could +cheer you up. And so I say, when I see you with anything on your mind, +that I feel quite sorry you haven't got somebody better about you than +a blundering young rough-and-tough boy like me, who has got the will +to console you, Uncle, but hasn't got the way - hasn't got the way,' +repeated Walter, reaching over further yet, to shake his Uncle by the +hand. + +'Wally, my dear boy,' said Solomon, 'if the cosy little old lady +had taken her place in this parlour five and forty years ago, I never +could have been fonder of her than I am of you.' + +'I know that, Uncle Sol,' returned Walter. 'Lord bless you, I know +that. But you wouldn't have had the whole weight of any uncomfortable +secrets if she had been with you, because she would have known how to +relieve you of 'em, and I don't.' + +'Yes, yes, you do,' returned the Instrument-maker. + +'Well then, what's the matter, Uncle Sol?' said Walter, coaxingly. +'Come! What's the matter?' + +Solomon Gills persisted that there was nothing the matter; and +maintained it so resolutely, that his nephew had no resource but to +make a very indifferent imitation of believing him. + +'All I can say is, Uncle Sol, that if there is - ' + +'But there isn't,' said Solomon. + +'Very well,, said Walter. 'Then I've no more to say; and that's +lucky, for my time's up for going to business. I shall look in +by-and-by when I'm out, to see how you get on, Uncle. And mind, Uncle! +I'll never believe you again, and never tell you anything more about +Mr Carker the Junior, if I find out that you have been deceiving me!' + +Solomon Gills laughingly defied him to find out anything of the +kind; and Walter, revolving in his thoughts all sorts of impracticable +ways of making fortunes and placing the wooden Midshipman in a +position of independence, betook himself to the offices of Dombey and +Son with a heavier countenance than he usually carried there. + +There lived in those days, round the corner - in Bishopsgate Street +Without - one Brogley, sworn broker and appraiser, who kept a shop +where every description of second-hand furniture was exhibited in the +most uncomfortable aspect, and under circumstances and in combinations +the most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on +to washing-stands, which with difficulty poised themselves on the +shoulders of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side +of dining-tables, gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of +other dining-tables, were among its most reasonable arrangements. A +banquet array of dish-covers, wine-glasses, and decanters was +generally to be seen, spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post +bedstead, for the entertainment of such genial company as half-a-dozen +pokers, and a hall lamp. A set of window curtains with no windows +belonging to them, would be seen gracefully draping a barricade of +chests of drawers, loaded with little jars from chemists' shops; while +a homeless hearthrug severed from its natural companion the fireside, +braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in +melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano, +wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of +the street in its jangling and distracted brain. Of motionless clocks +that never stirred a finger, and seemed as incapable of being +successfully wound up, as the pecuniary affairs of their former +owners, there was always great choice in Mr Brogley's shop; and +various looking-glasses, accidentally placed at compound interest of +reflection and refraction, presented to the eye an eternal perspective +of bankruptcy and ruin. + +Mr Brogley himself was a moist-eyed, pink-complexioned, +crisp-haired man, of a bulky figure and an easy temper - for that +class of Caius Marius who sits upon the ruins of other people's +Carthages, can keep up his spirits well enough. He had looked in at +Solomon's shop sometimes, to ask a question about articles in +Solomon's way of business; and Walter knew him sufficiently to give +him good day when they met in the street. But as that was the extent +of the broker's acquaintance with Solomon Gills also, Walter was not a +little surprised when he came back in the course of the forenoon, +agreeably to his promise, to find Mr Brogley sitting in the back +parlour with his hands in his pockets, and his hat hanging up behind +the door. + +'Well, Uncle Sol!' said Walter. The old man was sitting ruefully on +the opposite side of the table, with his spectacles over his eyes, for +a wonder, instead of on his forehead. 'How are you now?' + +Solomon shook his head, and waved one hand towards the broker, as +introducing him. + +'Is there anything the matter?' asked Walter, with a catching in +his breath. + +'No, no. There's nothing the matter, said Mr Brogley. 'Don't let it +put you out of the way.' Walter looked from the broker to his Uncle in +mute amazement. 'The fact is,' said Mr Brogley, 'there's a little +payment on a bond debt - three hundred and seventy odd, overdue: and +I'm in possession.' + +'In possession!' cried Walter, looking round at the shop. + +'Ah!' said Mr Brogley, in confidential assent, and nodding his head +as if he would urge the advisability of their all being comfortable +together. 'It's an execution. That's what it is. Don't let it put you +out of the way. I come myself, because of keeping it quiet and +sociable. You know me. It's quite private.' + +'Uncle Sol!' faltered Walter. + +'Wally, my boy,' returned his uncle. 'It's the first time. Such a +calamity never happened to me before. I'm an old man to begin.' +Pushing up his spectacles again (for they were useless any longer to +conceal his emotion), he covered his face with his hand, and sobbed +aloud, and his tears fell down upon his coffee-coloured waistcoat. + +'Uncle Sol! Pray! oh don't!' exclaimed Walter, who really felt a +thrill of terror in seeing the old man weep. 'For God's sake don't do +that. Mr Brogley, what shall I do?' + +'I should recommend you looking up a friend or so,' said Mr +Brogley, 'and talking it over.' + +'To be sure!' cried Walter, catching at anything. 'Certainly! +Thankee. Captain Cuttle's the man, Uncle. Wait till I run to Captain +Cuttle. Keep your eye upon my Uncle, will you, Mr Brogley, and make +him as comfortable as you can while I am gone? Don't despair, Uncle +Sol. Try and keep a good heart, there's a dear fellow!' + +Saying this with great fervour, and disregarding the old man's +broken remonstrances, Walter dashed out of the shop again as hard as +he could go; and, having hurried round to the office to excuse himself +on the plea of his Uncle's sudden illness, set off, full speed, for +Captain Cuttle's residence. + +Everything seemed altered as he ran along the streets. There were +the usual entanglement and noise of carts, drays, omnibuses, waggons, +and foot passengers, but the misfortune that had fallen on the wooden +Midshipman made it strange and new. Houses and shops were different +from what they used to be, and bore Mr Brogley's warrant on their +fronts in large characters. The broker seemed to have got hold of the +very churches; for their spires rose into the sky with an unwonted +air. Even the sky itself was changed, and had an execution in it +plainly. + +Captain Cuttle lived on the brink of a little canal near the India +Docks, where there was a swivel bridge which opened now and then to +let some wandering monster of a ship come roamIng up the street like a +stranded leviathan. The gradual change from land to water, on the +approach to Captain Cuttle's lodgings, was curious. It began with the +erection of flagstaffs, as appurtenances to public-houses; then came +slop-sellers' shops, with Guernsey shirts, sou'wester hats, and canvas +pantaloons, at once the tightest and the loosest of their order, +hanging up outside. These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable +forges, where sledgehammers were dinging upon iron all day long. Then +came rows of houses, with little vane-surmounted masts uprearing +themselves from among the scarlet beans. Then, ditches. Then, pollard +willows. Then, more ditches. Then, unaccountable patches of dirty +water, hardly to be descried, for the ships that covered them. Then, +the air was perfumed with chips; and all other trades were swallowed +up in mast, oar, and block-making, and boatbuilding. Then, the ground +grew marshy and unsettled. Then, there was nothing to be smelt but rum +and sugar. Then, Captain Cuttle's lodgings - at once a first floor and +a top storey, in Brig Place - were close before you. + +The Captain was one of those timber-looking men, suits of oak as +well as hearts, whom it is almost impossible for the liveliest +imagination to separate from any part of their dress, however +insignificant. Accordingly, when Walter knocked at the door, and the +Captain instantly poked his head out of one of his little front +windows, and hailed him, with the hard glared hat already on it, and +the shirt-collar like a sail, and the wide suit of blue, all standing +as usual, Walter was as fully persuaded that he was always in that +state, as if the Captain had been a bird and those had been his +feathers. + +'Wal'r, my lad!'said Captain Cuttle. 'Stand by and knock again. +Hard! It's washing day.' + +Walter, in his impatience, gave a prodigious thump with the +knocker. + +'Hard it is!' said Captain Cuttle, and immediately drew in his +head, as if he expected a squall. + +Nor was he mistaken: for a widow lady, with her sleeves rolled up +to her shoulders, and her arms frothy with soap-suds and smoking with +hot water, replied to the summons with startling rapidity. Before she +looked at Walter she looked at the knocker, and then, measuring him +with her eyes from head to foot, said she wondered he had left any of +it. + +'Captain Cuttle's at home, I know,' said Walter with a conciliatory +smile. + +'Is he?' replied the widow lady. 'In-deed!' + +'He has just been speaking to me,' said Walter, in breathless +explanation. + +'Has he?' replied the widow lady. 'Then p'raps you'll give him Mrs +MacStinger's respects, and say that the next time he lowers himself +and his lodgings by talking out of the winder she'll thank him to come +down and open the door too.' Mrs MacStinger spoke loud, and listened +for any observations that might be offered from the first floor. + +'I'll mention it,' said Walter, 'if you'll have the goodness to let +me in, Ma'am.' + +For he was repelled by a wooden fortification extending across the +doorway, and put there to prevent the little MacStingers in their +moments of recreation from tumbling down the steps. + +'A boy that can knock my door down,' said Mrs MacStinger, +contemptuously, 'can get over that, I should hope!' But Walter, taking +this as a permission to enter, and getting over it, Mrs MacStinger +immediately demanded whether an Englishwoman's house was her castle or +not; and whether she was to be broke in upon by 'raff.' On these +subjects her thirst for information was still very importunate, when +Walter, having made his way up the little staircase through an +artificial fog occasioned by the washing, which covered the banisters +with a clammy perspiration, entered Captain Cuttle's room, and found +that gentleman in ambush behind the door. + +'Never owed her a penny, Wal'r,' said Captain Cuttle, in a low +voice, and with visible marks of trepidation on his countenance. 'Done +her a world of good turns, and the children too. Vixen at times, +though. Whew!' + +'I should go away, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter. + +'Dursn't do it, Wal'r,' returned the Captain. 'She'd find me out, +wherever I went. Sit down. How's Gills?' + +The Captain was dining (in his hat) off cold loin of mutton, +porter, and some smoking hot potatoes, which he had cooked himself, +and took out of a little saucepan before the fire as he wanted them. +He unscrewed his hook at dinner-time, and screwed a knife into its +wooden socket instead, with which he had already begun to peel one of +these potatoes for Walter. His rooms were very small, and strongly +impregnated with tobacco-smoke, but snug enough: everything being +stowed away, as if there were an earthquake regularly every half-hour. + +'How's Gills?' inquired the Captain. + +Walter, who had by this time recovered his breath, and lost his +spirits - or such temporary spirits as his rapid journey had given him +- looked at his questioner for a moment, said 'Oh, Captain Cuttle!' +and burst into tears. + +No words can describe the Captain's consternation at this sight Mrs +MacStinger faded into nothing before it. He dropped the potato and the +fork - and would have dropped the knife too if he could - and sat +gazing at the boy, as if he expected to hear next moment that a gulf +had opened in the City, which had swallowed up his old friend, +coffee-coloured suit, buttons, chronometer, spectacles, and all. + +But when Walter told him what was really the matter, Captain +Cuttle, after a moment's reflection, started up into full activity. He +emptied out of a little tin canister on the top shelf of the cupboard, +his whole stock of ready money (amounting to thirteen pounds and +half-a-crown), which he transferred to one of the pockets of his +square blue coat; further enriched that repository with the contents +of his plate chest, consisting of two withered atomies of tea-spoons, +and an obsolete pair of knock-knee'd sugar-tongs; pulled up his +immense double-cased silver watch from the depths in which it reposed, +to assure himself that that valuable was sound and whole; re-attached +the hook to his right wrist; and seizing the stick covered over with +knobs, bade Walter come along. + +Remembering, however, in the midst of his virtuous excitement, that +Mrs MacStinger might be lying in wait below, Captain Cuttle hesitated +at last, not without glancing at the window, as if he had some +thoughts of escaping by that unusual means of egress, rather than +encounter his terrible enemy. He decided, however, in favour of +stratagem. + +'Wal'r,' said the Captain, with a timid wink, 'go afore, my lad. +Sing out, "good-bye, Captain Cuttle," when you're in the passage, and +shut the door. Then wait at the corner of the street 'till you see me. + +These directions were not issued without a previous knowledge of +the enemy's tactics, for when Walter got downstairs, Mrs MacStinger +glided out of the little back kitchen, like an avenging spirit. But +not gliding out upon the Captain, as she had expected, she merely made +a further allusion to the knocker, and glided in again. + +Some five minutes elapsed before Captain Cuttle could summon +courage to attempt his escape; for Walter waited so long at the street +corner, looking back at the house, before there were any symptoms of +the hard glazed hat. At length the Captain burst out of the door with +the suddenness of an explosion, and coming towards him at a great +pace, and never once looking over his shoulder, pretended, as soon as +they were well out of the street, to whistle a tune. + +'Uncle much hove down, Wal'r?' inquired the Captain, as they were +walking along. + +'I am afraid so. If you had seen him this morning, you would never +have forgotten it.' + +'Walk fast, Wal'r, my lad,' returned the Captain, mending his pace; +'and walk the same all the days of your life. Overhaul the catechism +for that advice, and keep it!' + +The Captain was too busy with his own thoughts of Solomon Gills, +mingled perhaps with some reflections on his late escape from Mrs +MacStinger, to offer any further quotations on the way for Walter's +moral improvement They interchanged no other word until they arrived +at old Sol's door, where the unfortunate wooden Midshipman, with his +instrument at his eye, seemed to be surveying the whole horizon in +search of some friend to help him out of his difficulty. + +'Gills!' said the Captain, hurrying into the back parlour, and +taking him by the hand quite tenderly. 'Lay your head well to the +wind, and we'll fight through it. All you've got to do,' said the +Captain, with the solemnity of a man who was delivering himself of one +of the most precious practical tenets ever discovered by human wisdom, +'is to lay your head well to the wind, and we'll fight through it!' + +Old Sol returned the pressure of his hand, and thanked him. + +Captain Cuttle, then, with a gravity suitable to the nature of the +occasion, put down upon the table the two tea-spoons and the +sugar-tongs, the silver watch, and the ready money; and asked Mr +Brogley, the broker, what the damage was. + +'Come! What do you make of it?' said Captain Cuttle. + +'Why, Lord help you!' returned the broker; 'you don't suppose that +property's of any use, do you?' + +'Why not?' inquired the Captain. + +'Why? The amount's three hundred and seventy, odd,' replied the +broker. + +'Never mind,' returned the Captain, though he was evidently +dismayed by the figures: 'all's fish that comes to your net, I +suppose?' + +'Certainly,' said Mr Brogley. 'But sprats ain't whales, you know.' + +The philosophy of this observation seemed to strike the Captain. He +ruminated for a minute; eyeing the broker, meanwhile, as a deep +genius; and then called the Instrument-maker aside. + +'Gills,' said Captain Cuttle, 'what's the bearings of this +business? Who's the creditor?' + +'Hush!' returned the old man. 'Come away. Don't speak before Wally. +It's a matter of security for Wally's father - an old bond. I've paid +a good deal of it, Ned, but the times are so bad with me that I can't +do more just now. I've foreseen it, but I couldn't help it. Not a word +before Wally, for all the world.' + +'You've got some money, haven't you?' whispered the Captain. + +'Yes, yes - oh yes- I've got some,' returned old Sol, first putting +his hands into his empty pockets, and then squeezing his Welsh wig +between them, as if he thought he might wring some gold out of it; +'but I - the little I have got, isn't convertible, Ned; it can't be +got at. I have been trying to do something with it for Wally, and I'm +old fashioned, and behind the time. It's here and there, and - and, in +short, it's as good as nowhere,' said the old man, looking in +bewilderment about him. + +He had so much the air of a half-witted person who had been hiding +his money in a variety of places, and had forgotten where, that the +Captain followed his eyes, not without a faint hope that he might +remember some few hundred pounds concealed up the chimney, or down in +the cellar. But Solomon Gills knew better than that. + +'I'm behind the time altogether, my dear Ned,' said Sol, in +resigned despair, 'a long way. It's no use my lagging on so far behind +it. The stock had better be sold - it's worth more than this debt - +and I had better go and die somewhere, on the balance. I haven't any +energy left. I don't understand things. This had better be the end of +it. Let 'em sell the stock and take him down,' said the old man, +pointing feebly to the wooden Midshipman, 'and let us both be broken +up together.' + +'And what d'ye mean to do with Wal'r?'said the Captain. 'There, +there! Sit ye down, Gills, sit ye down, and let me think o' this. If I +warn't a man on a small annuity, that was large enough till to-day, I +hadn't need to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the +wind,' said the Captain, again administering that unanswerable piece +of consolation, 'and you're all right!' + +Old Sol thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against +the back parlour fire-place instead. + +Captain Cuttle walked up and down the shop for some time, +cogitating profoundly, and bringing his bushy black eyebrows to bear +so heavily on his nose, like clouds setting on a mountain, that Walter +was afraid to offer any interruption to the current of his +reflections. Mr Brogley, who was averse to being any constraint upon +the party, and who had an ingenious cast of mind, went, softly +whistling, among the stock; rattling weather-glasses, shaking +compasses as if they were physic, catching up keys with loadstones, +looking through telescopes, endeavouring to make himself acquainted +with the use of the globes, setting parallel rulers astride on to his +nose, and amusing himself with other philosophical transactions. + +'Wal'r!' said the Captain at last. 'I've got it.' + +'Have you, Captain Cuttle?' cried Walter, with great animation. + +'Come this way, my lad,' said the Captain. 'The stock's the +security. I'm another. Your governor's the man to advance money.' + +'Mr Dombey!' faltered Walter. + +The Captain nodded gravely. 'Look at him,' he said. 'Look at Gills. +If they was to sell off these things now, he'd die of it. You know he +would. We mustn't leave a stone unturned - and there's a stone for +you.' + +'A stone! - Mr Dombey!' faltered Walter. + +'You run round to the office, first of all, and see if he's there,' +said Captain Cuttle, clapping him on the back. 'Quick!' + +Walter felt he must not dispute the command - a glance at his Uncle +would have determined him if he had felt otherwise - and disappeared +to execute it. He soon returned, out of breath, to say that Mr Dombey +was not there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton. + +'I tell you what, Wal'r!' said the Captain, who seemed to have +prepared himself for this contingency in his absence. 'We'll go to +Brighton. I'll back you, my boy. I'll back you, Wal'r. We'll go to +Brighton by the afternoon's coach.' + +If the application must be made to Mr Dombey at all, which was +awful to think of, Walter felt that he would rather prefer it alone +and unassisted, than backed by the personal influence of Captain +Cuttle, to which he hardly thought Mr Dombey would attach much weight. +But as the Captain appeared to be of quite another opinion, and was +bent upon it, and as his friendship was too zealous and serious to be +trifled with by one so much younger than himself, he forbore to hint +the least objection. Cuttle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of +Solomon Gills, and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the +sugar-tongs, and the silver watch, to his pocket - with a view, as +Walter thought, with horror, to making a gorgeous impression on Mr +Dombey - bore him off to the coach-office, with- out a minute's delay, +and repeatedly assured him, on the road, that he would stick by him to +the last. + + + +CHAPTER 10. + +Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster + + + +Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across +Princess's Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after +receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on that +subject, from the native who kept himself in constant communication +with Miss Tox's maid for that purpose; came to the conclusion that +Dombey, Sir, was a man to be known, and that J. B. was the boy to make +his acquaintance. + +Miss Tox, however, maintaining her reserved behaviour, and frigidly +declining to understand the Major whenever he called (which he often +did) on any little fishing excursion connected with this project, the +Major, in spite of his constitutional toughness and slyness, was fain +to leave the accomplishment of his desire in some measure to chance, +'which,' as he was used to observe with chuckles at his club, 'has +been fifty to one in favour of Joey B., Sir, ever since his elder +brother died of Yellow Jack in the West Indies.' + +It was some time coming to his aid in the present instance, but it +befriended him at last. When the dark servant, with full particulars, +reported Miss Tox absent on Brighton service, the Major was suddenly +touched with affectionate reminiscences of his friend Bill Bitherstone +of Bengal, who had written to ask him, if he ever went that way, to +bestow a call upon his only son. But when the same dark servant +reported Paul at Mrs Pipchin's, and the Major, referring to the letter +favoured by Master Bitherstone on his arrival in England - to which he +had never had the least idea of paying any attention - saw the opening +that presented itself, he was made so rabid by the gout, with which he +happened to be then laid up, that he threw a footstool at the dark +servant in return for his intelligence, and swore he would be the +death of the rascal before he had done with him: which the dark +servant was more than half disposed to believe. + +At length the Major being released from his fit, went one Saturday +growling down to Brighton, with the native behind him; apostrophizing +Miss Tox all the way, and gloating over the prospect of carrying by +storm the distinguished friend to whom she attached so much mystery, +and for whom she had deserted him, + +'Would you, Ma'am, would you!' said the Major, straining with +vindictiveness, and swelling every already swollen vein in his head. +'Would you give Joey B. the go-by, Ma'am? Not yet, Ma'am, not yet! +Damme, not yet, Sir. Joe is awake, Ma'am. Bagstock is alive, Sir. J. +B. knows a move or two, Ma'am. Josh has his weather-eye open, Sir. +You'll find him tough, Ma'am. Tough, Sir, tough is Joseph. Tough, and +de-vilish sly!' + +And very tough indeed Master Bitherstone found him, when he took +that young gentleman out for a walk. But the Major, with his +complexion like a Stilton cheese, and his eyes like a prawn's, went +roving about, perfectly indifferent to Master Bitherstone's amusement, +and dragging Master Bitherstone along, while he looked about him high +and low, for Mr Dombey and his children. + +In good time the Major, previously instructed by Mrs Pipchin, spied +out Paul and Florence, and bore down upon them; there being a stately +gentleman (Mr Dombey, doubtless) in their company. Charging with +Master Bitherstone into the very heart of the little squadron, it fell +out, of course, that Master Bitherstone spoke to his fellow-sufferers. +Upon that the Major stopped to notice and admire them; remembered with +amazement that he had seen and spoken to them at his friend Miss Tox's +in Princess's Place; opined that Paul was a devilish fine fellow, and +his own little friend; inquired if he remembered Joey B. the Major; +and finally, with a sudden recollection of the conventionalities of +life, turned and apologised to Mr Dombey. + +'But my little friend here, Sir,' said the Major, 'makes a boy of +me again: An old soldier, Sir - Major Bagstock, at your service - is +not ashamed to confess it.' Here the Major lifted his hat. 'Damme, +Sir,' cried the Major with sudden warmth, 'I envy you.' Then he +recollected himself, and added, 'Excuse my freedom.' + +Mr Dombey begged he wouldn't mention it. + +'An old campaigner, Sir,' said the Major, 'a smoke-dried, +sun-burnt, used-up, invalided old dog of a Major, Sir, was not afraid +of being condemned for his whim by a man like Mr Dombey. I have the +honour of addressing Mr Dombey, I believe?' + +'I am the present unworthy representative of that name, Major,' +returned Mr Dombey. + +'By G-, Sir!' said the Major, 'it's a great name. It's a name, +Sir,' said the Major firmly, as if he defied Mr Dombey to contradict +him, and would feel it his painful duty to bully him if he did, 'that +is known and honoured in the British possessions abroad. It is a name, +Sir, that a man is proud to recognise. There is nothing adulatory in +Joseph Bagstock, Sir. His Royal Highness the Duke of York observed on +more than one occasion, "there is no adulation in Joey. He is a plain +old soldier is Joe. He is tough to a fault is Joseph:" but it's a +great name, Sir. By the Lord, it's a great name!' said the Major, +solemnly. + +'You are good enough to rate it higher than it deserves, perhaps, +Major,' returned Mr Dombey. + +'No, Sir,' said the Major, in a severe tone. No, Mr Dombey, let us +understand each other. That is not the Bagstock vein, Sir. You don't +know Joseph B. He is a blunt old blade is Josh. No flattery in him, +Sir. Nothing like it.' + +Mr Dombey inclined his head, and said he believed him to be in +earnest, and that his high opinion was gratifying. + +'My little friend here, Sir,' croaked the Major, looking as amiably +as he could, on Paul, 'will certify for Joseph Bagstock that he is a +thorough-going, down-right, plain-spoken, old Trump, Sir, and nothing +more. That boy, Sir,' said the Major in a lower tone, 'will live in +history. That boy, Sir, is not a common production. Take care of him, +Mr Dombey.' + +Mr Dombey seemed to intimate that he would endeavour to do so. + +'Here is a boy here, Sir,' pursued the Major, confidentially, and +giving him a thrust with his cane. 'Son of Bitherstone of Bengal. Bill +Bitherstone formerly of ours. That boy's father and myself, Sir, were +sworn friends. Wherever you went, Sir, you heard of nothing but Bill +Bitherstone and Joe Bagstock. Am I blind to that boy's defects? By no +means. He's a fool, Sir.' + +Mr Dombey glanced at the libelled Master Bitherstone, of whom he +knew at least as much as the Major did, and said, in quite a +complacent manner, 'Really?' + +'That is what he is, sir,' said the Major. 'He's a fool. Joe +Bagstock never minces matters. The son of my old friend Bill +Bitherstone, of Bengal, is a born fool, Sir.' Here the Major laughed +till he was almost black. 'My little friend is destined for a public +school,' I' presume, Mr Dombey?' said the Major when he had recovered. + +'I am not quite decided,' returned Mr Dombey. 'I think not. He is +delicate.' + +'If he's delicate, Sir,' said the Major, 'you are right. None but +the tough fellows could live through it, Sir, at Sandhurst. We put +each other to the torture there, Sir. We roasted the new fellows at a +slow fire, and hung 'em out of a three pair of stairs window, with +their heads downwards. Joseph Bagstock, Sir, was held out of the +window by the heels of his boots, for thirteen minutes by the college +clock' + +The Major might have appealed to his countenance in corroboration +of this story. It certainly looked as if he had hung out a little too +long. + +'But it made us what we were, Sir,' said the Major, settling his +shirt frill. 'We were iron, Sir, and it forged us. Are you remaining +here, Mr Dombey?' + +'I generally come down once a week, Major,' returned that +gentleman. 'I stay at the Bedford.' + +'I shall have the honour of calling at the Bedford, Sir, if you'll +permit me,' said the Major. 'Joey B., Sir, is not in general a calling +man, but Mr Dombey's is not a common name. I am much indebted to my +little friend, Sir, for the honour of this introduction.' + +Mr Dombey made a very gracious reply; and Major Bagstock, having +patted Paul on the head, and said of Florence that her eyes would play +the Devil with the youngsters before long - 'and the oldsters too, +Sir, if you come to that,' added the Major, chuckling very much - +stirred up Master Bitherstone with his walking-stick, and departed +with that young gentleman, at a kind of half-trot; rolling his head +and coughing with great dignity, as he staggered away, with his legs +very wide asunder. + +In fulfilment of his promise, the Major afterwards called on Mr +Dombey; and Mr Dombey, having referred to the army list, afterwards +called on the Major. Then the Major called at Mr Dombey's house in +town; and came down again, in the same coach as Mr Dombey. In short, +Mr Dombey and the Major got on uncommonly well together, and +uncommonly fast: and Mr Dombey observed of the Major, to his sister, +that besides being quite a military man he was really something more, +as he had a very admirable idea of the importance of things +unconnected with his own profession. + +At length Mr Dombey, bringing down Miss Tox and Mrs Chick to see +the children, and finding the Major again at Brighton, invited him to +dinner at the Bedford, and complimented Miss Tox highly, beforehand, +on her neighbour and acquaintance. + +'My dearest Louisa,' said Miss Tox to Mrs Chick, when they were +alone together, on the morning of the appointed day, 'if I should seem +at all reserved to Major Bagstock, or under any constraint with him, +promise me not to notice it.' + +'My dear Lucretia,' returned Mrs Chick, 'what mystery is involved +in this remarkable request? I must insist upon knowing.' + +'Since you are resolved to extort a confession from me, Louisa,' +said Miss Tox instantly, 'I have no alternative but to confide to you +that the Major has been particular.' + +'Particular!' repeated Mrs Chick. + +'The Major has long been very particular indeed, my love, in his +attentions,' said Miss Tox, 'occasionally they have been so very +marked, that my position has been one of no common difficulty.' + +'Is he in good circumstances?' inquired Mrs Chick. + +'I have every reason to believe, my dear - indeed I may say I +know,' returned Miss Tox, 'that he is wealthy. He is truly military, +and full of anecdote. I have been informed that his valour, when he +was in active service, knew no bounds. I am told that he did all sorts +of things in the Peninsula, with every description of fire-arm; and in +the East and West Indies, my love, I really couldn't undertake to say +what he did not do.' + +'Very creditable to him indeed,' said Mrs Chick, 'extremely so; and +you have given him no encouragement, my dear?' + +'If I were to say, Louisa,' replied Miss Tox, with every +demonstration of making an effort that rent her soul, 'that I never +encouraged Major Bagstock slightly, I should not do justice to the +friendship which exists between you and me. It is, perhaps, hardly in +the nature of woman to receive such attentions as the Major once +lavished upon myself without betraying some sense of obligation. But +that is past - long past. Between the Major and me there is now a +yawning chasm, and I will not feign to give encouragement, Louisa, +where I cannot give my heart. My affections,' said Miss Tox - 'but, +Louisa, this is madness!' and departed from the room. + +All this Mrs Chick communicated to her brother before dinner: and +it by no means indisposed Mr Dombey to receive the Major with unwonted +cordiality. The Major, for his part, was in a state of plethoric +satisfaction that knew no bounds: and he coughed, and choked, and +chuckled, and gasped, and swelled, until the waiters seemed positively +afraid of him. + +'Your family monopolises Joe's light, Sir,' said the Major, when he +had saluted Miss Tox. 'Joe lives in darkness. Princess's Place is +changed into Kamschatka in the winter time. There is no ray of sun, +Sir, for Joey B., now.' + +'Miss Tox is good enough to take a great deal of interest in Paul, +Major,' returned Mr Dombey on behalf of that blushing virgin. + +'Damme Sir,' said the Major, 'I'm jealous of my little friend. I'm +pining away Sir. The Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken +person of old Joe.' And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and +puffing his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his +tight cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were +at that moment being overdone before the slow fire at the military +college. + +Notwithstanding the palpitation of the heart which these allusions +occasioned her, they were anything but disagreeable to Miss Tox, as +they enabled her to be extremely interesting, and to manifest an +occasional incoherence and distraction which she was not at all +unwilling to display. The Major gave her abundant opportunities of +exhibiting this emotion: being profuse in his complaints, at dinner, +of her desertion of him and Princess's Place: and as he appeared to +derive great enjoyment from making them, they all got on very well. + +None the worse on account of the Major taking charge of the whole +conversation, and showing as great an appetite in that respect as in +regard of the various dainties on the table, among which he may be +almost said to have wallowed: greatly to the aggravation of his +inflammatory tendencies. Mr Dombey's habitual silence and reserve +yielding readily to this usurpation, the Major felt that he was coming +out and shining: and in the flow of spirits thus engendered, rang such +an infinite number of new changes on his own name that he quite +astonished himself. In a word, they were all very well pleased. The +Major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation; +and when he took a late farewell, after a long rubber, Mr Dombey again +complimented the blushing Miss Tox on her neighbour and acquaintance. + +But all the way home to his own hotel, the Major incessantly said +to himself, and of himself, 'Sly, Sir - sly, Sir - de-vil-ish sly!' +And when he got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit +of laughter, with which he was sometimes seized, and which was always +particularly awful. It held him so long on this occasion that the dark +servant, who stood watching him at a distance, but dared not for his +life approach, twice or thrice gave him over for lost. His whole form, +but especially his face and head, dilated beyond all former +experience; and presented to the dark man's view, nothing but a +heaving mass of indigo. At length he burst into a violent paroxysm of +coughing, and when that was a little better burst into such +ejaculations as the following: + +'Would you, Ma'am, would you? Mrs Dombey, eh, Ma'am? I think not, +Ma'am. Not while Joe B. can put a spoke in your wheel, Ma'am. J. B.'s +even with you now, Ma'am. He isn't altogether bowled out, yet, Sir, +isn't Bagstock. She's deep, Sir, deep, but Josh is deeper. Wide awake +is old Joe - broad awake, and staring, Sir!' There was no doubt of +this last assertion being true, and to a very fearful extent; as it +continued to be during the greater part of that night, which the Major +chiefly passed in similar exclamations, diversified with fits of +coughing and choking that startled the whole house. + +It was on the day after this occasion (being Sunday) when, as Mr +Dombey, Mrs Chick, and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, still +eulogising the Major, Florence came running in: her face suffused with +a bright colour, and her eyes sparkling joyfully: and cried, + +'Papa! Papa! Here's Walter! and he won't come in.' + +'Who?' cried Mr Dombey. 'What does she mean? What is this?' + +'Walter, Papa!' said Florence timidly; sensible of having +approached the presence with too much familiarity. 'Who found me when +I was lost.' + +'Does she mean young Gay, Louisa?' inquired Mr Dombey, knitting his +brows. 'Really, this child's manners have become very boisterous. She +cannot mean young Gay, I think. See what it is, will you?' + +Mrs Chick hurried into the passage, and returned with the +information that it was young Gay, accompanied by a very +strange-looking person; and that young Gay said he would not take the +liberty of coming in, hearing Mr Dombey was at breakfast, but would +wait until Mr Dombey should signify that he might approach. + +'Tell the boy to come in now,' said Mr Dombey. 'Now, Gay, what is +the matter? Who sent you down here? Was there nobody else to come?' + +'I beg your pardon, Sir,' returned Walter. 'I have not been sent. I +have been so bold as to come on my own account, which I hope you'll +pardon when I mention the cause. + +But Mr Dombey, without attending to what he said, was looking +impatiently on either side of him (as if he were a pillar in his way) +at some object behind. + +'What's that?' said Mr Dombey. 'Who is that? I think you have made +some mistake in the door, Sir.' + +'Oh, I'm very sorry to intrude with anyone, Sir,' cried Walter, +hastily: 'but this is - this is Captain Cuttle, Sir.' + +'Wal'r, my lad,' observed the Captain in a deep voice: 'stand by!' + +At the same time the Captain, coming a little further in, brought +out his wide suit of blue, his conspicuous shirt-collar, and his +knobby nose in full relief, and stood bowing to Mr Dombey, and waving +his hook politely to the ladies, with the hard glazed hat in his one +hand, and a red equator round his head which it had newly imprinted +there. + +Mr Dombey regarded this phenomenon with amazement and indignation, +and seemed by his looks to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox against +it. Little Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss +Tox as the Captain waved his book, and stood on the defensive. + +'Now, Gay,' said Mr Dombey. 'What have you got to say to me?' + +Again the Captain observed, as a general opening of the +conversation that could not fail to propitiate all parties, 'Wal'r, +standby!' + +'I am afraid, Sir,' began Walter, trembling, and looking down at +the ground, 'that I take a very great liberty in coming - indeed, I am +sure I do. I should hardly have had the courage to ask to see you, +Sir, even after coming down, I am afraid, if I had not overtaken Miss +Dombey, and - ' + +'Well!' said Mr Dombey, following his eyes as he glanced at the +attentive Florence, and frowning unconsciously as she encouraged him +with a smile. 'Go on, if you please.' + +'Ay, ay,' observed the Captain, considering it incumbent on him, as +a point of good breeding, to support Mr Dombey. 'Well said! Go on, +Wal'r.' + +Captain Cuttle ought to have been withered by the look which Mr +Dombey bestowed upon him in acknowledgment of his patronage. But quite +innocent of this, he closed one eye in reply, and gave Mr Dombey to +understand, by certain significant motions of his hook, that Walter +was a little bashful at first, and might be expected to come out +shortly. + +'It is entirely a private and personal matter, that has brought me +here, Sir,' continued Walter, faltering, 'and Captain Cuttle + +'Here!' interposed the Captain, as an assurance that he was at +hand, and might be relied upon. + +'Who is a very old friend of my poor Uncle's, and a most excellent +man, Sir,' pursued Walter, raising his eyes with a look of entreaty in +the Captain's behalf, 'was so good as to offer to come with me, which +I could hardly refuse.' + +'No, no, no;' observed the Captain complacently. 'Of course not. No +call for refusing. Go on, Wal'r.' + +'And therefore, Sir,' said Walter, venturing to meet Mr Dombey's +eye, and proceeding with better courage in the very desperation of the +case, now that there was no avoiding it, 'therefore I have come, with +him, Sir, to say that my poor old Uncle is in very great affliction +and distress. That, through the gradual loss of his business, and not +being able to make a payment, the apprehension of which has weighed +very heavily upon his mind, months and months, as indeed I know, Sir, +he has an execution in his house, and is in danger of losing all he +has, and breaking his heart. And that if you would, in your kindness, +and in your old knowledge of him as a respectable man, do anything to +help him out of his difficulty, Sir, we never could thank you enough +for it.' + +Walter's eyes filled with tears as he spoke; and so did those of +Florence. Her father saw them glistening, though he appeared to look +at Walter only. + +'It is a very large sum, Sir,' said Walter. 'More than three +hundred pounds. My Uncle is quite beaten down by his misfortune, it +lies so heavy on him; and is quite unable to do anything for his own +relief. He doesn't even know yet, that I have come to speak to you. +You would wish me to say, Sir,' added Walter, after a moment's +hesitation, 'exactly what it is I want. I really don't know, Sir. +There is my Uncle's stock, on which I believe I may say, confidently, +there are no other demands, and there is Captain Cuttle, who would +wish to be security too. I - I hardly like to mention,' said Walter, +'such earnings as mine; but if you would allow them - accumulate - +payment - advance - Uncle - frugal, honourable, old man.' Walter +trailed off, through these broken sentences, into silence: and stood +with downcast head, before his employer. + +Considering this a favourable moment for the display of the +valuables, Captain Cuttle advanced to the table; and clearing a space +among the breakfast-cups at Mr Dombey's elbow, produced the silver +watch, the ready money, the teaspoons, and the sugar-tongs; and piling +them up into a heap that they might look as precious as possible, +delivered himself of these words: + +'Half a loaf's better than no bread, and the same remark holds good +with crumbs. There's a few. Annuity of one hundred pound premium also +ready to be made over. If there is a man chock full of science in the +world, it's old Sol Gills. If there is a lad of promise - one +flowing,' added the Captain, in one of his happy quotations, 'with +milk and honey - it's his nevy!' + +The Captain then withdrew to his former place, where he stood +arranging his scattered locks with the air of a man who had given the +finishing touch to a difficult performance. + +When Walter ceased to speak, Mr Dombey's eyes were attracted to +little Paul, who, seeing his sister hanging down her head and silently +weeping in her commiseration for the distress she had heard described, +went over to her, and tried to comfort her: looking at Walter and his +father as he did so, with a very expressive face. After the momentary +distraction of Captain Cuttle's address, which he regarded with lofty +indifference, Mr Dombey again turned his eyes upon his son, and sat +steadily regarding the child, for some moments, in silence. + +'What was this debt contracted for?' asked Mr Dombey, at length. +'Who is the creditor?' + +'He don't know,' replied the Captain, putting his hand on Walter's +shoulder. 'I do. It came of helping a man that's dead now, and that's +cost my friend Gills many a hundred pound already. More particulars in +private, if agreeable.' + +'People who have enough to do to hold their own way,' said Mr +Dombey, unobservant of the Captain's mysterious signs behind Walter, +and still looking at his son, 'had better be content with their own +obligations and difficulties, and not increase them by engaging for +other men. It is an act of dishonesty and presumption, too,' said Mr +Dombey, sternly; 'great presumption; for the wealthy could do no more. +Paul, come here!' + +The child obeyed: and Mr Dombey took him on his knee. + +'If you had money now - ' said Mr Dombey. 'Look at me!' + +Paul, whose eyes had wandered to his sister, and to Walter, looked +his father in the face. + +'If you had money now,' said Mr Dombey; 'as much money as young Gay +has talked about; what would you do?' + +'Give it to his old Uncle,' returned Paul. + +'Lend it to his old Uncle, eh?' retorted Mr Dombey. 'Well! When you +are old enough, you know, you will share my money, and we shall use it +together.' + +'Dombey and Son,' interrupted Paul, who had been tutored early in +the phrase. + +'Dombey and Son,' repeated his father. 'Would you like to begin to +be Dombey and Son, now, and lend this money to young Gay's Uncle?' + +'Oh! if you please, Papa!' said Paul: 'and so would Florence.' + +'Girls,' said Mr Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son. +Would you like it?' + +'Yes, Papa, yes!' + +'Then you shall do it,' returned his father. 'And you see, Paul,' +he added, dropping his voice, 'how powerful money is, and how anxious +people are to get it. Young Gay comes all this way to beg for money, +and you, who are so grand and great, having got it, are going to let +him have it, as a great favour and obligation.' + +Paul turned up the old face for a moment, in which there was a +sharp understanding of the reference conveyed in these words: but it +was a young and childish face immediately afterwards, when he slipped +down from his father's knee, and ran to tell Florence not to cry any +more, for he was going to let young Gay have the money. + +Mr Dombey then turned to a side-table, and wrote a note and sealed +it. During the interval, Paul and Florence whispered to Walter, and +Captain Cuttle beamed on the three, with such aspiring and ineffably +presumptuous thoughts as Mr Dombey never could have believed in. The +note being finished, Mr Dombey turned round to his former place, and +held it out to Walter. + +'Give that,' he said, 'the first thing to-morrow morning, to Mr +Carker. He will immediately take care that one of my people releases +your Uncle from his present position, by paying the amount at issue; +and that such arrangements are made for its repayment as may be +consistent with your Uncle's circumstances. You will consider that +this is done for you by Master Paul.' + +Walter, in the emotion of holding in his hand the means of +releasing his good Uncle from his trouble, would have endeavoured to +express something of his gratitude and joy. But Mr Dombey stopped him +short. + +'You will consider that it is done,' he repeated, 'by Master Paul. +I have explained that to him, and he understands it. I wish no more to +be said.' + +As he motioned towards the door, Walter could only bow his head and +retire. Miss Tox, seeing that the Captain appeared about to do the +same, interposed. + +'My dear Sir,' she said, addressing Mr Dombey, at whose munificence +both she and Mrs Chick were shedding tears copiously; 'I think you +have overlooked something. Pardon me, Mr Dombey, I think, in the +nobility of your character, and its exalted scope, you have omitted a +matter of detail.' + +'Indeed, Miss Tox!' said Mr Dombey. + +'The gentleman with the - Instrument,' pursued Miss Tox, glancing +at Captain Cuttle, 'has left upon the table, at your elbow - ' + +'Good Heaven!' said Mr Dombey, sweeping the Captain's property from +him, as if it were so much crumb indeed. 'Take these things away. I am +obliged to you, Miss Tox; it is like your usual discretion. Have the +goodness to take these things away, Sir!' + +Captain Cuttle felt he had no alternative but to comply. But he was +so much struck by the magnanimity of Mr Dombey, in refusing treasures +lying heaped up to his hand, that when he had deposited the teaspoons +and sugar-tongs in one pocket, and the ready money in another, and had +lowered the great watch down slowly into its proper vault, he could +not refrain from seizing that gentleman's right hand in his own +solitary left, and while he held it open with his powerful fingers, +bringing the hook down upon its palm in a transport of admiration. At +this touch of warm feeling and cold iron, Mr Dombey shivered all over. + +Captain Cuttle then kissed his hook to the ladies several times, +with great elegance and gallantry; and having taken a particular leave +of Paul and Florence, accompanied Walter out of the room. Florence was +running after them in the earnestness of her heart, to send some +message to old Sol, when Mr Dombey called her back, and bade her stay +where she was. + +'Will you never be a Dombey, my dear child!' said Mrs Chick, with +pathetic reproachfulness. + +'Dear aunt,' said Florence. 'Don't be angry with me. I am so +thankful to Papa!' + +She would have run and thrown her arms about his neck if she had +dared; but as she did not dare, she glanced with thankful eyes towards +him, as he sat musing; sometimes bestowing an uneasy glance on her, +but, for the most part, watching Paul, who walked about the room with +the new-blown dignity of having let young Gay have the money. + +And young Gay - Walter- what of him? + +He was overjoyed to purge the old man's hearth from bailiffs and +brokers, and to hurry back to his Uncle with the good tidings. He was +overjoyed to have it all arranged and settled next day before noon; +and to sit down at evening in the little back parlour with old Sol and +Captain Cuttle; and to see the Instrument-maker already reviving, and +hopeful for the future, and feeling that the wooden Midshipman was his +own again. But without the least impeachment of his gratitude to Mr +Dombey, it must be confessed that Walter was humbled and cast down. It +is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough +wind, that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what +flowers they might have borne, if they had flourished; and now, when +Walter found himself cut off from that great Dombey height, by the +depth of a new and terrible tumble, and felt that all his old wild +fancies had been scattered to the winds in the fall, he began to +suspect that they might have led him on to harmless visions of +aspiring to Florence in the remote distance of time. + +The Captain viewed the subject in quite a different light. He +appeared to entertain a belief that the interview at which he had +assisted was so very satisfactory and encouraging, as to be only a +step or two removed from a regular betrothal of Florence to Walter; +and that the late transaction had immensely forwarded, if not +thoroughly established, the Whittingtonian hopes. Stimulated by this +conviction, and by the improvement in the spirits of his old friend, +and by his own consequent gaiety, he even attempted, in favouring them +with the ballad of 'Lovely Peg' for the third time in one evening, to +make an extemporaneous substitution of the name 'Florence;' but +finding this difficult, on account of the word Peg invariably rhyming +to leg (in which personal beauty the original was described as having +excelled all competitors), he hit upon the happy thought of changing +it to Fle-e-eg; which he accordingly did, with an archness almost +supernatural, and a voice quite vociferous, notwithstanding that the +time was close at band when he must seek the abode of the dreadful Mrs +MacStinger. + +That same evening the Major was diffuse at his club, on the subject +of his friend Dombey in the City. 'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, 'he's +a prince, is my friend Dombey in the City. I tell you what, Sir. If +you had a few more men among you like old Joe Bagstock and my friend +Dombey in the City, Sir, you'd do!' + + + +CHAPTER 11. + +Paul's Introduction to a New Scene + + + +Mrs Pipchin's constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of +its liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose +after chops, and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the soporific +agency of sweet-breads, that it utterly set at naught the predictions +of Mrs Wickam, and showed no symptoms of decline. Yet, as Paul's rapt +interest in the old lady continued unbated, Mrs Wickam would not budge +an inch from the position she had taken up. Fortifying and entrenching +herself on the strong ground of her Uncle's Betsey Jane, she advised +Miss Berry, as a friend, to prepare herself for the worst; and +forewarned her that her aunt might, at any time, be expected to go off +suddenly, like a powder-mill. + +'I hope, Miss Berry,' Mrs Wickam would observe, 'that you'll come +into whatever little property there may be to leave. You deserve it, I +am sure, for yours is a trying life. Though there don't seem much +worth coming into - you'll excuse my being so open - in this dismal +den.' + +Poor Berry took it all in good part, and drudged and slaved away as +usual; perfectly convinced that Mrs Pipchin was one of the most +meritorious persons in the world, and making every day innumerable +sacrifices of herself upon the altar of that noble old woman. But all +these immolations of Berry were somehow carried to the credit of Mrs +Pipchin by Mrs Pipchin's friends and admirers; and were made to +harmonise with, and carry out, that melancholy fact of the deceased Mr +Pipchin having broken his heart in the Peruvian mines. + +For example, there was an honest grocer and general dealer in the +retail line of business, between whom and Mrs Pipchin there was a +small memorandum book, with a greasy red cover, perpetually in +question, and concerning which divers secret councils and conferences +were continually being held between the parties to that register, on +the mat in the passage, and with closed doors in the parlour. Nor were +there wanting dark hints from Master Bitherstone (whose temper had +been made revengeful by the solar heats of India acting on his blood), +of balances unsettled, and of a failure, on one occasion within his +memory, in the supply of moist sugar at tea-time. This grocer being a +bachelor and not a man who looked upon the surface for beauty, had +once made honourable offers for the hand of Berry, which Mrs Pipchin +had, with contumely and scorn, rejected. Everybody said how laudable +this was in Mrs Pipchin, relict of a man who had died of the Peruvian +mines; and what a staunch, high, independent spirit the old lady had. +But nobody said anything about poor Berry, who cried for six weeks +(being soundly rated by her good aunt all the time), and lapsed into a +state of hopeless spinsterhood. + +'Berry's very fond of you, ain't she?' Paul once asked Mrs Pipchin +when they were sitting by the fire with the cat. + +'Yes,' said Mrs Pipchin. + +'Why?' asked Paul. + +'Why!' returned the disconcerted old lady. 'How can you ask such +things, Sir! why are you fond of your sister Florence?' + +'Because she's very good,' said Paul. 'There's nobody like +Florence.' + +'Well!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, shortly, 'and there's nobody like me, +I suppose.' + +'Ain't there really though?' asked Paul, leaning forward in his +chair, and looking at her very hard. + +'No,' said the old lady. + +'I am glad of that,' observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully. +'That's a very good thing.' + +Mrs Pipchin didn't dare to ask him why, lest she should receive +some perfectly annihilating answer. But as a compensation to her +wounded feelings, she harassed Master Bitherstone to that extent until +bed-time, that he began that very night to make arrangements for an +overland return to India, by secreting from his supper a quarter of a +round of bread and a fragment of moist Dutch cheese, as the beginning +of a stock of provision to support him on the voyage. + +Mrs Pipchin had kept watch and ward over little Paul and his sister +for nearly twelve months. They had been home twice, but only for a few +days; and had been constant in their weekly visits to Mr Dombey at the +hotel. By little and little Paul had grown stronger, and had become +able to dispense with his carriage; though he still looked thin and +delicate; and still remained the same old, quiet, dreamy child that he +had been when first consigned to Mrs Pipchin's care. One Saturday +afternoon, at dusk, great consternation was occasioned in the Castle +by the unlooked-for announcement of Mr Dombey as a visitor to Mrs +Pipchin. The population of the parlour was immediately swept upstairs +as on the wings of a whirlwind, and after much slamming of bedroom +doors, and trampling overhead, and some knocking about of Master +Bitherstone by Mrs Pipchin, as a relief to the perturbation of her +spirits, the black bombazeen garments of the worthy old lady darkened +the audience-chamber where Mr Dombey was contemplating the vacant +arm-chair of his son and heir. + +'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, 'How do you do?' + +'Thank you, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'I am pretty well, +considering.' + +Mrs Pipchin always used that form of words. It meant, considering +her virtues, sacrifices, and so forth. + +'I can't expect, Sir, to be very well,' said Mrs Pipchin, taking a +chair and fetching her breath; 'but such health as I have, I am +grateful for.' + +Mr Dombey inclined his head with the satisfied air of a patron, who +felt that this was the sort of thing for which he paid so much a +quarter. After a moment's silence he went on to say: + +'Mrs Pipchin, I have taken the liberty of calling, to consult you +in reference to my son. I have had it in my mind to do so for some +time past; but have deferred it from time to time, in order that his +health might be thoroughly re-established. You have no misgivings on +that subject, Mrs Pipchin?' + +'Brighton has proved very beneficial, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin. +'Very beneficial, indeed.' + +'I purpose,' said Mr Dombey, 'his remaining at Brighton.' + +Mrs Pipchin rubbed her hands, and bent her grey eyes on the fire. + +'But,' pursued Mr Dombey, stretching out his forefinger, 'but +possibly that he should now make a change, and lead a different kind +of life here. In short, Mrs Pipchin, that is the object of my visit. +My son is getting on, Mrs Pipchin. Really, he is getting on.' + +There was something melancholy in the triumphant air with which Mr +Dombey said this. It showed how long Paul's childish life had been to +him, and how his hopes were set upon a later stage of his existence. +Pity may appear a strange word to connect with anyone so haughty and +so cold, and yet he seemed a worthy subject for it at that moment. + +'Six years old!' said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth - perhaps +to hide an irrepressible smile that rather seemed to strike upon the +surface of his face and glance away, as finding no resting-place, than +to play there for an instant. 'Dear me, six will be changed to +sixteen, before we have time to look about us.' + +'Ten years,' croaked the unsympathetic Pipchin, with a frosty +glistening of her hard grey eye, and a dreary shaking of her bent +head, 'is a long time.' + +'It depends on circumstances, returned Mr Dombey; 'at all events, +Mrs Pipchin, my son is six years old, and there is no doubt, I fear, +that in his studies he is behind many children of his age - or his +youth,' said Mr Dombey, quickly answering what he mistrusted was a +shrewd twinkle of the frosty eye, 'his youth is a more appropriate +expression. Now, Mrs Pipchin, instead of being behind his peers, my +son ought to be before them; far before them. There is an eminence +ready for him to mount upon. There is nothing of chance or doubt in +the course before my son. His way in life was clear and prepared, and +marked out before he existed. The education of such a young gentleman +must not be delayed. It must not be left imperfect. It must be very +steadily and seriously undertaken, Mrs Pipchin.' + +'Well, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'I can say nothing to the contrary.' + +'I was quite sure, Mrs Pipchin,' returned Mr Dombey, approvingly, +'that a person of your good sense could not, and would not.' + +'There is a great deal of nonsense - and worse - talked about young +people not being pressed too hard at first, and being tempted on, and +all the rest of it, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her +hooked nose. 'It never was thought of in my time, and it has no +business to be thought of now. My opinion is "keep 'em at it".' + +'My good madam,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you have not acquired your +reputation undeservedly; and I beg you to believe, Mrs Pipchin, that I +am more than satisfied with your excellent system of management, and +shall have the greatest pleasure in commending it whenever my poor +commendation - ' Mr Dombey's loftiness when he affected to disparage +his own importance, passed all bounds - 'can be of any service. I have +been thinking of Doctor Blimber's, Mrs Pipchin.' + +'My neighbour, Sir?' said Mrs Pipchin. 'I believe the Doctor's is +an excellent establishment. I've heard that it's very strictly +conducted, and there is nothing but learning going on from morning to +night.' + +'And it's very expensive,' added Mr Dombey. + +'And it's very expensive, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, catching at +the fact, as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading +merits. + +'I have had some communication with the Doctor, Mrs Pipchin,' said +Mr Dombey, hitching his chair anxiously a little nearer to the fire, +'and he does not consider Paul at all too young for his purpose. He +mentioned several instances of boys in Greek at about the same age. If +I have any little uneasiness in my own mind, Mrs Pipchin, on the +subject of this change, it is not on that head. My son not having +known a mother has gradually concentrated much - too much - of his +childish affection on his sister. Whether their separation - ' Mr +Dombey said no more, but sat silent. + +'Hoity-toity!' exclaimed Mrs Pipchin, shaking out her black +bombazeen skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. 'If she +don't like it, Mr Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.' The good +lady apologised immediately afterwards for using so common a figure of +speech, but said (and truly) that that was the way she reasoned with +'em. + +Mr Dombey waited until Mrs Pipchin had done bridling and shaking +her head, and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and +then said quietly, but correctively, 'He, my good madam, he.' + +Mrs Pipchin's system would have applied very much the same mode of +cure to any uneasiness on the part of Paul, too; but as the hard grey +eye was sharp enough to see that the recipe, however Mr Dombey might +admit its efficacy in the case of the daughter, was not a sovereign +remedy for the son, she argued the point; and contended that change, +and new society, and the different form of life he would lead at +Doctor Blimber's, and the studies he would have to master, would very +soon prove sufficient alienations. As this chimed in with Mr Dombey's +own hope and belief, it gave that gentleman a still higher opinion of +Mrs Pipchin's understanding; and as Mrs Pipchin, at the same time, +bewailed the loss of her dear little friend (which was not an +overwhelming shock to her, as she had long expected it, and had not +looked, in the beginning, for his remaining with her longer than three +months), he formed an equally good opinion of Mrs Pipchin's +disinterestedness. It was plain that he had given the subject anxious +consideration, for he had formed a plan, which he announced to the +ogress, of sending Paul to the Doctor's as a weekly boarder for the +first half year, during which time Florence would remain at the +Castle, that she might receive her brother there, on Saturdays. This +would wean him by degrees, Mr Dombey said; possibly with a +recollection of his not having been weaned by degrees on a former +occasion. + +Mr Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs +Pipchin would still remain in office as general superintendent and +overseer of his son, pending his studies at Brighton; and having +kissed Paul, and shaken hands with Florence, and beheld Master +Bitherstone in his collar of state, and made Miss Pankey cry by +patting her on the head (in which region she was uncommonly tender, on +account of a habit Mrs Pipchin had of sounding it with her knuckles, +like a cask), he withdrew to his hotel and dinner: resolved that Paul, +now that he was getting so old and well, should begin a vigorous +course of education forthwith, to qualify him for the position in +which he was to shine; and that Doctor Blimber should take him in hand +immediately. + +Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he +might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor only +undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, +a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was +at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten +with it. + +In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in +which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys +blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, +and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical +gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and +from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every +description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs +of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no +consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to +bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other. + +This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing +was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right +taste about the premature productions, and they didn't keep well. +Moreover, one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively +large head (the oldest of the ten who had 'gone through' everything), +suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a +mere stalk. And people did say that the Doctor had rather overdone it +with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off +having brains. + +There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of +voices and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his +shirt, and keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little +finger by stealth, when the pupils went out walking; constantly +falling in love by sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his +existence; and looking at the gas-lighted world over the little iron +bars in the left-hand corner window of the front three pairs of +stairs, after bed-time, like a greatly overgrown cherub who had sat up +aloft much too long. + +The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings +at his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly +polished; a deep voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a +wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise +a pair of little eyes that were always half shut up, and a mouth that +was always half expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed +a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch, +that when the Doctor put his right hand into the breast of his coat, +and with his other hand behind him, and a fly perceptible wag of his +head, made the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was +like a sentiment from the sphynx, and settled his business. + +The Doctor's was a mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not a +joyful style of house within, but quite the contrary. Sad-coloured +curtains, whose proportions were spare and lean, hid themselves +despondently behind the windows. The tables and chairs were put away +in rows, like figures in a sum; fires were so rarely lighted in the +rooms of ceremony, that they felt like wells, and a visitor +represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed the last place in the +world where any eating or drinking was likely to occur; there was no +sound through all the house but the ticking of a great clock in the +hall, which made itself audible in the very garrets; and sometimes a +dull cooing of young gentlemen at their lessons, like the murmurings +of an assemblage of melancholy pigeons. + +Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft +violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense +about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore +spectacles. She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of +deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They +must be dead - stone dead - and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a +Ghoul. + +Mrs Blimber, her Mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended +to be, and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that +if she could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died +contented. It was the steady joy of her life to see the Doctor's young +gentlemen go out walking, unlike all other young gentlemen, in the +largest possible shirt-collars, and the stiffest possible cravats. It +was so classical, she said. + +As to Mr Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind of +human barrel-organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was +continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He +might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early +life, if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been; and he +had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it was his occupation +to bewilder the young ideas of Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen. The +young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew +no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage +noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of +exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing +system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three +weeks. He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months. +He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in +four; he was an old misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed +refuge in the earth, in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth +had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterwards +departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, +were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning +in the world. + +But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hothouse, all +the time; and the Doctor's glory and reputation were great, when he +took his wintry growth home to his relations and friends. + +Upon the Doctor's door-steps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering +heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. His other hand +was locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that +one; and how loose and cold the other! + +Mrs Pipchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plumage and +her hooked beak, like a bird of ill-omen. She was out of breath - for +Mr Dombey, full of great thoughts, had walked fast - and she croaked +hoarsely as she waited for the opening of the door. + +'Now, Paul,' said Mr Dombey, exultingly. 'This is the way indeed to +be Dombey and Son, and have money. You are almost a man already.' + +'Almost,' returned the child. + +Even his childish agitation could not master the sly and quaint yet +touching look, with which he accompanied the reply. + +It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr Dombey's +face; but the door being opened, it was quickly gone + +'Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe?' said Mr Dombey. + +The man said yes; and as they passed in, looked at Paul as if he +were a little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was a weak-eyed +young man, with the first faint streaks or early dawn of a grin on his +countenance. It was mere imbecility; but Mrs Pipchin took it into her +head that it was impudence, and made a snap at him directly. + +'How dare you laugh behind the gentleman's back?' said Mrs Pipchin. +'And what do you take me for?' + +'I ain't a laughing at nobody, and I'm sure I don't take you for +nothing, Ma'am,' returned the young man, in consternation. + +'A pack of idle dogs!' said Mrs Pipchin, 'only fit to be turnspits. +Go and tell your master that Mr Dombey's here, or it'll be worse for +you!' + +The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge himself of +this commission; and soon came back to invite them to the Doctor's +study. + +'You're laughing again, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, when it came to her +turn, bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall. + +'I ain't,' returned the young man, grievously oppressed. 'I never +see such a thing as this!' + +'What is the matter, Mrs Pipchin?' said Mr Dombey, looking round. +'Softly! Pray!' + +Mrs Pipchin, in her deference, merely muttered at the young man as +she passed on, and said, 'Oh! he was a precious fellow' - leaving the +young man, who was all meekness and incapacity, affected even to tears +by the incident. But Mrs Pipchin had a way of falling foul of all meek +people; and her friends said who could wonder at it, after the +Peruvian mines! + +The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at +each knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on +the mantel-shelf. 'And how do you do, Sir?' he said to Mr Dombey, 'and +how is my little friend?' Grave as an organ was the Doctor's speech; +and when he ceased, the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at +least) to take him up, and to go on saying, 'how, is, my, lit, tle, +friend? how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?' over and over and over again. + +The little friend being something too small to be seen at all from +where the Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the Doctor made +several futile attempts to get a view of him round the legs; which Mr +Dombey perceiving, relieved the Doctor from his embarrassment by +taking Paul up in his arms, and sitting him on another little table, +over against the Doctor, in the middle of the room. + +'Ha!' said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hand in +his breast. 'Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little +friend?' + +The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe to this alteration in the +form of words, but continued to repeat how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? +how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?' + +'Very well, I thank you, Sir,' returned Paul, answering the clock +quite as much as the Doctor. + +'Ha!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Shall we make a man of him?' + +'Do you hear, Paul?' added Mr Dombey; Paul being silent. + +'Shall we make a man of him?' repeated the Doctor. + +'I had rather be a child,' replied Paul. + +'Indeed!' said the Doctor. 'Why?' + +The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious +expression of suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand +proudly on his knee as if he had the rising tears beneath it, and +crushed them. But his other hand strayed a little way the while, a +little farther - farther from him yet - until it lighted on the neck +of Florence. 'This is why,' it seemed to say, and then the steady look +was broken up and gone; the working lip was loosened; and the tears +came streaming forth. + +'Mrs Pipchin,' said his father, in a querulous manner, 'I am really +very sorry to see this.' + +'Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey,' quoth the matron. + +'Never mind,' said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head, to keep +Mrs Pipchin back. 'Never mind; we shall substitute new cares and new +impressions, Mr Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little +friend to acquire - ' + +'Everything, if you please, Doctor,' returned Mr Dombey, firmly. + +'Yes,' said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, and his usual +smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might +attach to some choice little animal he was going to stuff. 'Yes, +exactly. Ha! We shall impart a great variety of information to our +little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I daresay. I daresay. +Quite a virgin soil, I believe you said, Mr Dombey?' + +'Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this lady,' +replied Mr Dombey, introducing Mrs Pipchin, who instantly communicated +a rigidity to her whole muscular system, and snorted defiance +beforehand, in case the Doctor should disparage her; 'except so far, +Paul has, as yet, applied himself to no studies at all.' + +Doctor Blimber inclined his head, in gentle tolerance of such +insignificant poaching as Mrs Pipchin's, and said he was glad to hear +it. It was much more satisfactory, he observed, rubbing his hands, to +begin at the foundation. And again he leered at Paul, as if he would +have liked to tackle him with the Greek alphabet, on the spot. + +'That circumstance, indeed, Doctor Blimber,' pursued Mr Dombey, +glancing at his little son, 'and the interview I have already had the +pleasure of holding with you, renders any further explanation, and +consequently, any further intrusion on your valuable time, so +unnecessary, that - ' + +'Now, Miss Dombey!' said the acid Pipchin. + +'Permit me,' said the Doctor, 'one moment. Allow me to present Mrs +Blimber and my daughter; who will be associated with the domestic life +of our young Pilgrim to Parnassus Mrs Blimber,' for the lady, who had +perhaps been in waiting, opportunely entered, followed by her +daughter, that fair Sexton in spectacles, 'Mr Dombey. My daughter +Cornelia, Mr Dombey. Mr Dombey, my love,' pursued the Doctor, turning +to his wife, 'is so confiding as to - do you see our little friend?' + +Mrs Blimber, in an excess of politeness, of which Mr Dombey was the +object, apparently did not, for she was backing against the little +friend, and very much endangering his position on the table. But, on +this hint, she turned to admire his classical and intellectual +lineaments, and turning again to Mr Dombey, said, with a sigh, that +she envied his dear son. + +'Like a bee, Sir,' said Mrs Blimber, with uplifted eyes, 'about to +plunge into a garden of the choicest flowers, and sip the sweets for +the first time Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero. What a +world of honey have we here. It may appear remarkable, Mr Dombey, in +one who is a wife - the wife of such a husband - ' + +'Hush, hush,' said Doctor Blimber. 'Fie for shame.' + +'Mr Dombey will forgive the partiality of a wife,' said Mrs +Blimber, with an engaging smile. + +Mr Dombey answered 'Not at all:' applying those words, it is to be +presumed, to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness. + +'And it may seem remarkable in one who is a mother also,' resumed +Mrs Blimber. + +'And such a mother,' observed Mr Dombey, bowing with some confused +idea of being complimentary to Cornelia. + +'But really,' pursued Mrs Blimber, 'I think if I could have known +Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at +Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum!), I could have died contented.' + +A learned enthusiasm is so very contagious, that Mr Dombey half +believed this was exactly his case; and even Mrs Pipchin, who was not, +as we have seen, of an accommodating disposition generally, gave +utterance to a little sound between a groan and a sigh, as if she +would have said that nobody but Cicero could have proved a lasting +consolation under that failure of the Peruvian MInes, but that he +indeed would have been a very Davy-lamp of refuge. + +Cornelia looked at Mr Dombey through her spectacles, as if she +would have liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority +in question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by +a knock at the room-door. + +'Who is that?' said the Doctor. 'Oh! Come in, Toots; come in. Mr +Dombey, Sir.' Toots bowed. 'Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber. +'Here we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega Our head boy, +Mr Dombey.' + +The Doctor might have called him their head and shoulders boy, for +he was at least that much taller than any of the rest. He blushed very +much at finding himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud. + +'An addition to our little Portico, Toots,' said the Doctor; 'Mr +Dombey's son.' + +Young Toots blushed again; and finding, from a solemn silence which +prevailed, that he was expected to say something, said to Paul, 'How +are you?' in a voice so deep, and a manner so sheepish, that if a lamb +had roared it couldn't have been more surprising. + +'Ask Mr Feeder, if you please, Toots,' said the Doctor, 'to prepare +a few introductory volumes for Mr Dombey's son, and to allot him a +convenient seat for study. My dear, I believe Mr Dombey has not seen +the dormitories.' + +'If Mr Dombey will walk upstairs,' said Mrs Blimber, 'I shall be +more than proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.' + +With that, Mrs Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, and a wiry +figure, and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue materials, pied +upstairs with Mr Dombey and Cornelia; Mrs Pipchin following, and +looking out sharp for her enemy the footman. + +While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding Florence by +the hand, and glancing timidly from the Doctor round and round the +room, while the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his hand in +his breast as usual, held a book from him at arm's length, and read. +There was something very awful in this manner of reading. It was such +a determined, unimpassioned, inflexible, cold-blooded way of going to +work. It left the Doctor's countenance exposed to view; and when the +Doctor smiled suspiciously at his author, or knit his brows, or shook +his head and made wry faces at him, as much as to say, 'Don't tell me, +Sir; I know better,' it was terrific. + +Toots, too, had no business to be outside the door, ostentatiously +examining the wheels in his watch, and counting his half-crowns. But +that didn't last long; for Doctor Blimber, happening to change the +position of his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots +swiftly vanished, and appeared no more. + +Mr Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming downstairs +again, talking all the way; and presently they re-entered the Doctor's +study. + +'I hope, Mr Dombey,' said the Doctor, laying down his book, 'that +the arrangements meet your approval.' + +'They are excellent, Sir,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Very fair, indeed,' said Mrs Pipchin, in a low voice; never +disposed to give too much encouragement. + +'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, wheeling round, 'will, with your +permission, Doctor and Mrs Blimber, visit Paul now and then.' + +'Whenever Mrs Pipchin pleases,' observed the Doctor. + +'Always happy to see her,' said Mrs Blimber. + +'I think,' said Mr Dombey, 'I have given all the trouble I need, +and may take my leave. Paul, my child,' he went close to him, as he +sat upon the table. 'Good-bye.' + +'Good-bye, Papa.' + +The limp and careless little hand that Mr Dombey took in his, was +singularly out of keeping with the wistful face. But he had no part in +its sorrowful expression. It was not addressed to him. No, no. To +Florence - all to Florence. + +If Mr Dombey in his insolence of wealth, had ever made an enemy, +hard to appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even such an enemy +might have received the pang that wrung his proud heart then, as +compensation for his injury. + +He bent down, over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight were +dimmed as he did so, by something that for a moment blurred the little +face, and made it indistinct to him, his mental vision may have been, +for that short time, the clearer perhaps. + +'I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and Sundays, +you know.' + +'Yes, Papa,' returned Paul: looking at his sister. 'On Saturdays +and Sundays.' + +'And you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man,' +said Mr Dombey; 'won't you?' + +'I'll try,' returned the child, wearily. + +'And you'll soon be grown up now!' said Mr Dombey. + +'Oh! very soon!' replied the child. Once more the old, old look +passed rapidly across his features like a strange light. It fell on +Mrs Pipchin, and extinguished itself in her black dress. That +excellent ogress stepped forward to take leave and to bear off +Florence, which she had long been thirsting to do. The move on her +part roused Mr Dombey, whose eyes were fixed on Paul. After patting +him on the head, and pressing his small hand again, he took leave of +Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber, with his usual polite +frigidity, and walked out of the study. + +Despite his entreaty that they would not think of stirring, Doctor +Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend +him to the hall; and thus Mrs Pipchin got into a state of entanglement +with Miss Blimber and the Doctor, and was crowded out of the study +before she could clutch Florence. To which happy accident Paul stood +afterwards indebted for the dear remembrance, that Florence ran back +to throw her arms round his neck, and that hers was the last face in +the doorway: turned towards him with a smile of encouragement, the +brighter for the tears through which it beamed. + +It made his childish bosom heave and swell when it was gone; and +sent the globes, the books, blind Homer and Minerva, swimming round +the room. But they stopped, all of a sudden; and then he heard the +loud clock in the hall still gravely inquiring 'how, is, my, lit, tle, +friend? how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?' as it had done before. + +He sat, with folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently listening. +But he might have answered 'weary, weary! very lonely, very sad!' And +there, with an aching void in his young heart, and all outside so +cold, and bare, and strange, Paul sat as if he had taken life +unfurnished, and the upholsterer were never coming. + + + +CHAPTER 12. + +Paul's Education + + + +After the lapse of some minutes, which appeared an immense time to +little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came back. The +Doctor's walk was stately, and calculated to impress the juvenile mind +with solemn feelings. It was a sort of march; but when the Doctor put +out his right foot, he gravely turned upon his axis, with a +semi-circular sweep towards the left; and when he put out his left +foot, he turned in the same manner towards the right. So that he +seemed, at every stride he took, to look about him as though he were +saying, 'Can anybody have the goodness to indicate any subject, in any +direction, on which I am uninformed? I rather think not' + +Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber came back in the Doctor's company; and +the Doctor, lifting his new pupil off the table, delivered him over to +Miss Blimber. + +'Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'Dombey will be your charge at first. +Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on.' + +Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor's hands; and +Paul, feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his +eyes. + +'How old are you, Dombey?' said Miss Blimber. + +'Six,' answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the young +lady, why her hair didn't grow long like Florence's, and why she was +like a boy. + +'How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dombey?' said Miss +Blimber. + +'None of it,' answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a shock to +Miss Blimber's sensibility, he looked up at the three faces that were +looking down at him, and said: + +'I have'n't been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn't learn a +Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you'd +tell old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.' + +'What a dreadfully low name' said Mrs Blimber. 'Unclassical to a +degree! Who is the monster, child?' + +'What monster?' inquired Paul. + +'Glubb,' said Mrs Blimber, with a great disrelish. + +'He's no more a monster than you are,' returned Paul. + +'What!' cried the Doctor, in a terrible voice. 'Ay, ay, ay? Aha! +What's that?' + +Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he made a stand for the +absent Glubb, though he did it trembling. + +'He's a very nice old man, Ma'am,' he said. 'He used to draw my +couch. He knows all about the deep sea, and the fish that are in it, +and the great monsters that come and lie on rocks in the sun, and dive +into the water again when they're startled, blowing and splashing so, +that they can be heard for miles. There are some creatures, said Paul, +warming with his subject, 'I don't know how many yards long, and I +forget their names, but Florence knows, that pretend to be in +distress; and when a man goes near them, out of compassion, they open +their great jaws, and attack him. But all he has got to do,' said +Paul, boldly tendering this information to the very Doctor himself, +'is to keep on turning as he runs away, and then, as they turn slowly, +because they are so long, and can't bend, he's sure to beat them. And +though old Glubb don't know why the sea should make me think of my +Mama that's dead, or what it is that it is always saying - always +saying! he knows a great deal about it. And I wish,' the child +concluded, with a sudden falling of his countenance, and failing in +his animation, as he looked like one forlorn, upon the three strange +faces, 'that you'd let old Glubb come here to see me, for I know him +very well, and he knows me. + +'Ha!' said the Doctor, shaking his head; 'this is bad, but study +will do much.' + +Mrs Blimber opined, with something like a shiver, that he was an +unaccountable child; and, allowing for the difference of visage, +looked at him pretty much as Mrs Pipchin had been used to do. + +'Take him round the house, Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'and +familiarise him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.' + +Dombey obeyed; giving his hand to the abstruse Cornelia, and +looking at her sideways, with timid curiosity, as they went away +together. For her spectacles, by reason of the glistening of the +glasses, made her so mysterious, that he didn't know where she was +looking, and was not indeed quite sure that she had any eyes at all +behind them. + +Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom, which was situated at +the back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors, +which deadened and muffled the young gentlemen's voices. Here, there +were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, +all very hard at work, and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand, +had a desk to himself in one corner: and a magnificent man, of immense +age, he looked, in Paul's young eyes, behind it. + +Mr Feeder, B.A., who sat at another little desk, had his Virgil +stop on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of +the remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively, +were engaged in solving mathematical problems; one with his face like +a dirty window, from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through +a hopeless number of lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his +task in stony stupefaction and despair - which it seemed had been his +condition ever since breakfast time. + +The appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation that might +have been expected. Mr Feeder, B.A. (who was in the habit of shaving +his head for coolness, and had nothing but little bristles on it), +gave him a bony hand, and told him he was glad to see him - which Paul +would have been very glad to have told him, if he could have done so +with the least sincerity. Then Paul, instructed by Cornelia, shook +hands with the four young gentlemen at Mr Feeder's desk; then with the +two young gentlemen at work on the problems, who were very feverish; +then with the young gentleman at work against time, who was very inky; +and lastly with the young gentleman in a state of stupefaction, who +was flabby and quite cold. + +Paul having been already introduced to Toots, that pupil merely +chuckled and breathed hard, as his custom was, and pursued the +occupation in which he was engaged. It was not a severe one; for on +account of his having 'gone through' so much (in more senses than +one), and also of his having, as before hinted, left off blowing in +his prime, Toots now had licence to pursue his own course of study: +which was chiefly to write long letters to himself from persons of +distinction, adds 'P. Toots, Esquire, Brighton, Sussex,' and to +preserve them in his desk with great care. + +These ceremonies passed, Cornelia led Paul upstairs to the top of +the house; which was rather a slow journey, on account of Paul being +obliged to land both feet on every stair, before he mounted another. +But they reached their journey's end at last; and there, in a front +room, looking over the wild sea, Cornelia showed him a nice little bed +with white hangings, close to the window, on which there was already +beautifully written on a card in round text - down strokes very thick, +and up strokes very fine - DOMBEY; while two other little bedsteads in +the same room were announced, through like means, as respectively +appertaining unto BRIGGS and TOZER. + +Just as they got downstairs again into the hall, Paul saw the +weak-eyed young man who had given that mortal offence to Mrs Pipchin, +suddenly seize a very large drumstick, and fly at a gong that was +hanging up, as if he had gone mad, or wanted vengeance. Instead of +receiving warning, however, or being instantly taken into custody, the +young man left off unchecked, after having made a dreadful noise. Then +Cornelia Blimber said to Dombey that dinner would be ready in a +quarter of an hour, and perhaps he had better go into the schoolroom +among his 'friends.' + +So Dombey, deferentially passing the great clock which was still as +anxious as ever to know how he found himself, opened the schoolroom +door a very little way, and strayed in like a lost boy: shutting it +after him with some difficulty. His friends were all dispersed about +the room except the stony friend, who remained immoveable. Mr Feeder +was stretching himself in his grey gown, as if, regardless of expense, +he were resolved to pull the sleeves off. + +'Heigh ho hum!' cried Mr Feeder, shaking himself like a cart-horse. +'Oh dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!' + +Paul was quite alarmed by Mr Feeder's yawning; it was done on such +a great scale, and he was so terribly in earnest. All the boys too +(Toots excepted) seemed knocked up, and were getting ready for dinner +- some newly tying their neckcloths, which were very stiff indeed; and +others washing their hands or brushing their hair, in an adjoining +ante-chamber - as if they didn't think they should enjoy it at all. + +Young Toots who was ready beforehand, and had therefore nothing to +do, and had leisure to bestow upon Paul, said, with heavy good nature: + +'Sit down, Dombey.' + +'Thank you, Sir,' said Paul. + +His endeavouring to hoist himself on to a very high window-seat, +and his slipping down again, appeared to prepare Toots's mind for the +reception of a discovery. + +'You're a very small chap;' said Mr Toots. + +'Yes, Sir, I'm small,' returned Paul. 'Thank you, Sir.' + +For Toots had lifted him into the seat, and done it kindly too. + +'Who's your tailor?' inquired Toots, after looking at him for some +moments. + +'It's a woman that has made my clothes as yet,' said Paul. 'My +sister's dressmaker.' + +'My tailor's Burgess and Co.,' said Toots. 'Fash'nable. But very +dear.' + +Paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he would have said it +was easy to see that; and indeed he thought so. + +'Your father's regularly rich, ain't he?' inquired Mr Toots. + +'Yes, Sir,' said Paul. 'He's Dombey and Son.' + +'And which?' demanded Toots. + +'And Son, Sir,' replied Paul. + +Mr Toots made one or two attempts, in a low voice, to fix the Firm +in his mind; but not quite succeeding, said he would get Paul to +mention the name again to-morrow morning, as it was rather important. +And indeed he purposed nothing less than writing himself a private and +confidential letter from Dombey and Son immediately. + +By this time the other pupils (always excepting the stony boy) +gathered round. They were polite, but pale; and spoke low; and they +were so depressed in their spirits, that in comparison with the +general tone of that company, Master Bitherstone was a perfect Miller, +or complete Jest Book.' And yet he had a sense of injury upon him, +too, had Bitherstone. + +'You sleep in my room, don't you?' asked a solemn young gentleman, +whose shirt-collar curled up the lobes of his ears. + +'Master Briggs?' inquired Paul. + +'Tozer,' said the young gentleman. + +Paul answered yes; and Tozer pointing out the stony pupil, said +that was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must be either +Briggs or Tozer, though he didn't know why. + +'Is yours a strong constitution?' inquired Tozer. + +Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied that he thought not also, +judging from Paul's looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. He +then asked Paul if he were going to begin with Cornelia; and on Paul +saying 'yes,' all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low +groan. + +It was drowned in the tintinnabulation of the gong, which sounding +again with great fury, there was a general move towards the +dining-room; still excepting Briggs the stony boy, who remained where +he was, and as he was; and on its way to whom Paul presently +encountered a round of bread, genteelly served on a plate and napkin, +and with a silver fork lying crosswise on the top of it. + +Doctor Blimber was already in his place in the dining-room, at the +top of the table, with Miss Blimber and Mrs Blimber on either side of +him. Mr Feeder in a black coat was at the bottom. Paul's chair was +next to Miss Blimber; but it being found, when he sat in it, that his +eyebrows were not much above the level of the table-cloth, some books +were brought in from the Doctor's study, on which he was elevated, and +on which he always sat from that time - carrying them in and out +himself on after occasions, like a little elephant and castle.' + +Grace having been said by the Doctor, dinner began. There was some +nice soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese. +Every young gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a napkin; and all +the arrangements were stately and handsome. In particular, there was a +butler in a blue coat and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey +flavour to the table beer; he poured it out so superbly. + +Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, +and Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. Whenever a young +gentleman was not actually engaged with his knife and fork or spoon, +his eye, with an irresistible attraction, sought the eye of Doctor +Blimber, Mrs Blimber, or Miss Blimber, and modestly rested there. +Toots appeared to be the only exception to this rule. He sat next Mr +Feeder on Paul's side of the table, and frequently looked behind and +before the intervening boys to catch a glimpse of Paul. + +Only once during dinner was there any conversation that included +the young gentlemen. It happened at the epoch of the cheese, when the +Doctor, having taken a glass of port wine, and hemmed twice or thrice, +said: + +'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder, that the Romans - ' + +At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies, +every young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an +assumption of the deepest interest. One of the number who happened to +be drinking, and who caught the Doctor's eye glaring at him through +the side of his tumbler, left off so hastily that he was convulsed for +some moments, and in the sequel ruined Doctor Blimber's point. + +'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder,' said the Doctor, beginning again +slowly, 'that the Romans, in those gorgeous and profuse entertainments +of which we read in the days of the Emperors, when luxury had attained +a height unknown before or since, and when whole provinces were +ravaged to supply the splendid means of one Imperial Banquet - ' + +Here the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and waiting +in vain for a full stop, broke out violently. + +'Johnson,' said Mr Feeder, in a low reproachful voice, 'take some +water.' + +The Doctor, looking very stern, made a pause until the water was +brought, and then resumed: + +'And when, Mr Feeder - ' + +But Mr Feeder, who saw that Johnson must break out again, and who +knew that the Doctor would never come to a period before the young +gentlemen until he had finished all he meant to say, couldn't keep his +eye off Johnson; and thus was caught in the fact of not looking at the +Doctor, who consequently stopped. + +'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Feeder, reddening. 'I beg your +pardon, Doctor Blimber.' + +'And when,' said the Doctor, raising his voice, 'when, Sir, as we +read, and have no reason to doubt - incredible as it may appear to the +vulgar - of our time - the brother of Vitellius prepared for him a +feast, in which were served, of fish, two thousand dishes - ' + +'Take some water, Johnson - dishes, Sir,' said Mr Feeder. + +'Of various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes.' + +'Or try a crust of bread,' said Mr Feeder. + +'And one dish,' pursued Doctor Blimber, raising his voice still +higher as he looked all round the table, 'called, from its enormous +dimensions, the Shield of Minerva, and made, among other costly +ingredients, of the brains of pheasants - ' + +'Ow, ow, ow!' (from Johnson.) + +'Woodcocks - ' + +'Ow, ow, ow!' + +'The sounds of the fish called scari - ' + +'You'll burst some vessel in your head,' said Mr Feeder. 'You had +better let it come.' + +'And the spawn of the lamprey, brought from the Carpathian Sea,' +pursued the Doctor, in his severest voice; 'when we read of costly +entertainments such as these, and still remember, that we have a Titus +- ' + +'What would be your mother's feelings if you died of apoplexy!' +said Mr Feeder. + +'A Domitian - ' + +'And you're blue, you know,' said Mr Feeder. + +'A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, and many more, +pursued the Doctor; 'it is, Mr Feeder - if you are doing me the honour +to attend - remarkable; VERY remarkable, Sir - ' + +But Johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst at that moment +into such an overwhelming fit of coughing, that although both his +immediate neighbours thumped him on the back, and Mr Feeder himself +held a glass of water to his lips, and the butler walked him up and +down several times between his own chair and the sideboard, like a +sentry, it was a full five minutes before he was moderately composed. +Then there was a profound silence. + +'Gentlemen,' said Doctor Blimber, 'rise for Grace! Cornelia, lift +Dombey down' - nothing of whom but his scalp was accordingly seen +above the tablecloth. 'Johnson will repeat to me tomorrow morning +before breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, the +first chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will +resume our studies, Mr Feeder, in half-an-hour.' + +The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. Mr Feeder did likewise. +During the half-hour, the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered +arm-in-arm up and down a small piece of ground behind the house, or +endeavoured to kindle a spark of animation in the breast of Briggs. +But nothing happened so vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed +time, the gong was sounded, and the studies, under the joint auspices +of Doctor Blimber and Mr Feeder, were resumed. + +As the Olympic game of lounging up and down had been cut shorter +than usual that day, on Johnson's account, they all went out for a +walk before tea. Even Briggs (though he hadn't begun yet) partook of +this dissipation; in the enjoyment of which he looked over the cliff +two or three times darkly. Doctor Blimber accompanied them; and Paul +had the honour of being taken in tow by the Doctor himself: a +distinguished state of things, in which he looked very little and +feeble. + +Tea was served in a style no less polite than the dinner; and after +tea, the young gentlemen rising and bowing as before, withdrew to +fetch up the unfinished tasks of that day, or to get up the already +looming tasks of to-morrow. In the meantime Mr Feeder withdrew to his +own room; and Paul sat in a corner wondering whether Florence was +thinking of him, and what they were all about at Mrs Pipchin's. + +Mr Toots, who had been detained by an important letter from the +Duke of Wellington, found Paul out after a time; and having looked at +him for a long while, as before, inquired if he was fond of +waistcoats. + +Paul said 'Yes, Sir.' + +'So am I,' said Toots. + +No word more spoke Toots that night; but he stood looking at Paul +as if he liked him; and as there was company in that, and Paul was not +inclined to talk, it answered his purpose better than conversation. + +At eight o'clock or so, the gong sounded again for prayers in the +dining-room, where the butler afterwards presided over a side-table, +on which bread and cheese and beer were spread for such young +gentlemen as desired to partake of those refreshments. The ceremonies +concluded by the Doctor's saying, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our +studies at seven to-morrow;' and then, for the first time, Paul saw +Cornelia Blimber's eye, and saw that it was upon him. When the Doctor +had said these words, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven +tomorrow,' the pupils bowed again, and went to bed. + +In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head +ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it +wasn't for his mother, and a blackbird he had at home Tozer didn't say +much, but he sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his +turn would come to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he +undressed himself moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed +too, and Paul in his bed too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared +to take away the candle, when he wished them good-night and pleasant +dreams. But his benevolent wishes were in vain, as far as Briggs and +Tozer were concerned; for Paul, who lay awake for a long while, and +often woke afterwards, found that Briggs was ridden by his lesson as a +nightmare: and that Tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by +similar causes, in a minor degree talked unknown tongues, or scraps of +Greek and Latin - it was all one to Paul- which, in the silence of +night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect. + +Paul had sunk into a sweet sleep, and dreamed that he was walking +hand in hand with Florence through beautiful gardens, when they came +to a large sunflower which suddenly expanded itself into a gong, and +began to sound. Opening his eyes, he found that it was a dark, windy +morning, with a drizzling rain: and that the real gong was giving +dreadful note of preparation, down in the hall. + +So he got up directly, and found Briggs with hardly any eyes, for +nightmare and grief had made his face puffy, putting his boots on: +while Tozer stood shivering and rubbing his shoulders in a very bad +humour. Poor Paul couldn't dress himself easily, not being used to it, +and asked them if they would have the goodness to tie some strings for +him; but as Briggs merely said 'Bother!' and Tozer, 'Oh yes!' he went +down when he was otherwise ready, to the next storey, where he saw a +pretty young woman in leather gloves, cleaning a stove. The young +woman seemed surprised at his appearance, and asked him where his +mother was. When Paul told her she was dead, she took her gloves off, +and did what he wanted; and furthermore rubbed his hands to warm them; +and gave him a kiss; and told him whenever he wanted anything of that +sort - meaning in the dressing way - to ask for 'Melia; which Paul, +thanking her very much, said he certainly would. He then proceeded +softly on his journey downstairs, towards the room in which the young +gentlemen resumed their studies, when, passing by a door that stood +ajar, a voice from within cried, 'Is that Dombey?' On Paul replying, +'Yes, Ma'am:' for he knew the voice to be Miss Blimber's: Miss Blimber +said, 'Come in, Dombey.' And in he went. Miss Blimber presented +exactly the appearance she had presented yesterday, except that she +wore a shawl. Her little light curls were as crisp as ever, and she +had already her spectacles on, which made Paul wonder whether she went +to bed in them. She had a cool little sitting-room of her own up +there, with some books in it, and no fire But Miss Blimber was never +cold, and never sleepy. + +Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I am going out for a +constitutional.' + +Paul wondered what that was, and why she didn't send the footman +out to get it in such unfavourable weather. But he made no observation +on the subject: his attention being devoted to a little pile of new +books, on which Miss Blimber appeared to have been recently engaged. + +'These are yours, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. + +'All of 'em, Ma'am?' said Paul. + +'Yes,' returned Miss Blimber; 'and Mr Feeder will look you out some +more very soon, if you are as studious as I expect you will be, +Dombey.' + +'Thank you, Ma'am,' said Paul. + +'I am going out for a constitutional,' resumed Miss Blimber; 'and +while I am gone, that is to say in the interval between this and +breakfast, Dombey, I wish you to read over what I have marked in these +books, and to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to +learn. Don't lose time, Dombey, for you have none to spare, but take +them downstairs, and begin directly.' + +'Yes, Ma'am,' answered Paul. + +There were so many of them, that although Paul put one hand under +the bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and +hugged them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached +the door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. Miss Blimber +said, 'Oh, Dombey, Dombey, this is really very careless!' and piled +them up afresh for him; and this time, by dint of balancing them with +great nicety, Paul got out of the room, and down a few stairs before +two of them escaped again. But he held the rest so tight, that he only +left one more on the first floor, and one in the passage; and when he +had got the main body down into the schoolroom, he set off upstairs +again to collect the stragglers. Having at last amassed the whole +library, and climbed into his place, he fell to work, encouraged by a +remark from Tozer to the effect that he 'was in for it now;' which was +the only interruption he received till breakfast time. At that meal, +for which he had no appetite, everything was quite as solemn and +genteel as at the others; and when it was finished, he followed Miss +Blimber upstairs. + +'Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. 'How have you got on with those +books?' + +They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin - names of +things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon, +and preliminary rules - a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient +history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three +weights and measures, and a little general information. When poor Paul +had spelt out number two, he found he had no idea of number one; +fragments whereof afterwards obtruded themselves into number three, +which slided into number four, which grafted itself on to number two. +So that whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic haec hoc was +troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or three +times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with him. + +'Oh, Dombey, Dombey!' said Miss Blimber, 'this is very shocking.' + +'If you please,' said Paul, 'I think if I might sometimes talk a +little to old Glubb, I should be able to do better.' + +'Nonsense, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't hear of it. This +is not the place for Glubbs of any kind. You must take the books down, +I suppose, Dombey, one by one, and perfect yourself in the day's +instalment of subject A, before you turn at all to subject B. I am +sorry to say, Dombey, that your education appears to have been very +much neglected.' + +'So Papa says,' returned Paul; 'but I told you - I have been a weak +child. Florence knows I have. So does Wickam.' + +'Who is Wickam?' asked Miss Blimber. + +'She has been my nurse,' Paul answered. + +'I must beg you not to mention Wickam to me, then,' said Miss +Blimber.'I couldn't allow it'. + +'You asked me who she was,' said Paul. + +'Very well,' returned Miss Blimber; 'but this is all very different +indeed from anything of that sort, Dombey, and I couldn't think of +permitting it. As to having been weak, you must begin to be strong. +And now take away the top book, if you please, Dombey, and return when +you are master of the theme.' + +Miss Blimber expressed her opinions on the subject of Paul's +uninstructed state with a gloomy delight, as if she had expected this +result, and were glad to find that they must be in constant +communication. Paul withdrew with the top task, as he was told, and +laboured away at it, down below: sometimes remembering every word of +it, and sometimes forgetting it all, and everything else besides: +until at last he ventured upstairs again to repeat the lesson, when it +was nearly all driven out of his head before he began, by Miss +Blimber's shutting up the book, and saying, 'Good, Dombey!' a +proceeding so suggestive of the knowledge inside of her, that Paul +looked upon the young lady with consternation, as a kind of learned +Guy Faux, or artificial Bogle, stuffed full of scholastic straw. + +He acquitted himself very well, nevertheless; and Miss Blimber, +commending him as giving promise of getting on fast, immediately +provided him with subject B; from which he passed to C, and even D +before dinner. It was hard work, resuming his studies, soon after +dinner; and he felt giddy and confused and drowsy and dull. But all +the other young gentlemen had similar sensations, and were obliged to +resume their studies too, if there were any comfort in that. It was a +wonder that the great clock in the hall, instead of being constant to +its first inquiry, never said, 'Gentlemen, we will now resume our +studies,' for that phrase was often enough repeated in its +neighbourhood. The studies went round like a mighty wheel, and the +young gentlemen were always stretched upon it. + +After tea there were exercises again, and preparations for next day +by candlelight. And in due course there was bed; where, but for that +resumption of the studies which took place in dreams, were rest and +sweet forgetfulness. + +Oh Saturdays! Oh happy Saturdays, when Florence always came at +noon, and never would, in any weather, stay away, though Mrs Pipchin +snarled and growled, and worried her bitterly. Those Saturdays were +Sabbaths for at least two little Christians among all the Jews, and +did the holy Sabbath work of strengthening and knitting up a brother's +and a sister's love. + +Not even Sunday nights - the heavy Sunday nights, whose shadow +darkened the first waking burst of light on Sunday mornings - could +mar those precious Saturdays. Whether it was the great sea-shore, +where they sat, and strolled together; or whether it was only Mrs +Pipchin's dull back room, in which she sang to him so softly, with his +drowsy head upon her arm; Paul never cared. It was Florence. That was +all he thought of. So, on Sunday nights, when the Doctor's dark door +stood agape to swallow him up for another week, the time was come for +taking leave of Florence; no one else. + +Mrs Wickam had been drafted home to the house in town, and Miss +Nipper, now a smart young woman, had come down. To many a single +combat with Mrs Pipchin, did Miss Nipper gallantly devote herself, and +if ever Mrs Pipchin in all her life had found her match, she had found +it now. Miss Nipper threw away the scabbard the first morning she +arose in Mrs Pipchin's house. She asked and gave no quarter. She said +it must be war, and war it was; and Mrs Pipchin lived from that time +in the midst of surprises, harassings, and defiances, and skirmishing +attacks that came bouncing in upon her from the passage, even in +unguarded moments of chops, and carried desolation to her very toast. + +Miss Nipper had returned one Sunday night with Florence, from +walking back with Paul to the Doctor's, when Florence took from her +bosom a little piece of paper, on which she had pencilled down some +words. + +'See here, Susan,' she said. 'These are the names of the little +books that Paul brings home to do those long exercises with, when he +is so tired. I copied them last night while he was writing.' + +'Don't show 'em to me, Miss Floy, if you please,' returned Nipper, +'I'd as soon see Mrs Pipchin.' + +'I want you to buy them for me, Susan, if you will, tomorrow +morning. I have money enough,' said Florence. + +'Why, goodness gracious me, Miss Floy,' returned Miss Nipper, 'how +can you talk like that, when you have books upon books already, and +masterses and mississes a teaching of you everything continual, though +my belief is that your Pa, Miss Dombey, never would have learnt you +nothing, never would have thought of it, unless you'd asked him - when +be couldn't well refuse; but giving consent when asked, and offering +when unasked, Miss, is quite two things; I may not have my objections +to a young man's keeping company with me, and when he puts the +question, may say "yes," but that's not saying "would you be so kind +as like me."' + +'But you can buy me the books, Susan; and you will, when you know +why I want them.' + +'Well, Miss, and why do you want 'em?' replied Nipper; adding, in a +lower voice, 'If it was to fling at Mrs Pipchin's head, I'd buy a +cart-load.' + +'Paul has a great deal too much to do, Susan,' said Florence, 'I am +sure of it.' + +'And well you may be, Miss,' returned her maid, 'and make your mind +quite easy that the willing dear is worked and worked away. If those +is Latin legs,' exclaimed Miss Nipper, with strong feeling - in +allusion to Paul's; 'give me English ones.' + +'I am afraid he feels lonely and lost at Doctor Blimber's, Susan,' +pursued Florence, turning away her face. + +'Ah,' said Miss Nipper, with great sharpness, 'Oh, them "Blimbers"' + +'Don't blame anyone,' said Florence. 'It's a mistake.' + +'I say nothing about blame, Miss,' cried Miss Nipper, 'for I know +that you object, but I may wish, Miss, that the family was set to work +to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front and had the +pickaxe.' + +After this speech, Miss Nipper, who was perfectly serious, wiped +her eyes. + +'I think I could perhaps give Paul some help, Susan, if I had these +books,' said Florence, 'and make the coming week a little easier to +him. At least I want to try. So buy them for me, dear, and I will +never forget how kind it was of you to do it!' + +It must have been a harder heart than Susan Nipper's that could +have rejected the little purse Florence held out with these words, or +the gentle look of entreaty with which she seconded her petition. +Susan put the purse in her pocket without reply, and trotted out at +once upon her errand. + +The books were not easy to procure; and the answer at several shops +was, either that they were just out of them, or that they never kept +them, or that they had had a great many last month, or that they +expected a great many next week But Susan was not easily baffled in +such an enterprise; and having entrapped a white-haired youth, in a +black calico apron, from a library where she was known, to accompany +her in her quest, she led him such a life in going up and down, that +he exerted himself to the utmost, if it were only to get rid of her; +and finally enabled her to return home in triumph. + +With these treasures then, after her own daily lessons were over, +Florence sat down at night to track Paul's footsteps through the +thorny ways of learning; and being possessed of a naturally quick and +sound capacity, and taught by that most wonderful of masters, love, it +was not long before she gained upon Paul's heels, and caught and +passed him. + +Not a word of this was breathed to Mrs Pipchin: but many a night +when they were all in bed, and when Miss Nipper, with her hair in +papers and herself asleep in some uncomfortable attitude, reposed +unconscious by her side; and when the chinking ashes in the grate were +cold and grey; and when the candles were burnt down and guttering out; +- Florence tried so hard to be a substitute for one small Dombey, that +her fortitude and perseverance might have almost won her a free right +to bear the name herself. + +And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul +was sitting down as usual to 'resume his studies,' she sat down by his +side, and showed him all that was so rough, made smooth, and all that +was so dark, made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a +startled look in Paul's wan face - a flush - a smile - and then a +close embrace - but God knows how her heart leapt up at this rich +payment for her trouble. + +'Oh, Floy!' cried her brother, 'how I love you! How I love you, +Floy!' + +'And I you, dear!' + +'Oh! I am sure of that, Floy.' + +He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her, +very quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within +hers, three or four times, that he loved her. + +Regularly, after that, Florence was prepared to sit down with Paul +on Saturday night, and patiently assist him through so much as they +could anticipate together of his next week's work. The cheering +thought that he was labouring on where Florence had just toiled before +him, would, of itself, have been a stimulant to Paul in the perpetual +resumption of his studies; but coupled with the actual lightening of +his load, consequent on this assistance, it saved him, possibly, from +sinking underneath the burden which the fair Cornelia Blimber piled +upon his back. + +It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that +Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in +general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred; +and the Doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the +young gentlemen as if they were all Doctors, and were born grown up. +Comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen's nearest relations, +and urged on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would +have been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or +trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack. + +Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he made great +progress and was naturally clever, Mr Dombey was more bent than ever +on his being forced and crammed. In the case of Briggs, when Doctor +Blimber reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not +naturally clever, Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In +short, however high and false the temperature at which the Doctor kept +his hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a +helping hand at the bellows, and to stir the fire. + +Such spirits as he had in the outset, Paul soon lost of course. But +he retained all that was strange, and old, and thoughtful in his +character: and under circumstances so favourable to the development of +those tendencies, became even more strange, and old, and thoughtful, +than before. + +The only difference was, that he kept his character to himself. He +grew more thoughtful and reserved, every day; and had no such +curiosity in any living member of the Doctor's household, as he had +had in Mrs Pipchin. He loved to be alone; and in those short intervals +when he was not occupied with his books, liked nothing so well as +wandering about the house by himself, or sitting on the stairs, +listening to the great clock in the hall. He was intimate with all the +paperhanging in the house; saw things that no one else saw in the +patterns; found out miniature tigers and lions running up the bedroom +walls, and squinting faces leering in the squares and diamonds of the +floor-cloth. + +The solitary child lived on, surrounded by this arabesque work of +his musing fancy, and no one understood him. Mrs Blimber thought him +'odd,' and sometimes the servants said among themselves that little +Dombey 'moped;' but that was all. + +Unless young Toots had some idea on the subject, to the expression +of which he was wholly unequal. Ideas, like ghosts (according to the +common notion of ghosts), must be spoken to a little before they will +explain themselves; and Toots had long left off asking any questions +of his own mind. Some mist there may have been, issuing from that +leaden casket, his cranium, which, if it could have taken shape and +form, would have become a genie; but it could not; and it only so far +followed the example of the smoke in the Arabian story, as to roll out +in a thick cloud, and there hang and hover. But it left a little +figure visible upon a lonely shore, and Toots was always staring at +it. + +'How are you?' he would say to Paul, fifty times a day. 'Quite +well, Sir, thank you,' Paul would answer. 'Shake hands,' would be +Toots's next advance. + +Which Paul, of course, would immediately do. Mr Toots generally +said again, after a long interval of staring and hard breathing, 'How +are you?' To which Paul again replied, 'Quite well, Sir, thank you.' + +One evening Mr Toots was sitting at his desk, oppressed by +correspondence, when a great purpose seemed to flash upon him. He laid +down his pen, and went off to seek Paul, whom he found at last, after +a long search, looking through the window of his little bedroom. + +'I say!' cried Toots, speaking the moment he entered the room, lest +he should forget it; 'what do you think about?' + +'Oh! I think about a great many things,' replied Paul. + +'Do you, though?' said Toots, appearing to consider that fact in +itself surprising. 'If you had to die,' said Paul, looking up into his +face - Mr Toots started, and seemed much disturbed. + +'Don't you think you would rather die on a moonlight night, when +the sky was quite clear, and the wind blowing, as it did last night?' + +Mr Toots said, looking doubtfully at Paul, and shaking his head, +that he didn't know about that. + +'Not blowing, at least,' said Paul, 'but sounding in the air like +the sea sounds in the shells. It was a beautiful night. When I had +listened to the water for a long time, I got up and looked out. There +was a boat over there, in the full light of the moon; a boat with a +sail.' + +The child looked at him so steadfastly, and spoke so earnestly, +that Mr Toots, feeling himself called upon to say something about this +boat, said, 'Smugglers.' But with an impartial remembrance of there +being two sides to every question, he added, 'or Preventive.' + +'A boat with a sail,' repeated Paul, 'in the full light of the +moon. The sail like an arm, all silver. It went away into the +distance, and what do you think it seemed to do as it moved with the +waves?' + +'Pitch,' said Mr Toots. + +'It seemed to beckon,' said the child, 'to beckon me to come! - +There she is! There she is!' + +Toots was almost beside himself with dismay at this sudden +exclamation, after what had gone before, and cried 'Who?' + +'My sister Florence!' cried Paul, 'looking up here, and waving her +hand. She sees me - she sees me! Good-night, dear, good-night, +good-night.' + +His quick transition to a state of unbounded pleasure, as he stood +at his window, kissing and clapping his hands: and the way in which +the light retreated from his features as she passed out of his view, +and left a patient melancholy on the little face: were too remarkable +wholly to escape even Toots's notice. Their interview being +interrupted at this moment by a visit from Mrs Pipchin, who usually +brought her black skirts to bear upon Paul just before dusk, once or +twice a week, Toots had no opportunity of improving the occasion: but +it left so marked an impression on his mind that he twice returned, +after having exchanged the usual salutations, to ask Mrs Pipchin how +she did. This the irascible old lady conceived to be a deeply devised +and long-meditated insult, originating in the diabolical invention of +the weak-eyed young man downstairs, against whom she accordingly +lodged a formal complaint with Doctor Blimber that very night; who +mentioned to the young man that if he ever did it again, he should be +obliged to part with him. + +The evenings being longer now, Paul stole up to his window every +evening to look out for Florence. She always passed and repassed at a +certain time, until she saw him; and their mutual recognition was a +gleam of sunshine in Paul's daily life. Often after dark, one other +figure walked alone before the Doctor's house. He rarely joined them +on the Saturdays now. He could not bear it. He would rather come +unrecognised, and look up at the windows where his son was qualifying +for a man; and wait, and watch, and plan, and hope. + +Oh! could he but have seen, or seen as others did, the slight spare +boy above, watching the waves and clouds at twilight, with his earnest +eyes, and breasting the window of his solitary cage when birds flew +by, as if he would have emulated them, and soared away! + + + +CHAPTER 13. + +Shipping Intelligence and Office Business + + + +Mr Dombey's offices were in a court where there was an +old-established stall of choice fruit at the corner: where +perambulating merchants, of both sexes, offered for sale at any time +between the hours of ten and five, slippers, pocket-books, sponges, +dogs' collars, and Windsor soap; and sometimes a pointer or an +oil-painting. + +The pointer always came that way, with a view to the Stock +Exchange, where a sporting taste (originating generally in bets of new +hats) is much in vogue. The other commodities were addressed to the +general public; but they were never offered by the vendors to Mr +Dombey. When he appeared, the dealers in those wares fell off +respectfully. The principal slipper and dogs' collar man - who +considered himself a public character, and whose portrait was screwed +on to an artist's door in Cheapside - threw up his forefinger to the +brim of his hat as Mr Dombey went by. The ticket-porter, if he were +not absent on a job, always ran officiously before, to open Mr +Dombey's office door as wide as possible, and hold it open, with his +hat off, while he entered. + +The clerks within were not a whit behind-hand in their +demonstrations of respect. A solemn hush prevailed, as Mr Dombey +passed through the outer office. The wit of the Counting-House became +in a moment as mute as the row of leathern fire-buckets hanging up +behind him. Such vapid and flat daylight as filtered through the +ground-glass windows and skylights, leaving a black sediment upon the +panes, showed the books and papers, and the figures bending over them, +enveloped in a studious gloom, and as much abstracted in appearance, +from the world without, as if they were assembled at the bottom of the +sea; while a mouldy little strong room in the obscure perspective, +where a shaded lamp was always burning, might have represented the +cavern of some ocean monster, looking on with a red eye at these +mysteries of the deep. + +When Perch the messenger, whose place was on a little bracket, like +a timepiece, saw Mr Dombey come in - or rather when he felt that he +was coming, for he had usually an instinctive sense of his approach - +he hurried into Mr Dombey's room, stirred the fire, carried fresh +coals from the bowels of the coal-box, hung the newspaper to air upon +the fender, put the chair ready, and the screen in its place, and was +round upon his heel on the instant of Mr Dombey's entrance, to take +his great-coat and hat, and hang them up. Then Perch took the +newspaper, and gave it a turn or two in his hands before the fire, and +laid it, deferentially, at Mr Dombey's elbow. And so little objection +had Perch to being deferential in the last degree, that if he might +have laid himself at Mr Dombey's feet, or might have called him by +some such title as used to be bestowed upon the Caliph Haroun +Alraschid, he would have been all the better pleased. + +As this honour would have been an innovation and an experiment, +Perch was fain to content himself by expressing as well as he could, +in his manner, You are the light of my Eyes. You are the Breath of my +Soul. You are the commander of the Faithful Perch! With this imperfect +happiness to cheer him, he would shut the door softly, walk away on +tiptoe, and leave his great chief to be stared at, through a +dome-shaped window in the leads, by ugly chimney-pots and backs of +houses, and especially by the bold window of a hair-cutting saloon on +a first floor, where a waxen effigy, bald as a Mussulman in the +morning, and covered, after eleven o'clock in the day, with luxuriant +hair and whiskers in the latest Christian fashion, showed him the +wrong side of its head for ever. + +Between Mr Dombey and the common world, as it was accessible +through the medium of the outer office - to which Mr Dombey's presence +in his own room may be said to have struck like damp, or cold air - +there were two degrees of descent. Mr Carker in his own office was the +first step; Mr Morfin, in his own office, was the second. Each of +these gentlemen occupied a little chamber like a bath-room, opening +from the passage outside Mr Dombey's door. Mr Carker, as Grand Vizier, +inhabited the room that was nearest to the Sultan. Mr Morfin, as an +officer of inferior state, inhabited the room that was nearest to the +clerks. + +The gentleman last mentioned was a cheerful-looking, hazel-eyed +elderly bachelor: gravely attired, as to his upper man, in black; and +as to his legs, in pepper-and-salt colour. His dark hair was just +touched here and there with specks of gray, as though the tread of +Time had splashed it; and his whiskers were already white. He had a +mighty respect for Mr Dombey, and rendered him due homage; but as he +was of a genial temper himself, and never wholly at his ease in that +stately presence, he was disquieted by no jealousy of the many +conferences enjoyed by Mr Carker, and felt a secret satisfaction in +having duties to discharge, which rarely exposed him to be singled out +for such distinction. He was a great musical amateur in his way - +after business; and had a paternal affection for his violoncello, +which was once in every week transported from Islington, his place of +abode, to a certain club-room hard by the Bank, where quartettes of +the most tormenting and excruciating nature were executed every +Wednesday evening by a private party. + +Mr Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight or forty years old, of a +florid complexion, and with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth, +whose regularity and whiteness were quite distressing. It was +impossible to escape the observation of them, for he showed them +whenever he spoke; and bore so wide a smile upon his countenance (a +smile, however, very rarely, indeed, extending beyond his mouth), that +there was something in it like the snarl of a cat. He affected a stiff +white cravat, after the example of his principal, and was always +closely buttoned up and tightly dressed. His manner towards Mr Dombey +was deeply conceived and perfectly expressed. He was familiar with +him, in the very extremity of his sense of the distance between them. +'Mr Dombey, to a man in your position from a man in mine, there is no +show of subservience compatible with the transaction of business +between us, that I should think sufficient. I frankly tell you, Sir, I +give it up altogether. I feel that I could not satisfy my own mind; +and Heaven knows, Mr Dombey, you can afford to dispense with the +endeavour.' If he had carried these words about with him printed on a +placard, and had constantly offered it to Mr Dombey's perusal on the +breast of his coat, he could not have been more explicit than he was. + +This was Carker the Manager. Mr Carker the Junior, Walter's friend, +was his brother; two or three years older than he, but widely removed +in station. The younger brother's post was on the top of the official +ladder; the elder brother's at the bottom. The elder brother never +gained a stave, or raised his foot to mount one. Young men passed +above his head, and rose and rose; but he was always at the bottom. He +was quite resigned to occupy that low condition: never complained of +it: and certainly never hoped to escape from it. + +'How do you do this morning?' said Mr Carker the Manager, entering +Mr Dombey's room soon after his arrival one day: with a bundle of +papers in his hand. + +'How do you do, Carker?' said Mr Dombey. + +'Coolish!' observed Carker, stirring the fire. + +'Rather,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Any news of the young gentleman who is so important to us all?' +asked Carker, with his whole regiment of teeth on parade. + +'Yes - not direct news- I hear he's very well,' said Mr Dombey. Who +had come from Brighton over-night. But no one knew It. + +'Very well, and becoming a great scholar, no doubt?' observed the +Manager. + +'I hope so,' returned Mr Dombey. + +'Egad!' said Mr Carker, shaking his head, 'Time flies!' + +'I think so, sometimes,' returned Mr Dombey, glancing at his +newspaper. + +'Oh! You! You have no reason to think so,' observed Carker. 'One +who sits on such an elevation as yours, and can sit there, unmoved, in +all seasons - hasn't much reason to know anything about the flight of +time. It's men like myself, who are low down and are not superior in +circumstances, and who inherit new masters in the course of Time, that +have cause to look about us. I shall have a rising sun to worship, +soon.' + +'Time enough, time enough, Carker!' said Mr Dombey, rising from his +chair, and standing with his back to the fire. 'Have you anything +there for me?' + +'I don't know that I need trouble you,' returned Carker, turning +over the papers in his hand. 'You have a committee today at three, you +know.' + +'And one at three, three-quarters,' added Mr Dombey. + +'Catch you forgetting anything!' exclaimed Carker, still turning +over his papers. 'If Mr Paul inherits your memory, he'll be a +troublesome customer in the House. One of you is enough' + +'You have an accurate memory of your own,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Oh! I!' returned the manager. 'It's the only capital of a man like +me.' + +Mr Dombey did not look less pompous or at all displeased, as he +stood leaning against the chimney-piece, surveying his (of course +unconscious) clerk, from head to foot. The stiffness and nicety of Mr +Carker's dress, and a certain arrogance of manner, either natural to +him or imitated from a pattern not far off, gave great additional +effect to his humility. He seemed a man who would contend against the +power that vanquished him, if he could, but who was utterly borne down +by the greatness and superiority of Mr Dombey. + +'Is Morfin here?' asked Mr Dombey after a short pause, during which +Mr Carker had been fluttering his papers, and muttering little +abstracts of their contents to himself. + +'Morfin's here,' he answered, looking up with his widest and almost +sudden smile; 'humming musical recollections - of his last night's +quartette party, I suppose - through the walls between us, and driving +me half mad. I wish he'd make a bonfire of his violoncello, and burn +his music-books in it.' + +'You respect nobody, Carker, I think,' said Mr Dombey. + +'No?' inquired Carker, with another wide and most feline show of +his teeth. 'Well! Not many people, I believe. I wouldn't answer +perhaps,' he murmured, as if he were only thinking it, 'for more than +one.' + +A dangerous quality, if real; and a not less dangerous one, if +feigned. But Mr Dombey hardly seemed to think so, as he still stood +with his back to the fire, drawn up to his full height, and looking at +his head-clerk with a dignified composure, in which there seemed to +lurk a stronger latent sense of power than usual. + +'Talking of Morfin,' resumed Mr Carker, taking out one paper from +the rest, 'he reports a junior dead in the agency at Barbados, and +proposes to reserve a passage in the Son and Heir - she'll sail in a +month or so - for the successor. You don't care who goes, I suppose? +We have nobody of that sort here.' + +Mr Dombey shook his head with supreme indifference. + +'It's no very precious appointment,' observed Mr Carker, taking up +a pen, with which to endorse a memorandum on the back of the paper. 'I +hope he may bestow it on some orphan nephew of a musical friend. It +may perhaps stop his fiddle-playing, if he has a gift that way. Who's +that? Come in!' + +'I beg your pardon, Mr Carker. I didn't know you were here, Sir,' +answered Walter; appearing with some letters in his hand, unopened, +and newly arrived. 'Mr Carker the junior, Sir - ' + +At the mention of this name, Mr Carker the Manager was or affected +to be, touched to the quick with shame and humiliation. He cast his +eyes full on Mr Dombey with an altered and apologetic look, abased +them on the ground, and remained for a moment without speaking. + +'I thought, Sir,' he said suddenly and angrily, turning on Walter, +'that you had been before requested not to drag Mr Carker the Junior +into your conversation.' + +'I beg your pardon,' returned Walter. 'I was only going to say that +Mr Carker the Junior had told me he believed you were gone out, or I +should not have knocked at the door when you were engaged with Mr +Dombey. These are letters for Mr Dombey, Sir.' + +'Very well, Sir,' returned Mr Carker the Manager, plucking them +sharply from his hand. 'Go about your business.' + +But in taking them with so little ceremony, Mr Carker dropped one +on the floor, and did not see what he had done; neither did Mr Dombey +observe the letter lying near his feet. Walter hesitated for a moment, +thinking that one or other of them would notice it; but finding that +neither did, he stopped, came back, picked it up, and laid it himself +on Mr Dombey's desk. The letters were post-letters; and it happened +that the one in question was Mrs Pipchin's regular report, directed as +usual - for Mrs Pipchin was but an indifferent penwoman - by Florence. +Mr Dombey, having his attention silently called to this letter by +Walter, started, and looked fiercely at him, as if he believed that he +had purposely selected it from all the rest. + +'You can leave the room, Sir!' said Mr Dombey, haughtily. + +He crushed the letter in his hand; and having watched Walter out at +the door, put it in his pocket without breaking the seal. + +'These continual references to Mr Carker the Junior,' Mr Carker the +Manager began, as soon as they were alone, 'are, to a man in my +position, uttered before one in yours, so unspeakably distressing - ' + +'Nonsense, Carker,' Mr Dombey interrupted. 'You are too sensitive.' + +'I am sensitive,' he returned. 'If one in your position could by +any possibility imagine yourself in my place: which you cannot: you +would be so too.' + +As Mr Dombey's thoughts were evidently pursuing some other subject, +his discreet ally broke off here, and stood with his teeth ready to +present to him, when he should look up. + +'You want somebody to send to the West Indies, you were saying,' +observed Mr Dombey, hurriedly. + +'Yes,' replied Carker. + +'Send young Gay.' + +'Good, very good indeed. Nothing easier,' said Mr Carker, without +any show of surprise, and taking up the pen to re-endorse the letter, +as coolly as he had done before. '"Send young Gay."' + +'Call him back,' said Mr Dombey. + +Mr Carker was quick to do so, and Walter was quick to return. + +'Gay,' said Mr Dombey, turning a little to look at him over his +shoulder. 'Here is a - + +'An opening,' said Mr Carker, with his mouth stretched to the +utmost. + +'In the West Indies. At Barbados. I am going to send you,' said Mr +Dombey, scorning to embellish the bare truth, 'to fill a junior +situation in the counting-house at Barbados. Let your Uncle know from +me, that I have chosen you to go to the West Indies.' + +Walter's breath was so completely taken away by his astonishment, +that he could hardly find enough for the repetition of the words 'West +Indies.' + +'Somebody must go,' said Mr Dombey, 'and you are young and healthy, +and your Uncle's circumstances are not good. Tell your Uncle that you +are appointed. You will not go yet. There will be an interval of a +month - or two perhaps.' + +'Shall I remain there, Sir?' inquired Walter. + +'Will you remain there, Sir!' repeated Mr Dombey, turning a little +more round towards him. 'What do you mean? What does he mean, Carker?' + +'Live there, Sir,' faltered Walter. + +'Certainly,' returned Mr Dombey. + +Walter bowed. + +'That's all,' said Mr Dombey, resuming his letters. 'You will +explain to him in good time about the usual outfit and so forth, +Carker, of course. He needn't wait, Carker.' + +'You needn't wait, Gay,' observed Mr Carker: bare to the gums. + +'Unless,' said Mr Dombey, stopping in his reading without looking +off the letter, and seeming to listen. 'Unless he has anything to +say.' + +'No, Sir,' returned Walter, agitated and confused, and almost +stunned, as an infinite variety of pictures presented themselves to +his mind; among which Captain Cuttle, in his glazed hat, transfixed +with astonishment at Mrs MacStinger's, and his uncle bemoaning his +loss in the little back parlour, held prominent places. 'I hardly know +- I - I am much obliged, Sir.' + +'He needn't wait, Carker,' said Mr Dombey. + +And as Mr Carker again echoed the words, and also collected his +papers as if he were going away too, Walter felt that his lingering +any longer would be an unpardonable intrusion - especially as he had +nothing to say - and therefore walked out quite confounded. + +Going along the passage, with the mingled consciousness and +helplessness of a dream, he heard Mr Dombey's door shut again, as Mr +Carker came out: and immediately afterwards that gentleman called to +him. + +'Bring your friend Mr Carker the Junior to my room, Sir, if you +please.' + +Walter went to the outer office and apprised Mr Carker the Junior +of his errand, who accordingly came out from behind a partition where +he sat alone in one corner, and returned with him to the room of Mr +Carker the Manager. + +That gentleman was standing with his back to the fire, and his +hands under his coat-tails, looking over his white cravat, as +unpromisingly as Mr Dombey himself could have looked. He received them +without any change in his attitude or softening of his harsh and black +expression: merely signing to Walter to close the door. + +'John Carker,' said the Manager, when this was done, turning +suddenly upon his brother, with his two rows of teeth bristling as if +he would have bitten him, 'what is the league between you and this +young man, in virtue of which I am haunted and hunted by the mention +of your name? Is it not enough for you, John Carker, that I am your +near relation, and can't detach myself from that - ' + +'Say disgrace, James,' interposed the other in a low voice, finding +that he stammered for a word. 'You mean it, and have reason, say +disgrace.' + +'From that disgrace,' assented his brother with keen emphasis, 'but +is the fact to be blurted out and trumpeted, and proclaimed +continually in the presence of the very House! In moments of +confidence too? Do you think your name is calculated to harmonise in +this place with trust and confidence, John Carker?' + +'No,' returned the other. 'No, James. God knows I have no such +thought.' + +'What is your thought, then?' said his brother, 'and why do you +thrust yourself in my way? Haven't you injured me enough already?' + +'I have never injured you, James, wilfully.' + +'You are my brother,' said the Manager. 'That's injury enough.' + +'I wish I could undo it, James.' + +'I wish you could and would.' + +During this conversation, Walter had looked from one brother to the +other, with pain and amazement. He who was the Senior in years, and +Junior in the House, stood, with his eyes cast upon the ground, and +his head bowed, humbly listening to the reproaches of the other. +Though these were rendered very bitter by the tone and look with which +they were accompanied, and by the presence of Walter whom they so much +surprised and shocked, he entered no other protest against them than +by slightly raising his right hand in a deprecatory manner, as if he +would have said, 'Spare me!' So, had they been blows, and he a brave +man, under strong constraint, and weakened by bodily suffering, he +might have stood before the executioner. + +Generous and quick in all his emotions, and regarding himself as +the innocent occasion of these taunts, Walter now struck in, with all +the earnestness he felt. + +'Mr Carker,' he said, addressing himself to the Manager. 'Indeed, +indeed, this is my fault solely. In a kind of heedlessness, for which +I cannot blame myself enough, I have, I have no doubt, mentioned Mr +Carker the Junior much oftener than was necessary; and have allowed +his name sometimes to slip through my lips, when it was against your +expressed wish. But it has been my own mistake, Sir. We have never +exchanged one word upon the subject - very few, indeed, on any +subject. And it has not been,' added Walter, after a moment's pause, +'all heedlessness on my part, Sir; for I have felt an interest in Mr +Carker ever since I have been here, and have hardly been able to help +speaking of him sometimes, when I have thought of him so much!' + +Walter said this from his soul, and with the very breath of honour. +For he looked upon the bowed head, and the downcast eyes, and upraised +hand, and thought, 'I have felt it; and why should I not avow it in +behalf of this unfriended, broken man!' + +Mr Carker the Manager looked at him, as he spoke, and when he had +finished speaking, with a smile that seemed to divide his face into +two parts. + +'You are an excitable youth, Gay,' he said; 'and should endeavour +to cool down a little now, for it would be unwise to encourage +feverish predispositions. Be as cool as you can, Gay. Be as cool as +you can. You might have asked Mr John Carker himself (if you have not +done so) whether he claims to be, or is, an object of such strong +interest.' + +'James, do me justice,' said his brother. 'I have claimed nothing; +and I claim nothing. Believe me, on my - + +'Honour?' said his brother, with another smile, as he warmed +himself before the fire. + +'On my Me - on my fallen life!' returned the other, in the same low +voice, but with a deeper stress on his words than he had yet seemed +capable of giving them. 'Believe me, I have held myself aloof, and +kept alone. This has been unsought by me. I have avoided him and +everyone. + +'Indeed, you have avoided me, Mr Carker,' said Walter, with the +tears rising to his eyes; so true was his compassion. 'I know it, to +my disappointment and regret. When I first came here, and ever since, +I am sure I have tried to be as much your friend, as one of my age +could presume to be; but it has been of no use. + +'And observe,' said the Manager, taking him up quickly, 'it will be +of still less use, Gay, if you persist in forcing Mr John Carker's +name on people's attention. That is not the way to befriend Mr John +Carker. Ask him if he thinks it is.' + +'It is no service to me,' said the brother. 'It only leads to such +a conversation as the present, which I need not say I could have well +spared. No one can be a better friend to me:' he spoke here very +distinctly, as if he would impress it upon Walter: 'than in forgetting +me, and leaving me to go my way, unquestioned and unnoticed.' + +'Your memory not being retentive, Gay, of what you are told by +others,' said Mr Carker the Manager, warming himself with great and +increased satisfaction, 'I thought it well that you should be told +this from the best authority,' nodding towards his brother. 'You are +not likely to forget it now, I hope. That's all, Gay. You can go. + +Walter passed out at the door, and was about to close it after him, +when, hearing the voices of the brothers again, and also the mention +of his own name, he stood irresolutely, with his hand upon the lock, +and the door ajar, uncertain whether to return or go away. In this +position he could not help overhearing what followed. + +'Think of me more leniently, if you can, James,' said John Carker, +'when I tell you I have had - how could I help having, with my +history, written here' - striking himself upon the breast - 'my whole +heart awakened by my observation of that boy, Walter Gay. I saw in him +when he first came here, almost my other self.' + +'Your other self!' repeated the Manager, disdainfully. + +'Not as I am, but as I was when I first came here too; as sanguine, +giddy, youthful, inexperienced; flushed with the same restless and +adventurous fancies; and full of the same qualities, fraught with the +same capacity of leading on to good or evil.' + +'I hope not,' said his brother, with some hidden and sarcastic +meaning in his tone. + +'You strike me sharply; and your hand is steady, and your thrust is +very deep,' returned the other, speaking (or so Walter thought) as if +some cruel weapon actually stabbed him as he spoke. 'I imagined all +this when he was a boy. I believed it. It was a truth to me. I saw him +lightly walking on the edge of an unseen gulf where so many others +walk with equal gaiety, and from which + +'The old excuse,' interrupted his brother, as he stirred the fire. +'So many. Go on. Say, so many fall.' + +'From which ONE traveller fell,' returned the other, 'who set +forward, on his way, a boy like him, and missed his footing more and +more, and slipped a little and a little lower; and went on stumbling +still, until he fell headlong and found himself below a shattered man. +Think what I suffered, when I watched that boy.' + +'You have only yourself to thank for it,' returned the brother. + +'Only myself,' he assented with a sigh. 'I don't seek to divide the +blame or shame.' + +'You have divided the shame,' James Carker muttered through his +teeth. And, through so many and such close teeth, he could mutter +well. + +'Ah, James,' returned his brother, speaking for the first time in +an accent of reproach, and seeming, by the sound of his voice, to have +covered his face with his hands, 'I have been, since then, a useful +foil to you. You have trodden on me freely in your climbing up. Don't +spurn me with your heel!' + +A silence ensued. After a time, Mr Carker the Manager was heard +rustling among his papers, as if he had resolved to bring the +interview to a conclusion. At the same time his brother withdrew +nearer to the door. + +'That's all,' he said. 'I watched him with such trembling and such +fear, as was some little punishment to me, until he passed the place +where I first fell; and then, though I had been his father, I believe +I never could have thanked God more devoutly. I didn't dare to warn +him, and advise him; but if I had seen direct cause, I would have +shown him my example. I was afraid to be seen speaking with him, lest +it should be thought I did him harm, and tempted him to evil, and +corrupted him: or lest I really should. There may be such contagion in +me; I don't know. Piece out my history, in connexion with young Walter +Gay, and what he has made me feel; and think of me more leniently, +James, if you can. + +With these words he came out to where Walter was standing. He +turned a little paler when he saw him there, and paler yet when Walter +caught him by the hand, and said in a whisper: + +'Mr Carker, pray let me thank you! Let me say how much I feel for +you! How sorry I am, to have been the unhappy cause of all this! How I +almost look upon you now as my protector and guardian! How very, very +much, I feel obliged to you and pity you!' said Walter, squeezing both +his hands, and hardly knowing, in his agitation, what he did or said. + +Mr Morfin's room being close at hand and empty, and the door wide +open, they moved thither by one accord: the passage being seldom free +from someone passing to or fro. When they were there, and Walter saw +in Mr Carker's face some traces of the emotion within, he almost felt +as if he had never seen the face before; it was so greatly changed. + +'Walter,' he said, laying his hand on his shoulder. 'I am far +removed from you, and may I ever be. Do you know what I am?' + +'What you are!' appeared to hang on Walter's lips, as he regarded +him attentively. + +'It was begun,' said Carker, 'before my twenty-first birthday - led +up to, long before, but not begun till near that time. I had robbed +them when I came of age. I robbed them afterwards. Before my +twenty-second birthday, it was all found out; and then, Walter, from +all men's society, I died.' + +Again his last few words hung trembling upon Walter's lips, but he +could neither utter them, nor any of his own. + +'The House was very good to me. May Heaven reward the old man for +his forbearance! This one, too, his son, who was then newly in the +Firm, where I had held great trust! I was called into that room which +is now his - I have never entered it since - and came out, what you +know me. For many years I sat in my present seat, alone as now, but +then a known and recognised example to the rest. They were all +merciful to me, and I lived. Time has altered that part of my poor +expiation; and I think, except the three heads of the House, there is +no one here who knows my story rightly. Before the little boy grows +up, and has it told to him, my corner may be vacant. I would rather +that it might be so! This is the only change to me since that day, +when I left all youth, and hope, and good men's company, behind me in +that room. God bless you, Walter! Keep you, and all dear to you, in +honesty, or strike them dead!' + +Some recollection of his trembling from head to foot, as if with +excessive cold, and of his bursting into tears, was all that Walter +could add to this, when he tried to recall exactly what had passed +between them. + +When Walter saw him next, he was bending over his desk in his old +silent, drooping, humbled way. Then, observing him at his work, and +feeling how resolved he evidently was that no further intercourse +should arise between them, and thinking again and again on all he had +seen and heard that morning in so short a time, in connexion with the +history of both the Carkers, Walter could hardly believe that he was +under orders for the West Indies, and would soon be lost to Uncle Sol, +and Captain Cuttle, and to glimpses few and far between of Florence +Dombey - no, he meant Paul - and to all he loved, and liked, and +looked for, in his daily life. + +But it was true, and the news had already penetrated to the outer +office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these +things, and resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger, +descending from his mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged +his pardon, but wished to say in his ear, Did he think he could +arrange to send home to England a jar of preserved Ginger, cheap, for +Mrs Perch's own eating, in the course of her recovery from her next +confinement? + + + +CHAPTER 14. + +Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for the Holidays + + + +When the Midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations +of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at +Doctor Blimber's. Any such violent expression as 'breaking up,' would +have been quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. The young +gentlemen oozed away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they +never broke up. They would have scorned the action. + +Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by a starched white +cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs Tozer, +his parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he +couldn't be in that forward state of preparation too soon - Tozer +said, indeed, that choosing between two evils, he thought he would +rather stay where he was, than go home. However inconsistent this +declaration might appear with that passage in Tozer's Essay on the +subject, wherein he had observed 'that the thoughts of home and all +its recollections, awakened in his mind the most pleasing emotions of +anticipation and delight,' and had also likened himself to a Roman +General, flushed with a recent victory over the Iceni, or laden with +Carthaginian spoil, advancing within a few hours' march of the +Capitol, presupposed, for the purposes of the simile, to be the +dwelling-place of Mrs Tozer, still it was very sincerely made. For it +seemed that Tozer had a dreadful Uncle, who not only volunteered +examinations of him, in the holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted +innocent events and things, and wrenched them to the same fell +purpose. So that if this Uncle took him to the Play, or, on a similar +pretence of kindness, carried him to see a Giant, or a Dwarf, or a +Conjuror, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some classical +allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of +mortal apprehension: not foreseeing where he might break out, or what +authority he might not quote against him. + +As to Briggs, his father made no show of artifice about it. He +never would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental +trials of that unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of +the family (then resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached +the ornamental piece of water in Kensington Gardens,' without a vague +expectation of seeing Master Briggs's hat floating on the surface, and +an unfinished exercise lying on the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not +at all sanguine on the subject of holidays; and these two sharers of +little Paul's bedroom were so fair a sample of the young gentlemen in +general, that the most elastic among them contemplated the arrival of +those festive periods with genteel resignation. + +It was far otherwise with little Paul. The end of these first +holidays was to witness his separation from Florence, but who ever +looked forward to the end of holidays whose beginning was not yet +come! Not Paul, assuredly. As the happy time drew near, the lions and +tigers climbing up the bedroom walls became quite tame and frolicsome. +The grim sly faces in the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth, +relaxed and peeped out at him with less wicked eyes. The grave old +clock had more of personal interest in the tone of its formal inquiry; +and the restless sea went rolling on all night, to the sounding of a +melancholy strain - yet it was pleasant too - that rose and fell with +the waves, and rocked him, as it were, to sleep. + +Mr Feeder, B.A., seemed to think that he, too, would enjoy the +holidays very much. Mr Toots projected a life of holidays from that +time forth; for, as he regularly informed Paul every day, it was his +'last half' at Doctor Blimber's, and he was going to begin to come +into his property directly. + +It was perfectly understood between Paul and Mr Toots, that they +were intimate friends, notwithstanding their distance in point of +years and station. As the vacation approached, and Mr Toots breathed +harder and stared oftener in Paul's society, than he had done before, +Paul knew that he meant he was sorry they were going to lose sight of +each other, and felt very much obliged to him for his patronage and +good opinion. + +It was even understood by Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss +Blimber, as well as by the young gentlemen in general, that Toots had +somehow constituted himself protector and guardian of Dombey, and the +circumstance became so notorious, even to Mrs Pipchin, that the good +old creature cherished feelings of bitterness and jealousy against +Toots; and, in the sanctuary of her own home, repeatedly denounced him +as a 'chuckle-headed noodle.' Whereas the innocent Toots had no more +idea of awakening Mrs Pipchin's wrath, than he had of any other +definite possibility or proposition. On the contrary, he was disposed +to consider her rather a remarkable character, with many points of +interest about her. For this reason he smiled on her with so much +urbanity, and asked her how she did, so often, in the course of her +visits to little Paul, that at last she one night told him plainly, +she wasn't used to it, whatever he might think; and she could not, and +she would not bear it, either from himself or any other puppy then +existing: at which unexpected acknowledgment of his civilities, Mr +Toots was so alarmed that he secreted himself in a retired spot until +she had gone. Nor did he ever again face the doughty Mrs Pipchin, +under Doctor Blimber's roof. + +They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, one day, +Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, 'Dombey, I am +going to send home your analysis.' + +'Thank you, Ma'am,' returned Paul. + +'You know what I mean, do you, Dombey?' inquired Miss Blimber, +looking hard at him, through the spectacles. + +'No, Ma'am,' said Paul. + +'Dombey, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I begin to be afraid you are +a sad boy. When you don't know the meaning of an expression, why don't +you seek for information?' + +'Mrs Pipchin told me I wasn't to ask questions,' returned Paul. + +'I must beg you not to mention Mrs Pipchin to me, on any account, +Dombey,' returned Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't think of allowing it. The +course of study here, is very far removed from anything of that sort. +A repetition of such allusions would make it necessary for me to +request to hear, without a mistake, before breakfast-time to-morrow +morning, from Verbum personale down to simillimia cygno.' + +'I didn't mean, Ma'am - ' began little Paul. + +'I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn't mean, if you +please, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, who preserved an awful politeness +in her admonitions. 'That is a line of argument I couldn't dream of +permitting.' + +Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at +Miss Blimber's spectacles. Miss Blimber having shaken her head at him +gravely, referred to a paper lying before her. + +'"Analysis of the character of P. Dombey." If my recollection +serves me,' said Miss Blimber breaking off, 'the word analysis as +opposed to synthesis, is thus defined by Walker. "The resolution of an +object, whether of the senses or of the intellect, into its first +elements." As opposed to synthesis, you observe. Now you know what +analysis is, Dombey.' + +Dombey didn't seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let in +upon his intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow. + +'"Analysis,"' resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over the paper, +'"of the character of P. Dombey." I find that the natural capacity of +Dombey is extremely good; and that his general disposition to study +may be stated in an equal ratio. Thus, taking eight as our standard +and highest number, I find these qualities in Dombey stated each at +six three-fourths!' + +Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. Being +undecided whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or +sixpence three farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past +six, or six somethings that he hadn't learnt yet, with three unknown +something elses over, Paul rubbed his hands and looked straight at +Miss Blimber. It happened to answer as well as anything else he could +have done; and Cornelia proceeded. + +'"Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low company, as +evinced in the case of a person named Glubb, originally seven, but +since reduced. Gentlemanly demeanour four, and improving with +advancing years." Now what I particularly wish to call your attention +to, Dombey, is the general observation at the close of this analysis.' + +Paul set himself to follow it with great care. + +'"It may be generally observed of Dombey,"' said Miss Blimber, +reading in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her +spectacles towards the little figure before her: '"that his abilities +and inclinations are good, and that he has made as much progress as +under the circumstances could have been expected. But it is to be +lamented of this young gentleman that he is singular (what is usually +termed old-fashioned) in his character and conduct, and that, without +presenting anything in either which distinctly calls for reprobation, +he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his age and social +position." Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, laying down the paper, 'do +you understand that?' + +'I think I do, Ma'am,' said Paul. + +'This analysis, you see, Dombey,' Miss Blimber continued, 'is going +to be sent home to your respected parent. It will naturally be very +painful to him to find that you are singular in your character and +conduct. It is naturally painful to us; for we can't like you, you +know, Dombey, as well as we could wish.' + +She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly become +more and more solicitous from day to day, as the time of his departure +drew more near, that all the house should like him. From some hidden +reason, very imperfectly understood by himself - if understood at all +- he felt a gradually increasing impulse of affection, towards almost +everything and everybody in the place. He could not bear to think that +they would be quite indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted +them to remember him kindly; and he had made it his business even to +conciliate a great hoarse shaggy dog, chained up at the back of the +house, who had previously been the terror of his life: that even he +might miss him when he was no longer there. + +Little thinking that in this, he only showed again the difference +between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it forth to Miss +Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in despite of the +official analysis, to have the goodness to try and like him. To Mrs +Blimber, who had joined them, he preferred the same petition: and when +that lady could not forbear, even in his presence, from giving +utterance to her often-repeated opinion, that he was an odd child, +Paul told her that he was sure she was quite right; that he thought it +must be his bones, but he didn't know; and that he hoped she would +overlook it, for he was fond of them all. + +'Not so fond,' said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and perfect +frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most engaging +qualities of the child, 'not so fond as I am of Florence, of course; +that could never be. You couldn't expect that, could you, Ma'am?' + +'Oh! the old-fashioned little soul!' cried Mrs Blimber, in a +whisper. + +'But I like everybody here very much,' pursued Paul, 'and I should +grieve to go away, and think that anyone was glad that I was gone, or +didn't care.' + +Mrs Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest child in +the world; and when she told the Doctor what had passed, the Doctor +did not controvert his wife's opinion. But he said, as he had said +before, when Paul first came, that study would do much; and he also +said, as he had said on that occasion, 'Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring +him on!' + +Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she could; and +Paul had had a hard life of it. But over and above the getting through +his tasks, he had long had another purpose always present to him, and +to which he still held fast. It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet +little fellow, always striving to secure the love and attachment of +the rest; and though he was yet often to be seen at his old post on +the stairs, or watching the waves and clouds from his solitary window, +he was oftener found, too, among the other boys, modestly rendering +them some little voluntary service. Thus it came to pass, that even +among those rigid and absorbed young anchorites, who mortified +themselves beneath the roof of Doctor Blimber, Paul was an object of +general interest; a fragile little plaything that they all liked, and +that no one would have thought of treating roughly. But he could not +change his nature, or rewrite the analysis; and so they all agreed +that Dombey was old-fashioned. + +There were some immunities, however, attaching to the character +enjoyed by no one else. They could have better spared a +newer-fashioned child, and that alone was much. When the others only +bowed to Doctor Blimber and family on retiring for the night, Paul +would stretch out his morsel of a hand, and boldly shake the Doctor's; +also Mrs Blimber's; also Cornelia's. If anybody was to be begged off +from impending punishment, Paul was always the delegate. The weak-eyed +young man himself had once consulted him, in reference to a little +breakage of glass and china. And it was darKly rumoured that the +butler, regarding him with favour such as that stern man had never +shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes mingled porter with his +table-beer to make him strong. + +Over and above these extensive privileges, Paul had free right of +entry to Mr Feeder's room, from which apartment he had twice led Mr +Toots into the open air in a state of faintness, consequent on an +unsuccessful attempt to smoke a very blunt cigar: one of a bundle +which that young gentleman had covertly purchased on the shingle from +a most desperate smuggler, who had acknowledged, in confidence, that +two hundred pounds was the price set upon his head, dead or alive, by +the Custom House. It was a snug room, Mr Feeder's, with his bed in +another little room inside of it; and a flute, which Mr Feeder +couldn't play yet, but was going to make a point of learning, he said, +hanging up over the fireplace. There were some books in it, too, and a +fishing-rod; for Mr Feeder said he should certainly make a point of +learning to fish, when he could find time. Mr Feeder had amassed, with +similar intentions, a beautiful little curly secondhand key-bugle, a +chess-board and men, a Spanish Grammar, a set of sketching materials, +and a pair of boxing-gloves. The art of self-defence Mr Feeder said he +should undoubtedly make a point of learning, as he considered it the +duty of every man to do; for it might lead to the protection of a +female in distress. But Mr Feeder's great possession was a large green +jar of snuff, which Mr Toots had brought down as a present, at the +close of the last vacation; and for which he had paid a high price, +having been the genuine property of the Prince Regent. Neither Mr +Toots nor Mr Feeder could partake of this or any other snuff, even in +the most stinted and moderate degree, without being seized with +convulsions of sneezing. Nevertheless it was their great delight to +moisten a box-full with cold tea, stir it up on a piece of parchment +with a paper-knife, and devote themselves to its consumption then and +there. In the course of which cramming of their noses, they endured +surprising torments with the constancy of martyrs: and, drinking +table-beer at intervals, felt all the glories of dissipation. + +To little Paul sitting silent in their company, and by the side of +his chief patron, Mr Toots, there was a dread charm in these reckless +occasions: and when Mr Feeder spoke of the dark mysteries of London, +and told Mr Toots that he was going to observe it himself closely in +all its ramifications in the approaching holidays, and for that +purpose had made arrangements to board with two old maiden ladies at +Peckham, Paul regarded him as if he were the hero of some book of +travels or wild adventure, and was almost afraid of such a slashing +person. + +Going into this room one evening, when the holidays were very near, +Paul found Mr Feeder filling up the blanks in some printed letters, +while some others, already filled up and strewn before him, were being +folded and sealed by Mr Toots. Mr Feeder said, 'Aha, Dombey, there you +are, are you?' - for they were always kind to him, and glad to see him +- and then said, tossing one of the letters towards him, 'And there +you are, too, Dombey. That's yours.' + +'Mine, Sir?' said Paul. + +'Your invitation,' returned Mr Feeder. + +Paul, looking at it, found, in copper-plate print, with the +exception of his own name and the date, which were in Mr Feeder's +penmanship, that Doctor and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr +P. Dombey's company at an early party on Wednesday Evening the +Seventeenth Instant; and that the hour was half-past seven o'clock; +and that the object was Quadrilles. Mr Toots also showed him, by +holding up a companion sheet of paper, that Doctor and Mrs Blimber +requested the pleasure of Mr Toots's company at an early party on +Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant, when the hour was half-past +seven o'clock, and when the object was Quadrilles. He also found, on +glancing at the table where Mr Feeder sat, that the pleasure of Mr +Briggs's company, and of Mr Tozer's company, and of every young +gentleman's company, was requested by Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the +same genteel Occasion. + +Mr Feeder then told him, to his great joy, that his sister was +invited, and that it was a half-yearly event, and that, as the +holidays began that day, he could go away with his sister after the +party, if he liked, which Paul interrupted him to say he would like, +very much. Mr Feeder then gave him to understand that he would be +expected to inform Doctor and Mrs Blimber, in superfine small-hand, +that Mr P. Dombey would be happy to have the honour of waiting on +them, in accordance with their polite invitation. Lastly, Mr Feeder +said, he had better not refer to the festive occasion, in the hearing +of Doctor and Mrs Blimber; as these preliminaries, and the whole of +the arrangements, were conducted on principles of classicality and +high breeding; and that Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the one hand, and +the young gentlemen on the other, were supposed, in their scholastic +capacities, not to have the least idea of what was in the wind. + +Paul thanked Mr Feeder for these hints, and pocketing his +invitation, sat down on a stool by the side of Mr Toots, as usual. But +Paul's head, which had long been ailing more or less, and was +sometimes very heavy and painful, felt so uneasy that night, that he +was obliged to support it on his hand. And yet it dropped so, that by +little and little it sunk on Mr Toots's knee, and rested there, as if +it had no care to be ever lifted up again. + +That was no reason why he should be deaf; but he must have been, he +thought, for, by and by, he heard Mr Feeder calling in his ear, and +gently shaking him to rouse his attention. And when he raised his +head, quite scared, and looked about him, he found that Doctor Blimber +had come into the room; and that the window was open, and that his +forehead was wet with sprinkled water; though how all this had been +done without his knowledge, was very curious indeed. + +'Ah! Come, come! That's well! How is my little friend now?' said +Doctor Blimber, encouragingly. + +'Oh, quite well, thank you, Sir,' said Paul. + +But there seemed to be something the matter with the floor, for he +couldn't stand upon it steadily; and with the walls too, for they were +inclined to turn round and round, and could only be stopped by being +looked at very hard indeed. Mr Toots's head had the appearance of +being at once bigger and farther off than was quite natural; and when +he took Paul in his arms, to carry him upstairs, Paul observed with +astonishment that the door was in quite a different place from that in +which he had expected to find it, and almost thought, at first, that +Mr Toots was going to walk straight up the chimney. + +It was very kind of Mr Toots to carry him to the top of the house +so tenderly; and Paul told him that it was. But Mr Toots said he would +do a great deal more than that, if he could; and indeed he did more as +it was: for he helped Paul to undress, and helped him to bed, in the +kindest manner possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled +very much; while Mr Feeder, B.A., leaning over the bottom of the +bedstead, set all the little bristles on his head bolt upright with +his bony hands, and then made believe to spar at Paul with great +science, on account of his being all right again, which was so +uncommonly facetious, and kind too in Mr Feeder, that Paul, not being +able to make up his mind whether it was best to laugh or cry at him, +did both at once. + +How Mr Toots melted away, and Mr Feeder changed into Mrs Pipchin, +Paul never thought of asking; neither was he at all curious to know; +but when he saw Mrs Pipchin standing at the bottom of the bed, instead +of Mr Feeder, he cried out, 'Mrs Pipchin, don't tell Florence!' + +'Don't tell Florence what, my little Paul?' said Mrs Pipchin, +coming round to the bedside, and sitting down in the chair. + +'About me,' said Paul. + +'No, no,' said Mrs Pipchin. + +'What do you think I mean to do when I grow up, Mrs Pipchin?' +inquired Paul, turning his face towards her on his pillow, and resting +his chin wistfully on his folded hands. + +Mrs Pipchin couldn't guess. + +'I mean,' said Paul, 'to put my money all together in one Bank, +never try to get any more, go away into the country with my darling +Florence, have a beautiful garden, fields, and woods, and live there +with her all my life!' + +'Indeed!' cried Mrs Pipchin. + +'Yes,' said Paul. 'That's what I mean to do, when I - ' He stopped, +and pondered for a moment. + +Mrs Pipchin's grey eye scanned his thoughtful face. + +'If I grow up,' said Paul. Then he went on immediately to tell Mrs +Pipchin all about the party, about Florence's invitation, about the +pride he would have in the admiration that would be felt for her by +all the boys, about their being so kind to him and fond of him, about +his being so fond of them, and about his being so glad of it. Then he +told Mrs Pipchin about the analysis, and about his being certainly +old-fashioned, and took Mrs Pipchin's opinion on that point, and +whether she knew why it was, and what it meant. Mrs Pipchin denied the +fact altogether, as the shortest way of getting out of the difficulty; +but Paul was far from satisfied with that reply, and looked so +searchingly at Mrs Pipchin for a truer answer, that she was obliged to +get up and look out of the window to avoid his eyes. + +There was a certain calm Apothecary, 'who attended at the +establishment when any of the young gentlemen were ill, and somehow he +got into the room and appeared at the bedside, with Mrs Blimber. How +they came there, or how long they had been there, Paul didn't know; +but when he saw them, he sat up in bed, and answered all the +Apothecary's questions at full length, and whispered to him that +Florence was not to know anything about it, if he pleased, and that he +had set his mind upon her coming to the party. He was very chatty with +the Apothecary, and they parted excellent friends. Lying down again +with his eyes shut, he heard the Apothecary say, out of the room and +quite a long way off - or he dreamed it - that there was a want of +vital power (what was that, Paul wondered!) and great constitutional +weakness. That as the little fellow had set his heart on parting with +his school-mates on the seventeenth, it would be better to indulge the +fancy if he grew no worse. That he was glad to hear from Mrs Pipchin, +that the little fellow would go to his friends in London on the +eighteenth. That he would write to Mr Dombey, when he should have +gained a better knowledge of the case, and before that day. That there +was no immediate cause for - what? Paul lost that word And that the +little fellow had a fine mind, but was an old-fashioned boy. + +What old fashion could that be, Paul wondered with a palpitating +heart, that was so visibly expressed in him; so plainly seen by so +many people! + +He could neither make it out, nor trouble himself long with the +effort. Mrs Pipchin was again beside him, if she had ever been away +(he thought she had gone out with the Doctor, but it was all a dream +perhaps), and presently a bottle and glass got into her hands +magically, and she poured out the contents for him. After that, he had +some real good jelly, which Mrs Blimber brought to him herself; and +then he was so well, that Mrs Pipchin went home, at his urgent +solicitation, and Briggs and Tozer came to bed. Poor Briggs grumbled +terribly about his own analysis, which could hardly have discomposed +him more if it had been a chemical process; but he was very good to +Paul, and so was Tozer, and so were all the rest, for they every one +looked in before going to bed, and said, 'How are you now, Dombey?' +'Cheer up, little Dombey!' and so forth. After Briggs had got into +bed, he lay awake for a long time, still bemoaning his analysis, and +saying he knew it was all wrong, and they couldn't have analysed a +murderer worse, and - how would Doctor Blimber like it if his +pocket-money depended on it? It was very easy, Briggs said, to make a +galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and then score him up idle; +and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and then score him up +greedy; but that wasn't going to be submitted to, he believed, was it? +Oh! Ah! + +Before the weak-eyed young man performed on the gong next morning, +he came upstairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul +very gladly did. Mrs Pipchin reappeared a little before the +Apothecary, and a little after the good young woman whom Paul had seen +cleaning the stove on that first morning (how long ago it seemed now!) +had brought him his breakfast. There was another consultation a long +way off, or else Paul dreamed it again; and then the Apothecary, +coming back with Doctor and Mrs Blimber, said: + +'Yes, I think, Doctor Blimber, we may release this young gentleman +from his books just now; the vacation being so very near at hand.' + +'By all means,' said Doctor Blimber. 'My love, you will inform +Cornelia, if you please.' + +'Assuredly,' said Mrs Blimber. + +The Apothecary bending down, looked closely into Paul's eyes, and +felt his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and +care, that Paul said, 'Thank you, Sir.' + +'Our little friend,' observed Doctor Blimber, 'has never +complained.' + +'Oh no!' replied the Apothecary. 'He was not likely to complain.' + +'You find him greatly better?' said Doctor Blimber. + +'Oh! he is greatly better, Sir,' returned the Apothecary. + +Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject +that might occupy the Apothecary's mind just at that moment; so +musingly had he answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the +Apothecary happening to meet his little patient's eyes, as the latter +set off on that mental expedition, and coming instantly out of his +abstraction with a cheerful smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned +it. + +He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr +Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold, +there was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on +a pair of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments +into the works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for +Paul, who sat down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation +attentively: now and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all +askew, against the wall hard by, and feeling a little confused by a +suspicion that it was ogling him. + +The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he +observed Paul, 'How do you do, Sir?' Paul got into conversation with +him, and told him he hadn't been quite well lately. The ice being thus +broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and +clocks: as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by +night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people +died, and whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or +only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new +acquaintance was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew +Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of that institution; +and also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King +Alfred's idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to which +the workman replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock +trade if it was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the +clock had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate +inquiry; when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, +bade him good day, and went away. Though not before he had whispered +something, on the door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the +phrase 'old-fashioned' - for Paul heard it. What could that old +fashion be, that seemed to make the people sorry! What could it be! + +Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though +not so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to +think of. But he had a great many; and was always thinking, all day +long. + +First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see +that the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This +was his great theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle +and good to him, and that he had become a little favourite among them, +and then the would always think of the time he had passed there, +without being very sorry. Florence might be all the happier too for +that, perhaps, when he came back. + +When he came back! Fifty times a day, his noiseless little feet +went up the stairs to his own room, as he collected every book, and +scrap, and trifle that belonged to him, and put them all together +there, down to the minutest thing, for taking home! There was no shade +of coming back on little Paul; no preparation for it, or other +reference to it, grew out of anything he thought or did, except this +slight one in connexion with his sister. On the contrary, he had to +think of everything familiar to him, in his contemplative moods and in +his wanderings about the house, as being to be parted with; and hence +the many things he had to think of, all day long. + +He had to peep into those rooms upstairs, and think how solitary +they would be when he was gone, and wonder through how many silent +days, weeks, months, and years, they would continue just as grave and +undisturbed. He had to think - would any other child (old-fashioned, +like himself stray there at any time, to whom the same grotesque +distortions of pattern and furniture would manifest themselves; and +would anybody tell that boy of little Dombey, who had been there once? +He had to think of a portrait on the stairs, which always looked +earnestly after him as he went away, eyeing it over his shoulder; and +which, when he passed it in the company of anyone, still seemed to +gaze at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in +association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the +centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a +light about its head - benignant, mild, and merciful - stood pointing +upward. + +At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed +with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves. +Where those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in +troubled weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the +wind issued on its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the +spot where he and Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked +about these things, could ever be exactly as it used to be without +them; whether it could ever be the same to Florence, if he were in +some distant place, and she were sitting there alone. + +He had to think, too, of Mr Toots, and Mr Feeder, B.A., of all the +boys; and of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber; of home, +and of his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father; Dombey and Son, Walter +with the poor old Uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that +gruff-voiced Captain with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a +number of little visits to pay, in the course of the day; to the +schoolroom, to Doctor Blimber's study, to Mrs Blimber's private +apartment, to Miss Blimber's, and to the dog. For he was free of the +whole house now, to range it as he chose; and, in his desire to part +with everybody on affectionate terms, he attended, in his way, to them +all. Sometimes he found places in books for Briggs, who was always +losing them; sometimes he looked up words in dictionaries for other +young gentlemen who were in extremity; sometimes he held skeins of +silk for Mrs Blimber to wind; sometimes he put Cornelia's desk to +rights; sometimes he would even creep into the Doctor's study, and, +sitting on the carpet near his learned feet, turn the globes softly, +and go round the world, or take a flight among the far-off stars. + +In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the +other young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general +resumption of the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a +privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. He could +hardly believe it himself; but his liberty lasted from hour to hour, +and from day to day; and little Dombey was caressed by everyone. +Doctor Blimber was so particular about him, that he requested Johnson +to retire from the dinner-table one day, for having thoughtlessly +spoken to him as 'poor little Dombey;' which Paul thought rather hard +and severe, though he had flushed at the moment, and wondered why +Johnson should pity him. It was the more questionable justice, Paul +thought, in the Doctor, from his having certainly overheard that great +authority give his assent on the previous evening, to the proposition +(stated by Mrs Blimber) that poor dear little Dombey was more +old-fashioned than ever. And now it was that Paul began to think it +must surely be old-fashioned to be very thin, and light, and easily +tired, and soon disposed to lie down anywhere and rest; for he +couldn't help feeling that these were more and more his habits every +day. + +At last the party-day arrived; and Doctor Blimber said at +breakfast, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth +of next month.' Mr Toots immediately threw off his allegiance, and put +on his ring: and mentioning the Doctor in casual conversation shortly +afterwards, spoke of him as 'Blimber'! This act of freedom inspired +the older pupils with admiration and envy; but the younger spirits +were appalled, and seemed to marvel that no beam fell down and crushed +him. + +Not the least allusion was made to the ceremonies of the evening, +either at breakfast or at dinner; but there was a bustle in the house +all day, and in the course of his perambulations, Paul made +acquaintance with various strange benches and candlesticks, and met a +harp in a green greatcoat standing on the landing outside the +drawing-room door. There was something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber's +head at dinner-time, as if she had screwed her hair up too tight; and +though Miss Blimber showed a graceful bunch of plaited hair on each +temple, she seemed to have her own little curls in paper underneath, +and in a play-bill too; for Paul read 'Theatre Royal' over one of her +sparkling spectacles, and 'Brighton' over the other. + +There was a grand array of white waistcoats and cravats in the +young gentlemen's bedrooms as evening approached; and such a smell of +singed hair, that Doctor Blimber sent up the footman with his +compliments, and wished to know if the house was on fire. But it was +only the hairdresser curling the young gentlemen, and over-heating his +tongs in the ardour of business. + +When Paul was dressed - which was very soon done, for he felt +unwell and drowsy, and was not able to stand about it very long - he +went down into the drawing-room; where he found Doctor Blimber pacing +up and down the room full dressed, but with a dignified and +unconcerned demeanour, as if he thought it barely possible that one or +two people might drop in by and by. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Blimber +appeared, looking lovely, Paul thought; and attired in such a number +of skirts that it was quite an excursion to walk round her. Miss +Blimber came down soon after her Mama; a little squeezed in +appearance, but very charming. + +Mr Toots and Mr Feeder were the next arrivals. Each of these +gentlemen brought his hat in his hand, as if he lived somewhere else; +and when they were announced by the butler, Doctor Blimber said, 'Ay, +ay, ay! God bless my soul!' and seemed extremely glad to see them. Mr +Toots was one blaze of jewellery and buttons; and he felt the +circumstance so strongly, that when he had shaken hands with the +Doctor, and had bowed to Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber, he took Paul +aside, and said, 'What do you think of this, Dombey?' + +But notwithstanding this modest confidence in himself, Mr Toots +appeared to be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the +whole, it was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat, +and whether, on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best +to wear his waistbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr +Feeder's were turned up, Mr Toots turned his up; but the waistbands of +the next arrival being turned down, Mr Toots turned his down. The +differences in point of waistcoat-buttoning, not only at the bottom, +but at the top too, became so numerous and complicated as the arrivals +thickened, that Mr Toots was continually fingering that article of +dress, as if he were performing on some instrument; and appeared to +find the incessant execution it demanded, quite bewildering. All the +young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and pumped, and with their +best hats in their hands, having been at different times announced and +introduced, Mr Baps, the dancing-master, came, accompanied by Mrs +Baps, to whom Mrs Blimber was extremely kind and condescending. Mr +Baps was a very grave gentleman, with a slow and measured manner of +speaking; and before he had stood under the lamp five minutes, he +began to talk to Toots (who had been silently comparing pumps with +him) about what you were to do with your raw materials when they came +into your ports in return for your drain of gold. Mr Toots, to whom +the question seemed perplexing, suggested 'Cook 'em.' But Mr Baps did +not appear to think that would do. + +Paul now slipped away from the cushioned corner of a sofa, which +had been his post of observation, and went downstairs into the +tea-room to be ready for Florence, whom he had not seen for nearly a +fortnight, as he had remained at Doctor Blimber's on the previous +Saturday and Sunday, lest he should take cold. Presently she came: +looking so beautiful in her simple ball dress, with her fresh flowers +in her hand, that when she knelt down on the ground to take Paul round +the neck and kiss him (for there was no one there, but his friend and +another young woman waiting to serve out the tea), he could hardly +make up his mind to let her go again, or to take away her bright and +loving eyes from his face. + +'But what is the matter, Floy?' asked Paul, almost sure that he saw +a tear there. + +'Nothing, darling; nothing,' returned Florence. + +Paul touched her cheek gently with his finger - and it was a tear! +'Why, Floy!' said he. + +'We'll go home together, and I'll nurse you, love,' said Florence. + +'Nurse me!' echoed Paul. + +Paul couldn't understand what that had to do with it, nor why the +two young women looked on so seriously, nor why Florence turned away +her face for a moment, and then turned it back, lighted up again with +smiles. + +'Floy,' said Paul, holding a ringlet of her dark hair in his hand. +'Tell me, dear, Do you think I have grown old-fashioned?' + +His sister laughed, and fondled him, and told him 'No.' + +'Because I know they say so,' returned Paul, 'and I want to know +what they mean, Floy.' But a loud double knock coming at the door, and +Florence hurrying to the table, there was no more said between them. +Paul wondered again when he saw his friend whisper to Florence, as if +she were comforting her; but a new arrival put that out of his head +speedily. + +It was Sir Barnet Skettles, Lady Skettles, and Master Skettles. +Master Skettles was to be a new boy after the vacation, and Fame had +been busy, in Mr Feeder's room, with his father, who was in the House +of Commons, and of whom Mr Feeder had said that when he did catch the +Speaker's eye (which he had been expected to do for three or four +years), it was anticipated that he would rather touch up the Radicals. + +'And what room is this now, for instance?' said Lady Skettles to +Paul's friend, 'Melia. + +'Doctor Blimber's study, Ma'am,' was the reply. + +Lady Skettles took a panoramic survey of it through her glass, and +said to Sir Barnet Skettles, with a nod of approval, 'Very good.' Sir +Barnet assented, but Master Skettles looked suspicious and doubtful. + +'And this little creature, now,' said Lady Skettles, turning to +Paul. 'Is he one of the + +'Young gentlemen, Ma'am; yes, Ma'am,' said Paul's friend. + +'And what is your name, my pale child?' said Lady Skettles. + +'Dombey,' answered Paul. + +Sir Barnet Skettles immediately interposed, and said that he had +had the honour of meeting Paul's father at a public dinner, and that +he hoped he was very well. Then Paul heard him say to Lady Skettles, +'City - very rich - most respectable - Doctor mentioned it.' And then +he said to Paul, 'Will you tell your good Papa that Sir Barnet +Skettles rejoiced to hear that he was very well, and sent him his best +compliments?' + +'Yes, Sir,' answered Paul. + +'That is my brave boy,' said Sir Barnet Skettles. 'Barnet,' to +Master Skettles, who was revenging himself for the studies to come, on +the plum-cake, 'this is a young gentleman you ought to know. This is a +young gentleman you may know, Barnet,' said Sir Barnet Skettles, with +an emphasis on the permission. + +'What eyes! What hair! What a lovely face!' exclaimed Lady Skettles +softly, as she looked at Florence through her glass. 'My sister,' said +Paul, presenting her. + +The satisfaction of the Skettleses was now complex And as Lady +Skettles had conceived, at first sight, a liking for Paul, they all +went upstairs together: Sir Barnet Skettles taking care of Florence, +and young Barnet following. + +Young Barnet did not remain long in the background after they had +reached the drawing-room, for Dr Blimber had him out in no time, +dancing with Florence. He did not appear to Paul to be particularly +happy, or particularly anything but sulky, or to care much what he was +about; but as Paul heard Lady Skettles say to Mrs Blimber, while she +beat time with her fan, that her dear boy was evidently smitten to +death by that angel of a child, Miss Dombey, it would seem that +Skettles Junior was in a state of bliss, without showing it. + +Little Paul thought it a singular coincidence that nobody had +occupied his place among the pillows; and that when he came into the +room again, they should all make way for him to go back to it, +remembering it was his. Nobody stood before him either, when they +observed that he liked to see Florence dancing, but they left the +space in front quite clear, so that he might follow her with his eyes. +They were so kind, too, even the strangers, of whom there were soon a +great many, that they came and spoke to him every now and then, and +asked him how he was, and if his head ached, and whether he was tired. +He was very much obliged to them for all their kindness and attention, +and reclining propped up in his corner, with Mrs Blimber and Lady +Skettles on the same sofa, and Florence coming and sitting by his side +as soon as every dance was ended, he looked on very happily indeed. + +Florence would have sat by him all night, and would not have danced +at all of her own accord, but Paul made her, by telling her how much +it pleased him. And he told her the truth, too; for his small heart +swelled, and his face glowed, when he saw how much they all admired +her, and how she was the beautiful little rosebud of the room. + +From his nest among the pillows, Paul could see and hear almost +everything that passed as if the whole were being done for his +amusement. Among other little incidents that he observed, he observed +Mr Baps the dancing-master get into conversation with Sir Barnet +Skettles, and very soon ask him, as he had asked Mr Toots, what you +were to do with your raw materials, when they came into your ports in +return for your drain of gold - which was such a mystery to Paul that +he was quite desirous to know what ought to be done with them. Sir +Barnet Skettles had much to say upon the question, and said it; but it +did not appear to solve the question, for Mr Baps retorted, Yes, but +supposing Russia stepped in with her tallows; which struck Sir Barnet +almost dumb, for he could only shake his head after that, and say, Why +then you must fall back upon your cottons, he supposed. + +Sir Barnet Skettles looked after Mr Baps when he went to cheer up +Mrs Baps (who, being quite deserted, was pretending to look over the +music-book of the gentleman who played the harp), as if he thought him +a remarkable kind of man; and shortly afterwards he said so in those +words to Doctor Blimber, and inquired if he might take the liberty of +asking who he was, and whether he had ever been in the Board of Trade. +Doctor Blimber answered no, he believed not; and that in fact he was a +Professor of - ' + +'Of something connected with statistics, I'll swear?' observed Sir +Barnet Skettles. + +'Why no, Sir Barnet,' replied Doctor Blimber, rubbing his chin. +'No, not exactly.' + +'Figures of some sort, I would venture a bet,' said Sir Barnet +Skettles. + +'Why yes,' said Doctor Blimber, yes, but not of that sort. Mr Baps +is a very worthy sort of man, Sir Barnet, and - in fact he's our +Professor of dancing.' + +Paul was amazed to see that this piece of information quite altered +Sir Barnet Skettles's opinion of Mr Baps, and that Sir Barnet flew +into a perfect rage, and glowered at Mr Baps over on the other side of +the room. He even went so far as to D Mr Baps to Lady Skettles, in +telling her what had happened, and to say that it was like his most +con-sum-mate and con-foun-ded impudence. + +There was another thing that Paul observed. Mr Feeder, after +imbibing several custard-cups of negus, began to enjoy himself. The +dancing in general was ceremonious, and the music rather solemn - a +little like church music in fact - but after the custard-cups, Mr +Feeder told Mr Toots that he was going to throw a little spirit into +the thing. After that, Mr Feeder not only began to dance as if he +meant dancing and nothing else, but secretly to stimulate the music to +perform wild tunes. Further, he became particular in his attentions to +the ladies; and dancing with Miss Blimber, whispered to her - +whispered to her! - though not so softly but that Paul heard him say +this remarkable poetry, + + 'Had I a heart for falsehood framed, + + I ne'er could injure You!' +This, Paul heard him repeat to four young ladies, in succession. Well +might Mr Feeder say to Mr Toots, that he was afraid he should be the +worse for it to-morrow! + +Mrs Blimber was a little alarmed by this - comparatively speaking - +profligate behaviour; and especially by the alteration in the +character of the music, which, beginning to comprehend low melodies +that were popular in the streets, might not unnaturally be supposed to +give offence to Lady Skettles. But Lady Skettles was so very kind as +to beg Mrs Blimber not to mention it; and to receive her explanation +that Mr Feeder's spirits sometimes betrayed him into excesses on these +occasions, with the greatest courtesy and politeness; observing, that +he seemed a very nice sort of person for his situation, and that she +particularly liked the unassuming style of his hair - which (as +already hinted) was about a quarter of an inch long. + +Once, when there was a pause in the dancing, Lady Skettles told +Paul that he seemed very fond of music. Paul replied, that he was; and +if she was too, she ought to hear his sister, Florence, sing. Lady +Skettles presently discovered that she was dying with anxiety to have +that gratification; and though Florence was at first very much +frightened at being asked to sing before so many people, and begged +earnestly to be excused, yet, on Paul calling her to him, and saying, +'Do, Floy! Please! For me, my dear!' she went straight to the piano, +and began. When they all drew a little away, that Paul might see her; +and when he saw her sitting there all alone, so young, and good, and +beautiful, and kind to him; and heard her thrilling voice, so natural +and sweet, and such a golden link between him and all his life's love +and happiness, rising out of the silence; he turned his face away, and +hid his tears. Not, as he told them when they spoke to him, not that +the music was too plaintive or too sorrowful, but it was so dear to +him. + +They all loved Florence. How could they help it! Paul had known +beforehand that they must and would; and sitting in his cushioned +corner, with calmly folded hands; and one leg loosely doubled under +him, few would have thought what triumph and delight expanded his +childish bosom while he watched her, or what a sweet tranquillity he +felt. Lavish encomiums on 'Dombey's sister' reached his ears from all +the boys: admiration of the self-possessed and modest little beauty +was on every lip: reports of her intelligence and accomplishments +floated past him, constantly; and, as if borne in upon the air of the +summer night, there was a half intelligible sentiment diffused around, +referring to Florence and himself, and breathing sympathy for both, +that soothed and touched him. + +He did not know why. For all that the child observed, and felt, and +thought, that night - the present and the absent; what was then and +what had been - were blended like the colours in the rainbow, or in +the plumage of rich birds when the sun is shining on them, or in the +softening sky when the same sun is setting. The many things he had had +to think of lately, passed before him in the music; not as claiming +his attention over again, or as likely evermore to occupy it, but as +peacefully disposed of and gone. A solitary window, gazed through +years ago, looked out upon an ocean, miles and miles away; upon its +waters, fancies, busy with him only yesterday, were hushed and lulled +to rest like broken waves. The same mysterious murmur he had wondered +at, when lying on his couch upon the beach, he thought he still heard +sounding through his sister's song, and through the hum of voices, and +the tread of feet, and having some part in the faces flitting by, and +even in the heavy gentleness of Mr Toots, who frequently came up to +shake him by the hand. Through the universal kindness he still thought +he heard it, speaking to him; and even his old-fashioned reputation +seemed to be allied to it, he knew not how. Thus little Paul sat +musing, listening, looking on, and dreaming; and was very happy. + +Until the time arrived for taking leave: and then, indeed, there +was a sensation in the party. Sir Barnet Skettles brought up Skettles +Junior to shake hands with him, and asked him if he would remember to +tell his good Papa, with his best compliments, that he, Sir Barnet +Skettles, had said he hoped the two young gentlemen would become +intimately acquainted. Lady Skettles kissed him, and patted his hair +upon his brow, and held him in her arms; and even Mrs Baps - poor Mrs +Baps! Paul was glad of that - came over from beside the music-book of +the gentleman who played the harp, and took leave of him quite as +heartily as anybody in the room. + +'Good-bye, Doctor Blimber,' said Paul, stretching out his hand. + +'Good-bye, my little friend,' returned the Doctor. + +'I'm very much obliged to you, Sir,' said Paul, looking innocently +up into his awful face. 'Ask them to take care of Diogenes, if you +please.' + +Diogenes was the dog: who had never in his life received a friend +into his confidence, before Paul. The Doctor promised that every +attention should he paid to Diogenes in Paul's absence, and Paul +having again thanked him, and shaken hands with him, bade adieu to Mrs +Blimber and Cornelia with such heartfelt earnestness that Mrs Blimber +forgot from that moment to mention Cicero to Lady Skettles, though she +had fully intended it all the evening. Cornelia, taking both Paul's +hands in hers, said,'Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite +pupil. God bless you!' And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one +might do injustice to a person; for Miss Blimber meant it - though she +was a Forcer - and felt it. + +A boy then went round among the young gentlemen, of 'Dombey's +going!' 'Little Dombey's going!' and there was a general move after +Paul and Florence down the staircase and into the hall, in which the +whole Blimber family were included. Such a circumstance, Mr Feeder +said aloud, as had never happened in the case of any former young +gentleman within his experience; but it would be difficult to say if +this were sober fact or custard-cups. The servants, with the butler at +their head, had all an interest in seeing Little Dombey go; and even +the weak-eyed young man, taking out his books and trunks to the coach +that was to carry him and Florence to Mrs Pipchin's for the night, +melted visibly. + +Not even the influence of the softer passion on the young gentlemen +- and they all, to a boy, doted on Florence - could restrain them from +taking quite a noisy leave of Paul; waving hats after him, pressing +downstairs to shake hands with him, crying individually 'Dombey, don't +forget me!' and indulging in many such ebullitions of feeling, +uncommon among those young Chesterfields. Paul whispered Florence, as +she wrapped him up before the door was opened, Did she hear them? +Would she ever forget it? Was she glad to know it? And a lively +delight was in his eyes as he spoke to her. + +Once, for a last look, he turned and gazed upon the faces thus +addressed to him, surprised to see how shining and how bright, and +numerous they were, and how they were all piled and heaped up, as +faces are at crowded theatres. They swam before him as he looked, like +faces in an agitated glass; and next moment he was in the dark coach +outside, holding close to Florence. From that time, whenever he +thought of Doctor Blimber's, it came back as he had seen it in this +last view; and it never seemed to be a real place again, but always a +dream, full of eyes. + +This was not quite the last of Doctor Blimber's, however. There was +something else. There was Mr Toots. Who, unexpectedly letting down one +of the coach-windows, and looking in, said, with a most egregious +chuckle, 'Is Dombey there?' and immediately put it up again, without +waiting for an answer. Nor was this quite the last of Mr Toots, even; +for before the coachman could drive off, he as suddenly let down the +other window, and looking in with a precisely similar chuckle, said in +a precisely similar tone of voice, 'Is Dombey there?' and disappeared +precisely as before. + +How Florence laughed! Paul often remembered it, and laughed himself +whenever he did so. + +But there was much, soon afterwards - next day, and after that - +which Paul could only recollect confusedly. As, why they stayed at Mrs +Pipchin's days and nights, instead of going home; why he lay in bed, +with Florence sitting by his side; whether that had been his father in +the room, or only a tall shadow on the wall; whether he had heard his +doctor say, of someone, that if they had removed him before the +occasion on which he had built up fancies, strong in proportion to his +own weakness, it was very possible he might have pined away. + +He could not even remember whether he had often said to Florence, +'Oh Floy, take me home, and never leave me!' but he thought he had. He +fancied sometimes he had heard himself repeating, 'Take me home, Floy! +take me home!' + +But he could remember, when he got home, and was carried up the +well-remembered stairs, that there had been the rumbling of a coach +for many hours together, while he lay upon the seat, with Florence +still beside him, and old Mrs Pipchin sitting opposite. He remembered +his old bed too, when they laid him down in it: his aunt, Miss Tox, +and Susan: but there was something else, and recent too, that still +perplexed him. + +'I want to speak to Florence, if you please,' he said. 'To Florence +by herself, for a moment!' + +She bent down over him, and the others stood away. + +'Floy, my pet, wasn't that Papa in the hall, when they brought me +from the coach?' + +'Yes, dear.' + +'He didn't cry, and go into his room, Floy, did he, when he saw me +coming in?' + +Florence shook her head, and pressed her lips against his cheek. + +'I'm very glad he didn't cry,' said little Paul. 'I thought he did. +Don't tell them that I asked.' + + + +CHAPTER 15. + +Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit for Walter Gay + + + +Walter could not, for several days, decide what to do in the +Barbados business; and even cherished some faint hope that Mr Dombey +might not have meant what he had said, or that he might change his +mind, and tell him he was not to go. But as nothing occurred to give +this idea (which was sufficiently improbable in itself) any touch of +confirmation, and as time was slipping by, and he had none to lose, he +felt that he must act, without hesitating any longer. + +Walter's chief difficulty was, how to break the change in his +affairs to Uncle Sol, to whom he was sensible it would he a terrible +blow. He had the greater difficulty in dashing Uncle Sol's spirits +with such an astounding piece of intelligence, because they had lately +recovered very much, and the old man had become so cheerful, that the +little back parlour was itself again. Uncle Sol had paid the first +appointed portion of the debt to Mr Dombey, and was hopeful of working +his way through the rest; and to cast him down afresh, when he had +sprung up so manfully from his troubles, was a very distressing +necessity. + +Yet it would never do to run away from him. He must know of it +beforehand; and how to tell him was the point. As to the question of +going or not going, Walter did not consider that he had any power of +choice in the matter. Mr Dombey had truly told him that he was young, +and that his Uncle's circumstances were not good; and Mr Dombey had +plainly expressed, in the glance with which he had accompanied that +reminder, that if he declined to go he might stay at home if he chose, +but not in his counting-house. His Uncle and he lay under a great +obligation to Mr Dombey, which was of Walter's own soliciting. He +might have begun in secret to despair of ever winning that gentleman's +favour, and might have thought that he was now and then disposed to +put a slight upon him, which was hardly just. But what would have been +duty without that, was still duty with it - or Walter thought so- and +duty must be done. + +When Mr Dombey had looked at him, and told him he was young, and +that his Uncle's circumstances were not good, there had been an +expression of disdain in his face; a contemptuous and disparaging +assumption that he would be quite content to live idly on a reduced +old man, which stung the boy's generous soul. Determined to assure Mr +Dombey, in so far as it was possible to give him the assurance without +expressing it in words, that indeed he mistook his nature, Walter had +been anxious to show even more cheerfulness and activity after the +West Indian interview than he had shown before: if that were possible, +in one of his quick and zealous disposition. He was too young and +inexperienced to think, that possibly this very quality in him was not +agreeable to Mr Dombey, and that it was no stepping-stone to his good +opinion to be elastic and hopeful of pleasing under the shadow of his +powerful displeasure, whether it were right or wrong. But it may have +been - it may have been- that the great man thought himself defied in +this new exposition of an honest spirit, and purposed to bring it +down. + +'Well! at last and at least, Uncle Sol must be told,' thought +Walter, with a sigh. And as Walter was apprehensive that his voice +might perhaps quaver a little, and that his countenance might not be +quite as hopeful as he could wish it to be, if he told the old man +himself, and saw the first effects of his communication on his +wrinkled face, he resolved to avail himself of the services of that +powerful mediator, Captain Cuttle. Sunday coming round, he set off +therefore, after breakfast, once more to beat up Captain Cuttle's +quarters. + +It was not unpleasant to remember, on the way thither, that Mrs +MacStinger resorted to a great distance every Sunday morning, to +attend the ministry of the Reverend Melchisedech Howler, who, having +been one day discharged from the West India Docks on a false suspicion +(got up expressly against him by the general enemy) of screwing +gimlets into puncheons, and applying his lips to the orifice, had +announced the destruction of the world for that day two years, at ten +in the morning, and opened a front parlour for the reception of ladies +and gentlemen of the Ranting persuasion, upon whom, on the first +occasion of their assemblage, the admonitions of the Reverend +Melchisedech had produced so powerful an effect, that, in their +rapturous performance of a sacred jig, which closed the service, the +whole flock broke through into a kitchen below, and disabled a mangle +belonging to one of the fold. + +This the Captain, in a moment of uncommon conviviality, had +confided to Walter and his Uncle, between the repetitions of lovely +Peg, on the night when Brogley the broker was paid out. The Captain +himself was punctual in his attendance at a church in his own +neighbourhood, which hoisted the Union Jack every Sunday morning; and +where he was good enough - the lawful beadle being infirm - to keep an +eye upon the boys, over whom he exercised great power, in virtue of +his mysterious hook. Knowing the regularity of the Captain's habits, +Walter made all the haste he could, that he might anticipate his going +out; and he made such good speed, that he had the pleasure, on turning +into Brig Place, to behold the broad blue coat and waistcoat hanging +out of the Captain's oPen window, to air in the sun. + +It appeared incredible that the coat and waistcoat could be seen by +mortal eyes without the Captain; but he certainly was not in them, +otherwise his legs - the houses in Brig Place not being lofty- would +have obstructed the street door, which was perfectly clear. Quite +wondering at this discovery, Walter gave a single knock. + +'Stinger,' he distinctly heard the Captain say, up in his room, as +if that were no business of his. Therefore Walter gave two knocks. + +'Cuttle,' he heard the Captain say upon that; and immediately +afterwards the Captain, in his clean shirt and braces, with his +neckerchief hanging loosely round his throat like a coil of rope, and +his glazed hat on, appeared at the window, leaning out over the broad +blue coat and waistcoat. + +'Wal'r!' cried the Captain, looking down upon him in amazement. + +'Ay, ay, Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter, 'only me' + +'What's the matter, my lad?' inquired the Captain, with great +concern. 'Gills an't been and sprung nothing again?' + +'No, no,' said Walter. 'My Uncle's all right, Captain Cuttle.' + +The Captain expressed his gratification, and said he would come +down below and open the door, which he did. + +'Though you're early, Wal'r,' said the Captain, eyeing him still +doubtfully, when they got upstairs: + +'Why, the fact is, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, sitting down, 'I +was afraid you would have gone out, and I want to benefit by your +friendly counsel.' + +'So you shall,' said the Captain; 'what'll you take?' + +'I want to take your opinion, Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter, +smiling. 'That's the only thing for me.' + +'Come on then,' said the Captain. 'With a will, my lad!' + +Walter related to him what had happened; and the difficulty in +which he felt respecting his Uncle, and the relief it would be to him +if Captain Cuttle, in his kindness, would help him to smooth it away; +Captain Cuttle's infinite consternation and astonishment at the +prospect unfolded to him, gradually swallowing that gentleman up, +until it left his face quite vacant, and the suit of blue, the glazed +hat, and the hook, apparently without an owner. + +'You see, Captain Cuttle,' pursued Walter, 'for myself, I am young, +as Mr Dombey said, and not to be considered. I am to fight my way +through the world, I know; but there are two points I was thinking, as +I came along, that I should be very particular about, in respect to my +Uncle. I don't mean to say that I deserve to be the pride and delight +of his life - you believe me, I know - but I am. Now, don't you think +I am?' + +The Captain seemed to make an endeavour to rise from the depths of +his astonishment, and get back to his face; but the effort being +ineffectual, the glazed hat merely nodded with a mute, unutterable +meaning. + +'If I live and have my health,' said Walter, 'and I am not afraid +of that, still, when I leave England I can hardly hope to see my Uncle +again. He is old, Captain Cuttle; and besides, his life is a life of +custom - ' + +'Steady, Wal'r! Of a want of custom?' said the Captain, suddenly +reappearing. + +'Too true,' returned Walter, shaking his head: 'but I meant a life +of habit, Captain Cuttle - that sort of custom. And if (as you very +truly said, I am sure) he would have died the sooner for the loss of +the stock, and all those objects to which he has been accustomed for +so many years, don't you think he might die a little sooner for the +loss of - ' + +'Of his Nevy,' interposed the Captain. 'Right!' + +'Well then,' said Walter, trying to speak gaily, 'we must do our +best to make him believe that the separation is but a temporary one, +after all; but as I know better, or dread that I know better, Captain +Cuttle, and as I have so many reasons for regarding him with +affection, and duty, and honour, I am afraid I should make but a very +poor hand at that, if I tried to persuade him of it. That's my great +reason for wishing you to break it out to him; and that's the first +point.' + +'Keep her off a point or so!' observed the Captain, in a +comtemplative voice. + +'What did you say, Captain Cuttle?' inquired Walter. + +'Stand by!' returned the Captain, thoughtfully. + +Walter paused to ascertain if the Captain had any particular +information to add to this, but as he said no more, went on. + +'Now, the second point, Captain Cuttle. I am sorry to say, I am not +a favourite with Mr Dombey. I have always tried to do my best, and I +have always done it; but he does not like me. He can't help his +likings and dislikings, perhaps. I say nothing of that. I only say +that I am certain he does not like me. He does not send me to this +post as a good one; he disclaims to represent it as being better than +it is; and I doubt very much if it will ever lead me to advancement in +the House - whether it does not, on the contrary, dispose of me for +ever, and put me out of the way. Now, we must say nothing of this to +my Uncle, Captain Cuttle, but must make it out to be as favourable and +promising as we can; and when I tell you what it really is, I only do +so, that in case any means should ever arise of lending me a hand, so +far off, I may have one friend at home who knows my real situation. + +'Wal'r, my boy,' replied the Captain, 'in the Proverbs of Solomon +you will find the following words, "May we never want a friend in +need, nor a bottle to give him!" When found, make a note of.' + +Here the Captain stretched out his hand to Walter, with an air of +downright good faith that spoke volumes; at the same time repeating +(for he felt proud of the accuracy and pointed application of his +quotation), 'When found, make a note of.' + +'Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, taking the immense fist extended to +him by the Captain in both his hands, which it completely filled, next +to my Uncle Sol, I love you. There is no one on earth in whom I can +more safely trust, I am sure. As to the mere going away, Captain +Cuttle, I don't care for that; why should I care for that! If I were +free to seek my own fortune - if I were free to go as a common sailor +- if I were free to venture on my own account to the farthest end of +the world - I would gladly go! I would have gladly gone, years ago, +and taken my chance of what might come of it. But it was against my +Uncle's wishes, and against the plans he had formed for me; and there +was an end of that. But what I feel, Captain Cuttle, is that we have +been a little mistaken all along, and that, so far as any improvement +in my prospects is concerned, I am no better off now than I was when I +first entered Dombey's House - perhaps a little worse, for the House +may have been kindly inclined towards me then, and it certainly is not +now.' + +'Turn again, Whittington,' muttered the disconsolate Captain, after +looking at Walter for some time. + +'Ay,' replied Walter, laughing, 'and turn a great many times, too, +Captain Cuttle, I'm afraid, before such fortune as his ever turns up +again. Not that I complain,' he added, in his lively, animated, +energetic way. 'I have nothing to complain of. I am provided for. I +can live. When I leave my Uncle, I leave him to you; and I can leave +him to no one better, Captain Cuttle. I haven't told you all this +because I despair, not I; it's to convince you that I can't pick and +choose in Dombey's House, and that where I am sent, there I must go, +and what I am offered, that I must take. It's better for my Uncle that +I should be sent away; for Mr Dombey is a valuable friend to him, as +he proved himself, you know when, Captain Cuttle; and I am persuaded +he won't be less valuable when he hasn't me there, every day, to +awaken his dislike. So hurrah for the West Indies, Captain Cuttle! How +does that tune go that the sailors sing? + + 'For the Port of Barbados, Boys! + + Cheerily! + + Leaving old England behind us, Boys! + + Cheerily!' +Here the Captain roared in chorus - + + 'Oh cheerily, cheerily! + + Oh cheer-i-ly!' + +The last line reaching the quick ears of an ardent skipper not +quite sober, who lodged opposite, and who instantly sprung out of bed, +threw up his window, and joined in, across the street, at the top of +his voice, produced a fine effect. When it was impossible to sustain +the concluding note any longer, the skipper bellowed forth a terrific +'ahoy!' intended in part as a friendly greeting, and in part to show +that he was not at all breathed. That done, he shut down his window, +and went to bed again. + +'And now, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, handing him the blue coat +and waistcoat, and bustling very much, 'if you'll come and break the +news to Uncle Sol (which he ought to have known, days upon days ago, +by rights), I'll leave you at the door, you know, and walk about until +the afternoon.' + +The Captain, however, scarcely appeared to relish the commission, +or to be by any means confident of his powers of executing it. He had +arranged the future life and adventures of Walter so very differently, +and so entirely to his own satisfaction; he had felicitated himself so +often on the sagacity and foresight displayed in that arrangement, and +had found it so complete and perfect in all its parts; that to suffer +it to go to pieces all at once, and even to assist in breaking it up, +required a great effort of his resolution. The Captain, too, found it +difficult to unload his old ideas upon the subject, and to take a +perfectly new cargo on board, with that rapidity which the +circumstances required, or without jumbling and confounding the two. +Consequently, instead of putting on his coat and waistcoat with +anything like the impetuosity that could alone have kept pace with +Walter's mood, he declined to invest himself with those garments at +all at present; and informed Walter that on such a serious matter, he +must be allowed to 'bite his nails a bit' + +'It's an old habit of mine, Wal'r,' said the Captain, 'any time +these fifty year. When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal'r, then +you may know that Ned Cuttle's aground.' + +Thereupon the Captain put his iron hook between his teeth, as if it +were a hand; and with an air of wisdom and profundity that was the +very concentration and sublimation of all philosophical reflection and +grave inquiry, applied himself to the consideration of the subject in +its various branches. + +'There's a friend of mine,' murmured the Captain, in an absent +manner, 'but he's at present coasting round to Whitby, that would +deliver such an opinion on this subject, or any other that could be +named, as would give Parliament six and beat 'em. Been knocked +overboard, that man,' said the Captain, 'twice, and none the worse for +it. Was beat in his apprenticeship, for three weeks (off and on), +about the head with a ring-bolt. And yet a clearer-minded man don't +walk.' + +Despite of his respect for Captain Cuttle, Walter could not help +inwardly rejoicing at the absence of this sage, and devoutly hoping +that his limpid intellect might not be brought to bear on his +difficulties until they were quite settled. + +'If you was to take and show that man the buoy at the Nore,' said +Captain Cuttle in the same tone, 'and ask him his opinion of it, +Wal'r, he'd give you an opinion that was no more like that buoy than +your Uncle's buttons are. There ain't a man that walks - certainly not +on two legs - that can come near him. Not near him!' + +'What's his name, Captain Cuttle?' inquired Walter, determined to +be interested in the Captain's friend. + +'His name's Bunsby, said the Captain. 'But Lord, it might be +anything for the matter of that, with such a mind as his!' + +The exact idea which the Captain attached to this concluding piece +of praise, he did not further elucidate; neither did Walter seek to +draw it forth. For on his beginning to review, with the vivacity +natural to himself and to his situation, the leading points in his own +affairs, he soon discovered that the Captain had relapsed into his +former profound state of mind; and that while he eyed him steadfastly +from beneath his bushy eyebrows, he evidently neither saw nor heard +him, but remained immersed in cogitation. + +In fact, Captain Cuttle was labouring with such great designs, that +far from being aground, he soon got off into the deepest of water, and +could find no bottom to his penetration. By degrees it became +perfectly plain to the Captain that there was some mistake here; that +it was undoubtedly much more likely to be Walter's mistake than his; +that if there were really any West India scheme afoot, it was a very +different one from what Walter, who was young and rash, supposed; and +could only be some new device for making his fortune with unusual +celerity. 'Or if there should be any little hitch between 'em,' +thought the Captain, meaning between Walter and Mr Dombey, 'it only +wants a word in season from a friend of both parties, to set it right +and smooth, and make all taut again.' Captain Cuttle's deduction from +these considerations was, that as he already enjoyed the pleasure of +knowing Mr Dombey, from having spent a very agreeable half-hour in his +company at Brighton (on the morning when they borrowed the money); and +that, as a couple of men of the world, who understood each other, and +were mutually disposed to make things comfortable, could easily +arrange any little difficulty of this sort, and come at the real +facts; the friendly thing for him to do would be, without saying +anything about it to Walter at present, just to step up to Mr Dombey's +house - say to the servant 'Would ye be so good, my lad, as report +Cap'en Cuttle here?' - meet Mr Dombey in a confidential spirit- hook +him by the button-hole - talk it over - make it all right - and come +away triumphant! + +As these reflections presented themselves to the Captain's mind, +and by slow degrees assumed this shape and form, his visage cleared +like a doubtful morning when it gives place to a bright noon. His +eyebrows, which had been in the highest degree portentous, smoothed +their rugged bristling aspect, and became serene; his eyes, which had +been nearly closed in the severity of his mental exercise, opened +freely; a smile which had been at first but three specks - one at the +right-hand corner of his mouth, and one at the corner of each eye - +gradually overspread his whole face, and, rippling up into his +forehead, lifted the glazed hat: as if that too had been aground with +Captain Cuttle, and were now, like him, happily afloat again. + +Finally, the Captain left off biting his nails, and said, 'Now, +Wal'r, my boy, you may help me on with them slops.' By which the +Captain meant his coat and waistcoat. + +Walter little imagined why the Captain was so particular in the +arrangement of his cravat, as to twist the pendent ends into a sort of +pigtail, and pass them through a massive gold ring with a picture of a +tomb upon it, and a neat iron railing, and a tree, in memory of some +deceased friend. Nor why the Captain pulled up his shirt-collar to the +utmost limits allowed by the Irish linen below, and by so doing +decorated himself with a complete pair of blinkers; nor why he changed +his shoes, and put on an unparalleled pair of ankle-jacks, which he +only wore on extraordinary occasions. The Captain being at length +attired to his own complete satisfaction, and having glanced at +himself from head to foot in a shaving-glass which he removed from a +nail for that purpose, took up his knotted stick, and said he was +ready. + +The Captain's walk was more complacent than usual when they got out +into the street; but this Walter supposed to be the effect of the +ankle-jacks, and took little heed of. Before they had gone very far, +they encountered a woman selling flowers; when the Captain stopping +short, as if struck by a happy idea, made a purchase of the largest +bundle in her basket: a most glorious nosegay, fan-shaped, some two +feet and a half round, and composed of all the jolliest-looking +flowers that blow. + +Armed with this little token which he designed for Mr Dombey, +Captain Cuttle walked on with Walter until they reached the +Instrument-maker's door, before which they both paused. + +'You're going in?' said Walter. + +'Yes,' returned the Captain, who felt that Walter must be got rid +of before he proceeded any further, and that he had better time his +projected visit somewhat later in the day. + +'And you won't forget anything?' + +'No,' returned the Captain. + +'I'll go upon my walk at once,' said Walter, 'and then I shall be +out of the way, Captain Cuttle.' + +'Take a good long 'un, my lad!' replied the Captain, calling after +him. Walter waved his hand in assent, and went his way. + +His way was nowhere in particular; but he thought he would go out +into the fields, where he could reflect upon the unknown life before +him, and resting under some tree, ponder quietly. He knew no better +fields than those near Hampstead, and no better means of getting at +them than by passing Mr Dombey's house. + +It was as stately and as dark as ever, when he went by and glanced +up at its frowning front. The blinds were all pulled down, but the +upper windows stood wide open, and the pleasant air stirring those +curtains and waving them to and fro was the only sign of animation in +the whole exterior. Walter walked softly as he passed, and was glad +when he had left the house a door or two behind. + +He looked back then; with the interest he had always felt for the +place since the adventure of the lost child, years ago; and looked +especially at those upper windows. While he was thus engaged, a +chariot drove to the door, and a portly gentleman in black, with a +heavy watch-chain, alighted, and went in. When he afterwards +remembered this gentleman and his equipage together, Walter had no +doubt be was a physician; and then he wondered who was ill; but the +discovery did not occur to him until he had walked some distance, +thinking listlessly of other things. + +Though still, of what the house had suggested to him; for Walter +pleased hImself with thinking that perhaps the time might come, when +the beautiful child who was his old friend and had always been so +grateful to him and so glad to see him since, might interest her +brother in his behalf and influence his fortunes for the better. He +liked to imagine this - more, at that moment, for the pleasure of +imagining her continued remembrance of him, than for any worldly +profit he might gain: but another and more sober fancy whispered to +him that if he were alive then, he would be beyond the sea and +forgotten; she married, rich, proud, happy. There was no more reason +why she should remember him with any interest in such an altered state +of things, than any plaything she ever had. No, not so much. + +Yet Walter so idealised the pretty child whom he had found +wandering in the rough streets, and so identified her with her +innocent gratitude of that night and the simplicity and truth of its +expression, that he blushed for himself as a libeller when he argued +that she could ever grow proud. On the other hand, his meditations +were of that fantastic order that it seemed hardly less libellous in +him to imagine her grown a woman: to think of her as anything but the +same artless, gentle, winning little creature, that she had been in +the days of Good Mrs Brown. In a word, Walter found out that to reason +with himself about Florence at all, was to become very unreasonable +indeed; and that he could do no better than preserve her image in his +mind as something precious, unattainable, unchangeable, and indefinite +- indefinite in all but its power of giving him pleasure, and +restraining him like an angel's hand from anything unworthy. + +It was a long stroll in the fields that Walter took that day, +listening to the birds, and the Sunday bells, and the softened murmur +of the town - breathing sweet scents; glancing sometimes at the dim +horizon beyond which his voyage and his place of destination lay; then +looking round on the green English grass and the home landscape. But +he hardly once thought, even of going away, distinctly; and seemed to +put off reflection idly, from hour to hour, and from minute to minute, +while he yet went on reflecting all the time. + +Walter had left the fields behind him, and was plodding homeward in +the same abstracted mood, when he heard a shout from a man, and then a +woman's voice calling to him loudly by name. Turning quickly in his +surprise, he saw that a hackney-coach, going in the contrary +direction, had stopped at no great distance; that the coachman was +looking back from his box and making signals to him with his whip; and +that a young woman inside was leaning out of the window, and beckoning +with immense energy. Running up to this coach, he found that the young +woman was Miss Nipper, and that Miss Nipper was in such a flutter as +to be almost beside herself. + +'Staggs's Gardens, Mr Walter!' said Miss Nipper; 'if you please, oh +do!' + +'Eh?' cried Walter; 'what is the matter?' + +'Oh, Mr Walter, Staggs's Gardens, if you please!' said Susan. + +'There!' cried the coachman, appealing to Walter, with a sort of +exalting despair; 'that's the way the young lady's been a goin' on for +up'ards of a mortal hour, and me continivally backing out of no +thoroughfares, where she would drive up. I've had a many fares in this +coach, first and last, but never such a fare as her.' + +'Do you want to go to Staggs's Gardens, Susan?' inquired Walter. + +'Ah! She wants to go there! WHERE IS IT?' growled the coachman. + +'I don't know where it is!' exclaimed Susan, wildly. 'Mr Walter, I +was there once myself, along with Miss Floy and our poor darling +Master Paul, on the very day when you found Miss Floy in the City, for +we lost her coming home, Mrs Richards and me, and a mad bull, and Mrs +Richards's eldest, and though I went there afterwards, I can't +remember where it is, I think it's sunk into the ground. Oh, Mr +Walter, don't desert me, Staggs's Gardens, if you please! Miss Floy's +darling - all our darlings - little, meek, meek Master Paul! Oh Mr +Walter!' + +'Good God!' cried Walter. 'Is he very ill?' + +'The pretty flower!' cried Susan, wringing her hands, 'has took the +fancy that he'd like to see his old nurse, and I've come to bring her +to his bedside, Mrs Staggs, of Polly Toodle's Gardens, someone pray!' + +Greatly moved by what he heard, and catching Susan's earnestness +immediately, Walter, now that he understood the nature of her errand, +dashed into it with such ardour that the coachman had enough to do to +follow closely as he ran before, inquiring here and there and +everywhere, the way to Staggs's Gardens. + +There was no such place as Staggs's Gardens. It had vanished from +the earth. Where the old rotten summer-houses once had stood, palaces +now reared their heads, and granite columns of gigantic girth opened a +vista to the railway world beyond. The miserable waste ground, where +the refuse-matter had been heaped of yore, was swallowed up and gone; +and in its frowsy stead were tiers of warehouses, crammed with rich +goods and costly merchandise. The old by-streets now swarmed with +passengers and vehicles of every kind: the new streets that had +stopped disheartened in the mud and waggon-ruts, formed towns within +themselves, originating wholesome comforts and conveniences belonging +to themselves, and never tried nor thought of until they sprung into +existence. Bridges that had led to nothing, led to villas, gardens, +churches, healthy public walks. The carcasses of houses, and +beginnings of new thoroughfares, had started off upon the line at +steam's own speed, and shot away into the country in a monster train.' + +As to the neighbourhood which had hesitated to acknowledge the +railroad in its straggling days, that had grown wise and penitent, as +any Christian might in such a case, and now boasted of its powerful +and prosperous relation. There were railway patterns in its drapers' +shops, and railway journals in the windows of its newsmen. There were +railway hotels, office-houses, lodging-houses, boarding-houses; +railway plans, maps, views, wrappers, bottles, sandwich-boxes, and +time-tables; railway hackney-coach and stands; railway omnibuses, +railway streets and buildings, railway hangers-on and parasites, and +flatterers out of all calculation. There was even railway time +observed in clocks, as if the sun itself had given in. Among the +vanquished was the master chimney-sweeper, whilom incredulous at +Staggs's Gardens, who now lived in a stuccoed house three stories +high, and gave himself out, with golden flourishes upon a varnished +board, as contractor for the cleansing of railway chimneys by +machinery. + +To and from the heart of this great change, all day and night, +throbbing currents rushed and returned incessantly like its life's +blood. Crowds of people and mountains of goods, departing and arriving +scores upon scores of times in every four-and-twenty hours, produced a +fermentation in the place that was always in action. The very houses +seemed disposed to pack up and take trips. Wonderful Members of +Parliament, who, little more than twenty years before, had made +themselves merry with the wild railroad theories of engineers, and +given them the liveliest rubs in cross-examination, went down into the +north with their watches in their hands, and sent on messages before +by the electric telegraph, to say that they were coming. Night and day +the conquering engines rumbled at their distant work, or, advancing +smoothly to their journey's end, and gliding like tame dragons into +the allotted corners grooved out to the inch for their reception, +stood bubbling and trembling there, making the walls quake, as if they +were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers yet +unsuspected in them, and strong purposes not yet achieved. + +But Staggs's Gardens had been cut up root and branch. Oh woe the +day when 'not a rood of English ground' - laid out in Staggs's Gardens +- is secure! + +At last, after much fruitless inquiry, Walter, followed by the +coach and Susan, found a man who had once resided in that vanished +land, and who was no other than the master sweep before referred to, +grown stout, and knocking a double knock at his own door. He knowed +Toodle, he said, well. Belonged to the Railroad, didn't he? + +'Yes' sir, yes!' cried Susan Nipper from the coach window. + +Where did he live now? hastily inquired Walter. + +He lived in the Company's own Buildings, second turning to the +right, down the yard, cross over, and take the second on the right +again. It was number eleven; they couldn't mistake it; but if they +did, they had only to ask for Toodle, Engine Fireman, and any one +would show them which was his house. At this unexpected stroke of +success Susan Nipper dismounted from the coach with all speed, took +Walter's arm, and set off at a breathless pace on foot; leaving the +coach there to await their return. + +'Has the little boy been long ill, Susan?' inquired Walter, as they +hurried on. + +'Ailing for a deal of time, but no one knew how much,' said Susan; +adding, with excessive sharpness, 'Oh, them Blimbers!' + +'Blimbers?' echoed Walter. + +'I couldn't forgive myself at such a time as this, Mr Walter,' said +Susan, 'and when there's so much serious distress to think about, if I +rested hard on anyone, especially on them that little darling Paul +speaks well of, but I may wish that the family was set to work in a +stony soil to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front, and +had the pickaxe!' + +Miss Nipper then took breath, and went on faster than before, as if +this extraordinary aspiration had relieved her. Walter, who had by +this time no breath of his own to spare, hurried along without asking +any more questions; and they soon, in their impatience, burst in at a +little door and came into a clean parlour full of children. + +'Where's Mrs Richards?' exclaimed Susan Nipper, looking round. 'Oh +Mrs Richards, Mrs Richards, come along with me, my dear creetur!' + +'Why, if it ain't Susan!' cried Polly, rising with her honest face +and motherly figure from among the group, in great surprIse. + +'Yes, Mrs Richards, it's me,' said Susan, 'and I wish it wasn't, +though I may not seem to flatter when I say so, but little Master Paul +is very ill, and told his Pa today that he would like to see the face +of his old nurse, and him and Miss Floy hope you'll come along with me +- and Mr Walter, Mrs Richards - forgetting what is past, and do a +kindness to the sweet dear that is withering away. Oh, Mrs Richards, +withering away!' Susan Nipper crying, Polly shed tears to see her, and +to hear what she had said; and all the children gathered round +(including numbers of new babies); and Mr Toodle, who had just come +home from Birmingham, and was eating his dinner out of a basin, laid +down his knife and fork, and put on his wife's bonnet and shawl for +her, which were hanging up behind the door; then tapped her on the +back; and said, with more fatherly feeling than eloquence, 'Polly! cut +away!' + +So they got back to the coach, long before the coachman expected +them; and Walter, putting Susan and Mrs Richards inside, took his seat +on the box himself that there might be no more mistakes, and deposited +them safely in the hall of Mr Dombey's house - where, by the bye, he +saw a mighty nosegay lying, which reminded him of the one Captain +Cuttle had purchased in his company that morning. He would have +lingered to know more of the young invalid, or waited any length of +time to see if he could render the least service; but, painfully +sensible that such conduct would be looked upon by Mr Dombey as +presumptuous and forward, he turned slowly, sadly, anxiously, away. + +He had not gone five minutes' walk from the door, when a man came +running after him, and begged him to return. Walter retraced his steps +as quickly as he could, and entered the gloomy house with a sorrowful +foreboding. + + + +CHAPTER 16. + +What the Waves were always saying + + + +Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening +to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the +time went, but watching it and watching everything about him with +observing eyes. + +When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, +and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that +evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the +reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he +watched it deepen, deepen, deepen, into night. Then he thought how the +long streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were +shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the +river, which he knew was flowing through the great city; and now he +thought how black it was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the +hosts of stars - and more than all, how steadily it rolled away to +meet the sea. + +As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street became +so rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they passed, and +lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the +many-coloured ring about the candle, and wait patiently for day. His +only trouble was, the swift and rapid river. He felt forced, +sometimes, to try to stop it - to stem it with his childish hands - or +choke its way with sand - and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he +cried out! But a word from Florence, who was always at his side, +restored him to himself; and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he +told Floy of his dream, and smiled. + +When day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun; and when its +cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured to himself - +pictured! he saw - the high church towers rising up into the morning +sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into life once more, the +river glistening as it rolled (but rolling fast as ever), and the +country bright with dew. Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees +into the street below; the servants in the house were roused and busy; +faces looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendants softly +how he was. Paul always answered for himself, 'I am better. I am a +great deal better, thank you! Tell Papa so!' + +By little and little, he got tired of the bustle of the day, the +noise of carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing; and +would fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense +again - the child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping +or his waking moments - of that rushing river. 'Why, will it never +stop, Floy?' he would sometimes ask her. 'It is bearing me away, I +think!' + +But Floy could always soothe and reassure him; and it was his daily +delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some +rest. + +'You are always watching me, Floy, let me watch you, now!' They +would prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he +would recline the while she lay beside him: bending forward oftentimes +to kiss her, and whispering to those who were near that she was tired, +and how she had sat up so many nights beside him. + +Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradually +decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall. + +He was visited by as many as three grave doctors - they used to +assemble downstairs, and come up together - and the room was so quiet, +and Paul was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody +what they said), that he even knew the difference in the sound of +their watches. But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps, who always +took his seat on the side of the bed. For Paul had heard them say long +ago, that that gentleman had been with his Mama when she clasped +Florence in her arms, and died. And he could not forget it, now. He +liked him for it. He was not afraid. + +The people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first +night at Doctor Blimber's - except Florence; Florence never changed - +and what had been Sir Parker Peps, was now his father, sitting with +his head upon his hand. Old Mrs Pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often +changed to Miss Tox, or his aunt; and Paul was quite content to shut +his eyes again, and see what happened next, without emotion. But this +figure with its head upon its hand returned so often, and remained so +long, and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being spoken +to, and rarely lifting up its face, that Paul began to wonder +languidly, if it were real; and in the night-time saw it sitting +there, with fear. + +'Floy!' he said. 'What is that?' + +'Where, dearest?' + +'There! at the bottom of the bed.' + +'There's nothing there, except Papa!' + +The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside, +said: + +'My own boy! Don't you know me?' + +Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this his father? But +the face so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it +were in pain; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it +between them, and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly +from the little bed, and went out at the door. + +Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew what +she was going to say, and stopped her with his face against her lips. +The next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, +he called to it. + +'Don't be sorry for me, dear Papa! Indeed I am quite happy!' + +His father coming and bending down to him - which he did quickly, +and without first pausing by the bedside - Paul held him round the +neck, and repeated those words to him several times, and very +earnestly; and Paul never saw him in his room again at any time, +whether it were day or night, but he called out, 'Don't be sorry for +me! Indeed I am quite happy!' This was the beginning of his always +saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they +were to tell his father so. + +How many times the golden water danced upon the wall; how many +nights the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him; +Paul never counted, never sought to know. If their kindness, or his +sense of it, could have increased, they were more kind, and he more +grateful every day; but whether they were many days or few, appeared +of little moment now, to the gentle boy. + +One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in +the drawing-room downstairs, and thought she must have loved sweet +Florence better than his father did, to have held her in her arms when +she felt that she was dying - for even he, her brother, who had such +dear love for her, could have no greater wish than that. The train of +thought suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother? +for he could not remember whether they had told him, yes or no, the +river running very fast, and confusing his mind. + +'Floy, did I ever see Mama?' + +'No, darling, why?' + +'Did I ever see any kind face, like Mama's, looking at me when I +was a baby, Floy?' + +He asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before +him. + +'Oh yes, dear!' + +'Whose, Floy?' + +'Your old nurse's. Often.' + +'And where is my old nurse?' said Paul. 'Is she dead too? Floy, are +we all dead, except you?' + +There was a hurry in the room, for an instant - longer, perhaps; +but it seemed no more - then all was still again; and Florence, with +her face quite colourless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm. +Her arm trembled very much. + +'Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!' + +'She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow.' + +'Thank you, Floy!' + +Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. When he +awoke, the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and He lay a +little, looking at the windows, which were open, and the curtains +rustling in the air, and waving to and fro: then he said, 'Floy, is it +tomorrow? Is she come?' + +Someone seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was Susan. Paul +thought he heard her telling him when he had closed his eyes again, +that she would soon be back; but he did not open them to see. She kept +her word - perhaps she had never been away - but the next thing that +happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul woke - +woke mind and body - and sat upright in his bed. He saw them now about +him. There was no grey mist before them, as there had been sometimes +in the night. He knew them every one, and called them by their names. + +'And who is this? Is this my old nurse?' said the child, regarding +with a radiant smile, a figure coming in. + +Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of +him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor +blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and +taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one +who had some right to fondle it. No other woman would have so +forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, and been so full of +tenderness and pity. + +'Floy! this is a kind good face!' said Paul. 'I am glad to see it +again. Don't go away, old nurse! Stay here.' + +His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew. + +'Who was that, who said "Walter"?' he asked, looking round. +'Someone said Walter. Is he here? I should like to see him very much.' + +Nobody replied directly; but his father soon said to Susan, 'Call +him back, then: let him come up!' Alter a short pause of expectation, +during which he looked with smiling interest and wonder, on his nurse, +and saw that she had not forgotten Floy, Walter was brought into the +room. His open face and manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made +him a favourite with Paul; and when Paul saw him' he stretched Out his +hand, and said 'Good-bye!' + +'Good-bye, my child!' said Mrs Pipchin, hurrying to his bed's head. +'Not good-bye?' + +For an instant, Paul looked at her with the wistful face with which +he had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. 'Yes,' he +said placidly, 'good-bye! Walter dear, good-bye!' - turning his head +to where he stood, and putting out his hand again. 'Where is Papa?' + +He felt his father's breath upon his cheek, before the words had +parted from his lips. + +'Remember Walter, dear Papa,' he whispered, looking in his face. +'Remember Walter. I was fond of Walter!' The feeble hand waved in the +air, as if it cried 'good-bye!' to Walter once again. + +'Now lay me down,' he said, 'and, Floy, come close to me, and let +me see you!' + +Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the +golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together. + +'How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, +'Floy! But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said +so!' + +Presently he told her the motion of the boat upon the stream was +lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the +flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out +at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. +Who stood on the bank! - + +He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his +prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold +them so, behind her neck. + +'Mama is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell them that +the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light +about the head is shining on me as I go!' + +The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else +stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in +with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has +run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The +old, old fashion - Death! + +Oh thank GOD, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of +Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards +not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean! + +'Dear me, dear me! To think,' said Miss Tox, bursting out afresh +that night, as if her heart were broken, 'that Dombey and Son should +be a Daughter after all!' + + + +CHAPTER 17. + +Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People + + + +Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for +deep-laid and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in +men of transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be +endowed by nature, had gone to Mr Dombey's house on the eventful +Sunday, winking all the way as a vent for his superfluous sagacity, +and had presented himself in the full lustre of the ankle-jacks before +the eyes of Towlinson. Hearing from that individual, to his great +concern, of the impending calamity, Captain Cuttle, in his delicacy, +sheered off again confounded; merely handing in the nosegay as a small +mark of his solicitude, and leaving his respectful compliments for the +family in general, which he accompanied with an expression of his hope +that they would lay their heads well to the wind under existing +circumstances, and a friendly intimation that he would 'look up again' +to-morrow. + +The Captain's compliments were never heard of any more. The +Captain's nosegay, after lying in the hall all night, was swept into +the dust-bin next morning; and the Captain's sly arrangement, involved +in one catastrophe with greater hopes and loftier designs, was crushed +to pieces. So, when an avalanche bears down a mountain-forest, twigs +and bushes suffer with the trees, and all perish together. + +When Walter returned home on the Sunday evening from his long walk, +and its memorable close, he was too much occupied at first by the +tidings he had to give them, and by the emotions naturally awakened in +his breast by the scene through which he had passed, to observe either +that his Uncle was evidently unacquainted with the intelligence the +Captain had undertaken to impart, or that the Captain made signals +with his hook, warning him to avoid the subject. Not that the +Captain's signals were calculated to have proved very comprehensible, +however attentively observed; for, like those Chinese sages who are +said in their conferences to write certain learned words in the air +that are wholly impossible of pronunciation, the Captain made such +waves and flourishes as nobody without a previous knowledge of his +mystery, would have been at all likely to understand. + +Captain Cuttle, however, becoming cognisant of what had happened, +relinquished these attempts, as he perceived the slender chance that +now existed of his being able to obtain a little easy chat with Mr +Dombey before the period of Walter's departure. But in admitting to +himself, with a disappointed and crestfallen countenance, that Sol +Gills must be told, and that Walter must go - taking the case for the +present as he found it, and not having it enlightened or improved +beforehand by the knowing management of a friend - the Captain still +felt an unabated confidence that he, Ned Cuttle, was the man for Mr +Dombey; and that, to set Walter's fortunes quite square, nothing was +wanted but that they two should come together. For the Captain never +could forget how well he and Mr Dombey had got on at Brighton; with +what nicety each of them had put in a word when it was wanted; how +exactly they had taken one another's measure; nor how Ned Cuttle had +pointed out that resources in the first extremity, and had brought the +interview to the desired termination. On all these grounds the Captain +soothed himself with thinking that though Ned Cuttle was forced by the +pressure of events to 'stand by' almost useless for the present, Ned +would fetch up with a wet sail in good time, and carry all before him. + +Under the influence of this good-natured delusion, Captain Cuttle +even went so far as to revolve in his own bosom, while he sat looking +at Walter and listening with a tear on his shirt-collar to what he +related, whether it might not be at once genteel and politic to give +Mr Dombey a verbal invitation, whenever they should meet, to come and +cut his mutton in Brig Place on some day of his own naming, and enter +on the question of his young friend's prospects over a social glass. +But the uncertain temper of Mrs MacStinger, and the possibility of her +setting up her rest in the passage during such an entertainment, and +there delivering some homily of an uncomplimentary nature, operated as +a check on the Captain's hospitable thoughts, and rendered him timid +of giving them encouragement. + +One fact was quite clear to the Captain, as Walter, sitting +thoughtfully over his untasted dinner, dwelt on all that had happened; +namely, that however Walter's modesty might stand in the way of his +perceiving it himself, he was, as one might say, a member of Mr +Dombey's family. He had been, in his own person, connected with the +incident he so pathetically described; he had been by name remembered +and commended in close association with it; and his fortunes must have +a particular interest in his employer's eyes. If the Captain had any +lurking doubt whatever of his own conclusions, he had not the least +doubt that they were good conclusions for the peace of mind of the +Instrument-maker. Therefore he availed himself of so favourable a +moment for breaking the West Indian intelligence to his friend, as a +piece of extraordinary preferment; declaring that for his part he +would freely give a hundred thousand pounds (if he had it) for +Walter's gain in the long-run, and that he had no doubt such an +investment would yield a handsome premium. + +Solomon Gills was at first stunned by the communication, which fell +upon the little back-parlour like a thunderbolt, and tore up the +hearth savagely. But the Captain flashed such golden prospects before +his dim sight: hinted so mysteriously at 'Whittingtonian consequences; +laid such emphasis on what Walter had just now told them: and appealed +to it so confidently as a corroboration of his predictions, and a +great advance towards the realisation of the romantic legend of Lovely +Peg: that he bewildered the old man. Walter, for his part, feigned to +be so full of hope and ardour, and so sure of coming home again soon, +and backed up the Captain with such expressive shakings of his head +and rubbings of his hands, that Solomon, looking first at him then at +Captain Cuttle, began to think he ought to be transported with joy. + +'But I'm behind the time, you understand,' he observed in apology, +passing his hand nervously down the whole row of bright buttons on his +coat, and then up again, as if they were beads and he were telling +them twice over: 'and I would rather have my dear boy here. It's an +old-fashioned notion, I daresay. He was always fond of the sea He's' - +and he looked wistfully at Walter - 'he's glad to go.' + +'Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, quickly, 'if you say that, I won't go. +No, Captain Cuttle, I won't. If my Uncle thinks I could be glad to +leave him, though I was going to be made Governor of all the Islands +in the West Indies, that's enough. I'm a fixture.' + +'Wal'r, my lad,' said the Captain. 'Steady! Sol Gills, take an +observation of your nevy. + +Following with his eyes the majestic action of the Captain's hook, +the old man looked at Walter. + +'Here is a certain craft,' said the Captain, with a magnificent +sense of the allegory into which he was soaring, 'a-going to put out +on a certain voyage. What name is wrote upon that craft indelibly? Is +it The Gay? or,' said the Captain, raising his voice as much as to +say, observe the point of this, 'is it The Gills?' + +'Ned,' said the old man, drawing Walter to his side, and taking his +arm tenderly through his, 'I know. I know. Of course I know that Wally +considers me more than himself always. That's in my mind. When I say +he is glad to go, I mean I hope he is. Eh? look you, Ned and you too, +Wally, my dear, this is new and unexpected to me; and I'm afraid my +being behind the time, and poor, is at the bottom of it. Is it really +good fortune for him, do you tell me, now?' said the old man, looking +anxiously from one to the other. 'Really and truly? Is it? I can +reconcile myself to almost anything that advances Wally, but I won't +have Wally putting himself at any disadvantage for me, or keeping +anything from me. You, Ned Cuttle!' said the old man, fastening on the +Captain, to the manifest confusion of that diplomatist; 'are you +dealing plainly by your old friend? Speak out, Ned Cuttle. Is there +anything behind? Ought he to go? How do you know it first, and why?' + +As it was a contest of affection and self-denial, Walter struck in +with infinite effect, to the Captain's relief; and between them they +tolerably reconciled old Sol Gills, by continued talking, to the +project; or rather so confused him, that nothing, not even the pain of +separation, was distinctly clear to his mind. + +He had not much time to balance the matter; for on the very next +day, Walter received from Mr Carker the Manager, the necessary +credentials for his passage and outfit, together with the information +that the Son and Heir would sail in a fortnight, or within a day or +two afterwards at latest. In the hurry of preparation: which Walter +purposely enhanced as much as possible: the old man lost what little +selfpossession he ever had; and so the time of departure drew on +rapidly. + +The Captain, who did not fail to make himself acquainted with all +that passed, through inquiries of Walter from day to day, found the +time still tending on towards his going away, without any occasion +offering itself, or seeming likely to offer itself, for a better +understanding of his position. It was after much consideration of this +fact, and much pondering over such an unfortunate combination of +circumstances, that a bright idea occurred to the Captain. Suppose he +made a call on Mr Carker, and tried to find out from him how the land +really lay! + +Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a +moment of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place +after breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his +conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by +what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it +would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr Carker +carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman's +character, and discovered that they got on well together or the +reverse. + +Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he +knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his +ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second +expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present +occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small +sunflower in his button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of +the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat, +bore down upon the offices of Dombey and Son. + +After taking a glass of warm rum-and-water at a tavern close by, to +collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest its +good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr Perch. + +'Matey,' said the Captain, in persuasive accents. 'One of your +Governors is named Carker.' Mr Perch admitted it; but gave him to +understand, as in official duty bound, that all his Governors were +engaged, and never expected to be disengaged any more. + +'Look'ee here, mate,' said the Captain in his ear; 'my name's +Cap'en Cuttle.' + +The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to him, but Mr Perch +eluded the attempt; not so much in design, as in starting at the +sudden thought that such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs Perch +might, in her then condition, be destructive to that lady's hopes. + +'If you'll be so good as just report Cap'en Cuttle here, when you +get a chance,' said the Captain, 'I'll wait.' + +Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr Perch's bracket, and +drawing out his handkerchief from the crown of the glazed hat which he +jammed between his knees (without injury to its shape, for nothing +human could bend it), rubbed his head well all over, and appeared +refreshed. He subsequently arranged his hair with his hook, and sat +looking round the office, contemplating the clerks with a serene +respect. + +The Captain's equanimity was so impenetrable, and he was altogether +so mysterious a being, that Perch the messenger was daunted. + +'What name was it you said?' asked Mr Perch, bending down over him +as he sat on the bracket. + +'Cap'en,' in a deep hoarse whisper. + +'Yes,' said Mr Perch, keeping time with his head. + +'Cuttle.' + +'Oh!' said Mr Perch, in the same tone, for he caught it, and +couldn't help it; the Captain, in his diplomacy, was so impressive. +'I'll see if he's disengaged now. I don't know. Perhaps he may be for +a minute.' + +'Ay, ay, my lad, I won't detain him longer than a minute,' said the +Captain, nodding with all the weighty importance that he felt within +him. Perch, soon returning, said, 'Will Captain Cuttle walk this way?' + +Mr Carker the Manager, standing on the hearth-rug before the empty +fireplace, which was ornamented with a castellated sheet of brown +paper, looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very special +encouragement. + +'Mr Carker?' said Captain Cuttle. + +'I believe so,' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth. + +The Captain liked his answering with a smile; it looked pleasant. +'You see,' began the Captain, rolling his eyes slowly round the little +room, and taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar permitted; 'I'm +a seafaring man myself, Mr Carker, and Wal'r, as is on your books +here, is almost a son of mine.' + +'Walter Gay?' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth again. + +'Wal'r Gay it is,' replied the Captain, 'right!' The Captain's +manner expressed a warm approval of Mr Carker's quickness of +perception. 'I'm a intimate friend of his and his Uncle's. Perhaps,' +said the Captain, 'you may have heard your head Governor mention my +name? - Captain Cuttle.' + +'No!' said Mr Carker, with a still wider demonstration than before. + +'Well,' resumed the Captain, 'I've the pleasure of his +acquaintance. I waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with +my young friend Wal'r, when - in short, when there was a little +accommodation wanted.' The Captain nodded his head in a manner that +was at once comfortable, easy, and expressive. 'You remember, I +daresay?' + +'I think,' said Mr Carker, 'I had the honour of arranging the +business.' + +'To be sure!' returned the Captain. 'Right again! you had. Now I've +took the liberty of coming here - + +'Won't you sit down?' said Mr Carker, smiling. + +'Thank'ee,' returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer. 'A +man does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when +he sits down. Won't you take a cheer yourself?' + +'No thank you,' said the Manager, standing, perhaps from the force +of winter habit, with his back against the chimney-piece, and looking +down upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum. 'You have +taken the liberty, you were going to say - though it's none - ' + +'Thank'ee kindly, my lad,' returned the Captain: 'of coming here, +on account of my friend Wal'r. Sol Gills, his Uncle, is a man of +science, and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he ain't +what I should altogether call a able seaman - not man of practice. +Wal'r is as trim a lad as ever stepped; but he's a little down by the +head in one respect, and that is, modesty. Now what I should wish to +put to you,' said the Captain, lowering his voice, and speaking in a +kind of confidential growl, 'in a friendly way, entirely between you +and me, and for my own private reckoning, 'till your head Governor has +wore round a bit, and I can come alongside of him, is this - Is +everything right and comfortable here, and is Wal'r out'ard bound with +a pretty fair wind?' + +'What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?' returned Carker, gathering +up his skirts and settling himself in his position. 'You are a +practical man; what do you think?' + +The acuteness and the significance of the Captain's eye as he +cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words +before referred to could describe. + +'Come!' said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, 'what do you say? +Am I right or wrong?' + +So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and +incited by Mr Carker's smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as +fair a condition to put the question, as if he had expressed his +sentiments with the utmost elaboration. + +'Right,' said Mr Carker, 'I have no doubt.' + +'Out'ard bound with fair weather, then, I say,' cried Captain +Cuttle. + +Mr Carker smiled assent. + +'Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,' pursued the Captain. + +Mr Carker smiled assent again. + +'Ay, ay!' said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. 'I +know'd how she headed, well enough; I told Wal'r so. Thank'ee, +thank'ee.' + +'Gay has brilliant prospects,' observed Mr Carker, stretching his +mouth wider yet: 'all the world before him.' + +'All the world and his wife too, as the saying is,' returned the +delighted Captain. + +At the word 'wife' (which he had uttered without design), the +Captain stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on +the top of the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at +his always smiling friend. + +'I'd bet a gill of old Jamaica,' said the Captain, eyeing him +attentively, 'that I know what you're a smiling at.' + +Mr Carker took his cue, and smiled the more. + +'It goes no farther?' said the Captain, making a poke at the door +with the knobby stick to assure himself that it was shut. + +'Not an inch,' said Mr Carker. + +'You're thinking of a capital F perhaps?' said the Captain. + +Mr Carker didn't deny it. + +'Anything about a L,' said the Captain, 'or a O?' + +Mr Carker still smiled. + +'Am I right, again?' inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the +scarlet circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy. + +Mr Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nodding assent, Captain +Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him, warmly, that +they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) he had laid +his course that way all along. 'He know'd her first,' said the +Captain, with all the secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded, +'in an uncommon manner - you remember his finding her in the street +when she was a'most a babby - he has liked her ever since, and she +him, as much as two youngsters can. We've always said, Sol Gills and +me, that they was cut out for each other.' + +A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death's-head, could not have +shown the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed him at +this period of their interview. + +'There's a general indraught that way,' observed the happy Captain. +'Wind and water sets in that direction, you see. Look at his being +present t'other day!' + +'Most favourable to his hopes,' said Mr Carker. + +'Look at his being towed along in the wake of that day!' pursued +the Captain. 'Why what can cut him adrift now?' + +'Nothing,' replied Mr Carker. + +'You're right again,' returned the Captain, giving his hand another +squeeze. 'Nothing it is. So! steady! There's a son gone: pretty little +creetur. Ain't there?' + +'Yes, there's a son gone,' said the acquiescent Carker. + +'Pass the word, and there's another ready for you,' quoth the +Captain. 'Nevy of a scientific Uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal'r! Wal'r, +as is already in your business! And' - said the Captain, rising +gradually to a quotation he was preparing for a final burst, 'who - +comes from Sol Gills's daily, to your business, and your buzzums.' The +Captain's complacency as he gently jogged Mr Carker with his elbow, on +concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed +by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him +when he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity; +his great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a +masterpiece, and his nose in a state of violent inflammation from the +same cause. + +'Am I right?' said the Captain. + +'Captain Cuttle,' said Mr Carker, bending down at the knees, for a +moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the +whole of himself at once, 'your views in reference to Walter Gay are +thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together +in confidence. + +'Honour!' interposed the Captain. 'Not a word.' + +'To him or anyone?' pursued the Manager. + +Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head. + +'But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance - and guidance, +of course,' repeated Mr Carker, 'with a view to your future +proceedings.' + +'Thank'ee kindly, I am sure,' said the Captain, listening with +great attention. + +'I have no hesitation in saying, that's the fact. You have hit the +probabilities exactly.' + +'And with regard to your head Governor,' said the Captain, 'why an +interview had better come about nat'ral between us. There's time +enough.' + +Mr Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, 'Time enough.' +Not articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and forming +them with his tongue and lips. + +'And as I know - it's what I always said- that Wal'r's in a way to +make his fortune,' said the Captain. + +'To make his fortune,' Mr Carker repeated, in the same dumb manner. + +'And as Wal'r's going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in +his day's work, and a part of his general expectations here,' said the +Captain. + +'Of his general expectations here,' assented Mr Carker, dumbly as +before. + +'Why, so long as I know that,' pursued the Captain, 'there's no +hurry, and my mind's at ease. + +Mr Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner, +Captain Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one +of the most agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr Dombey +might improve himself on such a model. With great heartiness, +therefore, the Captain once again extended his enormous hand (not +unlike an old block in colour), and gave him a grip that left upon his +smoother flesh a proof impression of the chinks and crevices with +which the Captain's palm was liberally tattooed. + +'Farewell!' said the Captain. 'I ain't a man of many words, but I +take it very kind of you to be so friendly, and above-board. You'll +excuse me if I've been at all intruding, will you?' said the Captain. + +'Not at all,' returned the other. + +'Thank'ee. My berth ain't very roomy,' said the Captain, turning +back again, 'but it's tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself +near Brig Place, number nine, at any time - will you make a note of +it? - and would come upstairs, without minding what was said by the +person at the door, I should be proud to see you. + +With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said 'Good day!' and +walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining +against the chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in +whose false mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless +cravat and very whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft +hand over his white linen and his smooth face; there was something +desperately cat-like. + +The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification +that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. 'Stand by, Ned!' +said the Captain to himself. 'You've done a little business for the +youngsters today, my lad!' + +In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective, +with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could +not refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he +thought everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who +had done his duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt +disposed for a glass of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be +happy to bestow the same upon him. + +Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the +astonishment of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view, +and took a general survey of the officers part and parcel of a project +in which his young friend was nearly interested. The strong-room +excited his especial admiration; but, that he might not appear too +particular, he limited himself to an approving glance, and, with a +graceful recognition of the clerks as a body, that was full of +politeness and patronage, passed out into the court. Being promptly +joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern, and +fulfilled his pledge - hastily, for Perch's time was precious. + +'I'll give you for a toast,' said the Captain, 'Wal'r!' + +'Who?' submitted Mr Perch. + +'Wal'r!' repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder. + +Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there +was once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much +astonished at the Captain's coming into the City to propose a poet; +indeed, if he had proposed to put a poet's statue up - say +Shakespeare's for example - in a civic thoroughfare, he could hardly +have done a greater outrage to Mr Perch's experience. On the whole, he +was such a mysterious and incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch +decided not to mention him to Mrs Perch at all, in case of giving rise +to any disagreeable consequences. + +Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively +sense upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters, +remained all day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that +Walter attributed his winks and grins, and other such pantomimic +reliefs of himself, to his satisfaction in the success of their +innocent deception upon old Sol Gills, he would assuredly have +betrayed himself before night. As it was, however, he kept his own +secret; and went home late from the Instrument-maker's house, wearing +the glazed hat so much on one side, and carrying such a beaming +expression in his eyes, that Mrs MacStinger (who might have been +brought up at Doctor Blimber's, she was such a Roman matron) fortified +herself, at the first glimpse of him, behind the open street door, and +refused to come out to the contemplation of her blessed infants, until +he was securely lodged in his own room. + + + +CHAPTER 18. + +Father and Daughter + + + +There is a hush through Mr Dombey's house. Servants gliding up and +down stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together +constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and +drink, and enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs +Wickam, with her eyes suffused with tears, relates melancholy +anecdotes; and tells them how she always said at Mrs Pipchin's that it +would be so, and takes more table-ale than usual, and is very sorry +but sociable. Cook's state of mind is similar. She promises a little +fry for supper, and struggles about equally against her feelings and +the onions. Towlinson begins to think there's a fate in it, and wants +to know if anybody can tell him ofany good that ever came of living in +a corner house. It seems to all of them as having happened a long time +ago; though yet the child lies, calm and beautiful, upon his little +bed. + +After dark there come some visitors - noiseless visitors, with +shoes of felt - who have been there before; and with them comes that +bed of rest which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this +time, the bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant; for +he sits in an inner corner of his own dark room when anyone is there, +and never seems to move at other times, except to pace it to and fro. +But in the morning it is whispered among the household that he was +heard to go upstairs in the dead night, and that he stayed there - in +the room - until the sun was shining. + +At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more +dim by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half +extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished +by the lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much +business done. The clerks are indisposed to work; and they make +assignations to eat chops in the afternoon, and go up the river. +Perch, the messenger, stays long upon his errands; and finds himself +in bars of public-houses, invited thither by friends, and holding +forth on the uncertainty of human affairs. He goes home to Ball's Pond +earlier in the evening than usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a veal +cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker the Manager treats no one; neither is +he treated; but alone in his own room he shows his teeth all day; and +it would seem that there is something gone from Mr Carker's path - +some obstacle removed - which clears his way before him. + +Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey's house, peep +from their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four +black horses at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers +tremble on the carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men +with scarves and staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to +twirl the basin, puts his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and +his trudging wife, one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters +to see the company come out. But closer to her dingy breast she +presses her baby, when the burden that is so easily carried is borne +forth; and the youngest of the rosy children at the high window +opposite, needs no restraining hand to check her in her glee, when, +pointing with her dimpled finger, she looks into her nurse's face, and +asks 'What's that?' + +And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the +weeping women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage +that is waiting to receive him. He is not 'brought down,' these +observers think, by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect, +his bearing is as stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind +no handkerchief, and looks before him. But that his face is something +sunk and rigid, and is pale, it bears the same expression as of old. +He takes his place within the carriage, and three other gentlemen +follow. Then the grand funeral moves slowly down the street. The +feathers are yet nodding in the distance, when the juggler has the +basin spinning on a cane, and has the same crowd to admire it. But the +juggler's wife is less alert than usual with the money-box, for a +child's burial has set her thinking that perhaps the baby underneath +her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue +fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured worsted drawers, and tumble +in the mud. + +The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come +within the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy +received all that will soon be left of him on earth - a name. All of +him that is dead, they lay there, near the perishable substance of his +mother. It is well. Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks - oh +lonely, lonely walks! - may pass them any day. + +The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks +round, demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been +requested to attend to receive instructions for the tablet, is there? + +Someone comes forward, and says 'Yes.' + +Mr Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him, +with his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to +follow the memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes +out the inscription, and gives it to him: adding, 'I wish to have it +done at once. + +'It shall be done immediately, Sir.' + +'There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see.' + +The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr +Dombey not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads towards the +porch. + +'I beg your pardon, Sir;' a touch falls gently on his mourning +cloak; 'but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand +when I get back - ' + +'Well?' + +'Will you be so good as read it over again? I think there's a +mistake.' + +'Where?' + +The statuary gives him back the paper, and points out, with his +pocket rule, the words, 'beloved and only child.' + +'It should be, "son," I think, Sir?' + +'You are right. Of course. Make the correction.' + +The father, with a hastier step, pursues his way to the coach. When +the other three, who follow closely, take their seats, his face is +hidden for the first time - shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it +any more that day. He alights first, and passes immediately into his +own room. The other mourners (who are only Mr Chick, and two of the +medical attendants) proceed upstairs to the drawing-room, to be +received by Mrs Chick and Miss Tox. And what the face is, in the +shut-up chamber underneath: or what the thoughts are: what the heart +is, what the contest or the suffering: no one knows. + +The chief thing that they know, below stairs, in the kitchen, is +that 'it seems like Sunday.' They can hardly persuade themselves but +that there is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of +the people out of doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and +wear their everyday attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds +up, and the shutters open; and they make themselves dismally +comfortable over bottles of wine, which are freely broached as on a +festival. They are much inclined to moralise. Mr Towlinson proposes +with a sigh, 'Amendment to us all!' for which, as Cook says with +another sigh, 'There's room enough, God knows.' In the evening, Mrs +Chick and Miss Tox take to needlework again. In the evening also, Mr +Towlinson goes out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who +has not yet tried her mourning bonnet. They are very tender to each +other at dusky street-corners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an +altered and blameless existence as a serious greengrocer in Oxford +Market. + +There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr Dombey's house +tonight, than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens +the old household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy +children opposite run past with hoops. There is a splendid wedding in +the church. The juggler's wife is active with the money-box in another +quarter of the town. The mason sings and whistles as he chips out +P-A-U-L in the marble slab before him. + +And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one +weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing +but the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in +her innocent affliction, might have answered, 'Oh my brother, oh my +dearly loved and loving brother! Only friend and companion of my +slighted childhood! Could any less idea shed the light already dawning +on your early grave, or give birth to the softened sorrow that is +springing into life beneath this rain of tears!' + +'My dear child,' said Mrs Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on +her, to improve the occasion, 'when you are as old as I am - ' + +'Which will be the prime of life,' observed Miss Tox. + +'You will then,' pursued Mrs Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox's +hand in acknowledgment of her friendly remark, 'you will then know +that all grief is unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit.' + +'I will try, dear aunt I do try,' answered Florence, sobbing. + +'I am glad to hear it,' said Mrs Chick, 'because; my love, as our +dear Miss Tox - of whose sound sense and excellent judgment, there +cannot possibly be two opinions - ' + +'My dear Louisa, I shall really be proud, soon,' said Miss Tox + +- 'will tell you, and confirm by her experience,' pursued Mrs +Chick, 'we are called upon on all occasions to make an effort It is +required of us. If any - my dear,' turning to Miss Tox, 'I want a +word. Mis- Mis-' + +'Demeanour?' suggested Miss Tox. + +'No, no, no,' said Mrs Chic 'How can you! Goodness me, it's on, the +end of my tongue. Mis-' + +Placed affection?' suggested Miss Tox, timidly. + +'Good gracious, Lucretia!' returned Mrs Chick 'How very monstrous! +Misanthrope, is the word I want. The idea! Misplaced affection! I say, +if any misanthrope were to put, in my presence, the question "Why were +we born?" I should reply, "To make an effort"' + +'Very good indeed,' said Miss Tox, much impressed by the +originality of the sentiment 'Very good.' + +'Unhappily,' pursued Mrs Chick, 'we have a warning under our own +eyes. We have but too much reason to suppose, my dear child, that if +an effort had been made in time, in this family, a train of the most +trying and distressing circumstances might have been avoided. Nothing +shall ever persuade me,' observed the good matron, with a resolute +air, 'but that if that effort had been made by poor dear Fanny, the +poor dear darling child would at least have had a stronger +constitution.' + +Mrs Chick abandoned herself to her feelings for half a moment; but, +as a practical illustration of her doctrine, brought herself up short, +in the middle of a sob, and went on again. + +'Therefore, Florence, pray let us see that you have some strength +of mind, and do not selfishly aggravate the distress in which your +poor Papa is plunged.' + +'Dear aunt!' said Florence, kneeling quickly down before her, that +she might the better and more earnestly look into her face. 'Tell me +more about Papa. Pray tell me about him! Is he quite heartbroken?' + +Miss Tox was of a tender nature, and there was something in this +appeal that moved her very much. Whether she saw it in a succession, +on the part of the neglected child, to the affectionate concern so +often expressed by her dead brother - or a love that sought to twine +itself about the heart that had loved him, and that could not bear to +be shut out from sympathy with such a sorrow, in such sad community of +love and grief - or whether the only recognised the earnest and +devoted spirit which, although discarded and repulsed, was wrung with +tenderness long unreturned, and in the waste and solitude of this +bereavement cried to him to seek a comfort in it, and to give some, by +some small response - whatever may have been her understanding of it, +it moved Miss Tox. For the moment she forgot the majesty of Mrs Chick, +and, patting Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered +the tears to gush from her eyes, without waiting for a lead from that +wise matron. + +Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which +she so much prided herself; and remained mute, looking on the +beautiful young face that had so long, so steadily, and patiently, +been turned towards the little bed. But recovering her voice - which +was synonymous with her presence of mind, indeed they were one and the +same thing - she replied with dignity: + +'Florence, my dear child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and +to question me about him, is to question me upon a subject which I +really do not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much +influence with your Papa as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that +he has said very little to me; and that I have only seen him once or +twice for a minute at a time, and indeed have hardly seen him then, +for his room has been dark. I have said to your Papa, "Paul!" - that +is the exact expression I used - "Paul! why do you not take something +stimulating?" Your Papa's reply has always been, "Louisa, have the +goodness to leave me. I want nothing. I am better by myself." If I was +to be put upon my oath to-morrow, Lucretia, before a magistrate,' said +Mrs Chick, 'I have no doubt I could venture to swear to those +identical words.' + +Miss Tox expressed her admiration by saying, 'My Louisa is ever +methodical!' + +'In short, Florence,' resumed her aunt, 'literally nothing has +passed between your poor Papa and myself, until to-day; when I +mentioned to your Papa that Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles had written +exceedingly kind notes - our sweet boy! Lady Skettles loved him like a +- where's my pocket handkerchief?' + +Miss Tox produced one. + +'Exceedingly kind notes, proposing that you should visit them for +change of scene. Mentioning to your Papa that I thought Miss Tox and +myself might now go home (in which he quite agreed), I inquired if he +had any objection to your accepting this invitation. He said, "No, +Louisa, not the least!"' Florence raised her tearful eye + +'At the same time, if you would prefer staying here, Florence, to +paying this visit at present, or to going home with me - ' + +'I should much prefer it, aunt,' was the faint rejoinder. + +'Why then, child,'said Mrs Chick, 'you can. It's a strange choice, +I must say. But you always were strange. Anybody else at your time of +life, and after what has passed - my dear Miss Tox, I have lost my +pocket handkerchief again - would be glad to leave here, one would +suppose. + +'I should not like to feel,' said Florence, 'as if the house was +avoided. I should not like to think that the - his - the rooms +upstairs were quite empty and dreary, aunt. I would rather stay here, +for the present. Oh my brother! oh my brother!' + +It was a natural emotion, not to be suppressed; and it would make +way even between the fingers of the hands with which she covered up +her face. The overcharged and heavy-laden breast must some times have +that vent, or the poor wounded solitary heart within it would have +fluttered like a bird with broken wings, and sunk down in the dust' + +'Well, child!' said Mrs Chick, after a pause 'I wouldn't on any +account say anything unkind to you, and that I'm sure you know. You +will remain here, then, and do exactly as you like. No one will +interfere with you, Florence, or wish to interfere with you, I'm sure. + +Florence shook her head in sad assent' + +'I had no sooner begun to advise your poor Papa that he really +ought to seek some distraction and restoration in a temporary change,' +said Mrs Chick, 'than he told me he had already formed the intention +of going into the country for a short time. I'm sure I hope he'll go +very soon. He can't go too soon. But I suppose there are some +arrangements connected with his private papers and so forth, +consequent on the affliction that has tried us all so much - I can't +think what's become of mine: Lucretia, lend me yours, my dear - that +may occupy him for one or two evenings in his own room. Your Papa's a +Dombey, child, if ever there was one,' said Mrs Chick, drying both her +eyes at once with great care on opposite corners of Miss Tox's +handkerchief 'He'll make an effort. There's no fear of him.' + +'Is there nothing, aunt,' said Florence, trembling, 'I might do to +- + +'Lord, my dear child,' interposed Mrs Chick, hastily, 'what are you +talking about? If your Papa said to Me - I have given you his exact +words, "Louisa, I want nothing; I am better by myself" - what do you +think he'd say to you? You mustn't show yourself to him, child. Don't +dream of such a thing.' + +'Aunt,' said Florence, 'I will go and lie down on my bed.' + +Mrs Chick approved of this resolution, and dismissed her with a +kiss. But Miss Tox, on a faint pretence of looking for the mislaid +handkerchief, went upstairs after her; and tried in a few stolen +minutes to comfort her, in spite of great discouragement from Susan +Nipper. For Miss Nipper, in her burning zeal, disparaged Miss Tox as a +crocodile; yet her sympathy seemed genuine, and had at least the +vantage-ground of disinterestedness - there was little favour to be +won by it. + +And was there no one nearer and dearer than Susan, to uphold the +striving heart in its anguish? Was there no other neck to clasp; no +other face to turn to? no one else to say a soothing word to such deep +sorrow? Was Florence so alone in the bleak world that nothing else +remained to her? Nothing. Stricken motherless and brotherless at once +- for in the loss of little Paul, that first and greatest loss fell +heavily upon her - this was the only help she had. Oh, who can tell +how much she needed help at first! + +At first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course, and +they had all gone away, except the servants, and her father shut up in +his own rooms, Florence could do nothing but weep, and wander up and +down, and sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to +her own chamber, wring her hands, lay her face down on her bed, and +know no consolation: nothing but the bitterness and cruelty of grief. +This commonly ensued upon the recognition of some spot or object very +tenderly dated with him; and it made the ale house, at first, a place +of agony. + +But it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and +unkindly long. The flame that in its grosser composition has the taint +of earth may prey upon the breast that gives it shelter; but the fire +from heaven is as gentle in the heart, as when it rested on the heads +of the assembled twelve, and showed each man his brother, brightened +and unhurt. The image conjured up, there soon returned the placid +face, the softened voice, the loving looks, the quiet trustfulness and +peace; and Florence, though she wept still, wept more tranquilly, and +courted the remembrance. + +It was not very long before the golden water, dancing on the wall, +in the old place, at the old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon +it as it ebbed away. It was not very long before that room again knew +her, often; sitting there alone, as patient and as mild as when she +had watched beside the little bed. When any sharp sense of its being +empty smote upon her, she could kneel beside it, and pray GOD - it was +the pouring out of her full heart - to let one angel love her and +remember her. + +It was not very long before, in the midst of the dismal house so +wide and dreary, her low voice in the twilight, slowly and stopping +sometimes, touched the old air to which he had so often listened, with +his drooping head upon her arm. And after that, and when it was quite +dark, a little strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played +and sung, that it was more lIke the mournful recollection of what she +had done at his request on that last night, than the reality repeated. +But it was repeated, often - very often, in the shadowy solitude; and +broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys, when the +sweet voice was hushed in tears. + +Thus she gained heart to look upon the work with which her fingers +had been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very +long before she took to it again - with something of a human love for +it, as if it had been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a +window, near her mother's picture, in the unused room so long +deserted, wore away the thoughtful hours. + +Why did the dark eyes turn so often from this work to where the +rosy children lived? They were not immediate!y suggestive of her loss; +for they were all girls: four little sisters. But they were motherless +like her - and had a father. + +It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for +the elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the +drawing-room window, or n the balcony; and when he appeared, her +expectant face lighted up with joy, while the others at the high +window, and always on the watch too, clapped their hands, and drummed +them on the sill, and called to him. The elder child would come down +to the hall, and put her hand in his, and lead him up the stairs; and +Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his side, or on his knee, +or hanging coaxingly about his neck and talking to him: and though +they were always gay together, he would often watch her face as if he +thought her like her mother that was dead. Florence would sometimes +look no more at this, and bursting into tears would hide behind the +curtain as if she were frightened, or would hurry from the window. Yet +she could not help returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded +from her hands again. + +It was the house that had been empty, years ago. It had remained so +for a long time. At last, and while she had been away from home, this +family had taken it; and it was repaired and newly painted; and there +were birds and flowers about it; and it looked very different from its +old self. But she never thought of the house. The children and their +father were all in all. + +When he had dined, she could see them, through the open windows, go +down with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and +in the still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and +clear laughter would come ringing across the street, into the drooping +air of the room in which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber +upstairs with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves +at his knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell +them some story. Or they would come running out into the balcony; and +then Florence would hide herself quickly, lest it should check them in +their joy, to see her in her black dress, sitting there alone. + +The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone +away, and made his tea for him - happy little house-keeper she was +then! - and sat conversing with him, sometimes at the window, +sometimes in the room, until the candles came. He made her his +companion, though she was some years younger than Florence; and she +could be as staid and pleasantly demure, with her little book or +work-box, as a woman. When they had candles, Florence from her own +dark room was not afraid to look again. But when the time came for the +child to say 'Good-night, Papa,' and go to bed, Florence would sob and +tremble as she raised her face to him, and could look no more. + +Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed +herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long +ago, and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that +house. But that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret +which she kept within her own young breast. + +And did that breast of Florence - Florence, so ingenuous and true - +so worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his +last faint words - whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of +her face, and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice - did that +young breast hold any other secret? Yes. One more. + +When no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all +extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless +feet descend the staircase, and approach her father's door. Against +it, scarcely breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press +her lips, in the yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold +stone floor outside it, every night, to listen even for his breath; +and in her one absorbing wish to be allowed to show him some +affection, to be a consolation to him, to win him over to the +endurance of some tenderness from her, his solitary child, she would +have knelt down at his feet, if she had dared, in humble supplication. + +No one knew it' No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and +he shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the +house that he was very soon going on his country journey; but he lived +in those rooms, and lived alone, and never saw her, or inquired for +her. Perhaps he did not even know that she was in the house. + +One day, about a week after the funeral, Florence was sitting at +her work, when Susan appeared, with a face half laughing and half +crying, to announce a visitor. + +'A visitor! To me, Susan!' said Florence, looking up in +astonishment. + +'Well, it is a wonder, ain't it now, Miss Floy?' said Susan; 'but I +wish you had a many visitors, I do, indeed, for you'd be all the +better for it, and it's my opinion that the sooner you and me goes +even to them old Skettleses, Miss, the better for both, I may not wish +to live in crowds, Miss Floy, but still I'm not a oyster.' + +To do Miss Nipper justice, she spoke more for her young mistress +than herself; and her face showed it. + +'But the visitor, Susan,' said Florence. + +Susan, with an hysterical explosion that was as much a laugh as a +sob, and as much a sob as a laugh, answered, + +'Mr Toots!' + +The smile that appeared on Florence's face passed from it in a +moment, and her eyes filled with tears. But at any rate it was a +smile, and that gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper. + +'My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,' said Susan, putting her apron +to her eyes, and shaking her head. 'Immediately I see that Innocent in +the Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.' + +Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like again on the +spot. In the meantime Mr Toots, who had come upstairs after her, all +unconscious of the effect he produced, announced himself with his +knuckles on the door, and walked in very brisKly. + +'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank +you; how are you?' + +Mr Toots - than whom there were few better fellows in the world, +though there may have been one or two brighter spirits - had +laboriously invented this long burst of discourse with the view of +relieving the feelings both of Florence and himself. But finding that +he had run through his property, as it were, in an injudicious manner, +by squandering the whole before taking a chair, or before Florence had +uttered a word, or before he had well got in at the door, he deemed it +advisable to begin again. + +'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank +you; how are you?' + +Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well. + +'I'm very well indeed,' said Mr Toots, taking a chair. 'Very well +indeed, I am. I don't remember,' said Mr Toots, after reflecting a +little, 'that I was ever better, thank you.' + +'It's very kind of you to come,' said Florence, taking up her work, +'I am very glad to see you.' + +Mr Toots responded with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too +lively, he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too +melancholy, he corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing +himself with either mode of reply, he breathed hard. + +'You were very kind to my dear brother,' said Florence, obeying her +own natural impulse to relieve him by saying so. 'He often talked to +me about you.' + +'Oh it's of no consequence,' said Mr Toots hastily. 'Warm, ain't +it?' + +'It is beautiful weather,' replied Florence. + +'It agrees with me!' said Mr Toots. 'I don't think I ever was so +well as I find myself at present, I'm obliged to you. + +After stating this curious and unexpected fact, Mr Toots fell into +a deep well of silence. + +'You have left Dr Blimber's, I think?' said Florence, trying to +help him out. + +'I should hope so,' returned Mr Toots. And tumbled in again. + +He remained at the bottom, apparently drowned, for at least ten +minutes. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and +said, + +'Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.' + +'Are you going?' asked Florence, rising. + +'I don't know, though. No, not just at present,' said Mr Toots, +sitting down again, most unexpectedly. 'The fact is - I say, Miss +Dombey!' + +'Don't be afraid to speak to me,' said Florence, with a quiet +smile, 'I should he very glad if you would talk about my brother.' + +'Would you, though?' retorted Mr Toots, with sympathy in every +fibre of his otherwise expressionless face. 'Poor Dombey! I'm sure I +never thought that Burgess and Co. - fashionable tailors (but very +dear), that we used to talk about - would make this suit of clothes +for such a purpose.' Mr Toots was dressed in mourning. 'Poor Dombey! I +say! Miss Dombey!' blubbered Toots. + +'Yes,' said Florence. + +'There's a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you'd +lIke to have him, perhaps, as a sort of keepsake. You remember his +remembering Diogenes?' + +'Oh yes! oh yes' cried Florence. + +'Poor Dombey! So do I,' said Mr Toots. + +Mr Toots, seeing Florence in tears, had great difficulty in getting +beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a +chucKle saved him on the brink. + +'I say,' he proceeded, 'Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen +for ten shillings, if they hadn't given him up: and I would: but they +were glad to get rid of him, I think. If you'd like to have him, he's +at the door. I brought him on purpose for you. He ain't a lady's dog, +you know,' said Mr Toots, 'but you won't mind that, will you?' + +In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained +from looking down into the street, staring through the window of a +hackney cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had +been ensnared, on a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to +say, he was as unlike a lady's dog as might be; and in his gruff +anxiety to get out, presented an appearance sufficiently unpromising, +as he gave short yelps out of one side of his mouth, and overbalancing +himself by the intensity of every one of those efforts, tumbled down +into the straw, and then sprung panting up again, putting out his +tongue, as if he had come express to a Dispensary to be examined for +his health. + +But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with +on a summer's day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed +dog, continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the +neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was +far from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all +over his eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff +voice; he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting +remembrance of him, and that request that he might be taken care of, +than the most valuable and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was +this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to her, that she took the +jewelled hand of Mr Toots and kissed it in her gratitude. And when +Diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs and bouncing into the +room (such a business as there was, first, to get him out of the +cabriolet!), dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron +chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs of chairs and tables, +and then tugged at it until his eyes became unnaturally visible, in +consequence of their nearly starting out of his head; and when he +growled at Mr Toots, who affected familiarity; and went pell-mell at +Towlinson, morally convinced that he was the enemy whom he had barked +at round the corner all his life and had never seen yet; Florence was +as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle of discretion. + +Mr Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and was so +delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his +coarse back with her little delicate hand - Diogenes graciously +allowing it from the first moment of their acquaintance - that he felt +it difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much +longer time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been +assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly took it into his head to +bay Mr Toots, and to make short runs at him with his mouth open. Not +exactly seeing his way to the end of these demonstrations, and +sensible that they placed the pantaloons constructed by the art of +Burgess and Co. in jeopardy, Mr Toots, with chuckles, lapsed out at +the door: by which, after looking in again two or three times, without +any object at all, and being on each occasion greeted with a fresh run +from Diogenes, he finally took himself off and got away. + +'Come, then, Di! Dear Di! Make friends with your new mistress. Let +us love each other, Di!'said Florence, fondling his shaggy head. And +Di, the rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the +tear that dropped upon it, and his dog's heart melted as it fell, put +his nose up to her face, and swore fidelity. + +Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to Alexander the Great than +Diogenes the dog spoke to Florence.' He subscribed to the offer of his +little mistress cheerfully, and devoted himself to her service. A +banquet was immediately provided for him in a corner; and when he had +eaten and drunk his fill, he went to the window where Florence was +sitting, looking on, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore +paws on her shoulders, licked her face and hands, nestled his great +head against her heart, and wagged his tail till he was tired. +Finally, Diogenes coiled himself up at her feet and went to sleep. + +Although Miss Nipper was nervous in regard of dogs, and felt it +necessary to come into the room with her skirts carefully collected +about her, as if she were crossing a brook on stepping-stones; also to +utter little screams and stand up on chairs when Diogenes stretched +himself, she was in her own manner affected by the kindness of Mr +Toots, and could not see Florence so alive to the attachment and +society of this rude friend of little Paul's, without some mental +comments thereupon that brought the water to her eyes. Mr Dombey, as a +part of her reflections, may have been, in the association of ideas, +connected with the dog; but, at any rate, after observing Diogenes and +his mistress all the evening, and after exerting herself with much +good-will to provide Diogenes a bed in an ante-chamber outside his +mistress's door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving her +for the night: + +'Your Pa's a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.' + +'To-morrow morning, Susan?' + +'Yes, Miss; that's the orders. Early.' + +'Do you know,' asked Florence, without looking at her, 'where Papa +is going, Susan?' + +'Not exactly, Miss. He's going to meet that precious Major first, +and I must say if I was acquainted with any Major myself (which +Heavens forbid), it shouldn't be a blue one!' + +'Hush, Susan!' urged Florence gently. + +'Well, Miss Floy,' returned Miss Nipper, who was full of burning +indignation, and minded her stops even less than usual. 'I can't help +it, blue he is, and while I was a Christian, although humble, I would +have natural-coloured friends, or none.' + +It appeared from what she added and had gleaned downstairs, that +Mrs Chick had proposed the Major for Mr Dombey's companion, and that +Mr Dombey, after some hesitation, had invited him. + +'Talk of him being a change, indeed!' observed Miss Nipper to +herself with boundless contempt. 'If he's a change, give me a +constancy. + +'Good-night, Susan,' said Florence. + +'Good-night, my darling dear Miss Floy.' + +Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched, +but never listened to while she or anyone looked on. Florence left +alone, laid her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her +swelling heart, held free communication with her sorrows. + +It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and +dropping with a weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went +moaning round the house, as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill +noise quivered through the trees. While she sat weeping, it grew late, +and dreary midnight tolled out from the steeples. + +Florence was little more than a child in years - not yet fourteen- +and the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where +Death had lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set +an older fancy brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination +was too full of one theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her +thoughts but love - a wandering love, indeed, and castaway - but +turning always to her father. There was nothing in the dropping of the +rain, the moaning of the wind, the shuddering of the trees, the +striking of the solemn clocks, that shook this one thought, or +diminished its interest' Her recollections of the dear dead boy - and +they were never absent - were itself, the same thing. And oh, to be +shut out: to be so lost: never to have looked into her father's face +or touched him, since that hour! + +She could not go to bed, poor child, and never had gone yet, since +then, without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have +been a strange sad sight, to see her' now, stealing lightly down the +stairs through the thick gloom, and stopping at it with a beating +heart, and blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought +of; and touching it outside with her wet cheek. But the night covered +it, and no one knew. + +The moment that she touched the door on this night, Florence found +that it was open. For the first time it stood open, though by but a +hair's-breadth: and there was a light within. The first impulse of the +timid child - and she yielded to it - was to retire swiftly. Her next, +to go back, and to enter; and this second impulse held her in +irresolution on the staircase. + +In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed +to be hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from +within, stealing through the dark stern doorway, and falling in a +thread upon the marble floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she +did, but urged on by the love within her, and the trial they had +undergone together, but not shared: and with her hands a little raised +and trembling, glided in. + +Her father sat at his old table in the middle room. He had been +arranging some papers, and destroying others, and the latter lay in +fragile ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass +panes in the outer room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a +baby; and the low complainings of the wind were heard without. + +But not by him. He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so +immersed in thought, that a far heavier tread than the light foot of +his child could make, might have failed to rouse him. His face was +turned towards her. By the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it +looked worn and dejected; and in the utter loneliness surrounding him, +there was an appeal to Florence that struck home. + +'Papa! Papa! speak to me, dear Papa!' + +He started at her voice, and leaped up from his seat. She was close +before him' with extended arms, but he fell back. + +'What is the matter?' he said, sternly. 'Why do you come here? What +has frightened you?' + +If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her. +The glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before +it, and she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone. + +There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it. There was not +one gleam of interest, parental recognition, or relenting in it. There +was a change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and +cold constraint had given place to something: what, she never thought +and did not dare to think, and yet she felt it in its force, and knew +it well without a name: that as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a +shadow on her head. + +Did he see before him the successful rival of his son, in health +and life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son's +affection? Did a mad jealousy and withered pride, poison sweet +remembrances that should have endeared and made her precious to him? +Could it be possible that it was gall to him to look upon her in her +beauty and her promise: thinking of his infant boy! + +Florence had no such thoughts. But love is quick to know when it is +spurned and hopeless: and hope died out of hers, as she stood looking +in her father's face. + +'I ask you, Florence, are you frightened? Is there anything the +matter, that you come here?' + +'I came, Papa - ' + +'Against my wishes. Why?' + +She saw he knew why: it was written broadly on his face: and +dropped her head upon her hands with one prolonged low cry. + +Let him remember it in that room, years to come. It has faded from +the air, before he breaks the silence. It may pass as quickly from his +brain, as he believes, but it is there. Let him remember it in that +room, years to come! + +He took her by the arm. His hand was cold, and loose, and scarcely +closed upon her. + +'You are tired, I daresay,' he said, taking up the light, and +leading her towards the door, 'and want rest. We all want rest. Go, +Florence. You have been dreaming.' + +The dream she had had, was over then, God help her! and she felt +that it could never more come back + +'I will remain here to light you up the stairs. The whole house is +yours above there,' said her father, slowly. 'You are its mistress +now. Good-night!' + +Still covering her face, she sobbed, and answered 'Good-night, dear +Papa,' and silently ascended. Once she looked back as if she would +have returned to him, but for fear. It was a mommentary thought, too +hopeless to encourage; and her father stood there with the light - +hard, unresponsive, motionless - until the fluttering dress of his +fair child was lost in the darkness. + +Let him remember it in that room, years to come. The rain that +falls upon the roof: the wind that mourns outside the door: may have +foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that +room, years to come! + +The last time he had watched her, from the same place, winding up +those stairs, she had had her brother in her arms. It did not move his +heart towards her now, it steeled it: but he went into his room, and +locked his door, and sat down in his chair, and cried for his lost +boy. + +Diogenes was broad awake upon his post, and waiting for his little +mistress. + +'Oh, Di! Oh, dear Di! Love me for his sake!' + +Diogenes already loved her for her own, and didn't care how much he +showed it. So he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a +variety of uncouth bounces in the ante-chamber, and concluded, when +poor Florence was at last asleep, and dreaming of the rosy children +opposite, by scratching open her bedroom door: rolling up his bed into +a pillow: lying down on the boards, at the full length of his tether, +with his head towards her: and looking lazily at her, upside down, out +of the tops of his eyes, until from winking and winking he fell asleep +himself, and dreamed, with gruff barks, of his enemy. + + + +CHAPTER 19. + +Walter goes away + + + +The wooden Midshipman at the Instrument-maker's door, like the +hard-hearted little Midshipman he was, remained supremely indifferent +to Walter's going away, even when the very last day of his sojourn in +the back parlour was on the decline. With his quadrant at his round +black knob of an eye, and his figure in its old attitude of +indomitable alacrity, the Midshipman displayed his elfin small-clothes +to the best advantage, and, absorbed in scientific pursuits, had no +sympathy with worldly concerns. He was so far the creature of +circumstances, that a dry day covered him with dust, and a misty day +peppered him with little bits of soot, and a wet day brightened up his +tarnished uniform for the moment, and a very hot day blistered him; +but otherwise he was a callous, obdurate, conceited Midshipman, intent +on his own discoveries, and caring as little for what went on about +him, terrestrially, as Archimedes at the taking of Syracuse. + +Such a Midshipman he seemed to be, at least, in the then position +of domestic affairs. Walter eyed him kindly many a time in passing in +and out; and poor old Sol, when Walter was not there, would come and +lean against the doorpost, resting his weary wig as near the +shoe-buckles of the guardian genius of his trade and shop as he could. +But no fierce idol with a mouth from ear to ear, and a murderous +visage made of parrot's feathers, was ever more indifferent to the +appeals of its savage votaries, than was the Midshipman to these marks +of attachment. + +Walter's heart felt heavy as he looked round his old bedroom, up +among the parapets and chimney-pots, and thought that one more night +already darkening would close his acquaintance with it, perhaps for +ever. Dismantled of his little stock of books and pictures, it looked +coldly and reproachfully on him for his desertion, and had already a +foreshadowing upon it of its coming strangeness. 'A few hours more,' +thought Walter, 'and no dream I ever had here when I was a schoolboy +will be so little mine as this old room. The dream may come back in my +sleep, and I may return waking to this place, it may be: but the dream +at least will serve no other master, and the room may have a score, +and every one of them may change, neglect, misuse it.' + +But his Uncle was not to be left alone in the little back parlour, +where he was then sitting by himself; for Captain Cuttle, considerate +in his roughness, stayed away against his will, purposely that they +should have some talk together unobserved: so Walter, newly returned +home from his last day's bustle, descended briskly, to bear him +company. + +'Uncle,' he said gaily, laying his hand upon the old man's +shoulder, 'what shall I send you home from Barbados?' + +'Hope, my dear Wally. Hope that we shall meet again, on this side +of the grave. Send me as much of that as you can.' + +'So I will, Uncle: I have enough and to spare, and I'll not be +chary of it! And as to lively turtles, and limes for Captain Cuttle's +punch, and preserves for you on Sundays, and all that sort of thing, +why I'll send you ship-loads, Uncle: when I'm rich enough.' + +Old Sol wiped his spectacles, and faintly smiled. + +'That's right, Uncle!' cried Walter, merrily, and clapping him half +a dozen times more upon the shoulder. 'You cheer up me! I'll cheer up +you! We'll be as gay as larks to-morrow morning, Uncle, and we'll fly +as high! As to my anticipations, they are singing out of sight now. + +'Wally, my dear boy,' returned the old man, 'I'll do my best, I'll +do my best.' + +'And your best, Uncle,' said Walter, with his pleasant laugh, 'is +the best best that I know. You'll not forget what you're to send me, +Uncle?' + +'No, Wally, no,' replied the old man; 'everything I hear about Miss +Dombey, now that she is left alone, poor lamb, I'll write. I fear it +won't be much though, Wally.' + +'Why, I'll tell you what, Uncle,' said Walter, after a moment's +hesitation, 'I have just been up there.' + +'Ay, ay, ay?' murmured the old man, raising his eyebrows, and his +spectacles with them. + +'Not to see her,' said Walter, 'though I could have seen her, I +daresay, if I had asked, Mr Dombey being out of town: but to say a +parting word to Susan. I thought I might venture to do that, you know, +under the circumstances, and remembering when I saw Miss Dombey last.' + +'Yes, my boy, yes,' replied his Uncle, rousing himself from a +temporary abstraction. + +'So I saw her,' pursued Walter, 'Susan, I mean: and I told her I +was off and away to-morrow. And I said, Uncle, that you had always had +an interest in Miss Dombey since that night when she was here, and +always wished her well and happy, and always would be proud and glad +to serve her in the least: I thought I might say that, you know, under +the circumstances. Don't you think so ?' + +'Yes, my boy, yes,' replied his Uncle, in the tone as before. + +'And I added,' pursued Walter, 'that if she - Susan, I mean - could +ever let you know, either through herself, or Mrs Richards, or anybody +else who might be coming this way, that Miss Dombey was well and +happy, you would take it very kindly, and would write so much to me, +and I should take it very kindly too. There! Upon my word, Uncle,' +said Walter, 'I scarcely slept all last night through thinking of +doing this; and could not make up my mind when I was out, whether to +do it or not; and yet I am sure it is the true feeling of my heart, +and I should have been quite miserable afterwards if I had not +relieved it.' + +His honest voice and manner corroborated what he said, and quite +established its ingenuousness. + +'So, if you ever see her, Uncle,' said Walter, 'I mean Miss Dombey +now - and perhaps you may, who knows! - tell her how much I felt for +her; how much I used to think of her when I was here; how I spoke of +her, with the tears in my eyes, Uncle, on this last night before I +went away. Tell her that I said I never could forget her gentle +manner, or her beautiful face, or her sweet kind disposition that was +better than all. And as I didn't take them from a woman's feet, or a +young lady's: only a little innocent child's,' said Walter: 'tell her, +if you don't mind, Uncle, that I kept those shoes - she'll remember +how often they fell off, that night - and took them away with me as a +remembrance!' + +They were at that very moment going out at the door in one of +Walter's trunks. A porter carrying off his baggage on a truck for +shipment at the docks on board the Son and Heir, had got possession of +them; and wheeled them away under the very eye of the insensible +Midshipman before their owner had well finished speaking. + +But that ancient mariner might have been excused his insensibility +to the treasure as it rolled away. For, under his eye at the same +moment, accurately within his range of observation, coming full into +the sphere of his startled and intensely wide-awake look-out, were +Florence and Susan Nipper: Florence looking up into his face half +timidly, and receiving the whole shock of his wooden ogling! + +More than this, they passed into the shop, and passed in at the +parlour door before they were observed by anybody but the Midshipman. +And Walter, having his back to the door, would have known nothing of +their apparition even then, but for seeing his Uncle spring out of his +own chair, and nearly tumble over another. + +'Why, Uncle!' exclaimed Walter. 'What's the matter?' + +Old Solomon replied, 'Miss Dombey!' + +'Is it possible?' cried Walter, looking round and starting up in +his turn. 'Here!' + +Why, It was so possible and so actual, that, while the words were +on his lips, Florence hurried past him; took Uncle Sol's +snuff-coloured lapels, one in each hand; kissed him on the cheek; and +turning, gave her hand to Walter with a simple truth and earnestness +that was her own, and no one else's in the world! + +'Going away, Walter!' said Florence. + +'Yes, Miss Dombey,' he replied, but not so hopefully as he +endeavoured: 'I have a voyage before me.' + +'And your Uncle,' said Florence, looking back at Solomon. 'He is +sorry you are going, I am sure. Ah! I see he is! Dear Walter, I am +very sorry too.' + +'Goodness knows,' exclaimed Miss Nipper, 'there's a many we could +spare instead, if numbers is a object, Mrs Pipchin as a overseer would +come cheap at her weight in gold, and if a knowledge of black slavery +should be required, them Blimbers is the very people for the +sitiwation.' + +With that Miss Nipper untied her bonnet strings, and alter looking +vacantly for some moments into a little black teapot that was set +forth with the usual homely service on the table, shook her head and a +tin canister, and began unasked to make the tea. + +In the meantime Florence had turned again to the Instrument-maker, +who was as full of admiration as surprise. 'So grown!' said old Sol. +'So improved! And yet not altered! Just the same!' + +'Indeed!' said Florence. + +'Ye - yes,' returned old Sol, rubbing his hands slowly, and +considering the matter half aloud, as something pensive in the bright +eyes looking at him arrested his attention. 'Yes, that expression was +in the younger face, too!' + +'You remember me,' said Florence with a smile, 'and what a little +creature I was then?' + +'My dear young lady,' returned the Instrument-maker, 'how could I +forget you, often as I have thought of you and heard of you since! At +the very moment, indeed, when you came in, Wally was talking about you +to me, and leaving messages for you, and - ' + +'Was he?' said Florence. 'Thank you, Walter! Oh thank you, Walter! +I was afraid you might be going away and hardly thinking of me;' and +again she gave him her little hand so freely and so faithfully that +Walter held it for some moments in his own, and could not bear to let +it go. + +Yet Walter did not hold it as he might have held it once, nor did +its touch awaken those old day-dreams of his boyhood that had floated +past him sometimes even lately, and confused him with their indistinct +and broken shapes. The purity and innocence of her endearing manner, +and its perfect trustfulness, and the undisguised regard for him that +lay so deeply seated in her constant eyes, and glowed upon her fair +face through the smile that shaded - for alas! it was a smile too sad +to brighten - it, were not of their romantic race. They brought back +to his thoughts the early death-bed he had seen her tending, and the +love the child had borne her; and on the wings of such remembrances +she seemed to rise up, far above his idle fancies, into clearer and +serener air. + +'I - I am afraid I must call you Walter's Uncle, Sir,' said +Florence to the old man, 'if you'll let me.' + +'My dear young lady,' cried old Sol. 'Let you! Good gracious!' + +'We always knew you by that name, and talked of you,' said +Florence, glancing round, and sighing gently. 'The nice old parlour! +Just the same! How well I recollect it!' + +Old Sol looked first at her, then at his nephew, and then rubbed +his hands, and rubbed his spectacles, and said below his breath, 'Ah! +time, time, time!' + +There was a short silence; during which Susan Nipper skilfully +impounded two extra cups and saucers from the cupboard, and awaited +the drawing of the tea with a thoughtful air. + +'I want to tell Walter's Uncle,' said Florence, laying her hand +timidly upon the old man's as it rested on the table, to bespeak his +attention, 'something that I am anxious about. He is going to be left +alone, and if he will allow me - not to take Walter's place, for that +I couldn't do, but to be his true friend and help him if I ever can +while Walter is away, I shall be very much obliged to him indeed. Will +you? May I, Walter's Uncle?' + +The Instrument-maker, without speaking, put her hand to his lips, +and Susan Nipper, leaning back with her arms crossed, in the chair of +presidency into which she had voted herself, bit one end of her bonnet +strings, and heaved a gentle sigh as she looked up at the skylight. + +'You will let me come to see you,' said Florence, 'when I can; and +you will tell me everything about yourself and Walter; and you will +have no secrets from Susan when she comes and I do not, but will +confide in us, and trust us, and rely upon us. And you'll try to let +us be a comfort to you? Will you, Walter's Uncle?' + +The sweet face looking into his, the gentle pleading eyes, the soft +voice, and the light touch on his arm made the more winning by a +child's respect and honour for his age, that gave to all an air of +graceful doubt and modest hesitation - these, and her natural +earnestness, so overcame the poor old Instrument-maker, that he only +answered: + +'Wally! say a word for me, my dear. I'm very grateful.' + +'No, Walter,' returned Florence with her quiet smile. 'Say nothing +for him, if you please. I understand him very well, and we must learn +to talk together without you, dear Walter.' + +The regretful tone in which she said these latter words, touched +Walter more than all the rest. + +'Miss Florence,' he replied, with an effort to recover the cheerful +manner he had preserved while talking with his Uncle, 'I know no more +than my Uncle, what to say in acknowledgment of such kindness, I am +sure. But what could I say, after all, if I had the power of talking +for an hour, except that it is like you?' + +Susan Nipper began upon a new part of her bonnet string, and nodded +at the skylight, in approval of the sentiment expressed. + +'Oh! but, Walter,' said Florence, 'there is something that I wish +to say to you before you go away, and you must call me Florence, if +you please, and not speak like a stranger.' + +'Like a stranger!' returned Walter, 'No. I couldn't speak so. I am +sure, at least, I couldn't feel like one.' + +'Ay, but that is not enough, and is not what I mean. For, Walter,' +added Florence, bursting into tears, 'he liked you very much, and said +before he died that he was fond of you, and said "Remember Walter!" +and if you'll be a brother to me, Walter, now that he is gone and I +have none on earth, I'll be your sister all my life, and think of you +like one wherever we may be! This is what I wished to say, dear +Walter, but I cannot say it as I would, because my heart is full.' + +And in its fulness and its sweet simplicity, she held out both her +hands to him. Walter taking them, stooped down and touched the tearful +face that neither shrunk nor turned away, nor reddened as he did so, +but looked up at him with confidence and truth. In that one moment, +every shadow of doubt or agitation passed away from Walter's soul. It +seemed to him that he responded to her innocent appeal, beside the +dead child's bed: and, in the solemn presence he had seen there, +pledged himself to cherish and protect her very image, in his +banishment, with brotherly regard; to garner up her simple faith, +inviolate; and hold himself degraded if he breathed upon it any +thought that was not in her own breast when she gave it to him. + +Susan Nipper, who had bitten both her bonnet strings at once, and +imparted a great deal of private emotion to the skylight, during this +transaction, now changed the subject by inquiring who took milk and +who took sugar; and being enlightened on these points, poured out the +tea. They all four gathered socially about the little table, and took +tea under that young lady's active superintendence; and the presence +of Florence in the back parlour, brightened the Tartar frigate on the +wall. + +Half an hour ago Walter, for his life, would have hardly called her +by her name. But he could do so now when she entreated him. He could +think of her being there, without a lurking misgiving that it would +have been better if she had not come. He could calmly think how +beautiful she was, how full of promise, what a home some happy man +would find in such a heart one day. He could reflect upon his own +place in that heart, with pride; and with a brave determination, if +not to deserve it - he still thought that far above him - never to +deserve it less + +Some fairy influence must surely have hovered round the hands of +Susan Nipper when she made the tea, engendering the tranquil air that +reigned in the back parlour during its discussion. Some +counter-influence must surely have hovered round the hands of Uncle +Sol's chronometer, and moved them faster than the Tartar frigate ever +went before the wind. Be this as it may, the visitors had a coach in +waiting at a quiet corner not far off; and the chronometer, on being +incidentally referred to, gave such a positive opinion that it had +been waiting a long time, that it was impossible to doubt the fact, +especially when stated on such unimpeachable authority. If Uncle Sol +had been going to be hanged by his own time, he never would have +allowed that the chronometer was too fast, by the least fraction of a +second. + +Florence at parting recapitulated to the old man all that she had +said before, and bound him to the compact. Uncle Sol attended her +lovingly to the legs of the wooden Midshipman, and there resigned her +to Walter, who was ready to escort her and Susan Nipper to the coach. + +'Walter,' said Florence by the way, 'I have been afraid to ask +before your Uncle. Do you think you will be absent very long?' + +'Indeed,' said Walter, 'I don't know. I fear so. Mr Dombey +signified as much, I thought, when he appointed me.' + +'Is it a favour, Walter?' inquired Florence, after a moment's +hesitation, and looking anxiously in his face. + +'The appointment?' returned Walter. + +'Yes.' + +Walter would have given anything to have answered in the +affirmative, but his face answered before his lips could, and Florence +was too attentive to it not to understand its reply. + +'I am afraid you have scarcely been a favourite with Papa,' she +said, timidly. + +'There is no reason,' replied Walter, smiling, 'why I should be.' + +'No reason, Walter!' + +'There was no reason,' said Walter, understanding what she meant. +'There are many people employed in the House. Between Mr Dombey and a +young man like me, there's a wide space of separation. If I do my +duty, I do what I ought, and do no more than all the rest.' + +Had Florence any misgiving of which she was hardly conscious: any +misgiving that had sprung into an indistinct and undefined existence +since that recent night when she had gone down to her father's room: +that Walter's accidental interest in her, and early knowledge of her, +might have involved him in that powerful displeasure and dislike? Had +Walter any such idea, or any sudden thought that it was in her mind at +that moment? Neither of them hinted at it. Neither of them spoke at +all, for some short time. Susan, walking on the other side of Walter, +eyed them both sharply; and certainly Miss Nipper's thoughts travelled +in that direction, and very confidently too. + +'You may come back very soon,' said Florence, 'perhaps, Walter.' + +'I may come back,' said Walter, 'an old man, and find you an old +lady. But I hope for better things.' + +'Papa,' said Florence, after a moment, 'will - will recover from +his grief, and - speak more freely to me one day, perhaps; and if he +should, I will tell him how much I wish to see you back again, and ask +him to recall you for my sake.' + +There was a touching modulation in these words about her father, +that Walter understood too well. + +The coach being close at hand, he would have left her without +speaking, for now he felt what parting was; but Florence held his hand +when she was seated, and then he found there was a little packet in +her own. + +'Walter,' she said, looking full upon him with her affectionate +eyes, 'like you, I hope for better things. I will pray for them, and +believe that they will arrive. I made this little gift for Paul. Pray +take it with my love, and do not look at it until you are gone away. +And now, God bless you, Walter! never forget me. You are my brother, +dear!' + +He was glad that Susan Nipper came between them, or he might have +left her with a sorrowful remembrance of him. He was glad too that she +did not look out of the coach again, but waved the little hand to him +instead, as long as he could see it. + +In spite of her request, he could not help opening the packet that +night when he went to bed. It was a little purse: and there was was +money in it. + +Bright rose the sun next morning, from his absence in strange +countries and up rose Walter with it to receive the Captain, who was +already at the door: having turned out earlier than was necessary, in +order to get under weigh while Mrs MacStinger was still slumbering. +The Captain pretended to be in tip-top spirits, and brought a very +smoky tongue in one of the pockets of the of the broad blue coat for +breakfast. + +'And, Wal'r,' said the Captain, when they took their seats at +table, if your Uncle's the man I think him, he'll bring out the last +bottle of the Madeira on the present occasion.' + +'No, no, Ned,' returned the old man. 'No! That shall be opened when +Walter comes home again.' + +'Well said!' cried the Captain. 'Hear him!' + +'There it lies,' said Sol Gills, 'down in the little cellar, +covered with dirt and cobwebs. There may be dirt and cobwebs over you +and me perhaps, Ned, before it sees the light.' + +'Hear him! 'cried the Captain. 'Good morality! Wal'r, my lad. Train +up a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under +the shade on it. Overhaul the - Well,' said the Captain on second +thoughts, 'I ain't quite certain where that's to be found, but when +found, make a note of. Sol Gills, heave ahead again!' + +'But there or somewhere, it shall lie, Ned, until Wally comes back +to claim it,' said the old man. 'That's all I meant to say.' + +'And well said too,' returned the Captain; 'and if we three don't +crack that bottle in company, I'll give you two leave to.' + +Notwithstanding the Captain's excessive joviality, he made but a +poor hand at the smoky tongue, though he tried very hard, when anybody +looked at him, to appear as if he were eating with a vast apetite. He +was terribly afraid, likewise, of being left alone with either Uncle +or nephew; appearing to consider that his only chance of safety as to +keeping up appearances, was in there being always three together. This +terror on the part of the Captain, reduced him to such ingenious +evasions as running to the door, when Solomon went to put his coat on, +under pretence of having seen an extraordinary hackney-coach pass: and +darting out into the road when Walter went upstairs to take leave of +the lodgers, on a feint of smelling fire in a neighbouring chimney. +These artifices Captain Cuttle deemed inscrutable by any uninspired +observer. + +Walter was coming down from his parting expedition upstairs, and +was crossing the shop to go back to the little parlour, when he saw a +faded face he knew, looking in at the door, and darted towards it. + +'Mr Carker!' cried Walter, pressing the hand of John Carker the +Junior. 'Pray come in! This is kind of you, to be here so early to say +good-bye to me. You knew how glad it would make me to shake hands with +you, once, before going away. I cannot say how glad I am to have this +opportunity. Pray come in.' + +'It is not likely that we may ever meet again, Walter,' returned +the other, gently resisting his invitation, 'and I am glad of this +opportunity too. I may venture to speak to you, and to take you by the +hand, on the eve of separation. I shall not have to resist your frank +approaches, Walter, any more. + +There was a melancholy in his smile as he said it, that showed he +had found some company and friendship for his thoughts even in that. + +'Ah, Mr Carker!' returned Walter. 'Why did you resist them? You +could have done me nothing but good, I am very sure. + +He shook his head. 'If there were any good,' he said, 'I could do +on this earth, I would do it, Walter, for you. The sight of you from +day to day, has been at once happiness and remorse to me. But the +pleasure has outweighed the pain. I know that, now, by knowing what I +lose.' + +'Come in, Mr Carker, and make acquaintance with my good old Uncle,' +urged Walter. 'I have often talked to him about you, and he will be +glad to tell you all he hears from me. I have not,' said Walter, +noticing his hesitation, and speaking with embarrassment himself: 'I +have not told him anything about our last conversation, Mr Carker; not +even him, believe me. + +The grey Junior pressed his hand, and tears rose in his eyes. + +'If I ever make acquaintance with him, Walter,' he returned, 'it +will be that I may hear tidings of you. Rely on my not wronging your +forbearance and consideration. It would be to wrong it, not to tell +him all the truth, before I sought a word of confidence from him. But +I have no friend or acquaintance except you: and even for your sake, +am little likely to make any.' + +'I wish,' said Walter, 'you had suffered me to be your friend +indeed. I always wished it, Mr Carker, as you know; but never half so +much as now, when we are going to part' + +'It is enough replied the other, 'that you have been the friend of +my own breast, and that when I have avoided you most, my heart +inclined the most towards you, and was fullest of you. Walter, +good-bye!' + +'Good-bye, Mr Carker. Heaven be with you, Sir!' cried Walter with +emotion. + +'If,' said the other, retaining his hand while he spoke; 'if when +you come back, you miss me from my old corner, and should hear from +anyone where I am lying, come and look upon my grave. Think that I +might have been as honest and as happy as you! And let me think, when +I know time is coming on, that some one like my former self may stand +there, for a moment, and remember me with pity and forgiveness! +Walter, good-bye!' + +His figure crept like a shadow down the bright, sun-lighted street, +so cheerful yet so solemn in the early summer morning; and slowly +passed away. + +The relentless chronometer at last announced that Walter must turn +his back upon the wooden Midshipman: and away they went, himself, his +Uncle, and the Captain, in a hackney-coach to a wharf, where they were +to take steam-boat for some Reach down the river, the name of which, +as the Captain gave it out, was a hopeless mystery to the ears of +landsmen. Arrived at this Reach (whither the ship had repaired by last +night's tide), they were boarded by various excited watermen, and +among others by a dirty Cyclops of the Captain's acquaintance, who, +with his one eye, had made the Captain out some mile and a half off, +and had been exchanging unintelligible roars with him ever since. +Becoming the lawful prize of this personage, who was frightfully +hoarse and constitutionally in want of shaving, they were all three +put aboard the Son and Heir. And the Son and Heir was in a pretty +state of confusion, with sails lying all bedraggled on the wet decks, +loose ropes tripping people up, men in red shirts running barefoot to +and fro, casks blockading every foot of space, and, in the thickest of +the fray, a black cook in a black caboose up to his eyes in vegetables +and blinded with smoke. + +The Captain immediately drew Walter into a corner, and with a great +effort, that made his face very red, pulled up the silver watch, which +was so big, and so tight in his pocket, that it came out like a bung. + +'Wal'r,' said the Captain, handing it over, and shaking him +heartily by the hand, 'a parting gift, my lad. Put it back half an +hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, +and it's a watch that'll do you credit.' + +'Captain Cuttle! I couldn't think of it!' cried Walter, detaining +him, for he was running away. 'Pray take it back. I have one already.' + +'Then, Wal'r,' said the Captain, suddenly diving into one of his +pockets and bringing up the two teaspoons and the sugar-tongs, with +which he had armed himself to meet such an objection, 'take this here +trifle of plate, instead.' + +'No, no, I couldn't indeed!' cried Walter, 'a thousand thanks! +Don't throw them away, Captain Cuttle!' for the Captain was about to +jerk them overboard. 'They'll be of much more use to you than me. Give +me your stick. I have often thought I should like to have it. There! +Good-bye, Captain Cuttle! Take care of my Uncle! Uncle Sol, God bless +you!' + +They were over the side in the confusion, before Walter caught +another glimpse of either; and when he ran up to the stern, and looked +after them, he saw his Uncle hanging down his head in the boat, and +Captain Cuttle rapping him on the back with the great silver watch (it +must have been very painful), and gesticulating hopefully with the +teaspoons and sugar-tongs. Catching sight of Walter, Captain Cuttle +dropped the property into the bottom of the boat with perfect +unconcern, being evidently oblivious of its existence, and pulling off +the glazed hat hailed him lustily. The glazed hat made quite a show in +the sun with its glistening, and the Captain continued to wave it +until he could be seen no longer. Then the confusion on board, which +had been rapidly increasing, reached its height; two or three other +boats went away with a cheer; the sails shone bright and full above, +as Walter watched them spread their surface to the favourable breeze; +the water flew in sparkles from the prow; and off upon her voyage went +the Son and Heir, as hopefully and trippingly as many another son and +heir, gone down, had started on his way before her. + +Day after day, old Sol and Captain Cuttle kept her reckoning in the +little hack parlour and worked out her course, with the chart spread +before them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed +upstairs, so lonely, to the attic where it sometimes blew great guns, +he looked up at the stars and listened to the wind, and kept a longer +watch than would have fallen to his lot on board the ship. The last +bottle of the old Madeira, which had had its cruising days, and known +its dangers of the deep, lay silently beneath its dust and cobwebs, in +the meanwhile, undisturbed. + + + +CHAPTER 20. + +Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey + + + +'Mr Dombey, Sir,' said Major Bagstock, 'Joee' B. is not in general +a man of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his feelings, +Sir, and when they are awakened - Damme, Mr Dombey,? cried the Major +with sudden ferocity, 'this is weakness, and I won't submit to it]' + +Major Bagstock delivered himself of these expressions on receiving +Mr Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in Princess's +Place. Mr Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major, previous to +their setting forth on their trip; and the ill-starved Native had +already undergone a world of misery arising out of the muffins, while, +in connexion with the general question of boiled eggs, life was a +burden to him. + +'It is not for an old soldier of the Bagstock breed,' observed the +Major, relapsing into a mild state, 'to deliver himself up, a prey to +his own emotions; but - damme, Sir,' cried the Major, in another spasm +of ferocity, 'I condole with you!' + +The Major's purple visage deepened in its hue, and the Major's +lobster eyes stood out in bolder relief, as he shook Mr Dombey by the +hand, imparting to that peaceful action as defiant a character as if +it had been the prelude to his immediately boxing Mr Dombey for a +thousand pounds a side and the championship of England. With a +rotatory motion of his head, and a wheeze very like the cough of a +horse, the Major then conducted his visitor to the sitting-room, and +there welcomed him (having now composed his feelings) with the freedom +and frankness ofa travelling companion. + +'Dombey,' said the Major, 'I'm glad to see you. I'm proud to see +you. There are not many men in Europe to whom J. Bagstock would say +that - for Josh is blunt. Sir: it's his nature - but Joey B. is proud +to see you, Dombey.' + +'Major,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you are very obliging.' + +'No, Sir,' said the Major, 'Devil a bit! That's not my character. +If that had been Joe's character, Joe might have been, by this time, +Lieutenant-General Sir Joseph Bagstock, K.C.B., and might have +received you in very different quarters. You don't know old Joe yet, I +find. But this occasion, being special, is a source of pride to me. By +the Lord, Sir,' said the Major resolutely, 'it's an honour to me!' + +Mr Dombey, in his estimation of himself and his money, felt that +this was very true, and therefore did not dispute the point. But the +instinctive recognition of such a truth by the Major, and his plain +avowal of it, were very able. It was a confirmation to Mr Dombey, if +he had required any, of his not being mistaken in the Major. It was an +assurance to him that his power extended beyond his own immediate +sphere; and that the Major, as an officer and a gentleman, had a no +less becoming sense of it, than the beadle of the Royal Exchange. + +And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the like of this, +it was consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the +instability of his hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had been so +direfully impressed upon him. What could it do, his boy had asked him. +Sometimes, thinking of the baby question, he could hardly forbear +inquiring, himself, what could it do indeed: what had it done? + +But these were lonely thoughts, bred late at night in the sullen +despondency and gloom of his retirement, and pride easily found its +reassurance in many testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and +precious as the Major's. Mr Dombey, in his friendlessness, inclined to +the Major. It cannot be said that he warmed towards him, but he thawed +a little, The Major had had some part - and not too much - in the days +by the seaside. He was a man of the world, and knew some great people. +He talked much, and told stories; and Mr Dombey was disposed to regard +him as a choice spirit who shone in society, and who had not that +poisonous ingredient of poverty with which choice spirits in general +are too much adulterated. His station was undeniable. Altogether the +Major was a creditable companion, well accustomed to a life of +leisure, and to such places as that they were about to visit, and +having an air of gentlemanly ease about him that mixed well enough +with his own City character, and did not compete with it at all. If Mr +Dombey had any lingering idea that the Major, as a man accustomed, in +the way of his calling, to make light of the ruthless hand that had +lately crushed his hopes, might unconsciously impart some useful +philosophy to him, and scare away his weak regrets, he hid it from +himself, and left it lying at the bottom of his pride, unexamined. + +'Where is my scoundrel?' said the Major, looking wrathfully round +the room. + +The Native, who had no particular name, but answered to any +vituperative epithet, presented himself instantly at the door and +ventured to come no nearer. + +'You villain!' said the choleric Major, 'where's the breakfast?' + +The dark servant disappeared in search of it, and was quickly heard +reascending the stairs in such a tremulous state, that the plates and +dishes on the tray he carried, trembling sympathetically as he came, +rattled again, all the way up. + +'Dombey,' said the Major, glancing at the Native as he arranged the +table, and encouraging him with an awful shake of his fist when he +upset a spoon, 'here is a devilled grill, a savoury pie, a dish of +kidneys, and so forth. Pray sit down. Old Joe can give you nothing but +camp fare, you see. + +'Very excellent fare, Major,' replied his guest; and not in mere +politeness either; for the Major always took the best possible care of +himself, and indeed ate rather more of rich meats than was good for +him, insomuch that his Imperial complexion was mainly referred by the +faculty to that circumstance. + +'You have been looking over the way, Sir,' observed the Major. +'Have you seen our friend?' + +'You mean Miss Tox,' retorted Mr Dombey. 'No.' + +'Charming woman, Sir,' said the Major, with a fat laugh rising in +his short throat, and nearly suffocating him. + +'Miss Tox is a very good sort of person, I believe,' replied Mr +Dombey. + +The haughty coldness of the reply seemed to afford Major Bagstock +infinite delight. He swelled and swelled, exceedingly: and even laid +down his knife and fork for a moment, to rub his hands. + +'Old Joe, Sir,' said the Major, 'was a bit ofa favourite in that +quarter once. But Joe has had his day. J. Bagstock is extinguished - +outrivalled - floored, Sir.' + +'I should have supposed,' Mr Dombey replied, 'that the lady's day +for favourites was over: but perhaps you are jesting, Major.' + +'Perhaps you are jesting, Dombey?' was the Major's rejoinder. + +There never was a more unlikely possiblity. It was so clearly +expressed in Mr Dombey's face, that the Major apologised. + +'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'I see you are in earnest. I tell you +what, Dombey.' The Major paused in his eating, and looked mysteriously +indignant. 'That's a de-vilish ambitious woman, Sir.' + +Mr Dombey said 'Indeed?' with frigid indifference: mingled perhaps +with some contemptuous incredulity as to Miss Tox having the +presumption to harbour such a superior quality. + +'That woman, Sir,' said the Major, 'is, in her way, a Lucifer. Joey +B. has had his day, Sir, but he keeps his eyes. He sees, does Joe. His +Royal Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a levee, +that he saw.' + +The Major accompanied this with such a look, and, between eating, +drinking, hot tea, devilled grill, muffins, and meaning, was +altogether so swollen and inflamed about the head, that even Mr Dombey +showed some anxiety for him. + +'That ridiculous old spectacle, Sir,' pursued the Major, 'aspires. +She aspires sky-high, Sir. Matrimonially, Dombey.' + +'I am sorry for her,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Don't say that, Dombey,' returned the Major in a warning voice. + +'Why should I not, Major?' said Mr Dombey. + +The Major gave no answer but the horse's cough, and went on eating +vigorously. + +'She has taken an interest in your household,' said the Major, +stopping short again, 'and has been a frequent visitor at your house +for some time now.' + +'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey with great stateliness, 'Miss Tox was +originally received there, at the time of Mrs Dombey's death, as a +friend of my sister's; and being a well-behaved person, and showing a +liking for the poor infant, she was permitted - may I say encouraged - +to repeat her visits with my sister, and gradually to occupy a kind of +footing of familiarity in the family. I have,' said Mr Dombey, in the +tone of a man who was making a great and valuable concession, 'I have +a respect for Miss Tox. She his been so obliging as to render many +little services in my house: trifling and insignificant services +perhaps, Major, but not to be disparaged on that account: and I hope I +have had the good fortune to be enabled to acknowledge them by such +attention and notice as it has been in my power to bestow. I hold +myself indebted to Miss Tox, Major,' added Mr Dombey, with a slight +wave of his hand, 'for the pleasure of your acquaintance.' + +'Dombey,' said the Major, warmly: 'no! No, Sir! Joseph Bagstock can +never permit that assertion to pass uncontradicted. Your knowledge of +old Joe, Sir, such as he is, and old Joe's knowledge of you, Sir, had +its origin in a noble fellow, Sir - in a great creature, Sir. Dombey!' +said the Major, with a struggle which it was not very difficult to +parade, his whole life being a struggle against all kinds of +apoplectic symptoms, 'we knew each other through your boy.' + +Mr Dombey seemed touched, as it is not improbable the Major +designed he should be, by this allusion. He looked down and sighed: +and the Major, rousing himself fiercely, again said, in reference to +the state of mind into which he felt himself in danger of falling, +that this was weakness, and nothing should induce him to submit to it. + +'Our friend had a remote connexion with that event,' said the +Major, 'and all the credit that belongs to her, J. B. is willing to +give her, Sir. Notwithstanding which, Ma'am,' he added, raising his +eyes from his plate, and casting them across Princess's Place, to +where Miss Tox was at that moment visible at her window watering her +flowers, 'you're a scheming jade, Ma'am, and your ambition is a piece +of monstrous impudence. If it only made yourself ridiculous, Ma'am,' +said the Major, rolling his head at the unconscious Miss Tox, while +his starting eyes appeared to make a leap towards her, 'you might do +that to your heart's content, Ma'am, without any objection, I assure +you, on the part of Bagstock.' Here the Major laughed frightfully up +in the tips of his ears and in the veins of his head. 'But when, +Ma'am,' said the Major, 'you compromise other people, and generous, +unsuspicious people too, as a repayment for their condescension, you +stir the blood of old Joe in his body.' + +'Major,' said Mr Dombey, reddening, 'I hope you do not hint at +anything so absurd on the part of Miss Tox as - ' + +'Dombey,' returned the Major, 'I hint at nothing. But Joey B. has +lived in the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open, Sir, +and his ears cocked: and Joe tells you, Dombey, that there's a +devilish artful and ambitious woman over the way.' + +Mr Dombey involuntarily glanced over the way; and an angry glance +he sent in that direction, too. + +'That's all on such a subject that shall pass the lips of Joseph +Bagstock,' said the Major firmly. 'Joe is not a tale-bearer, but there +are times when he must speak, when he will speak! - confound your +arts, Ma'am,' cried the Major, again apostrophising his fair +neighbour, with great ire, - 'when the provocation is too strong to +admit of his remaining silent.' + +The emotion of this outbreak threw the Major into a paroxysm of +horse's coughs, which held him for a long time. On recovering he +added: + +'And now, Dombey, as you have invited Joe - old Joe, who has no +other merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty - to be your guest +and guide at Leamington, command him in any way you please, and he is +wholly yours. I don't know, Sir,' said the Major, wagging his double +chin with a jocose air, 'what it is you people see in Joe to make you +hold him in such great request, all of you; but this I know, Sir, that +if he wasn't pretty tough, and obstinate in his refusals, you'd kill +him among you with your invitations and so forth, in double-quick +time.' + +Mr Dombey, in a few words, expressed his sense of the preference he +received over those other distinguished members of society who were +clamouring for the possession of Major Bagstock. But the Major cut him +short by giving him to understand that he followed his own +inclinations, and that they had risen up in a body and said with one +accord, 'J. B., Dombey is the man for you to choose as a friend.' + +The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence +of savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled +grill and kidneys tightening his cravat: and the time moreover +approaching for the departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by +which they were to leave town: the Native got him into his great-coat +with immense difficulty, and buttoned him up until his face looked +staring and gasping, over the top of that garment, as if he were in a +barrel. The Native then handed him separately, and with a decent +interval between each supply, his washleather gloves, his thick stick, +and his hat; which latter article the Major wore with a rakish air on +one side of his head, by way of toning down his remarkable visage. The +Native had previously packed, in all possible and impossible parts of +Mr Dombey's chariot, which was in waiting, an unusual quantity of +carpet-bags and small portmanteaus, no less apoplectic in appearance +than the Major himself: and having filled his own pockets with Seltzer +water, East India sherry, sandwiches, shawls, telescopes, maps, and +newspapers, any or all of which light baggage the Major might require +at any instant of the journey, he announced that everything was ready. +To complete the equipment of this unfortunate foreigner (currently +believed to be a prince in his own country), when he took his seat in +the rumble by the side of Mr Towlinson, a pile of the Major's cloaks +and great-coats was hurled upon him by the landlord, who aimed at him +from the pavement with those great missiles like a Titan, and so +covered him up, that he proceeded, in a living tomb, to the railroad +station. + +But before the carriage moved away, and while the Native was in the +act of sepulture, Miss Tox appearing at her window, waved a lilywhite +handkerchief. Mr Dombey received this parting salutation very coldly - +very coldly even for him - and honouring her with the slightest +possible inclination of his head, leaned back in the carriage with a +very discontented look. His marked behaviour seemed to afford the +Major (who was all politeness in his recognition of Miss Tox) +unbounded satisfaction; and he sat for a long time afterwards, +leering, and choking, like an over-fed Mephistopheles. + +During the bustle of preparation at the railway, Mr Dombey and the +Major walked up and down the platform side by side; the former +taciturn and gloomy, and the latter entertaining him, or entertaining +himself, with a variety of anecdotes and reminiscences, in most of +which Joe Bagstock was the principal performer. Neither of the two +observed that in the course of these walks, they attracted the +attention of a working man who was standing near the engine, and who +touched his hat every time they passed; for Mr Dombey habitually +looked over the vulgar herd, not at them; and the Major was looking, +at the time, into the core of one of his stories. At length, however, +this man stepped before them as they turned round, and pulling his hat +off, and keeping it off, ducked his head to Mr Dombey. + +'Beg your pardon, Sir,' said the man, 'but I hope you're a doin' +pretty well, Sir.' + +He was dressed in a canvas suit abundantly besmeared with coal-dust +and oil, and had cinders in his whiskers, and a smell of half-slaked +ashes all over him. He was not a bad-looking fellow, nor even what +could be fairly called a dirty-looking fellow, in spite of this; and, +in short, he was Mr Toodle, professionally clothed. + +'I shall have the honour of stokin' of you down, Sir,' said Mr +Toodle. 'Beg your pardon, Sir. - I hope you find yourself a coming +round?' + +Mr Dombey looked at him, in return for his tone of interest, as if +a man like that would make his very eyesight dirty. + +''Scuse the liberty, Sir,' said Toodle, seeing he was not clearly +remembered, 'but my wife Polly, as was called Richards in your family +- ' + +A change in Mr Dombey's face, which seemed to express recollection +of him, and so it did, but it expressed in a much stronger degree an +angry sense of humiliation, stopped Mr Toodle short. + +'Your wife wants money, I suppose,' said Mr Dombey, putting his +hand in his pocket, and speaking (but that he always did) haughtily. + +'No thank'ee, Sir,' returned Toodle, 'I can't say she does. I +don't.' + +Mr Dombey was stopped short now in his turn: and awkwardly: with +his hand in his pocket. + +'No, Sir,' said Toodle, turning his oilskin cap round and round; +'we're a doin' pretty well, Sir; we haven't no cause to complain in +the worldly way, Sir. We've had four more since then, Sir, but we rubs +on.' + +Mr Dombey would have rubbed on to his own carriage, though in so +doing he had rubbed the stoker underneath the wheels; but his +attention was arrested by something in connexion with the cap still +going slowly round and round in the man's hand. + +'We lost one babby,' observed Toodle, 'there's no denyin'.' + +'Lately,' added Mr Dombey, looking at the cap. + +'No, Sir, up'ard of three years ago, but all the rest is hearty. +And in the matter o readin', Sir,' said Toodle, ducking again, as if +to remind Mr Dombey of what had passed between them on that subject +long ago, 'them boys o' mine, they learned me, among 'em, arter all. +They've made a wery tolerable scholar of me, Sir, them boys.' + +'Come, Major!' said Mr Dombey. + +'Beg your pardon, Sir,' resumed Toodle, taking a step before them +and deferentially stopping them again, still cap in hand: 'I wouldn't +have troubled you with such a pint except as a way of gettin' in the +name of my son Biler - christened Robin - him as you was so good as to +make a Charitable Grinder on.' + +'Well, man,' said Mr Dombey in his severest manner. 'What about +him?' + +'Why, Sir,' returned Toodle, shaking his head with a face of great +anxiety and distress, 'I'm forced to say, Sir, that he's gone wrong. + +'He has gone wrong, has he?' said Mr Dombey, with a hard kind of +satisfaction. + +'He has fell into bad company, you see, genelmen,' pursued the +father, looking wistfully at both, and evidently taking the Major into +the conversation with the hope of having his sympathy. 'He has got +into bad ways. God send he may come to again, genelmen, but he's on +the wrong track now! You could hardly be off hearing of it somehow, +Sir,' said Toodle, again addressing Mr Dombey individually; 'and it's +better I should out and say my boy's gone rather wrong. Polly's +dreadful down about it, genelmen,' said Toodle with the same dejected +look, and another appeal to the Major. + +'A son of this man's whom I caused to be educated, Major,' said Mr +Dombey, giving him his arm. 'The usual return!' + +'Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of +people, Sir,' returned the Major. 'Damme, Sir, it never does! It +always fails!' + +The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped his son, +the quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and +taught, as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of +schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as a hound, might not have +been educated on quite a right plan in some undiscovered respect, when +Mr Dombey angrily repeating 'The usual return!' led the Major away. +And the Major being heavy to hoist into Mr Dombey's carriage, elevated +in mid-air, and having to stop and swear that he would flay the Native +alive, and break every bone in his skin, and visit other physical +torments upon him, every time he couldn't get his foot on the step, +and fell back on that dark exile, had barely time before they started +to repeat hoarsely that it would never do: that it always failed: and +that if he were to educate 'his own vagabond,' he would certainly be +hanged. + +Mr Dombey assented bitterly; but there was something more in his +bitterness, and in his moody way of falling back in the carriage, and +looking with knitted brows at the changing objects without, than the +failure of that noble educational system administered by the Grinders' +Company. He had seen upon the man's rough cap a piece of new crape, +and he had assured himself, from his manner and his answers, that he +wore it for his son. + +So] from high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his great +house to the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking before +them, everyone set up some claim or other to a share in his dead boy, +and was a bidder against him! Could he ever forget how that woman had +wept over his pillow, and called him her own child! or how he, waking +from his sleep, had asked for her, and had raised himself in his bed +and brightened when she carne in! + +To think of this presumptuous raker among coals and ashes going on +before there, with his sign of mourning! To think that he dared to +enter, even by a common show like that, into the trial and +disappointrnent of a proud gentleman's secret heart! To think that +this lost child, who was to have divided with him his riches, and his +projects, and his power, and allied with whom he was to have shut out +all the world as with a double door of gold, should have let in such a +herd to insult him with their knowledge of his defeated hopes, and +their boasts of claiming community of feeling with himself, so far +removed: if not of having crept into the place wherein he would have +lorded it, alone! + +He found no pleasure or relief in the journey. Tortured by these +thoughts he carried monotony with him, through the rushing landscape, +and hurried headlong, not through a rich and varied country, but a +wilderness of blighted plans and gnawing jealousies. The very speed at +which the train was whirled along, mocked the swift course of the +young life that had been borne away so steadily and so inexorably to +its foredoomed end. The power that forced itself upon its iron way - +its own - defiant of all paths and roads, piercing through the heart +of every obstacle, and dragging living creatures of all classes, ages, +and degrees behind it, was a type of the triumphant monster, Death. + +Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, from the town, +burrowmg among the dwellings of men and making the streets hum, +flashing out into the meadows for a moment, mining in through the damp +earth, booming on in darkness and heavy air, bursting out again into +the sunny day so bright and wide; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and +a rattle, through the fields, through the woods, through the corn, +through the hay, through the chalk, through the mould, through the +clay, through the rock, among objects close at hand and almost in the +grasp, ever flying from the traveller, and a deceitful distance ever +moving slowly within him: like as in the track of the remorseless +monster, Death! + +Through the hollow, on the height, by the heath, by the orchard, by +the park, by the garden, over the canal, across the river, where the +sheep are feeding, where the mill is going, where the barge is +floating, where the dead are lying, where the factory is smoking, +where the stream is running, where the village clusters, where the +great cathedral rises, where the bleak moor lies, and the wild breeze +smooths or ruffles it at its inconstant will; away, with a shriek, and +a roar, and a rattle, and no trace to leave behind but dust and +vapour: like as in the track of the remorseless monster, Death! + +Breasting the wind and light, the shower and sunshine, away, and +still away, it rolls and roars, fierce and rapid, smooth and certain, +and great works and massive bridges crossing up above, fall like a +beam of shadow an inch broad, upon the eye, and then are lost. Away, +and still away, onward and onward ever: glimpses of cottage-homes, of +houses, mansions, rich estates, of husbandry and handicraft, of +people, of old roads and paths that look deserted, small, and +insignificant as they are left behind: and so they do, and what else +is there but such glimpses, in the track of the indomitable monster, +Death! + +Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, plunging down into +the earth again, and working on in such a storm of energy and +perseverance, that amidst the darkness and whirlwind the motion seems +reversed, and to tend furiously backward, until a ray of light upon +the Wet wall shows its surface flying past like a fierce stream, Away +once more into the day, and through the day, with a shrill yell of +exultation, roaring, rattling, tearing on, spurning everything with +its dark breath, sometimes pausing for a minute where a crowd of faces +are, that in a minute more are not; sometimes lapping water greedily, +and before the spout at which it drinks' has ceased to drip upon the +ground, shrieking, roaring, rattling through the purple distance! + +Louder and louder yet, it shrieks and cries as it comes tearing on +resistless to the goal: and now its way, still like the way of Death, +is strewn with ashes thickly. Everything around is blackened. There +are dark pools of water, muddy lanes, and miserable habitations far +below. There are jagged walls and falling houses close at hand, and +through the battered roofs and broken windows, wretched rooms are +seen, where 'want and fever hide themselves in many wretched shapes, +while smoke and crowded gables, and distorted chimneys, and deformity +of brick and mortar penning up deformity of mind and body, choke the +murky distance. As Mr Dombey looks out of his carriage window, it is +never in his thoughts that the monster who has brought him there has +let the light of day in on these things: not made or caused them. It +was the journey's fitting end, and might have been the end of +everything; it was so ruinous and dreary.' + +So, pursuing the one course of thought, he had the one relentless +monster still before him. All things looked black, and cold, and +deadly upon him, and he on them. He found a likeness to his misfortune +everywhere. There was a remorseless triumph going on about him, and it +galled and stung him in his pride and jealousy, whatever form it took: +though most of all when it divided with him the love and memory of his +lost boy. + +There was a face - he had looked upon it, on the previous night, +and it on him with eyes that read his soul, though they were dim with +tears, and hidden soon behind two quivering hands - that often had +attended him in fancy, on this ride. He had seen it, with the +expression of last night, timidly pleading to him. It was not +reproachful, but there was something of doubt, almost of hopeful +incredulity in it, which, as he once more saw that fade away into a +desolate certainty of his dislike, was like reproach. It was a trouble +to him to think of this face of Florence. + +Because he felt any new compunction towards it? No. Because the +feeling it awakened in him - of which he had had some old +foreshadowing in older times - was full-formed now, and spoke out +plainly, moving him too much, and threatening to grow too strong for +his composure. Because the face was abroad, in the expression of +defeat and persecution that seemed to encircle him like the air. +Because it barbed the arrow of that cruel and remorseless enemy on +which his thoughts so ran, and put into its grasp a double-handed +sword. Because he knew full well, in his own breast, as he stood +there, tinging the scene of transition before him with the morbid +colours of his own mind, and making it a ruin and a picture of decay, +instead of hopeful change, and promise of better things, that life had +quite as much to do with his complainings as death. One child was +gone, and one child left. Why was the object of his hope removed +instead of her? + +The sweet, calm, gentle presence in his fancy, moved him to no +reflection but that. She had been unwelcome to him from the first; she +was an aggravation of his bitterness now. If his son had been his only +child, and the same blow had fallen on him, it would have been heavy +to bear; but infinitely lighter than now, when it might have fallen on +her (whom he could have lost, or he believed it, without a pang), and +had not. Her loving and innocent face rising before him, had no +softening or winning influence. He rejected the angel, and took up +with the tormenting spirit crouching in his bosom. Her patience, +goodness, youth, devotion, love, were as so many atoms in the ashes +upon which he set his heel. He saw her image in the blight and +blackness all around him, not irradiating but deepening the gloom. +More than once upon this journey, and now again as he stood pondering +at this journey's end, tracing figures in the dust with his stick, the +thought came into his mind, what was there he could interpose between +himself and it? + +The Major, who had been blowing and panting all the way down, like +another engine, and whose eye had often wandered from his newspaper to +leer at the prospect, as if there were a procession of discomfited +Miss Toxes pouring out in the smoke of the train, and flying away over +the fields to hide themselves in any place of refuge, aroused his +friends by informing him that the post-horses were harnessed and the +carriage ready. + +'Dombey,' said the Major, rapping him on the arm with his cane, +'don't be thoughtful. It's a bad habit, Old Joe, Sir, wouldn't be as +tough as you see him, if he had ever encouraged it. You are too great +a man, Dombey, to be thoughtful. In your position, Sir, you're far +above that kind of thing.' + +The Major even in his friendly remonstrrnces, thus consulting the +dignity and honour of Mr Dombey, and showing a lively sense of their +importance, Mr Dombey felt more than ever disposed to defer to a +gentleman possessing so much good sense and such a well-regulated +mind; acoordingly he made an effort to listen to the Major's stories, +as they trotted along the turnpike road; and the Major, finding both +the pace and the road a great deal better adapted to his +conversational powers than the mode of travelling they had just +relinquished, came out of his entertainment, + +But still the Major, blunt and tough as he was, and as he so very +often said he was, administered some palatable catering to his +companion's appetite. He related, or rather suffered it to escape him, +accidentally, and as one might say, grudgingly and against his will, +how there was great curiosity and excitement at the club, in regard of +his friend Dombey. How he was suffocated with questions, Sir. How old +Joe Bagstock was a greater man than ever, there, on the strength of +Dombey. How they said, 'Bagstock, your friend Dombey now, what is the +view he takes of such and such a question? Though, by the Rood, Sir,' +said the Major, with a broad stare, 'how they discovered that J. B. +ever came to know you, is a mystery!' + +In this flow of spirits and conversation, only interrupted by his +usual plethoric symptoms, and by intervals of lunch, and from time to +time by some violent assault upon the Native, who wore a pair of +ear-rings in his dark-brown ears, and on whom his European clothes sat +with an outlandish impossibility of adjustment - being, of their own +accord, and without any reference to the tailor's art, long where they +ought to be short, short where they ought to be long, tight where they +ought to be loose, and loose where they ought to be tight - and to +which he imparted a new grace, whenever the Major attacked him, by +shrinking into them like a shrivelled nut, or a cold monkey - in this +flow of spirits and conversation, the Major continued all day: so that +when evening came on, and found them trotting through the green and +leafy road near Leamington, the Major's voice, what with talking and +eating and chuckling and choking, appeared to be in the box under the +rumble, or in some neighbouring hay-stack. Nor did the Major improve +it at the Royal Hotel, where rooms and dinner had been ordered, and +where he so oppressed his organs of speech by eating and drinking, +that when he retired to bed he had no voice at all, except to cough +with, and could only make himself intelligible to the dark servant by +gasping at him. + +He not only rose next morning, however, like a giant refreshed, but +conducted himself, at breakfast like a giant refreshing. At this meal +they arranged their daily habits. The Major was to take the +responsibility of ordering evrything to eat and drink; and they were +to have a late breakfast together every morning, and a late dinner +together every day. Mr Dombey would prefer remaining in his own room, +or walking in the country by himself, on that first day of their +sojourn at Leamington; but next morning he would be happy to accompany +the Major to the Pump-room, and about the town. So they parted until +dinner-time. Mr Dombey retired to nurse his wholesome thoughts in his +own way. The Major, attended by the Native carrying a camp-stool, a +great-coat, and an umbrella, swaggered up and down through all the +public places: looking into subscription books to find out who was +there, looking up old ladies by whom he was much admired, reporting J. +B. tougher than ever, and puffing his rich friend Dombey wherever he +went. There never was a man who stood by a friend more staunchly than +the Major, when in puffing him, he puffed himself. + +It was surprising how much new conversation the Major had to let +off at dinner-time, and what occasion he gave Mr Dombey to admire his +social qualities. At breakfast next morning, he knew the contents of +the latest newspapers received; and mentioned several subjects in +connexion with them, on which his opinion had recently been sought by +persons of such power and might, that they were only to be obscurely +hinted at. Mr Dombey, who had been so long shut up within himself, and +who had rarely, at any time, overstepped the enchanted circle within +which the operations of Dombey and Son were conducted, began to think +this an improvement on his solitary life; and in place of excusing +himself for another day, as he had thought of doing when alone, walked +out with the Major arm-in-arm. + + + +CHAPTER 21. + +New Faces + + + +The MAJOR, more blue-faced and staring - more over-ripe, as it +were, than ever - and giving vent, every now and then, to one of the +horse's coughs, not so much of necessity as in a spontaneous explosion +of importance, walked arm-in-arm with Mr Dombey up the sunny side of +the way, with his cheeks swelling over his tight stock, his legs +majestically wide apart, and his great head wagging from side to side, +as if he were remonstrating within himself for being such a +captivating object. They had not walked many yards, before the Major +encountered somebody he knew, nor many yards farther before the Major +encountered somebody else he knew, but he merely shook his fingers at +them as he passed, and led Mr Dombey on: pointing out the localities +as they went, and enlivening the walk with any current scandal +suggested by them. + +In this manner the Major and Mr Dombey were walking arm-in-arm, +much to their own satisfaction, when they beheld advancing towards +them, a wheeled chair, in which a lady was seated, indolently steering +her carriage by a kind of rudder in front, while it was propelled by +some unseen power in the rear. Although the lady was not young, she +was very blooming in the face - quite rosy- and her dress and attitude +were perfectly juvenile. Walking by the side of the chair, and +carrying her gossamer parasol with a proud and weary air, as if so +great an effort must be soon abandoned and the parasol dropped, +sauntered a much younger lady, very handsome, very haughty, very +wilful, who tossed her head and drooped her eyelids, as though, if +there were anything in all the world worth looking into, save a +mirror, it certainly was not the earth or sky. + +'Why, what the devil have we here, Sir!' cried the Major, stopping +as this little cavalcade drew near. + +'My dearest Edith!' drawled the lady in the chair, 'Major +Bagstock!' + +The Major no sooner heard the voice, than he relinquished Mr +Dombey's arm, darted forward, took the hand of the lady in the chair +and pressed it to his lips. With no less gallantry, the Major folded +both his gloves upon his heart, and bowed low to the other lady. And +now, the chair having stopped, the motive power became visible in the +shape of a flushed page pushing behind, who seemed to have in part +outgrown and in part out-pushed his strength, for when he stood +upright he was tall, and wan, and thin, and his plight appeared the +more forlorn from his having injured the shape of his hat, by butting +at the carriage with his head to urge it forward, as is sometimes done +by elephants in Oriental countries. + +'Joe Bagstock,' said the Major to both ladies, 'is a proud and +happy man for the rest of his life.' + +'You false creature! said the old lady in the chair, insipidly. +'Where do you come from? I can't bear you.' + +'Then suffer old Joe to present a friend, Ma'am,' said the Major, +promptly, 'as a reason for being tolerated. Mr Dombey, Mrs Skewton.' +The lady in the chair was gracious. 'Mr Dombey, Mrs Granger.' The lady +with the parasol was faintly conscious of Mr Dombey's taking off his +hat, and bowing low. 'I am delighted, Sir,' said the Major, 'to have +this opportunity.' + +The Major seemed in earnest, for he looked at all the three, and +leered in his ugliest manner. + +'Mrs Skewton, Dombey,' said the Major, 'makes havoc in the heart of +old Josh.' + +Mr Dombey signified that he didn't wonder at it. + +'You perfidious goblin,' said the lady in the chair, 'have done! +How long have you been here, bad man?' + +'One day,' replied the Major. + +'And can you be a day, or even a minute,' returned the lady, +slightly settling her false curls and false eyebrows with her fan, and +showing her false teeth, set off by her false complexion, 'in the +garden of what's-its-name + +'Eden, I suppose, Mama,' interrupted the younger lady, scornfully. + +'My dear Edith,' said the other, 'I cannot help it. I never can +remember those frightful names - without having your whole Soul and +Being inspired by the sight of Nature; by the perfume,' said Mrs +Skewton, rustling a handkerchief that was faint and sickly with +essences, 'of her artless breath, you creature!' + +The discrepancy between Mrs Skewton's fresh enthusiasm of words, +and forlornly faded manner, was hardly less observable than that +between her age, which was about seventy, and her dress, which would +have been youthful for twenty-seven. Her attitude in the wheeled chair +(which she never varied) was one in which she had been taken in a +barouche, some fifty years before, by a then fashionable artist who +had appended to his published sketch the name of Cleopatra: in +consequence of a discovery made by the critics of the time, that it +bore an exact resemblance to that Princess as she reclined on board +her galley. Mrs Skewton was a beauty then, and bucks threw +wine-glasses over their heads by dozens in her honour. The beauty and +the barouche had both passed away, but she still preserved the +attitude, and for this reason expressly, maintained the wheeled chair +and the butting page: there being nothing whatever, except the +attitude, to prevent her from walking. + +'Mr Dombey is devoted to Nature, I trust?' said Mrs Skewton, +settling her diamond brooch. And by the way, she chiefly lived upon +the reputation of some diamonds, and her family connexions. + +'My friend Dombey, Ma'am,' returned the Major, 'may be devoted to +her in secret, but a man who is paramount in the greatest city in the +universe - + +'No one can be a stranger,' said Mrs Skewton, 'to Mr Dombey's +immense influence.' + +As Mr Dombey acknowledged the compliment with a bend of his head, +the younger lady glancing at him, met his eyes. + +'You reside here, Madam?' said Mr Dombey, addressing her. + +'No, we have been to a great many places. To Harrogate and +Scarborough, and into Devonshire. We have been visiting, and resting +here and there. Mama likes change.' + +'Edith of course does not,' said Mrs Skewton, with a ghastly +archness. + +'I have not found that there is any change in such places,' was the +answer, delivered with supreme indifference. + +'They libel me. There is only one change, Mr Dombey,' observed Mrs +Skewton, with a mincing sigh, 'for which I really care, and that I +fear I shall never be permitted to enjoy. People cannot spare one. But +seclusion and contemplation are my what-his-name - ' + +'If you mean Paradise, Mama, you had better say so, to render +yourself intelligible,' said the younger lady. + +'My dearest Edith,' returned Mrs Skewton, 'you know that I am +wholly dependent upon you for those odious names. I assure you, Mr +Dombey, Nature intended me for an Arcadian. I am thrown away in +society. Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for, has been to +retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entirely surrounded by cows - and +china.' + +This curious association of objects, suggesting a remembrance of +the celebrated bull who got by mistake into a crockery shop, was +received with perfect gravity by Mr Dombey, who intimated his opinion +that Nature was, no doubt, a very respectable institution. + +'What I want,' drawled Mrs Skewton, pinching her shrivelled throat, +'is heart.' It was frightfully true in one sense, if not in that in +which she used the phrase. 'What I want, is frankness, confidence, +less conventionality, and freer play of soul. We are so dreadfully +artificial.' + +We were, indeed. + +'In short,' said Mrs Skewton, 'I want Nature everywhere. It would +be so extremely charming.' + +'Nature is inviting us away now, Mama, if you are ready,' said the +younger lady, curling her handsome lip. At this hint, the wan page, +who had been surveying the party over the top of the chair, vanished +behind it, as if the ground had swallowed him up. + +'Stop a moment, Withers!' said Mrs Skewton, as the chair began to +move; calling to the page with all the languid dignity with which she +had called in days of yore to a coachman with a wig, cauliflower +nosegay, and silk stockings. 'Where are you staying, abomination?' The +Major was staying at the Royal Hotel, with his friend Dombey. + +'You may come and see us any evening when you are good,' lisped Mrs +Skewton. 'If Mr Dombey will honour us, we shall be happy. Withers, go +on!' + +The Major again pressed to his blue lips the tips of the fingers +that were disposed on the ledge of the wheeled chair with careful +carelessness, after the Cleopatra model: and Mr Dombey bowed. The +elder lady honoured them both with a very gracious smile and a girlish +wave of her hand; the younger lady with the very slightest inclination +of her head that common courtesy allowed. + +The last glimpse of the wrinkled face of the mother, with that +patched colour on it which the sun made infinitely more haggard and +dismal than any want of colour could have been, and of the proud +beauty of the daughter with her graceful figure and erect deportment, +engendered such an involuntary disposition on the part of both the +Major and Mr Dombey to look after them, that they both turned at the +same moment. The Page, nearly as much aslant as his own shadow, was +toiling after the chair, uphill, like a slow battering-ram; the top of +Cleopatra's bonnet was fluttering in exactly the same corner to the +inch as before; and the Beauty, loitering by herself a little in +advance, expressed in all her elegant form, from head to foot, the +same supreme disregard of everything and everybody. + +'I tell you what, Sir,' said the Major, as they resumed their walk +again. 'If Joe Bagstock were a younger man, there's not a woman in the +world whom he'd prefer for Mrs Bagstock to that woman. By George, +Sir!' said the Major, 'she's superb!' + +'Do you mean the daughter?' inquired Mr Dombey. + +'Is Joey B. a turnip, Dombey,' said the Major, 'that he should mean +the mother?' + +'You were complimentary to the mother,' returned Mr Dombey. + +'An ancient flame, Sir,' chuckled Major Bagstock. 'Devilish +ancient. I humour her.' + +'She impresses me as being perfectly genteel,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Genteel, Sir,' said the Major, stopping short, and staring in his +companion's face. 'The Honourable Mrs Skewton, Sir, is sister to the +late Lord Feenix, and aunt to the present Lord. The family are not +wealthy - they're poor, indeed - and she lives upon a small jointure; +but if you come to blood, Sir!' The Major gave a flourish with his +stick and walked on again, in despair of being able to say what you +came to, if you came to that. + +'You addressed the daughter, I observed,' said Mr Dombey, after a +short pause, 'as Mrs Granger.' + +'Edith Skewton, Sir,' returned the Major, stopping short again, and +punching a mark in the ground with his cane, to represent her, +'married (at eighteen) Granger of Ours;' whom the Major indicated by +another punch. 'Granger, Sir,' said the Major, tapping the last ideal +portrait, and rolling his head emphatically, 'was Colonel of Ours; a +de-vilish handsome fellow, Sir, of forty-one. He died, Sir, in the +second year of his marriage.' The Major ran the representative of the +deceased Granger through and through the body with his walking-stick, +and went on again, carrying his stick over his shoulder. + +'How long is this ago?' asked Mr Dombey, making another halt. + +'Edith Granger, Sir,' replied the Major, shutting one eye, putting +his head on one side, passing his cane into his left hand, and +smoothing his shirt-frill with his right, 'is, at this present time, +not quite thirty. And damme, Sir,' said the Major, shouldering his +stick once more, and walking on again, 'she's a peerless woman!' + +'Was there any family?' asked Mr Dombey presently. + +'Yes, Sir,' said the Major. 'There was a boy.' + +Mr Dombey's eyes sought the ground, and a shade came over his face. + +'Who was drowned, Sir,' pursued the Major. 'When a child of four or +five years old.' + +'Indeed?' said Mr Dombey, raising his head. + +'By the upsetting of a boat in which his nurse had no business to +have put him,' said the Major. 'That's his history. Edith Granger is +Edith Granger still; but if tough old Joey B., Sir, were a little +younger and a little richer, the name of that immortal paragon should +be Bagstock.' + +The Major heaved his shoulders, and his cheeks, and laughed more +like an over-fed Mephistopheles than ever, as he said the words. + +'Provided the lady made no objection, I suppose?' said Mr Dombey +coldly. + +'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, 'the Bagstock breed are not +accustomed to that sort of obstacle. Though it's true enough that +Edith might have married twenty times, but for being proud, Sir, +proud.' + +Mr Dombey seemed, by his face, to think no worse of her for that. + +'It's a great quality after all,' said the Major. 'By the Lord, +it's a high quality! Dombey! You are proud yourself, and your friend, +Old Joe, respects you for it, Sir.' + +With this tribute to the character of his ally, which seemed to be +wrung from him by the force of circumstances and the irresistible +tendency of their conversation, the Major closed the subject, and +glided into a general exposition of the extent to which he had been +beloved and doted on by splendid women and brilliant creatures. + +On the next day but one, Mr Dombey and the Major encountered the +Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter in the Pump-room; on the day +after, they met them again very near the place where they had met them +first. After meeting them thus, three or four times in all, it became +a point of mere civility to old acquaintances that the Major should go +there one evening. Mr Dombey had not originally intended to pay +visits, but on the Major announcing this intention, he said he would +have the pleasure of accompanying him. So the Major told the Native to +go round before dinner, and say, with his and Mr Dombey's compliments, +that they would have the honour of visiting the ladies that same +evening, if the ladies were alone. In answer to which message, the +Native brought back a very small note with a very large quantity of +scent about it, indited by the Honourable Mrs Skewton to Major +Bagstock, and briefly saying, 'You are a shocking bear and I have a +great mind not to forgive you, but if you are very good indeed,' which +was underlined, 'you may come. Compliments (in which Edith unites) to +Mr Dombey.' + +The Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter, Mrs Granger, resided, +while at Leamington, in lodgings that were fashionable enough and dear +enough, but rather limited in point of space and conveniences; so that +the Honourable Mrs Skewton, being in bed, had her feet in the window +and her head in the fireplace, while the Honourable Mrs Skewton's maid +was quartered in a closet within the drawing-room, so extremely small, +that, to avoid developing the whole of its accommodations, she was +obliged to writhe in and out of the door like a beautiful serpent. +Withers, the wan page, slept out of the house immediately under the +tiles at a neighbouring milk-shop; and the wheeled chair, which was +the stone of that young Sisyphus, passed the night in a shed belonging +to the same dairy, where new-laid eggs were produced by the poultry +connected with the establishment, who roosted on a broken donkey-cart, +persuaded, to all appearance, that it grew there, and was a species of +tree. + +Mr Dombey and the Major found Mrs Skewton arranged, as Cleopatra, +among the cushions of a sofa: very airily dressed; and certainly not +resembling Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not wither. On +their way upstairs they had heard the sound of a harp, but it had +ceased on their being announced, and Edith now stood beside it +handsomer and haughtier than ever. It was a remarkable characteristic +of this lady's beauty that it appeared to vaunt and assert itself +without her aid, and against her will. She knew that she was +beautiful: it was impossible that it could be otherwise: but she +seemed with her own pride to defy her very self. + +Whether she held cheap attractions that could only call forth +admiration that was worthless to her, or whether she designed to +render them more precious to admirers by this usage of them, those to +whom they were precious seldom paused to consider. + +'I hope, Mrs Granger,' said Mr Dombey, advancing a step towards +her, 'we are not the cause of your ceasing to play?' + +'You! oh no!' + +'Why do you not go on then, my dearest Edith?' said Cleopatra. + +'I left off as I began - of my own fancy.' + +The exquisite indifference of her manner in saying this: an +indifference quite removed from dulness or insensibility, for it was +pointed with proud purpose: was well set off by the carelessness with +which she drew her hand across the strings, and came from that part of +the room. + +'Do you know, Mr Dombey,' said her languishing mother, playing with +a hand-screen, 'that occasionally my dearest Edith and myself actually +almost differ - ' + +'Not quite, sometimes, Mama?' said Edith. + +'Oh never quite, my darling! Fie, fie, it would break my heart,' +returned her mother, making a faint attempt to pat her with the +screen, which Edith made no movement to meet, ' - about these old +conventionalities of manner that are observed in little things? Why +are we not more natural? Dear me! With all those yearnings, and +gushings, and impulsive throbbings that we have implanted in our +souls, and which are so very charming, why are we not more natural?' + +Mr Dombey said it was very true, very true. + +'We could be more natural I suppose if we tried?' said Mrs Skewton. + +Mr Dombey thought it possible. + +'Devil a bit, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'We couldn't afford it. +Unless the world was peopled with J.B.'s - tough and blunt old Joes, +Ma'am, plain red herrings with hard roes, Sir - we couldn't afford it. +It wouldn't do.' + +'You naughty Infidel,' said Mrs Skewton, 'be mute.' + +'Cleopatra commands,' returned the Major, kissing his hand, 'and +Antony Bagstock obeys.' + +'The man has no sensitiveness,' said Mrs Skewton, cruelly holding +up the hand-screen so as to shut the Major out. 'No sympathy. And what +do we live for but sympathy! What else is so extremely charming! +Without that gleam of sunshine on our cold cold earth,' said Mrs +Skewton, arranging her lace tucker, and complacently observing the +effect of her bare lean arm, looking upward from the wrist, 'how could +we possibly bear it? In short, obdurate man!' glancing at the Major, +round the screen, 'I would have my world all heart; and Faith is so +excessively charming, that I won't allow you to disturb it, do you +hear?' + +The Major replied that it was hard in Cleopatra to require the +world to be all heart, and yet to appropriate to herself the hearts of +all the world; which obliged Cleopatra to remind him that flattery was +insupportable to her, and that if he had the boldness to address her +in that strain any more, she would positively send him home. + +Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round the tea, Mr Dombey +again addressed himself to Edith. + +'There is not much company here, it would seem?' said Mr Dombey, in +his own portentous gentlemanly way. + +'I believe not. We see none.' + +'Why really,' observed Mrs Skewton fom her couch, 'there are no +people here just now with whom we care to associate.' + +'They have not enough heart,' said Edith, with a smile. The very +twilight of a smile: so singularly were its light and darkness +blended. + +'My dearest Edith rallies me, you see!' said her mother, shaking +her head: which shook a little of itself sometimes, as if the palsy +Bed now and then in opposition to the diamonds. 'Wicked one!' + +'You have been here before, if I am not mistaken?' said Mr Dombey. +Still to Edith. + +'Oh, several times. I think we have been everywhere.' + +'A beautiful country!' + +'I suppose it is. Everybody says so.' + +'Your cousin Feenix raves about it, Edith,' interposed her mother +from her couch. + +The daughter slightly turned her graceful head, and raising her +eyebrows by a hair's-breadth, as if her cousin Feenix were of all the +mortal world the least to be regarded, turned her eyes again towards +Mr Dombey. + +'I hope, for the credit of my good taste, that I am tired of the +neighbourhood,' she said. + +'You have almost reason to be, Madam,' he replied, glancing at a +variety of landscape drawings, of which he had already recognised +several as representing neighbouring points of view, and which were +strewn abundantly about the room, 'if these beautiful productions are +from your hand.' + +She gave him no reply, but sat in a disdainful beauty, quite +amazing. + +'Have they that interest?' said Mr Dombey. 'Are they yours?' + +'Yes.' + +'And you play, I already know.' + +'Yes.' + +'And sing?' + +'Yes.' + +She answered all these questions with a strange reluctance; and +with that remarkable air of opposition to herself, already noticed as +belonging to her beauty. Yet she was not embarrassed, but wholly +self-possessed. Neither did she seem to wish to avoid the +conversation, for she addressed her face, and - so far as she could - +her manner also, to him; and continued to do so, when he was silent. + +'You have many resources against weariness at least,' said Mr +Dombey. + +'Whatever their efficiency may be,' she returned, 'you know them +all now. I have no more. + +'May I hope to prove them all?' said Mr Dombey, with solemn +gallantry, laying down a drawing he had held, and motioning towards +the harp. + +'Oh certainly] If you desire it!' + +She rose as she spoke, and crossing by her mother's couch, and +directing a stately look towards her, which was instantaneous in its +duration, but inclusive (if anyone had seen it) of a multitude of +expressions, among which that of the twilight smile, without the smile +itself, overshadowed all the rest, went out of the room. + +The Major, who was quite forgiven by this time, had wheeled a +little table up to Cleopatra, and was sitting down to play picquet +with her. Mr Dombey, not knowing the game, sat down to watch them for +his edification until Edith should return. + +'We are going to have some music, Mr Dombey, I hope?' said +Cleopatra. + +'Mrs Granger has been kind enough to promise so,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Ah! That's very nice. Do you propose, Major?' + +'No, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'Couldn't do it.' + +'You're a barbarous being,' replied the lady, 'and my hand's +destroyed. You are fond of music, Mr Dombey?' + +'Eminently so,' was Mr Dombey's answer. + +'Yes. It's very nice,' said Cleopatra, looking at her cards. 'So +much heart in it - undeveloped recollections of a previous state of +existence' - and all that - which is so truly charming. Do you know,' +simpered Cleopatra, reversing the knave of clubs, who had come into +her game with his heels uppermost, 'that if anything could tempt me to +put a period to my life, it would be curiosity to find out what it's +all about, and what it means; there are so many provoking mysteries, +really, that are hidden from us. Major, you to play.' + +The Major played; and Mr Dombey, looking on for his instruction, +would soon have been in a state of dire confusion, but that he gave no +attention to the game whatever, and sat wondering instead when Edith +would come back. + +She came at last, and sat down to her harp, and Mr Dombey rose and +stood beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no +knowledge of the strain she played, but he saw her bending over it, +and perhaps he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of +his own, that tamed the monster of the iron road, and made it less +inexorable. + +Cleopatra had a sharp eye, verily, at picquet. It glistened like a +bird's, and did not fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room +from end to end, and gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything. + +When the haughty beauty had concluded, she arose, and receiving Mr +Dombey's thanks and compliments in exactly the same manner as before, +went with scarcely any pause to the piano, and began there. + +Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very +handsome, and your touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is +deep and rich; but not the air that his neglected daughter sang to his +dead son] + +Alas, he knows it not; and if he did, what air of hers would stir +him, rigid man! Sleep, lonely Florence, sleep! Peace in thy dreams, +although the night has turned dark, and the clouds are gathering, and +threaten to discharge themselves in hail! + + + +CHAPTER 22. + +A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager + + + +Mr Carker the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual, +reading those letters which were reserved for him to open, backing +them occasionally with such memoranda and references as their business +purport required, and parcelling them out into little heaps for +distribution through the several departments of the House. The post +had come in heavy that morning, and Mr Carker the Manager had a good +deal to do. + +The general action of a man so engaged - pausing to look over a +bundle of papers in his hand, dealing them round in various portions, +taking up another bundle and examining its contents with knitted brows +and pursed-out lips - dealing, and sorting, and pondering by turns - +would easily suggest some whimsical resemblance to a player at cards. +The face of Mr Carker the Manager was in good keeping with such a +fancy. It was the face of a man who studied his play, warily: who made +himself master of all the strong and weak points of the game: who +registered the cards in his mind as they fell about him, knew exactly +what was on them, what they missed, and what they made: who was crafty +to find out what the other players held, and who never betrayed his +own hand. + +The letters were in various languages, but Mr Carker the Manager +read them all. If there had been anything in the offices of Dombey and +Son that he could read, there would have been a card wanting in the +pack. He read almost at a glance, and made combinations of one letter +with another and one business with another as he went on, adding new +matter to the heaps - much as a man would know the cards at sight, and +work out their combinations in his mind after they were turned. +Something too deep for a partner, and much too deep for an adversary, +Mr Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the sun that came down +slanting on him through the skylight, playing his game alone. + +And although it is not among the instincts wild or domestic of the +cat tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr Carker +the Manager, as he basked in the strip of summer-light and warmth that +shone upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked +dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers +deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich +sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with +long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to +any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the +falling motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or +glossy linen: Mr Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, +soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of +habit, sat with a dainty steadfastness and patience at his work, as if +he were waiting at a mouse's hole. + +At length the letters were disposed of, excepting one which he +reserved for a particular audience. Having locked the more +confidential correspondence in a drawer, Mr Carker the Manager rang +his bell. + +'Why do you answer it?' was his reception of his brother. + +'The messenger is out, and I am the next,' was the submissive +reply. + +'You are the next?' muttered the Manager. 'Yes! Creditable to me! +There!' + +Pointing to the heaps of opened letters, he turned disdainfully +away, in his elbow-chair, and broke the seal of that one which he held +in his hand. + +'I am sorry to trouble you, James,' said the brother, gathering +them up, 'but - ' + +'Oh! you have something to say. I knew that. Well?' + +Mr Carker the Manager did not raise his eyes or turn them on his +brother, but kept them on his letter, though without opening it. + +'Well?' he repeated sharply. + +'I am uneasy about Harriet.' + +'Harriet who? what Harriet? I know nobody of that name.' + +'She is not well, and has changed very much of late.' + +'She changed very much, a great many years ago,' replied the +Manager; 'and that is all I have to say. + +'I think if you would hear me - + +'Why should I hear you, Brother John?' returned the Manager, laying +a sarcastic emphasis on those two words, and throwing up his head, but +not lifting his eyes. 'I tell you, Harriet Carker made her choice many +years ago between her two brothers. She may repent it, but she must +abide by it.' + +'Don't mistake me. I do not say she does repent it. It would be +black ingratitude in me to hint at such a thing,' returned the other. +'Though believe me, James, I am as sorry for her sacrifice as you.' + +'As I?' exclaimed the Manager. 'As I?' + +'As sorry for her choice - for what you call her choice - as you +are angry at it,' said the Junior. + +'Angry?' repeated the other, with a wide show of his teeth. + +'Displeased. Whatever word you like best. You know my meaning. +There is no offence in my intention.' + +'There is offence in everything you do,' replied his brother, +glancing at him with a sudden scowl, which in a moment gave place to a +wider smile than the last. 'Carry those papers away, if you please. I +am busy. + +His politeness was so much more cutting than his wrath, that the +Junior went to the door. But stopping at it, and looking round, he +said: + +'When Harriet tried in vain to plead for me with you, on your first +just indignation, and my first disgrace; and when she left you, James, +to follow my broken fortunes, and devote herself, in her mistaken +affection, to a ruined brother, because without her he had no one, and +was lost; she was young and pretty. I think if you could see her now - +if you would go and see her - she would move your admiration and +compassion.' + +The Manager inclined his head, and showed his teeth, as who should +say, in answer to some careless small-talk, 'Dear me! Is that the +case?' but said never a word. + +'We thought in those days: you and I both: that she would marry +young, and lead a happy and light-hearted life,' pursued the other. +'Oh if you knew how cheerfully she cast those hopes away; how +cheerfully she has gone forward on the path she took, and never once +looked back; you never could say again that her name was strange in +your ears. Never!' + +Again the Manager inclined his head and showed his teeth, and +seemed to say, 'Remarkable indeed! You quite surprise me!' And again +he uttered never a word. + +'May I go on?' said John Carker, mildly. + +'On your way?' replied his smiling brother. 'If you will have the +goodness. + +John Carker, with a sigh, was passing slowly out at the door, when +his brother's voice detained him for a moment on the threshold. + +'If she has gone, and goes, her own way cheerfully,' he said, +throwing the still unfolded letter on his desk, and putting his hands +firmly in his pockets, 'you may tell her that I go as cheerfully on +mine. If she has never once looked back, you may tell her that I have, +sometimes, to recall her taking part with you, and that my resolution +is no easier to wear away;' he smiled very sweetly here; 'than +marble.' + +'I tell her nothing of you. We never speak about you. Once a year, +on your birthday, Harriet says always, "Let us remember James by name, +and wish him happy," but we say no more' + +'Tell it then, if you please,' returned the other, 'to yourself. +You can't repeat it too often, as a lesson to you to avoid the subject +in speaking to me. I know no Harriet Carker. There is no such person. +You may have a sister; make much of her. I have none.' + +Mr Carker the Manager took up the letter again, and waved it with a +smile of mock courtesy towards the door. Unfolding it as his brother +withdrew, and looking darkly aiter him as he left the room, he once +more turned round in his elbow-chair, and applied himself to a +diligent perusal of its contents. + +It was in the writing of his great chief, Mr Dombey, and dated from +Leamington. Though he was a quick reader of all other letters, Mr +Carker read this slowly; weighing the words as he went, and bringing +every tooth in his head to bear upon them. When he had read it through +once, he turned it over again, and picked out these passages. 'I find +myself benefited by the change, and am not yet inclined to name any +time for my return.' 'I wish, Carker, you would arrange to come down +once and see me here, and let me know how things are going on, in +person.' 'I omitted to speak to you about young Gay. If not gone per +Son and Heir, or if Son and Heir still lying in the Docks, appoint +some other young man and keep him in the City for the present. I am +not decided.' 'Now that's unfortunate!' said Mr Carker the Manager, +expanding his mouth, as if it were made of India-rubber: 'for he's far +away.' + +Still that passage, which was in a postscript, attracted his +attention and his teeth, once more. + +'I think,' he said, 'my good friend Captain Cuttle mentioned +something about being towed along in the wake of that day. What a pity +he's so far away!' + +He refolded the letter, and was sitting trifling with it, standing +it long-wise and broad-wise on his table, and turning it over and over +on all sides - doing pretty much the same thing, perhaps, by its +contents - when Mr Perch the messenger knocked softly at the door, and +coming in on tiptoe, bending his body at every step as if it were the +delight of his life to bow, laid some papers on the table. + +'Would you please to be engaged, Sir?' asked Mr Perch, rubbing his +hands, and deferentially putting his head on one side, like a man who +felt he had no business to hold it up in such a presence, and would +keep it as much out of the way as possible. + +'Who wants me?' + +'Why, Sir,' said Mr Perch, in a soft voice, 'really nobody, Sir, to +speak of at present. Mr Gills the Ship's Instrument-maker, Sir, has +looked in, about a little matter of payment, he says: but I mentioned +to him, Sir, that you was engaged several deep; several deep.' + +Mr Perch coughed once behind his hand, and waited for further +orders. + +'Anybody else?' + +'Well, Sir,' said Mr Perch, 'I wouldn't of my own self take the +liberty of mentioning, Sir, that there was anybody else; but that same +young lad that was here yesterday, Sir, and last week, has been +hanging about the place; and it looks, Sir,' added Mr Perch, stopping +to shut the door, 'dreadful unbusiness-like to see him whistling to +the sparrows down the court, and making of 'em answer him.' + +'You said he wanted something to do, didn't you, Perch?' asked Mr +Carker, leaning back in his chair and looking at that officer. + +'Why, Sir,' said Mr Perch, coughing behind his hand again, 'his +expression certainly were that he was in wants of a sitiwation, and +that he considered something might be done for him about the Docks, +being used to fishing with a rod and line: but - ' Mr Perch shook his +head very dubiously indeed. + +'What does he say when he comes?' asked Mr Carker. + +'Indeed, Sir,' said Mr Perch, coughing another cough behind his +hand, which was always his resource as an expression of humility when +nothing else occurred to him, 'his observation generally air that he +would humbly wish to see one of the gentlemen, and that he wants to +earn a living. But you see, Sir,' added Perch, dropping his voice to a +whisper, and turning, in the inviolable nature of his confidence, to +give the door a thrust with his hand and knee, as if that would shut +it any more when it was shut already, 'it's hardly to be bore, Sir, +that a common lad like that should come a prowling here, and saying +that his mother nursed our House's young gentleman, and that he hopes +our House will give him a chance on that account. I am sure, Sir,' +observed Mr Perch, 'that although Mrs Perch was at that time nursing +as thriving a little girl, Sir, as we've ever took the liberty of +adding to our family, I wouldn't have made so free as drop a hint of +her being capable of imparting nourishment, not if it was never so!' + +Mr Carker grinned at him like a shark, but in an absent, thoughtful +manner. + +'Whether,' submitted Mr Perch, after a short silence, and another +cough, 'it mightn't be best for me to tell him, that if he was seen +here any more he would be given into custody; and to keep to it! With +respect to bodily fear,' said Mr Perch, 'I'm so timid, myself, by +nature, Sir, and my nerves is so unstrung by Mrs Perch's state, that I +could take my affidavit easy.' + +'Let me see this fellow, Perch,' said Mr Carker. 'Bring him in!' + +'Yes, Sir. Begging your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Perch, hesitating at +the door, 'he's rough, Sir, in appearance.' + +'Never mind. If he's there, bring him in. I'll see Mr Gills +directly. Ask him to wait.' + +Mr Perch bowed; and shutting the door, as precisely and carefully +as if he were not coming back for a week, went on his quest among the +sparrows in the court. While he was gone, Mr Carker assumed his +favourite attitude before the fire-place, and stood looking at the +door; presenting, with his under lip tucked into the smile that showed +his whole row of upper teeth, a singularly crouching apace. + +The messenger was not long in returning, followed by a pair of +heavy boots that came bumping along the passage like boxes. With the +unceremonious words 'Come along with you!' - a very unusual form of +introduction from his lips - Mr Perch then ushered into the presence a +strong-built lad of fifteen, with a round red face, a round sleek +head, round black eyes, round limbs, and round body, who, to carry out +the general rotundity of his appearance, had a round hat in his hand, +without a particle of brim to it. + +Obedient to a nod from Mr Carker, Perch had no sooner confronted +the visitor with that gentleman than he withdrew. The moment they were +face to face alone, Mr Carker, without a word of preparation, took him +by the throat, and shook him until his head seemed loose upon his +shoulders. + +The boy, who in the midst of his astonishment could not help +staring wildly at the gentleman with so many white teeth who was +choking him, and at the office walls, as though determined, if he were +choked, that his last look should be at the mysteries for his +intrusion into which he was paying such a severe penalty, at last +contrived to utter - + +'Come, Sir! You let me alone, will you!' + +'Let you alone!' said Mr Carker. 'What! I have got you, have I?' +There was no doubt of that, and tightly too. 'You dog,' said Mr +Carker, through his set jaws, 'I'll strangle you!' + +Biler whimpered, would he though? oh no he wouldn't - and what was +he doing of - and why didn't he strangle some- body of his own size +and not him: but Biler was quelled by the extraordinary nature of his +reception, and, as his head became stationary, and he looked the +gentleman in the face, or rather in the teeth, and saw him snarling at +him, he so far forgot his manhood as to cry. + +'I haven't done nothing to you, Sir,' said Biler, otherwise Rob, +otherwise Grinder, and always Toodle. + +'You young scoundrel!' replied Mr Carker, slowly releasing him, and +moving back a step into his favourite position. 'What do you mean by +daring to come here?' + +'I didn't mean no harm, Sir,' whimpered Rob, putting one hand to +his throat, and the knuckles of the other to his eyes. 'I'll never +come again, Sir. I only wanted work.' + +'Work, young Cain that you are!' repeated Mr Carker, eyeing him +narrowly. 'Ain't you the idlest vagabond in London?' + +The impeachment, while it much affected Mr Toodle Junior, attached +to his character so justly, that he could not say a word in denial. He +stood looking at the gentleman, therefore, with a frightened, +self-convicted, and remorseful air. As to his looking at him, it may +be observed that he was fascinated by Mr Carker, and never took his +round eyes off him for an instant. + +'Ain't you a thief?' said Mr Carker, with his hands behind him in +his pockets. + +'No, sir,' pleaded Rob. + +'You are!' said Mr Carker. + +'I ain't indeed, Sir,' whimpered Rob. 'I never did such a thing as +thieve, Sir, if you'll believe me. I know I've been a going wrong, +Sir, ever since I took to bird-catching' and walking-matching. I'm +sure a cove might think,' said Mr Toodle Junior, with a burst of +penitence, 'that singing birds was innocent company, but nobody knows +what harm is in them little creeturs and what they brings you down +to.' + +They seemed to have brought him down to a velveteen jacket and +trousers very much the worse for wear, a particularly small red +waistcoat like a gorget, an interval of blue check, and the hat before +mentioned. + +'I ain't been home twenty times since them birds got their will of +me,' said Rob, 'and that's ten months. How can I go home when +everybody's miserable to see me! I wonder,' said Biler, blubbering +outright, and smearing his eyes with his coat-cuff, 'that I haven't +been and drownded myself over and over again.' + +All of which, including his expression of surprise at not having +achieved this last scarce performance, the boy said, just as if the +teeth of Mr Carker drew it out ofhim, and he had no power of +concealing anything with that battery of attraction in full play. + +'You're a nice young gentleman!' said Mr Carker, shaking his head +at him. 'There's hemp-seed sown for you, my fine fellow!' + +'I'm sure, Sir,' returned the wretched Biler, blubbering again, and +again having recourse to his coat-cuff: 'I shouldn't care, sometimes, +if it was growed too. My misfortunes all began in wagging, Sir; but +what could I do, exceptin' wag?' + +'Excepting what?' said Mr Carker. + +'Wag, Sir. Wagging from school.' + +'Do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?' said Mr +Carker. + +'Yes, Sir, that's wagging, Sir,' returned the quondam Grinder, much +affected. 'I was chivied through the streets, Sir, when I went there, +and pounded when I got there. So I wagged, and hid myself, and that +began it.' + +'And you mean to tell me,' said Mr Carker, taking him by the throat +again, holding him out at arm's-length, and surveying him in silence +for some moments, 'that you want a place, do you?' + +'I should be thankful to be tried, Sir,' returned Toodle Junior, +faintly. + +Mr Carker the Manager pushed him backward into a corner - the boy +submitting quietly, hardly venturing to breathe, and never once +removing his eyes from his face - and rang the bell. + +'Tell Mr Gills to come here.' + +Mr Perch was too deferential to express surprise or recognition of +the figure in the corner: and Uncle Sol appeared immediately. + +'Mr Gills!' said Carker, with a smile, 'sit down. How do you do? +You continue to enjoy your health, I hope?' + +'Thank you, Sir,' returned Uncle Sol, taking out his pocket-book, +and handing over some notes as he spoke. 'Nothing ails me in body but +old age. Twenty-five, Sir.' + +'You are as punctual and exact, Mr Gills,' replied the smiling +Manager, taking a paper from one of his many drawers, and making an +endorsement on it, while Uncle Sol looked over him, 'as one of your +own chronometers. Quite right.' + +'The Son and Heir has not been spoken, I find by the list, Sir,' +said Uncle Sol, with a slight addition to the usual tremor in his +voice. + +'The Son and Heir has not been spoken,' returned Carker. 'There +seems to have been tempestuous weather, Mr Gills, and she has probably +been driven out of her course.' + +'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' said old Sol. + +'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' assented Mr Carker in that +voiceless manner of his: which made the observant young Toodle +trernble again. 'Mr Gills,' he added aloud, throwing himself back in +his chair, 'you must miss your nephew very much?' + +Uncle Sol, standing by him, shook his head and heaved a deep sigh. + +'Mr Gills,' said Carker, with his soft hand playing round his +mouth, and looking up into the Instrument-maker's face, 'it would be +company to you to have a young fellow in your shop just now, and it +would be obliging me if you would give one house-room for the present. +No, to be sure,' he added quickly, in anticipation of what the old man +was going to say, 'there's not much business doing there, I know; but +you can make him clean the place out, polish up the instruments; +drudge, Mr Gills. That's the lad!' + +Sol Gills pulled down his spectacles from his forehead to his eyes, +and looked at Toodle Junior standing upright in the corner: his head +presenting the appearance (which it always did) of having been newly +drawn out of a bucket of cold water; his small waistcoat rising and +falling quickly in the play of his emotions; and his eyes intently +fixed on Mr Carker, without the least reference to his proposed +master. + +'Will you give him house-room, Mr Gills?' said the Manager. + +Old Sol, without being quite enthusiastic on the subject, replied +that he was glad of any opportunity, however slight, to oblige Mr +Carker, whose wish on such a point was a command: and that the wooden +Midshipman would consider himself happy to receive in his berth any +visitor of Mr Carker's selecting. + +Mr Carker bared himself to the tops and bottoms of his gums: making +the watchful Toodle Junior tremble more and more: and acknowledged the +Instrument-maker's politeness in his most affable manner. + +'I'll dispose of him so, then, Mr Gills,' he answered, rising, and +shaking the old man by the hand, 'until I make up my mind what to do +with him, and what he deserves. As I consider myself responsible for +him, Mr Gills,' here he smiled a wide smile at Rob, who shook before +it: 'I shall be glad if you'll look sharply after him, and report his +behaviour to me. I'll ask a question or two of his parents as I ride +home this afternoon - respectable people - to confirm some particulars +in his own account of himself; and that done, Mr Gills, I'll send him +round to you to-morrow morning. Goodbye!' + +His smile at parting was so full of teeth, that it confused old +Sol, and made him vaguely uncomfortable. He went home, thinking of +raging seas, foundering ships, drowning men, an ancient bottle of +Madeira never brought to light, and other dismal matters. + +'Now, boy!' said Mr Carker, putting his hand on young Toodle's +shoulder, and bringing him out into the middle of the room. 'You have +heard me?' + +Rob said, 'Yes, Sir.' + +'Perhaps you understand,' pursued his patron, 'that if you ever +deceive or play tricks with me, you had better have drowned yourself, +indeed, once for all, before you came here?' + +There was nothing in any branch of mental acquisition that Rob +seemed to understand better than that. + +'If you have lied to me,' said Mr Carker, 'in anything, never come +in my way again. If not, you may let me find you waiting for me +somewhere near your mother's house this afternoon. I shall leave this +at five o'clock, and ride there on horseback. Now, give me the +address.' + +Rob repeated it slowly, as Mr Carker wrote it down. Rob even spelt +it over a second time, letter by letter, as if he thought that the +omission of a dot or scratch would lead to his destruction. Mr Carker +then handed him out of the room; and Rob, keeping his round eyes fixed +upon his patron to the last, vanished for the time being. + +Mr Carker the Manager did a great deal of business in the course of +the day, and stowed his teeth upon a great many people. In the office, +in the court, in the street, and on 'Change, they glistened and +bristled to a terrible extent. Five o'clock arriving, and with it Mr +Carker's bay horse, they got on horseback, and went gleaming up +Cheapside. + +As no one can easily ride fast, even if inclined to do so, through +the press and throng of the City at that hour, and as Mr Carker was +not inclined, he went leisurely along, picking his way among the carts +and carriages, avoiding whenever he could the wetter and more dirty +places in the over-watered road, and taking infinite pains to keep +himself and his steed clean. Glancing at the passersby while he was +thus ambling on his way, he suddenly encountered the round eyes of the +sleek-headed Rob intently fixed upon his face as if they had never +been taken off, while the boy himself, with a pocket-handkerchief +twisted up like a speckled eel and girded round his waist, made a very +conspicuous demonstration of being prepared to attend upon him, at +whatever pace he might think proper to go. + +This attention, however flattering, being one of an unusual kind, +and attracting some notice from the other passengers, Mr Carker took +advantage of a clearer thoroughfare and a cleaner road, and broke into +a trot. Rob immediately did the same. Mr Carker presently tried a +canter; Rob Was still in attendance. Then a short gallop; it Was all +one to the boy. Whenever Mr Carker turned his eyes to that side of the +road, he still saw Toodle Junior holding his course, apparently +without distress, and working himself along by the elbows after the +most approved manner of professional gentlemen who get over the ground +for wagers. + +Ridiculous as this attendance was, it was a sign of an influence +established over the boy, and therefore Mr Carker, affecting not to +notice it, rode away into the neighbourhood of Mr Toodle's house. On +his slackening his pace here, Rob appeared before him to point out the +turnings; and when he called to a man at a neighbouring gateway to +hold his horse, pending his visit to the buildings that had succeeded +Staggs's Gardens, Rob dutifully held the stirrup, while the Manager +dismounted. + +'Now, Sir,' said Mr Carker, taking him by the shoulder, 'come +along!' + +The prodigal son was evidently nervous of visiting the parental +abode; but Mr Carker pushing him on before, he had nothing for it but +to open the right door, and suffer himself to be walked into the midst +of his brothers and sisters, mustered in overwhelming force round the +family tea-table. At sight of the prodigal in the grasp of a stranger, +these tender relations united in a general howl, which smote upon the +prodigal's breast so sharply when he saw his mother stand up among +them, pale and trembling, with the baby in her arms, that he lent his +own voice to the chorus. + +Nothing doubting now that the stranger, if not Mr Ketch' in person, +was one of that company, the whole of the young family wailed the +louder, while its more infantine members, unable to control the +transports of emotion appertaining to their time of life, threw +themselves on their backs like young birds when terrified by a hawk, +and kicked violently. At length, poor Polly making herself audible, +said, with quivering lips, 'Oh Rob, my poor boy, what have you done at +last!' + +'Nothing, mother,' cried Rob, in a piteous voice, 'ask the +gentleman!' + +'Don't be alarmed,' said Mr Carker, 'I want to do him good.' + +At this announcement, Polly, who had not cried yet, began to do so. +The elder Toodles, who appeared to have been meditating a rescue, +unclenched their fists. The younger Toodles clustered round their +mother's gown, and peeped from under their own chubby arms at their +desperado brother and his unknown friend. Everybody blessed the +gentleman with the beautiful teeth, who wanted to do good. + +'This fellow,' said Mr Carker to Polly, giving him a gentle shake, +'is your son, eh, Ma'am?' + +'Yes, Sir,' sobbed Polly, with a curtsey; 'yes, Sir.' + +'A bad son, I am afraid?' said Mr Carker. + +'Never a bad son to me, Sir,' returned Polly. + +'To whom then?' demanded Mr Carker. + +'He has been a little wild, Sir,' returned Polly, checking the +baby, who was making convulsive efforts with his arms and legs to +launch himself on Biler, through the ambient air, 'and has gone with +wrong companions: but I hope he has seen the misery of that, Sir, and +will do well again.' + +Mr Carker looked at Polly, and the clean room, and the clean +children, and the simple Toodle face, combined of father and mother, +that was reflected and repeated everywhere about him - and seemed to +have achieved the real purpose of his visit. + +'Your husband, I take it, is not at home?' he said. + +'No, Sir,' replied Polly. 'He's down the line at present.' + +The prodigal Rob seemed very much relieved to hear it: though still +in the absorption of all his faculties in his patron, he hardly took +his eyes from Mr Carker's face, unless for a moment at a time to steal +a sorrowful glance at his mother. + +'Then,' said Mr Carker, 'I'll tell you how I have stumbled on this +boy of yours, and who I am, and what I am going to do for him.' + +This Mr Carker did, in his own way; saying that he at first +intended to have accumulated nameless terrors on his presumptuous +head, for coming to the whereabout of Dombey and Son. That he had +relented, in consideration of his youth, his professed contrition, and +his friends. That he was afraid he took a rash step in doing anything +for the boy, and one that might expose him to the censure of the +prudent; but that he did it of himself and for himself, and risked the +consequences single-handed; and that his mother's past connexion with +Mr Dombey's family had nothing to do with it, and that Mr Dombey had +nothing to do with it, but that he, Mr Carker, was the be-all and the +end-all of this business. Taking great credit to himself for his +goodness, and receiving no less from all the family then present, Mr +Carker signified, indirectly but still pretty plainly, that Rob's +implicit fidelity, attachment, and devotion, were for evermore his +due, and the least homage he could receive. And with this great truth +Rob himself was so impressed, that, standing gazing on his patron with +tears rolling down his cheeks, he nodded his shiny head until it +seemed almost as loose as it had done under the same patron's hands +that morning. + +Polly, who had passed Heaven knows how many sleepless nights on +account of this her dissipated firstborn, and had not seen him for +weeks and weeks, could have almost kneeled to Mr Carker the Manager, +as to a Good Spirit - in spite of his teeth. But Mr Carker rising to +depart, she only thanked him with her mother's prayers and blessings; +thanks so rich when paid out of the Heart's mint, especially for any +service Mr Carker had rendered, that he might have given back a large +amount of change, and yet been overpaid. + +As that gentleman made his way among the crowding children to the +door, Rob retreated on his mother, and took her and the baby in the +same repentant hug. + +'I'll try hard, dear mother, now. Upon my soul I will!' said Rob. + +'Oh do, my dear boy! I am sure you will, for our sakes and your +own!' cried Polly, kissing him. 'But you're coming back to speak to +me, when you have seen the gentleman away?' + +'I don't know, mother.' Rob hesitated, and looked down. 'Father - +when's he coming home?' + +'Not till two o'clock to-morrow morning.' + +'I'll come back, mother dear!' cried Rob. And passing through the +shrill cry of his brothers and sisters in reception of this promise, +he followed Mr Carker out. + +'What!' said Mr Carker, who had heard this. 'You have a bad father, +have you?' + +'No, Sir!' returned Rob, amazed. 'There ain't a better nor a kinder +father going, than mine is.' + +'Why don't you want to see him then?' inquired his patron. + +'There's such a difference between a father and a mother, Sir,' +said Rob, after faltering for a moment. 'He couldn't hardly believe +yet that I was doing to do better - though I know he'd try to but a +mother - she always believes what's,' good, Sir; at least I know my +mother does, God bless her!' + +Mr Carker's mouth expanded, but he said no more until he was +mounted on his horse, and had dismissed the man who held it, when, +looking down from the saddle steadily into the attentive and watchful +face of the boy, he said: + +'You'll come to me tomorrow morning, and you shall be shown where +that old gentleman lives; that old gentleman who was with me this +morning; where you are going, as you heard me say.' + +'Yes, Sir,' returned Rob. + +'I have a great interest in that old gentleman, and in serving him, +you serve me, boy, do you understand? Well,' he added, interrupting +him, for he saw his round face brighten when he was told that: 'I see +you do. I want to know all about that old gentleman, and how he goes +on from day to day - for I am anxious to be of service to him - and +especially who comes there to see him. Do you understand?' + +Rob nodded his steadfast face, and said 'Yes, Sir,' again. + +'I should like to know that he has friends who are attentive to +him, and that they don't desert him - for he lives very much alone +now, poor fellow; but that they are fond of him, and of his nephew who +has gone abroad. There is a very young lady who may perhaps come to +see him. I want particularly to know all about her.' + +'I'll take care, Sir,' said the boy. + +'And take care,' returned his patron, bending forward to advance +his grinning face closer to the boy's, and pat him on the shoulder +with the handle of his whip: 'take care you talk about affairs of mine +to nobody but me.' + +'To nobody in the world, Sir,' replied Rob, shaking his head. + +'Neither there,' said Mr CarHer, pointing to the place they had +just left, 'nor anywhere else. I'll try how true and grateful you can +be. I'll prove you!' Making this, by his display of teeth and by the +action of his head, as much a threat as a promise, he turned from +Rob's eyes, which were nailed upon him as if he had won the boy by a +charm, body and soul, and rode away. But again becoming conscious, +after trotting a short distance, that his devoted henchman, girt as +before, was yielding him the same attendance, to the great amusement +of sundry spectators, he reined up, and ordered him off. To ensure his +obedience, he turned in the saddle and watched him as he retired. It +was curious to see that even then Rob could not keep his eyes wholly +averted from his patron's face, but, constantly turning and turning +again to look after him' involved himself in a tempest of buffetings +and jostlings from the other passengers in the street: of which, in +the pursuit of the one paramount idea, he was perfectly heedless. + +Mr Carker the Manager rode on at a foot-pace, with the easy air of +one who had performed all the business of the day in a satisfactory +manner, and got it comfortably off his mind. Complacent and affable as +man could be, Mr Carker picked his way along the streets and hummed a +soft tune as he went He seemed to purr, he was so glad. + +And in some sort, Mr Carker, in his fancy, basked upon a hearth +too. Coiled up snugly at certain feet, he was ready for a spring, Or +for a tear, or for a scratch, or for a velvet touch, as the humour +took him and occasion served. Was there any bird in a cage, that came +in for a share ofhis regards? + +'A very young lady!' thought Mr Carker the Manager, through his +song. 'Ay! when I saw her last, she was a little child. With dark eyes +and hair, I recollect, and a good face; a very good face! I daresay +she's pretty.' + +More affable and pleasant yet, and humming his song until his many +teeth vibrated to it, Mr Carker picked his way along, and turned at +last into the shady street where Mr Dombey's house stood. He had been +so busy, winding webs round good faces, and obscuring them with +meshes, that he hardly thought of being at this point of his ride, +until, glancing down the cold perspective of tall houses, he reined in +his horse quickly within a few yards of the door. But to explain why +Mr Carker reined in his horse quickly, and what he looked at in no +small surprise, a few digressive words are necessary. + +Mr Toots, emancipated from the Blimber thraldom and coming into the +possession of a certain portion of his wordly wealth, 'which,' as he +had been wont, during his last half-year's probation, to communicate +to Mr Feeder every evening as a new discovery, 'the executors couldn't +keep him out of' had applied himself with great diligence, to the +science of Life. Fired with a noble emulation to pursue a brilliant +and distinguished career, Mr Toots had furnished a choice set of +apartments; had established among them a sporting bower, embellished +with the portraits of winning horses, in which he took no particle of +interest; and a divan, which made him poorly. In this delicious abode, +Mr Toots devoted himself to the cultivation of those gentle arts which +refine and humanise existence, his chief instructor in which was an +interesting character called the Game Chicken, who was always to be +heard of at the bar of the Black Badger, wore a shaggy white +great-coat in the warmest weather, and knocked Mr Toots about the head +three times a week, for the small consideration of ten and six per +visit. + +The Game Chicken, who was quite the Apollo of Mr Toots's Pantheon, +had introduced to him a marker who taught billiards, a Life Guard who +taught fencing, a jobmaster who taught riding, a Cornish gentleman who +was up to anything in the athletic line, and two or three other +friends connected no less intimately with the fine arts. Under whose +auspices Mr Toots could hardly fail to improve apace, and under whose +tuition he went to work. + +But however it came about, it came to pass, even while these +gentlemen had the gloss of novelty upon them, that Mr Toots felt, he +didn't know how, unsettled and uneasy. There were husks in his corn, +that even Game Chickens couldn't peck up; gloomy giants in his +leisure, that even Game Chickens couldn't knock down. Nothing seemed +to do Mr Toots so much good as incessantly leaving cards at Mr +Dombey's door. No taxgatherer in the British Dominions - that +wide-spread territory on which the sun never sets, and where the +tax-gatherer never goes to bed - was more regular and persevering in +his calls than Mr Toots. + +Mr Toots never went upstairs; and always performed the same +ceremonies, richly dressed for the purpose, at the hall door. + +'Oh! Good morning!' would be Mr Toots's first remark to the +servant. 'For Mr Dombey,' would be Mr Toots's next remark, as he +handed in a card. 'For Miss Dombey,' would be his next, as he handed +in another. + +Mr Toots would then turn round as if to go away; but the man knew +him by this time, and knew he wouldn't. + +'Oh, I beg your pardon,' Mr Toots would say, as if a thought had +suddenly descended on him. 'Is the young woman at home?' + +The man would rather think she was;, but wouldn't quite know. Then +he would ring a bell that rang upstairs, and would look up the +staircase, and would say, yes, she was at home, and was coming down. +Then Miss Nipper would appear, and the man would retire. + +'Oh! How de do?' Mr Toots would say, with a chuckle and a blush. + +Susan would thank him, and say she was very well. + +'How's Diogenes going on?' would be Mr Toots's second +interrogation. + +Very well indeed. Miss Florence was fonder and fonder of him every +day. Mr Toots was sure to hail this with a burst of chuckles, like the +opening of a bottle of some effervescent beverage. + +'Miss Florence is quite well, Sir,' Susan would add. + +Oh, it's of no consequence, thank'ee,' was the invariable reply of +Mr Toots; and when he had said so, he always went away very fast. + +Now it is certain that Mr Toots had a filmy something in his mind, +which led him to conclude that if he could aspire successfully in the +fulness of time, to the hand of Florence, he would be fortunate and +blest. It is certain that Mr Toots, by some remote and roundabout +road, had got to that point, and that there he made a stand. His heart +was wounded; he was touched; he was in love. He had made a desperate +attempt, one night, and had sat up all night for the purpose, to write +an acrostic on Florence, which affected him to tears in the +conception. But he never proceeded in the execution further than the +words 'For when I gaze,' - the flow of imagination in which he had +previously written down the initial letters of the other seven lines, +deserting him at that point. + +Beyond devising that very artful and politic measure of leaving a +card for Mr Dombey daily, the brain of Mr Toots had not worked much in +reference to the subject that held his feelings prisoner. But deep +consideration at length assured Mr Toots that an important step to +gain, was, the conciliation of Miss Susan Nipper, preparatory to +giving her some inkling of his state of mind. + +A little light and playful gallantry towards this lady seemed the +means to employ in that early chapter of the history, for winning her +to his interests. Not being able quite to make up his mind about it, +he consulted the Chicken - without taking that gentleman into his +confidence; merely informing him that a friend in Yorkshire had +written to him (Mr Toots) for his opinion on such a question. The +Chicken replying that his opinion always was, 'Go in and win,' and +further, 'When your man's before you and your work cut out, go in and +do it,' Mr Toots considered this a figurative way of supporting his +own view of the case, and heroically resolved to kiss Miss Nipper next +day. + +Upon the next day, therefore, Mr Toots, putting into requisition +some of the greatest marvels that Burgess and Co. had ever turned out, +went off to Mr Dotnbey's upon this design. But his heart failed him so +much as he approached the scene of action, that, although he arrived +on the ground at three o'clock in the afternoon, it was six before he +knocked at the door. + +Everything happened as usual, down to the point where Susan said +her young mistress was well, and Mr Toots said it was ofno +consequence. To her amazement, Mr Toots, instead of going off, like a +rocket, after that observation, lingered and chuckled. + +'Perhaps you'd like to walk upstairs, Sir!' said Susan. + +'Well, I think I will come in!' said Mr Toots. + +But instead of walking upstairs, the bold Toots made an awkward +plunge at Susan when the door was shut, and embracing that fair +creature, kissed her on the cheek + +'Go along with you!~ cried Susan, 'or Ill tear your eyes out.' + +'Just another!' said Mr Toots. + +'Go along with you!' exclaimed Susan, giving him a push 'Innocents +like you, too! Who'll begin next? Go along, Sir!' + +Susan was not in any serious strait, for she could hardly speak for +laughing; but Diogenes, on the staircase, hearing a rustling against +the wall, and a shuffling of feet, and seeing through the banisters +that there was some contention going on, and foreign invasion in the +house, formed a different opinion, dashed down to the rescue, and in +the twinkling of an eye had Mr Toots by the leg. + +Susan screamed, laughed, opened the street-door, and ran +downstairs; the bold Toots tumbled staggering out into the street, +with Diogenes holding on to one leg of his pantaioons, as if Burgess +and Co. were his cooks, and had provided that dainty morsel for his +holiday entertainment; Diogenes shaken off, rolled over and over in +the dust, got up' again, whirled round the giddy Toots and snapped at +him: and all this turmoil Mr Carker, reigning up his horse and sitting +a little at a distance, saw to his amazement, issue from the stately +house of Mr Dombey. + +Mr Carker remained watching the discomfited Toots, when Diogenes +was called in, and the door shut: and while that gentleman, taking +refuge in a doorway near at hand, bound up the torn leg of his +pantaloons with a costly silk handkerchief that had formed part of his +expensive outfit for the advent + +'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Carker, riding up, with his most +propitiatory smile. 'I hope you are not hurt?' + +'Oh no, thank you,' replied Mr Toots, raising his flushed face, +'it's of no consequence' Mr Toots would have signified, if he could, +that he liked it very much. + +'If the dog's teeth have entered the leg, Sir - ' began Carker, +with a display of his own' + +'No, thank you,' said Mr Toots, 'it's all quite right. It's very +comfortable, thank you.' + +'I have the pleasure of knowing Mr Dombey,' observed Carker. + +'Have you though?' rejoined the blushing Took + +'And you will allow me, perhaps, to apologise, in his absence,' +said Mr Carker, taking off his hat, 'for such a misadventure, and to +wonder how it can possibly have happened.' + +Mr Toots is so much gratified by this politeness, and the lucky +chance of making frends with a friend of Mr Dombey, that he pulls out +his card-case which he never loses an opportunity of using, and hands +his name and address to Mr Carker: who responds to that courtesy by +giving him his own, and with that they part. + +As Mr Carker picks his way so softly past the house, looking up at +the windows, and trying to make out the pensive face behind the +curtain looking at the children opposite, the rough head of Diogenes +came clambering up close by it, and the dog, regardless of all +soothing, barks and growls, and makes at him from that height, as ifhe +would spring down and tear him limb from limb. + +Well spoken, Di, so near your Mistress! Another, and another with +your head up, your eyes flashing, and your vexed mouth worrying +itself, for want of him! Another, as he picks his way along! You have +a good scent, Di, - cats, boy, cats! + + + +CHAPTER 23. + +Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious + + + +Florence lived alone in the great dreary house, and day succeeded +day, and still she lived alone; and the blank walls looked down upon +her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare +her youth and beauty into stone. + +No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a +thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was +her father's mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the +street: always by night, when lights were shining from neighbouring +windows, a blot upon its scanty brightness; always by day, a frown +upon its never-smiling face. + +There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of +this above, as in magic legend are usually found on duty over the +wronged innocence imprisoned; but besides a glowering visage, with its +thin lips parted wickedly, that surveyed all comers from above the +archway of the door, there was a monstrous fantasy of rusty iron, +curling and twisting like a petrifaction of an arbour over threshold, +budding in spikes and corkscrew points, and bearing, one on either +side, two ominous extinguishers, that seemed to say, 'Who enter here, +leave light behind!' There were no talismanic characters engraven on +the portal, but the house was now so neglected in appearance, that +boys chalked the railings and the pavement - particularly round the +corner where the side wall was - and drew ghosts on the stable door; +and being sometimes driven off by Mr Towlinson, made portraits of him, +in return, with his ears growing out horizontally from under his hat. +Noise ceased to be, within the shadow of the roof. The brass band that +came into the street once a week, in the morning, never brayed a note +in at those windows; but all such company, down to a poor little +piping organ of weak intellect, with an imbecile party of automaton +dancers, waltzing in and out at folding-doors, fell off from it with +one accord, and shunned it as a hopeless place. + +The spell upon it was more wasting than the spell that used to set +enchanted houses sleeping once upon a time, but left their waking +freshness unimpaired. The passive desolation of disuse was everywhere +silently manifest about it. Within doors, curtains, drooping heavily, +lost their old folds and shapes, and hung like cumbrous palls. +Hecatombs of furniture, still piled and covered up, shrunk like +imprisoned and forgotten men, and changed insensibly. Mirrors were dim +as with the breath of years. Patterns of carpets faded and became +perplexed and faint, like the memory of those years' trifling +incidents. Boards, starting at unwonted footsteps, creaked and shook. +Keys rusted in the locks of doors. Damp started on the walls, and as +the stains came out, the pictures seemed to go in and secrete +themselves. Mildew and mould began to lurk in closets. Fungus trees +grew in corners of the cellars. Dust accumulated, nobody knew whence +nor how; spiders, moths, and grubs were heard of every day. An +exploratory blackbeetle now and then was found immovable upon the +stairs, or in an upper room, as wondering how he got there. Rats began +to squeak and scuffle in the night time, through dark galleries they +mined behind the panelling. + +The dreary magnificence of the state rooms, seen imperfectly by the +doubtful light admitted through closed shutters, would have answered +well enough for an enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of +gilded lions, stealthily put out from beneath their wrappers; the +marble lineaments of busts on pedestals, fearfully revealing +themselves through veils; the clocks that never told the time, or, if +wound up by any chance, told it wrong, and struck unearthly numbers, +which are not upon the dial; the accidental tinklings among the +pendant lustres, more startling than alarm-bells; the softened sounds +and laggard air that made their way among these objects, and a phantom +crowd of others, shrouded and hooded, and made spectral of shape. But, +besides, there was the great staircase, where the lord of the place so +rarely set his foot, and by which his little child had gone up to +Heaven. There were other staircases and passages where no one went for +weeks together; there were two closed rooms associated with dead +members of the family, and with whispered recollections of them; and +to all the house but Florence, there was a gentle figure moving +through the solitude and gloom, that gave to every lifeless thing a +touch of present human interest and wonder, + +For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded +day, and still she lived alone, and the cold walls looked down upon +her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare +her youth and beauty into stone + +The grass began to grow upon the roof, and in the crevices of the +basement paving. A scaly crumbling vegetation sprouted round the +window-sills. Fragments of mortar lost their hold upon the insides of +the unused chimneys, and came dropping down. The two trees with the +smoky trunks were blighted high up, and the withered branches +domineered above the leaves, Through the whole building white had +turned yellow, yellow nearly black; and since the time when the poor +lady died, it had slowly become a dark gap in the long monotonous +street. + +But Florence bloomed there, like the king's fair daughter in the +story. Her books, her music, and her daily teachers, were her only +real companions, Susan Nipper and Diogenes excepted: of whom the +former, in her attendance on the studies of her young mistress, began +to grow quite learned herself, while the latter, softened possibly by +the same influences, would lay his head upon the window-ledge, and +placidly open and shut his eyes upon the street, all through a summer +morning; sometimes pricking up his head to look with great +significance after some noisy dog in a cart, who was barking his way +along, and sometimes, with an exasperated and unaccountable +recollection of his supposed enemy in the neighbourhood, rushing to +the door, whence, after a deafening disturbance, he would come jogging +back with a ridiculous complacency that belonged to him, and lay his +jaw upon the window-ledge again, with the air of a dog who had done a +public service. + +So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home, within the circle of +her innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. She could +go down to her father's rooms now, and think of him, and suffer her +loving heart humbly to approach him, without fear of repulse. She +could look upon the objects that had surrounded him in his sorrow, and +could nestle near his chair, and not dread the glance that she so well +remembered. She could render him such little tokens of her duty and +service' as putting everything in order for him with her own hands, +binding little nosegays for table, changing them as one by one they +withered and he did not come back, preparing something for him every' +day, and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual seat. +To-day, it was a little painted stand for his watch; tomorrow she +would be afraid to leave it, and would substitute some other trifle of +her making not so likely to attract his eye. Waking in the night, +perhaps, she would tremble at the thought of his coming home and +angrily rejecting it, and would hurry down with slippered feet and +quickly beating heart, and bring it away. At another time, she would +only lay her face upon his desk, and leave a kiss there, and a tear. + +Still no one knew of this. Unless the household found it out when +she was not there - and they all held Mr Dombey's rooms in awe - it +was as deep a secret in her breast as what had gone before it. +Florence stole into those rooms at twilight, early in the morning, and +at times when meals were served downstairs. And although they were in +every nook the better and the brighter for her care, she entered and +passed out as quietly as any sunbeam, opting that she left her light +behind. + +Shadowy company attended Florence up and down the echoing house, +and sat with her in the dismantled rooms. As if her life were an +enchanted vision, there arose out of her solitude ministering +thoughts, that made it fanciful and unreal. She imagined so often what +her life would have been if her father could have loved her and she +had been a favourite child, that sometimes, for the moment, she almost +believed it was so, and, borne on by the current of that pensive +fiction, seemed to remember how they had watched her brother in his +grave together; how they had freely shared his heart between them; how +they were united in the dear remembrance of him; how they often spoke +about him yet; and her kind father, looking at her gently, told her of +their common hope and trust in God. At other times she pictured to +herself her mother yet alive. And oh the happiness of falling on her +neck, and clinging to her with the love and confidence of all her +soul! And oh the desolation of the solitary house again, with evening +coming on, and no one there! + +But there was one thought, scarcely shaped out to herself, yet +fervent and strong within her, that upheld Florence when she strove +and filled her true young heart, so sorely tried, with constancy of +purpose. Into her mind, as 'into all others contending with the great +affliction of our mortal nature, there had stolen solemn wonderings +and hopes, arising in the dim world beyond the present life, and +murmuring, like faint music, of recognition in the far-off land +between her brother and her mother: of some present consciousness in +both of her: some love and commiseration for her: and some knowledge +of her as she went her way upon the earth. It was a soothing +consolation to Florence to give shelter to these thoughts, until one +day - it was soon after she had last seen her father in his own room, +late at night - the fancy came upon her, that, in weeping for his +alienated heart, she might stir the spirits of the dead against him' +Wild, weak, childish, as it may have been to think so, and to tremble +at the half-formed thought, it was the impulse of her loving nature; +and from that hour Florence strove against the cruel wound in her +breast, and tried to think of him whose hand had made it, only with +hope. + +Her father did not know - she held to it from that time - how much +she loved him. She was very young, and had no mother, and had never +learned, by some fault or misfortune, how to express to him that she +loved him. She would be patient, and would try to gain that art in +time, and win him to a better knowledge of his only child. + +This became the purpose of her life. The morning sun shone down +upon the faded house, and found the resolution bright and fresh within +the bosom of its solitary mistress, Through all the duties of the day, +it animated her; for Florence hoped that the more she knew, and the +more accomplished she became, the more glad he would be when he came +to know and like her. Sometimes she wondered, with a swelling heart +and rising tear, whether she was proficient enough in anything to +surprise him when they should become companions. Sometimes she tried +to think if there were any kind of knowledge that would bespeak his +interest more readily than another. Always: at her books, her music, +and her work: in her morning walks, and in her nightly prayers: she +had her engrossing aim in view. Strange study for a child, to learn +the road to a hard parent's heart! + +There were many careless loungers through the street, as the summer +evening deepened into night, who glanced across the road at the sombre +house, and saw the youthful figure at the window, such a contrast to +it, looking upward at the stars as they began to shine, who would have +slept the worse if they had known on what design she mused so steady. +The reputation of the mansion as a haunted house, would not have been +the gayer with some humble dwellers elsewhere, who were struck by its +external gloom in passing and repassing on their daily avocations, and +so named it, if they could have read its story in the darkening face. +But Florence held her sacred purpose, unsuspected and unaided: and +studied only how to bring her father to the understanding that she +loved him, and made no appeal against him in any wandering thought. + +Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded +day, and still she lived alone, and the monotonous walls looked down +upon her with a stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like intent to stare +her youth and beauty into stone. + +Susan Nipper stood opposite to her young mistress one morning, as +she folded and sealed a note she had been writing: and showed in her +looks an approving knowledge of its contents. + +'Better late than never, dear Miss Floy,' said Susan, 'and I do +say, that even a visit to them old Skettleses will be a Godsend.' + +'It is very good of Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, Susan,' returned +Florence, with a mild correction of that young lady's familiar mention +of the family in question, 'to repeat their invitation so kindly.' + +Miss Nipper, who was perhaps the most thoroughgoing partisan on the +face of the earth, and who carried her partisanship into all matters +great or small, and perpetually waged war with it against society, +screwed up her lips and shook her head, as a protest against any +recognition of disinterestedness in the Skettleses, and a plea in bar +that they would have valuable consideration for their kindness, in the +company of Florence. + +'They know what they're about, if ever people did,' murmured Miss +Nipper, drawing in her breath 'oh! trust them Skettleses for that!' + +'I am not very anxious to go to Fulham, Susan, I confess,' said +Florence thoughtfully: 'but it will be right to go. I think it will be +better.' + +'Much better,' interposed Susan, with another emphatic shake of her +head. + +'And so,' said Florence, 'though I would prefer to have gone when +there was no one there, instead of in this vacation time, when it +seems there are some young people staying in the house, I have +thankfully said yes.' + +'For which I say, Miss Floy, Oh be joyful!' returned Susan, 'Ah! + +This last ejaculation, with which Miss Nipper frequently wound up a +sentence, at about that epoch of time, was supposed below the level of +the hall to have a general reference to Mr Dombey, and to be +expressive of a yearning in Miss Nipper to favour that gentleman with +a piece of her mind. But she never explained it; and it had, in +consequence, the charm of mystery, in addition to the advantage of the +sharpest expression. + +'How long it is before we have any news of Walter, Susan!' observed +Florence, after a moment's silence. + +'Long indeed, Miss Floy!' replied her maid. 'And Perch said, when +he came just now to see for letters - but what signifies what he +says!' exclaimed Susan, reddening and breaking off. 'Much he knows +about it!' + +Florence raised her eyes quickly, and a flush overspread her face. + +'If I hadn't,' said Susan Nipper, evidently struggling with some +latent anxiety and alarm, and looking full at her young mistress, +while endeavouring to work herself into a state of resentment with the +unoffending Mr Perch's image, 'if I hadn't more manliness than that +insipidest of his sex, I'd never take pride in my hair again, but turn +it up behind my ears, and wear coarse caps, without a bit of border, +until death released me from my insignificance. I may not be a Amazon, +Miss Floy, and wouldn't so demean myself by such disfigurement, but +anyways I'm not a giver up, I hope' + +'Give up! What?' cried Florence, with a face of terror. + +'Why, nothing, Miss,' said Susan. 'Good gracious, nothing! It's +only that wet curl-paper of a man, Perch, that anyone might almost +make away with, with a touch, and really it would be a blessed event +for all parties if someone would take pity on him, and would have the +goodness!' + +'Does he give up the ship, Susan?' inquired Florence, very pale. + +'No, Miss,' returned Susan, 'I should like to see' him make so bold +as do it to my face! No, Miss, but he goes 'on about some bothering +ginger that Mr Walter was to send to Mrs Perch, and shakes his dismal +head, and says he hopes it may be coming; anyhow, he says, it can't +come now in time for the intended occasion, but may do for next, which +really,' said Miss Nipper, with aggravated scorn, 'puts me out of +patience with the man, for though I can bear a great deal, I am not a +camel, neither am I,' added Susan, after a moment's consideration, 'if +I know myself, a dromedary neither.' + +'What else does he say, Susan?' inquired Florence, earnestly. +'Won't you tell me?' + +'As if I wouldn't tell you anything, Miss Floy, and everything!' +said Susan. 'Why, nothing Miss, he says that there begins to be a +general talk about the ship, and that they have never had a ship on +that voyage half so long unheard of, and that the Captain's wife was +at the office yesterday, and seemed a little put out about it, but +anyone could say that, we knew nearly that before.' + +'I must visit Walter's uncle,' said Florence, hurriedly, 'before I +leave home. I will go and see him this morning. Let us walk there, +directly, Susan. + +Miss Nipper having nothing to urge against the proposal, but being +perfectly acquiescent, they were soon equipped, and in the streets, +and on their way towards the little Midshipman. + +The state of mind in which poor Walter had gone to Captain +Cuttle's, on the day when Brogley the broker came into possession, and +when there seemed to him to be an execution in the very steeples, was +pretty much the same as that in which Florence now took her way to +Uncle Sol's; with this difference, that Florence suffered the added +pain of thinking that she had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion of +involving Walter in peril, and all to whom he was dear, herself +included, in an agony of suspense. For the rest, uncertainty and +danger seemed written upon everything. The weathercocks on spires and +housetops were mysterious with hints of stormy wind, and pointed, like +so many ghostly fingers, out to dangerous seas, where fragments of +great wrecks were drifting, perhaps, and helpless men were rocked upon +them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable waters. When Florence +came into the City, and passed gentlemen who were talking together, +she dreaded to hear them speaking of the ship, an'd saying it was +lost. Pictures and prints of vessels fighting with the rolling waves +filled her with alarm. The smoke and clouds, though moving gently, +moved too fast for her apprehensions, and made her fear there was a +tempest blowing at that moment on the ocean. + +Susan Nipper may or may not have been affected similarly, but +having her attention much engaged in struggles with boys, whenever +there was any press of people - for, between that grade of human kind +and herself, there was some natural animosity that invariably broke +out, whenever they came together - it would seem that she had not much +leisure on the road for intellectual operations, + +Arriving in good time abreast of the wooden Midshipman on the +opposite side of the way, and waiting for an opportunity to cross the +street, they were a little surprised at first to see, at the +Instrument-maker's door, a round-headed lad, with his chubby face +addressed towards the sky, who, as they looked at him, suddenly thrust +into his capacious mouth two fingers of each hand, and with the +assistance of that machinery whistled, with astonishing shrillness, to +some pigeons at a considerable elevation in the air. + +'Mrs Richards's eldest, Miss!' said Susan, 'and the worrit of Mrs +Richards's life!' + +As Polly had been to tell Florence of the resuscitated prospects of +her son and heir, Florence was prepared for the meeting: so, a +favourable moment presenting itself, they both hastened across, +without any further contemplation of Mrs Richards's bane' That +sporting character, unconscious of their approach, again whistled with +his utmost might, and then yelled in a rapture of excitement, 'Strays! +Whip! Strays!' which identification had such an effect upon the +conscience-stricken pigeons, that instead of going direct to some town +in the North of England, as appeared to have been their original +intention, they began to wheel and falter; whereupon Mrs Richards's +first born pierced them with another whistle, and again yelled, in a +voice that rose above the turmoil of the street, 'Strays! Who~oop! +Strays!' + +From this transport, he was abruptly recalled to terrestrial +objects, by a poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him into the shop, + +'Is this the way you show your penitence, when Mrs Richards has +been fretting for you months and months?' said Susan, following the +poke. 'Where's Mr Gills?' + +Rob, who smoothed his first rebellious glance at Miss Nipper when +he saw Florence following, put his knuckles to his hair, in honour of +the latter, and said to the former, that Mr Gills was out' + +Fetch him home,' said Miss Nipper, with authority, 'and say that my +young lady's here.' + +'I don't know where he's gone,' said Rob. + +'Is that your penitence?' cried Susan, with stinging sharpness. + +'Why how can I go and fetch him when I don't know where to go?' +whimpered the baited Rob. 'How can you be so unreasonable?' + +'Did Mr Gills say when he should be home?' asked Florence. + +'Yes, Miss,' replied Rob, with another application of his knuckles +to his hair. 'He said he should be home early in the afternoon; in +about a couple of hours from now, Miss.' + +'Is he very anxious about his nephew?' inquired Susan. + +'Yes, Miss,' returned Rob, preferring to address himself to +Florence and slighting Nipper; 'I should say he was, very much so. He +ain't indoors, Miss, not a quarter of an hour together. He can't +settle in one place five minutes. He goes about, like a - just like a +stray,' said Rob, stooping to get a glimpse of the pigeons through the +window, and checking himself, with his fingers half-way to his mouth, +on the verge of another whistle. + +'Do you know a friend of Mr Gills, called Captain Cuttle?' inquired +Florence, after a moment's reflection. + +'Him with a hook, Miss?' rejoined Rob, with an illustrative twist +of his left hand. Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday.' + +'Has he not been here since?' asked Susan. + +'No, Miss,' returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence. + +'Perhaps Walter's Uncle has gone there, Susan,' observed Florence, +turning to her. + +'To Captain Cuttle's, Miss?' interposed Rob; 'no, he's not gone +there, Miss. Because he left particular word that if Captain Cuttle +called, I should tell him how surprised he was, not to have seen him +yesterday, and should make him stop till he came back' + +'Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?' asked Florence. + +Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning to a greasy parchment +book on the shop desk, read the address aloud. + +Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a +low voice, while Rob the round-eyed, mindful of his patron's secret +charge, looked on and listened. Florence proposed that they kould go +to Captain Cuttle's house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of +the absence of any tidings ofthe Son and Heir; and bring him, if they +could, to comfort Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the +score of distance; but a hackney-coach being mentioned by her +mistress, withdrew that opposition, and gave in her assent. There were +some minutes of discussion between them before they came to this +conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close attention to both +speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he were +appointed arbitrator of the argument. + +In time, Rob was despatched for a coach, the visitors keeping shop +meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it, leaving word for +Uncle Sol that they would be sure to call again, on their way back. +Rob having stared after the coach until it was as invisible as the +pigeons had now become, sat down behind the desk with a most assiduous +demeanour; and in order that he might forget nothing of what had +transpired, made notes of it on various small scraps of paper, with a +vast expenditure of ink. There was no danger of these documents +betraying anything, if accidentally lost; for long before a word was +dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he had had no part +whatever in its production. + +While he was yet busy with these labours, the hackney-coach, after +encountering unheard-of difficulties from swivel-bridges, soft roads, +impassable canals, caravans of casks, settlements of scarlet-beans and +little wash-houses, and many such obstacles abounding in that country, +stopped at the corner of Brig Place. Alighting here, Florence and +Susan Nipper walked down the street, and sought out the abode of +Captain Cuttle. + +It happened by evil chance to be one of Mrs MacStinger's great +cleaning days. On these occasions, Mrs MacStinger was knocked up by +the policeman at a quarter before three in the morning, and rarely +such before twelve o'clock next night. The chief object of this +institution appeared to be, that Mrs MacStinger should move all the +furniture into the back garden at early dawn, walk about the house in +pattens all day, and move the furniture back again after dark. These +ceremonies greatly fluttered those doves the young MacStingers, who +were not only unable at such times to find any resting-place for the +soles of their feet, but generally came in for a good deal of pecking +from the maternal bird during the progress of the solemnities. + +At the moment when Florence and Susan Nipper presented themselves +at Mrs MacStinger's door, that worthy but redoubtable female was in +the act of conveying Alexander MacStinger, aged two years and three +months, along the passage, for forcible deposition in a sitting +posture on the street pavement: Alexander being black in the face with +holding his breath after punishment, and a cool paving-stone being +usually found to act as a powerful restorative in such cases. + +The feelings of Mrs MacStinger, as a woman and a mother, were +outraged by the look of pity for Alexander which she observed on +Florence's face. Therefore, Mrs MacStinger asserting those finest +emotions of our nature, in preference to weakly gratifying her +curiosity, shook and buffeted Alexander both before and during the +application of the paving-stone, and took no further notice of the +strangers. + +'I beg your pardon, Ma'am,' said Florence, when the child had found +his breath again, and was using it. 'Is this Captain Cuttle's house?' + +'No,' said Mrs MacStinger. + +'Not Number Nine?' asked Florence, hesitating. + +'Who said it wasn't Number Nine?' said Mrs MacStinger. + +Susan Nipper instantly struck in, and begged to inquire what Mrs +MacStinger meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to. + +Mrs MacStinger in retort, looked at her all over. 'What do you want +with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?' said Mrs MacStinger. + +'Should you? Then I'm sorry that you won't be satisfied,' returned +Miss Nipper. + +'Hush, Susan! If you please!' said Florence. 'Perhaps you can have +the goodness to tell us where Captain Cutlle lives, Ma'am as he don't +live here.' + +'Who says he don't live here?' retorted the implacable MacStinger. +'I said it wasn't Cap'en Cuttle's house - and it ain't his house -and +forbid it, that it ever should be his house - for Cap'en Cuttle don't +know how to keep a house - and don't deserve to have a house - it's my +house - and when I let the upper floor to Cap'en Cuttle, oh I do a +thankless thing, and cast pearls before swine!' + +Mrs MacStinger pitched her voice for the upper windows in offering +these remarks, and cracked off each clause sharply by itself as if +from a rifle possessing an infinity of barrels. After the last shot, +the Captain's voice was heard to say, in feeble remonstrance from his +own room, 'Steady below!' + +'Since you want Cap'en Cuttle, there he is!' said Mrs MacStinger, +with an angry motion of her hand. On Florence making bold to enter, +without any more parley, and on Susan following, Mrs MacStinger +recommenced her pedestrian exercise in pattens, and Alexander +MacStinger (still on the paving-stone), who had stopped in his crying +to attend to the conversation, began to wail again, entertaining +himself during that dismal performance, which was quite mechanical, +with a general survey of the prospect, terminating in the +hackney-coach. + +The Captain in his own apartment was sitting with his hands in his +pockets and his legs drawn up under his chair, on a very small +desolate island, lying about midway in an ocean of soap and water. The +Captain's windows had been cleaned, the walls had been cleaned, the +stove had been cleaned, and everything the stove excepted, was wet, +and shining with soft soap and sand: the smell of which dry-saltery +impregnated the air. In the midst of the dreary scene, the Captain, +cast away upon his island, looked round on the waste of waters with a +rueful countenance, and seemed waiting for some friendly bark to come +that way, and take him off. + +But when the Captain, directing his forlorn visage towards the +door, saw Florence appear with her maid, no words can describe his +astonishment. Mrs MacStinger's eloquence having rendered all other +sounds but imperfectly distinguishable, he had looked for no rarer +visitor than the potboy or the milkman; wherefore, when Florence +appeared, and coming to the confines of the island, put her hand in +his, the Captain stood up, aghast, as if he supposed her, for the +moment, to be some young member of the Flying Dutchman's family.' + +Instantly recovering his self-possession, however, the Captain's +first care was to place her on dry land, which he happily +accomplished, with one motion of his arm. Issuing forth, then, upon +the main, Captain Cuttle took Miss Nipper round the waist, and bore +her to the island also. Captain Cuttle, then, with great respect and +admiration, raised the hand of Florence to his lips, and standing off +a little(for the island was not large enough for three), beamed on her +from the soap and water like a new description of Triton. + +'You are amazed to see us, I am sure,'said Florence, with a smile. + +The inexpressibly gratified Captain kissed his hook in reply, and +growled, as if a choice and delicate compliment were included in the +words, 'Stand by! Stand by!' + +'But I couldn't rest,' said Florence, 'without coming to ask you +what you think about dear Walter - who is my brother now- and whether +there is anything to fear, and whether you will not go and console his +poor Uncle every day, until we have some intelligence of him?' + +At these words Captain Cuttle, as by an involuntary gesture, +clapped his hand to his head, on which the hard glazed hat was not, +and looked discomfited. + +'Have you any fears for Walter's safety?' inquired Florence, from +whose face the Captain (so enraptured he was with it) could not take +his eyes: while she, in her turn, looked earnestly at him, to be +assured of the sincerity of his reply. + +'No, Heart's-delight,' said Captain Cuttle, 'I am not afeard. Wal'r +is a lad as'll go through a deal o' hard weather. Wal'r is a lad as'll +bring as much success to that 'ere brig as a lad is capable on. +Wal'r,' said the Captain, his eyes glistening with the praise of his +young friend, and his hook raised to announce a beautiful quotation, +'is what you may call a out'ard and visible sign of an in'ard and +spirited grasp, and when found make a note of.' + +Florence, who did not quite understand this, though the Captain +evidentllty thought it full of meaning, and highly satisfactory, +mildly looked to him for something more. + +'I am not afeard, my Heart's-delight,' resumed the Captain, +'There's been most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there's no +denyin', and they have drove and drove and been beat off, may be +t'other side the world. But the ship's a good ship, and the lad's a +good lad; and it ain't easy, thank the Lord,' the Captain made a +little bow, 'to break up hearts of oak, whether they're in brigs or +buzzums. Here we have 'em both ways, which is bringing it up with a +round turn, and so I ain't a bit afeard as yet.' + +'As yet?' repeated Florence. + +'Not a bit,' returned the Captain, kissing his iron hand; 'and +afore I begin to be, my Hearts-delight, Wal'r will have wrote home +from the island, or from some port or another, and made all taut and +shipsahape'And with regard to old Sol Gills, here the Captain became +solemn, 'who I'll stand by, and not desert until death do us part, and +when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow - overhaul the +Catechism,' said the Captain parenthetically, 'and there you'll find +them expressions - if it would console Sol Gills to have the opinion +of a seafaring man as has got a mind equal to any undertaking that he +puts it alongside of, and as was all but smashed in his'prenticeship, +and of which the name is Bunsby, that 'ere man shall give him such an +opinion in his own parlour as'll stun him. Ah!' said Captain Cuttle, +vauntingly, 'as much as if he'd gone and knocked his head again a +door!' + +'Let us take this ~gentleman to see him, and let us hear what he +says,' cried Florence. 'Will you go with us now? We have a coach +here.' + +Again the Captain clapped his hand to his head, on which the hard +glazed hat was not, and looked discomfited. But at this instant a most +remarkable phenomenon occurred. The door opening, without any note of +preparation, and apparently of itself, the hard glazed hat in question +skimmed into the room like a bird, and alighted heavily at the +Captain's feet. The door then shut as violently as it had opened, and +nothIng ensued in explanation of the prodigy. + +Captain Cuttle picked up his hat, and having turned it over with a +look of interest and welcome, began to polish it on his sleeve' While +doing so, the Captain eyed his visitors intently, and said in a low +voice + +'You see I should have bore down on Sol Gills yesterday, and this +morning, but she - she took it away and kep it. That's the long and +short ofthe subject.' + +'Who did, for goodness sake?' asked Susan Nipper. + +'The lady of the house, my dear,'returned the Captain, in a gruff +whisper, and making signals of secrecy.'We had some words about the +swabbing of these here planks, and she - In short,' said the Captain, +eyeing the door, and relieving himself with a long breath, 'she +stopped my liberty.' + +'Oh! I wish she had me to deal with!' said Susan, reddening with +the energy of the wish. 'I'd stop her!' + +'Would you, do you, my dear?' rejoined the Captain, shaking his +head doubtfully, but regarding the desperate courage of the fair +aspirant with obvious admiration. 'I don't know. It's difficult +navigation. She's very hard to carry on with, my dear. You never can +tell how she'll head, you see. She's full one minute, and round upon +you next. And when she in a tartar,' said the Captain, with the +perspiration breaking out upon his forehead. There was nothing but a +whistle emphatic enough for the conclusion of the sentence, so the +Captain whistled tremulously. After which he again shook his head, and +recurring to his admiration of Miss Nipper's devoted bravery, timidly +repeated, 'Would you, do you think, my dear?' + +Susan only replied with a bridling smile, but that was so very full +of defiance, that there is no knowing how long Captain Cuttle might +have stood entranced in its contemplation, if Florence in her anxiety +had not again proposed their immediately resorting to the oracular +Bunsby. Thus reminded of his duty, Captain Cuttle Put on the glazed +hat firmly, took up another knobby stick, with which he had supplied +the place of that one given to Walter, and offering his arm to +Florence, prepared to cut his way through the enemy. + +It turned out, however, that Mrs MacStinger had already changed her +course, and that she headed, as the Captain had remarked she often +did, in quite a new direction. For when they got downstairs, they +found that exemplary woman beating the mats on the doorsteps, with +Alexander, still upon the paving-stone, dimly looming through a fog of +dust; and so absorbed was Mrs MacStinger in her household occupation, +that when Captain Cuttle and his visitors passed, she beat the harder, +and neither by word nor gesture showed any consciousness of their +vicinity. The Captain was so well pleased with this easy escape - +although the effect of the door-mats on him was like a copious +administration of snuff, and made him sneeze until the tears ran down +his face - that he could hardly believe his good fortune; but more +than once, between the door and the hackney-coach, looked over his +shoulder, with an obvious apprehension of Mrs MacStinger's giving +chase yet. + +However, they got to the corner of Brig Place without any +molestation from that terrible fire-ship; and the Captain mounting the +coach-box - for his gallantry would not allow him to ride inside with +the ladies, though besought to do so - piloted the driver on his +course for Captain Bunsby's vessel, which was called the Cautious +Clara, and was lying hard by Ratcliffe. + +Arrived at the wharf off which this great commander's ship was +jammed in among some five hundred companions, whose tangled rigging +looked like monstrous cobwebs half swept down, Captain Cuttle appeared +at the coach-window, and invited Florence and Miss Nipper to accompany +him on board; observing that Bunsby was to the last degree +soft-hearted in respect of ladies, and that nothing would so much tend +to bring his expansive intellect into a state of harmony as their +presentation to the Cautious Clara. + +Florence readily consented; and the Captain, taking her little hand +in his prodigious palm, led her, with a mixed expression of patronage, +paternity, pride, and ceremony, that was pleasant to see, over several +very dirty decks, until, coming to the Clara, they found that cautious +craft (which lay outside the tier) with her gangway removed, and +half-a-dozen feet of river interposed between herself and her nearest +neighbour. It appeared, from Captain Cuttle's explanation, that the +great Bunsby, like himself, was cruelly treated by his landlady, and +that when her usage of him for the time being was so hard that he +could bear it no longer, he set this gulf between them as a last +resource. + +'Clara a-hoy!' cried the Captain, putting a hand to each side of +his mouth. + +'A-hoy!' cried a boy, like the Captain's echo, tumbling up from +below. + +'Bunsby aboard?' cried the Captain, hailing the boy in a stentorian +voice, as if he were half-a-mile off instead of two yards. + +'Ay, ay!' cried the boy, in the same tone. + +The boy then shoved out a plank to Captain Cuttle, who adjusted it +carefully, and led Florence across: returning presently for Miss +Nipper. So they stood upon the deck of the Cautious Clara, in whose +standing rigging, divers fluttering articles of dress were curing, in +company with a few tongues and some mackerel. + +Immediately there appeared, coming slowly up above the bulk-head of +the cabin, another bulk-head 'human, and very large - with one +stationary eye in the mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the +principle of some lighthouses. This head was decorated with shaggy +hair, like oakum,' which had no governing inclination towards the +north, east, west, or south, but inclined to all four quarters of the +compass, and to every point upon it. The head was followed by a +perfect desert of chin, and by a shirt-collar and neckerchief, and by +a dreadnought pilot-coat, and by a pair of dreadnought pilot-trousers, +whereof the waistband was so very broad and high, that it became a +succedaneum for a waistcoat: being ornamented near the wearer's +breastbone with some massive wooden buttons, like backgammon men. As +the lower portions of these pantaloons became revealed, Bunsby stood +confessed; his hands in their pockets, which were of vast size; and +his gaze directed, not to Captain Cuttle or the ladies, but the +mast-head. + +The profound appearance of this philosopher, who was bulky and +strong, and on whose extremely red face an expression of taciturnity +sat enthroned, not inconsistent with his character, in which that +quality was proudly conspicuous, almost daunted Captain Cuttle, though +on familiar terms with him. Whispering to Florence that Bunsby had +never in his life expressed surprise, and was considered not to know +what it meant, the Captain watched him as he eyed his mast-head, and +afterwards swept the horizon; and when the revolving eye seemed to be +coming round in his direction, said: + +'Bunsby, my lad, how fares it?' + +A deep, gruff, husky utterance, which seemed to have no connexion +with Bunsby, and certainly had not the least effect upon his face, +replied, 'Ay, ay, shipmet, how goes it?' At the same time Bunsby's +right hand and arm, emerging from a pocket, shook the Captain's, and +went back again. + +'Bunsby,' said the Captain, striking home at once, 'here you are; a +man of mind, and a man as can give an opinion. Here's a young lady as +wants to take that opinion, in regard of my friend Wal'r; likewise my +t'other friend, Sol Gills, which is a character for you to come within +hail of, being a man of science, which is the mother of inwention, and +knows no law. Bunsby, will you wear, to oblige me, and come along with +us?' + +The great commander, who seemed by expression of his visage to be +always on the look-out for something in the extremest distance' and to +have no ocular knowledge of any anng' within ten miles, made no reply +whatever. + +'Here is a man,' said the Captain, addressing himself to his fair +auditors, and indicating the commander with his outstretched hook, +'that has fell down, more than any man alive; that has had more +accidents happen to his own self than the Seamen's Hospital to all +hands; that took as many spars and bars and bolts about the outside of +his head when he was young, as you'd want a order for on Chatham-yard +to build a pleasure yacht with; and yet that his opinions in that way, +it's my belief, for there ain't nothing like 'em afloat or ashore.' + +The stolid commander appeared by a very slight vibration in his +elbows, to express some satisfitction in this encomium; but if his +face had been as distant as his gaze was, it could hardIy have +enlightened the beholders less in reference to anything that was +passing in his thoughts. + +'Shipmate,' said Bunsby, all of a sudden, and stooping down to look +out under some interposing spar, 'what'll the ladies drink?' + +Captain Cuttle, whose delicacy was shocked by such an inquiry in +connection with Florence, drew the sage aside, and seeming to explain +in his ear, accompanied him below; where, that he might not take +offence, the Captain drank a dram himself' which Florence and Susan, +glancing down the open skylight, saw the sage, with difficulty finding +room for himself between his berth and a very little brass fireplace, +serve out for self and friend. They soon reappeared on deck, and +Captain Cuttle, triumphing in the success of his enterprise, conducted +Florence back to the coach, while Bunsby followed, escorting Miss +Nipper, whom he hugged upon the way (much to that young lady's +indignation) with his pilot-coated arm, like a blue bear. + +The Captain put his oracle inside, and gloried so much in having +secured him, and having got that mind into a hackney-coach, that he +could not refrain from often peeping in at Florence through the little +window behind the driver, and testifiing his delight in smiles, and +also in taps upon his forehead, to hint to her that the brain of +Bunsby was hard at it' In the meantime, Bunsby, still hugging Miss +Nipper (for his friend, the Captain, had not exaggerated the softness +of his heart), uniformily preserved his gravity of deportment, and +showed no other consciousness of her or anything. + +Uncle Sol, who had come home, received them at the door, and +ushered them immediately into the little back parlour: strangely +altered by the absence of Walter. On the table, and about the room, +were the charts and maps on which the heavy-hearted Instrument-maker +had again and again tracked the missing vessel across the sea, and on +which, with a pair of compasses that he still had in his hand, he had +been measuring, a minute before, how far she must have driven, to have +driven here or there: and trying to demonstrate that a long time must +elapse before hope was exhausted. + +'Whether she can have run,' said Uncle Sol, looking wistfully over +the chart; 'but no, that's almost impossible or whether she can have +been forced by stress of weather, - but that's not reasonably likely. +Or whether there is any hope she so far changed her course as - but +even I can hardly hope that!' With such broken suggestions, poor old +Uncle Sol roamed over the great sheet before him, and could not find a +speck of hopeful probability in it large enough to set one small point +of the compasses upon. + +Florence saw immediately - it would have been difficult to help +seeing - that there was a singular, indescribable change in the old +man, and that while his manner was far more restless and unsettled +than usual, there was yet a curious, contradictory decision in it, +that perplexed her very much. She fancied once that he spoke wildly, +and at random; for on her saying she regretted not to have seen him +when she had been there before that morning, he at first replied that +he had been to see her, and directly afterwards seemed to wish to +recall that answer. + +'You have been to see me?' said Florence. 'To-day?' + +'Yes, my dear young lady,' returned Uncle Sol, looking at her and +away from her in a confused manner. 'I wished to see you with my own +eyes, and to hear you with my own ears, once more before - ' There he +stopped. + +'Before when? Before what?' said Florence, putting her hand upon +his arm. + +'Did I say "before?"' replied old Sol. 'If I did, I must have meant +before we should have news of my dear boy.' + +'You are not well,' said Florence, tenderly. 'You have been so very +anxious I am sure you are not well.' + +'I am as well,' returned the old man, shutting up his right hand, +and holding it out to show her: 'as well and firm as any man at my +time of life can hope to be. See! It's steady. Is its master not as +capable of resolution and fortitude as many a younger man? I think so. +We shall see.' + +There was that in his manner more than in his words, though they +remained with her too, which impressed Florence so much, that she +would have confided her uneasiness to Captain Cuttle at that moment, +if the Captain had not seized that moment for expounding the state of +circumstance, on which the opinion of the sagacious Bunsby was +requested, and entreating that profound authority to deliver the same. + +Bunsby, whose eye continued to be addressed to somewhere about the +half-way house between London and Gravesend, two or three times put +out his rough right arm, as seeking to wind it for inspiration round +the fair form of Miss Nipper; but that young female having withdrawn +herself, in displeasure, to the opposite side of the table, the soft +heart of the Commander of the Cautious Clara met with no response to +its impulses. After sundry failures in this wise, the Commander, +addressing himself to nobody, thus spake; or rather the voice within +him said of its own accord, and quite independent of himself, as if he +were possessed by a gruff spirit: + +'My name's Jack Bunsby!' + +'He was christened John,' cried the delighted Captain Cuttle. 'Hear +him!' + +'And what I says,' pursued the voice, after some deliberation, 'I +stands to. + +The Captain, with Florence on his arm, nodded at the auditory, and +seemed to say, 'Now he's coming out. This is what I meant when I +brought him.' + +'Whereby,' proceeded the voice, 'why not? If so, what odds? Can any +man say otherwise? No. Awast then!' + +When it had pursued its train of argument to this point, the voice +stopped, and rested. It then proceeded very slowly, thus: + +'Do I believe that this here Son and Heir's gone down, my lads? +Mayhap. Do I say so? Which? If a skipper stands out by Sen' George's +Channel, making for the Downs, what's right ahead of him? The +Goodwins. He isn't foroed to run upon the Goodwins, but he may. The +bearings of this observation lays in the application on it. That ain't +no part of my duty. Awast then, keep a bright look-out for'ard, and +good luck to you!' + +The voice here went out of the back parlour and into the street, +taking the Commander of the Cautious Clara with it, and accompanying +him on board again with all convenient expedition, where he +immediately turned in, and refreshed his mind with a nap. + +The students of the sage's precepts, left to their own application +of his wisdom - upon a principle which was the main leg of the Bunsby +tripod, as it is perchance of some other oracular stools - looked upon +one another in a little uncertainty; while Rob the Grinder, who had +taken the innocent freedom of peering in, and listening, through the +skylight in the roof, came softly down from the leads, in a state of +very dense confusion. Captain Cuttle, however, whose admiration of +Bunsby was, if possible, enhanced by the splendid manner in which he +had justified his reputation and come through this solemn reference, +proceeded to explain that Bunsby meant nothing but confidence; that +Bunsby had no misgivings; and that such an opinion as that man had +given, coming from such a mind as his, was Hope's own anchor, with +good roads to cast it in. Florence endeavoured to believe that the +Captain was right; but the Nipper, with her arms tight folded, shook +her head in resolute denial, and had no more trust m Bunsby than in Mr +Perch himself. + +The philosopher seemed to have left Uncle Sol pretty much where he +had found him, for he still went roaming about the watery world, +compasses in hand, and discovering no rest for them. It was in +pursuance of a whisper in his ear from Florence, while the old man was +absorbed in this pursuit, that Captain Cuttle laid his heavy hand upon +his shoulder. + +'What cheer, Sol Gills?' cried the Captain, heartily. + +'But so-so, Ned,' returned the Instrument-maker. 'I have been +remembering, all this afternoon, that on the very day when my boy +entered Dombey's House, and came home late to dinner, sitting just +there where you stand, we talked of storm and shipwreck, and I could +hardly turn him from the subject' + +But meeting the eyes of Florence, which were fixed with earnest +scrutiny upon his face, the old man stopped and smiled. + +'Stand by, old friend!' cried the Captain. 'Look alive! I tell you +what, Sol Gills; arter I've convoyed Heart's-delight safe home,' here +the Captain kissed his hook to Florence, 'I'll come back and take you +in tow for the rest of this blessed day. You'll come and eat your +dinner along with me, Sol, somewheres or another.' + +'Not to-day, Ned!' said the old man quickly, and appearing to be +unaccountably startled by the proposition. 'Not to-day. I couldn't do +it!' + +'Why not?' returned the Captain, gazing at him in astonishment. + +'I - I have so much to do. I - I mean to think of, and arrange. I +couldn't do it, Ned, indeed. I must go out again, and be alone, and +turn my mind to many things to-day.' + +The Captain looked at the Instrument-maker, and looked at Florence, +and again at the Instrument-maker. 'To-morrow, then,' he suggested, at +last. + +'Yes, yes. To-morrow,' said the old man. 'Think of me to-morrow. +Say to-morrow.' + +'I shall come here early, mind, Sol Gills,' stipulated the Captain. + +'Yes, yes. The first thing tomorrow morning,' said old Sol; 'and +now good-bye, Ned Cuttle, and God bless you!' + +Squeezing both the Captain's hands, with uncommon fervour, as he +said it, the old man turned to Florence, folded hers in his own, and +put them to his lips; then hurried her out to the coach with very +singular precipitation. Altogether, he made such an effect on Captain +Cuttle that the Captain lingered behind, and instructed Rob to be +particularly gentle and attentive to his master until the morning: +which injunction he strengthened with the payment of one shilling +down, and the promise of another sixpence before noon next day. This +kind office performed, Captain Cuttle, who considered himself the +natural and lawful body-guard of Florence, mounted the box with a +mighty sense of his trust, and escorted her home. At parting, he +assured her that he would stand by Sol Gills, close and true; and once +again inquired of Susan Nipper, unable to forget her gallant words in +reference to Mrs MacStinger, 'Would you, do you think my dear, +though?' + +When the desolate house had closed upon the two, the Captain's +thoughts reverted to the old Instrument-maker, and he felt +uncomfortable. Therefore, instead of going home, he walked up and down +the street several times, and, eking out his leisure until evening, +dined late at a certain angular little tavern in the City, with a +public parlour like a wedge, to which glazed hats much resorted. The +Captain's principal intention was to pass Sol Gills's, after dark, and +look in through the window: which he did, The parlour door stood open, +and he could see his old friend writing busily and steadily at the +table within, while the little Midshipman, already sheltered from the +night dews, watched him from the counter; under which Rob the Grinder +made his own bed, preparatory to shutting the shop. Reassured by the +tranquillity that reigned within the precincts of the wooden mariner, +the Captain headed for Brig Place, resolving to weigh anchor betimes +in the morning. + + + +CHAPTER 24. + +The Study of a Loving Heart + + + +Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty +villa at Fulham, on the banks of the Thames; which was one of the most +desirable residences in the world when a rowing-match happened to be +going past, but had its little inconveniences at other times, among +which may be enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the +drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and +shrubbery. + +Sir Barnet Skettles expressed his personal consequence chiefly +through an antique gold snuffbox, and a ponderous silk +pocket-kerchief, which he had an imposing manner of drawing out of his +pocket like a banner and using with both hands at once. Sir Barnet's +object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance. +Like a heavy body dropped into water - not to disparage so worthy a +gentleman by the comparison - it was in the nature of things that Sir +Barnet must spread an ever widening circle about him, until there was +no room left. Or, like a sound in air, the vibration of which, +according to the speculation of an ingenious modern philosopher, may +go on travelling for ever through the interminable fields of space, +nothing but coming to the end of his moral tether could stop Sir +Barnet Skettles in his voyage of discovery through the social system. + +Sir Barnet was proud of making people acquainted with people. He +liked the thing for its own sake, and it advanced his favourite object +too. For example, if Sir Barnet had the good fortune to get hold of a +law recruit, or a country gentleman, and ensnared him to his +hospitable villa, Sir Barnet would say to him, on the morning after +his arrival, 'Now, my dear Sir, is there anybody you would like to +know? Who is there you would wish to meet? Do you take any interest in +writing people, or in painting or sculpturing people, or in acting +people, or in anything of that sort?' Possibly the patient answered +yes, and mentioned somebody, of whom Sir Barnet had no more personal +knowledge than of Ptolemy the Great. Sir Barnet replied, that nothing +on earth was easier, as he knew him very well: immediately called on +the aforesaid somebody, left his card, wrote a short note, - 'My dear +Sir - penalty of your eminent position - friend at my house naturally +desirous - Lady Skettles and myself participate - trust that genius +being superior to ceremonies, you will do us the distinguished favour +of giving us the pleasure,' etc, etc. - and so killed a brace of birds +with one stone, dead as door-nails. + +With the snuff-box and banner in full force, Sir Barnet Skettles +propounded his usual inquiry to Florence on the first morning of her +visit. When Florence thanked him, and said there was no one in +particular whom she desired to see, it was natural she should think +with a pang, of poor lost Walter. When Sir Barnet Skettles, urging his +kind offer, said, 'My dear Miss Dombey, are you sure you can remember +no one whom your good Papa - to whom I beg you present the best +compliments of myself and Lady Skettles when you write - might wish +you to know?' it was natural, perhaps, that her poor head should droop +a little, and that her voice should tremble as it softly answered in +the negative. + +Skettles Junior, much stiffened as to his cravat, and sobered down +as to his spirits' was at home for the holidays, and appeared to feel +himself aggrieved by the solicitude of his excellent mother that he +should be attentive to Florence. Another and a deeper injury under +which the soul of young Barnet chafed, was the company of Dr and Mrs +Blimber, who had been invited on a visit to the paternal roof-tree, +and of whom the young gentleman often said he would have preferred +their passing the vacation at Jericho. + +'Is there anybody you can suggest now, Doctor Blimber?' said Sir +Barnet Skettles, turning to that gentleman. + +'You are very kind, Sir Barnet,' returned Doctor Blimber. 'Really I +am not aware that there is, in particular. I like to know my +fellow-men in general, Sir Barnet. What does Terence say? Anyone who +is the parent of a son is interesting to me. + +'Has Mrs Blimber any wish to see any remarkable person?' asked Sir +Barnet, courteously. + +Mrs Blimber replied, with a sweet smile and a shake of her sky-blue +cap, that if Sir Barnet could have made her known to Cicero, she would +have troubled him; but such an introduction not being feasible, and +she already enjoying the friendship of himself and his amiable lady, +and possessing with the Doctor her husband their joint confidence in +regard to their dear son - here young Barnet was observed to curl his +nose - she asked no more. + +Sir Barnet was fain, under these circumstances, to content himself +for the time with the company assembled. Florence was glad of that; +for she had a study to pursue among them, and it lay too near her +heart, and was too precious and momentous, to yield to any other +interest. + +There were some children staying in the house. Children who were as +frank and happy with fathers and with mothers as those rosy faces +opposite home. Children who had no restraint upon their love. and +freely showed it. Florence sought to learn their secret; sought to +find out what it was she had missed; what simple art they knew, and +she knew not; how she could be taught by them to show her father that +she loved him, and to win his love again. + +Many a day did Florence thoughtfully observe these children. On +many a bright morning did she leave her bed when the glorious sun +rose, and walking up and down upon the river's bank' before anyone in +the house was stirring, look up at the windows of their rooms, and +think of them, asleep, so gently tended and affectionately thought of. +Florence would feel more lonely then, than in the great house all +alone; and would think sometimes that she was better there than here, +and that there was greater peace in hiding herself than in mingling +with others of her age, and finding how unlike them all she was. But +attentive to her study, though it touched her to the quick at every +little leaf she turned in the hard book, Florence remained among them, +and tried with patient hope, to gain the knowledge that she wearied +for. + +Ah! how to gain it! how to know the charm in its beginning! There +were daughters here, who rose up in the morning, and lay down to rest +at night, possessed of fathers' hearts already. They had no repulse to +overcome, no coldness to dread, no frown to smooth away. As the +morning advanced, and the windows opened one by one, and the dew began +to dry upon the flowers and and youthful feet began to move upon the +lawn, Florence, glancing round at the bright faces, thought what was +there she could learn from these children? It was too late to learn +from them; each could approach her father fearlessly, and put up her +lips to meet the ready kiss, and wind her arm about the neck that bent +down to caress her. She could not begin by being so bold. Oh! could it +be that there was less and less hope as she studied more and more! + +She remembered well, that even the old woman who had robbed her +when a little child - whose image and whose house, and all she had +said and done, were stamped upon her recollection, with the enduring +sharpness of a fearful impression made at that early period of life - +had spoken fondly of her daughter, and how terribly even she had cried +out in the pain of hopeless separation from her child But her own +mother, she would think again, when she recalled this, had loved her +well. Then, sometimes, when her thoughts reverted swiftly to the void +between herself and her father, Florence would tremble, and the tears +would start upon her face, as she pictured to herself her mother +living on, and coming also to dislike her, because of her wanting the +unknown grace that should conciliate that father naturally, and had +never done so from her cradle She knew that this imagination did wrong +to her mother's memory, and had no truth in it, or base to rest upon; +and yet she tried so hard to justify him, and to find the whole blame +in herself, that she could not resist its passing, like a wild cloud, +through the distance of her mind. + +There came among the other visitors, soon after Florence, one +beautiful girl, three or four years younger than she, who was an +orphan child, and who was accompanied by her aunt, a grey-haired lady, +who spoke much to Florence, and who greatly liked (but that they all +did) to hear her sing of an evening, and would always sit near her at +that time, with motherly interest. They had only been two days in the +house, when Florence, being in an arbour in the garden one warm +morning, musingly observant of a youthful group upon the turf, through +some intervening boughs, - and wreathing flowers for the head of one +little creature among them who was the pet and plaything of the rest, +heard this same lady and her niece, in pacing up and down a sheltered +nook close by, speak of herself. + +'Is Florence an orphan like me, aunt?' said the child. + +'No, my love. She has no mother, but her father is living.' + +'Is she in mourning for her poor Mama, now?' inquired the child +quickly. + +'No; for her only brother.' + +'Has she no other brother?' + +'None.' + +'No sister?' + +'None,' + +'I am very, very sorry!' said the little girL + +As they stopped soon afterwards to watch some boats, and had been +silent in the meantime, Florence, who had risen when she heard her +name, and had gathered up her flowers to go and meet them, that they +might know of her being within hearing, resumed her seat and work, +expecting to hear no more; but the conversation recommenced next +moment. + +'Florence is a favourite with everyone here, and deserves to be, I +am sure,' said the child, earnestly. 'Where is her Papa?' + +The aunt replied, after a moment's pause, that she did not know. +Her tone of voice arrested Florence, who had started from her seat +again; and held her fastened to the spot, with her work hastily caught +up to her bosom, and her two hands saving it from being scattered on +the ground. + +'He is in England, I hope, aunt?' said the child. + +'I believe so. Yes; I know he is, indeed.' + +'Has he ever been here?' + +'I believe not. No.' + +'Is he coming here to see her?' + +'I believe not. + +'Is he lame, or blind, or ill, aunt?' asked the child. + +The flowers that Florence held to her breast began to fall when she +heard those words, so wonderingly spoke She held them closer; and her +face hung down upon them' + +'Kate,' said the lady, after another moment of silence, 'I will +tell you the whole truth about Florence as I have heard it, and +believe it to be. Tell no one else, my dear, because it may be little +known here, and your doing so would give her pain.' + +'I never will!' exclaimed the child. + +'I know you never will,' returned the lady. 'I can trust you as +myself. I fear then, Kate, that Florence's father cares little for +her, very seldom sees her, never was kind to her in her life, and now +quite shuns her and avoids her. She would love him dearly if he would +suffer her, but he will not - though for no fault of hers; and she is +greatly to be loved and pitied by all gentle hearts.' + +More of the flowers that Florence held fell scattering on the +ground; those that remained were wet, but not with dew; and her face +dropped upon her laden hands. + +'Poor Florence! Dear, good Florence!' cried the child. + +'Do you know why I have told you this, Kate?' said the lady. + +'That I may be very kind to her, and take great care to try to +please her. Is that the reason, aunt?' + +'Partly,' said the lady, 'but not all. Though we see her so +cheerful; with a pleasant smile for everyone; ready to oblige us all, +and bearing her part in every amusement here: she can hardly be quite +happy, do you think she can, Kate?' + +'I am afraid not,' said the little girl. + +'And you can understand,' pursued the lady, 'why her observation of +children who have parents who are fond of them, and proud of them - +like many here, just now - should make her sorrowful in secret?' + +'Yes, dear aunt,' said the child, 'I understand that very well. +Poor Florence!' + +More flowers strayed upon the ground, and those she yet held to her +breast trembled as if a wintry wind were rustling them. + +'My Kate,' said the lady, whose voice was serious, but very calm +and sweet, and had so impressed Florence from the first moment of her +hearing it, 'of all the youthful people here, you are her natural and +harmless friend; you have not the innocent means, that happier +children have - ' + +'There are none happier, aunt!' exclaimed the child, who seemed to +cling about her. + +'As other children have, dear Kate, of reminding her of her +misfortune. Therefore I would have you, when you try to be her little +friend, try all the more for that, and feel that the bereavement you +sustained - thank Heaven! before you knew its weight- gives you claim +and hold upon poor Florence.' + +'But I am not without a parent's love, aunt, and I never have +been,' said the child, 'with you.' + +'However that may be, my dear,' returned the lady, 'your misfortune +is a lighter one than Florence's; for not an orphan in the wide world +can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living +parent's love.' + +The flowers were scattered on the ground like dust; the empty hands +were spread upon the face; and orphaned Florence, shrinking down upon +the ground, wept long and bitterly. + +But true of heart and resolute in her good purpose, Florence held +to it as her dying mother held by her upon the day that gave Paul +life. He did not know how much she loved him. However long the time in +coming, and however slow the interval, she must try to bring that +knowledge to her father's heart one day or other. Meantime she must be +careful in no thoughtless word, or look, or burst of feeling awakened +by any chance circumstance, to complain against him, or to give +occasion for these whispers to his prejudice. + +Even in the response she made the orphan child, to whom she was +attracted strongly, and whom she had such occasion to remember, +Florence was mindful of him' If she singled her out too plainly +(Florence thought) from among the rest, she would confirm - in one +mind certainly: perhaps in more - the belief that he was cruel and +unnatural. Her own delight was no set-off to this, 'What she had +overheard was a reason, not for soothing herself, but for saving him; +and Florence did it, in pursuance of the study of her heart. + +She did so always. If a book were read aloud, and there were +anything in the story that pointed at an unkind father, she was in +pain for their application of it to him; not for herself. So with any +trifle of an interlude that was acted, or picture that was shown, or +game that was played, among them. The occasions for such tenderness +towards him were so many, that her mind misgave her often, it would +indeed be better to go back to the old house, and live again within +the shadow of its dull walls, undisturbed. How few who saw sweet +Florence, in her spring of womanhood, the modest little queen of those +small revels, imagined what a load of sacred care lay heavy in her +breast! How few of those who stiffened in her father's freezing +atmosphere, suspected what a heap of fiery coals was piled upon his +head! + +Florence pursued her study patiently, and, failing to acquire the +secret of the nameless grace she sought, among the youthful company +who were assembled in the house, often walked out alone, in the early +morning, among the children of the poor. But still she found them all +too far advanced to learn from. They had won their household places +long ago, and did not stand without, as she did, with a bar across the +door. + +There was one man whom she several times observed at work very +early, and often with a girl of about her own age seated near him' He +was a very poor man, who seemed to have no regular employment, but now +went roaming about the banks of the river when the tide was low, +looking out for bits and scraps in the mud; and now worked at the +unpromising little patch of garden-ground before his cottage; and now +tinkered up a miserable old boat that belonged to him; or did some job +of that kind for a neighbour, as chance occurred. Whatever the man's +labour, the girl was never employed; but sat, when she was with him, +in a listless, moping state, and idle. + +Florence had often wished to speak to this man; yet she had never +taken courage to do so, as he made no movement towards her. But one +morning when she happened to come upon him suddenly, from a by-path +among some pollard willows which terminated in the little shelving +piece of stony ground that lay between his dwelling and the water, +where he was bending over a fire he had made to caulk the old boat +which was lying bottom upwards, close by, he raised his head at the +sound of her footstep, and gave her Good morning. + +'Good morning,' said Florence, approaching nearer, 'you are at work +early.' + +'I'd be glad to be often at work earlier, Miss, if I had work to +do.' + +'Is it so hard to get?' asked Florence. + +'I find it so,' replied the man. + +Florence glanced to where the girl was sitting, drawn together, +with her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands, and said: + +'Is that your daughter?' + +He raised his head quickly, and looking towards the girl with a +brightened face, nodded to her, and said 'Yes,' Florence looked +towards her too, and gave her a kind salutation; the girl muttered +something in return, ungraciously and sullenly. + +'Is she in want of employment also?' said Florence. + +The man shook his head. 'No, Miss,' he said. 'I work for both,' + +'Are there only you two, then?' inquired Florence. + +'Only us two,' said the man. 'Her mother his been dead these ten +year. Martha!' lifted up his head again, and whistled to her) 'won't +you say a word to the pretty young lady?' + +The girl made an impatient gesture with her cowering shoulders, and +turned her head another way. Ugly, misshapen, peevish, +ill-conditioned, ragged, dirty - but beloved! Oh yes! Florence had +seen her father's look towards her, and she knew whose look it had no +likeness to. + +'I'm afraid she's worse this morning, my poor girl!' said the man, +suspending his work, and contemplating his ill-favoured child, with a +compassion that was the more tender for being rougher. + +'She is ill, then!' said Florence, + +The man drew a deep sigh 'I don't believe my Martha's had five +short days' good health,' he answered, looking at her still, 'in as +many long years' + +'Ay! and more than that, John,' said a neighbour, who had come down +to help him with the boat. + +'More than that, you say, do you?' cried the other, pushing back +his battered hat, and drawing his hand across his forehead. 'Very +like. It seems a long, long time.' + +'And the more the time,' pursued the neighbour, 'the more you've +favoured and humoured her, John, till she's got to be a burden to +herself, and everybody else' + +'Not to me,' said her father, falling to his work. 'Not to me.' + +Florence could feel - who better? - how truly he spoke. She drew a +little closer to him, and would have been glad to touch his rugged +hand, and thank him for his goodness to the miserable object that he +looked upon with eyes so different from any other man's. + +'Who would favour my poor girl - to call it favouring - if I +didn't?' said the father. + +'Ay, ay,' cried the neighbour. 'In reason, John. But you! You rob +yourself to give to her. You bind yourself hand and foot on her +account. You make your life miserable along of her. And what does she +care! You don't believe she knows it?' + +The father lifted up his head again, and whistled to her. Martha +made the same impatient gesture with her crouching shoulders, in +reply; and he was glad and happy. + +'Only for that, Miss,' said the neighbour, with a smile, in which +there was more of secret sympathy than he expressed; 'only to get +that, he never lets her out of his sight!' + +'Because the day'll come, and has been coming a long while,' +observed the other, bending low over his work, 'when to get half as +much from that unfort'nate child of mine - to get the trembling of a +finger, or the waving of a hair - would be to raise the dead.' + +Florence softly put some money near his hand on the old boat, and +left him. + +And now Florence began to think, if she were to fall ill, if she +were to fade like her dear brother, would he then know that she had +loved him; would she then grow dear to him; would he come to her +bedside, when she was weak and dim of sight, and take her into his +embrace, and cancel all the past? Would he so forgive her, in that +changed condition, for not having been able to lay open her childish +heart to him, as to make it easy to relate with what emotions she had +gone out of his room that night; what she had meant to say if she had +had the courage; and how she had endeavoured, afterwards, to learn the +way she never knew in infancy? + +Yes, she thought if she were dying, he would relent. She thought, +that if she lay, serene and not unwilling to depart, upon the bed that +was curtained round with recollections of their darling boy, he would +be touched home, and would say, 'Dear Florence, live for me, and we +will love each other as we might have done, and be as happy as we +might have been these many years!' She thought that if she heard such +words from him, and had her arms clasped round him' she could answer +with a smile, 'It is too late for anything but this; I never could be +happier, dear father!' and so leave him, with a blessing on her lips. + +The golden water she remembered on the wall, appeared to Florence, +in the light of such reflections, only as a current flowing on to +rest, and to a region where the dear ones, gone before, were waiting, +hand in hand; and often when she looked upon the darker river rippling +at her feet, she thought with awful wonder, but not terror, of that +river which her brother had so often said was bearing him away. + +The father and his sick daughter were yet fresh in Florence's mind, +and, indeed, that incident was not a week old, when Sir Barnet and his +lady going out walking in the lanes one afternoon, proposed to her to +bear them company. Florence readily consenting, Lady Skettles ordered +out young Barnet as a matter of course. For nothing delighted Lady +Skettles so much, as beholding her eldest son with Florence on his +arm. + +Barnet, to say the truth, appeared to entertain an opposite +sentiment on the subject, and on such occasions frequently expressed +himself audibly, though indefinitely, in reference to 'a parcel of +girls.' As it was not easy to ruffle her sweet temper, however, +Florence generally reconciled the young gentleman to his fate after a +few minutes, and they strolled on amicably: Lady Skettles and Sir +Barnet following, in a state of perfect complacency and high +gratification. + +This was the order of procedure on the afternoon in question; and +Florence had almost succeeded in overruling the present objections of +Skettles Junior to his destiny, when a gentleman on horseback came +riding by, looked at them earnestly as he passed, drew in his rein, +wheeled round, and came riding back again, hat in hand. + +The gentleman had looked particularly at Florence; and when the +little party stopped, on his riding back, he bowed to her, before +saluting Sir Barnet and his lady. Florence had no remembrance of +having ever seen him, but she started involuntarily when he came near +her, and drew back. + +'My horse is perfectly quiet, I assure you,' said the gentleman. + +It was not that, but something in the gentleman himself - Florence +could not have said what - that made her recoil as if she had been +stung. + +'I have the honour to address Miss Dombey, I believe?' said the +gentleman, with a most persuasive smile. On Florence inclining her +head, he added, 'My name is Carker. I can hardly hope to be remembered +by Miss Dombey, except by name. Carker.' + +Florence, sensible of a strange inclination to shiver, though the +day was hot, presented him to her host and hostess; by whom he was +very graciously received. + +'I beg pardon,' said Mr Carker, 'a thousand times! But I am going +down tomorrow morning to Mr Dombey, at Leamington, and if Miss Dombey +can entrust me with any commission, need I say how very happy I shall +be?' + +Sir Barnet immediately divining that Florence would desire to write +a letter to her father, proposed to return, and besought Mr Carker to +come home and dine in his riding gear. Mr Carker had the misfortune to +be engaged to dinner, but if Miss Dombey wished to write, nothing +would delight him more than to accompany them back, and to be her +faithful slave in waiting as long as she pleased. As he said this with +his widest smile, and bent down close to her to pat his horse's neck, +Florence meeting his eyes, saw, rather than heard him say, 'There is +no news of the ship!' + +Confused, frightened, shrinking from him, and not even sure that he +had said those words, for he seemed to have shown them to her in some +extraordinary manner through his smile, instead of uttering them, +Florence faintly said that she was obliged to him, but she would not +write; she had nothing to say. + +'Nothing to send, Miss Dombey?' said the man of teeth. + +'Nothing,' said Florence, 'but my - but my dear love- if you +please.' + +Disturbed as Florence was, she raised her eyes to his face with an +imploring and expressive look, that plainly besought him, if he knew - +which he as plainly did - that any message between her and her father +was an uncommon charge, but that one most of all, to spare her. Mr +Carker smiled and bowed low, and being charged by Sir Barnet with the +best compliments of himself and Lady Skettles, took his leave, and +rode away: leaving a favourable impression on that worthy couple. +Florence was seized with such a shudder as he went, that Sir Barnet, +adopting the popular superstition, supposed somebody was passing over +her grave. Mr Carker turning a corner, on the instant, looked back, +and bowed, and disappeared, as if he rode off to the churchyard +straight, to do it. + + + +CHAPTER 25. + +Strange News of Uncle Sol + + +Captain Cuttle, though no sluggard, did not turn out so early on +the morning after he had seen Sol Gills, through the shop-window, +writing in the parlour, with the Midshipman upon the counter, and Rob +the Grinder making up his bed below it, but that the clocks struck six +as he raised himself on his elbow, and took a survey of his little +chamber. The Captain's eyes must have done severe duty, if he usually +opened them as wide on awaking as he did that morning; and were but +roughly rewarded for their vigilance, if he generally rubbed them half +as hard. But the occasion was no common one, for Rob the Grinder had +certainly never stood in the doorway of Captain Cuttle's room before, +and in it he stood then, panting at the Captain, with a flushed and +touzled air of Bed about him, that greatly heightened both his colour +and expression. + +'Holloa!' roared the Captain. 'What's the matter?' + +Before Rob could stammer a word in answer, Captain Cuttle turned +out, all in a heap, and covered the boy's mouth with his hand. + +'Steady, my lad,' said the Captain, 'don't ye speak a word to me as +yet!' + +The Captain, looking at his visitor in great consternation, gently +shouldered him into the next room, after laying this injunction upon +him; and disappearing for a few moments, forthwith returned in the +blue suit. Holding up his hand in token of the injunction not yet +being taken off, Captain Cuttle walked up to the cupboard, and poured +himself out a dram; a counterpart of which he handed to the messenger. +The Captain then stood himself up in a corner, against the wall, as if +to forestall the possibility of being knocked backwards by the +communication that was to be made to him; and having swallowed his +liquor, with his eyes fixed on the messenger, and his face as pale as +his face could be, requested him to 'heave ahead.' + +'Do you mean, tell you, Captain?' asked Rob, who had been greatly +impressed by these precautions + +'Ay!' said the Captain. + +'Well, Sir,' said Rob, 'I ain't got much to tell. But look here!' + +Rob produced a bundle of keys. The Captain surveyed them, remained +in his corner, and surveyed the messenger. + +'And look here!' pursued Rob. + +The boy produced a sealed packet, which Captain Cuttle stared at as +he had stared at the keys. + +'When I woke this morning, Captain,' said Rob, 'which was about a +quarter after five, I found these on my pillow. The shop-door was +unbolted and unlocked, and Mr Gills gone.' + +'Gone!' roared the Captain. + +'Flowed, Sir,' returned Rob. + +The Captain's voice was so tremendous, and he came out of his +corner with such way on him, that Rob retreated before him into +another corner: holding out the keys and packet, to prevent himself +from being run down. + +'"For Captain Cuttle," Sir,' cried Rob, 'is on the keys, and on the +packet too. Upon my word and honour, Captain Cuttle, I don't know +anything more about it. I wish I may die if I do! Here's a sitiwation +for a lad that's just got a sitiwation,' cried the unfortunate +Grinder, screwing his cuff into his face: 'his master bolted with his +place, and him blamed for it!' + +These lamentations had reference to Captain Cuttle's gaze, or +rather glare, which was full of vague suspicions, threatenings, and +denunciations. Taking the proffered packet from his hand, the Captain +opened it and read as follows:- + +'My dear Ned Cuttle. Enclosed is my will!' The Captain turned it +over, with a doubtful look - 'and Testament - Where's the Testament?' +said the Captain, instantly impeaching the ill-fated Grinder. 'What +have you done with that, my lad?' + +'I never see it,' whimpered Rob. 'Don't keep on suspecting an +innocent lad, Captain. I never touched the Testament.' + +Captain Cuttle shook his head, implying that somebody must be made +answerable for it; and gravely proceeded: + +'Which don't break open for a year, or until you have decisive +intelligence of my dear Walter, who is dear to you, Ned, too, I am +sure.' The Captain paused and shook his head in some emotion; then, as +a re-establishment of his dignity in this trying position, looked with +exceeding sternness at the Grinder. 'If you should never hear of me, +or see me more, Ned, remember an old friend as he will remember you to +the last - kindly; and at least until the period I have mentioned has +expired, keep a home in the old place for Walter. There are no debts, +the loan from Dombey's House is paid off and all my keys I send with +this. Keep this quiet, and make no inquiry for me; it is useless. So +no more, dear Ned, from your true friend, Solomon Gills.' The Captain +took a long breath, and then read these words written below: '"The boy +Rob, well recommended, as I told you, from Dombey's House. If all else +should come to the hammer, take care, Ned, of the little Midshipman."' + +To convey to posterity any idea of the manner in which the Captain, +after turning this letter over and over, and reading it a score of +times, sat down in his chair, and held a court-martial on the subject +in his own mind, would require the united genius of all the great men, +who, discarding their own untoward days, have determined to go down to +posterity, and have never got there. At first the Captain was too much +confounded and distressed to think of anything but the letter itself; +and even when his thoughts began to glance upon the various attendant +facts, they might, perhaps, as well have occupied themselves with +their former theme, for any light they reflected on them. In this +state of mind, Captain Cuttle having the Grinder before the court, and +no one else, found it a great relief to decide, generally, that he was +an object of suspicion: which the Captain so clearly expressed in his +visage, that Rob remonstrated. + +'Oh, don't, Captain!' cried the Grinder. 'I wonder how you can! +what have I done to be looked at, like that?' + +'My lad,' said Captain Cuttle, 'don't you sing out afore you're +hurt. And don't you commit yourself, whatever you do.' + +'I haven't been and committed nothing, Captain!' answered Rob. + +'Keep her free, then,' said the Captain, impressively, 'and ride +easy. + +With a deep sense of the responsibility imposed upon him' and the +necessity of thoroughly fathoming this mysterious affair as became a +man in his relations with the parties, Captain Cuttle resolved to go +down and examine the premises, and to keep the Grinder with him. +Considering that youth as under arrest at present, the Captain was in +some doubt whether it might not be expedient to handcuff him, or tie +his ankles together, or attach a weight to his legs; but not being +clear as to the legality of such formalities, the Captain decided +merely to hold him by the shoulder all the way, and knock him down if +he made any objection. + +However, he made none, and consequently got to the +Instrument-maker's house without being placed under any more stringent +restraint. As the shutters were not yet taken down, the Captain's +first care was to have the shop opened; and when the daylight was +freely admitted, he proceeded, with its aid, to further investigation. + +The Captain's first care was to establish himself in a chair in the +shop, as President of the solemn tribunal that was sitting within him; +and to require Rob to lie down in his bed under the counter, show +exactly where he discovered the keys and packet when he awoke, how he +found the door when he went to try it, how he started off to Brig +Place - cautiously preventing the latter imitation from being carried +farther than the threshold - and so on to the end of the chapter. When +all this had been done several times, the Captain shook his head and +seemed to think the matter had a bad look. + +Next, the Captain, with some indistinct idea of finding a body, +instituted a strict search over the whole house; groping in the +cellars with a lighted candle, thrusting his hook behind doors, +bringing his head into violent contact with beams, and covering +himself with cobwebs. Mounting up to the old man's bed-room, they +found that he had not been in bed on the previous night, but had +merely lain down on the coverlet, as was evident from the impression +yet remaining there. + +'And I think, Captain,' said Rob, looking round the room, 'that +when Mr Gills was going in and out so often, these last few days, he +was taking little things away, piecemeal, not to attract attention.' + +'Ay!' said the Captain, mysteriously. 'Why so, my lad?' + +'Why,' returned Rob, looking about, 'I don't see his shaving +tackle. Nor his brushes, Captain. Nor no shirts. Nor yet his shoes.' + +As each of these articles was mentioned, Captain Cuttle took +particular notice of the corresponding department of the Grinder, lest +he should appear to have been in recent use, or should prove to be in +present possession thereof. But Rob had no occasion to shave, was not +brushed, and wore the clothes he had on for a long time past, beyond +all possibility of a mistake. + +'And what should you say,' said the Captain - 'not committing +yourself - about his time of sheering off? Hey?' + +'Why, I think, Captain,' returned Rob, 'that he must have gone +pretty soon after I began to snore.' + +'What o'clock was that?' said the Captain, prepared to be very +particular about the exact time. + +'How can I tell, Captain!' answered Rob. 'I only know that I'm a +heavy sleeper at first, and a light one towards morning; and if Mr +Gills had come through the shop near daybreak, though ever so much on +tiptoe, I'm pretty sure I should have heard him shut the door at all +events. + +On mature consideration of this evidence, Captain Cuttle began to +think that the Instrument-maker must have vanished of his own accord; +to which logical conclusion he was assisted by the letter addressed to +himself, which, as being undeniably in the old man's handwriting, +would seem, with no great forcing, to bear the construction, that he +arranged of his own will to go, and so went. The Captain had next to +consider where and why? and as there was no way whatsoever that he saw +to the solution of the first difficulty, he confined his meditations +to the second. + +Remembering the old man's curious manner, and the farewell he had +taken of him; unaccountably fervent at the time, but quite +intelligible now: a terrible apprehension strengthened on the Captain, +that, overpowered by his anxieties and regrets for Walter, he had been +driven to commit suicide. Unequal to the wear and tear of daily life, +as he had often professed himself to be, and shaken as he no doubt was +by the uncertainty and deferred hope he had undergone, it seemed no +violently strained misgiving, but only too probable. Free from debt, +and with no fear for his personal liberty, or the seizure of his +goods, what else but such a state of madness could have hurried him +away alone and secretly? As to his carrying some apparel with him, if +he had really done so - and they were not even sure of that - he might +have done so, the Captain argued, to prevent inquiry, to distract +attention from his probable fate, or to ease the very mind that was +now revolving all these possibilities. Such, reduced into plain +language, and condensed within a small compass, was the final result +and substance of Captain Cuttle's deliberations: which took a long +time to arrive at this pass, and were, like some more public +deliberations, very discursive and disorderly. + +Dejected and despondent in the extreme, Captain Cuttle felt it just +to release Rob from the arrest in which he had placed him, and to +enlarge him, subject to a kind of honourable inspection which he still +resolved to exercise; and having hired a man, from Brogley the Broker, +to sit in the shop during their absence, the Captain, taking Rob with +him, issued forth upon a dismal quest after the mortal remains of +Solomon Gills. + +Not a station-house, or bone-house, or work-house in the metropolis +escaped a visitation from the hard glazed hat. Along the wharves, +among the shipping on the bank-side, up the river, down the river, +here, there, everywhere, it went gleaming where men were thickest, +like the hero's helmet in an epic battle. For a whole week the Captain +read of all the found and missing people in all the newspapers and +handbills, and went forth on expeditions at all hours of the day to +identify Solomon Gills, in poor little ship-boys who had fallen +overboard, and in tall foreigners with dark beards who had taken +poison - 'to make sure,' Captain Cuttle said, 'that it wam't him.' It +is a sure thing that it never was, and that the good Captain had no +other satisfaction. + +Captain Cuttle at last abandoned these attempts as hopeless, and +set himself to consider what was to be done next. After several new +perusals of his poor friend's letter, he considered that the +maintenance of' a home in the old place for Walter' was the primary +duty imposed upon him. Therefore, the Captain's decision was, that he +would keep house on the premises of Solomon Gills himself, and would +go into the instrument-business, and see what came of it. + +But as this step involved the relinquishment of his apartments at +Mrs MacStinger's, and he knew that resolute woman would never hear of +his deserting them, the Captain took the desperate determination of +running away. + +'Now, look ye here, my lad,' said the Captain to Rob, when he had +matured this notable scheme, 'to-morrow, I shan't be found in this +here roadstead till night - not till arter midnight p'rhaps. But you +keep watch till you hear me knock, and the moment you do, turn-to, and +open the door.' + +'Very good, Captain,' said Rob. + +'You'll continue to be rated on these here books,' pursued the +Captain condescendingly, 'and I don't say but what you may get +promotion, if you and me should pull together with a will. But the +moment you hear me knock to-morrow night, whatever time it is, turn-to +and show yourself smart with the door.' + +'I'll be sure to do it, Captain,' replied Rob. + +'Because you understand,' resumed the Captain, coming back again to +enforce this charge upon his mind, 'there may be, for anything I can +say, a chase; and I might be took while I was waiting, if you didn't +show yourself smart with the door.' + +Rob again assured the Captain that he would be prompt and wakeful; +and the Captain having made this prudent arrangement, went home to Mrs +MacStinger's for the last time. + +The sense the Captain had of its being the last time, and of the +awful purpose hidden beneath his blue waistcoat, inspired him with +such a mortal dread of Mrs MacStinger, that the sound of that lady's +foot downstairs at any time of the day, was sufficient to throw him +into a fit of trembling. It fell out, too, that Mrs MacStinger was in +a charming temper - mild and placid as a house- lamb; and Captain +Cuttle's conscience suffered terrible twinges, when she came up to +inquire if she could cook him nothing for his dinner. + +'A nice small kidney-pudding now, Cap'en Cuttle,' said his +landlady: 'or a sheep's heart. Don't mind my trouble.' + +'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain. + +'Have a roast fowl,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'with a bit of weal +stuffing and some egg sauce. Come, Cap'en Cuttle! Give yourself a +little treat!' + +'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain very humbly. + +'I'm sure you're out of sorts, and want to be stimulated,' said Mrs +MacStinger. 'Why not have, for once in a way, a bottle of sherry +wine?' + +'Well, Ma'am,' rejoined the Captain, 'if you'd be so good as take a +glass or two, I think I would try that. Would you do me the favour, +Ma'am,' said the Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, 'to accept +a quarter's rent ahead?' + +'And why so, Cap'en Cuttle?' retorted Mrs MacStinger - sharply, as +the Captain thought. + +The Captain was frightened to dead 'If you would Ma'am,' he said +with submission, 'it would oblige me. I can't keep my money very well. +It pays itself out. I should take it kind if you'd comply.' + +'Well, Cap'en Cuttle,' said the unconscious MacStinger, rubbing her +hands, 'you can do as you please. It's not for me, with my family, to +refuse, no more than it is to ask' + +'And would you, Ma'am,' said the Captain, taking down the tin +canister in which he kept his cash' from the top shelf of the +cupboard, 'be so good as offer eighteen-pence a-piece to the little +family all round? If you could make it convenient, Ma'am, to pass the +word presently for them children to come for'ard, in a body, I should +be glad to see 'em' + +These innocent MacStingers were so many daggers to the Captain's +breast, when they appeared in a swarm, and tore at him with the +confiding trustfulness he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander +MacStinger, who had been his favourite, was insupportable to the +Captain; the voice of Juliana MacStinger, who was the picture of her +mother, made a coward of him. + +Captain Cuttle kept up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably well, +and for an hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the +young MacStingers: who in their childish frolics, did a little damage +also to the glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at a time, as in a nest, +and drumming on the inside of the crown with their shoes. At length +the Captain sorrowfully dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs +with the poignant remorse and grief of a man who was going to +execution. + +In the silence of night, the Captain packed up his heavier property +in a chest, which he locked, intending to leave it there, in all +probability for ever, but on the forlorn chance of one day finding a +man sufficiently bold and desperate to come and ask for it. Of his +lighter necessaries, the Captain made a bundle; and disposed his plate +about his person, ready for flight. At the hour of midnight, when Brig +Place was buried in slumber, and Mrs MacStinger was lulled in sweet +oblivion, with her infants around her, the guilty Captain, stealing +down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the door, closed it softly after +him, and took to his heels + +Pursued by the image of Mrs MacStinger springing out of bed, and, +regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also +by a consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a +great pace, and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig +Place and the Instrument-maker's door. It opened when he knocked - for +Rob was on the watch - and when it was bolted and locked behind him, +Captain Cuttle felt comparatively safe. + +'Whew!' cried the Captain, looking round him. 'It's a breather!' + +'Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?' cried the gaping Rob. + +'No, no!' said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening +to a passing footstep in the street. 'But mind ye, my lad; if any +lady, except either of them two as you see t'other day, ever comes and +asks for Cap'en Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name +known, nor never heard of here; observe them orders, will you?' + +'I'll take care, Captain,' returned Rob. + +'You might say - if you liked,' hesitated the Captain, 'that you'd +read in the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to Australia, +emigrating, along with a whole ship's complement of people as had all +swore never to come back no more. + +Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain +Cuttle promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed +him, yawning, to his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the +chamber of Solomon Gills. + +What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or +how often he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers, +and sought safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the +fatigues attendant on this means of self-preservation, the Captain +curtained the glass door of communication between the shop and +parlour, on the inside; fitted a key to it from the bunch that had +been sent to him; and cut a small hole of espial in the wall. The +advantage of this fortification is obvious. On a bonnet appearing, the +Captain instantly slipped into his garrison, locked himself up, and +took a secret observation of the enemy. Finding it a false alarm, the +Captain instantly slipped out again. And the bonnets in the street +were so very numerous, and alarms were so inseparable from their +appearance, that the Captain was almost incessantly slipping in and +out all day long. + +Captain Cuttle found time, however, in the midst of this fatiguing +service to inspect the stock; in connexion with which he had the +general idea (very laborious to Rob) that too much friction could not +be bestowed upon it, and that it could not be made too bright. He also +ticketed a few attractive-looking articles at a venture, at prices +ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds, and exposed them in the +window to the great astonishment of the public. + +After effecting these improvements, Captain Cuttle, surrounded by +the instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at the stars +at night, through the skylight, when he was smoking his pipe in the +little back parlour before going to bed, as if he had established a +kind of property in them. As a tradesman in the City, too, he began to +have an interest in the Lord Mayor, and the Sheriffs, and in Public +Companies; and felt bound to read the quotations of the Funds every +day, though he was unable to make out, on any principle of navigation, +what the figures meant, and could have very well dispensed with the +fractions. Florence, the Captain waited on, with his strange news of +Uncle Sol, immediately after taking possession of the Midshipman; but +she was away from home. So the Captain sat himself down in his altered +station of life, with no company but Rob the Grinder; and losing count +of time, as men do when great changes come upon them, thought musingly +of Walter, and of Solomon Gills, and even of Mrs MacStinger herself, +as among the things that had been. + + + +CHAPTER 26. + +Shadows of the Past and Future + + + +'Your most obedient, Sir,' said the Major. 'Damme, Sir, a friend of +my friend Dombey's is a friend of mine, and I'm glad to see you!' + +'I am infinitely obliged, Carker,' explained Mr Dombey, 'to Major +Bagstock, for his company and conversation. 'Major Bagstock has +rendered me great service, Carker.' + +Mr Carker the Manager, hat in hand, just arrived at Leamington, and +just introduced to the Major, showed the Major his whole double range +of teeth, and trusted he might take the liberty of thanking him with +all his heart for having effected so great an Improvement in Mr +Dombey's looks and spirits' + +'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, in reply, 'there are no thanks due +to me, for it's a give and take affair. A great creature like our +friend Dombey, Sir,' said the Major, lowering his voice, but not +lowering it so much as to render it inaudible to that gentleman, +'cannot help improving and exalting his friends. He strengthens and +invigorates a man, Sir, does Dombey, in his moral nature.' + +Mr Carker snapped at the expression. In his moral nature. Exactly. +The very words he had been on the point of suggesting. + +'But when my friend Dombey, Sir,' added the Major, 'talks to you of +Major Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and you right. He means +plain Joe, Sir - Joey B. - Josh. Bagstock - Joseph- rough and tough +Old J., Sir. At your service.' + +Mr Carker's excessively friendly inclinations towards the Major, +and Mr Carker's admiration of his roughness, toughness, and plainness, +gleamed out of every tooth in Mr Carker's head. + +'And now, Sir,' said the Major, 'you and Dombey have the devil's +own amount of business to talk over.' + +'By no means, Major,' observed Mr Dombey. + +'Dombey,' said the Major, defiantly, 'I know better; a man of your +mark - the Colossus of commerce - is not to be interrupted. Your +moments are precious. We shall meet at dinner-time. In the interval, +old Joseph will be scarce. The dinner-hour is a sharp seven, Mr +Carker.' + +With that, the Major, greatly swollen as to his face, withdrew; but +immediately putting in his head at the door again, said: + +'I beg your pardon. Dombey, have you any message to 'em?' + +Mr Dombey in some embarrassment, and not without a glance at the +courteous keeper of his business confidence, entrusted the Major with +his compliments. + +'By the Lord, Sir,' said the Major, 'you must make it something +warmer than that, or old Joe will be far from welcome.' + +'Regards then, if you will, Major,' returned Mr Dombey. + +'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, shaking his shoulders and his great +cheeks jocularly: 'make it something warmer than that.' + +'What you please, then, Major,' observed Mr Dombey. + +'Our friend is sly, Sir, sly, Sir, de-vilish sly,' said the Major, +staring round the door at Carker. 'So is Bagstock.' But stopping in +the midst of a chuckle, and drawing himself up to his full height, the +Major solemnly exclaimed, as he struck himself on the chest, 'Dombey! +I envy your feelings. God bless you!' and withdrew. + +'You must have found the gentleman a great resource,' said Carker, +following him with his teeth. + +'Very great indeed,' said Mr Dombey. + +'He has friends here, no doubt,' pursued Carker. 'I perceive, from +what he has said, that you go into society here. Do you know,' smiling +horribly, 'I am so very glad that you go into society!' + +Mr Dombey acknowledged this display of interest on the part of his +second in command, by twirling his watch-chain, and slightly moving +his head. + +'You were formed for society,' said Carker. 'Of all the men I know, +you are the best adapted, by nature and by position, for society. Do +you know I have been frequently amazed that you should have held it at +arm's length so long!' + +'I have had my reasons, Carker. I have been alone, and indifferent +to it. But you have great social qualifications yourself, and are the +more likely to have been surprised.' + +'Oh! I!' returned the other, with ready self-disparagement. 'It's +quite another matter in the case of a man like me. I don't come into +comparison with you.' + +Mr Dombey put his hand to his neckcloth, settled his chin in it, +coughed, and stood looking at his faithful friend and servant for a +few moments in silence. + +'I shall have the pleasure, Carker,' said Mr Dombey at length: +making as if he swallowed something a little too large for his throat: +'to present you to my - to the Major's friends. Highly agreeable +people.' + +'Ladies among them, I presume?' insinuated the smooth Manager. + +'They are all - that is to say, they are both - ladies,' replied Mr +Dombey. + +'Only two?' smiled Carker. + +'They are only two. I have confined my visits to their residence, +and have made no other acquaintance here.' + +'Sisters, perhaps?' quoth Carker. + +'Mother and daughter,' replied Mr Dombey. + +As Mr Dombey dropped his eyes, and adjusted his neckcloth again, +the smiling face of Mr Carker the Manager became in a moment, and +without any stage of transition, transformed into a most intent and +frowning face, scanning his closely, and with an ugly sneer. As Mr +Dombey raised his eyes, it changed back, no less quickly, to its old +expression, and showed him every gum of which it stood possessed. + +'You are very kind,' said Carker, 'I shall be delighted to know +them. Speaking of daughters, I have seen Miss Dombey.' + +There was a sudden rush of blood to Mr Dombey's face. + +'I took the liberty of waiting on her,' said Carker, 'to inquire if +she could charge me with any little commission. I am not so fortunate +as to be the bearer of any but her - but her dear love.' + +Wolf's face that it was then, with even the hot tongue revealing +itself through the stretched mouth, as the eyes encountered Mr +Dombey's! + +'What business intelligence is there?' inquired the latter +gentleman, after a silence, during which Mr Carker had produced some +memoranda and other papers. + +'There is very little,' returned Carker. 'Upon the whole we have +not had our usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment +to you. At Lloyd's, they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she +was insured, from her keel to her masthead.' + +'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, taking a chair near him, 'I cannot say +that young man, Gay, ever impressed me favourably + +'Nor me,' interposed the Manager. + +'But I wish,' said Mr Dombey, without heeding the interruption, 'he +had never gone on board that ship. I wish he had never been sent out. + +'It is a pity you didn't say so, in good time, is it not?' retorted +Carker, coolly. 'However, I think it's all for the best. I really, +think it's all for the best. Did I mention that there was something +like a little confidence between Miss Dombey and myself?' + +'No,' said Mr Dombey, sternly. + +'I have no doubt,' returned Mr Carker, after an impressive pause, +'that wherever Gay is, he is much better where he is, than at home +here. If I were, or could be, in your place, I should be satisfied of +that. I am quite satisfied of it myself. Miss Dombey is confiding and +young - perhaps hardly proud enough, for your daughter - if she have a +fault. Not that that is much though, I am sure. Will you check these +balances with me?' + +Mr Dombey leaned back in his chair, instead of bending over the +papers that were laid before him, and looked the Manager steadily in +the face. The Manager, with his eyelids slightly raised, affected to +be glancing at his figures, and to await the leisure of his principal. +He showed that he affected this, as if from great delicacy, and with a +design to spare Mr Dombey's feelings; and the latter, as he looked at +him, was cognizant of his intended consideration, and felt that but +for it, this confidential Carker would have said a great deal more, +which he, Mr Dombey, was too proud to ask for. It was his way in +business, often. Little by little, Mr Dombey's gaze relaxed, and his +attention became diverted to the papers before him; but while busy +with the occupation they afforded him, he frequently stopped, and +looked at Mr Carker again. Whenever he did so, Mr Carker was +demonstrative, as before, in his delicacy, and impressed it on his +great chief more and more. + +While they were thus engaged; and under the skilful culture of the +Manager, angry thoughts in reference to poor Florence brooded and bred +in Mr Dombey's breast, usurping the place of the cold dislike that +generally reigned there; Major Bagstock, much admired by the old +ladies of Leamington, and followed by the Native, carrying the usual +amount of light baggage, straddled along the shady side of the way, to +make a morning call on Mrs Skewton. It being midday when the Major +reached the bower of Cleopatra, he had the good fortune to find his +Princess on her usual sofa, languishing over a cup of coffee, with the +room so darkened and shaded for her more luxurious repose, that +Withers, who was in attendance on her, loomed like a phantom page. + +'What insupportable creature is this, coming in?' said Mrs Skewton, +'I cannot hear it. Go away, whoever you are!' + +'You have not the heart to banish J. B., Ma'am!' said the Major +halting midway, to remonstrate, with his cane over his shoulder. + +'Oh it's you, is it? On second thoughts, you may enter,' observed +Cleopatra. + +The Major entered accordingly, and advancing to the sofa pressed +her charming hand to his lips. + +'Sit down,' said Cleopatra, listlessly waving her fan, 'a long way +off. Don't come too near me, for I am frightfully faint and sensitive +this morning, and you smell of the Sun. You are absolutely tropical.' + +'By George, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'the time has been when Joseph +Bagstock has been grilled and blistered by the Sun; then time was, +when he was forced, Ma'am, into such full blow, by high hothouse heat +in the West Indies, that he was known as the Flower. A man never heard +of Bagstock, Ma'am, in those days; he heard of the Flower - the Flower +of Ours. The Flower may have faded, more or less, Ma'am,' observed the +Major, dropping into a much nearer chair than had been indicated by +his cruel Divinity, 'but it is a tough plant yet, and constant as the +evergreen.' + +Here the Major, under cover of the dark room, shut up one eye, +rolled his head like a Harlequin, and, in his great self-satisfaction, +perhaps went nearer to the confines of apoplexy than he had ever gone +before. + +'Where is Mrs Granger?' inquired Cleopatra of her page. + +Withers believed she was in her own room. + +'Very well,' said Mrs Skewton. 'Go away, and shut the door. I am +engaged.' + +As Withers disappeared, Mrs Skewton turned her head languidly +towards the Major, without otherwise moving, and asked him how his +friend was. + +'Dombey, Ma'am,' returned the Major, with a facetious gurgling in +his throat, 'is as well as a man in his condition can be. His +condition is a desperate one, Ma'am. He is touched, is Dombey! +Touched!' cried the Major. 'He is bayonetted through the body.' + +Cleopatra cast a sharp look at the Major, that contrasted forcibly +with the affected drawl in which she presently said: + +'Major Bagstock, although I know but little of the world, - nor can +I really regret my experience, for I fear it is a false place, full of +withering conventionalities: where Nature is but little regarded, and +where the music of the heart, and the gushing of the soul, and all +that sort of thing, which is so truly poetical, is seldom heard, - I +cannot misunderstand your meaning. There is an allusion to Edith - to +my extremely dear child,' said Mrs Skewton, tracing the outline of her +eyebrows with her forefinger, 'in your words, to which the tenderest +of chords vibrates excessively.' + +'Bluntness, Ma'am,' returned the Major, 'has ever been the +characteristic of the Bagstock breed. You are right. Joe admits it.' + +'And that allusion,' pursued Cleopatra, 'would involve one of the +most - if not positively the most - touching, and thrilling, and +sacred emotions of which our sadly-fallen nature is susceptible, I +conceive.' + +The Major laid his hand upon his lips, and wafted a kiss to +Cleopatra, as if to identify the emotion in question. + +'I feel that I am weak. I feel that I am wanting in that energy, +which should sustain a Mama: not to say a parent: on such a subject,' +said Mrs Skewton, trimming her lips with the laced edge of her +pocket-handkerchief; 'but I can hardly approach a topic so excessively +momentous to my dearest Edith without a feeling of faintness. +Nevertheless, bad man, as you have boldly remarked upon it, and as it +has occasioned me great anguish:' Mrs Skewton touched her left side +with her fan: 'I will not shrink from my duty.' + +The Major, under cover of the dimness, swelled, and swelled, and +rolled his purple face about, and winked his lobster eye, until he +fell into a fit of wheezing, which obliged him to rise and take a turn +or two about the room, before his fair friend could proceed. + +'Mr Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, when she at length resumed, 'was +obliging enough, now many weeks ago, to do us the honour of visiting +us here; in company, my dear Major, with yourself. I acknowledge - let +me be open - that it is my failing to be the creature of impulse, and +to wear my heart as it were, outside. I know my failing full well. My +enemy cannot know it better. But I am not penitent; I would rather not +be frozen by the heartless world, and am content to bear this +imputation justly.' + +Mrs Skewton arranged her tucker, pinched her wiry throat to give it +a soft surface, and went on, with great complacency. + +'It gave me (my dearest Edith too, I am sure) infinite pleasure to +receive Mr Dombey. As a friend of yours, my dear Major, we were +naturally disposed to be prepossessed in his favour; and I fancied +that I observed an amount of Heart in Mr Dombey, that was excessively +refreshing.' + +'There is devilish little heart in Dombey now, Ma'am,' said the +Major. + +'Wretched man!' cried Mrs Skewton, looking at him languidly, 'pray +be silent.' + +'J. B. is dumb, Ma'am,' said the Major. + +'Mr Dombey,' pursued Cleopatra, smoothing the rosy hue upon her +cheeks, 'accordingly repeated his visit; and possibly finding some +attraction in the simplicity and primitiveness of our tastes - for +there is always a charm in nature - it is so very sweet - became one +of our little circle every evening. Little did I think of the awful +responsibility into which I plunged when I encouraged Mr Dombey - to - + +'To beat up these quarters, Ma'am,' suggested Major Bagstock. + +'Coarse person! 'said Mrs Skewton, 'you anticipate my meaning, +though in odious language. + +Here Mrs Skewton rested her elbow on the little table at her side, +and suffering her wrist to droop in what she considered a graceful and +becoming manner, dangled her fan to and fro, and lazily admired her +hand while speaking. + +'The agony I have endured,' she said mincingly, 'as the truth has +by degrees dawned upon me, has been too exceedingly terrific to dilate +upon. My whole existence is bound up in my sweetest Edith; and to see +her change from day to day - my beautiful pet, who has positively +garnered up her heart since the death of that most delightful +creature, Granger - is the most affecting thing in the world.' + +Mrs Skewton's world was not a very trying one, if one might judge +of it by the influence of its most affecting circumstance upon her; +but this by the way. + +'Edith,' simpered Mrs Skewton, 'who is the perfect pearl of my +life, is said to resemble me. I believe we are alike.' + +'There is one man in the world who never will admit that anyone +resembles you, Ma'am,' said the Major; 'and that man's name is Old Joe +Bagstock.' + +Cleopatra made as if she would brain the flatterer with her fan, +but relenting, smiled upon him and proceeded: + +'If my charming girl inherits any advantages from me, wicked one!': +the Major was the wicked one: 'she inherits also my foolish nature. +She has great force of character - mine has been said to be immense, +though I don't believe it - but once moved, she is susceptible and +sensitive to the last extent. What are my feelings when I see her +pining! They destroy me. + +The Major advancing his double chin, and pursing up his blue lips +into a soothing expression, affected the profoundest sympathy. + +'The confidence,' said Mrs Skewton, 'that has subsisted between us +- the free development of soul, and openness of sentiment - is +touching to think of. We have been more like sisters than Mama and +child.' + +'J. B.'s own sentiment,' observed the Major, 'expressed by J. B. +fifty thousand times!' + +'Do not interrupt, rude man!' said Cleopatra. 'What are my +feelings, then, when I find that there is one subject avoided by us! +That there is a what's-his-name - a gulf - opened between us. That my +own artless Edith is changed to me! They are of the most poignant +description, of course.' + +The Major left his chair, and took one nearer to the little table. + +'From day to day I see this, my dear Major,' proceeded Mrs Skewton. +'From day to day I feel this. From hour to hour I reproach myself for +that excess of faith and trustfulness which has led to such +distressing consequences; and almost from minute to minute, I hope +that Mr Dombey may explain himself, and relieve the torture I undergo, +which is extremely wearing. But nothing happens, my dear Major; I am +the slave of remorse - take care of the coffee-cup: you are so very +awkward - my darling Edith is an altered being; and I really don't see +what is to be done, or what good creature I can advise with.' + +Major Bagstock, encouraged perhaps by the softened and confidential +tone into which Mrs Skewton, after several times lapsing into it for a +moment, seemed now to have subsided for good, stretched out his hand +across the little table, and said with a leer, + +'Advise with Joe, Ma'am.' + +'Then, you aggravating monster,' said Cleopatra, giving one hand to +the Major, and tapping his knuckles with her fan, which she held in +the other: 'why don't you talk to me? you know what I mean. Why don't +you tell me something to the purpose?' + +The Major laughed, and kissed the hand she had bestowed upon him, +and laughed again immensely. + +'Is there as much Heart in Mr Dombey as I gave him credit for?' +languished Cleopatra tenderly. 'Do you think he is in earnest, my dear +Major? Would you recommend his being spoken to, or his being left +alone? Now tell me, like a dear man, what would you advise.' + +'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am?' chuckled the Major, +hoarsely. + +'Mysterious creature!' returned Cleopatra, bringing her fan to bear +upon the Major's nose. 'How can we marry him?' + +'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am, I say?' chuckled the +Major again. + +Mrs Skewton returned no answer in words, but smiled upon the Major +with so much archness and vivacity, that that gallant officer +considering himself challenged, would have imprinted a kiss on her +exceedingly red lips, but for her interposing the fan with a very +winning and juvenile dexterity. It might have been in modesty; it +might have been in apprehension of some danger to their bloom. + +'Dombey, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'is a great catch.' + +'Oh, mercenary wretch!' cried Cleopatra, with a little shriek, 'I +am shocked.' + +'And Dombey, Ma'am,' pursued the Major, thrusting forward his head, +and distending his eyes, 'is in earnest. Joseph says it; Bagstock +knows it; J. B. keeps him to the mark. Leave Dombey to himself, Ma'am. +Dombey is safe, Ma'am. Do as you have done; do no more; and trust to +J. B. for the end.' + +'You really think so, my dear Major?' returned Cleopatra, who had +eyed him very cautiously, and very searchingly, in spite of her +listless bearing. + +'Sure of it, Ma'am,' rejoined the Major. 'Cleopatra the peerless, +and her Antony Bagstock, will often speak of this, triumphantly, when +sharing the elegance and wealth of Edith Dombey's establishment. +Dombey's right-hand man, Ma'am,' said the Major, stopping abruptly in +a chuckle, and becoming serious, 'has arrived.' + +'This morning?' said Cleopatra. + +'This morning, Ma'am,' returned the Major. 'And Dombey's anxiety +for his arrival, Ma'am, is to be referred - take J. B.'s word for +this; for Joe is devilish sly' - the Major tapped his nose, and +screwed up one of his eyes tight: which did not enhance his native +beauty - 'to his desire that what is in the wind should become known +to him' without Dombey's telling and consulting him. For Dombey is as +proud, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'as Lucifer.' + +'A charming quality,' lisped Mrs Skewton; 'reminding one of dearest +Edith.' + +'Well, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'I have thrown out hints already, +and the right-hand man understands 'em; and I'll throw out more, +before the day is done. Dombey projected this morning a ride to +Warwick Castle, and to Kenilworth, to-morrow, to be preceded by a +breakfast with us. I undertook the delivery of this invitation. Will +you honour us so far, Ma'am?' said the Major, swelling with shortness +of breath and slyness, as he produced a note, addressed to the +Honourable Mrs Skewton, by favour of Major Bagstock, wherein hers ever +faithfully, Paul Dombey, besought her and her amiable and accomplished +daughter to consent to the proposed excursion; and in a postscript +unto which, the same ever faithfully Paul Dombey entreated to be +recalled to the remembrance of Mrs Granger. + +'Hush!' said Cleopatra, suddenly, 'Edith!' + +The loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid +and affected air when she made this exclamation; for she had never +cast it off; nor was it likely that she ever would or could, in any +other place than in the grave. But hurriedly dismissing whatever +shadow of earnestness, or faint confession of a purpose, laudable or +wicked, that her face, or voice, or manner: had, for the moment, +betrayed, she lounged upon the couch, her most insipid and most +languid self again, as Edith entered the room. + +Edith, so beautiful and stately, but so cold and so repelling. Who, +slightly acknowledging the presence of Major Bagstock, and directing a +keen glance at her mother, drew back the from a window, and sat down +there, looking out. + +'My dearest Edith,' said Mrs Skewton, 'where on earth have you +been? I have wanted you, my love, most sadly.' + +'You said you were engaged, and I stayed away,' she answered, +without turning her head. + +'It was cruel to Old Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major in his gallantry. + +'It was very cruel, I know,' she said, still looking out - and said +with such calm disdain, that the Major was discomfited, and could +think of nothing in reply. + +'Major Bagstock, my darling Edith,' drawled her mother, 'who is +generally the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world: as +you know - ' + +'It is surely not worthwhile, Mama,' said Edith, looking round, 'to +observe these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each +other.' + +The quiet scorn that sat upon her handsome face - a scorn that +evidently lighted on herself, no less than them - was so intense and +deep, that her mother's simper, for the instant, though of a hardy +constitution, drooped before it. + +'My darling girl,' she began again. + +'Not woman yet?' said Edith, with a smile. + +'How very odd you are to-day, my dear! Pray let me say, my love, +that Major Bagstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr Dombey, +proposing that we should breakfast with him to-morrow, and ride to +Warwick and Kenilworth. Will you go, Edith?' + +'Will I go!' she repeated, turning very red, and breathing quickly +as she looked round at her mother. + +'I knew you would, my own, observed the latter carelessly. 'It is, +as you say, quite a form to ask. Here is Mr Dombey's letter, Edith.' + +'Thank you. I have no desire to read it,' was her answer. + +'Then perhaps I had better answer it myself,' said Mrs Skewton, +'though I had thought of asking you to be my secretary, darling.' As +Edith made no movement, and no answer, Mrs Skewton begged the Major to +wheel her little table nearer, and to set open the desk it contained, +and to take out pen and paper for her; all which congenial offices of +gallantry the Major discharged, with much submission and devotion. + +'Your regards, Edith, my dear?' said Mrs Skewton, pausing, pen in +hand, at the postscript. + +'What you will, Mama,' she answered, without turning her head, and +with supreme indifference. + +Mrs Skewton wrote what she would, without seeking for any more +explicit directions, and handed her letter to the Major, who receiving +it as a precious charge, made a show of laying it near his heart, but +was fain to put it in the pocket of his pantaloons on account of the +insecurity of his waistcoat The Major then took a very polished and +chivalrous farewell of both ladies, which the elder one acknowledged +in her usual manner, while the younger, sitting with her face +addressed to the window, bent her head so slightly that it would have +been a greater compliment to the Major to have made no sign at all, +and to have left him to infer that he had not been heard or thought +of. + +'As to alteration in her, Sir,' mused the Major on his way back; on +which expedition - the afternoon being sunny and hot - he ordered the +Native and the light baggage to the front, and walked in the shadow of +that expatriated prince: 'as to alteration, Sir, and pining, and so +forth, that won't go down with Joseph Bagstock, None of that, Sir. It +won't do here. But as to there being something of a division between +'em - or a gulf as the mother calls it - damme, Sir, that seems true +enough. And it's odd enough! Well, Sir!' panted the Major, 'Edith +Granger and Dombey are well matched; let 'em fight it out! Bagstock +backs the winner!' + +The Major, by saying these latter words aloud, in the vigour of his +thoughts, caused the unhappy Native to stop, and turn round, in the +belief that he was personally addressed. Exasperated to the last +degree by this act of insubordination, the Major (though he was +swelling with enjoyment of his own humour, at the moment of its +occurrence instantly thrust his cane among the Native's ribs, and +continued to stir him up, at short intervals, all the way to the +hotel. + +Nor was the Major less exasperated as he dressed for dinner, during +which operation the dark servant underwent the pelting of a shower of +miscellaneous objects, varying in size from a boot to a hairbrush, and +including everything that came within his master's reach. For the +Major plumed himself on having the Native in a perfect state of drill, +and visited the least departure from strict discipline with this kind +of fatigue duty. Add to this, that he maintained the Native about his +person as a counter-irritant against the gout, and all other +vexations, mental as well as bodily; and the Native would appear to +have earned his pay - which was not large. + +At length, the Major having disposed of all the missiles that were +convenient to his hand, and having called the Native so many new names +as must have given him great occasion to marvel at the resources of +the English language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being +dressed, and finding himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this +exercise, went downstairs to enliven 'Dombey' and his right-hand man. + +Dombey was not yet in the room, but the right-hand man was there, +and his dental treasures were, as usual, ready for the Major. + +'Well, Sir!' said the Major. 'How have you passed the time since I +had the happiness of meeting you? Have you walked at all?' + +'A saunter of barely half an hour's duration,' returned Carker. 'We +have been so much occupied.' + +'Business, eh?' said the Major. + +'A variety of little matters necessary to be gone through,' replied +Carker. 'But do you know - this is quite unusual with me, educated in +a distrustful school, and who am not generally disposed to be +communicative,' he said, breaking off, and speaking in a charming tone +of frankness - 'but I feel quite confidential with you, Major +Bagstock.' + +'You do me honour, Sir,' returned the Major. 'You may be.' + +'Do you know, then,' pursued Carker, 'that I have not found my +friend - our friend, I ought rather to call him - ' + +'Meaning Dombey, Sir?' cried the Major. 'You see me, Mr Carker, +standing here! J. B.?' + +He was puffy enough to see, and blue enough; and Mr Carker +intimated the he had that pleasure. + +'Then you see a man, Sir, who would go through fire and water to +serve Dombey,' returned Major Bagstock. + +Mr Carker smiled, and said he was sure of it. 'Do you know, Major,' +he proceeded: 'to resume where I left off' that I have not found our +friend so attentive to business today, as usual?' + +'No?' observed the delighted Major. + +'I have found him a little abstracted, and with his attention +disposed to wander,' said Carker. + +'By Jove, Sir,' cried the Major, 'there's a lady in the case.' + +'Indeed, I begin to believe there really is,' returned Carker; 'I +thought you might be jesting when you seemed to hint at it; for I know +you military men - + +The Major gave the horse's cough, and shook his head and shoulders, +as much as to say, 'Well! we are gay dogs, there's no denying.' He +then seized Mr Carker by the button-hole, and with starting eyes +whispered in his ear, that she was a woman of extraordinary charms, +Sir. That she was a young widow, Sir. That she was of a fine family, +Sir. That Dombey was over head and ears in love with her, Sir, and +that it would be a good match on both sides; for she had beauty, +blood, and talent, and Dombey had fortune; and what more could any +couple have? Hearing Mr Dombey's footsteps without, the Major cut +himself short by saying, that Mr Carker would see her tomorrow +morning, and would judge for himself; and between his mental +excitement, and the exertion of saying all this in wheezy whispers, +the Major sat gurgling in the throat and watering at the eyes, until +dinner was ready. + +The Major, like some other noble animals, exhibited himself to +great advantage at feeding-time. On this occasion, he shone +resplendent at one end of the table, supported by the milder lustre of +Mr Dombey at the other; while Carker on one side lent his ray to +either light, or suffered it to merge into both, as occasion arose. + +During the first course or two, the Major was usually grave; for +the Native, in obedience to general orders, secretly issued, collected +every sauce and cruet round him, and gave him a great deal to do, in +taking out the stoppers, and mixing up the contents in his plate. +Besides which, the Native had private zests and flavours on a +side-table, with which the Major daily scorched himself; to say +nothing of strange machines out of which he spirited unknown liquids +into the Major's drink. But on this occasion, Major Bagstock, even +amidst these many occupations, found time to be social; and his +sociality consisted in excessive slyness for the behoof of Mr Carker, +and the betrayal of Mr Dombey's state of mind. + +'Dombey,' said the Major, 'you don't eat; what's the matter?' + +'Thank you,' returned the gentleman, 'I am doing very well; I have +no great appetite today.' + +'Why, Dombey, what's become of it?' asked the Major. 'Where's it +gone? You haven't left it with our friends, I'll swear, for I can +answer for their having none to-day at luncheon. I can answer for one +of 'em, at least: I won't say which.' + +Then the Major winked at Carker, and became so frightfully sly, +that his dark attendant was obliged to pat him on the back, without +orders, or he would probably have disappeared under the table. + +In a later stage of the dinner: that is to say, when the Native +stood at the Major's elbow ready to serve the first bottle of +champagne: the Major became still slyer. + +'Fill this to the brim, you scoundrel,' said the Major, holding up +his glass. 'Fill Mr Carker's to the brim too. And Mr Dombey's too. By +Gad, gentlemen,' said the Major, winking at his new friend, while Mr +Dombey looked into his plate with a conscious air, 'we'll consecrate +this glass of wine to a Divinity whom Joe is proud to know, and at a +distance humbly and reverently to admire. Edith,' said the Major, 'is +her name; angelic Edith!' + +'To angelic Edith!' cried the smiling Carker. + +'Edith, by all means,' said Mr Dombey. + +The entrance of the waiters with new dishes caused the Major to be +slyer yet, but in a more serious vein. 'For though among ourselves, +Joe Bagstock mingles jest and earnest on this subject, Sir,' said the +Major, laying his finger on his lips, and speaking half apart to +Carker, 'he holds that name too sacred to be made the property of +these fellows, or of any fellows. Not a word!, Sir' while they are +here!' + +This was respectful and becoming on the Major's part, and Mr Dombey +plainly felt it so. Although embarrassed in his own frigid way, by the +Major's allusions, Mr Dombey had no objection to such rallying, it was +clear, but rather courted it. Perhaps the Major had been pretty near +the truth, when he had divined that morning that the great man who was +too haughty formally to consult with, or confide in his prime +minister, on such a matter, yet wished him to be fully possessed of +it. Let this be how it may, he often glanced at Mr Carker while the +Major plied his light artillery, and seemed watchful of its effect +upon him. + +But the Major, having secured an attentive listener, and a smiler +who had not his match in all the world - 'in short, a devilish +intelligent and able fellow,' as he often afterwards declared - was +not going to let him off with a little slyness personal to Mr Dombey. +Therefore, on the removal of the cloth, the Major developed himself as +a choice spirit in the broader and more comprehensive range of +narrating regimental stories, and cracking regimental jokes, which he +did with such prodigal exuberance, that Carker was (or feigned to be) +quite exhausted with laughter and admiration: while Mr Dombey looked +on over his starched cravat, like the Major's proprietor, or like a +stately showman who was glad to see his bear dancing well. + +When the Major was too hoarse with meat and drink, and the display +of his social powers, to render himself intelligible any longer, they +adjourned to coffee. After which, the Major inquired of Mr Carker the +Manager, with little apparent hope of an answer in the affirmative, if +he played picquet. + +'Yes, I play picquet a little,' said Mr Carker. + +'Backgammon, perhaps?' observed the Major, hesitating. + +'Yes, I play backgammon a little too,' replied the man of teeth. + +'Carker plays at all games, I believe,' said Mr Dombey, laying +himself on a sofa like a man of wood, without a hinge or a joint in +him; 'and plays them well.' + +In sooth, he played the two in question, to such perfection, that +the Major was astonished, and asked him, at random, if he played +chess. + +'Yes, I play chess a little,' answered Carker. 'I have sometimes +played, and won a game - it's a mere trick - without seeing the +board.' + +'By Gad, Sir!' said the Major, staring, 'you are a contrast to +Dombey, who plays nothing.' + +'Oh! He!' returned the Manager. 'He has never had occasion to +acquire such little arts. To men like me, they are sometimes useful. +As at present, Major Bagstock, when they enable me to take a hand with +you.' + +It might be only the false mouth, so smooth and wide; and yet there +seemed to lurk beneath the humility and subserviency of this short +speech, a something like a snarl; and, for a moment, one might have +thought that the white teeth were prone to bite the hand they fawned +upon. But the Major thought nothing about it; and Mr Dombey lay +meditating with his eyes half shut, during the whole of the play, +which lasted until bed-time. + +By that time, Mr Carker, though the winner, had mounted high into +the Major's good opinion, insomuch that when he left the Major at his +own room before going to bed, the Major as a special attention, sent +the Native - who always rested on a mattress spread upon the ground at +his master's door - along the gallery, to light him to his room in +state. + +There was a faint blur on the surface of the mirror in Mr Carker's +chamber, and its reflection was, perhaps, a false one. But it showed, +that night, the image of a man, who saw, in his fancy, a crowd of +people slumbering on the ground at his feet, like the poor Native at +his master's door: who picked his way among them: looking down, +maliciously enough: but trod upon no upturned face - as yet. + + + +CHAPTER 27. + +Deeper Shadows + + +Mr Carker the Manager rose with the lark, and went out, walking in +the summer day. His meditations - and he meditated with contracted +brows while he strolled along - hardly seemed to soar as high as the +lark, or to mount in that direction; rather they kept close to their +nest upon the earth, and looked about, among the dust and worms. But +there was not a bird in the air, singing unseen, farther beyond the +reach of human eye than Mr Carker's thoughts. He had his face so +perfectly under control, that few could say more, in distinct terms, +of its expression, than that it smiled or that it pondered. It +pondered now, intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper in +thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he +fell into a graver and profounder silence. At length, when the lark +came headlong down, with an accumulating stream of song, and dropped +among the green wheat near him, rippling in the breath of the morning +like a river, he sprang up from his reverie, and looked round with a +sudden smile, as courteous and as soft as if he had had numerous +observers to propitiate; nor did he relapse, after being thus +awakened; but clearing his face, like one who bethought himself that +it might otherwise wrinkle and tell tales, went smiling on, as if for +practice. + +Perhaps with an eye to first impressions, Mr Carker was very +carefully and trimly dressed, that morning. Though always somewhat +formal, in his dress, in imitation of the great man whom he served, he +stopped short of the extent of Mr Dombey's stiffness: at once perhaps +because he knew it to be ludicrous, and because in doing so he found +another means of expressing his sense of the difference and distance +between them. Some people quoted him indeed, in this respect, as a +pointed commentary, and not a flattering one, on his icy patron - but +the world is prone to misconstruction, and Mr Carker was not +accountable for its bad propensity. + +Clean and florid: with his light complexion, fading as it were, in +the sun, and his dainty step enhancing the softness of the turf: Mr +Carker the Manager strolled about meadows, and green lanes, and glided +among avenues of trees, until it was time to return to breakfast. +Taking a nearer way back, Mr Carker pursued it, airing his teeth, and +said aloud as he did so, 'Now to see the second Mrs Dombey!' + +He had strolled beyond the town, and re-entered it by a pleasant +walk, where there was a deep shade of leafy trees, and where there +were a few benches here and there for those who chose to rest. It not +being a place of general resort at any hour, and wearing at that time +of the still morning the air of being quite deserted and retired, Mr +Carker had it, or thought he had it, all to himself. So, with the whim +of an idle man, to whom there yet remained twenty minutes for reaching +a destination easily able in ten, Mr Carker threaded the great boles +of the trees, and went passing in and out, before this one and behind +that, weaving a chain of footsteps on the dewy ground. + +But he found he was mistaken in supposing there was no one in the +grove, for as he softly rounded the trunk of one large tree, on which +the obdurate bark was knotted and overlapped like the hide of a +rhinoceros or some kindred monster of the ancient days before the +Flood, he saw an unexpected figure sitting on a bench near at hand, +about which, in another moment, he would have wound the chain he was +making. + +It was that of a lady, elegantly dressed and very handsome, whose +dark proud eyes were fixed upon the ground, and in whom some passion +or struggle was raging. For as she sat looking down, she held a corner +of her under lip within her mouth, her bosom heaved, her nostril +quivered, her head trembled, indignant tears were on her cheek, and +her foot was set upon the moss as though she would have crushed it +into nothing. And yet almost the self-same glance that showed him +this, showed him the self-same lady rising with a scornful air of +weariness and lassitude, and turning away with nothing expressed in +face or figure but careless beauty and imperious disdain. + +A withered and very ugly old woman, dressed not so much like a +gipsy as like any of that medley race of vagabonds who tramp about the +country, begging, and stealing, and tinkering, and weaving rushes, by +turns, or all together, had been observing the lady, too; for, as she +rose, this second figure strangely confronting the first, scrambled up +from the ground - out of it, it almost appeared - and stood in the +way. + +'Let me tell your fortune, my pretty lady,' said the old woman, +munching with her jaws, as if the Death's Head beneath her yellow skin +were impatient to get out. + +'I can tell it for myself,' was the reply. + +'Ay, ay, pretty lady; but not right. You didn't tell it right when +you were sitting there. I see you! Give me a piece of silver, pretty +lady, and I'll tell your fortune true. There's riches, pretty lady, in +your face.' + +'I know,' returned the lady, passing her with a dark smile, and a +proud step. 'I knew it before. + +'What! You won't give me nothing?' cried the old woman. 'You won't +give me nothing to tell your fortune, pretty lady? How much will you +give me to tell it, then? Give me something, or I'll call it after +you!' croaked the old woman, passionately. + +Mr Carker, whom the lady was about to pass close, slinking against +his tree as she crossed to gain the path, advanced so as to meet her, +and pulling off his hat as she went by, bade the old woman hold her +peace. The lady acknowledged his interference with an inclination of +the head, and went her way. + +'You give me something then, or I'll call it after her!' screamed +the old woman, throwing up her arms, and pressing forward against his +outstretched hand. 'Or come,' she added, dropping her voice suddenly, +looking at him earnestly, and seeming in a moment to forget the object +of her wrath, 'give me something, or I'll call it after you! ' + +'After me, old lady!' returned the Manager, putting his hand in his +pocket. + +'Yes,' said the woman, steadfast in her scrutiny, and holding out +her shrivelled hand. 'I know!' + +'What do you know?' demanded Carker, throwing her a shilling. 'Do +you know who the handsome lady is?' + +Munching like that sailor's wife of yore, who had chestnuts In her +lap, and scowling like the witch who asked for some in vain, the old +woman picked the shilling up, and going backwards, like a crab, or +like a heap of crabs: for her alternately expanding and contracting +hands might have represented two of that species, and her creeping +face, some half-a-dozen more: crouched on the veinous root of an old +tree, pulled out a short black pipe from within the crown of her +bonnet, lighted it with a match, and smoked in silence, looking +fixedly at her questioner. + +Mr Carker laughed, and turned upon his heel. + +'Good!' said the old woman. 'One child dead, and one child living: +one wife dead, and one wife coming. Go and meet her!' + +In spite of himself, the Manager looked round again, and stopped. +The old woman, who had not removed her pipe, and was munching and +mumbling while she smoked, as if in conversation with an invisible +familiar, pointed with her finger in the direction he was going, and +laughed. + +'What was that you said, Beldamite?' he demanded. + +The woman mumbled, and chattered, and smoked, and still pointed +before him; but remained silent Muttering a farewell that was not +complimentary, Mr Carker pursued his way; but as he turned out of that +place, and looked over his shoulder at the root of the old tree, he +could yet see the finger pointing before him, and thought he heard the +woman screaming, 'Go and meet her!' + +Preparations for a choice repast were completed, he found, at the +hotel; and Mr Dombey, and the Major, and the breakfast, were awaiting +the ladies. Individual constitution has much to do with the +development of such facts, no doubt; but in this case, appetite +carried it hollow over the tender passion; Mr Dombey being very cool +and collected, and the Major fretting and fuming in a state of violent +heat and irritation. At length the door was thrown open by the Native, +and, after a pause, occupied by her languishing along the gallery, a +very blooming, but not very youthful lady, appeared. + +'My dear Mr Dombey,' said the lady, 'I am afraid we are late, but +Edith has been out already looking for a favourable point of view for +a sketch, and kept me waiting for her. Falsest of Majors,' giving him +her little finger, 'how do you do?' + +'Mrs Skewton,' said Mr Dombey, 'let me gratify my friend Carker:' +Mr Dombey unconsciously emphasised the word friend, as saying "no +really; I do allow him to take credit for that distinction:" 'by +presenting him to you. You have heard me mention Mr Carker.' + +'I am charmed, I am sure,' said Mrs Skewton, graciously. + +Mr Carker was charmed, of course. Would he have been more charmed +on Mr Dombey's behalf, if Mrs Skewton had been (as he at first +supposed her) the Edith whom they had toasted overnight? + +'Why, where, for Heaven's sake, is Edith?' exclaimed Mrs Skewton, +looking round. 'Still at the door, giving Withers orders about the +mounting of those drawings! My dear Mr Dombey, will you have the +kindness - + +Mr Dombey was already gone to seek her. Next moment he returned, +bearing on his arm the same elegantly dressed and very handsome lady +whom Mr Carker had encountered underneath the trees. + +'Carker - ' began Mr Dombey. But their recognition of each other +was so manifest, that Mr Dombey stopped surprised. + +'I am obliged to the gentleman,' said Edith, with a stately bend, +'for sparing me some annoyance from an importunate beggar just now.' + +'I am obliged to my good fortune,' said Mr Carker, bowing low, 'for +the opportunity of rendering so slight a service to one whose servant +I am proud to be.' + +As her eye rested on him for an instant, and then lighted on the +ground, he saw in its bright and searching glance a suspicion that he +had not come up at the moment of his interference, but had secretly +observed her sooner. As he saw that, she saw in his eye that her +distrust was not without foundation. + +'Really,' cried Mrs Skewton, who had taken this opportunity of +inspecting Mr Carker through her glass, and satisfying herself (as she +lisped audibly to the Major) that he was all heart; 'really now, this +is one of the most enchanting coincidences that I ever heard of. The +idea! My dearest Edith, there is such an obvious destiny in it, that +really one might almost be induced to cross one's arms upon one's +frock, and say, like those wicked Turks, there is no What's-his-name +but Thingummy, and What-you-may-call-it is his prophet!' + +Edith designed no revision of this extraordinary quotation from the +Koran, but Mr Dombey felt it necessary to offer a few polite remarks. + +'It gives me great pleasure,' said Mr Dombey, with cumbrous +gallantry, 'that a gentleman so nearly connected with myself as Carker +is, should have had the honour and happiness of rendering the least +assistance to Mrs Granger.' Mr Dombey bowed to her. 'But it gives me +some pain, and it occasions me to be really envious of Carker;' he +unconsciously laid stress on these words, as sensible that they must +appear to involve a very surprising proposition; 'envious of Carker, +that I had not that honour and that happiness myself.' Mr Dombey bowed +again. Edith, saving for a curl of her lip, was motionless. + +'By the Lord, Sir,' cried the Major, bursting into speech at sight +of the waiter, who was come to announce breakfast, 'it's an +extraordinary thing to me that no one can have the honour and +happiness of shooting all such beggars through the head without being +brought to book for it. But here's an arm for Mrs Granger if she'll do +J. B. the honour to accept it; and the greatest service Joe can render +you, Ma'am, just now, is, to lead you into table!' + +With this, the Major gave his arm to Edith; Mr Dombey led the way +with Mrs Skewton; Mrs Carker went last, smiling on the party. + +'I am quite rejoiced, Mr Carker,' said the lady-mother, at +breakfast, after another approving survey of him through her glass, +'that you have timed your visit so happily, as to go with us to-day. +It is the most enchanting expedition!' + +'Any expedition would be enchanting in such society,' returned +Carker; 'but I believe it is, in itself, full of interest.' + +'Oh!' cried Mrs Skewton, with a faded little scream of rapture, +'the Castle is charming! - associations of the Middle Ages - and all +that - which is so truly exquisite. Don't you dote upon the Middle +Ages, Mr Carker?' + +'Very much, indeed,' said Mr Carker. + +'Such charming times!' cried Cleopatra. 'So full of faith! So +vigorous and forcible! So picturesque! So perfectly removed from +commonplace! Oh dear! If they would only leave us a little more of the +poetry of existence in these terrible days!' + +Mrs Skewton was looking sharp after Mr Dombey all the time she said +this, who was looking at Edith: who was listening, but who never +lifted up her eyes. + +'We are dreadfully real, Mr Carker,' said Mrs Skewton; 'are we +not?' + +Few people had less reason to complain of their reality than +Cleopatra, who had as much that was false about her as could well go +to the composition of anybody with a real individual existence. But Mr +Carker commiserated our reality nevertheless, and agreed that we were +very hardly used in that regard. + +'Pictures at the Castle, quite divine!' said Cleopatra. 'I hope you +dote upon pictures?' + +'I assure you, Mrs Skewton,' said Mr Dombey, with solemn +encouragement of his Manager, 'that Carker has a very good taste for +pictures; quite a natural power of appreciating them. He is a very +creditable artist himself. He will be delighted, I am sure, with Mrs +Granger's taste and skill.' + +'Damme, Sir!' cried Major Bagstock, 'my opinion is, that you're the +admirable Carker, and can do anything.' + +'Oh!' smiled Carker, with humility, 'you are much too sanguine, +Major Bagstock. I can do very little. But Mr Dombey is so generous in +his estimation of any trivial accomplishment a man like myself may +find it almost necessary to acquire, and to which, in his very +different sphere, he is far superior, that - ' Mr Carker shrugged his +shoulders, deprecating further praise, and said no more. + +All this time, Edith never raised her eyes, unless to glance +towards her mother when that lady's fervent spirit shone forth in +words. But as Carker ceased, she looked at Mr Dombey for a moment. For +a moment only; but with a transient gleam of scornful wonder on her +face, not lost on one observer, who was smiling round the board. + +Mr Dombey caught the dark eyelash in its descent, and took the +opportunity of arresting it. + +'You have been to Warwick often, unfortunately?' said Mr Dombey. + +'Several times.' + +'The visit will be tedious to you, I am afraid.' + +'Oh no; not at all.' + +'Ah! You are like your cousin Feenix, my dearest Edith,' said Mrs +Skewton. 'He has been to Warwick Castle fifty times, if he has been +there once; yet if he came to Leamington to-morrow - I wish he would, +dear angel! - he would make his fifty-second visit next day.' + +'We are all enthusiastic, are we not, Mama?' said Edith, with a +cold smile. + +'Too much so, for our peace, perhaps, my dear,' returned her +mother; 'but we won't complain. Our own emotions are our recompense. +If, as your cousin Feenix says, the sword wears out the +what's-its-name + +'The scabbard, perhaps,' said Edith. + +'Exactly - a little too fast, it is because it is bright and +glowing, you know, my dearest love.' + +Mrs Skewton heaved a gentle sigh, supposed to cast a shadow on the +surface of that dagger of lath, whereof her susceptible bosom was the +sheath: and leaning her head on one side, in the Cleopatra manner, +looked with pensive affection on her darling child. + +Edith had turned her face towards Mr Dombey when he first addressed +her, and had remained in that attitude, while speaking to her mother, +and while her mother spoke to her, as though offering him her +attention, if he had anything more to say. There was something in the +manner of this simple courtesy: almost defiant, and giving it the +character of being rendered on compulsion, or as a matter of traffic +to which she was a reluctant party again not lost upon that same +observer who was smiling round the board. It set him thinking of her +as he had first seen her, when she had believed herself to be alone +among the trees. + +Mr Dombey having nothing else to say, proposed - the breakfast +being now finished, and the Major gorged, like any Boa Constrictor - +that they should start. A barouche being in waiting, according to the +orders of that gentleman, the two ladies, the Major and himself, took +their seats in it; the Native and the wan page mounted the box, Mr +Towlinson being left behind; and Mr Carker, on horseback, brought up +the rear. Mr Carker cantered behind the carriage. at the distance of a +hundred yards or so, and watched it, during all the ride, as if he +were a cat, indeed, and its four occupants, mice. Whether he looked to +one side of the road, or to the other - over distant landscape, with +its smooth undulations, wind-mills, corn, grass, bean fields, +wild-flowers, farm-yards, hayricks, and the spire among the wood - or +upwards in the sunny air, where butterflies were sporting round his +head, and birds were pouring out their songs - or downward, where the +shadows of the branches interlaced, and made a trembling carpet on the +road - or onward, where the overhanging trees formed aisles and +arches, dim with the softened light that steeped through leaves - one +corner of his eye was ever on the formal head of Mr Dombey, addressed +towards him, and the feather in the bonnet, drooping so neglectfully +and scornfully between them; much as he had seen the haughty eyelids +droop; not least so, when the face met that now fronting it. Once, and +once only, did his wary glance release these objects; and that was, +when a leap over a low hedge, and a gallop across a field, enabled him +to anticipate the carriage coming by the road, and to be standing +ready, at the journey's end, to hand the ladies out. Then, and but +then, he met her glance for an instant in her first surprise; but when +he touched her, in alighting, with his soft white hand, it overlooked +him altogether as before. + +Mrs Skewton was bent on taking charge of Mr Carker herself, and +showing him the beauties of the Castle. She was determined to have his +arm, and the Major's too. It would do that incorrigible creature: who +was the most barbarous infidel in point of poetry: good to be in such +company. This chance arrangement left Mr Dombey at liberty to escort +Edith: which he did: stalking before them through the apartments with +a gentlemanly solemnity. + +'Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,' said Cleopatra, 'with +their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their +delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their +picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything that makes life truly +charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated!' + +'Yes, we have fallen off deplorably,' said Mr Carker. + +The peculiarity of their conversation was, that Mrs Skewton, in +spite of her ecstasies, and Mr Carker, in spite of his urbanity, were +both intent on watching Mr Dombey and Edith. With all their +conversational endowments, they spoke somewhat distractedly, and at +random, in consequence. + +'We have no Faith left, positively,' said Mrs Skewton, advancing +her shrivelled ear; for Mr Dombey was saying something to Edith. 'We +have no Faith in the dear old Barons, who were the most delightful +creatures - or in the dear old Priests, who were the most warlike of +men - or even in the days of that inestimable Queen Bess, upon the +wall there, which were so extremely golden. Dear creature! She was all +Heart And that charming father of hers! I hope you dote on Harry the +Eighth!' + +'I admire him very much,' said Carker. + +'So bluff!' cried Mrs Skewton, 'wasn't he? So burly. So truly +English. Such a picture, too, he makes, with his dear little peepy +eyes, and his benevolent chin!' + +'Ah, Ma'am!' said Carker, stopping short; 'but if you speak of +pictures, there's a composition! What gallery in the world can produce +the counterpart of that?' + +As the smiling gentleman thus spake, he pointed through a doorway +to where Mr Dombey and Edith were standing alone in the centre of +another room. + +They were not interchanging a word or a look. Standing together, +arm in arm, they had the appearance of being more divided than if seas +had rolled between them. There was a difference even in the pride of +the two, that removed them farther from each other, than if one had +been the proudest and the other the humblest specimen of humanity in +all creation. He, self-important, unbending, formal, austere. She, +lovely and graceful, in an uncommon degree, but totally regardless of +herself and him and everything around, and spurning her own +attractions with her haughty brow and lip, as if they were a badge or +livery she hated. So unmatched were they, and opposed, so forced and +linked together by a chain which adverse hazard and mischance had +forged: that fancy might have imagined the pictures on the walls +around them, startled by the unnatural conjunction, and observant of +it in their several expressions. Grim knights and warriors looked +scowling on them. A churchman, with his hand upraised, denounced the +mockery of such a couple coming to God's altar. Quiet waters in +landscapes, with the sun reflected in their depths, asked, if better +means of escape were not at hand, was there no drowning left? Ruins +cried, 'Look here, and see what We are, wedded to uncongenial Time!' +Animals, opposed by nature, worried one another, as a moral to them. +Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and Martyrdom had no such +torment in its painted history of suffering. + +Nevertheless, Mrs Skewton was so charmed by the sight to which Mr +Carker invoked her attention, that she could not refraIn from saying, +half aloud, how sweet, how very full of soul it was! Edith, +overhearing, looked round, and flushed indignant scarlet to her hair. + +'My dearest Edith knows I was admiring her!' said Cleopatra, +tapping her, almost timidly, on the back with her parasol. 'Sweet +pet!' + +Again Mr Carker saw the strife he had witnessed so unexpectedly +among the trees. Again he saw the haughty languor and indifference +come over it, and hide it like a cloud. + +She did not raise her eyes to him; but with a slight peremptory +motion of them, seemed to bid her mother come near. Mrs Skewton +thought it expedient to understand the hint, and advancing quickly, +with her two cavaliers, kept near her daughter from that time, + +Mr Carker now, having nothing to distract his attention, began to +discourse upon the pictures and to select the best, and point them out +to Mr Dombey: speaking with his usual familiar recognition of Mr +Dombey's greatness, and rendering homage by adjusting his eye-glass +for him, or finding out the right place in his catalogue, or holding +his stick, or the like. These services did not so much originate with +Mr Carker, in truth, as with Mr Dombey himself, who was apt to assert +his chieftainship by saying, with subdued authority, and in an easy +way - for him - 'Here, Carker, have the goodness to assist me, will +you?' which the smiling gentleman always did with pleasure. + +They made the tour of the pictures, the walls, crow's nest, and so +forth; and as they were still one little party, and the Major was +rather in the shade: being sleepy during the process of digestion: Mr +Carker became communicative and agreeable. At first, he addressed +himself for the most part to Mrs Skewton; but as that sensitive lady +was in such ecstasies with the works of art, after the first quarter +of an hour, that she could do nothing but yawn (they were such perfect +inspirations, she observed as a reason for that mark of rapture), he +transferred his attentions to Mr Dombey. Mr Dombey said little beyond +an occasional 'Very true, Carker,' or 'Indeed, Carker,' but he tacitly +encouraged Carker to proceed, and inwardly approved of his behaviour +very much: deeming it as well that somebody should talk, and thinking +that his remarks, which were, as one might say, a branch of the parent +establishment, might amuse Mrs Granger. Mr Carker, who possessed an +excellent discretion, never took the liberty of addressing that lady, +direct; but she seemed to listen, though she never looked at him; and +once or twice, when he was emphatic in his peculiar humility, the +twilight smile stole over her face, not as a light, but as a deep +black shadow. + +Warwick Castle being at length pretty well exhausted, and the Major +very much so: to say nothing of Mrs Skewton, whose peculiar +demonstrations of delight had become very frequent Indeed: the +carriage was again put In requisition, and they rode to several +admired points of view In the neighbourhood. Mr Dombey ceremoniously +observed of one of these, that a sketch, however slight, from the fair +hand of Mrs Granger, would be a remembrance to him of that agreeable +day: though he wanted no artificial remembrance, he was sure (here Mr +Dombey made another of his bows), which he must always highly value. +Withers the lean having Edith's sketch-book under his arm, was +immediately called upon by Mrs Skewton to produce the same: and the +carriage stopped, that Edith might make the drawing, which Mr Dombey +was to put away among his treasures. + +'But I am afraid I trouble you too much,' said Mr Dombey. + +'By no means. Where would you wish it taken from?' she answered, +turning to him with the same enforced attention as before. + +Mr Dombey, with another bow, which cracked the starch in his +cravat, would beg to leave that to the Artist. + +'I would rather you chose for yourself,' said Edith. + +'Suppose then,' said Mr Dombey, 'we say from here. It appears a +good spot for the purpose, or - Carker, what do you think?' + +There happened to be in the foreground, at some little distance, a +grove of trees, not unlike that In which Mr Carker had made his chain +of footsteps in the morning, and with a seat under one tree, greatly +resembling, in the general character of its situation, the point where +his chain had broken. + +'Might I venture to suggest to Mrs Granger,' said Carker, 'that +that is an interesting - almost a curious - point of view?' + +She followed the direction of his riding-whip with her eyes, and +raised them quickly to his face. It was the second glance they had +exchanged since their introduction; and would have been exactly like +the first, but that its expression was plainer. + +'Will you like that?' said Edith to Mr Dombey. + +'I shall be charmed,' said Mr Dombey to Edith. + +Therefore the carriage was driven to the spot where Mr Dombey was +to be charmed; and Edith, without moving from her seat, and openIng +her sketch-book with her usual proud indifference, began to sketch. + +'My pencils are all pointless,' she said, stopping and turning them +over. + +'Pray allow me,' said Mr Dombey. 'Or Carker will do it better, as +he understands these things. Carker, have the goodness to see to these +pencils for Mrs Granger. + +Mr Carker rode up close to the carriage-door on Mrs Granger's side, +and letting the rein fall on his horse's neck, took the pencils from +her hand with a smile and a bow, and sat in the saddle leisurely +mending them. Having done so, he begged to be allowed to hold them, +and to hand them to her as they were required; and thus Mr Carker, +with many commendations of Mrs Granger's extraordinary skill - +especially in trees - remained - close at her side, looking over the +drawing as she made it. Mr Dombey in the meantime stood bolt upright +in the carriage like a highly respectable ghost, looking on too; while +Cleopatra and the Major dallied as two ancient doves might do. + +'Are you satisfied with that, or shall I finish it a little more?' +said Edith, showing the sketch to Mr Dombey. + +Mr Dombey begged that it might not be touched; it was perfection. + +'It is most extraordinary,' said Carker, bringing every one of his +red gums to bear upon his praise. 'I was not prepared for anything so +beautiful, and so unusual altogether.' + +This might have applied to the sketcher no less than to the sketch; +but Mr Carker's manner was openness itself - not as to his mouth +alone, but as to his whole spirit. So it continued to be while the +drawing was laid aside for Mr Dombey, and while the sketching +materials were put up; then he handed in the pencils (which were +received with a distant acknowledgment of his help, but without a +look), and tightening his rein, fell back, and followed the carriage +again. + +Thinking, perhaps, as he rode, that even this trivial sketch had +been made and delivered to its owner, as if it had been bargained for +and bought. Thinking, perhaps, that although she had assented with +such perfect readiness to his request, her haughty face, bent over the +drawing, or glancing at the distant objects represented in it, had +been the face of a proud woman, engaged in a sordid and miserable +transaction. Thinking, perhaps, of such things: but smiling certainly, +and while he seemed to look about him freely, in enjoyment of the air +and exercise, keeping always that sharp corner of his eye upon the +carriage. + +A stroll among the haunted ruins of Kenilworth, and more rides to +more points of view: most of which, Mrs Skewton reminded Mr Dombey, +Edith had already sketched, as he had seen in looking over her +drawings: brought the day's expedition to a close. Mrs Skewton and +Edith were driven to their own lodgings; Mr Carker was graciously +invited by Cleopatra to return thither with Mr Dombey and the Major, +in the evening, to hear some of Edith's music; and the three gentlemen +repaired to their hotel to dinner. + +The dinner was the counterpart of yesterday's, except that the +Major was twenty-four hours more triumphant and less mysterious. Edith +was toasted again. Mr Dombey was again agreeably embarrassed. And Mr +Carker was full of interest and praise. + +There were no other visitors at Mrs Skewton's. Edith's drawings +were strewn about the room, a little more abundantly than usual +perhaps; and Withers, the wan page, handed round a little stronger +tea. The harp was there; the piano was there; and Edith sang and +played. But even the music was played by Edith to Mr Dombey's order, +as it were, in the same uncompromising way. As thus. + +'Edith, my dearest love,' said Mrs Skewton, half an hour after tea, +'Mr Dombey is dying to hear you, I know.' + +'Mr Dombey has life enough left to say so for himself, Mama, I have +no doubt.' + +'I shall be immensely obliged,' said Mr Dombey. + +'What do you wish?' + +'Piano?' hesitated Mr Dombey. + +'Whatever you please. You have only to choose. + +Accordingly, she began with the piano. It was the same with the +harp; the same with her singing; the same with the selection of the +pieces that she sang and played. Such frigid and constrained, yet +prompt and pointed acquiescence with the wishes he imposed upon her, +and on no one else, was sufficiently remarkable to penetrate through +all the mysteries of picquet, and impress itself on Mr Carker's keen +attention. Nor did he lose sight of the fact that Mr Dombey was +evidently proud of his power, and liked to show it. + +Nevertheless, Mr Carker played so well - some games with the Major, +and some with Cleopatra, whose vigilance of eye in respect of Mr +Dombey and Edith no lynx could have surpassed - that he even +heightened his position in the lady-mother's good graces; and when on +taking leave he regretted that he would be obliged to return to London +next morning, Cleopatra trusted: community of feeling not being met +with every day: that it was far from being the last time they would +meet. + +'I hope so,' said Mr Carker, with an expressive look at the couple +in the distance, as he drew towards the door, following the Major. 'I +think so.' + +Mr Dombey, who had taken a stately leave of Edith, bent, or made +some approach to a bend, over Cleopatra's couch, and said, in a low +voice: + +'I have requested Mrs Granger's permission to call on her to-morrow +morning - for a purpose - and she has appointed twelve o'clock. May I +hope to have the pleasure of finding you at home, Madam, afterwards?' + +Cleopatra was so much fluttered and moved, by hearing this, of +course, incomprehensible speech, that she could only shut her eyes, +and shake her head, and give Mr Dombey her hand; which Mr Dombey, not +exactly knowing what to do with, dropped. + +'Dombey, come along!' cried the Major, looking in at the door. +'Damme, Sir, old Joe has a great mind to propose an alteration in the +name of the Royal Hotel, and that it should be called the Three Jolly +Bachelors, in honour of ourselves and Carker.' With this, the Major +slapped Mr Dombey on the back, and winking over his shoulder at the +ladies, with a frightful tendency of blood to the head, carried him +off. + +Mrs Skewton reposed on her sofa, and Edith sat apart, by her harp, +in silence. The mother, trifling with her fan, looked stealthily at +the daughter more than once, but the daughter, brooding gloomily with +downcast eyes, was not to be disturbed. + +Thus they remained for a long hour, without a word, until Mrs +Skewton's maid appeared, according to custom, to prepare her gradually +for night. At night, she should have been a skeleton, with dart and +hour-glass, rather than a woman, this attendant; for her touch was as +the touch of Death. The painted object shrivelled underneath her hand; +the form collapsed, the hair dropped off, the arched dark eyebrows +changed to scanty tufts of grey; the pale lips shrunk, the skin became +cadaverous and loose; an old, worn, yellow, nodding woman, with red +eyes, alone remained in Cleopatra's place, huddled up, like a slovenly +bundle, in a greasy flannel gown. + +The very voice was changed, as it addressed Edith, when they were +alone again. + +'Why don't you tell me,' it said sharply, 'that he is coming here +to-morrow by appointment?' + +'Because you know it,' returned Edith, 'Mother.' + +The mocking emphasis she laid on that one word! + +'You know he has bought me,' she resumed. 'Or that he will, +to-morrow. He has considered of his bargain; he has shown it to his +friend; he is even rather proud of it; he thinks that it will suit +him, and may be had sufficiently cheap; and he will buy to-morrow. +God, that I have lived for this, and that I feel it!' + +Compress into one handsome face the conscious self-abasement, and +the burning indignation of a hundred women, strong in passion and in +pride; and there it hid itself with two white shuddering arms. + +'What do you mean?' returned the angry mother. 'Haven't you from a +child - ' + +'A child!' said Edith, looking at her, 'when was I a child? What +childhood did you ever leave to me? I was a woman - artful, designing, +mercenary, laying snares for men - before I knew myself, or you, or +even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I +learnt You gave birth to a woman. Look upon her. She is in her pride +tonight' + +And as she spoke, she struck her hand upon her beautiful bosom, as +though she would have beaten down herself + +'Look at me,' she said, 'who have never known what it is to have an +honest heart, and love. Look at me, taught to scheme and plot when +children play; and married in my youth - an old age of design - to one +for whom I had no feeling but indifference. Look at me, whom he left a +widow, dying before his inheritance descended to him - a judgment on +you! well deserved! - and tell me what has been my life for ten years +since.' + +'We have been making every effort to endeavour to secure to you a +good establishment,' rejoined her mother. 'That has been your life. +And now you have got it.' + +'There is no slave in a market: there is no horse in a fair: so +shown and offered and examined and paraded, Mother, as I have been, +for ten shameful years,' cried Edith, with a burning brow, and the +same bitter emphasis on the one word. 'Is it not so? Have I been made +the bye-word of all kinds of men? Have fools, have profligates, have +boys, have dotards, dangled after me, and one by one rejected me, and +fallen off, because you were too plain with all your cunning: yes, and +too true, with all those false pretences: until we have almost come to +be notorious? The licence of look and touch,' she said, with flashing +eyes, 'have I submitted to it, in half the places of resort upon the +map of England? Have I been hawked and vended here and there, until +the last grain of self-respect is dead within me, and I loathe myself? +Has been my late childhood? I had none before. Do not tell me that I +had, tonight of all nights in my life!' + +'You might have been well married,' said her mother, 'twenty times +at least, Edith, if you had given encouragement enough.' + +'No! Who takes me, refuse that I am, and as I well deserve to be,' +she answered, raising her head, and trembling in her energy of shame +and stormy pride, 'shall take me, as this man does, with no art of +mine put forth to lure him. He sees me at the auction, and he thinks +it well to buy me. Let him! When he came to view me - perhaps to bid - +he required to see the roll of my accomplishments. I gave it to him. +When he would have me show one of them, to justify his purchase to his +men, I require of him to say which he demands, and I exhibit it. I +will do no more. He makes the purchase of his own will, and with his +own sense of its worth, and the power of his money; and I hope it may +never disappoint him. I have not vaunted and pressed the bargain; +neither have you, so far as I have been able to prevent you. + +'You talk strangely to-night, Edith, to your own Mother.' + +'It seems so to me; stranger to me than you,' said Edith. 'But my +education was completed long ago. I am too old now, and have fallen +too low, by degrees, to take a new course, and to stop yours, and to +help myself. The germ of all that purifies a woman's breast, and makes +it true and good, has never stirred in mine, and I have nothing else +to sustain me when I despise myself.' There had been a touching +sadness in her voice, but it was gone, when she went on to say, with a +curled lip, 'So, as we are genteel and poor, I am content that we +should be made rich by these means; all I say is, I have kept the only +purpose I have had the strength to form - I had almost said the power, +with you at my side, Mother - and have not tempted this man on.' + +'This man! You speak,' said her mother, 'as if you hated him.' + +'And you thought I loved him, did you not?' she answered, stopping +on her way across the room, and looking round. 'Shall I tell you,' she +continued, with her eyes fixed on her mother, 'who already knows us +thoroughly, and reads us right, and before whom I have even less of +self-respect or confidence than before my own inward self; being so +much degraded by his knowledge of me?' + +'This is an attack, I suppose,' returned her mother coldly, 'on +poor, unfortunate what's-his-name - Mr Carker! Your want of +self-respect and confidence, my dear, in reference to that person (who +is very agreeable, it strikes me), is not likely to have much effect +on your establishment. Why do you look at me so hard? Are you ill?' + +Edith suddenly let fall her face, as if it had been stung, and +while she pressed her hands upon it, a terrible tremble crept over her +whole frame. It was quickly gone; and with her usual step, she passed +out of the room. + +The maid who should have been a skeleton, then reappeared, and +giving one arm to her mistress, who appeared to have taken off her +manner with her charms, and to have put on paralysis with her flannel +gown, collected the ashes of Cleopatra, and carried them away in the +other, ready for tomorrow's revivification. + + + +CHAPTER 28. + +Alterations + + +'So the day has come at length, Susan,' said Florence to the +excellent Nipper, 'when we are going back to our quiet home!' + +Susan drew in her breath with an amount of expression not easily +described, further relieving her feelings with a smart cough, +answered, 'Very quiet indeed, Miss Floy, no doubt. Excessive so.' + +'When I was a child,' said Florence, thoughtfully, and after musing +for some moments, 'did you ever see that gentleman who has taken the +trouble to ride down here to speak to me, now three times - three +times, I think, Susan?' + +'Three times, Miss,' returned the Nipper. 'Once when you was out a +walking with them Sket- ' + +Florence gently looked at her, and Miss Nipper checked herself. + +'With Sir Barnet and his lady, I mean to say, Miss, and the young +gentleman. And two evenings since then.' + +'When I was a child, and when company used to come to visit Papa, +did you ever see that gentleman at home, Susan?' asked Florence. + +'Well, Miss,' returned her maid, after considering, 'I really +couldn't say I ever did. When your poor dear Ma died, Miss Floy, I was +very new in the family, you see, and my element:' the Nipper bridled, +as opining that her merits had been always designedly extinguished by +Mr Dombey: 'was the floor below the attics.' + +'To be sure,' said Florence, still thoughtfully; 'you are not +likely to have known who came to the house. I quite forgot.' + +'Not, Miss, but what we talked about the family and visitors,' said +Susan, 'and but what I heard much said, although the nurse before Mrs +Richards make unpleasant remarks when I was in company, and hint at +little Pitchers, but that could only be attributed, poor thing,' +observed Susan, with composed forbearance, 'to habits of intoxication, +for which she was required to leave, and did.' + +Florence, who was seated at her chamber window, with her face +resting on her hand, sat looking out, and hardly seemed to hear what +Susan said, she was so lost in thought. + +'At all events, Miss,' said Susan, 'I remember very well that this +same gentleman, Mr Carker, was almost, if not quite, as great a +gentleman with your Papa then, as he is now. It used to be said in the +house then, Miss, that he was at the head of all your Pa's affairs in +the City, and managed the whole, and that your Pa minded him more than +anybody, which, begging your pardon, Miss Floy, he might easy do, for +he never minded anybody else. I knew that, Pitcher as I might have +been.' + +Susan Nipper, with an injured remembrance of the nurse before Mrs +Richards, emphasised 'Pitcher' strongly. + +'And that Mr Carker has not fallen off, Miss,' she pursued, 'but +has stood his ground, and kept his credit with your Pa, I know from +what is always said among our people by that Perch, whenever he comes +to the house; and though he's the weakest weed in the world, Miss +Floy, and no one can have a moment's patience with the man, he knows +what goes on in the City tolerable well, and says that your Pa does +nothing without Mr Carker, and leaves all to Mr Carker, and acts +according to Mr Carker, and has Mr Carker always at his elbow, and I +do believe that he believes (that washiest of Perches!) that after +your Pa, the Emperor of India is the child unborn to Mr Carker.' + +Not a word of this was lost on Florence, who, with an awakened +interest in Susan's speech, no longer gazed abstractedly on the +prospect without, but looked at her, and listened with attention. + +'Yes, Susan,' she said, when that young lady had concluded. 'He is +in Papa's confidence, and is his friend, I am sure.' + +Florence's mind ran high on this theme, and had done for some days. +Mr Carker, in the two visits with which he had followed up his first +one, had assumed a confidence between himself and her - a right on his +part to be mysterious and stealthy, in telling her that the ship was +still unheard of - a kind of mildly restrained power and authority +over her - that made her wonder, and caused her great uneasiness. She +had no means of repelling it, or of freeing herself from the web he +was gradually winding about her; for that would have required some art +and knowledge of the world, opposed to such address as his; and +Florence had none. True, he had said no more to her than that there +was no news of the ship, and that he feared the worst; but how he came +to know that she was interested in the ship, and why he had the right +to signify his knowledge to her, so insidiously and darkly, troubled +Florence very much. + +This conduct on the part of Mr Carker, and her habit of often +considering it with wonder and uneasiness, began to invest him with an +uncomfortable fascination in Florence's thoughts. A more distinct +remembrance of his features, voice, and manner: which she sometimes +courted, as a means of reducing him to the level of a real personage, +capable of exerting no greater charm over her than another: did not +remove the vague impression. And yet he never frowned, or looked upon +her with an air of dislike or animosity, but was always smiling and +serene. + +Again, Florence, in pursuit of her strong purpose with reference to +her father, and her steady resolution to believe that she was herself +unwittingly to blame for their so cold and distant relations, would +recall to mind that this gentleman was his confidential friend, and +would think, with an anxious heart, could her struggling tendency to +dislike and fear him be a part of that misfortune in her, which had +turned her father's love adrift, and left her so alone? She dreaded +that it might be; sometimes believed it was: then she resolved that +she would try to conquer this wrong feeling; persuaded herself that +she was honoured and encouraged by the notice of her father's friend; +and hoped that patient observation of him and trust in him would lead +her bleeding feet along that stony road which ended in her father's +heart. + +Thus, with no one to advise her - for she could advise with no one +without seeming to complain against him - gentle Florence tossed on an +uneasy sea of doubt and hope; and Mr Carker, like a scaly monster of +the deep, swam down below, and kept his shining eye upon her. Florence +had a new reason in all this for wishing to be at home again. Her +lonely life was better suited to her course of timid hope and doubt; +and she feared sometimes, that in her absence she might miss some +hopeful chance of testifying her affection for her father. Heaven +knows, she might have set her mind at rest, poor child! on this last +point; but her slighted love was fluttering within her, and, even in +her sleep, it flew away in dreams, and nestled, like a wandering bird +come home, upon her father's neck. + +Of Walter she thought often. Ah! how often, when the night was +gloomy, and the wind was blowing round the house! But hope was strong +in her breast. It is so difficult for the young and ardent, even with +such experience as hers, to imagine youth and ardour quenched like a +weak flame, and the bright day of life merging into night, at noon, +that hope was strong yet. Her tears fell frequently for Walter's +sufferings; but rarely for his supposed death, and never long. + +She had written to the old Instrument-maker, but had received no +answer to her note: which indeed required none. Thus matters stood +with Florence on the morning when she was going home, gladly, to her +old secluded life. + +Doctor and Mrs Blimber, accompanied (much against his will) by +their valued charge, Master Barnet, were already gone back to +Brighton, where that young gentleman and his fellow-pilgrims to +Parnassus were then, no doubt, in the continual resumption of their +studies. The holiday time was past and over; most of the juvenile +guests at the villa had taken their departure; and Florence's long +visit was come to an end. + +There was one guest, however, albeit not resident within the house, +who had been very constant in his attentions to the family, and who +still remained devoted to them. This was Mr Toots, who after renewing, +some weeks ago, the acquaintance he had had the happiness of forming +with Skettles Junior, on the night when he burst the Blimberian bonds +and soared into freedom with his ring on, called regularly every other +day, and left a perfect pack of cards at the hall-door; so many +indeed, that the ceremony was quite a deal on the part of Mr Toots, +and a hand at whist on the part of the servant. + +Mr Toots, likewise, with the bold and happy idea of preventing the +family from forgetting him (but there is reason to suppose that this +expedient originated in the teeming brain of the Chicken), had +established a six-oared cutter, manned by aquatic friends of the +Chicken's and steered by that illustrious character in person, who +wore a bright red fireman's coat for the purpose, and concealed the +perpetual black eye with which he was afflicted, beneath a green +shade. Previous to the institution of this equipage, Mr Toots sounded +the Chicken on a hypothetical case, as, supposing the Chicken to be +enamoured of a young lady named Mary, and to have conceived the +intention of starting a boat of his own, what would he call that boat? +The Chicken replied, with divers strong asseverations, that he would +either christen it Poll or The Chicken's Delight. Improving on this +idea, Mr Toots, after deep study and the exercise of much invention, +resolved to call his boat The Toots's Joy, as a delicate compliment to +Florence, of which no man knowing the parties, could possibly miss the +appreciation. + +Stretched on a crimson cushion in his gallant bark, with his shoes +in the air, Mr Toots, in the exercise of his project, had come up the +river, day after day, and week after week, and had flitted to and fro, +near Sir Barnet's garden, and had caused his crew to cut across and +across the river at sharp angles, for his better exhibition to any +lookers-out from Sir Barnet's windows, and had had such evolutions +performed by the Toots's Joy as had filled all the neighbouring part +of the water-side with astonishment. But whenever he saw anyone in Sir +Barnet's garden on the brink of the river, Mr Toots always feigned to +be passing there, by a combination of coincidences of the most +singular and unlikely description. + +'How are you, Toots?' Sir Barnet would say, waving his hand from +the lawn, while the artful Chicken steered close in shore. + +'How de do, Sir Barnet?' Mr Toots would answer, What a surprising +thing that I should see you here!' + +Mr Toots, in his sagacity, always said this, as if, instead of that +being Sir Barnet's house, it were some deserted edifice on the banks +of the Nile, or Ganges. + +'I never was so surprised!' Mr Toots would exclaim. - 'Is Miss +Dombey there?' + +Whereupon Florence would appear, perhaps. + +'Oh, Diogenes is quite well, Miss Dombey,' Toots would cry. 'I +called to ask this morning.' + +'Thank you very much!' the pleasant voice of Florence would reply. + +'Won't you come ashore, Toots?' Sir Barnet would say then. 'Come! +you're in no hurry. Come and see us.' + +'Oh, it's of no consequence, thank you!' Mr Toots would blushingly +rejoin. 'I thought Miss Dombey might like to know, that's all. +Good-bye!' And poor Mr Toots, who was dying to accept the invitation, +but hadn't the courage to do it, signed to the Chicken, with an aching +heart, and away went the Joy, cleaving the water like an arrow. + +The Joy was lying in a state of extraordinary splendour, at the +garden steps, on the morning of Florence's departure. When she went +downstairs to take leave, after her talk with Susan, she found Mr +Toots awaiting her in the drawing-room. + +'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey?' said the stricken Toots, always +dreadfully disconcerted when the desire of his heart was gained, and +he was speaking to her; 'thank you, I'm very well indeed, I hope +you're the same, so was Diogenes yesterday.' + +'You are very kind,' said Florence. + +'Thank you, it's of no consequence,' retorted Mr Toots. 'I thought +perhaps you wouldn't mind, in this fine weather, coming home by water, +Miss Dombey. There's plenty of room in the boat for your maid.' + +'I am very much obliged to you,' said Florence, hesitating. 'I +really am - but I would rather not.' + +'Oh, it's of no consequence,' retorted Mr Toots. 'Good morning.' + +'Won't you wait and see Lady Skettles?' asked Florence, kindly. + +'Oh no, thank you,' returned Mr Toots, 'it's of no consequence at +all.' + +So shy was Mr Toots on such occasions, and so flurried! But Lady +Skettles entering at the moment, Mr Toots was suddenly seized with a +passion for asking her how she did, and hoping she was very well; nor +could Mr Toots by any possibility leave off shaking hands with her, +until Sir Barnet appeared: to whom he immediately clung with the +tenacity of desperation. + +'We are losing, today, Toots,' said Sir Barnet, turning towards +Florence, 'the light of our house, I assure you' + +'Oh, it's of no conseq - I mean yes, to be sure,' faltered the +embarrassed Mr Toots. 'Good morning!' + +Notwithstanding the emphatic nature of this farewell, Mr Toots, +instead of going away, stood leering about him, vacantly. Florence, to +relieve him, bade adieu, with many thanks, to Lady Skettles, and gave +her arm to Sir Barnet. + +'May I beg of you, my dear Miss Dombey,' said her host, as he +conducted her to the carriage, 'to present my best compliments to your +dear Papa?' + +It was distressing to Florence to receive the commission, for she +felt as if she were imposing on Sir Barnet by allowing him to believe +that a kindness rendered to her, was rendered to her father. As she +could not explain, however, she bowed her head and thanked him; and +again she thought that the dull home, free from such embarrassments, +and such reminders of her sorrow, was her natural and best retreat. + +Such of her late friends and companions as were yet remaining at +the villa, came running from within, and from the garden, to say +good-bye. They were all attached to her, and very earnest in taking +leave of her. Even the household were sorry for her going, and the +servants came nodding and curtseying round the carriage door. As +Florence looked round on the kind faces, and saw among them those of +Sir Barnet and his lady, and of Mr Toots, who was chuckling and +staring at her from a distance, she was reminded of the night when +Paul and she had come from Doctor Blimber's: and when the carriage +drove away, her face was wet with tears. + +Sorrowful tears, but tears of consolation, too; for all the softer +memories connected with the dull old house to which she was returning +made it dear to her, as they rose up. How long it seemed since she had +wandered through the silent rooms: since she had last crept, softly +and afraid, into those her father occupied: since she had felt the +solemn but yet soothing influence of the beloved dead in every action +of her daily life! This new farewell reminded her, besides, of her +parting with poor Walter: of his looks and words that night: and of +the gracious blending she had noticed in him, of tenderness for those +he left behind, with courage and high spirit. His little history was +associated with the old house too, and gave it a new claim and hold +upon her heart. Even Susan Nipper softened towards the home of so many +years, as they were on their way towards it. Gloomy as it was, and +rigid justice as she rendered to its gloom, she forgave it a great +deal. 'I shall be glad to see it again, I don't deny, Miss,' said the +Nipper. 'There ain't much in it to boast of, but I wouldn't have it +burnt or pulled down, neither!' + +'You'll be glad to go through the old rooms, won't you, Susan?' +said Florence, smiling. + +'Well, Miss,' returned the Nipper, softening more and more towards +the house, as they approached it nearer, 'I won't deny but what I +shall, though I shall hate 'em again, to-morrow, very likely.' + +Florence felt that, for her, there was greater peace within it than +elsewhere. It was better and easier to keep her secret shut up there, +among the tall dark walls, than to carry it abroad into the light, and +try to hide it from a crowd of happy eyes. It was better to pursue the +study of her loving heart, alone, and find no new discouragements in +loving hearts about her. It was easier to hope, and pray, and love on, +all uncared for, yet with constancy and patience, in the tranquil +sanctuary of such remembrances: although it mouldered, rusted, and +decayed about her: than in a new scene, let its gaiety be what it +would. She welcomed back her old enchanted dream of life, and longed +for the old dark door to close upon her, once again. + +Full of such thoughts, they turned into the long and sombre street. +Florence was not on that side of the carriage which was nearest to her +home, and as the distance lessened between them and it, she looked out +of her window for the children over the way. + +She was thus engaged, when an exclamation from Susan caused her to +turn quickly round. + +'Why, Gracious me!' cried Susan, breathless, 'where's our house!' + +'Our house!' said Florence. + +Susan, drawing in her head from the window, thrust it out again, +drew it in again as the carriage stopped, and stared at her mistress +in amazement. + +There was a labyrinth of scaffolding raised all round the house, +from the basement to the roof. Loads of bricks and stones, and heaps +of mortar, and piles of wood, blocked up half the width and length of +the broad street at the side. Ladders were raised against the walls; +labourers were climbing up and down; men were at work upon the steps +of the scaffolding; painters and decorators were busy inside; great +rolls of ornamental paper were being delivered from a cart at the +door; an upholsterer's waggon also stopped the way; no furniture was +to be seen through the gaping and broken windows in any of the rooms; +nothing but workmen, and the implements of their several trades, +swarming from the kitchens to the garrets. Inside and outside alike: +bricklayers, painters, carpenters, masons: hammer, hod, brush, +pickaxe, saw, and trowel: all at work together, in full chorus! + +Florence descended from the coach, half doubting if it were, or +could be the right house, until she recognised Towlinson, with a +sun-burnt face, standing at the door to receive her. + +'There is nothing the matter?' inquired Florence. + +'Oh no, Miss.' + +'There are great alterations going on.' + +'Yes, Miss, great alterations,' said Towlinson. + +Florence passed him as if she were in a dream, and hurried +upstairs. The garish light was in the long-darkened drawing-room and +there were steps and platforms, and men In paper caps, in the high +places. Her mother's picture was gone with the rest of the moveables, +and on the mark where it had been, was scrawled in chalk, 'this room +in panel. Green and gold.' The staircase was a labyrinth of posts and +planks like the outside of the house, and a whole Olympus of plumbers +and glaziers was reclining in various attitudes, on the skylight. Her +own room was not yet touched within, but there were beams and boards +raised against it without, baulking the daylight. She went up swiftly +to that other bedroom, where the little bed was; and a dark giant of a +man with a pipe in his mouth, and his head tied up in a +pocket-handkerchief, was staring in at the window. + +It was here that Susan Nipper, who had been in quest of Florence, +found her, and said, would she go downstairs to her Papa, who wished +to speak to her. + +'At home! and wishing to speak to me!' cried Florence, trembling. + +Susan, who was infinitely more distraught than Florence herself, +repeated her errand; and Florence, pale and agitated, hurried down +again, without a moment's hesitation. She thought upon the way down, +would she dare to kiss him? The longing of her heart resolved her, and +she thought she would. + +Her father might have heard that heart beat, when it came into his +presence. One instant, and it would have beat against his breast. + +But he was not alone. There were two ladies there; and Florence +stopped. Striving so hard with her emotion, that if her brute friend +Di had not burst in and overwhelmed her with his caresses as a welcome +home - at which one of the ladies gave a little scream, and that +diverted her attention from herself - she would have swooned upon the +floor. + +'Florence,' said her father, putting out his hand: so stiffly that +it held her off: 'how do you do?' + +Florence took the hand between her own, and putting it timidly to +her lips, yielded to its withdrawal. It touched the door in shutting +it, with quite as much endearment as it had touched her. + +'What dog is that?' said Mr Dombey, displeased. + +'It is a dog, Papa - from Brighton.' + +'Well!' said Mr Dombey; and a cloud passed over his face, for he +understood her. + +'He is very good-tempered,' said Florence, addressing herself with +her natural grace and sweetness to the two lady strangers. 'He is only +glad to see me. Pray forgive him.' + +She saw in the glance they interchanged, that the lady who had +screamed, and who was seated, was old; and that the other lady, who +stood near her Papa, was very beautiful, and of an elegant figure. + +'Mrs Skewton,' said her father, turning to the first, and holding +out his hand, 'this is my daughter Florence.' + +'Charming, I am sure,' observed the lady, putting up her glass. 'So +natural! My darling Florence, you must kiss me, if you please.' + +Florence having done so, turned towards the other lady, by whom her +father stood waiting. + +'Edith,' said Mr Dombey, 'this is my daughter Florence. Florence, +this lady will soon be your Mama.' + +Florence started, and looked up at the beautiful face in a conflict +of emotions, among which the tears that name awakened, struggled for a +moment with surprise, interest, admiration, and an indefinable sort of +fear. Then she cried out, 'Oh, Papa, may you be happy! may you be +very, very happy all your life!' and then fell weeping on the lady's +bosom. + +There was a short silence. The beautiful lady, who at first had +seemed to hesitate whether or no she should advance to Florence, held +her to her breast, and pressed the hand with which she clasped her, +close about her waist, as if to reassure her and comfort her. Not one +word passed the lady's lips. She bent her head down over Florence, and +she kissed her on the cheek, but she said no word. + +'Shall we go on through the rooms,' said Mr Dombey, 'and see how +our workmen are doing? Pray allow me, my dear madam.' + +He said this in offering his arm to Mrs Skewton, who had been +looking at Florence through her glass, as though picturing to herself +what she might be made, by the infusion - from her own copious +storehouse, no doubt - of a little more Heart and Nature. Florence was +still sobbing on the lady's breast, and holding to her, when Mr Dombey +was heard to say from the Conservatory: + +'Let us ask Edith. Dear me, where is she?' + +'Edith, my dear!' cried Mrs Skewton, 'where are you? Looking for Mr +Dombey somewhere, I know. We are here, my love.' + +The beautiful lady released her hold of Florence, and pressing her +lips once more upon her face, withdrew hurriedly, and joined them. +Florence remained standing In the same place: happy, sorry, joyful, +and in tears, she knew not how, or how long, but all at once: when her +new Mama came back, and took her in her arms again. + +'Florence,' said the lady, hurriedly, and looking into her face +with great earnestness. 'You will not begin by hating me?' + +'By hating you, Mama?' cried Florence, winding her arm round her +neck, and returning the look. + +'Hush! Begin by thinking well of me,' said the beautiful lady. +'Begin by believing that I will try to make you happy, and that I am +prepared to love you, Florence. Good-bye. We shall meet again soon. +Good-bye! Don't stay here, now.' + +Again she pressed her to her breast she had spoken in a rapid +manner, but firmly - and Florence saw her rejoin them in the other +room. And now Florence began to hope that she would learn from her new +and beautiful Mama, how to gaIn her father's love; and in her sleep +that night, in her lost old home, her own Mama smiled radiantly upon +the hope, and blessed it. Dreaming Florence! + + + +CHAPTER 29. + +The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick + + + +Miss Tox, all unconscious of any such rare appearances in connexion +with Mr Dombey's house, as scaffoldings and ladders, and men with +their heads tied up in pocket-handkerchiefs, glaring in at the windows +like flying genii or strange birds, - having breakfasted one morning +at about this eventful period of time, on her customary viands; to +wit, one French roll rasped, one egg new laid (or warranted to be), +and one little pot of tea, wherein was infused one little silver +scoopful of that herb on behalf of Miss Tox, and one little silver +scoopful on behalf of the teapot - a flight of fancy in which good +housekeepers delight; went upstairs to set forth the bird waltz on the +harpsichord, to water and arrange the plants, to dust the nick-nacks, +and, according to her daily custom, to make her little drawing-room +the garland of Princess's Place. + +Miss Tox endued herself with a pair of ancient gloves, like dead +leaves, in which she was accustomed to perform these avocations - +hidden from human sight at other times in a table drawer - and went +methodically to work; beginning with the bird waltz; passing, by a +natural association of ideas, to her bird - a very high-shouldered +canary, stricken in years, and much rumpled, but a piercing singer, as +Princess's Place well knew; taking, next in order, the little china +ornaments, paper fly-cages, and so forth; and coming round, in good +time, to the plants, which generally required to be snipped here and +there with a pair of scissors, for some botanical reason that was very +powerful with Miss Tox. Miss Tox was slow in coming to the plants, +this morning. The weather was warm, the wind southerly; and there was +a sigh of the summer-time In Princess's Place, that turned Miss Tox's +thoughts upon the country. The pot-boy attached to the Princess's Arms +had come out with a can and trickled water, in a flowering pattern, +all over Princess's Place, and it gave the weedy ground a fresh scent +- quite a growing scent, Miss Tox said. There was a tiny blink of sun +peeping in from the great street round the corner, and the smoky +sparrows hopped over it and back again, brightening as they passed: or +bathed in it, like a stream, and became glorified sparrows, +unconnected with chimneys. Legends in praise of Ginger-Beer, with +pictorial representations of thirsty customers submerged in the +effervescence, or stunned by the flying corks, were conspicuous in the +window of the Princess's Arms. They were making late hay, somewhere +out of town; and though the fragrance had a long way to come, and many +counter fragrances to contend with among the dwellings of the poor +(may God reward the worthy gentlemen who stickle for the Plague as +part and parcel of the wisdom of our ancestors, and who do their +little best to keep those dwellings miserable!), yet it was wafted +faintly into Princess's Place, whispering of Nature and her wholesome +air, as such things will, even unto prisoners and captives, and those +who are desolate and oppressed, in very spite of aldermen and knights +to boot: at whose sage nod - and how they nod! - the rolling world +stands still! + +Miss Tox sat down upon the window-seat, and thought of her good +Papa deceased - Mr Tox, of the Customs Department of the public +service; and of her childhood, passed at a seaport, among a +considerable quantity of cold tar, and some rusticity. She fell into a +softened remembrance of meadows, in old time, gleaming with +buttercups, like so many inverted firmaments of golden stars; and how +she had made chains of dandelion-stalks for youthful vowers of eternal +constancy, dressed chiefly in nankeen; and how soon those fetters had +withered and broken. + +Sitting on the window-seat, and looking out upon the sparrows and +the blink of sun, Miss Tox thought likewise of her good Mama deceased +- sister to the owner of the powdered head and pigtail - of her +virtues and her rheumatism. And when a man with bulgy legs, and a +rough voice, and a heavy basket on his head that crushed his hat into +a mere black muffin, came crying flowers down Princess's Place, making +his timid little roots of daisies shudder in the vibration of every +yell he gave, as though he had been an ogre, hawking little children, +summer recollections were so strong upon Miss Tox, that she shook her +head, and murmured she would be comparatively old before she knew it - +which seemed likely. + +In her pensive mood, Miss Tox's thoughts went wandering on Mr +Dombey's track; probably because the Major had returned home to his +lodgings opposite, and had just bowed to her from his window. What +other reason could Miss Tox have for connecting Mr Dombey with her +summer days and dandelion fetters? Was he more cheerful? thought Miss +Tox. Was he reconciled to the decrees of fate? Would he ever marry +again? and if yes, whom? What sort of person now! + +A flush - it was warm weather - overspread Miss Tox's face, as, +while entertaining these meditations, she turned her head, and was +surprised by the reflection of her thoughtful image In the +chimney-glass. Another flush succeeded when she saw a little carriage +drive into Princess's Place, and make straight for her own door. Miss +Tox arose, took up her scissors hastily, and so coming, at last, to +the plants, was very busy with them when Mrs Chick entered the room. + +'How is my sweetest friend!' exclaimed Miss Tox, with open arms. + +A little stateliness was mingled with Miss Tox's sweetest friend's +demeanour, but she kissed Miss Tox, and said, 'Lucretia, thank you, I +am pretty well. I hope you are the same. Hem!' + +Mrs Chick was labouring under a peculiar little monosyllabic cough; +a sort of primer, or easy introduction to the art of coughing. + +'You call very early, and how kind that is, my dear!' pursued Miss +Tox. 'Now, have you breakfasted?' + +'Thank you, Lucretia,' said Mrs Chick, 'I have. I took an early +breakfast' - the good lady seemed curious on the subject of Princess's +Place, and looked all round it as she spoke - 'with my brother, who +has come home.' + +'He is better, I trust, my love,' faltered Miss Tox. + +'He is greatly better, thank you. Hem!' + +'My dear Louisa must be careful of that cough' remarked Miss Tox. + +'It's nothing,' returned Mrs Chic 'It's merely change of weather. +We must expect change.' + +'Of weather?' asked Miss Tox, in her simplicity. + +'Of everything' returned Mrs Chick 'Of course we must. It's a world +of change. Anyone would surprise me very much, Lucretia, and would +greatly alter my opinion of their understanding, if they attempted to +contradict or evade what is so perfectly evident. Change!' exclaimed +Mrs Chick, with severe philosophy. 'Why, my gracious me, what is there +that does not change! even the silkworm, who I am sure might be +supposed not to trouble itself about such subjects, changes into all +sorts of unexpected things continually.' + +'My Louisa,' said the mild Miss Tox, 'is ever happy in her +illustrations.' + +'You are so kind, Lucretia,' returned Mrs Chick, a little softened, +'as to say so, and to think so, I believe. I hope neither of us may +ever have any cause to lessen our opinion of the other, Lucretia.' + +'I am sure of it,' returned Miss Tox. + +Mrs Chick coughed as before, and drew lines on the carpet with the +ivory end of her parasol. Miss Tox, who had experience of her fair +friend, and knew that under the pressure of any slight fatigue or +vexation she was prone to a discursive kind of irritability, availed +herself of the pause, to change the subject. + +'Pardon me, my dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'but have I caught +sight of the manly form of Mr Chick in the carriage?' + +'He is there,' said Mrs Chick, 'but pray leave him there. He has +his newspaper, and would be quite contented for the next two hours. Go +on with your flowers, Lucretia, and allow me to sit here and rest.' + +'My Louisa knows,' observed Miss Tox, 'that between friends like +ourselves, any approach to ceremony would be out of the question. +Therefore - ' Therefore Miss Tox finished the sentence, not in words +but action; and putting on her gloves again, which she had taken off, +and arming herself once more with her scissors, began to snip and clip +among the leaves with microscopic industry. + +'Florence has returned home also,' said Mrs Chick, after sitting +silent for some time, with her head on one side, and her parasol +sketching on the floor; 'and really Florence is a great deal too old +now, to continue to lead that solitary life to which she has been +accustomed. Of course she is. There can be no doubt about it. I should +have very little respect, indeed, for anybody who could advocate a +different opinion. Whatever my wishes might be, I could not respect +them. We cannot command our feelings to such an extent as that.' + +Miss Tox assented, without being particular as to the +intelligibility of the proposition. + +'If she's a strange girl,' said Mrs Chick, 'and if my brother Paul +cannot feel perfectly comfortable in her society, after all the sad +things that have happened, and all the terrible disappointments that +have been undergone, then, what is the reply? That he must make an +effort. That he is bound to make an effort. We have always been a +family remarkable for effort. Paul is at the head of the family; +almost the only representative of it left - for what am I - I am of no +consequence - ' + +'My dearest love,' remonstrated Miss Tox. + +Mrs Chick dried her eyes, which were, for the moment, overflowing; +and proceeded: + +'And consequently he is more than ever bound to make an effort. And +though his having done so, comes upon me with a sort of shock - for +mine is a very weak and foolish nature; which is anything but a +blessing I am sure; I often wish my heart was a marble slab, or a +paving-stone - + +'My sweet Louisa,' remonstrated Miss Tox again. + +'Still, it is a triumph to me to know that he is so true to +himself, and to his name of Dombey; although, of course, I always knew +he would be. I only hope,' said Mrs Chick, after a pause, 'that she +may be worthy of the name too. + +Miss Tox filled a little green watering-pot from a jug, and +happening to look up when she had done so, was so surprised by the +amount of expression Mrs Chick had conveyed into her face, and was +bestowing upon her, that she put the little watering-pot on the table +for the present, and sat down near it. + +'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'will it be the least satisfaction +to you, if I venture to observe in reference to that remark, that I, +as a humble individual, think your sweet niece in every way most +promising?~ 'What do you mean, Lucretia?' returned Mrs Chick, with +increased stateliness of manner. 'To what remark of mine, my dear, do +you refer?' + +'Her being worthy of her name, my love,' replied Miss Tox. + +'If,' said Mrs Chick, with solemn patience, 'I have not expressed +myself with clearness, Lucretia, the fault of course is mine. There +is, perhaps, no reason why I should express myself at all, except the +intimacy that has subsisted between us, and which I very much hope, +Lucretia - confidently hope - nothing will occur to disturb. Because, +why should I do anything else? There is no reason; it would be absurd. +But I wish to express myself clearly, Lucretia; and therefore to go +back to that remark, I must beg to say that it was not intended to +relate to Florence, in any way.' + +'Indeed!' returned Miss Tox. + +'No,' said Mrs Chick shortly and decisively. + +'Pardon me, my dear,' rejoined her meek friend; 'but I cannot have +understood it. I fear I am dull.' + +Mrs Chick looked round the room and over the way; at the plants, at +the bird, at the watering-pot, at almost everything within view, +except Miss Tox; and finally dropping her glance upon Miss Tox, for a +moment, on its way to the ground, said, looking meanwhile with +elevated eyebrows at the carpet: + +'When I speak, Lucretia, of her being worthy of the name, I speak +of my brother Paul's second wife. I believe I have already said, in +effect, if not in the very words I now use, that it is his intention +to marry a second wife.' + +Miss Tox left her seat in a hurry, and returned to her plants; +clipping among the stems and leaves, with as little favour as a barber +working at so many pauper heads of hair. + +'Whether she will be fully sensible of the distinction conferred +upon her,' said Mrs Chick, in a lofty tone, 'is quite another +question. I hope she may be. We are bound to think well of one another +in this world, and I hope she may be. I have not been advised with +myself If I had been advised with, I have no doubt my advice would +have been cavalierly received, and therefore it is infinitely better +as it is. I much prefer it as it is.' + +Miss Tox, with head bent down, still clipped among the plants. Mrs +Chick, with energetic shakings of her own head from time to time, +continued to hold forth, as if in defiance of somebody. 'If my brother +Paul had consulted with me, which he sometimes does - or rather, +sometimes used to do; for he will naturally do that no more now, and +this is a circumstance which I regard as a relief from +responsibility,' said Mrs Chick, hysterically, 'for I thank Heaven I +am not jealous - ' here Mrs Chick again shed tears: 'if my brother +Paul had come to me, and had said, "Louisa, what kind of qualities +would you advise me to look out for, in a wife?" I should certainly +have answered, "Paul, you must have family, you must have beauty, you +must have dignity, you must have connexion." Those are the words I +should have used. You might have led me to the block immediately +afterwards,' said Mrs Chick, as if that consequence were highly +probable, 'but I should have used them. I should have said, "Paul! You +to marry a second time without family! You to marry without beauty! +You to marry without dignity! You to marry without connexion! There is +nobody in the world, not mad, who could dream of daring to entertain +such a preposterous idea!"' + +Miss Tox stopped clipping; and with her head among the plants, +listened attentively. Perhaps Miss Tox thought there was hope in this +exordium, and the warmth of Mrs Chick. + +I should have adopted this course of argument,' pursued the +discreet lady, 'because I trust I am not a fool. I make no claim to be +considered a person of superior intellect - though I believe some +people have been extraordinary enough to consider me so; one so little +humoured as I am, would very soon be disabused of any such notion; but +I trust I am not a downright fool. And to tell ME,' said Mrs Chick +with ineffable disdain, 'that my brother Paul Dombey could ever +contemplate the possibility of uniting himself to anybody - I don't +care who' - she was more sharp and emphatic in that short clause than +in any other part of her discourse - 'not possessing these requisites, +would be to insult what understanding I have got, as much as if I was +to be told that I was born and bred an elephant, which I may be told +next,' said Mrs Chick, with resignation. 'It wouldn't surprise me at +all. I expect it.' + +In the moment's silence that ensued, Miss Tox's scissors gave a +feeble clip or two; but Miss Tox's face was still invisible, and Miss +Tox's morning gown was agitated. Mrs Chick looked sideways at her, +through the intervening plants, and went on to say, in a tone of bland +conviction, and as one dwelling on a point of fact that hardly +required to be stated: + +'Therefore, of course my brother Paul has done what was to be +expected of him, and what anybody might have foreseen he would do, if +he entered the marriage state again. I confess it takes me rather by +surprise, however gratifying; because when Paul went out of town I had +no idea at all that he would form any attachment out of town, and he +certainly had no attachment when he left here. However, it seems to be +extremely desirable in every point of view. I have no doubt the mother +is a most genteel and elegant creature, and I have no right whatever +to dispute the policy of her living with them: which is Paul's affair, +not mine - and as to Paul's choice, herself, I have only seen her +picture yet, but that is beautiful indeed. Her name is beautiful too,' +said Mrs Chick, shaking her head with energy, and arranging herself in +her chair; 'Edith is at once uncommon, as it strikes me, and +distinguished. Consequently, Lucretia, I have no doubt you will be +happy to hear that the marriage is to take place immediately - of +course, you will:' great emphasis again: 'and that you are delighted +with this change in the condition of my brother, who has shown you a +great deal of pleasant attention at various times.' + +Miss Tox made no verbal answer, but took up the little watering-pot +with a trembling hand, and looked vacantly round as if considering +what article of furniture would be improved by the contents. The room +door opening at this crisis of Miss Tox's feelings, she started, +laughed aloud, and fell into the arms of the person entering; happily +insensible alike of Mrs Chick's indignant countenance and of the Major +at his window over the way, who had his double-barrelled eye-glass in +full action, and whose face and figure were dilated with +Mephistophelean joy. + +Not so the expatriated Native, amazed supporter of Miss Tox's +swooning form, who, coming straight upstairs, with a polite inquiry +touching Miss Tox's health (in exact pursuance of the Major's +malicious instructions), had accidentally arrived in the very nick of +time to catch the delicate burden in his arms, and to receive the +content' of the little watering-pot in his shoe; both of which +circumstances, coupled with his consciousness of being closely watched +by the wrathful Major, who had threatened the usual penalty in regard +of every bone in his skin in case of any failure, combined to render +him a moving spectacle of mental and bodily distress. + +For some moments, this afflicted foreigner remained clasping Miss +Tox to his heart, with an energy of action in remarkable opposition to +his disconcerted face, while that poor lady trickled slowly down upon +him the very last sprinklings of the little watering-pot, as if he +were a delicate exotic (which indeed he was), and might be almost +expected to blow while the gentle rain descended. Mrs Chick, at length +recovering sufficient presence of mind to interpose, commanded him to +drop Miss Tox upon the sofa and withdraw; and the exile promptly +obeying, she applied herself to promote Miss Tox's recovery. + +But none of that gentle concern which usually characterises the +daughters of Eve in their tending of each other; none of that +freemasonry in fainting, by which they are generally bound together In +a mysterious bond of sisterhood; was visible in Mrs Chick's demeanour. +Rather like the executioner who restores the victim to sensation +previous to proceeding with the torture (or was wont to do so, in the +good old times for which all true men wear perpetual mourning), did +Mrs Chick administer the smelling-bottle, the slapping on the hands, +the dashing of cold water on the face, and the other proved remedies. +And when, at length, Miss Tox opened her eyes, and gradually became +restored to animation and consciousness, Mrs Chick drew off as from a +criminal, and reversing the precedent of the murdered king of Denmark, +regarded her more in anger than In sorrow.' + +'Lucretia!' said Mrs Chick 'I will not attempt to disguise what I +feel. My eyes are opened, all at once. I wouldn't have believed this, +if a Saint had told it to me. + +'I am foolish to give way to faintness,' Miss Tox faltered. 'I +shall be better presently.' + +'You will be better presently, Lucretia!' repeated Mrs Chick, with +exceeding scorn. 'Do you suppose I am blind? Do you imagine I am in my +second childhood? No, Lucretia! I am obliged to you!' + +Miss Tox directed an imploring, helpless kind of look towards her +friend, and put her handkerchief before her face. + +'If anyone had told me this yesterday,' said Mrs Chick, with +majesty, 'or even half-an-hour ago, I should have been tempted, I +almost believe, to strike them to the earth. Lucretia Tox, my eyes are +opened to you all at once. The scales:' here Mrs Chick cast down an +imaginary pair, such as are commonly used in grocers' shops: 'have +fallen from my sight. The blindness of my confidence is past, +Lucretia. It has been abused and played, upon, and evasion is quite +out of the question now, I assure you. + +'Oh! to what do you allude so cruelly, my love?' asked Miss Tox, +through her tears. + +'Lucretia,' said Mrs Chick, 'ask your own heart. I must entreat you +not to address me by any such familiar term as you have just used, if +you please. I have some self-respect left, though you may think +otherwise.' + +'Oh, Louisa!' cried Miss Tox. 'How can you speak to me like that?' + +'How can I speak to you like that?' retorted Mrs Chick, who, in +default of having any particular argument to sustain herself upon, +relied principally on such repetitions for her most withering effects. +'Like that! You may well say like that, indeed!' + +Miss Tox sobbed pitifully. + +'The idea!' said Mrs Chick, 'of your having basked at my brother's +fireside, like a serpent, and wound yourself, through me, almost into +his confidence, Lucretia, that you might, in secret, entertain designs +upon him, and dare to aspire to contemplate the possibility of his +uniting himself to you! Why, it is an idea,' said Mrs Chick, with +sarcastic dignity, 'the absurdity of which almost relieves its +treachery.' + +'Pray, Louisa,' urged Miss Tox, 'do not say such dreadful things.' + +'Dreadful things!' repeated Mrs Chick. 'Dreadful things! Is it not +a fact, Lucretia, that you have just now been unable to command your +feelings even before me, whose eyes you had so completely closed?' + +'I have made no complaint,' sobbed Miss Tox. 'I have said nothing. +If I have been a little overpowered by your news, Louisa, and have +ever had any lingering thought that Mr Dombey was inclined to be +particular towards me, surely you will not condemn me.' + +'She is going to say,' said Mrs Chick, addressing herself to the +whole of the furniture, in a comprehensive glance of resignation and +appeal, 'She is going to say - I know it - that I have encouraged +her!' + +'I don't wish to exchange reproaches, dear Louisa,' sobbed Miss Tox +'Nor do I wish to complain. But, in my own defence - ' + +'Yes,' cried Mrs Chick, looking round the room with a prophetic +smile, 'that's what she's going to say. I knew it. You had better say +it. Say it openly! Be open, Lucretia Tox,' said Mrs Chick, with +desperate sternness, 'whatever you are.' + +'In my own defence,' faltered Miss Tox, 'and only In my own defence +against your unkind words, my dear Louisa, I would merely ask you if +you haven't often favoured such a fancy, and even said it might +happen, for anything we could tell?' + +'There is a point,' said Mrs Chick, rising, not as if she were +going to stop at the floor, but as if she were about to soar up, high, +into her native skies, 'beyond which endurance becomes ridiculous, if +not culpable. I can bear much; but not too much. What spell was on me +when I came into this house this day, I don't know; but I had a +presentiment - a dark presentiment,' said Mrs Chick, with a shiver, +'that something was going to happen. Well may I have had that +foreboding, Lucretia, when my confidence of many years is destroyed in +an instant, when my eyes are opened all at once, and when I find you +revealed in your true colours. Lucretia, I have been mistaken in you. +It is better for us both that this subject should end here. I wish you +well, and I shall ever wish you well. But, as an individual who +desires to be true to herself in her own poor position, whatever that +position may be, or may not be - and as the sister of my brother - and +as the sister-in-law of my brother's wife - and as a connexion by +marriage of my brother's wife's mother - may I be permitted to add, as +a Dombey? - I can wish you nothing else but good morning.' + +These words, delivered with cutting suavity, tempered and chastened +by a lofty air of moral rectitude, carried the speaker to the door. +There she inclined her head in a ghostly and statue-like manner, and +so withdrew to her carriage, to seek comfort and consolation in the +arms of Mr Chick, her lord. + +Figuratively speaking, that is to say; for the arms of Mr Chick +were full of his newspaper. Neither did that gentleman address his +eyes towards his wife otherwise than by stealth. Neither did he offer +any consolation whatever. In short, he sat reading, and humming fag +ends of tunes, and sometimes glancing furtively at her without +delivering himself of a word, good, bad, or indifferent. + +In the meantime Mrs Chick sat swelling and bridling, and tossing +her head, as if she were still repeating that solemn formula of +farewell to Lucretia Tox. At length, she said aloud, 'Oh the extent to +which her eyes had been opened that day!' + +'To which your eyes have been opened, my dear!' repeated Mr Chick. + +'Oh, don't talk to me!' said Mrs Chic 'if you can bear to see me in +this state, and not ask me what the matter is, you had better hold +your tongue for ever.' + +'What is the matter, my dear?' asked Mr Chick + +'To think,' said Mrs Chick, in a state of soliloquy, 'that she +should ever have conceived the base idea of connecting herself with +our family by a marriage with Paul! To think that when she was playing +at horses with that dear child who is now in his grave - I never liked +it at the time - she should have been hiding such a double-faced +design! I wonder she was never afraid that something would happen to +her. She is fortunate if nothing does.' + +'I really thought, my dear,' said Mr Chick slowly, after rubbing +the bridge of his nose for some time with his newspaper, 'that you had +gone on the same tack yourself, all along, until this morning; and had +thought it would be a convenient thing enough, if it could have been +brought about.' + +Mrs Chick instantly burst into tears, and told Mr Chick that if he +wished to trample upon her with his boots, he had better do It. + +'But with Lucretia Tox I have done,' said Mrs Chick, after +abandoning herself to her feelings for some minutes, to Mr Chick's +great terror. 'I can bear to resign Paul's confidence in favour of one +who, I hope and trust, may be deserving of it, and with whom he has a +perfect right to replace poor Fanny if he chooses; I can bear to be +informed, In Paul's cool manner, of such a change in his plans, and +never to be consulted until all is settled and determined; but deceit +I can not bear, and with Lucretia Tox I have done. It is better as it +is,' said Mrs Chick, piously; 'much better. It would have been a long +time before I could have accommodated myself comfortably with her, +after this; and I really don't know, as Paul is going to be very +grand, and these are people of condition, that she would have been +quite presentable, and might not have compromised myself. There's a +providence in everything; everything works for the best; I have been +tried today but on the whole I do not regret it.' + +In which Christian spirit, Mrs Chick dried her eyes and smoothed +her lap, and sat as became a person calm under a great wrong. Mr Chick +feeling his unworthiness no doubt, took an early opportunity of being +set down at a street corner and walking away whistling, with his +shoulders very much raised, and his hands in his pockets. + +While poor excommunicated Miss Tox, who, if she were a fawner and +toad-eater, was at least an honest and a constant one, and had ever +borne a faithful friendship towards her impeacher and had been truly +absorbed and swallowed up in devotion to the magnificence of Mr Dombey +- while poor excommunicated Miss Tox watered her plants with her +tears, and felt that it was winter in Princess's Place. + + + +CHAPTER 30. + +The interval before the Marriage + + + +Although the enchanted house was no more, and the working world had +broken into it, and was hammering and crashing and tramping up and +down stairs all day long keeping Diogenes in an incessant paroxysm of +barking, from sunrise to sunset - evidently convinced that his enemy +had got the better of him at last, and was then sacking the premises +in triumphant defiance - there was, at first, no other great change in +the method of Florence's life. At night, when the workpeople went +away, the house was dreary and deserted again; and Florence, listening +to their voices echoing through the hall and staircase as they +departed, pictured to herself the cheerful homes to which the were +returning, and the children who were waiting for them, and was glad to +think that they were merry and well pleased to go. + +She welcomed back the evening silence as an old friend, but it came +now with an altered face, and looked more kindly on her. Fresh hope +was in it. The beautiful lady who had soothed and carressed her, in +the very room in which her heart had been so wrung, was a spirit of +promise to her. Soft shadows of the bright life dawning, when her +father's affection should be gradually won, and all, or much should be +restored, of what she had lost on the dark day when a mother's love +had faded with a mother's last breath on her cheek, moved about her in +the twilight and were welcome company. Peeping at the rosy children +her neighbours, it was a new and precious sensation to think that they +might soon speak together and know each other; when she would not +fear, as of old, to show herself before them, lest they should be +grieved to see her in her black dress sitting there alone! + +In her thoughts of her new mother, and in the love and trust +overflowing her pure heart towards her, Florence loved her own dead +mother more and more. She had no fear of setting up a rival in her +breast. The new flower sprang from the deep-planted and long-cherished +root, she knew. Every gentle word that had fallen from the lips of the +beautiful lady, sounded to Florence like an echo of the voice long +hushed and silent. How could she love that memory less for living +tenderness, when it was her memory of all parental tenderness and +love! + +Florence was, one day, sitting reading in her room, and thinking of +the lady and her promised visit soon - for her book turned on a +kindred subject - when, raising her eyes, she saw her standing in the +doorway. + +'Mama!' cried Florence, joyfully meeting her. 'Come again!' + +'Not Mama yet,' returned the lady, with a serious smile, as she +encircled Florence's neck with her arm. + +'But very soon to be,' cried Florence. + +'Very soon now, Florence: very soon. + +Edith bent her head a little, so as to press the blooming cheek of +Florence against her own, and for some few moments remained thus +silent. There was something so very tender in her manner, that +Florence was even more sensible of it than on the first occasion of +their meeting. + +She led Florence to a chair beside her, and sat down: Florence +looking in her face, quite wondering at its beauty, and willingly +leaving her hand In hers. + +'Have you been alone, Florence, since I was here last?' + +'Oh yes!' smiled Florence, hastily. + +She hesitated and cast down her eyes; for her new Mama was very +earnest in her look, and the look was intently and thoughtfully fixed +upon her face. + +'I - I- am used to be alone,' said Florence. 'I don't mind it at +all. Di and I pass whole days together, sometimes.' Florence might +have said, whole weeks and months. + +'Is Di your maid, love?' + +'My dog, Mama,' said Florence, laughing. 'Susan is my maid.' + +'And these are your rooms,' said Edith, looking round. 'I was not +shown these rooms the other day. We must have them improved, Florence. +They shall be made the prettiest in the house.' + +'If I might change them, Mama,' returned Florence; 'there is one +upstairs I should like much better.' + +'Is this not high enough, dear girl?' asked Edith, smiling. + +'The other was my brother's room,' said Florence, 'and I am very +fond of it. I would have spoken to Papa about it when I came home, and +found the workmen here, and everything changing; but - ' + +Florence dropped her eyes, lest the same look should make her +falter again. + +'but I was afraid it might distress him; and as you said you would +be here again soon, Mama, and are the mistress of everything, I +determined to take courage and ask you.' + +Edith sat looking at her, with her brilliant eyes intent upon her +face, until Florence raising her own, she, in her turn, withdrew her +gaze, and turned it on the ground. It was then that Florence thought +how different this lady's beauty was, from what she had supposed. She +had thought it of a proud and lofty kind; yet her manner was so +subdued and gentle, that if she had been of Florence's own age and +character, it scarcely could have invited confidence more. + +Except when a constrained and singular reserve crept over her; and +then she seemed (but Florence hardly understood this, though she could +not choose but notice it, and think about it) as if she were humbled +before Florence, and ill at ease. When she had said that she was not +her Mama yet, and when Florence had called her the mistress of +everything there, this change in her was quick and startling; and now, +while the eyes of Florence rested on her face, she sat as though she +would have shrunk and hidden from her, rather than as one about to +love and cherish her, in right of such a near connexion. + +She gave Florence her ready promise, about her new room, and said +she would give directions about it herself. She then asked some +questions concerning poor Paul; and when they had sat in conversation +for some time, told Florence she had come to take her to her own home. + +'We have come to London now, my mother and I,' said Edith, 'and you +shall stay with us until I am married. I wish that we should know and +trust each other, Florence.' + +'You are very kind to me,' said Florence, 'dear Mama. How much I +thank you!' + +'Let me say now, for it may be the best opportunity,' continued +Edith, looking round to see that they were quite alone, and speaking +in a lower voice, 'that when I am married, and have gone away for some +weeks, I shall be easier at heart if you will come home here. No +matter who invites you to stay elsewhere. Come home here. It is better +to be alone than - what I would say is,' she added, checking herself, +'that I know well you are best at home, dear Florence.' + +'I will come home on the very day, Mama' + +'Do so. I rely on that promise. Now, prepare to come with me, dear +girl. You will find me downstairs when you are ready.' + +Slowly and thoughtfully did Edith wander alone through the mansion +of which she was so soon to be the lady: and little heed took she of +all the elegance and splendour it began to display. The same +indomitable haughtiness of soul, the same proud scorn expressed in eye +and lip, the same fierce beauty, only tamed by a sense of its own +little worth, and of the little worth of everything around it, went +through the grand saloons and halls, that had got loose among the +shady trees, and raged and rent themselves. The mimic roses on the +walls and floors were set round with sharp thorns, that tore her +breast; in every scrap of gold so dazzling to the eye, she saw some +hateful atom of her purchase-money; the broad high mirrors showed her, +at full length, a woman with a noble quality yet dwelling in her +nature, who was too false to her better self, and too debased and +lost, to save herself. She believed that all this was so plain, more +or less, to all eyes, that she had no resource or power of +self-assertion but in pride: and with this pride, which tortured her +own heart night and day, she fought her fate out, braved it, and +defied it. + +Was this the woman whom Florence - an innocent girl, strong only in +her earnestness and simple truth - could so impress and quell, that by +her side she was another creature, with her tempest of passion hushed, +and her very pride itself subdued? Was this the woman who now sat +beside her in a carriage, with her arms entwined, and who, while she +courted and entreated her to love and trust her, drew her fair head to +nestle on her breast, and would have laid down life to shield it from +wrong or harm? + +Oh, Edith! it were well to die, indeed, at such a time! Better and +happier far, perhaps, to die so, Edith, than to live on to the end! + +The Honourable Mrs Skewton, who was thinking of anything rather +than of such sentiments - for, like many genteel persons who have +existed at various times, she set her face against death altogether, +and objected to the mention of any such low and levelling upstart - +had borrowed a house in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, from a stately +relative (one of the Feenix brood), who was out of town, and who did +not object to lending it, in the handsomest manner, for nuptial +purposes, as the loan implied his final release and acquittance from +all further loans and gifts to Mrs Skewton and her daughter. It being +necessary for the credit of the family to make a handsome appearance +at such a time, Mrs Skewton, with the assistance of an accommodating +tradesman resident In the parish of Mary-le-bone, who lent out all +sorts of articles to the nobility and gentry, from a service of plate +to an army of footmen, clapped into this house a silver-headed butler +(who was charged extra on that account, as having the appearnce of an +ancient family retainer), two very tall young men in livery, and a +select staff of kitchen-servants; so that a legend arose, downstairs, +that Withers the page, released at once from his numerous household +duties, and from the propulsion of the wheeled-chair (inconsistent +with the metropolis), had been several times observed to rub his eyes +and pinch his limbs, as if he misdoubted his having overslept himself +at the Leamington milkman's, and being still in a celestial dream. A +variety of requisites in plate and china being also conveyed to the +same establishment from the same convenient source, with several +miscellaneous articles, including a neat chariot and a pair of bays, +Mrs Skewton cushioned herself on the principal sofa, in the Cleopatra +attitude, and held her court in fair state. + +'And how,' said Mrs Skewton, on the entrance of her daughter and +her charge, 'is my charming Florence? You must come and kiss me, +Florence, if you please, my love.' + +Florence was timidly stooping to pick out a place In the white part +of Mrs Skewton's face, when that lady presented her ear, and relieved +her of her difficulty. + +'Edith, my dear,' said Mrs Skewton, 'positively, I - stand a little +more in the light, my sweetest Florence, for a moment. + +Florence blushingly complied. + +'You don't remember, dearest Edith,' said her mother, 'what you +were when you were about the same age as our exceedingly precious +Florence, or a few years younger?' + +'I have long forgotten, mother.' + +'For positively, my dear,' said Mrs Skewton, 'I do think that I see +a decided resemblance to what you were then, in our extremely +fascinating young friend. And it shows,' said Mrs Skewton, in a lower +voice, which conveyed her opinion that Florence was in a very +unfinished state, 'what cultivation will do.' + +'It does, indeed,' was Edith's stern reply. + +Her mother eyed her sharply for a moment, and feeling herself on +unsafe ground, said, as a diversion: + +'My charming Florence, you must come and kiss me once more, if you +please, my love.' + +Florence complied, of course, and again imprinted her lips on Mrs +Skewton's ear. + +'And you have heard, no doubt, my darling pet,' said Mrs Skewton, +detaining her hand, 'that your Papa, whom we all perfectly adore and +dote upon, is to be married to my dearest Edith this day week.' + +'I knew it would be very soon,' returned Florence, 'but not exactly +when.' + +'My darling Edith,' urged her mother, gaily, 'is it possible you +have not told Florence?' + +'Why should I tell Florence?' she returned, so suddenly and +harshly, that Florence could scarcely believe it was the same voice. + +Mrs Skewton then told Florence, as another and safer diversion, +that her father was coming to dinner, and that he would no doubt be +charmingly surprised to see her; as he had spoken last night of +dressing in the City, and had known nothing of Edith's design, the +execution of which, according to Mrs Skewton's expectation, would +throw him into a perfect ecstasy. Florence was troubled to hear this; +and her distress became so keen, as the dinner-hour approached, that +if she had known how to frame an entreaty to be suffered to return +home, without involving her father in her explanation, she would have +hurried back on foot, bareheaded, breathless, and alone, rather than +incur the risk of meeting his displeasure. + +As the time drew nearer, she could hardly breathe. She dared not +approach a window, lest he should see her from the street. She dared +not go upstairs to hide her emotion, lest, in passing out at the door, +she should meet him unexpectedly; besides which dread, she felt as +though she never could come back again if she were summoned to his +presence. In this conflict of fears; she was sitting by Cleopatra's +couch, endeavouring to understand and to reply to the bald discourse +of that lady, when she heard his foot upon the stair. + +'I hear him now!' cried Florence, starting. 'He is coming!' + +Cleopatra, who in her juvenility was always playfully disposed, and +who in her self-engrossment did not trouble herself about the nature +of this agitation, pushed Florence behind her couch, and dropped a +shawl over her, preparatory to giving Mr Dombey a rapture of surprise. +It was so quickly done, that in a moment Florence heard his awful step +in the room. + +He saluted his intended mother-in-law, and his intended bride. The +strange sound of his voice thrilled through the whole frame of his +child. + +'My dear Dombey,' said Cleopatra, 'come here and tell me how your +pretty Florence is.' + +'Florence is very well,' said Mr Dombey, advancing towards the +couch. + +'At home?' + +'At home,' said Mr Dombey. + +'My dear Dombey,' returned Cleopatra, with bewitching vivacity; +'now are you sure you are not deceiving me? I don't know what my +dearest Edith will say to me when I make such a declaration, but upon +my honour I am afraid you are the falsest of men, my dear Dombey.' + +Though he had been; and had been detected on the spot, in the most +enormous falsehood that was ever said or done; he could hardly have +been more disconcerted than he was, when Mrs Skewton plucked the shawl +away, and Florence, pale and trembling, rose before him like a ghost. +He had not yet recovered his presence of mind, when Florence had run +up to him, clasped her hands round his neck, kissed his face, and +hurried out of the room. He looked round as if to refer the matter to +somebody else, but Edith had gone after Florence, instantly. + +'Now, confess, my dear Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, giving him her +hand, 'that you never were more surprised and pleased in your life.' + +'I never was more surprised,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Nor pleased, my dearest Dombey?' returned Mrs Skewton, holding up +her fan. + +'I - yes, I am exceedingly glad to meet Florence here,' said Mr +Dombey. He appeared to consider gravely about it for a moment, and +then said, more decidedly, 'Yes, I really am very glad indeed to meet +Florence here.' + +'You wonder how she comes here?' said Mrs Skewton, 'don't you?' + +'Edith, perhaps - ' suggested Mr Dombey. + +'Ah! wicked guesser!' replied Cleopatra, shaking her head. 'Ah! +cunning, cunning man! One shouldn't tell these things; your sex, my +dear Dombey, are so vain, and so apt to abuse our weakness; but you +know my open soul - very well; immediately.' + +This was addressed to one of the very tall young men who announced +dinner. + +'But Edith, my dear Dombey,' she continued in a whisper, when she +cannot have you near her - and as I tell her, she cannot expect that +always - will at least have near her something or somebody belonging +to you. Well, how extremely natural that is! And in this spirit, +nothing would keep her from riding off to-day to fetch our darling +Florence. Well, how excessively charming that is!' + +As she waited for an answer, Mr Dombey answered, 'Eminently so. + +'Bless you, my dear Dombey, for that proof of heart!' cried +Cleopatra, squeezing his hand. 'But I am growing too serious! Take me +downstairs, like an angel, and let us see what these people intend to +give us for dinner. Bless you, dear Dombey!' + +Cleopatra skipping off her couch with tolerable briskness, after +the last benediction, Mr Dombey took her arm in his and led her +ceremoniously downstairs; one of the very tall young men on hire, +whose organ of veneration was imperfectly developed, thrusting his +tongue into his cheek, for the entertainment of the other very tall +young man on hire, as the couple turned into the dining-room. + +Florence and Edith were already there, and sitting side by side. +Florence would have risen when her father entered, to resign her chair +to him; but Edith openly put her hand upon her arm, and Mr Dombey took +an opposite place at the round table. + +The conversation was almost entirely sustained by Mrs Skewton. +Florence hardly dared to raise her eyes, lest they should reveal the +traces of tears; far less dared to speak; and Edith never uttered one +word, unless in answer to a question. Verily, Cleopatra worked hard, +for the establishment that was so nearly clutched; and verily it +should have been a rich one to reward her! + +And so your preparations are nearly finished at last, my dear +Dombey?' said Cleopatra, when the dessert was put upon the table, and +the silver-headed butler had withdrawn. 'Even the lawyers' +preparations!' + +'Yes, madam,' replied Mr Dombey; 'the deed of settlement, the +professional gentlemen inform me, is now ready, and as I was +mentioning to you, Edith has only to do us the favour to suggest her +own time for its execution.' + +Edith sat like a handsome statue; as cold, as silent, and as still. + +'My dearest love,' said Cleopatra, 'do you hear what Mr Dombey +says? Ah, my dear Dombey!' aside to that gentleman, 'how her absence, +as the time approaches, reminds me of the days, when that most +agreeable of creatures, her Papa, was in your situation!' + +'I have nothing to suggest. It shall be when you please,' said +Edith, scarcely looking over the table at Mr Dombey. + +'To-morrow?' suggested Mr Dombey. + +'If you please.' + +'Or would next day,' said Mr Dombey, 'suit your engagements +better?' + +'I have no engagements. I am always at your disposal. Let it be +when you like.' + +'No engagements, my dear Edith!' remonstrated her mother, 'when you +are in a most terrible state of flurry all day long, and have a +thousand and one appointments with all sorts of trades-people!' + +'They are of your making,' returned Edith, turning on her with a +slight contraction of her brow. 'You and Mr Dombey can arrange between +you.' + +'Very true indeed, my love, and most considerate of you!' said +Cleopatra. 'My darling Florence, you must really come and kiss me once +more, if you please, my dear!' + +Singular coincidence, that these gushes of interest In Florence +hurried Cleopatra away from almost every dialogue in which Edith had a +share, however trifling! Florence had certainly never undergone so +much embracing, and perhaps had never been, unconsciously, so useful +in her life. + +Mr Dombey was far from quarrelling, in his own breast, with the +manner of his beautiful betrothed. He had that good reason for +sympathy with haughtiness and coldness, which is found In a +fellow-feeling. It flattered him to think how these deferred to him, +in Edith's case, and seemed to have no will apart from his. It +flattered him to picture to himself, this proud and stately woman +doing the honours of his house, and chilling his guests after his own +manner. The dignity of Dombey and Son would be heightened and +maintained, indeed, in such hands. + +So thought Mr Dombey, when he was left alone at the dining-table, +and mused upon his past and future fortunes: finding no uncongeniality +in an air of scant and gloomy state that pervaded the room, in colour +a dark brown, with black hatchments of pictures blotching the walls, +and twenty-four black chairs, with almost as many nails in them as so +many coffins, waiting like mutes, upon the threshold of the Turkey +carpet; and two exhausted negroes holding up two withered branches of +candelabra on the sideboard, and a musty smell prevailing as if the +ashes of ten thousand dinners were entombed in the sarcophagus below +it. The owner of the house lived much abroad; the air of England +seldom agreed long with a member of the Feenix family; and the room +had gradually put itself into deeper and still deeper mourning for +him, until it was become so funereal as to want nothing but a body in +it to be quite complete. + +No bad representation of the body, for the nonce, in his unbending +form, if not in his attitude, Mr Dombey looked down into the cold +depths of the dead sea of mahogany on which the fruit dishes and +decanters lay at anchor: as if the subjects of his thoughts were +rising towards the surface one by one, and plunging down again. Edith +was there In all her majesty of brow and figure; and close to her came +Florence, with her timid head turned to him, as it had been, for an +instant, when she left the room; and Edith's eyes upon her, and +Edith's hand put out protectingly. A little figure in a low arm-chair +came springing next into the light, and looked upon him wonderingly, +with its bright eyes and its old-young face, gleaming as in the +flickering of an evening fire. Again came Florence close upon it, and +absorbed his whole attention. Whether as a fore-doomed difficulty and +disappointment to him; whether as a rival who had crossed him in his +way, and might again; whether as his child, of whom, in his successful +wooing, he could stoop to think as claiming, at such a time, to be no +more estranged; or whether as a hint to him that the mere appearance +of caring for his own blood should be maintained in his new relations; +he best knew. Indifferently well, perhaps, at best; for marriage +company and marriage altars, and ambitious scenes - still blotted here +and there with Florence - always Florence - turned up so fast, and so +confusedly, that he rose, and went upstairs to escape them. + +It was quite late at night before candles were brought; for at +present they made Mrs Skewton's head ache, she complained; and in the +meantime Florence and Mrs Skewton talked together (Cleopatra being +very anxious to keep her close to herself), or Florence touched the +piano softly for Mrs Skewton's delight; to make no mention of a few +occasions in the course of the evening, when that affectionate lady +was impelled to solicit another kiss, and which always happened after +Edith had said anything. They were not many, however, for Edith sat +apart by an open window during the whole time (in spite of her +mother's fears that she would take cold), and remained there until Mr +Dombey took leave. He was serenely gracious to Florence when he did +so; and Florence went to bed in a room within Edith's, so happy and +hopeful, that she thought of her late self as if it were some other +poor deserted girl who was to be pitied for her sorrow; and in her +pity, sobbed herself to sleep. + +The week fled fast. There were drives to milliners, dressmakers, +jewellers, lawyers, florists, pastry-cooks; and Florence was always of +the party. Florence was to go to the wedding. Florence was to cast off +her mourning, and to wear a brilliant dress on the occasion. The +milliner's intentions on the subject of this dress - the milliner was +a Frenchwoman, and greatly resembled Mrs Skewton - were so chaste and +elegant, that Mrs Skewton bespoke one like it for herself. The +milliner said it would become her to admiration, and that all the +world would take her for the young lady's sister. + +The week fled faster. Edith looked at nothing and cared for +nothing. Her rich dresses came home, and were tried on, and were +loudly commended by Mrs Skewton and the milliners, and were put away +without a word from her. Mrs Skewton made their plans for every day, +and executed them. Sometimes Edith sat in the carriage when they went +to make purchases; sometimes, when it was absolutely necessary, she +went into the shops. But Mrs Skewton conducted the whole business, +whatever it happened to be; and Edith looked on as uninterested and +with as much apparent indifference as if she had no concern in it. +Florence might perhaps have thought she was haughty and listless, but +that she was never so to her. So Florence quenched her wonder in her +gratitude whenever it broke out, and soon subdued it. + +The week fled faster. It had nearly winged its flight away. The +last night of the week, the night before the marriage, was come. In +the dark room - for Mrs Skewton's head was no better yet, though she +expected to recover permanently to-morrow - were that lady, Edith, and +Mr Dombey. Edith was at her open window looking out into the street; +Mr Dombey and Cleopatra were talking softly on the sofa. It was +growing late; and Florence, being fatigued, had gone to bed. + +'My dear Dombey,' said Cleopatra, 'you will leave me Florence +to-morrow, when you deprive me of my sweetest Edith.' + +Mr Dombey said he would, with pleasure. + +'To have her about me, here, while you are both at Paris, and to +think at her age, I am assisting in the formation of her mind, my dear +Dombey,' said Cleopatra, 'will be a perfect balm to me in the +extremely shattered state to which I shall be reduced.' + +Edith turned her head suddenly. Her listless manner was exchanged, +in a moment, to one of burning interest, and, unseen in the darkness, +she attended closely to their conversation. + +Mr Dombey would be delighted to leave Florence in such admirable +guardianship. + +'My dear Dombey,' returned Cleopatra, 'a thousand thanks for your +good opinion. I feared you were going, with malice aforethought' as +the dreadful lawyers say - those horrid proses! - to condemn me to +utter solitude;' + +'Why do me so great an injustice, my dear madam?' said Mr Dombey. + +'Because my charming Florence tells me so positively she must go +home tomorrow, returned Cleopatra, that I began to be afraid, my +dearest Dombey, you were quite a Bashaw.' + +'I assure you, madam!' said Mr Dombey, 'I have laid no commands on +Florence; and if I had, there are no commands like your wish.' + +'My dear Dombey,' replied Cleopatra, what a courtier you are! +Though I'll not say so, either; for courtiers have no heart, and yours +pervades your farming life and character. And are you really going so +early, my dear Dombey!' + +Oh, indeed! it was late, and Mr Dombey feared he must. + +'Is this a fact, or is it all a dream!' lisped Cleopatra. 'Can I +believe, my dearest Dombey, that you are coming back tomorrow morning +to deprive me of my sweet companion; my own Edith!' + +Mr Dombey, who was accustomed to take things literally, reminded +Mrs Skewton that they were to meet first at the church. + +'The pang,' said Mrs Skewton, 'of consigning a child, even to you, +my dear Dombey, is one of the most excruciating imaginable, and +combined with a naturally delicate constitution, and the extreme +stupidity of the pastry-cook who has undertaken the breakfast, is +almost too much for my poor strength. But I shall rally, my dear +Dombey, In the morning; do not fear for me, or be uneasy on my +account. Heaven bless you! My dearest Edith!' she cried archly. +'Somebody is going, pet.' + +Edith, who had turned her head again towards the window, and whose +interest in their conversation had ceased, rose up in her place, but +made no advance towards him, and said nothing. Mr Dombey, with a lofty +gallantry adapted to his dignity and the occasion, betook his creaking +boots towards her, put her hand to his lips, said, 'Tomorrow morning I +shall have the happiness of claiming this hand as Mrs Dombey's,' and +bowed himself solemnly out. + +Mrs Skewton rang for candles as soon as the house-door had closed +upon him. With the candles appeared her maid, with the juvenile dress +that was to delude the world to-morrow. The dress had savage +retribution in it, as such dresses ever have, and made her infinitely +older and more hideous than her greasy flannel gown. But Mrs Skewton +tried it on with mincing satisfaction; smirked at her cadaverous self +in the glass, as she thought of its killing effect upon the Major; and +suffering her maid to take it off again, and to prepare her for +repose, tumbled into ruins like a house of painted cards. + +All this time, Edith remained at the dark window looking out into +the street. When she and her mother were at last left alone, she moved +from it for the first time that evening, and came opposite to her. The +yawning, shaking, peevish figure of the mother, with her eyes raised +to confront the proud erect form of the daughter, whose glance of fire +was bent downward upon her, had a conscious air upon it, that no +levity or temper could conceal. + +'I am tired to death,' said she. 'You can't be trusted for a +moment. You are worse than a child. Child! No child would be half so +obstinate and undutiful.' + +'Listen to me, mother,' returned Edith, passing these words by with +a scorn that would not descend to trifle with them. 'You must remain +alone here until I return.' + +'Must remain alone here, Edith, until you return!' repeated her +mother. + +'Or in that name upon which I shall call to-morrow to witness what +I do, so falsely: and so shamefully, I swear I will refuse the hand of +this man in the church. If I do not, may I fall dead upon the +pavement!' + +The mother answered with a look of quick alarm, in no degree +diminished by the look she met. + +'It is enough,' said Edith, steadily, 'that we are what we are. I +will have no youth and truth dragged down to my level. I will have no +guileless nature undermined, corrupted, and perverted, to amuse the +leisure of a world of mothers. You know my meaning. Florence must go +home.' + +'You are an idiot, Edith,' cried her angry mother. 'Do you expect +there can ever be peace for you in that house, till she is married, +and away?' + +'Ask me, or ask yourself, if I ever expect peace in that house,' +said her daughter, 'and you know the answer. + +'And am I to be told to-night, after all my pains and labour, and +when you are going, through me, to be rendered independent,' her +mother almost shrieked in her passion, while her palsied head shook +like a leaf, 'that there is corruption and contagion in me, and that I +am not fit company for a girl! What are you, pray? What are you?' + +'I have put the question to myself,' said Edith, ashy pale, and +pointing to the window, 'more than once when I have been sitting +there, and something in the faded likeness of my sex has wandered past +outside; and God knows I have met with my reply. Oh mother, mother, if +you had but left me to my natural heart when I too was a girl - a +younger girl than Florence - how different I might have been!' + +Sensible that any show of anger was useless here, her mother +restrained herself, and fell a whimpering, and bewailed that she had +lived too long, and that her only child had cast her off, and that +duty towards parents was forgotten in these evil days, and that she +had heard unnatural taunts, and cared for life no longer. + +'If one is to go on living through continual scenes like this,' she +whined,'I am sure it would be much better for me to think of some +means of putting an end to my existence. Oh! The idea of your being my +daughter, Edith, and addressing me in such a strain!' + +'Between us, mother,' returned Edith, mournfully, 'the time for +mutual reproaches is past. + +'Then why do you revive it?' whimpered her mother. 'You know that +you are lacerating me in the cruellest manner. You know how sensitive +I am to unkindness. At such a moment, too, when I have so much to +think of, and am naturally anxious to appear to the best advantage! I +wonder at you, Edith. To make your mother a fright upon your +wedding-day!' + +Edith bent the same fixed look upon her, as she sobbed and rubbed +her eyes; and said in the same low steady voice, which had neither +risen nor fallen since she first addressed her, 'I have said that +Florence must go home.' + +'Let her go!' cried the afflicted and affrighted parent, hastily. +'I am sure I am willing she should go. What is the girl to me?' + +'She is so much to me, that rather than communicate, or suffer to +be communicated to her, one grain of the evil that is in my breast, +mother, I would renounce you, as I would (if you gave me cause) +renounce him in the church to-morrow,' replied Edith. 'Leave her +alone. She shall not, while I can interpose, be tampered with and +tainted by the lessons I have learned. This is no hard condition on +this bitter night.' + +'If you had proposed it in a filial manner, Edith,' whined her +mother, 'perhaps not; very likely not. But such extremely cutting +words - ' + +'They are past and at an end between us now,' said Edith. 'Take +your own way, mother; share as you please in what you have gained; +spend, enjoy, make much of it; and be as happy as you will. The object +of our lives is won. Henceforth let us wear it silently. My lips are +closed upon the past from this hour. I forgive you your part in +to-morrow's wickedness. May God forgive my own!' + +Without a tremor in her voice, or frame, and passing onward with a +foot that set itself upon the neck of every soft emotion, she bade her +mother good-night, and repaired to her own room. + +But not to rest; for there was no rest in the tumult of her +agitation when alone to and fro, and to and fro, and to and fro again, +five hundred times, among the splendid preparations for her adornment +on the morrow; with her dark hair shaken down, her dark eyes flashing +with a raging light, her broad white bosom red with the cruel grasp of +the relentless hand with which she spurned it from her, pacing up and +down with an averted head, as if she would avoid the sight of her own +fair person, and divorce herself from its companionship. Thus, In the +dead time of the night before her bridal, Edith Granger wrestled with +her unquiet spirit, tearless, friendless, silent, proud, and +uncomplaining. + +At length it happened that she touched the open door which led into +the room where Florence lay. + +She started, stopped, and looked in. + +A light was burning there, and showed her Florence in her bloom of +innocence and beauty, fast asleep. Edith held her breath, and felt +herself drawn on towards her. + +Drawn nearer, nearer, nearer yet; at last, drawn so near, that +stooping down, she pressed her lips to the gentle hand that lay +outside the bed, and put it softly to her neck. Its touch was like the +prophet's rod of old upon the rock. Her tears sprung forth beneath it, +as she sunk upon her knees, and laid her aching head and streaming +hair upon the pillow by its side. + +Thus Edith Granger passed the night before her bridal. Thus the sun +found her on her bridal morning. + + + +CHAPTER 31. + +The Wedding + + + +Dawn with its passionless blank face, steals shivering to the +church beneath which lies the dust of little Paul and his mother, and +looks in at the windows. It is cold and dark. Night crouches yet, upon +the pavement, and broods, sombre and heavy, in nooks and corners of +the building. The steeple-clock, perched up above the houses, emerging +from beneath another of the countless ripples in the tide of time that +regularly roll and break on the eternal shore, is greyly visible, like +a stone beacon, recording how the sea flows on; but within doors, +dawn, at first, can only peep at night, and see that it is there. + +Hovering feebly round the church, and looking in, dawn moans and +weeps for its short reign, and its tears trickle on the window-glass, +and the trees against the church-wall bow their heads, and wring their +many hands in sympathy. Night, growing pale before it, gradually fades +out of the church, but lingers in the vaults below, and sits upon the +coffins. And now comes bright day, burnishing the steeple-clock, and +reddening the spire, and drying up the tears of dawn, and stifling its +complaining; and the dawn, following the night, and chasing it from +its last refuge, shrinks into the vaults itself and hides, with a +frightened face, among the dead, until night returns, refreshed, to +drive it out. + +And now, the mice, who have been busier with the prayer-books than +their proper owners, and with the hassocks, more worn by their little +teeth than by human knees, hide their bright eyes in their holes, and +gather close together in affright at the resounding clashing of the +church-door. For the beadle, that man of power, comes early this +morning with the sexton; and Mrs Miff, the wheezy little pew-opener - +a mighty dry old lady, sparely dressed, with not an inch of fulness +anywhere about her - is also here, and has been waiting at the +church-gate half-an-hour, as her place is, for the beadle. + +A vinegary face has Mrs Miff, and a mortified bonnet, and eke a +thirsty soul for sixpences and shillings. Beckoning to stray people to +come into pews, has given Mrs Miff an air of mystery; and there is +reservation in the eye of Mrs Miff, as always knowing of a softer +seat, but having her suspicions of the fee. There is no such fact as +Mr Miff, nor has there been, these twenty years, and Mrs Miff would +rather not allude to him. He held some bad opinions, it would seem, +about free seats; and though Mrs Miff hopes he may be gone upwards, +she couldn't positively undertake to say so. + +Busy is Mrs Miff this morning at the church-door, beating and +dusting the altar-cloth, the carpet, and the cushions; and much has +Mrs Miff to say, about the wedding they are going to have. Mrs Miff is +told, that the new furniture and alterations in the house cost full +five thousand pound if they cost a penny; and Mrs Miff has heard, upon +the best authority, that the lady hasn't got a sixpence wherewithal to +bless herself. Mrs Miff remembers, like wise, as if it had happened +yesterday, the first wife's funeral, and then the christening, and +then the other funeral; and Mrs Miff says, by-the-bye she'll +soap-and-water that 'ere tablet presently, against the company arrive. +Mr Sownds the Beadle, who is sitting in the sun upon the church steps +all this time (and seldom does anything else, except, in cold weather, +sitting by the fire), approves of Mrs Miff's discourse, and asks if +Mrs Miff has heard it said, that the lady is uncommon handsome? The +information Mrs Miff has received, being of this nature, Mr Sownds the +Beadle, who, though orthodox and corpulent, is still an admirer of +female beauty, observes, with unction, yes, he hears she is a spanker +- an expression that seems somewhat forcible to Mrs Miff, or would, +from any lips but those of Mr Sownds the Beadle. + +In Mr Dombey's house, at this same time, there is great stir and +bustle, more especially among the women: not one of whom has had a +wink of sleep since four o'clock, and all of whom were fully dressed +before six. Mr Towlinson is an object of greater consideration than +usual to the housemaid, and the cook says at breakfast time that one +wedding makes many, which the housemaid can't believe, and don't think +true at all. Mr Towlinson reserves his sentiments on this question; +being rendered something gloomy by the engagement of a foreigner with +whiskers (Mr Towlinson is whiskerless himself), who has been hired to +accompany the happy pair to Paris, and who is busy packing the new +chariot. In respect of this personage, Mr Towlinson admits, presently, +that he never knew of any good that ever come of foreigners; and being +charged by the ladies with prejudice, says, look at Bonaparte who was +at the head of 'em, and see what he was always up to! Which the +housemaid says is very true. + +The pastry-cook is hard at work in the funereal room in Brook +Street, and the very tall young men are busy looking on. One of the +very tall young men already smells of sherry, and his eyes have a +tendency to become fixed in his head, and to stare at objects without +seeing them. The very tall young man is conscious of this failing in +himself; and informs his comrade that it's his 'exciseman.' The very +tall young man would say excitement, but his speech is hazy. + +The men who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the +marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too. The first, are +practising in a back settlement near Battlebridge; the second, put +themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr Towlinson, +to whom they offer terms to be bought off; and the third, in the +person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner, +waiting for some traitor tradesman to reveal the place and hour of +breakfast, for a bribe. Expectation and excitement extend further yet, +and take a wider range. From Balls Pond, Mr Perch brings Mrs Perch to +spend the day with Mr Dombey's servants, and accompany them, +surreptitiously, to see the wedding. In Mr Toots's lodgings, Mr Toots +attires himself as if he were at least the Bridegroom; determined to +behold the spectacle in splendour from a secret corner of the gallery, +and thither to convey the Chicken: for it is Mr Toots's desperate +intent to point out Florence to the Chicken, then and there, and +openly to say, 'Now, Chicken, I will not deceive you any longer; the +friend I have sometimes mentioned to you is myself; Miss Dombey is the +object of my passion; what are your opinions, Chicken, in this state +of things, and what, on the spot, do you advise? The +so-much-to-be-astonished Chicken, in the meanwhile, dips his beak into +a tankard of strong beer, in Mr Toots's kitchen, and pecks up two +pounds of beefsteaks. In Princess's Place, Miss Tox is up and doing; +for she too, though in sore distress, is resolved to put a shilling in +the hands of Mrs Miff, and see the ceremony which has a cruel +fascination for her, from some lonely corner. The quarters of the +wooden Midshipman are all alive; for Captain Cuttle, in his +ankle-jacks and with a huge shirt-collar, is seated at his breakfast, +listening to Rob the Grinder as he reads the marriage service to him +beforehand, under orders, to the end that the Captain may perfectly +understand the solemnity he is about to witness: for which purpose, +the Captain gravely lays injunctions on his chaplain, from time to +time, to 'put about,' or to 'overhaul that 'ere article again,' or to +stick to his own duty, and leave the Amens to him, the Captain; one of +which he repeats, whenever a pause is made by Rob the Grinder, with +sonorous satisfaction. + +Besides all this, and much more, twenty nursery-maids in Mr +Dombey's street alone, have promised twenty families of little women, +whose instinctive interest in nuptials dates from their cradles, that +they shall go and see the marriage. Truly, Mr Sownds the Beadle has +good reason to feel himself in office, as he suns his portly figure on +the church steps, waiting for the marriage hour. Truly, Mrs Miff has +cause to pounce on an unlucky dwarf child, with a giant baby, who +peeps in at the porch, and drive her forth with indignation! + +Cousin Feenix has come over from abroad, expressly to attend the +marriage. Cousin Feenix was a man about town, forty years ago; but he +is still so juvenile in figure and in manner, and so well got up, that +strangers are amazed when they discover latent wrinkles in his +lordship's face, and crows' feet in his eyes: and first observe him, +not exactly certain when he walks across a room, of going quite +straight to where he wants to go. But Cousin Feenix, getting up at +half-past seven o'clock or so, is quite another thing from Cousin +Feenix got up; and very dim, indeed, he looks, while being shaved at +Long's Hotel, in Bond Street. + +Mr Dombey leaves his dressing-room, amidst a general whisking away +of the women on the staircase, who disperse in all directions, with a +great rustling of skirts, except Mrs Perch, who, being (but that she +always is) in an interesting situation, is not nimble, and is obliged +to face him, and is ready to sink with confusion as she curtesys; - +may Heaven avert all evil consequences from the house of Perch! Mr +Dombey walks up to the drawing-room, to bide his time. Gorgeous are Mr +Dombey's new blue coat, fawn-coloured pantaloons, and lilac waistcoat; +and a whisper goes about the house, that Mr Dombey's hair is curled. + +A double knock announces the arrival of the Major, who is gorgeous +too, and wears a whole geranium in his button-hole, and has his hair +curled tight and crisp, as well the Native knows. + +'Dombey!' says the Major, putting out both hands, 'how are you?' + +'Major,' says Mr Dombey, 'how are You?' + +'By Jove, Sir,' says the Major, 'Joey B. is in such case this +morning, Sir,' - and here he hits himself hard upon the breast - 'In +such case this morning, Sir, that, damme, Dombey, he has half a mind +to make a double marriage of it, Sir, and take the mother.' + +Mr Dombey smiles; but faintly, even for him; for Mr Dombey feels +that he is going to be related to the mother, and that, under those +circumstances, she is not to be joked about. + +'Dombey,' says the Major, seeing this, 'I give you joy. I +congratulate you, Dombey. By the Lord, Sir,' says the Major, 'you are +more to be envied, this day, than any man in England!' + +Here again Mr Dombey's assent is qualified; because he is going to +confer a great distinction on a lady; and, no doubt, she is to be +envied most. + +'As to Edith Granger, Sir,' pursues the Major, 'there is not a +woman in all Europe but might - and would, Sir, you will allow +Bagstock to add - and would- give her ears, and her earrings, too, to +be in Edith Granger's place.' + +'You are good enough to say so, Major,' says Mr Dombey. + +'Dombey,' returns the Major, 'you know it. Let us have no false +delicacy. You know it. Do you know it, or do you not, Dombey?' says +the Major, almost in a passion. + +'Oh, really, Major - ' + +'Damme, Sir,' retorts the Major, 'do you know that fact, or do you +not? Dombey! Is old Joe your friend? Are we on that footing of +unreserved intimacy, Dombey, that may justify a man - a blunt old +Joseph B., Sir - in speaking out; or am I to take open order, Dombey, +and to keep my distance, and to stand on forms?' + +'My dear Major Bagstock,' says Mr Dombey, with a gratified air, +'you are quite warm.' + +'By Gad, Sir,' says the Major, 'I am warm. Joseph B. does not deny +it, Dombey. He is warm. This is an occasion, Sir, that calls forth all +the honest sympathies remaining in an old, infernal, battered, +used-up, invalided, J. B. carcase. And I tell you what, Dombey - at +such a time a man must blurt out what he feels, or put a muzzle on; +and Joseph Bagstock tells you to your face, Dombey, as he tells his +club behind your back, that he never will be muzzled when Paul Dombey +is in question. Now, damme, Sir,' concludes the Major, with great +firmness, 'what do you make of that?' + +'Major,' says Mr Dombey, 'I assure you that I am really obliged to +you. I had no idea of checking your too partial friendship.' + +'Not too partial, Sir!' exclaims the choleric Major. 'Dombey, I +deny it.' + +'Your friendship I will say then,' pursues Mr Dombey, 'on any +account. Nor can I forget, Major, on such an occasion as the present, +how much I am indebted to it.' + +'Dombey,' says the Major, with appropriate action, 'that is the +hand of Joseph Bagstock: of plain old Joey B., Sir, if you like that +better! That is the hand, of which His Royal Highness the late Duke of +York, did me the honour to observe, Sir, to His Royal Highness the +late Duke of Kent, that it was the hand of Josh: a rough and tough, +and possibly an up-to-snuff, old vagabond. Dombey, may the present +moment be the least unhappy of our lives. God bless you!' + +Now enters Mr Carker, gorgeous likewise, and smiling like a +wedding-guest indeed. He can scarcely let Mr Dombey's hand go, he is +so congratulatory; and he shakes the Major's hand so heartily at the +same time, that his voice shakes too, in accord with his arms, as it +comes sliding from between his teeth. + +'The very day is auspicious,' says Mr Carker. 'The brightest and +most genial weather! I hope I am not a moment late?' + +'Punctual to your time, Sir,' says the Major. + +'I am rejoiced, I am sure,' says Mr Carker. 'I was afraid I might +be a few seconds after the appointed time, for I was delayed by a +procession of waggons; and I took the liberty of riding round to Brook +Street' - this to Mr Dombey - 'to leave a few poor rarities of flowers +for Mrs Dombey. A man in my position, and so distinguished as to be +invited here, is proud to offer some homage in acknowledgment of his +vassalage: and as I have no doubt Mrs Dombey is overwhelmed with what +is costly and magnificent;' with a strange glance at his patron; 'I +hope the very poverty of my offering, may find favour for it.' + +'Mrs Dombey, that is to be,' returns Mr Dombey, condescendingly, +'will be very sensible of your attention, Carker, I am sure.' + +'And if she is to be Mrs Dombey this morning, Sir,' says the Major, +putting down his coffee-cup, and looking at his watch, 'it's high time +we were off!' + +Forth, in a barouche, ride Mr Dombey, Major Bagstock, and Mr +Carker, to the church. Mr Sownds the Beadle has long risen from the +steps, and is in waiting with his cocked hat in his hand. Mrs Miff +curtseys and proposes chairs in the vestry. Mr Dombey prefers +remaining in the church. As he looks up at the organ, Miss Tox in the +gallery shrinks behind the fat leg of a cherubim on a monument, with +cheeks like a young Wind. Captain Cuttle, on the contrary, stands up +and waves his hook, in token of welcome and encouragement. Mr Toots +informs the Chicken, behind his hand, that the middle gentleman, he in +the fawn-coloured pantaloons, is the father of his love. The Chicken +hoarsely whispers Mr Toots that he's as stiff a cove as ever he see, +but that it is within the resources of Science to double him up, with +one blow in the waistcoat. + +Mr Sownds and Mrs Miff are eyeing Mr Dombey from a little distance, +when the noise of approaching wheels is heard, and Mr Sownds goes out. +Mrs Miff, meeting Mr Dombey's eye as it is withdrawn from the +presumptuous maniac upstairs, who salutes him with so much urbanity, +drops a curtsey, and informs him that she believes his 'good lady' is +come. Then there is a crowding and a whispering at the door, and the +good lady enters, with a haughty step. + +There is no sign upon her face, of last night's suffering; there is +no trace in her manner, of the woman on the bended knees, reposing her +wild head, in beautiful abandonment, upon the pillow of the sleeping +girl. That girl, all gentle and lovely, is at her side - a striking +contrast to her own disdainful and defiant figure, standing there, +composed, erect, inscrutable of will, resplendent and majestic in the +zenith of its charms, yet beating down, and treading on, the +admiration that it challenges. + +There is a pause while Mr Sownds the Beadle glides into the vestry +for the clergyman and clerk. At this juncture, Mrs Skewton speaks to +Mr Dombey: more distinctly and emphatically than her custom is, and +moving at the same time, close to Edith. + +'My dear Dombey,' said the good Mama, 'I fear I must relinquish +darling Florence after all, and suffer her to go home, as she herself +proposed. After my loss of to-day, my dear Dombey, I feel I shall not +have spirits, even for her society.' + +'Had she not better stay with you?' returns the Bridegroom. + +'I think not, my dear Dombey. No, I think not. I shall be better +alone. Besides, my dearest Edith will be her natural and constant +guardian when you return, and I had better not encroach upon her +trust, perhaps. She might be jealous. Eh, dear Edith?' + +The affectionate Mama presses her daughter's arm, as she says this; +perhaps entreating her attention earnestly. + +'To be serious, my dear Dombey,' she resumes, 'I will relinquish +our dear child, and not inflict my gloom upon her. We have settled +that, just now. She fully understands, dear Dombey. Edith, my dear, - +she fully understands.' + +Again, the good mother presses her daughter's arm. Mr Dombey offers +no additional remonstrance; for the clergyman and clerk appear; and +Mrs Miff, and Mr Sownds the Beadle, group the party in their proper +places at the altar rails. + +The sun is shining down, upon the golden letters of the ten +commandments. Why does the Bride's eye read them, one by one? Which +one of all the ten appears the plainest to her in the glare of light? +False Gods; murder; theft; the honour that she owes her mother; - +which is it that appears to leave the wall, and printing itself in +glowing letters, on her book! + +"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"' + +Cousin Feenix does that. He has come from Baden-Baden on purpose. +'Confound it,' Cousin Feenix says - good-natured creature, Cousin +Feenix - 'when we do get a rich City fellow into the family, let us +show him some attention; let us do something for him.' I give this +woman to be married to this man,' saith Cousin Feenix therefore. +Cousin Feenix, meaning to go in a straight line, but turning off +sideways by reason of his wilful legs, gives the wrong woman to be +married to this man, at first - to wit, a brides- maid of some +condition, distantly connected with the family, and ten years Mrs +Skewton's junior - but Mrs Miff, interposing her mortified bonnet, +dexterously turns him back, and runs him, as on castors, full at the +'good lady:' whom Cousin Feenix giveth to married to this man +accordingly. And will they in the sight of heaven - ? Ay, that they +will: Mr Dombey says he will. And what says Edith? She will. So, from +that day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in +sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do them +part, they plight their troth to one another, and are married. In a +firm, free hand, the Bride subscribes her name in the register, when +they adjourn to the vestry. 'There ain't a many ladies come here,' Mrs +Miff says with a curtsey - to look at Mrs Miff, at such a season, is +to make her mortified bonnet go down with a dip - writes their names +like this good lady!' Mr Sownds the Beadle thinks it is a truly +spanking signature, and worthy of the writer - this, however, between +himself and conscience. Florence signs too, but unapplauded, for her +hand shakes. All the party sign; Cousin Feenix last; who puts his +noble name into a wrong place, and enrols himself as having been born +that morning. The Major now salutes the Bride right gallantly, and +carries out that branch of military tactics in reference to all the +ladies: notwithstanding Mrs Skewton's being extremely hard to kiss, +and squeaking shrilly in the sacred edIfice. The example is followed +by Cousin. Feenix and even by Mr Dombey. Lastly, Mr Carker, with hIs +white teeth glistening, approaches Edith, more as if he meant to bite +her, than to taste the sweets that linger on her lips. + +There is a glow upon her proud cheek, and a flashing in her eyes, +that may be meant to stay him; but it does not, for he salutes her as +the rest have done, and wishes her all happiness. + +'If wishes,' says he in a low voice, 'are not superfluous, applied +to such a union.' + +'I thank you, Sir,' she answers, with a curled lip, and a heaving +bosom. + +But, does Edith feel still, as on the night when she knew that Mr +Dombey would return to offer his alliance, that Carker knows her +thoroughly, and reads her right, and that she is more degraded by his +knowledge of her, than by aught else? Is it for this reason that her +haughtiness shrinks beneath his smile, like snow within the hands that +grasps it firmly, and that her imperious glance droops In meeting his, +and seeks the ground? + +'I am proud to see,' said Mr Carker, with a servile stooping of his +neck, which the revelations making by his eyes and teeth proclaim to +be a lie, 'I am proud to see that my humble offering is graced by Mrs +Dombey's hand, and permitted to hold so favoured a place in so joyful +an occasion.' + +Though she bends her head, in answer, there is something in the +momentary action of her hand, as if she would crush the flowers it +holds, and fling them, with contempt, upon the ground. But, she puts +the hand through the arm of her new husband, who has been standing +near, conversing with the Major, and is proud again, and motionless, +and silent. + +The carriages are once more at the church door. Mr Dombey, with his +bride upon his arm, conducts her through the twenty families of little +women who are on the steps, and every one of whom remembers the +fashion and the colour of her every article of dress from that moment, +and reproduces it on her doll, who is for ever being married. +Cleopatra and Cousin Feenix enter the same carriage. The Major hands +into a second carriage, Florence, and the bridesmaid who so narrowly +escaped being given away by mistake, and then enters it himself, and +is followed by Mr Carker. Horses prance and caper; coachmen and +footmen shine in fluttering favours, flowers, and new-made liveries. +Away they dash and rattle through the streets; and as they pass along, +a thousand heads are turned to look at them, and a thousand sober +moralists revenge themselves for not being married too, that morning, +by reflecting that these people little think such happiness can't +last. + +Miss Tox emerges from behind the cherubim's leg, when all is quiet, +and comes slowly down from the gallery. Miss Tox's eyes are red, and +her pocket-handkerchief is damp. She is wounded, but not exasperated, +and she hopes they may be happy. She quite admits to herself the +beauty of the bride, and her own comparatively feeble and faded +attractions; but the stately image of Mr Dombey in his lilac +waistcoat, and his fawn-coloured pantaloons, is present to her mind, +and Miss Tox weeps afresh, behind her veil, on her way home to +Princess's Place. Captain Cuttle, having joined in all the amens and +responses, with a devout growl, feels much improved by his religious +exercises; and in a peaceful frame of mind pervades the body of the +church, glazed hat in hand, and reads the tablet to the memory of +little Paul. The gallant Mr Toots, attended by the faithful Chicken, +leaves the building in torments of love. The Chicken is as yet unable +to elaborate a scheme for winning Florence, but his first idea has +gained possession of him, and he thinks the doubling up of Mr Dombey +would be a move in the right direction. Mr Dombey's servants come out +of their hiding-places, and prepare to rush to Brook Street, when they +are delayed by symptoms of indisposition on the part of Mrs Perch, who +entreats a glass of water, and becomes alarming; Mrs Perch gets better +soon, however, and is borne away; and Mrs Miff, and Mr Sownds the +Beadle, sit upon the steps to count what they have gained by the +affair, and talk it over, while the sexton tolls a funeral. + +Now, the carriages arrive at the Bride's residence, and the players +on the bells begin to jingle, and the band strikes up, and Mr Punch, +that model of connubial bliss, salutes his wife. Now, the people run, +and push, and press round in a gaping throng, while Mr Dombey, leading +Mrs Dombey by the hand, advances solemnly into the Feenix Halls. Now, +the rest of the wedding party alight, and enter after them. And why +does Mr Carker, passing through the people to the hall-door, think of +the old woman who called to him in the Grove that morning? Or why does +Florence, as she passes, think, with a tremble, of her childhood, when +she was lost, and of the visage of Good Mrs Brown? + +Now, there are more congratulations on this happiest of days, and +more company, though not much; and now they leave the drawing-room, +and range themselves at table in the dark-brown dining-room, which no +confectioner can brighten up, let him garnish the exhausted negroes +with as many flowers and love-knots as he will. + +The pastry-cook has done his duty like a man, though, and a rich +breakfast is set forth. Mr and Mrs Chick have joined the party, among +others. Mrs Chick admires that Edith should be, by nature, such a +perfect Dombey; and is affable and confidential to Mrs Skewton, whose +mind is relieved of a great load, and who takes her share of the +champagne. The very tall young man who suffered from excitement early, +is better; but a vague sentiment of repentance has seized upon him, +and he hates the other very tall young man, and wrests dishes from him +by violence, and takes a grim delight in disobliging the company. The +company are cool and calm, and do not outrage the black hatchments of +pictures looking down upon them, by any excess of mirth. Cousin Feenix +and the Major are the gayest there; but Mr Carker has a smile for the +whole table. He has an especial smile for the Bride, who very, very +seldom meets it. + +Cousin Feenix rises, when the company have breakfasted, and the +servants have left the room; and wonderfully young he looks, with his +white wristbands almost covering his hands (otherwise rather bony), +and the bloom of the champagne in his cheeks. + +'Upon my honour,' says Cousin Feenix, 'although it's an unusual +sort of thing in a private gentleman's house, I must beg leave to call +upon you to drink what is usually called a - in fact a toast. + +The Major very hoarsely indicates his approval. Mr Carker, bending +his head forward over the table in the direction of Cousin Feenix, +smiles and nods a great many times. + +'A - in fact it's not a - ' Cousin Feenix beginning again, thus, +comes to a dead stop. + +'Hear, hear!' says the Major, in a tone of conviction. + +Mr Carker softly claps his hands, and bending forward over the +table again, smiles and nods a great many more times than before, as +if he were particularly struck by this last observation, and desired +personally to express his sense of the good it has done + +'It is,' says Cousin Feenix, 'an occasion in fact, when the general +usages of life may be a little departed from, without impropriety; and +although I never was an orator in my life, and when I was in the House +of Commons, and had the honour of seconding the address, was - in +fact, was laid up for a fortnight with the consciousness of failure - +' + +The Major and Mr Carker are so much delighted by this fragment of +personal history, that Cousin Feenix laughs, and addressing them +individually, goes on to say: + +'And in point of fact, when I was devilish ill - still, you know, I +feel that a duty devolves upon me. And when a duty devolves upon an +Englishman, he is bound to get out of it, in my opinion, in the best +way he can. Well! our family has had the gratification, to-day, of +connecting itself, in the person of my lovely and accomplished +relative, whom I now see - in point of fact, present - ' + +Here there is general applause. + +'Present,' repeats Cousin Feenix, feeling that it is a neat point +which will bear repetition, - 'with one who - that is to say, with a +man, at whom the finger of scorn can never - in fact, with my +honourable friend Dombey, if he will allow me to call him so.' + +Cousin Feenix bows to Mr Dombey; Mr Dombey solemnly returns the +bow; everybody is more or less gratified and affected by this +extraordinary, and perhaps unprecedented, appeal to the feelings. + +'I have not,' says Cousin Feenix, 'enjoyed those opportunities +which I could have desired, of cultivating the acquaintance of my +friend Dombey, and studying those qualities which do equal honour to +his head, and, in point of fact, to his heart; for it has been my +misfortune to be, as we used to say in my time in the House of +Commons, when it was not the custom to allude to the Lords, and when +the order of parliamentary proceedings was perhaps better observed +than it is now - to be in - in point of fact,' says Cousin Feenix, +cherishing his joke, with great slyness, and finally bringing it out +with a jerk, "'in another place!"' + +The Major falls into convulsions, and is recovered with difficulty. + +'But I know sufficient of my friend Dombey,' resumes Cousin Feenix +in a graver tone, as if he had suddenly become a sadder and wiser man' +'to know that he is, in point of fact, what may be emphatically called +a - a merchant - a British merchant - and a - and a man. And although +I have been resident abroad, for some years (it would give me great +pleasure to receive my friend Dombey, and everybody here, at +Baden-Baden, and to have an opportunity of making 'em known to the +Grand Duke), still I know enough, I flatter myself, of my lovely and +accomplished relative, to know that she possesses every requisite to +make a man happy, and that her marriage with my friend Dombey is one +of inclination and affection on both sides.' + +Many smiles and nods from Mr Carker. + +'Therefore,' says Cousin Feenix, 'I congratulate the family of +which I am a member, on the acquisition of my friend Dombey. I +congratulate my friend Dombey on his union with my lovely and +accomplished relative who possesses every requisite to make a man +happy; and I take the liberty of calling on you all, in point of fact, +to congratulate both my friend Dombey and my lovely and accomplished +relative, on the present occasion.' + +The speech of Cousin Feenix is received with great applause, and Mr +Dombey returns thanks on behalf of himself and Mrs Dombey. J. B. +shortly afterwards proposes Mrs Skewton. The breakfast languishes when +that is done, the violated hatchments are avenged, and Edith rises to +assume her travelling dress. + +All the servants in the meantime, have been breakfasting below. +Champagne has grown too common among them to be mentioned, and roast +fowls, raised pies, and lobster-salad, have become mere drugs. The +very tall young man has recovered his spirits, and again alludes to +the exciseman. His comrade's eye begins to emulate his own, and he, +too, stares at objects without taking cognizance thereof. There is a +general redness in the faces of the ladies; in the face of Mrs Perch +particularly, who is joyous and beaming, and lifted so far above the +cares of life, that if she were asked just now to direct a wayfarer to +Ball's Pond, where her own cares lodge, she would have some difficulty +in recalling the way. Mr Towlinson has proposed the happy pair; to +which the silver-headed butler has responded neatly, and with emotion; +for he half begins to think he is an old retainer of the family, and +that he is bound to be affected by these changes. The whole party, and +especially the ladies, are very frolicsome. Mr Dombey's cook, who +generally takes the lead in society, has said, it is impossible to +settle down after this, and why not go, in a party, to the play? +Everybody (Mrs Perch included) has agreed to this; even the Native, +who is tigerish in his drink, and who alarms the ladies (Mrs Perch +particularly) by the rolling of his eyes. One of the very tall young +men has even proposed a ball after the play, and it presents itself to +no one (Mrs Perch included) in the light of an impossibility. Words +have arisen between the housemaid and Mr Towlinson; she, on the +authority of an old saw, asserting marriages to be made in Heaven: he, +affecting to trace the manufacture elsewhere; he, supposing that she +says so, because she thinks of being married her own self: she, +saying, Lord forbid, at any rate, that she should ever marry him. To +calm these flying taunts, the silver-headed butler rises to propose +the health of Mr Towlinson, whom to know is to esteem, and to esteem +is to wish well settled in life with the object of his choice, +wherever (here the silver-headed butler eyes the housemaid) she may +be. Mr Towlinson returns thanks in a speech replete with feeling, of +which the peroration turns on foreigners, regarding whom he says they +may find favour, sometimes, with weak and inconstant intellects that +can be led away by hair, but all he hopes, is, he may never hear of no +foreigner never boning nothing out of no travelling chariot. The eye +of Mr Towlinson is so severe and so expressive here, that the +housemaid is turning hysterical, when she and all the rest, roused by +the intelligence that the Bride is going away, hurry upstairs to +witness her departure. + +The chariot is at the door; the Bride is descending to the hall, +where Mr Dombey waits for her. Florence is ready on the staircase to +depart too; and Miss Nipper, who has held a middle state between the +parlour and the kitchen, is prepared to accompany her. As Edith +appears, Florence hastens towards her, to bid her farewell. + +Is Edith cold, that she should tremble! Is there anything unnatural +or unwholesome in the touch of Florence, that the beautiful form +recedes and contracts, as if it could not bear it! Is there so much +hurry in this going away, that Edith, with a wave of her hand, sweeps +on, and is gone! + +Mrs Skewton, overpowered by her feelings as a mother, sinks on her +sofa in the Cleopatra attitude, when the clatter of the chariot wheels +is lost, and sheds several tears. The Major, coming with the rest of +the company from table, endeavours to comfort her; but she will not be +comforted on any terms, and so the Major takes his leave. Cousin +Feenix takes his leave, and Mr Carker takes his leave. The guests all +go away. Cleopatra, left alone, feels a little giddy from her strong +emotion, and falls asleep. + +Giddiness prevails below stairs too. The very tall young man whose +excitement came on so soon, appears to have his head glued to the +table in the pantry, and cannot be detached from - it. A violent +revulsion has taken place in the spirits of Mrs Perch, who is low on +account of Mr Perch, and tells cook that she fears he is not so much +attached to his home, as he used to be, when they were only nine in +family. Mr Towlinson has a singing in his ears and a large wheel going +round and round inside his head. The housemaid wishes it wasn't wicked +to wish that one was dead. + +There is a general delusion likewise, in these lower regions, on +the subject of time; everybody conceiving that it ought to be, at the +earliest, ten o'clock at night, whereas it is not yet three in the +afternoon. A shadowy idea of wickedness committed, haunts every +individual in the party; and each one secretly thinks the other a +companion in guilt, whom it would be agreeable to avoid. No man or +woman has the hardihood to hint at the projected visit to the play. +Anyone reviving the notion of the ball, would be scouted as a +malignant idiot. + +Mrs Skewton sleeps upstairs, two hours afterwards, and naps are not +yet over in the kitchen. The hatchments in the dining-room look down +on crumbs, dirty plates, spillings of wine, half-thawed ice, stale +discoloured heel-taps, scraps of lobster, drumsticks of fowls, and +pensive jellies, gradually resolving themselves into a lukewarm gummy +soup. The marriage is, by this time, almost as denuded of its show and +garnish as the breakfast. Mr Dombey's servants moralise so much about +it, and are so repentant over their early tea, at home, that by eight +o'clock or so, they settle down into confirmed seriousness; and Mr +Perch, arriving at that time from the City, fresh and jocular, with a +white waistcoat and a comic song, ready to spend the evening, and +prepared for any amount of dissipation, is amazed to find himself +coldly received, and Mrs Perch but poorly, and to have the pleasing +duty of escorting that lady home by the next omnibus. + +Night closes in. Florence, having rambled through the handsome +house, from room to room, seeks her own chamber, where the care of +Edith has surrounded her with luxuries and comforts; and divesting +herself of her handsome dress, puts on her old simple mourning for +dear Paul, and sits down to read, with Diogenes winking and blinking +on the ground beside her. But Florence cannot read tonight. The house +seems strange and new, and there are loud echoes in it. There is a +shadow on her heart: she knows not why or what: but it is heavy. +Florence shuts her book, and gruff Diogenes, who takes that for a +signal, puts his paws upon her lap, and rubs his ears against her +caressing hands. But Florence cannot see him plainly, in a little +time, for there is a mist between her eyes and him, and her dead +brother and dead mother shine in it like angels. Walter, too, poor +wandering shipwrecked boy, oh, where is he? + +The Major don't know; that's for certain; and don't care. The +Major, having choked and slumbered, all the afternoon, has taken a +late dinner at his club, and now sits over his pint of wine, driving a +modest young man, with a fresh-coloured face, at the next table (who +would give a handsome sum to be able to rise and go away, but cannot +do it) to the verge of madness, by anecdotes of Bagstock, Sir, at +Dombey's wedding, and Old Joe's devilish gentle manly friend, Lord +Feenix. While Cousin Feenix, who ought to be at Long's, and in bed, +finds himself, instead, at a gaming-table, where his wilful legs have +taken him, perhaps, in his own despite. + +Night, like a giant, fills the church, from pavement to roof, and +holds dominion through the silent hours. Pale dawn again comes peeping +through the windows: and, giving place to day, sees night withdraw +into the vaults, and follows it, and drives it out, and hides among +the dead. The timid mice again cower close together, when the great +door clashes, and Mr Sownds and Mrs Miff treading the circle of their +daily lives, unbroken as a marriage ring, come in. Again, the cocked +hat and the mortified bonnet stand in the background at the marriage +hour; and again this man taketh this woman, and this woman taketh this +man, on the solemn terms: + +'To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, +for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to +cherish, until death do them part.' + +The very words that Mr Carker rides into town repeating, with his +mouth stretched to the utmost, as he picks his dainty way. + + + +CHAPTER 32. + +The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces + + + +Honest Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified +retreat, by no means abated any of his prudent provisions against +surprise, because of the non-appearance of the enemy. The Captain +argued that his present security was too profound and wonderful to +endure much longer; he knew that when the wind stood in a fair +quarter, the weathercock was seldom nailed there; and he was too well +acquainted with the determined and dauntless character of Mrs +MacStinger, to doubt that that heroic woman had devoted herself to the +task of his discovery and capture. Trembling beneath the weight of +these reasons, Captain Cuttle lived a very close and retired life; +seldom stirring abroad until after dark; venturing even then only into +the obscurest streets; never going forth at all on Sundays; and both +within and without the walls of his retreat, avoiding bonnets, as if +they were worn by raging lions. + +The Captain never dreamed that in the event of his being pounced +upon by Mrs MacStinger, in his walks, it would be possible to offer +resistance. He felt that it could not be done. He saw himself, in his +mind's eye, put meekly in a hackney-coach, and carried off to his old +lodgings. He foresaw that, once immured there, he was a lost man: his +hat gone; Mrs MacStinger watchful of him day and night; reproaches +heaped upon his head, before the infant family; himself the guilty +object of suspicion and distrust; an ogre in the children's eyes, and +in their mother's a detected traitor. + +A violent perspiration, and a lowness of spirits, always came over +the Captain as this gloomy picture presented itself to his +imagination. It generally did so previous to his stealing out of doors +at night for air and exercise. Sensible of the risk he ran, the +Captain took leave of Rob, at those times, with the solemnity which +became a man who might never return: exhorting him, in the event of +his (the Captain's) being lost sight of, for a time, to tread in the +paths of virtue, and keep the brazen instruments well polished. + +But not to throw away a chance; and to secure to himself a means, +in case of the worst, of holding communication with the external +world; Captain Cuttle soon conceived the happy idea of teaching Rob +the Grinder some secret signal, by which that adherent might make his +presence and fidelity known to his commander, in the hour of +adversity. After much cogitation, the Captain decided in favour of +instructing him to whistle the marine melody, 'Oh cheerily, cheerily!' +and Rob the Grinder attaining a point as near perfection in that +accomplishment as a landsman could hope to reach, the Captain +impressed these mysterious instructions on his mind: + +'Now, my lad, stand by! If ever I'm took - ' + +'Took, Captain!' interposed Rob, with his round eyes wide open. + +'Ah!' said Captain Cuttle darkly, 'if ever I goes away, meaning to +come back to supper, and don't come within hail again, twenty-four +hours arter my loss, go you to Brig Place and whistle that 'ere tune +near my old moorings - not as if you was a meaning of it, you +understand, but as if you'd drifted there, promiscuous. If I answer in +that tune, you sheer off, my lad, and come back four-and-twenty hours +arterwards; if I answer in another tune, do you stand off and on, and +wait till I throw out further signals. Do you understand them orders, +now?' + +'What am I to stand off and on of, Captain?' inquired Rob. 'The +horse-road?' + +'Here's a smart lad for you!' cried the Captain eyeing him sternly, +'as don't know his own native alphabet! Go away a bit and come back +again alternate - d'ye understand that?' + +'Yes, Captain,' said Rob. + +'Very good my lad, then,' said the Captain, relenting. 'Do it!' + +That he might do it the better, Captain Cuttle sometimes +condescended, of an evening after the shop was shut, to rehearse this +scene: retiring into the parlour for the purpose, as into the lodgings +of a supposititious MacStinger, and carefully observing the behaviour +of his ally, from the hole of espial he had cut in the wall. Rob the +Grinder discharged himself of his duty with so much exactness and +judgment, when thus put to the proof, that the Captain presented him, +at divers times, with seven sixpences, in token of satisfaction; and +gradually felt stealing over his spirit the resignation of a man who +had made provision for the worst, and taken every reasonable +precaution against an unrelenting fate. + +Nevertheless, the Captain did not tempt ill-fortune, by being a +whit more venturesome than before. Though he considered it a point of +good breeding in himself, as a general friend of the family, to attend +Mr Dombey's wedding (of which he had heard from Mr Perch), and to show +that gentleman a pleasant and approving countenance from the gallery, +he had repaired to the church in a hackney cabriolet with both windows +up; and might have scrupled even to make that venture, in his dread of +Mrs MacStinger, but that the lady's attendance on the ministry of the +Reverend Melchisedech rendered it peculiarly unlikely that she would +be found in communion with the Establishment. + +The Captain got safe home again, and fell into the ordinary routine +of his new life, without encountering any more direct alarm from the +enemy, than was suggested to him by the daily bonnets in the street. +But other subjects began to lay heavy on the Captain's mind. Walter's +ship was still unheard of. No news came of old Sol Gills. Florence did +not even know of the old man's disappearance, and Captain Cuttle had +not the heart to tell her. Indeed the Captain, as his own hopes of the +generous, handsome, gallant-hearted youth, whom he had loved, +according to his rough manner, from a child, began to fade, and faded +more and more from day to day, shrunk with instinctive pain from the +thought of exchanging a word with Florence. If he had had good news to +carry to her, the honest Captain would have braved the newly decorated +house and splendid furniture - though these, connected with the lady +he had seen at church, were awful to him - and made his way into her +presence. With a dark horizon gathering around their common hopes, +however, that darkened every hour, the Captain almost felt as if he +were a new misfortune and affliction to her; and was scarcely less +afraid of a visit from Florence, than from Mrs MacStinger herself. + +It was a chill dark autumn evening, and Captain Cuttle had ordered +a fire to be kindled in the little back parlour, now more than ever +like the cabin of a ship. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew hard; +and straying out on the house-top by that stormy bedroom of his old +friend, to take an observation of the weather, the Captain's heart +died within him, when he saw how wild and desolate it was. Not that he +associated the weather of that time with poor Walter's destiny, or +doubted that if Providence had doomed him to be lost and shipwrecked, +it was over, long ago; but that beneath an outward influence, quite +distinct from the subject-matter of his thoughts, the Captain's +spirits sank, and his hopes turned pale, as those of wiser men had +often done before him, and will often do again. + +Captain Cuttle, addressing his face to the sharp wind and slanting +rain, looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the +wilderness of house-tops, and looked for something cheery there in +vain. The prospect near at hand was no better. In sundry tea-chests +and other rough boxes at his feet, the pigeons of Rob the Grinder were +cooing like so many dismal breezes getting up. A crazy weathercock of +a midshipman, with a telescope at his eye, once visible from the +street, but long bricked out, creaked and complained upon his rusty +pivot as the shrill blast spun him round and round, and sported with +him cruelly. Upon the Captain's coarse blue vest the cold raindrops +started like steel beads; and he could hardly maintain himself aslant +against the stiff Nor'-Wester that came pressing against him, +importunate to topple him over the parapet, and throw him on the +pavement below. If there were any Hope alive that evening, the Captain +thought, as he held his hat on, it certainly kept house, and wasn't +out of doors; so the Captain, shaking his head in a despondent manner, +went in to look for it. + +Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlour, and, +seated in his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire; but it was +not there, though the fire was bright. He took out his tobacco-box and +pipe, and composing himself to smoke, looked for it in the red glow +from the bowl, and in the wreaths of vapour that curled upward from +his lips; but there was not so much as an atom of the rust of Hope's +anchor in either. He tried a glass of grog; but melancholy truth was +at the bottom of that well, and he couldn't finish it. He made a turn +or two in the shop, and looked for Hope among the instruments; but +they obstinately worked out reckonings for the missing ship, in spite +of any opposition he could offer, that ended at the bottom of the lone +sea. + +The wind still rushing, and the rain still pattering, against the +closed shutters, the Captain brought to before the wooden Midshipman +upon the counter, and thought, as he dried the little officer's +uniform with his sleeve, how many years the Midshipman had seen, +during which few changes - hardly any - had transpired among his +ship's company; how the changes had come all together, one day, as it +might be; and of what a sweeping kind they web Here was the little +society of the back parlour broken up, and scattered far and wide. +Here was no audience for Lovely Peg, even if there had been anybody to +sing it, which there was not; for the Captain was as morally certain +that nobody but he could execute that ballad, he was that he had not +the spirit, under existing circumstances, to attempt it. There was no +bright face of 'Wal'r' In the house; - here the Captain transferred +his sleeve for a moment from the Midshipman's uniform to his own +cheek; - the familiar wig and buttons of Sol Gills were a vision of +the past; Richard Whittington was knocked on the head; and every plan +and project in connexion with the Midshipman, lay drifting, without +mast or rudder, on the waste of waters. + +As the Captain, with a dejected face, stood revolving these +thoughts, and polishing the Midshipman, partly in the tenderness of +old acquaintance, and partly in the absence of his mind, a knocking at +the shop-door communicated a frightful start to the frame of Rob the +Grinder, seated on the counter, whose large eyes had been intently +fixed on the Captain's face, and who had been debating within himself, +for the five hundredth time, whether the Captain could have done a +murder, that he had such an evil conscience, and was always running +away. + +'What's that?' said Captain Cuttle, softly. + +'Somebody's knuckles, Captain,' answered Rob the Grinder. + +The Captain, with an abashed and guilty air, immediately walked on +tiptoe to the little parlour and locked himself in. Rob, opening the +door, would have parleyed with the visitor on the threshold if the +visitor had come in female guise; but the figure being of the male +sex, and Rob's orders only applying to women, Rob held the door open +and allowed it to enter: which it did very quickly, glad to get out of +the driving rain. + +'A job for Burgess and Co. at any rate,' said the visitor, looking +over his shoulder compassionately at his own legs, which were very wet +and covered with splashes. 'Oh, how-de-do, Mr Gills?' + +The salutation was addressed to the Captain, now emerging from the +back parlour with a most transparent and utterly futile affectation of +coming out by accidence. + +'Thankee,' the gentleman went on to say in the same breath; 'I'm +very well indeed, myself, I'm much obliged to you. My name is Toots, - +Mister Toots.' + +The Captain remembered to have seen this young gentleman at the +wedding, and made him a bow. Mr Toots replied with a chuckle; and +being embarrassed, as he generally was, breathed hard, shook hands +with the Captain for a long time, and then falling on Rob the Grinder, +in the absence of any other resource, shook hands with him in a most +affectionate and cordial manner. + +'I say! I should like to speak a word to you, Mr Gills, if you +please,' said Toots at length, with surprising presence of mind. 'I +say! Miss D.O.M. you know!' + +The Captain, with responsive gravity and mystery, immediately waved +his hook towards the little parlour, whither Mr Toots followed him. + +'Oh! I beg your pardon though,' said Mr Toots, looking up In the +Captain's face as he sat down in a chair by the fire, which the +Captain placed for him; 'you don't happen to know the Chicken at all; +do you, Mr Gills?' + +'The Chicken?' said the Captain. + +'The Game Chicken,' said Mr Toots. + +The Captain shaking his head, Mr Toots explained that the man +alluded to was the celebrated public character who had covered himself +and his country with glory in his contest with the Nobby Shropshire +One; but this piece of information did not appear to enlighten the +Captain very much. + +'Because he's outside: that's all,' said Mr Toots. 'But it's of no +consequence; he won't get very wet, perhaps.' + +'I can pass the word for him in a moment,' said the Captain. + +'Well, if you would have the goodness to let him sit in the shop +with your young man,' chuckled Mr Toots, 'I should be glad; because, +you know, he's easily offended, and the damp's rather bad for his +stamina. I'll call him in, Mr Gills.' + +With that, Mr Toots repairing to the shop-door, sent a peculiar +whistle into the night, which produced a stoical gentleman in a shaggy +white great-coat and a flat-brimmed hat, with very short hair, a +broken nose, and a considerable tract of bare and sterile country +behind each ear. + +'Sit down, Chicken,' said Mr Toots. + +The compliant Chicken spat out some small pieces of straw on which +he was regaling himself, and took in a fresh supply from a reserve he +carried in his hand. + +'There ain't no drain of nothing short handy, is there?' said the +Chicken, generally. 'This here sluicing night is hard lines to a man +as lives on his condition. + +Captain Cuttle proffered a glass of rum, which the Chicken, +throwing back his head, emptied into himself, as into a cask, after +proposing the brief sentiment, 'Towards us!' Mr Toots and the Captain +returning then to the parlour, and taking their seats before the fire, +Mr Toots began: + +'Mr Gills - ' + +'Awast!' said the Captain. 'My name's Cuttle.' + +Mr Toots looked greatly disconcerted, while the Captain proceeded +gravely. + +'Cap'en Cuttle is my name, and England is my nation, this here is +my dwelling-place, and blessed be creation - Job,' said the Captain, +as an index to his authority. + +'Oh! I couldn't see Mr Gills, could I?' said Mr Toots; 'because - ' + +'If you could see Sol Gills, young gen'l'm'n,' said the Captain, +impressively, and laying his heavy hand on Mr Toots's knee, 'old Sol, +mind you - with your own eyes - as you sit there - you'd be welcomer +to me, than a wind astern, to a ship becalmed. But you can't see Sol +Gills. And why can't you see Sol Gills?' said the Captain, apprised by +the face of Mr Toots that he was making a profound impression on that +gentleman's mind. 'Because he's inwisible.' + +Mr Toots in his agitation was going to reply that it was of no +consequence at all. But he corrected himself, and said, 'Lor bless +me!' + +'That there man,' said the Captain, 'has left me in charge here by +a piece of writing, but though he was a'most as good as my sworn +brother, I know no more where he's gone, or why he's gone; if so be to +seek his nevy, or if so be along of being not quite settled in his +mind; than you do. One morning at daybreak, he went over the side,' +said the Captain, 'without a splash, without a ripple I have looked +for that man high and low, and never set eyes, nor ears, nor nothing +else, upon him from that hour.' + +'But, good Gracious, Miss Dombey don't know - ' Mr Toots began. + +'Why, I ask you, as a feeling heart,' said the Captain, dropping +his voice, 'why should she know? why should she be made to know, until +such time as there wam't any help for it? She took to old Sol Gills, +did that sweet creetur, with a kindness, with a affability, with a - +what's the good of saying so? you know her.' + +'I should hope so,' chuckled Mr Toots, with a conscious blush that +suffused his whole countenance. + +'And you come here from her?' said the Captain. + +'I should think so,' chuckled Mr Toots. + +'Then all I need observe, is,' said the Captain, 'that you know a +angel, and are chartered a angel.' + +Mr Toots instantly seized the Captain's hand, and requested the +favour of his friendship. + +'Upon my word and honour,' said Mr Toots, earnestly, 'I should be +very much obliged to you if you'd improve my acquaintance I should +like to know you, Captain, very much. I really am In want of a friend, +I am. Little Dombey was my friend at old Blimber's, and would have +been now, if he'd have lived. The Chicken,' said Mr Toots, in a +forlorn whisper, 'is very well - admirable in his way - the sharpest +man perhaps in the world; there's not a move he isn't up to, everybody +says so - but I don't know - he's not everything. So she is an angel, +Captain. If there is an angel anywhere, it's Miss Dombey. That's what +I've always said. Really though, you know,' said Mr Toots, 'I should +be very much obliged to you if you'd cultivate my acquaintance.' + +Captain Cuttle received this proposal in a polite manner, but still +without committing himself to its acceptance; merely observing, 'Ay, +ay, my lad. We shall see, we shall see;' and reminding Mr Toots of his +immediate mission, by inquiring to what he was indebted for the honour +of that visit. + +'Why the fact is,' replied Mr Toots, 'that it's the young woman I +come from. Not Miss Dombey - Susan, you know. + +The Captain nodded his head once, with a grave expression of face +indicative of his regarding that young woman with serious respect. + +'And I'll tell you how it happens,' said Mr Toots. 'You know, I go +and call sometimes, on Miss Dombey. I don't go there on purpose, you +know, but I happen to be in the neighbourhood very often; and when I +find myself there, why - why I call.' + +'Nat'rally,' observed the Captain. + +'Yes,' said Mr Toots. 'I called this afternoon. Upon my word and +honour, I don't think it's possible to form an idea of the angel Miss +Dombey was this afternoon.' + +The Captain answered with a jerk of his head, implying that it +might not be easy to some people, but was quite so to him. + +'As I was coming out,' said Mr Toots, 'the young woman, in the most +unexpected manner, took me into the pantry. + +The Captain seemed, for the moment, to object to this proceeding; +and leaning back in his chair, looked at Mr Toots with a distrustful, +if not threatening visage. + +'Where she brought out,' said Mr Toots, 'this newspaper. She told +me that she had kept it from Miss Dombey all day, on account of +something that was in it, about somebody that she and Dombey used to +know; and then she read the passage to me. Very well. Then she said - +wait a minute; what was it she said, though!' + +Mr Toots, endeavouring to concentrate his mental powers on this +question, unintentionally fixed the Captain's eye, and was so much +discomposed by its stern expression, that his difficulty in resuming +the thread of his subject was enhanced to a painful extent. + +'Oh!' said Mr Toots after long consideration. 'Oh, ah! Yes! She +said that she hoped there was a bare possibility that it mightn't be +true; and that as she couldn't very well come out herself, without +surprising Miss Dombey, would I go down to Mr Solomon Gills the +Instrument-maker's in this street, who was the party's Uncle, and ask +whether he believed it was true, or had heard anything else in the +City. She said, if he couldn't speak to me, no doubt Captain Cuttle +could. By the bye!' said Mr Toots, as the discovery flashed upon him, +'you, you know!' + +The Captain glanced at the newspaper in Mr Toots's hand, and +breathed short and hurriedly. + +'Well, pursued Mr Toots, 'the reason why I'm rather late is, +because I went up as far as Finchley first, to get some uncommonly +fine chickweed that grows there, for Miss Dombey's bird. But I came on +here, directly afterwards. You've seen the paper, I suppose?' + +The Captain, who had become cautious of reading the news, lest he +should find himself advertised at full length by Mrs MacStinger, shook +his head. + +'Shall I read the passage to you?' inquired Mr Toots. + +The Captain making a sign in the affirmative, Mr Toots read as +follows, from the Shipping Intelligence: + +'"Southampton. The barque Defiance, Henry James, Commander, arrived +in this port to-day, with a cargo of sugar, coffee, and rum, reports +that being becalmed on the sixth day of her passage home from Jamaica, +in" - in such and such a latitude, you know,' said Mr Toots, after +making a feeble dash at the figures, and tumbling over them. + +'Ay!' cried the Captain, striking his clenched hand on the table. +'Heave ahead, my lad!' + +' - latitude,' repeated Mr Toots, with a startled glance at the +Captain, 'and longitude so-and-so, - "the look-out observed, half an +hour before sunset, some fragments of a wreck, drifting at about the +distance of a mile. The weather being clear, and the barque making no +way, a boat was hoisted out, with orders to inspect the same, when +they were found to consist of sundry large spars, and a part of the +main rigging of an English brig, of about five hundred tons burden, +together with a portion of the stem on which the words and letters +'Son and H-' were yet plainly legible. No vestige of any dead body was +to be seen upon the floating fragments. Log of the Defiance states, +that a breeze springing up in the night, the wreck was seen no more. +There can be no doubt that all surmises as to the fate of the missing +vessel, the Son and Heir, port of London, bound for Barbados, are now +set at rest for ever; that she broke up in the last hurricane; and +that every soul on board perished."' + +Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had +survived within him under discouragement, until he felt its +death-shock. During the reading of the paragraph, and for a minute or +two afterwards, he sat with his gaze fixed on the modest Mr Toots, +like a man entranced; then, suddenly rising, and putting on his glazed +hat, which, in his visitor's honour, he had laid upon the table, the +Captain turned his back, and bent his head down on the little +chimneypiece. + +'Oh' upon my word and honour,' cried Mr Toots, whose tender heart +was moved by the Captain's unexpected distress, 'this is a most +wretched sort of affair this world is! Somebody's always dying, or +going and doing something uncomfortable in it. I'm sure I never should +have looked forward so much, to coming into my property, if I had +known this. I never saw such a world. It's a great deal worse than +Blimber's.' + +Captain Cuttle, without altering his position, signed to Mr Toots +not to mind him; and presently turned round, with his glazed hat +thrust back upon his ears, and his hand composing and smoothing his +brown face. + +'Wal'r, my dear lad,' said the Captain, 'farewell! Wal'r my child, +my boy, and man, I loved you! He warn't my flesh and blood,' said the +Captain, looking at the fire - 'I ain't got none - but something of +what a father feels when he loses a son, I feel in losing Wal'r. For +why?' said the Captain. 'Because it ain't one loss, but a round dozen. +Where's that there young school-boy with the rosy face and curly hair, +that used to be as merry in this here parlour, come round every week, +as a piece of music? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there fresh +lad, that nothing couldn't tire nor put out, and that sparkled up and +blushed so, when we joked him about Heart's Delight, that he was +beautiful to look at? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there man's +spirit, all afire, that wouldn't see the old man hove down for a +minute, and cared nothing for itself? Gone down with Wal'r. It ain't +one Wal'r. There was a dozen Wal'rs that I know'd and loved, all +holding round his neck when he went down, and they're a-holding round +mine now!' + +Mr Toots sat silent: folding and refolding the newspaper as small +as possible upon his knee. + +'And Sol Gills,' said the Captain, gazing at the fire, 'poor +nevyless old Sol, where are you got to! you was left in charge of me; +his last words was, "Take care of my Uncle!" What came over you, Sol, +when you went and gave the go-bye to Ned Cuttle; and what am I to put +In my accounts that he's a looking down upon, respecting you! Sol +Gills, Sol Gills!' said the Captain, shaking his head slowly, 'catch +sight of that there newspaper, away from home, with no one as know'd +Wal'r by, to say a word; and broadside to you broach, and down you +pitch, head foremost!' + +Drawing a heavy sigh, the Captain turned to Mr Toots, and roused +himself to a sustained consciousness of that gentleman's presence. + +'My lad,' said the Captain, 'you must tell the young woman honestly +that this here fatal news is too correct. They don't romance, you see, +on such pints. It's entered on the ship's log, and that's the truest +book as a man can write. To-morrow morning,' said the Captain, 'I'll +step out and make inquiries; but they'll lead to no good. They can't +do it. If you'll give me a look-in in the forenoon, you shall know +what I have heerd; but tell the young woman from Cap'en Cuttle, that +it's over. Over!' And the Captain, hooking off his glazed hat, pulled +his handkerchief out of the crown, wiped his grizzled head +despairingly, and tossed the handkerchief in again, with the +indifference of deep dejection. + +'Oh! I assure you,' said Mr Toots, 'really I am dreadfully sorry. +Upon my word I am, though I wasn't acquainted with the party. Do you +think Miss Dombey will be very much affected, Captain Gills - I mean +Mr Cuttle?' + +'Why, Lord love you,' returned the Captain, with something of +compassion for Mr Toots's innocence. When she warn't no higher than +that, they were as fond of one another as two young doves.' + +'Were they though!' said Mr Toots, with a considerably lengthened +face. + +'They were made for one another,' said the Captain, mournfully; +'but what signifies that now!' + +'Upon my word and honour,' cried Mr Toots, blurting out his words +through a singular combination of awkward chuckles and emotion, 'I'm +even more sorry than I was before. You know, Captain Gills, I - I +positively adore Miss Dombey; - I - I am perfectly sore with loving +her;' the burst with which this confession forced itself out of the +unhappy Mr Toots, bespoke the vehemence of his feelings; 'but what +would be the good of my regarding her in this manner, if I wasn't +truly sorry for her feeling pain, whatever was the cause of it. Mine +ain't a selfish affection, you know,' said Mr Toots, in the confidence +engendered by his having been a witness of the Captain's tenderness. +'It's the sort of thing with me, Captain Gills, that if I could be run +over - or - or trampled upon - or - or thrown off a very high place +-or anything of that sort - for Miss Dombey's sake, it would be the +most delightful thing that could happen to me. + +All this, Mr Toots said in a suppressed voice, to prevent its +reaching the jealous ears of the Chicken, who objected to the softer +emotions; which effort of restraint, coupled with the intensity of his +feelings, made him red to the tips of his ears, and caused him to +present such an affecting spectacle of disinterested love to the eyes +of Captain Cuttle, that the good Captain patted him consolingly on the +back, and bade him cheer up. + +'Thankee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'it's kind of you, in the +midst of your own troubles, to say so. I'm very much obliged to you. +As I said before, I really want a friend, and should be glad to have +your acquaintance. Although I am very well off,' said Mr Toots, with +energy, 'you can't think what a miserable Beast I am. The hollow +crowd, you know, when they see me with the Chicken, and characters of +distinction like that, suppose me to be happy; but I'm wretched. I +suffer for Miss Dombey, Captain Gills. I can't get through my meals; I +have no pleasure in my tailor; I often cry when I'm alone. I assure +you it'll be a satisfaction to me to come back to-morrow, or to come +back fifty times.' + +Mr Toots, with these words, shook the Captain's hand; and +disguising such traces of his agitation as could be disguised on so +short a notice, before the Chicken's penetrating glance, rejoined that +eminent gentleman in the shop. The Chicken, who was apt to be jealous +of his ascendancy, eyed Captain Cuttle with anything but favour as he +took leave of Mr Toots, but followed his patron without being +otherwise demonstrative of his ill-will: leaving the Captain oppressed +with sorrow; and Rob the Grinder elevated with joy, on account of +having had the honour of staring for nearly half an hour at the +conqueror of the Nobby Shropshire One. + +Long after Rob was fast asleep in his bed under the counter, the +Captain sat looking at the fire; and long after there was no fire to +look at, the Captain sat gazing on the rusty bars, with unavailing +thoughts of Walter and old Sol crowding through his mind. Retirement +to the stormy chamber at the top of the house brought no rest with it; +and the Captain rose up in the morning, sorrowful and unrefreshed. + +As soon as the City offices were opened, the Captain issued forth +to the counting-house of Dombey and Son. But there was no opening of +the Midshipman's windows that morning. Rob the Grinder, by the +Captain's orders, left the shutters closed, and the house was as a +house of death. + +It chanced that Mr Carker was entering the office, as Captain +Cuttle arrived at the door. Receiving the Manager's benison gravely +and silently, Captain Cuttle made bold to accompany him into his own +room. + +'Well, Captain Cuttle,' said Mr Carker, taking up his usual +position before the fireplace, and keeping on his hat, 'this is a bad +business.' + +'You have received the news as was in print yesterday, Sir?' said +the Captain. + +'Yes,' said Mr Carker, 'we have received it! It was accurately +stated. The underwriters suffer a considerable loss. We are very +sorry. No help! Such is life!' + +Mr Carker pared his nails delicately with a penknife, and smiled at +the Captain, who was standing by the door looking at him. + +'I excessively regret poor Gay,' said Carker, 'and the crew. I +understand there were some of our very best men among 'em. It always +happens so. Many men with families too. A comfort to reflect that poor +Gay had no family, Captain Cuttle!' + +The Captain stood rubbing his chin, and looking at the Manager. The +Manager glanced at the unopened letters lying on his desk, and took up +the newspaper. + +'Is there anything I can do for you, Captain Cuttle?' he asked +looking off it, with a smiling and expressive glance at the door. + +'I wish you could set my mind at rest, Sir, on something it's +uneasy about,' returned the Captain. + +'Ay!' exclaimed the Manager, 'what's that? Come, Captain Cuttle, I +must trouble you to be quick, if you please. I am much engaged.' + +'Lookee here, Sir,' said the Captain, advancing a step. 'Afore my +friend Wal'r went on this here disastrous voyage - + +'Come, come, Captain Cuttle,' interposed the smiling Manager, +'don't talk about disastrous voyages in that way. We have nothing to +do with disastrous voyages here, my good fellow. You must have begun +very early on your day's allowance, Captain, if you don't remember +that there are hazards in all voyages, whether by sea or land. You are +not made uneasy by the supposition that young what's-his-name was lost +in bad weather that was got up against him in these offices - are you? +Fie, Captain! Sleep, and soda-water, are the best cures for such +uneasiness as that. + +'My lad,' returned the Captain, slowly - 'you are a'most a lad to +me, and so I don't ask your pardon for that slip of a word, - if you +find any pleasure in this here sport, you ain't the gentleman I took +you for. And if you ain't the gentleman I took you for, may be my mind +has call to be uneasy. Now this is what it is, Mr Carker. - Afore that +poor lad went away, according to orders, he told me that he warn't a +going away for his own good, or for promotion, he know'd. It was my +belief that he was wrong, and I told him so, and I come here, your +head governor being absent, to ask a question or two of you in a civil +way, for my own satisfaction. Them questions you answered - free. Now +it'll ease my mind to know, when all is over, as it is, and when what +can't be cured must be endoored - for which, as a scholar, you'll +overhaul the book it's in, and thereof make a note - to know once +more, in a word, that I warn't mistaken; that I warn't back'ard in my +duty when I didn't tell the old man what Wal'r told me; and that the +wind was truly in his sail, when he highsted of it for Barbados +Harbour. Mr Carker,' said the Captain, in the goodness of his nature, +'when I was here last, we was very pleasant together. If I ain't been +altogether so pleasant myself this morning, on account of this poor +lad, and if I have chafed again any observation of yours that I might +have fended off, my name is Ed'ard Cuttle, and I ask your pardon.' + +'Captain Cuttle,' returned the Manager, with all possible +politeness, 'I must ask you to do me a favour.' + +'And what is it, Sir?' inquired the Captain. + +'To have the goodness to walk off, if you please,' rejoined the +Manager, stretching forth his arm, 'and to carry your jargon somewhere +else.' + +Every knob in the Captain's face turned white with astonishment and +indignation; even the red rim on his forehead faded, like a rainbow +among the gathering clouds. + +'I tell you what, Captain Cuttle,' said the Manager, shaking his +forefinger at him, and showing him all his teeth, but still amiably +smiling, 'I was much too lenient with you when you came here before. +You belong to an artful and audacious set of people. In my desire to +save young what's-his-name from being kicked out of this place, neck +and crop, my good Captain, I tolerated you; but for once, and only +once. Now, go, my friend!' + +The Captain was absolutely rooted to the ground, and speechless - + +'Go,' said the good-humoured Manager, gathering up his skirts, and +standing astride upon the hearth-rug, 'like a sensible fellow, and let +us have no turning out, or any such violent measures. If Mr Dombey +were here, Captain, you might be obliged to leave in a more +ignominious manner, possibly. I merely say, Go!' + +The Captain, laying his ponderous hand upon his chest, to assist +himself in fetching a deep breath, looked at Mr Carker from head to +foot, and looked round the little room, as if he did not clearly +understand where he was, or in what company. + +'You are deep, Captain Cuttle,' pursued Carker, with the easy and +vivacious frankness of a man of the world who knew the world too well +to be ruffled by any discovery of misdoing, when it did not +immediately concern himself, 'but you are not quite out of soundings, +either - neither you nor your absent friend, Captain. What have you +done with your absent friend, hey?' + +Again the Captain laid his hand upon his chest. After drawing +another deep breath, he conjured himself to 'stand by!' But In a +whisper. + +'You hatch nice little plots, and hold nice little councils, and +make nice little appointments, and receive nice little visitors, too, +Captain, hey?' said Carker, bending his brows upon him, without +showing his teeth any the less: 'but it's a bold measure to come here +afterwards. Not like your discretion! You conspirators, and hiders, +and runners-away, should know better than that. Will you oblige me by +going?' + +'My lad,' gasped the Captain, in a choked and trembling voice, and +with a curious action going on in the ponderous fist; 'there's a many +words I could wish to say to you, but I don't rightly know where +they're stowed just at present. My young friend, Wal'r, was drownded +only last night, according to my reckoning, and it puts me out, you +see. But you and me will come alongside o'one another again, my lad,' +said the Captain, holding up his hook, if we live.' + +'It will be anything but shrewd in you, my good fellow, if we do,' +returned the Manager, with the same frankness; 'for you may rely, I +give you fair warning, upon my detecting and exposing you. I don't +pretend to be a more moral man than my neighbours, my good Captain; +but the confidence of this House, or of any member of this House, is +not to be abused and undermined while I have eyes and ears. Good day!' +said Mr Carker, nodding his head. + +Captain Cuttle, looking at him steadily (Mr Carker looked full as +steadily at the Captain), went out of the office and left him standing +astride before the fire, as calm and pleasant as if there were no more +spots upon his soul than on his pure white linen, and his smooth sleek +skin. + +The Captain glanced, in passing through the outer counting-house, +at the desk where he knew poor Walter had been used to sit, now +occupied by another young boy, with a face almost as fresh and hopeful +as his on the day when they tapped the famous last bottle but one of +the old Madeira, in the little back parlour. The nation of ideas, thus +awakened, did the Captain a great deal of good; it softened him in the +very height of his anger, and brought the tears into his eyes. + +Arrived at the wooden Midshipman's again, and sitting down in a +corner of the dark shop, the Captain's indignation, strong as it was, +could make no head against his grief. Passion seemed not only to do +wrong and violence to the memory of the dead, but to be infected by +death, and to droop and decline beside it. All the living knaves and +liars in the world, were nothing to the honesty and truth of one dead +friend. + +The only thing the honest Captain made out clearly, in this state +of mind, besides the loss of Walter, was, that with him almost the +whole world of Captain Cuttle had been drowned. If he reproached +himself sometimes, and keenly too, for having ever connived at +Walter's innocent deceit, he thought at least as often of the Mr +Carker whom no sea could ever render up; and the Mr Dombey, whom he +now began to perceive was as far beyond human recall; and the 'Heart's +Delight,' with whom he must never foregather again; and the Lovely +Peg, that teak-built and trim ballad, that had gone ashore upon a +rock, and split into mere planks and beams of rhyme. The Captain sat +in the dark shop, thinking of these things, to the entire exclusion of +his own injury; and looking with as sad an eye upon the ground, as if +in contemplation of their actual fragments, as they floated past + +But the Captain was not unmindful, for all that, of such decent and +rest observances in memory of poor Walter, as he felt within his +power. Rousing himself, and rousing Rob the Grinder (who in the +unnatural twilight was fast asleep), the Captain sallied forth with +his attendant at his heels, and the door-key in his pocket, and +repairing to one of those convenient slop-selling establishments of +which there is abundant choice at the eastern end of London, purchased +on the spot two suits of mourning - one for Rob the Grinder, which was +immensely too small, and one for himself, which was immensely too +large. He also provided Rob with a species of hat, greatly to be +admired for its symmetry and usefulness, as well as for a happy +blending of the mariner with the coal-heaver; which is usually termed +a sou'wester; and which was something of a novelty in connexion with +the instrument business. In their several garments, which the vendor +declared to be such a miracle in point of fit as nothing but a rare +combination of fortuitous circumstances ever brought about, and the +fashion of which was unparalleled within the memory of the oldest +inhabitant, the Captain and Grinder immediately arrayed themselves: +presenting a spectacle fraught with wonder to all who beheld it. + +In this altered form, the Captain received Mr Toots. 'I'm took +aback, my lad, at present,' said the Captain, 'and will only confirm +that there ill news. Tell the young woman to break it gentle to the +young lady, and for neither of 'em never to think of me no more - +'special, mind you, that is - though I will think of them, when night +comes on a hurricane and seas is mountains rowling, for which overhaul +your Doctor Watts, brother, and when found make a note on." + +The Captain reserved, until some fitter time, the consideration of +Mr Toots's offer of friendship, and thus dismissed him. Captain +Cuttle's spirits were so low, in truth, that he half determined, that +day, to take no further precautions against surprise from Mrs +MacStinger, but to abandon himself recklessly to chance, and be +indifferent to what might happen. As evening came on, he fell into a +better frame of mind, however; and spoke much of Walter to Rob the +Grinder, whose attention and fidelity he likewise incidentally +commended. Rob did not blush to hear the Captain earnest in his +praises, but sat staring at him, and affecting to snivel with +sympathy, and making a feint of being virtuous, and treasuring up +every word he said (like a young spy as he was) with very promising +deceit. + +When Rob had turned in, and was fast asleep, the Captain trimmed +the candle, put on his spectacles - he had felt it appropriate to take +to spectacles on entering into the Instrument Trade, though his eyes +were like a hawk's - and opened the prayer-book at the Burial Service. +And reading softly to himself, in the little back parlour, and +stopping now and then to wipe his eyes, the Captain, In a true and +simple spirit, committed Walter's body to the deep. + + + +CHAPTER 33. + +Contrasts + + + +Turn we our eyes upon two homes; not lying side by side, but wide +apart, though both within easy range and reach of the great city of +London. + +The first is situated in the green and wooded country near Norwood. +It is not a mansion; it is of no pretensions as to size; but it is +beautifully arranged, and tastefully kept. The lawn, the soft, smooth +slope, the flower-garden, the clumps of trees where graceful forms of +ash and willow are not wanting, the conservatory, the rustic verandah +with sweet-smelling creeping plants entwined about the pillars, the +simple exterior of the house, the well-ordered offices, though all +upon the diminutive scale proper to a mere cottage, bespeak an amount +of elegant comfort within, that might serve for a palace. This +indication is not without warrant; for, within, it is a house of +refinement and luxury. Rich colours, excellently blended, meet the eye +at every turn; in the furniture - its proportions admirably devised to +suit the shapes and sizes of the small rooms; on the walls; upon the +floors; tingeing and subduing the light that comes in through the odd +glass doors and windows here and there. There are a few choice prints +and pictures too; in quaint nooks and recesses there is no want of +books; and there are games of skill and chance set forth on tables - +fantastic chessmen, dice, backgammon, cards, and billiards. + +And yet amidst this opulence of comfort, there is something in the +general air that is not well. Is it that the carpets and the cushions +are too soft and noiseless, so that those who move or repose among +them seem to act by stealth? Is it that the prints and pictures do not +commemorate great thoughts or deeds, or render nature in the Poetry of +landscape, hall, or hut, but are of one voluptuous cast - mere shows +of form and colour - and no more? Is it that the books have all their +gold outside, and that the titles of the greater part qualify them to +be companions of the prints and pictures? Is it that the completeness +and the beauty of the place are here and there belied by an +affectation of humility, in some unimportant and inexpensive regard, +which is as false as the face of the too truly painted portrait +hanging yonder, or its original at breakfast in his easy chair below +it? Or is it that, with the daily breath of that original and master +of all here, there issues forth some subtle portion of himself, which +gives a vague expression of himself to everything about him? + +It is Mr Carker the Manager who sits in the easy chair. A gaudy +parrot in a burnished cage upon the table tears at the wires with her +beak, and goes walking, upside down, in its dome-top, shaking her +house and screeching; but Mr Carker is indifferent to the bird, and +looks with a musing smile at a picture on the opposite wall. + +'A most extraordinary accidental likeness, certainly,' says he. + +Perhaps it is a Juno; perhaps a Potiphar's Wife'; perhaps some +scornful Nymph - according as the Picture Dealers found the market, +when they christened it. It is the figure of a woman, supremely +handsome, who, turning away, but with her face addressed to the +spectator, flashes her proud glance upon him. + +It is like Edith. + +With a passing gesture of his hand at the picture - what! a menace? +No; yet something like it. A wave as of triumph? No; yet more like +that. An insolent salute wafted from his lips? No; yet like that too - +he resumes his breakfast, and calls to the chafing and imprisoned +bird, who coming down into a pendant gilded hoop within the cage, like +a great wedding-ring, swings in it, for his delight. + +The second home is on the other side of London, near to where the +busy great north road of bygone days is silent and almost deserted, +except by wayfarers who toil along on foot. It is a poor small house, +barely and sparely furnished, but very clean; and there is even an +attempt to decorate it, shown in the homely flowers trained about the +porch and in the narrow garden. The neighbourhood in which it stands +has as little of the country to recommend'it, as it has of the town. +It is neither of the town nor country. The former, like the giant in +his travelling boots, has made a stride and passed it, and has set his +brick-and-mortar heel a long way in advance; but the intermediate +space between the giant's feet, as yet, is only blighted country, and +not town; and, here, among a few tall chimneys belching smoke all day +and night, and among the brick-fields and the lanes where turf is cut, +and where the fences tumble down, and where the dusty nettles grow, +and where a scrap or two of hedge may yet be seen, and where the +bird-catcher still comes occasionally, though he swears every time to +come no more - this second home is to be found.' + +She who inhabits it, is she who left the first in her devotion to +an outcast brother. She withdrew from that home its redeeming spirit, +and from its master's breast his solitary angel: but though his liking +for her is gone, after this ungrateful slight as he considers it; and +though he abandons her altogether in return, an old idea of her is not +quite forgotten even by him. Let her flower-garden, in which he never +sets his foot, but which is yet maintained, among all his costly +alterations, as if she had quitted it but yesterday, bear witness! + +Harriet Carker has changed since then, and on her beauty there has +fallen a heavier shade than Time of his unassisted self can cast, +all-potent as he is - the shadow of anxiety and sorrow, and the daily +struggle of a poor existence. But it is beauty still; and still a +gentle, quiet, and retiring beauty that must be sought out, for it +cannot vaunt itself; if it could, it would be what it is, no more. + +Yes. This slight, small, patient figure, neatly dressed in homely +stuffs, and indicating nothing but the dull, household virtues, that +have so little in common with the received idea of heroism and +greatness, unless, indeed, any ray of them should shine through the +lives of the great ones of the earth, when it becomes a constellation +and is tracked in Heaven straightway - this slight, small, patient +figure, leaning on the man still young but worn and grey, is she, his +sister, who, of all the world, went over to him in his shame and put +her hand in his, and with a sweet composure and determination, led him +hopefully upon his barren way. + +'It is early, John,' she said. 'Why do you go so early?' + +'Not many minutes earlier than usual, Harriet. If I have the time +to spare, I should like, I think - it's a fancy - to walk once by the +house where I took leave of him.' + +'I wish I had ever seen or known him, John.' + +'It is better as it is, my dear, remembering his fate.' + +'But I could not regret it more, though I had known him. Is not +your sorrow mine? And if I had, perhaps you would feel that I was a +better companion to you in speaking about him, than I may seem now. + +'My dearest sister! Is there anything within the range of rejoicing +or regret, in which I am not sure of your companionship?' + +'I hope you think not, John, for surely there is nothing!' + +'How could you be better to me, or nearer to me then, than you are +in this, or anything?' said her brother. 'I feel that you did know +him, Harriet, and that you shared my feelings towards him.' + +She drew the hand which had been resting on his shoulder, round his +neck, and answered, with some hesitation: + +'No, not quite.' + +'True, true!' he said; 'you think I might have done him no harm if +I had allowed myself to know him better?' + +'Think! I know it.' + +'Designedly, Heaven knows I would not,' he replied, shaking his +head mournfully; 'but his reputation was too precious to be perilled +by such association. Whether you share that knowledge, or do not, my +dear - ' + +'I do not,' she said quietly. + +'It is still the truth, Harriet, and my mind is lighter when I +think of him for that which made it so much heavier then.' He checked +himself in his tone of melancholy, and smiled upon her as he said +'Good-bye!' + +'Good-bye, dear John! In the evening, at the old time and place, I +shall meet you as usual on your way home. Good-bye.' + +The cordial face she lifted up to his to kiss him, was his home, +his life, his universe, and yet it was a portion of his punishment and +grief; for in the cloud he saw upon it - though serene and calm as any +radiant cloud at sunset - and in the constancy and devotion of her +life, and in the sacrifice she had made of ease, enjoyment, and hope, +he saw the bitter fruits of his old crime, for ever ripe and fresh. + +She stood at the door looking after him, with her hands loosely +clasped in each other, as he made his way over the frowzy and uneven +patch of ground which lay before their house, which had once (and not +long ago) been a pleasant meadow, and was now a very waste, with a +disorderly crop of beginnings of mean houses, rising out of the +rubbish, as if they had been unskilfully sown there. Whenever he +looked back - as once or twice he did - her cordial face shone like a +light upon his heart; but when he plodded on his way, and saw her not, +the tears were in her eyes as she stood watching him. + +Her pensive form was not long idle at the door. There was daily +duty to discharge, and daily work to do - for such commonplace spirits +that are not heroic, often work hard with their hands - and Harriet +was soon busy with her household tasks. These discharged, and the poor +house made quite neat and orderly, she counted her little stock of +money, with an anxious face, and went out thoughtfully to buy some +necessaries for their table, planning and conniving, as she went, how +to save. So sordid are the lives of such lo natures, who are not only +not heroic to their valets and waiting-women, but have neither valets +nor waiting-women to be heroic to withal! + +While she was absent, and there was no one in the house, there +approached it by a different way from that the brother had taken, a +gentleman, a very little past his prime of life perhaps, but of a +healthy florid hue, an upright presence, and a bright clear aspect, +that was gracious and good-humoured. His eyebrows were still black, +and so was much of his hair; the sprinkling of grey observable among +the latter, graced the former very much, and showed his broad frank +brow and honest eyes to great advantage. + +After knocking once at the door, and obtaining no response, this +gentleman sat down on a bench in the little porch to wait. A certain +skilful action of his fingers as he hummed some bars, and beat time on +the seat beside him, seemed to denote the musician; and the +extraordinary satisfaction he derived from humming something very slow +and long, which had no recognisable tune, seemed to denote that he was +a scientific one. + +The gentleman was still twirlIng a theme, which seemed to go round +and round and round, and in and in and in, and to involve itself like +a corkscrew twirled upon a table, without getting any nearer to +anything, when Harriet appeared returning. He rose up as she advanced, +and stood with his head uncovered. + +'You are come again, Sir!' she said, faltering. + +'I take that liberty,' he answered. 'May I ask for five minutes of +your leisure?' + +After a moment's hesitation, she opened the door, and gave him +admission to the little parlour. The gentleman sat down there, drew +his chair to the table over against her, and said, in a voice that +perfectly corresponded to his appearance, and with a simplicity that +was very engaging: + +'Miss Harriet, you cannot be proud. You signified to me, when I +called t'other morning, that you were. Pardon me if I say that I +looked into your face while you spoke, and that it contradicted you. I +look into it again,' he added, laying his hand gently on her arm, for +an instant, 'and it contradicts you more and more.' + +She was somewhat confused and agitated, and could make no ready +answer. + +'It is the mirror of truth,' said her visitor, 'and gentleness. +Excuse my trusting to it, and returning.' + +His manner of saying these words, divested them entirely of the +character of compliments. It was so plain, grave, unaffected, and +sincere, that she bent her head, as if at once to thank him, and +acknowledge his sincerity. + +'The disparity between our ages,' said the gentleman, 'and the +plainness of my purpose, empower me, I am glad to think, to speak my +mind. That is my mind; and so you see me for the second time.' + +'There is a kind of pride, Sir,' she returned, after a moment's +silence, 'or what may be supposed to be pride, which is mere duty. I +hope I cherish no other.' + +'For yourself,' he said. + +'For myself.' + +'But - pardon me - ' suggested the gentleman. 'For your brother +John?' + +'Proud of his love, I am,' said Harriet, looking full upon her +visitor, and changing her manner on the instant - not that it was less +composed and quiet, but that there was a deep impassioned earnestness +in it that made the very tremble in her voice a part of her firmness, +'and proud of him. Sir, you who strangely know the story of his life, +and repeated it to me when you were here last - ' + +'Merely to make my way into your confidence,' interposed the +gentleman. 'For heaven's sake, don't suppose - ' + +'I am sure,' she said, 'you revived it, in my hearing, with a kind +and good purpose. I am quite sure of it.' + +'I thank you,' returned her visitor, pressing her hand hastily. 'I +am much obliged to you. You do me justice, I assure you. You were +going to say, that I, who know the story of John Carker's life - ' + +'May think it pride in me,' she continued, 'when I say that I am +proud of him! I am. You know the time was, when I was not - when I +could not be - but that is past. The humility of many years, the +uncomplaining expiation, the true repentance, the terrible regret, the +pain I know he has even in my affection, which he thinks has cost me +dear, though Heaven knows I am happy, but for his sorrow I - oh, Sir, +after what I have seen, let me conjure you, if you are in any place of +power, and are ever wronged, never, for any wrong, inflict a +punishment that cannot be recalled; while there is a GOD above us to +work changes in the hearts He made.' + +'Your brother is an altered man,' returned the gentleman, +compassionately. 'I assure you I don't doubt it.' + +'He was an altered man when he did wrong,' said Harriet. 'He is an +altered man again, and is his true self now, believe me, Sir.' + +'But we go on, said her visitor, rubbing his forehead, in an absent +manner, with his hand, and then drumming thoughtfully on the table, +'we go on in our clockwork routine, from day to day, and can't make +out, or follow, these changes. They - they're a metaphysical sort of +thing. We - we haven't leisure for it. We - we haven't courage. +They're not taught at schools or colleges, and we don't know how to +set about it. In short, we are so d-------d business-like,' said the +gentleman, walking to the window, and back, and sitting down again, in +a state of extreme dissatisfaction and vexation. + +'I am sure,' said the gentleman, rubbing his forehead again; and +drumming on the table as before, 'I have good reason to believe that a +jog-trot life, the same from day to day, would reconcile one to +anything. One don't see anything, one don't hear anything, one don't +know anything; that's the fact. We go on taking everything for +granted, and so we go on, until whatever we do, good, bad, or +indifferent, we do from habit. Habit is all I shall have to report, +when I am called upon to plead to my conscience, on my death-bed. +''Habit," says I; ''I was deaf, dumb, blind, and paralytic, to a +million things, from habit." ''Very business-like indeed, Mr +What's-your-name,' says Conscience, ''but it won't do here!"' + +The gentleman got up and walked to the window again and back: +seriously uneasy, though giving his uneasiness this peculiar +expression. + +'Miss Harriet,' he said, resuming his chair, 'I wish you would let +me serve you. Look at me; I ought to look honest, for I know I am so, +at present. Do I?' + +'Yes,' she answered with a smile. + +'I believe every word you have said,' he returned. 'I am full of +self-reproach that I might have known this and seen this, and known +you and seen you, any time these dozen years, and that I never have. I +hardly know how I ever got here - creature that I am, not only of my +own habit, but of other people'sl But having done so, let me do +something. I ask it in all honour and respect. You inspire me with +both, in the highest degree. Let me do something.' + +'We are contented, Sir.' + +'No, no, not quite,' returned the gentleman. 'I think not quite. +There are some little comforts that might smooth your life, and his. +And his!' he repeated, fancying that had made some impression on her. +'I have been in the habit of thinking that there was nothing wanting +to be done for him; that it was all settled and over; in short, of not +thinking at all about it. I am different now. Let me do something for +him. You too,' said the visitor, with careful delicacy, 'have need to +watch your health closely, for his sake, and I fear it fails.' + +'Whoever you may be, Sir,' answered Harriet, raising her eyes to +his face, 'I am deeply grateful to you. I feel certain that in all you +say, you have no object in the world but kindness to us. But years +have passed since we began this life; and to take from my brother any +part of what has so endeared him to me, and so proved his better +resolution - any fragment of the merit of his unassisted, obscure, and +forgotten reparation - would be to diminish the comfort it will be to +him and me, when that time comes to each of us, of which you spoke +just now. I thank you better with these tears than any words. Believe +it, pray. + +The gentleman was moved, and put the hand she held out, to his +lips, much as a tender father might kiss the hand of a dutiful child. +But more reverently. + +'If the day should ever come, said Harriet, 'when he is restored, +in part, to the position he lost - ' + +'Restored!' cried the gentleman, quickly. 'How can that be hoped +for? In whose hands does the power of any restoration lie? It is no +mistake of mine, surely, to suppose that his having gained the +priceless blessing of his life, is one cause of the animosity shown to +him by his brother.' + +'You touch upon a subject that is never breathed between us; not +even between us,' said Harriet. + +'I beg your forgiveness,' said the visitor. 'I should have known +it. I entreat you to forget that I have done so, inadvertently. And +now, as I dare urge no more - as I am not sure that I have a right to +do so - though Heaven knows, even that doubt may be habit,' said the +gentleman, rubbing his head, as despondently as before, 'let me; +though a stranger, yet no stranger; ask two favours.' + +'What are they?' she inquired. + +'The first, that if you should see cause to change your resolution, +you will suffer me to be as your right hand. My name shall then be at +your service; it is useless now, and always insignificant.' + +'Our choice of friends,' she answered, smiling faintly, 'is not so +great, that I need any time for consideration. I can promise that.' + +'The second, that you will allow me sometimes, say every Monday +morning, at nine o'clock - habit again - I must be businesslike,' said +the gentleman, with a whimsical inclination to quarrel with himself on +that head, 'in walking past, to see you at the door or window. I don't +ask to come in, as your brother will be gone out at that hour. I don't +ask to speak to you. I merely ask to see, for the satisfaction of my +own mind, that you are well, and without intrusion to remind you, by +the sight of me, that you have a friend - an elderly friend, +grey-haired already, and fast growing greyer - whom you may ever +command.' + +The cordial face looked up in his; confided in it; and promised. + +'I understand, as before,' said the gentleman, rising, 'that you +purpose not to mention my visit to John Carker, lest he should be at +all distressed by my acquaintance with his history. I am glad of it, +for it is out of the ordinary course of things, and - habit again!' +said the gentleman, checking himself impatiently, 'as if there were no +better course than the ordinary course!' + +With that he turned to go, and walking, bareheaded, to the outside +of the little porch, took leave of her with such a happy mixture of +unconstrained respect and unaffected interest, as no breeding could +have taught, no truth mistrusted, and nothing but a pure and single +heart expressed. + +Many half-forgotten emotions were awakened in the sister's mind by +this visit. It was so very long since any other visitor had crossed +their threshold; it was so very long since any voice of apathy had +made sad music in her ears; that the stranger's figure remained +present to her, hours afterwards, when she sat at the window, plying +her needle; and his words seemed newly spoken, again and again. He had +touched the spring that opened her whole life; and if she lost him for +a short space, it was only among the many shapes of the one great +recollection of which that life was made. + +Musing and working by turns; now constraining herself to be steady +at her needle for a long time together, and now letting her work fall, +unregarded, on her lap, and straying wheresoever her busier thoughts +led, Harriet Carker found the hours glide by her, and the day steal +on. The morning, which had been bright and clear, gradually became +overcast; a sharp wind set in; the rain fell heavily; and a dark mist +drooping over the distant town, hid it from the view. + +She often looked with compassion, at such a time, upon the +stragglers who came wandering into London, by the great highway hard +by, and who, footsore and weary, and gazing fearfully at the huge town +before them, as if foreboding that their misery there would be but as +a drop of water in the sea, or as a grain of sea-sand on the shore, +went shrinking on, cowering before the angry weather, and looking as +if the very elements rejected them. Day after day, such travellers +crept past, but always, as she thought, In one direction - always +towards the town. Swallowed up in one phase or other of its immensity, +towards which they seemed impelled by a desperate fascination, they +never returned. Food for the hospitals, the churchyards, the prisons, +the river, fever, madness, vice, and death, - they passed on to the +monster, roaring in the distance, and were lost. + +The chill wind was howling, and the rain was falling, and the day +was darkening moodily, when Harriet, raising her eyes from the work on +which she had long since been engaged with unremitting constancy, saw +one of these travellers approaching. + +A woman. A solitary woman of some thirty years of age; tall; +well-formed; handsome; miserably dressed; the soil of many country +roads in varied weather - dust, chalk, clay, gravel - clotted on her +grey cloak by the streaming wet; no bonnet on her head, nothing to +defend her rich black hair from the rain, but a torn handkerchief; +with the fluttering ends of which, and with her hair, the wind blinded +her so that she often stopped to push them back, and look upon the way +she was going. + +She was in the act of doing so, when Harriet observed her. As her +hands, parting on her sunburnt forehead, swept across her face, and +threw aside the hindrances that encroached upon it, there was a +reckless and regardless beauty in it: a dauntless and depraved +indifference to more than weather: a carelessness of what was cast +upon her bare head from Heaven or earth: that, coupled with her misery +and loneliness, touched the heart of her fellow-woman. She thought of +all that was perverted and debased within her, no less than without: +of modest graces of the mind, hardened and steeled, like these +attractions of the person; of the many gifts of the Creator flung to +the winds like the wild hair; of all the beautiful ruin upon which the +storm was beating and the night was coming. + +Thinking of this, she did not turn away with a delicate indignation +- too many of her own compassionate and tender sex too often do - but +pitied her. + +Her fallen sister came on, looking far before her, trying with her +eager eyes to pierce the mist in which the city was enshrouded, and +glancing, now and then, from side to side, with the bewildered - and +uncertain aspect of a stranger. Though her tread was bold and +courageous, she was fatigued, and after a moment of irresolution, - +sat down upon a heap of stones; seeking no shelter from the rain, but +letting it rain on her as it would. + +She was now opposite the house; raising her head after resting it +for a moment on both hands, her eyes met those of Harriet. + +In a moment, Harriet was at the door; and the other, rising from +her seat at her beck, came slowly, and with no conciliatory look, +towards her. + +'Why do you rest in the rain?' said Harriet, gently. + +'Because I have no other resting-place,' was the reply. + +'But there are many places of shelter near here. This,' referring +to the little porch, 'is better than where you were. You are very +welcome to rest here.' + +The wanderer looked at her, in doubt and surprise, but without any +expression of thankfulness; and sitting down, and taking off one of +her worn shoes to beat out the fragments of stone and dust that were +inside, showed that her foot was cut and bleeding. + +Harriet uttering an expression of pity, the traveller looked up +with a contemptuous and incredulous smile. + +'Why, what's a torn foot to such as me?' she said. 'And what's a +torn foot in such as me, to such as you?' + +'Come in and wash it,' answered Harriet, mildly, 'and let me give +you something to bind it up.' + +The woman caught her arm, and drawing it before her own eyes, hid +them against it, and wept. Not like a woman, but like a stern man +surprised into that weakness; with a violent heaving of her breast, +and struggle for recovery, that showed how unusual the emotion was +with her. + +She submitted to be led into the house, and, evidently more in +gratitude than in any care for herself, washed and bound the injured +place. Harriet then put before her fragments of her own frugal dinner, +and when she had eaten of them, though sparingly, besought her, before +resuming her road (which she showed her anxiety to do), to dry her +clothes before the fire. Again, more in gratitude than with any +evidence of concern in her own behalf, she sat down in front of it, +and unbinding the handkerchief about her head, and letting her thick +wet hair fall down below her waist, sat drying it with the palms of +her hands, and looking at the blaze. + +'I daresay you are thinking,' she said, lifting her head suddenly, +'that I used to be handsome, once. I believe I was - I know I was - +Look here!' She held up her hair roughly with both hands; seizing it +as if she would have torn it out; then, threw it down again, and flung +it back as though it were a heap of serpents. + +'Are you a stranger in this place?' asked Harriet. + +'A stranger!' she returned, stopping between each short reply, and +looking at the fire. 'Yes. Ten or a dozen years a stranger. I have had +no almanack where I have been. Ten or a dozen years. I don't know this +part. It's much altered since I went away.' + +'Have you been far?' + +'Very far. Months upon months over the sea, and far away even then. +I have been where convicts go,' she added, looking full upon her +entertainer. 'I have been one myself.' + +'Heaven help you and forgive you!' was the gentle answer. + +'Ah! Heaven help me and forgive me!' she returned, nodding her head +at the fire. 'If man would help some of us a little more, God would +forgive us all the sooner perhaps.' + +But she was softened by the earnest manner, and the cordial face so +full of mildness and so free from judgment, of her, and said, less +hardily: + +'We may be about the same age, you and me. If I am older, it is not +above a year or two. Oh think of that!' + +She opened her arms, as though the exhibition of her outward form +would show the moral wretch she was; and letting them drop at her +sides, hung down her head. + +'There is nothing we may not hope to repair; it is never too late +to amend,' said Harriet. 'You are penitent + +'No,' she answered. 'I am not! I can't be. I am no such thing. Why +should I be penitent, and all the world go free? They talk to me of my +penitence. Who's penitent for the wrongs that have been done to me?' + +She rose up, bound her handkerchief about her head, and turned to +move away. + +'Where are you going?' said Harriet. + +'Yonder,' she answered, pointing with her hand. 'To London.' + +'Have you any home to go to?' + +'I think I have a mother. She's as much a mother, as her dwelling +is a home,' she answered with a bitter laugh. + +'Take this,' cried Harriet, putting money in her hand. 'Try to do +well. It is very little, but for one day it may keep you from harm.' + +'Are you married?' said the other, faintly, as she took it. + +'No. I live here with my brother. We have not much to spare, or I +would give you more.' + +'Will you let me kiss you?' + +Seeing no scorn or repugnance in her face, the object of her +charity bent over her as she asked the question, and pressed her lips +against her cheek. Once more she caught her arm, and covered her eyes +with it; and then was gone. + +Gone into the deepening night, and howling wind, and pelting rain; +urging her way on towards the mist-enshrouded city where the blurred +lights gleamed; and with her black hair, and disordered head-gear, +fluttering round her reckless face. + + + +CHAPTER 34. + +Another Mother and Daughter + + + +In an ugly and dark room, an old woman, ugly and dark too, sat +listening to the wind and rain, and crouching over a meagre fire. More +constant to the last-named occupation than the first, she never +changed her attitude, unless, when any stray drops of rain fell +hissing on the smouldering embers, to raise her head with an awakened +attention to the whistling and pattering outside, and gradually to let +it fall again lower and lower and lower as she sunk into a brooding +state of thought, in which the noises of the night were as +indistinctly regarded as is the monotonous rolling of a sea by one who +sits in contemplation on its shore. + +There was no light in the room save that which the fire afforded. +Glaring sullenly from time to time like the eye of a fierce beast half +asleep, it revealed no objects that needed to be jealous of a better +display. A heap of rags, a heap of bones, a wretched bed, two or three +mutilated chairs or stools, the black walls and blacker ceiling, were +all its winking brightness shone upon. As the old woman, with a +gigantic and distorted image of herself thrown half upon the wall +behind her, half upon the roof above, sat bending over the few loose +bricks within which it was pent, on the damp hearth of the chimney - +for there was no stove - she looked as if she were watching at some +witch's altar for a favourable token; and but that the movement of her +chattering jaws and trembling chin was too frequent and too fast for +the slow flickering of the fire, it would have seemed an illusion +wrought by the light, as it came and went, upon a face as motionless +as the form to which it belonged. + +If Florence could have stood within the room and looked upon the +original of the shadow thrown upon the wall and roof as it cowered +thus over the fire, a glance might have sufficed to recall the figure +of Good Mrs Brown; notwithstanding that her childish recollection of +that terrible old woman was as grotesque and exaggerated a presentment +of the truth, perhaps, as the shadow on the wall. But Florence was not +there to look on; and Good Mrs Brown remained unrecognised, and sat +staring at her fire, unobserved. + +Attracted by a louder sputtering than usual, as the rain came +hissing down the chimney in a little stream, the old woman raised her +head, impatiently, to listen afresh. And this time she did not drop it +again; for there was a hand upon the door, and a footstep in the room. + +'Who's that?' she said, looking over her shoulder. + +'One who brings you news, was the answer, in a woman's voice. + +'News? Where from?' + +'From abroad.' + +'From beyond seas?' cried the old woman, starting up. + +'Ay, from beyond seas.' + +The old woman raked the fire together, hurriedly, and going close +to her visitor who had entered, and shut the door, and who now stood +in the middle of the room, put her hand upon the drenched cloak, and +turned the unresisting figure, so as to have it in the full light of +the fire. She did not find what she had expected, whatever that might +be; for she let the cloak go again, and uttered a querulous cry of +disappointment and misery. + +'What is the matter?' asked her visitor. + +'Oho! Oho!' cried the old woman, turning her face upward, with a +terrible howl. + +'What is the matter?' asked the visitor again. + +'It's not my gal!' cried the old woman, tossing up her arms, and +clasping her hands above her head. 'Where's my Alice? Where's my +handsome daughter? They've been the death of her!' + +'They've not been the death of her yet, if your name's Marwood,' +said the visitor. + +'Have you seen my gal, then?' cried the old woman. 'Has she wrote +to me?' + +'She said you couldn't read,' returned the other. + +'No more I can!' exclaimed the old woman, wringing her hands. + +'Have you no light here?' said the other, looking round the room. + +The old woman, mumbling and shaking her head, and muttering to +herself about her handsome daughter, brought a candle from a cupboard +in the corner, and thrusting it into the fire with a trembling hand, +lighted it with some difficulty and set it on the table. Its dirty +wick burnt dimly at first, being choked in its own grease; and when +the bleared eyes and failing sight of the old woman could distinguish +anything by its light, her visitor was sitting with her arms folded, +her eyes turned downwards, and a handkerchief she had worn upon her +head lying on the table by her side. + +'She sent to me by word of mouth then, my gal, Alice?' mumbled the +old woman, after waiting for some moments. 'What did she say?' + +'Look,' returned the visitor. + +The old woman repeated the word in a scared uncertain way; and, +shading her eyes, looked at the speaker, round the room, and at the +speaker once again. + +'Alice said look again, mother;' and the speaker fixed her eyes +upon her. + +Again the old woman looked round the room, and at her visitor, and +round the room once more. Hastily seizing the candle, and rising from +her seat, she held it to the visitor's face, uttered a loud cry, set +down the light, and fell upon her neck! + +'It's my gal! It's my Alice! It's my handsome daughter, living and +come back!' screamed the old woman, rocking herself to and fro upon +the breast that coldly suffered her embrace. 'It's my gal! It's my +Alice! It's my handsome daughter, living and come back!' she screamed +again, dropping on the floor before her, clasping her knees, laying +her head against them, and still rocking herself to and fro with every +frantic demonstration of which her vitality was capable. + +'Yes, mother,' returned Alice, stooping forward for a moment and +kissing her, but endeavouring, even in the act, to disengage herself +from her embrace. 'I am here, at last. Let go, mother; let go. Get up, +and sit in your chair. What good does this do?' + +'She's come back harder than she went!' cried the mother, looking +up in her face, and still holding to her knees. 'She don't care for +me! after all these years, and all the wretched life I've led!' + +'Why> mother!' said Alice, shaking her ragged skirts to detach the +old woman from them: 'there are two sides to that. There have been +years for me as well as you, and there has been wretchedness for me as +well as you. Get up, get up!' + +Her mother rose, and cried, and wrung her hands, and stood at a +little distance gazing on her. Then she took the candle again, and +going round her, surveyed her from head to foot, making a low moaning +all the time. Then she put the candle down, resumed her chair, and +beating her hands together to a kind of weary tune, and rolling +herself from side to side, continued moaning and wailing to herself. + +Alice got up, took off her wet cloak, and laid it aside. That done, +she sat down as before, and with her arms folded, and her eyes gazing +at the fire, remained silently listening with a contemptuous face to +her old mother's inarticulate complainings. + +'Did you expect to see me return as youthful as I went away, +mother?' she said at length, turning her eyes upon the old woman. 'Did +you think a foreign life, like mine, was good for good looks? One +would believe so, to hear you!' + +'It ain't that!' cried the mother. 'She knows it!' + +'What is it then?' returned the daughter. 'It had best be something +that don't last, mother, or my way out is easier than my way in. + +'Hear that!' exclaimed the mother. 'After all these years she +threatens to desert me in the moment of her coming back again!' + +'I tell you, mother, for the second time, there have been years for +me as well as you,' said Alice. 'Come back harder? Of course I have +come back harder. What else did you expect?' + +'Harder to me! To her own dear mother!' cried the old woman + +'I don't know who began to harden me, if my own dear mother +didn't,' she returned, sitting with her folded arms, and knitted +brows, and compressed lips as if she were bent on excluding, by force, +every softer feeling from her breast. 'Listen, mother, to a word or +two. If we understand each other now, we shall not fall out any more, +perhaps. I went away a girl, and have come back a woman. I went away +undutiful enough, and have come back no better, you may swear. But +have you been very dutiful to me?' + +'I!' cried the old woman. 'To my gal! A mother dutiful to her own +child!' + +'It sounds unnatural, don't it?' returned the daughter, looking +coldly on her with her stern, regardless, hardy, beautiful face; 'but +I have thought of it sometimes, in the course of my lone years, till I +have got used to it. I have heard some talk about duty first and last; +but it has always been of my duty to other people. I have wondered now +and then - to pass away the time - whether no one ever owed any duty +to me. + +Her mother sat mowing, and mumbling, and shaking her head, but +whether angrily or remorsefully, or in denial, or only in her physical +infirmity, did not appear. + +'There was a child called Alice Marwood,' said the daughter, with a +laugh, and looking down at herself in terrible derision of herself, +'born, among poverty and neglect, and nursed in it. Nobody taught her, +nobody stepped forward to help her, nobody cared for her.' + +'Nobody!' echoed the mother, pointing to herself, and striking her +breast. + +'The only care she knew,' returned the daughter, 'was to be beaten, +and stinted, and abused sometimes; and she might have done better +without that. She lived in homes like this, and in the streets, with a +crowd of little wretches like herself; and yet she brought good looks +out of this childhood. So much the worse for her. She had better have +been hunted and worried to death for ugliness.' + +'Go on! go on!' exclaimed the mother. + +'I am going on,' returned the daughter. 'There was a girl called +Alice Marwood. She was handsome. She was taught too late, and taught +all wrong. She was too well cared for, too well trained, too well +helped on, too much looked after. You were very fond of her - you were +better off then. What came to that girl comes to thousands every year. +It was only ruin, and she was born to it.' + +'After all these years!' whined the old woman. 'My gal begins with +this.' + +'She'll soon have ended,' said the daughter. 'There was a criminal +called Alice Marwood - a girl still, but deserted and an outcast. And +she was tried, and she was sentenced. And lord, how the gentlemen in +the Court talked about it! and how grave the judge was on her duty, +and on her having perverted the gifts of nature - as if he didn't know +better than anybody there, that they had been made curses to her! - +and how he preached about the strong arm of the Law - so very strong +to save her, when she was an innocent and helpless little wretch! - +and how solemn and religious it all was! I have thought of that, many +times since, to be sure!' + +She folded her arms tightly on her breast, and laughed in a tone +that made the howl of the old woman musical. + +'So Alice Marwood was transported, mother,' she pursued, 'and was +sent to learn her duty, where there was twenty times less duty, and +more wickedness, and wrong, and infamy, than here. And Alice Marwood +is come back a woman. Such a woman as she ought to be, after all this. +In good time, there will be more solemnity, and more fine talk, and +more strong arm, most likely, and there will be an end of her; but the +gentlemen needn't be afraid of being thrown out of work. There's +crowds of little wretches, boy and girl, growing up in any of the +streets they live in, that'll keep them to it till they've made their +fortunes.' + +The old woman leaned her elbows on the table, and resting her face +upon her two hands, made a show of being in great distress - or really +was, perhaps. + +'There! I have done, mother,' said the daughter, with a motion of +her head, as if in dismissal of the subject. 'I have said enough. +Don't let you and I talk of being dutiful, whatever we do. Your +childhood was like mine, I suppose. So much the worse for both of us. +I don't want to blame you, or to defend myself; why should I? That's +all over long ago. But I am a woman - not a girl, now - and you and I +needn't make a show of our history, like the gentlemen in the Court. +We know all about it, well enough.' + +Lost and degraded as she was, there was a beauty in her, both of +face and form, which, even in its worst expression, could not but be +recognised as such by anyone regarding her with the least attention. +As she subsided into silence, and her face which had been harshly +agitated, quieted down; while her dark eyes, fixed upon the fire, +exchanged the reckless light that had animated them, for one that was +softened by something like sorrow; there shone through all her wayworn +misery and fatigue, a ray of the departed radiance of the fallen +angel.' + +Her mother, after watching her for some time without speaking, +ventured to steal her withered hand a little nearer to her across the +table; and finding that she permitted this, to touch her face, and +smooth her hair. With the feeling, as it seemed, that the old woman +was at least sincere in this show of interest, Alice made no movement +to check her; so, advancing by degrees, she bound up her daughter's +hair afresh, took off her wet shoes, if they deserved the name, spread +something dry upon her shoulders, and hovered humbly about her, +muttering to herself, as she recognised her old features and +expression more and more. + +'You are very poor, mother, I see,' said Alice, looking round, when +she had sat thus for some time. + +'Bitter poor, my deary,' replied the old woman. + +She admired her daughter, and was afraid of her. Perhaps her +admiration, such as it was, had originated long ago, when she first +found anything that was beautiful appearing in the midst of the +squalid fight of her existence. Perhaps her fear was referable, in +some sort, to the retrospect she had so lately heard. Be this as it +might, she stood, submissively and deferentially, before her child, +and inclined her head, as if in a pitiful entreaty to be spared any +further reproach. + +'How have you lived?' + +'By begging, my deary. + +'And pilfering, mother?' + +'Sometimes, Ally - in a very small way. I am old and timid. I have +taken trifles from children now and then, my deary, but not often. I +have tramped about the country, pet, and I know what I know. I have +watched.' + +'Watched?' returned the daughter, looking at her. + +'I have hung about a family, my deary,' said the mother, even more +humbly and submissively than before. + +'What family?' + +'Hush, darling. Don't be angry with me. I did it for the love of +you. In memory of my poor gal beyond seas.' She put out her hand +deprecatingly, and drawing it back again, laid it on her lips. + +'Years ago, my deary,' she pursued, glancing timidly at the +attentive and stem face opposed to her, 'I came across his little +child, by chance.' + +'Whose child?' + +'Not his, Alice deary; don't look at me like that; not his. How +could it be his? You know he has none.' + +'Whose then?' returned the daughter. 'You said his.' + +'Hush, Ally; you frighten me, deary. Mr Dombey's - only Mr +Dombey's. Since then, darling, I have seen them often. I have seen +him.' + +In uttering this last word, the old woman shrunk and recoiled, as +if with sudden fear that her daughter would strike her. But though the +daughter's face was fixed upon her, and expressed the most vehement +passion, she remained still: except that she clenched her arms tighter +and tighter within each other, on her bosom, as if to restrain them by +that means from doing an injury to herself, or someone else, in the +blind fury of the wrath that suddenly possessed her. + +'Little he thought who I was!' said the old woman, shaking her +clenched hand. + +'And little he cared!' muttered her daughter, between her teeth. + +'But there we were, said the old woman, 'face to face. I spoke to +him, and he spoke to me. I sat and watched him as he went away down a +long grove of trees: and at every step he took, I cursed him soul and +body.' + +'He will thrive in spite of that,' returned the daughter +disdainfully. + +'Ay, he is thriving,' said the mother. + +She held her peace; for the face and form before her were unshaped +by rage. It seemed as if the bosom would burst with the emotions that +strove within it. The effort that constrained and held it pent up, was +no less formidable than the rage itself: no less bespeaking the +violent and dangerous character of the woman who made it. But it +succeeded, and she asked, after a silence: + +'Is he married?' + +'No, deary,' said the mother. + +'Going to be?' + +'Not that I know of, deary. But his master and friend is married. +Oh, we may give him joy! We may give 'em all joy!' cried the old +woman, hugging herself with her lean arms in her exultation. 'Nothing +but joy to us will come of that marriage. Mind met' + +The daughter looked at her for an explanation. + +'But you are wet and tired; hungry and thirsty,' said the old +woman, hobbling to the cupboard; 'and there's little here, and little' +- diving down into her pocket, and jingling a few half- pence on the +table - 'little here. Have you any money, Alice, deary?' + +The covetous, sharp, eager face, with which she 'asked the question +and looked on, as her daughter took out of her bosom the little gift +she had so lately received, told almost as much of the history of this +parent and child as the child herself had told in words. + +'Is that all?' said the mother. + +'I have no more. I should not have this, but for charity.' + +'But for charity, eh, deary?' said the old woman, bending greedily +over the table to look at the money, which she appeared distrustful of +her daughter's still retaining in her hand, and gazing on. 'Humph! six +and six is twelve, and six eighteen - so - we must make the most of +it. I'll go buy something to eat and drink.' + +With greater alacrity than might have been expected in one of her +appearance - for age and misery seemed to have made her as decrepit as +ugly - she began to occupy her trembling hands in tying an old bonnet +on her head, and folding a torn shawl about herself: still eyeing the +money in her daughter's hand, with the same sharp desire. + +'What joy is to come to us of this marriage, mother?' asked the +daughter. 'You have not told me that.' + +'The joy,' she replied, attiring herself, with fumbling fingers, +'of no love at all, and much pride and hate, my deary. The joy of +confusion and strife among 'em, proud as they are, and of danger - +danger, Alice!' + +'What danger?' + +'I have seen what I have seen. I know what I know!' chuckled the +mother. 'Let some look to it. Let some be upon their guard. My gal may +keep good company yet!' + +Then, seeing that in the wondering earnestness with which her +daughter regarded her, her hand involuntarily closed upon the money, +the old woman made more speed to secure it, and hurriedly added, 'but +I'll go buy something; I'll go buy something.' + +As she stood with her hand stretched out before her daughter, her +daughter, glancing again at the money, put it to her lips before +parting with it. + +'What, Ally! Do you kiss it?' chuckled the old woman. 'That's like +me - I often do. Oh, it's so good to us!' squeezing her own tarnished +halfpence up to her bag of a throat, 'so good to us in everything but +not coming in heaps!' + +'I kiss it, mother,' said the daughter, 'or I did then - I don't +know that I ever did before - for the giver's sake.' + +'The giver, eh, deary?' retorted the old woman, whose dimmed eyes +glistened as she took it. 'Ay! I'll kiss it for the giver's sake, too, +when the giver can make it go farther. But I'll go spend it, deary. +I'll be back directly.' + +'You seem to say you know a great deal, mother,' said the daughter, +following her to the door with her eyes. 'You have grown very wise +since we parted.' + +'Know!' croaked the old woman, coming back a step or two, 'I know +more than you think I know more than he thinks, deary, as I'll tell +you by and bye. I know all' + +The daughter smiled incredulously. + +'I know of his brother, Alice,' said the old woman, stretching out +her neck with a leer of malice absolutely frightful, 'who might have +been where you have been - for stealing money - and who lives with his +sister, over yonder, by the north road out of London.' + +'Where?' + +'By the north road out of London, deary. You shall see the house if +you like. It ain't much to boast of, genteel as his own is. No, no, +no,' cried the old woman, shaking her head and laughing; for her +daughter had started up, 'not now; it's too far off; it's by the +milestone, where the stones are heaped; - to-morrow, deary, if it's +fine, and you are in the humour. But I'll go spend - ' + +'Stop!' and the daughter flung herself upon her, with her former +passion raging like a fire. 'The sister is a fair-faced Devil, with +brown hair?' + +The old woman, amazed and terrified, nodded her head. + +'I see the shadow of him in her face! It's a red house standing by +itself. Before the door there is a small green porch.' + +Again the old woman nodded. + +'In which I sat to-day! Give me back the money.' + +'Alice! Deary!' + +'Give me back the money, or you'll be hurt.' + +She forced it from the old woman's hand as she spoke, and utterly +indifferent to her complainings and entreaties, threw on the garments +she had taken off, and hurried out, with headlong speed. + +The mother followed, limping after her as she could, and +expostulating with no more effect upon her than upon the wind and rain +and darkness that encompassed them. Obdurate and fierce in her own +purpose, and indifferent to all besides, the daughter defied the +weather and the distance, as if she had known no travel or fatigue, +and made for the house where she had been relieved. After some quarter +of an hour's walking, the old woman, spent and out of breath, ventured +to hold by her skirts; but she ventured no more, and they travelled on +in silence through the wet and gloom. If the mother now and then +uttered a word of complaint, she stifled it lest her daughter should +break away from her and leave her behind; and the daughter was dumb. + +It was within an hour or so of midnight, when they left the regular +streets behind them, and entered on the deeper gloom of that neutral +ground where the house was situated. The town lay in the distance, +lurid and lowering; the bleak wind howled over the open space; all +around was black, wild, desolate. + +'This is a fit place for me!' said the daughter, stopping to look +back. 'I thought so, when I was here before, to-day.' + +'Alice, my deary,' cried the mother, pulling her gently by the +skirt. 'Alice!' + +'What now, mother?' + +'Don't give the money back, my darling; please don't. We can't +afford it. We want supper, deary. Money is money, whoever gives it. +Say what you will, but keep the money.' + +'See there!' was all the daughter's answer. 'That is the house I +mean. Is that it?' + +The old woman nodded in the affirmative; and a few more paces +brought them to the threshold. There was the light of fire and candle +in the room where Alice had sat to dry her clothes; and on her +knocking at the door, John Carker appeared from that room. + +He was surprised to see such visitors at such an hour, and asked +Alice what she wanted. + +'I want your sister,' she said. 'The woman who gave me money +to-day.' + +At the sound of her raised voice, Harriet came out. + +'Oh!' said Alice. 'You are here! Do you remember me?' + +'Yes,' she answered, wondering. + +The face that had humbled itself before her, looked on her now with +such invincible hatred and defiance; and the hand that had gently +touched her arm, was clenched with such a show of evil purpose, as if +it would gladly strangle her; that she drew close to her brother for +protection. + +'That I could speak with you, and not know you! That I could come +near you, and not feel what blood was running in your veins, by the +tingling of my own!' said Alice, with a menacing gesture. + +'What do you mean? What have I done?' + +'Done!' returned the other. 'You have sat me by your fire; you have +given me food and money; you have bestowed your compassion on me! You! +whose name I spit upon!' + +The old woman, with a malevolence that made her uglIness quite +awful, shook her withered hand at the brother and sister in +confirmation of her daughter, but plucked her by the skirts again, +nevertheless, imploring her to keep the money. + +'If I dropped a tear upon your hand, may it wither it up! If I +spoke a gentle word in your hearing, may it deafen you! If I touched +you with my lips, may the touch be poison to you! A curse upon this +roof that gave me shelter! Sorrow and shame upon your head! Ruin upon +all belonging to you!' + +As she said the words, she threw the money down upon the ground, +and spurned it with her foot. + +'I tread it in the dust: I wouldn't take it if it paved my way to +Heaven! I would the bleeding foot that brought me here to-day, had +rotted off, before it led me to your house!' + +Harriet, pale and trembling, restrained her brother, and suffered +her to go on uninterrupted. + +'It was well that I should be pitied and forgiven by you, or anyone +of your name, in the first hour of my return! It was well that you +should act the kind good lady to me! I'll thank you when I die; I'll +pray for you, and all your race, you may be sure!' + +With a fierce action of her hand, as if she sprinkled hatred on the +ground, and with it devoted those who were standing there to +destruction, she looked up once at the black sky, and strode out into +the wild night. + +The mother, who had plucked at her skirts again and again in vain, +and had eyed the money lying on the threshold with an absorbing greed +that seemed to concentrate her faculties upon it, would have prowled +about, until the house was dark, and then groped in the mire on the +chance of repossessing herself of it. But the daughter drew her away, +and they set forth, straight, on their return to their dwelling; the +old woman whimpering and bemoaning their loss upon the road, and +fretfully bewailing, as openly as she dared, the undutiful conduct of +her handsome girl in depriving her of a supper, on the very first +night of their reunion. + +Supperless to bed she went, saving for a few coarse fragments; and +those she sat mumbling and munching over a scrap of fire, long after +her undutiful daughter lay asleep. + +Were this miserable mother, and this miserable daughter, only the +reduction to their lowest grade, of certain social vices sometimes +prevailing higher up? In this round world of many circles within +circles, do we make a weary journey from the high grade to the low, to +find at last that they lie close together, that the two extremes +touch, and that our journey's end is but our starting-place? Allowing +for great difference of stuff and texture, was the pattern of this +woof repeated among gentle blood at all? + +Say, Edith Dombey! And Cleopatra, best of mothers, let us have your +testimony! + + + +CHAPTER 35. + +The Happy Pair + + + +The dark blot on the street is gone. Mr Dombey's mansion, if it be +a gap among the other houses any longer, is only so because it is not +to be vied with in its brightness, and haughtily casts them off. The +saying is, that home is home, be it never so homely. If it hold good +in the opposite contingency, and home is home be it never so stately, +what an altar to the Household Gods is raised up here! + +Lights are sparkling in the windows this evening, and the ruddy +glow of fires is warm and bright upon the hangings and soft carpets, +and the dinner waits to be served, and the dinner-table is handsomely +set forth, though only for four persons, and the side board is +cumbrous with plate. It is the first time that the house has been +arranged for occupation since its late changes, and the happy pair are +looked for every minute. + +Only second to the wedding morning, in the interest and expectation +it engenders among the household, is this evening of the coming home. +Mrs Perch is in the kitchen taking tea; and has made the tour of the +establishment, and priced the silks and damasks by the yard, and +exhausted every interjection in the dictionary and out of it +expressive of admiration and wonder. The upholsterer's foreman, who +has left his hat, with a pocket-handkerchief in it, both smelling +strongly of varnish, under a chair in the hall, lurks about the house, +gazing upwards at the cornices, and downward at the carpets, and +occasionally, in a silent transport of enjoyment, taking a rule out of +his pocket, and skirmishingly measuring expensive objects, with +unutterable feelings. Cook is in high spirits, and says give her a +place where there's plenty of company (as she'll bet you sixpence +there will be now), for she is of a lively disposition, and she always +was from a child, and she don't mind who knows it; which sentiment +elicits from the breast of Mrs Perch a responsive murmur of support +and approbation. All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for 'em - but +marriage is a lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she +feels the independence and the safety of a single life. Mr Towlinson +is saturnine and grim' and says that's his opinion too, and give him +War besides, and down with the French - for this young man has a +general impression that every foreigner is a Frenchman, and must be by +the laws of nature. + +At each new sound of wheels, they all stop> whatever they are +saying, and listen; and more than once there is a general starting up +and a cry of 'Here they are!' But here they are not yet; and Cook +begins to mourn over the dinner, which has been put back twice, and +the upholsterer's foreman still goes lurking about the rooms, +undisturbed in his blissful reverie! + +Florence is ready to receive her father and her new Mama Whether +the emotions that are throbbing in her breast originate In pleasure or +in pain, she hardly knows. But the fluttering heart sends added colour +to her cheeks, and brightness to her eyes; and they say downstairs, +drawing their heads together - for they always speak softly when they +speak of her - how beautiful Miss Florence looks to-night, and what a +sweet young lady she has grown, poor dear! A pause succeeds; and then +Cook, feeling, as president, that her sentiments are waited for, +wonders whether - and there stops. The housemaid wonders too, and so +does Mrs Perch, who has the happy social faculty of always wondering +when other people wonder, without being at all particular what she +wonders at. Mr Towlinson, who now descries an opportunity of bringing +down the spirits of the ladies to his own level, says wait and see; he +wishes some people were well out of this. Cook leads a sigh then, and +a murmur of 'Ah, it's a strange world, it is indeed!' and when it has +gone round the table, adds persuasively, 'but Miss Florence can't well +be the worse for any change, Tom.' Mr Towlinson's rejoinder, pregnant +with frightful meaning, is 'Oh, can't she though!' and sensible that a +mere man can scarcely be more prophetic, or improve upon that, he +holds his peace. + +Mrs Skewton, prepared to greet her darling daughter and dear +son-in-law with open arms, is appropriately attired for that purpose +in a very youthful costume, with short sleeves. At present, however, +her ripe charms are blooming in the shade of her own apartments, +whence she had not emerged since she took possession of them a few +hours ago, and where she is fast growing fretful, on account of the +postponement of dinner. The maid who ought to be a skeleton, but is in +truth a buxom damsel, is, on the other hand, In a most amiable state: +considering her quarterly stipend much safer than heretofore, and +foreseeing a great improvement in her board and lodging. + +Where are the happy pair, for whom this brave home is waiting? Do +steam, tide, wind, and horses, all abate their speed, to linger on +such happiness? Does the swarm of loves and graces hovering about them +retard their progress by its numbers? Are there so many flowers in +their happy path, that they can scarcely move along, without +entanglement in thornless roses, and sweetest briar? + +They are here at last! The noise of wheels is heard, grows louder, +and a carriage drives up to the door! A thundering knock from the +obnoxious foreigner anticipates the rush of Mr Towlinson and party to +open it; and Mr Dombey and his bride alight, and walk in arm in arm. + +'My sweetest Edith!' cries an agitated voice upon the stairs. 'My +dearest Dombey!' and the short sleeves wreath themselves about the +happy couple in turn, and embrace them. + +Florence had come down to the hall too, but did not advance: +reserving her timid welcome until these nearer and dearer transports +should subside. But the eyes of Edith sought her out, upon the +threshold; and dismissing her sensitive parent with a slight kiss on +the cheek, she hurried on to Florence and embraced her. + +'How do you do, Florence?' said Mr Dombey, putting out his hand. + +As Florence, trembling, raised it to her lips, she met his glance. +The look was cold and distant enough, but it stirred her heart to +think that she observed in it something more of interest than he had +ever shown before. It even expressed a kind of faint surprise, and not +a disagreeable surprise, at sight of her. She dared not raise her eyes +to his any more; but she felt that he looked at her once again, and +not less favourably. Oh what a thrill of joy shot through her, +awakened by even this intangible and baseless confirmation of her hope +that she would learn to win him, through her new and beautiful Mama! + +'You will not be long dressing, Mrs Dombey, I presume?' said Mr +Dombey. + +'I shall be ready immediately.' + +'Let them send up dinner in a quarter of an hour.' + +With that Mr Dombey stalked away to his own dressing-room, and Mrs +Dombey went upstairs to hers. Mrs Skewton and Florence repaired to the +drawing-room, where that excellent mother considered it incumbent on +her to shed a few irrepressible tears, supposed to be forced from her +by her daughter's felicity; and which she was still drying, very +gingerly, with a laced corner of her pocket-handkerchief, when her +son-in-law appeared. + +'And how, my dearest Dombey, did you find that delightfullest of +cities, Paris?' she asked, subduing her emotion. + +'It was cold,' returned Mr Dombey. + +'Gay as ever,' said Mrs Skewton, 'of course. + +'Not particularly. I thought it dull,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Fie, my dearest Dombey!' archly; 'dull!' + +'It made that impression upon me, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with +grave politeness. 'I believe Mrs Dombey found it dull too. She +mentioned once or twice that she thought it so.' + +'Why, you naughty girl!' cried Mrs Skewton, rallying her dear +child, who now entered, 'what dreadfully heretical things have you +been saying about Paris?' + +Edith raised her eyebrows with an air of weariness; and passing the +folding-doors which were thrown open to display the suite of rooms in +their new and handsome garniture, and barely glancing at them as she +passed, sat down by Florence. + +'My dear Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, 'how charmingly these people +have carried out every idea that we hinted. They have made a perfect +palace of the house, positively.' + +'It is handsome,' said Mr Dombey, looking round. 'I directed that +no expense should be spared; and all that money could do, has been +done, I believe.' + +'And what can it not do, dear Dombey?' observed Cleopatra. + +'It is powerful, Madam,' said Mr Dombey. + +He looked in his solemn way towards his wife, but not a word said +she. + +'I hope, Mrs Dombey,' addressing her after a moment's silence, with +especial distinctness; 'that these alterations meet with your +approval?' + +'They are as handsome as they can be,' she returned, with haughty +carelessness. 'They should be so, of' course. And I suppose they are.' + +An expression of scorn was habitual to the proud face, and seemed +inseparable from it; but the contempt with which it received any +appeal to admiration, respect, or consideration on the ground of his +riches, no matter how slight or ordinary in itself, was a new and +different expression, unequalled in intensity by any other of which it +was capable. Whether Mr Dombey, wrapped in his own greatness, was at +all aware of this, or no, there had not been wanting opportunities +already for his complete enlightenment; and at that moment it might +have been effected by the one glance of the dark eye that lighted on +him, after it had rapidly and scornfully surveyed the theme of his +self-glorification. He might have read in that one glance that nothing +that his wealth could do, though it were increased ten thousand fold, +could win him for its own sake, one look of softened recognition from +the defiant woman, linked to him, but arrayed with her whole soul +against him. He might have read in that one glance that even for its +sordid and mercenary influence upon herself, she spurned it, while she +claimed its utmost power as her right, her bargain - as the base and +worthless recompense for which she had become his wife. He might have +read in it that, ever baring her own head for the lightning of her own +contempt and pride to strike, the most innocent allusion to the power +of his riches degraded her anew, sunk her deeper in her own respect, +and made the blight and waste within her more complete. + +But dinner was announced, and Mr Dombey led down Cleopatra; Edith +and his daughter following. Sweeping past the gold and silver +demonstration on the sideboard as if it were heaped-up dirt, and +deigning to bestow no look upon the elegancies around her, she took +her place at his board for the first time, and sat, like a statue, at +the feast. + +Mr Dombey, being a good deal in the statue way himself, was well +enough pleased to see his handsome wife immovable and proud and cold. +Her deportment being always elegant and graceful, this as a general +behaviour was agreeable and congenial to him. Presiding, therefore, +with his accustomed dignity, and not at all reflecting on his wife by +any warmth or hilarity of his own, he performed his share of the +honours of the table with a cool satisfaction; and the installation +dinner, though not regarded downstairs as a great success, or very +promising beginning, passed oil, above, in a sufficiently polite, +genteel, and frosty manner. + +Soon after tea' Mrs Skewton, who affected to be quite overcome and +worn Out by her emotions of happiness, arising in the contemplation of +her dear child united to the man of her heart, but who, there is +reason to suppose, found this family party somewhat dull, as she +yawned for one hour continually behind her fan, retired to bed. Edith, +also, silently withdrew and came back' no more. Thus, it happened that +Florence, who had been upstairs to have some conversation with +Diogenes, returning to the drawing-room with her little work-basket, +found no one there but her father, who was walking to and fro, in +dreary magnificence. + +'I beg your pardon. Shall I go away, Papa?' said Florence faintly, +hesitating at the door. + +'No,' returned Mr Dombey, looking round over his shoulder; you can +come and go here, Florence, as you please. This is not my private +room. + +Florence entered, and sat down at a distant little table with her +work: finding herself for the first time in her life - for the very +first time within her memory from her infancy to that hour - alone +with her father, as his companion. She, his natural companion, his +only child, who in her lonely life and grief had known the suffering +of a breaking heart; who, in her rejected love, had never breathed his +name to God at night, but with a tearful blessing, heavier on him than +a curse; who had prayed to die young, so she might only die in his +arms; who had, all through, repaid the agony of slight and coldness, +and dislike, with patient unexacting love, excusing him, and pleading +for him, like his better angel! + +She trembled, and her eyes were dim. His figure seemed to grow in +height and bulk before her as he paced the room: now it was all +blurred and indistinct; now clear again, and plain; and now she seemed +to think that this had happened, just the same, a multitude of years +ago. She yearned towards him, and yet shrunk from his approach. +Unnatural emotion in a child, innocent of wrong! Unnatural the hand +that had directed the sharp plough, which furrowed up her gentle +nature for the sowing of its seeds! + +Bent upon not distressing or offending him by her distress, +Florence controlled herself, and sat quietly at her work. After a few +more turns across and across the room, he left off pacing it; and +withdrawing into a shadowy corner at some distance, where there was an +easy chair, covered his head with a handkerchief, and composed himself +to sleep. + +It was enough for Florence to sit there watching him; turning her +eyes towards his chair from time to time; watching him with her +thoughts, when her face was intent upon her work; and sorrowfully glad +to think that he could sleep, while she was there, and that he was not +made restless by her strange and long-forbidden presence. + +What would have been her thoughts if she had known that he was +steadily regarding her; that the veil upon his face, by accident or by +design, was so adjusted that his sight was free, and that itnever +wandered from her face face an instant That when she looked towards +him' In the obscure dark corner, her speaking eyes, more earnest and +pathetic in their voiceless speech than all the orators of all the +world, and impeaching him more nearly in their mute address, met his, +and did not know it! That when she bent her head again over her work, +he drew his breath more easily, but with the same attention looked +upon her still - upon her white brow and her falling hair, and busy +hands; and once attracted, seemed to have no power to turn his eyes +away! + +And what were his thoughts meanwhile? With what emotions did he +prolong the attentive gaze covertly directed on his unknown daughter? +Was there reproach to him in the quiet figure and the mild eyes? Had +he begun to her disregarded claims and did they touch him home at +last, and waken him to some sense of his cruel injustice? + +There are yielding moments in the lives of the sternest and +harshest men, though such men often keep their secret well. The sight +ofher in her beauty, almost changed into a woman without his +knowledge, may have struck out some such moments even In his life of +pride. Some passing thought that he had had a happy home within his +reach-had had a household spirit bending at has feet - had overlooked +it in his stiffnecked sullen arrogance, and wandered away and lost +himself, may have engendered them. Some simple eloquence distinctly +heard, though only uttered in her eyes, unconscious that he read them' +as'By the death-beds I have tended, by the childhood I have suffered, +by our meeting in this dreary house at midnight, by the cry wrung from +me in the anguish of my heart, oh, father, turn to me and seek a +refuge in my love before it is too late!' may have arrested them. +Meaner and lower thoughts, as that his dead boy was now superseded by +new ties, and he could forgive the having been supplanted in his +affection, may have occasioned them. The mere association of her as an +ornament, with all the ornament and pomp about him, may have been +sufficient. But as he looked, he softened to her, more and more. As he +looked, she became blended with the child he had loved, and he could +hardly separate the two. As he looked, he saw her for an instant by a +clearer and a brighter light, not bending over that child's pillow as +his rival - monstrous thought - but as the spirit of his home, and in +the action tending himself no less, as he sat once more with his +bowed-down head upon his hand at the foot of the little bed. He felt +inclined to speak to her, and call her to him. The words 'Florence, +come here!' were rising to his lips - but slowly and with difficulty, +they were so very strange - when they were checked and stifled by a +footstep on the stair. + +It was his wife's. She had exchanged her dinner dress for a loose +robe, and unbound her hair, which fell freely about her neck. But this +was not the change in her that startled him. + +'Florence, dear,' she said, 'I have been looking for you +everywhere.' + +As she sat down by the side of Florence, she stooped and kissed her +hand. He hardly knew his wife. She was so changed. It was not merely +that her smile was new to him - though that he had never seen; but her +manner, the tone of her voice, the light of her eyes, the interest, +and confidence, and winning wish to please, expressed in all-this was +not Edith. + +'Softly, dear Mama. Papa is asleep.' + +It was Edith now. She looked towards the corner where he was, and +he knew that face and manner very well. + +'I scarcely thought you could be here, Florence.' + +Again, how altered and how softened, in an instant! + +'I left here early,' pursued Edith, 'purposely to sit upstairs and +talk with you. But, going to your room, I found my bird was flown, and +I have been waiting there ever since, expecting its return. + +If it had been a bird, indeed, she could not have taken it more +tenderly and gently to her breast, than she did Florence. + +'Come, dear!' + +'Papa will not expect to find me, I suppose, when he wakes,' +hesitated Florence. + +'Do you think he will, Florence?' said Edith, looking full upon +her. + +Florence drooped her head, and rose, and put up her work-basket +Edith drew her hand through her arm, and they went out of the room +like sisters. Her very step was different and new to him' Mr Dombey +thought, as his eyes followed her to the door. + +He sat in his shadowy corner so long, that the church clocks struck +the hour three times before he moved that night. All that while his +face was still intent upon the spot where Florence had been seated. +The room grew darker, as the candles waned and went out; but a +darkness gathered on his face, exceeding any that the night could +cast, and rested there. + +Florence and Edith, seated before the fire in the remote room where +little Paul had died, talked together for a long time. Diogenes, who +was of the party, had at first objected to the admission of Edith, +and, even In deference to his mistress's wish, had only permitted it +under growling protest. But, emerging by little and little from the +ante-room, whither he had retired in dudgeon, he soon appeared to +comprehend, that with the most amiable intentions he had made one of +those mistakes which will occasionally arise in the best-regulated +dogs' minds; as a friendly apology for which he stuck himself up on +end between the two, in a very hot place in front of the fire, and sat +panting at it, with his tongue out, and a most imbecile expression of +countenance, listening to the conversation. + +It turned, at first, on Florence's books and favourite pursuits, +and on the manner in which she had beguiled the interval since the +marriage. The last theme opened up to her a subject which lay very +near her heart, and she said, with the tears starting to her eyes: + +'Oh, Mama! I have had a great sorrow since that day.' + +'You a great sorrow, Florence!' + +'Yes. Poor Walter is drowned.' + +Florence spread her hands before her face, and wept with all her +heart. Many as were the secret tears which Walter's fate had cost her, +they flowed yet, when she thought or spoke of him. + +'But tell me, dear,' said Edith, soothing her. 'Who was Walter? +What was he to you?' + +'He was my brother, Mama. After dear Paul died, we said we would be +brother and sister. I had known him a long time - from a little child. +He knew Paul, who liked him very much; Paul said, almost at the last, +"Take care of Walter, dear Papa! I was fond of him!" Walter had been +brought in to see him, and was there then - in this room. + +'And did he take care of Walter?' inquired Edith, sternly. + +'Papa? He appointed him to go abroad. He was drowned in shipwreck +on his voyage,' said Florence, sobbing. + +'Does he know that he is dead?' asked Edith. + +'I cannot tell, Mama. I have no means of knowing. Dear Mama!' cried +Florence, clinging to her as for help, and hiding her face upon her +bosom, 'I know that you have seen - ' + +'Stay! Stop, Florence.' Edith turned so pale, and spoke so +earnestly, that Florence did not need her restraining hand upon her +lips. 'Tell me all about Walter first; let me understand this history +all through.' + +Florence related it, and everything belonging to it, even down to +the friendship of Mr Toots, of whom she could hardly speak in her +distress without a tearful smile, although she was deeply grateful to +him. When she had concluded her account, to the whole of which Edith, +holding her hand, listened with close attention, and when a silence +had succeeded, Edith said: + +'What is it that you know I have seen, Florence?' + +'That I am not,' said Florence, with the same mute appeal, and the +same quick concealment of her face as before, 'that I am not a +favourite child, Mama. I never have been. I have never known how to +be. I have missed the way, and had no one to show it to me. Oh, let me +learn from you how to become dearer to Papa Teach me! you, who can so +well!' and clinging closer to her, with some broken fervent words of +gratitude and endearment, Florence, relieved of her sad secret, wept +long, but not as painfully as of yore, within the encircling arms of +her new mother. + +Pale even to her lips, and with a face that strove for composure +until its proud beauty was as fixed as death, Edith looked down upon +the weeping girl, and once kissed her. Then gradually disengaging +herself, and putting Florence away, she said, stately, and quiet as a +marble image, and in a voice that deepened as she spoke, but had no +other token of emotion in it: + +'Florence, you do not know me! Heaven forbid that you should learn +from me!' + +'Not learn from you?' repeated Florence, in surprise. + +'That I should teach you how to love, or be loved, Heaven forbid!' +said Edith. 'If you could teach me, that were better; but it is too +late. You are dear to me, Florence. I did not think that anything +could ever be so dear to me, as you are in this little time.' + +She saw that Florence would have spoken here, so checked her with +her hand, and went on. + +'I will be your true friend always. I will cherish you, as much, if +not as well as anyone in this world could. You may trust in me - I +know it and I say it, dear, - with the whole confidence even of your +pure heart. There are hosts of women whom he might have married, +better and truer in all other respects than I am, Florence; but there +is not one who could come here, his wife, whose heart could beat with +greater truth to you than mine does.' + +'I know it, dear Mama!' cried Florence. 'From that first most happy +day I have known it.' + +'Most happy day!' Edith seemed to repeat the words involuntarily, +and went on. 'Though the merit is not mine, for I thought little of +you until I saw you, let the undeserved reward be mine in your trust +and love. And in this - in this, Florence; on the first night of my +taking up my abode here; I am led on as it is best I should be, to say +it for the first and last time.' + +Florence, without knowing why, felt almost afraid to hear her +proceed, but kept her eyes riveted on the beautiful face so fixed upon +her own. + +'Never seek to find in me,' said Edith, laying her hand upon her +breast, 'what is not here. Never if you can help it, Florence, fall +off from me because it is not here. Little by little you will know me +better, and the time will come when you will know me, as I know +myself. Then, be as lenient to me as you can, and do not turn to +bitterness the only sweet remembrance I shall have. + +The tears that were visible in her eyes as she kept them fixed on +Florence, showed that the composed face was but as a handsome mask; +but she preserved it, and continued: + +'I have seen what you say, and know how true it is. But believe me +- you will soon, if you cannot now - there is no one on this earth +less qualified to set it right or help you, Florence, than I. Never +ask me why, or speak to me about it or of my husband, more. There +should be, so far, a division, and a silence between us two, like the +grave itself.' + +She sat for some time silent; Florence scarcely venturing to +breathe meanwhile, as dim and imperfect shadows of the truth, and all +its daily consequences, chased each other through her terrified, yet +incredulous imagination. Almost as soon as she had ceased to speak, +Edith's face began to subside from its set composure to that quieter +and more relenting aspect, which it usually wore when she and Florence +were alone together. She shaded it, after this change, with her hands; +and when she arose, and with an affectionate embrace bade Florence +good-night, went quickly, and without looking round. + +But when Florence was in bed, and the room was dark except for the +glow of the fire, Edith returned, and saying that she could not sleep, +and that her dressing-room was lonely, drew a chair upon the hearth, +and watched the embers as they died away. Florence watched them too +from her bed, until they, and the noble figure before them, crowned +with its flowing hair, and in its thoughtful eyes reflecting back +their light, became confused and indistinct, and finally were lost in +slumber. + +In her sleep, however, Florence could not lose an undefined +impression of what had so recently passed. It formed the subject of +her dreams, and haunted her; now in one shape, now in another; but +always oppressively; and with a sense of fear. She dreamed of seeking +her father in wildernesses, of following his track up fearful heights, +and down into deep mines and caverns; of being charged with something +that would release him from extraordinary suffering - she knew not +what, or why - yet never being able to attain the goal and set him +free. Then she saw him dead, upon that very bed, and in that very +room, and knew that he had never loved her to the last, and fell upon +his cold breast, passionately weeping. Then a prospect opened, and a +river flowed, and a plaintive voice she knew, cried, 'It is running +on, Floy! It has never stopped! You are moving with it!' And she saw +him at a distance stretching out his arms towards her, while a figure +such as Walter's used to be, stood near him, awfully serene and still. +In every vision, Edith came and went, sometimes to her joy, sometimes +to her sorrow, until they were alone upon the brink of a dark grave, +and Edith pointing down, she looked and saw - what! - another Edith +lying at the bottom. + +In the terror of this dream, she cried out and awoke, she thought. +A soft voice seemed to whisper in her ear, 'Florence, dear Florence, +it is nothing but a dream!' and stretching out her arms, she returned +the caress of her new Mama, who then went out at the door in the light +of the grey morning. In a moment, Florence sat up wondering whether +this had really taken place or not; but she was only certain that it +was grey morning indeed, and that the blackened ashes of the fire were +on the hearth, and that she was alone. + +So passed the night on which the happy pair came home. + + + +CHAPTER 36. + +Housewarming + + + +Many succeeding days passed in like manner; except that there were +numerous visits received and paid, and that Mrs Skewton held little +levees in her own apartments, at which Major Bagstock was a frequent +attendant, and that Florence encountered no second look from her +father, although she saw him every day. Nor had she much communication +in words with her new Mama, who was imperious and proud to all the +house but her - Florence could not but observe that - and who, +although she always sent for her or went to her when she came home +from visiting, and would always go into her room at night, before +retiring to rest, however late the hour, and never lost an opportunity +of being with her, was often her silent and thoughtful companion for a +long time together. + +Florence, who had hoped for so much from this marriage, could not +help sometimes comparing the bright house with the faded dreary place +out of which it had arisen, and wondering when, in any shape, it would +begin to be a home; for that it was no home then, for anyone, though +everything went on luxuriously and regularly, she had always a secret +misgiving. Many an hour of sorrowful reflection by day and night, and +many a tear of blighted hope, Florence bestowed upon the assurance her +new Mama had given her so strongly, that there was no one on the earth +more powerless than herself to teach her how to win her father's +heart. And soon Florence began to think - resolved to think would be +the truer phrase - that as no one knew so well, how hopeless of being +subdued or changed her father's coldness to her was, so she had given +her this warning, and forbidden the subject in very compassion. +Unselfish here, as in her every act and fancy, Florence preferred to +bear the pain of this new wound, rather than encourage any faint +foreshadowings of the truth as it concerned her father; tender of him, +even in her wandering thoughts. As for his home, she hoped it would +become a better one, when its state of novelty and transition should +be over; and for herself, thought little and lamented less. + +If none of the new family were particularly at home in private, it +was resolved that Mrs Dombey at least should be at home in public, +without delay. A series of entertainments in celebration of the late +nuptials, and in cultivation of society, were arranged, chiefly by Mr +Dombey and Mrs Skewton; and it was settled that the festive +proceedings should commence by Mrs Dombey's being at home upon a +certain evening, and by Mr and Mrs Dombey's requesting the honour of +the company of a great many incongruous people to dinner on the same +day. + +Accordingly, Mr Dombey produced a list of sundry eastern magnates +who were to be bidden to this feast on his behalf; to which Mrs +Skewton, acting for her dearest child, who was haughtily careless on +the subject, subjoined a western list, comprising Cousin Feenix, not +yet returned to Baden-Baden, greatly to the detriment of his personal +estate; and a variety of moths of various degrees and ages, who had, +at various times, fluttered round the light of her fair daughter, or +herself, without any lasting injury to their wings. Florence was +enrolled as a member of the dinner-party, by Edith's command - +elicited by a moment's doubt and hesitation on the part of Mrs +Skewton; and Florence, with a wondering heart, and with a quick +instinctive sense of everything that grated on her father in the +least, took her silent share in the proceedings of the day. + +The proceedings commenced by Mr Dombey, in a cravat of +extraordinary height and stiffness, walking restlessly about the +drawing-room until the hour appointed for dinner; punctual to which, +an East India Director,' of immense wealth, in a waistcoat apparently +constructed in serviceable deal by some plain carpenter, but really +engendered in the tailor's art, and composed of the material called +nankeen, arrived and was received by Mr Dombey alone. The next stage +of the proceedings was Mr Dombey's sending his compliments to Mrs +Dombey, with a correct statement of the time; and the next, the East +India Director's falling prostrate, in a conversational point of view, +and as Mr Dombey was not the man to pick him up, staring at the fire +until rescue appeared in the shape of Mrs Skewton; whom the director, +as a pleasant start in life for the evening, mistook for Mrs Dombey, +and greeted with enthusiasm. + +The next arrival was a Bank Director, reputed to be able to buy up +anything - human Nature generally, if he should take it in his head to +influence the money market in that direction - but who was a +wonderfully modest-spoken man, almost boastfully so, and mentioned his +'little place' at Kingston-upon-Thames, and its just being barely +equal to giving Dombey a bed and a chop, if he would come and visit +it. Ladies, he said, it was not for a man who lived in his quiet way +to take upon himself to invite - but if Mrs Skewton and her daughter, +Mrs Dombey, should ever find themselves in that direction, and would +do him the honour to look at a little bit of a shrubbery they would +find there, and a poor little flower-bed or so, and a humble apology +for a pinery, and two or three little attempts of that sort without +any pretension, they would distinguish him very much. Carrying out his +character, this gentleman was very plainly dressed, in a wisp of +cambric for a neckcloth, big shoes, a coat that was too loose for him, +and a pair of trousers that were too spare; and mention being made of +the Opera by Mrs Skewton, he said he very seldom went there, for he +couldn't afford it. It seemed greatly to delight and exhilarate him to +say so: and he beamed on his audience afterwards, with his hands in +his pockets, and excessive satisfaction twinkling in his eyes. + +Now Mrs Dombey appeared, beautiful and proud, and as disdainful and +defiant of them all as if the bridal wreath upon her head had been a +garland of steel spikes put on to force concession from her which she +would die sooner than yield. With her was Florence. When they entered +together, the shadow of the night of the return again darkened Mr +Dombey's face. But unobserved; for Florence did not venture to raise +her eyes to his, and Edith's indifference was too supreme to take the +least heed of him. + +The arrivals quickly became numerous. More directors, chairmen of +public companies, elderly ladies carrying burdens on their heads for +full dress, Cousin Feenix, Major Bagstock, friends of Mrs Skewton, +with the same bright bloom on their complexion, and very precious +necklaces on very withered necks. Among these, a young lady of +sixty-five, remarkably coolly dressed as to her back and shoulders, +who spoke with an engaging lisp, and whose eyelids wouldn't keep up +well, without a great deal of trouble on her part, and whose manners +had that indefinable charm which so frequently attaches to the +giddiness of youth. As the greater part of Mr Dombey's list were +disposed to be taciturn, and the greater part of Mrs Dombey's list +were disposed to be talkative, and there was no sympathy between them, +Mrs Dombey's list, by magnetic agreement, entered into a bond of union +against Mr Dombey's list, who, wandering about the rooms in a desolate +manner, or seeking refuge in corners, entangled themselves with +company coming in, and became barricaded behind sofas, and had doors +opened smartly from without against their heads, and underwent every +sort of discomfiture. + +When dinner was announced, Mr Dombey took down an old lady like a +crimson velvet pincushion stuffed with bank notes, who might have been +the identical old lady of Threadneedle Street, she was so rich, and +looked so unaccommodating; Cousin Feenix took down Mrs Dombey; Major +Bagstock took down Mrs Skewton; the young thing with the shoulders was +bestowed, as an extinguisher, upon the East India Director; and the +remaining ladies were left on view in the drawing-room by the +remaining gentlemen, until a forlorn hope volunteered to conduct them +downstairs, and those brave spirits with their captives blocked up the +dining-room door, shutting out seven mild men in the stony-hearted +hall. When all the rest were got in and were seated, one of these mild +men still appeared, in smiling confusion, totally destitute and +unprovided for, and, escorted by the butler, made the complete circuit +of the table twice before his chair could be found, which it finally +was, on Mrs Dombey's left hand; after which the mild man never held up +his head again. + +Now, the spacious dining-room, with the company seated round the +glittering table, busy with their glittering spoons, and knives and +forks, and plates, might have been taken for a grown-up exposition of +Tom Tiddler's ground, where children pick up gold and silver.' Mr +Dombey, as Tiddler, looked his character to admiration; and the long +plateau of precious metal frosted, separating him from Mrs Dombey, +whereon frosted Cupids offered scentless flowers to each of them, was +allegorical to see. + +Cousin Feenix was in great force, and looked astonishingly young. +But he was sometimes thoughtless in his good humour - his memory +occasionally wandering like his legs - and on this occasion caused the +company to shudder. It happened thus. The young lady with the back, +who regarded Cousin Feenix with sentiments of tenderness, had +entrapped the East India Director into leading her to the chair next +him; in return for which good office, she immediately abandoned the +Director, who, being shaded on the other side by a gloomy black velvet +hat surmounting a bony and speechless female with a fan, yielded to a +depression of spirits and withdrew into himself. Cousin Feenix and the +young lady were very lively and humorous, and the young lady laughed +so much at something Cousin Feenix related to her, that Major Bagstock +begged leave to inquire on behalf of Mrs Skewton (they were sitting +opposite, a little lower down), whether that might not be considered +public property. + +'Why, upon my life,' said Cousin Feenix, 'there's nothing in it; it +really is not worth repeating: in point of fact, it's merely an +anecdote of Jack Adams. I dare say my friend Dombey;' for the general +attention was concentrated on Cousin Feenix; 'may remember Jack Adams, +Jack Adams, not Joe; that was his brother. Jack - little Jack - man +with a cast in his eye, and slight impediment in his speech - man who +sat for somebody's borough. We used to call him in my parliamentary +time W. P. Adams, in consequence of his being Warming Pan for a young +fellow who was in his minority. Perhaps my friend Dombey may have +known the man?' + +Mr Dombey, who was as likely to have known Guy Fawkes, replied in +the negative. But one of the seven mild men unexpectedly leaped into +distinction, by saying he had known him, and adding - 'always wore +Hessian boots!' + +'Exactly,' said Cousin Feenix, bending forward to see the mild man, +and smile encouragement at him down the table. 'That was Jack. Joe +wore - ' + +'Tops!' cried the mild man, rising in public estimation every +Instant. + +'Of course,' said Cousin Feenix, 'you were intimate with em?' + +'I knew them both,' said the mild man. With whom Mr Dombey +immediately took wine. + +'Devilish good fellow, Jack!' said Cousin Feenix, again bending +forward, and smiling. + +'Excellent,' returned the mild man, becoming bold on his success. +'One of the best fellows I ever knew.' + +'No doubt you have heard the story?' said Cousin Feenix. + +'I shall know,' replied the bold mild man, 'when I have heard your +Ludship tell it.' With that, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at +the ceiling, as knowing it by heart, and being already tickled. + +'In point of fact, it's nothing of a story in itself,' said Cousin +Feenix, addressing the table with a smile, and a gay shake of his +head, 'and not worth a word of preface. But it's illustrative of the +neatness of Jack's humour. The fact is, that Jack was invited down to +a marriage - which I think took place in Berkshire?' + +'Shropshire,' said the bold mild man, finding himself appealed to. + +'Was it? Well! In point of fact it might have been in any shire,' +said Cousin Feenix. 'So my friend being invited down to this marriage +in Anyshire,' with a pleasant sense of the readiness of this joke, +'goes. Just as some of us, having had the honour of being invited to +the marriage of my lovely and accomplished relative with my friend +Dombey, didn't require to be asked twice, and were devilish glad to be +present on so interesting an occasion. - Goes - Jack goes. Now, this +marriage was, in point of fact, the marriage of an uncommonly fine +girl with a man for whom she didn't care a button, but whom she +accepted on account of his property, which was immense. When Jack +returned to town, after the nuptials, a man he knew, meeting him in +the lobby of the House of Commons, says, "Well, Jack, how are the +ill-matched couple?" "Ill-matched," says Jack "Not at all. It's a +perfectly and equal transaction. She is regularly bought, and you may +take your oath he is as regularly sold!"' + +In his full enjoyment of this culminating point of his story, the +shudder, which had gone all round the table like an electric spark, +struck Cousin Feenix, and he stopped. Not a smile occasioned by the +only general topic of conversation broached that day, appeared on any +face. A profound silence ensued; and the wretched mild man, who had +been as innocent of any real foreknowledge of the story as the child +unborn, had the exquisite misery of reading in every eye that he was +regarded as the prime mover of the mischief. + +Mr Dombey's face was not a changeful one, and being cast in its +mould of state that day, showed little other apprehension of the +story, if any, than that which he expressed when he said solemnly, +amidst the silence, that it was 'Very good.' There was a rapid glance +from Edith towards Florence, but otherwise she remained, externally, +impassive and unconscious. + +Through the various stages of rich meats and wines, continual gold +and silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped-up fruits, +and that unnecessary article in Mr Dombey's banquets - ice- the dinner +slowly made its way: the later stages being achieved to the sonorous +music of incessant double knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors, +whose portion of the feast was limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs +Dombey rose, it was a sight to see her lord, with stiff throat and +erect head, hold the door open for the withdrawal of the ladies; and +to see how she swept past him with his daughter on her arm. + +Mr Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of +dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight near the +unoccupied end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the Major was +a military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the +seven mild men (the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the Bank +Director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a +pinery, with dessert-knives, for a group of admirers; and Cousin +Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands and +stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short +duration, being speedily broken up by coffee, and the desertion of the +room. + +There was a throng in the state-rooms upstairs, increasing every +minute; but still Mr Dombey's list of visitors appeared to have some +native impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs Dombey's list, and no +one could have doubted which was which. The single exception to this +rule perhaps was Mr Carker, who now smiled among the company, and who, +as he stood in the circle that was gathered about Mrs Dombey - +watchful of her, of them, his chief, Cleopatra and the Major, +Florence, and everything around - appeared at ease with both divisions +of guests, and not marked as exclusively belonging to either. + +Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a +nightmare to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her +eyes were drawn towards him every now and then, by an attraction of +dislike and distrust that she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were +busy with other things; for as she sat apart - not unadmired or +unsought, but in the gentleness of her quiet spirit - she felt how +little part her father had in what was going on, and saw, with pain, +how ill at ease he seemed to be, and how little regarded he was as he +lingered about near the door, for those visitors whom he wished to +distinguish with particular attention, and took them up to introduce +them to his wife, who received them with proud coldness, but showed no +interest or wish to please, and never, after the bare ceremony of +reception, in consultation of his wishes, or in welcome of his +friends, opened her lips. It was not the less perplexing or painful to +Florence, that she who acted thus, treated her so kindly and with such +loving consideration, that it almost seemed an ungrateful return on +her part even to know of what was passing before her eyes. + +Happy Florence would have been, might she have ventured to bear her +father company, by so much as a look; and happy Florence was, in +little suspecting the main cause of his uneasiness. But afraid of +seeming to know that he was placed at any did advantage, lest he +should be resentful of that knowledge; and divided between her impulse +towards him, and her grateful affection for Edith; she scarcely dared +to raise her eyes towards either. Anxious and unhappy for them both, +the thought stole on her through the crowd, that it might have been +better for them if this noise of tongues and tread of feet had never +come there, - if the old dulness and decay had never been replaced by +novelty and splendour, - if the neglected child had found no friend in +Edith, but had lived her solitary life, unpitied and forgotten. + +Mrs Chick had some such thoughts too, but they were not so quietly +developed in her mind. This good matron had been outraged in the first +instance by not receiving an invitation to dinner. That blow partially +recovered, she had gone to a vast expense to make such a figure before +Mrs Dombey at home, as should dazzle the senses of that lady, and heap +mortification, mountains high, on the head of Mrs Skewton. + +'But I am made,' said Mrs Chick to Mr Chick, 'of no more account +than Florence! Who takes the smallest notice of me? No one!' + +'No one, my dear,' assented Mr Chick, who was seated by the side of +Mrs Chick against the wall, and could console himself, even there, by +softly whistling. + +'Does it at all appear as if I was wanted here?' exclaimed Mrs +Chick, with flashing eyes. + +'No, my dear, I don't think it does,' said Mr Chic + +'Paul's mad!' said Mrs Chic + +Mr Chick whistled. + +'Unless you are a monster, which I sometimes think you are,' said +Mrs Chick with candour, 'don't sit there humming tunes. How anyone +with the most distant feelings of a man, can see that mother-in-law of +Paul's, dressed as she is, going on like that, with Major Bagstock, +for whom, among other precious things, we are indebted to your +Lucretia Tox + +'My Lucretia Tox, my dear!' said Mr Chick, astounded. + +'Yes,' retorted Mrs Chick, with great severity, 'your Lucretia Tox +- I say how anybody can see that mother-in-law of Paul's, and that +haughty wife of Paul's, and these indecent old frights with their +backs and shoulders, and in short this at home generally, and hum - ' +on which word Mrs Chick laid a scornful emphasis that made Mr Chick +start, 'is, I thank Heaven, a mystery to me! + +Mr Chick screwed his mouth into a form irreconcilable with humming +or whistling, and looked very contemplative. + +'But I hope I know what is due to myself,' said Mrs Chick, swelling +with indignation, 'though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am +not going to sit here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice +of. I am not the dirt under Mrs Dombey's feet, yet - not quite yet,' +said Mrs Chick, as if she expected to become so, about the day after +to-morrow. 'And I shall go. I will not say (whatever I may think) that +this affair has been got up solely to degrade and insult me. I shall +merely go. I shall not be missed!' + +Mrs Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr +Chick, who escorted her from the room, after half an hour's shady +sojourn there. And it is due to her penetration to observe that she +certainly was not missed at all. + +But she was not the only indignant guest; for Mr Dombey's list +(still constantly in difficulties) were, as a body, indignant with Mrs +Dombey's list, for looking at them through eyeglasses, and audibly +wondering who all those people were; while Mrs Dombey's list +complained of weariness, and the young thing with the shoulders, +deprived of the attentions of that gay youth Cousin Feenix (who went +away from the dinner-table), confidentially alleged to thirty or forty +friends that she was bored to death. All the old ladies with the +burdens on their heads, had greater or less cause of complaint against +Mr Dombey; and the Directors and Chairmen coincided in thinking that +if Dombey must marry, he had better have married somebody nearer his +own age, not quite so handsome, and a little better off. The general +opinion among this class of gentlemen was, that it was a weak thing in +Dombey, and he'd live to repent it. Hardly anybody there, except the +mild men, stayed, or went away, without considering himself or herself +neglected and aggrieved by Mr Dombey or Mrs Dombey; and the speechless +female in the black velvet hat was found to have been stricken mute, +because the lady in the crimson velvet had been handed down before +her. The nature even of the mild men got corrupted, either from their +curdling it with too much lemonade, or from the general inoculation +that prevailed; and they made sarcastic jokes to one another, and +whispered disparagement on stairs and in bye-places. The general +dissatisfaction and discomfort so diffused itself, that the assembled +footmen in the hall were as well acquainted with it as the company +above. Nay, the very linkmen outside got hold of it, and compared the +party to a funeral out of mourning, with none of the company +remembered in the will. At last, the guests were all gone, and the +linkmen too; and the street, crowded so long with carriages, was +clear; and the dying lights showed no one in the rooms, but Mr Dombey +and Mr Carker, who were talking together apart, and Mrs Dombey and her +mother: the former seated on an ottoman; the latter reclining in the +Cleopatra attitude, awaiting the arrival of her maid. Mr Dombey having +finished his communication to Carker, the latter advanced obsequiously +to take leave. + +'I trust,' he said, 'that the fatigues of this delightful evening +will not inconvenience Mrs Dombey to-morrow.' + +'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, advancing, 'has sufficiently spared +herself fatigue, to relieve you from any anxiety of that kind. I +regret to say, Mrs Dombey, that I could have wished you had fatigued +yourself a little more on this occasion. + +She looked at him with a supercilious glance, that it seemed not +worth her while to protract, and turned away her eyes without +speaking. + +'I am sorry, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'that you should not have +thought it your duty - + +She looked at him again. + +'Your duty, Madam,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'to have received my friends +with a little more deference. Some of those whom you have been pleased +to slight to-night in a very marked manner, Mrs Dombey, confer a +distinction upon you, I must tell you, in any visit they pay you. + +'Do you know that there is someone here?' she returned, now looking +at him steadily. + +'No! Carker! I beg that you do not. I insist that you do not,' +cried Mr Dombey, stopping that noiseless gentleman in his withdrawal. +'Mr Carker, Madam, as you know, possesses my confidence. He is as well +acquainted as myself with the subject on which I speak. I beg to tell +you, for your information, Mrs Dombey, that I consider these wealthy +and important persons confer a distinction upon me:' and Mr Dombey +drew himself up, as having now rendered them of the highest possible +importance. + +'I ask you,' she repeated, bending her disdainful, steady gaze upon +him, 'do you know that there is someone here, Sir?' + +'I must entreat,' said Mr Carker, stepping forward, 'I must beg, I +must demand, to be released. Slight and unimportant as this difference +is - ' + +Mrs Skewton, who had been intent upon her daughter's face, took him +up here. + +'My sweetest Edith,' she said, 'and my dearest Dombey; our +excellent friend Mr Carker, for so I am sure I ought to mention him - +' + +Mr Carker murmured, 'Too much honour.' + +' - has used the very words that were in my mind, and that I have +been dying, these ages, for an opportunity of introducing. Slight and +unimportant! My sweetest Edith, and my dearest Dombey, do we not know +that any difference between you two - No, Flowers; not now. + +Flowers was the maid, who, finding gentlemen present, retreated +with precipitation. + +'That any difference between you two,' resumed Mrs Skewton, 'with +the Heart you possess in common, and the excessively charming bond of +feeling that there is between you, must be slight and unimportant? +What words could better define the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to +take this slight occasion - this trifling occasion, that is so replete +with Nature, and your individual characters, and all that - so truly +calculated to bring the tears into a parent's eyes - to say that I +attach no importance to them in the least, except as developing these +minor elements of Soul; and that, unlike most Mamas-in-law (that +odious phrase, dear Dombey!) as they have been represented to me to +exist in this I fear too artificial world, I never shall attempt to +interpose between you, at such a time, and never can much regret, +after all, such little flashes of the torch of What's-his-name - not +Cupid, but the other delightful creature. + +There was a sharpness in the good mother's glance at both her +children as she spoke, that may have been expressive of a direct and +well-considered purpose hidden between these rambling words. That +purpose, providently to detach herself in the beginning from all the +clankings of their chain that were to come, and to shelter herself +with the fiction of her innocent belief in their mutual affection, and +their adaptation to each other. + +'I have pointed out to Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, in his most +stately manner, 'that in her conduct thus early in our married life, +to which I object, and which, I request, may be corrected. Carker,' +with a nod of dismissal, 'good-night to you!' + +Mr Carker bowed to the imperious form of the Bride, whose sparkling +eye was fixed upon her husband; and stopping at Cleopatra's couch on +his way out, raised to his lips the hand she graciously extended to +him, in lowly and admiring homage. + +If his handsome wife had reproached him, or even changed +countenance, or broken the silence in which she remained, by one word, +now that they were alone (for Cleopatra made off with all speed), Mr +Dombey would have been equal to some assertion of his case against +her. But the intense, unutterable, withering scorn, with which, after +looking upon him, she dropped her eyes, as if he were too worthless +and indifferent to her to be challenged with a syllable - the +ineffable disdain and haughtiness in which she sat before him - the +cold inflexible resolve with which her every feature seemed to bear +him down, and put him by - these, he had no resource against; and he +left her, with her whole overbearing beauty concentrated on despising +him. + +Was he coward enough to watch her, an hour afterwards, on the old +well staircase, where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight, +toiling up with Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident, when, looking +up, he saw her coming, with a light, from the room where Florence lay, +and marked again the face so changed, which he could not subdue? + +But it could never alter as his own did. It never, in its uttermost +pride and passion, knew the shadow that had fallen on his, in the dark +corner, on the night of the return; and often since; and which +deepened on it now, as he looked up. + + + +CHAPTER 37. + +More Warnings than One + + + +Florence, Edith, and Mrs Skewton were together next day, and the +carriage was waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had +her galley again now, and Withers, no longer the-wan, stood upright in +a pigeon-breasted jacket and military trousers, behind her wheel-less +chair at dinner-time and butted no more. The hair of Withers was +radiant with pomatum, in these days of down, and he wore kid gloves +and smelt of the water of Cologne. + +They were assembled in Cleopatra's room The Serpent of old Nile +(not to mention her disrespectfully) was reposing on her sofa, sipping +her morning chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Flowers +the Maid was fastening on her youthful cuffs and frills, and +performing a kind of private coronation ceremony on her, with a +peach-coloured velvet bonnet; the artificial roses in which nodded to +uncommon advantage, as the palsy trifled with them, like a breeze. + +'I think I am a little nervous this morning, Flowers,' said Mrs +Skewton. 'My hand quite shakes.' + +'You were the life of the party last night, Ma'am, you know,' +returned Flowers, ' and you suffer for it, to-day, you see.' + +Edith, who had beckoned Florence to the window, and was looking +out, with her back turned on the toilet of her esteemed mother, +suddenly withdrew from it, as if it had lightened. + +'My darling child,' cried Cleopatra, languidly, 'you are not +nervous? Don't tell me, my dear Edith, that you, so enviably +self-possessed, are beginning to be a martyr too, like your +unfortunately constituted mother! Withers, someone at the door.' + +'Card, Ma'am,' said Withers, taking it towards Mrs Dombey. + +'I am going out,' she said without looking at it. + +'My dear love,' drawled Mrs Skewton, 'how very odd to send that +message without seeing the name! Bring it here, Withers. Dear me, my +love; Mr Carker, too! That very sensible person!' + +'I am going out,' repeated Edith, in so imperious a tone that +Withers, going to the door, imperiously informed the servant who was +waiting, 'Mrs Dombey is going out. Get along with you,' and shut it on +him.' + +But the servant came back after a short absence, and whispered to +Withers again, who once more, and not very willingly, presented +himself before Mrs Dombey. + +'If you please, Ma'am, Mr Carker sends his respectful compliments, +and begs you would spare him one minute, if you could - for business, +Ma'am, if you please.' + +'Really, my love,' said Mrs Skewton in her mildest manner; for her +daughter's face was threatening; 'if you would allow me to offer a +word, I should recommend - ' + +'Show him this way,' said Edith. As Withers disappeared to execute +the command, she added, frowning on her mother, 'As he comes at your +recommendation, let him come to your room.' + +'May I - shall I go away?' asked Florence, hurriedly. + +Edith nodded yes, but on her way to the door Florence met the +visitor coming in. With the same disagreeable mixture of familiarity +and forbearance, with which he had first addressed her, he addressed +her now in his softest manner - hoped she was quite well - needed not +to ask, with such looks to anticipate the answer - had scarcely had +the honour to know her, last night, she was so greatly changed - and +held the door open for her to pass out; with a secret sense of power +in her shrinking from him, that all the deference and politeness of +his manner could not quite conceal. + +He then bowed himself for a moment over Mrs Skewton's condescending +hand, and lastly bowed to Edith. Coldly returning his salute without +looking at him, and neither seating herself nor inviting him to be +seated, she waited for him to speak. + +Entrenched in her pride and power, and with all the obduracy of her +spirit summoned about her, still her old conviction that she and her +mother had been known by this man in their worst colours, from their +first acquaintance; that every degradation she had suffered in her own +eyes was as plain to him as to herself; that he read her life as +though it were a vile book, and fluttered the leaves before her in +slight looks and tones of voice which no one else could detect; +weakened and undermined her. Proudly as she opposed herself to him, +with her commanding face exacting his humility, her disdainful lip +repulsing him, her bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark lashes +of her eyes sullenly veiling their light, that no ray of it might +shine upon him - and submissively as he stood before her, with an +entreating injured manner, but with complete submission to her will - +she knew, in her own soul, that the cases were reversed, and that the +triumph and superiority were his, and that he knew it full well. + +'I have presumed,' said Mr Carker, 'to solicit an interview, and I +have ventured to describe it as being one of business, because - ' + +'Perhaps you are charged by Mr Dombey with some message of +reproof,' said Edit 'You possess Mr Dombey's confidence in such an +unusual degree, Sir, that you would scarcely surprise me if that were +your business.' + +'I have no message to the lady who sheds a lustre upon his name,' +said Mr Carker. 'But I entreat that lady, on my own behalf to be just +to a very humble claimant for justice at her hands - a mere dependant +of Mr Dombey's - which is a position of humility; and to reflect upon +my perfect helplessness last night, and the impossibility of my +avoiding the share that was forced upon me in a very painful +occasion.' + +'My dearest Edith,' hinted Cleopatra in a low voice, as she held +her eye-glass aside, 'really very charming of Mr What's-his-name. And +full of heart!' + +'For I do,' said Mr Carker, appealing to Mrs Skewton with a look of +grateful deference, - 'I do venture to call it a painful occasion, +though merely because it was so to me, who had the misfortune to be +present. So slight a difference, as between the principals - between +those who love each other with disinterested devotion, and would make +any sacrifice of self in such a cause - is nothing. As Mrs Skewton +herself expressed, with so much truth and feeling last night, it is +nothing.' + +Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few moments, + +'And your business, Sir - ' + +'Edith, my pet,' said Mrs Skewton, 'all this time Mr Carker is +standing! My dear Mr Carker, take a seat, I beg.' + +He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the proud +daughter, as though he would only be bidden by her, and was resolved +to he bidden by her. Edith, in spite of herself sat down, and slightly +motioned with her hand to him to be seated too. No action could be +colder, haughtier, more insolent in its air of supremacy and +disrespect, but she had struggled against even that concession +ineffectually, and it was wrested from her. That was enough! Mr Carker +sat down. + +'May I be allowed, Madam,' said Carker, turning his white teeth on +Mrs Skewton like a light - 'a lady of your excellent sense and quick +feeling will give me credit, for good reason, I am sure - to address +what I have to say, to Mrs Dombey, and to leave her to impart it to +you who are her best and dearest friend - next to Mr Dombey?' + +Mrs Skewton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith would +have stopped him too, and indignantly ordered him to speak openly or +not at all, but that he said, in a low Voice - 'Miss Florence - the +young lady who has just left the room - ' + +Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent +forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect, +and with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile, +she felt as if she could have struck him dead. + +'Miss Florence's position,' he began, 'has been an unfortunate one. +I have a difficulty in alluding to it to you, whose attachment to her +father is naturally watchful and jealous of every word that applies to +him.' Always distinct and soft in speech, no language could describe +the extent of his distinctness and softness, when he said these words, +or came to any others of a similar import. 'But, as one who is devoted +to Mr Dombey in his different way, and whose life is passed in +admiration of Mr Dombey's character, may I say, without offence to +your tenderness as a wife, that Miss Florence has unhappily been +neglected - by her father. May I say by her father?' + +Edith replied, 'I know it.' + +'You know it!' said Mr Carker, with a great appearance of relief. +'It removes a mountain from my breast. May I hope you know how the +neglect originated; in what an amiable phase of Mr Dombey's pride - +character I mean?' + +'You may pass that by, Sir,' she returned, 'and come the sooner to +the end of what you have to say.' + +'Indeed, I am sensible, Madam,' replied Carker, - 'trust me, I am +deeply sensible, that Mr Dombey can require no justification in +anything to you. But, kindly judge of my breast by your own, and you +will forgive my interest in him, if in its excess, it goes at all +astray. + +What a stab to her proud heart, to sit there, face to face with +him, and have him tendering her false oath at the altar again and +again for her acceptance, and pressing it upon her like the dregs of a +sickening cup she could not own her loathing of or turn away from'. +How shame, remorse, and passion raged within her, when, upright and +majestic in her beauty before him, she knew that in her spirit she was +down at his feet! + +'Miss Florence,' said Carker, 'left to the care - if one may call +it care - of servants and mercenary people, in every way her +inferiors, necessarily wanted some guide and compass in her younger +days, and, naturally, for want of them, has been indiscreet, and has +in some degree forgotten her station. There was some folly about one +Walter, a common lad, who is fortunately dead now: and some very +undesirable association, I regret to say, with certain coasting +sailors, of anything but good repute, and a runaway old bankrupt.' + +'I have heard the circumstances, Sir,' said Edith, flashing her +disdainful glance upon him, 'and I know that you pervert them. You may +not know it. I hope so.' + +'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I believe that nobody knows them so +well as I. Your generous and ardent nature, Madam - the same nature +which is so nobly imperative in vindication of your beloved and +honoured husband, and which has blessed him as even his merits deserve +- I must respect, defer to, bow before. But, as regards the +circumstances, which is indeed the business I presumed to solicit your +attention to, I can have no doubt, since, in the execution of my trust +as Mr Dombey's confidential - I presume to say - friend, I have fully +ascertained them. In my execution of that trust; in my deep concern, +which you can so well understand, for everything relating to him, +intensified, if you will (for I fear I labour under your displeasure), +by the lower motive of desire to prove my diligence, and make myself +the more acceptable; I have long pursued these circumstances by myself +and trustworthy instruments, and have innumerable and most minute +proofs.' + +She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the means +of mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained. + +'Pardon me, Madam,' he continued, 'if in my perplexity, I presume +to take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I think I have +observed that you are greatly interested in Miss Florence?' + +What was there in her he had not observed, and did not know? +Humbled and yet maddened by the thought, in every new presentment of +it, however faint, she pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to +force composure on it, and distantly inclined her head in reply. + +'This interest, Madam - so touching an evidence of everything +associated with Mr Dombey being dear to you - induces me to pause +before I make him acquainted with these circumstances, which, as yet, +he does not know. It so shakes me, if I may make the confession, in my +allegiance, that on the intimation of the least desire to that effect +from you, I would suppress them.' + +Edith raised her head quickly, and starting back, bent her dark +glance upon him. He met it with his blandest and most deferential +smile, and went on. + +'You say that as I describe them, they are perverted. I fear not - +I fear not: but let us assume that they are. The uneasiness I have for +some time felt on the subject, arises in this: that the mere +circumstance of such association often repeated, on the part of Miss +Florence, however innocently and confidingly, would be conclusive with +Mr Dombey, already predisposed against her, and would lead him to take +some step (I know he has occasionally contemplated it) of separation +and alienation of her from his home. Madam, bear with me, and remember +my intercourse with Mr Dombey, and my knowledge of him, and my +reverence for him, almost from childhood, when I say that if he has a +fault, it is a lofty stubbornness, rooted in that noble pride and +sense of power which belong to him, and which we must all defer to; +which is not assailable like the obstinacy of other characters; and +which grows upon itself from day to day, and year to year. + +She bent her glance upon him still; but, look as steadfast as she +would, her haughty nostrils dilated, and her breath came somewhat +deeper, and her lip would slightly curl, as he described that in his +patron to which they must all bow down. He saw it; and though his +expression did not change, she knew he saw it. + +'Even so slight an incident as last night's,' he said, 'if I might +refer to it once more, would serve to illustrate my meaning, better +than a greater one. Dombey and Son know neither time, nor place, nor +season, but bear them all down. But I rejoice in its occurrence, for +it has opened the way for me to approach Mrs Dombey with this subject +to-day, even if it has entailed upon me the penalty of her temporary +displeasure. Madam, in the midst of my uneasiness and apprehension on +this subject, I was summoned by Mr Dombey to Leamington. There I saw +you. There I could not help knowing what relation you would shortly +occupy towards him - to his enduring happiness and yours. There I +resolved to await the time of your establishment at home here, and to +do as I have now done. I have, at heart, no fear that I shall be +wanting in my duty to Mr Dombey, if I bury what I know in your breast; +for where there is but one heart and mind between two persons - as in +such a marriage - one almost represents the other. I can acquit my +conscience therefore, almost equally, by confidence, on such a theme, +in you or him. For the reasons I have mentioned I would select you. +May I aspire to the distinction of believing that my confidence is +accepted, and that I am relieved from my responsibility?' + +He long remembered the look she gave him - who could see it, and +forget it? - and the struggle that ensued within her. At last she +said: + +'I accept it, Sir You will please to consider this matter at an +end, and that it goes no farther.' + +He bowed low, and rose. She rose too, and he took leave with all +humility. But Withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the +beauty of his teeth, and at his brilliant smile; and as he rode away +upon his white-legged horse, the people took him for a dentist, such +was the dazzling show he made. The people took her, when she rode out +in her carriage presently, for a great lady, as happy as she was rich +and fine. But they had not seen her, just before, in her own room with +no one by; and they had not heard her utterance of the three words, +'Oh Florence, Florence!' + +Mrs Skewton, reposing on her sofa, and sipping her chocolate, had +heard nothing but the low word business, for which she had a mortal +aversion, insomuch that she had long banished it from her vocabulary, +and had gone nigh, in a charming manner and with an immense amount of +heart, to say nothing of soul, to ruin divers milliners and others in +consequence. Therefore Mrs Skewton asked no questions, and showed no +curiosity. Indeed, the peach-velvet bonnet gave her sufficient +occupation out of doors; for being perched on the back of her head, +and the day being rather windy, it was frantic to escape from Mrs +Skewton's company, and would be coaxed into no sort of compromise. +When the carriage was closed, and the wind shut out, the palsy played +among the artificial roses again like an almshouse-full of +superannuated zephyrs; and altogether Mrs Skewton had enough to do, +and got on but indifferently. + +She got on no better towards night; for when Mrs Dombey, in her +dressing-room, had been dressed and waiting for her half an hour, and +Mr Dombey, in the drawing-room, had paraded himself into a state of +solemn fretfulness (they were all three going out to dinner), Flowers +the Maid appeared with a pale face to Mrs Dombey, saying: + +'If you please, Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but I can't do nothing +with Missis!' + +'What do you mean?' asked Edith. + +'Well, Ma'am,' replied the frightened maid, 'I hardly know. She's +making faces!' + +Edith hurried with her to her mother's room. Cleopatra was arrayed +in full dress, with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge, curls, teeth, +and other juvenility all complete; but Paralysis was not to be +deceived, had known her for the object of its errand, and had struck +her at her glass, where she lay like a horrible doll that had tumbled +down. + +They took her to pieces in very shame, and put the little of her +that was real on a bed. Doctors were sent for, and soon came. Powerful +remedies were resorted to; opinions given that she would rally from +this shock, but would not survive another; and there she lay +speechless, and staring at the ceiling, for days; sometimes making +inarticulate sounds in answer to such questions as did she know who +were present, and the like: sometimes giving no reply either by sign +or gesture, or in her unwinking eyes. + +At length she began to recover consciousness, and in some degree +the power of motion, though not yet of speech. One day the use of her +right hand returned; and showing it to her maid who was in attendance +on her, and appearing very uneasy in her mind, she made signs for a +pencil and some paper. This the maid immediately provided, thinking +she was going to make a will, or write some last request; and Mrs +Dombey being from home, the maid awaited the result with solemn +feelings. + +After much painful scrawling and erasing, and putting in of wrong +characters, which seemed to tumble out of the pencil of their own +accord, the old woman produced this document: + + 'Rose-coloured curtains.' + +The maid being perfectly transfixed, and with tolerable reason, +Cleopatra amended the manuscript by adding two words more, when it +stood thus: + + 'Rose-coloured curtains for doctors.' + +The maid now perceived remotely that she wished these articles to +be provided for the better presentation of her complexion to the +faculty; and as those in the house who knew her best, had no doubt of +the correctness of this opinion, which she was soon able to establish +for herself the rose-coloured curtains were added to her bed, and she +mended with increased rapidity from that hour. She was soon able to +sit up, in curls and a laced cap and nightgown, and to have a little +artificial bloom dropped into the hollow caverns of her cheeks. + +It was a tremendous sight to see this old woman in her finery +leering and mincing at Death, and playing off her youthful tricks upon +him as if he had been the Major; but an alteration in her mind that +ensued on the paralytic stroke was fraught with as much matter for +reflection, and was quite as ghastly. + +Whether the weakening of her intellect made her more cunning and +false than before, or whether it confused her between what she had +assumed to be and what she really had been, or whether it had awakened +any glimmering of remorse, which could neither struggle into light nor +get back into total darkness, or whether, in the jumble of her +faculties, a combination of these effects had been shaken up, which is +perhaps the more likely supposition, the result was this: - That she +became hugely exacting in respect of Edith's affection and gratitude +and attention to her; highly laudatory of herself as a most +inestimable parent; and very jealous of having any rival in Edith's +regard. Further, in place of remembering that compact made between +them for an avoidance of the subject, she constantly alluded to her +daughter's marriage as a proof of her being an incomparable mother; +and all this, with the weakness and peevishness of such a state, +always serving for a sarcastic commentary on her levity and +youthfulness. + +'Where is Mrs Dombey? she would say to her maid. + +'Gone out, Ma'am.' + +'Gone out! Does she go out to shun her Mama, Flowers?' + +'La bless you, no, Ma'am. Mrs Dombey has only gone out for a ride +with Miss Florence.' + +'Miss Florence. Who's Miss Florence? Don't tell me about Miss +Florence. What's Miss Florence to her, compared to me?' + +The apposite display of the diamonds, or the peach-velvet bonnet +(she sat in the bonnet to receive visitors, weeks before she could +stir out of doors), or the dressing of her up in some gaud or other, +usually stopped the tears that began to flow hereabouts; and she would +remain in a complacent state until Edith came to see her; when, at a +glance of the proud face, she would relapse again. + +'Well, I am sure, Edith!' she would cry, shaking her head. + +'What is the matter, mother?' + +'Matter! I really don't know what is the matter. The world is +coming to such an artificial and ungrateful state, that I begin to +think there's no Heart - or anything of that sort - left in it, +positively. Withers is more a child to me than you are. He attends to +me much more than my own daughter. I almost wish I didn't look so +young - and all that kind of thing - and then perhaps I should be more +considered.' + +'What would you have, mother?' + +'Oh, a great deal, Edith,' impatiently. + +'Is there anything you want that you have not? It is your own fault +if there be.' + +'My own fault!' beginning to whimper. 'The parent I have been to +you, Edith: making you a companion from your cradle! And when you +neglect me, and have no more natural affection for me than if I was a +stranger - not a twentieth part of the affection that you have for +Florence - but I am only your mother, and should corrupt her in a day! +- you reproach me with its being my own fault.' + +'Mother, mother, I reproach you with nothing. Why will you always +dwell on this?' + +'Isn't it natural that I should dwell on this, when I am all +affection and sensitiveness, and am wounded in the cruellest way, +whenever you look at me?' + +'I do not mean to wound you, mother. Have you no remembrance of +what has been said between us? Let the Past rest.' + +'Yes, rest! And let gratitude to me rest; and let affection for me +rest; and let me rest in my out-of-the-way room, with no society and +no attention, while you find new relations to make much of, who have +no earthly claim upon you! Good gracious, Edith, do you know what an +elegant establishment you are at the head of?' + +'Yes. Hush!' + +'And that gentlemanly creature, Dombey? Do you know that you are +married to him, Edith, and that you have a settlement and a position, +and a carriage, and I don't know what?' + +'Indeed, I know it, mother; well.' + +'As you would have had with that delightful good soul - what did +they call him? - Granger - if he hadn't died. And who have you to +thank for all this, Edith?' + +'You, mother; you.' + +'Then put your arms round my neck, and kiss me; and show me, Edith, +that you know there never was a better Mama than I have been to you. +And don't let me become a perfect fright with teasing and wearing +myself at your ingratitude, or when I'm out again in society no soul +will know me, not even that hateful animal, the Major.' + +But, sometimes, when Edith went nearer to her, and bending down her +stately head, Put her cold cheek to hers, the mother would draw back +as If she were afraid of her, and would fall into a fit of trembling, +and cry out that there was a wandering in her wits. And sometimes she +would entreat her, with humility, to sit down on the chair beside her +bed, and would look at her (as she sat there brooding) with a face +that even the rose-coloured curtains could not make otherwise than +scared and wild. + +The rose-coloured curtains blushed, in course of time, on +Cleopatra's bodily recovery, and on her dress - more juvenile than +ever, to repair the ravages of illness - and on the rouge, and on the +teeth, and on the curls, and on the diamonds, and the short sleeves, +and the whole wardrobe of the doll that had tumbled down before the +mirror. They blushed, too, now and then, upon an indistinctness in her +speech which she turned off with a girlish giggle, and on an +occasional failing In her memory, that had no rule in it, but came and +went fantastically, as if in mockery of her fantastic self. + +But they never blushed upon a change in the new manner of her +thought and speech towards her daughter. And though that daughter +often came within their influence, they never blushed upon her +loveliness irradiated by a smile, or softened by the light of filial +love, in its stem beauty. + + + +CHAPTER 38. + +Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance + + + +The forlorn Miss Tox, abandoned by her friend Louisa Chick, and +bereft of Mr Dombey's countenance - for no delicate pair of wedding +cards, united by a silver thread, graced the chimney-glass in +Princess's Place, or the harpsichord, or any of those little posts of +display which Lucretia reserved for holiday occupation - became +depressed in her spirits, and suffered much from melancholy. For a +time the Bird Waltz was unheard in Princess's Place, the plants were +neglected, and dust collected on the miniature of Miss Tox's ancestor +with the powdered head and pigtail. + + +Miss Tox, however, was not of an age or of a disposition long to +abandon herself to unavailing regrets. Only two notes of the +harpsichord were dumb from disuse when the Bird Waltz again warbled +and trilled in the crooked drawing-room: only one slip of geranium +fell a victim to imperfect nursing, before she was gardening at her +green baskets again, regularly every morning; the powdered-headed +ancestor had not been under a cloud for more than six weeks, when Miss +Tox breathed on his benignant visage, and polished him up with a piece +of wash-leather. + +Still, Miss Tox was lonely, and at a loss. Her attachments, however +ludicrously shown, were real and strong; and she was, as she expressed +it, 'deeply hurt by the unmerited contumely she had met with from +Louisa.' But there was no such thing as anger in Miss Tox's +composition. If she had ambled on through life, in her soft spoken +way, without any opinions, she had, at least, got so far without any +harsh passions. The mere sight of Louisa Chick in the street one day, +at a considerable distance, so overpowered her milky nature, that she +was fain to seek immediate refuge in a pastrycook's, and there, in a +musty little back room usually devoted to the consumption of soups, +and pervaded by an ox-tail atmosphere, relieve her feelings by weeping +plentifully. + +Against Mr Dombey Miss Tox hardly felt that she had any reason of +complaint. Her sense of that gentleman's magnificence was such, that +once removed from him, she felt as if her distance always had been +immeasurable, and as if he had greatly condescended in tolerating her +at all. No wife could be too handsome or too stately for him, +according to Miss Tox's sincere opinion. It was perfectly natural that +in looking for one, he should look high. Miss Tox with tears laid down +this proposition, and fully admitted it, twenty times a day. She never +recalled the lofty manner in which Mr Dombey had made her subservient +to his convenience and caprices, and had graciously permitted her to +be one of the nurses of his little son. She only thought, in her own +words, 'that she had passed a great many happy hours in that house, +which she must ever remember with gratification, and that she could +never cease to regard Mr Dombey as one of the most impressive and +dignified of men.' + +Cut off, however, from the implacable Louisa, and being shy of the +Major (whom she viewed with some distrust now), Miss Tox found it very +irksome to know nothing of what was going on in Mr Dombey's +establishment. And as she really had got into the habit of considering +Dombey and Son as the pivot on which the world in general turned, she +resolved, rather than be ignorant of intelligence which so strongly +interested her, to cultivate her old acquaintance, Mrs Richards, who +she knew, since her last memorable appearance before Mr Dombey, was in +the habit of sometimes holding communication with his servants. +Perhaps Miss Tox, in seeking out the Toodle family, had the tender +motive hidden in her breast of having somebody to whom she could talk +about Mr Dombey, no matter how humble that somebody might be. + +At all events, towards the Toodle habitation Miss Tox directed her +steps one evening, what time Mr Toodle, cindery and swart, was +refreshing himself with tea, in the bosom of his family. Mr Toodle had +only three stages of existence. He was either taking refreshment in +the bosom just mentioned, or he was tearing through the country at +from twenty-five to fifty miles an hour, or he was sleeping after his +fatigues. He was always in a whirlwind or a calm, and a peaceable, +contented, easy-going man Mr Toodle was in either state, who seemed to +have made over all his own inheritance of fuming and fretting to the +engines with which he was connected, which panted, and gasped, and +chafed, and wore themselves out, in a most unsparing manner, while Mr +Toodle led a mild and equable life. + +'Polly, my gal,' said Mr Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee, +and two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about - Mr +Toodle was never out of children, but always kept a good supply on +hand - 'you ain't seen our Biler lately, have you?' + +'No,' replied Polly, 'but he's almost certain to look in tonight. +It's his right evening, and he's very regular.' + +'I suppose,' said Mr Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, 'as our +Biler is a doin' now about as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly?' + +'Oh! he's a doing beautiful!' responded Polly. + +'He ain't got to be at all secret-like - has he, Polly?' inquired +Mr Toodle. + +'No!' said Mrs Toodle, plumply. + +'I'm glad he ain't got to be at all secret-like, Polly,' observed +Mr Toodle in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread +and butter with a clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, 'because +that don't look well; do it, Polly?' + +'Why, of course it don't, father. How can you ask!' + +'You see, my boys and gals,' said Mr Toodle, looking round upon his +family, 'wotever you're up to in a honest way, it's my opinion as you +can't do better than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in +tunnels, don't you play no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and +let's know where you are. + +The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their +resolution to profit by the paternal advice. + +'But what makes you say this along of Rob, father?' asked his wife, +anxiously. + +'Polly, old ooman,' said Mr Toodle, 'I don't know as I said it +partickler along o' Rob, I'm sure. I starts light with Rob only; I +comes to a branch; I takes on what I finds there; and a whole train of +ideas gets coupled on to him, afore I knows where I am, or where they +comes from. What a Junction a man's thoughts is,' said Mr Toodle, +'to-be-sure!' + +This profound reflection Mr Toodle washed down with a pint mug of +tea, and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and +butter; charging his young daughters meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot +water in the pot, as he was uncommon dry, and should take the +indefinite quantity of 'a sight of mugs,' before his thirst was +appeased. + +In satisfying himself, however, Mr Toodle was not regardless of the +younger branches about him, who, although they had made their own +evening repast, were on the look-out for irregular morsels, as +possessing a relish. These he distributed now and then to the +expectant circle, by holding out great wedges of bread and butter, to +be bitten at by the family in lawful succession, and by serving out +small doses of tea in like manner with a spoon; which snacks had such +a relish in the mouths of these young Toodles, that, after partaking +of the same, they performed private dances of ecstasy among +themselves, and stood on one leg apiece, and hopped, and indulged in +other saltatory tokens of gladness. These vents for their excitement +found, they gradually closed about Mr Toodle again, and eyed him hard +as he got through more bread and butter and tea; affecting, however, +to have no further expectations of their own in reference to those +viands, but to be conversing on foreign subjects, and whispering +confidentially. + +Mr Toodle, in the midst of this family group, and setting an awful +example to his children in the way of appetite, was conveying the two +young Toodles on his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was +contemplating the rest over a barrier of bread and butter, when Rob +the Grinder, in his sou'wester hat and mourning slops, presented +himself, and was received with a general rush of brothers and sisters. + +'Well, mother!' said Rob, dutifully kissing her; 'how are you, +mother?' + +'There's my boy!' cried Polly, giving him a hug and a pat on the +back. 'Secret! Bless you, father, not he!' + +This was intended for Mr Toodle's private edification, but Rob the +Grinder, whose withers were not unwrung, caught the words as they were +spoken. + +'What! father's been a saying something more again me, has he?' +cried the injured innocent. 'Oh, what a hard thing it is that when a +cove has once gone a little wrong, a cove's own father should be +always a throwing it in his face behind his back! It's enough,' cried +Rob, resorting to his coat-cuff in anguish of spirit, 'to make a cove +go and do something, out of spite!' + +'My poor boy!' cried Polly, 'father didn't mean anything.' + +'If father didn't mean anything,' blubbered the injured Grinder, +'why did he go and say anything, mother? Nobody thinks half so bad of +me as my own father does. What a unnatural thing! I wish somebody'd +take and chop my head off. Father wouldn't mind doing it, I believe, +and I'd much rather he did that than t'other.' + +At these desperate words all the young Toodles shrieked; a pathetic +effect, which the Grinder improved by ironically adjuring them not to +cry for him, for they ought to hate him, they ought, if they was good +boys and girls; and this so touched the youngest Toodle but one, who +was easily moved, that it touched him not only in his spirit but in +his wind too; making him so purple that Mr Toodle in consternation +carried him out to the water-butt, and would have put him under the +tap, but for his being recovered by the sight of that instrument. + +Matters having reached this point, Mr Toodle explained, and the +virtuous feelings of his son being thereby calmed, they shook hands, +and harmony reigned again. + +'Will you do as I do, Biler, my boy?' inquired his father, +returning to his tea with new strength. + +'No, thank'ee, father. Master and I had tea together.' + +'And how is master, Rob?' said Polly. + +'Well, I don't know, mother; not much to boast on. There ain't no +bis'ness done, you see. He don't know anything about it - the Cap'en +don't. There was a man come into the shop this very day, and says, "I +want a so-and-so," he says - some hard name or another. "A which?" +says the Cap'en. "A so-and-so," says the man. "Brother," says the +Cap'en, "will you take a observation round the shop." "Well," says the +man, "I've done" "Do you see wot you want?" says the Cap'en "No, I +don't," says the man. "Do you know it wen you do see it?" says the +Cap'en. "No, I don't," says the man. "Why, then I tell you wot, my +lad," says the Cap'en, "you'd better go back and ask wot it's like, +outside, for no more don't I!"' + +'That ain't the way to make money, though, is it?' said Polly. + +'Money, mother! He'll never make money. He has such ways as I never +see. He ain't a bad master though, I'll say that for him. But that +ain't much to me, for I don't think I shall stop with him long.' + +'Not stop in your place, Rob!' cried his mother; while Mr Toodle +opened his eyes. + +'Not in that place, p'raps,' returned the Grinder, with a wink. 'I +shouldn't wonder - friends at court you know - but never you mind, +mother, just now; I'm all right, that's all.' + +The indisputable proof afforded in these hints, and in the +Grinder's mysterious manner, of his not being subject to that failing +which Mr Toodle had, by implication, attributed to him, might have led +to a renewal of his wrongs, and of the sensation in the family, but +for the opportune arrival of another visitor, who, to Polly's great +surprise, appeared at the door, smiling patronage and friendship on +all there. + +'How do you do, Mrs Richards?' said Miss Tox. 'I have come to see +you. May I come in?' + +The cheery face of Mrs Richards shone with a hospitable reply, and +Miss Tox, accepting the proffered chair, and grab fully recognising Mr +Toodle on her way to it, untied her bonnet strings, and said that in +the first place she must beg the dear children, one and all, to come +and kiss her. + +The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the +frequency of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an unlucky +planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general +salutation by having fixed the sou'wester hat (with which he had been +previously trifling) deep on his head, hind side before, and being +unable to get it off again; which accident presenting to his terrified +imagination a dismal picture of his passing the rest of his days in +darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from his friends and family, +caused him to struggle with great violence, and to utter suffocating +cries. Being released, his face was discovered to be very hot, and +red, and damp; and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted. + +'You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I daresay,' said Miss Tox to Mr +Toodle. + +'No, Ma'am, no,' said Toodle. 'But we've all on us got a little +older since then.' + +'And how do you find yourself, Sir?' inquired Miss Tox, blandly. + +'Hearty, Ma'am, thank'ee,' replied Toodle. 'How do you find +yourself, Ma'am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma'am? We +must all expect to grow into 'em, as we gets on.' + +'Thank you,' said Miss Tox. 'I have not felt any inconvenience from +that disorder yet.' + +'You're wery fortunate, Ma'am,' returned Mr Toodle. 'Many people at +your time of life, Ma'am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother - ' +But catching his wife's eye here, Mr Toodle judiciously buried the +rest in another mug of tea + +'You never mean to say, Mrs Richards,' cried Miss Tox, looking at +Rob, 'that that is your - ' + +'Eldest, Ma'am,' said Polly. 'Yes, indeed, it is. That's the little +fellow, Ma'am, that was the innocent cause of so much.' + +'This here, Ma'am,' said Toodle, 'is him with the short legs - and +they was,' said Mr Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, +'unusual short for leathers - as Mr Dombey made a Grinder on.' + +The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had +a peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, +and congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, +overhearing her, called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was +hardly the right look. + +'And now, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox, - 'and you too, Sir,' +addressing Toodle - 'I'll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have +come here for. You may be aware, Mrs Richards - and, possibly, you may +be aware too, Sir - that a little distance has interposed itself +between me and some of my friends, and that where I used to visit a +good deal, I do not visit now.' + +Polly, who, with a woman's tact, understood this at once, expressed +as much in a little look. Mr Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of +what Miss Tox was talking about, expressed that also, in a stare. + +'Of course,' said Miss Tox, 'how our little coolness has arisen is +of no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient +for me to say, that I have the greatest possible respect for, and +interest in, Mr Dombey;' Miss Tox's voice faltered; 'and everything +that relates to him.' + +Mr Toodle, enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heerd it +said, and, for his own part, he did think, as Mr Dombey was a +difficult subject. + +'Pray don't say so, Sir, if you please,' returned Miss Tox. 'Let me +entreat you not to say so, Sir, either now, or at any future time. +Such observations cannot but be very painful to me; and to a +gentleman, whose mind is constituted as, I am quite sure, yours is, +can afford no permanent satisfaction.' + +Mr Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a +remark that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly +confounded. + +'All that I wish to say, Mrs Richards,' resumed Miss Tox, - 'and I +address myself to you too, Sir, - is this. That any intelligence of +the proceedings of the family, of the welfare of the family, of the +health of the family, that reaches you, will be always most acceptable +to me. That I shall be always very glad to chat with Mrs Richards +about the family, and about old time And as Mrs Richards and I never +had the least difference (though I could wish now that we had been +better acquainted, but I have no one but myself to blame for that), I +hope she will not object to our being very good friends now, and to my +coming backwards and forwards here, when I like, without being a +stranger. Now, I really hope, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox - +earnestly, 'that you will take this, as I mean it, like a +good-humoured creature, as you always were.' + +Polly was gratified, and showed it. Mr Toodle didn't know whether +he was gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness. + +'You see, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox - 'and I hope you see too, +Sir - there are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to +you, if you will make no stranger of me; and in which I shall be +delighted to be so. For instance, I can teach your children something. +I shall bring a few little books, if you'll allow me, and some work, +and of an evening now and then, they'll learn - dear me, they'll learn +a great deal, I trust, and be a credit to their teacher.' + +Mr Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head +approvingly at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning +satisfaction. + +'Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss +Tox, 'and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs +Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever +it is, without minding me: and you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're +so disposed, Sir, won't you?' + +'Thank'ee, Mum,' said Mr Toodle. 'Yes; I'll take my bit of backer.' + +'Very good of you to say so, Sir,' rejoined Miss Tox, 'and I really +do assure you now, unfeignedly, that it will be a great comfort to me, +and that whatever good I may be fortunate enough to do the children, +you will more than pay back to me, if you'll enter into this little +bargain comfortably, and easily, and good-naturedly, without another +word about it.' + +The bargain was ratified on the spot; and Miss Tox found herself so +much at home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary +examination of the children all round - which Mr Toodle much admired - +and booked their ages, names, and acquirements, on a piece of paper. +This ceremony, and a little attendant gossip, prolonged the time until +after their usual hour of going to bed, and detained Miss Tox at the +Toodle fireside until it was too late for her to walk home alone. The +gallant Grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to +attend her to her own door; and as it was something to Miss Tox to be +seen home by a youth whom Mr Dombey had first inducted into those +manly garments which are rarely mentioned by name,' she very readily +accepted the proposal. + +After shaking hands with Mr Toodle and Polly, and kissing all the +children, Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited +popularity, and carrying away with her so light a heart that it might +have given Mrs Chick offence if that good lady could have weighed it. + +Rob the Grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss +Tox desired him to keep beside her, for conversational purposes; and, +as she afterwards expressed it to his mother, 'drew him out,' upon the +road. + +He drew out so bright, and clear, and shining, that Miss Tox was +charmed with him. The more Miss Tox drew him out, the finer he came - +like wire. There never was a better or more promising youth - a more +affectionate, steady, prudent, sober, honest, meek, candid young man - +than Rob drew out, that night. + +'I am quite glad,' said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, 'to know +you. I hope you'll consider me your friend, and that you'll come and +see me as often as you like. Do you keep a money-box?' + +'Yes, Ma'am,' returned Rob; 'I'm saving up, against I've got enough +to put in the Bank, Ma'am. + +'Very laudable indeed,' said Miss Tox. 'I'm glad to hear it. Put +this half-crown into it, if you please.' + +'Oh thank you, Ma'am,' replied Rob, 'but really I couldn't think of +depriving you.' + +'I commend your independent spirit,' said Miss Tox, 'but it's no +deprivation, I assure you. I shall be offended if you don't take it, +as a mark of my good-will. Good-night, Robin.' + +'Good-night, Ma'am,' said Rob, 'and thank you!' + +Who ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it away with a +pieman. But they never taught honour at the Grinders' School, where +the system that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering +of hypocrisy. Insomuch, that many of the friends and masters of past +Grinders said, if this were what came of education for the common +people, let us have none. Some more rational said, let us have a +better one. But the governing powers of the Grinders' Company were +always ready for them, by picking out a few boys who had turned out +well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could +have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of +those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the +Grinders' Institution. + + + +CHAPTER 39. + +Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner + + + +Time, sure of foot and strong of will, had so pressed onward, that +the year enjoined by the old Instrument-maker, as the term during +which his friend should refrain from opening the sealed packet +accompanying the letter he had left for him, was now nearly expired, +and Captain Cuttle began to look at it, of an evening, with feelings +of mystery and uneasiness + +The Captain, in his honour, would as soon have thought of opening +the parcel one hour before the expiration of the term, as he would +have thought of opening himself, to study his own anatomy. He merely +brought it out, at a certain stage of his first evening pipe, laid it +on the table, and sat gazing at the outside of it, through the smoke, +in silent gravity, for two or three hours at a spell. Sometimes, when +he had contemplated it thus for a pretty long while, the Captain would +hitch his chair, by degrees, farther and farther off, as if to get +beyond the range of its fascination; but if this were his design, he +never succeeded: for even when he was brought up by the parlour wall, +the packet still attracted him; or if his eyes, in thoughtful +wandering, roved to the ceiling or the fire, its image immediately +followed, and posted itself conspicuously among the coals, or took up +an advantageous position on the whitewash. + +In respect of Heart's Delight, the Captain's parental and +admiration knew no change. But since his last interview with Mr +Carker, Captain Cuttle had come to entertain doubts whether his former +intervention in behalf of that young lady and his dear boy Wal'r, had +proved altogether so favourable as he could have wished, and as he at +the time believed. The Captain was troubled with a serious misgiving +that he had done more harm than good, in short; and in his remorse and +modesty he made the best atonement he could think of, by putting +himself out of the way of doing any harm to anyone, and, as it were, +throwing himself overboard for a dangerous person. + +Self-buried, therefore, among the instruments, the Captain never +went near Mr Dombey's house, or reported himself in any way to +Florence or Miss Nipper. He even severed himself from Mr Perch, on the +occasion of his next visit, by dryly informing that gentleman, that he +thanked him for his company, but had cut himself adrift from all such +acquaintance, as he didn't know what magazine he mightn't blow up, +without meaning of it. In this self-imposed retirement, the Captain +passed whole days and weeks without interchanging a word with anyone +but Rob the Grinder, whom he esteemed as a pattern of disinterested +attachment and fidelity. In this retirement, the Captain, gazing at +the packet of an evening, would sit smoking, and thinking of Florence +and poor Walter, until they both seemed to his homely fancy to be +dead, and to have passed away into eternal youth, the beautiful and +innocent children of his first remembrance. + +The Captain did not, however, in his musings, neglect his own +improvement, or the mental culture of Rob the Grinder. That young man +was generally required to read out of some book to the Captain, for +one hour, every evening; and as the Captain implicitly believed that +all books were true, he accumulated, by this means, many remarkable +facts. On Sunday nights, the Captain always read for himself, before +going to bed, a certain Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount; and +although he was accustomed to quote the text, without book, after his +own manner, he appeared to read it with as reverent an understanding +of its heavenly spirit, as if he had got it all by heart in Greek, and +had been able to write any number of fierce theological disquisitions +on its every phrase. + +Rob the Grinder, whose reverence for the inspired writings, under +the admirable system of the Grinders' School, had been developed by a +perpetual bruising of his intellectual shins against all the proper +names of all the tribes of Judah, and by the monotonous repetition of +hard verses, especially by way of punishment, and by the parading of +him at six years old in leather breeches, three times a Sunday, very +high up, in a very hot church, with a great organ buzzing against his +drowsy head, like an exceedingly busy bee - Rob the Grinder made a +mighty show of being edified when the Captain ceased to read, and +generally yawned and nodded while the reading was in progress. The +latter fact being never so much as suspected by the good Captain. + +Captain Cuttle, also, as a man of business; took to keeping books. +In these he entered observations on the weather, and on the currents +of the waggons and other vehicles: which he observed, in that quarter, +to set westward in the morning and during the greater part of the day, +and eastward towards the evening. Two or three stragglers appearing in +one week, who 'spoke him' - so the Captain entered it- on the subject +of spectacles, and who, without positively purchasing, said they would +look in again, the Captain decided that the business was improving, +and made an entry in the day-book to that effect: the wind then +blowing (which he first recorded) pretty fresh, west and by north; +having changed in the night. + +One of the Captain's chief difficulties was Mr Toots, who called +frequently, and who without saying much seemed to have an idea that +the little back parlour was an eligible room to chuckle in, as he +would sit and avail himself of its accommodations in that regard by +the half-hour together, without at all advancing in intimacy with the +Captain. The Captain, rendered cautious by his late experience, was +unable quite to satisfy his mind whether Mr Toots was the mild subject +he appeared to be, or was a profoundly artful and dissimulating +hypocrite. His frequent reference to Miss Dombey was suspicious; but +the Captain had a secret kindness for Mr Toots's apparent reliance on +him, and forbore to decide against him for the present; merely eyeing +him, with a sagacity not to be described, whenever he approached the +subject that was nearest to his heart. + +'Captain Gills,' blurted out Mr Toots, one day all at once, as his +manner was, 'do you think you could think favourably of that +proposition of mine, and give me the pleasure of your acquaintance?' + +'Why, I tell you what it is, my lad,' replied the Captain, who had +at length concluded on a course of action; 'I've been turning that +there, over.' + +'Captain Gills, it's very kind of you,' retorted Mr Toots. 'I'm +much obliged to you. Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills, it would +be a charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really +would.' + +'You see, brother,' argued the Captain slowly, 'I don't know you. + +'But you never can know me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, +steadfast to his point, 'if you don't give me the pleasure of your +acquaintance. + +The Captain seemed struck by the originality and power of this +remark, and looked at Mr Toots as if he thought there was a great deal +more in him than he had expected. + +'Well said, my lad,' observed the Captain, nodding his head +thoughtfully; 'and true. Now look'ee here: You've made some +observations to me, which gives me to understand as you admire a +certain sweet creetur. Hey?' + +'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, gesticulating violently with the +hand in which he held his hat, 'Admiration is not the word. Upon my +honour, you have no conception what my feelings are. If I could be +dyed black, and made Miss Dombey's slave, I should consider it a +compliment. If, at the sacrifice of all my property, I could get +transmigrated into Miss Dombey's dog - I - I really think I should +never leave off wagging my tail. I should be so perfectly happy, +Captain Gills!' + +Mr Toots said it with watery eyes, and pressed his hat against his +bosom with deep emotion. + +'My lad,' returned the Captain, moved to compassion, 'if you're in +arnest - + +'Captain Gills,' cried Mr Toots, 'I'm in such a state of mind, and +am so dreadfully in earnest, that if I could swear to it upon a hot +piece of iron, or a live coal, or melted lead, or burning sealing-wax, +Or anything of that sort, I should be glad to hurt myself, as a relief +to my feelings.' And Mr Toots looked hurriedly about the room, as if +for some sufficiently painful means of accomplishing his dread +purpose. + +The Captain pushed his glazed hat back upon his head, stroked his +face down with his heavy hand - making his nose more mottled in the +process - and planting himself before Mr Toots, and hooking him by the +lapel of his coat, addressed him in these words, while Mr Toots looked +up into his face, with much attention and some wonder. + +'If you're in arnest, you see, my lad,' said the Captain, 'you're a +object of clemency, and clemency is the brightest jewel in the crown +of a Briton's head, for which you'll overhaul the constitution as laid +down in Rule Britannia, and, when found, that is the charter as them +garden angels was a singing of, so many times over. Stand by! This +here proposal o' you'rn takes me a little aback. And why? Because I +holds my own only, you understand, in these here waters, and haven't +got no consort, and may be don't wish for none. Steady! You hailed me +first, along of a certain young lady, as you was chartered by. Now if +you and me is to keep one another's company at all, that there young +creetur's name must never be named nor referred to. I don't know what +harm mayn't have been done by naming of it too free, afore now, and +thereby I brings up short. D'ye make me out pretty clear, brother?' + +'Well, you'll excuse me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, 'if I +don't quite follow you sometimes. But upon my word I - it's a hard +thing, Captain Gills, not to be able to mention Miss Dombey. I really +have got such a dreadful load here!' - Mr Toots pathetically touched +his shirt-front with both hands - 'that I feel night and day, exactly +as if somebody was sitting upon me. + +'Them,' said the Captain, 'is the terms I offer. If they're hard +upon you, brother, as mayhap they are, give 'em a wide berth, sheer +off, and part company cheerily!' + +'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'I hardly know how it is, but +after what you told me when I came here, for the first time, I - I +feel that I'd rather think about Miss Dombey in your society than talk +about her in almost anybody else's. Therefore, Captain Gills, if +you'll give me the pleasure of your acquaintance, I shall be very +happy to accept it on your own conditions. I wish to be honourable, +Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, holding back his extended hand for a +moment, 'and therefore I am obliged to say that I can not help +thinking about Miss Dombey. It's impossible for me to make a promise +not to think about her.' + +'My lad,' said the Captain, whose opinion of Mr Toots was much +improved by this candid avowal, 'a man's thoughts is like the winds, +and nobody can't answer for 'em for certain, any length of time +together. Is it a treaty as to words?' + +'As to words, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'I think I can +bind myself.' + +Mr Toots gave Captain Cuttle his hand upon it, then and there; and +the Captain with a pleasant and gracious show of condescension, +bestowed his acquaintance upon him formally. Mr Toots seemed much +relieved and gladdened by the acquisition, and chuckled rapturously +during the remainder of his visit. The Captain, for his part, was not +ill pleased to occupy that position of patronage, and was exceedingly +well satisfied by his own prudence and foresight. + +But rich as Captain Cuttle was in the latter quality, he received a +surprise that same evening from a no less ingenuous and simple youth, +than Rob the Grinder. That artless lad, drinking tea at the same +table, and bending meekly over his cup and saucer, having taken +sidelong observations of his master for some time, who was reading the +newspaper with great difficulty, but much dignity, through his +glasses, broke silence by saying - + +'Oh! I beg your pardon, Captain, but you mayn't be in want of any +pigeons, may you, Sir?' + +'No, my lad,' replied the Captain. + +'Because I was wishing to dispose of mine, Captain,' said Rob. + +'Ay, ay?' cried the Captain, lifting up his bushy eyebrows a +little. + +'Yes; I'm going, Captain, if you please,' said Rob. + +'Going? Where are you going?' asked the Captain, looking round at +him over the glasses. + +'What? didn't you know that I was going to leave you, Captain?' +asked Rob, with a sneaking smile. + +The Captain put down the paper, took off his spectacles, and +brought his eyes to bear on the deserter. + +'Oh yes, Captain, I am going to give you warning. I thought you'd +have known that beforehand, perhaps,' said Rob, rubbing his hands, and +getting up. 'If you could be so good as provide yourself soon, +Captain, it would be a great convenience to me. You couldn't provide +yourself by to-morrow morning, I am afraid, Captain: could you, do you +think?' + +'And you're a going to desert your colours, are you, my lad?' said +the Captain, after a long examination of his face. + +'Oh, it's very hard upon a cove, Captain,' cried the tender Rob, +injured and indignant in a moment, 'that he can't give lawful warning, +without being frowned at in that way, and called a deserter. You +haven't any right to call a poor cove names, Captain. It ain't because +I'm a servant and you're a master, that you're to go and libel me. +What wrong have I done? Come, Captain, let me know what my crime is, +will you?' + +The stricken Grinder wept, and put his coat-cuff in his eye. + +'Come, Captain,' cried the injured youth, 'give my crime a name! +What have I been and done? Have I stolen any of the property? have I +set the house a-fire? If I have, why don't you give me in charge, and +try it? But to take away the character of a lad that's been a good +servant to you, because he can't afford to stand in his own light for +your good, what a injury it is, and what a bad return for faithful +service! This is the way young coves is spiled and drove wrong. I +wonder at you, Captain, I do.' + +All of which the Grinder howled forth in a lachrymose whine, and +backing carefully towards the door. + +'And so you've got another berth, have you, my lad?' said the +Captain, eyeing him intently. + +'Yes, Captain, since you put it in that shape, I have got another +berth,' cried Rob, backing more and more; 'a better berth than I've +got here, and one where I don't so much as want your good word, +Captain, which is fort'nate for me, after all the dirt you've throw'd +at me, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light for +your good. Yes, I have got another berth; and if it wasn't for leaving +you unprovided, Captain, I'd go to it now, sooner than I'd take them +names from you, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own +light for your good. Why do you reproach me for being poor, and not +standing in my own light for your good, Captain? How can you so demean +yourself?' + +'Look ye here, my boy,' replied the peaceful Captain. 'Don't you +pay out no more of them words.' + +'Well, then, don't you pay in no more of your words, Captain,' +retorted the roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing +into the shop. 'I'd sooner you took my blood than my character.' + +'Because,' pursued the Captain calmly, 'you have heerd, may be, of +such a thing as a rope's end.' + +'Oh, have I though, Captain?' cried the taunting Grinder. 'No I +haven't. I never heerd of any such a article!' + +'Well,' said the Captain, 'it's my belief as you'll know more about +it pretty soon, if you don't keep a bright look-out. I can read your +signals, my lad. You may go.' + +'Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain?' cried Rob, exulting in his +success. 'But mind! I never asked to go at once, Captain. You are not +to take away my character again, because you send me off of your own +accord. And you're not to stop any of my wages, Captain!' + +His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister +and telling the Grinder's money out in full upon the table. Rob, +snivelling and sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took +up the pieces one by one, with a sob and a snivel for each, and tied +them up separately in knots in his pockethandkerchief; then he +ascended to the roof of the house and filled his hat and pockets with +pigeons; then, came down to his bed under the counter and made up his +bundle, snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he were cut to the heart +by old associations; then he whined, 'Good-night, Captain. I leave you +without malice!' and then, going out upon the door-step, pulled the +little Midshipman's nose as a parting indignity, and went away down +the street grinning triumphantly. + +The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if +nothing unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on +with the greatest assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle +understand, though he read a vast number, for Rob the Grinder was +scampering up one column and down another all through the newspaper. + +It is doubtful whether the worthy Captain had ever felt himself +quite abandoned until now; but now, old Sol Gills, Walter, and Heart's +Delight were lost to him indeed, and now Mr Carker deceived and jeered +him cruelly. They were all represented in the false Rob, to whom he +had held forth many a time on the recollections that were warm within +him; he had believed in the false Rob, and had been glad to believe in +him; he had made a companion of him as the last of the old ship's +company; he had taken the command of the little Midshipman with him at +his right hand; he had meant to do his duty by him, and had felt +almost as kindly towards the boy as if they had been shipwrecked and +cast upon a desert place together. And now, that the false Rob had +brought distrust, treachery, and meanness into the very parlour, which +was a kind of sacred place, Captain Cuttle felt as if the parlour +might have gone down next, and not surprised him much by its sinking, +or given him any very great concern. + +Therefore Captain Cuttle read the newspaper with profound attention +and no comprehension, and therefore Captain Cuttle said nothing +whatever about Rob to himself, or admitted to himself that he was +thinking about him, or would recognise in the most distant manner that +Rob had anything to do with his feeling as lonely as Robinson Crusoe. + +In the same composed, business-like way, the Captain stepped over +to Leadenhall Market in the dusk, and effected an arrangement with a +private watchman on duty there, to come and put up and take down the +shutters of the wooden Midshipman every night and morning. He then +called in at the eating-house to diminish by one half the daily +rations theretofore supplied to the Midshipman, and at the +public-house to stop the traitor's beer. 'My young man,' said the +Captain, in explanation to the young lady at the bar, 'my young man +having bettered himself, Miss.' Lastly, the Captain resolved to take +possession of the bed under the counter, and to turn in there o' +nights instead of upstairs, as sole guardian of the property. + +From this bed Captain Cuttle daily rose thenceforth, and clapped on +his glazed hat at six o'clock in the morning, with the solitary air of +Crusoe finishing his toilet with his goat-skin cap; and although his +fears of a visitation from the savage tribe, MacStinger, were somewhat +cooled, as similar apprehensions on the part of that lone mariner used +to be by the lapse of a long interval without any symptoms of the +cannibals, he still observed a regular routine of defensive +operations, and never encountered a bonnet without previous survey +from his castle of retreat. In the meantime (during which he received +no call from Mr Toots, who wrote to say he was out of town) his own +voice began to have a strange sound in his ears; and he acquired such +habits of profound meditation from much polishing and stowing away of +the stock, and from much sitting behind the counter reading, or +looking out of window, that the red rim made on his forehead by the +hard glazed hat, sometimes ached again with excess of reflection. + +The year being now expired, Captain Cuttle deemed it expedient to +open the packet; but as he had always designed doing this in the +presence of Rob the Grinder, who had brought it to him, and as he had +an idea that it would be regular and ship-shape to open it in the +presence of somebody, he was sadly put to it for want of a witness. In +this difficulty, he hailed one day with unusual delight the +announcement in the Shipping Intelligence of the arrival of the +Cautious Clara, Captain John Bunsby, from a coasting voyage; and to +that philosopher immediately dispatched a letter by post, enjoining +inviolable secrecy as to his place of residence, and requesting to be +favoured with an early visit, in the evening season. + +Bunsby, who was one of those sages who act upon conviction, took +some days to get the conviction thoroughly into his mind, that he had +received a letter to this effect. But when he had grappled with the +fact, and mastered it, he promptly sent his boy with the message, +'He's a coming to-night.' Who being instructed to deliver those words +and disappear, fulfilled his mission like a tarry spirit, charged with +a mysterious warning. + +The Captain, well pleased to receive it, made preparation of pipes +and rum and water, and awaited his visitor in the back parlour. At the +hour of eight, a deep lowing, as of a nautical Bull, outside the +shop-door, succeeded by the knocking of a stick on the panel, +announced to the listening ear of Captain Cuttle, that Bunsby was +alongside; whom he instantly admitted, shaggy and loose, and with his +stolid mahogany visage, as usual, appearing to have no consciousness +of anything before it, but to be attentively observing something that +was taking place in quite another part of the world. + +'Bunsby,' said the Captain, grasping him by the hand, 'what cheer, +my lad, what cheer?' + +'Shipmet,' replied the voice within Bunsby, unaccompanied by any +sign on the part of the Commander himself, 'hearty, hearty.' + +'Bunsby!' said the Captain, rendering irrepressible homage to his +genius, 'here you are! a man as can give an opinion as is brighter +than di'monds - and give me the lad with the tarry trousers as shines +to me like di'monds bright, for which you'll overhaul the Stanfell's +Budget, and when found make a note.' Here you are, a man as gave an +opinion in this here very place, that has come true, every letter on +it,' which the Captain sincerely believed. + +'Ay, ay?' growled Bunsby. + +'Every letter,' said the Captain. + +'For why?' growled Bunsby, looking at his friend for the first +time. 'Which way? If so, why not? Therefore.' With these oracular +words - they seemed almost to make the Captain giddy; they launched +him upon such a sea of speculation and conjecture - the sage submitted +to be helped off with his pilot-coat, and accompanied his friend into +the back parlour, where his hand presently alighted on the rum-bottle, +from which he brewed a stiff glass of grog; and presently afterwards +on a pipe, which he filled, lighted, and began to smoke. + +Captain Cuttle, imitating his visitor in the matter of these +particulars, though the rapt and imperturbable manner of the great +Commander was far above his powers, sat in the opposite corner of the +fireside, observing him respectfully, and as if he waited for some +encouragement or expression of curiosity on Bunsby's part which should +lead him to his own affairs. But as the mahogany philosopher gave no +evidence of being sentient of anything but warmth and tobacco, except +once, when taking his pipe from his lips to make room for his glass, +he incidentally remarked with exceeding gruffness, that his name was +Jack Bunsby - a declaration that presented but small opening for +conversation - the Captain bespeaking his attention in a short +complimentary exordium, narrated the whole history of Uncle Sol's +departure, with the change it had produced in his own life and +fortunes; and concluded by placing the packet on the table. + +After a long pause, Mr Bunsby nodded his head. + +'Open?' said the Captain. + +Bunsby nodded again. + +The Captain accordingly broke the seal, and disclosed to view two +folded papers, of which he severally read the endorsements, thus: +'Last Will and Testament of Solomon Gills.' 'Letter for Ned Cuttle.' + +Bunsby, with his eye on the coast of Greenland, seemed to listen +for the contents. The Captain therefore hemmed to clear his throat, +and read the letter aloud. + +'"My dear Ned Cuttle. When I left home for the West Indies" - ' + +Here the Captain stopped, and looked hard at Bunsby, who looked +fixedly at the coast of Greenland. + +' - "in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear boy, I knew that +if you were acquainted with my design, you would thwart it, or +accompany me; and therefore I kept it secret. If you ever read this +letter, Ned, I am likely to be dead. You will easily forgive an old +friend's folly then, and will feel for the restlessness and +uncertainty in which he wandered away on such a wild voyage. So no +more of that. I have little hope that my poor boy will ever read these +words, or gladden your eyes with the sight of his frank face any +more." No, no; no more,' said Captain Cuttle, sorrowfully meditating; +'no more. There he lays, all his days - ' + +Mr Bunsby, who had a musical ear, suddenly bellowed, 'In the Bays +of Biscay, O!' which so affected the good Captain, as an appropriate +tribute to departed worth, that he shook him by the hand in +acknowledgment, and was fain to wipe his eyes. + +'Well, well!' said the Captain with a sigh, as the Lament of Bunsby +ceased to ring and vibrate in the skylight. 'Affliction sore, long +time he bore, and let us overhaul the wollume, and there find it.' + +'Physicians,' observed Bunsby, 'was in vain." + +'Ay, ay, to be sure,' said the Captain, 'what's the good o' them in +two or three hundred fathoms o' water!' Then, returning to the letter, +he read on: - '"But if he should be by, when it is opened;"' the +Captain involuntarily looked round, and shook his head; '"or should +know of it at any other time;"' the Captain shook his head again; '"my +blessing on him! In case the accompanying paper is not legally +written, it matters very little, for there is no one interested but +you and he, and my plain wish is, that if he is living he should have +what little there may be, and if (as I fear) otherwise, that you +should have it, Ned. You will respect my wish, I know. God bless you +for it, and for all your friendliness besides, to Solomon Gills." +Bunsby!' said the Captain, appealing to him solemnly, 'what do you +make of this? There you sit, a man as has had his head broke from +infancy up'ards, and has got a new opinion into it at every seam as +has been opened. Now, what do you make o' this?' + +'If so be,' returned Bunsby, with unusual promptitude, 'as he's +dead, my opinion is he won't come back no more. If so be as he's +alive, my opinion is he will. Do I say he will? No. Why not? Because +the bearings of this obserwation lays in the application on it.' + +'Bunsby!' said Captain Cuttle, who would seem to have estimated the +value of his distinguished friend's opinions in proportion to the +immensity of the difficulty he experienced in making anything out of +them; 'Bunsby,' said the Captain, quite confounded by admiration, 'you +carry a weight of mind easy, as would swamp one of my tonnage soon. +But in regard o' this here will, I don't mean to take no steps towards +the property - Lord forbid! - except to keep it for a more rightful +owner; and I hope yet as the rightful owner, Sol Gills, is living +and'll come back, strange as it is that he ain't forwarded no +dispatches. Now, what is your opinion, Bunsby, as to stowing of these +here papers away again, and marking outside as they was opened, such a +day, in the presence of John Bunsby and Ed'ard Cuttle?' + +Bunsby, descrying no objection, on the coast of Greenland or +elsewhere, to this proposal, it was carried into execution; and that +great man, bringing his eye into the present for a moment, affixed his +sign-manual to the cover, totally abstaining, with characteristic +modesty, from the use of capital letters. Captain Cuttle, having +attached his own left-handed signature, and locked up the packet in +the iron safe, entreated his guest to mix another glass and smoke +another pipe; and doing the like himself, fell a musing over the fire +on the possible fortunes of the poor old Instrument-maker. + +And now a surprise occurred, so overwhelming and terrific that +Captain Cuttle, unsupported by the presence of Bunsby, must have sunk +beneath it, and been a lost man from that fatal hour. + +How the Captain, even in the satisfaction of admitting such a +guest, could have only shut the door, and not locked it, of which +negligence he was undoubtedly guilty, is one of those questions that +must for ever remain mere points of speculation, or vague charges +against destiny. But by that unlocked door, at this quiet moment, did +the fell MacStinger dash into the parlour, bringing Alexander +MacStinger in her parental arms, and confusion and vengeance (not to +mention Juliana MacStinger, and the sweet child's brother, Charles +MacStinger, popularly known about the scenes of his youthful sports, +as Chowley) in her train. She came so swiftly and so silently, like a +rushing air from the neighbourhood of the East India Docks, that +Captain Cuttle found himself in the very act of sitting looking at +her, before the calm face with which he had been meditating, changed +to one of horror and dismay. + +But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his +misfortune, self-preservation dictated an attempt at flight. Darting +at the little door which opened from the parlour on the steep little +range of cellar-steps, the Captain made a rush, head-foremost, at the +latter, like a man indifferent to bruises and contusions, who only +sought to hide himself in the bowels of the earth. In this gallant +effort he would probably have succeeded, but for the affectionate +dispositions of Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs - one +of those dear children holding on to each - claimed him as their +friend, with lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs MacStinger, who +never entered upon any action of importance without previously +inverting Alexander MacStinger, to bring him within the range of a +brisk battery of slaps, and then sitting him down to cool as the +reader first beheld him, performed that solemn rite, as if on this +occasion it were a sacrifice to the Furies; and having deposited the +victim on the floor, made at the Captain with a strength of purpose +that appeared to threaten scratches to the interposing Bunsby. + +The cries of the two elder MacStingers, and the wailing of young +Alexander, who may be said to have passed a piebald childhood, +forasmuch as he was black in the face during one half of that fairy +period of existence, combined to make this visitation the more awful. +But when silence reigned again, and the Captain, in a violent +perspiration, stood meekly looking at Mrs MacStinger, its terrors were +at their height. + +'Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle!' said Mrs MacStinger, making her +chin rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness +of her sex, might be described as her fist. 'Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en +Cuttle, do you dare to look me in the face, and not be struck down in +the herth!' + +The Captain, who looked anything but daring, feebly muttered +'Standby!' + +'Oh I was a weak and trusting Fool when I took you under my roof, +Cap'en Cuttle, I was!' cried Mrs MacStinger. 'To think of the benefits +I've showered on that man, and the way in which I brought my children +up to love and honour him as if he was a father to 'em, when there +ain't a housekeeper, no nor a lodger in our street, don't know that I +lost money by that man, and by his guzzlings and his muzzlings' - Mrs +MacStinger used the last word for the joint sake of alliteration and +aggravation, rather than for the expression of any idea - 'and when +they cried out one and all, shame upon him for putting upon an +industrious woman, up early and late for the good of her young family, +and keeping her poor place so clean that a individual might have ate +his dinner, yes, and his tea too, if he was so disposed, off any one +of the floors or stairs, in spite of all his guzzlings and his +muzzlings, such was the care and pains bestowed upon him!' + +Mrs MacStinger stopped to fetch her breath; and her face flushed +with triumph in this second happy introduction of Captain Cuttle's +muzzlings. + +'And he runs awa-a-a-y!'cried Mrs MacStinger, with a lengthening +out of the last syllable that made the unfortunate Captain regard +himself as the meanest of men; 'and keeps away a twelve-month! From a +woman! Such is his conscience! He hasn't the courage to meet her +hi-i-igh;' long syllable again; 'but steals away, like a felion. Why, +if that baby of mine,' said Mrs MacStinger, with sudden rapidity, 'was +to offer to go and steal away, I'd do my duty as a mother by him, till +he was covered with wales!' + +The young Alexander, interpreting this into a positive promise, to +be shortly redeemed, tumbled over with fear and grief, and lay upon +the floor, exhibiting the soles of his shoes and making such a +deafening outcry, that Mrs MacStinger found it necessary to take him +up in her arms, where she quieted him, ever and anon, as he broke out +again, by a shake that seemed enough to loosen his teeth. + +'A pretty sort of a man is Cap'en Cuttle,' said Mrs MacStinger, +with a sharp stress on the first syllable of the Captain's name, 'to +take on for - and to lose sleep for- and to faint along of- and to +think dead forsooth - and to go up and down the blessed town like a +madwoman, asking questions after! Oh, a pretty sort of a man! Ha ha ha +ha! He's worth all that trouble and distress of mind, and much more. +That's nothing, bless you! Ha ha ha ha! Cap'en Cuttle,' said Mrs +MacStinger, with severe reaction in her voice and manner, 'I wish to +know if you're a-coming home. + +The frightened Captain looked into his hat, as if he saw nothing +for it but to put it on, and give himself up. + +'Cap'en Cuttle,' repeated Mrs MacStinger, in the same determined +manner, 'I wish to know if you're a-coming home, Sir.' + +The Captain seemed quite ready to go, but faintly suggested +something to the effect of 'not making so much noise about it.' + +'Ay, ay, ay,' said Bunsby, in a soothing tone. 'Awast, my lass, +awast!' + +'And who may you be, if you please!' retorted Mrs MacStinger, with +chaste loftiness. 'Did you ever lodge at Number Nine, Brig Place, Sir? +My memory may be bad, but not with me, I think. There was a Mrs +Jollson lived at Number Nine before me, and perhaps you're mistaking +me for her. That is my only ways of accounting for your familiarity, +Sir.' + +'Come, come, my lass, awast, awast!' said Bunsby. + +Captain Cuttle could hardly believe it, even of this great man, +though he saw it done with his waking eyes; but Bunsby, advancing +boldly, put his shaggy blue arm round Mrs MacStinger, and so softened +her by his magic way of doing it, and by these few words - he said no +more - that she melted into tears, after looking upon him for a few +moments, and observed that a child might conquer her now, she was so +low in her courage. + +Speechless and utterly amazed, the Captain saw him gradually +persuade this inexorable woman into the shop, return for rum and water +and a candle, take them to her, and pacify her without appearing to +utter one word. Presently he looked in with his pilot-coat on, and +said, 'Cuttle, I'm a-going to act as convoy home;' and Captain Cuttle, +more to his confusion than if he had been put in irons himself, for +safe transport to Brig Place, saw the family pacifically filing off, +with Mrs MacStinger at their head. He had scarcely time to take down +his canister, and stealthily convey some money into the hands of +Juliana MacStinger, his former favourite, and Chowley, who had the +claim upon him that he was naturally of a maritime build, before the +Midshipman was abandoned by them all; and Bunsby whispering that he'd +carry on smart, and hail Ned Cuttle again before he went aboard, shut +the door upon himself, as the last member of the party. + +Some uneasy ideas that he must be walking in his sleep, or that he +had been troubled with phantoms, and not a family of flesh and blood, +beset the Captain at first, when he went back to the little parlour, +and found himself alone. Illimitable faith in, and immeasurable +admiration of, the Commander of the Cautious Clara, succeeded, and +threw the Captain into a wondering trance. + +Still, as time wore on, and Bunsby failed to reappear, the Captain +began to entertain uncomfortable doubts of another kind. Whether +Bunsby had been artfully decoyed to Brig Place, and was there detained +in safe custody as hostage for his friend; in which case it would +become the Captain, as a man of honour, to release him, by the +sacrifice of his own liberty. Whether he had been attacked and +defeated by Mrs MacStinger, and was ashamed to show himself after his +discomfiture. Whether Mrs MacStinger, thinking better of it, in the +uncertainty of her temper, had turned back to board the Midshipman +again, and Bunsby, pretending to conduct her by a short cut, was +endeavouring to lose the family amid the wilds and savage places of +the City. Above all, what it would behove him, Captain Cuttle, to do, +in case of his hearing no more, either of the MacStingers or of +Bunsby, which, in these wonderful and unforeseen conjunctions of +events, might possibly happen. + +He debated all this until he was tired; and still no Bunsby. He +made up his bed under the counter, all ready for turning in; and still +no Bunsby. At length, when the Captain had given him up, for that +night at least, and had begun to undress, the sound of approaching +wheels was heard, and, stopping at the door, was succeeded by Bunsby's +hail. + +The Captain trembled to think that Mrs MacStinger was not to be got +rid of, and had been brought back in a coach. + +But no. Bunsby was accompanied by nothing but a large box, which he +hauled into the shop with his own hands, and as soon as he had hauled +in, sat upon. Captain Cuttle knew it for the chest he had left at Mrs +MacStinger's house, and looking, candle in hand, at Bunsby more +attentively, believed that he was three sheets in the wind, or, in +plain words, drunk. It was difficult, however, to be sure of this; the +Commander having no trace of expression in his face when sober. + +'Cuttle,' said the Commander, getting off the chest, and opening +the lid, 'are these here your traps?' + +Captain Cuttle looked in and identified his property. + +'Done pretty taut and trim, hey, shipmet?' said Bunsby. + +The grateful and bewildered Captain grasped him by the hand, and +was launching into a reply expressive of his astonished feelings, when +Bunsby disengaged himself by a jerk of his wrist, and seemed to make +an effort to wink with his revolving eye, the only effect of which +attempt, in his condition, was nearly to over-balance him. He then +abruptly opened the door, and shot away to rejoin the Cautious Clara +with all speed - supposed to be his invariable custom, whenever he +considered he had made a point. + +As it was not his humour to be often sought, Captain Cuttle decided +not to go or send to him next day, or until he should make his +gracious pleasure known in such wise, or failing that, until some +little time should have lapsed. The Captain, therefore, renewed his +solitary life next morning, and thought profoundly, many mornings, +noons, and nights, of old Sol Gills, and Bunsby's sentiments +concerning him, and the hopes there were of his return. Much of such +thinking strengthened Captain Cuttle's hopes; and he humoured them and +himself by watching for the Instrument-maker at the door - as he +ventured to do now, in his strange liberty - and setting his chair in +its place, and arranging the little parlour as it used to be, in case +he should come home unexpectedly. He likewise, in his thoughtfulness, +took down a certain little miniature of Walter as a schoolboy, from +its accustomed nail, lest it should shock the old man on his return. +The Captain had his presentiments, too, sometimes, that he would come +on such a day; and one particular Sunday, even ordered a double +allowance of dinner, he was so sanguine. But come, old Solomon did +not; and still the neighbours noticed how the seafaring man in the +glazed hat, stood at the shop-door of an evening, looking up and down +the street. + + + +CHAPTER 40. + +Domestic Relations + + + +It was not in the nature of things that a man of Mr Dombey's mood, +opposed to such a spirit as he had raised against himself, should be +softened in the imperious asperity of his temper; or that the cold +hard armour of pride in which he lived encased, should be made more +flexible by constant collision with haughty scorn and defiance. It is +the curse of such a nature - it is a main part of the heavy +retribution on itself it bears within itself - that while deference +and concession swell its evil qualities, and are the food it grows +upon, resistance and a questioning of its exacting claims, foster it +too, no less. The evil that is in it finds equally its means of growth +and propagation in opposites. It draws support and life from sweets +and bitters; bowed down before, or unacknowledged, it still enslaves +the breast in which it has its throne; and, worshipped or rejected, is +as hard a master as the Devil in dark fables. + +Towards his first wife, Mr Dombey, in his cold and lofty arrogance, +had borne himself like the removed Being he almost conceived himself +to be. He had been 'Mr Dombey' with her when she first saw him, and he +was 'Mr Dombey' when she died. He had asserted his greatness during +their whole married life, and she had meekly recognised it. He had +kept his distant seat of state on the top of his throne, and she her +humble station on its lowest step; and much good it had done him, so +to live in solitary bondage to his one idea. He had imagined that the +proud character of his second wife would have been added to his own - +would have merged into it, and exalted his greatness. He had pictured +himself haughtier than ever, with Edith's haughtiness subservient to +his. He had never entertained the possibility of its arraying itself +against him. And now, when he found it rising in his path at every +step and turn of his daily life, fixing its cold, defiant, and +contemptuous face upon him, this pride of his, instead of withering, +or hanging down its head beneath the shock, put forth new shoots, +became more concentrated and intense, more gloomy, sullen, irksome, +and unyielding, than it had ever been before. + +Who wears such armour, too, bears with him ever another heavy +retribution. It is of proof against conciliation, love, and +confidence; against all gentle sympathy from without, all trust, all +tenderness, all soft emotion; but to deep stabs in the self-love, it +is as vulnerable as the bare breast to steel; and such tormenting +festers rankle there, as follow on no other wounds, no, though dealt +with the mailed hand of Pride itself, on weaker pride, disarmed and +thrown down. + +Such wounds were his. He felt them sharply, in the solitude of his +old rooms; whither he now began often to retire again, and pass long +solitary hours. It seemed his fate to be ever proud and powerful; ever +humbled and powerless where he would be most strong. Who seemed fated +to work out that doom? + +Who? Who was it who could win his wife as she had won his boy? Who +was it who had shown him that new victory, as he sat in the dark +corner? Who was it whose least word did what his utmost means could +not? Who was it who, unaided by his love, regard or notice, thrived +and grew beautiful when those so aided died? Who could it be, but the +same child at whom he had often glanced uneasily in her motherless +infancy, with a kind of dread, lest he might come to hate her; and of +whom his foreboding was fulfilled, for he DID hate her in his heart? + +Yes, and he would have it hatred, and he made it hatred, though +some sparkles of the light in which she had appeared before him on the +memorable night of his return home with his Bride, occasionally hung +about her still. He knew now that she was beautiful; he did not +dispute that she was graceful and winning, and that in the bright dawn +of her womanhood she had come upon him, a surprise. But he turned even +this against her. In his sullen and unwholesome brooding, the unhappy +man, with a dull perception of his alienation from all hearts, and a +vague yearning for what he had all his life repelled, made a distorted +picture of his rights and wrongs, and justified himself with it +against her. The worthier she promised to be of him, the greater claim +he was disposed to antedate upon her duty and submission. When had she +ever shown him duty and submission? Did she grace his life - or +Edith's? Had her attractions been manifested first to him - or Edith? +Why, he and she had never been, from her birth, like father and child! +They had always been estranged. She had crossed him every way and +everywhere. She was leagued against him now. Her very beauty softened +natures that were obdurate to him, and insulted him with an unnatural +triumph. + +It may have been that in all this there were mutterings of an +awakened feeling in his breast, however selfishly aroused by his +position of disadvantage, in comparison with what she might have made +his life. But he silenced the distant thunder with the rolling of his +sea of pride. He would bear nothing but his pride. And in his pride, a +heap of inconsistency, and misery, and self-inflicted torment, he +hated her. + +To the moody, stubborn, sullen demon, that possessed him, his wife +opposed her different pride in its full force. They never could have +led a happy life together; but nothing could have made it more +unhappy, than the wilful and determined warfare of such elements. His +pride was set upon maintaining his magnificent supremacy, and forcing +recognition of it from her. She would have been racked to death, and +turned but her haughty glance of calm inflexible disdain upon him, to +the last. Such recognition from Edith! He little knew through what a +storm and struggle she had been driven onward to the crowning honour +of his hand. He little knew how much she thought she had conceded, +when she suffered him to call her wife. + +Mr Dombey was resolved to show her that he was supreme. There must +be no will but his. Proud he desired that she should be, but she must +be proud for, not against him. As he sat alone, hardening, he would +often hear her go out and come home, treading the round of London life +with no more heed of his liking or disliking, pleasure or displeasure, +than if he had been her groom. Her cold supreme indifference - his own +unquestioned attribute usurped - stung him more than any other kind of +treatment could have done; and he determined to bend her to his +magnificent and stately will. + +He had been long communing with these thoughts, when one night he +sought her in her own apartment, after he had heard her return home +late. She was alone, in her brilliant dress, and had but that moment +come from her mother's room. Her face was melancholy and pensive, when +he came upon her; but it marked him at the door; for, glancing at the +mirror before it, he saw immediately, as in a picture-frame, the +knitted brow, and darkened beauty that he knew so well. + +'Mrs Dombey,' he said, entering, 'I must beg leave to have a few +words with you.' + +'To-morrow,' she replied. + +'There is no time like the present, Madam,' he returned. 'You +mistake your position. I am used to choose my own times; not to have +them chosen for me. I think you scarcely understand who and what I am, +Mrs Dombey. + +'I think,' she answered, 'that I understand you very well.' + +She looked upon him as she said so, and folding her white arms, +sparkling with gold and gems, upon her swelling breast, turned away +her eyes. + +If she had been less handsome, and less stately in her cold +composure, she might not have had the power of impressing him with the +sense of disadvantage that penetrated through his utmost pride. But +she had the power, and he felt it keenly. He glanced round the room: +saw how the splendid means of personal adornment, and the luxuries of +dress, were scattered here and there, and disregarded; not in mere +caprice and carelessness (or so he thought), but in a steadfast +haughty disregard of costly things: and felt it more and more. +Chaplets of flowers, plumes of feathers, jewels, laces, silks and +satins; look where he would, he saw riches, despised, poured out, and. +made of no account. The very diamonds - a marriage gift - that rose +and fell impatiently upon her bosom, seemed to pant to break the chain +that clasped them round her neck, and roll down on the floor where she +might tread upon them. + +He felt his disadvantage, and he showed it. Solemn and strange +among this wealth of colour and voluptuous glitter, strange and +constrained towards its haughty mistress, whose repellent beauty it +repeated, and presented all around him, as in so many fragments of a +mirror, he was conscious of embarrassment and awkwardness. Nothing +that ministered to her disdainful self-possession could fail to gall +him. Galled and irritated with himself, he sat down, and went on, in +no improved humour: + +'Mrs Dombey, it is very necessary that there should be some +understanding arrived at between us. Your conduct does not please me, +Madam.' + +She merely glanced at him again, and again averted her eyes; but +she might have spoken for an hour, and expressed less. + +'I repeat, Mrs Dombey, does not please me. I have already taken +occasion to request that it may be corrected. I now insist upon it.' + +'You chose a fitting occasion for your first remonstrance, Sir, and +you adopt a fitting manner, and a fitting word for your second. You +insist! To me!' + +'Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with his most offensive air of state, 'I +have made you my wife. You bear my name. You are associated with my +position and my reputation. I will not say that the world in general +may be disposed to think you honoured by that association; but I will +say that I am accustomed to "insist," to my connexions and +dependents.' + +'Which may you be pleased to consider me? she asked. + +'Possibly I may think that my wife should partake - or does +partake, and cannot help herself - of both characters, Mrs Dombey.' + +She bent her eyes upon him steadily, and set her trembling lips. He +saw her bosom throb, and saw her face flush and turn white. All this +he could know, and did: but he could not know that one word was +whispering in the deep recesses of her heart, to keep her quiet; and +that the word was Florence. + +Blind idiot, rushing to a precipice! He thought she stood in awe of +him. + +'You are too expensive, Madam,' said Mr Dombey. 'You are +extravagant. You waste a great deal of money - or what would be a +great deal in the pockets of most gentlemen - in cultivating a kind of +society that is useless to me, and, indeed, that upon the whole is +disagreeable to me. I have to insist upon a total change in all these +respects. I know that in the novelty of possessing a tithe of such +means as Fortune has placed at your disposal, ladies are apt to run +into a sudden extreme. There has been more than enough of that +extreme. I beg that Mrs Granger's very different experiences may now +come to the instruction of Mrs Dombey.' + +Still the fixed look, the trembling lips, the throbbing breast, the +face now crimson and now white; and still the deep whisper Florence, +Florence, speaking to her in the beating of her heart. + +His insolence of self-importance dilated as he saw this alteration +in her. Swollen no less by her past scorn of him, and his so recent +feeling of disadvantage, than by her present submission (as he took it +to be), it became too mighty for his breast, and burst all bounds. +Why, who could long resist his lofty will and pleasure! He had +resolved to conquer her, and look here! + +'You will further please, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, in a tone of +sovereign command, 'to understand distinctly, that I am to be deferred +to and obeyed. That I must have a positive show and confession of +deference before the world, Madam. I am used to this. I require it as +my right. In short I will have it. I consider it no unreasonable +return for the worldly advancement that has befallen you; and I +believe nobody will be surprised, either at its being required from +you, or at your making it. - To Me - To Me!' he added, with emphasis. + +No word from her. No change in her. Her eyes upon him. + +'I have learnt from your mother, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, with +magisterial importance, what no doubt you know, namely, that Brighton +is recommended for her health. Mr Carker has been so good + +She changed suddenly. Her face and bosom glowed as if the red light +of an angry sunset had been flung upon them. Not unobservant of the +change, and putting his own interpretation upon it, Mr Dombey resumed: + +'Mr Carker has been so good as to go down and secure a house there, +for a time. On the return of the establishment to London, I shall take +such steps for its better management as I consider necessary. One of +these, will be the engagement at Brighton (if it is to be effected), +of a very respectable reduced person there, a Mrs Pipchin, formerly +employed in a situation of trust in my family, to act as housekeeper. +An establishment like this, presided over but nominally, Mrs Dombey, +requires a competent head.' + +She had changed her attitude before he arrived at these words, and +now sat - still looking at him fixedly - turning a bracelet round and +round upon her arm; not winding it about with a light, womanly touch, +but pressing and dragging it over the smooth skin, until the white +limb showed a bar of red. + +'I observed,' said Mr Dombey - 'and this concludes what I deem it +necessary to say to you at present, Mrs Dombey - I observed a moment +ago, Madam, that my allusion to Mr Carker was received in a peculiar +manner. On the occasion of my happening to point out to you, before +that confidential agent, the objection I had to your mode of receiving +my visitors, you were pleased to object to his presence. You will have +to get the better of that objection, Madam, and to accustom yourself +to it very probably on many similar occasions; unless you adopt the +remedy which is in your own hands, of giving me no cause of complaint. +Mr Carker,' said Mr Dombey, who, after the emotion he had just seen, +set great store by this means of reducing his proud wife, and who was +perhaps sufficiently willing to exhibit his power to that gentleman in +a new and triumphant aspect, 'Mr Carker being in my confidence, Mrs +Dombey, may very well be in yours to such an extent. I hope, Mrs +Dombey,' he continued, after a few moments, during which, in his +increasing haughtiness, he had improved on his idea, 'I may not find +it necessary ever to entrust Mr Carker with any message of objection +or remonstrance to you; but as it would be derogatory to my position +and reputation to be frequently holding trivial disputes with a lady +upon whom I have conferred the highest distinction that it is in my +power to bestow, I shall not scruple to avail myself of his services +if I see occasion.' + +'And now,' he thought, rising in his moral magnificence, and rising +a stiffer and more impenetrable man than ever, 'she knows me and my +resolution.' + +The hand that had so pressed the bracelet was laid heavily upon her +breast, but she looked at him still, with an unaltered face, and said +in a low voice: + +'Wait! For God's sake! I must speak to you.' + +Why did she not, and what was the inward struggle that rendered her +incapable of doing so, for minutes, while, in the strong constraint +she put upon her face, it was as fixed as any statue's - looking upon +him with neither yielding nor unyielding, liking nor hatred, pride not +humility: nothing but a searching gaze? + +'Did I ever tempt you to seek my hand? Did I ever use any art to +win you? Was I ever more conciliating to you when you pursued me, than +I have been since our marriage? Was I ever other to you than I am?' + +'It is wholly unnecessary, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'to enter upon +such discussions.' + +'Did you think I loved you? Did you know I did not? Did you ever +care, Man! for my heart, or propose to yourself to win the worthless +thing? Was there any poor pretence of any in our bargain? Upon your +side, or on mine?' + +'These questions,' said Mr Dombey, 'are all wide of the purpose, +Madam.' + +She moved between him and the door to prevent his going away, and +drawing her majestic figure to its height, looked steadily upon him +still. + +'You answer each of them. You answer me before I speak, I see. How +can you help it; you who know the miserable truth as well as I? Now, +tell me. If I loved you to devotion, could I do more than render up my +whole will and being to you, as you have just demanded? If my heart +were pure and all untried, and you its idol, could you ask more; could +you have more?' + +'Possibly not, Madam,' he returned coolly. + +'You know how different I am. You see me looking on you now, and +you can read the warmth of passion for you that is breathing in my +face.' Not a curl of the proud lip, not a flash of the dark eye, +nothing but the same intent and searching look, accompanied these +words. 'You know my general history. You have spoken of my mother. Do +you think you can degrade, or bend or break, me to submission and +obedience?' + +Mr Dombey smiled, as he might have smiled at an inquiry whether he +thought he could raise ten thousand pounds. + +'If there is anything unusual here,' she said, with a slight motion +of her hand before her brow, which did not for a moment flinch from +its immovable and otherwise expressionless gaze, 'as I know there are +unusual feelings here,' raising the hand she pressed upon her bosom, +and heavily returning it, 'consider that there is no common meaning in +the appeal I am going to make you. Yes, for I am going;' she said it +as in prompt reply to something in his face; 'to appeal to you.' + +Mr Dombey, with a slightly condescending bend of his chin that +rustled and crackled his stiff cravat, sat down on a sofa that was +near him, to hear the appeal. + +'If you can believe that I am of such a nature now,' - he fancied +he saw tears glistening in her eyes, and he thought, complacently, +that he had forced them from her, though none fell on her cheek, and +she regarded him as steadily as ever, - 'as would make what I now say +almost incredible to myself, said to any man who had become my +husband, but, above all, said to you, you may, perhaps, attach the +greater weight to it. In the dark end to which we are tending, and may +come, we shall not involve ourselves alone (that might not be much) +but others.' + +Others! He knew at whom that word pointed, and frowned heavily. + +'I speak to you for the sake of others. Also your own sake; and for +mine. Since our marriage, you have been arrogant to me; and I have +repaid you in kind. You have shown to me and everyone around us, every +day and hour, that you think I am graced and distinguished by your +alliance. I do not think so, and have shown that too. It seems you do +not understand, or (so far as your power can go) intend that each of +us shall take a separate course; and you expect from me instead, a +homage you will never have.' + +Although her face was still the same, there was emphatic +confirmation of this 'Never' in the very breath she drew. + +'I feel no tenderness towards you; that you know. You would care +nothing for it, if I did or could. I know as well that you feel none +towards me. But we are linked together; and in the knot that ties us, +as I have said, others are bound up. We must both die; we are both +connected with the dead already, each by a little child. Let us +forbear.' + +Mr Dombey took a long respiration, as if he would have said, Oh! +was this all! + +'There is no wealth,' she went on, turning paler as she watched +him, while her eyes grew yet more lustrous in their earnestness, 'that +could buy these words of me, and the meaning that belongs to them. +Once cast away as idle breath, no wealth or power can bring them back. +I mean them; I have weighed them; and I will be true to what I +undertake. If you will promise to forbear on your part, I will promise +to forbear on mine. We are a most unhappy pair, in whom, from +different causes, every sentiment that blesses marriage, or justifies +it, is rooted out; but in the course of time, some friendship, or some +fitness for each other, may arise between us. I will try to hope so, +if you will make the endeavour too; and I will look forward to a +better and a happier use of age than I have made of youth or prime. + +Throughout she had spoken in a low plain voice, that neither rose +nor fell; ceasing, she dropped the hand with which she had enforced +herself to be so passionless and distinct, but not the eyes with which +she had so steadily observed him. + +'Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with his utmost dignity, 'I cannot +entertain any proposal of this extraordinary nature. + +She looked at him yet, without the least change. + +'I cannot,' said Mr Dombey, rising as he spoke, 'consent to +temporise or treat with you, Mrs Dombey, upon a subject as to which +you are in possession of my opinions and expectations. I have stated +my ultimatum, Madam, and have only to request your very serious +attention to it.' + +To see the face change to its old expression, deepened in +intensity! To see the eyes droop as from some mean and odious object! +To see the lighting of the haughty brow! To see scorn, anger, +indignation, and abhorrence starting into sight, and the pale blank +earnestness vanish like a mist! He could not choose but look, although +he looked to his dismay. + +'Go, Sir!' she said, pointing with an imperious hand towards the +door. 'Our first and last confidence is at an end. Nothing can make us +stranger to each other than we are henceforth.' + +'I shall take my rightful course, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, +'undeterred, you may be sure, by any general declamation.' + +She turned her back upon him, and, without reply, sat down before +her glass. + +'I place my reliance on your improved sense of duty, and more +correct feeling, and better reflection, Madam,' said Mr Dombey. + +She answered not one word. He saw no more expression of any heed of +him, in the mirror, than if he had been an unseen spider on the wall, +or beetle on the floor, or rather, than if he had been the one or +other, seen and crushed when she last turned from him, and forgotten +among the ignominious and dead vermin of the ground. + +He looked back, as he went out at the door, upon the well-lighted +and luxurious room, the beautiful and glittering objects everywhere +displayed, the shape of Edith in its rich dress seated before her +glass, and the face of Edith as the glass presented it to him; and +betook himself to his old chamber of cogitation, carrying away with +him a vivid picture in his mind of all these things, and a rambling +and unaccountable speculation (such as sometimes comes into a man's +head) how they would all look when he saw them next. + +For the rest, Mr Dombey was very taciturn, and very dignified, and +very confident of carrying out his purpose; and remained so. + +He did not design accompanying the family to Brighton; but he +graciously informed Cleopatra at breakfast, on the morning of +departure, which arrived a day or two afterwards, that he might be +expected down, soon. There was no time to be lost in getting Cleopatra +to any place recommended as being salutary; for, indeed, she seemed +upon the wane, and turning of the earth, earthy. + +Without having undergone any decided second attack of her malady, +the old woman seemed to have crawled backward in her recovery from the +first. She was more lean and shrunken, more uncertain in her +imbecility, and made stranger confusions in her mind and memory. Among +other symptoms of this last affliction, she fell into the habit of +confounding the names of her two sons-in-law, the living and the +deceased; and in general called Mr Dombey, either 'Grangeby,' or +'Domber,' or indifferently, both. + +But she was youthful, very youthful still; and in her youthfulness +appeared at breakfast, before going away, in a new bonnet made +express, and a travelling robe that was embroidered and braided like +an old baby's. It was not easy to put her into a fly-away bonnet now, +or to keep the bonnet in its place on the back of her poor nodding +head, when it was got on. In this instance, it had not only the +extraneous effect of being always on one side, but of being +perpetually tapped on the crown by Flowers the maid, who attended in +the background during breakfast to perform that duty. + +'Now, my dearest Grangeby,' said Mrs Skewton, 'you must posively +prom,' she cut some of her words short, and cut out others altogether, +'come down very soon.' + +'I said just now, Madam,' returned Mr Dombey, loudly and +laboriously, 'that I am coming in a day or two.' + +'Bless you, Domber!' + +Here the Major, who was come to take leave of the ladies, and who +was staring through his apoplectic eyes at Mrs Skewton's face with the +disinterested composure of an immortal being, said: + +'Begad, Ma'am, you don't ask old Joe to come!' + +'Sterious wretch, who's he?' lisped Cleopatra. But a tap on the +bonnet from Flowers seeming to jog her memory, she added, 'Oh! You +mean yourself, you naughty creature!' + +'Devilish queer, Sir,' whispered the Major to Mr Dombey. 'Bad case. +Never did wrap up enough;' the Major being buttoned to the chin. 'Why +who should J. B. mean by Joe, but old Joe Bagstock - Joseph - your +slave - Joe, Ma'am? Here! Here's the man! Here are the Bagstock +bellows, Ma'am!' cried the Major, striking himself a sounding blow on +the chest. + +'My dearest Edith - Grangeby - it's most trordinry thing,' said +Cleopatra, pettishly, 'that Major - ' + +'Bagstock! J. B.!' cried the Major, seeing that she faltered for +his name. + +'Well, it don't matter,' said Cleopatra. 'Edith, my love, you know +I never could remember names - what was it? oh! - most trordinry thing +that so many people want to come down to see me. I'm not going for +long. I'm coming back. Surely they can wait, till I come back!' + +Cleopatra looked all round the table as she said it, and appeared +very uneasy. + +'I won't have Vistors - really don't want visitors,' she said; +'little repose - and all that sort of thing - is what I quire. No +odious brutes must proach me till I've shaken off this numbness;' and +in a grisly resumption of her coquettish ways, she made a dab at the +Major with her fan, but overset Mr Dombey's breakfast cup instead, +which was in quite a different direction. + +Then she called for Withers, and charged him to see particularly +that word was left about some trivial alterations in her room, which +must be all made before she came back, and which must be set about +immediately, as there was no saying how soon she might come back; for +she had a great many engagements, and all sorts of people to call +upon. Withers received these directions with becoming deference, and +gave his guarantee for their execution; but when he withdrew a pace or +two behind her, it appeared as if he couldn't help looking strangely +at the Major, who couldn't help looking strangely at Mr Dombey, who +couldn't help looking strangely at Cleopatra, who couldn't help +nodding her bonnet over one eye, and rattling her knife and fork upon +her plate in using them, as if she were playing castanets. + +Edith alone never lifted her eyes to any face at the table, and +never seemed dismayed by anything her mother said or did. She listened +to her disjointed talk, or at least, turned her head towards her when +addressed; replied in a few low words when necessary; and sometimes +stopped her when she was rambling, or brought her thoughts back with a +monosyllable, to the point from which they had strayed. The mother, +however unsteady in other things, was constant in this - that she was +always observant of her. She would look at the beautiful face, in its +marble stillness and severity, now with a kind of fearful admiration; +now in a giggling foolish effort to move it to a smile; now with +capricious tears and jealous shakings of her head, as imagining +herself neglected by it; always with an attraction towards it, that +never fluctuated like her other ideas, but had constant possession of +her. From Edith she would sometimes look at Florence, and back again +at Edith, in a manner that was wild enough; and sometimes she would +try to look elsewhere, as if to escape from her daughter's face; but +back to it she seemed forced to come, although it never sought hers +unless sought, or troubled her with one single glance. + +The best concluded, Mrs Skewton, affecting to lean girlishly upon +the Major's arm, but heavily supported on the other side by Flowers +the maid, and propped up behind by Withers the page, was conducted to +the carriage, which was to take her, Florence, and Edith to Brighton. + +'And is Joseph absolutely banished?' said the Major, thrusting in +his purple face over the steps. 'Damme, Ma'am, is Cleopatra so +hard-hearted as to forbid her faithful Antony Bagstock to approach the +presence?' + +'Go along!' said Cleopatra, 'I can't bear you. You shall see me +when I come back, if you are very good.' + +'Tell Joseph, he may live in hope, Ma'am,' said the Major; 'or +he'll die in despair.' + +Cleopatra shuddered, and leaned back. 'Edith, my dear,' she said. +'Tell him - ' + +'What?' + +'Such dreadful words,' said Cleopatra. 'He uses such dreadful +words!' + +Edith signed to him to retire, gave the word to go on, and left the +objectionable Major to Mr Dombey. To whom he returned, whistling. + +'I'll tell you what, Sir,' said the Major, with his hands behind +him, and his legs very wide asunder, 'a fair friend of ours has +removed to Queer Street.' + +'What do you mean, Major?' inquired Mr Dombey. + +'I mean to say, Dombey,' returned the Major, 'that you'll soon be +an orphan-in-law.' + +Mr Dombey appeared to relish this waggish description of himself so +very little, that the Major wound up with the horse's cough, as an +expression of gravity. + +'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, 'there is no use in disguising a +fact. Joe is blunt, Sir. That's his nature. If you take old Josh at +all, you take him as you find him; and a devilish rusty, old rasper, +of a close-toothed, J. B. file, you do find him. Dombey,' said the +Major, 'your wife's mother is on the move, Sir.' + +'I fear,' returned Mr Dombey, with much philosophy, 'that Mrs +Skewton is shaken.' + +'Shaken, Dombey!' said the Major. 'Smashed!' + +'Change, however,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'and attention, may do much +yet.' + +'Don't believe it, Sir,' returned the Major. 'Damme, Sir, she never +wrapped up enough. If a man don't wrap up,' said the Major, taking in +another button of his buff waistcoat, 'he has nothing to fall back +upon. But some people will die. They will do it. Damme, they will. +They're obstinate. I tell you what, Dombey, it may not be ornamental; +it may not be refined; it may be rough and tough; but a little of the +genuine old English Bagstock stamina, Sir, would do all the good in +the world to the human breed.' + +After imparting this precious piece of information, the Major, who +was certainly true-blue, whatever other endowments he may have had or +wanted, coming within the 'genuine old English' classification, which +has never been exactly ascertained, took his lobster-eyes and his +apoplexy to the club, and choked there all day. + +Cleopatra, at one time fretful, at another self-complacent, +sometimes awake, sometimes asleep, and at all times juvenile, reached +Brighton the same night, fell to pieces as usual, and was put away in +bed; where a gloomy fancy might have pictured a more potent skeleton +than the maid, who should have been one, watching at the rose-coloured +curtains, which were carried down to shed their bloom upon her. + +It was settled in high council of medical authority that she should +take a carriage airing every day, and that it was important she should +get out every day, and walk if she could. Edith was ready to attend +her - always ready to attend her, with the same mechanical attention +and immovable beauty - and they drove out alone; for Edith had an +uneasiness in the presence of Florence, now that her mother was worse, +and told Florence, with a kiss, that she would rather they two went +alone. + +Mrs Skewton, on one particular day, was in the irresolute, +exacting, jealous temper that had developed itself on her recovery +from her first attack. After sitting silent in the carriage watching +Edith for some time, she took her hand and kissed it passionately. The +hand was neither given nor withdrawn, but simply yielded to her +raising of it, and being released, dropped down again, almost as if it +were insensible. At this she began to whimper and moan, and say what a +mother she had been, and how she was forgotten! This she continued to +do at capricious intervals, even when they had alighted: when she +herself was halting along with the joint support of Withers and a +stick, and Edith was walking by her side, and the carriage slowly +following at a little distance. + +It was a bleak, lowering, windy day, and they were out upon the +Downs with nothing but a bare sweep of land between them and the sky. +The mother, with a querulous satisfaction in the monotony of her +complaint, was still repeating it in a low voice from time to time, +and the proud form of her daughter moved beside her slowly, when there +came advancing over a dark ridge before them, two other figures, which +in the distance, were so like an exaggerated imitation of their own, +that Edith stopped. + +Almost as she stopped, the two figures stopped; and that one which +to Edith's thinking was like a distorted shadow of her mother, spoke +to the other, earnestly, and with a pointing hand towards them. That +one seemed inclined to turn back, but the other, in which Edith +recognised enough that was like herself to strike her with an unusual +feeling, not quite free from fear, came on; and then they came on +together. + +The greater part of this observation, she made while walking +towards them, for her stoppage had been momentary. Nearer observation +showed her that they were poorly dressed, as wanderers about the +country; that the younger woman carried knitted work or some such +goods for sale; and that the old one toiled on empty-handed. + +And yet, however far removed she was in dress, in dignity, in +beauty, Edith could not but compare the younger woman with herself, +still. It may have been that she saw upon her face some traces which +she knew were lingering in her own soul, if not yet written on that +index; but, as the woman came on, returning her gaze, fixing her +shining eyes upon her, undoubtedly presenting something of her own air +and stature, and appearing to reciprocate her own thoughts, she felt a +chill creep over her, as if the day were darkening, and the wind were +colder. + +They had now come up. The old woman, holding out her hand +importunately, stopped to beg of Mrs Skewton. The younger one stopped +too, and she and Edith looked in one another's eyes. + +'What is it that you have to sell?' said Edith. + +'Only this,' returned the woman, holding out her wares, without +looking at them. 'I sold myself long ago.' + +'My Lady, don't believe her,' croaked the old woman to Mrs Skewton; +'don't believe what she says. She loves to talk like that. She's my +handsome and undutiful daughter. She gives me nothing but reproaches, +my Lady, for all I have done for her. Look at her now, my Lady, how +she turns upon her poor old mother with her looks.' + +As Mrs Skewton drew her purse out with a trembling hand, and +eagerly fumbled for some money, which the other old woman greedily +watched for - their heads all but touching, in their hurry and +decrepitude - Edith interposed: + +'I have seen you,' addressing the old woman, 'before.' + +'Yes, my Lady,' with a curtsey. 'Down in Warwickshire. The morning +among the trees. When you wouldn't give me nothing. But the gentleman, +he give me something! Oh, bless him, bless him!' mumbled the old +woman, holding up her skinny hand, and grinning frightfully at her +daughter. + +'It's of no use attempting to stay me, Edith!' said Mrs Skewton, +angrily anticipating an objection from her. 'You know nothing about +it. I won't be dissuaded. I am sure this is an excellent woman, and a +good mother.' + +'Yes, my Lady, yes,' chattered the old woman, holding out her +avaricious hand. 'Thankee, my Lady. Lord bless you, my Lady. Sixpence +more, my pretty Lady, as a good mother yourself.' + +'And treated undutifully enough, too, my good old creature, +sometimes, I assure you,' said Mrs Skewton, whimpering. 'There! Shake +hands with me. You're a very good old creature - full of +what's-his-name - and all that. You're all affection and et cetera, +ain't you?' + +'Oh, yes, my Lady!' + +'Yes, I'm sure you are; and so's that gentlemanly creature +Grangeby. I must really shake hands with you again. And now you can +go, you know; and I hope,' addressing the daughter, 'that you'll show +more gratitude, and natural what's-its-name, and all the rest of it - +but I never remember names - for there never was a better mother than +the good old creature's been to you. Come, Edith!' + +As the ruin of Cleopatra tottered off whimpering, and wiping its +eyes with a gingerly remembrance of rouge in their neighbourhood, the +old woman hobbled another way, mumbling and counting her money. Not +one word more, nor one other gesture, had been exchanged between Edith +and the younger woman, but neither had removed her eyes from the other +for a moment. They had remained confronted until now, when Edith, as +awakening from a dream, passed slowly on. + +'You're a handsome woman,' muttered her shadow, looking after her; +'but good looks won't save us. And you're a proud woman; but pride +won't save us. We had need to know each other when we meet again!' + + + +CHAPTER 41. + +New Voices in the Waves + + + +All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with +repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the +sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their +trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the +invisible country far away. + + +With a tender melancholy pleasure, Florence finds herself again on +the old ground so sadly trodden, yet so happily, and thinks of him in +the quiet place, where he and she have many and many a time conversed +together, with the water welling up about his couch. And now, as she +sits pensive there, she hears in the wild low murmur of the sea, his +little story told again, his very words repeated; and finds that all +her life and hopes, and griefs, since - in the solitary house, and in +the pageant it has changed to - have a portion in the burden of the +marvellous song. + +And gentle Mr Toots, who wanders at a distance, looking wistfully +towards the figure that he dotes upon, and has followed there, but +cannot in his delicacy disturb at such a time, likewise hears the +requiem of little Dombey on the waters, rising and falling in the +lulls of their eternal madrigal in praise of Florence. Yes! and he +faintly understands, poor Mr Toots, that they are saying something of +a time when he was sensible of being brighter and not addle-brained; +and the tears rising in his eyes when he fears that he is dull and +stupid now, and good for little but to be laughed at, diminish his +satisfaction in their soothing reminder that he is relieved from +present responsibility to the Chicken, by the absence of that game +head of poultry in the country, training (at Toots's cost) for his +great mill with the Larkey Boy. + +But Mr Toots takes courage, when they whisper a kind thought to +him; and by slow degrees and with many indecisive stoppages on the +way, approaches Florence. Stammering and blushing, Mr Toots affects +amazement when he comes near her, and says (having followed close on +the carriage in which she travelled, every inch of the way from +London, loving even to be choked by the dust of its wheels) that he +never was so surprised in all his life. + +'And you've brought Diogenes, too, Miss Dombey!' says Mr Toots, +thrilled through and through by the touch of the small hand so +pleasantly and frankly given him. + +No doubt Diogenes is there, and no doubt Mr Toots has reason to +observe him, for he comes straightway at Mr Toots's legs, and tumbles +over himself in the desperation with which he makes at him, like a +very dog of Montargis. But he is checked by his sweet mistress. + +'Down, Di, down. Don't you remember who first made us friends, Di? +For shame!' + +Oh! Well may Di lay his loving cheek against her hand, and run off, +and run back, and run round her, barking, and run headlong at anybody +coming by, to show his devotion. Mr Toots would run headlong at +anybody, too. A military gentleman goes past, and Mr Toots would like +nothing better than to run at him, full tilt. + +'Diogenes is quite in his native air, isn't he, Miss Dombey?' says +Mr Toots. + +Florence assents, with a grateful smile. + +'Miss Dombey,' says Mr Toots, 'beg your pardon, but if you would +like to walk to Blimber's, I - I'm going there.' + +Florence puts her arm in that of Mr Toots without a word, and they +walk away together, with Diogenes going on before. Mr Toots's legs +shake under him; and though he is splendidly dressed, he feels +misfits, and sees wrinkles, in the masterpieces of Burgess and Co., +and wishes he had put on that brightest pair of boots. + +Doctor Blimber's house, outside, has as scholastic and studious an +air as ever; and up there is the window where she used to look for the +pale face, and where the pale face brightened when it saw her, and the +wasted little hand waved kisses as she passed. The door is opened by +the same weak-eyed young man, whose imbecility of grin at sight of Mr +Toots is feebleness of character personified. They are shown into the +Doctor's study, where blind Homer and Minerva give them audience as of +yore, to the sober ticking of the great clock in the hall; and where +the globes stand still in their accustomed places, as if the world +were stationary too, and nothing in it ever perished in obedience to +the universal law, that, while it keeps it on the roll, calls +everything to earth. + +And here is Doctor Blimber, with his learned legs; and here is Mrs +Blimber, with her sky-blue cap; and here Cornelia, with her sandy +little row of curls, and her bright spectacles, still working like a +sexton in the graves of languages. Here is the table upon which he sat +forlorn and strange, the 'new boy' of the school; and hither comes the +distant cooing of the old boys, at their old lives in the old room on +the old principle! + +'Toots,' says Doctor Blimber, 'I am very glad to see you, Toots.' + +Mr Toots chuckles in reply. + +'Also to see you, Toots, in such good company,' says Doctor +Blimber. + +Mr Toots, with a scarlet visage, explains that he has met Miss +Dombey by accident, and that Miss Dombey wishing, like himself, to see +the old place, they have come together. + +'You will like,' says Doctor Blimber, 'to step among our young +friends, Miss Dombey, no doubt. All fellow-students of yours, Toots, +once. I think we have no new disciples in our little portico, my +dear,' says Doctor Blimber to Cornelia, 'since Mr Toots left us.' + +'Except Bitherstone,' returns Cornelia. + +'Ay, truly,' says the Doctor. 'Bitherstone is new to Mr Toots.' + +New to Florence, too, almost; for, in the schoolroom, Bitherstone - +no longer Master Bitherstone of Mrs Pipchin's - shows in collars and a +neckcloth, and wears a watch. But Bitherstone, born beneath some +Bengal star of ill-omen, is extremely inky; and his Lexicon has got so +dropsical from constant reference, that it won't shut, and yawns as if +it really could not bear to be so bothered. So does Bitherstone its +master, forced at Doctor Blimber's highest pressure; but in the yawn +of Bitherstone there is malice and snarl, and he has been heard to say +that he wishes he could catch 'old Blimber' in India. He'd precious +soon find himself carried up the country by a few of his +(Bitherstone's) Coolies, and handed over to the Thugs; he can tell him +that. + +Briggs is still grinding in the mill of knowledge; and Tozer, too; +and Johnson, too; and all the rest; the older pupils being principally +engaged in forgetting, with prodigious labour, everything they knew +when they were younger. All are as polite and as pale as ever; and +among them, Mr Feeder, B.A., with his bony hand and bristly head, is +still hard at it; with his Herodotus stop on just at present, and his +other barrels on a shelf behind him. + +A mighty sensation is created, even among these grave young +gentlemen, by a visit from the emancipated Toots; who is regarded with +a kind of awe, as one who has passed the Rubicon, and is pledged never +to come back, and concerning the cut of whose clothes, and fashion of +whose jewellery, whispers go about, behind hands; the bilious +Bitherstone, who is not of Mr Toots's time, affecting to despise the +latter to the smaller boys, and saying he knows better, and that he +should like to see him coming that sort of thing in Bengal, where his +mother had got an emerald belonging to him that was taken out of the +footstool of a Rajah. Come now! + +Bewildering emotions are awakened also by the sight of Florence, +with whom every young gentleman immediately falls in love, again; +except, as aforesaid, the bilious Bitherstone, who declines to do so, +out of contradiction. Black jealousies of Mr Toots arise, and Briggs +is of opinion that he ain't so very old after all. But this +disparaging insinuation is speedily made nought by Mr Toots saying +aloud to Mr Feeder, B.A., 'How are you, Feeder?' and asking him to +come and dine with him to-day at the Bedford; in right of which feats +he might set up as Old Parr, if he chose, unquestioned. + +There is much shaking of hands, and much bowing, and a great desire +on the part of each young gentleman to take Toots down in Miss +Dombey's good graces; and then, Mr Toots having bestowed a chuckle on +his old desk, Florence and he withdraw with Mrs Blimber and Cornelia; +and Doctor Blimber is heard to observe behind them as he comes out +last, and shuts the door, 'Gentlemen, we will now resume our studies,' +For that and little else is what the Doctor hears the sea say, or has +heard it saying all his life. + +Florence then steals away and goes upstairs to the old bedroom with +Mrs Blimber and Cornelia; Mr Toots, who feels that neither he nor +anybody else is wanted there, stands talking to the Doctor at the +study-door, or rather hearing the Doctor talk to him, and wondering +how he ever thought the study a great sanctuary, and the Doctor, with +his round turned legs, like a clerical pianoforte, an awful man. +Florence soon comes down and takes leave; Mr Toots takes leave; and +Diogenes, who has been worrying the weak-eyed young man pitilessly all +the time, shoots out at the door, and barks a glad defiance down the +cliff; while Melia, and another of the Doctor's female domestics, +looks out of an upper window, laughing 'at that there Toots,' and +saying of Miss Dombey, 'But really though, now - ain't she like her +brother, only prettier?' + +Mr Toots, who saw when Florence came down that there were tears +upon her face, is desperately anxious and uneasy, and at first fears +that he did wrong in proposing the visit. But he is soon relieved by +her saying she is very glad to have been there again, and by her +talking quite cheerfully about it all, as they walked on by the sea. +What with the voices there, and her sweet voice, when they come near +Mr Dombey's house, and Mr Toots must leave her, he is so enslaved that +he has not a scrap of free-will left; when she gives him her hand at +parting, he cannot let it go. + +'Miss Dombey, I beg your pardon,' says Mr Toots, in a sad fluster, +'but if you would allow me to - to - + +The smiling and unconscious look of Florence brings him to a dead +stop. + +'If you would allow me to - if you would not consider it a liberty, +Miss Dombey, if I was to - without any encouragement at all, if I was +to hope, you know,' says Mr Toots. + +Florence looks at him inquiringly. + +'Miss Dombey,' says Mr Toots, who feels that he is in for it now, +'I really am in that state of adoration of you that I don't know what +to do with myself. I am the most deplorable wretch. If it wasn't at +the corner of the Square at present, I should go down on my knees, and +beg and entreat of you, without any encouragement at all, just to let +me hope that I may - may think it possible that you - + +'Oh, if you please, don't!' cries Florence, for the moment quite +alarmed and distressed. 'Oh, pray don't, Mr Toots. Stop, if you +please. Don't say any more. As a kindness and a favour to me, don't.' + +Mr Toots is dreadfully abashed, and his mouth opens. + +'You have been so good to me,' says Florence, 'I am so grateful to +you, I have such reason to like you for being a kind friend to me, and +I do like you so much;' and here the ingenuous face smiles upon him +with the pleasantest look of honesty in the world; 'that I am sure you +are only going to say good-bye!' + +'Certainly, Miss Dombey,' says Mr Toots, 'I - I - that's exactly +what I mean. It's of no consequence.' + +'Good-bye!' cries Florence. + +'Good-bye, Miss Dombey!' stammers Mr Toots. 'I hope you won't think +anything about it. It's - it's of no consequence, thank you. It's not +of the least consequence in the world.' + +Poor Mr Toots goes home to his hotel in a state of desperation, +locks himself into his bedroom, flings himself upon his bed, and lies +there for a long time; as if it were of the greatest consequence, +nevertheless. But Mr Feeder, B.A., is coming to dinner, which happens +well for Mr Toots, or there is no knowing when he might get up again. +Mr Toots is obliged to get up to receive him, and to give him +hospitable entertainment. + +And the generous influence of that social virtue, hospitality (to +make no mention of wine and good cheer), opens Mr Toots's heart, and +warms him to conversation. He does not tell Mr Feeder, B.A., what +passed at the corner of the Square; but when Mr Feeder asks him 'When +it is to come off?' Mr Toots replies, 'that there are certain +subjects' - which brings Mr Feeder down a peg or two immediately. Mr +Toots adds, that he don't know what right Blimber had to notice his +being in Miss Dombey's company, and that if he thought he meant +impudence by it, he'd have him out, Doctor or no Doctor; but he +supposes its only his ignorance. Mr Feeder says he has no doubt of it. + +Mr Feeder, however, as an intimate friend, is not excluded from the +subject. Mr Toots merely requires that it should be mentioned +mysteriously, and with feeling. After a few glasses of wine, he gives +Miss Dombey's health, observing, 'Feeder, you have no idea of the +sentiments with which I propose that toast.' Mr Feeder replies, 'Oh, +yes, I have, my dear Toots; and greatly they redound to your honour, +old boy.' Mr Feeder is then agitated by friendship, and shakes hands; +and says, if ever Toots wants a brother, he knows where to find him, +either by post or parcel. Mr Feeder like-wise says, that if he may +advise, he would recommend Mr Toots to learn the guitar, or, at least +the flute; for women like music, when you are paying your addresses to +'em, and he has found the advantage of it himself. + +This brings Mr Feeder, B.A., to the confession that he has his eye +upon Cornelia Blimber. He informs Mr Toots that he don't object to +spectacles, and that if the Doctor were to do the handsome thing and +give up the business, why, there they are - provided for. He says it's +his opinion that when a man has made a handsome sum by his business, +he is bound to give it up; and that Cornelia would be an assistance in +it which any man might be proud of. Mr Toots replies by launching +wildly out into Miss Dombey's praises, and by insinuations that +sometimes he thinks he should like to blow his brains out. Mr Feeder +strongly urges that it would be a rash attempt, and shows him, as a +reconcilement to existence, Cornelia's portrait, spectacles and all. + +Thus these quiet spirits pass the evening; and when it has yielded +place to night, Mr Toots walks home with Mr Feeder, and parts with him +at Doctor Blimber's door. But Mr Feeder only goes up the steps, and +when Mr Toots is gone, comes down again, to stroll upon the beach +alone, and think about his prospects. Mr Feeder plainly hears the +waves informing him, as he loiters along, that Doctor Blimber will +give up the business; and he feels a soft romantic pleasure in looking +at the outside of the house, and thinking that the Doctor will first +paint it, and put it into thorough repair. + +Mr Toots is likewise roaming up and down, outside the casket that +contains his jewel; and in a deplorable condition of mind, and not +unsuspected by the police, gazes at a window where he sees a light, +and which he has no doubt is Florence's. But it is not, for that is +Mrs Skewton's room; and while Florence, sleeping in another chamber, +dreams lovingly, in the midst of the old scenes, and their old +associations live again, the figure which in grim reality is +substituted for the patient boy's on the same theatre, once more to +connect it - but how differently! - with decay and death, is stretched +there, wakeful and complaining. Ugly and haggard it lies upon its bed +of unrest; and by it, in the terror of her unimpassioned loveliness - +for it has terror in the sufferer's failing eyes - sits Edith. What do +the waves say, in the stillness of the night, to them? + +'Edith, what is that stone arm raised to strike me? Don't you see +it?' + +There is nothing, mother, but your fancy.' + +'But my fancy! Everything is my fancy. Look! Is it possible that +you don't see it?' + +'Indeed, mother, there is nothing. Should I sit unmoved, if there +were any such thing there?' + +'Unmoved?' looking wildly at her - 'it's gone now - and why are you +so unmoved? That is not my fancy, Edith. It turns me cold to see you +sitting at my side.' + +'I am sorry, mother.' + +'Sorry! You seem always sorry. But it is not for me!' + +With that, she cries; and tossing her restless head from side to +side upon her pillow, runs on about neglect, and the mother she has +been, and the mother the good old creature was, whom they met, and the +cold return the daughters of such mothers make. In the midst of her +incoherence, she stops, looks at her daughter, cries out that her wits +are going, and hides her face upon the bed. + +Edith, in compassion, bends over her and speaks to her. The sick +old woman clutches her round the neck, and says, with a look of +horror, + +'Edith! we are going home soon; going back. You mean that I shall +go home again?' + +'Yes, mother, yes.' + +'And what he said - what's-his-name, I never could remember names - +Major - that dreadful word, when we came away - it's not true? Edith!' +with a shriek and a stare, 'it's not that that is the matter with me.' + +Night after night, the lights burn in the window, and the figure +lies upon the bed, and Edith sits beside it, and the restless waves +are calling to them both the whole night long. Night after night, the +waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled +upon the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds are +on their trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to +the invisible country far away. + +And still the sick old woman looks into the corner, where the stone +arm - part of a figure of some tomb, she says - is raised to strike +her. At last it falls; and then a dumb old woman lies upon the the +bed, and she is crooked and shrunk up, and half of her is dead. + +Such is the figure, painted and patched for the sun to mock, that +is drawn slowly through the crowd from day to day; looking, as it +goes, for the good old creature who was such a mother, and making +mouths as it peers among the crowd in vain. Such is the figure that is +often wheeled down to the margin of the sea, and stationed there; but +on which no wind can blow freshness, and for which the murmur of the +ocean has no soothing word. She lies and listens to it by the hour; +but its speech is dark and gloomy to her, and a dread is on her face, +and when her eyes wander over the expanse, they see but a broad +stretch of desolation between earth and heaven. + +Florence she seldom sees, and when she does, is angry with and mows +at. Edith is beside her always, and keeps Florence away; and Florence, +in her bed at night, trembles at the thought of death in such a shape, +and often wakes and listens, thinking it has come. No one attends on +her but Edith. It is better that few eyes should see her; and her +daughter watches alone by the bedside. + +A shadow even on that shadowed face, a sharpening even of the +sharpened features, and a thickening of the veil before the eyes into +a pall that shuts out the dim world, is come. Her wandering hands upon +the coverlet join feebly palm to palm, and move towards her daughter; +and a voice not like hers, not like any voice that speaks our mortal +language - says, 'For I nursed you!' + +Edith, without a tear, kneels down to bring her voice closer to the +sinking head, and answers: + +'Mother, can you hear me?' + +Staring wide, she tries to nod in answer. + +'Can you recollect the night before I married?' + +The head is motionless, but it expresses somehow that she does. + +'I told you then that I forgave your part in it, and prayed God to +forgive my own. I told you that time past was at an end between us. I +say so now, again. Kiss me, mother.' + +Edith touches the white lips, and for a moment all is still. A +moment afterwards, her mother, with her girlish laugh, and the +skeleton of the Cleopatra manner, rises in her bed. + +Draw the rose-coloured curtains. There is something else upon its +flight besides the wind and clouds. Draw the rose-coloured curtains +close! + + +Intelligence of the event is sent to Mr Dombey in town, who waits +upon Cousin Feenix (not yet able to make up his mind for Baden-Baden), +who has just received it too. A good-natured creature like Cousin +Feenix is the very man for a marriage or a funeral, and his position +in the family renders it right that he should be consulted. + +'Dombey,' said Cousin Feenix, 'upon my soul, I am very much shocked +to see you on such a melancholy occasion. My poor aunt! She was a +devilish lively woman.' + +Mr Dombey replies, 'Very much so.' + +'And made up,' says Cousin Feenix, 'really young, you know, +considering. I am sure, on the day of your marriage, I thought she was +good for another twenty years. In point of fact, I said so to a man at +Brooks's - little Billy Joper - you know him, no doubt - man with a +glass in his eye?' + +Mr Dombey bows a negative. 'In reference to the obsequies,' he +hints, 'whether there is any suggestion - ' + +'Well, upon my life,' says Cousin Feenix, stroking his chin, which +he has just enough of hand below his wristbands to do; 'I really don't +know. There's a Mausoleum down at my place, in the park, but I'm +afraid it's in bad repair, and, in point of fact, in a devil of a +state. But for being a little out at elbows, I should have had it put +to rights; but I believe the people come and make pic-nic parties +there inside the iron railings.' + +Mr Dombey is clear that this won't do. + +'There's an uncommon good church in the village,' says Cousin +Feenix, thoughtfully; 'pure specimen of the Anglo-Norman style, and +admirably well sketched too by Lady Jane Finchbury - woman with tight +stays - but they've spoilt it with whitewash, I understand, and it's a +long journey. + +'Perhaps Brighton itself,' Mr Dombey suggests. + +'Upon my honour, Dombey, I don't think we could do better,' says +Cousin Feenix. 'It's on the spot, you see, and a very cheerful place.' + +'And when,' hints Mr Dombey, 'would it be convenient?' + +'I shall make a point,' says Cousin Feenix, 'of pledging myself for +any day you think best. I shall have great pleasure (melancholy +pleasure, of course) in following my poor aunt to the confines of the +- in point of fact, to the grave,' says Cousin Feenix, failing in the +other turn of speech. + +'Would Monday do for leaving town?' says Mr Dombey. + +'Monday would suit me to perfection,' replies Cousin Feenix. +Therefore Mr Dombey arranges to take Cousin Feenix down on that day, +and presently takes his leave, attended to the stairs by Cousin +Feenix, who says, at parting, 'I'm really excessively sorry, Dombey, +that you should have so much trouble about it;' to which Mr Dombey +answers, 'Not at all.' + +At the appointed time, Cousin Feenix and Mr Dombey meet, and go +down to Brighton, and representing, in their two selves, all the other +mourners for the deceased lady's loss, attend her remains to their +place of rest. Cousin Feenix, sitting in the mourning-coach, +recognises innumerable acquaintances on the road, but takes no other +notice of them, in decorum, than checking them off aloud, as they go +by, for Mr Dombey's information, as 'Tom Johnson. Man with cork leg, +from White's. What, are you here, Tommy? Foley on a blood mare. The +Smalder girls' - and so forth. At the ceremony Cousin Feenix is +depressed, observing, that these are the occasions to make a man +think, in point of fact, that he is getting shaky; and his eyes are +really moistened, when it is over. But he soon recovers; and so do the +rest of Mrs Skewton's relatives and friends, of whom the Major +continually tells the club that she never did wrap up enough; while +the young lady with the back, who has so much trouble with her +eyelids, says, with a little scream, that she must have been +enormously old, and that she died of all kinds of horrors, and you +mustn't mention it. + +So Edith's mother lies unmentioned of her dear friends, who are +deaf to the waves that are hoarse with repetition of their mystery, +and blind to the dust that is piled upon the shore, and to the white +arms that are beckoning, in the moonlight, to the invisible country +far away. But all goes on, as it was wont, upon the margin of the +unknown sea; and Edith standing there alone, and listening to its +waves, has dank weed cast up at her feet, to strew her path in life +withal. + + + +CHAPTER 42. + +Confidential and Accidental + + + +Attired no more in Captain Cuttle's sable slops and sou'-wester +hat, but dressed in a substantial suit of brown livery, which, while +it affected to be a very sober and demure livery indeed, was really as +self-satisfied and confident a one as tailor need desire to make, Rob +the Grinder, thus transformed as to his outer man, and all regardless +within of the Captain and the Midshipman, except when he devoted a few +minutes of his leisure time to crowing over those inseparable +worthies, and recalling, with much applauding music from that brazen +instrument, his conscience, the triumphant manner in which he had +disembarrassed himself of their company, now served his patron, Mr +Carker. Inmate of Mr Carker's house, and serving about his person, Rob +kept his round eyes on the white teeth with fear and trembling, and +felt that he had need to open them wider than ever. + +He could not have quaked more, through his whole being, before the +teeth, though he had come into the service of some powerful enchanter, +and they had been his strongest spells. The boy had a sense of power +and authority in this patron of his that engrossed his whole attention +and exacted his most implicit submission and obedience. He hardly +considered himself safe in thinking about him when he was absent, lest +he should feel himself immediately taken by the throat again, as on +the morning when he first became bound to him, and should see every +one of the teeth finding him out, and taxing him with every fancy of +his mind. Face to face with him, Rob had no more doubt that Mr Carker +read his secret thoughts, or that he could read them by the least +exertion of his will if he were so inclined, than he had that Mr +Carker saw him when he looked at him. The ascendancy was so complete, +and held him in such enthralment, that, hardly daring to think at all, +but with his mind filled with a constantly dilating impression of his +patron's irresistible command over him, and power of doing anything +with him, he would stand watching his pleasure, and trying to +anticipate his orders, in a state of mental suspension, as to all +other things. + +Rob had not informed himself perhaps - in his then state of mind it +would have been an act of no common temerity to inquire - whether he +yielded so completely to this influence in any part, because he had +floating suspicions of his patron's being a master of certain +treacherous arts in which he had himself been a poor scholar at the +Grinders' School. But certainly Rob admired him, as well as feared +him. Mr Carker, perhaps, was better acquainted with the sources of his +power, which lost nothing by his management of it. + +On the very night when he left the Captain's service, Rob, after +disposing of his pigeons, and even making a bad bargain in his hurry, +had gone straight down to Mr Carker's house, and hotly presented +himself before his new master with a glowing face that seemed to +expect commendation. + +'What, scapegrace!' said Mr Carker, glancing at his bundle 'Have +you left your situation and come to me?' + +'Oh if you please, Sir,' faltered Rob, 'you said, you know, when I +come here last - ' + +'I said,' returned Mr Carker, 'what did I say?' + +'If you please, Sir, you didn't say nothing at all, Sir,' returned +Rob, warned by the manner of this inquiry, and very much disconcerted. + +His patron looked at him with a wide display of gums, and shaking +his forefinger, observed: + +'You'll come to an evil end, my vagabond friend, I foresee. There's +ruin in store for you. + +'Oh if you please, don't, Sir!' cried Rob, with his legs trembling +under him. ' I'm sure, Sir, I only want to work for you, Sir, and to +wait upon you, Sir, and to do faithful whatever I'm bid, Sir.' + +'You had better do faithfully whatever you are bid,' returned his +patron, 'if you have anything to do with me.' + +'Yes, I know that, Sir,' pleaded the submissive Rob; 'I'm sure of +that, SIr. If you'll only be so good as try me, Sir! And if ever you +find me out, Sir, doing anything against your wishes, I give you leave +to kill me.' + +'You dog!' said Mr Carker, leaning back in his chair, and smiling +at him serenely. 'That's nothing to what I'd do to you, if you tried +to deceive me.' + +'Yes, Sir,' replied the abject Grinder, 'I'm sure you would be down +upon me dreadful, Sir. I wouldn't attempt for to go and do it, Sir, +not if I was bribed with golden guineas.' + +Thoroughly checked in his expectations of commendation, the +crestfallen Grinder stood looking at his patron, and vainly +endeavouring not to look at him, with the uneasiness which a cur will +often manifest in a similar situation. + +'So you have left your old service, and come here to ask me to take +you into mine, eh?' said Mr Carker. + +'Yes, if you please, Sir,' returned Rob, who, in doing so, had +acted on his patron's own instructions, but dared not justify himself +by the least insinuation to that effect. + +'Well!' said Mr Carker. 'You know me, boy?' + +'Please, Sir, yes, Sir,' returned Rob, tumbling with his hat, and +still fixed by Mr Carker's eye, and fruitlessly endeavouring to unfix +himself. + +Mr Carker nodded. 'Take care, then!' + +Rob expressed in a number of short bows his lively understanding of +this caution, and was bowing himself back to the door, greatly +relieved by the prospect of getting on the outside of it, when his +patron stopped him. + +'Halloa!' he cried, calling him roughly back. 'You have been - shut +that door.' + +Rob obeyed as if his life had depended on his alacrity. + +'You have been used to eaves-dropping. Do you know what that +means?' + +'Listening, Sir?' Rob hazarded, after some embarrassed reflection. + +His patron nodded. 'And watching, and so forth.' + +'I wouldn't do such a thing here, Sir,' answered Rob; 'upon my word +and honour, I wouldn't, Sir, I wish I may die if I would, Sir, for +anything that could be promised to me. I should consider it is as much +as all the world was worth, to offer to do such a thing, unless I was +ordered, Sir.' + +'You had better not' You have been used, too, to babbling and +tattling,' said his patron with perfect coolness. 'Beware of that +here, or you're a lost rascal,' and he smiled again, and again +cautioned him with his forefinger. + +The Grinder's breath came short and thick with consternation. He +tried to protest the purity of his intentions, but could only stare at +the smiling gentleman in a stupor of submission, with which the +smiling gentleman seemed well enough satisfied, for he ordered him +downstairs, after observing him for some moments in silence, and gave +him to understand that he was retained in his employment. This was the +manner of Rob the Grinder's engagement by Mr Carker, and his +awe-stricken devotion to that gentleman had strengthened and +increased, if possible, with every minute of his service. + +It was a service of some months' duration, when early one morning, +Rob opened the garden gate to Mr Dombey, who was come to breakfast +with his master, by appointment. At the same moment his master himself +came, hurrying forth to receive the distinguished guest, and give him +welcome with all his teeth. + +'I never thought,' said Carker, when he had assisted him to alight +from his horse, 'to see you here, I'm sure. This is an extraordinary +day in my calendar. No occasion is very special to a man like you, who +may do anything; but to a man like me, the case is widely different. + +'You have a tasteful place here, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, +condescending to stop upon the lawn, to look about him. + +'You can afford to say so,' returned Carker. 'Thank you.' + +'Indeed,' said Mr Dombey, in his lofty patronage, 'anyone might say +so. As far as it goes, it is a very commodious and well-arranged place +- quite elegant.' + +'As far as it goes, truly,' returned Carker, with an air of +disparagement' 'It wants that qualification. Well! we have said enough +about it; and though you can afford to praise it, I thank you +nonetheless. Will you walk in?' + +Mr Dombey, entering the house, noticed, as he had reason to do, the +complete arrangement of the rooms, and the numerous contrivances for +comfort and effect that abounded there. Mr Carker, in his ostentation +of humility, received this notice with a deferential smile, and said +he understood its delicate meaning, and appreciated it, but in truth +the cottage was good enough for one in his position - better, perhaps, +than such a man should occupy, poor as it was. + +'But perhaps to you, who are so far removed, it really does look +better than it is,' he said, with his false mouth distended to its +fullest stretch. 'Just as monarchs imagine attractions in the lives of +beggars.' + +He directed a sharp glance and a sharp smile at Mr Dombey as he +spoke, and a sharper glance, and a sharper smile yet, when Mr Dombey, +drawing himself up before the fire, in the attitude so often copied by +his second in command, looked round at the pictures on the walls. +Cursorily as his cold eye wandered over them, Carker's keen glance +accompanied his, and kept pace with his, marking exactly where it +went, and what it saw. As it rested on one picture in particular, +Carker hardly seemed to breathe, his sidelong scrutiny was so cat-like +and vigilant, but the eye of his great chief passed from that, as from +the others, and appeared no more impressed by it than by the rest. + +Carker looked at it - it was the picture that resembled Edith - as +if it were a living thing; and with a wicked, silent laugh upon his +face, that seemed in part addressed to it, though it was all derisive +of the great man standing so unconscious beside him. Breakfast was +soon set upon the table; and, inviting Mr Dombey to a chair which had +its back towards this picture, he took his own seat opposite to it as +usual. + +Mr Dombey was even graver than it was his custom to be, and quite +silent. The parrot, swinging in the gilded hoop within her gaudy cage, +attempted in vain to attract notice, for Carker was too observant of +his visitor to heed her; and the visitor, abstracted in meditation, +looked fixedly, not to say sullenly, over his stiff neckcloth, without +raising his eyes from the table-cloth. As to Rob, who was in +attendance, all his faculties and energies were so locked up in +observation of his master, that he scarcely ventured to give shelter +to the thought that the visitor was the great gentleman before whom he +had been carried as a certificate of the family health, in his +childhood, and to whom he had been indebted for his leather smalls. + +'Allow me,' said Carker suddenly, 'to ask how Mrs Dombey is?' + +He leaned forward obsequiously, as he made the inquiry, with his +chin resting on his hand; and at the same time his eyes went up to the +picture, as if he said to it, 'Now, see, how I will lead him on!' + +Mr Dombey reddened as he answered: + +'Mrs Dombey is quite well. You remind me, Carker, of some +conversation that I wish to have with you.' + +'Robin, you can leave us,' said his master, at whose mild tones +Robin started and disappeared, with his eyes fixed on his patron to +the last. 'You don't remember that boy, of course?' he added, when the +enmeshed Grinder was gone. + +'No,' said Mr Dombey, with magnificent indifference. + +'Not likely that a man like you would. Hardly possible,' murmured +Carker. 'But he is one of that family from whom you took a nurse. +Perhaps you may remember having generously charged yourself with his +education?' + +'Is it that boy?' said Mr Dombey, with a frown. 'He does little +credit to his education, I believe.' + +'Why, he is a young rip, I am afraid,' returned Carker, with a +shrug. 'He bears that character. But the truth is, I took him into my +service because, being able to get no other employment, he conceived +(had been taught at home, I daresay) that he had some sort of claim +upon you, and was constantly trying to dog your heels with his +petition. And although my defined and recognised connexion with your +affairs is merely of a business character, still I have that +spontaneous interest in everything belonging to you, that - ' + +He stopped again, as if to discover whether he had led Mr Dombey +far enough yet. And again, with his chin resting on his hand, he +leered at the picture. + +'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'I am sensible that you do not limit your +- ' + +'Service,' suggested his smiling entertainer. + +'No; I prefer to say your regard,' observed Mr Dombey; very +sensible, as he said so, that he was paying him a handsome and +flattering compliment, 'to our mere business relations. Your +consideration for my feelings, hopes, and disappointments, in the +little instance you have just now mentioned, is an example in point. I +I am obliged to you, Carker.' + +Mr Carker bent his head slowly, and very softly rubbed his hands, +as if he were afraid by any action to disturb the current of Mr +Dombey's confidence. + +'Your allusion to it is opportune,' said Mr Dombey, after a little +hesitation; 'for it prepares the way to what I was beginning to say to +you, and reminds me that that involves no absolutely new relations +between us, although it may involve more personal confidence on my +part than I have hitherto - ' + +'Distinguished me with,' suggested Carker, bending his head again: +'I will not say to you how honoured I am; for a man like you well +knows how much honour he has in his power to bestow at pleasure.' + +'Mrs Dombey and myself,' said Mr Dombey, passing this compliment +with august self-denial, 'are not quite agreed upon some points. We do +not appear to understand each other yet' Mrs Dombey has something to +learn.' + +'Mrs Dombey is distinguished by many rare attractions; and has been +accustomed, no doubt, to receive much adulation,' said the smooth, +sleek watcher of his slightest look and tone. 'But where there is +affection, duty, and respect, any little mistakes engendered by such +causes are soon set right.' + +Mr Dombey's thoughts instinctively flew back to the face that had +looked at him in his wife's dressing-room when an imperious hand was +stretched towards the door; and remembering the affection, duty, and +respect, expressed in it, he felt the blood rush to his own face quite +as plainly as the watchful eyes upon him saw it there. + +'Mrs Dombey and myself,' he went on to say, 'had some discussion, +before Mrs Skewton's death, upon the causes of my dissatisfaction; of +which you will have formed a general understanding from having been a +witness of what passed between Mrs Dombey and myself on the evening +when you were at our - at my house.' + +'When I so much regretted being present,' said the smiling Carker. +'Proud as a man in my position nay must be of your familiar notice - +though I give you no credit for it; you may do anything you please +without losing caste - and honoured as I was by an early presentation +to Mrs Dombey, before she was made eminent by bearing your name, I +almost regretted that night, I assure you, that I had been the object +of such especial good fortune' + +That any man could, under any possible circumstances, regret the +being distinguished by his condescension and patronage, was a moral +phenomenon which Mr Dombey could not comprehend. He therefore +responded, with a considerable accession of dignity. 'Indeed! And why, +Carker?' + +'I fear,' returned the confidential agent, 'that Mrs Dombey, never +very much disposed to regard me with favourable interest - one in my +position could not expect that, from a lady naturally proud, and whose +pride becomes her so well - may not easily forgive my innocent part in +that conversation. Your displeasure is no light matter, you must +remember; and to be visited with it before a third party - + +'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, arrogantly; 'I presume that I am the +first consideration?' + +'Oh! Can there be a doubt about it?' replied the other, with the +impatience of a man admitting a notorious and incontrovertible fact' + +'Mrs Dombey becomes a secondary consideration, when we are both in +question, I imagine,' said Mr Dombey. 'Is that so?' + +'Is it so?' returned Carker. 'Do you know better than anyone, that +you have no need to ask?' + +'Then I hope, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'that your regret in the +acquisition of Mrs Dombey's displeasure, may be almost counterbalanced +by your satisfaction in retaining my confidence and good opinion.' + +'I have the misfortune, I find,' returned Carker, 'to have incurred +that displeasure. Mrs Dombey has expressed it to you?' + +'Mrs Dombey has expressed various opinions,' said Mr Dombey, with +majestic coldness and indifference, 'in which I do not participate, +and which I am not inclined to discuss, or to recall. I made Mr's +Dombey acquainted, some time since, as I have already told you, with +certain points of domestic deference and submission on which I felt it +necessary to insist. I failed to convince Mrs Dombey of the expediency +of her immediately altering her conduct in those respects, with a view +to her own peace and welfare, and my dignity; and I informed Mrs +Dombey that if I should find it necessary to object or remonstrate +again, I should express my opinion to her through yourself, my +confidential agent.' + +Blended with the look that Carker bent upon him, was a devilish +look at the picture over his head, that struck upon it like a flash of +lightning. + +'Now, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'I do not hesitate to say to you +that I will carry my point. I am not to be trifled with. Mrs Dombey +must understand that my will is law, and that I cannot allow of one +exception to the whole rule of my life. You will have the goodness to +undertake this charge, which, coming from me, is not unacceptable to +you, I hope, whatever regret you may politely profess - for which I am +obliged to you on behalf of Mrs Dombey; and you will have the +goodness, I am persuaded, to discharge it as exactly as any other +commission.' + +'You know,' said Mr Carker, 'that you have only to command me. + +'I know,' said Mr Dombey, with a majestic indication of assent, +'that I have only to command you. It is necessary that I should +proceed in this. Mrs Dombey is a lady undoubtedly highly qualified, in +many respects, to - + +'To do credit even to your choice,' suggested Carker, with a +yawning show of teeth. + +'Yes; if you please to adopt that form of words,' said Mr Dombey, +in his tone of state; 'and at present I do not conceive that Mrs +Dombey does that credit to it, to which it is entitled. There is a +principle of opposition in Mrs Dombey that must be eradicated; that +must be overcome: Mrs Dombey does not appear to understand,' said Mr +Dombey, forcibly, 'that the idea of opposition to Me is monstrous and +absurd.' + +'We, in the City, know you better,' replied Carker, with a smile +from ear to ear. + +'You know me better,' said Mr Dombey. 'I hope so. Though, indeed, I +am bound to do Mrs Dombey the justice of saying, however inconsistent +it may seem with her subsequent conduct (which remains unchanged), +that on my expressing my disapprobation and determination to her, with +some severity, on the occasion to which I have referred, my admonition +appeared to produce a very powerful effect.' Mr Dombey delivered +himself of those words with most portentous stateliness. 'I wish you +to have the goodness, then, to inform Mrs Dombey, Carker, from me, +that I must recall our former conversation to her remembrance, in some +surprise that it has not yet had its effect. That I must insist upon +her regulating her conduct by the injunctions laid upon her in that +conversation. That I am not satisfied with her conduct. That I am +greatly dissatisfied with it. And that I shall be under the very +disagreeable necessity of making you the bearer of yet more unwelcome +and explicit communications, if she has not the good sense and the +proper feeling to adapt herself to my wishes, as the first Mrs Dombey +did, and, I believe I may add, as any other lady in her place would.' + +'The first Mrs Dombey lived very happily,' said Carker. + +'The first Mrs Dombey had great good sense,' said Mr Dombey, in a +gentlemanly toleration of the dead, 'and very correct feeling.' + +'Is Miss Dombey like her mother, do you think?' said Carker. + +Swiftly and darkly, Mr Dombey's face changed. His confidential +agent eyed it keenly. + +'I have approached a painful subject,' he said, in a soft regretful +tone of voice, irreconcilable with his eager eye. 'Pray forgive me. I +forget these chains of association in the interest I have. Pray +forgive me.' + +But for all he said, his eager eye scanned Mr Dombey's downcast +face none the less closely; and then it shot a strange triumphant look +at the picture, as appealing to it to bear witness how he led him on +again, and what was coming. + +Carker,' said Mr Dombey, looking here and there upon the table, and +saying in a somewhat altered and more hurried voice, and with a paler +lip, 'there is no occasion for apology. You mistake. The association +is with the matter in hand, and not with any recollection, as you +suppose. I do not approve of Mrs Dombey's behaviour towards my +daughter.' + +'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I don't quite understand.' + +'Understand then,' returned Mr Dombey, 'that you may make that - +that you will make that, if you please - matter of direct objection +from me to Mrs Dombey. You will please to tell her that her show of +devotion for my daughter is disagreeable to me. It is likely to be +noticed. It is likely to induce people to contrast Mrs Dombey in her +relation towards my daughter, with Mrs Dombey in her relation towards +myself. You will have the goodness to let Mrs Dombey know, plainly, +that I object to it; and that I expect her to defer, immediately, to +my objection. Mrs Dombey may be in earnest, or she may be pursuing a +whim, or she may be opposing me; but I object to it in any case, and +in every case. If Mrs Dombey is in earnest, so much the less reluctant +should she be to desist; for she will not serve my daughter by any +such display. If my wife has any superfluous gentleness, and duty over +and above her proper submission to me, she may bestow them where she +pleases, perhaps; but I will have submission first! - Carker,' said Mr +Dombey, checking the unusual emotion with which he had spoken, and +falling into a tone more like that in which he was accustomed to +assert his greatness, 'you will have the goodness not to omit or slur +this point, but to consider it a very important part of your +instructions.' + +Mr Carker bowed his head, and rising from the table, and standing +thoughtfully before the fire, with his hand to his smooth chin, looked +down at Mr Dombey with the evil slyness of some monkish carving, half +human and half brute; or like a leering face on an old water-spout. Mr +Dombey, recovering his composure by degrees, or cooling his emotion in +his sense of having taken a high position, sat gradually stiffening +again, and looking at the parrot as she swung to and fro, in her great +wedding ring. + +'I beg your pardon,' said Carker, after a silence, suddenly +resuming his chair, and drawing it opposite to Mr Dombey's, 'but let +me understand. Mrs Dombey is aware of the probability of your making +me the organ of your displeasure?' + +'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey. 'I have said so.' + +'Yes,' rejoined Carker, quickly; 'but why?' + +'Why!' Mr Dombey repeated, not without hesitation. 'Because I told +her.' + +'Ay,' replied Carker. 'But why did you tell her? You see,' he +continued with a smile, and softly laying his velvet hand, as a cat +might have laid its sheathed claws, on Mr Dombey's arm; 'if I +perfectly understand what is in your mind, I am so much more likely to +be useful, and to have the happiness of being effectually employed. I +think I do understand. I have not the honour of Mrs Dombey's good +opinion. In my position, I have no reason to expect it; but I take the +fact to be, that I have not got it?' + +'Possibly not,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Consequently,' pursued Carker, 'your making the communications to +Mrs Dombey through me, is sure to be particularly unpalatable to that +lady?' + +'It appears to me,' said Mr Dombey, with haughty reserve, and yet +with some embarrassment, 'that Mrs Dombey's views upon the subject +form no part of it as it presents itself to you and me, Carker. But it +may be so.' + +'And - pardon me - do I misconceive you,' said Carker, 'when I +think you descry in this, a likely means of humbling Mrs Dombey's +pride - I use the word as expressive of a quality which, kept within +due bounds, adorns and graces a lady so distinguished for her beauty +and accomplishments - and, not to say of punishing her, but of +reducing her to the submission you so naturally and justly require?' + +'I am not accustomed, Carker, as you know,' said Mr Dombey, 'to +give such close reasons for any course of conduct I think proper to +adopt, but I will gainsay nothing of this. If you have any objection +to found upon it, that is indeed another thing, and the mere statement +that you have one will be sufficient. But I have not supposed, I +confess, that any confidence I could entrust to you, would be likely +to degrade you - ' + +'Oh! I degraded!' exclaimed Carker. 'In your service!' + +'or to place you,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'in a false position.' + +'I in a false position!' exclaimed Carker. 'I shall be proud - +delighted - to execute your trust. I could have wished, I own, to have +given the lady at whose feet I would lay my humble duty and devotion - +for is she not your wife! - no new cause of dislike; but a wish from +you is, of course, paramount to every other consideration on earth. +Besides, when Mrs Dombey is converted from these little errors of +judgment, incidental, I would presume to say, to the novelty of her +situation, I shall hope that she will perceive in the slight part I +take, only a grain - my removed and different sphere gives room for +little more - of the respect for you, and sacrifice of all +considerations to you, of which it will be her pleasure and privilege +to garner up a great store every day.' + +Mr Dombey seemed, at the moment, again to see her with her hand +stretched out towards the door, and again to hear through the mild +speech of his confidential agent an echo of the words, 'Nothing can +make us stranger to each other than we are henceforth!' But he shook +off the fancy, and did not shake in his resolution, and said, +'Certainly, no doubt.' + +'There is nothing more,' quoth Carker, drawing his chair back to +its old place - for they had taken little breakfast as yet- and +pausing for an answer before he sat down. + +'Nothing,' said Mr Dombey, 'but this. You will be good enough to +observe, Carker, that no message to Mrs Dombey with which you are or +may be charged, admits of reply. You will be good enough to bring me +no reply. Mrs Dombey is informed that it does not become me to +temporise or treat upon any matter that is at issue between us, and +that what I say is final.' + +Mr Carker signIfied his understanding of these credentials, and +they fell to breakfast with what appetite they might. The Grinder +also, in due time reappeared, keeping his eyes upon his master without +a moment's respite, and passing the time in a reverie of worshipful +tenor. Breakfast concluded, Mr Dombey's horse was ordered out again, +and Mr Carker mounting his own, they rode off for the City together. + +Mr Carker was in capital spirits, and talked much. Mr Dombey +received his conversation with the sovereign air of a man who had a +right to be talked to, and occasionally condescended to throw in a few +words to carry on the conversation. So they rode on characteristically +enough. But Mr Dombey, in his dignity, rode with very long stirrups, +and a very loose rein, and very rarely deigned to look down to see +where his horse went. In consequence of which it happened that Mr +Dombey's horse, while going at a round trot, stumbled on some loose +stones, threw him, rolled over him, and lashing out with his iron-shod +feet, in his struggles to get up, kicked him. + +Mr Carker, quick of eye, steady of hand, and a good horseman, was +afoot, and had the struggling animal upon his legs and by the bridle, +in a moment. Otherwise that morning's confidence would have been Mr +Dombey's last. Yet even with the flush and hurry of this action red +upon him, he bent over his prostrate chief with every tooth disclosed, +and muttered as he stooped down, 'I have given good cause of offence +to Mrs Dombey now, if she knew it!' + +Mr Dombey being insensible, and bleeding from the head and face, +was carried by certain menders of the road, under Carker's direction, +to the nearest public-house, which was not far off, and where he was +soon attended by divers surgeons, who arrived in quick succession from +all parts, and who seemed to come by some mysterious instinct, as +vultures are said to gather about a camel who dies in the desert. +After being at some pains to restore him to consciousness, these +gentlemen examined into the nature of his injuries. + +One surgeon who lived hard by was strong for a compound fracture of +the leg, which was the landlord's opinion also; but two surgeons who +lived at a distance, and were only in that neighbourhood by accident, +combated this opinion so disinterestedly, that it was decided at last +that the patient, though severely cut and bruised, had broken no bones +but a lesser rib or so, and might be carefully taken home before +night. His injuries being dressed and bandaged, which was a long +operation, and he at length left to repose, Mr Carker mounted his +horse again, and rode away to carry the intelligence home. + +Crafty and cruel as his face was at the best of times, though it +was a sufficiently fair face as to form and regularity of feature, it +was at its worst when he set forth on this errand; animated by the +craft and cruelty of thoughts within him, suggestions of remote +possibility rather than of design or plot, that made him ride as if he +hunted men and women. Drawing rein at length, and slackening in his +speed, as he came into the more public roads, he checked his +white-legged horse into picking his way along as usual, and hid +himself beneath his sleek, hushed, crouched manner, and his ivory +smile, as he best could. + +He rode direct to Mr Dombey's house, alighted at the door, and +begged to see Mrs Dombey on an affair of importance. The servant who +showed him to Mr Dombey's own room, soon returned to say that it was +not Mrs Dombey's hour for receiving visitors, and that he begged +pardon for not having mentioned it before. + +Mr Carker, who was quite prepared for a cold reception, wrote upon +a card that he must take the liberty of pressing for an interview, and +that he would not be so bold as to do so, for the second time (this he +underlined), if he were not equally sure of the occasion being +sufficient for his justification. After a trifling delay, Mrs Dombey's +maid appeared, and conducted him to a morning room upstairs, where +Edith and Florence were together. + +He had never thought Edith half so beautiful before. Much as he +admired the graces of her face and form, and freshly as they dwelt +within his sensual remembrance, he had never thought her half so +beautiful. + +Her glance fell haughtily upon him in the doorway; but he looked at +Florence - though only in the act of bending his head, as he came in - +with some irrepressible expression of the new power he held; and it +was his triumph to see the glance droop and falter, and to see that +Edith half rose up to receive him. + +He was very sorry, he was deeply grieved; he couldn't say with what +unwillingness he came to prepare her for the intelligence of a very +slight accident. He entreated Mrs Dombey to compose herself. Upon his +sacred word of honour, there was no cause of alarm. But Mr Dombey - + +Florence uttered a sudden cry. He did not look at her, but at +Edith. Edith composed and reassured her. She uttered no cry of +distress. No, no. + +Mr Dombey had met with an accident in riding. His horse had +slipped, and he had been thrown. + +Florence wildly exclaimed that he was badly hurt; that he was +killed! + +No. Upon his honour, Mr Dombey, though stunned at first, was soon +recovered, and though certainly hurt was in no kind of danger. If this +were not the truth, he, the distressed intruder, never could have had +the courage to present himself before Mrs Dombey. It was the truth +indeed, he solemnly assured her. + +All this he said as if he were answering Edith, and not Florence, +and with his eyes and his smile fastened on Edith. + +He then went on to tell her where Mr Dombey was lying, and to +request that a carriage might be placed at his disposal to bring him +home. + +'Mama,' faltered Florence in tears, 'if I might venture to go!' + +Mr Carker, having his eyes on Edith when he heard these words, gave +her a secret look and slightly shook his head. He saw how she battled +with herself before she answered him with her handsome eyes, but he +wrested the answer from her - he showed her that he would have it, or +that he would speak and cut Florence to the heart - and she gave it to +him. As he had looked at the picture in the morning, so he looked at +her afterwards, when she turned her eyes away. + +'I am directed to request,' he said, 'that the new housekeeper - +Mrs Pipchin, I think, is the name - ' + +Nothing escaped him. He saw in an instant, that she was another +slight of Mr Dombey's on his wife. + +' - may be informed that Mr Dombey wishes to have his bed prepared +in his own apartments downstairs, as he prefers those rooms to any +other. I shall return to Mr Dombey almost immediately. That every +possible attention has been paid to his comfort, and that he is the +object of every possible solicitude, I need not assure you, Madam. Let +me again say, there is no cause for the least alarm. Even you may be +quite at ease, believe me.' + +He bowed himself out, with his extremest show of deference and +conciliation; and having returned to Mr Dombey's room, and there +arranged for a carriage being sent after him to the City, mounted his +horse again, and rode slowly thither. He was very thoughtful as he +went along, and very thoughtful there, and very thoughtful in the +carriage on his way back to the place where Mr Dombey had been left. +It was only when sitting by that gentleman's couch that he was quite +himself again, and conscious of his teeth. + +About the time of twilight, Mr Dombey, grievously afflicted with +aches and pains, was helped into his carriage, and propped with cloaks +and pillows on one side of it, while his confidential agent bore him +company upon the other. As he was not to be shaken, they moved at +little more than a foot pace; and hence it was quite dark when he was +brought home. Mrs Pipchin, bitter and grim, and not oblivious of the +Peruvian mines, as the establishment in general had good reason to +know, received him at the door, and freshened the domestics with +several little sprinklings of wordy vinegar, while they assisted in +conveying him to his room. Mr Carker remained in attendance until he +was safe in bed, and then, as he declined to receive any female +visitor, but the excellent Ogress who presided over his household, +waited on Mrs Dombey once more, with his report on her lord's +condition. + +He again found Edith alone with Florence, and he again addressed +the whole of his soothing speech to Edith, as if she were a prey to +the liveliest and most affectionate anxieties. So earnest he was in +his respectful sympathy, that on taking leave, he ventured - with one +more glance towards Florence at the moment - to take her hand, and +bending over it, to touch it with his lips. + +Edith did not withdraw the hand, nor did she strike his fair face +with it, despite the flush upon her cheek, the bright light in her +eyes, and the dilation of her whole form. But when she was alone in +her own room, she struck it on the marble chimney-shelf, so that, at +one blow, it was bruised, and bled; and held it from her, near the +shining fire, as if she could have thrust it in and burned it' + +Far into the night she sat alone, by the sinking blaze, in dark and +threatening beauty, watching the murky shadows looming on the wall, as +if her thoughts were tangible, and cast them there. Whatever shapes of +outrage and affront, and black foreshadowings of things that might +happen, flickered, indistinct and giant-like, before her, one resented +figure marshalled them against her. And that figure was her husband. + + + +CHAPTER 43. + +The Watches of the Night + + + +Florence, long since awakened from her dream, mournfully observed +the estrangement between her father and Edith, and saw it widen more +and more, and knew that there was greater bitterness between them +every day. Each day's added knowledge deepened the shade upon her love +and hope, roused up the old sorrow that had slumbered for a little +time, and made it even heavier to bear than it had been before. + +It had been hard - how hard may none but Florence ever know! - to +have the natural affection of a true and earnest nature turned to +agony; and slight, or stern repulse, substituted for the tenderest +protection and the dearest care. It had been hard to feel in her deep +heart what she had felt, and never know the happiness of one touch of +response. But it was much more hard to be compelled to doubt either +her father or Edith, so affectionate and dear to her, and to think of +her love for each of them, by turns, with fear, distrust, and wonder. + +Yet Florence now began to do so; and the doing of it was a task +imposed upon her by the very purity of her soul, as one she could not +fly from. She saw her father cold and obdurate to Edith, as to her; +hard, inflexible, unyielding. Could it be, she asked herself with +starting tears, that her own dear mother had been made unhappy by such +treatment, and had pined away and died? Then she would think how proud +and stately Edith was to everyone but her, with what disdain she +treated him, how distantly she kept apart from him, and what she had +said on the night when they came home; and quickly it would come on +Florence, almost as a crime, that she loved one who was set in +opposition to her father, and that her father knowing of it, must +think of her in his solitary room as the unnatural child who added +this wrong to the old fault, so much wept for, of never having won his +fatherly affection from her birth. The next kind word from Edith, the +next kind glance, would shake these thoughts again, and make them seem +like black ingratitude; for who but she had cheered the drooping heart +of Florence, so lonely and so hurt, and been its best of comforters! +Thus, with her gentle nature yearning to them both, feeling for the +misery of both, and whispering doubts of her own duty to both, +Florence in her wider and expanded love, and by the side of Edith, +endured more than when she had hoarded up her undivided secret in the +mournful house, and her beautiful Mama had never dawned upon it. + +One exquisite unhappiness that would have far outweighed this, +Florence was spared. She never had the least suspicion that Edith by +her tenderness for her widened the separation from her father, or gave +him new cause of dislike. If Florence had conceived the possIbility of +such an effect being wrought by such a cause, what grief she would +have felt, what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving +girl, how fast and sure her quiet passage might have been beneath it +to the presence of that higher Father who does not reject his +children's love, or spurn their tried and broken hearts, Heaven knows! +But it was otherwise, and that was well. + +No word was ever spoken between Florence and Edith now, on these +subjects. Edith had said there ought to be between them, in that wise, +a division and a silence like the grave itself: and Florence felt she +was right' + +In this state of affairs her father was brought home, suffering and +disabled; and gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was tended +by servants, not approached by Edith, and had no friend or companion +but Mr Carker, who withdrew near midnight. + +'And nice company he is, Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper. 'Oh, he's a +precious piece of goods! If ever he wants a character don't let him +come to me whatever he does, that's all I tell him.' + +'Dear Susan,' urged Florence, 'don't!' + +'Oh, it's very well to say "don't" Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, +much exasperated; 'but raly begging your pardon we're coming to such +passes that it turns all the blood in a person's body into pins and +needles, with their pints all ways. Don't mistake me, Miss Floy, I +don't mean nothing again your ma-in-law who has always treated me as a +lady should though she is rather high I must say not that I have any +right to object to that particular, but when we come to Mrs Pipchinses +and having them put over us and keeping guard at your Pa's door like +crocodiles (only make us thankful that they lay no eggs!) we are a +growing too outrageous!' + +'Papa thinks well of Mrs Pipchin, Susan,' returned Florence, 'and +has a right to choose his housekeeper, you know. Pray don't!' + +'Well Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, 'when you say don't, I never +do I hope but Mrs Pipchin acts like early gooseberries upon me Miss, +and nothing less.' + +Susan was unusually emphatic and destitute of punctuation in her +discourse on this night, which was the night of Mr Dombey's being +brought home, because, having been sent downstairs by Florence to +inquire after him, she had been obliged to deliver her message to her +mortal enemy Mrs Pipchin; who, without carrying it in to Mr Dombey, +had taken upon herself to return what Miss Nipper called a huffish +answer, on her own responsibility. This, Susan Nipper construed into +presumption on the part of that exemplary sufferer by the Peruvian +mines, and a deed of disparagement upon her young lady, that was not +to be forgiven; and so far her emphatic state was special. But she had +been in a condition of greatly increased suspicion and distrust, ever +since the marriage; for, like most persons of her quality of mind, who +form a strong and sincere attachment to one in the different station +which Florence occupied, Susan was very jealous, and her jealousy +naturally attached to Edith, who divided her old empire, and came +between them. Proud and glad as Susan Nipper truly was, that her young +mistress should be advanced towards her proper place in the scene of +her old neglect, and that she should have her father's handsome wife +for her companion and protectress, she could not relinquish any part +of her own dominion to the handsome wife, without a grudge and a vague +feeling of ill-will, for which she did not fail to find a +disinterested justification in her sharp perception of the pride and +passion of the lady's character. From the background to which she had +necessarily retired somewhat, since the marriage, Miss Nipper looked +on, therefore, at domestic affairs in general, with a resolute +conviction that no good would come of Mrs Dombey: always being very +careful to publish on all possible occasions, that she had nothing to +say against her. + +'Susan,' said Florence, who was sitting thoughtfully at her table, +'it is very late. I shall want nothing more to-night.' + +'Ah, Miss Floy!' returned the Nipper, 'I'm sure I often wish for +them old times when I sat up with you hours later than this and fell +asleep through being tired out when you was as broad awake as +spectacles, but you've ma's-in-law to come and sit with you now Miss +Floy and I'm thankful for it I'm sure. I've not a word to say against +'em.' + +'I shall not forget who was my old companion when I had none, +Susan,' returned Florence, gently, 'never!' And looking up, she put +her arm round the neck of her humble friend, drew her face down to +hers, and bidding her good-night, kissed it; which so mollified Miss +Nipper, that she fell a sobbing. + +'Now my dear Miss Floy, said Susan, 'let me go downstairs again and +see how your Pa is, I know you're wretched about him, do let me go +downstairs again and knock at his door my own self.' + +'No,' said Florence, 'go to bed. We shall hear more in the morning. +I will inquire myself in the morning. Mama has been down, I daresay;' +Florence blushed, for she had no such hope; 'or is there now, perhaps. +Good-night!' + +Susan was too much softened to express her private opinion on the +probability of Mrs Dombey's being in attendance on her husband, and +silently withdrew. Florence left alone, soon hid her head upon her +hands as she had often done in other days, and did not restrain the +tears from coursing down her face. The misery of this domestic discord +and unhappiness; the withered hope she cherished now, if hope it could +be called, of ever being taken to her father's heart; her doubts and +fears between the two; the yearning of her innocent breast to both; +the heavy disappointment and regret of such an end as this, to what +had been a vision of bright hope and promise to her; all crowded on +her mind and made her tears flow fast. Her mother and her brother +dead, her father unmoved towards her, Edith opposed to him and casting +him away, but loving her, and loved by her, it seemed as if her +affection could never prosper, rest where it would. That weak thought +was soon hushed, but the thoughts in which it had arisen were too true +and strong to be dismissed with it; and they made the night desolate. + +Among such reflections there rose up, as there had risen up all +day, the image of her father, wounded and in pain, alone in his own +room, untended by those who should be nearest to him, and passing the +tardy hours in lonely suffering. A frightened thought which made her +start and clasp her hands - though it was not a new one in her mind - +that he might die, and never see her or pronounce her name, thrilled +her whole frame. In her agitation she thought, and trembled while she +thought, of once more stealing downstairs, and venturing to his door. + +She listened at her own. The house was quiet, and all the lights +were out. It was a long, long time, she thought, since she used to +make her nightly pilgrimages to his door! It was a long, long time, +she tried to think, since she had entered his room at midnight, and he +had led her back to the stair-foot! + +With the same child's heart within her, as of old: even with the +child's sweet timid eyes and clustering hair: Florence, as strange to +her father in her early maiden bloom, as in her nursery time, crept +down the staircase listening as she went, and drew near to his room. +No one was stirring in the house. The door was partly open to admit +air; and all was so still within, that she could hear the burning of +the fire, and count the ticking of the clock that stood upon the +chimney-piece. + +She looked in. In that room, the housekeeper wrapped in a blanket +was fast asleep in an easy chair before the fire. The doors between it +and the next were partly closed, and a screen was drawn before them; +but there was a light there, and it shone upon the cornice of his bed. +All was so very still that she could hear from his breathing that he +was asleep. This gave her courage to pass round the screen, and look +into his chamber. + +It was as great a start to come upon his sleeping face as if she +had not expected to see it. Florence stood arrested on the spot, and +if he had awakened then, must have remained there. + +There was a cut upon his forehead, and they had been wetting his +hair, which lay bedabbled and entangled on the pillow. One of his +arms, resting outside the bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white. +But it was not this, that after the first quick glance, and first +assurance of his sleeping quietly, held Florence rooted to the ground. +It was something very different from this, and more than this, that +made him look so solemn in her eye + +She had never seen his face in all her life, but there had been +upon it - or she fancied so - some disturbing consciousness of her. +She had never seen his face in all her life, but hope had sunk within +her, and her timid glance had dropped before its stern, unloving, and +repelling harshness. As she looked upon it now, she saw it, for the +first time, free from the cloud that had darkened her childhood. Calm, +tranquil night was reigning in its stead. He might have gone to sleep, +for anything she saw there, blessing her. + +Awake, unkind father! Awake, now, sullen man! The time is flitting +by; the hour is coming with an angry tread. Awake! + +There was no change upon his face; and as she watched it, awfully, +its motionless reponse recalled the faces that were gone. So they +looked, so would he; so she, his weeping child, who should say when! +so all the world of love and hatred and indifference around them! When +that time should come, it would not be the heavier to him, for this +that she was going to do; and it might fall something lighter upon +her. + +She stole close to the bed, and drawing in her breath, bent down, +and softly kissed him on the face, and laid her own for one brief +moment by its side, and put the arm, with which she dared not touch +him, round about him on the pillow. + +Awake, doomed man, while she is near! The time is flitting by; the +hour is coming with an angry tread; its foot is in the house. Awake! + +In her mind, she prayed to God to bless her father, and to soften +him towards her, if it might be so; and if not, to forgive him if he +was wrong, and pardon her the prayer which almost seemed impiety. And +doing so, and looking back at him with blinded eyes, and stealing +timidly away, passed out of his room, and crossed the other, and was +gone. + +He may sleep on now. He may sleep on while he may. But let him look +for that slight figure when he wakes, and find it near him when the +hour is come! + +Sad and grieving was the heart of Florence, as she crept upstairs. +The quiet house had grown more dismal since she came down. The sleep +she had been looking on, in the dead of night, had the solemnity to +her of death and life in one. The secrecy and silence of her own +proceeding made the night secret, silent, and oppressive. She felt +unwilling, almost unable, to go on to her own chamber; and turnIng +into the drawing-rooms, where the clouded moon was shining through the +blinds, looked out into the empty streets. + +The wind was blowing drearily. The lamps looked pale, and shook as +if they were cold. There was a distant glimmer of something that was +not quite darkness, rather than of light, in the sky; and foreboding +night was shivering and restless, as the dying are who make a troubled +end. Florence remembered how, as a watcher, by a sick-bed, she had +noted this bleak time, and felt its influence, as if in some hidden +natural antipathy to it; and now it was very, very gloomy. + +Her Mama had not come to her room that night, which was one cause +of her having sat late out of her bed. In her general uneasiness, no +less than in her ardent longing to have somebody to speak to, and to +break the spell of gloom and silence, Florence directed her steps +towards the chamber where she slept. + +The door was not fastened within, and yielded smoothly to her +hesitating hand. She was surprised to find a bright light burning; +still more surprised, on looking in, to see that her Mama, but +partially undressed, was sitting near the ashes of the fire, which had +crumbled and dropped away. Her eyes were intently bent upon the air; +and in their light, and in her face, and in her form, and in the grasp +with which she held the elbows of her chair as if about to start up, +Florence saw such fierce emotion that it terrified her. + +'Mama!' she cried, 'what is the matter?' + +Edith started; looking at her with such a strange dread in her +face, that Florence was more frightened than before. + +'Mama!' said Florence, hurriedly advancing. 'Dear Mama! what is the +matter?' + +'I have not been well,' said Edith, shaking, and still looking at +her in the same strange way. 'I have had had dreams, my love.' + +'And not yet been to bed, Mama?' + +'No,' she returned. 'Half-waking dreams.' + +Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come +closer to her, within her embrace, she said in a tender manner, 'But +what does my bird do here? What does my bird do here?' + +'I have been uneasy, Mama, in not seeing you to-night, and in not +knowing how Papa was; and I - ' + +Florence stopped there, and said no more. + +'Is it late?' asked Edith, fondly putting back the curls that +mingled with her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face. + +'Very late. Near day.' + +'Near day!' she repeated in surprise. + +'Dear Mama, what have you done to your hand?' said Florence. + +Edith drew it suddenly away, and, for a moment, looked at her with +the same strange dread (there was a sort of wild avoidance in it) as +before; but she presently said, 'Nothing, nothing. A blow.' And then +she said, 'My Florence!' and then her bosom heaved, and she was +weeping passionately. + +'Mama!' said Florence. 'Oh Mama, what can I do, what should I do, +to make us happier? Is there anything?' + +'Nothing,' she replied. + +'Are you sure of that? Can it never be? If I speak now of what is +in my thoughts, in spite of what we have agreed,' said Florence, 'you +will not blame me, will you?' + +'It is useless,' she replied, 'useless. I have told you, dear, that +I have had bad dreams. Nothing can change them, or prevent them coming +back.' + +'I do not understand,' said Florence, gazing on her agitated face +which seemed to darken as she looked. + +'I have dreamed,' said Edith in a low voice, 'of a pride that is +all powerless for good, all powerful for evil; of a pride that has +been galled and goaded, through many shameful years, and has never +recoiled except upon itself; a pride that has debased its owner with +the consciousness of deep humiliation, and never helped its owner +boldly to resent it or avoid it, or to say, "This shall not be!" a +pride that, rightly guided, might have led perhaps to better things, +but which, misdirected and perverted, like all else belonging to the +same possessor, has been self-contempt, mere hardihood and ruin.' + +She neither looked nor spoke to Florence now, but went on as if she +were alone. + +'I have dreamed,' she said, 'of such indifference and callousness, +arising from this self-contempt; this wretched, inefficient, miserable +pride; that it has gone on with listless steps even to the altar, +yielding to the old, familiar, beckoning finger, - oh mother, oh +mother! - while it spurned it; and willing to be hateful to itself for +once and for all, rather than to be stung daily in some new form. +Mean, poor thing!' + +And now with gathering and darkening emotion, she looked as she had +looked when Florence entered. + +'And I have dreamed,' she said, 'that in a first late effort to +achieve a purpose, it has been trodden on, and trodden down by a base +foot, but turns and looks upon him. I have dreamed that it is wounded, +hunted, set upon by dogs, but that it stands at hay, and will not +yield; no, that it cannot if it would; but that it is urged on to hate + +Her clenched hand tightened on the trembling arm she had in hers, +and as she looked down on the alarmed and wondering face, frown +subsided. 'Oh Florence!' she said, 'I think I have been nearly mad +to-night!' and humbled her proud head upon her neck and wept again. + +'Don't leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you! These words +she said a score of times. + +Soon she grew calmer, and was full of pity for the tears of +Florence, and for her waking at such untimely hours. And the day now +dawning, with folded her in her arms and laid her down upon her bed, +and, not lying down herself, sat by her, and bade her try to sleep. + +'For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.' + +'I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, tonight,' said Florence. 'But you +are weary and unhappy, too.' + +'Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.' + +They kissed each other, and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into +a gentle slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it +was so sad to think upon the face downstairs, that her hand drew +closer to Edith for some comfort; yet, even in the act, it faltered, +lest it should be deserting him. So, in her sleep, she tried to +reconcile the two together, and to show them that she loved them both, +but could not do it, and her waking grief was part of her dreams. + +Edith, sitting by, looked down at the dark eyelashes lying wet on +the flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew +the truth. But no sleep hung upon her own eyes. As the day came on she +still sat watching and waking, with the placid hand in hers, and +sometimes whispered, as she looked at the hushed face, 'Be near me, +Florence. I have no hope but in you!' + + + +CHAPTER 44. + +A Separation + + + +With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan +Nipper. There was a heaviness in this young maiden's exceedingly sharp +black eyes, that abated somewhat of their sparkling, and suggested - +which was not their usual character - the possibility of their being +sometimes shut. There was likewise a swollen look about them, as if +they had been crying over-night. But the Nipper, so far from being +cast down, was singularly brisk and bold, and all her energies +appeared to be braced up for some great feat. This was noticeable even +in her dress, which was much more tight and trim than usual; and in +occasional twitches of her head as she went about the house, which +were mightily expressive of determination. + +In a word, she had formed a determination, and an aspiring one: it +being nothing less than this - to penetrate to Mr Dombey's presence, +and have speech of that gentleman alone. 'I have often said I would,' +she remarked, in a threatening manner, to herself, that morning, with +many twitches of her head, 'and now I will!' + +Spurring herself on to the accomplishment of this desperate design, +with a sharpness that was peculiar to herself, Susan Nipper haunted +the hall and staircase during the whole forenoon, without finding a +favourable opportunity for the assault. Not at all baffled by this +discomfiture, which indeed had a stimulating effect, and put her on +her mettle, she diminished nothing of her vigilance; and at last +discovered, towards evening, that her sworn foe Mrs Pipchin, under +pretence of having sat up all night, was dozing in her own room, and +that Mr Dombey was lying on his sofa, unattended. + +With a twitch - not of her head merely, this time, but of her whole +self - the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked. +'Come in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final +twitch, and went in. + +Mr Dombey, who was eyeing the fire, gave an amazed look at his +visitor, and raised himself a little on his arm. The Nipper dropped a +curtsey. + +'What do you want?' said Mr Dombey. + +'If you please, Sir, I wish to speak to you,' said Susan. + +Mr Dombey moved his lips as if he were repeating the words, but he +seemed so lost in astonishment at the presumption of the young woman +as to be incapable of giving them utterance. + +'I have been in your service, Sir,' said Susan Nipper, with her +usual rapidity, 'now twelve 'year a waiting on Miss Floy my own young +lady who couldn't speak plain when I first come here and I was old in +this house when Mrs Richards was new, I may not be Meethosalem, but I +am not a child in arms.' + +Mr Dombey, raised upon his arm and looking at her, offered no +comment on this preparatory statement of fact. + +'There never was a dearer or a blesseder young lady than is my +young lady, Sir,' said Susan, 'and I ought to know a great deal better +than some for I have seen her in her grief and I have seen her in her +joy (there's not been much of it) and I have seen her with her brother +and I have seen her in her loneliness and some have never seen her, +and I say to some and all - I do!' and here the black-eyed shook her +head, and slightly stamped her foot; 'that she's the blessedest and +dearest angel is Miss Floy that ever drew the breath of life, the more +that I was torn to pieces Sir the more I'd say it though I may not be +a Fox's Martyr..' + +Mr Dombey turned yet paler than his fall had made him, with +indignation and astonishment; and kept his eyes upon the speaker as if +he accused them, and his ears too, of playing him false. + +'No one could be anything but true and faithful to Miss Floy, Sir,' +pursued Susan, 'and I take no merit for my service of twelve year, for +I love her - yes, I say to some and all I do!' - and here the +black-eyed shook her head again, and slightly stamped her foot again, +and checked a sob; 'but true and faithful service gives me right to +speak I hope, and speak I must and will now, right or wrong. + +'What do you mean, woman?' said Mr Dombey, glaring at her. 'How do +you dare?' + +'What I mean, Sir, is to speak respectful and without offence, but +out, and how I dare I know not but I do!'said Susan. 'Oh! you don't +know my young lady Sir you don't indeed, you'd never know so little of +her, if you did.' + +Mr Dombey, in a fury, put his hand out for the bell-rope; but there +was no bell-rope on that side of the fire, and he could not rise and +cross to the other without assistance. The quick eye of the Nipper +detected his helplessness immediately, and now, as she afterwards +observed, she felt she had got him. + +'Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper, 'is the most devoted and most +patient and most dutiful and beautiful of daughters, there ain't no +gentleman, no Sir, though as great and rich as all the greatest and +richest of England put together, but might be proud of her and would +and ought. If he knew her value right, he'd rather lose his greatness +and his fortune piece by piece and beg his way in rags from door to +door, I say to some and all, he would!' cried Susan Nipper, bursting +into tears, 'than bring the sorrow on her tender heart that I have +seen it suffer in this house!' + +'Woman,' cried Mr Dombey, 'leave the room. + +'Begging your pardon, not even if I am to leave the situation, +Sir,' replied the steadfast Nipper, 'in which I have been so many +years and seen so much - although I hope you'd never have the heart to +send me from Miss Floy for such a cause - will I go now till I have +said the rest, I may not be a Indian widow Sir and I am not and I +would not so become but if I once made up my mind to burn myself +alive, I'd do it! And I've made my mind up to go on.' + +Which was rendered no less clear by the expression of Susan +Nipper's countenance, than by her words. + +'There ain't a person in your service, Sir,' pursued the +black-eyed, 'that has always stood more in awe of you than me and you +may think how true it is when I make so bold as say that I have +hundreds and hundreds of times thought of speaking to you and never +been able to make my mind up to it till last night, but last night +decided of me.' + +Mr Dombey, in a paroxysm of rage, made another grasp at the +bell-rope that was not there, and, in its absence, pulled his hair +rather than nothing. + +'I have seen,' said Susan Nipper, 'Miss Floy strive and strive when +nothing but a child so sweet and patient that the best of women might +have copied from her, I've seen her sitting nights together half the +night through to help her delicate brother with his learning, I've +seen her helping him and watching him at other times - some well know +when - I've seen her, with no encouragement and no help, grow up to be +a lady, thank God! that is the grace and pride of every company she +goes in, and I've always seen her cruelly neglected and keenly feeling +of it - I say to some and all, I have! - and never said one word, but +ordering one's self lowly and reverently towards one's betters, is not +to be a worshipper of graven images, and I will and must speak!' + +'Is there anybody there?' cried Mr Dombey, calling out. 'Where are +the men? where are the women? Is there no one there?' + +'I left my dear young lady out of bed late last night,' said Susan, +nothing checked, 'and I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she didn't +know how ill and that was enough to make her wretched as I saw it did. +I may not be a Peacock; but I have my eyes - and I sat up a little in +my own room thinking she might be lonesome and might want me, and I +saw her steal downstairs and come to this door as if it was a guilty +thing to look at her own Pa, and then steal back again and go into +them lonely drawing-rooms, a-crying so, that I could hardly bear to +hear it. I can not bear to hear it,' said Susan Nipper, wiping her +black eyes, and fixing them undauntingly on Mr Dombey's infuriated +face. 'It's not the first time I have heard it, not by many and many a +time you don't know your own daughter, Sir, you don't know what you're +doing, Sir, I say to some and all,' cried Susan Nipper, in a final +burst, 'that it's a sinful shame!' + +'Why, hoity toity!' cried the voice of Mrs Pipchin, as the black +bombazeen garments of that fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room. +'What's this, indeed?' + +Susan favoured Mrs Pipchin with a look she had invented expressly +for her when they first became acquainted, and resigned the reply to +Mr Dombey. + +'What's this?' repeated Mr Dombey, almost foaming. 'What's this, +Madam? You who are at the head of this household, and bound to keep it +in order, have reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?' + +'I know very little good of her, Sir,' croaked Mrs Pipchin. 'How +dare you come here, you hussy? Go along with you!' + +But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs Pipchin with +another look, remained. + +'Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam,' said Mr +Dombey, 'to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to +me! A gentleman - in his own house - in his own room - assailed with +the impertinences of women-servants!' + +'Well, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey +eye, 'I exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular; nothing +can be more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir, +that this young woman is quite beyond control. She has been spoiled by +Miss Dombey, and is amenable to nobody. You know you're not,' said Mrs +Pipchin, sharply, and shaking her head at Susan Nipper. 'For shame, +you hussy! Go along with you!' + +'If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled, Mrs +Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, turning back towards the fire, 'you know +what to do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take +her away!' + +'Sir, I know what to do,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, 'and of course +shall do it' Susan Nipper,' snapping her up particularly short, 'a +month's warning from this hour.' + +'Oh indeed!' cried Susan, loftily. + +'Yes,' returned Mrs Pipchin, 'and don't smile at me, you minx, or +I'll know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!' + +'I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,' said the +voluble Nipper. 'I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a +dozen year and I won't stop in it one hour under notice from a person +owning to the name of Pipchin trust me, Mrs P.' + +'A good riddance of bad rubbish!' said that wrathful old lady. 'Get +along with you, or I'll have you carried out!' + +'My comfort is,' said Susan, looking back at Mr Dombey, 'that I +have told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long +before and can't be told too often or too plain and that no amount of +Pipchinses - I hope the number of 'em mayn't be great' (here Mrs +Pipchin uttered a very sharp 'Go along with you!' and Miss Nipper +repeated the look) 'can unsay what I have said, though they gave a +whole year full of warnings beginning at ten o'clock in the forenoon +and never leaving off till twelve at night and died of the exhaustion +which would be a Jubilee!' + +With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room; and +walking upstairs to her own apartments in great state, to the choking +exasperation of the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began +to cry. + +From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome and +refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs Pipchin outside the door. + +'Does that bold-faced slut,' said the fell Pipchin, 'intend to take +her warning, or does she not?' + +Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did not +inhabit that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she +was to be found in the housekeeper's room. + +'You saucy baggage!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, rattling at the handle +of the door. 'Go along with you this minute. Pack up your things +directly! How dare you talk in this way to a gentle-woman who has seen +better days?' + +To which Miss Nipper rejoined from her castle, that she pitied the +better days that had seen Mrs Pipchin; and that for her part she +considered the worst days in the year to be about that lady's mark, +except that they were much too good for her. + +'But you needn't trouble yourself to make a noise at my door,' said +Susan Nipper, 'nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye, I'm +packing up and going you may take your affidavit.' + +The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this intelligence, +and with some general opinions upon young hussies as a race, and +especially upon their demerits after being spoiled by Miss Dombey, +withdrew to prepare the Nipper~s wages. Susan then bestirred herself +to get her trunks in order, that she might take an immediate and +dignified departure; sobbing heartily all the time, as she thought of +Florence. + +The object of her regret was not long in coming to her, for the +news soon spread over the house that Susan Nipper had had a +disturbance with Mrs Pipchin, and that they had both appealed to Mr +Dombey, and that there had been an unprecedented piece of work in Mr +Dombey's room, and that Susan was going. The latter part of this +confused rumour, Florence found to be so correct, that Susan had +locked the last trunk and was sitting upon it with her bonnet on, when +she came into her room. + +'Susan!' cried Florence. 'Going to leave me! You!' + +'Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,' said Susan, sobbing, +'don't speak a word to me or I shall demean myself before them' +Pipchinses, and I wouldn't have 'em see me cry Miss Floy for worlds!' + +'Susan!' said Florence. 'My dear girl, my old friend! What shall I +do without you! Can you bear to go away so?' + +'No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can't indeed,' sobbed +Susan. 'But it can't be helped, I've done my duty' Miss, I have +indeed. It's no fault of mine. I am quite resigned. I couldn't stay my +month or I could never leave you then my darling and I must at last as +well as at first, don't speak to me Miss Floy, for though I'm pretty +firm I'm not a marble doorpost, my own dear.' + +'What is it? Why is it?' said Florence, 'Won't you tell me?' For +Susan was shaking her head. + +'No-n-no, my darling,' returned Susan. 'Don't ask me, for I +mustn't, and whatever you do don't put in a word for me to stop, for +it couldn't be and you'd only wrong yourself, and so God bless you my +own precious and forgive me any harm I have done, or any temper I have +showed in all these many years!' + +With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her +mistress in her arms. + +'My darling there's a many that may come to serve you and be glad +to serve you and who'll serve you well and true,' said Susan, 'but +there can't be one who'll serve you so affectionate as me or love you +half as dearly, that's my comfort' Good-bye, sweet Miss Floy!' + +'Where will you go, Susan?' asked her weeping mistress. + +'I've got a brother down in the country Miss - a farmer in Essex +said the heart-broken Nipper, 'that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and +pigs and I shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and +don't mind me, for I've got money in the Savings Banks my dear, and +needn't take another service just yet, which I couldn't, couldn't, +couldn't do, my heart's own mistress!' Susan finished with a burst of +sorrow, which was opportunely broken by the voice of Mrs Pipchin +talking downstairs; on hearing which, she dried her red and swollen +eyes, and made a melancholy feint of calling jauntily to Mr Towlinson +to fetch a cab and carry down her boxes. + +Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from +useless interference even here, by her dread of causing any new +division between her father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face +had been a warning to her a few moments since), and by her +apprehension of being in some way unconsciously connected already with +the dismissal of her old servant and friend, followed, weeping, +downstairs to Edith's dressing-room, whither Susan betook herself to +make her parting curtsey. + +'Now, here's the cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you, +do!' said Mrs Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. 'I beg +your pardon, Ma'am, but Mr Dombey's orders are imperative.' + +Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid - she was going out to +dinner - preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice. + +'There's your money,' said Mrs Pipchin, who in pursuance of her +system, and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the +servants about, as she had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the +everlasting acidulation of Master Bitherstone, 'and the sooner this +house sees your back the better. + +Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Ma Pipchin +by right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs Dombey (who inclined her +head without one word, and whose eye avoided everyone but Florence), +and gave one last parting hug to her young mistress, and received her +parting embrace in return. Poor Susan's face at this crisis, in the +intensity of her feelings and the determined suffocation of her sobs, +lest one should become audible and be a triumph to Mrs Pipchin, +presented a series of the most extraordinary physiognomical phenomena +ever witnessed. + +'I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure,' said Towlinson, outside the +door with the boxes, addressing Florence, 'but Mr Toots is in the +drawing-room, and sends his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes +and Master is.' + +Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened downstairs, +where Mr Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very +hard with doubt and agitation on the subject of her coming. + +'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, 'God bless my soul!' + +This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr Toots's deep concern at +the distress he saw in Florence's face; which caused him to stop short +in a fit of chuckles, and become an image of despair. + +'Dear Mr Toots,' said Florence, 'you are so friendly to me, and so +honest, that I am sure I may ask a favour of you. + +'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'if you'll only name one, you'll +- you'll give me an appetite. To which,' said Mr Toots, with some +sentiment, 'I have long been a stranger. + +'Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have,' +said Florence, 'is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone, poor +girl. She is going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask +you to take care of her until she is in the coach?' + +'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'you really do me an honour and a +kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in which I +was Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton - ' + +'Yes,' said Florence, hurriedly - 'no - don't think of that. Then +would you have the kindness to - to go? and to be ready to meet her +when she comes out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so +much. She doesn't seem so desolate. You cannot think how grateful I +feel to you, or what a good friend I am sure you are!' and Florence in +her earnestness thanked him again and again; and Mr Toots, in his +earnestness, hurried away - but backwards, that he might lose no +glimpse of her. + +Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in +the hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping +about her, and terrifying Mrs Pipchin to the last degree by making +snaps at her bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound +of her voice - for the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished +aversion of his breast. But she saw Susan shake hands with the +servants all round, and turn once to look at her old home; and she saw +Diogenes bound out after the cab, and want to follow it, and testify +an impossibility of conviction that he had no longer any property in +the fare; and the door was shut, and the hurry over, and her tears +flowed fast for the loss of an old friend, whom no one could replace. +No one. No one. + +Mr Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the +cabriolet in a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at +which she cried more than before. + +'Upon my soul and body!' said Mr Toots, taking his seat beside her. +'I feel for you. Upon my word and honour I think you can hardly know +your own feelings better than I imagine them. I can conceive nothing +more dreadful than to have to leave Miss Dombey.' + +Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was +touching to see her. + +'I say,' said Mr Toots, 'now, don't! at least I mean now do, you +know!' + +'Do what, Mr Toots!' cried Susan. + +'Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you +start,' said Mr Toots. 'My cook's a most respectable woman - one of +the most motherly people I ever saw - and she'll be delighted to make +you comfortable. Her son,' said Mr Toots, as an additional +recommendation, 'was educated in the Bluecoat School,' and blown up in +a powder-mill.' + +Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr Toots conducted her to his +dwelling, where they were received by the Matron in question who fully +justified his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first +supposed, on seeing a lady in the vehicle, that Mr Dombey had been +doubled up, ably to his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted. +This gentleman awakened in Miss Nipper some considerable astonishment; +for, having been defeated by the Larkey Boy, his visage was in a state +of such great dilapidation, as to be hardly presentable in society +with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken himself attributed this +punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early +in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and +heavily grassed. But it appeared from the published records of that +great contest that the Larkey Boy had had it all his own way from the +beginning, and that the Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had +received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and +had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he +had been gone into and finished. + +After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the +coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr Toots inside, as before, +and the Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on +the little party by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was +scarcely ornamental to it, physically speaking, on account of his +plasters; which were numerous. But the Chicken had registered a vow, +in secret, that he would never leave Mr Toots (who was secretly pining +to get rid of him), for any less consideration than the good-will and +fixtures of a public-house; and being ambitious to go into that line, +and drink himself to death as soon as possible, he felt it his cue to +make his company unacceptable. + +The night-coach by which Susan was to go, was on the point of +departure. Mr Toots having put her inside, lingered by the window, +irresolutely, until the driver was about to mount; when, standing on +the step, and putting in a face that by the light of the lamp was +anxious and confused, he said abruptly: + +'I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know - ' + +'Yes, Sir.' + +'Do you think she could - you know - eh?' + +'I beg your pardon, Mr Toots,' said Susan, 'but I don't hear you. + +'Do you think she could be brought, you know - not exactly at once, +but in time - in a long time - to - to love me, you know? There!' said +poor Mr Toots. + +'Oh dear no!' returned Susan, shaking her head. 'I should say, +never. Never!' + +'Thank'ee!' said Mr Toots. 'It's of no consequence. Good-night. +It's of no consequence, thank'ee!' + + + +CHAPTER 45. + +The Trusty Agent + + + +Edith went out alone that day, and returned home early. It was but +a few minutes after ten o'clock, when her carriage rolled along the +street in which she lived. + +There was the same enforced composure on her face, that there had +been when she was dressing; and the wreath upon her head encircled the +same cold and steady brow. But it would have been better to have seen +its leaves and flowers reft into fragments by her passionate hand, or +rendered shapeless by the fitful searches of a throbbing and +bewildered brain for any resting-place, than adorning such +tranquillity. So obdurate, so unapproachable, so unrelenting, one +would have thought that nothing could soften such a woman's nature, +and that everything in life had hardened it. + +Arrived at her own door, she was alighting, when some one coming +quietly from the hall, and standing bareheaded, offered her his arm. +The servant being thrust aside, she had no choice but to touch it; and +she then knew whose arm it was. + +'How is your patient, Sir?' she asked, with a curled lip. + +'He is better,' returned Carker. 'He is doing very well. I have +left him for the night.' + +She bent her head, and was passing up the staircase, when he +followed and said, speaking at the bottom: + +'Madam! May I beg the favour of a minute's audience?' + +She stopped and turned her eyes back 'It is an unseasonable time, +Sir, and I am fatigued. Is your business urgent?' + +'It is very urgent, returned Carker. 'As I am so fortunate as to +have met you, let me press my petition.' + +She looked down for a moment at his glistening mouth; and he looked +up at her, standing above him in her stately dress, and thought, +again, how beautiful she was. + +'Where is Miss Dombey?' she asked the servant, aloud. + +'In the morning room, Ma'am.' + +'Show the way there!' Turning her eyes again on the attentive +gentleman at the bottom of the stairs, and informing him with a slight +motion of her head, that he was at liberty to follow, she passed on. + +'I beg your pardon! Madam! Mrs Dombey!' cried the soft and nimble +Carker, at her side in a moment. 'May I be permitted to entreat that +Miss Dombey is not present?' + +She confronted him, with a quick look, but with the same +self-possession and steadiness. + +'I would spare Miss Dombey,' said Carker, in a low voice, 'the +knowledge of what I have to say. At least, Madam, I would leave it to +you to decide whether she shall know of it or not. I owe that to you. +It is my bounden duty to you. After our former interview, it would be +monstrous in me if I did otherwise.' + +She slowly withdrew her eyes from his face, and turning to the +servant, said, 'Some other room.' He led the way to a drawing-room, +which he speedily lighted up and then left them. While he remained, +not a word was spoken. Edith enthroned herself upon a couch by the +fire; and Mr Carker, with his hat in his hand and his eyes bent upon +the carpet, stood before her, at some little distance. + +'Before I hear you, Sir,' said Edith, when the door was closed, 'I +wish you to hear me.' + +'To be addressed by Mrs Dombey,' he returned, 'even in accents of +unmerited reproach, is an honour I so greatly esteem, that although I +were not her servant in all things, I should defer to such a wish, +most readily.' + +'If you are charged by the man whom you have just now left, Sir;' +Mr Carker raised his eyes, as if he were going to counterfeit +surprise, but she met them, and stopped him, if such were his +intention; 'with any message to me, do not attempt to deliver it, for +I will not receive it. I need scarcely ask you if you are come on such +an errand. I have expected you some time. + +'It is my misfortune,' he replied, 'to be here, wholly against my +will, for such a purpose. Allow me to say that I am here for two +purposes. That is one.' + +'That one, Sir,' she returned, 'is ended. Or, if you return to it - +' + +'Can Mrs Dombey believe,' said Carker, coming nearer, 'that I would +return to it in the face of her prohibition? Is it possible that Mrs +Dombey, having no regard to my unfortunate position, is so determined +to consider me inseparable from my instructor as to do me great and +wilful injustice?' + +'Sir,' returned Edith, bending her dark gaze full upon him, and +speaking with a rising passion that inflated her proud nostril and her +swelling neck, and stirred the delicate white down upon a robe she +wore, thrown loosely over shoulders that could hear its snowy +neighbourhood. 'Why do you present yourself to me, as you have done, +and speak to me of love and duty to my husband, and pretend to think +that I am happily married, and that I honour him? How dare you venture +so to affront me, when you know - I do not know better, Sir: I have +seen it in your every glance, and heard it in your every word - that +in place of affection between us there is aversion and contempt, and +that I despise him hardly less than I despise myself for being his! +Injustice! If I had done justice to the torment you have made me feel, +and to my sense of the insult you have put upon me, I should have +slain you!' + +She had asked him why he did this. Had she not been blinded by her +pride and wrath, and self-humiliation, - which she was, fiercely as +she bent her gaze upon him, - she would have seen the answer in his +face. To bring her to this declaration. + +She saw it not, and cared not whether it was there or no. She saw +only the indignities and struggles she had undergone and had to +undergo, and was writhing under them. As she sat looking fixedly at +them, rather than at him, she plucked the feathers from a pinion of +some rare and beautiful bird, which hung from her wrist by a golden +thread, to serve her as a fan, and rained them on the ground. + +He did not shrink beneath her gaze, but stood, until such outward +signs of her anger as had escaped her control subsided, with the air +of a man who had his sufficient reply in reserve and would presently +deliver it. And he then spoke, looking straight into her kindling +eyes. + +'Madam,' he said, 'I know, and knew before to-day, that I have +found no favour with you; and I knew why. Yes. I knew why. You have +spoken so openly to me; I am so relieved by the possession of your +confidence - ' + +'Confidence!' she repeated, with disdain. + +He passed it over. + +' - that I will make no pretence of concealment. I did see from the +first, that there was no affection on your part for Mr Dombey - how +could it possibly exist between such different subjects? And I have +seen, since, that stronger feelings than indifference have been +engendered in your breast - how could that possibly be otherwise, +either, circumstanced as you have been? But was it for me to presume +to avow this knowledge to you in so many words?' + +'Was it for you, Sir,' she replied, 'to feign that other belief, +and audaciously to thrust it on me day by day?' + +'Madam, it was,' he eagerly retorted. 'If I had done less, if I had +done anything but that, I should not be speaking to you thus; and I +foresaw - who could better foresee, for who has had greater experience +of Mr Dombey than myself? - that unless your character should prove to +be as yielding and obedient as that of his first submissive lady, +which I did not believe - ' + +A haughty smile gave him reason to observe that he might repeat +this. + +'I say, which I did not believe, - the time was likely to come, +when such an understanding as we have now arrived at, would be +serviceable.' + +'Serviceable to whom, Sir?' she demanded scornfully. + +'To you. I will not add to myself, as warning me to refrain even +from that limited commendation of Mr Dombey, in which I can honestly +indulge, in order that I may not have the misfortune of saying +anything distasteful to one whose aversion and contempt,' with great +expression, 'are so keen.' + +'Is it honest in you, Sir,' said Edith, 'to confess to your +"limited commendation," and to speak in that tone of disparagement, +even of him: being his chief counsellor and flatterer!' + +'Counsellor, - yes,' said Carker. 'Flatterer, - no. A little +reservation I fear I must confess to. But our interest and convenience +commonly oblige many of us to make professions that we cannot feel. We +have partnerships of interest and convenience, friendships of interest +and convenience, dealings of interest and convenience, marriages of +interest and convenience, every day.' + +She bit her blood-red lip; but without wavering in the dark, stern +watch she kept upon him. + +'Madam,' said Mr Carker, sitting down in a chair that was near her, +with an air of the most profound and most considerate respect, 'why +should I hesitate now, being altogether devoted to your service, to +speak plainly? It was natural that a lady, endowed as you are, should +think it feasible to change her husband's character in some respects, +and mould him to a better form.' + +'It was not natural to me, Sir,' she rejoined. 'I had never any +expectation or intention of that kind.' + +The proud undaunted face showed him it was resolute to wear no mask +he offered, but was set upon a reckless disclosure of itself, +indifferent to any aspect in which it might present itself to such as +he. + +'At least it was natural,' he resumed, 'that you should deem it +quite possible to live with Mr Dombey as his wife, at once without +submitting to him, and without coming into such violent collision with +him. But, Madam, you did not know Mr Dombey (as you have since +ascertained), when you thought that. You did not know how exacting and +how proud he is, or how he is, if I may say so, the slave of his own +greatness, and goes yoked to his own triumphal car like a beast of +burden, with no idea on earth but that it is behind him and is to be +drawn on, over everything and through everything.' + +His teeth gleamed through his malicious relish of this conceit, as +he went on talking: + +'Mr Dombey is really capable of no more true consideration for you, +Madam, than for me. The comparison is an extreme one; I intend it to +be so; but quite just. Mr Dombey, in the plenitude of his power, asked +me - I had it from his own lips yesterday morning - to be his +go-between to you, because he knows I am not agreeable to you, and +because he intends that I shall be a punishment for your contumacy; +and besides that, because he really does consider, that I, his paid +servant, am an ambassador whom it is derogatory to the dignity - not +of the lady to whom I have the happiness of speaking; she has no +existence in his mind - but of his wife, a part of himself, to +receive. You may imagine how regardless of me, how obtuse to the +possibility of my having any individual sentiment or opinion he is, +when he tells me, openly, that I am so employed. You know how +perfectly indifferent to your feelings he is, when he threatens you +with such a messenger. As you, of course, have not forgotten that he +did.' + +She watched him still attentively. But he watched her too; and he +saw that this indication of a knowledge on his part, of something that +had passed between herself and her husband, rankled and smarted in her +haughty breast, like a poisoned arrow. + +'I do not recall all this to widen the breach between yourself and +Mr Dombey, Madam - Heaven forbid! what would it profit me? - but as an +example of the hopelessness of impressing Mr Dombey with a sense that +anybody is to be considered when he is in question. We who are about +him, have, in our various positions, done our part, I daresay, to +confirm him in his way of thinking; but if we had not done so, others +would - or they would not have been about him; and it has always been, +from the beginning, the very staple of his life. Mr Dombey has had to +deal, in short, with none but submissive and dependent persons, who +have bowed the knee, and bent the neck, before him. He has never known +what it is to have angry pride and strong resentment opposed to him.' + +'But he will know it now!' she seemed to say; though her lips did +not part, nor her eyes falter. He saw the soft down tremble once +again, and he saw her lay the plumage of the beautiful bird against +her bosom for a moment; and he unfolded one more ring of the coil into +which he had gathered himself. + +'Mr Dombey, though a most honourable gentleman,' he said, 'is so +prone to pervert even facts to his own view, when he is at all +opposed, in consequence of the warp in his mind, that he - can I give +a better instance than this! - he sincerely believes (you will excuse +the folly of what I am about to say; it not being mine) that his +severe expression of opinion to his present wife, on a certain special +occasion she may remember, before the lamented death of Mrs Skewton, +produced a withering effect, and for the moment quite subdued her!' + +Edith laughed. How harshly and unmusically need not be described. +It is enough that he was glad to hear her. + +'Madam,' he resumed, 'I have done with this. Your own opinions are +so strong, and, I am persuaded, so unalterable,' he repeated those +words slowly and with great emphasis, 'that I am almost afraid to +incur your displeasure anew, when I say that in spite of these defects +and my full knowledge of them, I have become habituated to Mr Dombey, +and esteem him. But when I say so, it is not, believe me, for the mere +sake of vaunting a feeling that is so utterly at variance with your +own, and for which you can have no sympathy' - oh how distinct and +plain and emphasized this was! - 'but to give you an assurance of the +zeal with which, in this unhappy matter, I am yours, and the +indignation with which I regard the part I am to fill!' + +She sat as if she were afraid to take her eyes from his face. + +And now to unwind the last ring of the coil! + +'It is growing late,' said Carker, after a pause, 'and you are, as +you said, fatigued. But the second object of this interview, I must +not forget. I must recommend you, I must entreat you in the most +earnest manner, for sufficient reasons that I have, to be cautious in +your demonstrations of regard for Miss Dombey.' + +'Cautious! What do you mean?' + +'To be careful how you exhibit too much affection for that young +lady.' + +'Too much affection, Sir!' said Edith, knitting her broad brow and +rising. 'Who judges my affection, or measures it out? You?' + +'It is not I who do so.' He was, or feigned to be, perplexed. + +'Who then?' + +'Can you not guess who then?' + +'I do not choose to guess,' she answered. + +'Madam,' he said after a little hesitation; meantime they had been, +and still were, regarding each other as before; 'I am in a difficulty +here. You have told me you will receive no message, and you have +forbidden me to return to that subject; but the two subjects are so +closely entwined, I find, that unless you will accept this vague +caution from one who has now the honour to possess your confidence, +though the way to it has been through your displeasure, I must violate +the injunction you have laid upon me.' + +'You know that you are free to do so, Sir,' said Edith. 'Do it.' + +So pale, so trembling, so impassioned! He had not miscalculated the +effect then! + +'His instructions were,' he said, in a low voice, 'that I should +inform you that your demeanour towards Miss Dombey is not agreeable to +him. That it suggests comparisons to him which are not favourable to +himself. That he desires it may be wholly changed; and that if you are +in earnest, he is confident it will be; for your continued show of +affection will not benefit its object.' + +'That is a threat,' she said. + +'That is a threat,' he answered, in his voiceless manner of assent: +adding aloud, 'but not directed against you.' + +Proud, erect, and dignified, as she stood confronting him; and +looking through him as she did, with her full bright flashing eye; and +smiling, as she was, with scorn and bitterness; she sunk as if the +ground had dropped beneath her, and in an instant would have fallen on +the floor, but that he caught her in his arms. As instantaneously she +threw him off, the moment that he touched her, and, drawing back, +confronted him again, immoveable, with her hand stretched out. + +'Please to leave me. Say no more to-night.' + +'I feel the urgency of this,' said Mr Carker, 'because it is +impossible to say what unforeseen consequences might arise, or how +soon, from your being unacquainted with his state of mind. I +understand Miss Dombey is concerned, now, at the dismissal of her old +servant, which is likely to have been a minor consequence in itself. +You don't blame me for requesting that Miss Dombey might not be +present. May I hope so?' + +'I do not. Please to leave me, Sir.' + +'I knew that your regard for the young lady, which is very sincere +and strong, I am well persuaded, would render it a great unhappiness +to you, ever to be a prey to the reflection that you had injured her +position and ruined her future hopes,' said Carker hurriedly, but +eagerly. + +'No more to-night. Leave me, if you please.' + +'I shall be here constantly in my attendance upon him, and in the +transaction of business matters. You will allow me to see you again, +and to consult what should be done, and learn your wishes?' + +She motioned him towards the door. + +'I cannot even decide whether to tell him I have spoken to you yet; +or to lead him to suppose that I have deferred doing so, for want of +opportunity, or for any other reason. It will be necessary that you +should enable me to consult with you very soon. + +'At any time but now,' she answered. + +'You will understand, when I wish to see you, that Miss Dombey is +not to be present; and that I seek an interview as one who has the +happiness to possess your confidence, and who comes to render you +every assistance in his power, and, perhaps, on many occasions, to +ward off evil from her?' + +Looking at him still with the same apparent dread of releasing him +for a moment from the influence of her steady gaze, whatever that +might be, she answered, 'Yes!' and once more bade him go. + +He bowed, as if in compliance; but turning back, when he had nearly +reached the door, said: + +'I am forgiven, and have explained my fault. May I - for Miss +Dombey's sake, and for my own - take your hand before I go?' + +She gave him the gloved hand she had maimed last night. He took it +in one of his, and kissed it, and withdrew. And when he had closed the +door, he waved the hand with which he had taken hers, and thrust it in +his breast. + +Edith saw no one that night, but locked her door, and kept herself + +alone. + +She did not weep; she showed no greater agitation, outwardly, than +when she was riding home. She laid as proud a head upon her pillow as +she had borne in her carriage; and her prayer ran thus: + +'May this man be a liar! For if he has spoken truth, she is lost to +me, and I have no hope left!' + +This man, meanwhile, went home musing to bed, thinking, with a +dainty pleasure, how imperious her passion was, how she had sat before +him in her beauty, with the dark eyes that had never turned away but +once; how the white down had fluttered; how the bird's feathers had +been strewn upon the ground. + + + +CHAPTER 46. + +Recognizant and Reflective + + + +Among sundry minor alterations in Mr Carker's life and habits that +began to take place at this time, none was more remarkable than the +extraordinary diligence with which he applied himself to business, and +the closeness with which he investigated every detail that the affairs +of the House laid open to him. Always active and penetrating in such +matters, his lynx-eyed vigilance now increased twenty-fold. Not only +did his weary watch keep pace with every present point that every day +presented to him in some new form, but in the midst of these +engrossing occupations he found leisure - that is, he made it - to +review the past transactions of the Firm, and his share in them, +during a long series of years. Frequently when the clerks were all +gone, the offices dark and empty, and all similar places of business +shut up, Mr Carker, with the whole anatomy of the iron room laid bare +before him, would explore the mysteries of books and papers, with the +patient progress of a man who was dissecting the minutest nerves and +fibres of his subject. Perch, the messenger, who usually remained on +these occasions, to entertain himself with the perusal of the Price +Current by the light of one candle, or to doze over the fire in the +outer office, at the imminent risk every moment of diving head +foremost into the coal-box, could not withhold the tribute of his +admiration from this zealous conduct, although it much contracted his +domestic enjoyments; and again, and again, expatiated to Mrs Perch +(now nursing twins) on the industry and acuteness of their managing +gentleman in the City. + +The same increased and sharp attention that Mr Carker bestowed on +the business of the House, he applied to his own personal affairs. +Though not a partner in the concern - a distinction hitherto reserved +solely to inheritors of the great name of Dombey - he was in the +receipt of some percentage on its dealings; and, participating in all +its facilities for the employment of money to advantage, was +considered, by the minnows among the tritons of the East, a rich man. +It began to be said, among these shrewd observers, that Jem Carker, of +Dombey's, was looking about him to see what he was worth; and that he +was calling in his money at a good time, like the long-headed fellow +he was; and bets were even offered on the Stock Exchange that Jem was +going to marry a rich widow. + +Yet these cares did not in the least interfere with Mr Carker's +watching of his chief, or with his cleanness, neatness, sleekness, or +any cat-like quality he possessed. It was not so much that there was a +change in him, in reference to any of his habits, as that the whole +man was intensified. Everything that had been observable in him +before, was observable now, but with a greater amount of +concentration. He did each single thing, as if he did nothing else - a +pretty certain indication in a man of that range of ability and +purpose, that he is doing something which sharpens and keeps alive his +keenest powers. + +The only decided alteration in him was, that as he rode to and fro +along the streets, he would fall into deep fits of musing, like that +in which he had come away from Mr Dombey's house, on the morning of +that gentleman's disaster. At such times, he would keep clear of the +obstacles in his way, mechanically; and would appear to see and hear +nothing until arrival at his destination, or some sudden chance or +effort roused him. + +Walking his white-legged horse thus, to the counting-house of +Dombey and Son one day, he was as unconscious of the observation of +two pairs of women's eyes, as of the fascinated orbs of Rob the +Grinder, who, in waiting a street's length from the appointed place, +as a demonstration of punctuality, vainly touched and retouched his +hat to attract attention, and trotted along on foot, by his master's +side, prepared to hold his stirrup when he should alight. + +'See where he goes!' cried one of these two women, an old creature, +who stretched out her shrivelled arm to point him out to her +companion, a young woman, who stood close beside her, withdrawn like +herself into a gateway. + +Mrs Brown's daughter looked out, at this bidding on the part of Mrs +Brown; and there were wrath and vengeance in her face. + +'I never thought to look at him again,' she said, in a low voice; +'but it's well I should, perhaps. I see. I see!' + +'Not changed!' said the old woman, with a look of eager malice. + +'He changed!' returned the other. 'What for? What has he suffered? +There is change enough for twenty in me. Isn't that enough?' + +'See where he goes!' muttered the old woman, watching her daughter +with her red eyes; 'so easy and so trim a-horseback, while we are in +the mud.' + +'And of it,' said her daughter impatiently. 'We are mud, underneath +his horse's feet. What should we be?' + +In the intentness with which she looked after him again, she made a +hasty gesture with her hand when the old woman began to reply, as if +her view could be obstructed by mere sound. Her mother watching her, +and not him, remained silent; until her kindling glance subsided, and +she drew a long breath, as if in the relief of his being gone. + +'Deary!' said the old woman then. 'Alice! Handsome gall Ally!' She +gently shook her sleeve to arouse her attention. 'Will you let him go +like that, when you can wring money from him? Why, it's a wickedness, +my daughter.' + +'Haven't I told you, that I will not have money from him?' she +returned. 'And don't you yet believe me? Did I take his sister's +money? Would I touch a penny, if I knew it, that had gone through his +white hands - unless it was, indeed, that I could poison it, and send +it back to him? Peace, mother, and come away. + +'And him so rich?' murmured the old woman. 'And us so poor!' + +'Poor in not being able to pay him any of the harm we owe him,' +returned her daughter. 'Let him give me that sort of riches, and I'll +take them from him, and use them. Come away. Its no good looking at +his horse. Come away, mother!' + +But the old woman, for whom the spectacle of Rob the Grinder +returning down the street, leading the riderless horse, appeared to +have some extraneous interest that it did not possess in itself, +surveyed that young man with the utmost earnestness; and seeming to +have whatever doubts she entertained, resolved as he drew nearer, +glanced at her daughter with brightened eyes and with her finger on +her lip, and emerging from the gateway at the moment of his passing, +touched him on the shoulder. + +'Why, where's my sprightly Rob been, all this time!' she said, as +he turned round. + +The sprightly Rob, whose sprightliness was very much diminished by +the salutation, looked exceedingly dismayed, and said, with the water +rising in his eyes: + +'Oh! why can't you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown, when he's +getting an honest livelihood and conducting himself respectable? What +do you come and deprive a cove of his character for, by talking to him +in the streets, when he's taking his master's horse to a honest stable +- a horse you'd go and sell for cats' and dogs' meat if you had your +way! Why, I thought,' said the Grinder, producing his concluding +remark as if it were the climax of all his injuries, 'that you was +dead long ago!' + +'This is the way,' cried the old woman, appealing to her daughter, +'that he talks to me, who knew him weeks and months together, my +deary, and have stood his friend many and many a time among the +pigeon-fancying tramps and bird-catchers.' + +'Let the birds be, will you, Misses Brown?' retorted Rob, in a tone +of the acutest anguish. 'I think a cove had better have to do with +lions than them little creeturs, for they're always flying back in +your face when you least expect it. Well, how d'ye do and what do you +want?' These polite inquiries the Grinder uttered, as it were under +protest, and with great exasperation and vindictiveness. + +'Hark how he speaks to an old friend, my deary!' said Mrs Brown, +again appealing to her daughter. 'But there's some of his old friends +not so patient as me. If I was to tell some that he knows, and has +spotted and cheated with, where to find him - ' + +'Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?' interrupted the +miserable Grinder, glancing quickly round, as though he expected to +see his master's teeth shining at his elbow. 'What do you take a +pleasure in ruining a cove for? At your time of life too! when you +ought to be thinking of a variety of things!' + +'What a gallant horse!' said the old woman, patting the animal's +neck. + +'Let him alone, will you, Misses Brown?' cried Rob, pushing away +her hand. 'You're enough to drive a penitent cove mad!' + +'Why, what hurt do I do him, child?' returned the old woman. + +'Hurt?' said Rob. 'He's got a master that would find it out if he +was touched with a straw.' And he blew upon the place where the old +woman's hand had rested for a moment, and smoothed it gently with his +finger, as if he seriously believed what he said. + +The old woman looking back to mumble and mouth at her daughter, who +followed, kept close to Rob's heels as he walked on with the bridle in +his hand; and pursued the conversation. + +'A good place, Rob, eh?' said she. 'You're in luck, my child.' + +'Oh don't talk about luck, Misses Brown,' returned the wretched +Grinder, facing round and stopping. 'If you'd never come, or if you'd +go away, then indeed a cove might be considered tolerable lucky. Can't +you go along, Misses Brown, and not foller me!' blubbered Rob, with +sudden defiance. 'If the young woman's a friend of yours, why don't +she take you away, instead of letting you make yourself so +disgraceful!' + +'What!' croaked the old woman, putting her face close to his, with +a malevolent grin upon it that puckered up the loose skin down in her +very throat. 'Do you deny your old chum! Have you lurked to my house +fifty times, and slept sound in a corner when you had no other bed but +the paving-stones, and do you talk to me like this! Have I bought and +sold with you, and helped you in my way of business, schoolboy, sneak, +and what not, and do you tell me to go along? Could I raise a crowd of +old company about you to-morrow morning, that would follow you to ruin +like copies of your own shadow, and do you turn on me with your bold +looks! I'll go. Come, Alice.' + +'Stop, Misses Brown!' cried the distracted Grinder. 'What are you +doing of? Don't put yourself in a passion! Don't let her go, if you +please. I haven't meant any offence. I said "how d'ye do," at first, +didn't I? But you wouldn't answer. How you do? Besides,' said Rob +piteously, 'look here! How can a cove stand talking in the street with +his master's prad a wanting to be took to be rubbed down, and his +master up to every individgle thing that happens!' + +The old woman made a show of being partially appeased, but shook +her head, and mouthed and muttered still. + +'Come along to the stables, and have a glass of something that's +good for you, Misses Brown, can't you?' said Rob, 'instead of going +on, like that, which is no good to you, nor anybody else. Come along +with her, will you be so kind?' said Rob. 'I'm sure I'm delighted to +see her, if it wasn't for the horse!' + +With this apology, Rob turned away, a rueful picture of despair, +and walked his charge down a bye street' The old woman, mouthing at +her daughter, followed close upon him. The daughter followed. + +Turning into a silent little square or court-yard that had a great +church tower rising above it, and a packer's warehouse, and a +bottle-maker's warehouse, for its places of business, Rob the Grinder +delivered the white-legged horse to the hostler of a quaint stable at +the corner; and inviting Mrs Brown and her daughter to seat themselves +upon a stone bench at the gate of that establishment, soon reappeared +from a neighbouring public-house with a pewter measure and a glass. + +'Here's master - Mr Carker, child!' said the old woman, slowly, as +her sentiment before drinking. 'Lord bless him!' + +'Why, I didn't tell you who he was,' observed Rob, with staring +eyes. + +'We know him by sight,' said Mrs Brown, whose working mouth and +nodding head stopped for the moment, in the fixedness of her +attention. 'We saw him pass this morning, afore he got off his horse; +when you were ready to take it.' + +'Ay, ay,' returned Rob, appearing to wish that his readiness had +carried him to any other place. - 'What's the matter with her? Won't +she drink?' + +This inquiry had reference to Alice, who, folded in her cloak, sat +a little apart, profoundly inattentive to his offer of the replenished +glass. + +The old woman shook her head. 'Don't mind her,' she said; 'she's a +strange creetur, if you know'd her, Rob. But Mr Carker + +'Hush!' said Rob, glancing cautiously up at the packer's, and at +the bottle-maker's, as if, from any one of the tiers of warehouses, Mr +Carker might be looking down. 'Softly.' + +'Why, he ain't here!' cried Mrs Brown. + +'I don't know that,' muttered Rob, whose glance even wandered to +the church tower, as if he might be there, with a supernatural power +of hearing. + +'Good master?' inquired Mrs Brown. + +Rob nodded; and added, in a low voice, 'precious sharp.' + +'Lives out of town, don't he, lovey?' said the old woman. + +'When he's at home,' returned Rob; 'but we don't live at home just +now.' + +'Where then?' asked the old woman. + +'Lodgings; up near Mr Dombey's,' returned Rob. + +The younger woman fixed her eyes so searchingly upon him, and so +suddenly, that Rob was quite confounded, and offered the glass again, +but with no more effect upon her than before. + +'Mr Dombey - you and I used to talk about him, sometimes, you +know,' said Rob to Mrs Brown. 'You used to get me to talk about him.' + +The old woman nodded. + +'Well, Mr Dombey, he's had a fall from his horse,' said Rob, +unwillingly; 'and my master has to be up there, more than usual, +either with him, or Mrs Dombey, or some of 'em; and so we've come to +town.' + +'Are they good friends, lovey?'asked the old woman. + +'Who?' retorted Rob. + +'He and she?' + +'What, Mr and Mrs Dombey?' said Rob. 'How should I know!' + +'Not them - Master and Mrs Dombey, chick,' replied the old woman, +coaxingly. + +'I don't know,' said Rob, looking round him again. 'I suppose so. +How curious you are, Misses Brown! Least said, soonest mended.' + +'Why there's no harm in it!' exclaimed the old woman, with a laugh, +and a clap of her hands. 'Sprightly Rob, has grown tame since he has +been well off! There's no harm in It. + +'No, there's no harm in it, I know,' returned Rob, with the same +distrustful glance at the packer's and the bottle-maker's, and the +church; 'but blabbing, if it's only about the number of buttons on my +master's coat, won't do. I tell you it won't do with him. A cove had +better drown himself. He says so. I shouldn't have so much as told you +what his name was, if you hadn't known it. Talk about somebody else.' + +As Rob took another cautious survey of the yard, the old woman made +a secret motion to her daughter. It was momentary, but the daughter, +with a slight look of intelligence, withdrew her eyes from the boy's +face, and sat folded in her cloak as before. + +'Rob, lovey!' said the old woman, beckoning him to the other end of +the bench. 'You were always a pet and favourite of mine. Now, weren't +you? Don't you know you were?' + +'Yes, Misses Brown,' replied the Grinder, with a very bad grace. + +'And you could leave me!' said the old woman, flinging her arms +about his neck. 'You could go away, and grow almost out of knowledge, +and never come to tell your poor old friend how fortunate you were, +proud lad! Oho, Oho!' + +'Oh here's a dreadful go for a cove that's got a master wide awake +in the neighbourhood!' exclaimed the wretched Grinder. 'To be howled +over like this here!' + +'Won't you come and see me, Robby?' cried Mrs Brown. 'Oho, won't +you ever come and see me?' + +'Yes, I tell you! Yes, I will!' returned the Grinder. + +'That's my own Rob! That's my lovey!' said Mrs Brown, drying the +tears upon her shrivelled face, and giving him a tender squeeze. 'At +the old place, Rob?' + +'Yes,' replied the Grinder. + +'Soon, Robby dear?' cried Mrs Brown; 'and often?' + +'Yes. Yes. Yes,' replied Rob. 'I will indeed, upon my soul and +body.' + +'And then,' said Mrs Brown, with her arms uplifted towards the sky, +and her head thrown back and shaking, 'if he's true to his word, I'll +never come a-near him though I know where he is, and never breathe a +syllable about him! Never!' + +This ejaculation seemed a drop of comfort to the miserable Grinder, +who shook Mrs Brown by the hand upon it, and implored her with tears +in his eyes, to leave a cove and not destroy his prospects. Mrs Brown, +with another fond embrace, assented; but in the act of following her +daughter, turned back, with her finger stealthily raised, and asked in +a hoarse whisper for some money. + +'A shilling, dear!' she said, with her eager avaricious face, 'or +sixpence! For old acquaintance sake. I'm so poor. And my handsome gal' +- looking over her shoulder - 'she's my gal, Rob - half starves me. + +But as the reluctant Grinder put it in her hand, her daughter, +coming quietly back, caught the hand in hen, and twisted out the coin. + +'What,' she said, 'mother! always money! money from the first, and +to the last' Do you mind so little what I said but now? Here. Take +it!' + +The old woman uttered a moan as the money was restored, but without +in any other way opposing its restoration, hobbled at her daughter's +side out of the yard, and along the bye street upon which it opened. +The astonished and dismayed Rob staring after them, saw that they +stopped, and fell to earnest conversation very soon; and more than +once observed a darkly threatening action of the younger woman's hand +(obviously having reference to someone of whom they spoke), and a +crooning feeble imitation of it on the part of Mrs Brown, that made +him earnestly hope he might not be the subject of their discourse. + +With the present consolation that they were gone, and with the +prospective comfort that Mrs Brown could not live for ever, and was +not likely to live long to trouble him, the Grinder, not otherwise +regretting his misdeeds than as they were attended with such +disagreeable incidental consequences, composed his ruffled features to +a more serene expression by thinking of the admirable manner in which +he had disposed of Captain Cuttle (a reflection that seldom failed to +put him in a flow of spirits), and went to the Dombey Counting House +to receive his master's orders. + +There his master, so subtle and vigilant of eye, that Rob quaked +before him, more than half expecting to be taxed with Mrs Brown, gave +him the usual morning's box of papers for Mr Dombey, and a note for +Mrs Dombey: merely nodding his head as an enjoinder to be careful, and +to use dispatch - a mysterious admonition, fraught in the Grinder's +imagination with dismal warnings and threats; and more powerful with +him than any words. + +Alone again, in his own room, Mr Carker applied himself to work, +and worked all day. He saw many visitors; overlooked a number of +documents; went in and out, to and from, sundry places of mercantile +resort; and indulged in no more abstraction until the day's business +was done. But, when the usual clearance of papers from his table was +made at last, he fell into his thoughtful mood once more. + +He was standing in his accustomed place and attitude, with his eyes +intently fixed upon the ground, when his brother entered to bring back +some letters that had been taken out in the course of the day. He put +them quietly on the table, and was going immediately, when Mr Carker +the Manager, whose eyes had rested on him, on his entrance, as if they +had all this time had him for the subject of their contemplation, +instead of the office-floor, said: + +'Well, John Carker, and what brings you here?' + +His brother pointed to the letters, and was again withdrawing. + +'I wonder,' said the Manager, 'that you can come and go, without +inquiring how our master is'. + +'We had word this morning in the Counting House, that Mr Dombey was +doing well,' replied his brother. + +'You are such a meek fellow,' said the Manager, with a smile, - +'but you have grown so, in the course of years - that if any harm came +to him, you'd be miserable, I dare swear now.' + +'I should be truly sorry, James,' returned the other. + +'He would be sorry!' said the Manager, pointing at him, as if there +were some other person present to whom he was appealing. 'He would be +truly sorry! This brother of mine! This junior of the place, this +slighted piece of lumber, pushed aside with his face to the wall, like +a rotten picture, and left so, for Heaven knows how many years he's +all gratitude and respect, and devotion too, he would have me +believe!' + +'I would have you believe nothing, James,' returned the other. 'Be +as just to me as you would to any other man below you. You ask a +question, and I answer it.' + +'And have you nothing, Spaniel,' said the Manager, with unusual +irascibility, 'to complain of in him? No proud treatment to resent, no +insolence, no foolery of state, no exaction of any sort! What the +devil! are you man or mouse?' + +'It would be strange if any two persons could be together for so +many years, especially as superior and inferior, without each having +something to complain of in the other - as he thought, at all events, +replied John Carker. 'But apart from my history here - ' + +'His history here!' exclaimed the Manager. 'Why, there it is. The +very fact that makes him an extreme case, puts him out of the whole +chapter! Well?' + +'Apart from that, which, as you hint, gives me a reason to be +thankful that I alone (happily for all the rest) possess, surely there +is no one in the House who would not say and feel at least as much. +You do not think that anybody here would be indifferent to a mischance +or misfortune happening to the head of the House, or anything than +truly sorry for it?' + +'You have good reason to be bound to him too!' said the Manager, +contemptuously. 'Why, don't you believe that you are kept here, as a +cheap example, and a famous instance of the clemency of Dombey and +Son, redounding to the credit of the illustrious House?' + +'No,' replied his brother, mildly, 'I have long believed that I am +kept here for more kind and disinterested reasons. + +'But you were going,' said the Manager, with the snarl of a +tiger-cat, 'to recite some Christian precept, I observed.' + +'Nay, James,' returned the other, 'though the tie of brotherhood +between us has been long broken and thrown away - ' + +'Who broke it, good Sir?' said the Manager. + +'I, by my misconduct. I do not charge it upon you.' + +The Manager replied, with that mute action of his bristling mouth, +'Oh, you don't charge it upon me!' and bade him go on. + +'I say, though there is not that tie between us, do not, I entreat, +assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or +would say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a +mistake to suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here, +above all others, for advancement, confidence and distinction +(selected, in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and +trustfulness), and who communicate more freely with Mr Dombey than +anyone, and stand, it may be said, on equal terms with him, and have +been favoured and enriched by him - that it would be a mistake to +suppose that it is only you who are tender of his welfare and +reputation. There is no one in the House, from yourself down to the +lowest, I sincerely believe, who does not participate in that +feeling.' + +'You lie!' said the Manager, red with sudden anger. 'You're a +hypocrite, John Carker, and you lie.' + +'James!' cried the other, flushing in his turn. 'What do you mean +by these insulting words? Why do you so basely use them to me, +unprovoked?' + +'I tell you,' said the Manager, 'that your hypocrisy and meekness - +that all the hypocrisy and meekness of this place - is not worth that +to me,' snapping his thumb and finger, 'and that I see through it as +if it were air! There is not a man employed here, standing between +myself and the lowest in place (of whom you are very considerate, and +with reason, for he is not far off), who wouldn't be glad at heart to +see his master humbled: who does not hate him, secretly: who does not +wish him evil rather than good: and who would not turn upon him, if he +had the power and boldness. The nearer to his favour, the nearer to +his insolence; the closer to him, the farther from him. That's the +creed here!' + +'I don't know,' said his brother, whose roused feelings had soon +yielded to surprise, 'who may have abused your ear with such +representations; or why you have chosen to try me, rather than +another. But that you have been trying me, and tampering with me, I am +now sure. You have a different manner and a different aspect from any +that I ever saw m you. I will only say to you, once more, you are +deceived.' + +'I know I am,' said the Manager. 'I have told you so.' + +'Not by me,' returned his brother. 'By your informant, if you have +one. If not, by your own thoughts and suspicions.' + +'I have no suspicions,' said the Manager. 'Mine are certainties. +You pusillanimous, abject, cringing dogs! All making the same show, +all canting the same story, all whining the same professions, all +harbouring the same transparent secret.' + +His brother withdrew, without saying more, and shut the door as he +concluded. Mr Carker the Manager drew a chair close before the fire, +and fell to beating the coals softly with the poker. + +'The faint-hearted, fawning knaves,' he muttered, with his two +shining rows of teeth laid bare. 'There's not one among them, who +wouldn't feign to be so shocked and outraged - ! Bah! There's not one +among them, but if he had at once the power, and the wit and daring to +use it, would scatter Dombey's pride and lay it low, as ruthlessly as +I rake out these ashes.' + +As he broke them up and strewed them in the grate, he looked on +with a thoughtful smile at what he was doing. 'Without the same queen +beckoner too!' he added presently; 'and there is pride there, not to +be forgotten - witness our own acquaintance!' With that he fell into a +deeper reverie, and sat pondering over the blackening grate, until he +rose up like a man who had been absorbed in a book, and looking round +him took his hat and gloves, went to where his horse was waiting, +mounted, and rode away through the lighted streets, for it was +evening. + +He rode near Mr Dombey's house; and falling into a walk as he +approached it, looked up at the windows The window where he had once +seen Florence sitting with her dog attracted his attention first, +though there was no light in it; but he smiled as he carried his eyes +up the tall front of the house, and seemed to leave that object +superciliously behind. + +'Time was,' he said, 'when it was well to watch even your rising +little star, and know in what quarter there were clouds, to shadow you +if needful. But a planet has arisen, and you are lost in its light.' + +He turned the white-legged horse round the street corner, and +sought one shining window from among those at the back of the house. +Associated with it was a certain stately presence, a gloved hand, the +remembrance how the feathers of a beautiful bird's wing had been +showered down upon the floor, and how the light white down upon a robe +had stirred and rustled, as in the rising of a distant storm. These +were the things he carried with him as he turned away again, and rode +through the darkening and deserted Parks at a quick rate. + +In fatal truth, these were associated with a woman, a proud woman, +who hated him, but who by slow and sure degrees had been led on by his +craft, and her pride and resentment, to endure his company, and little +by little to receive him as one who had the privilege to talk to her +of her own defiant disregard of her own husband, and her abandonment +of high consideration for herself. They were associated with a woman +who hated him deeply, and who knew him, and who mistrusted him because +she knew him, and because he knew her; but who fed her fierce +resentment by suffering him to draw nearer and yet nearer to her every +day, in spite of the hate she cherished for him. In spite of it! For +that very reason; since in its depths, too far down for her +threatening eye to pierce, though she could see into them dimly, lay +the dark retaliation, whose faintest shadow seen once and shuddered +at, and never seen again, would have been sufficient stain upon her +soul. + +Did the phantom of such a woman flit about him on his ride; true to +the reality, and obvious to him? + +Yes. He saw her in his mind, exactly as she was. She bore him +company with her pride, resentment, hatred, all as plain to him as her +beauty; with nothing plainer to him than her hatred of him. He saw her +sometimes haughty and repellent at his side, and some times down among +his horse's feet, fallen and in the dust. But he always saw her as she +was, without disguise, and watched her on the dangerous way that she +was going. + +And when his ride was over, and he was newly dressed, and came into +the light of her bright room with his bent head, soft voice, and +soothing smile, he saw her yet as plainly. He even suspected the +mystery of the gloved hand, and held it all the longer in his own for +that suspicion. Upon the dangerous way that she was going, he was, +still; and not a footprint did she mark upon it, but he set his own +there, straight' + + + +CHAPTER 47. + +The Thunderbolt + + + +The barrier between Mr Dombey and his wife was not weakened by +time. Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other, +bound together by no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered +hands, and straining that so harshly, in their shrinking asunder, that +it wore and chafed to the bone, Time, consoler of affliction and +softener of anger, could do nothing to help them. Their pride, however +different in kind and object, was equal in degree; and, in their +flinty opposition, struck out fire between them which might smoulder +or might blaze, as circumstances were, but burned up everything within +their mutual reach, and made their marriage way a road of ashes. + +Let us be just to him. In the monstrous delusion of his life, +swelling with every grain of sand that shifted in its glass, he urged +her on, he little thought to what, or considered how; but still his +feeling towards her, such as it was, remained as at first. She had the +grand demerit of unaccountably putting herself in opposition to the +recognition of his vast importance, and to the acknowledgment of her +complete submission to it, and so far it was necessary to correct and +reduce her; but otherwise he still considered her, in his cold way, a +lady capable of doing honour, if she would, to his choice and name, +and of reflecting credit on his proprietorship. + +Now, she, with all her might of passionate and proud resentment, +bent her dark glance from day to day, and hour to hour - from that +night in her own chamber, when she had sat gazing at the shadows on +the wall, to the deeper night fast coming - upon one figure directing +a crowd of humiliations and exasperations against her; and that +figure, still her husband's. + +Was Mr Dombey's master-vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an +unnatural characteristic? It might be worthwhile, sometimes, to +inquire what Nature is, and how men work to change her, and whether, +in the enforced distortions so produced, it is not natural to be +unnatural. Coop any son or daughter of our mighty mother within narrow +range, and bind the prisoner to one idea, and foster it by servile +worship of it on the part of the few timid or designing people +standing round, and what is Nature to the willing captive who has +never risen up upon the wings of a free mind - drooping and useless +soon - to see her in her comprehensive truth! + +Alas! are there so few things in the world, about us, most +unnatural, and yet most natural in being so? Hear the magistrate or +judge admonish the unnatural outcasts of society; unnatural in brutal +habits, unnatural in want of decency, unnatural in losing and +confounding all distinctions between good and evil; unnatural in +ignorance, in vice, in recklessness, in contumacy, in mind, in looks, +in everything. But follow the good clergyman or doctor, who, with his +life imperilled at every breath he draws, goes down into their dens, +lying within the echoes of our carriage wheels and daily tread upon +the pavement stones. Look round upon the world of odious sights - +millions of immortal creatures have no other world on earth - at the +lightest mention of which humanity revolts, and dainty delicacy living +in the next street, stops her ears, and lisps 'I don't believe it!' +Breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity that is poisonous +to health and life; and have every sense, conferred upon our race for +its delight and happiness, offended, sickened and disgusted, and made +a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. Vainly attempt to +think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome weed, that, set in +this foetid bed, could have its natural growth, or put its little +leaves off to the sun as GOD designed it. And then, calling up some +ghastly child, with stunted form and wicked face, hold forth on its +unnatural sinfulness, and lament its being, so early, far away from +Heaven - but think a little of its having been conceived, and born and +bred, in Hell! + +Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon +the health of Man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise +from vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see them +lowering in a dense black cloud above such haunts, and rolling slowly +on to corrupt the better portions of a town. But if the moral +pestilence that rises with them, and in the eternal laws of our +Nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how +terrible the revelation! Then should we see depravity, impiety, +drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against +the natural affections and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the +devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight the innocent and spread +contagion among the pure. Then should we see how the same poisoned +fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar-houses, inundate the +jails, and make the convict-ships swim deep, and roll across the seas, +and over-run vast continents with crime. Then should we stand appalled +to know, that where we generate disease to strike our children down +and entail itself on unborn generations, there also we breed, by the +same certain process, infancy that knows no innocence, youth without +modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing but in suffering +and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the form we bear. +unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes from thorns, and figs +from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the offal in +the bye-ways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat +churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity, +and find it growing from such seed. + +Oh for a good spirit who would take the house-tops off, with a mole +potent and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show a +Christian people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to +swell the retinue of the Destroying Angel as he moves forth among +them! For only one night's view of the pale phantoms rising from the +scenes of our too-long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air +where Vice and Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous social +retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! +Bright and blest the morning that should rise on such a night: for +men, delayed no more by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which +are but specks of dust upon the path between them and eternity, would +then apply themselves, like creatures of one common origin, owing one +duty to the Father of one family, and tending to one common end, to +make the world a better place! + +Not the less bright and blest would that day be for rousing some +who never have looked out upon the world of human life around them, to +a knowledge of their own relation to it, and for making them +acquainted with a perversion of nature in their own contracted +sympathies and estimates; as great, and yet as natural in its +development when once begun, as the lowest degradation known.' + +But no such day had ever dawned on Mr Dombey, or his wife; and the +course of each was taken. + +Through six months that ensued upon his accident, they held the +same relations one towards the other. A marble rock could not have +stood more obdurately in his way than she; and no chilled spring, +lying uncheered by any ray of light in the depths of a deep cave, +could be more sullen or more cold than he. + +The hope that had fluttered within her when the promise of her new +home dawned, was quite gone from the heart of Florence now. That home +was nearly two years old; and even the patient trust that was in her, +could not survive the daily blight of such experience. If she had any +lingering fancy in the nature of hope left, that Edith and her father +might be happier together, in some distant time, she had none, now, +that her father would ever love her. The little interval in which she +had imagined that she saw some small relenting in him, was forgotten +in the long remembrance of his coldness since and before, or only +remembered as a sorrowful delusion. + +Florence loved him still, but, by degrees, had come to love him +rather as some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as +the hard reality before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness +with which she loved the memory of little Paul, or of her mother, +seemed to enter now into her thoughts of him, and to make them, as it +were, a dear remembrance. Whether it was that he was dead to her, and +that partly for this reason, partly for his share in those old objects +of her affection, and partly for the long association of him with +hopes that were withered and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not +have told; but the father whom she loved began to be a vague and +dreamy idea to her: hardly more substantially connected with her real +life, than the image she would sometimes conjure up, of her dear +brother yet alive, and growing to be a man, who would protect and +cherish her. + +The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the +change from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was +almost seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of +these thoughts.' + +She was often alone now, for the old association between her and +her Mama was greatly changed. At the time of her father's accident, +and when he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first +observed that Edith avoided her. Wounded and shocked, and yet unable +to reconcile this with her affection when they did meet, she sought +her in her own room at night, once more. + +'Mama,' said Florence, stealing softly to her side, 'have I +offended you?' + +Edith answered 'No.' + +'I must have done something,' said Florence. 'Tell me what it is. +You have changed your manner to me, dear Mama. I cannot say how +instantly I feel the least change; for I love you with my whole +heart.' + +'As I do you,' said Edith. 'Ah, Florence, believe me never more +than now!' + +'Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?' asked +Florence. 'And why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear +Mama? You do so, do you not?' + +Edith signified assent with her dark eyes. + +'Why?' returned Florence imploringly. 'Tell me why, that I may know +how to please you better; and tell me this shall not be so any more. + +'My Florence,' answered Edith, taking the hand that embraced her +neck, and looking into the eyes that looked into hers so lovingly, as +Florence knelt upon the ground before her; 'why it is, I cannot tell +you. It is neither for me to say, nor you to hear; but that it is, and +that it must be, I know. Should I do it if I did not?' + +'Are we to be estranged, Mama?' asked Florence, gazing at her like +one frightened. + +Edith's silent lips formed 'Yes.' + +Florence looked at her with increasing fear and wonder, until she +could see her no more through the blinding tears that ran down her +face. + +'Florence! my life!' said Edith, hurriedly, 'listen to me. I cannot +bear to see this grief. Be calmer. You see that I am composed, and is +it nothing to me?' + +She resumed her steady voice and manner as she said the latter +words, and added presently: + +'Not wholly estranged. Partially: and only that, in appearance, +Florence, for in my own breast I am still the same to you, and ever +will be. But what I do is not done for myself.' + +'Is it for me, Mama?' asked Florence. + +'It is enough,' said Edith, after a pause, 'to know what it is; +why, matters little. Dear Florence, it is better - it is necessary - +it must be - that our association should be less frequent. The +confidence there has been between us must be broken off.' + +'When?' cried Florence. 'Oh, Mama, when?' + +'Now,' said Edith. + +'For all time to come?' asked Florence. + +'I do not say that,' answered Edith. 'I do not know that. Nor will +I say that companionship between us is, at the best, an ill-assorted +and unholy union, of which I might have known no good could come. My +way here has been through paths that you will never tread, and my way +henceforth may lie - God knows - I do not see it - ' + +Her voice died away into silence; and she sat, looking at Florence, +and almost shrinking from her, with the same strange dread and wild +avoidance that Florence had noticed once before. The same dark pride +and rage succeeded, sweeping over her form and features like an angry +chord across the strings of a wild harp. But no softness or humility +ensued on that. She did not lay her head down now, and weep, and say +that she had no hope but in Florence. She held it up as if she were a +beautiful Medusa, looking on him, face to face, to strike him dead. +Yes, and she would have done it, if she had had the charm. + +'Mama,' said Florence, anxiously, 'there is a change in you, in +more than what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a +little.' + +'No,' said Edith, 'no, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do +best to keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but +believe that what I am when I seem fickle or capricious to you, I am +not of my own will, or for myself. Believe, though we are stranger to +each other than we have been, that I am unchanged to you within. +Forgive me for having ever darkened your dark home - I am a shadow on +it, I know well - and let us never speak of this again.' + +'Mama,' sobbed Florence, 'we are not to part?' + +'We do this that we may not part,' said Edith. 'Ask no more. Go, +Florence! My love and my remorse go with you!' + +She embraced her, and dismissed her; and as Florence passed out of +her room, Edith looked on the retiring figure, as if her good angel +went out in that form, and left her to the haughty and indignant +passions that now claimed her for their own, and set their seal upon +her brow. + +From that hour, Florence and she were, as they had been, no more. +For days together, they would seldom meet, except at table, and when +Mr Dombey was present. Then Edith, imperious, inflexible, and silent, +never looked at her. Whenever Mr Carker was of the party, as he often +was, during the progress of Mr Dombey's recovery, and afterwards, +Edith held herself more removed from her, and was more distant towards +her, than at other times. Yet she and Florence never encountered, when +there was no one by, but she would embrace her as affectionately as of +old, though not with the same relenting of her proud aspect; and +often, when she had been out late, she would steal up to Florence's +room, as she had been used to do, in the dark, and whisper +'Good-night,' on her pillow. When unconscious, in her slumber, of such +visits, Florence would sometimes awake, as from a dream of those +words, softly spoken, and would seem to feel the touch of lips upon +her face. But less and less often as the months went on. + +And now the void in Florence's own heart began again, indeed, to +make a solitude around her. As the image of the father whom she loved +had insensibly become a mere abstraction, so Edith, following the fate +of all the rest about whom her affections had entwined themselves, was +fleeting, fading, growing paler in the distance, every day. Little by +little, she receded from Florence, like the retiring ghost of what she +had been; little by little, the chasm between them widened and seemed +deeper; little by little, all the power of earnestness and tenderness +she had shown, was frozen up in the bold, angry hardihood with which +she stood, upon the brink of a deep precipice unseen by Florence, +daring to look down. + +There was but one consideration to set against the heavy loss of +Edith, and though it was slight comfort to her burdened heart, she +tried to think it some relief. No longer divided between her affection +and duty to the two, Florence could love both and do no injustice to +either. As shadows of her fond imagination, she could give them equal +place in her own bosom, and wrong them with no doubts + +So she tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations +on the cause of this change in Edith, would obtrude themselves upon +her mind and frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once +more to silent grief and loneliness, it was not a curious mind. +Florence had only to remember that her star of promise was clouded in +the general gloom that hung upon the house, and to weep and be +resigned. + +Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflowing love of her young +heart expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world where she had +experienced little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon +itself, Florence grew to be seventeen. Timid and retiring as her +solitary life had made her, it had not embittered her sweet temper, or +her earnest nature. A child in innocent simplicity; a woman m her +modest self-reliance, and her deep intensity of feeling; both child +and woman seemed at once expressed in her face and fragile delicacy of +shape, and gracefully to mingle there; - as if the spring should be +unwilling to depart when summer came, and sought to blend the earlier +beauties of the flowers with their bloom. But in her thrilling voice, +in her calm eyes, sometimes in a sage ethereal light that seemed to +rest upon her head, and always in a certain pensive air upon her +beauty, there was an expression, such as had been seen in the dead +boy; and the council in the Servants' Hall whispered so among +themselves, and shook their heads, and ate and drank the more, in a +closer bond of good-fellowship. + +This observant body had plenty to say of Mr and Mrs Dombey, and of +Mr Carker, who appeared to be a mediator between them, and who came +and went as if he were trying to make peace, but never could. They all +deplored the uncomfortable state of affairs, and all agreed that Mrs +Pipchin (whose unpopularity was not to be surpassed) had some hand in +it; but, upon the whole, it was agreeable to have so good a subject +for a rallying point, and they made a great deal of it, and enjoyed +themselves very much. + +The general visitors who came to the house, and those among whom Mr +and Mrs Dombey visited, thought it a pretty equal match, as to +haughtiness, at all events, and thought nothing more about it. The +young lady with the back did not appear for some time after Mrs +Skewton's death; observing to some particular friends, with her usual +engaging little scream, that she couldn't separate the family from a +notion of tombstones, and horrors of that sort; but when she did come, +she saw nothing wrong, except Mr Dombey's wearing a bunch of gold +seals to his watch, which shocked her very much, as an exploded +superstition. This youthful fascinator considered a daughter-in-law +objectionable in principle; otherwise, she had nothing to say against +Florence, but that she sadly wanted 'style' - which might mean back, +perhaps. Many, who only came to the house on state occasions, hardly +knew who Florence was, and said, going home, 'Indeed, was that Miss +Dombey, in the corner? Very pretty, but a little delicate and +thoughtful in appearance!' + +None the less so, certainly, for her life of the last six months. +Florence took her seat at the dinner-table, on the day before the +second anniversary of her father's marriage to Edith (Mrs Skewton had +been lying stricken with paralysis when the first came round), with an +uneasiness, amounting to dread. She had no other warrant for it, than +the occasion, the expression of her father's face, in the hasty glance +she caught of it, and the presence of Mr Carker, which, always +unpleasant to her, was more so on this day, than she had ever felt it +before. + +Edith was richly dressed, for she and Mr Dombey were engaged in the +evening to some large assembly, and the dinner-hour that day was late. +She did not appear until they were seated at table, when Mr Carker +rose and led her to her chair. Beautiful and lustrous as she was, +there was that in her face and air which seemed to separate her +hopelessly from Florence, and from everyone, for ever more. And yet, +for an instant, Florence saw a beam of kindness in her eyes, when they +were turned on her, that made the distance to which she had withdrawn +herself, a greater cause of sorrow and regret than ever. + +There was very little said at dinner. Florence heard her father +speak to Mr Carker sometimes on business matters, and heard him softly +reply, but she paid little attention to what they said, and only +wished the dinner at an end. When the dessert was placed upon the +table, and they were left alone, with no servant in attendance, Mr +Dombey, who had been several times clearing his throat in a manner +that augured no good, said: + +'Mrs Dombey, you know, I suppose, that I have instructed the +housekeeper that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow. + +'I do not dine at home,' she answered. + +'Not a large party,' pursued Mr Dombey, with an indifferent +assumption of not having heard her; 'merely some twelve or fourteen. +My sister, Major Bagstock, and some others whom you know but +slightly.' + +I do not dine at home,' she repeated. + +'However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, +still going majestically on, as if she had not spoken, 'to hold the +occasion in very pleasant remembrance just now, there are appearances +in these things which must be maintained before the world. If you have +no respect for yourself, Mrs Dombey - ' + +'I have none,' she said. + +'Madam,' cried Mr Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, 'hear +me if you please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself - ' + +'And I say I have none,' she answered. + +He looked at her; but the face she showed him in return would not +have changed, if death itself had looked. + +'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, turning more quietly to that gentleman, +'as you have been my medium of communication with Mrs Dombey on former +occasions, and as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far +as I am individually concerned, I will trouble you to have the +goodness to inform Mrs Dombey that if she has no respect for herself, +I have some respect for myself, and therefore insist on my +arrangements for to-morrow. + +'Tell your sovereign master, Sir,' said Edith, 'that I will take +leave to speak to him on this subject by-and-bye, and that I will +speak to him alone.' + +'Mr Carker, Madam,' said her husband, 'being in possession of the +reason which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be +absolved from the delivery of any such message.' He saw her eyes move, +while he spoke, and followed them with his own. + +'Your daughter is present, Sir,' said Edith. + +'My daughter will remain present,' said Mr Dombey. + +Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her face in her +hands, and trembling. + +'My daughter, Madam' - began Mr Dombey. + +But Edith stopped him, in a voice which, although not raised in the +least, was so clear, emphatic, and distinct, that it might have been +heard in a whirlwind. + +'I tell you I will speak to you alone,' she said. 'If you are not +mad, heed what I say.' + +'I have authority to speak to you, Madam,' returned her husband, +'when and where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and +now.' + +She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and +looking at him with all outward composure, said, in the same voice: + +'You shall!' + +'I must tell you first, that there is a threatening appearance in +your manner, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'which does not become you. + +She laughed. The shaken diamonds in her hair started and trembled. +There are fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer +being in danger. Had these been such, their imprisoned rays of light +would have taken flight that moment, and they would have been as dull +as lead. + +Carker listened, with his eyes cast down. + +'As to my daughter, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, resuming the thread of +his discourse, 'it is by no means inconsistent with her duty to me, +that she should know what conduct to avoid. At present you are a very +strong example to her of this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.' + +'I would not stop you now,' returned his wife, immoveable in eye, +and voice, and attitude; 'I would not rise and go away, and save you +the utterance of one word, if the room were burning.' + +Mr Dombey moved his head, as if in a sarcastic acknowledgment of +the attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as +before; for Edith's quick uneasiness in reference to Florence, and +Edith's indifference to him and his censure, chafed and galled him +like a stiffening wound. + +'Mrs Dombey,' said he, 'it may not be inconsistent with my +daughter's improvement to know how very much to be lamented, and how +necessary to be corrected, a stubborn disposition is, especially when +it is indulged in - unthankfully indulged in, I will add - after the +gratification of ambition and interest. Both of which, I believe, had +some share in inducing you to occupy your present station at this +board.' + +'No! I would not rise, and go away, and save you the utterance of +one word,' she repeated, exactly as before, 'if the room were +burning.' + +'It may be natural enough, Mrs Dombey,' he pursued, 'that you +should be uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable +truths; though why' - he could not hide his real feeling here, or keep +his eyes from glancing gloomily at Florence - 'why anyone can give +them greater force and point than myself, whom they so nearly concern, +I do not pretend to understand. It may be natural enough that you +should object to hear, in anybody's presence, that there is a +rebellious principle within you which you cannot curb too soon; which +you must curb, Mrs Dombey; and which, I regret to say, I remember to +have seen manifested - with some doubt and displeasure, on more than +one occasion before our marriage - towards your deceased mother. But +you have the remedy in your own hands. I by no means forgot, when I +began, that my daughter was present, Mrs Dombey. I beg you will not +forget, to-morrow, that there are several persons present; and that, +with some regard to appearances, you will receive your company in a +becoming manner. + +'So it is not enough,' said Edith, 'that you know what has passed +between yourself and me; it is not enough that you can look here,' +pointing at Carker, who still listened, with his eyes cast down, 'and +be reminded of the affronts you have put upon me; it is not enough +that you can look here,' pointing to Florence with a hand that +slightly trembled for the first and only time, 'and think of what you +have done, and of the ingenious agony, daily, hourly, constant, you +have made me feel in doing it; it is not enough that this day, of all +others in the year, is memorable to me for a struggle (well-deserved, +but not conceivable by such as you) in which I wish I had died! You +add to all this, do you, the last crowning meanness of making her a +witness of the depth to which I have fallen; when you know that you +have made me sacrifice to her peace, the only gentle feeling and +interest of my life, when you know that for her sake, I would now if I +could - but I can not, my soul recoils from you too much - submit +myself wholly to your will, and be the meekest vassal that you have!' + +This was not the way to minister to Mr Dombey's greatness. The old +feeling was roused by what she said, into a stronger and fiercer +existence than it had ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this +rough passage of his life, put forth by even this rebellious woman, as +powerful where he was powerless, and everything where he was nothing! + +He turned on Florence, as if it were she who had spoken, and bade +her leave the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling +and weeping as she went. + +'I understand, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with an angry flush of +triumph, 'the spirit of opposition that turned your affections in that +channel, but they have been met, Mrs Dombey; they have been met, and +turned back!' + +'The worse for you!' she answered, with her voice and manner still +unchanged. 'Ay!' for he turned sharply when she said so, 'what is the +worse for me, is twenty million times the worse for you. Heed that, if +you heed nothing else.' + +The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered +like a starry bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have +turned as dull and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and +listened, with his eyes cast down. + +'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his +arrogant composure, 'you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any +purpose, by this course of conduct.' + +'It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is +within me,' she replied. 'But if I thought it would conciliate you, I +would repress it, if it were repressible by any human effort. I will +do nothing that you ask.' + +'I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs Dombey,' he observed; 'I direct.' + +'I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence +of to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave +you purchased, such a time. If I kept my marriage day, I would keep it +as a day of shame. Self-respect! appearances before the world! what +are these to me? You have done all you can to make them nothing to me, +and they are nothing.' + +'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a +moment's consideration, 'Mrs Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me +in all this, and places me in a position so unsuited to my character, +that I must bring this state of matters to a close.' + +'Release me, then,' said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and +bearing, as she had been throughout, 'from the chain by which I am +bound. Let me go.' + +'Madam?' exclaimed Mr Dombey. + +'Loose me. Set me free!' + +'Madam?' he repeated, 'Mrs Dombey?' + +'Tell him,' said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, 'that +I wish for a separation between us, That there had better be one. That +I recommend it to him, Tell him it may take place on his own terms - +his wealth is nothing to me - but that it cannot be too soon.' + +'Good Heaven, Mrs Dombey!' said her husband, with supreme +amazement, 'do you imagine it possible that I could ever listen to +such a proposition? Do you know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I +represent? Did you ever hear of Dombey and Son? People to say that Mr +Dombey - Mr Dombey! - was separated from his wife! Common people to +talk of Mr Dombey and his domestic affairs! Do you seriously think, +Mrs Dombey, that I would permit my name to be banded about in such +connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam! Fie for shame! You're absurd.' Mr Dombey +absolutely laughed. + +But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she +did, in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have +been dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her. + +'No, Mrs Dombey,' he resumed. 'No, Madam. There is no possibility +of separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you +to be awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say +to you - + +Mr Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his +eyes, in which there was a bright unusual light' + +As I was about to say to you, resumed Mr Dombey, 'I must beg you, +now that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs Dombey, that it is +not the rule of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody - +anybody, Carker - or to suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger +motive for obedience in those who owe obedience to me than I am my +self. The mention that has been made of my daughter, and the use that +is made of my daughter, in opposition to me, are unnatural. Whether my +daughter is in actual concert with Mrs Dombey, I do not know, and do +not care; but after what Mrs Dombey has said today, and my daughter +has heard to-day, I beg you to make known to Mrs Dombey, that if she +continues to make this house the scene of contention it has become, I +shall consider my daughter responsible in some degree, on that lady's +own avowal, and shall visit her with my severe displeasure. Mrs Dombey +has asked "whether it is not enough," that she had done this and that. +You will please to answer no, it is not enough.' + +'A moment!' cried Carker, interposing, 'permit me! painful as my +position is, at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to +entertain a different opinion from you,' addressing Mr Dombey, 'I must +ask, had you not better reconsider the question of a separation. I +know how incompatible it appears with your high public position, and I +know how determined you are when you give Mrs Dombey to understand' - +the light in his eyes fell upon her as he separated his words each +from each, with the distinctness of so many bells - 'that nothing but +death can ever part you. Nothing else. But when you consider that Mrs +Dombey, by living in this house, and making it as you have said, a +scene of contention, not only has her part in that contention, but +compromises Miss Dombey every day (for I know how determined you are), +will you not relieve her from a continual irritation of spirit, and a +continual sense of being unjust to another, almost intolerable? Does +this not seem like - I do not say it is - sacrificing Mrs Dombey to +the preservation of your preeminent and unassailable position?' + +Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking at +her husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face. + +'Carker,' returned Mr Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in a +tone that was intended to be final, 'you mistake your position in +offering advice to me on such a point, and you mistake me (I am +surprised to find) in the character of your advice. I have no more to +say. + +'Perhaps,' said Carker, with an unusual and indefinable taunt in +his air, 'you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the +negotiations in which I have been engaged here' - with a motion of his +hand towards Mrs Dombey. + +'Not at all, Sir, not at all,' returned the other haughtily. 'You +were employed - ' + +'Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs Dombey. I +forgot' Oh, yes, it was expressly understood!' said Carker. 'I beg +your pardon!' + +As he bent his head to Mr Dombey, with an air of deference that +accorded ill with his words, though they were humbly spoken, he moved +it round towards her, and kept his watching eyes that way. + +She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have +stood up with such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's +majesty of scorn and beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of +bright jewels radiant on her head, and, plucking it off with a force +that dragged and strained her rich black hair with heedless cruelty, +and brought it tumbling wildly on her shoulders, cast the gems upon +the ground. From each arm, she unclasped a diamond bracelet, flung it +down, and trod upon the glittering heap. Without a word, without a +shadow on the fire of her bright eye, without abatement of her awful +smile, she looked on Mr Dombey to the last, in moving to the door; and +left him. + +Florence had heard enough before quitting the room, to know that +Edith loved her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she +had kept her sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace. She +did not want to speak to her of this - she could not, remembering to +whom she was opposed - but she wished, in one silent and affectionate +embrace, to assure her that she felt it all, and thanked her. + +Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing from +her own chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in search of. +Edith, but unavailingly. She was in her own rooms, where Florence had +long ceased to go, and did not dare to venture now, lest she should +unconsciously engender new trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet her +before going to bed, changed from room to room, and wandered through +the house so splendid and so dreary, without remaining anywhere. + +She was crossing a gallery of communication that opened at some +little distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great +occasions, when she saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the +figure of a man coming down some few stairs opposite. Instinctively +apprehensive of her father, whom she supposed it was, she stopped, in +the dark, gazing through the arch into the light. But it was Mr Carker +coming down alone, and looking over the railing into the hall. No bell +was rung to announce his departure, and no servant was in attendance. +He went down quietly, opened the door for himself, glided out, and +shut it softly after him. + +Her invincible repugnance to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act +of watching anyone, which, even under such innocent circumstances, is +in a manner guilty and oppressive, made Florence shake from head to +foot. Her blood seemed to run cold. As soon as she could - for at +first she felt an insurmountable dread of moving - she went quickly to +her own room and locked her door; but even then, shut in with her dog +beside her, felt a chill sensation of horror, as if there were danger +brooding somewhere near her. + +It invaded her dreams and disturbed the whole night. Rising in the +morning, unrefreshed, and with a heavy recollection of the domestic +unhappiness of the preceding day, she sought Edith again in all the +rooms, and did so, from time to time, all the morning. But she +remained in her own chamber, and Florence saw nothing of her. +Learning, however, that the projected dinner at home was put off, +Florence thought it likely that she would go out in the evening to +fulfil the engagement she had spoken of; and resolved to try and meet +her, then, upon the staircase. + +When the evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she +sat on purpose, a footstep on the stairs that she thought to be +Edith's. Hurrying out, and up towards her room, Florence met her +immediately, coming down alone. + +What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with +her tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked! + +'Don't come near me!' she cried. 'Keep away! Let me go by!' + +'Mama!' said Florence. + +'Don't call me by that name! Don't speak to me! Don't look at me! - +Florence!' shrinking back, as Florence moved a step towards her, +'don't touch me!' + +As Florence stood transfixed before the haggard face and staring +eyes, she noted, as in a dream, that Edith spread her hands over them, +and shuddering through all her form, and crouching down against the +wall, crawled by her like some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away. + +Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by +Mrs Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more, until she found +herself lying on her own bed, with Mrs Pipchin and some servants +standing round her. + +'Where is Mama?' was her first question. + +'Gone out to dinner,' said Mrs Pipchin. + +'And Papa?' + +'Mr Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'and +the best thing you can do, is to take off your things and go to bed +this minute.' This was the sagacious woman's remedy for all +complaints, particularly lowness of spirits, and inability to sleep; +for which offences, many young victims in the days of the Brighton +Castle had been committed to bed at ten o'clock in the morning. + +Without promising obedience, but on the plea of desiring to be very +quiet, Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the +ministration of Mrs Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she +thought of what had happened on the staircase, at first in doubt of +its reality; then with tears; then with an indescribable and terrible +alarm, like that she had felt the night before. + +She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if she +could not speak to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home. +What indistinct and shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, +she did not know, and did not dare to think. She only knew that until +Edith came back, there was no repose for her aching head or throbbing +heart. + +The evening deepened into night; midnight came; no Edith. + +Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room, +opened the door and paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of +window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain +falling, sat down and watched the faces in the fire, got up and +watched the moon flying like a storm-driven ship through the sea of +clouds. + +All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting +the return of their mistress, downstairs. + +One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned +away, or stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, +and was more and more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep +of rain. Two o'clock. No Edith! + +Florence, more agitated, paced her room; and paced the gallery +outside; and looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the +raindrops on the glass, and the tears in her own eyes; and looked up +at the hurry in the sky, so different from the repose below, and yet +so tranquil and solitary. Three o'clock! There was a terror in every +ash that dropped out of the fire. No Edith yet. + +More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the +gallery, and looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness +to a pale fugitive hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four +struck! Five! No Edith yet. + +But now there was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence +found that Mrs Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, +had risen and had gone down to her father's door. Stealing lower down +the stairs, and observing what passed, she saw her father come out in +his morning gown, and start when he was told his wife had not come +home. He dispatched a messenger to the stables to inquire whether the +coachman was there; and while the man was gone, dressed himself very +hurriedly. + +The man came back, in great haste, bringing the coachman with him, +who said he had been at home and in bed, since ten o'clock. He had +driven his mistress to her old house in Brook Street, where she had +been met by Mr Carker - + +Florence stood upon the very spot where she had seen him coming +down. Again she shivered with the nameless terror of that sight, and +had hardly steadiness enough to hear and understand what followed. + +- Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would +not want the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him. + +She saw her father turn white in the face, and heard him ask in a +quick, trembling voice, for Mrs Dombey's maid. The whole house was +roused; for she was there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking +incoherently. + +She said she had dressed her mistress early - full two hours before +she went out - and had been told, as she often was, that she would not +be wanted at night. She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but - + +'But what! what was it?' Florence heard her father demand like a +madman. + +'But the inner dressing-room was locked and the key gone.' + +Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground - someone +had put it down there, and forgotten it - and came running upstairs +with such fury, that Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly +before him. She heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with +her hands widely spread, and her hair streaming, and her face like a +distracted person's, back to her own room. + +When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No +one knew. But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every +ornament she had had, since she had been his wife; every dress she had +worn; and everything she had possessed. This was the room in which he +had seen, in yonder mirror, the proud face discard him. This was the +room in which he had wondered, idly, how these things would look when +he should see them next! + +Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage +of haste, he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he +had executed on their marriage, and a letter. He read that she was +gone. He read that he was dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon +her shameful wedding-day, with the man whom he had chosen for her +humiliation; and he tore out of the room, and out of the house, with a +frantic idea of finding her yet, at the place to which she had been +taken, and beating all trace of beauty out of the triumphant face with +his bare hand. + +Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a +dream of running through the streets until she found Edith, and then +clasping her in her arms, to save and bring her back. But when she +hurried out upon the staircase, and saw the frightened servants going +up and down with lights, and whispering together, and falling away +from her father as he passed down, she awoke to a sense of her own +powerlessness; and hiding in one of the great rooms that had been made +gorgeous for this, felt as if her heart would burst with grief. + +Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made +head against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant +nature turned to him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as +if, in his prosperity, he had been the embodiment of that idea which +had gradually become so faint and dim. Although she did not know, +otherwise than through the suggestions of a shapeless fear, the full +extent of his calamity, he stood before her, wronged and deserted; and +again her yearning love impelled her to his side. + +He was not long away; for Florence was yet weeping in the great +room and nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come back. He +ordered the servants to set about their ordinary occupations, and went +into his own apartment, where he trod so heavily that she could hear +him walking up and down from end to end. + +Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection, timid at all +other times, but bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and +undaunted by past repulse, Florence, dressed as she was, hurried +downstairs. As she set her light foot in the hall, he came out of his +room. She hastened towards him unchecked, with her arms stretched out, +and crying 'Oh dear, dear Papa!' as if she would have clasped him +round the neck. + +And so she would have done. But in his frenzy, he lifted up his +cruel arm, and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness, that she +tottered on the marble floor; and as he dealt the blow, he told her +what Edith was, and bade her follow her, since they had always been in +league. + +She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight +of him with her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter +one word of reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation +issued from her heart. For as she looked, she saw him murdering that +fond idea to which she had held in spite of him. She saw his cruelty, +neglect, and hatred dominant above it, and stamping it down. She saw +she had no father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his house. + +Ran out of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock, the +cry was on her lips, his face was there, made paler by the yellow +candles hastily put down and guttering away, and by the daylight +coming in above the door. Another moment, and the close darkness of +the shut-up house (forgotten to be opened, though it was long since +day) yielded to the unexpected glare and freedom of the morning; and +Florence, with her head bent down to hide her agony of tears, was in +the streets. + + + +CHAPTER 48. + +The Flight of Florence + + + +In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl +hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were the +darkness of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, +insensible to everything but the deep wound in her breast, stunned by +the loss of all she loved, left like the sole survivor on a lonely +shore from the wreck of a great vessel, she fled without a thought, +without a hope, without a purpose, but to fly somewhere anywhere. + +The cheerful vista of the long street, burnished by the morning +light, the sight of the blue sky and airy clouds, the vigorous +freshness of the day, so flushed and rosy in its conquest of the +night, awakened no responsive feelings in her so hurt bosom. +Somewhere, anywhere, to hide her head! somewhere, anywhere, for +refuge, never more to look upon the place from which she fled! + +But there were people going to and fro; there were opening shops, +and servants at the doors of houses; there was the rising clash and +roar of the day's struggle. Florence saw surprise and curiosity in the +faces flitting past her; saw long shadows coming back upon the +pavement; and heard voices that were strange to her asking her where +she went, and what the matter was; and though these frightened her the +more at first, and made her hurry on the faster, they did her the good +service of recalling her in some degree to herself, and reminding her +of the necessity of greater composure. + +Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on; but where! +She thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wild +wilderness of London - though not lost as now - and went that way. To +the home of Walter's Uncle. + +Checking her sobs, and drying her swollen eyes, and endeavouring to +calm the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice, +Florence, resolving to keep to the more quiet streets as long as she +could, was going on more quietly herself, when a familiar little +shadow darted past upon the sunny pavement, stopped short, wheeled +about, came close to her, made off again, bounded round and round her, +and Diogenes, panting for breath, and yet making the street ring with +his glad bark, was at her feet. + +'Oh, Di! oh, dear, true, faithful Di, how did you come here? How +could I ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me?' + +Florence bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough, old, +loving, foolish head against her breast, and they got up together, and +went on together; Di more off the ground than on it, endeavouring to +kiss his mistress flying, tumbling over and getting up again without +the least concern, dashing at big dogs in a jocose defiance of his +species, terrifying with touches of his nose young housemaids who were +cleaning doorsteps, and continually stopping, in the midst of a +thousand extravagances, to look back at Florence, and bark until all +the dogs within hearing answered, and all the dogs who could come out, +came out to stare at him. + +With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing +morning, and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon +grew more loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy, +until she was carried onward in a stream of life setting that way, and +flowing, indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons, churches, +market-places, wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the broad river +side by side with it, awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and +green moss, and rolling on, turbid and troubled, among the works and +cares of men, to the deep sea. + +At length the quarters of the little Midshipman arose in view. +Nearer yet, and the little Midshipman himself was seen upon his post, +intent as ever on his observations. Nearer yet, and the door stood +open, inviting her to enter. Florence, who had again quickened her +pace, as she approached the end of her journey, ran across the road +(closely followed by Diogenes, whom the bustle had somewhat confused), +ran in, and sank upon the threshold of the well-remembered little +parlour. + +The Captain, in his glazed hat, was standing over the fire, making +his morning's cocoa, with that elegant trifle, his watch, upon the +chimney-piece, for easy reference during the progress of the cookery. +Hearing a footstep and the rustle of a dress, the Captain turned with +a palpitating remembrance of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger, at the +instant when Florence made a motion with her hand towards him, reeled, +and fell upon the floor. + +The Captain, pale as Florence, pale in the very knobs upon his face +raised her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon which +she had slumbered long ago. + +'It's Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, looking intently in her +face. 'It's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!' + +Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and had such a reverence +for her, in this new character, that he would not have held her in his +arms, while she was unconscious, for a thousand pounds. + +'My Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, withdrawing to a little +distance, with the greatest alarm and sympathy depicted on his +countenance. 'If you can hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it!' + +But Florence did not stir. + +'My Heart's Delight!' said the trembling Captain. 'For the sake of +Wal'r drownded in the briny deep, turn to, and histe up something or +another, if able!' + +Finding her insensible to this impressive adjuration also, Captain +Cuttle snatched from his breakfast-table a basin of cold water, and +sprinkled some upon her face. Yielding to the urgency of the case, the +Captain then, using his immense hand with extraordinary gentleness, +relieved her of her bonnet, moistened her lips and forehead, put back +her hair, covered her feet with his own coat which he pulled off for +the purpose, patted her hand - so small in his, that he was struck +with wonder when he touched it - and seeing that her eyelids quivered, +and that her lips began to move, continued these restorative +applications with a better heart. + +'Cheerily,' said the Captain. 'Cheerily! Stand by, my pretty one, +stand by! There! You're better now. Steady's the word, and steady it +is. Keep her so! Drink a little drop o' this here,' said the Captain. +'There you are! What cheer now, my pretty, what cheer now?' + +At this stage of her recovery, Captain Cuttle, with an imperfect +association of a Watch with a Physician's treatment of a patient, took +his own down from the mantel-shelf, and holding it out on his hook, +and taking Florence's hand in his, looked steadily from one to the +other, as expecting the dial to do something. + +'What cheer, my pretty?' said the Captain. 'What cheer now? You've +done her some good, my lad, I believe,' said the Captain, under his +breath, and throwing an approving glance upon his watch. 'Put you back +half-an-hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the +arternoon, and you're a watch as can be ekalled by few and excelled by +none. What cheer, my lady lass!' + +'Captain Cuttle! Is it you?' exclaimed Florence, raising herself a +little. + +'Yes, yes, my lady lass,' said the Captain, hastily deciding in his +own mind upon the superior elegance of that form of address, as the +most courtly he could think of. + +'Is Walter's Uncle here?' asked Florence. + +'Here, pretty?' returned the Captain. 'He ain't been here this many +a long day. He ain't been heerd on, since he sheered off arter poor +Wal'r. But,' said the Captain, as a quotation, 'Though lost to sight, +to memory dear, and England, Home, and Beauty!' + +'Do you live here?' asked Florence. + +'Yes, my lady lass,' returned the Captain. + +'Oh, Captain Cuttle!' cried Florence, putting her hands together, +and speaking wildly. 'Save me! keep me here! Let no one know where I +am! I'll tell you what has happened by-and-by, when I can. I have no +one in the world to go to. Do not send me away!' + +'Send you away, my lady lass!' exclaimed the Captain. 'You, my +Heart's Delight! Stay a bit! We'll put up this here deadlight, and +take a double turn on the key!' + +With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook with +the greatest dexterity, got out the shutter of the door, put it up, +made it all fast, and locked the door itself. + +When he came back to the side of Florence, she took his hand, and +kissed it. The helplessness of the action, the appeal it made to him, +the confidence it expressed, the unspeakable sorrow in her face, the +pain of mind she had too plainly suffered, and was suffering then, his +knowledge of her past history, her present lonely, worn, and +unprotected appearance, all so rushed upon the good Captain together, +that he fairly overflowed with compassion and gentleness. + +'My lady lass,' said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose +with his arm until it shone like burnished copper, 'don't you say a +word to Ed'ard Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a riding +smooth and easy; which won't be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And as to +giving of you up, or reporting where you are, yes verily, and by God's +help, so I won't, Church catechism, make a note on!' + +This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with +much solemnity; taking off his hat at 'yes verily,' and putting it on +again, when he had quite concluded. + +Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show him +how she trusted in him; and she did it' Clinging to this rough +creature as the last asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head +upon his honest shoulder, and clasped him round his neck, and would +have kneeled down to bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and +held her up like a true man. + +'Steady!' said the Captain. 'Steady! You're too weak to stand, you +see, my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!' To see +the Captain lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his coat, would +have been worth a hundred state sights. 'And now,' said the Captain, +'you must take some breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall have some +too. And arter that you shall go aloft to old Sol Gills's room, and +fall asleep there, like a angel.' + +Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and +Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the +administration of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds +whether to fly at the Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he +had expressed that conflict of feeling by alternate waggings of his +tail, and displays of his teeth, with now and then a growl or so. But +by this time, his doubts were all removed. It was plain that he +considered the Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom +it was an honour to a dog to know. + +In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the Captain +while he made some tea and toast, and showed a lively interest in his +housekeeping. But it was in vain for the kind Captain to make such +preparations for Florence, who sorely tried to do some honour to them, +but could touch nothing, and could only weep and weep again. + +'Well, well!' said the compassionate Captain, 'arter turning in, my +Heart's Delight, you'll get more way upon you. Now, I'll serve out +your allowance, my lad.' To Diogenes. 'And you shall keep guard on +your mistress aloft.' + +Diogenes, however, although he had been eyeing his intended +breakfast with a watering mouth and glistening eyes, instead of +falling to, ravenously, when it was put before him, pricked up his +ears, darted to the shop-door, and barked there furiously: burrowing +with his head at the bottom, as if he were bent on mining his way out. + +'Can there be anybody there!' asked Florence, in alarm. + +'No, my lady lass,' returned the Captain. 'Who'd stay there, +without making any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It's only +people going by.' + +But for all that, Diogenes barked and barked, and burrowed and +burrowed, with pertinacious fury; and whenever he stopped to listen, +appeared to receive some new conviction into his mind, for he set to, +barking and burrowing again, a dozen times. Even when he was persuaded +to return to his breakfast, he came jogging back to it, with a very +doubtful air; and was off again, in another paroxysm, before touching +a morsel. + +'If there should be someone listening and watching,' whispered +Florence. 'Someone who saw me come - who followed me, perhaps.' + +'It ain't the young woman, lady lass, is it?' said the Captain, +taken with a bright idea + +'Susan?' said Florence, shaking her head. 'Ah no! Susan has been +gone from me a long time.' + +'Not deserted, I hope?' said the Captain. 'Don't say that that +there young woman's run, my pretty!' + +'Oh, no, no!' cried Florence. 'She is one of the truest hearts in +the world!' + +The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed his +satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his head +all over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing +several times, with infinite complacency, and with a beaming +countenance, that he know'd it. + +'So you're quiet now, are you, brother?' said the Captain to +Diogenes. 'There warn't nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!' + +Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction +for him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and growling to +himself, unable to forget the subject. This incident, coupled with the +Captain's observation of Florence's fatigue and faintness, decided him +to prepare Sol Gills's chamber as a place of retirement for her +immediately. He therefore hastily betook himself to the top of the +house, and made the best arrangement of it that his imagination and +his means suggested. + +It was very clean already; and the Captain being an orderly man, +and accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a +couch, by covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a +similar contrivance, the Captain converted the little dressing-table +into a species of altar, on which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a +flower-pot, a telescope, his celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and a +song-book, as a small collection of rarities, that made a choice +appearance. Having darkened the window, and straightened the pieces of +carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these preparations with +great delight, and descended to the little parlour again, to bring +Florence to her bower. + +Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible +for Florence to walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea into his +head, he would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality +to allow her to do so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point, and +the Captain carried her up out of hand, laid her down, and covered her +with a great watch-coat. + +'My lady lass!' said the Captain, 'you're as safe here as if you +was at the top of St Paul's Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep +is what you want, afore all other things, and may you be able to show +yourself smart with that there balsam for the still small woice of a +wounded mind! When there's anything you want, my Heart's Delight, as +this here humble house or town can offer, pass the word to Ed'ard +Cuttle, as'll stand off and on outside that door, and that there man +will wibrate with joy.' The Captain concluded by kissing the hand that +Florence stretched out to him, with the chivalry of any old +knight-errant, and walking on tiptoe out of the room. + +Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a +hasty council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few +minutes, and satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no one +loitering about it. Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon the +threshold, keeping a bright look-out, and sweeping the whole street +with his spectacles. + +'How de do, Captain Gills?' said a voice beside him. The Captain, +looking down, found that he had been boarded by Mr Toots while +sweeping the horizon. + +'How are, you, my lad?' replied the Captain. + +'Well, I m pretty well, thank'ee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. +'You know I'm never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don't expect +that I ever shall be any more.' + +Mr Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great theme +of his life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on account of +the agreement between them. + +'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'if I could have the pleasure of a +word with you, it's - it's rather particular.' + +'Why, you see, my lad,' replied the Captain, leading the way into +the parlour, 'I ain't what you may call exactly free this morning; and +therefore if you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.' + +'Certainly, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, who seldom had any +notion of the Captain's meaning. 'To clap on, is exactly what I could +wish to do. Naturally.' + +'If so be, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Do it!' + +The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous +secret - by the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his +roof, while the innocent and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him - +that a perspiration broke out on his forehead, and he found it +impossible, while slowly drying the same, glazed hat in hand, to keep +his eyes off Mr Toots's face. Mr Toots, who himself appeared to have +some secret reasons for being in a nervous state, was so unspeakably +disconcerted by the Captain's stare, that after looking at him +vacantly for some time in silence, and shifting uneasily on his chair, +he said: + +'I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don't happen to see +anything particular in me, do you?' + +'No, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'No.' + +'Because you know,' said Mr Toots with a chuckle, 'I kNOW I'm +wasting away. You needn't at all mind alluding to that. I - I should +like it. Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I'm in that state of +thinness. It's a gratification to me. I - I'm glad of it. I - I'd a +great deal rather go into a decline, if I could. I'm a mere brute you +know, grazing upon the surface of the earth, Captain Gills.' + +The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was +weighed down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause of +uneasiness, and his desire to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was in +such a scared and strange condition, indeed, that if he had been in +conversation with a ghost, he could hardly have evinced greater +discomposure. + +'But I was going to say, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Happening +to be this way early this morning - to tell you the truth, I was +coming to breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know, I never sleep +now. I might be a Watchman, except that I don't get any pay, and he's +got nothing on his mind.' + +'Carry on, my lad!' said the Captain, in an admonitory voice. + +'Certainly, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Perfectly true! +Happening to be this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and +finding the door shut - ' + +'What! were you waiting there, brother?' demanded the Captain. + +'Not at all, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots. 'I didn't stop a +moment. I thought you were out. But the person said - by the bye, you +don't keep a dog, you, Captain Gills?' + +The Captain shook his head. + +'To be sure,' said Mr Toots, 'that's exactly what I said. I knew +you didn't. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with - but excuse +me. That's forbidden ground.' + +The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice +his natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the +Captain's forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his +head to come down and make a third in the parlour. + +'The person said,' continued Mr Toots, 'that he had heard a dog +barking in the shop: which I knew couldn't be, and I told him so. But +he was as positive as if he had seen the dog.' + +'What person, my lad?' inquired the Captain. + +'Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, with a +perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. 'It's not for +me to say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place. +Indeed, I don't know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I +don't quite understand, and I think there's something rather weak in +my - in my head, in short.' + +The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent. + +'But the person said, as we were walking away,' continued Mr Toots, +'that you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur - he +said "might," very strongly - and that if you were requested to +prepare yourself, you would, no doubt, come prepared.' + +'Person, my lad' the Captain repeated. + +'I don't know what person, I'm sure, Captain Gills,' replied Mr +Toots, 'I haven't the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him +waiting there; and he said was I coming back again, and I said yes; +and he said did I know you, and I said, yes, I had the pleasure of +your acquaintance - you had given me the pleasure of your +acquaintance, after some persuasion; and he said, if that was the +case, would I say to you what I have said, about existing +circumstances and coming prepared, and as soon as ever I saw you, +would I ask you to step round the corner, if it was only for one +minute, on most important business, to Mr Brogley's the Broker's. Now, +I tell you what, Captain Gills - whatever it is, I am convinced it's +very important; and if you like to step round, now, I'll wait here +till you come back.' + +The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising Florence in +some way by not going, and his horror of leaving Mr Toots in +possession of the house with a chance of finding out the secret, was a +spectacle of mental disturbance that even Mr Toots could not be blind +to. But that young gentleman, considering his nautical friend as +merely in a state of preparation for the interview he was going to +have, was quite satisfied, and did not review his own discreet conduct +without chuckle + +At length the Captain decided, as the lesser of two evils, to run +round to Brogley's the Broker's: previously locking the door that +communicated with the upper part of the house, and putting the key in +his pocket. 'If so be,' said the Captain to Mr Toots, with not a +little shame and hesitation, 'as you'll excuse my doing of it, +brother.' + +'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'whatever you do, is +satisfactory to me. + +The Captain thanked him heartily, and promising to come back in +less than five minutes, went out in quest of the person who had +entrusted Mr Toots with this mysterious message. Poor Mr Toots, left +to himself, lay down upon the sofa, little thinking who had reclined +there last, and, gazing up at the skylight and resigning himself to +visions of Miss Dombey, lost all heed of time and place. + +It was as well that he did so; for although the Captain was not +gone long, he was gone much longer than he had proposed. When he came +back, he was very pale indeed, and greatly agitated, and even looked +as if he had been shedding tears. He seemed to have lost the faculty +of speech, until he had been to the cupboard and taken a dram of rum +from the case-bottle, when he fetched a deep breath, and sat down in a +chair with his hand before his face. + +'Captain Gills,' said Toots, kindly, 'I hope and trust there's +nothing wrong?' + +'Thank'ee, my lad, not a bit,' said the Captain. 'Quite contrairy.' + +'You have the appearance of being overcome, Captain Gills,' +observed Mr Toots. + +'Why, my lad, I am took aback,' the Captain admitted. 'I am.' + +'Is there anything I can do, Captain Gills?' inquired Mr Toots. 'If +there is, make use of me.' + +The Captain removed his hand from his face, looked at him with a +remarkable expression of pity and tenderness, and took him by the +hand, and shook it hard. + +'No, thank'ee,' said the Captain. 'Nothing. Only I'll take it as a +favour if you'll part company for the present. I believe, brother,' +wringing his hand again, 'that, after Wal'r, and on a different model, +you're as good a lad as ever stepped.' + +'Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, giving +the Captain's hand a preliminary slap before shaking it again, 'it's +delightful to me to possess your good opinion. Thank'ee. + +'And bear a hand and cheer up,' said the Captain, patting him on +the back. 'What! There's more than one sweet creetur in the world!' + +'Not to me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots gravely. 'Not to me, I +assure you. The state of my feelings towards Miss Dombey is of that +unspeakable description, that my heart is a desert island, and she +lives in it alone. I'm getting more used up every day, and I'm proud +to be so. If you could see my legs when I take my boots off, you'd +form some idea of what unrequited affection is. I have been prescribed +bark, but I don't take it, for I don't wish to have any tone whatever +given to my constitution. I'd rather not. This, however, is forbidden +ground. Captain Gills, goodbye!' + +Captain Cuttle cordially reciprocating the warmth of Mr Toots's +farewell, locked the door behind him, and shaking his head with the +same remarkable expression of pity and tenderness as he had regarded +him with before, went up to see if Florence wanted him. + +There was an entire change in the Captain's face as he went +upstairs. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and he polished the +bridge of his nose with his sleeve as he had done already that +morning, but his face was absolutely changed. Now, he might have been +thought supremely happy; now, he might have been thought sad; but the +kind of gravity that sat upon his features was quite new to them, and +was as great an improvement to them as if they had undergone some +sublimating process. + +He knocked softly, with his hook, at Florence's door, twice or +thrice; but, receiving no answer, ventured first to peep in, and then +to enter: emboldened to take the latter step, perhaps, by the familiar +recognition of Diogenes, who, stretched upon the ground by the side of +her couch, wagged his tail, and winked his eyes at the Captain, +without being at the trouble of getting up. + +She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain +Cuttle, with a perfect awe of her youth, and beauty, and her sorrow, +raised her head, and adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had +fallen off, and darkened the window a little more that she might sleep +on, and crept out again, and took his post of watch upon the stairs. +All this, with a touch and tread as light as Florence's own. + +Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of +decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's +goodness - the delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and +sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the +rough hard Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and +softens in a moment! + +Florence slept upon her couch, forgetful of her homelessness and +orphanage, and Captain Cuttle watched upon the stairs. A louder sob or +moan than usual, brought him sometimes to her door; but by degrees she +slept more peacefully, and the Captain's watch was undisturbed. + + + +CHAPTER 49. + +The Midshipman makes a Discovery + + + +It was long before Florence awoke. The day was in its prime, the +day was in its wane, and still, uneasy in mind and body, she slept on; +unconscious of her strange bed, of the noise and turmoil in the +street, and of the light that shone outside the shaded window. Perfect +unconsciousness of what had happened in the home that existed no more, +even the deep slumber of exhaustion could not produce. Some undefined +and mournful recollection of it, dozing uneasily but never sleeping, +pervaded all her rest. A dull sorrow, like a half-lulled sense of +pain, was always present to her; and her pale cheek was oftener wet +with tears than the honest Captain, softly putting in his head from +time to time at the half-closed door, could have desired to see it. + +The sun was getting low in the west, and, glancing out of a red +mist, pierced with its rays opposite loopholes and pieces of fretwork +in the spires of city churches, as if with golden arrows that struck +through and through them - and far away athwart the river and its flat +banks, it was gleaming like a path of fire - and out at sea it was +irradiating sails of ships - and, looked towards, from quiet +churchyards, upon hill-tops in the country, it was steeping distant +prospects in a flush and glow that seemed to mingle earth and sky +together in one glorious suffusion - when Florence, opening her heavy +eyes, lay at first, looking without interest or recognition at the +unfamiliar walls around her, and listening in the same regardless +manner to the noises in the street. But presently she started up upon +her couch, gazed round with a surprised and vacant look, and +recollected all. + +'My pretty,' said the Captain, knocking at the door, 'what cheer?' + +'Dear friend,' cried Florence, hurrying to him, 'is it you?' + +The Captain felt so much pride in the name, and was so pleased by +the gleam of pleasure in her face, when she saw him, that he kissed +his hook, by way of reply, in speechless gratification. + +'What cheer, bright di'mond?' said the Captain. + +'I have surely slept very long,' returned Florence. 'When did I +come here? Yesterday?' + +'This here blessed day, my lady lass,' replied the Captain. + +'Has there been no night? Is it still day?' asked Florence. + +'Getting on for evening now, my pretty,' said the Captain, drawing +back the curtain of the window. 'See!' + +Florence, with her hand upon the Captain's arm, so sorrowful and +timid, and the Captain with his rough face and burly figure, so +quietly protective of her, stood in the rosy light of the bright +evening sky, without saying a word. However strange the form of speech +into which he might have fashioned the feeling, if he had had to give +it utterance, the Captain felt, as sensibly as the most eloquent of +men could have done, that there was something in the tranquil time and +in its softened beauty that would make the wounded heart of Florence +overflow; and that it was better that such tears should have their +way. So not a word spake Captain Cuttle. But when he felt his arm +clasped closer, and when he felt the lonely head come nearer to it, +and lay itself against his homely coarse blue sleeve, he pressed it +gently with his rugged hand, and understood it, and was understood. + +'Better now, my pretty!' said the Captain. 'Cheerily, cheerily, +I'll go down below, and get some dinner ready. Will you come down of +your own self, arterwards, pretty, or shall Ed'ard Cuttle come and +fetch you?' + +As Florence assured him that she was quite able to walk downstairs, +the Captain, though evidently doubtful of his own hospitality in +permitting it, left her to do so, and immediately set about roasting a +fowl at the fire in the little parlour. To achieve his cookery with +the greater skill, he pulled off his coat, tucked up his wristbands, +and put on his glazed hat, without which assistant he never applied +himself to any nice or difficult undertaking. + +After cooling her aching head and burning face in the fresh water +which the Captain's care had provided for her while she slept, +Florence went to the little mirror to bind up her disordered hair. +Then she knew - in a moment, for she shunned it instantly, that on her +breast there was the darkening mark of an angry hand. + +Her tears burst forth afresh at the sight; she was ashamed and +afraid of it; but it moved her to no anger against him. Homeless and +fatherless, she forgave him everything; hardly thought that she had +need to forgive him, or that she did; but she fled from the idea of +him as she had fled from the reality, and he was utterly gone and +lost. There was no such Being in the world. + +What to do, or where to live, Florence - poor, inexperienced girl! +- could not yet consider. She had indistinct dreams of finding, a long +way off, some little sisters to instruct, who would be gentle with +her, and to whom, under some feigned name, she might attach herself, +and who would grow up in their happy home, and marry, and be good to +their old governess, and perhaps entrust her, in time, with the +education of their own daughters. And she thought how strange and +sorrowful it would be, thus to become a grey-haired woman, carrying +her secret to the grave, when Florence Dombey was forgotten. But it +was all dim and clouded to her now. She only knew that she had no +Father upon earth, and she said so, many times, with her suppliant +head hidden from all, but her Father who was in Heaven. + +Her little stock of money amounted to but a few guineas. With a +part of this, it would be necessary to buy some clothes, for she had +none but those she wore. She was too desolate to think how soon her +money would be gone - too much a child in worldly matters to be +greatly troubled on that score yet, even if her other trouble had been +less. She tried to calm her thoughts and stay her tears; to quiet the +hurry in her throbbing head, and bring herself to believe that what +had happened were but the events of a few hours ago, instead of weeks +or months, as they appeared; and went down to her kind protector. + +The Captain had spread the cloth with great care, and was making +some egg-sauce in a little saucepan: basting the fowl from time to +time during the process with a strong interest, as it turned and +browned on a string before the fire. Having propped Florence up with +cushions on the sofa, which was already wheeled into a warm corner for +her greater comfort, the Captain pursued his cooking with +extraordinary skill, making hot gravy in a second little saucepan, +boiling a handful of potatoes in a third, never forgetting the +egg-sauce in the first, and making an impartial round of basting and +stirring with the most useful of spoons every minute. Besides these +cares, the Captain had to keep his eye on a diminutive frying-pan, in +which some sausages were hissing and bubbling in a most musical +manner; and there was never such a radiant cook as the Captain looked, +in the height and heat of these functions: it being impossible to say +whether his face or his glazed hat shone the brighter. + +The dinner being at length quite ready, Captain Cuttle dished and +served it up, with no less dexterity than he had cooked it. He then +dressed for dinner, by taking off his glazed hat and putting on his +coat. That done, he wheeled the table close against Florence on the +sofa, said grace, unscrewed his hook, screwed his fork into its place, +and did the honours of the table + +'My lady lass,' said the Captain, 'cheer up, and try to eat a deal. +Stand by, my deary! Liver wing it is. Sarse it is. Sassage it is. And +potato!' all which the Captain ranged symmetrically on a plate, and +pouring hot gravy on the whole with the useful spoon, set before his +cherished guest. + +'The whole row o' dead lights is up, for'ard, lady lass,' observed +the Captain, encouragingly, 'and everythink is made snug. Try and pick +a bit, my pretty. If Wal'r was here - ' + +'Ah! If I had him for my brother now!' cried Florence. + +'Don't! don't take on, my pretty!' said the Captain, 'awast, to +obleege me! He was your nat'ral born friend like, warn't he, Pet?' + +Florence had no words to answer with. She only said, 'Oh, dear, +dear Paul! oh, Walter!' + +'The wery planks she walked on,' murmured the Captain, looking at +her drooping face, 'was as high esteemed by Wal'r, as the water brooks +is by the hart which never rejices! I see him now, the wery day as he +was rated on them Dombey books, a speaking of her with his face a +glistening with doo - leastways with his modest sentiments - like a +new blowed rose, at dinner. Well, well! If our poor Wal'r was here, my +lady lass - or if he could be - for he's drownded, ain't he?' + +Florence shook her head. + +'Yes, yes; drownded,' said the Captain, soothingly; 'as I was +saying, if he could be here he'd beg and pray of you, my precious, to +pick a leetle bit, with a look-out for your own sweet health. Whereby, +hold your own, my lady lass, as if it was for Wal'r's sake, and lay +your pretty head to the wind.' + +Florence essayed to eat a morsel, for the Captain's pleasure. The +Captain, meanwhile, who seemed to have quite forgotten his own dinner, +laid down his knife and fork, and drew his chair to the sofa. + +'Wal'r was a trim lad, warn't he, precious?' said the Captain, +after sitting for some time silently rubbing his chin, with his eyes +fixed upon her, 'and a brave lad, and a good lad?' + +Florence tearfully assented. + +'And he's drownded, Beauty, ain't he?' said the Captain, in a +soothing voice. + +Florence could not but assent again. + +'He was older than you, my lady lass,' pursued the Captain, 'but +you was like two children together, at first; wam't you?' + +Florence answered 'Yes.' + +'And Wal'r's drownded,' said the Captain. 'Ain't he?' + +The repetition of this inquiry was a curious source of consolation, +but it seemed to be one to Captain Cuttle, for he came back to it +again and again. Florence, fain to push from her her untasted dinner, +and to lie back on her sofa, gave him her hand, feeling that she had +disappointed him, though truly wishing to have pleased him after all +his trouble, but he held it in his own (which shook as he held it), +and appearing to have quite forgotten all about the dinner and her +want of appetite, went on growling at intervals, in a ruminating tone +of sympathy, 'Poor Wal'r. Ay, ay! Drownded. Ain't he?' And always +waited for her answer, in which the great point of these singular +reflections appeared to consist. + +The fowl and sausages were cold, and the gravy and the egg-sauce +stagnant, before the Captain remembered that they were on the board, +and fell to with the assistance of Diogenes, whose united efforts +quickly dispatched the banquet. The Captain's delight and wonder at +the quiet housewifery of Florence in assisting to clear the table, +arrange the parlour, and sweep up the hearth - only to be equalled by +the fervency of his protest when she began to assist him - were +gradually raised to that degree, that at last he could not choose but +do nothing himself, and stand looking at her as if she were some +Fairy, daintily performing these offices for him; the red rim on his +forehead glowing again, in his unspeakable admiration. + +But when Florence, taking down his pipe from the mantel-shelf gave +it into his hand, and entreated him to smoke it, the good Captain was +so bewildered by her attention that he held it as if he had never held +a pipe, in all his life. Likewise, when Florence, looking into the +little cupboard, took out the case-bottle and mixed a perfect glass of +grog for him, unasked, and set it at his elbow, his ruddy nose turned +pale, he felt himself so graced and honoured. When he had filled his +pipe in an absolute reverie of satisfaction, Florence lighted it for +him - the Captain having no power to object, or to prevent her - and +resuming her place on the old sofa, looked at him with a smile so +loving and so grateful, a smile that showed him so plainly how her +forlorn heart turned to him, as her face did, through grief, that the +smoke of the pipe got into the Captain's throat and made him cough, +and got into the Captain's eyes, and made them blink and water. + +The manner in which the Captain tried to make believe that the +cause of these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way in +which he looked into the bowl for it, and not finding it there, +pretended to blow it out of the stem, was wonderfully pleasant. The +pipe soon getting into better condition, he fell into that state of +repose becoming a good smoker; but sat with his eyes fixed on +Florence, and, with a beaming placidity not to be described, and +stopping every now and then to discharge a little cloud from his lips, +slowly puffed it forth, as if it were a scroll coming out of his +mouth, bearing the legend 'Poor Wal'r, ay, ay. Drownded, ain't he?' +after which he would resume his smoking with infinite gentleness. + +Unlike as they were externally - and there could scarcely be a more +decided contrast than between Florence in her delicate youth and +beauty, and Captain Cuttle with his knobby face, his great broad +weather-beaten person, and his gruff voice - in simple innocence of +the world's ways and the world's perplexities and dangers, they were +nearly on a level. No child could have surpassed Captain Cuttle in +inexperience of everything but wind and weather; in simplicity, +credulity, and generous trustfulness. Faith, hope, and charity, shared +his whole nature among them. An odd sort of romance, perfectly +unimaginative, yet perfectly unreal, and subject to no considerations +of worldly prudence or practicability, was the only partner they had +in his character. As the Captain sat, and smoked, and looked at +Florence, God knows what impossible pictures, in which she was the +principal figure, presented themselves to his mind. Equally vague and +uncertain, though not so sanguine, were her own thoughts of the life +before her; and even as her tears made prismatic colours in the light +she gazed at, so, through her new and heavy grief, she already saw a +rainbow faintly shining in the far-off sky. A wandering princess and a +good monster in a storybook might have sat by the fireside, and talked +as Captain Cuttle and poor Florence talked - and not have looked very +much unlike them. + +The Captain was not troubled with the faintest idea of any +difficulty in retaining Florence, or of any responsibility thereby +incurred. Having put up the shutters and locked the door, he was quite +satisfied on this head. If she had been a Ward in Chancery, it would +have made no difference at all to Captain Cuttle. He was the last man +in the world to be troubled by any such considerations. + +So the Captain smoked his pipe very comfortably, and Florence and +he meditated after their own manner. When the pipe was out, they had +some tea; and then Florence entreated him to take her to some +neighbouring shop, where she could buy the few necessaries she +immediately wanted. It being quite dark, the Captain consented: +peeping carefully out first, as he had been wont to do in his time of +hiding from Mrs MacStinger; and arming himself with his large stick, +in case of an appeal to arms being rendered necessary by any +unforeseen circumstance. + +The pride Captain Cuttle had, in giving his arm to Florence, and +escorting her some two or three hundred yards, keeping a bright +look-out all the time, and attracting the attention of everyone who +passed them, by his great vigilance and numerous precautions, was +extreme. Arrived at the shop, the Captain felt it a point of delicacy +to retire during the making of the purchases, as they were to consist +of wearing apparel; but he previously deposited his tin canister on +the counter, and informing the young lady of the establishment that it +contained fourteen pound two, requested her, in case that amount of +property should not be sufficient to defray the expenses of his +niece's little outfit - at the word 'niece,' he bestowed a most +significant look on Florence, accompanied with pantomime, expressive +of sagacity and mystery - to have the goodness to 'sing out,' and he +would make up the difference from his pocket. Casually consulting his +big watch, as a deep means of dazzling the establishment, and +impressing it with a sense of property, the Captain then kissed his +hook to his niece, and retired outside the window, where it was a +choice sight to see his great face looking in from time to time, among +the silks and ribbons, with an obvious misgiving that Florence had +been spirited away by a back door. + +'Dear Captain Cuttle,' said Florence, when she came out with a +parcel, the size of which greatly disappointed the Captain, who had +expected to see a porter following with a bale of goods, 'I don't want +this money, indeed. I have not spent any of it. I have money of my +own.' + +'My lady lass,' returned the baffled Captain, looking straight down +the street before them, 'take care on it for me, will you be so good, +till such time as I ask ye for it?' + +'May I put it back in its usual place,' said Florence, 'and keep it +there?' + +The Captain was not at all gratified by this proposal, but he +answered, 'Ay, ay, put it anywheres, my lady lass, so long as you know +where to find it again. It ain't o' no use to me,' said the Captain. +'I wonder I haven't chucked it away afore now. + +The Captain was quite disheartened for the moment, but he revived +at the first touch of Florence's arm, and they returned with the same +precautions as they had come; the Captain opening the door of the +little Midshipman's berth, and diving in, with a suddenness which his +great practice only could have taught him. During Florence's slumber +in the morning, he had engaged the daughter of an elderly lady who +usually sat under a blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, selling +poultry, to come and put her room in order, and render her any little +services she required; and this damsel now appearing, Florence found +everything about her as convenient and orderly, if not as handsome, as +in the terrible dream she had once called Home. + +When they were alone again, the Captain insisted on her eating a +slice of dry toast' and drinking a glass of spiced negus (which he +made to perfection); and, encouraging her with every kind word and +inconsequential quotation be could possibly think of, led her upstairs +to her bedroom. But he too had something on his mind, and was not easy +in his manner. + +'Good-night, dear heart,' said Captain Cuttle to her at her +chamber-door. + +Florence raised her lips to his face, and kissed him. + +At any other time the Captain would have been overbalanced by such +a token of her affection and gratitude; but now, although he was very +sensible of it, he looked in her face with even more uneasiness than +he had testified before, and seemed unwilling to leave her. + +'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain. + +'Poor, poor Walter!' sighed Florence. + +'Drownded, ain't he?' said the Captain. + +Florence shook her head, and sighed. + +'Good-night, my lady lass!' said Captain Cuttle, putting out his +hand. + +'God bless you, dear, kind friend!' + +But the Captain lingered still. + +'Is anything the matter, dear Captain Cuttle?' said Florence, +easily alarmed in her then state of mind. 'Have you anything to tell +me?' + +'To tell you, lady lass!' replied the Captain, meeting her eyes in +confusion. 'No, no; what should I have to tell you, pretty! You don't +expect as I've got anything good to tell you, sure?' + +'No!' said Florence, shaking her head. + +The Captain looked at her wistfully, and repeated 'No,' - ' still +lingering, and still showing embarrassment. + +'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain. 'My Wal'r, as I used to call you! +Old Sol Gills's nevy! Welcome to all as knowed you, as the flowers in +May! Where are you got to, brave boy? Drownded, ain't he?' + +Concluding his apostrophe with this abrupt appeal to Florence, the +Captain bade her good-night, and descended the stairs, while Florence +remained at the top, holding the candle out to light him down. He was +lost in the obscurity, and, judging from the sound of his receding +footsteps, was in the act of turning into the little parlour, when his +head and shoulders unexpectedly emerged again, as from the deep, +apparently for no other purpose than to repeat, 'Drownded, ain't he, +pretty?' For when he had said that in a tone of tender condolence, he +disappeared. + +Florence was very sorry that she should unwittingly, though +naturally, have awakened these associations in the mind of her +protector, by taking refuge there; and sitting down before the little +table where the Captain had arranged the telescope and song-book, and +those other rarities, thought of Walter, and of all that was connected +with him in the past, until she could have almost wished to lie down +on her bed and fade away. But in her lonely yearning to the dead whom +she had loved, no thought of home - no possibility of going back - no +presentation of it as yet existing, or as sheltering her father - once +entered her thoughts. She had seen the murder done. In the last +lingering natural aspect in which she had cherished him through so +much, he had been torn out of her heart, defaced, and slain. The +thought of it was so appalling to her, that she covered her eyes, and +shrunk trembling from the least remembrance of the deed, or of the +cruel hand that did it. If her fond heart could have held his image +after that, it must have broken; but it could not; and the void was +filled with a wild dread that fled from all confronting with its +shattered fragments - with such a dread as could have risen out of +nothing but the depths of such a love, so wronged. + +She dared not look into the glass; for the sight of the darkening +mark upon her bosom made her afraid of herself, as if she bore about +her something wicked. She covered it up, with a hasty, faltering hand, +and in the dark; and laid her weary head down, weeping. + +The Captain did not go to bed for a long time. He walked to and fro +in the shop and in the little parlour, for a full hour, and, appearing +to have composed himself by that exercise, sat down with a grave and +thoughtful face, and read out of a Prayer-book the forms of prayer +appointed to be used at sea. These were not easily disposed of; the +good Captain being a mighty slow, gruff reader, and frequently +stopping at a hard word to give himself such encouragement as Now, my +lad! With a will!' or, 'Steady, Ed'ard Cuttle, steady!' which had a +great effect in helping him out of any difficulty. Moreover, his +spectacles greatly interfered with his powers of vision. But +notwithstanding these drawbacks, the Captain, being heartily in +earnest, read the service to the very last line, and with genuine +feeling too; and approving of it very much when he had done, turned +in, under the counter (but not before he had been upstairs, and +listened at Florence's door), with a serene breast, and a most +benevolent visage. + +The Captain turned out several times in the course of the night, to +assure himself that his charge was resting quietly; and once, at +daybreak, found that she was awake: for she called to know if it were +he, on hearing footsteps near her door. + +'Yes' my lady lass,' replied the Captain, in a growling whisper. +'Are you all right, di'mond?' + +Florence thanked him, and said 'Yes.' + +The Captain could not lose so favourable an opportunity of applying +his mouth to the keyhole, and calling through it, like a hoarse +breeze, 'Poor Wal'r! Drownded, ain't he?' after which he withdrew, and +turning in again, slept till seven o'clock. + +Nor was he free from his uneasy and embarrassed manner all that +day; though Florence, being busy with her needle in the little +parlour, was more calm and tranquil than she had been on the day +preceding. Almost always when she raised her eyes from her work, she +observed the captain looking at her, and thoughtfully stroking his +chin; and he so often hitched his arm-chair close to her, as if he +were going to say something very confidential, and hitched it away +again, as not being able to make up his mind how to begin, that in the +course of the day he cruised completely round the parlour in that +frail bark, and more than once went ashore against the wainscot or the +closet door, in a very distressed condition. + +It was not until the twilight that Captain Cuttle, fairly dropping +anchor, at last, by the side of Florence, began to talk at all +connectedly. But when the light of the fire was shining on the walls +and ceiling of the little room, and on the tea-board and the cups and +saucers that were ranged upon the table, and on her calm face turned +towards the flame, and reflecting it in the tears that filled her +eyes, the Captain broke a long silence thus: + +'You never was at sea, my own?' + +'No,' replied Florence. + +'Ay,' said the Captain, reverentially; 'it's a almighty element. +There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is +roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights +is so pitch dark,' said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, 'as +you can't see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning +reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm +and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world without end, +evermore, amen, and when found making a note of. Them's the times, my +beauty, when a man may say to his messmate (previously a overhauling +of the wollume), "A stiff nor'wester's blowing, Bill; hark, don't you +hear it roar now! Lord help 'em, how I pitys all unhappy folks ashore +now!"' Which quotation, as particularly applicable to the terrors of +the ocean, the Captain delivered in a most impressive manner, +concluding with a sonorous 'Stand by!' + +'Were you ever in a dreadful storm?' asked Florence. + +'Why ay, my lady lass, I've seen my share of bad weather,' said the +Captain, tremulously wiping his head, 'and I've had my share of +knocking about; but - but it ain't of myself as I was a meaning to +speak. Our dear boy,' drawing closer to her, 'Wal'r, darling, as was +drownded.' + +The Captain spoke in such a trembling voice, and looked at Florence +with a face so pale and agitated, that she clung to his hand in +affright. + +'Your face is changed,' cried Florence. 'You are altered in a +moment. What is it? Dear Captain Cuttle, it turns me cold to see you!' + +'What! Lady lass,' returned the Captain, supporting her with his +hand, 'don't be took aback. No, no! All's well, all's well, my dear. +As I was a saying - Wal'r - he's - he's drownded. Ain't he?' + +Florence looked at him intently; her colour came and went; and she +laid her hand upon her breast. + +'There's perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty,' said the +Captain; 'and over many a brave ship, and many and many a bould heart, +the secret waters has closed up, and never told no tales. But there's +escapes upon the deep, too, and sometimes one man out of a score, - +ah! maybe out of a hundred, pretty, - has been saved by the mercy of +God, and come home after being given over for dead, and told of all +hands lost. I - I know a story, Heart's Delight,' stammered the +Captain, 'o' this natur, as was told to me once; and being on this +here tack, and you and me sitting alone by the fire, maybe you'd like +to hear me tell it. Would you, deary?' + +Florence, trembling with an agitation which she could not control +or understand, involuntarily followed his glance, which went behind +her into the shop, where a lamp was burning. The instant that she +turned her head, the Captain sprung out of his chair, and interposed +his hand. + +'There's nothing there, my beauty,' said the Captain. 'Don't look +there.' + +'Why not?' asked Florence. + +The Captain murmured something about its being dull that way, and +about the fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been +standing open until now, and resumed his seat. Florence followed him +with her eyes, and looked intently in his face. + +'The story was about a ship, my lady lass,' began the Captain, 'as +sailed out of the Port of London, with a fair wind and in fair +weather, bound for - don't be took aback, my lady lass, she was only +out'ard bound, pretty, only out'ard bound!' + +The expression on Florence's face alarmed the Captain, who was +himself very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than +she did. + +'Shall I go on, Beauty?' said the Captain. + +'Yes, yes, pray!' cried Florence. + +The Captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was +sticking in his throat, and nervously proceeded: + +'That there unfort'nate ship met with such foul weather, out at +sea, as don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was +hurricanes ashore as tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there +was gales at sea in them latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever +launched could live in. Day arter day that there unfort'nate ship +behaved noble, I'm told, and did her duty brave, my pretty, but at one +blow a'most her bulwarks was stove in, her masts and rudder carved +away, her best man swept overboard, and she left to the mercy of the +storm as had no mercy but blowed harder and harder yet, while the +waves dashed over her, and beat her in, and every time they come a +thundering at her, broke her like a shell. Every black spot in every +mountain of water that rolled away was a bit o' the ship's life or a +living man, and so she went to pieces, Beauty, and no grass will never +grow upon the graves of them as manned that ship.' + +'They were not all lost!' cried Florence. 'Some were saved! - Was +one?' + +'Aboard o' that there unfort'nate wessel,' said the Captain, rising +from his chair, and clenching his hand with prodigious energy and +exultation, 'was a lad, a gallant lad - as I've heerd tell - that had +loved, when he was a boy, to read and talk about brave actions in +shipwrecks - I've heerd him! I've heerd him! - and he remembered of +'em in his hour of need; for when the stoutest and oldest hands was +hove down, he was firm and cheery. It warn't the want of objects to +like and love ashore that gave him courage, it was his nat'ral mind. +I've seen it in his face, when he was no more than a child - ay, many +a time! - and when I thought it nothing but his good looks, bless +him!' + +'And was he saved!' cried Florence. 'Was he saved!' + +'That brave lad,' said the Captain, - 'look at me, pretty! Don't +look round - ' + +Florence had hardly power to repeat, 'Why not?' + +'Because there's nothing there, my deary,' said the Captain. 'Don't +be took aback, pretty creetur! Don't, for the sake of Wal'r, as was +dear to all on us! That there lad,' said the Captain, 'arter working +with the best, and standing by the faint-hearted, and never making no +complaint nor sign of fear, and keeping up a spirit in all hands that +made 'em honour him as if he'd been a admiral - that lad, along with +the second-mate and one seaman, was left, of all the beatin' hearts +that went aboard that ship, the only living creeturs - lashed to a +fragment of the wreck, and driftin' on the stormy sea. + +Were they saved?' cried Florence. + +'Days and nights they drifted on them endless waters,' said the +Captain, 'until at last - No! Don't look that way, pretty! - a sail +bore down upon 'em, and they was, by the Lord's mercy, took aboard: +two living and one dead.' + +'Which of them was dead?' cried Florence. + +'Not the lad I speak on,' said the Captain. + +'Thank God! oh thank God!' + +'Amen!' returned the Captain hurriedly. 'Don't be took aback! A +minute more, my lady lass! with a good heart! - aboard that ship, they +went a long voyage, right away across the chart (for there warn't no +touching nowhere), and on that voyage the seaman as was picked up with +him died. But he was spared, and - ' + +The Captain, without knowing what he did, had cut a slice of bread +from the loaf, and put it on his hook (which was his usual +toasting-fork), on which he now held it to the fire; looking behind +Florence with great emotion in his face, and suffering the bread to +blaze and burn like fuel. + +'Was spared,' repeated Florence, 'and-?' + +'And come home in that ship,' said the Captain, still looking in +the same direction, 'and - don't be frightened, pretty - and landed; +and one morning come cautiously to his own door to take a obserwation, +knowing that his friends would think him drownded, when he sheered off +at the unexpected - ' + +'At the unexpected barking of a dog?' cried Florence, quickly. + +'Yes,' roared the Captain. 'Steady, darling! courage! Don't look +round yet. See there! upon the wall!' + +There was the shadow of a man upon the wall close to her. She +started up, looked round, and with a piercing cry, saw Walter Gay +behind her! + +She had no thought of him but as a brother, a brother rescued from +the grave; a shipwrecked brother saved and at her side; and rushed +into his arms. In all the world, he seemed to be her hope, her +comfort, refuge, natural protector. 'Take care of Walter, I was fond +of Walter!' The dear remembrance of the plaintive voice that said so, +rushed upon her soul, like music in the night. 'Oh welcome home, dear +Walter! Welcome to this stricken breast!' She felt the words, although +she could not utter them, and held him in her pure embrace. + +Captain Cuttle, in a fit of delirium, attempted to wipe his head +with the blackened toast upon his hook: and finding it an uncongenial +substance for the purpose, put it into the crown of his glazed hat, +put the glazed hat on with some difficulty, essayed to sing a verse of +Lovely Peg, broke down at the first word, and retired into the shop, +whence he presently came back express, with a face all flushed and +besmeared, and the starch completely taken out of his shirt-collar, to +say these words: + +'Wal'r, my lad, here is a little bit of property as I should wish +to make over, jintly!' + +The Captain hastily produced the big watch, the teaspoons, the +sugar-tongs, and the canister, and laying them on the table, swept +them with his great hand into Walter's hat; but in handing that +singular strong box to Walter, he was so overcome again, that he was +fain to make another retreat into the shop, and absent himself for a +longer space of time than on his first retirement. + +But Walter sought him out, and brought him back; and then the +Captain's great apprehension was, that Florence would suffer from this +new shock. He felt it so earnestly, that he turned quite rational, and +positively interdicted any further allusion to Walter's adventures for +some days to come. Captain Cuttle then became sufficiently composed to +relieve himself of the toast in his hat, and to take his place at the +tea-board; but finding Walter's grasp upon his shoulder, on one side, +and Florence whispering her tearful congratulations on the other, the +Captain suddenly bolted again, and was missing for a good ten minutes. + +But never in all his life had the Captain's face so shone and +glistened, as when, at last, he sat stationary at the tea-board, +looking from Florence to Walter, and from Walter to Florence. Nor was +this effect produced or at all heightened by the immense quantity of +polishing he had administered to his face with his coat-sleeve during +the last half-hour. It was solely the effect of his internal emotions. +There was a glory and delight within the Captain that spread itself +over his whole visage, and made a perfect illumination there. + +The pride with which the Captain looked upon the bronzed cheek and +the courageous eyes of his recovered boy; with which he saw the +generous fervour of his youth, and all its frank and hopeful +qualities, shining once more, in the fresh, wholesome manner, and the +ardent face, would have kindled something of this light in his +countenance. The admiration and sympathy with which he turned his eyes +on Florence, whose beauty, grace, and innocence could have won no +truer or more zealous champion than himself, would have had an equal +influence upon him. But the fulness of the glow he shed around him +could only have been engendered in his contemplation of the two +together, and in all the fancies springing out of that association, +that came sparkling and beaming into his head, and danced about it. + +How they talked of poor old Uncle Sol, and dwelt on every little +circumstance relating to his disappearance; how their joy was +moderated by the old man's absence and by the misfortunes of Florence; +how they released Diogenes, whom the Captain had decoyed upstairs some +time before, lest he should bark again; the Captain, though he was in +one continual flutter, and made many more short plunges into the shop, +fully comprehended. But he no more dreamed that Walter looked on +Florence, as it were, from a new and far-off place; that while his +eyes often sought the lovely face, they seldom met its open glance of +sisterly affection, but withdrew themselves when hers were raised +towards him; than he believed that it was Walter's ghost who sat +beside him. He saw them together in their youth and beauty, and he +knew the story of their younger days, and he had no inch of room +beneath his great blue waistcoat for anything save admiration of such +a pair, and gratitude for their being reunited. + +They sat thus, until it grew late. The Captain would have been +content to sit so for a week. But Walter rose, to take leave for the +night. + +'Going, Walter!' said Florence. 'Where?' + +'He slings his hammock for the present, lady lass,' said Captain +Cuttle, 'round at Brogley's. Within hail, Heart's Delight.' + +'I am the cause of your going away, Walter,' said Florence. 'There +is a houseless sister in your place.' + +'Dear Miss Dombey,' replied Walter, hesitating - 'if it is not too +bold to call you so! + +Walter!' she exclaimed, surprised. + +'If anything could make me happier in being allowed to see and +speak to you, would it not be the discovery that I had any means on +earth of doing you a moment's service! Where would I not go, what +would I not do, for your sake?' + +She smiled, and called him brother. + +'You are so changed,' said Walter - + +'I changed!' she interrupted. + +'To me,' said Walter, softly, as if he were thinking aloud, +'changed to me. I left you such a child, and find you - oh! something +so different - ' + +'But your sister, Walter. You have not forgotten what we promised +to each other, when we parted?' + +'Forgotten!' But he said no more. + +'And if you had - if suffering and danger had driven it from your +thoughts - which it has not - you would remember it now, Walter, when +you find me poor and abandoned, with no home but this, and no friends +but the two who hear me speak!' + +'I would! Heaven knows I would!' said Walter. + +'Oh, Walter,' exclaimed Florence, through her sobs and tears. 'Dear +brother! Show me some way through the world - some humble path that I +may take alone, and labour in, and sometimes think of you as one who +will protect and care for me as for a sister! Oh, help me, Walter, for +I need help so much!' + +'Miss Dombey! Florence! I would die to help you. But your friends +are proud and rich. Your father - ' + +'No, no! Walter!' She shrieked, and put her hands up to her head, +in an attitude of terror that transfixed him where he stood. 'Don't +say that word!' + +He never, from that hour, forgot the voice and look with which she +stopped him at the name. He felt that if he were to live a hundred +years, he never could forget it. + +Somewhere - anywhere - but never home! All past, all gone, all +lost, and broken up! The whole history of her untold slight and +suffering was in the cry and look; and he felt he never could forget +it, and he never did. + +She laid her gentle face upon the Captain's shoulder, and related +how and why she had fled. If every sorrowing tear she shed in doing +so, had been a curse upon the head of him she never named or blamed, +it would have been better for him, Walter thought, with awe, than to +be renounced out of such a strength and might of love. + +'There, precious!' said the Captain, when she ceased; and deep +attention the Captain had paid to her while she spoke; listening, with +his glazed hat all awry and his mouth wide open. 'Awast, awast, my +eyes! Wal'r, dear lad, sheer off for to-night, and leave the pretty +one to me!' + +Walter took her hand in both of his, and put it to his lips, and +kissed it. He knew now that she was, indeed, a homeless wandering +fugitive; but, richer to him so, than in all the wealth and pride of +her right station, she seemed farther off than even on the height that +had made him giddy in his boyish dreams. + +Captain Cuttle, perplexed by no such meditations, guarded Florence +to her room, and watched at intervals upon the charmed ground outside +her door - for such it truly was to him - until he felt sufficiently +easy in his mind about her, to turn in under the counter. On +abandoning his watch for that purpose, he could not help calling once, +rapturously, through the keyhole, 'Drownded. Ain't he, pretty?' - or, +when he got downstairs, making another trial at that verse of Lovely +Peg. But it stuck in his throat somehow, and he could make nothing of +it; so he went to bed, and dreamed that old Sol Gills was married to +Mrs MacStinger, and kept prisoner by that lady in a secret chamber on +a short allowance of victuals. + + + +CHAPTER 50. + +Mr Toots's Complaint + + + +There was an empty room above-stairs at the wooden Midshipman's, +which, in days of yore, had been Walter's bedroom. Walter, rousing up +the Captain betimes in the morning, proposed that they should carry +thither such furniture out of the little parlour as would grace it +best, so that Florence might take possession of it when she rose. As +nothing could be more agreeable to Captain Cuttle than making himself +very red and short of breath in such a cause, he turned to (as he +himself said) with a will; and, in a couple of hours, this garret was +transformed into a species of land-cabin, adorned with all the +choicest moveables out of the parlour, inclusive even of the Tartar +frigate, which the Captain hung up over the chimney-piece with such +extreme delight, that he could do nothing for half-an-hour afterwards +but walk backward from it, lost in admiration. + +The Captain could be indueed by no persuasion of Walter's to wind +up the big watch, or to take back the canister, or to touch the +sugar-tongs and teaspoons. 'No, no, my lad;' was the Captain's +invariable reply to any solicitation of the kind, 'I've made that +there little property over, jintly.' These words he repeated with +great unction and gravity, evidently believing that they had the +virtue of an Act of Parliament, and that unless he committed himself +by some new admission of ownership, no flaw could be found in such a +form of conveyance. + +It was an advantage of the new arrangement, that besides the +greater seclusion it afforded Florence, it admitted of the Midshipman +being restored to his usual post of observation, and also of the shop +shutters being taken down. The latter ceremony, however little +importance the unconscious Captain attached to it, was not wholly +superfluous; for, on the previous day, so much excitement had been +occasioned in the neighbourhood, by the shutters remaining unopened, +that the Instrument-maker's house had been honoured with an unusual +share of public observation, and had been intently stared at from the +opposite side of the way, by groups of hungry gazers, at any time +between sunrise and sunset. The idlers and vagabonds had been +particularly interested in the Captain's fate; constantly grovelling +in the mud to apply their eyes to the cellar-grating, under the +shop-window, and delighting their imaginations with the fancy that +they could see a piece of his coat as he hung in a corner; though this +settlement of him was stoutly disputed by an opposite faction, who +were of opinion that he lay murdered with a hammer, on the stairs. It +was not without exciting some discontent, therefore, that the subject +of these rumours was seen early in the morning standing at his +shop-door as hale and hearty as if nothing had happened; and the +beadle of that quarter, a man of an ambitious character, who had +expected to have the distinction of being present at the breaking open +of the door, and of giving evidence in full uniform before the +coroner, went so far as to say to an opposite neighbour, that the chap +in the glazed hat had better not try it on there - without more +particularly mentioning what - and further, that he, the beadle, would +keep his eye upon him. + +'Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, musing, when they stood resting from +their labours at the shop-door, looking down the old familiar street; +it being still early in the morning; 'nothing at all of Uncle Sol, in +all that time!' + +'Nothing at all, my lad,' replied the Captain, shaking his head. + +'Gone in search of me, dear, kind old man,' said Walter: 'yet never +write to you! But why not? He says, in effect, in this packet that you +gave me,' taking the paper from his pocket, which had been opened in +the presence of the enlightened Bunsby, 'that if you never hear from +him before opening it, you may believe him dead. Heaven forbid! But +you would have heard of him, even if he were dead! Someone would have +written, surely, by his desire, if he could not; and have said, "on +such a day, there died in my house," or "under my care," or so forth, +"Mr Solomon Gills of London, who left this last remembrance and this +last request to you".' + +The Captain, who had never climbed to such a clear height of +probability before, was greatly impressed by the wide prospect it +opened, and answered, with a thoughtful shake of his head, 'Well said, +my lad; wery well said.' + +'I have been thinking of this, or, at least,' said Walter, +colouring, 'I have been thinking of one thing and another, all through +a sleepless night, and I cannot believe, Captain Cuttle, but that my +Uncle Sol (Lord bless him!) is alive, and will return. I don't so much +wonder at his going away, because, leaving out of consideration that +spice of the marvellous which was always in his character, and his +great affection for me, before which every other consideration of his +life became nothing, as no one ought to know so well as I who had the +best of fathers in him,' - Walter's voice was indistinct and husky +here, and he looked away, along the street, - 'leaving that out of +consideration, I say, I have often read and heard of people who, +having some near and dear relative, who was supposed to be shipwrecked +at sea, have gone down to live on that part of the sea-shore where any +tidings of the missing ship might be expected to arrive, though only +an hour or two sooner than elsewhere, or have even gone upon her track +to the place whither she was bound, as if their going would create +intelligence. I think I should do such a thing myself, as soon as +another, or sooner than many, perhaps. But why my Uncle shouldn't +write to you, when he so clearly intended to do so, or how he should +die abroad, and you not know it through some other hand, I cannot make +out.' + +Captain Cuttle observed, with a shake of his head, that Jack Bunsby +himself hadn't made it out, and that he was a man as could give a +pretty taut opinion too. + +'If my Uncle had been a heedless young man, likely to be entrapped +by jovial company to some drinking-place, where he was to be got rid +of for the sake of what money he might have about him,' said Walter; +'or if he had been a reckless sailor, going ashore with two or three +months' pay in his pocket, I could understand his disappearing, and +leaving no trace behind. But, being what he was - and is, I hope - I +can't believe it.' + +'Wal'r, my lad,' inquired the Captain, wistfully eyeing him as he +pondered and pondered, 'what do you make of it, then?' + +'Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter, 'I don't know what to make of +it. I suppose he never has written! There is no doubt about that?' + +'If so be as Sol Gills wrote, my lad,' replied the Captain, +argumentatively, 'where's his dispatch?' + +'Say that he entrusted it to some private hand,' suggested Walter, +'and that it has been forgotten, or carelessly thrown aside, or lost. +Even that is more probable to me, than the other event. In short, I +not only cannot bear to contemplate that other event, Captain Cuttle, +but I can't, and won't.' + +'Hope, you see, Wal'r,' said the Captain, sagely, 'Hope. It's that +as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little +Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, +it only floats; it can't be steered nowhere. Along with the +figure-head of Hope,' said the Captain, 'there's a anchor; but what's +the good of my having a anchor, if I can't find no bottom to let it go +in?' + +Captain Cuttle said this rather in his character of a sagacious +citizen and householder, bound to impart a morsel from his stores of +wisdom to an inexperienced youth, than in his own proper person. +Indeed, his face was quite luminous as he spoke, with new hope, caught +from Walter; and he appropriately concluded by slapping him on the +back; and saying, with enthusiasm, 'Hooroar, my lad! Indiwidually, I'm +o' your opinion.' Walter, with his cheerful laugh, returned the +salutation, and said: + +'Only one word more about my Uncle at present' Captain Cuttle. I +suppose it is impossible that he can have written in the ordinary +course - by mail packet, or ship letter, you understand - ' + +'Ay, ay, my lad,' said the Captain approvingly. + +And that you have missed the letter, anyhow?' + +'Why, Wal'r,' said the Captain, turning his eyes upon him with a +faint approach to a severe expression, 'ain't I been on the look-out +for any tidings of that man o' science, old Sol Gills, your Uncle, day +and night, ever since I lost him? Ain't my heart been heavy and +watchful always, along of him and you? Sleeping and waking, ain't I +been upon my post, and wouldn't I scorn to quit it while this here +Midshipman held together!' + +'Yes, Captain Cuttle,' replied Walter, grasping his hand, 'I know +you would, and I know how faithful and earnest all you say and feel +is. I am sure of it. You don't doubt that I am as sure of it as I am +that my foot is again upon this door-step, or that I again have hold +of this true hand. Do you?' + +'No, no, Wal'r,' returned the Captain, with his beaming + +'I'll hazard no more conjectures,' said Walter, fervently shaking +the hard hand of the Captain, who shook his with no less goodwill. +'All I will add is, Heaven forbid that I should touch my Uncle's +possessions, Captain Cuttle! Everything that he left here, shall +remain in the care of the truest of stewards and kindest of men - and +if his name is not Cuttle, he has no name! Now, best of friends, about +- Miss Dombey.' + +There was a change in Walter's manner, as he came to these two +words; and when he uttered them, all his confidence and cheerfulness +appeared to have deserted him. + +'I thought, before Miss Dombey stopped me when I spoke of her +father last night,' said Walter, ' - you remember how?' + +The Captain well remembered, and shook his head. + +'I thought,' said Walter, 'before that, that we had but one hard +duty to perform, and that it was, to prevail upon her to communicate +with her friends, and to return home.' + +The Captain muttered a feeble 'Awast!' or a 'Stand by!' or +something or other, equally pertinent to the occasion; but it was +rendered so extremely feeble by the total discomfiture with which he +received this announcement, that what it was, is mere matter of +conjecture. + +'But,' said Walter, 'that is over. I think so, no longer. I would +sooner be put back again upon that piece of wreck, on which I have so +often floated, since my preservation, in my dreams, and there left to +drift, and drive, and die!' + +'Hooroar, my lad!' exclaimed the Captain, in a burst of +uncontrollable satisfaction. 'Hooroar! hooroar! hooroar!' + +'To think that she, so young, so good, and beautiful,' said Walter, +'so delicately brought up, and born to such a different fortune, +should strive with the rough world! But we have seen the gulf that +cuts off all behind her, though no one but herself can know how deep +it is; and there is no return. + +Captain Cuttle, without quite understanding this, greatly approved +of it, and observed in a tone of strong corroboration, that the wind +was quite abaft. + +'She ought not to be alone here; ought she, Captain Cuttle?' said +Walter, anxiously. + +'Well, my lad,' replied the Captain, after a little sagacious +consideration. 'I don't know. You being here to keep her company, you +see, and you two being jintly - ' + +'Dear Captain Cuttle!' remonstrated Walter. 'I being here! Miss +Dombey, in her guileless innocent heart, regards me as her adopted +brother; but what would the guile and guilt of my heart be, if I +pretended to believe that I had any right to approach her, familiarly, +in that character - if I pretended to forget that I am bound, in +honour, not to do it?' + +'Wal'r, my lad,' hinted the Captain, with some revival of his +discomfiture, 'ain't there no other character as - ' + +'Oh!' returned Walter, 'would you have me die in her esteem - in +such esteem as hers - and put a veil between myself and her angel's +face for ever, by taking advantage of her being here for refuge, so +trusting and so unprotected, to endeavour to exalt myself into her +lover? What do I say? There is no one in the world who would be more +opposed to me if I could do so, than you.' + +'Wal'r, my lad,' said the Captain, drooping more and more, +'prowiding as there is any just cause or impediment why two persons +should not be jined together in the house of bondage, for which you'll +overhaul the place and make a note, I hope I should declare it as +promised and wowed in the banns. So there ain't no other character; +ain't there, my lad?' + +Walter briskly waved his hand in the negative. + +'Well, my lad,' growled the Captain slowly, 'I won't deny but what +I find myself wery much down by the head, along o' this here, or but +what I've gone clean about. But as to Lady lass, Wal'r, mind you, +wot's respect and duty to her, is respect and duty in my articles, +howsumever disapinting; and therefore I follows in your wake, my lad, +and feel as you are, no doubt, acting up to yourself. And there ain't +no other character, ain't there?' said the Captain, musing over the +ruins of his fallen castle, with a very despondent face. + +'Now, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, starting a fresh point with a +gayer air, to cheer the Captain up - but nothing could do that; he was +too much concerned - 'I think we should exert ourselves to find +someone who would be a proper attendant for Miss Dombey while she +remains here, and who may be trusted. None of her relations may. It's +clear Miss Dombey feels that they are all subservient to her father. +What has become of Susan?' + +'The young woman?' returned the Captain. 'It's my belief as she was +sent away again the will of Heart's Delight. I made a signal for her +when Lady lass first come, and she rated of her wery high, and said +she had been gone a long time.' + +'Then,' said Walter, 'do you ask Miss Dombey where she's gone, and +we'll try to find her. The morning's getting on, and Miss Dombey will +soon be rising. You are her best friend. Wait for her upstairs, and +leave me to take care of all down here.' + +The Captain, very crest-fallen indeed, echoed the sigh with which +Walter said this, and complied. Florence was delighted with her new +room, anxious to see Walter, and overjoyed at the prospect of greeting +her old friend Susan. But Florence could not say where Susan was gone, +except that it was in Essex, and no one could say, she remembered, +unless it were Mr Toots. + +With this information the melancholy Captain returned to Walter, +and gave him to understand that Mr Toots was the young gentleman whom +he had encountered on the door-step, and that he was a friend of his, +and that he was a young gentleman of property, and that he hopelessly +adored Miss Dombey. The Captain also related how the intelligence of +Walter's supposed fate had first made him acquainted with Mr Toots, +and how there was solemn treaty and compact between them, that Mr +Toots should be mute upon the subject of his love. + +The question then was, whether Florence could trust Mr Toots; and +Florence saying, with a smile, 'Oh, yes, with her whole heart!' it +became important to find out where Mr Toots lived. This, Florence +didn't know, and the Captain had forgotten; and the Captain was +telling Walter, in the little parlour, that Mr Toots was sure to be +there soon, when in came Mr Toots himself. + +'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, rushing into the parlour without +any ceremony, 'I'm in a state of mind bordering on distraction!' + +Mr Toots had discharged those words, as from a mortar, before he +observed Walter, whom he recognised with what may be described as a +chuckle of misery. + +'You'll excuse me, Sir,' said Mr Toots, holding his forehead, 'but +I'm at present in that state that my brain is going, if not gone, and +anything approaching to politeness in an individual so situated would +be a hollow mockery. Captain Gills, I beg to request the favour of a +private interview.' + +'Why, Brother,' returned the Captain, taking him by the hand, 'you +are the man as we was on the look-out for.' + +'Oh, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'what a look-out that must be, +of which I am the object! I haven't dared to shave, I'm in that rash +state. I haven't had my clothes brushed. My hair is matted together. I +told the Chicken that if he offered to clean my boots, I'd stretch him +a Corpse before me!' + +All these indications of a disordered mind were verified in Mr +Toots's appearance, which was wild and savage. + +'See here, Brother,' said the Captain. 'This here's old Sol Gills's +nevy Wal'r. Him as was supposed to have perished at sea' + +Mr Toots took his hand from his forehead, and stared at Walter. + +'Good gracious me!' stammered Mr Toots. 'What a complication of +misery! How-de-do? I - I - I'm afraid you must have got very wet. +Captain Gills, will you allow me a word in the shop?' + +He took the Captain by the coat, and going out with him whispered: + +'That then, Captain Gills, is the party you spoke of, when you said +that he and Miss Dombey were made for one another?' + +'Why, ay, my lad,' replied the disconsolate Captain; 'I was of that +mind once.' + +'And at this time!' exclaimed Mr Toots, with his hand to his +forehead again. 'Of all others! - a hated rival! At least, he ain't a +hated rival,' said Mr Toots, stopping short, on second thoughts, and +taking away his hand; 'what should I hate him for? No. If my affection +has been truly disinterested, Captain Gills, let me prove it now!' + +Mr Toots shot back abruptly into the parlour, and said, wringing +Walter by the hand: + +'How-de-do? I hope you didn't take any cold. I - I shall be very +glad if you'll give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. I wish you +many happy returns of the day. Upon my word and honour,' said Mr +Toots, warming as he became better acquainted with Walter's face and +figure, 'I'm very glad to see you!' + +'Thank you, heartily,' said Walter. 'I couldn't desire a more +genuine and genial welcome.' + +'Couldn't you, though?' said Mr Toots, still shaking his hand. +'It's very kind of you. I'm much obliged to you. How-de-do? I hope you +left everybody quite well over the - that is, upon the - I mean +wherever you came from last, you know.' + +All these good wishes, and better intentions, Walter responded to +manfully. + +'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'I should wish to be strictly +honourable; but I trust I may be allowed now, to allude to a certain +subject that - ' + +'Ay, ay, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Freely, freely.' + +'Then, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'and Lieutenant Walters - are +you aware that the most dreadful circumstances have been happening at +Mr Dombey's house, and that Miss Dombey herself has left her father, +who, in my opinion,' said Mr Toots, with great excitement, 'is a +Brute, that it would be a flattery to call a - a marble monument, or a +bird of prey, - and that she is not to be found, and has gone no one +knows where?' + +'May I ask how you heard this?' inquired Walter. + +'Lieutenant Walters,' said Mr Toots, who had arrived at that +appellation by a process peculiar to himself; probably by jumbling up +his Christian name with the seafaring profession, and supposing some +relationship between him and the Captain, which would extend, as a +matter of course, to their titles; 'Lieutenant Walters, I can have no +objection to make a straightforward reply. The fact is, that feeling +extremely interested in everything that relates to Miss Dombey - not +for any selfish reason, Lieutenant Walters, for I am well aware that +the most able thing I could do for all parties would be to put an end +to my existence, which can only be regarded as an inconvenience - I +have been in the habit of bestowing a trifle now and then upon a +footman; a most respectable young man, of the name of Towlinson, who +has lived in the family some time; and Towlinson informed me, +yesterday evening, that this was the state of things. Since which, +Captain Gills - and Lieutenant Walters - I have been perfectly +frantic, and have been lying down on the sofa all night, the Ruin you +behold.' + +'Mr Toots,' said Walter, 'I am happy to be able to relieve your +mind. Pray calm yourself. Miss Dombey is safe and well.' + +'Sir!' cried Mr Toots, starting from his chair and shaking hands +with him anew, 'the relief is so excessive, and unspeakable, that if +you were to tell me now that Miss Dombey was married even, I could +smile. Yes, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, appealing to him, 'upon my +soul and body, I really think, whatever I might do to myself +immediately afterwards, that I could smile, I am so relieved.' + +'It will be a greater relief and delight still, to such a generous +mind as yours,' said Walter, not at all slow in returning his +greeting, 'to find that you can render service to Miss Dombey. Captain +Cuttle, will you have the kindness to take Mr Toots upstairs?' + +The Captain beckoned to Mr Toots, who followed him with a +bewildered countenance, and, ascending to the top of the house, was +introduced, without a word of preparation from his conductor, into +Florence's new retreat. + +Poor Mr Toots's amazement and pleasure at sight of her were such, +that they could find a vent in nothing but extravagance. He ran up to +her, seized her hand, kissed it, dropped it, seized it again, fell +upon one knee, shed tears, chuckled, and was quite regardless of his +danger of being pinned by Diogenes, who, inspired by the belief that +there was something hostile to his mistress in these demonstrations, +worked round and round him, as if only undecided at what particular +point to go in for the assault, but quite resolved to do him a fearful +mischief. + +'Oh Di, you bad, forgetful dog! Dear Mr Toots, I am so rejoiced to +see you!' + +'Thankee,' said Mr Toots, 'I am pretty well, I'm much obliged to +you, Miss Dombey. I hope all the family are the same.' + +Mr Toots said this without the least notion of what he was talking +about, and sat down on a chair, staring at Florence with the liveliest +contention of delight and despair going on in his face that any face +could exhibit. + +'Captain Gills and Lieutenant Walters have mentioned, Miss Dombey,' +gasped Mr Toots, 'that I can do you some service. If I could by any +means wash out the remembrance of that day at Brighton, when I +conducted myself - much more like a Parricide than a person of +independent property,' said Mr Toots, with severe self-accusation, 'I +should sink into the silent tomb with a gleam of joy.' + +'Pray, Mr Toots,' said Florence, 'do not wish me to forget anything +in our acquaintance. I never can, believe me. You have been far too +kind and good to me always.' + +'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'your consideration for my +feelings is a part of your angelic character. Thank you a thousand +times. It's of no consequence at all.' + +'What we thought of asking you,' said Florence, 'is, whether you +remember where Susan, whom you were so kind as to accompany to the +coach-office when she left me, is to be found.' + +'Why I do not certainly, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, after a +little consideration, 'remember the exact name of the place that was +on the coach; and I do recollect that she said she was not going to +stop there, but was going farther on. But, Miss Dombey, if your object +is to find her, and to have her here, myself and the Chicken will +produce her with every dispatch that devotion on my part, and great +intelligence on the Chicken's, can ensure. + +Mr Toots was so manifestly delighted and revived by the prospect of +being useful, and the disinterested sincerity of his devotion was so +unquestionable, that it would have been cruel to refuse him. Florence, +with an instinctive delicacy, forbore to urge the least obstacle, +though she did not forbear to overpower him with thanks; and Mr Toots +proudly took the commission upon himself for immediate execution. + +'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, touching her proffered hand, with a +pang of hopeless love visibly shooting through him, and flashing out +in his face, 'Good-bye! Allow me to take the liberty of saying, that +your misfortunes make me perfectly wretched, and that you may trust +me, next to Captain Gills himself. I am quite aware, Miss Dombey, of +my own deficiencies - they're not of the least consequence, thank you +- but I am entirely to be relied upon, I do assure you, Miss Dombey.' + +With that Mr Toots came out of the room, again accompanied by the +Captain, who, standing at a little distance, holding his hat under his +arm and arranging his scattered locks with his hook, had been a not +uninterested witness of what passed. And when the door closed behind +them, the light of Mr Toots's life was darkly clouded again. + +'Captain Gills,' said that gentleman, stopping near the bottom of +the stairs, and turning round, 'to tell you the truth, I am not in a +frame of mind at the present moment, in which I could see Lieutenant +Walters with that entirely friendly feeling towards him that I should +wish to harbour in my breast. We cannot always command our feelings, +Captain Gills, and I should take it as a particular favour if you'd +let me out at the private door.' + +'Brother,' returned the Captain, 'you shall shape your own course. +Wotever course you take, is plain and seamanlike, I'm wery sure. + +'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'you're extremely kind. Your good +opinion is a consolation to me. There is one thing,' said Mr Toots, +standing in the passage, behind the half-opened door, 'that I hope +you'll bear in mind, Captain Gills, and that I should wish Lieutenant +Walters to be made acquainted with. I have quite come into my property +now, you know, and - and I don't know what to do with it. If I could +be at all useful in a pecuniary point of view, I should glide into the +silent tomb with ease and smoothness.' + +Mr Toots said no more, but slipped out quietly and shut the door +upon himself, to cut the Captain off from any reply. + +Florence thought of this good creature, long after he had left her, +with mingled emotions of pain and pleasure. He was so honest and +warm-hearted, that to see him again and be assured of his truth to her +in her distress, was a joy and comfort beyond all price; but for that +very reason, it was so affecting to think that she caused him a +moment's unhappiness, or ruffled, by a breath, the harmless current of +his life, that her eyes filled with tears, and her bosom overflowed +with pity. Captain Cuttle, in his different way, thought much of Mr +Toots too; and so did Walter; and when the evening came, and they were +all sitting together in Florence's new room, Walter praised him in a +most impassioned manner, and told Florence what he had said on leaving +the house, with every graceful setting-off in the way of comment and +appreciation that his own honesty and sympathy could surround it with. + +Mr Toots did not return upon the next day, or the next, or for +several days; and in the meanwhile Florence, without any new alarm, +lived like a quiet bird in a cage, at the top of the old +Instrument-maker's house. But Florence drooped and hung her head more +and more plainly, as the days went on; and the expression that had +been seen in the face of the dead child, was often turned to the sky +from her high window, as if it sought his angel out, on the bright +shore of which he had spoken: lying on his little bed. + +Florence had been weak and delicate of late, and the agitation she +had undergone was not without its influences on her health. But it was +no bodily illness that affected her now. She was distressed in mind; +and the cause of her distress was Walter. + +Interested in her, anxious for her, proud and glad to serve her, +and showing all this with the enthusiasm and ardour of his character, +Florence saw that he avoided her. All the long day through, he seldom +approached her room. If she asked for him, he came, again for the +moment as earnest and as bright as she remembered him when she was a +lost child in the staring streets; but he soon became constrained - +her quick affection was too watchful not to know it - and uneasy, and +soon left her. Unsought, he never came, all day, between the morning +and the night. When the evening closed in, he was always there, and +that was her happiest time, for then she half believed that the old +Walter of her childhood was not changed. But, even then, some trivial +word, look, or circumstance would show her that there was an +indefinable division between them which could not be passed. + +And she could not but see that these revealings of a great +alteration in Walter manifested themselves in despite of his utmost +efforts to hide them. In his consideration for her, she thought, and +in the earnestness of his desire to spare her any wound from his kind +hand, he resorted to innumerable little artifices and disguises. So +much the more did Florence feel the greatness of the alteration in +him; so much the oftener did she weep at this estrangement of her +brother. + +The good Captain - her untiring, tender, ever zealous friend - saw +it, too, Florence thought, and it pained him. He was less cheerful and +hopeful than he had been at first, and would steal looks at her and +Walter, by turns, when they were all three together of an evening, +with quite a sad face. + +Florence resolved, at last, to speak to Walter. She believed she +knew now what the cause of his estrangement was, and she thought it +would be a relief to her full heart, and would set him more at ease, +if she told him she had found it out, and quite submitted to it, and +did not reproach him. + +It was on a certain Sunday afternoon, that Florence took this +resolution. The faithful Captain, in an amazing shirt-collar, was +sitting by her, reading with his spectacles on, and she asked him +where Walter was. + +'I think he's down below, my lady lass,' returned the Captain. + +'I should like to speak to him,' said Florence, rising hurriedly as +if to go downstairs. + +'I'll rouse him up here, Beauty,' said the Captain, 'in a trice.' + +Thereupon the Captain, with much alacrity, shouldered his book - +for he made it a point of duty to read none but very large books on a +Sunday, as having a more staid appearance: and had bargained, years +ago, for a prodigious volume at a book-stall, five lines of which +utterly confounded him at any time, insomuch that he had not yet +ascertained of what subject it treated - and withdrew. Walter soon +appeared. + +'Captain Cuttle tells me, Miss Dombey,' he eagerly began on coming +in - but stopped when he saw her face. + +'You are not so well to-day. You look distressed. You have been +weeping.' + +He spoke so kindly, and with such a fervent tremor in his voice, +that the tears gushed into her eyes at the sound of his words. + +'Walter,' said Florence, gently, 'I am not quite well, and I have +been weeping. I want to speak to you.' + +He sat down opposite to her, looking at her beautiful and innocent +face; and his own turned pale, and his lips trembled. + +'You said, upon the night when I knew that you were saved - and oh! +dear Walter, what I felt that night, and what I hoped!' - ' + +He put his trembling hand upon the table between them, and sat +looking at her. + +- 'that I was changed. I was surprised to hear you say so, but I +understand, now, that I am. Don't be angry with me, Walter. I was too +much overjoyed to think of it, then.' + +She seemed a child to him again. It was the ingenuous, confiding, +loving child he saw and heard. Not the dear woman, at whose feet he +would have laid the riches of the earth. + +'You remember the last time I saw you, Walter, before you went +away?' + +He put his hand into his breast, and took out a little purse. + +'I have always worn it round my neck! If I had gone down in the +deep, it would have been with me at the bottom of the sea.' + +'And you will wear it still, Walter, for my old sake?' + +'Until I die!' + +She laid her hand on his, as fearlessly and simply, as if not a day +had intervened since she gave him the little token of remembrance. + +'I am glad of that. I shall be always glad to think so, Walter. Do +you recollect that a thought of this change seemed to come into our +minds at the same time that evening, when we were talking together?' + +'No!' he answered, in a wondering tone. + +'Yes, Walter. I had been the means of injuring your hopes and +prospects even then. I feared to think so, then, but I know it now. If +you were able, then, in your generosity, to hide from me that you knew +it too, you cannot do so now, although you try as generously as +before. You do. I thank you for it, Walter, deeply, truly; but you +cannot succeed. You have suffered too much in your own hardships, and +in those of your dearest relation, quite to overlook the innocent +cause of all the peril and affliction that has befallen you. You +cannot quite forget me in that character, and we can be brother and +sister no longer. But, dear Walter, do not think that I complain of +you in this. I might have known it - ought to have known it - but +forgot it in my joy. All I hope is that you may think of me less +irksomely when this feeling is no more a secret one; and all I ask is, +Walter, in the name of the poor child who was your sister once, that +you will not struggle with yourself, and pain yourself, for my sake, +now that I know all!' + +Walter had looked upon her while she said this, with a face so full +of wonder and amazement, that it had room for nothing else. Now he +caught up the hand that touched his, so entreatingly, and held it +between his own. + +'Oh, Miss Dombey,' he said, 'is it possible that while I have been +suffering so much, in striving with my sense of what is due to you, +and must be rendered to you, I have made you suffer what your words +disclose to me? Never, never, before Heaven, have I thought of you but +as the single, bright, pure, blessed recollection of my boyhood and my +youth. Never have I from the first, and never shall I to the last, +regard your part in my life, but as something sacred, never to be +lightly thought of, never to be esteemed enough, never, until death, +to be forgotten. Again to see you look, and hear you speak, as you did +on that night when we parted, is happiness to me that there are no +words to utter; and to be loved and trusted as your brother, is the +next gift I could receive and prize!' + +'Walter,' said Florence, looking at him earnestly, but with a +changing face, 'what is that which is due to me, and must be rendered +to me, at the sacrifice of all this?' + +'Respect,' said Walter, in a low tone. 'Reverence. + +The colour dawned in her face, and she timidly and thoughtfully +withdrew her hand; still looking at him with unabated earnestness. + +'I have not a brother's right,' said Walter. 'I have not a +brother's claim. I left a child. I find a woman.' + +The colour overspread her face. She made a gesture as if of +entreaty that he would say no more, and her face dropped upon her +hands. + +They were both silent for a time; she weeping. + +'I owe it to a heart so trusting, pure, and good,' said Walter, +'even to tear myself from it, though I rend my own. How dare I say it +is my sister's!' + +She was weeping still. + +'If you had been happy; surrounded as you should be by loving and +admiring friends, and by all that makes the station you were born to +enviable,' said Walter; 'and if you had called me brother, then, in +your affectionate remembrance of the past, I could have answered to +the name from my distant place, with no inward assurance that I +wronged your spotless truth by doing so. But here - and now!' + +'Oh thank you, thank you, Walter! Forgive my having wronged you so +much. I had no one to advise me. I am quite alone.' + +'Florence!' said Walter, passionately. 'I am hurried on to say, +what I thought, but a few moments ago, nothing could have forced from +my lips. If I had been prosperous; if I had any means or hope of being +one day able to restore you to a station near your own; I would have +told you that there was one name you might bestow upon - me - a right +above all others, to protect and cherish you - that I was worthy of in +nothing but the love and honour that I bore you, and in my whole heart +being yours. I would have told you that it was the only claim that you +could give me to defend and guard you, which I dare accept and dare +assert; but that if I had that right, I would regard it as a trust so +precious and so priceless, that the undivided truth and fervour of my +life would poorly acknowledge its worth.' + +The head was still bent down, the tears still falling, and the +bosom swelling with its sobs. + +'Dear Florence! Dearest Florence! whom I called so in my thoughts +before I could consider how presumptuous and wild it was. One last +time let me call you by your own dear name, and touch this gentle hand +in token of your sisterly forgetfulness of what I have said.' + +She raised her head, and spoke to him with such a solemn sweetness +in her eyes; with such a calm, bright, placid smile shining on him +through her tears; with such a low, soft tremble in her frame and +voice; that the innermost chords of his heart were touched, and his +sight was dim as he listened. + +'No, Walter, I cannot forget it. I would not forget it, for the +world. Are you - are you very poor?' + +'I am but a wanderer,' said Walter, 'making voyages to live, across +the sea. That is my calling now. + +'Are you soon going away again, Walter?' + +'Very soon. + +She sat looking at him for a moment; then timidly put her trembling +hand in his. + +'If you will take me for your wife, Walter, I will love you dearly. +If you will let me go with you, Walter, I will go to the world's end +without fear. I can give up nothing for you - I have nothing to +resign, and no one to forsake; but all my love and life shall be +devoted to you, and with my last breath I will breathe your name to +God if I have sense and memory left.' + +He caught her to his heart, and laid her cheek against his own, and +now, no more repulsed, no more forlorn, she wept indeed, upon the +breast of her dear lover. + +Blessed Sunday Bells, ringing so tranquilly in their entranced and +happy ears! Blessed Sunday peace and quiet, harmonising with the +calmness in their souls, and making holy air around them! Blessed +twilight stealing on, and shading her so soothingly and gravely, as +she falls asleep, like a hushed child, upon the bosom she has clung +to! + +Oh load of love and trustfulness that lies to lightly there! Ay, +look down on the closed eyes, Walter, with a proudly tender gaze; for +in all the wide wide world they seek but thee now - only thee! + + +The Captain remained in the little parlour until it was quite dark. +He took the chair on which Walter had been sitting, and looked up at +the skylight, until the day, by little and little, faded away, and the +stars peeped down. He lighted a candle, lighted a pipe, smoked it out, +and wondered what on earth was going on upstairs, and why they didn't +call him to tea. + +Florence came to his side while he was in the height of his +wonderment. + +'Ay! lady lass!' cried the Captain. 'Why, you and Wal'r have had a +long spell o' talk, my beauty.' + +Florence put her little hand round one of the great buttons of his +coat, and said, looking down into his face: + +'Dear Captain, I want to tell you something, if you please. + +The Captain raised his head pretty smartly, to hear what it was. +Catching by this means a more distinct view of Florence, he pushed +back his chair, and himself with it, as far as they could go. + +'What! Heart's Delight!' cried the Captain, suddenly elated, 'Is it +that?' + +'Yes!' said Florence, eagerly. + +'Wal'r! Husband! THAT?' roared the Captain, tossing up his glazed +hat into the skylight. + +'Yes!' cried Florence, laughing and crying together. + +The Captain immediately hugged her; and then, picking up the glazed +hat and putting it on, drew her arm through his, and conducted her +upstairs again; where he felt that the great joke of his life was now +to be made. + +'What, Wal'r my lad!' said the Captain, looking in at the door, +with his face like an amiable warming-pan. 'So there ain't NO other +character, ain't there?' + +He had like to have suffocated himself with this pleasantry, which +he repeated at least forty times during tea; polishing his radiant +face with the sleeve of his coat, and dabbing his head all over with +his pocket-handkerchief, in the intervals. But he was not without a +graver source of enjoyment to fall back upon, when so disposed, for he +was repeatedly heard to say in an undertone, as he looked with +ineffable delight at Walter and Florence: + +'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, you never shaped a better course in your +life, than when you made that there little property over, jintly!' + + + +CHAPTER 51. + +Mr Dombey and the World + + + +What is the proud man doing, while the days go by? Does he ever +think of his daughter, or wonder where she is gone? Does he suppose +she has come home, and is leading her old life in the weary house? No +one can answer for him. He has never uttered her name, since. His +household dread him too much to approach a subject on which he is +resolutely dumb; and the only person who dares question him, he +silences immediately. + +'My dear Paul!' murmurs his sister, sidling into the room, on the +day of Florence's departure, 'your wife! that upstart woman! Is it +possible that what I hear confusedly, is true, and that this is her +return for your unparalleled devotion to her; extending, I am sure, +even to the sacrifice of your own relations, to her caprices and +haughtiness? My poor brother!' + +With this speech feelingly reminiscent of her not having been asked +to dinner on the day of the first party, Mrs Chick makes great use of +her pocket-handkerchief, and falls on Mr Dombey's neck. But Mr Dombey +frigidly lifts her off, and hands her to a chair. + +'I thank you, Louisa,' he says, 'for this mark of your affection; +but desire that our conversation may refer to any other subject. When +I bewail my fate, Louisa, or express myself as being in want of +consolation, you can offer it, if you will have the goodness.' + +'My dear Paul,' rejoins his sister, with her handkerchief to her +face, and shaking her head, 'I know your great spirit, and will say no +more upon a theme so painful and revolting;' on the heads of which two +adjectives, Mrs Chick visits scathing indignation; 'but pray let me +ask you - though I dread to hear something that will shock and +distress me - that unfortunate child Florence - + +'Louisa!' says her brother, sternly, 'silence! Not another word of +this!' + +Mrs Chick can only shake her head, and use her handkerchief, and +moan over degenerate Dombeys, who are no Dombeys. But whether Florence +has been inculpated in the flight of Edith, or has followed her, or +has done too much, or too little, or anything, or nothing, she has not +the least idea. + +He goes on, without deviation, keeping his thoughts and feelings +close within his own breast, and imparting them to no one. He makes no +search for his daughter. He may think that she is with his sister, or +that she is under his own roof. He may think of her constantly, or he +may never think about her. It is all one for any sign he makes. + +But this is sure; he does not think that he has lost her. He has no +suspicion of the truth. He has lived too long shut up in his towering +supremacy, seeing her, a patient gentle creature, in the path below +it, to have any fear of that. Shaken as he is by his disgrace, he is +not yet humbled to the level earth. The root is broad and deep, and in +the course of years its fibres have spread out and gathered +nourishment from everything around it. The tree is struck, but not +down. + +Though he hide the world within him from the world without - which +he believes has but one purpose for the time, and that, to watch him +eagerly wherever he goes - he cannot hide those rebel traces of it, +which escape in hollow eyes and cheeks, a haggard forehead, and a +moody, brooding air. Impenetrable as before, he is still an altered +man; and, proud as ever, he is humbled, or those marks would not be +there. + +The world. What the world thinks of him, how it looks at him, what +it sees in him, and what it says - this is the haunting demon of his +mind. It is everywhere where he is; and, worse than that, it is +everywhere where he is not. It comes out with him among his servants, +and yet he leaves it whispering behind; he sees it pointing after him +in the street; it is waiting for him in his counting-house; it leers +over the shoulders of rich men among the merchants; it goes beckoning +and babbling among the crowd; it always anticipates him, in every +place; and is always busiest, he knows, when he has gone away. When he +is shut up in his room at night, it is in his house, outside it, +audible in footsteps on the pavement, visible in print upon the table, +steaming to and fro on railroads and in ships; restless and busy +everywhere, with nothing else but him. + +It is not a phantom of his imagination. It is as active in other +people's minds as in his. Witness Cousin Feenix, who comes from +Baden-Baden, purposely to talk to him. Witness Major Bagstock, who +accompanies Cousin Feenix on that friendly mission. + +Mr Dombey receives them with his usual dignity, and stands erect, +in his old attitude, before the fire. He feels that the world is +looking at him out of their eyes. That it is in the stare of the +pictures. That Mr Pitt, upon the bookcase, represents it. That there +are eyes in its own map, hanging on the wall. + +'An unusually cold spring,' says Mr Dombey - to deceive the world. + +'Damme, Sir,' says the Major, in the warmth of friendship, 'Joseph +Bagstock is a bad hand at a counterfeit. If you want to hold your +friends off, Dombey, and to give them the cold shoulder, J. B. is not +the man for your purpose. Joe is rough and tough, Sir; blunt, Sir, +blunt, is Joe. His Royal Highness the late Duke of York did me the +honour to say, deservedly or undeservedly - never mind that - "If +there is a man in the service on whom I can depend for coming to the +point, that man is Joe - Joe Bagstock."' + +Mr Dombey intimates his acquiescence. + +'Now, Dombey,' says the Major, 'I am a man of the world. Our friend +Feenix - if I may presume to - ' + +'Honoured, I am sure,' says Cousin Feenix. + +' - is,' proceeds the Major, with a wag of his head, 'also a man of +the world. Dombey, you are a man of the world. Now, when three men of +the world meet together, and are friends - as I believe - ' again +appealing to Cousin Feenix. + +'I am sure,' says Cousin Feenix, 'most friendly.' + +' - and are friends,' resumes the Major, 'Old Joe's opinion is (I +may be wrong), that the opinion of the world on any particular +subject, is very easily got at. + +'Undoubtedly,' says Cousin Feenix. 'In point of fact, it's quite a +self-evident sort of thing. I am extremely anxious, Major, that my +friend Dombey should hear me express my very great astonishment and +regret, that my lovely and accomplished relative, who was possessed of +every qualification to make a man happy, should have so far forgotten +what was due to - in point of fact, to the world - as to commit +herself in such a very extraordinary manner. I have been in a devilish +state of depression ever since; and said indeed to Long Saxby last +night - man of six foot ten, with whom my friend Dombey is probably +acquainted - that it had upset me in a confounded way, and made me +bilious. It induces a man to reflect, this kind of fatal catastrophe,' +says Cousin Feenix, 'that events do occur in quite a providential +manner; for if my Aunt had been living at the time, I think the effect +upon a devilish lively woman like herself, would have been +prostration, and that she would have fallen, in point of fact, a +victim.' + +'Now, Dombey! - ' says the Major, resuming his discourse with great +energy. + +'I beg your pardon,' interposes Cousin Feenix. 'Allow me another +word. My friend Dombey will permit me to say, that if any circumstance +could have added to the most infernal state of pain in which I find +myself on this occasion, it would be the natural amazement of the +world at my lovely and accomplished relative (as I must still beg +leave to call her) being supposed to have so committed herself with a +person - man with white teeth, in point of fact - of very inferior +station to her husband. But while I must, rather peremptorily, request +my friend Dombey not to criminate my lovely and accomplished relative +until her criminality is perfectly established, I beg to assure my +friend Dombey that the family I represent, and which is now almost +extinct (devilish sad reflection for a man), will interpose no +obstacle in his way, and will be happy to assent to any honourable +course of proceeding, with a view to the future, that he may point +out. I trust my friend Dombey will give me credit for the intentions +by which I am animated in this very melancholy affair, and - a - in +point of fact, I am not aware that I need trouble my friend Dombey +with any further observations.' + +Mr Dombey bows, without raising his eyes, and is silent. + +'Now, Dombey,' says the Major, 'our friend Feenix having, with an +amount of eloquence that Old Joe B. has never heard surpassed - no, by +the Lord, Sir! never!' - says the Major, very blue, indeed, and +grasping his cane in the middle - 'stated the case as regards the +lady, I shall presume upon our friendship, Dombey, to offer a word on +another aspect of it. Sir,' says the Major, with the horse's cough, +'the world in these things has opinions, which must be satisfied.' + +'I know it,' rejoins Mr Dombey. + +'Of course you know it, Dombey,' says the Major, 'Damme, Sir, I +know you know it. A man of your calibre is not likely to be ignorant +of it.' + +'I hope not,' replies Mr Dombey. + +'Dombey!' says the Major, 'you will guess the rest. I speak out - +prematurely, perhaps - because the Bagstock breed have always spoke +out. Little, Sir, have they ever got by doing it; but it's in the +Bagstock blood. A shot is to be taken at this man. You have J. B. at +your elbow. He claims the name of friend. God bless you!' + +'Major,' returns Mr Dombey, 'I am obliged. I shall put myself in +your hands when the time comes. The time not being come, I have +forborne to speak to you.' + +'Where is the fellow, Dombey?' inquires the Major, after gasping +and looking at him, for a minute. + +'I don't know.' + +'Any intelligence of him?' asks the Major. + +'Yes.' + +'Dombey, I am rejoiced to hear it,' says the Major. 'I congratulate +you.' + +'You will excuse - even you, Major,' replies Mr Dombey, 'my +entering into any further detail at present. The intelligence is of a +singular kind, and singularly obtained. It may turn out to be +valueless; it may turn out to be true; I cannot say at present. My +explanation must stop here.' + +Although this is but a dry reply to the Major's purple enthusiasm, +the Major receives it graciously, and is delighted to think that the +world has such a fair prospect of soon receiving its due. Cousin +Feenix is then presented with his meed of acknowledgment by the +husband of his lovely and accomplished relative, and Cousin Feenix and +Major Bagstock retire, leaving that husband to the world again, and to +ponder at leisure on their representation of its state of mind +concerning his affairs, and on its just and reasonable expectations. + +But who sits in the housekeeper's room, shedding tears, and talking +to Mrs Pipchin in a low tone, with uplifted hands? It is a lady with +her face concealed in a very close black bonnet, which appears not to +belong to her. It is Miss Tox, who has borrowed this disguise from her +servant, and comes from Princess's Place, thus secretly, to revive her +old acquaintance with Mrs Pipchin, in order to get certain information +of the state of Mr Dombey. + +'How does he bear it, my dear creature?' asks Miss Tox. + +'Well,' says Mrs Pipchin, in her snappish way, 'he's pretty much as +usual.' + +'Externally,' suggests Miss Tox 'But what he feels within!' + +Mrs Pipchin's hard grey eye looks doubtful as she answers, in three +distinct jerks, 'Ah! Perhaps. I suppose so.' + +'To tell you my mind, Lucretia,' says Mrs Pipchin; she still calls +Miss Tox Lucretia, on account of having made her first experiments in +the child-quelling line of business on that lady, when an unfortunate +and weazen little girl of tender years; 'to tell you my mind, +Lucretia, I think it's a good riddance. I don't want any of your +brazen faces here, myself!' + +'Brazen indeed! Well may you say brazen, Mrs Pipchin!' returned +Miss Tox. 'To leave him! Such a noble figure of a man!' And here Miss +Tox is overcome. + +'I don't know about noble, I'm sure,' observes Mrs Pipchin; +irascibly rubbing her nose. 'But I know this - that when people meet +with trials, they must bear 'em. Hoity, toity! I have had enough to +bear myself, in my time! What a fuss there is! She's gone, and well +got rid of. Nobody wants her back, I should think!' This hint of the +Peruvian Mines, causes Miss Tox to rise to go away; when Mrs Pipchin +rings the bell for Towlinson to show her out, Mr Towlinson, not having +seen Miss Tox for ages, grins, and hopes she's well; observing that he +didn't know her at first, in that bonnet. + +'Pretty well, Towlinson, I thank you,' says Miss Tox. 'I beg you'll +have the goodness, when you happen to see me here, not to mention it. +My visits are merely to Mrs Pipchin.' + +'Very good, Miss,' says Towlinson. + +'Shocking circumstances occur, Towlinson,' says Miss Tox. + +'Very much so indeed, Miss,' rejoins Towlinson. + +'I hope, Towlinson,' says Miss Tox, who, in her instruction of the +Toodle family, has acquired an admonitorial tone, and a habit of +improving passing occasions, 'that what has happened here, will be a +warning to you, Towlinson.' + +'Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,' says Towlinson. + +He appears to be falling into a consideration of the manner in +which this warning ought to operate in his particular case, when the +vinegary Mrs Pipchin, suddenly stirring him up with a 'What are you +doing? Why don't you show the lady to the door?' he ushers Miss Tox +forth. As she passes Mr Dombey's room, she shrinks into the inmost +depths of the black bonnet, and walks, on tip-toe; and there is not +another atom in the world which haunts him so, that feels such sorrow +and solicitude about him, as Miss Tox takes out under the black bonnet +into the street, and tries to carry home shadowed it from the +newly-lighted lamps + +But Miss Tox is not a part of Mr Dombey's world. She comes back +every evening at dusk; adding clogs and an umbrella to the bonnet on +wet nights; and bears the grins of Towlinson, and the huffs and +rebuffs of Mrs Pipchin, and all to ask how he does, and how he bears +his misfortune: but she has nothing to do with Mr Dombey's world. +Exacting and harassing as ever, it goes on without her; and she, a by +no means bright or particular star, moves in her little orbit in the +corner of another system, and knows it quite well, and comes, and +cries, and goes away, and is satisfied. Verily Miss Tox is easier of +satisfaction than the world that troubles Mr Dombey so much! + +At the Counting House, the clerks discuss the great disaster in all +its lights and shades, but chiefly wonder who will get Mr Carker's +place. They are generally of opinion that it will be shorn of some of +its emoluments, and made uncomfortable by newly-devised checks and +restrictions; and those who are beyond all hope of it are quite sure +they would rather not have it, and don't at all envy the person for +whom it may prove to be reserved. Nothing like the prevailing +sensation has existed in the Counting House since Mr Dombey's little +son died; but all such excitements there take a social, not to say a +jovial turn, and lead to the cultivation of good fellowship. A +reconciliation is established on this propitious occasion between the +acknowledged wit of the Counting House and an aspiring rival, with +whom he has been at deadly feud for months; and a little dinner being +proposed, in commemoration of their happily restored amity, takes +place at a neighbouring tavern; the wit in the chair; the rival acting +as Vice-President. The orations following the removal of the cloth are +opened by the Chair, who says, Gentlemen, he can't disguise from +himself that this is not a time for private dissensions. Recent +occurrences to which he need not more particularly allude, but which +have not been altogether without notice in some Sunday Papers,' and in +a daily paper which he need not name (here every other member of the +company names it in an audible murmur), have caused him to reflect; +and he feels that for him and Robinson to have any personal +differences at such a moment, would be for ever to deny that good +feeling in the general cause, for which he has reason to think and +hope that the gentlemen in Dombey's House have always been +distinguished. Robinson replies to this like a man and a brother; and +one gentleman who has been in the office three years, under continual +notice to quit on account of lapses in his arithmetic, appears in a +perfectly new light, suddenly bursting out with a thrilling speech, in +which he says, May their respected chief never again know the +desolation which has fallen on his hearth! and says a great variety of +things, beginning with 'May he never again,' which are received with +thunders of applause. In short, a most delightful evening is passed, +only interrupted by a difference between two juniors, who, quarrelling +about the probable amount of Mr Carker's late receipts per annum, defy +each other with decanters, and are taken out greatly excited. Soda +water is in general request at the office next day, and most of the +party deem the bill an imposition. + +As to Perch, the messenger, he is in a fair way of being ruined for +life. He finds himself again constantly in bars of public-houses, +being treated and lying dreadfully. It appears that he met everybody +concerned in the late transaction, everywhere, and said to them, +'Sir,' or 'Madam,' as the case was, 'why do you look so pale?' at +which each shuddered from head to foot, and said, 'Oh, Perch!' and ran +away. Either the consciousness of these enormities, or the reaction +consequent on liquor, reduces Mr Perch to an extreme state of low +spirits at that hour of the evening when he usually seeks consolation +in the society of Mrs Perch at Balls Pond; and Mrs Perch frets a good +deal, for she fears his confidence in woman is shaken now, and that he +half expects on coming home at night to find her gone off with some +Viscount - 'which,' as she observes to an intimate female friend, 'is +what these wretches in the form of woman have to answer for, Mrs P. It +ain't the harm they do themselves so much as what they reflect upon +us, Ma'am; and I see it in Perch's eye. + +Mr Dombey's servants are becoming, at the same time, quite +dissipated, and unfit for other service. They have hot suppers every +night, and 'talk it over' with smoking drinks upon the board. Mr +Towlinson is always maudlin after half-past ten, and frequently begs +to know whether he didn't say that no good would ever come of living +in a corner house? They whisper about Miss Florence, and wonder where +she is; but agree that if Mr Dombey don't know, Mrs Dombey does. This +brings them to the latter, of whom Cook says, She had a stately way +though, hadn't she? But she was too high! They all agree that she was +too high, and Mr Towlinson's old flame, the housemaid (who is very +virtuous), entreats that you will never talk to her any more about +people who hold their heads up, as if the ground wasn't good enough +for 'em. + +Everything that is said and done about it, except by Mr Dombey, is +done in chorus. Mr Dombey and the world are alone together. + + + +CHAPTER 52. + +Secret Intelligence + + + +Good Mrs Brown and her daughter Alice kept silent company together, +in their own dwelling. It was early in the evening, and late in the +spring. But a few days had elapsed since Mr Dombey had told Major +Bagstock of his singular intelligence, singularly obtained, which +might turn out to be valueless, and might turn out to be true; and the +world was not satisfied yet. + +The mother and daughter sat for a long time without interchanging a +word: almost without motion. The old woman's face was shrewdly anxious +and expectant; that of her daughter was expectant too, but in a less +sharp degree, and sometimes it darkened, as if with gathering +disappointment and incredulity. The old woman, without heeding these +changes in its expression, though her eyes were often turned towards +it, sat mumbling and munching, and listening confidently. + +Their abode, though poor and miserable, was not so utterly wretched +as in the days when only Good Mrs Brown inhabited it. Some few +attempts at cleanliness and order were manifest, though made in a +reckless, gipsy way, that might have connected them, at a glance, with +the younger woman. The shades of evening thickened and deepened as the +two kept silence, until the blackened walls were nearly lost in the +prevailing gloom. + +Then Alice broke the silence which had lasted so long, and said: + +'You may give him up, mother. He'll not come here.' + +'Death give him up!' returned the old woman, impatiently. 'He will +come here.' + +'We shall see,' said Alice. + +'We shall see him,' returned her mother. + +'And doomsday,' said the daughter. + +'You think I'm in my second childhood, I know!' croaked the old +woman. 'That's the respect and duty that I get from my own gal, but +I'm wiser than you take me for. He'll come. T'other day when I touched +his coat in the street, he looked round as if I was a toad. But Lord, +to see him when I said their names, and asked him if he'd like to find +out where they was!' + +'Was it so angry?' asked her daughter, roused to interest in a +moment. + +'Angry? ask if it was bloody. That's more like the word. Angry? Ha, +ha! To call that only angry!' said the old woman, hobbling to the +cupboard, and lighting a candle, which displayed the workings of her +mouth to ugly advantage, as she brought it to the table. 'I might as +well call your face only angry, when you think or talk about 'em.' + +It was something different from that, truly, as she sat as still as +a crouched tigress, with her kindling eyes. + +'Hark!' said the old woman, triumphantly. 'I hear a step coming. +It's not the tread of anyone that lives about here, or comes this way +often. We don't walk like that. We should grow proud on such +neighbours! Do you hear him?' + +'I believe you are right, mother,' replied Alice, in a low voice. +'Peace! open the door.' + +As she drew herself within her shawl, and gathered it about her, +the old woman complied; and peering out, and beckoning, gave admission +to Mr Dombey, who stopped when he had set his foot within the door, +and looked distrustfully around. + +'It's a poor place for a great gentleman like your worship,' said +the old woman, curtseying and chattering. 'I told you so, but there's +no harm in it.' + +'Who is that?' asked Mr Dombey, looking at her companion. + +'That's my handsome daughter,' said the old woman. 'Your worship +won't mind her. She knows all about it.' + +A shadow fell upon his face not less expressive than if he had +groaned aloud, 'Who does not know all about it!' but he looked at her +steadily, and she, without any acknowledgment of his presence, looked +at him. The shadow on his face was darker when he turned his glance +away from her; and even then it wandered back again, furtively, as if +he were haunted by her bold eyes, and some remembrance they inspired. + +'Woman,' said Mr Dombey to the old witch who was chucKling and +leering close at his elbow, and who, when he turned to address her, +pointed stealthily at her daughter, and rubbed her hands, and pointed +again, 'Woman! I believe that I am weak and forgetful of my station in +coming here, but you know why I come, and what you offered when you +stopped me in the street the other day. What is it that you have to +tell me concerning what I want to know; and how does it happen that I +can find voluntary intelligence in a hovel like this,' with a +disdainful glance about him, 'when I have exerted my power and means +to obtain it in vain? I do not think,' he said, after a moment's +pause, during which he had observed her, sternly, 'that you are so +audacious as to mean to trifle with me, or endeavour to impose upon +me. But if you have that purpose, you had better stop on the threshold +of your scheme. My humour is not a trifling one, and my acknowledgment +will be severe.' + +'Oh a proud, hard gentleman!' chuckled the old woman, shaking her +head, and rubbing her shrivelled hands, 'oh hard, hard, hard! But your +worship shall see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears; not +with ours - and if your worship's put upon their track, you won't mind +paying something for it, will you, honourable deary?' + +'Money,' returned Mr Dombey, apparently relieved, and assured by +this inquiry, 'will bring about unlikely things, I know. It may turn +even means as unexpected and unpromising as these, to account. Yes. +For any reliable information I receive, I will pay. But I must have +the information first, and judge for myself of its value.' + +'Do you know nothing more powerful than money?' asked the younger +woman, without rising, or altering her attitude. + +'Not here, I should imagine,' said Mr Dombey. + +'You should know of something that is more powerful elsewhere, as I +judge,' she returned. 'Do you know nothing of a woman's anger?' + +'You have a saucy tongue, Jade,' said Mr Dombey. + +'Not usually,' she answered, without any show of emotion: 'I speak +to you now, that you may understand us better, and rely more on us. A +woman's anger is pretty much the same here, as in your fine house. I +am angry. I have been so, many years. I have as good cause for my +anger as you have for yours, and its object is the same man.' + +He started, in spite of himself, and looked at her with + +astonishment. + +'Yes,' she said, with a kind of laugh. 'Wide as the distance may +seem between us, it is so. How it is so, is no matter; that is my +story, and I keep my story to myself. I would bring you and him +together, because I have a rage against him. My mother there, is +avaricious and poor; and she would sell any tidings she could glean, +or anything, or anybody, for money. It is fair enough, perhaps, that +you should pay her some, if she can help you to what you want to know. +But that is not my motive. I have told you what mine is, and it would +be as strong and all-sufficient with me if you haggled and bargained +with her for a sixpence. I have done. My saucy tongue says no more, if +you wait here till sunrise tomorrow.' + +The old woman, who had shown great uneasiness during this speech, +which had a tendency to depreciate her expected gains, pulled Mr +Dombey softly by the sleeve, and whispered to him not to mind her. He +glared at them both, by turns, with a haggard look, and said, in a +deeper voice than was usual with him: + +'Go on - what do you know?' + +'Oh, not so fast, your worship! we must wait for someone,' answered +the old woman. 'It's to be got from someone else - wormed out - +screwed and twisted from him.' + +'What do you mean?' said Mr Dombey. + +'Patience,' she croaked, laying her hand, like a claw, upon his +arm. 'Patience. I'll get at it. I know I can! If he was to hold it +back from me,' said Good Mrs Brown, crooking her ten fingers, 'I'd +tear it out of him!' + +Mr Dombey followed her with his eyes as she hobbled to the door, +and looked out again: and then his glance sought her daughter; but she +remained impassive, silent, and regardless of him. + +'Do you tell me, woman,' he said, when the bent figure of Mrs Brown +came back, shaking its head and chattering to itself, 'that there is +another person expected here?' + +'Yes!' said the old woman, looking up into his face, and nodding. + +'From whom you are to exact the intelligence that is to be useful +to me?' + +'Yes,' said the old woman, nodding again. + +'A stranger?' + +'Chut!' said the old woman, with a shrill laugh. 'What signifies! +Well, well; no. No stranger to your worship. But he won't see you. +He'd be afraid of you, and wouldn't talk. You'll stand behind that +door, and judge him for yourself. We don't ask to be believed on trust +What! Your worship doubts the room behind the door? Oh the suspicion +of you rich gentlefolks! Look at it, then.' + +Her sharp eye had detected an involuntary expression of this +feeling on his part, which was not unreasonable under the +circumstances. In satisfaction of it she now took the candle to the +door she spoke of. Mr Dombey looked in; assured himself that it was an +empty, crazy room; and signed to her to put the light back in its +place. + +'How long,' he asked, 'before this person comes?' + +'Not long,' she answered. 'Would your worship sit down for a few +odd minutes?' + +He made no answer; but began pacing the room with an irresolute +air, as if he were undecided whether to remain or depart, and as if he +had some quarrel with himself for being there at all. But soon his +tread grew slower and heavier, and his face more sternly thoughtful!; +as the object with which he had come, fixed itself in his mind, and +dilated there again. + +While he thus walked up and down with his eyes on the ground, Mrs +Brown, in the chair from which she had risen to receive him, sat +listening anew. The monotony of his step, or the uncertainty of age, +made her so slow of hearing, that a footfall without had sounded in +her daughter's ears for some moments, and she had looked up hastily to +warn her mother of its approach, before the old woman was roused by +it. But then she started from her seat, and whispering 'Here he is!' +hurried her visitor to his place of observation, and put a bottle and +glass upon the table, with such alacrity, as to be ready to fling her +arms round the neck of Rob the Grinder on his appearance at the door. + +'And here's my bonny boy,' cried Mrs Brown, 'at last! - oho, oho! +You're like my own son, Robby!' + +'Oh! Misses Brown!' remonstrated the Grinder. 'Don't! Can't you be +fond of a cove without squeedging and throttling of him? Take care of +the birdcage in my hand, will you?' + +'Thinks of a birdcage, afore me!' cried the old woman, +apostrophizing the ceiling. 'Me that feels more than a mother for +him!' + +'Well, I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you, Misses Brown,' said +the unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated; 'but you're so jealous of a +cove. I'm very fond of you myself, and all that, of course; but I +don't smother you, do I, Misses Brown?' + +He looked and spoke as if he wOuld have been far from objecting to +do so, however, on a favourable occasion. + +'And to talk about birdcages, too!' whimpered the Grinder. 'As If +that was a crime! Why, look'ee here! Do you know who this belongs to?' + +'To Master, dear?' said the old woman with a grin. + +'Ah!' replied the Grinder, lifting a large cage tied up in a +wrapper, on the table, and untying it with his teeth and hands. 'It's +our parrot, this is.' + +'Mr Carker's parrot, Rob?' + +'Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?' returned the goaded +Grinder. 'What do you go naming names for? I'm blest,' said Rob, +pulling his hair with both hands in the exasperation of his feelings, +'if she ain't enough to make a cove run wild!' + +'What! Do you snub me, thankless boy!' cried the old woman, with +ready vehemence. + +'Good gracious, Misses Brown, no!' returned the Grinder, with tears +in his eyes. 'Was there ever such a - ! Don't I dote upon you, Misses +Brown?' + +'Do you, sweet Rob? Do you truly, chickabiddy?' With that, Mrs +Brown held him in her fond embrace once more; and did not release him +until he had made several violent and ineffectual struggles with his +legs, and his hair was standing on end all over his head. + +'Oh!' returned the Grinder, 'what a thing it is to be perfectly +pitched into with affection like this here. I wish she was - How have +you been, Misses Brown?' + +'Ah! Not here since this night week!' said the old woman, +contemplating him with a look of reproach. + +'Good gracious, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder, 'I said +tonight's a week, that I'd come tonight, didn't I? And here I am. How +you do go on! I wish you'd be a little rational, Misses Brown. I'm +hoarse with saying things in my defence, and my very face is shiny +with being hugged!' He rubbed it hard with his sleeve, as if to remove +the tender polish in question. + +'Drink a little drop to comfort you, my Robin,' said the old woman, +filling the glass from the bottle and giving it to him. + +'Thank'ee, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder. 'Here's your +health. And long may you - et ceterer.' Which, to judge from the +expression of his face, did not include any very choice blessings. +'And here's her health,' said the Grinder, glancing at Alice, who sat +with her eyes fixed, as it seemed to him, on the wall behind him, but +in reality on Mr Dombey's face at the door, 'and wishing her the same +and many of 'em!' + +He drained the glass to these two sentiments, and set it down. + +'Well, I say, Misses Brown!' he proceeded. 'To go on a little +rational now. You're a judge of birds, and up to their ways, as I know +to my cost.' + +'Cost!' repeated Mrs Brown. + +'Satisfaction, I mean,' returned the Grinder. 'How you do take up a +cove, Misses Brown! You've put it all out of my head again.' + +'Judge of birds, Robby,' suggested the old woman. + +'Ah!' said the Grinder. 'Well, I've got to take care of this parrot +- certain things being sold, and a certain establishment broke up - +and as I don't want no notice took at present, I wish you'd attend to +her for a week or so, and give her board and lodging, will you? If I +must come backwards and forwards,' mused the Grinder with a dejected +face, 'I may as well have something to come for.' + +'Something to come for?' screamed the old woman. + +'Besides you, I mean, Misses Brown,' returned the craven Rob. 'Not +that I want any inducement but yourself, Misses Brown, I'm sure. Don't +begin again, for goodness' sake.' + +'He don't care for me! He don't care for me, as I care for him!' +cried Mrs Brown, lifting up her skinny hands. 'But I'll take care of +his bird.' + +'Take good care of it too, you know, Mrs Brown,' said Rob, shaking +his head. 'If you was so much as to stroke its feathers once the wrong +way, I believe it would be found out.' + +'Ah, so sharp as that, Rob?' said Mrs Brown, quickly. + +'Sharp, Misses Brown!' repeated Rob. 'But this is not to be talked +about.' + +Checking himself abruptly, and not without a fearful glance across +the room, Rob filled the glass again, and having slowly emptied it, +shook his head, and began to draw his fingers across and across the +wires of the parrot's cage by way of a diversion from the dangerous +theme that had just been broached. + +The old woman eyed him slily, and hitching her chair nearer his, +and looking in at the parrot, who came down from the gilded dome at +her call, said: + +'Out of place now, Robby?' + +'Never you mind, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder, shortly. + +'Board wages, perhaps, Rob?' said Mrs Brown. + +'Pretty Polly!' said the Grinder. + +The old woman darted a glance at him that might have warned him to +consider his ears in danger, but it was his turn to look in at the +parrot now, and however expressive his imagination may have made her +angry scowl, it was unseen by his bodily eyes. + +'I wonder Master didn't take you with him, Rob,' said the old +woman, in a wheedling voice, but with increased malignity of aspect. + +Rob was so absorbed in contemplation of the parrot, and in trolling +his forefinger on the wires, that he made no answer. + +The old woman had her clutch within a hair's breadth of his shock +of hair as it stooped over the table; but she restrained her fingers, +and said, in a voice that choked with its efforts to be coaxing: + +'Robby, my child.' + +'Well, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder. + +'I say I wonder Master didn't take you with him, dear.' + +'Never you mind, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder. + +Mrs Brown instantly directed the clutch of her right hand at his +hair, and the clutch of her left hand at his throat, and held on to +the object of her fond affection with such extraordinary fury, that +his face began to blacken in a moment. + +'Misses Brown!' exclaimed the Grinder, 'let go, will you? What are +you doing of? Help, young woman! Misses Brow- Brow- !' + +The young woman, however, equally unmoved by his direct appeal to +her, and by his inarticulate utterance, remained quite neutral, until, +after struggling with his assailant into a corner, Rob disengaged +himself, and stood there panting and fenced in by his own elbows, +while the old woman, panting too, and stamping with rage and +eagerness, appeared to be collecting her energies for another swoop +upon him. At this crisis Alice interposed her voice, but not in the +Grinder's favour, by saying, + +'Well done, mother. Tear him to pieces!' + +'What, young woman!' blubbered Rob; 'are you against me too? What +have I been and done? What am I to be tore to pieces for, I should +like to know? Why do you take and choke a cove who has never done you +any harm, neither of you? Call yourselves females, too!' said the +frightened and afflicted Grinder, with his coat-cuff at his eye. 'I'm +surprised at you! Where's your feminine tenderness?' + +'You thankless dog!' gasped Mrs Brown. 'You impudent insulting +dog!' + +'What have I been and done to go and give you offence, Misses +Brown?' retorted the fearful Rob. 'You was very much attached to me a +minute ago.' + +'To cut me off with his short answers and his sulky words,' said +the old woman. 'Me! Because I happen to be curious to have a little +bit of gossip about Master and the lady, to dare to play at fast and +loose with me! But I'll talk to you no more, my lad. Now go!' + +'I'm sure, Misses Brown,' returned the abject Grinder, 'I never +Insiniwated that I wished to go. Don't talk like that, Misses Brown, +if you please.' + +'I won't talk at all,' said Mrs Brown, with an action of her +crooked fingers that made him shrink into half his natural compass in +the corner. 'Not another word with him shall pass my lips. He's an +ungrateful hound. I cast him off. Now let him go! And I'll slip those +after him that shall talk too much; that won't be shook away; that'll +hang to him like leeches, and slink arter him like foxes. What! He +knows 'em. He knows his old games and his old ways. If he's forgotten +'em, they'll soon remind him. Now let him go, and see how he'll do +Master's business, and keep Master's secrets, with such company always +following him up and down. Ha, ha, ha! He'll find 'em a different sort +from you and me, Ally; Close as he is with you and me. Now let him go, +now let him go!' + +The old woman, to the unspeakable dismay of the Grinder, walked her +twisted figure round and round, in a ring of some four feet in +diameter, constantly repeating these words, and shaking her fist above +her head, and working her mouth about. + +'Misses Brown,' pleaded Rob, coming a little out of his corner, +'I'm sure you wouldn't injure a cove, on second thoughts, and in cold +blood, would you?' + +'Don't talk to me,' said Mrs Brown, still wrathfully pursuing her +circle. 'Now let him go, now let him go!' + +'Misses Brown,' urged the tormented Grinder, 'I didn't mean to - +Oh, what a thing it is for a cove to get into such a line as this! - I +was only careful of talking, Misses Brown, because I always am, on +account of his being up to everything; but I might have known it +wouldn't have gone any further. I'm sure I'm quite agreeable,' with a +wretched face, 'for any little bit of gossip, Misses Brown. Don't go +on like this, if you please. Oh, couldn't you have the goodness to put +in a word for a miserable cove, here?' said the Grinder, appealing in +desperation to the daughter. + +'Come, mother, you hear what he says,' she interposed, in her stern +voice, and with an impatient action of her head; 'try him once more, +and if you fall out with him again, ruin him, if you like, and have +done with him.' + +Mrs Brown, moved as it seemed by this very tender exhortation, +presently began to howl; and softening by degrees, took the apologetic +Grinder to her arms, who embraced her with a face of unutterable woe, +and like a victim as he was, resumed his former seat, close by the +side of his venerable friend, whom he suffered, not without much +constrained sweetness of countenance, combating very expressive +physiognomical revelations of an opposite character to draw his arm +through hers, and keep it there. + +'And how's Master, deary dear?' said Mrs Brown, when, sitting in +this amicable posture, they had pledged each other. + +'Hush! If you'd be so good, Misses Brown, as to speak a little +lower,' Rob implored. 'Why, he's pretty well, thank'ee, I suppose.' + +'You're not out of place, Robby?' said Mrs Brown, in a wheedling +tone. + +'Why, I'm not exactly out of place, nor in,' faltered Rob. 'I - I'm +still in pay, Misses Brown.' + +'And nothing to do, Rob?' + +'Nothing particular to do just now, Misses Brown, but to - keep my +eyes open, said the Grinder, rolling them in a forlorn way. + +'Master abroad, Rob?' + +'Oh, for goodness' sake, Misses Brown, couldn't you gossip with a +cove about anything else?' cried the Grinder, in a burst of despair. + +The impetuous Mrs Brown rising directly, the tortured Grinder +detained her, stammering 'Ye-es, Misses Brown, I believe he's abroad. +What's she staring at?' he added, in allusion to the daughter, whose +eyes were fixed upon the face that now again looked out behind + +'Don't mind her, lad,' said the old woman, holding him closer to +prevent his turning round. 'It's her way - her way. Tell me, Rob. Did +you ever see the lady, deary?' + +'Oh, Misses Brown, what lady?' cried the Grinder in a tone of +piteous supplication. + +'What lady?' she retorted. 'The lady; Mrs Dombey.' + +'Yes, I believe I see her once,' replied Rob. + +'The night she went away, Robby, eh?' said the old woman in his +ear, and taking note of every change in his face. 'Aha! I know it was +that night.' + +'Well, if you know it was that night, you know, Misses Brown,' +replied Rob, 'it's no use putting pinchers into a cove to make him say +so. + +'Where did they go that night, Rob? Straight away? How did they go? +Where did you see her? Did she laugh? Did she cry? Tell me all about +it,' cried the old hag, holding him closer yet, patting the hand that +was drawn through his arm against her other hand, and searching every +line in his face with her bleared eyes. 'Come! Begin! I want to be +told all about it. What, Rob, boy! You and me can keep a secret +together, eh? We've done so before now. Where did they go first, Rob?' + +The wretched Grinder made a gasp, and a pause. + +'Are you dumb?' said the old woman, angrily. + +'Lord, Misses Brown, no! You expect a cove to be a flash of +lightning. I wish I was the electric fluency,' muttered the bewildered +Grinder. 'I'd have a shock at somebody, that would settle their +business.' + +'What do you say?' asked the old woman, with a grin. + +'I'm wishing my love to you, Misses Brown,' returned the false Rob, +seeking consolation in the glass. 'Where did they go to first was it? +Him and her, do you mean?' + +'Ah!' said the old woman, eagerly. 'Them two.' + +'Why, they didn't go nowhere - not together, I mean,' answered Rob. + +The old woman looked at him, as though she had a strong impulse +upon her to make another clutch at his head and throat, but was +restrained by a certain dogged mystery in his face. + +'That was the art of it,' said the reluctant Grinder; 'that's the +way nobody saw 'em go, or has been able to say how they did go. They +went different ways, I tell you Misses Brown. + +'Ay, ay, ay! To meet at an appointed place,' chuckled the old +woman, after a moment's silent and keen scrutiny of his face. + +'Why, if they weren't a going to meet somewhere, I suppose they +might as well have stayed at home, mightn't they, Brown?' returned the +unwilling Grinder. + +'Well, Rob? Well?' said the old woman, drawing his arm yet tighter +through her own, as if, in her eagerness, she were afraid of his +slipping away. + +'What, haven't we talked enough yet, Misses Brown?' returned the +Grinder, who, between his sense of injury, his sense of liquor, and +his sense of being on the rack, had become so lachrymose, that at +almost every answer he scooped his coats into one or other of his +eyes, and uttered an unavailing whine of remonstrance. 'Did she laugh +that night, was it? Didn't you ask if she laughed, Misses Brown?' + +'Or cried?' added the old woman, nodding assent. + +'Neither,' said the Grinder. 'She kept as steady when she and me - +oh, I see you will have it out of me, Misses Brown! But take your +solemn oath now, that you'll never tell anybody.' + +This Mrs Brown very readily did: being naturally Jesuitical; and +having no other intention in the matter than that her concealed +visitor should hear for himself. + +'She kept as steady, then, when she and me went down to +Southampton,' said the Grinder, 'as a image. In the morning she was +just the same, Misses Brown. And when she went away in the packet +before daylight, by herself - me pretending to be her servant, and +seeing her safe aboard - she was just the same. Now, are you +contented, Misses Brown?' + +'No, Rob. Not yet,' answered Mrs Brown, decisively. + +'Oh, here's a woman for you!' cried the unfortunate Rob, in an +outburst of feeble lamentation over his own helplessness. + +'What did you wish to know next, Misses Brown?' + +'What became of Master? Where did he go?' she inquired, still +holding hIm tight, and looking close into his face, with her sharp +eyes. + +'Upon my soul, I don't know, Misses Brown,' answered Rob. + +'Upon my soul I don't know what he did, nor where he went, nor +anything about him I only know what he said to me as a caution to hold +my tongue, when we parted; and I tell you this, Misses Brown, as a +friend, that sooner than ever repeat a word of what we're saying now, +you had better take and shoot yourself, or shut yourself up in this +house, and set it a-fire, for there's nothing he wouldn't do, to be +revenged upon you. You don't know him half as well as I do, Misses +Brown. You're never safe from him, I tell you.' + +'Haven't I taken an oath,' retorted the old woman, 'and won't I +keep it?' + +'Well, I'm sure I hope you will, Misses Brown,' returned Rob, +somewhat doubtfully, and not without a latent threatening in his +manner. 'For your own sake, quite as much as mine' + +He looked at her as he gave her this friendly caution, and +emphasized it with a nodding of his head; but finding it uncomfortable +to encounter the yellow face with its grotesque action, and the ferret +eyes with their keen old wintry gaze, so close to his own, he looked +down uneasily and sat skulking in his chair, as if he were trying to +bring hImself to a sullen declaration that he would answer no more +questions. The old woman, still holding him as before, took this +opportunity of raising the forefinger of her right hand, in the air, +as a stealthy signal to the concealed observer to give particular +attention to what was about to follow. + +'Rob,' she said, in her most coaxing tone. + +'Good gracious, Misses Brown, what's the matter now?' returned the +exasperated Grinder. + +'Rob! where did the lady and Master appoint to meet?' + +Rob shuffled more and more, and looked up and looked down, and bit +his thumb, and dried it on his waistcoat, and finally said, eyeing his +tormentor askance, 'How should I know, Misses Brown?' + +The old woman held up her finger again, as before, and replying, +'Come, lad! It's no use leading me to that, and there leaving me. I +want to know' waited for his answer. Rob, after a discomfited pause, +suddenly broke out with, 'How can I pronounce the names of foreign +places, Mrs Brown? What an unreasonable woman you are!' + +'But you have heard it said, Robby,' she retorted firmly, 'and you +know what it sounded like. Come!' + +'I never heard it said, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder. + +'Then,' retorted the old woman quickly, 'you have seen it written, +and you can spell it.' + +Rob, with a petulant exclamation between laughing and crying - for +he was penetrated with some admiration of Mrs Brown's cunning, even +through this persecution - after some reluctant fumbling in his +waistcoat pocket, produced from it a little piece of chalk. The old +woman's eyes sparkled when she saw it between his thumb and finger, +and hastily clearing a space on the deal table, that he might write +the word there, she once more made her signal with a shaking hand. + +'Now I tell you beforehand what it is, Misses Brown,' said Rob, +'it's no use asking me anything else. I won't answer anything else; I +can't. How long it was to be before they met, or whose plan it was +that they was to go away alone, I don't know no more than you do. I +don't know any more about it. If I was to tell you how I found out +this word, you'd believe that. Shall I tell you, Misses Brown?' + +'Yes, Rob.' + +'Well then, Misses Brown. The way - now you won't ask any more, you +know?' said Rob, turning his eyes, which were now fast getting drowsy +and stupid, upon her. + +'Not another word,' said Mrs Brown. + +'Well then, the way was this. When a certain person left the lady +with me, he put a piece of paper with a direction written on it in the +lady's hand, saying it was in case she should forget. She wasn't +afraid of forgetting, for she tore it up as soon as his back was +turned, and when I put up the carriage steps, I shook out one of the +pieces - she sprinkled the rest out of the window, I suppose, for +there was none there afterwards, though I looked for 'em. There was +only one word on it, and that was this, if you must and will know. But +remember! You're upon your oath, Misses Brown!' + +Mrs Brown knew that, she said. Rob, having nothing more to say, +began to chalk, slowly and laboriously, on the table. + +'"D,"' the old woman read aloud, when he had formed the letter. + +'Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?' he exclaimed, covering +it with his hand, and turning impatiently upon her. 'I won't have it +read out. Be quiet, will you!' + +'Then write large, Rob,' she returned, repeating her secret signal; +'for my eyes are not good, even at print.' + +Muttering to himself, and returning to his work with an ill will, +Rob went on with the word. As he bent his head down, the person for +whose information he so unconsciously laboured, moved from the door +behind him to within a short stride of his shoulder, and looked +eagerly towards the creeping track of his hand upon the table. At the +same time, Alice, from her opposite chair, watched it narrowly as it +shaped the letters, and repeated each one on her lips as he made it, +without articulating it aloud. At the end of every letter her eyes and +Mr Dombey's met, as if each of them sought to be confirmed by the +other; and thus they both spelt D.I.J.O.N. + +'There!' said the Grinder, moistening the palm of his hand hastily, +to obliterate the word; and not content with smearing it out, rubbing +and planing all trace of it away with his coat-sleeve, until the very +colour of the chalk was gone from the table. 'Now, I hope you're +contented, Misses Brown!' + +The old woman, in token of her being so, released his arm and +patted his back; and the Grinder, overcome with mortification, +cross-examination, and liquor, folded his arms on the table, laid his +head upon them, and fell asleep. + +Not until he had been heavily asleep some time, and was snoring +roundly, did the old woman turn towards the door where Mr Dombey stood +concealed, and beckon him to come through the room, and pass out. Even +then, she hovered over Rob, ready to blind him with her hands, or +strike his head down, if he should raise it while the secret step was +crossing to the door. But though her glance took sharp cognizance of +the sleeper, it was sharp too for the waking man; and when he touched +her hand with his, and in spite of all his caution, made a chinking, +golden sound, it was as bright and greedy as a raven's. + +The daughter's dark gaze followed him to the door, and noted well +how pale he was, and how his hurried tread indicated that the least +delay was an insupportable restraint upon him, and how he was burning +to be active and away. As he closed the door behind him, she looked +round at her mother. The old woman trotted to her; opened her hand to +show what was within; and, tightly closing it again in her jealousy +and avarice, whispered: + +'What will he do, Ally?' + +'Mischief,' said the daughter. + +'Murder?' asked the old woman. + +'He's a madman, in his wounded pride, and may do that, for anything +we can say, or he either.' + +Her glance was brighter than her mother's, and the fire that shone +in it was fiercer; but her face was colourless, even to her lips + +They said no more, but sat apart; the mother communing with her +money; the daughter with her thoughts; the glance of each, shining in +the gloom of the feebly lighted room. Rob slept and snored. The +disregarded parrot only was in action. It twisted and pulled at the +wires of its cage, with its crooked beak, and crawled up to the dome, +and along its roof like a fly, and down again head foremost, and +shook, and bit, and rattled at every slender bar, as if it knew its +master's danger, and was wild to force a passage out, and fly away to +warn him of it. + + + +CHAPTER 53. + +More Intelligence + + + +There were two of the traitor's own blood - his renounced brother +and sister - on whom the weight of his guilt rested almost more +heavily, at this time, than on the man whom he had so deeply injured. +Prying and tormenting as the world was, it did Mr Dombey the service +of nerving him to pursuit and revenge. It roused his passion, stung +his pride, twisted the one idea of his life into a new shape, and made +some gratification of his wrath, the object into which his whole +intellectual existence resolved itself. All the stubbornness and +implacability of his nature, all its hard impenetrable quality, all +its gloom and moroseness, all its exaggerated sense of personal +importance, all its jealous disposition to resent the least flaw in +the ample recognition of his importance by others, set this way like +many streams united into one, and bore him on upon their tide. The +most impetuously passionate and violently impulsive of mankind would +have been a milder enemy to encounter than the sullen Mr Dombey +wrought to this. A wild beast would have been easier turned or soothed +than the grave gentleman without a wrinkle in his starched cravat. + +But the very intensity of his purpose became almost a substitute +for action in it. While he was yet uninformed of the traitor's +retreat, it served to divert his mind from his own calamity, and to +entertain it with another prospect. The brother and sister of his +false favourite had no such relief; everything in their history, past +and present, gave his delinquency a more afflicting meaning to them. + +The sister may have sometimes sadly thought that if she had +remained with him, the companion and friend she had been once, he +might have escaped the crime into which he had fallen. If she ever +thought so, it was still without regret for what she had done, without +the least doubt of her duty, without any pricing or enhancing of her +self-devotion. But when this possibility presented itself to the +erring and repentant brother, as it sometimes did, it smote upon his +heart with such a keen, reproachful touch as he could hardly bear. No +idea of retort upon his cruel brother came into his mind. New +accusation of himself, fresh inward lamentings over his own +unworthiness, and the ruin in which it was at once his consolation and +his self-reproach that he did not stand alone, were the sole kind of +reflections to which the discovery gave rise in him. + +It was on the very same day whose evening set upon the last +chapter, and when Mr Dombey's world was busiest with the elopement of +his wife, that the window of the room in which the brother and sister +sat at their early breakfast, was darkened by the unexpected shadow of +a man coming to the little porch: which man was Perch the Messenger. + +'I've stepped over from Balls Pond at a early hour,' said Mr Perch, +confidentially looking in at the room door, and stopping on the mat to +wipe his shoes all round, which had no mud upon them, 'agreeable to my +instructions last night. They was, to be sure and bring a note to you, +Mr Carker, before you went out in the morning. I should have been here +a good hour and a half ago,' said Mr Perch, meekly, 'but fOr the state +of health of Mrs P., who I thought I should have lost in the night, I +do assure you, five distinct times.' + +'Is your wife so ill?' asked Harriet. + +'Why, you see,' said Mr Perch, first turning round to shut the door +carefully, 'she takes what has happened in our House so much to heart, +Miss. Her nerves is so very delicate, you see, and soon unstrung. Not +but what the strongest nerves had good need to be shook, I'm sure. You +feel it very much yourself, no doubts. + +Harriet repressed a sigh, and glanced at her brother. + +'I'm sure I feel it myself, in my humble way,' Mr Perch went on to +say, with a shake of his head, 'in a manner I couldn't have believed +if I hadn't been called upon to undergo. It has almost the effect of +drink upon me. I literally feels every morning as if I had been taking +more than was good for me over-night.' + +Mr Perch's appearance corroborated this recital of his symptoms. +There was an air of feverish lassitude about it, that seemed referable +to drams; and, which, in fact, might no doubt have been traced to +those numerous discoveries of himself in the bars of public-houses, +being treated and questioned, which he was in the daily habit of +making. + +'Therefore I can judge,' said Mr Perch, shaking his head and +speaking in a silvery murmur, 'of the feelings of such as is at all +peculiarly sitiwated in this most painful rewelation.' + +Here Mr Perch waited to be confided in; and receiving no +confidence, coughed behind his hand. This leading to nothing, he +coughed behind his hat; and that leading to nothing, he put his hat on +the ground and sought in his breast pocket for the letter. + +'If I rightly recollect, there was no answer,' said Mr Perch, with +an affable smile; 'but perhaps you'll be so good as cast your eye over +it, Sir.' + +John Carker broke the seal, which was Mr Dombey's, and possessing +himself of the contents, which were very brief, replied, + +'No. No answer is expected.' + +'Then I shall wish you good morning, Miss,' said Perch, taking a +step toward the door, and hoping, I'm sure, that you'll not permit +yourself to be more reduced in mind than you can help, by the late +painful rewelation. The Papers,' said Mr Perch, taking two steps back +again, and comprehensively addressing both the brother and sister in a +whisper of increased mystery, 'is more eager for news of it than you'd +suppose possible. One of the Sunday ones, in a blue cloak and a white +hat, that had previously offered for to bribe me - need I say with +what success? - was dodging about our court last night as late as +twenty minutes after eight o'clock. I see him myself, with his eye at +the counting-house keyhole, which being patent is impervious. Another +one,' said Mr Perch, 'with military frogs, is in the parlour of the +King's Arms all the blessed day. I happened, last week, to let a +little obserwation fall there, and next morning, which was Sunday, I +see it worked up in print, in a most surprising manner.' + +Mr Perch resorted to his breast pocket, as if to produce the +paragraph but receiving no encouragement, pulled out his beaver +gloves, picked up his hat, and took his leave; and before it was high +noon, Mr Perch had related to several select audiences at the King's +Arms and elsewhere, how Miss Carker, bursting into tears, had caught +him by both hands, and said, 'Oh! dear dear Perch, the sight of you is +all the comfort I have left!' and how Mr John Carker had said, in an +awful voice, 'Perch, I disown him. Never let me hear hIm mentioned as +a brother more!' + +'Dear John,' said Harriet, when they were left alone, and had +remained silent for some few moments. 'There are bad tidings in that +letter.' + +'Yes. But nothing unexpected,' he replied. 'I saw the writer + +yesterday.' + +'The writer?' + +'Mr Dombey. He passed twice through the Counting House while I was +there. I had been able to avoid him before, but of course could not +hope to do that long. I know how natural it was that he should regard +my presence as something offensive; I felt it must be so, myself.' + +'He did not say so?' + +'No; he said nothing: but I saw that his glance rested on me for a +moment, and I was prepared for what would happen - for what has +happened. I am dismissed!' + +She looked as little shocked and as hopeful as she could, but it +was distressing news, for many reasons. + +'"I need not tell you"' said John Carker, reading the letter, '"why +your name would henceforth have an unnatural sound, in however remote +a connexion with mine, or why the daily sight of anyone who bears it, +would be unendurable to me. I have to notify the cessation of all +engagements between us, from this date, and to request that no renewal +of any communication with me, or my establishment, be ever attempted +by you." - Enclosed is an equivalent in money to a generously long +notice, and this is my discharge." Heaven knows, Harriet, it is a +lenient and considerate one, when we remember all!' + +'If it be lenient and considerate to punish you at all, John, for +the misdeed of another,' she replied gently, 'yes.' + +'We have been an ill-omened race to him,' said John Carker. 'He has +reason to shrink from the sound of our name, and to think that there +is something cursed and wicked in our blood. I should almost think it +too, Harriet, but for you.' + +'Brother, don't speak like this. If you have any special reason, as +you say you have, and think you have - though I say, No!- to love me, +spare me the hearing of such wild mad words!' + +He covered his face with both his hands; but soon permitted her, +coming near him, to take one in her own. + +'After so many years, this parting is a melancholy thing, I know,' +said his sister, 'and the cause of it is dreadful to us both. We have +to live, too, and must look about us for the means. Well, well! We can +do so, undismayed. It is our pride, not our trouble, to strive, John, +and to strive together!' + +A smile played on her lips, as she kissed his cheek, and entreated +him to be of of good cheer. + +'Oh, dearest sister! Tied, of your own noble will, to a ruined man! +whose reputation is blighted; who has no friend himself, and has +driven every friend of yours away!' + +'John!' she laid her hand hastily upon his lips, 'for my sake! In +remembrance of our long companionship!' He was silent 'Now, let me +tell you, dear,' quietly sitting by his side, 'I have, as you have, +expected this; and when I have been thinking of it, and fearing that +it would happen, and preparing myself for it, as well as I could, I +have resolved to tell you, if it should be so, that I have kept a +secret from you, and that we have a friend.' + +'What's our friend's name, Harriet?' he answered with a sorrowful + +smile. + +'Indeed, I don't know, but he once made a very earnest protestation +to me of his friendship and his wish to serve us: and to this day I +believe 'him.' + +'Harriet!' exclaimed her wondering brother, 'where does this friend + +live?' + +'Neither do I know that,' she returned. 'But he knows us both, and +our history - all our little history, John. That is the reason why, at +his own suggestion, I have kept the secret of his coming, here, from +you, lest his acquaintance with it should distress you. + +'Here! Has he been here, Harriet?' + +'Here, in this room. Once.' + +'What kind of man?' + +'Not young. "Grey-headed," as he said, "and fast growing greyer." +But generous, and frank, and good, I am sure.' + +'And only seen once, Harriet?' + +'In this room only once,' said his sister, with the slightest and +most transient glow upon her cheek; 'but when here, he entreated me to +suffer him to see me once a week as he passed by, in token of our +being well, and continuing to need nothing at his hands. For I told +him, when he proffered us any service he could render - which was the +object of his visit - that we needed nothing.' + +'And once a week - ' + +'Once every week since then, and always on the same day, and at the +same hour, he his gone past; always on foot; always going in the same +direction - towards London; and never pausing longer than to bow to +me, and wave his hand cheerfully, as a kind guardian might. He made +that promise when he proposed these curious interviews, and has kept +it so faithfully and pleasantly, that if I ever felt any trifling +uneasiness about them in the beginning (which I don't think I did, +John; his manner was so plain and true) It very soon vanished, and +left me quite glad when the day was coming. Last Monday - the first +since this terrible event - he did not go by; and I have wondered +whether his absence can have been in any way connected with what has +happened.' + +'How?' inquired her brother. + +'I don't know how. I have only speculated on the coincidence; I +have not tried to account for it. I feel sure he will return. When he +does, dear John, let me tell him that I have at last spoken to you, +and let me bring you together. He will certainly help us to a new +livelihood. His entreaty was that he might do something to smooth my +life and yours; and I gave him my promise that if we ever wanted a +friend, I would remember him.' + +'Then his name was to be no secret, 'Harriet,' said her brother, +who had listened with close attention, 'describe this gentleman to me. +I surely ought to know one who knows me so well.' + +His sister painted, as vividly as she could, the features, stature, +and dress of her visitor; but John Carker, either from having no +knowledge of the original, or from some fault in her description, or +from some abstraction of his thoughts as he walked to and fro, +pondering, could not recognise the portrait she presented to him. + +However, it was agreed between them that he should see the original +when he next appeared. This concluded, the sister applied herself, +with a less anxious breast, to her domestic occupations; and the +grey-haired man, late Junior of Dombey's, devoted the first day of his +unwonted liberty to working in the garden. + +It was quite late at night, and the brother was reading aloud while +the sister plied her needle, when they were interrupted by a knocking +at the door. In the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread that lowered +about them in connexion with their fugitive brother, this sound, +unusual there, became almost alarming. The brother going to the door, +the sister sat and listened timidly. Someone spoke to him, and he +replied and seemed surprised; and after a few words, the two +approached together. + +'Harriet,' said her brother, lighting in their late visitor, and +speaking in a low voice, 'Mr Morfin - the gentleman so long in +Dombey's House with James.' + +His sister started back, as if a ghost had entered. In the doorway +stood the unknown friend, with the dark hair sprinkled with grey, the +ruddy face, the broad clear brow, and hazel eyes, whose secret she had +kept so long! + +'John!' she said, half-breathless. 'It is the gentleman I told you +of, today!' + +'The gentleman, Miss Harriet,' said the visitor, coming in - for he +had stopped a moment in the doorway - 'is greatly relieved to hear you +say that: he has been devising ways and means, all the way here, of +explaining himself, and has been satisfied with none. Mr John, I am +not quite a stranger here. You were stricken with astonishment when +you saw me at your door just now. I observe you are more astonished at +present. Well! That's reasonable enough under existing circumstances. +If we were not such creatures of habit as we are, we shouldn't have +reason to be astonished half so often.' + +By this time, he had greeted Harriet with that able mingling of +cordiality and respect which she recollected so well, and had sat down +near her, pulled off his gloves, and thrown them into his hat upon the +table. + +'There's nothing astonishing,' he said, 'in my having conceived a +desire to see your sister, Mr John, or in my having gratified it in my +own way. As to the regularity of my visits since (which she may have +mentioned to you), there is nothing extraordinary in that. They soon +grew into a habit; and we are creatures of habit - creatures of +habit!' + +Putting his hands into his pockets, and leaning back in his chair, +he looked at the brother and sister as if it were interesting to him +to see them together; and went on to say, with a kind of irritable +thoughtfulness: + +'It's this same habit that confirms some of us, who are capable of +better things, in Lucifer's own pride and stubbornness - that confirms +and deepens others of us in villainy - more of us in indifference - +that hardens us from day to day, according to the temper of our clay, +like images, and leaves us as susceptible as images to new impressions +and convictions. You shall judge of its influence on me, John. For +more years than I need name, I had my small, and exactly defined +share, in the management of Dombey's House, and saw your brother (who +has proved himself a scoundrel! Your sister will forgive my being +obliged to mention it) extending and extending his influence, until +the business and its owner were his football; and saw you toiling at +your obscure desk every day; and was quite content to be as little +troubled as I might be, out of my own strip of duty, and to let +everything about me go on, day by day, unquestioned, like a great +machine - that was its habit and mine - and to take it all for +granted, and consider it all right. My Wednesday nights came regularly +round, our quartette parties came regularly off, my violoncello was in +good tune, and there was nothing wrong in my world - or if anything +not much - or little or much, it was no affair of mine.' + +'I can answer for your being more respected and beloved during all +that time than anybody in the House, Sir,' said John Carker. + +'Pooh! Good-natured and easy enough, I daresay,'returned the other, +'a habit I had. It suited the Manager; it suited the man he managed: +it suited me best of all. I did what was allotted to me to do, made no +court to either of them, and was glad to occupy a station in which +none was required. So I should have gone on till now, but that my room +had a thin wall. You can tell your sister that it was divided from the +Manager's room by a wainscot partition.' + +'They were adjoining rooms; had been one, Perhaps, originally; and +were separated, as Mr Morfin says,' said her brother, looking back to +him for the resumption of his explanation. + +'I have whistled, hummed tunes, gone accurately through the whole +of Beethoven's Sonata in B,' to let him know that I was within +hearing,' said Mr Morfin; 'but he never heeded me. It happened seldom +enough that I was within hearing of anything of a private nature, +certainly. But when I was, and couldn't otherwise avoid knowing +something of it, I walked out. I walked out once, John, during a +conversation between two brothers, to which, in the beginning, young +Walter Gay was a party. But I overheard some of it before I left the +room. You remember it sufficiently, perhaps, to tell your sister what +its nature was?' + +'It referred, Harriet,' said her brother in a low voice, 'to the +past, and to our relative positions in the House.' + +'Its matter was not new to me, but was presented in a new aspect. +It shook me in my habit - the habit of nine-tenths of the world - of +believing that all was right about me, because I was used to it,' said +their visitor; 'and induced me to recall the history of the two +brothers, and to ponder on it. I think it was almost the first time in +my life when I fell into this train of reflection - how will many +things that are familiar, and quite matters of course to us now, look, +when we come to see them from that new and distant point of view which +we must all take up, one day or other? I was something less +good-natured, as the phrase goes, after that morning, less easy and +complacent altogether.' + +He sat for a minute or so, drumming with one hand on the table; and +resumed in a hurry, as if he were anxious to get rid of his +confession. + +'Before I knew what to do, or whether I could do anything, there +was a second conversation between the same two brothers, in which +their sister was mentioned. I had no scruples of conscience in +suffering all the waifs and strays of that conversation to float to me +as freely as they would. I considered them mine by right. After that, +I came here to see the sister for myself. The first time I stopped at +the garden gate, I made a pretext of inquiring into the character of a +poor neighbour; but I wandered out of that tract, and I think Miss +Harriet mistrusted me. The second time I asked leave to come in; came +in; and said what I wished to say. Your sister showed me reasons which +I dared not dispute, for receiving no assistance from me then; but I +established a means of communication between us, which remained +unbroken until within these few days, when I was prevented, by +important matters that have lately devolved upon me, from maintaining +them' + +'How little I have suspected this,' said John Carker, 'when I have +seen you every day, Sir! If Harriet could have guessed your name - ' + +'Why, to tell you the truth, John,' interposed the visitor, 'I kept +it to myself for two reasons. I don't know that the first might have +been binding alone; but one has no business to take credit for good +intentions, and I made up my mind, at all events, not to disclose +myself until I should be able to do you some real service or other. My +second reason was, that I always hoped there might be some lingering +possibility of your brother's relenting towards you both; and in that +case, I felt that where there was the chance of a man of his +suspicious, watchful character, discovering that you had been secretly +befriended by me, there was the chance of a new and fatal cause of +division. I resolved, to be sure, at the risk of turning his +displeasure against myself - which would have been no matter - to +watch my opportunity of serving you with the head of the House; but +the distractions of death, courtship, marriage, and domestic +unhappiness, have left us no head but your brother for this long, long +time. And it would have been better for us,' said the visitor, +dropping his voice, 'to have been a lifeless trunk.' + +He seemed conscious that these latter words had escaped hIm against +his will, and stretching out a hand to the brother, and a hand to the +sister, continued: 'All I could desire to say, and more, I have now +said. All I mean goes beyond words, as I hope you understand and +believe. The time has come, John - though most unfortunately and +unhappily come - when I may help you without interfering with that +redeeming struggle, which has lasted through so many years; since you +were discharged from it today by no act of your own. It is late; I +need say no more to-night. You will guard the treasure you have here, +without advice or reminder from me.' + +With these words he rose to go. + +'But go you first, John,' he said goodhumouredly, 'with a light, +without saying what you want to say, whatever that maybe;' John +Carker's heart was full, and he would have relieved it in speech,' if +he could; 'and let me have a word with your sister. We have talked +alone before, and in this room too; though it looks more natural with +you here.' + +Following him out with his eyes, he turned kindly to Harriet, and +said in a lower voice, and with an altered and graver manner: + +'You wish to ask me something of the man whose sister it is your +misfortune to be.' + +'I dread to ask,' said Harriet. + +'You have looked so earnestly at me more than once,' rejoined the +visitor, 'that I think I can divine your question. Has he taken money? +Is it that?' + +'Yes.' + +'He has not.' + +'I thank Heaven!' said Harriet. 'For the sake of John.' + +'That he has abused his trust in many ways,' said Mr Morfin; 'that +he has oftener dealt and speculated to advantage for himself, than for +the House he represented; that he has led the House on, to prodigious +ventures, often resulting in enormous losses; that he has always +pampered the vanity and ambition of his employer, when it was his duty +to have held them in check, and shown, as it was in his power to do, +to what they tended here or there; will not, perhaps, surprise you +now. Undertakings have been entered on, to swell the reputation of the +House for vast resources, and to exhibit it in magnificent contrast to +other merchants' Houses, of which it requires a steady head to +contemplate the possibly - a few disastrous changes of affairs might +render them the probably - ruinous consequences. In the midst of the +many transactions of the House, in most parts of the world: a great +labyrinth of which only he has held the clue: he has had the +opportunity, and he seems to have used it, of keeping the various +results afloat, when ascertained, and substituting estimates and +generalities for facts. But latterly - you follow me, Miss Harriet?' + +'Perfectly, perfectly,' she answered, with her frightened face +fixed on his. 'Pray tell me all the worst at once. + +'Latterly, he appears to have devoted the greatest pains to making +these results so plain and clear, that reference to the private books +enables one to grasp them, numerous and varying as they are, with +extraordinary ease. As if he had resolved to show his employer at one +broad view what has been brought upon him by ministration to his +ruling passion! That it has been his constant practice to minister to +that passion basely, and to flatter it corruptly, is indubitable. In +that, his criminality, as it is connected with the affairs of the +House, chiefly consists.' + +'One other word before you leave me, dear Sir,' said Harriet. +'There is no danger in all this?' + +'How danger?' he returned, with a little hesitation. + +'To the credit of the House?' + +'I cannot help answering you plainly, and trusting you completely,' +said Mr Morfin, after a moment's survey of her face. + +'You may. Indeed you may!' + +'I am sure I may. Danger to the House's credit? No; none There may +be difficulty, greater or less difficulty, but no danger, unless - +unless, indeed - the head of the House, unable to bring his mind to +the reduction of its enterprises, and positively refusing to believe +that it is, or can be, in any position but the position in which he +has always represented it to himself, should urge it beyond its +strength. Then it would totter.' + +'But there is no apprehension of that?' said Harriet. + +'There shall be no half-confidence,' he replied, shaking her hand, +'between us. Mr Dombey is unapproachable by anyone, and his state of +mind is haughty, rash, unreasonable, and ungovernable, now. But he is +disturbed and agitated now beyond all common bounds, and it may pass. +You now know all, both worst and best. No more to-night, and +good-night!' + +With that he kissed her hand, and, passing out to the door where +her brother stood awaiting his coming, put him cheerfully aside when +he essayed to speak; told him that, as they would see each other soon +and often, he might speak at another time, if he would, but there was +no leisure for it then; and went away at a round pace, in order that +no word of gratitude might follow him. + +The brother and sister sat conversing by the fireside, until it was +almost day; made sleepless by this glimpse of the new world that +opened before them, and feeling like two people shipwrecked long ago, +upon a solitary coast, to whom a ship had come at last, when they were +old in resignation, and had lost all thought of any other home. But +another and different kind of disquietude kept them waking too. The +darkness out of which this light had broken on them gathered around; +and the shadow of their guilty brother was in the house where his foot +had never trod. + +Nor was it to be driven out, nor did it fade before the sun. Next +morning it was there; at noon; at night Darkest and most distinct at +night, as is now to be told. + +John Carker had gone out, in pursuance of a letter of appointment +from their friend, and Harriet was left in the house alone. She had +been alone some hours. A dull, grave evening, and a deepening +twilight, were not favourable to the removal of the oppression on her +spirits. The idea of this brother, long unseen and unknown, flitted +about her in frightful shapes He was dead, dying, calling to her, +staring at her, frowning on her. The pictures in her mind were so +obtrusive and exact that, as the twilight deepened, she dreaded to +raise her head and look at the dark corners of the room, lest his +wraith, the offspring of her excited imagination, should be waiting +there, to startle her. Once she had such a fancy of his being in the +next room, hiding - though she knew quite well what a distempered +fancy it was, and had no belief in it - that she forced herself to go +there, for her own conviction. But in vain. The room resumed its +shadowy terrors, the moment she left it; and she had no more power to +divest herself of these vague impressions of dread, than if they had +been stone giants, rooted in the solid earth. + +It was almost dark, and she was sitting near the window, with her +head upon her hand, looking down, when, sensible of a sudden increase +in the gloom of the apartment, she raised her eyes, and uttered an +involuntary cry. Close to the glass, a pale scared face gazed in; +vacantly, for an instant, as searching for an object; then the eyes +rested on herself, and lighted up. + +'Let me in! Let me in! I want to speak to you!' and the hand +rattled on the glass. + +She recognised immediately the woman with the long dark hair, to +whom she had given warmth, food, and shelter, one wet night. Naturally +afraid of her, remembering her violent behaviour, Harriet, retreating +a little from the window, stood undecided and alarmed. + +'Let me in! Let me speak to you! I am thankful - quiet - humble - +anything you like. But let me speak to you.' + +The vehement manner of the entreaty, the earnest expression of the +face, the trembling of the two hands that were raised imploringly, a +certain dread and terror in the voice akin to her own condition at the +moment, prevailed with Harriet. She hastened to the door and opened +it. + +'May I come in, or shall I speak here?' said the woman, catching at +her hand. + +'What is it that you want? What is it that you have to say?' + +'Not much, but let me say it out, or I shall never say it. I am +tempted now to go away. There seem to be hands dragging me from the +door. Let me come in, if you can trust me for this once!' + +Her energy again prevailed, and they passed into the firelight of +the little kitchen, where she had before sat, and ate, and dried her +clothes. + +'Sit there,' said Alice, kneeling down beside her, 'and look at me. +You remember me?' + +'I do.' + +'You remember what I told you I had been, and where I came from, +ragged and lame, with the fierce wind and weather beating on my head?' + +'Yes.' + +'You know how I came back that night, and threw your money in the +dirt, and you and your race. Now, see me here, upon my knees. Am l +less earnest now, than I was then?' + +'If what you ask,' said Harriet, gently, 'is forgiveness - ' + +'But it's not!' returned the other, with a proud, fierce look 'What +I ask is to be believed. Now you shall judge if I am worthy of belief, +both as I was, and as I am.' + +Still upon her knees, and with her eyes upon the fire, and the fire +shining on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress +of which she pulled over her shoulder, and wound about her hand, and +thoughtfully bit and tore while speaking, she went on: + +'When I was young and pretty, and this,' plucking contemptuously at +the hair she held, was only handled delicately, and couldn't be +admired enough, my mother, who had not been very mindful of me as a +child, found out my merits, and was fond of me, and proud of me. She +was covetous and poor, and thought to make a sort of property of me. +No great lady ever thought that of a daughter yet, I'm sure, or acted +as if she did - it's never done, we all know - and that shows that the +only instances of mothers bringing up their daughters wrong, and evil +coming of it, are among such miserable folks as us.' + +Looking at the fire, as if she were forgetful, for the moment, of +having any auditor, she continued in a dreamy way, as she wound the +long tress of hair tight round and round her hand. + +'What came of that, I needn't say. Wretched marriages don't come of +such things, in our degree; only wretchedness and ruin. Wretchedness +and ruin came on me - came on me. + +Raising her eyes swiftly from their moody gaze upon the fire, to +Harriet's face, she said: + +'I am wasting time, and there is none to spare; yet if I hadn't +thought of all, I shouldn't be here now. Wretchedness and ruin came on +me, I say. I was made a short-lived toy, and flung aside more cruelly +and carelessly than even such things are. By whose hand do you think?' + +'Why do you ask me?' said Harriet. + +'Why do you tremble?' rejoined Alice, with an eager look. 'His +usage made a Devil of me. I sunk in wretchedness and ruin, lower and +lower yet. I was concerned in a robbery - in every part of it but the +gains - and was found out, and sent to be tried, without a friend, +without a penny. Though I was but a girl, I would have gone to Death, +sooner than ask him for a word, if a word of his could have saved me. +I would! To any death that could have been invented. But my mother, +covetous always, sent to him in my name, told the true story of my +case, and humbly prayed and petitioned for a small last gift - for not +so many pounds as I have fingers on this hand. Who was it, do you +think, who snapped his fingers at me in my misery, lying, as he +believed, at his feet, and left me without even this poor sign of +remembrance; well satisfied that I should be sent abroad, beyond the +reach of farther trouble to him, and should die, and rot there? Who +was this, do you think?' + +'Why do you ask me?' repeated Harriet. + +'Why do you tremble?' said Alice, laying her hand upon her arm' and +looking in her face, 'but that the answer is on your lips! It was your +brother James. + +Harriet trembled more and more, but did not avert her eyes from the +eager look that rested on them. + +'When I knew you were his sister - which was on that night - I came +back, weary and lame, to spurn your gift. I felt that night as if I +could have travelled, weary and lame, over the whole world, to stab +him, if I could have found him in a lonely place with no one near. Do +you believe that I was earnest in all that?' + +'I do! Good Heaven, why are you come again?' + +'Since then,' said Alice, with the same grasp of her arm, and the +same look in her face, 'I have seen him! I have followed him with my +eyes, In the broad day. If any spark of my resentment slumbered in my +bosom, it sprung into a blaze when my eyes rested on him. You know he +has wronged a proud man, and made him his deadly enemy. What if I had +given information of him to that man?' + +'Information!' repeated Harriet. + +'What if I had found out one who knew your brother's secret; who +knew the manner of his flight, who knew where he and the companion of +his flight were gone? What if I had made him utter all his knowledge, +word by word, before his enemy, concealed to hear it? What if I had +sat by at the time, looking into this enemy's face, and seeing it +change till it was scarcely human? What if I had seen him rush away, +mad, in pursuit? What if I knew, now, that he was on his road, more +fiend than man, and must, in so many hours, come up with him?' + +'Remove your hand!' said Harriet, recoiling. 'Go away! Your touch +is dreadful to me!' + +'I have done this,' pursued the other, with her eager look, +regardless of the interruption. 'Do I speak and look as if I really +had? Do you believe what I am saying?' + +'I fear I must. Let my arm go!' + +'Not yet. A moment more. You can think what my revengeful purpose +must have been, to last so long, and urge me to do this?' + +'Dreadful!' said Harriet. + +'Then when you see me now,' said Alice hoarsely, 'here again, +kneeling quietly on the ground, with my touch upon your arm, with my +eyes upon your face, you may believe that there is no common +earnestness in what I say, and that no common struggle has been +battling in my breast. I am ashamed to speak the words, but I relent. +I despise myself; I have fought with myself all day, and all last +night; but I relent towards him without reason, and wish to repair +what I have done, if it is possible. I wouldn't have them come +together while his pursuer is so blind and headlong. If you had seen +him as he went out last night, you would know the danger better. + +'How can it be prevented? What can I do?' cried Harriet. + +'All night long,' pursued the other, hurriedly, 'I had dreams of +him - and yet I didn't sleep - in his blood. All day, I have had him +near me. + +'What can I do?' cried Harriet, shuddering at these words. + +'If there is anyone who'll write, or send, or go to him, let them +lose no time. He is at Dijon. Do you know the name, and where it is?' + +'Yes.' + +'Warn him that the man he has made his enemy is in a frenzy, and +that he doesn't know him if he makes light of his approach. Tell him +that he is on the road - I know he is! - and hurrying on. Urge him to +get away while there is time - if there is time - and not to meet him +yet. A month or so will make years of difference. Let them not +encounter, through me. Anywhere but there! Any time but now! Let his +foe follow him, and find him for himself, but not through me! There is +enough upon my head without.' + +The fire ceased to be reflected in her jet black hair, uplifted +face, and eager eyes; her hand was gone from Harriet's arm; and the +place where she had been was empty. + + +CHAPTER 54. + +The Fugitives + + + +Tea-time, an hour short of midnight; the place, a French apartment, +comprising some half-dozen rooms; - a dull cold hall or corridor, a +dining-room, a drawing-room, a bed-room, and an inner drawingroom, or +boudoir, smaller and more retired than the rest. All these shut in by +one large pair of doors on the main staircase, but each room provided +with two or three pairs of doors of its own, establishing several +means of communication with the remaining portion of the apartment, or +with certain small passages within the wall, leading, as is not +unusual in such houses, to some back stairs with an obscure outlet +below. The whole situated on the first floor of so large an Hotel, +that it did not absorb one entire row of windows upon one side of the +square court-yard in the centre, upon which the whole four sides of +the mansion looked. + +An air of splendour, sufficiently faded to be melancholy, and +sufficiently dazzling to clog and embarrass the details of life with a +show of state, reigned in these rooms The walls and ceilings were +gilded and painted; the floors were waxed and polished; crimson +drapery hung in festoons from window, door, and mirror; and +candelabra, gnarled and intertwisted like the branches of trees, or +horns of animals, stuck out from the panels of the wall. But in the +day-time, when the lattice-blinds (now closely shut) were opened, and +the light let in, traces were discernible among this finery, of wear +and tear and dust, of sun and damp and smoke, and lengthened intervals +of want of use and habitation, when such shows and toys of life seem +sensitive like life, and waste as men shut up in prison do. Even +night, and clusters of burning candles, could not wholly efface them, +though the general glitter threw them in the shade. + +The glitter of bright tapers, and their reflection in +looking-glasses, scraps of gilding and gay colours, were confined, on +this night, to one room - that smaller room within the rest, just now +enumerated. Seen from the hall, where a lamp was feebly burning, +through the dark perspective of open doors, it looked as shining and +precious as a gem. In the heart of its radiance sat a beautiful woman +- Edith. + +She was alone. The same defiant, scornful woman still. The cheek a +little worn, the eye a little larger in appearance, and more lustrous, +but the haughty bearing just the same. No shame upon her brow; no late +repentance bending her disdainful neck. Imperious and stately yet, and +yet regardless of herself and of all else, she sat wIth her dark eyes +cast down, waiting for someone. + +No book, no work, no occupation of any kind but her own thought, +beguiled the tardy time. Some purpose, strong enough to fill up any +pause, possessed her. With her lips pressed together, and quivering if +for a moment she released them from her control; with her nostril +inflated; her hands clasped in one another; and her purpose swelling +in her breast; she sat, and waited. + +At the sound of a key in the outer door, and a footstep in the +hall, she started up, and cried 'Who's that?' The answer was in +French, and two men came in with jingling trays, to make preparation +for supper. + +'Who had bade them to do so?' she asked. + +'Monsieur had commanded it, when it was his pleasure to take the +apartment. Monsieur had said, when he stayed there for an hour, en +route, and left the letter for Madame - Madame had received it +surely?' + +'Yes.' + +'A thousand pardons! The sudden apprehension that it might have +been forgotten had struck hIm;' a bald man, with a large beard from a +neighbouring restaurant; 'with despair! Monsieur had said that supper +was to be ready at that hour: also that he had forewarned Madame of +the commands he had given, in his letter. Monsieur had done the Golden +Head the honour to request that the supper should be choice and +delicate. Monsieur would find that his confidence in the Golden Head +was not misplaced.' + +Edith said no more, but looked on thoughtfully while they prepared +the table for two persons, and set the wine upon it. She arose before +they had finished, and taking a lamp, passed into the bed-chamber and +into the drawing-room, where she hurriedly but narrowly examined all +the doors; particularly one in the former room that opened on the +passage in the wall. From this she took the key, and put it on the +outer side. She then came back. + +The men - the second of whom was a dark, bilious subject, in a +jacket, close shaved, and with a black head of hair close cropped - +had completed their preparation of the table, and were standing +looking at it. He who had spoken before, inquired whether Madame +thought it would be long before Monsieur arrived? + +'She couldn't say. It was all one.' + +'Pardon! There was the supper! It should be eaten on the instant. +Monsieur (who spoke French like an Angel - or a Frenchman - it was all +the same) had spoken with great emphasis of his punctuality. But the +English nation had so grand a genius for punctuality. Ah! what noise! +Great Heaven, here was Monsieur. Behold him!' + +In effect, Monsieur, admitted by the other of the two, came, with +his gleaming teeth, through the dark rooms, like a mouth; and arriving +in that sanctuary of light and colour, a figure at full length, +embraced Madame, and addressed her in the French tongue as his +charming wife + +'My God! Madame is going to faint. Madame is overcome with joy!' +The bald man with the beard observed it, and cried out. + +Madame had only shrunk and shivered. Before the words were spoken, +she was standing with her hand upon the velvet back of a great chair; +her figure drawn up to its full height, and her face immoveable. + +'Francois has flown over to the Golden Head for supper. He flies on +these occasions like an angel or a bird. The baggage of Monsieur is in +his room. All is arranged. The supper will be here this moment.' These +facts the bald man notified with bows and smiles, and presently the +supper came. + +The hot dishes were on a chafing-dish; the cold already set forth, +with the change of service on a sideboard. Monsieur was satisfied with +this arrangement. The supper table being small, it pleased him very +well. Let them set the chafing-dish upon the floor, and go. He would +remove the dishes with his own hands. + +'Pardon!' said the bald man, politely. 'It was impossible!' + +Monsieur was of another opinion. He required no further attendance +that night. + +'But Madame - ' the bald man hinted. + +'Madame,' replied Monsieur, 'had her own maid. It was enough.' + +'A million pardons! No! Madame had no maid!' + +'I came here alone,' said Edith 'It was my choice to do so. I am +well used to travelling; I want no attendance. They need send nobody +to me. + +Monsieur accordingly, persevering in his first proposed +impossibility, proceeded to follow the two attendants to the outer +door, and secure it after them for the night. The bald man turning +round to bow, as he went out, observed that Madame still stood with +her hand upon the velvet back of the great chair, and that her face +was quite regardless of him, though she was looking straight before +her. + +As the sound of Carker's fastening the door resounded through the +intermediate rooms, and seemed to come hushed and stilled into that +last distant one, the sound of the Cathedral clock striking twelve +mingled with it, in Edith's ears She heard him pause, as if he heard +it too and listened; and then came back towards her, laying a long +train of footsteps through the silence, and shutting all the doors +behind him as he came along. Her hand, for a moment, left the velvet +chair to bring a knife within her reach upon the table; then she stood +as she had stood before. + +'How strange to come here by yourself, my love!' he said as he +entered. + +'What?' she returned. + +Her tone was so harsh; the quick turn of her head so fierce; her +attitude so repellent; and her frown so black; that he stood, with the +lamp in his hand, looking at her, as if she had struck him motionless. + +'I say,' he at length repeated, putting down the lamp, and smiling +his most courtly smile, 'how strange to come here alone! It was +unnecessarty caution surely, and might have defeated itself. You were +to have engaged an attendant at Havre or Rouen, and have had abundance +of time for the purpose, though you had been the most capricious and +difficult (as you are the most beautiful, my love) of women.' + +Her eyes gleamed strangely on him, but she stood with her hand +resting on the chair, and said not a word. + +'I have never,' resumed Carker, 'seen you look so handsome, as you +do to-night. Even the picture I have carried in my mind during this +cruel probation, and which I have contemplated night and day, is +exceeded by the reality.' + +Not a word. Not a look Her eyes completely hidden by their drooping +lashes, but her head held up. + +'Hard, unrelenting terms they were!' said Carker, with a smile, +'but they are all fulfilled and passed, and make the present more +delicious and more safe. Sicily shall be the Place of our retreat. In +the idlest and easiest part of the world, my soul, we'll both seek +compensation for old slavery.' + +He was coming gaily towards her, when, in an instant, she caught +the knife up from the table, and started one pace back. + +'Stand still!' she said, 'or I shall murder you!' + +The sudden change in her, the towering fury and intense abhorrence +sparkling in her eyes and lighting up her brow, made him stop as if a +fire had stopped him. + +'Stand still!' she said, 'come no nearer me, upon your life!' + +They both stood looking at each other. Rage and astonishment were +in his face, but he controlled them, and said lightly, + +'Come, come! Tush, we are alone, and out of everybody's sight and +hearing. Do you think to frighten me with these tricks of virtue?' + +'Do you think to frighten me,' she answered fiercely, 'from any +purpose that I have, and any course I am resolved upon, by reminding +me of the solitude of this place, and there being no help near? Me, +who am here alone, designedly? If I feared you, should I not have +avoided you? If I feared you, should I be here, in the dead of night, +telling you to your face what I am going to tell?' + +'And what is that,' he said, 'you handsome shrew? Handsomer so, +than any other woman in her best humour?' + +'I tell you nothing,' she returned, until you go back to that chair +- except this, once again - Don't come near me! Not a step nearer. I +tell you, if you do, as Heaven sees us, I shall murder you!' + +'Do you mistake me for your husband?' he retorted, with a grin. + +Disdaining to reply, she stretched her arm out, pointing to the +chair. He bit his lip, frowned, laughed, and sat down in it, with a +baffled, irresolute, impatient air, he was unable to conceal; and +biting his nail nervously, and looking at her sideways, with bitter +discomfiture, even while he feigned to be amused by her caprice. + +She put the knife down upon the table, and touching her bosom wIth +her hand, said: + +'I have something lying here that is no love trinket, and sooner +than endure your touch once more, I would use it on you - and you know +it, while I speak - with less reluctance than I would on any other +creeping thing that lives.' + +He affected to laugh jestingly, and entreated her to act her play +out quickly, for the supper was growing cold. But the secret look with +which he regarded her, was more sullen and lowering, and he struck his +foot once upon the floor with a muttered oath. + +'How many times,' said Edith, bending her darkest glance upon him' +'has your bold knavery assailed me with outrage and insult? How many +times in your smooth manner, and mocking words and looks, have I been +twitted with my courtship and my marriage? How many times have you +laid bare my wound of love for that sweet, injured girl and lacerated +it? How often have you fanned the fire on which, for two years, I have +writhed; and tempted me to take a desperate revenge, when it has most +tortured me?' + +'I have no doubt, Ma'am,' he replied, 'that you have kept a good +account, and that it's pretty accurate. Come, Edith. To your husband, +poor wretch, this was well enough - ' + +'Why, if,' she said, surveying him with a haughty contempt and +disgust, that he shrunk under, let him brave it as he would, 'if all +my other reasons for despising him could have been blown away like +feathers, his having you for his counsellor and favourite, would have +almost been enough to hold their place.' + +'Is that a reason why you have run away with me?' he asked her, +tauntingly. + +'Yes, and why we are face to face for the last time. Wretch! We +meet tonight, and part tonight. For not one moment after I have ceased +to speak, will I stay here!' + +He turned upon her with his ugliest look, and gripped the table +with his hand; but neither rose, nor otherwise answered or threatened +her. + +'I am a woman,' she said, confronting him steadfastly, 'who from +her childhood has been shamed and steeled. I have been offered and +rejected, put up and appraised, until my very soul has sickened. I +have not had an accomplishment or grace that might have been a +resource to me, but it has been paraded and vended to enhance my +value, as if the common crier had called it through the streets. My +poor, proud friends, have looked on and approved; and every tie +between us has been deadened in my breast. There is not one of them +for whom I care, as I could care for a pet dog. I stand alone in the +world, remembering well what a hollow world it has been to me, and +what a hollow part of it I have been myself. You know this, and you +know that my fame with it is worthless to me.' + +'Yes; I imagined that,' he said. + +'And calculated on it,' she rejoined, 'and so pursued me. Grown too +indifferent for any opposition but indifference, to the daily working +of the hands that had moulded me to this; and knowing that my marriage +would at least prevent their hawking of me up and down; I suffered +myself to be sold, as infamously as any woman with a halter round her +neck is sold in any market-place. You know that.' + +'Yes,' he said, showing all his teeth 'I know that.' + +'And calculated on it,' she rejoined once more, 'and so pursued me. +From my marriage day, I found myself exposed to such new shame - to +such solicitation and pursuit (expressed as clearly as if it had been +written in the coarsest words, and thrust into my hand at every turn) +from one mean villain, that I felt as if I had never known humiliation +till that time. This shame my husband fixed upon me; hemmed me round +with, himself; steeped me in, with his own hands, and of his own act, +repeated hundreds of times. And thus - forced by the two from every +point of rest I had - forced by the two to yield up the last retreat +of love and gentleness within me, or to be a new misfortune on its +innocent object - driven from each to each, and beset by one when I +escaped the other - my anger rose almost to distraction against both I +do not know against which it rose higher - the master or the man!' + +He watched her closely, as she stood before him in the very triumph +of her indignant beauty. She was resolute, he saw; undauntable; with +no more fear of him than of a worm. + +'What should I say of honour or of chastity to you!' she went on. +'What meaning would it have to you; what meaning would it have from +me! But if I tell you that the lightest touch of your hand makes my +blood cold with antipathy; that from the hour when I first saw and +hated you, to now, when my instinctive repugnance is enhanced by every +minute's knowledge of you I have since had, you have been a loathsome +creature to me which has not its like on earth; how then?' + +He answered with a faint laugh, 'Ay! How then, my queen?' + +'On that night, when, emboldened by the scene you had assisted at, +you dared come to my room and speak to me,' she said, 'what passed?' + +He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed + +'What passed?' she said. + +'Your memory is so distinct,' he said, 'that I have no doubt you +can recall it.' + +'I can,' she said. 'Hear it! Proposing then, this flight - not this +flight, but the flight you thought it - you told me that in the having +given you that meeting, and leaving you to be discovered there, if you +so thought fit; and in the having suffered you to be alone with me +many times before, - and having made the opportunities, you said, - +and in the having openly avowed to you that I had no feeling for my +husband but aversion, and no care for myself - I was lost; I had given +you the power to traduce my name; and I lived, in virtuous reputation, +at the pleasure of your breath' + +'All stratagems in love - ' he interrupted, smiling. 'The old +adage - ' + +'On that night,' said Edith, 'and then, the struggle that I long +had had with something that was not respect for my good fame - that +was I know not what - perhaps the clinging to that last retreat- was +ended. On that night, and then, I turned from everything but passion +and resentment. I struck a blow that laid your lofty master in the +dust, and set you there, before me, looking at me now, and knowing +what I mean.' + +He sprung up from his chair with a great oath. She put her hand +into her bosom, and not a finger trembled, not a hair upon her head +was stirred. He stood still: she too: the table and chair between +them.~ + +'When I forget that this man put his lips to mine that night, and +held me in his arms as he has done again to-night,' said Edith, +pointing at him; 'when I forget the taint of his kiss upon my cheek - +the cheek that Florence would have laid her guiltless face against - +when I forget my meeting with her, while that taint was hot upon me, +and in what a flood the knowledge rushed upon me when I saw her, that +in releasing her from the persecution I had caused by my love, I +brought a shame and degradation on her name through mine, and in all +time to come should be the solitary figure representing in her mind +her first avoidance of a guilty creature - then, Husband, from whom I +stand divorced henceforth, I will forget these last two years, and +undo what I have done, and undeceive you!' + +Her flashing eyes, uplifted for a moment, lighted again on Carker, +and she held some letters out in her left hand. + +'See these!' she said, contemptuously. 'You have addressed these to +me in the false name you go by; one here, some elsewhere on my road. +The seals are unbroken. Take them back!' + +She crunched them in her hand, and tossed them to his feet. And as +she looked upon him now, a smile was on her face. + +'We meet and part to-night,' she said. 'You have fallen on Sicilian +days and sensual rest, too soon. You might have cajoled, and fawned, +and played your traitor's part, a little longer, and grown richer. You +purchase your voluptuous retirement dear!' + +'Edith!' he retorted, menacing her with his hand. 'Sit down! Have +done with this! What devil possesses you?' + +'Their name is Legion,' she replied, uprearing her proud form as if +she would have crushed him; 'you and your master have raised them in a +fruitful house, and they shall tear you both. False to him, false to +his innocent child, false every way and everywhere, go forth and boast +of me, and gnash your teeth, for once, to know that you are lying!' + +He stood before her, muttering and menacing, and scowling round as +if for something that would help him to conquer her; but with the same +indomitable spirit she opposed him, without faltering. + +'In every vaunt you make,' she said, 'I have my triumph I single +out in you the meanest man I know, the parasite and tool of the proud +tyrant, that his wound may go the deeper, and may rankle more. Boast, +and revenge me on him! You know how you came here to-night; you know +how you stand cowering there; you see yourself in colours quite as +despicable, if not as odious, as those in which I see you. Boast then, +and revenge me on yourself.' + +The foam was on his lips; the wet stood on his forehead. If she +would have faltered once for only one half-moment, he would have +pinioned her; but she was as firm as rock, and her searching eyes +never left him. + +'We don't part so,' he said. 'Do you think I am drivelling, to let +you go in your mad temper?' + +'Do you think,' she answered, 'that I am to be stayed?' + +'I'll try, my dear,' he said with a ferocious gesture of his head. + +'God's mercy on you, if you try by coming near me!' she replied. + +'And what,' he said, 'if there are none of these same boasts and +vaunts on my part? What if I were to turn too? Come!' and his teeth +fairly shone again. 'We must make a treaty of this, or I may take some +unexpected course. Sit down, sit down!' + +'Too late!' she cried, with eyes that seemed to sparkle fire. 'I +have thrown my fame and good name to the winds! I have resolved to +bear the shame that will attach to me - resolved to know that it +attaches falsely - that you know it too - and that he does not, never +can, and never shall. I'll die, and make no sign. For this, I am here +alone with you, at the dead of night. For this, I have met you here, +in a false name, as your wife. For this, I have been seen here by +those men, and left here. Nothing can save you now. + +He would have sold his soul to root her, in her beauty, to the +floor, and make her arms drop at her sides, and have her at his mercy. +But he could not look at her, and not be afraid of her. He saw a +strength within her that was resistless. He saw that she was +desperate, and that her unquenchable hatred of him would stop at +nothing. His eyes followed the hand that was put with such rugged +uncongenial purpose into her white bosom, and he thought that if it +struck at hIm, and failed, it would strike there, just as soon. + +He did not venture, therefore, to advance towards her; but the door +by which he had entered was behind him, and he stepped back to lock +it. + +'Lastly, take my warning! Look to yourself!' she said, and smiled +again. 'You have been betrayed, as all betrayers are. It has been made +known that you are in this place, or were to be, or have been. If I +live, I saw my husband in a carriage in the street to-night!' + +'Strumpet, it's false!' cried Carker. + +At the moment, the bell rang loudly in the hall. He turned white, +as she held her hand up like an enchantress, at whose invocation the +sound had come. + +'Hark! do you hear it?' + +He set his back against the door; for he saw a change in her, and +fancied she was coming on to pass him. But, in a moment, she was gone +through the opposite doors communicating with the bed-chamber, and +they shut upon her. + +Once turned, once changed in her inflexible unyielding look, he +felt that he could cope with her. He thought a sudden terror, +occasioned by this night-alarm, had subdued her; not the less readily, +for her overwrought condition. Throwing open the doors, he followed, +almost instantly. + +But the room was dark; and as she made no answer to his call, he +was fain to go back for the lamp. He held it up, and looked round, +everywhere, expecting to see her crouching in some corner; but the +room was empty. So, into the drawing-room and dining-room he went, in +succession, with the uncertain steps of a man in a strange place; +looking fearfully about, and prying behind screens and couches; but +she was not there. No, nor in the hall, which was so bare that he +could see that, at a glance. + +All this time, the ringing at the bell was constantly renewed, and +those without were beating at the door. He put his lamp down at a +distance, and going near it, listened. There were several voices +talking together: at least two of them in English; and though the door +was thick, and there was great confusion, he knew one of these too +well to doubt whose voice it was. + +He took up his lamp again, and came back quickly through all the +rooms, stopping as he quitted each, and looking round for her, with +the light raised above his head. He was standing thus in the +bed-chamber, when the door, leading to the little passage in the wall, +caught his eye. He went to it, and found it fastened on the other +side; but she had dropped a veil in going through, and shut it in the +door. + +All this time the people on the stairs were ringing at the bell, +and knocking with their hands and feet. + +He was not a coward: but these sounds; what had gone before; the +strangeness of the place, which had confused him, even in his return +from the hall; the frustration of his schemes (for, strange to say, he +would have been much bolder, if they had succeeded); the unseasonable +time; the recollection of having no one near to whom he could appeal +for any friendly office; above all, the sudden sense, which made even +his heart beat like lead, that the man whose confidence he had +outraged, and whom he had so treacherously deceived, was there to +recognise and challenge him with his mask plucked off his face; struck +a panic through him. He tried the door in which the veil was shut, but +couldn't force it. He opened one of the windows, and looked down +through the lattice of the blind, into the court-yard; but it was a +high leap, and the stones were pitiless. + +The ringing and knocking still continuing - his panic too - he went +back to the door in the bed-chamber, and with some new efforts, each +more stubborn than the last, wrenched it open. Seeing the little +staircase not far off, and feeling the night-air coming up, he stole +back for his hat and coat, made the door as secure after hIm as he +could, crept down lamp in hand, extinguished it on seeing the street, +and having put it in a corner, went out where the stars were shining. + + +CHAPTER 55. + +Rob the Grinder loses his Place + + + +The Porter at the iron gate which shut the court-yard from the +street, had left the little wicket of his house open, and was gone +away; no doubt to mingle in the distant noise at the door of the great +staircase. Lifting the latch softly, Carker crept out, and shutting +the jangling gate after him with as little noise as possible, hurried +off. + +In the fever of his mortification and unavailing rage, the panic +that had seized upon him mastered him completely. It rose to such a +height that he would have blindly encountered almost any risk, rather +than meet the man of whom, two hours ago, he had been utterly +regardless. His fierce arrival, which he had never expected; the sound +of his voice; their having been so near a meeting, face to face; he +would have braved out this, after the first momentary shock of alarm, +and would have put as bold a front upon his guilt as any villain. But +the springing of his mine upon himself, seemed to have rent and +shivered all his hardihood and self-reliance. Spurned like any +reptile; entrapped and mocked; turned upon, and trodden down by the +proud woman whose mind he had slowly poisoned, as he thought, until +she had sunk into the mere creature of his pleasure; undeceived in his +deceit, and with his fox's hide stripped off, he sneaked away, +abashed, degraded, and afraid. + +Some other terror came upon hIm quite removed from this of being +pursued, suddenly, like an electric shock, as he was creeping through +the streets Some visionary terror, unintelligible and inexplicable, +asssociated with a trembling of the ground, - a rush and sweep of +something through the air, like Death upon the wing. He shrunk, as if +to let the thing go by. It was not gone, it never had been there, yet +what a startling horror it had left behind. + +He raised his wicked face so full of trouble, to the night sky, +where the stars, so full of peace, were shining on him as they had +been when he first stole out into the air; and stopped to think what +he should do. The dread of being hunted in a strange remote place, +where the laws might not protect him - the novelty of the feeling that +it was strange and remote, originating in his being left alone so +suddenly amid the ruins of his plans - his greater dread of seeking +refuge now, in Italy or in Sicily, where men might be hired to +assissinate him, he thought, at any dark street corner-the waywardness +of guilt and fear - perhaps some sympathy of action with the turning +back of all his schemes - impelled him to turn back too, and go to +England. + +'I am safer there, in any case. If I should not decide,' he +thought, 'to give this fool a meeting, I am less likely to be traced +there, than abroad here, now. And if I should (this cursed fit being +over), at least I shall not be alone, with out a soul to speak to, or +advise with, or stand by me. I shall not be run in upon and worried +like a rat.' + +He muttered Edith's name, and clenched his hand. As he crept along, +in the shadow of the massive buildings, he set his teeth, and muttered +dreadful imprecations on her head, and looked from side to side, as if +in search of her. Thus, he stole on to the gate of an inn-yard. The +people were a-bed; but his ringing at the bell soon produced a man +with a lantern, in company with whom he was presently in a dim +coach-house, bargaining for the hire of an old phaeton, to Paris. + +The bargain was a short one; and the horses were soon sent for. +Leaving word that the carriage was to follow him when they came, he +stole away again, beyond the town, past the old ramparts, out on the +open road, which seemed to glide away along the dark plain, like a +stream. + +Whither did it flow? What was the end of it? As he paused, with +some such suggestion within him, looking over the gloomy flat where +the slender trees marked out the way, again that flight of Death came +rushing up, again went on, impetuous and resistless, again was nothing +but a horror in his mind, dark as the scene and undefined as its +remotest verge. + +There was no wind; there was no passing shadow on the deep shade of +the night; there was no noise. The city lay behind hIm, lighted here +and there, and starry worlds were hidden by the masonry of spire and +roof that hardly made out any shapes against the sky. Dark and lonely +distance lay around him everywhere, and the clocks were faintly +striking two. + +He went forward for what appeared a long time, and a long way; +often stopping to listen. At last the ringing of horses' bells greeted +his anxious ears. Now softer, and now louder, now inaudible, now +ringing very slowly over bad ground, now brisk and merry, it came on; +until with a loud shouting and lashing, a shadowy postillion muffled +to the eyes, checked his four struggling horses at his side. + +'Who goes there! Monsieur?' + +'Yes.' + +'Monsieur has walked a long way in the dark midnight.' + +'No matter. Everyone to his task. Were there any other horses +ordered at the Post-house?' + +'A thousand devils! - and pardons! other horses? at this hour? No.' + +'Listen, my friend. I am much hurried. Let us see how fast we can +travel! The faster, the more money there will be to drink. Off we go +then! Quick!' + +'Halloa! whoop! Halloa! Hi!' Away, at a gallop, over the black +landscape, scattering the dust and dirt like spray! + +The clatter and commotion echoed to the hurry and discordance of +the fugitive's ideas. Nothing clear without, and nothing clear within. +Objects flitting past, merging into one another, dimly descried, +confusedly lost sight of, gone! Beyond the changing scraps of fence +and cottage immediately upon the road, a lowering waste. Beyond the +shifting images that rose up in his mind and vanished as they showed +themselves, a black expanse of dread and rage and baffled villainy. +Occasionally, a sigh of mountain air came from the distant Jura, +fading along the plain. Sometimes that rush which was so furious and +horrible, again came sweeping through his fancy, passed away, and left +a chill upon his blood. + +The lamps, gleaming on the medley of horses' heads, jumbled with +the shadowy driver, and the fluttering of his cloak, made a thousand +indistinct shapes, answering to his thoughts. Shadows of familiar +people, stooping at their desks and books, in their remembered +attitudes; strange apparitions of the man whom he was flying from, or +of Edith; repetitions in the ringing bells and rolling wheels, of +words that had been spoken; confusions of time and place, making last +night a month ago, a month ago last night - home now distant beyond +hope, now instantly accessible; commotion, discord, hurry, darkness, +and confusion in his mind, and all around him. - Hallo! Hi! away at a +gallop over the black landscape; dust and dirt flying like spray, the +smoking horses snorting and plunging as if each of them were ridden by +a demon, away in a frantic triumph on the dark road - whither? + +Again the nameless shock comes speeding up, and as it passes, the +bells ring in his ears 'whither?' The wheels roar in his ears +'whither?' All the noise and rattle shapes itself into that cry. The +lights and shadows dance upon the horses' heads like imps. No stopping +now: no slackening! On, on Away with him upon the dark road wildly! + +He could not think to any purpose. He could not separate one +subject of reflection from another, sufficiently to dwell upon it, by +itself, for a minute at a time. The crash of his project for the +gaining of a voluptuous compensation for past restraint; the overthrow +of his treachery to one who had been true and generous to him, but +whose least proud word and look he had treasured up, at interest, for +years - for false and subtle men will always secretly despise and +dislike the object upon which they fawn and always resent the payment +and receipt of homage that they know to be worthless; these were the +themes uppermost in his mind. A lurking rage against the woman who had +so entrapped him and avenged herself was always there; crude and +misshapen schemes of retaliation upon her, floated in his brain; but +nothing was distinct. A hurry and contradiction pervaded all his +thoughts. Even while he was so busy with this fevered, ineffectual +thinking, his one constant idea was, that he would postpone reflection +until some indefinite time. + +Then, the old days before the second marriage rose up in his +remembrance. He thought how jealous he had been of the boy, how +jealous he had been of the girl, how artfully he had kept intruders at +a distance, and drawn a circle round his dupe that none but himself +should cross; and then he thought, had he done all this to be flying +now, like a scared thief, from only the poor dupe? + +He could have laid hands upon himself for his cowardice, but it was +the very shadow of his defeat, and could not be separated from it. To +have his confidence in his own knavery so shattered at a blow - to be +within his own knowledge such a miserable tool - was like being +paralysed. With an impotent ferocity he raged at Edith, and hated Mr +Dombey and hated himself, but still he fled, and could do nothing +else. + +Again and again he listened for the sound of wheels behind. Again +and again his fancy heard it, coming on louder and louder. At last he +was so persuaded of this, that he cried out, 'Stop' preferring even +the loss of ground to such uncertainty. + +The word soon brought carriage, horses, driver, all in a heap +together, across the road. + +'The devil!' cried the driver, looking over his shoulder, 'what's +the matter?' + +'Hark! What's that?' + +'What?' + +'That noise?' + +'Ah Heaven, be quiet, cursed brigand!' to a horse who shook his +bells 'What noise?' + +'Behind. Is it not another carriage at a gallop? There! what's +that?' Miscreant with a Pig's head, stand still!' to another horse, +who bit another, who frightened the other two, who plunged and backed. +'There is nothing coming.' + +'Nothing.' + +'No, nothing but the day yonder.' + +'You are right, I think. I hear nothing now, indeed. Go on!' + +The entangled equipage, half hidden in the reeking cloud from the +horses, goes on slowly at first, for the driver, checked unnecessarily +in his progress, sulkily takes out a pocket-knife, and puts a new lash +to his whip. Then 'Hallo, whoop! Hallo, hi!' Away once more, savagely. + +And now the stars faded, and the day glimmered, and standing in the +carriage, looking back, he could discern the track by which he had +come, and see that there was no traveller within view, on all the +heavy expanse. And soon it was broad day, and the sun began to shine +on cornfields and vineyards; and solitary labourers, risen from little +temporary huts by heaps of stones upon the road, were, here and there, +at work repairing the highway, or eating bread. By and by, there were +peasants going to their daily labour, or to market, or lounging at the +doors of poor cottages, gazing idly at him as he passed. And then +there was a postyard, ankle-deep in mud, with steaming dunghills and +vast outhouses half ruined; and looking on this dainty prospect, an +immense, old, shadeless, glaring, stone chateau, with half its windows +blinded, and green damp crawling lazily over it, from the balustraded +terrace to the taper tips of the extinguishers upon the turrets. + +Gathered up moodily in a corner of the carriage, and only intent on +going fast - except when he stood up, for a mile together, and looked +back; which he would do whenever there was a piece of open country - +he went on, still postponing thought indefinitely, and still always +tormented with thinking to no purpose. + +Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawed at his heart; a +constant apprehension of being overtaken, or met - for he was +groundlessly afraid even of travellers, who came towards him by the +way he was going - oppressed him heavily. The same intolerable awe and +dread that had come upon him in the night, returned unweakened in the +day. The monotonous ringing of the bells and tramping of the horses; +the monotony of his anxiety, and useless rage; the monotonous wheel of +fear, regret, and passion, he kept turning round and round; made the +journey like a vision, in which nothing was quite real but his own +torment. + +It was a vision of long roads, that stretched away to an horizon, +always receding and never gained; of ill-paved towns, up hill and +down, where faces came to dark doors and ill-glazed windows, and where +rows of mudbespattered cows and oxen were tied up for sale in the long +narrow streets, butting and lowing, and receiving blows on their blunt +heads from bludgeons that might have beaten them in; of bridges, +crosses, churches, postyards, new horses being put in against their +wills, and the horses of the last stage reeking, panting, and laying +their drooping heads together dolefully at stable doors; of little +cemeteries with black crosses settled sideways in the graves, and +withered wreaths upon them dropping away; again of long, long roads, +dragging themselves out, up hill and down, to the treacherous horizon. + +Of morning, noon, and sunset; night, and the rising of an early +moon. Of long roads temporarily left behind, and a rough pavement +reached; of battering and clattering over it, and looking up, among +house-roofs, at a great church-tower; of getting out and eating +hastily, and drinking draughts of wine that had no cheering influence; +of coming forth afoot, among a host of beggars - blind men with +quivering eyelids, led by old women holding candles to their faces; +idiot girls; the lame, the epileptic, and the palsied - of passing +through the clamour, and looking from his seat at the upturned +countenances and outstretched hands, with a hurried dread of +recognising some pursuer pressing forward - of galloping away again, +upon the long, long road, gathered up, dull and stunned, in his +corner, or rising to see where the moon shone faintly on a patch of +the same endless road miles away, or looking back to see who followed. + +Of never sleeping, but sometimes dozing with unclosed eyes, and +springing up with a start, and a reply aloud to an imaginary voice. Of +cursing himself for being there, for having fled, for having let her +go, for not having confronted and defied him. Of having a deadly +quarrel with the whole world, but chiefly with himself. Of blighting +everything with his black mood as he was carried on and away. + +It was a fevered vision of things past and present all confounded +together; of his life and journey blended into one. Of being madly +hurried somewhere, whither he must go. Of old scenes starting up among +the novelties through which he travelled. Of musing and brooding over +what was past and distant, and seeming to take no notice of the actual +objects he encountered, but with a wearisome exhausting consciousness +of being bewildered by them, and having their images all crowded in +his hot brain after they were gone. + +A vision of change upon change, and still the same monotony of +bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of town and country, +postyards, horses, drivers, hill and valley, light and darkness, road +and pavement, height and hollow, wet weather and dry, and still the +same monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. A +vision of tending on at last, towards the distant capital, by busier +roads, and sweeping round, by old cathedrals, and dashing through +small towns and villages, less thinly scattered on the road than +formerly, and sitting shrouded in his corner, with his cloak up to his +face, as people passing by looked at him. + +Of rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked +with thinking; of being unable to reckon up the hours he had been upon +the road, or to comprehend the points of time and place in his +journey. Of being parched and giddy, and half mad. Of pressing on, in +spite of all, as if he could not stop, and coming into Paris, where +the turbid river held its swift course undisturbed, between two +brawling streams of life and motion. + +A troubled vision, then, of bridges, quays, interminable streets; +of wine-shops, water-carriers, great crowds of people, soldiers, +coaches, military drums, arcades. Of the monotony of bells and wheels +and horses' feet being at length lost in the universal din and uproar. +Of the gradual subsidence of that noise as he passed out in another +carriage by a different barrier from that by which he had entered. Of +the restoration, as he travelled on towards the seacoast, of the +monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. + +Of sunset once again, and nightfall. Of long roads again, and dead +of night, and feeble lights in windows by the roadside; and still the +old monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of +dawn, and daybreak, and the rising of the sun. Of tolling slowly up a +hill, and feeling on its top the fresh sea-breeze; and seeing the +morning light upon the edges of the distant waves. Of coming down into +a harbour when the tide was at its full, and seeing fishing-boats +float on, and glad women and children waiting for them. Of nets and +seamen's clothes spread out to dry upon the shore; of busy saIlors, +and their voices high among ships' masts and rigging; of the buoyancy +and brightness of the water, and the universal sparkling. + +Of receding from the coast, and looking back upon it from the deck +when it was a haze upon the water, with here and there a little +opening of bright land where the Sun struck. Of the swell, and flash, +and murmur of the calm sea. Of another grey line on the ocean, on the +vessel's track, fast growing clearer and higher. Of cliffs and +buildings, and a windmill, and a church, becoming more and more +visible upon it. Of steaming on at last into smooth water, and mooring +to a pier whence groups of people looked down, greeting friends on +board. Of disembarking, passing among them quickly, shunning every +one; and of being at last again in England. + +He had thought, in his dream, of going down into a remote +country-place he knew, and lying quiet there, while he secretly +informed himself of what transpired, and determined how to act, Still +in the same stunned condition, he remembered a certain station on the +railway, where he would have to branch off to his place of +destination, and where there was a quiet Inn. Here, he indistinctly +resolved to tarry and rest. + +With this purpose he slunk into a railway carriage as quickly as he +could, and lying there wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep, was +soon borne far away from the sea, and deep into the inland green. +Arrived at his destination he looked out, and surveyed it carefully. +He was not mistaken in his impression of the place. It was a retired +spot, on the borders of a little wood. Only one house, newly-built or +altered for the purpose, stood there, surrounded by its neat garden; +the small town that was nearest, was some miles away. Here he alighted +then; and going straight into the tavern, unobserved by anyone, +secured two rooms upstairs communicating with each other, and +sufficiently retired. + +His object was to rest, and recover the command of himself, and the +balance of his mind. Imbecile discomfiture and rage - so that, as he +walked about his room, he ground his teeth - had complete possession +of him. His thoughts, not to be stopped or directed, still wandered +where they would, and dragged him after them. He was stupefied, and he +was wearied to death. + +But, as if there were a curse upon him that he should never rest +again, his drowsy senses would not lose their consciousness. He had no +more influence with them, in this regard, than if they had been +another man's. It was not that they forced him to take note of present +sounds and objects, but that they would not be diverted from the whole +hurried vision of his journey. It was constantly before him all at +once. She stood there, with her dark disdainful eyes again upon him; +and he was riding on nevertheless, through town and country, light and +darkness, wet weather and dry, over road and pavement, hill and +valley, height and hollow, jaded and scared by the monotony of bells +and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. + +'What day is this?' he asked of the waiter, who was making +preparations for his dinner. + +'Day, Sir?' + +'Is it Wednesday?' + +'Wednesday, Sir? No, Sir. Thursday, Sir.' + +'I forgot. How goes the time? My watch is unwound.' + +'Wants a few minutes of five o'clock, Sir. Been travelling a long +time, Sir, perhaps?' + +'Yes' + +'By rail, Sir?' + +'Yes' + +'Very confusing, Sir. Not much in the habit of travelling by rail +myself, Sir, but gentlemen frequently say so.' + +'Do many gentlemen come here? + +'Pretty well, Sir, in general. Nobody here at present. Rather slack +just now, Sir. Everything is slack, Sir.' + +He made no answer; but had risen into a sitting posture on the sofa +where he had been lying, and leaned forward with an arm on each knee, +staring at the ground. He could not master his own attention for a +minute together. It rushed away where it would, but it never, for an +instant, lost itself in sleep. + +He drank a quantity of wine after dinner, in vain. No such +artificial means would bring sleep to his eyes. His thoughts, more +incoherent, dragged him more unmercifully after them - as if a wretch, +condemned to such expiation, were drawn at the heels of wild horses. +No oblivion, and no rest. + +How long he sat, drinking and brooding, and being dragged in +imagination hither and thither, no one could have told less correctly +than he. But he knew that he had been sitting a long time by +candle-light, when he started up and listened, in a sudden terror. + +For now, indeed, it was no fancy. The ground shook, the house +rattled, the fierce impetuous rush was in the air! He felt it come up, +and go darting by; and even when he had hurried to the window, and saw +what it was, he stood, shrinking from it, as if it were not safe to +look. + +A curse upon the fiery devil, thundering along so smoothly, tracked +through the distant valley by a glare of light and lurid smoke, and +gone! He felt as if he had been plucked out of its path, and saved +from being torn asunder. It made him shrink and shudder even now, when +its faintest hum was hushed, and when the lines of iron road he could +trace in the moonlight, running to a point, were as empty and as +silent as a desert. + +Unable to rest, and irresistibly attracted - or he thought so - to +this road, he went out, and lounged on the brink of it, marking the +way the train had gone, by the yet smoking cinders that were lying in +its track. After a lounge of some half hour in the direction by which +it had disappeared, he turned and walked the other way - still keeping +to the brink of the road - past the inn garden, and a long way down; +looking curiously at the bridges, signals, lamps, and wondering when +another Devil would come by. + +A trembling of the ground, and quick vibration in his ears; a +distant shriek; a dull light advancing, quickly changed to two red +eyes, and a fierce fire, dropping glowing coals; an irresistible +bearing on of a great roaring and dilating mass; a high wind, and a +rattle - another come and gone, and he holding to a gate, as if to +save himself! + +He waited for another, and for another. He walked back to his +former point, and back again to that, and still, through the wearisome +vision of his journey, looked for these approaching monsters. He +loitered about the station, waiting until one should stay to call +there; and when one did, and was detached for water, he stood parallel +with it, watching its heavy wheels and brazen front, and thinking what +a cruel power and might it had. Ugh! To see the great wheels slowly +turning, and to think of being run down and crushed! + +Disordered with wine and want of rest - that want which nothing, +although he was so weary, would appease - these ideas and objects +assumed a diseased importance in his thoughts. When he went back to +his room, which was not until near midnight, they still haunted him, +and he sat listening for the coming of another. + +So in his bed, whither he repaired with no hope of sleep. He still +lay listening; and when he felt the trembling and vibration, got up +and went to the window, to watch (as he could from its position) the +dull light changing to the two red eyes, and the fierce fire dropping +glowing coals, and the rush of the giant as it fled past, and the +track of glare and smoke along the valley. Then he would glance in the +direction by which he intended to depart at sunrise, as there was no +rest for him there; and would lie down again, to be troubled by the +vision of his journey, and the old monotony of bells and wheels and +horses' feet, until another came. This lasted all night. So far from +resuming the mastery of himself, he seemed, if possible, to lose it +more and more, as the night crept on. When the dawn appeared, he was +still tormented with thinking, still postponing thought until he +should be in a better state; the past, present, and future all floated +confusedly before him, and he had lost all power of looking steadily +at any one of them. + +'At what time,' he asked the man who had waited on hIm over-night, +now entering with a candle, 'do I leave here, did you say?' + +'About a quarter after four, Sir. Express comes through at four, +Sir. - It don't stop. + +He passed his hand across his throbbing head, and looked at his +watch. Nearly half-past three. + +'Nobody going with you, Sir, probably,' observed the man. 'Two +gentlemen here, Sir, but they're waiting for the train to London.' + +'I thought you said there was nobody here,' said Carker, turning +upon him with the ghost of his old smile, when he was angry or +suspicious. + +'Not then, sir. Two gentlemen came in the night by the short train +that stops here, Sir. Warm water, Sir?' + +'No; and take away the candle. There's day enough for me.' + +Having thrown himself upon the bed, half-dressed he was at the +window as the man left the room. The cold light of morning had +succeeded to night and there was already, in the sky, the red +suffusion of the coming sun. He bathed his head and face with water - +there was no cooling influence in it for him - hurriedly put on his +clothes, paid what he owed, and went out. + +The air struck chill and comfortless as it breathed upon him. There +was a heavy dew; and, hot as he was, it made him shiver. After a +glance at the place where he had walked last night, and at the +signal-lights burning in the morning, and bereft of their +significance, he turned to where the sun was rising, and beheld it, in +its glory, as it broke upon the scene. + +So awful, so transcendent in its beauty, so divinely solemn. As he +cast his faded eyes upon it, where it rose, tranquil and serene, +unmoved by all the wrong and wickedness on which its beams had shone +since the beginning of the world, who shall say that some weak sense +of virtue upon Earth, and its in Heaven, did not manifest itself, even +to him? If ever he remembered sister or brother with a touch of +tenderness and remorse, who shall say it was not then? + +He needed some such touch then. Death was on him. He was marked off +- the living world, and going down into his grave. + +He paid the money for his journey to the country-place he had +thought of; and was walking to and fro, alone, looking along the lines +of iron, across the valley in one direction, and towards a dark bridge +near at hand in the other; when, turning in his walk, where it was +bounded by one end of the wooden stage on which he paced up and down, +he saw the man from whom he had fled, emerging from the door by which +he himself had entered + +And their eyes met. + +In the quick unsteadiness of the surprise, he staggered, and +slipped on to the road below him. But recovering his feet immediately, +he stepped back a pace or two upon that road, to interpose some wider +space between them, and looked at his pursuer, breathing short and +quick. + +He heard a shout - another - saw the face change from its +vindictive passion to a faint sickness and terror - felt the earth +tremble - knew in a moment that the rush was come - uttered a shriek - +looked round - saw the red eyes, bleared and dim, in the daylight, +close upon him - was beaten down, caught up, and whirled away upon a +jagged mill, that spun him round and round, and struck him limb from +limb, and licked his stream of life up with its fiery heat, and cast +his mutilated fragments in the air. + +When the traveller, who had been recognised, recovered from a +swoon, he saw them bringing from a distance something covered, that +lay heavy and still, upon a board, between four men, and saw that +others drove some dogs away that sniffed upon the road, and soaked his +blood up, with a train of ashes. + + +CHAPTER 56. + +Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted + + + +The Midshipman was all alive. Mr Toots and Susan had arrived at +last. Susan had run upstairs like a young woman bereft of her senses, +and Mr Toots and the Chicken had gone into the Parlour. + +'Oh my own pretty darling sweet Miss Floy!' cried the Nipper, +running into Florence's room, 'to think that it should come to this +and I should find you here my own dear dove with nobody to wait upon +you and no home to call your own but never never will I go away again +Miss Floy for though I may not gather moss I'm not a rolling stone nor +is my heart a stone or else it wouldn't bust as it is busting now oh +dear oh dear!' + +Pouring out these words, without the faintest indication of a stop, +of any sort, Miss Nipper, on her knees beside her mistress, hugged her +close. + +'Oh love!' cried Susan, 'I know all that's past I know it all my +tender pet and I'm a choking give me air!' + +'Susan, dear good Susan!' said Florence. 'Oh bless her! I that was +her little maid when she was a little child! and is she really, really +truly going to be married?'exclaimed Susan, in a burst of pain and +pleasure, pride and grief, and Heaven knows how many other conflicting +feelings. + +'Who told you so?' said Florence. + +'Oh gracious me! that innocentest creetur Toots,' returned Susan +hysterically. 'I knew he must be right my dear, because he took on so. +He's the devotedest and innocentest infant! And is my darling,' +pursued Susan, with another close embrace and burst of tears, 'really +really going to be married!' + +The mixture of compassion, pleasure, tenderness, protection, and +regret with which the Nipper constantly recurred to this subject, and +at every such once, raised her head to look in the young face and kiss +it, and then laid her head again upon her mistress's shoulder, +caressing her and sobbing, was as womanly and good a thing, in its +way, as ever was seen in the world. + +'There, there!' said the soothing voice of Florence presently. 'Now +you're quite yourself, dear Susan!' + +Miss Nipper, sitting down upon the floor, at her mistress's feet, +laughing and sobbing, holding her pocket-handkerchief to her eyes with +one hand, and patting Diogenes with the other as he licked her face, +confessed to being more composed, and laughed and cried a little more +in proof of it. + +'I-I-I never did see such a creetur as that Toots,' said Susan, 'in +all my born days never!' + +'So kind,' suggested Florence. + +'And so comic!' Susan sobbed. 'The way he's been going on inside +with me with that disrespectable Chicken on the box!' + +'About what, Susan?' inquired Florence, timidly. + +'Oh about Lieutenant Walters, and Captain Gills, and you my dear +Miss Floy, and the silent tomb,' said Susan. + +'The silent tomb!' repeated Florence. + +'He says,' here Susan burst into a violent hysterical laugh, 'that +he'll go down into it now immediately and quite comfortable, but bless +your heart my dear Miss Floy he won't, he's a great deal too happy in +seeing other people happy for that, he may not be a Solomon,' pursued +the Nipper, with her usual volubility, 'nor do I say he is but this I +do say a less selfish human creature human nature never knew!' Miss +Nipper being still hysterical, laughed immoderately after making this +energetic declaration, and then informed Florence that he was waiting +below to see her; which would be a rich repayment for the trouble he +had had in his late expedition. + +Florence entreated Susan to beg of Mr Toots as a favour that she +might have the pleasure of thanking him for his kindness; and Susan, +in a few moments, produced that young gentleman, still very much +dishevelled in appearance, and stammering exceedingly. + +'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots. 'To be again permitted to - to - gaze +- at least, not to gaze, but - I don't exactly know what I was going +to say, but it's of no consequence. + +'I have to thank you so often,' returned Florence, giving him both +her hands, with all her innocent gratitude beaming in her face, 'that +I have no words left, and don't know how to do it.' + +'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, in an awful voice, 'if it was +possible that you could, consistently with your angelic nature, Curse +me, you would - if I may be allowed to say so - floor me infinitely +less, than by these undeserved expressions of kindness Their effect +upon me - is - but,' said Mr Toots, abruptly, 'this is a digression, +and of no consequence at all.' + +As there seemed to be no means of replying to this, but by thanking +him again, Florence thanked him again. + +'I could wish,' said Mr Toots, 'to take this opportunity, Miss +Dombey, if I might, of entering into a word of explanation. I should +have had the pleasure of - of returning with Susan at an earlier +period; but, in the first place, we didn't know the name of the +relation to whose house she had gone, and, in the second, as she had +left that relation's and gone to another at a distance, I think that +scarcely anything short of the sagacity of the Chicken, would have +found her out in the time.' + +Florence was sure of it. + +'This, however,' said Mr Toots, 'is not the point. The company of +Susan has been, I assure you, Miss Dombey, a consolation and +satisfaction to me, in my state of mind, more easily conceived than +described. The journey has been its own reward. That, however, still, +is not the point. Miss Dombey, I have before observed that I know I am +not what is considered a quick person. I am perfectly aware of that. I +don't think anybody could be better acquainted with his own - if it +was not too strong an expression, I should say with the thickness of +his own head - than myself. But, Miss Dombey, I do, notwithstanding, +perceive the state of - of things - with Lieutenant Walters. Whatever +agony that state of things may have caused me (which is of no +consequence at all), I am bound to say, that Lieutenant Walters is a +person who appears to be worthy of the blessing that has fallen on his +- on his brow. May he wear it long, and appreciate it, as a very +different, and very unworthy individual, that it is of no consequence +to name, would have done! That, however, still, is not the point. Miss +Dombey, Captain Gills is a friend of mine; and during the interval +that is now elapsing, I believe it would afford Captain Gills pleasure +to see me occasionally coming backwards and forwards here. It would +afford me pleasure so to come. But I cannot forget that I once +committed myself, fatally, at the corner of the Square at Brighton; +and if my presence will be, in the least degree, unpleasant to you, I +only ask you to name it to me now, and assure you that I shall +perfectly understand you. I shall not consider it at all unkind, and +shall only be too delighted and happy to be honoured with your +confidence.' + +'Mr Toots,' returned Florence, 'if you, who are so old and true a +friend of mine, were to stay away from this house now, you would make +me very unhappy. It can never, never, give me any feeling but pleasure +to see you. + +'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, +'if I shed a tear, it is a tear of joy. It is of no consequence, and I +am very much obliged to you. I may be allowed to remark, after what +you have so kindly said, that it is not my intention to neglect my +person any longer.' + +Florence received this intimation with the prettiest expression of +perplexity possible. + +'I mean,' said Mr Toots, 'that I shall consider it my duty as a +fellow-creature generally, until I am claimed by the silent tomb, to +make the best of myself, and to - to have my boots as brightly +polished, as - as -circumstances will admit of. This is the last time, +Miss Dombey, of my intruding any observation of a private and personal +nature. I thank you very much indeed. if I am not, in a general way, +as sensible as my friends could wish me to be, or as I could wish +myself, I really am, upon my word and honour, particularly sensible of +what is considerate and kind. I feel,' said Mr Toots, in an +impassioned tone, 'as if I could express my feelings, at the present +moment, in a most remarkable manner, if - if - I could only get a +start.' + +Appearing not to get it, after waiting a minute or two to see if it +would come, Mr Toots took a hasty leave, and went below to seek the +Captain, whom he found in the shop. + +'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'what is now to take place between +us, takes place under the sacred seal of confidence. It is the sequel, +Captain Gills, of what has taken place between myself and Miss Dombey, +upstairs.' + +'Alow and aloft, eh, my lad?' murmured the Captain. + +'Exactly so, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, whose fervour of +acquiescence was greatly heightened by his entire ignorance of the +Captain's meaning. 'Miss Dombey, I believe, Captain Gills, is to be +shortly united to Lieutenant Walters?' + +'Why, ay, my lad. We're all shipmets here, - Wal'r and sweet- heart +will be jined together in the house of bondage, as soon as the askings +is over,' whispered Captain Cuttle, in his ear. + +'The askings, Captain Gills!' repeated Mr Toots. + +'In the church, down yonder,' said the Captain, pointing his thumb +over his shoulder. + +'Oh! Yes!' returned Mr Toots. + +'And then,' said the Captain, in his hoarse whisper, and tapping Mr +Toots on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling from him +with a look of infinite admiration, 'what follers? That there pretty +creetur, as delicately brought up as a foreign bird, goes away upon +the roaring main with Wal'r on a woyage to China!' + +'Lord, Captain Gills!' said Mr Toots. + +'Ay!' nodded the Captain. 'The ship as took him up, when he was +wrecked in the hurricane that had drove her clean out of her course, +was a China trader, and Wal'r made the woyage, and got into favour, +aboard and ashore - being as smart and good a lad as ever stepped - +and so, the supercargo dying at Canton, he got made (having acted as +clerk afore), and now he's supercargo aboard another ship, same +owners. And so, you see,' repeated the Captain, thoughtfully, 'the +pretty creetur goes away upon the roaring main with Wal'r, on a woyage +to China.' + +Mr Toots and Captain Cuttle heaved a sigh in concert. 'What then?' +said the Captain. 'She loves him true. He loves her true. Them as +should have loved and tended of her, treated of her like the beasts as +perish. When she, cast out of home, come here to me, and dropped upon +them planks, her wownded heart was broke. I know it. I, Ed'ard Cuttle, +see it. There's nowt but true, kind, steady love, as can ever piece it +up again. If so be I didn't know that, and didn't know as Wal'r was +her true love, brother, and she his, I'd have these here blue arms and +legs chopped off, afore I'd let her go. But I know it, and what then! +Why, then, I say, Heaven go with 'em both, and so it will! Amen!' + +'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'let me have the pleasure of +shaking hands You've a way of saying things, that gives me an +agreeable warmth, all up my back. I say Amen. You are aware, Captain +Gills, that I, too, have adored Miss Dombey.' + +'Cheer up!' said the Captain, laying his hand on Mr Toots's +shoulder. 'Stand by, boy!' + +'It is my intention, Captain Gills,' returned the spirited Mr +Toots, 'to cheer up. Also to standby, as much as possible. When the +silent tomb shall yawn, Captain Gills, I shall be ready for burial; +not before. But not being certain, just at present, of my power over +myself, what I wish to say to you, and what I shall take it as a +particular favour if you will mention to Lieutenant Walters, is as +follows.' + +'Is as follers,' echoed the Captain. 'Steady!' + +'Miss Dombey being so inexpressably kind,' continued Mr Toots with +watery eyes, 'as to say that my presence is the reverse of +disagreeable to her, and you and everybody here being no less +forbearing and tolerant towards one who - who certainly,' said Mr +Toots, with momentary dejection, 'would appear to have been born by +mistake, I shall come backwards and forwards of an evening, during the +short time we can all be together. But what I ask is this. If, at any +moment, I find that I cannot endure the contemplation of Lieutenant +Walters's bliss, and should rush out, I hope, Captain Gills, that you +and he will both consider it as my misfortune and not my fault, or the +want of inward conflict. That you'll feel convinced I bear no malice +to any living creature-least of all to Lieutenant Walters himself - +and that you'll casually remark that I have gone out for a walk, or +probably to see what o'clock it is by the Royal Exchange. Captain +Gills, if you could enter into this arrangement, and could answer for +Lieutenant Walters, it would be a relief to my feelings that I should +think cheap at the sacrifice of a considerable portion of my +property.' + +'My lad,' returned the Captain, 'say no more. There ain't a colour +you can run up, as won't be made out, and answered to, by Wal'r and +self.' + +'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'my mind is greatly relieved. I +wish to preserve the good opinion of all here. I - I - mean well, upon +my honour, however badly I may show it. You know,' said Mr Toots, +'it's as exactly as Burgess and Co. wished to oblige a customer with a +most extraordinary pair of trousers, and could not cut out what they +had in their minds.' + +With this apposite illustration, of which he seemed a little Proud, +Mr Toots gave Captain Cuttle his blessing and departed. + +The honest Captain, with his Heart's Delight in the house, and +Susan tending her, was a beaming and a happy man. As the days flew by, +he grew more beaming and more happy, every day. After some conferences +with Susan (for whose wisdom the Captain had a profound respect, and +whose valiant precipitation of herself on Mrs MacStinger he could +never forget), he proposed to Florence that the daughter of the +elderly lady who usually sat under the blue umbrella in Leadenhall +Market, should, for prudential reasons and considerations of privacy, +be superseded in the temporary discharge of the household duties, by +someone who was not unknown to them, and in whom they could safely +confide. Susan, being present, then named, in furtherance of a +suggestion she had previously offered to the Captain, Mrs Richards. +Florence brightened at the name. And Susan, setting off that very +afternoon to the Toodle domicile, to sound Mrs Richards, returned in +triumph the same evening, accompanied by the identical rosy-cheeked +apple-faced Polly, whose demonstrations, when brought into Florence's +presence, were hardly less affectionate than those of Susan Nipper +herself. + +This piece of generalship accomplished; from which the Captain +derived uncommon satisfaction, as he did, indeed, from everything else +that was done, whatever it happened to be; Florence had next to +prepare Susan for their approaching separation. This was a much more +difficult task, as Miss Nipper was of a resolute disposition, and had +fully made up her mind that she had come back never to be parted from +her old mistress any more. + +'As to wages dear Miss Floy,' she said, 'you wouldn't hint and +wrong me so as think of naming them, for I've put money by and +wouldn't sell my love and duty at a time like this even if the +Savings' Banks and me were total strangers or the Banks were broke to +pieces, but you've never been without me darling from the time your +poor dear Ma was took away, and though I'm nothing to be boasted of +you're used to me and oh my own dear mistress through so many years +don't think of going anywhere without me, for it mustn't and can't +be!' + +'Dear Susan, I am going on a long, long voyage.' + +'Well Miss Floy, and what of that? the more you'll want me. Lengths +of voyages ain't an object in my eyes, thank God!' said the impetuous +Susan Nipper. + +'But, Susan, I am going with Walter, and I would go with Walter +anywhere - everywhere! Walter is poor, and I am very poor, and I must +learn, now, both to help myself, and help him.' + +'Dear Miss Floy!' cried Susan, bursting out afresh, and shaking her +head violently, 'it's nothing new to you to help yourself and others +too and be the patientest and truest of noble hearts, but let me talk +to Mr Walter Gay and settle it with him, for suffer you to go away +across the world alone I cannot, and I won't.' + +'Alone, Susan?' returned Florence. 'Alone? and Walter taking me +with him!' Ah, what a bright, amazed, enraptured smile was on her +face! - He should have seen it. 'I am sure you will not speak to +Walter if I ask you not,' she added tenderly; 'and pray don't, dear.' + +Susan sobbed 'Why not, Miss Floy?' + +'Because,' said Florence, 'I am going to be his wife, to give him +up my whole heart, and to live with him and die with him. He might +think, if you said to him what you have said to me, that I am afraid +of what is before me, or that you have some cause to be afraid for me. +Why, Susan, dear, I love him!' + +Miss Nipper was so much affected by the quiet fervour of these +words, and the simple, heartfelt, all-pervading earnestness expressed +in them, and making the speaker's face more beautiful and pure than +ever, that she could only cling to her again, crying. Was her little +mistress really, really going to be married, and pitying, caressing, +and protecting her, as she had done before. But the Nipper, though +susceptible of womanly weaknesses, was almost as capable of putting +constraint upon herself as of attacking the redoubtable MacStinger. +From that time, she never returned to the subject, but was always +cheerful, active, bustling, and hopeful. She did, indeed, inform Mr +Toots privately, that she was only 'keeping up' for the time, and that +when it was all over, and Miss Dombey was gone, she might be expected +to become a spectacle distressful; and Mr Toots did also express that +it was his case too, and that they would mingle their tears together; +but she never otherwise indulged her private feelings in the presence +of Florence or within the precincts of the Midshipman. + +Limited and plain as Florence's wardrobe was - what a contrast to +that prepared for the last marriage in which she had taken part! - +there was a good deal to do in getting it ready, and Susan Nipper +worked away at her side, all day, with the concentrated zeal of fifty +sempstresses. The wonderful contributions Captain Cuttle would have +made to this branch of the outfit, if he had been permitted - as pink +parasols, tinted silk stockings, blue shoes, and other articles no +less necessary on shipboard - would occupy some space in the recital. +He was induced, however, by various fraudulent representations, to +limit his contributions to a work-box and dressing case, of each of +which he purchased the very largest specimen that could be got for +money. For ten days or a fortnight afterwards, he generally sat, +during the greater part of the day, gazing at these boxes; divided +between extreme admiration of them, and dejected misgivings that they +were not gorgeous enough, and frequently diving out into the street to +purchase some wild article that he deemed necessary to their +completeness. But his master-stroke was, the bearing of them both off, +suddenly, one morning, and getting the two words FLORENCE GAY engraved +upon a brass heart inlaid over the lid of each. After this, he smoked +four pipes successively in the little parlour by himself, and was +discovered chuckling, at the expiration of as many hours. + +Walter was busy and away all day, but came there every morning +early to see Florence, and always passed the evening with her. +Florence never left her high rooms but to steal downstairs to wait for +him when it was his time to come, or, sheltered by his proud, +encircling arm, to bear him company to the door again, and sometimes +peep into the street. In the twilight they were always together. Oh +blessed time! Oh wandering heart at rest! Oh deep, exhaustless, mighty +well of love, in which so much was sunk! + +The cruel mark was on her bosom yet. It rose against her father +with the breath she drew, it lay between her and her lover when he +pressed her to his heart. But she forgot it. In the beating of that +heart for her, and in the beating of her own for him, all harsher +music was unheard, all stern unloving hearts forgotten. Fragile and +delicate she was, but with a might of love within her that could, and +did, create a world to fly to, and to rest in, out of his one image. + +How often did the great house, and the old days, come before her in +the twilight time, when she was sheltered by the arm, so proud, so +fond, and, creeping closer to him, shrunk within it at the +recollection! How often, from remembering the night when she went down +to that room and met the never-to-be forgotten look, did she raise her +eyes to those that watched her with such loving earnestness, and weep +with happiness in such a refuge! The more she clung to it, the more +the dear dead child was in her thoughts: but as if the last time she +had seen her father, had been when he was sleeping and she kissed his +face, she always left him so, and never, in her fancy, passed that +hour. + +'Walter, dear,' said Florence, one evening, when it was almost +dark.'Do you know what I have been thinking to-day?' + +'Thinking how the time is flying on, and how soon we shall be upon +the sea, sweet Florence?' + +'I don't mean that, Walter, though I think of that too. I have been +thinking what a charge I am to you. + +'A precious, sacred charge, dear heart! Why, I think that +sometimes.' + +'You are laughing, Walter. I know that's much more in your thoughts +than mine. But I mean a cost. + +'A cost, my own?' + +'In money, dear. All these preparations that Susan and I are so +busy with - I have been able to purchase very little for myself. You +were poor before. But how much poorer I shall make you, Walter!' + +'And how much richer, Florence!' + +Florence laughed, and shook her head. + +'Besides,' said Walter, 'long ago - before I went to sea - I had a +little purse presented to me, dearest, which had money in it.' + +'Ah!' returned Florence, laughing sorrowfully, 'very little! very +little, Walter! But, you must not think,' and here she laid her light +hand on his shoulder, and looked into his face, 'that I regret to be +this burden on you. No, dear love, I am glad of it. I am happy in it. +I wouldn't have it otherwise for all the world!' + +'Nor I, indeed, dear Florence.' + +'Ay! but, Walter, you can never feel it as I do. I am so proud of +you! It makes my heart swell with such delight to know that those who +speak of you must say you married a poor disowned girl, who had taken +shelter here; who had no other home, no other friends; who had nothing +- nothing! Oh, Walter, if I could have brought you millions, I never +could have been so happy for your sake, as I am!' + +'And you, dear Florence? are you nothing?' he returned. + +'No, nothing, Walter. Nothing but your wife.' The light hand stole +about his neck, and the voice came nearer - nearer. 'I am nothing any +more, that is not you. I have no earthly hope any more, that is not +you. I have nothing dear to me any more, that is not you. + +Oh! well might Mr Toots leave the little company that evening, and +twice go out to correct his watch by the Royal Exchange, and once to +keep an appointment with a banker which he suddenly remembered, and +once to take a little turn to Aldgate Pump and back! + +But before he went upon these expeditions, or indeed before he +came, and before lights were brought, Walter said: + +'Florence, love, the lading of our ship is nearly finished, and +probably on the very day of our marriage she will drop down the river. +Shall we go away that morning, and stay in Kent until we go on board +at Gravesend within a week?' + +'If you please, Walter. I shall be happy anywhere. But - ' + +'Yes, my life?' + +'You know,' said Florence, 'that we shall have no marriage party, +and that nobody will distinguish us by our dress from other people. As +we leave the same day, will you - will you take me somewhere that +morning, Walter - early - before we go to church?' + +Walter seemed to understand her, as so true a lover so truly loved +should, and confirmed his ready promise with a kiss - with more than +one perhaps, or two or threes or five or six; and in the grave, +peaceful evening, Florence was very happy. + +Then into the quiet room came Susan Nipper and the candles; shortly +afterwards, the tea, the Captain, and the excursive Mr Toots, who, as +above mentioned, was frequently on the move afterwards, and passed but +a restless evening. This, however, was not his habit: for he generally +got on very well, by dint of playing at cribbage with the Captain +under the advice and guidance of Miss Nipper, and distracting his mind +with the calculations incidental to the game; which he found to be a +very effectual means of utterly confounding himself. + +The Captain's visage on these occasions presented one of the finest +examples of combination and succession of expression ever observed. +His instinctive delicacy and his chivalrous feeling towards Florence, +taught him that it was not a time for any boisterous jollity, or +violent display of satisfaction; floating reminiscences of Lovely Peg, +on the other hand, were constantly struggling for a vent, and urging +the Captain to commit himself by some irreparable demonstration. Anon, +his admiration of Florence and Walter - well-matched, truly, and full +of grace and interest in their youth, and love, and good looks, as +they sat apart - would take such complete possession of hIm, that he +would lay down his cards, and beam upon them, dabbing his head all +over with his pockethandkerchief; until warned, perhaps, by the sudden +rushing forth of Mr Toots, that he had unconsciously been very +instrumental, indeed, in making that gentleman miserable. This +reflection would make the Captain profoundly melancholy, until the +return of Mr Toots; when he would fall to his cards again, with many +side winks and nods, and polite waves of his hook at Miss Nipper, +importing that he wasn't going to do so any more. The state that +ensued on this, was, perhaps, his best; for then, endeavouring to +discharge all expression from his face, he would sit staring round the +room, with all these expressions conveyed into it at once, and each +wrestling with the other. Delighted admiration of Florence and Walter +always overthrew the rest, and remained victorious and undisguised, +unless Mr Toots made another rush into the air, and then the Captain +would sit, like a remorseful culprit, until he came back again, +occasionally calling upon himself, in a low reproachful voice, to +'Stand by!' or growling some remonstrance to 'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad,' +on the want of caution observabl in his behaviour. + +One of Mr Toots's hardest trials, however, was of his own seeking. +On the approach of the Sunday which was to witness the last of those +askings in church of which the Captain had spoken, Mr Toots thus +stated his feelings to Susan Nipper. + +'Susan,' said Mr Toots, 'I am drawn towards the building. The words +which cut me off from Miss Dombey for ever, will strike upon my ears +like a knell you know, but upon my word and honour, I feel that I must +hear them. Therefore,' said Mr Toots, 'will you accompany me +to-morrow, to the sacred edifice?' + +Miss Nipper expressed her readiness to do so, if that would be any +satisfaction to Mr Toots, but besought him to abandon his idea of +going. + +'Susan,' returned Mr Toots, with much solemnity, 'before my +whiskers began to be observed by anybody but myself, I adored Miss +Dombey. While yet a victim to the thraldom of Blimber, I adored Miss +Dombey. When I could no longer be kept out of my property, in a legal +point of view, and - and accordingly came into it - I adored Miss +Dombey. The banns which consign her to Lieutenant Walters, and me to - +to Gloom, you know,' said Mr Toots, after hesitating for a strong +expression, 'may be dreadful, will be dreadful; but I feel that I +should wish to hear them spoken. I feel that I should wish to know +that the ground wascertainly cut from under me, and that I hadn't a +hope to cherish, or a - or a leg, in short, to - to go upon.' + +Susan Nipper could only commiserate Mr Toots's unfortunate +condition, and agree, under these circumstances, to accompany him; +which she did next morning. + +The church Walter had chosen for the purpose, was a mouldy old +church in a yard, hemmed in by a labyrinth of back streets and courts, +with a little burying-ground round it, and itself buried in a kind of +vault, formed by the neighbouring houses, and paved with echoing +stones It was a great dim, shabby pile, with high old oaken pews, +among which about a score of people lost themselves every Sunday; +while the clergyman's voice drowsily resounded through the emptiness, +and the organ rumbled and rolled as if the church had got the colic, +for want of a congregation to keep the wind and damp out. But so far +was this city church from languishing for the company of other +churches, that spires were clustered round it, as the masts of +shipping cluster on the river. It would have been hard to count them +from its steeple-top, they were so many. In almost every yard and +blind-place near, there was a church. The confusion of bells when +Susan and Mr Toots betook themselves towards it on the Sunday morning, +was deafening. There were twenty churches close together, clamouring +for people to come in. + +The two stray sheep in question were penned by a beadle in a +commodious pew, and, being early, sat for some time counting the +congregation, listening to the disappointed bell high up in the tower, +or looking at a shabby little old man in the porch behind the screen, +who was ringing the same, like the Bull in Cock Robin,' with his foot +in a stirrup. Mr Toots, after a lengthened survey of the large books +on the reading-desk, whispered Miss Nipper that he wondered where the +banns were kept, but that young lady merely shook her head and +frowned; repelling for the time all approaches of a temporal nature. + +Mr Toots, however, appearing unable to keep his thoughts from the +banns, was evidently looking out for them during the whole preliminary +portion of the service. As the time for reading them approached, the +poor young gentleman manifested great anxiety and trepidation, which +was not diminished by the unexpected apparition of the Captain in the +front row of the gallery. When the clerk handed up a list to the +clergyman, Mr Toots, being then seated, held on by the seat of the +pew; but when the names of Walter Gay and Florence Dombey were read +aloud as being in the third and last stage of that association, he was +so entirley conquered by his feelings as to rush from the church +without his hat, followed by the beadle and pew-opener, and two +gentlemen of the medical profeesion, who happened to be present; of +whom the first-named presently returned for that article, informing +Miss Nipper in a whisper that she was not to make herself uneasy about +the gentleman, as the gentleman said his indisposition was of no +consequence. + +Miss Nipper, feeling that the eyes of that integral portion of +Europe which lost itself weekly among the high-backed pews, were upon +her, would have been sufficient embarrassed by this incident, though +it had terminated here; the more so, as the Captain in the front row +of the gallery, was in a state of unmitigated consciousness which +could hardly fail to express to the congregation that he had some +mysterious connection with it. But the extreme restlessness of Mr +Toots painfully increased and protracted the delicacy of her +situation. That young gentleman, incapable, in his state of mind, of +remaining alone in the churchyard, a prey to solitary meditation, and +also desirous, no doubt, of testifying his respect for the offices he +had in some measure interrupted, suddenly returned - not coming back +to the pew, but stationing himself on a free seat in the aisle, +between two elderly females who were in the habit of receiving their +portion of a weekly dole of bread then set forth on a shelf in the +porch. In this conjunction Mr Toots remained, greatly disturbing the +congregation, who felt it impossible to avoid looking at him, until +his feelings overcame him again, when he departed silently and +suddenly. Not venturing to trust himself in the church any more, and +yet wishing to have some social participation in what was going on +there, Mr Toots was, after this, seen from time to time, looking in, +with a lorn aspect, at one or other of the windows; and as there were +several windows accessible to him from without, and as his +restlessness was very great, it not only became difficult to conceive +at which window he would appear next, but likewise became necessary, +as it were, for the whole congregation to speculate upon the chances +of the different windows, during the comparative leisure afforded them +by the sermon. Mr Toots's movements in the churchyard were so +eccentric, that he seemed generally to defeat all calculation, and to +appear, like the conjuror's figure, where he was least expected; and +the effect of these mysterious presentations was much increased by its +being difficult to him to see in, and easy to everybody else to see +out: which occasioned his remaining, every time, longer than might +have been expected, with his face close to the glass, until he all at +once became aware that all eyes were upon him, and vanished. + +These proceedings on the part of Mr Toots, and the strong +individual consciousness of them that was exhibited by the Captain, +rendered Miss Nipper's position so responsible a one, that she was +mightily relieved by the conclusion of the service; and was hardly so +affable to Mr Toots as usual, when he informed her and the Captain, on +the way back, that now he was sure he had no hope, you know, he felt +more comfortable - at least not exactly more comfortable, but more +comfortably and completely miserable. + +Swiftly now, indeed, the time flew by until it was the evening +before the day appointed for the marriage. They were all assembled in +the upper room at the Midshipman's, and had no fear of interruption; +for there were no lodgers in the house now, and the Midshipman had it +all to himself. They were grave and quiet in the prospect of +to-morrow, but moderately cheerful too. Florence, with Walter close +beside her, was finishing a little piece of work intended as a parting +gift to the Captain. The Captain was playing cribbage with Mr Toots. +Mr Toots was taking counsel as to his hand, of Susan Nipper. Miss +Nipper was giving it, with all due secrecy and circumspection. +Diogenes was listening, and occasionally breaking out into a gruff +half-smothered fragment of a bark, of which he afterwards seemed +half-ashamed, as if he doubted having any reason for it. + +'Steady, steady!' said the Captain to Diogenes, 'what's amiss with +you? You don't seem easy in your mind to-night, my boy!' + +Diogenes wagged his tail, but pricked up his ears immediately +afterwards, and gave utterance to another fragment of a bark; for +which he apologised to the Captain, by again wagging his tail. + +'It's my opinion, Di,' said the Captain, looking thoughtfully at +his cards, and stroking his chin with his hook, 'as you have your +doubts of Mrs Richards; but if you're the animal I take you to be, +you'll think better o' that; for her looks is her commission. Now, +Brother:' to Mr Toots: 'if so be as you're ready, heave ahead.' + +The Captain spoke with all composure and attention to the game, but +suddenly his cards dropped out of his hand, his mouth and eyes opened +wide, his legs drew themselves up and stuck out in front of his chair, +and he sat staring at the door with blank amazement. Looking round +upon the company, and seeing that none of them observed him or the +cause of his astonishment, the Captain recovered himself with a great +gasp, struck the table a tremendous blow, cried in a stentorian roar, +'Sol Gills ahoy!' and tumbled into the arms of a weather-beaten +pea-coat that had come with Polly into the room. + +In another moment, Walter was in the arms of the weather-beaten +pea-coat. In another moment, Florence was in the arms of the +weather-beaten pea-coat. In another moment, Captain Cuttle had +embraced Mrs Richards and Miss Nipper, and was violently shaking hands +with Mr Toots, exclaiming, as he waved his hook above his head, +'Hooroar, my lad, hooroar!' To which Mr Toots, wholly at a loss to +account for these proceedings, replied with great politeness, +'Certainly, Captain Gills, whatever you think proper!' + +The weather-beaten pea-coat, and a no less weather-beaten cap and +comforter belonging to it, turned from the Captain and from Florence +back to Walter, and sounds came from the weather-beaten pea-coat, cap, +and comforter, as of an old man sobbing underneath them; while the +shaggy sleeves clasped Walter tight. During this pause, there was an +universal silence, and the Captain polished his nose with great +diligence. But when the pea-coat, cap, and comforter lifted themselves +up again, Florence gently moved towards them; and she and Walter +taking them off, disclosed the old Instrument-maker, a little thinner +and more careworn than of old, in his old Welsh wig and his old +coffee-coloured coat and basket buttons, with his old infallible +chronometer ticking away in his pocket. + +'Chock full o' science,' said the radiant Captain, 'as ever he was! +Sol Gills, Sol Gills, what have you been up to, for this many a long +day, my ould boy?' + +'I'm half blind, Ned,' said the old man, 'and almost deaf and dumb +with joy.' + +'His wery woice,' said the Captain, looking round with an +exultation to which even his face could hardly render justice - 'his +wery woice as chock full o' science as ever it was! Sol Gills, lay to, +my lad, upon your own wines and fig-trees like a taut ould patriark as +you are, and overhaul them there adwentures o' yourn, in your own +formilior woice. 'Tis the woice,' said the Captain, impressively, and +announcing a quotation with his hook, 'of the sluggard, I heerd him +complain, you have woke me too soon, I must slumber again. Scatter his +ene-mies, and make 'em fall!' + +The Captain sat down with the air of a man who had happily +expressed the feeling of everybody present, and immediately rose again +to present Mr Toots, who was much disconcerted by the arrival of +anybody, appearing to prefer a claim to the name of Gills. + +'Although,' stammered Mr Toots, 'I had not the pleasure of your +acquaintance, Sir, before you were - you were - ' + +'Lost to sight, to memory dear,' suggested the Captain, in a low +voice. + +Exactly so, Captain Gills!' assented Mr Toots. 'Although I had not +the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr - Mr Sols,' said Toots, hitting +on that name in the inspiration of a bright idea, 'before that +happened, I have the greatest pleasure, I assure you, in - you know, +in knowing you. I hope,' said Mr Toots, 'that you're as well as can be +expected.' + +With these courteous words, Mr Toots sat down blushing and +chuckling. + +The old Instrument-maker, seated in a corner between Walter and +Florence, and nodding at Polly, who was looking on, all smiles and +delight, answered the Captain thus: + +'Ned Cuttle, my dear boy, although I have heard something of the +changes of events here, from my pleasant friend there - what a +pleasant face she has to be sure, to welcome a wanderer home!' said +the old man, breaking off, and rubbing his hands in his old dreamy +way. + +'Hear him!' cried the Captain gravely. ''Tis woman as seduces all +mankind. For which,' aside to Mr Toots, 'you'll overhaul your Adam and +Eve, brother.' + +'I shall make a point of doing so, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. + +'Although I have heard something of the changes of events, from +her,' resumed the Instrument-maker, taking his old spectacles from his +pocket, and putting them on his forehead in his old manner, 'they are +so great and unexpected, and I am so overpowered by the sight of my +dear boy, and by the,' - glancing at the downcast eyes of Florence, +and not attempting to finish the sentence - 'that I - I can't say much +to-night. But my dear Ned Cuttle, why didn't you write?' + +The astonishment depicted in the Captain's features positively +frightened Mr Toots, whose eyes were quite fixed by it, so that he +could not withdraw them from his face. + +'Write!' echoed the Captain. 'Write, Sol Gills?' + +'Ay,' said the old man, 'either to Barbados, or Jamaica, or +Demerara, That was what I asked.' + +'What you asked, Sol Gills?' repeated the Captain. + +'Ay,' said the old man. 'Don't you know, Ned? Sure you have not +forgotten? Every time I wrote to you.' + +The Captain took off his glazed hat, hung it on his hook, and +smoothing his hair from behind with his hand, sat gazing at the group +around him: a perfect image of wondering resignation. + +'You don't appear to understand me, Ned!' observed old Sol. + +'Sol Gills,' returned the Captain, after staring at him and the +rest for a long time, without speaking, 'I'm gone about and adrift. +Pay out a word or two respecting them adwenturs, will you! Can't I +bring up, nohows? Nohows?' said the Captain, ruminating, and staring +all round. + +'You know, Ned,' said Sol Gills, 'why I left here. Did you open my +packet, Ned?' + +'Why, ay, ay,' said the Captain. 'To be sure, I opened the packet.' + +'And read it?' said the old man. + +'And read it,' answered the Captain, eyeing him attentively, and +proceeding to quote it from memory. '"My dear Ned Cuttle, when I left +home for the West Indies in forlorn search of intelligence of my +dear-" There he sits! There's Wal'r!' said the Captain, as if he were +relieved by getting hold of anything that was real and indisputable. + +'Well, Ned. Now attend a moment!' said the old man. 'When I wrote +first - that was from Barbados - I said that though you would receive +that letter long before the year was out, I should be glad if you +would open the packet, as it explained the reason of my going away. +Very good, Ned. When I wrote the second, third, and perhaps the fourth +times - that was from Jamaica - I said I was in just the same state, +couldn't rest, and couldn't come away from that part of the world, +without knowing that my boy was lost or saved. When I wrote next - +that, I think, was from Demerara, wasn't it?' + +'That he thinks was from Demerara, warn't it!' said the Captain, +looking hopelessly round. + +'I said,' proceeded old Sol, 'that still there was no certain +information got yet. That I found many captains and others, in that +part of the world, who had known me for years, and who assisted me +with a passage here and there, and for whom I was able, now and then, +to do a little in return, in my own craft. That everyone was sorry for +me, and seemed to take a sort of interest in my wanderings; and that I +began to think it would be my fate to cruise about in search of +tidings of my boy, until I died.' + +'Began to think as how he was a scientific Flying Dutchman!' said +the Captain, as before, and with great seriousness. + +'But when the news come one day, Ned, - that was to Barbados, after +I got back there, - that a China trader home'ard bound had been spoke, +that had my boy aboard, then, Ned, I took passage in the next ship and +came home; arrived at home to-night to find it true, thank God!' said +the old man, devoutly. + +The Captain, after bowing his head with great reverence, stared all +round the circle, beginning with Mr Toots, and ending with the +Instrument-maker; then gravely said: + +'Sol Gills! The observation as I'm a-going to make is calc'lated to +blow every stitch of sail as you can carry, clean out of the +bolt-ropes, and bring you on your beam ends with a lurch. Not one of +them letters was ever delivered to Ed'ard Cuttle. Not one o' them +letters,' repeated the Captain, to make his declaration the more +solemn and impressive, 'was ever delivered unto Ed'ard Cuttle, +Mariner, of England, as lives at home at ease, and doth improve each +shining hour!' + +'And posted by my own hand! And directed by my own hand, Number +nine Brig Place!' exclaimed old Sol. + +The colour all went out of the Captain's face and all came back +again in a glow. + +'What do you mean, Sol Gills, my friend, by Number nine Brig +Place?' inquired the Captain. + +'Mean? Your lodgings, Ned,' returned the old man. 'Mrs +What's-her-name! I shall forget my own name next, but I am behind the +present time - I always was, you recollect - and very much confused. +Mrs - ' + +'Sol Gills!' said the Captain, as if he were putting the most +improbable case in the world, 'it ain't the name of MacStinger as +you're a trying to remember?' + +'Of course it is!' exclaimed the Instrument-maker. 'To be sure Ned. +Mrs MacStinger!' + +Captain Cuttle, whose eyes were now as wide open as they would be, +and the knobs upon whose face were perfectly luminous, gave a long +shrill whistle of a most melancholy sound, and stood gazing at +everybody in a state of speechlessness. + +'Overhaul that there again, Sol Gills, will you be so kind?' he +said at last. + +'All these letters,' returned Uncle Sol, beating time with the +forefinger of his right hand upon the palm of his left, with a +steadiness and distinctness that might have done honour, even to the +infallible chronometer in his pocket, 'I posted with my own hand, and +directed with my own hand, to Captain Cuttle, at Mrs MacStinger's, +Number nine Brig Place.' + +The Captain took his glazed hat off his hook, looked into it, put +it on, and sat down. + +'Why, friends all,' said the Captain, staring round in the last +state of discomfiture, 'I cut and run from there!' + +'And no one knew where you were gone, Captain Cuttle?' cried Walter +hastily. + +'Bless your heart, Wal'r,' said the Captain, shaking his head, +'she'd never have allowed o' my coming to take charge o' this here +property. Nothing could be done but cut and run. Lord love you, +Wal'r!' said the Captain, 'you've only seen her in a calm! But see her +when her angry passions rise - and make a note on!' + +'I'd give it her!' remarked the Nipper, softly. + +'Would you, do you think, my dear?' returned the Captain, with +feeble admiration. 'Well, my dear, it does you credit. But there ain't +no wild animal I wouldn't sooner face myself. I only got my chest away +by means of a friend as nobody's a match for. It was no good sending +any letter there. She wouldn't take in any letter, bless you,' said +the Captain, 'under them circumstances! Why, you could hardly make it +worth a man's while to be the postman!' + +'Then it's pretty clear, Captain Cuttle, that all of us, and you +and Uncle Sol especially,' said Walter, 'may thank Mrs MacStinger for +no small anxiety.' + +The general obligation in this wise to the determined relict of the +late Mr MacStinger, was so apparent, that the Captain did not contest +the point; but being in some measure ashamed of his position, though +nobody dwelt upon the subject, and Walter especially avoided it, +remembering the last conversation he and the Captain had held together +respecting it, he remained under a cloud for nearly five minutes - an +extraordinary period for him when that sun, his face, broke out once +more, shining on all beholders with extraordinary brilliancy; and he +fell into a fit of shaking hands with everybody over and over again. + +At an early hour, but not before Uncle Sol and Walter had +questioned each other at some length about their voyages and dangers, +they all, except Walter, vacated Florence's room, and went down to the +parlour. Here they were soon afterwards joined by Walter, who told +them Florence was a little sorrowful and heavy-hearted, and had gone +to bed. Though they could not have disturbed her with their voices +down there, they all spoke in a whisper after this: and each, in his +different way, felt very lovingly and gently towards Walter's fair +young bride: and a long explanation there was of everything relating +to her, for the satisfaction of Uncle Sol; and very sensible Mr Toots +was of the delicacy with which Walter made his name and services +important, and his presence necessary to their little council. + +'Mr Toots,' said Walter, on parting with him at the house door, 'we +shall see each other to-morrow morning?' + +'Lieutenant Walters,' returned Mr Toots, grasping his hand +fervently, 'I shall certainly be present. + +'This is the last night we shall meet for a long time - the last +night we may ever meet,' said Walter. 'Such a noble heart as yours, +must feel, I think, when another heart is bound to it. I hope you know +that I am very grateful to you?' + +'Walters,' replied Mr Toots, quite touched, 'I should be glad to +feel that you had reason to be so.' + +'Florence,' said Walter, 'on this last night of her bearing her own +name, has made me promise - it was only just now, when you left us +together - that I would tell you - with her dear love - ' + +Mr Toots laid his hand upon the doorpost, and his eyes upon his +hand. + +- with her dear love,' said Walter, 'that she can never have a +friend whom she will value above you. That the recollection of your +true consideration for her always, can never be forgotten by her. That +she remembers you in her prayers to-night, and hopes that you will +think of her when she is far away. Shall I say anything for you?' + +'Say, Walter,' replied Mr Toots indistinctly, 'that I shall think +of her every day, but never without feeling happy to know that she is +married to the man she loves, and who loves her. Say, if you please, +that I am sure her husband deserves her - even her!- and that I am +glad of her choice.' + +Mr Toots got more distinct as he came to these last words, and +raising his eyes from the doorpost, said them stoutly. He then shook +Walter's hand again with a fervour that Walter was not slow to return +and started homeward. + +Mr Toots was accompanied by the Chicken, whom he had of late +brought with him every evening, and left in the shop, with an idea +that unforeseen circumstances might arise from without, in which the +prowess of that distinguished character would be of service to the +Midshipman. The Chicken did not appear to be in a particularly good +humour on this occasion. Either the gas-lamps were treacherous, or he +cocked his eye in a hideous manner, and likewise distorted his nose, +when Mr Toots, crossing the road, looked back over his shoulder at the +room where Florence slept. On the road home, he was more demonstrative +of aggressive intentions against the other foot-passengers, than +comported with a professor of the peaceful art of self-defence. +Arrived at home, instead of leaving Mr Toots in his apartments when he +had escorted him thither, he remained before him weighing his white +hat in both hands by the brim, and twitching his head and nose (both +of which had been many times broken, and but indifferently repaired), +with an air of decided disrespect. + +His patron being much engaged with his own thoughts, did not +observe this for some time, nor indeed until the Chicken, determined +not to be overlooked, had made divers clicking sounds with his tongue +and teeth, to attract attention. + +'Now, Master,' said the Chicken, doggedly, when he, at length, +caught Mr Toots's eye, 'I want to know whether this here gammon is to +finish it, or whether you're a going in to win?' + +'Chicken,' returned Mr Toots, 'explain yourself.' + +'Why then, here's all about it, Master,' said the Chicken. 'I ain't +a cove to chuck a word away. Here's wot it is. Are any on 'em to be +doubled up?' + +When the Chicken put this question he dropped his hat, made a dodge +and a feint with his left hand, hit a supposed enemy a violent blow +with his right, shook his head smartly, and recovered himself' + +'Come, Master,' said the Chicken. 'Is it to be gammon or pluck? +Which?' + +Chicken,' returned Mr Toots, 'your expressions are coarse, and your +meaning is obscure.' + +'Why, then, I tell you what, Master,' said the Chicken. 'This is +where it is. It's mean.' + +'What is mean, Chicken?' asked Mr Toots. + +'It is,' said the Chicken, with a frightful corrugation of his +broken nose. 'There! Now, Master! Wot! When you could go and blow on +this here match to the stiff'un;' by which depreciatory appellation it +has been since supposed that the Game One intended to signify Mr +Dombey; 'and when you could knock the winner and all the kit of 'em +dead out o' wind and time, are you going to give in? To give in? 'said +the Chicken, with contemptuous emphasis. 'Wy, it's mean!' + +'Chicken,' said Mr Toots, severely, 'you're a perfect Vulture! Your +sentiments are atrocious.' + +'My sentiments is Game and Fancy, Master,' returned the Chicken. +'That's wot my sentiments is. I can't abear a meanness. I'm afore the +public, I'm to be heerd on at the bar of the Little Helephant, and no +Gov'ner o' mine mustn't go and do what's mean. Wy, it's mean,' said +the Chicken, with increased expression. 'That's where it is. It's +mean.' + +'Chicken,' said Mr Toots, 'you disgust me.' + +'Master,' returned the Chicken, putting on his hat, 'there's a pair +on us, then. Come! Here's a offer! You've spoke to me more than once't +or twice't about the public line. Never mind! Give me a fi'typunnote +to-morrow, and let me go.' + +'Chicken,' returned Mr Toots, 'after the odious sentiments you have +expressed, I shall be glad to part on such terms.' + +'Done then,' said the Chicken. 'It's a bargain. This here conduct +of yourn won't suit my book, Master. Wy, it's mean,' said the Chicken; +who seemed equally unable to get beyond that point, and to stop short +of it. 'That's where it is; it's mean!' + +So Mr Toots and the Chicken agreed to part on this incompatibility +of moral perception; and Mr Toots lying down to sleep, dreamed happily +of Florence, who had thought of him as her friend upon the last night +of her maiden life, and who had sent him her dear love. + + +CHAPTER 57. + +Another Wedding + + + +Mr Sownds the beadle, and Mrs Miff the pew-opener, are early at +their posts in the fine church where Mr Dombey was married. A +yellow-faced old gentleman from India, is going to take unto himself a +young wife this morning, and six carriages full of company are +expected, and Mrs Miff has been informed that the yellow-faced old +gentleman could pave the road to church with diamonds and hardly miss +them. The nuptial benediction is to be a superior one, proceeding from +a very reverend, a dean, and the lady is to be given away, as an +extraordinary present, by somebody who comes express from the Horse +Guards + +Mrs Miff is more intolerant of common people this morning, than she +generally is; and she his always strong opinions on that subject, for +it is associated with free sittings. Mrs Miff is not a student of +political economy (she thinks the science is connected with +dissenters; 'Baptists or Wesleyans, or some o' them,' she says), but +she can never understand what business your common folks have to be +married. 'Drat 'em,' says Mrs Miff 'you read the same things over 'em' +and instead of sovereigns get sixpences!' + +Mr Sownds the beadle is more liberal than Mrs Miff - but then he is +not a pew-opener. 'It must be done, Ma'am,' he says. 'We must marry +'em. We must have our national schools to walk at the head of, and we +must have our standing armies. We must marry 'em, Ma'am,' says Mr +Sownds, 'and keep the country going.' + +Mr Sownds is sitting on the steps and Mrs Miff is dusting in the +church, when a young couple, plainly dressed, come in. The mortified +bonnet of Mrs Miff is sharply turned towards them, for she espies in +this early visit indications of a runaway match. But they don't want +to be married - 'Only,' says the gentleman, 'to walk round the +church.' And as he slips a genteel compliment into the palm of Mrs +Miff, her vinegary face relaxes, and her mortified bonnet and her +spare dry figure dip and crackle. + +Mrs Miff resumes her dusting and plumps up her cushions - for the +yellow-faced old gentleman is reported to have tender knees - but +keeps her glazed, pew-opening eye on the young couple who are walking +round the church. 'Ahem,' coughs Mrs Miff whose cough is drier than +the hay in any hassock in her charge, 'you'll come to us one of these +mornings, my dears, unless I'm much mistaken!' + +They are looking at a tablet on the wall, erected to the memory of +someone dead. They are a long way off from Mrs Miff, but Mrs Miff can +see with half an eye how she is leaning on his arm, and how his head +is bent down over her. 'Well, well,' says Mrs Miff, 'you might do +worse. For you're a tidy pair!' + +There is nothing personal in Mrs Miff's remark. She merely speaks +of stock-in-trade. She is hardly more curious in couples than in +coffins. She is such a spare, straight, dry old lady - such a pew of a +woman - that you should find as many individual sympathies in a chip. +Mr Sownds, now, who is fleshy, and has scarlet in his coat, is of a +different temperament. He says, as they stand upon the steps watching +the young couple away, that she has a pretty figure, hasn't she, and +as well as he could see (for she held her head down coming out), an +uncommon pretty face. 'Altogether, Mrs Miff,' says Mr Sownds with a +relish, 'she is what you may call a rose-bud.' + +Mrs Miff assents with a spare nod of her mortified bonnet; but +approves of this so little, that she inwardly resolves she wouldn't be +the wife of Mr Sownds for any money he could give her, Beadle as he +is. + +And what are the young couple saying as they leave the church, and +go out at the gate? + +'Dear Walter, thank you! I can go away, now, happy.' + +'And when we come back, Florence, we will come and see his grave +again.' + +Florence lifts her eyes, so bright with tears, to his kind face; +and clasps her disengaged hand on that other modest little hand which +clasps his arm. + +'It is very early, Walter, and the streets are almost empty yet. +Let us walk.' + +'But you will be so tired, my love.' + +'Oh no! I was very tired the first time that we ever walked +together, but I shall not be so to-day.' And thus - not much changed - +she, as innocent and earnest-hearted - he, as frank, as hopeful, and +more proud of her - Florence and Walter, on their bridal morning, walk +through the streets together. + +Not even in that childish walk of long ago, were they so far +removed from all the world about them as to-day. The childish feet of +long ago, did not tread such enchanted ground as theirs do now. The +confidence and love of children may be given many times, and will +spring up in many places; but the woman's heart of Florence, with its +undivided treasure, can be yielded only once, and under slight or +change, can only droop and die. + +They take the streets that are the quietest, and do not go near +that in which her old home stands. It is a fair, warm summer morning, +and the sun shines on them, as they walk towards the darkening mist +that overspreads the City. Riches are uncovering in shops; jewels, +gold, and silver flash in the goldsmith's sunny windows; and great +houses cast a stately shade upon them as they pass. But through the +light, and through the shade, they go on lovingly together, lost to +everything around; thinking of no other riches, and no prouder home, +than they have now in one another. + +Gradually they come into the darker, narrower streets, where the +sun, now yellow, and now red, is seen through the mist, only at street +corners, and in small open spaces where there is a tree, or one of the +innumerable churches, or a paved way and a flight of steps, or a +curious little patch of garden, or a burying-ground, where the few +tombs and tombstones are almost black. Lovingly and trustfully, +through all the narrow yards and alleys and the shady streets, +Florence goes, clinging to his arm, to be his wife. + +Her heart beats quicker now, for Walter tells her that their church +is very near. They pass a few great stacks of warehouses, with waggons +at the doors, and busy carmen stopping up the way - but Florence does +not see or hear them - and then the air is quiet, and the day is +darkened, and she is trembling in a church which has a strange smell +like a cellar. + +The shabby little old man, ringer of the disappointed bell, is +standing in the porch, and has put his hat in the font - for he is +quite at home there, being sexton. He ushers them into an old brown, +panelled, dusty vestry, like a corner-cupboard with the shelves taken +out; where the wormy registers diffuse a smell like faded snuff, which +has set the tearful Nipper sneezing. + +Youthful, and how beautiful, the young bride looks, in this old +dusty place, with no kindred object near her but her husband. There is +a dusty old clerk, who keeps a sort of evaporated news shop underneath +an archway opposite, behind a perfect fortification of posts. There is +a dusty old pew-opener who only keeps herself, and finds that quite +enough to do. There is a dusty old beadle (these are Mr Toots's beadle +and pew-opener of last Sunday), who has something to do with a +Worshipful Company who have got a Hall in the next yard, with a +stained-glass window in it that no mortal ever saw. There are dusty +wooden ledges and cornices poked in and out over the altar, and over +the screen and round the gallery, and over the inscription about what +the Master and Wardens of the Worshipful Company did in one thousand +six hundred and ninety-four. There are dusty old sounding-boards over +the pulpit and reading-desk, looking like lids to be let down on the +officiating ministers in case of their giving offence. There is every +possible provision for the accommodation of dust, except in the +churchyard, where the facilities in that respect are very limited. The +Captain, Uncle Sol, and Mr Toots are come; the clergyman is putting on +his surplice in the vestry, while the clerk walks round him, blowing +the dust off it; and the bride and bridegroom stand before the altar. +There is no bridesmaid, unless Susan Nipper is one; and no better +father than Captain Cuttle. A man with a wooden leg, chewing a faint +apple and carrying a blue bag in has hand, looks in to see what is +going on; but finding it nothing entertaining, stumps off again, and +pegs his way among the echoes out of doors. + +No gracious ray of light is seen to fall on Florence, kneeling at +the altar with her timid head bowed down. The morning luminary is +built out, and don't shine there. There is a meagre tree outside, +where the sparrows are chirping a little; and there is a blackbird in +an eyelet-hole of sun in a dyer's garret, over against the window, who +whistles loudly whilst the service is performing; and there is the man +with the wooden leg stumping away. The amens of the dusty clerk +appear, like Macbeth's, to stick in his throat a little'; but Captain +Cuttle helps him out, and does it with so much goodwill that he +interpolates three entirely new responses of that word, never +introduced into the service before. + +They are married, and have signed their names in one of the old +sneezy registers, and the clergyman's surplice is restored to the +dust, and the clergymam is gone home. In a dark corner of the dark +church, Florence has turned to Susan Nipper, and is weeping in her +arms. Mr Toots's eyes are red. The Captain lubricates his nose. Uncle +Sol has pulled down his spectacles from his forehead, and walked out +to the door. + +'God bless you, Susan; dearest Susan! If you ever can bear witness +to the love I have for Walter, and the reason that I have to love him, +do it for his sake. Good-bye! Good-bye!' + +They have thought it better not to go back to the Midshipman, but +to part so; a coach is waiting for them, near at hand. + +Miss Nipper cannot speak; she only sobs and chokes, and hugs her +mistress. Mr Toots advances, urges her to cheer up, and takes charge +of her. Florence gives him her hand - gives him, in the fulness of her +heart, her lips - kisses Uncle Sol, and Captain Cuttle, and is borne +away by her young husband. + +But Susan cannot bear that Florence should go away with a mournful +recollection of her. She had meant to be so different, that she +reproaches herself bitterly. Intent on making one last effort to +redeem her character, she breaks from Mr Toots and runs away to find +the coach, and show a parting smile. The Captain, divining her object, +sets off after her; for he feels it his duty also to dismiss them with +a cheer, if possible. Uncle Sol and Mr Toots are left behind together, +outside the church, to wait for them. + +The coach is gone, but the street is steep, and narrow, and blocked +up, and Susan can see it at a stand-still in the distance, she is +sure. Captain Cuttle follows her as she flies down the hill, and waves +his glazed hat as a general signal, which may attract the right coach +and which may not. + +Susan outstrips the Captain, and comes up with it. She looks in at +the window, sees Walter, with the gentle face beside him, and claps +her hands and screams: + +'Miss Floy, my darling! look at me! We are all so happy now, dear! +One more good-bye, my precious, one more!' + +How Susan does it, she don't know, but she reaches to the window, +kisses her, and has her arms about her neck, in a moment. + +We are all so happy now, my dear Miss Floy!' says Susan, with a +suspicious catching in her breath. 'You, you won't be angry with me +now. Now will you?' + +'Angry, Susan!' + +'No, no; I am sure you won't. I say you won't, my pet, my dearest!' +exclaims Susan; 'and here's the Captain too - your friend the Captain, +you know - to say good-bye once more!' + +'Hooroar, my Heart's Delight!' vociferates the Captain, with a +countenance of strong emotion. 'Hooroar, Wal'r my lad. Hooroar! +Hooroar!' + +What with the young husband at one window, and the young wife at +the other; the Captain hanging on at this door, and Susan Nipper +holding fast by that; the coach obliged to go on whether it will or +no, and all the other carts and coaches turbulent because it +hesitates; there never was so much confusion on four wheels. But Susan +Nipper gallantly maintains her point. She keeps a smiling face upon +her mistress, smiling through her tears, until the last. Even when she +is left behind, the Captain continues to appear and disappear at the +door, crying 'Hooroar, my lad! Hooroar, my Heart's Delight!' with his +shirt-collar in a violent state of agitation, until it is hopeless to +attempt to keep up with the coach any longer. Finally, when the coach +is gone, Susan Nipper, being rejoined by the Captain, falls into a +state of insensibility, and is taken into a baker's shop to recover. + +Uncle Sol and Mr Toots wait patiently in the churchyard, sitting on +the coping-stone of the railings, until Captain Cuttle and Susan come +back, Neither being at all desirous to speak, or to be spoken to, they +are excellent company, and quite satisfied. When they all arrive again +at the little Midshipman, and sit down to breakfast, nobody can touch +a morsel. Captain Cuttle makes a feint of being voracious about toast, +but gives it up as a swindle. Mr Toots says, after breakfast, he will +come back in the evening; and goes wandering about the town all day, +with a vague sensation upon him as if he hadn't been to bed for a +fortnight. + +There is a strange charm in the house, and in the room, in which +they have been used to be together, and out of which so much is gone. +It aggravates, and yet it soothes, the sorrow of the separation. Mr +Toots tells Susan Nipper when he comes at night, that he hasn't been +so wretched all day long, and yet he likes it. He confides in Susan +Nipper, being alone with her, and tells her what his feelings were +when she gave him that candid opinion as to the probability of Miss +Dombey's ever loving him. In the vein of confidence engendered by +these common recollections, and their tears, Mr Toots proposes that +they shall go out together, and buy something for supper. Miss Nipper +assenting, they buy a good many little things; and, with the aid of +Mrs Richards, set the supper out quite showily before the Captain and +old Sol came home. + +The Captain and old Sol have been on board the ship, and have +established Di there, and have seen the chests put aboard. They have +much to tell about the popularity of Walter, and the comforts he will +have about him, and the quiet way in which it seems he has been +working early and late, to make his cabin what the Captain calls 'a +picter,' to surprise his little wife. 'A admiral's cabin, mind you,' +says the Captain, 'ain't more trim.' + +But one of the Captain's chief delights is, that he knows the big +watch, and the sugar-tongs, and tea-spoons, are on board: and again +and again he murmurs to himself, 'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, you never +shaped a better course in your life than when you made that there +little property over jintly. You see how the land bore, Ed'ard,' says +the Captain, 'and it does you credit, my lad.' + +The old Instrument-maker is more distraught and misty than he used +to be, and takes the marriage and the parting very much to heart. But +he is greatly comforted by having his old ally, Ned Cuttle, at his +side; and he sits down to supper with a grateful and contented face. + +'My boy has been preserved and thrives,' says old Sol Gills, +rubbing his hands. 'What right have I to be otherwise than thankful +and happy!' + +The Captain, who has not yet taken his seat at the table, but who +has been fidgeting about for some time, and now stands hesitating in +his place, looks doubtfully at Mr Gills, and says: + +'Sol! There's the last bottle of the old Madeira down below. Would +you wish to have it up to-night, my boy, and drink to Wal'r and his +wife?' + +The Instrument-maker, looking wistfully at the Captain, puts his +hand into the breast-pocket of his coffee-coloured coat, brings forth +his pocket-book, and takes a letter out. + +'To Mr Dombey,' says the old man. 'From Walter. To be sent in three +weeks' time. I'll read it.' + +'"Sir. I am married to your daughter. She is gone with me upon a +distant voyage. To be devoted to her is to have no claim on her or +you, but God knows that I am. + +'"Why, loving her beyond all earthly things, I have yet, without +remorse, united her to the uncertainties and dangers of my life, I +will not say to you. You know why, and you are her father. + +'"Do not reproach her. She has never reproached you. + +'"I do not think or hope that you will ever forgive me. There is +nothing I expect less. But if an hour should come when it will comfort +you to believe that Florence has someone ever near her, the great +charge of whose life is to cancel her remembrance of past sorrow, I +solemnly assure you, you may, in that hour, rest in that belief."' + +Solomon puts back the letter carefully in his pocket-book, and puts +back his pocket-book in his coat. + +'We won't drink the last bottle of the old Madeira yet, Ned,' says +the old man thoughtfully. 'Not yet. + +'Not yet,' assents the Captain. 'No. Not yet.' + +Susan and Mr Toots are of the same opinion. After a silence they +all sit down to supper, and drink to the young husband and wife in +something else; and the last bottle of the old Madeira still remains +among its dust and cobwebs, undisturbed. + + +A few days have elapsed, and a stately ship is out at sea, +spreading its white wings to the favouring wind. + +Upon the deck, image to the roughest man on board of something that +is graceful, beautiful, and harmless - something that it is good and +pleasant to have there, and that should make the voyage prosperous - +is Florence. It is night, and she and Walter sit alone, watching the +solemn path of light upon the sea between them and the moon. + +At length she cannot see it plainly, for the tears that fill her +eyes; and then she lays her head down on his breast, and puts her arms +around his neck, saying, 'Oh Walter, dearest love, I am so happy!' + +Her husband holds her to his heart, and they are very quiet, and +the stately ship goes on serenely. + +'As I hear the sea,' says Florence, 'and sit watching it, it brings +so many days into my mind. It makes me think so much - ' + +'Of Paul, my love. I know it does.' + +Of Paul and Walter. And the voices in the waves are always +whispering to Florence, in their ceaseless murmuring, of love - of +love, eternal and illimitable, not bounded by the confines of this +world, or by the end of time, but ranging still, beyond the sea, +beyond the sky, to the invisible country far away! + + +CHAPTER 58. + +After a Lapse + + + +The sea had ebbed and flowed, through a whole year. Through a whole +year, the winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of +Time had been performed, in storm and sunshine. Through a whole year, +the tides of human chance and change had set in their allotted +courses. Through a whole year, the famous House of Dombey and Son had +fought a fight for life, against cross accidents, doubtful rumours, +unsuccessful ventures, unpropitious times, and most of all, against +the infatuation of its head, who would not contract its enterprises by +a hair's breadth, and would not listen to a word of warning that the +ship he strained so hard against the storm, was weak, and could not +bear it. The year was out, and the great House was down. + +One summer afternoon; a year, wanting some odd days, after the +marriage in the City church; there was a buzz and whisper upon 'Change +of a great failure. A certain cold proud man, well known there, was +not there, nor was he represented there. Next day it was noised abroad +that Dombey and Son had stopped, and next night there was a List of +Bankrupts published, headed by that name. + +The world was very busy now, in sooth, and had a deal to say. It +was an innocently credulous and a much ill-used world. It was a world +in which there was 'no other sort of bankruptcy whatever. There were +no conspicuous people in it, trading far and wide on rotten banks of +religion, patriotism, virtue, honour. There was no amount worth +mentioning of mere paper in circulation, on which anybody lived pretty +handsomely, promising to pay great sums of goodness with no effects. +There were no shortcomings anywhere, in anything but money. The world +was very angry indeed; and the people especially, who, in a worse +world, might have been supposed to be apt traders themselves in shows +and pretences, were observed to be mightily indignant. + +Here was a new inducement to dissipation, presented to that sport +of circumstances, Mr Perch the Messenger! It was apparently the fate +of Mr Perch to be always waking up, and finding himself famous. He had +but yesterday, as one might say, subsided into private life from the +celebrity of the elopement and the events that followed it; and now he +was made a more important man than ever, by the bankruptcy. Gliding +from his bracket in the outer office where he now sat, watching the +strange faces of accountants and others, who quickly superseded nearly +all the old clerks, Mr Perch had but to show himself in the court +outside, or, at farthest, in the bar of the King's Arms, to be asked a +multitude of questions, almost certain to include that interesting +question, what would he take to drink? Then would Mr Perch descant +upon the hours of acute uneasiness he and Mrs Perch had suffered out +at Balls Pond, when they first suspected 'things was going wrong.' +Then would Mr Perch relate to gaping listeners, in a low voice, as if +the corpse of the deceased House were lying unburied in the next room, +how Mrs Perch had first come to surmise that things was going wrong by +hearing him (Perch) moaning in his sleep, 'twelve and ninepence in the +pound, twelve and ninepence in the pound!' Which act of somnambulism +he supposed to have originated in the impression made upon him by the +change in Mr Dombey's face. Then would he inform them how he had once +said, 'Might I make so bold as ask, Sir, are you unhappy in your +mind?' and how Mr Dombey had replied, 'My faithful Perch - but no, it +cannot be!' and with that had struck his hand upon his forehead, and +said, 'Leave me, Perch!' Then, in short, would Mr Perch, a victim to +his position, tell all manner of lies; affecting himself to tears by +those that were of a moving nature, and really believing that the +inventions of yesterday had, on repetition, a sort of truth about them +to-day. + +Mr Perch always closed these conferences by meekly remarking, That, +of course, whatever his suspicions might have been (as if he had ever +had any!) it wasn't for him to betray his trust, was it? Which +sentiment (there never being any creditors present) was received as +doing great honour to his feelings. Thus, he generally brought away a +soothed conscience and left an agreeable impression behind him, when +he returned to his bracket: again to sit watching the strange faces of +the accountants and others, making so free with the great mysteries, +the Books; or now and then to go on tiptoe into Mr Dombey's empty +room, and stir the fire; or to take an airing at the door, and have a +little more doleful chat with any straggler whom he knew; or to +propitiate, with various small attentions, the head accountant: from +whom Mr Perch had expectations of a messengership in a Fire Office, +when the affairs of the House should be wound up. + +To Major Bagstock, the bankruptcy was quite a calamity. The Major +was not a sympathetic character - his attention being wholly +concentrated on J. B. - nor was he a man subject to lively emotions, +except in the physical regards of gasping and choking. But he had so +paraded his friend Dombey at the club; had so flourished him at the +heads of the members in general, and so put them down by continual +assertion of his riches; that the club, being but human, was delighted +to retort upon the Major, by asking him, with a show of great concern, +whether this tremendous smash had been at all expected, and how his +friend Dombey bore it. To such questions, the Major, waxing very +purple, would reply that it was a bad world, Sir, altogether; that +Joey knew a thing or two, but had been done, Sir, done like an infant; +that if you had foretold this, Sir, to J. Bagstock, when he went +abroad with Dombey and was chasing that vagabond up and down France, +J. Bagstock would have pooh-pooh'd you - would have pooh- pooh'd you, +Sir, by the Lord! That Joe had been deceived, Sir, taken in, +hoodwinked, blindfolded, but was broad awake again and staring; +insomuch, Sir, that if Joe's father were to rise up from the grave +to-morrow, he wouldn't trust the old blade with a penny piece, but +would tell him that his son Josh was too old a soldier to be done +again, Sir. That he was a suspicious, crabbed, cranky, used-up, J. B. +infidel, Sir; and that if it were consistent with the dignity of a +rough and tough old Major, of the old school, who had had the honour +of being personally known to, and commended by, their late Royal +Highnesses the Dukes of Kent and York, to retire to a tub and live in +it, by Gad! Sir, he'd have a tub in Pall Mall to-morrow, to show his +contempt for mankind!' + +Of all this, and many variations of the same tune, the Major would +deliver himself with so many apoplectic symptoms, such rollings of his +head, and such violent growls of ill usage and resentment, that the +younger members of the club surmised he had invested money in his +friend Dombey's House, and lost it; though the older soldiers and +deeper dogs, who knew Joe better, wouldn't hear of such a thing. The +unfortunate Native, expressing no opinion, suffered dreadfully; not +merely in his moral feelings, which were regularly fusilladed by the +Major every hour in the day, and riddled through and through, but in +his sensitiveness to bodily knocks and bumps, which was kept +continually on the stretch. For six entire weeks after the bankruptcy, +this miserable foreigner lived in a rainy season of boot-jacks and +brushes. + +Mrs Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. +The first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her +brother had not made an effort. The third, that if she had been +invited to dinner on the day of that first party, it never would have +happened; and that she had said so, at the time. + +Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it +heavier. It was understood that the affairs of the House were to be +wound up as they best could be; that Mr Dombey freely resigned +everything he had, and asked for no favour from anyone. That any +resumption of the business was out of the question, as he would listen +to no friendly negotiation having that compromise in view; that he had +relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had held, as a man +respected among merchants; that he was dying, according to some; that +he was going melancholy mad, according to others; that he was a broken +man, according to all. + +The clerks dispersed after holding a little dinner of condolence +among themselves, which was enlivened by comic singing, and went off +admirably. Some took places abroad, and some engaged in other Houses +at home; some looked up relations in the country, for whom they +suddenly remembered they had a particular affection; and some +advertised for employment in the newspapers. Mr Perch alone remained +of all the late establishment, sitting on his bracket looking at the +accountants, or starting off it, to propitiate the head accountant, +who was to get him into the Fire Office. The Counting House soon got +to be dirty and neglected. The principal slipper and dogs' collar +seller, at the corner of the court, would have doubted the propriety +of throwing up his forefinger to the brim of his hat, any more, if Mr +Dombey had appeared there now; and the ticket porter, with his hands +under his white apron, moralised good sound morality about ambition, +which (he observed) was not, in his opinion, made to rhyme to +perdition, for nothing. + +Mr Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, with the hair and whiskers +sprinkled with grey, was perhaps the only person within the atmosphere +of the House - its head, of course, excepted - who was heartily and +deeply affected by the disaster that had befallen it. He had treated +Mr Dombey with due respect and deference through many years, but he +had never disguised his natural character, or meanly truckled to him, +or pampered his master passion for the advancement of his own +purposes. He had, therefore, no self-disrespect to avenge; no +long-tightened springs to release with a quick recoil. He worked early +and late to unravel whatever was complicated or difficult in the +records of the transactions of the House; was always in attendance to +explain whatever required explanation; sat in his old room sometimes +very late at night, studying points by his mastery of which he could +spare Mr Dombey the pain of being personally referred to; and then +would go home to Islington, and calm his mind by producing the most +dismal and forlorn sounds out of his violoncello before going to bed. + +He was solacing himself with this melodious grumbler one evening, +and, having been much dispirited by the proceedings of the day, was +scraping consolation out of its deepest notes, when his landlady (who +was fortunately deaf, and had no other consciousness of these +performances than a sensation of something rumbling in her bones) +announced a lady. + +'In mourning,' she said. + +The violoncello stopped immediately; and the performer, laying it +on the sofa with great tenderness and care, made a sign that the lady +was to come in. He followed directly, and met Harriet Carker on the +stair. + +'Alone!' he said, 'and John here this morning! Is there anything +the matter, my dear? But no,' he added, 'your face tells quite another +story.' + +'I am afraid it is a selfish revelation that you see there, then,' +she answered. + +'It is a very pleasant one,' said he; 'and, if selfish, a novelty +too, worth seeing in you. But I don't believe that.' + +He had placed a chair for her by this time, and sat down opposite; +the violoncello lying snugly on the sofa between them. + +'You will not be surprised at my coming alone, or at John's not +having told you I was coming,' said Harriet; 'and you will believe +that, when I tell you why I have come. May I do so now?' + +'You can do nothing better.' + +'You were not busy?' + +He pointed to the violoncello lying on the sofa, and said 'I have +been, all day. Here's my witness. I have been confiding all my cares +to it. I wish I had none but my own to tell.' + +'Is the House at an end?' said Harriet, earnestly. + +'Completely at an end.' + +'Will it never be resumed?' + +'Never.' + +The bright expression of her face was not overshadowed as her lips +silently repeated the word. He seemed to observe this with some little +involuntary surprise: and said again: + +'Never. You remember what I told you. It has been, all along, +impossible to convince him; impossible to reason with him; sometimes, +impossible even to approach him. The worst has happened; and the House +has fallen, never to be built up any more.' + +'And Mr Dombey, is he personally ruined?' + +'Ruined.' + +'Will he have no private fortune left? Nothing?' + +A certain eagerness in her voice, and something that was almost +joyful in her look, seemed to surprise him more and more; to +disappoint him too, and jar discordantly against his own emotions. He +drummed with the fingers of one hand on the table, looking wistfully +at her, and shaking his head, said, after a pause: + +'The extent of Mr Dombey's resources is not accurately within my +knowledge; but though they are doubtless very large, his obligations +are enormous. He is a gentleman of high honour and integrity. Any man +in his position could, and many a man in his position would, have +saved himself, by making terms which would have very slightly, almost +insensibly, increased the losses of those who had had dealings with +him, and left him a remnant to live upon. But he is resolved on +payment to the last farthing of his means. His own words are, that +they will clear, or nearly clear, the House, and that no one can lose +much. Ah, Miss Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener +than we do, that vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess! +His pride shows well in this.' + +She heard him with little or no change in her expression, and with +a divided attention that showed her to be busy with something in her +own mind. When he was silent, she asked him hurriedly: + +'Have you seen him lately?' + +'No one sees him. When this crisis of his affairs renders it +necessary for him to come out of his house, he comes out for the +occasion, and again goes home, and shuts himself up, and will sea no +one. He has written me a letter, acknowledging our past connexion in +higher terms than it deserved, and parting from me. I am delicate of +obtruding myself upon him now, never having had much intercourse with +him in better times; but I have tried to do so. I have written, gone +there, entreated. Quite in vain.' + +He watched her, as in the hope that she would testify some greater +concern than she had yet shown; and spoke gravely and feelingly, as if +to impress her the more; but there was no change in her. + +'Well, well, Miss Harriet,' he said, with a disappointed air, 'this +is not to the purpose. You have not come here to hear this. Some other +and pleasanter theme is in your mind. Let it be in mine, too, and we +shall talk upon more equal terms. Come!' + +'No, it is the same theme,' returned Harriet, with frank and quick +surprise. 'Is it not likely that it should be? Is it not natural that +John and I should have been thinking and speaking very much of late of +these great changes? Mr Dombey, whom he served so many years - you +know upon what terms - reduced, as you describe; and we quite rich!' + +Good, true face, as that face of hers was, and pleasant as it had +been to him, Mr Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, since the first time +he had ever looked upon it, it pleased him less at that moment, +lighted with a ray of exultation, than it had ever pleased him before. + +'I need not remind you,' said Harriet, casting down her eyes upon +her black dress, 'through what means our circumstances changed. You +have not forgotten that our brother James, upon that dreadful day, +left no will, no relations but ourselves.' + +The face was pleasanter to him now, though it was pale and +melancholy, than it had been a moment since. He seemed to breathe more +cheerily. + +'You know,' she said, 'our history, the history of both my +brothers, in connexion with the unfortunate, unhappy gentleman, of +whom you have spoken so truly. You know how few our wants are - John's +and mine - and what little use we have for money, after the life we +have led together for so many years; and now that he is earning an +income that is ample for us, through your kindness. You are not +unprepared to hear what favour I have come to ask of you?' + +'I hardly know. I was, a minute ago. Now, I think, I am not.' + +'Of my dead brother I say nothing. If the dead know what we do - +but you understand me. Of my living brother I could say much; but what +need I say more, than that this act of duty, in which I have come to +ask your indispensable assistance, is his own, and that he cannot rest +until it is performed!' + +She raised her eyes again; and the light of exultation in her face +began to appear beautiful, in the observant eyes that watched her. + +'Dear Sir,' she went on to say, 'it must be done very quietly and +secretly. Your experience and knowledge will point out a way of doing +it. Mr Dombey may, perhaps, be led to believe that it is something +saved, unexpectedly, from the wreck of his fortunes; or that it is a +voluntary tribute to his honourable and upright character, from some +of those with whom he has had great dealings; or that it is some old +lost debt repaid. There must be many ways of doing it. I know you will +choose the best. The favour I have come to ask is, that you will do it +for us in your own kind, generous, considerate manner. That you will +never speak of it to John, whose chief happiness in this act of +restitution is to do it secretly, unknown, and unapproved of: that +only a very small part of the inheritance may be reserved to us, until +Mr Dombey shall have possessed the interest of the rest for the +remainder of his life; that you will keep our secret, faithfully - but +that I am sure you will; and that, from this time, it may seldom be +whispered, even between you and me, but may live in my thoughts only +as a new reason for thankfulness to Heaven, and joy and pride in my +brother.' + +Such a look of exultation there may be on Angels' faces when the +one repentant sinner enters Heaven, among ninety-nine just men. It was +not dimmed or tarnished by the joyful tears that filled her eyes, but +was the brighter for them. + +'My dear Harriet,' said Mr Morfin, after a silence, 'I was not +prepared for this. Do I understand you that you wish to make your own +part in the inheritance available for your good purpose, as well as +John's?' + +'Oh, yes,' she returned 'When we have shared everything together +for so long a time, and have had no care, hope, or purpose apart, +could I bear to be excluded from my share in this? May I not urge a +claim to be my brother's partner and companion to the last?' + +'Heaven forbid that I should dispute it!' he replied. + +'We may rely on your friendly help?' she said. 'I knew we might!' + +'I should be a worse man than, - than I hope I am, or would +willingly believe myself, if I could not give you that assurance from +my heart and soul. You may, implicitly. Upon my honour, I will keep +your secret. And if it should be found that Mr Dombey is so reduced as +I fear he will be, acting on a determination that there seem to be no +means of influencing, I will assist you to accomplish the design, on +which you and John are jointly resolved.' + +She gave him her hand, and thanked him with a cordial, happy face. + +'Harriet,' he said, detaining it in his. 'To speak to you of the +worth of any sacrifice that you can make now - above all, of any +sacrifice of mere money - would be idle and presumptuous. To put +before you any appeal to reconsider your purpose or to set narrow +limits to it, would be, I feel, not less so. I have no right to mar +the great end of a great history, by any obtrusion of my own weak +self. I have every right to bend my head before what you confide to +me, satisfied that it comes from a higher and better source of +inspiration than my poor worldly knowledge. I will say only this: I am +your faithful steward; and I would rather be so, and your chosen +friend, than I would be anybody in the world, except yourself.' + +She thanked him again, cordially, and wished him good-night. 'Are +you going home?' he said. 'Let me go with you.' + +'Not to-night. I am not going home now; I have a visit to make +alone. Will you come to-morrow?' + +'Well, well,' said he, 'I'll come to-morrow. In the meantime, I'll +think of this, and how we can best proceed. And perhaps I'll think of +it, dear Harriet, and - and - think of me a little in connexion with +it.' + +He handed her down to a coach she had in waiting at the door; and +if his landlady had not been deaf, she would have heard him muttering +as he went back upstairs, when the coach had driven off, that we were +creatures of habit, and it was a sorrowful habit to be an old +bachelor. + +The violoncello lying on the sofa between the two chairs, he took +it up, without putting away the vacant chair, and sat droning on it, +and slowly shaking his head at the vacant chair, for a long, long +time. The expression he communicated to the instrument at first, +though monstrously pathetic and bland, was nothing to the expression +he communicated to his own face, and bestowed upon the empty chair: +which was so sincere, that he was obliged to have recourse to Captain +Cuttle's remedy more than once, and to rub his face with his sleeve. +By degrees, however, the violoncello, in unison with his own frame of +mind, glided melodiously into the Harmonious Blacksmith, which he +played over and over again, until his ruddy and serene face gleamed +like true metal on the anvil of a veritable blacksmith. In fine, the +violoncello and the empty chair were the companions of his +bachelorhood until nearly midnight; and when he took his supper, the +violoncello set up on end in the sofa corner, big with the latent +harmony of a whole foundry full of harmonious blacksmiths, seemed to +ogle the empty chair out of its crooked eyes, with unutterable +intelligence. + +When Harriet left the house, the driver of her hired coach, taking +a course that was evidently no new one to him, went in and out by +bye-ways, through that part of the suburbs, until he arrived at some +open ground, where there were a few quiet little old houses standing +among gardens. At the garden-gate of one of these he stopped, and +Harriet alighted. + +Her gentle ringing at the bell was responded to by a +dolorous-looking woman, of light complexion, with raised eyebrows, and +head drooping on one side, who curtseyed at sight of her, and +conducted her across the garden to the house. + +'How is your patient, nurse, to-night?' said Harriet. + +'In a poor way, Miss, I am afraid. Oh how she do remind me, +sometimes, of my Uncle's Betsey Jane!' returned the woman of the light +complexion, in a sort of doleful rapture. + +'In what respect?' asked Harriet. + +'Miss, in all respects,' replied the other, 'except that she's +grown up, and Betsey Jane, when at death's door, was but a child.' + +'But you have told me she recovered,' observed Harriet mildly; 'so +there is the more reason for hope, Mrs Wickam.' + +'Ah, Miss, hope is an excellent thing for such as has the spirits +to bear it!' said Mrs Wickam, shaking her head. 'My own spirits is not +equal to it, but I don't owe it any grudge. I envys them that is so +blest!' + +'You should try to be more cheerful,' remarked Harriet. + +'Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,' said Mrs Wickam grimly. 'If I was so +inclined, the loneliness of this situation - you'll excuse my speaking +so free - would put it out of my power, in four and twenty hours; but +I ain't at all. I'd rather not. The little spirits that I ever had, I +was bereaved of at Brighton some few years ago, and I think I feel +myself the better for it.' + +In truth, this was the very Mrs Wickam who had superseded Mrs +Richards as the nurse of little Paul, and who considered herself to +have gained the loss in question, under the roof of the amiable +Pipchin. The excellent and thoughtful old system, hallowed by long +prescription, which has usually picked out from the rest of mankind +the most dreary and uncomfortable people that could possibly be laid +hold of, to act as instructors of youth, finger-posts to the virtues, +matrons, monitors, attendants on sick beds, and the like, had +established Mrs Wickam in very good business as a nurse, and had led +to her serious qualities being particularly commended by an admiring +and numerous connexion. + +Mrs Wickam, with her eyebrows elevated, and her head on one side, +lighted the way upstairs to a clean, neat chamber, opening on another +chamber dimly lighted, where there was a bed. In the first room, an +old woman sat mechanically staring out at the open window, on the +darkness. In the second, stretched upon the bed, lay the shadow of a +figure that had spurned the wind and rain, one wintry night; hardly to +be recognised now, but by the long black hair that showed so very +black against the colourless face, and all the white things about it. + +Oh, the strong eyes, and the weak frame! The eyes that turned so +eagerly and brightly to the door when Harriet came in; the feeble head +that could not raise itself, and moved so slowly round upon its +pillow! + +'Alice!' said the visitor's mild voice, 'am I late to-night?' + +'You always seem late, but are always early.' + +Harriet had sat down by the bedside now, and put her hand upon the +thin hand lying there. + +'You are better?' + +Mrs Wickam, standing at the foot of the bed, like a disconsolate +spectre, most decidedly and forcibly shook her head to negative this +position. + +'It matters very little!' said Alice, with a faint smile. 'Better +or worse to-day, is but a day's difference - perhaps not so much.' + +Mrs Wickam, as a serious character, expressed her approval with a +groan; and having made some cold dabs at the bottom of the bedclothes, +as feeling for the patient's feet and expecting to find them stony; +went clinking among the medicine bottles on the table, as who should +say, 'while we are here, let us repeat the mixture as before.' + +'No,' said Alice, whispering to her visitor, 'evil courses, and +remorse, travel, want, and weather, storm within, and storm without, +have worn my life away. It will not last much longer. + +She drew the hand up as she spoke, and laid her face against it. + +'I lie here, sometimes, thinking I should like to live until I had +had a little time to show you how grateful I could be! It is a +weakness, and soon passes. Better for you as it is. Better for me!' + +How different her hold upon the hand, from what it had been when +she took it by the fireside on the bleak winter evening! Scorn, rage, +defiance, recklessness, look here! This is the end. + +Mrs Wickam having clinked sufficiently among the bottles, now +produced the mixture. Mrs Wickam looked hard at her patient in the act +of drinking, screwed her mouth up tight, her eyebrows also, and shook +her head, expressing that tortures shouldn't make her say it was a +hopeless case. Mrs Wickam then sprinkled a little cooling-stuff about +the room, with the air of a female grave-digger, who was strewing +ashes on ashes, dust on dust - for she was a serious character - and +withdrew to partake of certain funeral baked meats downstairs. + +'How long is it,' asked Alice, 'since I went to you and told you +what I had done, and when you were advised it was too late for anyone +to follow?' + +'It is a year and more,' said Harriet. + +'A year and more,' said Alice, thoughtfully intent upon her face. +'Months upon months since you brought me here!' + +Harriet answered 'Yes.' + +'Brought me here, by force of gentleness and kindness. Me!' said +Alice, shrinking with her face behind her hand, 'and made me human by +woman's looks and words, and angel's deeds!' + +Harriet bending over her, composed and soothed her. By and bye, +Alice lying as before, with the hand against her face, asked to have +her mother called. + +Harriet called to her more than once, but the old woman was so +absorbed looking out at the open window on the darkness, that she did +not hear. It was not until Harriet went to her and touched her, that +she rose up, and came. + +'Mother,' said Alice, taking the hand again, and fixing her +lustrous eyes lovingly upon her visitor, while she merely addressed a +motion of her finger to the old woman, 'tell her what you know.' + +'To-night, my deary?' + +'Ay, mother,' answered Alice, faintly and solemnly, 'to-night!' + +The old woman, whose wits appeared disorderly by alarm, remorse, or +grief, came creeping along the side of the bed, opposite to that on +which Harriet sat; and kneeling down, so as to bring her withered face +upon a level with the coverlet, and stretching out her hand, so as to +touch her daughter's arm, began: + +'My handsome gal - ' + +Heaven, what a cry was that, with which she stopped there, gazing +at the poor form lying on the bed! + +'Changed, long ago, mother! Withered, long ago,' said Alice, +without looking at her. 'Don't grieve for that now. + +'My daughter,' faltered the old woman, 'my gal who'll soon get +better, and shame 'em all with her good looks.' + +Alice smiled mournfully at Harriet, and fondled her hand a little +closer, but said nothing. + +'Who'll soon get better, I say,' repeated the old woman, menacing +the vacant air with her shrivelled fist, 'and who'll shame 'em all +with her good looks - she will. I say she will! she shall!' - as if +she were in passionate contention with some unseen opponent at the +bedside, who contradicted her - 'my daughter has been turned away +from, and cast out, but she could boast relationship to proud folks +too, if she chose. Ah! To proud folks! There's relationship without +your clergy and your wedding rings - they may make it, but they can't +break it - and my daughter's well related. Show me Mrs Dombey, and +I'll show you my Alice's first cousin.' + +Harriet glanced from the old woman to the lustrous eyes intent upon +her face, and derived corroboration from them. + +'What!' cried the old woman, her nodding head bridling with a +ghastly vanity. 'Though I am old and ugly now, - much older by life +and habit than years though, - I was once as young as any. Ah! as +pretty too, as many! I was a fresh country wench in my time, darling,' +stretching out her arm to Harriet, across the bed, 'and looked it, +too. Down in my country, Mrs Dombey's father and his brother were the +gayest gentlemen and the best-liked that came a visiting from London - +they have long been dead, though! Lord, Lord, this long while! The +brother, who was my Ally's father, longest of the two.' + +She raised her head a little, and peered at her daughter's face; as +if from the remembrance of her own youth, she had flown to the +remembrance of her child's. Then, suddenly, she laid her face down on +the bed, and shut her head up in her hands and arms. + +'They were as like,' said the old woman, without looking up, as you +could see two brothers, so near an age - there wasn't much more than a +year between them, as I recollect - and if you could have seen my gal, +as I have seen her once, side by side with the other's daughter, you'd +have seen, for all the difference of dress and life, that they were +like each other. Oh! is the likeness gone, and is it my gal - only my +gal - that's to change so!' + +'We shall all change, mother, in our turn,' said Alice. + +'Turn!' cried the old woman, 'but why not hers as soon as my gal's! +The mother must have changed - she looked as old as me, and full as +wrinkled through her paint - but she was handsome. What have I done, +I, what have I done worse than her, that only my gal is to lie there +fading!' With another of those wild cries, she went running out into +the room from which she had come; but immediately, in her uncertain +mood, returned, and creeping up to Harriet, said: + +'That's what Alice bade me tell you, deary. That's all. I found it +out when I began to ask who she was, and all about her, away in +Warwickshire there, one summer-time. Such relations was no good to me, +then. They wouldn't have owned me, and had nothing to give me. I +should have asked 'em, maybe, for a little money, afterwards, if it +hadn't been for my Alice; she'd a'most have killed me, if I had, I +think She was as proud as t'other in her way,' said the old woman, +touching the face of her daughter fearfully, and withdrawing her hand, +'for all she's so quiet now; but she'll shame 'em with her good looks +yet. Ha, ha! She'll shame 'em, will my handsome daughter!' + +Her laugh, as she retreated, was worse than her cry; worse than the +burst of imbecile lamentation in which it ended; worse than the doting +air with which she sat down in her old seat, and stared out at the +darkness. + +The eyes of Alice had all this time been fixed on Harriet, whose +hand she had never released. She said now: + +'I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It +might explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden +me. I had heard so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that +I took up with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that +as the seed was sown, the harvest grew. I somehow made it out that +when ladies had bad homes and mothers, they went wrong in their way, +too; but that their way was not so foul a one as mine, and they had +need to bless God for it.' That is all past. It is like a dream, now, +which I cannot quite remember or understand. It has been more and more +like a dream, every day, since you began to sit here, and to read to +me. I only tell it you, as I can recollect it. Will you read to me a +little more?' + +Harriet was withdrawing her hand to open the book, when Alice +detained it for a moment. + +'You will not forget my mother? I forgive her, if I have any cause. +I know that she forgives me, and is sorry in her heart. You will not +forget her?' + +'Never, Alice!' + +'A moment yet. Lay your head so, dear, that as you read I may see +the words in your kind face.' + +Harriet complied and read - read the eternal book for all the +weary, and the heavy-laden; for all the wretched, fallen, and +neglected of this earth - read the blessed history, in which the blind +lame palsied beggar, the criminal, the woman stained with shame, the +shunned of all our dainty clay, has each a portion, that no human +pride, indifference, or sophistry, through all the ages that this +world shall last, can take away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain +reduce - read the ministry of Him who, through the round of human +life, and all its hopes and griefs, from birth to death, from infancy +to age, had sweet compassion for, and interest in, its every scene and +stage, its every suffering and sorrow. + +'I shall come,' said Harriet, when she shut the book, 'very early +in the morning.' + +The lustrous eyes, yet fixed upon her face, closed for a moment, +then opened; and Alice kissed and blest her. + +The same eyes followed her to the door; and in their light, and on +the tranquil face, there was a smile when it was closed. + +They never turned away. She laid her hand upon her breast, +murmuring the sacred name that had been read to her; and life passed +from her face, like light removed. + +Nothing lay there, any longer, but the ruin of the mortal house on +which the rain had beaten, and the black hair that had fluttered in +the wintry wind. + + +CHAPTER 59. + +Retribution + + +Changes have come again upon the great house in the long dull +street, once the scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness. It is a +great house still, proof against wind and weather, without breaches in +the roof, or shattered windows, or dilapidated walls; but it is a ruin +none the less, and the rats fly from it. + +Mr Towlinson and company are, at first, incredulous in respect of +the shapeless rumours that they hear. Cook says our people's credit +ain't so easy shook as that comes to, thank God; and Mr Towlinson +expects to hear it reported next, that the Bank of England's a-going +to break, or the jewels in the Tower to be sold up. But, next come the +Gazette, and Mr Perch; and Mr Perch brings Mrs Perch to talk it over +in the kitchen, and to spend a pleasant evening. + +As soon as there is no doubt about it, Mr Towlinson's main anxiety +is that the failure should be a good round one - not less than a +hundred thousand pound. Mr Perch don't think himself that a hundred +thousand pound will nearly cover it. The women, led by Mrs Perch and +Cook, often repeat 'a hun-dred thou-sand pound!' with awful +satisfaction - as if handling the words were like handling the money; +and the housemaid, who has her eye on Mr Towlinson, wishes she had +only a hundredth part of the sum to bestow on the man of her choice. +Mr Towlinson, still mindful of his old wrong, opines that a foreigner +would hardly know what to do with so much money, unless he spent it on +his whiskers; which bitter sarcasm causes the housemaid to withdraw in +tears. + +But not to remain long absent; for Cook, who has the reputation of +being extremely good-hearted, says, whatever they do, let 'em stand by +one another now, Towlinson, for there's no telling how soon they may +be divided. They have been in that house (says Cook) through a +funeral, a wedding, and a running-away; and let it not be said that +they couldn't agree among themselves at such a time as the present. +Mrs Perch is immensely affected by this moving address, and openly +remarks that Cook is an angel. Mr Towlinson replies to Cook, far be it +from him to stand in the way of that good feeling which he could wish +to see; and adjourning in quest of the housemaid, and presently +returning with that young lady on his arm, informs the kitchen that +foreigners is only his fun, and that him and Anne have now resolved to +take one another for better for worse, and to settle in Oxford Market +in the general greengrocery and herb and leech line, where your kind +favours is particular requested. This announcement is received with +acclamation; and Mrs Perch, projecting her soul into futurity, says, +'girls,' in Cook's ear, in a solemn whisper. + +Misfortune in the family without feasting, in these lower regions, +couldn't be. Therefore Cook tosses up a hot dish or two for supper, +and Mr Towlinson compounds a lobster salad to be devoted to the same +hospitable purpose. Even Mrs Pipchin, agitated by the occasion, rings +her bell, and sends down word that she requests to have that little +bit of sweetbread that was left, warmed up for her supper, and sent to +her on a tray with about a quarter of a tumbler-full of mulled sherry; +for she feels poorly. + +There is a little talk about Mr Dombey, but very little. It is +chiefly speculation as to how long he has known that this was going to +happen. Cook says shrewdly, 'Oh a long time, bless you! Take your oath +of that.' And reference being made to Mr Perch, he confirms her view +of the case. Somebody wonders what he'll do, and whether he'll go out +in any situation. Mr Towlinson thinks not, and hints at a refuge in +one of them genteel almshouses of the better kind. 'Ah, where he'll +have his little garden, you know,' says Cook plaintively, 'and bring +up sweet peas in the spring.' 'Exactly so,' says Mr Towlinson, 'and be +one of the Brethren of something or another.' 'We are all brethren,' +says Mrs Perch, in a pause of her drink. 'Except the sisters,' says Mr +Perch. 'How are the mighty fallen!' remarks Cook. 'Pride shall have a +fall, and it always was and will be so!' observes the housemaid. + +It is wonderful how good they feel, in making these reflections; +and what a Christian unanimity they are sensible of, in bearing the +common shock with resignation. There is only one interruption to this +excellent state of mind, which is occasioned by a young kitchen-maid +of inferior rank - in black stockings - who, having sat with her mouth +open for a long time, unexpectedly discharges from it words to this +effect, 'Suppose the wages shouldn't be paid!' The company sit for a +moment speechless; but Cook recovering first, turns upon the young +woman, and requests to know how she dares insult the family, whose +bread she eats, by such a dishonest supposition, and whether she +thinks that anybody, with a scrap of honour left, could deprive poor +servants of their pittance? 'Because if that is your religious +feelings, Mary Daws,' says Cook warmly, 'I don't know where you mean +to go to. + +Mr Towlinson don't know either; nor anybody; and the young +kitchen-maid, appearing not to know exactly, herself, and scouted by +the general voice, is covered with confusion, as with a garment. + +After a few days, strange people begin to call at the house, and to +make appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they +lived there. Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Arabian +cast of countenance, with a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in +the drawing-room, and, while he is waiting for the other gentleman, +who always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks Mr Towlinson (by the +easy name of 'Old Cock,') if he happens to know what the figure of +them crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The +callers and appointments in the dining-room become more numerous every +day, and every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his pocket, and +to have some occasion to use it. At last it is said that there is +going to be a Sale; and then more people arrive, with pen and ink in +their pockets, commanding a detachment of men with carpet caps, who +immediately begin to pull up the carpets, and knock the furniture +about, and to print off thousands of impressions of their shoes upon +the hall and staircase. + +The council downstairs are in full conclave all this time, and, +having nothing to do, perform perfect feats of eating. At length, they +are one day summoned in a body to Mrs Pipchin's room, and thus +addressed by the fair Peruvian: + +'Your master's in difficulties,' says Mrs Pipchin, tartly. 'You +know that, I suppose?' + +Mr Towlinson, as spokesman, admits a general knowledge of the fact. + +'And you're all on the look-out for yourselves, I warrant you, says +Mrs Pipchin, shaking her head at them. + +A shrill voice from the rear exclaims, 'No more than yourself!' + +'That's your opinion, Mrs Impudence, is it?' says the ireful +Pipchin, looking with a fiery eye over the intermediate heads. + +'Yes, Mrs Pipchin, it is,' replies Cook, advancing. 'And what then, +pray?' + +'Why, then you may go as soon as you like,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'The +sooner the better; and I hope I shall never see your face again.' + +With this the doughty Pipchin produces a canvas bag; and tells her +wages out to that day, and a month beyond it; and clutches the money +tight, until a receipt for the same is duly signed, to the last +upstroke; when she grudgingly lets it go. This form of proceeding Mrs +Pipchin repeats with every member of the household, until all are +paid. + +'Now those that choose, can go about their business,' says Mrs +Pipchin, 'and those that choose can stay here on board wages for a +week or so, and make themselves useful. Except,' says the inflammable +Pipchin, 'that slut of a cook, who'll go immediately.' + +'That,' says Cook, 'she certainly will! I wish you good day, Mrs +Pipchin, and sincerely wish I could compliment you on the sweetness of +your appearance!' + +'Get along with you,' says Mrs Pipchin, stamping her foot. + +Cook sails off with an air of beneficent dignity, highly +exasperating to Mrs Pipchin, and is shortly joined below stairs by the +rest of the confederation. + +Mr Towlinson then says that, in the first place, he would beg to +propose a little snack of something to eat; and over that snack would +desire to offer a suggestion which he thinks will meet the position in +which they find themselves. The refreshment being produced, and very +heartily partaken of, Mr Towlinson's suggestion is, in effect, that +Cook is going, and that if we are not true to ourselves, nobody will +be true to us. That they have lived in that house a long time, and +exerted themselves very much to be sociable together. (At this, Cook +says, with emotion, 'Hear, hear!' and Mrs Perch, who is there again, +and full to the throat, sheds tears.) And that he thinks, at the +present time, the feeling ought to be 'Go one, go all!' The housemaid +is much affected by this generous sentiment, and warmly seconds it. +Cook says she feels it's right, and only hopes it's not done as a +compliment to her, but from a sense of duty. Mr Towlinson replies, +from a sense of duty; and that now he is driven to express his +opinions, he will openly say, that he does not think it +over-respectable to remain in a house where Sales and such-like are +carrying forwards. The housemaid is sure of it; and relates, in +confirmation, that a strange man, in a carpet cap, offered, this very +morning, to kiss her on the stairs. Hereupon, Mr Towlinson is starting +from his chair, to seek and 'smash' the offender; when he is laid hold +on by the ladies, who beseech him to calm himself, and to reflect that +it is easier and wiser to leave the scene of such indecencies at once. +Mrs Perch, presenting the case in a new light, even shows that +delicacy towards Mr Dombey, shut up in his own rooms, imperatively +demands precipitate retreat. 'For what,' says the good woman, 'must +his feelings be, if he was to come upon any of the poor servants that +he once deceived into thinking him immensely rich!' Cook is so struck +by this moral consideration, that Mrs Perch improves it with several +pious axioms, original and selected. It becomes a clear case that they +must all go. Boxes are packed, cabs fetched, and at dusk that evening +there is not one member of the party left. + +The house stands, large and weather-proof, in the long dull street; +but it is a ruin, and the rats fly from it. + +The men in the carpet caps go on tumbling the furniture about; and +the gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it, and +sit upon pieces of furniture never made to be sat upon, and eat bread +and cheese from the public-house on other pieces of furniture never +made to be eaten on, and seem to have a delight in appropriating +precious articles to strange uses. Chaotic combinations of furniture +also take place. Mattresses and bedding appear in the dining-room; the +glass and china get into the conservatory; the great dinner service is +set out in heaps on the long divan in the large drawing-room; and the +stair-wires, made into fasces, decorate the marble chimneypieces. +Finally, a rug, with a printed bill upon it, is hung out from the +balcony; and a similar appendage graces either side of the hall door. + +Then, all day long, there is a retinue of mouldy gigs and +chaise-carts in the street; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and +Christian, over-run the house, sounding the plate-glass minors with +their knuckles, striking discordant octaves on the Grand Piano, +drawing wet forefingers over the pictures, breathing on the blades of +the best dinner-knives, punching the squabs of chairs and sofas with +their dirty fists, touzling the feather beds, opening and shutting all +the drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into the +very threads of the drapery and linen, and disparaging everything. +There is not a secret place in the whole house. Fluffy and snuffy +strangers stare into the kitchen-range as curiously as into the attic +clothes-press. Stout men with napless hats on, look out of the bedroom +windows, and cut jokes with friends in the street. Quiet, calculating +spirits withdraw into the dressing-rooms with catalogues, and make +marginal notes thereon, with stumps of pencils. Two brokers invade the +very fire-escape, and take a panoramic survey of the neighbourhood +from the top of the house. The swarm and buzz, and going up and down, +endure for days. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, &c., is on +view. + +Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing-room; +and on the capital, french-polished, extending, telescopic range of +Spanish mahogany dining-tables with turned legs, the pulpit of the +Auctioneer is erected; and the herds of shabby vampires, Jew and +Christian, the strangers fluffy and snuffy, and the stout men with the +napless hats, congregate about it and sit upon everything within +reach, mantel-pieces included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming, and +dusty are the rooms all day; and - high above the heat, hum, and dust +- the head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are +ever at work. The men in the carpet caps get flustered and vicious +with tumbling the Lots about, and still the Lots are going, going, +gone; still coming on. Sometimes there is joking and a general roar. +This lasts all day and three days following. The Capital Modern +Household Furniture, &c., is on sale. + +Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them come +spring-vans and waggons, and an army of porters with knots. All day +long, the men with carpet caps are screwing at screw-drivers and +bed-winches, or staggering by the dozen together on the staircase +under heavy burdens, or upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany, +best rose-wood, or plate-glass, into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans +and waggons. All sorts of vehicles of burden are in attendance, from a +tilted waggon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul's little bedstead is carried +off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital Modern +Household Furniture, & c., is in course of removal. + +At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but +scattered leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and +a battery of pewter pots behind the hall-door. The men with the +carpet-caps gather up their screw-drivers and bed-winches into bags, +shoulder them, and walk off. One of the pen-and-ink gentlemen goes +over the house as a last attention; sticking up bills in the windows +respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion, and shutting +the shutters. At length he follows the men with the carpet caps. None +of the invaders remain. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it. + +Mrs Pipchin's apartments, together with those locked rooms on the +ground-floor where the window-blinds are drawn down close, have been +spared the general devastation. Mrs Pipchin has remained austere and +stony during the proceedings, in her own room; or has occasionally +looked in at the sale to see what the goods are fetching, and to bid +for one particular easy chair. Mrs Pipchin has been the highest bidder +for the easy chair, and sits upon her property when Mrs Chick comes to +see her. + +'How is my brother, Mrs Pipchin?' says Mrs Chick. + +'I don't know any more than the deuce,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'He never +does me the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink put in +the next room to his own; and what he takes, he comes out and takes +when there's nobody there. It's no use asking me. I know no more about +him than the man in the south who burnt his mouth by eating cold plum +porridge." + +This the acrimonious Pipchin says with a flounce. + +'But good gracious me!' cries Mrs Chick blandly. 'How long is this +to last! If my brother will not make an effort, Mrs Pipchin, what is +to become of him? I am sure I should have thought he had seen enough +of the consequences of not making an effort, by this time, to be +warned against that fatal error.' + +'Hoity toity!' says Mrs Pipchin, rubbing her nose. 'There's a great +fuss, I think, about it. It ain't so wonderful a case. People have had +misfortunes before now, and been obliged to part with their furniture. +I'm sure I have!' + +'My brother,' pursues Mrs Chick profoundly, 'is so peculiar - so +strange a man. He is the most peculiar man I ever saw. Would anyone +believe that when he received news of the marriage and emigration of +that unnatural child - it's a comfort to me, now, to remember that I +always said there was something extraordinary about that child: but +nobody minds me - would anybody believe, I say, that he should then +turn round upon me and say he had supposed, from my manner, that she +had come to my house? Why, my gracious! And would anybody believe that +when I merely say to him, "Paul, I may be very foolish, and I have no +doubt I am, but I cannot understand how your affairs can have got into +this state," he should actually fly at me, and request that I will +come to see him no more until he asks me! Why, my goodness!' + +'Ah'!' says Mrs Pipchin. 'It's a pity he hadn't a little more to do +with mines. They'd have tried his temper for him.' + +'And what,' resumes Mrs Chick, quite regardless of Mrs Pipchin's +observations, 'is it to end in? That's what I want to know. What does +my brother mean to do? He must do something. It's of no use remaining +shut up in his own rooms. Business won't come to him. No. He must go +to it. Then why don't he go? He knows where to go, I suppose, having +been a man of business all his life. Very good. Then why not go +there?' + +Mrs Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning, remains +silent for a minute to admire it. + +'Besides,' says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air, 'who +ever heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all +these dreadful disagreeables? It's not as if there was no place for +him to go to. Of course he could have come to our house. He knows he +is at home there, I suppose? Mr Chick has perfectly bored about it, +and I said with my own lips, "Why surely, Paul, you don't imagine that +because your affairs have got into this state, you are the less at +home to such near relatives as ourselves? You don't imagine that we +are like the rest of the world?" But no; here he stays all through, +and here he is. Why, good gracious me, suppose the house was to be +let! What would he do then? He couldn't remain here then. If he +attempted to do so, there would be an ejectment, an action for Doe, +and all sorts of things; and then he must go. Then why not go at first +instead of at last? And that brings me back to what I said just now, +and I naturally ask what is to be the end of it?' + +'I know what's to be the end of it, as far as I am concerned,' +replies Mrs Pipchin, 'and that's enough for me. I'm going to take +myself off in a jiffy.' + +'In a which, Mrs Pipchin,' says Mrs Chick. + +'In a jiffy,' retorts Mrs Pipchin sharply. + +'Ah, well! really I can't blame you, Mrs Pipchin,' says Mrs Chick, +with frankness. + +'It would be pretty much the same to me, if you could,' replies the +sardonic Pipchin. 'At any rate I'm going. I can't stop here. I should +be dead in a week. I had to cook my own pork chop yesterday, and I'm +not used to it. My constitution will be giving way next. Besides, I +had a very fair connexion at Brighton when I came here - little +Pankey's folks alone were worth a good eighty pounds a-year to me - +and I can't afford to throw it away. I've written to my niece, and she +expects me by this time.' + +'Have you spoken to my brother?' inquires Mrs Chick + +'Oh, yes, it's very easy to say speak to him,' retorts Mrs Pipchin. +'How is it done? I called out to him yesterday, that I was no use +here, and that he had better let me send for Mrs Richards. He grunted +something or other that meant yes, and I sent. Grunt indeed! If he had +been Mr Pipchin, he'd have had some reason to grunt. Yah! I've no +patience with it!' + +Here this exemplary female, who has pumped up so much fortitude and +virtue from the depths of the Peruvian mines, rises from her cushioned +property to see Mrs Chick to the door. Mrs Chick, deploring to the +last the peculiar character of her brother, noiselessly retires, much +occupied with her own sagacity and clearness of head. + +In the dusk of the evening Mr Toodle, being off duty, arrives with +Polly and a box, and leaves them, with a sounding kiss, in the hall of +the empty house, the retired character of which affects Mr Toodle's +spirits strongly. + +'I tell you what, Polly, me dear,' says Mr Toodle, 'being now an +ingine-driver, and well to do in the world, I shouldn't allow of your +coming here, to be made dull-like, if it warn't for favours past. But +favours past, Polly, is never to be forgot. To them which is in +adversity, besides, your face is a cord'l. So let's have another kiss +on it, my dear. You wish no better than to do a right act, I know; and +my views is, that it's right and dutiful to do this. Good-night, +Polly!' + +Mrs Pipchin by this time looms dark in her black bombazeen skirts, +black bonnet, and shawl; and has her personal property packed up; and +has her chair (late a favourite chair of Mr Dombey's and the dead +bargain of the sale) ready near the street door; and is only waiting +for a fly-van, going to-night to Brighton on private service, which is +to call for her, by private contract, and convey her home. + +Presently it comes. Mrs Pipchin's wardrobe being handed in and +stowed away, Mrs Pipchin's chair is next handed in, and placed in a +convenient corner among certain trusses of hay; it being the intention +of the amiable woman to occupy the chair during her journey. Mrs +Pipchin herself is next handed in, and grimly takes her seat. There is +a snaky gleam in her hard grey eye, as of anticipated rounds of +buttered toast, relays of hot chops, worryings and quellings of young +children, sharp snappings at poor Berry, and all the other delights of +her Ogress's castle. Mrs Pipchin almost laughs as the fly-van drives +off, and she composes her black bombazeen skirts, and settles herself +among the cushions of her easy chair. + +The house is such a ruin that the rats have fled, and there is not +one left. + +But Polly, though alone in the deserted mansion - for there is no +companionship in the shut-up rooms in which its late master hides his +head - is not alone long. It is night; and she is sitting at work in +the housekeeper's room, trying to forget what a lonely house it is, +and what a history belongs to it; when there is a knock at the hall +door, as loud sounding as any knock can be, striking into such an +empty place. Opening it, she returns across the echoing hall, +accompanied by a female figure in a close black bonnet. It is Miss +Tox, and Miss Tox's eyes are red. + +'Oh, Polly,' says Miss Tox, 'when I looked in to have a little +lesson with the children just now, I got the message that you left for +me; and as soon as I could recover my spirits at all, I came on after +you. Is there no one here but you?' + +'Ah! not a soul,' says Polly. + +'Have you seen him?' whispers Miss Tox. + +'Bless you,' returns Polly, 'no; he has not been seen this many a +day. They tell me he never leaves his room.' + +'Is he said to be ill?' inquires Miss Tox. + +'No, Ma'am, not that I know of,' returns Polly, 'except in his +mind. He must be very bad there, poor gentleman!' + +Miss Tox's sympathy is such that she can scarcely speak. She is no +chicken, but she has not grown tough with age and celibacy. Her heart +is very tender, her compassion very genuine, her homage very real. +Beneath the locket with the fishy eye in it, Miss Tox bears better +qualities than many a less whimsical outside; such qualities as will +outlive, by many courses of the sun, the best outsides and brightest +husks that fall in the harvest of the great reaper. + +It is long before Miss Tox goes away, and before Polly, with a +candle flaring on the blank stairs, looks after her, for company, down +the street, and feels unwilling to go back into the dreary house, and +jar its emptiness with the heavy fastenings of the door, and glide +away to bed. But all this Polly does; and in the morning sets in one +of those darkened rooms such matters as she has been advised to +prepare, and then retires and enters them no more until next morning +at the same hour. There are bells there, but they never ring; and +though she can sometimes hear a footfall going to and fro, it never +comes out. + +Miss Tox returns early in the day. It then begins to be Miss Tox's +occupation to prepare little dainties - or what are such to her - to +be carried into these rooms next morning. She derives so much +satisfaction from the pursuit, that she enters on it regularly from +that time; and brings daily in her little basket, various choice +condiments selected from the scanty stores of the deceased owner of +the powdered head and pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets of +curl-paper, morsels of cold meats, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls, +for her own dinner; and sharing these collations with Polly, passes +the greater part of her time in the ruined house that the rats have +fled from: hiding, in a fright at every sound, stealing in and out +like a criminal; only desiring to be true to the fallen object of her +admiration, unknown to him, unknown to all the world but one poor +simple woman. + +The Major knows it; but no one is the wiser for that, though the +Major is much the merrier. The Major, in a fit of curiosity, has +charged the Native to watch the house sometimes, and find out what +becomes of Dombey. The Native has reported Miss Tox's fidelity, and +the Major has nearly choked himself dead with laughter. He is +permanently bluer from that hour, and constantly wheezes to himself, +his lobster eyes starting out of his head, 'Damme, Sir, the woman's a +born idiot!' + +And the ruined man. How does he pass the hours, alone? + +'Let him remember it in that room, years to come!' He did remember +it. It was heavy on his mind now; heavier than all the rest. + +'Let him remember it in that room, years to come! The rain that +falls upon the roof, the wind that mourns outside the door, may have +foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that +room, years to come!' + +He did remember it. In the miserable night he thought of it; in the +dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted twilight. +He did remember it. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair! +'Papa! Papa! Speak to me, dear Papa!' He heard the words again, and +saw the face. He saw it fall upon the trembling hands, and heard the +one prolonged low cry go upward. + +He was fallen, never to be raised up any more. For the night of his +worldly ruin there was no to-morrow's sun; for the stain of his +domestic shame there was no purification; nothing, thank Heaven, could +bring his dead child back to life. But that which he might have made +so different in all the Past - which might have made the Past itself +so different, though this he hardly thought of now - that which was +his own work, that which he could so easily have wrought into a +blessing, and had set himself so steadily for years to form into a +curse: that was the sharp grief of his soul. + +Oh! He did remember it! The rain that fell upon the roof, the wind +that mourned outside the door that night, had had foreknowledge in +their melancholy sound. He knew, now, what he had done. He knew, now, +that he had called down that upon his head, which bowed it lower than +the heaviest stroke of fortune. He knew, now, what it was to be +rejected and deserted; now, when every loving blossom he had withered +in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing down in ashes on him. + +He thought of her, as she had been that night when he and his bride +came home. He thought of her as she had been, in all the home-events +of the abandoned house. He thought, now, that of all around him, she +alone had never changed. His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife +had sunk into a polluted creature, his flatterer and friend had been +transformed into the worst of villains, his riches had melted away, +the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger; she +alone had turned the same mild gentle look upon him always. Yes, to +the latest and the last. She had never changed to him - nor had he +ever changed to her - and she was lost. + +As, one by one, they fell away before his mind - his baby- hope, +his wife, his friend, his fortune - oh how the mist, through which he +had seen her, cleared, and showed him her true self! Oh, how much +better than this that he had loved her as he had his boy, and lost her +as he had his boy, and laid them in their early grave together! + +In his pride - for he was proud yet - he let the world go from him +freely. As it fell away, he shook it off. Whether he imagined its face +as expressing pity for him, or indifference to him, he shunned it +alike. It was in the same degree to be avoided, in either aspect. He +had no idea of any one companion in his misery, but the one he had +driven away. What he would have said to her, or what consolation +submitted to receive from her, he never pictured to himself. But he +always knew she would have been true to him, if he had suffered her. +He always knew she would have loved him better now, than at any other +time; he was as certain that it was in her nature, as he was that +there was a sky above him; and he sat thinking so, in his loneliness, +from hour to hour. Day after day uttered this speech; night after +night showed him this knowledge. + +It began, beyond all doubt (however slow it advanced for some +time), in the receipt of her young husband's letter, and the certainty +that she was gone. And yet - so proud he was in his ruin, or so +reminiscent of her only as something that might have been his, but was +lost beyond redemption - that if he could have heard her voice in an +adjoining room, he would not have gone to her. If he could have seen +her in the street, and she had done no more than look at him as she +had been used to look, he would have passed on with his old cold +unforgiving face, and not addressed her, or relaxed it, though his +heart should have broken soon afterwards. However turbulent his +thoughts, or harsh his anger had been, at first, concerning her +marriage, or her husband, that was all past now. He chiefly thought of +what might have been, and what was not. What was, was all summed up in +this: that she was lost, and he bowed down with sorrow and remorse. + +And now he felt that he had had two children born to him in that +house, and that between him and the bare wide empty walls there was a +tie, mournful, but hard to rend asunder, connected with a double +childhood, and a double loss. He had thought to leave the house - +knowing he must go, not knowing whither - upon the evening of the day +on which this feeling first struck root in his breast; but he resolved +to stay another night, and in the night to ramble through the rooms +once more. + +He came out of his solitude when it was the dead of night, and with +a candle in his hand went softly up the stairs. Of all the footmarks +there, making them as common as the common street, there was not one, +he thought, but had seemed at the time to set itself upon his brain +while he had kept close, listening. He looked at their number, and +their hurry, and contention - foot treading foot out, and upward track +and downward jostling one another - and thought, with absolute dread +and wonder, how much he must have suffered during that trial, and what +a changed man he had cause to be. He thought, besides, oh was there, +somewhere in the world, a light footstep that might have worn out in a +moment half those marks! - and bent his head, and wept as he went up. + +He almost saw it, going on before. He stopped, looking up towards +the skylight; and a figure, childish itself, but carrying a child, and +singing as it went, seemed to be there again. Anon, it was the same +figure, alone, stopping for an instant, with suspended breath; the +bright hair clustering loosely round its tearful face; and looking +back at him. + +He wandered through the rooms: lately so luxurious; now so bare and +dismal and so changed, apparently, even in their shape and size. The +press of footsteps was as thick here; and the same consideration of +the suffering he had had, perplexed and terrified him. He began to +fear that all this intricacy in his brain would drive him mad; and +that his thoughts already lost coherence as the footprints did, and +were pieced on to one another, with the same trackless involutions, +and varieties of indistinct shapes. + +He did not so much as know in which of these rooms she had lived, +when she was alone. He was glad to leave them, and go wandering higher +up. Abundance of associations were here, connected with his false +wife, his false friend and servant, his false grounds of pride; but he +put them all by now, and only recalled miserably, weakly, fondly, his +two children. + +Everywhere, the footsteps! They had had no respect for the old room +high up, where the little bed had been; he could hardly find a clear +space there, to throw himself down, on the floor, against the wall, +poor broken man, and let his tears flow as they would. He had shed so +many tears here, long ago, that he was less ashamed of his weakness in +this place than in any other - perhaps, with that consciousness, had +made excuses to himself for coming here. Here, with stooping +shoulders, and his chin dropped on his breast, he had come. Here, +thrown upon the bare boards, in the dead of night, he wept, alone - a +proud man, even then; who, if a kind hand could have been stretched +out, or a kind face could have looked in, would have risen up, and +turned away, and gone down to his cell. + +When the day broke he was shut up in his rooms again. He had meant +to go away to-day, but clung to this tie in the house as the last and +only thing left to him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow came. He +would go to-morrow. Every night, within the knowledge of no human +creature, he came forth, and wandered through the despoiled house like +a ghost. Many a morning when the day broke, his altered face, drooping +behind the closed blind in his window, imperfectly transparent to the +light as yet, pondered on the loss of his two children. It was one +child no more. He reunited them in his thoughts, and they were never +asunder. Oh, that he could have united them in his past love, and in +death, and that one had not been so much worse than dead! + +Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even +before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen +natures; for they struggle hard to be such. Ground, long undermined, +will often fall down in a moment; what was undermined here in so many +ways, weakened, and crumbled, little by little, more and more, as the +hand moved on the dial. + +At last he began to think he need not go at all. He might yet give +up what his creditors had spared him (that they had not spared him +more, was his own act), and only sever the tie between him and the +ruined house, by severing that other link - + +It was then that his footfall was audible in the late housekeeper's +room, as he walked to and fro; but not audible in its true meaning, or +it would have had an appalling sound. + +The world was very busy and restless about him. He became aware of +that again. It was whispering and babbling. It was never quiet. This, +and the intricacy and complication of the footsteps, harassed him to +death. Objects began to take a bleared and russet colour in his eyes. +Dombey and Son was no more - his children no more. This must be +thought of, well, to-morrow. + +He thought of it to-morrow; and sitting thinking in his chair, saw +in the glass, from time to time, this picture: + +A spectral, haggard, wasted likeness of himself, brooded and +brooded over the empty fireplace. Now it lifted up its head, examining +the lines and hollows in its face; now hung it down again, and brooded +afresh. Now it rose and walked about; now passed into the next room, +and came back with something from the dressing-table in its breast. +Now, it was looking at the bottom of the door, and thinking. + +Hush! what? It was thinking that if blood were to trickle that way, +and to leak out into the hall, it must be a long time going so far. It +would move so stealthily and slowly, creeping on, with here a lazy +little pool, and there a start, and then another little pool, that a +desperately wounded man could only be discovered through its means, +either dead or dying. When it had thought of this a long while, it got +up again, and walked to and fro with its hand in its breast. He +glanced at it occasionally, very curious to watch its motions, and he +marked how wicked and murderous that hand looked. + +Now it was thinking again! What was it thinking? + +Whether they would tread in the blood when it crept so far, and +carry it about the house among those many prints of feet, or even out +into the street. + +It sat down, with its eyes upon the empty fireplace, and as it lost +itself in thought there shone into the room a gleam of light; a ray of +sun. It was quite unmindful, and sat thinking. Suddenly it rose, with +a terrible face, and that guilty hand grasping what was in its breast. +Then it was arrested by a cry - a wild, loud, piercing, loving, +rapturous cry - and he only saw his own reflection in the glass, and +at his knees, his daughter! + +Yes. His daughter! Look at her! Look here! Down upon the ground, +clinging to him, calling to him, folding her hands, praying to him. + +'Papa! Dearest Papa! Pardon me, forgive me! I have come back to ask +forgiveness on my knees. I never can be happy more, without it!' + +Unchanged still. Of all the world, unchanged. Raising the same face +to his, as on that miserable night. Asking his forgiveness! + +'Dear Papa, oh don't look strangely on me! I never meant to leave +you. I never thought of it, before or afterwards. I was frightened +when I went away, and could not think. Papa, dear, I am changed. I am +penitent. I know my fault. I know my duty better now. Papa, don't cast +me off, or I shall die!' + +He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck; +he felt her put her own round his; he felt her kisses on his face; he +felt her wet cheek laid against his own; he felt - oh, how deeply! - +all that he had done. + +Upon the breast that he had bruised, against the heart that he had +almost broken, she laid his face, now covered with his hands, and +said, sobbing: + +'Papa, love, I am a mother. I have a child who will soon call +Walter by the name by which I call you. When it was born, and when I +knew how much I loved it, I knew what I had done in leaving you. +Forgive me, dear Papa! oh say God bless me, and my little child!' + +He would have said it, if he could. He would have raised his hands +and besought her for pardon, but she caught them in her own, and put +them down, hurriedly. + +'My little child was born at sea, Papa I prayed to God (and so did +Walter for me) to spare me, that I might come home. The moment I could +land, I came back to you. Never let us be parted any more, Papa. Never +let us be parted any more!' + +His head, now grey, was encircled by her arm; and he groaned to +think that never, never, had it rested so before. + +'You will come home with me, Papa, and see my baby. A boy, Papa. +His name is Paul. I think - I hope - he's like - ' + +Her tears stopped her. + +'Dear Papa, for the sake of my child, for the sake of the name we +have given him, for my sake, pardon Walter. He is so kind and tender +to me. I am so happy with him. It was not his fault that we were +married. It was mine. I loved him so much.' + +She clung closer to him, more endearing and more earnest. + +'He is the darling of my heart, Papa I would die for him. He will +love and honour you as I will. We will teach our little child to love +and honour you; and we will tell him, when he can understand, that you +had a son of that name once, and that he died, and you were very +sorry; but that he is gone to Heaven, where we all hope to see him +when our time for resting comes. Kiss me, Papa, as a promise that you +will be reconciled to Walter - to my dearest husband - to the father +of the little child who taught me to come back, Papa Who taught me to +come back!' + +As she clung closer to him, in another burst of tears, he kissed +her on her lips, and, lifting up his eyes, said, 'Oh my God, forgive +me, for I need it very much!' + +With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing +her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time; +they remaining clasped in one another's arms, in the glorious sunshine +that had crept in with Florence. + +He dressed himself for going out, with a docile submission to her +entreaty; and walking with a feeble gait, and looking back, with a +tremble, at the room in which he had been so long shut up, and where +he had seen the picture in the glass, passed out with her into the +hall. Florence, hardly glancing round her, lest she should remind him +freshly of their last parting - for their feet were on the very stones +where he had struck her in his madness - and keeping close to him, +with her eyes upon his face, and his arm about her, led him out to a +coach that was waiting at the door, and carried him away. + +Then, Miss Tox and Polly came out of their concealment, and exulted +tearfully. And then they packed his clothes, and books, and so forth, +with great care; and consigned them in due course to certain persons +sent by Florence, in the evening, to fetch them. And then they took a +last cup of tea in the lonely house. + +'And so Dombey and Son, as I observed upon a certain sad occasion,' +said Miss Tox, winding up a host of recollections, 'is indeed a +daughter, Polly, after all.' + +'And a good one!' exclaimed Polly. + +'You are right,' said Miss Tox; 'and it's a credit to you, Polly, +that you were always her friend when she was a little child. You were +her friend long before I was, Polly,' said Miss Tox; 'and you're a +good creature. Robin!' + +Miss Tox addressed herself to a bullet-headed young man, who +appeared to be in but indifferent circumstances, and in depressed +spirits, and who was sitting in a remote corner. Rising, he disclosed +to view the form and features of the Grinder. + +'Robin,' said Miss Tox, 'I have just observed to your mother, as +you may have heard, that she is a good creature. + +'And so she is, Miss,' quoth the Grinder, with some feeling. + +'Very well, Robin,' said Miss Tox, 'I am glad to hear you say so. +Now, Robin, as I am going to give you a trial, at your urgent request, +as my domestic, with a view to your restoration to respectability, I +will take this impressive occasion of remarking that I hope you will +never forget that you have, and have always had, a good mother, and +that you will endeavour so to conduct yourself as to be a comfort to +her.' + +'Upon my soul I will, Miss,' returned the Grinder. 'I have come +through a good deal, and my intentions is now as straightfor'ard, +Miss, as a cove's - ' + +'I must get you to break yourself of that word, Robin, if you +Please,' interposed Miss Tox, politely. + +'If you please, Miss, as a chap's - ' + +'Thankee, Robin, no,' returned Miss Tox, 'I should prefer +individual.' + +'As a indiwiddle's,' said the Grinder. + +'Much better,' remarked Miss Tox, complacently; 'infinitely more +expressive!' + +' - can be,' pursued Rob. 'If I hadn't been and got made a Grinder +on, Miss and Mother, which was a most unfortunate circumstance for a +young co - indiwiddle.' + +'Very good indeed,' observed Miss Tox, approvingly. + +' - and if I hadn't been led away by birds, and then fallen into a +bad service,' said the Grinder, 'I hope I might have done better. But +it's never too late for a - ' + +'Indi - ' suggested Miss Tox. + +' - widdle,' said the Grinder, 'to mend; and I hope to mend, Miss, +with your kind trial; and wishing, Mother, my love to father, and +brothers and sisters, and saying of it.' + +'I am very glad indeed to hear it,' observed Miss Tox. 'Will you +take a little bread and butter, and a cup of tea, before we go, +Robin?' + +'Thankee, Miss,' returned the Grinder; who immediately began to use +his own personal grinders in a most remarkable manner, as if he had +been on very short allowance for a considerable period. + +Miss Tox, being, in good time, bonneted and shawled, and Polly too, +Rob hugged his mother, and followed his new mistress away; so much to +the hopeful admiration of Polly, that something in her eyes made +luminous rings round the gas-lamps as she looked after him. Polly then +put out her light, locked the house-door, delivered the key at an +agent's hard by, and went home as fast as she could go; rejoicing in +the shrill delight that her unexpected arrival would occasion there. +The great house, dumb as to all that had been suffered in it, and the +changes it had witnessed, stood frowning like a dark mute on the +street; baulking any nearer inquiries with the staring announcement +that the lease of this desirable Family Mansion was to be disposed of. + + +CHAPTER 60. + +Chiefly Matrimonial + + + +The grand half-yearly festival holden by Doctor and Mrs Blimber, on +which occasion they requested the pleasure of the company of every +young gentleman pursuing his studies in that genteel establishment, at +an early party, when the hour was half-past seven o'clock, and when +the object was quadrilles, had duly taken place, about this time; and +the young gentlemen, with no unbecoming demonstrations of levity, had +betaken themselves, in a state of scholastic repletion, to their own +homes. Mr Skettles had repaired abroad, permanently to grace the +establishment of his father Sir Barnet Skettles, whose popular manners +had obtained him a diplomatic appointment, the honours of which were +discharged by himself and Lady Skettles, to the satisfaction even of +their own countrymen and countrywomen: which was considered almost +miraculous. Mr Tozer, now a young man of lofty stature, in Wellington +boots, was so extremely full of antiquity as to be nearly on a par +with a genuine ancient Roman in his knowledge of English: a triumph +that affected his good parents with the tenderest emotions, and caused +the father and mother of Mr Briggs (whose learning, like ill-arranged +luggage, was so tightly packed that he couldn't get at anything he +wanted) to hide their diminished heads. The fruit laboriously gathered +from the tree of knowledge by this latter young gentleman, in fact, +had been subjected to so much pressure, that it had become a kind of +intellectual Norfolk Biffin, and had nothing of its original form or +flavour remaining. Master Bitherstone now, on whom the forcing system +had the happier and not uncommon effect of leaving no impression +whatever, when the forcing apparatus ceased to work, was in a much +more comfortable plight; and being then on shipboard, bound for +Bengal, found himself forgetting, with such admirable rapidity, that +it was doubtful whether his declensions of noun-substantives would +hold out to the end of the voyage. + +When Doctor Blimber, in pursuance of the usual course, would have +said to the young gentlemen, on the morning of the party, 'Gentlemen, +we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next month,' he +departed from the usual course, and said, 'Gentlemen, when our friend +Cincinnatus retired to his farm, he did not present to the senate any +Roman who he sought to nominate as his successor.' But there is a +Roman here,' said Doctor Blimber, laying his hand on the shoulder of +Mr Feeder, B.A., adolescens imprimis gravis et doctus, gentlemen, whom +I, a retiring Cincinnatus, wish to present to my little senate, as +their future Dictator. Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the +twenty-fifth of next month, under the auspices of Mr Feeder, B.A.' At +this (which Doctor Blimber had previously called upon all the parents, +and urbanely explained), the young gentlemen cheered; and Mr Tozer, on +behalf of the rest, instantly presented the Doctor with a silver +inkstand, in a speech containing very little of the mother-tongue, but +fifteen quotations from the Latin, and seven from the Greek, which +moved the younger of the young gentlemen to discontent and envy: they +remarking, 'Oh, ah. It was all very well for old Tozer, but they +didn't subscribe money for old Tozer to show off with, they supposed; +did they? What business was it of old Tozer's more than anybody +else's? It wasn't his inkstand. Why couldn't he leave the boys' +property alone?' and murmuring other expressions of their +dissatisfaction, which seemed to find a greater relief in calling him +old Tozer, than in any other available vent. + +Not a word had been said to the young gentlemen, nor a hint +dropped, of anything like a contemplated marriage between Mr Feeder, +B.A., and the fair Cornelia Blimber. Doctor Blimber, especially, +seemed to take pains to look as if nothing would surprise him more; +but it was perfectly well known to all the young gentlemen +nevertheless, and when they departed for the society of their +relations and friends, they took leave of Mr Feeder with awe. + +Mr Feeder's most romantic visions were fulfilled. The Doctor had +determined to paint the house outside, and put it in thorough repair; +and to give up the business, and to give up Cornelia. The painting and +repairing began upon the very day of the young gentlemen's departure, +and now behold! the wedding morning was come, and Cornelia, in a new +pair of spectacles, was waiting to be led to the hymeneal altar. + +The Doctor with his learned legs, and Mrs Blimber in a lilac +bonnet, and Mr Feeder, B.A., with his long knuckles and his bristly +head of hair, and Mr Feeder's brother, the Reverend Alfred Feeder, +M.A., who was to perform the ceremony, were all assembled in the +drawing-room, and Cornelia with her orange-flowers and bridesmaids had +just come down, and looked, as of old, a little squeezed in +appearance, but very charming, when the door opened, and the weak-eyed +young man, in a loud voice, made the following proclamation: + +'MR AND MRS TOOTS!' + +Upon which there entered Mr Toots, grown extremely stout, and on +his arm a lady very handsomely and becomingly dressed, with very +bright black eyes. 'Mrs Blimber,' said Mr Toots, 'allow me to present +my wife.' + +Mrs Blimber was delighted to receive her. Mrs Blimber was a little +condescending, but extremely kind. + +'And as you've known me for a long time, you know,' said Mr Toots, +'let me assure you that she is one of the most remarkable women that +ever lived.' + +'My dear!' remonstrated Mrs Toots. + +'Upon my word and honour she is,' said Mr Toots. 'I - I assure you, +Mrs Blimber, she's a most extraordinary woman.' + +Mrs Toots laughed merrily, and Mrs Blimber led her to Cornelia. Mr +Toots having paid his respects in that direction and having saluted +his old preceptor, who said, in allusion to his conjugal state, 'Well, +Toots, well, Toots! So you are one of us, are you, Toots?' - retired +with Mr Feeder, B.A., into a window. + +Mr Feeder, B.A., being in great spirits, made a spar at Mr Toots, +and tapped him skilfully with the back of his hand on the breastbone. + +'Well, old Buck!' said Mr Feeder with a laugh. 'Well! Here we are! +Taken in and done for. Eh?' + +'Feeder,' returned Mr Toots. 'I give you joy. If you're as - as- as +perfectly blissful in a matrimonial life, as I am myself, you'll have +nothing to desire.' + +'I don't forget my old friends, you see,' said Mr Feeder. 'I ask em +to my wedding, Toots.' + +'Feeder,' replied Mr Toots gravely, 'the fact is, that there were +several circumstances which prevented me from communicating with you +until after my marriage had been solemnised. In the first place, I had +made a perfect Brute of myself to you, on the subject of Miss Dombey; +and I felt that if you were asked to any wedding of mine, you would +naturally expect that it was with Miss Dombey, which involved +explanations, that upon my word and honour, at that crisis, would have +knocked me completely over. In the second place, our wedding was +strictly private; there being nobody present but one friend of myself +and Mrs Toots's, who is a Captain in - I don't exactly know in what,' +said Mr Toots, 'but it's of no consequence. I hope, Feeder, that in +writing a statement of what had occurred before Mrs Toots and myself +went abroad upon our foreign tour, I fully discharged the offices of +friendship.' + +'Toots, my boy,' said Mr Feeder, shaking his hands, 'I was joking.' + +'And now, Feeder,' said Mr Toots, 'I should be glad to know what +you think of my union.' + +'Capital!' returned Mr Feeder. + +'You think it's capital, do you, Feeder?'said Mr Toots solemnly. +'Then how capital must it be to Me! For you can never know what an +extraordinary woman that is.' + +Mr Feeder was willing to take it for granted. But Mr Toots shook +his head, and wouldn't hear of that being possible. + +'You see,' said Mr Toots, 'what I wanted in a wife was - in short, +was sense. Money, Feeder, I had. Sense I - I had not, particularly.' + +Mr Feeder murmured, 'Oh, yes, you had, Toots!' But Mr Toots said: + +'No, Feeder, I had not. Why should I disguise it? I had not. I knew +that sense was There,' said Mr Toots, stretching out his hand towards +his wife, 'in perfect heaps. I had no relation to object or be +offended, on the score of station; for I had no relation. I have never +had anybody belonging to me but my guardian, and him, Feeder, I have +always considered as a Pirate and a Corsair. Therefore, you know it +was not likely,' said Mr Toots, 'that I should take his opinion.' + +'No,' said Mr Feeder. + +'Accordingly,' resumed Mr Toots, 'I acted on my own. Bright was the +day on which I did so! Feeder! Nobody but myself can tell what the +capacity of that woman's mind is. If ever the Rights of Women, and all +that kind of thing, are properly attended to, it will be through her +powerful intellect - Susan, my dear!' said Mr Toots, looking abruptly +out of the windows 'pray do not exert yourself!' + +'My dear,' said Mrs Toots, 'I was only talking.' + +'But, my love,' said Mr Toots, 'pray do not exert yourself. You +really must be careful. Do not, my dear Susan, exert yourself. She's +so easily excited,' said Mr Toots, apart to Mrs Blimber, 'and then she +forgets the medical man altogether.' + +Mrs Blimber was impressing on Mrs Toots the necessity of caution, +when Mr Feeder, B.A., offered her his arm, and led her down to the +carriages that were waiting to go to church. Doctor Blimber escorted +Mrs Toots. Mr Toots escorted the fair bride, around whose lambent +spectacles two gauzy little bridesmaids fluttered like moths. Mr +Feeder's brother, Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A., had already gone on, in +advance, to assume his official functions. + +The ceremony was performed in an admirable manner. Cornelia, with +her crisp little curls, 'went in,' as the Chicken might have said, +with great composure; and Doctor Blimber gave her away, like a man who +had quite made up his mind to it. The gauzy little bridesmaids +appeared to suffer most. Mrs Blimber was affected, but gently so; and +told the Reverend Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A., on the way home, that if she +could only have seen Cicero in his retirement at Tusculum, she would +not have had a wish, now, ungratified. + +There was a breakfast afterwards, limited to the same small party; +at which the spirits of Mr Feeder, B.A., were tremendous, and so +communicated themselves to Mrs Toots that Mr Toots was several times +heard to observe, across the table, 'My dear Susan, don't exert +yourself!' The best of it was, that Mr Toots felt it incunbent on him +to make a speech; and in spite of a whole code of telegraphic +dissuasions from Mrs Toots, appeared on his legs for the first time in +his life. + +'I really,' said Mr Toots, 'in this house, where whatever was done +to me in the way of - of any mental confusion sometimes - which is of +no consequence and I impute to nobody - I was always treated like one +of Doctor Blimber's family, and had a desk to myself for a +considerable period - can - not - allow - my friend Feeder to be - ' + +Mrs Toots suggested 'married.' + +'It may not be inappropriate to the occasion, or altogether +uninteresting,' said Mr Toots with a delighted face, 'to observe that +my wife is a most extraordinary woman, and would do this much better +than myself - allow my friend Feeder to be married - especially to - ' + +Mrs Toots suggested 'to Miss Blimber.' + +'To Mrs Feeder, my love!' said Mr Toots, in a subdued tone of +private discussion: "'whom God hath joined," you know, "let no man" - +don't you know? I cannot allow my friend Feeder to be married - +especially to Mrs Feeder - without proposing their - their - Toasts; +and may,' said Mr Toots, fixing his eyes on his wife, as if for +inspiration in a high flight, 'may the torch of Hymen be the beacon of +joy, and may the flowers we have this day strewed in their path, be +the - the banishers of- of gloom!' + +Doctor Blimber, who had a taste for metaphor, was pleased with +this, and said, 'Very good, Toots! Very well said, indeed, Toots!' and +nodded his head and patted his hands. Mr Feeder made in reply, a comic +speech chequered with sentiment. Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A, was afterwards +very happy on Doctor and Mrs Blimber; Mr Feeder, B.A., scarcely less +so, on the gauzy little bridesmaids. Doctor Blimber then, in a +sonorous voice, delivered a few thoughts in the pastoral style, +relative to the rushes among which it was the intention of himself and +Mrs Blimber to dwell, and the bee that would hum around their cot. +Shortly after which, as the Doctor's eyes were twinkling in a +remarkable manner, and his son-in-law had already observed that time +was made for slaves, and had inquired whether Mrs Toots sang, the +discreet Mrs Blimber dissolved the sitting, and sent Cornelia away, +very cool and comfortable, in a post-chaise, with the man of her heart + +Mr and Mrs Toots withdrew to the Bedford (Mrs Toots had been there +before in old times, under her maiden name of Nipper), and there found +a letter, which it took Mr Toots such an enormous time to read, that +Mrs Toots was frightened. + +'My dear Susan,' said Mr Toots, 'fright is worse than exertion. +Pray be calm!' + +'Who is it from?' asked Mrs Toots. + +'Why, my love,' said Mr Toots, 'it's from Captain Gills. Do not +excite yourself. Walters and Miss Dombey are expected home!' + +'My dear,' said Mrs Toots, raising herself quickly from the sofa, +very pale, 'don't try to deceive me, for it's no use, they're come +home - I see it plainly in your face!' + +'She's a most extraordinary woman!' exclaimed Mr Toots, in +rapturous admiration. 'You're perfectly right, my love, they have come +home. Miss Dombey has seen her father, and they are reconciled!' + +'Reconciled!' cried Mrs Toots, clapping her hands. + +'My dear,' said Mr Toots; 'pray do not exert yourself. Do remember +the medical man! Captain Gills says - at least he don't say, but I +imagine, from what I can make out, he means - that Miss Dombey has +brought her unfortunate father away from his old house, to one where +she and Walters are living; that he is lying very ill there - supposed +to be dying; and that she attends upon him night and day.' + +Mrs Toots began to cry quite bitterly. + +'My dearest Susan,' replied Mr Toots, 'do, do, if you possibly can, +remember the medical man! If you can't, it's of no consequence - but +do endeavour to!' + +His wife, with her old manner suddenly restored, so pathetically +entreated him to take her to her precious pet, her little mistress, +her own darling, and the like, that Mr Toots, whose sympathy and +admiration were of the strongest kind, consented from his very heart +of hearts; and they agreed to depart immediately, and present +themselves in answer to the Captain's letter. + +Now some hidden sympathies of things, or some coincidences, had +that day brought the Captain himself (toward whom Mr and Mrs Toots +were soon journeying) into the flowery train of wedlock; not as a +principal, but as an accessory. It happened accidentally, and thus: + +The Captain, having seen Florence and her baby for a moment, to his +unbounded content, and having had a long talk with Walter, turned out +for a walk; feeling it necessary to have some solitary meditation on +the changes of human affairs, and to shake his glazed hat profoundly +over the fall of Mr Dombey, for whom the generosity and simplicity of +his nature were awakened in a lively manner. The Captain would have +been very low, indeed, on the unhappy gentleman's account, but for the +recollection of the baby; which afforded him such intense satisfaction +whenever it arose, that he laughed aloud as he went along the street, +and, indeed, more than once, in a sudden impulse of joy, threw up his +glazed hat and caught it again; much to the amazement of the +spectators. The rapid alternations of light and shade to which these +two conflicting subjects of reflection exposed the Captain, were so +very trying to his spirits, that he felt a long walk necessary to his +composure; and as there is a great deal in the influence of harmonious +associations, he chose, for the scene of this walk, his old +neighbourhood, down among the mast, oar, and block makers, +ship-biscuit bakers, coal-whippers, pitch-kettles, sailors, canals, +docks, swing-bridges, and other soothing objects. + +These peaceful scenes, and particularly the region of Limehouse +Hole and thereabouts, were so influential in calming the Captain, that +he walked on with restored tranquillity, and was, in fact, regaling +himself, under his breath, with the ballad of Lovely Peg, when, on +turning a corner, he was suddenly transfixed and rendered speechless +by a triumphant procession that he beheld advancing towards him. + +This awful demonstration was headed by that determined woman Mrs +MacStinger, who, preserving a countenance of inexorable resolution, +and wearing conspicuously attached to her obdurate bosom a stupendous +watch and appendages, which the Captain recognised at a glance as the +property of Bunsby, conducted under her arm no other than that +sagacious mariner; he, with the distraught and melancholy visage of a +captive borne into a foreign land, meekly resigning himself to her +will. Behind them appeared the young MacStingers, in a body, exulting. +Behind them, M~ two ladies of a terrible and steadfast +aspect, leading between them a short gentleman in a tall hat, who +likewise exulted. In the wake, appeared Bunsby's boy, bearing +umbrellas. The whole were in good marching order; and a dreadful +smartness that pervaded the party would have sufficiently announced, +if the intrepid countenances of the ladies had been wanting, that it +was a procession of sacrifice, and that the victim was Bunsby. + +The first impulse of the Captain was to run away. This also +appeared to be the first impulse of Bunsby, hopeless as its execution +must have proved. But a cry of recognition proceeding from the party, +and Alexander MacStinger running up to the Captain with open arms, the +Captain struck. + +'Well, Cap'en Cuttle!' said Mrs MacStinger. 'This is indeed a +meeting! I bear no malice now, Cap'en Cuttle - you needn't fear that +I'm a going to cast any reflections. I hope to go to the altar in +another spirit.' Here Mrs MacStinger paused, and drawing herself up, +and inflating her bosom with a long breath, said, in allusion to the +victim, 'My 'usband, Cap'en Cuttle!' + +The abject Bunsby looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor +at his bride, nor at his friend, but straight before him at nothing. +The Captain putting out his hand, Bunsby put out his; but, in answer +to the Captain's greeting, spake no word. + +'Cap'en Cuttle,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'if you would wish to heal up +past animosities, and to see the last of your friend, my 'usband, as a +single person, we should be 'appy of your company to chapel. Here is a +lady here,' said Mrs MacStinger, turning round to the more intrepid of +the two, 'my bridesmaid, that will be glad of your protection, Cap'en +Cuttle.' + +The short gentleman in the tall hat, who it appeared was the +husband of the other lady, and who evidently exulted at the reduction +of a fellow creature to his own condition, gave place at this, and +resigned the lady to Captain Cuttle. The lady immediately seized him, +and, observing that there was no time to lose, gave the word, in a +strong voice, to advance. + +The Captain's concern for his friend, not unmingled, at first, with +some concern for himself - for a shadowy terror that he might be +married by violence, possessed him, until his knowledge of the service +came to his relief, and remembering the legal obligation of saying, 'I +will,' he felt himself personally safe so long as he resolved, if +asked any question, distinctly to reply I won't' - threw him into a +profuse perspiration; and rendered him, for a time, insensible to the +movements of the procession, of which he now formed a feature, and to +the conversation of his fair companion. But as he became less +agitated, he learnt from this lady that she was the widow of a Mr +Bokum, who had held an employment in the Custom House; that she was +the dearest friend of Mrs MacStinger, whom she considered a pattern +for her sex; that she had often heard of the Captain, and now hoped he +had repented of his past life; that she trusted Mr Bunsby knew what a +blessing he had gained, but that she feared men seldom did know what +such blessings were, until they had lost them; with more to the same +purpose. + +All this time, the Captain could not but observe that Mrs Bokum +kept her eyes steadily on the bridegroom, and that whenever they came +near a court or other narrow turning which appeared favourable for +flight, she was on the alert to cut him off if he attempted escape. +The other lady, too, as well as her husband, the short gentleman with +the tall hat, were plainly on guard, according to a preconcerted plan; +and the wretched man was so secured by Mrs MacStinger, that any effort +at self-preservation by flight was rendered futile. This, indeed, was +apparent to the mere populace, who expressed their perception of the +fact by jeers and cries; to all of which, the dread MacStinger was +inflexibly indifferent, while Bunsby himself appeared in a state of +unconsciousness. + +The Captain made many attempts to accost the philosopher, if only +in a monosyllable or a signal; but always failed, in consequence of +the vigilance of the guard, and the difficulty, at all times peculiar +to Bunsby's constitution, of having his attention aroused by any +outward and visible sign whatever. Thus they approached the chapel, a +neat whitewashed edifice, recently engaged by the Reverend +Melchisedech Howler, who had consented, on very urgent solicitation, +to give the world another two years of existence, but had informed his +followers that, then, it must positively go. + +While the Reverend Melchisedech was offering up some extemporary +orisons, the Captain found an opportunity of growling in the +bridegroom's ear: + +'What cheer, my lad, what cheer?' + +To which Bunsby replied, with a forgetfulness of the Reverend +Melchisedech, which nothing but his desperate circumstances could have +excused: + +'D-----d bad,' + +'Jack Bunsby,' whispered the Captain, 'do you do this here, of your +own free will?' + +Mr Bunsby answered 'No.' + +'Why do you do it, then, my lad?' inquired the Captain, not +unnaturally. + +Bunsby, still looking, and always looking with an immovable +countenance, at the opposite side of the world, made no reply. + +'Why not sheer off?' said the Captain. 'Eh?' whispered Bunsby, with +a momentary gleam of hope. 'Sheer off,' said the Captain. + +'Where's the good?' retorted the forlorn sage. 'She'd capter me +agen. + +'Try!' replied the Captain. 'Cheer up! Come! Now's your time. Sheer +off, Jack Bunsby!' + +Jack Bunsby, however, instead of profiting by the advice, said in a +doleful whisper: + +'It all began in that there chest o' yourn. Why did I ever conwoy +her into port that night?' + +'My lad,' faltered the Captain, 'I thought as you had come over +her; not as she had come over you. A man as has got such opinions as +you have!' + +Mr Bunsby merely uttered a suppressed groan. + +'Come!' said the Captain, nudging him with his elbow, 'now's your +time! Sheer off! I'll cover your retreat. The time's a flying. Bunsby! +It's for liberty. Will you once?' + +Bunsby was immovable. 'Bunsby!' whispered the Captain, 'will you +twice ?' Bunsby wouldn't twice. + +'Bunsby!' urged the Captain, 'it's for liberty; will you three +times? Now or never!' + +Bunsby didn't then, and didn't ever; for Mrs MacStinger immediately +afterwards married him. + +One of the most frightful circumstances of the ceremony to the +Captain, was the deadly interest exhibited therein by Juliana +MacStinger; and the fatal concentration of her faculties, with which +that promising child, already the image of her parent, observed the +whole proceedings. The Captain saw in this a succession of man-traps +stretching out infinitely; a series of ages of oppression and +coercion, through which the seafaring line was doomed. It was a more +memorable sight than the unflinching steadiness of Mrs Bokum and the +other lady, the exultation of the short gentleman in the tall hat, or +even the fell inflexibility of Mrs MacStinger. The Master MacStingers +understood little of what was going on, and cared less; being chiefly +engaged, during the ceremony, in treading on one another's half-boots; +but the contrast afforded by those wretched infants only set off and +adorned the precocious woman in Juliana. Another year or two, the +Captain thought, and to lodge where that child was, would be +destruction. + +The ceremony was concluded by a general spring of the young family +on Mr Bunsby, whom they hailed by the endearing name of father, and +from whom they solicited half-pence. These gushes of affection over, +the procession was about to issue forth again, when it was delayed for +some little time by an unexpected transport on the part of Alexander +MacStinger. That dear child, it seemed, connecting a chapel with +tombstones, when it was entered for any purpose apart from the +ordinary religious exercises, could not be persuaded but that his +mother was now to be decently interred, and lost to him for ever. In +the anguish of this conviction, he screamed with astonishing force, +and turned black in the face. However touching these marks of a tender +disposition were to his mother, it was not in the character of that +remarkable woman to permit her recognition of them to degenerate into +weakness. Therefore, after vainly endeavouring to convince his reason +by shakes, pokes, bawlings-out, and similar applications to his head, +she led him into the air, and tried another method; which was +manifested to the marriage party by a quick succession of sharp +sounds, resembling applause, and subsequently, by their seeing +Alexander in contact with the coolest paving-stone in the court, +greatly flushed, and loudly lamenting. + +The procession being then in a condition to form itself once more, +and repair to Brig Place, where a marriage feast was in readiness, +returned as it had come; not without the receipt, by Bunsby, of many +humorous congratulations from the populace on his recently-acquired +happiness. The Captain accompanied it as far as the house-door, but, +being made uneasy by the gentler manner of Mrs Bokum, who, now that +she was relieved from her engrossing duty - for the watchfulness and +alacrity of the ladies sensibly diminished when the bridegroom was +safely married - had greater leisure to show an interest in his +behalf, there left it and the captive; faintly pleading an +appointment, and promising to return presently. The Captain had +another cause for uneasiness, in remorsefully reflecting that he had +been the first means of Bunsby's entrapment, though certainly without +intending it, and through his unbounded faith in the resources of that +philosopher. + +To go back to old Sol Gills at the wooden Midshipman's, and not +first go round to ask how Mr Dombey was - albeit the house where he +lay was out of London, and away on the borders of a fresh heath - was +quite out of the Captain's course. So he got a lift when he was tired, +and made out the journey gaily. + +The blinds were pulled down, and the house so quiet, that the +Captain was almost afraid to knock; but listening at the door, he +heard low voices within, very near it, and, knocking softly, was +admitted by Mr Toots. Mr Toots and his wife had, in fact, just arrived +there; having been at the Midshipman's to seek him, and having there +obtained the address. + +They were not so recently arrived, but that Mrs Toots had caught +the baby from somebody, taken it in her arms, and sat down on the +stairs, hugging and fondling it. Florence was stooping down beside +her; and no one could have said which Mrs Toots was hugging and +fondling most, the mother or the child, or which was the tenderer, +Florence of Mrs Toots, or Mrs Toots of her, or both of the baby; it +was such a little group of love and agitation. + +'And is your Pa very ill, my darling dear Miss Floy?' asked Susan. + +'He is very, very ill,' said Florence. 'But, Susan, dear, you must +not speak to me as you used to speak. And what's this?' said Florence, +touching her clothes, in amazement. 'Your old dress, dear? Your old +cap, curls, and all?' + +Susan burst into tears, and showered kisses on the little hand that +had touched her so wonderingly. + +'My dear Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, stepping forward, 'I'll +explain. She's the most extraordinary woman. There are not many to +equal her! She has always said - she said before we were married, and +has said to this day - that whenever you came home, she'd come to you +in no dress but the dress she used to serve you in, for fear she might +seem strange to you, and you might like her less. I admire the dress +myself,' said Mr Toots, 'of all things. I adore her in it! My dear +Miss Dombey, she'll be your maid again, your nurse, all that she ever +was, and more. There's no change in her. But, Susan, my dear,' said Mr +Toots, who had spoken with great feeling and high admiration, 'all I +ask is, that you'll remember the medical man, and not exert yourself +too much!' + + +CHAPTER 61. + +Relenting + + + +Florence had need of help. Her father's need of it was sore, and +made the aid of her old friend invaluable. Death stood at his pillow. +A shade, already, of what he had been, shattered in mind, and +perilously sick in body, he laid his weary head down on the bed his +daughter's hands prepared for him, and had never raised it since. + +She was always with him. He knew her, generally; though, in the +wandering of his brain, he often confused the circumstances under +which he spoke to her. Thus he would address her, sometimes, as if his +boy were newly dead; and would tell her, that although he had said +nothing of her ministering at the little bedside, yet he had seen it - +he had seen it; and then would hide his face and sob, and put out his +worn hand. Sometimes he would ask her for herself. 'Where is +Florence?' 'I am here, Papa, I am here.' 'I don't know her!' he would +cry. 'We have been parted so long, that I don't know her!' and then a +staring dread would he upon him, until she could soothe his +perturbation; and recall the tears she tried so hard, at other times, +to dry. + +He rambled through the scenes of his old pursuits - through many +where Florence lost him as she listened - sometimes for hours. He +would repeat that childish question, 'What is money?' and ponder on +it, and think about it, and reason with himself, more or less +connectedly, for a good answer; as if it had never been proposed to +him until that moment. He would go on with a musing repetition of the +title of his old firm twenty thousand times, and at every one of them, +would turn his head upon his pillow. He would count his children - one +- two - stop, and go back, and begin again in the same way. + +But this was when his mind was in its most distracted state. In all +the other phases of its illness, and in those to which it was most +constant, it always turned on Florence. What he would oftenest do was +this: he would recall that night he had so recently remembered, the +night on which she came down to his room, and would imagine that his +heart smote him, and that he went out after her, and up the stairs to +seek her. Then, confounding that time with the later days of the many +footsteps, he would be amazed at their number, and begin to count them +as he followed her. Here, of a sudden, was a bloody footstep going on +among the others; and after it there began to be, at intervals, doors +standing open, through which certain terrible pictures were seen, in +mirrors, of haggard men, concealing something in their breasts. Still, +among the many footsteps and the bloody footsteps here and there, was +the step of Florence. Still she was going on before. Still the +restless mind went, following and counting, ever farther, ever higher, +as to the summit of a mighty tower that it took years to climb. + +One day he inquired if that were not Susan who had spoken a long +while ago. + +Florence said 'Yes, dear Papa;' and asked him would he like to see +her? + +He said 'very much.' And Susan, with no little trepidation, showed +herself at his bedside. + +It seemed a great relief to him. He begged her not to go; to +understand that he forgave her what she had said; and that she was to +stay. Florence and he were very different now, he said, and very +happy. Let her look at this! He meant his drawing the gentle head down +to his pillow, and laying it beside him. + +He remained like this for days and weeks. At length, lying, the +faint feeble semblance of a man, upon his bed, and speaking in a voice +so low that they could only hear him by listening very near to his +lips, he became quiet. It was dimly pleasant to him now, to lie there, +with the window open, looking out at the summer sky and the trees: +and, in the evening, at the sunset. To watch the shadows of the clouds +and leaves, and seem to feel a sympathy with shadows. It was natural +that he should. To him, life and the world were nothing else. + +He began to show now that he thought of Florence's fatigue: and +often taxed his weakness to whisper to her, 'Go and walk, my dearest, +in the sweet air. Go to your good husband!' One time when Walter was +in his room, he beckoned him to come near, and to stoop down; and +pressing his hand, whispered an assurance to him that he knew he could +trust him with his child when he was dead. + +It chanced one evening, towards sunset, when Florence and Walter +were sitting in his room together, as he liked to see them, that +Florence, having her baby in her arms, began in a low voice to sing to +the little fellow, and sang the old tune she had so often sung to the +dead child: He could not bear it at the time; he held up his trembling +hand, imploring her to stop; but next day he asked her to repeat it, +and to do so often of an evening: which she did. He listening, with +his face turned away. + +Florence was sitting on a certain time by his window, with her +work-basket between her and her old attendant, who was still her +faithful companion. He had fallen into a doze. It was a beautiful +evening, with two hours of light to come yet; and the tranquillity and +quiet made Florence very thoughtful. She was lost to everything for +the moment, but the occasion when the so altered figure on the bed had +first presented her to her beautiful Mama; when a touch from Walter +leaning on the back of her chair, made her start. + +'My dear,' said Walter, 'there is someone downstairs who wishes to +speak to you. + +She fancied Walter looked grave, and asked him if anything had +happened. + +'No, no, my love!' said Walter. 'I have seen the gentleman myself, +and spoken with him. Nothing has happened. Will you come?' + +Florence put her arm through his; and confiding her father to the +black-eyed Mrs Toots, who sat as brisk and smart at her work as +black-eyed woman could, accompanied her husband downstairs. In the +pleasant little parlour opening on the garden, sat a gentleman, who +rose to advance towards her when she came in, but turned off, by +reason of some peculiarity in his legs, and was only stopped by the +table. + +Florence then remembered Cousin Feenix, whom she had not at first +recognised in the shade of the leaves. Cousin Feenix took her hand, +and congratulated her upon her marriage. + +'I could have wished, I am sure,' said Cousin Feenix, sitting down +as Florence sat, to have had an earlier opportunity of offering my +congratulations; but, in point of fact, so many painful occurrences +have happened, treading, as a man may say, on one another's heels, +that I have been in a devil of a state myself, and perfectly unfit for +every description of society. The only description of society I have +kept, has been my own; and it certainly is anything but flattering to +a man's good opinion of his own sources, to know that, in point of +fact, he has the capacity of boring himself to a perfectly unlimited +extent.' + +Florence divined, from some indefinable constraint and anxiety in +this gentleman's manner - which was always a gentleman's, in spite of +the harmless little eccentricities that attached to it - and from +Walter's manner no less, that something more immediately tending to +some object was to follow this. + +'I have been mentioning to my friend Mr Gay, if I may be allowed to +have the honour of calling him so,' said Cousin Feenix, 'that I am +rejoiced to hear that my friend Dombey is very decidedly mending. I +trust my friend Dombey will not allow his mind to be too much preyed +upon, by any mere loss of fortune. I cannot say that I have ever +experienced any very great loss of fortune myself: never having had, +in point of fact, any great amount of fortune to lose. But as much as +I could lose, I have lost; and I don't find that I particularly care +about it. I know my friend Dombey to be a devilish honourable man; and +it's calculated to console my friend Dombey very much, to know, that +this is the universal sentiment. Even Tommy Screwzer, - a man of an +extremely bilious habit, with whom my friend Gay is probably +acquainted - cannot say a syllable in disputation of the fact.' + +Florence felt, more than ever, that there was something to come; +and looked earnestly for it. So earnestly, that Cousin Feenix +answered, as if she had spoken. + +'The fact is,' said Cousin Feenix, 'that my friend Gay and myself +have been discussing the propriety of entreating a favour at your +hands; and that I have the consent of my friend Gay - who has met me +in an exceedingly kind and open manner, for which I am very much +indebted to him - to solicit it. I am sensible that so amiable a lady +as the lovely and accomplished daughter of my friend Dombey will not +require much urging; but I am happy to know, that I am supported by my +friend Gay's influence and approval. As in my parliamentary time, when +a man had a motion to make of any sort - which happened seldom in +those days, for we were kept very tight in hand, the leaders on both +sides being regular Martinets, which was a devilish good thing for the +rank and file, like myself, and prevented our exposing ourselves +continually, as a great many of us had a feverish anxiety to do - as' +in my parliamentary time, I was about to say, when a man had leave to +let off any little private popgun, it was always considered a great +point for him to say that he had the happiness of believing that his +sentiments were not without an echo in the breast of Mr Pitt; the +pilot, in point of fact, who had weathered the storm. Upon which, a +devilish large number of fellows immediately cheered, and put him in +spirits. Though the fact is, that these fellows, being under orders to +cheer most excessively whenever Mr Pitt's name was mentioned, became +so proficient that it always woke 'em. And they were so entirely +innocent of what was going on, otherwise, that it used to be commonly +said by Conversation Brown - four-bottle man at the Treasury Board, +with whom the father of my friend Gay was probably acquainted, for it +was before my friend Gay's time - that if a man had risen in his +place, and said that he regretted to inform the house that there was +an Honourable Member in the last stage of convulsions in the Lobby, +and that the Honourable Member's name was Pitt, the approbation would +have been vociferous.' + +This postponement of the point, put Florence in a flutter; and she +looked from Cousin Feenix to Walter, in increasing agitatioN + +'My love,' said Walter, 'there is nothing the matter. + +'There is nothing the matter, upon my honour,' said Cousin Feenix; +'and I am deeply distressed at being the means of causing you a +moment's uneasiness. I beg to assure you that there is nothing the +matter. The favour that I have to ask is, simply - but it really does +seem so exceedingly singular, that I should be in the last degree +obliged to my friend Gay if he would have the goodness to break the - +in point of fact, the ice,' said Cousin Feenix. + +Walter thus appealed to, and appealed to no less in the look that +Florence turned towards him, said: + +'My dearest, it is no more than this. That you will ride to London +with this gentleman, whom you know. + +'And my friend Gay, also - I beg your pardon!' interrupted Cousin +Feenix. + +And with me - and make a visit somewhere.' + +'To whom?' asked Florence, looking from one to the other. + +'If I might entreat,' said Cousin Feenix, 'that you would not press +for an answer to that question, I would venture to take the liberty of +making the request.' + +'Do you know, Walter?' + +'Yes.' + +'And think it right?' + +'Yes. Only because I am sure that you would too. Though there may +be reasons I very well understand, which make it better that nothing +more should be said beforehand.' + +'If Papa is still asleep, or can spare me if he is awake, I will go +immediately,' said Florence. And rising quietly, and glancing at them +with a look that was a little alarmed but perfectly confiding, left +the room. + +When she came back, ready to bear them company, they were talking +together, gravely, at the window; and Florence could not but wonder +what the topic was, that had made them so well acquainted in so short +a time. She did not wonder at the look of pride and love with which +her husband broke off as she entered; for she never saw him, but that +rested on her. + +'I will leave,' said Cousin Feenix, 'a card for my friend Dombey, +sincerely trusting that he will pick up health and strength with every +returning hour. And I hope my friend Dombey will do me the favour to +consider me a man who has a devilish warm admiration of his character, +as, in point of fact, a British merchant and a devilish upright +gentleman. My place in the country is in a most confounded state of +dilapidation, but if my friend Dombey should require a change of air, +and would take up his quarters there, he would find it a remarkably +healthy spot - as it need be, for it's amazingly dull. If my friend +Dombey suffers from bodily weakness, and would allow me to recommend +what has frequently done myself good, as a man who has been extremely +queer at times, and who lived pretty freely in the days when men lived +very freely, I should say, let it be in point of fact the yolk of an +egg, beat up with sugar and nutmeg, in a glass of sherry, and taken in +the morning with a slice of dry toast. Jackson, who kept the +boxing-rooms in Bond Street - man of very superior qualifications, +with whose reputation my friend Gay is no doubt acquainted - used to +mention that in training for the ring they substituted rum for sherry. +I should recommend sherry in this case, on account of my friend Dombey +being in an invalided condition; which might occasion rum to fly - in +point of fact to his head - and throw him into a devil of a state.' + +Of all this, Cousin Feenix delivered himself with an obviously +nervous and discomposed air. Then, giving his arm to Florence, and +putting the strongest possible constraint upon his wilful legs, which +seemed determined to go out into the garden, he led her to the door, +and handed her into a carriage that was ready for her reception. + +Walter entered after him, and they drove away. + +Their ride was six or eight miles long. When they drove through +certain dull and stately streets, lying westward in London, it was +growing dusk. Florence had, by this time, put her hand in Walter's; +and was looking very earnestly, and with increasing agitation, into +every new street into which they turned. + +When the carriage stopped, at last, before that house in Brook +Street, where her father's unhappy marriage had been celebrated, +Florence said, 'Walter, what is this? Who is here?' Walter cheering +her, and not replying, she glanced up at the house-front, and saw that +all the windows were shut, as if it were uninhabited. Cousin Feenix +had by this time alighted, and was offering his hand. + +'Are you not coming, Walter?' + +'No, I will remain here. Don't tremble there is nothing to fear, +dearest Florence.' + +'I know that, Walter, with you so near. I am sure of that, but - ' + +The door was softly opened, without any knock, and Cousin Feenix +led her out of the summer evening air into the close dull house. More +sombre and brown than ever, it seemed to have been shut up from the +wedding-day, and to have hoarded darkness and sadness ever since. + +Florence ascended the dusky staircase, trembling; and stopped, with +her conductor, at the drawing-room door. He opened it, without +speaking, and signed an entreaty to her to advance into the inner +room, while he remained there. Florence, after hesitating an instant, +complied. + +Sitting by the window at a table, where she seemed to have been +writing or drawing, was a lady, whose head, turned away towards the +dying light, was resting on her hand. Florence advancing, doubtfully, +all at once stood still, as if she had lost the power of motion. The +lady turned her head. + +'Great Heaven!' she said, 'what is this?' + +'No, no!' cried Florence, shrinking back as she rose up and putting +out her hands to keep her off. 'Mama!' + +They stood looking at each other. Passion and pride had worn it, +but it was the face of Edith, and beautiful and stately yet. It was +the face of Florence, and through all the terrified avoidance it +expressed, there was pity in it, sorrow, a grateful tender memory. On +each face, wonder and fear were painted vividly; each so still and +silent, looking at the other over the black gulf of the irrevocable past. + +Florence was the first to change. Bursting into tears, she said +from her full heart, 'Oh, Mama, Mama! why do we meet like this? Why +were you ever kind to me when there was no one else, that we should +meet like this?' + +Edith stood before her, dumb and motionless. Her eyes were fixed +upon her face. + +'I dare not think of that,' said Florence, 'I am come from Papa's +sick bed. We are never asunder now; we never shall be' any more. If +you would have me ask his pardon, I will do it, Mama. I am almost sure +he will grant it now, if I ask him. May Heaven grant it to you, too, +and comfort you!' + +She answered not a word. + +'Walter - I am married to him, and we have a son,' said Florence, +timidly - 'is at the door, and has brought me here. I will tell him +that you are repentant; that you are changed,' said Florence, looking +mournfully upon her; 'and he will speak to Papa with me, I know. Is +there anything but this that I can do?' + +Edith, breaking her silence, without moving eye or limb, answered +slowly: + +'The stain upon your name, upon your husband's, on your child's. +Will that ever be forgiven, Florence?' + +'Will it ever be, Mama? It is! Freely, freely, both by Walter and +by me. If that is any consolation to you, there is nothing that you +may believe more certainly. You do not - you do not,' faltered +Florence, 'speak of Papa; but I am sure you wish that I should ask him +for his forgiveness. I am sure you do.' + +She answered not a word. + +'I will!' said Florence. 'I will bring it you, if you will let me; +and then, perhaps, we may take leave of each other, more like what we +used to be to one another. I have not,' said Florence very gently, and +drawing nearer to her, 'I have not shrunk back from you, Mama, because +I fear you, or because I dread to be disgraced by you. I only wish to +do my duty to Papa. I am very dear to him, and he is very dear to me. +But I never can forget that you were very good to me. Oh, pray to +Heaven,' cried Florence, falling on her bosom, 'pray to Heaven, Mama, +to forgive you all this sin and shame, and to forgive me if I cannot +help doing this (if it is wrong), when I remember what you used to +be!' + +Edith, as if she fell beneath her touch, sunk down on her knees, +and caught her round the neck. + +'Florence!' she cried. 'My better angel! Before I am mad again, +before my stubbornness comes back and strikes me dumb, believe me, +upon my soul I am innocent!' + +'Mama!' + +'Guilty of much! Guilty of that which sets a waste between us +evermore. Guilty of what must separate me, through the whole remainder +of my life, from purity and innocence - from you, of all the earth. +Guilty of a blind and passionate resentment, of which I do not, +cannot, will not, even now, repent; but not guilty with that dead man. +Before God!' + +Upon her knees upon the ground, she held up both her hands, and +swore it. + +'Florence!' she said, 'purest and best of natures, - whom I love - +who might have changed me long ago, and did for a time work some +change even in the woman that I am, - believe me, I am innocent of +that; and once more, on my desolate heart, let me lay this dear head, +for the last time!' + +She was moved and weeping. Had she been oftener thus in older days, +she had been happier now. + +'There is nothing else in all the world,' she said, 'that would +have wrung denial from me. No love, no hatred, no hope, no threat. I +said that I would die, and make no sign. I could have done so, and I +would, if we had never met, Florence. + +'I trust,' said Cousin Feenix, ambling in at the door, and +speaking, half in the room, and half out of it, 'that my lovely and +accomplished relative will excuse my having, by a little stratagem, +effected this meeting. I cannot say that I was, at first, wholly +incredulous as to the possibility of my lovely and accomplished +relative having, very unfortunately, committed herself with the +deceased person with white teeth; because in point of fact, one does +see, in this world - which is remarkable for devilish strange +arrangements, and for being decidedly the most unintelligible thing +within a man's experience - very odd conjunctions of that sort. But as +I mentioned to my friend Dombey, I could not admit the criminality of +my lovely and accomplished relative until it was perfectly +established. And feeling, when the deceased person was, in point of +fact, destroyed in a devilish horrible manner, that her position was a +very painful one - and feeling besides that our family had been a +little to blame in not paying more attention to her, and that we are a +careless family - and also that my aunt, though a devilish lively +woman, had perhaps not been the very best of mothers - I took the +liberty of seeking her in France, and offering her such protection as +a man very much out at elbows could offer. Upon which occasion, my +lovely and accomplished relative did me the honour to express that she +believed I was, in my way, a devilish good sort of fellow; and that +therefore she put herself under my protection. Which in point of fact +I understood to be a kind thing on the part of my lovely and +accomplished relative, as I am getting extremely shaky, and have +derived great comfort from her solicitude.' + +Edith, who had taken Florence to a sofa, made a gesture with her +hand as if she would have begged him to say no more. + +'My lovely and accomplished relative,' resumed Cousin Feenix, still +ambling about at the door, 'will excuse me, if, for her satisfaction, +and my own, and that of my friend Dombey, whose lovely and +accomplished daughter we so much admire, I complete the thread of my +observations. She will remember that, from the first, she and I never +alluded to the subject of her elopement. My impression, certainly, has +always been, that there was a mystery in the affair which she could +explain if so inclined. But my lovely and accomplished relative being +a devilish resolute woman, I knew that she was not, in point of fact, +to be trifled with, and therefore did not involve myself in any +discussions. But, observing lately, that her accessible point did +appear to be a very strong description of tenderness for the daughter +of my friend Dombey, it occurred to me that if I could bring about a +meeting, unexpected on both sides, it might lead to beneficial +results. Therefore, we being in London, in the present private way, +before going to the South of Italy, there to establish ourselves, in +point of fact, until we go to our long homes, which is a devilish +disagreeable reflection for a man, I applied myself to the discovery +of the residence of my friend Gay - handsome man of an uncommonly +frank disposition, who is probably known to my lovely and accomplished +relative - and had the happiness of bringing his amiable wife to the +present place. And now,' said Cousin Feenix, with a real and genuine +earnestness shining through the levity of his manner and his slipshod +speech, 'I do conjure my relative, not to stop half way, but to set +right, as far as she can, whatever she has done wrong - not for the +honour of her family, not for her own fame, not for any of those +considerations which unfortunate circumstances have induced her to +regard as hollow, and in point of fact, as approaching to humbug - but +because it is wrong, and not right.' + +Cousin Feenix's legs consented to take him away after this; and +leaving them alone together, he shut the door. + +Edith remained silent for some minutes, with Florence sitting close +beside her. Then she took from her bosom a sealed paper. + +'I debated with myself a long time,' she said in a low voice, +'whether to write this at all, in case of dying suddenly or by +accident, and feeling the want of it upon me. I have deliberated, ever +since, when and how to destroy it. Take it, Florence. The truth is +written in it.' + +'Is it for Papa?' asked Florence. + +'It is for whom you will,' she answered. 'It is given to you, and +is obtained by you. He never could have had it otherwise.' + +Again they sat silent, in the deepening darkness. + +'Mama,' said Florence, 'he has lost his fortune; he has been at the +point of death; he may not recover, even now. Is there any word that I +shall say to him from you?' + +'Did you tell me,' asked Edith, 'that you were very dear to him?' + +'Yes!' said Florence, in a thrilling voice. + +'Tell him I am sorry that we ever met. + +'No more?' said Florence after a pause. + +'Tell him, if he asks, that I do not repent of what I have done - +not yet - for if it were to do again to-morrow, I should do it. But if +he is a changed man - ' + +She stopped. There was something in the silent touch of Florence's +hand that stopped her. + +'But that being a changed man, he knows, now, it would never be. +Tell him I wish it never had been.' + +'May I say,' said Florence, 'that you grieved to hear of the +afflictions he has suffered?' + +'Not,' she replied, 'if they have taught him that his daughter is +very dear to him. He will not grieve for them himself, one day, if +they have brought that lesson, Florence.' + +'You wish well to him, and would have him happy. I am sure you +would!' said Florence. 'Oh! let me be able, if I have the occasion at +some future time, to say so?' + +Edith sat with her dark eyes gazing steadfastly before her, and did +not reply until Florence had repeated her entreaty; when she drew her +hand within her arm, and said, with the same thoughtful gaze upon the +night outside: + +'Tell him that if, in his own present, he can find any reason to +compassionate my past, I sent word that I asked him to do so. Tell him +that if, in his own present, he can find a reason to think less +bitterly of me, I asked him to do so. Tell him, that, dead as we are +to one another, never more to meet on this side of eternity, he knows +there is one feeling in common between us now, that there never was +before.' + +Her sternness seemed to yield, and there were tears in her dark +eyes. + +'I trust myself to that,' she said, 'for his better thoughts of me, +and mine of him. When he loves his Florence most, he will hate me +least. When he is most proud and happy in her and her children, he +will be most repentant of his own part in the dark vision of our +married life. At that time, I will be repentant too - let him know it +then - and think that when I thought so much of all the causes that +had made me what I was, I needed to have allowed more for the causes +that had made him what he was. I will try, then, to forgive him his +share of blame. Let him try to forgive me mine!' + +'Oh Mama!' said Florence. 'How it lightens my heart, even in such a +strange meeting and parting, to hear this!' + +'Strange words in my own ears,' said Edith, 'and foreign to the +sound of my own voice! But even if I had been the wretched creature I +have given him occasion to believe me, I think I could have said them +still, hearing that you and he were very dear to one another. Let him, +when you are dearest, ever feel that he is most forbearing in his +thoughts of me - that I am most forbearing in my thoughts of him! +Those are the last words I send him! Now, goodbye, my life!' + +She clasped her in her arms, and seemed to pour out all her woman's +soul of love and tenderness at once. + +'This kiss for your child! These kisses for a blessing on your +head! My own dear Florence, my sweet girl, farewell!' + +'To meet again!' cried Florence. + +'Never again! Never again! When you leave me in this dark room, +think that you have left me in the grave. Remember only that I was +once, and that I loved you!' + +And Florence left her, seeing her face no more, but accompanied by +her embraces and caresses to the last. + +Cousin Feenix met her at the door, and took her down to Walter in +the dingy dining room, upon whose shoulder she laid her head weeping. + +'I am devilish sorry,' said Cousin Feenix, lifting his wristbands +to his eyes in the simplest manner possible, and without the least +concealment, 'that the lovely and accomplished daughter of my friend +Dombey and amiable wife of my friend Gay, should have had her +sensitive nature so very much distressed and cut up by the interview +which is just concluded. But I hope and trust I have acted for the +best, and that my honourable friend Dombey will find his mind relieved +by the disclosures which have taken place. I exceedingly lament that +my friend Dombey should have got himself, in point of fact, into the +devil's own state of conglomeration by an alliance with our family; +but am strongly of opinion that if it hadn't been for the infernal +scoundrel Barker - man with white teeth - everything would have gone +on pretty smoothly. In regard to my relative who does me the honour to +have formed an uncommonly good opinion of myself, I can assure the +amiable wife of my friend Gay, that she may rely on my being, in point +of fact, a father to her. And in regard to the changes of human life, +and the extraordinary manner in which we are perpetually conducting +ourselves, all I can say is, with my friend Shakespeare - man who +wasn't for an age but for all time, and with whom my friend Gay is no +doubt acquainted - that its like the shadow of a dream.' + + +CHAPTER 62. + +Final + + + +A bottle that has been long excluded from the light of day, and is +hoary with dust and cobwebs, has been brought into the sunshine; and +the golden wine within it sheds a lustre on the table. + +It is the last bottle of the old Madiera. + +'You are quite right, Mr Gills,' says Mr Dombey. 'This is a very +rare and most delicious wine.' + +The Captain, who is of the party, beams with joy. There is a very +halo of delight round his glowing forehead. + +'We always promised ourselves, Sir,' observes Mr Gills,' Ned and +myself, I mean - ' + +Mr Dombey nods at the Captain, who shines more and more with +speechless gratification. + +'-that we would drink this, one day or other, to Walter safe at +home: though such a home we never thought of. If you don't object to +our old whim, Sir, let us devote this first glass to Walter and his +wife.' + +'To Walter and his wife!' says Mr Dombey. 'Florence, my child' - +and turns to kiss her. + +'To Walter and his wife!' says Mr Toots. + +'To Wal'r and his wife!' exclaims the Captain. 'Hooroar!' and the +Captain exhibiting a strong desire to clink his glass against some +other glass, Mr Dombey, with a ready hand, holds out his. The others +follow; and there is a blithe and merry ringing, as of a little peal +of marriage bells. + + +Other buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did in its time; +and dust and cobwebs thicken on the bottles. + +Mr Dombey is a white-haired gentleman, whose face bears heavy marks +of care and suffering; but they are traces of a storm that has passed +on for ever, and left a clear evening in its track. + +Ambitious projects trouble him no more. His only pride is in his +daughter and her husband. He has a silent, thoughtful, quiet manner, +and is always with his daughter. Miss Tox is not infrequently of the +family party, and is quite devoted to it, and a great favourite. Her +admiration of her once stately patron is, and has been ever since the +morning of her shock in Princess's Place, platonic, but not weakened +in the least. + +Nothing has drifted to him from the wreck of his fortunes, but a +certain annual sum that comes he knows not how, with an earnest +entreaty that he will not seek to discover, and with the assurance +that it is a debt, and an act of reparation. He has consulted with his +old clerk about this, who is clear it may be honourably accepted, and +has no doubt it arises out of some forgotten transaction in the times +of the old House. + +That hazel-eyed bachelor, a bachelor no more, is married now, and +to the sister of the grey-haired Junior. He visits his old chief +sometimes, but seldom. There is a reason in the greyhaired Junior's +history, and yet a stronger reason in his name, why he should keep +retired from his old employer; and as he lives with his sister and her +husband, they participate in that retirement. Walter sees them +sometimes - Florence too - and the pleasant house resounds with +profound duets arranged for the Piano-Forte and Violoncello, and with +the labours of Harmonious Blacksmiths. + +And how goes the wooden Midshipman in these changed days? Why, here +he still is, right leg foremost, hard at work upon the hackney +coaches, and more on the alert than ever, being newly painted from his +cocked hat to his buckled shoes; and up above him, in golden +characters, these names shine refulgent, GILLS AND CUTTLE. + +Not another stroke of business does the Midshipman achieve beyond +his usual easy trade. But they do say, in a circuit of some half-mile +round the blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, that some of Mr Gills's +old investments are coming out wonderfully well; and that instead of +being behind the time in those respects, as he supposed, he was, in +truth, a little before it, and had to wait the fulness of the time and +the design. The whisper is that Mr Gills's money has begun to turn +itself, and that it is turning itself over and over pretty briskly. +Certain it is that, standing at his shop-door, in his coffee-coloured +suit, with his chronometer in his pocket, and his spectacles on his +forehead, he don't appear to break his heart at customers not coming, +but looks very jovial and contented, though full as misty as of yore. + +As to his partner, Captain Cuttle, there is a fiction of a business +in the Captain's mind which is better than any reality. The Captain is +as satisfied of the Midshipman's importance to the commerce and +navigation of the country, as he could possibly be, if no ship left +the Port of London without the Midshipman's assistance. His delight in +his own name over the door, is inexhaustible. He crosses the street, +twenty times a day, to look at it from the other side of the way; and +invariably says, on these occasions, 'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, if your +mother could ha' know'd as you would ever be a man o' science, the +good old creetur would ha' been took aback in-deed!' + +But here is Mr Toots descending on the Midshipman with violent +rapidity, and Mr Toots's face is very red as he bursts into the little +parlour. + +'Captain Gills,' says Mr Toots, 'and Mr Sols, I am happy to inform +you that Mrs Toots has had an increase to her family. + +'And it does her credit!' cries the Captain. + +'I give you joy, Mr Toots!' says old Sol. + +'Thank'ee,' chuckles Mr Toots, 'I'm very much obliged to you. I +knew that you'd be glad to hear, and so I came down myself. We're +positively getting on, you know. There's Florence, and Susan, and now +here's another little stranger.' + +'A female stranger?' inquires the Captain. + +'Yes, Captain Gills,' says Mr Toots, 'and I'm glad of it. The +oftener we can repeat that most extraordinary woman, my opinion is, +the better!' + +'Stand by!' says the Captain, turning to the old case-bottle with +no throat - for it is evening, and the Midshipman's usual moderate +provision of pipes and glasses is on the board. 'Here's to her, and +may she have ever so many more!' + +'Thank'ee, Captain Gills,' says the delighted Mr Toots. 'I echo the +sentiment. If you'll allow me, as my so doing cannot be unpleasant to +anybody, under the circumstances, I think I'll take a pipe.' + +Mr Toots begins to smoke, accordingly, and in the openness of his +heart is very loquacious. + +'Of all the remarkable instances that that delightful woman has +given of her excellent sense, Captain Gills and Mr Sols,' said Mr +Toots, 'I think none is more remarkable than the perfection with which +she has understood my devotion to Miss Dombey.' + +Both his auditors assent. + +'Because you know,' says Mr Toots, 'I have never changed my +sentiments towards Miss Dombey. They are the same as ever. She is the +same bright vision to me, at present, that she was before I made +Walters's acquaintance. When Mrs Toots and myself first began to talk +of - in short, of the tender passion, you know, Captain Gills.' + +'Ay, ay, my lad,' says the Captain, 'as makes us all slue round - +for which you'll overhaul the book - ' + +'I shall certainly do so, Captain Gills,' says Mr Toots, with great +earnestness; 'when we first began to mention such subjects, I +explained that I was what you may call a Blighted Flower, you know.' + +The Captain approves of this figure greatly; and murmurs that no +flower as blows, is like the rose. + +'But Lord bless me,' pursues Mr Toots, 'she was as entirely +conscious of the state of my feelings as I was myself. There was +nothing I could tell her. She was the only person who could have stood +between me and the silent Tomb, and she did it, in a manner to command +my everlasting admiration. She knows that there's nobody in the world +I look up to, as I do to Miss Dombey. Knows that there's nothing on +earth I wouldn't do for Miss Dombey. She knows that I consider Miss +Dombey the most beautiful, the most amiable, the most angelic of her +sex. What is her observation upon that? The perfection of sense. "My +dear, you're right. I think so too."' + +'And so do I!' says the Captain. + +'So do I,' says Sol Gills. + +'Then,' resumes Mr Toots, after some contemplative pulling at his +pipe, during which his visage has expressed the most contented +reflection, 'what an observant woman my wife is! What sagacity she +possesses! What remarks she makes! It was only last night, when we +were sitting in the enjoyment of connubial bliss - which, upon my word +and honour, is a feeble term to express my feelings in the society of +my wife - that she said how remarkable it was to consider the present +position of our friend Walters. "Here," observes my wife, "he is, +released from sea-going, after that first long voyage with his young +bride" - as you know he was, Mr Sols.' + +'Quite true,' says the old Instrument-maker, rubbing his hands. + +"'Here he is," says my wife, "released from that, immediately; +appointed by the same establishment to a post of great trust and +confidence at home; showing himself again worthy; mounting up the +ladder with the greatest expedition; beloved by everybody; assisted by +his uncle at the very best possible time of his fortunes" - which I +think is the case, Mr Sols? My wife is always correct.' + +'Why yes, yes - some of our lost ships, freighted with gold, have +come home, truly,' returns old Sol, laughing. 'Small craft, Mr Toots, +but serviceable to my boy!' + +'Exactly so,' says Mr Toots. 'You'll never find my wife wrong. +"Here he is," says that most remarkable woman, "so situated, - and +what follows? What follows?" observed Mrs Toots. Now pray remark, +Captain Gills, and Mr Sols, the depth of my wife's penetration. "Why +that, under the very eye of Mr Dombey, there is a foundation going on, +upon which a - an Edifice;" that was Mrs Toots's word,' says Mr Toots +exultingly, "'is gradually rising, perhaps to equal, perhaps excel, +that of which he was once the head, and the small beginnings of which +(a common fault, but a bad one, Mrs Toots said) escaped his memory. +Thus," said my wife, "from his daughter, after all, another Dombey and +Son will ascend" - no "rise;" that was Mrs Toots's word - +"triumphant!"' + +Mr Toots, with the assistance of his pipe - which he is extremely +glad to devote to oratorical purposes, as its proper use affects him +with a very uncomfortable sensation - does such grand justice to this +prophetic sentence of his wife's, that the Captain, throwing away his +glazed hat in a state of the greatest excitement, cries: + +'Sol Gills, you man of science and my ould pardner, what did I tell +Wal'r to overhaul on that there night when he first took to business? +Was it this here quotation, "Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of +London, and when you are old you will never depart from it". Was it +them words, Sol Gills?' + +'It certainly was, Ned,' replied the old Instrument-maker. 'I +remember well.' + +'Then I tell you what,' says the Captain, leaning back in his +chair, and composing his chest for a prodigious roar. 'I'll give you +Lovely Peg right through; and stand by, both on you, for the chorus!' + + +Buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did, in its time; and +dust and cobwebs thicken on the bottles. + +Autumn days are shining, and on the sea-beach there are often a +young lady, and a white-haired gentleman. With them, or near them, are +two children: boy and girl. And an old dog is generally in their +company. + +The white-haired gentleman walks with the little boy, talks with +him, helps him in his play, attends upon him, watches him as if he +were the object of his life. If he be thoughtful, the white-haired +gentleman is thoughtful too; and sometimes when the child is sitting +by his side, and looks up in his face, asking him questions, he takes +the tiny hand in his, and holding it, forgets to answer. Then the +child says: + +'What, grandpa! Am I so like my poor little Uncle again?' + +'Yes, Paul. But he was weak, and you are very strong.' + +'Oh yes, I am very strong.' + +'And he lay on a little bed beside the sea, and you can run about.' + +And so they range away again, busily, for the white-haired +gentleman likes best to see the child free and stirring; and as they +go about together, the story of the bond between them goes about, and +follows them. + +But no one, except Florence, knows the measure of the white-haired +gentleman's affection for the girl. That story never goes about. The +child herself almost wonders at a certain secrecy he keeps in it. He +hoards her in his heart. He cannot bear to see a cloud upon her face. +He cannot bear to see her sit apart. He fancies that she feels a +slight, when there is none. He steals away to look at her, in her +sleep. It pleases him to have her come, and wake him in the morning. +He is fondest of her and most loving to her, when there is no creature +by. The child says then, sometimes: + +'Dear grandpapa, why do you cry when you kiss me?' + +He only answers, 'Little Florence! little Florence!' and smooths +away the curls that shade her earnest eyes. + +The voices in the waves speak low to him of Florence, day and night +- plainest when he, his blooming daughter, and her husband, beside +them in the evening, or sit at an open window, listening to their +roar. They speak to him of Florence and his altered heart; of Florence +and their ceaseless murmuring to her of the love, eternal and +illimitable, extending still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the +invisible country far away. + +Never from the mighty sea may voices rise too late, to come between +us and the unseen region on the other shore! Better, far better, that +they whispered of that region in our childish ears, and the swift +river hurried us away! + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Domby and Son, by Dickens + + + + + +End of the + +PREFACE OF 1848 + +I cannot forego my usual opportunity of saying +farewell to my readers in this greetingplace, +though I have only to acknowledge the unbounded +warmth and earnestness of their sympathy in every +stage of the journey we have just concluded. + +If any of them have felt a sorrow in one of the +principal incidents on which this fiction turns, I +hope it may be a sorrow of that sort which endears +the sharers in it, one to another. This is not +unselfish in me. I may claim to have felt it, at least +as much as anybody else; and I would fain be +remembered kindly for my part in the experience. + + +DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, +Twenty-Fourth March, 1848. + + +PREFACE OF 1867 + +I make so bold as to believe that the faculty (or the habit) of +correctly observing the characters of men, is a rare one. I have not +even found, within my experience, that the faculty (or the habit) of +correctly observing so much as the faces of men, is a general one +by any means. The two commonest mistakes in judgement that I +suppose to arise from the former default, are, the confounding of +shyness with arrogance - a very common mistake indeed - and the +not understanding that an obstinate nature exists in a perpetual +struggle with itself. + +Mr Dombey undergoes no violent change, either in this book, or +in real life. A sense of his injustice is within him, all along. The +more he represses it, the more unjust he necessarily is. Internal +shame and external circumstances may bring the contest to a close +in a week, or a day; but, it has been a contest for years, and is only +fought out after a long balance of victory. + +I began this book by the Lake of Geneva, and went on with it +for some months in France, before pursuing it in England. The +association between the writing and the place of writing is so +curiously strong in my mind, that at this day, although I know, in +my fancy, every stair in the little midshipman's house, and could +swear to every pew in the church in which Florence was married, +or to every young gentleman's bedstead in Doctor Blimber's +establishment, I yet confusedly imagine Captain Cuttle as secluding +himself from Mrs MacStinger among the mountains of Switzerland. +Similarly, when I am reminded by any chance of what it was +that the waves were always saying, my remembrance wanders for +a whole winter night about the streets of Paris - as I restlessly did +with a heavy heart, on the night when I had written the chapter in +which my little friend and I parted company. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Domby and Son, by Dickens + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Doctor Marigold by Charles Dickens +#42 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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It +was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but +my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which +point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a +man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much +is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? As to looking at the +argument through the medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come +into the world before Registers come up much,--and went out of it +too. They wouldn't have been greatly in his line neither, if they +had chanced to come up before him. + +I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that +time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when +it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very +kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named +Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me. +Doctor Marigold. + +I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords, +leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always +gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings. +You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin- +players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been +whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and +then you have heard it snap. That's as exactly similar to my +waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another. + +I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore +loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I have a +taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl buttons. +There you have me again, as large as life. + +The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father +was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. It was a +pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a serpentining +up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. Two swans had +likewise come astray with the same intentions. When I call her a +large lady, I don't mean in point of breadth, for there she fell +below my views, but she more than made it up in heighth; her heighth +and slimness was--in short THE heighth of both. + +I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or +more likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a +table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own +father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my +head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that +time, though you wouldn't know an old hearth-broom from it now till +you come to the handle, and found it wasn't me) in at the doctor's +door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, "Aha, my +brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How are your +inclinations as to sixpence?" + +You can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor +yet my mother. If you don't go off as a whole when you are about +due, you're liable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the +part. Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off +hers. It was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where I +boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and +solely devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling +the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father +began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we +put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and +mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. As the old lady had been used to +sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old +gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed +him every item of the family's property, and they disposed of it in +their own imaginations from morning to night. At last the old +gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries +out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days +and nights: "Now here, my jolly companions every one,--which the +Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage +and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, +But for want of taste, voices and ears,--now, here, my jolly +companions, every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap +Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone: +so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn't better, just +as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if it wasn't worn out. +Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more +gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid +off a washerwoman's copper, and carry it as many thousands of miles +higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national +debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. +Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? +Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, +fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the +scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's +hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now +I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! I'll throw you in a +working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack +so long ago that upon my word and honour it took place in Noah's +Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blowing +a tune upon his horn. There now! Come! What do you say for both? +I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I don't bear you malice for +being so backward. Here! If you make me a bid that'll only reflect +a little credit on your town, I'll throw you in a warming-pan for +nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life. Now come; what do +you say after that splendid offer? Say two pound, say thirty +shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and +six. You don't say even two and six? You say two and three? No. +You shan't have the lot for two and three. I'd sooner give it to +you, if you was good-looking enough. Here! Missis! Chuck the old +man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away +and bury 'em!" Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own +father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my own +mother, on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followed +as mourner. + +My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, +as his dying observations went to prove. But I top him. I don't +say it because it's myself, but because it has been universally +acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison. I have +worked at it. I have measured myself against other public +speakers,--Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel +learned in the law,--and where I have found 'em good, I have took a +bit of imagination from 'em, and where I have found 'em bad, I have +let 'em alone. Now I'll tell you what. I mean to go down into my +grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great Britain, +the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a +profession? Why ain't we endowed with privileges? Why are we +forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is +expected of the political hawkers? Where's the difference betwixt +us? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, I don't +see any difference but what's in our favour. + +For look here! Say it's election time. I am on the footboard of my +cart in the market-place, on a Saturday night. I put up a general +miscellaneous lot. I say: "Now here, my free and independent +woters, I'm a going to give you such a chance as you never had in +all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you +what I am a going to do with you. Here's a pair of razors that'll +shave you closer than the Board of Guardians; here's a flat-iron +worth its weight in gold; here's a frying-pan artificially flavoured +with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for +the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you +are replete with animal food; here's a genuine chronometer watch in +such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when +you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and +family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and here's half-a- +dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm baby +when it's fractious. Stop! I'll throw in another article, and I'll +give you that, and it's a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only get +it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums +once with it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter +equal to being tickled. Stop again! I'll throw you in another +article, because I don't like the looks of you, for you haven't the +appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because I'd rather +lose than not take money to-night, and that's a looking-glass in +which you may see how ugly you look when you don't bid. What do you +say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not you, for you haven't got +it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you owe more to the +tallyman. Well then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll +heap 'em all on the footboard of the cart,--there they are! razors, +flat watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and away for four shillings, +and I'll give you sixpence for your trouble!" This is me, the Cheap +Jack. But on the Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes +the Dear Jack on the hustings--HIS cart--and, what does HE say? +"Now my free and independent woters, I am a going to give you such a +chance" (he begins just like me) "as you never had in all your born +days, and that's the chance of sending Myself to Parliament. Now +I'll tell you what I am a going to do for you. Here's the interests +of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the +civilised and uncivilised earth. Here's your railways carried, and +your neighbours' railways jockeyed. Here's all your sons in the +Post-office. Here's Britannia smiling on you. Here's the eyes of +Europe on you. Here's uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of +animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of +applause from your own hearts, all in one lot, and that's myself. +Will you take me as I stand? You won't? Well, then, I'll tell you +what I'll do with you. Come now! I'll throw you in anything you +ask for. There! Church-rates, abolition of more malt tax, no malt +tax, universal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance +to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen +for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men or Rights of +Women--only say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em, and I'm of +your opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your own terms. +There! You won't take it yet! Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll +do with you. Come! You ARE such free and independent woters, and I +am so proud of you,--you ARE such a noble and enlightened +constituency, and I AM so ambitious of the honour and dignity of +being your member, which is by far the highest level to which the +wings of the human mind can soar,--that I'll tell you what I'll do +with you. I'll throw you in all the public-houses in your +magnificent town for nothing. Will that content you? It won't? +You won't take the lot yet? Well, then, before I put the horse in +and drive away, and make the offer to the next most magnificent town +that can be discovered, I'll tell you what I'll do. Take the lot, +and I'll drop two thousand pound in the streets of your magnificent +town for them to pick up that can. Not enough? Now look here. +This is the very furthest that I'm a going to. I'll make it two +thousand five hundred. And still you won't? Here, missis! Put the +horse--no, stop half a moment, I shouldn't like to turn my back upon +you neither for a trifle, I'll make it two thousand seven hundred +and fifty pound. There! Take the lot on your own terms, and I'll +count out two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the foot- +board of the cart, to be dropped in the streets of your magnificent +town for them to pick up that can. What do you say? Come now! You +won't do better, and you may do worse. You take it? Hooray! Sold +again, and got the seat!" + +These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks don't. +We tell 'em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to +court 'em. As to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing up the lots, +the Dear Jacks beat us hollow. It is considered in the Cheap Jack +calling, that better patter can be made out of a gun than any +article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. I +often hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as +if I need never leave off. But when I tell 'em what the gun can do, +and what the gun has brought down, I never go half so far as the +Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in praise of THEIR guns--their +great guns that set 'em on to do it. Besides, I'm in business for +myself: I ain't sent down into the market-place to order, as they +are. Besides, again, my guns don't know what I say in their +laudation, and their guns do, and the whole concern of 'em have +reason to be sick and ashamed all round. These are some of my +arguments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill +in Great Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other +Jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon +it. + +I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. +She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich marketplace +right opposite the corn-chandler's shop. I had noticed her up at a +window last Saturday that was, appreciating highly. I had took to +her, and I had said to myself, "If not already disposed of, I'll +have that lot." Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the +same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping 'em +laughing the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly. +At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small lot wrapped in +soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where +she was). "Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an article, +the last article of the present evening's sale, which I offer to +only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and +I won't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. Now +what is it? Why, I'll tell you what it is. It's made of fine gold, +and it's not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and +it's stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though it's +smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten? Because, when +my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, there was +twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, +twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set +of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be +matched. Now what else is it? Come, I'll tell you. It's a hoop of +solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took off +the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle +Street, London city; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to +show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it? +It's a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, +all in gold and all in one. Now what else is it? It's a wedding- +ring. Now I'll tell you what I'm a going to do with it. I'm not a +going to offer this lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next +of you beauties that laughs, and I'll pay her a visit to-morrow +morning at exactly half after nine o'clock as the chimes go, and +I'll take her out for a walk to put up the banns." She laughed, and +got the ring handed up to her. When I called in the morning, she +says, "O dear! It's never you, and you never mean it?" "It's ever +me," says I, "and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it." So we got +married, after being put up three times--which, by the bye, is quite +in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the Cheap Jack +customs pervade society. + +She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have +parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped +her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I +ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and +that was thirteen year. Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks +all, I'll let you into a secret, though you won't believe it. +Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but +thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you. You +are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. There's thousands +of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in +houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the +Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I +don't undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, +and stick to you. Wiolence in a cart is SO wiolent, and aggrawation +in a cart is SO aggrawating. + +We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the +large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on +the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold +weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a +dog and a horse. What more do you want? You draw off upon a bit of +turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse +and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last +visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call the Emperor of +France your father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging +language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you +then? Put a name to your feelings. + +My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she +broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a +mystery to me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake +him up out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and +bolt. At such times I wished I was him. + +The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love +children with all my heart. When she was in her furies she beat the +child. This got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or +five year old, that I have many a time gone on with my whip over my +shoulder, at the old horse's head, sobbing and crying worse than +ever little Sophy did. For how could I prevent it? Such a thing is +not to be tried with such a temper--in a cart--without coming to a +fight. It's in the natural size and formation of a cart to bring it +to a fight. And then the poor child got worse terrified than +before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made +complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went +round, "Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife." + +Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be quite devoted +to her poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She +had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural +about her. It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn't go +tearing mad when I used to see her run from her mother before the +cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by +it, and beat her. + +Such a brave child I said she was! Ah! with reason. + +"Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to me, +with her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; +"if I don't cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I +do cry out, it will only be to get mother to let go and leave off." +What I have seen the little spirit bear--for me--without crying out! + +Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her +clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired +of working at 'em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being +down in the marsh country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause +of Sophy's taking bad low fever; but however she took it, once she +got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and nothing +would persuade her to be touched by her mother's hand. She would +shiver and say, "No, no, no," when it was offered at, and would hide +her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter round the neck. + +The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, +what with one thing and what with another (and not least with +railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and +I was run dry of money. For which reason, one night at that period +of little Sophy's being so bad, either we must have come to a dead- +lock for victuals and drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I +did. + +I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and +indeed I hadn't the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard +with her holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they +see us, and one chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the +bidding, "Tuppence for her!" + +"Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling as if my heart was a +heavy weight at the end of a broken sashline, "I give you notice +that I am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to +give you so much more than your money's worth that you'll only +persuade yourselves to draw your Saturday night's wages ever again +arterwards by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which you +never will, and why not? Because I've made my fortunes by selling +my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent. less than I +give for 'em, and I am consequently to be elevated to the House of +Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and Markis +Jackaloorul. Now let's know what you want to-night, and you shall +have it. But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this +little girl round my neck? You don't want to know? Then you shall. +She belongs to the Fairies. She's a fortune-teller. She can tell +me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you're +going to buy a lot or leave it. Now do you want a saw? No, she +says you don't, because you're too clumsy to use one. Else here's a +saw which would be a lifelong blessing to a handy man, at four +shillings, at three and six, at three, at two and six, at two, at +eighteen-pence. But none of you shall have it at any price, on +account of your well-known awkwardness, which would make it +manslaughter. The same objection applies to this set of three +planes which I won't let you have neither, so don't bid for 'em. +Now I am a going to ask her what you do want." (Then I whispered, +"Your head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet," and +she answered, without opening her heavy eyes, "Just a little, +father.") "O! This little fortune-teller says it's a memorandum- +book you want. Then why didn't you mention it? Here it is. Look +at it. Two hundred superfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages--if you +don't believe me, count 'em--ready ruled for your expenses, an +everlastingly pointed pencil to put 'em down with, a double-bladed +penknife to scratch 'em out with, a book of printed tables to +calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down upon while +you give your mind to it! Stop! And an umbrella to keep the moon +off when you give your mind to it on a pitch-dark night. Now I +won't ask you how much for the lot, but how little? How little are +you thinking of? Don't be ashamed to mention it, because my +fortune-teller knows already." (Then making believe to whisper, I +kissed her,--and she kissed me.) "Why, she says you are thinking of +as little as three and threepence! I couldn't have believed it, +even of you, unless she told me. Three and threepence! And a set +of printed tables in the lot that'll calculate your income up to +forty thousand a year! With an income of forty thousand a year, you +grudge three and sixpence. Well then, I'll tell you my opinion. I +so despise the threepence, that I'd sooner take three shillings. +There. For three shillings, three shillings, three shillings! +Gone. Hand 'em over to the lucky man." + +As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned +at everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face and asked her if +she felt faint, or giddy. "Not very, father. It will soon be +over." Then turning from the pretty patient eyes, which were opened +now, and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted grease-pot, I +went on again in my Cheap Jack style. "Where's the butcher?" (My +sorrowful eye had just caught sight of a fat young butcher on the +outside of the crowd.) "She says the good luck is the butcher's. +Where is he?" Everybody handed on the blushing butcher to the +front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt himself obliged to +put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot. The party so picked +out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot--good four times +out of six. Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that one, +and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed. +Then we had the spectacles. It ain't a special profitable lot, but +I put 'em on, and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is +going to take off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the +young woman in the shawl is doing at home, and I see what the +Bishops has got for dinner, and a deal more that seldom fails to +fetch em 'up in their spirits; and the better their spirits, the +better their bids. Then we had the ladies' lot--the teapot, tea- +caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and caudle-cup--and +all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look or two and +say a word or two to my poor child. It was while the second ladies' +lot was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift herself a little +on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. "What troubles you, +darling?" "Nothing troubles me, father. I am not at all troubled. +But don't I see a pretty churchyard over there?" "Yes, my dear." +"Kiss me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that +churchyard grass so soft and green." I staggered back into the cart +with her head dropped on my shoulder, and I says to her mother, +"Quick. Shut the door! Don't let those laughing people see!" +"What's the matter?" she cries. "O woman, woman," I tells her, +"you'll never catch my little Sophy by her hair again, for she has +flown away from you!" + +Maybe those were harder words than I meant 'em; but from that time +forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk +beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and her eyes +looking on the ground. When her furies took her (which was rather +seldomer than before) they took her in a new way, and she banged +herself about to that extent that I was forced to hold her. She got +none the better for a little drink now and then, and through some +years I used to wonder, as I plodded along at the old horse's head, +whether there was many carts upon the road that held so much +dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as the King of the +Cheap Jacks. So sad our lives went on till one summer evening, +when, as we were coming into Exeter, out of the farther West of +England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who +screamed, "Don't beat me! O mother, mother, mother!" Then my wife +stopped her ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she +was found in the river. + +Me and my dog were all the company left in the cart now; and the dog +learned to give a short bark when they wouldn't bid, and to give +another and a nod of his head when I asked him, "Who said half a +crown? Are you the gentleman, sir, that offered half a crown?" He +attained to an immense height of popularity, and I shall always +believe taught himself entirely out of his own head to growl at any +person in the crowd that bid as low as sixpence. But he got to be +well on in years, and one night when I was conwulsing York with the +spectacles, he took a conwulsion on his own account upon the very +footboard by me, and it finished him. + +Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely feelings on +me arter this. I conquered 'em at selling times, having a +reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me +down in private, and rolled upon me. That's often the way with us +public characters. See us on the footboard, and you'd give pretty +well anything you possess to be us. See us off the footboard, and +you'd add a trifle to be off your bargain. It was under those +circumstances that I come acquainted with a giant. I might have +been too high to fall into conversation with him, had it not been +for my lonely feelings. For the general rule is, going round the +country, to draw the line at dressing up. When a man can't trust +his getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you consider him +below your sort. And this giant when on view figured as a Roman. + +He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance +betwixt his extremities. He had a little head and less in it, he +had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn't look at +him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for +his joints and his mind. But he was an amiable though timid young +man (his mother let him out, and spent the money), and we come +acquainted when he was walking to ease the horse betwixt two fairs. +He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson. + +This giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me under the seal of +confidence that, beyond his being a burden to himself, his life was +made a burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step- +daughter who was deaf and dumb. Her mother was dead, and she had no +living soul to take her part, and was used most hard. She travelled +with his master's caravan only because there was nowhere to leave +her, and this giant, otherwise Pickleson, did go so far as to +believe that his master often tried to lose her. He was such a very +languid young man, that I don't know how long it didn't take him to +get this story out, but it passed through his defective circulation +to his top extremity in course of time. + +When I heard this account from the giant, otherwise Pickleson, and +likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and was +often pulled down by it and beaten, I couldn't see the giant through +what stood in my eyes. Having wiped 'em, I give him sixpence (for +he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out in two +three-penn'orths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him up, that he +sang the Favourite Comic of Shivery Shakey, ain't it cold?--a +popular effect which his master had tried every other means to get +out of him as a Roman wholly in vain. + +His master's name was Mim, a wery hoarse man, and I knew him to +speak to. I went to that Fair as a mere civilian, leaving the cart +outside the town, and I looked about the back of the Vans while the +performing was going on, and at last, sitting dozing against a muddy +cart-wheel, I come upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb. At the +first look I might almost have judged that she had escaped from the +Wild Beast Show; but at the second I thought better of her, and +thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly used she +would be like my child. She was just the same age that my own +daughter would have been, if her pretty head had not fell down upon +my shoulder that unfortunate night. + +To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mim while he was beating +the gong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson's publics, and I put +it to him, "She lies heavy on your own hands; what'll you take for +her?" Mim was a most ferocious swearer. Suppressing that part of +his reply which was much the longest part, his reply was, "A pair of +braces." "Now I'll tell you," says I, "what I'm a going to do with +you. I'm a going to fetch you half-a-dozen pair of the primest +braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me." Says Mim +(again ferocious), "I'll believe it when I've got the goods, and no +sooner." I made all the haste I could, lest he should think twice +of it, and the bargain was completed, which Pickleson he was thereby +so relieved in his mind that he come out at his little back door, +longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in a whisper +among the wheels at parting. + +It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to travel +in the cart. I at once give her the name of Sophy, to put her ever +towards me in the attitude of my own daughter. We soon made out to +begin to understand one another, through the goodness of the +Heavens, when she knowed that I meant true and kind by her. In a +very little time she was wonderful fond of me. You have no idea +what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you have +been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have +mentioned as having once got the better of me. + +You'd have laughed--or the rewerse--it's according to your +disposition--if you could have seen me trying to teach Sophy. At +first I was helped--you'd never guess by what--milestones. I got +some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of +bone, and saying we was going to WINDSOR, I give her those letters +in that order, and then at every milestone I showed her those same +letters in that same order again, and pointed towards the abode of +royalty. Another time I give her CART, and then chalked the same +upon the cart. Another time I give her DOCTOR MARIGOLD, and hung a +corresponding inscription outside my waistcoat. People that met us +might stare a bit and laugh, but what did I care, if she caught the +idea? She caught it after long patience and trouble, and then we +did begin to get on swimmingly, I believe you! At first she was a +little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of +royalty, but that soon wore off. + +We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number. Sometimes +she would sit looking at me and considering hard how to communicate +with me about something fresh,--how to ask me what she wanted +explained,--and then she was (or I thought she was; what does it +signify?) so like my child with those years added to her, that I +half-believed it was herself, trying to tell me where she had been +to up in the skies, and what she had seen since that unhappy night +when she flied away. She had a pretty face, and now that there was +no one to drag at her bright dark hair, and it was all in order, +there was a something touching in her looks that made the cart most +peaceful and most quiet, though not at all melancholy. [N.B. In +the Cheap Jack patter, we generally sound it lemonjolly, and it gets +a laugh.] + +The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly +surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart +unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes +when I looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or +articles I wanted. And then she would clap her hands, and laugh for +joy. And as for me, seeing her so bright, and remembering what she +was when I first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged, +leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give me such heart +that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever, and I put +Pickleson down (by the name of Mim's Travelling Giant otherwise +Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will. + +This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old. +By which time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my whole +duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching +than I could give her. It drew a many tears on both sides when I +commenced explaining my views to her; but what's right is right, and +you can't neither by tears nor laughter do away with its character. + +So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf +and Dumb Establishment in London, and when the gentleman come to +speak to us, I says to him: "Now I'll tell you what I'll do with +you, sir. I am nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have +laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. This is my only daughter +(adopted), and you can't produce a deafer nor a dumber. Teach her +the most that can be taught her in the shortest separation that can +be named,--state the figure for it,--and I am game to put the money +down. I won't bate you a single farthing, sir, but I'll put down +the money here and now, and I'll thankfully throw you in a pound to +take it. There!" The gentleman smiled, and then, "Well, well," +says he, "I must first know what she has learned already. How do +you communicate with her?" Then I showed him, and she wrote in +printed writing many names of things and so forth; and we held some +sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story in a book +which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read. +"This is most extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible +that you have been her only teacher?" "I have been her only +teacher, sir," I says, "besides herself." "Then," says the +gentleman, and more acceptable words was never spoke to me, "you're +a clever fellow, and a good fellow." This he makes known to Sophy, +who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it. + +We saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took down my +name and asked how in the world it ever chanced to be Doctor, it +come out that he was own nephew by the sister's side, if you'll +believe me, to the very Doctor that I was called after. This made +our footing still easier, and he says to me: + +"Now, Marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted daughter +to know?" + +"I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be, +considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read +whatever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure." + +"My good fellow," urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, "why I +can't do that myself!" + +I took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by experience how +flat you fall without it), and I mended my words accordingly. + +"What do you mean to do with her afterwards?" asks the gentleman, +with a sort of a doubtful eye. "To take her about the country?" + +"In the cart, sir, but only in the cart. She will live a private +life, you understand, in the cart. I should never think of bringing +her infirmities before the public. I wouldn't make a show of her +for any money." + +The gentleman nodded, and seemed to approve. + +"Well," says he, "can you part with her for two years?" + +"To do her that good,--yes, sir." + +"There's another question," says the gentleman, looking towards +her,--"can she part with you for two years?" + +I don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other +was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over. However, she +was pacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was +settled. How it cut up both of us when it took place, and when I +left her at the door in the dark of an evening, I don't tell. But I +know this; remembering that night, I shall never pass that same +establishment without a heartache and a swelling in the throat; and +I couldn't put you up the best of lots in sight of it with my usual +spirit,--no, not even the gun, nor the pair of spectacles,--for five +hundred pound reward from the Secretary of State for the Home +Department, and throw in the honour of putting my legs under his +mahogany arterwards. + +Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old +loneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long to look +forward to; and because I could think, when I was anyways down, that +she belonged to me and I belonged to her. Always planning for her +coming back, I bought in a few months' time another cart, and what +do you think I planned to do with it? I'll tell you. I planned to +fit it up with shelves and books for her reading, and to have a seat +in it where I could sit and see her read, and think that I had been +her first teacher. Not hurrying over the job, I had the fittings +knocked together in contriving ways under my own inspection, and +here was her bed in a berth with curtains, and there was her +reading-table, and here was her writing-desk, and elsewhere was her +books in rows upon rows, picters and no picters, bindings and no +bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as I could pick 'em up for her +in lots up and down the country, North and South and West and East, +Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone +astray, Over the hills and far away. And when I had got together +pretty well as many books as the cart would neatly hold, a new +scheme come into my head, which, as it turned out, kept my time and +attention a good deal employed, and helped me over the two years' +stile. + +Without being of an awaricious temper, I like to be the owner of +things. I shouldn't wish, for instance, to go partners with +yourself in the Cheap Jack cart. It's not that I mistrust you, but +that I'd rather know it was mine. Similarly, very likely you'd +rather know it was yours. Well! A kind of a jealousy began to +creep into my mind when I reflected that all those books would have +been read by other people long before they was read by her. It +seemed to take away from her being the owner of 'em like. In this +way, the question got into my head: Couldn't I have a book new-made +express for her, which she should be the first to read? + +It pleased me, that thought did; and as I never was a man to let a +thought sleep (you must wake up all the whole family of thoughts +you've got and burn their nightcaps, or you won't do in the Cheap +Jack line), I set to work at it. Considering that I was in the +habit of changing so much about the country, and that I should have +to find out a literary character here to make a deal with, and +another literary character there to make a deal with, as +opportunities presented, I hit on the plan that this same book +should be a general miscellaneous lot,--like the razors, flat-iron, +chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass,-- +and shouldn't be offered as a single indiwidual article, like the +spectacles or the gun. When I had come to that conclusion, I come +to another, which shall likewise be yours. + +Often had I regretted that she never had heard me on the footboard, +and that she never could hear me. It ain't that I am vain, but that +YOU don't like to put your own light under a bushel. What's the +worth of your reputation, if you can't convey the reason for it to +the person you most wish to value it? Now I'll put it to you. Is +it worth sixpence, fippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a +penny, a halfpenny, a farthing? No, it ain't. Not worth a +farthing. Very well, then. My conclusion was that I would begin +her book with some account of myself. So that, through reading a +specimen or two of me on the footboard, she might form an idea of my +merits there. I was aware that I couldn't do myself justice. A man +can't write his eye (at least I don't know how to), nor yet can a +man write his voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the quickness of +his action, nor his general spicy way. But he can write his turns +of speech, when he is a public speaker,--and indeed I have heard +that he very often does, before he speaks 'em. + +Well! Having formed that resolution, then come the question of a +name. How did I hammer that hot iron into shape? This way. The +most difficult explanation I had ever had with her was, how I come +to be called Doctor, and yet was no Doctor. After all, I felt that +I had failed of getting it correctly into her mind, with my utmost +pains. But trusting to her improvement in the two years, I thought +that I might trust to her understanding it when she should come to +read it as put down by my own hand. Then I thought I would try a +joke with her and watch how it took, by which of itself I might +fully judge of her understanding it. We had first discovered the +mistake we had dropped into, through her having asked me to +prescribe for her when she had supposed me to be a Doctor in a +medical point of view; so thinks I, "Now, if I give this book the +name of my Prescriptions, and if she catches the idea that my only +Prescriptions are for her amusement and interest,--to make her laugh +in a pleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant way,--it will be +a delightful proof to both of us that we have got over our +difficulty." It fell out to absolute perfection. For when she saw +the book, as I had it got up,--the printed and pressed book,--lying +on her desk in her cart, and saw the title, DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S +PRESCRIPTIONS, she looked at me for a moment with astonishment, then +fluttered the leaves, then broke out a laughing in the charmingest +way, then felt her pulse and shook her head, then turned the pages +pretending to read them most attentive, then kissed the book to me, +and put it to her bosom with both her hands. I never was better +pleased in all my life! + +But let me not anticipate. (I take that expression out of a lot of +romances I bought for her. I never opened a single one of 'em--and +I have opened many--but I found the romancer saying "let me not +anticipate." Which being so, I wonder why he did anticipate, or who +asked him to it.) Let me not, I say, anticipate. This same book +took up all my spare time. It was no play to get the other articles +together in the general miscellaneous lot, but when it come to my +own article! There! I couldn't have believed the blotting, nor yet +the buckling to at it, nor the patience over it. Which again is +like the footboard. The public have no idea. + +At last it was done, and the two years' time was gone after all the +other time before it, and where it's all gone to, who knows? The +new cart was finished,--yellow outside, relieved with wermilion and +brass fittings,--the old horse was put in it, a new 'un and a boy +being laid on for the Cheap Jack cart,--and I cleaned myself up to +go and fetch her. Bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys +smoking, carts pitched private on a piece of waste ground over at +Wandsworth, where you may see 'em from the Sou'western Railway when +not upon the road. (Look out of the right-hand window going down.) + +"Marigold," says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, "I am very +glad to see you." + +"Yet I have my doubts, sir," says I, "if you can be half as glad to +see me as I am to see you." + +"The time has appeared so long,--has it, Marigold?" + +"I won't say that, sir, considering its real length; but--" + +"What a start, my good fellow!" + +Ah! I should think it was! Grown such a woman, so pretty, so +intelligent, so expressive! I knew then that she must be really +like my child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by +the door. + +"You are affected," says the gentleman in a kindly manner. + +"I feel, sir," says I, "that I am but a rough chap in a sleeved +waistcoat." + +" I feel," says the gentleman, "that it was you who raised her from +misery and degradation, and brought her into communication with her +kind. But why do we converse alone together, when we can converse +so well with her? Address her in your own way." + +"I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir," says I, "and +she is such a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the door!" + +"TRY if she moves at the old sign," says the gentleman. + +They had got it up together o' purpose to please me! For when I +give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her +knees, holding up her hands to me with pouring tears of love and +joy; and when I took her hands and lifted her, she clasped me round +the neck, and lay there; and I don't know what a fool I didn't make +of myself, until we all three settled down into talking without +sound, as if there was a something soft and pleasant spread over the +whole world for us. + + +[A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the +sketches contributed by other writers; but the reader will be +pleased to have what follows retained in a note: + +"Now I'll tell you what I am a-going to do with you. I am a-going +to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read +by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first +reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety +columns, Whiting's own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by +the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded +like clean linen come home from the clear-starcher's, and so +exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone, +it's better than the sampler of a seamstress undergoing a +Competitive examination for Starvation before the Civil Service +Commissioners--and I offer the lot for what? For eight pound? Not +so much. For six pound? Less. For four pound. Why, I hardly +expect you to believe me, but that's the sum. Four pound! The +stitching alone cost half as much again. Here's forty-eight +original pages, ninety-six original columns, for four pound. You +want more for the money? Take it. Three whole pages of +advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for nothing. Read +'em and believe 'em. More? My best of wishes for your merry +Christmases and your happy New Years, your long lives and your true +prosperities. Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I +send them. Remember! Here's a final prescription added, "To be +taken for life," which will tell you how the cart broke down, and +where the journey ended. You think Four Pound too much? And still +you think so? Come! I'll tell you what then. Say Four Pence, and +keep the secret."] + + +So every item of my plan was crowned with success. Our reunited +life was more than all that we had looked forward to. Content and +joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the +same stopped with us when the two carts stopped. I was as pleased +and as proud as a Pug-Dog with his muzzle black-leaded for a evening +party, and his tail extra curled by machinery. + +But I had left something out of my calculations. Now, what had I +left out? To help you to guess I'll say, a figure. Come. Make a +guess and guess right. Nought? No. Nine? No. Eight? No. +Seven? No. Six? No. Five? No. Four? No. Three? No. Two? +No. One? No. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll say +it's another sort of figure altogether. There. Why then, says you, +it's a mortal figure. No, nor yet a mortal figure. By such means +you got yourself penned into a corner, and you can't help guessing a +IMmortal figure. That's about it. Why didn't you say so sooner? + +Yes. It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of my +Calculations. Neither man's, nor woman's, but a child's. Girl's or +boy's? Boy's. "I, says the sparrow with my bow and arrow." Now +you have got it. + +We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights more than fair +average business (though I cannot in honour recommend them as a +quick audience) in the open square there, near the end of the street +where Mr. Sly's King's Arms and Royal Hotel stands. Mim's +travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, happened at the self-same +time to be trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was adopted +with him. No hint of a van. Green baize alcove leading up to +Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster, "Free list suspended, +with the exception of that proud boast of an enlightened country, a +free press. Schools admitted by private arrangement. Nothing to +raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious." +Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in a pink calico pay-place, +at the slackness of the public. Serious handbill in the shops, +importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right +understanding of the history of David without seeing Pickleson. + +I went to the Auction Room in question, and I found it entirely +empty of everything but echoes and mouldiness, with the single +exception of Pickleson on a piece of red drugget. This suited my +purpose, as I wanted a private and confidential word with him, which +was: "Pickleson. Owing much happiness to you, I put you in my will +for a fypunnote; but, to save trouble, here's fourpunten down, which +may equally suit your views, and let us so conclude the +transaction." Pickleson, who up to that remark had had the dejected +appearance of a long Roman rushlight that couldn't anyhow get +lighted, brightened up at his top extremity, and made his +acknowledgments in a way which (for him) was parliamentary +eloquence. He likewise did add, that, having ceased to draw as a +Roman, Mim had made proposals for his going in as a conwerted Indian +Giant worked upon by The Dairyman's Daughter. This, Pickleson, +having no acquaintance with the tract named after that young woman, +and not being willing to couple gag with his serious views, had +declined to do, thereby leading to words and the total stoppage of +the unfortunate young man's beer. All of which, during the whole of +the interview, was confirmed by the ferocious growling of Mim down +below in the pay-place, which shook the giant like a leaf. + +But what was to the present point in the remarks of the travelling +giant, otherwise Pickleson, was this: "Doctor Marigold,"--I give +his words without a hope of conweying their feebleness,--"who is the +strange young man that hangs about your carts?"--"The strange young +MAN?" I gives him back, thinking that he meant her, and his languid +circulation had dropped a syllable. "Doctor," he returns, with a +pathos calculated to draw a tear from even a manly eye, "I am weak, +but not so weak yet as that I don't know my words. I repeat them, +Doctor. The strange young man." It then appeared that Pickleson, +being forced to stretch his legs (not that they wanted it) only at +times when he couldn't be seen for nothing, to wit in the dead of +the night and towards daybreak, had twice seen hanging about my +carts, in that same town of Lancaster where I had been only two +nights, this same unknown young man. + +It put me rather out of sorts. What it meant as to particulars I no +more foreboded then than you forebode now, but it put me rather out +of sorts. Howsoever, I made light of it to Pickleson, and I took +leave of Pickleson, advising him to spend his legacy in getting up +his stamina, and to continue to stand by his religion. Towards +morning I kept a look out for the strange young man, and--what was +more--I saw the strange young man. He was well dressed and well +looking. He loitered very nigh my carts, watching them like as if +he was taking care of them, and soon after daybreak turned and went +away. I sent a hail after him, but he never started or looked +round, or took the smallest notice. + +We left Lancaster within an hour or two, on our way towards +Carlisle. Next morning, at daybreak, I looked out again for the +strange young man. I did not see him. But next morning I looked +out again, and there he was once more. I sent another hail after +him, but as before he gave not the slightest sign of being anyways +disturbed. This put a thought into my head. Acting on it I watched +him in different manners and at different times not necessary to +enter into, till I found that this strange young man was deaf and +dumb. + +The discovery turned me over, because I knew that a part of that +establishment where she had been was allotted to young men (some of +them well off), and I thought to myself, "If she favours him, where +am I? and where is all that I have worked and planned for?" Hoping- +-I must confess to the selfishness--that she might NOT favour him, I +set myself to find out. At last I was by accident present at a +meeting between them in the open air, looking on leaning behind a +fir-tree without their knowing of it. It was a moving meeting for +all the three parties concerned. I knew every syllable that passed +between them as well as they did. I listened with my eyes, which +had come to be as quick and true with deaf and dumb conversation as +my ears with the talk of people that can speak. He was a-going out +to China as clerk in a merchant's house, which his father had been +before him. He was in circumstances to keep a wife, and he wanted +her to marry him and go along with him. She persisted, no. He +asked if she didn't love him. Yes, she loved him dearly, dearly; +but she could never disappoint her beloved, good, noble, generous, +and I-don't-know-what-all father (meaning me, the Cheap Jack in the +sleeved waistcoat) and she would stay with him, Heaven bless him! +though it was to break her heart. Then she cried most bitterly, and +that made up my mind. + +While my mind had been in an unsettled state about her favouring +this young man, I had felt that unreasonable towards Pickleson, that +it was well for him he had got his legacy down. For I often +thought, "If it hadn't been for this same weak-minded giant, I might +never have come to trouble my head and wex my soul about the young +man." But, once that I knew she loved him,--once that I had seen +her weep for him,--it was a different thing. I made it right in my +mind with Pickleson on the spot, and I shook myself together to do +what was right by all. + +She had left the young man by that time (for it took a few minutes +to get me thoroughly well shook together), and the young man was +leaning against another of the fir-trees,--of which there was a +cluster, -with his face upon his arm. I touched him on the back. +Looking up and seeing me, he says, in our deaf-and-dumb talk, "Do +not be angry." + +"I am not angry, good boy. I am your friend. Come with me." + +I left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart, and I went +up alone. She was drying her eyes. + +"You have been crying, my dear." + +"Yes, father." + +"Why?" + +"A headache." + +"Not a heartache?" + +"I said a headache, father." + +"Doctor Marigold must prescribe for that headache." + +She took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up with a +forced smile; but seeing me keep still and look earnest, she softly +laid it down again, and her eyes were very attentive. + +"The Prescription is not there, Sophy." + +"Where is it?" + +"Here, my dear." + +I brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in his, and my +only farther words to both of them were these: "Doctor Marigold's +last Prescription. To be taken for life." After which I bolted. + +When the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and bright +buttons), for the first and last time in all my days, and I give +Sophy away with my own hand. There were only us three and the +gentleman who had had charge of her for those two years. I give the +wedding dinner of four in the Library Cart. Pigeon-pie, a leg of +pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and suitable garden stuff. The best +of drinks. I give them a speech, and the gentleman give us a +speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky- +rocket. In the course of the entertainment I explained to Sophy +that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart when not upon +the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just as they +stood, till she come back to claim them. So she went to China with +her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and heavy, and I +got the boy I had another service; and so as of old, when my child +and wife were gone, I went plodding along alone, with my whip over +my shoulder, at the old horse's head. + +Sophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many letters. About +the end of the first year she sent me one in an unsteady hand: +"Dearest father, not a week ago I had a darling little daughter, but +I am so well that they let me write these words to you. Dearest and +best father, I hope my child may not be deaf and dumb, but I do not +yet know." When I wrote back, I hinted the question; but as Sophy +never answered that question, I felt it to be a sad one, and I never +repeated it. For a long time our letters were regular, but then +they got irregular, through Sophy's husband being moved to another +station, and through my being always on the move. But we were in +one another's thoughts, I was equally sure, letters or no letters. + +Five years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away. I was still +the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater height of popularity +than ever. I had had a first-rate autumn of it, and on the twenty- +third of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, I +found myself at Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold out. So I jogged up +to London with the old horse, light and easy, to have my Christmas- +eve and Christmas-day alone by the fire in the Library Cart, and +then to buy a regular new stock of goods all round, to sell 'em +again and get the money. + +I am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what I knocked up for +my Christmas-eve dinner in the Library Cart. I knocked up a +beefsteak-pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a +couple of mushrooms thrown in. It's a pudding to put a man in good +humour with everything, except the two bottom buttons of his +waistcoat. Having relished that pudding and cleared away, I turned +the lamp low, and sat down by the light of the fire, watching it as +it shone upon the backs of Sophy's books. + +Sophy's books so brought Sophy's self, that I saw her touching face +quite plainly, before I dropped off dozing by the fire. This may be +a reason why Sophy, with her deaf-and-dumb child in her arms, seemed +to stand silent by me all through my nap. I was on the road, off +the road, in all sorts of places, North and South and West and East, +Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone +astray, Over the hills and far away, and still she stood silent by +me, with her silent child in her arms. Even when I woke with a +start, she seemed to vanish, as if she had stood by me in that very +place only a single instant before. + +I had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of the +cart. It was the light hurried tread of a child, coming clambering +up. That tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that for +half a moment I believed I was a-going to see a little ghost. + +But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the +door, and the handle turned, and the door opened a little way, and a +real child peeped in. A bright little comely girl with large dark +eyes. + +Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a straw +hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell about her face. Then she +opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice, + +"Grandfather!" + +"Ah, my God!" I cries out. "She can speak!" + +"Yes, dear grandfather. And I am to ask you whether there was ever +any one that I remind you of?" + +In a moment Sophy was round my neck, as well as the child, and her +husband was a-wringing my hand with his face hid, and we all had to +shake ourselves together before we could get over it. And when we +did begin to get over it, and I saw the pretty child a-talking, +pleased and quick and eager and busy, to her mother, in the signs +that I had first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears +fell rolling down my face. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Doctor Marigold by Charles Dickens + +Project Gutenberg Etext of Going into Society by Charles Dickens +#46 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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He was found registered as its occupier, on the parish +books of the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore +no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy to +be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had +lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being +respectable were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything +of him. At last, among the marsh lands near the river's level, that +lie about Deptford and the neighbouring market-gardens, a Grizzled +Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of +weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking +a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house +was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy +creek; and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, +and the steaming market-gardens, smoked in company with the grizzled +man. In the midst of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the +wooden house on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the +rest in a companionable manner. + +On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let, +Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name +was Magsman? That was it, Toby Magsman--which lawfully christened +Robert; but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was +nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed? If there was suspicion of +such--mention it! + +There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, some +inquiries were making about that House, and would he object to say +why he left it? + +Not at all; why should he? He left it, along of a Dwarf. + +Along of a Dwarf? + +Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a +Dwarf. + +Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination and +convenience to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars? + +Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars. + +It was a long time ago, to begin with;--afore lotteries and a deal +more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about for a good +pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, "I'll have +you, if you're to be had. If money'll get you, I'll have you." + +The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman +don't know what they WOULD have had. It was a lovely thing. First +of all, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Giant, +in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the heighth of +the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole on the +roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then, there was +the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina lady, showing her +white air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then, there was +the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Indian a scalpin a +member of some foreign nation. Then, there was the canvass, +representin the picter of a child of a British Planter, seized by +two Boa Constrictors--not that WE never had no child, nor no +Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the canvass, representin +the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies--not that WE never had no +wild asses, nor wouldn't have had 'em at a gift. Last, there was +the canvass, representin the picter of the Dwarf, and like him too +(considerin), with George the Fourth in such a state of astonishment +at him as His Majesty couldn't with his utmost politeness and +stoutness express. The front of the House was so covered with +canvasses, that there wasn't a spark of daylight ever visible on +that side. "MAGSMAN'S AMUSEMENTS," fifteen foot long by two foot +high, ran over the front door and parlour winders. The passage was +a Arbour of green baize and gardenstuff. A barrel-organ performed +there unceasing. And as to respectability,--if threepence ain't +respectable, what is? + +But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth +the money. He was wrote up as MAJOR TPSCHOFFKI, OF THE IMPERIAL +BULGRADERIAN BRIGADE. Nobody couldn't pronounce the name, and it +never was intended anybody should. The public always turned it, as +a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called Chops; +partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if he ever +had any real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes. + +He was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly not so small +as he was made out to be, but where IS your Dwarf as is? He was a +most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he +had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin +himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a +stiff job for even him to do. + +The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. +When he travelled with the Spotted Baby--though he knowed himself to +be a nat'ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby's spots to be put upon him +artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heerd him +give a ill-name to a Giant. He DID allow himself to break out into +strong language respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an +affair of the 'art; and when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a +lady, and the preference giv to a Indian, he ain't master of his +actions. + +He was always in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is. +And he was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed the +Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep 'em +the Curiosities they are. + +One sing'ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant +something, or it wouldn't have been there. It was always his +opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put his +name to anything. He had been taught to write, by the young man +without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writing +master HE was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have +starved to death, afore he'd have gained a bit of bread by putting +his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind, +because HE had no property, nor hope of property, except his house +and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted and got +up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, +with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, +and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed to be the +Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney +sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every +Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me: "Ladies and +gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the +Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." When he said anything +important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of +words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me at night +afore he went to bed. + +He had what I consider a fine mind--a poetic mind. His ideas +respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat +upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration +had run through him a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I +feel my property coming--grind away! I'm counting my guineas by +thousands, Toby--grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I +feel the Mint a jingling in me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the +Bank of England!" Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind. +Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on +the contrary, hated it. + +He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a +thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out +of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that +it kep him out of Society. He was continiwally saying, "Toby, my +ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of my position towards +the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don't signify +to a low beast of a Indian; he an't formed for Society. This don't +signify to a Spotted Baby; HE an't formed for Society.--I am." + +Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. He had +a good salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came +round, besides having the run of his teeth--and he was a Woodpecker +to eat--but all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, +bringing him in so many halfpence that he'd carry 'em for a week +together, tied up in a pocket-handkercher. And yet he never had +money. And it couldn't be the Fat Lady from Norfolk, as was once +supposed; because it stands to reason that when you have a animosity +towards a Indian, which makes you grind your teeth at him to his +face, and which can hardly hold you from Goosing him audible when +he's going through his War-Dance--it stands to reason you wouldn't +under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support that Indian in +the lap of luxury. + +Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races. The +Public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little +bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his +shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door--for +he couldn't be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the +premises wouldn't accommodate his legs--was snarlin, "Here's a +precious Public for you; why the Devil don't they tumble up?" when a +man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon, and cries out, "If +there's any person here as has got a ticket, the Lottery's just +drawed, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three, +seven, forty-two! Three, seven, forty-two!" I was givin the man to +the Furies myself, for calling off the Public's attention--for the +Public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything in +preference to the thing showed 'em; and if you doubt it, get 'em +together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of the earth, and +send only two people in late, and see if the whole company an't far +more interested in takin particular notice of them two than of you-- +I say, I wasn't best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn't +blessin him in my own mind, when I see Chops's little bell fly out +of winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, +exposin the whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my +legs and he says to me, "Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a +pail of water over me or I'm a dead man, for I've come into my +property!" + +Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops's winnins. He had +bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had +come up. The first use he made of his property, was, to offer to +fight the Wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a +poisoned darnin-needle and the Indian with a club; but the Indian +being in want of backers to that amount, it went no further. + +Arter he had been mad for a week--in a state of mind, in short, in +which, if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I +believe he would have bust--but we kep the organ from him--Mr. Chops +come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He then sent +for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was +a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father +havin been imminent in the livery stable line but unfort'nate in a +commercial crisis, through paintin a old gray, ginger-bay, and +sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr. Chops said to this Bonnet, who +said his name was Normandy, which it wasn't: + +"Normandy, I'm a goin into Society. Will you go with me?" + +Says Normandy: "Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that +the 'ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?" + +"Correct," says Mr. Chops. "And you shall have a Princely allowance +too." + +The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, +and replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears: + + +"My boat is on the shore, +And my bark is on the sea, +And I do not ask for more, +But I'll Go:- along with thee." + + +They went into Society, in a chay and four grays with silk jackets. +They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away. + +In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the +autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk- +white cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one +evening appinted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and +Mr. Chops's eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than I thought +good for him. There was three of 'em (in company, I mean), and I +knowed the third well. When last met, he had on a white Roman +shirt, and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard-skin, and played +the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show. + +This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said: "Gentlemen, +this is a old friend of former days:" and Normandy looked at me +through a eye-glass, and said, "Magsman, glad to see you!"--which +I'll take my oath he wasn't. Mr. Chops, to git him convenient to +the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form of George the +Fourth's in the canvass), but he hardly appeared to me to be King +there in any other pint of view, for his two gentlemen ordered about +like Emperors. They was all dressed like May-Day--gorgeous!--And as +to Wine, they swam in all sorts. + +I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done +it), and then mixed 'em all together (to say I had done it), and +then tried two of 'em as half-and-half, and then t'other two. +Altogether, I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel +muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say, "Mr. +Chops, the best of friends must part, I thank you for the wariety of +foreign drains you have stood so 'ansome, I looks towards you in red +wine, and I takes my leave." Mr. Chops replied, "If you'll just +hitch me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me +down-stairs, I'll see you out." I said I couldn't think of such a +thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him off his throne. He +smelt strong of Maideary, and I couldn't help thinking as I carried +him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with +a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion. + +When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him +by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers: + +"I ain't 'appy, Magsman." + +"What's on your mind, Mr. Chops?" + +"They don't use me well. They an't grateful to me. They puts me on +the mantel-piece when I won't have in more Champagne-wine, and they +locks me in the sideboard when I won't give up my property." + +"Get rid of 'em, Mr. Chops." + +"I can't. We're in Society together, and what would Society say?" + +"Come out of Society!" says I. + +"I can't. You don't know what you're talking about. When you have +once gone into Society, you mustn't come out of it." + +"Then if you'll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops," were my remark, +shaking my head grave, "I think it's a pity you ever went in." + +Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and +slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than +I thought were in him. Then, he says, "You're a good fellow, but +you don't understand. Good-night, go along. Magsman, the little +man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind +the curtain." The last I see of him on that occasion was his tryin, +on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one +by one, with his hands and knees. They'd have been much too steep +for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn't be helped. + +It warn't long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr. +Chops's being presented at court. It was printed, "It will be +recollected"--and I've noticed in my life, that it is sure to be +printed that it WILL be recollected, whenever it won't--"that Mr. +Chops is the individual of small stature, whose brilliant success in +the last State Lottery attracted so much attention." Well, I says +to myself, Such is Life! He has been and done it in earnest at +last. He has astonished George the Fourth! + +(On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag +of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a +lady in Ostrich Feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, +sword, and buckles correct.) + +I took the House as is the subject of present inquiries--though not +the honour of bein acquainted--and I run Magsman's Amusements in it +thirteen months--sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes +nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside. One night, +when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company, +through its raining Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair +back along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken on +for a month (though he never drawed--except on paper), and I heard a +kickin at the street door. "Halloa!" I says to the young man, +"what's up!" He rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, "I +can't imagine, Mr. Magsman"--which he never could imagine nothin, +and was monotonous company. + +The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a +candle, and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the +street; but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I +turned round quick, because some creetur run between my legs into +the passage. There was Mr. Chops! + +"Magsman," he says, "take me, on the old terms, and you've got me; +if it's done, say done!" + +I was all of a maze, but I said, "Done, sir." + +"Done to your done, and double done!" says he. "Have you got a bit +of supper in the house?" + +Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we'd +guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold +sassages and gin-and-water; but he took 'em both and took 'em free; +havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like +hold times. I, all of a maze all the while. + +It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to +the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the +wisdom as was in that little man began to come out of him like +prespiration. + +"Magsman," he says, "look upon me! You see afore you, One as has +both gone into Society and come out." + +"O! You ARE out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?" + +"SOLD OUT!" says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed +expressed, when he made use of them two words. + +"My friend Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made. It's +wallable; it's cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do +you good in life--The secret of this matter is, that it ain't so +much that a person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a +person." + +Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a +deep look, and said, "You're right there, Mr. Chops." + +"Magsman," he says, twitchin me by the leg, "Society has gone into +me, to the tune of every penny of my property." + +I felt that I went pale, and though nat'rally a bold speaker, I +couldn't hardly say, "Where's Normandy?" + +"Bolted. With the plate," said Mr. Chops. + +"And t'other one?" meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre. + +"Bolted. With the jewels," said Mr. Chops. + +I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me. + +"Magsman," he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got +hoarser; "Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At the court +of St. James's, they was all a doing my old business--all a goin +three times round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits and +properties. Elsewheres, they was most of 'em ringin their little +bells out of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin +round. Magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal Institution!" + +I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, +and I felt for Mr. Chops. + +"As to Fat Ladies," he says, giving his head a tremendious one agin +the wall, "there's lots of THEM in Society, and worse than the +original. HERS was a outrage upon Taste--simply a outrage upon +Taste--awakenin contempt--carryin its own punishment in the form of +a Indian." Here he giv himself another tremendious one. "But +THEIRS, Magsman, THEIRS is mercenary outrages. Lay in Cashmeer +shawls, buy bracelets, strew 'em and a lot of 'andsome fans and +things about your rooms, let it be known that you give away like +water to all as come to admire, and the Fat Ladies that don't +exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the pints +of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They'll drill +holes in your 'art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you've no +more left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave you +to have your bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of +the Prairies that you deserve to be!" Here he giv himself the most +tremendious one of all, and dropped. + +I thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked it so +hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in him +must have been so immense, that I thought he was gone. But, he soon +come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said to me, +with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it come: + +"Magsman! The most material difference between the two states of +existence through which your unhappy friend has passed;" he reached +out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the +moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best to +grow, but it is not in mortals to command success,--"the difference +this. When I was out of Society, I was paid light for being seen. +When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. I prefer the +former, even if I wasn't forced upon it. Give me out through the +trumpet, in the hold way, to-morrow." + +Arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been +iled all over. But the organ was kep from him, and no allusions was +ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got wiser +every day; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, +bewilderin, awful; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom +expanded it. + +He took well, and pulled 'em in most excellent for nine weeks. At +the expiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he expressed +one evenin, the last Company havin been turned out, and the door +shut, a wish to have a little music. + +"Mr. Chops," I said (I never dropped the "Mr." with him; the world +might do it, but not me); "Mr. Chops, are you sure as you are in a +state of mind and body to sit upon the organ?" + +His answer was this: "Toby, when next met with on the tramp, I +forgive her and the Indian. And I am." + +It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle; but +he sat like a lamb. I will be my belief to my dying day, that I see +his Ed expand as he sat; you may therefore judge how great his +thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off. + +"Toby," he says, with a quiet smile, "the little man will now walk +three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." + +When we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much +better Society than mine or Pall Mall's. I giv Mr. Chops as +comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as Chief, +and had the George the Fourth canvass carried first, in the form of +a banner. But, the House was so dismal arterwards, that I giv it +up, and took to the Wan again. + + +"I don't triumph," said Jarber, folding up the second manuscript, +and looking hard at Trottle. "I don't triumph over this worthy +creature. I merely ask him if he is satisfied now?" + +"How can he be anything else?" I said, answering for Trottle, who +sat obstinately silent. "This time, Jarber, you have not only read +us a delightfully amusing story, but you have also answered the +question about the House. Of course it stands empty now. Who would +think of taking it after it had been turned into a caravan?" I +looked at Trottle, as I said those last words, and Jarber waved his +hand indulgently in the same direction. + +"Let this excellent person speak," said Jarber. "You were about to +say, my good man?" - + +"I only wished to ask, sir," said Trottle doggedly, "if you could +kindly oblige me with a date or two in connection with that last +story?" + +"A date!" repeated Jarber. "What does the man want with dates!" + +"I should be glad to know, with great respect," persisted Trottle, +"if the person named Magsman was the last tenant who lived in the +House. It's my opinion--if I may be excused for giving it--that he +most decidedly was not." + +With those words, Trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room. + +There is no denying that Jarber, when we were left together, looked +sadly discomposed. He had evidently forgotten to inquire about +dates; and, in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of +discoveries, it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just +read, had really and truly exhausted his present stock. I thought +myself bound, in common gratitude, to help him out of his +embarrassment by a timely suggestion. So I proposed that he should +come to tea again, on the next Monday evening, the thirteenth, and +should make such inquiries in the meantime, as might enable him to +dispose triumphantly of Trottle's objection. + +He gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of +acknowledgment, and took his leave. For the rest of the week I +would not encourage Trottle by allowing him to refer to the House at +all. I suspected he was making his own inquiries about dates, but I +put no questions to him. + +On Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate Jarber +came, punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly +harassed, that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and +fatigue. I saw, at a glance, that the question of dates had gone +against him, that Mr. Magsman had not been the last tenant of the +House, and that the reason of its emptiness was still to seek. + +"What I have gone through," said Jarber, "words are not eloquent +enough to tell. O Sophonisba, I have begun another series of +discoveries! Accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; +and wait to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until +you have heard Number Three." + +Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as +much. Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this +time. In the course of his investigations he had stepped into the +Circulating Library, to seek for information on the one important +subject. All the Library-people knew about the House was, that a +female relative of the last tenant, as they believed, had, just +after that tenant left, sent a little manuscript poem to them which +she described as referring to events that had actually passed in the +House; and which she wanted the proprietor of the Library to +publish. She had written no address on her letter; and the +proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given back to her +(the publishing of poems not being in his line) when she might call +for it. She had never called for it; and the poem had been lent to +Jarber, at his express request, to read to me. + +Before he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to +have him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his +obstinacy. To my surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me, +that Trottle had stepped out without saying where. I instantly felt +the strongest possible conviction that he was at his old tricks: +and that his stepping out in the evening, without leave, meant-- +Philandering. + +Controlling myself on my visitor's account, I dismissed Peggy, +stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to +listen to Jarber. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Going into Society by Charles Dickens + +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of George Silverman's Explanation* +#18 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +George Silverman's Explanation by Charles Dickens +Scanned and proofed by David Price +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION + + + + +FIRST CHAPTER + + + +IT happened in this wise - + +But, sitting with my pen in my hand looking at those words again, +without descrying any hint in them of the words that should follow, +it comes into my mind that they have an abrupt appearance. They +may serve, however, if I let them remain, to suggest how very +difficult I find it to begin to explain my explanation. An uncouth +phrase: and yet I do not see my way to a better. + + + +SECOND CHAPTER + + + +IT happened in THIS wise - + +But, looking at those words, and comparing them with my former +opening, I find they are the self-same words repeated. This is the +more surprising to me, because I employ them in quite a new +connection. For indeed I declare that my intention was to discard +the commencement I first had in my thoughts, and to give the +preference to another of an entirely different nature, dating my +explanation from an anterior period of my life. I will make a +third trial, without erasing this second failure, protesting that +it is not my design to conceal any of my infirmities, whether they +be of head or heart. + + + +THIRD CHAPTER + + + +NOT as yet directly aiming at how it came to pass, I will come upon +it by degrees. The natural manner, after all, for God knows that +is how it came upon me. + +My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my infant +home was a cellar in Preston. I recollect the sound of father's +Lancashire clogs on the street pavement above, as being different +in my young hearing from the sound of all other clogs; and I +recollect, that, when mother came down the cellar-steps, I used +tremblingly to speculate on her feet having a good or an ill- +tempered look, - on her knees, - on her waist, - until finally her +face came into view, and settled the question. From this it will +be seen that I was timid, and that the cellar-steps were steep, and +that the doorway was very low. + +Mother had the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon her +figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high- +pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of +bony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling her +eyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded, that was gaunt and +hungry. Father, with his shoulders rounded, would sit quiet on a +three-legged stool, looking at the empty grate, until she would +pluck the stool from under him, and bid him go bring some money +home. Then he would dismally ascend the steps; and I, holding my +ragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only braces), +would feint and dodge from mother's pursuing grasp at my hair. + +A worldly little devil was mother's usual name for me. Whether I +cried for that I was in the dark, or for that it was cold, or for +that I was hungry, or whether I squeezed myself into a warm corner +when there was a fire, or ate voraciously when there was food, she +would still say, 'O, you worldly little devil!' And the sting of +it was, that I quite well knew myself to be a worldly little devil. +Worldly as to wanting to be housed and warmed, worldly as to +wanting to be fed, worldly as to the greed with which I inwardly +compared how much I got of those good things with how much father +and mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going. + +Sometimes they both went away seeking work; and then I would be +locked up in the cellar for a day or two at a time. I was at my +worldliest then. Left alone, I yielded myself up to a worldly +yearning for enough of anything (except misery), and for the death +of mother's father, who was a machine-maker at Birmingham, and on +whose decease, I had heard mother say, she would come into a whole +courtful of houses 'if she had her rights.' Worldly little devil, +I would stand about, musingly fitting my cold bare feet into +cracked bricks and crevices of the damp cellar-floor, - walking +over my grandfather's body, so to speak, into the courtful of +houses, and selling them for meat and drink, and clothes to wear. + +At last a change came down into our cellar. The universal change +came down even as low as that, - so will it mount to any height on +which a human creature can perch, - and brought other changes with +it. + +We had a heap of I don't know what foul litter in the darkest +corner, which we called 'the bed.' For three days mother lay upon +it without getting up, and then began at times to laugh. If I had +ever heard her laugh before, it had been so seldom that the strange +sound frightened me. It frightened father too; and we took it by +turns to give her water. Then she began to move her head from side +to side, and sing. After that, she getting no better, father fell +a-laughing and a-singing; and then there was only I to give them +both water, and they both died. + + + +FOURTH CHAPTER + + + +WHEN I was lifted out of the cellar by two men, of whom one came +peeping down alone first, and ran away and brought the other, I +could hardly bear the light of the street. I was sitting in the +road-way, blinking at it, and at a ring of people collected around +me, but not close to me, when, true to my character of worldly +little devil, I broke silence by saying, 'I am hungry and thirsty!' + +'Does he know they are dead?' asked one of another. + +'Do you know your father and mother are both dead of fever?' asked +a third of me severely. + +'I don't know what it is to be dead. I supposed it meant that, +when the cup rattled against their teeth, and the water spilt over +them. I am hungry and thirsty.' That was all I had to say about +it. + +The ring of people widened outward from the inner side as I looked +around me; and I smelt vinegar, and what I know to be camphor, +thrown in towards where I sat. Presently some one put a great +vessel of smoking vinegar on the ground near me; and then they all +looked at me in silent horror as I ate and drank of what was +brought for me. I knew at the time they had a horror of me, but I +couldn't help it. + +I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur of discussion had +begun to arise respecting what was to be done with me next, when I +heard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, 'My name is +Hawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.' Then the ring +split in one place; and a yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, clad +all in iron-gray to his gaiters, pressed forward with a policeman +and another official of some sort. He came forward close to the +vessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himself +carefully, and me copiously. + +'He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who is just +dead too,' said Mr. Hawkyard. + +I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner, +'Where's his houses?' + +'Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,' said Mr. +Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get my +devil out of me. 'I have undertaken a slight - a very slight - +trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust: a matter of +mere honour, if not of mere sentiment: still I have taken it upon +myself, and it shall be (O, yes, it shall be!) discharged.' + +The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman much +more favourable than their opinion of me. + +'He shall be taught,' said Mr. Hawkyard, '(O, yes, he shall be +taught!) but what is to be done with him for the present? He may +be infected. He may disseminate infection.' The ring widened +considerably. 'What is to be done with him?' + +He held some talk with the two officials. I could distinguish no +word save 'Farm-house.' There was another sound several times +repeated, which was wholly meaningless in my ears then, but which I +knew afterwards to be 'Hoghton Towers.' + +'Yes,' said Mr. Hawkyard. 'I think that sounds promising; I think +that sounds hopeful. And he can be put by himself in a ward, for a +night or two, you say?' + +It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so; for it was he +who replied, Yes! It was he, too, who finally took me by the arm, +and walked me before him through the streets, into a whitewashed +room in a bare building, where I had a chair to sit in, a table to +sit at, an iron bedstead and good mattress to lie upon, and a rug +and blanket to cover me. Where I had enough to eat too, and was +shown how to clean the tin porringer in which it was conveyed to +me, until it was as good as a looking-glass. Here, likewise, I was +put in a bath, and had new clothes brought to me; and my old rags +were burnt, and I was camphored and vinegared and disinfected in a +variety of ways. + +When all this was done, - I don't know in how many days or how few, +but it matters not, - Mr. Hawkyard stepped in at the door, +remaining close to it, and said, 'Go and stand against the opposite +wall, George Silverman. As far off as you can. That'll do. How +do you feel?' + +I told him that I didn't feel cold, and didn't feel hungry, and +didn't feel thirsty. That was the whole round of human feelings, +as far as I knew, except the pain of being beaten. + +'Well,' said he, 'you are going, George, to a healthy farm-house to +be purified. Keep in the air there as much as you can. Live an +out-of-door life there, until you are fetched away. You had better +not say much - in fact, you had better be very careful not to say +anything - about what your parents died of, or they might not like +to take you in. Behave well, and I'll put you to school; O, yes! +I'll put you to school, though I'm not obligated to do it. I am a +servant of the Lord, George; and I have been a good servant to him, +I have, these five-and-thirty years. The Lord has had a good +servant in me, and he knows it.' + +What I then supposed him to mean by this, I cannot imagine. As +little do I know when I began to comprehend that he was a prominent +member of some obscure denomination or congregation, every member +of which held forth to the rest when so inclined, and among whom he +was called Brother Hawkyard. It was enough for me to know, on that +day in the ward, that the farmer's cart was waiting for me at the +street corner. I was not slow to get into it; for it was the first +ride I ever had in my life. + +It made me sleepy, and I slept. First, I stared at Preston streets +as long as they lasted; and, meanwhile, I may have had some small +dumb wondering within me whereabouts our cellar was; but I doubt +it. Such a worldly little devil was I, that I took no thought who +would bury father and mother, or where they would be buried, or +when. The question whether the eating and drinking by day, and the +covering by night, would be as good at the farm-house as at the +ward superseded those questions. + +The jolting of the cart on a loose stony road awoke me; and I found +that we were mounting a steep hill, where the road was a rutty by- +road through a field. And so, by fragments of an ancient terrace, +and by some rugged outbuildings that had once been fortified, and +passing under a ruined gateway we came to the old farm-house in the +thick stone wall outside the old quadrangle of Hoghton Towers: +which I looked at like a stupid savage, seeing no specially in, +seeing no antiquity in; assuming all farm-houses to resemble it; +assigning the decay I noticed to the one potent cause of all ruin +that I knew, - poverty; eyeing the pigeons in their flights, the +cattle in their stalls, the ducks in the pond, and the fowls +pecking about the yard, with a hungry hope that plenty of them +might be killed for dinner while I stayed there; wondering whether +the scrubbed dairy vessels, drying in the sunlight, could be goodly +porringers out of which the master ate his belly-filling food, and +which he polished when he had done, according to my ward +experience; shrinkingly doubtful whether the shadows, passing over +that airy height on the bright spring day, were not something in +the nature of frowns, - sordid, afraid, unadmiring, - a small brute +to shudder at. + +To that time I had never had the faintest impression of duty. I +had had no knowledge whatever that there was anything lovely in +this life. When I had occasionally slunk up the cellar-steps into +the street, and glared in at shop-windows, I had done so with no +higher feelings than we may suppose to animate a mangy young dog or +wolf-cub. It is equally the fact that I had never been alone, in +the sense of holding unselfish converse with myself. I had been +solitary often enough, but nothing better. + +Such was my condition when I sat down to my dinner that day, in the +kitchen of the old farm-house. Such was my condition when I lay on +my bed in the old farm-house that night, stretched out opposite the +narrow mullioned window, in the cold light of the moon, like a +young vampire. + + + +FIFTH CHAPTER + + + +WHAT do I know of Hoghton Towers? Very little; for I have been +gratefully unwilling to disturb my first impressions. A house, +centuries old, on high ground a mile or so removed from the road +between Preston and Blackburn, where the first James of England, in +his hurry to make money by making baronets, perhaps made some of +those remunerative dignitaries. A house, centuries old, deserted +and falling to pieces, its woods and gardens long since grass-land +or ploughed up, the Rivers Ribble and Darwen glancing below it, and +a vague haze of smoke, against which not even the supernatural +prescience of the first Stuart could foresee a counter-blast, +hinting at steam-power, powerful in two distances. + +What did I know then of Hoghton Towers? When I first peeped in at +the gate of the lifeless quadrangle, and started from the +mouldering statue becoming visible to me like its guardian ghost; +when I stole round by the back of the farm-house, and got in among +the ancient rooms, many of them with their floors and ceilings +falling, the beams and rafters hanging dangerously down, the +plaster dropping as I trod, the oaken panels stripped away, the +windows half walled up, half broken; when I discovered a gallery +commanding the old kitchen, and looked down between balustrades +upon a massive old table and benches, fearing to see I know not +what dead-alive creatures come in and seat themselves, and look up +with I know not what dreadful eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when +all over the house I was awed by gaps and chinks where the sky +stared sorrowfully at me, where the birds passed, and the ivy +rustled, and the stains of winter weather blotched the rotten +floors; when down at the bottom of dark pits of staircase, into +which the stairs had sunk, green leaves trembled, butterflies +fluttered, and bees hummed in and out through the broken door-ways; +when encircling the whole ruin were sweet scents, and sights of +fresh green growth, and ever-renewing life, that I had never +dreamed of, - I say, when I passed into such clouded perception of +these things as my dark soul could compass, what did I know then of +Hoghton Towers? + +I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me. Therein have +I anticipated the answer. I knew that all these things looked +sorrowfully at me; that they seemed to sigh or whisper, not without +pity for me, 'Alas! poor worldly little devil!' + +There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the smaller +pits of broken staircase when I craned over and looked in. They +were scuffling for some prey that was there; and, when they started +and hid themselves close together in the dark, I thought of the old +life (it had grown old already) in the cellar. + +How not to be this worldly little devil? how not to have a +repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid in a +corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened at myself, and +crying (it was the first time I had ever cried for any cause not +purely physical), and I tried to think about it. One of the farm- +ploughs came into my range of view just then; and it seemed to help +me as it went on with its two horses up and down the field so +peacefully and quietly. + +There was a girl of about my own age in the farm-house family, and +she sat opposite to me at the narrow table at meal-times. It had +come into my mind, at our first dinner, that she might take the +fever from me. The thought had not disquieted me then. I had only +speculated how she would look under the altered circumstances, and +whether she would die. But it came into my mind now, that I might +try to prevent her taking the fever by keeping away from her. I +knew I should have but scrambling board if I did; so much the less +worldly and less devilish the deed would be, I thought. + +From that hour, I withdrew myself at early morning into secret +corners of the ruined house, and remained hidden there until she +went to bed. At first, when meals were ready, I used to hear them +calling me; and then my resolution weakened. But I strengthened it +again by going farther off into the ruin, and getting out of +hearing. I often watched for her at the dim windows; and, when I +saw that she was fresh and rosy, felt much happier. + +Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to the humanising of +myself, I suppose some childish love arose within me. I felt, in +some sort, dignified by the pride of protecting her, - by the pride +of making the sacrifice for her. As my heart swelled with that new +feeling, it insensibly softened about mother and father. It seemed +to have been frozen before, and now to be thawed. The old ruin and +all the lovely things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me +only, but sorrowful for mother and father as well. Therefore did I +cry again, and often too. + +The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper, and +were very short with me; though they never stinted me in such +broken fare as was to be got out of regular hours. One night when +I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her +pretty name) had but just gone out of the room. Seeing her +ascending the opposite stairs, I stood still at the door. She had +heard the clink of the latch, and looked round. + +'George,' she called to me in a pleased voice, 'to-morrow is my +birthday; and we are to have a fiddler, and there's a party of boys +and girls coming in a cart, and we shall dance. I invite you. Be +sociable for once, George.' + +'I am very sorry, miss,' I answered; 'but I - but, no; I can't +come.' + +'You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,' she returned +disdainfully; 'and I ought not to have asked you. I shall never +speak to you again.' + +As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire, after she was gone, I +felt that the farmer bent his brows upon me. + +'Eh, lad!' said he; 'Sylvy's right. You're as moody and broody a +lad as never I set eyes on yet.' + +I tried to assure him that I meant no harm; but he only said +coldly, 'Maybe not, maybe not! There, get thy supper, get thy +supper; and then thou canst sulk to thy heart's content again.' + +Ah! if they could have seen me next day, in the ruin, watching for +the arrival of the cart full of merry young guests; if they could +have seen me at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly statue, +listening to the music and the fall of dancing feet, and watching +the lighted farm-house windows from the quadrangle when all the +ruin was dark; if they could have read my heart, as I crept up to +bed by the back way, comforting myself with the reflection, 'They +will take no hurt from me,' - they would not have thought mine a +morose or an unsocial nature. + +It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition; to be +of a timidly silent character under misconstruction; to have an +inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being sordid or +worldly. It was in these ways that my nature came to shape itself +to such a mould, even before it was affected by the influences of +the studious and retired life of a poor scholar. + + + +SIXTH CHAPTER + + + +BROTHER HAWKYARD (as he insisted on my calling him) put me to +school, and told me to work my way. 'You are all right, George,' +he said. 'I have been the best servant the Lord has had in his +service for this five-and-thirty year (O, I have!); and he knows +the value of such a servant as I have been to him (O, yes, he +does!); and he'll prosper your schooling as a part of my reward. +That's what HE'll do, George. He'll do it for me.' + +From the first I could not like this familiar knowledge of the ways +of the sublime, inscrutable Almighty, on Brother Hawkyard's part. +As I grew a little wiser, and still a little wiser, I liked it less +and less. His manner, too, of confirming himself in a parenthesis, +- as if, knowing himself, he doubted his own word, - I found +distasteful. I cannot tell how much these dislikes cost me; for I +had a dread that they were worldly. + +As time went on, I became a Foundation-boy on a good foundation, +and I cost Brother Hawkyard nothing. When I had worked my way so +far, I worked yet harder, in the hope of ultimately getting a +presentation to college and a fellowship. My health has never been +strong (some vapour from the Preston cellar cleaves to me, I +think); and what with much work and some weakness, I came again to +be regarded - that is, by my fellow-students - as unsocial. + +All through my time as a foundation-boy, I was within a few miles +of Brother Hawkyard's congregation; and whenever I was what we +called a leave-boy on a Sunday, I went over there at his desire. +Before the knowledge became forced upon me that outside their place +of meeting these brothers and sisters were no better than the rest +of the human family, but on the whole were, to put the case mildly, +as bad as most, in respect of giving short weight in their shops, +and not speaking the truth, - I say, before this knowledge became +forced upon me, their prolix addresses, their inordinate conceit, +their daring ignorance, their investment of the Supreme Ruler of +heaven and earth with their own miserable meannesses and +littlenesses, greatly shocked me. Still, as their term for the +frame of mind that could not perceive them to be in an exalted +state of grace was the 'worldly' state, I did for a time suffer +tortures under my inquiries of myself whether that young worldly- +devilish spirit of mine could secretly be lingering at the bottom +of my non-appreciation. + +Brother Hawkyard was the popular expounder in this assembly, and +generally occupied the platform (there was a little platform with a +table on it, in lieu of a pulpit) first, on a Sunday afternoon. He +was by trade a drysalter. Brother Gimblet, an elderly man with a +crabbed face, a large dog's-eared shirt-collar, and a spotted blue +neckerchief reaching up behind to the crown of his head, was also a +drysalter and an expounder. Brother Gimblet professed the greatest +admiration for Brother Hawkyard, but (I had thought more than once) +bore him a jealous grudge. + +Let whosoever may peruse these lines kindly take the pains here to +read twice my solemn pledge, that what I write of the language and +customs of the congregation in question I write scrupulously, +literally, exactly, from the life and the truth. + +On the first Sunday after I had won what I had so long tried for, +and when it was certain that I was going up to college, Brother +Hawkyard concluded a long exhortation thus: + +'Well, my friends and fellow-sinners, now I told you when I began, +that I didn't know a word of what I was going to say to you (and +no, I did not!), but that it was all one to me, because I knew the +Lord would put into my mouth the words I wanted.' + +('That's it!' from Brother Gimblet.) + +'And he did put into my mouth the words I wanted.' + +('So he did!' from Brother Gimblet.) + +'And why?' + +('Ah, let's have that!' from Brother Gimblet.) + +'Because I have been his faithful servant for five-and-thirty +years, and because he knows it. For five-and-thirty years! And he +knows it, mind you! I got those words that I wanted on account of +my wages. I got 'em from the Lord, my fellow-sinners. Down! I +said, "Here's a heap of wages due; let us have something down, on +account." And I got it down, and I paid it over to you; and you +won't wrap it up in a napkin, nor yet in a towel, nor yet +pocketankercher, but you'll put it out at good interest. Very +well. Now, my brothers and sisters and fellow-sinners, I am going +to conclude with a question, and I'll make it so plain (with the +help of the Lord, after five-and-thirty years, I should rather +hope!) as that the Devil shall not be able to confuse it in your +heads, - which he would be overjoyed to do.' + +('Just his way. Crafty old blackguard!' from Brother Gimblet.) + +'And the question is this, Are the angels learned?' + +('Not they. Not a bit on it!' from Brother Gimblet, with the +greatest confidence.) + +'Not they. And where's the proof? sent ready-made by the hand of +the Lord. Why, there's one among us here now, that has got all the +learning that can be crammed into him. I got him all the learning +that could be crammed into him. His grandfather' (this I had never +heard before) 'was a brother of ours. He was Brother Parksop. +That's what he was. Parksop; Brother Parksop. His worldly name +was Parksop, and he was a brother of this brotherhood. Then wasn't +he Brother Parksop?' + +('Must be. Couldn't help hisself!' from Brother Gimblet.) + +'Well, he left that one now here present among us to the care of a +brother-sinner of his (and that brother-sinner, mind you, was a +sinner of a bigger size in his time than any of you; praise the +Lord!), Brother Hawkyard. Me. I got him without fee or reward, - +without a morsel of myrrh, or frankincense, nor yet amber, letting +alone the honeycomb, - all the learning that could be crammed into +him. Has it brought him into our temple, in the spirit? No. Have +we had any ignorant brothers and sisters that didn't know round O +from crooked S, come in among us meanwhile? Many. Then the angels +are NOT learned; then they don't so much as know their alphabet. +And now, my friends and fellow-sinners, having brought it to that, +perhaps some brother present - perhaps you, Brother Gimblet - will +pray a bit for us?' + +Brother Gimblet undertook the sacred function, after having drawn +his sleeve across his mouth, and muttered, 'Well! I don't know as +I see my way to hitting any of you quite in the right place +neither.' He said this with a dark smile, and then began to +bellow. What we were specially to be preserved from, according to +his solicitations, was, despoilment of the orphan, suppression of +testamentary intentions on the part of a father or (say) +grandfather, appropriation of the orphan's house-property, feigning +to give in charity to the wronged one from whom we withheld his +due; and that class of sins. He ended with the petition, 'Give us +peace!' which, speaking for myself, was very much needed after +twenty minutes of his bellowing. + +Even though I had not seen him when he rose from his knees, +steaming with perspiration, glance at Brother Hawkyard, and even +though I had not heard Brother Hawkyard's tone of congratulating +him on the vigour with which he had roared, I should have detected +a malicious application in this prayer. Unformed suspicions to a +similar effect had sometimes passed through my mind in my earlier +school-days, and had always caused me great distress; for they were +worldly in their nature, and wide, very wide, of the spirit that +had drawn me from Sylvia. They were sordid suspicions, without a +shadow of proof. They were worthy to have originated in the +unwholesome cellar. They were not only without proof, but against +proof; for was I not myself a living proof of what Brother Hawkyard +had done? and without him, how should I ever have seen the sky look +sorrowfully down upon that wretched boy at Hoghton Towers? + +Although the dread of a relapse into a stage of savage selfishness +was less strong upon me as I approached manhood, and could act in +an increased degree for myself, yet I was always on my guard +against any tendency to such relapse. After getting these +suspicions under my feet, I had been troubled by not being able to +like Brother Hawkyard's manner, or his professed religion. So it +came about, that, as I walked back that Sunday evening, I thought +it would be an act of reparation for any such injury my struggling +thoughts had unwillingly done him, if I wrote, and placed in his +hands, before going to college, a full acknowledgment of his +goodness to me, and an ample tribute of thanks. It might serve as +an implied vindication of him against any dark scandal from a rival +brother and expounder, or from any other quarter. + +Accordingly, I wrote the document with much care. I may add with +much feeling too; for it affected me as I went on. Having no set +studies to pursue, in the brief interval between leaving the +Foundation and going to Cambridge, I determined to walk out to his +place of business, and give it into his own hands. + +It was a winter afternoon, when I tapped at the door of his little +counting-house, which was at the farther end of his long, low shop. +As I did so (having entered by the back yard, where casks and boxes +were taken in, and where there was the inscription, 'Private way to +the counting-house'), a shopman called to me from the counter that +he was engaged. + +'Brother Gimblet' (said the shopman, who was one of the +brotherhood) 'is with him.' + +I thought this all the better for my purpose, and made bold to tap +again. They were talking in a low tone, and money was passing; for +I heard it being counted out. + +'Who is it?' asked Brother Hawkyard, sharply. + +'George Silverman,' I answered, holding the door open. 'May I come +in?' + +Both brothers seemed so astounded to see me that I felt shyer than +usual. But they looked quite cadaverous in the early gaslight, and +perhaps that accidental circumstance exaggerated the expression of +their faces. + +'What is the matter?' asked Brother Hawkyard. + +'Ay! what is the matter?' asked Brother Gimblet. + +'Nothing at all,' I said, diffidently producing my document: 'I am +only the bearer of a letter from myself.' + +'From yourself, George?' cried Brother Hawkyard. + +'And to you,' said I. + +'And to me, George?' + +He turned paler, and opened it hurriedly; but looking over it, and +seeing generally what it was, became less hurried, recovered his +colour, and said, 'Praise the Lord!' + +'That's it!' cried Brother Gimblet. 'Well put! Amen.' + +Brother Hawkyard then said, in a livelier strain, 'You must know, +George, that Brother Gimblet and I are going to make our two +businesses one. We are going into partnership. We are settling it +now. Brother Gimblet is to take one clear half of the profits (O, +yes! he shall have it; he shall have it to the last farthing).' + +'D.V.!' said Brother Gimblet, with his right fist firmly clinched +on his right leg. + +'There is no objection,' pursued Brother Hawkyard, 'to my reading +this aloud, George?' + +As it was what I expressly desired should be done, after +yesterday's prayer, I more than readily begged him to read it +aloud. He did so; and Brother Gimblet listened with a crabbed +smile. + +'It was in a good hour that I came here,' he said, wrinkling up his +eyes. 'It was in a good hour, likewise, that I was moved yesterday +to depict for the terror of evil-doers a character the direct +opposite of Brother Hawkyard's. But it was the Lord that done it: +I felt him at it while I was perspiring.' + +After that it was proposed by both of them that I should attend the +congregation once more before my final departure. What my shy +reserve would undergo, from being expressly preached at and prayed +at, I knew beforehand. But I reflected that it would be for the +last time, and that it might add to the weight of my letter. It +was well known to the brothers and sisters that there was no place +taken for me in THEIR paradise; and if I showed this last token of +deference to Brother Hawkyard, notoriously in despite of my own +sinful inclinations, it might go some little way in aid of my +statement that he had been good to me, and that I was grateful to +him. Merely stipulating, therefore, that no express endeavour +should be made for my conversion, - which would involve the rolling +of several brothers and sisters on the floor, declaring that they +felt all their sins in a heap on their left side, weighing so many +pounds avoirdupois, as I knew from what I had seen of those +repulsive mysteries, - I promised. + +Since the reading of my letter, Brother Gimblet had been at +intervals wiping one eye with an end of his spotted blue +neckerchief, and grinning to himself. It was, however, a habit +that brother had, to grin in an ugly manner even when expounding. +I call to mind a delighted snarl with which he used to detail from +the platform the torments reserved for the wicked (meaning all +human creation except the brotherhood), as being remarkably +hideous. + +I left the two to settle their articles of partnership, and count +money; and I never saw them again but on the following Sunday. +Brother Hawkyard died within two or three years, leaving all he +possessed to Brother Gimblet, in virtue of a will dated (as I have +been told) that very day. + +Now I was so far at rest with myself, when Sunday came, knowing +that I had conquered my own mistrust, and righted Brother Hawkyard +in the jaundiced vision of a rival, that I went, even to that +coarse chapel, in a less sensitive state than usual. How could I +foresee that the delicate, perhaps the diseased, corner of my mind, +where I winced and shrunk when it was touched, or was even +approached, would be handled as the theme of the whole proceedings? + +On this occasion it was assigned to Brother Hawkyard to pray, and +to Brother Gimblet to preach. The prayer was to open the +ceremonies; the discourse was to come next. Brothers Hawkyard and +Gimblet were both on the platform; Brother Hawkyard on his knees at +the table, unmusically ready to pray; Brother Gimblet sitting +against the wall, grinningly ready to preach. + +'Let us offer up the sacrifice of prayer, my brothers and sisters +and fellow-sinners.' Yes; but it was I who was the sacrifice. It +was our poor, sinful, worldly-minded brother here present who was +wrestled for. The now-opening career of this our unawakened +brother might lead to his becoming a minister of what was called +'the church.' That was what HE looked to. The church. Not the +chapel, Lord. The church. No rectors, no vicars, no archdeacons, +no bishops, no archbishops, in the chapel, but, O Lord! many such +in the church. Protect our sinful brother from his love of lucre. +Cleanse from our unawakened brother's breast his sin of worldly- +mindedness. The prayer said infinitely more in words, but nothing +more to any intelligible effect. + +Then Brother Gimblet came forward, and took (as I knew he would) +the text, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' Ah! but whose was, my +fellow-sinners? Whose? Why, our brother's here present was. The +only kingdom he had an idea of was of this world. ('That's it!' +from several of the congregation.) What did the woman do when she +lost the piece of money? Went and looked for it. What should our +brother do when he lost his way? ('Go and look for it,' from a +sister.) Go and look for it, true. But must he look for it in the +right direction, or in the wrong? ('In the right,' from a +brother.) There spake the prophets! He must look for it in the +right direction, or he couldn't find it. But he had turned his +back upon the right direction, and he wouldn't find it. Now, my +fellow-sinners, to show you the difference betwixt worldly- +mindedness and unworldly-mindedness, betwixt kingdoms not of this +world and kingdoms OF this world, here was a letter wrote by even +our worldly-minded brother unto Brother Hawkyard. Judge, from +hearing of it read, whether Brother Hawkyard was the faithful +steward that the Lord had in his mind only t'other day, when, in +this very place, he drew you the picter of the unfaithful one; for +it was him that done it, not me. Don't doubt that! + +Brother Gimblet then groaned and bellowed his way through my +composition, and subsequently through an hour. The service closed +with a hymn, in which the brothers unanimously roared, and the +sisters unanimously shrieked at me, That I by wiles of worldly gain +was mocked, and they on waters of sweet love were rocked; that I +with mammon struggled in the dark, while they were floating in a +second ark. + +I went out from all this with an aching heart and a weary spirit: +not because I was quite so weak as to consider these narrow +creatures interpreters of the Divine Majesty and Wisdom, but +because I was weak enough to feel as though it were my hard fortune +to be misrepresented and misunderstood, when I most tried to subdue +any risings of mere worldliness within me, and when I most hoped +that, by dint of trying earnestly, I had succeeded. + + + +SEVENTH CHAPTER + + + +MY timidity and my obscurity occasioned me to live a secluded life +at college, and to be little known. No relative ever came to visit +me, for I had no relative. No intimate friends broke in upon my +studies, for I made no intimate friends. I supported myself on my +scholarship, and read much. My college time was otherwise not so +very different from my time at Hoghton Towers. + +Knowing myself to be unfit for the noisier stir of social +existence, but believing myself qualified to do my duty in a +moderate, though earnest way, if I could obtain some small +preferment in the Church, I applied my mind to the clerical +profession. In due sequence I took orders, was ordained, and began +to look about me for employment. I must observe that I had taken a +good degree, that I had succeeded in winning a good fellowship, and +that my means were ample for my retired way of life. By this time +I had read with several young men; and the occupation increased my +income, while it was highly interesting to me. I once accidentally +overheard our greatest don say, to my boundless joy, 'That he heard +it reported of Silverman that his gift of quiet explanation, his +patience, his amiable temper, and his conscientiousness made him +the best of coaches.' May my 'gift of quiet explanation' come more +seasonably and powerfully to my aid in this present explanation +than I think it will! + +It may be in a certain degree owing to the situation of my college- +rooms (in a corner where the daylight was sobered), but it is in a +much larger degree referable to the state of my own mind, that I +seem to myself, on looking back to this time of my life, to have +been always in the peaceful shade. I can see others in the +sunlight; I can see our boats' crews and our athletic young men on +the glistening water, or speckled with the moving lights of sunlit +leaves; but I myself am always in the shadow looking on. Not +unsympathetically, - God forbid! - but looking on alone, much as I +looked at Sylvia from the shadows of the ruined house, or looked at +the red gleam shining through the farmer's windows, and listened to +the fall of dancing feet, when all the ruin was dark that night in +the quadrangle. + +I now come to the reason of my quoting that laudation of myself +above given. Without such reason, to repeat it would have been +mere boastfulness. + +Among those who had read with me was Mr. Fareway, second son of +Lady Fareway, widow of Sir Gaston Fareway, baronet. This young +gentleman's abilities were much above the average; but he came of a +rich family, and was idle and luxurious. He presented himself to +me too late, and afterwards came to me too irregularly, to admit of +my being of much service to him. In the end, I considered it my +duty to dissuade him from going up for an examination which he +could never pass; and he left college without a degree. After his +departure, Lady Fareway wrote to me, representing the justice of my +returning half my fee, as I had been of so little use to her son. +Within my knowledge a similar demand had not been made in any other +case; and I most freely admit that the justice of it had not +occurred to me until it was pointed out. But I at once perceived +it, yielded to it, and returned the money - + +Mr. Fareway had been gone two years or more, and I had forgotten +him, when he one day walked into my rooms as I was sitting at my +books. + +Said he, after the usual salutations had passed, 'Mr. Silverman, my +mother is in town here, at the hotel, and wishes me to present you +to her.' + +I was not comfortable with strangers, and I dare say I betrayed +that I was a little nervous or unwilling. 'For,' said he, without +my having spoken, 'I think the interview may tend to the +advancement of your prospects.' + +It put me to the blush to think that I should be tempted by a +worldly reason, and I rose immediately. + +Said Mr. Fareway, as we went along, 'Are you a good hand at +business?' + +'I think not,' said I. + +Said Mr. Fareway then, 'My mother is.' + +'Truly?' said I. + +'Yes: my mother is what is usually called a managing woman. +Doesn't make a bad thing, for instance, even out of the spendthrift +habits of my eldest brother abroad. In short, a managing woman. +This is in confidence.' + +He had never spoken to me in confidence, and I was surprised by his +doing so. I said I should respect his confidence, of course, and +said no more on the delicate subject. We had but a little way to +walk, and I was soon in his mother's company. He presented me, +shook hands with me, and left us two (as he said) to business. + +I saw in my Lady Fareway a handsome, well-preserved lady of +somewhat large stature, with a steady glare in her great round dark +eyes that embarrassed me. + +Said my lady, 'I have heard from my son, Mr. Silverman, that you +would be glad of some preferment in the church.' I gave my lady to +understand that was so. + +'I don't know whether you are aware,' my lady proceeded, 'that we +have a presentation to a living? I say WE have; but, in point of +fact, I have.' + +I gave my lady to understand that I had not been aware of this. + +Said my lady, 'So it is: indeed I have two presentations, - one to +two hundred a year, one to six. Both livings are in our county, - +North Devonshire, - as you probably know. The first is vacant. +Would you like it?' + +What with my lady's eyes, and what with the suddenness of this +proposed gift, I was much confused. + +'I am sorry it is not the larger presentation,' said my lady, +rather coldly; 'though I will not, Mr. Silverman, pay you the bad +compliment of supposing that YOU are, because that would be +mercenary, - and mercenary I am persuaded you are not.' + +Said I, with my utmost earnestness, 'Thank you, Lady Fareway, thank +you, thank you! I should be deeply hurt if I thought I bore the +character.' + +'Naturally,' said my lady. 'Always detestable, but particularly in +a clergyman. You have not said whether you will like the living?' + +With apologies for my remissness or indistinctness, I assured my +lady that I accepted it most readily and gratefully. I added that +I hoped she would not estimate my appreciation of the generosity of +her choice by my flow of words; for I was not a ready man in that +respect when taken by surprise or touched at heart. + +'The affair is concluded,' said my lady; 'concluded. You will find +the duties very light, Mr. Silverman. Charming house; charming +little garden, orchard, and all that. You will be able to take +pupils. By the bye! No: I will return to the word afterwards. +What was I going to mention, when it put me out?' + +My lady stared at me, as if I knew. And I didn't know. And that +perplexed me afresh. + +Said my lady, after some consideration, 'O, of course, how very +dull of me! The last incumbent, - least mercenary man I ever saw, +- in consideration of the duties being so light and the house so +delicious, couldn't rest, he said, unless I permitted him to help +me with my correspondence, accounts, and various little things of +that kind; nothing in themselves, but which it worries a lady to +cope with. Would Mr. Silverman also like to -? Or shall I -?' + +I hastened to say that my poor help would be always at her +ladyship's service. + +'I am absolutely blessed,' said my lady, casting up her eyes (and +so taking them off me for one moment), 'in having to do with +gentlemen who cannot endure an approach to the idea of being +mercenary!' She shivered at the word. 'And now as to the pupil.' + +'The -?' I was quite at a loss. + +'Mr. Silverman, you have no idea what she is. She is,' said my +lady, laying her touch upon my coat-sleeve, 'I do verily believe, +the most extraordinary girl in this world. Already knows more +Greek and Latin than Lady Jane Grey. And taught herself! Has not +yet, remember, derived a moment's advantage from Mr. Silverman's +classical acquirements. To say nothing of mathematics, which she +is bent upon becoming versed in, and in which (as I hear from my +son and others) Mr. Silverman's reputation is so deservedly high!' + +Under my lady's eyes I must have lost the clue, I felt persuaded; +and yet I did not know where I could have dropped it. + +'Adelina,' said my lady, 'is my only daughter. If I did not feel +quite convinced that I am not blinded by a mother's partiality; +unless I was absolutely sure that when you know her, Mr. Silverman, +you will esteem it a high and unusual privilege to direct her +studies, - I should introduce a mercenary element into this +conversation, and ask you on what terms - ' + +I entreated my lady to go no further. My lady saw that I was +troubled, and did me the honour to comply with my request. + + + +EIGHTH CHAPTER + + + +EVERYTHING in mental acquisition that her brother might have been, +if he would, and everything in all gracious charms and admirable +qualities that no one but herself could be, - this was Adelina. + +I will not expatiate upon her beauty; I will not expatiate upon her +intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory, +her sweet consideration, from the first moment, for the slow-paced +tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I +am over sixty now: she is ever present to me in these hours as she +was in those, bright and beautiful and young, wise and fanciful and +good. + +When I discovered that I loved her, how can I say? In the first +day? in the first week? in the first month? Impossible to trace. +If I be (as I am) unable to represent to myself any previous period +of my life as quite separable from her attracting power, how can I +answer for this one detail? + +Whensoever I made the discovery, it laid a heavy burden on me. And +yet, comparing it with the far heavier burden that I afterwards +took up, it does not seem to me now to have been very hard to bear. +In the knowledge that I did love her, and that I should love her +while my life lasted, and that I was ever to hide my secret deep in +my own breast, and she was never to find it, there was a kind of +sustaining joy or pride, or comfort, mingled with my pain. + +But later on, - say, a year later on, - when I made another +discovery, then indeed my suffering and my struggle were strong. +That other discovery was - + +These words will never see the light, if ever, until my heart is +dust; until her bright spirit has returned to the regions of which, +when imprisoned here, it surely retained some unusual glimpse of +remembrance; until all the pulses that ever beat around us shall +have long been quiet; until all the fruits of all the tiny +victories and defeats achieved in our little breasts shall have +withered away. That discovery was that she loved me. + +She may have enhanced my knowledge, and loved me for that; she may +have over-valued my discharge of duty to her, and loved me for +that; she may have refined upon a playful compassion which she +would sometimes show for what she called my want of wisdom, +according to the light of the world's dark lanterns, and loved me +for that; she may - she must - have confused the borrowed light of +what I had only learned, with its brightness in its pure, original +rays; but she loved me at that time, and she made me know it. + +Pride of family and pride of wealth put me as far off from her in +my lady's eyes as if I had been some domesticated creature of +another kind. But they could not put me farther from her than I +put myself when I set my merits against hers. More than that. +They could not put me, by millions of fathoms, half so low beneath +her as I put myself when in imagination I took advantage of her +noble trustfulness, took the fortune that I knew she must possess +in her own right, and left her to find herself, in the zenith of +her beauty and genius, bound to poor rusty, plodding me. + +No! Worldliness should not enter here at any cost. If I had tried +to keep it out of other ground, how much harder was I bound to try +to keep it out from this sacred place! + +But there was something daring in her broad, generous character, +that demanded at so delicate a crisis to be delicately and +patiently addressed. And many and many a bitter night (O, I found +I could cry for reasons not purely physical, at this pass of my +life!) I took my course. + +My lady had, in our first interview, unconsciously overstated the +accommodation of my pretty house. There was room in it for only +one pupil. He was a young gentleman near coming of age, very well +connected, but what is called a poor relation. His parents were +dead. The charges of his living and reading with me were defrayed +by an uncle; and he and I were to do our utmost together for three +years towards qualifying him to make his way. At this time he had +entered into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever, +energetic, enthusiastic; bold; in the best sense of the term, a +thorough young Anglo-Saxon. + +I resolved to bring these two together. + + + +NINTH CHAPTER + + + +SAID I, one night, when I had conquered myself, 'Mr. Granville,' - +Mr. Granville Wharton his name was, - 'I doubt if you have ever yet +so much as seen Miss Fareway.' + +'Well, sir,' returned he, laughing, 'you see her so much yourself, +that you hardly leave another fellow a chance of seeing her.' + +'I am her tutor, you know,' said I. + +And there the subject dropped for that time. But I so contrived as +that they should come together shortly afterwards. I had +previously so contrived as to keep them asunder; for while I loved +her, - I mean before I had determined on my sacrifice, - a lurking +jealousy of Mr. Granville lay within my unworthy breast. + +It was quite an ordinary interview in the Fareway Park but they +talked easily together for some time: like takes to like, and they +had many points of resemblance. Said Mr. Granville to me, when he +and I sat at our supper that night, 'Miss Fareway is remarkably +beautiful, sir, remarkably engaging. Don't you think so?' 'I +think so,' said I. And I stole a glance at him, and saw that he +had reddened and was thoughtful. I remember it most vividly, +because the mixed feeling of grave pleasure and acute pain that the +slight circumstance caused me was the first of a long, long series +of such mixed impressions under which my hair turned slowly gray. + +I had not much need to feign to be subdued; but I counterfeited to +be older than I was in all respects (Heaven knows! my heart being +all too young the while), and feigned to be more of a recluse and +bookworm than I had really become, and gradually set up more and +more of a fatherly manner towards Adelina. Likewise I made my +tuition less imaginative than before; separated myself from my +poets and philosophers; was careful to present them in their own +light, and me, their lowly servant, in my own shade. Moreover, in +the matter of apparel I was equally mindful; not that I had ever +been dapper that way; but that I was slovenly now. + +As I depressed myself with one hand, so did I labour to raise Mr. +Granville with the other; directing his attention to such subjects +as I too well knew interested her, and fashioning him (do not +deride or misconstrue the expression, unknown reader of this +writing; for I have suffered!) into a greater resemblance to myself +in my solitary one strong aspect. And gradually, gradually, as I +saw him take more and more to these thrown-out lures of mine, then +did I come to know better and better that love was drawing him on, +and was drawing her from me. + +So passed more than another year; every day a year in its number of +my mixed impressions of grave pleasure and acute pain; and then +these two, being of age and free to act legally for themselves, +came before me hand in hand (my hair being now quite white), and +entreated me that I would unite them together. 'And indeed, dear +tutor,' said Adelina, 'it is but consistent in you that you should +do this thing for us, seeing that we should never have spoken +together that first time but for you, and that but for you we could +never have met so often afterwards.' The whole of which was +literally true; for I had availed myself of my many business +attendances on, and conferences with, my lady, to take Mr. +Granville to the house, and leave him in the outer room with +Adelina. + +I knew that my lady would object to such a marriage for her +daughter, or to any marriage that was other than an exchange of her +for stipulated lands, goods, and moneys. But looking on the two, +and seeing with full eyes that they were both young and beautiful; +and knowing that they were alike in the tastes and acquirements +that will outlive youth and beauty; and considering that Adelina +had a fortune now, in her own keeping; and considering further that +Mr. Granville, though for the present poor, was of a good family +that had never lived in a cellar in Preston; and believing that +their love would endure, neither having any great discrepancy to +find out in the other, - I told them of my readiness to do this +thing which Adelina asked of her dear tutor, and to send them +forth, husband and wife, into the shining world with golden gates +that awaited them. + +It was on a summer morning that I rose before the sun to compose +myself for the crowning of my work with this end; and my dwelling +being near to the sea, I walked down to the rocks on the shore, in +order that I might behold the sun in his majesty. + +The tranquillity upon the deep, and on the firmament, the orderly +withdrawal of the stars, the calm promise of coming day, the rosy +suffusion of the sky and waters, the ineffable splendour that then +burst forth, attuned my mind afresh after the discords of the +night. Methought that all I looked on said to me, and that all I +heard in the sea and in the air said to me, 'Be comforted, mortal, +that thy life is so short. Our preparation for what is to follow +has endured, and shall endure, for unimaginable ages.' + +I married them. I knew that my hand was cold when I placed it on +their hands clasped together; but the words with which I had to +accompany the action I could say without faltering, and I was at +peace. + +They being well away from my house and from the place after our +simple breakfast, the time was come when I must do what I had +pledged myself to them that I would do, - break the intelligence to +my lady. + +I went up to the house, and found my lady in her ordinary business- +room. She happened to have an unusual amount of commissions to +intrust to me that day; and she had filled my hands with papers +before I could originate a word. + +'My lady,' I then began, as I stood beside her table. + +'Why, what's the matter?' she said quickly, looking up. + +'Not much, I would fain hope, after you shall have prepared +yourself, and considered a little.' + +'Prepared myself; and considered a little! You appear to have +prepared YOURSELF but indifferently, anyhow, Mr. Silverman.' This +mighty scornfully, as I experienced my usual embarrassment under +her stare. + +Said I, in self-extenuation once for all, 'Lady Fareway, I have but +to say for myself that I have tried to do my duty.' + +'For yourself?' repeated my lady. 'Then there are others +concerned, I see. Who are they?' + +I was about to answer, when she made towards the bell with a dart +that stopped me, and said, 'Why, where is Adelina?' + +'Forbear! be calm, my lady. I married her this morning to Mr. +Granville Wharton.' + +She set her lips, looked more intently at me than ever, raised her +right hand, and smote me hard upon the cheek. + +'Give me back those papers! give me back those papers!' She tore +them out of my hands, and tossed them on her table. Then seating +herself defiantly in her great chair, and folding her arms, she +stabbed me to the heart with the unlooked-for reproach, 'You +worldly wretch!' + +'Worldly?' I cried. 'Worldly?' + +'This, if you please,' - she went on with supreme scorn, pointing +me out as if there were some one there to see, - 'this, if you +please, is the disinterested scholar, with not a design beyond his +books! This, if you please, is the simple creature whom any one +could overreach in a bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. +Silverman! Not of this world; not he! He has too much simplicity +for this world's cunning. He has too much singleness of purpose to +be a match for this world's double-dealing. What did he give you +for it?' + +'For what? And who?' + +'How much,' she asked, bending forward in her great chair, and +insultingly tapping the fingers of her right hand on the palm of +her left, - 'how much does Mr. Granville Wharton pay you for +getting him Adelina's money? What is the amount of your percentage +upon Adelina's fortune? What were the terms of the agreement that +you proposed to this boy when you, the Rev. George Silverman, +licensed to marry, engaged to put him in possession of this girl? +You made good terms for yourself, whatever they were. He would +stand a poor chance against your keenness.' + +Bewildered, horrified, stunned by this cruel perversion, I could +not speak. But I trust that I looked innocent, being so. + +'Listen to me, shrewd hypocrite,' said my lady, whose anger +increased as she gave it utterance; 'attend to my words, you +cunning schemer, who have carried this plot through with such a +practised double face that I have never suspected you. I had my +projects for my daughter; projects for family connection; projects +for fortune. You have thwarted them, and overreached me; but I am +not one to be thwarted and overreached without retaliation. Do you +mean to hold this living another month?' + +'Do you deem it possible, Lady Fareway, that I can hold it another +hour, under your injurious words?' + +'Is it resigned, then?' + +'It was mentally resigned, my lady, some minutes ago.' + +Don't equivocate, sir. IS it resigned?' + +'Unconditionally and entirely; and I would that I had never, never +come near it!' + +'A cordial response from me to THAT wish, Mr. Silverman! But take +this with you, sir. If you had not resigned it, I would have had +you deprived of it. And though you have resigned it, you will not +get quit of me as easily as you think for. I will pursue you with +this story. I will make this nefarious conspiracy of yours, for +money, known. You have made money by it, but you have at the same +time made an enemy by it. YOU will take good care that the money +sticks to you; I will take good care that the enemy sticks to you.' + +Then said I finally, 'Lady Fareway, I think my heart is broken. +Until I came into this room just now, the possibility of such mean +wickedness as you have imputed to me never dawned upon my thoughts. +Your suspicions - ' + +'Suspicions! Pah!' said she indignantly. 'Certainties.' + +'Your certainties, my lady, as you call them, your suspicions as I +call them, are cruel, unjust, wholly devoid of foundation in fact. +I can declare no more; except that I have not acted for my own +profit or my own pleasure. I have not in this proceeding +considered myself. Once again, I think my heart is broken. If I +have unwittingly done any wrong with a righteous motive, that is +some penalty to pay.' + +She received this with another and more indignant 'Pah!' and I made +my way out of her room (I think I felt my way out with my hands, +although my eyes were open), almost suspecting that my voice had a +repulsive sound, and that I was a repulsive object. + +There was a great stir made, the bishop was appealed to, I received +a severe reprimand, and narrowly escaped suspension. For years a +cloud hung over me, and my name was tarnished. + +But my heart did not break, if a broken heart involves death; for I +lived through it. + +They stood by me, Adelina and her husband, through it all. Those +who had known me at college, and even most of those who had only +known me there by reputation, stood by me too. Little by little, +the belief widened that I was not capable of what was laid to my +charge. At length I was presented to a college-living in a +sequestered place, and there I now pen my explanation. I pen it at +my open window in the summer-time, before me, lying in the +churchyard, equal resting-place for sound hearts, wounded hearts, +and broken hearts. I pen it for the relief of my own mind, not +foreseeing whether or no it will ever have a reader. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of George Silverman's Explanation + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens +#25 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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Also please be aware if spell-checking, +that within dialog many 'mispelled' words exist, i.e. 'wery' for +'very', as intended by the author. + + + + + +BARNABY RUDGE - A TALE OF THE RIOTS OF 'EIGHTY + +by + +Charles Dickens + + + +PREFACE + + +The late Mr Waterton having, some time ago, expressed his opinion +that ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offered +the few following words about my experience of these birds. + +The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of +whom I was, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was +in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest +retirement in London, by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had +from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, 'good gifts', +which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary +manner. He slept in a stable--generally on horseback--and so +terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he +has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off +unmolested with the dog's dinner, from before his face. He was +rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when, in an evil hour, +his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, +saw that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to +possess it. On their going to dinner, he ate up all they had left +behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead; and this +youthful indiscretion terminated in death. + +While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine +in Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village +public-house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for +a consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this Sage, +was, to administer to the effects of his predecessor, by +disinterring all the cheese and halfpence he had buried in the +garden--a work of immense labour and research, to which he devoted +all the energies of his mind. When he had achieved this task, he +applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he +soon became such an adept, that he would perch outside my window +and drive imaginary horses with great skill, all day. Perhaps +even I never saw him at his best, for his former master sent his +duty with him, 'and if I wished the bird to come out very strong, +would I be so good as to show him a drunken man'--which I never +did, having (unfortunately) none but sober people at hand. + +But I could hardly have respected him more, whatever the +stimulating influences of this sight might have been. He had not +the least respect, I am sorry to say, for me in return, or for +anybody but the cook; to whom he was attached--but only, I fear, as +a Policeman might have been. Once, I met him unexpectedly, about +half-a-mile from my house, walking down the middle of a public +street, attended by a pretty large crowd, and spontaneously +exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under +those trying circumstances, I can never forget, nor the +extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he +defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered by numbers. It +may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it +may have been that he took some pernicious substance into his bill, +and thence into his maw--which is not improbable, seeing that he +new-pointed the greater part of the garden-wall by digging out the +mortar, broke countless squares of glass by scraping away the putty +all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed, in splinters, the +greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing--but +after some three years he too was taken ill, and died before the +kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it +roasted, and suddenly. turned over on his back with a sepulchral +cry of 'Cuckoo!' Since then I have been ravenless. + +No account of the Gordon Riots having been to my knowledge +introduced into any Work of Fiction, and the subject presenting +very extraordinary and remarkable features, I was led to project +this Tale. + +It is unnecessary to say, that those shameful tumults, while they +reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, +and all who had act or part in them, teach a good lesson. That +what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who +have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought the +commonest principles of right and wrong; that it is begotten of +intolerance and persecution; that it is senseless, besotted, +inveterate and unmerciful; all History teaches us. But perhaps we +do not know it in our hearts too well, to profit by even so humble +an example as the 'No Popery' riots of Seventeen Hundred and Eighty. + +However imperfectly those disturbances are set forth in the +following pages, they are impartially painted by one who has no +sympathy with the Romish Church, though he acknowledges, as most +men do, some esteemed friends among the followers of its creed. + +In the description of the principal outrages, reference has been +had to the best authorities of that time, such as they are; the +account given in this Tale, of all the main features of the Riots, +is substantially correct. + +Mr Dennis's allusions to the flourishing condition of his trade in +those days, have their foundation in Truth, and not in the +Author's fancy. Any file of old Newspapers, or odd volume of the +Annual Register, will prove this with terrible ease. + +Even the case of Mary Jones, dwelt upon with so much pleasure by +the same character, is no effort of invention. The facts were +stated, exactly as they are stated here, in the House of Commons. +Whether they afforded as much entertainment to the merry gentlemen +assembled there, as some other most affecting circumstances of a +similar nature mentioned by Sir Samuel Romilly, is not recorded. + +That the case of Mary Jones may speak the more emphatically for +itself, I subjoin it, as related by SIR WILLIAM MEREDITH in a +speech in Parliament, 'on Frequent Executions', made in 1777. + +'Under this act,' the Shop-lifting Act, 'one Mary Jones was +executed, whose case I shall just mention; it was at the time when +press warrants were issued, on the alarm about Falkland Islands. +The woman's husband was pressed, their goods seized for some debts +of his, and she, with two small children, turned into the streets +a-begging. It is a circumstance not to be forgotten, that she was +very young (under nineteen), and most remarkably handsome. She +went to a linen-draper's shop, took some coarse linen off the +counter, and slipped it under her cloak; the shopman saw her, and +she laid it down: for this she was hanged. Her defence was (I have +the trial in my pocket), "that she had lived in credit, and wanted +for nothing, till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her; +but since then, she had no bed to lie on; nothing to give her +children to eat; and they were almost naked; and perhaps she might +have done something wrong, for she hardly knew what she did." The +parish officers testified the truth of this story; but it seems, +there had been a good deal of shop-lifting about Ludgate; an +example was thought necessary; and this woman was hanged for the +comfort and satisfaction of shopkeepers in Ludgate Street. When +brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a frantic manner, +as proved her mind to he in a distracted and desponding state; and +the child was sucking at her breast when she set out for Tyburn.' + + + +Chapter 1 + + +In the year 1775, there stood upon the borders of Epping Forest, +at a distance of about twelve miles from London--measuring from the +Standard in Cornhill,' or rather from the spot on or near to which +the Standard used to be in days of yore--a house of public +entertainment called the Maypole; which fact was demonstrated to +all such travellers as could neither read nor write (and at that +time a vast number both of travellers and stay-at-homes were in +this condition) by the emblem reared on the roadside over against +the house, which, if not of those goodly proportions that Maypoles +were wont to present in olden times, was a fair young ash, thirty +feet in height, and straight as any arrow that ever English yeoman +drew. + +The Maypole--by which term from henceforth is meant the house, and +not its sign--the Maypole was an old building, with more gable ends +than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day; huge zig-zag +chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not +choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted +to it in its tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous, +and empty. The place was said to have been built in the days of +King Henry the Eighth; and there was a legend, not only that Queen +Elizabeth had slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion, +to wit, in a certain oak-panelled room with a deep bay window, but +that next morning, while standing on a mounting block before the +door with one foot in the stirrup, the virgin monarch had then and +there boxed and cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty. +The matter-of-fact and doubtful folks, of whom there were a few +among the Maypole customers, as unluckily there always are in every +little community, were inclined to look upon this tradition as +rather apocryphal; but, whenever the landlord of that ancient +hostelry appealed to the mounting block itself as evidence, and +triumphantly pointed out that there it stood in the same place to +that very day, the doubters never failed to be put down by a large +majority, and all true believers exulted as in a victory. + +Whether these, and many other stories of the like nature, were true +or untrue, the Maypole was really an old house, a very old house, +perhaps as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which will +sometimes happen with houses of an uncertain, as with ladies of a +certain, age. Its windows were old diamond-pane lattices, its +floors were sunken and uneven, its ceilings blackened by the hand +of time, and heavy with massive beams. Over the doorway was an +ancient porch, quaintly and grotesquely carved; and here on summer +evenings the more favoured customers smoked and drank--ay, and +sang many a good song too, sometimes--reposing on two grim-looking +high-backed settles, which, like the twin dragons of some fairy +tale, guarded the entrance to the mansion. + +In the chimneys of the disused rooms, swallows had built their +nests for many a long year, and from earliest spring to latest +autumn whole colonies of sparrows chirped and twittered in the +eaves. There were more pigeons about the dreary stable-yard and +out-buildings than anybody but the landlord could reckon up. The +wheeling and circling flights of runts, fantails, tumblers, and +pouters, were perhaps not quite consistent with the grave and sober +character of the building, but the monotonous cooing, which never +ceased to be raised by some among them all day long, suited it +exactly, and seemed to lull it to rest. With its overhanging +stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and +projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were +nodding in its sleep. Indeed, it needed no very great stretch of +fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. The bricks +of which it was built had originally been a deep dark red, but had +grown yellow and discoloured like an old man's skin; the sturdy +timbers had decayed like teeth; and here and there the ivy, like a +warm garment to comfort it in its age, wrapt its green leaves +closely round the time-worn walls. + +It was a hale and hearty age though, still: and in the summer or +autumn evenings, when the glow of the setting sun fell upon the oak +and chestnut trees of the adjacent forest, the old house, partaking +of its lustre, seemed their fit companion, and to have many good +years of life in him yet. + +The evening with which we have to do, was neither a summer nor an +autumn one, but the twilight of a day in March, when the wind +howled dismally among the bare branches of the trees, and rumbling +in the wide chimneys and driving the rain against the windows of +the Maypole Inn, gave such of its frequenters as chanced to be +there at the moment an undeniable reason for prolonging their stay, +and caused the landlord to prophesy that the night would certainly +clear at eleven o'clock precisely,--which by a remarkable +coincidence was the hour at which he always closed his house. + +The name of him upon whom the spirit of prophecy thus descended was +John Willet, a burly, large-headed man with a fat face, which +betokened profound obstinacy and slowness of apprehension, +combined with a very strong reliance upon his own merits. It was +John Willet's ordinary boast in his more placid moods that if he +were slow he was sure; which assertion could, in one sense at +least, be by no means gainsaid, seeing that he was in everything +unquestionably the reverse of fast, and withal one of the most +dogged and positive fellows in existence--always sure that what he +thought or said or did was right, and holding it as a thing quite +settled and ordained by the laws of nature and Providence, that +anybody who said or did or thought otherwise must be inevitably and +of necessity wrong. + +Mr Willet walked slowly up to the window, flattened his fat nose +against the cold glass, and shading his eyes that his sight might +not be affected by the ruddy glow of the fire, looked abroad. Then +he walked slowly back to his old seat in the chimney-corner, and, +composing himself in it with a slight shiver, such as a man might +give way to and so acquire an additional relish for the warm blaze, +said, looking round upon his guests: + +'It'll clear at eleven o'clock. No sooner and no later. Not +before and not arterwards.' + +'How do you make out that?' said a little man in the opposite +corner. 'The moon is past the full, and she rises at nine.' + +John looked sedately and solemnly at his questioner until he had +brought his mind to bear upon the whole of his observation, and +then made answer, in a tone which seemed to imply that the moon was +peculiarly his business and nobody else's: + +'Never you mind about the moon. Don't you trouble yourself about +her. You let the moon alone, and I'll let you alone.' + +'No offence I hope?' said the little man. + +Again John waited leisurely until the observation had thoroughly +penetrated to his brain, and then replying, 'No offence as YET,' +applied a light to his pipe and smoked in placid silence; now and +then casting a sidelong look at a man wrapped in a loose riding- +coat with huge cuffs ornamented with tarnished silver lace and +large metal buttons, who sat apart from the regular frequenters of +the house, and wearing a hat flapped over his face, which was still +further shaded by the hand on which his forehead rested, looked +unsociable enough. + +There was another guest, who sat, booted and spurred, at some +distance from the fire also, and whose thoughts--to judge from his +folded arms and knitted brows, and from the untasted liquor before +him--were occupied with other matters than the topics under +discussion or the persons who discussed them. This was a young man +of about eight-and-twenty, rather above the middle height, and +though of somewhat slight figure, gracefully and strongly made. He +wore his own dark hair, and was accoutred in a riding dress, which +together with his large boots (resembling in shape and fashion +those worn by our Life Guardsmen at the present day), showed +indisputable traces of the bad condition of the roads. But travel- +stained though he was, he was well and even richly attired, and +without being overdressed looked a gallant gentleman. + +Lying upon the table beside him, as he had carelessly thrown them +down, were a heavy riding-whip and a slouched hat, the latter worn +no doubt as being best suited to the inclemency of the weather. +There, too, were a pair of pistols in a holster-case, and a short +riding-cloak. Little of his face was visible, except the long dark +lashes which concealed his downcast eyes, but an air of careless +ease and natural gracefulness of demeanour pervaded the figure, and +seemed to comprehend even those slight accessories, which were all +handsome, and in good keeping. + +Towards this young gentleman the eyes of Mr Willet wandered but +once, and then as if in mute inquiry whether he had observed his +silent neighbour. It was plain that John and the young gentleman +had often met before. Finding that his look was not returned, or +indeed observed by the person to whom it was addressed, John +gradually concentrated the whole power of his eyes into one focus, +and brought it to bear upon the man in the flapped hat, at whom he +came to stare in course of time with an intensity so remarkable, +that it affected his fireside cronies, who all, as with one accord, +took their pipes from their lips, and stared with open mouths at +the stranger likewise. + +The sturdy landlord had a large pair of dull fish-like eyes, and +the little man who had hazarded the remark about the moon (and who +was the parish-clerk and bell-ringer of Chigwell, a village hard +by) had little round black shiny eyes like beads; moreover this +little man wore at the knees of his rusty black breeches, and on +his rusty black coat, and all down his long flapped waistcoat, +little queer buttons like nothing except his eyes; but so like +them, that as they twinkled and glistened in the light of the fire, +which shone too in his bright shoe-buckles, he seemed all eyes from +head to foot, and to be gazing with every one of them at the +unknown customer. No wonder that a man should grow restless under +such an inspection as this, to say nothing of the eyes belonging to +short Tom Cobb the general chandler and post-office keeper, and +long Phil Parkes the ranger, both of whom, infected by the example +of their companions, regarded him of the flapped hat no less +attentively. + +The stranger became restless; perhaps from being exposed to this +raking fire of eyes, perhaps from the nature of his previous +meditations--most probably from the latter cause, for as he changed +his position and looked hastily round, he started to find himself +the object of such keen regard, and darted an angry and suspicious +glance at the fireside group. It had the effect of immediately +diverting all eyes to the chimney, except those of John Willet, who +finding himself as it were, caught in the fact, and not being (as +has been already observed) of a very ready nature, remained staring +at his guest in a particularly awkward and disconcerted manner. + +'Well?' said the stranger. + +Well. There was not much in well. It was not a long speech. 'I +thought you gave an order,' said the landlord, after a pause of two +or three minutes for consideration. + +The stranger took off his hat, and disclosed the hard features of a +man of sixty or thereabouts, much weatherbeaten and worn by time, +and the naturally harsh expression of which was not improved by a +dark handkerchief which was bound tightly round his head, and, +while it served the purpose of a wig, shaded his forehead, and +almost hid his eyebrows. If it were intended to conceal or divert +attention from a deep gash, now healed into an ugly seam, which +when it was first inflicted must have laid bare his cheekbone, the +object was but indifferently attained, for it could scarcely fail +to be noted at a glance. His complexion was of a cadaverous hue, +and he had a grizzly jagged beard of some three weeks' date. Such +was the figure (very meanly and poorly clad) that now rose from the +seat, and stalking across the room sat down in a corner of the +chimney, which the politeness or fears of the little clerk very +readily assigned to him. + +'A highwayman!' whispered Tom Cobb to Parkes the ranger. + +'Do you suppose highwaymen don't dress handsomer than that?' +replied Parkes. 'It's a better business than you think for, Tom, +and highwaymen don't need or use to be shabby, take my word for it.' + +Meanwhile the subject of their speculations had done due honour to +the house by calling for some drink, which was promptly supplied by +the landlord's son Joe, a broad-shouldered strapping young fellow +of twenty, whom it pleased his father still to consider a little +boy, and to treat accordingly. Stretching out his hands to warm +them by the blazing fire, the man turned his head towards the +company, and after running his eye sharply over them, said in a +voice well suited to his appearance: + +'What house is that which stands a mile or so from here?' + +'Public-house?' said the landlord, with his usual deliberation. + +'Public-house, father!' exclaimed Joe, 'where's the public-house +within a mile or so of the Maypole? He means the great house--the +Warren--naturally and of course. The old red brick house, sir, +that stands in its own grounds--?' + +'Aye,' said the stranger. + +'And that fifteen or twenty years ago stood in a park five times as +broad, which with other and richer property has bit by bit changed +hands and dwindled away--more's the pity!' pursued the young man. + +'Maybe,' was the reply. 'But my question related to the owner. +What it has been I don't care to know, and what it is I can see for +myself.' + +The heir-apparent to the Maypole pressed his finger on his lips, +and glancing at the young gentleman already noticed, who had +changed his attitude when the house was first mentioned, replied in +a lower tone: + +'The owner's name is Haredale, Mr Geoffrey Haredale, and'--again he +glanced in the same direction as before--'and a worthy gentleman +too--hem!' + +Paying as little regard to this admonitory cough, as to the +significant gesture that had preceded it, the stranger pursued his +questioning. + +'I turned out of my way coming here, and took the footpath that +crosses the grounds. Who was the young lady that I saw entering a +carriage? His daughter?' + +'Why, how should I know, honest man?' replied Joe, contriving in +the course of some arrangements about the hearth, to advance close +to his questioner and pluck him by the sleeve, 'I didn't see the +young lady, you know. Whew! There's the wind again--AND rain-- +well it IS a night!' + +Rough weather indeed!' observed the strange man. + +'You're used to it?' said Joe, catching at anything which seemed to +promise a diversion of the subject. + +'Pretty well,' returned the other. 'About the young lady--has Mr +Haredale a daughter?' + +'No, no,' said the young fellow fretfully, 'he's a single +gentleman--he's--be quiet, can't you, man? Don't you see this +talk is not relished yonder?' + +Regardless of this whispered remonstrance, and affecting not to +hear it, his tormentor provokingly continued: + +'Single men have had daughters before now. Perhaps she may be his +daughter, though he is not married.' + +'What do you mean?' said Joe, adding in an undertone as he +approached him again, 'You'll come in for it presently, I know you +will!' + +'I mean no harm'--returned the traveller boldly, 'and have said +none that I know of. I ask a few questions--as any stranger may, +and not unnaturally--about the inmates of a remarkable house in a +neighbourhood which is new to me, and you are as aghast and +disturbed as if I were talking treason against King George. +Perhaps you can tell me why, sir, for (as I say) I am a stranger, +and this is Greek to me?' + +The latter observation was addressed to the obvious cause of Joe +Willet's discomposure, who had risen and was adjusting his riding- +cloak preparatory to sallying abroad. Briefly replying that he +could give him no information, the young man beckoned to Joe, and +handing him a piece of money in payment of his reckoning, hurried +out attended by young Willet himself, who taking up a candle +followed to light him to the house-door. + +While Joe was absent on this errand, the elder Willet and his three +companions continued to smoke with profound gravity, and in a deep +silence, each having his eyes fixed on a huge copper boiler that +was suspended over the fire. After some time John Willet slowly +shook his head, and thereupon his friends slowly shook theirs; but +no man withdrew his eyes from the boiler, or altered the solemn +expression of his countenance in the slightest degree. + +At length Joe returned--very talkative and conciliatory, as though +with a strong presentiment that he was going to be found fault +with. + +'Such a thing as love is!' he said, drawing a chair near the fire, +and looking round for sympathy. 'He has set off to walk to +London,--all the way to London. His nag gone lame in riding out +here this blessed afternoon, and comfortably littered down in our +stable at this minute; and he giving up a good hot supper and our +best bed, because Miss Haredale has gone to a masquerade up in +town, and he has set his heart upon seeing her! I don't think I +could persuade myself to do that, beautiful as she is,--but then +I'm not in love (at least I don't think I am) and that's the whole +difference.' + +'He is in love then?' said the stranger. + +'Rather,' replied Joe. 'He'll never be more in love, and may very +easily be less.' + +'Silence, sir!' cried his father. + +'What a chap you are, Joe!' said Long Parkes. + +'Such a inconsiderate lad!' murmured Tom Cobb. + +'Putting himself forward and wringing the very nose off his own +father's face!' exclaimed the parish-clerk, metaphorically. + +'What HAVE I done?' reasoned poor Joe. + +'Silence, sir!' returned his father, 'what do you mean by talking, +when you see people that are more than two or three times your age, +sitting still and silent and not dreaming of saying a word?' + +'Why that's the proper time for me to talk, isn't it?' said Joe +rebelliously. + +'The proper time, sir!' retorted his father, 'the proper time's no +time.' + +'Ah to be sure!' muttered Parkes, nodding gravely to the other two +who nodded likewise, observing under their breaths that that was +the point. + +'The proper time's no time, sir,' repeated John Willet; 'when I was +your age I never talked, I never wanted to talk. I listened and +improved myself that's what I did.' + +'And you'd find your father rather a tough customer in argeyment, +Joe, if anybody was to try and tackle him,' said Parkes. + +'For the matter o' that, Phil!' observed Mr Willet, blowing a long, +thin, spiral cloud of smoke out of the corner of his mouth, and +staring at it abstractedly as it floated away; 'For the matter o' +that, Phil, argeyment is a gift of Natur. If Natur has gifted a +man with powers of argeyment, a man has a right to make the best of +'em, and has not a right to stand on false delicacy, and deny that +he is so gifted; for that is a turning of his back on Natur, a +flouting of her, a slighting of her precious caskets, and a proving +of one's self to be a swine that isn't worth her scattering pearls +before.' + +The landlord pausing here for a very long time, Mr Parkes naturally +concluded that he had brought his discourse to an end; and +therefore, turning to the young man with some austerity, +exclaimed: + +'You hear what your father says, Joe? You wouldn't much like to +tackle him in argeyment, I'm thinking, sir.' + +'IF,' said John Willet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the +face of his interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in capitals, +to apprise him that he had put in his oar, as the vulgar say, with +unbecoming and irreverent haste; 'IF, sir, Natur has fixed upon me +the gift of argeyment, why should I not own to it, and rather glory +in the same? Yes, sir, I AM a tough customer that way. You are +right, sir. My toughness has been proved, sir, in this room many +and many a time, as I think you know; and if you don't know,' added +John, putting his pipe in his mouth again, 'so much the better, for +I an't proud and am not going to tell you.' + +A general murmur from his three cronies, and a general shaking of +heads at the copper boiler, assured John Willet that they had had +good experience of his powers and needed no further evidence to +assure them of his superiority. John smoked with a little more +dignity and surveyed them in silence. + +'It's all very fine talking,' muttered Joe, who had been fidgeting +in his chair with divers uneasy gestures. 'But if you mean to tell +me that I'm never to open my lips--' + +'Silence, sir!' roared his father. 'No, you never are. When your +opinion's wanted, you give it. When you're spoke to, you speak. +When your opinion's not wanted and you're not spoke to, don't you +give an opinion and don't you speak. The world's undergone a nice +alteration since my time, certainly. My belief is that there an't +any boys left--that there isn't such a thing as a boy--that there's +nothing now between a male baby and a man--and that all the boys +went out with his blessed Majesty King George the Second.' + +'That's a very true observation, always excepting the young +princes,' said the parish-clerk, who, as the representative of +church and state in that company, held himself bound to the nicest +loyalty. 'If it's godly and righteous for boys, being of the ages +of boys, to behave themselves like boys, then the young princes +must be boys and cannot be otherwise.' + +'Did you ever hear tell of mermaids, sir?' said Mr Willet. + +'Certainly I have,' replied the clerk. + +'Very good,' said Mr Willet. 'According to the constitution of +mermaids, so much of a mermaid as is not a woman must be a fish. +According to the constitution of young princes, so much of a young +prince (if anything) as is not actually an angel, must be godly and +righteous. Therefore if it's becoming and godly and righteous in +the young princes (as it is at their ages) that they should be +boys, they are and must be boys, and cannot by possibility be +anything else.' + +This elucidation of a knotty point being received with such marks +of approval as to put John Willet into a good humour, he contented +himself with repeating to his son his command of silence, and +addressing the stranger, said: + +'If you had asked your questions of a grown-up person--of me or any +of these gentlemen--you'd have had some satisfaction, and wouldn't +have wasted breath. Miss Haredale is Mr Geoffrey Haredale's +niece.' + +'Is her father alive?' said the man, carelessly. + +'No,' rejoined the landlord, 'he is not alive, and he is not dead--' + +'Not dead!' cried the other. + +'Not dead in a common sort of way,' said the landlord. + +The cronies nodded to each other, and Mr Parkes remarked in an +undertone, shaking his head meanwhile as who should say, 'let no +man contradict me, for I won't believe him,' that John Willet was +in amazing force to-night, and fit to tackle a Chief Justice. + +The stranger suffered a short pause to elapse, and then asked +abruptly, 'What do you mean?' + +'More than you think for, friend,' returned John Willet. 'Perhaps +there's more meaning in them words than you suspect.' + +'Perhaps there is,' said the strange man, gruffly; 'but what the +devil do you speak in such mysteries for? You tell me, first, that +a man is not alive, nor yet dead--then, that he's not dead in a +common sort of way--then, that you mean a great deal more than I +think for. To tell you the truth, you may do that easily; for so +far as I can make out, you mean nothing. What DO you mean, I ask +again?' + +'That,' returned the landlord, a little brought down from his +dignity by the stranger's surliness, 'is a Maypole story, and has +been any time these four-and-twenty years. That story is Solomon +Daisy's story. It belongs to the house; and nobody but Solomon +Daisy has ever told it under this roof, or ever shall--that's +more.' + +The man glanced at the parish-clerk, whose air of consciousness +and importance plainly betokened him to be the person referred to, +and, observing that he had taken his pipe from his lips, after a +very long whiff to keep it alight, and was evidently about to tell +his story without further solicitation, gathered his large coat +about him, and shrinking further back was almost lost in the gloom +of the spacious chimney-corner, except when the flame, struggling +from under a great faggot, whose weight almost crushed it for the +time, shot upward with a strong and sudden glare, and illumining +his figure for a moment, seemed afterwards to cast it into deeper +obscurity than before. + +By this flickering light, which made the old room, with its heavy +timbers and panelled walls, look as if it were built of polished +ebony--the wind roaring and howling without, now rattling the latch +and creaking the hinges of the stout oaken door, and now driving at +the casement as though it would beat it in--by this light, and +under circumstances so auspicious, Solomon Daisy began his tale: + +'It was Mr Reuben Haredale, Mr Geoffrey's elder brother--' + +Here he came to a dead stop, and made so long a pause that even +John Willet grew impatient and asked why he did not proceed. + +'Cobb,' said Solomon Daisy, dropping his voice and appealing to the +post-office keeper; 'what day of the month is this?' + +'The nineteenth.' + +'Of March,' said the clerk, bending forward, 'the nineteenth of +March; that's very strange.' + +In a low voice they all acquiesced, and Solomon went on: + +'It was Mr Reuben Haredale, Mr Geoffrey's elder brother, that +twenty-two years ago was the owner of the Warren, which, as Joe +has said--not that you remember it, Joe, for a boy like you can't +do that, but because you have often heard me say so--was then a +much larger and better place, and a much more valuable property +than it is now. His lady was lately dead, and he was left with one +child--the Miss Haredale you have been inquiring about--who was +then scarcely a year old.' + +Although the speaker addressed himself to the man who had shown so +much curiosity about this same family, and made a pause here as if +expecting some exclamation of surprise or encouragement, the latter +made no remark, nor gave any indication that he heard or was +interested in what was said. Solomon therefore turned to his old +companions, whose noses were brightly illuminated by the deep red +glow from the bowls of their pipes; assured, by long experience, of +their attention, and resolved to show his sense of such indecent +behaviour. + +'Mr Haredale,' said Solomon, turning his back upon the strange man, +'left this place when his lady died, feeling it lonely like, and +went up to London, where he stopped some months; but finding that +place as lonely as this--as I suppose and have always heard say--he +suddenly came back again with his little girl to the Warren, +bringing with him besides, that day, only two women servants, and +his steward, and a gardener.' + +Mr Daisy stopped to take a whiff at his pipe, which was going out, +and then proceeded--at first in a snuffling tone, occasioned by +keen enjoyment of the tobacco and strong pulling at the pipe, and +afterwards with increasing distinctness: + +'--Bringing with him two women servants, and his steward, and a +gardener. The rest stopped behind up in London, and were to follow +next day. It happened that that night, an old gentleman who lived +at Chigwell Row, and had long been poorly, deceased, and an order +came to me at half after twelve o'clock at night to go and toll the +passing-bell.' + +There was a movement in the little group of listeners, sufficiently +indicative of the strong repugnance any one of them would have felt +to have turned out at such a time upon such an errand. The clerk +felt and understood it, and pursued his theme accordingly. + +'It WAS a dreary thing, especially as the grave-digger was laid up +in his bed, from long working in a damp soil and sitting down to +take his dinner on cold tombstones, and I was consequently under +obligation to go alone, for it was too late to hope to get any +other companion. However, I wasn't unprepared for it; as the old +gentleman had often made it a request that the bell should be +tolled as soon as possible after the breath was out of his body, +and he had been expected to go for some days. I put as good a face +upon it as I could, and muffling myself up (for it was mortal +cold), started out with a lighted lantern in one hand and the key +of the church in the other.' + +At this point of the narrative, the dress of the strange man +rustled as if he had turned himself to hear more distinctly. +Slightly pointing over his shoulder, Solomon elevated his eyebrows +and nodded a silent inquiry to Joe whether this was the case. Joe +shaded his eyes with his hand and peered into the corner, but could +make out nothing, and so shook his head. + +'It was just such a night as this; blowing a hurricane, raining +heavily, and very dark--I often think now, darker than I ever saw +it before or since; that may be my fancy, but the houses were all +close shut and the folks in doors, and perhaps there is only one +other man who knows how dark it really was. I got into the church, +chained the door back so that it should keep ajar--for, to tell the +truth, I didn't like to be shut in there alone--and putting my +lantern on the stone seat in the little corner where the bell-rope +is, sat down beside it to trim the candle. + +'I sat down to trim the candle, and when I had done so I could not +persuade myself to get up again, and go about my work. I don't +know how it was, but I thought of all the ghost stories I had ever +heard, even those that I had heard when I was a boy at school, and +had forgotten long ago; and they didn't come into my mind one after +another, but all crowding at once, like. I recollected one story +there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year +(it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead +people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own +graves till morning. This made me think how many people I had +known, were buried between the church-door and the churchyard gate, +and what a dreadful thing it would be to have to pass among them +and know them again, so earthy and unlike themselves. I had known +all the niches and arches in the church from a child; still, I +couldn't persuade myself that those were their natural shadows +which I saw on the pavement, but felt sure there were some ugly +figures hiding among 'em and peeping out. Thinking on in this +way, I began to think of the old gentleman who was just dead, and I +could have sworn, as I looked up the dark chancel, that I saw him +in his usual place, wrapping his shroud about him and shivering as +if he felt it cold. All this time I sat listening and listening, +and hardly dared to breathe. At length I started up and took the +bell-rope in my hands. At that minute there rang--not that bell, +for I had hardly touched the rope--but another! + +'I heard the ringing of another bell, and a deep bell too, plainly. +It was only for an instant, and even then the wind carried the +sound away, but I heard it. I listened for a long time, but it +rang no more. I had heard of corpse candles, and at last I +persuaded myself that this must be a corpse bell tolling of itself +at midnight for the dead. I tolled my bell--how, or how long, I +don't know--and ran home to bed as fast as I could touch the +ground. + +'I was up early next morning after a restless night, and told the +story to my neighbours. Some were serious and some made light of +it; I don't think anybody believed it real. But, that morning, Mr +Reuben Haredale was found murdered in his bedchamber; and in his +hand was a piece of the cord attached to an alarm-bell outside the +roof, which hung in his room and had been cut asunder, no doubt by +the murderer, when he seized it. + +'That was the bell I heard. + +'A bureau was found opened, and a cash-box, which Mr Haredale had +brought down that day, and was supposed to contain a large sum of +money, was gone. The steward and gardener were both missing and +both suspected for a long time, but they were never found, though +hunted far and wide. And far enough they might have looked for +poor Mr Rudge the steward, whose body--scarcely to be recognised by +his clothes and the watch and ring he wore--was found, months +afterwards, at the bottom of a piece of water in the grounds, with +a deep gash in the breast where he had been stabbed with a knife. +He was only partly dressed; and people all agreed that he had been +sitting up reading in his own room, where there were many traces of +blood, and was suddenly fallen upon and killed before his master. + +Everybody now knew that the gardener must be the murderer, and +though he has never been heard of from that day to this, he will +be, mark my words. The crime was committed this day two-and-twenty +years--on the nineteenth of March, one thousand seven hundred and +fifty-three. On the nineteenth of March in some year--no matter +when--I know it, I am sure of it, for we have always, in some +strange way or other, been brought back to the subject on that day +ever since--on the nineteenth of March in some year, sooner or +later, that man will be discovered.' + + + +Chapter 2 + + +'A strange story!' said the man who had been the cause of the +narration.--'Stranger still if it comes about as you predict. Is +that all?' + +A question so unexpected, nettled Solomon Daisy not a little. By +dint of relating the story very often, and ornamenting it +(according to village report) with a few flourishes suggested by +the various hearers from time to time, he had come by degrees to +tell it with great effect; and 'Is that all?' after the climax, was +not what he was accustomed to. + +'Is that all?' he repeated, 'yes, that's all, sir. And enough +too, I think.' + +'I think so too. My horse, young man! He is but a hack hired from +a roadside posting house, but he must carry me to London to- +night.' + +'To-night!' said Joe. + +'To-night,' returned the other. 'What do you stare at? This +tavern would seem to be a house of call for all the gaping idlers +of the neighbourhood!' + +At this remark, which evidently had reference to the scrutiny he +had undergone, as mentioned in the foregoing chapter, the eyes of +John Willet and his friends were diverted with marvellous rapidity +to the copper boiler again. Not so with Joe, who, being a +mettlesome fellow, returned the stranger's angry glance with a +steady look, and rejoined: + +'It is not a very bold thing to wonder at your going on to-night. +Surely you have been asked such a harmless question in an inn +before, and in better weather than this. I thought you mightn't +know the way, as you seem strange to this part.' + +'The way--' repeated the other, irritably. + +'Yes. DO you know it?' + +'I'll--humph!--I'll find it,' replied the nian, waving his hand and +turning on his heel. 'Landlord, take the reckoning here.' + +John Willet did as he was desired; for on that point he was seldom +slow, except in the particulars of giving change, and testing the +goodness of any piece of coin that was proffered to him, by the +application of his teeth or his tongue, or some other test, or in +doubtful cases, by a long series of tests terminating in its +rejection. The guest then wrapped his garments about him so as to +shelter himself as effectually as he could from the rough weather, +and without any word or sign of farewell betook himself to the +stableyard. Here Joe (who had left the room on the conclusion of +their short dialogue) was protecting himself and the horse from the +rain under the shelter of an old penthouse roof. + +'He's pretty much of my opinion,' said Joe, patting the horse upon +the neck. 'I'll wager that your stopping here to-night would +please him better than it would please me.' + +'He and I are of different opinions, as we have been more than once +on our way here,' was the short reply. + +'So I was thinking before you came out, for he has felt your spurs, +poor beast.' + +The stranger adjusted his coat-collar about his face, and made no +answer. + +'You'll know me again, I see,' he said, marking the young fellow's +earnest gaze, when he had sprung into the saddle. + +'The man's worth knowing, master, who travels a road he don't know, +mounted on a jaded horse, and leaves good quarters to do it on such +a night as this.' + +'You have sharp eyes and a sharp tongue, I find.' + +'Both I hope by nature, but the last grows rusty sometimes for +want of using.' + +'Use the first less too, and keep their sharpness for your +sweethearts, boy,' said the man. + +So saying he shook his hand from the bridle, struck him roughly on +the head with the butt end of his whip, and galloped away; dashing +through the mud and darkness with a headlong speed, which few badly +mounted horsemen would have cared to venture, even had they been +thoroughly acquainted with the country; and which, to one who knew +nothing of the way he rode, was attended at every step with great +hazard and danger. + +The roads, even within twelve miles of London, were at that time +ill paved, seldom repaired, and very badly made. The way this +rider traversed had been ploughed up by the wheels of heavy +waggons, and rendered rotten by the frosts and thaws of the +preceding winter, or possibly of many winters. Great holes and +gaps had been worn into the soil, which, being now filled with +water from the late rains, were not easily distinguishable even by +day; and a plunge into any one of them might have brought down a +surer-footed horse than the poor beast now urged forward to the +utmost extent of his powers. Sharp flints and stones rolled from +under his hoofs continually; the rider could scarcely see beyond +the animal's head, or farther on either side than his own arm +would have extended. At that time, too, all the roads in the +neighbourhood of the metropolis were infested by footpads or +highwaymen, and it was a night, of all others, in which any evil- +disposed person of this class might have pursued his unlawful +calling with little fear of detection. + +Still, the traveller dashed forward at the same reckless pace, +regardless alike of the dirt and wet which flew about his head, the +profound darkness of the night, and the probability of encountering +some desperate characters abroad. At every turn and angle, even +where a deviation from the direct course might have been least +expected, and could not possibly be seen until he was close upon +it, he guided the bridle with an unerring hand, and kept the middle +of the road. Thus he sped onward, raising himself in the stirrups, +leaning his body forward until it almost touched the horse's neck, +and flourishing his heavy whip above his head with the fervour of a +madman. + +There are times when, the elements being in unusual commotion, +those who are bent on daring enterprises, or agitated by great +thoughts, whether of good or evil, feel a mysterious sympathy with +the tumult of nature, and are roused into corresponding violence. +In the midst of thunder, lightning, and storm, many tremendous +deeds have been committed; men, self-possessed before, have given +a sudden loose to passions they could no longer control. The +demons of wrath and despair have striven to emulate those who ride +the whirlwind and direct the storm; and man, lashed into madness +with the roaring winds and boiling waters, has become for the time +as wild and merciless as the elements themselves. + +Whether the traveller was possessed by thoughts which the fury of +the night had heated and stimulated into a quicker current, or was +merely impelled by some strong motive to reach his journey's end, +on he swept more like a hunted phantom than a man, nor checked his +pace until, arriving at some cross roads, one of which led by a +longer route to the place whence he had lately started, he bore +down so suddenly upon a vehicle which was coming towards him, that +in the effort to avoid it he well-nigh pulled his horse upon his +haunches, and narrowly escaped being thrown. + +'Yoho!' cried the voice of a man. 'What's that? Who goes there?' + +'A friend!' replied the traveller. + +'A friend!' repeated the voice. 'Who calls himself a friend and +rides like that, abusing Heaven's gifts in the shape of horseflesh, +and endangering, not only his own neck (which might be no great +matter) but the necks of other people?' + +'You have a lantern there, I see,' said the traveller dismounting, +'lend it me for a moment. You have wounded my horse, I think, with +your shaft or wheel.' + +'Wounded him!' cried the other, 'if I haven't killed him, it's no +fault of yours. What do you mean by galloping along the king's +highway like that, eh?' + +'Give me the light,' returned the traveller, snatching it from his +hand, 'and don't ask idle questions of a man who is in no mood for +talking.' + +'If you had said you were in no mood for talking before, I should +perhaps have been in no mood for lighting,' said the voice. +'Hows'ever as it's the poor horse that's damaged and not you, one +of you is welcome to the light at all events--but it's not the +crusty one.' + +The traveller returned no answer to this speech, but holding the +light near to his panting and reeking beast, examined him in limb +and carcass. Meanwhile, the other man sat very composedly in his +vehicle, which was a kind of chaise with a depository for a large +bag of tools, and watched his proceedings with a careful eye. + +The looker-on was a round, red-faced, sturdy yeoman, with a double +chin, and a voice husky with good living, good sleeping, good +humour, and good health. He was past the prime of life, but Father +Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none +of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have +used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but +leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With +such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's +hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in +the quiet calendar of a well-spent life. + +The person whom the traveller had so abruptly encountered was of +this kind: bluff, hale, hearty, and in a green old age: at peace +with himself, and evidently disposed to be so with all the world. +Although muffled up in divers coats and handkerchiefs--one of +which, passed over his crown, and tied in a convenient crease of +his double chin, secured his three-cornered hat and bob-wig from +blowing off his head--there was no disguising his plump and +comfortable figure; neither did certain dirty finger-marks upon +his face give it any other than an odd and comical expression, +through which its natural good humour shone with undiminished +lustre. + +'He is not hurt,' said the traveller at length, raising his head +and the lantern together. + +'You have found that out at last, have you?' rejoined the old man. +'My eyes have seen more light than yours, but I wouldn't change +with you.' + +'What do you mean?' + +'Mean! I could have told you he wasn't hurt, five minutes ago. +Give me the light, friend; ride forward at a gentler pace; and good +night.' + +In handing up the lantern, the man necessarily cast its rays full +on the speaker's face. Their eyes met at the instant. He suddenly +dropped it and crushed it with his foot. + +'Did you never see a locksmith before, that you start as if you had +come upon a ghost?' cried the old man in the chaise, 'or is this,' +he added hastily, thrusting his hand into the tool basket and +drawing out a hammer, 'a scheme for robbing me? I know these +roads, friend. When I travel them, I carry nothing but a few +shillings, and not a crown's worth of them. I tell you plainly, to +save us both trouble, that there's nothing to be got from me but a +pretty stout arm considering my years, and this tool, which, mayhap +from long acquaintance with, I can use pretty briskly. You shall +not have it all your own way, I promise you, if you play at that +game. With these words he stood upon the defensive. + +'I am not what you take me for, Gabriel Varden,' replied the other. + +'Then what and who are you?' returned the locksmith. 'You know my +name, it seems. Let me know yours.' + +'I have not gained the information from any confidence of yours, +but from the inscription on your cart which tells it to all the +town,' replied the traveller. + +'You have better eyes for that than you had for your horse, then,' +said Varden, descending nimbly from his chaise; 'who are you? Let +me see your face.' + +While the locksmith alighted, the traveller had regained his +saddle, from which he now confronted the old man, who, moving as +the horse moved in chafing under the tightened rein, kept close +beside him. + +'Let me see your face, I say.' + +'Stand off!' + +'No masquerading tricks,' said the locksmith, 'and tales at the +club to-morrow, how Gabriel Varden was frightened by a surly voice +and a dark night. Stand--let me see your face.' + +Finding that further resistance would only involve him in a +personal struggle with an antagonist by no means to be despised, +the traveller threw back his coat, and stooping down looked +steadily at the locksmith. + +Perhaps two men more powerfully contrasted, never opposed each +other face to face. The ruddy features of the locksmith so set off +and heightened the excessive paleness of the man on horseback, that +he looked like a bloodless ghost, while the moisture, which hard +riding had brought out upon his skin, hung there in dark and heavy +drops, like dews of agony and death. The countenance of the old +locksmith lighted up with the smile of one expecting to detect in +this unpromising stranger some latent roguery of eye or lip, which +should reveal a familiar person in that arch disguise, and spoil +his jest. The face of the other, sullen and fierce, but shrinking +too, was that of a man who stood at bay; while his firmly closed +jaws, his puckered mouth, and more than all a certain stealthy +motion of the hand within his breast, seemed to announce a +desperate purpose very foreign to acting, or child's play. + +Thus they regarded each other for some time, in silence. + +'Humph!' he said when he had scanned his features; 'I don't know +you.' + +'Don't desire to?'--returned the other, muffling himself as before. + +'I don't,' said Gabriel; 'to be plain with you, friend, you don't +carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.' + +'It's not my wish,' said the traveller. 'My humour is to be +avoided.' + +'Well,' said the locksmith bluntly, 'I think you'll have your +humour.' + +'I will, at any cost,' rejoined the traveller. 'In proof of it, +lay this to heart--that you were never in such peril of your life +as you have been within these few moments; when you are within +five minutes of breathing your last, you will not be nearer death +than you have been to-night!' + +'Aye!' said the sturdy locksmith. + +'Aye! and a violent death.' + +'From whose hand?' + +'From mine,' replied the traveller. + +With that he put spurs to his horse, and rode away; at first +plashing heavily through the mire at a smart trot, but gradually +increasing in speed until the last sound of his horse's hoofs died +away upon the wind; when he was again hurrying on at the same +furious gallop, which had been his pace when the locksmith first +encountered him. + +Gabriel Varden remained standing in the road with the broken +lantern in his hand, listening in stupefied silence until no sound +reached his ear but the moaning of the wind, and the fast-falling +rain; when he struck himself one or two smart blows in the breast +by way of rousing himself, and broke into an exclamation of +surprise. + +'What in the name of wonder can this fellow be! a madman? a +highwayman? a cut-throat? If he had not scoured off so fast, we'd +have seen who was in most danger, he or I. I never nearer death +than I have been to-night! I hope I may be no nearer to it for a +score of years to come--if so, I'll be content to be no farther +from it. My stars!--a pretty brag this to a stout man--pooh, +pooh!' + +Gabriel resumed his seat, and looked wistfully up the road by which +the traveller had come; murmuring in a half whisper: + +'The Maypole--two miles to the Maypole. I came the other road from +the Warren after a long day's work at locks and bells, on purpose +that I should not come by the Maypole and break my promise to +Martha by looking in--there's resolution! It would be dangerous to +go on to London without a light; and it's four miles, and a good +half mile besides, to the Halfway-House; and between this and that +is the very place where one needs a light most. Two miles to the +Maypole! I told Martha I wouldn't; I said I wouldn't, and I +didn't--there's resolution!' + +Repeating these two last words very often, as if to compensate for +the little resolution he was going to show by piquing himself on +the great resolution he had shown, Gabriel Varden quietly turned +back, determining to get a light at the Maypole, and to take +nothing but a light. + +When he got to the Maypole, however, and Joe, responding to his +well-known hail, came running out to the horse's head, leaving the +door open behind him, and disclosing a delicious perspective of +warmth and brightness--when the ruddy gleam of the fire, streaming +through the old red curtains of the common room, seemed to bring +with it, as part of itself, a pleasant hum of voices, and a +fragrant odour of steaming grog and rare tobacco, all steeped as +it were in the cheerful glow--when the shadows, flitting across the +curtain, showed that those inside had risen from their snug seats, +and were making room in the snuggest corner (how well he knew that +corner!) for the honest locksmith, and a broad glare, suddenly +streaming up, bespoke the goodness of the crackling log from which +a brilliant train of sparks was doubtless at that moment whirling +up the chimney in honour of his coming--when, superadded to these +enticements, there stole upon him from the distant kitchen a gentle +sound of frying, with a musical clatter of plates and dishes, and a +savoury smell that made even the boisterous wind a perfume--Gabriel +felt his firmness oozing rapidly away. He tried to look stoically +at the tavern, but his features would relax into a look of +fondness. He turned his head the other way, and the cold black +country seemed to frown him off, and drive him for a refuge into +its hospitable arms. + +'The merciful man, Joe,' said the locksmith, 'is merciful to his +beast. I'll get out for a little while.' + +And how natural it was to get out! And how unnatural it seemed for +a sober man to be plodding wearily along through miry roads, +encountering the rude buffets of the wind and pelting of the rain, +when there was a clean floor covered with crisp white sand, a well +swept hearth, a blazing fire, a table decorated with white cloth, +bright pewter flagons, and other tempting preparations for a well- +cooked meal--when there were these things, and company disposed to +make the most of them, all ready to his hand, and entreating him to +enjoyment! + + + +Chapter 3 + + +Such were the locksmith's thoughts when first seated in the snug +corner, and slowly recovering from a pleasant defect of vision-- +pleasant, because occasioned by the wind blowing in his eyes--which +made it a matter of sound policy and duty to himself, that he +should take refuge from the weather, and tempted him, for the same +reason, to aggravate a slight cough, and declare he felt but +poorly. Such were still his thoughts more than a full hour +afterwards, when, supper over, he still sat with shining jovial +face in the same warm nook, listening to the cricket-like chirrup +of little Solomon Daisy, and bearing no unimportant or slightly +respected part in the social gossip round the Maypole fire. + +'I wish he may be an honest man, that's all,' said Solomon, winding +up a variety of speculations relative to the stranger, concerning +whom Gabriel had compared notes with the company, and so raised a +grave discussion; 'I wish he may be an honest man.' + +'So we all do, I suppose, don't we?' observed the locksmith. + +'I don't,' said Joe. + +'No!' cried Gabriel. + +'No. He struck me with his whip, the coward, when he was mounted +and I afoot, and I should be better pleased that he turned out what +I think him.' + +'And what may that be, Joe?' + +'No good, Mr Varden. You may shake your head, father, but I say no +good, and will say no good, and I would say no good a hundred times +over, if that would bring him back to have the drubbing he +deserves.' + +'Hold your tongue, sir,' said John Willet. + +'I won't, father. It's all along of you that he ventured to do +what he did. Seeing me treated like a child, and put down like a +fool, HE plucks up a heart and has a fling at a fellow that he +thinks--and may well think too--hasn't a grain of spirit. But he's +mistaken, as I'll show him, and as I'll show all of you before +long.' + +'Does the boy know what he's a saying of!' cried the astonished +John Willet. + +'Father,' returned Joe, 'I know what I say and mean, well--better +than you do when you hear me. I can bear with you, but I cannot +bear the contempt that your treating me in the way you do, brings +upon me from others every day. Look at other young men of my age. +Have they no liberty, no will, no right to speak? Are they obliged +to sit mumchance, and to be ordered about till they are the +laughing-stock of young and old? I am a bye-word all over +Chigwell, and I say--and it's fairer my saying so now, than waiting +till you are dead, and I have got your money--I say, that before +long I shall be driven to break such bounds, and that when I do, it +won't be me that you'll have to blame, but your own self, and no +other.' + +John Willet was so amazed by the exasperation and boldness of his +hopeful son, that he sat as one bewildered, staring in a ludicrous +manner at the boiler, and endeavouring, but quite ineffectually, to +collect his tardy thoughts, and invent an answer. The guests, +scarcely less disturbed, were equally at a loss; and at length, +with a variety of muttered, half-expressed condolences, and pieces +of advice, rose to depart; being at the same time slightly muddled +with liquor. + +The honest locksmith alone addressed a few words of coherent and +sensible advice to both parties, urging John Willet to remember +that Joe was nearly arrived at man's estate, and should not be +ruled with too tight a hand, and exhorting Joe himself to bear with +his father's caprices, and rather endeavour to turn them aside by +temperate remonstrance than by ill-timed rebellion. This advice +was received as such advice usually is. On John Willet it made +almost as much impression as on the sign outside the door, while +Joe, who took it in the best part, avowed himself more obliged than +he could well express, but politely intimated his intention +nevertheless of taking his own course uninfluenced by anybody. + +'You have always been a very good friend to me, Mr Varden,' he +said, as they stood without, in the porch, and the locksmith was +equipping himself for his journey home; 'I take it very kind of +you to say all this, but the time's nearly come when the Maypole +and I must part company.' + +'Roving stones gather no moss, Joe,' said Gabriel. + +'Nor milestones much,' replied Joe. 'I'm little better than one +here, and see as much of the world.' + +'Then, what would you do, Joe?' pursued the locksmith, stroking +his chin reflectively. 'What could you be? Where could you go, +you see?' + +'I must trust to chance, Mr Varden.' + +'A bad thing to trust to, Joe. I don't like it. I always tell my +girl when we talk about a husband for her, never to trust to +chance, but to make sure beforehand that she has a good man and +true, and then chance will neither make her nor break her. What +are you fidgeting about there, Joe? Nothing gone in the harness, I +hope?' + +'No no,' said Joe--finding, however, something very engrossing to +do in the way of strapping and buckling--'Miss Dolly quite well?' + +'Hearty, thankye. She looks pretty enough to be well, and good +too.' + +'She's always both, sir'-- + +'So she is, thank God!' + +'I hope,' said Joe after some hesitation, 'that you won't tell this +story against me--this of my having been beat like the boy they'd +make of me--at all events, till I have met this man again and +settled the account. It'll be a better story then.' + +'Why who should I tell it to?' returned Gabriel. 'They know it +here, and I'm not likely to come across anybody else who would care +about it.' + +'That's true enough,' said the young fellow with a sigh. 'I quite +forgot that. Yes, that's true!' + +So saying, he raised his face, which was very red,--no doubt from +the exertion of strapping and buckling as aforesaid,--and giving +the reins to the old man, who had by this time taken his seat, +sighed again and bade him good night. + +'Good night!' cried Gabriel. 'Now think better of what we have +just been speaking of; and don't be rash, there's a good fellow! I +have an interest in you, and wouldn't have you cast yourself away. +Good night!' + +Returning his cheery farewell with cordial goodwill, Joe Willet +lingered until the sound of wheels ceased to vibrate in his ears, +and then, shaking his head mournfully, re-entered the house. + +Gabriel Varden went his way towards London, thinking of a great +many things, and most of all of flaming terms in which to relate +his adventure, and so account satisfactorily to Mrs Varden for +visiting the Maypole, despite certain solemn covenants between +himself and that lady. Thinking begets, not only thought, but +drowsiness occasionally, and the more the locksmith thought, the +more sleepy he became. + +A man may be very sober--or at least firmly set upon his legs on +that neutral ground which lies between the confines of perfect +sobriety and slight tipsiness--and yet feel a strong tendency to +mingle up present circumstances with others which have no manner of +connection with them; to confound all consideration of persons, +things, times, and places; and to jumble his disjointed thoughts +together in a kind of mental kaleidoscope, producing combinations +as unexpected as they are transitory. This was Gabriel Varden's +state, as, nodding in his dog sleep, and leaving his horse to +pursue a road with which he was well acquainted, he got over the +ground unconsciously, and drew nearer and nearer home. He had +roused himself once, when the horse stopped until the turnpike gate +was opened, and had cried a lusty 'good night!' to the toll- +keeper; but then he awoke out of a dream about picking a lock in +the stomach of the Great Mogul, and even when he did wake, mixed up +the turnpike man with his mother-in-law who had been dead twenty +years. It is not surprising, therefore, that he soon relapsed, and +jogged heavily along, quite insensible to his progress. + +And, now, he approached the great city, which lay outstretched +before him like a dark shadow on the ground, reddening the sluggish +air with a deep dull light, that told of labyrinths of public ways +and shops, and swarms of busy people. Approaching nearer and +nearer yet, this halo began to fade, and the causes which produced +it slowly to develop themselves. Long lines of poorly lighted +streets might be faintly traced, with here and there a lighter +spot, where lamps were clustered round a square or market, or round +some great building; after a time these grew more distinct, and the +lamps themselves were visible; slight yellow specks, that seemed to +be rapidly snuffed out, one by one, as intervening obstacles hid +them from the sight. Then, sounds arose--the striking of church +clocks, the distant bark of dogs, the hum of traffic in the +streets; then outlines might be traced--tall steeples looming in +the air, and piles of unequal roofs oppressed by chimneys; then, +the noise swelled into a louder sound, and forms grew more distinct +and numerous still, and London--visible in the darkness by its own +faint light, and not by that of Heaven--was at hand. + +The locksmith, however, all unconscious of its near vicinity, still +jogged on, half sleeping and half waking, when a loud cry at no +great distance ahead, roused him with a start. + +For a moment or two he looked about him like a man who had been +transported to some strange country in his sleep, but soon +recognising familiar objects, rubbed his eyes lazily and might have +relapsed again, but that the cry was repeated--not once or twice or +thrice, but many times, and each time, if possible, with increased +vehemence. Thoroughly aroused, Gabriel, who was a bold man and not +easily daunted, made straight to the spot, urging on his stout +little horse as if for life or death. + +The matter indeed looked sufficiently serious, for, coming to the +place whence the cries had proceeded, he descried the figure of a +man extended in an apparently lifeless state upon the pathway, +and, hovering round him, another person with a torch in his hand, +which he waved in the air with a wild impatience, redoubling +meanwhile those cries for help which had brought the locksmith to +the spot. + +'What's here to do?' said the old man, alighting. 'How's this-- +what--Barnaby?' + +The bearer of the torch shook his long loose hair back from his +eyes, and thrusting his face eagerly into that of the locksmith, +fixed upon him a look which told his history at once. + +'You know me, Barnaby?' said Varden. + +He nodded--not once or twice, but a score of times, and that with a +fantastic exaggeration which would have kept his head in motion for +an hour, but that the locksmith held up his finger, and fixing his +eye sternly upon him caused him to desist; then pointed to the body +with an inquiring look. + +'There's blood upon him,' said Barnaby with a shudder. 'It makes +me sick!' + +'How came it there?' demanded Varden. + +'Steel, steel, steel!' he replied fiercely, imitating with his hand +the thrust of a sword. + +'Is he robbed?' said the locksmith. + +Barnaby caught him by the arm, and nodded 'Yes;' then pointed +towards the city. + +'Oh!' said the old man, bending over the body and looking round as +he spoke into Barnaby's pale face, strangely lighted up by +something that was NOT intellect. 'The robber made off that way, +did he? Well, well, never mind that just now. Hold your torch +this way--a little farther off--so. Now stand quiet, while I try +to see what harm is done.' + +With these words, he applied himself to a closer examination of the +prostrate form, while Barnaby, holding the torch as he had been +directed, looked on in silence, fascinated by interest or +curiosity, but repelled nevertheless by some strong and secret +horror which convulsed him in every nerve. + +As he stood, at that moment, half shrinking back and half bending +forward, both his face and figure were full in the strong glare of +the link, and as distinctly revealed as though it had been broad +day. He was about three-and-twenty years old, and though rather +spare, of a fair height and strong make. His hair, of which he had +a great profusion, was red, and hanging in disorder about his face +and shoulders, gave to his restless looks an expression quite +unearthly--enhanced by the paleness of his complexion, and the +glassy lustre of his large protruding eyes. Startling as his +aspect was, the features were good, and there was something even +plaintive in his wan and haggard aspect. But, the absence of the +soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one; and +in this unfortunate being its noblest powers were wanting. + +His dress was of green, clumsily trimmed here and there--apparently +by his own hands--with gaudy lace; brightest where the cloth was +most worn and soiled, and poorest where it was at the best. A pair +of tawdry ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was +nearly bare. He had ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock's +feathers, but they were limp and broken, and now trailed +negligently down his back. Girt to his side was the steel hilt of +an old sword without blade or scabbard; and some particoloured ends +of ribands and poor glass toys completed the ornamental portion of +his attire. The fluttered and confused disposition of all the +motley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in a scarcely less +degree than his eager and unsettled manner, the disorder of his +mind, and by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened the more +impressive wildness of his face. + +'Barnaby,' said the locksmith, after a hasty but careful +inspection, 'this man is not dead, but he has a wound in his side, +and is in a fainting-fit.' + +'I know him, I know him!' cried Barnaby, clapping his hands. + +'Know him?' repeated the locksmith. + +'Hush!' said Barnaby, laying his fingers upon his lips. 'He went +out to-day a wooing. I wouldn't for a light guinea that he should +never go a wooing again, for, if he did, some eyes would grow dim +that are now as bright as--see, when I talk of eyes, the stars come +out! Whose eyes are they? If they are angels' eyes, why do they +look down here and see good men hurt, and only wink and sparkle all +the night?' + +'Now Heaven help this silly fellow,' murmured the perplexed +locksmith; 'can he know this gentleman? His mother's house is not +far off; I had better see if she can tell me who he is. Barnaby, +my man, help me to put him in the chaise, and we'll ride home +together.' + +'I can't touch him!' cried the idiot falling back, and shuddering +as with a strong spasm; he's bloody!' + +'It's in his nature, I know,' muttered the locksmith, 'it's cruel +to ask him, but I must have help. Barnaby--good Barnaby--dear +Barnaby--if you know this gentleman, for the sake of his life and +everybody's life that loves him, help me to raise him and lay him +down.' + +'Cover him then, wrap him close--don't let me see it--smell it-- +hear the word. Don't speak the word--don't!' + +'No, no, I'll not. There, you see he's covered now. Gently. Well +done, well done!' + +They placed him in the carriage with great ease, for Barnaby was +strong and active, but all the time they were so occupied he +shivered from head to foot, and evidently experienced an ecstasy of +terror. + +This accomplished, and the wounded man being covered with Varden's +own greatcoat which he took off for the purpose, they proceeded +onward at a brisk pace: Barnaby gaily counting the stars upon his +fingers, and Gabriel inwardly congratulating himself upon having an +adventure now, which would silence Mrs Varden on the subject of the +Maypole, for that night, or there was no faith in woman. + + + +Chapter 4 + + +In the venerable suburb--it was a suburb once--of Clerkenwell, +towards that part of its confines which is nearest to the Charter +House, and in one of those cool, shady Streets, of which a few, +widely scattered and dispersed, yet remain in such old parts of the +metropolis,--each tenement quietly vegetating like an ancient +citizen who long ago retired from business, and dozing on in its +infirmity until in course of time it tumbles down, and is replaced +by some extravagant young heir, flaunting in stucco and ornamental +work, and all the vanities of modern days,--in this quarter, and in +a street of this description, the business of the present chapter +lies. + +At the time of which it treats, though only six-and-sixty years +ago, a very large part of what is London now had no existence. +Even in the brains of the wildest speculators, there had sprung up +no long rows of streets connecting Highgate with Whitechapel, no +assemblages of palaces in the swampy levels, nor little cities in +the open fields. Although this part of town was then, as now, +parcelled out in streets, and plentifully peopled, it wore a +different aspect. There were gardens to many of the houses, and +trees by the pavement side; with an air of freshness breathing up +and down, which in these days would be sought in vain. Fields were +nigh at hand, through which the New River took its winding course, +and where there was merry haymaking in the summer time. Nature was +not so far removed, or hard to get at, as in these days; and +although there were busy trades in Clerkenwell, and working +jewellers by scores, it was a purer place, with farm-houses nearer +to it than many modern Londoners would readily believe, and lovers' +walks at no great distance, which turned into squalid courts, long +before the lovers of this age were born, or, as the phrase goes, +thought of. + +In one of these streets, the cleanest of them all, and on the shady +side of the way--for good housewives know that sunlight damages +their cherished furniture, and so choose the shade rather than its +intrusive glare--there stood the house with which we have to deal. +It was a modest building, not very straight, not large, not tall; +not bold-faced, with great staring windows, but a shy, blinking +house, with a conical roof going up into a peak over its garret +window of four small panes of glass, like a cocked hat on the head +of an elderly gentleman with one eye. It was not built of brick or +lofty stone, but of wood and plaster; it was not planned with a +dull and wearisome regard to regularity, for no one window matched +the other, or seemed to have the slightest reference to anything +besides itself. + +The shop--for it had a shop--was, with reference to the first +floor, where shops usually are; and there all resemblance between +it and any other shop stopped short and ceased. People who went in +and out didn't go up a flight of steps to it, or walk easily in +upon a level with the street, but dived down three steep stairs, +as into a cellar. Its floor was paved with stone and brick, as +that of any other cellar might be; and in lieu of window framed and +glazed it had a great black wooden flap or shutter, nearly breast +high from the ground, which turned back in the day-time, admitting +as much cold air as light, and very often more. Behind this shop +was a wainscoted parlour, looking first into a paved yard, and +beyond that again into a little terrace garden, raised some feet +above it. Any stranger would have supposed that this wainscoted +parlour, saving for the door of communication by which he had +entered, was cut off and detached from all the world; and indeed +most strangers on their first entrance were observed to grow +extremely thoughtful, as weighing and pondering in their minds +whether the upper rooms were only approachable by ladders from +without; never suspecting that two of the most unassuming and +unlikely doors in existence, which the most ingenious mechanician +on earth must of necessity have supposed to be the doors of +closets, opened out of this room--each without the smallest +preparation, or so much as a quarter of an inch of passage--upon +two dark winding flights of stairs, the one upward, the other +downward, which were the sole means of communication between that +chamber and the other portions of the house. + +With all these oddities, there was not a neater, more scrupulously +tidy, or more punctiliously ordered house, in Clerkenwell, in +London, in all England. There were not cleaner windows, or whiter +floors, or brighter Stoves, or more highly shining articles of +furniture in old mahogany; there was not more rubbing, scrubbing, +burnishing and polishing, in the whole street put together. Nor +was this excellence attained without some cost and trouble and +great expenditure of voice, as the neighbours were frequently +reminded when the good lady of the house overlooked and assisted in +its being put to rights on cleaning days--which were usually from +Monday morning till Saturday night, both days inclusive. + +Leaning against the door-post of this, his dwelling, the locksmith +stood early on the morning after he had met with the wounded man, +gazing disconsolately at a great wooden emblem of a key, painted in +vivid yellow to resemble gold, which dangled from the house-front, +and swung to and fro with a mournful creaking noise, as if +complaining that it had nothing to unlock. Sometimes, he looked +over his shoulder into the shop, which was so dark and dingy with +numerous tokens of his trade, and so blackened by the smoke of a +little forge, near which his 'prentice was at work, that it would +have been difficult for one unused to such espials to have +distinguished anything but various tools of uncouth make and shape, +great bunches of rusty keys, fragments of iron, half-finished +locks, and such like things, which garnished the walls and hung in +clusters from the ceiling. + +After a long and patient contemplation of the golden key, and many +such backward glances, Gabriel stepped into the road, and stole a +look at the upper windows. One of them chanced to be thrown open +at the moment, and a roguish face met his; a face lighted up by the +loveliest pair of sparkling eyes that ever locksmith looked upon; +the face of a pretty, laughing, girl; dimpled and fresh, and +healthful--the very impersonation of good-humour and blooming +beauty. + +'Hush!' she whispered, bending forward and pointing archly to the +window underneath. 'Mother is still asleep.' + +'Still, my dear,' returned the locksmith in the same tone. 'You +talk as if she had been asleep all night, instead of little more +than half an hour. But I'm very thankful. Sleep's a blessing--no +doubt about it.' The last few words he muttered to himself. + +'How cruel of you to keep us up so late this morning, and never +tell us where you were, or send us word!' said the girl. + +'Ah Dolly, Dolly!' returned the locksmith, shaking his head, and +smiling, 'how cruel of you to run upstairs to bed! Come down to +breakfast, madcap, and come down lightly, or you'll wake your +mother. She must be tired, I am sure--I am.' + +Keeping these latter words to himself, and returning his +daughter's nod, he was passing into the workshop, with the smile +she had awakened still beaming on his face, when he just caught +sight of his 'prentice's brown paper cap ducking down to avoid +observation, and shrinking from the window back to its former +place, which the wearer no sooner reached than he began to hammer +lustily. + +'Listening again, Simon!' said Gabriel to himself. 'That's bad. +What in the name of wonder does he expect the girl to say, that I +always catch him listening when SHE speaks, and never at any other +time! A bad habit, Sim, a sneaking, underhanded way. Ah! you may +hammer, but you won't beat that out of me, if you work at it till +your time's up!' + +So saying, and shaking his head gravely, he re-entered the +workshop, and confronted the subject of these remarks. + +'There's enough of that just now,' said the locksmith. 'You +needn't make any more of that confounded clatter. Breakfast's +ready.' + +'Sir,' said Sim, looking up with amazing politeness, and a peculiar +little bow cut short off at the neck, 'I shall attend you +immediately.' + +'I suppose,' muttered Gabriel, 'that's out of the 'Prentice's +Garland or the 'Prentice's Delight, or the 'Prentice's Warbler, or +the Prentice's Guide to the Gallows, or some such improving +textbook. Now he's going to beautify himself--here's a precious +locksmith!' + +Quite unconscious that his master was looking on from the dark +corner by the parlour door, Sim threw off the paper cap, sprang +from his seat, and in two extraordinary steps, something between +skating and minuet dancing, bounded to a washing place at the other +end of the shop, and there removed from his face and hands all +traces of his previous work--practising the same step all the time +with the utmost gravity. This done, he drew from some concealed +place a little scrap of looking-glass, and with its assistance +arranged his hair, and ascertained the exact state of a little +carbuncle on his nose. Having now completed his toilet, he placed +the fragment of mirror on a low bench, and looked over his shoulder +at so much of his legs as could be reflected in that small compass, +with the greatest possible complacency and satisfaction. + +Sim, as he was called in the locksmith's family, or Mr Simon +Tappertit, as he called himself, and required all men to style him +out of doors, on holidays, and Sundays out,--was an old-fashioned, +thin-faced, sleek-haired, sharp-nosed, small-eyed little fellow, +very little more than five feet high, and thoroughly convinced in +his own mind that he was above the middle size; rather tall, in +fact, than otherwise. Of his figure, which was well enough formed, +though somewhat of the leanest, he entertained the highest +admiration; and with his legs, which, in knee-breeches, were +perfect curiosities of littleness, he was enraptured to a degree +amounting to enthusiasm. He also had some majestic, shadowy ideas, +which had never been quite fathomed by his intimate friends, +concerning the power of his eye. Indeed he had been known to go so +far as to boast that he could utterly quell and subdue the +haughtiest beauty by a simple process, which he termed 'eyeing her +over;' but it must be added, that neither of this faculty, nor of +the power he claimed to have, through the same gift, of vanquishing +and heaving down dumb animals, even in a rabid state, had he ever +furnished evidence which could be deemed quite satisfactory and +conclusive. + +It may be inferred from these premises, that in the small body of +Mr Tappertit there was locked up an ambitious and aspiring soul. +As certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their +dimensions, will ferment, and fret, and chafe in their +imprisonment, so the spiritual essence or soul of Mr Tappertit +would sometimes fume within that precious cask, his body, until, +with great foam and froth and splutter, it would force a vent, and +carry all before it. It was his custom to remark, in reference to +any one of these occasions, that his soul had got into his head; +and in this novel kind of intoxication many scrapes and mishaps +befell him, which he had frequently concealed with no small +difficulty from his worthy master. + +Sim Tappertit, among the other fancies upon which his before- +mentioned soul was for ever feasting and regaling itself (and which +fancies, like the liver of Prometheus, grew as they were fed +upon), had a mighty notion of his order; and had been heard by the +servant-maid openly expressing his regret that the 'prentices no +longer carried clubs wherewith to mace the citizens: that was his +strong expression. He was likewise reported to have said that in +former times a stigma had been cast upon the body by the execution +of George Barnwell, to which they should not have basely +submitted, but should have demanded him of the legislature-- +temperately at first; then by an appeal to arms, if necessary--to +be dealt with as they in their wisdom might think fit. These +thoughts always led him to consider what a glorious engine the +'prentices might yet become if they had but a master spirit at +their head; and then he would darkly, and to the terror of his +hearers, hint at certain reckless fellows that he knew of, and at a +certain Lion Heart ready to become their captain, who, once afoot, +would make the Lord Mayor tremble on his throne. + +In respect of dress and personal decoration, Sim Tappertit was no +less of an adventurous and enterprising character. He had been +seen, beyond dispute, to pull off ruffles of the finest quality at +the corner of the street on Sunday nights, and to put them +carefully in his pocket before returning home; and it was quite +notorious that on all great holiday occasions it was his habit to +exchange his plain steel knee-buckles for a pair of glittering +paste, under cover of a friendly post, planted most conveniently +in that same spot. Add to this that he was in years just twenty, +in his looks much older, and in conceit at least two hundred; that +he had no objection to be jested with, touching his admiration of +his master's daughter; and had even, when called upon at a certain +obscure tavern to pledge the lady whom he honoured with his love, +toasted, with many winks and leers, a fair creature whose Christian +name, he said, began with a D--;--and as much is known of Sim +Tappertit, who has by this time followed the locksmith in to +breakfast, as is necessary to be known in making his acquaintance. + +It was a substantial meal; for, over and above the ordinary tea +equipage, the board creaked beneath the weight of a jolly round of +beef, a ham of the first magnitude, and sundry towers of buttered +Yorkshire cake, piled slice upon slice in most alluring order. +There was also a goodly jug of well-browned clay, fashioned into +the form of an old gentleman, not by any means unlike the +locksmith, atop of whose bald head was a fine white froth answering +to his wig, indicative, beyond dispute, of sparkling home-brewed +ale. But, better far than fair home-brewed, or Yorkshire cake, or +ham, or beef, or anything to eat or drink that earth or air or +water can supply, there sat, presiding over all, the locksmith's +rosy daughter, before whose dark eyes even beef grew insignificant, +and malt became as nothing. + +Fathers should never kiss their daughters when young men are by. +It's too much. There are bounds to human endurance. So thought +Sim Tappertit when Gabriel drew those rosy lips to his--those lips +within Sim's reach from day to day, and yet so far off. He had a +respect for his master, but he wished the Yorkshire cake might +choke him. + +'Father,' said the locksmith's daughter, when this salute was over, +and they took their seats at table, 'what is this I hear about last +night?' + +'All true, my dear; true as the Gospel, Doll.' + +'Young Mr Chester robbed, and lying wounded in the road, when you +came up!' + +'Ay--Mr Edward. And beside him, Barnaby, calling for help with all +his might. It was well it happened as it did; for the road's a +lonely one, the hour was late, and, the night being cold, and poor +Barnaby even less sensible than usual from surprise and fright, the +young gentleman might have met his death in a very short time.' + +'I dread to think of it!' cried his daughter with a shudder. 'How +did you know him?' + +'Know him!' returned the locksmith. 'I didn't know him--how could +I? I had never seen him, often as I had heard and spoken of him. +I took him to Mrs Rudge's; and she no sooner saw him than the truth +came out.' + +'Miss Emma, father--If this news should reach her, enlarged upon as +it is sure to be, she will go distracted.' + +'Why, lookye there again, how a man suffers for being good- +natured,' said the locksmith. 'Miss Emma was with her uncle at the +masquerade at Carlisle House, where she had gone, as the people at +the Warren told me, sorely against her will. What does your +blockhead father when he and Mrs Rudge have laid their heads +together, but goes there when he ought to be abed, makes interest +with his friend the doorkeeper, slips him on a mask and domino, +and mixes with the masquers.' + +'And like himself to do so!' cried the girl, putting her fair arm +round his neck, and giving him a most enthusiastic kiss. + +'Like himself!' repeated Gabriel, affecting to grumble, but +evidently delighted with the part he had taken, and with her +praise. 'Very like himself--so your mother said. However, he +mingled with the crowd, and prettily worried and badgered he was, I +warrant you, with people squeaking, "Don't you know me?" and "I've +found you out," and all that kind of nonsense in his ears. He +might have wandered on till now, but in a little room there was a +young lady who had taken off her mask, on account of the place +being very warm, and was sitting there alone.' + +'And that was she?' said his daughter hastily. + +'And that was she,' replied the locksmith; 'and I no sooner +whispered to her what the matter was--as softly, Doll, and with +nearly as much art as you could have used yourself--than she gives +a kind of scream and faints away.' + +'What did you do--what happened next?' asked his daughter. 'Why, +the masks came flocking round, with a general noise and hubbub, and +I thought myself in luck to get clear off, that's all,' rejoined +the locksmith. 'What happened when I reached home you may guess, +if you didn't hear it. Ah! Well, it's a poor heart that never +rejoices.--Put Toby this way, my dear.' + +This Toby was the brown jug of which previous mention has been +made. Applying his lips to the worthy old gentleman's benevolent +forehead, the locksmith, who had all this time been ravaging among +the eatables, kept them there so long, at the same time raising the +vessel slowly in the air, that at length Toby stood on his head +upon his nose, when he smacked his lips, and set him on the table +again with fond reluctance. + +Although Sim Tappertit had taken no share in this conversation, no +part of it being addressed to him, he had not been wanting in such +silent manifestations of astonishment, as he deemed most compatible +with the favourable display of his eyes. Regarding the pause which +now ensued, as a particularly advantageous opportunity for doing +great execution with them upon the locksmith's daughter (who he had +no doubt was looking at him in mute admiration), he began to screw +and twist his face, and especially those features, into such +extraordinary, hideous, and unparalleled contortions, that Gabriel, +who happened to look towards him, was stricken with amazement. + +'Why, what the devil's the matter with the lad?' cried the +locksmith. 'Is he choking?' + +'Who?' demanded Sim, with some disdain. + +'Who? Why, you,' returned his master. 'What do you mean by making +those horrible faces over your breakfast?' + +'Faces are matters of taste, sir,' said Mr Tappertit, rather +discomfited; not the less so because he saw the locksmith's +daughter smiling. + +'Sim,' rejoined Gabriel, laughing heartily. 'Don't be a fool, for +I'd rather see you in your senses. These young fellows,' he added, +turning to his daughter, 'are always committing some folly or +another. There was a quarrel between Joe Willet and old John last +night though I can't say Joe was much in fault either. He'll be +missing one of these mornings, and will have gone away upon some +wild-goose errand, seeking his fortune.--Why, what's the matter, +Doll? YOU are making faces now. The girls are as bad as the boys +every bit!' + +'It's the tea,' said Dolly, turning alternately very red and very +white, which is no doubt the effect of a slight scald--'so very hot.' + +Mr Tappertit looked immensely big at a quartern loaf on the table, +and breathed hard. + +'Is that all?' returned the locksmith. 'Put some more milk in it.-- +Yes, I am sorry for Joe, because he is a likely young fellow, and +gains upon one every time one sees him. But he'll start off, +you'll find. Indeed he told me as much himself!' + +'Indeed!' cried Dolly in a faint voice. 'In-deed!' + +'Is the tea tickling your throat still, my dear?' said the +locksmith. + +But, before his daughter could make him any answer, she was taken +with a troublesome cough, and it was such a very unpleasant cough, +that, when she left off, the tears were starting in her bright +eyes. The good-natured locksmith was still patting her on the back +and applying such gentle restoratives, when a message arrived from +Mrs Varden, making known to all whom it might concern, that she +felt too much indisposed to rise after her great agitation and +anxiety of the previous night; and therefore desired to be +immediately accommodated with the little black teapot of strong +mixed tea, a couple of rounds of buttered toast, a middling-sized +dish of beef and ham cut thin, and the Protestant Manual in two +volumes post octavo. Like some other ladies who in remote ages +flourished upon this globe, Mrs Varden was most devout when most +ill-tempered. Whenever she and her husband were at unusual +variance, then the Protestant Manual was in high feather. + +Knowing from experience what these requests portended, the +triumvirate broke up; Dolly, to see the orders executed with all +despatch; Gabriel, to some out-of-door work in his little chaise; +and Sim, to his daily duty in the workshop, to which retreat he +carried the big look, although the loaf remained behind. + +Indeed the big look increased immensely, and when he had tied his +apron on, became quite gigantic. It was not until he had several +times walked up and down with folded arms, and the longest strides +be could take, and had kicked a great many small articles out of +his way, that his lip began to curl. At length, a gloomy derision +came upon his features, and he smiled; uttering meanwhile with +supreme contempt the monosyllable 'Joe!' + +'I eyed her over, while he talked about the fellow,' he said, 'and +that was of course the reason of her being confused. Joe!' + +He walked up and down again much quicker than before, and if +possible with longer strides; sometimes stopping to take a glance +at his legs, and sometimes to jerk out, and cast from him, another +'Joe!' In the course of a quarter of an hour or so he again +assumed the paper cap and tried to work. No. It could not be +done. + +'I'll do nothing to-day,' said Mr Tappertit, dashing it down again, +'but grind. I'll grind up all the tools. Grinding will suit my +present humour well. Joe!' + +Whirr-r-r-r. The grindstone was soon in motion; the sparks were +flying off in showers. This was the occupation for his heated +spirit. + +Whirr-r-r-r-r-r-r. + +'Something will come of this!' said Mr Tappertit, pausing as if in +triumph, and wiping his heated face upon his sleeve. 'Something +will come of this. I hope it mayn't be human gore!' + +Whirr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. + + + +Chapter 5 + + +As soon as the business of the day was over, the locksmith sallied +forth, alone, to visit the wounded gentleman and ascertain the +progress of his recovery. The house where he had left him was in a +by-street in Southwark, not far from London Bridge; and thither he +hied with all speed, bent upon returning with as little delay as +might be, and getting to bed betimes. + +The evening was boisterous--scarcely better than the previous night +had been. It was not easy for a stout man like Gabriel to keep his +legs at the street corners, or to make head against the high wind, +which often fairly got the better of him, and drove him back some +paces, or, in defiance of all his energy, forced him to take +shelter in an arch or doorway until the fury of the gust was spent. +Occasionally a hat or wig, or both, came spinning and trundling +past him, like a mad thing; while the more serious spectacle of +falling tiles and slates, or of masses of brick and mortar or +fragments of stone-coping rattling upon the pavement near at hand, +and splitting into fragments, did not increase the pleasure of the +journey, or make the way less dreary. + +'A trying night for a man like me to walk in!' said the locksmith, +as he knocked softly at the widow's door. 'I'd rather be in old +John's chimney-corner, faith!' + +'Who's there?' demanded a woman's voice from within. Being +answered, it added a hasty word of welcome, and the door was +quickly opened. + +She was about forty--perhaps two or three years older--with a +cheerful aspect, and a face that had once been pretty. It bore +traces of affliction and care, but they were of an old date, and +Time had smoothed them. Any one who had bestowed but a casual +glance on Barnaby might have known that this was his mother, from +the strong resemblance between them; but where in his face there +was wildness and vacancy, in hers there was the patient composure +of long effort and quiet resignation. + +One thing about this face was very strange and startling. You +could not look upon it in its most cheerful mood without feeling +that it had some extraordinary capacity of expressing terror. It +was not on the surface. It was in no one feature that it lingered. +You could not take the eyes or mouth, or lines upon the cheek, and +say, if this or that were otherwise, it would not be so. Yet there +it always lurked--something for ever dimly seen, but ever there, +and never absent for a moment. It was the faintest, palest shadow +of some look, to which an instant of intense and most unutterable +horror only could have given birth; but indistinct and feeble as it +was, it did suggest what that look must have been, and fixed it in +the mind as if it had had existence in a dream. + +More faintly imaged, and wanting force and purpose, as it were, +because of his darkened intellect, there was this same stamp upon +the son. Seen in a picture, it must have had some legend with it, +and would have haunted those who looked upon the canvas. They who +knew the Maypole story, and could remember what the widow was, +before her husband's and his master's murder, understood it well. +They recollected how the change had come, and could call to mind +that when her son was born, upon the very day the deed was known, +he bore upon his wrist what seemed a smear of blood but half washed +out. + +'God save you, neighbour!' said the locksmith, as he followed her, +with the air of an old friend, into a little parlour where a +cheerful fire was burning. + +'And you,' she answered smiling. 'Your kind heart has brought you +here again. Nothing will keep you at home, I know of old, if there +are friends to serve or comfort, out of doors.' + +'Tut, tut,' returned the locksmith, rubbing his hands and warming +them. 'You women are such talkers. What of the patient, +neighbour?' + +'He is sleeping now. He was very restless towards daylight, and +for some hours tossed and tumbled sadly. But the fever has left +him, and the doctor says he will soon mend. He must not be removed +until to-morrow.' + +'He has had visitors to-day--humph?' said Gabriel, slyly. + +'Yes. Old Mr Chester has been here ever since we sent for him, and +had not been gone many minutes when you knocked.' + +'No ladies?' said Gabriel, elevating his eyebrows and looking +disappointed. + +'A letter,' replied the widow. + +'Come. That's better than nothing!' replied the locksmith. 'Who +was the bearer?' + +'Barnaby, of course.' + +'Barnaby's a jewel!' said Varden; 'and comes and goes with ease +where we who think ourselves much wiser would make but a poor hand +of it. He is not out wandering, again, I hope?' + +'Thank Heaven he is in his bed; having been up all night, as you +know, and on his feet all day. He was quite tired out. Ah, +neighbour, if I could but see him oftener so--if I could but tame +down that terrible restlessness--' + +'In good time,' said the locksmith, kindly, 'in good time--don't be +down-hearted. To my mind he grows wiser every day.' + +The widow shook her head. And yet, though she knew the locksmith +sought to cheer her, and spoke from no conviction of his own, she +was glad to hear even this praise of her poor benighted son. + +'He will be a 'cute man yet,' resumed the locksmith. 'Take care, +when we are growing old and foolish, Barnaby doesn't put us to the +blush, that's all. But our other friend,' he added, looking under +the table and about the floor--'sharpest and cunningest of all the +sharp and cunning ones--where's he?' + +'In Barnaby's room,' rejoined the widow, with a faint smile. + +'Ah! He's a knowing blade!' said Varden, shaking his head. 'I +should be sorry to talk secrets before him. Oh! He's a deep +customer. I've no doubt he can read, and write, and cast accounts +if he chooses. What was that? Him tapping at the door?' + +'No,' returned the widow. 'It was in the street, I think. Hark! +Yes. There again! 'Tis some one knocking softly at the shutter. +Who can it be!' + +They had been speaking in a low tone, for the invalid lay overhead, +and the walls and ceilings being thin and poorly built, the sound +of their voices might otherwise have disturbed his slumber. The +party without, whoever it was, could have stood close to the +shutter without hearing anything spoken; and, seeing the light +through the chinks and finding all so quiet, might have been +persuaded that only one person was there. + +'Some thief or ruffian maybe,' said the locksmith. 'Give me the +light.' + +'No, no,' she returned hastily. 'Such visitors have never come to +this poor dwelling. Do you stay here. You're within call, at the +worst. I would rather go myself--alone.' + +'Why?' said the locksmith, unwillingly relinquishing the candle he +had caught up from the table. + +'Because--I don't know why--because the wish is so strong upon me,' +she rejoined. 'There again--do not detain me, I beg of you!' + +Gabriel looked at her, in great surprise to see one who was usually +so mild and quiet thus agitated, and with so little cause. She +left the room and closed the door behind her. She stood for a +moment as if hesitating, with her hand upon the lock. In this +short interval the knocking came again, and a voice close to the +window--a voice the locksmith seemed to recollect, and to have some +disagreeable association with--whispered 'Make haste.' + +The words were uttered in that low distinct voice which finds its +way so readily to sleepers' ears, and wakes them in a fright. For +a moment it startled even the locksmith; who involuntarily drew +back from the window, and listened. + +The wind rumbling in the chimney made it difficult to hear what +passed, but he could tell that the door was opened, that there was +the tread of a man upon the creaking boards, and then a moment's +silence--broken by a suppressed something which was not a shriek, +or groan, or cry for help, and yet might have been either or all +three; and the words 'My God!' uttered in a voice it chilled him to +hear. + +He rushed out upon the instant. There, at last, was that dreadful +look--the very one he seemed to know so well and yet had never seen +before--upon her face. There she stood, frozen to the ground, +gazing with starting eyes, and livid cheeks, and every feature +fixed and ghastly, upon the man he had encountered in the dark last +night. His eyes met those of the locksmith. It was but a flash, +an instant, a breath upon a polished glass, and he was gone. + +The locksmith was upon him--had the skirts of his streaming garment +almost in his grasp--when his arms were tightly clutched, and the +widow flung herself upon the ground before him. + +'The other way--the other way,' she cried. 'He went the other way. +Turn--turn!' + +'The other way! I see him now,' rejoined the locksmith, pointing-- +'yonder--there--there is his shadow passing by that light. What-- +who is this? Let me go.' + +'Come back, come back!' exclaimed the woman, clasping him; 'Do not +touch him on your life. I charge you, come back. He carries other +lives besides his own. Come back!' + +'What does this mean?' cried the locksmith. + +'No matter what it means, don't ask, don't speak, don't think about +it. He is not to be followed, checked, or stopped. Come back!' + +The old man looked at her in wonder, as she writhed and clung about +him; and, borne down by her passion, suffered her to drag him into +the house. It was not until she had chained and double-locked the +door, fastened every bolt and bar with the heat and fury of a +maniac, and drawn him back into the room, that she turned upon him, +once again, that stony look of horror, and, sinking down into a +chair, covered her face, and shuddered, as though the hand of death +were on her. + + + +Chapter 6 + + +Beyond all measure astonished by the strange occurrences which had +passed with so much violence and rapidity, the locksmith gazed upon +the shuddering figure in the chair like one half stupefied, and +would have gazed much longer, had not his tongue been loosened by +compassion and humanity. + +'You are ill,' said Gabriel. 'Let me call some neighbour in.' + +'Not for the world,' she rejoined, motioning to him with her +trembling hand, and holding her face averted. 'It is enough that +you have been by, to see this.' + +'Nay, more than enough--or less,' said Gabriel. + +'Be it so,' she returned. 'As you like. Ask me no questions, I +entreat you.' + +'Neighbour,' said the locksmith, after a pause. 'Is this fair, or +reasonable, or just to yourself? Is it like you, who have known me +so long and sought my advice in all matters--like you, who from a +girl have had a strong mind and a staunch heart?' + +'I have need of them,' she replied. 'I am growing old, both in +years and care. Perhaps that, and too much trial, have made them +weaker than they used to be. Do not speak to me.' + +'How can I see what I have seen, and hold my peace!' returned the +locksmith. 'Who was that man, and why has his coming made this +change in you?' + +She was silent, but held to the chair as though to save herself +from falling on the ground. + +'I take the licence of an old acquaintance, Mary,' said the +locksmith, 'who has ever had a warm regard for you, and maybe has +tried to prove it when he could. Who is this ill-favoured man, and +what has he to do with you? Who is this ghost, that is only seen +in the black nights and bad weather? How does he know, and why +does he haunt, this house, whispering through chinks and crevices, +as if there was that between him and you, which neither durst so +much as speak aloud of? Who is he?' + +'You do well to say he haunts this house,' returned the widow, +faintly. 'His shadow has been upon it and me, in light and +darkness, at noonday and midnight. And now, at last, he has come +in the body!' + +'But he wouldn't have gone in the body,' returned the locksmith +with some irritation, 'if you had left my arms and legs at liberty. +What riddle is this?' + +'It is one,' she answered, rising as she spoke, 'that must remain +for ever as it is. I dare not say more than that.' + +'Dare not!' repeated the wondering locksmith. + +'Do not press me,' she replied. 'I am sick and faint, and every +faculty of life seems dead within me.--No!--Do not touch me, +either.' + +Gabriel, who had stepped forward to render her assistance, fell +back as she made this hasty exclamation, and regarded her in silent +wonder. + +'Let me go my way alone,' she said in a low voice, 'and let the +hands of no honest man touch mine to-night.' When she had +tottered to the door, she turned, and added with a stronger effort, +'This is a secret, which, of necessity, I trust to you. You are a +true man. As you have ever been good and kind to me,--keep it. If +any noise was heard above, make some excuse--say anything but what +you really saw, and never let a word or look between us, recall +this circumstance. I trust to you. Mind, I trust to you. How +much I trust, you never can conceive.' + +Casting her eyes upon him for an instant, she withdrew, and left +him there alone. + +Gabriel, not knowing what to think, stood staring at the door with +a countenance full of surprise and dismay. The more he pondered on +what had passed, the less able he was to give it any favourable +interpretation. To find this widow woman, whose life for so many +years had been supposed to be one of solitude and retirement, and +who, in her quiet suffering character, had gained the good opinion +and respect of all who knew her--to find her linked mysteriously +with an ill-omened man, alarmed at his appearance, and yet +favouring his escape, was a discovery that pained as much as +startled him. Her reliance on his secrecy, and his tacit +acquiescence, increased his distress of mind. If he had spoken +boldly, persisted in questioning her, detained her when she rose to +leave the room, made any kind of protest, instead of silently +compromising himself, as he felt he had done, he would have been +more at ease. + +'Why did I let her say it was a secret, and she trusted it to me!' +said Gabriel, putting his wig on one side to scratch his head with +greater ease, and looking ruefully at the fire. 'I have no more +readiness than old John himself. Why didn't I say firmly, "You +have no right to such secrets, and I demand of you to tell me what +this means," instead of standing gaping at her, like an old moon- +calf as I am! But there's my weakness. I can be obstinate enough +with men if need be, but women may twist me round their fingers at +their pleasure.' + +He took his wig off outright as he made this reflection, and, +warming his handkerchief at the fire began to rub and polish his +bald head with it, until it glistened again. + +'And yet,' said the locksmith, softening under this soothing +process, and stopping to smile, 'it MAY be nothing. Any drunken +brawler trying to make his way into the house, would have alarmed a +quiet soul like her. But then'--and here was the vexation--'how +came it to be that man; how comes he to have this influence over +her; how came she to favour his getting away from me; and, more +than all, how came she not to say it was a sudden fright, and +nothing more? It's a sad thing to have, in one minute, reason to +mistrust a person I have known so long, and an old sweetheart into +the bargain; but what else can I do, with all this upon my mind!-- +Is that Barnaby outside there?' + +'Ay!' he cried, looking in and nodding. 'Sure enough it's +Barnaby--how did you guess?' + +'By your shadow,' said the locksmith. + +'Oho!' cried Barnaby, glancing over his shoulder, 'He's a merry +fellow, that shadow, and keeps close to me, though I AM silly. We +have such pranks, such walks, such runs, such gambols on the grass! +Sometimes he'll be half as tall as a church steeple, and sometimes +no bigger than a dwarf. Now, he goes on before, and now behind, +and anon he'll be stealing on, on this side, or on that, stopping +whenever I stop, and thinking I can't see him, though I have my eye +on him sharp enough. Oh! he's a merry fellow. Tell me--is he +silly too? I think he is.' + +'Why?' asked Gabriel. + +'Because be never tires of mocking me, but does it all day long.-- +Why don't you come?' + +'Where?' + +'Upstairs. He wants you. Stay--where's HIS shadow? Come. You're +a wise man; tell me that.' + +'Beside him, Barnaby; beside him, I suppose,' returned the locksmith. + +'No!' he replied, shaking his head. 'Guess again.' + +'Gone out a walking, maybe?' + +'He has changed shadows with a woman,' the idiot whispered in his +ear, and then fell back with a look of triumph. 'Her shadow's +always with him, and his with her. That's sport I think, eh?' + +'Barnaby,' said the locksmith, with a grave look; 'come hither, +lad.' + +'I know what you want to say. I know!' he replied, keeping away +from him. 'But I'm cunning, I'm silent. I only say so much to +you--are you ready?' As he spoke, he caught up the light, and +waved it with a wild laugh above his head. + +'Softly--gently,' said the locksmith, exerting all his influence to +keep him calm and quiet. 'I thought you had been asleep.' + +'So I HAVE been asleep,' he rejoined, with widely-opened eyes. +'There have been great faces coming and going--close to my face, +and then a mile away--low places to creep through, whether I would +or no--high churches to fall down from--strange creatures crowded +up together neck and heels, to sit upon the bed--that's sleep, eh?' + +'Dreams, Barnaby, dreams,' said the locksmith. + +'Dreams!' he echoed softly, drawing closer to him. 'Those are not +dreams.' + +'What are,' replied the locksmith, 'if they are not?' + +'I dreamed,' said Barnaby, passing his arm through Varden's, and +peering close into his face as he answered in a whisper, 'I dreamed +just now that something--it was in the shape of a man--followed me-- +came softly after me--wouldn't let me be--but was always hiding +and crouching, like a cat in dark corners, waiting till I should +pass; when it crept out and came softly after me.--Did you ever see +me run?' + +'Many a time, you know.' + +'You never saw me run as I did in this dream. Still it came +creeping on to worry me. Nearer, nearer, nearer--I ran faster-- +leaped--sprung out of bed, and to the window--and there, in the +street below--but he is waiting for us. Are you coming?' + +'What in the street below, Barnaby?' said Varden, imagining that he +traced some connection between this vision and what had actually +occurred. + +Barnaby looked into his face, muttered incoherently, waved the +light above his head again, laughed, and drawing the locksmith's +arm more tightly through his own, led him up the stairs in silence. + +They entered a homely bedchamber, garnished in a scanty way with +chairs, whose spindle-shanks bespoke their age, and other furniture +of very little worth; but clean and neatly kept. Reclining in an +easy-chair before the fire, pale and weak from waste of blood, was +Edward Chester, the young gentleman who had been the first to quit +the Maypole on the previous night, and who, extending his hand to +the locksmith, welcomed him as his preserver and friend. + +'Say no more, sir, say no more,' said Gabriel. 'I hope I would +have done at least as much for any man in such a strait, and most +of all for you, sir. A certain young lady,' he added, with some +hesitation, 'has done us many a kind turn, and we naturally feel--I +hope I give you no offence in saying this, sir?' + +The young man smiled and shook his head; at the same time moving in +his chair as if in pain. + +'It's no great matter,' he said, in answer to the locksmith's +sympathising look, 'a mere uneasiness arising at least as much from +being cooped up here, as from the slight wound I have, or from the +loss of blood. Be seated, Mr Varden.' + +'If I may make so bold, Mr Edward, as to lean upon your chair,' +returned the locksmith, accommodating his action to his speech, and +bending over him, 'I'll stand here for the convenience of speaking +low. Barnaby is not in his quietest humour to-night, and at such +times talking never does him good.' + +They both glanced at the subject of this remark, who had taken a +seat on the other side of the fire, and, smiling vacantly, was +making puzzles on his fingers with a skein of string. + +'Pray, tell me, sir,' said Varden, dropping his voice still lower, +'exactly what happened last night. I have my reason for inquiring. +You left the Maypole, alone?' + +'And walked homeward alone, until I had nearly reached the place +where you found me, when I heard the gallop of a horse.' + +'Behind you?' said the locksmith. + +'Indeed, yes--behind me. It was a single rider, who soon overtook +me, and checking his horse, inquired the way to London.' + +'You were on the alert, sir, knowing how many highwaymen there are, +scouring the roads in all directions?' said Varden. + +'I was, but I had only a stick, having imprudently left my pistols +in their holster-case with the landlord's son. I directed him as +he desired. Before the words had passed my lips, he rode upon me +furiously, as if bent on trampling me down beneath his horse's +hoofs. In starting aside, I slipped and fell. You found me with +this stab and an ugly bruise or two, and without my purse--in which +he found little enough for his pains. And now, Mr Varden,' he +added, shaking the locksmith by the hand, 'saving the extent of my +gratitude to you, you know as much as I.' + +'Except,' said Gabriel, bending down yet more, and looking +cautiously towards their silent neighhour, 'except in respect of +the robber himself. What like was he, sir? Speak low, if you +please. Barnaby means no harm, but I have watched him oftener than +you, and I know, little as you would think it, that he's listening +now.' + +It required a strong confidence in the locksmith's veracity to +lead any one to this belief, for every sense and faculty that +Barnahy possessed, seemed to be fixed upon his game, to the +exclusion of all other things. Something in the young man's face +expressed this opinion, for Gabriel repeated what he had just said, +more earnestly than before, and with another glance towards +Barnaby, again asked what like the man was. + +'The night was so dark,' said Edward, 'the attack so sudden, and +he so wrapped and muffled up, that I can hardly say. It seems +that--' + +'Don't mention his name, sir,' returned the locksmith, following +his look towards Barnaby; 'I know HE saw him. I want to know what +YOU saw.' + +'All I remember is,' said Edward, 'that as he checked his horse his +hat was blown off. He caught it, and replaced it on his head, +which I observed was bound with a dark handkerchief. A stranger +entered the Maypole while I was there, whom I had not seen--for I +had sat apart for reasons of my own--and when I rose to leave the +room and glanced round, he was in the shadow of the chimney and +hidden from my sight. But, if he and the robber were two different +persons, their voices were strangely and most remarkably alike; for +directly the man addressed me in the road, I recognised his speech +again.' + +'It is as I feared. The very man was here to-night,' thought the +locksmith, changing colour. 'What dark history is this!' + +'Halloa!' cried a hoarse voice in his ear. 'Halloa, halloa, +halloa! Bow wow wow. What's the matter here! Hal-loa!' + +The speaker--who made the locksmith start as if he had been some +supernatural agent--was a large raven, who had perched upon the top +of the easy-chair, unseen by him and Edward, and listened with a +polite attention and a most extraordinary appearance of +comprehending every word, to all they had said up to this point; +turning his head from one to the other, as if his office were to +judge between them, and it were of the very last importance that he +should not lose a word. + +'Look at him!' said Varden, divided between admiration of the bird +and a kind of fear of him. 'Was there ever such a knowing imp as +that! Oh he's a dreadful fellow!' + +The raven, with his head very much on one side, and his bright eye +shining like a diamond, preserved a thoughtful silence for a few +seconds, and then replied in a voice so hoarse and distant, that it +seemed to come through his thick feathers rather than out of his +mouth. + +'Halloa, halloa, halloa! What's the matter here! Keep up your +spirits. Never say die. Bow wow wow. I'm a devil, I'm a devil, +I'm a devil. Hurrah!'--And then, as if exulting in his infernal +character, he began to whistle. + +'I more than half believe he speaks the truth. Upon my word I do,' +said Varden. 'Do you see how he looks at me, as if he knew what I +was saying?' + +To which the bird, balancing himself on tiptoe, as it were, and +moving his body up and down in a sort of grave dance, rejoined, +'I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a devil,' and flapped his wings +against his sides as if he were bursting with laughter. Barnaby +clapped his hands, and fairly rolled upon the ground in an ecstasy +of delight. + +'Strange companions, sir,' said the locksmith, shaking his head, +and looking from one to the other. 'The bird has all the wit.' + +'Strange indeed!' said Edward, holding out his forefinger to the +raven, who, in acknowledgment of the attention, made a dive at it +immediately with his iron bill. 'Is he old?' + +'A mere boy, sir,' replied the locksmith. 'A hundred and twenty, +or thereabouts. Call him down, Barnaby, my man.' + +'Call him!' echoed Barnaby, sitting upright upon the floor, and +staring vacantly at Gabriel, as he thrust his hair back from his +face. 'But who can make him come! He calls me, and makes me go +where he will. He goes on before, and I follow. He's the master, +and I'm the man. Is that the truth, Grip?' + +The raven gave a short, comfortable, confidential kind of croak;--a +most expressive croak, which seemed to say, 'You needn't let these +fellows into our secrets. We understand each other. It's all +right.' + +'I make HIM come?' cried Barnaby, pointing to the bird. 'Him, who +never goes to sleep, or so much as winks!--Why, any time of night, +you may see his eyes in my dark room, shining like two sparks. And +every night, and all night too, he's broad awake, talking to +himself, thinking what he shall do to-morrow, where we shall go, +and what he shall steal, and hide, and bury. I make HIM come! +Ha ha ha!' + +On second thoughts, the bird appeared disposed to come of himself. +After a short survey of the ground, and a few sidelong looks at the +ceiling and at everybody present in turn, he fluttered to the +floor, and went to Barnaby--not in a hop, or walk, or run, but in a +pace like that of a very particular gentleman with exceedingly +tight boots on, trying to walk fast over loose pebbles. Then, +stepping into his extended hand, and condescending to be held out +at arm's length, he gave vent to a succession of sounds, not unlike +the drawing of some eight or ten dozen of long corks, and again +asserted his brimstone birth and parentage with great distinctness. + +The locksmith shook his head--perhaps in some doubt of the +creature's being really nothing but a bird--perhaps in pity for +Bamaby, who by this time had him in his arms, and was rolling +about, with him, on the ground. As he raised his eyes from the +poor fellow he encountered those of his mother, who had entered the +room, and was looking on in silence. + +She was quite white in the face, even to her lips, but had wholly +subdued her emotion, and wore her usual quiet look. Varden fancied +as he glanced at her that she shrunk from his eye; and that she +busied herself about the wounded gentleman to avoid him the better. + +It was time he went to bed, she said. He was to be removed to his +own home on the morrow, and he had already exceeded his time for +sitting up, by a full hour. Acting on this hint, the locksmith +prepared to take his leave. + +'By the bye,' said Edward, as he shook him by the hand, and looked +from him to Mrs Rudge and back again, 'what noise was that below? +I heard your voice in the midst of it, and should have inquired +before, but our other conversation drove it from my memory. What +was it?' + +The locksmith looked towards her, and bit his lip. She leant +against the chair, and bent her eyes upon the ground. Barnaby too-- +he was listening. + +--'Some mad or drunken fellow, sir,' Varden at length made answer, +looking steadily at the widow as he spoke. 'He mistook the house, +and tried to force an entrance.' + +She breathed more freely, but stood quite motionless. As the +locksmith said 'Good night,' and Barnaby caught up the candle to +light him down the stairs, she took it from him, and charged him-- +with more haste and earnestness than so slight an occasion appeared +to warrant--not to stir. The raven followed them to satisfy +himself that all was right below, and when they reached the street- +door, stood on the bottom stair drawing corks out of number. + +With a trembling hand she unfastened the chain and bolts, and +turned the key. As she had her hand upon the latch, the locksmith +said in a low voice, + +'I have told a lie to-night, for your sake, Mary, and for the sake +of bygone times and old acquaintance, when I would scorn to do so +for my own. I hope I may have done no harm, or led to none. I +can't help the suspicions you have forced upon me, and I am loth, I +tell you plainly, to leave Mr Edward here. Take care he comes to +no hurt. I doubt the safety of this roof, and am glad he leaves it +so soon. Now, let me go.' + +For a moment she hid her face in her hands and wept; but resisting +the strong impulse which evidently moved her to reply, opened the +door--no wider than was sufficient for the passage of his body-- +and motioned him away. As the locksmith stood upon the step, it +was chained and locked behind him, and the raven, in furtherance of +these precautions, barked like a lusty house-dog. + +'In league with that ill-looking figure that might have fallen from +a gibbet--he listening and hiding here--Barnaby first upon the spot +last night--can she who has always borne so fair a name be guilty +of such crimes in secret!' said the locksmith, musing. 'Heaven +forgive me if I am wrong, and send me just thoughts; but she is +poor, the temptation may be great, and we daily hear of things as +strange.--Ay, bark away, my friend. If there's any wickedness +going on, that raven's in it, I'll be sworn.' + + + +Chapter 7 + + +Mrs Varden was a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain +temper--a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper +tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable. +Thus it generally happened, that when other people were merry, Mrs +Varden was dull; and that when other people were dull, Mrs Varden +was disposed to be amazingly cheerful. Indeed the worthy housewife +was of such a capricious nature, that she not only attained a +higher pitch of genius than Macbeth, in respect of her ability to +be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral in an +instant, but would sometimes ring the changes backwards and +forwards on all possible moods and flights in one short quarter of +an hour; performing, as it were, a kind of triple bob major on the +peal of instruments in the female belfry, with a skilfulness and +rapidity of execution that astonished all who heard her. + +It had been observed in this good lady (who did not want for +personal attractions, being plump and buxom to look at, though like +her fair daughter, somewhat short in stature) that this +uncertainty of disposition strengthened and increased with her +temporal prosperity; and divers wise men and matrons, on friendly +terms with the locksmith and his family, even went so far as to +assert, that a tumble down some half-dozen rounds in the world's +ladder--such as the breaking of the bank in which her husband kept +his money, or some little fall of that kind--would be the making +of her, and could hardly fail to render her one of the most +agreeable companions in existence. Whether they were right or +wrong in this conjecture, certain it is that minds, like bodies, +will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from mere +excess of comfort, and like them, are often successfully cured by +remedies in themselves very nauseous and unpalatable. + +Mrs Varden's chief aider and abettor, and at the same time her +principal victim and object of wrath, was her single domestic +servant, one Miss Miggs; or as she was called, in conformity with +those prejudices of society which lop and top from poor hand- +maidens all such genteel excrescences--Miggs. This Miggs was a +tall young lady, very much addicted to pattens in private life; +slender and shrewish, of a rather uncomfortable figure, and though +not absolutely ill-looking, of a sharp and acid visage. As a +general principle and abstract proposition, Miggs held the male sex +to be utterly contemptible and unworthy of notice; to be fickle, +false, base, sottish, inclined to perjury, and wholly undeserving. +When particularly exasperated against them (which, scandal said, +was when Sim Tappertit slighted her most) she was accustomed to +wish with great emphasis that the whole race of women could but die +off, in order that the men might be brought to know the real value +of the blessings by which they set so little store; nay, her +feeling for her order ran so high, that she sometimes declared, if +she could only have good security for a fair, round number--say ten +thousand--of young virgins following her example, she would, to +spite mankind, hang, drown, stab, or poison herself, with a joy +past all expression. + +It was the voice of Miggs that greeted the locksmith, when he +knocked at his own house, with a shrill cry of 'Who's there?' + +'Me, girl, me,' returned Gabriel. + +What, already, sir!' said Miggs, opening the door with a look of +surprise. 'We were just getting on our nightcaps to sit up,--me +and mistress. Oh, she has been SO bad!' + +Miggs said this with an air of uncommon candour and concern; but +the parlour-door was standing open, and as Gabriel very well knew +for whose ears it was designed, he regarded her with anything but +an approving look as he passed in. + +'Master's come home, mim,' cried Miggs, running before him into the +parlour. 'You was wrong, mim, and I was right. I thought he +wouldn't keep us up so late, two nights running, mim. Master's +always considerate so far. I'm so glad, mim, on your account. I'm +a little'--here Miggs simpered--'a little sleepy myself; I'll own +it now, mim, though I said I wasn't when you asked me. It ain't of +no consequence, mim, of course.' + +'You had better,' said the locksmith, who most devoutly wished that +Barnaby's raven was at Miggs's ankles, 'you had better get to bed +at once then.' + +'Thanking you kindly, sir,' returned Miggs, 'I couldn't take my +rest in peace, nor fix my thoughts upon my prayers, otherways than +that I knew mistress was comfortable in her bed this night; by +rights she ought to have been there, hours ago.' + +'You're talkative, mistress,' said Varden, pulling off his +greatcoat, and looking at her askew. + +'Taking the hint, sir,' cried Miggs, with a flushed face, 'and +thanking you for it most kindly, I will make bold to say, that if I +give offence by having consideration for my mistress, I do not ask +your pardon, but am content to get myself into trouble and to be in +suffering.' + +Here Mrs Varden, who, with her countenance shrouded in a large +nightcap, had been all this time intent upon the Protestant Manual, +looked round, and acknowledged Miggs's championship by commanding +her to hold her tongue. + +Every little bone in Miggs's throat and neck developed itself with +a spitefulness quite alarming, as she replied, 'Yes, mim, I will.' + +'How do you find yourself now, my dear?' said the locksmith, +taking a chair near his wife (who had resumed her book), and +rubbing his knees hard as he made the inquiry. + +'You're very anxious to know, an't you?' returned Mrs Varden, with +her eyes upon the print. 'You, that have not been near me all day, +and wouldn't have been if I was dying!' + +'My dear Martha--' said Gabriel. + +Mrs Varden turned over to the next page; then went back again to +the bottom line over leaf to be quite sure of the last words; and +then went on reading with an appearance of the deepest interest and +study. + +'My dear Martha,' said the locksmith, 'how can you say such things, +when you know you don't mean them? If you were dying! Why, if +there was anything serious the matter with you, Martha, shouldn't I +be in constant attendance upon you?' + +'Yes!' cried Mrs Varden, bursting into tears, 'yes, you would. I +don't doubt it, Varden. Certainly you would. That's as much as to +tell me that you would be hovering round me like a vulture, waiting +till the breath was out of my body, that you might go and marry +somebody else.' + +Miggs groaned in sympathy--a little short groan, checked in its +birth, and changed into a cough. It seemed to say, 'I can't help +it. It's wrung from me by the dreadful brutality of that monster +master.' + +'But you'll break my heart one of these days,' added Mrs Varden, +with more resignation, 'and then we shall both be happy. My only +desire is to see Dolly comfortably settled, and when she is, you +may settle ME as soon as you like.' + +'Ah!' cried Miggs--and coughed again. + +Poor Gabriel twisted his wig about in silence for a long time, and +then said mildly, 'Has Dolly gone to bed?' + +'Your master speaks to you,' said Mrs Varden, looking sternly over +her shoulder at Miss Miggs in waiting. + +'No, my dear, I spoke to you,' suggested the locksmith. + +'Did you hear me, Miggs?' cried the obdurate lady, stamping her +foot upon the ground. 'YOU are beginning to despise me now, are +you? But this is example!' + +At this cruel rebuke, Miggs, whose tears were always ready, for +large or small parties, on the shortest notice and the most +reasonable terms, fell a crying violently; holding both her hands +tight upon her heart meanwhile, as if nothing less would prevent +its splitting into small fragments. Mrs Varden, who likewise +possessed that faculty in high perfection, wept too, against Miggs; +and with such effect that Miggs gave in after a time, and, except +for an occasional sob, which seemed to threaten some remote +intention of breaking out again, left her mistress in possession of +the field. Her superiority being thoroughly asserted, that lady +soon desisted likewise, and fell into a quiet melancholy. + +The relief was so great, and the fatiguing occurrences of last +night so completely overpowered the locksmith, that he nodded in +his chair, and would doubtless have slept there all night, but for +the voice of Mrs Varden, which, after a pause of some five minutes, +awoke him with a start. + +'If I am ever,' said Mrs V.--not scolding, but in a sort of +monotonous remonstrance--'in spirits, if I am ever cheerful, if I +am ever more than usually disposed to be talkative and comfortable, +this is the way I am treated.' + +'Such spirits as you was in too, mim, but half an hour ago!' cried +Miggs. 'I never see such company!' + +'Because,' said Mrs Varden, 'because I never interfere or +interrupt; because I never question where anybody comes or goes; +because my whole mind and soul is bent on saving where I can save, +and labouring in this house;--therefore, they try me as they do.' + +'Martha,' urged the locksmith, endeavouring to look as wakeful as +possible, 'what is it you complain of? I really came home with +every wish and desire to be happy. I did, indeed.' + +'What do I complain of!' retorted his wife. 'Is it a chilling +thing to have one's husband sulking and falling asleep directly he +comes home--to have him freezing all one's warm-heartedness, and +throwing cold water over the fireside? Is it natural, when I know +he went out upon a matter in which I am as much interested as +anybody can be, that I should wish to know all that has happened, +or that he should tell me without my begging and praying him to do +it? Is that natural, or is it not?' + +'I am very sorry, Martha,' said the good-natured locksmith. 'I was +really afraid you were not disposed to talk pleasantly; I'll tell +you everything; I shall only be too glad, my dear.' + +'No, Varden,' returned his wife, rising with dignity. 'I dare say-- +thank you! I'm not a child to be corrected one minute and petted +the next--I'm a little too old for that, Varden. Miggs, carry the +light.--YOU can be cheerful, Miggs, at least' + +Miggs, who, to this moment, had been in the very depths of +compassionate despondency, passed instantly into the liveliest +state conceivable, and tossing her head as she glanced towards the +locksmith, bore off her mistress and the light together. + +'Now, who would think,' thought Varden, shrugging his shoulders and +drawing his chair nearer to the fire, 'that that woman could ever +be pleasant and agreeable? And yet she can be. Well, well, all of +us have our faults. I'll not be hard upon hers. We have been man +and wife too long for that.' + +He dozed again--not the less pleasantly, perhaps, for his hearty +temper. While his eyes were closed, the door leading to the upper +stairs was partially opened; and a head appeared, which, at sight +of him, hastily drew back again. + +'I wish,' murmured Gabriel, waking at the noise, and looking round +the room, 'I wish somebody would marry Miggs. But that's +impossible! I wonder whether there's any madman alive, who would +marry Miggs!' + +This was such a vast speculation that he fell into a doze again, +and slept until the fire was quite burnt out. At last he roused +himself; and having double-locked the street-door according to +custom, and put the key in his pocket, went off to bed. + +He had not left the room in darkness many minutes, when the head +again appeared, and Sim Tappertit entered, bearing in his hand a +little lamp. + +'What the devil business has he to stop up so late!' muttered Sim, +passing into the workshop, and setting it down upon the forge. +'Here's half the night gone already. There's only one good that +has ever come to me, out of this cursed old rusty mechanical trade, +and that's this piece of ironmongery, upon my soul!' + +As he spoke, he drew from the right hand, or rather right leg +pocket of his smalls, a clumsy large-sized key, which he inserted +cautiously in the lock his master had secured, and softly opened +the door. That done, he replaced his piece of secret workmanship +in his pocket; and leaving the lamp burning, and closing the door +carefully and without noise, stole out into the street--as little +suspected by the locksmith in his sound deep sleep, as by Barnaby +himself in his phantom-haunted dreams. + + + +Chapter 8 + + +Clear of the locksmith's house, Sim Tappertit laid aside his +cautious manner, and assuming in its stead that of a ruffling, +swaggering, roving blade, who would rather kill a man than +otherwise, and eat him too if needful, made the best of his way +along the darkened streets. + +Half pausing for an instant now and then to smite his pocket and +assure himself of the safety of his master key, he hurried on to +Barbican, and turning into one of the narrowest of the narrow +streets which diverged from that centre, slackened his pace and +wiped his heated brow, as if the termination of his walk were near +at hand. + +It was not a very choice spot for midnight expeditions, being in +truth one of more than questionable character, and of an appearance +by no means inviting. From the main street he had entered, itself +little better than an alley, a low-browed doorway led into a blind +court, or yard, profoundly dark, unpaved, and reeking with stagnant +odours. Into this ill-favoured pit, the locksmith's vagrant +'prentice groped his way; and stopping at a house from whose +defaced and rotten front the rude effigy of a bottle swung to and +fro like some gibbeted malefactor, struck thrice upon an iron +grating with his foot. After listening in vain for some response +to his signal, Mr Tappertit became impatient, and struck the +grating thrice again. + +A further delay ensued, but it was not of long duration. The +ground seemed to open at his feet, and a ragged head appeared. + +'Is that the captain?' said a voice as ragged as the head. + +'Yes,' replied Mr Tappertit haughtily, descending as he spoke, 'who +should it be?' + +'It's so late, we gave you up,' returned the voice, as its owner +stopped to shut and fasten the grating. 'You're late, sir.' + +'Lead on,' said Mr Tappertit, with a gloomy majesty, 'and make +remarks when I require you. Forward!' + +This latter word of command was perhaps somewhat theatrical and +unnecessary, inasmuch as the descent was by a very narrow, steep, +and slippery flight of steps, and any rashness or departure from +the beaten track must have ended in a yawning water-butt. But Mr +Tappertit being, like some other great commanders, favourable to +strong effects, and personal display, cried 'Forward!' again, in +the hoarsest voice he could assume; and led the way, with folded +arms and knitted brows, to the cellar down below, where there was a +small copper fixed in one corner, a chair or two, a form and table, +a glimmering fire, and a truckle-bed, covered with a ragged +patchwork rug. + +'Welcome, noble captain!' cried a lanky figure, rising as from a +nap. + +The captain nodded. Then, throwing off his outer coat, he stood +composed in all his dignity, and eyed his follower over. + +'What news to-night?' he asked, when he had looked into his very +soul. + +'Nothing particular,' replied the other, stretching himself--and he +was so long already that it was quite alarming to see him do it-- +'how come you to be so late?' + +'No matter,' was all the captain deigned to say in answer. 'Is the +room prepared?' + +'It is,' replied the follower. + +'The comrade--is he here?' + +'Yes. And a sprinkling of the others--you hear 'em?' + +'Playing skittles!' said the captain moodily. 'Light-hearted +revellers!' + +There was no doubt respecting the particular amusement in which +these heedless spirits were indulging, for even in the close and +stifling atmosphere of the vault, the noise sounded like distant +thunder. It certainly appeared, at first sight, a singular spot to +choose, for that or any other purpose of relaxation, if the other +cellars answered to the one in which this brief colloquy took +place; for the floors were of sodden earth, the walls and roof of +damp bare brick tapestried with the tracks of snails and slugs; the +air was sickening, tainted, and offensive. It seemed, from one +strong flavour which was uppermost among the various odours of the +place, that it had, at no very distant period, been used as a +storehouse for cheeses; a circumstance which, while it accounted +for the greasy moisture that hung about it, was agreeably +suggestive of rats. It was naturally damp besides, and little +trees of fungus sprung from every mouldering corner. + +The proprietor of this charming retreat, and owner of the ragged +head before mentioned--for he wore an old tie-wig as bare and +frowzy as a stunted hearth-broom--had by this time joined them; and +stood a little apart, rubbing his hands, wagging his hoary bristled +chin, and smiling in silence. His eyes were closed; but had they +been wide open, it would have been easy to tell, from the attentive +expression of the face he turned towards them--pale and unwholesome +as might be expected in one of his underground existence--and from +a certain anxious raising and quivering of the lids, that he was +blind. + +'Even Stagg hath been asleep,' said the long comrade, nodding +towards this person. + +'Sound, captain, sound!' cried the blind man; 'what does my noble +captain drink--is it brandy, rum, usquebaugh? Is it soaked +gunpowder, or blazing oil? Give it a name, heart of oak, and we'd +get it for you, if it was wine from a bishop's cellar, or melted +gold from King George's mint.' + +'See,' said Mr Tappertit haughtily, 'that it's something strong, +and comes quick; and so long as you take care of that, you may +bring it from the devil's cellar, if you like.' + +'Boldly said, noble captain!' rejoined the blind man. 'Spoken like +the 'Prentices' Glory. Ha, ha! From the devil's cellar! A brave +joke! The captain joketh. Ha, ha, ha!' + +'I'll tell you what, my fine feller,' said Mr Tappertit, eyeing the +host over as he walked to a closet, and took out a bottle and glass +as carelessly as if he had been in full possession of his sight, +'if you make that row, you'll find that the captain's very far from +joking, and so I tell you.' + +'He's got his eyes on me!' cried Stagg, stopping short on his way +back, and affecting to screen his face with the bottle. 'I feel +'em though I can't see 'em. Take 'em off, noble captain. Remove +'em, for they pierce like gimlets.' + +Mr Tappertit smiled grimly at his comrade; and twisting out one +more look--a kind of ocular screw--under the influence of which the +blind man feigned to undergo great anguish and torture, bade him, +in a softened tone, approach, and hold his peace. + +'I obey you, captain,' cried Stagg, drawing close to him and +filling out a bumper without spilling a drop, by reason that he +held his little finger at the brim of the glass, and stopped at the +instant the liquor touched it, 'drink, noble governor. Death to +all masters, life to all 'prentices, and love to all fair damsels. +Drink, brave general, and warm your gallant heart!' + +Mr Tappertit condescended to take the glass from his outstretched +hand. Stagg then dropped on one knee, and gently smoothed the +calves of his legs, with an air of humble admiration. + +'That I had but eyes!' he cried, 'to behold my captain's +symmetrical proportions! That I had but eyes, to look upon these +twin invaders of domestic peace!' + +'Get out!' said Mr Tappertit, glancing downward at his favourite +limbs. 'Go along, will you, Stagg!' + +'When I touch my own afterwards,' cried the host, smiting them +reproachfully, 'I hate 'em. Comparatively speaking, they've no +more shape than wooden legs, beside these models of my noble +captain's.' + +'Yours!' exclaimed Mr Tappertit. 'No, I should think not. Don't +talk about those precious old toothpicks in the same breath with +mine; that's rather too much. Here. Take the glass. Benjamin. +Lead on. To business!' + +With these words, he folded his arms again; and frowning with a +sullen majesty, passed with his companion through a little door at +the upper end of the cellar, and disappeared; leaving Stagg to his +private meditations. + +The vault they entered, strewn with sawdust and dimly lighted, was +between the outer one from which they had just come, and that in +which the skittle-players were diverting themselves; as was +manifested by the increased noise and clamour of tongues, which was +suddenly stopped, however, and replaced by a dead silence, at a +signal from the long comrade. Then, this young gentleman, going to +a little cupboard, returned with a thigh-bone, which in former +times must have been part and parcel of some individual at least as +long as himself, and placed the same in the hands of Mr Tappertit; +who, receiving it as a sceptre and staff of authority, cocked his +three-cornered hat fiercely on the top of his head, and mounted a +large table, whereon a chair of state, cheerfully ornamented with a +couple of skulls, was placed ready for his reception. + +He had no sooner assumed this position, than another young +gentleman appeared, bearing in his arms a huge clasped book, who +made him a profound obeisance, and delivering it to the long +comrade, advanced to the table, and turning his back upon it, stood +there Atlas-wise. Then, the long comrade got upon the table too; +and seating himself in a lower chair than Mr Tappertit's, with much +state and ceremony, placed the large book on the shoulders of their +mute companion as deliberately as if he had been a wooden desk, and +prepared to make entries therein with a pen of corresponding size. + +When the long comrade had made these preparations, he looked +towards Mr Tappertit; and Mr Tappertit, flourishing the bone, +knocked nine times therewith upon one of the skulls. At the ninth +stroke, a third young gentleman emerged from the door leading to +the skittle ground, and bowing low, awaited his commands. + +'Prentice!' said the mighty captain, 'who waits without?' + +The 'prentice made answer that a stranger was in attendance, who +claimed admission into that secret society of 'Prentice Knights, +and a free participation in their rights, privileges, and +immunities. Thereupon Mr Tappertit flourished the bone again, and +giving the other skull a prodigious rap on the nose, exclaimed +'Admit him!' At these dread words the 'prentice bowed once more, +and so withdrew as he had come. + +There soon appeared at the same door, two other 'prentices, having +between them a third, whose eyes were bandaged, and who was attired +in a bag-wig, and a broad-skirted coat, trimmed with tarnished +lace; and who was girded with a sword, in compliance with the laws +of the Institution regulating the introduction of candidates, which +required them to assume this courtly dress, and kept it constantly +in lavender, for their convenience. One of the conductors of this +novice held a rusty blunderbuss pointed towards his ear, and the +other a very ancient sabre, with which he carved imaginary +offenders as he came along in a sanguinary and anatomical manner. + +As this silent group advanced, Mr Tappertit fixed his hat upon his +head. The novice then laid his hand upon his breast and bent +before him. When he had humbled himself sufficiently, the captain +ordered the bandage to be removed, and proceeded to eye him over. + +'Ha!' said the captain, thoughtfully, when he had concluded this +ordeal. 'Proceed.' + +The long comrade read aloud as follows:--'Mark Gilbert. Age, +nineteen. Bound to Thomas Curzon, hosier, Golden Fleece, Aldgate. +Loves Curzon's daughter. Cannot say that Curzon's daughter loves +him. Should think it probable. Curzon pulled his ears last +Tuesday week.' + +'How!' cried the captain, starting. + +'For looking at his daughter, please you,' said the novice. + +'Write Curzon down, Denounced,' said the captain. 'Put a black +cross against the name of Curzon.' + +'So please you,' said the novice, 'that's not the worst--he calls +his 'prentice idle dog, and stops his beer unless he works to his +liking. He gives Dutch cheese, too, eating Cheshire, sir, himself; +and Sundays out, are only once a month.' + +'This,' said Mr Tappert;t gravely, 'is a flagrant case. Put two +black crosses to the name of Curzon.' + +'If the society,' said the novice, who was an ill-looking, one- +sided, shambling lad, with sunken eyes set close together in his +head--'if the society would burn his house down--for he's not +insured--or beat him as he comes home from his club at night, or +help me to carry off his daughter, and marry her at the Fleet, +whether she gave consent or no--' + +Mr Tappertit waved his grizzly truncheon as an admonition to him +not to interrupt, and ordered three black crosses to the name of +Curzon. + +'Which means,' he said in gracious explanation, 'vengeance, +complete and terrible. 'Prentice, do you love the Constitution?' + +To which the novice (being to that end instructed by his attendant +sponsors) replied 'I do!' + +'The Church, the State, and everything established--but the +masters?' quoth the captain. + +Again the novice said 'I do.' + +Having said it, he listened meekly to the captain, who in an +address prepared for such occasions, told him how that under that +same Constitution (which was kept in a strong box somewhere, but +where exactly he could not find out, or he would have endeavoured +to procure a copy of it), the 'prentices had, in times gone by, +had frequent holidays of right, broken people's heads by scores, +defied their masters, nay, even achieved some glorious murders in +the streets, which privileges had gradually been wrested from them, +and in all which noble aspirations they were now restrained; how +the degrading checks imposed upon them were unquestionably +attributable to the innovating spirit of the times, and how they +united therefore to resist all change, except such change as would +restore those good old English customs, by which they would stand +or fall. After illustrating the wisdom of going backward, by +reference to that sagacious fish, the crab, and the not unfrequent +practice of the mule and donkey, he described their general +objects; which were briefly vengeance on their Tyrant Masters (of +whose grievous and insupportable oppression no 'prentice could +entertain a moment's doubt) and the restoration, as aforesaid, of +their ancient rights and holidays; for neither of which objects +were they now quite ripe, being barely twenty strong, but which +they pledged themselves to pursue with fire and sword when needful. +Then he described the oath which every member of that small remnant +of a noble body took, and which was of a dreadful and impressive +kind; binding him, at the bidding of his chief, to resist and +obstruct the Lord Mayor, sword-bearer, and chaplain; to despise the +authority of the sheriffs; and to hold the court of aldermen as +nought; but not on any account, in case the fulness of time should +bring a general rising of 'prentices, to damage or in any way +disfigure Temple Bar, which was strictly constitutional and always +to be approached with reverence. Having gone over these several +heads with great eloquence and force, and having further informed +the novice that this society had its origin in his own teeming +brain, stimulated by a swelling sense of wrong and outrage, Mr +Tappertit demanded whether he had strength of heart to take the +mighty pledge required, or whether he would withdraw while retreat +was yet in his power. + +To this the novice made rejoinder, that he would take the vow, +though it should choke him; and it was accordingly administered +with many impressive circumstances, among which the lighting up of +the two skulls with a candle-end inside of each, and a great many +flourishes with the bone, were chiefly conspicuous; not to mention +a variety of grave exercises with the blunderbuss and sabre, and +some dismal groaning by unseen 'prentices without. All these dark +and direful ceremonies being at length completed, the table was put +aside, the chair of state removed, the sceptre locked up in its +usual cupboard, the doors of communication between the three +cellars thrown freely open, and the 'Prentice Knights resigned +themselves to merriment. + +But Mr Tappertit, who had a soul above the vulgar herd, and who, on +account of his greatness, could only afford to be merry now and +then, threw himself on a bench with the air of a man who was faint +with dignity. He looked with an indifferent eye, alike on +skittles, cards, and dice, thinking only of the locksmith's +daughter, and the base degenerate days on which he had fallen. + +'My noble captain neither games, nor sings, nor dances,' said his +host, taking a seat beside him. 'Drink, gallant general!' + +Mr Tappertit drained the proffered goblet to the dregs; then thrust +his hands into his pockets, and with a lowering visage walked among +the skittles, while his followers (such is the influence of +superior genius) restrained the ardent ball, and held his little +shins in dumb respect. + +'If I had been born a corsair or a pirate, a brigand, genteel +highwayman or patriot--and they're the same thing,' thought Mr +Tappertit, musing among the nine-pins, 'I should have been all +right. But to drag out a ignoble existence unbeknown to mankind in +general--patience! I will be famous yet. A voice within me keeps +on whispering Greatness. I shall burst out one of these days, and +when I do, what power can keep me down? I feel my soul getting +into my head at the idea. More drink there!' + +'The novice,' pursued Mr Tappertit, not exactly in a voice of +thunder, for his tones, to say the truth were rather cracked and +shrill--but very impressively, notwithstanding--'where is he?' + +'Here, noble captain!' cried Stagg. 'One stands beside me who I +feel is a stranger.' + +'Have you,' said Mr Tappertit, letting his gaze fall on the party +indicated, who was indeed the new knight, by this time restored to +his own apparel; 'Have you the impression of your street-door key +in wax?' + +The long comrade anticipated the reply, by producing it from the +shelf on which it had been deposited. + +'Good,' said Mr Tappertit, scrutinising it attentively, while a +breathless silence reigned around; for he had constructed secret +door-keys for the whole society, and perhaps owed something of his +influence to that mean and trivial circumstance--on such slight +accidents do even men of mind depend!--'This is easily made. Come +hither, friend.' + +With that, he beckoned the new knight apart, and putting the +pattern in his pocket, motioned to him to walk by his side. + +'And so,' he said, when they had taken a few turns up and down, +you--you love your master's daughter?' + +'I do,' said the 'prentice. 'Honour bright. No chaff, you know.' + +'Have you,' rejoined Mr Tappertit, catching him by the wrist, and +giving him a look which would have been expressive of the most +deadly malevolence, but for an accidental hiccup that rather +interfered with it; 'have you a--a rival?' + +'Not as I know on,' replied the 'prentice. + +'If you had now--' said Mr Tappertit--'what would you--eh?--' + +The 'prentice looked fierce and clenched his fists. + +'It is enough,' cried Mr Tappertit hastily, 'we understand each +other. We are observed. I thank you.' + +So saying, he cast him off again; and calling the long comrade +aside after taking a few hasty turns by himself, bade him +immediately write and post against the wall, a notice, proscribing +one Joseph Willet (commonly known as Joe) of Chigwell; forbidding +all 'Prentice Knights to succour, comfort, or hold communion with +him; and requiring them, on pain of excommunication, to molest, +hurt, wrong, annoy, and pick quarrels with the said Joseph, +whensoever and wheresoever they, or any of them, should happen to +encounter him. + +Having relieved his mind by this energetic proceeding, he +condescended to approach the festive board, and warming by degrees, +at length deigned to preside, and even to enchant the company with +a song. After this, he rose to such a pitch as to consent to +regale the society with a hornpipe, which be actually performed to +the music of a fiddle (played by an ingenious member) with such +surpassing agility and brilliancy of execution, that the spectators +could not be sufficiently enthusiastic in their admiration; and +their host protested, with tears in his eyes, that he had never +truly felt his blindness until that moment. + +But the host withdrawing--probably to weep in secret--soon returned +with the information that it wanted little more than an hour of +day, and that all the cocks in Barbican had already begun to crow, +as if their lives depended on it. At this intelligence, the +'Prentice Knights arose in haste, and marshalling into a line, +filed off one by one and dispersed with all speed to their several +homes, leaving their leader to pass the grating last. + +'Good night, noble captain,' whispered the blind man as he held it +open for his passage out; 'Farewell, brave general. Bye, bye, +illustrious commander. Good luck go with you for a--conceited, +bragging, empty-headed, duck-legged idiot.' + +With which parting words, coolly added as he listened to his +receding footsteps and locked the grate upon himself, he descended +the steps, and lighting the fire below the little copper, +prepared, without any assistance, for his daily occupation; which +was to retail at the area-head above pennyworths of broth and soup, +and savoury puddings, compounded of such scraps as were to be +bought in the heap for the least money at Fleet Market in the +evening time; and for the sale of which he had need to have +depended chiefly on his private connection, for the court had no +thoroughfare, and was not that kind of place in which many people +were likely to take the air, or to frequent as an agreeable +promenade. + + + +Chapter 9 + + +Chronicler's are privileged to enter where they list, to come and +go through keyholes, to ride upon the wind, to overcome, in their +soarings up and down, all obstacles of distance, time, and place. +Thrice blessed be this last consideration, since it enables us to +follow the disdainful Miggs even into the sanctity of her chamber, +and to hold her in sweet companionship through the dreary watches +of the night! + +Miss Miggs, having undone her mistress, as she phrased it (which +means, assisted to undress her), and having seen her comfortably to +bed in the back room on the first floor, withdrew to her own +apartment, in the attic story. Notwithstanding her declaration in +the locksmith's presence, she was in no mood for sleep; so, putting +her light upon the table and withdrawing the little window curtain, +she gazed out pensively at the wild night sky. + +Perhaps she wondered what star was destined for her habitation when +she had run her little course below; perhaps speculated which of +those glimmering spheres might be the natal orb of Mr Tappertit; +perhaps marvelled how they could gaze down on that perfidious +creature, man, and not sicken and turn green as chemists' lamps; +perhaps thought of nothing in particular. Whatever she thought +about, there she sat, until her attention, alive to anything +connected with the insinuating 'prentice, was attracted by a noise +in the next room to her own--his room; the room in which he slept, +and dreamed--it might be, sometimes dreamed of her. + +That he was not dreaming now, unless he was taking a walk in his +sleep, was clear, for every now and then there came a shuffling +noise, as though he were engaged in polishing the whitewashed wall; +then a gentle creaking of his door; then the faintest indication of +his stealthy footsteps on the landing-place outside. Noting this +latter circumstance, Miss Miggs turned pale and shuddered, as +mistrusting his intentions; and more than once exclaimed, below her +breath, 'Oh! what a Providence it is, as I am bolted in!'--which, +owing doubtless to her alarm, was a confusion of ideas on her part +between a bolt and its use; for though there was one on the door, +it was not fastened. + +Miss Miggs's sense of hearing, however, having as sharp an edge as +her temper, and being of the same snappish and suspicious kind, +very soon informed her that the footsteps passed her door, and +appeared to have some object quite separate and disconnected from +herself. At this discovery she became more alarmed than ever, and +was about to give utterance to those cries of 'Thieves!' and +'Murder!' which she had hitherto restrained, when it occurred to +her to look softly out, and see that her fears had some good +palpable foundation. + +Looking out accordingly, and stretching her neck over the handrail, +she descried, to her great amazement, Mr Tappertit completely +dressed, stealing downstairs, one step at a time, with his shoes in +one hand and a lamp in the other. Following him with her eyes, and +going down a little way herself to get the better of an intervening +angle, she beheld him thrust his head in at the parlour-door, draw +it back again with great swiftness, and immediately begin a retreat +upstairs with all possible expedition. + +'Here's mysteries!' said the damsel, when she was safe in her own +room again, quite out of breath. 'Oh, gracious, here's mysteries!' + +The prospect of finding anybody out in anything, would have kept +Miss Miggs awake under the influence of henbane. Presently, she +heard the step again, as she would have done if it had been that of +a feather endowed with motion and walking down on tiptoe. Then +gliding out as before, she again beheld the retreating figure of +the 'prentice; again he looked cautiously in at the parlour-door, +but this time instead of retreating, he passed in and disappeared. + +Miggs was back in her room, and had her head out of the window, +before an elderly gentleman could have winked and recovered from +it. Out he came at the street-door, shut it carefully behind him, +tried it with his knee, and swaggered off, putting something in his +pocket as he went along. At this spectacle Miggs cried 'Gracious!' +again, and then 'Goodness gracious!' and then 'Goodness gracious +me!' and then, candle in hand, went downstairs as he had done. +Coming to the workshop, she saw the lamp burning on the forge, and +everything as Sim had left it. + +'Why I wish I may only have a walking funeral, and never be buried +decent with a mourning-coach and feathers, if the boy hasn't been +and made a key for his own self!' cried Miggs. 'Oh the little +villain!' + +This conclusion was not arrived at without consideration, and much +peeping and peering about; nor was it unassisted by the +recollection that she had on several occasions come upon the +'prentice suddenly, and found him busy at some mysterious +occupation. Lest the fact of Miss Miggs calling him, on whom she +stooped to cast a favourable eye, a boy, should create surprise in +any breast, it may be observed that she invariably affected to +regard all male bipeds under thirty as mere chits and infants; +which phenomenon is not unusual in ladies of Miss Miggs's temper, +and is indeed generally found to be the associate of such +indomitable and savage virtue. + +Miss Miggs deliberated within herself for some little time, looking +hard at the shop-door while she did so, as though her eyes and +thoughts were both upon it; and then, taking a sheet of paper from +a drawer, twisted it into a long thin spiral tube. Having filled +this instrument with a quantity of small coal-dust from the forge, +she approached the door, and dropping on one knee before it, +dexterously blew into the keyhole as much of these fine ashes as +the lock would hold. When she had filled it to the brim in a very +workmanlike and skilful manner, she crept upstairs again, and +chuckled as she went. + +'There!' cried Miggs, rubbing her hands, 'now let's see whether you +won't be glad to take some notice of me, mister. He, he, he! +You'll have eyes for somebody besides Miss Dolly now, I think. A +fat-faced puss she is, as ever I come across!' + +As she uttered this criticism, she glanced approvingly at her small +mirror, as who should say, I thank my stars that can't be said of +me!--as it certainly could not; for Miss Miggs's style of beauty +was of that kind which Mr Tappertit himself had not inaptly termed, +in private, 'scraggy.' + +'I don't go to bed this night!' said Miggs, wrapping herself in a +shawl, and drawing a couple of chairs near the window, flouncing +down upon one, and putting her feet upon the other, 'till you come +home, my lad. I wouldn't,' said Miggs viciously, 'no, not for +five-and-forty pound!' + +With that, and with an expression of face in which a great number +of opposite ingredients, such as mischief, cunning, malice, +triumph, and patient expectation, were all mixed up together in a +kind of physiognomical punch, Miss Miggs composed herself to wait +and listen, like some fair ogress who had set a trap and was +watching for a nibble from a plump young traveller. + +She sat there, with perfect composure, all night. At length, just +upon break of day, there was a footstep in the street, and +presently she could hear Mr Tappertit stop at the door. Then she +could make out that he tried his key--that he was blowing into it-- +that he knocked it on the nearest post to beat the dust out--that +he took it under a lamp to look at it--that he poked bits of stick +into the lock to clear it--that he peeped into the keyhole, first +with one eye, and then with the other--that he tried the key again-- +that he couldn't turn it, and what was worse, couldn't get it out-- +that he bent it--that then it was much less disposed to come out +than before--that he gave it a mighty twist and a great pull, and +then it came out so suddenly that he staggered backwards--that he +kicked the door--that he shook it--finally, that he smote his +forehead, and sat down on the step in despair. + +When this crisis had arrived, Miss Miggs, affecting to be exhausted +with terror, and to cling to the window-sill for support, put out +her nightcap, and demanded in a faint voice who was there. + +Mr Tappertit cried 'Hush!' and, backing to the road, exhorted her +in frenzied pantomime to secrecy and silence. + +'Tell me one thing,' said Miggs. 'Is it thieves?' + +'No--no--no!' cried Mr Tappertit. + +'Then,' said Miggs, more faintly than before, 'it's fire. Where +is it, sir? It's near this room, I know. I've a good conscience, +sir, and would much rather die than go down a ladder. All I wish +is, respecting my love to my married sister, Golden Lion Court, +number twenty-sivin, second bell-handle on the right-hand door- +post.' + +'Miggs!' cried Mr Tappertit, 'don't you know me? Sim, you know-- +Sim--' + +'Oh! what about him!' cried Miggs, clasping her hands. 'Is he in +any danger? Is he in the midst of flames and blazes! Oh gracious, +gracious!' + +'Why I'm here, an't I?' rejoined Mr Tappertit, knocking himself on +the breast. 'Don't you see me? What a fool you are, Miggs!' + +'There!' cried Miggs, unmindful of this compliment. 'Why--so it-- +Goodness, what is the meaning of--If you please, mim, here's--' + +'No, no!' cried Mr Tappertit, standing on tiptoe, as if by that +means he, in the street, were any nearer being able to stop the +mouth of Miggs in the garret. 'Don't!--I've been out without +leave, and something or another's the matter with the lock. Come +down, and undo the shop window, that I may get in that way.' + +'I dursn't do it, Simmun,' cried Miggs--for that was her +pronunciation of his Christian name. 'I dursn't do it, indeed. +You know as well as anybody, how particular I am. And to come +down in the dead of night, when the house is wrapped in slumbers +and weiled in obscurity.' And there she stopped and shivered, for +her modesty caught cold at the very thought. + +'But Miggs,' cried Mr Tappertit, getting under the lamp, that she +might see his eyes. 'My darling Miggs--' + +Miggs screamed slightly. + +'--That I love so much, and never can help thinking of,' and it is +impossible to describe the use he made of his eyes when he said +this--'do--for my sake, do.' + +'Oh Simmun,' cried Miggs, 'this is worse than all. I know if I +come down, you'll go, and--' + +'And what, my precious?' said Mr Tappertit. + +'And try,' said Miggs, hysterically, 'to kiss me, or some such +dreadfulness; I know you will!' + +'I swear I won't,' said Mr Tappertit, with remarkable earnestness. +'Upon my soul I won't. It's getting broad day, and the watchman's +waking up. Angelic Miggs! If you'll only come and let me in, I +promise you faithfully and truly I won't.' + +Miss Miggs, whose gentle heart was touched, did not wait for the +oath (knowing how strong the temptation was, and fearing he might +forswear himself), but tripped lightly down the stairs, and with +her own fair hands drew back the rough fastenings of the workshop +window. Having helped the wayward 'prentice in, she faintly +articulated the words 'Simmun is safe!' and yielding to her woman's +nature, immediately became insensible. + +'I knew I should quench her,' said Sim, rather embarrassed by this +circumstance. 'Of course I was certain it would come to this, but +there was nothing else to be done--if I hadn't eyed her over, she +wouldn't have come down. Here. Keep up a minute, Miggs. What a +slippery figure she is! There's no holding her, comfortably. Do +keep up a minute, Miggs, will you?' + +As Miggs, however, was deaf to all entreaties, Mr Tappertit leant +her against the wall as one might dispose of a walking-stick or +umbrella, until he had secured the window, when he took her in his +arms again, and, in short stages and with great difficulty--arising +from her being tall and his being short, and perhaps in some degree +from that peculiar physical conformation on which he had already +remarked--carried her upstairs, and planting her, in the same +umbrella and walking-stick fashion, just inside her own door, left +her to her repose. + +'He may be as cool as he likes,' said Miss Miggs, recovering as +soon as she was left alone; 'but I'm in his confidence and he can't +help himself, nor couldn't if he was twenty Simmunses!' + + + +Chapter 10 + + +It was on one of those mornings, common in early spring, when the +year, fickle and changeable in its youth like all other created +things, is undecided whether to step backward into winter or +forward into summer, and in its uncertainty inclines now to the one +and now to the other, and now to both at once--wooing summer in the +sunshine, and lingering still with winter in the shade--it was, in +short, on one of those mornings, when it is hot and cold, wet and +dry, bright and lowering, sad and cheerful, withering and genial, +in the compass of one short hour, that old John Willet, who was +dropping asleep over the copper boiler, was roused by the sound of +a horse's feet, and glancing out at window, beheld a traveller of +goodly promise, checking his bridle at the Maypole door. + +He was none of your flippant young fellows, who would call for a +tankard of mulled ale, and make themselves as much at home as if +they had ordered a hogshead of wine; none of your audacious young +swaggerers, who would even penetrate into the bar--that solemn +sanctuary--and, smiting old John upon the back, inquire if there +was never a pretty girl in the house, and where he hid his little +chambermaids, with a hundred other impertinences of that nature; +none of your free-and-easy companions, who would scrape their +boots upon the firedogs in the common room, and be not at all +particular on the subject of spittoons; none of your unconscionable +blades, requiring impossible chops, and taking unheard-of pickles +for granted. He was a staid, grave, placid gentleman, something +past the prime of life, yet upright in his carriage, for all that, +and slim as a greyhound. He was well-mounted upon a sturdy +chestnut cob, and had the graceful seat of an experienced horseman; +while his riding gear, though free from such fopperies as were then +in vogue, was handsome and well chosen. He wore a riding-coat of a +somewhat brighter green than might have been expected to suit the +taste of a gentleman of his years, with a short, black velvet cape, +and laced pocket-holes and cuffs, all of a jaunty fashion; his +linen, too, was of the finest kind, worked in a rich pattern at the +wrists and throat, and scrupulously white. Although he seemed, +judging from the mud he had picked up on the way, to have come from +London, his horse was as smooth and cool as his own iron-grey +periwig and pigtail. Neither man nor beast had turned a single +hair; and saving for his soiled skirts and spatter-dashes, this +gentleman, with his blooming face, white teeth, exactly-ordered +dress, and perfect calmness, might have come from making an +elaborate and leisurely toilet, to sit for an equestrian portrait +at old John Willet's gate. + +It must not be supposed that John observed these several +characteristics by other than very slow degrees, or that he took in +more than half a one at a time, or that he even made up his mind +upon that, without a great deal of very serious consideration. +Indeed, if he had been distracted in the first instance by +questionings and orders, it would have taken him at the least a +fortnight to have noted what is here set down; but it happened that +the gentleman, being struck with the old house, or with the plump +pigeons which were skimming and curtseying about it, or with the +tall maypole, on the top of which a weathercock, which had been out +of order for fifteen years, performed a perpetual walk to the music +of its own creaking, sat for some little time looking round in +silence. Hence John, standing with his hand upon the horse's +bridle, and his great eyes on the rider, and with nothing passing +to divert his thoughts, had really got some of these little +circumstances into his brain by the time he was called upon to +speak. + +'A quaint place this,' said the gentleman--and his voice was as +rich as his dress. 'Are you the landlord?' + +'At your service, sir,' replied John Willet. + +'You can give my horse good stabling, can you, and me an early +dinner (I am not particular what, so that it be cleanly served), +and a decent room of which there seems to be no lack in this great +mansion,' said the stranger, again running his eyes over the +exterior. + +'You can have, sir,' returned John with a readiness quite +surprising, 'anything you please.' + +'It's well I am easily satisfied,' returned the other with a smile, +'or that might prove a hardy pledge, my friend.' And saying so, he +dismounted, with the aid of the block before the door, in a +twinkling. + +'Halloa there! Hugh!' roared John. 'I ask your pardon, sir, for +keeping you standing in the porch; but my son has gone to town on +business, and the boy being, as I may say, of a kind of use to me, +I'm rather put out when he's away. Hugh!--a dreadful idle vagrant +fellow, sir, half a gipsy, as I think--always sleeping in the sun +in summer, and in the straw in winter time, sir--Hugh! Dear Lord, +to keep a gentleman a waiting here through him!--Hugh! I wish that +chap was dead, I do indeed.' + +'Possibly he is,' returned the other. 'I should think if he were +living, he would have heard you by this time.' + +'In his fits of laziness, he sleeps so desperate hard,' said the +distracted host, 'that if you were to fire off cannon-balls into +his ears, it wouldn't wake him, sir.' + +The guest made no remark upon this novel cure for drowsiness, and +recipe for making people lively, but, with his hands clasped behind +him, stood in the porch, very much amused to see old John, with the +bridle in his hand, wavering between a strong impulse to abandon +the animal to his fate, and a half disposition to lead him into the +house, and shut him up in the parlour, while he waited on his +master. + +'Pillory the fellow, here he is at last!' cried John, in the very +height and zenith of his distress. 'Did you hear me a calling, +villain?' + +The figure he addressed made no answer, but putting his hand upon +the saddle, sprung into it at a bound, turned the horse's head +towards the stable, and was gone in an instant. + +'Brisk enough when he is awake,' said the guest. + +'Brisk enough, sir!' replied John, looking at the place where the +horse had been, as if not yet understanding quite, what had become +of him. 'He melts, I think. He goes like a drop of froth. You +look at him, and there he is. You look at him again, and--there he +isn't.' + +Having, in the absence of any more words, put this sudden climax to +what he had faintly intended should be a long explanation of the +whole life and character of his man, the oracular John Willet led +the gentleman up his wide dismantled staircase into the Maypole's +best apartment. + +It was spacious enough in all conscience, occupying the whole depth +of the house, and having at either end a great bay window, as large +as many modern rooms; in which some few panes of stained glass, +emblazoned with fragments of armorial bearings, though cracked, and +patched, and shattered, yet remained; attesting, by their +presence, that the former owner had made the very light subservient +to his state, and pressed the sun itself into his list of +flatterers; bidding it, when it shone into his chamber, reflect the +badges of his ancient family, and take new hues and colours from +their pride. + +But those were old days, and now every little ray came and went as +it would; telling the plain, bare, searching truth. Although the +best room of the inn, it had the melancholy aspect of grandeur in +decay, and was much too vast for comfort. Rich rustling hangings, +waving on the walls; and, better far, the rustling of youth and +beauty's dress; the light of women's eyes, outshining the tapers +and their own rich jewels; the sound of gentle tongues, and music, +and the tread of maiden feet, had once been there, and filled it +with delight. But they were gone, and with them all its gladness. +It was no longer a home; children were never born and bred there; +the fireside had become mercenary--a something to be bought and +sold--a very courtezan: let who would die, or sit beside, or leave +it, it was still the same--it missed nobody, cared for nobody, had +equal warmth and smiles for all. God help the man whose heart ever +changes with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn! + +No effort had been made to furnish this chilly waste, but before +the broad chimney a colony of chairs and tables had been planted on +a square of carpet, flanked by a ghostly screen, enriched with +figures, grinning and grotesque. After lighting with his own hands +the faggots which were heaped upon the hearth, old John withdrew to +hold grave council with his cook, touching the stranger's +entertainment; while the guest himself, seeing small comfort in +the yet unkindled wood, opened a lattice in the distant window, and +basked in a sickly gleam of cold March sun. + +Leaving the window now and then, to rake the crackling logs +together, or pace the echoing room from end to end, he closed it +when the fire was quite burnt up, and having wheeled the easiest +chair into the warmest corner, summoned John Willet. + +'Sir,' said John. + +He wanted pen, ink, and paper. There was an old standish on the +mantelshelf containing a dusty apology for all three. Having set +this before him, the landlord was retiring, when he motioned him to +stay. + +'There's a house not far from here,' said the guest when he had +written a few lines, 'which you call the Warren, I believe?' + +As this was said in the tone of one who knew the fact, and asked +the question as a thing of course, John contented himself with +nodding his head in the affirmative; at the same time taking one +hand out of his pockets to cough behind, and then putting it in +again. + +'I want this note'--said the guest, glancing on what he had +written, and folding it, 'conveyed there without loss of time, and +an answer brought back here. Have you a messenger at hand?' + +John was thoughtful for a minute or thereabouts, and then said Yes. + +'Let me see him,' said the guest. + +This was disconcerting; for Joe being out, and Hugh engaged in +rubbing down the chestnut cob, he designed sending on the errand, +Barnaby, who had just then arrived in one of his rambles, and who, +so that he thought himself employed on a grave and serious +business, would go anywhere. + +'Why the truth is,' said John after a long pause, 'that the person +who'd go quickest, is a sort of natural, as one may say, sir; and +though quick of foot, and as much to be trusted as the post +itself, he's not good at talking, being touched and flighty, sir.' + +'You don't,' said the guest, raising his eyes to John's fat face, +'you don't mean--what's the fellow's name--you don't mean Barnaby?' + +'Yes, I do,' returned the landlord, his features turning quite +expressive with surprise. + +'How comes he to be here?' inquired the guest, leaning back in his +chair; speaking in the bland, even tone, from which he never +varied; and with the same soft, courteous, never-changing smile +upon his face. 'I saw him in London last night.' + +'He's, for ever, here one hour, and there the next,' returned old +John, after the usual pause to get the question in his mind. +'Sometimes he walks, and sometimes runs. He's known along the road +by everybody, and sometimes comes here in a cart or chaise, and +sometimes riding double. He comes and goes, through wind, rain, +snow, and hail, and on the darkest nights. Nothing hurts HIM.' + +'He goes often to the Warren, does he not?' said the guest +carelessly. 'I seem to remember his mother telling me something to +that effect yesterday. But I was not attending to the good woman +much.' + +'You're right, sir,' John made answer, 'he does. His father, sir, +was murdered in that house.' + +'So I have heard,' returned the guest, taking a gold toothpick +from his pocket with the same sweet smile. 'A very disagreeable +circumstance for the family.' + +'Very,' said John with a puzzled look, as if it occurred to him, +dimly and afar off, that this might by possibility be a cool way of +treating the subject. + +'All the circumstances after a murder,' said the guest +soliloquising, 'must be dreadfully unpleasant--so much bustle and +disturbance--no repose--a constant dwelling upon one subject--and +the running in and out, and up and down stairs, intolerable. I +wouldn't have such a thing happen to anybody I was nearly +interested in, on any account. 'Twould be enough to wear one's +life out.--You were going to say, friend--' he added, turning to +John again. + +'Only that Mrs Rudge lives on a little pension from the family, and +that Barnaby's as free of the house as any cat or dog about it,' +answered John. 'Shall he do your errand, sir?' + +'Oh yes,' replied the guest. 'Oh certainly. Let him do it by all +means. Please to bring him here that I may charge him to be quick. +If he objects to come you may tell him it's Mr Chester. He will +remember my name, I dare say.' + +John was so very much astonished to find who his visitor was, that +he could express no astonishment at all, by looks or otherwise, but +left the room as if he were in the most placid and imperturbable of +all possible conditions. It has been reported that when he got +downstairs, he looked steadily at the boiler for ten minutes by +the clock, and all that time never once left off shaking his head; +for which statement there would seem to be some ground of truth and +feasibility, inasmuch as that interval of time did certainly +elapse, before he returned with Barnaby to the guest's apartment. + +'Come hither, lad,' said Mr Chester. 'You know Mr Geoffrey +Haredale?' + +Barnaby laughed, and looked at the landlord as though he would say, +'You hear him?' John, who was greatly shocked at this breach of +decorum, clapped his finger to his nose, and shook his head in mute +remonstrance. + +'He knows him, sir,' said John, frowning aside at Barnaby, 'as well +as you or I do.' + +'I haven't the pleasure of much acquaintance with the gentleman,' +returned his guest. 'YOU may have. Limit the comparison to +yourself, my friend.' + +Although this was said with the same easy affability, and the same +smile, John felt himself put down, and laying the indignity at +Barnaby's door, determined to kick his raven, on the very first +opportunity. + +'Give that,' said the guest, who had by this time sealed the note, +and who beckoned his messenger towards him as he spoke, 'into Mr +Haredale's own hands. Wait for an answer, and bring it back to me +here. If you should find that Mr Haredale is engaged just now, +tell him--can he remember a message, landlord?' + +'When he chooses, sir,' replied John. 'He won't forget this one.' + +'How are you sure of that?' + +John merely pointed to him as he stood with his head bent forward, +and his earnest gaze fixed closely on his questioner's face; and +nodded sagely. + +'Tell him then, Barnaby, should he be engaged,' said Mr Chester, +'that I shall be glad to wait his convenience here, and to see him +(if he will call) at any time this evening.--At the worst I can +have a bed here, Willet, I suppose?' + +Old John, immensely flattered by the personal notoriety implied in +this familiar form of address, answered, with something like a +knowing look, 'I should believe you could, sir,' and was turning +over in his mind various forms of eulogium, with the view of +selecting one appropriate to the qualities of his best bed, when +his ideas were put to flight by Mr Chester giving Barnaby the +letter, and bidding him make all speed away. + +'Speed!' said Barnaby, folding the little packet in his breast, +'Speed! If you want to see hurry and mystery, come here. Here!' + +With that, he put his hand, very much to John Willet's horror, on +the guest's fine broadcloth sleeve, and led him stealthily to the +back window. + +'Look down there,' he said softly; 'do you mark how they whisper in +each other's ears; then dance and leap, to make believe they are in +sport? Do you see how they stop for a moment, when they think +there is no one looking, and mutter among themselves again; and +then how they roll and gambol, delighted with the mischief they've +been plotting? Look at 'em now. See how they whirl and plunge. +And now they stop again, and whisper, cautiously together--little +thinking, mind, how often I have lain upon the grass and watched +them. I say what is it that they plot and hatch? Do you know?' + +'They are only clothes,' returned the guest, 'such as we wear; +hanging on those lines to dry, and fluttering in the wind.' + +'Clothes!' echoed Barnaby, looking close into his face, and falling +quickly back. 'Ha ha! Why, how much better to be silly, than as +wise as you! You don't see shadowy people there, like those that +live in sleep--not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, +nor swift ghosts when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the +air, nor see men stalking in the sky--not you! I lead a merrier +life than you, with all your cleverness. You're the dull men. +We're the bright ones. Ha! ha! I'll not change with you, clever +as you are,--not I!' + +With that, he waved his hat above his head, and darted off. + +'A strange creature, upon my word!' said the guest, pulling out a +handsome box, and taking a pinch of snuff. + +'He wants imagination,' said Mr Willet, very slowly, and after a +long silence; 'that's what he wants. I've tried to instil it into +him, many and many's the time; but'--John added this in confidence-- +'he an't made for it; that's the fact.' + +To record that Mr Chester smiled at John's remark would be little +to the purpose, for he preserved the same conciliatory and pleasant +look at all times. He drew his chair nearer to the fire though, as +a kind of hint that he would prefer to be alone, and John, having +no reasonable excuse for remaining, left him to himself. + +Very thoughtful old John Willet was, while the dinner was +preparing; and if his brain were ever less clear at one time than +another, it is but reasonable to suppose that he addled it in no +slight degree by shaking his head so much that day. That Mr +Chester, between whom and Mr Haredale, it was notorious to all the +neighbourhood, a deep and bitter animosity existed, should come +down there for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of seeing him, and +should choose the Maypole for their place of meeting, and should +send to him express, were stumbling blocks John could not overcome. +The only resource he had, was to consult the boiler, and wait +impatiently for Barnaby's return. + +But Barnaby delayed beyond all precedent. The visitor's dinner was +served, removed, his wine was set, the fire replenished, the hearth +clean swept; the light waned without, it grew dusk, became quite +dark, and still no Barnaby appeared. Yet, though John Willet was +full of wonder and misgiving, his guest sat cross-legged in the +easy-chair, to all appearance as little ruffled in his thoughts as +in his dress--the same calm, easy, cool gentleman, without a care +or thought beyond his golden toothpick. + +'Barnaby's late,' John ventured to observe, as he placed a pair of +tarnished candlesticks, some three feet high, upon the table, and +snuffed the lights they held. + +'He is rather so,' replied the guest, sipping his wine. 'He will +not be much longer, I dare say.' + +John coughed and raked the fire together. + +'As your roads bear no very good character, if I may judge from my +son's mishap, though,' said Mr Chester, 'and as I have no fancy to +be knocked on the head--which is not only disconcerting at the +moment, but places one, besides, in a ridiculous position with +respect to the people who chance to pick one up--I shall stop here +to-night. I think you said you had a bed to spare.' + +'Such a bed, sir,' returned John Willet; 'ay, such a bed as few, +even of the gentry's houses, own. A fixter here, sir. I've heard +say that bedstead is nigh two hundred years of age. Your noble +son--a fine young gentleman--slept in it last, sir, half a year +ago.' + +'Upon my life, a recommendation!' said the guest, shrugging his +shoulders and wheeling his chair nearer to the fire. 'See that it +be well aired, Mr Willet, and let a blazing fire be lighted there +at once. This house is something damp and chilly.' + +John raked the faggots up again, more from habit than presence of +mind, or any reference to this remark, and was about to withdraw, +when a bounding step was heard upon the stair, and Barnaby came +panting in. + +'He'll have his foot in the stirrup in an hour's time,' he cried, +advancing. 'He has been riding hard all day--has just come home-- +but will be in the saddle again as soon as he has eat and drank, to +meet his loving friend.' + +'Was that his message?' asked the visitor, looking up, but without +the smallest discomposure--or at least without the show of any. + +'All but the last words,' Barnaby rejoined. 'He meant those. I +saw that, in his face.' + +'This for your pains,' said the other, putting money in his hand, +and glancing at him steadfastly.' This for your pains, sharp +Barnaby.' + +'For Grip, and me, and Hugh, to share among us,' he rejoined, +putting it up, and nodding, as he counted it on his fingers. 'Grip +one, me two, Hugh three; the dog, the goat, the cats--well, we +shall spend it pretty soon, I warn you. Stay.--Look. Do you wise +men see nothing there, now?' + +He bent eagerly down on one knee, and gazed intently at the smoke, +which was rolling up the chimney in a thick black cloud. John +Willet, who appeared to consider himself particularly and chiefly +referred to under the term wise men, looked that way likewise, and +with great solidity of feature. + +'Now, where do they go to, when they spring so fast up there,' +asked Barnaby; 'eh? Why do they tread so closely on each other's +heels, and why are they always in a hurry--which is what you blame +me for, when I only take pattern by these busy folk about me? More +of 'em! catching to each other's skirts; and as fast as they go, +others come! What a merry dance it is! I would that Grip and I +could frisk like that!' + +'What has he in that basket at his back?' asked the guest after a +few moments, during which Barnaby was still bending down to look +higher up the chimney, and earnestly watching the smoke. + +'In this?' he answered, jumping up, before John Willet could reply-- +shaking it as he spoke, and stooping his head to listen. 'In +this! What is there here? Tell him!' + +'A devil, a devil, a devil!' cried a hoarse voice. + +'Here's money!' said Barnaby, chinking it in his hand, 'money for a +treat, Grip!' + +'Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!' replied the raven, 'keep up your +spirits. Never say die. Bow, wow, wow!' + +Mr Willet, who appeared to entertain strong doubts whether a +customer in a laced coat and fine linen could be supposed to have +any acquaintance even with the existence of such unpolite gentry as +the bird claimed to belong to, took Barnaby off at this juncture, +with the view of preventing any other improper declarations, and +quitted the room with his very best bow. + + + +Chapter 11 + + +There was great news that night for the regular Maypole customers, +to each of whom, as he straggled in to occupy his allotted seat in +the chimney-corner, John, with a most impressive slowness of +delivery, and in an apoplectic whisper, communicated the fact that +Mr Chester was alone in the large room upstairs, and was waiting +the arrival of Mr Geoffrey Haredale, to whom he had sent a letter +(doubtless of a threatening nature) by the hands of Barnaby, then +and there present. + +For a little knot of smokers and solemn gossips, who had seldom any +new topics of discussion, this was a perfect Godsend. Here was a +good, dark-looking mystery progressing under that very roof-- +brought home to the fireside, as it were, and enjoyable without the +smallest pains or trouble. It is extraordinary what a zest and +relish it gave to the drink, and how it heightened the flavour of +the tobacco. Every man smoked his pipe with a face of grave and +serious delight, and looked at his neighbour with a sort of quiet +congratulation. Nay, it was felt to be such a holiday and special +night, that, on the motion of little Solomon Daisy, every man +(including John himself) put down his sixpence for a can of flip, +which grateful beverage was brewed with all despatch, and set down +in the midst of them on the brick floor; both that it might simmer +and stew before the fire, and that its fragrant steam, rising up +among them, and mixing with the wreaths of vapour from their pipes, +might shroud them in a delicious atmosphere of their own, and shut +out all the world. The very furniture of the room seemed to +mellow and deepen in its tone; the ceiling and walls looked +blacker and more highly polished, the curtains of a ruddier red; +the fire burnt clear and high, and the crickets in the hearthstone +chirped with a more than wonted satisfaction. + +There were present two, however, who showed but little interest in +the general contentment. Of these, one was Barnaby himself, who +slept, or, to avoid being beset with questions, feigned to sleep, +in the chimney-corner; the other, Hugh, who, sleeping too, lay +stretched upon the bench on the opposite side, in the full glare of +the blazing fire. + +The light that fell upon this slumbering form, showed it in all its +muscular and handsome proportions. It was that of a young man, of +a hale athletic figure, and a giant's strength, whose sunburnt face +and swarthy throat, overgrown with jet black hair, might have +served a painter for a model. Loosely attired, in the coarsest and +roughest garb, with scraps of straw and hay--his usual bed-- +clinging here and there, and mingling with his uncombed locks, he +had fallen asleep in a posture as careless as his dress. The +negligence and disorder of the whole man, with something fierce and +sullen in his features, gave him a picturesque appearance, that +attracted the regards even of the Maypole customers who knew him +well, and caused Long Parkes to say that Hugh looked more like a +poaching rascal to-night than ever he had seen him yet. + +'He's waiting here, I suppose,' said Solomon, 'to take Mr +Haredale's horse.' + +'That's it, sir,' replied John Willet. 'He's not often in the +house, you know. He's more at his ease among horses than men. I +look upon him as a animal himself.' + +Following up this opinion with a shrug that seemed meant to say, +'we can't expect everybody to be like us,' John put his pipe into +his mouth again, and smoked like one who felt his superiority over +the general run of mankind. + +'That chap, sir,' said John, taking it out again after a time, and +pointing at him with the stem, 'though he's got all his faculties +about him--bottled up and corked down, if I may say so, somewheres +or another--' + +'Very good!' said Parkes, nodding his head. 'A very good +expression, Johnny. You'll be a tackling somebody presently. +You're in twig to-night, I see.' + +'Take care,' said Mr Willet, not at all grateful for the +compliment, 'that I don't tackle you, sir, which I shall certainly +endeavour to do, if you interrupt me when I'm making observations.-- +That chap, I was a saying, though he has all his faculties about +him, somewheres or another, bottled up and corked down, has no more +imagination than Barnaby has. And why hasn't he?' + +The three friends shook their heads at each other; saying by that +action, without the trouble of opening their lips, 'Do you observe +what a philosophical mind our friend has?' + +'Why hasn't he?' said John, gently striking the table with his open +hand. 'Because they was never drawed out of him when he was a +boy. That's why. What would any of us have been, if our fathers +hadn't drawed our faculties out of us? What would my boy Joe have +been, if I hadn't drawed his faculties out of him?--Do you mind +what I'm a saying of, gentlemen?' + +'Ah! we mind you,' cried Parkes. 'Go on improving of us, Johnny.' + +'Consequently, then,' said Mr Willet, 'that chap, whose mother was +hung when he was a little boy, along with six others, for passing +bad notes--and it's a blessed thing to think how many people are +hung in batches every six weeks for that, and such like offences, +as showing how wide awake our government is--that chap that was +then turned loose, and had to mind cows, and frighten birds away, +and what not, for a few pence to live on, and so got on by degrees +to mind horses, and to sleep in course of time in lofts and litter, +instead of under haystacks and hedges, till at last he come to be +hostler at the Maypole for his board and lodging and a annual +trifle--that chap that can't read nor write, and has never had much +to do with anything but animals, and has never lived in any way but +like the animals he has lived among, IS a animal. And,' said Mr +Willet, arriving at his logical conclusion, 'is to be treated +accordingly.' + +'Willet,' said Solomon Daisy, who had exhibited some impatience at +the intrusion of so unworthy a subject on their more interesting +theme, 'when Mr Chester come this morning, did he order the large +room?' + +'He signified, sir,' said John, 'that he wanted a large apartment. +Yes. Certainly.' + +'Why then, I'll tell you what,' said Solomon, speaking softly and +with an earnest look. 'He and Mr Haredale are going to fight a +duel in it.' + +Everybody looked at Mr Willet, after this alarming suggestion. Mr +Willet looked at the fire, weighing in his own mind the effect +which such an occurrence would be likely to have on the establishment. + +'Well,' said John, 'I don't know--I am sure--I remember that when I +went up last, he HAD put the lights upon the mantel-shelf.' + +'It's as plain,' returned Solomon, 'as the nose on Parkes's face'-- +Mr Parkes, who had a large nose, rubbed it, and looked as if he +considered this a personal allusion--'they'll fight in that room. +You know by the newspapers what a common thing it is for gentlemen +to fight in coffee-houses without seconds. One of 'em will be +wounded or perhaps killed in this house.' + +'That was a challenge that Barnaby took then, eh?' said John. + +'--Inclosing a slip of paper with the measure of his sword upon it, +I'll bet a guinea,' answered the little man. 'We know what sort of +gentleman Mr Haredale is. You have told us what Barnaby said about +his looks, when he came back. Depend upon it, I'm right. Now, +mind.' + +The flip had had no flavour till now. The tobacco had been of mere +English growth, compared with its present taste. A duel in that +great old rambling room upstairs, and the best bed ordered already +for the wounded man! + +'Would it be swords or pistols, now?' said John. + +'Heaven knows. Perhaps both,' returned Solomon. 'The gentlemen +wear swords, and may easily have pistols in their pockets--most +likely have, indeed. If they fire at each other without effect, +then they'll draw, and go to work in earnest.' + +A shade passed over Mr Willet's face as he thought of broken +windows and disabled furniture, but bethinking himself that one of +the parties would probably be left alive to pay the damage, he +brightened up again. + +'And then,' said Solomon, looking from face to face, 'then we shall +have one of those stains upon the floor that never come out. If Mr +Haredale wins, depend upon it, it'll be a deep one; or if he loses, +it will perhaps be deeper still, for he'll never give in unless +he's beaten down. We know him better, eh?' + +'Better indeed!' they whispered all together. + +'As to its ever being got out again,' said Solomon, 'I tell you it +never will, or can be. Why, do you know that it has been tried, at +a certain house we are acquainted with?' + +'The Warren!' cried John. 'No, sure!' + +'Yes, sure--yes. It's only known by very few. It has been +whispered about though, for all that. They planed the board away, +but there it was. They went deep, but it went deeper. They put +new boards down, but there was one great spot that came through +still, and showed itself in the old place. And--harkye--draw +nearer--Mr Geoffrey made that room his study, and sits there, +always, with his foot (as I have heard) upon it; and he believes, +through thinking of it long and very much, that it will never fade +until he finds the man who did the deed.' + +As this recital ended, and they all drew closer round the fire, the +tramp of a horse was heard without. + +'The very man!' cried John, starting up. 'Hugh! Hugh!' + +The sleeper staggered to his feet, and hurried after him. John +quickly returned, ushering in with great attention and deference +(for Mr Haredale was his landlord) the long-expected visitor, who +strode into the room clanking his heavy boots upon the floor; and +looking keenly round upon the bowing group, raised his hat in +acknowledgment of their profound respect. + +'You have a stranger here, Willet, who sent to me,' he said, in a +voice which sounded naturally stern and deep. 'Where is he?' + +'In the great room upstairs, sir,' answered John. + +'Show the way. Your staircase is dark, I know. Gentlemen, good +night.' + +With that, he signed to the landlord to go on before; and went +clanking out, and up the stairs; old John, in his agitation, +ingeniously lighting everything but the way, and making a stumble +at every second step. + +'Stop!' he said, when they reached the landing. 'I can announce +myself. Don't wait.' + +He laid his hand upon the door, entered, and shut it heavily. Mr +Willet was by no means disposed to stand there listening by +himself, especially as the walls were very thick; so descended, +with much greater alacrity than he had come up, and joined his +friends below. + + + +Chapter 12 + + +There was a brief pause in the state-room of the Maypole, as Mr +Haredale tried the lock to satisfy himself that he had shut the +door securely, and, striding up the dark chamber to where the +screen inclosed a little patch of light and warmth, presented +himself, abruptly and in silence, before the smiling guest. + +If the two had no greater sympathy in their inward thoughts than in +their outward bearing and appearance, the meeting did not seem +likely to prove a very calm or pleasant one. With no great +disparity between them in point of years, they were, in every other +respect, as unlike and far removed from each other as two men could +well be. The one was soft-spoken, delicately made, precise, and +elegant; the other, a burly square-built man, negligently dressed, +rough and abrupt in manner, stern, and, in his present mood, +forbidding both in look and speech. The one preserved a calm and +placid smile; the other, a distrustful frown. The new-comer, +indeed, appeared bent on showing by his every tone and gesture his +determined opposition and hostility to the man he had come to meet. +The guest who received him, on the other hand, seemed to feel that +the contrast between them was all in his favour, and to derive a +quiet exultation from it which put him more at his ease than ever. + +'Haredale,' said this gentleman, without the least appearance of +embarrassment or reserve, 'I am very glad to see you.' + +'Let us dispense with compliments. They are misplaced between us,' +returned the other, waving his hand, 'and say plainly what we have +to say. You have asked me to meet you. I am here. Why do we +stand face to face again?' + +'Still the same frank and sturdy character, I see!' + +'Good or bad, sir, I am,' returned the other, leaning his arm upon +the chimney-piece, and turning a haughty look upon the occupant of +the easy-chair, 'the man I used to be. I have lost no old likings +or dislikings; my memory has not failed me by a hair's-breadth. +You ask me to give you a meeting. I say, I am here.' + +'Our meeting, Haredale,' said Mr Chester, tapping his snuff-box, +and following with a smile the impatient gesture he had made-- +perhaps unconsciously--towards his sword, 'is one of conference and +peace, I hope?' + +'I have come here,' returned the other, 'at your desire, holding +myself bound to meet you, when and where you would. I have not +come to bandy pleasant speeches, or hollow professions. You are a +smooth man of the world, sir, and at such play have me at a +disadvantage. The very last man on this earth with whom I would +enter the lists to combat with gentle compliments and masked faces, +is Mr Chester, I do assure you. I am not his match at such +weapons, and have reason to believe that few men are.' + +'You do me a great deal of honour Haredale,' returned the other, +most composedly, 'and I thank you. I will be frank with you--' + +'I beg your pardon--will be what?' + +'Frank--open--perfectly candid.' + +'Hab!' cried Mr Haredale, drawing his breath. 'But don't let me +interrupt you.' + +'So resolved am I to hold this course,' returned the other, tasting +his wine with great deliberation; 'that I have determined not to +quarrel with you, and not to be betrayed into a warm expression or +a hasty word.' + +'There again,' said Mr Haredale, 'you have me at a great advantage. +Your self-command--' + +'Is not to be disturbed, when it will serve my purpose, you would +say'--rejoined the other, interrupting him with the same +complacency. 'Granted. I allow it. And I have a purpose to serve +now. So have you. I am sure our object is the same. Let us +attain it like sensible men, who have ceased to be boys some time.-- +Do you drink?' + +'With my friends,' returned the other. + +'At least,' said Mr Chester, 'you will be seated?' + +'I will stand,' returned Mr Haredale impatiently, 'on this +dismantled, beggared hearth, and not pollute it, fallen as it is, +with mockeries. Go on.' + +'You are wrong, Haredale,' said the other, crossing his legs, and +smiling as he held his glass up in the bright glow of the fire. +'You are really very wrong. The world is a lively place enough, in +which we must accommodate ourselves to circumstances, sail with the +stream as glibly as we can, be content to take froth for substance, +the surface for the depth, the counterfeit for the real coin. I +wonder no philosopher has ever established that our globe itself is +hollow. It should be, if Nature is consistent in her works.' + +'YOU think it is, perhaps?' + +'I should say,' he returned, sipping his wine, 'there could be no +doubt about it. Well; we, in trifling with this jingling toy, have +had the ill-luck to jostle and fall out. We are not what the world +calls friends; but we are as good and true and loving friends for +all that, as nine out of every ten of those on whom it bestows the +title. You have a niece, and I a son--a fine lad, Haredale, but +foolish. They fall in love with each other, and form what this +same world calls an attachment; meaning a something fanciful and +false like the rest, which, if it took its own free time, would +break like any other bubble. But it may not have its own free +time--will not, if they are left alone--and the question is, shall +we two, because society calls us enemies, stand aloof, and let them +rush into each other's arms, when, by approaching each other +sensibly, as we do now, we can prevent it, and part them?' + +'I love my niece,' said Mr Haredale, after a short silence. 'It +may sound strangely in your ears; but I love her.' + +'Strangely, my good fellow!' cried Mr Chester, lazily filling his +glass again, and pulling out his toothpick. 'Not at all. I like +Ned too--or, as you say, love him--that's the word among such near +relations. I'm very fond of Ned. He's an amazingly good fellow, +and a handsome fellow--foolish and weak as yet; that's all. But +the thing is, Haredale--for I'll be very frank, as I told you I +would at first--independently of any dislike that you and I might +have to being related to each other, and independently of the +religious differences between us--and damn it, that's important--I +couldn't afford a match of this description. Ned and I couldn't do +it. It's impossible.' + +'Curb your tongue, in God's name, if this conversation is to last,' +retorted Mr Haredale fiercely. 'I have said I love my niece. Do +you think that, loving her, I would have her fling her heart away +on any man who had your blood in his veins?' + +'You see,' said the other, not at all disturbed, 'the advantage of +being so frank and open. Just what I was about to add, upon my +honour! I am amazingly attached to Ned--quite doat upon him, +indeed--and even if we could afford to throw ourselves away, that +very objection would be quite insuperable.--I wish you'd take some +wine?' + +'Mark me,' said Mr Haredale, striding to the table, and laying his +hand upon it heavily. 'If any man believes--presumes to think-- +that I, in word or deed, or in the wildest dream, ever entertained +remotely the idea of Emma Haredale's favouring the suit of any one +who was akin to you--in any way--I care not what--he lies. He +lies, and does me grievous wrong, in the mere thought.' + +'Haredale,' returned the other, rocking himself to and fro as in +assent, and nodding at the fire, 'it's extremely manly, and really +very generous in you, to meet me in this unreserved and handsome +way. Upon my word, those are exactly my sentiments, only +expressed with much more force and power than I could use--you know +my sluggish nature, and will forgive me, I am sure.' + +'While I would restrain her from all correspondence with your son, +and sever their intercourse here, though it should cause her +death,' said Mr Haredale, who had been pacing to and fro, 'I would +do it kindly and tenderly if I can. I have a trust to discharge, +which my nature is not formed to understand, and, for this reason, +the bare fact of there being any love between them comes upon me +to-night, almost for the first time.' + +'I am more delighted than I can possibly tell you,' rejoined Mr +Chester with the utmost blandness, 'to find my own impression so +confirmed. You see the advantage of our having met. We understand +each other. We quite agree. We have a most complete and thorough +explanation, and we know what course to take.--Why don't you taste +your tenant's wine? It's really very good.' + +'Pray who,' said Mr Haredale, 'have aided Emma, or your son? Who +are their go-betweens, and agents--do you know?' + +'All the good people hereabouts--the neighbourhood in general, I +think,' returned the other, with his most affable smile. 'The +messenger I sent to you to-day, foremost among them all.' + +'The idiot? Barnaby?' + +'You are surprised? I am glad of that, for I was rather so myself. +Yes. I wrung that from his mother--a very decent sort of woman-- +from whom, indeed, I chiefly learnt how serious the matter had +become, and so determined to ride out here to-day, and hold a +parley with you on this neutral ground.--You're stouter than you +used to be, Haredale, but you look extremely well.' + +'Our business, I presume, is nearly at an end,' said Mr Haredale, +with an expression of impatience he was at no pains to conceal. +'Trust me, Mr Chester, my niece shall change from this time. I +will appeal,' he added in a lower tone, 'to her woman's heart, her +dignity, her pride, her duty--' + +'I shall do the same by Ned,' said Mr Chester, restoring some +errant faggots to their places in the grate with the toe of his +boot. 'If there is anything real in this world, it is those +amazingly fine feelings and those natural obligations which must +subsist between father and son. I shall put it to him on every +ground of moral and religious feeling. I shall represent to him +that we cannot possibly afford it--that I have always looked +forward to his marrying well, for a genteel provision for myself in +the autumn of life--that there are a great many clamorous dogs to +pay, whose claims are perfectly just and right, and who must be +paid out of his wife's fortune. In short, that the very highest +and most honourable feelings of our nature, with every +consideration of filial duty and affection, and all that sort of +thing, imperatively demand that he should run away with an +heiress.' + +'And break her heart as speedily as possible?' said Mr Haredale, +drawing on his glove. + +'There Ned will act exactly as he pleases,' returned the other, +sipping his wine; 'that's entirely his affair. I wouldn't for the +world interfere with my son, Haredale, beyond a certain point. The +relationship between father and son, you know, is positively quite +a holy kind of bond.--WON'T you let me persuade you to take one +glass of wine? Well! as you please, as you please,' he added, +helping himself again. + +'Chester,' said Mr Haredale, after a short silence, during which he +had eyed his smiling face from time to time intently, 'you have the +head and heart of an evil spirit in all matters of deception.' + +'Your health!' said the other, with a nod. 'But I have interrupted +you--' + +'If now,' pursued Mr Haredale, 'we should find it difficult to +separate these young people, and break off their intercourse--if, +for instance, you find it difficult on your side, what course do +you intend to take?' + +'Nothing plainer, my good fellow, nothing easier,' returned the +other, shrugging his shoulders and stretching himself more +comfortably before the fire. 'I shall then exert those powers on +which you flatter me so highly--though, upon my word, I don't +deserve your compliments to their full extent--and resort to a few +little trivial subterfuges for rousing jealousy and resentment. +You see?' + +'In short, justifying the means by the end, we are, as a last +resource for tearing them asunder, to resort to treachery and--and +lying,' said Mr Haredale. + +'Oh dear no. Fie, fie!' returned the other, relishing a pinch of +snuff extremely. 'Not lying. Only a little management, a little +diplomacy, a little--intriguing, that's the word.' + +'I wish,' said Mr Haredale, moving to and fro, and stopping, and +moving on again, like one who was ill at ease, 'that this could +have been foreseen or prevented. But as it has gone so far, and it +is necessary for us to act, it is of no use shrinking or +regretting. Well! I shall second your endeavours to the utmost of +my power. There is one topic in the whole wide range of human +thoughts on which we both agree. We shall act in concert, but +apart. There will be no need, I hope, for us to meet again.' + +'Are you going?' said Mr Chester, rising with a graceful indolence. +'Let me light you down the stairs.' + +'Pray keep your seat,' returned the other drily, 'I know the way. +So, waving his hand slightly, and putting on his hat as he turned +upon his heel, he went clanking out as he had come, shut the door +behind him, and tramped down the echoing stairs. + +'Pah! A very coarse animal, indeed!' said Mr Chester, composing +himself in the easy-chair again. 'A rough brute. Quite a human +badger!' + +John Willet and his friends, who had been listening intently for +the clash of swords, or firing of pistols in the great room, and +had indeed settled the order in which they should rush in when +summoned--in which procession old John had carefully arranged that +he should bring up the rear--were very much astonished to see Mr +Haredale come down without a scratch, call for his horse, and ride +away thoughtfully at a footpace. After some consideration, it was +decided that he had left the gentleman above, for dead, and had +adopted this stratagem to divert suspicion or pursuit. + +As this conclusion involved the necessity of their going upstairs +forthwith, they were about to ascend in the order they had agreed +upon, when a smart ringing at the guest's bell, as if he had pulled +it vigorously, overthrew all their speculations, and involved them +in great uncertainty and doubt. At length Mr Willet agreed to go +upstairs himself, escorted by Hugh and Barnaby, as the strongest +and stoutest fellows on the premises, who were to make their +appearance under pretence of clearing away the glasses. + +Under this protection, the brave and broad-faced John boldly +entered the room, half a foot in advance, and received an order for +a boot-jack without trembling. But when it was brought, and he +leant his sturdy shoulder to the guest, Mr Willet was observed to +look very hard into his boots as he pulled them off, and, by +opening his eyes much wider than usual, to appear to express some +surprise and disappointment at not finding them full of blood. He +took occasion, too, to examine the gentleman as closely as he +could, expecting to discover sundry loopholes in his person, +pierced by his adversary's sword. Finding none, however, and +observing in course of time that his guest was as cool and +unruffled, both in his dress and temper, as he had been all day, +old John at last heaved a deep sigh, and began to think no duel had +been fought that night. + +'And now, Willet,' said Mr Chester, 'if the room's well aired, I'll +try the merits of that famous bed.' + +'The room, sir,' returned John, taking up a candle, and nudging +Barnaby and Hugh to accompany them, in case the gentleman should +unexpectedly drop down faint or dead from some internal wound, 'the +room's as warm as any toast in a tankard. Barnaby, take you that +other candle, and go on before. Hugh! Follow up, sir, with the +easy-chair.' + +In this order--and still, in his earnest inspection, holding his +candle very close to the guest; now making him feel extremely warm +about the legs, now threatening to set his wig on fire, and +constantly begging his pardon with great awkwardness and +embarrassment--John led the party to the best bedroom, which was +nearly as large as the chamber from which they had come, and held, +drawn out near the fire for warmth, a great old spectral bedstead, +hung with faded brocade, and ornamented, at the top of each carved +post, with a plume of feathers that had once been white, but with +dust and age had now grown hearse-like and funereal. + +'Good night, my friends,' said Mr Chester with a sweet smile, +seating himself, when he had surveyed the room from end to end, in +the easy-chair which his attendants wheeled before the fire. 'Good +night! Barnaby, my good fellow, you say some prayers before you go +to bed, I hope?' + +Barnaby nodded. 'He has some nonsense that he calls his prayers, +sir,' returned old John, officiously. 'I'm afraid there an't much +good in em.' + +'And Hugh?' said Mr Chester, turning to him. + +'Not I,' he answered. 'I know his'--pointing to Barnaby--'they're +well enough. He sings 'em sometimes in the straw. I listen.' + +'He's quite a animal, sir,' John whispered in his ear with dignity. +'You'll excuse him, I'm sure. If he has any soul at all, sir, it +must be such a very small one, that it don't signify what he does +or doesn't in that way. Good night, sir!' + +The guest rejoined 'God bless you!' with a fervour that was quite +affecting; and John, beckoning his guards to go before, bowed +himself out of the room, and left him to his rest in the Maypole's +ancient bed. + + + +Chapter 13 + + +If Joseph Willet, the denounced and proscribed of 'prentices, had +happened to be at home when his father's courtly guest presented +himself before the Maypole door--that is, if it had not perversely +chanced to be one of the half-dozen days in the whole year on which +he was at liberty to absent himself for as many hours without +question or reproach--he would have contrived, by hook or crook, to +dive to the very bottom of Mr Chester's mystery, and to come at his +purpose with as much certainty as though he had been his +confidential adviser. In that fortunate case, the lovers would +have had quick warning of the ills that threatened them, and the +aid of various timely and wise suggestions to boot; for all Joe's +readiness of thought and action, and all his sympathies and good +wishes, were enlisted in favour of the young people, and were +staunch in devotion to their cause. Whether this disposition arose +out of his old prepossessions in favour of the young lady, whose +history had surrounded her in his mind, almost from his cradle, +with circumstances of unusual interest; or from his attachment +towards the young gentleman, into whose confidence he had, through +his shrewdness and alacrity, and the rendering of sundry important +services as a spy and messenger, almost imperceptibly glided; +whether they had their origin in either of these sources, or in the +habit natural to youth, or in the constant badgering and worrying +of his venerable parent, or in any hidden little love affair of his +own which gave him something of a fellow-feeling in the matter, it +is needless to inquire--especially as Joe was out of the way, and +had no opportunity on that particular occasion of testifying to his +sentiments either on one side or the other. + +It was, in fact, the twenty-fifth of March, which, as most people +know to their cost, is, and has been time out of mind, one of those +unpleasant epochs termed quarter-days. On this twenty-fifth of +March, it was John Willet's pride annually to settle, in hard cash, +his account with a certain vintner and distiller in the city of +London; to give into whose hands a canvas bag containing its exact +amount, and not a penny more or less, was the end and object of a +journey for Joe, so surely as the year and day came round. + +This journey was performed upon an old grey mare, concerning whom +John had an indistinct set of ideas hovering about him, to the +effect that she could win a plate or cup if she tried. She never +had tried, and probably never would now, being some fourteen or +fifteen years of age, short in wind, long in body, and rather the +worse for wear in respect of her mane and tail. Notwithstanding +these slight defects, John perfectly gloried in the animal; and +when she was brought round to the door by Hugh, actually retired +into the bar, and there, in a secret grove of lemons, laughed with +pride. + +'There's a bit of horseflesh, Hugh!' said John, when he had +recovered enough self-command to appear at the door again. +'There's a comely creature! There's high mettle! There's bone!' + +There was bone enough beyond all doubt; and so Hugh seemed to +think, as he sat sideways in the saddle, lazily doubled up with his +chin nearly touching his knees; and heedless of the dangling +stirrups and loose bridle-rein, sauntered up and down on the little +green before the door. + +'Mind you take good care of her, sir,' said John, appealing from +this insensible person to his son and heir, who now appeared, fully +equipped and ready. 'Don't you ride hard.' + +'I should be puzzled to do that, I think, father,' Joe replied, +casting a disconsolate look at the animal. + +'None of your impudence, sir, if you please,' retorted old John. +'What would you ride, sir? A wild ass or zebra would be too tame +for you, wouldn't he, eh sir? You'd like to ride a roaring lion, +wouldn't you, sir, eh sir? Hold your tongue, sir.' When Mr +Willet, in his differences with his son, had exhausted all the +questions that occurred to him, and Joe had said nothing at all in +answer, he generally wound up by bidding him hold his tongue. + +'And what does the boy mean,' added Mr Willet, after he had stared +at him for a little time, in a species of stupefaction, 'by cocking +his hat, to such an extent! Are you going to kill the wintner, sir?' + +'No,' said Joe, tartly; 'I'm not. Now your mind's at ease, +father.' + +'With a milintary air, too!' said Mr Willet, surveying him from top +to toe; 'with a swaggering, fire-eating, biling-water drinking +sort of way with him! And what do you mean by pulling up the +crocuses and snowdrops, eh sir?' + +'It's only a little nosegay,' said Joe, reddening. 'There's no +harm in that, I hope?' + +'You're a boy of business, you are, sir!' said Mr Willet, +disdainfully, 'to go supposing that wintners care for nosegays.' + +'I don't suppose anything of the kind,' returned Joe. 'Let them +keep their red noses for bottles and tankards. These are going to +Mr Varden's house.' + +'And do you suppose HE minds such things as crocuses?' demanded +John. + +'I don't know, and to say the truth, I don't care,' said Joe. +'Come, father, give me the money, and in the name of patience let +me go.' + +'There it is, sir,' replied John; 'and take care of it; and mind +you don't make too much haste back, but give the mare a long rest.-- +Do you mind?' + +'Ay, I mind,' returned Joe. 'She'll need it, Heaven knows.' + +'And don't you score up too much at the Black Lion,' said John. +'Mind that too.' + +'Then why don't you let me have some money of my own?' retorted +Joe, sorrowfully; 'why don't you, father? What do you send me into +London for, giving me only the right to call for my dinner at the +Black Lion, which you're to pay for next time you go, as if I was +not to be trusted with a few shillings? Why do you use me like +this? It's not right of you. You can't expect me to be quiet +under it.' + +'Let him have money!' cried John, in a drowsy reverie. 'What does +he call money--guineas? Hasn't he got money? Over and above the +tolls, hasn't he one and sixpence?' + +'One and sixpence!' repeated his son contemptuously. + +'Yes, sir,' returned John, 'one and sixpence. When I was your age, +I had never seen so much money, in a heap. A shilling of it is in +case of accidents--the mare casting a shoe, or the like of that. +The other sixpence is to spend in the diversions of London; and the +diversion I recommend is going to the top of the Monument, and +sitting there. There's no temptation there, sir--no drink--no +young women--no bad characters of any sort--nothing but imagination. +That's the way I enjoyed myself when I was your age, sir.' + +To this, Joe made no answer, but beckoning Hugh, leaped into the +saddle and rode away; and a very stalwart, manly horseman he +looked, deserving a better charger than it was his fortune to +bestride. John stood staring after him, or rather after the grey +mare (for he had no eyes for her rider), until man and beast had +been out of sight some twenty minutes, when he began to think they +were gone, and slowly re-entering the house, fell into a gentle doze. + +The unfortunate grey mare, who was the agony of Joe's life, +floundered along at her own will and pleasure until the Maypole was +no longer visible, and then, contracting her legs into what in a +puppet would have been looked upon as a clumsy and awkward +imitation of a canter, mended her pace all at once, and did it of +her own accord. The acquaintance with her rider's usual mode of +proceeding, which suggested this improvement in hers, impelled her +likewise to turn up a bye-way, leading--not to London, but through +lanes running parallel with the road they had come, and passing +within a few hundred yards of the Maypole, which led finally to an +inclosure surrounding a large, old, red-brick mansion--the same of +which mention was made as the Warren in the first chapter of this +history. Coming to a dead stop in a little copse thereabout, she +suffered her rider to dismount with right goodwill, and to tie her +to the trunk of a tree. + +'Stay there, old girl,' said Joe, 'and let us see whether there's +any little commission for me to-day.' So saying, he left her to +browze upon such stunted grass and weeds as happened to grow within +the length of her tether, and passing through a wicket gate, +entered the grounds on foot. + +The pathway, after a very few minutes' walking, brought him close +to the house, towards which, and especially towards one particular +window, he directed many covert glances. It was a dreary, silent +building, with echoing courtyards, desolated turret-chambers, and +whole suites of rooms shut up and mouldering to ruin. + +The terrace-garden, dark with the shade of overhanging trees, had +an air of melancholy that was quite oppressive. Great iron gates, +disused for many years, and red with rust, drooping on their hinges +and overgrown with long rank grass, seemed as though they tried to +sink into the ground, and hide their fallen state among the +friendly weeds. The fantastic monsters on the walls, green with +age and damp, and covered here and there with moss, looked grim and +desolate. There was a sombre aspect even on that part of the +mansion which was inhabited and kept in good repair, that struck +the beholder with a sense of sadness; of something forlorn and +failing, whence cheerfulness was banished. It would have been +difficult to imagine a bright fire blazing in the dull and darkened +rooms, or to picture any gaiety of heart or revelry that the +frowning walls shut in. It seemed a place where such things had +been, but could be no more--the very ghost of a house, haunting the +old spot in its old outward form, and that was all. + +Much of this decayed and sombre look was attributable, no doubt, to +the death of its former master, and the temper of its present +occupant; but remembering the tale connected with the mansion, it +seemed the very place for such a deed, and one that might have been +its predestined theatre years upon years ago. Viewed with +reference to this legend, the sheet of water where the steward's +body had been found appeared to wear a black and sullen character, +such as no other pool might own; the bell upon the roof that had +told the tale of murder to the midnight wind, became a very phantom +whose voice would raise the listener's hair on end; and every +leafless bough that nodded to another, had its stealthy whispering +of the crime. + +Joe paced up and down the path, sometimes stopping in affected +contemplation of the building or the prospect, sometimes leaning +against a tree with an assumed air of idleness and indifference, +but always keeping an eye upon the window he had singled out at +first. After some quarter of an hour's delay, a small white hand +was waved to him for an instant from this casement, and the young +man, with a respectful bow, departed; saying under his breath as he +crossed his horse again, 'No errand for me to-day!' + +But the air of smartness, the cock of the hat to which John Willet +had objected, and the spring nosegay, all betokened some little +errand of his own, having a more interesting object than a vintner +or even a locksmith. So, indeed, it turned out; for when he had +settled with the vintner--whose place of business was down in some +deep cellars hard by Thames Street, and who was as purple-faced an +old gentleman as if he had all his life supported their arched roof +on his head--when he had settled the account, and taken the +receipt, and declined tasting more than three glasses of old +sherry, to the unbounded astonishment of the purple-faced vintner, +who, gimlet in hand, had projected an attack upon at least a score +of dusty casks, and who stood transfixed, or morally gimleted as it +were, to his own wall--when he had done all this, and disposed +besides of a frugal dinner at the Black Lion in Whitechapel; +spurning the Monument and John's advice, he turned his steps +towards the locksmith's house, attracted by the eyes of blooming +Dolly Varden. + +Joe was by no means a sheepish fellow, but, for all that, when he +got to the corner of the street in which the locksmith lived, he +could by no means make up his mind to walk straight to the house. +First, he resolved to stroll up another street for five minutes, +then up another street for five minutes more, and so on until he +had lost full half an hour, when he made a bold plunge and found +himself with a red face and a beating heart in the smoky workshop. + +'Joe Willet, or his ghost?' said Varden, rising from the desk at +which he was busy with his books, and looking at him under his +spectacles. 'Which is it? Joe in the flesh, eh? That's hearty. +And how are all the Chigwell company, Joe?' + +'Much as usual, sir--they and I agree as well as ever.' + +'Well, well!' said the locksmith. 'We must be patient, Joe, and +bear with old folks' foibles. How's the mare, Joe? Does she do +the four miles an hour as easily as ever? Ha, ha, ha! Does she, +Joe? Eh!--What have we there, Joe--a nosegay!' + +'A very poor one, sir--I thought Miss Dolly--' + +'No, no,' said Gabriel, dropping his voice, and shaking his head, +'not Dolly. Give 'em to her mother, Joe. A great deal better give +'em to her mother. Would you mind giving 'em to Mrs Varden, Joe?' + +'Oh no, sir,' Joe replied, and endeavouring, but not with the +greatest possible success, to hide his disappointment. 'I shall be +very glad, I'm sure.' + +'That's right,' said the locksmith, patting him on the back. 'It +don't matter who has 'em, Joe?' + +'Not a bit, sir.'--Dear heart, how the words stuck in his throat! + +'Come in,' said Gabriel. 'I have just been called to tea. She's +in the parlour.' + +'She,' thought Joe. 'Which of 'em I wonder--Mrs or Miss?' The +locksmith settled the doubt as neatly as if it had been expressed +aloud, by leading him to the door, and saying, 'Martha, my dear, +here's young Mr Willet.' + +Now, Mrs Varden, regarding the Maypole as a sort of human mantrap, +or decoy for husbands; viewing its proprietor, and all who aided +and abetted him, in the light of so many poachers among Christian +men; and believing, moreover, that the publicans coupled with +sinners in Holy Writ were veritable licensed victuallers; was far +from being favourably disposed towards her visitor. Wherefore she +was taken faint directly; and being duly presented with the +crocuses and snowdrops, divined on further consideration that they +were the occasion of the languor which had seized upon her spirits. +'I'm afraid I couldn't bear the room another minute,' said the good +lady, 'if they remained here. WOULD you excuse my putting them out +of window?' + +Joe begged she wouldn't mention it on any account, and smiled +feebly as he saw them deposited on the sill outside. If anybody +could have known the pains he had taken to make up that despised +and misused bunch of flowers!-- + +'I feel it quite a relief to get rid of them, I assure you,' said +Mrs Varden. 'I'm better already.' And indeed she did appear to +have plucked up her spirits. + +Joe expressed his gratitude to Providence for this favourable +dispensation, and tried to look as if he didn't wonder where +Dolly was. + +'You're sad people at Chigwell, Mr Joseph,' said Mrs V. + +'I hope not, ma'am,' returned Joe. + +'You're the cruellest and most inconsiderate people in the world,' +said Mrs Varden, bridling. 'I wonder old Mr Willet, having been a +married man himself, doesn't know better than to conduct himself as +he does. His doing it for profit is no excuse. I would rather +pay the money twenty times over, and have Varden come home like a +respectable and sober tradesman. If there is one character,' said +Mrs Varden with great emphasis, 'that offends and disgusts me more +than another, it is a sot.' + +'Come, Martha, my dear,' said the locksmith cheerily, 'let us have +tea, and don't let us talk about sots. There are none here, and +Joe don't want to hear about them, I dare say.' + +At this crisis, Miggs appeared with toast. + +'I dare say he does not,' said Mrs Varden; 'and I dare say you do +not, Varden. It's a very unpleasant subiect, I have no doubt, +though I won't say it's personal'--Miggs coughed--'whatever I may +be forced to think'--Miggs sneezed expressively. 'You never will +know, Varden, and nobody at young Mr Willet's age--you'll excuse +me, sir--can be expected to know, what a woman suffers when she is +waiting at home under such circumstances. If you don't believe me, +as I know you don't, here's Miggs, who is only too often a witness +of it--ask her.' + +'Oh! she were very bad the other night, sir, indeed she were, said +Miggs. 'If you hadn't the sweetness of an angel in you, mim, I +don't think you could abear it, I raly don't.' + +'Miggs,' said Mrs Varden, 'you're profane.' + +'Begging your pardon, mim,' returned Miggs, with shrill rapidity, +'such was not my intentions, and such I hope is not my character, +though I am but a servant.' + +'Answering me, Miggs, and providing yourself,' retorted her +mistress, looking round with dignity, 'is one and the same thing. +How dare you speak of angels in connection with your sinful +fellow-beings--mere'--said Mrs Varden, glancing at herself in a +neighbouring mirror, and arranging the ribbon of her cap in a more +becoming fashion--'mere worms and grovellers as we are!' + +'I did not intend, mim, if you please, to give offence,' said +Miggs, confident in the strength of her compliment, and developing +strongly in the throat as usual, 'and I did not expect it would be +took as such. I hope I know my own unworthiness, and that I hate +and despise myself and all my fellow-creatures as every practicable +Christian should.' + +'You'll have the goodness, if you please,' said Mrs Varden, +loftily, 'to step upstairs and see if Dolly has finished dressing, +and to tell her that the chair that was ordered for her will be +here in a minute, and that if she keeps it waiting, I shall send it +away that instant.--I'm sorry to see that you don't take your tea, +Varden, and that you don't take yours, Mr Joseph; though of course +it would be foolish of me to expect that anything that can be had +at home, and in the company of females, would please YOU.' + +This pronoun was understood in the plural sense, and included both +gentlemen, upon both of whom it was rather hard and undeserved, +for Gabriel had applied himself to the meal with a very promising +appetite, until it was spoilt by Mrs Varden herself, and Joe had as +great a liking for the female society of the locksmith's house--or +for a part of it at all events--as man could well entertain. + +But he had no opportunity to say anything in his own defence, for +at that moment Dolly herself appeared, and struck him quite dumb +with her beauty. Never had Dolly looked so handsome as she did +then, in all the glow and grace of youth, with all her charms +increased a hundredfold by a most becoming dress, by a thousand +little coquettish ways which nobody could assume with a better +grace, and all the sparkling expectation of that accursed party. +It is impossible to tell how Joe hated that party wherever it was, +and all the other people who were going to it, whoever they were. + +And she hardly looked at him--no, hardly looked at him. And when +the chair was seen through the open door coming blundering into the +workshop, she actually clapped her hands and seemed glad to go. +But Joe gave her his arm--there was some comfort in that--and +handed her into it. To see her seat herself inside, with her +laughing eyes brighter than diamonds, and her hand--surely she had +the prettiest hand in the world--on the ledge of the open window, +and her little finger provokingly and pertly tilted up, as if it +wondered why Joe didn't squeeze or kiss it! To think how well one +or two of the modest snowdrops would have become that delicate +bodice, and how they were lying neglected outside the parlour +window! To see how Miggs looked on with a face expressive of +knowing how all this loveliness was got up, and of being in the +secret of every string and pin and hook and eye, and of saying it +ain't half as real as you think, and I could look quite as well +myself if I took the pains! To hear that provoking precious little +scream when the chair was hoisted on its poles, and to catch that +transient but not-to-be-forgotten vision of the happy face within-- +what torments and aggravations, and yet what delights were these! +The very chairmen seemed favoured rivals as they bore her down the +street. + +There never was such an alteration in a small room in a small time +as in that parlour when they went back to finish tea. So dark, so +deserted, so perfectly disenchanted. It seemed such sheer nonsense +to be sitting tamely there, when she was at a dance with more +lovers than man could calculate fluttering about her--with the +whole party doting on and adoring her, and wanting to marry her. +Miggs was hovering about too; and the fact of her existence, the +mere circumstance of her ever having been born, appeared, after +Dolly, such an unaccountable practical joke. It was impossible to +talk. It couldn't be done. He had nothing left for it but to stir +his tea round, and round, and round, and ruminate on all the +fascinations of the locksmith's lovely daughter. + +Gabriel was dull too. It was a part of the certain uncertainty of +Mrs Varden's temper, that when they were in this condition, she +should be gay and sprightly. + +'I need have a cheerful disposition, I am sure,' said the smiling +housewife, 'to preserve any spirits at all; and how I do it I can +scarcely tell.' + +'Ah, mim,' sighed Miggs, 'begging your pardon for the interruption, +there an't a many like you.' + +'Take away, Miggs,' said Mrs Varden, rising, 'take away, pray. I +know I'm a restraint here, and as I wish everybody to enjoy +themselves as they best can, I feel I had better go.' + +'No, no, Martha,' cried the locksmith. 'Stop here. I'm sure we +shall be very sorry to lose you, eh Joe!' Joe started, and said +'Certainly.' + +'Thank you, Varden, my dear,' returned his wife; 'but I know your +wishes better. Tobacco and beer, or spirits, have much greater +attractions than any I can boast of, and therefore I shall go and +sit upstairs and look out of window, my love. Good night, Mr +Joseph. I'm very glad to have seen you, and I only wish I could +have provided something more suitable to your taste. Remember me +very kindly if you please to old Mr Willet, and tell him that +whenever he comes here I have a crow to pluck with him. Good +night!' + +Having uttered these words with great sweetness of manner, the good +lady dropped a curtsey remarkable for its condescension, and +serenely withdrew. + +And it was for this Joe had looked forward to the twenty-fifth of +March for weeks and weeks, and had gathered the flowers with so +much care, and had cocked his hat, and made himself so smart! This +was the end of all his bold determination, resolved upon for the +hundredth time, to speak out to Dolly and tell her how he loved +her! To see her for a minute--for but a minute--to find her going +out to a party and glad to go; to be looked upon as a common pipe- +smoker, beer-bibber, spirit-guzzler, and tosspot! He bade +farewell to his friend the locksmith, and hastened to take horse at +the Black Lion, thinking as he turned towards home, as many another +Joe has thought before and since, that here was an end to all his +hopes--that the thing was impossible and never could be--that she +didn't care for him--that he was wretched for life--and that the +only congenial prospect left him, was to go for a soldier or a +sailor, and get some obliging enemy to knock his brains out as +soon as possible. + + + +Chapter 14 + + +Joe Willet rode leisurely along in his desponding mood, picturing +the locksmith's daughter going down long country-dances, and +poussetting dreadfully with bold strangers--which was almost too +much to bear--when he heard the tramp of a horse's feet behind him, +and looking back, saw a well-mounted gentleman advancing at a +smart canter. As this rider passed, he checked his steed, and +called him of the Maypole by his name. Joe set spurs to the grey +mare, and was at his side directly. + +'I thought it was you, sir,' he said, touching his hat. 'A fair +evening, sir. Glad to see you out of doors again.' + +The gentleman smiled and nodded. 'What gay doings have been going +on to-day, Joe? Is she as pretty as ever? Nay, don't blush, man.' + +'If I coloured at all, Mr Edward,' said Joe, 'which I didn't know I +did, it was to think I should have been such a fool as ever to have +any hope of her. She's as far out of my reach as--as Heaven is.' + +'Well, Joe, I hope that's not altogether beyond it,' said Edward, +good-humouredly. 'Eh?' + +'Ah!' sighed Joe. 'It's all very fine talking, sir. Proverbs are +easily made in cold blood. But it can't be helped. Are you bound +for our house, sir?' + +'Yes. As I am not quite strong yet, I shall stay there to-night, +and ride home coolly in the morning.' + +'If you're in no particular hurry,' said Joe after a short silence, +'and will bear with the pace of this poor jade, I shall be glad to +ride on with you to the Warren, sir, and hold your horse when you +dismount. It'll save you having to walk from the Maypole, there +and back again. I can spare the time well, sir, for I am too soon.' + +'And so am I,' returned Edward, 'though I was unconsciously riding +fast just now, in compliment I suppose to the pace of my thoughts, +which were travelling post. We will keep together, Joe, willingly, +and be as good company as may be. And cheer up, cheer up, think of +the locksmith's daughter with a stout heart, and you shall win her +yet.' + +Joe shook his head; but there was something so cheery in the +buoyant hopeful manner of this speech, that his spirits rose under +its influence, and communicated as it would seem some new impulse +even to the grey mare, who, breaking from her sober amble into a +gentle trot, emulated the pace of Edward Chester's horse, and +appeared to flatter herself that he was doing his very best. + +It was a fine dry night, and the light of a young moon, which was +then just rising, shed around that peace and tranquillity which +gives to evening time its most delicious charm. The lengthened +shadows of the trees, softened as if reflected in still water, +threw their carpet on the path the travellers pursued, and the +light wind stirred yet more softly than before, as though it were +soothing Nature in her sleep. By little and little they ceased +talking, and rode on side by side in a pleasant silence. + +'The Maypole lights are brilliant to-night,' said Edward, as they +rode along the lane from which, while the intervening trees were +bare of leaves, that hostelry was visible. + +'Brilliant indeed, sir,' returned Joe, rising in his stirrups to +get a better view. 'Lights in the large room, and a fire +glimmering in the best bedchamber? Why, what company can this be +for, I wonder!' + +'Some benighted horseman wending towards London, and deterred from +going on to-night by the marvellous tales of my friend the +highwayman, I suppose,' said Edward. + +'He must be a horseman of good quality to have such accommodations. +Your bed too, sir--!' + +'No matter, Joe. Any other room will do for me. But come--there's +nine striking. We may push on.' + +They cantered forward at as brisk a pace as Joe's charger could +attain, and presently stopped in the little copse where he had left +her in the morning. Edward dismounted, gave his bridle to his +companion, and walked with a light step towards the house. + +A female servant was waiting at a side gate in the garden-wall, and +admitted him without delay. He hurried along the terrace-walk, and +darted up a flight of broad steps leading into an old and gloomy +hall, whose walls were ornamented with rusty suits of armour, +antlers, weapons of the chase, and suchlike garniture. Here he +paused, but not long; for as he looked round, as if expecting the +attendant to have followed, and wondering she had not done so, a +lovely girl appeared, whose dark hair next moment rested on his +breast. Almost at the same instant a heavy hand was laid upon her +arm, Edward felt himself thrust away, and Mr Haredale stood between +them. + +He regarded the young man sternly without removing his hat; with +one hand clasped his niece, and with the other, in which he held +his riding-whip, motioned him towards the door. The young man drew +himself up, and returned his gaze. + +'This is well done of you, sir, to corrupt my servants, and enter +my house unbidden and in secret, like a thief!' said Mr Haredale. +'Leave it, sir, and return no more.' + +'Miss Haredale's presence,' returned the young man, 'and your +relationship to her, give you a licence which, if you are a brave +man, you will not abuse. You have compelled me to this course, +and the fault is yours--not mine.' + +'It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true +man, sir,' retorted the other, 'to tamper with the affections of a +weak, trusting girl, while you shrink, in your unworthiness, from +her guardian and protector, and dare not meet the light of day. +More than this I will not say to you, save that I forbid you this +house, and require you to be gone.' + +'It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true man +to play the spy,' said Edward. 'Your words imply dishonour, and I +reject them with the scorn they merit.' + +'You will find,' said Mr Haredale, calmly, 'your trusty go-between +in waiting at the gate by which you entered. I have played no +spy's part, sir. I chanced to see you pass the gate, and +followed. You might have heard me knocking for admission, had you +been less swift of foot, or lingered in the garden. Please to +withdraw. Your presence here is offensive to me and distressful to +my niece.' As he said these words, he passed his arm about the +waist of the terrified and weeping girl, and drew her closer to +him; and though the habitual severity of his manner was scarcely +changed, there was yet apparent in the action an air of kindness +and sympathy for her distress. + +'Mr Haredale,' said Edward, 'your arm encircles her on whom I have +set my every hope and thought, and to purchase one minute's +happiness for whom I would gladly lay down my life; this house is +the casket that holds the precious jewel of my existence. Your +niece has plighted her faith to me, and I have plighted mine to +her. What have I done that you should hold me in this light +esteem, and give me these discourteous words?' + +'You have done that, sir,' answered Mr Haredale, 'which must he +undone. You have tied a lover'-knot here which must be cut +asunder. Take good heed of what I say. Must. I cancel the bond +between ye. I reject you, and all of your kith and kin--all the +false, hollow, heartless stock.' + +'High words, sir,' said Edward, scornfully. + +'Words of purpose and meaning, as you will find,' replied the +other. 'Lay them to heart.' + +'Lay you then, these,' said Edward. 'Your cold and sullen temper, +which chills every breast about you, which turns affection into +fear, and changes duty into dread, has forced us on this secret +course, repugnant to our nature and our wish, and far more foreign, +sir, to us than you. I am not a false, a hollow, or a heartless +man; the character is yours, who poorly venture on these injurious +terms, against the truth, and under the shelter whereof I reminded +you just now. You shall not cancel the bond between us. I will +not abandon this pursuit. I rely upon your niece's truth and +honour, and set your influence at nought. I leave her with a +confidence in her pure faith, which you will never weaken, and with +no concern but that I do not leave her in some gentler care.' + +With that, he pressed her cold hand to his lips, and once more +encountering and returning Mr Haredale's steady look, withdrew. + +A few words to Joe as he mounted his horse sufficiently explained +what had passed, and renewed all that young gentleman's despondency +with tenfold aggravation. They rode back to the Maypole without +exchanging a syllable, and arrived at the door with heavy hearts. + +Old John, who had peeped from behind the red curtain as they rode +up shouting for Hugh, was out directly, and said with great +importance as he held the young man's stirrup, + +'He's comfortable in bed--the best bed. A thorough gentleman; the +smilingest, affablest gentleman I ever had to do with.' + +'Who, Willet?' said Edward carelessly, as he dismounted. + +'Your worthy father, sir,' replied John. 'Your honourable, +venerable father.' + +'What does he mean?' said Edward, looking with a mixture of alarm +and doubt, at Joe. + +'What DO you mean?' said Joe. 'Don't you see Mr Edward doesn't +understand, father?' + +'Why, didn't you know of it, sir?' said John, opening his eyes +wide. 'How very singular! Bless you, he's been here ever since +noon to-day, and Mr Haredale has been having a long talk with him, +and hasn't been gone an hour.' + +'My father, Willet!' + +'Yes, sir, he told me so--a handsome, slim, upright gentleman, in +green-and-gold. In your old room up yonder, sir. No doubt you +can go in, sir,' said John, walking backwards into the road and +looking up at the window. 'He hasn't put out his candles yet, I +see.' + +Edward glanced at the window also, and hastily murmuring that he +had changed his mind--forgotten something--and must return to +London, mounted his horse again and rode away; leaving the Willets, +father and son, looking at each other in mute astonishment. + + + +Chapter 15 + + +At noon next day, John Willet's guest sat lingering over his +breakfast in his own home, surrounded by a variety of comforts, +which left the Maypole's highest flight and utmost stretch of +accommodation at an infinite distance behind, and suggested +comparisons very much to the disadvantage and disfavour of that +venerable tavern. + +In the broad old-fashioned window-seat--as capacious as many modern +sofas, and cushioned to serve the purpose of a luxurious settee--in +the broad old-fashioned window-seat of a roomy chamber, Mr Chester +lounged, very much at his ease, over a well-furnished breakfast- +table. He had exchanged his riding-coat for a handsome morning- +gown, his boots for slippers; had been at great pains to atone for +the having been obliged to make his toilet when he rose without the +aid of dressing-case and tiring equipage; and, having gradually +forgotten through these means the discomforts of an indifferent +night and an early ride, was in a state of perfect complacency, +indolence, and satisfaction. + +The situation in which he found himself, indeed, was particularly +favourable to the growth of these feelings; for, not to mention the +lazy influence of a late and lonely breakfast, with the additional +sedative of a newspaper, there was an air of repose about his place +of residence peculiar to itself, and which hangs about it, even in +these times, when it is more bustling and busy than it was in days +of yore. + +There are, still, worse places than the Temple, on a sultry day, +for basking in the sun, or resting idly in the shade. There is yet +a drowsiness in its courts, and a dreamy dulness in its trees and +gardens; those who pace its lanes and squares may yet hear the +echoes of their footsteps on the sounding stones, and read upon its +gates, in passing from the tumult of the Strand or Fleet Street, +'Who enters here leaves noise behind.' There is still the plash of +falling water in fair Fountain Court, and there are yet nooks and +corners where dun-haunted students may look down from their dusty +garrets, on a vagrant ray of sunlight patching the shade of the +tall houses, and seldom troubled to reflect a passing stranger's +form. There is yet, in the Temple, something of a clerkly monkish +atmosphere, which public offices of law have not disturbed, and +even legal firms have failed to scare away. In summer time, its +pumps suggest to thirsty idlers, springs cooler, and more +sparkling, and deeper than other wells; and as they trace the +spillings of full pitchers on the heated ground, they snuff the +freshness, and, sighing, cast sad looks towards the Thames, and +think of baths and boats, and saunter on, despondent. + +It was in a room in Paper Buildings--a row of goodly tenements, +shaded in front by ancient trees, and looking, at the back, upon +the Temple Gardens--that this, our idler, lounged; now taking up +again the paper he had laid down a hundred times; now trifling with +the fragments of his meal; now pulling forth his golden toothpick, +and glancing leisurely about the room, or out at window into the +trim garden walks, where a few early loiterers were already pacing +to and fro. Here a pair of lovers met to quarrel and make up; +there a dark-eyed nursery-maid had better eyes for Templars than +her charge; on this hand an ancient spinster, with her lapdog in a +string, regarded both enormities with scornful sidelong looks; on +that a weazen old gentleman, ogling the nursery-maid, looked with +like scorn upon the spinster, and wondered she didn't know she was +no longer young. Apart from all these, on the river's margin two +or three couple of business-talkers walked slowly up and down in +earnest conversation; and one young man sat thoughtfully on a +bench, alone. + +'Ned is amazingly patient!' said Mr Chester, glancing at this last- +named person as he set down his teacup and plied the golden +toothpick, 'immensely patient! He was sitting yonder when I began +to dress, and has scarcely changed his posture since. A most +eccentric dog!' + +As he spoke, the figure rose, and came towards him with a rapid +pace. + +'Really, as if he had heard me,' said the father, resuming his +newspaper with a yawn. 'Dear Ned!' + +Presently the room-door opened, and the young man entered; to whom +his father gently waved his hand, and smiled. + +'Are you at leisure for a little conversation, sir?' said Edward. + +'Surely, Ned. I am always at leisure. You know my constitution.-- +Have you breakfasted?' + +'Three hours ago.' + +'What a very early dog!' cried his father, contemplating him from +behind the toothpick, with a languid smile. + +'The truth is,' said Edward, bringing a chair forward, and seating +himself near the table, 'that I slept but ill last night, and was +glad to rise. The cause of my uneasiness cannot but be known to +you, sir; and it is upon that I wish to speak.' + +'My dear boy,' returned his father, 'confide in me, I beg. But you +know my constitution--don't be prosy, Ned.' + +'I will be plain, and brief,' said Edward. + +'Don't say you will, my good fellow,' returned his father, crossing +his legs, 'or you certainly will not. You are going to tell me'-- + +'Plainly this, then,' said the son, with an air of great concern, +'that I know where you were last night--from being on the spot, +indeed--and whom you saw, and what your purpose was.' + +'You don't say so!' cried his father. 'I am delighted to hear it. +It saves us the worry, and terrible wear and tear of a long +explanation, and is a great relief for both. At the very house! +Why didn't you come up? I should have been charmed to see you.' + +'I knew that what I had to say would be better said after a night's +reflection, when both of us were cool,' returned the son. + +''Fore Gad, Ned,' rejoined the father, 'I was cool enough last +night. That detestable Maypole! By some infernal contrivance of +the builder, it holds the wind, and keeps it fresh. You remember +the sharp east wind that blew so hard five weeks ago? I give you +my honour it was rampant in that old house last night, though out +of doors there was a dead calm. But you were saying'-- + +'I was about to say, Heaven knows how seriously and earnestly, that +you have made me wretched, sir. Will you hear me gravely for a +moment?' + +'My dear Ned,' said his father, 'I will hear you with the patience +of an anchorite. Oblige me with the milk.' + +'I saw Miss Haredale last night,' Edward resumed, when he had +complied with this request; 'her uncle, in her presence, +immediately after your interview, and, as of course I know, in +consequence of it, forbade me the house, and, with circumstances of +indignity which are of your creation I am sure, commanded me to +leave it on the instant.' + +'For his manner of doing so, I give you my honour, Ned, I am not +accountable,' said his father. 'That you must excuse. He is a +mere boor, a log, a brute, with no address in life.--Positively a +fly in the jug. The first I have seen this year.' + +Edward rose, and paced the room. His imperturbable parent sipped +his tea. + +'Father,' said the young man, stopping at length before him, 'we +must not trifle in this matter. We must not deceive each other, or +ourselves. Let me pursue the manly open part I wish to take, and +do not repel me by this unkind indifference.' + +'Whether I am indifferent or no,' returned the other, 'I leave you, +my dear boy, to judge. A ride of twenty-five or thirty miles, +through miry roads--a Maypole dinner--a tete-a-tete with Haredale, +which, vanity apart, was quite a Valentine and Orson business--a +Maypole bed--a Maypole landlord, and a Maypole retinue of idiots +and centaurs;--whether the voluntary endurance of these things +looks like indifference, dear Ned, or like the excessive anxiety, +and devotion, and all that sort of thing, of a parent, you shall +determine for yourself.' + +'I wish you to consider, sir,' said Edward, 'in what a cruel +situation I am placed. Loving Miss Haredale as I do'-- + +'My dear fellow,' interrupted his father with a compassionate +smile, 'you do nothing of the kind. You don't know anything about +it. There's no such thing, I assure you. Now, do take my word for +it. You have good sense, Ned,--great good sense. I wonder you +should be guilty of such amazing absurdities. You really surprise +me.' + +'I repeat,' said his son firmly, 'that I love her. You have +interposed to part us, and have, to the extent I have just now told +you of, succeeded. May I induce you, sir, in time, to think more +favourably of our attachment, or is it your intention and your +fixed design to hold us asunder if you can?' + +'My dear Ned,' returned his father, taking a pinch of snuff and +pushing his box towards him, 'that is my purpose most undoubtedly.' + +'The time that has elapsed,' rejoined his son, 'since I began to +know her worth, has flown in such a dream that until now I have +hardly once paused to reflect upon my true position. What is it? +From my childhood I have been accustomed to luxury and idleness, +and have been bred as though my fortune were large, and my +expectations almost without a limit. The idea of wealth has been +familiarised to me from my cradle. I have been taught to look upon +those means, by which men raise themselves to riches and +distinction, as being beyond my heeding, and beneath my care. I +have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit for +nothing. I find myself at last wholly dependent upon you, with no +resource but in your favour. In this momentous question of my life +we do not, and it would seem we never can, agree. I have shrunk +instinctively alike from those to whom you have urged me to pay +court, and from the motives of interest and gain which have +rendered them in your eyes visible objects for my suit. If there +never has been thus much plain-speaking between us before, sir, the +fault has not been mine, indeed. If I seem to speak too plainly +now, it is, believe me father, in the hope that there may be a +franker spirit, a worthier reliance, and a kinder confidence +between us in time to come.' + +'My good fellow,' said his smiling father, 'you quite affect me. +Go on, my dear Edward, I beg. But remember your promise. There is +great earnestness, vast candour, a manifest sincerity in all you +say, but I fear I observe the faintest indications of a tendency to +prose.' + +'I am very sorry, sir.' + +'I am very sorry, too, Ned, but you know that I cannot fix my mind +for any long period upon one subject. If you'll come to the point +at once, I'll imagine all that ought to go before, and conclude it +said. Oblige me with the milk again. Listening, invariably makes +me feverish.' + +'What I would say then, tends to this,' said Edward. 'I cannot +bear this absolute dependence, sir, even upon you. Time has been +lost and opportunity thrown away, but I am yet a young man, and may +retrieve it. Will you give me the means of devoting such abilities +and energies as I possess, to some worthy pursuit? Will you let me +try to make for myself an honourable path in life? For any term +you please to name--say for five years if you will--I will pledge +myself to move no further in the matter of our difference without +your fall concurrence. During that period, I will endeavour +earnestly and patiently, if ever man did, to open some prospect for +myself, and free you from the burden you fear I should become if I +married one whose worth and beauty are her chief endowments. Will +you do this, sir? At the expiration of the term we agree upon, let +us discuss this subject again. Till then, unless it is revived by +you, let it never be renewed between us.' + +'My dear Ned,' returned his father, laying down the newspaper at +which he had been glancing carelessly, and throwing himself back in +the window-seat, 'I believe you know how very much I dislike what +are called family affairs, which are only fit for plebeian +Christmas days, and have no manner of business with people of our +condition. But as you are proceeding upon a mistake, Ned-- +altogether upon a mistake--I will conquer my repugnance to entering +on such matters, and give you a perfectly plain and candid answer, +if you will do me the favour to shut the door.' + +Edward having obeyed him, he took an elegant little knife from his +pocket, and paring his nails, continued: + +'You have to thank me, Ned, for being of good family; for your +mother, charming person as she was, and almost broken-hearted, and +so forth, as she left me, when she was prematurely compelled to +become immortal--had nothing to boast of in that respect.' + +'Her father was at least an eminent lawyer, sir,' said Edward. + +'Quite right, Ned; perfectly so. He stood high at the bar, had a +great name and great wealth, but having risen from nothing--I have +always closed my eyes to the circumstance and steadily resisted its +contemplation, but I fear his father dealt in pork, and that his +business did once involve cow-heel and sausages--he wished to marry +his daughter into a good family. He had his heart's desire, Ned. +I was a younger son's younger son, and I married her. We each had +our object, and gained it. She stepped at once into the politest +and best circles, and I stepped into a fortune which I assure you +was very necessary to my comfort--quite indispensable. Now, my +good fellow, that fortune is among the things that have been. It +is gone, Ned, and has been gone--how old are you? I always +forget.' + +'Seven-and-twenty, sir.' + +'Are you indeed?' cried his father, raising his eyelids in a +languishing surprise. 'So much! Then I should say, Ned, that as +nearly as I remember, its skirts vanished from human knowledge, +about eighteen or nineteen years ago. It was about that time when +I came to live in these chambers (once your grandfather's, and +bequeathed by that extremely respectable person to me), and +commenced to live upon an inconsiderable annuity and my past +reputation.' + +'You are jesting with me, sir,' said Edward. + +'Not in the slightest degree, I assure you,' returned his father +with great composure. 'These family topics are so extremely dry, +that I am sorry to say they don't admit of any such relief. It is +for that reason, and because they have an appearance of business, +that I dislike them so very much. Well! You know the rest. A +son, Ned, unless he is old enough to be a companion--that is to +say, unless he is some two or three and twenty--is not the kind of +thing to have about one. He is a restraint upon his father, his +father is a restraint upon him, and they make each other mutually +uncomfortable. Therefore, until within the last four years or so-- +I have a poor memory for dates, and if I mistake, you will correct +me in your own mind--you pursued your studies at a distance, and +picked up a great variety of accomplishments. Occasionally we +passed a week or two together here, and disconcerted each other as +only such near relations can. At last you came home. I candidly +tell you, my dear boy, that if you had been awkward and overgrown, +I should have exported you to some distant part of the world.' + +'I wish with all my soul you had, sir,' said Edward. + +'No you don't, Ned,' said his father coolly; 'you are mistaken, I +assure you. I found you a handsome, prepossessing, elegant +fellow, and I threw you into the society I can still command. +Having done that, my dear fellow, I consider that I have provided +for you in life, and rely upon your doing something to provide for +me in return.' + +'I do not understand your meaning, sir.' + +'My meaning, Ned, is obvious--I observe another fly in the cream- +jug, but have the goodness not to take it out as you did the first, +for their walk when their legs are milky, is extremely ungraceful +and disagreeable--my meaning is, that you must do as I did; that +you must marry well and make the most of yourself.' + +'A mere fortune-hunter!' cried the son, indignantly. + +'What in the devil's name, Ned, would you be!' returned the father. +'All men are fortune-hunters, are they not? The law, the church, +the court, the camp--see how they are all crowded with fortune- +hunters, jostling each other in the pursuit. The stock-exchange, +the pulpit, the counting-house, the royal drawing-room, the +senate,--what but fortune-hunters are they filled with? A fortune- +hunter! Yes. You ARE one; and you would be nothing else, my dear +Ned, if you were the greatest courtier, lawyer, legislator, +prelate, or merchant, in existence. If you are squeamish and +moral, Ned, console yourself with the reflection that at the very +worst your fortune-hunting can make but one person miserable or +unhappy. How many people do you suppose these other kinds of +huntsmen crush in following their sport--hundreds at a step? Or +thousands?' + +The young man leant his head upon his hand, and made no answer. + +'I am quite charmed,' said the father rising, and walking slowly to +and fro--stopping now and then to glance at himself in the mirror, +or survey a picture through his glass, with the air of a +connoisseur, 'that we have had this conversation, Ned, unpromising +as it was. It establishes a confidence between us which is quite +delightful, and was certainly necessary, though how you can ever +have mistaken our positions and designs, I confess I cannot +understand. I conceived, until I found your fancy for this girl, +that all these points were tacitly agreed upon between us.' + +'I knew you were embarrassed, sir,' returned the son, raising his +head for a moment, and then falling into his former attitude, 'but +I had no idea we were the beggared wretches you describe. How +could I suppose it, bred as I have been; witnessing the life you +have always led; and the appearance you have always made?' + +'My dear child,' said the father--'for you really talk so like a +child that I must call you one--you were bred upon a careful +principle; the very manner of your education, I assure you, +maintained my credit surprisingly. As to the life I lead, I must +lead it, Ned. I must have these little refinements about me. I +have always been used to them, and I cannot exist without them. +They must surround me, you observe, and therefore they are here. +With regard to our circumstances, Ned, you may set your mind at +rest upon that score. They are desperate. Your own appearance is +by no means despicable, and our joint pocket-money alone devours +our income. That's the truth.' + +'Why have I never known this before? Why have you encouraged me, +sir, to an expenditure and mode of life to which we have no right +or title?' + +'My good fellow,' returned his father more compassionately than +ever, 'if you made no appearance, how could you possibly succeed in +the pursuit for which I destined you? As to our mode of life, +every man has a right to live in the best way he can; and to make +himself as comfortable as he can, or he is an unnatural scoundrel. +Our debts, I grant, are very great, and therefore it the more +behoves you, as a young man of principle and honour, to pay them +off as speedily as possible.' + +'The villain's part,' muttered Edward, 'that I have unconsciously +played! I to win the heart of Emma Haredale! I would, for her +sake, I had died first!' + +'I am glad you see, Ned,' returned his father, 'how perfectly self- +evident it is, that nothing can be done in that quarter. But apart +from this, and the necessity of your speedily bestowing yourself +on another (as you know you could to-morrow, if you chose), I wish +you'd look upon it pleasantly. In a religious point of view alone, +how could you ever think of uniting yourself to a Catholic, unless +she was amazingly rich? You ought to be so very Protestant, +coming of such a Protestant family as you do. Let us be moral, +Ned, or we are nothing. Even if one could set that objection +aside, which is impossible, we come to another which is quite +conclusive. The very idea of marrying a girl whose father was +killed, like meat! Good God, Ned, how disagreeable! Consider the +impossibility of having any respect for your father-in-law under +such unpleasant circumstances--think of his having been "viewed" by +jurors, and "sat upon" by coroners, and of his very doubtful +position in the family ever afterwards. It seems to me such an +indelicate sort of thing that I really think the girl ought to have +been put to death by the state to prevent its happening. But I +tease you perhaps. You would rather be alone? My dear Ned, most +willingly. God bless you. I shall be going out presently, but we +shall meet to-night, or if not to-night, certainly to-morrow. +Take care of yourself in the mean time, for both our sakes. You +are a person of great consequence to me, Ned--of vast consequence +indeed. God bless you!' + +With these words, the father, who had been arranging his cravat in +the glass, while he uttered them in a disconnected careless manner, +withdrew, humming a tune as he went. The son, who had appeared so +lost in thought as not to hear or understand them, remained quite +still and silent. After the lapse of half an hour or so, the elder +Chester, gaily dressed, went out. The younger still sat with his +head resting on his hands, in what appeared to be a kind of stupor. + + + +Chapter 16 + + +A series of pictures representing the streets of London in the +night, even at the comparatively recent date of this tale, would +present to the eye something so very different in character from +the reality which is witnessed in these times, that it would be +difficult for the beholder to recognise his most familiar walks in +the altered aspect of little more than half a century ago. + +They were, one and all, from the broadest and best to the narrowest +and least frequented, very dark. The oil and cotton lamps, though +regularly trimmed twice or thrice in the long winter nights, burnt +feebly at the best; and at a late hour, when they were unassisted +by the lamps and candles in the shops, cast but a narrow track of +doubtful light upon the footway, leaving the projecting doors and +house-fronts in the deepest gloom. Many of the courts and lanes +were left in total darkness; those of the meaner sort, where one +glimmering light twinkled for a score of houses, being favoured in +no slight degree. Even in these places, the inhabitants had often +good reason for extinguishing their lamp as soon as it was lighted; +and the watch being utterly inefficient and powerless to prevent +them, they did so at their pleasure. Thus, in the lightest +thoroughfares, there was at every turn some obscure and dangerous +spot whither a thief might fly or shelter, and few would care to +follow; and the city being belted round by fields, green lanes, +waste grounds, and lonely roads, dividing it at that time from the +suburbs that have joined it since, escape, even where the pursuit +was hot, was rendered easy. + +It is no wonder that with these favouring circumstances in full and +constant operation, street robberies, often accompanied by cruel +wounds, and not unfrequently by loss of life, should have been of +nightly occurrence in the very heart of London, or that quiet folks +should have had great dread of traversing its streets after the +shops were closed. It was not unusual for those who wended home +alone at midnight, to keep the middle of the road, the better to +guard against surprise from lurking footpads; few would venture to +repair at a late hour to Kentish Town or Hampstead, or even to +Kensington or Chelsea, unarmed and unattended; while he who had +been loudest and most valiant at the supper-table or the tavern, +and had but a mile or so to go, was glad to fee a link-boy to +escort him home. + +There were many other characteristics--not quite so disagreeable-- +about the thoroughfares of London then, with which they had been +long familiar. Some of the shops, especially those to the eastward +of Temple Bar, still adhered to the old practice of hanging out a +sign; and the creaking and swinging of these boards in their iron +frames on windy nights, formed a strange and mournfal concert for +the ears of those who lay awake in bed or hurried through the +streets. Long stands of hackney-chairs and groups of chairmen, +compared with whom the coachmen of our day are gentle and polite, +obstructed the way and filled the air with clamour; night-cellars, +indicated by a little stream of light crossing the pavement, and +stretching out half-way into the road, and by the stifled roar of +voices from below, yawned for the reception and entertainment of +the most abandoned of both sexes; under every shed and bulk small +groups of link-boys gamed away the earnings of the day; or one more +weary than the rest, gave way to sleep, and let the fragment of his +torch fall hissing on the puddled ground. + +Then there was the watch with staff and lantern crying the hour, +and the kind of weather; and those who woke up at his voice and +turned them round in bed, were glad to hear it rained, or snowed, +or blew, or froze, for very comfort's sake. The solitary passenger +was startled by the chairmen's cry of 'By your leave there!' as two +came trotting past him with their empty vehicle--carried backwards +to show its being disengaged--and hurried to the nearest stand. +Many a private chair, too, inclosing some fine lady, monstrously +hooped and furbelowed, and preceded by running-footmen bearing +flambeaux--for which extinguishers are yet suspended before the +doors of a few houses of the better sort--made the way gay and +light as it danced along, and darker and more dismal when it had +passed. It was not unusual for these running gentry, who carried +it with a very high hand, to quarrel in the servants' hall while +waiting for their masters and mistresses; and, falling to blows +either there or in the street without, to strew the place of +skirmish with hair-powder, fragments of bag-wigs, and scattered +nosegays. Gaming, the vice which ran so high among all classes +(the fashion being of course set by the upper), was generally the +cause of these disputes; for cards and dice were as openly used, +and worked as much mischief, and yielded as much excitement below +stairs, as above. While incidents like these, arising out of drums +and masquerades and parties at quadrille, were passing at the west +end of the town, heavy stagecoaches and scarce heavier waggons were +lumbering slowly towards the city, the coachmen, guard, and +passengers, armed to the teeth, and the coach--a day or so perhaps +behind its time, but that was nothing--despoiled by highwaymen; who +made no scruple to attack, alone and single-handed, a whole caravan +of goods and men, and sometimes shot a passenger or two, and were +sometimes shot themselves, as the case might be. On the morrow, +rumours of this new act of daring on the road yielded matter for a +few hours' conversation through the town, and a Public Progress of +some fine gentleman (half-drunk) to Tyburn, dressed in the newest +fashion, and damning the ordinary with unspeakable gallantry and +grace, furnished to the populace, at once a pleasant excitement and +a wholesome and profound example. + +Among all the dangerous characters who, in such a state of society, +prowled and skulked in the metropolis at night, there was one man +from whom many as uncouth and fierce as he, shrunk with an +involuntary dread. Who he was, or whence he came, was a question +often asked, but which none could answer. His name was unknown, he +had never been seen until within about eight days or thereabouts, +and was equally a stranger to the old ruffians, upon whose haunts +he ventured fearlessly, as to the young. He could be no spy, for +he never removed his slouched hat to look about him, entered into +conversation with no man, heeded nothing that passed, listened to +no discourse, regarded nobody that came or went. But so surely as +the dead of night set in, so surely this man was in the midst of +the loose concourse in the night-cellar where outcasts of every +grade resorted; and there he sat till morning. + +He was not only a spectre at their licentious feasts; a something +in the midst of their revelry and riot that chilled and haunted +them; but out of doors he was the same. Directly it was dark, he +was abroad--never in company with any one, but always alone; never +lingering or loitering, but always walking swiftly; and looking (so +they said who had seen him) over his shoulder from time to time, +and as he did so quickening his pace. In the fields, the lanes, +the roads, in all quarters of the town--east, west, north, and +south--that man was seen gliding on like a shadow. He was always +hurrying away. Those who encountered him, saw him steal past, +caught sight of the backward glance, and so lost him in the +darkness. + +This constant restlessness, and flitting to and fro, gave rise to +strange stories. He was seen in such distant and remote places, at +times so nearly tallying with each other, that some doubted whether +there were not two of them, or more--some, whether he had not +unearthly means of travelling from spot to spot. The footpad +hiding in a ditch had marked him passing like a ghost along its +brink; the vagrant had met him on the dark high-road; the beggar +had seen him pause upon the bridge to look down at the water, and +then sweep on again; they who dealt in bodies with the surgeons +could swear he slept in churchyards, and that they had beheld him +glide away among the tombs on their approach. And as they told +these stories to each other, one who had looked about him would +pull his neighbour by the sleeve, and there he would be among them. + +At last, one man--he was one of those whose commerce lay among the +graves--resolved to question this strange companion. Next night, +when he had eat his poor meal voraciously (he was accustomed to do +that, they had observed, as though he had no other in the day), +this fellow sat down at his elbow. + +'A black night, master!' + +'It is a black night.' + +'Blacker than last, though that was pitchy too. Didn't I pass you +near the turnpike in the Oxford Road?' + +'It's like you may. I don't know.' + +'Come, come, master,' cried the fellow, urged on by the looks of +his comrades, and slapping him on the shoulder; 'be more +companionable and communicative. Be more the gentleman in this +good company. There are tales among us that you have sold yourself +to the devil, and I know not what.' + +'We all have, have we not?' returned the stranger, looking up. 'If +we were fewer in number, perhaps he would give better wages.' + +'It goes rather hard with you, indeed,' said the fellow, as the +stranger disclosed his haggard unwashed face, and torn clothes. +'What of that? Be merry, master. A stave of a roaring song now'-- + +'Sing you, if you desire to hear one,' replied the other, shaking +him roughly off; 'and don't touch me if you're a prudent man; I +carry arms which go off easily--they have done so, before now--and +make it dangerous for strangers who don't know the trick of them, +to lay hands upon me.' + +'Do you threaten?' said the fellow. + +'Yes,' returned the other, rising and turning upon him, and looking +fiercely round as if in apprehension of a general attack. + +His voice, and look, and bearing--all expressive of the wildest +recklessness and desperation--daunted while they repelled the +bystanders. Although in a very different sphere of action now, +they were not without much of the effect they had wrought at the +Maypole Inn. + +'I am what you all are, and live as you all do,' said the man +sternly, after a short silence. 'I am in hiding here like the +rest, and if we were surprised would perhaps do my part with the +best of ye. If it's my humour to be left to myself, let me have +it. Otherwise,'--and here he swore a tremendous oath--'there'll be +mischief done in this place, though there ARE odds of a score +against me.' + +A low murmur, having its origin perhaps in a dread of the man and +the mystery that surrounded him, or perhaps in a sincere opinion on +the part of some of those present, that it would be an inconvenient +precedent to meddle too curiously with a gentleman's private +affairs if he saw reason to conceal them, warned the fellow who +had occasioned this discussion that he had best pursue it no +further. After a short time the strange man lay down upon a bench +to sleep, and when they thought of him again, they found he was +gone. + +Next night, as soon as it was dark, he was abroad again and +traversing the streets; he was before the locksmith's house more +than once, but the family were out, and it was close shut. This +night he crossed London Bridge and passed into Southwark. As he +glided down a bye street, a woman with a little basket on her arm, +turned into it at the other end. Directly he observed her, he +sought the shelter of an archway, and stood aside until she had +passed. Then he emerged cautiously from his hiding-place, and +followed. + +She went into several shops to purchase various kinds of household +necessaries, and round every place at which she stopped he hovered +like her evil spirit; following her when she reappeared. It was +nigh eleven o'clock, and the passengers in the streets were +thinning fast, when she turned, doubtless to go home. The phantom +still followed her. + +She turned into the same bye street in which he had seen her first, +which, being free from shops, and narrow, was extremely dark. She +quickened her pace here, as though distrustful of being stopped, +and robbed of such trifling property as she carried with her. He +crept along on the other side of the road. Had she been gifted +with the speed of wind, it seemed as if his terrible shadow would +have tracked her down. + +At length the widow--for she it was--reached her own door, and, +panting for breath, paused to take the key from her basket. In a +flush and glow, with the haste she had made, and the pleasure of +being safe at home, she stooped to draw it out, when, raising her +head, she saw him standing silently beside her: the apparition of +a dream. + +His hand was on her mouth, but that was needless, for her tongue +clove to its roof, and her power of utterance was gone. 'I have +been looking for you many nights. Is the house empty? Answer me. +Is any one inside?' + +She could only answer by a rattle in her throat. + +'Make me a sign.' + +She seemed to indicate that there was no one there. He took the +key, unlocked the door, carried her in, and secured it carefully +behind them. + + + +Chapter 17 + + +It was a chilly night, and the fire in the widow's parlour had +burnt low. Her strange companion placed her in a chair, and +stooping down before the half-extinguished ashes, raked them +together and fanned them with his hat. From time to time he +glanced at her over his shoulder, as though to assure himself of +her remaining quiet and making no effort to depart; and that done, +busied himself about the fire again. + +It was not without reason that he took these pains, for his dress +was dank and drenched with wet, his jaws rattled with cold, and he +shivered from head to foot. It had rained hard during the previous +night and for some hours in the morning, but since noon it had been +fine. Wheresoever he had passed the hours of darkness, his +condition sufficiently betokened that many of them had been spent +beneath the open sky. Besmeared with mire; his saturated clothes +clinging with a damp embrace about his limbs; his beard unshaven, +his face unwashed, his meagre cheeks worn into deep hollows,--a +more miserable wretch could hardly be, than this man who now +cowered down upon the widow's hearth, and watched the struggling +flame with bloodshot eyes. + +She had covered her face with her hands, fearing, as it seemed, to +look towards him. So they remained for some short time in silence. +Glancing round again, he asked at length: + +'Is this your house?' + +'It is. Why, in the name of Heaven, do you darken it?' + +'Give me meat and drink,' he answered sullenly, 'or I dare do more +than that. The very marrow in my bones is cold, with wet and +hunger. I must have warmth and food, and I will have them here.' + +'You were the robber on the Chigwell road.' + +'I was.' + +'And nearly a murderer then.' + +'The will was not wanting. There was one came upon me and raised +the hue-and-cry', that it would have gone hard with, but for his +nimbleness. I made a thrust at him.' + +'You thrust your sword at HIM!' cried the widow, looking upwards. +'You hear this man! you hear and saw!' + +He looked at her, as, with her head thrown back, and her hands +tight clenched together, she uttered these words in an agony of +appeal. Then, starting to his feet as she had done, he advanced +towards her. + +'Beware!' she cried in a suppressed voice, whose firmness stopped +him midway. 'Do not so much as touch me with a finger, or you are +lost; body and soul, you are lost.' + +'Hear me,' he replied, menacing her with his hand. 'I, that in the +form of a man live the life of a hunted beast; that in the body am +a spirit, a ghost upon the earth, a thing from which all creatures +shrink, save those curst beings of another world, who will not +leave me;--I am, in my desperation of this night, past all fear but +that of the hell in which I exist from day to day. Give the +alarm, cry out, refuse to shelter me. I will not hurt you. But I +will not be taken alive; and so surely as you threaten me above +your breath, I fall a dead man on this floor. The blood with which +I sprinkle it, be on you and yours, in the name of the Evil Spirit +that tempts men to their ruin!' + +As he spoke, he took a pistol from his breast, and firmly clutched +it in his hand. + +'Remove this man from me, good Heaven!' cried the widow. 'In thy +grace and mercy, give him one minute's penitence, and strike him +dead!' + +'It has no such purpose,' he said, confronting her. 'It is deaf. +Give me to eat and drink, lest I do that it cannot help my doing, +and will not do for you.' + +'Will you leave me, if I do thus much? Will you leave me and +return no more?' + +'I will promise nothing,' he rejoined, seating himself at the +table, 'nothing but this--I will execute my threat if you betray +me.' + +She rose at length, and going to a closet or pantry in the room, +brought out some fragments of cold meat and bread and put them on +the table. He asked for brandy, and for water. These she produced +likewise; and he ate and drank with the voracity of a famished +hound. All the time he was so engaged she kept at the uttermost +distance of the chamber, and sat there shuddering, but with her +face towards him. She never turned her back upon him once; and +although when she passed him (as she was obliged to do in going to +and from the cupboard) she gathered the skirts of her garment about +her, as if even its touching his by chance were horrible to think +of, still, in the midst of all this dread and terror, she kept her +face towards his own, and watched his every movement. + +His repast ended--if that can be called one, which was a mere +ravenous satisfying of the calls of hunger--he moved his chair +towards the fire again, and warming himself before the blaze which +had now sprung brightly up, accosted her once more. + +'I am an outcast, to whom a roof above his head is often an +uncommon luxury, and the food a beggar would reject is delicate +fare. You live here at your ease. Do you live alone?' + +'I do not,' she made answer with an effort. + +'Who dwells here besides?' + +'One--it is no matter who. You had best begone, or he may find you +here. Why do you linger?' + +'For warmth,' he replied, spreading out his hands before the fire. +'For warmth. You are rich, perhaps?' + +'Very,' she said faintly. 'Very rich. No doubt I am very rich.' + +'At least you are not penniless. You have some money. You were +making purchases to-night.' + +'I have a little left. It is but a few shillings.' + +'Give me your purse. You had it in your hand at the door. Give it +to me.' + +She stepped to the table and laid it down. He reached across, took +it up, and told the contents into his hand. As he was counting +them, she listened for a moment, and sprung towards him. + +'Take what there is, take all, take more if more were there, but go +before it is too late. I have heard a wayward step without, I know +full well. It will return directly. Begone.' + +'What do you mean?' + +'Do not stop to ask. I will not answer. Much as I dread to touch +you, I would drag you to the door if I possessed the strength, +rather than you should lose an instant. Miserable wretch! fly from +this place.' + +'If there are spies without, I am safer here,' replied the man, +standing aghast. 'I will remain here, and will not fly till the +danger is past.' + +'It is too late!' cried the widow, who had listened for the step, +and not to him. 'Hark to that foot upon the ground. Do you +tremble to hear it! It is my son, my idiot son!' + +As she said this wildly, there came a heavy knocking at the door. +He looked at her, and she at him. + +'Let him come in,' said the man, hoarsely. 'I fear him less than +the dark, houseless night. He knocks again. Let him come in!' + +'The dread of this hour,' returned the widow, 'has been upon me all +my life, and I will not. Evil will fall upon him, if you stand eye +to eye. My blighted boy! Oh! all good angels who know the truth-- +hear a poor mother's prayer, and spare my boy from knowledge of +this man!' + +'He rattles at the shutters!' cried the man. 'He calls you. That +voice and cry! It was he who grappled with me in the road. Was it +he?' + +She had sunk upon her knees, and so knelt down, moving her lips, +but uttering no sound. As he gazed upon her, uncertain what to do +or where to turn, the shutters flew open. He had barely time to +catch a knife from the table, sheathe it in the loose sleeve of his +coat, hide in the closet, and do all with the lightning's speed, +when Barnaby tapped at the bare glass, and raised the sash +exultingly. + +'Why, who can keep out Grip and me!' he cried, thrusting in his +head, and staring round the room. 'Are you there, mother? How +long you keep us from the fire and light.' + +She stammered some excuse and tendered him her hand. But Barnaby +sprung lightly in without assistance, and putting his arms about +her neck, kissed her a hundred times. + +'We have been afield, mother--leaping ditches, scrambling through +hedges, running down steep banks, up and away, and hurrying on. +The wind has been blowing, and the rushes and young plants bowing +and bending to it, lest it should do them harm, the cowards--and +Grip--ha ha ha!--brave Grip, who cares for nothing, and when the +wind rolls him over in the dust, turns manfully to bite it--Grip, +bold Grip, has quarrelled with every little bowing twig--thinking, +he told me, that it mocked him--and has worried it like a bulldog. +Ha ha ha!' + +The raven, in his little basket at his master's back, hearing this +frequent mention of his name in a tone of exultation, expressed his +sympathy by crowing like a cock, and afterwards running over his +various phrases of speech with such rapidity, and in so many +varieties of hoarseness, that they sounded like the murmurs of a +crowd of people. + +'He takes such care of me besides!' said Barnaby. 'Such care, +mother! He watches all the time I sleep, and when I shut my eyes +and make-believe to slumber, he practises new learning softly; but +he keeps his eye on me the while, and if he sees me laugh, though +never so little, stops directly. He won't surprise me till he's +perfect.' + +The raven crowed again in a rapturous manner which plainly said, +'Those are certainly some of my characteristics, and I glory in +them.' In the meantime, Barnaby closed the window and secured it, +and coming to the fireplace, prepared to sit down with his face +to the closet. But his mother prevented this, by hastily taking +that side herself, and motioning him towards the other. + +'How pale you are to-night!' said Barnaby, leaning on his stick. +'We have been cruel, Grip, and made her anxious!' + +Anxious in good truth, and sick at heart! The listener held the +door of his hiding-place open with his hand, and closely watched +her son. Grip--alive to everything his master was unconscious of-- +had his head out of the basket, and in return was watching him +intently with his glistening eye. + +'He flaps his wings,' said Barnaby, turning almost quickly enough +to catch the retreating form and closing door, 'as if there were +strangers here, but Grip is wiser than to fancy that. Jump then!' + +Accepting this invitation with a dignity peculiar to himself, the +bird hopped up on his master's shoulder, from that to his extended +hand, and so to the ground. Barnaby unstrapping the basket and +putting it down in a corner with the lid open, Grip's first care +was to shut it down with all possible despatch, and then to stand +upon it. Believing, no doubt, that he had now rendered it utterly +impossible, and beyond the power of mortal man, to shut him up in +it any more, he drew a great many corks in triumph, and uttered a +corresponding number of hurrahs. + +'Mother!' said Barnaby, laying aside his hat and stick, and +returning to the chair from which he had risen, 'I'll tell you +where we have been to-day, and what we have been doing,--shall I?' + +She took his hand in hers, and holding it, nodded the word she +could not speak. + +'You mustn't tell,' said Barnaby, holding up his finger, 'for it's +a secret, mind, and only known to me, and Grip, and Hugh. We had +the dog with us, but he's not like Grip, clever as he is, and +doesn't guess it yet, I'll wager.--Why do you look behind me so?' + +'Did I?' she answered faintly. 'I didn't know I did. Come nearer +me.' + +'You are frightened!' said Barnaby, changing colour. 'Mother--you +don't see'-- + +'See what?' + +'There's--there's none of this about, is there?' he answered in a +whisper, drawing closer to her and clasping the mark upon his +wrist. 'I am afraid there is, somewhere. You make my hair stand +on end, and my flesh creep. Why do you look like that? Is it in +the room as I have seen it in my dreams, dashing the ceiling and +the walls with red? Tell me. Is it?' + +He fell into a shivering fit as he put the question, and shutting +out the light with his hands, sat shaking in every limb until it +had passed away. After a time, he raised his head and looked about +him. + +'Is it gone?' + +'There has been nothing here,' rejoined his mother, soothing him. +'Nothing indeed, dear Barnaby. Look! You see there are but you +and me.' + +He gazed at her vacantly, and, becoming reassured by degrees, burst +into a wild laugh. + +'But let us see,' he said, thoughtfully. 'Were we talking? Was it +you and me? Where have we been?' + +'Nowhere but here.' + +'Aye, but Hugh, and I,' said Barnaby,--'that's it. Maypole Hugh, +and I, you know, and Grip--we have been lying in the forest, and +among the trees by the road side, with a dark lantern after night +came on, and the dog in a noose ready to slip him when the man came +by.' + +'What man?' + +'The robber; him that the stars winked at. We have waited for him +after dark these many nights, and we shall have him. I'd know him +in a thousand. Mother, see here! This is the man. Look!' + +He twisted his handkerchief round his head, pulled his hat upon his +brow, wrapped his coat about him, and stood up before her: so like +the original he counterfeited, that the dark figure peering out +behind him might have passed for his own shadow. + +'Ha ha ha! We shall have him,' he cried, ridding himself of the +semblance as hastily as he had assumed it. 'You shall see him, +mother, bound hand and foot, and brought to London at a saddle- +girth; and you shall hear of him at Tyburn Tree if we have luck. +So Hugh says. You're pale again, and trembling. And why DO you +look behind me so?' + +'It is nothing,' she answered. 'I am not quite well. Go you to +bed, dear, and leave me here.' + +'To bed!' he answered. 'I don't like bed. I like to lie before +the fire, watching the prospects in the burning coals--the rivers, +hills, and dells, in the deep, red sunset, and the wild faces. I +am hungry too, and Grip has eaten nothing since broad noon. Let us +to supper. Grip! To supper, lad!' + +The raven flapped his wings, and, croaking his satisfaction, hopped +to the feet of his master, and there held his bill open, ready for +snapping up such lumps of meat as he should throw him. Of these he +received about a score in rapid succession, without the smallest +discomposure. + +'That's all,' said Barnaby. + +'More!' cried Grip. 'More!' + +But it appearing for a certainty that no more was to be had, he +retreated with his store; and disgorging the morsels one by one +from his pouch, hid them in various corners--taking particular +care, however, to avoid the closet, as being doubtful of the hidden +man's propensities and power of resisting temptation. When he had +concluded these arrangements, he took a turn or two across the room +with an elaborate assumption of having nothing on his mind (but +with one eye hard upon his treasure all the time), and then, and +not till then, began to drag it out, piece by piece, and eat it +with the utmost relish. + +Barnaby, for his part, having pressed his mother to eat in vain, +made a hearty supper too. Once during the progress of his meal, he +wanted more bread from the closet and rose to get it. She +hurriedly interposed to prevent him, and summoning her utmost +fortitude, passed into the recess, and brought it out herself. + +'Mother,' said Barnaby, looking at her steadfastly as she sat down +beside him after doing so; 'is to-day my birthday?' + +'To-day!' she answered. 'Don't you recollect it was but a week or +so ago, and that summer, autumn, and winter have to pass before it +comes again?' + +'I remember that it has been so till now,' said Barnaby. 'But I +think to-day must be my birthday too, for all that.' + +She asked him why? 'I'll tell you why,' he said. 'I have always +seen you--I didn't let you know it, but I have--on the evening of +that day grow very sad. I have seen you cry when Grip and I were +most glad; and look frightened with no reason; and I have touched +your hand, and felt that it was cold--as it is now. Once, mother +(on a birthday that was, also), Grip and I thought of this after we +went upstairs to bed, and when it was midnight, striking one +o'clock, we came down to your door to see if you were well. You +were on your knees. I forget what it was you said. Grip, what was +it we heard her say that night?' + +'I'm a devil!' rejoined the raven promptly. + +'No, no,' said Barnaby. 'But you said something in a prayer; and +when you rose and walked about, you looked (as you have done ever +since, mother, towards night on my birthday) just as you do now. I +have found that out, you see, though I am silly. So I say you're +wrong; and this must be my birthday--my birthday, Grip!' + +The bird received this information with a crow of such duration as +a cock, gifted with intelligence beyond all others of his kind, +might usher in the longest day with. Then, as if he had well +considered the sentiment, and regarded it as apposite to birthdays, +he cried, 'Never say die!' a great many times, and flapped his +wings for emphasis. + +The widow tried to make light of Barnaby's remark, and endeavoured +to divert his attention to some new subject; too easy a task at all +times, as she knew. His supper done, Barnaby, regardless of her +entreaties, stretched himself on the mat before the fire; Grip +perched upon his leg, and divided his time between dozing in the +grateful warmth, and endeavouring (as it presently appeared) to +recall a new accomplishment he had been studying all day. + +A long and profound silence ensued, broken only by some change of +position on the part of Barnaby, whose eyes were still wide open +and intently fixed upon the fire; or by an effort of recollection +on the part of Grip, who would cry in a low voice from time to +time, 'Polly put the ket--' and there stop short, forgetting the +remainder, and go off in a doze again. + +After a long interval, Barnaby's breathing grew more deep and +regular, and his eyes were closed. But even then the unquiet +spirit of the raven interposed. 'Polly put the ket--' cried Grip, +and his master was broad awake again. + +At length Barnaby slept soundly, and the bird with his bill sunk +upon his breast, his breast itself puffed out into a comfortable +alderman-like form, and his bright eye growing smaller and smaller, +really seemed to be subsiding into a state of repose. Now and then +he muttered in a sepulchral voice, 'Polly put the ket--' but very +drowsily, and more like a drunken man than a reflecting raven. + +The widow, scarcely venturing to breathe, rose from her seat. The +man glided from the closet, and extinguished the candle. + +'--tle on,' cried Grip, suddenly struck with an idea and very much +excited. '--tle on. Hurrah! Polly put the ket-tle on, we'll all +have tea; Polly put the ket-tle on, we'll all have tea. Hurrah, +hurrah, hurrah! I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a ket-tle on, Keep +up your spirits, Never say die, Bow, wow, wow, I'm a devil, I'm a +ket-tle, I'm a--Polly put the ket-tle on, we'll all have tea.' + +They stood rooted to the ground, as though it had been a voice from +the grave. + +But even this failed to awaken the sleeper. He turned over towards +the fire, his arm fell to the ground, and his head drooped heavily +upon it. The widow and her unwelcome visitor gazed at him and at +each other for a moment, and then she motioned him towards the +door. + +'Stay,' he whispered. 'You teach your son well.' + +'I have taught him nothing that you heard to-night. Depart +instantly, or I will rouse him.' + +'You are free to do so. Shall I rouse him?' + +'You dare not do that.' + +'I dare do anything, I have told you. He knows me well, it seems. +At least I will know him.' + +'Would you kill him in his sleep?' cried the widow, throwing +herself between them. + +'Woman,' he returned between his teeth, as he motioned her aside, +'I would see him nearer, and I will. If you want one of us to kill +the other, wake him.' + +With that he advanced, and bending down over the prostrate form, +softly turned back the head and looked into the face. The light of +the fire was upon it, and its every lineament was revealed +distinctly. He contemplated it for a brief space, and hastily +uprose. + +'Observe,' he whispered in the widow's ear: 'In him, of whose +existence I was ignorant until to-night, I have you in my power. +Be careful how you use me. Be careful how you use me. I am +destitute and starving, and a wanderer upon the earth. I may take +a sure and slow revenge.' + +'There is some dreadful meaning in your words. I do not fathom it.' + +'There is a meaning in them, and I see you fathom it to its very +depth. You have anticipated it for years; you have told me as +much. I leave you to digest it. Do not forget my warning.' + +He pointed, as he left her, to the slumbering form, and stealthily +withdrawing, made his way into the street. She fell on her knees +beside the sleeper, and remained like one stricken into stone, +until the tears which fear had frozen so long, came tenderly to her +relief. + +'Oh Thou,' she cried, 'who hast taught me such deep love for this +one remnant of the promise of a happy life, out of whose +affliction, even, perhaps the comfort springs that he is ever a +relying, loving child to me--never growing old or cold at heart, +but needing my care and duty in his manly strength as in his +cradle-time--help him, in his darkened walk through this sad world, +or he is doomed, and my poor heart is broken!' + + + +Chapter 18 + + +Gliding along the silent streets, and holding his course where they +were darkest and most gloomy, the man who had left the widow's +house crossed London Bridge, and arriving in the City, plunged into +the backways, lanes, and courts, between Cornhill and Smithfield; +with no more fixedness of purpose than to lose himself among their +windings, and baffle pursuit, if any one were dogging his steps. + +It was the dead time of the night, and all was quiet. Now and then +a drowsy watchman's footsteps sounded on the pavement, or the +lamplighter on his rounds went flashing past, leaving behind a +little track of smoke mingled with glowing morsels of his hot red +link. He hid himself even from these partakers of his lonely walk, +and, shrinking in some arch or doorway while they passed, issued +forth again when they were gone and so pursued his solitary way. + +To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind +moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to +listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee +of some old barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal +things--but not so dismal as the wandering up and down where +shelter is, and beds and sleepers are by thousands; a houseless +rejected creature. To pace the echoing stones from hour to hour, +counting the dull chimes of the clocks; to watch the lights +twinkling in chamber windows, to think what happy forgetfulness +each house shuts in; that here are children coiled together in +their beds, here youth, here age, here poverty, here wealth, all +equal in their sleep, and all at rest; to have nothing in common +with the slumbering world around, not even sleep, Heaven's gift to +all its creatures, and be akin to nothing but despair; to feel, by +the wretched contrast with everything on every hand, more utterly +alone and cast away than in a trackless desert; this is a kind of +suffering, on which the rivers of great cities close full many a +time, and which the solitude in crowds alone awakens. + +The miserable man paced up and down the streets--so long, so +wearisome, so like each other--and often cast a wistful look +towards the east, hoping to see the first faint streaks of day. +But obdurate night had yet possession of the sky, and his disturbed +and restless walk found no relief. + +One house in a back street was bright with the cheerful glare of +lights; there was the sound of music in it too, and the tread of +dancers, and there were cheerful voices, and many a burst of +laughter. To this place--to be near something that was awake and +glad--he returned again and again; and more than one of those who +left it when the merriment was at its height, felt it a check upon +their mirthful mood to see him flitting to and fro like an uneasy +ghost. At last the guests departed, one and all; and then the +house was close shut up, and became as dull and silent as the rest. + +His wanderings brought him at one time to the city jail. Instead +of hastening from it as a place of ill omen, and one he had cause +to shun, he sat down on some steps hard by, and resting his chin +upon his hand, gazed upon its rough and frowning walls as though +even they became a refuge in his jaded eyes. He paced it round and +round, came back to the same spot, and sat down again. He did this +often, and once, with a hasty movement, crossed to where some men +were watching in the prison lodge, and had his foot upon the steps +as though determined to accost them. But looking round, he saw +that the day began to break, and failing in his purpose, turned and +fled. + +He was soon in the quarter he had lately traversed, and pacing to +and fro again as he had done before. He was passing down a mean +street, when from an alley close at hand some shouts of revelry +arose, and there came straggling forth a dozen madcaps, whooping +and calling to each other, who, parting noisily, took different +ways and dispersed in smaller groups. + +Hoping that some low place of entertainment which would afford him +a safe refuge might be near at hand, he turned into this court when +they were all gone, and looked about for a half-opened door, or +lighted window, or other indication of the place whence they had +come. It was so profoundly dark, however, and so ill-favoured, +that he concluded they had but turned up there, missing their way, +and were pouring out again when he observed them. With this +impression, and finding there was no outlet but that by which he +had entered, he was about to turn, when from a grating near his +feet a sudden stream of light appeared, and the sound of talking +came. He retreated into a doorway to see who these talkers were, +and to listen to them. + +The light came to the level of the pavement as he did this, and a +man ascended, bearing in his hand a torch. This figure unlocked +and held open the grating as for the passage of another, who +presently appeared, in the form of a young man of small stature and +uncommon self-importance, dressed in an obsolete and very gaudy +fashion. + +'Good night, noble captain,' said he with the torch. 'Farewell, +commander. Good luck, illustrious general!' + +In return to these compliments the other bade him hold his tongue, +and keep his noise to himself, and laid upon him many similar +injunctions, with great fluency of speech and sternness of manner. + +'Commend me, captain, to the stricken Miggs,' returned the torch- +bearer in a lower voice. 'My captain flies at higher game than +Miggses. Ha, ha, ha! My captain is an eagle, both as respects his +eye and soaring wings. My captain breaketh hearts as other +bachelors break eggs at breakfast.' + +'What a fool you are, Stagg!' said Mr Tappertit, stepping on the +pavement of the court, and brushing from his legs the dust he had +contracted in his passage upward. + +'His precious limbs!' cried Stagg, clasping one of his ankles. +'Shall a Miggs aspire to these proportions! No, no, my captain. +We will inveigle ladies fair, and wed them in our secret cavern. +We will unite ourselves with blooming beauties, captain.' + +'I'll tell you what, my buck,' said Mr Tappertit, releasing his +leg; 'I'll trouble you not to take liberties, and not to broach +certain questions unless certain questions are broached to you. +Speak when you're spoke to on particular subjects, and not +otherways. Hold the torch up till I've got to the end of the +court, and then kennel yourself, do you hear?' + +'I hear you, noble captain.' + +'Obey then,' said Mr Tappertit haughtily. 'Gentlemen, lead on!' +With which word of command (addressed to an imaginary staff or +retinue) he folded his arms, and walked with surpassing dignity +down the court. + +His obsequious follower stood holding the torch above his head, and +then the observer saw for the first time, from his place of +concealment, that he was blind. Some involuntary motion on his +part caught the quick ear of the blind man, before he was conscious +of having moved an inch towards him, for he turned suddenly and +cried, 'Who's there?' + +'A man,' said the other, advancing. 'A friend.' + +'A stranger!' rejoined the blind man. 'Strangers are not my +friends. What do you do there?' + +'I saw your company come out, and waited here till they were gone. +I want a lodging.' + +'A lodging at this time!' returned Stagg, pointing towards the dawn +as though he saw it. 'Do you know the day is breaking?' + +'I know it,' rejoined the other, 'to my cost. I have been +traversing this iron-hearted town all night.' + +'You had better traverse it again,' said the blind man, preparing +to descend, 'till you find some lodgings suitable to your taste. I +don't let any.' + +'Stay!' cried the other, holding him by the arm. + +'I'll beat this light about that hangdog face of yours (for hangdog +it is, if it answers to your voice), and rouse the neighbourhood +besides, if you detain me,' said the blind man. 'Let me go. Do +you hear?' + +'Do YOU hear!' returned the other, chinking a few shillings +together, and hurriedly pressing them into his hand. 'I beg +nothing of you. I will pay for the shelter you give me. Death! +Is it much to ask of such as you! I have come from the country, +and desire to rest where there are none to question me. I am +faint, exhausted, worn out, almost dead. Let me lie down, like a +dog, before your fire. I ask no more than that. If you would be +rid of me, I will depart to-morrow.' + +'If a gentleman has been unfortunate on the road,' muttered Stagg, +yielding to the other, who, pressing on him, had already gained a +footing on the steps--'and can pay for his accommodation--' + +'I will pay you with all I have. I am just now past the want of +food, God knows, and wish but to purchase shelter. What companion +have you below?' + +'None.' + +'Then fasten your grate there, and show me the way. Quick!' + +The blind man complied after a moment's hesitation, and they +descended together. The dialogue had passed as hurriedly as the +words could be spoken, and they stood in his wretched room before +he had had time to recover from his first surprise. + +'May I see where that door leads to, and what is beyond?' said the +man, glancing keenly round. 'You will not mind that?' + +'I will show you myself. Follow me, or go before. Take your +choice.' + +He bade him lead the way, and, by the light of the torch which his +conductor held up for the purpose, inspected all three cellars +narrowly. Assured that the blind man had spoken truth, and that he +lived there alone, the visitor returned with him to the first, in +which a fire was burning, and flung himself with a deep groan upon +the ground before it. + +His host pursued his usual occupation without seeming to heed him +any further. But directly he fell asleep--and he noted his falling +into a slumber, as readily as the keenest-sighted man could have +done--he knelt down beside him, and passed his hand lightly but +carefully over his face and person. + +His sleep was checkered with starts and moans, and sometimes with a +muttered word or two. His hands were clenched, his brow bent, and +his mouth firmly set. All this, the blind man accurately marked; +and as if his curiosity were strongly awakened, and he had already +some inkling of his mystery, he sat watching him, if the expression +may be used, and listening, until it was broad day. + + + +Chapter 19 + + +Dolly Varden's pretty little head was yet bewildered by various +recollections of the party, and her bright eyes were yet dazzled by +a crowd of images, dancing before them like motes in the sunbeams, +among which the effigy of one partner in particular did especially +figure, the same being a young coachmaker (a master in his own +right) who had given her to understand, when he handed her into the +chair at parting, that it was his fixed resolve to neglect his +business from that time, and die slowly for the love of her-- +Dolly's head, and eyes, and thoughts, and seven senses, were all in +a state of flutter and confusion for which the party was +accountable, although it was now three days old, when, as she was +sitting listlessly at breakfast, reading all manner of fortunes +(that is to say, of married and flourishing fortunes) in the +grounds of her teacup, a step was heard in the workshop, and Mr +Edward Chester was descried through the glass door, standing among +the rusty locks and keys, like love among the roses--for which apt +comparison the historian may by no means take any credit to +himself, the same being the invention, in a sentimental mood, of +the chaste and modest Miggs, who, beholding him from the doorsteps +she was then cleaning, did, in her maiden meditation, give +utterance to the simile. + +The locksmith, who happened at the moment to have his eyes thrown +upward and his head backward, in an intense communing with Toby, +did not see his visitor, until Mrs Varden, more watchful than the +rest, had desired Sim Tappertit to open the glass door and give him +admission--from which untoward circumstance the good lady argued +(for she could deduce a precious moral from the most trifling +event) that to take a draught of small ale in the morning was to +observe a pernicious, irreligious, and Pagan custom, the relish +whereof should be left to swine, and Satan, or at least to Popish +persons, and should be shunned by the righteous as a work of sin +and evil. She would no doubt have pursued her admonition much +further, and would have founded on it a long list of precious +precepts of inestimable value, but that the young gentleman +standing by in a somewhat uncomfortable and discomfited manner +while she read her spouse this lecture, occasioned her to bring it +to a premature conclusion. + +'I'm sure you'll excuse me, sir,' said Mrs Varden, rising and +curtseying. 'Varden is so very thoughtless, and needs so much +reminding--Sim, bring a chair here.' + +Mr Tappertit obeyed, with a flourish implying that he did so, +under protest. + +'And you can go, Sim,' said the locksmith. + +Mr Tappertit obeyed again, still under protest; and betaking +himself to the workshop, began seriously to fear that he might find +it necessary to poison his master, before his time was out. + +In the meantime, Edward returned suitable replies to Mrs Varden's +courtesies, and that lady brightened up very much; so that when he +accepted a dish of tea from the fair hands of Dolly, she was +perfectly agreeable. + +'I am sure if there's anything we can do,--Varden, or I, or Dolly +either,--to serve you, sir, at any time, you have only to say it, +and it shall be done,' said Mrs V. + +'I am much obliged to you, I am sure,' returned Edward. 'You +encourage me to say that I have come here now, to beg your good +offices.' + +Mrs Varden was delighted beyond measure. + +'It occurred to me that probably your fair daughter might be going +to the Warren, either to-day or to-morrow,' said Edward, glancing +at Dolly; 'and if so, and you will allow her to take charge of this +letter, ma'am, you will oblige me more than I can tell you. The +truth is, that while I am very anxious it should reach its +destination, I have particular reasons for not trusting it to any +other conveyance; so that without your help, I am wholly at a loss.' + +'She was not going that way, sir, either to-day, or to-morrow, nor +indeed all next week,' the lady graciously rejoined, 'but we shall +be very glad to put ourselves out of the way on your account, and +if you wish it, you may depend upon its going to-day. You might +suppose,' said Mrs Varden, frowning at her husband, 'from Varden's +sitting there so glum and silent, that he objected to this +arrangement; but you must not mind that, sir, if you please. It's +his way at home. Out of doors, he can be cheerful and talkative +enough.' + +Now, the fact was, that the unfortunate locksmith, blessing his +stars to find his helpmate in such good humour, had been sitting +with a beaming face, hearing this discourse with a joy past all +expression. Wherefore this sudden attack quite took him by +surprise. + +'My dear Martha--' he said. + +'Oh yes, I dare say,' interrupted Mrs Varden, with a smile of +mingled scorn and pleasantry. 'Very dear! We all know that.' + +'No, but my good soul,' said Gabriel, 'you are quite mistaken. You +are indeed. I was delighted to find you so kind and ready. I +waited, my dear, anxiously, I assure you, to hear what you would +say.' + +'You waited anxiously,' repeated Mrs V. 'Yes! Thank you, Varden. +You waited, as you always do, that I might bear the blame, if any +came of it. But I am used to it,' said the lady with a kind of +solemn titter, 'and that's my comfort!' + +'I give you my word, Martha--' said Gabriel. + +'Let me give you MY word, my dear,' interposed his wife with a +Christian smile, 'that such discussions as these between married +people, are much better left alone. Therefore, if you please, +Varden, we'll drop the subject. I have no wish to pursue it. I +could. I might say a great deal. But I would rather not. Pray +don't say any more.' + +'I don't want to say any more,' rejoined the goaded locksmith. + +'Well then, don't,' said Mrs Varden. + +'Nor did I begin it, Martha,' added the locksmith, good-humouredly, +'I must say that.' + +'You did not begin it, Varden!' exclaimed his wife, opening her +eyes very wide and looking round upon the company, as though she +would say, You hear this man! 'You did not begin it, Varden! But +you shall not say I was out of temper. No, you did not begin it, +oh dear no, not you, my dear!' + +'Well, well,' said the locksmith. 'That's settled then.' + +'Oh yes,' rejoined his wife, 'quite. If you like to say Dolly +began it, my dear, I shall not contradict you. I know my duty. I +need know it, I am sure. I am often obliged to bear it in mind, +when my inclination perhaps would be for the moment to forget it. +Thank you, Varden.' And so, with a mighty show of humility and +forgiveness, she folded her hands, and looked round again, with a +smile which plainly said, 'If you desire to see the first and +foremost among female martyrs, here she is, on view!' + +This little incident, illustrative though it was of Mrs Varden's +extraordinary sweetness and amiability, had so strong a tendency to +check the conversation and to disconcert all parties but that +excellent lady, that only a few monosyllables were uttered until +Edward withdrew; which he presently did, thanking the lady of the +house a great many times for her condescension, and whispering in +Dolly's ear that he would call on the morrow, in case there should +happen to be an answer to the note--which, indeed, she knew without +his telling, as Barnaby and his friend Grip had dropped in on the +previous night to prepare her for the visit which was then +terminating. + +Gabriel, who had attended Edward to the door, came back with his +hands in his pockets; and, after fidgeting about the room in a very +uneasy manner, and casting a great many sidelong looks at Mrs +Varden (who with the calmest countenance in the world was five +fathoms deep in the Protestant Manual), inquired of Dolly how she +meant to go. Dolly supposed by the stage-coach, and looked at her +lady mother, who finding herself silently appealed to, dived down +at least another fathom into the Manual, and became unconscious of +all earthly things. + +'Martha--' said the locksmith. + +'I hear you, Varden,' said his wife, without rising to the surface. + +'I am sorry, my dear, you have such an objection to the Maypole and +old John, for otherways as it's a very fine morning, and Saturday's +not a busy day with us, we might have all three gone to Chigwell in +the chaise, and had quite a happy day of it.' + +Mrs Varden immediately closed the Manual, and bursting into tears, +requested to be led upstairs. + +'What is the matter now, Martha?' inquired the locksmith. + +To which Martha rejoined, 'Oh! don't speak to me,' and protested in +agony that if anybody had told her so, she wouldn't have believed +it. + +'But, Martha,' said Gabriel, putting himself in the way as she was +moving off with the aid of Dolly's shoulder, 'wouldn't have +believed what? Tell me what's wrong now. Do tell me. Upon my +soul I don't know. Do you know, child? Damme!' cried the +locksmith, plucking at his wig in a kind of frenzy, 'nobody does +know, I verily believe, but Miggs!' + +'Miggs,' said Mrs Varden faintly, and with symptoms of approaching +incoherence, 'is attached to me, and that is sufficient to draw +down hatred upon her in this house. She is a comfort to me, +whatever she may be to others.' + +'She's no comfort to me,' cried Gabriel, made bold by despair. +'She's the misery of my life. She's all the plagues of Egypt in +one.' + +'She's considered so, I have no doubt,' said Mrs Varden. 'I was +prepared for that; it's natural; it's of a piece with the rest. +When you taunt me as you do to my face, how can I wonder that you +taunt her behind her back!' And here the incoherence coming on +very strong, Mrs Varden wept, and laughed, and sobbed, and +shivered, and hiccoughed, and choked; and said she knew it was very +foolish but she couldn't help it; and that when she was dead and +gone, perhaps they would be sorry for it--which really under the +circumstances did not appear quite so probable as she seemed to +think--with a great deal more to the same effect. In a word, she +passed with great decency through all the ceremonies incidental to +such occasions; and being supported upstairs, was deposited in a +highly spasmodic state on her own bed, where Miss Miggs shortly +afterwards flung herself upon the body. + +The philosophy of all this was, that Mrs Varden wanted to go to +Chigwell; that she did not want to make any concession or +explanation; that she would only go on being implored and entreated +so to do; and that she would accept no other terms. Accordingly, +after a vast amount of moaning and crying upstairs, and much +damping of foreheads, and vinegaring of temples, and hartshorning +of noses, and so forth; and after most pathetic adjurations from +Miggs, assisted by warm brandy-and-water not over-weak, and divers +other cordials, also of a stimulating quality, administered at +first in teaspoonfuls and afterwards in increasing doses, and of +which Miss Miggs herself partook as a preventive measure (for +fainting is infectious); after all these remedies, and many more +too numerous to mention, but not to take, had been applied; and +many verbal consolations, moral, religious, and miscellaneous, had +been super-added thereto; the locksmith humbled himself, and the +end was gained. + +'If it's only for the sake of peace and quietness, father,' said +Dolly, urging him to go upstairs. + +'Oh, Doll, Doll,' said her good-natured father. 'If you ever have +a husband of your own--' + +Dolly glanced at the glass. + +'--Well, WHEN you have,' said the locksmith, 'never faint, my +darling. More domestic unhappiness has come of easy fainting, +Doll, than from all the greater passions put together. Remember +that, my dear, if you would be really happy, which you never can +be, if your husband isn't. And a word in your ear, my precious. +Never have a Miggs about you!' + +With this advice he kissed his blooming daughter on the cheek, and +slowly repaired to Mrs Varden's room; where that lady, lying all +pale and languid on her couch, was refreshing herself with a sight +of her last new bonnet, which Miggs, as a means of calming her +scattered spirits, displayed to the best advantage at her bedside. + +'Here's master, mim,' said Miggs. 'Oh, what a happiness it is +when man and wife come round again! Oh gracious, to think that him +and her should ever have a word together!' In the energy of these +sentiments, which were uttered as an apostrophe to the Heavens in +general, Miss Miggs perched the bonnet on the top of her own head, +and folding her hands, turned on her tears. + +'I can't help it,' cried Miggs. 'I couldn't, if I was to be +drownded in 'em. She has such a forgiving spirit! She'll forget +all that has passed, and go along with you, sir--Oh, if it was to +the world's end, she'd go along with you.' + +Mrs Varden with a faint smile gently reproved her attendant for +this enthusiasm, and reminded her at the same time that she was far +too unwell to venture out that day. + +'Oh no, you're not, mim, indeed you're not,' said Miggs; 'I repeal +to master; master knows you're not, mim. The hair, and motion of +the shay, will do you good, mim, and you must not give way, you +must not raly. She must keep up, mustn't she, sir, for all out +sakes? I was a telling her that, just now. She must remember us, +even if she forgets herself. Master will persuade you, mim, I'm +sure. There's Miss Dolly's a-going you know, and master, and you, +and all so happy and so comfortable. Oh!' cried Miggs, turning on +the tears again, previous to quitting the room in great emotion, 'I +never see such a blessed one as she is for the forgiveness of her +spirit, I never, never, never did. Not more did master neither; +no, nor no one--never!' + +For five minutes or thereabouts, Mrs Varden remained mildly opposed +to all her husband's prayers that she would oblige him by taking a +day's pleasure, but relenting at length, she suffered herself to be +persuaded, and granting him her free forgiveness (the merit +whereof, she meekly said, rested with the Manual and not with her), +desired that Miggs might come and help her dress. The handmaid +attended promptly, and it is but justice to their joint exertions +to record that, when the good lady came downstairs in course of +time, completely decked out for the journey, she really looked as +if nothing had happened, and appeared in the very best health +imaginable. + +As to Dolly, there she was again, the very pink and pattern of good +looks, in a smart little cherry-coloured mantle, with a hood of +the same drawn over her head, and upon the top of that hood, a +little straw hat trimmed with cherry-coloured ribbons, and worn the +merest trifle on one side--just enough in short to make it the +wickedest and most provoking head-dress that ever malicious +milliner devised. And not to speak of the manner in which these +cherry-coloured decorations brightened her eyes, or vied with her +lips, or shed a new bloom on her face, she wore such a cruel little +muff, and such a heart-rending pair of shoes, and was so +surrounded and hemmed in, as it were, by aggravations of all kinds, +that when Mr Tappettit, holding the horse's head, saw her come out +of the house alone, such impulses came over him to decoy her into +the chaise and drive off like mad, that he would unquestionably +have done it, but for certain uneasy doubts besetting him as to the +shortest way to Gretna Green; whether it was up the street or +down, or up the right-hand turning or the left; and whether, +supposing all the turnpikes to be carried by storm, the blacksmith +in the end would marry them on credit; which by reason of his +clerical office appeared, even to his excited imagination, so +unlikely, that he hesitated. And while he stood hesitating, and +looking post-chaises-and-six at Dolly, out came his master and his +mistress, and the constant Miggs, and the opportunity was gone for +ever. For now the chaise creaked upon its springs, and Mrs Varden +was inside; and now it creaked again, and more than ever, and the +locksmith was inside; and now it bounded once, as if its heart beat +lightly, and Dolly was inside; and now it was gone and its place +was empty, and he and that dreary Miggs were standing in the street +together. + +The hearty locksmith was in as good a humour as if nothing had +occurred for the last twelve months to put him out of his way, +Dolly was all smiles and graces, and Mrs Varden was agreeable +beyond all precedent. As they jogged through the streets talking +of this thing and of that, who should be descried upon the pavement +but that very coachmaker, looking so genteel that nobody would have +believed he had ever had anything to do with a coach but riding in +it, and bowing like any nobleman. To be sure Dolly was confused +when she bowed again, and to be sure the cherry-coloured ribbons +trembled a little when she met his mournful eye, which seemed to +say, 'I have kept my word, I have begun, the business is going to +the devil, and you're the cause of it.' There he stood, rooted to +the ground: as Dolly said, like a statue; and as Mrs Varden said, +like a pump; till they turned the corner: and when her father +thought it was like his impudence, and her mother wondered what he +meant by it, Dolly blushed again till her very hood was pale. + +But on they went, not the less merrily for this, and there was the +locksmith in the incautious fulness of his heart 'pulling-up' at +all manner of places, and evincing a most intimate acquaintance +with all the taverns on the road, and all the landlords and all the +landladies, with whom, indeed, the little horse was on equally +friendly terms, for he kept on stopping of his own accord. Never +were people so glad to see other people as these landlords and +landladies were to behold Mr Varden and Mrs Varden and Miss Varden; +and wouldn't they get out, said one; and they really must walk +upstairs, said another; and she would take it ill and be quite +certain they were proud if they wouldn't have a little taste of +something, said a third; and so on, that it was really quite a +Progress rather than a ride, and one continued scene of hospitality +from beginning to end. It was pleasant enough to be held in such +esteem, not to mention the refreshments; so Mrs Varden said nothing +at the time, and was all affability and delight--but such a body of +evidence as she collected against the unfortunate locksmith that +day, to be used thereafter as occasion might require, never was got +together for matrimonial purposes. + +In course of time--and in course of a pretty long time too, for +these agreeable interruptions delayed them not a little,--they +arrived upon the skirts of the Forest, and riding pleasantly on +among the trees, came at last to the Maypole, where the locksmith's +cheerful 'Yoho!' speedily brought to the porch old John, and after +him young Joe, both of whom were so transfixed at sight of the +ladies, that for a moment they were perfectly unable to give them +any welcome, and could do nothing but stare. + +It was only for a moment, however, that Joe forgot himself, for +speedily reviving he thrust his drowsy father aside--to Mr Willet's +mighty and inexpressible indignation--and darting out, stood ready +to help them to alight. It was necessary for Dolly to get out +first. Joe had her in his arms;--yes, though for a space of time +no longer than you could count one in, Joe had her in his arms. +Here was a glimpse of happiness! + +It would be difficult to describe what a flat and commonplace +affair the helping Mrs Varden out afterwards was, but Joe did it, +and did it too with the best grace in the world. Then old John, +who, entertaining a dull and foggy sort of idea that Mrs Varden +wasn't fond of him, had been in some doubt whether she might not +have come for purposes of assault and battery, took courage, hoped +she was well, and offered to conduct her into the house. This +tender being amicably received, they marched in together; Joe and +Dolly followed, arm-in-arm, (happiness again!) and Varden brought +up the rear. + +Old John would have it that they must sit in the bar, and nobody +objecting, into the bar they went. All bars are snug places, but +the Maypole's was the very snuggest, cosiest, and completest bar, +that ever the wit of man devised. Such amazing bottles in old +oaken pigeon-holes; such gleaming tankards dangling from pegs at +about the same inclination as thirsty men would hold them to their +lips; such sturdy little Dutch kegs ranged in rows on shelves; so +many lemons hanging in separate nets, and forming the fragrant +grove already mentioned in this chronicle, suggestive, with goodly +loaves of snowy sugar stowed away hard by, of punch, idealised +beyond all mortal knowledge; such closets, such presses, such +drawers full of pipes, such places for putting things away in +hollow window-seats, all crammed to the throat with eatables, +drinkables, or savoury condiments; lastly, and to crown all, as +typical of the immense resources of the establishment, and its +defiances to all visitors to cut and come again, such a stupendous +cheese! + +It is a poor heart that never rejoices--it must have been the +poorest, weakest, and most watery heart that ever beat, which would +not have warmed towards the Maypole bar. Mrs Varden's did +directly. She could no more have reproached John Willet among +those household gods, the kegs and bottles, lemons, pipes, and +cheese, than she could have stabbed him with his own bright +carving-knife. The order for dinner too--it might have soothed a +savage. 'A bit of fish,' said John to the cook, 'and some lamb +chops (breaded, with plenty of ketchup), and a good salad, and a +roast spring chicken, with a dish of sausages and mashed potatoes, +or something of that sort.' Something of that sort! The resources +of these inns! To talk carelessly about dishes, which in +themselves were a first-rate holiday kind of dinner, suitable to +one's wedding-day, as something of that sort: meaning, if you can't +get a spring chicken, any other trifle in the way of poultry will +do--such as a peacock, perhaps! The kitchen too, with its great +broad cavernous chimney; the kitchen, where nothing in the way of +cookery seemed impossible; where you could believe in anything to +eat, they chose to tell you of. Mrs Varden returned from the +contemplation of these wonders to the bar again, with a head quite +dizzy and bewildered. Her housekeeping capacity was not large +enough to comprehend them. She was obliged to go to sleep. Waking +was pain, in the midst of such immensity. + +Dolly in the meanwhile, whose gay heart and head ran upon other +matters, passed out at the garden door, and glancing back now and +then (but of course not wondering whether Joe saw her), tripped +away by a path across the fields with which she was well +acquainted, to discharge her mission at the Warren; and this +deponent hath been informed and verily believes, that you might +have seen many less pleasant objects than the cherry-coloured +mantle and ribbons, as they went fluttering along the green meadows +in the bright light of the day, like giddy things as they were. + + + +Chapter 20 + + +The proud consciousness of her trust, and the great importance she +derived from it, might have advertised it to all the house if she +had had to run the gauntlet of its inhabitants; but as Dolly had +played in every dull room and passage many and many a time, when a +child, and had ever since been the humble friend of Miss Haredale, +whose foster-sister she was, she was as free of the building as the +young lady herself. So, using no greater precaution than holding +her breath and walking on tiptoe as she passed the library door, +she went straight to Emma's room as a privileged visitor. + +It was the liveliest room in the building. The chamber was sombre +like the rest for the matter of that, but the presence of youth and +beauty would make a prison cheerful (saving alas! that confinement +withers them), and lend some charms of their own to the gloomiest +scene. Birds, flowers, books, drawing, music, and a hundred such +graceful tokens of feminine loves and cares, filled it with more of +life and human sympathy than the whole house besides seemed made to +hold. There was heart in the room; and who that has a heart, ever +fails to recognise the silent presence of another! + +Dolly had one undoubtedly, and it was not a tough one either, +though there was a little mist of coquettishness about it, such as +sometimes surrounds that sun of life in its morning, and slightly +dims its lustre. Thus, when Emma rose to greet her, and kissing +her affectionately on the cheek, told her, in her quiet way, that +she had been very unhappy, the tears stood in Dolly's eyes, and she +felt more sorry than she could tell; but next moment she happened +to raise them to the glass, and really there was something there so +exceedingly agreeable, that as she sighed, she smiled, and felt +surprisingly consoled. + +'I have heard about it, miss,' said Dolly, 'and it's very sad +indeed, but when things are at the worst they are sure to mend.' + +'But are you sure they are at the worst?' asked Emma with a smile. + +'Why, I don't see how they can very well be more unpromising than +they are; I really don't,' said Dolly. 'And I bring something to +begin with.' + +'Not from Edward?' + +Dolly nodded and smiled, and feeling in her pockets (there were +pockets in those days) with an affectation of not being able to +find what she wanted, which greatly enhanced her importance, at +length produced the letter. As Emma hastily broke the seal and +became absorbed in its contents, Dolly's eyes, by one of those +strange accidents for which there is no accounting, wandered to the +glass again. She could not help wondering whether the coach-maker +suffered very much, and quite pitied the poor man. + +It was a long letter--a very long letter, written close on all four +sides of the sheet of paper, and crossed afterwards; but it was not +a consolatory letter, for as Emma read it she stopped from time to +time to put her handkerchief to her eyes. To be sure Dolly +marvelled greatly to see her in so much distress, for to her +thinking a love affair ought to be one of the best jokes, and the +slyest, merriest kind of thing in life. But she set it down in her +own mind that all this came from Miss Haredale's being so constant, +and that if she would only take on with some other young gentleman-- +just in the most innocent way possible, to keep her first lover up +to the mark--she would find herself inexpressibly comforted. + +'I am sure that's what I should do if it was me,' thought Dolly. +'To make one's sweetheart miserable is well enough and quite right, +but to be made miserable one's self is a little too much!' + +However it wouldn't do to say so, and therefore she sat looking on +in silence. She needed a pretty considerable stretch of patience, +for when the long letter had been read once all through it was read +again, and when it had been read twice all through it was read +again. During this tedious process, Dolly beguiled the time in the +most improving manner that occurred to her, by curling her hair on +her fingers, with the aid of the looking-glass before mentioned, +and giving it some killing twists. + +Everything has an end. Even young ladies in love cannot read their +letters for ever. In course of time the packet was folded up, and +it only remained to write the answer. + +But as this promised to be a work of time likewise, Emma said she +would put it off until after dinner, and that Dolly must dine with +her. As Dolly had made up her mind to do so beforehand, she +required very little pressing; and when they had settled this +point, they went to walk in the garden. + +They strolled up and down the terrace walks, talking incessantly-- +at least, Dolly never left off once--and making that quarter of the +sad and mournful house quite gay. Not that they talked loudly or +laughed much, but they were both so very handsome, and it was such +a breezy day, and their light dresses and dark curls appeared so +free and joyous in their abandonment, and Emma was so fair, and +Dolly so rosy, and Emma so delicately shaped, and Dolly so plump, +and--in short, there are no flowers for any garden like such +flowers, let horticulturists say what they may, and both house and +garden seemed to know it, and to brighten up sensibly. + +After this, came the dinner and the letter writing, and some more +talking, in the course of which Miss Haredale took occasion to +charge upon Dolly certain flirtish and inconstant propensities, +which accusations Dolly seemed to think very complimentary indeed, +and to be mightily amused with. Finding her quite incorrigible in +this respect, Emma suffered her to depart; but not before she had +confided to her that important and never-sufficiently-to-be-taken- +care-of answer, and endowed her moreover with a pretty little +bracelet as a keepsake. Having clasped it on her arm, and again +advised her half in jest and half in earnest to amend her roguish +ways, for she knew she was fond of Joe at heart (which Dolly +stoutly denied, with a great many haughty protestations that she +hoped she could do better than that indeed! and so forth), she bade +her farewell; and after calling her back to give her more +supplementary messages for Edward, than anybody with tenfold the +gravity of Dolly Varden could be reasonably expected to remember, +at length dismissed her. + +Dolly bade her good bye, and tripping lightly down the stairs +arrived at the dreaded library door, and was about to pass it again +on tiptoe, when it opened, and behold! there stood Mr Haredale. +Now, Dolly had from her childhood associated with this gentleman +the idea of something grim and ghostly, and being at the moment +conscience-stricken besides, the sight of him threw her into such a +flurry that she could neither acknowledge his presence nor run +away, so she gave a great start, and then with downcast eyes stood +still and trembled. + +'Come here, girl,' said Mr Haredale, taking her by the hand. 'I +want to speak to you.' + +'If you please, sir, I'm in a hurry,' faltered Dolly, 'and--you +have frightened me by coming so suddenly upon me, sir--I would +rather go, sir, if you'll be so good as to let me.' + +'Immediately,' said Mr Haredale, who had by this time led her into +the room and closed the door. You shall go directly. You have +just left Emma?' + +'Yes, sir, just this minute.--Father's waiting for me, sir, if +you'll please to have the goodness--' + +I know. I know,' said Mr Haredale. 'Answer me a question. What +did you bring here to-day?' + +'Bring here, sir?' faltered Dolly. + +'You will tell me the truth, I am sure. Yes.' + +Dolly hesitated for a little while, and somewhat emboldened by his +manner, said at last, 'Well then, sir. It was a letter.' + +'From Mr Edward Chester, of course. And you are the bearer of the +answer?' + +Dolly hesitated again, and not being able to decide upon any other +course of action, burst into tears. + +'You alarm yourself without cause,' said Mr Haredale. 'Why are you +so foolish? Surely you can answer me. You know that I have but +to put the question to Emma and learn the truth directly. Have you +the answer with you?' + +Dolly had what is popularly called a spirit of her own, and being +now fairly at bay, made the best of it. + +'Yes, sir,' she rejoined, trembling and frightened as she was. +'Yes, sir, I have. You may kill me if you please, sir, but I won't +give it up. I'm very sorry,--but I won't. There, sir.' + +'I commend your firmness and your plain-speaking,' said Mr +Haredale. 'Rest assured that I have as little desire to take your +letter as your life. You are a very discreet messenger and a good +girl.' + +Not feeling quite certain, as she afterwards said, whether he might +not be 'coming over her' with these compliments, Dolly kept as far +from him as she could, cried again, and resolved to defend her +pocket (for the letter was there) to the last extremity. + +'I have some design,' said Mr Haredale after a short silence, +during which a smile, as he regarded her, had struggled through +the gloom and melancholy that was natural to his face, 'of +providing a companion for my niece; for her life is a very lonely +one. Would you like the office? You are the oldest friend she +has, and the best entitled to it.' + +'I don't know, sir,' answered Dolly, not sure but he was bantering +her; 'I can't say. I don't know what they might wish at home. I +couldn't give an opinion, sir.' + +'If your friends had no objection, would you have any?' said Mr +Haredale. 'Come. There's a plain question; and easy to answer.' + +'None at all that I know of sir,' replied Dolly. 'I should be very +glad to be near Miss Emma of course, and always am.' + +'That's well,' said Mr Haredale. 'That is all I had to say. You +are anxious to go. Don't let me detain you.' + +Dolly didn't let him, nor did she wait for him to try, for the +words had no sooner passed his lips than she was out of the room, +out of the house, and in the fields again. + +The first thing to be done, of course, when she came to herself and +considered what a flurry she had been in, was to cry afresh; and +the next thing, when she reflected how well she had got over it, +was to laugh heartily. The tears once banished gave place to the +smiles, and at last Dolly laughed so much that she was fain to lean +against a tree, and give vent to her exultation. When she could +laugh no longer, and was quite tired, she put her head-dress to +rights, dried her eyes, looked back very merrily and triumphantly +at the Warren chimneys, which were just visible, and resumed her +walk. + +The twilight had come on, and it was quickly growing dusk, but the +path was so familiar to her from frequent traversing that she +hardly thought of this, and certainly felt no uneasiness at being +left alone. Moreover, there was the bracelet to admire; and when +she had given it a good rub, and held it out at arm's length, it +sparkled and glittered so beautifully on her wrist, that to look at +it in every point of view and with every possible turn of the arm, +was quite an absorbing business. There was the letter too, and it +looked so mysterious and knowing, when she took it out of her +pocket, and it held, as she knew, so much inside, that to turn it +over and over, and think about it, and wonder how it began, and how +it ended, and what it said all through, was another matter of +constant occupation. Between the bracelet and the letter, there +was quite enough to do without thinking of anything else; and +admiring each by turns, Dolly went on gaily. + +As she passed through a wicket-gate to where the path was narrow, +and lay between two hedges garnished here and there with trees, she +heard a rustling close at hand, which brought her to a sudden stop. +She listened. All was very quiet, and she went on again--not +absolutely frightened, but a little quicker than before perhaps, +and possibly not quite so much at her ease, for a check of that +kind is startling. + +She had no sooner moved on again, than she was conscious of the +same sound, which was like that of a person tramping stealthily +among bushes and brushwood. Looking towards the spot whence it +appeared to come, she almost fancied she could make out a crouching +figure. She stopped again. All was quiet as before. On she went +once more--decidedly faster now--and tried to sing softly to +herself. It must he the wind. + +But how came the wind to blow only when she walked, and cease when +she stood still? She stopped involuntarily as she made the +reflection, and the rustling noise stopped likewise. She was +really frightened now, and was yet hesitating what to do, when the +bushes crackled and snapped, and a man came plunging through them, +close before her. + + + +Chapter 21 + + +It was for the moment an inexpressible relief to Dolly, to +recognise in the person who forced himself into the path so +abruptly, and now stood directly in her way, Hugh of the Maypole, +whose name she uttered in a tone of delighted surprise that came +from her heart. + +'Was it you?' she said, 'how glad I am to see you! and how could +you terrify me so!' + +In answer to which, he said nothing at all, but stood quite still, +looking at her. + +'Did you come to meet me?' asked Dolly. + +Hugh nodded, and muttered something to the effect that he had been +waiting for her, and had expected her sooner. + +'I thought it likely they would send,' said Dolly, greatly +reassured by this. + +'Nobody sent me,' was his sullen answer. 'I came of my own +accord.' + +The rough bearing of this fellow, and his wild, uncouth appearance, +had often filled the girl with a vague apprehension even when other +people were by, and had occasioned her to shrink from him +involuntarily. The having him for an unbidden companion in so +solitary a place, with the darkness fast gathering about them, +renewed and even increased the alarm she had felt at first. + +If his manner had been merely dogged and passively fierce, as +usual, she would have had no greater dislike to his company than +she always felt--perhaps, indeed, would have been rather glad to +have had him at hand. But there was something of coarse bold +admiration in his look, which terrified her very much. She glanced +timidly towards him, uncertain whether to go forward or retreat, +and he stood gazing at her like a handsome satyr; and so they +remained for some short time without stirring or breaking silence. +At length Dolly took courage, shot past him, and hurried on. + +'Why do you spend so much breath in avoiding me?' said Hugh, +accommodating his pace to hers, and keeping close at her side. + +'I wish to get back as quickly as I can, and you walk too near me, +answered Dolly.' + +'Too near!' said Hugh, stooping over her so that she could feel his +breath upon her forehead. 'Why too near? You're always proud to +ME, mistress.' + +'I am proud to no one. You mistake me,' answered Dolly. 'Fall +back, if you please, or go on.' + +'Nay, mistress,' he rejoined, endeavouring to draw her arm through +his, 'I'll walk with you.' + +She released herself and clenching her little hand, struck him with +right good will. At this, Maypole Hugh burst into a roar of +laughter, and passing his arm about her waist, held her in his +strong grasp as easily as if she had been a bird. + +'Ha ha ha! Well done, mistress! Strike again. You shall beat my +face, and tear my hair, and pluck my beard up by the roots, and +welcome, for the sake of your bright eyes. Strike again, mistress. +Do. Ha ha ha! I like it.' + +'Let me go,' she cried, endeavouring with both her hands to push +him off. 'Let me go this moment.' + +'You had as good be kinder to me, Sweetlips,' said Hugh. 'You had, +indeed. Come. Tell me now. Why are you always so proud? I +don't quarrel with you for it. I love you when you're proud. Ha +ha ha! You can't hide your beauty from a poor fellow; that's a +comfort!' + +She gave him no answer, but as he had not yet checked her progress, +continued to press forward as rapidly as she could. At length, +between the hurry she had made, her terror, and the tightness of +his embrace, her strength failed her, and she could go no further. + +'Hugh,' cried the panting girl, 'good Hugh; if you will leave me I +will give you anything--everything I have--and never tell one word +of this to any living creature.' + +'You had best not,' he answered. 'Harkye, little dove, you had +best not. All about here know me, and what I dare do if I have a +mind. If ever you are going to tell, stop when the words are on +your lips, and think of the mischief you'll bring, if you do, upon +some innocent heads that you wouldn't wish to hurt a hair of. +Bring trouble on me, and I'll bring trouble and something more on +them in return. I care no more for them than for so many dogs; not +so much--why should I? I'd sooner kill a man than a dog any day. +I've never been sorry for a man's death in all my life, and I have +for a dog's.' + +There was something so thoroughly savage in the manner of these +expressions, and the looks and gestures by which they were +accompanied, that her great fear of him gave her new strength, and +enabled her by a sudden effort to extricate herself and run fleetly +from him. But Hugh was as nimble, strong, and swift of foot, as +any man in broad England, and it was but a fruitless expenditure of +energy, for he had her in his encircling arms again before she had +gone a hundred yards. + +'Softly, darling--gently--would you fly from rough Hugh, that loves +you as well as any drawing-room gallant?' + +'I would,' she answered, struggling to free herself again. 'I +will. Help!' + +'A fine for crying out,' said Hugh. 'Ha ha ha! A fine, pretty +one, from your lips. I pay myself! Ha ha ha!' + +'Help! help! help!' As she shrieked with the utmost violence she +could exert, a shout was heard in answer, and another, and another. + +'Thank Heaven!' cried the girl in an ecstasy. 'Joe, dear Joe, this +way. Help!' + +Her assailant paused, and stood irresolute for a moment, but the +shouts drawing nearer and coming quick upon them, forced him to a +speedy decision. He released her, whispered with a menacing look, +'Tell HIM: and see what follows!' and leaping the hedge, was gone +in an instant. Dolly darted off, and fairly ran into Joe Willet's +open arms. + +'What is the matter? are you hurt? what was it? who was it? where +is he? what was he like?' with a great many encouraging expressions +and assurances of safety, were the first words Joe poured forth. +But poor little Dolly was so breathless and terrified that for some +time she was quite unable to answer him, and hung upon his +shoulder, sobbing and crying as if her heart would break. + +Joe had not the smallest objection to have her hanging on his +shoulder; no, not the least, though it crushed the cherry-coloured +ribbons sadly, and put the smart little hat out of all shape. But +he couldn't bear to see her cry; it went to his very heart. He +tried to console her, bent over her, whispered to her--some say +kissed her, but that's a fable. At any rate he said all the kind +and tender things he could think of and Dolly let him go on and +didn't interrupt him once, and it was a good ten minutes before she +was able to raise her head and thank him. + +'What was it that frightened you?' said Joe. + +A man whose person was unknown to her had followed her, she +answered; he began by begging, and went on to threats of robbery, +which he was on the point of carrying into execution, and would +have executed, but for Joe's timely aid. The hesitation and +confusion with which she said this, Joe attributed to the fright +she had sustained, and no suspicion of the truth occurred to him +for a moment. + +'Stop when the words are on your lips.' A hundred times that +night, and very often afterwards, when the disclosure was rising +to her tongue, Dolly thought of that, and repressed it. A deeply +rooted dread of the man; the conviction that his ferocious nature, +once roused, would stop at nothing; and the strong assurance that +if she impeached him, the full measure of his wrath and vengeance +would be wreaked on Joe, who had preserved her; these were +considerations she had not the courage to overcome, and inducements +to secrecy too powerful for her to surmount. + +Joe, for his part, was a great deal too happy to inquire very +curiously into the matter; and Dolly being yet too tremulous to +walk without assistance, they went forward very slowly, and in his +mind very pleasantly, until the Maypole lights were near at hand, +twinkling their cheerful welcome, when Dolly stopped suddenly and +with a half scream exclaimed, + +'The letter!' + +'What letter?' cried Joe. + +'That I was carrying--I had it in my hand. My bracelet too,' she +said, clasping her wrist. 'I have lost them both.' + +'Do you mean just now?' said Joe. + +'Either I dropped them then, or they were taken from me,' answered +Dolly, vainly searching her pocket and rustling her dress. 'They +are gone, both gone. What an unhappy girl I am!' With these words +poor Dolly, who to do her justice was quite as sorry for the loss +of the letter as for her bracelet, fell a-crying again, and +bemoaned her fate most movingly. + +Joe tried to comfort her with the assurance that directly he had +housed her in the Maypole, he would return to the spot with a +lantern (for it was now quite dark) and make strict search for the +missing articles, which there was great probability of his finding, +as it was not likely that anybody had passed that way since, and +she was not conscious that they had been forcibly taken from her. +Dolly thanked him very heartily for this offer, though with no +great hope of his quest being successful; and so with many +lamentations on her side, and many hopeful words on his, and much +weakness on the part of Dolly and much tender supporting on the +part of Joe, they reached the Maypole bar at last, where the +locksmith and his wife and old John were yet keeping high festival. + +Mr Willet received the intelligence of Dolly's trouble with that +surprising presence of mind and readiness of speech for which he +was so eminently distinguished above all other men. Mrs Varden +expressed her sympathy for her daughter's distress by scolding her +roundly for being so late; and the honest locksmith divided himself +between condoling with and kissing Dolly, and shaking hands +heartily with Joe, whom he could not sufficiently praise or thank. + +In reference to this latter point, old John was far from agreeing +with his friend; for besides that he by no means approved of an +adventurous spirit in the abstract, it occurred to him that if his +son and heir had been seriously damaged in a scuffle, the +consequences would assuredly have been expensive and inconvenient, +and might perhaps have proved detrimental to the Maypole business. +Wherefore, and because he looked with no favourable eye upon young +girls, but rather considered that they and the whole female sex +were a kind of nonsensical mistake on the part of Nature, he took +occasion to retire and shake his head in private at the boiler; +inspired by which silent oracle, he was moved to give Joe various +stealthy nudges with his elbow, as a parental reproof and gentle +admonition to mind his own business and not make a fool of himself. + +Joe, however, took down the lantern and lighted it; and arming +himself with a stout stick, asked whether Hugh was in the stable. + +'He's lying asleep before the kitchen fire, sir,' said Mr Willet. +'What do you want him for?' + +'I want him to come with me to look after this bracelet and +letter,' answered Joe. 'Halloa there! Hugh!' + +Dolly turned pale as death, and felt as if she must faint +forthwith. After a few moments, Hugh came staggering in, +stretching himself and yawning according to custom, and presenting +every appearance of having been roused from a sound nap. + +'Here, sleepy-head,' said Joe, giving him the lantern. 'Carry +this, and bring the dog, and that small cudgel of yours. And woe +betide the fellow if we come upon him.' + +'What fellow?' growled Hugh, rubbing his eyes and shaking himself. + +'What fellow?' returned Joe, who was in a state of great valour and +bustle; 'a fellow you ought to know of and be more alive about. +It's well for the like of you, lazy giant that you are, to be +snoring your time away in chimney-corners, when honest men's +daughters can't cross even our quiet meadows at nightfall without +being set upon by footpads, and frightened out of their precious +lives.' + +'They never rob me,' cried Hugh with a laugh. 'I have got nothing +to lose. But I'd as lief knock them at head as any other men. How +many are there?' + +'Only one,' said Dolly faintly, for everybody looked at her. + +'And what was he like, mistress?' said Hugh with a glance at young +Willet, so slight and momentary that the scowl it conveyed was lost +on all but her. 'About my height?' + +'Not--not so tall,' Dolly replied, scarce knowing what she said. + +'His dress,' said Hugh, looking at her keenly, 'like--like any of +ours now? I know all the people hereabouts, and maybe could give a +guess at the man, if I had anything to guide me.' + +Dolly faltered and turned paler yet; then answered that he was +wrapped in a loose coat and had his face hidden by a handkerchief +and that she could give no other description of him. + +'You wouldn't know him if you saw him then, belike?' said Hugh with +a malicious grin. + +'I should not,' answered Dolly, bursting into tears again. 'I +don't wish to see him. I can't bear to think of him. I can't talk +about him any more. Don't go to look for these things, Mr Joe, +pray don't. I entreat you not to go with that man.' + +'Not to go with me!' cried Hugh. 'I'm too rough for them all. +They're all afraid of me. Why, bless you mistress, I've the +tenderest heart alive. I love all the ladies, ma'am,' said Hugh, +turning to the locksmith's wife. + +Mrs Varden opined that if he did, he ought to be ashamed of +himself; such sentiments being more consistent (so she argued) with +a benighted Mussulman or wild Islander than with a stanch +Protestant. Arguing from this imperfect state of his morals, Mrs +Varden further opined that he had never studied the Manual. Hugh +admitting that he never had, and moreover that he couldn't read, +Mrs Varden declared with much severity, that he ought to he even +more ashamed of himself than before, and strongly recommended him +to save up his pocket-money for the purchase of one, and further to +teach himself the contents with all convenient diligence. She was +still pursuing this train of discourse, when Hugh, somewhat +unceremoniously and irreverently, followed his young master out, +and left her to edify the rest of the company. This she proceeded +to do, and finding that Mr Willet's eyes were fixed upon her with +an appearance of deep attention, gradually addressed the whole of +her discourse to him, whom she entertained with a moral and +theological lecture of considerable length, in the conviction that +great workings were taking place in his spirit. The simple truth +was, however, that Mr Willet, although his eyes were wide open and +he saw a woman before him whose head by long and steady looking at +seemed to grow bigger and bigger until it filled the whole bar, was +to all other intents and purposes fast asleep; and so sat leaning +back in his chair with his hands in his pockets until his son's +return caused him to wake up with a deep sigh, and a faint +impression that he had been dreaming about pickled pork and greens-- +a vision of his slumbers which was no doubt referable to the +circumstance of Mrs Varden's having frequently pronounced the word +'Grace' with much emphasis; which word, entering the portals of Mr +Willet's brain as they stood ajar, and coupling itself with the +words 'before meat,' which were there ranging about, did in time +suggest a particular kind of meat together with that description of +vegetable which is usually its companion. + +The search was wholly unsuccessful. Joe had groped along the path +a dozen times, and among the grass, and in the dry ditch, and in +the hedge, but all in vain. Dolly, who was quite inconsolable for +her loss, wrote a note to Miss Haredale giving her the same account +of it that she had given at the Maypole, which Joe undertook to +deliver as soon as the family were stirring next day. That done, +they sat down to tea in the bar, where there was an uncommon +display of buttered toast, and--in order that they might not grow +faint for want of sustenance, and might have a decent halting- +place or halfway house between dinner and supper--a few savoury +trifles in the shape of great rashers of broiled ham, which being +well cured, done to a turn, and smoking hot, sent forth a tempting +and delicious fragrance. + +Mrs Varden was seldom very Protestant at meals, unless it happened +that they were underdone, or overdone, or indeed that anything +occurred to put her out of humour. Her spirits rose considerably +on beholding these goodly preparations, and from the nothingness of +good works, she passed to the somethingness of ham and toast with +great cheerfulness. Nay, under the influence of these wholesome +stimulants, she sharply reproved her daughter for being low and +despondent (which she considered an unacceptable frame of mind), +and remarked, as she held her own plate for a fresh supply, that it +would be well for Dolly, who pined over the loss of a toy and a +sheet of paper, if she would reflect upon the voluntary sacrifices +of the missionaries in foreign parts who lived chiefly on salads. + +The proceedings of such a day occasion various fluctuations in the +human thermometer, and especially in instruments so sensitively and +delicately constructed as Mrs Varden. Thus, at dinner Mrs V. stood +at summer heat; genial, smiling, and delightful. After dinner, in +the sunshine of the wine, she went up at least half-a-dozen +degrees, and was perfectly enchanting. As its effect subsided, she +fell rapidly, went to sleep for an hour or so at temperate, and +woke at something below freezing. Now she was at summer heat +again, in the shade; and when tea was over, and old John, producing +a bottle of cordial from one of the oaken cases, insisted on her +sipping two glasses thereof in slow succession, she stood steadily +at ninety for one hour and a quarter. Profiting by experience, the +locksmith took advantage of this genial weather to smoke his pipe +in the porch, and in consequence of this prudent management, he was +fully prepared, when the glass went down again, to start homewards +directly. + +The horse was accordingly put in, and the chaise brought round to +the door. Joe, who would on no account be dissuaded from escorting +them until they had passed the most dreary and solitary part of the +road, led out the grey mare at the same time; and having helped +Dolly into her seat (more happiness!) sprung gaily into the saddle. +Then, after many good nights, and admonitions to wrap up, and +glancing of lights, and handing in of cloaks and shawls, the chaise +rolled away, and Joe trotted beside it--on Dolly's side, no doubt, +and pretty close to the wheel too. + + + +Chapter 22 + + +It was a fine bright night, and for all her lowness of spirits +Dolly kept looking up at the stars in a manner so bewitching (and +SHE knew it!) that Joe was clean out of his senses, and plainly +showed that if ever a man were--not to say over head and ears, but +over the Monument and the top of Saint Paul's in love, that man was +himself. The road was a very good one; not at all a jolting road, +or an uneven one; and yet Dolly held the side of the chaise with +one little hand, all the way. If there had been an executioner +behind him with an uplifted axe ready to chop off his head if he +touched that hand, Joe couldn't have helped doing it. From putting +his own hand upon it as if by chance, and taking it away again +after a minute or so, he got to riding along without taking it off +at all; as if he, the escort, were bound to do that as an important +part of his duty, and had come out for the purpose. The most +curious circumstance about this little incident was, that Dolly +didn't seem to know of it. She looked so innocent and unconscious +when she turned her eyes on Joe, that it was quite provoking. + +She talked though; talked about her fright, and about Joe's coming +up to rescue her, and about her gratitude, and about her fear that +she might not have thanked him enough, and about their always being +friends from that time forth--and about all that sort of thing. +And when Joe said, not friends he hoped, Dolly was quite surprised, +and said not enemies she hoped; and when Joe said, couldn't they be +something much better than either, Dolly all of a sudden found out +a star which was brighter than all the other stars, and begged to +call his attention to the same, and was ten thousand times more +innocent and unconscious than ever. + +In this manner they travelled along, talking very little above a +whisper, and wishing the road could be stretched out to some dozen +times its natural length--at least that was Joe's desire--when, as +they were getting clear of the forest and emerging on the more +frequented road, they heard behind them the sound of a horse's feet +at a round trot, which growing rapidly louder as it drew nearer, +elicited a scream from Mrs Varden, and the cry 'a friend!' from the +rider, who now came panting up, and checked his horse beside them. + +'This man again!' cried Dolly, shuddering. + +'Hugh!' said Joe. 'What errand are you upon?' + +'I come to ride back with you,' he answered, glancing covertly at +the locksmith's daughter. 'HE sent me. + +'My father!' said poor Joe; adding under his breath, with a very +unfilial apostrophe, 'Will he never think me man enough to take +care of myself!' + +'Aye!' returned Hugh to the first part of the inquiry. 'The roads +are not safe just now, he says, and you'd better have a companion.' + +'Ride on then,' said Joe. 'I'm not going to turn yet.' + +Hugh complied, and they went on again. It was his whim or humour +to ride immediately before the chaise, and from this position he +constantly turned his head, and looked back. Dolly felt that he +looked at her, but she averted her eyes and feared to raise them +once, so great was the dread with which he had inspired her. + +This interruption, and the consequent wakefulness of Mrs Varden, +who had been nodding in her sleep up to this point, except for a +minute or two at a time, when she roused herself to scold the +locksmith for audaciously taking hold of her to prevent her nodding +herself out of the chaise, put a restraint upon the whispered +conversation, and made it difficult of resumption. Indeed, before +they had gone another mile, Gabriel stopped at his wife's desire, +and that good lady protested she would not hear of Joe's going a +step further on any account whatever. It was in vain for Joe to +protest on the other hand that he was by no means tired, and would +turn back presently, and would see them safely past such a point, +and so forth. Mrs Varden was obdurate, and being so was not to be +overcome by mortal agency. + +'Good night--if I must say it,' said Joe, sorrowfully. + +'Good night,' said Dolly. She would have added, 'Take care of that +man, and pray don't trust him,' but he had turned his horse's head, +and was standing close to them. She had therefore nothing for it +but to suffer Joe to give her hand a gentle squeeze, and when the +chaise had gone on for some distance, to look back and wave it, as +he still lingered on the spot where they had parted, with the tall +dark figure of Hugh beside him. + +What she thought about, going home; and whether the coach-maker +held as favourable a place in her meditations as he had occupied in +the morning, is unknown. They reached home at last--at last, for +it was a long way, made none the shorter by Mrs Varden's grumbling. +Miggs hearing the sound of wheels was at the door immediately. + +'Here they are, Simmun! Here they are!' cried Miggs, clapping her +hands, and issuing forth to help her mistress to alight. 'Bring a +chair, Simmun. Now, an't you the better for it, mim? Don't you +feel more yourself than you would have done if you'd have stopped +at home? Oh, gracious! how cold you are! Goodness me, sir, she's +a perfect heap of ice.' + +'I can't help it, my good girl. You had better take her in to the +fire,' said the locksmith. + +'Master sounds unfeeling, mim,' said Miggs, in a tone of +commiseration, 'but such is not his intentions, I'm sure. After +what he has seen of you this day, I never will believe but that he +has a deal more affection in his heart than to speak unkind. Come +in and sit yourself down by the fire; there's a good dear--do.' + +Mrs Varden complied. The locksmith followed with his hands in his +pockets, and Mr Tappertit trundled off with the chaise to a +neighbouring stable. + +'Martha, my dear,' said the locksmith, when they reached the +parlour, 'if you'll look to Dolly yourself or let somebody else do +it, perhaps it will be only kind and reasonable. She has been +frightened, you know, and is not at all well to-night.' + +In fact, Dolly had thrown herself upon the sofa, quite regardless +of all the little finery of which she had been so proud in the +morning, and with her face buried in her hands was crying very +much. + +At first sight of this phenomenon (for Dolly was by no means +accustomed to displays of this sort, rather learning from her +mother's example to avoid them as much as possible) Mrs Varden +expressed her belief that never was any woman so beset as she; that +her life was a continued scene of trial; that whenever she was +disposed to be well and cheerful, so sure were the people around +her to throw, by some means or other, a damp upon her spirits; and +that, as she had enjoyed herself that day, and Heaven knew it was +very seldom she did enjoy herself so she was now to pay the +penalty. To all such propositions Miggs assented freely. Poor +Dolly, however, grew none the better for these restoratives, but +rather worse, indeed; and seeing that she was really ill, both Mrs +Varden and Miggs were moved to compassion, and tended her in +earnest. + +But even then, their very kindness shaped itself into their usual +course of policy, and though Dolly was in a swoon, it was rendered +clear to the meanest capacity, that Mrs Varden was the sufferer. +Thus when Dolly began to get a little better, and passed into that +stage in which matrons hold that remonstrance and argument may be +successfully applied, her mother represented to her, with tears in +her eyes, that if she had been flurried and worried that day, she +must remember it was the common lot of humanity, and in especial of +womankind, who through the whole of their existence must expect no +less, and were bound to make up their minds to meek endurance and +patient resignation. Mrs Varden entreated her to remember that one +of these days she would, in all probability, have to do violence to +her feelings so far as to be married; and that marriage, as she +might see every day of her life (and truly she did) was a state +requiring great fortitude and forbearance. She represented to her +in lively colours, that if she (Mrs V.) had not, in steering her +course through this vale of tears, been supported by a strong +principle of duty which alone upheld and prevented her from +drooping, she must have been in her grave many years ago; in which +case she desired to know what would have become of that errant +spirit (meaning the locksmith), of whose eye she was the very +apple, and in whose path she was, as it were, a shining light and +guiding star? + +Miss Miggs also put in her word to the same effect. She said that +indeed and indeed Miss Dolly might take pattern by her blessed +mother, who, she always had said, and always would say, though she +were to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for it next minute, was +the mildest, amiablest, forgivingest-spirited, longest-sufferingest +female as ever she could have believed; the mere narration of whose +excellencies had worked such a wholesome change in the mind of her +own sister-in-law, that, whereas, before, she and her husband lived +like cat and dog, and were in the habit of exchanging brass +candlesticks, pot-lids, flat-irons, and other such strong +resentments, they were now the happiest and affectionatest couple +upon earth; as could be proved any day on application at Golden +Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, second bell-handle on the right- +hand doorpost. After glancing at herself as a comparatively +worthless vessel, but still as one of some desert, she besought her +to bear in mind that her aforesaid dear and only mother was of a +weakly constitution and excitable temperament, who had constantly +to sustain afflictions in domestic life, compared with which +thieves and robbers were as nothing, and yet never sunk down or +gave way to despair or wrath, but, in prize-fighting phraseology, +always came up to time with a cheerful countenance, and went in to +win as if nothing had happened. When Miggs finished her solo, her +mistress struck in again, and the two together performed a duet to +the same purpose; the burden being, that Mrs Varden was persecuted +perfection, and Mr Varden, as the representative of mankind in that +apartment, a creature of vicious and brutal habits, utterly +insensible to the blessings he enjoyed. Of so refined a character, +indeed, was their talent of assault under the mask of sympathy, +that when Dolly, recovering, embraced her father tenderly, as in +vindication of his goodness, Mrs Varden expressed her solemn hope +that this would be a lesson to him for the remainder of his life, +and that he would do some little justice to a woman's nature ever +afterwards--in which aspiration Miss Miggs, by divers sniffs and +coughs, more significant than the longest oration, expressed her +entire concurrence. + +But the great joy of Miggs's heart was, that she not only picked up +a full account of what had happened, but had the exquisite delight +of conveying it to Mr Tappertit for his jealousy and torture. For +that gentleman, on account of Dolly's indisposition, had been +requested to take his supper in the workshop, and it was conveyed +thither by Miss Miggs's own fair hands. + +'Oh Simmun!' said the young lady, 'such goings on to-day! Oh, +gracious me, Simmun!' + +Mr Tappertit, who was not in the best of humours, and who +disliked Miss Miggs more when she laid her hand on her heart and +panted for breath than at any other time, as her deficiency of +outline was most apparent under such circumstances, eyed her over +in his loftiest style, and deigned to express no curiosity +whatever. + +'I never heard the like, nor nobody else,' pursued Miggs. 'The +idea of interfering with HER. What people can see in her to make +it worth their while to do so, that's the joke--he he he!' + +Finding there was a lady in the case, Mr Tappertit haughtily +requested his fair friend to be more explicit, and demanded to know +what she meant by 'her.' + +'Why, that Dolly,' said Miggs, with an extremely sharp emphasis on +the name. 'But, oh upon my word and honour, young Joseph Willet is +a brave one; and he do deserve her, that he do.' + +'Woman!' said Mr Tappertit, jumping off the counter on which he was +seated; 'beware!' + +'My stars, Simmun!' cried Miggs, in affected astonishment. 'You +frighten me to death! What's the matter?' + +'There are strings,' said Mr Tappertit, flourishing his bread-and- +cheese knife in the air, 'in the human heart that had better not be +wibrated. That's what's the matter.' + +'Oh, very well--if you're in a huff,' cried Miggs, turning away. + +'Huff or no huff,' said Mr Tappertit, detaining her by the wrist. +'What do you mean, Jezebel? What were you going to say? Answer +me!' + +Notwithstanding this uncivil exhortation, Miggs gladly did as she +was required; and told him how that their young mistress, being +alone in the meadows after dark, had been attacked by three or four +tall men, who would have certainly borne her away and perhaps +murdered her, but for the timely arrival of Joseph Willet, who with +his own single hand put them all to flight, and rescued her; to the +lasting admiration of his fellow-creatures generally, and to the +eternal love and gratitude of Dolly Varden. + +'Very good,' said Mr Tappertit, fetching a long breath when the +tale was told, and rubbing his hair up till it stood stiff and +straight on end all over his head. 'His days are numbered.' + +'Oh, Simmun!' + +'I tell you,' said the 'prentice, 'his days are numbered. Leave +me. Get along with you.' + +Miggs departed at his bidding, but less because of his bidding than +because she desired to chuckle in secret. When she had given vent +to her satisfaction, she returned to the parlour; where the +locksmith, stimulated by quietness and Toby, had become talkative, +and was disposed to take a cheerful review of the occurrences of +the day. But Mrs Varden, whose practical religion (as is not +uncommon) was usually of the retrospective order, cut him short by +declaiming on the sinfulness of such junketings, and holding that +it was high time to go to bed. To bed therefore she withdrew, with +an aspect as grim and gloomy as that of the Maypole's own state +couch; and to bed the rest of the establishment soon afterwards +repaired. + + + +Chapter 23 + + +Twilight had given place to night some hours, and it was high noon +in those quarters of the town in which 'the world' condescended to +dwell--the world being then, as now, of very limited dimensions and +easily lodged--when Mr Chester reclined upon a sofa in his +dressing-room in the Temple, entertaining himself with a book. + +He was dressing, as it seemed, by easy stages, and having performed +half the journey was taking a long rest. Completely attired as to +his legs and feet in the trimmest fashion of the day, he had yet +the remainder of his toilet to perform. The coat was stretched, +like a refined scarecrow, on its separate horse; the waistcoat was +displayed to the best advantage; the various ornamental articles of +dress were severally set out in most alluring order; and yet he lay +dangling his legs between the sofa and the ground, as intent upon +his book as if there were nothing but bed before him. + +'Upon my honour,' he said, at length raising his eyes to the +ceiling with the air of a man who was reflecting seriously on what +he had read; 'upon my honour, the most masterly composition, the +most delicate thoughts, the finest code of morality, and the most +gentlemanly sentiments in the universe! Ah Ned, Ned, if you would +but form your mind by such precepts, we should have but one common +feeling on every subject that could possibly arise between us!' + +This apostrophe was addressed, like the rest of his remarks, to +empty air: for Edward was not present, and the father was quite +alone. + +'My Lord Chesterfield,' he said, pressing his hand tenderly upon +the book as he laid it down, 'if I could but have profited by your +genius soon enough to have formed my son on the model you have left +to all wise fathers, both he and I would have been rich men. +Shakespeare was undoubtedly very fine in his way; Milton good, +though prosy; Lord Bacon deep, and decidedly knowing; but the +writer who should be his country's pride, is my Lord Chesterfield.' + +He became thoughtful again, and the toothpick was in requisition. + +'I thought I was tolerably accomplished as a man of the world,' he +continued, 'I flattered myself that I was pretty well versed in all +those little arts and graces which distinguish men of the world +from boors and peasants, and separate their character from those +intensely vulgar sentiments which are called the national +character. Apart from any natural prepossession in my own favour, +I believed I was. Still, in every page of this enlightened writer, +I find some captivating hypocrisy which has never occurred to me +before, or some superlative piece of selfishness to which I was +utterly a stranger. I should quite blush for myself before this +stupendous creature, if remembering his precepts, one might blush +at anything. An amazing man! a nobleman indeed! any King or Queen +may make a Lord, but only the Devil himself--and the Graces--can +make a Chesterfield.' + +Men who are thoroughly false and hollow, seldom try to hide those +vices from themselves; and yet in the very act of avowing them, +they lay claim to the virtues they feign most to despise. 'For,' +say they, 'this is honesty, this is truth. All mankind are like +us, but they have not the candour to avow it.' The more they +affect to deny the existence of any sincerity in the world, the +more they would be thought to possess it in its boldest shape; and +this is an unconscious compliment to Truth on the part of these +philosophers, which will turn the laugh against them to the Day of +Judgment. + +Mr Chester, having extolled his favourite author, as above recited, +took up the book again in the excess of his admiration and was +composing himself for a further perusal of its sublime morality, +when he was disturbed by a noise at the outer door; occasioned as +it seemed by the endeavours of his servant to obstruct the entrance +of some unwelcome visitor. + +'A late hour for an importunate creditor,' he said, raising his +eyebrows with as indolent an expression of wonder as if the noise +were in the street, and one with which he had not the smallest +possible concern. 'Much after their accustomed time. The usual +pretence I suppose. No doubt a heavy payment to make up tomorrow. +Poor fellow, he loses time, and time is money as the good proverb +says--I never found it out though. Well. What now? You know I am +not at home.' + +'A man, sir,' replied the servant, who was to the full as cool and +negligent in his way as his master, 'has brought home the riding- +whip you lost the other day. I told him you were out, but he said +he was to wait while I brought it in, and wouldn't go till I did.' + +'He was quite right,' returned his master, 'and you're a blockhead, +possessing no judgment or discretion whatever. Tell him to come +in, and see that he rubs his shoes for exactly five minutes first.' + +The man laid the whip on a chair, and withdrew. The master, who +had only heard his foot upon the ground and had not taken the +trouble to turn round and look at him, shut his book, and pursued +the train of ideas his entrance had disturbed. + +'If time were money,' he said, handling his snuff-box, 'I would +compound with my creditors, and give them--let me see--how much a +day? There's my nap after dinner--an hour--they're extremely +welcome to that, and to make the most of it. In the morning, +between my breakfast and the paper, I could spare them another +hour; in the evening before dinner say another. Three hours a day. +They might pay themselves in calls, with interest, in twelve +months. I think I shall propose it to them. Ah, my centaur, are +you there?' + +'Here I am,' replied Hugh, striding in, followed by a dog, as rough +and sullen as himself; 'and trouble enough I've had to get here. +What do you ask me to come for, and keep me out when I DO come?' + +'My good fellow,' returned the other, raising his head a little +from the cushion and carelessly surveying him from top to toe, 'I +am delighted to see you, and to have, in your being here, the very +best proof that you are not kept out. How are you?' + +'I'm well enough,' said Hugh impatiently. + +'You look a perfect marvel of health. Sit down.' + +'I'd rather stand,' said Hugh. + +'Please yourself my good fellow,' returned Mr Chester rising, +slowly pulling off the loose robe he wore, and sitting down before +the dressing-glass. 'Please yourself by all means.' + +Having said this in the politest and blandest tone possible, he +went on dressing, and took no further notice of his guest, who +stood in the same spot as uncertain what to do next, eyeing him +sulkily from time to time. + +'Are you going to speak to me, master?' he said, after a long +silence. + +'My worthy creature,' returned Mr Chester, 'you are a little +ruffled and out of humour. I'll wait till you're quite yourself +again. I am in no hurry.' + +This behaviour had its intended effect. It humbled and abashed the +man, and made him still more irresolute and uncertain. Hard words +he could have returned, violence he would have repaid with +interest; but this cool, complacent, contemptuous, self-possessed +reception, caused him to feel his inferiority more completely than +the most elaborate arguments. Everything contributed to this +effect. His own rough speech, contrasted with the soft persuasive +accents of the other; his rude bearing, and Mr Chester's polished +manner; the disorder and negligence of his ragged dress, and the +elegant attire he saw before him; with all the unaccustomed +luxuries and comforts of the room, and the silence that gave him +leisure to observe these things, and feel how ill at ease they made +him; all these influences, which have too often some effect on +tutored minds and become of almost resistless power when brought to +bear on such a mind as his, quelled Hugh completely. He moved by +little and little nearer to Mr Chester's chair, and glancing over +his shoulder at the reflection of his face in the glass, as if +seeking for some encouragement in its expression, said at length, +with a rough attempt at conciliation, + +'ARE you going to speak to me, master, or am I to go away?' + +'Speak you,' said Mr Chester, 'speak you, good fellow. I have +spoken, have I not? I am waiting for you.' + +'Why, look'ee, sir,' returned Hugh with increased embarrassment, +'am I the man that you privately left your whip with before you +rode away from the Maypole, and told to bring it back whenever he +might want to see you on a certain subject?' + +'No doubt the same, or you have a twin brother,' said Mr Chester, +glancing at the reflection of his anxious face; 'which is not +probable, I should say.' + +'Then I have come, sir,' said Hugh, 'and I have brought it back, +and something else along with it. A letter, sir, it is, that I +took from the person who had charge of it.' As he spoke, he laid +upon the dressing-table, Dolly's lost epistle. The very letter +that had cost her so much trouble. + +'Did you obtain this by force, my good fellow?' said Mr Chester, +casting his eye upon it without the least perceptible surprise or +pleasure. + +'Not quite,' said Hugh. 'Partly.' + +'Who was the messenger from whom you took it?' + +'A woman. One Varden's daughter.' + +'Oh indeed!' said Mr Chester gaily. 'What else did you take from +her?' + +'What else?' + +'Yes,' said the other, in a drawling manner, for he was fixing a +very small patch of sticking plaster on a very small pimple near +the corner of his mouth. 'What else?' + +'Well a kiss,' replied Hugh, after some hesitation. + +'And what else?' + +'Nothing.' + +'I think,' said Mr Chester, in the same easy tone, and smiling +twice or thrice to try if the patch adhered--'I think there was +something else. I have heard a trifle of jewellery spoken of--a +mere trifle--a thing of such little value, indeed, that you may +have forgotten it. Do you remember anything of the kind--such as a +bracelet now, for instance?' + +Hugh with a muttered oath thrust his hand into his breast, and +drawing the bracelet forth, wrapped in a scrap of hay, was about to +lay it on the table likewise, when his patron stopped his hand and +bade him put it up again. + +'You took that for yourself my excellent friend,' he said, 'and may +keep it. I am neither a thief nor a receiver. Don't show it to +me. You had better hide it again, and lose no time. Don't let me +see where you put it either,' he added, turning away his head. + +'You're not a receiver!' said Hugh bluntly, despite the increasing +awe in which he held him. 'What do you call THAT, master?' +striking the letter with his heavy hand. + +'I call that quite another thing,' said Mr Chester coolly. 'I +shall prove it presently, as you will see. You are thirsty, I +suppose?' + +Hugh drew his sleeve across his lips, and gruffly answered yes. + +'Step to that closet and bring me a bottle you will see there, and +a glass.' + +He obeyed. His patron followed him with his eyes, and when his +back was turned, smiled as he had never done when he stood beside +the mirror. On his return he filled the glass, and bade him drink. +That dram despatched, he poured him out another, and another. + +'How many can you bear?' he said, filling the glass again. + +'As many as you like to give me. Pour on. Fill high. A bumper +with a bead in the middle! Give me enough of this,' he added, as +he tossed it down his hairy throat, 'and I'll do murder if you ask +me!' + +'As I don't mean to ask you, and you might possibly do it without +being invited if you went on much further,' said Mr Chester with +great composure, we will stop, if agreeable to you, my good friend, +at the next glass. You were drinking before you came here.' + +'I always am when I can get it,' cried Hugh boisterously, waving +the empty glass above his head, and throwing himself into a rude +dancing attitude. 'I always am. Why not? Ha ha ha! What's so +good to me as this? What ever has been? What else has kept away +the cold on bitter nights, and driven hunger off in starving times? +What else has given me the strength and courage of a man, when men +would have left me to die, a puny child? I should never have had a +man's heart but for this. I should have died in a ditch. Where's +he who when I was a weak and sickly wretch, with trembling legs and +fading sight, bade me cheer up, as this did? I never knew him; not +I. I drink to the drink, master. Ha ha ha!' + +'You are an exceedingly cheerful young man,' said Mr Chester, +putting on his cravat with great deliberation, and slightly moving +his head from side to side to settle his chin in its proper place. +'Quite a boon companion.' + +'Do you see this hand, master,' said Hugh, 'and this arm?' baring +the brawny limb to the elbow. 'It was once mere skin and bone, and +would have been dust in some poor churchyard by this time, but for +the drink.' + +'You may cover it,' said Mr Chester, 'it's sufficiently real in +your sleeve.' + +'I should never have been spirited up to take a kiss from the proud +little beauty, master, but for the drink,' cried Hugh. 'Ha ha ha! +It was a good one. As sweet as honeysuckle, I warrant you. I +thank the drink for it. I'll drink to the drink again, master. +Fill me one more. Come. One more!' + +'You are such a promising fellow,' said his patron, putting on his +waistcoat with great nicety, and taking no heed of this request, +'that I must caution you against having too many impulses from the +drink, and getting hung before your time. What's your age?' + +'I don't know.' + +'At any rate,' said Mr Chester, 'you are young enough to escape +what I may call a natural death for some years to come. How can +you trust yourself in my hands on so short an acquaintance, with a +halter round your neck? What a confiding nature yours must be!' + +Hugh fell back a pace or two and surveyed him with a look of +mingled terror, indignation, and surprise. Regarding himself in +the glass with the same complacency as before, and speaking as +smoothly as if he were discussing some pleasant chit-chat of the +town, his patron went on: + +'Robbery on the king's highway, my young friend, is a very +dangerous and ticklish occupation. It is pleasant, I have no +doubt, while it lasts; but like many other pleasures in this +transitory world, it seldom lasts long. And really if in the +ingenuousness of youth, you open your heart so readily on the +subject, I am afraid your career will be an extremely short one.' + +'How's this?' said Hugh. 'What do you talk of master? Who was it +set me on?' + +'Who?' said Mr Chester, wheeling sharply round, and looking full +at him for the first time. 'I didn't hear you. Who was it?' + +Hugh faltered, and muttered something which was not audible. + +'Who was it? I am curious to know,' said Mr Chester, with +surpassing affability. 'Some rustic beauty perhaps? But be +cautious, my good friend. They are not always to be trusted. Do +take my advice now, and be careful of yourself.' With these words +he turned to the glass again, and went on with his toilet. + +Hugh would have answered him that he, the questioner himself had +set him on, but the words stuck in his throat. The consummate art +with which his patron had led him to this point, and managed the +whole conversation, perfectly baffled him. He did not doubt that +if he had made the retort which was on his lips when Mr Chester +turned round and questioned him so keenly, he would straightway +have given him into custody and had him dragged before a justice +with the stolen property upon him; in which case it was as certain +he would have been hung as it was that he had been born. The +ascendency which it was the purpose of the man of the world to +establish over this savage instrument, was gained from that time. +Hugh's submission was complete. He dreaded him beyond description; +and felt that accident and artifice had spun a web about him, which +at a touch from such a master-hand as his, would bind him to the +gallows. + +With these thoughts passing through his mind, and yet wondering at +the very same time how he who came there rioting in the confidence +of this man (as he thought), should be so soon and so thoroughly +subdued, Hugh stood cowering before him, regarding him uneasily +from time to time, while he finished dressing. When he had done +so, he took up the letter, broke the seal, and throwing himself +back in his chair, read it leisurely through. + +'Very neatly worded upon my life! Quite a woman's letter, full of +what people call tenderness, and disinterestedness, and heart, and +all that sort of thing!' + +As he spoke, he twisted it up, and glancing lazily round at Hugh as +though he would say 'You see this?' held it in the flame of the +candle. When it was in a full blaze, he tossed it into the grate, +and there it smouldered away. + +'It was directed to my son,' he said, turning to Hugh, 'and you did +quite right to bring it here. I opened it on my own +responsibility, and you see what I have done with it. Take this, +for your trouble.' + +Hugh stepped forward to receive the piece of money he held out to +him. As he put it in his hand, he added: + +'If you should happen to find anything else of this sort, or to +pick up any kind of information you may think I would like to have, +bring it here, will you, my good fellow?' + +This was said with a smile which implied--or Hugh thought it did-- +'fail to do so at your peril!' He answered that he would. + +'And don't,' said his patron, with an air of the very kindest +patronage, 'don't be at all downcast or uneasy respecting that +little rashness we have been speaking of. Your neck is as safe in +my hands, my good fellow, as though a baby's fingers clasped it, I +assure you.--Take another glass. You are quieter now.' + +Hugh accepted it from his hand, and looking stealthily at his +smiling face, drank the contents in silence. + +'Don't you--ha, ha!--don't you drink to the drink any more?' said +Mr Chester, in his most winning manner. + +'To you, sir,' was the sullen answer, with something approaching to +a bow. 'I drink to you.' + +'Thank you. God bless you. By the bye, what is your name, my good +soul? You are called Hugh, I know, of course--your other name?' + +'I have no other name.' + +'A very strange fellow! Do you mean that you never knew one, or +that you don't choose to tell it? Which?' + +'I'd tell it if I could,' said Hugh, quickly. 'I can't. I have +been always called Hugh; nothing more. I never knew, nor saw, nor +thought about a father; and I was a boy of six--that's not very +old--when they hung my mother up at Tyburn for a couple of thousand +men to stare at. They might have let her live. She was poor +enough.' + +'How very sad!' exclaimed his patron, with a condescending smile. +'I have no doubt she was an exceedingly fine woman.' + +'You see that dog of mine?' said Hugh, abruptly. + +'Faithful, I dare say?' rejoined his patron, looking at him through +his glass; 'and immensely clever? Virtuous and gifted animals, +whether man or beast, always are so very hideous.' + +'Such a dog as that, and one of the same breed, was the only living +thing except me that howled that day,' said Hugh. 'Out of the two +thousand odd--there was a larger crowd for its being a woman--the +dog and I alone had any pity. If he'd have been a man, he'd have +been glad to be quit of her, for she had been forced to keep him +lean and half-starved; but being a dog, and not having a man's +sense, he was sorry.' + +'It was dull of the brute, certainly,' said Mr Chester, 'and very +like a brute.' + +Hugh made no rejoinder, but whistling to his dog, who sprung up at +the sound and came jumping and sporting about him, bade his +sympathising friend good night. + +'Good night; he returned. 'Remember; you're safe with me--quite +safe. So long as you deserve it, my good fellow, as I hope you +always will, you have a friend in me, on whose silence you may +rely. Now do be careful of yourself, pray do, and consider what +jeopardy you might have stood in. Good night! bless you!' + +Hugh truckled before the hidden meaning of these words as much as +such a being could, and crept out of the door so submissively and +subserviently--with an air, in short, so different from that with +which he had entered--that his patron on being left alone, smiled +more than ever. + +'And yet,' he said, as he took a pinch of snuff, 'I do not like +their having hanged his mother. The fellow has a fine eye, and I +am sure she was handsome. But very probably she was coarse--red- +nosed perhaps, and had clumsy feet. Aye, it was all for the best, +no doubt.' + +With this comforting reflection, he put on his coat, took a +farewell glance at the glass, and summoned his man, who promptly +attended, followed by a chair and its two bearers. + +'Foh!' said Mr Chester. 'The very atmosphere that centaur has +breathed, seems tainted with the cart and ladder. Here, Peak. +Bring some scent and sprinkle the floor; and take away the chair he +sat upon, and air it; and dash a little of that mixture upon me. I +am stifled!' + +The man obeyed; and the room and its master being both purified, +nothing remained for Mr Chester but to demand his hat, to fold it +jauntily under his arm, to take his seat in the chair and be +carried off; humming a fashionable tune. + + + +Chapter 24 + + +How the accomplished gentleman spent the evening in the midst of a +dazzling and brilliant circle; how he enchanted all those with +whom he mingled by the grace of his deportment, the politeness of +his manner, the vivacity of his conversation, and the sweetness of +his voice; how it was observed in every corner, that Chester was a +man of that happy disposition that nothing ruffled him, that he was +one on whom the world's cares and errors sat lightly as his dress, +and in whose smiling face a calm and tranquil mind was constantly +reflected; how honest men, who by instinct knew him better, +bowed down before him nevertheless, deferred to his every word, and +courted his favourable notice; how people, who really had good in +them, went with the stream, and fawned and flattered, and approved, +and despised themselves while they did so, and yet had not the +courage to resist; how, in short, he was one of those who are +received and cherished in society (as the phrase is) by scores who +individually would shrink from and be repelled by the object of +their lavish regard; are things of course, which will suggest +themselves. Matter so commonplace needs but a passing glance, and +there an end. + +The despisers of mankind--apart from the mere fools and mimics, of +that creed--are of two sorts. They who believe their merit +neglected and unappreciated, make up one class; they who receive +adulation and flattery, knowing their own worthlessness, compose +the other. Be sure that the coldest-hearted misanthropes are ever +of this last order. + +Mr Chester sat up in bed next morning, sipping his coffee, and +remembering with a kind of contemptuous satisfaction how he had +shone last night, and how he had been caressed and courted, when +his servant brought in a very small scrap of dirty paper, tightly +sealed in two places, on the inside whereof was inscribed in pretty +large text these words: 'A friend. Desiring of a conference. +Immediate. Private. Burn it when you've read it.' + +'Where in the name of the Gunpowder Plot did you pick up this?' +said his master. + +It was given him by a person then waiting at the door, the man +replied. + +'With a cloak and dagger?' said Mr Chester. + +With nothing more threatening about him, it appeared, than a +leather apron and a dirty face. 'Let him come in.' In he came--Mr +Tappertit; with his hair still on end, and a great lock in his +hand, which he put down on the floor in the middle of the chamber +as if he were about to go through some performances in which it was +a necessary agent. + +'Sir,' said Mr Tappertit with a low bow, 'I thank you for this +condescension, and am glad to see you. Pardon the menial office in +which I am engaged, sir, and extend your sympathies to one, who, +humble as his appearance is, has inn'ard workings far above his +station.' + +Mr Chester held the bed-curtain farther back, and looked at him +with a vague impression that he was some maniac, who had not only +broken open the door of his place of confinement, but had brought +away the lock. Mr Tappertit bowed again, and displayed his legs to +the best advantage. + +'You have heard, sir,' said Mr Tappertit, laying his hand upon his +breast, 'of G. Varden Locksmith and bell-hanger and repairs neatly +executed in town and country, Clerkenwell, London?' + +'What then?' asked Mr Chester. + +'I'm his 'prentice, sir.' + +'What THEN?' + +'Ahem!' said Mr Tappertit. 'Would you permit me to shut the door, +sir, and will you further, sir, give me your honour bright, that +what passes between us is in the strictest confidence?' + +Mr Chester laid himself calmly down in bed again, and turning a +perfectly undisturbed face towards the strange apparition, which +had by this time closed the door, begged him to speak out, and to +be as rational as he could, without putting himself to any very +great personal inconvenience. + +'In the first place, sir,' said Mr Tappertit, producing a small +pocket-handkerchief and shaking it out of the folds, 'as I have not +a card about me (for the envy of masters debases us below that +level) allow me to offer the best substitute that circumstances +will admit of. If you will take that in your own hand, sir, and +cast your eye on the right-hand corner,' said Mr Tappertit, +offering it with a graceful air, 'you will meet with my +credentials.' + +'Thank you,' answered Mr Chester, politely accepting it, and +turning to some blood-red characters at one end. '"Four. Simon +Tappertit. One." Is that the--' + +'Without the numbers, sir, that is my name,' replied the 'prentice. +'They are merely intended as directions to the washerwoman, and +have no connection with myself or family. YOUR name, sir,' said Mr +Tappertit, looking very hard at his nightcap, 'is Chester, I +suppose? You needn't pull it off, sir, thank you. I observe E. C. +from here. We will take the rest for granted.' + +'Pray, Mr Tappertit,' said Mr Chester, 'has that complicated piece +of ironmongery which you have done me the favour to bring with you, +any immediate connection with the business we are to discuss?' + +'It has not, sir,' rejoined the 'prentice. 'It's going to be +fitted on a ware'us-door in Thames Street.' + +'Perhaps, as that is the case,' said Mr Chester, 'and as it has a +stronger flavour of oil than I usually refresh my bedroom with, you +will oblige me so far as to put it outside the door?' + +'By all means, sir,' said Mr Tappertit, suiting the action to the +word. + +'You'll excuse my mentioning it, I hope?' + +'Don't apologise, sir, I beg. And now, if you please, to +business.' + +During the whole of this dialogue, Mr Chester had suffered nothing +but his smile of unvarying serenity and politeness to appear upon +his face. Sim Tappertit, who had far too good an opinion of +himself to suspect that anybody could be playing upon him, thought +within himself that this was something like the respect to which he +was entitled, and drew a comparison from this courteous demeanour +of a stranger, by no means favourable to the worthy locksmith. + +'From what passes in our house,' said Mr Tappertit, 'I am aware, +sir, that your son keeps company with a young lady against your +inclinations. Sir, your son has not used me well.' + +'Mr Tappertit,' said the other, 'you grieve me beyond description.' + +'Thank you, sir,' replied the 'prentice. 'I'm glad to hear you say +so. He's very proud, sir, is your son; very haughty.' + +'I am afraid he IS haughty,' said Mr Chester. 'Do you know I was +really afraid of that before; and you confirm me?' + +'To recount the menial offices I've had to do for your son, sir,' +said Mr Tappertit; 'the chairs I've had to hand him, the coaches +I've had to call for him, the numerous degrading duties, wholly +unconnected with my indenters, that I've had to do for him, would +fill a family Bible. Besides which, sir, he is but a young man +himself and I do not consider "thank'ee Sim," a proper form of +address on those occasions.' + +'Mr Tappertit, your wisdom is beyond your years. Pray go on.' + +'I thank you for your good opinion, sir,' said Sim, much gratified, +'and will endeavour so to do. Now sir, on this account (and +perhaps for another reason or two which I needn't go into) I am on +your side. And what I tell you is this--that as long as our people +go backwards and forwards, to and fro, up and down, to that there +jolly old Maypole, lettering, and messaging, and fetching and +carrying, you couldn't help your son keeping company with that +young lady by deputy,--not if he was minded night and day by all +the Horse Guards, and every man of 'em in the very fullest +uniform.' + +Mr Tappertit stopped to take breath after this, and then started +fresh again. + +'Now, sir, I am a coming to the point. You will inquire of me, +"how is this to he prevented?" I'll tell you how. If an honest, +civil, smiling gentleman like you--' + +'Mr Tappertit--really--' + +'No, no, I'm serious,' rejoined the 'prentice, 'I am, upon my soul. +If an honest, civil, smiling gentleman like you, was to talk but +ten minutes to our old woman--that's Mrs Varden--and flatter her up +a bit, you'd gain her over for ever. Then there's this point got-- +that her daughter Dolly,'--here a flush came over Mr Tappertit's +face--'wouldn't be allowed to be a go-between from that time +forward; and till that point's got, there's nothing ever will +prevent her. Mind that.' + +'Mr Tappertit, your knowledge of human nature--' + +'Wait a minute,' said Sim, folding his arms with a dreadful +calmness. 'Now I come to THE point. Sir, there is a villain at +that Maypole, a monster in human shape, a vagabond of the deepest +dye, that unless you get rid of and have kidnapped and carried off +at the very least--nothing less will do--will marry your son to +that young woman, as certainly and as surely as if he was the +Archbishop of Canterbury himself. He will, sir, for the hatred and +malice that he bears to you; let alone the pleasure of doing a bad +action, which to him is its own reward. If you knew how this chap, +this Joseph Willet--that's his name--comes backwards and forwards +to our house, libelling, and denouncing, and threatening you, and +how I shudder when I hear him, you'd hate him worse than I do,-- +worse than I do, sir,' said Mr Tappertit wildly, putting his hair +up straighter, and making a crunching noise with his teeth; 'if +sich a thing is possible.' + +'A little private vengeance in this, Mr Tappertit?' + +'Private vengeance, sir, or public sentiment, or both combined-- +destroy him,' said Mr Tappertit. 'Miggs says so too. Miggs and me +both say so. We can't bear the plotting and undermining that takes +place. Our souls recoil from it. Barnaby Rudge and Mrs Rudge are +in it likewise; but the villain, Joseph Willet, is the ringleader. +Their plottings and schemes are known to me and Miggs. If you want +information of 'em, apply to us. Put Joseph Willet down, sir. +Destroy him. Crush him. And be happy.' + +With these words, Mr Tappertit, who seemed to expect no reply, and +to hold it as a necessary consequence of his eloquence that his +hearer should be utterly stunned, dumbfoundered, and overwhelmed, +folded his arms so that the palm of each hand rested on the +opposite shoulder, and disappeared after the manner of those +mysterious warners of whom he had read in cheap story-books. + +'That fellow,' said Mr Chester, relaxing his face when he was +fairly gone, 'is good practice. I HAVE some command of my +features, beyond all doubt. He fully confirms what I suspected, +though; and blunt tools are sometimes found of use, where sharper +instruments would fail. I fear I may be obliged to make great +havoc among these worthy people. A troublesome necessity! I +quite feel for them.' + +With that he fell into a quiet slumber:--subsided into such a +gentle, pleasant sleep, that it was quite infantine. + + + +Chapter 25 + + +Leaving the favoured, and well-received, and flattered of the +world; him of the world most worldly, who never compromised himself +by an ungentlemanly action, and never was guilty of a manly one; to +lie smilingly asleep--for even sleep, working but little change in +his dissembling face, became with him a piece of cold, conventional +hypocrisy--we follow in the steps of two slow travellers on foot, +making towards Chigwell. + +Barnaby and his mother. Grip in their company, of course. + +The widow, to whom each painful mile seemed longer than the last, +toiled wearily along; while Barnaby, yielding to every inconstant +impulse, fluttered here and there, now leaving her far behind, now +lingering far behind himself, now darting into some by-lane or path +and leaving her to pursue her way alone, until he stealthily +emerged again and came upon her with a wild shout of merriment, as +his wayward and capricious nature prompted. Now he would call to +her from the topmost branch of some high tree by the roadside; now +using his tall staff as a leaping-pole, come flying over ditch or +hedge or five-barred gate; now run with surprising swiftness for a +mile or more on the straight road, and halting, sport upon a patch +of grass with Grip till she came up. These were his delights; and +when his patient mother heard his merry voice, or looked into his +flushed and healthy face, she would not have abated them by one sad +word or murmur, though each had been to her a source of suffering +in the same degree as it was to him of pleasure. + +It is something to look upon enjoyment, so that it be free and +wild and in the face of nature, though it is but the enjoyment of +an idiot. It is something to know that Heaven has left the +capacity of gladness in such a creature's breast; it is something +to be assured that, however lightly men may crush that faculty in +their fellows, the Great Creator of mankind imparts it even to his +despised and slighted work. Who would not rather see a poor idiot +happy in the sunlight, than a wise man pining in a darkened jail! + +Ye men of gloom and austerity, who paint the face of Infinite +Benevolence with an eternal frown; read in the Everlasting Book, +wide open to your view, the lesson it would teach. Its pictures +are not in black and sombre hues, but bright and glowing tints; its +music--save when ye drown it--is not in sighs and groans, but songs +and cheerful sounds. Listen to the million voices in the summer +air, and find one dismal as your own. Remember, if ye can, the +sense of hope and pleasure which every glad return of day awakens +in the breast of all your kind who have not changed their nature; +and learn some wisdom even from the witless, when their hearts are +lifted up they know not why, by all the mirth and happiness it +brings. + +The widow's breast was full of care, was laden heavily with secret +dread and sorrow; but her boy's gaiety of heart gladdened her, and +beguiled the long journey. Sometimes he would bid her lean upon +his arm, and would keep beside her steadily for a short distance; +but it was more his nature to be rambling to and fro, and she +better liked to see him free and happy, even than to have him near +her, because she loved him better than herself. + +She had quitted the place to which they were travelling, directly +after the event which had changed her whole existence; and for two- +and-twenty years had never had courage to revisit it. It was her +native village. How many recollections crowded on her mind when it +appeared in sight! + +Two-and-twenty years. Her boy's whole life and history. The last +time she looked back upon those roofs among the trees, she carried +him in her arms, an infant. How often since that time had she sat +beside him night and day, watching for the dawn of mind that never +came; how had she feared, and doubted, and yet hoped, long after +conviction forced itself upon her! The little stratagems she had +devised to try him, the little tokens he had given in his childish +way--not of dulness but of something infinitely worse, so ghastly +and unchildlike in its cunning--came back as vividly as if but +yesterday had intervened. The room in which they used to be; the +spot in which his cradle stood; he, old and elfin-like in face, but +ever dear to her, gazing at her with a wild and vacant eye, and +crooning some uncouth song as she sat by and rocked him; every +circumstance of his infancy came thronging back, and the most +trivial, perhaps, the most distinctly. + +His older childhood, too; the strange imaginings he had; his terror +of certain senseless things--familiar objects he endowed with life; +the slow and gradual breaking out of that one horror, in which, +before his birth, his darkened intellect began; how, in the midst +of all, she had found some hope and comfort in his being unlike +another child, and had gone on almost believing in the slow +development of his mind until he grew a man, and then his childhood +was complete and lasting; one after another, all these old thoughts +sprung up within her, strong after their long slumber and bitterer +than ever. + +She took his arm and they hurried through the village street. It +was the same as it was wont to be in old times, yet different too, +and wore another air. The change was in herself, not it; but she +never thought of that, and wondered at its alteration, and where it +lay, and what it was. + +The people all knew Barnaby, and the children of the place came +flocking round him--as she remembered to have done with their +fathers and mothers round some silly beggarman, when a child +herself. None of them knew her; they passed each well-remembered +house, and yard, and homestead; and striking into the fields, were +soon alone again. + +The Warren was the end of their journey. Mr Haredale was walking +in the garden, and seeing them as they passed the iron gate, +unlocked it, and bade them enter that way. + +'At length you have mustered heart to visit the old place,' he said +to the widow. 'I am glad you have.' + +'For the first time, and the last, sir,' she replied. + +'The first for many years, but not the last?' + +'The very last.' + +'You mean,' said Mr Haredale, regarding her with some surprise, +'that having made this effort, you are resolved not to persevere +and are determined to relapse? This is unworthy of you. I have +often told you, you should return here. You would be happier here +than elsewhere, I know. As to Barnaby, it's quite his home.' + +'And Grip's,' said Barnaby, holding the basket open. The raven +hopped gravely out, and perching on his shoulder and addressing +himself to Mr Haredale, cried--as a hint, perhaps, that some +temperate refreshment would be acceptable--'Polly put the ket-tle +on, we'll all have tea!' + +'Hear me, Mary,' said Mr Haredale kindly, as he motioned her to +walk with him towards the house. 'Your life has been an example of +patience and fortitude, except in this one particular which has +often given me great pain. It is enough to know that you were +cruelly involved in the calamity which deprived me of an only +brother, and Emma of her father, without being obliged to suppose +(as I sometimes am) that you associate us with the author of our +joint misfortunes.' + +'Associate you with him, sir!' she cried. + +'Indeed,' said Mr Haredale, 'I think you do. I almost believe +that because your husband was bound by so many ties to our +relation, and died in his service and defence, you have come in +some sort to connect us with his murder.' + +'Alas!' she answered. 'You little know my heart, sir. You little +know the truth!' + +'It is natural you should do so; it is very probable you may, +without being conscious of it,' said Mr Haredale, speaking more to +himself than her. 'We are a fallen house. Money, dispensed with +the most lavish hand, would be a poor recompense for sufferings +like yours; and thinly scattered by hands so pinched and tied as +ours, it becomes a miserable mockery. I feel it so, God knows,' he +added, hastily. 'Why should I wonder if she does!' + +'You do me wrong, dear sir, indeed,' she rejoined with great +earnestness; 'and yet when you come to hear what I desire your +leave to say--' + +'I shall find my doubts confirmed?' he said, observing that she +faltered and became confused. 'Well!' + +He quickened his pace for a few steps, but fell back again to her +side, and said: + +'And have you come all this way at last, solely to speak to me?' + +She answered, 'Yes.' + +'A curse,' he muttered, 'upon the wretched state of us proud +beggars, from whom the poor and rich are equally at a distance; the +one being forced to treat us with a show of cold respect; the other +condescending to us in their every deed and word, and keeping more +aloof, the nearer they approach us.--Why, if it were pain to you +(as it must have been) to break for this slight purpose the chain +of habit forged through two-and-twenty years, could you not let me +know your wish, and beg me to come to you?' + +'There was not time, sir,' she rejoined. 'I took my resolution +but last night, and taking it, felt that I must not lose a day--a +day! an hour--in having speech with you.' + +They had by this time reached the house. Mr Haredale paused for a +moment, and looked at her as if surprised by the energy of her +manner. Observing, however, that she took no heed of him, but +glanced up, shuddering, at the old walls with which such horrors +were connected in her mind, he led her by a private stair into his +library, where Emma was seated in a window, reading. + +The young lady, seeing who approached, hastily rose and laid aside +her book, and with many kind words, and not without tears, gave her +a warm and earnest welcome. But the widow shrunk from her embrace +as though she feared her, and sunk down trembling on a chair. + +'It is the return to this place after so long an absence,' said +Emma gently. 'Pray ring, dear uncle--or stay--Barnaby will run +himself and ask for wine--' + +'Not for the world,' she cried. 'It would have another taste--I +could not touch it. I want but a minute's rest. Nothing but +that.' + +Miss Haredale stood beside her chair, regarding her with silent +pity. She remained for a little time quite still; then rose and +turned to Mr Haredale, who had sat down in his easy chair, and was +contemplating her with fixed attention. + +The tale connected with the mansion borne in mind, it seemed, as +has been already said, the chosen theatre for such a deed as it had +known. The room in which this group were now assembled--hard by +the very chamber where the act was done--dull, dark, and sombre; +heavy with worm-eaten books; deadened and shut in by faded +hangings, muffling every sound; shadowed mournfully by trees whose +rustling boughs gave ever and anon a spectral knocking at the +glass; wore, beyond all others in the house, a ghostly, gloomy air. +Nor were the group assembled there, unfitting tenants of the spot. +The widow, with her marked and startling face and downcast eyes; Mr +Haredale stern and despondent ever; his niece beside him, like, yet +most unlike, the picture of her father, which gazed reproachfully +down upon them from the blackened wall; Barnaby, with his vacant +look and restless eye; were all in keeping with the place, and +actors in the legend. Nay, the very raven, who had hopped upon the +table and with the air of some old necromancer appeared to be +profoundly studying a great folio volume that lay open on a desk, +was strictly in unison with the rest, and looked like the embodied +spirit of evil biding his time of mischief. + +'I scarcely know,' said the widow, breaking silence, 'how to begin. +You will think my mind disordered.' + +'The whole tenor of your quiet and reproachless life since you were +last here,' returned Mr Haredale, mildly, 'shall bear witness for +you. Why do you fear to awaken such a suspicion? You do not speak +to strangers. You have not to claim our interest or consideration +for the first time. Be more yourself. Take heart. Any advice or +assistance that I can give you, you know is yours of right, and +freely yours.' + +'What if I came, sir,' she rejoined, 'I who have but one other +friend on earth, to reject your aid from this moment, and to say +that henceforth I launch myself upon the world, alone and +unassisted, to sink or swim as Heaven may decree!' + +'You would have, if you came to me for such a purpose,' said Mr +Haredale calmly, 'some reason to assign for conduct so +extraordinary, which--if one may entertain the possibility of +anything so wild and strange--would have its weight, of course.' + +'That, sir,' she answered, 'is the misery of my distress. I can +give no reason whatever. My own bare word is all that I can offer. +It is my duty, my imperative and bounden duty. If I did not +discharge it, I should be a base and guilty wretch. Having said +that, my lips are sealed, and I can say no more.' + +As though she felt relieved at having said so much, and had nerved +herself to the remainder of her task, she spoke from this time with +a firmer voice and heightened courage. + +'Heaven is my witness, as my own heart is--and yours, dear young +lady, will speak for me, I know--that I have lived, since that time +we all have bitter reason to remember, in unchanging devotion, and +gratitude to this family. Heaven is my witness that go where I +may, I shall preserve those feelings unimpaired. And it is my +witness, too, that they alone impel me to the course I must take, +and from which nothing now shall turn me, as I hope for mercy.' + +'These are strange riddles,' said Mr Haredale. + +'In this world, sir,' she replied, 'they may, perhaps, never be +explained. In another, the Truth will be discovered in its own +good time. And may that time,' she added in a low voice, 'be far +distant!' + +'Let me be sure,' said Mr Haredale, 'that I understand you, for I +am doubtful of my own senses. Do you mean that you are resolved +voluntarily to deprive yourself of those means of support you have +received from us so long--that you are determined to resign the +annuity we settled on you twenty years ago--to leave house, and +home, and goods, and begin life anew--and this, for some secret +reason or monstrous fancy which is incapable of explanation, which +only now exists, and has been dormant all this time? In the name +of God, under what delusion are you labouring?' + +'As I am deeply thankful,' she made answer, 'for the kindness of +those, alive and dead, who have owned this house; and as I would +not have its roof fall down and crush me, or its very walls drip +blood, my name being spoken in their hearing; I never will again +subsist upon their bounty, or let it help me to subsistence. You +do not know,' she added, suddenly, 'to what uses it may be applied; +into what hands it may pass. I do, and I renounce it.' + +'Surely,' said Mr Haredale, 'its uses rest with you.' + +'They did. They rest with me no longer. It may be--it IS--devoted +to purposes that mock the dead in their graves. It never can +prosper with me. It will bring some other heavy judgement on the +head of my dear son, whose innocence will suffer for his mother's +guilt.' + +'What words are these!' cried Mr Haredale, regarding her with +wonder. 'Among what associates have you fallen? Into what guilt +have you ever been betrayed?' + +'I am guilty, and yet innocent; wrong, yet right; good in +intention, though constrained to shield and aid the bad. Ask me no +more questions, sir; but believe that I am rather to be pitied than +condemned. I must leave my house to-morrow, for while I stay +there, it is haunted. My future dwelling, if I am to live in +peace, must be a secret. If my poor boy should ever stray this +way, do not tempt him to disclose it or have him watched when he +returns; for if we are hunted, we must fly again. And now this +load is off my mind, I beseech you--and you, dear Miss Haredale, +too--to trust me if you can, and think of me kindly as you have +been used to do. If I die and cannot tell my secret even then (for +that may come to pass), it will sit the lighter on my breast in +that hour for this day's work; and on that day, and every day until +it comes, I will pray for and thank you both, and trouble you no +more. + +With that, she would have left them, but they detained her, and +with many soothing words and kind entreaties, besought her to +consider what she did, and above all to repose more freely upon +them, and say what weighed so sorely on her mind. Finding her deaf +to their persuasions, Mr Haredale suggested, as a last resource, +that she should confide in Emma, of whom, as a young person and one +of her own sex, she might stand in less dread than of himself. +From this proposal, however, she recoiled with the same +indescribable repugnance she had manifested when they met. The +utmost that could be wrung from her was, a promise that she would +receive Mr Haredale at her own house next evening, and in the mean +time reconsider her determination and their dissuasions--though any +change on her part, as she told them, was quite hopeless. This +condition made at last, they reluctantly suffered her to depart, +since she would neither eat nor drink within the house; and she, +and Barnaby, and Grip, accordingly went out as they had come, by +the private stair and garden-gate; seeing and being seen of no one +by the way. + +It was remarkable in the raven that during the whole interview he +had kept his eye on his book with exactly the air of a very sly +human rascal, who, under the mask of pretending to read hard, was +listening to everything. He still appeared to have the +conversation very strongly in his mind, for although, when they +were alone again, he issued orders for the instant preparation of +innumerable kettles for purposes of tea, he was thoughtful, and +rather seemed to do so from an abstract sense of duty, than with +any regard to making himself agreeable, or being what is commonly +called good company. + +They were to return by the coach. As there was an interval of +full two hours before it started, and they needed rest and some +refreshment, Barnaby begged hard for a visit to the Maypole. But +his mother, who had no wish to be recognised by any of those who +had known her long ago, and who feared besides that Mr Haredale +might, on second thoughts, despatch some messenger to that place of +entertainment in quest of her, proposed to wait in the churchyard +instead. As it was easy for Barnaby to buy and carry thither such +humble viands as they required, he cheerfully assented, and in the +churchyard they sat down to take their frugal dinner. + +Here again, the raven was in a highly reflective state; walking up +and down when he had dined, with an air of elderly complacency +which was strongly suggestive of his having his hands under his +coat-tails; and appearing to read the tombstones with a very +critical taste. Sometimes, after a long inspection of an epitaph, +he would strop his beak upon the grave to which it referred, and +cry in his hoarse tones, 'I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a devil!' +but whether he addressed his observations to any supposed person +below, or merely threw them off as a general remark, is matter of +uncertainty. + +It was a quiet pretty spot, but a sad one for Barnaby's mother; for +Mr Reuben Haredale lay there, and near the vault in which his ashes +rested, was a stone to the memory of her own husband, with a brief +inscription recording how and when he had lost his life. She sat +here, thoughtful and apart, until their time was out, and the +distant horn told that the coach was coming. + +Barnaby, who had been sleeping on the grass, sprung up quickly at +the sound; and Grip, who appeared to understand it equally well, +walked into his basket straightway, entreating society in general +(as though he intended a kind of satire upon them in connection +with churchyards) never to say die on any terms. They were soon on +the coach-top and rolling along the road. + +It went round by the Maypole, and stopped at the door. Joe was +from home, and Hugh came sluggishly out to hand up the parcel that +it called for. There was no fear of old John coming out. They +could see him from the coach-roof fast asleep in his cosy bar. It +was a part of John's character. He made a point of going to sleep +at the coach's time. He despised gadding about; he looked upon +coaches as things that ought to be indicted; as disturbers of the +peace of mankind; as restless, bustling, busy, horn-blowing +contrivances, quite beneath the dignity of men, and only suited to +giddy girls that did nothing but chatter and go a-shopping. 'We +know nothing about coaches here, sir,' John would say, if any +unlucky stranger made inquiry touching the offensive vehicles; 'we +don't book for 'em; we'd rather not; they're more trouble than +they're worth, with their noise and rattle. If you like to wait +for 'em you can; but we don't know anything about 'em; they may +call and they may not--there's a carrier--he was looked upon as +quite good enough for us, when I was a boy.' + +She dropped her veil as Hugh climbed up, and while he hung behind, +and talked to Barnaby in whispers. But neither he nor any other +person spoke to her, or noticed her, or had any curiosity about +her; and so, an alien, she visited and left the village where she +had been born, and had lived a merry child, a comely girl, a happy +wife--where she had known all her enjoyment of life, and had +entered on its hardest sorrows. + + + +Chapter 26 + + +'And you're not surprised to hear this, Varden?' said Mr Haredale. +'Well! You and she have always been the best friends, and you +should understand her if anybody does.' + +'I ask your pardon, sir,' rejoined the locksmith. 'I didn't say I +understood her. I wouldn't have the presumption to say that of any +woman. It's not so easily done. But I am not so much surprised, +sir, as you expected me to be, certainly.' + +'May I ask why not, my good friend?' + +'I have seen, sir,' returned the locksmith with evident reluctance, +'I have seen in connection with her, something that has filled me +with distrust and uneasiness. She has made bad friends, how, or +when, I don't know; but that her house is a refuge for one robber +and cut-throat at least, I am certain. There, sir! Now it's out.' + +'Varden!' + +'My own eyes, sir, are my witnesses, and for her sake I would be +willingly half-blind, if I could but have the pleasure of +mistrusting 'em. I have kept the secret till now, and it will go +no further than yourself, I know; but I tell you that with my own +eyes--broad awake--I saw, in the passage of her house one evening +after dark, the highwayman who robbed and wounded Mr Edward +Chester, and on the same night threatened me.' + +'And you made no effort to detain him?' said Mr Haredale quickly. + +'Sir,' returned the locksmith, 'she herself prevented me--held me, +with all her strength, and hung about me until he had got clear +off.' And having gone so far, he related circumstantially all that +had passed upon the night in question. + +This dialogue was held in a low tone in the locksmith's little +parlour, into which honest Gabriel had shown his visitor on his +arrival. Mr Haredale had called upon him to entreat his company to +the widow's, that he might have the assistance of his persuasion +and influence; and out of this circumstance the conversation had +arisen. + +'I forbore,' said Gabriel, 'from repeating one word of this to +anybody, as it could do her no good and might do her great harm. I +thought and hoped, to say the truth, that she would come to me, and +talk to me about it, and tell me how it was; but though I have +purposely put myself in her way more than once or twice, she has +never touched upon the subject--except by a look. And indeed,' +said the good-natured locksmith, 'there was a good deal in the +look, more than could have been put into a great many words. It +said among other matters "Don't ask me anything" so imploringly, +that I didn't ask her anything. You'll think me an old fool, I +know, sir. If it's any relief to call me one, pray do.' + +'I am greatly disturbed by what you tell me,' said Mr Haredale, +after a silence. 'What meaning do you attach to it?' + +The locksmith shook his head, and looked doubtfully out of window +at the failing light. + +'She cannot have married again,' said Mr Haredale. + +'Not without our knowledge surely, sir.' + +'She may have done so, in the fear that it would lead, if known, to +some objection or estrangement. Suppose she married incautiously-- +it is not improbable, for her existence has been a lonely and +monotonous one for many years--and the man turned out a ruffian, +she would be anxious to screen him, and yet would revolt from his +crimes. This might be. It bears strongly on the whole drift of +her discourse yesterday, and would quite explain her conduct. Do +you suppose Barnaby is privy to these circumstances?' + +'Quite impossible to say, sir,' returned the locksmith, shaking his +head again: 'and next to impossible to find out from him. If what +you suppose is really the case, I tremble for the lad--a notable +person, sir, to put to bad uses--' + +'It is not possible, Varden,' said Mr Haredale, in a still lower +tone of voice than he had spoken yet, 'that we have been blinded +and deceived by this woman from the beginning? It is not possible +that this connection was formed in her husband's lifetime, and led +to his and my brother's--' + +'Good God, sir,' cried Gabriel, interrupting him, 'don't entertain +such dark thoughts for a moment. Five-and-twenty years ago, where +was there a girl like her? A gay, handsome, laughing, bright-eyed +damsel! Think what she was, sir. It makes my heart ache now, even +now, though I'm an old man, with a woman for a daughter, to think +what she was and what she is. We all change, but that's with Time; +Time does his work honestly, and I don't mind him. A fig for Time, +sir. Use him well, and he's a hearty fellow, and scorns to have +you at a disadvantage. But care and suffering (and those have +changed her) are devils, sir--secret, stealthy, undermining devils-- +who tread down the brightest flowers in Eden, and do more havoc in +a month than Time does in a year. Picture to yourself for one +minute what Mary was before they went to work with her fresh heart +and face--do her that justice--and say whether such a thing is +possible.' + +'You're a good fellow, Varden,' said Mr Haredale, 'and are quite +right. I have brooded on that subject so long, that every breath +of suspicion carries me back to it. You are quite right.' + +'It isn't, sir,' cried the locksmith with brightened eyes, and +sturdy, honest voice; 'it isn't because I courted her before Rudge, +and failed, that I say she was too good for him. She would have +been as much too good for me. But she WAS too good for him; he +wasn't free and frank enough for her. I don't reproach his memory +with it, poor fellow; I only want to put her before you as she +really was. For myself, I'll keep her old picture in my mind; and +thinking of that, and what has altered her, I'll stand her friend, +and try to win her back to peace. And damme, sir,' cried Gabriel, +'with your pardon for the word, I'd do the same if she had married +fifty highwaymen in a twelvemonth; and think it in the Protestant +Manual too, though Martha said it wasn't, tooth and nail, till +doomsday!' + +If the dark little parlour had been filled with a dense fog, which, +clearing away in an instant, left it all radiance and brightness, +it could not have been more suddenly cheered than by this outbreak +on the part of the hearty locksmith. In a voice nearly as full and +round as his own, Mr Haredale cried 'Well said!' and bade him come +away without more parley. The locksmith complied right willingly; +and both getting into a hackney coach which was waiting at the +door, drove off straightway. + +They alighted at the street corner, and dismissing their +conveyance, walked to the house. To their first knock at the door +there was no response. A second met with the like result. But in +answer to the third, which was of a more vigorous kind, the parlour +window-sash was gently raised, and a musical voice cried: + +'Haredale, my dear fellow, I am extremely glad to see you. How +very much you have improved in your appearance since our last +meeting! I never saw you looking better. HOW do you do?' + +Mr Haredale turned his eyes towards the casement whence the voice +proceeded, though there was no need to do so, to recognise the +speaker, and Mr Chester waved his hand, and smiled a courteous +welcome. + +'The door will be opened immediately,' he said. 'There is nobody +but a very dilapidated female to perform such offices. You will +excuse her infirmities? If she were in a more elevated station of +society, she would be gouty. Being but a hewer of wood and drawer +of water, she is rheumatic. My dear Haredale, these are natural +class distinctions, depend upon it.' + +Mr Haredale, whose face resumed its lowering and distrustful look +the moment he heard the voice, inclined his head stiffly, and +turned his back upon the speaker. + +'Not opened yet,' said Mr Chester. 'Dear me! I hope the aged soul +has not caught her foot in some unlucky cobweb by the way. She is +there at last! Come in, I beg!' + +Mr Haredale entered, followed by the locksmith. Turning with a +look of great astonishment to the old woman who had opened the +door, he inquired for Mrs Rudge--for Barnaby. They were both gone, +she replied, wagging her ancient head, for good. There was a +gentleman in the parlour, who perhaps could tell them more. That +was all SHE knew. + +'Pray, sir,' said Mr Haredale, presenting himself before this new +tenant, 'where is the person whom I came here to see?' + +'My dear friend,' he returned, 'I have not the least idea.' + +'Your trifling is ill-timed,' retorted the other in a suppressed +tone and voice, 'and its subject ill-chosen. Reserve it for those +who are your friends, and do not expend it on me. I lay no claim +to the distinction, and have the self-denial to reject it.' + +'My dear, good sir,' said Mr Chester, 'you are heated with walking. +Sit down, I beg. Our friend is--' + +'Is but a plain honest man,' returned Mr Haredale, 'and quite +unworthy of your notice.' + +'Gabriel Varden by name, sir,' said the locksmith bluntly. + +'A worthy English yeoman!' said Mr Chester. 'A most worthy +yeoman, of whom I have frequently heard my son Ned--darling fellow-- +speak, and have often wished to see. Varden, my good friend, I am +glad to know you. You wonder now,' he said, turning languidly to +Mr Haredale, 'to see me here. Now, I am sure you do.' + +Mr Haredale glanced at him--not fondly or admiringly--smiled, and +held his peace. + +'The mystery is solved in a moment,' said Mr Chester; 'in a moment. +Will you step aside with me one instant. You remember our little +compact in reference to Ned, and your dear niece, Haredale? You +remember the list of assistants in their innocent intrigue? You +remember these two people being among them? My dear fellow, +congratulate yourself, and me. I have bought them off.' + +'You have done what?' said Mr Haredale. + +'Bought them off,' returned his smiling friend. 'I have found it +necessary to take some active steps towards setting this boy and +girl attachment quite at rest, and have begun by removing these two +agents. You are surprised? Who CAN withstand the influence of a +little money! They wanted it, and have been bought off. We have +nothing more to fear from them. They are gone.' + +'Gone!' echoed Mr Haredale. 'Where?' + +'My dear fellow--and you must permit me to say again, that you +never looked so young; so positively boyish as you do to-night--the +Lord knows where; I believe Columbus himself wouldn't find them. +Between you and me they have their hidden reasons, but upon that +point I have pledged myself to secrecy. She appointed to see you +here to-night, I know, but found it inconvenient, and couldn't +wait. Here is the key of the door. I am afraid you'll find it +inconveniently large; but as the tenement is yours, your good- +nature will excuse that, Haredale, I am certain!' + + + +Chapter 27 + + +Mr Haredale stood in the widow's parlour with the door-key in his +hand, gazing by turns at Mr Chester and at Gabriel Varden, and +occasionally glancing downward at the key as in the hope that of +its own accord it would unlock the mystery; until Mr Chester, +putting on his hat and gloves, and sweetly inquiring whether they +were walking in the same direction, recalled him to himself. + +'No,' he said. 'Our roads diverge--widely, as you know. For the +present, I shall remain here.' + +'You will be hipped, Haredale; you will be miserable, melancholy, +utterly wretched,' returned the other. 'It's a place of the very +last description for a man of your temper. I know it will make you +very miserable.' + +'Let it,' said Mr Haredale, sitting down; 'and thrive upon the +thought. Good night!' + +Feigning to be wholly unconscious of the abrupt wave of the hand +which rendered this farewell tantamount to a dismissal, Mr Chester +retorted with a bland and heartfelt benediction, and inquired of +Gabriel in what direction HE was going. + +'Yours, sir, would be too much honour for the like of me,' replied +the locksmith, hesitating. + +'I wish you to remain here a little while, Varden,' said Mr +Haredale, without looking towards them. 'I have a word or two to +say to you.' + +'I will not intrude upon your conference another moment,' said Mr +Chester with inconceivable politeness. 'May it be satisfactory to +you both! God bless you!' So saying, and bestowing upon the +locksmith a most refulgent smile, he left them. + +'A deplorably constituted creature, that rugged person,' he said, +as he walked along the street; 'he is an atrocity that carries its +own punishment along with it--a bear that gnaws himself. And here +is one of the inestimable advantages of having a perfect command +over one's inclinations. I have been tempted in these two short +interviews, to draw upon that fellow, fifty times. Five men in six +would have yielded to the impulse. By suppressing mine, I wound +him deeper and more keenly than if I were the best swordsman in all +Europe, and he the worst. You are the wise man's very last +resource,' he said, tapping the hilt of his weapon; 'we can but +appeal to you when all else is said and done. To come to you +before, and thereby spare our adversaries so much, is a barbarian +mode of warfare, quite unworthy of any man with the remotest +pretensions to delicacy of feeling, or refinement.' + +He smiled so very pleasantly as he communed with himself after this +manner, that a beggar was emboldened to follow for alms, and to dog +his footsteps for some distance. He was gratified by the +circumstance, feeling it complimentary to his power of feature, and +as a reward suffered the man to follow him until he called a chair, +when he graciously dismissed him with a fervent blessing. + +'Which is as easy as cursing,' he wisely added, as he took his +seat, 'and more becoming to the face.--To Clerkenwell, my good +creatures, if you please!' The chairmen were rendered quite +vivacious by having such a courteous burden, and to Clerkenwell +they went at a fair round trot. + +Alighting at a certain point he had indicated to them upon the +road, and paying them something less than they expected from a fare +of such gentle speech, he turned into the street in which the +locksmith dwelt, and presently stood beneath the shadow of the +Golden Key. Mr Tappertit, who was hard at work by lamplight, in a +corner of the workshop, remained unconscious of his presence until +a hand upon his shoulder made him start and turn his head. + +'Industry,' said Mr Chester, 'is the soul of business, and the +keystone of prosperity. Mr Tappertit, I shall expect you to invite +me to dinner when you are Lord Mayor of London.' + +'Sir,' returned the 'prentice, laying down his hammer, and rubbing +his nose on the back of a very sooty hand, 'I scorn the Lord Mayor +and everything that belongs to him. We must have another state of +society, sir, before you catch me being Lord Mayor. How de do, sir?' + +'The better, Mr Tappertit, for looking into your ingenuous face +once more. I hope you are well.' + +'I am as well, sir,' said Sim, standing up to get nearer to his +ear, and whispering hoarsely, 'as any man can be under the +aggrawations to which I am exposed. My life's a burden to me. If +it wasn't for wengeance, I'd play at pitch and toss with it on the +losing hazard.' + +'Is Mrs Varden at home?' said Mr Chester. + +'Sir,' returned Sim, eyeing him over with a look of concentrated +expression,--'she is. Did you wish to see her?' + +Mr Chester nodded. + +'Then come this way, sir,' said Sim, wiping his face upon his +apron. 'Follow me, sir.--Would you permit me to whisper in your +ear, one half a second?' + +'By all means.' + +Mr Tappertit raised himself on tiptoe, applied his lips to Mr +Chester's ear, drew back his head without saying anything, looked +hard at him, applied them to his ear again, again drew back, and +finally whispered--'The name is Joseph Willet. Hush! I say no +more.' + +Having said that much, he beckoned the visitor with a mysterious +aspect to follow him to the parlour-door, where he announced him +in the voice of a gentleman-usher. 'Mr Chester.' + +'And not Mr Ed'dard, mind,' said Sim, looking into the door again, +and adding this by way of postscript in his own person; 'it's his +father.' + +'But do not let his father,' said Mr Chester, advancing hat in +hand, as he observed the effect of this last explanatory +announcement, 'do not let his father be any check or restraint on +your domestic occupations, Miss Varden.' + +'Oh! Now! There! An't I always a-saying it!' exclaimed Miggs, +clapping her hands. 'If he an't been and took Missis for her own +daughter. Well, she DO look like it, that she do. Only think of +that, mim!' + +'Is it possible,' said Mr Chester in his softest tones, 'that this +is Mrs Varden! I am amazed. That is not your daughter, Mrs +Varden? No, no. Your sister.' + +'My daughter, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs V., blushing with great +juvenility. + +'Ah, Mrs Varden!' cried the visitor. 'Ah, ma'am--humanity is +indeed a happy lot, when we can repeat ourselves in others, and +still be young as they. You must allow me to salute you--the +custom of the country, my dear madam--your daughter too.' + +Dolly showed some reluctance to perform this ceremony, but was +sharply reproved by Mrs Varden, who insisted on her undergoing it +that minute. For pride, she said with great severity, was one of +the seven deadly sins, and humility and lowliness of heart were +virtues. Wherefore she desired that Dolly would be kissed +immediately, on pain of her just displeasure; at the same time +giving her to understand that whatever she saw her mother do, she +might safely do herself, without being at the trouble of any +reasoning or reflection on the subject--which, indeed, was +offensive and undutiful, and in direct contravention of the church +catechism. + +Thus admonished, Dolly complied, though by no means willingly; for +there was a broad, bold look of admiration in Mr Chester's face, +refined and polished though it sought to be, which distressed her +very much. As she stood with downcast eyes, not liking to look up +and meet his, he gazed upon her with an approving air, and then +turned to her mother. + +'My friend Gabriel (whose acquaintance I only made this very +evening) should be a happy man, Mrs Varden.' + +'Ah!' sighed Mrs V., shaking her head. + +'Ah!' echoed Miggs. + +'Is that the case?' said Mr Chester, compassionately. 'Dear me!' + +'Master has no intentions, sir,' murmured Miggs as she sidled up +to him, 'but to be as grateful as his natur will let him, for +everythink he owns which it is in his powers to appreciate. But we +never, sir'--said Miggs, looking sideways at Mrs Varden, and +interlarding her discourse with a sigh--'we never know the full +value of SOME wines and fig-trees till we lose 'em. So much the +worse, sir, for them as has the slighting of 'em on their +consciences when they're gone to be in full blow elsewhere.' And +Miss Miggs cast up her eyes to signify where that might be. + +As Mrs Varden distinctly heard, and was intended to hear, all that +Miggs said, and as these words appeared to convey in metaphorical +terms a presage or foreboding that she would at some early period +droop beneath her trials and take an easy flight towards the stars, +she immediately began to languish, and taking a volume of the +Manual from a neighbouring table, leant her arm upon it as though +she were Hope and that her Anchor. Mr Chester perceiving this, +and seeing how the volume was lettered on the back, took it gently +from her hand, and turned the fluttering leaves. + +'My favourite book, dear madam. How often, how very often in his +early life--before he can remember'--(this clause was strictly +true) 'have I deduced little easy moral lessons from its pages, for +my dear son Ned! You know Ned?' + +Mrs Varden had that honour, and a fine affable young gentleman he +was. + +'You're a mother, Mrs Varden,' said Mr Chester, taking a pinch of +snuff, 'and you know what I, as a father, feel, when he is praised. +He gives me some uneasiness--much uneasiness--he's of a roving +nature, ma'am--from flower to flower--from sweet to sweet--but his +is the butterfly time of life, and we must not be hard upon such +trifling.' + +He glanced at Dolly. She was attending evidently to what he said. +Just what he desired! + +'The only thing I object to in this little trait of Ned's, is,' +said Mr Chester, '--and the mention of his name reminds me, by the +way, that I am about to beg the favour of a minute's talk with you +alone--the only thing I object to in it, is, that it DOES partake +of insincerity. Now, however I may attempt to disguise the fact +from myself in my affection for Ned, still I always revert to this-- +that if we are not sincere, we are nothing. Nothing upon earth. +Let us be sincere, my dear madam--' + +'--and Protestant,' murmured Mrs Varden. + +'--and Protestant above all things. Let us be sincere and +Protestant, strictly moral, strictly just (though always with a +leaning towards mercy), strictly honest, and strictly true, and we +gain--it is a slight point, certainly, but still it is something +tangible; we throw up a groundwork and foundation, so to speak, of +goodness, on which we may afterwards erect some worthy +superstructure.' + +Now, to be sure, Mrs Varden thought, here is a perfect character. +Here is a meek, righteous, thoroughgoing Christian, who, having +mastered all these qualities, so difficult of attainment; who, +having dropped a pinch of salt on the tails of all the cardinal +virtues, and caught them every one; makes light of their +possession, and pants for more morality. For the good woman never +doubted (as many good men and women never do), that this slighting +kind of profession, this setting so little store by great matters, +this seeming to say, 'I am not proud, I am what you hear, but I +consider myself no better than other people; let us change the +subject, pray'--was perfectly genuine and true. He so contrived +it, and said it in that way that it appeared to have been forced +from him, and its effect was marvellous. + +Aware of the impression he had made--few men were quicker than he +at such discoveries--Mr Chester followed up the blow by propounding +certain virtuous maxims, somewhat vague and general in their +nature, doubtless, and occasionally partaking of the character of +truisms, worn a little out at elbow, but delivered in so charming a +voice and with such uncommon serenity and peace of mind, that they +answered as well as the best. Nor is this to be wondered at; for +as hollow vessels produce a far more musical sound in falling than +those which are substantial, so it will oftentimes be found that +sentiments which have nothing in them make the loudest ringing in +the world, and are the most relished. + +Mr Chester, with the volume gently extended in one hand, and with +the other planted lightly on his breast, talked to them in the most +delicious manner possible; and quite enchanted all his hearers, +notwithstanding their conflicting interests and thoughts. Even +Dolly, who, between his keen regards and her eyeing over by Mr +Tappertit, was put quite out of countenance, could not help owning +within herself that he was the sweetest-spoken gentleman she had +ever seen. Even Miss Miggs, who was divided between admiration of +Mr Chester and a mortal jealousy of her young mistress, had +sufficient leisure to be propitiated. Even Mr Tappertit, though +occupied as we have seen in gazing at his heart's delight, could +not wholly divert his thoughts from the voice of the other charmer. +Mrs Varden, to her own private thinking, had never been so improved +in all her life; and when Mr Chester, rising and craving permission +to speak with her apart, took her by the hand and led her at arm's +length upstairs to the best sitting-room, she almost deemed him +something more than human. + +'Dear madam,' he said, pressing her hand delicately to his lips; +'be seated.' + +Mrs Varden called up quite a courtly air, and became seated. + +'You guess my object?' said Mr Chester, drawing a chair towards +her. 'You divine my purpose? I am an affectionate parent, my dear +Mrs Varden.' + +'That I am sure you are, sir,' said Mrs V. + +'Thank you,' returned Mr Chester, tapping his snuff-box lid. +'Heavy moral responsibilities rest with parents, Mrs Varden.' + +Mrs Varden slightly raised her hands, shook her head, and looked at +the ground as though she saw straight through the globe, out at the +other end, and into the immensity of space beyond. + +'I may confide in you,' said Mr Chester, 'without reserve. I love +my son, ma'am, dearly; and loving him as I do, I would save him +from working certain misery. You know of his attachment to Miss +Haredale. You have abetted him in it, and very kind of you it was +to do so. I am deeply obliged to you--most deeply obliged to you-- +for your interest in his behalf; but my dear ma'am, it is a +mistaken one, I do assure you.' + +Mrs Varden stammered that she was sorry--' + +'Sorry, my dear ma'am,' he interposed. 'Never be sorry for what is +so very amiable, so very good in intention, so perfectly like +yourself. But there are grave and weighty reasons, pressing family +considerations, and apart even from these, points of religious +difference, which interpose themselves, and render their union +impossible; utterly im-possible. I should have mentioned these +circumstances to your husband; but he has--you will excuse my +saying this so freely--he has NOT your quickness of apprehension or +depth of moral sense. What an extremely airy house this is, and +how beautifully kept! For one like myself--a widower so long-- +these tokens of female care and superintendence have inexpressible +charms.' + +Mrs Varden began to think (she scarcely knew why) that the young Mr +Chester must be in the wrong and the old Mr Chester must he in the +right. + +'My son Ned,' resumed her tempter with his most winning air, 'has +had, I am told, your lovely daughter's aid, and your open-hearted +husband's.' + +'--Much more than mine, sir,' said Mrs Varden; 'a great deal more. +I have often had my doubts. It's a--' + +'A bad example,' suggested Mr Chester. 'It is. No doubt it is. +Your daughter is at that age when to set before her an +encouragement for young persons to rebel against their parents on +this most important point, is particularly injudicious. You are +quite right. I ought to have thought of that myself, but it +escaped me, I confess--so far superior are your sex to ours, dear +madam, in point of penetration and sagacity.' + +Mrs Varden looked as wise as if she had really said something to +deserve this compliment--firmly believed she had, in short--and her +faith in her own shrewdness increased considerably. + +'My dear ma'am,' said Mr Chester, 'you embolden me to be plain +with you. My son and I are at variance on this point. The young +lady and her natural guardian differ upon it, also. And the +closing point is, that my son is bound by his duty to me, by his +honour, by every solemn tie and obligation, to marry some one +else.' + +'Engaged to marry another lady!' quoth Mrs Varden, holding up her +hands. + +'My dear madam, brought up, educated, and trained, expressly for +that purpose. Expressly for that purpose.--Miss Haredale, I am +told, is a very charming creature.' + +'I am her foster-mother, and should know--the best young lady in +the world,' said Mrs Varden. + +'I have not the smallest doubt of it. I am sure she is. And you, +who have stood in that tender relation towards her, are bound to +consult her happiness. Now, can I--as I have said to Haredale, who +quite agrees--can I possibly stand by, and suffer her to throw +herself away (although she IS of a Catholic family), upon a young +fellow who, as yet, has no heart at all? It is no imputation upon +him to say he has not, because young men who have plunged deeply +into the frivolities and conventionalities of society, very seldom +have. Their hearts never grow, my dear ma'am, till after thirty. +I don't believe, no, I do NOT believe, that I had any heart myself +when I was Ned's age.' + +'Oh sir,' said Mrs Varden, 'I think you must have had. It's +impossible that you, who have so much now, can ever have been +without any.' + +'I hope,' he answered, shrugging his shoulders meekly, 'I have a +little; I hope, a very little--Heaven knows! But to return to Ned; +I have no doubt you thought, and therefore interfered benevolently +in his behalf, that I objected to Miss Haredale. How very +natural! My dear madam, I object to him--to him--emphatically to +Ned himself.' + +Mrs Varden was perfectly aghast at the disclosure. + +'He has, if he honourably fulfils this solemn obligation of which I +have told you--and he must be honourable, dear Mrs Varden, or he is +no son of mine--a fortune within his reach. He is of most +expensive, ruinously expensive habits; and if, in a moment of +caprice and wilfulness, he were to marry this young lady, and so +deprive himself of the means of gratifying the tastes to which he +has been so long accustomed, he would--my dear madam, he would +break the gentle creature's heart. Mrs Varden, my good lady, my +dear soul, I put it to you--is such a sacrifice to be endured? Is +the female heart a thing to be trifled with in this way? Ask your +own, my dear madam. Ask your own, I beseech you.' + +'Truly,' thought Mrs Varden, 'this gentleman is a saint. But,' she +added aloud, and not unnaturally, 'if you take Miss Emma's lover +away, sir, what becomes of the poor thing's heart then?' + +'The very point,' said Mr Chester, not at all abashed, 'to which I +wished to lead you. A marriage with my son, whom I should be +compelled to disown, would be followed by years of misery; they +would be separated, my dear madam, in a twelvemonth. To break off +this attachment, which is more fancied than real, as you and I know +very well, will cost the dear girl but a few tears, and she is +happy again. Take the case of your own daughter, the young lady +downstairs, who is your breathing image'--Mrs Varden coughed and +simpered--'there is a young man (I am sorry to say, a dissolute +fellow, of very indifferent character) of whom I have heard Ned +speak--Bullet was it--Pullet--Mullet--' + +'There is a young man of the name of Joseph Willet, sir,' said Mrs +Varden, folding her hands loftily. + +'That's he,' cried Mr Chester. 'Suppose this Joseph Willet now, +were to aspire to the affections of your charming daughter, and +were to engage them.' + +'It would be like his impudence,' interposed Mrs Varden, bridling, +'to dare to think of such a thing!' + +'My dear madam, that's the whole case. I know it would be like his +impudence. It is like Ned's impudence to do as he has done; but +you would not on that account, or because of a few tears from your +beautiful daughter, refrain from checking their inclinations in +their birth. I meant to have reasoned thus with your husband when +I saw him at Mrs Rudge's this evening--' + +'My husband,' said Mrs Varden, interposing with emotion, 'would be +a great deal better at home than going to Mrs Rudge's so often. I +don't know what he does there. I don't see what occasion he has to +busy himself in her affairs at all, sir.' + +'If I don't appear to express my concurrence in those last +sentiments of yours,' returned Mr Chester, 'quite so strongly as +you might desire, it is because his being there, my dear madam, and +not proving conversational, led me hither, and procured me the +happiness of this interview with one, in whom the whole management, +conduct, and prosperity of her family are centred, I perceive.' + +With that he took Mrs Varden's hand again, and having pressed it to +his lips with the highflown gallantry of the day--a little +burlesqued to render it the more striking in the good lady's +unaccustomed eyes--proceeded in the same strain of mingled +sophistry, cajolery, and flattery, to entreat that her utmost +influence might be exerted to restrain her husband and daughter +from any further promotion of Edward's suit to Miss Haredale, and +from aiding or abetting either party in any way. Mrs Varden was +but a woman, and had her share of vanity, obstinacy, and love of +power. She entered into a secret treaty of alliance, offensive and +defensive, with her insinuating visitor; and really did believe, as +many others would have done who saw and heard him, that in so doing +she furthered the ends of truth, justice, and morality, in a very +uncommon degree. + +Overjoyed by the success of his negotiation, and mightily amused +within himself, Mr Chester conducted her downstairs in the same +state as before; and having repeated the previous ceremony of +salutation, which also as before comprehended Dolly, took his +leave; first completing the conquest of Miss Miggs's heart, by +inquiring if 'this young lady' would light him to the door. + +'Oh, mim,' said Miggs, returning with the candle. 'Oh gracious me, +mim, there's a gentleman! Was there ever such an angel to talk as +he is--and such a sweet-looking man! So upright and noble, that he +seems to despise the very ground he walks on; and yet so mild and +condescending, that he seems to say "but I will take notice on it +too." And to think of his taking you for Miss Dolly, and Miss +Dolly for your sister--Oh, my goodness me, if I was master wouldn't +I be jealous of him!' + +Mrs Varden reproved her handmaid for this vain-speaking; but very +gently and mildly--quite smilingly indeed--remarking that she was a +foolish, giddy, light-headed girl, whose spirits carried her +beyond all bounds, and who didn't mean half she said, or she would +be quite angry with her. + +'For my part,' said Dolly, in a thoughtful manner, 'I half believe +Mr Chester is something like Miggs in that respect. For all his +politeness and pleasant speaking, I am pretty sure he was making +game of us, more than once.' + +'If you venture to say such a thing again, and to speak ill of +people behind their backs in my presence, miss,' said Mrs Varden, +'I shall insist upon your taking a candle and going to bed +directly. How dare you, Dolly? I'm astonished at you. The +rudeness of your whole behaviour this evening has been disgraceful. +Did anybody ever hear,' cried the enraged matron, bursting into +tears, 'of a daughter telling her own mother she has been made game +of!' + +What a very uncertain temper Mrs Varden's was! + + + +Chapter 28 + + +Repairing to a noted coffee-house in Covent Garden when he left the +locksmith's, Mr Chester sat long over a late dinner, entertaining +himself exceedingly with the whimsical recollection of his recent +proceedings, and congratulating himself very much on his great +cleverness. Influenced by these thoughts, his face wore an +expression so benign and tranquil, that the waiter in immediate +attendance upon him felt he could almost have died in his defence, +and settled in his own mind (until the receipt of the bill, and a +very small fee for very great trouble disabused it of the idea) +that such an apostolic customer was worth half-a-dozen of the +ordinary run of visitors, at least. + +A visit to the gaming-table--not as a heated, anxious venturer, but +one whom it was quite a treat to see staking his two or three +pieces in deference to the follies of society, and smiling with +equal benevolence on winners and losers--made it late before he +reached home. It was his custom to bid his servant go to bed at +his own time unless he had orders to the contrary, and to leave a +candle on the common stair. There was a lamp on the landing by +which he could always light it when he came home late, and having a +key of the door about him he could enter and go to bed at his +pleasure. + +He opened the glass of the dull lamp, whose wick, burnt up and +swollen like a drunkard's nose, came flying off in little +carbuncles at the candle's touch, and scattering hot sparks about, +rendered it matter of some difficulty to kindle the lazy taper; +when a noise, as of a man snoring deeply some steps higher up, +caused him to pause and listen. It was the heavy breathing of a +sleeper, close at hand. Some fellow had lain down on the open +staircase, and was slumbering soundly. Having lighted the candle +at length and opened his own door, he softly ascended, holding the +taper high above his head, and peering cautiously about; curious to +see what kind of man had chosen so comfortless a shelter for his +lodging. + +With his head upon the landing and his great limbs flung over half- +a-dozen stairs, as carelessly as though he were a dead man whom +drunken bearers had thrown down by chance, there lay Hugh, face +uppermost, his long hair drooping like some wild weed upon his +wooden pillow, and his huge chest heaving with the sounds which so +unwontedly disturbed the place and hour. + +He who came upon him so unexpectedly was about to break his rest by +thrusting him with his foot, when, glancing at his upturned face, +he arrested himself in the very action, and stooping down and +shading the candle with his hand, examined his features closely. +Close as his first inspection was, it did not suffice, for he +passed the light, still carefully shaded as before, across and +across his face, and yet observed him with a searching eye. + +While he was thus engaged, the sleeper, without any starting or +turning round, awoke. There was a kind of fascination in meeting +his steady gaze so suddenly, which took from the other the presence +of mind to withdraw his eyes, and forced him, as it were, to meet +his look. So they remained staring at each other, until Mr Chester +at last broke silence, and asked him in a low voice, why he lay +sleeping there. + +'I thought,' said Hugh, struggling into a sitting posture and +gazing at him intently, still, 'that you were a part of my dream. +It was a curious one. I hope it may never come true, master.' + +'What makes you shiver?' + +'The--the cold, I suppose,' he growled, as he shook himself and +rose. 'I hardly know where I am yet.' + +'Do you know me?' said Mr Chester. + +'Ay, I know you,' he answered. 'I was dreaming of you--we're not +where I thought we were. That's a comfort.' + +He looked round him as he spoke, and in particular looked above his +head, as though he half expected to be standing under some object +which had had existence in his dream. Then he rubbed his eyes and +shook himself again, and followed his conductor into his own rooms. + +Mr Chester lighted the candles which stood upon his dressing-table, +and wheeling an easy-chair towards the fire, which was yet +burning, stirred up a cheerful blaze, sat down before it, and bade +his uncouth visitor 'Come here,' and draw his boots off. + +'You have been drinking again, my fine fellow,' he said, as Hugh +went down on one knee, and did as he was told. + +'As I'm alive, master, I've walked the twelve long miles, and +waited here I don't know how long, and had no drink between my lips +since dinner-time at noon.' + +'And can you do nothing better, my pleasant friend, than fall +asleep, and shake the very building with your snores?' said Mr +Chester. 'Can't you dream in your straw at home, dull dog as you +are, that you need come here to do it?--Reach me those slippers, +and tread softly.' + +Hugh obeyed in silence. + +'And harkee, my dear young gentleman,' said Mr Chester, as he put +them on, 'the next time you dream, don't let it be of me, but of +some dog or horse with whom you are better acquainted. Fill the +glass once--you'll find it and the bottle in the same place--and +empty it to keep yourself awake.' + +Hugh obeyed again even more zealously--and having done so, +presented himself before his patron. + +'Now,' said Mr Chester, 'what do you want with me?' + +'There was news to-day,' returned Hugh. 'Your son was at our +house--came down on horseback. He tried to see the young woman, +but couldn't get sight of her. He left some letter or some message +which our Joe had charge of, but he and the old one quarrelled +about it when your son had gone, and the old one wouldn't let it be +delivered. He says (that's the old one does) that none of his +people shall interfere and get him into trouble. He's a landlord, +he says, and lives on everybody's custom.' + +'He's a jewel,' smiled Mr Chester, 'and the better for being a dull +one.--Well?' + +'Varden's daughter--that's the girl I kissed--' + +'--and stole the bracelet from upon the king's highway,' said Mr +Chester, composedly. 'Yes; what of her?' + +'She wrote a note at our house to the young woman, saying she lost +the letter I brought to you, and you burnt. Our Joe was to carry +it, but the old one kept him at home all next day, on purpose that +he shouldn't. Next morning he gave it to me to take; and here it +is.' + +'You didn't deliver it then, my good friend?' said Mr Chester, +twirling Dolly's note between his finger and thumb, and feigning to +be surprised. + +'I supposed you'd want to have it,' retorted Hugh. 'Burn one, burn +all, I thought.' + +'My devil-may-care acquaintance,' said Mr Chester--'really if you +do not draw some nicer distinctions, your career will be cut short +with most surprising suddenness. Don't you know that the letter +you brought to me, was directed to my son who resides in this very +place? And can you descry no difference between his letters and +those addressed to other people?' + +'If you don't want it,' said Hugh, disconcerted by this reproof, +for he had expected high praise, 'give it me back, and I'll deliver +it. I don't know how to please you, master.' + +'I shall deliver it,' returned his patron, putting it away after a +moment's consideration, 'myself. Does the young lady walk out, on +fine mornings?' + +'Mostly--about noon is her usual time.' + +'Alone?' + +'Yes, alone.' + +'Where?' + +'In the grounds before the house.--Them that the footpath crosses.' + +'If the weather should be fine, I may throw myself in her way to- +morrow, perhaps,' said Mr Chester, as coolly as if she were one of +his ordinary acquaintance. 'Mr Hugh, if I should ride up to the +Maypole door, you will do me the favour only to have seen me once. +You must suppress your gratitude, and endeavour to forget my +forbearance in the matter of the bracelet. It is natural it should +break out, and it does you honour; but when other folks are by, you +must, for your own sake and safety, be as like your usual self as +though you owed me no obligation whatever, and had never stood +within these walls. You comprehend me?' + +Hugh understood him perfectly. After a pause he muttered that he +hoped his patron would involve him in no trouble about this last +letter; for he had kept it back solely with the view of pleasing +him. He was continuing in this strain, when Mr Chester with a +most beneficent and patronising air cut him short by saying: + +'My good fellow, you have my promise, my word, my sealed bond (for +a verbal pledge with me is quite as good), that I will always +protect you so long as you deserve it. Now, do set your mind at +rest. Keep it at ease, I beg of you. When a man puts himself in +my power so thoroughly as you have done, I really feel as though he +had a kind of claim upon me. I am more disposed to mercy and +forbearance under such circumstances than I can tell you, Hugh. Do +look upon me as your protector, and rest assured, I entreat you, +that on the subject of that indiscretion, you may preserve, as long +as you and I are friends, the lightest heart that ever beat within +a human breast. Fill that glass once more to cheer you on your +road homewards--I am really quite ashamed to think how far you have +to go--and then God bless you for the night.' + +'They think,' said Hugh, when he had tossed the liquor down, 'that +I am sleeping soundly in the stable. Ha ha ha! The stable door is +shut, but the steed's gone, master.' + +'You are a most convivial fellow,' returned his friend, 'and I love +your humour of all things. Good night! Take the greatest +possible care of yourself, for my sake!' + +It was remarkable that during the whole interview, each had +endeavoured to catch stolen glances of the other's face, and had +never looked full at it. They interchanged one brief and hasty +glance as Hugh went out, averted their eyes directly, and so +separated. Hugh closed the double doors behind him, carefully and +without noise; and Mr Chester remained in his easy-chair, with his +gaze intently fixed upon the fire. + +'Well!' he said, after meditating for a long time--and said with a +deep sigh and an uneasy shifting of his attitude, as though he +dismissed some other subject from his thoughts, and returned to +that which had held possession of them all the day--the plot +thickens; I have thrown the shell; it will explode, I think, in +eight-and-forty hours, and should scatter these good folks +amazingly. We shall see!' + +He went to bed and fell asleep, but had not slept long when he +started up and thought that Hugh was at the outer door, calling in +a strange voice, very different from his own, to be admitted. The +delusion was so strong upon him, and was so full of that vague +terror of the night in which such visions have their being, that he +rose, and taking his sheathed sword in his hand, opened the door, +and looked out upon the staircase, and towards the spot where Hugh +had lain asleep; and even spoke to him by name. But all was dark +and quiet, and creeping back to bed again, he fell, after an hour's +uneasy watching, into a second sleep, and woke no more till +morning. + + + +Chapter 29 + + +The thoughts of worldly men are for ever regulated by a moral law +of gravitation, which, like the physical one, holds them down to +earth. The bright glory of day, and the silent wonders of a +starlit night, appeal to their minds in vain. There are no signs +in the sun, or in the moon, or in the stars, for their reading. +They are like some wise men, who, learning to know each planet by +its Latin name, have quite forgotten such small heavenly +constellations as Charity, Forbearance, Universal Love, and Mercy, +although they shine by night and day so brightly that the blind may +see them; and who, looking upward at the spangled sky, see nothing +there but the reflection of their own great wisdom and book- +learning. + +It is curious to imagine these people of the world, busy in +thought, turning their eyes towards the countless spheres that +shine above us, and making them reflect the only images their minds +contain. The man who lives but in the breath of princes, has +nothing his sight but stars for courtiers' breasts. The envious +man beholds his neighbours' honours even in the sky; to the money- +hoarder, and the mass of worldly folk, the whole great universe +above glitters with sterling coin--fresh from the mint--stamped +with the sovereign's head--coming always between them and heaven, +turn where they may. So do the shadows of our own desires stand +between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is +eclipsed. + +Everything was fresh and gay, as though the world were but that +morning made, when Mr Chester rode at a tranquil pace along the +Forest road. Though early in the season, it was warm and genial +weather; the trees were budding into leaf, the hedges and the grass +were green, the air was musical with songs of birds, and high above +them all the lark poured out her richest melody. In shady spots, +the morning dew sparkled on each young leaf and blade of grass; +and where the sun was shining, some diamond drops yet glistened +brightly, as in unwillingness to leave so fair a world, and have +such brief existence. Even the light wind, whose rustling was as +gentle to the ear as softly-falling water, had its hope and +promise; and, leaving a pleasant fragrance in its track as it went +fluttering by, whispered of its intercourse with Summer, and of his +happy coming. + +The solitary rider went glancing on among the trees, from sunlight +into shade and back again, at the same even pace--looking about +him, certainly, from time to time, but with no greater thought of +the day or the scene through which he moved, than that he was +fortunate (being choicely dressed) to have such favourable weather. +He smiled very complacently at such times, but rather as if he were +satisfied with himself than with anything else: and so went riding +on, upon his chestnut cob, as pleasant to look upon as his own +horse, and probably far less sensitive to the many cheerful +influences by which he was surrounded. + +In the course of time, the Maypole's massive chimneys rose upon his +view: but he quickened not his pace one jot, and with the same cool +gravity rode up to the tavern porch. John Willet, who was toasting +his red face before a great fire in the bar, and who, with +surpassing foresight and quickness of apprehension, had been +thinking, as he looked at the blue sky, that if that state of +things lasted much longer, it might ultimately become necessary to +leave off fires and throw the windows open, issued forth to hold +his stirrup; calling lustily for Hugh. + +'Oh, you're here, are you, sir?' said John, rather surprised by the +quickness with which he appeared. 'Take this here valuable animal +into the stable, and have more than particular care of him if you +want to keep your place. A mortal lazy fellow, sir; he needs a +deal of looking after.' + +'But you have a son,' returned Mr Chester, giving his bridle to +Hugh as he dismounted, and acknowledging his salute by a careless +motion of his hand towards his hat. 'Why don't you make HIM +useful?' + +'Why, the truth is, sir,' replied John with great importance, 'that +my son--what, you're a-listening are you, villain?' + +'Who's listening?' returned Hugh angrily. 'A treat, indeed, to +hear YOU speak! Would you have me take him in till he's cool?' + +'Walk him up and down further off then, sir,' cried old John, 'and +when you see me and a noble gentleman entertaining ourselves with +talk, keep your distance. If you don't know your distance, sir,' +added Mr Willet, after an enormously long pause, during which he +fixed his great dull eyes on Hugh, and waited with exemplary +patience for any little property in the way of ideas that might +come to him, 'we'll find a way to teach you, pretty soon.' + +Hugh shrugged his shoulders scornfully, and in his reckless +swaggering way, crossed to the other side of the little green, and +there, with the bridle slung loosely over his shoulder, led the +horse to and fro, glancing at his master every now and then from +under his bushy eyebrows, with as sinister an aspect as one would +desire to see. + +Mr Chester, who, without appearing to do so, had eyed him +attentively during this brief dispute, stepped into the porch, and +turning abruptly to Mr Willet, said, + +'You keep strange servants, John.' + +'Strange enough to look at, sir, certainly,' answered the host; +'but out of doors; for horses, dogs, and the likes of that; there +an't a better man in England than is that Maypole Hugh yonder. He +an't fit for indoors,' added Mr Willet, with the confidential air +of a man who felt his own superior nature. 'I do that; but if that +chap had only a little imagination, sir--' + +'He's an active fellow now, I dare swear,' said Mr Chester, in a +musing tone, which seemed to suggest that he would have said the +same had there been nobody to hear him. + +'Active, sir!' retorted John, with quite an expression in his face; +'that chap! Hallo there! You, sir! Bring that horse here, and +go and hang my wig on the weathercock, to show this gentleman +whether you're one of the lively sort or not.' + +Hugh made no answer, but throwing the bridle to his master, and +snatching his wig from his head, in a manner so unceremonious and +hasty that the action discomposed Mr Willet not a little, though +performed at his own special desire, climbed nimbly to the very +summit of the maypole before the house, and hanging the wig upon +the weathercock, sent it twirling round like a roasting jack. +Having achieved this performance, he cast it on the ground, and +sliding down the pole with inconceivable rapidity, alighted on his +feet almost as soon as it had touched the earth. + +'There, sir,' said John, relapsing into his usual stolid state, +'you won't see that at many houses, besides the Maypole, where +there's good accommodation for man and beast--nor that neither, +though that with him is nothing.' + +This last remark bore reference to his vaulting on horseback, as +upon Mr Chester's first visit, and quickly disappearing by the +stable gate. + +'That with him is nothing,' repeated Mr Willet, brushing his wig +with his wrist, and inwardly resolving to distribute a small charge +for dust and damage to that article of dress, through the various +items of his guest's bill; 'he'll get out of a'most any winder in +the house. There never was such a chap for flinging himself about +and never hurting his bones. It's my opinion, sir, that it's +pretty nearly allowing to his not having any imagination; and that +if imagination could be (which it can't) knocked into him, he'd +never be able to do it any more. But we was a-talking, sir, about +my son.' + +'True, Willet, true,' said his visitor, turning again towards the +landlord with his accustomed serenity of face. 'My good friend, +what about him?' + +It has been reported that Mr Willet, previously to making answer, +winked. But as he was never known to be guilty of such lightness +of conduct either before or afterwards, this may be looked upon as +a malicious invention of his enemies--founded, perhaps, upon the +undisputed circumstance of his taking his guest by the third breast +button of his coat, counting downwards from the chin, and pouring +his reply into his ear: + +'Sir,' whispered John, with dignity, 'I know my duty. We want no +love-making here, sir, unbeknown to parents. I respect a certain +young gentleman, taking him in the light of a young gentleman; I +respect a certain young lady, taking her in the light of a young +lady; but of the two as a couple, I have no knowledge, sir, none +whatever. My son, sir, is upon his patrole.' + +'I thought I saw him looking through the corner window but this +moment,' said Mr Chester, who naturally thought that being on +patrole, implied walking about somewhere. + +'No doubt you did, sir,' returned John. 'He is upon his patrole of +honour, sir, not to leave the premises. Me and some friends of +mine that use the Maypole of an evening, sir, considered what was +best to be done with him, to prevent his doing anything unpleasant +in opposing your desires; and we've put him on his patrole. And +what's more, sir, he won't be off his patrole for a pretty long +time to come, I can tell you that.' + +When he had communicated this bright idea, which had its origin in +the perusal by the village cronies of a newspaper, containing, +among other matters, an account of how some officer pending the +sentence of some court-martial had been enlarged on parole, Mr +Willet drew back from his guest's ear, and without any visible +alteration of feature, chuckled thrice audibly. This nearest +approach to a laugh in which he ever indulged (and that but seldom +and only on extreme occasions), never even curled his lip or +effected the smallest change in--no, not so much as a slight +wagging of--his great, fat, double chin, which at these times, as +at all others, remained a perfect desert in the broad map of his +face; one changeless, dull, tremendous blank. + +Lest it should be matter of surprise to any, that Mr Willet adopted +this bold course in opposition to one whom he had often +entertained, and who had always paid his way at the Maypole +gallantly, it may be remarked that it was his very penetration and +sagacity in this respect, which occasioned him to indulge in those +unusual demonstrations of jocularity, just now recorded. For Mr +Willet, after carefully balancing father and son in his mental +scales, had arrived at the distinct conclusion that the old +gentleman was a better sort of a customer than the young one. +Throwing his landlord into the same scale, which was already turned +by this consideration, and heaping upon him, again, his strong +desires to run counter to the unfortunate Joe, and his opposition +as a general principle to all matters of love and matrimony, it +went down to the very ground straightway, and sent the light cause +of the younger gentleman flying upwards to the ceiling. Mr +Chester was not the kind of man to be by any means dim-sighted to +Mr Willet's motives, but he thanked him as graciously as if he had +been one of the most disinterested martyrs that ever shone on +earth; and leaving him, with many complimentary reliances on his +great taste and judgment, to prepare whatever dinner he might deem +most fitting the occasion, bent his steps towards the Warren. + +Dressed with more than his usual elegance; assuming a gracefulness +of manner, which, though it was the result of long study, sat +easily upon him and became him well; composing his features into +their most serene and prepossessing expression; and setting in +short that guard upon himself, at every point, which denoted that +he attached no slight importance to the impression he was about to +make; he entered the bounds of Miss Haredale's usual walk. He had +not gone far, or looked about him long, when he descried coming +towards him, a female figure. A glimpse of the form and dress as +she crossed a little wooden bridge which lay between them, +satisfied him that he had found her whom he desired to see. He +threw himself in her way, and a very few paces brought them close +together. + +He raised his hat from his head, and yielding the path, suffered +her to pass him. Then, as if the idea had but that moment +occurred to him, he turned hastily back and said in an agitated +voice: + +'I beg pardon--do I address Miss Haredale?' + +She stopped in some confusion at being so unexpectedly accosted by +a stranger; and answered 'Yes.' + +'Something told me,' he said, LOOKING a compliment to her beauty, +'that it could be no other. Miss Haredale, I bear a name which is +not unknown to you--which it is a pride, and yet a pain to me to +know, sounds pleasantly in your ears. I am a man advanced in life, +as you see. I am the father of him whom you honour and distinguish +above all other men. May I for weighty reasons which fill me with +distress, beg but a minute's conversation with you here?' + +Who that was inexperienced in deceit, and had a frank and youthful +heart, could doubt the speaker's truth--could doubt it too, when +the voice that spoke, was like the faint echo of one she knew so +well, and so much loved to hear? She inclined her head, and +stopping, cast her eyes upon the ground. + +'A little more apart--among these trees. It is an old man's hand, +Miss Haredale; an honest one, believe me.' + +She put hers in it as he said these words, and suffered him to lead +her to a neighbouring seat. + +'You alarm me, sir,' she said in a low voice. 'You are not the +bearer of any ill news, I hope?' + +'Of none that you anticipate,' he answered, sitting down beside +her. 'Edward is well--quite well. It is of him I wish to speak, +certainly; but I have no misfortune to communicate.' + +She bowed her head again, and made as though she would have begged +him to proceed; but said nothing. + +'I am sensible that I speak to you at a disadvantage, dear Miss +Haredale. Believe me that I am not so forgetful of the feelings of +my younger days as not to know that you are little disposed to view +me with favour. You have heard me described as cold-hearted, +calculating, selfish--' + +'I have never, sir,'--she interposed with an altered manner and a +firmer voice; 'I have never heard you spoken of in harsh or +disrespectful terms. You do a great wrong to Edward's nature if +you believe him capable of any mean or base proceeding.' + +'Pardon me, my sweet young lady, but your uncle--' + +'Nor is it my uncle's nature either,' she replied, with a +heightened colour in her cheek. 'It is not his nature to stab in +the dark, nor is it mine to love such deeds.' + +She rose as she spoke, and would have left him; but he detained her +with a gentle hand, and besought her in such persuasive accents to +hear him but another minute, that she was easily prevailed upon to +comply, and so sat down again. + +'And it is,' said Mr Chester, looking upward, and apostrophising +the air; 'it is this frank, ingenuous, noble nature, Ned, that you +can wound so lightly. Shame--shame upon you, boy!' + +She turned towards him quickly, and with a scornful look and +flashing eyes. There were tears in Mr Chester's eyes, but he +dashed them hurriedly away, as though unwilling that his weakness +should be known, and regarded her with mingled admiration and +compassion. + +'I never until now,' he said, 'believed, that the frivolous actions +of a young man could move me like these of my own son. I never +knew till now, the worth of a woman's heart, which boys so lightly +win, and lightly fling away. Trust me, dear young lady, that I +never until now did know your worth; and though an abhorrence of +deceit and falsehood has impelled me to seek you out, and would +have done so had you been the poorest and least gifted of your sex, +I should have lacked the fortitude to sustain this interview could +I have pictured you to my imagination as you really are.' + +Oh! If Mrs Varden could have seen the virtuous gentleman as he +said these words, with indignation sparkling from his eyes--if she +could have heard his broken, quavering voice--if she could have +beheld him as he stood bareheaded in the sunlight, and with +unwonted energy poured forth his eloquence! + +With a haughty face, but pale and trembling too, Emma regarded him +in silence. She neither spoke nor moved, but gazed upon him as +though she would look into his heart. + +'I throw off,' said Mr Chester, 'the restraint which natural +affection would impose on some men, and reject all bonds but those +of truth and duty. Miss Haredale, you are deceived; you are +deceived by your unworthy lover, and my unworthy son.' + +Still she looked at him steadily, and still said not one word. + +'I have ever opposed his professions of love for you; you will do +me the justice, dear Miss Haredale, to remember that. Your uncle +and myself were enemies in early life, and if I had sought +retaliation, I might have found it here. But as we grow older, we +grow wiser--bitter, I would fain hope--and from the first, I have +opposed him in this attempt. I foresaw the end, and would have +spared you, if I could.' + +'Speak plainly, sir,' she faltered. 'You deceive me, or are +deceived yourself. I do not believe you--I cannot--I should not.' + +'First,' said Mr Chester, soothingly, 'for there may be in your +mind some latent angry feeling to which I would not appeal, pray +take this letter. It reached my hands by chance, and by mistake, +and should have accounted to you (as I am told) for my son's not +answering some other note of yours. God forbid, Miss Haredale,' +said the good gentleman, with great emotion, 'that there should be +in your gentle breast one causeless ground of quarrel with him. +You should know, and you will see, that he was in no fault here.' + +There appeared something so very candid, so scrupulously +honourable, so very truthful and just in this course something +which rendered the upright person who resorted to it, so worthy of +belief--that Emma's heart, for the first time, sunk within her. +She turned away and burst into tears. + +'I would,' said Mr Chester, leaning over her, and speaking in mild +and quite venerable accents; 'I would, dear girl, it were my task +to banish, not increase, those tokens of your grief. My son, my +erring son,--I will not call him deliberately criminal in this, for +men so young, who have been inconstant twice or thrice before, act +without reflection, almost without a knowledge of the wrong they +do,--will break his plighted faith to you; has broken it even now. +Shall I stop here, and having given you this warning, leave it to +be fulfilled; or shall I go on?' + +'You will go on, sir,' she answered, 'and speak more plainly yet, +in justice both to him and me.' + +'My dear girl,' said Mr Chester, bending over her more +affectionately still; 'whom I would call my daughter, but the Fates +forbid, Edward seeks to break with you upon a false and most +unwarrantable pretence. I have it on his own showing; in his own +hand. Forgive me, if I have had a watch upon his conduct; I am his +father; I had a regard for your peace and his honour, and no better +resource was left me. There lies on his desk at this present +moment, ready for transmission to you, a letter, in which he tells +you that our poverty--our poverty; his and mine, Miss Haredale-- +forbids him to pursue his claim upon your hand; in which he offers, +voluntarily proposes, to free you from your pledge; and talks +magnanimously (men do so, very commonly, in such cases) of being in +time more worthy of your regard--and so forth. A letter, to be +plain, in which he not only jilts you--pardon the word; I would +summon to your aid your pride and dignity--not only jilts you, I +fear, in favour of the object whose slighting treatment first +inspired his brief passion for yourself and gave it birth in +wounded vanity, but affects to make a merit and a virtue of the +act.' + +She glanced proudly at him once more, as by an involuntary impulse, +and with a swelling breast rejoined, 'If what you say be true, he +takes much needless trouble, sir, to compass his design. He's very +tender of my peace of mind. I quite thank him.' + +'The truth of what I tell you, dear young lady,' he replied, 'you +will test by the receipt or non-receipt of the letter of which I +speak. Haredale, my dear fellow, I am delighted to see you, +although we meet under singular circumstances, and upon a +melancholy occasion. I hope you are very well.' + +At these words the young lady raised her eyes, which were filled +with tears; and seeing that her uncle indeed stood before them, and +being quite unequal to the trial of hearing or of speaking one word +more, hurriedly withdrew, and left them. They stood looking at +each other, and at her retreating figure, and for a long time +neither of them spoke. + +'What does this mean? Explain it,' said Mr Haredale at length. +'Why are you here, and why with her?' + +'My dear friend,' rejoined the other, resuming his accustomed +manner with infinite readiness, and throwing himself upon the bench +with a weary air, 'you told me not very long ago, at that +delightful old tavern of which you are the esteemed proprietor (and +a most charming establishment it is for persons of rural pursuits +and in robust health, who are not liable to take cold), that I had +the head and heart of an evil spirit in all matters of deception. +I thought at the time; I really did think; you flattered me. But +now I begin to wonder at your discernment, and vanity apart, do +honestly believe you spoke the truth. Did you ever counterfeit +extreme ingenuousness and honest indignation? My dear fellow, you +have no conception, if you never did, how faint the effort makes +one.' + +Mr Haredale surveyed him with a look of cold contempt. 'You may +evade an explanation, I know,' he said, folding his arms. 'But I +must have it. I can wait.' + +'Not at all. Not at all, my good fellow. You shall not wait a +moment,' returned his friend, as he lazily crossed his legs. 'The +simplest thing in the world. It lies in a nutshell. Ned has +written her a letter--a boyish, honest, sentimental composition, +which remains as yet in his desk, because he hasn't had the heart +to send it. I have taken a liberty, for which my parental +affection and anxiety are a sufficient excuse, and possessed +myself of the contents. I have described them to your niece (a +most enchanting person, Haredale; quite an angelic creature), with +a little colouring and description adapted to our purpose. It's +done. You may be quite easy. It's all over. Deprived of their +adherents and mediators; her pride and jealousy roused to the +utmost; with nobody to undeceive her, and you to confirm me; you +will find that their intercourse will close with her answer. If +she receives Ned's letter by to-morrow noon, you may date their +parting from to-morrow night. No thanks, I beg; you owe me none. +I have acted for myself; and if I have forwarded our compact with +all the ardour even you could have desired, I have done so +selfishly, indeed.' + +'I curse the compact, as you call it, with my whole heart and +soul,' returned the other. 'It was made in an evil hour. I have +bound myself to a lie; I have leagued myself with you; and though I +did so with a righteous motive, and though it cost me such an +effort as haply few men know, I hate and despise myself for the +deed.' + +'You are very warm,' said Mr Chester with a languid smile. + +'I AM warm. I am maddened by your coldness. 'Death, Chester, if +your blood ran warmer in your veins, and there were no restraints +upon me, such as those that hold and drag me back--well; it is +done; you tell me so, and on such a point I may believe you. When +I am most remorseful for this treachery, I will think of you and +your marriage, and try to justify myself in such remembrances, for +having torn asunder Emma and your son, at any cost. Our bond is +cancelled now, and we may part.' + +Mr Chester kissed his hand gracefully; and with the same tranquil +face he had preserved throughout--even when he had seen his +companion so tortured and transported by his passion that his whole +frame was shaken--lay in his lounging posture on the seat and +watched him as he walked away. + +'My scapegoat and my drudge at school,' he said, raising his head +to look after him; 'my friend of later days, who could not keep his +mistress when he had won her, and threw me in her way to carry off +the prize; I triumph in the present and the past. Bark on, ill- +favoured, ill-conditioned cur; fortune has ever been with me--I +like to hear you.' + +The spot where they had met, was in an avenue of trees. Mr +Haredale not passing out on either hand, had walked straight on. +He chanced to turn his head when at some considerable distance, and +seeing that his late companion had by that time risen and was +looking after him, stood still as though he half expected him to +follow and waited for his coming up. + +'It MAY come to that one day, but not yet,' said Mr Chester, +waving his hand, as though they were the best of friends, and +turning away. 'Not yet, Haredale. Life is pleasant enough to me; +dull and full of heaviness to you. No. To cross swords with such +a man--to indulge his humour unless upon extremity--would be weak +indeed.' + +For all that, he drew his sword as he walked along, and in an +absent humour ran his eye from hilt to point full twenty times. +But thoughtfulness begets wrinkles; remembering this, he soon put +it up, smoothed his contracted brow, hummed a gay tune with greater +gaiety of manner, and was his unruffled self again. + + + +Chapter 30 + + +A homely proverb recognises the existence of a troublesome class of +persons who, having an inch conceded them, will take an ell. Not +to quote the illustrious examples of those heroic scourges of +mankind, whose amiable path in life has been from birth to death +through blood, and fire, and ruin, and who would seem to have +existed for no better purpose than to teach mankind that as the +absence of pain is pleasure, so the earth, purged of their +presence, may be deemed a blessed place--not to quote such mighty +instances, it will be sufficient to refer to old John Willet. + +Old John having long encroached a good standard inch, full measure, +on the liberty of Joe, and having snipped off a Flemish ell in the +matter of the parole, grew so despotic and so great, that his +thirst for conquest knew no bounds. The more young Joe submitted, +the more absolute old John became. The ell soon faded into +nothing. Yards, furlongs, miles arose; and on went old John in the +pleasantest manner possible, trimming off an exuberance in this +place, shearing away some liberty of speech or action in that, and +conducting himself in his small way with as much high mightiness +and majesty, as the most glorious tyrant that ever had his statue +reared in the public ways, of ancient or of modern times. + +As great men are urged on to the abuse of power (when they need +urging, which is not often), by their flatterers and dependents, so +old John was impelled to these exercises of authority by the +applause and admiration of his Maypole cronies, who, in the +intervals of their nightly pipes and pots, would shake their heads +and say that Mr Willet was a father of the good old English sort; +that there were no new-fangled notions or modern ways in him; that +he put them in mind of what their fathers were when they were boys; +that there was no mistake about him; that it would be well for the +country if there were more like him, and more was the pity that +there were not; with many other original remarks of that nature. +Then they would condescendingly give Joe to understand that it was +all for his good, and he would be thankful for it one day; and in +particular, Mr Cobb would acquaint him, that when he was his age, +his father thought no more of giving him a parental kick, or a box +on the ears, or a cuff on the head, or some little admonition of +that sort, than he did of any other ordinary duty of life; and he +would further remark, with looks of great significance, that but +for this judicious bringing up, he might have never been the man he +was at that present speaking; which was probable enough, as he was, +beyond all question, the dullest dog of the party. In short, +between old John and old John's friends, there never was an +unfortunate young fellow so bullied, badgered, worried, fretted, +and brow-beaten; so constantly beset, or made so tired of his life, +as poor Joe Willet. + +This had come to be the recognised and established state of things; +but as John was very anxious to flourish his supremacy before the +eyes of Mr Chester, he did that day exceed himself, and did so +goad and chafe his son and heir, that but for Joe's having made a +solemn vow to keep his hands in his pockets when they were not +otherwise engaged, it is impossible to say what he might have done +with them. But the longest day has an end, and at length Mr +Chester came downstairs to mount his horse, which was ready at the +door. + +As old John was not in the way at the moment, Joe, who was sitting +in the bar ruminating on his dismal fate and the manifold +perfections of Dolly Varden, ran out to hold the guest's stirrup +and assist him to mount. Mr Chester was scarcely in the saddle, +and Joe was in the very act of making him a graceful bow, when old +John came diving out of the porch, and collared him. + +'None of that, sir,' said John, 'none of that, sir. No breaking of +patroles. How dare you come out of the door, sir, without leave? +You're trying to get away, sir, are you, and to make a traitor of +yourself again? What do you mean, sir?' + +'Let me go, father,' said Joe, imploringly, as he marked the smile +upon their visitor's face, and observed the pleasure his disgrace +afforded him. 'This is too bad. Who wants to get away?' + +'Who wants to get away!' cried John, shaking him. 'Why you do, +sir, you do. You're the boy, sir,' added John, collaring with one +band, and aiding the effect of a farewell bow to the visitor with +the other, 'that wants to sneak into houses, and stir up +differences between noble gentlemen and their sons, are you, eh? +Hold your tongue, sir.' + +Joe made no effort to reply. It was the crowning circumstance of +his degradation. He extricated himself from his father's grasp, +darted an angry look at the departing guest, and returned into the +house. + +'But for her,' thought Joe, as he threw his arms upon a table in +the common room, and laid his head upon them, 'but for Dolly, who I +couldn't bear should think me the rascal they would make me out to +be if I ran away, this house and I should part to-night.' + +It being evening by this time, Solomon Daisy, Tom Cobb, and Long +Parkes, were all in the common room too, and had from the window +been witnesses of what had just occurred. Mr Willet joining them +soon afterwards, received the compliments of the company with great +composure, and lighting his pipe, sat down among them. + +'We'll see, gentlemen,' said John, after a long pause, 'who's the +master of this house, and who isn't. We'll see whether boys are to +govern men, or men are to govern boys.' + +'And quite right too,' assented Solomon Daisy with some approving +nods; 'quite right, Johnny. Very good, Johnny. Well said, Mr +Willet. Brayvo, sir.' + +John slowly brought his eyes to bear upon him, looked at him for a +long time, and finally made answer, to the unspeakable +consternation of his hearers, 'When I want encouragement from you, +sir, I'll ask you for it. You let me alone, sir. I can get on +without you, I hope. Don't you tackle me, sir, if you please.' + +'Don't take it ill, Johnny; I didn't mean any harm,' pleaded the +little man. + +'Very good, sir,' said John, more than usually obstinate after his +late success. 'Never mind, sir. I can stand pretty firm of +myself, sir, I believe, without being shored up by you.' And +having given utterance to this retort, Mr Willet fixed his eyes +upon the boiler, and fell into a kind of tobacco-trance. + +The spirits of the company being somewhat damped by this +embarrassing line of conduct on the part of their host, nothing +more was said for a long time; but at length Mr Cobb took upon +himself to remark, as he rose to knock the ashes out of his pipe, +that he hoped Joe would thenceforth learn to obey his father in all +things; that he had found, that day, he was not one of the sort of +men who were to be trifled with; and that he would recommend him, +poetically speaking, to mind his eye for the future. + +'I'd recommend you, in return,' said Joe, looking up with a flushed +face, 'not to talk to me.' + +'Hold your tongue, sir,' cried Mr Willet, suddenly rousing himself, +and turning round. + +'I won't, father,' cried Joe, smiting the table with his fist, so +that the jugs and glasses rung again; 'these things are hard enough +to bear from you; from anybody else I never will endure them any +more. Therefore I say, Mr Cobb, don't talk to me.' + +'Why, who are you,' said Mr Cobb, sneeringly, 'that you're not to +be talked to, eh, Joe?' + +To which Joe returned no answer, but with a very ominous shake of +the head, resumed his old position, which he would have peacefully +preserved until the house shut up at night, but that Mr Cobb, +stimulated by the wonder of the company at the young man's +presumption, retorted with sundry taunts, which proved too much for +flesh and blood to bear. Crowding into one moment the vexation and +the wrath of years, Joe started up, overturned the table, fell upon +his long enemy, pummelled him with all his might and main, and +finished by driving him with surprising swiftness against a heap of +spittoons in one corner; plunging into which, head foremost, with a +tremendous crash, he lay at full length among the ruins, stunned +and motionless. Then, without waiting to receive the compliments +of the bystanders on the victory be had won, he retreated to his +own bedchamber, and considering himself in a state of siege, piled +all the portable furniture against the door by way of barricade. + +'I have done it now,' said Joe, as he sat down upon his bedstead +and wiped his heated face. 'I knew it would come at last. The +Maypole and I must part company. I'm a roving vagabond--she hates +me for evermore--it's all over!' + + + +Chapter 31 + + +Pondering on his unhappy lot, Joe sat and listened for a long +time, expecting every moment to hear their creaking footsteps on +the stairs, or to be greeted by his worthy father with a summons to +capitulate unconditionally, and deliver himself up straightway. +But neither voice nor footstep came; and though some distant +echoes, as of closing doors and people hurrying in and out of +rooms, resounding from time to time through the great passages, and +penetrating to his remote seclusion, gave note of unusual commotion +downstairs, no nearer sound disturbed his place of retreat, which +seemed the quieter for these far-off noises, and was as dull and +full of gloom as any hermit's cell. + +It came on darker and darker. The old-fashioned furniture of the +chamber, which was a kind of hospital for all the invalided +movables in the house, grew indistinct and shadowy in its many +shapes; chairs and tables, which by day were as honest cripples as +need be, assumed a doubtful and mysterious character; and one old +leprous screen of faded India leather and gold binding, which had +kept out many a cold breath of air in days of yore and shut in many +a jolly face, frowned on him with a spectral aspect, and stood at +full height in its allotted corner, like some gaunt ghost who +waited to be questioned. A portrait opposite the window--a queer, +old grey-eyed general, in an oval frame--seemed to wink and doze as +the light decayed, and at length, when the last faint glimmering +speck of day went out, to shut its eyes in good earnest, and fall +sound asleep. There was such a hush and mystery about everything, +that Joe could not help following its example; and so went off into +a slumber likewise, and dreamed of Dolly, till the clock of +Chigwell church struck two. + +Still nobody came. The distant noises in the house had ceased, and +out of doors all was quiet; save for the occasional barking of some +deep-mouthed dog, and the shaking of the branches by the night +wind. He gazed mournfully out of window at each well-known object +as it lay sleeping in the dim light of the moon; and creeping back +to his former seat, thought about the late uproar, until, with long +thinking of, it seemed to have occurred a month ago. Thus, between +dozing, and thinking, and walking to the window and looking out, +the night wore away; the grim old screen, and the kindred chairs +and tables, began slowly to reveal themselves in their accustomed +forms; the grey-eyed general seemed to wink and yawn and rouse +himself; and at last he was broad awake again, and very +uncomfortable and cold and haggard he looked, in the dull grey +light of morning. + +The sun had begun to peep above the forest trees, and already flung +across the curling mist bright bars of gold, when Joe dropped from +his window on the ground below, a little bundle and his trusty +stick, and prepared to descend himself. + +It was not a very difficult task; for there were so many +projections and gable ends in the way, that they formed a series of +clumsy steps, with no greater obstacle than a jump of some few feet +at last. Joe, with his stick and bundle on his shoulder, quickly +stood on the firm earth, and looked up at the old Maypole, it might +be for the last time. + +He didn't apostrophise it, for he was no great scholar. He didn't +curse it, for he had little ill-will to give to anything on earth. +He felt more affectionate and kind to it than ever he had done in +all his life before, so said with all his heart, 'God bless you!' +as a parting wish, and turned away. + +He walked along at a brisk pace, big with great thoughts of going +for a soldier and dying in some foreign country where it was very +hot and sandy, and leaving God knows what unheard-of wealth in +prize-money to Dolly, who would be very much affected when she came +to know of it; and full of such youthful visions, which were +sometimes sanguine and sometimes melancholy, but always had her for +their main point and centre, pushed on vigorously until the noise +of London sounded in his ears, and the Black Lion hove in sight. + +It was only eight o'clock then, and very much astonished the Black +Lion was, to see him come walking in with dust upon his feet at +that early hour, with no grey mare to bear him company. But as he +ordered breakfast to be got ready with all speed, and on its being +set before him gave indisputable tokens of a hearty appetite, the +Lion received him, as usual, with a hospitable welcome; and treated +him with those marks of distinction, which, as a regular customer, +and one within the freemasonry of the trade, he had a right to +claim. + +This Lion or landlord,--for he was called both man and beast, by +reason of his having instructed the artist who painted his sign, to +convey into the features of the lordly brute whose effigy it bore, +as near a counterpart of his own face as his skill could compass +and devise,--was a gentleman almost as quick of apprehension, and +of almost as subtle a wit, as the mighty John himself. But the +difference between them lay in this: that whereas Mr Willet's +extreme sagacity and acuteness were the efforts of unassisted +nature, the Lion stood indebted, in no small amount, to beer; of +which he swigged such copious draughts, that most of his faculties +were utterly drowned and washed away, except the one great faculty +of sleep, which he retained in surprising perfection. The creaking +Lion over the house-door was, therefore, to say the truth, rather a +drowsy, tame, and feeble lion; and as these social representatives +of a savage class are usually of a conventional character (being +depicted, for the most part, in impossible attitudes and of +unearthly colours), he was frequently supposed by the more ignorant +and uninformed among the neighbours, to be the veritable portrait +of the host as he appeared on the occasion of some great funeral +ceremony or public mourning. + +'What noisy fellow is that in the next room?' said Joe, when he had +disposed of his breakfast, and had washed and brushed himself. + +'A recruiting serjeant,' replied the Lion. + +Joe started involuntarily. Here was the very thing he had been +dreaming of, all the way along. + +'And I wish,' said the Lion, 'he was anywhere else but here. The +party make noise enough, but don't call for much. There's great +cry there, Mr Willet, but very little wool. Your father wouldn't +like 'em, I know.' + +Perhaps not much under any circumstances. Perhaps if he could have +known what was passing at that moment in Joe's mind, he would have +liked them still less. + +'Is he recruiting for a--for a fine regiment?' said Joe, glancing +at a little round mirror that hung in the bar. + +'I believe he is,' replied the host. 'It's much the same thing, +whatever regiment he's recruiting for. I'm told there an't a deal +of difference between a fine man and another one, when they're shot +through and through.' + +'They're not all shot,' said Joe. + +'No,' the Lion answered, 'not all. Those that are--supposing it's +done easy--are the best off in my opinion.' + +'Ah!' retorted Joe, 'but you don't care for glory.' + +'For what?' said the Lion. + +'Glory.' + +'No,' returned the Lion, with supreme indifference. 'I don't. +You're right in that, Mr Willet. When Glory comes here, and calls +for anything to drink and changes a guinea to pay for it, I'll give +it him for nothing. It's my belief, sir, that the Glory's arms +wouldn't do a very strong business.' + +These remarks were not at all comforting. Joe walked out, stopped +at the door of the next room, and listened. The serjeant was +describing a military life. It was all drinking, he said, except +that there were frequent intervals of eating and love-making. A +battle was the finest thing in the world--when your side won it-- +and Englishmen always did that. 'Supposing you should be killed, +sir?' said a timid voice in one corner. 'Well, sir, supposing you +should be,' said the serjeant, 'what then? Your country loves you, +sir; his Majesty King George the Third loves you; your memory is +honoured, revered, respected; everybody's fond of you, and grateful +to you; your name's wrote down at full length in a book in the War +Office. Damme, gentlemen, we must all die some time, or another, +eh?' + +The voice coughed, and said no more. + +Joe walked into the room. A group of half-a-dozen fellows had +gathered together in the taproom, and were listening with greedy +ears. One of them, a carter in a smockfrock, seemed wavering and +disposed to enlist. The rest, who were by no means disposed, +strongly urged him to do so (according to the custom of mankind), +backed the serjeant's arguments, and grinned among themselves. 'I +say nothing, boys,' said the serjeant, who sat a little apart, +drinking his liquor. 'For lads of spirit'--here he cast an eye on +Joe--'this is the time. I don't want to inveigle you. The king's +not come to that, I hope. Brisk young blood is what we want; not +milk and water. We won't take five men out of six. We want top- +sawyers, we do. I'm not a-going to tell tales out of school, but, +damme, if every gentleman's son that carries arms in our corps, +through being under a cloud and having little differences with his +relations, was counted up'--here his eye fell on Joe again, and so +good-naturedly, that Joe beckoned him out. He came directly. + +'You're a gentleman, by G--!' was his first remark, as he slapped +him on the back. 'You're a gentleman in disguise. So am I. Let's +swear a friendship.' + +Joe didn't exactly do that, but he shook hands with him, and +thanked him for his good opinion. + +'You want to serve,' said his new friend. 'You shall. You were +made for it. You're one of us by nature. What'll you take to +drink?' + +'Nothing just now,' replied Joe, smiling faintly. 'I haven't quite +made up my mind.' + +'A mettlesome fellow like you, and not made up his mind!' cried +the serjeant. 'Here--let me give the bell a pull, and you'll make +up your mind in half a minute, I know.' + +'You're right so far'--answered Joe, 'for if you pull the bell +here, where I'm known, there'll be an end of my soldiering +inclinations in no time. Look in my face. You see me, do you?' + +'I do,' replied the serjeant with an oath, 'and a finer young +fellow or one better qualified to serve his king and country, I +never set my--' he used an adjective in this place--'eyes on. + +'Thank you,' said Joe, 'I didn't ask you for want of a compliment, +but thank you all the same. Do I look like a sneaking fellow or a +liar?' + +The serjeant rejoined with many choice asseverations that he +didn't; and that if his (the serjeant's) own father were to say he +did, he would run the old gentleman through the body cheerfully, +and consider it a meritorious action. + +Joe expressed his obligations, and continued, 'You can trust me +then, and credit what I say. I believe I shall enlist in your +regiment to-night. The reason I don't do so now is, because I +don't want until to-night, to do what I can't recall. Where shall +I find you, this evening?' + +His friend replied with some unwillingness, and after much +ineffectual entreaty having for its object the immediate settlement +of the business, that his quarters would be at the Crooked Billet +in Tower Street; where he would be found waking until midnight, and +sleeping until breakfast time to-morrow. + +'And if I do come--which it's a million to one, I shall--when will +you take me out of London?' demanded Joe. + +'To-morrow morning, at half after eight o'clock,' replied the +serjeant. 'You'll go abroad--a country where it's all sunshine and +plunder--the finest climate in the world.' + +'To go abroad,' said Joe, shaking hands with him, 'is the very +thing I want. You may expect me.' + +'You're the kind of lad for us,' cried the serjeant, holding Joe's +hand in his, in the excess of his admiration. 'You're the boy to +push your fortune. I don't say it because I bear you any envy, or +would take away from the credit of the rise you'll make, but if I +had been bred and taught like you, I'd have been a colonel by this +time.' + +'Tush, man!' said Joe, 'I'm not so young as that. Needs must when +the devil drives; and the devil that drives me is an empty pocket +and an unhappy home. For the present, good-bye.' + +'For king and country!' cried the serjeant, flourishing his cap. + +'For bread and meat!' cried Joe, snapping his fingers. And so they +parted. + +He had very little money in his pocket; so little indeed, that +after paying for his breakfast (which he was too honest and perhaps +too proud to score up to his father's charge) he had but a penny +left. He had courage, notwithstanding, to resist all the +affectionate importunities of the serjeant, who waylaid him at +the door with many protestations of eternal friendship, and did in +particular request that he would do him the favour to accept of +only one shilling as a temporary accommodation. Rejecting his +offers both of cash and credit, Joe walked away with stick and +bundle as before, bent upon getting through the day as he best +could, and going down to the locksmith's in the dusk of the +evening; for it should go hard, he had resolved, but he would have +a parting word with charming Dolly Varden. + +He went out by Islington and so on to Highgate, and sat on many +stones and gates, but there were no voices in the bells to bid him +turn. Since the time of noble Whittington, fair flower of +merchants, bells have come to have less sympathy with humankind. +They only ring for money and on state occasions. Wanderers have +increased in number; ships leave the Thames for distant regions, +carrying from stem to stern no other cargo; the bells are silent; +they ring out no entreaties or regrets; they are used to it and +have grown worldly. + +Joe bought a roll, and reduced his purse to the condition (with a +difference) of that celebrated purse of Fortunatus, which, +whatever were its favoured owner's necessities, had one unvarying +amount in it. In these real times, when all the Fairies are dead +and buried, there are still a great many purses which possess that +quality. The sum-total they contain is expressed in arithmetic by +a circle, and whether it be added to or multiplied by its own +amount, the result of the problem is more easily stated than any +known in figures. + +Evening drew on at last. With the desolate and solitary feeling of +one who had no home or shelter, and was alone utterly in the world +for the first time, he bent his steps towards the locksmith's +house. He had delayed till now, knowing that Mrs Varden sometimes +went out alone, or with Miggs for her sole attendant, to lectures +in the evening; and devoutly hoping that this might be one of her +nights of moral culture. + +He had walked up and down before the house, on the opposite side of +the way, two or three times, when as he returned to it again, he +caught a glimpse of a fluttering skirt at the door. It was +Dolly's--to whom else could it belong? no dress but hers had such a +flow as that. He plucked up his spirits, and followed it into the +workshop of the Golden Key. + +His darkening the door caused her to look round. Oh that face! +'If it hadn't been for that,' thought Joe, 'I should never have +walked into poor Tom Cobb. She's twenty times handsomer than ever. +She might marry a Lord!' + +He didn't say this. He only thought it--perhaps looked it also. +Dolly was glad to see him, and was SO sorry her father and mother +were away from home. Joe begged she wouldn't mention it on any +account. + +Dolly hesitated to lead the way into the parlour, for there it was +nearly dark; at the same time she hesitated to stand talking in the +workshop, which was yet light and open to the street. They had got +by some means, too, before the little forge; and Joe having her +hand in his (which he had no right to have, for Dolly only gave it +him to shake), it was so like standing before some homely altar +being married, that it was the most embarrassing state of things in +the world. + +'I have come,' said Joe, 'to say good-bye--to say good-bye for I +don't know how many years; perhaps for ever. I am going abroad.' + +Now this was exactly what he should not have said. Here he was, +talking like a gentleman at large who was free to come and go and +roam about the world at pleasure, when that gallant coachmaker had +vowed but the night before that Miss Varden held him bound in +adamantine chains; and had positively stated in so many words that +she was killing him by inches, and that in a fortnight more or +thereabouts he expected to make a decent end and leave the business +to his mother. + +Dolly released her hand and said 'Indeed!' She remarked in the +same breath that it was a fine night, and in short, betrayed no +more emotion than the forge itself. + +'I couldn't go,' said Joe, 'without coming to see you. I hadn't +the heart to.' + +Dolly was more sorry than she could tell, that he should have taken +so much trouble. It was such a long way, and he must have such a +deal to do. And how WAS Mr Willet--that dear old gentleman-- + +'Is this all you say!' cried Joe. + +All! Good gracious, what did the man expect! She was obliged to +take her apron in her hand and run her eyes along the hem from +corner to corner, to keep herself from laughing in his face;--not +because his gaze confused her--not at all. + +Joe had small experience in love affairs, and had no notion how +different young ladies are at different times; he had expected to +take Dolly up again at the very point where he had left her after +that delicious evening ride, and was no more prepared for such an +alteration than to see the sun and moon change places. He had +buoyed himself up all day with an indistinct idea that she would +certainly say 'Don't go,' or 'Don't leave us,' or 'Why do you go?' +or 'Why do you leave us?' or would give him some little +encouragement of that sort; he had even entertained the possibility +of her bursting into tears, of her throwing herself into his arms, +of her falling down in a fainting fit without previous word or +sign; but any approach to such a line of conduct as this, had been +so far from his thoughts that he could only look at her in silent +wonder. + +Dolly in the meanwhile, turned to the corners of her apron, and +measured the sides, and smoothed out the wrinkles, and was as +silent as he. At last after a long pause, Joe said good-bye. +'Good-bye'--said Dolly--with as pleasant a smile as if he were +going into the next street, and were coming back to supper; 'good- +bye.' + +'Come,' said Joe, putting out both hands, 'Dolly, dear Dolly, don't +let us part like this. I love you dearly, with all my heart and +soul; with as much truth and earnestness as ever man loved woman in +this world, I do believe. I am a poor fellow, as you know--poorer +now than ever, for I have fled from home, not being able to bear it +any longer, and must fight my own way without help. You are +beautiful, admired, are loved by everybody, are well off and happy; +and may you ever be so! Heaven forbid I should ever make you +otherwise; but give me a word of comfort. Say something kind to +me. I have no right to expect it of you, I know, but I ask it +because I love you, and shall treasure the slightest word from you +all through my life. Dolly, dearest, have you nothing to say to +me?' + +No. Nothing. Dolly was a coquette by nature, and a spoilt child. +She had no notion of being carried by storm in this way. The +coachmaker would have been dissolved in tears, and would have knelt +down, and called himself names, and clasped his hands, and beat his +breast, and tugged wildly at his cravat, and done all kinds of +poetry. Joe had no business to be going abroad. He had no right +to be able to do it. If he was in adamantine chains, he couldn't. + +'I have said good-bye,' said Dolly, 'twice. Take your arm away +directly, Mr Joseph, or I'll call Miggs.' + +'I'll not reproach you,' answered Joe, 'it's my fault, no doubt. I +have thought sometimes that you didn't quite despise me, but I was +a fool to think so. Every one must, who has seen the life I have +led--you most of all. God bless you!' + +He was gone, actually gone. Dolly waited a little while, thinking +he would return, peeped out at the door, looked up the street and +down as well as the increasing darkness would allow, came in again, +waited a little longer, went upstairs humming a tune, bolted +herself in, laid her head down on her bed, and cried as if her +heart would break. And yet such natures are made up of so many +contradictions, that if Joe Willet had come back that night, next +day, next week, next month, the odds are a hundred to one she would +have treated him in the very same manner, and have wept for it +afterwards with the very same distress. + +She had no sooner left the workshop than there cautiously peered +out from behind the chimney of the forge, a face which had already +emerged from the same concealment twice or thrice, unseen, and +which, after satisfying itself that it was now alone, was followed +by a leg, a shoulder, and so on by degrees, until the form of Mr +Tappertit stood confessed, with a brown-paper cap stuck negligently +on one side of its head, and its arms very much a-kimbo. + +'Have my ears deceived me,' said the 'prentice, 'or do I dream! am +I to thank thee, Fortun', or to cus thee--which?' + +He gravely descended from his elevation, took down his piece of +looking-glass, planted it against the wall upon the usual bench, +twisted his head round, and looked closely at his legs. + +'If they're a dream,' said Sim, 'let sculptures have such wisions, +and chisel 'em out when they wake. This is reality. Sleep has no +such limbs as them. Tremble, Willet, and despair. She's mine! +She's mine!' + +With these triumphant expressions, he seized a hammer and dealt a +heavy blow at a vice, which in his mind's eye represented the +sconce or head of Joseph Willet. That done, he burst into a peal +of laughter which startled Miss Miggs even in her distant kitchen, +and dipping his head into a bowl of water, had recourse to a jack- +towel inside the closet door, which served the double purpose of +smothering his feelings and drying his face. + +Joe, disconsolate and down-hearted, but full of courage too, on +leaving the locksmith's house made the best of his way to the +Crooked Billet, and there inquired for his friend the serjeant, +who, expecting no man less, received him with open arms. In the +course of five minutes after his arrival at that house of +entertainment, he was enrolled among the gallant defenders of his +native land; and within half an hour, was regaled with a steaming +supper of boiled tripe and onions, prepared, as his friend assured +him more than once, at the express command of his most Sacred +Majesty the King. To this meal, which tasted very savoury after +his long fasting, he did ample justice; and when he had followed it +up, or down, with a variety of loyal and patriotic toasts, he was +conducted to a straw mattress in a loft over the stable, and +locked in there for the night. + +The next morning, he found that the obliging care of his martial +friend had decorated his hat with sundry particoloured streamers, +which made a very lively appearance; and in company with that +officer, and three other military gentlemen newly enrolled, who +were under a cloud so dense that it only left three shoes, a boot, +and a coat and a half visible among them, repaired to the +riverside. Here they were joined by a corporal and four more +heroes, of whom two were drunk and daring, and two sober and +penitent, but each of whom, like Joe, had his dusty stick and +bundle. The party embarked in a passage-boat bound for Gravesend, +whence they were to proceed on foot to Chatham; the wind was in +their favour, and they soon left London behind them, a mere dark +mist--a giant phantom in the air. + + + +Chapter 32 + + +Misfortunes, saith the adage, never come singly. There is little +doubt that troubles are exceedingly gregarious in their nature, and +flying in flocks, are apt to perch capriciously; crowding on the +heads of some poor wights until there is not an inch of room left +on their unlucky crowns, and taking no more notice of others who +offer as good resting-places for the soles of their feet, than if +they had no existence. It may have happened that a flight of +troubles brooding over London, and looking out for Joseph Willet, +whom they couldn't find, darted down haphazard on the first young +man that caught their fancy, and settled on him instead. However +this may be, certain it is that on the very day of Joe's departure +they swarmed about the ears of Edward Chester, and did so buzz and +flap their wings, and persecute him, that he was most profoundly +wretched. + +It was evening, and just eight o'clock, when he and his father, +having wine and dessert set before them, were left to themselves +for the first time that day. They had dined together, but a third +person had been present during the meal, and until they met at +table they had not seen each other since the previous night. + +Edward was reserved and silent. Mr Chester was more than usually +gay; but not caring, as it seemed, to open a conversation with one +whose humour was so different, he vented the lightness of his +spirit in smiles and sparkling looks, and made no effort to awaken +his attention. So they remained for some time: the father lying on +a sofa with his accustomed air of graceful negligence; the son +seated opposite to him with downcast eyes, busied, it was plain, +with painful and uneasy thoughts. + +'My dear Edward,' said Mr Chester at length, with a most engaging +laugh, 'do not extend your drowsy influence to the decanter. +Suffer THAT to circulate, let your spirits be never so stagnant.' + +Edward begged his pardon, passed it, and relapsed into his former +state. + +'You do wrong not to fill your glass,' said Mr Chester, holding up +his own before the light. 'Wine in moderation--not in excess, for +that makes men ugly--has a thousand pleasant influences. It +brightens the eye, improves the voice, imparts a new vivacity to +one's thoughts and conversation: you should try it, Ned.' + +'Ah father!' cried his son, 'if--' + +'My good fellow,' interposed the parent hastily, as he set down his +glass, and raised his eyebrows with a startled and horrified +expression, 'for Heaven's sake don't call me by that obsolete and +ancient name. Have some regard for delicacy. Am I grey, or +wrinkled, do I go on crutches, have I lost my teeth, that you adopt +such a mode of address? Good God, how very coarse!' + +'I was about to speak to you from my heart, sir,' returned Edward, +'in the confidence which should subsist between us; and you check +me in the outset.' + +'Now DO, Ned, DO not,' said Mr Chester, raising his delicate hand +imploringly, 'talk in that monstrous manner. About to speak from +your heart. Don't you know that the heart is an ingenious part of +our formation--the centre of the blood-vessels and all that sort of +thing--which has no more to do with what you say or think, than +your knees have? How can you be so very vulgar and absurd? These +anatomical allusions should be left to gentlemen of the medical +profession. They are really not agreeable in society. You quite +surprise me, Ned.' + +'Well! there are no such things to wound, or heal, or have regard +for. I know your creed, sir, and will say no more,' returned his +son. + +'There again,' said Mr Chester, sipping his wine, 'you are wrong. +I distinctly say there are such things. We know there are. The +hearts of animals--of bullocks, sheep, and so forth--are cooked and +devoured, as I am told, by the lower classes, with a vast deal of +relish. Men are sometimes stabbed to the heart, shot to the heart; +but as to speaking from the heart, or to the heart, or being warm- +hearted, or cold-hearted, or broken-hearted, or being all heart, or +having no heart--pah! these things are nonsense, Ned.' + +'No doubt, sir,' returned his son, seeing that he paused for him to +speak. 'No doubt.' + +'There's Haredale's niece, your late flame,' said Mr Chester, as a +careless illustration of his meaning. 'No doubt in your mind she +was all heart once. Now she has none at all. Yet she is the same +person, Ned, exactly.' + +'She is a changed person, sir,' cried Edward, reddening; 'and +changed by vile means, I believe.' + +'You have had a cool dismissal, have you?' said his father. 'Poor +Ned! I told you last night what would happen.--May I ask you for +the nutcrackers?' + +'She has been tampered with, and most treacherously deceived,' +cried Edward, rising from his seat. 'I never will believe that the +knowledge of my real position, given her by myself, has worked this +change. I know she is beset and tortured. But though our contract +is at an end, and broken past all redemption; though I charge upon +her want of firmness and want of truth, both to herself and me; I +do not now, and never will believe, that any sordid motive, or her +own unbiassed will, has led her to this course--never!' + +'You make me blush,' returned his father gaily, 'for the folly of +your nature, in which--but we never know ourselves--I devoutly hope +there is no reflection of my own. With regard to the young lady +herself, she has done what is very natural and proper, my dear +fellow; what you yourself proposed, as I learn from Haredale; and +what I predicted--with no great exercise of sagacity--she would do. +She supposed you to be rich, or at least quite rich enough; and +found you poor. Marriage is a civil contract; people marry to +better their worldly condition and improve appearances; it is an +affair of house and furniture, of liveries, servants, equipage, and +so forth. The lady being poor and you poor also, there is an end +of the matter. You cannot enter upon these considerations, and +have no manner of business with the ceremony. I drink her health +in this glass, and respect and honour her for her extreme good +sense. It is a lesson to you. Fill yours, Ned.' + +'It is a lesson,' returned his son, 'by which I hope I may never +profit, and if years and experience impress it on--' + +'Don't say on the heart,' interposed his father. + +'On men whom the world and its hypocrisy have spoiled,' said Edward +warmly, 'Heaven keep me from its knowledge.' + +'Come, sir,' returned his father, raising himself a little on the +sofa, and looking straight towards him; 'we have had enough of +this. Remember, if you please, your interest, your duty, your +moral obligations, your filial affections, and all that sort of +thing, which it is so very delightful and charming to reflect upon; +or you will repent it.' + +'I shall never repent the preservation of my self-respect, sir,' +said Edward. 'Forgive me if I say that I will not sacrifice it at +your bidding, and that I will not pursue the track which you would +have me take, and to which the secret share you have had in this +late separation tends.' + +His father rose a little higher still, and looking at him as though +curious to know if he were quite resolved and earnest, dropped +gently down again, and said in the calmest voice--eating his nuts +meanwhile, + +'Edward, my father had a son, who being a fool like you, and, like +you, entertaining low and disobedient sentiments, he disinherited +and cursed one morning after breakfast. The circumstance occurs to +me with a singular clearness of recollection this evening. I +remember eating muffins at the time, with marmalade. He led a +miserable life (the son, I mean) and died early; it was a happy +release on all accounts; he degraded the family very much. It is a +sad circumstance, Edward, when a father finds it necessary to +resort to such strong measures. + +'It is,' replied Edward, 'and it is sad when a son, proffering him +his love and duty in their best and truest sense, finds himself +repelled at every turn, and forced to disobey. Dear father,' he +added, more earnestly though in a gentler tone, 'I have reflected +many times on what occurred between us when we first discussed this +subject. Let there be a confidence between us; not in terms, but +truth. Hear what I have to say.' + +'As I anticipate what it is, and cannot fail to do so, Edward,' +returned his father coldly, 'I decline. I couldn't possibly. I am +sure it would put me out of temper, which is a state of mind I +can't endure. If you intend to mar my plans for your establishment +in life, and the preservation of that gentility and becoming pride, +which our family have so long sustained--if, in short, you are +resolved to take your own course, you must take it, and my curse +with it. I am very sorry, but there's really no alternative.' + +'The curse may pass your lips,' said Edward, 'but it will be but +empty breath. I do not believe that any man on earth has greater +power to call one down upon his fellow--least of all, upon his own +child--than he has to make one drop of rain or flake of snow fall +from the clouds above us at his impious bidding. Beware, sir, what +you do.' + +'You are so very irreligious, so exceedingly undutiful, so horribly +profane,' rejoined his father, turning his face lazily towards +him, and cracking another nut, 'that I positively must interrupt +you here. It is quite impossible we can continue to go on, upon +such terms as these. If you will do me the favour to ring the +bell, the servant will show you to the door. Return to this roof +no more, I beg you. Go, sir, since you have no moral sense +remaining; and go to the Devil, at my express desire. Good day.' + +Edward left the room without another word or look, and turned his +back upon the house for ever. + +The father's face was slightly flushed and heated, but his manner +was quite unchanged, as he rang the bell again, and addressed the +servant on his entrance. + +'Peak--if that gentleman who has just gone out--' + +'I beg your pardon, sir, Mr Edward?' + +'Were there more than one, dolt, that you ask the question?--If +that gentleman should send here for his wardrobe, let him have it, +do you hear? If he should call himself at any time, I'm not at +home. You'll tell him so, and shut the door.' + + +So, it soon got whispered about, that Mr Chester was very +unfortunate in his son, who had occasioned him great grief and +sorrow. And the good people who heard this and told it again, +marvelled the more at his equanimity and even temper, and said what +an amiable nature that man must have, who, having undergone so +much, could be so placid and so calm. And when Edward's name was +spoken, Society shook its head, and laid its finger on its lip, and +sighed, and looked very grave; and those who had sons about his +age, waxed wrathful and indignant, and hoped, for Virtue's sake, +that he was dead. And the world went on turning round, as usual, +for five years, concerning which this Narrative is silent. + + + +Chapter 33 + + +One wintry evening, early in the year of our Lord one thousand +seven hundred and eighty, a keen north wind arose as it grew dark, +and night came on with black and dismal looks. A bitter storm of +sleet, sharp, dense, and icy-cold, swept the wet streets, and +rattled on the trembling windows. Signboards, shaken past +endurance in their creaking frames, fell crashing on the pavement; +old tottering chimneys reeled and staggered in the blast; and many +a steeple rocked again that night, as though the earth were +troubled. + +It was not a time for those who could by any means get light and +warmth, to brave the fury of the weather. In coffee-houses of the +better sort, guests crowded round the fire, forgot to be political, +and told each other with a secret gladness that the blast grew +fiercer every minute. Each humble tavern by the water-side, had +its group of uncouth figures round the hearth, who talked of +vessels foundering at sea, and all hands lost; related many a +dismal tale of shipwreck and drowned men, and hoped that some they +knew were safe, and shook their heads in doubt. In private +dwellings, children clustered near the blaze; listening with timid +pleasure to tales of ghosts and goblins, and tall figures clad in +white standing by bed-sides, and people who had gone to sleep in +old churches and being overlooked had found themselves alone there +at the dead hour of the night: until they shuddered at the thought +of the dark rooms upstairs, yet loved to hear the wind moan too, +and hoped it would continue bravely. From time to time these happy +indoor people stopped to listen, or one held up his finger and +cried 'Hark!' and then, above the rumbling in the chimney, and the +fast pattering on the glass, was heard a wailing, rushing sound, +which shook the walls as though a giant's hand were on them; then a +hoarse roar as if the sea had risen; then such a whirl and tumult +that the air seemed mad; and then, with a lengthened howl, the +waves of wind swept on, and left a moment's interval of rest. + +Cheerily, though there were none abroad to see it, shone the +Maypole light that evening. Blessings on the red--deep, ruby, +glowing red--old curtain of the window; blending into one rich +stream of brightness, fire and candle, meat, drink, and company, +and gleaming like a jovial eye upon the bleak waste out of doors! +Within, what carpet like its crunching sand, what music merry as +its crackling logs, what perfume like its kitchen's dainty breath, +what weather genial as its hearty warmth! Blessings on the old +house, how sturdily it stood! How did the vexed wind chafe and +roar about its stalwart roof; how did it pant and strive with its +wide chimneys, which still poured forth from their hospitable +throats, great clouds of smoke, and puffed defiance in its face; +how, above all, did it drive and rattle at the casement, emulous to +extinguish that cheerful glow, which would not be put down and +seemed the brighter for the conflict! + +The profusion too, the rich and lavish bounty, of that goodly +tavern! It was not enough that one fire roared and sparkled on its +spacious hearth; in the tiles which paved and compassed it, five +hundred flickering fires burnt brightly also. It was not enough +that one red curtain shut the wild night out, and shed its cheerful +influence on the room. In every saucepan lid, and candlestick, and +vessel of copper, brass, or tin that hung upon the walls, were +countless ruddy hangings, flashing and gleaming with every motion +of the blaze, and offering, let the eye wander where it might, +interminable vistas of the same rich colour. The old oak +wainscoting, the beams, the chairs, the seats, reflected it in a +deep, dull glimmer. There were fires and red curtains in the very +eyes of the drinkers, in their buttons, in their liquor, in the +pipes they smoked. + +Mr Willet sat in what had been his accustomed place five years +before, with his eyes on the eternal boiler; and had sat there +since the clock struck eight, giving no other signs of life than +breathing with a loud and constant snore (though he was wide +awake), and from time to time putting his glass to his lips, or +knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and filling it anew. It was +now half-past ten. Mr Cobb and long Phil Parkes were his +companions, as of old, and for two mortal hours and a half, none of +the company had pronounced one word. + +Whether people, by dint of sitting together in the same place and +the same relative positions, and doing exactly the same things for +a great many years, acquire a sixth sense, or some unknown power of +influencing each other which serves them in its stead, is a +question for philosophy to settle. But certain it is that old +John Willet, Mr Parkes, and Mr Cobb, were one and all firmly of +opinion that they were very jolly companions--rather choice spirits +than otherwise; that they looked at each other every now and then +as if there were a perpetual interchange of ideas going on among +them; that no man considered himself or his neighbour by any means +silent; and that each of them nodded occasionally when he caught +the eye of another, as if he would say, 'You have expressed +yourself extremely well, sir, in relation to that sentiment, and I +quite agree with you.' + +The room was so very warm, the tobacco so very good, and the fire +so very soothing, that Mr Willet by degrees began to doze; but as +he had perfectly acquired, by dint of long habit, the art of +smoking in his sleep, and as his breathing was pretty much the +same, awake or asleep, saving that in the latter case he sometimes +experienced a slight difficulty in respiration (such as a carpenter +meets with when he is planing and comes to a knot), neither of his +companions was aware of the circumstance, until he met with one of +these impediments and was obliged to try again. + +'Johnny's dropped off,' said Mr Parkes in a whisper. + +'Fast as a top,' said Mr Cobb. + +Neither of them said any more until Mr Willet came to another knot-- +one of surpassing obduracy--which bade fair to throw him into +convulsions, but which he got over at last without waking, by an +effort quite superhuman. + +'He sleeps uncommon hard,' said Mr Cobb. + +Mr Parkes, who was possibly a hard-sleeper himself, replied with +some disdain, 'Not a bit on it;' and directed his eyes towards a +handbill pasted over the chimney-piece, which was decorated at the +top with a woodcut representing a youth of tender years running +away very fast, with a bundle over his shoulder at the end of a +stick, and--to carry out the idea--a finger-post and a milestone +beside him. Mr Cobb likewise turned his eyes in the same +direction, and surveyed the placard as if that were the first time +he had ever beheld it. Now, this was a document which Mr Willet +had himself indited on the disappearance of his son Joseph, +acquainting the nobility and gentry and the public in general with +the circumstances of his having left his home; describing his dress +and appearance; and offering a reward of five pounds to any person +or persons who would pack him up and return him safely to the +Maypole at Chigwell, or lodge him in any of his Majesty's jails +until such time as his father should come and claim him. In this +advertisement Mr Willet had obstinately persisted, despite the +advice and entreaties of his friends, in describing his son as a +'young boy;' and furthermore as being from eighteen inches to a +couple of feet shorter than he really was; two circumstances which +perhaps accounted, in some degree, for its never having been +productive of any other effect than the transmission to Chigwell +at various times and at a vast expense, of some five-and-forty +runaways varying from six years old to twelve. + +Mr Cobb and Mr Parkes looked mysteriously at this composition, at +each other, and at old John. From the time he had pasted it up +with his own hands, Mr Willet had never by word or sign alluded to +the subject, or encouraged any one else to do so. Nobody had the +least notion what his thoughts or opinions were, connected with it; +whether he remembered it or forgot it; whether he had any idea that +such an event had ever taken place. Therefore, even while he +slept, no one ventured to refer to it in his presence; and for such +sufficient reasons, these his chosen friends were silent now. + +Mr Willet had got by this time into such a complication of knots, +that it was perfectly clear he must wake or die. He chose the +former alternative, and opened his eyes. + +'If he don't come in five minutes,' said John, 'I shall have supper +without him.' + +The antecedent of this pronoun had been mentioned for the last time +at eight o'clock. Messrs Parkes and Cobb being used to this style +of conversation, replied without difficulty that to be sure Solomon +was very late, and they wondered what had happened to detain him. + +'He an't blown away, I suppose,' said Parkes. 'It's enough to +carry a man of his figure off his legs, and easy too. Do you hear +it? It blows great guns, indeed. There'll be many a crash in the +Forest to-night, I reckon, and many a broken branch upon the ground +to-morrow.' + +'It won't break anything in the Maypole, I take it, sir,' returned +old John. 'Let it try. I give it leave--what's that?' + +'The wind,' cried Parkes. 'It's howling like a Christian, and has +been all night long.' + +'Did you ever, sir,' asked John, after a minute's contemplation, +'hear the wind say "Maypole"?' + +'Why, what man ever did?' said Parkes. + +'Nor "ahoy," perhaps?' added John. + +'No. Nor that neither.' + +'Very good, sir,' said Mr Willet, perfectly unmoved; 'then if that +was the wind just now, and you'll wait a little time without +speaking, you'll hear it say both words very plain.' + +Mr Willet was right. After listening for a few moments, they could +clearly hear, above the roar and tumult out of doors, this shout +repeated; and that with a shrillness and energy, which denoted that +it came from some person in great distress or terror. They looked +at each other, turned pale, and held their breath. No man stirred. + +It was in this emergency that Mr Willet displayed something of that +strength of mind and plenitude of mental resource, which rendered +him the admiration of all his friends and neighbours. After +looking at Messrs Parkes and Cobb for some time in silence, he +clapped his two hands to his cheeks, and sent forth a roar which +made the glasses dance and rafters ring--a long-sustained, +discordant bellow, that rolled onward with the wind, and startling +every echo, made the night a hundred times more boisterous--a deep, +loud, dismal bray, that sounded like a human gong. Then, with +every vein in his head and face swollen with the great exertion, +and his countenance suffused with a lively purple, he drew a little +nearer to the fire, and turning his back upon it, said with dignity: + +'If that's any comfort to anybody, they're welcome to it. If it +an't, I'm sorry for 'em. If either of you two gentlemen likes to +go out and see what's the matter, you can. I'm not curious, +myself.' + +While he spoke the cry drew nearer and nearer, footsteps passed the +window, the latch of the door was raised, it opened, was violently +shut again, and Solomon Daisy, with a lighted lantern in his hand, +and the rain streaming from his disordered dress, dashed into the +room. + +A more complete picture of terror than the little man presented, it +would be difficult to imagine. The perspiration stood in beads +upon his face, his knees knocked together, his every limb trembled, +the power of articulation was quite gone; and there he stood, +panting for breath, gazing on them with such livid ashy looks, that +they were infected with his fear, though ignorant of its occasion, +and, reflecting his dismayed and horror-stricken visage, stared +back again without venturing to question him; until old John +Willet, in a fit of temporary insanity, made a dive at his cravat, +and, seizing him by that portion of his dress, shook him to and fro +until his very teeth appeared to rattle in his head. + +'Tell us what's the matter, sir,' said John, 'or I'll kill you. +Tell us what's the matter, sir, or in another second I'll have your +head under the biler. How dare you look like that? Is anybody a- +following of you? What do you mean? Say something, or I'll be the +death of you, I will.' + +Mr Willet, in his frenzy, was so near keeping his word to the very +letter (Solomon Daisy's eyes already beginning to roll in an +alarming manner, and certain guttural sounds, as of a choking man, +to issue from his throat), that the two bystanders, recovering in +some degree, plucked him off his victim by main force, and placed +the little clerk of Chigwell in a chair. Directing a fearful gaze +all round the room, he implored them in a faint voice to give him +some drink; and above all to lock the house-door and close and bar +the shutters of the room, without a moment's loss of time. The +latter request did not tend to reassure his hearers, or to fill +them with the most comfortable sensations; they complied with it, +however, with the greatest expedition; and having handed him a +bumper of brandy-and-water, nearly boiling hot, waited to hear what +he might have to tell them. + +'Oh, Johnny,' said Solomon, shaking him by the hand. 'Oh, Parkes. +Oh, Tommy Cobb. Why did I leave this house to-night! On the +nineteenth of March--of all nights in the year, on the nineteenth +of March!' + +They all drew closer to the fire. Parkes, who was nearest to the +door, started and looked over his shoulder. Mr Willet, with great +indignation, inquired what the devil he meant by that--and then +said, 'God forgive me,' and glanced over his own shoulder, and came +a little nearer. + +'When I left here to-night,' said Solomon Daisy, 'I little thought +what day of the month it was. I have never gone alone into the +church after dark on this day, for seven-and-twenty years. I have +heard it said that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so +the ghosts of dead people, who are not easy in their graves, keep +the day they died upon.--How the wind roars!' + +Nobody spoke. All eyes were fastened on Solomon. + +'I might have known,' he said, 'what night it was, by the foul +weather. There's no such night in the whole year round as this is, +always. I never sleep quietly in my bed on the nineteenth of +March.' + +'Go on,' said Tom Cobb, in a low voice. 'Nor I neither.' + +Solomon Daisy raised his glass to his lips; put it down upon the +floor with such a trembling hand that the spoon tinkled in it like +a little bell; and continued thus: + +'Have I ever said that we are always brought back to this subject +in some strange way, when the nineteenth of this month comes round? +Do you suppose it was by accident, I forgot to wind up the church- +clock? I never forgot it at any other time, though it's such a +clumsy thing that it has to be wound up every day. Why should it +escape my memory on this day of all others? + +'I made as much haste down there as I could when I went from here, +but I had to go home first for the keys; and the wind and rain +being dead against me all the way, it was pretty well as much as I +could do at times to keep my legs. I got there at last, opened the +church-door, and went in. I had not met a soul all the way, and +you may judge whether it was dull or not. Neither of you would +bear me company. If you could have known what was to come, you'd +have been in the right. + +'The wind was so strong, that it was as much as I could do to shut +the church-door by putting my whole weight against it; and even as +it was, it burst wide open twice, with such strength that any of +you would have sworn, if you had been leaning against it, as I was, +that somebody was pushing on the other side. However, I got the +key turned, went into the belfry, and wound up the clock--which was +very near run down, and would have stood stock-still in half an +hour. + +'As I took up my lantern again to leave the church, it came upon me +all at once that this was the nineteenth of March. It came upon me +with a kind of shock, as if a hand had struck the thought upon my +forehead; at the very same moment, I heard a voice outside the +tower--rising from among the graves.' + +Here old John precipitately interrupted the speaker, and begged +that if Mr Parkes (who was seated opposite to him and was staring +directly over his head) saw anything, he would have the goodness +to mention it. Mr Parkes apologised, and remarked that he was only +listening; to which Mr Willet angrily retorted, that his listening +with that kind of expression in his face was not agreeable, and +that if he couldn't look like other people, he had better put his +pocket-handkerchief over his head. Mr Parkes with great submission +pledged himself to do so, if again required, and John Willet +turning to Solomon desired him to proceed. After waiting until a +violent gust of wind and rain, which seemed to shake even that +sturdy house to its foundation, had passed away, the little man +complied: + +'Never tell me that it was my fancy, or that it was any other sound +which I mistook for that I tell you of. I heard the wind whistle +through the arches of the church. I heard the steeple strain and +creak. I heard the rain as it came driving against the walls. I +felt the bells shake. I saw the ropes sway to and fro. And I +heard that voice.' + +'What did it say?' asked Tom Cobb. + +'I don't know what; I don't know that it spoke. It gave a kind of +cry, as any one of us might do, if something dreadful followed us +in a dream, and came upon us unawares; and then it died off: +seeming to pass quite round the church.' + +'I don't see much in that,' said John, drawing a long breath, and +looking round him like a man who felt relieved. + +'Perhaps not,' returned his friend, 'but that's not all.' + +'What more do you mean to say, sir, is to come?' asked John, +pausing in the act of wiping his face upon his apron. 'What are +you a-going to tell us of next?' + +'What I saw.' + +'Saw!' echoed all three, bending forward. + +'When I opened the church-door to come out,' said the little man, +with an expression of face which bore ample testimony to the +sincerity of his conviction, 'when I opened the church-door to come +out, which I did suddenly, for I wanted to get it shut again before +another gust of wind came up, there crossed me--so close, that by +stretching out my finger I could have touched it--something in the +likeness of a man. It was bare-headed to the storm. It turned its +face without stopping, and fixed its eyes on mine. It was a ghost-- +a spirit.' + +'Whose?' they all three cried together. + +In the excess of his emotion (for he fell back trembling in his +chair, and waved his hand as if entreating them to question him no +further), his answer was lost on all but old John Willet, who +happened to be seated close beside him. + +'Who!' cried Parkes and Tom Cobb, looking eagerly by turns at +Solomon Daisy and at Mr Willet. 'Who was it?' + +'Gentlemen,' said Mr Willet after a long pause, 'you needn't ask. +The likeness of a murdered man. This is the nineteenth of March.' + +A profound silence ensued. + +'If you'll take my advice,' said John, 'we had better, one and all, +keep this a secret. Such tales would not be liked at the Warren. +Let us keep it to ourselves for the present time at all events, or +we may get into trouble, and Solomon may lose his place. Whether +it was really as he says, or whether it wasn't, is no matter. +Right or wrong, nobody would believe him. As to the probabilities, +I don't myself think,' said Mr Willet, eyeing the corners of the +room in a manner which showed that, like some other philosophers, +he was not quite easy in his theory, 'that a ghost as had been a +man of sense in his lifetime, would be out a-walking in such +weather--I only know that I wouldn't, if I was one.' + +But this heretical doctrine was strongly opposed by the other +three, who quoted a great many precedents to show that bad weather +was the very time for such appearances; and Mr Parkes (who had had +a ghost in his family, by the mother's side) argued the matter with +so much ingenuity and force of illustration, that John was only +saved from having to retract his opinion by the opportune +appearance of supper, to which they applied themselves with a +dreadful relish. Even Solomon Daisy himself, by dint of the +elevating influences of fire, lights, brandy, and good company, so +far recovered as to handle his knife and fork in a highly +creditable manner, and to display a capacity both of eating and +drinking, such as banished all fear of his having sustained any +lasting injury from his fright. + +Supper done, they crowded round the fire again, and, as is common +on such occasions, propounded all manner of leading questions +calculated to surround the story with new horrors and surprises. +But Solomon Daisy, notwithstanding these temptations, adhered so +steadily to his original account, and repeated it so often, with +such slight variations, and with such solemn asseverations of its +truth and reality, that his hearers were (with good reason) more +astonished than at first. As he took John Willet's view of the +matter in regard to the propriety of not bruiting the tale abroad, +unless the spirit should appear to him again, in which case it +would be necessary to take immediate counsel with the clergyman, it +was solemnly resolved that it should be hushed up and kept quiet. +And as most men like to have a secret to tell which may exalt their +own importance, they arrived at this conclusion with perfect +unanimity. + +As it was by this time growing late, and was long past their usual +hour of separating, the cronies parted for the night. Solomon +Daisy, with a fresh candle in his lantern, repaired homewards under +the escort of long Phil Parkes and Mr Cobb, who were rather more +nervous than himself. Mr Willet, after seeing them to the door, +returned to collect his thoughts with the assistance of the boiler, +and to listen to the storm of wind and rain, which had not yet +abated one jot of its fury. + + + +Chapter 34 + + +Before old John had looked at the boiler quite twenty minutes, he +got his ideas into a focus, and brought them to bear upon Solomon +Daisy's story. The more he thought of it, the more impressed he +became with a sense of his own wisdom, and a desire that Mr +Haredale should be impressed with it likewise. At length, to the +end that he might sustain a principal and important character in +the affair; and might have the start of Solomon and his two +friends, through whose means he knew the adventure, with a variety +of exaggerations, would be known to at least a score of people, and +most likely to Mr Haredale himself, by breakfast-time to-morrow; he +determined to repair to the Warren before going to bed. + +'He's my landlord,' thought John, as he took a candle in his hand, +and setting it down in a corner out of the wind's way, opened a +casement in the rear of the house, looking towards the stables. +'We haven't met of late years so often as we used to do--changes +are taking place in the family--it's desirable that I should stand +as well with them, in point of dignity, as possible--the whispering +about of this here tale will anger him--it's good to have +confidences with a gentleman of his natur', and set one's-self +right besides. Halloa there! Hugh--Hugh. Hal-loa!' + +When he had repeated this shout a dozen times, and startled every +pigeon from its slumbers, a door in one of the ruinous old +buildings opened, and a rough voice demanded what was amiss now, +that a man couldn't even have his sleep in quiet. + +'What! Haven't you sleep enough, growler, that you're not to be +knocked up for once?' said John. + +'No,' replied the voice, as the speaker yawned and shook himself. +'Not half enough.' + +'I don't know how you CAN sleep, with the wind a bellowsing and +roaring about you, making the tiles fly like a pack of cards,' said +John; 'but no matter for that. Wrap yourself up in something or +another, and come here, for you must go as far as the Warren with +me. And look sharp about it.' + +Hugh, with much low growling and muttering, went back into his +lair; and presently reappeared, carrying a lantern and a cudgel, +and enveloped from head to foot in an old, frowzy, slouching horse- +cloth. Mr Willet received this figure at the back-door, and +ushered him into the bar, while he wrapped himself in sundry +greatcoats and capes, and so tied and knotted his face in shawls +and handkerchiefs, that how he breathed was a mystery. + +'You don't take a man out of doors at near midnight in such weather, +without putting some heart into him, do you, master?' said Hugh. + +'Yes I do, sir,' returned Mr Willet. 'I put the heart (as you call +it) into him when he has brought me safe home again, and his +standing steady on his legs an't of so much consequence. So hold +that light up, if you please, and go on a step or two before, to +show the way.' + +Hugh obeyed with a very indifferent grace, and a longing glance at +the bottles. Old John, laying strict injunctions on his cook to +keep the doors locked in his absence, and to open to nobody but +himself on pain of dismissal, followed him into the blustering +darkness out of doors. + +The way was wet and dismal, and the night so black, that if Mr +Willet had been his own pilot, he would have walked into a deep +horsepond within a few hundred yards of his own house, and would +certainly have terminated his career in that ignoble sphere of +action. But Hugh, who had a sight as keen as any hawk's, and, +apart from that endowment, could have found his way blindfold to +any place within a dozen miles, dragged old John along, quite deaf +to his remonstrances, and took his own course without the slightest +reference to, or notice of, his master. So they made head against +the wind as they best could; Hugh crushing the wet grass beneath +his heavy tread, and stalking on after his ordinary savage +fashion; John Willet following at arm's length, picking his +steps, and looking about him, now for bogs and ditches, and now +for such stray ghosts as might be wandering abroad, with looks of +as much dismay and uneasiness as his immovable face was capable of +expressing. + +At length they stood upon the broad gravel-walk before the Warren- +house. The building was profoundly dark, and none were moving near +it save themselves. From one solitary turret-chamber, however, +there shone a ray of light; and towards this speck of comfort in +the cold, cheerless, silent scene, Mr Willet bade his pilot lead +him. + +'The old room,' said John, looking timidly upward; 'Mr Reuben's own +apartment, God be with us! I wonder his brother likes to sit +there, so late at night--on this night too.' + +'Why, where else should he sit?' asked Hugh, holding the lantern to +his breast, to keep the candle from the wind, while he trimmed it +with his fingers. 'It's snug enough, an't it?' + +'Snug!' said John indignantly. 'You have a comfortable idea of +snugness, you have, sir. Do you know what was done in that room, +you ruffian?' + +'Why, what is it the worse for that!' cried Hugh, looking into +John's fat face. 'Does it keep out the rain, and snow, and wind, +the less for that? Is it less warm or dry, because a man was +killed there? Ha, ha, ha! Never believe it, master. One man's no +such matter as that comes to.' + +Mr Willet fixed his dull eyes on his follower, and began--by a +species of inspiration--to think it just barely possible that he +was something of a dangerous character, and that it might be +advisable to get rid of him one of these days. He was too prudent +to say anything, with the journey home before him; and therefore +turned to the iron gate before which this brief dialogue had +passed, and pulled the handle of the bell that hung beside it. The +turret in which the light appeared being at one corner of the +building, and only divided from the path by one of the garden- +walks, upon which this gate opened, Mr Haredale threw up the +window directly, and demanded who was there. + +'Begging pardon, sir,' said John, 'I knew you sat up late, and made +bold to come round, having a word to say to you.' + +'Willet--is it not?' + +'Of the Maypole--at your service, sir.' + +Mr Haredale closed the window, and withdrew. He presently appeared +at a door in the bottom of the turret, and coming across the +garden-walk, unlocked the gate and let them in. + +'You are a late visitor, Willet. What is the matter?' + +'Nothing to speak of, sir,' said John; 'an idle tale, I thought you +ought to know of; nothing more.' + +'Let your man go forward with the lantern, and give me your hand. +The stairs are crooked and narrow. Gently with your light, friend. +You swing it like a censer.' + +Hugh, who had already reached the turret, held it more steadily, +and ascended first, turning round from time to time to shed his +light downward on the steps. Mr Haredale following next, eyed his +lowering face with no great favour; and Hugh, looking down on him, +returned his glances with interest, as they climbed the winding +stairs. + +It terminated in a little ante-room adjoining that from which they +had seen the light. Mr Haredale entered first, and led the way +through it into the latter chamber, where he seated himself at a +writing-table from which he had risen when they had rung the bell. + +'Come in,' he said, beckoning to old John, who remained bowing at +the door. 'Not you, friend,' he added hastily to Hugh, who entered +also. 'Willet, why do you bring that fellow here?' + +'Why, sir,' returned John, elevating his eyebrows, and lowering his +voice to the tone in which the question had been asked him, 'he's a +good guard, you see.' + +'Don't be too sure of that,' said Mr Haredale, looking towards him +as he spoke. 'I doubt it. He has an evil eye.' + +'There's no imagination in his eye,' returned Mr Willet, glancing +over his shoulder at the organ in question, 'certainly.' + +'There is no good there, be assured,' said Mr Haredale. 'Wait in +that little room, friend, and close the door between us.' + +Hugh shrugged his shoulders, and with a disdainful look, which +showed, either that he had overheard, or that he guessed the +purport of their whispering, did as he was told. When he was shut +out, Mr Haredale turned to John, and bade him go on with what he +had to say, but not to speak too loud, for there were quick ears +yonder. + +Thus cautioned, Mr Willet, in an oily whisper, recited all that he +had heard and said that night; laying particular stress upon his +own sagacity, upon his great regard for the family, and upon his +solicitude for their peace of mind and happiness. The story moved +his auditor much more than he had expected. Mr Haredale often +changed his attitude, rose and paced the room, returned again, +desired him to repeat, as nearly as he could, the very words that +Solomon had used, and gave so many other signs of being disturbed +and ill at ease, that even Mr Willet was surprised. + +'You did quite right,' he said, at the end of a long conversation, +'to bid them keep this story secret. It is a foolish fancy on the +part of this weak-brained man, bred in his fears and superstition. +But Miss Haredale, though she would know it to be so, would be +disturbed by it if it reached her ears; it is too nearly connected +with a subject very painful to us all, to be heard with +indifference. You were most prudent, and have laid me under a +great obligation. I thank you very much.' + +This was equal to John's most sanguine expectations; but he would +have preferred Mr Haredale's looking at him when he spoke, as if he +really did thank him, to his walking up and down, speaking by fits +and starts, often stopping with his eyes fixed on the ground, +moving hurriedly on again, like one distracted, and seeming almost +unconscious of what he said or did. + +This, however, was his manner; and it was so embarrassing to John +that he sat quite passive for a long time, not knowing what to +do. At length he rose. Mr Haredale stared at him for a moment as +though he had quite forgotten his being present, then shook hands +with him, and opened the door. Hugh, who was, or feigned to be, +fast asleep on the ante-chamber floor, sprang up on their entrance, +and throwing his cloak about him, grasped his stick and lantern, +and prepared to descend the stairs. + +'Stay,' said Mr Haredale. 'Will this man drink?' + +'Drink! He'd drink the Thames up, if it was strong enough, sir, +replied John Willet. 'He'll have something when he gets home. +He's better without it, now, sir.' + +'Nay. Half the distance is done,' said Hugh. 'What a hard master +you are! I shall go home the better for one glassful, halfway. +Come!' + +As John made no reply, Mr Haredale brought out a glass of liquor, +and gave it to Hugh, who, as he took it in his hand, threw part of +it upon the floor. + +'What do you mean by splashing your drink about a gentleman's +house, sir?' said John. + +'I'm drinking a toast,' Hugh rejoined, holding the glass above his +head, and fixing his eyes on Mr Haredale's face; 'a toast to this +house and its master.' With that he muttered something to himself, +and drank the rest, and setting down the glass, preceded them +without another word. + +John was a good deal scandalised by this observance, but seeing +that Mr Haredale took little heed of what Hugh said or did, and +that his thoughts were otherwise employed, he offered no apology, +and went in silence down the stairs, across the walk, and through +the garden-gate. They stopped upon the outer side for Hugh to hold +the light while Mr Haredale locked it on the inner; and then John +saw with wonder (as he often afterwards related), that he was very +pale, and that his face had changed so much and grown so haggard +since their entrance, that he almost seemed another man. + +They were in the open road again, and John Willet was walking on +behind his escort, as he had come, thinking very steadily of what +be had just now seen, when Hugh drew him suddenly aside, and almost +at the same instant three horsemen swept past--the nearest brushed +his shoulder even then--who, checking their steeds as suddenly as +they could, stood still, and waited for their coming up. + + + +Chapter 35 + + +When John Willet saw that the horsemen wheeled smartly round, and +drew up three abreast in the narrow road, waiting for him and his +man to join them, it occurred to him with unusual precipitation +that they must be highwaymen; and had Hugh been armed with a +blunderbuss, in place of his stout cudgel, he would certainly have +ordered him to fire it off at a venture, and would, while the word +of command was obeyed, have consulted his own personal safety in +immediate flight. Under the circumstances of disadvantage, +however, in which he and his guard were placed, he deemed it +prudent to adopt a different style of generalship, and therefore +whispered his attendant to address them in the most peaceable and +courteous terms. By way of acting up to the spirit and letter of +this instruction, Hugh stepped forward, and flourishing his staff +before the very eyes of the rider nearest to him, demanded roughly +what he and his fellows meant by so nearly galloping over them, and +why they scoured the king's highway at that late hour of night. + +The man whom be addressed was beginning an angry reply in the same +strain, when be was checked by the horseman in the centre, who, +interposing with an air of authority, inquired in a somewhat loud +but not harsh or unpleasant voice: + +'Pray, is this the London road?' + +'If you follow it right, it is,' replied Hugh roughly. + +'Nay, brother,' said the same person, 'you're but a churlish +Englishman, if Englishman you be--which I should much doubt but for +your tongue. Your companion, I am sure, will answer me more +civilly. How say you, friend?' + +'I say it IS the London road, sir,' answered John. 'And I wish,' +he added in a subdued voice, as he turned to Hugh, 'that you was in +any other road, you vagabond. Are you tired of your life, sir, +that you go a-trying to provoke three great neck-or-nothing chaps, +that could keep on running over us, back'ards and for'ards, till we +was dead, and then take our bodies up behind 'em, and drown us ten +miles off?' + +'How far is it to London?' inquired the same speaker. + +'Why, from here, sir,' answered John, persuasively, 'it's thirteen +very easy mile.' + +The adjective was thrown in, as an inducement to the travellers to +ride away with all speed; but instead of having the desired effect, +it elicited from the same person, the remark, 'Thirteen miles! +That's a long distance!' which was followed by a short pause of +indecision. + +'Pray,' said the gentleman, 'are there any inns hereabouts?' At +the word 'inns,' John plucked up his spirit in a surprising manner; +his fears rolled off like smoke; all the landlord stirred within +him. + +'There are no inns,' rejoined Mr Willet, with a strong emphasis on +the plural number; 'but there's a Inn--one Inn--the Maypole Inn. +That's a Inn indeed. You won't see the like of that Inn often.' + +'You keep it, perhaps?' said the horseman, smiling. + +'I do, sir,' replied John, greatly wondering how he had found this +out. + +'And how far is the Maypole from here?' + +'About a mile'--John was going to add that it was the easiest mile +in all the world, when the third rider, who had hitherto kept a +little in the rear, suddenly interposed: + +'And have you one excellent bed, landlord? Hem! A bed that you +can recommend--a bed that you are sure is well aired--a bed that +has been slept in by some perfectly respectable and unexceptionable +person?' + +'We don't take in no tagrag and bobtail at our house, sir,' +answered John. 'And as to the bed itself--' + +'Say, as to three beds,' interposed the gentleman who had spoken +before; 'for we shall want three if we stay, though my friend only +speaks of one.' + +'No, no, my lord; you are too good, you are too kind; but your life +is of far too much importance to the nation in these portentous +times, to be placed upon a level with one so useless and so poor as +mine. A great cause, my lord, a mighty cause, depends on you. You +are its leader and its champion, its advanced guard and its van. +It is the cause of our altars and our homes, our country and our +faith. Let ME sleep on a chair--the carpet--anywhere. No one will +repine if I take cold or fever. Let John Grueby pass the night +beneath the open sky--no one will repine for HIM. But forty +thousand men of this our island in the wave (exclusive of women and +children) rivet their eyes and thoughts on Lord George Gordon; and +every day, from the rising up of the sun to the going down of the +same, pray for his health and vigour. My lord,' said the speaker, +rising in his stirrups, 'it is a glorious cause, and must not be +forgotten. My lord, it is a mighty cause, and must not be +endangered. My lord, it is a holy cause, and must not be +deserted.' + +'It IS a holy cause,' exclaimed his lordship, lifting up his hat +with great solemnity. 'Amen.' + +'John Grueby,' said the long-winded gentleman, in a tone of mild +reproof, 'his lordship said Amen.' + +'I heard my lord, sir,' said the man, sitting like a statue on his +horse. + +'And do not YOU say Amen, likewise?' + +To which John Grueby made no reply at all, but sat looking straight +before him. + +'You surprise me, Grueby,' said the gentleman. 'At a crisis like +the present, when Queen Elizabeth, that maiden monarch, weeps +within her tomb, and Bloody Mary, with a brow of gloom and shadow, +stalks triumphant--' + +'Oh, sir,' cied the man, gruffly, 'where's the use of talking of +Bloody Mary, under such circumstances as the present, when my +lord's wet through, and tired with hard riding? Let's either go on +to London, sir, or put up at once; or that unfort'nate Bloody Mary +will have more to answer for--and she's done a deal more harm in +her grave than she ever did in her lifetime, I believe.' + +By this time Mr Willet, who had never beard so many words spoken +together at one time, or delivered with such volubility and +emphasis as by the long-winded gentleman; and whose brain, being +wholly unable to sustain or compass them, had quite given itself up +for lost; recovered so far as to observe that there was ample +accommodation at the Maypole for all the party: good beds; neat +wines; excellent entertainment for man and beast; private rooms for +large and small parties; dinners dressed upon the shortest notice; +choice stabling, and a lock-up coach-house; and, in short, to run +over such recommendatory scraps of language as were painted up on +various portions of the building, and which in the course of some +forty years he had learnt to repeat with tolerable correctness. He +was considering whether it was at all possible to insert any novel +sentences to the same purpose, when the gentleman who had spoken +first, turning to him of the long wind, exclaimed, 'What say you, +Gashford? Shall we tarry at this house he speaks of, or press +forward? You shall decide.' + +'I would submit, my lord, then,' returned the person he appealed +to, in a silky tone, 'that your health and spirits--so important, +under Providence, to our great cause, our pure and truthful cause'-- +here his lordship pulled off his hat again, though it was raining +hard--'require refreshment and repose.' + +'Go on before, landlord, and show the way,' said Lord George +Gordon; 'we will follow at a footpace.' + +'If you'll give me leave, my lord,' said John Grueby, in a low +voice, 'I'll change my proper place, and ride before you. The +looks of the landlord's friend are not over honest, and it may be +as well to be cautious with him.' + +'John Grueby is quite right,' interposed Mr Gashford, falling back +hastily. 'My lord, a life so precious as yours must not be put in +peril. Go forward, John, by all means. If you have any reason to +suspect the fellow, blow his brains out.' + +John made no answer, but looking straight before him, as his custom +seemed to be when the secretary spoke, bade Hugh push on, and +followed close behind him. Then came his lordship, with Mr Willet +at his bridle rein; and, last of all, his lordship's secretary--for +that, it seemed, was Gashford's office. + +Hugh strode briskly on, often looking back at the servant, whose +horse was close upon his heels, and glancing with a leer at his +bolster case of pistols, by which he seemed to set great store. He +was a square-built, strong-made, bull-necked fellow, of the true +English breed; and as Hugh measured him with his eye, he measured +Hugh, regarding him meanwhile with a look of bluff disdain. He was +much older than the Maypole man, being to all appearance five-and- +forty; but was one of those self-possessed, hard-headed, +imperturbable fellows, who, if they are ever beaten at fisticuffs, +or other kind of warfare, never know it, and go on coolly till they +win. + +'If I led you wrong now,' said Hugh, tauntingly, 'you'd--ha ha ha!-- +you'd shoot me through the head, I suppose.' + +John Grueby took no more notice of this remark than if he had been +deaf and Hugh dumb; but kept riding on quite comfortably, with his +eyes fixed on the horizon. + +'Did you ever try a fall with a man when you were young, master?' +said Hugh. 'Can you make any play at single-stick?' + +John Grueby looked at him sideways with the same contented air, but +deigned not a word in answer. + +'--Like this?' said Hugh, giving his cudgel one of those skilful +flourishes, in which the rustic of that time delighted. 'Whoop!' + +'--Or that,' returned John Grueby, beating down his guard with his +whip, and striking him on the head with its butt end. 'Yes, I +played a little once. You wear your hair too long; I should have +cracked your crown if it had been a little shorter.' + +It was a pretty smart, loud-sounding rap, as it was, and evidently +astonished Hugh; who, for the moment, seemed disposed to drag his +new acquaintance from his saddle. But his face betokening neither +malice, triumph, rage, nor any lingering idea that he had given him +offence; his eyes gazing steadily in the old direction, and his +manner being as careless and composed as if he had merely brushed +away a fly; Hugh was so puzzled, and so disposed to look upon him +as a customer of almost supernatural toughness, that he merely +laughed, and cried 'Well done!' then, sheering off a little, led +the way in silence. + +Before the lapse of many minutes the party halted at the Maypole +door. Lord George and his secretary quickly dismounting, gave +their horses to their servant, who, under the guidance of Hugh, +repaired to the stables. Right glad to escape from the inclemency +of the night, they followed Mr Willet into the common room, and +stood warming themselves and drying their clothes before the +cheerful fire, while he busied himself with such orders and +preparations as his guest's high quality required. + +As he bustled in and out of the room, intent on these +arrangements, he had an opportunity of observing the two +travellers, of whom, as yet, he knew nothing but the voice. The +lord, the great personage who did the Maypole so much honour, was +about the middle height, of a slender make, and sallow complexion, +with an aquiline nose, and long hair of a reddish brown, combed +perfectly straight and smooth about his ears, and slightly +powdered, but without the faintest vestige of a curl. He was +attired, under his greatcoat, in a full suit of black, quite free +from any ornament, and of the most precise and sober cut. The +gravity of his dress, together with a certain lankness of cheek +and stiffness of deportment, added nearly ten years to his age, +but his figure was that of one not yet past thirty. As he stood +musing in the red glow of the fire, it was striking to observe his +very bright large eye, which betrayed a restlessness of thought and +purpose, singularly at variance with the studied composure and +sobriety of his mien, and with his quaint and sad apparel. It had +nothing harsh or cruel in its expression; neither had his face, +which was thin and mild, and wore an air of melancholy; but it was +suggestive of an indefinable uneasiness; which infected those who +looked upon him, and filled them with a kind of pity for the man: +though why it did so, they would have had some trouble to explain. + +Gashford, the secretary, was taller, angularly made, high- +shouldered, bony, and ungraceful. His dress, in imitation of his +superior, was demure and staid in the extreme; his manner, formal +and constrained. This gentleman had an overhanging brow, great +hands and feet and ears, and a pair of eyes that seemed to have +made an unnatural retreat into his head, and to have dug themselves +a cave to hide in. His manner was smooth and humble, but very sly +and slinking. He wore the aspect of a man who was always lying in +wait for something that WOULDN'T come to pass; but he looked +patient--very patient--and fawned like a spaniel dog. Even now, +while he warmed and rubbed his hands before the blaze, he had the +air of one who only presumed to enjoy it in his degree as a +commoner; and though he knew his lord was not regarding him, he +looked into his face from time to time, and with a meek and +deferential manner, smiled as if for practice. + +Such were the guests whom old John Willet, with a fixed and leaden +eye, surveyed a hundred times, and to whom he now advanced with a +state candlestick in each hand, beseeching them to follow him into +a worthier chamber. 'For my lord,' said John--it is odd enough, +but certain people seem to have as great a pleasure in pronouncing +titles as their owners have in wearing them--'this room, my lord, +isn't at all the sort of place for your lordship, and I have to +beg your lordship's pardon for keeping you here, my lord, one +minute.' + +With this address, John ushered them upstairs into the state +apartment, which, like many other things of state, was cold and +comfortless. Their own footsteps, reverberating through the +spacious room, struck upon their hearing with a hollow sound; and +its damp and chilly atmosphere was rendered doubly cheerless by +contrast with the homely warmth they had deserted. + +It was of no use, however, to propose a return to the place they +had quitted, for the preparations went on so briskly that there was +no time to stop them. John, with the tall candlesticks in his +hands, bowed them up to the fireplace; Hugh, striding in with a +lighted brand and pile of firewood, cast it down upon the hearth, +and set it in a blaze; John Grueby (who had a great blue cockade in +his hat, which he appeared to despise mightily) brought in the +portmanteau he had carried on his horse, and placed it on the +floor; and presently all three were busily engaged in drawing out +the screen, laying the cloth, inspecting the beds, lighting fires +in the bedrooms, expediting the supper, and making everything as +cosy and as snug as might be, on so short a notice. In less than +an hour's time, supper had been served, and ate, and cleared away; +and Lord George and his secretary, with slippered feet, and legs +stretched out before the fire, sat over some hot mulled wine +together. + +'So ends, my lord,' said Gashford, filling his glass with great +complacency, 'the blessed work of a most blessed day.' + +'And of a blessed yesterday,' said his lordship, raising his head. + +'Ah!'--and here the secretary clasped his hands--'a blessed +yesterday indeed! The Protestants of Suffolk are godly men and +true. Though others of our countrymen have lost their way in +darkness, even as we, my lord, did lose our road to-night, theirs +is the light and glory.' + +'Did I move them, Gashford ?' said Lord George. + +'Move them, my lord! Move them! They cried to be led on against +the Papists, they vowed a dreadful vengeance on their heads, they +roared like men possessed--' + +'But not by devils,' said his lord. + +'By devils! my lord! By angels.' + +'Yes--oh surely--by angels, no doubt,' said Lord George, thrusting +his hands into his pockets, taking them out again to bite his +nails, and looking uncomfortably at the fire. 'Of course by +angels--eh Gashford?' + +'You do not doubt it, my lord?' said the secretary. + +'No--No,' returned his lord. 'No. Why should I? I suppose it +would be decidedly irreligious to doubt it--wouldn't it, Gashford? +Though there certainly were,' he added, without waiting for an +answer, 'some plaguy ill-looking characters among them.' + +'When you warmed,' said the secretary, looking sharply at the +other's downcast eyes, which brightened slowly as he spoke; 'when +you warmed into that noble outbreak; when you told them that you +were never of the lukewarm or the timid tribe, and bade them take +heed that they were prepared to follow one who would lead them on, +though to the very death; when you spoke of a hundred and twenty +thousand men across the Scottish border who would take their own +redress at any time, if it were not conceded; when you cried +"Perish the Pope and all his base adherents; the penal laws against +them shall never be repealed while Englishmen have hearts and +hands"--and waved your own and touched your sword; and when they +cried "No Popery!" and you cried "No; not even if we wade in +blood," and they threw up their hats and cried "Hurrah! not even if +we wade in blood; No Popery! Lord George! Down with the Papists-- +Vengeance on their heads:" when this was said and done, and a word +from you, my lord, could raise or still the tumult--ah! then I felt +what greatness was indeed, and thought, When was there ever power +like this of Lord George Gordon's!' + +'It's a great power. You're right. It is a great power!' he cried +with sparkling eyes. 'But--dear Gashford--did I really say all +that?' + +'And how much more!' cried the secretary, looking upwards. 'Ah! +how much more!' + +'And I told them what you say, about the one hundred and forty +thousand men in Scotland, did I!' he asked with evident delight. +'That was bold.' + +'Our cause is boldness. Truth is always bold.' + +'Certainly. So is religion. She's bold, Gashford?' + +'The true religion is, my lord.' + +'And that's ours,' he rejoined, moving uneasily in his seat, and +biting his nails as though he would pare them to the quick. 'There +can be no doubt of ours being the true one. You feel as certain of +that as I do, Gashford, don't you?' + +'Does my lord ask ME,' whined Gashford, drawing his chair nearer +with an injured air, and laying his broad flat hand upon the table; +'ME,' he repeated, bending the dark hollows of his eyes upon him +with an unwholesome smile, 'who, stricken by the magic of his +eloquence in Scotland but a year ago, abjured the errors of the +Romish church, and clung to him as one whose timely hand had +plucked me from a pit?' + +'True. No--No. I--I didn't mean it,' replied the other, shaking +him by the hand, rising from his seat, and pacing restlessly about +the room. 'It's a proud thing to lead the people, Gashford,' he +added as he made a sudden halt. + +'By force of reason too,' returned the pliant secretary. + +'Ay, to be sure. They may cough and jeer, and groan in Parliament, +and call me fool and madman, but which of them can raise this human +sea and make it swell and roar at pleasure? Not one.' + +'Not one,' repeated Gashford. + +'Which of them can say for his honesty, what I can say for mine; +which of them has refused a minister's bribe of one thousand +pounds a year, to resign his seat in favour of another? Not one.' + +'Not one,' repeated Gashford again--taking the lion's share of the +mulled wine between whiles. + +'And as we are honest, true, and in a sacred cause, Gashford,' said +Lord George with a heightened colour and in a louder voice, as he +laid his fevered hand upon his shoulder, 'and are the only men who +regard the mass of people out of doors, or are regarded by them, we +will uphold them to the last; and will raise a cry against these +un-English Papists which shall re-echo through the country, and +roll with a noise like thunder. I will be worthy of the motto on +my coat of arms, "Called and chosen and faithful." + +'Called,' said the secretary, 'by Heaven.' + +'I am.' + +'Chosen by the people.' + +'Yes.' + +'Faithful to both.' + +'To the block!' + +It would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the excited +manner in which he gave these answers to the secretary's +promptings; of the rapidity of his utterance, or the violence of +his tone and gesture; in which, struggling through his Puritan's +demeanour, was something wild and ungovernable which broke through +all restraint. For some minutes he walked rapidly up and down the +room, then stopping suddenly, exclaimed, + +'Gashford--YOU moved them yesterday too. Oh yes! You did.' + +'I shone with a reflected light, my lord,' replied the humble +secretary, laying his hand upon his heart. 'I did my best.' + +'You did well,' said his master, 'and are a great and worthy +instrument. If you will ring for John Grueby to carry the +portmanteau into my room, and will wait here while I undress, we +will dispose of business as usual, if you're not too tired.' + +'Too tired, my lord!--But this is his consideration! Christian +from head to foot.' With which soliloquy, the secretary tilted the +jug, and looked very hard into the mulled wine, to see how much +remained. + +John Willet and John Grueby appeared together. The one bearing the +great candlesticks, and the other the portmanteau, showed the +deluded lord into his chamber; and left the secretary alone, to +yawn and shake himself, and finally to fall asleep before the fire. + +'Now, Mr Gashford sir,' said John Grueby in his ear, after what +appeared to him a moment of unconsciousness; 'my lord's abed.' + +'Oh. Very good, John,' was his mild reply. 'Thank you, John. +Nobody need sit up. I know my room.' + +'I hope you're not a-going to trouble your head to-night, or my +lord's head neither, with anything more about Bloody Mary,' said +John. 'I wish the blessed old creetur had never been born.' + +'I said you might go to bed, John,' returned the secretary. 'You +didn't hear me, I think.' + +'Between Bloody Marys, and blue cockades, and glorious Queen +Besses, and no Poperys, and Protestant associations, and making of +speeches,' pursued John Grueby, looking, as usual, a long way off, +and taking no notice of this hint, 'my lord's half off his head. +When we go out o' doors, such a set of ragamuffins comes a- +shouting after us, "Gordon forever!" that I'm ashamed of myself +and don't know where to look. When we're indoors, they come a- +roaring and screaming about the house like so many devils; and my +lord instead of ordering them to be drove away, goes out into the +balcony and demeans himself by making speeches to 'em, and calls +'em "Men of England," and "Fellow-countrymen," as if he was fond of +'em and thanked 'em for coming. I can't make it out, but they're +all mixed up somehow or another with that unfort'nate Bloody Mary, +and call her name out till they're hoarse. They're all Protestants +too--every man and boy among 'em: and Protestants are very fond of +spoons, I find, and silver-plate in general, whenever area-gates is +left open accidentally. I wish that was the worst of it, and that +no more harm might be to come; but if you don't stop these ugly +customers in time, Mr Gashford (and I know you; you're the man that +blows the fire), you'll find 'em grow a little bit too strong for +you. One of these evenings, when the weather gets warmer and +Protestants are thirsty, they'll be pulling London down,--and I +never heard that Bloody Mary went as far as THAT.' + +Gashford had vanished long ago, and these remarks had been bestowed +on empty air. Not at all discomposed by the discovery, John Grueby +fixed his hat on, wrongside foremost that he might be unconscious +of the shadow of the obnoxious cockade, and withdrew to bed; +shaking his head in a very gloomy and prophetic manner until he +reached his chamber. + + + +Chapter 36 + + +Gashford, with a smiling face, but still with looks of profound +deference and humility, betook himself towards his master's room, +smoothing his hair down as he went, and humming a psalm tune. As +he approached Lord George's door, he cleared his throat and hummed +more vigorously. + +There was a remarkable contrast between this man's occupation at +the moment, and the expression of his countenance, which was +singularly repulsive and malicious. His beetling brow almost +obscured his eyes; his lip was curled contemptuously; his very +shoulders seemed to sneer in stealthy whisperings with his great +flapped ears. + +'Hush!' he muttered softly, as he peeped in at the chamber-door. +'He seems to be asleep. Pray Heaven he is! Too much watching, too +much care, too much thought--ah! Lord preserve him for a martyr! +He is a saint, if ever saint drew breath on this bad earth.' + +Placing his light upon a table, he walked on tiptoe to the fire, +and sitting in a chair before it with his back towards the bed, +went on communing with himself like one who thought aloud: + +'The saviour of his country and his country's religion, the friend +of his poor countrymen, the enemy of the proud and harsh; beloved +of the rejected and oppressed, adored by forty thousand bold and +loyal English hearts--what happy slumbers his should be!' And here +he sighed, and warmed his hands, and shook his head as men do when +their hearts are full, and heaved another sigh, and warmed his +hands again. + +'Why, Gashford?' said Lord George, who was lying broad awake, upon +his side, and had been staring at him from his entrance. + +'My--my lord,' said Gashford, starting and looking round as though +in great surprise. 'I have disturbed you!' + +'I have not been sleeping.' + +'Not sleeping!' he repeated, with assumed confusion. 'What can I +say for having in your presence given utterance to thoughts--but +they were sincere--they were sincere!' exclaimed the secretary, +drawing his sleeve in a hasty way across his eyes; 'and why should +I regret your having heard them?' + +'Gashford,' said the poor lord, stretching out his hand with +manifest emotion. 'Do not regret it. You love me well, I know-- +too well. I don't deserve such homage.' + +Gashford made no reply, but grasped the hand and pressed it to his +lips. Then rising, and taking from the trunk a little desk, he +placed it on a table near the fire, unlocked it with a key he +carried in his pocket, sat down before it, took out a pen, and, +before dipping it in the inkstand, sucked it--to compose the +fashion of his mouth perhaps, on which a smile was hovering yet. + +'How do our numbers stand since last enrolling-night?' inquired +Lord George. 'Are we really forty thousand strong, or do we still +speak in round numbers when we take the Association at that amount?' + +'Our total now exceeds that number by a score and three,' Gashford +replied, casting his eyes upon his papers. + +'The funds?' + +'Not VERY improving; but there is some manna in the wilderness, my +lord. Hem! On Friday night the widows' mites dropped in. "Forty +scavengers, three and fourpence. An aged pew-opener of St Martin's +parish, sixpence. A bell-ringer of the established church, +sixpence. A Protestant infant, newly born, one halfpenny. The +United Link Boys, three shillings--one bad. The anti-popish +prisoners in Newgate, five and fourpence. A friend in Bedlam, +half-a-crown. Dennis the hangman, one shilling."' + +'That Dennis,' said his lordship, 'is an earnest man. I marked him +in the crowd in Welbeck Street, last Friday.' + +'A good man,' rejoined the secretary, 'a staunch, sincere, and +truly zealous man.' + +'He should be encouraged,' said Lord George. 'Make a note of +Dennis. I'll talk with him.' + +Gashford obeyed, and went on reading from his list: + +'"The Friends of Reason, half-a-guinea. The Friends of Liberty, +half-a-guinea. The Friends of Peace, half-a-guinea. The Friends +of Charity, half-a-guinea. The Friends of Mercy, half-a-guinea. +The Associated Rememberers of Bloody Mary, half-a-guinea. The +United Bulldogs, half-a-guinea."' + +'The United Bulldogs,' said Lord George, biting his nails most +horribly, 'are a new society, are they not?' + +'Formerly the 'Prentice Knights, my lord. The indentures of the +old members expiring by degrees, they changed their name, it seems, +though they still have 'prentices among them, as well as workmen.' + +'What is their president's name?' inquired Lord George. + +'President,' said Gashford, reading, 'Mr Simon Tappertit.' + +'I remember him. The little man, who sometimes brings an elderly +sister to our meetings, and sometimes another female too, who is +conscientious, I have no doubt, but not well-favoured?' + +'The very same, my lord.' + +'Tappertit is an earnest man,' said Lord George, thoughtfully. +'Eh, Gashford?' + +'One of the foremost among them all, my lord. He snuffs the battle +from afar, like the war-horse. He throws his hat up in the street +as if he were inspired, and makes most stirring speeches from the +shoulders of his friends.' + +'Make a note of Tappertit,' said Lord George Gordon. 'We may +advance him to a place of trust.' + +'That,' rejoined the secretary, doing as he was told, 'is all-- +except Mrs Varden's box (fourteenth time of opening), seven +shillings and sixpence in silver and copper, and half-a-guinea in +gold; and Miggs (being the saving of a quarter's wages), one-and- +threepence.' + +'Miggs,' said Lord George. 'Is that a man?' + +'The name is entered on the list as a woman,' replied the +secretary. 'I think she is the tall spare female of whom you spoke +just now, my lord, as not being well-favoured, who sometimes comes +to hear the speeches--along with Tappertit and Mrs Varden.' + +'Mrs Varden is the elderly lady then, is she?' + +The secretary nodded, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with the +feather of his pen. + +'She is a zealous sister,' said Lord George. 'Her collection goes +on prosperously, and is pursued with fervour. Has her husband +joined?' + +'A malignant,' returned the secretary, folding up his papers. +'Unworthy such a wife. He remains in outer darkness and steadily +refuses.' + +'The consequences be upon his own head!--Gashford!' + +'My lord!' + +'You don't think,' he turned restlessly in his bed as he spoke, +'these people will desert me, when the hour arrives? I have spoken +boldly for them, ventured much, suppressed nothing. They'll not +fall off, will they?' + +'No fear of that, my lord,' said Gashford, with a meaning look, +which was rather the involuntary expression of his own thoughts +than intended as any confirmation of his words, for the other's +face was turned away. 'Be sure there is no fear of that.' + +'Nor,' he said with a more restless motion than before, 'of their-- +but they CAN sustain no harm from leaguing for this purpose. Right +is on our side, though Might may be against us. You feel as sure +of that as I--honestly, you do?' + +The secretary was beginning with 'You do not doubt,' when the other +interrupted him, and impatiently rejoined: + +'Doubt. No. Who says I doubt? If I doubted, should I cast away +relatives, friends, everything, for this unhappy country's sake; +this unhappy country,' he cried, springing up in bed, after +repeating the phrase 'unhappy country's sake' to himself, at least +a dozen times, 'forsaken of God and man, delivered over to a +dangerous confederacy of Popish powers; the prey of corruption, +idolatry, and despotism! Who says I doubt? Am I called, and +chosen, and faithful? Tell me. Am I, or am I not?' + +'To God, the country, and yourself,' cried Gashford. + +'I am. I will be. I say again, I will be: to the block. Who says +as much! Do you? Does any man alive?' + +The secretary drooped his head with an expression of perfect +acquiescence in anything that had been said or might be; and Lord +George gradually sinking down upon his pillow, fell asleep. + +Although there was something very ludicrous in his vehement manner, +taken in conjunction with his meagre aspect and ungraceful +presence, it would scarcely have provoked a smile in any man of +kindly feeling; or even if it had, he would have felt sorry and +almost angry with himself next moment, for yielding to the impulse. +This lord was sincere in his violence and in his wavering. A +nature prone to false enthusiasm, and the vanity of being a leader, +were the worst qualities apparent in his composition. All the rest +was weakness--sheer weakness; and it is the unhappy lot of +thoroughly weak men, that their very sympathies, affections, +confidences--all the qualities which in better constituted minds +are virtues--dwindle into foibles, or turn into downright vices. + +Gashford, with many a sly look towards the bed, sat chuckling at +his master's folly, until his deep and heavy breathing warned him +that he might retire. Locking his desk, and replacing it within +the trunk (but not before he had taken from a secret lining two +printed handbills), he cautiously withdrew; looking back, as he +went, at the pale face of the slumbering man, above whose head the +dusty plumes that crowned the Maypole couch, waved drearily and +sadly as though it were a bier. + +Stopping on the staircase to listen that all was quiet, and to take +off his shoes lest his footsteps should alarm any light sleeper who +might be near at hand, he descended to the ground floor, and thrust +one of his bills beneath the great door of the house. That done, +he crept softly back to his own chamber, and from the window let +another fall--carefully wrapt round a stone to save it from the +wind--into the yard below. + +They were addressed on the back 'To every Protestant into whose +hands this shall come,' and bore within what follows: + +'Men and Brethren. Whoever shall find this letter, will take it as +a warning to join, without delay, the friends of Lord George +Gordon. There are great events at hand; and the times are +dangerous and troubled. Read this carefully, keep it clean, and +drop it somewhere else. For King and Country. Union.' + +'More seed, more seed,' said Gashford as he closed the window. +'When will the harvest come!' + + + +Chapter 37 + + +To surround anything, however monstrous or ridiculous, with an air +of mystery, is to invest it with a secret charm, and power of +attraction which to the crowd is irresistible. False priests, +false prophets, false doctors, false patriots, false prodigies of +every kind, veiling their proceedings in mystery, have always +addressed themselves at an immense advantage to the popular +credulity, and have been, perhaps, more indebted to that resource +in gaining and keeping for a time the upper hand of Truth and +Common Sense, than to any half-dozen items in the whole catalogue +of imposture. Curiosity is, and has been from the creation of the +world, a master-passion. To awaken it, to gratify it by slight +degrees, and yet leave something always in suspense, is to +establish the surest hold that can be had, in wrong, on the +unthinking portion of mankind. + +If a man had stood on London Bridge, calling till he was hoarse, +upon the passers-by, to join with Lord George Gordon, although for +an object which no man understood, and which in that very incident +had a charm of its own,--the probability is, that he might have +influenced a score of people in a month. If all zealous +Protestants had been publicly urged to join an association for the +avowed purpose of singing a hymn or two occasionally, and hearing +some indifferent speeches made, and ultimately of petitioning +Parliament not to pass an act for abolishing the penal laws against +Roman Catholic priests, the penalty of perpetual imprisonment +denounced against those who educated children in that persuasion, +and the disqualification of all members of the Romish church to +inherit real property in the United Kingdom by right of purchase or +descent,--matters so far removed from the business and bosoms of +the mass, might perhaps have called together a hundred people. But +when vague rumours got abroad, that in this Protestant association +a secret power was mustering against the government for undefined +and mighty purposes; when the air was filled with whispers of a +confederacy among the Popish powers to degrade and enslave England, +establish an inquisition in London, and turn the pens of Smithfield +market into stakes and cauldrons; when terrors and alarms which no +man understood were perpetually broached, both in and out of +Parliament, by one enthusiast who did not understand himself, and +bygone bugbears which had lain quietly in their graves for +centuries, were raised again to haunt the ignorant and credulous; +when all this was done, as it were, in the dark, and secret +invitations to join the Great Protestant Association in defence of +religion, life, and liberty, were dropped in the public ways, +thrust under the house-doors, tossed in at windows, and pressed +into the hands of those who trod the streets by night; when they +glared from every wall, and shone on every post and pillar, so that +stocks and stones appeared infected with the common fear, urging +all men to join together blindfold in resistance of they knew not +what, they knew not why;--then the mania spread indeed, and the +body, still increasing every day, grew forty thousand strong. + +So said, at least, in this month of March, 1780, Lord George +Gordon, the Association's president. Whether it was the fact or +otherwise, few men knew or cared to ascertain. It had never made +any public demonstration; had scarcely ever been heard of, save +through him; had never been seen; and was supposed by many to be +the mere creature of his disordered brain. He was accustomed to +talk largely about numbers of men--stimulated, as it was inferred, +by certain successful disturbances, arising out of the same +subject, which had occurred in Scotland in the previous year; was +looked upon as a cracked-brained member of the lower house, who +attacked all parties and sided with none, and was very little +regarded. It was known that there was discontent abroad--there +always is; he had been accustomed to address the people by placard, +speech, and pamphlet, upon other questions; nothing had come, in +England, of his past exertions, and nothing was apprehended from +his present. Just as he has come upon the reader, he had come, +from time to time, upon the public, and been forgotten in a day; as +suddenly as he appears in these pages, after a blank of five long +years, did he and his proceedings begin to force themselves, about +this period, upon the notice of thousands of people, who had +mingled in active life during the whole interval, and who, without +being deaf or blind to passing events, had scarcely ever thought of +him before. + +'My lord,' said Gashford in his ear, as he drew the curtains of his +bed betimes; 'my lord!' + +'Yes--who's that? What is it?' + +'The clock has struck nine,' returned the secretary, with meekly +folded hands. 'You have slept well? I hope you have slept well? +If my prayers are heard, you are refreshed indeed.' + +'To say the truth, I have slept so soundly,' said Lord George, +rubbing his eyes and looking round the room, 'that I don't remember +quite--what place is this?' + +'My lord!' cried Gashford, with a smile. + +'Oh!' returned his superior. 'Yes. You're not a Jew then?' + +'A Jew!' exclaimed the pious secretary, recoiling. + +'I dreamed that we were Jews, Gashford. You and I--both of us-- +Jews with long beards.' + +'Heaven forbid, my lord! We might as well be Papists.' + +'I suppose we might,' returned the other, very quickly. 'Eh? You +really think so, Gashford?' + +'Surely I do,' the secretary cried, with looks of great surprise. + +'Humph!' he muttered. 'Yes, that seems reasonable.' + +'I hope my lord--' the secretary began. + +'Hope!' he echoed, interrupting him. 'Why do you say, you hope? +There's no harm in thinking of such things.' + +'Not in dreams,' returned the Secretary. + +'In dreams! No, nor waking either.' + +--'"Called, and chosen, and faithful,"' said Gashford, taking up +Lord George's watch which lay upon a chair, and seeming to read the +inscription on the seal, abstractedly. + +It was the slightest action possible, not obtruded on his notice, +and apparently the result of a moment's absence of mind, not worth +remark. But as the words were uttered, Lord George, who had been +going on impetuously, stopped short, reddened, and was silent. +Apparently quite unconscious of this change in his demeanour, the +wily Secretary stepped a little apart, under pretence of pulling up +the window-blind, and returning when the other had had time to +recover, said: + +'The holy cause goes bravely on, my lord. I was not idle, even +last night. I dropped two of the handbills before I went to bed, +and both are gone this morning. Nobody in the house has mentioned +the circumstance of finding them, though I have been downstairs +full half-an-hour. One or two recruits will be their first fruit, +I predict; and who shall say how many more, with Heaven's blessing +on your inspired exertions!' + +'It was a famous device in the beginning,' replied Lord George; 'an +excellent device, and did good service in Scotland. It was quite +worthy of you. You remind me not to be a sluggard, Gashford, when +the vineyard is menaced with destruction, and may be trodden down +by Papist feet. Let the horses be saddled in half-an-hour. We +must be up and doing!' + +He said this with a heightened colour, and in a tone of such +enthusiasm, that the secretary deemed all further prompting +needless, and withdrew. + +--'Dreamed he was a Jew,' he said thoughtfully, as he closed the +bedroom door. 'He may come to that before he dies. It's like +enough. Well! After a time, and provided I lost nothing by it, I +don't see why that religion shouldn't suit me as well as any +other. There are rich men among the Jews; shaving is very +troublesome;--yes, it would suit me well enough. For the present, +though, we must be Christian to the core. Our prophetic motto will +suit all creeds in their turn, that's a comfort.' Reflecting on +this source of consolation, he reached the sitting-room, and rang +the bell for breakfast. + +Lord George was quickly dressed (for his plain toilet was easily +made), and as he was no less frugal in his repasts than in his +Puritan attire, his share of the meal was soon dispatched. The +secretary, however, more devoted to the good things of this world, +or more intent on sustaining his strength and spirits for the sake +of the Protestant cause, ate and drank to the last minute, and +required indeed some three or four reminders from John Grueby, +before he could resolve to tear himself away from Mr Willet's +plentiful providing. + +At length he came downstairs, wiping his greasy mouth, and having +paid John Willet's bill, climbed into his saddle. Lord George, who +had been walking up and down before the house talking to himself +with earnest gestures, mounted his horse; and returning old John +Willet's stately bow, as well as the parting salutation of a dozen +idlers whom the rumour of a live lord being about to leave the +Maypole had gathered round the porch, they rode away, with stout +John Grueby in the rear. + +If Lord George Gordon had appeared in the eyes of Mr Willet, +overnight, a nobleman of somewhat quaint and odd exterior, the +impression was confirmed this morning, and increased a hundredfold. +Sitting bolt upright upon his bony steed, with his long, straight +hair, dangling about his face and fluttering in the wind; his limbs +all angular and rigid, his elbows stuck out on either side +ungracefully, and his whole frame jogged and shaken at every motion +of his horse's feet; a more grotesque or more ungainly figure can +hardly be conceived. In lieu of whip, he carried in his hand a +great gold-headed cane, as large as any footman carries in these +days, and his various modes of holding this unwieldy weapon--now +upright before his face like the sabre of a horse-soldier, now over +his shoulder like a musket, now between his finger and thumb, but +always in some uncouth and awkward fashion--contributed in no small +degree to the absurdity of his appearance. Stiff, lank, and +solemn, dressed in an unusual manner, and ostentatiously +exhibiting--whether by design or accident--all his peculiarities of +carriage, gesture, and conduct, all the qualities, natural and +artificial, in which he differed from other men; he might have +moved the sternest looker-on to laughter, and fully provoked the +smiles and whispered jests which greeted his departure from the +Maypole inn. + +Quite unconscious, however, of the effect he produced, he trotted +on beside his secretary, talking to himself nearly all the way, +until they came within a mile or two of London, when now and then +some passenger went by who knew him by sight, and pointed him out +to some one else, and perhaps stood looking after him, or cried in +jest or earnest as it might be, 'Hurrah Geordie! No Popery!' At +which he would gravely pull off his hat, and bow. When they +reached the town and rode along the streets, these notices became +more frequent; some laughed, some hissed, some turned their heads +and smiled, some wondered who he was, some ran along the pavement +by his side and cheered. When this happened in a crush of carts +and chairs and coaches, he would make a dead stop, and pulling off +his hat, cry, 'Gentlemen, No Popery!' to which the gentlemen would +respond with lusty voices, and with three times three; and then, on +he would go again with a score or so of the raggedest, following at +his horse's heels, and shouting till their throats were parched. + +The old ladies too--there were a great many old ladies in the +streets, and these all knew him. Some of them--not those of the +highest rank, but such as sold fruit from baskets and carried +burdens--clapped their shrivelled hands, and raised a weazen, +piping, shrill 'Hurrah, my lord.' Others waved their hands or +handkerchiefs, or shook their fans or parasols, or threw up windows +and called in haste to those within, to come and see. All these +marks of popular esteem, he received with profound gravity and +respect; bowing very low, and so frequently that his hat was more +off his head than on; and looking up at the houses as he passed +along, with the air of one who was making a public entry, and yet +was not puffed up or proud. + +So they rode (to the deep and unspeakable disgust of John Grueby) +the whole length of Whitechapel, Leadenhall Street, and Cheapside, +and into St Paul's Churchyard. Arriving close to the cathedral, he +halted; spoke to Gashford; and looking upward at its lofty dome, +shook his head, as though he said, 'The Church in Danger!' Then to +be sure, the bystanders stretched their throats indeed; and he went +on again with mighty acclamations from the mob, and lower bows than +ever. + +So along the Strand, up Swallow Street, into the Oxford Road, and +thence to his house in Welbeck Street, near Cavendish Square, +whither he was attended by a few dozen idlers; of whom he took +leave on the steps with this brief parting, 'Gentlemen, No Popery. +Good day. God bless you.' This being rather a shorter address +than they expected, was received with some displeasure, and cries +of 'A speech! a speech!' which might have been complied with, but +that John Grueby, making a mad charge upon them with all three +horses, on his way to the stables, caused them to disperse into the +adjoining fields, where they presently fell to pitch and toss, +chuck-farthing, odd or even, dog-fighting, and other Protestant +recreations. + +In the afternoon Lord George came forth again, dressed in a black +velvet coat, and trousers and waistcoat of the Gordon plaid, all of +the same Quaker cut; and in this costume, which made him look a +dozen times more strange and singular than before, went down on +foot to Westminster. Gashford, meanwhile, bestirred himself in +business matters; with which he was still engaged when, shortly +after dusk, John Grueby entered and announced a visitor. + +'Let him come in,' said Gashford. + +'Here! come in!' growled John to somebody without; 'You're a +Protestant, an't you?' + +'I should think so,' replied a deep, gruff voice. + +'You've the looks of it,' said John Grueby. 'I'd have known you +for one, anywhere.' With which remark he gave the visitor +admission, retired, and shut the door. + +The man who now confronted Gashford, was a squat, thickset +personage, with a low, retreating forehead, a coarse shock head of +hair, and eyes so small and near together, that his broken nose +alone seemed to prevent their meeting and fusing into one of the +usual size. A dingy handkerchief twisted like a cord about his +neck, left its great veins exposed to view, and they were swollen +and starting, as though with gulping down strong passions, malice, +and ill-will. His dress was of threadbare velveteen--a faded, +rusty, whitened black, like the ashes of a pipe or a coal fire +after a day's extinction; discoloured with the soils of many a +stale debauch, and reeking yet with pot-house odours. In lieu of +buckles at his knees, he wore unequal loops of packthread; and in +his grimy hands he held a knotted stick, the knob of which was +carved into a rough likeness of his own vile face. Such was the +visitor who doffed his three-cornered hat in Gashford's presence, +and waited, leering, for his notice. + +'Ah! Dennis!' cried the secretary. 'Sit down.' + +'I see my lord down yonder--' cried the man, with a jerk of his +thumb towards the quarter that he spoke of, 'and he says to me, +says my lord, "If you've nothing to do, Dennis, go up to my house +and talk with Muster Gashford." Of course I'd nothing to do, you +know. These an't my working hours. Ha ha! I was a-taking the air +when I see my lord, that's what I was doing. I takes the air by +night, as the howls does, Muster Gashford.' + +And sometimes in the day-time, eh?' said the secretary--'when you +go out in state, you know.' + +'Ha ha!' roared the fellow, smiting his leg; 'for a gentleman as +'ull say a pleasant thing in a pleasant way, give me Muster +Gashford agin' all London and Westminster! My lord an't a bad 'un +at that, but he's a fool to you. Ah to be sure,--when I go out in +state.' + +'And have your carriage,' said the secretary; 'and your chaplain, +eh? and all the rest of it?' + +'You'll be the death of me,' cried Dennis, with another roar, 'you +will. But what's in the wind now, Muster Gashford,' he asked +hoarsely, 'Eh? Are we to be under orders to pull down one of them +Popish chapels--or what?' + +'Hush!' said the secretary, suffering the faintest smile to play +upon his face. 'Hush! God bless me, Dennis! We associate, you +know, for strictly peaceable and lawful purposes.' + +'I know, bless you,' returned the man, thrusting his tongue into +his cheek; 'I entered a' purpose, didn't I!' + +'No doubt,' said Gashford, smiling as before. And when he said so, +Dennis roared again, and smote his leg still harder, and falling +into fits of laughter, wiped his eyes with the corner of his +neckerchief, and cried, 'Muster Gashford agin' all England hollow!' + +'Lord George and I were talking of you last night,' said Gashford, +after a pause. 'He says you are a very earnest fellow.' + +'So I am,' returned the hangman. + +'And that you truly hate the Papists.' + +'So I do,' and he confirmed it with a good round oath. 'Lookye +here, Muster Gashford,' said the fellow, laying his hat and stick +upon the floor, and slowly beating the palm of one hand with the +fingers of the other; 'Ob-serve. I'm a constitutional officer that +works for my living, and does my work creditable. Do I, or do I +not?' + +'Unquestionably.' + +'Very good. Stop a minute. My work, is sound, Protestant, +constitutional, English work. Is it, or is it not?' + +'No man alive can doubt it.' + +'Nor dead neither. Parliament says this here--says Parliament, "If +any man, woman, or child, does anything which goes again a certain +number of our acts"--how many hanging laws may there be at this +present time, Muster Gashford? Fifty?' + +'I don't exactly know how many,' replied Gashford, leaning back in +his chair and yawning; 'a great number though.' + +'Well, say fifty. Parliament says, "If any man, woman, or child, +does anything again any one of them fifty acts, that man, woman, or +child, shall be worked off by Dennis." George the Third steps in +when they number very strong at the end of a sessions, and says, +"These are too many for Dennis. I'll have half for myself and +Dennis shall have half for himself;" and sometimes he throws me in +one over that I don't expect, as he did three year ago, when I got +Mary Jones, a young woman of nineteen who come up to Tyburn with a +infant at her breast, and was worked off for taking a piece of +cloth off the counter of a shop in Ludgate Hill, and putting it +down again when the shopman see her; and who had never done any +harm before, and only tried to do that, in consequence of her +husband having been pressed three weeks previous, and she being +left to beg, with two young children--as was proved upon the trial. +Ha ha!--Well! That being the law and the practice of England, is +the glory of England, an't it, Muster Gashford?' + +'Certainly,' said the secretary. + +'And in times to come,' pursued the hangman, 'if our grandsons +should think of their grandfathers' times, and find these things +altered, they'll say, "Those were days indeed, and we've been going +down hill ever since." Won't they, Muster Gashford?' + +'I have no doubt they will,' said the secretary. + +'Well then, look here,' said the hangman. 'If these Papists gets +into power, and begins to boil and roast instead of hang, what +becomes of my work! If they touch my work that's a part of so many +laws, what becomes of the laws in general, what becomes of the +religion, what becomes of the country!--Did you ever go to church, +Muster Gashford?' + +'Ever!' repeated the secretary with some indignation; 'of course.' + +'Well,' said the ruffian, 'I've been once--twice, counting the time +I was christened--and when I heard the Parliament prayed for, and +thought how many new hanging laws they made every sessions, I +considered that I was prayed for. Now mind, Muster Gashford,' said +the fellow, taking up his stick and shaking it with a ferocious +air, 'I mustn't have my Protestant work touched, nor this here +Protestant state of things altered in no degree, if I can help it; +I mustn't have no Papists interfering with me, unless they come to +be worked off in course of law; I mustn't have no biling, no +roasting, no frying--nothing but hanging. My lord may well call +me an earnest fellow. In support of the great Protestant principle +of having plenty of that, I'll,' and here he beat his club upon the +ground, 'burn, fight, kill--do anything you bid me, so that it's +bold and devilish--though the end of it was, that I got hung +myself.--There, Muster Gashford!' + +He appropriately followed up this frequent prostitution of a noble +word to the vilest purposes, by pouring out in a kind of ecstasy at +least a score of most tremendous oaths; then wiped his heated face +upon his neckerchief, and cried, 'No Popery! I'm a religious man, +by G--!' + +Gashford had leant back in his chair, regarding him with eyes so +sunken, and so shadowed by his heavy brows, that for aught the +hangman saw of them, he might have been stone blind. He remained +smiling in silence for a short time longer, and then said, slowly +and distinctly: + +'You are indeed an earnest fellow, Dennis--a most valuable fellow-- +the staunchest man I know of in our ranks. But you must calm +yourself; you must be peaceful, lawful, mild as any lamb. I am +sure you will be though.' + +'Ay, ay, we shall see, Muster Gashford, we shall see. You won't +have to complain of me,' returned the other, shaking his head. + +'I am sure I shall not,' said the secretary in the same mild tone, +and with the same emphasis. 'We shall have, we think, about next +month, or May, when this Papist relief bill comes before the house, +to convene our whole body for the first time. My lord has thoughts +of our walking in procession through the streets--just as an +innocent display of strength--and accompanying our petition down to +the door of the House of Commons.' + +'The sooner the better,' said Dennis, with another oath. + +'We shall have to draw up in divisions, our numbers being so large; +and, I believe I may venture to say,' resumed Gashford, affecting +not to hear the interruption, 'though I have no direct instructions +to that effect--that Lord George has thought of you as an excellent +leader for one of these parties. I have no doubt you would be an +admirable one.' + +'Try me,' said the fellow, with an ugly wink. + +'You would be cool, I know,' pursued the secretary, still smiling, +and still managing his eyes so that he could watch him closely, and +really not be seen in turn, 'obedient to orders, and perfectly +temperate. You would lead your party into no danger, I am certain.' + +'I'd lead them, Muster Gashford,'--the hangman was beginning in a +reckless way, when Gashford started forward, laid his finger on his +lips, and feigned to write, just as the door was opened by John +Grueby. + +'Oh!' said John, looking in; 'here's another Protestant.' + +'Some other room, John,' cried Gashford in his blandest voice. 'I +am engaged just now.' + +But John had brought this new visitor to the door, and he walked in +unbidden, as the words were uttered; giving to view the form and +features, rough attire, and reckless air, of Hugh. + + + +Chapter 38 + + +The secretary put his hand before his eyes to shade them from the +glare of the lamp, and for some moments looked at Hugh with a +frowning brow, as if he remembered to have seen him lately, but +could not call to mind where, or on what occasion. His uncertainty +was very brief, for before Hugh had spoken a word, he said, as his +countenance cleared up: + +'Ay, ay, I recollect. It's quite right, John, you needn't wait. +Don't go, Dennis.' + +'Your servant, master,' said Hugh, as Grueby disappeared. + +'Yours, friend,' returned the secretary in his smoothest manner. +'What brings YOU here? We left nothing behind us, I hope?' + +Hugh gave a short laugh, and thrusting his hand into his breast, +produced one of the handbills, soiled and dirty from lying out of +doors all night, which he laid upon the secretary's desk after +flattening it upon his knee, and smoothing out the wrinkles with +his heavy palm. + +'Nothing but that, master. It fell into good hands, you see.' + +'What is this!' said Gashford, turning it over with an air of +perfectly natural surprise. 'Where did you get it from, my good +fellow; what does it mean? I don't understand this at all.' + +A little disconcerted by this reception, Hugh looked from the +secretary to Dennis, who had risen and was standing at the table +too, observing the stranger by stealth, and seeming to derive the +utmost satisfaction from his manners and appearance. Considering +himself silently appealed to by this action, Mr Dennis shook his +head thrice, as if to say of Gashford, 'No. He don't know anything +at all about it. I know he don't. I'll take my oath he don't;' +and hiding his profile from Hugh with one long end of his frowzy +neckerchief, nodded and chuckled behind this screen in extreme +approval of the secretary's proceedings. + +'It tells the man that finds it, to come here, don't it?' asked +Hugh. 'I'm no scholar, myself, but I showed it to a friend, and he +said it did.' + +'It certainly does,' said Gashford, opening his eyes to their +utmost width; 'really this is the most remarkable circumstance I +have ever known. How did you come by this piece of paper, my good +friend?' + +'Muster Gashford,' wheezed the hangman under his breath, 'agin' all +Newgate!' + +Whether Hugh heard him, or saw by his manner that he was being +played upon, or perceived the secretary's drift of himself, he came +in his blunt way to the point at once. + +'Here!' he said, stretching out his hand and taking it back; 'never +mind the bill, or what it says, or what it don't say. You don't +know anything about it, master,--no more do I,--no more does he,' +glancing at Dennis. 'None of us know what it means, or where it +comes from: there's an end of that. Now I want to make one against +the Catholics, I'm a No-Popery man, and ready to be sworn in. +That's what I've come here for.' + +'Put him down on the roll, Muster Gashford,' said Dennis +approvingly. 'That's the way to go to work--right to the end at +once, and no palaver.' + +'What's the use of shooting wide of the mark, eh, old boy!' cried +Hugh. + +'My sentiments all over!' rejoined the hangman. 'This is the sort +of chap for my division, Muster Gashford. Down with him, sir. Put +him on the roll. I'd stand godfather to him, if he was to be +christened in a bonfire, made of the ruins of the Bank of England.' + +With these and other expressions of confidence of the like +flattering kind, Mr Dennis gave him a hearty slap on the back, +which Hugh was not slow to return. + +'No Popery, brother!' cried the hangman. + +'No Property, brother!' responded Hugh. + +'Popery, Popery,' said the secretary with his usual mildness. + +'It's all the same!' cried Dennis. 'It's all right. Down with +him, Muster Gashford. Down with everybody, down with everything! +Hurrah for the Protestant religion! That's the time of day, +Muster Gashford!' + +The secretary regarded them both with a very favourable expression +of countenance, while they gave loose to these and other +demonstrations of their patriotic purpose; and was about to make +some remark aloud, when Dennis, stepping up to him, and shading his +mouth with his hand, said, in a hoarse whisper, as he nudged him +with his elbow: + +'Don't split upon a constitutional officer's profession, Muster +Gashford. There are popular prejudices, you know, and he mightn't +like it. Wait till he comes to be more intimate with me. He's a +fine-built chap, an't he?' + +'A powerful fellow indeed!' + +'Did you ever, Muster Gashford,' whispered Dennis, with a horrible +kind of admiration, such as that with which a cannibal might regard +his intimate friend, when hungry,--'did you ever--and here he drew +still closer to his ear, and fenced his mouth with both his open +bands--'see such a throat as his? Do but cast your eye upon it. +There's a neck for stretching, Muster Gashford!' + +The secretary assented to this proposition with the best grace he +could assume--it is difficult to feign a true professional relish: +which is eccentric sometimes--and after asking the candidate a few +unimportant questions, proceeded to enrol him a member of the Great +Protestant Association of England. If anything could have exceeded +Mr Dennis's joy on the happy conclusion of this ceremony, it would +have been the rapture with which he received the announcement that +the new member could neither read nor write: those two arts being +(as Mr Dennis swore) the greatest possible curse a civilised +community could know, and militating more against the professional +emoluments and usefulness of the great constitutional office he had +the honour to hold, than any adverse circumstances that could +present themselves to his imagination. + +The enrolment being completed, and Hugh having been informed by +Gashford, in his peculiar manner, of the peaceful and strictly +lawful objects contemplated by the body to which he now belonged-- +during which recital Mr Dennis nudged him very much with his elbow, +and made divers remarkable faces--the secretary gave them both to +understand that he desired to be alone. Therefore they took their +leaves without delay, and came out of the house together. + +'Are you walking, brother?' said Dennis. + +'Ay!' returned Hugh. 'Where you will.' + +'That's social,' said his new friend. 'Which way shall we take? +Shall we go and have a look at doors that we shall make a pretty +good clattering at, before long--eh, brother?' + +Hugh answering in the affirmative, they went slowly down to +Westminster, where both houses of Parliament were then sitting. +Mingling in the crowd of carriages, horses, servants, chairmen, +link-boys, porters, and idlers of all kinds, they lounged about; +while Hugh's new friend pointed out to him significantly the weak +parts of the building, how easy it was to get into the lobby, and +so to the very door of the House of Commons; and how plainly, when +they marched down there in grand array, their roars and shouts +would be heard by the members inside; with a great deal more to the +same purpose, all of which Hugh received with manifest delight. + +He told him, too, who some of the Lords and Commons were, by name, +as they came in and out; whether they were friendly to the Papists +or otherwise; and bade him take notice of their liveries and +equipages, that he might be sure of them, in case of need. +Sometimes he drew him close to the windows of a passing carriage, +that he might see its master's face by the light of the lamps; and, +both in respect of people and localities, he showed so much +acquaintance with everything around, that it was plain he had often +studied there before; as indeed, when they grew a little more +confidential, he confessed he had. + +Perhaps the most striking part of all this was, the number of +people--never in groups of more than two or three together--who +seemed to be skulking about the crowd for the same purpose. To the +greater part of these, a slight nod or a look from Hugh's companion +was sufficient greeting; but, now and then, some man would come and +stand beside him in the throng, and, without turning his head or +appearing to communicate with him, would say a word or two in a low +voice, which he would answer in the same cautious manner. Then +they would part, like strangers. Some of these men often +reappeared again unexpectedly in the crowd close to Hugh, and, as +they passed by, pressed his hand, or looked him sternly in the +face; but they never spoke to him, nor he to them; no, not a word. + +It was remarkable, too, that whenever they happened to stand where +there was any press of people, and Hugh chanced to be looking +downward, he was sure to see an arm stretched out--under his own +perhaps, or perhaps across him--which thrust some paper into the +hand or pocket of a bystander, and was so suddenly withdrawn that +it was impossible to tell from whom it came; nor could he see in +any face, on glancing quickly round, the least confusion or +surprise. They often trod upon a paper like the one he carried in +his breast, but his companion whispered him not to touch it or to +take it up,--not even to look towards it,--so there they let them +lie, and passed on. + +When they had paraded the street and all the avenues of the +building in this manner for near two hours, they turned away, and +his friend asked him what he thought of what he had seen, and +whether he was prepared for a good hot piece of work if it should +come to that. The hotter the better,' said Hugh, 'I'm prepared for +anything.'--'So am I,' said his friend, 'and so are many of us; +and they shook hands upon it with a great oath, and with many +terrible imprecations on the Papists. + +As they were thirsty by this time, Dennis proposed that they should +repair together to The Boot, where there was good company and +strong liquor. Hugh yielding a ready assent, they bent their steps +that way with no loss of time. + +This Boot was a lone house of public entertainment, situated in the +fields at the back of the Foundling Hospital; a very solitary spot +at that period, and quite deserted after dark. The tavern stood at +some distance from any high road, and was approachable only by a +dark and narrow lane; so that Hugh was much surprised to find +several people drinking there, and great merriment going on. He +was still more surprised to find among them almost every face that +had caught his attention in the crowd; but his companion having +whispered him outside the door, that it was not considered good +manners at The Boot to appear at all curious about the company, he +kept his own counsel, and made no show of recognition. + +Before putting his lips to the liquor which was brought for them, +Dennis drank in a loud voice the health of Lord George Gordon, +President of the Great Protestant Association; which toast Hugh +pledged likewise, with corresponding enthusiasm. A fiddler who was +present, and who appeared to act as the appointed minstrel of the +company, forthwith struck up a Scotch reel; and that in tones so +invigorating, that Hugh and his friend (who had both been drinking +before) rose from their seats as by previous concert, and, to the +great admiration of the assembled guests, performed an +extemporaneous No-Popery Dance. + + + +Chapter 39 + + +The applause which the performance of Hugh and his new friend +elicited from the company at The Boot, had not yet subsided, and +the two dancers were still panting from their exertions, which had +been of a rather extreme and violent character, when the party was +reinforced by the arrival of some more guests, who, being a +detachment of United Bulldogs, were received with very flattering +marks of distinction and respect. + +The leader of this small party--for, including himself, they were +but three in number--was our old acquaintance, Mr Tappertit, who +seemed, physically speaking, to have grown smaller with years +(particularly as to his legs, which were stupendously little), but +who, in a moral point of view, in personal dignity and self-esteem, +had swelled into a giant. Nor was it by any means difficult for +the most unobservant person to detect this state of feeling in the +quondam 'prentice, for it not only proclaimed itself impressively +and beyond mistake in his majestic walk and kindling eye, but found +a striking means of revelation in his turned-up nose, which scouted +all things of earth with deep disdain, and sought communion with +its kindred skies. + +Mr Tappertit, as chief or captain of the Bulldogs, was attended by +his two lieutenants; one, the tall comrade of his younger life; the +other, a 'Prentice Knight in days of yore--Mark Gilbert, bound in +the olden time to Thomas Curzon of the Golden Fleece. These +gentlemen, like himself, were now emancipated from their 'prentice +thraldom, and served as journeymen; but they were, in humble +emulation of his great example, bold and daring spirits, and +aspired to a distinguished state in great political events. Hence +their connection with the Protestant Association of England, +sanctioned by the name of Lord George Gordon; and hence their +present visit to The Boot. + +'Gentlemen!' said Mr Tappertit, taking off his hat as a great +general might in addressing his troops. 'Well met. My lord does +me and you the honour to send his compliments per self.' + +'You've seen my lord too, have you?' said Dennis. 'I see him this +afternoon.' + +'My duty called me to the Lobby when our shop shut up; and I saw +him there, sir,' Mr Tappertit replied, as he and his lieutenants +took their seats. 'How do YOU do?' + +'Lively, master, lively,' said the fellow. 'Here's a new brother, +regularly put down in black and white by Muster Gashford; a credit +to the cause; one of the stick-at-nothing sort; one arter my own +heart. D'ye see him? Has he got the looks of a man that'll do, do +you think?' he cried, as he slapped Hugh on the back. + +'Looks or no looks,' said Hugh, with a drunken flourish of his arm, +'I'm the man you want. I hate the Papists, every one of 'em. They +hate me and I hate them. They do me all the harm they can, and +I'll do them all the harm I can. Hurrah!' + +'Was there ever,' said Dennis, looking round the room, when the +echo of his boisterous voice bad died away; 'was there ever such a +game boy! Why, I mean to say, brothers, that if Muster Gashford +had gone a hundred mile and got together fifty men of the common +run, they wouldn't have been worth this one.' + +The greater part of the company implicitly subscribed to this +opinion, and testified their faith in Hugh by nods and looks of +great significance. Mr Tappertit sat and contemplated him for a +long time in silence, as if he suspended his judgment; then drew a +little nearer to him, and eyed him over more carefully; then went +close up to him, and took him apart into a dark corner. + +'I say,' he began, with a thoughtful brow, 'haven't I seen you +before?' + +'It's like you may,' said Hugh, in his careless way. 'I don't +know; shouldn't wonder.' + +'No, but it's very easily settled,' returned Sim. 'Look at me. +Did you ever see ME before? You wouldn't be likely to forget it, +you know, if you ever did. Look at me. Don't be afraid; I won't +do you any harm. Take a good look--steady now.' + +The encouraging way in which Mr Tappertit made this request, and +coupled it with an assurance that he needn't be frightened, amused +Hugh mightily--so much indeed, that be saw nothing at all of the +small man before him, through closing his eyes in a fit of hearty +laughter, which shook his great broad sides until they ached again. + +'Come!' said Mr Tappertit, growing a little impatient under this +disrespectful treatment. 'Do you know me, feller?' + +'Not I,' cried Hugh. 'Ha ha ha! Not I! But I should like to.' + +'And yet I'd have wagered a seven-shilling piece," said Mr +Tappertit, folding his arms, and confronting him with his legs wide +apart and firmly planted on the ground, 'that you once were hostler +at the Maypole.' + +Hugh opened his eyes on hearing this, and looked at him in great +surprise. + +'--And so you were, too,' said Mr Tappertit, pushing him away with +a condescending playfulness. 'When did MY eyes ever deceive-- +unless it was a young woman! Don't you know me now?' + +'Why it an't--' Hugh faltered. + +'An't it?' said Mr Tappertit. 'Are you sure of that? You remember +G. Varden, don't you?' + +Certainly Hugh did, and he remembered D. Varden too; but that he +didn't tell him. + +'You remember coming down there, before I was out of my time, to +ask after a vagabond that had bolted off, and left his disconsolate +father a prey to the bitterest emotions, and all the rest of it-- +don't you?' said Mr Tappertit. + +'Of course I do!' cried Hugh. 'And I saw you there.' + +'Saw me there!' said Mr Tappertit. 'Yes, I should think you did +see me there. The place would be troubled to go on without me. +Don't you remember my thinking you liked the vagabond, and on that +account going to quarrel with you; and then finding you detested +him worse than poison, going to drink with you? Don't you remember +that?' + +'To be sure!' cried Hugh. + +'Well! and are you in the same mind now?' said Mr Tappertit. + +'Yes!' roared Hugh. + +'You speak like a man,' said Mr Tappertit, 'and I'll shake hands +with you.' With these conciliatory expressions he suited the +action to the word; and Hugh meeting his advances readily, they +performed the ceremony with a show of great heartiness. + +'I find,' said Mr Tappertit, looking round on the assembled guests, +'that brother What's-his-name and I are old acquaintance.--You +never heard anything more of that rascal, I suppose, eh?' + +'Not a syllable,' replied Hugh. 'I never want to. I don't believe +I ever shall. He's dead long ago, I hope.' + +'It's to be hoped, for the sake of mankind in general and the +happiness of society, that he is,' said Mr Tappertit, rubbing his +palm upon his legs, and looking at it between whiles. 'Is your +other hand at all cleaner? Much the same. Well, I'll owe you +another shake. We'll suppose it done, if you've no objection.' + +Hugh laughed again, and with such thorough abandonment to his mad +humour, that his limbs seemed dislocated, and his whole frame in +danger of tumbling to pieces; but Mr Tappertit, so far from +receiving this extreme merriment with any irritation, was pleased +to regard it with the utmost favour, and even to join in it, so far +as one of his gravity and station could, with any regard to that +decency and decorum which men in high places are expected to +maintain. + +Mr Tappertit did not stop here, as many public characters might +have done, but calling up his brace of lieutenants, introduced Hugh +to them with high commendation; declaring him to be a man who, at +such times as those in which they lived, could not be too much +cherished. Further, he did him the honour to remark, that he would +be an acquisition of which even the United Bulldogs might be proud; +and finding, upon sounding him, that he was quite ready and willing +to enter the society (for he was not at all particular, and would +have leagued himself that night with anything, or anybody, for any +purpose whatsoever), caused the necessary preliminaries to be gone +into upon the spot. This tribute to his great merit delighted no +man more than Mr Dennis, as he himself proclaimed with several rare +and surprising oaths; and indeed it gave unmingled satisfaction to +the whole assembly. + +'Make anything you like of me!' cried Hugh, flourishing the can he +had emptied more than once. 'Put me on any duty you please. I'm +your man. I'll do it. Here's my captain--here's my leader. Ha ha +ha! Let him give me the word of command, and I'll fight the whole +Parliament House single-handed, or set a lighted torch to the +King's Throne itself!' With that, he smote Mr Tappertit on the +back, with such violence that his little body seemed to shrink into +a mere nothing; and roared again until the very foundlings near at +hand were startled in their beds. + +In fact, a sense of something whimsical in their companionship +seemed to have taken entire possession of his rude brain. The bare +fact of being patronised by a great man whom he could have crushed +with one hand, appeared in his eyes so eccentric and humorous, that +a kind of ferocious merriment gained the mastery over him, and +quite subdued his brutal nature. He roared and roared again; +toasted Mr Tappertit a hundred times; declared himself a Bulldog to +the core; and vowed to be faithful to him to the last drop of blood +in his veins. + +All these compliments Mr Tappertit received as matters of course-- +flattering enough in their way, but entirely attributable to his +vast superiority. His dignified self-possession only delighted +Hugh the more; and in a word, this giant and dwarf struck up a +friendship which bade fair to be of long continuance, as the one +held it to be his right to command, and the other considered it an +exquisite pleasantry to obey. Nor was Hugh by any means a passive +follower, who scrupled to act without precise and definite orders; +for when Mr Tappertit mounted on an empty cask which stood by way +of rostrum in the room, and volunteered a speech upon the alarming +crisis then at hand, he placed himself beside the orator, and +though he grinned from ear to ear at every word he said, threw out +such expressive hints to scoffers in the management of his cudgel, +that those who were at first the most disposed to interrupt, became +remarkably attentive, and were the loudest in their approbation. + +It was not all noise and jest, however, at The Boot, nor were the +whole party listeners to the speech. There were some men at the +other end of the room (which was a long, low-roofed chamber) in +earnest conversation all the time; and when any of this group went +out, fresh people were sure to come in soon afterwards and sit down +in their places, as though the others had relieved them on some +watch or duty; which it was pretty clear they did, for these +changes took place by the clock, at intervals of half an hour. +These persons whispered very much among themselves, and kept aloof, +and often looked round, as jealous of their speech being overheard; +some two or three among them entered in books what seemed to be +reports from the others; when they were not thus employed) one of +them would turn to the newspapers which were strewn upon the table, +and from the St James's Chronicle, the Herald, Chronicle, or +Public Advertiser, would read to the rest in a low voice some +passage having reference to the topic in which they were all so +deeply interested. But the great attraction was a pamphlet called +The Thunderer, which espoused their own opinions, and was supposed +at that time to emanate directly from the Association. This was +always in request; and whether read aloud, to an eager knot of +listeners, or by some solitary man, was certain to be followed by +stormy talking and excited looks. + +In the midst of all his merriment, and admiration of his captain, +Hugh was made sensible by these and other tokens, of the presence +of an air of mystery, akin to that which had so much impressed him +out of doors. It was impossible to discard a sense that something +serious was going on, and that under the noisy revel of the public- +house, there lurked unseen and dangerous matter. Little affected +by this, however, he was perfectly satisfied with his quarters and +would have remained there till morning, but that his conductor rose +soon after midnight, to go home; Mr Tappertit following his +example, left him no excuse to stay. So they all three left the +house together: roaring a No-Popery song until the fields +resounded with the dismal noise. + +Cheer up, captain!' cried Hugh, when they had roared themselves out +of breath. 'Another stave!' + +Mr Tappertit, nothing loath, began again; and so the three went +staggering on, arm-in-arm, shouting like madmen, and defying the +watch with great valour. Indeed this did not require any unusual +bravery or boldness, as the watchmen of that time, being selected +for the office on account of excessive age and extraordinary +infirmity, had a custom of shutting themselves up tight in their +boxes on the first symptoms of disturbance, and remaining there +until they disappeared. In these proceedings, Mr Dennis, who had a +gruff voice and lungs of considerable power, distinguished himself +very much, and acquired great credit with his two companions. + +'What a queer fellow you are!' said Mr Tappertit. 'You're so +precious sly and close. Why don't you ever tell what trade you're +of?' + +'Answer the captain instantly,' cried Hugh, beating his hat down on +his head; 'why don't you ever tell what trade you're of?' + +'I'm of as gen-teel a calling, brother, as any man in England--as +light a business as any gentleman could desire.' + +'Was you 'prenticed to it?' asked Mr Tappertit. + +'No. Natural genius,' said Mr Dennis. 'No 'prenticing. It come +by natur'. Muster Gashford knows my calling. Look at that hand of +mine--many and many a job that hand has done, with a neatness and +dex-terity, never known afore. When I look at that hand,' said Mr +Dennis, shaking it in the air, 'and remember the helegant bits of +work it has turned off, I feel quite molloncholy to think it should +ever grow old and feeble. But sich is life!' + +He heaved a deep sigh as he indulged in these reflections, and +putting his fingers with an absent air on Hugh's throat, and +particularly under his left ear, as if he were studying the +anatomical development of that part of his frame, shook his head in +a despondent manner and actually shed tears. + +'You're a kind of artist, I suppose--eh!' said Mr Tappertit. + +'Yes,' rejoined Dennis; 'yes--I may call myself a artist--a fancy +workman--art improves natur'--that's my motto.' + +'And what do you call this?' said Mr Tappertit taking his stick out +of his hand. + +'That's my portrait atop,' Dennis replied; 'd'ye think it's like?' + +'Why--it's a little too handsome,' said Mr Tappertit. 'Who did it? +You?' + +'I!' repeated Dennis, gazing fondly on his image. 'I wish I had +the talent. That was carved by a friend of mine, as is now no +more. The very day afore he died, he cut that with his pocket- +knife from memory! "I'll die game," says my friend, "and my last +moments shall be dewoted to making Dennis's picter." That's it.' + +'That was a queer fancy, wasn't it?' said Mr Tappertit. + +'It WAS a queer fancy,' rejoined the other, breathing on his +fictitious nose, and polishing it with the cuff of his coat, 'but +he was a queer subject altogether--a kind of gipsy--one of the +finest, stand-up men, you ever see. Ah! He told me some things +that would startle you a bit, did that friend of mine, on the +morning when he died.' + +'You were with him at the time, were you?' said Mr Tappertit. + +'Yes,' he answered with a curious look, 'I was there. Oh! yes +certainly, I was there. He wouldn't have gone off half as +comfortable without me. I had been with three or four of his +family under the same circumstances. They were all fine fellows.' + +'They must have been fond of you,' remarked Mr Tappertit, looking +at him sideways. + +'I don't know that they was exactly fond of me,' said Dennis, with +a little hesitation, 'but they all had me near 'em when they +departed. I come in for their wardrobes too. This very handkecher +that you see round my neck, belonged to him that I've been speaking +of--him as did that likeness.' + +Mr Tappertit glanced at the article referred to, and appeared to +think that the deceased's ideas of dress were of a peculiar and by +no means an expensive kind. He made no remark upon the point, +however, and suffered his mysterious companion to proceed without +interruption. + +'These smalls,' said Dennis, rubbing his legs; 'these very smalls-- +they belonged to a friend of mine that's left off sich incumbrances +for ever: this coat too--I've often walked behind this coat, in the +street, and wondered whether it would ever come to me: this pair of +shoes have danced a hornpipe for another man, afore my eyes, full +half-a-dozen times at least: and as to my hat,' he said, taking it +off, and whirling it round upon his fist--'Lord! I've seen this hat +go up Holborn on the box of a hackney-coach--ah, many and many a +day!' + +'You don't mean to say their old wearers are ALL dead, I hope?' +said Mr Tappertit, falling a little distance from him as he spoke. + +'Every one of 'em,' replied Dennis. 'Every man Jack!' + +There was something so very ghastly in this circumstance, and it +appeared to account, in such a very strange and dismal manner, for +his faded dress--which, in this new aspect, seemed discoloured by +the earth from graves--that Mr Tappertit abruptly found he was +going another way, and, stopping short, bade him good night with +the utmost heartiness. As they happened to be near the Old Bailey, +and Mr Dennis knew there were turnkeys in the lodge with whom he +could pass the night, and discuss professional subjects of common +interest among them before a rousing fire, and over a social glass, +he separated from his companions without any great regret, and +warmly shaking hands with Hugh, and making an early appointment for +their meeting at The Boot, left them to pursue their road. + +'That's a strange sort of man,' said Mr Tappertit, watching the +hackney-coachman's hat as it went bobbing down the street. 'I +don't know what to make of him. Why can't he have his smalls made +to order, or wear live clothes at any rate?' + +'He's a lucky man, captain,' cried Hugh. 'I should like to have +such friends as his.' + +'I hope he don't get 'em to make their wills, and then knock 'em on +the head,' said Mr Tappertit, musing. 'But come. The United B.'s +expect me. On!--What's the matter?' + +'I quite forgot,' said Hugh, who had started at the striking of a +neighbouring clock. 'I have somebody to see to-night--I must turn +back directly. The drinking and singing put it out of my head. +It's well I remembered it!' + +Mr Tappertit looked at him as though he were about to give +utterance to some very majestic sentiments in reference to this act +of desertion, but as it was clear, from Hugh's hasty manner, that +the engagement was one of a pressing nature, he graciously forbore, +and gave him his permission to depart immediately, which Hugh +acknowledged with a roar of laughter. + +'Good night, captain!' he cried. 'I am yours to the death, +remember!' + +'Farewell!' said Mr Tappertit, waving his hand. 'Be bold and +vigilant!' + +'No Popery, captain!' roared Hugh. + +'England in blood first!' cried his desperate leader. Whereat Hugh +cheered and laughed, and ran off like a greyhound. + +'That man will prove a credit to my corps,' said Simon, turning +thoughtfully upon his heel. 'And let me see. In an altered state +of society--which must ensue if we break out and are victorious-- +when the locksmith's child is mine, Miggs must be got rid of +somehow, or she'll poison the tea-kettle one evening when I'm out. +He might marry Miggs, if he was drunk enough. It shall be done. +I'll make a note of it.' + + + +Chapter 40 + + +Little thinking of the plan for his happy settlement in life which +had suggested itself to the teeming brain of his provident +commander, Hugh made no pause until Saint Dunstan's giants struck +the hour above him, when he worked the handle of a pump which stood +hard by, with great vigour, and thrusting his head under the spout, +let the water gush upon him until a little stream ran down from +every uncombed hair, and he was wet to the waist. Considerably +refreshed by this ablution, both in mind and body, and almost +sobered for the time, he dried himself as he best could; then +crossed the road, and plied the knocker of the Middle Temple gate. + +The night-porter looked through a small grating in the portal with +a surly eye, and cried 'Halloa!' which greeting Hugh returned in +kind, and bade him open quickly. + +'We don't sell beer here,' cried the man; 'what else do you want?' + +'To come in,' Hugh replied, with a kick at the door. + +'Where to go?' + +'Paper Buildings.' + +'Whose chambers?' + +'Sir John Chester's.' Each of which answers, he emphasised with +another kick. + +After a little growling on the other side, the gate was opened, and +he passed in: undergoing a close inspection from the porter as he +did so. + +'YOU wanting Sir John, at this time of night!' said the man. + +'Ay!' said Hugh. 'I! What of that?' + +'Why, I must go with you and see that you do, for I don't believe +it.' + +'Come along then.' + +Eyeing him with suspicious looks, the man, with key and lantern, +walked on at his side, and attended him to Sir John Chester's door, +at which Hugh gave one knock, that echoed through the dark +staircase like a ghostly summons, and made the dull light tremble +in the drowsy lamp. + +'Do you think he wants me now?' said Hugh. + +Before the man had time to answer, a footstep was heard within, a +light appeared, and Sir John, in his dressing-gown and slippers, +opened the door. + +'I ask your pardon, Sir John,' said the porter, pulling off his +hat. 'Here's a young man says he wants to speak to you. It's late +for strangers. I thought it best to see that all was right.' + +'Aha!' cried Sir John, raising his eyebrows. 'It's you, +messenger, is it? Go in. Quite right, friend. I commend your +prudence highly. Thank you. God bless you. Good night.' + +To be commended, thanked, God-blessed, and bade good night by one +who carried 'Sir' before his name, and wrote himself M.P. to boot, +was something for a porter. He withdrew with much humility and +reverence. Sir John followed his late visitor into the dressing- +room, and sitting in his easy-chair before the fire, and moving it +so that he could see him as he stood, hat in hand, beside the door, +looked at him from head to foot. + +The old face, calm and pleasant as ever; the complexion, quite +juvenile in its bloom and clearness; the same smile; the wonted +precision and elegance of dress; the white, well-ordered teeth; the +delicate hands; the composed and quiet manner; everything as it +used to be: no mark of age or passion, envy, hate, or discontent: +all unruffled and serene, and quite delightful to behold. + +He wrote himself M.P.--but how? Why, thus. It was a proud family-- +more proud, indeed, than wealthy. He had stood in danger of +arrest; of bailiffs, and a jail--a vulgar jail, to which the common +people with small incomes went. Gentlemen of ancient houses have +no privilege of exemption from such cruel laws--unless they are of +one great house, and then they have. A proud man of his stock and +kindred had the means of sending him there. He offered--not indeed +to pay his debts, but to let him sit for a close borough until his +own son came of age, which, if he lived, would come to pass in +twenty years. It was quite as good as an Insolvent Act, and +infinitely more genteel. So Sir John Chester was a member of +Parliament. + +But how Sir John? Nothing so simple, or so easy. One touch with a +sword of state, and the transformation was effected. John Chester, +Esquire, M.P., attended court--went up with an address--headed a +deputation. Such elegance of manner, so many graces of deportment, +such powers of conversation, could never pass unnoticed. Mr was +too common for such merit. A man so gentlemanly should have been-- +but Fortune is capricious--born a Duke: just as some dukes should +have been born labourers. He caught the fancy of the king, knelt +down a grub, and rose a butterfly. John Chester, Esquire, was +knighted and became Sir John. + +'I thought when you left me this evening, my esteemed +acquaintance,' said Sir John after a pretty long silence, 'that you +intended to return with all despatch?' + +'So I did, master.' + +'And so you have?' he retorted, glancing at his watch. 'Is that +what you would say?' + +Instead of replying, Hugh changed the leg on which he leant, +shuffled his cap from one hand to the other, looked at the ground, +the wall, the ceiling, and finally at Sir John himself; before +whose pleasant face he lowered his eyes again, and fixed them on +the floor. + +'And how have you been employing yourself in the meanwhile?' quoth +Sir John, lazily crossing his legs. 'Where have you been? what +harm have you been doing?' + +'No harm at all, master,' growled Hugh, with humility. 'I have +only done as you ordered.' + +'As I WHAT?' returned Sir John. + +'Well then,' said Hugh uneasily, 'as you advised, or said I ought, +or said I might, or said that you would do, if you was me. Don't +be so hard upon me, master.' + +Something like an expression of triumph in the perfect control he +had established over this rough instrument appeared in the knight's +face for an instant; but it vanished directly, as he said--paring +his nails while speaking: + +'When you say I ordered you, my good fellow, you imply that I +directed you to do something for me--something I wanted done-- +something for my own ends and purposes--you see? Now I am sure I +needn't enlarge upon the extreme absurdity of such an idea, however +unintentional; so please--' and here he turned his eyes upon him-- +'to be more guarded. Will you?' + +'I meant to give you no offence,' said Hugh. 'I don't know what to +say. You catch me up so very short.' + +'You will be caught up much shorter, my good friend--infinitely +shorter--one of these days, depend upon it,' replied his patron +calmly. 'By-the-bye, instead of wondering why you have been so +long, my wonder should be why you came at all. Why did you?' + +'You know, master,' said Hugh, 'that I couldn't read the bill I +found, and that supposing it to be something particular from the +way it was wrapped up, I brought it here.' + +'And could you ask no one else to read it, Bruin?' said Sir John. + +'No one that I could trust with secrets, master. Since Barnaby +Rudge was lost sight of for good and all--and that's five years +ago--I haven't talked with any one but you.' + +'You have done me honour, I am sure.' + +'I have come to and fro, master, all through that time, when there +was anything to tell, because I knew that you'd be angry with me if +I stayed away,' said Hugh, blurting the words out, after an +embarrassed silence; 'and because I wished to please you if I +could, and not to have you go against me. There. That's the true +reason why I came to-night. You know that, master, I am sure.' + +'You are a specious fellow,' returned Sir John, fixing his eyes +upon him, 'and carry two faces under your hood, as well as the +best. Didn't you give me in this room, this evening, any other +reason; no dislike of anybody who has slighted you lately, on all +occasions, abused you, treated you with rudeness; acted towards +you, more as if you were a mongrel dog than a man like himself?' + +'To be sure I did!' cried Hugh, his passion rising, as the other +meant it should; 'and I say it all over now, again. I'd do +anything to have some revenge on him--anything. And when you told +me that he and all the Catholics would suffer from those who joined +together under that handbill, I said I'd make one of 'em, if their +master was the devil himself. I AM one of 'em. See whether I am +as good as my word and turn out to be among the foremost, or no. I +mayn't have much head, master, but I've head enough to remember +those that use me ill. You shall see, and so shall he, and so +shall hundreds more, how my spirit backs me when the time comes. +My bark is nothing to my bite. Some that I know had better have a +wild lion among 'em than me, when I am fairly loose--they had!' + +The knight looked at him with a smile of far deeper meaning than +ordinary; and pointing to the old cupboard, followed him with his +eyes while he filled and drank a glass of liquor; and smiled when +his back was turned, with deeper meaning yet. + +'You are in a blustering mood, my friend,' he said, when Hugh +confronted him again. + +'Not I, master!' cried Hugh. 'I don't say half I mean. I can't. +I haven't got the gift. There are talkers enough among us; I'll be +one of the doers.' + +'Oh! you have joined those fellows then?' said Sir John, with an +air of most profound indifference. + +'Yes. I went up to the house you told me of; and got put down upon +the muster. There was another man there, named Dennis--' + +'Dennis, eh!' cried Sir John, laughing. 'Ay, ay! a pleasant +fellow, I believe?' + +'A roaring dog, master--one after my own heart--hot upon the matter +too--red hot.' + +'So I have heard,' replied Sir John, carelessly. 'You don't happen +to know his trade, do you?' + +'He wouldn't say,' cried Hugh. 'He keeps it secret.' + +'Ha ha!' laughed Sir John. 'A strange fancy--a weakness with some +persons--you'll know it one day, I dare swear.' + +'We're intimate already,' said Hugh. + +'Quite natural! And have been drinking together, eh?' pursued Sir +John. 'Did you say what place you went to in company, when you +left Lord George's?' + +Hugh had not said or thought of saying, but he told him; and this +inquiry being followed by a long train of questions, he related all +that had passed both in and out of doors, the kind of people he had +seen, their numbers, state of feeling, mode of conversation, +apparent expectations and intentions. His questioning was so +artfully contrived, that he seemed even in his own eyes to +volunteer all this information rather than to have it wrested from +him; and he was brought to this state of feeling so naturally, that +when Mr Chester yawned at length and declared himself quite wearied +out, he made a rough kind of excuse for having talked so much. + +'There--get you gone,' said Sir John, holding the door open in his +hand. 'You have made a pretty evening's work. I told you not to +do this. You may get into trouble. You'll have an opportunity of +revenging yourself on your proud friend Haredale, though, and for +that, you'd hazard anything, I suppose?' + +'I would,' retorted Hugh, stopping in his passage out and looking +back; 'but what do I risk! What do I stand a chance of losing, +master? Friends, home? A fig for 'em all; I have none; they are +nothing to me. Give me a good scuffle; let me pay off old scores +in a bold riot where there are men to stand by me; and then use me +as you like--it don't matter much to me what the end is!' + +'What have you done with that paper?' said Sir John. + +'I have it here, master.' + +'Drop it again as you go along; it's as well not to keep such +things about you.' + +Hugh nodded, and touching his cap with an air of as much respect as +he could summon up, departed. + +Sir John, fastening the doors behind him, went back to his +dressing-room, and sat down once again before the fire, at which +he gazed for a long time, in earnest meditation. + +'This happens fortunately,' he said, breaking into a smile, 'and +promises well. Let me see. My relative and I, who are the most +Protestant fellows in the world, give our worst wishes to the Roman +Catholic cause; and to Saville, who introduces their bill, I have +a personal objection besides; but as each of us has himself for +the first article in his creed, we cannot commit ourselves by +joining with a very extravagant madman, such as this Gordon most +undoubtedly is. Now really, to foment his disturbances in secret, +through the medium of such a very apt instrument as my savage +friend here, may further our real ends; and to express at all +becoming seasons, in moderate and polite terms, a disapprobation of +his proceedings, though we agree with him in principle, will +certainly be to gain a character for honesty and uprightness of +purpose, which cannot fail to do us infinite service, and to raise +us into some importance. Good! So much for public grounds. As to +private considerations, I confess that if these vagabonds WOULD +make some riotous demonstration (which does not appear impossible), +and WOULD inflict some little chastisement on Haredale as a not +inactive man among his sect, it would be extremely agreeable to my +feelings, and would amuse me beyond measure. Good again! Perhaps +better!' + +When he came to this point, he took a pinch of snuff; then +beginning slowly to undress, he resumed his meditations, by saying +with a smile: + +'I fear, I DO fear exceedingly, that my friend is following fast in +the footsteps of his mother. His intimacy with Mr Dennis is very +ominous. But I have no doubt he must have come to that end any +way. If I lend him a helping hand, the only difference is, that he +may, upon the whole, possibly drink a few gallons, or puncheons, or +hogsheads, less in this life than he otherwise would. It's no +business of mine. It's a matter of very small importance!' + +So he took another pinch of snuff, and went to bed. + + + +Chapter 41 + + +From the workshop of the Golden Key, there issued forth a tinkling +sound, so merry and good-humoured, that it suggested the idea of +some one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. No man +who hammered on at a dull monotonous duty, could have brought such +cheerful notes from steel and iron; none but a chirping, healthy, +honest-hearted fellow, who made the best of everything, and felt +kindly towards everybody, could have done it for an instant. He +might have been a coppersmith, and still been musical. If he had +sat in a jolting waggon, full of rods of iron, it seemed as if he +would have brought some harmony out of it. + +Tink, tink, tink--clear as a silver bell, and audible at every +pause of the streets' harsher noises, as though it said, 'I don't +care; nothing puts me out; I am resolved to he happy.' Women +scolded, children squalled, heavy carts went rumbling by, horrible +cries proceeded from the lungs of hawkers; still it struck in +again, no higher, no lower, no louder, no softer; not thrusting +itself on people's notice a bit the more for having been outdone by +louder sounds--tink, tink, tink, tink, tink. + +It was a perfect embodiment of the still small voice, free from all +cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind; foot- +passengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near +it; neighbours who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good- +humour stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became +quite sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing; still +the same magical tink, tink, tink, came gaily from the workshop of +the Golden Key. + +Who but the locksmith could have made such music! A gleam of sun +shining through the unsashed window, and chequering the dark +workshop with a broad patch of light, fell full upon him, as though +attracted by his sunny heart. There he stood working at his anvil, +his face all radiant with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned +up, his wig pushed off his shining forehead--the easiest, freest, +happiest man in all the world. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring +and winking in the light, and falling every now and then into an +idle doze, as from excess of comfort. Toby looked on from a tall +bench hard by; one beaming smile, from his broad nut-brown face +down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The very locks that +hung around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed like +gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their +infirmities. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene. +It seemed impossible that any one of the innumerable keys could fit +a churlish strong-box or a prison-door. Cellars of beer and wine, +rooms where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter-- +these were their proper sphere of action. Places of distrust and +cruelty, and restraint, they would have left quadruple-locked for +ever. + +Tink, tink, tink. The locksmith paused at last, and wiped his +brow. The silence roused the cat, who, jumping softly down, crept +to the door, and watched with tiger eyes a bird-cage in an opposite +window. Gabriel lifted Toby to his mouth, and took a hearty +draught. + +Then, as he stood upright, with his head flung back, and his portly +chest thrown out, you would have seen that Gabriel's lower man was +clothed in military gear. Glancing at the wall beyond, there might +have been espied, hanging on their several pegs, a cap and feather, +broadsword, sash, and coat of scarlet; which any man learned in +such matters would have known from their make and pattern to be the +uniform of a serjeant in the Royal East London Volunteers. + +As the locksmith put his mug down, empty, on the bench whence it +had smiled on him before, he glanced at these articles with a +laughing eye, and looking at them with his head a little on one +side, as though he would get them all into a focus, said, leaning +on his hammer: + +'Time was, now, I remember, when I was like to run mad with the +desire to wear a coat of that colour. If any one (except my +father) had called me a fool for my pains, how I should have fired +and fumed! But what a fool I must have been, sure-ly!' + +'Ah!' sighed Mrs Varden, who had entered unobserved. 'A fool +indeed. A man at your time of life, Varden, should know better +now.' + +'Why, what a ridiculous woman you are, Martha,' said the locksmith, +turning round with a smile. + +'Certainly,' replied Mrs V. with great demureness. 'Of course I +am. I know that, Varden. Thank you.' + +'I mean--' began the locksmith. + +'Yes,' said his wife, 'I know what you mean. You speak quite plain +enough to be understood, Varden. It's very kind of you to adapt +yourself to my capacity, I am sure.' + +'Tut, tut, Martha,' rejoined the locksmith; 'don't take offence at +nothing. I mean, how strange it is of you to run down +volunteering, when it's done to defend you and all the other women, +and our own fireside and everybody else's, in case of need.' + +'It's unchristian,' cried Mrs Varden, shaking her head. + +'Unchristian!' said the locksmith. 'Why, what the devil--' + +Mrs Varden looked at the ceiling, as in expectation that the +consequence of this profanity would be the immediate descent of the +four-post bedstead on the second floor, together with the best +sitting-room on the first; but no visible judgment occurring, she +heaved a deep sigh, and begged her husband, in a tone of +resignation, to go on, and by all means to blaspheme as much as +possible, because he knew she liked it. + +The locksmith did for a moment seem disposed to gratify her, but he +gave a great gulp, and mildly rejoined: + +'I was going to say, what on earth do you call it unchristian for? +Which would be most unchristian, Martha--to sit quietly down and +let our houses be sacked by a foreign army, or to turn out like men +and drive 'em off? Shouldn't I be a nice sort of a Christian, if I +crept into a corner of my own chimney and looked on while a parcel +of whiskered savages bore off Dolly--or you?' + +When he said 'or you,' Mrs Varden, despite herself, relaxed into a +smile. There was something complimentary in the idea. 'In such a +state of things as that, indeed--' she simpered. + +'As that!' repeated the locksmith. 'Well, that would be the state +of things directly. Even Miggs would go. Some black tambourine- +player, with a great turban on, would be bearing HER off, and, +unless the tambourine-player was proof against kicking and +scratching, it's my belief he'd have the worst of it. Ha ha ha! +I'd forgive the tambourine-player. I wouldn't have him interfered +with on any account, poor fellow.' And here the locksmith laughed +again so heartily, that tears came into his eyes--much to Mrs +Varden's indignation, who thought the capture of so sound a +Protestant and estimable a private character as Miggs by a pagan +negro, a circumstance too shocking and awful for contemplation. + +The picture Gabriel had drawn, indeed, threatened serious +consequences, and would indubitably have led to them, but luckily +at that moment a light footstep crossed the threshold, and Dolly, +running in, threw her arms round her old father's neck and hugged +him tight. + +'Here she is at last!' cried Gabriel. 'And how well you look, +Doll, and how late you are, my darling!' + +How well she looked? Well? Why, if he had exhausted every +laudatory adjective in the dictionary, it wouldn't have been praise +enough. When and where was there ever such a plump, roguish, +comely, bright-eyed, enticing, bewitching, captivating, maddening +little puss in all this world, as Dolly! What was the Dolly of +five years ago, to the Dolly of that day! How many coachmakers, +saddlers, cabinet-makers, and professors of other useful arts, had +deserted their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and, most of +all, their cousins, for the love of her! How many unknown +gentlemen--supposed to be of mighty fortunes, if not titles--had +waited round the corner after dark, and tempted Miggs the +incorruptible, with golden guineas, to deliver offers of marriage +folded up in love-letters! How many disconsolate fathers and +substantial tradesmen had waited on the locksmith for the same +purpose, with dismal tales of how their sons had lost their +appetites, and taken to shut themselves up in dark bedrooms, and +wandering in desolate suburbs with pale faces, and all because of +Dolly Varden's loveliness and cruelty! How many young men, in all +previous times of unprecedented steadiness, had turned suddenly +wild and wicked for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of +unrequited love, taken to wrench off door-knockers, and invert the +boxes of rheumatic watchmen! How had she recruited the king's +service, both by sea and land, through rendering desperate his +loving subjects between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five! How +many young ladies had publicly professed, with tears in their eyes, +that for their tastes she was much too short, too tall, too bold, +too cold, too stout, too thin, too fair, too dark--too everything +but handsome! How many old ladies, taking counsel together, had +thanked Heaven their daughters were not like her, and had hoped she +might come to no harm, and had thought she would come to no good, +and had wondered what people saw in her, and had arrived at the +conclusion that she was 'going off' in her looks, or had never come +on in them, and that she was a thorough imposition and a popular +mistake! + +And yet here was this same Dolly Varden, so whimsical and hard to +please that she was Dolly Varden still, all smiles and dimples and +pleasant looks, and caring no more for the fifty or sixty young +fellows who at that very moment were breaking their hearts to marry +her, than if so many oysters had been crossed in love and opened +afterwards. + +Dolly hugged her father as has been already stated, and having +hugged her mother also, accompanied both into the little parlour +where the cloth was already laid for dinner, and where Miss Miggs-- +a trifle more rigid and bony than of yore--received her with a sort +of hysterical gasp, intended for a smile. Into the hands of that +young virgin, she delivered her bonnet and walking dress (all of a +dreadful, artful, and designing kind), and then said with a laugh, +which rivalled the locksmith's music, 'How glad I always am to be +at home again!' + +'And how glad we always are, Doll,' said her father, putting back +the dark hair from her sparkling eyes, 'to have you at home. Give +me a kiss.' + +If there had been anybody of the male kind there to see her do it-- +but there was not--it was a mercy. + +'I don't like your being at the Warren,' said the locksmith, 'I +can't bear to have you out of my sight. And what is the news over +yonder, Doll?' + +'What news there is, I think you know already,' replied his +daughter. 'I am sure you do though.' + +'Ay?' cried the locksmith. 'What's that?' + +'Come, come,' said Dolly, 'you know very well. I want you to tell +me why Mr Haredale--oh, how gruff he is again, to be sure!--has +been away from home for some days past, and why he is travelling +about (we know he IS travelling, because of his letters) without +telling his own niece why or wherefore.' + +'Miss Emma doesn't want to know, I'll swear,' returned the +locksmith. + +'I don't know that,' said Dolly; 'but I do, at any rate. Do tell +me. Why is he so secret, and what is this ghost story, which +nobody is to tell Miss Emma, and which seems to be mixed up with +his going away? Now I see you know by your colouring so.' + +'What the story means, or is, or has to do with it, I know no more +than you, my dear,' returned the locksmith, 'except that it's some +foolish fear of little Solomon's--which has, indeed, no meaning in +it, I suppose. As to Mr Haredale's journey, he goes, as I believe--' + +'Yes,' said Dolly. + +'As I believe,' resumed the locksmith, pinching her cheek, 'on +business, Doll. What it may be, is quite another matter. Read +Blue Beard, and don't be too curious, pet; it's no business of +yours or mine, depend upon that; and here's dinner, which is much +more to the purpose.' + +Dolly might have remonstrated against this summary dismissal of the +subject, notwithstanding the appearance of dinner, but at the +mention of Blue Beard Mrs Varden interposed, protesting she could +not find it in her conscience to sit tamely by, and hear her child +recommended to peruse the adventures of a Turk and Mussulman--far +less of a fabulous Turk, which she considered that potentate to be. +She held that, in such stirring and tremendous times as those in +which they lived, it would be much more to the purpose if Dolly +became a regular subscriber to the Thunderer, where she would have +an opportunity of reading Lord George Gordon's speeches word for +word, which would be a greater comfort and solace to her, than a +hundred and fifty Blue Beards ever could impart. She appealed in +support of this proposition to Miss Miggs, then in waiting, who +said that indeed the peace of mind she had derived from the perusal +of that paper generally, but especially of one article of the very +last week as ever was, entitled 'Great Britain drenched in gore,' +exceeded all belief; the same composition, she added, had also +wrought such a comforting effect on the mind of a married sister of +hers, then resident at Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, +second bell-handle on the right-hand door-post, that, being in a +delicate state of health, and in fact expecting an addition to her +family, she had been seized with fits directly after its perusal, +and had raved of the Inquisition ever since; to the great +improvement of her husband and friends. Miss Miggs went on to say +that she would recommend all those whose hearts were hardened to +hear Lord George themselves, whom she commended first, in respect +of his steady Protestantism, then of his oratory, then of his eyes, +then of his nose, then of his legs, and lastly of his figure +generally, which she looked upon as fit for any statue, prince, or +angel, to which sentiment Mrs Varden fully subscribed. + +Mrs Varden having cut in, looked at a box upon the mantelshelf, +painted in imitation of a very red-brick dwelling-house, with a +yellow roof; having at top a real chimney, down which voluntary +subscribers dropped their silver, gold, or pence, into the parlour; +and on the door the counterfeit presentment of a brass plate, +whereon was legibly inscribed 'Protestant Association:'--and +looking at it, said, that it was to her a source of poignant misery +to think that Varden never had, of all his substance, dropped +anything into that temple, save once in secret--as she afterwards +discovered--two fragments of tobacco-pipe, which she hoped would +not be put down to his last account. That Dolly, she was grieved +to say, was no less backward in her contributions, better loving, +as it seemed, to purchase ribbons and such gauds, than to encourage +the great cause, then in such heavy tribulation; and that she did +entreat her (her father she much feared could not be moved) not to +despise, but imitate, the bright example of Miss Miggs, who flung +her wages, as it were, into the very countenance of the Pope, and +bruised his features with her quarter's money. + +'Oh, mim,' said Miggs, 'don't relude to that. I had no intentions, +mim, that nobody should know. Such sacrifices as I can make, are +quite a widder's mite. It's all I have,' cried Miggs with a great +burst of tears--for with her they never came on by degrees--'but +it's made up to me in other ways; it's well made up.' + +This was quite true, though not perhaps in the sense that Miggs +intended. As she never failed to keep her self-denial full in Mrs +Varden's view, it drew forth so many gifts of caps and gowns and +other articles of dress, that upon the whole the red-brick house +was perhaps the best investment for her small capital she could +possibly have hit upon; returning her interest, at the rate of +seven or eight per cent in money, and fifty at least in personal +repute and credit. + +'You needn't cry, Miggs,' said Mrs Varden, herself in tears; 'you +needn't be ashamed of it, though your poor mistress IS on the same +side.' + +Miggs howled at this remark, in a peculiarly dismal way, and said +she knowed that master hated her. That it was a dreadful thing to +live in families and have dislikes, and not give satisfactions. +That to make divisions was a thing she could not abear to think of, +neither could her feelings let her do it. That if it was master's +wishes as she and him should part, it was best they should part, +and she hoped he might be the happier for it, and always wished him +well, and that he might find somebody as would meet his +dispositions. It would be a hard trial, she said, to part from +such a missis, but she could meet any suffering when her conscience +told her she was in the rights, and therefore she was willing even +to go that lengths. She did not think, she added, that she could +long survive the separations, but, as she was hated and looked upon +unpleasant, perhaps her dying as soon as possible would be the best +endings for all parties. With this affecting conclusion, Miss +Miggs shed more tears, and sobbed abundantly. + +'Can you bear this, Varden?' said his wife in a solemn voice, +laying down her knife and fork. + +'Why, not very well, my dear,' rejoined the locksmith, 'but I try +to keep my temper.' + +'Don't let there be words on my account, mim,' sobbed Miggs. 'It's +much the best that we should part. I wouldn't stay--oh, gracious +me!--and make dissensions, not for a annual gold mine, and found in +tea and sugar.' + +Lest the reader should be at any loss to discover the cause of Miss +Miggs's deep emotion, it may be whispered apart that, happening to +be listening, as her custom sometimes was, when Gabriel and his +wife conversed together, she had heard the locksmith's joke +relative to the foreign black who played the tambourine, and +bursting with the spiteful feelings which the taunt awoke in her +fair breast, exploded in the manner we have witnessed. Matters +having now arrived at a crisis, the locksmith, as usual, and for +the sake of peace and quietness, gave in. + +'What are you crying for, girl?' he said. 'What's the matter with +you? What are you talking about hatred for? I don't hate you; I +don't hate anybody. Dry your eyes and make yourself agreeable, in +Heaven's name, and let us all be happy while we can.' + +The allied powers deeming it good generalship to consider this a +sufficient apology on the part of the enemy, and confession of +having been in the wrong, did dry their eyes and take it in good +part. Miss Miggs observed that she bore no malice, no not to her +greatest foe, whom she rather loved the more indeed, the greater +persecution she sustained. Mrs Varden approved of this meek and +forgiving spirit in high terms, and incidentally declared as a +closing article of agreement, that Dolly should accompany her to +the Clerkenwell branch of the association, that very night. This +was an extraordinary instance of her great prudence and policy; +having had this end in view from the first, and entertaining a +secret misgiving that the locksmith (who was bold when Dolly was in +question) would object, she had backed Miss Miggs up to this +point, in order that she might have him at a disadvantage. The +manoeuvre succeeded so well that Gabriel only made a wry face, and +with the warning he had just had, fresh in his mind, did not dare +to say one word. + +The difference ended, therefore, in Miggs being presented with a +gown by Mrs Varden and half-a-crown by Dolly, as if she had +eminently distinguished herself in the paths of morality and +goodness. Mrs V., according to custom, expressed her hope that +Varden would take a lesson from what had passed and learn more +generous conduct for the time to come; and the dinner being now +cold and nobody's appetite very much improved by what had passed, +they went on with it, as Mrs Varden said, 'like Christians.' + +As there was to be a grand parade of the Royal East London +Volunteers that afternoon, the locksmith did no more work; but sat +down comfortably with his pipe in his mouth, and his arm round his +pretty daughter's waist, looking lovingly on Mrs V., from time to +time, and exhibiting from the crown of his head to the sole of his +foot, one smiling surface of good humour. And to be sure, when it +was time to dress him in his regimentals, and Dolly, hanging about +him in all kinds of graceful winning ways, helped to button and +buckle and brush him up and get him into one of the tightest coats +that ever was made by mortal tailor, he was the proudest father in +all England. + +'What a handy jade it is!' said the locksmith to Mrs Varden, who +stood by with folded hands--rather proud of her husband too--while +Miggs held his cap and sword at arm's length, as if mistrusting +that the latter might run some one through the body of its own +accord; 'but never marry a soldier, Doll, my dear.' + +Dolly didn't ask why not, or say a word, indeed, but stooped her +head down very low to tie his sash. + +'I never wear this dress,' said honest Gabriel, 'but I think of +poor Joe Willet. I loved Joe; he was always a favourite of mine. +Poor Joe!--Dear heart, my girl, don't tie me in so tight.' + +Dolly laughed--not like herself at all--the strangest little laugh +that could be--and held her head down lower still. + +'Poor Joe!' resumed the locksmith, muttering to himself; 'I always +wish he had come to me. I might have made it up between them, if +he had. Ah! old John made a great mistake in his way of acting by +that lad--a great mistake.--Have you nearly tied that sash, my +dear?' + +What an ill-made sash it was! There it was, loose again and +trailing on the ground. Dolly was obliged to kneel down, and +recommence at the beginning. + +'Never mind young Willet, Varden,' said his wife frowning; 'you +might find some one more deserving to talk about, I think.' + +Miss Miggs gave a great sniff to the same effect. + +'Nay, Martha,' cried the locksmith, 'don't let us bear too hard +upon him. If the lad is dead indeed, we'll deal kindly by his +memory.' + +'A runaway and a vagabond!' said Mrs Varden. + +Miss Miggs expressed her concurrence as before. + +'A runaway, my dear, but not a vagabond,' returned the locksmith in +a gentle tone. 'He behaved himself well, did Joe--always--and was +a handsome, manly fellow. Don't call him a vagabond, Martha.' + +Mrs Varden coughed--and so did Miggs. + +'He tried hard to gain your good opinion, Martha, I can tell you,' +said the locksmith smiling, and stroking his chin. 'Ah! that he +did. It seems but yesterday that he followed me out to the Maypole +door one night, and begged me not to say how like a boy they used +him--say here, at home, he meant, though at the time, I recollect, +I didn't understand. "And how's Miss Dolly, sir?" says Joe,' +pursued the locksmith, musing sorrowfully, 'Ah! Poor Joe!' + +'Well, I declare,' cried Miggs. 'Oh! Goodness gracious me!' + +'What's the matter now?' said Gabriel, turning sharply to her, +'Why, if here an't Miss Dolly,' said the handmaid, stooping down to +look into her face, 'a-giving way to floods of tears. Oh mim! oh +sir. Raly it's give me such a turn,' cried the susceptible damsel, +pressing her hand upon her side to quell the palpitation of her +heart, 'that you might knock me down with a feather.' + +The locksmith, after glancing at Miss Miggs as if he could have +wished to have a feather brought straightway, looked on with a +broad stare while Dolly hurried away, followed by that sympathising +young woman: then turning to his wife, stammered out, 'Is Dolly +ill? Have I done anything? Is it my fault?' + +'Your fault!' cried Mrs V. reproachfully. 'There--you had better +make haste out.' + +'What have I done?' said poor Gabriel. 'It was agreed that Mr +Edward's name was never to be mentioned, and I have not spoken of +him, have I?' + +Mrs Varden merely replied that she had no patience with him, and +bounced off after the other two. The unfortunate locksmith wound +his sash about him, girded on his sword, put on his cap, and walked +out. + +'I am not much of a dab at my exercise,' he said under his breath, +'but I shall get into fewer scrapes at that work than at this. +Every man came into the world for something; my department seems to +be to make every woman cry without meaning it. It's rather hard!' + +But he forgot it before he reached the end of the street, and went +on with a shining face, nodding to the neighbours, and showering +about his friendly greetings like mild spring rain. + + + +Chapter 42 + + +The Royal East London Volunteers made a brilliant sight that day: +formed into lines, squares, circles, triangles, and what not, to +the beating of drums, and the streaming of flags; and performed a +vast number of complex evolutions, in all of which Serjeant Varden +bore a conspicuous share. Having displayed their military prowess +to the utmost in these warlike shows, they marched in glittering +order to the Chelsea Bun House, and regaled in the adjacent taverns +until dark. Then at sound of drum they fell in again, and +returned amidst the shouting of His Majesty's lieges to the place +from whence they came. + +The homeward march being somewhat tardy,--owing to the un- +soldierlike behaviour of certain corporals, who, being gentlemen of +sedentary pursuits in private life and excitable out of doors, +broke several windows with their bayonets, and rendered it +imperative on the commanding officer to deliver them over to a +strong guard, with whom they fought at intervals as they came +along,--it was nine o'clock when the locksmith reached home. A +hackney-coach was waiting near his door; and as he passed it, Mr +Haredale looked from the window and called him by his name. + +'The sight of you is good for sore eyes, sir,' said the locksmith, +stepping up to him. 'I wish you had walked in though, rather than +waited here.' + +'There is nobody at home, I find,' Mr Haredale answered; 'besides, +I desired to be as private as I could.' + +'Humph!' muttered the locksmith, looking round at his house. +'Gone with Simon Tappertit to that precious Branch, no doubt.' + +Mr Haredale invited him to come into the coach, and, if he were not +tired or anxious to go home, to ride with him a little way that +they might have some talk together. Gabriel cheerfully complied, +and the coachman mounting his box drove off. + +'Varden,' said Mr Haredale, after a minute's pause, 'you will be +amazed to hear what errand I am on; it will seem a very strange +one.' + +'I have no doubt it's a reasonable one, sir, and has a meaning in +it,' replied the locksmith; 'or it would not be yours at all. Have +you just come back to town, sir?' + +'But half an hour ago.' + +'Bringing no news of Barnaby, or his mother?' said the locksmith +dubiously. 'Ah! you needn't shake your head, sir. It was a wild- +goose chase. I feared that, from the first. You exhausted all +reasonable means of discovery when they went away. To begin again +after so long a time has passed is hopeless, sir--quite hopeless.' + +'Why, where are they?' he returned impatiently. 'Where can they +be? Above ground?' + +'God knows,' rejoined the locksmith, 'many that I knew above it +five years ago, have their beds under the grass now. And the world +is a wide place. It's a hopeless attempt, sir, believe me. We +must leave the discovery of this mystery, like all others, to time, +and accident, and Heaven's pleasure.' + +'Varden, my good fellow,' said Mr Haredale, 'I have a deeper +meaning in my present anxiety to find them out, than you can +fathom. It is not a mere whim; it is not the casual revival of my +old wishes and desires; but an earnest, solemn purpose. My +thoughts and dreams all tend to it, and fix it in my mind. I have +no rest by day or night; I have no peace or quiet; I am haunted.' + +His voice was so altered from its usual tones, and his manner +bespoke so much emotion, that Gabriel, in his wonder, could only +sit and look towards him in the darkness, and fancy the expression +of his face. + +'Do not ask me,' continued Mr Haredale, 'to explain myself. If I +were to do so, you would think me the victim of some hideous fancy. +It is enough that this is so, and that I cannot--no, I can not--lie +quietly in my bed, without doing what will seem to you +incomprehensible.' + +'Since when, sir,' said the locksmith after a pause, 'has this +uneasy feeling been upon you?' + +Mr Haredale hesitated for some moments, and then replied: 'Since +the night of the storm. In short, since the last nineteenth of +March.' + +As though he feared that Varden might express surprise, or reason +with him, he hastily went on: + +'You will think, I know, I labour under some delusion. Perhaps I +do. But it is not a morbid one; it is a wholesome action of the +mind, reasoning on actual occurrences. You know the furniture +remains in Mrs Rudge's house, and that it has been shut up, by my +orders, since she went away, save once a-week or so, when an old +neighbour visits it to scare away the rats. I am on my way there +now.' + +'For what purpose?' asked the locksmith. + +'To pass the night there,' he replied; 'and not to-night alone, but +many nights. This is a secret which I trust to you in case of any +unexpected emergency. You will not come, unless in case of strong +necessity, to me; from dusk to broad day I shall be there. Emma, +your daughter, and the rest, suppose me out of London, as I have +been until within this hour. Do not undeceive them. This is the +errand I am bound upon. I know I may confide it to you, and I rely +upon your questioning me no more at this time.' + +With that, as if to change the theme, he led the astounded +locksmith back to the night of the Maypole highwayman, to the +robbery of Edward Chester, to the reappearance of the man at Mrs +Rudge's house, and to all the strange circumstances which +afterwards occurred. He even asked him carelessly about the man's +height, his face, his figure, whether he was like any one he had +ever seen--like Hugh, for instance, or any man he had known at any +time--and put many questions of that sort, which the locksmith, +considering them as mere devices to engage his attention and +prevent his expressing the astonishment he felt, answered pretty +much at random. + +At length, they arrived at the corner of the street in which the +house stood, where Mr Haredale, alighting, dismissed the coach. +'If you desire to see me safely lodged,' he said, turning to the +locksmith with a gloomy smile, 'you can.' + +Gabriel, to whom all former marvels had been nothing in comparison +with this, followed him along the narrow pavement in silence. When +they reached the door, Mr Haredale softly opened it with a key he +had about him, and closing it when Varden entered, they were left +in thorough darkness. + +They groped their way into the ground-floor room. Here Mr +Haredale struck a light, and kindled a pocket taper he had brought +with him for the purpose. It was then, when the flame was full +upon him, that the locksmith saw for the first time how haggard, +pale, and changed he looked; how worn and thin he was; how +perfectly his whole appearance coincided with all that he had said +so strangely as they rode along. It was not an unnatural impulse +in Gabriel, after what he had heard, to note curiously the +expression of his eyes. It was perfectly collected and rational;-- +so much so, indeed, that he felt ashamed of his momentary +suspicion, and drooped his own when Mr Haredale looked towards him, +as if he feared they would betray his thoughts. + +'Will you walk through the house?' said Mr Haredale, with a glance +towards the window, the crazy shutters of which were closed and +fastened. 'Speak low.' + +There was a kind of awe about the place, which would have rendered +it difficult to speak in any other manner. Gabriel whispered +'Yes,' and followed him upstairs. + +Everything was just as they had seen it last. There was a sense of +closeness from the exclusion of fresh air, and a gloom and +heaviness around, as though long imprisonment had made the very +silence sad. The homely hangings of the beds and windows had begun +to droop; the dust lay thick upon their dwindling folds; and damps +had made their way through ceiling, wall, and floor. The boards +creaked beneath their tread, as if resenting the unaccustomed +intrusion; nimble spiders, paralysed by the taper's glare, checked +the motion of their hundred legs upon the wall, or dropped like +lifeless things upon the ground; the death-watch ticked; and the +scampering feet of rats and mice rattled behind the wainscot. + +As they looked about them on the decaying furniture, it was strange +to find how vividly it presented those to whom it had belonged, and +with whom it was once familiar. Grip seemed to perch again upon +his high-backed chair; Barnaby to crouch in his old favourite +corner by the fire; the mother to resume her usual seat, and watch +him as of old. Even when they could separate these objects from +the phantoms of the mind which they invoked, the latter only glided +out of sight, but lingered near them still; for then they seemed to +lurk in closets and behind the doors, ready to start out and +suddenly accost them in well-remembered tones. + +They went downstairs, and again into the room they had just now +left. Mr Haredale unbuckled his sword and laid it on the table, +with a pair of pocket pistols; then told the locksmith he would +light him to the door. + +'But this is a dull place, sir,' said Gabriel lingering; 'may no +one share your watch?' + +He shook his head, and so plainly evinced his wish to be alone, +that Gabriel could say no more. In another moment the locksmith +was standing in the street, whence he could see that the light once +more travelled upstairs, and soon returning to the room below, +shone brightly through the chinks of the shutters. + +If ever man were sorely puzzled and perplexed, the locksmith was, +that night. Even when snugly seated by his own fireside, with Mrs +Varden opposite in a nightcap and night-jacket, and Dolly beside +him (in a most distracting dishabille) curling her hair, and +smiling as if she had never cried in all her life and never could-- +even then, with Toby at his elbow and his pipe in his mouth, and +Miggs (but that perhaps was not much) falling asleep in the +background, he could not quite discard his wonder and uneasiness. +So in his dreams--still there was Mr Haredale, haggard and +careworn, listening in the solitary house to every sound that +stirred, with the taper shining through the chinks until the day +should turn it pale and end his lonely watching. + + + +Chapter 43 + + +Next morning brought no satisfaction to the locksmith's thoughts, +nor next day, nor the next, nor many others. Often after nightfall +he entered the street, and turned his eyes towards the well-known +house; and as surely as he did so, there was the solitary light, +still gleaming through the crevices of the window-shutter, while +all within was motionless, noiseless, cheerless, as a grave. +Unwilling to hazard Mr Haredale's favour by disobeying his strict +injunction, he never ventured to knock at the door or to make his +presence known in any way. But whenever strong interest and +curiosity attracted him to the spot--which was not seldom--the +light was always there. + +If he could have known what passed within, the knowledge would have +yielded him no clue to this mysterious vigil. At twilight, Mr +Haredale shut himself up, and at daybreak he came forth. He never +missed a night, always came and went alone, and never varied his +proceedings in the least degree. + +The manner of his watch was this. At dusk, he entered the house in +the same way as when the locksmith bore him company, kindled a +light, went through the rooms, and narrowly examined them. That +done, he returned to the chamber on the ground-floor, and laying +his sword and pistols on the table, sat by it until morning. + +He usually had a book with him, and often tried to read, but never +fixed his eyes or thoughts upon it for five minutes together. The +slightest noise without doors, caught his ear; a step upon the +pavement seemed to make his heart leap. + +He was not without some refreshment during the long lonely hours; +generally carrying in his pocket a sandwich of bread and meat, and +a small flask of wine. The latter diluted with large quantities of +water, he drank in a heated, feverish way, as though his throat +were dried; but he scarcely ever broke his fast, by so much as a +crumb of bread. + +If this voluntary sacrifice of sleep and comfort had its origin, as +the locksmith on consideration was disposed to think, in any +superstitious expectation of the fulfilment of a dream or vision +connected with the event on which he had brooded for so many years, +and if he waited for some ghostly visitor who walked abroad when +men lay sleeping in their beds, he showed no trace of fear or +wavering. His stern features expressed inflexible resolution; his +brows were puckered, and his lips compressed, with deep and settled +purpose; and when he started at a noise and listened, it was not +with the start of fear but hope, and catching up his sword as +though the hour had come at last, he would clutch it in his tight- +clenched hand, and listen with sparkling eyes and eager looks, +until it died away. + +These disappointments were numerous, for they ensued on almost +every sound, but his constancy was not shaken. Still, every night +he was at his post, the same stern, sleepless, sentinel; and still +night passed, and morning dawned, and he must watch again. + +This went on for weeks; he had taken a lodging at Vauxhall in which +to pass the day and rest himself; and from this place, when the +tide served, he usually came to London Bridge from Westminster by +water, in order that he might avoid the busy streets. + +One evening, shortly before twilight, he came his accustomed road +upon the river's bank, intending to pass through Westminster Hall +into Palace Yard, and there take boat to London Bridge as usual. +There was a pretty large concourse of people assembled round the +Houses of Parliament, looking at the members as they entered and +departed, and giving vent to rather noisy demonstrations of +approval or dislike, according to their known opinions. As he made +his way among the throng, he heard once or twice the No-Popery cry, +which was then becoming pretty familiar to the ears of most men; +but holding it in very slight regard, and observing that the idlers +were of the lowest grade, he neither thought nor cared about it, +but made his way along, with perfect indifference. + +There were many little knots and groups of persons in Westminster +Hall: some few looking upward at its noble ceiling, and at the rays +of evening light, tinted by the setting sun, which streamed in +aslant through its small windows, and growing dimmer by degrees, +were quenched in the gathering gloom below; some, noisy passengers, +mechanics going home from work, and otherwise, who hurried quickly +through, waking the echoes with their voices, and soon darkening +the small door in the distance, as they passed into the street +beyond; some, in busy conference together on political or private +matters, pacing slowly up and down with eyes that sought the +ground, and seeming, by their attitudes, to listen earnestly from +head to foot. Here, a dozen squabbling urchins made a very Babel +in the air; there, a solitary man, half clerk, half mendicant, +paced up and down with hungry dejection in his look and gait; at +his elbow passed an errand-lad, swinging his basket round and +round, and with his shrill whistle riving the very timbers of the +roof; while a more observant schoolboy, half-way through, pocketed +his ball, and eyed the distant beadle as he came looming on. It +was that time of evening when, if you shut your eyes and open them +again, the darkness of an hour appears to have gathered in a +second. The smooth-worn pavement, dusty with footsteps, still +called upon the lofty walls to reiterate the shuffle and the tread +of feet unceasingly, save when the closing of some heavy door +resounded through the building like a clap of thunder, and drowned +all other noises in its rolling sound. + +Mr Haredale, glancing only at such of these groups as he passed +nearest to, and then in a manner betokening that his thoughts were +elsewhere, had nearly traversed the Hall, when two persons before +him caught his attention. One of these, a gentleman in elegant +attire, carried in his hand a cane, which he twirled in a jaunty +manner as he loitered on; the other, an obsequious, crouching, +fawning figure, listened to what he said--at times throwing in a +humble word himself--and, with his shoulders shrugged up to his +ears, rubbed his hands submissively, or answered at intervals by an +inclination of the head, half-way between a nod of acquiescence, +and a bow of most profound respect. + +In the abstract there was nothing very remarkable in this pair, for +servility waiting on a handsome suit of clothes and a cane--not to +speak of gold and silver sticks, or wands of office--is common +enough. But there was that about the well-dressed man, yes, and +about the other likewise, which struck Mr Haredale with no pleasant +feeling. He hesitated, stopped, and would have stepped aside and +turned out of his path, but at the moment, the other two faced +about quickly, and stumbled upon him before he could avoid them. + +The gentleman with the cane lifted his hat and had begun to tender +an apology, which Mr Haredale had begun as hastily to acknowledge +and walk away, when he stopped short and cried, 'Haredale! Gad +bless me, this is strange indeed!' + +'It is,' he returned impatiently; 'yes--a--' + +'My dear friend,' cried the other, detaining him, 'why such great +speed? One minute, Haredale, for the sake of old acquaintance.' + +'I am in haste,' he said. 'Neither of us has sought this meeting. +Let it be a brief one. Good night!' + +'Fie, fie!' replied Sir John (for it was he), 'how very churlish! +We were speaking of you. Your name was on my lips--perhaps you +heard me mention it? No? I am sorry for that. I am really +sorry.--You know our friend here, Haredale? This is really a most +remarkable meeting!' + +The friend, plainly very ill at ease, had made bold to press Sir +John's arm, and to give him other significant hints that he was +desirous of avoiding this introduction. As it did not suit Sir +John's purpose, however, that it should be evaded, he appeared +quite unconscious of these silent remonstrances, and inclined his +hand towards him, as he spoke, to call attention to him more +particularly. + +The friend, therefore, had nothing for it, but to muster up the +pleasantest smile he could, and to make a conciliatory bow, as Mr +Haredale turned his eyes upon him. Seeing that he was recognised, +he put out his hand in an awkward and embarrassed manner, which was +not mended by its contemptuous rejection. + +'Mr Gashford!' said Haredale, coldly. 'It is as I have heard then. +You have left the darkness for the light, sir, and hate those whose +opinions you formerly held, with all the bitterness of a renegade. +You are an honour, sir, to any cause. I wish the one you espouse +at present, much joy of the acquisition it has made.' + +The secretary rubbed his hands and bowed, as though he would disarm +his adversary by humbling himself before him. Sir John Chester +again exclaimed, with an air of great gaiety, 'Now, really, this is +a most remarkable meeting!' and took a pinch of snuff with his +usual self-possession. + +'Mr Haredale,' said Gashford, stealthily raising his eyes, and +letting them drop again when they met the other's steady gaze, is +too conscientious, too honourable, too manly, I am sure, to attach +unworthy motives to an honest change of opinions, even though it +implies a doubt of those he holds himself. Mr Haredale is too +just, too generous, too clear-sighted in his moral vision, to--' + +'Yes, sir?' he rejoined with a sarcastic smile, finding the +secretary stopped. 'You were saying'-- + +Gashford meekly shrugged his shoulders, and looking on the ground +again, was silent. + +'No, but let us really,' interposed Sir John at this juncture, 'let +us really, for a moment, contemplate the very remarkable character +of this meeting. Haredale, my dear friend, pardon me if I think +you are not sufficiently impressed with its singularity. Here we +stand, by no previous appointment or arrangement, three old +schoolfellows, in Westminster Hall; three old boarders in a +remarkably dull and shady seminary at Saint Omer's, where you, +being Catholics and of necessity educated out of England, were +brought up; and where I, being a promising young Protestant at that +time, was sent to learn the French tongue from a native of Paris!' + +'Add to the singularity, Sir John,' said Mr Haredale, 'that some of +you Protestants of promise are at this moment leagued in yonder +building, to prevent our having the surpassing and unheard-of +privilege of teaching our children to read and write--here--in this +land, where thousands of us enter your service every year, and to +preserve the freedom of which, we die in bloody battles abroad, in +heaps: and that others of you, to the number of some thousands as +I learn, are led on to look on all men of my creed as wolves and +beasts of prey, by this man Gashford. Add to it besides the bare +fact that this man lives in society, walks the streets in broad +day--I was about to say, holds up his head, but that he does not-- +and it will be strange, and very strange, I grant you.' + +'Oh! you are hard upon our friend,' replied Sir John, with an +engaging smile. 'You are really very hard upon our friend!' + +'Let him go on, Sir John,' said Gashford, fumbling with his gloves. +'Let him go on. I can make allowances, Sir John. I am honoured +with your good opinion, and I can dispense with Mr Haredale's. Mr +Haredale is a sufferer from the penal laws, and I can't expect his +favour.' + +'You have so much of my favour, sir,' retorted Mr Haredale, with a +bitter glance at the third party in their conversation, 'that I am +glad to see you in such good company. You are the essence of your +great Association, in yourselves.' + +'Now, there you mistake,' said Sir John, in his most benignant way. +'There--which is a most remarkable circumstance for a man of your +punctuality and exactness, Haredale--you fall into error. I don't +belong to the body; I have an immense respect for its members, but +I don't belong to it; although I am, it is certainly true, the +conscientious opponent of your being relieved. I feel it my duty +to be so; it is a most unfortunate necessity; and cost me a bitter +struggle.--Will you try this box? If you don't object to a +trifling infusion of a very chaste scent, you'll find its flavour +exquisite.' + +'I ask your pardon, Sir John,' said Mr Haredale, declining the +proffer with a motion of his hand, 'for having ranked you among the +humble instruments who are obvious and in all men's sight. I +should have done more justice to your genius. Men of your capacity +plot in secrecy and safety, and leave exposed posts to the duller +wits.' + +'Don't apologise, for the world,' replied Sir John sweetly; 'old +friends like you and I, may be allowed some freedoms, or the deuce +is in it.' + +Gashford, who had been very restless all this time, but had not +once looked up, now turned to Sir John, and ventured to mutter +something to the effect that he must go, or my lord would perhaps +be waiting. + +'Don't distress yourself, good sir,' said Mr Haredale, 'I'll take +my leave, and put you at your ease--' which he was about to do +without ceremony, when he was stayed by a buzz and murmur at the +upper end of the hall, and, looking in that direction, saw Lord +George Gordon coming in, with a crowd of people round him. + +There was a lurking look of triumph, though very differently +expressed, in the faces of his two companions, which made it a +natural impulse on Mr Haredale's part not to give way before this +leader, but to stand there while he passed. He drew himself up +and, clasping his hands behind him, looked on with a proud and +scornful aspect, while Lord George slowly advanced (for the press +was great about him) towards the spot where they were standing. + +He had left the House of Commons but that moment, and had come +straight down into the Hall, bringing with him, as his custom was, +intelligence of what had been said that night in reference to the +Papists, and what petitions had been presented in their favour, and +who had supported them, and when the bill was to be brought in, and +when it would be advisable to present their own Great Protestant +petition. All this he told the persons about him in a loud voice, +and with great abundance of ungainly gesture. Those who were +nearest him made comments to each other, and vented threats and +murmurings; those who were outside the crowd cried, 'Silence,' and +Stand back,' or closed in upon the rest, endeavouring to make a +forcible exchange of places: and so they came driving on in a very +disorderly and irregular way, as it is the manner of a crowd to do. + +When they were very near to where the secretary, Sir John, and Mr +Haredale stood, Lord George turned round and, making a few remarks +of a sufliciently violent and incoherent kind, concluded with the +usual sentiment, and called for three cheers to back it. While +these were in the act of being given with great energy, he +extricated himself from the press, and stepped up to Gashford's +side. Both he and Sir John being well known to the populace, they +fell back a little, and left the four standing together. + +'Mr Haredale, Lord George,' said Sir John Chester, seeing that the +nobleman regarded him with an inquisitive look. 'A Catholic +gentleman unfortunately--most unhappily a Catholic--but an esteemed +acquaintance of mine, and once of Mr Gashford's. My dear Haredale, +this is Lord George Gordon.' + +'I should have known that, had I been ignorant of his lordship's +person,' said Mr Haredale. 'I hope there is but one gentleman in +England who, addressing an ignorant and excited throng, would speak +of a large body of his fellow-subjects in such injurious language +as I heard this moment. For shame, my lord, for shame!' + +'I cannot talk to you, sir,' replied Lord George in a loud voice, +and waving his hand in a disturbed and agitated manner; 'we have +nothing in common.' + +'We have much in common--many things--all that the Almighty gave +us,' said Mr Haredale; 'and common charity, not to say common sense +and common decency, should teach you to refrain from these +proceedings. If every one of those men had arms in their hands at +this moment, as they have them in their heads, I would not leave +this place without telling you that you disgrace your station.' + +'I don't hear you, sir,' he replied in the same manner as before; +'I can't hear you. It is indifferent to me what you say. Don't +retort, Gashford,' for the secretary had made a show of wishing to +do so; 'I can hold no communion with the worshippers of idols.' + +As he said this, he glanced at Sir John, who lifted his hands and +eyebrows, as if deploring the intemperate conduct of Mr Haredale, +and smiled in admiration of the crowd and of their leader. + +'HE retort!' cried Haredale. 'Look you here, my lord. Do you know +this man?' + +Lord George replied by laying his hand upon the shoulder of his +cringing secretary, and viewing him with a smile of confidence. + +'This man,' said Mr Haredale, eyeing him from top to toe, 'who in +his boyhood was a thief, and has been from that time to this, a +servile, false, and truckling knave: this man, who has crawled and +crept through life, wounding the hands he licked, and biting those +he fawned upon: this sycophant, who never knew what honour, truth, +or courage meant; who robbed his benefactor's daughter of her +virtue, and married her to break her heart, and did it, with +stripes and cruelty: this creature, who has whined at kitchen +windows for the broken food, and begged for halfpence at our chapel +doors: this apostle of the faith, whose tender conscience cannot +bear the altars where his vicious life was publicly denounced--Do +you know this man?' + +'Oh, really--you are very, very hard upon our friend!' exclaimed +Sir John. + +'Let Mr Haredale go on,' said Gashford, upon whose unwholesome face +the perspiration had broken out during this speech, in blotches of +wet; 'I don't mind him, Sir John; it's quite as indifferent to me +what he says, as it is to my lord. If he reviles my lord, as you +have heard, Sir John, how can I hope to escape?' + +'Is it not enough, my lord,' Mr Haredale continued, 'that I, as +good a gentleman as you, must hold my property, such as it is, by a +trick at which the state connives because of these hard laws; and +that we may not teach our youth in schools the common principles of +right and wrong; but must we be denounced and ridden by such men as +this! Here is a man to head your No-Popery cry! For shame. For +shame!' + +The infatuated nobleman had glanced more than once at Sir John +Chester, as if to inquire whether there was any truth in these +statements concerning Gashford, and Sir John had as often plainly +answered by a shrug or look, 'Oh dear me! no.' He now said, in the +same loud key, and in the same strange manner as before: + +'I have nothing to say, sir, in reply, and no desire to hear +anything more. I beg you won't obtrude your conversation, or these +personal attacks, upon me. I shall not be deterred from doing my +duty to my country and my countrymen, by any such attempts, whether +they proceed from emissaries of the Pope or not, I assure you. +Come, Gashford!' + +They had walked on a few paces while speaking, and were now at the +Hall-door, through which they passed together. Mr Haredale, +without any leave-taking, turned away to the river stairs, which +were close at hand, and hailed the only boatman who remained there. + +But the throng of people--the foremost of whom had heard every word +that Lord George Gordon said, and among all of whom the rumour had +been rapidly dispersed that the stranger was a Papist who was +bearding him for his advocacy of the popular cause--came pouring +out pell-mell, and, forcing the nobleman, his secretary, and Sir +John Chester on before them, so that they appeared to be at their +head, crowded to the top of the stairs where Mr Haredale waited +until the boat was ready, and there stood still, leaving him on a +little clear space by himself. + +They were not silent, however, though inactive. At first some +indistinct mutterings arose among them, which were followed by a +hiss or two, and these swelled by degrees into a perfect storm. +Then one voice said, 'Down with the Papists!' and there was a +pretty general cheer, but nothing more. After a lull of a few +moments, one man cried out, 'Stone him;' another, 'Duck him;' +another, in a stentorian voice, 'No Popery!' This favourite cry +the rest re-echoed, and the mob, which might have been two hundred +strong, joined in a general shout. + +Mr Haredale had stood calmly on the brink of the steps, until they +made this demonstration, when he looked round contemptuously, and +walked at a slow pace down the stairs. He was pretty near the +boat, when Gashford, as if without intention, turned about, and +directly afterwards a great stone was thrown by some hand, in the +crowd, which struck him on the head, and made him stagger like a +drunken man. + +The blood sprung freely from the wound, and trickled down his coat. +He turned directly, and rushing up the steps with a boldness and +passion which made them all fall back, demanded: + +'Who did that? Show me the man who hit me.' + +Not a soul moved; except some in the rear who slunk off, and, +escaping to the other side of the way, looked on like indifferent +spectators. + +'Who did that?' he repeated. 'Show me the man who did it. Dog, +was it you? It was your deed, if not your hand--I know you.' + +He threw himself on Gashford as he said the words, and hurled him +to the ground. There was a sudden motion in the crowd, and some +laid hands upon him, but his sword was out, and they fell off +again. + +'My lord--Sir John,'--he cried, 'draw, one of you--you are +responsible for this outrage, and I look to you. Draw, if you are +gentlemen.' With that he struck Sir John upon the breast with the +flat of his weapon, and with a burning face and flashing eyes stood +upon his guard; alone, before them all. + +For an instant, for the briefest space of time the mind can readily +conceive, there was a change in Sir John's smooth face, such as no +man ever saw there. The next moment, he stepped forward, and laid +one hand on Mr Haredale's arm, while with the other he endeavoured +to appease the crowd. + +'My dear friend, my good Haredale, you are blinded with passion-- +it's very natural, extremely natural--but you don't know friends +from foes.' + +'I know them all, sir, I can distinguish well--' he retorted, +almost mad with rage. 'Sir John, Lord George--do you hear me? Are +you cowards?' + +'Never mind, sir,' said a man, forcing his way between and pushing +him towards the stairs with friendly violence, 'never mind asking +that. For God's sake, get away. What CAN you do against this +number? And there are as many more in the next street, who'll be +round dfrectly,'--indeed they began to pour in as he said the +words--'you'd be giddy from that cut, in the first heat of a +scuffle. Now do retire, sir, or take my word for it you'll be +worse used than you would be if every man in the crowd was a woman, +and that woman Bloody Mary. Come, sir, make haste--as quick as you +can.' + +Mr Haredale, who began to turn faint and sick, felt how sensible +this advice was, and descended the steps with his unknown friend's +assistance. John Grueby (for John it was) helped him into the +boat, and giving her a shove off, which sent her thirty feet into +the tide, bade the waterman pull away like a Briton; and walked up +again as composedly as if he had just landed. + +There was at first a slight disposition on the part of the mob to +resent this interference; but John looking particularly strong and +cool, and wearing besides Lord George's livery, they thought better +of it, and contented themselves with sending a shower of small +missiles after the boat, which plashed harmlessly in the water; +for she had by this time cleared the bridge, and was darting +swiftly down the centre of the stream. + +From this amusement, they proceeded to giving Protestant knocks at +the doors of private houses, breaking a few lamps, and assaulting +some stray constables. But, it being whispered that a detachment +of Life Guards had been sent for, they took to their heels with +great expedition, and left the street quite clear. + + + +Chapter 44 + + +When the concourse separated, and, dividing into chance clusters, +drew off in various directions, there still remained upon the scene +of the late disturbance, one man. This man was Gashford, who, +bruised by his late fall, and hurt in a much greater degree by the +indignity he had undergone, and the exposure of which he had been +the victim, limped up and down, breathing curses and threats of +vengeance. + +It was not the secretary's nature to waste his wrath in words. +While he vented the froth of his malevolence in those effusions, he +kept a steady eye on two men, who, having disappeared with the rest +when the alarm was spread, had since returned, and were now visible +in the moonlight, at no great distance, as they walked to and fro, +and talked together. + +He made no move towards them, but waited patiently on the dark side +of the street, until they were tired of strolling backwards and +forwards and walked away in company. Then he followed, but at some +distance: keeping them in view, without appearing to have that +object, or being seen by them. + +They went up Parliament Street, past Saint Martin's church, and +away by Saint Giles's to Tottenham Court Road, at the back of +which, upon the western side, was then a place called the Green +Lanes. This was a retired spot, not of the choicest kind, leading +into the fields. Great heaps of ashes; stagnant pools, overgrown +with rank grass and duckweed; broken turnstiles; and the upright +posts of palings long since carried off for firewood, which menaced +all heedless walkers with their jagged and rusty nails; were the +leading features of the landscape: while here and there a donkey, +or a ragged horse, tethered to a stake, and cropping off a wretched +meal from the coarse stunted turf, were quite in keeping with the +scene, and would have suggested (if the houses had not done so, +sufficiently, of themselves) how very poor the people were who +lived in the crazy huts adjacent, and how foolhardy it might prove +for one who carried money, or wore decent clothes, to walk that way +alone, unless by daylight. + +Poverty has its whims and shows of taste, as wealth has. Some of +these cabins were turreted, some had false windows painted on their +rotten walls; one had a mimic clock, upon a crazy tower of four +feet high, which screened the chimney; each in its little patch of +ground had a rude seat or arbour. The population dealt in bones, +in rags, in broken glass, in old wheels, in birds, and dogs. +These, in their several ways of stowage, filled the gardens; and +shedding a perfume, not of the most delicious nature, in the air, +filled it besides with yelps, and screams, and howling. + +Into this retreat, the secretary followed the two men whom he had +held in sight; and here he saw them safely lodged, in one of the +meanest houses, which was but a room, and that of small dimensions. +He waited without, until the sound of their voices, joined in a +discordant song, assured him they were making merry; and then +approaching the door, by means of a tottering plank which crossed +the ditch in front, knocked at it with his hand. + +'Muster Gashfordl' said the man who opened it, taking his pipe from +his mouth, in evident surprise. 'Why, who'd have thought of this +here honour! Walk in, Muster Gashford--walk in, sir.' + +Gashford required no second invitation, and entered with a gracious +air. There was a fire in the rusty grate (for though the spring +was pretty far advanced, the nights were cold), and on a stool +beside it Hugh sat smoking. Dennis placed a chair, his only one, +for the secretary, in front of the hearth; and took his seat again +upon the stool he had left when he rose to give the visitor +admission. + +'What's in the wind now, Muster Gashford?' he said, as he resumed +his pipe, and looked at him askew. 'Any orders from head-quarters? +Are we going to begin? What is it, Muster Gashford?' + +'Oh, nothing, nothing,' rejoined the secretary, with a friendly nod +to Hugh. 'We have broken the ice, though. We had a little spurt +to-day--eh, Dennis?' + +'A very little one,' growled the hangman. 'Not half enough for me.' + +'Nor me neither!' cried Hugh. 'Give us something to do with life +in it--with life in it, master. Ha, ha!' + +'Why, you wouldn't,' said the secretary, with his worst expression +of face, and in his mildest tones, 'have anything to do, with--with +death in it?' + +'I don't know that,' replied Hugh. 'I'm open to orders. I don't +care; not I.' + +'Nor I!' vociferated Dennis. + +'Brave fellows!' said the secretary, in as pastor-like a voice as +if he were commending them for some uncommon act of valour and +generosity. 'By the bye'--and here he stopped and warmed his +hands: then suddenly looked up--'who threw that stone to-day?' + +Mr Dennis coughed and shook his head, as who should say, 'A mystery +indeed!' Hugh sat and smoked in silence. + +'It was well done!' said the secretary, warming his hands again. +'I should like to know that man.' + +'Would you?' said Dennis, after looking at his face to assure +himself that he was serious. 'Would you like to know that man, +Muster Gashford?' + +'I should indeed,' replied the secretary. + +'Why then, Lord love you,' said the hangman, in his hoarest +chuckle, as he pointed with his pipe to Hugh, 'there he sits. +That's the man. My stars and halters, Muster Gashford,' he added +in a whisper, as he drew his stool close to him and jogged him with +his elbow, 'what a interesting blade he is! He wants as much +holding in as a thorough-bred bulldog. If it hadn't been for me +to-day, he'd have had that 'ere Roman down, and made a riot of it, +in another minute.' + +'And why not?' cried Hugh in a surly voice, as he overheard this +last remark. 'Where's the good of putting things off? Strike +while the iron's hot; that's what I say.' + +'Ah!' retorted Dennis, shaking his head, with a kind of pity for +his friend's ingenuous youth; 'but suppose the iron an't hot, +brother! You must get people's blood up afore you strike, and have +'em in the humour. There wasn't quite enough to provoke 'em to- +day, I tell you. If you'd had your way, you'd have spoilt the fun +to come, and ruined us.' + +'Dennis is quite right,' said Gashford, smoothly. 'He is +perfectly correct. Dennis has great knowledge of the world.' + +'I ought to have, Muster Gashford, seeing what a many people I've +helped out of it, eh?' grinned the hangman, whispering the words +behind his hand. + +The secretary laughed at this jest as much as Dennis could desire, +and when he had done, said, turning to Hugh: + +'Dennis's policy was mine, as you may have observed. You saw, for +instance, how I fell when I was set upon. I made no resistance. I +did nothing to provoke an outbreak. Oh dear no!' + +'No, by the Lord Harry!' cried Dennis with a noisy laugh, 'you went +down very quiet, Muster Gashford--and very flat besides. I thinks +to myself at the time "it's all up with Muster Gashford!" I never +see a man lay flatter nor more still--with the life in him--than +you did to-day. He's a rough 'un to play with, is that 'ere +Papist, and that's the fact.' + +The secretary's face, as Dennis roared with laughter, and turned +his wrinkled eyes on Hugh who did the like, might have furnished a +study for the devil's picture. He sat quite silent until they +were serious again, and then said, looking round: + +'We are very pleasant here; so very pleasant, Dennis, that but for +my lord's particular desire that I should sup with him, and the +time being very near at hand, I should he inclined to stay, until +it would be hardly safe to go homeward. I come upon a little +business--yes, I do--as you supposed. It's very flattering to you; +being this. If we ever should be obliged--and we can't tell, you +know--this is a very uncertain world'-- + +'I believe you, Muster Gashford,' interposed the hangman with a +grave nod. 'The uncertainties as I've seen in reference to this +here state of existence, the unexpected contingencies as have come +about!--Oh my eye!' Feeling the subject much too vast for +expression, he puffed at his pipe again, and looked the rest. + +'I say,' resumed the secretary, in a slow, impressive way; 'we +can't tell what may come to pass; and if we should be obliged, +against our wills, to have recourse to violence, my lord (who has +suffered terribly to-day, as far as words can go) consigns to you +two--bearing in mind my recommendation of you both, as good staunch +men, beyond all doubt and suspicion--the pleasant task of +punishing this Haredale. You may do as you please with him, or +his, provided that you show no mercy, and no quarter, and leave no +two beams of his house standing where the builder placed them. You +may sack it, burn it, do with it as you like, but it must come +down; it must be razed to the ground; and he, and all belonging to +him, left as shelterless as new-born infants whom their mothers +have exposed. Do you understand me?' said Gashford, pausing, and +pressing his hands together gently. + +'Understand you, master!' cried Hugh. 'You speak plain now. Why, +this is hearty!' + +'I knew you would like it,' said Gashford, shaking him by the hand; +'I thought you would. Good night! Don't rise, Dennis: I would +rather find my way alone. I may have to make other visits here, +and it's pleasant to come and go without disturbing you. I can +find my way perfectly well. Good night!' + +He was gone, and had shut the door behind him. They looked at each +other, and nodded approvingly: Dennis stirred up the fire. + +'This looks a little more like business!' he said. + +'Ay, indeed!' cried Hugh; 'this suits me!' + +'I've heerd it said of Muster Gashford,' said the hangman, 'that +he'd a surprising memory and wonderful firmness--that he never +forgot, and never forgave.--Let's drink his health!' + +Hugh readily complied--pouring no liquor on the floor when he drank +this toast--and they pledged the secretary as a man after their own +hearts, in a bumper. + + + +Chapter 45 + + +While the worst passions of the worst men were thus working in the +dark, and the mantle of religion, assumed to cover the ugliest +deformities, threatened to become the shroud of all that was good +and peaceful in society, a circumstance occurred which once more +altered the position of two persons from whom this history has long +been separated, and to whom it must now return. + +In a small English country town, the inhabitants of which supported +themselves by the labour of their hands in plaiting and preparing +straw for those who made bonnets and other articles of dress and +ornament from that material,--concealed under an assumed name, and +living in a quiet poverty which knew no change, no pleasures, and +few cares but that of struggling on from day to day in one great +toil for bread,--dwelt Barnaby and his mother. Their poor cottage +had known no stranger's foot since they sought the shelter of its +roof five years before; nor had they in all that time held any +commerce or communication with the old world from which they had +fled. To labour in peace, and devote her labour and her life to +her poor son, was all the widow sought. If happiness can be said +at any time to be the lot of one on whom a secret sorrow preys, she +was happy now. Tranquillity, resignation, and her strong love of +him who needed it so much, formed the small circle of her quiet +joys; and while that remained unbroken, she was contented. + +For Barnaby himself, the time which had flown by, had passed him +like the wind. The daily suns of years had shed no brighter gleam +of reason on his mind; no dawn had broken on his long, dark night. +He would sit sometimes--often for days together on a low seat by +the fire or by the cottage door, busy at work (for he had learnt +the art his mother plied), and listening, God help him, to the +tales she would repeat, as a lure to keep him in her sight. He had +no recollection of these little narratives; the tale of yesterday +was new to him upon the morrow; but he liked them at the moment; +and when the humour held him, would remain patiently within doors, +hearing her stories like a little child, and working cheerfully +from sunrise until it was too dark to see. + +At other times,--and then their scanty earnings were barely +sufficient to furnish them with food, though of the coarsest sort,-- +he would wander abroad from dawn of day until the twilight +deepened into night. Few in that place, even of the children, +could be idle, and he had no companions of his own kind. Indeed +there were not many who could have kept up with him in his rambles, +had there been a legion. But there were a score of vagabond dogs +belonging to the neighbours, who served his purpose quite as well. +With two or three of these, or sometimes with a full half-dozen +barking at his heels, he would sally forth on some long expedition +that consumed the day; and though, on their return at nightfall, +the dogs would come home limping and sore-footed, and almost spent +with their fatigue, Barnaby was up and off again at sunrise with +some new attendants of the same class, with whom he would return in +like manner. On all these travels, Grip, in his little basket at +his master's back, was a constant member of the party, and when +they set off in fine weather and in high spirits, no dog barked +louder than the raven. + +Their pleasures on these excursions were simple enough. A crust of +bread and scrap of meat, with water from the brook or spring, +sufficed for their repast. Barnaby's enjoyments were, to walk, and +run, and leap, till he was tired; then to lie down in the long +grass, or by the growing corn, or in the shade of some tall tree, +looking upward at the light clouds as they floated over the blue +surface of the sky, and listening to the lark as she poured out her +brilliant song. There were wild-flowers to pluck--the bright red +poppy, the gentle harebell, the cowslip, and the rose. There were +birds to watch; fish; ants; worms; hares or rabbits, as they darted +across the distant pathway in the wood and so were gone: millions +of living things to have an interest in, and lie in wait for, and +clap hands and shout in memory of, when they had disappeared. In +default of these, or when they wearied, there was the merry +sunlight to hunt out, as it crept in aslant through leaves and +boughs of trees, and hid far down--deep, deep, in hollow places-- +like a silver pool, where nodding branches seemed to bathe and +sport; sweet scents of summer air breathing over fields of beans or +clover; the perfume of wet leaves or moss; the life of waving +trees, and shadows always changing. When these or any of them +tired, or in excess of pleasing tempted him to shut his eyes, there +was slumber in the midst of all these soft delights, with the +gentle wind murmuring like music in his ears, and everything around +melting into one delicious dream. + +Their hut--for it was little more--stood on the outskirts of the +town, at a short distance from the high road, but in a secluded +place, where few chance passengers strayed at any season of the +year. It had a plot of garden-ground attached, which Barnaby, in +fits and starts of working, trimmed, and kept in order. Within +doors and without, his mother laboured for their common good; and +hail, rain, snow, or sunshine, found no difference in her. + +Though so far removed from the scenes of her past life, and with so +little thought or hope of ever visiting them again, she seemed to +have a strange desire to know what happened in the busy world. Any +old newspaper, or scrap of intelligence from London, she caught at +with avidity. The excitement it produced was not of a pleasurable +kind, for her manner at such times expressed the keenest anxiety +and dread; but it never faded in the least degree. Then, and in +stormy winter nights, when the wind blew loud and strong, the old +expression came into her face, and she would be seized with a fit +of trembling, like one who had an ague. But Barnaby noted little +of this; and putting a great constraint upon herself, she usually +recovered her accustomed manner before the change had caught his +observation. + +Grip was by no means an idle or unprofitable member of the humble +household. Partly by dint of Barnaby's tuition, and partly by +pursuing a species of self-instruction common to his tribe, and +exerting his powers of observation to the utmost, he had acquired a +degree of sagacity which rendered him famous for miles round. His +conversational powers and surprising performances were the +universal theme: and as many persons came to see the wonderful +raven, and none left his exertions unrewarded--when he condescended +to exhibit, which was not always, for genius is capricious--his +earnings formed an important item in the common stock. Indeed, the +bird himself appeared to know his value well; for though he was +perfectly free and unrestrained in the presence of Barnaby and his +mother, he maintained in public an amazing gravity, and never +stooped to any other gratuitous performances than biting the ankles +of vagabond boys (an exercise in which he much delighted), killing +a fowl or two occasionally, and swallowing the dinners of various +neighbouring dogs, of whom the boldest held him in great awe and +dread. + +Time had glided on in this way, and nothing had happened to disturb +or change their mode of life, when, one summer's night in June, +they were in their little garden, resting from the labours of the +day. The widow's work was yet upon her knee, and strewn upon the +ground about her; and Barnaby stood leaning on his spade, gazing at +the brightness in the west, and singing softly to himself. + +'A brave evening, mother! If we had, chinking in our pockets, but +a few specks of that gold which is piled up yonder in the sky, we +should be rich for life.' + +'We are better as we are,' returned the widow with a quiet smile. +'Let us be contented, and we do not want and need not care to have +it, though it lay shining at our feet.' + +'Ay!' said Barnaby, resting with crossed arms on his spade, and +looking wistfully at the sunset, that's well enough, mother; but +gold's a good thing to have. I wish that I knew where to find it. +Grip and I could do much with gold, be sure of that.' + +'What would you do?' she asked. + +'What! A world of things. We'd dress finely--you and I, I mean; +not Grip--keep horses, dogs, wear bright colours and feathers, do +no more work, live delicately and at our ease. Oh, we'd find uses +for it, mother, and uses that would do us good. I would I knew +where gold was buried. How hard I'd work to dig it up!' + +'You do not know,' said his mother, rising from her seat and laying +her hand upon his shoulder, 'what men have done to win it, and how +they have found, too late, that it glitters brightest at a +distance, and turns quite dim and dull when handled.' + +'Ay, ay; so you say; so you think,' he answered, still looking +eagerly in the same direction. 'For all that, mother, I should +like to try.' + +'Do you not see,' she said, 'how red it is? Nothing bears so many +stains of blood, as gold. Avoid it. None have such cause to hate +its name as we have. Do not so much as think of it, dear love. It +has brought such misery and suffering on your head and mine as few +have known, and God grant few may have to undergo. I would rather +we were dead and laid down in our graves, than you should ever come +to love it.' + +For a moment Barnaby withdrew his eyes and looked at her with +wonder. Then, glancing from the redness in the sky to the mark +upon his wrist as if he would compare the two, he seemed about to +question her with earnestness, when a new object caught his +wandering attention, and made him quite forgetful of his purpose. + +This was a man with dusty feet and garments, who stood, bare- +headed, behind the hedge that divided their patch of garden from +the pathway, and leant meekly forward as if he sought to mingle +with their conversation, and waited for his time to speak. His +face was turned towards the brightness, too, but the light that +fell upon it showed that he was blind, and saw it not. + +'A blessing on those voices!' said the wayfarer. 'I feel the +beauty of the night more keenly, when I hear them. They are like +eyes to me. Will they speak again, and cheer the heart of a poor +traveller?' + +'Have you no guide?' asked the widow, after a moment's pause. + +'None but that,' he answered, pointing with his staff towards the +sun; 'and sometimes a milder one at night, but she is idle now.' + +'Have you travelled far?' + +'A weary way and long,' rejoined the traveller as he shook his +head. 'A weary, weary, way. I struck my stick just now upon the +bucket of your well--be pleased to let me have a draught of water, +lady.' + +'Why do you call me lady?' she returned. 'I am as poor as you.' + +'Your speech is soft and gentle, and I judge by that,' replied the +man. 'The coarsest stuffs and finest silks, are--apart from the +sense of touch--alike to me. I cannot judge you by your dress.' + +'Come round this way,' said Barnaby, who had passed out at the +garden-gate and now stood close beside him. 'Put your hand in +mine. You're blind and always in the dark, eh? Are you frightened +in the dark? Do you see great crowds of faces, now? Do they grin +and chatter?' + +'Alas!' returned the other, 'I see nothing. Waking or sleeping, +nothing.' + +Barnaby looked curiously at his eyes, and touching them with his +fingers, as an inquisitive child might, led him towards the house. + +'You have come a long distance, 'said the widow, meeting him at the +door. 'How have you found your way so far?' + +'Use and necessity are good teachers, as I have heard--the best of +any,' said the blind man, sitting down upon the chair to which +Barnaby had led him, and putting his hat and stick upon the red- +tiled floor. 'May neither you nor your son ever learn under them. +They are rough masters.' + +'You have wandered from the road, too,' said the widow, in a tone +of pity. + +'Maybe, maybe,' returned the blind man with a sigh, and yet with +something of a smile upon his face, 'that's likely. Handposts and +milestones are dumb, indeed, to me. Thank you the more for this +rest, and this refreshing drink!' + +As he spoke, he raised the mug of water to his mouth. It was +clear, and cold, and sparkling, but not to his taste nevertheless, +or his thirst was not very great, for he only wetted his lips and +put it down again. + +He wore, hanging with a long strap round his neck, a kind of scrip +or wallet, in which to carry food. The widow set some bread and +cheese before him, but he thanked her, and said that through the +kindness of the charitable he had broken his fast once since +morning, and was not hungry. When he had made her this reply, he +opened his wallet, and took out a few pence, which was all it +appeared to contain. + +'Might I make bold to ask,' he said, turning towards where Barnaby +stood looking on, 'that one who has the gift of sight, would lay +this out for me in bread to keep me on my way? Heaven's blessing +on the young feet that will bestir themselves in aid of one so +helpless as a sightless man!' + +Barnaby looked at his mother, who nodded assent; in another moment +he was gone upon his charitable errand. The blind man sat +listening with an attentive face, until long after the sound of his +retreating footsteps was inaudible to the widow, and then said, +suddenly, and in a very altered tone: + +'There are various degrees and kinds of blindness, widow. There +is the connubial blindness, ma'am, which perhaps you may have +observed in the course of your own experience, and which is a kind +of wilful and self-bandaging blindness. There is the blindness of +party, ma'am, and public men, which is the blindness of a mad bull +in the midst of a regiment of soldiers clothed in red. There is +the blind confidence of youth, which is the blindness of young +kittens, whose eyes have not yet opened on the world; and there is +that physical blindness, ma'am, of which I am, contrairy to my own +desire, a most illustrious example. Added to these, ma'am, is that +blindness of the intellect, of which we have a specimen in your +interesting son, and which, having sometimes glimmerings and +dawnings of the light, is scarcely to be trusted as a total +darkness. Therefore, ma'am, I have taken the liberty to get him +out of the way for a short time, while you and I confer together, +and this precaution arising out of the delicacy of my sentiments +towards yourself, you will excuse me, ma'am, I know.' + +Having delivered himself of this speech with many flourishes of +manner, he drew from beneath his coat a flat stone bottle, and +holding the cork between his teeth, qualified his mug of water with +a plentiful infusion of the liquor it contained. He politely +drained the bumper to her health, and the ladies, and setting it +down empty, smacked his lips with infinite relish. + +'I am a citizen of the world, ma'am,' said the blind man, corking +his bottle, 'and if I seem to conduct myself with freedom, it is +therefore. You wonder who I am, ma'am, and what has brought me +here. Such experience of human nature as I have, leads me to that +conclusion, without the aid of eyes by which to read the movements +of your soul as depicted in your feminine features. I will +satisfy your curiosity immediately, ma'am; immediately.' With +that he slapped his bottle on its broad back, and having put it +under his garment as before, crossed his legs and folded his hands, +and settled himself in his chair, previous to proceeding any +further. + +The change in his manner was so unexpected, the craft and +wickedness of his deportment were so much aggravated by his +condition--for we are accustomed to see in those who have lost a +human sense, something in its place almost divine--and this +alteration bred so many fears in her whom he addressed, that she +could not pronounce one word. After waiting, as it seemed, for +some remark or answer, and waiting in vain, the visitor resumed: + +'Madam, my name is Stagg. A friend of mine who has desired the +honour of meeting with you any time these five years past, has +commissioned me to call upon you. I should be glad to whisper that +gentleman's name in your ear.--Zounds, ma'am, are you deaf? Do you +hear me say that I should be glad to whisper my friend's name in +your ear?' + +'You need not repeat it,' said the widow, with a stifled groan; 'I +see too well from whom you come.' + +'But as a man of honour, ma'am,' said the blind man, striking +himself on the breast, 'whose credentials must not be disputed, I +take leave to say that I WILL mention that gentleman's name. Ay, +ay,' he added, seeming to catch with his quick ear the very motion +of her hand, 'but not aloud. With your leave, ma'am, I desire the +favour of a whisper.' + +She moved towards him, and stooped down. He muttered a word in her +ear; and, wringing her hands, she paced up and down the room like +one distracted. The blind man, with perfect composure, produced +his bottle again, mixed another glassful; put it up as before; and, +drinking from time to time, followed her with his face in silence. + +'You are slow in conversation, widow,' he said after a time, +pausing in his draught. 'We shall have to talk before your son.' + +'What would you have me do?' she answered. 'What do you want?' + +'We are poor, widow, we are poor,' he retorted, stretching out his +right hand, and rubbing his thumb upon its palm. + +'Poor!' she cried. 'And what am I?' + +'Comparisons are odious,' said the blind man. 'I don't know, I +don't care. I say that we are poor. My friend's circumstances are +indifferent, and so are mine. We must have our rights, widow, or +we must be bought off. But you know that, as well as I, so where +is the use of talking?' + +She still walked wildly to and fro. At length, stopping abruptly +before him, she said: + +'Is he near here?' + +'He is. Close at hand.' + +'Then I am lost!' + +'Not lost, widow,' said the blind man, calmly; 'only found. Shall +I call him?' + +'Not for the world,' she answered, with a shudder. + +'Very good,' he replied, crossing his legs again, for he had made +as though he would rise and walk to the door. 'As you please, +widow. His presence is not necessary that I know of. But both he +and I must live; to live, we must eat and drink; to eat and drink, +we must have money:--I say no more.' + +'Do you know how pinched and destitute I am?' she retorted. 'I do +not think you do, or can. If you had eyes, and could look around +you on this poor place, you would have pity on me. Oh! let your +heart be softened by your own affliction, friend, and have some +sympathy with mine.' + +The blind man snapped his fingers as he answered: + +'--Beside the question, ma'am, beside the question. I have the +softest heart in the world, but I can't live upon it. Many a +gentleman lives well upon a soft head, who would find a heart of +the same quality a very great drawback. Listen to me. This is a +matter of business, with which sympathies and sentiments have +nothing to do. As a mutual friend, I wish to arrange it in a +satisfactory manner, if possible; and thus the case stands.--If you +are very poor now, it's your own choice. You have friends who, in +case of need, are always ready to help you. My friend is in a more +destitute and desolate situation than most men, and, you and he +being linked together in a common cause, he naturally looks to you +to assist him. He has boarded and lodged with me a long time (for +as I said just now, I am very soft-hearted), and I quite approve of +his entertaining this opinion. You have always had a roof over +your head; he has always been an outcast. You have your son to +comfort and assist you; he has nobody at all. The advantages must +not be all one side. You are in the same boat, and we must divide +the ballast a little more equally.' + +She was about to speak, but he checked her, and went on. + +'The only way of doing this, is by making up a little purse now and +then for my friend; and that's what I advise. He bears you no +malice that I know of, ma'am: so little, that although you have +treated him harshly more than once, and driven him, I may say, out +of doors, he has that regard for you that I believe even if you +disappointed him now, he would consent to take charge of your son, +and to make a man of him.' + +He laid a great stress on these latter words, and paused as if to +find out what effect they had produced. She only answered by her +tears. + +'He is a likely lad,' said the blind man, thoughtfully, 'for many +purposes, and not ill-disposed to try his fortune in a little +change and bustle, if I may judge from what I heard of his talk +with you to-night.--Come. In a word, my friend has pressing +necessity for twenty pounds. You, who can give up an annuity, can +get that sum for him. It's a pity you should be troubled. You +seem very comfortable here, and it's worth that much to remain so. +Twenty pounds, widow, is a moderate demand. You know where to +apply for it; a post will bring it you.--Twenty pounds!' + +She was about to answer him again, but again he stopped her. + +'Don't say anything hastily; you might be sorry for it. Think of +it a little while. Twenty pounds--of other people's money--how +easy! Turn it over in your mind. I'm in no hurry. Night's coming +on, and if I don't sleep here, I shall not go far. Twenty pounds! +Consider of it, ma'am, for twenty minutes; give each pound a +minute; that's a fair allowance. I'll enjoy the air the while, +which is very mild and pleasant in these parts.' + +With these words he groped his way to the door, carrying his chair +with him. Then seating himself, under a spreading honeysuckle, and +stretching his legs across the threshold so that no person could +pass in or out without his knowledge, he took from his pocket a +pipe, flint, steel and tinder-box, and began to smoke. It was a +lovely evening, of that gentle kind, and at that time of year, when +the twilight is most beautiful. Pausing now and then to let his +smoke curl slowly off, and to sniff the grateful fragrance of the +flowers, he sat there at his ease--as though the cottage were his +proper dwelling, and he had held undisputed possession of it all +his life--waiting for the widow's answer and for Barnaby's return. + + + +Chapter 46 + + +When Barnaby returned with the bread, the sight of the pious old +pilgrim smoking his pipe and making himself so thoroughly at home, +appeared to surprise even him; the more so, as that worthy person, +instead of putting up the loaf in his wallet as a scarce and +precious article, tossed it carelessly on the table, and producing +his bottle, bade him sit down and drink. + +'For I carry some comfort, you see,' he said. 'Taste that. Is it +good?' + +The water stood in Barnaby's eyes as he coughed from the strength +of the draught, and answered in the affirmative. + +'Drink some more,' said the blind man; 'don't be afraid of it. +You don't taste anything like that, often, eh?' + +'Often!' cried Barnaby. 'Never!' + +'Too poor?' returned the blind man with a sigh. 'Ay. That's bad. +Your mother, poor soul, would be happier if she was richer, +Barnaby.' + +'Why, so I tell her--the very thing I told her just before you came +to-night, when all that gold was in the sky,' said Barnaby, drawing +his chair nearer to him, and looking eagerly in his face. 'Tell +me. Is there any way of being rich, that I could find out?' + +'Any way! A hundred ways.' + +'Ay, ay?' he returned. 'Do you say so? What are they?--Nay, +mother, it's for your sake I ask; not mine;--for yours, indeed. +What are they?' + +The blind man turned his face, on which there was a smile of +triumph, to where the widow stood in great distress; and answered, + +'Why, they are not to be found out by stay-at-homes, my good +friend.' + +'By stay-at-homes!' cried Barnaby, plucking at his sleeve. 'But I +am not one. Now, there you mistake. I am often out before the +sun, and travel home when he has gone to rest. I am away in the +woods before the day has reached the shady places, and am often +there when the bright moon is peeping through the boughs, and +looking down upon the other moon that lives in the water. As I +walk along, I try to find, among the grass and moss, some of that +small money for which she works so hard and used to shed so many +tears. As I lie asleep in the shade, I dream of it--dream of +digging it up in heaps; and spying it out, hidden under bushes; and +seeing it sparkle, as the dew-drops do, among the leaves. But I +never find it. Tell me where it is. I'd go there, if the journey +were a whole year long, because I know she would be happier when I +came home and brought some with me. Speak again. I'll listen to +you if you talk all night.' + +The blind man passed his hand lightly over the poor fellow's face, +and finding that his elbows were planted on the table, that his +chin rested on his two hands, that he leaned eagerly forward, and +that his whole manner expressed the utmost interest and anxiety, +paused for a minute as though he desired the widow to observe this +fully, and then made answer: + +'It's in the world, bold Barnaby, the merry world; not in solitary +places like those you pass your time in, but in crowds, and where +there's noise and rattle.' + +'Good! good!' cried Barnaby, rubbing his hands. 'Yes! I love +that. Grip loves it too. It suits us both. That's brave!' + +'--The kind of places,' said the blind man, 'that a young fellow +likes, and in which a good son may do more for his mother, and +himself to boot, in a month, than he could here in all his life-- +that is, if he had a friend, you know, and some one to advise +with.' + +'You hear this, mother?' cried Barnaby, turning to her with +delight. 'Never tell me we shouldn't heed it, if it lay shining +at out feet. Why do we heed it so much now? Why do you toil from +morning until night?' + +'Surely,' said the blind man, 'surely. Have you no answer, widow? +Is your mind,' he slowly added, 'not made up yet?' + +'Let me speak with you,' she answered, 'apart.' + +'Lay your hand upon my sleeve,' said Stagg, arising from the table; +'and lead me where you will. Courage, bold Barnaby. We'll talk +more of this: I've a fancy for you. Wait there till I come back. +Now, widow.' + +She led him out at the door, and into the little garden, where they +stopped. + +'You are a fit agent,' she said, in a half breathless manner, 'and +well represent the man who sent you here.' + +'I'll tell him that you said so,' Stagg retorted. 'He has a regard +for you, and will respect me the more (if possible) for your +praise. We must have our rights, widow.' + +'Rights! Do you know,' she said, 'that a word from me--' + +'Why do you stop?' returned the blind man calmly, after a long +pause. 'Do I know that a word from you would place my friend in +the last position of the dance of life? Yes, I do. What of that? +It will never be spoken, widow.' + +'You are sure of that?' + +'Quite--so sure, that I don't come here to discuss the question. I +say we must have our rights, or we must be bought off. Keep to +that point, or let me return to my young friend, for I have an +interest in the lad, and desire to put him in the way of making his +fortune. Bah! you needn't speak,' he added hastily; 'I know what +you would say: you have hinted at it once already. Have I no +feeling for you, because I am blind? No, I have not. Why do you +expect me, being in darkness, to be better than men who have their +sight--why should you? Is the hand of Heaven more manifest in my +having no eyes, than in your having two? It's the cant of you +folks to be horrified if a blind man robs, or lies, or steals; oh +yes, it's far worse in him, who can barely live on the few +halfpence that are thrown to him in streets, than in you, who can +see, and work, and are not dependent on the mercies of the world. +A curse on you! You who have five senses may be wicked at your +pleasure; we who have four, and want the most important, are to +live and be moral on our affliction. The true charity and justice +of rich to poor, all the world over!' + +He paused a moment when he had said these words, and caught the +sound of money, jingling in her hand. + +'Well?' he cried, quickly resuming his former manner. 'That should +lead to something. The point, widow?' + +'First answer me one question,' she replied. 'You say he is close +at hand. Has he left London?' + +'Being close at hand, widow, it would seem he has,' returned the +blind man. + +'I mean, for good? You know that.' + +'Yes, for good. The truth is, widow, that his making a longer stay +there might have had disagreeable consequences. He has come away +for that reason.' + +'Listen,' said the widow, telling some money out, upon a bench +beside them. 'Count.' + +'Six,' said the blind man, listening attentively. 'Any more?' + +'They are the savings,' she answered, 'of five years. Six +guineas.' + +He put out his hand for one of the coins; felt it carefully, put it +between his teeth, rung it on the bench; and nodded to her to +proceed. + +'These have been scraped together and laid by, lest sickness or +death should separate my son and me. They have been purchased at +the price of much hunger, hard labour, and want of rest. If you +CAN take them--do--on condition that you leave this place upon the +instant, and enter no more into that room, where he sits now, +expecting your return.' + +'Six guineas,' said the blind man, shaking his head, 'though of the +fullest weight that were ever coined, fall very far short of twenty +pounds, widow.' + +'For such a sum, as you know, I must write to a distant part of the +country. To do that, and receive an answer, I must have time.' + +'Two days?' said Stagg. + +'More.' + +'Four days?' + +'A week. Return on this day week, at the same hour, but not to the +house. Wait at the corner of the lane.' + +'Of course,' said the blind man, with a crafty look, 'I shall find +you there?' + +'Where else can I take refuge? Is it not enough that you have made +a beggar of me, and that I have sacrificed my whole store, so +hardly earned, to preserve this home?' + +'Humph!' said the blind man, after some consideration. 'Set me +with my face towards the point you speak of, and in the middle of +the road. Is this the spot?' + +'It is.' + +'On this day week at sunset. And think of him within doors.--For +the present, good night.' + +She made him no answer, nor did he stop for any. He went slowly +away, turning his head from time to time, and stopping to listen, +as if he were curious to know whether he was watched by any one. +The shadows of night were closing fast around, and he was soon lost +in the gloom. It was not, however, until she had traversed the +lane from end to end, and made sure that he was gone, that she re- +entered the cottage, and hurriedly barred the door and window. + +'Mother!' said Barnaby. 'What is the matter? Where is the blind +man?' + +'He is gone.' + +'Gone!' he cried, starting up. 'I must have more talk with him. +Which way did he take?' + +'I don't know,' she answered, folding her arms about him. 'You +must not go out to-night. There are ghosts and dreams abroad.' + +'Ay?' said Barnaby, in a frightened whisper. + +'It is not safe to stir. We must leave this place to-morrow.' + +'This place! This cottage--and the little garden, mother!' + +'Yes! To-morrow morning at sunrise. We must travel to London; +lose ourselves in that wide place--there would be some trace of us +in any other town--then travel on again, and find some new abode.' + +Little persuasion was required to reconcile Barnaby to anything +that promised change. In another minute, he was wild with delight; +in another, full of grief at the prospect of parting with his +friends the dogs; in another, wild again; then he was fearful of +what she had said to prevent his wandering abroad that night, and +full of terrors and strange questions. His light-heartedness in +the end surmounted all his other feelings, and lying down in his +clothes to the end that he might be ready on the morrow, he soon +fell fast asleep before the poor turf fire. + +His mother did not close her eyes, but sat beside him, watching. +Every breath of wind sounded in her ears like that dreaded footstep +at the door, or like that hand upon the latch, and made the calm +summer night, a night of horror. At length the welcome day +appeared. When she had made the little preparations which were +needful for their journey, and had prayed upon her knees with many +tears, she roused Barnaby, who jumped up gaily at her summons. + +His clothes were few enough, and to carry Grip was a labour of +love. As the sun shed his earliest beams upon the earth, they +closed the door of their deserted home, and turned away. The sky +was blue and bright. The air was fresh and filled with a thousand +perfumes. Barnaby looked upward, and laughed with all his heart. + +But it was a day he usually devoted to a long ramble, and one of +the dogs--the ugliest of them all--came bounding up, and jumping +round him in the fulness of his joy. He had to bid him go back in +a surly tone, and his heart smote him while he did so. The dog +retreated; turned with a half-incredulous, half-imploring look; +came a little back; and stopped. + +It was the last appeal of an old companion and a faithful friend-- +cast off. Barnaby could bear no more, and as he shook his head and +waved his playmate home, he burst into tears. + +'Oh mother, mother, how mournful he will be when he scratches at +the door, and finds it always shut!' + +There was such a sense of home in the thought, that though her own +eyes overflowed she would not have obliterated the recollection of +it, either from her own mind or from his, for the wealth of the +whole wide world. + + + +Chapter 47 + + +In the exhaustless catalogue of Heaven's mercies to mankind, the +power we have of finding some germs of comfort in the hardest +trials must ever occupy the foremost place; not only because it +supports and upholds us when we most require to be sustained, but +because in this source of consolation there is something, we have +reason to believe, of the divine spirit; something of that goodness +which detects amidst our own evil doings, a redeeming quality; +something which, even in our fallen nature, we possess in common +with the angels; which had its being in the old time when they trod +the earth, and lingers on it yet, in pity. + +How often, on their journey, did the widow remember with a grateful +heart, that out of his deprivation Barnaby's cheerfulness and +affection sprung! How often did she call to mind that but for +that, he might have been sullen, morose, unkind, far removed from +her--vicious, perhaps, and cruel! How often had she cause for +comfort, in his strength, and hope, and in his simple nature! +Those feeble powers of mind which rendered him so soon forgetful of +the past, save in brief gleams and flashes,--even they were a +comfort now. The world to him was full of happiness; in every +tree, and plant, and flower, in every bird, and beast, and tiny +insect whom a breath of summer wind laid low upon the ground, he +had delight. His delight was hers; and where many a wise son would +have made her sorrowful, this poor light-hearted idiot filled her +breast with thankfulness and love. + +Their stock of money was low, but from the hoard she had told into +the blind man's hand, the widow had withheld one guinea. This, +with the few pence she possessed besides, was to two persons of +their frugal habits, a goodly sum in bank. Moreover they had Grip +in company; and when they must otherwise have changed the guinea, +it was but to make him exhibit outside an alehouse door, or in a +village street, or in the grounds or gardens of a mansion of the +better sort, and scores who would have given nothing in charity, +were ready to bargain for more amusement from the talking bird. + +One day--for they moved slowly, and although they had many rides in +carts and waggons, were on the road a week--Barnaby, with Grip upon +his shoulder and his mother following, begged permission at a trim +lodge to go up to the great house, at the other end of the avenue, +and show his raven. The man within was inclined to give them +admittance, and was indeed about to do so, when a stout gentleman +with a long whip in his hand, and a flushed face which seemed to +indicate that he had had his morning's draught, rode up to the +gate, and called in a loud voice and with more oaths than the +occasion seemed to warrant to have it opened directly. + +'Who hast thou got here?' said the gentleman angrily, as the man +threw the gate wide open, and pulled off his hat, 'who are these? +Eh? art a beggar, woman?' + +The widow answered with a curtsey, that they were poor travellers. + +'Vagrants,' said the gentleman, 'vagrants and vagabonds. Thee +wish to be made acquainted with the cage, dost thee--the cage, the +stocks, and the whipping-post? Where dost come from?' + +She told him in a timid manner,--for he was very loud, hoarse, and +red-faced,--and besought him not to be angry, for they meant no +harm, and would go upon their way that moment. + +'Don't he too sure of that,' replied the gentleman, 'we don't allow +vagrants to roam about this place. I know what thou want'st--- +stray linen drying on hedges, and stray poultry, eh? What hast +got in that basket, lazy hound?' + +'Grip, Grip, Grip--Grip the clever, Grip the wicked, Grip the +knowing--Grip, Grip, Grip,' cried the raven, whom Barnaby had shut +up on the approach of this stern personage. 'I'm a devil I'm a +devil I'm a devil, Never say die Hurrah Bow wow wow, Polly put the +kettle on we'll all have tea.' + +'Take the vermin out, scoundrel,' said the gentleman, 'and let me +see him.' + +Barnaby, thus condescendingly addressed, produced his bird, but not +without much fear and trembling, and set him down upon the ground; +which he had no sooner done than Grip drew fifty corks at least, +and then began to dance; at the same time eyeing the gentleman with +surprising insolence of manner, and screwing his head so much on +one side that he appeared desirous of screwing it off upon the spot. + +The cork-drawing seemed to make a greater impression on the +gentleman's mind, than the raven's power of speech, and was indeed +particularly adapted to his habits and capacity. He desired to +have that done again, but despite his being very peremptory, and +notwithstanding that Barnaby coaxed to the utmost, Grip turned a +deaf ear to the request, and preserved a dead silence. + +'Bring him along,' said the gentleman, pointing to the house. But +Grip, who had watched the action, anticipated his master, by +hopping on before them;--constantly flapping his wings, and +screaming 'cook!' meanwhile, as a hint perhaps that there was +company coming, and a small collation would be acceptable. + +Barnaby and his mother walked on, on either side of the gentleman +on horseback, who surveyed each of them from time to time in a +proud and coarse manner, and occasionally thundered out some +question, the tone of which alarmed Barnaby so much that he could +find no answer, and, as a matter of course, could make him no +reply. On one of these occasions, when the gentleman appeared +disposed to exercise his horsewhip, the widow ventured to inform +him in a low voice and with tears in her eyes, that her son was of +weak mind. + +'An idiot, eh?' said the gentleman, looking at Barnaby as he spoke. +'And how long hast thou been an idiot?' + +'She knows,' was Barnaby's timid answer, pointing to his mother-- +'I--always, I believe.' + +'From his birth,' said the widow. + +'I don't believe it,' cried the gentleman, 'not a bit of it. It's +an excuse not to work. There's nothing like flogging to cure that +disorder. I'd make a difference in him in ten minutes, I'll be +bound.' + +'Heaven has made none in more than twice ten years, sir,' said the +widow mildly. + +'Then why don't you shut him up? we pay enough for county +institutions, damn 'em. But thou'd rather drag him about to +excite charity--of course. Ay, I know thee.' + +Now, this gentleman had various endearing appellations among his +intimate friends. By some he was called 'a country gentleman of +the true school,' by some 'a fine old country gentleman,' by some +'a sporting gentleman,' by some 'a thorough-bred Englishman,' by +some 'a genuine John Bull;' but they all agreed in one respect, and +that was, that it was a pity there were not more like him, and that +because there were not, the country was going to rack and ruin +every day. He was in the commission of the peace, and could write +his name almost legibly; but his greatest qualifications were, that +he was more severe with poachers, was a better shot, a harder +rider, had better horses, kept better dogs, could eat more solid +food, drink more strong wine, go to bed every night more drunk and +get up every morning more sober, than any man in the county. In +knowledge of horseflesh he was almost equal to a farrier, in stable +learning he surpassed his own head groom, and in gluttony not a pig +on his estate was a match for him. He had no seat in Parliament +himself, but he was extremely patriotic, and usually drove his +voters up to the poll with his own hands. He was warmly attached +to church and state, and never appointed to the living in his gift +any but a three-bottle man and a first-rate fox-hunter. He +mistrusted the honesty of all poor people who could read and write, +and had a secret jealousy of his own wife (a young lady whom he had +married for what his friends called 'the good old English reason,' +that her father's property adjoined his own) for possessing those +accomplishments in a greater degree than himself. In short, +Barnaby being an idiot, and Grip a creature of mere brute instinct, +it would be very hard to say what this gentleman was. + +He rode up to the door of a handsome house approached by a great +flight of steps, where a man was waiting to take his horse, and led +the way into a large hall, which, spacious as it was, was tainted +with the fumes of last night's stale debauch. Greatcoats, riding- +whips, bridles, top-boots, spurs, and such gear, were strewn about +on all sides, and formed, with some huge stags' antlers, and a few +portraits of dogs and horses, its principal embellishments. + +Throwing himself into a great chair (in which, by the bye, he often +snored away the night, when he had been, according to his admirers, +a finer country gentleman than usual) he bade the man to tell his +mistress to come down: and presently there appeared, a little +flurried, as it seemed, by the unwonted summons, a lady much +younger than himself, who had the appearance of being in delicate +health, and not too happy. + +'Here! Thou'st no delight in following the hounds as an +Englishwoman should have,' said the gentleman. 'See to this +here. That'll please thee perhaps.' + +The lady smiled, sat down at a little distance from him, and +glanced at Barnaby with a look of pity. + +'He's an idiot, the woman says,' observed the gentleman, shaking +his head; 'I don't believe it.' + +'Are you his mother?' asked the lady. + +She answered yes. + +'What's the use of asking HER?' said the gentleman, thrusting his +hands into his breeches pockets. 'She'll tell thee so, of course. +Most likely he's hired, at so much a day. There. Get on. Make +him do something.' + +Grip having by this time recovered his urbanity, condescended, at +Barnaby's solicitation, to repeat his various phrases of speech, +and to go through the whole of his performances with the utmost +success. The corks, and the never say die, afforded the gentleman +so much delight that he demanded the repetition of this part of the +entertainment, until Grip got into his basket, and positively +refused to say another word, good or bad. The lady too, was much +amused with him; and the closing point of his obstinacy so +delighted her husband that he burst into a roar of laughter, and +demanded his price. + +Barnaby looked as though he didn't understand his meaning. +Probably he did not. + +'His price,' said the gentleman, rattling the money in his pockets, +'what dost want for him? How much?' + +'He's not to be sold,' replied Barnaby, shutting up the basket in a +great hurry, and throwing the strap over his shoulder. 'Mother, +come away.' + +'Thou seest how much of an idiot he is, book-learner,' said the +gentleman, looking scornfully at his wife. 'He can make a bargain. +What dost want for him, old woman?' + +'He is my son's constant companion,' said the widow. 'He is not to +be sold, sir, indeed.' + +'Not to be sold!' cried the gentleman, growing ten times redder, +hoarser, and louder than before. 'Not to be sold!' + +'Indeed no,' she answered. 'We have never thought of parting with +him, sir, I do assure you.' + +He was evidently about to make a very passionate retort, when a few +murmured words from his wife happening to catch his ear, he turned +sharply round, and said, 'Eh? What?' + +'We can hardly expect them to sell the bird, against their own +desire,' she faltered. 'If they prefer to keep him--' + +'Prefer to keep him!' he echoed. 'These people, who go tramping +about the country a-pilfering and vagabondising on all hands, +prefer to keep a bird, when a landed proprietor and a justice asks +his price! That old woman's been to school. I know she has. +Don't tell me no,' he roared to the widow, 'I say, yes.' + +Barnaby's mother pleaded guilty to the accusation, and hoped there +was no harm in it. + +'No harm!' said the gentleman. 'No. No harm. No harm, ye old +rebel, not a bit of harm. If my clerk was here, I'd set ye in the +stocks, I would, or lay ye in jail for prowling up and down, on the +look-out for petty larcenies, ye limb of a gipsy. Here, Simon, put +these pilferers out, shove 'em into the road, out with 'em! Ye +don't want to sell the bird, ye that come here to beg, don't ye? +If they an't out in double-quick, set the dogs upon 'em!' + +They waited for no further dismissal, but fled precipitately, +leaving the gentleman to storm away by himself (for the poor lady +had already retreated), and making a great many vain attempts to +silence Grip, who, excited by the noise, drew corks enough for a +city feast as they hurried down the avenue, and appeared to +congratulate himself beyond measure on having been the cause of the +disturbance. When they had nearly reached the lodge, another +servant, emerging from the shrubbery, feigned to be very active +in ordering them off, but this man put a crown into the widow's +hand, and whispering that his lady sent it, thrust them gently from +the gate. + +This incident only suggested to the widow's mind, when they halted +at an alehouse some miles further on, and heard the justice's +character as given by his friends, that perhaps something more than +capacity of stomach and tastes for the kennel and the stable, were +required to form either a perfect country gentleman, a thoroughbred +Englishman, or a genuine John Bull; and that possibly the terms +were sometimes misappropriated, not to say disgraced. She little +thought then, that a circumstance so slight would ever influence +their future fortunes; but time and experience enlightened her in +this respect. + +'Mother,' said Barnaby, as they were sitting next day in a waggon +which was to take them within ten miles of the capital, 'we're +going to London first, you said. Shall we see that blind man +there?' + +She was about to answer 'Heaven forbid!' but checked herself, and +told him No, she thought not; why did he ask? + +'He's a wise man,' said Barnaby, with a thoughtful countenance. 'I +wish that we may meet with him again. What was it that he said of +crowds? That gold was to be found where people crowded, and not +among the trees and in such quiet places? He spoke as if he loved +it; London is a crowded place; I think we shall meet him there.' + +'But why do you desire to see him, love?' she asked. + +'Because,' said Barnaby, looking wistfully at her, 'he talked to me +about gold, which is a rare thing, and say what you will, a thing +you would like to have, I know. And because he came and went away +so strangely--just as white-headed old men come sometimes to my +bed's foot in the night, and say what I can't remember when the +bright day returns. He told me he'd come back. I wonder why he +broke his word!' + +'But you never thought of being rich or gay, before, dear Barnaby. +You have always been contented.' + +He laughed and bade her say that again, then cried, 'Ay ay--oh +yes,' and laughed once more. Then something passed that caught his +fancy, and the topic wandered from his mind, and was succeeded by +another just as fleeting. + +But it was plain from what he had said, and from his returning to +the point more than once that day, and on the next, that the blind +man's visit, and indeed his words, had taken strong possession of +his mind. Whether the idea of wealth had occurred to him for the +first time on looking at the golden clouds that evening--and images +were often presented to his thoughts by outward objects quite as +remote and distant; or whether their poor and humble way of life +had suggested it, by contrast, long ago; or whether the accident +(as he would deem it) of the blind man's pursuing the current of +his own remarks, had done so at the moment; or he had been +impressed by the mere circumstance of the man being blind, and, +therefore, unlike any one with whom he had talked before; it was +impossible to tell. She tried every means to discover, but in +vain; and the probability is that Barnaby himself was equally in +the dark. + +It filled her with uneasiness to find him harping on this string, +but all that she could do, was to lead him quickly to some other +subject, and to dismiss it from his brain. To caution him against +their visitor, to show any fear or suspicion in reference to him, +would only be, she feared, to increase that interest with which +Barnaby regarded him, and to strengthen his desire to meet him once +again. She hoped, by plunging into the crowd, to rid herself of +her terrible pursuer, and then, by journeying to a distance and +observing increased caution, if that were possible, to live again +unknown, in secrecy and peace. + +They reached, in course of time, their halting-place within ten +miles of London, and lay there for the night, after bargaining to +be carried on for a trifle next day, in a light van which was +returning empty, and was to start at five o'clock in the morning. +The driver was punctual, the road good--save for the dust, the +weather being very hot and dry--and at seven in the forenoon of +Friday the second of June, one thousand seven hundred and eighty, +they alighted at the foot of Westminster Bridge, bade their +conductor farewell, and stood alone, together, on the scorching +pavement. For the freshness which night sheds upon such busy +thoroughfares had already departed, and the sun was shining with +uncommon lustre. + + + +Chapter 48 + + +Uncertain where to go next, and bewildered by the crowd of people +who were already astir, they sat down in one of the recesses on the +bridge, to rest. They soon became aware that the stream of life +was all pouring one way, and that a vast throng of persons were +crossing the river from the Middlesex to the Surrey shore, in +unusual haste and evident excitement. They were, for the most +part, in knots of two or three, or sometimes half-a-dozen; they +spoke little together--many of them were quite silent; and hurried +on as if they had one absorbing object in view, which was common to +them all. + +They were surprised to see that nearly every man in this great +concourse, which still came pouring past, without slackening in the +least, wore in his hat a blue cockade; and that the chance +passengers who were not so decorated, appeared timidly anxious to +escape observation or attack, and gave them the wall as if they +would conciliate them. This, however, was natural enough, +considering their inferiority in point of numbers; for the +proportion of those who wore blue cockades, to those who were +dressed as usual, was at least forty or fifty to one. There was no +quarrelling, however: the blue cockades went swarming on, passing +each other when they could, and making all the speed that was +possible in such a multitude; and exchanged nothing more than +looks, and very often not even those, with such of the passers-by +as were not of their number. + +At first, the current of people had been confined to the two +pathways, and but a few more eager stragglers kept the road. But +after half an hour or so, the passage was completely blocked up by +the great press, which, being now closely wedged together, and +impeded by the carts and coaches it encountered, moved but slowly, +and was sometimes at a stand for five or ten minutes together. + +After the lapse of nearly two hours, the numbers began to diminish +visibly, and gradually dwindling away, by little and little, left +the bridge quite clear, save that, now and then, some hot and dusty +man, with the cockade in his hat, and his coat thrown over his +shoulder, went panting by, fearful of being too late, or stopped to +ask which way his friends had taken, and being directed, hastened +on again like one refreshed. In this comparative solitude, which +seemed quite strange and novel after the late crowd, the widow had +for the first time an opportunity of inquiring of an old man who +came and sat beside them, what was the meaning of that great +assemblage. + +'Why, where have you come from,' he returned, 'that you haven't +heard of Lord George Gordon's great association? This is the day +that he presents the petition against the Catholics, God bless +him!' + +'What have all these men to do with that?' she said. + +'What have they to do with it!' the old man replied. 'Why, how you +talk! Don't you know his lordship has declared he won't present it +to the house at all, unless it is attended to the door by forty +thousand good and true men at least? There's a crowd for you!' + +'A crowd indeed!' said Barnaby. 'Do you hear that, mother!' + +'And they're mustering yonder, as I am told,' resumed the old man, +'nigh upon a hundred thousand strong. Ah! Let Lord George alone. +He knows his power. There'll be a good many faces inside them +three windows over there,' and he pointed to where the House of +Commons overlooked the river, 'that'll turn pale when good Lord +George gets up this afternoon, and with reason too! Ay, ay. Let +his lordship alone. Let him alone. HE knows!' And so, with much +mumbling and chuckling and shaking of his forefinger, he rose, with +the assistance of his stick, and tottered off. + +'Mother!' said Barnaby, 'that's a brave crowd he talks of. Come!' + +'Not to join it!' cried his mother. + +'Yes, yes,' he answered, plucking at her sleeve. 'Why not? Come!' + +'You don't know,' she urged, 'what mischief they may do, where they +may lead you, what their meaning is. Dear Barnaby, for my sake--' + +'For your sake!' he cried, patting her hand. 'Well! It IS for your +sake, mother. You remember what the blind man said, about the +gold. Here's a brave crowd! Come! Or wait till I come back--yes, +yes, wait here.' + +She tried with all the earnestness her fears engendered, to turn +him from his purpose, but in vain. He was stooping down to buckle +on his shoe, when a hackney-coach passed them rather quickly, and a +voice inside called to the driver to stop. + +'Young man,' said a voice within. + +'Who's that?' cried Barnaby, looking up. + +'Do you wear this ornament?' returned the stranger, holding out a +blue cockade. + +'In Heaven's name, no. Pray do not give it him!' exclaimed the +widow. + +'Speak for yourself, woman,' said the man within the coach, coldly. +'Leave the young man to his choice; he's old enough to make it, and +to snap your apron-strings. He knows, without your telling, +whether he wears the sign of a loyal Englishman or not.' + +Barnaby, trembling with impatience, cried, 'Yes! yes, yes, I do,' +as he had cried a dozen times already. The man threw him a +cockade, and crying, 'Make haste to St George's Fields,' ordered +the coachman to drive on fast; and left them. + +With hands that trembled with his eagerness to fix the bauble in +his hat, Barnaby was adjusting it as he best could, and hurriedly +replying to the tears and entreaties of his mother, when two +gentlemen passed on the opposite side of the way. Observing them, +and seeing how Barnaby was occupied, they stopped, whispered +together for an instant, turned back, and came over to them. + +'Why are you sitting here?' said one of them, who was dressed in a +plain suit of black, wore long lank hair, and carried a great cane. +'Why have you not gone with the rest?' + +'I am going, sir,' replied Barnaby, finishing his task, and putting +his hat on with an air of pride. 'I shall be there directly.' + +'Say "my lord," young man, when his lordship does you the honour of +speaking to you,' said the second gentleman mildly. 'If you don't +know Lord George Gordon when you see him, it's high time you +should.' + +'Nay, Gashford,' said Lord George, as Barnaby pulled off his hat +again and made him a low bow, 'it's no great matter on a day like +this, which every Englishman will remember with delight and pride. +Put on your hat, friend, and follow us, for you lag behind and are +late. It's past ten now. Didn't you know that the hour for +assembling was ten o'clock?' + +Barnaby shook his head and looked vacantly from one to the other. + +'You might have known it, friend,' said Gashford, 'it was perfectly +understood. How came you to be so ill informed?' + +'He cannot tell you, sir,' the widow interposed. 'It's of no use +to ask him. We are but this morning come from a long distance in +the country, and know nothing of these matters.' + +'The cause has taken a deep root, and has spread its branches far +and wide,' said Lord George to his secretary. 'This is a pleasant +hearing. I thank Heaven for it!' + +'Amen!' cried Gashford with a solemn face. + +'You do not understand me, my lord,' said the widow. 'Pardon me, +but you cruelly mistake my meaning. We know nothing of these +matters. We have no desire or right to join in what you are about +to do. This is my son, my poor afflicted son, dearer to me than my +own life. In mercy's name, my lord, go your way alone, and do not +tempt him into danger!' + +'My good woman,' said Gashford, 'how can you!--Dear me!--What do +you mean by tempting, and by danger? Do you think his lordship is +a roaring lion, going about and seeking whom he may devour? God +bless me!' + +'No, no, my lord, forgive me,' implored the widow, laying both her +hands upon his breast, and scarcely knowing what she did, or said, +in the earnestness of her supplication, 'but there are reasons why +you should hear my earnest, mother's prayer, and leave my son with +me. Oh do! He is not in his right senses, he is not, indeed!' + +'It is a bad sign of the wickedness of these times,' said Lord +George, evading her touch, and colouring deeply, 'that those who +cling to the truth and support the right cause, are set down as +mad. Have you the heart to say this of your own son, unnatural +mother!' + +'I am astonished at you!' said Gashford, with a kind of meek +severity. 'This is a very sad picture of female depravity.' + +'He has surely no appearance,' said Lord George, glancing at +Barnaby, and whispering in his secretary's ear, 'of being deranged? +And even if he had, we must not construe any trifling peculiarity +into madness. Which of us'--and here he turned red again--'would +be safe, if that were made the law!' + +'Not one,' replied the secretary; 'in that case, the greater the +zeal, the truth, and talent; the more direct the call from above; +the clearer would be the madness. With regard to this young man, +my lord,' he added, with a lip that slightly curled as he looked at +Barnaby, who stood twirling his hat, and stealthily beckoning them +to come away, 'he is as sensible and self-possessed as any one I +ever saw.' + +'And you desire to make one of this great body?' said Lord George, +addressing him; 'and intended to make one, did you?' + +'Yes--yes,' said Barnaby, with sparkling eyes. 'To be sure I did! +I told her so myself.' + +'I see,' replied Lord George, with a reproachful glance at the +unhappy mother. 'I thought so. Follow me and this gentleman, and +you shall have your wish.' + +Barnaby kissed his mother tenderly on the cheek, and bidding her be +of good cheer, for their fortunes were both made now, did as he was +desired. She, poor woman, followed too--with how much fear and +grief it would be hard to tell. + +They passed quickly through the Bridge Road, where the shops were +all shut up (for the passage of the great crowd and the expectation +of their return had alarmed the tradesmen for their goods and +windows), and where, in the upper stories, all the inhabitants were +congregated, looking down into the street below, with faces +variously expressive of alarm, of interest, expectancy, and +indignation. Some of these applauded, and some hissed; but +regardless of these interruptions--for the noise of a vast +congregation of people at a little distance, sounded in his ears +like the roaring of the sea--Lord George Gordon quickened his pace, +and presently arrived before St George's Fields. + +They were really fields at that time, and of considerable extent. +Here an immense multitude was collected, bearing flags of various +kinds and sizes, but all of the same colour--blue, like the +cockades--some sections marching to and fro in military array, and +others drawn up in circles, squares, and lines. A large portion, +both of the bodies which paraded the ground, and of those which +remained stationary, were occupied in singing hymns or psalms. +With whomsoever this originated, it was well done; for the sound of +so many thousand voices in the air must have stirred the heart of +any man within him, and could not fail to have a wonderful effect +upon enthusiasts, however mistaken. + +Scouts had been posted in advance of the great body, to give notice +of their leader's coming. These falling back, the word was quickly +passed through the whole host, and for a short interval there +ensued a profound and deathlike silence, during which the mass was +so still and quiet, that the fluttering of a banner caught the eye, +and became a circumstance of note. Then they burst into a +tremendous shout, into another, and another; and the air seemed +rent and shaken, as if by the discharge of cannon. + +'Gashford!' cried Lord George, pressing his secretary's arm tight +within his own, and speaking with as much emotion in his voice, as +in his altered face, 'I arn called indeed, now. I feel and know +it. I am the leader of a host. If they summoned me at this moment +with one voice to lead them on to death, I'd do it--Yes, and fall +first myself!' + +'It is a proud sight,' said the secretary. 'It is a noble day for +England, and for the great cause throughout the world. Such +homage, my lord, as I, an humble but devoted man, can render--' + +'What are you doing?' cried his master, catching him by both hands; +for he had made a show of kneeling at his feet. 'Do not unfit me, +dear Gashford, for the solemn duty of this glorious day--' the +tears stood in the eyes of the poor gentleman as he said the +words.--'Let us go among them; we have to find a place in some +division for this new recruit--give me your hand.' + +Gashford slid his cold insidious palm into his master's grasp, and +so, hand in hand, and followed still by Barnaby and by his mother +too, they mingled with the concourse. + +They had by this time taken to their singing again, and as their +leader passed between their ranks, they raised their voices to +their utmost. Many of those who were banded together to support +the religion of their country, even unto death, had never heard a +hymn or psalm in all their lives. But these fellows having for the +most part strong lungs, and being naturally fond of singing, +chanted any ribaldry or nonsense that occurred to them, feeling +pretty certain that it would not be detected in the general chorus, +and not caring much if it were. Many of these voluntaries were +sung under the very nose of Lord George Gordon, who, quite +unconscious of their burden, passed on with his usual stiff and +solemn deportment, very much edified and delighted by the pious +conduct of his followers. + +So they went on and on, up this line, down that, round the exterior +of this circle, and on every side of that hollow square; and still +there were lines, and squares, and circles out of number to review. +The day being now intensely hot, and the sun striking down his +fiercest rays upon the field, those who carried heavy banners began +to grow faint and weary; most of the number assembled were fain to +pull off their neckcloths, and throw their coats and waistcoats +open; and some, towards the centre, quite overpowered by the +excessive heat, which was of course rendered more unendurable by +the multitude around them, lay down upon the grass, and offered all +they had about them for a drink of water. Still, no man left the +ground, not even of those who were so distressed; still Lord +George, streaming from every pore, went on with Gashford; and still +Barnaby and his mother followed close behind them. + +They had arrived at the top of a long line of some eight hundred +men in single file, and Lord George had turned his head to look +back, when a loud cry of recognition--in that peculiar and half- +stifled tone which a voice has, when it is raised in the open air +and in the midst of a great concourse of persons--was heard, and a +man stepped with a shout of laughter from the rank, and smote +Barnaby on the shoulders with his heavy hand. + +'How now!' he cried. 'Barnaby Rudge! Why, where have you been +hiding for these hundred years?' + +Barnaby had been thinking within himself that the smell of the +trodden grass brought back his old days at cricket, when he was a +young boy and played on Chigwell Green. Confused by this sudden +and boisterous address, he stared in a bewildered manner at the +man, and could scarcely say 'What! Hugh!' + +'Hugh!' echoed the other; 'ay, Hugh--Maypole Hugh! You remember my +dog? He's alive now, and will know you, I warrant. What, you wear +the colour, do you? Well done! Ha ha ha!' + +'You know this young man, I see,' said Lord George. + +'Know him, my lord! as well as I know my own right hand. My +captain knows him. We all know him.' + +'Will you take him into your division?' + +'It hasn't in it a better, nor a nimbler, nor a more active man, +than Barnaby Rudge,' said Hugh. 'Show me the man who says it has! +Fall in, Barnaby. He shall march, my lord, between me and Dennis; +and he shall carry,' he added, taking a flag from the hand of a +tired man who tendered it, 'the gayest silken streamer in this +valiant army.' + +'In the name of God, no!' shrieked the widow, darting forward. +'Barnaby--my lord--see--he'll come back--Barnaby--Barnaby!' + +'Women in the field!' cried Hugh, stepping between them, and +holding her off. 'Holloa! My captain there!' + +'What's the matter here?' cried Simon Tappertit, bustling up in a +great heat. 'Do you call this order?' + +'Nothing like it, captain,' answered Hugh, still holding her back +with his outstretched hand. 'It's against all orders. Ladies are +carrying off our gallant soldiers from their duty. The word of +command, captain! They're filing off the ground. Quick!' + +'Close!' cried Simon, with the whole power of his lungs. 'Form! +March!' + +She was thrown to the ground; the whole field was in motion; +Barnaby was whirled away into the heart of a dense mass of men, and +she saw him no more. + + + +Chapter 49 + + +The mob had been divided from its first assemblage into four +divisions; the London, the Westminster, the Southwark, and the +Scotch. Each of these divisions being subdivided into various +bodies, and these bodies being drawn up in various forms and +figures, the general arrangement was, except to the few chiefs and +leaders, as unintelligible as the plan of a great battle to the +meanest soldier in the field. It was not without its method, +however; for, in a very short space of time after being put in +motion, the crowd had resolved itself into three great parties, and +were prepared, as had been arranged, to cross the river by +different bridges, and make for the House of Commons in separate +detachments. + +At the head of that division which had Westminster Bridge for its +approach to the scene of action, Lord George Gordon took his post; +with Gashford at his right hand, and sundry ruffians, of most +unpromising appearance, forming a kind of staff about him. The +conduct of a second party, whose route lay by Blackfriars, was +entrusted to a committee of management, including perhaps a dozen +men: while the third, which was to go by London Bridge, and through +the main streets, in order that their numbers and their serious +intentions might be the better known and appreciated by the +citizens, were led by Simon Tappertit (assisted by a few +subalterns, selected from the Brotherhood of United Bulldogs), +Dennis the hangman, Hugh, and some others. + +The word of command being given, each of these great bodies took +the road assigned to it, and departed on its way, in perfect order +and profound silence. That which went through the City greatly +exceeded the others in number, and was of such prodigious extent +that when the rear began to move, the front was nearly four miles +in advance, notwithstanding that the men marched three abreast and +followed very close upon each other. + +At the head of this party, in the place where Hugh, in the madness +of his humour, had stationed him, and walking between that +dangerous companion and the hangman, went Barnaby; as many a man +among the thousands who looked on that day afterwards remembered +well. Forgetful of all other things in the ecstasy of the moment, +his face flushed and his eyes sparkling with delight, heedless of +the weight of the great banner he carried, and mindful only of its +flashing in the sun and rustling in the summer breeze, on he went, +proud, happy, elated past all telling:--the only light-hearted, +undesigning creature, in the whole assembly. + +'What do you think of this?' asked Hugh, as they passed through the +crowded streets, and looked up at the windows which were thronged +with spectators. 'They have all turned out to see our flags and +streamers? Eh, Barnaby? Why, Barnaby's the greatest man of all +the pack! His flag's the largest of the lot, the brightest too. +There's nothing in the show, like Barnaby. All eyes are turned on +him. Ha ha ha!' + +'Don't make that din, brother,' growled the hangman, glancing with +no very approving eyes at Barnaby as he spoke: 'I hope he don't +think there's nothing to be done, but carrying that there piece of +blue rag, like a boy at a breaking up. You're ready for action I +hope, eh? You, I mean,' he added, nudging Barnaby roughly with +his elbow. 'What are you staring at? Why don't you speak?' + +Barnaby had been gazing at his flag, and looked vacantly from his +questioner to Hugh. + +'He don't understand your way,' said the latter. 'Here, I'll +explain it to him. Barnaby old boy, attend to me.' + +'I'll attend,' said Barnaby, looking anxiously round; 'but I wish +I could see her somewhere.' + +'See who?' demanded Dennis in a gruff tone. 'You an't in love I +hope, brother? That an't the sort of thing for us, you know. We +mustn't have no love here.' + +'She would be proud indeed to see me now, eh Hugh?' said Barnaby. +'Wouldn't it make her glad to see me at the head of this large +show? She'd cry for joy, I know she would. Where CAN she be? She +never sees me at my best, and what do I care to be gay and fine if +SHE'S not by?' + +'Why, what palaver's this?' asked Mr Dennis with supreme disdain. +'We an't got no sentimental members among us, I hope.' + +'Don't be uneasy, brother,' cried Hugh, 'he's only talking of his +mother.' + +'Of his what?' said Mr Dennis with a strong oath. + +'His mother.' + +'And have I combined myself with this here section, and turned out +on this here memorable day, to hear men talk about their mothers!' +growled Mr Dennis with extreme disgust. 'The notion of a man's +sweetheart's bad enough, but a man's mother!'--and here his disgust +was so extreme that he spat upon the ground, and could say no more. + +'Barnaby's right,' cried Hugh with a grin, 'and I say it. Lookee, +bold lad. If she's not here to see, it's because I've provided for +her, and sent half-a-dozen gentlemen, every one of 'em with a +blue flag (but not half as fine as yours), to take her, in state, +to a grand house all hung round with gold and silver banners, and +everything else you please, where she'll wait till you come, and +want for nothing.' + +'Ay!' said Barnaby, his face beaming with delight: 'have you +indeed? That's a good hearing. That's fine! Kind Hugh!' + +'But nothing to what will come, bless you,' retorted Hugh, with a +wink at Dennis, who regarded his new companion in arms with great +astonishment. + +'No, indeed?' cried Barnaby. + +'Nothing at all,' said Hugh. 'Money, cocked hats and feathers, red +coats and gold lace; all the fine things there are, ever were, or +will be; will belong to us if we are true to that noble gentleman-- +the best man in the world--carry our flags for a few days, and keep +'em safe. That's all we've got to do.' + +'Is that all?' cried Barnaby with glistening eyes, as he clutched +his pole the tighter; 'I warrant you I keep this one safe, then. +You have put it in good hands. You know me, Hugh. Nobody shall +wrest this flag away.' + +'Well said!' cried Hugh. 'Ha ha! Nobly said! That's the old +stout Barnaby, that I have climbed and leaped with, many and many a +day--I knew I was not mistaken in Barnaby.--Don't you see, man,' he +added in a whisper, as he slipped to the other side of Dennis, +'that the lad's a natural, and can be got to do anything, if you +take him the right way? Letting alone the fun he is, he's worth a +dozen men, in earnest, as you'd find if you tried a fall with him. +Leave him to me. You shall soon see whether he's of use or not.' + +Mr Dennis received these explanatory remarks with many nods and +winks, and softened his behaviour towards Barnaby from that moment. +Hugh, laying his finger on his nose, stepped back into his former +place, and they proceeded in silence. + +It was between two and three o'clock in the afternoon when the +three great parties met at Westminster, and, uniting into one huge +mass, raised a tremendous shout. This was not only done in token +of their presence, but as a signal to those on whom the task +devolved, that it was time to take possession of the lobbies of +both Houses, and of the various avenues of approach, and of the +gallery stairs. To the last-named place, Hugh and Dennis, still +with their pupil between them, rushed straightway; Barnaby having +given his flag into the hands of one of their own party, who kept +them at the outer door. Their followers pressing on behind, they +were borne as on a great wave to the very doors of the gallery, +whence it was impossible to retreat, even if they had been so +inclined, by reason of the throng which choked up the passages. It +is a familiar expression in describing a great crowd, that a person +might have walked upon the people's heads. In this case it was +actually done; for a boy who had by some means got among the +concourse, and was in imminent danger of suffocation, climbed to +the shoulders of a man beside him and walked upon the people's hats +and heads into the open street; traversing in his passage the whole +length of two staircases and a long gallery. Nor was the swarm +without less dense; for a basket which had been tossed into the +crowd, was jerked from head to head, and shoulder to shoulder, and +went spinning and whirling on above them, until it was lost to +view, without ever once falling in among them or coming near the +ground. + +Through this vast throng, sprinkled doubtless here and there with +honest zealots, but composed for the most part of the very scum and +refuse of London, whose growth was fostered by bad criminal laws, +bad prison regulations, and the worst conceivable police, such of +the members of both Houses of Parliament as had not taken the +precaution to be already at their posts, were compelled to fight +and force their way. Their carriages were stopped and broken; the +wheels wrenched off; the glasses shivered to atoms; the panels +beaten in; drivers, footmen, and masters, pulled from their seats +and rolled in the mud. Lords, commoners, and reverend bishops, +with little distinction of person or party, were kicked and pinched +and hustled; passed from hand to hand through various stages of +ill-usage; and sent to their fellow-senators at last with their +clothes hanging in ribands about them, their bagwigs torn off, +themselves speechless and breathless, and their persons covered +with the powder which had been cuffed and beaten out of their hair. +One lord was so long in the hands of the populace, that the Peers +as a body resolved to sally forth and rescue him, and were in the +act of doing so, when he happily appeared among them covered with +dirt and bruises, and hardly to be recognised by those who knew him +best. The noise and uproar were on the increase every moment. The +air was filled with execrations, hoots, and howlings. The mob +raged and roared, like a mad monster as it was, unceasingly, and +each new outrage served to swell its fury. + +Within doors, matters were even yet more threatening. Lord George-- +preceded by a man who carried the immense petition on a porter's +knot through the lobby to the door of the House of Commons, where +it was received by two officers of the house who rolled it up to +the table ready for presentation--had taken his seat at an early +hour, before the Speaker went to prayers. His followers pouring in +at the same time, the lobby and all the avenues were immediately +filled, as we have seen. Thus the members were not only attacked +in their passage through the streets, but were set upon within the +very walls of Parliament; while the tumult, both within and +without, was so great, that those who attempted to speak could +scarcely hear their own voices: far less, consult upon the course +it would be wise to take in such extremity, or animate each other +to dignified and firm resistance. So sure as any member, just +arrived, with dress disordered and dishevelled hair, came +struggling through the crowd in the lobby, it yelled and screamed +in triumph; and when the door of the House, partially and +cautiously opened by those within for his admission, gave them a +momentary glimpse of the interior, they grew more wild and savage, +like beasts at the sight of prey, and made a rush against the +portal which strained its locks and bolts in their staples, and +shook the very beams. + +The strangers' gallery, which was immediately above the door of the +House, had been ordered to be closed on the first rumour of +disturbance, and was empty; save that now and then Lord George took +his seat there, for the convenience of coming to the head of the +stairs which led to it, and repeating to the people what had passed +within. It was on these stairs that Barnaby, Hugh, and Dennis were +posted. There were two flights, short, steep, and narrow, running +parallel to each other, and leading to two little doors +communicating with a low passage which opened on the gallery. +Between them was a kind of well, or unglazed skylight, for the +admission of light and air into the lobby, which might be some +eighteen or twenty feet below. + +Upon one of these little staircases--not that at the head of which +Lord George appeared from time to time, but the other--Gashford +stood with his elbow on the bannister, and his cheek resting on his +hand, with his usual crafty aspect. Whenever he varied this +attitude in the slightest degree--so much as by the gentlest motion +of his arm--the uproar was certain to increase, not merely there, +but in the lobby below; from which place no doubt, some man who +acted as fugleman to the rest, was constantly looking up and +watching him. + +'Order!' cried Hugh, in a voice which made itself heard even above +the roar and tumult, as Lord George appeared at the top of the +staircase. 'News! News from my lord!' + +The noise continued, notwithstanding his appearance, until Gashford +looked round. There was silence immediately--even among the people +in the passages without, and on the other staircases, who could +neither see nor hear, but to whom, notwithstanding, the signal was +conveyed with marvellous rapidity. + +'Gentlemen,' said Lord George, who was very pale and agitated, we +must be firm. They talk of delays, but we must have no delays. +They talk of taking your petition into consideration next Tuesday, +but we must have it considered now. Present appearances look bad +for our success, but we must succeed and will!' + +'We must succeed and will!' echoed the crowd. And so among their +shouts and cheers and other cries, he bowed to them and retired, +and presently came back again. There was another gesture from +Gashford, and a dead silence directly. + +'I am afraid,' he said, this time, 'that we have little reason, +gentlemen, to hope for any redress from the proceedings of +Parliament. But we must redress our own grievances, we must meet +again, we must put our trust in Providence, and it will bless our +endeavours.' + +This speech being a little more temperate than the last, was not so +favourably received. When the noise and exasperation were at their +height, he came back once more, and told them that the alarm had +gone forth for many miles round; that when the King heard of their +assembling together in that great body, he had no doubt, His +Majesty would send down private orders to have their wishes +complied with; and--with the manner of his speech as childish, +irresolute, and uncertain as his matter--was proceeding in this +strain, when two gentlemen suddenly appeared at the door where he +stood, and pressing past him and coming a step or two lower down +upon the stairs, confronted the people. + +The boldness of this action quite took them by surprise. They were +not the less disconcerted, when one of the gentlemen, turning to +Lord George, spoke thus--in a loud voice that they might hear him +well, but quite coolly and collectedly: + +'You may tell these people, if you please, my lord, that I am +General Conway of whom they have heard; and that I oppose this +petition, and all their proceedings, and yours. I am a soldier, +you may tell them, and I will protect the freedom of this place +with my sword. You see, my lord, that the members of this House +are all in arms to-day; you know that the entrance to it is a +narrow one; you cannot be ignorant that there are men within these +walls who are determined to defend that pass to the last, and +before whom many lives must fall if your adherents persevere. Have +a care what you do.' + +'And my Lord George,' said the other gentleman, addressing him in +like manner, 'I desire them to hear this, from me--Colonel Gordon-- +your near relation. If a man among this crowd, whose uproar +strikes us deaf, crosses the threshold of the House of Commons, I +swear to run my sword that moment--not into his, but into your +body!' + +With that, they stepped back again, keeping their faces towards the +crowd; took each an arm of the misguided nobleman; drew him into +the passage, and shut the door; which they directly locked and +fastened on the inside. + +This was so quickly done, and the demeanour of both gentlemen--who +were not young men either--was so gallant and resolute, that the +crowd faltered and stared at each other with irresolute and timid +looks. Many tried to turn towards the door; some of the faintest- +hearted cried they had best go back, and called to those behind to +give way; and the panic and confusion were increasing rapidly, when +Gashford whispered Hugh. + +'What now!' Hugh roared aloud, turning towards them. 'Why go back? +Where can you do better than here, boys! One good rush against +these doors and one below at the same time, will do the business. +Rush on, then! As to the door below, let those stand back who are +afraid. Let those who are not afraid, try who shall be the first +to pass it. Here goes! Look out down there!' + +Without the delay of an instant, he threw himself headlong over the +bannisters into the lobby below. He had hardly touched the ground +when Barnaby was at his side. The chaplain's assistant, and some +members who were imploring the people to retire, immediately +withdrew; and then, with a great shout, both crowds threw +themselves against the doors pell-mell, and besieged the House in +earnest. + +At that moment, when a second onset must have brought them into +collision with those who stood on the defensive within, in which +case great loss of life and bloodshed would inevitably have +ensued,--the hindmost portion of the crowd gave way, and the rumour +spread from mouth to mouth that a messenger had been despatched by +water for the military, who were forming in the street. Fearful of +sustaining a charge in the narrow passages in which they were so +closely wedged together, the throng poured out as impetuously as +they had flocked in. As the whole stream turned at once, Barnaby +and Hugh went with it: and so, fighting and struggling and +trampling on fallen men and being trampled on in turn themselves, +they and the whole mass floated by degrees into the open street, +where a large detachment of the Guards, both horse and foot, came +hurrying up; clearing the ground before them so rapidly that the +people seemed to melt away as they advanced. + +The word of command to halt being given, the soldiers formed across +the street; the rioters, breathless and exhausted with their late +exertions, formed likewise, though in a very irregular and +disorderly manner. The commanding officer rode hastily into the +open space between the two bodies, accompanied by a magistrate and +an officer of the House of Commons, for whose accommodation a +couple of troopers had hastily dismounted. The Riot Act was read, +but not a man stirred. + +In the first rank of the insurgents, Barnaby and Hugh stood side by +side. Somebody had thrust into Barnaby's hands when he came out +into the street, his precious flag; which, being now rolled up and +tied round the pole, looked like a giant quarter-staff as he +grasped it firmly and stood upon his guard. If ever man believed +with his whole heart and soul that he was engaged in a just cause, +and that he was bound to stand by his leader to the last, poor +Barnaby believed it of himself and Lord George Gordon. + +After an ineffectual attempt to make himself heard, the magistrate +gave the word and the Horse Guards came riding in among the crowd. +But, even then, he galloped here and there, exhorting the people to +disperse; and, although heavy stones were thrown at the men, and +some were desperately cut and bruised, they had no orders but to +make prisoners of such of the rioters as were the most active, and +to drive the people back with the flat of their sabres. As the +horses came in among them, the throng gave way at many points, and +the Guards, following up their advantage, were rapidly clearing the +ground, when two or three of the foremost, who were in a manner cut +off from the rest by the people closing round them, made straight +towards Barnaby and Hugh, who had no doubt been pointed out as the +two men who dropped into the lobby: laying about them now with some +effect, and inflicting on the more turbulent of their opponents, a +few slight flesh wounds, under the influence of which a man +dropped, here and there, into the arms of his fellows, amid much +groaning and confusion. + +At the sight of gashed and bloody faces, seen for a moment in the +crowd, then hidden by the press around them, Barnaby turned pale +and sick. But he stood his ground, and grasping his pole more +firmly yet, kept his eye fixed upon the nearest soldier--nodding +his head meanwhile, as Hugh, with a scowling visage, whispered in +his ear. + +The soldier came spurring on, making his horse rear as the people +pressed about him, cutting at the hands of those who would have +grasped his rein and forced his charger back, and waving to his +comrades to follow--and still Barnaby, without retreating an inch, +waited for his coming. Some called to him to fly, and some were in +the very act of closing round him, to prevent his being taken, when +the pole swept into the air above the people's heads, and the man's +saddle was empty in an instant. + +Then, he and Hugh turned and fled, the crowd opening to let them +pass, and closing up again so quickly that there was no clue to the +course they had taken. Panting for breath, hot, dusty, and +exhausted with fatigue, they reached the riverside in safety, and +getting into a boat with all despatch were soon out of any +immediate danger. + +As they glided down the river, they plainly heard the people +cheering; and supposing they might have forced the soldiers to +retreat, lay upon their oars for a few minutes, uncertain whether +to return or not. But the crowd passing along Westminster Bridge, +soon assured them that the populace were dispersing; and Hugh +rightly guessed from this, that they had cheered the magistrate for +offering to dismiss the military on condition of their immediate +departure to their several homes, and that he and Barnaby were +better where they were. He advised, therefore, that they should +proceed to Blackfriars, and, going ashore at the bridge, make the +best of their way to The Boot; where there was not only good +entertainment and safe lodging, but where they would certainly be +joined by many of their late companions. Barnaby assenting, they +decided on this course of action, and pulled for Blackfriars +accordingly. + +They landed at a critical time, and fortunately for themselves at +the right moment. For, coming into Fleet Street, they found it in +an unusual stir; and inquiring the cause, were told that a body of +Horse Guards had just galloped past, and that they were escorting +some rioters whom they had made prisoners, to Newgate for safety. +Not at all ill-pleased to have so narrowly escaped the cavalcade, +they lost no more time in asking questions, but hurried to The Boot +with as much speed as Hugh considered it prudent to make, without +appearing singular or attracting an inconvenient share of public +notice. + + +Chapter 50 + + +They were among the first to reach the tavern, but they had not +been there many minutes, when several groups of men who had formed +part of the crowd, came straggling in. Among them were Simon +Tappertit and Mr Dennis; both of whom, but especially the latter, +greeted Barnaby with the utmost warmth, and paid him many +compliments on the prowess he had shown. + +'Which,' said Dennis, with an oath, as he rested his bludgeon in a +corner with his hat upon it, and took his seat at the same table +with them, 'it does me good to think of. There was a opportunity! +But it led to nothing. For my part, I don't know what would. +There's no spirit among the people in these here times. Bring +something to eat and drink here. I'm disgusted with humanity.' + +'On what account?' asked Mr Tappertit, who had been quenching his +fiery face in a half-gallon can. 'Don't you consider this a good +beginning, mister?' + +'Give me security that it an't a ending,' rejoined the hangman. +'When that soldier went down, we might have made London ours; but +no;--we stand, and gape, and look on--the justice (I wish he had +had a bullet in each eye, as he would have had, if we'd gone to +work my way) says, "My lads, if you'll give me your word to +disperse, I'll order off the military," our people sets up a +hurrah, throws up the game with the winning cards in their hands, +and skulks away like a pack of tame curs as they are. Ah,' said +the hangman, in a tone of deep disgust, 'it makes me blush for my +feller creeturs. I wish I had been born a ox, I do!' + +'You'd have been quite as agreeable a character if you had been, I +think,' returned Simon Tappertit, going out in a lofty manner. + +'Don't be too sure of that,' rejoined the hangman, calling after +him; 'if I was a horned animal at the present moment, with the +smallest grain of sense, I'd toss every man in this company, +excepting them two,' meaning Hugh and Barnaby, 'for his manner of +conducting himself this day.' + +With which mournful review of their proceedings, Mr Dennis sought +consolation in cold boiled beef and beer; but without at all +relaxing the grim and dissatisfied expression of his face, the +gloom of which was rather deepened than dissipated by their +grateful influence. + +The company who were thus libelled might have retaliated by strong +words, if not by blows, but they were dispirited and worn out. The +greater part of them had fasted since morning; all had suffered +extremely from the excessive heat; and between the day's shouting, +exertion, and excitement, many had quite lost their voices, and so +much of their strength that they could hardly stand. Then they +were uncertain what to do next, fearful of the consequences of what +they had done already, and sensible that after all they had carried +no point, but had indeed left matters worse than they had found +them. Of those who had come to The Boot, many dropped off within +an hour; such of them as were really honest and sincere, never, +after the morning's experience, to return, or to hold any +communication with their late companions. Others remained but to +refresh themselves, and then went home desponding; others who had +theretofore been regular in their attendance, avoided the place +altogether. The half-dozen prisoners whom the Guards had taken, +were magnified by report into half-a-hundred at least; and their +friends, being faint and sober, so slackened in their energy, and +so drooped beneath these dispiriting influences, that by eight +o'clock in the evening, Dennis, Hugh, and Barnaby, were left alone. +Even they were fast asleep upon the benches, when Gashford's +entrance roused them. + +'Oh! you ARE here then?' said the Secretary. 'Dear me!' + +'Why, where should we be, Muster Gashford!' Dennis rejoined as he +rose into a sitting posture. + +'Oh nowhere, nowhere,' he returned with excessive mildness. 'The +streets are filled with blue cockades. I rather thought you might +have been among them. I am glad you are not.' + +'You have orders for us, master, then?' said Hugh. + +'Oh dear, no. Not I. No orders, my good fellow. What orders +should I have? You are not in my service.' + +'Muster Gashford,' remonstrated Dennis, 'we belong to the cause, +don't we?' + +'The cause!' repeated the secretary, looking at him in a sort of +abstraction. 'There is no cause. The cause is lost.' + +'Lost!' + +'Oh yes. You have heard, I suppose? The petition is rejected by a +hundred and ninety-two, to six. It's quite final. We might have +spared ourselves some trouble. That, and my lord's vexation, are +the only circumstances I regret. I am quite satisfied in all other +respects.' + +As he said this, he took a penknife from his pocket, and putting +his hat upon his knee, began to busy himself in ripping off the +blue cockade which he had worn all day; at the same time humming a +psalm tune which had been very popular in the morning, and dwelling +on it with a gentle regret. + +His two adherents looked at each other, and at him, as if they +were at a loss how to pursue the subject. At length Hugh, after +some elbowing and winking between himself and Mr Dennis, ventured +to stay his hand, and to ask him why he meddled with that riband in +his hat. + +'Because,' said the secretary, looking up with something between a +snarl and a smile; 'because to sit still and wear it, or to fall +asleep and wear it, is a mockery. That's all, friend.' + +'What would you have us do, master!' cried Hugh. + +'Nothing,' returned Gashford, shrugging his shoulders, 'nothing. +When my lord was reproached and threatened for standing by you, I, +as a prudent man, would have had you do nothing. When the soldiers +were trampling you under their horses' feet, I would have had you +do nothing. When one of them was struck down by a daring hand, and +I saw confusion and dismay in all their faces, I would have had you +do nothing--just what you did, in short. This is the young man who +had so little prudence and so much boldness. Ah! I am sorry for him.' + +'Sorry, master!' cried Hugh. + +'Sorry, Muster Gashford!' echoed Dennis. + +'In case there should be a proclamation out to-morrow, offering +five hundred pounds, or some such trifle, for his apprehension; and +in case it should include another man who dropped into the lobby +from the stairs above,' said Gashford, coldly; 'still, do nothing.' + +'Fire and fury, master!' cried Hugh, starting up. 'What have we +done, that you should talk to us like this!' + +'Nothing,' returned Gashford with a sneer. 'If you are cast into +prison; if the young man--' here he looked hard at Barnaby's +attentive face--'is dragged from us and from his friends; perhaps +from people whom he loves, and whom his death would kill; is thrown +into jail, brought out and hanged before their eyes; still, do +nothing. You'll find it your best policy, I have no doubt.' + +'Come on!' cried Hugh, striding towards the door. 'Dennis-- +Barnaby--come on!' + +'Where? To do what?' said Gashford, slipping past him, and +standing with his back against it. + +'Anywhere! Anything!' cried Hugh. 'Stand aside, master, or the +window will serve our turn as well. Let us out!' + +'Ha ha ha! You are of such--of such an impetuous nature,' said +Gashford, changing his manner for one of the utmost good fellowship +and the pleasantest raillery; 'you are such an excitable creature-- +but you'll drink with me before you go?' + +'Oh, yes--certainly,' growled Dennis, drawing his sleeve across his +thirsty lips. 'No malice, brother. Drink with Muster Gashford!' + +Hugh wiped his heated brow, and relaxed into a smile. The artful +secretary laughed outright. + +'Some liquor here! Be quick, or he'll not stop, even for that. He +is a man of such desperate ardour!' said the smooth secretary, whom +Mr Dennis corroborated with sundry nods and muttered oaths--'Once +roused, he is a fellow of such fierce determination!' + +Hugh poised his sturdy arm aloft, and clapping Barnaby on the back, +bade him fear nothing. They shook hands together--poor Barnaby +evidently possessed with the idea that he was among the most +virtuous and disinterested heroes in the world--and Gashford +laughed again. + +'I hear,' he said smoothly, as he stood among them with a great +measure of liquor in his hand, and filled their glasses as quickly +and as often as they chose, 'I hear--but I cannot say whether it be +true or false--that the men who are loitering in the streets to- +night are half disposed to pull down a Romish chapel or two, and +that they only want leaders. I even heard mention of those in Duke +Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and in Warwick Street, Golden +Square; but common report, you know--You are not going?' + +--'To do nothing, rnaster, eh?' cried Hugh. 'No jails and halter +for Barnaby and me. They must be frightened out of that. Leaders +are wanted, are they? Now boys!' + +'A most impetuous fellow!' cried the secretary. 'Ha ha! A +courageous, boisterous, most vehement fellow! A man who--' + +There was no need to finish the sentence, for they had rushed out +of the house, and were far beyond hearing. He stopped in the +middle of a laugh, listened, drew on his gloves, and, clasping his +hands behind him, paced the deserted room for a long time, then +bent his steps towards the busy town, and walked into the streets. + +They were filled with people, for the rumour of that day's +proceedings had made a great noise. Those persons who did not care +to leave home, were at their doors or windows, and one topic of +discourse prevailed on every side. Some reported that the riots +were effectually put down; others that they had broken out again: +some said that Lord George Gordon had been sent under a strong +guard to the Tower; others that an attempt had been made upon the +King's life, that the soldiers had been again called out, and that +the noise of musketry in a distant part of the town had been +plainly heard within an hour. As it grew darker, these stories +became more direful and mysterious; and often, when some +frightened passenger ran past with tidings that the rioters were +not far off, and were coming up, the doors were shut and barred, +lower windows made secure, and as much consternation engendered, as +if the city were invaded by a foreign army. + +Gashford walked stealthily about, listening to all he heard, and +diffusing or confirming, whenever he had an opportunity, such false +intelligence as suited his own purpose; and, busily occupied in +this way, turned into Holborn for the twentieth time, when a great +many women and children came flying along the street--often panting +and looking back--and the confused murmur of numerous voices struck +upon his ear. Assured by these tokens, and by the red light which +began to flash upon the houses on either side, that some of his +friends were indeed approaching, he begged a moment's shelter at a +door which opened as he passed, and running with some other +persons to an upper window, looked out upon the crowd. + +They had torches among them, and the chief faces were distinctly +visible. That they had been engaged in the destruction of some +building was sufficiently apparent, and that it was a Catholic +place of worship was evident from the spoils they bore as trophies, +which were easily recognisable for the vestments of priests, and +rich fragments of altar furniture. Covered with soot, and dirt, +and dust, and lime; their garments torn to rags; their hair hanging +wildly about them; their hands and faces jagged and bleeding with +the wounds of rusty nails; Barnaby, Hugh, and Dennis hurried on +before them all, like hideous madmen. After them, the dense throng +came fighting on: some singing; some shouting in triumph; some +quarrelling among themselves; some menacing the spectators as they +passed; some with great wooden fragments, on which they spent their +rage as if they had been alive, rending them limb from limb, and +hurling the scattered morsels high into the air; some in a drunken +state, unconscious of the hurts they had received from falling +bricks, and stones, and beams; one borne upon a shutter, in the +very midst, covered with a dingy cloth, a senseless, ghastly heap. +Thus--a vision of coarse faces, with here and there a blot of +flaring, smoky light; a dream of demon heads and savage eyes, and +sticks and iron bars uplifted in the air, and whirled about; a +bewildering horror, in which so much was seen, and yet so little, +which seemed so long, and yet so short, in which there were so many +phantoms, not to be forgotten all through life, and yet so many +things that could not be observed in one distracting glimpse--it +flitted onward, and was gone. + +As it passed away upon its work of wrath and ruin, a piercing +scream was heard. A knot of persons ran towards the spot; +Gashford, who just then emerged into the street, among them. He +was on the outskirts of the little concourse, and could not see or +hear what passed within; but one who had a better place, informed +him that a widow woman had descried her son among the rioters. + +'Is that all?' said the secretary, turning his face homewards. +'Well! I think this looks a little more like business!' + + + +Chapter 51 + + +Promising as these outrages were to Gashford's view, and much like +business as they looked, they extended that night no farther. The +soldiers were again called out, again they took half-a-dozen +prisoners, and again the crowd dispersed after a short and +bloodless scuffle. Hot and drunken though they were, they had not +yet broken all bounds and set all law and government at defiance. +Something of their habitual deference to the authority erected by +society for its own preservation yet remained among them, and had +its majesty been vindicated in time, the secretary would have had +to digest a bitter disappointment. + +By midnight, the streets were clear and quiet, and, save that there +stood in two parts of the town a heap of nodding walls and pile of +rubbish, where there had been at sunset a rich and handsome +building, everything wore its usual aspect. Even the Catholic +gentry and tradesmen, of whom there were many resident in different +parts of the City and its suburbs, had no fear for their lives or +property, and but little indignation for the wrong they had already +sustained in the plunder and destruction of their temples of +worship. An honest confidence in the government under whose +protection they had lived for many years, and a well-founded +reliance on the good feeling and right thinking of the great mass +of the community, with whom, notwithstanding their religious +differences, they were every day in habits of confidential, +affectionate, and friendly intercourse, reassured them, even under +the excesses that had been committed; and convinced them that they +who were Protestants in anything but the name, were no more to be +considered as abettors of these disgraceful occurrences, than they +themselves were chargeable with the uses of the block, the rack, +the gibbet, and the stake in cruel Mary's reign. + +The clock was on the stroke of one, when Gabriel Varden, with his +lady and Miss Miggs, sat waiting in the little parlour. This fact; +the toppling wicks of the dull, wasted candles; the silence that +prevailed; and, above all, the nightcaps of both maid and matron, +were sufficient evidence that they had been prepared for bed some +time ago, and had some reason for sitting up so far beyond their +usual hour. + +If any other corroborative testimony had been required, it would +have been abundantly furnished in the actions of Miss Miggs, who, +having arrived at that restless state and sensitive condition of +the nervous system which are the result of long watching, did, by a +constant rubbing and tweaking of her nose, a perpetual change of +position (arising from the sudden growth of imaginary knots and +knobs in her chair), a frequent friction of her eyebrows, the +incessant recurrence of a small cough, a small groan, a gasp, a +sigh, a sniff, a spasmodic start, and by other demonstrations of +that nature, so file down and rasp, as it were, the patience of the +locksmith, that after looking at her in silence for some time, he +at last broke out into this apostrophe:-- + +'Miggs, my good girl, go to bed--do go to bed. You're really worse +than the dripping of a hundred water-butts outside the window, or +the scratching of as many mice behind the wainscot. I can't bear +it. Do go to bed, Miggs. To oblige me--do.' + +'You haven't got nothing to untie, sir,' returned Miss Miggs, 'and +therefore your requests does not surprise me. But missis has--and +while you sit up, mim'--she added, turning to the locksmith's wife, +'I couldn't, no, not if twenty times the quantity of cold water was +aperiently running down my back at this moment, go to bed with a +quiet spirit.' + +Having spoken these words, Miss Miggs made divers efforts to rub +her shoulders in an impossible place, and shivered from head to +foot; thereby giving the beholders to understand that the imaginary +cascade was still in full flow, but that a sense of duty upheld her +under that and all other sufferings, and nerved her to endurance. + +Mrs Varden being too sleepy to speak, and Miss Miggs having, as the +phrase is, said her say, the locksmith had nothing for it but to +sigh and be as quiet as he could. + +But to be quiet with such a basilisk before him was impossible. +If he looked another way, it was worse to feel that she was rubbing +her cheek, or twitching her ear, or winking her eye, or making all +kinds of extraordinary shapes with her nose, than to see her do it. +If she was for a moment free from any of these complaints, it was +only because of her foot being asleep, or of her arm having got the +fidgets, or of her leg being doubled up with the cramp, or of some +other horrible disorder which racked her whole frame. If she did +enjoy a moment's ease, then with her eyes shut and her mouth wide +open, she would be seen to sit very stiff and upright in her chair; +then to nod a little way forward, and stop with a jerk; then to nod +a little farther forward, and stop with another jerk; then to +recover herself; then to come forward again--lower--lower--lower-- +by very slow degrees, until, just as it seemed impossible that she +could preserve her balance for another instant, and the locksmith +was about to call out in an agony, to save her from dashing down +upon her forehead and fracturing her skull, then all of a sudden +and without the smallest notice, she would come upright and rigid +again with her eyes open, and in her countenance an expression of +defiance, sleepy but yet most obstinate, which plainly said, 'I've +never once closed 'em since I looked at you last, and I'll take my +oath of it!' + +At length, after the clock had struck two, there was a sound at the +street door, as if somebody had fallen against the knocker by +accident. Miss Miggs immediately jumping up and clapping her +hands, cried with a drowsy mingling of the sacred and profane, +'Ally Looyer, mim! there's Simmuns's knock!' + +'Who's there?' said Gabriel. + +'Me!' cried the well-known voice of Mr Tappertit. Gabriel opened +the door, and gave him admission. + +He did not cut a very insinuating figure, for a man of his stature +suffers in a crowd; and having been active in yesterday morning's +work, his dress was literally crushed from head to foot: his hat +being beaten out of all shape, and his shoes trodden down at heel +like slippers. His coat fluttered in strips about him, the buckles +were torn away both from his knees and feet, half his neckerchief +was gone, and the bosom of his shirt was rent to tatters. Yet +notwithstanding all these personal disadvantages; despite his being +very weak from heat and fatigue; and so begrimed with mud and dust +that he might have been in a case, for anything of the real texture +(either of his skin or apparel) that the eye could discern; he +stalked haughtily into the parlour, and throwing himself into a +chair, and endeavouring to thrust his hands into the pockets of his +small-clothes, which were turned inside out and displayed upon his +legs, like tassels, surveyed the household with a gloomy dignity. + +'Simon,' said the locksmith gravely, 'how comes it that you return +home at this time of night, and in this condition? Give me an +assurance that you have not been among the rioters, and I am +satisfied.' + +'Sir,' replied Mr Tappertit, with a contemptuous look, 'I wonder at +YOUR assurance in making such demands.' + +'You have been drinking,' said the locksmith. + +'As a general principle, and in the most offensive sense of the +words, sir,' returned his journeyman with great self-possession, +'I consider you a liar. In that last observation you have +unintentionally--unintentionally, sir,--struck upon the truth.' + +'Martha,' said the locksmith, turning to his wife, and shaking his +head sorrowfully, while a smile at the absurd figure beside him +still played upon his open face, 'I trust it may turn out that this +poor lad is not the victim of the knaves and fools we have so often +had words about, and who have done so much harm to-day. If he has +been at Warwick Street or Duke Street to-night--' + +'He has been at neither, sir,' cried Mr Tappertit in a loud voice, +which he suddenly dropped into a whisper as he repeated, with eyes +fixed upon the locksmith, 'he has been at neither.' + +'I am glad of it, with all my heart,' said the locksmith in a +serious tone; 'for if he had been, and it could be proved against +him, Martha, your Great Association would have been to him the cart +that draws men to the gallows and leaves them hanging in the air. +It would, as sure as we're alive!' + +Mrs Varden was too much scared by Simon's altered manner and +appearance, and by the accounts of the rioters which had reached +her ears that night, to offer any retort, or to have recourse to +her usual matrimonial policy. Miss Miggs wrung her hands, and +wept. + +'He was not at Duke Street, or at Warwick Street, G. Varden,' said +Simon, sternly; 'but he WAS at Westminster. Perhaps, sir, he +kicked a county member, perhaps, sir, he tapped a lord--you may +stare, sir, I repeat it--blood flowed from noses, and perhaps he +tapped a lord. Who knows? This,' he added, putting his hand into +his waistcoat-pocket, and taking out a large tooth, at the sight of +which both Miggs and Mrs Varden screamed, 'this was a bishop's. +Beware, G. Varden!' + +'Now, I would rather,' said the locksmith hastily, 'have paid five +hundred pounds, than had this come to pass. You idiot, do you know +what peril you stand in?' + +'I know it, sir,' replied his journeyman, 'and it is my glory. I +was there, everybody saw me there. I was conspicuous, and +prominent. I will abide the consequences.' + +The locksmith, really disturbed and agitated, paced to and fro in +silence--glancing at his former 'prentice every now and then--and +at length stopping before him, said: + +'Get to bed, and sleep for a couple of hours that you may wake +penitent, and with some of your senses about you. Be sorry for +what you have done, and we will try to save you. If I call him by +five o'clock,' said Varden, turning hurriedly to his wife, and he +washes himself clean and changes his dress, he may get to the Tower +Stairs, and away by the Gravesend tide-boat, before any search is +made for him. From there he can easily get on to Canterbury, +where your cousin will give him work till this storm has blown +over. I am not sure that I do right in screening him from the +punishment he deserves, but he has lived in this house, man and +boy, for a dozen years, and I should be sorry if for this one day's +work he made a miserable end. Lock the front-door, Miggs, and show +no light towards the street when you go upstairs. Quick, Simon! +Get to bed!' + +'And do you suppose, sir,' retorted Mr Tappertit, with a thickness +and slowness of speech which contrasted forcibly with the rapidity +and earnestness of his kind-hearted master--'and do you suppose, +sir, that I am base and mean enough to accept your servile +proposition?--Miscreant!' + +'Whatever you please, Sim, but get to bed. Every minute is of +consequence. The light here, Miggs!' + +'Yes yes, oh do! Go to bed directly,' cried the two women +together. + +Mr Tappertit stood upon his feet, and pushing his chair away to +show that he needed no assistance, answered, swaying himself to and +fro, and managing his head as if it had no connection whatever with +his body: + +'You spoke of Miggs, sir--Miggs may be smothered!' + +'Oh Simmun!' ejaculated that young lady in a faint voice. 'Oh mim! +Oh sir! Oh goodness gracious, what a turn he has give me!' + +'This family may ALL be smothered, sir,' returned Mr Tappertit, +after glancing at her with a smile of ineffable disdain, 'excepting +Mrs V. I have come here, sir, for her sake, this night. Mrs +Varden, take this piece of paper. It's a protection, ma'am. You +may need it.' + +With these words he held out at arm's length, a dirty, crumpled +scrap of writing. The locksmith took it from him, opened it, and +read as follows: + + +'All good friends to our cause, I hope will be particular, and do +no injury to the property of any true Protestant. I am well +assured that the proprietor of this house is a staunch and worthy +friend to the cause. + +GEORGE GORDON.' + + +'What's this!' said the locksmith, with an altered face. + +'Something that'll do you good service, young feller,' replied his +journeyman, 'as you'll find. Keep that safe, and where you can +lay your hand upon it in an instant. And chalk "No Popery" on your +door to-morrow night, and for a week to come--that's all.' + +'This is a genuine document,' said the locksmith, 'I know, for I +have seen the hand before. What threat does it imply? What devil +is abroad?' + +'A fiery devil,' retorted Sim; 'a flaming, furious devil. Don't +you put yourself in its way, or you're done for, my buck. Be +warned in time, G. Varden. Farewell!' + +But here the two women threw themselves in his way--especially Miss +Miggs, who fell upon him with such fervour that she pinned him +against the wall--and conjured him in moving words not to go forth +till he was sober; to listen to reason; to think of it; to take +some rest, and then determine. + +'I tell you,' said Mr Tappertit, 'that my mind is made up. My +bleeding country calls me and I go! Miggs, if you don't get out of +the way, I'll pinch you.' + +Miss Miggs, still clinging to the rebel, screamed once +vociferously--but whether in the distraction of her mind, or +because of his having executed his threat, is uncertain. + +'Release me,' said Simon, struggling to free himself from her +chaste, but spider-like embrace. 'Let me go! I have made +arrangements for you in an altered state of society, and mean to +provide for you comfortably in life--there! Will that satisfy +you?' + +'Oh Simmun!' cried Miss Miggs. 'Oh my blessed Simmun! Oh mim! +what are my feelings at this conflicting moment!' + +Of a rather turbulent description, it would seem; for her nightcap +had been knocked off in the scuffle, and she was on her knees upon +the floor, making a strange revelation of blue and yellow curl- +papers, straggling locks of hair, tags of staylaces, and strings of +it's impossible to say what; panting for breath, clasping her +hands, turning her eyes upwards, shedding abundance of tears, and +exhibiting various other symptoms of the acutest mental suffering. + +'I leave,' said Simon, turning to his master, with an utter +disregard of Miggs's maidenly affliction, 'a box of things +upstairs. Do what you like with 'em. I don't want 'em. I'm never +coming back here, any more. Provide yourself, sir, with a +journeyman; I'm my country's journeyman; henceforward that's MY +line of business.' + +'Be what you like in two hours' time, but now go up to bed,' +returned the locksmith, planting himself in the doorway. 'Do you +hear me? Go to bed!' + +'I hear you, and defy you, Varden,' rejoined Simon Tappertit. +'This night, sir, I have been in the country, planning an +expedition which shall fill your bell-hanging soul with wonder and +dismay. The plot demands my utmost energy. Let me pass!' + +'I'll knock you down if you come near the door,' replied the +locksmith. 'You had better go to bed!' + +Simon made no answer, but gathering himself up as straight as he +could, plunged head foremost at his old master, and the two went +driving out into the workshop together, plying their hands and feet +so briskly that they looked like half-a-dozen, while Miggs and Mrs +Varden screamed for twelve. + +It would have been easy for Varden to knock his old 'prentice down, +and bind him hand and foot; but as he was loth to hurt him in his +then defenceless state, he contented himself with parrying his +blows when he could, taking them in perfect good part when he could +not, and keeping between him and the door, until a favourable +opportunity should present itself for forcing him to retreat up- +stairs, and shutting him up in his own room. But, in the goodness +of his heart, he calculated too much upon his adversary's weakness, +and forgot that drunken men who have lost the power of walking +steadily, can often run. Watching his time, Simon Tappertit made a +cunning show of falling back, staggered unexpectedly forward, +brushed past him, opened the door (he knew the trick of that lock +well), and darted down the street like a mad dog. The locksmith +paused for a moment in the excess of his astonishment, and then +gave chase. + +It was an excellent season for a run, for at that silent hour the +streets were deserted, the air was cool, and the flying figure +before him distinctly visible at a great distance, as it sped away, +with a long gaunt shadow following at its heels. But the short- +winded locksmith had no chance against a man of Sim's youth and +spare figure, though the day had been when he could have run him +down in no time. The space between them rapidly increased, and as +the rays of the rising sun streamed upon Simon in the act of +turning a distant corner, Gabriel Varden was fain to give up, and +sit down on a doorstep to fetch his breath. Simon meanwhile, +without once stopping, fled at the same degree of swiftness to The +Boot, where, as he well knew, some of his company were lying, and +at which respectable hostelry--for he had already acquired the +distinction of being in great peril of the law--a friendly watch +had been expecting him all night, and was even now on the look-out +for his coming. + +'Go thy ways, Sim, go thy ways,' said the locksmith, as soon as he +could speak. 'I have done my best for thee, poor lad, and would +have saved thee, but the rope is round thy neck, I fear.' + +So saying, and shaking his head in a very sorrowful and +disconsolate manner, he turned back, and soon re-entered his own +house, where Mrs Varden and the faithful Miggs had been anxiously +expecting his return. + +Now Mrs Varden (and by consequence Miss Miggs likewise) was +impressed with a secret misgiving that she had done wrong; that she +had, to the utmost of her small means, aided and abetted the growth +of disturbances, the end of which it was impossible to foresee; +that she had led remotely to the scene which had just passed; and +that the locksmith's time for triumph and reproach had now arrived +indeed. And so strongly did Mrs Varden feel this, and so +crestfallen was she in consequence, that while her husband was +pursuing their lost journeyman, she secreted under her chair the +little red-brick dwelling-house with the yellow roof, lest it +should furnish new occasion for reference to the painful theme; and +now hid the same still more, with the skirts of her dress. + +But it happened that the locksmith had been thinking of this very +article on his way home, and that, coming into the room and not +seeing it, he at once demanded where it was. + +Mrs Varden had no resource but to produce it, which she did with +many tears, and broken protestations that if she could have known-- + +'Yes, yes,' said Varden, 'of course--I know that. I don't mean to +reproach you, my dear. But recollect from this time that all good +things perverted to evil purposes, are worse than those which are +naturally bad. A thoroughly wicked woman, is wicked indeed. When +religion goes wrong, she is very wrong, for the same reason. Let +us say no more about it, my dear.' + +So he dropped the red-brick dwelling-house on the floor, and +setting his heel upon it, crushed it into pieces. The halfpence, +and sixpences, and other voluntary contributions, rolled about in +all directions, but nobody offered to touch them, or to take them +up. + +'That,' said the locksmith, 'is easily disposed of, and I would to +Heaven that everything growing out of the same society could be +settled as easily.' + +'It happens very fortunately, Varden,' said his wife, with her +handkerchief to her eyes, 'that in case any more disturbances +should happen--which I hope not; I sincerely hope not--' + +'I hope so too, my dear.' + +'--That in case any should occur, we have the piece of paper which +that poor misguided young man brought.' + +'Ay, to be sure,' said the locksmith, turning quickly round. +'Where is that piece of paper?' + +Mrs Varden stood aghast as he took it from her outstretched band, +tore it into fragments, and threw them under the grate. + +'Not use it?' she said. + +'Use it!' cried the locksmith. No! Let them come and pull the +roof about our ears; let them burn us out of house and home; I'd +neither have the protection of their leader, nor chalk their howl +upon my door, though, for not doing it, they shot me on my own +threshold. Use it! Let them come and do their worst. The first +man who crosses my doorstep on such an errand as theirs, had better +be a hundred miles away. Let him look to it. The others may have +their will. I wouldn't beg or buy them off, if, instead of every +pound of iron in the place, there was a hundred weight of gold. +Get you to bed, Martha. I shall take down the shutters and go to +work.' + +'So early!' said his wife. + +'Ay,' replied the locksmith cheerily, 'so early. Come when they +may, they shall not find us skulking and hiding, as if we feared to +take our portion of the light of day, and left it all to them. So +pleasant dreams to you, my dear, and cheerful sleep!' + +With that he gave his wife a hearty kiss, and bade her delay no +longer, or it would be time to rise before she lay down to rest. +Mrs Varden quite amiably and meekly walked upstairs, followed by +Miggs, who, although a good deal subdued, could not refrain from +sundry stimulative coughs and sniffs by the way, or from holding up +her hands in astonishment at the daring conduct of master. + + + +Chapter 52 + + +A mob is usually a creature of very mysterious existence, +particularly in a large city. Where it comes from or whither it +goes, few men can tell. Assembling and dispersing with equal +suddenness, it is as difficult to follow to its various sources as +the sea itself; nor does the parallel stop here, for the ocean is +not more fickle and uncertain, more terrible when roused, more +unreasonable, or more cruel. + +The people who were boisterous at Westminster upon the Friday +morning, and were eagerly bent upon the work of devastation in Duke +Street and Warwick Street at night, were, in the mass, the same. +Allowing for the chance accessions of which any crowd is morally +sure in a town where there must always be a large number of idle +and profligate persons, one and the same mob was at both places. +Yet they spread themselves in various directions when they +dispersed in the afternoon, made no appointment for reassembling, +had no definite purpose or design, and indeed, for anything they +knew, were scattered beyond the hope of future union. + +At The Boot, which, as has been shown, was in a manner the head- +quarters of the rioters, there were not, upon this Friday night, a +dozen people. Some slept in the stable and outhouses, some in the +common room, some two or three in beds. The rest were in their +usual homes or haunts. Perhaps not a score in all lay in the +adjacent fields and lanes, and under haystacks, or near the warmth +of brick-kilns, who had not their accustomed place of rest beneath +the open sky. As to the public ways within the town, they had +their ordinary nightly occupants, and no others; the usual amount +of vice and wretchedness, but no more. + +The experience of one evening, however, had taught the reckless +leaders of disturbance, that they had but to show themselves in the +streets, to be immediately surrounded by materials which they could +only have kept together when their aid was not required, at great +risk, expense, and trouble. Once possessed of this secret, they +were as confident as if twenty thousand men, devoted to their will, +had been encamped about them, and assumed a confidence which could +not have been surpassed, though that had really been the case. All +day, Saturday, they remained quiet. On Sunday, they rather studied +how to keep their men within call, and in full hope, than to follow +out, by any fierce measure, their first day's proceedings. + +'I hope,' said Dennis, as, with a loud yawn, he raised his body +from a heap of straw on which he had been sleeping, and supporting +his head upon his hand, appealed to Hugh on Sunday morning, 'that +Muster Gashford allows some rest? Perhaps he'd have us at work +again already, eh?' + +'It's not his way to let matters drop, you may be sure of that,' +growled Hugh in answer. 'I'm in no humour to stir yet, though. +I'm as stiff as a dead body, and as full of ugly scratches as if I +had been fighting all day yesterday with wild cats.' + +'You've so much enthusiasm, that's it,' said Dennis, looking with +great admiration at the uncombed head, matted beard, and torn hands +and face of the wild figure before him; 'you're such a devil of a +fellow. You hurt yourself a hundred times more than you need, +because you will be foremost in everything, and will do more than +the rest.' + +'For the matter of that,' returned Hugh, shaking back his ragged +hair and glancing towards the door of the stable in which they lay; +'there's one yonder as good as me. What did I tell you about him? +Did I say he was worth a dozen, when you doubted him?' + +Mr Dennis rolled lazily over upon his breast, and resting his chin +upon his hand in imitation of the attitude in which Hugh lay, said, +as he too looked towards the door: + +'Ay, ay, you knew him, brother, you knew him. But who'd suppose to +look at that chap now, that he could be the man he is! Isn't it a +thousand cruel pities, brother, that instead of taking his nat'ral +rest and qualifying himself for further exertions in this here +honourable cause, he should be playing at soldiers like a boy? And +his cleanliness too!' said Mr Dennis, who certainly had no reason +to entertain a fellow feeling with anybody who was particular on +that score; 'what weaknesses he's guilty of; with respect to his +cleanliness! At five o'clock this morning, there he was at the +pump, though any one would think he had gone through enough, the +day before yesterday, to be pretty fast asleep at that time. But +no--when I woke for a minute or two, there he was at the pump, and +if you'd seen him sticking them peacock's feathers into his hat +when he'd done washing--ah! I'm sorry he's such a imperfect +character, but the best on us is incomplete in some pint of view or +another.' + +The subject of this dialogue and of these concluding remarks, which +were uttered in a tone of philosophical meditation, was, as the +reader will have divined, no other than Barnaby, who, with his flag +in hand, stood sentry in the little patch of sunlight at the +distant door, or walked to and fro outside, singing softly to +himself; and keeping time to the music of some clear church bells. +Whether he stood still, leaning with both hands on the flagstaff, +or, bearing it upon his shoulder, paced slowly up and down, the +careful arrangement of his poor dress, and his erect and lofty +bearing, showed how high a sense he had of the great importance of +his trust, and how happy and how proud it made him. To Hugh and +his companion, who lay in a dark corner of the gloomy shed, he, and +the sunlight, and the peaceful Sabbath sound to which he made +response, seemed like a bright picture framed by the door, and set +off by the stable's blackness. The whole formed such a contrast to +themselves, as they lay wallowing, like some obscene animals, in +their squalor and wickedness on the two heaps of straw, that for a +few moments they looked on without speaking, and felt almost +ashamed. + +'Ah!'said Hugh at length, carrying it off with a laugh: 'He's a +rare fellow is Barnaby, and can do more, with less rest, or meat, +or drink, than any of us. As to his soldiering, I put him on duty +there.' + +'Then there was a object in it, and a proper good one too, I'll be +sworn,' retorted Dennis with a broad grin, and an oath of the same +quality. 'What was it, brother?' + +'Why, you see,' said Hugh, crawling a little nearer to him, 'that +our noble captain yonder, came in yesterday morning rather the +worse for liquor, and was--like you and me--ditto last night.' + +Dennis looked to where Simon Tappertit lay coiled upon a truss of +hay, snoring profoundly, and nodded. + +'And our noble captain,' continued Hugh with another laugh, 'our +noble captain and I, have planned for to-morrow a roaring +expedition, with good profit in it.' + +'Again the Papists?' asked Dennis, rubbing his hands. + +'Ay, against the Papists--against one of 'em at least, that some of +us, and I for one, owe a good heavy grudge to.' + +'Not Muster Gashford's friend that he spoke to us about in my +house, eh?' said Dennis, brimfull of pleasant expectation. + +'The same man,' said Hugh. + +'That's your sort,' cried Mr Dennis, gaily shaking hands with him, +'that's the kind of game. Let's have revenges and injuries, and +all that, and we shall get on twice as fast. Now you talk, +indeed!' + +'Ha ha ha! The captain,' added Hugh, 'has thoughts of carrying off +a woman in the bustle, and--ha ha ha!--and so have I!' + +Mr Dennis received this part of the scheme with a wry face, +observing that as a general principle he objected to women +altogether, as being unsafe and slippery persons on whom there was +no calculating with any certainty, and who were never in the same +mind for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch. He might have +expatiated on this suggestive theme at much greater length, but +that it occurred to him to ask what connection existed between the +proposed expedition and Barnaby's being posted at the stable-door +as sentry; to which Hugh cautiously replied in these words: + +'Why, the people we mean to visit, were friends of his, once upon a +time, and I know that much of him to feel pretty sure that if he +thought we were going to do them any harm, he'd be no friend to our +side, but would lend a ready hand to the other. So I've persuaded +him (for I know him of old) that Lord George has picked him out to +guard this place to-morrow while we're away, and that it's a great +honour--and so he's on duty now, and as proud of it as if he was a +general. Ha ha! What do you say to me for a careful man as well +as a devil of a one?' + +Mr Dennis exhausted himself in compliments, and then added, + +'But about the expedition itself--' + +'About that,' said Hugh, 'you shall hear all particulars from me +and the great captain conjointly and both together--for see, he's +waking up. Rouse yourself, lion-heart. Ha ha! Put a good face +upon it, and drink again. Another hair of the dog that bit you, +captain! Call for drink! There's enough of gold and silver cups +and candlesticks buried underneath my bed,' he added, rolling back +the straw, and pointing to where the ground was newly turned, 'to +pay for it, if it was a score of casks full. Drink, captain!' + +Mr Tappertit received these jovial promptings with a very bad +grace, being much the worse, both in mind and body, for his two +nights of debauch, and but indifferently able to stand upon his +legs. With Hugh's assistance, however, he contrived to stagger to +the pump; and having refreshed himself with an abundant draught of +cold water, and a copious shower of the same refreshing liquid on +his head and face, he ordered some rum and milk to be served; and +upon that innocent beverage and some biscuits and cheese made a +pretty hearty meal. That done, he disposed himself in an easy +attitude on the ground beside his two companions (who were +carousing after their own tastes), and proceeded to enlighten Mr +Dennis in reference to to-morrow's project. + +That their conversation was an interesting one, was rendered +manifest by its length, and by the close attention of all three. +That it was not of an oppressively grave character, but was +enlivened by various pleasantries arising out of the subject, was +clear from their loud and frequent roars of laughter, which +startled Barnaby on his post, and made him wonder at their levity. +But he was not summoned to join them, until they had eaten, and +drunk, and slept, and talked together for some hours; not, indeed, +until the twilight; when they informed him that they were about to +make a slight demonstration in the streets--just to keep the +people's hands in, as it was Sunday night, and the public might +otherwise be disappointed--and that he was free to accompany them +if he would. + +Without the slightest preparation, saving that they carried clubs +and wore the blue cockade, they sallied out into the streets; and, +with no more settled design than that of doing as much mischief as +they could, paraded them at random. Their numbers rapidly +increasing, they soon divided into parties; and agreeing to meet +by-and-by, in the fields near Welbeck Street, scoured the town in +various directions. The largest body, and that which augmented +with the greatest rapidity, was the one to which Hugh and Barnaby +belonged. This took its way towards Moorfields, where there was a +rich chapel, and in which neighbourhood several Catholic families +were known to reside. + +Beginning with the private houses so occupied, they broke open the +doors and windows; and while they destroyed the furniture and left +but the bare walls, made a sharp search for tools and engines of +destruction, such as hammers, pokers, axes, saws, and such like +instruments. Many of the rioters made belts of cord, of +handkerchiefs, or any material they found at hand, and wore these +weapons as openly as pioneers upon a field-day. There was not the +least disguise or concealment--indeed, on this night, very little +excitement or hurry. From the chapels, they tore down and took +away the very altars, benches, pulpits, pews, and flooring; from +the dwelling-houses, the very wainscoting and stairs. This Sunday +evening's recreation they pursued like mere workmen who had a +certain task to do, and did it. Fifty resolute men might have +turned them at any moment; a single company of soldiers could have +scattered them like dust; but no man interposed, no authority +restrained them, and, except by the terrified persons who fled from +their approach, they were as little heeded as if they were pursuing +their lawful occupations with the utmost sobriety and good +conduct. + +In the same manner, they marched to the place of rendezvous agreed +upon, made great fires in the fields, and reserving the most +valuable of their spoils, burnt the rest. Priestly garments, +images of saints, rich stuffs and ornaments, altar-furniture and +household goods, were cast into the flames, and shed a glare on the +whole country round; but they danced and howled, and roared about +these fires till they were tired, and were never for an instant +checked. + +As the main body filed off from this scene of action, and passed +down Welbeck Street, they came upon Gashford, who had been a +witness of their proceedings, and was walking stealthily along the +pavement. Keeping up with him, and yet not seeming to speak, Hugh +muttered in his ear: + +'Is this better, master?' + +'No,' said Gashford. 'It is not.' + +'What would you have?' said Hugh. 'Fevers are never at their +height at once. They must get on by degrees.' + +'I would have you,' said Gashford, pinching his arm with such +malevolence that his nails seemed to meet in the skin; 'I would +have you put some meaning into your work. Fools! Can you make no +better bonfires than of rags and scraps? Can you burn nothing +whole?' + +'A little patience, master,' said Hugh. 'Wait but a few hours, and +you shall see. Look for a redness in the sky, to-morrow night.' + +With that, he fell back into his place beside Barnaby; and when the +secretary looked after him, both were lost in the crowd. + + + +Chapter 53 + + +The next day was ushered in by merry peals of bells, and by the +firing of the Tower guns; flags were hoisted on many of the church- +steeples; the usual demonstrations were made in honour of the +anniversary of the King's birthday; and every man went about his +pleasure or business as if the city were in perfect order, and +there were no half-smouldering embers in its secret places, which, +on the approach of night, would kindle up again and scatter ruin +and dismay abroad. The leaders of the riot, rendered still more +daring by the success of last night and by the booty they had +acquired, kept steadily together, and only thought of implicating +the mass of their followers so deeply that no hope of pardon or +reward might tempt them to betray their more notorious confederates +into the hands of justice. + +Indeed, the sense of having gone too far to be forgiven, held the +timid together no less than the bold. Many who would readily have +pointed out the foremost rioters and given evidence against them, +felt that escape by that means was hopeless, when their every act +had been observed by scores of people who had taken no part in the +disturbances; who had suffered in their persons, peace, or +property, by the outrages of the mob; who would be most willing +witnesses; and whom the government would, no doubt, prefer to any +King's evidence that might be offered. Many of this class had +deserted their usual occupations on the Saturday morning; some had +been seen by their employers active in the tumult; others knew they +must be suspected, and that they would be discharged if they +returned; others had been desperate from the beginning, and +comforted themselves with the homely proverb, that, being hanged at +all, they might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. They all +hoped and believed, in a greater or less degree, that the +government they seemed to have paralysed, would, in its terror, +come to terms with them in the end, and suffer them to make their +own conditions. The least sanguine among them reasoned with +himself that, at the worst, they were too many to be all punished, +and that he had as good a chance of escape as any other man. The +great mass never reasoned or thought at all, but were stimulated by +their own headlong passions, by poverty, by ignorance, by the love +of mischief, and the hope of plunder. + +One other circumstance is worthy of remark; and that is, that from +the moment of their first outbreak at Westminster, every symptom of +order or preconcerted arrangement among them vanished. When they +divided into parties and ran to different quarters of the town, it +was on the spontaneous suggestion of the moment. Each party +swelled as it went along, like rivers as they roll towards the sea; +new leaders sprang up as they were wanted, disappeared when the +necessity was over, and reappeared at the next crisis. Each tumult +took shape and form from the circumstances of the moment; sober +workmen, going home from their day's labour, were seen to cast down +their baskets of tools and become rioters in an instant; mere boys +on errands did the like. In a word, a moral plague ran through the +city. The noise, and hurry, and excitement, had for hundreds and +hundreds an attraction they had no firmness to resist. The +contagion spread like a dread fever: an infectious madness, as yet +not near its height, seized on new victims every hour, and society +began to tremble at their ravings. + +It was between two and three o'clock in the afternoon when +Gashford looked into the lair described in the last chapter, and +seeing only Barnaby and Dennis there, inquired for Hugh. + +He was out, Barnaby told him; had gone out more than an hour ago; +and had not yet returned. + +'Dennis!' said the smiling secretary, in his smoothest voice, as he +sat down cross-legged on a barrel, 'Dennis!' + +The hangman struggled into a sitting posture directly, and with his +eyes wide open, looked towards him. + +'How do you do, Dennis?' said Gashford, nodding. 'I hope you have +suffered no inconvenience from your late exertions, Dennis?' + +'I always will say of you, Muster Gashford,' returned the hangman, +staring at him, 'that that 'ere quiet way of yours might almost +wake a dead man. It is,' he added, with a muttered oath--still +staring at him in a thoughtful manner--'so awful sly!' + +'So distinct, eh Dennis?' + +'Distinct!' he answered, scratching his head, and keeping his eyes +upon the secretary's face; 'I seem to hear it, Muster Gashford, in +my wery bones.' + +'I am very glad your sense of hearing is so sharp, and that I +succeed in making myself so intelligible,' said Gashford, in his +unvarying, even tone. 'Where is your friend?' + +Mr Dennis looked round as in expectation of beholding him asleep +upon his bed of straw; then remembering he had seen him go out, +replied: + +'I can't say where he is, Muster Gashford, I expected him back +afore now. I hope it isn't time that we was busy, Muster +Gashford?' + +'Nay,' said the secretary, 'who should know that as well as you? +How can I tell you, Dennis? You are perfect master of your own +actions, you know, and accountable to nobody--except sometimes to +the law, eh?' + +Dennis, who was very much baffled by the cool matter-of-course +manner of this reply, recovered his self-possession on his +professional pursuits being referred to, and pointing towards +Barnaby, shook his head and frowned. + +'Hush!' cried Barnaby. + +'Ah! Do hush about that, Muster Gashford,' said the hangman in a +low voice, 'pop'lar prejudices--you always forget--well, Barnaby, +my lad, what's the matter?' + +'I hear him coming,' he answered: 'Hark! Do you mark that? That's +his foot! Bless you, I know his step, and his dog's too. Tramp, +tramp, pit-pat, on they come together, and, ha ha ha!--and here +they are!' he cried, joyfully welcoming Hugh with both hands, and +then patting him fondly on the back, as if instead of being the +rough companion he was, he had been one of the most prepossessing +of men. 'Here he is, and safe too! I am glad to see him back +again, old Hugh!' + +'I'm a Turk if he don't give me a warmer welcome always than any +man of sense,' said Hugh, shaking hands with him with a kind of +ferocious friendship, strange enough to see. 'How are you, boy?' + +'Hearty!' cried Barnaby, waving his hat. 'Ha ha ha! And merrry +too, Hugh! And ready to do anything for the good cause, and the +right, and to help the kind, mild, pale-faced gentleman--the lord +they used so ill--eh, Hugh?' + +'Ay!' returned his friend, dropping his hand, and looking at +Gashford for an instant with a changed expression before he spoke +to him. 'Good day, master!' + +'And good day to you,' replied the secretary, nursing his leg. + +'And many good days--whole years of them, I hope. You are heated.' + +'So would you have been, master,' said Hugh, wiping his face, 'if +you'd been running here as fast as I have.' + +'You know the news, then? Yes, I supposed you would have heard it.' + +'News! what news?' + +'You don't?' cried Gashford, raising his eyebrows with an +exclamation of surprise. 'Dear me! Come; then I AM the first to +make you acquainted with your distinguished position, after all. +Do you see the King's Arms a-top?' he smilingly asked, as he took a +large paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and held it out for +Hugh's inspection. + +'Well!' said Hugh. 'What's that to me?' + +'Much. A great deal,' replied the secretary. 'Read it.' + +'I told you, the first time I saw you, that I couldn't read,' said +Hugh, impatiently. 'What in the Devil's name's inside of it?' + +'It is a proclamation from the King in Council,' said Gashford, +'dated to-day, and offering a reward of five hundred pounds--five +hundred pounds is a great deal of money, and a large temptation to +some people--to any one who will discover the person or persons +most active in demolishing those chapels on Saturday night.' + +'Is that all?' cried Hugh, with an indifferent air. 'I knew of +that.' + +'Truly I might have known you did,' said Gashford, smiling, and +folding up the document again. 'Your friend, I might have guessed-- +indeed I did guess--was sure to tell you.' + +'My friend!' stammered Hugh, with an unsuccessful effort to appear +surprised. 'What friend?' + +'Tut tut--do you suppose I don't know where you have been?' +retorted Gashford, rubbing his hands, and beating the back of one +on the palm of the other, and looking at him with a cunning eye. +'How dull you think me! Shall I say his name?' + +'No,' said Hugh, with a hasty glance towards Dennis. + +'You have also heard from him, no doubt,' resumed the secretary, +after a moment's pause, 'that the rioters who have been taken (poor +fellows) are committed for trial, and that some very active +witnesses have had the temerity to appear against them. Among +others--' and here he clenched his teeth, as if he would suppress +by force some violent words that rose upon his tongue; and spoke +very slowly. 'Among others, a gentleman who saw the work going on +in Warwick Street; a Catholic gentleman; one Haredale.' + +Hugh would have prevented his uttering the word, but it was out +already. Hearing the name, Barnaby turned swiftly round. + +'Duty, duty, bold Barnaby!' cried Hugh, assuming his wildest and +most rapid manner, and thrusting into his hand his staff and flag +which leant against the wall. 'Mount guard without loss of time, +for we are off upon our expedition. Up, Dennis, and get ready! +Take care that no one turns the straw upon my bed, brave Barnaby; +we know what's underneath it--eh? Now, master, quick! What you +have to say, say speedily, for the little captain and a cluster of +'em are in the fields, and only waiting for us. Sharp's the word, +and strike's the action. Quick!' + +Barnaby was not proof against this bustle and despatch. The look +of mingled astonishtnent and anger which had appeared in his face +when he turned towards them, faded from it as the words passed from +his memory, like breath from a polished mirror; and grasping the +weapon which Hugh forced upon him, he proudly took his station at +the door, beyond their hearing. + +'You might have spoiled our plans, master,' said Hugh. 'YOU, too, +of all men!' + +'Who would have supposed that HE would be so quick?' urged +Gashford. + +'He's as quick sometimes--I don't mean with his hands, for that you +know, but with his head--as you or any man,' said Hugh. 'Dennis, +it's time we were going; they're waiting for us; I came to tell +you. Reach me my stick and belt. Here! Lend a hand, master. +Fling this over my shoulder, and buckle it behind, will you?' + +'Brisk as ever!' said the secretary, adjusting it for him as he +desired. + +'A man need be brisk to-day; there's brisk work a-foot.' + +'There is, is there?' said Gashford. He said it with such a +provoking assumption of ignorance, that Hugh, looking over his +shoulder and angrily down upon him, replied: + +'Is there! You know there is! Who knows better than you, master, +that the first great step to be taken is to make examples of these +witnesses, and frighten all men from appearing against us or any of +our body, any more?' + +'There's one we know of,' returned Gashford, with an expressive +smile, 'who is at least as well informed upon that subject as you +or I.' + +'If we mean the same gentleman, as I suppose we do,' Hugh rejoined +softly, 'I tell you this--he's as good and quick information about +everything as--' here he paused and looked round, as if to make +sure that the person in question was not within hearing, 'as Old +Nick himself. Have you done that, master? How slow you are!' + +'It's quite fast now,' said Gashford, rising. 'I say--you didn't +find that your friend disapproved of to-day's little expedition? +Ha ha ha! It is fortunate it jumps so well with the witness +policy; for, once planned, it must have been carried out. And now +you are going, eh?' + +'Now we are going, master!' Hugh replied. 'Any parting words?' + +'Oh dear, no,' said Gashford sweetly. 'None!' + +'You're sure?' cried Hugh, nudging the grinning Dennis. + +'Quite sure, eh, Muster Gashford?' chuckled the hangman. + +Gashford paused a moment, struggling with his caution and his +malice; then putting himself between the two men, and laying a hand +upon the arm of each, said, in a cramped whisper: + +'Do not, my good friends--I am sure you will not--forget our talk +one night--in your house, Dennis--about this person. No mercy, no +quarter, no two beams of his house to be left standing where the +builder placed them! Fire, the saying goes, is a good servant, but +a bad master. Makes it HIS master; he deserves no better. But I +am sure you will be firm, I am sure you will be very resolute, I am +sure you will remember that he thirsts for your lives, and those of +all your brave companions. If you ever acted like staunch +fellows, you will do so to-day. Won't you, Dennis--won't you, +Hugh?' + +The two looked at him, and at each other; then bursting into a roar +of laughter, brandished their staves above their heads, shook +hands, and hurried out. + +When they had been gone a little time, Gashford followed. They +were yet in sight, and hastening to that part of the adjacent +fields in which their fellows had already mustered; Hugh was +looking back, and flourishing his hat to Barnaby, who, delighted +with his trust, replied in the same way, and then resumed his +pacing up and down before the stable-door, where his feet had worn +a path already. And when Gashford himself was far distant, and +looked back for the last time, he was still walking to and fro, +with the same measured tread; the most devoted and the blithest +champion that ever maintained a post, and felt his heart lifted up +with a brave sense of duty, and determination to defend it to the +last. + +Smiling at the simplicity of the poor idiot, Gashford betook +himself to Welbeck Street by a different path from that which he +knew the rioters would take, and sitting down behind a curtain in +one of the upper windows of Lord George Gordon's house, waited +impatiently for their coming. They were so long, that although he +knew it had been settled they should come that way, he had a +misgiving they must have changed their plans and taken some other +route. But at length the roar of voices was heard in the +neighbouring fields, and soon afterwards they came thronging past, +in a great body. + +However, they were not all, nor nearly all, in one body, but were, +as he soon found, divided into four parties, each of which stopped +before the house to give three cheers, and then went on; the +leaders crying out in what direction they were going, and calling +on the spectators to join them. The first detachment, carrying, by +way of banners, some relics of the havoc they had made in +Moorfields, proclaimed that they were on their way to Chelsea, +whence they would return in the same order, to make of the spoil +they bore, a great bonfire, near at hand. The second gave out that +they were bound for Wapping, to destroy a chapel; the third, that +their place of destination was East Smithfield, and their object +the same. All this was done in broad, bright, summer day. Gay +carriages and chairs stopped to let them pass, or turned back to +avoid them; people on foot stood aside in doorways, or perhaps +knocked and begged permission to stand at a window, or in the hall, +until the rioters had passed: but nobody interfered with them; and +when they had gone by, everything went on as usual. + +There still remained the fourth body, and for that the secretary +looked with a most intense eagerness. At last it came up. It was +numerous, and composed of picked men; for as he gazed down among +them, he recognised many upturned faces which he knew well--those +of Simon Tappertit, Hugh, and Dennis in the front, of course. They +halted and cheered, as the others had done; but when they moved +again, they did not, like them, proclaim what design they had. +Hugh merely raised his hat upon the bludgeon he carried, and +glancing at a spectator on the opposite side of the way, was gone. + +Gashford followed the direction of his glance instinctively, and +saw, standing on the pavement, and wearing the blue cockade, Sir +John Chester. He held his hat an inch or two above his head, to +propitiate the mob; and, resting gracefully on his cane, smiling +pleasantly, and displaying his dress and person to the very best +advantage, looked on in the most tranquil state imaginable. For +all that, and quick and dexterous as he was, Gashford had seen him +recognise Hugh with the air of a patron. He had no longer any eyes +for the crowd, but fixed his keen regards upon Sir John. + +He stood in the same place and posture until the last man in the +concourse had turned the corner of the street; then very +deliberately took the blue cockade out of his hat; put it carefully +in his pocket, ready for the next emergency; refreshed himself with +a pinch of snuff; put up his box; and was walking slowly off, when +a passing carriage stopped, and a lady's hand let down the glass. +Sir John's hat was off again immediately. After a minute's +conversation at the carriage-window, in which it was apparent that +he was vastly entertaining on the subject of the mob, he stepped +lightly in, and was driven away. + +The secretary smiled, but he had other thoughts to dwell upon, and +soon dismissed the topic. Dinner was brought him, but he sent it +down untasted; and, in restless pacings up and down the room, and +constant glances at the clock, and many futile efforts to sit down +and read, or go to sleep, or look out of the window, consumed four +weary hours. When the dial told him thus much time had crept away, +he stole upstairs to the top of the house, and coming out upon the +roof sat down, with his face towards the east. + +Heedless of the fresh air that blew upon his heated brow, of the +pleasant meadows from which he turned, of the piles of roofs and +chimneys upon which he looked, of the smoke and rising mist he +vainly sought to pierce, of the shrill cries of children at their +evening sports, the distant hum and turmoil of the town, the +cheerful country breath that rustled past to meet it, and to droop, +and die; he watched, and watched, till it was dark save for the +specks of light that twinkled in the streets below and far away-- +and, as the darkness deepened, strained his gaze and grew more +eager yet. + +'Nothing but gloom in that direction, still!' he muttered +restlessly. 'Dog! where is the redness in the sky, you promised +me!' + + + +Chapter 54 + + +Rumours of the prevailing disturbances had, by this time, begun to +be pretty generally circulated through the towns and villages round +London, and the tidings were everywhere received with that appetite +for the marvellous and love of the terrible which have probably +been among the natural characteristics of mankind since the +creation of the world. These accounts, however, appeared, to many +persons at that day--as they would to us at the present, but that +we know them to be matter of history--so monstrous and improbable, +that a great number of those who were resident at a distance, and +who were credulous enough on other points, were really unable to +bring their minds to believe that such things could be; and +rejected the intelligence they received on all hands, as wholly +fabulous and absurd. + +Mr Willet--not so much, perhaps, on account of his having argued +and settled the matter with himself, as by reason of his +constitutional obstinacy--was one of those who positively refused +to entertain the current topic for a moment. On this very evening, +and perhaps at the very time when Gashford kept his solitary watch, +old John was so red in the face with perpetually shaking his head +in contradiction of his three ancient cronies and pot companions, +that he was quite a phenomenon to behold, and lighted up the +Maypole Porch wherein they sat together, like a monstrous carbuncle +in a fairy tale. + +'Do you think, sir,' said Mr Willet, looking hard at Solomon +Daisy--for it was his custom in cases of personal altercation to +fasten upon the smallest man in the party--'do you think, sir, that +I'm a born fool?' + +'No, no, Johnny,' returned Solomon, looking round upon the little +circle of which he formed a part: 'We all know better than that. +You're no fool, Johnny. No, no!' + +Mr Cobb and Mr Parkes shook their heads in unison, muttering, 'No, +no, Johnny, not you!' But as such compliments had usually the +effect of making Mr Willet rather more dogged than before, he +surveyed them with a look of deep disdain, and returned for answer: + +'Then what do you mean by coming here, and telling me that this +evening you're a-going to walk up to London together--you three-- +you--and have the evidence of your own senses? An't,' said Mr +Willet, putting his pipe in his mouth with an air of solemn +disgust, 'an't the evidence of MY senses enough for you?' + +'But we haven't got it, Johnny,' pleaded Parkes, humbly. + +'You haven't got it, sir?' repeated Mr Willet, eyeing him from top +to toe. 'You haven't got it, sir? You HAVE got it, sir. Don't I +tell you that His blessed Majesty King George the Third would no +more stand a rioting and rollicking in his streets, than he'd stand +being crowed over by his own Parliament?' + +'Yes, Johnny, but that's your sense--not your senses,' said the +adventurous Mr Parkes. + +'How do you know? 'retorted John with great dignity. 'You're a +contradicting pretty free, you are, sir. How do YOU know which it +is? I'm not aware I ever told you, sir.' + +Mr Parkes, finding himself in the position of having got into +metaphysics without exactly seeing his way out of them, stammered +forth an apology and retreated from the argument. There then +ensued a silence of some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, at +the expiration of which period Mr Willet was observed to rumble and +shake with laughter, and presently remarked, in reference to his +late adversary, 'that he hoped he had tackled him enough.' +Thereupon Messrs Cobb and Daisy laughed, and nodded, and Parkes was +looked upon as thoroughly and effectually put down. + +'Do you suppose if all this was true, that Mr Haredale would be +constantly away from home, as he is?' said John, after another +silence. 'Do you think he wouldn't be afraid to leave his house +with them two young women in it, and only a couple of men, or so?' + +'Ay, but then you know,' returned Solomon Daisy, 'his house is a +goodish way out of London, and they do say that the rioters won't +go more than two miles, or three at the farthest, off the stones. +Besides, you know, some of the Catholic gentlefolks have actually +sent trinkets and suchlike down here for safety--at least, so the +story goes.' + +'The story goes!' said Mr Willet testily. 'Yes, sir. The story +goes that you saw a ghost last March. But nobody believes it.' + +'Well!' said Solomon, rising, to divert the attention of his two +friends, who tittered at this retort: 'believed or disbelieved, +it's true; and true or not, if we mean to go to London, we must be +going at once. So shake hands, Johnny, and good night.' + +'I shall shake hands,' returned the landlord, putting his into his +pockets, 'with no man as goes to London on such nonsensical +errands.' + +The three cronies were therefore reduced to the necessity of +shaking his elbows; having performed that ceremony, and brought +from the house their hats, and sticks, and greatcoats, they bade +him good night and departed; promising to bring him on the morrow +full and true accounts of the real state of the city, and if it +were quiet, to give him the full merit of his victory. + +John Willet looked after them, as they plodded along the road in +the rich glow of a summer evening; and knocking the ashes out of +his pipe, laughed inwardly at their folly, until his sides were +sore. When he had quite exhausted himself--which took some time, +for he laughed as slowly as he thought and spoke--he sat himself +comfortably with his back to the house, put his legs upon the +bench, then his apron over his face, and fell sound asleep. + +How long he slept, matters not; but it was for no brief space, for +when he awoke, the rich light had faded, the sombre hues of night +were falling fast upon the landscape, and a few bright stars were +already twinkling overhead. The birds were all at roost, the +daisies on the green had closed their fairy hoods, the honeysuckle +twining round the porch exhaled its perfume in a twofold degree, as +though it lost its coyness at that silent time and loved to shed +its fragrance on the night; the ivy scarcely stirred its deep green +leaves. How tranquil, and how beautiful it was! + +Was there no sound in the air, besides the gentle rustling of the +trees and the grasshopper's merry chirp? Hark! Something very +faint and distant, not unlike the murmuring in a sea-shell. Now it +grew louder, fainter now, and now it altogether died away. +Presently, it came again, subsided, came once more, grew louder, +fainter--swelled into a roar. It was on the road, and varied with +its windings. All at once it burst into a distinct sound--the +voices, and the tramping feet of many men. + +It is questionable whether old John Willet, even then, would have +thought of the rioters but for the cries of his cook and housemaid, +who ran screaming upstairs and locked themselves into one of the +old garrets,--shrieking dismally when they had done so, by way of +rendering their place of refuge perfectly secret and secure. These +two females did afterwards depone that Mr Willet in his +consternation uttered but one word, and called that up the stairs +in a stentorian voice, six distinct times. But as this word was a +monosyllable, which, however inoffensive when applied to the +quadruped it denotes, is highly reprehensible when used in +connection with females of unimpeachable character, many persons +were inclined to believe that the young women laboured under some +hallucination caused by excessive fear; and that their ears +deceived them. + +Be this as it may, John Willet, in whom the very uttermost extent +of dull-headed perplexity supplied the place of courage, stationed +himself in the porch, and waited for their coming up. Once, it +dimly occurred to him that there was a kind of door to the house, +which had a lock and bolts; and at the same time some shadowy ideas +of shutters to the lower windows, flitted through his brain. But +he stood stock still, looking down the road in the direction in +which the noise was rapidly advancing, and did not so much as take +his hands out of his pockets. + +He had not to wait long. A dark mass, looming through a cloud of +dust, soon became visible; the mob quickened their pace; shouting +and whooping like savages, they came rushing on pell mell; and in a +few seconds he was bandied from hand to hand, in the heart of a +crowd of men. + +'Halloa!' cried a voice he knew, as the man who spoke came cleaving +through the throng. 'Where is he? Give him to me. Don't hurt +him. How now, old Jack! Ha ha ha!' + +Mr Willet looked at him, and saw it was Hugh; but he said nothing, +and thought nothing. + +'These lads are thirsty and must drink!' cried Hugh, thrusting him +back towards the house. 'Bustle, Jack, bustle. Show us the best-- +the very best--the over-proof that you keep for your own drinking, +Jack!' + +John faintly articulated the words, 'Who's to pay?' + +'He says "Who's to pay?"' cried Hugh, with a roar of laughter which +was loudly echoed by the crowd. Then turning to John, he added, +'Pay! Why, nobody.' + +John stared round at the mass of faces--some grinning, some fierce, +some lighted up by torches, some indistinct, some dusky and +shadowy: some looking at him, some at his house, some at each +other--and while he was, as he thought, in the very act of doing +so, found himself, without any consciousness of having moved, in +the bar; sitting down in an arm-chair, and watching the destruction +of his property, as if it were some queer play or entertainment, of +an astonishing and stupefying nature, but having no reference to +himself--that he could make out--at all. + +Yes. Here was the bar--the bar that the boldest never entered +without special invitation--the sanctuary, the mystery, the +hallowed ground: here it was, crammed with men, clubs, sticks, +torches, pistols; filled with a deafening noise, oaths, shouts, +screams, hootings; changed all at once into a bear-garden, a +madhouse, an infernal temple: men darting in and out, by door and +window, smashing the glass, turning the taps, drinking liquor out +of China punchbowls, sitting astride of casks, smoking private and +personal pipes, cutting down the sacred grove of lemons, hacking +and hewing at the celebrated cheese, breaking open inviolable +drawers, putting things in their pockets which didn't belong to +them, dividing his own money before his own eyes, wantonly wasting, +breaking, pulling down and tearing up: nothing quiet, nothing +private: men everywhere--above, below, overhead, in the bedrooms, +in the kitchen, in the yard, in the stables--clambering in at +windows when there were doors wide open; dropping out of windows +when the stairs were handy; leaping over the bannisters into chasms +of passages: new faces and figures presenting themselves every +instant--some yelling, some singing, some fighting, some breaking +glass and crockery, some laying the dust with the liquor they +couldn't drink, some ringing the bells till they pulled them down, +others beating them with pokers till they beat them into fragments: +more men still--more, more, more--swarming on like insects: noise, +smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans, plunder, +fear, and ruin! + +Nearly all the time while John looked on at this bewildering scene, +Hugh kept near him; and though he was the loudest, wildest, most +destructive villain there, he saved his old master's bones a score +of times. Nay, even when Mr Tappertit, excited by liquor, came up, +and in assertion of his prerogative politely kicked John Willet on +the shins, Hugh bade him return the compliment; and if old John had +had sufficient presence of mind to understand this whispered +direction, and to profit by it, he might no doubt, under Hugh's +protection, have done so with impunity. + +At length the band began to reassemble outside the house, and to +call to those within, to join them, for they were losing time. +These murmurs increasing, and attaining a high pitch, Hugh, and +some of those who yet lingered in the bar, and who plainly were the +leaders of the troop, took counsel together, apart, as to what was +to be done with John, to keep him quiet until their Chigwell work +was over. Some proposed to set the house on fire and leave him in +it; others, that he should be reduced to a state of temporary +insensibility, by knocking on the head; others, that he should be +sworn to sit where he was until to-morrow at the same hour; others +again, that he should be gagged and taken off with them, under a +sufficient guard. All these propositions being overruled, it was +concluded, at last, to bind him in his chair, and the word was +passed for Dennis. + +'Look'ee here, Jack!' said Hugh, striding up to him: 'We are going +to tie you, hand and foot, but otherwise you won't be hurt. D'ye +hear?' + +John Willet looked at another man, as if he didn't know which was +the speaker, and muttered something about an ordinary every Sunday +at two o'clock. + +'You won't be hurt I tell you, Jack--do you hear me?' roared Hugh, +impressing the assurance upon him by means of a heavy blow on the +back. 'He's so dead scared, he's woolgathering, I think. Give him +a drop of something to drink here. Hand over, one of you.' + +A glass of liquor being passed forward, Hugh poured the contents +down old John's throat. Mr Willet feebly smacked his lips, thrust +his hand into his pocket, and inquired what was to pay; adding, as +he looked vacantly round, that he believed there was a trifle of +broken glass-- + +'He's out of his senses for the time, it's my belief,' said Hugh, +after shaking him, without any visible effect upon his system, +until his keys rattled in his pocket. 'Where's that Dennis?' + +The word was again passed, and presently Mr Dennis, with a long +cord bound about his middle, something after the manner of a friar, +came hurrying in, attended by a body-guard of half-a-dozen of his +men. + +'Come! Be alive here!' cried Hugh, stamping his foot upon the +ground. 'Make haste!' + +Dennis, with a wink and a nod, unwound the cord from about his +person, and raising his eyes to the ceiling, looked all over it, +and round the walls and cornice, with a curious eye; then shook his +head. + +'Move, man, can't you!' cried Hugh, with another impatient stamp of +his foot. 'Are we to wait here, till the cry has gone for ten +miles round, and our work's interrupted?' + +'It's all very fine talking, brother,' answered Dennis, stepping +towards him; 'but unless--' and here he whispered in his ear-- +'unless we do it over the door, it can't be done at all in this +here room.' + +'What can't?' Hugh demanded. + +'What can't!' retorted Dennis. 'Why, the old man can't.' + +'Why, you weren't going to hang him!' cried Hugh. + +'No, brother?' returned the hangman with a stare. 'What else?' + +Hugh made no answer, but snatching the rope from his companion's +hand, proceeded to bind old John himself; but his very first move +was so bungling and unskilful, that Mr Dennis entreated, almost +with tears in his eyes, that he might be permitted to perform the +duty. Hugh consenting, be achieved it in a twinkling. + +'There,' he said, looking mournfully at John Willet, who displayed +no more emotion in his bonds than he had shown out of them. +'That's what I call pretty and workmanlike. He's quite a picter +now. But, brother, just a word with you--now that he's ready +trussed, as one may say, wouldn't it be better for all parties if +we was to work him off? It would read uncommon well in the +newspapers, it would indeed. The public would think a great deal +more on us!' + +Hugh, inferring what his companion meant, rather from his gestures +than his technical mode of expressing himself (to which, as he was +ignorant of his calling, he wanted the clue), rejected this +proposition for the second time, and gave the word 'Forward!' which +was echoed by a hundred voices from without. + +'To the Warren!' shouted Dennis as he ran out, followed by the +rest. 'A witness's house, my lads!' + +A loud yell followed, and the whole throng hurried off, mad for +pillage and destruction. Hugh lingered behind for a few moments to +stimulate himself with more drink, and to set all the taps running, +a few of which had accidentally been spared; then, glancing round +the despoiled and plundered room, through whose shattered window +the rioters had thrust the Maypole itself,--for even that had been +sawn down,--lighted a torch, clapped the mute and motionless John +Willet on the back, and waving his light above his head, and +uttering a fierce shout, hastened after his companions. + + + +Chapter 55 + + +John Willet, left alone in his dismantled bar, continued to sit +staring about him; awake as to his eyes, certainly, but with all +his powers of reason and reflection in a sound and dreamless +sleep. He looked round upon the room which had been for years, +and was within an hour ago, the pride of his heart; and not a +muscle of his face was moved. The night, without, looked black and +cold through the dreary gaps in the casement; the precious liquids, +now nearly leaked away, dripped with a hollow sound upon the floor; +the Maypole peered ruefully in through the broken window, like the +bowsprit of a wrecked ship; the ground might have been the bottom +of the sea, it was so strewn with precious fragments. Currents of +air rushed in, as the old doors jarred and creaked upon their +hinges; the candles flickered and guttered down, and made long +winding-sheets; the cheery deep-red curtains flapped and fluttered +idly in the wind; even the stout Dutch kegs, overthrown and lying +empty in dark corners, seemed the mere husks of good fellows whose +jollity had departed, and who could kindle with a friendly glow no +more. John saw this desolation, and yet saw it not. He was +perfectly contented to sit there, staring at it, and felt no more +indignation or discomfort in his bonds than if they had been robes +of honour. So far as he was personally concerned, old Time lay +snoring, and the world stood still. + +Save for the dripping from the barrels, the rustling of such light +fragments of destruction as the wind affected, and the dull +creaking of the open doors, all was profoundly quiet: indeed, +these sounds, like the ticking of the death-watch in the night, +only made the silence they invaded deeper and more apparent. But +quiet or noisy, it was all one to John. If a train of heavy +artillery could have come up and commenced ball practice outside +the window, it would have been all the same to him. He was a long +way beyond surprise. A ghost couldn't have overtaken him. + +By and by he heard a footstep--a hurried, and yet cautious +footstep--coming on towards the house. It stopped, advanced again, +then seemed to go quite round it. Having done that, it came +beneath the window, and a head looked in. + +It was strongly relieved against the darkness outside by the glare +of the guttering candles. A pale, worn, withered face; the eyes-- +but that was owing to its gaunt condition--unnaturally large and +bright; the hair, a grizzled black. It gave a searching glance all +round the room, and a deep voice said: + +'Are you alone in this house?' + +John made no sign, though the question was repeated twice, and he +heard it distinctly. After a moment's pause, the man got in at the +window. John was not at all surprised at this, either. There had +been so much getting in and out of window in the course of the last +hour or so, that he had quite forgotten the door, and seemed to +have lived among such exercises from infancy. + +The man wore a large, dark, faded cloak, and a slouched hat; he +walked up close to John, and looked at him. John returned the +compliment with interest. + +'How long have you been sitting thus?' said the man. + +John considered, but nothing came of it. + +'Which way have the party gone?' + +Some wandering speculations relative to the fashion of the +stranger's boots, got into Mr Willet's mind by some accident or +other, but they got out again in a hurry, and left him in his +former state. + +'You would do well to speak,' said the man; 'you may keep a whole +skin, though you have nothing else left that can be hurt. Which +way have the party gone?' + +'That!' said John, finding his voice all at once, and nodding with +perfect good faith--he couldn't point; he was so tightly bound--in +exactly the opposite direction to the right one. + +'You lie!' said the man angrily, and with a threatening gesture. +'I came that way. You would betray me.' + +It was so evident that John's imperturbability was not assumed, but +was the result of the late proceedings under his roof, that the man +stayed his hand in the very act of striking him, and turned away. + +John looked after him without so much as a twitch in a single nerve +of his face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the +little casks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily +off; then throwing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the +vessel in his hands and drained it into his throat. Some scraps of +bread and meat were scattered about, and on these he fell next; +eating them with voracity, and pausing every now and then to +listen for some fancied noise outside. When he had refreshed +himself in this manner with violent haste, and raised another +barrel to his lips, he pulled his hat upon his brow as though he +were about to leave the house, and turned to John. + +'Where are your servants?' + +Mr Willet indistinctly remembered to have heard the rioters calling +to them to throw the key of the room in which they were, out of +window, for their keeping. He therefore replied, 'Locked up.' + +'Well for them if they remain quiet, and well for you if you do the +like,' said the man. 'Now show me the way the party went.' + +This time Mr Willet indicated it correctly. The man was hurrying +to the door, when suddenly there came towards them on the wind, the +loud and rapid tolling of an alarm-bell, and then a bright and +vivid glare streamed up, which illumined, not only the whole +chamber, but all the country. + +It was not the sudden change from darkness to this dreadful light, +it was not the sound of distant shrieks and shouts of triumph, it +was not this dread invasion of the serenity and peace of night, +that drove the man back as though a thunderbolt had struck him. It +was the Bell. If the ghastliest shape the human mind has ever +pictured in its wildest dreams had risen up before him, he could +not have staggered backward from its touch, as he did from the +first sound of that loud iron voice. With eyes that started from +his head, his limbs convulsed, his face most horrible to see, he +raised one arm high up into the air, and holding something +visionary back and down, with his other hand, drove at it as though +he held a knife and stabbed it to the heart. He clutched his hair, +and stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round; then +gave a frightful cry, and with it rushed away: still, still, the +Bell tolled on and seemed to follow him--louder and louder, hotter +and hotter yet. The glare grew brighter, the roar of voices +deeper; the crash of heavy bodies falling, shook the air; bright +streams of sparks rose up into the sky; but louder than them all-- +rising faster far, to Heaven--a million times more fierce and +furious--pouring forth dreadful secrets after its long silence-- +speaking the language of the dead--the Bell--the Bell! + +What hunt of spectres could surpass that dread pursuit and flight! +Had there been a legion of them on his track, he could have better +borne it. They would have had a beginning and an end, but here all +space was full. The one pursuing voice was everywhere: it sounded +in the earth, the air; shook the long grass, and howled among the +trembling trees. The echoes caught it up, the owls hooted as it +flew upon the breeze, the nightingale was silent and hid herself +among the thickest boughs: it seemed to goad and urge the angry +fire, and lash it into madness; everything was steeped in one +prevailing red; the glow was everywhere; nature was drenched in +blood: still the remorseless crying of that awful voice--the Bell, +the Bell! + +It ceased; but not in his ears. The knell was at his heart. No +work of man had ever voice like that which sounded there, and +warned him that it cried unceasingly to Heaven. Who could hear +that hell, and not know what it said! There was murder in its +every note--cruel, relentless, savage murder--the murder of a +confiding man, by one who held his every trust. Its ringing +summoned phantoms from their graves. What face was that, in which +a friendly smile changed to a look of half incredulous horror, +which stiffened for a moment into one of pain, then changed again +into an imploring glance at Heaven, and so fell idly down with +upturned eyes, like the dead stags' he had often peeped at when a +little child: shrinking and shuddering--there was a dreadful thing +to think of now!--and clinging to an apron as he looked! He sank +upon the ground, and grovelling down as if he would dig himself a +place to hide in, covered his face and ears: but no, no, no,--a +hundred walls and roofs of brass would not shut out that bell, for +in it spoke the wrathful voice of God, and from that voice, the +whole wide universe could not afford a refuge! + +While he rushed up and down, not knowing where to turn, and while +he lay crouching there, the work went briskly on indeed. When +they left the Maypole, the rioters formed into a solid body, and +advanced at a quick pace towards the Warren. Rumour of their +approach having gone before, they found the garden-doors fast +closed, the windows made secure, and the house profoundly dark: not +a light being visible in any portion of the building. After some +fruitless ringing at the bells, and beating at the iron gates, they +drew off a few paces to reconnoitre, and confer upon the course it +would be best to take. + +Very little conference was needed, when all were bent upon one +desperate purpose, infuriated with liquor, and flushed with +successful riot. The word being given to surround the house, some +climbed the gates, or dropped into the shallow trench and scaled +the garden wall, while others pulled down the solid iron fence, and +while they made a breach to enter by, made deadly weapons of the +bars. The house being completely encircled, a small number of men +were despatched to break open a tool-shed in the garden; and during +their absence on this errand, the remainder contented themselves +with knocking violently at the doors, and calling to those within, +to come down and open them on peril of their lives. + +No answer being returned to this repeated summons, and the +detachment who had been sent away, coming back with an accession of +pickaxes, spades, and hoes, they,--together with those who had such +arms already, or carried (as many did) axes, poles, and crowbars,-- +struggled into the foremost rank, ready to beset the doors and +windows. They had not at this time more than a dozen lighted +torches among them; but when these preparations were completed, +flaming links were distributed and passed from hand to hand with +such rapidity, that, in a minute's time, at least two-thirds of the +whole roaring mass bore, each man in his hand, a blazing brand. +Whirling these about their heads they raised a loud shout, and fell +to work upon the doors and windows. + +Amidst the clattering of heavy blows, the rattling of broken glass, +the cries and execrations of the mob, and all the din and turmoil +of the scene, Hugh and his friends kept together at the turret-door +where Mr Haredale had last admitted him and old John Willet; and +spent their united force on that. It was a strong old oaken door, +guarded by good bolts and a heavy bar, but it soon went crashing in +upon the narrow stairs behind, and made, as it were, a platform to +facilitate their tearing up into the rooms above. Almost at the +same moment, a dozen other points were forced, and at every one the +crowd poured in like water. + +A few armed servant-men were posted in the hall, and when the +rioters forced an entrance there, they fired some half-a-dozen +shots. But these taking no effect, and the concourse coming on +like an army of devils, they only thought of consulting their own +safety, and retreated, echoing their assailants' cries, and hoping +in the confusion to be taken for rioters themselves; in which +stratagem they succeeded, with the exception of one old man who was +never heard of again, and was said to have had his brains beaten +out with an iron bar (one of his fellows reported that he had seen +the old man fall), and to have been afterwards burnt in the flames. + +The besiegers being now in complete possession of the house, spread +themselves over it from garret to cellar, and plied their demon +labours fiercely. While some small parties kindled bonfires +underneath the windows, others broke up the furniture and cast the +fragments down to feed the flames below; where the apertures in +the wall (windows no longer) were large enough, they threw out +tables, chests of drawers, beds, mirrors, pictures, and flung them +whole into the fire; while every fresh addition to the blazing +masses was received with shouts, and howls, and yells, which added +new and dismal terrors to the conflagration. Those who had axes +and had spent their fury on the movables, chopped and tore down the +doors and window frames, broke up the flooring, hewed away the +rafters, and buried men who lingered in the upper rooms, in heaps +of ruins. Some searched the drawers, the chests, the boxes, +writing-desks, and closets, for jewels, plate, and money; while +others, less mindful of gain and more mad for destruction, cast +their whole contents into the courtyard without examination, and +called to those below, to heap them on the blaze. Men who had +been into the cellars, and had staved the casks, rushed to and fro +stark mad, setting fire to all they saw--often to the dresses of +their own friends--and kindling the building in so many parts that +some had no time for escape, and were seen, with drooping hands and +blackened faces, hanging senseless on the window-sills to which +they had crawled, until they were sucked and drawn into the +burning gulf. The more the fire crackled and raged, the wilder and +more cruel the men grew; as though moving in that element they +became fiends, and changed their earthly nature for the qualities +that give delight in hell. + +The burning pile, revealing rooms and passages red hot, through +gaps made in the crumbling walls; the tributary fires that licked +the outer bricks and stones, with their long forked tongues, and +ran up to meet the glowing mass within; the shining of the flames +upon the villains who looked on and fed them; the roaring of the +angry blaze, so bright and high that it seemed in its rapacity to +have swallowed up the very smoke; the living flakes the wind bore +rapidly away and hurried on with, like a storm of fiery snow; the +noiseless breaking of great beams of wood, which fell like feathers +on the heap of ashes, and crumbled in the very act to sparks and +powder; the lurid tinge that overspread the sky, and the darkness, +very deep by contrast, which prevailed around; the exposure to the +coarse, common gaze, of every little nook which usages of home had +made a sacred place, and the destruction by rude hands of every +little household favourite which old associations made a dear and +precious thing: all this taking place--not among pitying looks and +friendly murmurs of compassion, but brutal shouts and exultations, +which seemed to make the very rats who stood by the old house too +long, creatures with some claim upon the pity and regard of those +its roof had sheltered:--combined to form a scene never to be +forgotten by those who saw it and were not actors in the work, so +long as life endured. + +And who were they? The alarm-bell rang--and it was pulled by no +faint or hesitating hands--for a long time; but not a soul was +seen. Some of the insurgents said that when it ceased, they heard +the shrieks of women, and saw some garments fluttering in the air, +as a party of men bore away no unresisting burdens. No one could +say that this was true or false, in such an uproar; but where was +Hugh? Who among them had seen him, since the forcing of the doors? +The cry spread through the body. Where was Hugh! + +'Here!' he hoarsely cried, appearing from the darkness; out of +breath, and blackened with the smoke. 'We have done all we can; +the fire is burning itself out; and even the corners where it +hasn't spread, are nothing but heaps of ruins. Disperse, my lads, +while the coast's clear; get back by different ways; and meet as +usual!' With that, he disappeared again,--contrary to his wont, +for he was always first to advance, and last to go away,--leaving +them to follow homewards as they would. + +It was not an easy task to draw off such a throng. If Bedlam gates +had been flung wide open, there would not have issued forth such +maniacs as the frenzy of that night had made. There were men +there, who danced and trampled on the beds of flowers as though +they trod down human enemies, and wrenched them from the stalks, +like savages who twisted human necks. There were men who cast +their lighted torches in the air, and suffered them to fall upon +their heads and faces, blistering the skin with deep unseemly +burns. There were men who rushed up to the fire, and paddled in it +with their hands as if in water; and others who were restrained by +force from plunging in, to gratify their deadly longing. On the +skull of one drunken lad--not twenty, by his looks--who lay upon +the ground with a bottle to his mouth, the lead from the roof came +streaming down in a shower of liquid fire, white hot; melting his +head like wax. When the scattered parties were collected, men-- +living yet, but singed as with hot irons--were plucked out of the +cellars, and carried off upon the shoulders of others, who strove +to wake them as they went along, with ribald jokes, and left them, +dead, in the passages of hospitals. But of all the howling throng +not one learnt mercy from, or sickened at, these sights; nor was +the fierce, besotted, senseless rage of one man glutted. + +Slowly, and in small clusters, with hoarse hurrahs and repetitions +of their usual cry, the assembly dropped away. The last few red- +eyed stragglers reeled after those who had gone before; the distant +noise of men calling to each other, and whistling for others whom +they missed, grew fainter and fainter; at length even these sounds +died away, and silence reigned alone. + +Silence indeed! The glare of the flames had sunk into a fitful, +flashing light; and the gentle stars, invisible till now, looked +down upon the blackening heap. A dull smoke hung upon the ruin, as +though to hide it from those eyes of Heaven; and the wind forbore +to move it. Bare walls, roof open to the sky--chambers, where the +beloved dead had, many and many a fair day, risen to new life and +energy; where so many dear ones had been sad and merry; which were +connected with so many thoughts and hopes, regrets and changes--all +gone. Nothing left but a dull and dreary blank--a smouldering heap +of dust and ashes--the silence and solitude of utter desolation. + + + +Chapter 56 + + +The Maypole cronies, little drearning of the change so soon to come +upon their favourite haunt, struck through the Forest path upon +their way to London; and avoiding the main road, which was hot and +dusty, kept to the by-paths and the fields. As they drew nearer to +their destination, they began to make inquiries of the people whom +they passed, concerning the riots, and the truth or falsehood of +the stories they had heard. The answers went far beyond any +intelligence that had spread to quiet Chigwell. One man told them +that that afternoon the Guards, conveying to Newgate some rioters +who had been re-examined, had been set upon by the mob and +compelled to retreat; another, that the houses of two witnesses +near Clare Market were about to be pulled down when he came away; +another, that Sir George Saville's house in Leicester Fields was to +be burned that night, and that it would go hard with Sir George if +he fell into the people's hands, as it was he who had brought in +the Catholic bill. All accounts agreed that the mob were out, in +stronger numbers and more numerous parties than had yet appeared; +that the streets were unsafe; that no man's house or life was worth +an hour's purchase; that the public consternation was increasing +every moment; and that many families had already fled the city. +One fellow who wore the popular colour, damned them for not having +cockades in their hats, and bade them set a good watch to-morrow +night upon their prison doors, for the locks would have a +straining; another asked if they were fire-proof, that they +walked abroad without the distinguishing mark of all good and true +men;--and a third who rode on horseback, and was quite alone, +ordered them to throw each man a shilling, in his hat, towards the +support of the rioters. Although they were afraid to refuse +compliance with this demand, and were much alarmed by these +reports, they agreed, having come so far, to go forward, and see +the real state of things with their own eyes. So they pushed on +quicker, as men do who are excited by portentous news; and +ruminating on what they had heard, spoke little to each other. + +It was now night, and as they came nearer to the city they had +dismal confirmation of this intelligence in three great fires, all +close together, which burnt fiercely and were gloomily reflected in +the sky. Arriving in the immediate suburbs, they found that almost +every house had chalked upon its door in large characters 'No +Popery,' that the shops were shut, and that alarm and anxiety were +depicted in every face they passed. + +Noting these things with a degree of apprehension which neither of +the three cared to impart, in its full extent, to his companions, +they came to a turnpike-gate, which was shut. They were passing +through the turnstile on the path, when a horseman rode up from +London at a hard gallop, and called to the toll-keeper in a voice +of great agitation, to open quickly in the name of God. + +The adjuration was so earnest and vehement, that the man, with a +lantern in his hand, came running out--toll-keeper though he was-- +and was about to throw the gate open, when happening to look behind +him, he exclaimed, 'Good Heaven, what's that! Another fire!' + +At this, the three turned their heads, and saw in the distance-- +straight in the direction whence they had come--a broad sheet of +flame, casting a threatening light upon the clouds, which glimmered +as though the conflagration were behind them, and showed like a +wrathful sunset. + +'My mind misgives me,' said the horseman, 'or I know from what far +building those flames come. Don't stand aghast, my good fellow. +Open the gate!' + +'Sir,' cried the man, laying his hand upon his horse's bridle as he +let him through: 'I know you now, sir; be advised by me; do not go +on. I saw them pass, and know what kind of men they are. You will +be murdered.' + +'So be it!' said the horseman, looking intently towards the fire, +and not at him who spoke. + +'But sir--sir,' cried the man, grasping at his rein more tightly +yet, 'if you do go on, wear the blue riband. Here, sir,' he added, +taking one from his own hat, 'it's necessity, not choice, that +makes me wear it; it's love of life and home, sir. Wear it for +this one night, sir; only for this one night.' + +'Do!' cried the three friends, pressing round his horse. 'Mr +Haredale--worthy sir--good gentleman--pray be persuaded.' + +'Who's that?' cried Mr Haredale, stooping down to look. 'Did I +hear Daisy's voice?' + +'You did, sir,' cried the little man. 'Do be persuaded, sir. This +gentleman says very true. Your life may hang upon it.' + +'Are you,' said Mr Haredale abruptly, 'afraid to come with me?' + +'I, sir?--N-n-no.' + +'Put that riband in your hat. If we meet the rioters, swear that I +took you prisoner for wearing it. I will tell them so with my own +lips; for as I hope for mercy when I die, I will take no quarter +from them, nor shall they have quarter from me, if we come hand to +hand to-night. Up here--behind me--quick! Clasp me tight round +the body, and fear nothing.' + +In an instant they were riding away, at full gallop, in a dense +cloud of dust, and speeding on, like hunters in a dream. + +It was well the good horse knew the road he traversed, for never +once--no, never once in all the journey--did Mr Haredale cast his +eyes upon the ground, or turn them, for an instant, from the light +towards which they sped so madly. Once he said in a low voice, 'It +is my house,' but that was the only time he spoke. When they came +to dark and doubtful places, he never forgot to put his hand upon +the little man to hold him more securely in his seat, but he kept +his head erect and his eyes fixed on the fire, then, and always. + +The road was dangerous enough, for they went the nearest way-- +headlong--far from the highway--by lonely lanes and paths, where +waggon-wheels had worn deep ruts; where hedge and ditch hemmed in +the narrow strip of ground; and tall trees, arching overhead, made +it profoundly dark. But on, on, on, with neither stop nor stumble, +till they reached the Maypole door, and could plainly see that the +fire began to fade, as if for want of fuel. + +'Down--for one moment--for but one moment,' said Mr Haredale, +helping Daisy to the ground, and following himself. 'Willet-- +Willet--where are my niece and servants--Willet!' + +Crying to him distractedly, he rushed into the bar.--The landlord +bound and fastened to his chair; the place dismantled, stripped, +and pulled about his ears;--nobody could have taken shelter here. + +He was a strong man, accustomed to restrain himself, and suppress +his strong emotions; but this preparation for what was to follow-- +though he had seen that fire burning, and knew that his house must +be razed to the ground--was more than he could bear. He covered +his face with his hands for a moment, and turned away his head. + +'Johnny, Johnny,' said Solomon--and the simple-hearted fellow +cried outright, and wrung his hands--'Oh dear old Johnny, here's a +change! That the Maypole bar should come to this, and we should +live to see it! The old Warren too, Johnny--Mr Haredale--oh, +Johnny, what a piteous sight this is!' + +Pointing to Mr Haredale as he said these words, little Solomon +Daisy put his elbows on the back of Mr Willet's chair, and fairly +blubbered on his shoulder. + +While Solomon was speaking, old John sat, mute as a stock-fish, +staring at him with an unearthly glare, and displaying, by every +possible symptom, entire and complete unconsciousness. But when +Solomon was silent again, John followed,with his great round eyes, +the direction of his looks, and did appear to have some dawning +distant notion that somebody had come to see him. + +'You know us, don't you, Johnny?' said the little clerk, rapping +himself on the breast. 'Daisy, you know--Chigwell Church--bell- +ringer--little desk on Sundays--eh, Johnny?' + +Mr Willet reflected for a few moments, and then muttered, as it +were mechanically: 'Let us sing to the praise and glory of--' + +'Yes, to be sure,' cried the little man, hastily; 'that's it-- +that's me, Johnny. You're all right now, an't you? Say you're all +right, Johnny.' + +'All right?' pondered Mr Willet, as if that were a matter entirely +between himself and his conscience. 'All right? Ah!' + +'They haven't been misusing you with sticks, or pokers, or any +other blunt instruments--have they, Johnny?' asked Solomon, with a +very anxious glance at Mr Willet's head. 'They didn't beat you, +did they?' + +John knitted his brow; looked downwards, as if he were mentally +engaged in some arithmetical calculation; then upwards, as if the +total would not come at his call; then at Solomon Daisy, from his +eyebrow to his shoe-buckle; then very slowly round the bar. And +then a great, round, leaden-looking, and not at all transparent +tear, came rolling out of each eye, and he said, as he shook his +head: + +'If they'd only had the goodness to murder me, I'd have thanked 'em +kindly.' + +'No, no, no, don't say that, Johnny,' whimpered his little friend. +'It's very, very bad, but not quite so bad as that. No, no!' + +'Look'ee here, sir!' cried John, turning his rueful eyes on Mr +Haredale, who had dropped on one knee, and was hastily beginning to +untie his bonds. 'Look'ee here, sir! The very Maypole--the old +dumb Maypole--stares in at the winder, as if it said, "John Willet, +John Willet, let's go and pitch ourselves in the nighest pool of +water as is deep enough to hold us; for our day is over!"' + +'Don't, Johnny, don't,' cried his friend: no less affected with +this mournful effort of Mr Willet's imagination, than by the +sepulchral tone in which he had spoken of the Maypole. 'Please +don't, Johnny!' + +'Your loss is great, and your misfortune a heavy one,' said Mr +Haredale, looking restlessly towards the door: 'and this is not a +time to comfort you. If it were, I am in no condition to do so. +Before I leave you, tell me one thing, and try to tell me plainly, +I implore you. Have you seen, or heard of Emma?' + +'No!' said Mr Willet. + +'Nor any one but these bloodhounds?' + +'No!' + +'They rode away, I trust in Heaven, before these dreadful scenes +began,' said Mr Haredale, who, between his agitation, his eagerness +to mount his horse again, and the dexterity with which the cords +were tied, had scarcely yet undone one knot. 'A knife, Daisy!' + +'You didn't,' said John, looking about, as though he had lost his +pocket-handkerchief, or some such slight article--'either of you +gentlemen--see a--a coffin anywheres, did you?' + +'Willet!' cried Mr Haredale. Solomon dropped the knife, and +instantly becoming limp from head to foot, exclaimed 'Good +gracious!' + +'--Because,' said John, not at all regarding them, 'a dead man +called a little time ago, on his way yonder. I could have told you +what name was on the plate, if he had brought his coffin with him, +and left it behind. If he didn't, it don't signify.' + +His landlord, who had listened to these words with breathless +attention, started that moment to his feet; and, without a word, +drew Solomon Daisy to the door, mounted his horse, took him up +behind again, and flew rather than galloped towards the pile of +ruins, which that day's sun had shone upon, a stately house. Mr +Willet stared after them, listened, looked down upon himself to +make quite sure that he was still unbound, and, without any +manifestation of impatience, disappointment, or surprise, gently +relapsed into the condition from which he had so imperfectly +recovered. + +Mr Haredale tied his horse to the trunk of a tree, and grasping his +companion's arm, stole softly along the footpath, and into what had +been the garden of his house. He stopped for an instant to look +upon its smoking walls, and at the stars that shone through roof +and floor upon the heap of crumbling ashes. Solomon glanced +timidly in his face, but his lips were tightly pressed together, a +resolute and stern expression sat upon his brow, and not a tear, a +look, or gesture indicating grief, escaped him. + +He drew his sword; felt for a moment in his breast, as though he +carried other arms about him; then grasping Solomon by the wrist +again, went with a cautious step all round the house. He looked +into every doorway and gap in the wall; retraced his steps at every +rustling of the air among the leaves; and searched in every +shadowed nook with outstretched hands. Thus they made the circuit +of the building: but they returned to the spot from which they had +set out, without encountering any human being, or finding the least +trace of any concealed straggler. + +After a short pause, Mr Haredale shouted twice or thrice. Then +cried aloud, 'Is there any one in hiding here, who knows my voice! +There is nothing to fear now. If any of my people are near, I +entreat them to answer!' He called them all by name; his voice was +echoed in many mournful tones; then all was silent as before. + +They were standing near the foot of the turret, where the alarm- +bell hung. The fire had raged there, and the floors had been sawn, +and hewn, and beaten down, besides. It was open to the night; but +a part of the staircase still remained, winding upward from a great +mound of dust and cinders. Fragments of the jagged and broken +steps offered an insecure and giddy footing here and there, and +then were lost again, behind protruding angles of the wall, or in +the deep shadows cast upon it by other portions of the ruin; for by +this time the moon had risen, and shone brightly. + +As they stood here, listening to the echoes as they died away, and +hoping in vain to hear a voice they knew, some of the ashes in this +turret slipped and rolled down. Startled by the least noise in +that melancholy place, Solomon looked up in his companion's face, +and saw that he had turned towards the spot, and that he watched +and listened keenly. + +He covered the little man's mouth with his hand, and looked again. +Instantly, with kindling eyes, he bade him on his life keep still, +and neither speak nor move. Then holding his breath, and stooping +down, he stole into the turret, with his drawn sword in his hand, +and disappeared. + +Terrified to be left there by himself, under such desolate +circumstances, and after all he had seen and heard that night, +Solomon would have followed, but there had been something in Mr +Haredale's manner and his look, the recollection of which held him +spellbound. He stood rooted to the spot; and scarcely venturing to +breathe, looked up with mingled fear and wonder. + +Again the ashes slipped and rolled--very, very softly--again--and +then again, as though they crumbled underneath the tread of a +stealthy foot. And now a figure was dimly visible; climbing very +softly; and often stopping to look down; now it pursued its +difficult way; and now it was hidden from the view again. + +It emerged once more, into the shadowy and uncertain light--higher +now, but not much, for the way was steep and toilsome, and its +progress very slow. What phantom of the brain did he pursue; and +why did he look down so constantly? He knew he was alone. Surely +his mind was not affected by that night's loss and agony. He was +not about to throw himself headlong from the summit of the +tottering wall. Solomon turned sick, and clasped his hands. His +limbs trembled beneath him, and a cold sweat broke out upon his +pallid face. + +If he complied with Mr Haredale's last injunction now, it was +because he had not the power to speak or move. He strained his +gaze, and fixed it on a patch of moonlight, into which, if he +continued to ascend, he must soon emerge. When he appeared there, +he would try to call to him. + +Again the ashes slipped and crumbled; some stones rolled down, and +fell with a dull, heavy sound upon the ground below. He kept his +eyes upon the piece of moonlight. The figure was coming on, for +its shadow was already thrown upon the wall. Now it appeared--and +now looked round at him--and now-- + +The horror-stricken clerk uttered a scream that pierced the air, +and cried, 'The ghost! The ghost!' + +Long before the echo of his cry had died away, another form rushed +out into the light, flung itself upon the foremost one, knelt down +upon its breast, and clutched its throat with both hands. + +'Villain!' cried Mr Haredale, in a terrible voice--for it was he. +'Dead and buried, as all men supposed through your infernal arts, +but reserved by Heaven for this--at last--at last I have you. You, +whose hands are red with my brother's blood, and that of his +faithful servant, shed to conceal your own atrocious guilt--You, +Rudge, double murderer and monster, I arrest you in the name of +God, who has delivered you into my hands. No. Though you had the +strength of twenty men,' he added, as the murderer writhed and +struggled, you could not escape me or loosen my grasp to-night!' + + + +Chapter 57 + + +Barnaby, armed as we have seen, continued to pace up and down +before the stable-door; glad to be alone again, and heartily +rejoicing in the unaccustomed silence and tranquillity. After the +whirl of noise and riot in which the last two days had been passed, +the pleasures of solitude and peace were enhanced a thousandfold. +He felt quite happy; and as he leaned upon his staff and mused, a +bright smile overspread his face, and none but cheerful visions +floated into his brain. + +Had he no thoughts of her, whose sole delight he was, and whom he +had unconsciously plunged in such bitter sorrow and such deep +affliction? Oh, yes. She was at the heart of all his cheerful +hopes and proud reflections. It was she whom all this honour and +distinction were to gladden; the joy and profit were for her. What +delight it gave her to hear of the bravery of her poor boy! Ah! +He would have known that, without Hugh's telling him. And what a +precious thing it was to know she lived so happily, and heard with +so much pride (he pictured to himself her look when they told her) +that he was in such high esteem: bold among the boldest, and +trusted before them all! And when these frays were over, and the +good lord had conquered his enemies, and they were all at peace +again, and he and she were rich, what happiness they would have in +talking of these troubled times when he was a great soldier: and +when they sat alone together in the tranquil twilight, and she had +no longer reason to be anxious for the morrow, what pleasure would +he have in the reflection that this was his doing--his--poor +foolish Barnaby's; and in patting her on the cheek, and saying with +a merry laugh, 'Am I silly now, mother--am I silly now?' + +With a lighter heart and step, and eyes the brighter for the happy +tear that dimmed them for a moment, Barnaby resumed his walk; and +singing gaily to himself, kept guard upon his quiet post. + +His comrade Grip, the partner of his watch, though fond of basking +in the sunshine, preferred to-day to walk about the stable; having +a great deal to do in the way of scattering the straw, hiding under +it such small articles as had been casually left about, and +haunting Hugh's bed, to which he seemed to have taken a particular +attachment. Sometimes Barnaby looked in and called him, and then +he came hopping out; but he merely did this as a concession to his +master's weakness, and soon returned again to his own grave +pursuits: peering into the straw with his bill, and rapidly +covering up the place, as if, Midas-like, he were whispering +secrets to the earth and burying them; constantly busying himself +upon the sly; and affecting, whenever Barnaby came past, to look up +in the clouds and have nothing whatever on his mind: in short, +conducting himself, in many respects, in a more than usually +thoughtful, deep, and mysterious manner. + +As the day crept on, Barnaby, who had no directions forbidding him +to eat and drink upon his post, but had been, on the contrary, +supplied with a bottle of beer and a basket of provisions, +determined to break his fast, which he had not done since morning. +To this end, he sat down on the ground before the door, and putting +his staff across his knees in case of alarm or surprise, summoned +Grip to dinner. + +This call, the bird obeyed with great alacrity; crying, as he +sidled up to his master, 'I'm a devil, I'm a Polly, I'm a kettle, +I'm a Protestant, No Popery!' Having learnt this latter sentiment +from the gentry among whom he had lived of late, he delivered it +with uncommon emphasis. + +'Well said, Grip!' cried his master, as he fed him with the +daintiest bits. 'Well said, old boy!' + +'Never say die, bow wow wow, keep up your spirits, Grip Grip Grip, +Holloa! We'll all have tea, I'm a Protestant kettle, No Popery!' +cried the raven. + +'Gordon for ever, Grip!' cried Barnaby. + +The raven, placing his head upon the ground, looked at his master +sideways, as though he would have said, 'Say that again!' +Perfectly understanding his desire, Barnaby repeated the phrase a +great many times. The bird listened with profound attention; +sometimes repeating the popular cry in a low voice, as if to +compare the two, and try if it would at all help him to this new +accomplishment; sometimes flapping his wings, or barking; and +sometimes in a kind of desperation drawing a multitude of corks, +with extraordinary viciousness. + +Barnaby was so intent upon his favourite, that he was not at first +aware of the approach of two persons on horseback, who were riding +at a foot-pace, and coming straight towards his post. When he +perceived them, however, which he did when they were within some +fifty yards of him, he jumped hastily up, and ordering Grip within +doors, stood with both hands on his staff, waiting until he should +know whether they were friends or foes. + +He had hardly done so, when he observed that those who advanced +were a gentleman and his servant; almost at the same moment he +recognised Lord George Gordon, before whom he stood uncovered, with +his eyes turned towards the ground. + +'Good day!' said Lord George, not reining in his horse until he was +close beside him. 'Well!' + +'All quiet, sir, all safe!' cried Barnaby. 'The rest are away-- +they went by that path--that one. A grand party!' + +'Ay?' said Lord George, looking thoughtfully at him. 'And you?' + +'Oh! They left me here to watch--to mount guard--to keep +everything secure till they come back. I'll do it, sir, for your +sake. You're a good gentleman; a kind gentleman--ay, you are. +There are many against you, but we'll be a match for them, never +fear!' + +'What's that?' said Lord George--pointing to the raven who was +peeping out of the stable-door--but still looking thoughtfully, and +in some perplexity, it seemed, at Barnaby. + +'Why, don't you know!' retorted Barnaby, with a wondering laugh. +'Not know what HE is! A bird, to be sure. My bird--my friend-- +Grip.' + +'A devil, a kettle, a Grip, a Polly, a Protestant, no Popery!' +cried the raven. + +'Though, indeed,' added Barnaby, laying his hand upon the neck of +Lord George's horse, and speaking softly: 'you had good reason to +ask me what he is, for sometimes it puzzles me--and I am used to +him--to think he's only a bird. He's my brother, Grip is--always +with me--always talking--always merry--eh, Grip?' + +The raven answered by an affectionate croak, and hopping on his +master's arm, which he held downward for that purpose, submitted +with an air of perfect indifference to be fondled, and turned his +restless, curious eye, now upon Lord George, and now upon his man. + +Lord George, biting his nails in a discomfited manner, regarded +Barnaby for some time in silence; then beckoning to his servant, +said: + +'Come hither, John.' + +John Grueby touched his hat, and came. + +'Have you ever seen this young man before?' his master asked in a +low voice. + +'Twice, my lord,' said John. 'I saw him in the crowd last night +and Saturday.' + +'Did--did it seem to you that his manner was at all wild or +strange?' Lord George demanded, faltering. + +'Mad,' said John, with emphatic brevity. + +'And why do you think him mad, sir?' said his master, speaking in a +peevish tone. 'Don't use that word too freely. Why do you think +him mad?' + +'My lord,' John Grueby answered, 'look at his dress, look at his +eyes, look at his restless way, hear him cry "No Popery!" Mad, my +lord.' + +'So because one man dresses unlike another,' returned his angry +master, glancing at himself; 'and happens to differ from other men +in his carriage and manner, and to advocate a great cause which the +corrupt and irreligious desert, he is to be accounted mad, is he?' + +'Stark, staring, raving, roaring mad, my lord,' returned the +unmoved John. + +'Do you say this to my face?' cried his master, turning sharply +upon him. + +'To any man, my lord, who asks me,' answered John. + +'Mr Gashford, I find, was right,' said Lord George; 'I thought him +prejudiced, though I ought to have known a man like him better than +to have supposed it possible!' + +'I shall never have Mr Gashford's good word, my lord,' replied +John, touching his hat respectfully, 'and I don't covet it.' + +'You are an ill-conditioned, most ungrateful fellow,' said Lord +George: 'a spy, for anything I know. Mr Gashford is perfectly +correct, as I might have felt convinced he was. I have done wrong +to retain you in my service. It is a tacit insult to him as my +choice and confidential friend to do so, remembering the cause you +sided with, on the day he was maligned at Westminster. You will +leave me to-night--nay, as soon as we reach home. The sooner the +better.' + +'If it comes to that, I say so too, my lord. Let Mr Gashford have +his will. As to my being a spy, my lord, you know me better than +to believe it, I am sure. I don't know much about causes. My +cause is the cause of one man against two hundred; and I hope it +always will be.' + +'You have said quite enough,' returned Lord George, motioning him +to go back. 'I desire to hear no more.' + +'If you'll let me have another word, my lord,' returned John +Grueby, 'I'd give this silly fellow a caution not to stay here by +himself. The proclamation is in a good many hands already, and +it's well known that he was concerned in the business it relates +to. He had better get to a place of safety if he can, poor +creature.' + +'You hear what this man says?' cried Lord George, addressing +Barnaby, who had looked on and wondered while this dialogue passed. +'He thinks you may be afraid to remain upon your post, and are kept +here perhaps against your will. What do you say?' + +'I think, young man,' said John, in explanation, 'that the soldiers +may turn out and take you; and that if they do, you will certainly +be hung by the neck till you're dead--dead--dead. And I think you +had better go from here, as fast as you can. That's what I think.' + +'He's a coward, Grip, a coward!' cried Barnaby, putting the raven +on the ground, and shouldering his staff. 'Let them come! Gordon +for ever! Let them come!' + +'Ay!' said Lord George, 'let them! Let us see who will venture to +attack a power like ours; the solemn league of a whole people. +THIS a madman! You have said well, very well. I am proud to be +the leader of such men as you.' + +Bamaby's heart swelled within his bosom as he heard these words. +He took Lord George's hand and carried it to his lips; patted his +horse's crest, as if the affection and admiration he had conceived +for the man extended to the animal he rode; then unfurling his +flag, and proudly waving it, resumed his pacing up and down. + +Lord George, with a kindling eye and glowing cheek, took off his +hat, and flourishing it above his head, bade him exultingly +Farewell!--then cantered off at a brisk pace; after glancing +angrily round to see that his servant followed. Honest John set +spurs to his horse and rode after his master, but not before he had +again warned Barnaby to retreat, with many significant gestures, +which indeed he continued to make, and Barnaby to resist, until the +windings of the road concealed them from each other's view. + +Left to himself again with a still higher sense of the importance +of his post, and stimulated to enthusiasm by the special notice and +encouragement of his leader, Barnaby walked to and fro in a +delicious trance rather than as a waking man. The sunshine which +prevailed around was in his mind. He had but one desire +ungratified. If she could only see him now! + +The day wore on; its heat was gently giving place to the cool of +evening; a light wind sprung up, fanning his long hair, and making +the banner rustle pleasantly above his head. There was a freedom +and freshness in the sound and in the time, which chimed exactly +with his mood. He was happier than ever. + +He was leaning on his staff looking towards the declining sun, and +reflecting with a smile that he stood sentinel at that moment over +buried gold, when two or three figures appeared in the distance, +making towards the house at a rapid pace, and motioning with their +hands as though they urged its inmates to retreat from some +approaching danger. As they drew nearer, they became more earnest +in their gestures; and they were no sooner within hearing, than the +foremost among them cried that the soldiers were coming up. + +At these words, Barnaby furled his flag, and tied it round the +pole. His heart beat high while he did so, but he had no more fear +or thought of retreating than the pole itself. The friendly +stragglers hurried past him, after giving him notice of his danger, +and quickly passed into the house, where the utmost confusion +immediately prevailed. As those within hastily closed the windows +and the doors, they urged him by looks and signs to fly without +loss of time, and called to him many times to do so; but he only +shook his head indignantly in answer, and stood the firmer on his +post. Finding that he was not to be persuaded, they took care of +themselves; and leaving the place with only one old woman in it, +speedily withdrew. + +As yet there had been no symptom of the news having any better +foundation than in the fears of those who brought it, but The Boot +had not been deserted five minutes, when there appeared, coming +across the fields, a body of men who, it was easy to see, by the +glitter of their arms and ornaments in the sun, and by their +orderly and regular mode of advancing--for they came on as one +man--were soldiers. In a very little time, Barnaby knew that they +were a strong detachment of the Foot Guards, having along with them +two gentlemen in private clothes, and a small party of Horse; the +latter brought up the rear, and were not in number more than six or +eight. + +They advanced steadily; neither quickening their pace as they came +nearer, nor raising any cry, nor showing the least emotion or +anxiety. Though this was a matter of course in the case of regular +troops, even to Barnaby, there was something particularly +impressive and disconcerting in it to one accustomed to the noise +and tumult of an undisciplined mob. For all that, he stood his +ground not a whit the less resolutely, and looked on undismayed. + +Presently, they marched into the yard, and halted. The +commanding-officer despatched a messenger to the horsemen, one of +whom came riding back. Some words passed between them, and they +glanced at Barnaby; who well remembered the man he had unhorsed at +Westminster, and saw him now before his eyes. The man being +speedily dismissed, saluted, and rode back to his comrades, who +were drawn up apart at a short distance. + +The officer then gave the word to prime and load. The heavy +ringing of the musket-stocks upon the ground, and the sharp and +rapid rattling of the ramrods in their barrels, were a kind of +relief to Batnahy, deadly though he knew the purport of such sounds +to be. When this was done, other commands were given, and the +soldiers instantaneously formed in single file all round the house +and stables; completely encircling them in every part, at a +distance, perhaps, of some half-dozen yards; at least that seemed +in Barnaby's eyes to be about the space left between himself and +those who confronted him. The horsemen remained drawn up by +themselves as before. + +The two gentlemen in private clothes who had kept aloof, now rode +forward, one on either side the officer. The proclamation having +been produced and read by one of them, the officer called on +Barnaby to surrender. + +He made no answer, but stepping within the door, before which he +had kept guard, held his pole crosswise to protect it. In the +midst of a profound silence, he was again called upon to yield. + +Still he offered no reply. Indeed he had enough to do, to run his +eye backward and forward along the half-dozen men who immediately +fronted him, and settle hurriedly within himself at which of them +he would strike first, when they pressed on him. He caught the eye +of one in the centre, and resolved to hew that fellow down, though +he died for it. + +Again there was a dead silence, and again the same voice called +upon him to deliver himself up. + +Next moment he was back in the stable, dealing blows about him like +a madman. Two of the men lay stretched at his feet: the one he +had marked, dropped first--he had a thought for that, even in the +hot blood and hurry of the struggle. Another blow--another! Down, +mastered, wounded in the breast by a heavy blow from the butt-end +of a gun (he saw the weapon in the act of falling)--breathless--and +a prisoner. + +An exclamation of surprise from the officer recalled him, in some +degree, to himself. He looked round. Grip, after working in +secret all the afternoon, and with redoubled vigour while +everybody's attention was distracted, had plucked away the straw +from Hugh's bed, and turned up the loose ground with his iron bill. +The hole had been recklessly filled to the brim, and was merely +sprinkled with earth. Golden cups, spoons, candlesticks, coined +guineas--all the riches were revealed. + +They brought spades and a sack; dug up everything that was hidden +there; and carried away more than two men could lift. They +handcuffed him and bound his arms, searched him, and took away all +he had. Nobody questioned or reproached him, or seemed to have +much curiosity about him. The two men he had stunned, were carried +off by their companions in the same business-like way in which +everything else was done. Finally, he was left under a guard of +four soldiers with fixed bayonets, while the officer directed in +person the search of the house and the other buildings connected +with it. + +This was soon completed. The soldiers formed again in the yard; he +was marched out, with his guard about him; and ordered to fall in, +where a space was left. The others closed up all round, and so +they moved away, with the prisoner in the centre. + +When they came into the streets, he felt he was a sight; and +looking up as they passed quickly along, could see people running +to the windows a little too late, and throwing up the sashes to +look after him. Sometimes he met a staring face beyond the heads +about him, or under the arms of his conductors, or peering down +upon him from a waggon-top or coach-box; but this was all he saw, +being surrounded by so many men. The very noises of the streets +seemed muffled and subdued; and the air came stale and hot upon +him, like the sickly breath of an oven. + +Tramp, tramp. Tramp, tramp. Heads erect, shoulders square, every +man stepping in exact time--all so orderly and regular--nobody +looking at him--nobody seeming conscious of his presence,--he could +hardly believe he was a Prisoner. But at the word, though only +thought, not spoken, he felt the handcuffs galling his wrists, the +cord pressing his arms to his sides: the loaded guns levelled at +his head; and those cold, bright, sharp, shining points turned +towards him: the mere looking down at which, now that he was bound +and helpless, made the warm current of his life run cold. + + + +Chapter 58 + + +They were not long in reaching the barracks, for the officer who +commanded the party was desirous to avoid rousing the people by the +display of military force in the streets, and was humanely anxious +to give as little opportunity as possible for any attempt at +rescue; knowing that it must lead to bloodshed and loss of life, +and that if the civil authorities by whom he was accompanied, +empowered him to order his men to fire, many innocent persons would +probably fall, whom curiosity or idleness had attracted to the +spot. He therefore led the party briskly on, avoiding with a +merciful prudence the more public and crowded thoroughfares, and +pursuing those which he deemed least likely to be infested by +disorderly persons. This wise proceeding not only enabled them to +gain their quarters without any interruption, but completely +baffled a body of rioters who had assembled in one of the main +streets, through which it was considered certain they would pass, +and who remained gathered together for the purpose of releasing the +prisoner from their hands, long after they had deposited him in a +place of security, closed the barrack-gates, and set a double guard +at every entrance for its better protection. + +Arrived at this place, poor Barnaby was marched into a stone- +floored room, where there was a very powerful smell of tobacco, a +strong thorough draught of air, and a great wooden bedstead, large +enough for a score of men. Several soldiers in undress were +lounging about, or eating from tin cans; military accoutrements +dangled on rows of pegs along the whitewashed wall; and some half- +dozen men lay fast asleep upon their backs, snoring in concert. +After remaining here just long enough to note these things, he was +marched out again, and conveyed across the parade-ground to another +portion of the building. + +Perhaps a man never sees so much at a glance as when he is in a +situation of extremity. The chances are a hundred to one, that if +Barnaby had lounged in at the gate to look about him, he would have +lounged out again with a very imperfect idea of the place, and +would have remembered very little about it. But as he was taken +handcuffed across the gravelled area, nothing escaped his notice. +The dry, arid look of the dusty square, and of the bare brick +building; the clothes hanging at some of the windows; and the men +in their shirt-sleeves and braces, lolling with half their bodies +out of the others; the green sun-blinds at the officers' quarters, +and the little scanty trees in front; the drummer-boys practising +in a distant courtyard; the men at drill on the parade; the two +soldiers carrying a basket between them, who winked to each other +as he went by, and slily pointed to their throats; the spruce +serjeant who hurried past with a cane in his hand, and under his +arm a clasped book with a vellum cover; the fellows in the ground- +floor rooms, furbishing and brushing up their different articles of +dress, who stopped to look at him, and whose voices as they spoke +together echoed loudly through the empty galleries and passages;-- +everything, down to the stand of muskets before the guard-house, +and the drum with a pipe-clayed belt attached, in one corner, +impressed itself upon his observation, as though he had noticed +them in the same place a hundred times, or had been a whole day +among them, in place of one brief hurried minute. + +He was taken into a small paved back yard, and there they opened a +great door, plated with iron, and pierced some five feet above the +ground with a few holes to let in air and light. Into this dungeon +he was walked straightway; and having locked him up there, and +placed a sentry over him, they left him to his meditations. + +The cell, or black hole, for it had those words painted on the +door, was very dark, and having recently accommodated a drunken +deserter, by no means clean. Barnaby felt his way to some straw at +the farther end, and looking towards the door, tried to accustom +himself to the gloom, which, coming from the bright sunshine out of +doors, was not an easy task. + +There was a kind of portico or colonnade outside, and this +obstructed even the little light that at the best could have found +its way through the small apertures in the door. The footsteps of +the sentinel echoed monotonously as he paced its stone pavement to +and fro (reminding Barnaby of the watch he had so lately kept +himself); and as he passed and repassed the door, he made the cell +for an instant so black by the interposition of his body, that his +going away again seemed like the appearance of a new ray of light, +and was quite a circumstance to look for. + +When the prisoner had sat sometime upon the ground, gazing at the +chinks, and listening to the advancing and receding footsteps of +his guard, the man stood still upon his post. Barnaby, quite +unable to think, or to speculate on what would be done with him, +had been lulled into a kind of doze by his regular pace; but his +stopping roused him; and then he became aware that two men were in +conversation under the colonnade, and very near the door of his +cell. + +How long they had been talking there, he could not tell, for he had +fallen into an unconsciousness of his real position, and when the +footsteps ceased, was answering aloud some question which seemed to +have been put to him by Hugh in the stable, though of the fancied +purport, either of question or reply, notwithstanding that he awoke +with the latter on his lips, he had no recollection whatever. The +first words that reached his ears, were these: + +'Why is he brought here then, if he has to be taken away again so +soon?' + +'Why where would you have him go! Damme, he's not as safe anywhere +as among the king's troops, is he? What WOULD you do with him? +Would you hand him over to a pack of cowardly civilians, that shake +in their shoes till they wear the soles out, with trembling at the +threats of the ragamuffins he belongs to?' + +'That's true enough.' + +'True enough!--I'll tell you what. I wish, Tom Green, that I was a +commissioned instead of a non-commissioned officer, and that I had +the command of two companies--only two companies--of my own +regiment. Call me out to stop these riots--give me the needful +authority, and half-a-dozen rounds of ball cartridge--' + +'Ay!' said the other voice. 'That's all very well, but they won't +give the needful authority. If the magistrate won't give the +word, what's the officer to do?' + +Not very well knowing, as it seemed, how to overcome this +difficulty, the other man contented himself with damning the +magistrates. + +'With all my heart,' said his friend. + +'Where's the use of a magistrate?' returned the other voice. +'What's a magistrate in this case, but an impertinent, unnecessary, +unconstitutional sort of interference? Here's a proclamation. +Here's a man referred to in that proclamation. Here's proof +against him, and a witness on the spot. Damme! Take him out and +shoot him, sir. Who wants a magistrate?' + +'When does he go before Sir John Fielding?' asked the man who had +spoken first. + +'To-night at eight o'clock,' returned the other. 'Mark what +follows. The magistrate commits him to Newgate. Our people take +him to Newgate. The rioters pelt our people. Our people retire +before the rioters. Stones are thrown, insults are offered, not a +shot's fired. Why? Because of the magistrates. Damn the +magistrates!' + +When he had in some degree relieved his mind by cursing the +magistrates in various other forms of speech, the man was silent, +save for a low growling, still having reference to those +authorities, which from time to time escaped him. + +Barnaby, who had wit enough to know that this conversation +concerned, and very nearly concerned, himself, remained perfectly +quiet until they ceased to speak, when he groped his way to the +door, and peeping through the air-holes, tried to make out what +kind of men they were, to whom he had been listening. + +The one who condemned the civil power in such strong terms, was a +serjeant--engaged just then, as the streaming ribands in his cap +announced, on the recruiting service. He stood leaning sideways +against a pillar nearly opposite the door, and as he growled to +himself, drew figures on the pavement with his cane. The other +man had his back towards the dungeon, and Barnaby could only see +his form. To judge from that, he was a gallant, manly, handsome +fellow, but he had lost his left arm. It had been taken off +between the elbow and the shoulder, and his empty coat-sleeve hung +across his breast. + +It was probably this circumstance which gave him an interest beyond +any that his companion could boast of, and attracted Barnaby's +attention. There was something soldierly in his bearing, and he +wore a jaunty cap and jacket. Perhaps he had been in the service +at one time or other. If he had, it could not have been very long +ago, for he was but a young fellow now. + +'Well, well,' he said thoughtfully; 'let the fault be where it may, +it makes a man sorrowful to come back to old England, and see her +in this condition.' + +'I suppose the pigs will join 'em next,' said the serjeant, with an +imprecation on the rioters, 'now that the birds have set 'em the +example.' + +'The birds!' repeated Tom Green. + +'Ah--birds,' said the serjeant testily; 'that's English, an't it?' + +'I don't know what you mean.' + +'Go to the guard-house, and see. You'll find a bird there, that's +got their cry as pat as any of 'em, and bawls "No Popery," like a +man--or like a devil, as he says he is. I shouldn't wonder. The +devil's loose in London somewhere. Damme if I wouldn't twist his +neck round, on the chance, if I had MY way.' + +The young man had taken two or three steps away, as if to go and +see this creature, when he was arrested by the voice of Barnaby. + +'It's mine,' he called out, half laughing and half weeping--'my +pet, my friend Grip. Ha ha ha! Don't hurt him, he has done no +harm. I taught him; it's my fault. Let me have him, if you +please. He's the only friend I have left now. He'll not dance, or +talk, or whistle for you, I know; but he will for me, because he +knows me and loves me--though you wouldn't think it--very well. +You wouldn't hurt a bird, I'm sure. You're a brave soldier, sir, +and wouldn't harm a woman or a child--no, no, nor a poor bird, I'm +certain.' + +This latter adjuration was addressed to the serjeant, whom Barnaby +judged from his red coat to be high in office, and able to seal +Grip's destiny by a word. But that gentleman, in reply, surlily +damned him for a thief and rebel as he was, and with many +disinterested imprecations on his own eyes, liver, blood, and body, +assured him that if it rested with him to decide, he would put a +final stopper on the bird, and his master too. + +'You talk boldly to a caged man,' said Barnaby, in anger. 'If I +was on the other side of the door and there were none to part us, +you'd change your note--ay, you may toss your head--you would! +Kill the bird--do. Kill anything you can, and so revenge yourself +on those who with their bare hands untied could do as much to you!' + +Having vented his defiance, he flung himself into the furthest +corner of his prison, and muttering, 'Good bye, Grip--good bye, +dear old Grip!' shed tears for the first time since he had been +taken captive; and hid his face in the straw. + +He had had some fancy at first, that the one-armed man would help +him, or would give him a kind word in answer. He hardly knew why, +but he hoped and thought so. The young fellow had stopped when he +called out, and checking himself in the very act of turning round, +stood listening to every word he said. Perhaps he built his feeble +trust on this; perhaps on his being young, and having a frank and +honest manner. However that might be, he built on sand. The other +went away directly he had finished speaking, and neither answered +him, nor returned. No matter. They were all against him here: he +might have known as much. Good bye, old Grip, good bye! + +After some time, they came and unlocked the door, and called to him +to come out. He rose directly, and complied, for he would not have +THEM think he was subdued or frightened. He walked out like a man, +and looked from face to face. + +None of them returned his gaze or seemed to notice it. They +marched him back to the parade by the way they had brought him, and +there they halted, among a body of soldiers, at least twice as +numerous as that which had taken him prisoner in the afternoon. +The officer he had seen before, bade him in a few brief words take +notice that if he attempted to escape, no matter how favourable a +chance he might suppose he had, certain of the men had orders to +fire upon him, that moment. They then closed round him as before, +and marched him off again. + +In the same unbroken order they arrived at Bow Street, followed and +beset on all sides by a crowd which was continually increasing. +Here he was placed before a blind gentleman, and asked if he wished +to say anything. Not he. What had he got to tell them? After a +very little talking, which he was careless of and quite indifferent +to, they told him he was to go to Newgate, and took him away. + +He went out into the street, so surrounded and hemmed in on every +side by soldiers, that he could see nothing; but he knew there was +a great crowd of people, by the murmur; and that they were not +friendly to the soldiers, was soon rendered evident by their yells +and hisses. How often and how eagerly he listened for the voice of +Hugh! There was not a voice he knew among them all. Was Hugh a +prisoner too? Was there no hope! + +As they came nearer and nearer to the prison, the hootings of the +people grew more violent; stones were thrown; and every now and +then, a rush was made against the soldiers, which they staggered +under. One of them, close before him, smarting under a blow upon +the temple, levelled his musket, but the officer struck it upwards +with his sword, and ordered him on peril of his life to desist. +This was the last thing he saw with any distinctness, for directly +afterwards he was tossed about, and beaten to and fro, as though in +a tempestuous sea. But go where he would, there were the same +guards about him. Twice or thrice he was thrown down, and so were +they; but even then, he could not elude their vigilance for a +moment. They were up again, and had closed about him, before he, +with his wrists so tightly bound, could scramble to his feet. +Fenced in, thus, he felt himself hoisted to the top of a low flight +of steps, and then for a moment he caught a glimpse of the fighting +in the crowd, and of a few red coats sprinkled together, here and +there, struggling to rejoin their fellows. Next moment, everything +was dark and gloomy, and he was standing in the prison lobby; the +centre of a group of men. + +A smith was speedily in attendance, who riveted upon him a set of +heavy irons. Stumbling on as well as he could, beneath the unusual +burden of these fetters, he was conducted to a strong stone cell, +where, fastening the door with locks, and bolts, and chains, they +left him, well secured; having first, unseen by him, thrust in +Grip, who, with his head drooping and his deep black plumes rough +and rumpled, appeared to comprehend and to partake, his master's +fallen fortunes. + + + +Chapter 59 + + +It is necessary at this juncture to return to Hugh, who, having, as +we have seen, called to the rioters to disperse from about the +Warren, and meet again as usual, glided back into the darkness from +which he had emerged, and reappeared no more that night. + +He paused in the copse which sheltered him from the observation of +his mad companions, and waited to ascertain whether they drew off +at his bidding, or still lingered and called to him to join them. +Some few, he saw, were indisposed to go away without him, and made +towards the spot where he stood concealed as though they were about +to follow in his footsteps, and urge him to come back; but these +men, being in their turn called to by their friends, and in truth +not greatly caring to venture into the dark parts of the grounds, +where they might be easily surprised and taken, if any of the +neighbours or retainers of the family were watching them from among +the trees, soon abandoned the idea, and hastily assembling such men +as they found of their mind at the moment, straggled off. + +When he was satisfied that the great mass of the insurgents were +imitating this example, and that the ground was rapidly clearing, +he plunged into the thickest portion of the little wood; and, +crashing the branches as he went, made straight towards a distant +light: guided by that, and by the sullen glow of the fire behind +him. + +As he drew nearer and nearer to the twinkling beacon towards which +he bent his course, the red glare of a few torches began to reveal +itself, and the voices of men speaking together in a subdued tone +broke the silence which, save for a distant shouting now and then, +already prevailed. At length he cleared the wood, and, springing +across a ditch, stood in a dark lane, where a small body of ill- +looking vagabonds, whom he had left there some twenty minutes +before, waited his coming with impatience. + +They were gathered round an old post-chaise or chariot, driven by +one of themselves, who sat postilion-wise upon the near horse. The +blinds were drawn up, and Mr Tappertit and Dennis kept guard at the +two windows. The former assumed the command of the party, for he +challenged Hugh as he advanced towards them; and when he did so, +those who were resting on the ground about the carriage rose to +their feet and clustered round him. + +'Well!' said Simon, in a low voice; 'is all right?' + +'Right enough,' replied Hugh, in the same tone. 'They're +dispersing now--had begun before I came away.' + +'And is the coast clear?' + +'Clear enough before our men, I take it,' said Hugh. 'There are +not many who, knowing of their work over yonder, will want to +meddle with 'em to-night.--Who's got some drink here?' + +Everybody had some plunder from the cellar; half-a-dozen flasks and +bottles were offered directly. He selected the largest, and +putting it to his mouth, sent the wine gurgling down his throat. +Having emptied it, he threw it down, and stretched out his hand for +another, which he emptied likewise, at a draught. Another was +given him, and this he half emptied too. Reserving what remained +to finish with, he asked: + +'Have you got anything to eat, any of you? I'm as ravenous as a +hungry wolf. Which of you was in the larder--come?' + +'I was, brother,' said Dennis, pulling off his hat, and fumbling in +the crown. 'There's a matter of cold venison pasty somewhere or +another here, if that'll do.' + +'Do!' cried Hugh, seating himself on the pathway. 'Bring it out! +Quick! Show a light here, and gather round! Let me sup in state, +my lads! Ha ha ha!' + +Entering into his boisterous humour, for they all had drunk deeply, +and were as wild as he, they crowded about him, while two of their +number who had torches, held them up, one on either side of him, +that his banquet might not be despatched in the dark. Mr Dennis, +having by this time succeeded in extricating from his hat a great +mass of pasty, which had been wedged in so tightly that it was not +easily got out, put it before him; and Hugh, having borrowed a +notched and jagged knife from one of the company, fell to work upon +it vigorously. + +'I should recommend you to swallow a little fire every day, about +an hour afore dinner, brother,' said Dennis, after a pause. 'It +seems to agree with you, and to stimulate your appetite.' + +Hugh looked at him, and at the blackened faces by which he was +surrounded, and, stopping for a moment to flourish his knife above +his head, answered with a roar of laughter. + +'Keep order, there, will you?' said Simon Tappertit. + +'Why, isn't a man allowed to regale himself, noble captain,' +retorted his lieutenant, parting the men who stood between them, +with his knife, that he might see him,--'to regale himself a little +bit after such work as mine? What a hard captain! What a strict +captain! What a tyrannical captain! Ha ha ha!' + +'I wish one of you fellers would hold a bottle to his mouth to keep +him quiet,' said Simon, 'unless you want the military to be down +upon us.' + +'And what if they are down upon us!' retorted Hugh. 'Who cares? +Who's afraid? Let 'em come, I say, let 'em come. The more, the +merrier. Give me bold Barnaby at my side, and we two will settle +the military, without troubling any of you. Barnaby's the man for +the military. Barnaby's health!' + +But as the majority of those present were by no means anxious for +a second engagement that night, being already weary and exhausted, +they sided with Mr Tappertit, and pressed him to make haste with +his supper, for they had already delayed too long. Knowing, even +in the height of his frenzy, that they incurred great danger by +lingering so near the scene of the late outrages, Hugh made an end +of his meal without more remonstrance, and rising, stepped up to Mr +Tappertit, and smote him on the back. + +'Now then,' he cried, 'I'm ready. There are brave birds inside +this cage, eh? Delicate birds,--tender, loving, little doves. I +caged 'em--I caged 'em--one more peep!' + +He thrust the little man aside as he spoke, and mounting on the +steps, which were half let down, pulled down the blind by force, +and stared into the chaise like an ogre into his larder. + +'Ha ha ha! and did you scratch, and pinch, and struggle, pretty +mistress?' he cried, as he grasped a little hand that sought in +vain to free itself from his grip: 'you, so bright-eyed, and +cherry-lipped, and daintily made? But I love you better for it, +mistress. Ay, I do. You should stab me and welcome, so that it +pleased you, and you had to cure me afterwards. I love to see you +proud and scornful. It makes you handsomer than ever; and who so +handsome as you at any time, my pretty one!' + +'Come!' said Mr Tappertit, who had waited during this speech with +considerable impatience. 'There's enough of that. Come down.' + +The little hand seconded this admonition by thrusting Hugh's great +head away with all its force, and drawing up the blind, amidst his +noisy laughter, and vows that he must have another look, for the +last glimpse of that sweet face had provoked him past all bearing. +However, as the suppressed impatience of the party now broke out +into open murmurs, he abandoned this design, and taking his seat +upon the bar, contented himself with tapping at the front windows +of the carriage, and trying to steal a glance inside; Mr Tappertit, +mounting the steps and hanging on by the door, issued his +directions to the driver with a commanding voice and attitude; the +rest got up behind, or ran by the side of the carriage, as they +could; some, in imitation of Hugh, endeavoured to see the face he +had praised so highly, and were reminded of their impertinence by +hints from the cudgel of Mr Tappertit. Thus they pursued their +journey by circuitous and winding roads; preserving, except when +they halted to take breath, or to quarrel about the best way of +reaching London, pretty good order and tolerable silence. + +In the mean time, Dolly--beautiful, bewitching, captivating little +Dolly--her hair dishevelled, her dress torn, her dark eyelashes wet +with tears, her bosom heaving--her face, now pale with fear, now +crimsoned with indignation--her whole self a hundred times more +beautiful in this heightened aspect than ever she had been before-- +vainly strove to comfort Emma Haredale, and to impart to her the +consolation of which she stood in so much need herself. The +soldiers were sure to come; they must be rescued; it would be +impossible to convey them through the streets of London when they +set the threats of their guards at defiance, and shrieked to the +passengers for help. If they did this when they came into the more +frequented ways, she was certain--she was quite certain--they must +be released. So poor Dolly said, and so poor Dolly tried to think; +but the invariable conclusion of all such arguments was, that Dolly +burst into tears; cried, as she wrung her hands, what would they do +or think, or who would comfort them, at home, at the Golden Key; +and sobbed most piteously. + +Miss Haredale, whose feelings were usually of a quieter kind than +Dolly's, and not so much upon the surface, was dreadfully +alarmed, and indeed had only just recovered from a swoon. She was +very pale, and the hand which Dolly held was quite cold; but she +bade her, nevertheless, remember that, under Providence, much must +depend upon their own discretion; that if they remained quiet and +lulled the vigilance of the ruffians into whose hands they had +fallen, the chances of their being able to procure assistance when +they reached the town, were very much increased; that unless +society were quite unhinged, a hot pursuit must be immediately +commenced; and that her uncle, she might be sure, would never rest +until he had found them out and rescued them. But as she said +these latter words, the idea that he had fallen in a general +massacre of the Catholics that night--no very wild or improbable +supposition after what they had seen and undergone--struck her +dumb; and, lost in the horrors they had witnessed, and those they +might be yet reserved for, she sat incapable of thought, or speech, +or outward show of grief: as rigid, and almost as white and cold, +as marble. + +Oh, how many, many times, in that long ride, did Dolly think of her +old lover,--poor, fond, slighted Joe! How many, many times, did +she recall that night when she ran into his arms from the very man +now projecting his hateful gaze into the darkness where she sat, +and leering through the glass in monstrous admiration! And when +she thought of Joe, and what a brave fellow he was, and how he +would have rode boldly up, and dashed in among these villains now, +yes, though they were double the number--and here she clenched her +little hand, and pressed her foot upon the ground--the pride she +felt for a moment in having won his heart, faded in a burst of +tears, and she sobbed more bitterly than ever. + +As the night wore on, and they proceeded by ways which were quite +unknown to them--for they could recognise none of the objects of +which they sometimes caught a hurried glimpse--their fears +increased; nor were they without good foundation; it was not +difficult for two beautiful young women to find, in their being +borne they knew not whither by a band of daring villains who eyed +them as some among these fellows did, reasons for the worst alarm. +When they at last entered London, by a suburb with which they were +wholly unacquainted, it was past midnight, and the streets were +dark and empty. Nor was this the worst, for the carriage stopping +in a lonely spot, Hugh suddenly opened the door, jumped in, and +took his seat between them. + +It was in vain they cried for help. He put his arm about the neck +of each, and swore to stifle them with kisses if they were not as +silent as the grave. + +'I come here to keep you quiet,' he said, 'and that's the means I +shall take. So don't be quiet, pretty mistresses--make a noise-- +do--and I shall like it all the better.' + +They were proceeding at a rapid pace, and apparently with fewer +attendants than before, though it was so dark (the torches being +extinguished) that this was mere conjecture. They shrunk from his +touch, each into the farthest corner of the carriage; but shrink as +Dolly would, his arm encircled her waist, and held her fast. She +neither cried nor spoke, for terror and disgust deprived her of the +power; but she plucked at his hand as though she would die in the +effort to disengage herself; and crouching on the ground, with her +head averted and held down, repelled him with a strength she +wondered at as much as he. The carriage stopped again. + +'Lift this one out,' said Hugh to the man who opened the door, as +he took Miss Haredale's hand, and felt how heavily it fell. 'She's +fainted.' + +'So much the better,' growled Dennis--it was that amiable +gentleman. 'She's quiet. I always like 'em to faint, unless +they're very tender and composed.' + +'Can you take her by yourself?' asked Hugh. + +'I don't know till I try. I ought to be able to; I've lifted up a +good many in my time,' said the hangman. 'Up then! She's no small +weight, brother; none of these here fine gals are. Up again! Now +we have her.' + +Having by this time hoisted the young lady into his arms, he +staggered off with his burden. + +'Look ye, pretty bird,' said Hugh, drawing Dolly towards him. +'Remember what I told you--a kiss for every cry. Scream, if you +love me, darling. Scream once, mistress. Pretty mistress, only +once, if you love me.' + +Thrusting his face away with all her force, and holding down her +head, Dolly submitted to be carried out of the chaise, and borne +after Miss Haredale into a miserable cottage, where Hugh, after +hugging her to his breast, set her gently down upon the floor. + +Poor Dolly! Do what she would, she only looked the better for it, +and tempted them the more. When her eyes flashed angrily, and her +ripe lips slightly parted, to give her rapid breathing vent, who +could resist it? When she wept and sobbed as though her heart +would break, and bemoaned her miseries in the sweetest voice that +ever fell upon a listener's ear, who could be insensible to the +little winning pettishness which now and then displayed itself, +even in the sincerity and earnestness of her grief? When, +forgetful for a moment of herself, as she was now, she fell on her +knees beside her friend, and bent over her, and laid her cheek to +hers, and put her arms about her, what mortal eyes could have +avoided wandering to the delicate bodice, the streaming hair, the +neglected dress, the perfect abandonment and unconsciousness of the +blooming little beauty? Who could look on and see her lavish +caresses and endearments, and not desire to be in Emma Haredale's +place; to be either her or Dolly; either the hugging or the hugged? +Not Hugh. Not Dennis. + +'I tell you what it is, young women,' said Mr Dennis, 'I an't much +of a lady's man myself, nor am I a party in the present business +further than lending a willing hand to my friends: but if I see +much more of this here sort of thing, I shall become a principal +instead of a accessory. I tell you candid.' + +'Why have you brought us here?' said Emma. 'Are we to be +murdered?' + +'Murdered!' cried Dennis, sitting down upon a stool, and regarding +her with great favour. 'Why, my dear, who'd murder sich +chickabiddies as you? If you was to ask me, now, whether you was +brought here to be married, there might be something in it.' + +And here he exchanged a grin with Hugh, who removed his eyes from +Dolly for the purpose. + +'No, no,' said Dennis, 'there'll be no murdering, my pets. Nothing +of that sort. Quite the contrairy.' + +'You are an older man than your companion, sir,' said Emma, +trembling. 'Have you no pity for us? Do you not consider that we +are women?' + +'I do indeed, my dear,' retorted Dennis. 'It would be very hard +not to, with two such specimens afore my eyes. Ha ha! Oh yes , I +consider that. We all consider that, miss.' + +He shook his head waggishly, leered at Hugh again, and laughed very +much, as if he had said a noble thing, and rather thought he was +coming out. + +'There'll be no murdering, my dear. Not a bit on it. I tell you +what though, brother,' said Dennis, cocking his hat for the +convenience of scratching his head, and looking gravely at Hugh, +'it's worthy of notice, as a proof of the amazing equalness and +dignity of our law, that it don't make no distinction between men +and women. I've heerd the judge say, sometimes, to a highwayman or +housebreaker as had tied the ladies neck and heels--you'll excuse +me making mention of it, my darlings--and put 'em in a cellar, that +he showed no consideration to women. Now, I say that there judge +didn't know his business, brother; and that if I had been that +there highwayman or housebreaker, I should have made answer: "What +are you a talking of, my lord? I showed the women as much +consideration as the law does, and what more would you have me do?" +If you was to count up in the newspapers the number of females as +have been worked off in this here city alone, in the last ten +year,' said Mr Dennis thoughtfully, 'you'd be surprised at the +total--quite amazed, you would. There's a dignified and equal +thing; a beautiful thing! But we've no security for its lasting. +Now that they've begun to favour these here Papists, I shouldn't +wonder if they went and altered even THAT, one of these days. Upon +my soul, I shouldn't.' + +The subject, perhaps from being of too exclusive and professional a +nature, failed to interest Hugh as much as his friend had +anticipated. But he had no time to pursue it, for at this crisis +Mr Tappertit entered precipitately; at sight of whom Dolly uttered +a scream of joy, and fairly threw herself into his arms. + +'I knew it, I was sure of it!' cried Dolly. 'My dear father's at +the door. Thank God, thank God! Bless you, Sim. Heaven bless you +for this!' + +Simon Tappertit, who had at first implicitly believed that the +locksmith's daughter, unable any longer to suppress her secret +passion for himself, was about to give it full vent in its +intensity, and to declare that she was his for ever, looked +extremely foolish when she said these words;--the more so, as they +were received by Hugh and Dennis with a loud laugh, which made her +draw back, and regard him with a fixed and earnest look. + +'Miss Haredale,' said Sim, after a very awkward silence, 'I hope +you're as comfortable as circumstances will permit of. Dolly +Varden, my darling--my own, my lovely one--I hope YOU'RE pretty +comfortable likewise.' + +Poor little Dolly! She saw how it was; hid her face in her hands; +and sobbed more bitterly than ever. + +'You meet in me, Miss V.,' said Simon, laying his hand upon his +breast, 'not a 'prentice, not a workman, not a slave, not the +wictim of your father's tyrannical behaviour, but the leader of a +great people, the captain of a noble band, in which these gentlemen +are, as I may say, corporals and serjeants. You behold in me, not +a private individual, but a public character; not a mender of +locks, but a healer of the wounds of his unhappy country. Dolly +V., sweet Dolly V., for how many years have I looked forward to +this present meeting! For how many years has it been my intention +to exalt and ennoble you! I redeem it. Behold in me, your +husband. Yes, beautiful Dolly--charmer--enslaver--S. Tappertit is +all your own!' + +As he said these words he advanced towards her. Dolly retreated +till she could go no farther, and then sank down upon the floor. +Thinking it very possible that this might be maiden modesty, Simon +essayed to raise her; on which Dolly, goaded to desperation, wound +her hands in his hair, and crying out amidst her tears that he was +a dreadful little wretch, and always had been, shook, and pulled, +and beat him, until he was fain to call for help, most lustily. +Hugh had never admired her half so much as at that moment. + +'She's in an excited state to-night,' said Simon, as he smoothed +his rumpled feathers, 'and don't know when she's well off. Let her +be by herself till to-morrow, and that'll bring her down a little. +Carry her into the next house!' + +Hugh had her in his arms directly. It might be that Mr Tappertit's +heart was really softened by her distress, or it might be that he +felt it in some degree indecorous that his intended bride should be +struggling in the grasp of another man. He commanded him, on +second thoughts, to put her down again, and looked moodily on as +she flew to Miss Haredale's side, and clinging to her dress, hid +her flushed face in its folds. + +'They shall remain here together till to-morrow,' said Simon, who +had now quite recovered his dignity--'till to-morrow. Come away!' + +'Ay!' cried Hugh. 'Come away, captain. Ha ha ha!' + +'What are you laughing at?' demanded Simon sternly. + +'Nothing, captain, nothing,' Hugh rejoined; and as he spoke, and +clapped his hand upon the shoulder of the little man, he laughed +again, for some unknown reason, with tenfold violence. + +Mr Tappertit surveyed him from head to foot with lofty scorn (this +only made him laugh the more), and turning to the prisoners, said: + +'You'll take notice, ladies, that this place is well watched on +every side, and that the least noise is certain to be attended with +unpleasant consequences. You'll hear--both of you--more of our +intentions to-morrow. In the mean time, don't show yourselves at +the window, or appeal to any of the people you may see pass it; for +if you do, it'll be known directly that you come from a Catholic +house, and all the exertions our men can make, may not be able to +save your lives.' + +With this last caution, which was true enough, he turned to the +door, followed by Hugh and Dennis. They paused for a moment, going +out, to look at them clasped in each other's arms, and then left +the cottage; fastening the door, and setting a good watch upon it, +and indeed all round the house. + +'I say,' growled Dennis, as they walked away in company, 'that's a +dainty pair. Muster Gashford's one is as handsome as the other, +eh?' + +'Hush!' said Hugh, hastily. 'Don't you mention names. It's a bad +habit.' + +'I wouldn't like to be HIM, then (as you don't like names), when he +breaks it out to her; that's all,' said Dennis. 'She's one of them +fine, black-eyed, proud gals, as I wouldn't trust at such times +with a knife too near 'em. I've seen some of that sort, afore now. +I recollect one that was worked off, many year ago--and there was a +gentleman in that case too--that says to me, with her lip a +trembling, but her hand as steady as ever I see one: "Dennis, I'm +near my end, but if I had a dagger in these fingers, and he was +within my reach, I'd strike him dead afore me;"--ah, she did--and +she'd have done it too!' + +Strike who dead?' demanded Hugh. + +'How should I know, brother?' answered Dennis. 'SHE never said; +not she.' + +Hugh looked, for a moment, as though he would have made some +further inquiry into this incoherent recollection; but Simon +Tappertit, who had been meditating deeply, gave his thoughts a new +direction. + +'Hugh!' said Sim. 'You have done well to-day. You shall be +rewarded. So have you, Dennis.--There's no young woman YOU want to +carry off, is there?' + +'N--no,' returned that gentleman, stroking his grizzly beard, which +was some two inches long. 'None in partickler, I think.' + +'Very good,' said Sim; 'then we'll find some other way of making it +up to you. As to you, old boy'--he turned to Hugh--'you shall have +Miggs (her that I promised you, you know) within three days. Mind. +I pass my word for it.' + +Hugh thanked him heartily; and as he did so, his laughing fit +returned with such violence that he was obliged to hold his side +with one hand, and to lean with the other on the shoulder of his +small captain, without whose support he would certainly have rolled +upon the ground. + + + +Chapter 60 + + +The three worthies turned their faces towards The Boot, with the +intention of passing the night in that place of rendezvous, and of +seeking the repose they so much needed in the shelter of their old +den; for now that the mischief and destruction they had purposed +were achieved, and their prisoners were safely bestowed for the +night, they began to be conscious of exhaustion, and to feel the +wasting effects of the madness which had led to such deplorable +results. + +Notwithstanding the lassitude and fatigue which oppressed him now, +in common with his two companions, and indeed with all who had +taken an active share in that night's work, Hugh's boisterous +merriment broke out afresh whenever he looked at Simon Tappertit, +and vented itself--much to that gentleman's indignation--in such +shouts of laughter as bade fair to bring the watch upon them, and +involve them in a skirmish, to which in their present worn-out +condition they might prove by no means equal. Even Mr Dennis, who +was not at all particular on the score of gravity or dignity, and +who had a great relish for his young friend's eccentric humours, +took occasion to remonstrate with him on this imprudent behaviour, +which he held to be a species of suicide, tantamount to a man's +working himself off without being overtaken by the law, than which +he could imagine nothing more ridiculous or impertinent. + +Not abating one jot of his noisy mirth for these remonstrances, +Hugh reeled along between them, having an arm of each, until they +hove in sight of The Boot, and were within a field or two of that +convenient tavern. He happened by great good luck to have roared +and shouted himself into silence by this time. They were +proceeding onward without noise, when a scout who had been creeping +about the ditches all night, to warn any stragglers from +encroaching further on what was now such dangerous ground, peeped +cautiously from his hiding-place, and called to them to stop. + +'Stop! and why?' said Hugh. + +Because (the scout replied) the house was filled with constables +and soldiers; having been surprised that afternoon. The inmates +had fled or been taken into custody, he could not say which. He +had prevented a great many people from approaching nearer, and he +believed they had gone to the markets and such places to pass the +night. He had seen the distant fires, but they were all out now. +He had heard the people who passed and repassed, speaking of them +too, and could report that the prevailing opinion was one of +apprehension and dismay. He had not heard a word of Barnaby-- +didn't even know his name--but it had been said in his hearing that +some man had been taken and carried off to Newgate. Whether this +was true or false, he could not affirm. + +The three took counsel together, on hearing this, and debated what +it might be best to do. Hugh, deeming it possible that Barnaby was +in the hands of the soldiers, and at that moment under detention at +The Boot, was for advancing stealthily, and firing the house; but +his companions, who objected to such rash measures unless they had +a crowd at their backs, represented that if Barnaby were taken he +had assuredly been removed to a stronger prison; they would never +have dreamed of keeping him all night in a place so weak and open +to attack. Yielding to this reasoning, and to their persuasions, +Hugh consented to turn back and to repair to Fleet Market; for +which place, it seemed, a few of their boldest associates had +shaped their course, on receiving the same intelligence. + +Feeling their strength recruited and their spirits roused, now that +there was a new necessity for action, they hurried away, quite +forgetful of the fatigue under which they had been sinking but a +few minutes before; and soon arrived at their new place of +destination. + +Fleet Market, at that time, was a long irregular row of wooden +sheds and penthouses, occupying the centre of what is now called +Farringdon Street. They were jumbled together in a most unsightly +fashion, in the middle of the road; to the great obstruction of the +thoroughfare and the annoyance of passengers, who were fain to make +their way, as they best could, among carts, baskets, barrows, +trucks, casks, bulks, and benches, and to jostle with porters, +hucksters, waggoners, and a motley crowd of buyers, sellers, pick- +pockets, vagrants, and idlers. The air was perfumed with the +stench of rotten leaves and faded fruit; the refuse of the +butchers' stalls, and offal and garbage of a hundred kinds. It was +indispensable to most public conveniences in those days, that they +should be public nuisances likewise; and Fleet Market maintained +the principle to admiration. + +To this place, perhaps because its sheds and baskets were a +tolerable substitute for beds, or perhaps because it afforded the +means of a hasty barricade in case of need, many of the rioters had +straggled, not only that night, but for two or three nights before. +It was now broad day, but the morning being cold, a group of them +were gathered round a fire in a public-house, drinking hot purl, +and smoking pipes, and planning new schemes for to-morrow. + +Hugh and his two friends being known to most of these men, were +received with signal marks of approbation, and inducted into the +most honourable seats. The room-door was closed and fastened to +keep intruders at a distance, and then they proceeded to exchange +news. + +'The soldiers have taken possession of The Boot, I hear,' said +Hugh. 'Who knows anything about it?' + +Several cried that they did; but the majority of the company +having been engaged in the assault upon the Warren, and all +present having been concerned in one or other of the night's +expeditions, it proved that they knew no more than Hugh himself; +having been merely warned by each other, or by the scout, and +knowing nothing of their own knowledge. + +'We left a man on guard there to-day,' said Hugh, looking round +him, 'who is not here. You know who it is--Barnaby, who brought +the soldier down, at Westminster. Has any man seen or heard of +him?' + +They shook their heads, and murmured an answer in the negative, as +each man looked round and appealed to his fellow; when a noise was +heard without, and a man was heard to say that he wanted Hugh--that +he must see Hugh. + +'He is but one man,' cried Hugh to those who kept the door; 'let +him come in.' + +'Ay, ay!' muttered the others. 'Let him come in. Let him come +in.' + +The door was accordingly unlocked and opened. A one-armed man, +with his head and face tied up with a bloody cloth, as though he +had been severely beaten, his clothes torn, and his remaining hand +grasping a thick stick, rushed in among them, and panting for +breath, demanded which was Hugh. + +'Here he is,' replied the person he inquired for. 'I am Hugh. +What do you want with me?' + +'I have a message for you,' said the man. 'You know one Barnaby.' + +'What of him? Did he send the message?' + +'Yes. He's taken. He's in one of the strong cells in Newgate. He +defended himself as well as he could, but was overpowered by +numbers. That's his message.' + +'When did you see him?' asked Hugh, hastily. + +'On his way to prison, where he was taken by a party of soldiers. +They took a by-road, and not the one we expected. I was one of +the few who tried to rescue him, and he called to me, and told me +to tell Hugh where he was. We made a good struggle, though it +failed. Look here!' + +He pointed to his dress and to his bandaged head, and still panting +for breath, glanced round the room; then faced towards Hugh again. + +'I know you by sight,' he said, 'for I was in the crowd on Friday, +and on Saturday, and yesterday, but I didn't know your name. +You're a bold fellow, I know. So is he. He fought like a lion +tonight, but it was of no use. I did my best, considering that I +want this limb.' + +Again he glanced inquisitively round the room or seemed to do so, +for his face was nearly hidden by the bandage--and again facing +sharply towards Hugh, grasped his stick as if he half expected to +be set upon, and stood on the defensive. + +If he had any such apprehension, however, he was speedily reassured +by the demeanour of all present. None thought of the bearer of the +tidings. He was lost in the news he brought. Oaths, threats, and +execrations, were vented on all sides. Some cried that if they +bore this tamely, another day would see them all in jail; some, +that they should have rescued the other prisoners, and this would +not have happened. One man cried in a loud voice, 'Who'll follow +me to Newgate!' and there was a loud shout and general rush towards +the door. + +But Hugh and Dennis stood with their backs against it, and kept +them back, until the clamour had so far subsided that their voices +could be heard, when they called to them together that to go now, +in broad day, would be madness; and that if they waited until night +and arranged a plan of attack, they might release, not only their +own companions, but all the prisoners, and burn down the jail. + +'Not that jail alone,' cried Hugh, 'but every jail in London. They +shall have no place to put their prisoners in. We'll burn them all +down; make bonfires of them every one! Here!' he cried, catching +at the hangman's hand. 'Let all who're men here, join with us. +Shake hands upon it. Barnaby out of jail, and not a jail left +standing! Who joins?' + +Every man there. And they swore a great oath to release their +friends from Newgate next night; to force the doors and burn the +jail; or perish in the fire themselves. + + + +Chapter 61 + + +On that same night--events so crowd upon each other in convulsed +and distracted times, that more than the stirring incidents of a +whole life often become compressed into the compass of four-and- +twenty hours--on that same night, Mr Haredale, having strongly +bound his prisoner, with the assistance of the sexton, and forced +him to mount his horse, conducted him to Chigwell; bent upon +procuring a conveyance to London from that place, and carrying him +at once before a justice. The disturbed state of the town would +be, he knew, a sufficient reason for demanding the murderer's +committal to prison before daybreak, as no man could answer for the +security of any of the watch-houses or ordinary places of +detention; and to convey a prisoner through the streets when the +mob were again abroad, would not only be a task of great danger and +hazard, but would be to challenge an attempt at rescue. Directing +the sexton to lead the horse, he walked close by the murderer's +side, and in this order they reached the village about the middle +of the night. + +The people were all awake and up, for they were fearful of being +burnt in their beds, and sought to comfort and assure each other by +watching in company. A few of the stoutest-hearted were armed and +gathered in a body on the green. To these, who knew him well, Mr +Haredale addressed himself, briefly narrating what had happened, +and beseeching them to aid in conveying the criminal to London +before the dawn of day. + +But not a man among them dared to help him by so much as the motion +of a finger. The rioters, in their passage through the village, +had menaced with their fiercest vengeance, any person who should +aid in extinguishing the fire, or render the least assistance to +him, or any Catholic whomsoever. Their threats extended to their +lives and all they possessed. They were assembled for their own +protection, and could not endanger themselves by lending any aid to +him. This they told him, not without hesitation and regret, as +they kept aloof in the moonlight and glanced fearfully at the +ghostly rider, who, with his head drooping on his breast and his +hat slouched down upon his brow, neither moved nor spoke. + +Finding it impossible to persuade them, and indeed hardly knowing +how to do so after what they had seen of the fury of the crowd, Mr +Haredale besought them that at least they would leave him free to +act for himself, and would suffer him to take the only chaise and +pair of horses that the place afforded. This was not acceded to +without some difficulty, but in the end they told him to do what he +would, and go away from them in heaven's name. + +Leaving the sexton at the horse's bridle, he drew out the chaise +with his own hands, and would have harnessed the horses, but that +the post-boy of the village--a soft-hearted, good-for-nothing, +vagabond kind of fellow--was moved by his earnestness and passion, +and, throwing down a pitchfork with which he was armed, swore that +the rioters might cut him into mincemeat if they liked, but he +would not stand by and see an honest gentleman who had done no +wrong, reduced to such extremity, without doing what he could to +help him. Mr Haredale shook him warmly by the hand, and thanked +him from his heart. In five minutes' time the chaise was ready, +and this good scapegrace in his saddle. The murderer was put +inside, the blinds were drawn up, the sexton took his seat upon the +bar, Mr Haredale mounted his horse and rode close beside the door; +and so they started in the dead of night, and in profound silence, +for London. + +The consternation was so extreme that even the horses which had +escaped the flames at the Warren, could find no friends to shelter +them. They passed them on the road, browsing on the stunted grass; +and the driver told them, that the poor beasts had wandered to the +village first, but had been driven away, lest they should bring +the vengeance of the crowd on any of the inhabitants. + +Nor was this feeling confined to such small places, where the +people were timid, ignorant, and unprotected. When they came near +London they met, in the grey light of morning, more than one poor +Catholic family who, terrified by the threats and warnings of +their neighbours, were quitting the city on foot, and who told them +they could hire no cart or horse for the removal of their goods, +and had been compelled to leave them behind, at the mercy of the +crowd. Near Mile End they passed a house, the master of which, a +Catholic gentleman of small means, having hired a waggon to remove +his furniture by midnight, had had it all brought down into the +street, to wait the vehicle's arrival, and save time in the +packing. But the man with whom he made the bargain, alarmed by the +fires that night, and by the sight of the rioters passing his +door, had refused to keep it: and the poor gentleman, with his wife +and servant and their little children, were sitting trembling among +their goods in the open street, dreading the arrival of day and not +knowing where to turn or what to do. + +It was the same, they heard, with the public conveyances. The +panic was so great that the mails and stage-coaches were afraid to +carry passengers who professed the obnoxious religion. If the +drivers knew them, or they admitted that they held that creed, they +would not take them, no, though they offered large sums; and +yesterday, people had been afraid to recognise Catholic +acquaintance in the streets, lest they should be marked by spies, +and burnt out, as it was called, in consequence. One mild old man-- +a priest, whose chapel was destroyed; a very feeble, patient, +inoffensive creature--who was trudging away, alone, designing to +walk some distance from town, and then try his fortune with the +coaches, told Mr Haredale that he feared he might not find a +magistrate who would have the hardihood to commit a prisoner to +jail, on his complaint. But notwithstanding these discouraging +accounts they went on, and reached the Mansion House soon after +sunrise. + +Mr Haredale threw himself from his horse, but he had no need to +knock at the door, for it was already open, and there stood upon +the step a portly old man, with a very red, or rather purple face, +who with an anxious expression of countenance, was remonstrating +with some unseen personage upstairs, while the porter essayed to +close the door by degrees and get rid of him. With the intense +impatience and excitement natural to one in his condition, Mr +Haredale thrust himself forward and was about to speak, when the +fat old gentleman interposed: + +'My good sir,' said he, 'pray let me get an answer. This is the +sixth time I have been here. I was here five times yesterday. My +house is threatened with destruction. It is to be burned down to- +night, and was to have been last night, but they had other business +on their hands. Pray let me get an answer.' + +'My good sir,' returned Mr Haredale, shaking his head, 'my house +is burned to the ground. But heaven forbid that yours should be. +Get your answer. Be brief, in mercy to me.' + +'Now, you hear this, my lord?'--said the old gentleman, calling up +the stairs, to where the skirt of a dressing-gown fluttered on the +landing-place. 'Here is a gentleman here, whose house was actually +burnt down last night.' + +'Dear me, dear me,' replied a testy voice, 'I am very sorry for +it, but what am I to do? I can't build it up again. The chief +magistrate of the city can't go and be a rebuilding of people's +houses, my good sir. Stuff and nonsense!' + +'But the chief magistrate of the city can prevent people's houses +from having any need to be rebuilt, if the chief magistrate's a +man, and not a dummy--can't he, my lord?' cried the old gentleman +in a choleric manner. + +'You are disrespectable, sir,' said the Lord Mayor--'leastways, +disrespectful I mean.' + +'Disrespectful, my lord!' returned the old gentleman. 'I was +respectful five times yesterday. I can't be respectful for ever. +Men can't stand on being respectful when their houses are going to +be burnt over their heads, with them in 'em. What am I to do, my +lord? AM I to have any protection!' + +'I told you yesterday, sir,' said the Lord Mayor, 'that you might +have an alderman in your house, if you could get one to come.' + +'What the devil's the good of an alderman?' returned the choleric +old gentleman. + +'--To awe the crowd, sir,' said the Lord Mayor. + +'Oh Lord ha' mercy!' whimpered the old gentleman, as he wiped his +forehead in a state of ludicrous distress, 'to think of sending an +alderman to awe a crowd! Why, my lord, if they were even so many +babies, fed on mother's milk, what do you think they'd care for an +alderman! Will YOU come?' + +'I!' said the Lord Mayor, most emphatically: 'Certainly not.' + +'Then what,' returned the old gentleman, 'what am I to do? Am I a +citizen of England? Am I to have the benefit of the laws? Am I to +have any return for the King's taxes?' + +'I don't know, I am sure,' said the Lord Mayor; 'what a pity it is +you're a Catholic! Why couldn't you be a Protestant, and then you +wouldn't have got yourself into such a mess? I'm sure I don't know +what's to be done.--There are great people at the bottom of these +riots.--Oh dear me, what a thing it is to be a public character!-- +You must look in again in the course of the day.--Would a javelin- +man do?--Or there's Philips the constable,--HE'S disengaged,--he's +not very old for a man at his time of life, except in his legs, and +if you put him up at a window he'd look quite young by candle- +light, and might frighten 'em very much.--Oh dear!--well!--we'll +see about it.' + +'Stop!' cried Mr Haredale, pressing the door open as the porter +strove to shut it, and speaking rapidly, 'My Lord Mayor, I beg you +not to go away. I have a man here, who committed a murder eight- +and-twenty years ago. Half-a-dozen words from me, on oath, will +justify you in committing him to prison for re-examination. I only +seek, just now, to have him consigned to a place of safety. The +least delay may involve his being rescued by the rioters.' + +'Oh dear me!' cried the Lord Mayor. 'God bless my soul--and body-- +oh Lor!--well I!--there are great people at the bottom of these +riots, you know.--You really mustn't.' + +'My lord,' said Mr Haredale, 'the murdered gentleman was my +brother; I succeeded to his inheritance; there were not wanting +slanderous tongues at that time, to whisper that the guilt of this +most foul and cruel deed was mine--mine, who loved him, as he +knows, in Heaven, dearly. The time has come, after all these years +of gloom and misery, for avenging him, and bringing to light a +crime so artful and so devilish that it has no parallel. Every +second's delay on your part loosens this man's bloody hands again, +and leads to his escape. My lord, I charge you hear me, and +despatch this matter on the instant.' + +'Oh dear me!' cried the chief magistrate; 'these an't business +hours, you know--I wonder at you--how ungentlemanly it is of you-- +you mustn't--you really mustn't.--And I suppose you are a Catholic +too?' + +'I am,' said Mr Haredale. + +'God bless my soul, I believe people turn Catholics a'purpose to +vex and worrit me,' cried the Lord Mayor. 'I wish you wouldn't +come here; they'll be setting the Mansion House afire next, and we +shall have you to thank for it. You must lock your prisoner up, +sir--give him to a watchman--and--call again at a proper time. +Then we'll see about it!' + +Before Mr Haredale could answer, the sharp closing of a door and +drawing of its bolts, gave notice that the Lord Mayor had retreated +to his bedroom, and that further remonstrance would be unavailing. +The two clients retreated likewise, and the porter shut them out +into the street. + +'That's the way he puts me off,' said the old gentleman, 'I can +get no redress and no help. What are you going to do, sir?' + +'To try elsewhere,' answered Mr Haredale, who was by this time on +horseback. + +'I feel for you, I assure you--and well I may, for we are in a +common cause,' said the old gentleman. 'I may not have a house to +offer you to-night; let me tender it while I can. On second +thoughts though,' he added, putting up a pocket-book he had +produced while speaking, 'I'll not give you a card, for if it was +found upon you, it might get you into trouble. Langdale--that's my +name--vintner and distiller--Holborn Hill--you're heartily welcome, +if you'll come.' + +Mr Haredale bowed, and rode off, close beside the chaise as before; +determining to repair to the house of Sir John Fielding, who had +the reputation of being a bold and active magistrate, and fully +resolved, in case the rioters should come upon them, to do +execution on the murderer with his own hands, rather than suffer +him to be released. + +They arrived at the magistrate's dwelling, however, without +molestation (for the mob, as we have seen, were then intent on +deeper schemes), and knocked at the door. As it had been pretty +generally rumoured that Sir John was proscribed by the rioters, a +body of thief-takers had been keeping watch in the house all night. +To one of them Mr Haredale stated his business, which appearing to +the man of sufficient moment to warrant his arousing the justice, +procured him an immediate audience. + +No time was lost in committing the murderer to Newgate; then a new +building, recently completed at a vast expense, and considered to +be of enormous strength. The warrant being made out, three of the +thief-takers bound him afresh (he had been struggling, it seemed, +in the chaise, and had loosened his manacles); gagged him lest they +should meet with any of the mob, and he should call to them for +help; and seated themselves, along with him, in the carriage. +These men being all well armed, made a formidable escort; but they +drew up the blinds again, as though the carriage were empty, and +directed Mr Haredale to ride forward, that he might not attract +attention by seeming to belong to it. + +The wisdom of this proceeding was sufficiently obvious, for as they +hurried through the city they passed among several groups of men, +who, if they had not supposed the chaise to be quite empty, would +certainly have stopped it. But those within keeping quite close, +and the driver tarrying to be asked no questions, they reached the +prison without interruption, and, once there, had him out, and safe +within its gloomy walls, in a twinkling. + +With eager eyes and strained attention, Mr Haredale saw him +chained, and locked and barred up in his cell. Nay, when he had +left the jail, and stood in the free street, without, he felt the +iron plates upon the doors, with his hands, and drew them over the +stone wall, to assure himself that it was real; and to exult in its +being so strong, and rough, and cold. It was not until he turned +his back upon the jail, and glanced along the empty streets, so +lifeless and quiet in the bright morning, that he felt the weight +upon his heart; that he knew he was tortured by anxiety for those +he had left at home; and that home itself was but another bead in +the long rosary of his regrets. + + + +Chapter 62 + + +The prisoner, left to himself, sat down upon his bedstead: and +resting his elbows on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, +remained in that attitude for hours. It would be hard to say, of +what nature his reflections were. They had no distinctness, and, +saving for some flashes now and then, no reference to his condition +or the train of circumstances by which it had been brought about. +The cracks in the pavement of his cell, the chinks in the wall +where stone was joined to stone, the bars in the window, the iron +ring upon the floor,--such things as these, subsiding strangely +into one another, and awakening an indescribable kind of interest +and amusement, engrossed his whole mind; and although at the bottom +of his every thought there was an uneasy sense of guilt, and dread +of death, he felt no more than that vague consciousness of it, +which a sleeper has of pain. It pursues him through his dreams, +gnaws at the heart of all his fancied pleasures, robs the banquet +of its taste, music of its sweetness, makes happiness itself +unhappy, and yet is no bodily sensation, but a phantom without +shape, or form, or visible presence; pervading everything, but +having no existence; recognisable everywhere, but nowhere seen, or +touched, or met with face to face, until the sleep is past, and +waking agony returns. + +After a long time the door of his cell opened. He looked up; saw +the blind man enter; and relapsed into his former position. + +Guided by his breathing, the visitor advanced to where he sat; and +stopping beside him, and stretching out his hand to assure himself +that he was right, remained, for a good space, silent. + +'This is bad, Rudge. This is bad,' he said at length. + +The prisoner shuffled with his feet upon the ground in turning his +body from him, but made no other answer. + +'How were you taken?' he asked. 'And where? You never told me +more than half your secret. No matter; I know it now. How was it, +and where, eh?' he asked again, coming still nearer to him. + +'At Chigwell,' said the other. + +'At Chigwell! How came you there?' + +'Because I went there to avoid the man I stumbled on,' he answered. +'Because I was chased and driven there, by him and Fate. Because I +was urged to go there, by something stronger than my own will. +When I found him watching in the house she used to live in, night +after night, I knew I never could escape him--never! and when I +heard the Bell--' + +He shivered; muttered that it was very cold; paced quickly up and +down the narrow cell; and sitting down again, fell into his old +posture. + +'You were saying,' said the blind man, after another pause, 'that +when you heard the Bell--' + +'Let it be, will you?' he retorted in a hurried voice. 'It hangs +there yet.' + +The blind man turned a wistful and inquisitive face towards him, +but he continued to speak, without noticing him. + +'I went to Chigwell, in search of the mob. I have been so hunted +and beset by this man, that I knew my only hope of safety lay in +joining them. They had gone on before; I followed them when it +left off.' + +'When what left off?' + +'The Bell. They had quitted the place. I hoped that some of them +might be still lingering among the ruins, and was searching for +them when I heard--' he drew a long breath, and wiped his forehead +with his sleeve--'his voice.' + +'Saying what?' + +'No matter what. I don't know. I was then at the foot of the +turret, where I did the--' + +'Ay,' said the blind man, nodding his head with perfect composure, +'I understand.' + +'I climbed the stair, or so much of it as was left; meaning to hide +till he had gone. But he heard me; and followed almost as soon as +I set foot upon the ashes.' + +'You might have hidden in the wall, and thrown him down, or stabbed +him,' said the blind man. + +'Might I? Between that man and me, was one who led him on--I saw +it, though he did not--and raised above his head a bloody hand. It +was in the room above that HE and I stood glaring at each other on +the night of the murder, and before he fell he raised his hand like +that, and fixed his eyes on me. I knew the chase would end there.' + +'You have a strong fancy,' said the blind man, with a smile. + +'Strengthen yours with blood, and see what it will come to.' + +He groaned, and rocked himself, and looking up for the first time, +said, in a low, hollow voice: + +'Eight-and-twenty years! Eight-and-twenty years! He has never +changed in all that time, never grown older, nor altered in the +least degree. He has been before me in the dark night, and the +broad sunny day; in the twilight, the moonlight, the sunlight, the +light of fire, and lamp, and candle; and in the deepest gloom. +Always the same! In company, in solitude, on land, on shipboard; +sometimes leaving me alone for months, and sometimes always with +me. I have seen him, at sea, come gliding in the dead of night +along the bright reflection of the moon in the calm water; and I +have seen him, on quays and market-places, with his hand uplifted, +towering, the centre of a busy crowd, unconscious of the terrible +form that had its silent stand among them. Fancy! Are you real? +Am I? Are these iron fetters, riveted on me by the smith's hammer, +or are they fancies I can shatter at a blow?' + +The blind man listened in silence. + +'Fancy! Do I fancy that I killed him? Do I fancy that as I left +the chamber where he lay, I saw the face of a man peeping from a +dark door, who plainly showed me by his fearful looks that he +suspected what I had done? Do I remember that I spoke fairly to +him--that I drew nearer--nearer yet--with the hot knife in my +sleeve? Do I fancy how HE died? Did he stagger back into the +angle of the wall into which I had hemmed him, and, bleeding +inwardly, stand, not fail, a corpse before me? Did I see him, for +an instant, as I see you now, erect and on his feet--but dead!' + +The blind man, who knew that he had risen, motioned him to sit down +again upon his bedstead; but he took no notice of the gesture. + +'It was then I thought, for the first time, of fastening the murder +upon him. It was then I dressed him in my clothes, and dragged him +down the back-stairs to the piece of water. Do I remember +listening to the bubbles that came rising up when I had rolled him +in? Do I remember wiping the water from my face, and because the +body splashed it there, in its descent, feeling as if it MUST be +blood? + +'Did I go home when I had done? And oh, my God! how long it took +to do! Did I stand before my wife, and tell her? Did I see her +fall upon the ground; and, when I stooped to raise her, did she +thrust me back with a force that cast me off as if I had been a +child, staining the hand with which she clasped my wrist? Is THAT +fancy? + +'Did she go down upon her knees, and call on Heaven to witness that +she and her unborn child renounced me from that hour; and did she, +in words so solemn that they turned me cold--me, fresh from the +horrors my own hands had made--warn me to fly while there was time; +for though she would be silent, being my wretched wife, she would +not shelter me? Did I go forth that night, abjured of God and man, +and anchored deep in hell, to wander at my cable's length about the +earth, and surely be drawn down at last?' + +'Why did you return? said the blind man. + +'Why is blood red? I could no more help it, than I could live +without breath. I struggled against the impulse, but I was drawn +back, through every difficult and adverse circumstance, as by a +mighty engine. Nothing could stop me. The day and hour were none +of my choice. Sleeping and waking, I had been among the old haunts +for years--had visited my own grave. Why did I come back? Because +this jail was gaping for me, and he stood beckoning at the door.' + +'You were not known?' said the blind man. + +'I was a man who had been twenty-two years dead. No. I was not +known.' + +'You should have kept your secret better.' + +'MY secret? MINE? It was a secret, any breath of air could +whisper at its will. The stars had it in their twinkling, the +water in its flowing, the leaves in their rustling, the seasons in +their return. It lurked in strangers' faces, and their voices. +Everything had lips on which it always trembled.--MY secret!' + +'It was revealed by your own act at any rate,' said the blind man. + +'The act was not mine. I did it, but it was not mine. I was +forced at times to wander round, and round, and round that spot. +If you had chained me up when the fit was on me, I should have +broken away, and gone there. As truly as the loadstone draws iron +towards it, so he, lying at the bottom of his grave, could draw me +near him when he would. Was that fancy? Did I like to go there, +or did I strive and wrestle with the power that forced me?' + +The blind man shrugged his shoulders, and smiled incredulously. +The prisoner again resumed his old attitude, and for a long time +both were mute. + +'I suppose then,' said his visitor, at length breaking silence, +'that you are penitent and resigned; that you desire to make peace +with everybody (in particular, with your wife who has brought you +to this); and that you ask no greater favour than to be carried to +Tyburn as soon as possible? That being the case, I had better take +my leave. I am not good enough to be company for you.' + +'Have I not told you,' said the other fiercely, 'that I have +striven and wrestled with the power that brought me here? Has my +whole life, for eight-and-twenty years, been one perpetual +struggle and resistance, and do you think I want to lie down and +die? Do all men shrink from death--I most of all!' + +'That's better said. That's better spoken, Rudge--but I'll not +call you that again--than anything you have said yet,' returned the +blind man, speaking more familiarly, and laying his hands upon his +arm. 'Lookye,--I never killed a man myself, for I have never been +placed in a position that made it worth my while. Farther, I am +not an advocate for killing men, and I don't think I should +recommend it or like it--for it's very hazardous--under any +circumstances. But as you had the misfortune to get into this +trouble before I made your acquaintance, and as you have been my +companion, and have been of use to me for a long time now, I +overlook that part of the matter, and am only anxious that you +shouldn't die unnecessarily. Now, I do not consider that, at +present, it is at all necessary.' + +'What else is left me?' returned the prisoner. 'To eat my way +through these walls with my teeth?' + +'Something easier than that,' returned his friend. 'Promise me +that you will talk no more of these fancies of yours--idle, foolish +things, quite beneath a man--and I'll tell you what I mean.' + +'Tell me,' said the other. + +'Your worthy lady with the tender conscience; your scrupulous, +virtuous, punctilious, but not blindly affectionate wife--' + +'What of her?' + +'Is now in London.' + +'A curse upon her, be she where she may!' + +'That's natural enough. If she had taken her annuity as usual, you +would not have been here, and we should have been better off. But +that's apart from the business. She's in London. Scared, as I +suppose, and have no doubt, by my representation when I waited upon +her, that you were close at hand (which I, of course, urged only as +an inducement to compliance, knowing that she was not pining to see +you), she left that place, and travelled up to London.' + +'How do you know?' + +'From my friend the noble captain--the illustrious general--the +bladder, Mr Tappertit. I learnt from him the last time I saw him, +which was yesterday, that your son who is called Barnaby--not after +his father, I suppose--' + +'Death! does that matter now!' + +'--You are impatient,' said the blind man, calmly; 'it's a good +sign, and looks like life--that your son Barnaby had been lured +away from her by one of his companions who knew him of old, at +Chigwell; and that he is now among the rioters.' + +'And what is that to me? If father and son be hanged together, +what comfort shall I find in that?' + +'Stay--stay, my friend,' returned the blind man, with a cunning +look, 'you travel fast to journeys' ends. Suppose I track my lady +out, and say thus much: "You want your son, ma'am--good. I, +knowing those who tempt him to remain among them, can restore him +to you, ma'am--good. You must pay a price, ma'am, for his +restoration--good again. The price is small, and easy to be paid-- +dear ma'am, that's best of all."' + +'What mockery is this?' + +'Very likely, she may reply in those words. "No mockery at all," I +answer: "Madam, a person said to be your husband (identity is +difficult of proof after the lapse of many years) is in prison, his +life in peril--the charge against him, murder. Now, ma'am, your +husband has been dead a long, long time. The gentleman never can +be confounded with him, if you will have the goodness to say a few +words, on oath, as to when he died, and how; and that this person +(who I am told resembles him in some degree) is no more he than I +am. Such testimony will set the question quite at rest. Pledge +yourself to me to give it, ma' am, and I will undertake to keep +your son (a fine lad) out of harm's way until you have done this +trifling service, when he shall he delivered up to you, safe and +sound. On the other hand, if you decline to do so, I fear he will +be betrayed, and handed over to the law, which will assuredly +sentence him to suffer death. It is, in fact, a choice between his +life and death. If you refuse, he swings. If you comply, the +timber is not grown, nor the hemp sown, that shall do him any +harm."' + +'There is a gleam of hope in this!' cried the prisoner. + +'A gleam!' returned his friend, 'a noon-blaze; a full and glorious +daylight. Hush! I hear the tread of distant feet. Rely on me.' + +'When shall I hear more?' + +'As soon as I do. I should hope, to-morrow. They are coming to +say that our time for talk is over. I hear the jingling of the +keys. Not another word of this just now, or they may overhear us.' + +As he said these words, the lock was turned, and one of the prison +turnkeys appearing at the door, announced that it was time for +visitors to leave the jail. + +'So soon!' said Stagg, meekly. 'But it can't be helped. Cheer up, +friend. This mistake will soon be set at rest, and then you are a +man again! If this charitable gentleman will lead a blind man (who +has nothing in return but prayers) to the prison-porch, and set him +with his face towards the west, he will do a worthy deed. Thank +you, good sir. I thank you very kindly.' + +So saying, and pausing for an instant at the door to turn his +grinning face towards his friend, he departed. + +When the officer had seen him to the porch, he returned, and again +unlocking and unbarring the door of the cell, set it wide open, +informing its inmate that he was at liberty to walk in the adjacent +yard, if he thought proper, for an hour. + +The prisoner answered with a sullen nod; and being left alone +again, sat brooding over what he had heard, and pondering upon the +hopes the recent conversation had awakened; gazing abstractedly, +the while he did so, on the light without, and watching the shadows +thrown by one wall on another, and on the stone-paved ground. + +It was a dull, square yard, made cold and gloomy by high walls, and +seeming to chill the very sunlight. The stone, so bare, and +rough, and obdurate, filled even him with longing thoughts of +meadow-land and trees; and with a burning wish to be at liberty. +As he looked, he rose, and leaning against the door-post, gazed up +at the bright blue sky, smiling even on that dreary home of crime. +He seemed, for a moment, to remember lying on his back in some +sweet-scented place, and gazing at it through moving branches, long +ago. + +His attention was suddenly attracted by a clanking sound--he knew +what it was, for he had startled himself by making the same noise +in walking to the door. Presently a voice began to sing, and he +saw the shadow of a figure on the pavement. It stopped--was +silent all at once, as though the person for a moment had forgotten +where he was, but soon remembered--and so, with the same clanking +noise, the shadow disappeared. + +He walked out into the court and paced it to and fro; startling the +echoes, as he went, with the harsh jangling of his fetters. There +was a door near his, which, like his, stood ajar. + +He had not taken half-a-dozen turns up and down the yard, when, +standing still to observe this door, he heard the clanking sound +again. A face looked out of the grated window--he saw it very +dimly, for the cell was dark and the bars were heavy--and directly +afterwards, a man appeared, and came towards him. + +For the sense of loneliness he had, he might have been in jail a +year. Made eager by the hope of companionship, he quickened his +pace, and hastened to meet the man half way-- + +What was this! His son! + +They stood face to face, staring at each other. He shrinking and +cowed, despite himself; Barnahy struggling with his imperfect +memory, and wondering where he had seen that face before. He was +not uncertain long, for suddenly he laid hands upon him, and +striving to bear him to the ground, cried: + +'Ah! I know! You are the robber!' + +He said nothing in reply at first, but held down his head, and +struggled with him silently. Finding the younger man too strong +for him, he raised his face, looked close into his eyes, and said, + +'I am your father.' + +God knows what magic the name had for his ears; but Barnaby +released his hold, fell back, and looked at him aghast. Suddenly +he sprung towards him, put his arms about his neck, and pressed his +head against his cheek. + +Yes, yes, he was; he was sure he was. But where had he been so +long, and why had he left his mother by herself, or worse than by +herself, with her poor foolish boy? And had she really been as +happy as they said? And where was she? Was she near there? She +was not happy now, and he in jail? Ah, no. + +Not a word was said in answer; but Grip croaked loudly, and hopped +about them, round and round, as if enclosing them in a magic +circle, and invoking all the powers of mischief. + + + +Chapter 63 + + +During the whole of this day, every regiment in or near the +metropolis was on duty in one or other part of the town; and the +regulars and militia, in obedience to the orders which were sent to +every barrack and station within twenty-four hours' journey, began +to pour in by all the roads. But the disturbance had attained to +such a formidable height, and the rioters had grown, with impunity, +to be so audacious, that the sight of this great force, continually +augmented by new arrivals, instead of operating as a check, +stimulated them to outrages of greater hardihood than any they had +yet committed; and helped to kindle a flame in London, the like of +which had never been beheld, even in its ancient and rebellious +times. + +All yesterday, and on this day likewise, the commander-in-chief +endeavoured to arouse the magistrates to a sense of their duty, and +in particular the Lord Mayor, who was the faintest-hearted and most +timid of them all. With this object, large bodies of the soldiery +were several times despatched to the Mansion House to await his +orders: but as he could, by no threats or persuasions, be induced +to give any, and as the men remained in the open street, +fruitlessly for any good purpose, and thrivingly for a very bad +one; these laudable attempts did harm rather than good. For the +crowd, becoming speedily acquainted with the Lord Mayor's temper, +did not fail to take advantage of it by boasting that even the +civil authorities were opposed to the Papists, and could not find +it in their hearts to molest those who were guilty of no other +offence. These vaunts they took care to make within the hearing of +the soldiers; and they, being naturally loth to quarrel with the +people, received their advances kindly enough: answering, when +they were asked if they desired to fire upon their countrymen, 'No, +they would be damned if they did;' and showing much honest +simplicity and good nature. The feeling that the military were No- +Popery men, and were ripe for disobeying orders and joining the +mob, soon became very prevalent in consequence. Rumours of their +disaffection, and of their leaning towards the popular cause, +spread from mouth to mouth with astonishing rapidity; and whenever +they were drawn up idly in the streets or squares, there was sure +to be a crowd about them, cheering and shaking hands, and treating +them with a great show of confidence and affection. + +By this time, the crowd was everywhere; all concealment and +disguise were laid aside, and they pervaded the whole town. If +any man among them wanted money, he had but to knock at the door of +a dwelling-house, or walk into a shop, and demand it in the rioters +name; and his demand was instantly complied with. The peaceable +citizens being afraid to lay hands upon them, singly and alone, it +may be easily supposed that when gathered together in bodies, they +were perfectly secure from interruption. They assembled in the +streets, traversed them at their will and pleasure, and publicly +concerted their plans. Business was quite suspended; the greater +part of the shops were closed; most of the houses displayed a blue +flag in token of their adherence to the popular side; and even the +Jews in Houndsditch, Whitechapel, and those quarters, wrote upon +their doors or window-shutters, 'This House is a True Protestant.' +The crowd was the law, and never was the law held in greater dread, +or more implicitly obeyed. + +It was about six o'clock in the evening, when a vast mob poured +into Lincoln's Inn Fields by every avenue, and divided--evidently +in pursuance of a previous design--into several parties. It must +not be understood that this arrangement was known to the whole +crowd, but that it was the work of a few leaders; who, mingling +with the men as they came upon the ground, and calling to them to +fall into this or that parry, effected it as rapidly as if it had +been determined on by a council of the whole number, and every man +had known his place. + +It was perfectly notorious to the assemblage that the largest +body, which comprehended about two-thirds of the whole, was +designed for the attack on Newgate. It comprehended all the +rioters who had been conspicuous in any of their former +proceedings; all those whom they recommended as daring hands and +fit for the work; all those whose companions had been taken in the +riots; and a great number of people who were relatives or friends +of felons in the jail. This last class included, not only the most +desperate and utterly abandoned villains in London, but some who +were comparatively innocent. There was more than one woman there, +disguised in man's attire, and bent upon the rescue of a child or +brother. There were the two sons of a man who lay under sentence +of death, and who was to be executed along with three others, on +the next day but one. There was a great parry of boys whose +fellow-pickpockets were in the prison; and at the skirts of all, +a score of miserable women, outcasts from the world, seeking to +release some other fallen creature as miserable as themselves, or +moved by a general sympathy perhaps--God knows--with all who were +without hope, and wretched. + +Old swords, and pistols without ball or powder; sledge-hammers, +knives, axes, saws, and weapons pillaged from the butchers' shops; +a forest of iron bars and wooden clubs; long ladders for scaling +the walls, each carried on the shoulders of a dozen men; lighted +torches; tow smeared with pitch, and tar, and brimstone; staves +roughly plucked from fence and paling; and even crutches taken from +crippled beggars in the streets; composed their arms. When all was +ready, Hugh and Dennis, with Simon Tappertit between them, led the +way. Roaring and chafing like an angry sea, the crowd pressed +after them. + +Instead of going straight down Holborn to the jail, as all +expected, their leaders took the way to Clerkenwell, and pouring +down a quiet street, halted before a locksmith's house--the Golden +Key. + +'Beat at the door,' cried Hugh to the men about him. 'We want one +of his craft to-night. Beat it in, if no one answers.' + +The shop was shut. Both door and shutters were of a strong and +sturdy kind, and they knocked without effect. But the impatient +crowd raising a cry of 'Set fire to the house!' and torches being +passed to the front, an upper window was thrown open, and the stout +old locksmith stood before them. + +'What now, you villains!' he demanded. 'Where is my daughter?' + +'Ask no questions of us, old man,' retorted Hugh, waving his +comrades to be silent, 'but come down, and bring the tools of your +trade. We want you.' + +'Want me!' cried the locksmith, glancing at the regimental dress he +wore: 'Ay, and if some that I could name possessed the hearts of +mice, ye should have had me long ago. Mark me, my lad--and you +about him do the same. There are a score among ye whom I see now +and know, who are dead men from this hour. Begone! and rob an +undertaker's while you can! You'll want some coffins before long.' + +'Will you come down?' cried Hugh. + +'Will you give me my daughter, ruffian?' cried the locksmith. + +'I know nothing of her,' Hugh rejoined. 'Burn the door!' + +'Stop!' cried the locksmith, in a voice that made them falter-- +presenting, as he spoke, a gun. 'Let an old man do that. You can +spare him better.' + +The young fellow who held the light, and who was stooping down +before the door, rose hastily at these words, and fell back. The +locksmith ran his eye along the upturned faces, and kept the weapon +levelled at the threshold of his house. It had no other rest than +his shoulder, but was as steady as the house itself. + +'Let the man who does it, take heed to his prayers,' he said +firmly; 'I warn him.' + +Snatching a torch from one who stood near him, Hugh was stepping +forward with an oath, when he was arrested by a shrill and piercing +shriek, and, looking upward, saw a fluttering garment on the house- +top. + +There was another shriek, and another, and then a shrill voice +cried, 'Is Simmun below!' At the same moment a lean neck was +stretched over the parapet, and Miss Miggs, indistinctly seen in +the gathering gloom of evening, screeched in a frenzied manner, +'Oh! dear gentlemen, let me hear Simmuns's answer from his own +lips. Speak to me, Simmun. Speak to me!' + +Mr Tappertit, who was not at all flattered by this compliment, +looked up, and bidding her hold her peace, ordered her to come down +and open the door, for they wanted her master, and would take no +denial. + +'Oh good gentlemen!' cried Miss Miggs. 'Oh my own precious, +precious Simmun--' + +'Hold your nonsense, will you!' retorted Mr Tappertit; 'and come +down and open the door.--G. Varden, drop that gun, or it will be +worse for you.' + +'Don't mind his gun,' screamed Miggs. 'Simmun and gentlemen, I +poured a mug of table-beer right down the barrel.' + +The crowd gave a loud shout, which was followed by a roar of +laughter. + +'It wouldn't go off, not if you was to load it up to the muzzle,' +screamed Miggs. 'Simmun and gentlemen, I'm locked up in the front +attic, through the little door on the right hand when you think +you've got to the very top of the stairs--and up the flight of +corner steps, being careful not to knock your heads against the +rafters, and not to tread on one side in case you should fall into +the two-pair bedroom through the lath and plasture, which do not +bear, but the contrairy. Simmun and gentlemen, I've been locked up +here for safety, but my endeavours has always been, and always will +be, to be on the right side--the blessed side and to prenounce the +Pope of Babylon, and all her inward and her outward workings, which +is Pagin. My sentiments is of little consequences, I know,' cried +Miggs, with additional shrillness, 'for my positions is but a +servant, and as sich, of humilities, still I gives expressions to +my feelings, and places my reliances on them which entertains my +own opinions!' + +Without taking much notice of these outpourings of Miss Miggs after +she had made her first announcement in relation to the gun, the +crowd raised a ladder against the window where the locksmith stood, +and notwithstanding that he closed, and fastened, and defended it +manfully, soon forced an entrance by shivering the glass and +breaking in the frames. After dealing a few stout blows about him, +he found himself defenceless, in the midst of a furious crowd, +which overflowed the room and softened off in a confused heap of +faces at the door and window. + +They were very wrathful with him (for he had wounded two men), and +even called out to those in front, to bring him forth and hang him +on a lamp-post. But Gabriel was quite undaunted, and looked from +Hugh and Dennis, who held him by either arm, to Simon Tappertit, +who confronted him. + +'You have robbed me of my daughter,' said the locksmith, 'who is +far dearer to me than my life; and you may take my life, if you +will. I bless God that I have been enabled to keep my wife free of +this scene; and that He has made me a man who will not ask mercy at +such hands as yours.' + +'And a wery game old gentleman you are,' said Mr Dennis, +approvingly; 'and you express yourself like a man. What's the +odds, brother, whether it's a lamp-post to-night, or a feather- +bed ten year to come, eh?' + +The locksmith glanced at him disdainfully, but returned no other +answer. + +'For my part,' said the hangman, who particularly favoured the +lamp-post suggestion, 'I honour your principles. They're mine +exactly. In such sentiments as them,' and here he emphasised his +discourse with an oath, 'I'm ready to meet you or any man halfway.-- +Have you got a bit of cord anywheres handy? Don't put yourself +out of the way, if you haven't. A handkecher will do.' + +'Don't be a fool, master,' whispered Hugh, seizing Varden roughly +by the shoulder; 'but do as you're bid. You'll soon hear what +you're wanted for. Do it!' + +'I'll do nothing at your request, or that of any scoundrel here,' +returned the locksmith. 'If you want any service from me, you may +spare yourselves the pains of telling me what it is. I tell you, +beforehand, I'll do nothing for you.' + +Mr Dennis was so affected by this constancy on the part of the +staunch old man, that he protested--almost with tears in his eyes-- +that to baulk his inclinations would be an act of cruelty and hard +dealing to which he, for one, never could reconcile his conscience. +The gentleman, he said, had avowed in so many words that he was +ready for working off; such being the case, he considered it their +duty, as a civilised and enlightened crowd, to work him off. It +was not often, he observed, that they had it in their power to +accommodate themselves to the wishes of those from whom they had +the misfortune to differ. Having now found an individual who +expressed a desire which they could reasonably indulge (and for +himself he was free to confess that in his opinion that desire did +honour to his feelings), he hoped they would decide to accede to +his proposition before going any further. It was an experiment +which, skilfully and dexterously performed, would be over in five +minutes, with great comfort and satisfaction to all parties; and +though it did not become him (Mr Dennis) to speak well of himself +he trusted he might be allowed to say that he had practical +knowledge of the subject, and, being naturally of an obliging and +friendly disposition, would work the gentleman off with a deal of +pleasure. + +These remarks, which were addressed in the midst of a frightful din +and turmoil to those immediately about him, were received with +great favour; not so much, perhaps, because of the hangman's +eloquence, as on account of the locksmith's obstinacy. Gabriel was +in imminent peril, and he knew it; but he preserved a steady +silence; and would have done so, if they had been debating whether +they should roast him at a slow fire. + +As the hangman spoke, there was some stir and confusion on the +ladder; and directly he was silent--so immediately upon his holding +his peace, that the crowd below had no time to learn what he had +been saying, or to shout in response--some one at the window cried: + +'He has a grey head. He is an old man: Don't hurt him!' + +The locksmith turned, with a start, towards the place from which +the words had come, and looked hurriedly at the people who were +hanging on the ladder and clinging to each other. + +'Pay no respect to my grey hair, young man,' he said, answering the +voice and not any one he saw. 'I don't ask it. My heart is green +enough to scorn and despise every man among you, band of robbers +that you are!' + +This incautious speech by no means tended to appease the ferocity +of the crowd. They cried again to have him brought out; and it +would have gone hard with the honest locksmith, but that Hugh +reminded them, in answer, that they wanted his services, and must +have them. + +'So, tell him what we want,' he said to Simon Tappertit, 'and +quickly. And open your ears, master, if you would ever use them +after to-night.' + +Gabriel folded his arms, which were now at liberty, and eyed his +old 'prentice in silence. + +'Lookye, Varden,' said Sim, 'we're bound for Newgate.' + +'I know you are,' returned the locksmith. 'You never said a truer +word than that.' + +'To burn it down, I mean,' said Simon, 'and force the gates, and +set the prisoners at liberty. You helped to make the lock of the +great door.' + +'I did,' said the locksmith. 'You owe me no thanks for that--as +you'll find before long.' + +'Maybe,' returned his journeyman, 'but you must show us how to +force it.' + +'Must I!' + +'Yes; for you know, and I don't. You must come along with us, and +pick it with your own hands.' + +'When I do,' said the locksmith quietly, 'my hands shall drop off +at the wrists, and you shall wear them, Simon Tappertit, on your +shoulders for epaulettes.' + +'We'll see that,' cried Hugh, interposing, as the indignation of +the crowd again burst forth. 'You fill a basket with the tools +he'll want, while I bring him downstairs. Open the doors below, +some of you. And light the great captain, others! Is there no +business afoot, my lads, that you can do nothing but stand and +grumble?' + +They looked at one another, and quickly dispersing, swarmed over +the house, plundering and breaking, according to their custom, and +carrying off such articles of value as happened to please their +fancy. They had no great length of time for these proceedings, for +the basket of tools was soon prepared and slung over a man's +shoulders. The preparations being now completed, and everything +ready for the attack, those who were pillaging and destroying in +the other rooms were called down to the workshop. They were about +to issue forth, when the man who had been last upstairs, stepped +forward, and asked if the young woman in the garret (who was making +a terrible noise, he said, and kept on screaming without the least +cessation) was to be released? + +For his own part, Simon Tappertit would certainly have replied in +the negative, but the mass of his companions, mindful of the good +service she had done in the matter of the gun, being of a different +opinion, he had nothing for it but to answer, Yes. The man, +accordingly, went back again to the rescue, and presently returned +with Miss Miggs, limp and doubled up, and very damp from much +weeping. + +As the young lady had given no tokens of consciousness on their way +downstairs, the bearer reported her either dead or dying; and being +at some loss what to do with her, was looking round for a +convenient bench or heap of ashes on which to place her senseless +form, when she suddenly came upon her feet by some mysterious +means, thrust back her hair, stared wildly at Mr Tappertit, cried, +'My Simmuns's life is not a wictim!' and dropped into his arms with +such promptitude that he staggered and reeled some paces back, +beneath his lovely burden. + +'Oh bother!' said Mr Tappertit. 'Here. Catch hold of her, +somebody. Lock her up again; she never ought to have been let out.' + +'My Simmun!' cried Miss Miggs, in tears, and faintly. 'My for +ever, ever blessed Simmun!' + +'Hold up, will you,' said Mr Tappertit, in a very unresponsive +tone, 'I'll let you fall if you don't. What are you sliding your +feet off the ground for?' + +'My angel Simmuns!' murmured Miggs--'he promised--' + +'Promised! Well, and I'll keep my promise,' answered Simon, +testily. 'I mean to provide for you, don't I? Stand up!' + +'Where am I to go? What is to become of me after my actions of +this night!' cried Miggs. 'What resting-places now remains but in +the silent tombses!' + +'I wish you was in the silent tombses, I do,' cried Mr Tappertit, +'and boxed up tight, in a good strong one. Here,' he cried to one +of the bystanders, in whose ear he whispered for a moment: 'Take +her off, will you. You understand where?' + +The fellow nodded; and taking her in his arms, notwithstanding her +broken protestations, and her struggles (which latter species of +opposition, involving scratches, was much more difficult of +resistance), carried her away. They who were in the house poured +out into the street; the locksmith was taken to the head of the +crowd, and required to walk between his two conductors; the whole +body was put in rapid motion; and without any shouts or noise they +bore down straight on Newgate, and halted in a dense mass before +the prison-gate. + + + +Chapter 64 + + +Breaking the silence they had hitherto preserved, they raised a +great cry as soon as they were ranged before the jail, and demanded +to speak to the governor. This visit was not wholly unexpected, +for his house, which fronted the street, was strongly barricaded, +the wicket-gate of the prison was closed up, and at no loophole or +grating was any person to be seen. Before they had repeated their +summons many times, a man appeared upon the roof of the governor's +house, and asked what it was they wanted. + +Some said one thing, some another, and some only groaned and +hissed. It being now nearly dark, and the house high, many persons +in the throng were not aware that any one had come to answer them, +and continued their clamour until the intelligence was gradually +diffused through the whole concourse. Ten minutes or more elapsed +before any one voice could be heard with tolerable distinctness; +during which interval the figure remained perched alone, against +the summer-evening sky, looking down into the troubled street. + +'Are you,' said Hugh at length, 'Mr Akerman, the head jailer here?' + +'Of course he is, brother,' whispered Dennis. But Hugh, without +minding him, took his answer from the man himself. + +'Yes,' he said. 'I am.' + +'You have got some friends of ours in your custody, master.' + +'I have a good many people in my custody.' He glanced downward, as +he spoke, into the jail: and the feeling that he could see into +the different yards, and that he overlooked everything which was +hidden from their view by the rugged walls, so lashed and goaded +the mob, that they howled like wolves. + +'Deliver up our friends,' said Hugh, 'and you may keep the rest.' + +'It's my duty to keep them all. I shall do my duty.' + +'If you don't throw the doors open, we shall break 'em down,' said +Hugh; 'for we will have the rioters out.' + +'All I can do, good people,' Akerman replied, 'is to exhort you to +disperse; and to remind you that the consequences of any +disturbance in this place, will be very severe, and bitterly +repented by most of you, when it is too late.' + +He made as though he would retire when he said these words, but he +was checked by the voice of the locksmith. + +'Mr Akerman,' cried Gabriel, 'Mr Akerman.' + +'I will hear no more from any of you,' replied the governor, +turning towards the speaker, and waving his hand. + +'But I am not one of them,' said Gabriel. 'I am an honest man, +Mr Akerman; a respectable tradesman--Gabriel Varden, the locksmith. +You know me?' + +'You among the crowd!' cried the governor in an altered voice. + +'Brought here by force--brought here to pick the lock of the great +door for them,' rejoined the locksmith. 'Bear witness for me, Mr +Akerman, that I refuse to do it; and that I will not do it, come +what may of my refusal. If any violence is done to me, please to +remember this.' + +'Is there no way (if helping you?' said the governor. + +'None, Mr Akerman. You'll do your duty, and I'll do mine. Once +again, you robbers and cut-throats,' said the locksmith, turning +round upon them, 'I refuse. Ah! Howl till you're hoarse. I +refuse.' + +'Stay--stay!' said the jailer, hastily. 'Mr Varden, I know you for +a worthy man, and one who would do no unlawful act except upon +compulsion--' + +'Upon compulsion, sir,' interposed the locksmith, who felt that the +tone in which this was said, conveyed the speaker's impression that +he had ample excuse for yielding to the furious multitude who beset +and hemmed him in, on every side, and among whom he stood, an old +man, quite alone; 'upon compulsion, sir, I'll do nothing.' + +'Where is that man,' said the keeper, anxiously, 'who spoke to me +just now?' + +'Here!' Hugh replied. + +'Do you know what the guilt of murder is, and that by keeping that +honest tradesman at your side you endanger his life!' + +'We know it very well,' he answered, 'for what else did we bring +him here? Let's have our friends, master, and you shall have your +friend. Is that fair, lads?' + +The mob replied to him with a loud Hurrah! + +'You see how it is, sir?' cried Varden. 'Keep 'em out, in King +George's name. Remember what I have said. Good night!' + +There was no more parley. A shower of stones and other missiles +compelled the keeper of the jail to retire; and the mob, pressing +on, and swarming round the walls, forced Gabriel Varden close up to +the door. + +In vain the basket of tools was laid upon the ground before him, +and he was urged in turn by promises, by blows, by offers of +reward, and threats of instant death, to do the office for which +they had brought him there. 'No,' cried the sturdy locksmith, 'I +will not!' + +He had never loved his life so well as then, but nothing could move +him. The savage faces that glared upon him, look where he would; +the cries of those who thirsted, like wild animals, for his blood; +the sight of men pressing forward, and trampling down their +fellows, as they strove to reach him, and struck at him above the +heads of other men, with axes and with iron bars; all failed to +daunt him. He looked from man to man, and face to face, and still, +with quickened breath and lessening colour, cried firmly, 'I will +not!' + +Dennis dealt him a blow upon the face which felled him to the +ground. He sprung up again like a man in the prime of life, and +with blood upon his forehead, caught him by the throat. + +'You cowardly dog!' he said: 'Give me my daughter. Give me my +daughter.' + +They struggled together. Some cried 'Kill him,' and some (but they +were not near enough) strove to trample him to death. Tug as he +would at the old man's wrists, the hangman could not force him to +unclench his hands. + +'Is this all the return you make me, you ungrateful monster?' he +articulated with great difficulty, and with many oaths. + +'Give me my daughter!' cried the locksmith, who was now as fierce +as those who gathered round him: 'Give me my daughter!' + +He was down again, and up, and down once more, and buffeting with a +score of them, who bandied him from hand to hand, when one tall +fellow, fresh from a slaughter-house, whose dress and great thigh- +boots smoked hot with grease and blood, raised a pole-axe, and +swearing a horrible oath, aimed it at the old man's uncovered head. +At that instant, and in the very act, he fell himself, as if struck +by lightning, and over his body a one-armed man came darting to the +locksmith's side. Another man was with him, and both caught the +locksmith roughly in their grasp. + +'Leave him to us!' they cried to Hugh--struggling, as they spoke, +to force a passage backward through the crowd. 'Leave him to us. +Why do you waste your whole strength on such as he, when a couple +of men can finish him in as many minutes! You lose time. Remember +the prisoners! remember Barnaby!' + +The cry ran through the mob. Hammers began to rattle on the walls; +and every man strove to reach the prison, and be among the foremost +rank. Fighting their way through the press and struggle, as +desperately as if they were in the midst of enemies rather than +their own friends, the two men retreated with the locksmith between +them, and dragged him through the very heart of the concourse. + +And now the strokes began to fall like hail upon the gate, and on +the strong building; for those who could not reach the door, spent +their fierce rage on anything--even on the great blocks of stone, +which shivered their weapons into fragments, and made their hands +and arms to tingle as if the walls were active in their stout +resistance, and dealt them back their blows. The clash of iron +ringing upon iron, mingled with the deafening tumult and sounded +high above it, as the great sledge-hammers rattled on the nailed +and plated door: the sparks flew off in showers; men worked in +gangs, and at short intervals relieved each other, that all their +strength might be devoted to the work; but there stood the portal +still, as grim and dark and strong as ever, and, saving for the +dints upon its battered surface, quite unchanged. + +While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome +task; and some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried to +clamber to the summit of the walls they were too short to scale; +and some again engaged a body of police a hundred strong, and beat +them back and trod them under foot by force of numbers; others +besieged the house on which the jailer had appeared, and driving in +the door, brought out his furniture, and piled it up against the +prison-gate, to make a bonfire which should burn it down. As soon +as this device was understood, all those who had laboured hitherto, +cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap; which reached +half-way across the street, and was so high, that those who threw +more fuel on the top, got up by ladders. When all the keeper's +goods were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, they +smeared it with the pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, and +sprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round the +prison-doors they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam +untouched. This infernal christening performed, they fired the +pile with lighted matches and with blazing tow, and then stood by, +awaiting the result. + +The furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by wax +and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The +flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison-wall, and +twining up its loftly front like burning serpents. At first they +crowded round the blaze, and vented their exultation only in their +looks: but when it grew hotter and fiercer--when it crackled, +leaped, and roared, like a great furnace--when it shone upon the +opposite houses, and lighted up not only the pale and wondering +faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation-- +when through the deep red heat and glow, the fire was seen sporting +and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate surface, now +gliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring high into the sky, +anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its +ruin--when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock +of St Sepulchre's so often pointing to the hour of death, was +legible as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top +glittered in the unwonted light like something richly jewelled-- +when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep +reflection, and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting the +longest distance in the fiery vista with their specks of +brightness--when wall and tower, and roof and chimney-stack, seemed +drunk, and in the flickering glare appeared to reel and stagger-- +when scores of objects, never seen before, burst out upon the view, +and things the most familiar put on some new aspect--then the mob +began to join the whirl, and with loud yells, and shouts, and +clamour, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred themselves to +feed the fire, and keep it at its height. + +Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over +against the prison, parched and crackled up, and swelling into +boils, as it were from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away; +although the glass fell from the window-sashes, and the lead and +iron on the roofs blistered the incautious hand that touched them, +and the sparrows in the eaves took wing, and rendered giddy by the +smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile; still the fire +was tended unceasingly by busy hands, and round it, men were going +always. They never slackened in their zeal, or kept aloof, but +pressed upon the flames so hard, that those in front had much ado +to save themselves from being thrust in; if one man swooned or +dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that although they +knew the pain, and thirst, and pressure to be unendurable. Those +who fell down in fainting-fits, and were not crushed or burnt, +were carried to an inn-yard close at hand, and dashed with water +from a pump; of which buckets full were passed from man to man +among the crowd; but such was the strong desire of all to drink, +and such the fighting to be first, that, for the most part, the +whole contents were spilled upon the ground, without the lips of +one man being moistened. + +Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those who +were nearest to the pile, heaped up again the burning fragments +that came toppling down, and raked the fire about the door, which, +although a sheet of flame, was still a door fast locked and barred, +and kept them out. Great pieces of blazing wood were passed, +besides, above the people's heads to such as stood about the +ladders, and some of these, climbing up to the topmost stave, and +holding on with one hand by the prison wall, exerted all their +skill and force to cast these fire-brands on the roof, or down into +the yards within. In many instances their efforts were successful; +which occasioned a new and appalling addition to the horrors of the +scene: for the prisoners within, seeing from between their bars +that the fire caught in many places and thrived fiercely, and being +all locked up in strong cells for the night, began to know that +they were in danger of being burnt alive. This terrible fear, +spreading from cell to cell and from yard to yard, vented itself in +such dismal cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks for +help, that the whole jail resounded with the noise; which was +loudly heard even above the shouting of the mob and roaring of the +flames, and was so full of agony and despair, that it made the +boldest tremble. + +It was remarkable that these cries began in that quarter of the +jail which fronted Newgate Street, where, it was well known, the +men who were to suffer death on Thursday were confined. And not +only were these four who had so short a time to live, the first to +whom the dread of being burnt occurred, but they were, throughout, +the most importunate of all: for they could be plainly heard, +notwithstanding the great thickness of the walls, crying that the +wind set that way, and that the flames would shortly reach them; +and calling to the officers of the jail to come and quench the +fire from a cistern which was in their yard, and full of water. +Judging from what the crowd outside the walls could hear from time +to time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for help; +and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of +attachment to existence, as though each had an honoured, happy +life before him, instead of eight-and-forty hours of miserable +imprisonment, and then a violent and shameful death. + +But the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men, +when they heard, or fancied that they heard, their father's voice, +is past description. After wringing their hands and rushing to and +fro as if they were stark mad, one mounted on the shoulders of his +brother, and tried to clamber up the face of the high wall, guarded +at the top with spikes and points of iron. And when he fell among +the crowd, he was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted up +again, and fell again, and, when he found the feat impossible, +began to beat the stones and tear them with his hands, as if he +could that way make a breach in the strong building, and force a +passage in. At last, they cleft their way among the mob about the +door, though many men, a dozen times their match, had tried in vain +to do so, and were seen, in--yes, in--the fire, striving to prize +it down, with crowbars. + +Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison. +The women who were looking on, shrieked loudly, beat their hands +together, stopped their ears; and many fainted: the men who were +not near the walls and active in the siege, rather than do nothing, +tore up the pavement of the street, and did so with a haste and +fury they could not have surpassed if that had been the jail, and +they were near their object. Not one living creature in the throng +was for an instant still. The whole great mass were mad. + +A shout! Another! Another yet, though few knew why, or what it +meant. But those around the gate had seen it slowly yield, and +drop from its topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but +it was upright still, because of the bar, and its having sunk, of +its own weight, into the heap of ashes at its foot. There was now +a gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be descried a +gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire! + +It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and the gap wider. They +vainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing +as if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, +some crawling on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of +others, were seen to pass along the roof. It was plain the jail +could hold out no longer. The keeper, and his officers, and their +wives and children, were escaping. Pile up the fire! + +The door sank down again: it settled deeper in the cinders-- +tottered--yielded--was down! + +As they shouted again, they fell back, for a moment, and left a +clear space about the fire that lay between them and the jail +entry. Hugh leapt upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train of +sparks into the air, and making the dark lobby glitter with those +that hung upon his dress, dashed into the jail. + +The hangman followed. And then so many rushed upon their track, +that the fire got trodden down and thinly strewn about the street; +but there was no need of it now, for, inside and out, the prison +was in flames. + + + +Chapter 65 + + +During the whole course of the terrible scene which was now at its +height, one man in the jail suffered a degree of fear and mental +torment which had no parallel in the endurance, even of those who +lay under sentence of death. + +When the rioters first assembled before the building, the murderer +was roused from sleep--if such slumbers as his may have that +blessed name--by the roar of voices, and the struggling of a great +crowd. He started up as these sounds met his ear, and, sitting on +his bedstead, listened. + +After a short interval of silence the noise burst out again. Still +listening attentively, he made out, in course of time, that the +jail was besieged by a furious multitude. His guilty conscience +instantly arrayed these men against himself, and brought the fear +upon him that he would be singled out, and torn to pieces. + +Once impressed with the terror of this conceit, everything tended +to confirm and strengthen it. His double crime, the circumstances +under which it had been committed, the length of time that had +elapsed, and its discovery in spite of all, made him, as it were, +the visible object of the Almighty's wrath. In all the crime and +vice and moral gloom of the great pest-house of the capital, he +stood alone, marked and singled out by his great guilt, a Lucifer +among the devils. The other prisoners were a host, hiding and +sheltering each other--a crowd like that without the walls. He was +one man against the whole united concourse; a single, solitary, +lonely man, from whom the very captives in the jail fell off and +shrunk appalled. + +It might be that the intelligence of his capture having been +bruited abroad, they had come there purposely to drag him out and +kill him in the street; or it might be that they were the rioters, +and, in pursuance of an old design, had come to sack the prison. +But in either case he had no belief or hope that they would spare +him. Every shout they raised, and every sound they made, was a +blow upon his heart. As the attack went on, he grew more wild and +frantic in his terror: tried to pull away the bars that guarded the +chimney and prevented him from climbing up: called loudly on the +turnkeys to cluster round the cell and save him from the fury of +the rabble; or put him in some dungeon underground, no matter of +what depth, how dark it was, or loathsome, or beset with rats and +creeping things, so that it hid him and was hard to find. + +But no one came, or answered him. Fearful, even while he cried to +them, of attracting attention, he was silent. By and bye, he saw, +as he looked from his grated window, a strange glimmering on the +stone walls and pavement of the yard. It was feeble at first, and +came and went, as though some officers with torches were passing to +and fro upon the roof of the prison. Soon it reddened, and lighted +brands came whirling down, spattering the ground with fire, and +burning sullenly in corners. One rolled beneath a wooden bench, +and set it in a blaze; another caught a water-spout, and so went +climbing up the wall, leaving a long straight track of fire behind +it. After a time, a slow thick shower of burning fragments, from +some upper portion of the prison which was blazing nigh, began to +fall before his door. Remembering that it opened outwards, he knew +that every spark which fell upon the heap, and in the act lost its +bright life, and died an ugly speck of dust and rubbish, helped to +entomb him in a living grave. Still, though the jail resounded +with shrieks and cries for help,--though the fire bounded up as if +each separate flame had had a tiger's life, and roared as though, +in every one, there were a hungry voice--though the heat began to +grow intense, and the air suffocating, and the clamour without +increased, and the danger of his situation even from one merciless +element was every moment more extreme,--still he was afraid to +raise his voice again, lest the crowd should break in, and should, +of their own ears or from the information given them by the other +prisoners, get the clue to his place of confinement. Thus fearful +alike, of those within the prison and of those without; of noise +and silence; light and darkness; of being released, and being left +there to die; he was so tortured and tormented, that nothing man +has ever done to man in the horrible caprice of power and cruelty, +exceeds his self-inflicted punishment. + +Now, now, the door was down. Now they came rushing through the +jail, calling to each other in the vaulted passages; clashing the +iron gates dividing yard from yard; beating at the doors of cells +and wards; wrenching off bolts and locks and bars; tearing down the +door-posts to get men out; endeavouring to drag them by main force +through gaps and windows where a child could scarcely pass; +whooping and yelling without a moment's rest; and running through +the heat and flames as if they were cased in metal. By their legs, +their arms, the hair upon their heads, they dragged the prisoners +out. Some threw themselves upon the captives as they got towards +the door, and tried to file away their irons; some danced about +them with a frenzied joy, and rent their clothes, and were ready, +as it seemed, to tear them limb from limb. Now a party of a dozen +men came darting through the yard into which the murderer cast +fearful glances from his darkened window; dragging a prisoner along +the ground whose dress they had nearly torn from his body in their +mad eagerness to set him free, and who was bleeding and senseless +in their hands. Now a score of prisoners ran to and fro, who had +lost themselves in the intricacies of the prison, and were so +bewildered with the noise and glare that they knew not where to +turn or what to do, and still cried out for help, as loudly as +before. Anon some famished wretch whose theft had been a loaf of +bread, or scrap of butcher's meat, came skulking past, barefooted-- +going slowly away because that jail, his house, was burning; not +because he had any other, or had friends to meet, or old haunts to +revisit, or any liberty to gain, but liberty to starve and die. +And then a knot of highwaymen went trooping by, conducted by the +friends they had among the crowd, who muffled their fetters as they +went along, with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them +in coats and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles, and held it +to their lips, because of their handcuffs which there was no time +to remove. All this, and Heaven knows how much more, was done +amidst a noise, a hurry, and distraction, like nothing that we know +of, even in our dreams; which seemed for ever on the rise, and +never to decrease for the space of a single instant. + +He was still looking down from his window upon these things, when a +band of men with torches, ladders, axes, and many kinds of weapons, +poured into the yard, and hammering at his door, inquired if there +were any prisoner within. He left the window when he saw them +coming, and drew back into the remotest corner of the cell; but +although he returned them no answer, they had a fancy that some one +was inside, for they presently set ladders against it, and began to +tear away the bars at the casement; not only that, indeed, but with +pickaxes to hew down the very stones in the wall. + +As soon as they had made a breach at the window, large enough for +the admission of a man's head, one of them thrust in a torch and +looked all round the room. He followed this man's gaze until it +rested on himself, and heard him demand why he had not answered, +but made him no reply. + +In the general surprise and wonder, they were used to this; without +saying anything more, they enlarged the breach until it was large +enough to admit the body of a man, and then came dropping down upon +the floor, one after another, until the cell was full. They caught +him up among them, handed him to the window, and those who stood +upon the ladders passed him down upon the pavement of the yard. +Then the rest came out, one after another, and, bidding him fly, +and lose no time, or the way would be choked up, hurried away to +rescue others. + +It seemed not a minute's work from first to last. He staggered to +his feet, incredulous of what had happened, when the yard was +filled again, and a crowd rushed on, hurrying Barnaby among them. +In another minute--not so much: another minute! the same instant, +with no lapse or interval between!--he and his son were being +passed from hand to hand, through the dense crowd in the street, +and were glancing backward at a burning pile which some one said +was Newgate. + +From the moment of their first entrance into the prison, the crowd +dispersed themselves about it, and swarmed into every chink and +crevice, as if they had a perfect acquaintance with its innermost +parts, and bore in their minds an exact plan of the whole. For +this immediate knowledge of the place, they were, no doubt, in a +great degree, indebted to the hangman, who stood in the lobby, +directing some to go this way, some that, and some the other; and +who materially assisted in bringing about the wonderful rapidity +with which the release of the prisoners was effected. + +But this functionary of the law reserved one important piece of +intelligence, and kept it snugly to himself. When he had issued +his instructions relative to every other part of the building, and +the mob were dispersed from end to end, and busy at their work, he +took a bundle of keys from a kind of cupboard in the wall, and +going by a kind of passage near the chapel (it joined the governors +house, and was then on fire), betook himself to the condemned +cells, which were a series of small, strong, dismal rooms, opening +on a low gallery, guarded, at the end at which he entered, by a +strong iron wicket, and at its opposite extremity by two doors and +a thick grate. Having double locked the wicket, and assured +himself that the other entrances were well secured, he sat down on +a bench in the gallery, and sucked the head of his stick with the +utmost complacency, tranquillity, and contentment. + +It would have been strange enough, a man's enjoying himself in this +quiet manner, while the prison was burning, and such a tumult was +cleaving the air, though he had been outside the walls. But here, +in the very heart of the building, and moreover with the prayers +and cries of the four men under sentence sounding in his ears, and +their hands, stretched our through the gratings in their cell- +doors, clasped in frantic entreaty before his very eyes, it was +particularly remarkable. Indeed, Mr Dennis appeared to think it an +uncommon circumstance, and to banter himself upon it; for he thrust +his hat on one side as some men do when they are in a waggish +humour, sucked the head of his stick with a higher relish, and +smiled as though he would say, 'Dennis, you're a rum dog; you're a +queer fellow; you're capital company, Dennis, and quite a +character!' + +He sat in this way for some minutes, while the four men in the +cells, who were certain that somebody had entered the gallery, but +could not see who, gave vent to such piteous entreaties as wretches +in their miserable condition may be supposed to have been inspired +with: urging, whoever it was, to set them at liberty, for the love +of Heaven; and protesting, with great fervour, and truly enough, +perhaps, for the time, that if they escaped, they would amend their +ways, and would never, never, never again do wrong before God or +man, but would lead penitent and sober lives, and sorrowfully +repent the crimes they had committed. The terrible energy with +which they spoke, would have moved any person, no matter how good +or just (if any good or just person could have strayed into that +sad place that night), to have set them at liberty: and, while he +would have left any other punishment to its free course, to have +saved them from this last dreadful and repulsive penalty; which +never turned a man inclined to evil, and has hardened thousands who +were half inclined to good. + +Mr Dennis, who had been bred and nurtured in the good old school, +and had administered the good old laws on the good old plan, always +once and sometimes twice every six weeks, for a long time, bore +these appeals with a deal of philosophy. Being at last, however, +rather disturbed in his pleasant reflection by their repetition, he +rapped at one of the doors with his stick, and cried: + +'Hold your noise there, will you?' + +At this they all cried together that they were to be hanged on the +next day but one; and again implored his aid. + +'Aid! For what!' said Mr Dennis, playfully rapping the knuckles of +the hand nearest him. + +'To save us!' they cried. + +'Oh, certainly,' said Mr Dennis, winking at the wall in the absence +of any friend with whom he could humour the joke. 'And so you're +to be worked off, are you, brothers?' + +'Unless we are released to-night,' one of them cried, 'we are dead +men!' + +'I tell you what it is,' said the hangman, gravely; 'I'm afraid, my +friend, that you're not in that 'ere state of mind that's suitable +to your condition, then; you're not a-going to be released: don't +think it--Will you leave off that 'ere indecent row? I wonder you +an't ashamed of yourselves, I do.' + +He followed up this reproof by rapping every set of knuckles one +after the other, and having done so, resumed his seat again with a +cheerful countenance. + +'You've had law,' he said, crossing his legs and elevating his +eyebrows: 'laws have been made a' purpose for you; a wery handsome +prison's been made a' purpose for you; a parson's kept a purpose +for you; a constitootional officer's appointed a' purpose for you; +carts is maintained a' purpose for you--and yet you're not +contented!--WILL you hold that noise, you sir in the furthest?' + +A groan was the only answer. + +'So well as I can make out,' said Mr Dennis, in a tone of mingled +badinage and remonstrance, 'there's not a man among you. I begin +to think I'm on the opposite side, and among the ladies; though for +the matter of that, I've seen a many ladies face it out, in a +manner that did honour to the sex.--You in number two, don't grind +them teeth of yours. Worse manners,' said the hangman, rapping at +the door with his stick, 'I never see in this place afore. I'm +ashamed of you. You're a disgrace to the Bailey.' + +After pausing for a moment to hear if anything could be pleaded in +justification, Mr Dennis resumed in a sort of coaxing tone: + +'Now look'ee here, you four. I'm come here to take care of you, +and see that you an't burnt, instead of the other thing. It's no +use your making any noise, for you won't be found out by them as +has broken in, and you'll only be hoarse when you come to the +speeches,--which is a pity. What I say in respect to the speeches +always is, "Give it mouth." That's my maxim. Give it mouth. I've +heerd,' said the hangman, pulling off his hat to take his +handkerchief from the crown and wipe his face, and then putting it +on again a little more on one side than before, 'I've heerd a +eloquence on them boards--you know what boards I mean--and have +heerd a degree of mouth given to them speeches, that they was as +clear as a bell, and as good as a play. There's a pattern! And +always, when a thing of this natur's to come off, what I stand up +for, is, a proper frame of mind. Let's have a proper frame of +mind, and we can go through with it, creditable--pleasant-- +sociable. Whatever you do (and I address myself in particular, to +you in the furthest), never snivel. I'd sooner by half, though I +lose by it, see a man tear his clothes a' purpose to spile 'em +before they come to me, than find him snivelling. It's ten to one +a better frame of mind, every way!' + +While the hangman addressed them to this effect, in the tone and +with the air of a pastor in familiar conversation with his flock, +the noise had been in some degree subdued; for the rioters were +busy in conveying the prisoners to the Sessions House, which was +beyond the main walls of the prison, though connected with it, and +the crowd were busy too, in passing them from thence along the +street. But when he had got thus far in his discourse, the sound +of voices in the yard showed plainly that the mob had returned and +were coming that way; and directly afterwards a violent crashing at +the grate below, gave note of their attack upon the cells (as they +were called) at last. + +It was in vain the hangman ran from door to door, and covered the +grates, one after another, with his hat, in futile efforts to +stifle the cries of the four men within; it was in vain he dogged +their outstretched hands, and beat them with his stick, or menaced +them with new and lingering pains in the execution of his office; +the place resounded with their cries. These, together with the +feeling that they were now the last men in the jail, so worked upon +and stimulated the besiegers, that in an incredibly short space of +time they forced the strong grate down below, which was formed of +iron rods two inches square, drove in the two other doors, as if +they had been but deal partitions, and stood at the end of the +gallery with only a bar or two between them and the cells. + +'Halloa!' cried Hugh, who was the first to look into the dusky +passage: 'Dennis before us! Well done, old boy. Be quick, and +open here, for we shall be suffocated in the smoke, going out.' + +'Go out at once, then,' said Dennis. 'What do you want here?' + +'Want!' echoed Hugh. 'The four men.' + +'Four devils!' cried the hangman. 'Don't you know they're left for +death on Thursday? Don't you respect the law--the constitootion-- +nothing? Let the four men be.' + +'Is this a time for joking?' cried Hugh. 'Do you hear 'em? Pull +away these bars that have got fixed between the door and the +ground; and let us in.' + +'Brother,' said the hangman, in a low voice, as he stooped under +pretence of doing what Hugh desired, but only looked up in his +face, 'can't you leave these here four men to me, if I've the whim! +You do what you like, and have what you like of everything for your +share,--give me my share. I want these four men left alone, I tell +you!' + +'Pull the bars down, or stand out of the way,' was Hugh's reply. + +'You can turn the crowd if you like, you know that well enough, +brother,' said the hangman, slowly. 'What! You WILL come in, will +you?' + +'Yes.' + +'You won't let these men alone, and leave 'em to me? You've no +respect for nothing--haven't you?' said the hangman, retreating to +the door by which he had entered, and regarding his companion with +a scowl. 'You WILL come in, will you, brother!' + +'I tell you, yes. What the devil ails you? Where are you going?' + +'No matter where I'm going,' rejoined the hangman, looking in again +at the iron wicket, which he had nearly shut upon himself, and +held ajar. 'Remember where you're coming. That's all!' + +With that, he shook his likeness at Hugh, and giving him a grin, +compared with which his usual smile was amiable, disappeared, and +shut the door. + +Hugh paused no longer, but goaded alike by the cries of the +convicts, and by the impatience of the crowd, warned the man +immediately behind him--the way was only wide enough for one +abreast--to stand back, and wielded a sledge-hammer with such +strength, that after a few blows the iron bent and broke, and gave +them free admittance. + +It the two sons of one of these men, of whom mention has been made, +were furious in their zeal before, they had now the wrath and +vigour of lions. Calling to the man within each cell, to keep as +far back as he could, lest the axes crashing through the door +should wound him, a party went to work upon each one, to beat it in +by sheer strength, and force the bolts and staples from their hold. +But although these two lads had the weakest party, and the worst +armed, and did not begin until after the others, having stopped to +whisper to him through the grate, that door was the first open, and +that man was the first out. As they dragged him into the gallery +to knock off his irons, he fell down among them, a mere heap of +chains, and was carried out in that state on men's shoulders, with +no sign of life. + +The release of these four wretched creatures, and conveying them, +astounded and bewildered, into the streets so full of life--a +spectacle they had never thought to see again, until they emerged +from solitude and silence upon that last journey, when the air +should be heavy with the pent-up breath of thousands, and the +streets and houses should be built and roofed with human faces, not +with bricks and tiles and stones--was the crowning horror of the +scene. Their pale and haggard looks and hollow eyes; their +staggering feet, and hands stretched out as if to save themselves +from falling; their wandering and uncertain air; the way they +heaved and gasped for breath, as though in water, when they were +first plunged into the crowd; all marked them for the men. No need +to say 'this one was doomed to die;' for there were the words +broadly stamped and branded on his face. The crowd fell off, as if +they had been laid out for burial, and had risen in their shrouds; +and many were seen to shudder, as though they had been actually +dead men, when they chanced to touch or brush against their +garments. + +At the bidding of the mob, the houses were all illuminated that +night--lighted up from top to bottom as at a time of public gaiety +and joy. Many years afterwards, old people who lived in their +youth near this part of the city, remembered being in a great glare +of light, within doors and without, and as they looked, timid and +frightened children, from the windows, seeing a FACE go by. Though +the whole great crowd and all its other terrors had faded from +their recollection, this one object remained; alone, distinct, and +well remembered. Even in the unpractised minds of infants, one of +these doomed men darting past, and but an instant seen, was an +image of force enough to dim the whole concourse; to find itself an +all-absorbing place, and hold it ever after. + +When this last task had been achieved, the shouts and cries grew +fainter; the clank of fetters, which had resounded on all sides as +the prisoners escaped, was heard no more; all the noises of the +crowd subsided into a hoarse and sullen murmur as it passed into +the distance; and when the human tide had rolled away, a melancholy +heap of smoking ruins marked the spot where it had lately chafed +and roared. + + + +Chapter 66 + + +Although he had had no rest upon the previous night, and had +watched with little intermission for some weeks past, sleeping only +in the day by starts and snatches, Mr Haredale, from the dawn of +morning until sunset, sought his niece in every place where he +deemed it possible she could have taken refuge. All day long, +nothing, save a draught of water, passed his lips; though he +prosecuted his inquiries far and wide, and never so much as sat +down, once. + +In every quarter he could think of; at Chigwell and in London; at +the houses of the tradespeople with whom he dealt, and of the +friends he knew; he pursued his search. A prey to the most +harrowing anxieties and apprehensions, he went from magistrate to +magistrate, and finally to the Secretary of State. The only +comfort he received was from this minister, who assured him that +the Government, being now driven to the exercise of the extreme +prerogatives of the Crown, were determined to exert them; that a +proclamation would probably be out upon the morrow, giving to the +military, discretionary and unlimited power in the suppression of +the riots; that the sympathies of the King, the Administration, and +both Houses of Parliament, and indeed of all good men of every +religious persuasion, were strongly with the injured Catholics; and +that justice should be done them at any cost or hazard. He told +him, moreover, that other persons whose houses had been burnt, had +for a time lost sight of their children or their relatives, but +had, in every case, within his knowledge, succeeded in discovering +them; that his complaint should be remembered, and fully stated in +the instructions given to the officers in command, and to all the +inferior myrmidons of justice; and that everything that could be +done to help him, should be done, with a goodwill and in good +faith. + +Grateful for this consolation, feeble as it was in its reference to +the past, and little hope as it afforded him in connection with the +subject of distress which lay nearest to his heart; and really +thankful for the interest the minister expressed, and seemed to +feel, in his condition; Mr Haredale withdrew. He found himself, +with the night coming on, alone in the streets; and destitute of +any place in which to lay his head. + +He entered an hotel near Charing Cross, and ordered some +refreshment and a bed. He saw that his faint and worn appearance +attracted the attention of the landlord and his waiters; and +thinking that they might suppose him to be penniless, took out his +purse, and laid it on the table. It was not that, the landlord +said, in a faltering voice. If he were one of those who had +suffered by the rioters, he durst not give him entertainment. He +had a family of children, and had been twice warned to be careful +in receiving guests. He heartily prayed his forgiveness, but what +could he do? + +Nothing. No man felt that more sincerely than Mr Haredale. He +told the man as much, and left the house. + +Feeling that he might have anticipated this occurrence, after what +he had seen at Chigwell in the morning, where no man dared to touch +a spade, though he offered a large reward to all who would come and +dig among the ruins of his house, he walked along the Strand; too +proud to expose himself to another refusal, and of too generous a +spirit to involve in distress or ruin any honest tradesman who +might be weak enough to give him shelter. He wandered into one of +the streets by the side of the river, and was pacing in a +thoughtful manner up and down, thinking of things that had happened +long ago, when he heard a servant-man at an upper window call to +another on the opposite side of the street, that the mob were +setting fire to Newgate. + +To Newgate! where that man was! His failing strength returned, +his energies came back with tenfold vigour, on the instant. If it +were possible--if they should set the murderer free--was he, after +all he had undergone, to die with the suspicion of having slain his +own brother, dimly gathering about him-- + +He had no consciousness of going to the jail; but there he stood, +before it. There was the crowd wedged and pressed together in a +dense, dark, moving mass; and there were the flames soaring up into +the air. His head turned round and round, lights flashed before +his eyes, and he struggled hard with two men. + +'Nay, nay,' said one. 'Be more yourself, my good sir. We attract +attention here. Come away. What can you do among so many men?' + +'The gentleman's always for doing something,' said the other, +forcing him along as he spoke. 'I like him for that. I do like +him for that.' + +They had by this time got him into a court, hard by the prison. He +looked from one to the other, and as he tried to release himself, +felt that he tottered on his feet. He who had spoken first, was +the old gentleman whom he had seen at the Lord Mayor's. The other +was John Grueby, who had stood by him so manfully at Westminster. + +'What does this mean?' he asked them faintly. 'How came we +together?' + +'On the skirts of the crowd,' returned the distiller; 'but come +with us. Pray come with us. You seem to know my friend here?' + +'Surely,' said Mr Haredale, looking in a kind of stupor at John. + +'He'll tell you then,' returned the old gentleman, 'that I am a man +to be trusted. He's my servant. He was lately (as you know, I +have no doubt) in Lord George Gordon's service; but he left it, and +brought, in pure goodwill to me and others, who are marked by the +rioters, such intelligence as he had picked up, of their designs.' + +--'On one condition, please, sir,' said John, touching his hat. No +evidence against my lord--a misled man--a kind-hearted man, sir. +My lord never intended this.' + +'The condition will be observed, of course,' rejoined the old +distiller. 'It's a point of honour. But come with us, sir; pray +come with us.' + +John Grueby added no entreaties, but he adopted a different kind of +persuasion, by putting his arm through one of Mr Haredale's, while +his master took the other, and leading him away with all speed. + +Sensible, from a strange lightness in his head, and a difficulty in +fixing his thoughts on anything, even to the extent of bearing his +companions in his mind for a minute together without looking at +them, that his brain was affected by the agitation and suffering +through which he had passed, and to which he was still a prey, Mr +Haredale let them lead him where they would. As they went along, +he was conscious of having no command over what he said or thought, +and that he had a fear of going mad. + +The distiller lived, as he had told him when they first met, on +Holborn Hill, where he had great storehouses and drove a large +trade. They approached his house by a back entrance, lest they +should attract the notice of the crowd, and went into an upper +room which faced towards the street; the windows, however, in +common with those of every other room in the house, were boarded up +inside, in order that, out of doors, all might appear quite dark. + +They laid him on a sofa in this chamber, perfectly insensible; but +John immediately fetching a surgeon, who took from him a large +quantity of blood, he gradually came to himself. As he was, for +the time, too weak to walk, they had no difficulty in persuading +him to remain there all night, and got him to bed without loss of a +minute. That done, they gave him cordial and some toast, and +presently a pretty strong composing-draught, under the influence +of which he soon fell into a lethargy, and, for a time, forgot his +troubles. + +The vintner, who was a very hearty old fellow and a worthy man, had +no thoughts of going to bed himself, for he had received several +threatening warnings from the rioters, and had indeed gone out that +evening to try and gather from the conversation of the mob whether +his house was to be the next attacked. He sat all night in an +easy-chair in the same room--dozing a little now and then--and +received from time to time the reports of John Grueby and two or +three other trustworthy persons in his employ, who went out into +the streets as scouts; and for whose entertainment an ample +allowance of good cheer (which the old vintner, despite his +anxiety, now and then attacked himself) was set forth in an +adjoining chamber. + +These accounts were of a sufficiently alarming nature from the +first; but as the night wore on, they grew so much worse, and +involved such a fearful amount of riot and destruction, that in +comparison with these new tidings all the previous disturbances +sunk to nothing. + +The first intelligence that came, was of the taking of Newgate, and +the escape of all the prisoners, whose track, as they made up +Holborn and into the adjacent streets, was proclaimed to those +citizens who were shut up in their houses, by the rattling of +their chains, which formed a dismal concert, and was heard in every +direction, as though so many forges were at work. The flames too, +shone so brightly through the vintner's skylights, that the rooms +and staircases below were nearly as light as in broad day; while +the distant shouting of the mob seemed to shake the very walls and +ceilings. + +At length they were heard approaching the house, and some minutes +of terrible anxiety ensued. They came close up, and stopped before +it; but after giving three loud yells, went on. And although they +returned several times that night, creating new alarms each time, +they did nothing there; having their hands full. Shortly after +they had gone away for the first time, one of the scouts came +running in with the news that they had stopped before Lord +Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury Square. + +Soon afterwards there came another, and another, and then the first +returned again, and so, by little and little, their tale was this:-- +That the mob gathering round Lord Mansfield's house, had called on +those within to open the door, and receiving no reply (for Lord and +Lady Mansfield were at that moment escaping by the backway), forced +an entrance according to their usual custom. That they then began +to demolish the house with great fury, and setting fire to it in +several parts, involved in a common ruin the whole of the costly +furniture, the plate and jewels, a beautiful gallery of pictures, +the rarest collection of manuscripts ever possessed by any one +private person in the world, and worse than all, because nothing +could replace this loss, the great Law Library, on almost every +page of which were notes in the Judge's own hand, of inestimable +value,--being the results of the study and experience of his whole +life. That while they were howling and exulting round the fire, a +troop of soldiers, with a magistrate among them, came up, and being +too late (for the mischief was by that time done), began to +disperse the crowd. That the Riot Act being read, and the crowd +still resisting, the soldiers received orders to fire, and +levelling their muskets shot dead at the first discharge six men +and a woman, and wounded many persons; and loading again directly, +fired another volley, but over the people's heads it was supposed, +as none were seen to fall. That thereupon, and daunted by the +shrieks and tumult, the crowd began to disperse, and the soldiers +went away, leaving the killed and wounded on the ground: which they +had no sooner done than the rioters came back again, and taking up +the dead bodies, and the wounded people, formed into a rude +procession, having the bodies in the front. That in this order +they paraded off with a horrible merriment; fixing weapons in the +dead men's hands to make them look as if alive; and preceded by a +fellow ringing Lord Mansfield's dinner-bell with all his might. + +The scouts reported further, that this party meeting with some +others who had been at similar work elsewhere, they all united into +one, and drafting off a few men with the killed and wounded, +marched away to Lord Mansfield's country seat at Caen Wood, between +Hampstead and Highgate; bent upon destroying that house likewise, +and lighting up a great fire there, which from that height should +be seen all over London. But in this, they were disappointed, for +a party of horse having arrived before them, they retreated faster +than they went, and came straight back to town. + +There being now a great many parties in the streets, each went to +work according to its humour, and a dozen houses were quickly +blazing, including those of Sir John Fielding and two other +justices, and four in Holborn--one of the greatest thoroughfares in +London--which were all burning at the same time, and burned until +they went out of themselves, for the people cut the engine hose, +and would not suffer the firemen to play upon the flames. At one +house near Moorfields, they found in one of the rooms some canary +birds in cages, and these they cast into the fire alive. The poor +little creatures screamed, it was said, like infants, when they +were flung upon the blaze; and one man was so touched that he tried +in vain to save them, which roused the indignation of the crowd, +and nearly cost him his life. + +At this same house, one of the fellows who went through the rooms, +breaking the furniture and helping to destroy the building, found a +child's doll--a poor toy--which he exhibited at the window to the +mob below, as the image of some unholy saint which the late +occupants had worshipped. While he was doing this, another man +with an equally tender conscience (they had both been foremost in +throwing down the canary birds for roasting alive), took his seat +on the parapet of the house, and harangued the crowd from a +pamphlet circulated by the Association, relative to the true +principles of Christianity! Meanwhile the Lord Mayor, with his +hands in his pockets, looked on as an idle man might look at any +other show, and seemed mightily satisfied to have got a good place. + +Such were the accounts brought to the old vintner by his servants +as he sat at the side of Mr Haredale's bed, having been unable even +to doze, after the first part of the night; too much disturbed by +his own fears; by the cries of the mob, the light of the fires, and +the firing of the soldiers. Such, with the addition of the release +of all the prisoners in the New Jail at Clerkenwell, and as many +robberies of passengers in the streets, as the crowd had leisure to +indulge in, were the scenes of which Mr Haredale was happily +unconscious, and which were all enacted before midnight. + + + +Chapter 67 + + +When darkness broke away and morning began to dawn, the town wore a +strange aspect indeed. + +Sleep had hardly been thought of all night. The general alarm was +so apparent in the faces of the inhabitants, and its expression was +so aggravated by want of rest (few persons, with any property to +lose, having dared go to bed since Monday), that a stranger coming +into the streets would have supposed some mortal pest or plague to +have been raging. In place of the usual cheerfulness and animation +of morning, everything was dead and silent. The shops remained +closed, offices and warehouses were shut, the coach and chair +stands were deserted, no carts or waggons rumbled through the +slowly waking streets, the early cries were all hushed; a universal +gloom prevailed. Great numbers of people were out, even at +daybreak, but they flitted to and fro as though they shrank from +the sound of their own footsteps; the public ways were haunted +rather than frequented; and round the smoking ruins people stood +apart from one another and in silence, not venturing to condemn +the rioters, or to be supposed to do so, even in whispers. + +At the Lord President's in Piccadilly, at Lambeth Palace, at the +Lord Chancellor's in Great Ormond Street, in the Royal Exchange, +the Bank, the Guildhall, the Inns of Court, the Courts of Law, and +every chamber fronting the streets near Westminster Hall and the +Houses of Parliament, parties of soldiers were posted before +daylight. A body of Horse Guards paraded Palace Yard; an +encampment was formed in the Park, where fifteen hundred men and +five battalions of Militia were under arms; the Tower was +fortified, the drawbridges were raised, the cannon loaded and +pointed, and two regiments of artillery busied in strengthening the +fortress and preparing it for defence. A numerous detachment of +soldiers were stationed to keep guard at the New River Head, which +the people had threatened to attack, and where, it was said, they +meant to cut off the main-pipes, so that there might be no water +for the extinction of the flames. In the Poultry, and on Cornhill, +and at several other leading points, iron chains were drawn across +the street; parties of soldiers were distributed in some of the old +city churches while it was yet dark; and in several private houses +(among them, Lord Rockingham's in Grosvenor Square); which were +blockaded as though to sustain a siege, and had guns pointed from +the windows. When the sun rose, it shone into handsome apartments +filled with armed men; the furniture hastily heaped away in +corners, and made of little or no account, in the terror of the +time--on arms glittering in city chambers, among desks and stools, +and dusty books--into little smoky churchyards in odd lanes and by- +ways, with soldiers lying down among the tombs, or lounging under +the shade of the one old tree, and their pile of muskets sparkling +in the light--on solitary sentries pacing up and down in +courtyards, silent now, but yesterday resounding with the din and +hum of business--everywhere on guard-rooms, garrisons, and +threatening preparations. + +As the day crept on, still more unusual sights were witnessed in +the streets. The gates of the King's Bench and Fleet Prisons +being opened at the usual hour, were found to have notices affixed +to them, announcing that the rioters would come that night to burn +them down. The wardens, too well knowing the likelihood there was +of this promise being fulfilled, were fain to set their prisoners +at liberty, and give them leave to move their goods; so, all day, +such of them as had any furniture were occupied in conveying it, +some to this place, some to that, and not a few to the brokers' +shops, where they gladly sold it, for any wretched price those +gentry chose to give. There were some broken men among these +debtors who had been in jail so long, and were so miserable and +destitute of friends, so dead to the world, and utterly forgotten +and uncared for, that they implored their jailers not to set them +free, and to send them, if need were, to some other place of +custody. But they, refusing to comply, lest they should incur the +anger of the mob, turned them into the streets, where they wandered +up and down hardly remembering the ways untrodden by their feet so +long, and crying--such abject things those rotten-hearted jails had +made them--as they slunk off in their rags, and dragged their +slipshod feet along the pavement. + +Even of the three hundred prisoners who had escaped from Newgate, +there were some--a few, but there were some--who sought their +jailers out and delivered themselves up: preferring imprisonment +and punishment to the horrors of such another night as the last. +Many of the convicts, drawn back to their old place of captivity by +some indescribable attraction, or by a desire to exult over it in +its downfall and glut their revenge by seeing it in ashes, actually +went back in broad noon, and loitered about the cells. Fifty were +retaken at one time on this next day, within the prison walls; but +their fate did not deter others, for there they went in spite of +everything, and there they were taken in twos and threes, twice or +thrice a day, all through the week. Of the fifty just mentioned, +some were occupied in endeavouring to rekindle the fire; but in +general they seemed to have no object in view but to prowl and +lounge about the old place: being often found asleep in the ruins, +or sitting talking there, or even eating and drinking, as in a +choice retreat. + +Besides the notices on the gates of the Fleet and the King's Bench, +many similar announcements were left, before one o'clock at noon, +at the houses of private individuals; and further, the mob +proclaimed their intention of seizing on the Bank, the Mint, the +Arsenal at Woolwich, and the Royal Palaces. The notices were +seldom delivered by more than one man, who, if it were at a shop, +went in, and laid it, with a bloody threat perhaps, upon the +counter; or if it were at a private house, knocked at the door, and +thrust it in the servant's hand. Notwithstanding the presence of +the military in every quarter of the town, and the great force in +the Park, these messengers did their errands with impunity all +through the day. So did two boys who went down Holborn alone, +armed with bars taken from the railings of Lord Mansfield's house, +and demanded money for the rioters. So did a tall man on horseback +who made a collection for the same purpose in Fleet Street, and +refused to take anything but gold. + +A rumour had now got into circulation, too, which diffused a +greater dread all through London, even than these publicly +announced intentions of the rioters, though all men knew that if +they were successfully effected, there must ensue a national +bankruptcy and general ruin. It was said that they meant to throw +the gates of Bedlam open, and let all the madmen loose. This +suggested such dreadful images to the people's minds, and was +indeed an act so fraught with new and unimaginable horrors in the +contemplation, that it beset them more than any loss or cruelty of +which they could foresee the worst, and drove many sane men nearly +mad themselves. + +So the day passed on: the prisoners moving their goods; people +running to and fro in the streets, carrying away their property; +groups standing in silence round the ruins; all business suspended; +and the soldiers disposed as has been already mentioned, remaining +quite inactive. So the day passed on, and dreaded night drew near +again. + +At last, at seven o'clock in the evening, the Privy Council issued +a solemn proclamation that it was now necessary to employ the +military, and that the officers had most direct and effectual +orders, by an immediate exertion of their utmost force, to repress +the disturbances; and warning all good subjects of the King to keep +themselves, their servants, and apprentices, within doors that +night. There was then delivered out to every soldier on duty, +thirty-six rounds of powder and ball; the drums beat; and the whole +force was under arms at sunset. + +The City authorities, stimulated by these vigorous measures, held a +Common Council; passed a vote thanking the military associations +who had tendered their aid to the civil authorities; accepted it; +and placed them under the direction of the two sheriffs. At the +Queen's palace, a double guard, the yeomen on duty, the groom- +porters, and all other attendants, were stationed in the passages +and on the staircases at seven o'clock, with strict instructions to +be watchful on their posts all night; and all the doors were +locked. The gentlemen of the Temple, and the other Inns, mounted +guard within their gates, and strengthened them with the great +stones of the pavement, which they took up for the purpose. In +Lincoln's Inn, they gave up the hall and commons to the +Northumberland Militia, under the command of Lord Algernon Percy; +in some few of the city wards, the burgesses turned out, and +without making a very fierce show, looked brave enough. Some +hundreds of stout gentlemen threw themselves, armed to the teeth, +into the halls of the different companies, double-locked and bolted +all the gates, and dared the rioters (among themselves) to come on +at their peril. These arrangements being all made simultaneously, +or nearly so, were completed by the time it got dark; and then the +streets were comparatively clear, and were guarded at all the great +corners and chief avenues by the troops: while parties of the +officers rode up and down in all directions, ordering chance +stragglers home, and admonishing the residents to keep within their +houses, and, if any firing ensued, not to approach the windows. +More chains were drawn across such of the thoroughfares as were of +a nature to favour the approach of a great crowd, and at each of +these points a considerable force was stationed. All these +precautions having been taken, and it being now quite dark, those +in command awaited the result in some anxiety: and not without a +hope that such vigilant demonstrations might of themselves +dishearten the populace, and prevent any new outrages. + +But in this reckoning they were cruelly mistaken, for in half an +hour, or less, as though the setting in of night had been their +preconcerted signal, the rioters having previously, in small +parties, prevented the lighting of the street lamps, rose like a +great sea; and that in so many places at once, and with such +inconceivable fury, that those who had the direction of the troops +knew not, at first, where to turn or what to do. One after +another, new fires blazed up in every quarter of the town, as +though it were the intention of the insurgents to wrap the city in +a circle of flames, which, contracting by degrees, should burn the +whole to ashes; the crowd swarmed and roared in every street; and +none but rioters and soldiers being out of doors, it seemed to the +latter as if all London were arrayed against them, and they stood +alone against the town. + +In two hours, six-and-thirty fires were raging--six-and-thirty +great conflagrations: among them the Borough Clink in Tooley +Street, the King's Bench, the Fleet, and the New Bridewell. In +almost every street, there was a battle; and in every quarter the +muskets of the troops were heard above the shouts and tumult of the +mob. The firing began in the Poultry, where the chain was drawn +across the road, where nearly a score of people were killed on the +first discharge. Their bodies having been hastily carried into St +Mildred's Church by the soldiers, the latter fired again, and +following fast upon the crowd, who began to give way when they saw +the execution that was done, formed across Cheapside, and charged +them at the point of the bayonet. + +The streets were now a dreadful spectacle. The shouts of the +rabble, the shrieks of women, the cries of the wounded, and the +constant firing, formed a deafening and an awful accompaniment to +the sights which every corner presented. Wherever the road was +obstructed by the chains, there the fighting and the loss of life +were greatest; but there was hot work and bloodshed in almost every +leading thoroughfare. + +At Holborn Bridge, and on Holborn Hill, the confusion was greater +than in any other part; for the crowd that poured out of the city +in two great streams, one by Ludgate Hill, and one by Newgate +Street, united at that spot, and formed a mass so dense, that at +every volley the people seemed to fall in heaps. At this place a +large detachment of soldiery were posted, who fired, now up Fleet +Market, now up Holborn, now up Snow Hill--constantly raking the +streets in each direction. At this place too, several large fires +were burning, so that all the terrors of that terrible night seemed +to be concentrated in one spot. + +Full twenty times, the rioters, headed by one man who wielded an +axe in his right hand, and bestrode a brewer's horse of great size +and strength, caparisoned with fetters taken out of Newgate, which +clanked and jingled as he went, made an attempt to force a passage +at this point, and fire the vintner's house. Full twenty times +they were repulsed with loss of life, and still came back again; +and though the fellow at their head was marked and singled out by +all, and was a conspicuous object as the only rioter on horseback, +not a man could hit him. So surely as the smoke cleared away, so +surely there was he; calling hoarsely to his companions, +brandishing his axe above his head, and dashing on as though he +bore a charmed life, and was proof against ball and powder. + +This man was Hugh; and in every part of the riot, he was seen. He +headed two attacks upon the Bank, helped to break open the Toll- +houses on Blackfriars Bridge, and cast the money into the street: +fired two of the prisons with his own hand: was here, and there, +and everywhere--always foremost--always active--striking at the +soldiers, cheering on the crowd, making his horse's iron music +heard through all the yell and uproar: but never hurt or stopped. +Turn him at one place, and he made a new struggle in anotlter; +force him to retreat at this point, and he advanced on that, +directly. Driven from Holborn for the twentieth time, he rode at +the head of a great crowd straight upon Saint Paul's, attacked a +guard of soldiers who kept watch over a body of prisoners within +the iron railings, forced them to retreat, rescued the men they had +in custody, and with this accession to his party, came back again, +mad with liquor and excitement, and hallooing them on like a +demon. + +It would have been no easy task for the most careful rider to sit a +horse in the midst of such a throng and tumult; but though this +madman rolled upon his back (he had no saddle) like a boat upon the +sea, he never for an instant lost his seat, or failed to guide him +where he would. Through the very thickest of the press, over dead +bodies and burning fragments, now on the pavement, now in the road, +now riding up a flight of steps to make himself the more +conspicuous to his party, and now forcing a passage through a mass +of human beings, so closely squeezed together that it seemed as if +the edge of a knife would scarcely part them,--on he went, as +though he could surmount all obstacles by the mere exercise of his +will. And perhaps his not being shot was in some degree +attributable to this very circumstance; for his extreme audacity, +and the conviction that he must be one of those to whom the +proclamation referred, inspired the soldiers with a desire to take +him alive, and diverted many an aim which otherwise might have been +more near the mark. + +The vintner and Mr Haredale, unable to sit quietly listening to the +noise without seeing what went on, had climbed to the roof of the +house, and hiding behind a stack of chimneys, were looking +cautiously down into the street, almost hoping that after so many +repulses the rioters would be foiled, when a great shout proclaimed +that a parry were coming round the other way; and the dismal +jingling of those accursed fetters warned them next moment that +they too were led by Hugh. The soldiers had advanced into Fleet +Market and were dispersing the people there; so that they came on +with hardly any check, and were soon before the house. + +'All's over now,' said the vintner. 'Fifty thousand pounds will be +scattered in a minute. We must save ourselves. We can do no +more, and shall have reason to be thankful if we do as much.' + +Their first impulse was, to clamber along the roofs of the houses, +and, knocking at some garret window for admission, pass down that +way into the street, and so escape. But another fierce cry from +below, and a general upturning of the faces of the crowd, apprised +them that they were discovered, and even that Mr Haredale was +recognised; for Hugh, seeing him plainly in the bright glare of +the fire, which in that part made it as light as day, called to him +by his name, and swore to have his life. + +'Leave me here,' said Mr Haredale, 'and in Heaven's name, my good +friend, save yourself! Come on!' he muttered, as he turned towards +Hugh and faced him without any further effort at concealment: 'This +roof is high, and if we close, we will die together!' + +'Madness,' said the honest vintner, pulling him back, 'sheer +madness. Hear reason, sir. My good sir, hear reason. I could +never make myself heard by knocking at a window now; and even if I +could, no one would be bold enough to connive at my escape. +Through the cellars, there's a kind of passage into the back street +by which we roll casks in and out. We shall have time to get down +there before they can force an entry. Do not delay an instant, but +come with me--for both our sakes--for mine--my dear good sir!' + +As he spoke, and drew Mr Haredale back, they had both a glimpse of +the street. It was but a glimpse, but it showed them the crowd, +gathering and clustering round the house: some of the armed men +pressing to the front to break down the doors and windows, some +bringing brands from the nearest fire, some with lifted faces +following their course upon the roof and pointing them out to their +companions: all raging and roaring like the flames they lighted up. +They saw some men thirsting for the treasures of strong liquor +which they knew were stored within; they saw others, who had been +wounded, sinking down into the opposite doorways and dying, +solitary wretches, in the midst of all the vast assemblage; here a +frightened woman trying to escape; and there a lost child; and +there a drunken ruffian, unconscious of the death-wound on his +head, raving and fighting to the last. All these things, and even +such trivial incidents as a man with his hat off, or turning round, +or stooping down, or shaking hands with another, they marked +distinctly; yet in a glance so brief, that, in the act of stepping +back, they lost the whole, and saw but the pale faces of each +other, and the red sky above them. + +Mr Haredale yielded to the entreaties of his companion--more +because he was resolved to defend him, than for any thought he had +of his own life, or any care he entertained for his own safety--and +quickly re-entering the house, they descended the stairs together. +Loud blows were thundering on the shutters, crowbars were already +thrust beneath the door, the glass fell from the sashes, a deep +light shone through every crevice, and they heard the voices of the +foremost in the crowd so close to every chink and keyhole, that +they seemed to be hoarsely whispering their threats into their very +ears. They had but a moment reached the bottom of the cellar-steps +and shut the door behind them, when the mob broke in. + +The vaults were profoundly dark, and having no torch or candle--for +they had been afraid to carry one, lest it should betray their +place of refuge--they were obliged to grope with their hands. But +they were not long without light, for they had not gone far when +they heard the crowd forcing the door; and, looking back among the +low-arched passages, could see them in the distance, hurrying to +and fro with flashing links, broaching the casks, staving the great +vats, turning off upon the right hand and the left, into the +different cellars, and lying down to drink at the channels of +strong spirits which were already flowing on the ground. + +They hurried on, not the less quickly for this; and had reached the +only vault which lay between them and the passage out, when +suddenly, from the direction in which they were going, a strong +light gleamed upon their faces; and before they could slip aside, +or turn back, or hide themselves, two men (one bearing a torch) +came upon them, and cried in an astonished whisper, 'Here they +are!' + +At the same instant they pulled off what they wore upon their +heads. Mr Haredale saw before him Edward Chester, and then saw, +when the vintner gasped his name, Joe Willet. + +Ay, the same Joe, though with an arm the less, who used to make the +quarterly journey on the grey mare to pay the bill to the purple- +faced vintner; and that very same purple-faced vintner, formerly +of Thames Street, now looked him in the face, and challenged him by +name. + +'Give me your hand,' said Joe softly, taking it whether the +astonished vintner would or no. 'Don't fear to shake it; it's a +friendly one and a hearty one, though it has no fellow. Why, how +well you look and how bluff you are! And you--God bless you, sir. +Take heart, take heart. We'll find them. Be of good cheer; we +have not been idle.' + +There was something so honest and frank in Joe's speech, that Mr +Haredale put his hand in his involuntarily, though their meeting +was suspicious enough. But his glance at Edward Chester, and that +gentleman's keeping aloof, were not lost upon Joe, who said +bluntly, glancing at Edward while he spoke: + +'Times are changed, Mr Haredale, and times have come when we ought +to know friends from enemies, and make no confusion of names. Let +me tell you that but for this gentleman, you would most likely +have been dead by this time, or badly wounded at the best.' + +'What do you say?' cried Mr Haredale. + +'I say,' said Joe, 'first, that it was a bold thing to be in the +crowd at all disguised as one of them; though I won't say much +about that, on second thoughts, for that's my case too. Secondly, +that it was a brave and glorious action--that's what I call it--to +strike that fellow off his horse before their eyes!' + +'What fellow! Whose eyes!' + +'What fellow, sir!' cried Joe: 'a fellow who has no goodwill to +you, and who has the daring and devilry in him of twenty fellows. +I know him of old. Once in the house, HE would have found you, +here or anywhere. The rest owe you no particular grudge, and, +unless they see you, will only think of drinking themselves dead. +But we lose time. Are you ready?' + +'Quite,' said Edward. 'Put out the torch, Joe, and go on. And be +silent, there's a good fellow.' + +'Silent or not silent,' murmured Joe, as he dropped the flaring +link upon the ground, crushed it with his foot, and gave his hand +to Mr Haredale, 'it was a brave and glorious action;--no man can +alter that.' + +Both Mr Haredale and the worthy vintner were too amazed and too +much hurried to ask any further questions, so followed their +conductors in silence. It seemed, from a short whispering which +presently ensued between them and the vintner relative to the best +way of escape, that they had entered by the back-door, with the +connivance of John Grueby, who watched outside with the key in his +pocket, and whom they had taken into their confidence. A party of +the crowd coming up that way, just as they entered, John had +double-locked the door again, and made off for the soldiers, so +that means of retreat was cut off from under them. + +However, as the front-door had been forced, and this minor crowd, +being anxious to get at the liquor, had no fancy for losing time in +breaking down another, but had gone round and got in from Holborn +with the rest, the narrow lane in the rear was quite free of +people. So, when they had crawled through the passage indicated by +the vintner (which was a mere shelving-trap for the admission of +casks), and had managed with some difficulty to unchain and raise +the door at the upper end, they emerged into the street without +being observed or interrupted. Joe still holding Mr Haredale +tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner, they hurried +through the streets at a rapid pace; occasionally standing aside to +let some fugitives go by, or to keep out of the way of the soldiers +who followed them, and whose questions, when they halted to put +any, were speedily stopped by one whispered word from Joe. + + + +Chapter 68 + + +While Newgate was burning on the previous night, Barnaby and his +father, having been passed among the crowd from hand to hand, stood +in Smithfield, on the outskirts of the mob, gazing at the flames +like men who had been suddenly roused from sleep. Some moments +elapsed before they could distinctly remember where they were, or +how they got there; or recollected that while they were standing +idle and listless spectators of the fire, they had tools in their +hands which had been hurriedly given them that they might free +themselves from their fetters. + +Barnaby, heavily ironed as he was, if he had obeyed his first +impulse, or if he had been alone, would have made his way back to +the side of Hugh, who to his clouded intellect now shone forth with +the new lustre of being his preserver and truest friend. But his +father's terror of remaining in the streets, communicated itself to +him when he comprehended the full extent of his fears, and +impressed him with the same eagerness to fly to a place of safety. + +In a corner of the market among the pens for cattle, Barnaby knelt +down, and pausing every now and then to pass his hand over his +father's face, or look up to him with a smile, knocked off his +irons. When he had seen him spring, a free man, to his feet, and +had given vent to the transport of delight which the sight +awakened, he went to work upon his own, which soon fell rattling +down upon the ground, and left his limbs unfettered. + +Gliding away together when this task was accomplished, and passing +several groups of men, each gathered round a stooping figure to +hide him from those who passed, but unable to repress the clanking +sound of hammers, which told that they too were busy at the same +work,--the two fugitives made towards Clerkenwell, and passing +thence to Islington, as the nearest point of egress, were quickly +in the fields. After wandering about for a long time, they found +in a pasture near Finchley a poor shed, with walls of mud, and roof +of grass and brambles, built for some cowherd, but now deserted. +Here, they lay down for the rest of the night. + +They wandered to and fro when it was day, and once Barnaby went off +alone to a cluster of little cottages two or three miles away, to +purchase some bread and milk. But finding no better shelter, they +returned to the same place, and lay down again to wait for night. + +Heaven alone can tell, with what vague hopes of duty, and +affection; with what strange promptings of nature, intelligible to +him as to a man of radiant mind and most enlarged capacity; with +what dim memories of children he had played with when a child +himself, who had prattled of their fathers, and of loving them, and +being loved; with how many half-remembered, dreamy associations of +his mother's grief and tears and widowhood; he watched and tended +this man. But that a vague and shadowy crowd of such ideas came +slowly on him; that they taught him to be sorry when he looked upon +his haggard face, that they overflowed his eyes when he stooped to +kiss him, that they kept him waking in a tearful gladness, shading +him from the sun, fanning him with leaves, soothing him when he +started in his sleep--ah! what a troubled sleep it was--and +wondering when SHE would come to join them and be happy, is the +truth. He sat beside him all that day; listening for her footsteps +in every breath of air, looking for her shadow on the gently-waving +grass, twining the hedge flowers for her pleasure when she came, +and his when he awoke; and stooping down from time to time to +listen to his mutterings, and wonder why he was so restless in that +quiet place. The sun went down, and night came on, and he was +still quite tranquil; busied with these thoughts, as if there were +no other people in the world, and the dull cloud of smoke hanging +on the immense city in the distance, hid no vices, no crimes, no +life or death, or cause of disquiet--nothing but clear air. + +But the hour had now come when he must go alone to find out the +blind man (a task that filled him with delight) and bring him to +that place; taking especial care that he was not watched or +followed on his way back. He listened to the directions he must +observe, repeated them again and again, and after twice or thrice +returning to surprise his father with a light-hearted laugh, went +forth, at last, upon his errand: leaving Grip, whom he had carried +from the jail in his arms, to his care. + +Fleet of foot, and anxious to return, he sped swiftly on towards +the city, but could not reach it before the fires began, and made +the night angry with their dismal lustre. When he entered the +town--it might be that he was changed by going there without his +late companions, and on no violent errand; or by the beautiful +solitude in which he had passed the day, or by the thoughts that +had come upon him,--but it seemed peopled by a legion of devils. +This flight and pursuit, this cruel burning and destroying, these +dreadful cries and stunning noises, were THEY the good lord's noble +cause! + +Though almost stupefied by the bewildering scene, still be found +the blind man's house. It was shut up and tenantless. + +He waited for a long while, but no one came. At last he withdrew; +and as he knew by this time that the soldiers were firing, and many +people must have been killed, he went down into Holborn, where he +heard the great crowd was, to try if he could find Hugh, and +persuade him to avoid the danger, and return with him. + +If he had been stunned and shocked before, his horror was +increased a thousandfold when he got into this vortex of the riot, +and not being an actor in the terrible spectacle, had it all before +his eyes. But there, in the midst, towering above them all, close +before the house they were attacking now, was Hugh on horseback, +calling to the rest! + +Sickened by the sights surrounding him on every side, and by the +heat and roar, and crash, he forced his way among the crowd (where +many recognised him, and with shouts pressed back to let him pass), +and in time was nearly up with Hugh, who was savagely threatening +some one, but whom or what he said, he could not, in the great +confusion, understand. At that moment the crowd forced their way +into the house, and Hugh--it was impossible to see by what means, +in such a concourse--fell headlong down. + +Barnaby was beside him when he staggered to his feet. It was well +he made him hear his voice, or Hugh, with his uplifted axe, would +have cleft his skull in twain. + +'Barnaby--you! Whose hand was that, that struck me down?' + +'Not mine.' + +'Whose!--I say, whose!' he cried, reeling back, and looking wildly +round. 'What are you doing? Where is he? Show me!' + +'You are hurt,' said Barnaby--as indeed he was, in the head, both +by the blow he had received, and by his horse's hoof. 'Come away +with me.' + +As he spoke, he took the horse's bridle in his hand, turned him, +and dragged Hugh several paces. This brought them out of the +crowd, which was pouring from the street into the vintner's +cellars. + +'Where's--where's Dennis?' said Hugh, coming to a stop, and +checking Barnaby with his strong arm. 'Where has he been all day? +What did he mean by leaving me as he did, in the jail, last night? +Tell me, you--d'ye hear!' + +With a flourish of his dangerous weapon, he fell down upon the +ground like a log. After a minute, though already frantic with +drinking and with the wound in his head, he crawled to a stream of +burning spirit which was pouring down the kennel, and began to +drink at it as if it were a brook of water. + +Barnaby drew him away, and forced him to rise. Though he could +neither stand nor walk, he involuntarily staggered to his horse, +climbed upon his back, and clung there. After vainly attempting to +divest the animal of his clanking trappings, Barnaby sprung up +behind him, snatched the bridle, turned into Leather Lane, which +was close at hand, and urged the frightened horse into a heavy +trot. + +He looked back, once, before he left the street; and looked upon a +sight not easily to be erased, even from his remembrance, so long +as he had life. + +The vintner's house with a half-a-dozen others near at hand, was +one great, glowing blaze. All night, no one had essayed to quench +the flames, or stop their progress; but now a body of soldiers +were actively engaged in pulling down two old wooden houses, which +were every moment in danger of taking fire, and which could +scarcely fail, if they were left to burn, to extend the +conflagration immensely. The tumbling down of nodding walls and +heavy blocks of wood, the hooting and the execrations of the crowd, +the distant firing of other military detachments, the distracted +looks and cries of those whose habitations were in danger, the +hurrying to and fro of frightened people with their goods; the +reflections in every quarter of the sky, of deep, red, soaring +flames, as though the last day had come and the whole universe were +burning; the dust, and smoke, and drift of fiery particles, +scorching and kindling all it fell upon; the hot unwholesome +vapour, the blight on everything; the stars, and moon, and very +sky, obliterated;--made up such a sum of dreariness and ruin, that +it seemed as if the face of Heaven were blotted out, and night, in +its rest and quiet, and softened light, never could look upon the +earth again. + +But there was a worse spectacle than this--worse by far than fire +and smoke, or even the rabble's unappeasable and maniac rage. The +gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, +ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, +overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into +which the people dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps +all round this fearful pond, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, +mothers and daughters, women with children in their arms and babies +at their breasts, and drank until they died. While some stooped +with their lips to the brink and never raised their heads again, +others sprang up from their fiery draught, and danced, half in a +mad triumph, and half in the agony of suffocation, until they fell, +and steeped their corpses in the liquor that had killed them. Nor +was even this the worst or most appalling kind of death that +happened on this fatal night. From the burning cellars, where they +drank out of hats, pails, buckets, tubs, and shoes, some men were +drawn, alive, but all alight from head to foot; who, in their +unendurable anguish and suffering, making for anything that had the +look of water, rolled, hissing, in this hideous lake, and splashed +up liquid fire which lapped in all it met with as it ran along the +surface, and neither spared the living nor the dead. On this last +night of the great riots--for the last night it was--the wretched +victims of a senseless outcry, became themselves the dust and ashes +of the flames they had kindled, and strewed the public streets of +London. + +With all he saw in this last glance fixed indelibly upon his mind, +Barnaby hurried from the city which enclosed such horrors; and +holding down his head that he might not even see the glare of the +fires upon the quiet landscape, was soon in the still country +roads. + +He stopped at about half-a-mile from the shed where his father +lay, and with some difficulty making Hugh sensible that he must +dismount, sunk the horse's furniture in a pool of stagnant water, +and turned the animal loose. That done, he supported his companion +as well as he could, and led him slowly forward. + + + +Chapter 69 + + +It was the dead of night, and very dark, when Barnaby, with his +stumbling comrade, approached the place where he had left his +father; but he could see him stealing away into the gloom, +distrustful even of him, and rapidly retreating. After calling to +him twice or thrice that there was nothing to fear, but without +effect, he suffered Hugh to sink upon the ground, and followed to +bring him back. + +He continued to creep away, until Barnaby was close upon him; then +turned, and said in a terrible, though suppressed voice: + +'Let me go. Do not lay hands upon me. You have told her; and you +and she together have betrayed me!' + +Barnaby looked at him, in silence. + +'You have seen your mother!' + +'No,' cried Barnaby, eagerly. 'Not for a long time--longer than I +can tell. A whole year, I think. Is she here?' + +His father looked upon him steadfastly for a few moments, and then +said--drawing nearer to him as he spoke, for, seeing his face, and +hearing his words, it was impossible to doubt his truth: + +'What man is that?' + +'Hugh--Hugh. Only Hugh. You know him. HE will not harm you. +Why, you're afraid of Hugh! Ha ha ha! Afraid of gruff, old, noisy +Hugh!' + +'What man is he, I ask you,' he rejoined so fiercely, that Barnaby +stopped in his laugh, and shrinking back, surveyed him with a look +of terrified amazement. + +'Why, how stern you are! You make me fear you, though you are my +father. Why do you speak to me so?' + +--'I want,' he answered, putting away the hand which his son, with +a timid desire to propitiate him, laid upon his sleeve,--'I want an +answer, and you give me only jeers and questions. Who have you +brought with you to this hiding-place, poor fool; and where is the +blind man?' + +'I don't know where. His house was close shut. I waited, but no +person came; that was no fault of mine. This is Hugh--brave Hugh, +who broke into that ugly jail, and set us free. Aha! You like him +now, do you? You like him now!' + +'Why does he lie upon the ground?' + +'He has had a fall, and has been drinking. The fields and trees go +round, and round, and round with him, and the ground heaves under +his feet. You know him? You remember? See!' + +They had by this time returned to where he lay, and both stooped +over him to look into his face. + +'I recollect the man,' his father murmured. 'Why did you bring him +here?' + +'Because he would have been killed if I had left him over yonder. +They were firing guns and shedding blood. Does the sight of blood +turn you sick, father? I see it does, by your face. That's like +me--What are you looking at?' + +'At nothing!' said the murderer softly, as he started back a pace +or two, and gazed with sunken jaw and staring eyes above his son's +head. 'At nothing!' + +He remained in the same attitude and with the same expression on +his face for a minute or more; then glanced slowly round as if he +had lost something; and went shivering back, towards the shed. + +'Shall I bring him in, father?' asked Barnaby, who had looked on, +wondering. + +He only answered with a suppressed groan, and lying down upon the +ground, wrapped his cloak about his head, and shrunk into the +darkest corner. + +Finding that nothing would rouse Hugh now, or make him sensible for +a moment, Barnaby dragged him along the grass, and laid him on a +little heap of refuse hay and straw which had been his own bed; +first having brought some water from a running stream hard by, and +washed his wound, and laved his hands and face. Then he lay down +himself, between the two, to pass the night; and looking at the +stars, fell fast asleep. + +Awakened early in the morning, by the sunshine and the songs of +birds, and hum of insects, he left them sleeping in the hut, and +walked into the sweet and pleasant air. But he felt that on his +jaded senses, oppressed and burdened with the dreadful scenes of +last night, and many nights before, all the beauties of opening +day, which he had so often tasted, and in which he had had such +deep delight, fell heavily. He thought of the blithe mornings when +he and the dogs went bounding on together through the woods and +fields; and the recollection filled his eyes with tears. He had no +consciousness, God help him, of having done wrong, nor had he any +new perception of the merits of the cause in which he had been +engaged, or those of the men who advocated it; but he was full of +cares now, and regrets, and dismal recollections, and wishes (quite +unknown to him before) that this or that event had never happened, +and that the sorrow and suffering of so many people had been +spared. And now he began to think how happy they would be--his +father, mother, he, and Hugh--if they rambled away together, and +lived in some lonely place, where there were none of these +troubles; and that perhaps the blind man, who had talked so wisely +about gold, and told him of the great secrets he knew, could teach +them how to live without being pinched by want. As this occurred +to him, he was the more sorry that he had not seen him last night; +and he was still brooding over this regret, when his father came, +and touched him on the shoulder. + +'Ah!' cried Barnaby, starting from his fit of thoughtfulness. 'Is +it only you?' + +'Who should it be?' + +'I almost thought,' he answered, 'it was the blind man. I must +have some talk with him, father.' + +'And so must I, for without seeing him, I don't know where to fly +or what to do, and lingering here, is death. You must go to him +again, and bring him here.' + +'Must I!' cried Barnaby, delighted; 'that's brave, father. That's +what I want to do.' + +'But you must bring only him, and none other. And though you wait +at his door a whole day and night, still you must wait, and not +come back without him.' + +'Don't you fear that,' he cried gaily. 'He shall come, he shall +come.' + +'Trim off these gewgaws,' said his father, plucking the scraps of +ribbon and the feathers from his hat, 'and over your own dress wear +my cloak. Take heed how you go, and they will be too busy in the +streets to notice you. Of your coming back you need take no +account, for he'll manage that, safely.' + +'To be sure!' said Barnaby. 'To be sure he will! A wise man, +father, and one who can teach us to be rich. Oh! I know him, I +know him.' + +He was speedily dressed, and as well disguised as he could be. +With a lighter heart he then set off upon his second journey, +leaving Hugh, who was still in a drunken stupor, stretched upon the +ground within the shed, and his father walking to and fro before it. + +The murderer, full of anxious thoughts, looked after him, and paced +up and down, disquieted by every breath of air that whispered among +the boughs, and by every light shadow thrown by the passing clouds +upon the daisied ground. He was anxious for his safe return, and +yet, though his own life and safety hung upon it, felt a relief +while he was gone. In the intense selfishness which the constant +presence before him of his great crimes, and their consequences +here and hereafter, engendered, every thought of Barnaby, as his +son, was swallowed up and lost. Still, his presence was a torture +and reproach; in his wild eyes, there were terrible images of that +guilty night; with his unearthly aspect, and his half-formed mind, +he seemed to the murderer a creature who had sprung into existence +from his victim's blood. He could not bear his look, his voice, +his touch; and yet he was forced, by his own desperate condition +and his only hope of cheating the gibbet, to have him by his side, +and to know that he was inseparable from his single chance of escape. + +He walked to and fro, with little rest, all day, revolving these +things in his mind; and still Hugh lay, unconscious, in the shed. +At length, when the sun was setting, Barnaby returned, leading the +blind man, and talking earnestly to him as they came along together. + +The murderer advanced to meet them, and bidding his son go on and +speak to Hugh, who had just then staggered to his feet, took his +place at the blind man's elbow, and slowly followed, towards the +shed. + +'Why did you send HIM?' said Stagg. 'Don't you know it was the way +to have him lost, as soon as found?' + +'Would you have had me come myself?' returned the other. + +'Humph! Perhaps not. I was before the jail on Tuesday night, but +missed you in the crowd. I was out last night, too. There was +good work last night--gay work--profitable work'--he added, +rattling the money in his pockets. + +'Have you--' + +--'Seen your good lady? Yes.' + +'Do you mean to tell me more, or not?' + +'I'll tell you all,' returned the blind man, with a laugh. 'Excuse +me--but I love to see you so impatient. There's energy in it.' + +'Does she consent to say the word that may save me?' + +'No,' returned the blind man emphatically, as he turned his face +towards him. 'No. Thus it is. She has been at death's door since +she lost her darling--has been insensible, and I know not what. I +tracked her to a hospital, and presented myself (with your leave) +at her bedside. Our talk was not a long one, for she was weak, and +there being people near I was not quite easy. But I told her all +that you and I agreed upon, and pointed out the young gentleman's +position, in strong terms. She tried to soften me, but that, of +course (as I told her), was lost time. She cried and moaned, you +may be sure; all women do. Then, of a sudden, she found her voice +and strength, and said that Heaven would help her and her innocent +son; and that to Heaven she appealed against us--which she did; in +really very pretty language, I assure you. I advised her, as a +friend, not to count too much on assistance from any such distant +quarter--recommended her to think of it--told her where I lived-- +said I knew she would send to me before noon, next day--and left +her, either in a faint or shamming.' + +When he had concluded this narration, during which he had made +several pauses, for the convenience of cracking and eating nuts, of +which he seemed to have a pocketful, the blind man pulled a flask +from his pocket, took a draught himself, and offered it to his +companion. + +'You won't, won't you?' he said, feeling that he pushed it from +him. 'Well! Then the gallant gentleman who's lodging with you, +will. Hallo, bully!' + +'Death!' said the other, holding him back. 'Will you tell me what +I am to do!' + +'Do! Nothing easier. Make a moonlight flitting in two hours' time +with the young gentleman (he's quite ready to go; I have been +giving him good advice as we came along), and get as far from +London as you can. Let me know where you are, and leave the rest +to me. She MUST come round; she can't hold out long; and as to the +chances of your being retaken in the meanwhile, why it wasn't one +man who got out of Newgate, but three hundred. Think of that, for +your comfort.' + +'We must support life. How?' + +'How!' repeated the blind man. 'By eating and drinking. And how +get meat and drink, but by paying for it! Money!' he cried, +slapping his pocket. 'Is money the word? Why, the streets have +been running money. Devil send that the sport's not over yet, for +these are jolly times; golden, rare, roaring, scrambling times. +Hallo, bully! Hallo! Hallo! Drink, bully, drink. Where are ye +there! Hallo!' + +With such vociferations, and with a boisterous manner which bespoke +his perfect abandonment to the general licence and disorder, he +groped his way towards the shed, where Hugh and Barnaby were +sitting on the ground. + +'Put it about!' he cried, handing his flask to Hugh. 'The kennels +run with wine and gold. Guineas and strong water flow from the +very pumps. About with it, don't spare it!' + +Exhausted, unwashed, unshorn, begrimed with smoke and dust, his +hair clotted with blood, his voice quite gone, so that he spoke in +whispers; his skin parched up by fever, his whole body bruised and +cut, and beaten about, Hugh still took the flask, and raised it to +his lips. He was in the act of drinking, when the front of the +shed was suddenly darkened, and Dennis stood before them. + +'No offence, no offence,' said that personage in a conciliatory +tone, as Hugh stopped in his draught, and eyed him, with no +pleasant look, from head to foot. 'No offence, brother. Barnaby +here too, eh? How are you, Barnaby? And two other gentlemen! +Your humble servant, gentlemen. No offence to YOU either, I hope. +Eh, brothers?' + +Notwithstanding that he spoke in this very friendly and confident +manner, he seemed to have considerable hesitation about entering, +and remained outside the roof. He was rather better dressed than +usual: wearing the same suit of threadbare black, it is true, but +having round his neck an unwholesome-looking cravat of a yellowish +white; and, on his hands, great leather gloves, such as a gardener +might wear in following his trade. His shoes were newly greased, +and ornamented with a pair of rusty iron buckles; the packthread at +his knees had been renewed; and where he wanted buttons, he wore +pins. Altogether, he had something the look of a tipstaff, or a +bailiff's follower, desperately faded, but who had a notion of +keeping up the appearance of a professional character, and making +the best of the worst means. + +'You're very snug here,' said Mr Dennis, pulling out a mouldy +pocket-handkerchief, which looked like a decomposed halter, and +wiping his forehead in a nervous manner. + +'Not snug enough to prevent your finding us, it seems,' Hugh +answered, sulkily. + +'Why I'll tell you what, brother,' said Dennis, with a friendly +smile, 'when you don't want me to know which way you're riding, you +must wear another sort of bells on your horse. Ah! I know the +sound of them you wore last night, and have got quick ears for 'em; +that's the truth. Well, but how are you, brother?' + +He had by this time approached, and now ventured to sit down by him. + +'How am I?' answered Hugh. 'Where were you yesterday? Where did +you go when you left me in the jail? Why did you leave me? And +what did you mean by rolling your eyes and shaking your fist at me, +eh?' + +'I shake my fist!--at you, brother!' said Dennis, gently checking +Hugh's uplifted hand, which looked threatening. + +'Your stick, then; it's all one.' + +'Lord love you, brother, I meant nothing. You don't understand me +by half. I shouldn't wonder now,' he added, in the tone of a +desponding and an injured man, 'but you thought, because I wanted +them chaps left in the prison, that I was a going to desert the +banners?' + +Hugh told him, with an oath, that he had thought so. + +'Well!' said Mr Dennis, mournfully, 'if you an't enough to make a +man mistrust his feller-creeturs, I don't know what is. Desert the +banners! Me! Ned Dennis, as was so christened by his own +father!--Is this axe your'n, brother?' + +Yes, it's mine,' said Hugh, in the same sullen manner as before; +'it might have hurt you, if you had come in its way once or twice +last night. Put it down.' + +'Might have hurt me!' said Mr Dennis, still keeping it in his hand, +and feeling the edge with an air of abstraction. 'Might have hurt +me! and me exerting myself all the time to the wery best advantage. +Here's a world! And you're not a-going to ask me to take a sup out +of that 'ere bottle, eh?' + +Hugh passed it towards him. As he raised it to his lips, Barnaby +jumped up, and motioning them to be silent, looked eagerly out. + +'What's the matter, Barnaby?' said Dennis, glancing at Hugh and +dropping the flask, but still holding the axe in his hand. + +'Hush!' he answered softly. 'What do I see glittering behind the +hedge?' + +'What!' cried the hangman, raising his voice to its highest pitch, +and laying hold of him and Hugh. 'Not SOLDIERS, surely!' + +That moment, the shed was filled with armed men; and a body of +horse, galloping into the field, drew up before it. + +'There!' said Dennis, who remained untouched among them when they +had seized their prisoners; 'it's them two young ones, gentlemen, +that the proclamation puts a price on. This other's an escaped +felon.--I'm sorry for it, brother,' he added, in a tone of +resignation, addressing himself to Hugh; 'but you've brought it on +yourself; you forced me to do it; you wouldn't respect the +soundest constitootional principles, you know; you went and +wiolated the wery framework of society. I had sooner have given +away a trifle in charity than done this, I would upon my soul.--If +you'll keep fast hold on 'em, gentlemen, I think I can make a shift +to tie 'em better than you can.' + +But this operation was postponed for a few moments by a new +occurrence. The blind man, whose ears were quicker than most +people's sight, had been alarmed, before Barnaby, by a rustling in +the bushes, under cover of which the soldiers had advanced. He +retreated instantly--had hidden somewhere for a minute--and +probably in his confusion mistaking the point at which he had +emerged, was now seen running across the open meadow. + +An officer cried directly that he had helped to plunder a house +last night. He was loudly called on, to surrender. He ran the +harder, and in a few seconds would have been out of gunshot. The +word was given, and the men fired. + +There was a breathless pause and a profound silence, during which +all eyes were fixed upon him. He had been seen to start at the +discharge, as if the report had frightened him. But he neither +stopped nor slackened his pace in the least, and ran on full forty +yards further. Then, without one reel or stagger, or sign of +faintness, or quivering of any limb, he dropped. + +Some of them hurried up to where he lay;--the hangman with them. +Everything had passed so quickly, that the smoke had not yet +scattered, but curled slowly off in a little cloud, which seemed +like the dead man's spirit moving solemnly away. There were a few +drops of blood upon the grass--more, when they turned him over-- +that was all. + +'Look here! Look here!' said the hangman, stooping one knee beside +the body, and gazing up with a disconsolate face at the officer and +men. 'Here's a pretty sight!' + +'Stand out of the way,' replied the officer. 'Serjeant! see what +he had about him.' + +The man turned his pockets out upon the grass, and counted, besides +some foreign coins and two rings, five-and-forty guineas in gold. +These were bundled up in a handkerchief and carried away; the body +remained there for the present, but six men and the serjeant were +left to take it to the nearest public-house. + +'Now then, if you're going,' said the serjeant, clapping Dennis on +the back, and pointing after the officer who was walking towards +the shed. + +To which Mr Dennis only replied, 'Don't talk to me!' and then +repeated what he had said before, namely, 'Here's a pretty sight!' + +'It's not one that you care for much, I should think,' observed the +serjeant coolly. + +'Why, who,' said Mr Dennis rising, 'should care for it, if I +don't?' + +'Oh! I didn't know you was so tender-hearted,' said the serjeant. +'That's all!' + +'Tender-hearted!' echoed Dennis. 'Tender-hearted! Look at this +man. Do you call THIS constitootional? Do you see him shot +through and through instead of being worked off like a Briton? +Damme, if I know which party to side with. You're as bad as the +other. What's to become of the country if the military power's to +go a superseding the ciwilians in this way? Where's this poor +feller-creetur's rights as a citizen, that he didn't have ME in +his last moments! I was here. I was willing. I was ready. These +are nice times, brother, to have the dead crying out against us in +this way, and sleep comfortably in our beds arterwards; wery +nice!' + +Whether he derived any material consolation from binding the +prisoners, is uncertain; most probably he did. At all events his +being summoned to that work, diverted him, for the time, from these +painful reflections, and gave his thoughts a more congenial +occupation. + +They were not all three carried off together, but in two parties; +Barnaby and his father, going by one road in the centre of a body +of foot; and Hugh, fast bound upon a horse, and strongly guarded by +a troop of cavalry, being taken by another. + +They had no opportunity for the least communication, in the short +interval which preceded their departure; being kept strictly apart. +Hugh only observed that Barnaby walked with a drooping head among +his guard, and, without raising his eyes, that he tried to wave +his fettered hand when he passed. For himself, he buoyed up his +courage as he rode along, with the assurance that the mob would +force his jail wherever it might be, and set him at liberty. But +when they got into London, and more especially into Fleet Market, +lately the stronghold of the rioters, where the military were +rooting out the last remnant of the crowd, he saw that this hope +was gone, and felt that he was riding to his death. + + + +Chapter 70 + + +Mr Dennis having despatched this piece of business without any +personal hurt or inconvenience, and having now retired into the +tranquil respectability of private life, resolved to solace himself +with half an hour or so of female society. With this amiable +purpose in his mind, he bent his steps towards the house where +Dolly and Miss Haredale were still confined, and whither Miss Miggs +had also been removed by order of Mr Simon Tappertit. + +As he walked along the streets with his leather gloves clasped +behind him, and his face indicative of cheerful thought and +pleasant calculation, Mr Dennis might have been likened unto a +farmer ruminating among his crops, and enjoying by anticipation the +bountiful gifts of Providence. Look where he would, some heap of +ruins afforded him rich promise of a working off; the whole town +appeared to have been ploughed and sown, and nurtured by most +genial weather; and a goodly harvest was at hand. + +Having taken up arms and resorted to deeds of violence, with the +great main object of preserving the Old Bailey in all its purity, +and the gallows in all its pristine usefulness and moral grandeur, +it would perhaps be going too far to assert that Mr Dennis had ever +distinctly contemplated and foreseen this happy state of things. +He rather looked upon it as one of those beautiful dispensations +which are inscrutably brought about for the behoof and advantage of +good men. He felt, as it were, personally referred to, in this +prosperous ripening for the gibbet; and had never considered +himself so much the pet and favourite child of Destiny, or loved +that lady so well or with such a calm and virtuous reliance, in +all his life. + +As to being taken up, himself, for a rioter, and punished with the +rest, Mr Dennis dismissed that possibility from his thoughts as an +idle chimera; arguing that the line of conduct he had adopted at +Newgate, and the service he had rendered that day, would be more +than a set-off against any evidence which might identify him as a +member of the crowd. That any charge of companionship which might +be made against him by those who were themselves in danger, would +certainly go for nought. And that if any trivial indiscretion on +his part should unluckily come out, the uncommon usefulness of his +office, at present, and the great demand for the exercise of its +functions, would certainly cause it to be winked at, and passed +over. In a word, he had played his cards throughout, with great +care; had changed sides at the very nick of time; had delivered up +two of the most notorious rioters, and a distinguished felon to +boot; and was quite at his ease. + +Saving--for there is a reservation; and even Mr Dennis was not +perfectly happy--saving for one circumstance; to wit, the forcible +detention of Dolly and Miss Haredale, in a house almost adjoining +his own. This was a stumbling-block; for if they were discovered +and released, they could, by the testimony they had it in their +power to give, place him in a situation of great jeopardy; and to +set them at liberty, first extorting from them an oath of secrecy +and silence, was a thing not to be thought of. It was more, +perhaps, with an eye to the danger which lurked in this quarter, +than from his abstract love of conversation with the sex, that the +hangman, quickening his steps, now hastened into their society, +cursing the amorous natures of Hugh and Mr Tappertit with great +heartiness, at every step he took. + +When be entered the miserable room in which they were confined, +Dolly and Miss Haredale withdrew in silence to the remotest corner. +But Miss Miggs, who was particularly tender of her reputation, +immediately fell upon her knees and began to scream very loud, +crying, 'What will become of me!'--'Where is my Simmuns!'--'Have +mercy, good gentlemen, on my sex's weaknesses!'--with other doleful +lamentations of that nature, which she delivered with great +propriety and decorum. + +'Miss, miss,' whispered Dennis, beckoning to her with his +forefinger, 'come here--I won't hurt you. Come here, my lamb, will +you?' + +On hearing this tender epithet, Miss Miggs, who had left off +screaming when he opened his lips, and had listened to him +attentively, began again, crying: 'Oh I'm his lamb! He says I'm +his lamb! Oh gracious, why wasn't I born old and ugly! Why was I +ever made to be the youngest of six, and all of 'em dead and in +their blessed graves, excepting one married sister, which is +settled in Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, second bell- +handle on the--!' + +'Don't I say I an't a-going to hurt you?' said Dennis, pointing to +a chair. 'Why miss, what's the matter?' + +'I don't know what mayn't be the matter!' cried Miss Miggs, +clasping her hands distractedly. 'Anything may be the matter!' + +'But nothing is, I tell you,' said the hangman. 'First stop that +noise and come and sit down here, will you, chuckey?' + +The coaxing tone in which he said these latter words might have +failed in its object, if he had not accompanied them with sundry +sharp jerks of his thumb over one shoulder, and with divers winks +and thrustings of his tongue into his cheek, from which signals the +damsel gathered that he sought to speak to her apart, concerning +Miss Haredale and Dolly. Her curiosity being very powerful, and +her jealousy by no means inactive, she arose, and with a great deal +of shivering and starting back, and much muscular action among all +the small bones in her throat, gradually approached him. + +'Sit down,' said the hangman. + +Suiting the action to the word, he thrust her rather suddenly and +prematurely into a chair, and designing to reassure her by a little +harmless jocularity, such as is adapted to please and fascinate +the sex, converted his right forefinger into an ideal bradawl or +gimlet, and made as though he would screw the same into her side-- +whereat Miss Miggs shrieked again, and evinced symptoms of +faintness. + +'Lovey, my dear,' whispered Dennis, drawing his chair close to +hers. 'When was your young man here last, eh?' + +'MY young man, good gentleman!' answered Miggs in a tone of +exquisite distress. + +'Ah! Simmuns, you know--him?' said Dennis. + +'Mine indeed!' cried Miggs, with a burst of bitterness--and as she +said it, she glanced towards Dolly. 'MINE, good gentleman!' + +This was just what Mr Dennis wanted, and expected. + +'Ah!' he said, looking so soothingly, not to say amorously on +Miggs, that she sat, as she afterwards remarked, on pins and +needles of the sharpest Whitechapel kind, not knowing what +intentions might be suggesting that expression to his features: +'I was afraid of that. I saw as much myself. It's her fault. She +WILL entice 'em.' + +'I wouldn't,' cried Miggs, folding her hands and looking upwards +with a kind of devout blankness, 'I wouldn't lay myself out as she +does; I wouldn't be as bold as her; I wouldn't seem to say to all +male creeturs "Come and kiss me"'--and here a shudder quite +convulsed her frame--'for any earthly crowns as might be offered. +Worlds,' Miggs added solemnly, 'should not reduce me. No. Not if +I was Wenis.' + +'Well, but you ARE Wenus, you know,' said Mr Dennis, +confidentially. + +'No, I am not, good gentleman,' answered Miggs, shaking her head +with an air of self-denial which seemed to imply that she might be +if she chose, but she hoped she knew better. 'No, I am not, good +gentleman. Don't charge me with it.' + +Up to this time she had turned round, every now and then, to where +Dolly and Miss Haredale had retired and uttered a scream, or groan, +or laid her hand upon her heart and trembled excessively, with a +view of keeping up appearances, and giving them to understand that +she conversed with the visitor, under protest and on compulsion, +and at a great personal sacrifice, for their common good. But at +this point, Mr Dennis looked so very full of meaning, and gave such +a singularly expressive twitch to his face as a request to her to +come still nearer to him, that she abandoned these little arts, and +gave him her whole and undivided attention. + +'When was Simmuns here, I say?' quoth Dennis, in her ear. + +'Not since yesterday morning; and then only for a few minutes. Not +all day, the day before.' + +'You know he meant all along to carry off that one!' said Dennis, +indicating Dolly by the slightest possible jerk of his head:--'And +to hand you over to somebody else.' + +Miss Miggs, who had fallen into a terrible state of grief when the +first part of this sentence was spoken, recovered a little at the +second, and seemed by the sudden check she put upon her tears, to +intimate that possibly this arrangement might meet her views; and +that it might, perhaps, remain an open question. + +'--But unfort'nately,' pursued Dennis, who observed this: 'somebody +else was fond of her too, you see; and even if he wasn't, somebody +else is took for a rioter, and it's all over with him.' + +Miss Miggs relapsed. + +'Now I want,' said Dennis, 'to clear this house, and to see you +righted. What if I was to get her off, out of the way, eh?' + +Miss Miggs, brightening again, rejoined, with many breaks and +pauses from excess of feeling, that temptations had been Simmuns's +bane. That it was not his faults, but hers (meaning Dolly's). +That men did not see through these dreadful arts as women did, and +therefore was caged and trapped, as Simmun had been. That she had +no personal motives to serve--far from it--on the contrary, her +intentions was good towards all parties. But forasmuch as she +knowed that Simmun, if united to any designing and artful minxes +(she would name no names, for that was not her dispositions)--to +ANY designing and artful minxes--must be made miserable and unhappy +for life, she DID incline towards prewentions. Such, she added, +was her free confessions. But as this was private feelings, and +might perhaps be looked upon as wengeance, she begged the gentleman +would say no more. Whatever he said, wishing to do her duty by all +mankind, even by them as had ever been her bitterest enemies, she +would not listen to him. With that she stopped her ears, and shook +her head from side to side, to intimate to Mr Dennis that though he +talked until he had no breath left, she was as deaf as any adder. + +'Lookee here, my sugar-stick,' said Mr Dennis, 'if your view's the +same as mine, and you'll only be quiet and slip away at the right +time, I can have the house clear to-morrow, and be out of this +trouble.--Stop though! there's the other.' + +'Which other, sir?' asked Miggs--still with her fingers in her ears +and her head shaking obstinately. + +'Why, the tallest one, yonder,' said Dennis, as he stroked his +chin, and added, in an undertone to himself, something about not +crossing Muster Gashford. + +Miss Miggs replied (still being profoundly deaf) that if Miss +Haredale stood in the way at all, he might make himself quite easy +on that score; as she had gathered, from what passed between Hugh +and Mr Tappertit when they were last there, that she was to be +removed alone (not by them, but by somebody else), to-morrow night. + +Mr Dennis opened his eyes very wide at this piece of information, +whistled once, considered once, and finally slapped his head once +and nodded once, as if he had got the clue to this mysterious +removal, and so dismissed it. Then he imparted his design +concerning Dolly to Miss Miggs, who was taken more deaf than +before, when he began; and so remained, all through. + +The notable scheme was this. Mr Dennis was immediately to seek out +from among the rioters, some daring young fellow (and he had one in +his eye, he said), who, terrified by the threats he could hold out +to him, and alarmed by the capture of so many who were no better +and no worse than he, would gladly avail himself of any help to get +abroad, and out of harm's way, with his plunder, even though his +journey were incumbered by an unwilling companion; indeed, the +unwilling companion being a beautiful girl, would probably be an +additional inducement and temptation. Such a person found, he +proposed to bring him there on the ensuing night, when the tall one +was taken off, and Miss Miggs had purposely retired; and then that +Dolly should be gagged, muffled in a cloak, and carried in any +handy conveyance down to the river's side; where there were +abundant means of getting her smuggled snugly off in any small +craft of doubtful character, and no questions asked. With regard +to the expense of this removal, he would say, at a rough +calculation, that two or three silver tea or coffee-pots, with +something additional for drink (such as a muffineer, or toast- +rack), would more than cover it. Articles of plate of every kind +having been buried by the rioters in several lonely parts of +London, and particularly, as he knew, in St James's Square, which, +though easy of access, was little frequented after dark, and had a +convenient piece of water in the midst, the needful funds were +close at hand, and could be had upon the shortest notice. With +regard to Dolly, the gentleman would exercise his own discretion. +He would be bound to do nothing but to take her away, and keep her +away. All other arrangements and dispositions would rest entirely +with himself. + +If Miss Miggs had had her hearing, no doubt she would have been +greatly shocked by the indelicacy of a young female's going away +with a stranger by night (for her moral feelings, as we have said, +were of the tenderest kind); but directly Mr Dennis ceased to +speak, she reminded him that he had only wasted breath. She then +went on to say (still with her fingers in her ears) that nothing +less than a severe practical lesson would save the locksmith's +daughter from utter ruin; and that she felt it, as it were, a moral +obligation and a sacred duty to the family, to wish that some one +would devise one for her reformation. Miss Miggs remarked, and +very justly, as an abstract sentiment which happened to occur to +her at the moment, that she dared to say the locksmith and his wife +would murmur, and repine, if they were ever, by forcible abduction, +or otherwise, to lose their child; but that we seldom knew, in this +world, what was best for us: such being our sinful and imperfect +natures, that very few arrived at that clear understanding. + +Having brought their conversation to this satisfactory end, they +parted: Dennis, to pursue his design, and take another walk about +his farm; Miss Miggs, to launch, when he left her, into such a +burst of mental anguish (which she gave them to understand was +occasioned by certain tender things he had had the presumption and +audacity to say), that little Dolly's heart was quite melted. +Indeed, she said and did so much to soothe the outraged feelings of +Miss Miggs, and looked so beautiful while doing so, that if that +young maid had not had ample vent for her surpassing spite, in a +knowledge of the mischief that was brewing, she must have scratched +her features, on the spot. + + + +Chapter 71 + + +All next day, Emma Haredale, Dolly, and Miggs, remained cooped up +together in what had now been their prison for so many days, +without seeing any person, or hearing any sound but the murmured +conversation, in an outer room, of the men who kept watch over +them. There appeared to be more of these fellows than there had +been hitherto; and they could no longer hear the voices of women, +which they had before plainly distinguished. Some new excitement, +too, seemed to prevail among them; for there was much stealthy +going in and out, and a constant questioning of those who were +newly arrived. They had previously been quite reckless in their +behaviour; often making a great uproar; quarrelling among +themselves, fighting, dancing, and singing. They were now very +subdued and silent, conversing almost in whispers, and stealing in +and out with a soft and stealthy tread, very different from the +boisterous trampling in which their arrivals and departures had +hitherto been announced to the trembling captives. + +Whether this change was occasioned by the presence among them of +some person of authority in their ranks, or by any other cause, +they were unable to decide. Sometimes they thought it was in part +attributable to there being a sick man in the chamber, for last +night there had been a shuffling of feet, as though a burden were +brought in, and afterwards a moaning noise. But they had no means +of ascertaining the truth: for any question or entreaty on their +parts only provoked a storm of execrations, or something worse; and +they were too happy to be left alone, unassailed by threats or +admiration, to risk even that comfort, by any voluntary +communication with those who held them in durance. + +It was sufficiently evident, both to Emma and to the locksmith's +poor little daughter herself, that she, Dolly, was the great +object of attraction; and that so soon as they should have leisure +to indulge in the softer passion, Hugh and Mr Tappertit would +certainly fall to blows for her sake; in which latter case, it was +not very difficult to see whose prize she would become. With all +her old horror of that man revived, and deepened into a degree of +aversion and abhorrence which no language can describe; with a +thousand old recollections and regrets, and causes of distress, +anxiety, and fear, besetting her on all sides; poor Dolly Varden-- +sweet, blooming, buxom Dolly--began to hang her head, and fade, and +droop, like a beautiful flower. The colour fled from her cheeks, +her courage forsook her, her gentle heart failed. Unmindful of all +her provoking caprices, forgetful of all her conquests and +inconstancy, with all her winning little vanities quite gone, she +nestled all the livelong day in Emma Haredale's bosom; and, +sometimes calling on her dear old grey-haired father, sometimes on +her mother, and sometimes even on her old home, pined slowly away, +like a poor bird in its cage. + +Light hearts, light hearts, that float so gaily on a smooth stream, +that are so sparkling and buoyant in the sunshine--down upon fruit, +bloom upon flowers, blush in summer air, life of the winged insect, +whose whole existence is a day--how soon ye sink in troubled water! +Poor Dolly's heart--a little, gentle, idle, fickle thing; giddy, +restless, fluttering; constant to nothing but bright looks, and +smiles and laughter--Dolly's heart was breaking. + +Emma had known grief, and could bear it better. She had little +comfort to impart, but she could soothe and tend her, and she did +so; and Dolly clung to her like a child to its nurse. In +endeavouring to inspire her with some fortitude, she increased her +own; and though the nights were long, and the days dismal, and she +felt the wasting influence of watching and fatigue, and had +perhaps a more defined and clear perception of their destitute +condition and its worst dangers, she uttered no complaint. Before +the ruffians, in whose power they were, she bore herself so +calmly, and with such an appearance, in the midst of all her +terror, of a secret conviction that they dared not harm her, that +there was not a man among them but held her in some degree of +dread; and more than one believed she had a weapon hidden in her +dress, and was prepared to use it. + +Such was their condition when they were joined by Miss Miggs, who +gave them to understand that she too had been taken prisoner +because of her charms, and detailed such feats of resistance she +had performed (her virtue having given her supernatural strength), +that they felt it quite a happiness to have her for a champion. +Nor was this the only comfort they derived at first from Miggs's +presence and society: for that young lady displayed such +resignation and long-suffering, and so much meek endurance, under +her trials, and breathed in all her chaste discourse a spirit of +such holy confidence and resignation, and devout belief that all +would happen for the best, that Emma felt her courage strengthened +by the bright example; never doubting but that everything she said +was true, and that she, like them, was torn from all she loved, and +agonised by doubt and apprehension. As to poor Dolly, she was +roused, at first, by seeing one who came from home; but when she +heard under what circumstances she had left it, and into whose +hands her father had fallen, she wept more bitterly than ever, and +refused all comfort. + +Miss Miggs was at some trouble to reprove her for this state of +mind, and to entreat her to take example by herself, who, she +said, was now receiving back, with interest, tenfold the amount of +her subscriptions to the red-brick dwelling-house, in the articles +of peace of mind and a quiet conscience. And, while on serious +topics, Miss Miggs considered it her duty to try her hand at the +conversion of Miss Haredale; for whose improvement she launched +into a polemical address of some length, in the course whereof, +she likened herself unto a chosen missionary, and that young lady +to a cannibal in darkness. Indeed, she returned so often to these +sublects, and so frequently called upon them to take a lesson from +her,--at the same time vaunting and, as it were, rioting in, her +huge unworthiness, and abundant excess of sin,--that, in the course +of a short time, she became, in that small chamber, rather a +nuisance than a comfort, and rendered them, if possible, even more +unhappy than they had been before. + +The night had now come; and for the first time (for their jailers +had been regular in bringing food and candles), they were left in +darkness. Any change in their condition in such a place inspired +new fears; and when some hours had passed, and the gloom was still +unbroken, Emma could no longer repress her alarm. + +They listened attentively. There was the same murmuring in the +outer room, and now and then a moan which seemed to be wrung from a +person in great pain, who made an effort to subdue it, but could +not. Even these men seemed to be in darkness too; for no light +shone through the chinks in the door, nor were they moving, as +their custom was, but quite still: the silence being unbroken by +so much as the creaking of a board. + +At first, Miss Miggs wondered greatly in her own mind who this sick +person might be; but arriving, on second thoughts, at the +conclusion that he was a part of the schemes on foot, and an artful +device soon to be employed with great success, she opined, for Miss +Haredale's comfort, that it must be some misguided Papist who had +been wounded: and this happy supposition encouraged her to say, +under her breath, 'Ally Looyer!' several times. + +'Is it possible,' said Emma, with some indignation, 'that you who +have seen these men committing the outrages you have told us of, +and who have fallen into their hands, like us, can exult in their +cruelties!' + +'Personal considerations, miss,' rejoined Miggs, 'sinks into +nothing, afore a noble cause. Ally Looyer! Ally Looyer! Ally +Looyer, good gentlemen!' + +It seemed from the shrill pertinacity with which Miss Miggs +repeated this form of acclamation, that she was calling the same +through the keyhole of the door; but in the profound darkness she +could not be seen. + +'If the time has come--Heaven knows it may come at any moment--when +they are bent on prosecuting the designs, whatever they may be, +with which they have brought us here, can you still encourage, and +take part with them?' demanded Emma. + +'I thank my goodness-gracious-blessed-stars I can, miss,' returned +Miggs, with increased energy.--'Ally Looyer, good gentlemen!' + +Even Dolly, cast down and disappointed as she was, revived at this, +and bade Miggs hold her tongue directly. + +'WHICH, was you pleased to observe, Miss Varden?' said Miggs, with +a strong emphasis on the irrelative pronoun. + +Dolly repeated her request. + +'Ho, gracious me!' cried Miggs, with hysterical derision. 'Ho, +gracious me! Yes, to be sure I will. Ho yes! I am a abject +slave, and a toiling, moiling, constant-working, always-being- +found-fault-with, never-giving-satisfactions, nor-having-no- +time-to-clean-oneself, potter's wessel--an't I, miss! Ho yes! My +situations is lowly, and my capacities is limited, and my duties is +to humble myself afore the base degenerating daughters of their +blessed mothers as is--fit to keep companies with holy saints but +is born to persecutions from wicked relations--and to demean myself +before them as is no better than Infidels--an't it, miss! Ho yes! +My only becoming occupations is to help young flaunting pagins to +brush and comb and titiwate theirselves into whitening and +suppulchres, and leave the young men to think that there an't a bit +of padding in it nor no pinching ins nor fillings out nor pomatums +nor deceits nor earthly wanities--an't it, miss! Yes, to be sure +it is--ho yes!' + +Having delivered these ironical passages with a most wonderful +volubility, and with a shrillness perfectly deafening (especially +when she jerked out the interjections), Miss Miggs, from mere +habit, and not because weeping was at all appropriate to the +occasion, which was one of triumph, concluded by bursting into a +flood of tears, and calling in an impassioned manner on the name of +Simmuns. + +What Emma Haredale and Dolly would have done, or how long Miss +Miggs, now that she had hoisted her true colours, would have gone +on waving them before their astonished senses, it is impossible to +tell. Nor is it necessary to speculate on these matters, for a +startling interruption occurred at that moment, which took their +whole attention by storm. + +This was a violent knocking at the door of the house, and then its +sudden bursting open; which was immediately succeeded by a scuffle +in the room without, and the clash of weapons. Transported with +the hope that rescue had at length arrived, Emma and Dolly shrieked +aloud for help; nor were their shrieks unanswered; for after a +hurried interval, a man, bearing in one hand a drawn sword, and in +the other a taper, rushed into the chamber where they were confined. + +It was some check upon their transport to find in this person an +entire stranger, but they appealed to him, nevertheless, and +besought him, in impassioned language, to restore them to their +friends. + +'For what other purpose am I here?' he answered, closing the door, +and standing with his back against it. 'With what object have I +made my way to this place, through difficulty and danger, but to +preserve you?' + +With a joy for which it was impossible to find adequate expression, +they embraced each other, and thanked Heaven for this most timely +aid. Their deliverer stepped forward for a moment to put the light +upon the table, and immediately returning to his former position +against the door, bared his head, and looked on smilingly. + +'You have news of my uncle, sir?' said Emma, turning hastily +towards him. + +'And of my father and mother?' added Dolly. + +'Yes,' he said. 'Good news.' + +'They are alive and unhurt?' they both cried at once. + +'Yes, and unhurt,' he rejoined. + +'And close at hand?' + +'I did not say close at hand,' he answered smoothly; 'they are at +no great distance. YOUR friends, sweet one,' he added, addressing +Dolly, 'are within a few hours' journey. You will be restored to +them, I hope, to-night.' + +'My uncle, sir--' faltered Emma. + +'Your uncle, dear Miss Haredale, happily--I say happily, because he +has succeeded where many of our creed have failed, and is safe--has +crossed the sea, and is out of Britain.' + +'I thank God for it,' said Emma, faintly. + +'You say well. You have reason to be thankful: greater reason +than it is possible for you, who have seen but one night of these +cruel outrages, to imagine.' + +'Does he desire,' said Emma, 'that I should follow him?' + +'Do you ask if he desires it?' cried the stranger in surprise. 'IF +he desires it! But you do not know the danger of remaining in +England, the difficulty of escape, or the price hundreds would pay +to secure the means, when you make that inquiry. Pardon me. I had +forgotten that you could not, being prisoner here.' + +'I gather, sir,' said Emma, after a moment's pause, 'from what you +hint at, but fear to tell me, that I have witnessed but the +beginning, and the least, of the violence to which we are exposed, +and that it has not yet slackened in its fury?' + +He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, lifted up his hands; and +with the same smooth smile, which was not a pleasant one to see, +cast his eyes upon the ground, and remained silent. + +'You may venture, sir, to speak plain,' said Emma, 'and to tell me +the worst. We have undergone some preparation for it.' + +But here Dolly interposed, and entreated her not to hear the worst, +but the best; and besought the gentleman to tell them the best, and +to keep the remainder of his news until they were safe among their +friends again. + +'It is told in three words,' he said, glancing at the locksmith's +daughter with a look of some displeasure. 'The people have risen, +to a man, against us; the streets are filled with soldiers, who +support them and do their bidding. We have no protection but from +above, and no safety but in flight; and that is a poor resource; +for we are watched on every hand, and detained here, both by force +and fraud. Miss Haredale, I cannot bear--believe me, that I cannot +bear--by speaking of myself, or what I have done, or am prepared +to do, to seem to vaunt my services before you. But, having +powerful Protestant connections, and having my whole wealth +embarked with theirs in shipping and commerce, I happily possessed +the means of saving your uncle. I have the means of saving you; +and in redemption of my sacred promise, made to him, I am here; +pledged not to leave you until I have placed you in his arms. The +treachery or penitence of one of the men about you, led to the +discovery of your place of confinement; and that I have forced my +way here, sword in hand, you see.' + +'You bring,' said Emma, faltering, 'some note or token from my +uncle?' + +'No, he doesn't,' cried Dolly, pointing at him earnestly; 'now I am +sure he doesn't. Don't go with him for the world!' + +'Hush, pretty fool--be silent,' he replied, frowning angrily upon +her. 'No, Miss Haredale, I have no letter, nor any token of any +kind; for while I sympathise with you, and such as you, on whom +misfortune so heavy and so undeserved has fallen, I value my life. +I carry, therefore, no writing which, found upon me, would lead to +its certain loss. I never thought of bringing any other token, nor +did Mr Haredale think of entrusting me with one--possibly because +he had good experience of my faith and honesty, and owed his life +to me.' + +There was a reproof conveyed in these words, which to a nature like +Emma Haredale's, was well addressed. But Dolly, who was +differently constituted, was by no means touched by it, and still +conjured her, in all the terms of affection and attachment she +could think of, not to be lured away. + +'Time presses,' said their visitor, who, although he sought to +express the deepest interest, had something cold and even in his +speech, that grated on the ear; 'and danger surrounds us. If I +have exposed myself to it, in vain, let it be so; but if you and he +should ever meet again, do me justice. If you decide to remain (as +I think you do), remember, Miss Haredale, that I left you with a +solemn caution, and acquitting myself of all the consequences to +which you expose yourself.' + +'Stay, sir!' cried Emma--one moment, I beg you. Cannot we--and she +drew Dolly closer to her--'cannot we go together?' + +'The task of conveying one female in safety through such scenes as +we must encounter, to say nothing of attracting the attention of +those who crowd the streets,' he answered, 'is enough. I have said +that she will be restored to her friends to-night. If you accept +the service I tender, Miss Haredale, she shall be instantly placed +in safe conduct, and that promise redeemed. Do you decide to +remain? People of all ranks and creeds are flying from the town, +which is sacked from end to end. Let me be of use in some +quarter. Do you stay, or go?' + +'Dolly,' said Emma, in a hurried manner, 'my dear girl, this is our +last hope. If we part now, it is only that we may meet again in +happiness and honour. I will trust to this gentleman.' + +'No no-no!' cried Dolly, clinging to her. 'Pray, pray, do not!' + +'You hear,' said Emma, 'that to-night--only to-night--within a few +hours--think of that!--you will be among those who would die of +grief to lose you, and who are now plunged in the deepest misery +for your sake. Pray for me, dear girl, as I will for you; and +never forget the many quiet hours we have passed together. Say +one "God bless you!" Say that at parting!' + +But Dolly could say nothing; no, not when Emma kissed her cheek a +hundred times, and covered it with tears, could she do more than +hang upon her neck, and sob, and clasp, and hold her tight. + +'We have time for no more of this,' cried the man, unclenching her +hands, and pushing her roughly off, as he drew Emma Haredale +towards the door: 'Now! Quick, outside there! are you ready?' + +'Ay!' cried a loud voice, which made him start. 'Quite ready! +Stand back here, for your lives!' + +And in an instant he was felled like an ox in the butcher's +shambles--struck down as though a block of marble had fallen from +the roof and crushed him--and cheerful light, and beaming faces +came pouring in--and Emma was clasped in her uncle's embrace, and +Dolly, with a shriek that pierced the air, fell into the arms of +her father and mother. + +What fainting there was, what laughing, what crying, what sobbing, +what smiling, how much questioning, no answering, all talking +together, all beside themselves with joy; what kissing, +congratulating, embracing, shaking of hands, and falling into all +these raptures, over and over and over again; no language can +describe. + +At length, and after a long time, the old locksmith went up and +fairly hugged two strangers, who had stood apart and left them to +themselves; and then they saw--whom? Yes, Edward Chester and +Joseph Willet. + +'See here!' cried the locksmith. 'See here! where would any of us +have been without these two? Oh, Mr Edward, Mr Edward--oh, Joe, +Joe, how light, and yet how full, you have made my old heart to- +night!' + +'It was Mr Edward that knocked him down, sir,' said Joe: 'I longed +to do it, but I gave it up to him. Come, you brave and honest +gentleman! Get your senses together, for you haven't long to lie +here.' + +He had his foot upon the breast of their sham deliverer, in the +absence of a spare arm; and gave him a gentle roll as he spoke. +Gashford, for it was no other, crouching yet malignant, raised his +scowling face, like sin subdued, and pleaded to be gently used. + +'I have access to all my lord's papers, Mr Haredale,' he said, in a +submissive voice: Mr Haredale keeping his back towards him, and not +once looking round: 'there are very important documents among them. +There are a great many in secret drawers, and distributed in +various places, known only to my lord and me. I can give some very +valuable information, and render important assistance to any +inquiry. You will have to answer it, if I receive ill usage. + +'Pah!' cried Joe, in deep disgust. 'Get up, man; you're waited +for, outside. Get up, do you hear?' + +Gashford slowly rose; and picking up his hat, and looking with a +baffled malevolence, yet with an air of despicable humility, all +round the room, crawled out. + +'And now, gentlemen,' said Joe, who seemed to be the spokesman of +the party, for all the rest were silent; 'the sooner we get back +to the Black Lion, the better, perhaps.' + +Mr Haredale nodded assent, and drawing his niece's arm through his, +and taking one of her hands between his own, passed out +straightway; followed by the locksmith, Mrs Varden, and Dolly--who +would scarcely have presented a sufficient surface for all the hugs +and caresses they bestowed upon her though she had been a dozen +Dollys. Edward Chester and Joe followed. + +And did Dolly never once look behind--not once? Was there not one +little fleeting glimpse of the dark eyelash, almost resting on her +flushed cheek, and of the downcast sparkling eye it shaded? Joe +thought there was--and he is not likely to have been mistaken; for +there were not many eyes like Dolly's, that's the truth. + +The outer room through which they had to pass, was full of men; +among them, Mr Dennis in safe keeping; and there, had been since +yesterday, lying in hiding behind a wooden screen which was now +thrown down, Simon Tappertit, the recreant 'prentice, burnt and +bruised, and with a gun-shot wound in his body; and his legs--his +perfect legs, the pride and glory of his life, the comfort of his +existence--crushed into shapeless ugliness. Wondering no longer at +the moans they had heard, Dolly kept closer to her father, and +shuddered at the sight; but neither bruises, burns, nor gun-shot +wound, nor all the torture of his shattered limbs, sent half so +keen a pang to Simon's breast, as Dolly passing out, with Joe for +her preserver. + +A coach was ready at the door, and Dolly found herself safe and +whole inside, between her father and mother, with Emma Haredale and +her uncle, quite real, sitting opposite. But there was no Joe, no +Edward; and they had said nothing. They had only bowed once, and +kept at a distance. Dear heart! what a long way it was to the +Black Lion! + + + +Chapter 72 + + +The Black Lion was so far off, and occupied such a length of time +in the getting at, that notwithstanding the strong presumptive +evidence she had about her of the late events being real and of +actual occurrence, Dolly could not divest herself of the belief +that she must be in a dream which was lasting all night. Nor was +she quite certain that she saw and heard with her own proper +senses, even when the coach, in the fulness of time, stopped at the +Black Lion, and the host of that tavern approached in a gush of +cheerful light to help them to dismount, and give them hearty +welcome. + +There too, at the coach door, one on one side, one upon the other, +were already Edward Chester and Joe Willet, who must have followed +in another coach: and this was such a strange and unaccountable +proceeding, that Dolly was the more inclined to favour the idea of +her being fast asleep. But when Mr Willet appeared--old John +himself--so heavy-headed and obstinate, and with such a double +chin as the liveliest imagination could never in its boldest +flights have conjured up in all its vast proportions--then she +stood corrected, and unwillingly admitted to herself that she was +broad awake. + +And Joe had lost an arm--he--that well-made, handsome, gallant +fellow! As Dolly glanced towards him, and thought of the pain he +must have suffered, and the far-off places in which he had been +wandering, and wondered who had been his nurse, and hoped that +whoever it was, she had been as kind and gentle and considerate as +she would have been, the tears came rising to her bright eyes, one +by one, little by little, until she could keep them back no longer, +and so before them all, wept bitterly. + +'We are all safe now, Dolly,' said her father, kindly. 'We shall +not be separated any more. Cheer up, my love, cheer up!' + +The locksmith's wife knew better perhaps, than he, what ailed her +daughter. But Mrs Varden being quite an altered woman--for the +riots had done that good--added her word to his, and comforted her +with similar representations. + +'Mayhap,' said Mr Willet, senior, looking round upon the company, +'she's hungry. That's what it is, depend upon it--I am, myself.' + +The Black Lion, who, like old John, had been waiting supper past +all reasonable and conscionable hours, hailed this as a +philosophical discovery of the profoundest and most penetrating +kind; and the table being already spread, they sat down to supper +straightway. + +The conversation was not of the liveliest nature, nor were the +appetites of some among them very keen. But, in both these +respects, old John more than atoned for any deficiency on the part +of the rest, and very much distinguished himself. + +It was not in point of actual conversation that Mr Willet shone so +brilliantly, for he had none of his old cronies to 'tackle,' and +was rather timorous of venturing on Joe; having certain vague +misgivings within him, that he was ready on the shortest notice, +and on receipt of the slightest offence, to fell the Black Lion to +the floor of his own parlour, and immediately to withdraw to China +or some other remote and unknown region, there to dwell for +evermore, or at least until he had got rid of his remaining arm and +both legs, and perhaps an eye or so, into the bargain. It was with +a peculiar kind of pantomime that Mr Willet filled up every pause; +and in this he was considered by the Black Lion, who had been his +familiar for some years, quite to surpass and go beyond himself, +and outrun the expectations of his most admiring friends. + +The subject that worked in Mr Willet's mind, and occasioned these +demonstrations, was no other than his son's bodily disfigurement, +which he had never yet got himself thoroughly to believe, or +comprehend. Shortly after their first meeting, he had been +observed to wander, in a state of great perplexity, to the kitchen, +and to direct his gaze towards the fire, as if in search of his +usual adviser in all matters of doubt and difficulty. But there +being no boiler at the Black Lion, and the rioters having so beaten +and battered his own that it was quite unfit for further service, +he wandered out again, in a perfect bog of uncertainty and mental +confusion, and in that state took the strangest means of resolving +his doubts: such as feeling the sleeve of his son's greatcoat as +deeming it possible that his arm might be there; looking at his own +arms and those of everybody else, as if to assure himself that two +and not one was the usual allowance; sitting by the hour together +in a brown study, as if he were endeavouring to recall Joe's image +in his younger days, and to remember whether he really had in those +times one arm or a pair; and employing himself in many other +speculations of the same kind. + +Finding himself at this supper, surrounded by faces with which he +had been so well acquainted in old times, Mr Willet recurred to the +subject with uncommon vigour; apparently resolved to understand it +now or never. Sometimes, after every two or three mouthfuls, he +laid down his knife and fork, and stared at his son with all his +might--particularly at his maimed side; then, he looked slowly +round the table until he caught some person's eye, when he shook +his head with great solemnity, patted his shoulder, winked, or as +one may say--for winking was a very slow process with him--went to +sleep with one eye for a minute or two; and so, with another solemn +shaking of his head, took up his knife and fork again, and went on +eating. Sometimes, he put his food into his mouth abstractedly, +and, with all his faculties concentrated on Joe, gazed at him in a +fit of stupefaction as he cut his meat with one hand, until he was +recalled to himself by symptoms of choking on his own part, and was +by that means restored to consciousness. At other times he +resorted to such small devices as asking him for the salt, the +pepper, the vinegar, the mustard--anything that was on his maimed +side--and watching him as he handed it. By dint of these +experiments, he did at last so satisfy and convince himself, that, +after a longer silence than he had yet maintained, he laid down his +knife and fork on either side his plate, drank a long draught from +a tankard beside him (still keeping his eyes on Joe), and leaning +backward in his chair and fetching a long breath, said, as he +looked all round the board: + +'It's been took off!' + +'By George!' said the Black Lion, striking the table with his hand, +'he's got it!' + +'Yes, sir,' said Mr Willet, with the look of a man who felt that he +had earned a compliment, and deserved it. 'That's where it is. +It's been took off.' + +'Tell him where it was done,' said the Black Lion to Joe. + +'At the defence of the Savannah, father.' + +'At the defence of the Salwanners,' repeated Mr Willet, softly; +again looking round the table. + +'In America, where the war is,' said Joe. + +'In America, where the war is,' repeated Mr Willet. 'It was took +off in the defence of the Salwanners in America where the war is.' +Continuing to repeat these words to himself in a low tone of voice +(the same information had been conveyed to him in the same terms, +at least fifty times before), Mr Willet arose from table, walked +round to Joe, felt his empty sleeve all the way up, from the cuff, +to where the stump of his arm remained; shook his hand; lighted his +pipe at the fire, took a long whiff, walked to the door, turned +round once when he had reached it, wiped his left eye with the back +of his forefinger, and said, in a faltering voice: 'My son's arm-- +was took off--at the defence of the--Salwanners--in America--where +the war is'--with which words he withdrew, and returned no more +that night. + +Indeed, on various pretences, they all withdrew one after another, +save Dolly, who was left sitting there alone. It was a great +relief to be alone, and she was crying to her heart's content, when +she heard Joe's voice at the end of the passage, bidding somebody +good night. + +Good night! Then he was going elsewhere--to some distance, +perhaps. To what kind of home COULD he be going, now that it was +so late! + +She heard him walk along the passage, and pass the door. But there +was a hesitation in his footsteps. He turned back--Dolly's heart +beat high--he looked in. + +'Good night!'--he didn't say Dolly, but there was comfort in his +not saying Miss Varden. + +'Good night!' sobbed Dolly. + +'I am sorry you take on so much, for what is past and gone,' said +Joe kindly. 'Don't. I can't bear to see you do it. Think of it +no longer. You are safe and happy now.' + +Dolly cried the more. + +'You must have suffered very much within these few days--and yet +you're not changed, unless it's for the better. They said you +were, but I don't see it. You were--you were always very +beautiful,' said Joe, 'but you are more beautiful than ever, now. +You are indeed. There can be no harm in my saying so, for you must +know it. You are told so very often, I am sure.' + +As a general principle, Dolly DID know it, and WAS told so, very +often. But the coachmaker had turned out, years ago, to be a +special donkey; and whether she had been afraid of making similar +discoveries in others, or had grown by dint of long custom to be +careless of compliments generally, certain it is that although she +cried so much, she was better pleased to be told so now, than ever +she had been in all her life. + +'I shall bless your name,' sobbed the locksmith's little daughter, +'as long as I live. I shall never hear it spoken without feeling +as if my heart would burst. I shall remember it in my prayers, +every night and morning till I die!' + +'Will you?' said Joe, eagerly. 'Will you indeed? It makes me-- +well, it makes me very glad and proud to hear you say so.' + +Dolly still sobbed, and held her handkerchief to her eyes. Joe +still stood, looking at her. + +'Your voice,' said Joe, 'brings up old times so pleasantly, that, +for the moment, I feel as if that night--there can be no harm in +talking of that night now--had come back, and nothing had happened +in the mean time. I feel as if I hadn't suffered any hardships, +but had knocked down poor Tom Cobb only yesterday, and had come to +see you with my bundle on my shoulder before running away.--You +remember?' + +Remember! But she said nothing. She raised her eyes for an +instant. It was but a glance; a little, tearful, timid glance. It +kept Joe silent though, for a long time. + +'Well!' he said stoutly, 'it was to be otherwise, and was. I have +been abroad, fighting all the summer and frozen up all the winter, +ever since. I have come back as poor in purse as I went, and +crippled for life besides. But, Dolly, I would rather have lost +this other arm--ay, I would rather have lost my head--than have +come back to find you dead, or anything but what I always pictured +you to myself, and what I always hoped and wished to find you. +Thank God for all!' + +Oh how much, and how keenly, the little coquette of five years ago, +felt now! She had found her heart at last. Never having known its +worth till now, she had never known the worth of his. How +priceless it appeared! + +'I did hope once,' said Joe, in his homely way, 'that I might come +back a rich man, and marry you. But I was a boy then, and have +long known better than that. I am a poor, maimed, discharged +soldier, and must be content to rub through life as I can. I can't +say, even now, that I shall be glad to see you married, Dolly; but +I AM glad--yes, I am, and glad to think I can say so--to know that +you are admired and courted, and can pick and choose for a happy +life. It's a comfort to me to know that you'll talk to your +husband about me; and I hope the time will come when I may be able +to like him, and to shake hands with him, and to come and see you +as a poor friend who knew you when you were a girl. God bless +you!' + +His hand DID tremble; but for all that, he took it away again, and +left her. + + + +Chapter 73 + + +By this Friday night--for it was on Friday in the riot week, that +Emma and Dolly were rescued, by the timely aid of Joe and Edward +Chester--the disturbances were entirely quelled, and peace and +order were restored to the affrighted city. True, after what had +happened, it was impossible for any man to say how long this better +state of things might last, or how suddenly new outrages, exceeding +even those so lately witnessed, might burst forth and fill its +streets with ruin and bloodshed; for this reason, those who had +fled from the recent tumults still kept at a distance, and many +families, hitherto unable to procure the means of flight, now +availed themselves of the calm, and withdrew into the country. The +shops, too, from Tyburn to Whitechapel, were still shut; and very +little business was transacted in any of the places of great +commercial resort. But, notwithstanding, and in spite of the +melancholy forebodings of that numerous class of society who see +with the greatest clearness into the darkest perspectives, the town +remained profoundly quiet. The strong military force disposed in +every advantageous quarter, and stationed at every commanding +point, held the scattered fragments of the mob in check; the search +after rioters was prosecuted with unrelenting vigour; and if there +were any among them so desperate and reckless as to be inclined, +after the terrible scenes they had beheld, to venture forth again, +they were so daunted by these resolute measures, that they quickly +shrunk into their hiding-places, and had no thought but for their +safety. + +In a word, the crowd was utterly routed. Upwards of two hundred +had been shot dead in the streets. Two hundred and fifty more were +lying, badly wounded, in the hospitals; of whom seventy or eighty +died within a short time afterwards. A hundred were already in +custody, and more were taken every hour. How many perished in the +conflagrations, or by their own excesses, is unknown; but that +numbers found a terrible grave in the hot ashes of the flames they +had kindled, or crept into vaults and cellars to drink in secret or +to nurse their sores, and never saw the light again, is certain. +When the embers of the fires had been black and cold for many +weeks, the labourers' spades proved this, beyond a doubt. + +Seventy-two private houses and four strong jails were destroyed in +the four great days of these riots. The total loss of property, as +estimated by the sufferers, was one hundred and fifty-five thousand +pounds; at the lowest and least partial estimate of disinterested +persons, it exceeded one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. +For this immense loss, compensation was soon afterwards made out of +the public purse, in pursuance of a vote of the House of Commons; +the sum being levied on the various wards in the city, on the +county, and the borough of Southwark. Both Lord Mansfield and Lord +Saville, however, who had been great sufferers, refused to accept +of any compensation whatever. + +The House of Commons, sitting on Tuesday with locked and guarded +doors, had passed a resolution to the effect that, as soon as the +tumults subsided, it would immediately proceed to consider the +petitions presented from many of his Majesty's Protestant subjects, +and would take the same into its serious consideration. While this +question was under debate, Mr Herbert, one of the members present, +indignantly rose and called upon the House to observe that Lord +George Gordon was then sitting under the gallery with the blue +cockade, the signal of rebellion, in his hat. He was not only +obliged, by those who sat near, to take it out; but offering to go +into the street to pacify the mob with the somewhat indefinite +assurance that the House was prepared to give them 'the +satisfaction they sought,' was actually held down in his seat by +the combined force of several members. In short, the disorder and +violence which reigned triumphant out of doors, penetrated into the +senate, and there, as elsewhere, terror and alarm prevailed, and +ordinary forms were for the time forgotten. + +On the Thursday, both Houses had adjourned until the following +Monday se'nnight, declaring it impossible to pursue their +deliberations with the necessary gravity and freedom, while they +were surrounded by armed troops. And now that the rioters were +dispersed, the citizens were beset with a new fear; for, finding +the public thoroughfares and all their usual places of resort +filled with soldiers entrusted with the free use of fire and sword, +they began to lend a greedy ear to the rumours which were afloat of +martial law being declared, and to dismal stories of prisoners +having been seen hanging on lamp-posts in Cheapside and Fleet +Street. These terrors being promptly dispelled by a Proclamation +declaring that all the rioters in custody would be tried by a +special commission in due course of law, a fresh alarm was +engendered by its being whispered abroad that French money had been +found on some of the rioters, and that the disturbances had been +fomented by foreign powers who sought to compass the overthrow and +ruin of England. This report, which was strengthened by the +diffusion of anonymous handbills, but which, if it had any +foundation at all, probably owed its origin to the circumstance of +some few coins which were not English money having been swept into +the pockets of the insurgents with other miscellaneous booty, and +afterwards discovered on the prisoners or the dead bodies,--caused +a great sensation; and men's minds being in that excited state +when they are most apt to catch at any shadow of apprehension, was +bruited about with much industry. + +All remaining quiet, however, during the whole of this Friday, and +on this Friday night, and no new discoveries being made, confidence +began to be restored, and the most timid and desponding breathed +again. In Southwark, no fewer than three thousand of the +inhabitants formed themselves into a watch, and patrolled the +streets every hour. Nor were the citizens slow to follow so good +an example: and it being the manner of peaceful men to be very bold +when the danger is over, they were abundantly fierce and daring; +not scrupling to question the stoutest passenger with great +severity, and carrying it with a very high hand over all errand- +boys, servant-girls, and 'prentices. + +As day deepened into evening, and darkness crept into the nooks and +corners of the town as if it were mustering in secret and gathering +strength to venture into the open ways, Barnaby sat in his dungeon, +wondering at the silence, and listening in vain for the noise and +outcry which had ushered in the night of late. Beside him, with +his hand in hers, sat one in whose companionship he felt at peace. +She was worn, and altered, full of grief, and heavy-hearted; but +the same to him. + +'Mother,' he said, after a long silence: 'how long,--how many days +and nights,--shall I be kept here?' + +'Not many, dear. I hope not many.' + +'You hope! Ay, but your hoping will not undo these chains. I +hope, but they don't mind that. Grip hopes, but who cares for +Grip?' + +The raven gave a short, dull, melancholy croak. It said 'Nobody,' +as plainly as a croak could speak. + +'Who cares for Grip, except you and me?' said Barnaby, smoothing +the bird's rumpled feathers with his hand. 'He never speaks in +this place; he never says a word in jail; he sits and mopes all day +in his dark corner, dozing sometimes, and sometimes looking at the +light that creeps in through the bars, and shines in his bright eye +as if a spark from those great fires had fallen into the room and +was burning yet. But who cares for Grip?' + +The raven croaked again--Nobody. + +'And by the way,' said Barnaby, withdrawing his hand from the bird, +and laying it upon his mother's arm, as he looked eagerly in her +face; 'if they kill me--they may: I heard it said they would--what +will become of Grip when I am dead?' + +The sound of the word, or the current of his own thoughts, +suggested to Grip his old phrase 'Never say die!' But he stopped +short in the middle of it, drew a dismal cork, and subsided into a +faint croak, as if he lacked the heart to get through the shortest +sentence. + +'Will they take HIS life as well as mine?' said Barnaby. 'I wish +they would. If you and I and he could die together, there would be +none to feel sorry, or to grieve for us. But do what they will, I +don't fear them, mother!' + +'They will not harm you,' she said, her tears choking her +utterance. 'They never will harm you, when they know all. I am +sure they never will.' + +'Oh! Don't be too sure of that,' cried Barnaby, with a strange +pleasure in the belief that she was self-deceived, and in his own +sagacity. 'They have marked me from the first. I heard them say +so to each other when they brought me to this place last night; and +I believe them. Don't you cry for me. They said that I was bold, +and so I am, and so I will be. You may think that I am silly, but +I can die as well as another.--I have done no harm, have I?' he +added quickly. + +'None before Heaven,' she answered. + +'Why then,' said Barnaby, 'let them do their worst. You told me +once--you--when I asked you what death meant, that it was nothing +to be feared, if we did no harm--Aha! mother, you thought I had +forgotten that!' + +His merry laugh and playful manner smote her to the heart. She +drew him closer to her, and besought him to talk to her in whispers +and to be very quiet, for it was getting dark, and their time was +short, and she would soon have to leave him for the night. + +'You will come to-morrow?' said Barnaby. + +Yes. And every day. And they would never part again. + +He joyfully replied that this was well, and what he wished, and +what he had felt quite certain she would tell him; and then he +asked her where she had been so long, and why she had not come to +see him when he had been a great soldier, and ran through the wild +schemes he had had for their being rich and living prosperously, +and with some faint notion in his mind that she was sad and he had +made her so, tried to console and comfort her, and talked of their +former life and his old sports and freedom: little dreaming that +every word he uttered only increased her sorrow, and that her tears +fell faster at the freshened recollection of their lost +tranquillity. + +'Mother,' said Barnaby, as they heard the man approaching to close +the cells for the night,' when I spoke to you just now about my +father you cried "Hush!" and turned away your head. Why did you do +so? Tell me why, in a word. You thought HE was dead. You are not +sorry that he is alive and has come back to us. Where is he? +Here?' + +'Do not ask any one where he is, or speak about him,' she made +answer. + +'Why not?' said Barnaby. 'Because he is a stern man, and talks +roughly? Well! I don't like him, or want to be with him by +myself; but why not speak about him?' + +'Because I am sorry that he is alive; sorry that he has come back; +and sorry that he and you have ever met. Because, dear Barnaby, +the endeavour of my life has been to keep you two asunder.' + +'Father and son asunder! Why?' + +'He has,' she whispered in his ear, 'he has shed blood. The time +has come when you must know it. He has shed the blood of one who +loved him well, and trusted him, and never did him wrong in word or +deed.' + +Barnaby recoiled in horror, and glancing at his stained wrist for +an instant, wrapped it, shuddering, in his dress. + +'But,' she added hastily as the key turned in the lock, 'although +we shun him, he is your father, dearest, and I am his wretched +wife. They seek his life, and he will lose it. It must not be by +our means; nay, if we could win him back to penitence, we should be +bound to love him yet. Do not seem to know him, except as one who +fled with you from the jail, and if they question you about him, do +not answer them. God be with you through the night, dear boy! God +be with you!' + +She tore herself away, and in a few seconds Barnaby was alone. He +stood for a long time rooted to the spot, with his face hidden in +his hands; then flung himself, sobbing, on his miserable bed. + +But the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars +looked out, and through the small compass of the grated window, as +through the narrow crevice of one good deed in a murky life of +guilt, the face of Heaven shone bright and merciful. He raised his +head; gazed upward at the quiet sky, which seemed to smile upon the +earth in sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, +looked down in sorrow on the sufferings and evil deeds of men; and +felt its peace sink deep into his heart. He, a poor idiot, caged +in his narrow cell, was as much lifted up to God, while gazing on +the mild light, as the freest and most favoured man in all the +spacious city; and in his ill-remembered prayer, and in the +fragment of the childish hymn, with which he sung and crooned +himself asleep, there breathed as true a spirit as ever studied +homily expressed, or old cathedral arches echoed. + +As his mother crossed a yard on her way out, she saw, through a +grated door which separated it from another court, her husband, +walking round and round, with his hands folded on his breast, and +his head hung down. She asked the man who conducted her, if she +might speak a word with this prisoner. Yes, but she must be quick +for he was locking up for the night, and there was but a minute or +so to spare. Saying this, he unlocked the door, and bade her go +in. + +It grated harshly as it turned upon its hinges, but he was deaf to +the noise, and still walked round and round the little court, +without raising his head or changing his attitude in the least. +She spoke to him, but her voice was weak, and failed her. At +length she put herself in his track, and when he came near, +stretched out her hand and touched him. + +He started backward, trembling from head to foot; but seeing who it +was, demanded why she came there. Before she could reply, he spoke +again. + +'Am I to live or die? Do you murder too, or spare?' + +'My son--our son,' she answered, 'is in this prison.' + +'What is that to me?' he cried, stamping impatiently on the stone +pavement. 'I know it. He can no more aid me than I can aid him. +If you are come to talk of him, begone!' + +As he spoke he resumed his walk, and hurried round the court as +before. When he came again to where she stood, he stopped, and +said, + +'Am I to live or die? Do you repent?' + +'Oh!--do YOU?' she answered. 'Will you, while time remains? Do +not believe that I could save you, if I dared.' + +'Say if you would,' he answered with an oath, as he tried to +disengage himself and pass on. 'Say if you would.' + +'Listen to me for one moment,' she returned; 'for but a moment. I +am but newly risen from a sick-bed, from which I never hoped to +rise again. The best among us think, at such a time, of good +intentions half-performed and duties left undone. If I have ever, +since that fatal night, omitted to pray for your repentance before +death--if I omitted, even then, anything which might tend to urge +it on you when the horror of your crime was fresh--if, in our later +meeting, I yielded to the dread that was upon me, and forgot to +fall upon my knees and solemnly adjure you, in the name of him you +sent to his account with Heaven, to prepare for the retribution +which must come, and which is stealing on you now--I humbly before +you, and in the agony of supplication in which you see me, beseech +that you will let me make atonement.' + +'What is the meaning of your canting words?' he answered roughly. +'Speak so that I may understand you.' + +'I will,' she answered, 'I desire to. Bear with me for a moment +more. The hand of Him who set His curse on murder, is heavy on us +now. You cannot doubt it. Our son, our innocent boy, on whom His +anger fell before his birth, is in this place in peril of his life-- +brought here by your guilt; yes, by that alone, as Heaven sees and +knows, for he has been led astray in the darkness of his intellect, +and that is the terrible consequence of your crime.' + +'If you come, woman-like, to load me with reproaches--' he +muttered, again endeavouring to break away. + +'I do not. I have a different purpose. You must hear it. If not +to-night, to-morrow; if not to-morrow, at another time. You MUST +hear it. Husband, escape is hopeless--impossible.' + +'You tell me so, do you?' he said, raising his manacled hand, and +shaking it. 'You!' + +'Yes,' she said, with indescribable earnestness. 'But why?' + +'To make me easy in this jail. To make the time 'twixt this and +death, pass pleasantly. For my good--yes, for my good, of +course,' he said, grinding his teeth, and smiling at her with a +livid face. + +'Not to load you with reproaches,' she replied; 'not to aggravate +the tortures and miseries of your condition, not to give you one +hard word, but to restore you to peace and hope. Husband, dear +husband, if you will but confess this dreadful crime; if you will +but implore forgiveness of Heaven and of those whom you have +wronged on earth; if you will dismiss these vain uneasy thoughts, +which never can be realised, and will rely on Penitence and on the +Truth, I promise you, in the great name of the Creator, whose image +you have defaced, that He will comfort and console you. And for +myself,' she cried, clasping her hands, and looking upward, 'I +swear before Him, as He knows my heart and reads it now, that from +that hour I will love and cherish you as I did of old, and watch +you night and day in the short interval that will remain to us, and +soothe you with my truest love and duty, and pray with you, that +one threatening judgment may be arrested, and that our boy may be +spared to bless God, in his poor way, in the free air and light!' + +He fell back and gazed at her while she poured out these words, as +though he were for a moment awed by her manner, and knew not what +to do. But anger and fear soon got the mastery of him, and he +spurned her from him. + +'Begone!' he cried. 'Leave me! You plot, do you! You plot to +get speech with me, and let them know I am the man they say I am. +A curse on you and on your boy.' + +'On him the curse has already fallen,' she replied, wringing her +hands. + +'Let it fall heavier. Let it fall on one and all. I hate you +both. The worst has come to me. The only comfort that I seek or I +can have, will be the knowledge that it comes to you. Now go!' + +She would have urged him gently, even then, but he menaced her with +his chain. + +'I say go--I say it for the last time. The gallows has me in its +grasp, and it is a black phantom that may urge me on to something +more. Begone! I curse the hour that I was born, the man I slew, +and all the living world!' + +In a paroxysm of wrath, and terror, and the fear of death, he broke +from her, and rushed into the darkness of his cell, where he cast +himself jangling down upon the stone floor, and smote it with his +ironed hands. The man returned to lock the dungeon door, and +having done so, carried her away. + +On that warm, balmy night in June, there were glad faces and light +hearts in all quarters of the town, and sleep, banished by the late +horrors, was doubly welcomed. On that night, families made merry +in their houses, and greeted each other on the common danger they +had escaped; and those who had been denounced, ventured into the +streets; and they who had been plundered, got good shelter. Even +the timorous Lord Mayor, who was summoned that night before the +Privy Council to answer for his conduct, came back contented; +observing to all his friends that he had got off very well with a +reprimand, and repeating with huge satisfaction his memorable +defence before the Council, 'that such was his temerity, he thought +death would have been his portion.' + +On that night, too, more of the scattered remnants of the mob were +traced to their lurking-places, and taken; and in the hospitals, +and deep among the ruins they had made, and in the ditches, and +fields, many unshrouded wretches lay dead: envied by those who had +been active in the disturbances, and who pillowed their doomed +heads in the temporary jails. + +And in the Tower, in a dreary room whose thick stone walls shut out +the hum of life, and made a stillness which the records left by +former prisoners with those silent witnesses seemed to deepen and +intensify; remorseful for every act that had been done by every man +among the cruel crowd; feeling for the time their guilt his own, +and their lives put in peril by himself; and finding, amidst such +reflections, little comfort in fanaticism, or in his fancied call; +sat the unhappy author of all--Lord George Gordon. + +He had been made prisoner that evening. 'If you are sure it's me +you want,' he said to the officers, who waited outside with the +warrant for his arrest on a charge of High Treason, 'I am ready to +accompany you--' which he did without resistance. He was conducted +first before the Privy Council, and afterwards to the Horse +Guards, and then was taken by way of Westminster Bridge, and back +over London Bridge (for the purpose of avoiding the main streets), +to the Tower, under the strongest guard ever known to enter its +gates with a single prisoner. + +Of all his forty thousand men, not one remained to bear him +company. Friends, dependents, followers,--none were there. His +fawning secretary had played the traitor; and he whose weakness had +been goaded and urged on by so many for their own purposes, was +desolate and alone. + + + +Chapter 74 + + +Me Dennis, having been made prisoner late in the evening, was +removed to a neighbouring round-house for that night, and carried +before a justice for examination on the next day, Saturday. The +charges against him being numerous and weighty, and it being in +particular proved, by the testimony of Gabriel Varden, that he had +shown a special desire to take his life, he was committed for +trial. Moreover he was honoured with the distinction of being +considered a chief among the insurgents, and received from the +magistrate's lips the complimentary assurance that he was in a +position of imminent danger, and would do well to prepare himself +for the worst. + +To say that Mr Dennis's modesty was not somewhat startled by these +honours, or that he was altogether prepared for so flattering a +reception, would be to claim for him a greater amount of stoical +philosophy than even he possessed. Indeed this gentleman's +stoicism was of that not uncommon kind, which enables a man to bear +with exemplary fortitude the afflictions of his friends, but +renders him, by way of counterpoise, rather selfish and sensitive +in respect of any that happen to befall himself. It is therefore +no disparagement to the great officer in question to state, without +disguise or concealment, that he was at first very much alarmed, +and that he betrayed divers emotions of fear, until his reasoning +powers came to his relief, and set before him a more hopeful +prospect. + +In proportion as Mr Dennis exercised these intellectual qualities +with which he was gifted, in reviewing his best chances of coming +off handsomely and with small personal inconvenience, his spirits +rose, and his confidence increased. When he remembered the great +estimation in which his office was held, and the constant demand +for his services; when he bethought himself, how the Statute Book +regarded him as a kind of Universal Medicine applicable to men, +women, and children, of every age and variety of criminal +constitution; and how high he stood, in his official capacity, in +the favour of the Crown, and both Houses of Parliament, the Mint, +the Bank of England, and the Judges of the land; when he +recollected that whatever Ministry was in or out, he remained their +peculiar pet and panacea, and that for his sake England stood +single and conspicuous among the civilised nations of the earth: +when he called these things to mind and dwelt upon them, he felt +certain that the national gratitude MUST relieve him from the +consequences of his late proceedings, and would certainly restore +him to his old place in the happy social system. + +With these crumbs, or as one may say, with these whole loaves of +comfort to regale upon, Mr Dennis took his place among the escort +that awaited him, and repaired to jail with a manly indifference. +Arriving at Newgate, where some of the ruined cells had been +hastily fitted up for the safe keeping of rioters, he was warmly +received by the turnkeys, as an unusual and interesting case, which +agreeably relieved their monotonous duties. In this spirit, he was +fettered with great care, and conveyed into the interior of the +prison. + +'Brother,' cried the hangman, as, following an officer, he +traversed under these novel circumstances the remains of passages +with which he was well acquainted, 'am I going to be along with +anybody?' + +'If you'd have left more walls standing, you'd have been alone,' +was the reply. 'As it is, we're cramped for room, and you'll have +company.' + +'Well,' returned Dennis, 'I don't object to company, brother. I +rather like company. I was formed for society, I was.' + +'That's rather a pity, an't it?' said the man. + +'No,' answered Dennis, 'I'm not aware that it is. Why should it be +a pity, brother?' + +'Oh! I don't know,' said the man carelessly. 'I thought that was +what you meant. Being formed for society, and being cut off in +your flower, you know--' + +'I say,' interposed the other quickly, 'what are you talking of? +Don't. Who's a-going to be cut off in their flowers?' + +'Oh, nobody particular. I thought you was, perhaps,' said the man. + +Mr Dennis wiped his face, which had suddenly grown very hot, and +remarking in a tremulous voice to his conductor that he had always +been fond of his joke, followed him in silence until he stopped at +a door. + +'This is my quarters, is it?' he asked facetiously. + +'This is the shop, sir,' replied his friend. + +He was walking in, but not with the best possible grace, when he +suddenly stopped, and started back. + +'Halloa!' said the officer. 'You're nervous.' + +'Nervous!' whispered Dennis in great alarm. 'Well I may be. Shut +the door.' + +'I will, when you're in,' returned the man. + +'But I can't go in there,' whispered Dennis. 'I can't be shut up +with that man. Do you want me to be throttled, brother?' + +The officer seemed to entertain no particular desire on the subject +one way or other, but briefly remarking that he had his orders, and +intended to obey them, pushed him in, turned the key, and retired. + +Dennis stood trembling with his back against the door, and +involuntarily raising his arm to defend himself, stared at a man, +the only other tenant of the cell, who lay, stretched at his fall +length, upon a stone bench, and who paused in his deep breathing as +if he were about to wake. But he rolled over on one side, let his +arm fall negligently down, drew a long sigh, and murmuring +indistinctly, fell fast asleep again. + +Relieved in some degree by this, the hangman took his eyes for an +instant from the slumbering figure, and glanced round the cell in +search of some 'vantage-ground or weapon of defence. There was +nothing moveable within it, but a clumsy table which could not be +displaced without noise, and a heavy chair. Stealing on tiptoe +towards this latter piece of furniture, he retired with it into the +remotest corner, and intrenching himself behind it, watched the +enemy with the utmost vigilance and caution. + +The sleeping man was Hugh; and perhaps it was not unnatural for +Dennis to feel in a state of very uncomfortable suspense, and to +wish with his whole soul that he might never wake again. Tired of +standing, he crouched down in his corner after some time, and +rested on the cold pavement; but although Hugh's breathing still +proclaimed that he was sleeping soundly, he could not trust him out +of his sight for an instant. He was so afraid of him, and of some +sudden onslaught, that he was not content to see his closed eyes +through the chair-back, but every now and then, rose stealthily to +his feet, and peered at him with outstretched neck, to assure +himself that he really was still asleep, and was not about to +spring upon him when he was off his guard. + +He slept so long and so soundly, that Mr Dennis began to think he +might sleep on until the turnkey visited them. He was +congratulating himself upon these promising appearances, and +blessing his stars with much fervour, when one or two unpleasant +symptoms manifested themselves: such as another motion of the arm, +another sigh, a restless tossing of the head. Then, just as it +seemed that he was about to fall heavily to the ground from his +narrow bed, Hugh's eyes opened. + +It happened that his face was turned directly towards his +unexpected visitor. He looked lazily at him for some half-dozen +seconds without any aspect of surprise or recognition; then +suddenly jumped up, and with a great oath pronounced his name. + +'Keep off, brother, keep off!' cried Dennis, dodging behind the +chair. 'Don't do me a mischief. I'm a prisoner like you. I +haven't the free use of my limbs. I'm quite an old man. Don't +hurt me!' + +He whined out the last three words in such piteous accents, that +Hugh, who had dragged away the chair, and aimed a blow at him with +it, checked himself, and bade him get up. + +'I'll get up certainly, brother,' cried Dennis, anxious to +propitiate him by any means in his power. 'I'll comply with any +request of yours, I'm sure. There--I'm up now. What can I do for +you? Only say the word, and I'll do it.' + +'What can you do for me!' cried Hugh, clutching him by the collar +with both hands, and shaking him as though he were bent on stopping +his breath by that means. 'What have you done for me?' + +'The best. The best that could be done,' returned the hangman. + +Hugh made him no answer, but shaking him in his strong grip until +his teeth chattered in his head, cast him down upon the floor, and +flung himself on the bench again. + +'If it wasn't for the comfort it is to me, to see you here,' he +muttered, 'I'd have crushed your head against it; I would.' + +It was some time before Dennis had breath enough to speak, but as +soon as he could resume his propitiatory strain, he did so. + +'I did the best that could be done, brother,' he whined; 'I did +indeed. I was forced with two bayonets and I don't know how many +bullets on each side of me, to point you out. If you hadn't been +taken, you'd have been shot; and what a sight that would have been-- +a fine young man like you!' + +'Will it be a better sight now?' asked Hugh, raising his head, with +such a fierce expression, that the other durst not answer him just +then. + +'A deal better,' said Dennis meekly, after a pause. 'First, +there's all the chances of the law, and they're five hundred +strong. We may get off scot-free. Unlikelier things than that +have come to pass. Even if we shouldn't, and the chances fail, we +can but be worked off once: and when it's well done, it's so neat, +so skilful, so captiwating, if that don't seem too strong a word, +that you'd hardly believe it could be brought to sich perfection. +Kill one's fellow-creeturs off, with muskets!--Pah!' and his +nature so revolted at the bare idea, that he spat upon the dungeon +pavement. + +His warming on this topic, which to one unacquainted with his +pursuits and tastes appeared like courage; together with his artful +suppression of his own secret hopes, and mention of himself as +being in the same condition with Hugh; did more to soothe that +ruffian than the most elaborate arguments could have done, or the +most abject submission. He rested his arms upon his knees, and +stooping forward, looked from beneath his shaggy hair at Dennis, +with something of a smile upon his face. + +'The fact is, brother,' said the hangman, in a tone of greater +confidence, 'that you got into bad company. The man that was with +you was looked after more than you, and it was him I wanted. As to +me, what have I got by it? Here we are, in one and the same plight.' + +'Lookee, rascal,' said Hugh, contracting his brows, 'I'm not +altogether such a shallow blade but I know you expected to get +something by it, or you wouldn't have done it. But it's done, and +you're here, and it will soon be all over with you and me; and I'd +as soon die as live, or live as die. Why should I trouble myself +to have revenge on you? To eat, and drink, and go to sleep, as +long as I stay here, is all I care for. If there was but a little +more sun to bask in, than can find its way into this cursed place, +I'd lie in it all day, and not trouble myself to sit or stand up +once. That's all the care I have for myself. Why should I care +for YOU?' + +Finishing this speech with a growl like the yawn of a wild beast, +he stretched himself upon the bench again, and closed his eyes once +more. + +After looking at him in silence for some moments, Dennis, who was +greatly relieved to find him in this mood, drew the chair towards +his rough couch and sat down near him--taking the precaution, +however, to keep out of the range of his brawny arm. + +'Well said, brother; nothing could be better said,' he ventured to +observe. 'We'll eat and drink of the best, and sleep our best, and +make the best of it every way. Anything can be got for money. +Let's spend it merrily.' + +'Ay,' said Hugh, coiling himself into a new position.--'Where is it?' + +'Why, they took mine from me at the lodge,' said Mr Dennis; 'but +mine's a peculiar case.' + +'Is it? They took mine too.' + +'Why then, I tell you what, brother,' Dennis began. 'You must look +up your friends--' + +'My friends!' cried Hugh, starting up and resting on his hands. +'Where are my friends?' + +'Your relations then,' said Dennis. + +'Ha ha ha!' laughed Hugh, waving one arm above his head. 'He talks +of friends to me--talks of relations to a man whose mother died the +death in store for her son, and left him, a hungry brat, without a +face he knew in all the world! He talks of this to me!' + +'Brother,' cried the hangman, whose features underwent a sudden +change, 'you don't mean to say--' + +'I mean to say,' Hugh interposed, 'that they hung her up at Tyburn. +What was good enough for her, is good enough for me. Let them do +the like by me as soon as they please--the sooner the better. Say +no more to me. I'm going to sleep.' + +'But I want to speak to you; I want to hear more about that,' said +Dennis, changing colour. + +'If you're a wise man,' growled Hugh, raising his head to look at +him with a frown, 'you'll hold your tongue. I tell you I'm going +to sleep.' + +Dennis venturing to say something more in spite of this caution, +the desperate fellow struck at him with all his force, and missing +him, lay down again with many muttered oaths and imprecations, and +turned his face towards the wall. After two or three ineffectual +twitches at his dress, which he was hardy enough to venture upon, +notwithstanding his dangerous humour, Mr Dennis, who burnt, for +reasons of his own, to pursue the conversation, had no alternative +but to sit as patiently as he could: waiting his further pleasure. + + + +Chapter 75 + + +A month has elapsed,--and we stand in the bedchamber of Sir John +Chester. Through the half-opened window, the Temple Garden looks +green and pleasant; the placid river, gay with boat and barge, and +dimpled with the plash of many an oar, sparkles in the distance; +the sky is blue and clear; and the summer air steals gently in, +filling the room with perfume. The very town, the smoky town, is +radiant. High roofs and steeple-tops, wont to look black and +sullen, smile a cheerful grey; every old gilded vane, and ball, and +cross, glitters anew in the bright morning sun; and, high among +them all, St Paul's towers up, showing its lofty crest in burnished +gold. + +Sir John was breakfasting in bed. His chocolate and toast stood +upon a little table at his elbow; books and newspapers lay ready to +his hand, upon the coverlet; and, sometimes pausing to glance with +an air of tranquil satisfaction round the well-ordered room, and +sometimes to gaze indolently at the summer sky, he ate, and drank, +and read the news luxuriously. + +The cheerful influence of the morning seemed to have some effect, +even upon his equable temper. His manner was unusually gay; his +smile more placid and agreeable than usual; his voice more clear +and pleasant. He laid down the newspaper he had been reading; +leaned back upon his pillow with the air of one who resigned +himself to a train of charming recollections; and after a pause, +soliloquised as follows: + +'And my friend the centaur, goes the way of his mamma! I am not +surprised. And his mysterious friend Mr Dennis, likewise! I am +not surprised. And my old postman, the exceedingly free-and-easy +young madman of Chigwell! I am quite rejoiced. It's the very best +thing that could possibly happen to him.' + +After delivering himself of these remarks, he fell again into his +smiling train of reflection; from which he roused himself at length +to finish his chocolate, which was getting cold, and ring the bell +for more. + +The new supply arriving, he took the cup from his servant's hand; +and saying, with a charming affability, 'I am obliged to you, +Peak,' dismissed him. + +'It is a remarkable circumstance,' he mused, dallying lazily with +the teaspoon, 'that my friend the madman should have been within an +ace of escaping, on his trial; and it was a good stroke of chance +(or, as the world would say, a providential occurrence) that the +brother of my Lord Mayor should have been in court, with other +country justices, into whose very dense heads curiosity had +penetrated. For though the brother of my Lord Mayor was decidedly +wrong; and established his near relationship to that amusing person +beyond all doubt, in stating that my friend was sane, and had, to +his knowledge, wandered about the country with a vagabond parent, +avowing revolutionary and rebellious sentiments; I am not the less +obliged to him for volunteering that evidence. These insane +creatures make such very odd and embarrassing remarks, that they +really ought to be hanged for the comfort of society.' + +The country justice had indeed turned the wavering scale against +poor Barnaby, and solved the doubt that trembled in his favour. +Grip little thought how much he had to answer for. + +'They will be a singular party,' said Sir John, leaning his head +upon his hand, and sipping his chocolate; 'a very curious party. +The hangman himself; the centaur; and the madman. The centaur +would make a very handsome preparation in Surgeons' Hall, and +would benefit science extremely. I hope they have taken care to +bespeak him.--Peak, I am not at home, of course, to anybody but the +hairdresser.' + +This reminder to his servant was called forth by a knock at the +door, which the man hastened to open. After a prolonged murmur of +question and answer, he returned; and as he cautiously closed the +room-door behind him, a man was heard to cough in the passage. + +'Now, it is of no use, Peak,' said Sir John, raising his hand in +deprecation of his delivering any message; 'I am not at home. I +cannot possibly hear you. I told you I was not at home, and my +word is sacred. Will you never do as you are desired?' + +Having nothing to oppose to this reproof, the man was about to +withdraw, when the visitor who had given occasion to it, probably +rendered impatient by delay, knocked with his knuckles at the +chamber-door, and called out that he had urgent business with Sir +John Chester, which admitted of no delay. + +'Let him in,' said Sir John. 'My good fellow,' he added, when the +door was opened, 'how come you to intrude yourself in this +extraordinary manner upon the privacy of a gentleman? How can you +be so wholly destitute of self-respect as to be guilty of such +remarkable ill-breeding?' + +'My business, Sir John, is not of a common kind, I do assure you,' +returned the person he addressed. 'If I have taken any uncommon +course to get admission to you, I hope I shall be pardoned on that +account.' + +'Well! we shall see; we shall see,' returned Sir John, whose face +cleared up when he saw who it was, and whose prepossessing smile +was now restored. 'I am sure we have met before,' he added in his +winning tone, 'but really I forget your name?' + +'My name is Gabriel Varden, sir.' + +'Varden, of course, Varden,' returned Sir John, tapping his +forehead. 'Dear me, how very defective my memory becomes! Varden +to be sure--Mr Varden the locksmith. You have a charming wife, Mr +Varden, and a most beautiful daughter. They are well?' + +Gabriel thanked him, and said they were. + +'I rejoice to hear it,' said Sir John. 'Commend me to them when +you return, and say that I wished I were fortunate enough to +convey, myself, the salute which I entrust you to deliver. And +what,' he asked very sweetly, after a moment's pause, 'can I do for +you? You may command me freely.' + +'I thank you, Sir John,' said Gabriel, with some pride in his +manner, 'but I have come to ask no favour of you, though I come on +business.--Private,' he added, with a glance at the man who stood +looking on, 'and very pressing business.' + +'I cannot say you are the more welcome for being independent, and +having nothing to ask of me,' returned Sir John, graciously, 'for I +should have been happy to render you a service; still, you are +welcome on any terms. Oblige me with some more chocolate, Peak, +and don't wait.' + +The man retired, and left them alone. + +'Sir John,' said Gabriel, 'I am a working-man, and have been so, +all my life. If I don't prepare you enough for what I have to +tell; if I come to the point too abruptly; and give you a shock, +which a gentleman could have spared you, or at all events lessened +very much; I hope you will give me credit for meaning well. I wish +to be careful and considerate, and I trust that in a straightforward +person like me, you'll take the will for the deed.' + +'Mr Varden,' returned the other, perfectly composed under this +exordium; 'I beg you'll take a chair. Chocolate, perhaps, you +don't relish? Well! it IS an acquired taste, no doubt.' + +'Sir John,' said Gabriel, who had acknowledged with a bow the +invitation to be seated, but had not availed himself of it. 'Sir +John'--he dropped his voice and drew nearer to the bed--'I am just +now come from Newgate--' + +'Good Gad!' cried Sir John, hastily sitting up in bed; 'from +Newgate, Mr Varden! How could you be so very imprudent as to come +from Newgate! Newgate, where there are jail-fevers, and ragged +people, and bare-footed men and women, and a thousand horrors! +Peak, bring the camphor, quick! Heaven and earth, Mr Varden, my +dear, good soul, how COULD you come from Newgate?' + +Gabriel returned no answer, but looked on in silence while Peak +(who had entered with the hot chocolate) ran to a drawer, and +returning with a bottle, sprinkled his master's dressing-gown and +the bedding; and besides moistening the locksmith himself, +plentifully, described a circle round about him on the carpet. +When he had done this, he again retired; and Sir John, reclining in +an easy attitude upon his pillow, once more turned a smiling face +towards his visitor. + +'You will forgive me, Mr Varden, I am sure, for being at first a +little sensitive both on your account and my own. I confess I was +startled, notwithstanding your delicate exordium. Might I ask you +to do me the favour not to approach any nearer?--You have really +come from Newgate!' + +The locksmith inclined his head. + +'In-deed! And now, Mr Varden, all exaggeration and embellishment +apart,' said Sir John Chester, confidentially, as he sipped his +chocolate, 'what kind of place IS Newgate?' + +'A strange place, Sir John,' returned the locksmith, 'of a sad and +doleful kind. A strange place, where many strange things are heard +and seen; but few more strange than that I come to tell you of. +The case is urgent. I am sent here.' + +'Not--no, no--not from the jail?' + +'Yes, Sir John; from the jail.' + +'And my good, credulous, open-hearted friend,' said Sir John, +setting down his cup, and laughing,--'by whom?' + +'By a man called Dennis--for many years the hangman, and to-morrow +morning the hanged,' returned the locksmith. + +Sir John had expected--had been quite certain from the first--that +he would say he had come from Hugh, and was prepared to meet him on +that point. But this answer occasioned him a degree of +astonishment, which, for the moment, he could not, with all his +command of feature, prevent his face from expressing. He quickly +subdued it, however, and said in the same light tone: + +'And what does the gentleman require of me? My memory may be at +fault again, but I don't recollect that I ever had the pleasure of +an introduction to him, or that I ever numbered him among my +personal friends, I do assure you, Mr Varden.' + +'Sir John,' returned the locksmith, gravely, 'I will tell you, as +nearly as I can, in the words he used to me, what he desires that +you should know, and what you ought to know without a moment's loss +of time.' + +Sir John Chester settled himself in a position of greater repose, +and looked at his visitor with an expression of face which seemed +to say, 'This is an amusing fellow! I'll hear him out.' + +'You may have seen in the newspapers, sir,' said Gabriel, pointing +to the one which lay by his side, 'that I was a witness against +this man upon his trial some days since; and that it was not his +fault I was alive, and able to speak to what I knew.' + +'MAY have seen!' cried Sir John. 'My dear Mr Varden, you are quite +a public character, and live in all men's thoughts most deservedly. +Nothing can exceed the interest with which I read your testimony, +and remembered that I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance +with you.---I hope we shall have your portrait published?' + +'This morning, sir,' said the locksmith, taking no notice of these +compliments, 'early this morning, a message was brought to me from +Newgate, at this man's request, desiring that I would go and see +him, for he had something particular to communicate. I needn't +tell you that he is no friend of mine, and that I had never seen +him, until the rioters beset my house.' + +Sir John fanned himself gently with the newspaper, and nodded. + +'I knew, however, from the general report,' resumed Gabriel, 'that +the order for his execution to-morrow, went down to the prison +last night; and looking upon him as a dying man, I complied with +his request.' + +'You are quite a Christian, Mr Varden,' said Sir John; 'and in that +amiable capacity, you increase my desire that you should take a +chair.' + +'He said,' continued Gabriel, looking steadily at the knight, 'that +he had sent to me, because he had no friend or companion in the +whole world (being the common hangman), and because he believed, +from the way in which I had given my evidence, that I was an honest +man, and would act truly by him. He said that, being shunned by +every one who knew his calling, even by people of the lowest and +most wretched grade, and finding, when he joined the rioters, that +the men he acted with had no suspicion of it (which I believe is +true enough, for a poor fool of an old 'prentice of mine was one of +them), he had kept his own counsel, up to the time of his being +taken and put in jail.' + +'Very discreet of Mr Dennis,' observed Sir John with a slight yawn, +though still with the utmost affability, 'but--except for your +admirable and lucid manner of telling it, which is perfect--not +very interesting to me.' + +'When,' pursued the locksmith, quite unabashed and wholly +regardless of these interruptions, 'when he was taken to the jail, +he found that his fellow-prisoner, in the same room, was a young +man, Hugh by name, a leader in the riots, who had been betrayed and +given up by himself. From something which fell from this unhappy +creature in the course of the angry words they had at meeting, he +discovered that his mother had suffered the death to which they +both are now condemned.--The time is very short, Sir John.' + +The knight laid down his paper fan, replaced his cup upon the table +at his side, and, saving for the smile that lurked about his mouth, +looked at the locksmith with as much steadiness as the locksmith +looked at him. + +'They have been in prison now, a month. One conversation led to +many more; and the hangman soon found, from a comparison of time, +and place, and dates, that he had executed the sentence of the law +upon this woman, himself. She had been tempted by want--as so many +people are--into the easy crime of passing forged notes. She was +young and handsome; and the traders who employ men, women, and +children in this traffic, looked upon her as one who was well +adapted for their business, and who would probably go on without +suspicion for a long time. But they were mistaken; for she was +stopped in the commission of her very first offence, and died for +it. She was of gipsy blood, Sir John--' + +It might have been the effect of a passing cloud which obscured the +sun, and cast a shadow on his face; but the knight turned deadly +pale. Still he met the locksmith's eye, as before. + +'She was of gipsy blood, Sir John,' repeated Gabriel, 'and had a +high, free spirit. This, and her good looks, and her lofty manner, +interested some gentlemen who were easily moved by dark eyes; and +efforts were made to save her. They might have been successful, if +she would have given them any clue to her history. But she never +would, or did. There was reason to suspect that she would make an +attempt upon her life. A watch was set upon her night and day; and +from that time she never spoke again--' + +Sir John stretched out his hand towards his cup. The locksmith +going on, arrested it half-way. + +--'Until she had but a minute to live. Then she broke silence, and +said, in a low firm voice which no one heard but this executioner, +for all other living creatures had retired and left her to her +fate, "If I had a dagger within these fingers and he was within my +reach, I would strike him dead before me, even now!" The man asked +"Who?" She said, "The father of her boy."' + +Sir John drew back his outstretched hand, and seeing that the +locksmith paused, signed to him with easy politeness and without +any new appearance of emotion, to proceed. + +'It was the first word she had ever spoken, from which it could be +understood that she had any relative on earth. "Was the child +alive?" he asked. "Yes." He asked her where it was, its name, and +whether she had any wish respecting it. She had but one, she said. +It was that the boy might live and grow, in utter ignorance of his +father, so that no arts might teach him to be gentle and +forgiving. When he became a man, she trusted to the God of their +tribe to bring the father and the son together, and revenge her +through her child. He asked her other questions, but she spoke no +more. Indeed, he says, she scarcely said this much, to him, but +stood with her face turned upwards to the sky, and never looked +towards him once.' + +Sir John took a pinch of snuff; glanced approvingly at an elegant +little sketch, entitled 'Nature,' on the wall; and raising his eyes +to the locksmith's face again, said, with an air of courtesy and +patronage, 'You were observing, Mr Varden--' + +'That she never,' returned the locksmith, who was not to be +diverted by any artifice from his firm manner, and his steady gaze, +'that she never looked towards him once, Sir John; and so she died, +and he forgot her. But, some years afterwards, a man was +sentenced to die the same death, who was a gipsy too; a sunburnt, +swarthy fellow, almost a wild man; and while he lay in prison, +under sentence, he, who had seen the hangman more than once while +he was free, cut an image of him on his stick, by way of braving +death, and showing those who attended on him, how little he cared +or thought about it. He gave this stick into his hands at Tyburn, +and told him then, that the woman I have spoken of had left her own +people to join a fine gentleman, and that, being deserted by him, +and cast off by her old friends, she had sworn within her own proud +breast, that whatever her misery might be, she would ask no help of +any human being. He told him that she had kept her word to the +last; and that, meeting even him in the streets--he had been fond +of her once, it seems--she had slipped from him by a trick, and he +never saw her again, until, being in one of the frequent crowds at +Tyburn, with some of his rough companions, he had been driven +almost mad by seeing, in the criminal under another name, whose +death he had come to witness, herself. Standing in the same place +in which she had stood, he told the hangman this, and told him, +too, her real name, which only her own people and the gentleman for +whose sake she had left them, knew. That name he will tell again, +Sir John, to none but you.' + +'To none but me!' exclaimed the knight, pausing in the act of +raising his cup to his lips with a perfectly steady hand, and +curling up his little finger for the better display of a brilliant +ring with which it was ornamented: 'but me!--My dear Mr Varden, +how very preposterous, to select me for his confidence! With you +at his elbow, too, who are so perfectly trustworthy!' + +'Sir John, Sir John,' returned the locksmith, 'at twelve tomorrow, +these men die. Hear the few words I have to add, and do not hope +to deceive me; for though I am a plain man of humble station, and +you are a gentleman of rank and learning, the truth raises me to +your level, and I KNOW that you anticipate the disclosure with +which I am about to end, and that you believe this doomed man, +Hugh, to be your son.' + +'Nay,' said Sir John, bantering him with a gay air; 'the wild +gentleman, who died so suddenly, scarcely went as far as that, I +think?' + +'He did not,' returned the locksmith, 'for she had bound him by +some pledge, known only to these people, and which the worst among +them respect, not to tell your name: but, in a fantastic pattern on +the stick, he had carved some letters, and when the hangman asked +it, he bade him, especially if he should ever meet with her son in +after life, remember that place well.' + +'What place?' + +'Chester.' + +The knight finished his cup of chocolate with an appearance of +infinite relish, and carefully wiped his lips upon his +handkerchief. + +'Sir John,' said the locksmith, 'this is all that has been told to +me; but since these two men have been left for death, they have +conferred together closely. See them, and hear what they can add. +See this Dennis, and learn from him what he has not trusted to me. +If you, who hold the clue to all, want corroboration (which you do +not), the means are easy.' + +'And to what,' said Sir John Chester, rising on his elbow, after +smoothing the pillow for its reception; 'my dear, good-natured, +estimable Mr Varden--with whom I cannot be angry if I would--to +what does all this tend?' + +'I take you for a man, Sir John, and I suppose it tends to some +pleading of natural affection in your breast,' returned the +locksmith. 'I suppose to the straining of every nerve, and the +exertion of all the influence you have, or can make, in behalf of +your miserable son, and the man who has disclosed his existence to +you. At the worst, I suppose to your seeing your son, and +awakening him to a sense of his crime and danger. He has no such +sense now. Think what his life must have been, when he said in my +hearing, that if I moved you to anything, it would be to hastening +his death, and ensuring his silence, if you had it in your power!' + +'And have you, my good Mr Varden,' said Sir John in a tone of mild +reproof, 'have you really lived to your present age, and remained +so very simple and credulous, as to approach a gentleman of +established character with such credentials as these, from +desperate men in their last extremity, catching at any straw? Oh +dear! Oh fie, fie!' + +The locksmith was going to interpose, but he stopped him: + +'On any other subject, Mr Varden, I shall be delighted--I shall be +charmed--to converse with you, but I owe it to my own character not +to pursue this topic for another moment.' + +'Think better of it, sir, when I am gone,' returned the locksmith; +'think better of it, sir. Although you have, thrice within as many +weeks, turned your lawful son, Mr Edward, from your door, you may +have time, you may have years to make your peace with HIM, Sir +John: but that twelve o'clock will soon be here, and soon be past +for ever.' + +'I thank you very much,' returned the knight, kissing his delicate +hand to the locksmith, 'for your guileless advice; and I only wish, +my good soul, although your simplicity is quite captivating, that +you had a little more worldly wisdom. I never so much regretted +the arrival of my hairdresser as I do at this moment. God bless +you! Good morning! You'll not forget my message to the ladies, Mr +Varden? Peak, show Mr Varden to the door.' + +Gabriel said no more, but gave the knight a parting look, and left +him. As he quitted the room, Sir John's face changed; and the +smile gave place to a haggard and anxious expression, like that of +a weary actor jaded by the performance of a difficult part. He +rose from his bed with a heavy sigh, and wrapped himself in his +morning-gown. + +'So she kept her word,' he said, 'and was constant to her threat! +I would I had never seen that dark face of hers,--I might have read +these consequences in it, from the first. This affair would make a +noise abroad, if it rested on better evidence; but, as it is, and +by not joining the scattered links of the chain, I can afford to +slight it.--Extremely distressing to be the parent of such an +uncouth creature! Still, I gave him very good advice. I told him +he would certainly be hanged. I could have done no more if I had +known of our relationship; and there are a great many fathers who +have never done as much for THEIR natural children.--The +hairdresser may come in, Peak!' + +The hairdresser came in; and saw in Sir John Chester (whose +accommodating conscience was soon quieted by the numerous +precedents that occurred to him in support of his last +observation), the same imperturbable, fascinating, elegant +gentleman he had seen yesterday, and many yesterdays before. + + + +Chapter 76 + + +As the locksmith walked slowly away from Sir John Chester's +chambers, he lingered under the trees which shaded the path, almost +hoping that he might be summoned to return. He had turned back +thrice, and still loitered at the corner, when the clock struck +twelve. + +It was a solemn sound, and not merely for its reference to to- +morrow; for he knew that in that chime the murderer's knell was +rung. He had seen him pass along the crowded street, amidst the +execration of the throng; and marked his quivering lip, and +trembling limbs; the ashy hue upon his face, his clammy brow, the +wild distraction of his eye--the fear of death that swallowed up +all other thoughts, and gnawed without cessation at his heart and +brain. He had marked the wandering look, seeking for hope, and +finding, turn where it would, despair. He had seen the remorseful, +pitiful, desolate creature, riding, with his coffin by his side, to +the gibbet. He knew that, to the last, he had been an unyielding, +obdurate man; that in the savage terror of his condition he had +hardened, rather than relented, to his wife and child; and that the +last words which had passed his white lips were curses on them as +his enemies. + +Mr Haredale had determined to be there, and see it done. Nothing +but the evidence of his own senses could satisfy that gloomy thirst +for retribution which had been gathering upon him for so many +years. The locksmith knew this, and when the chimes had ceased to +vibrate, hurried away to meet him. + +'For these two men,' he said, as he went, 'I can do no more. +Heaven have mercy on them!--Alas! I say I can do no more for them, +but whom can I help? Mary Rudge will have a home, and a firm +friend when she most wants one; but Barnaby--poor Barnaby--willing +Barnaby--what aid can I render him? There are many, many men of +sense, God forgive me,' cried the honest locksmith, stopping in a +narrow count to pass his hand across his eyes, 'I could better +afford to lose than Barnaby. We have always been good friends, but +I never knew, till now, how much I loved the lad.' + +There were not many in the great city who thought of Barnaby that +day, otherwise than as an actor in a show which was to take place +to-morrow. But if the whole population had had him in their minds, +and had wished his life to be spared, not one among them could have +done so with a purer zeal or greater singleness of heart than the +good locksmith. + +Barnaby was to die. There was no hope. It is not the least evil +attendant upon the frequent exhibition of this last dread +punishment, of Death, that it hardens the minds of those who deal +it out, and makes them, though they be amiable men in other +respects, indifferent to, or unconscious of, their great +responsibility. The word had gone forth that Barnaby was to die. +It went forth, every month, for lighter crimes. It was a thing so +common, that very few were startled by the awful sentence, or +cared to question its propriety. Just then, too, when the law had +been so flagrantly outraged, its dignity must be asserted. The +symbol of its dignity,--stamped upon every page of the criminal +statute-book,--was the gallows; and Barnaby was to die. + +They had tried to save him. The locksmith had carried petitions +and memorials to the fountain-head, with his own hands. But the +well was not one of mercy, and Barnaby was to die. + +From the first his mother had never left him, save at night; and +with her beside him, he was as usual contented. On this last day, +he was more elated and more proud than he had been yet; and when +she dropped the book she had been reading to him aloud, and fell +upon his neck, he stopped in his busy task of folding a piece of +crape about his hat, and wondered at her anguish. Grip uttered a +feeble croak, half in encouragement, it seemed, and half in +remonstrance, but he wanted heart to sustain it, and lapsed +abruptly into silence. + +With them who stood upon the brink of the great gulf which none can +see beyond, Time, so soon to lose itself in vast Eternity, rolled +on like a mighty river, swollen and rapid as it nears the sea. It +was morning but now; they had sat and talked together in a dream; +and here was evening. The dreadful hour of separation, which even +yesterday had seemed so distant, was at hand. + +They walked out into the courtyard, clinging to each other, but not +speaking. Barnaby knew that the jail was a dull, sad, miserable +place, and looked forward to to-morrow, as to a passage from it to +something bright and beautiful. He had a vague impression too, +that he was expected to be brave--that he was a man of great +consequence, and that the prison people would be glad to make him +weep. He trod the ground more firmly as he thought of this, and +bade her take heart and cry no more, and feel how steady his hand +was. 'They call me silly, mother. They shall see to-morrow!' + +Dennis and Hugh were in the courtyard. Hugh came forth from his +cell as they did, stretching himself as though he had been +sleeping. Dennis sat upon a bench in a corner, with his knees and +chin huddled together, and rocked himself to and fro like a person +in severe pain. + +The mother and son remained on one side of the court, and these two +men upon the other. Hugh strode up and down, glancing fiercely +every now and then at the bright summer sky, and looking round, +when he had done so, at the walls. + +'No reprieve, no reprieve! Nobody comes near us. There's only the +night left now!' moaned Dennis faintly, as he wrung his hands. 'Do +you think they'll reprieve me in the night, brother? I've known +reprieves come in the night, afore now. I've known 'em come as +late as five, six, and seven o'clock in the morning. Don't you +think there's a good chance yet,--don't you? Say you do. Say you +do, young man,' whined the miserable creature, with an imploring +gesture towards Barnaby, 'or I shall go mad!' + +'Better be mad than sane, here,' said Hugh. 'GO mad.' + +'But tell me what you think. Somebody tell me what he thinks!' +cried the wretched object,--so mean, and wretched, and despicable, +that even Pity's self might have turned away, at sight of such a +being in the likeness of a man--'isn't there a chance for me,-- +isn't there a good chance for me? Isn't it likely they may be +doing this to frighten me? Don't you think it is? Oh!' he almost +shrieked, as he wrung his hands, 'won't anybody give me comfort!' + +'You ought to be the best, instead of the worst,' said Hugh, +stopping before him. 'Ha, ha, ha! See the hangman, when it comes +home to him!' + +'You don't know what it is,' cried Dennis, actually writhing as he +spoke: 'I do. That I should come to be worked off! I! I! That I +should come!' + +'And why not?' said Hugh, as he thrust back his matted hair to get +a better view of his late associate. 'How often, before I knew +your trade, did I hear you talking of this as if it was a treat?' + +'I an't unconsistent,' screamed the miserable creature; 'I'd talk +so again, if I was hangman. Some other man has got my old +opinions at this minute. That makes it worse. Somebody's longing +to work me off. I know by myself that somebody must be!' + +'He'll soon have his longing,' said Hugh, resuming his walk. +'Think of that, and be quiet.' + +Although one of these men displayed, in his speech and bearing, the +most reckless hardihood; and the other, in his every word and +action, testified such an extreme of abject cowardice that it was +humiliating to see him; it would be difficult to say which of them +would most have repelled and shocked an observer. Hugh's was the +dogged desperation of a savage at the stake; the hangman was +reduced to a condition little better, if any, than that of a hound +with the halter round his neck. Yet, as Mr Dennis knew and could +have told them, these were the two commonest states of mind in +persons brought to their pass. Such was the wholesome growth of +the seed sown by the law, that this kind of harvest was usually +looked for, as a matter of course. + +In one respect they all agreed. The wandering and uncontrollable +train of thought, suggesting sudden recollections of things distant +and long forgotten and remote from each other--the vague restless +craving for something undefined, which nothing could satisfy--the +swift flight of the minutes, fusing themselves into hours, as if by +enchantment--the rapid coming of the solemn night--the shadow of +death always upon them, and yet so dim and faint, that objects the +meanest and most trivial started from the gloom beyond, and forced +themselves upon the view--the impossibility of holding the mind, +even if they had been so disposed, to penitence and preparation, or +of keeping it to any point while one hideous fascination tempted it +away--these things were common to them all, and varied only in +their outward tokens. + +'Fetch me the book I left within--upon your bed,' she said to +Barnaby, as the clock struck. 'Kiss me first.' + +He looked in her face, and saw there, that the time was come. +After a long embrace, he tore himself away, and ran to bring it to +her; bidding her not stir till he came back. He soon returned, for +a shriek recalled him,--but she was gone. + +He ran to the yard-gate, and looked through. They were carrying +her away. She had said her heart would break. It was better so. + +'Don't you think,' whimpered Dennis, creeping up to him, as he +stood with his feet rooted to the ground, gazing at the blank +walls--'don't you think there's still a chance? It's a dreadful +end; it's a terrible end for a man like me. Don't you think +there's a chance? I don't mean for you, I mean for me. Don't let +HIM hear us (meaning Hugh); 'he's so desperate.' + +Now then,' said the officer, who had been lounging in and out with +his hands in his pockets, and yawning as if he were in the last +extremity for some subject of interest: 'it's time to turn in, +boys.' + +'Not yet,' cried Dennis, 'not yet. Not for an hour yet.' + +'I say,--your watch goes different from what it used to,' returned +the man. 'Once upon a time it was always too fast. It's got the +other fault now.' + +'My friend,' cried the wretched creature, falling on his knees, 'my +dear friend--you always were my dear friend--there's some mistake. +Some letter has been mislaid, or some messenger has been stopped +upon the way. He may have fallen dead. I saw a man once, fall +down dead in the street, myself, and he had papers in his pocket. +Send to inquire. Let somebody go to inquire. They never will hang +me. They never can.--Yes, they will,' he cried, starting to his +feet with a terrible scream. 'They'll hang me by a trick, and keep +the pardon back. It's a plot against me. I shall lose my life!' +And uttering another yell, he fell in a fit upon the ground. + +'See the hangman when it comes home to him!' cried Hugh again, as +they bore him away--'Ha ha ha! Courage, bold Barnaby, what care +we? Your hand! They do well to put us out of the world, for if we +got loose a second time, we wouldn't let them off so easy, eh? +Another shake! A man can die but once. If you wake in the night, +sing that out lustily, and fall asleep again. Ha ha ha!' + +Barnaby glanced once more through the grate into the empty yard; +and then watched Hugh as he strode to the steps leading to his +sleeping-cell. He heard him shout, and burst into a roar of +laughter, and saw him flourish his hat. Then he turned away +himself, like one who walked in his sleep; and, without any sense +of fear or sorrow, lay down on his pallet, listening for the clock +to strike again. + + + +Chapter 77 + + +The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less frequent +by degrees, until silence was scarcely broken save by the bells in +church towers, marking the progress--softer and more stealthy +while the city slumbered--of that Great Watcher with the hoary +head, who never sleeps or rests. In the brief interval of darkness +and repose which feverish towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed; +and those who awoke from dreams lay listening in their beds, and +longed for dawn, and wished the dead of the night were past. + +Into the street outside the jail's main wall, workmen came +straggling at this solemn hour, in groups of two or three, and +meeting in the centre, cast their tools upon the ground and spoke +in whispers. Others soon issued from the jail itself, bearing on +their shoulders planks and beams: these materials being all brought +forth, the rest bestirred themselves, and the dull sound of hammers +began to echo through the stillness. + +Here and there among this knot of labourers, one, with a lantern or +a smoky link, stood by to light his fellows at their work; and by +its doubtful aid, some might be dimly seen taking up the pavement +of the road, while others held great upright posts, or fixed them +in the holes thus made for their reception. Some dragged slowly +on, towards the rest, an empty cart, which they brought rumbling +from the prison-yard; while others erected strong barriers across +the street. All were busily engaged. Their dusky figures moving +to and fro, at that unusual hour, so active and so silent, might +have been taken for those of shadowy creatures toiling at midnight +on some ghostly unsubstantial work, which, like themselves, would +vanish with the first gleam of day, and leave but morning mist and +vapour. + +While it was yet dark, a few lookers-on collected, who had plainly +come there for the purpose and intended to remain: even those who +had to pass the spot on their way to some other place, lingered, +and lingered yet, as though the attraction of that were +irresistible. Meanwhile the noise of saw and mallet went on +briskly, mingled with the clattering of boards on the stone +pavement of the road, and sometimes with the workmen's voices as +they called to one another. Whenever the chimes of the +neighbouring church were heard--and that was every quarter of an +hour--a strange sensation, instantaneous and indescribable, but +perfectly obvious, seemed to pervade them all. + +Gradually, a faint brightness appeared in the east, and the air, +which had been very warm all through the night, felt cool and +chilly. Though there was no daylight yet, the darkness was +diminished, and the stars looked pale. The prison, which had been +a mere black mass with little shape or form, put on its usual +aspect; and ever and anon a solitary watchman could be seen upon +its roof, stopping to look down upon the preparations in the +street. This man, from forming, as it were, a part of the jail, +and knowing or being supposed to know all that was passing within, +became an object of as much interest, and was as eagerly looked +for, and as awfully pointed out, as if he had been a spirit. + +By and by, the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses with +their signboards and inscriptions, stood plainly out, in the dull +grey morning. Heavy stage waggons crawled from the inn-yard +opposite; and travellers peeped out; and as they rolled sluggishly +away, cast many a backward look towards the jail. And now, the +sun's first beams came glancing into the street; and the night's +work, which, in its various stages and in the varied fancies of the +lookers-on had taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form--a +scaffold, and a gibbet. + +As the warmth of the cheerful day began to shed itself upon the +scanty crowd, the murmur of tongues was heard, shutters were thrown +open, and blinds drawn up, and those who had slept in rooms over +against the prison, where places to see the execution were let at +high prices, rose hastily from their beds. In some of the houses, +people were busy taking out the window-sashes for the better +accommodation of spectators; in others, the spectators were already +seated, and beguiling the time with cards, or drink, or jokes among +themselves. Some had purchased seats upon the house-tops, and +were already crawling to their stations from parapet and garret- +window. Some were yet bargaining for good places, and stood in +them in a state of indecision: gazing at the slowly-swelling crowd, +and at the workmen as they rested listlessly against the scaffold-- +affecting to listen with indifference to the proprietor's eulogy of +the commanding view his house afforded, and the surpassing +cheapness of his terms. + +A fairer morning never shone. From the roofs and upper stories of +these buildings, the spires of city churches and the great +cathedral dome were visible, rising up beyond the prison, into the +blue sky, and clad in the colour of light summer clouds, and +showing in the clear atmosphere their every scrap of tracery and +fretwork, and every niche and loophole. All was brightness and +promise, excepting in the street below, into which (for it yet lay +in shadow) the eye looked down as into a dark trench, where, in the +midst of so much life, and hope, and renewal of existence, stood +the terrible instrument of death. It seemed as if the very sun +forbore to look upon it. + +But it was better, grim and sombre in the shade, than when, the day +being more advanced, it stood confessed in the full glare and glory +of the sun, with its black paint blistering, and its nooses +dangling in the light like loathsome garlands. It was better in +the solitude and gloom of midnight with a few forms clustering +about it, than in the freshness and the stir of morning: the centre +of an eager crowd. It was better haunting the street like a +spectre, when men were in their beds, and influencing perchance the +city's dreams, than braving the broad day, and thrusting its +obscene presence upon their waking senses. + +Five o'clock had struck--six--seven--and eight. Along the two main +streets at either end of the cross-way, a living stream had now +set in, rolling towards the marts of gain and business. Carts, +coaches, waggons, trucks, and barrows, forced a passage through the +outskirts of the throng, and clattered onward in the same +direction. Some of these which were public conveyances and had +come from a short distance in the country, stopped; and the driver +pointed to the gibbet with his whip, though he might have spared +himself the pains, for the heads of all the passengers were turned +that way without his help, and the coach-windows were stuck full of +staring eyes. In some of the carts and waggons, women might be +seen, glancing fearfully at the same unsightly thing; and even +little children were held up above the people's heads to see what +kind of a toy a gallows was, and learn how men were hanged. + +Two rioters were to die before the prison, who had been concerned +in the attack upon it; and one directly afterwards in Bloomsbury +Square. At nine o'clock, a strong body of military marched into +the street, and formed and lined a narrow passage into Holborn, +which had been indifferently kept all night by constables. Through +this, another cart was brought (the one already mentioned had been +employed in the construction of the scaffold), and wheeled up to +the prison-gate. These preparations made, the soldiers stood at +ease; the officers lounged to and fro, in the alley they had made, +or talked together at the scaffold's foot; and the concourse, +which had been rapidly augmenting for some hours, and still +received additions every minute, waited with an impatience which +increased with every chime of St Sepulchre's clock, for twelve at +noon. + +Up to this time they had been very quiet, comparatively silent, +save when the arrival of some new party at a window, hitherto +unoccupied, gave them something new to look at or to talk of. But, +as the hour approached, a buzz and hum arose, which, deepening +every moment, soon swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the air. +No words or even voices could be distinguished in this clamour, nor +did they speak much to each other; though such as were better +informed upon the topic than the rest, would tell their neighbours, +perhaps, that they might know the hangman when he came out, by his +being the shorter one: and that the man who was to suffer with him +was named Hugh: and that it was Barnaby Rudge who would be hanged +in Bloomsbury Square. + +The hum grew, as the time drew near, so loud, that those who were +at the windows could not hear the church-clock strike, though it +was close at hand. Nor had they any need to hear it, either, for +they could see it in the people's faces. So surely as another +quarter chimed, there was a movement in the crowd--as if something +had passed over it--as if the light upon them had been changed--in +which the fact was readable as on a brazen dial, figured by a +giant's hand. + +Three quarters past eleven! The murmur now was deafening, yet +every man seemed mute. Look where you would among the crowd, you +saw strained eyes and lips compressed; it would have been difficult +for the most vigilant observer to point this way or that, and say +that yonder man had cried out. It were as easy to detect the +motion of lips in a sea-shell. + +Three quarters past eleven! Many spectators who had retired from +the windows, came back refreshed, as though their watch had just +begun. Those who had fallen asleep, roused themselves; and every +person in the crowd made one last effort to better his position-- +which caused a press against the sturdy barriers that made them +bend and yield like twigs. The officers, who until now had kept +together, fell into their several positions, and gave the words of +command. Swords were drawn, muskets shouldered, and the bright +steel winding its way among the crowd, gleamed and glittered in the +sun like a river. Along this shining path, two men came hurrying +on, leading a horse, which was speedily harnessed to the cart at +the prison-door. Then, a profound silence replaced the tumult that +had so long been gathering, and a breathless pause ensued. Every +window was now choked up with heads; the house-tops teemed with +people--clinging to chimneys, peering over gable-ends, and holding +on where the sudden loosening of any brick or stone would dash them +down into the street. The church tower, the church roof, the +church yard, the prison leads, the very water-spouts and +lampposts--every inch of room--swarmed with human life. + +At the first stroke of twelve the prison-bell began to toll. Then +the roar--mingled now with cries of 'Hats off!' and 'Poor fellows!' +and, from some specks in the great concourse, with a shriek or +groan--burst forth again. It was terrible to see--if any one in +that distraction of excitement could have seen--the world of eager +eyes, all strained upon the scaffold and the beam. + +The hollow murmuring was heard within the jail as plainly as +without. The three were brought forth into the yard, together, as +it resounded through the air. They knew its import well. + +'D'ye hear?' cried Hugh, undaunted by the sound. 'They expect us! +I heard them gathering when I woke in the night, and turned over on +t'other side and fell asleep again. We shall see how they welcome +the hangman, now that it comes home to him. Ha, ha, ha!' + +The Ordinary coming up at this moment, reproved him for his +indecent mirth, and advised him to alter his demeanour. + +'And why, master?' said Hugh. 'Can I do better than bear it +easily? YOU bear it easily enough. Oh! never tell me,' he cried, +as the other would have spoken, 'for all your sad look and your +solemn air, you think little enough of it! They say you're the +best maker of lobster salads in London. Ha, ha! I've heard that, +you see, before now. Is it a good one, this morning--is your hand +in? How does the breakfast look? I hope there's enough, and to +spare, for all this hungry company that'll sit down to it, when the +sight's over.' + +'I fear,' observed the clergyman, shaking his head, 'that you are +incorrigible.' + +'You're right. I am,' rejoined Hugh sternly. 'Be no hypocrite, +master! You make a merry-making of this, every month; let me be +merry, too. If you want a frightened fellow there's one that'll +suit you. Try your hand upon him.' + +He pointed, as he spoke, to Dennis, who, with his legs trailing on +the ground, was held between two men; and who trembled so, that all +his joints and limbs seemed racked by spasms. Turning from this +wretched spectacle, he called to Barnaby, who stood apart. + +'What cheer, Barnaby? Don't be downcast, lad. Leave that to HIM.' + +'Bless you,' cried Barnaby, stepping lightly towards him, 'I'm not +frightened, Hugh. I'm quite happy. I wouldn't desire to live now, +if they'd let me. Look at me! Am I afraid to die? Will they see +ME tremble?' + +Hugh gazed for a moment at his face, on which there was a strange, +unearthly smile; and at his eye, which sparkled brightly; and +interposing between him and the Ordinary, gruffly whispered to the +latter: + +'I wouldn't say much to him, master, if I was you. He may spoil +your appetite for breakfast, though you ARE used to it.' + +He was the only one of the three who had washed or trimmed himself +that morning. Neither of the others had done so, since their doom +was pronounced. He still wore the broken peacock's feathers in his +hat; and all his usual scraps of finery were carefully disposed +about his person. His kindling eye, his firm step, his proud and +resolute bearing, might have graced some lofty act of heroism; some +voluntary sacrifice, born of a noble cause and pure enthusiasm; +rather than that felon's death. + +But all these things increased his guilt. They were mere +assumptions. The law had declared it so, and so it must be. The +good minister had been greatly shocked, not a quarter of an hour +before, at his parting with Grip. For one in his condition, to +fondle a bird!--The yard was filled with people; bluff civic +functionaries, officers of justice, soldiers, the curious in such +matters, and guests who had been bidden as to a wedding. Hugh +looked about him, nodded gloomily to some person in authority, who +indicated with his hand in what direction he was to proceed; and +clapping Barnaby on the shoulder, passed out with the gait of a +lion. + +They entered a large room, so near to the scaffold that the voices +of those who stood about it, could be plainly heard: some +beseeching the javelin-men to take them out of the crowd: others +crying to those behind, to stand back, for they were pressed to +death, and suffocating for want of air. + +In the middle of this chamber, two smiths, with hammers, stood +beside an anvil. Hugh walked straight up to them, and set his foot +upon it with a sound as though it had been struck by a heavy +weapon. Then, with folded arms, he stood to have his irons knocked +off: scowling haughtily round, as those who were present eyed him +narrowly and whispered to each other. + +It took so much time to drag Dennis in, that this ceremony was over +with Hugh, and nearly over with Barnaby, before he appeared. He no +sooner came into the place he knew so well, however, and among +faces with which he was so familiar, than he recovered strength and +sense enough to clasp his hands and make a last appeal. + +'Gentlemen, good gentlemen,' cried the abject creature, grovelling +down upon his knees, and actually prostrating himself upon the +stone floor: 'Governor, dear governor--honourable sheriffs--worthy +gentlemen--have mercy upon a wretched man that has served His +Majesty, and the Law, and Parliament, for so many years, and don't-- +don't let me die--because of a mistake.' + +'Dennis,' said the governor of the jail, 'you know what the course +is, and that the order came with the rest. You know that we could +do nothing, even if we would.' + +'All I ask, sir,--all I want and beg, is time, to make it sure,' +cried the trembling wretch, looking wildly round for sympathy. +'The King and Government can't know it's me; I'm sure they can't +know it's me; or they never would bring me to this dreadful +slaughterhouse. They know my name, but they don't know it's the +same man. Stop my execution--for charity's sake stop my execution, +gentlemen--till they can be told that I've been hangman here, nigh +thirty year. Will no one go and tell them?' he implored, clenching +his hands and glaring round, and round, and round again--'will no +charitable person go and tell them!' + +'Mr Akerman,' said a gentleman who stood by, after a moment's +pause, 'since it may possibly produce in this unhappy man a better +frame of mind, even at this last minute, let me assure him that he +was well known to have been the hangman, when his sentence was +considered.' + +'--But perhaps they think on that account that the punishment's not +so great,' cried the criminal, shuffling towards this speaker on +his knees, and holding up his folded hands; 'whereas it's worse, +it's worse a hundred times, to me than any man. Let them know +that, sir. Let them know that. They've made it worse to me by +giving me so much to do. Stop my execution till they know that!' + +The governor beckoned with his hand, and the two men, who had +supported him before, approached. He uttered a piercing cry: + +'Wait! Wait. Only a moment--only one moment more! Give me a last +chance of reprieve. One of us three is to go to Bloomsbury Square. +Let me be the one. It may come in that time; it's sure to come. +In the Lord's name let me be sent to Bloomsbury Square. Don't hang +me here. It's murder.' + +They took him to the anvil: but even then he could he heard above +the clinking of the smiths' hammers, and the hoarse raging of the +crowd, crying that he knew of Hugh's birth--that his father was +living, and was a gentleman of influence and rank--that he had +family secrets in his possession--that he could tell nothing unless +they gave him time, but must die with them on his mind; and he +continued to rave in this sort until his voice failed him, and he +sank down a mere heap of clothes between the two attendants. + +It was at this moment that the clock struck the first stroke of +twelve, and the bell began to toll. The various officers, with the +two sheriffs at their head, moved towards the door. All was ready +when the last chime came upon the ear. + +They told Hugh this, and asked if he had anything to say. + +'To say!' he cried. 'Not I. I'm ready.--Yes,' he added, as his +eye fell upon Barnaby, 'I have a word to say, too. Come hither, +lad.' + +There was, for the moment, something kind, and even tender, +struggling in his fierce aspect, as he wrung his poor companion by +the hand. + +'I'll say this,' he cried, looking firmly round, 'that if I had ten +lives to lose, and the loss of each would give me ten times the +agony of the hardest death, I'd lay them all down--ay, I would, +though you gentlemen may not believe it--to save this one. This +one,' he added, wringing his hand again, 'that will be lost through +me.' + +'Not through you,' said the idiot, mildly. 'Don't say that. You +were not to blame. You have always been very good to me.--Hugh, we +shall know what makes the stars shine, NOW!' + +'I took him from her in a reckless mood, and didn't think what harm +would come of it,' said Hugh, laying his hand upon his head, and +speaking in a lower voice. 'I ask her pardon; and his.--Look +here,' he added roughly, in his former tone. 'You see this lad?' + +They murmured 'Yes,' and seemed to wonder why he asked. + +'That gentleman yonder--' pointing to the clergyman--'has often in +the last few days spoken to me of faith, and strong belief. You +see what I am--more brute than man, as I have been often told--but +I had faith enough to believe, and did believe as strongly as any +of you gentlemen can believe anything, that this one life would be +spared. See what he is!--Look at him!' + +Barnaby had moved towards the door, and stood beckoning him to +follow. + +'If this was not faith, and strong belief!' cried Hugh, raising +his right arm aloft, and looking upward like a savage prophet whom +the near approach of Death had filled with inspiration, 'where are +they! What else should teach me--me, born as I was born, and +reared as I have been reared--to hope for any mercy in this +hardened, cruel, unrelenting place! Upon these human shambles, I, +who never raised this hand in prayer till now, call down the wrath +of God! On that black tree, of which I am the ripened fruit, I do +invoke the curse of all its victims, past, and present, and to +come. On the head of that man, who, in his conscience, owns me for +his son, I leave the wish that he may never sicken on his bed of +down, but die a violent death as I do now, and have the night-wind +for his only mourner. To this I say, Amen, amen!' + +His arm fell downward by his side; he turned; and moved towards +them with a steady step, the man he had been before. + +'There is nothing more?' said the governor. + +Hugh motioned Barnaby not to come near him (though without looking +in the direction where he stood) and answered, 'There is nothing +more.' + +'Move forward!' + +'--Unless,' said Hugh, glancing hurriedly back,--'unless any +person here has a fancy for a dog; and not then, unless he means to +use him well. There's one, belongs to me, at the house I came +from, and it wouldn't be easy to find a better. He'll whine at +first, but he'll soon get over that.--You wonder that I think about +a dog just now, he added, with a kind of laugh. 'If any man +deserved it of me half as well, I'd think of HIM.' + +He spoke no more, but moved onward in his place, with a careless +air, though listening at the same time to the Service for the Dead, +with something between sullen attention, and quickened curiosity. +As soon as he had passed the door, his miserable associate was +carried out; and the crowd beheld the rest. + +Barnaby would have mounted the steps at the same time--indeed he +would have gone before them, but in both attempts he was +restrained, as he was to undergo the sentence elsewhere. In a few +minutes the sheriffs reappeared, the same procession was again +formed, and they passed through various rooms and passages to +another door--that at which the cart was waiting. He held down his +head to avoid seeing what he knew his eyes must otherwise +encounter, and took his seat sorrowfully,--and yet with something +of a childish pride and pleasure,--in the vehicle. The officers +fell into their places at the sides, in front and in the rear; the +sheriffs' carriages rolled on; a guard of soldiers surrounded the +whole; and they moved slowly forward through the throng and +pressure toward Lord Mansfield's ruined house. + +It was a sad sight--all the show, and strength, and glitter, +assembled round one helpless creature--and sadder yet to note, as +he rode along, how his wandering thoughts found strange +encouragement in the crowded windows and the concourse in the +streets; and how, even then, he felt the influence of the bright +sky, and looked up, smiling, into its deep unfathomable blue. But +there had been many such sights since the riots were over--some so +moving in their nature, and so repulsive too, that they were far +more calculated to awaken pity for the sufferers, than respect for +that law whose strong arm seemed in more than one case to be as +wantonly stretched forth now that all was safe, as it had been +basely paralysed in time of danger. + +Two cripples--both mere boys--one with a leg of wood, one who +dragged his twisted limbs along by the help of a crutch, were +hanged in this same Bloomsbury Square. As the cart was about to +glide from under them, it was observed that they stood with their +faces from, not to, the house they had assisted to despoil; and +their misery was protracted that this omission might be remedied. +Another boy was hanged in Bow Street; other young lads in various +quarters of the town. Four wretched women, too, were put to +death. In a word, those who suffered as rioters were, for the most +part, the weakest, meanest, and most miserable among them. It was +a most exquisite satire upon the false religious cry which had led +to so much misery, that some of these people owned themselves to be +Catholics, and begged to be attended by their own priests. + +One young man was hanged in Bishopsgate Street, whose aged grey- +headed father waited for him at the gallows, kissed him at its foot +when he arrived, and sat there, on the ground, till they took him +down. They would have given him the body of his child; but he had +no hearse, no coffin, nothing to remove it in, being too poor--and +walked meekly away beside the cart that took it back to prison, +trying, as he went, to touch its lifeless hand. + +But the crowd had forgotten these matters, or cared little about +them if they lived in their memory: and while one great multitude +fought and hustled to get near the gibbet before Newgate, for a +parting look, another followed in the train of poor lost Barnaby, +to swell the throng that waited for him on the spot. + + + +Chapter 78 + + +On this same day, and about this very hour, Mr Willet the elder sat +smoking his pipe in a chamber at the Black Lion. Although it was +hot summer weather, Mr Willet sat close to the fire. He was in a +state of profound cogitation, with his own thoughts, and it was his +custom at such times to stew himself slowly, under the impression +that that process of cookery was favourable to the melting out of +his ideas, which, when he began to simmer, sometimes oozed forth so +copiously as to astonish even himself. + +Mr Willet had been several thousand times comforted by his friends +and acquaintance, with the assurance that for the loss he had +sustained in the damage done to the Maypole, he could 'come upon +the county.' But as this phrase happened to bear an unfortunate +resemblance to the popular expression of 'coming on the parish,' it +suggested to Mr Willet's mind no more consolatory visions than +pauperism on an extensive scale, and ruin in a capacious aspect. +Consequently, he had never failed to receive the intelligence with +a rueful shake of the head, or a dreary stare, and had been always +observed to appear much more melancholy after a visit of condolence +than at any other time in the whole four-and-twenty hours. + +It chanced, however, that sitting over the fire on this particular +occasion--perhaps because he was, as it were, done to a turn; +perhaps because he was in an unusually bright state of mind; +perhaps because he had considered the subject so long; perhaps +because of all these favouring circumstances, taken together--it +chanced that, sitting over the fire on this particular occasion, Mr +Willet did, afar off and in the remotest depths of his intellect, +perceive a kind of lurking hint or faint suggestion, that out of +the public purse there might issue funds for the restoration of the +Maypole to its former high place among the taverns of the earth. +And this dim ray of light did so diffuse itself within him, and did +so kindle up and shine, that at last he had it as plainly and +visibly before him as the blaze by which he sat; and, fully +persuaded that he was the first to make the discovery, and that he +had started, hunted down, fallen upon, and knocked on the head, a +perfectly original idea which had never presented itself to any +other man, alive or dead, he laid down his pipe, rubbed his hands, +and chuckled audibly. + +'Why, father!' cried Joe, entering at the moment, 'you're in +spirits to-day!' + +'It's nothing partickler,' said Mr Willet, chuckling again. 'It's +nothing at all partickler, Joseph. Tell me something about the +Salwanners.' Having preferred this request, Mr Willet chuckled a +third time, and after these unusual demonstrations of levity, he +put his pipe in his mouth again. + +'What shall I tell you, father?' asked Joe, laying his hand upon +his sire's shoulder, and looking down into his face. 'That I have +come back, poorer than a church mouse? You know that. That I have +come back, maimed and crippled? You know that.' + +'It was took off,' muttered Mr Willet,with his eyes upon the fire, +'at the defence of the Salwanners, in America, where the war is.' + +'Quite right,' returned Joe, smiling, and leaning with his +remaining elbow on the back of his father's chair; 'the very +subject I came to speak to you about. A man with one arm, father, +is not of much use in the busy world.' + +This was one of those vast propositions which Mr Willet had never +considered for an instant, and required time to 'tackle.' +Wherefore he made no answer. + +'At all events,' said Joe, 'he can't pick and choose his means of +earning a livelihood, as another man may. He can't say "I will +turn my hand to this," or "I won't turn my hand to that," but must +take what he can do, and be thankful it's no worse.--What did you +say?' + +Mr Willet had been softly repeating to himself, in a musing tone, +the words 'defence of the Salwanners:' but he seemed embarrassed at +having been overheard, and answered 'Nothing.' + +'Now look here, father.--Mr Edward has come to England from the +West Indies. When he was lost sight of (I ran away on the same +day, father), he made a voyage to one of the islands, where a +school-friend of his had settled; and, finding him, wasn't too +proud to be employed on his estate, and--and in short, got on well, +and is prospering, and has come over here on business of his own, +and is going back again speedily. Our returning nearly at the +same time, and meeting in the course of the late troubles, has been +a good thing every way; for it has not only enabled us to do old +friends some service, but has opened a path in life for me which I +may tread without being a burden upon you. To be plain, father, he +can employ me; I have satisfied myself that I can be of real use to +him; and I am going to carry my one arm away with him, and to make +the most of it. + +In the mind's eye of Mr Willet, the West Indies, and indeed all +foreign countries, were inhabited by savage nations, who were +perpetually burying pipes of peace, flourishing tomahawks, and +puncturing strange patterns in their bodies. He no sooner heard +this announcement, therefore, than he leaned back in his chair, +took his pipe from his lips, and stared at his son with as much +dismay as if he already beheld him tied to a stake, and tortured +for the entertainment of a lively population. In what form of +expression his feelings would have found a vent, it is impossible +to say. Nor is it necessary: for, before a syllable occurred to +him, Dolly Varden came running into the room, in tears, threw +herself on Joe's breast without a word of explanation, and clasped +her white arms round his neck. + +'Dolly!' cried Joe. 'Dolly!' + +'Ay, call me that; call me that always,' exclaimed the locksmith's +little daughter; 'never speak coldly to me, never be distant, never +again reprove me for the follies I have long repented, or I shall +die, Joe.' + +'I reprove you!' said Joe. + +'Yes--for every kind and honest word you uttered, went to my heart. +For you, who have borne so much from me--for you, who owe your +sufferings and pain to my caprice--for you to be so kind--so noble +to me, Joe--' + +He could say nothing to her. Not a syllable. There was an odd +sort of eloquence in his one arm, which had crept round her waist: +but his lips were mute. + +'If you had reminded me by a word--only by one short word,' sobbed +Dolly, clinging yet closer to him, 'how little I deserved that you +should treat me with so much forbearance; if you had exulted only +for one moment in your triumph, I could have borne it better.' + +'Triumph!' repeated Joe, with a smile which seemed to say, 'I am a +pretty figure for that.' + +'Yes, triumph,' she cried, with her whole heart and soul in her +earnest voice, and gushing tears; 'for it is one. I am glad to +think and know it is. I wouldn't be less humbled, dear--I wouldn't +be without the recollection of that last time we spoke together in +this place--no, not if I could recall the past, and make our +parting, yesterday.' + +Did ever lover look as Joe looked now! + +'Dear Joe,' said Dolly, 'I always loved you--in my own heart I +always did, although I was so vain and giddy. I hoped you would +come back that night. I made quite sure you would. I prayed for +it on my knees. Through all these long, long years, I have never +once forgotten you, or left off hoping that this happy time might +come.' + +The eloquence of Joe's arm surpassed the most impassioned language; +and so did that of his lips--yet he said nothing, either. + +'And now, at last,' cried Dolly, trembling with the fervour of her +speech, 'if you were sick, and shattered in your every limb; if you +were ailing, weak, and sorrowful; if, instead of being what you +are, you were in everybody's eyes but mine the wreck and ruin of a +man; I would be your wife, dear love, with greater pride and joy, +than if you were the stateliest lord in England!' + +'What have I done,' cried Joe, 'what have I done to meet with this +reward?' + +'You have taught me,' said Dolly, raising her pretty face to his, +'to know myself, and your worth; to be something better than I +was; to be more deserving of your true and manly nature. In years +to come, dear Joe, you shall find that you have done so; for I will +be, not only now, when we are young and full of hope, but when we +have grown old and weary, your patient, gentle, never-tiring +wife. I will never know a wish or care beyond our home and you, +and I will always study how to please you with my best affection +and my most devoted love. I will: indeed I will!' + +Joe could only repeat his former eloquence--but it was very much to +the purpose. + +'They know of this, at home,' said Dolly. 'For your sake, I would +leave even them; but they know it, and are glad of it, and are as +proud of you as I am, and as full of gratitude.--You'll not come +and see me as a poor friend who knew me when I was a girl, will +you, dear Joe?' + +Well, well! It don't matter what Joe said in answer, but he said a +great deal; and Dolly said a great deal too: and he folded Dolly in +his one arm pretty tight, considering that it was but one; and +Dolly made no resistance: and if ever two people were happy in this +world--which is not an utterly miserable one, with all its faults-- +we may, with some appearance of certainty, conclude that they +were. + +To say that during these proceedings Mr Willet the elder underwent +the greatest emotions of astonishment of which our common nature is +susceptible--to say that he was in a perfect paralysis of surprise, +and that he wandered into the most stupendous and theretofore +unattainable heights of complicated amazement--would be to shadow +forth his state of mind in the feeblest and lamest terms. If a +roc, an eagle, a griffin, a flying elephant, a winged sea-horse, +had suddenly appeared, and, taking him on its back, carried him +bodily into the heart of the 'Salwanners,' it would have been to +him as an everyday occurrence, in comparison with what he now +beheld. To be sitting quietly by, seeing and hearing these things; +to be completely overlooked, unnoticed, and disregarded, while his +son and a young lady were talking to each other in the most +impassioned manner, kissing each other, and making themselves in +all respects perfectly at home; was a position so tremendous, so +inexplicable, so utterly beyond the widest range of his capacity of +comprehension, that he fell into a lethargy of wonder, and could no +more rouse himself than an enchanted sleeper in the first year of +his fairy lease, a century long. + +'Father,' said Joe, presenting Dolly. 'You know who this is?' + +Mr Willet looked first at her, then at his son, then back again at +Dolly, and then made an ineffectual effort to extract a whiff from +his pipe, which had gone out long ago. + +'Say a word, father, if it's only "how d'ye do,"' urged Joe. + +'Certainly, Joseph,' answered Mr Willet. 'Oh yes! Why not?' + +'To be sure,' said Joe. 'Why not?' + +'Ah!' replied his father. 'Why not?' and with this remark, which +he uttered in a low voice as though he were discussing some grave +question with himself, he used the little finger--if any of his +fingers can be said to have come under that denomination--of his +right hand as a tobacco-stopper, and was silent again. + +And so he sat for half an hour at least, although Dolly, in the +most endearing of manners, hoped, a dozen times, that he was not +angry with her. So he sat for half an hour, quite motionless, and +looking all the while like nothing so much as a great Dutch Pin or +Skittle. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly, and +without the least notice, burst (to the great consternation of the +young people) into a very loud and very short laugh; and +repeating, 'Certainly, Joseph. Oh yes! Why not?' went out for a +walk. + + + +Chapter 79 + + +Old John did not walk near the Golden Key, for between the Golden +Key and the Black Lion there lay a wilderness of streets--as +everybody knows who is acquainted with the relative bearings of +Clerkenwell and Whitechapel--and he was by no means famous for +pedestrian exercises. But the Golden Key lies in our way, though +it was out of his; so to the Golden Key this chapter goes. + +The Golden Key itself, fair emblem of the locksmith's trade, had +been pulled down by the rioters, and roughly trampled under foot. +But, now, it was hoisted up again in all the glory of a new coat of +paint, and shewed more bravely even than in days of yore. Indeed +the whole house-front was spruce and trim, and so freshened up +throughout, that if there yet remained at large any of the rioters +who had been concerned in the attack upon it, the sight of the old, +goodly, prosperous dwelling, so revived, must have been to them as +gall and wormwood. + +The shutters of the shop were closed, however, and the window- +blinds above were all pulled down, and in place of its usual +cheerful appearance, the house had a look of sadness and an air of +mourning; which the neighbours, who in old days had often seen poor +Barnaby go in and out, were at no loss to understand. The door +stood partly open; but the locksmith's hammer was unheard; the cat +sat moping on the ashy forge; all was deserted, dark, and silent. + +On the threshold of this door, Mr Haredale and Edward Chester met. +The younger man gave place; and both passing in with a familiar +air, which seemed to denote that they were tarrying there, or were +well-accustomed to go to and fro unquestioned, shut it behind them. + +Entering the old back-parlour, and ascending the flight of stairs, +abrupt and steep, and quaintly fashioned as of old, they turned +into the best room; the pride of Mrs Varden's heart, and erst the +scene of Miggs's household labours. + +'Varden brought the mother here last evening, he told me?' said Mr +Haredale. + +'She is above-stairs now--in the room over here,' Edward rejoined. +'Her grief, they say, is past all telling. I needn't add--for that +you know beforehand, sir--that the care, humanity, and sympathy of +these good people have no bounds.' + +'I am sure of that. Heaven repay them for it, and for much more! +Varden is out?' + +'He returned with your messenger, who arrived almost at the moment +of his coming home himself. He was out the whole night--but that +of course you know. He was with you the greater part of it?' + +'He was. Without him, I should have lacked my right hand. He is +an older man than I; but nothing can conquer him.' + +'The cheeriest, stoutest-hearted fellow in the world.' + +'He has a right to be. He has a right to he. A better creature +never lived. He reaps what he has sown--no more.' + +'It is not all men,' said Edward, after a moment's hesitation, 'who +have the happiness to do that.' + +'More than you imagine,' returned Mr Haredale. 'We note the +harvest more than the seed-time. You do so in me.' + +In truth his pale and haggard face, and gloomy bearing, had so far +influenced the remark, that Edward was, for the moment, at a loss +to answer him. + +'Tut, tut,' said Mr Haredale, ''twas not very difficult to read a +thought so natural. But you are mistaken nevertheless. I have +had my share of sorrows--more than the common lot, perhaps, but I +have borne them ill. I have broken where I should have bent; and +have mused and brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all +God's great creation. The men who learn endurance, are they who +call the whole world, brother. I have turned FROM the world, and I +pay the penalty.' + +Edward would have interposed, but he went on without giving him +time. + +'It is too late to evade it now. I sometimes think, that if I had +to live my life once more, I might amend this fault--not so much, I +discover when I search my mind, for the love of what is right, as +for my own sake. But even when I make these better resolutions, I +instinctively recoil from the idea of suffering again what I have +undergone; and in this circumstance I find the unwelcome assurance +that I should still be the same man, though I could cancel the +past, and begin anew, with its experience to guide me.' + +'Nay, you make too sure of that,' said Edward. + +'You think so,' Mr Haredale answered, 'and I am glad you do. I +know myself better, and therefore distrust myself more. Let us +leave this subject for another--not so far removed from it as it +might, at first sight, seem to be. Sir, you still love my niece, +and she is still attached to you.' + +'I have that assurance from her own lips,' said Edward, 'and you +know--I am sure you know--that I would not exchange it for any +blessing life could yield me.' + +'You are frank, honourable, and disinterested,' said Mr Haredale; +'you have forced the conviction that you are so, even on my once- +jaundiced mind, and I believe you. Wait here till I come back.' + +He left the room as he spoke; but soon returned with his niece. +'On that first and only time,' he said, looking from the one to the +other, 'when we three stood together under her father's roof, I +told you to quit it, and charged you never to return.' + +'It is the only circumstance arising out of our love,' observed +Edward, 'that I have forgotten.' + +'You own a name,' said Mr Haredale, 'I had deep reason to remember. +I was moved and goaded by recollections of personal wrong and +injury, I know, but, even now I cannot charge myself with having, +then, or ever, lost sight of a heartfelt desire for her true +happiness; or with having acted--however much I was mistaken--with +any other impulse than the one pure, single, earnest wish to be to +her, as far as in my inferior nature lay, the father she had lost.' + +'Dear uncle,' cried Emma, 'I have known no parent but you. I have +loved the memory of others, but I have loved you all my life. +Never was father kinder to his child than you have been to me, +without the interval of one harsh hour, since I can first +remember.' + +'You speak too fondly,' he answered, 'and yet I cannot wish you +were less partial; for I have a pleasure in hearing those words, +and shall have in calling them to mind when we are far asunder, +which nothing else could give me. Bear with me for a moment +longer, Edward, for she and I have been together many years; and +although I believe that in resigning her to you I put the seal upon +her future happiness, I find it needs an effort.' + +He pressed her tenderly to his bosom, and after a minute's pause, +resumed: + +'I have done you wrong, sir, and I ask your forgiveness--in no +common phrase, or show of sorrow; but with earnestness and +sincerity. In the same spirit, I acknowledge to you both that the +time has been when I connived at treachery and falsehood--which if +I did not perpetrate myself, I still permitted--to rend you two +asunder.' + +'You judge yourself too harshly,' said Edward. 'Let these things +rest.' + +'They rise in judgment against me when I look back, and not now for +the first time,' he answered. 'I cannot part from you without your +full forgiveness; for busy life and I have little left in common +now, and I have regrets enough to carry into solitude, without +addition to the stock.' + +'You bear a blessing from us both,' said Emma. 'Never mingle +thoughts of me--of me who owe you so much love and duty--with +anything but undying affection and gratitude for the past, and +bright hopes for the future.' + +'The future,' returned her uncle, with a melancholy smile, 'is a +bright word for you, and its image should be wreathed with +cheerful hopes. Mine is of another kind, but it will be one of +peace, and free, I trust, from care or passion. When you quit +England I shall leave it too. There are cloisters abroad; and now +that the two great objects of my life are set at rest, I know no +better home. You droop at that, forgetting that I am growing old, +and that my course is nearly run. Well, we will speak of it again-- +not once or twice, but many times; and you shall give me cheerful +counsel, Emma.' + +'And you will take it?' asked his niece. + +'I'll listen to it,' he answered, with a kiss, 'and it will have +its weight, be certain. What have I left to say? You have, of +late, been much together. It is better and more fitting that the +circumstances attendant on the past, which wrought your separation, +and sowed between you suspicion and distrust, should not be entered +on by me.' + +'Much, much better,' whispered Emma. + +'I avow my share in them,' said Mr Haredale, 'though I held it, at +the time, in detestation. Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, +from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is +justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can he worked +out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted +so at once, and left alone.' + +He looked from her to Edward, and said in a gentler tone: + +'In goods and fortune you are now nearly equal. I have been her +faithful steward, and to that remnant of a richer property which my +brother left her, I desire to add, in token of my love, a poor +pittance, scarcely worth the mention, for which I have no longer +any need. I am glad you go abroad. Let our ill-fated house +remain the ruin it is. When you return, after a few thriving +years, you will command a better, and a more fortunate one. We are +friends?' + +Edward took his extended hand, and grasped it heartily. + +'You are neither slow nor cold in your response,' said Mr Haredale, +doing the like by him, 'and when I look upon you now, and know you, +I feel that I would choose you for her husband. Her father had a +generous nature, and you would have pleased him well. I give her +to you in his name, and with his blessing. If the world and I part +in this act, we part on happier terms than we have lived for many a +day.' + +He placed her in his arms, and would have left the room, but that +he was stopped in his passage to the door by a great noise at a +distance, which made them start and pause. + +It was a loud shouting, mingled with boisterous acclamations, that +rent the very air. It drew nearer and nearer every moment, and +approached so rapidly, that, even while they listened, it burst +into a deafening confusion of sounds at the street corner. + +'This must be stopped--quieted,' said Mr Haredale, hastily. 'We +should have foreseen this, and provided against it. I will go out +to them at once.' + +But, before he could reach the door, and before Edward could catch +up his hat and follow him, they were again arrested by a loud +shriek from above-stairs: and the locksmith's wife, bursting in, +and fairly running into Mr Haredale's arms, cried out: + +'She knows it all, dear sir!--she knows it all! We broke it out to +her by degrees, and she is quite prepared.' Having made this +communication, and furthermore thanked Heaven with great fervour +and heartiness, the good lady, according to the custom of matrons, +on all occasions of excitement, fainted away directly. + +They ran to the window, drew up the sash, and looked into the +crowded street. Among a dense mob of persons, of whom not one was +for an instant still, the locksmith's ruddy face and burly form +could be descried, beating about as though he was struggling with a +rough sea. Now, he was carried back a score of yards, now onward +nearly to the door, now back again, now forced against the opposite +houses, now against those adjoining his own: now carried up a +flight of steps, and greeted by the outstretched hands of half a +hundred men, while the whole tumultuous concourse stretched their +throats, and cheered with all their might. Though he was really in +a fair way to be torn to pieces in the general enthusiasm, the +locksmith, nothing discomposed, echoed their shouts till he was as +hoarse as they, and in a glow of joy and right good-humour, waved +his hat until the daylight shone between its brim and crown. + +But in all the bandyings from hand to hand, and strivings to and +fro, and sweepings here and there, which--saving that he looked +more jolly and more radiant after every struggle--troubled his +peace of mind no more than if he had been a straw upon the water's +surface, he never once released his firm grasp of an arm, drawn +tight through his. He sometimes turned to clap this friend upon +the back, or whisper in his ear a word of staunch encouragement, or +cheer him with a smile; but his great care was to shield him from +the pressure, and force a passage for him to the Golden Key. +Passive and timid, scared, pale, and wondering, and gazing at the +throng as if he were newly risen from the dead, and felt himself a +ghost among the living, Barnaby--not Barnaby in the spirit, but in +flesh and blood, with pulses, sinews, nerves, and beating heart, +and strong affections--clung to his stout old friend, and followed +where he led. + +And thus, in course of time, they reached the door, held ready for +their entrance by no unwilling hands. Then slipping in, and +shutting out the crowd by main force, Gabriel stood between Mr +Haredale and Edward Chester, and Barnaby, rushing up the stairs, +fell upon his knees beside his mother's bed. + +'Such is the blessed end, sir,' cried the panting locksmith, to Mr +Haredale, 'of the best day's work we ever did. The rogues! it's +been hard fighting to get away from 'em. I almost thought, once or +twice, they'd have been too much for us with their kindness!' + +They had striven, all the previous day, to rescue Barnaby from his +impending fate. Failing in their attempts, in the first quarter +to which they addressed themselves, they renewed them in another. +Failing there, likewise, they began afresh at midnight; and made +their way, not only to the judge and jury who had tried him, but to +men of influence at court, to the young Prince of Wales, and even +to the ante-chamber of the King himself. Successful, at last, in +awakening an interest in his favour, and an inclination to inquire +more dispassionately into his case, they had had an interview with +the minister, in his bed, so late as eight o'clock that morning. +The result of a searching inquiry (in which they, who had known the +poor fellow from his childhood, did other good service, besides +bringing it about) was, that between eleven and twelve o'clock, a +free pardon to Barnaby Rudge was made out and signed, and entrusted +to a horse-soldier for instant conveyance to the place of +execution. This courier reached the spot just as the cart appeared +in sight; and Barnaby being carried back to jail, Mr Haredale, +assured that all was safe, had gone straight from Bloomsbury Square +to the Golden Key, leaving to Gabriel the grateful task of bringing +him home in triumph. + +'I needn't say,' observed the locksmith, when he had shaken hands +with all the males in the house, and hugged all the females, five- +and-forty times, at least, 'that, except among ourselves, I didn't +want to make a triumph of it. But, directly we got into the street +we were known, and this hubbub began. Of the two,' he added, as he +wiped his crimson face, 'and after experience of both, I think I'd +rather be taken out of my house by a crowd of enemies, than +escorted home by a mob of friends!' + +It was plain enough, however, that this was mere talk on Gabriel's +part, and that the whole proceeding afforded him the keenest +delight; for the people continuing to make a great noise without, +and to cheer as if their voices were in the freshest order, and +good for a fortnight, he sent upstairs for Grip (who had come home +at his master's back, and had acknowledged the favours of the +multitude by drawing blood from every finger that came within his +reach), and with the bird upon his arm presented himself at the +first-floor window, and waved his hat again until it dangled by a +shred, between his finger and thumb. This demonstration having +been received with appropriate shouts, and silence being in some +degree restored, he thanked them for their sympathy; and taking the +liberty to inform them that there was a sick person in the house, +proposed that they should give three cheers for King George, three +more for Old England, and three more for nothing particular, as a +closing ceremony. The crowd assenting, substituted Gabriel Varden +for the nothing particular; and giving him one over, for good +measure, dispersed in high good-humour. + +What congratulations were exchanged among the inmates at the Golden +Key, when they were left alone; what an overflowing of joy and +happiness there was among them; how incapable it was of expression +in Barnaby's own person; and how he went wildly from one to +another, until he became so far tranquillised, as to stretch +himself on the ground beside his mother's couch and fall into a +deep sleep; are matters that need not be told. And it is well they +happened to be of this class, for they would be very hard to tell, +were their narration ever so indispensable. + +Before leaving this bright picture, it may be well to glance at a +dark and very different one which was presented to only a few eyes, +that same night. + +The scene was a churchyard; the time, midnight; the persons, Edward +Chester, a clergyman, a grave-digger, and the four bearers of a +homely coffin. They stood about a grave which had been newly dug, +and one of the bearers held up a dim lantern,--the only light +there--which shed its feeble ray upon the book of prayer. He +placed it for a moment on the coffin, when he and his companions +were about to lower it down. There was no inscription on the lid. + +The mould fell solemnly upon the last house of this nameless man; +and the rattling dust left a dismal echo even in the accustomed +ears of those who had borne it to its resting-place. The grave was +filled in to the top, and trodden down. They all left the spot +together. + +'You never saw him, living?' asked the clergyman, of Edward. + +'Often, years ago; not knowing him for my brother.' + +'Never since?' + +'Never. Yesterday, he steadily refused to see me. It was urged +upon him, many times, at my desire.' + +'Still he refused? That was hardened and unnatural.' + +'Do you think so?' + +'I infer that you do not?' + +'You are right. We hear the world wonder, every day, at monsters +of ingratitude. Did it never occur to you that it often looks for +monsters of affection, as though they were things of course?' + +They had reached the gate by this time, and bidding each other good +night, departed on their separate ways. + + + +Chapter 80 + + +That afternoon, when he had slept off his fatigue; had shaved, and +washed, and dressed, and freshened himself from top to toe; when he +had dined, comforted himself with a pipe, an extra Toby, a nap in +the great arm-chair, and a quiet chat with Mrs Varden on everything +that had happened, was happening, or about to happen, within the +sphere of their domestic concern; the locksmith sat himself down at +the tea-table in the little back-parlour: the rosiest, cosiest, +merriest, heartiest, best-contented old buck, in Great Britain or +out of it. + +There he sat, with his beaming eye on Mrs V., and his shining face +suffused with gladness, and his capacious waistcoat smiling in +every wrinkle, and his jovial humour peeping from under the table +in the very plumpness of his legs; a sight to turn the vinegar of +misanthropy into purest milk of human kindness. There he sat, +watching his wife as she decorated the room with flowers for the +greater honour of Dolly and Joseph Willet, who had gone out +walking, and for whom the tea-kettle had been singing gaily on the +hob full twenty minutes, chirping as never kettle chirped before; +for whom the best service of real undoubted china, patterned with +divers round-faced mandarins holding up broad umbrellas, was now +displayed in all its glory; to tempt whose appetites a clear, +transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool green lettuce-leaves +and fragrant cucumber, reposed upon a shady table, covered with a +snow-white cloth; for whose delight, preserves and jams, crisp +cakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cunning twists, and +cottage loaves, and rolls of bread both white and brown, were all +set forth in rich profusion; in whose youth Mrs V. herself had +grown quite young, and stood there in a gown of red and white: +symmetrical in figure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, +faultless in ankle, laughing in face and mood, in all respects +delicious to behold--there sat the locksmith among all and every +these delights, the sun that shone upon them all: the centre of the +system: the source of light, heat, life, and frank enjoyment in the +bright household world. + +And when had Dolly ever been the Dolly of that afternoon? To see +how she came in, arm-in-arm with Joe; and how she made an effort +not to blush or seem at all confused; and how she made believe she +didn't care to sit on his side of the table; and how she coaxed the +locksmith in a whisper not to joke; and how her colour came and +went in a little restless flutter of happiness, which made her do +everything wrong, and yet so charmingly wrong that it was better +than right!--why, the locksmith could have looked on at this (as he +mentioned to Mrs Varden when they retired for the night) for four- +and-twenty hours at a stretch, and never wished it done. + +The recollections, too, with which they made merry over that long +protracted tea! The glee with which the locksmith asked Joe if he +remembered that stormy night at the Maypole when he first asked +after Dolly--the laugh they all had, about that night when she was +going out to the party in the sedan-chair--the unmerciful manner in +which they rallied Mrs Varden about putting those flowers outside +that very window--the difficulty Mrs Varden found in joining the +laugh against herself, at first, and the extraordinary perception +she had of the joke when she overcame it--the confidential +statements of Joe concerning the precise day and hour when he was +first conscious of being fond of Dolly, and Dolly's blushing +admissions, half volunteered and half extorted, as to the time from +which she dated the discovery that she 'didn't mind' Joe--here was +an exhaustless fund of mirth and conversation. + +Then, there was a great deal to be said regarding Mrs Varden's +doubts, and motherly alarms, and shrewd suspicions; and it appeared +that from Mrs Varden's penetration and extreme sagacity nothing had +ever been hidden. She had known it all along. She had seen it +from the first. She had always predicted it. She had been aware +of it before the principals. She had said within herself (for she +remembered the exact words) 'that young Willet is certainly +looking after our Dolly, and I must look after HIM.' Accordingly, +she had looked after him, and had observed many little +circumstances (all of which she named) so exceedingly minute that +nobody else could make anything out of them even now; and had, it +seemed from first to last, displayed the most unbounded tact and +most consummate generalship. + +Of course the night when Joe WOULD ride homeward by the side of the +chaise, and when Mrs Varden WOULD insist upon his going back again, +was not forgotten--nor the night when Dolly fainted on his name +being mentioned--nor the times upon times when Mrs Varden, ever +watchful and prudent, had found her pining in her own chamber. In +short, nothing was forgotten; and everything by some means or other +brought them back to the conclusion, that that was the happiest +hour in all their lives; consequently, that everything must have +occurred for the best, and nothing could be suggested which would +have made it better. + +While they were in the full glow of such discourse as this, there +came a startling knock at the door, opening from the street into +the workshop, which had been kept closed all day that the house +might be more quiet. Joe, as in duty bound, would hear of nobody +but himself going to open it; and accordingly left the room for +that purpose. + +It would have been odd enough, certainly, if Joe had forgotten the +way to this door; and even if he had, as it was a pretty large one +and stood straight before him, he could not easily have missed it. +But Dolly, perhaps because she was in the flutter of spirits before +mentioned, or perhaps because she thought he would not be able to +open it with his one arm--she could have had no other reason-- +hurried out after him; and they stopped so long in the passage--no +doubt owing to Joe's entreaties that she would not expose herself +to the draught of July air which must infallibly come rushing in on +this same door being opened--that the knock was repeated, in a yet +more startling manner than before. + +'Is anybody going to open that door?' cried the locksmith. 'Or +shall I come?' + +Upon that, Dolly went running back into the parlour, all dimples +and blushes; and Joe opened it with a mighty noise, and other +superfluous demonstrations of being in a violent hurry. + +'Well,' said the locksmith, when he reappeared: 'what is it? eh +Joe? what are you laughing at?' + +'Nothing, sir. It's coming in.' + +'Who's coming in? what's coming in?' Mrs Varden, as much at a loss +as her husband, could only shake her head in answer to his +inquiring look: so, the locksmith wheeled his chair round to +command a better view of the room-door, and stared at it with his +eyes wide open, and a mingled expression of curiosity and wonder +shining in his jolly face. + +Instead of some person or persons straightway appearing, divers +remarkable sounds were heard, first in the workshop and afterwards +in the little dark passage between it and the parlour, as though +some unwieldy chest or heavy piece of furniture were being brought +in, by an amount of human strength inadequate to the task. At +length after much struggling and humping, and bruising of the wall +on both sides, the door was forced open as by a battering-ram; and +the locksmith, steadily regarding what appeared beyond, smote his +thigh, elevated his eyebrows, opened his mouth, and cried in a loud +voice expressive of the utmost consternation: + +'Damme, if it an't Miggs come back!' + +The young damsel whom he named no sooner heard these words, than +deserting a small boy and a very large box by which she was +accompanied, and advancing with such precipitation that her bonnet +flew off her head, burst into the room, clasped her hands (in which +she held a pair of pattens, one in each), raised her eyes devotedly +to the ceiling, and shed a flood of tears. + +'The old story!' cried the locksmith, looking at her in +inexpressible desperation. 'She was born to be a damper, this +young woman! nothing can prevent it!' + +'Ho master, ho mim!' cried Miggs, 'can I constrain my feelings in +these here once agin united moments! Ho Mr Warsen, here's +blessedness among relations, sir! Here's forgivenesses of +injuries, here's amicablenesses!' + +The locksmith looked from his wife to Dolly, and from Dolly to Joe, +and from Joe to Miggs, with his eyebrows still elevated and his +mouth still open. When his eyes got back to Miggs, they rested on +her; fascinated. + +'To think,' cried Miggs with hysterical joy, 'that Mr Joe, and dear +Miss Dolly, has raly come together after all as has been said and +done contrairy! To see them two a-settin' along with him and her, +so pleasant and in all respects so affable and mild; and me not +knowing of it, and not being in the ways to make no preparations +for their teas. Ho what a cutting thing it is, and yet what sweet +sensations is awoke within me!' + +Either in clasping her hands again, or in an ecstasy of pious joy, +Miss Miggs clinked her pattens after the manner of a pair of +cymbals, at this juncture; and then resumed, in the softest +accents: + +'And did my missis think--ho goodness, did she think--as her own +Miggs, which supported her under so many trials, and understood her +natur' when them as intended well but acted rough, went so deep +into her feelings--did she think as her own Miggs would ever leave +her? Did she think as Miggs, though she was but a servant, and +knowed that servitudes was no inheritances, would forgit that she +was the humble instruments as always made it comfortable between +them two when they fell out, and always told master of the meekness +and forgiveness of her blessed dispositions! Did she think as +Miggs had no attachments! Did she think that wages was her only +object!' + +To none of these interrogatories, whereof every one was more +pathetically delivered than the last, did Mrs Varden answer one +word: but Miggs, not at all abashed by this circumstance, turned to +the small boy in attendance--her eldest nephew--son of her own +married sister--born in Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, +and bred in the very shadow of the second bell-handle on the right- +hand door-post--and with a plentiful use of her pocket- +handkerchief, addressed herself to him: requesting that on his +return home he would console his parents for the loss of her, his +aunt, by delivering to them a faithful statement of his having left +her in the bosom of that family, with which, as his aforesaid +parents well knew, her best affections were incorporated; that he +would remind them that nothing less than her imperious sense of +duty, and devoted attachment to her old master and missis, likewise +Miss Dolly and young Mr Joe, should ever have induced her to +decline that pressing invitation which they, his parents, had, as +he could testify, given her, to lodge and board with them, free of +all cost and charge, for evermore; lastly, that he would help her +with her box upstairs, and then repair straight home, bearing her +blessing and her strong injunctions to mingle in his prayers a +supplication that he might in course of time grow up a locksmith, +or a Mr Joe, and have Mrs Vardens and Miss Dollys for his relations +and friends. + +Having brought this admonition to an end--upon which, to say the +truth, the young gentleman for whose benefit it was designed, +bestowed little or no heed, having to all appearance his faculties +absorbed in the contemplation of the sweetmeats,--Miss Miggs +signified to the company in general that they were not to be +uneasy, for she would soon return; and, with her nephew's aid, +prepared to bear her wardrobe up the staircase. + +'My dear,' said the locksmith to his wife. 'Do you desire this?' + +'I desire it!' she answered. 'I am astonished--I am amazed--at her +audacity. Let her leave the house this moment.' + +Miggs, hearing this, let her end of the box fall heavily to the +floor, gave a very loud sniff, crossed her arms, screwed down the +corners of her mouth, and cried, in an ascending scale, 'Ho, good +gracious!' three distinct times. + +'You hear what your mistress says, my love,' remarked the +locksmith. 'You had better go, I think. Stay; take this with you, +for the sake of old service.' + +Miss Miggs clutched the bank-note he took from his pocket-book and +held out to her; deposited it in a small, red leather purse; put +the purse in her pocket (displaying, as she did so, a considerable +portion of some under-garment, made of flannel, and more black +cotton stocking than is commonly seen in public); and, tossing her +head, as she looked at Mrs Varden, repeated-- + +'Ho, good gracious!' + +'I think you said that once before, my dear,' observed the +locksmith. + +'Times is changed, is they, mim!' cried Miggs, bridling; 'you can +spare me now, can you? You can keep 'em down without me? You're +not in wants of any one to scold, or throw the blame upon, no +longer, an't you, mim? I'm glad to find you've grown so +independent. I wish you joy, I'm sure!' + +With that she dropped a curtsey, and keeping her head erect, her +ear towards Mrs Varden, and her eye on the rest of the company, as +she alluded to them in her remarks, proceeded: + +'I'm quite delighted, I'm sure, to find sich independency, feeling +sorry though, at the same time, mim, that you should have been +forced into submissions when you couldn't help yourself--he he he! +It must be great vexations, 'specially considering how ill you +always spoke of Mr Joe--to have him for a son-in-law at last; and +I wonder Miss Dolly can put up with him, either, after being off +and on for so many years with a coachmaker. But I HAVE heerd say, +that the coachmaker thought twice about it--he he he!--and that he +told a young man as was a frind of his, that he hoped he knowed +better than to be drawed into that; though she and all the family +DID pull uncommon strong!' + +Here she paused for a reply, and receiving none, went on as before. + +'I HAVE heerd say, mim, that the illnesses of some ladies was all +pretensions, and that they could faint away, stone dead, whenever +they had the inclinations so to do. Of course I never see sich +cases with my own eyes--ho no! He he he! Nor master neither--ho +no! He he he! I HAVE heerd the neighbours make remark as some one +as they was acquainted with, was a poor good-natur'd mean-spirited +creetur, as went out fishing for a wife one day, and caught a +Tartar. Of course I never to my knowledge see the poor person +himself. Nor did you neither, mim--ho no. I wonder who it can +be--don't you, mim? No doubt you do, mim. Ho yes. He he he!' + +Again Miggs paused for a reply; and none being offered, was so +oppressed with teeming spite and spleen, that she seemed like to +burst. + +'I'm glad Miss Dolly can laugh,' cried Miggs with a feeble titter. +'I like to see folks a-laughing--so do you, mim, don't you? You +was always glad to see people in spirits, wasn't you, mim? And you +always did your best to keep 'em cheerful, didn't you, mim? +Though there an't such a great deal to laugh at now either; is +there, mim? It an't so much of a catch, after looking out so sharp +ever since she was a little chit, and costing such a deal in dress +and show, to get a poor, common soldier, with one arm, is it, mim? +He he! I wouldn't have a husband with one arm, anyways. I would +have two arms. I would have two arms, if it was me, though instead +of hands they'd only got hooks at the end, like our dustman!' + +Miss Miggs was about to add, and had, indeed, begun to add, that, +taking them in the abstract, dustmen were far more eligible matches +than soldiers, though, to be sure, when people were past choosing +they must take the best they could get, and think themselves well +off too; but her vexation and chagrin being of that internally +bitter sort which finds no relief in words, and is aggravated to +madness by want of contradiction, she could hold out no longer, and +burst into a storm of sobs and tears. + +In this extremity she fell on the unlucky nephew, tooth and nail, +and plucking a handful of hair from his head, demanded to know how +long she was to stand there to be insulted, and whether or no he +meant to help her to carry out the box again, and if he took a +pleasure in hearing his family reviled: with other inquiries of +that nature; at which disgrace and provocation, the small boy, who +had been all this time gradually lashed into rebellion by the sight +of unattainable pastry, walked off indignant, leaving his aunt and +the box to follow at their leisure. Somehow or other, by dint of +pushing and pulling, they did attain the street at last; where Miss +Miggs, all blowzed with the exertion of getting there, and with her +sobs and tears, sat down upon her property to rest and grieve, +until she could ensnare some other youth to help her home. + +'It's a thing to laugh at, Martha, not to care for,' whispered the +locksmith, as he followed his wife to the window, and good- +humouredly dried her eyes. 'What does it matter? You had seen +your fault before. Come! Bring up Toby again, my dear; Dolly +shall sing us a song; and we'll be all the merrier for this +interruption!' + + + +Chapter 81 + + +Another month had passed, and the end of August had nearly come, +when Mr Haredale stood alone in the mail-coach office at Bristol. +Although but a few weeks had intervened since his conversation with +Edward Chester and his niece, in the locksmith's house, and he had +made no change, in the mean time, in his accustomed style of dress, +his appearance was greatly altered. He looked much older, and more +care-worn. Agitation and anxiety of mind scatter wrinkles and grey +hairs with no unsparing hand; but deeper traces follow on the +silent uprooting of old habits, and severing of dear, familiar +ties. The affections may not be so easily wounded as the passions, +but their hurts are deeper, and more lasting. He was now a +solitary man, and the heart within him was dreary and lonesome. + +He was not the less alone for having spent so many years in +seclusion and retirement. This was no better preparation than a +round of social cheerfulness: perhaps it even increased the +keenness of his sensibility. He had been so dependent upon her for +companionship and love; she had come to be so much a part and +parcel of his existence; they had had so many cares and thoughts in +common, which no one else had shared; that losing her was beginning +life anew, and being required to summon up the hope and elasticity +of youth, amid the doubts, distrusts, and weakened energies of +age. + +The effort he had made to part from her with seeming cheerfulness +and hope--and they had parted only yesterday--left him the more +depressed. With these feelings, he was about to revisit London for +the last time, and look once more upon the walls of their old home, +before turning his back upon it, for ever. + +The journey was a very different one, in those days, from what the +present generation find it; but it came to an end, as the longest +journey will, and he stood again in the streets of the metropolis. +He lay at the inn where the coach stopped, and resolved, before he +went to bed, that he would make his arrival known to no one; would +spend but another night in London; and would spare himself the pang +of parting, even with the honest locksmith. + +Such conditions of the mind as that to which he was a prey when he +lay down to rest, are favourable to the growth of disordered +fancies, and uneasy visions. He knew this, even in the horror with +which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to +dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond the room, which +had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream. But it was not +a new terror of the night; it had been present to him before, in +many shapes; it had haunted him in bygone times, and visited his +pillow again and again. If it had been but an ugly object, a +childish spectre, haunting his sleep, its return, in its old form, +might have awakened a momentary sensation of fear, which, almost in +the act of waking, would have passed away. This disquiet, +however, lingered about him, and would yield to nothing. When he +closed his eyes again, he felt it hovering near; as he slowly sunk +into a slumber, he was conscious of its gathering strength and +purpose, and gradually assuming its recent shape; when he sprang up +from his bed, the same phantom vanished from his heated brain, and +left him filled with a dread against which reason and waking +thought were powerless. + +The sun was up, before he could shake it off. He rose late, but +not refreshed, and remained within doors all that day. He had a +fancy for paying his last visit to the old spot in the evening, for +he had been accustomed to walk there at that season, and desired to +see it under the aspect that was most familiar to him. At such an +hour as would afford him time to reach it a little before sunset, +he left the inn, and turned into the busy street. + +He had not gone far, and was thoughtfully making his way among the +noisy crowd, when he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and, turning, +recognised one of the waiters from the inn, who begged his pardon, +but he had left his sword behind him. + +'Why have you brought it to me?' he asked, stretching out his hand, +and yet not taking it from the man, but looking at him in a +disturbed and agitated manner. + +The man was sorry to have disobliged him, and would carry it back +again. The gentleman had said that he was going a little way into +the country, and that he might not return until late. The roads +were not very safe for single travellers after dark; and, since the +riots, gentlemen had been more careful than ever, not to trust +themselves unarmed in lonely places. 'We thought you were a +stranger, sir,' he added, 'and that you might believe our roads to +be better than they are; but perhaps you know them well, and carry +fire-arms--' + +He took the sword, and putting it up at his side, thanked the man, +and resumed his walk. + +It was long remembered that he did this in a manner so strange, and +with such a trembling hand, that the messenger stood looking after +his retreating figure, doubtful whether he ought not to follow, and +watch him. It was long remembered that he had been heard pacing +his bedroom in the dead of the night; that the attendants had +mentioned to each other in the morning, how fevered and how pale he +looked; and that when this man went back to the inn, he told a +fellow-servant that what he had observed in this short interview +lay very heavy on his mind, and that he feared the gentleman +intended to destroy himself, and would never come back alive. + +With a half-consciousness that his manner had attracted the man's +attention (remembering the expression of his face when they +parted), Mr Haredale quickened his steps; and arriving at a stand +of coaches, bargained with the driver of the best to carry him so +far on his road as the point where the footway struck across the +fields, and to await his return at a house of entertainment which +was within a stone's-throw of that place. Arriving there in due +course, he alighted and pursued his way on foot. + +He passed so near the Maypole, that he could see its smoke rising +from among the trees, while a flock of pigeons--some of its old +inhabitants, doubtless--sailed gaily home to roost, between him and +the unclouded sky. 'The old house will brighten up now,' he said, +as he looked towards it, 'and there will be a merry fireside +beneath its ivied roof. It is some comfort to know that everything +will not be blighted hereabouts. I shall be glad to have one +picture of life and cheerfulness to turn to, in my mind!' + +He resumed his walk, and bent his steps towards the Warren. It was +a clear, calm, silent evening, with hardly a breath of wind to stir +the leaves, or any sound to break the stillness of the time, but +drowsy sheep-bells tinkling in the distance, and, at intervals, +the far-off lowing of cattle, or bark of village dogs. The sky +was radiant with the softened glory of sunset; and on the earth, +and in the air, a deep repose prevailed. At such an hour, he +arrived at the deserted mansion which had been his home so long, +and looked for the last time upon its blackened walls. + +The ashes of the commonest fire are melancholy things, for in them +there is an image of death and ruin,--of something that has been +bright, and is but dull, cold, dreary dust,--with which our nature +forces us to sympathise. How much more sad the crumbled embers of +a home: the casting down of that great altar, where the worst among +us sometimes perform the worship of the heart; and where the best +have offered up such sacrifices, and done such deeds of heroism, +as, chronicled, would put the proudest temples of old Time, with +all their vaunting annals, to the blush! + +He roused himself from a long train of meditation, and walked +slowly round the house. It was by this time almost dark. + +He had nearly made the circuit of the building, when he uttered a +half-suppressed exclamation, started, and stood still. Reclining, +in an easy attitude, with his back against a tree, and +contemplating the ruin with an expression of pleasure,--a pleasure +so keen that it overcame his habitual indolence and command of +feature, and displayed itself utterly free from all restraint or +reserve,--before him, on his own ground, and triumphing then, as he +had triumphed in every misfortune and disappointment of his life, +stood the man whose presence, of all mankind, in any place, and +least of all in that, he could the least endure. + +Although his blood so rose against this man, and his wrath so +stirred within him, that he could have struck him dead, he put such +fierce constraint upon himself that he passed him without a word or +look. Yes, and he would have gone on, and not turned, though to +resist the Devil who poured such hot temptation in his brain, +required an effort scarcely to be achieved, if this man had not +himself summoned him to stop: and that, with an assumed compassion +in his voice which drove him well-nigh mad, and in an instant +routed all the self-command it had been anguish--acute, poignant +anguish--to sustain. + +All consideration, reflection, mercy, forbearance; everything by +which a goaded man can curb his rage and passion; fled from him as +he turned back. And yet he said, slowly and quite calmly--far more +calmly than he had ever spoken to him before: + +'Why have you called to me?' + +'To remark,' said Sir John Chester with his wonted composure, 'what +an odd chance it is, that we should meet here!' + +'It IS a strange chance.' + +'Strange? The most remarkable and singular thing in the world. I +never ride in the evening; I have not done so for years. The whim +seized me, quite unaccountably, in the middle of last night.--How +very picturesque this is!'--He pointed, as he spoke, to the +dismantled house, and raised his glass to his eye. + +'You praise your own work very freely.' + +Sir John let fall his glass; inclined his face towards him with an +air of the most courteous inquiry; and slightly shook his head as +though he were remarking to himself, 'I fear this animal is going +mad!' + +'I say you praise your own work very freely,' repeated Mr +Haredale. + +'Work!' echoed Sir John, looking smilingly round. 'Mine!--I beg +your pardon, I really beg your pardon--' + +'Why, you see,' said Mr Haredale, 'those walls. You see those +tottering gables. You see on every side where fire and smoke have +raged. You see the destruction that has been wanton here. Do you +not?' + +'My good friend,' returned the knight, gently checking his +impatience with his hand, 'of course I do. I see everything you +speak of, when you stand aside, and do not interpose yourself +between the view and me. I am very sorry for you. If I had not +had the pleasure to meet you here, I think I should have written to +tell you so. But you don't bear it as well as I had expected-- +excuse me--no, you don't indeed.' + +He pulled out his snuff-box, and addressing him with the superior +air of a man who, by reason of his higher nature, has a right to +read a moral lesson to another, continued: + +'For you are a philosopher, you know--one of that stern and rigid +school who are far above the weaknesses of mankind in general. You +are removed, a long way, from the frailties of the crowd. You +contemplate them from a height, and rail at them with a most +impressive bitterness. I have heard you.' + +--'And shall again,' said Mr Haredale. + +'Thank you,' returned the other. 'Shall we walk as we talk? The +damp falls rather heavily. Well,--as you please. But I grieve to +say that I can spare you only a very few moments.' + +'I would,' said Mr Haredale, 'you had spared me none. I would, +with all my soul, you had been in Paradise (if such a monstrous +lie could be enacted), rather than here to-night.' + +'Nay,' returned the other--'really--you do yourself injustice. You +are a rough companion, but I would not go so far to avoid you.' + +'Listen to me,' said Mr Haredale. 'Listen to me.' + +'While you rail?' inquired Sir John. + +'While I deliver your infamy. You urged and stimulated to do your +work a fit agent, but one who in his nature--in the very essence of +his being--is a traitor, and who has been false to you (despite the +sympathy you two should have together) as he has been to all +others. With hints, and looks, and crafty words, which told again +are nothing, you set on Gashford to this work--this work before us +now. With these same hints, and looks, and crafty words, which +told again are nothing, you urged him on to gratify the deadly +hate he owes me--I have earned it, I thank Heaven--by the abduction +and dishonour of my niece. You did. I see denial in your looks,' +he cried, abruptly pointing in his face, and stepping back, 'and +denial is a lie!' + +He had his hand upon his sword; but the knight, with a contemptuous +smile, replied to him as coldly as before. + +'You will take notice, sir--if you can discriminate sufficiently-- +that I have taken the trouble to deny nothing. Your discernment is +hardly fine enough for the perusal of faces, not of a kind as +coarse as your speech; nor has it ever been, that I remember; or, +in one face that I could name, you would have read indifference, +not to say disgust, somewhat sooner than you did. I speak of a +long time ago,--but you understand me.' + +'Disguise it as you will, you mean denial. Denial explicit or +reserved, expressed or left to be inferred, is still a lie. You +say you don't deny. Do you admit?' + +'You yourself,' returned Sir John, suffering the current of his +speech to flow as smoothly as if it had been stemmed by no one word +of interruption, 'publicly proclaimed the character of the +gentleman in question (I think it was in Westminster Hall) in terms +which relieve me from the necessity of making any further allusion +to him. You may have been warranted; you may not have been; I +can't say. Assuming the gentleman to be what you described, and +to have made to you or any other person any statements that may +have happened to suggest themselves to him, for the sake of his +own security, or for the sake of money, or for his own amusement, +or for any other consideration,--I have nothing to say of him, +except that his extremely degrading situation appears to me to be +shared with his employers. You are so very plain yourself, that +you will excuse a little freedom in me, I am sure.' + +'Attend to me again, Sir John but once,' cried Mr Haredale; 'in +your every look, and word, and gesture, you tell me this was not +your act. I tell you that it was, and that you tampered with the +man I speak of, and with your wretched son (whom God forgive!) to +do this deed. You talk of degradation and character. You told me +once that you had purchased the absence of the poor idiot and his +mother, when (as I have discovered since, and then suspected) you +had gone to tempt them, and had found them flown. To you I traced +the insinuation that I alone reaped any harvest from my brother's +death; and all the foul attacks and whispered calumnies that +followed in its train. In every action of my life, from that first +hope which you converted into grief and desolation, you have stood, +like an adverse fate, between me and peace. In all, you have ever +been the same cold-blooded, hollow, false, unworthy villain. For +the second time, and for the last, I cast these charges in your +teeth, and spurn you from me as I would a faithless dog!' + +With that he raised his arm, and struck him on the breast so that +he staggered. Sir John, the instant he recovered, drew his sword, +threw away the scabbard and his hat, and running on his adversary +made a desperate lunge at his heart, which, but that his guard was +quick and true, would have stretched him dead upon the grass. + +In the act of striking him, the torrent of his opponent's rage had +reached a stop. He parried his rapid thrusts, without returning +them, and called to him, with a frantic kind of terror in his face, +to keep back. + +'Not to-night! not to-night!' he cried. 'In God's name, not +tonight!' + +Seeing that he lowered his weapon, and that he would not thrust in +turn, Sir John lowered his. + +'Not to-night!' his adversary cried. 'Be warned in time!' + +'You told me--it must have been in a sort of inspiration--' said +Sir John, quite deliberately, though now he dropped his mask, and +showed his hatred in his face, 'that this was the last time. Be +assured it is! Did you believe our last meeting was forgotten? +Did you believe that your every word and look was not to be +accounted for, and was not well remembered? Do you believe that I +have waited your time, or you mine? What kind of man is he who +entered, with all his sickening cant of honesty and truth, into a +bond with me to prevent a marriage he affected to dislike, and when +I had redeemed my part to the spirit and the letter, skulked from +his, and brought the match about in his own time, to rid himself of +a burden he had grown tired of, and cast a spurious lustre on his +house?' + +'I have acted,' cried Mr Haredale, 'with honour and in good faith. +I do so now. Do not force me to renew this duel to-night!' + +'You said my "wretched" son, I think?' said Sir John, with a smile. +'Poor fool! The dupe of such a shallow knave--trapped into +marriage by such an uncle and by such a niece--he well deserves +your pity. But he is no longer a son of mine: you are welcome to +the prize your craft has made, sir.' + +'Once more,' cried his opponent, wildly stamping on the ground, +'although you tear me from my better angel, I implore you not to +come within the reach of my sword to-night. Oh! why were you here +at all! Why have we met! To-morrow would have cast us far apart +for ever!' + +'That being the case,' returned Sir John, without the least +emotion, 'it is very fortunate we have met to-night. Haredale, I +have always despised you, as you know, but I have given you credit +for a species of brute courage. For the honour of my judgment, +which I had thought a good one, I am sorry to find you a coward.' + +Not another word was spoken on either side. They crossed swords, +though it was now quite dusk, and attacked each other fiercely. +They were well matched, and each was thoroughly skilled in the +management of his weapon. + +After a few seconds they grew hotter and more furious, and pressing +on each other inflicted and received several slight wounds. It was +directly after receiving one of these in his arm, that Mr Haredale, +making a keener thrust as he felt the warm blood spirting out, +plunged his sword through his opponent's body to the hilt. + +Their eyes met, and were on each other as he drew it out. He put +his arm about the dying man, who repulsed him, feebly, and dropped +upon the turf. Raising himself upon his hands, he gazed at him for +an instant, with scorn and hatred in his look; but, seeming to +remember, even then, that this expression would distort his +features after death, he tried to smile, and, faintly moving his +right hand, as if to hide his bloody linen in his vest, fell back +dead--the phantom of last night. + + + +Chapter the Last + + +A parting glance at such of the actors in this little history as +it has not, in the course of its events, dismissed, will bring it +to an end. + +Mr Haredale fled that night. Before pursuit could be begun, indeed +before Sir John was traced or missed, he had left the kingdom. +Repairing straight to a religious establishment, known throughout +Europe for the rigour and severity of its discipline, and for the +merciless penitence it exacted from those who sought its shelter as +a refuge from the world, he took the vows which thenceforth shut +him out from nature and his kind, and after a few remorseful years +was buried in its gloomy cloisters. + +Two days elapsed before the body of Sir John was found. As soon as +it was recognised and carried home, the faithful valet, true to his +master's creed, eloped with all the cash and movables he could lay +his hands on, and started as a finished gentleman upon his own +account. In this career he met with great success, and would +certainly have married an heiress in the end, but for an unlucky +check which led to his premature decease. He sank under a +contagious disorder, very prevalent at that time, and vulgarly +termed the jail fever. + +Lord George Gordon, remaining in his prison in the Tower until +Monday the fifth of February in the following year, was on that +day solemnly tried at Westminster for High Treason. Of this crime +he was, after a patient investigation, declared Not Guilty; upon +the ground that there was no proof of his having called the +multitude together with any traitorous or unlawful intentions. Yet +so many people were there, still, to whom those riots taught no +lesson of reproof or moderation, that a public subscription was set +on foot in Scotland to defray the cost of his defence. + +For seven years afterwards he remained, at the strong intercession +of his friends, comparatively quiet; saving that he, every now and +then, took occasion to display his zeal for the Protestant faith in +some extravagant proceeding which was the delight of its enemies; +and saving, besides, that he was formally excommunicated by the +Archbishop of Canterbury, for refusing to appear as a witness in +the Ecclesiastical Court when cited for that purpose. In the year +1788 he was stimulated by some new insanity to write and publish +an injurious pamphlet, reflecting on the Queen of France, in very +violent terms. Being indicted for the libel, and (after various +strange demonstrations in court) found guilty, he fled into Holland +in place of appearing to receive sentence: from whence, as the +quiet burgomasters of Amsterdam had no relish for his company, +he was sent home again with all speed. Arriving in the month of +July at Harwich, and going thence to Birmingham, he made in the +latter place, in August, a public profession of the Jewish +religion; and figured there as a Jew until he was arrested, and +brought back to London to receive the sentence he had evaded. By +virtue of this sentence he was, in the month of December, cast +into Newgate for five years and ten months, and required besides to +pay a large fine, and to furnish heavy securities for his future +good behaviour. + +After addressing, in the midsummer of the following year, an appeal +to the commiseration of the National Assembly of France, which the +English minister refused to sanction, he composed himself to +undergo his full term of punishment; and suffering his beard to +grow nearly to his waist, and conforming in all respects to the +ceremonies of his new religion, he applied himself to the study of +history, and occasionally to the art of painting, in which, in his +younger days, he had shown some skill. Deserted by his former +friends, and treated in all respects like the worst criminal in the +jail, he lingered on, quite cheerful and resigned, until the 1st +of November 1793, when he died in his cell, being then only three- +and-forty years of age. + +Many men with fewer sympathies for the distressed and needy, with +less abilities and harder hearts, have made a shining figure and +left a brilliant fame. He had his mourners. The prisoners +bemoaned his loss, and missed him; for though his means were not +large, his charity was great, and in bestowing alms among them he +considered the necessities of all alike, and knew no distinction of +sect or creed. There are wise men in the highways of the world who +may learn something, even from this poor crazy lord who died in +Newgate. + +To the last, he was truly served by bluff John Grueby. John was at +his side before he had been four-and-twenty hours in the Tower, and +never left him until he died. He had one other constant attendant, +in the person of a beautiful Jewish girl; who attached herself to +him from feelings half religious, half romantic, but whose virtuous +and disinterested character appears to have been beyond the censure +even of the most censorious. + +Gashford deserted him, of course. He subsisted for a time upon his +traffic in his master's secrets; and, this trade failing when the +stock was quite exhausted, procured an appointment in the +honourable corps of spies and eavesdroppers employed by the +government. As one of these wretched underlings, he did his +drudgery, sometimes abroad, sometimes at home, and long endured the +various miseries of such a station. Ten or a dozen years ago--not +more--a meagre, wan old man, diseased and miserably poor, was found +dead in his bed at an obscure inn in the Borough, where he was +quite unknown. He had taken poison. There was no clue to his +name; but it was discovered from certain entries in a pocket-book +he carried, that he had been secretary to Lord George Gordon in the +time of the famous riots. + +Many months after the re-establishment of peace and order, and even +when it had ceased to be the town-talk, that every military +officer, kept at free quarters by the City during the late alarms, +had cost for his board and lodging four pounds four per day, and +every private soldier two and twopence halfpenny; many months after +even this engrossing topic was forgotten, and the United Bulldogs +were to a man all killed, imprisoned, or transported, Mr Simon +Tappertit, being removed from a hospital to prison, and thence to +his place of trial, was discharged by proclamation, on two wooden +legs. Shorn of his graceful limbs, and brought down from his high +estate to circumstances of utter destitution, and the deepest +misery, he made shift to stump back to his old master, and beg for +some relief. By the locksmith's advice and aid, he was established +in business as a shoeblack, and opened shop under an archway near +the Horse Guards. This being a central quarter, he quickly made a +very large connection; and on levee days, was sometimes known to +have as many as twenty half-pay officers waiting their turn for +polishing. Indeed his trade increased to that extent, that in +course of time he entertained no less than two apprentices, besides +taking for his wife the widow of an eminent bone and rag collector, +formerly of MilIbank. With this lady (who assisted in the +business) he lived in great domestic happiness, only chequered by +those little storms which serve to clear the atmosphere of wedlock, +and brighten its horizon. In some of these gusts of bad weather, +Mr Tappertit would, in the assertion of his prerogative, so far +forget himself, as to correct his lady with a brush, or boot, or +shoe; while she (but only in extreme cases) would retaliate by +taking off his legs, and leaving him exposed to the derision of +those urchins who delight in mischief. + +Miss Miggs, baffled in all her schemes, matrimonial and otherwise, +and cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and +sour; and did at length become so acid, and did so pinch and slap +and tweak the hair and noses of the youth of Golden Lion Court, +that she was by one consent expelled that sanctuary, and desired to +bless some other spot of earth, in preference. It chanced at that +moment, that the justices of the peace for Middlesex proclaimed by +public placard that they stood in need of a female turnkey for the +County Bridewell, and appointed a day and hour for the inspection +of candidates. Miss Miggs attending at the time appointed, was +instantly chosen and selected from one hundred and twenty-four +competitors, and at once promoted to the office; which she held +until her decease, more than thirty years afterwards, remaining +single all that time. It was observed of this lady that while she +was inflexible and grim to all her female flock, she was +particularly so to those who could establish any claim to beauty: +and it was often remarked as a proof of her indomitable virtue and +severe chastity, that to such as had been frail she showed no +mercy; always falling upon them on the slightest occasion, or on no +occasion at all, with the fullest measure of her wrath. Among +other useful inventions which she practised upon this class of +offenders and bequeathed to posterity, was the art of inflicting an +exquisitely vicious poke or dig with the wards of a key in the +small of the back, near the spine. She likewise originated a mode +of treading by accident (in pattens) on such as had small feet; +also very remarkable for its ingenuity, and previously quite +unknown. + +It was not very long, you may be sure, before Joe Willet and Dolly +Varden were made husband and wife, and with a handsome sum in bank +(for the locksmith could afford to give his daughter a good dowry), +reopened the Maypole. It was not very long, you may be sure, +before a red-faced little boy was seen staggering about the Maypole +passage, and kicking up his heels on the green before the door. It +was not very long, counting by years, before there was a red-faced +little girl, another red-faced little boy, and a whole troop of +girls and boys: so that, go to Chigwell when you would, there would +surely be seen, either in the village street, or on the green, or +frolicking in the farm-yard--for it was a farm now, as well as a +tavern--more small Joes and small Dollys than could be easily +counted. It was not a very long time before these appearances +ensued; but it WAS a VERY long time before Joe looked five years +older, or Dolly either, or the locksmith either, or his wife +either: for cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and +are famous preservers of youthful looks, depend upon it. + +It was a long time, too, before there was such a country inn as the +Maypole, in all England: indeed it is a great question whether +there has ever been such another to this hour, or ever will be. It +was a long time too--for Never, as the proverb says, is a long day-- +before they forgot to have an interest in wounded soldiers at the +Maypole, or before Joe omitted to refresh them, for the sake of his +old campaign; or before the serjeant left off looking in there, now +and then; or before they fatigued themselves, or each other, by +talking on these occasions of battles and sieges, and hard weather +and hard service, and a thousand things belonging to a soldier's +life. As to the great silver snuff-box which the King sent Joe +with his own hand, because of his conduct in the Riots, what guest +ever went to the Maypole without putting finger and thumb into that +box, and taking a great pinch, though he had never taken a pinch of +snuff before, and almost sneezed himself into convulsions even +then? As to the purple-faced vintner, where is the man who lived +in those times and never saw HIM at the Maypole: to all appearance +as much at home in the best room, as if he lived there? And as to +the feastings and christenings, and revellings at Christmas, and +celebrations of birthdays, wedding-days, and all manner of days, +both at the Maypole and the Golden Key,--if they are not notorious, +what facts are? + +Mr Willet the elder, having been by some extraordinary means +possessed with the idea that Joe wanted to be married, and that it +would be well for him, his father, to retire into private life, and +enable him to live in comfort, took up his abode in a small cottage +at Chigwell; where they widened and enlarged the fireplace for him, +hung up the boiler, and furthermore planted in the little garden +outside the front-door, a fictitious Maypole; so that he was quite +at home directly. To this, his new habitation, Tom Cobb, Phil +Parkes, and Solomon Daisy went regularly every night: and in the +chimney-corner, they all four quaffed, and smoked, and prosed, and +dozed, as they had done of old. It being accidentally discovered +after a short time that Mr Willet still appeared to consider +himself a landlord by profession, Joe provided him with a slate, +upon which the old man regularly scored up vast accounts for meat, +drink, and tobacco. As he grew older this passion increased upon +him; and it became his delight to chalk against the name of each of +his cronies a sum of enormous magnitude, and impossible to be paid: +and such was his secret joy in these entries, that he would be +perpetually seen going behind the door to look at them, and coming +forth again, suffused with the liveliest satisfaction. + +He never recovered the surprise the Rioters had given him, and +remained in the same mental condition down to the last moment of +his life. It was like to have been brought to a speedy +termination by the first sight of his first grandchild, which +appeared to fill him with the belief that some alarming miracle had +happened to Joe. Being promptly blooded, however, by a skilful +surgeon, he rallied; and although the doctors all agreed, on his +being attacked with symptoms of apoplexy six months afterwards, +that he ought to die, and took it very ill that he did not, he +remained alive--possibly on account of his constitutional slowness-- +for nearly seven years more, when he was one morning found +speechless in his bed. He lay in this state, free from all tokens +of uneasiness, for a whole week, when he was suddenly restored to +consciousness by hearing the nurse whisper in his son's ear that he +was going. 'I'm a-going, Joseph,' said Mr Willet, turning round +upon the instant, 'to the Salwanners'--and immediately gave up +the ghost. + +He left a large sum of money behind him; even more than he was +supposed to have been worth, although the neighbours, according to +the custom of mankind in calculating the wealth that other people +ought to have saved, had estimated his property in good round +numbers. Joe inherited the whole; so that he became a man of great +consequence in those parts, and was perfectly independent. + +Some time elapsed before Barnaby got the better of the shock he had +sustained, or regained his old health and gaiety. But he recovered +by degrees: and although he could never separate his condemnation +and escape from the idea of a terrific dream, he became, in other +respects, more rational. Dating from the time of his recovery, he +had a better memory and greater steadiness of purpose; but a dark +cloud overhung his whole previous existence, and never cleared +away. + +He was not the less happy for this, for his love of freedom and +interest in all that moved or grew, or had its being in the +elements, remained to him unimpaired. He lived with his mother on +the Maypole farm, tending the poultry and the cattle, working in a +garden of his own, and helping everywhere. He was known to every +bird and beast about the place, and had a name for every one. +Never was there a lighter-hearted husbandman, a creature more +popular with young and old, a blither or more happy soul than +Barnaby; and though he was free to ramble where he would, he never +quitted Her, but was for evermore her stay and comfort. + +It was remarkable that although he had that dim sense of the past, +he sought out Hugh's dog, and took him under his care; and that he +never could be tempted into London. When the Riots were many years +old, and Edward and his wife came back to England with a family +almost as numerous as Dolly's, and one day appeared at the Maypole +porch, he knew them instantly, and wept and leaped for joy. But +neither to visit them, nor on any other pretence, no matter how +full of promise and enjoyment, could he be persuaded to set foot in +the streets: nor did he ever conquer this repugnance or look upon +the town again. + +Grip soon recovered his looks, and became as glossy and sleek as +ever. But he was profoundly silent. Whether he had forgotten the +art of Polite Conversation in Newgate, or had made a vow in those +troubled times to forego, for a period, the display of his +accomplishments, is matter of uncertainty; but certain it is that +for a whole year he never indulged in any other sound than a grave, +decorous croak. At the expiration of that term, the morning being +very bright and sunny, he was heard to address himself to the +horses in the stable, upon the subject of the Kettle, so often +mentioned in these pages; and before the witness who overheard him +could run into the house with the intelligence, and add to it upon +his solemn affirmation the statement that he had heard him laugh, +the bird himself advanced with fantastic steps to the very door of +the bar, and there cried, 'I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a devil!' +with extraordinary rapture. + +From that period (although he was supposed to be much affected by +the death of Mr Willet senior), he constantly practised and +improved himself in the vulgar tongue; and, as he was a mere infant +for a raven when Barnaby was grey, he has very probably gone on +talking to the present time. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens + +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Chimes, by Charles Dickens* +#8 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +The Chimes by Charles Dickens +Scanned and proofed by David Price +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +The Chimes + + + + +CHAPTER I - First Quarter. + + + +HERE are not many people - and as it is desirable that a story- +teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding +as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this +observation neither to young people nor to little people, but +extend it to all conditions of people: little and big, young and +old: yet growing up, or already growing down again - there are +not, I say, many people who would care to sleep in a church. I +don't mean at sermon-time in warm weather (when the thing has +actually been done, once or twice), but in the night, and alone. A +great multitude of persons will be violently astonished, I know, by +this position, in the broad bold Day. But it applies to Night. It +must be argued by night, and I will undertake to maintain it +successfully on any gusty winter's night appointed for the purpose, +with any one opponent chosen from the rest, who will meet me singly +in an old churchyard, before an old church-door; and will +previously empower me to lock him in, if needful to his +satisfaction, until morning. + +For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and round +a building of that sort, and moaning as it goes; and of trying, +with its unseen hand, the windows and the doors; and seeking out +some crevices by which to enter. And when it has got in; as one +not finding what it seeks, whatever that may be, it wails and howls +to issue forth again: and not content with stalking through the +aisles, and gliding round and round the pillars, and tempting the +deep organ, soars up to the roof, and strives to rend the rafters: +then flings itself despairingly upon the stones below, and passes, +muttering, into the vaults. Anon, it comes up stealthily, and +creeps along the walls, seeming to read, in whispers, the +Inscriptions sacred to the Dead. At some of these, it breaks out +shrilly, as with laughter; and at others, moans and cries as if it +were lamenting. It has a ghostly sound too, lingering within the +altar; where it seems to chaunt, in its wild way, of Wrong and +Murder done, and false Gods worshipped, in defiance of the Tables +of the Law, which look so fair and smooth, but are so flawed and +broken. Ugh! Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire! +It has an awful voice, that wind at Midnight, singing in a church! + +But, high up in the steeple! There the foul blast roars and +whistles! High up in the steeple, where it is free to come and go +through many an airy arch and loophole, and to twist and twine +itself about the giddy stair, and twirl the groaning weathercock, +and make the very tower shake and shiver! High up in the steeple, +where the belfry is, and iron rails are ragged with rust, and +sheets of lead and copper, shrivelled by the changing weather, +crackle and heave beneath the unaccustomed tread; and birds stuff +shabby nests into corners of old oaken joists and beams; and dust +grows old and grey; and speckled spiders, indolent and fat with +long security, swing idly to and fro in the vibration of the bells, +and never loose their hold upon their thread-spun castles in the +air, or climb up sailor-like in quick alarm, or drop upon the +ground and ply a score of nimble legs to save one life! High up in +the steeple of an old church, far above the light and murmur of the +town and far below the flying clouds that shadow it, is the wild +and dreary place at night: and high up in the steeple of an old +church, dwelt the Chimes I tell of. + +They were old Chimes, trust me. Centuries ago, these Bells had +been baptized by bishops: so many centuries ago, that the register +of their baptism was lost long, long before the memory of man, and +no one knew their names. They had had their Godfathers and +Godmothers, these Bells (for my own part, by the way, I would +rather incur the responsibility of being Godfather to a Bell than a +Boy), and had their silver mugs no doubt, besides. But Time had +mowed down their sponsors, and Henry the Eighth had melted down +their mugs; and they now hung, nameless and mugless, in the church- +tower. + +Not speechless, though. Far from it. They had clear, loud, lusty, +sounding voices, had these Bells; and far and wide they might be +heard upon the wind. Much too sturdy Chimes were they, to be +dependent on the pleasure of the wind, moreover; for, fighting +gallantly against it when it took an adverse whim, they would pour +their cheerful notes into a listening ear right royally; and bent +on being heard on stormy nights, by some poor mother watching a +sick child, or some lone wife whose husband was at sea, they had +been sometimes known to beat a blustering Nor' Wester; aye, 'all to +fits,' as Toby Veck said; - for though they chose to call him +Trotty Veck, his name was Toby, and nobody could make it anything +else either (except Tobias) without a special act of parliament; he +having been as lawfully christened in his day as the Bells had been +in theirs, though with not quite so much of solemnity or public +rejoicing. + +For my part, I confess myself of Toby Veck's belief, for I am sure +he had opportunities enough of forming a correct one. And whatever +Toby Veck said, I say. And I take my stand by Toby Veck, although +he DID stand all day long (and weary work it was) just outside the +church-door. In fact he was a ticket-porter, Toby Veck, and waited +there for jobs. + +And a breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed, red-eyed, stony-toed, +tooth-chattering place it was, to wait in, in the winter-time, as +Toby Veck well knew. The wind came tearing round the corner - +especially the east wind - as if it had sallied forth, express, +from the confines of the earth, to have a blow at Toby. And +oftentimes it seemed to come upon him sooner than it had expected, +for bouncing round the corner, and passing Toby, it would suddenly +wheel round again, as if it cried 'Why, here he is!' Incontinently +his little white apron would be caught up over his head like a +naughty boy's garments, and his feeble little cane would be seen to +wrestle and struggle unavailingly in his hand, and his legs would +undergo tremendous agitation, and Toby himself all aslant, and +facing now in this direction, now in that, would be so banged and +buffeted, and to touzled, and worried, and hustled, and lifted off +his feet, as to render it a state of things but one degree removed +from a positive miracle, that he wasn't carried up bodily into the +air as a colony of frogs or snails or other very portable creatures +sometimes are, and rained down again, to the great astonishment of +the natives, on some strange corner of the world where ticket- +porters are unknown. + +But, windy weather, in spite of its using him so roughly, was, +after all, a sort of holiday for Toby. That's the fact. He didn't +seem to wait so long for a sixpence in the wind, as at other times; +the having to fight with that boisterous element took off his +attention, and quite freshened him up, when he was getting hungry +and low-spirited. A hard frost too, or a fall of snow, was an +Event; and it seemed to do him good, somehow or other - it would +have been hard to say in what respect though, Toby! So wind and +frost and snow, and perhaps a good stiff storm of hail, were Toby +Veck's red-letter days. + +Wet weather was the worst; the cold, damp, clammy wet, that wrapped +him up like a moist great-coat - the only kind of great-coat Toby +owned, or could have added to his comfort by dispensing with. Wet +days, when the rain came slowly, thickly, obstinately down; when +the street's throat, like his own, was choked with mist; when +smoking umbrellas passed and re-passed, spinning round and round +like so many teetotums, as they knocked against each other on the +crowded footway, throwing off a little whirlpool of uncomfortable +sprinklings; when gutters brawled and waterspouts were full and +noisy; when the wet from the projecting stones and ledges of the +church fell drip, drip, drip, on Toby, making the wisp of straw on +which he stood mere mud in no time; those were the days that tried +him. Then, indeed, you might see Toby looking anxiously out from +his shelter in an angle of the church wall - such a meagre shelter +that in summer time it never cast a shadow thicker than a good- +sized walking stick upon the sunny pavement - with a disconsolate +and lengthened face. But coming out, a minute afterwards, to warm +himself by exercise, and trotting up and down some dozen times, he +would brighten even then, and go back more brightly to his niche. + +They called him Trotty from his pace, which meant speed if it +didn't make it. He could have walked faster perhaps; most likely; +but rob him of his trot, and Toby would have taken to his bed and +died. It bespattered him with mud in dirty weather; it cost him a +world of trouble; he could have walked with infinitely greater +ease; but that was one reason for his clinging to it so +tenaciously. A weak, small, spare old man, he was a very Hercules, +this Toby, in his good intentions. He loved to earn his money. He +delighted to believe - Toby was very poor, and couldn't well afford +to part with a delight - that he was worth his salt. With a +shilling or an eighteenpenny message or small parcel in hand, his +courage always high, rose higher. As he trotted on, he would call +out to fast Postmen ahead of him, to get out of the way; devoutly +believing that in the natural course of things he must inevitably +overtake and run them down; and he had perfect faith - not often +tested - in his being able to carry anything that man could lift. + +Thus, even when he came out of his nook to warm himself on a wet +day, Toby trotted. Making, with his leaky shoes, a crooked line of +slushy footprints in the mire; and blowing on his chilly hands and +rubbing them against each other, poorly defended from the searching +cold by threadbare mufflers of grey worsted, with a private +apartment only for the thumb, and a common room or tap for the rest +of the fingers; Toby, with his knees bent and his cane beneath his +arm, still trotted. Falling out into the road to look up at the +belfry when the Chimes resounded, Toby trotted still. + +He made this last excursion several times a day, for they were +company to him; and when he heard their voices, he had an interest +in glancing at their lodging-place, and thinking how they were +moved, and what hammers beat upon them. Perhaps he was the more +curious about these Bells, because there were points of resemblance +between themselves and him. They hung there, in all weathers, with +the wind and rain driving in upon them; facing only the outsides of +all those houses; never getting any nearer to the blazing fires +that gleamed and shone upon the windows, or came puffing out of the +chimney tops; and incapable of participation in any of the good +things that were constantly being handled, through the street doors +and the area railings, to prodigious cooks. Faces came and went at +many windows: sometimes pretty faces, youthful faces, pleasant +faces: sometimes the reverse: but Toby knew no more (though he +often speculated on these trifles, standing idle in the streets) +whence they came, or where they went, or whether, when the lips +moved, one kind word was said of him in all the year, than did the +Chimes themselves. + +Toby was not a casuist - that he knew of, at least - and I don't +mean to say that when he began to take to the Bells, and to knit up +his first rough acquaintance with them into something of a closer +and more delicate woof, he passed through these considerations one +by one, or held any formal review or great field-day in his +thoughts. But what I mean to say, and do say is, that as the +functions of Toby's body, his digestive organs for example, did of +their own cunning, and by a great many operations of which he was +altogether ignorant, and the knowledge of which would have +astonished him very much, arrive at a certain end; so his mental +faculties, without his privity or concurrence, set all these wheels +and springs in motion, with a thousand others, when they worked to +bring about his liking for the Bells. + +And though I had said his love, I would not have recalled the word, +though it would scarcely have expressed his complicated feeling. +For, being but a simple man, he invested them with a strange and +solemn character. They were so mysterious, often heard and never +seen; so high up, so far off, so full of such a deep strong melody, +that he regarded them with a species of awe; and sometimes when he +looked up at the dark arched windows in the tower, he half expected +to be beckoned to by something which was not a Bell, and yet was +what he had heard so often sounding in the Chimes. For all this, +Toby scouted with indignation a certain flying rumour that the +Chimes were haunted, as implying the possibility of their being +connected with any Evil thing. In short, they were very often in +his ears, and very often in his thoughts, but always in his good +opinion; and he very often got such a crick in his neck by staring +with his mouth wide open, at the steeple where they hung, that he +was fain to take an extra trot or two, afterwards, to cure it. + +The very thing he was in the act of doing one cold day, when the +last drowsy sound of Twelve o'clock, just struck, was humming like +a melodious monster of a Bee, and not by any means a busy bee, all +through the steeple! + +'Dinner-time, eh!' said Toby, trotting up and down before the +church. 'Ah!' + +Toby's nose was very red, and his eyelids were very red, and he +winked very much, and his shoulders were very near his ears, and +his legs were very stiff, and altogether he was evidently a long +way upon the frosty side of cool. + +'Dinner-time, eh!' repeated Toby, using his right-hand muffler like +an infantine boxing-glove, and punishing his chest for being cold. +'Ah-h-h-h!' + +He took a silent trot, after that, for a minute or two. + +'There's nothing,' said Toby, breaking forth afresh - but here he +stopped short in his trot, and with a face of great interest and +some alarm, felt his nose carefully all the way up. It was but a +little way (not being much of a nose) and he had soon finished. + +'I thought it was gone,' said Toby, trotting off again. 'It's all +right, however. I am sure I couldn't blame it if it was to go. It +has a precious hard service of it in the bitter weather, and +precious little to look forward to; for I don't take snuff myself. +It's a good deal tried, poor creetur, at the best of times; for +when it DOES get hold of a pleasant whiff or so (which an't too +often) it's generally from somebody else's dinner, a-coming home +from the baker's.' + +The reflection reminded him of that other reflection, which he had +left unfinished. + +'There's nothing,' said Toby, 'more regular in its coming round +than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in its coming round than +dinner. That's the great difference between 'em. It's took me a +long time to find it out. I wonder whether it would be worth any +gentleman's while, now, to buy that obserwation for the Papers; or +the Parliament!' + +Toby was only joking, for he gravely shook his head in self- +depreciation. + +'Why! Lord!' said Toby. 'The Papers is full of obserwations as it +is; and so's the Parliament. Here's last week's paper, now;' +taking a very dirty one from his pocket, and holding it from him at +arm's length; 'full of obserwations! Full of obserwations! I like +to know the news as well as any man,' said Toby, slowly; folding it +a little smaller, and putting it in his pocket again: 'but it +almost goes against the grain with me to read a paper now. It +frightens me almost. I don't know what we poor people are coming +to. Lord send we may be coming to something better in the New Year +nigh upon us!' + +'Why, father, father!' said a pleasant voice, hard by. + +But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot backwards and forwards: +musing as he went, and talking to himself. + +'It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be righted,' +said Toby. 'I hadn't much schooling, myself, when I was young; and +I can't make out whether we have any business on the face of the +earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have - a little; and +sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes +that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any +good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to be +dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always +being complained of and guarded against. One way or other, we fill +the papers. Talk of a New Year!' said Toby, mournfully. 'I can +bear up as well as another man at most times; better than a good +many, for I am as strong as a lion, and all men an't; but supposing +it should really be that we have no right to a New Year - supposing +we really ARE intruding - ' + +'Why, father, father!' said the pleasant voice again. + +Toby heard it this time; started; stopped; and shortening his +sight, which had been directed a long way off as seeking the +enlightenment in the very heart of the approaching year, found +himself face to face with his own child, and looking close into her +eyes. + +Bright eyes they were. Eyes that would bear a world of looking in, +before their depth was fathomed. Dark eyes, that reflected back +the eyes which searched them; not flashingly, or at the owner's +will, but with a clear, calm, honest, patient radiance, claiming +kindred with that light which Heaven called into being. Eyes that +were beautiful and true, and beaming with Hope. With Hope so young +and fresh; with Hope so buoyant, vigorous, and bright, despite the +twenty years of work and poverty on which they had looked; that +they became a voice to Trotty Veck, and said: 'I think we have +some business here - a little!' + +Trotty kissed the lips belonging to the eyes, and squeezed the +blooming face between his hands. + +'Why, Pet,' said Trotty. 'What's to do? I didn't expect you to- +day, Meg.' + +'Neither did I expect to come, father,' cried the girl, nodding her +head and smiling as she spoke. 'But here I am! And not alone; not +alone!' + +'Why you don't mean to say,' observed Trotty, looking curiously at +a covered basket which she carried in her hand, 'that you - ' + +'Smell it, father dear,' said Meg. 'Only smell it!' + +Trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in a great hurry, +when she gaily interposed her hand. + +'No, no, no,' said Meg, with the glee of a child. 'Lengthen it out +a little. Let me just lift up the corner; just the lit-tle ti-ny +cor-ner, you know,' said Meg, suiting the action to the word with +the utmost gentleness, and speaking very softly, as if she were +afraid of being overheard by something inside the basket; 'there. +Now. What's that?' + +Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the basket, +and cried out in a rapture: + +'Why, it's hot!' + +'It's burning hot!' cried Meg. 'Ha, ha, ha! It's scalding hot!' + +'Ha, ha, ha!' roared Toby, with a sort of kick. 'It's scalding +hot!' + +'But what is it, father?' said Meg. 'Come. You haven't guessed +what it is. And you must guess what it is. I can't think of +taking it out, till you guess what it is. Don't be in such a +hurry! Wait a minute! A little bit more of the cover. Now +guess!' + +Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess right too soon; +shrinking away, as she held the basket towards him; curling up her +pretty shoulders; stopping her ear with her hand, as if by so doing +she could keep the right word out of Toby's lips; and laughing +softly the whole time. + +Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee, bent down his nose to +the basket, and took a long inspiration at the lid; the grin upon +his withered face expanding in the process, as if he were inhaling +laughing gas. + +'Ah! It's very nice,' said Toby. 'It an't - I suppose it an't +Polonies?' + +'No, no, no!' cried Meg, delighted. 'Nothing like Polonies!' + +'No,' said Toby, after another sniff. 'It's - it's mellower than +Polonies. It's very nice. It improves every moment. It's too +decided for Trotters. An't it?' + +Meg was in an ecstasy. He could not have gone wider of the mark +than Trotters - except Polonies. + +'Liver?' said Toby, communing with himself. 'No. There's a +mildness about it that don't answer to liver. Pettitoes? No. It +an't faint enough for pettitoes. It wants the stringiness of +Cocks' heads. And I know it an't sausages. I'll tell you what it +is. It's chitterlings!' + +'No, it an't!' cried Meg, in a burst of delight. 'No, it an't!' + +'Why, what am I a-thinking of!' said Toby, suddenly recovering a +position as near the perpendicular as it was possible for him to +assume. 'I shall forget my own name next. It's tripe!' + +Tripe it was; and Meg, in high joy, protested he should say, in +half a minute more, it was the best tripe ever stewed. + +'And so,' said Meg, busying herself exultingly with the basket, +'I'll lay the cloth at once, father; for I have brought the tripe +in a basin, and tied the basin up in a pocket-handkerchief; and if +I like to be proud for once, and spread that for a cloth, and call +it a cloth, there's no law to prevent me; is there, father?' + +'Not that I know of, my dear,' said Toby. 'But they're always a- +bringing up some new law or other.' + +'And according to what I was reading you in the paper the other +day, father; what the Judge said, you know; we poor people are +supposed to know them all. Ha ha! What a mistake! My goodness +me, how clever they think us!' + +'Yes, my dear,' cried Trotty; 'and they'd be very fond of any one +of us that DID know 'em all. He'd grow fat upon the work he'd get, +that man, and be popular with the gentlefolks in his neighbourhood. +Very much so!' + +'He'd eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever he was, if it smelt +like this,' said Meg, cheerfully. 'Make haste, for there's a hot +potato besides, and half a pint of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. +Where will you dine, father? On the Post, or on the Steps? Dear, +dear, how grand we are. Two places to choose from!' + +'The steps to-day, my Pet,' said Trotty. 'Steps in dry weather. +Post in wet. There's a greater conveniency in the steps at all +times, because of the sitting down; but they're rheumatic in the +damp.' + +'Then here,' said Meg, clapping her hands, after a moment's bustle; +'here it is, all ready! And beautiful it looks! Come, father. +Come!' + +Since his discovery of the contents of the basket, Trotty had been +standing looking at her - and had been speaking too - in an +abstracted manner, which showed that though she was the object of +his thoughts and eyes, to the exclusion even of tripe, he neither +saw nor thought about her as she was at that moment, but had before +him some imaginary rough sketch or drama of her future life. +Roused, now, by her cheerful summons, he shook off a melancholy +shake of the head which was just coming upon him, and trotted to +her side. As he was stooping to sit down, the Chimes rang. + +'Amen!' said Trotty, pulling off his hat and looking up towards +them. + +'Amen to the Bells, father?' cried Meg. + +'They broke in like a grace, my dear,' said Trotty, taking his +seat. 'They'd say a good one, I am sure, if they could. Many's +the kind thing they say to me.' + +'The Bells do, father!' laughed Meg, as she set the basin, and a +knife and fork, before him. 'Well!' + +'Seem to, my Pet,' said Trotty, falling to with great vigour. 'And +where's the difference? If I hear 'em, what does it matter whether +they speak it or not? Why bless you, my dear,' said Toby, pointing +at the tower with his fork, and becoming more animated under the +influence of dinner, 'how often have I heard them bells say, "Toby +Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, +keep a good heart, Toby!" A million times? More!' + +'Well, I never!' cried Meg. + +She had, though - over and over again. For it was Toby's constant +topic. + +'When things is very bad,' said Trotty; 'very bad indeed, I mean; +almost at the worst; then it's "Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming +soon, Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby!" That +way.' + +'And it comes - at last, father,' said Meg, with a touch of sadness +in her pleasant voice. + +'Always,' answered the unconscious Toby. 'Never fails.' + +While this discourse was holding, Trotty made no pause in his +attack upon the savoury meat before him, but cut and ate, and cut +and drank, and cut and chewed, and dodged about, from tripe to hot +potato, and from hot potato back again to tripe, with an unctuous +and unflagging relish. But happening now to look all round the +street - in case anybody should be beckoning from any door or +window, for a porter - his eyes, in coming back again, encountered +Meg: sitting opposite to him, with her arms folded and only busy +in watching his progress with a smile of happiness. + +'Why, Lord forgive me!' said Trotty, dropping his knife and fork. +'My dove! Meg! why didn't you tell me what a beast I was?' + +'Father?' + +'Sitting here,' said Trotty, in penitent explanation, 'cramming, +and stuffing, and gorging myself; and you before me there, never so +much as breaking your precious fast, nor wanting to, when - ' + +'But I have broken it, father,' interposed his daughter, laughing, +'all to bits. I have had my dinner.' + +'Nonsense,' said Trotty. 'Two dinners in one day! It an't +possible! You might as well tell me that two New Year's Days will +come together, or that I have had a gold head all my life, and +never changed it.' + +'I have had my dinner, father, for all that,' said Meg, coming +nearer to him. 'And if you'll go on with yours, I'll tell you how +and where; and how your dinner came to be brought; and - and +something else besides.' + +Toby still appeared incredulous; but she looked into his face with +her clear eyes, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, motioned him +to go on while the meat was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and +fork again, and went to work. But much more slowly than before, +and shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with +himself. + +'I had my dinner, father,' said Meg, after a little hesitation, +'with - with Richard. His dinner-time was early; and as he brought +his dinner with him when he came to see me, we - we had it +together, father.' + +Trotty took a little beer, and smacked his lips. Then he said, +'Oh!' - because she waited. + +'And Richard says, father - ' Meg resumed. Then stopped. + +'What does Richard say, Meg?' asked Toby. + +'Richard says, father - ' Another stoppage. + +'Richard's a long time saying it,' said Toby. + +'He says then, father,' Meg continued, lifting up her eyes at last, +and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly; 'another year is +nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting on from year to year, +when it is so unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now? +He says we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor then, but we +are young now, and years will make us old before we know it. He +says that if we wait: people in our condition: until we see our +way quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed - the common +way - the Grave, father.' + +A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon his +boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty held his peace. + +'And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and think we might +have cheered and helped each other! How hard in all our lives to +love each other; and to grieve, apart, to see each other working, +changing, growing old and grey. Even if I got the better of it, +and forgot him (which I never could), oh father dear, how hard to +have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly +drained out every drop, without the recollection of one happy +moment of a woman's life, to stay behind and comfort me, and make +me better!' + +Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more gaily: +that is to say, with here a laugh, and there a sob, and here a +laugh and sob together: + +'So Richard says, father; as his work was yesterday made certain +for some time to come, and as I love him, and have loved him full +three years - ah! longer than that, if he knew it! - will I marry +him on New Year's Day; the best and happiest day, he says, in the +whole year, and one that is almost sure to bring good fortune with +it. It's a short notice, father - isn't it? - but I haven't my +fortune to be settled, or my wedding dresses to be made, like the +great ladies, father, have I? And he said so much, and said it in +his way; so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind and +gentle; that I said I'd come and talk to you, father. And as they +paid the money for that work of mine this morning (unexpectedly, I +am sure!) and as you have fared very poorly for a whole week, and +as I couldn't help wishing there should be something to make this +day a sort of holiday to you as well as a dear and happy day to me, +father, I made a little treat and brought it to surprise you.' + +'And see how he leaves it cooling on the step!' said another voice. + +It was the voice of this same Richard, who had come upon them +unobserved, and stood before the father and daughter; looking down +upon them with a face as glowing as the iron on which his stout +sledge-hammer daily rung. A handsome, well-made, powerful +youngster he was; with eyes that sparkled like the red-hot +droppings from a furnace fire; black hair that curled about his +swarthy temples rarely; and a smile - a smile that bore out Meg's +eulogium on his style of conversation. + +'See how he leaves it cooling on the step!' said Richard. 'Meg +don't know what he likes. Not she!' + +Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately reached up his hand +to Richard, and was going to address him in great hurry, when the +house-door opened without any warning, and a footman very nearly +put his foot into the tripe. + +'Out of the ways here, will you! You must always go and be a- +settin on our steps, must you! You can't go and give a turn to +none of the neighbours never, can't you! WILL you clear the road, +or won't you?' + +Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant, as they had +already done it. + +'What's the matter, what's the matter!' said the gentleman for whom +the door was opened; coming out of the house at that kind of light- +heavy pace - that peculiar compromise between a walk and a jog-trot +- with which a gentleman upon the smooth down-hill of life, wearing +creaking boots, a watch-chain, and clean linen, MAY come out of his +house: not only without any abatement of his dignity, but with an +expression of having important and wealthy engagements elsewhere. +'What's the matter! What's the matter!' + +'You're always a-being begged, and prayed, upon your bended knees +you are,' said the footman with great emphasis to Trotty Veck, 'to +let our door-steps be. Why don't you let 'em be? CAN'T you let +'em be?' + +'There! That'll do, that'll do!' said the gentleman. 'Halloa +there! Porter!' beckoning with his head to Trotty Veck. 'Come +here. What's that? Your dinner?' + +'Yes, sir,' said Trotty, leaving it behind him in a corner. + +'Don't leave it there,' exclaimed the gentleman. 'Bring it here, +bring it here. So! This is your dinner, is it?' + +'Yes, sir,' repeated Trotty, looking with a fixed eye and a watery +mouth, at the piece of tripe he had reserved for a last delicious +tit-bit; which the gentleman was now turning over and over on the +end of the fork. + +Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One was a low-spirited +gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate +face; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty +pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog's-eared from that +custom; and was not particularly well brushed or washed. The +other, a full-sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman, in a blue +coat with bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a +very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body +were squeezed up into his head; which perhaps accounted for his +having also the appearance of being rather cold about the heart. + +He who had Toby's meat upon the fork, called to the first one by +the name of Filer; and they both drew near together. Mr. Filer +being exceedingly short-sighted, was obliged to go so close to the +remnant of Toby's dinner before he could make out what it was, that +Toby's heart leaped up into his mouth. But Mr. Filer didn't eat +it. + +'This is a description of animal food, Alderman,' said Filer, +making little punches in it with a pencil-case, 'commonly known to +the labouring population of this country, by the name of tripe.' + +The Alderman laughed, and winked; for he was a merry fellow, +Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow too! A knowing fellow. Up to +everything. Not to be imposed upon. Deep in the people's hearts! +He knew them, Cute did. I believe you! + +'But who eats tripe?' said Mr. Filer, looking round. 'Tripe is +without an exception the least economical, and the most wasteful +article of consumption that the markets of this country can by +possibility produce. The loss upon a pound of tripe has been found +to be, in the boiling, seven-eights of a fifth more than the loss +upon a pound of any other animal substance whatever. Tripe is more +expensive, properly understood, than the hothouse pine-apple. +Taking into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly within +the bills of mortality alone; and forming a low estimate of the +quantity of tripe which the carcases of those animals, reasonably +well butchered, would yield; I find that the waste on that amount +of tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison of five hundred men +for five months of thirty-one days each, and a February over. The +Waste, the Waste!' + +Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. He seemed to +have starved a garrison of five hundred men with his own hand. + +'Who eats tripe?' said Mr. Filer, warmly. 'Who eats tripe?' + +Trotty made a miserable bow. + +'You do, do you?' said Mr. Filer. 'Then I'll tell you something. +You snatch your tripe, my friend, out of the mouths of widows and +orphans.' + +'I hope not, sir,' said Trotty, faintly. 'I'd sooner die of want!' + +'Divide the amount of tripe before-mentioned, Alderman,' said Mr. +Filer, 'by the estimated number of existing widows and orphans, and +the result will be one pennyweight of tripe to each. Not a grain +is left for that man. Consequently, he's a robber.' + +Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern to see the +Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was a relief to get rid of +it, anyhow. + +'And what do you say?' asked the Alderman, jocosely, of the red- +faced gentleman in the blue coat. 'You have heard friend Filer. +What do YOU SAY?' + +'What's it possible to say?' returned the gentleman. 'What IS to +be said? Who can take any interest in a fellow like this,' meaning +Trotty; 'in such degenerate times as these? Look at him. What an +object! The good old times, the grand old times, the great old +times! THOSE were the times for a bold peasantry, and all that +sort of thing. Those were the times for every sort of thing, in +fact. There's nothing now-a-days. Ah!' sighed the red-faced +gentleman. 'The good old times, the good old times!' + +The gentleman didn't specify what particular times he alluded to; +nor did he say whether he objected to the present times, from a +disinterested consciousness that they had done nothing very +remarkable in producing himself. + +'The good old times, the good old times,' repeated the gentleman. +'What times they were! They were the only times. It's of no use +talking about any other times, or discussing what the people are in +THESE times. You don't call these times, do you? I don't. Look +into Strutt's Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be, in any of +the good old English reigns.' + +'He hadn't, in his very best circumstances, a shirt to his back, or +a stocking to his foot; and there was scarcely a vegetable in all +England for him to put into his mouth,' said Mr. Filer. 'I can +prove it, by tables.' + +But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good old times, the +grand old times, the great old times. No matter what anybody else +said, he still went turning round and round in one set form of +words concerning them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns in its +revolving cage; touching the mechanism, and trick of which, it has +probably quite as distinct perceptions, as ever this red-faced +gentleman had of his deceased Millennium. + +It is possible that poor Trotty's faith in these very vague Old +Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt vague enough at that +moment. One thing, however, was plain to him, in the midst of his +distress; to wit, that however these gentlemen might differ in +details, his misgivings of that morning, and of many other +mornings, were well founded. 'No, no. We can't go right or do +right,' thought Trotty in despair. 'There is no good in us. We +are born bad!' + +But Trotty had a father's heart within him; which had somehow got +into his breast in spite of this decree; and he could not bear that +Meg, in the blush of her brief joy, should have her fortune read by +these wise gentlemen. 'God help her,' thought poor Trotty. 'She +will know it soon enough.' + +He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith, to take her +away. But he was so busy, talking to her softly at a little +distance, that he only became conscious of this desire, +simultaneously with Alderman Cute. Now, the Alderman had not yet +had his say, but HE was a philosopher, too - practical, though! +Oh, very practical - and, as he had no idea of losing any portion +of his audience, he cried 'Stop!' + +'Now, you know,' said the Alderman, addressing his two friends, +with a self-complacent smile upon his face which was habitual to +him, 'I am a plain man, and a practical man; and I go to work in a +plain practical way. That's my way. There is not the least +mystery or difficulty in dealing with this sort of people if you +only understand 'em, and can talk to 'em in their own manner. Now, +you Porter! Don't you ever tell me, or anybody else, my friend, +that you haven't always enough to eat, and of the best; because I +know better. I have tasted your tripe, you know, and you can't +"chaff" me. You understand what "chaff" means, eh? That's the +right word, isn't it? Ha, ha, ha! Lord bless you,' said the +Alderman, turning to his friends again, 'it's the easiest thing on +earth to deal with this sort of people, if you understand 'em.' + +Famous man for the common people, Alderman Cute! Never out of +temper with them! Easy, affable, joking, knowing gentleman! + +'You see, my friend,' pursued the Alderman, 'there's a great deal +of nonsense talked about Want - "hard up," you know; that's the +phrase, isn't it? ha! ha! ha! - and I intend to Put it Down. +There's a certain amount of cant in vogue about Starvation, and I +mean to Put it Down. That's all! Lord bless you,' said the +Alderman, turning to his friends again, 'you may Put Down anything +among this sort of people, if you only know the way to set about +it.' + +Trotty took Meg's hand and drew it through his arm. He didn't seem +to know what he was doing though. + +'Your daughter, eh?' said the Alderman, chucking her familiarly +under the chin. + +Always affable with the working classes, Alderman Cute! Knew what +pleased them! Not a bit of pride! + +'Where's her mother?' asked that worthy gentleman. + +'Dead,' said Toby. 'Her mother got up linen; and was called to +Heaven when She was born.' + +'Not to get up linen THERE, I suppose,' remarked the Alderman +pleasantly + +Toby might or might not have been able to separate his wife in +Heaven from her old pursuits. But query: If Mrs. Alderman Cute +had gone to Heaven, would Mr. Alderman Cute have pictured her as +holding any state or station there? + +'And you're making love to her, are you?' said Cute to the young +smith. + +'Yes,' returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by the +question. 'And we are going to be married on New Year's Day.' + +'What do you mean!' cried Filer sharply. 'Married!' + +'Why, yes, we're thinking of it, Master,' said Richard. 'We're +rather in a hurry, you see, in case it should be Put Down first.' + +'Ah!' cried Filer, with a groan. 'Put THAT down indeed, Alderman, +and you'll do something. Married! Married!! The ignorance of the +first principles of political economy on the part of these people; +their improvidence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens! enough to - +Now look at that couple, will you!' + +Well? They were worth looking at. And marriage seemed as +reasonable and fair a deed as they need have in contemplation. + +'A man may live to be as old as Methuselah,' said Mr. Filer, 'and +may labour all his life for the benefit of such people as those; +and may heap up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on +figures, mountains high and dry; and he can no more hope to +persuade 'em that they have no right or business to be married, +than he can hope to persuade 'em that they have no earthly right or +business to be born. And THAT we know they haven't. We reduced it +to a mathematical certainty long ago!' + +Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right forefinger +on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both his friends, +'Observe me, will you! Keep your eye on the practical man!' - and +called Meg to him. + +'Come here, my girl!' said Alderman Cute. + +The young blood of her lover had been mounting, wrathfully, within +the last few minutes; and he was indisposed to let her come. But, +setting a constraint upon himself, he came forward with a stride as +Meg approached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her hand within +his arm still, but looked from face to face as wildly as a sleeper +in a dream. + +'Now, I'm going to give you a word or two of good advice, my girl,' +said the Alderman, in his nice easy way. 'It's my place to give +advice, you know, because I'm a Justice. You know I'm a Justice, +don't you?' + +Meg timidly said, 'Yes.' But everybody knew Alderman Cute was a +Justice! Oh dear, so active a Justice always! Who such a mote of +brightness in the public eye, as Cute! + +'You are going to be married, you say,' pursued the Alderman. +'Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind +that. After you are married, you'll quarrel with your husband and +come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will, +because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have +made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So, don't be brought +before me. You'll have children - boys. Those boys will grow up +bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and +stockings. Mind, my young friend! I'll convict 'em summarily, +every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and +stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely) +and leave you with a baby. Then you'll be turned out of doors, and +wander up and down the streets. Now, don't wander near me, my +dear, for I am resolved, to Put all wandering mothers Down. All +young mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it's my determination to Put +Down. Don't think to plead illness as an excuse with me; or babies +as an excuse with me; for all sick persons and young children (I +hope you know the church-service, but I'm afraid not) I am +determined to Put Down. And if you attempt, desperately, and +ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudulently attempt, to drown +yourself, or hang yourself, I'll have no pity for you, for I have +made up my mind to Put all suicide Down! If there is one thing,' +said the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, 'on which I can +be said to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put +suicide Down. So don't try it on. That's the phrase, isn't it? +Ha, ha! now we understand each other.' + +Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad, to see that Meg had +turned a deadly white, and dropped her lover's hand. + +'And as for you, you dull dog,' said the Alderman, turning with +even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to the young smith, 'what +are you thinking of being married for? What do you want to be +married for, you silly fellow? If I was a fine, young, strapping +chap like you, I should be ashamed of being milksop enough to pin +myself to a woman's apron-strings! Why, she'll be an old woman +before you're a middle-aged man! And a pretty figure you'll cut +then, with a draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squalling children +crying after you wherever you go!' + +O, he knew how to banter the common people, Alderman Cute! + +'There! Go along with you,' said the Alderman, 'and repent. Don't +make such a fool of yourself as to get married on New Year's Day. +You'll think very differently of it, long before next New Year's +Day: a trim young fellow like you, with all the girls looking +after you. There! Go along with you!' + +They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand, or interchanging +bright glances; but, she in tears; he, gloomy and down-looking. +Were these the hearts that had so lately made old Toby's leap up +from its faintness? No, no. The Alderman (a blessing on his +head!) had Put THEM Down. + +'As you happen to be here,' said the Alderman to Toby, 'you shall +carry a letter for me. Can you be quick? You're an old man.' + +Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly, made shift to +murmur out that he was very quick, and very strong. + +'How old are you?' inquired the Alderman. + +'I'm over sixty, sir,' said Toby. + +'O! This man's a great deal past the average age, you know,' cried +Mr. Filer breaking in as if his patience would bear some trying, +but this really was carrying matters a little too far. + +'I feel I'm intruding, sir,' said Toby. 'I - I misdoubted it this +morning. Oh dear me!' + +The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter from his +pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but Mr. Filer clearly +showing that in that case he would rob a certain given number of +persons of ninepence-halfpenny a-piece, he only got sixpence; and +thought himself very well off to get that. + +Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends, and walked +off in high feather; but, he immediately came hurrying back alone, +as if he had forgotten something. + +'Porter!' said the Alderman. + +'Sir!' said Toby. + +'Take care of that daughter of yours. She's much too handsome.' + +'Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or other, I suppose,' +thought Toby, looking at the sixpence in his hand, and thinking of +the tripe. 'She's been and robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom +a-piece, I shouldn't wonder. It's very dreadful!' + +'She's much too handsome, my man,' repeated the Alderman. 'The +chances are, that she'll come to no good, I clearly see. Observe +what I say. Take care of her!' With which, he hurried off again. + +'Wrong every way. Wrong every way!' said Trotty, clasping his +hands. 'Born bad. No business here!' + +The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the words. Full, +loud, and sounding - but with no encouragement. No, not a drop. + +'The tune's changed,' cried the old man, as he listened. 'There's +not a word of all that fancy in it. Why should there be? I have +no business with the New Year nor with the old one neither. Let me +die!' + +Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the very air +spin. Put 'em down, Put 'em down! Good old Times, Good old Times! +Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures! Put 'em down, Put 'em down! +If they said anything they said this, until the brain of Toby +reeled. + +He pressed his bewildered head between his hands, as if to keep it +from splitting asunder. A well-timed action, as it happened; for +finding the letter in one of them, and being by that means reminded +of his charge, he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and +trotted off. + + + +CHAPTER II - 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 greatest district +of the town. It must have been the greatest district of the town, +because it was commonly called 'the world' by its inhabitants. The +letter positively seemed heavier in Toby's hand, than another +letter. Not because the Alderman had sealed it with a very large +coat of arms and no end of wax, but because of the weighty name on +the superscription, and the ponderous amount of gold and silver +with which it was associated. + +'How different from us!' thought Toby, in all simplicity and +earnestness, as he looked at the direction. 'Divide the lively +turtles in the bills of mortality, by the number of gentlefolks +able to buy 'em; and whose share does he take but his own! As to +snatching tripe from anybody's mouth - he'd scorn it!' + +With the involuntary homage due to such an exalted character, Toby +interposed a corner of his apron between the letter and his +fingers. + +'His children,' said Trotty, and a mist rose before his eyes; 'his +daughters - Gentlemen may win their hearts and marry them; they may +be happy wives and mothers; they may be handsome like my darling M- +e-'. + +He couldn't finish the name. The final letter swelled in his +throat, to the size of the whole alphabet. + +'Never mind,' thought Trotty. 'I know what I mean. That's more +than enough for me.' And with this consolatory rumination, trotted +on. + +It was a hard frost, that day. The air was bracing, crisp, and +clear. The wintry sun, though powerless for warmth, looked +brightly down upon the ice it was too weak to melt, and set a +radiant glory there. At other times, Trotty might have learned a +poor man's lesson from the wintry sun; but, he was past that, now. + +The Year was Old, that day. The patient Year had lived through the +reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and faithfully performed +its work. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through +the destined round, and now laid down its weary head to die. Shut +out from hope, high impulse, active happiness, itself, but active +messenger of many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to +have its toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die in +peace. Trotty might have read a poor man's allegory in the fading +year; but he was past that, now. + +And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made, by seventy +years at once upon an English labourer's head, and made in vain! + +The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked out +gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was +waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings. There were +books and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the New +Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the New +Year; new inventions to beguile it. Its life was parcelled out in +almanacks and pocket-books; the coming of its moons, and stars, and +tides, was known beforehand to the moment; all the workings of its +seasons in their days and nights, were calculated with as much +precision as Mr. Filer could work sums in men and women. + +The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New Year! The Old Year +was already looked upon as dead; and its effects were selling +cheap, like some drowned mariner's aboardship. Its patterns were +Last Year's, and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was gone. +Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn +successor! + +Trotty had no portion, to his thinking, in the New Year or the Old. + +'Put 'em down, Put 'em down! Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures! +Good old Times, Good old Times! Put 'em down, Put 'em down!' - his +trot went to that measure, and would fit itself to nothing else. + +But, even that one, melancholy as it was, brought him, in due time, +to the end of his journey. To the mansion of Sir Joseph Bowley, +Member of Parliament. + +The door was opened by a Porter. Such a Porter! Not of Toby's +order. Quite another thing. His place was the ticket though; not +Toby's. + +This Porter underwent some hard panting before he could speak; +having breathed himself by coming incautiously out of his chair, +without first taking time to think about it and compose his mind. +When he had found his voice - which it took him a long time to do, +for it was a long way off, and hidden under a load of meat - he +said in a fat whisper, + +'Who's it from?' + +Toby told him. + +'You're to take it in, yourself,' said the Porter, pointing to a +room at the end of a long passage, opening from the hall. +'Everything goes straight in, on this day of the year. You're not +a bit too soon; for the carriage is at the door now, and they have +only come to town for a couple of hours, a' purpose.' + +Toby wiped his feet (which were quite dry already) with great care, +and took the way pointed out to him; observing as he went that it +was an awfully grand house, but hushed and covered up, as if the +family were in the country. Knocking at the room-door, he was told +to enter from within; and doing so found himself in a spacious +library, where, at a table strewn with files and papers, were a +stately lady in a bonnet; and a not very stately gentleman in black +who wrote from her dictation; while another, and an older, and a +much statelier gentleman, whose hat and cane were on the table, +walked up and down, with one hand in his breast, and looked +complacently from time to time at his own picture - a full length; +a very full length - hanging over the fireplace. + +'What is this?' said the last-named gentleman. 'Mr. Fish, will you +have the goodness to attend?' + +Mr. Fish begged pardon, and taking the letter from Toby, handed it, +with great respect. + +'From Alderman Cute, Sir Joseph.' + +'Is this all? Have you nothing else, Porter?' inquired Sir Joseph. + +Toby replied in the negative. + +'You have no bill or demand upon me - my name is Bowley, Sir Joseph +Bowley - of any kind from anybody, have you?' said Sir Joseph. 'If +you have, present it. There is a cheque-book by the side of Mr. +Fish. I allow nothing to be carried into the New Year. Every +description of account is settled in this house at the close of the +old one. So that if death was to - to - ' + +'To cut,' suggested Mr. Fish. + +'To sever, sir,' returned Sir Joseph, with great asperity, 'the +cord of existence - my affairs would be found, I hope, in a state +of preparation.' + +'My dear Sir Joseph!' said the lady, who was greatly younger than +the gentleman. 'How shocking!' + +'My lady Bowley,' returned Sir Joseph, floundering now and then, as +in the great depth of his observations, 'at this season of the year +we should think of - of - ourselves. We should look into our - our +accounts. We should feel that every return of so eventful a period +in human transactions, involves a matter of deep moment between a +man and his - and his banker.' + +Sir Joseph delivered these words as if he felt the full morality of +what he was saying; and desired that even Trotty should have an +opportunity of being improved by such discourse. Possibly he had +this end before him in still forbearing to break the seal of the +letter, and in telling Trotty to wait where he was, a minute. + +'You were desiring Mr. Fish to say, my lady - ' observed Sir +Joseph. + +'Mr. Fish has said that, I believe,' returned his lady, glancing at +the letter. 'But, upon my word, Sir Joseph, I don't think I can +let it go after all. It is so very dear.' + +'What is dear?' inquired Sir Joseph. + +'That Charity, my love. They only allow two votes for a +subscription of five pounds. Really monstrous!' + +'My lady Bowley,' returned Sir Joseph, 'you surprise me. Is the +luxury of feeling in proportion to the number of votes; or is it, +to a rightly constituted mind, in proportion to the number of +applicants, and the wholesome state of mind to which their +canvassing reduces them? Is there no excitement of the purest kind +in having two votes to dispose of among fifty people?' + +'Not to me, I acknowledge,' replied the lady. 'It bores one. +Besides, one can't oblige one's acquaintance. But you are the Poor +Man's Friend, you know, Sir Joseph. You think otherwise.' + +'I AM the Poor Man's Friend,' observed Sir Joseph, glancing at the +poor man present. 'As such I may be taunted. As such I have been +taunted. But I ask no other title.' + +'Bless him for a noble gentleman!' thought Trotty. + +'I don't agree with Cute here, for instance,' said Sir Joseph, +holding out the letter. 'I don't agree with the Filer party. I +don't agree with any party. My friend the Poor Man, has no +business with anything of that sort, and nothing of that sort has +any business with him. My friend the Poor Man, in my district, is +my business. No man or body of men has any right to interfere +between my friend and me. That is the ground I take. I assume a - +a paternal character towards my friend. I say, "My good fellow, I +will treat you paternally."' + +Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel more +comfortable. + +'Your only business, my good fellow,' pursued Sir Joseph, looking +abstractedly at Toby; 'your only business in life is with me. You +needn't trouble yourself to think about anything. I will think for +you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such +is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence! Now, the design of +your creation is - not that you should swill, and guzzle, and +associate your enjoyments, brutally, with food; Toby thought +remorsefully of the tripe; 'but that you should feel the Dignity of +Labour. Go forth erect into the cheerful morning air, and - and +stop there. Live hard and temperately, be respectful, exercise +your self-denial, bring up your family on next to nothing, pay your +rent as regularly as the clock strikes, be punctual in your +dealings (I set you a good example; you will find Mr. Fish, my +confidential secretary, with a cash-box before him at all times); +and you may trust to me to be your Friend and Father.' + +'Nice children, indeed, Sir Joseph!' said the lady, with a shudder. +'Rheumatisms, and fevers, and crooked legs, and asthmas, and all +kinds of horrors!' + +'My lady,' returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity, 'not the less am I +the Poor Man's Friend and Father. Not the less shall he receive +encouragement at my hands. Every quarter-day he will be put in +communication with Mr. Fish. Every New Year's Day, myself and +friends will drink his health. Once every year, myself and friends +will address him with the deepest feeling. Once in his life, he +may even perhaps receive; in public, in the presence of the gentry; +a Trifle from a Friend. And when, upheld no more by these +stimulants, and the Dignity of Labour, he sinks into his +comfortable grave, then, my lady' - here Sir Joseph blew his nose - +'I will be a Friend and a Father - on the same terms - to his +children.' + +Toby was greatly moved. + +'O! You have a thankful family, Sir Joseph!' cried his wife. + +'My lady,' said Sir Joseph, quite majestically, 'Ingratitude is +known to be the sin of that class. I expect no other return.' + +'Ah! Born bad!' thought Toby. 'Nothing melts us.' + +'What man can do, I do,' pursued Sir Joseph. 'I do my duty as the +Poor Man's Friend and Father; and I endeavour to educate his mind, +by inculcating on all occasions the one great moral lesson which +that class requires. That is, entire Dependence on myself. They +have no business whatever with - with themselves. If wicked and +designing persons tell them otherwise, and they become impatient +and discontented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and +black-hearted ingratitude; which is undoubtedly the case; I am +their Friend and Father still. It is so Ordained. It is in the +nature of things.' + +With that great sentiment, he opened the Alderman's letter; and +read it. + +'Very polite and attentive, I am sure!' exclaimed Sir Joseph. 'My +lady, the Alderman is so obliging as to remind me that he has had +"the distinguished honour" - he is very good - of meeting me at the +house of our mutual friend Deedles, the banker; and he does me the +favour to inquire whether it will be agreeable to me to have Will +Fern put down.' + +'MOST agreeable!' replied my Lady Bowley. 'The worst man among +them! He has been committing a robbery, I hope?' + +'Why no,' said Sir Joseph', referring to the letter. 'Not quite. +Very near. Not quite. He came up to London, it seems, to look for +employment (trying to better himself - that's his story), and being +found at night asleep in a shed, was taken into custody, and +carried next morning before the Alderman. The Alderman observes +(very properly) that he is determined to put this sort of thing +down; and that if it will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put +down, he will be happy to begin with him.' + +'Let him be made an example of, by all means,' returned the lady. +'Last winter, when I introduced pinking and eyelet-holing among the +men and boys in the village, as a nice evening employment, and had +the lines, + + +O let us love our occupations, +Bless the squire and his relations, +Live upon our daily rations, +And always know our proper stations, + + +set to music on the new system, for them to sing the while; this +very Fern - I see him now - touched that hat of his, and said, "I +humbly ask your pardon, my lady, but AN'T I something different +from a great girl?" I expected it, of course; who can expect +anything but insolence and ingratitude from that class of people! +That is not to the purpose, however. Sir Joseph! Make an example +of him!' + +'Hem!' coughed Sir Joseph. 'Mr. Fish, if you'll have the goodness +to attend - ' + +Mr. Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote from Sir Joseph's +dictation. + +'Private. My dear Sir. I am very much indebted to you for your +courtesy in the matter of the man William Fern, of whom, I regret +to add, I can say nothing favourable. I have uniformly considered +myself in the light of his Friend and Father, but have been repaid +(a common case, I grieve to say) with ingratitude, and constant +opposition to my plans. He is a turbulent and rebellious spirit. +His character will not bear investigation. Nothing will persuade +him to be happy when he might. Under these circumstances, it +appears to me, I own, that when he comes before you again (as you +informed me he promised to do to-morrow, pending your inquiries, +and I think he may be so far relied upon), his committal for some +short term as a Vagabond, would be a service to society, and would +be a salutary example in a country where - for the sake of those +who are, through good and evil report, the Friends and Fathers of +the Poor, as well as with a view to that, generally speaking, +misguided class themselves - examples are greatly needed. And I +am,' and so forth. + +'It appears,' remarked Sir Joseph when he had signed this letter, +and Mr. Fish was sealing it, 'as if this were Ordained: really. +At the close of the year, I wind up my account and strike my +balance, even with William Fern!' + +Trotty, who had long ago relapsed, and was very low-spirited, +stepped forward with a rueful face to take the letter. + +'With my compliments and thanks,' said Sir Joseph. 'Stop!' + +'Stop!' echoed Mr. Fish. + +'You have heard, perhaps,' said Sir Joseph, oracularly, 'certain +remarks into which I have been led respecting the solemn period of +time at which we have arrived, and the duty imposed upon us of +settling our affairs, and being prepared. You have observed that I +don't shelter myself behind my superior standing in society, but +that Mr. Fish - that gentleman - has a cheque-book at his elbow, +and is in fact here, to enable me to turn over a perfectly new +leaf, and enter on the epoch before us with a clean account. Now, +my friend, can you lay your hand upon your heart, and say, that you +also have made preparations for a New Year?' + +'I am afraid, sir,' stammered Trotty, looking meekly at him, 'that +I am a - a - little behind-hand with the world.' + +' Behind-hand with the world!' repeated Sir Joseph Bowley, in a +tone of terrible distinctness. + +'I am afraid, sir,' faltered Trotty, 'that there's a matter of ten +or twelve shillings owing to Mrs. Chickenstalker.' + +'To Mrs. Chickenstalker!' repeated Sir Joseph, in the same tone as +before. + +'A shop, sir,' exclaimed Toby, 'in the general line. Also a - a +little money on account of rent. A very little, sir. It oughtn't +to be owing, I know, but we have been hard put to it, indeed!' + +Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at Trotty, one +after another, twice all round. He then made a despondent gesture +with both hands at once, as if he gave the thing up altogether. + +'How a man, even among this improvident and impracticable race; an +old man; a man grown grey; can look a New Year in the face, with +his affairs in this condition; how he can lie down on his bed at +night, and get up again in the morning, and - There!' he said, +turning his back on Trotty. 'Take the letter. Take the letter!' + +'I heartily wish it was otherwise, sir,' said Trotty, anxious to +excuse himself. 'We have been tried very hard.' + +Sir Joseph still repeating 'Take the letter, take the letter!' and +Mr. Fish not only saying the same thing, but giving additional +force to the request by motioning the bearer to the door, he had +nothing for it but to make his bow and leave the house. And in the +street, poor Trotty pulled his worn old hat down on his head, to +hide the grief he felt at getting no hold on the New Year, +anywhere. + +He didn't even lift his hat to look up at the Bell tower when he +came to the old church on his return. He halted there a moment, +from habit: and knew that it was growing dark, and that the +steeple rose above him, indistinct and faint, in the murky air. He +knew, too, that the Chimes would ring immediately; and that they +sounded to his fancy, at such a time, like voices in the clouds. +But he only made the more haste to deliver the Alderman's letter, +and get out of the way before they began; for he dreaded to hear +them tagging 'Friends and Fathers, Friends and Fathers,' to the +burden they had rung out last. + +Toby discharged himself of his commission, therefore, with all +possible speed, and set off trotting homeward. But what with his +pace, which was at best an awkward one in the street; and what with +his hat, which didn't improve it; he trotted against somebody in +less than no time, and was sent staggering out into the road. + +'I beg your pardon, I'm sure!' said Trotty, pulling up his hat in +great confusion, and between the hat and the torn lining, fixing +his head into a kind of bee-hive. 'I hope I haven't hurt you.' + +As to hurting anybody, Toby was not such an absolute Samson, but +that he was much more likely to be hurt himself: and indeed, he +had flown out into the road, like a shuttlecock. He had such an +opinion of his own strength, however, that he was in real concern +for the other party: and said again, + +'I hope I haven't hurt you?' + +The man against whom he had run; a sun-browned, sinewy, country- +looking man, with grizzled hair, and a rough chin; stared at him +for a moment, as if he suspected him to be in jest. But, satisfied +of his good faith, he answered: + +'No, friend. You have not hurt me.' + +'Nor the child, I hope?' said Trotty. + +'Nor the child,' returned the man. 'I thank you kindly.' + +As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried in his arms, +asleep: and shading her face with the long end of the poor +handkerchief he wore about his throat, went slowly on. + +The tone in which he said 'I thank you kindly,' penetrated Trotty's +heart. He was so jaded and foot-sore, and so soiled with travel, +and looked about him so forlorn and strange, that it was a comfort +to him to be able to thank any one: no matter for how little. +Toby stood gazing after him as he plodded wearily away, with the +child's arm clinging round his neck. + +At the figure in the worn shoes - now the very shade and ghost of +shoes - rough leather leggings, common frock, and broad slouched +hat, Trotty stood gazing, blind to the whole street. And at the +child's arm, clinging round its neck. + +Before he merged into the darkness the traveller stopped; and +looking round, and seeing Trotty standing there yet, seemed +undecided whether to return or go on. After doing first the one +and then the other, he came back, and Trotty went half-way to meet +him. + +'You can tell me, perhaps,' said the man with a faint smile, 'and +if you can I am sure you will, and I'd rather ask you than another +- where Alderman Cute lives.' + +'Close at hand,' replied Toby. 'I'll show you his house with +pleasure.' + +'I was to have gone to him elsewhere to-morrow,' said the man, +accompanying Toby, 'but I'm uneasy under suspicion, and want to +clear myself, and to be free to go and seek my bread - I don't know +where. So, maybe he'll forgive my going to his house to-night.' + +'It's impossible,' cried Toby with a start, 'that your name's +Fern!' + +'Eh!' cried the other, turning on him in astonishment. + +'Fern! Will Fern!' said Trotty. + +'That's my name,' replied the other. + +'Why then,' said Trotty, seizing him by the arm, and looking +cautiously round, 'for Heaven's sake don't go to him! Don't go to +him! He'll put you down as sure as ever you were born. Here! come +up this alley, and I'll tell you what I mean. Don't go to HIM.' + +His new acquaintance looked as if he thought him mad; but he bore +him company nevertheless. When they were shrouded from +observation, Trotty told him what he knew, and what character he +had received, and all about it. + +The subject of his history listened to it with a calmness that +surprised him. He did not contradict or interrupt it, once. He +nodded his head now and then - more in corroboration of an old and +worn-out story, it appeared, than in refutation of it; and once or +twice threw back his hat, and passed his freckled hand over a brow, +where every furrow he had ploughed seemed to have set its image in +little. But he did no more. + +'It's true enough in the main,' he said, 'master, I could sift +grain from husk here and there, but let it be as 'tis. What odds? +I have gone against his plans; to my misfortun'. I can't help it; +I should do the like to-morrow. As to character, them gentlefolks +will search and search, and pry and pry, and have it as free from +spot or speck in us, afore they'll help us to a dry good word! - +Well! I hope they don't lose good opinion as easy as we do, or +their lives is strict indeed, and hardly worth the keeping. For +myself, master, I never took with that hand' - holding it before +him - 'what wasn't my own; and never held it back from work, +however hard, or poorly paid. Whoever can deny it, let him chop it +off! But when work won't maintain me like a human creetur; when my +living is so bad, that I am Hungry, out of doors and in; when I see +a whole working life begin that way, go on that way, and end that +way, without a chance or change; then I say to the gentlefolks +"Keep away from me! Let my cottage be. My doors is dark enough +without your darkening of 'em more. Don't look for me to come up +into the Park to help the show when there's a Birthday, or a fine +Speechmaking, or what not. Act your Plays and Games without me, +and be welcome to 'em, and enjoy 'em. We've nowt to do with one +another. I'm best let alone!"' + +Seeing that the child in his arms had opened her eyes, and was +looking about her in wonder, he checked himself to say a word or +two of foolish prattle in her ear, and stand her on the ground +beside him. Then slowly winding one of her long tresses round and +round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung about his +dusty leg, he said to Trotty: + +'I'm not a cross-grained man by natu', I believe; and easy +satisfied, I'm sure. I bear no ill-will against none of 'em. I +only want to live like one of the Almighty's creeturs. I can't - I +don't - and so there's a pit dug between me, and them that can and +do. There's others like me. You might tell 'em off by hundreds +and by thousands, sooner than by ones.' + +Trotty knew he spoke the Truth in this, and shook his head to +signify as much. + +'I've got a bad name this way,' said Fern; 'and I'm not likely, I'm +afeared, to get a better. 'Tan't lawful to be out of sorts, and I +AM out of sorts, though God knows I'd sooner bear a cheerful spirit +if I could. Well! I don't know as this Alderman could hurt ME +much by sending me to jail; but without a friend to speak a word +for me, he might do it; and you see - !' pointing downward with his +finger, at the child. + +'She has a beautiful face,' said Trotty. + +'Why yes!' replied the other in a low voice, as he gently turned it +up with both his hands towards his own, and looked upon it +steadfastly. 'I've thought so, many times. I've thought so, when +my hearth was very cold, and cupboard very bare. I thought so +t'other night, when we were taken like two thieves. But they - +they shouldn't try the little face too often, should they, Lilian? +That's hardly fair upon a man!' + +He sunk his voice so low, and gazed upon her with an air so stern +and strange, that Toby, to divert the current of his thoughts, +inquired if his wife were living. + +'I never had one,' he returned, shaking his head. 'She's my +brother's child: a orphan. Nine year old, though you'd hardly +think it; but she's tired and worn out now. They'd have taken care +on her, the Union - eight-and-twenty mile away from where we live - +between four walls (as they took care of my old father when he +couldn't work no more, though he didn't trouble 'em long); but I +took her instead, and she's lived with me ever since. Her mother +had a friend once, in London here. We are trying to find her, and +to find work too; but it's a large place. Never mind. More room +for us to walk about in, Lilly!' + +Meeting the child's eyes with a smile which melted Toby more than +tears, he shook him by the hand. + +'I don't so much as know your name,' he said, 'but I've opened my +heart free to you, for I'm thankful to you; with good reason. I'll +take your advice, and keep clear of this - ' + +'Justice,' suggested Toby. + +'Ah!' he said. 'If that's the name they give him. This Justice. +And to-morrow will try whether there's better fortun' to be met +with, somewheres near London. Good night. A Happy New Year!' + +'Stay!' cried Trotty, catching at his hand, as he relaxed his grip. +'Stay! The New Year never can be happy to me, if we part like +this. The New Year never can be happy to me, if I see the child +and you go wandering away, you don't know where, without a shelter +for your heads. Come home with me! I'm a poor man, living in a +poor place; but I can give you lodging for one night and never miss +it. Come home with me! Here! I'll take her!' cried Trotty, +lifting up the child. 'A pretty one! I'd carry twenty times her +weight, and never know I'd got it. Tell me if I go too quick for +you. I'm very fast. I always was!' Trotty said this, taking +about six of his trotting paces to one stride of his fatigued +companion; and with his thin legs quivering again, beneath the load +he bore. + +'Why, she's as light,' said Trotty, trotting in his speech as well +as in his gait; for he couldn't bear to be thanked, and dreaded a +moment's pause; 'as light as a feather. Lighter than a Peacock's +feather - a great deal lighter. Here we are and here we go! Round +this first turning to the right, Uncle Will, and past the pump, and +sharp off up the passage to the left, right opposite the public- +house. Here we are and here we go! Cross over, Uncle Will, and +mind the kidney pieman at the corner! Here we are and here we go! +Down the Mews here, Uncle Will, and stop at the black door, with +"T. Veck, Ticket Porter," wrote upon a board; and here we are and +here we go, and here we are indeed, my precious. Meg, surprising +you!' + +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. + +'Why, father!' said Meg. 'You're crazy to-night, I think. I don't +know what the Bells would say to that. Poor little feet. How cold +they are!' + +'Oh, they're warmer now!' exclaimed the child. 'They're quite warm +now!' + +'No, no, no,' said Meg. 'We haven't rubbed 'em half enough. We're +so busy. So busy! And when they're done, we'll brush out the damp +hair; and when that's done, we'll bring some colour to the poor +pale face with fresh water; and when that's done, we'll be so gay, +and brisk, and happy - !' + +The child, in a burst of sobbing, clasped her round the neck; +caressed her fair cheek with its hand; and said, 'Oh Meg! oh dear +Meg!' + +Toby's blessing could have done no more. Who could do more! + +'Why, father!' cried Meg, after a pause. + +'Here I am and here I go, my dear!' said Trotty. + +'Good Gracious me!' cried Meg. 'He's crazy! He's put the dear +child's bonnet on the kettle, and hung the lid behind the door!' + +'I didn't go for to do it, my love,' said Trotty, hastily repairing +this mistake. 'Meg, my dear?' + +Meg looked towards him and saw that he had elaborately stationed +himself behind the chair of their male visitor, where with many +mysterious gestures he was holding up the sixpence he had earned. + +'I see, my dear,' said Trotty, 'as I was coming in, half an ounce +of tea lying somewhere on the stairs; and I'm pretty sure there was +a bit of bacon too. As I don't remember where it was exactly, I'll +go myself and try to find 'em.' + +With this inscrutable artifice, Toby withdrew to purchase the +viands he had spoken of, for ready money, at Mrs. Chickenstalker's; +and presently came back, pretending he had not been able to find +them, at first, in the dark. + +'But here they are at last,' said Trotty, setting out the tea- +things, 'all correct! I was pretty sure it was tea, and a rasher. +So it is. Meg, my pet, if you'll just make the tea, while your +unworthy father toasts the bacon, we shall be ready, immediate. +It's a curious circumstance,' said Trotty, proceeding in his +cookery, with the assistance of the toasting-fork, 'curious, but +well known to my friends, that I never care, myself, for rashers, +nor for tea. I like to see other people enjoy 'em,' said Trotty, +speaking very loud, to impress the fact upon his guest, 'but to me, +as food, they're disagreeable.' + +Yet Trotty sniffed the savour of the hissing bacon - ah! - as if he +liked it; and when he poured the boiling water in the tea-pot, +looked lovingly down into the depths of that snug cauldron, and +suffered the fragrant steam to curl about his nose, and wreathe his +head and face in a thick cloud. However, for all this, he neither +ate nor drank, except at the very beginning, a mere morsel for +form's sake, which he appeared to eat with infinite relish, but +declared was perfectly uninteresting to him. + +No. Trotty's occupation was, to see Will Fern and Lilian eat and +drink; and so was Meg's. And never did spectators at a city dinner +or court banquet find such high delight in seeing others feast: +although it were a monarch or a pope: as those two did, in looking +on that night. Meg smiled at Trotty, Trotty laughed at Meg. Meg +shook her head, and made belief to clap her hands, applauding +Trotty; Trotty conveyed, in dumb-show, unintelligible narratives of +how and when and where he had found their visitors, to Meg; and +they were happy. Very happy. + +'Although,' thought Trotty, sorrowfully, as he watched Meg's face; +'that match is broken off, I see!' + +'Now, I'll tell you what,' said Trotty after tea. 'The little one, +she sleeps with Meg, I know.' + +'With good Meg!' cried the child, caressing her. 'With Meg.' + +'That's right,' said Trotty. 'And I shouldn't wonder if she kiss +Meg's father, won't she? I'M Meg's father.' + +Mightily delighted Trotty was, when the child went timidly towards +him, and having kissed him, fell back upon Meg again. + +'She's as sensible as Solomon,' said Trotty. 'Here we come and +here we - no, we don't - I don't mean that - I - what was I saying, +Meg, my precious?' + +Meg looked towards their guest, who leaned upon her chair, and with +his face turned from her, fondled the child's head, half hidden in +her lap. + +'To be sure,' said Toby. 'To be sure! I don't know what I'm +rambling on about, to-night. My wits are wool-gathering, I think. +Will Fern, you come along with me. You're tired to death, and +broken down for want of rest. You come along with me.' The man +still played with the child's curls, still leaned upon Meg's chair, +still turned away his face. He didn't speak, but in his rough +coarse fingers, clenching and expanding in the fair hair of the +child, there was an eloquence that said enough. + +'Yes, yes,' said Trotty, answering unconsciously what he saw +expressed in his daughter's face. 'Take her with you, Meg. Get +her to bed. There! Now, Will, I'll show you where you lie. It's +not much of a place: only a loft; but, having a loft, I always +say, is one of the great conveniences of living in a mews; and till +this coach-house and stable gets a better let, we live here cheap. +There's plenty of sweet hay up there, belonging to a neighbour; and +it's as clean as hands, and Meg, can make it. Cheer up! Don't +give way. A new heart for a New Year, always!' + +The hand released from the child's hair, had fallen, trembling, +into Trotty's hand. So Trotty, talking without intermission, led +him out as tenderly and easily as if he had been a child himself. +Returning before Meg, he listened for an instant at the door of her +little chamber; an adjoining room. The child was murmuring a +simple Prayer before lying down to sleep; and when she had +remembered Meg's name, 'Dearly, Dearly' - so her words ran - Trotty +heard her stop and ask for his. + +It was some short time before the foolish little old fellow could +compose himself to mend the fire, and draw his chair to the warm +hearth. But, when he had done so, and had trimmed the light, he +took his newspaper from his pocket, and began to read. Carelessly +at first, and skimming up and down the columns; but with an earnest +and a sad attention, very soon. + +For this same dreaded paper re-directed Trotty's thoughts into the +channel they had taken all that day, and which the day's events had +so marked out and shaped. His interest in the two wanderers had +set him on another course of thinking, and a happier one, for the +time; but being alone again, and reading of the crimes and +violences of the people, he relapsed into his former train. + +In this mood, he came to an account (and it was not the first he +had ever read) of a woman who had laid her desperate hands not only +on her own life but on that of her young child. A crime so +terrible, and so revolting to his soul, dilated with the love of +Meg, that he let the journal drop, and fell back in his chair, +appalled! + +'Unnatural and cruel!' Toby cried. 'Unnatural and cruel! None but +people who were bad at heart, born bad, who had no business on the +earth, could do such deeds. It's too true, all I've heard to-day; +too just, too full of proof. We're Bad!' + +The Chimes took up the words so suddenly - burst out so loud, and +clear, and sonorous - that the Bells seemed to strike him in his +chair. + +And what was that, they said? + +'Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, +waiting for you Toby! Come and see us, come and see us, Drag him +to us, drag him to us, Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him, +Break his slumbers, break his slumbers! Toby Veck Toby Veck, door +open wide Toby, Toby Veck Toby Veck, door open wide Toby - ' then +fiercely back to their impetuous strain again, and ringing in the +very bricks and plaster on the walls. + +Toby listened. Fancy, fancy! His remorse for having run away from +them that afternoon! No, no. Nothing of the kind. Again, again, +and yet a dozen times again. 'Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt +him, Drag him to us, drag him to us!' Deafening the whole town! + +'Meg,' said Trotty softly: tapping at her door. 'Do you hear +anything?' + +'I hear the Bells, father. Surely they're very loud to-night.' + +'Is she asleep?' said Toby, making an excuse for peeping in. + +'So peacefully and happily! I can't leave her yet though, father. +Look how she holds my hand!' + +'Meg,' whispered Trotty. 'Listen to the Bells!' + +She listened, with her face towards him all the time. But it +underwent no change. She didn't understand them. + +Trotty withdrew, resumed his seat by the fire, and once more +listened by himself. He remained here a little time. + +It was impossible to bear it; their energy was dreadful. + +'If the tower-door is really open,' said Toby, hastily laying aside +his apron, but never thinking of his hat, 'what's to hinder me from +going up into the steeple and satisfying myself? If it's shut, I +don't want any other satisfaction. That's enough.' + +He was pretty certain as he slipped out quietly into the street +that he should find it shut and locked, for he knew the door well, +and had so rarely seen it open, that he couldn't reckon above three +times in all. It was a low arched portal, outside the church, in a +dark nook behind a column; and had such great iron hinges, and such +a monstrous lock, that there was more hinge and lock than door. + +But what was his astonishment when, coming bare-headed to the +church; and putting his hand into this dark nook, with a certain +misgiving that it might be unexpectedly seized, and a shivering +propensity to draw it back again; he found that the door, which +opened outwards, actually stood ajar! + +He thought, on the first surprise, of going back; or of getting a +light, or a companion, but his courage aided him immediately, and +he determined to ascend alone. + +'What have I to fear?' said Trotty. 'It's a church! Besides, the +ringers may be there, and have forgotten to shut the door.' So he +went in, feeling his way as he went, like a blind man; for it was +very dark. And very quiet, for the Chimes were silent. + +The dust from the street had blown into the recess; and lying +there, heaped up, made it so soft and velvet-like to the foot, that +there was something startling, even in that. The narrow stair was +so close to the door, too, that he stumbled at the very first; and +shutting the door upon himself, by striking it with his foot, and +causing it to rebound back heavily, he couldn't open it again. + +This was another reason, however, for going on. Trotty groped his +way, and went on. Up, up, up, and round, and round; and up, up, +up; higher, higher, higher up! + +It was a disagreeable staircase for that groping work; so low and +narrow, that his groping hand was always touching something; and it +often felt so like a man or ghostly figure standing up erect and +making room for him to pass without discovery, that he would rub +the smooth wall upward searching for its face, and downward +searching for its feet, while a chill tingling crept all over him. +Twice or thrice, a door or niche broke the monotonous surface; and +then it seemed a gap as wide as the whole church; and he felt on +the brink of an abyss, and going to tumble headlong down, until he +found the wall again. + +Still up, up, up; and round and round; and up, up, up; higher, +higher, higher up! + +At length, the dull and stifling atmosphere began to freshen: +presently to feel quite windy: presently it blew so strong, that +he could hardly keep his legs. But, he got to an arched window in +the tower, breast high, and holding tight, looked down upon the +house-tops, on the smoking chimneys, on the blur and blotch of +lights (towards the place where Meg was wondering where he was and +calling to him perhaps), all kneaded up together in a leaven of +mist and darkness. + +This was the belfry, where the ringers came. He had caught hold of +one of the frayed ropes which hung down through apertures in the +oaken roof. At first he started, thinking it was hair; then +trembled at the very thought of waking the deep Bell. The Bells +themselves were higher. Higher, Trotty, in his fascination, or in +working out the spell upon him, groped his way. By ladders now, +and toilsomely, for it was steep, and not too certain holding for +the feet. + +Up, up, up; and climb and clamber; up, up, up; higher, higher, +higher up! + +Until, ascending through the floor, and pausing with his head just +raised above its beams, he came among the Bells. It was barely +possible to make out their great shapes in the gloom; but there +they were. Shadowy, and dark, and dumb. + +A heavy sense of dread and loneliness fell instantly upon him, as +he climbed into this airy nest of stone and metal. His head went +round and round. He listened, and then raised a wild 'Holloa!' +Holloa! was mournfully protracted by the echoes. + +Giddy, confused, and out of breath, and frightened, Toby looked +about him vacantly, and sunk down in a swoon. + + + +CHAPTER III - Third Quarter. + + + +BLACK are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep waters, when +the Sea of Thought, first heaving from a calm, gives up its Dead. +Monsters uncouth and wild, arise in premature, imperfect +resurrection; the several parts and shapes of different things are +joined and mixed by chance; and when, and how, and by what +wonderful degrees, each separates from each, and every sense and +object of the mind resumes its usual form and lives again, no man - +though every man is every day the casket of this type of the Great +Mystery - can tell. + +So, when and how the darkness of the night-black steeple changed to +shining light; when and how the solitary tower was peopled with a +myriad figures; when and how the whispered 'Haunt and hunt him,' +breathing monotonously through his sleep or swoon, became a voice +exclaiming in the waking ears of Trotty, 'Break his slumbers;' when +and how he ceased to have a sluggish and confused idea that such +things were, companioning a host of others that were not; there are +no dates or means to tell. But, awake and standing on his feet +upon the boards where he had lately lain, he saw this Goblin Sight. + +He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had brought him, +swarming with dwarf phantoms, spirits, elfin creatures of the +Bells. He saw them leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the +Bells without a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground; above +him, in the air; clambering from him, by the ropes below; looking +down upon him, from the massive iron-girded beams; peeping in upon +him, through the chinks and loopholes in the walls; spreading away +and away from him in enlarging circles, as the water ripples give +way to a huge stone that suddenly comes plashing in among them. He +saw them, of all aspects and all shapes. He saw them ugly, +handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw +them old, he saw them kind, he saw them cruel, he saw them merry, +he saw them grim; he saw them dance, and heard them sing; he saw +them tear their hair, and heard them howl. He saw the air thick +with them. He saw them come and go, incessantly. He saw them +riding downward, soaring upward, sailing off afar, perching near at +hand, all restless and all violently active. Stone, and brick, and +slate, and tile, became transparent to him as to them. He saw them +IN the houses, busy at the sleepers' beds. He saw them soothing +people in their dreams; he saw them beating them with knotted +whips; he saw them yelling in their ears; he saw them playing +softest music on their pillows; he saw them cheering some with the +songs of birds and the perfume of flowers; he saw them flashing +awful faces on the troubled rest of others, from enchanted mirrors +which they carried in their hands. + +He saw these creatures, not only among sleeping men but waking +also, active in pursuits irreconcilable with one another, and +possessing or assuming natures the most opposite. He saw one +buckling on innumerable wings to increase his speed; another +loading himself with chains and weights, to retard his. He saw +some putting the hands of clocks forward, some putting the hands of +clocks backward, some endeavouring to stop the clock entirely. He +saw them representing, here a marriage ceremony, there a funeral; +in this chamber an election, in that a ball he saw, everywhere, +restless and untiring motion. + +Bewildered by the host of shifting and extraordinary figures, as +well as by the uproar of the Bells, which all this while were +ringing, Trotty clung to a wooden pillar for support, and turned +his white face here and there, in mute and stunned astonishment. + +As he gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous change! The whole +swarm fainted! their forms collapsed, their speed deserted them; +they sought to fly, but in the act of falling died and melted into +air. No fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler leaped down +pretty briskly from the surface of the Great Bell, and alighted on +his feet, but he was dead and gone before he could turn round. +Some few of the late company who had gambolled in the tower, +remained there, spinning over and over a little longer; but these +became at every turn more faint, and few, and feeble, and soon went +the way of the rest. The last of all was one small hunchback, who +had got into an echoing corner, where he twirled and twirled, and +floated by himself a long time; showing such perseverance, that at +last he dwindled to a leg and even to a foot, before he finally +retired; but he vanished in the end, and then the tower was silent. + +Then and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell a bearded figure +of the bulk and stature of the Bell - incomprehensibly, a figure +and the Bell itself. Gigantic, grave, and darkly watchful of him, +as he stood rooted to the ground. + +Mysterious and awful figures! Resting on nothing; poised in the +night air of the tower, with their draped and hooded heads merged +in the dim roof; motionless and shadowy. Shadowy and dark, +although he saw them by some light belonging to themselves - none +else was there - each with its muffled hand upon its goblin mouth. + +He could not plunge down wildly through the opening in the floor; +for all power of motion had deserted him. Otherwise he would have +done so - aye, would have thrown himself, headforemost, from the +steeple-top, rather than have seen them watching him with eyes that +would have waked and watched although the pupils had been taken +out. + +Again, again, the dread and terror of the lonely place, and of the +wild and fearful night that reigned there, touched him like a +spectral hand. His distance from all help; the long, dark, +winding, ghost-beleaguered way that lay between him and the earth +on which men lived; his being high, high, high, up there, where it +had made him dizzy to see the birds fly in the day; cut off from +all good people, who at such an hour were safe at home and sleeping +in their beds; all this struck coldly through him, not as a +reflection but a bodily sensation. Meantime his eyes and thoughts +and fears, were fixed upon the watchful figures; which, rendered +unlike any figures of this world by the deep gloom and shade +enwrapping and enfolding them, as well as by their looks and forms +and supernatural hovering above the floor, were nevertheless as +plainly to be seen as were the stalwart oaken frames, cross-pieces, +bars and beams, set up there to support the Bells. These hemmed +them, in a very forest of hewn timber; from the entanglements, +intricacies, and depths of which, as from among the boughs of a +dead wood blighted for their phantom use, they kept their darksome +and unwinking watch. + +A blast of air - how cold and shrill! - came moaning through the +tower. As it died away, the Great Bell, or the Goblin of the Great +Bell, spoke. + +'What visitor is this!' it said. The voice was low and deep, and +Trotty fancied that it sounded in the other figures as well. + +'I thought my name was called by the Chimes!' said Trotty, raising +his hands in an attitude of supplication. 'I hardly know why I am +here, or how I came. I have listened to the Chimes these many +years. They have cheered me often.' + +'And you have thanked them?' said the Bell. + +'A thousand times!' cried Trotty. + +'How?' + +'I am a poor man,' faltered Trotty, 'and could only thank them in +words.' + +'And always so?' inquired the Goblin of the Bell. 'Have you never +done us wrong in words?' + +'No!' cried Trotty eagerly. + +'Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong, in words?' +pursued the Goblin of the Bell. + +Trotty was about to answer, 'Never!' But he stopped, and was +confused. + +'The voice of Time,' said the Phantom, 'cries to man, Advance! +Time is for his advancement and improvement; for his greater worth, +his greater happiness, his better life; his progress onward to that +goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the +period when Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and +violence, have come and gone - millions uncountable, have suffered, +lived, and died - to point the way before him. Who seeks to turn +him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which +will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder, +ever, for its momentary check!' + +'I never did so to my knowledge, sir,' said Trotty. 'It was quite +by accident if I did. I wouldn't go to do it, I'm sure.' + +'Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its servants,' said the +Goblin of the Bell, 'a cry of lamentation for days which have had +their trial and their failure, and have left deep traces of it +which the blind may see - a cry that only serves the present time, +by showing men how much it needs their help when any ears can +listen to regrets for such a past - who does this, does a wrong. +And you have done that wrong, to us, the Chimes.' + +Trotty's first excess of fear was gone. But he had felt tenderly +and gratefully towards the Bells, as you have seen; and when he +heard himself arraigned as one who had offended them so weightily, +his heart was touched with penitence and grief. + +'If you knew,' said Trotty, clasping his hands earnestly - 'or +perhaps you do know - if you know how often you have kept me +company; how often you have cheered me up when I've been low; how +you were quite the plaything of my little daughter Meg (almost the +only one she ever had) when first her mother died, and she and me +were left alone; you won't bear malice for a hasty word!' + +'Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking disregard, or +stern regard, of any hope, or joy, or pain, or sorrow, of the many- +sorrowed throng; who hears us make response to any creed that +gauges human passions and affections, as it gauges the amount of +miserable food on which humanity may pine and wither; does us +wrong. That wrong you have done us!' said the Bell. + +'I have!' said Trotty. 'Oh forgive me!' + +'Who hears us echo the dull vermin of the earth: the Putters Down +of crushed and broken natures, formed to be raised up higher than +such maggots of the time can crawl or can conceive,' pursued the +Goblin of the Bell; 'who does so, does us wrong. And you have done +us wrong!' + +'Not meaning it,' said Trotty. 'In my ignorance. Not meaning it!' + +'Lastly, and most of all,' pursued the Bell. 'Who turns his back +upon the fallen and disfigured of his kind; abandons them as vile; +and does not trace and track with pitying eyes the unfenced +precipice by which they fell from good - grasping in their fall +some tufts and shreds of that lost soil, and clinging to them still +when bruised and dying in the gulf below; does wrong to Heaven and +man, to time and to eternity. And you have done that wrong!' + +'Spare me!' cried Trotty, falling on his knees; 'for Mercy's sake!' + +'Listen!' said the Shadow. + +'Listen!' cried the other Shadows. + +'Listen!' said a clear and childlike voice, which Trotty thought he +recognised as having heard before. + +The organ sounded faintly in the church below. Swelling by +degrees, the melody ascended to the roof, and filled the choir and +nave. Expanding more and more, it rose up, up; up, up; higher, +higher, higher up; awakening agitated hearts within the burly piles +of oak: the hollow bells, the iron-bound doors, the stairs of +solid stone; until the tower walls were insufficient to contain it, +and it soared into the sky. + +No wonder that an old man's breast could not contain a sound so +vast and mighty. It broke from that weak prison in a rush of +tears; and Trotty put his hands before his face. + +'Listen!' said the Shadow. + +'Listen!' said the other Shadows. + +'Listen!' said the child's voice. + +A solemn strain of blended voices, rose into the tower. + +It was a very low and mournful strain - a Dirge - and as he +listened, Trotty heard his child among the singers. + +'She is dead!' exclaimed the old man. 'Meg is dead! Her Spirit +calls to me. I hear it!' + +'The Spirit of your child bewails the dead, and mingles with the +dead - dead hopes, dead fancies, dead imaginings of youth,' +returned the Bell, 'but she is living. Learn from her life, a +living truth. Learn from the creature dearest to your heart, how +bad the bad are born. See every bud and leaf plucked one by one +from off the fairest stem, and know how bare and wretched it may +be. Follow her! To desperation!' + +Each of the shadowy figures stretched its right arm forth, and +pointed downward. + +'The Spirit of the Chimes is your companion,' said the figure. + +'Go! It stands behind you!' + +Trotty turned, and saw - the child! The child Will Fern had +carried in the street; the child whom Meg had watched, but now, +asleep! + +'I carried her myself, to-night,' said Trotty. 'In these arms!' + +'Show him what he calls himself,' said the dark figures, one and +all. + +The tower opened at his feet. He looked down, and beheld his own +form, lying at the bottom, on the outside: crushed and motionless. + +'No more a living man!' cried Trotty. 'Dead!' + +'Dead!' said the figures all together. + +'Gracious Heaven! And the New Year - ' + +'Past,' said the figures. + +'What!' he cried, shuddering. 'I missed my way, and coming on the +outside of this tower in the dark, fell down - a year ago?' + +'Nine years ago!' replied the figures. + +As they gave the answer, they recalled their outstretched hands; +and where their figures had been, there the Bells were. + +And they rung; their time being come again. And once again, vast +multitudes of phantoms sprung into existence; once again, were +incoherently engaged, as they had been before; once again, faded on +the stopping of the Chimes; and dwindled into nothing. + +'What are these?' he asked his guide. 'If I am not mad, what are +these?' + +'Spirits of the Bells. Their sound upon the air,' returned the +child. 'They take such shapes and occupations as the hopes and +thoughts of mortals, and the recollections they have stored up, +give them.' + +'And you,' said Trotty wildly. 'What are you?' + +'Hush, hush!' returned the child. 'Look here!' + +In a poor, mean room; working at the same kind of embroidery which +he had often, often seen before her; Meg, his own dear daughter, +was presented to his view. He made no effort to imprint his kisses +on her face; he did not strive to clasp her to his loving heart; he +knew that such endearments were, for him, no more. But, he held +his trembling breath, and brushed away the blinding tears, that he +might look upon her; that he might only see her. + +Ah! Changed. Changed. The light of the clear eye, how dimmed. +The bloom, how faded from the cheek. Beautiful she was, as she had +ever been, but Hope, Hope, Hope, oh where was the fresh Hope that +had spoken to him like a voice! + +She looked up from her work, at a companion. Following her eyes, +the old man started back. + +In the woman grown, he recognised her at a glance. In the long +silken hair, he saw the self-same curls; around the lips, the +child's expression lingering still. See! In the eyes, now turned +inquiringly on Meg, there shone the very look that scanned those +features when he brought her home! + +Then what was this, beside him! + +Looking with awe into its face, he saw a something reigning there: +a lofty something, undefined and indistinct, which made it hardly +more than a remembrance of that child - as yonder figure might be - +yet it was the same: the same: and wore the dress. + +Hark. They were speaking! + +'Meg,' said Lilian, hesitating. 'How often you raise your head +from your work to look at me!' + +'Are my looks so altered, that they frighten you?' asked Meg. + +'Nay, dear! But you smile at that, yourself! Why not smile, when +you look at me, Meg?' + +'I do so. Do I not?' she answered: smiling on her. + +'Now you do,' said Lilian, 'but not usually. When you think I'm +busy, and don't see you, you look so anxious and so doubtful, that +I hardly like to raise my eyes. There is little cause for smiling +in this hard and toilsome life, but you were once so cheerful.' + +'Am I not now!' cried Meg, speaking in a tone of strange alarm, and +rising to embrace her. 'Do I make our weary life more weary to +you, Lilian!' + +'You have been the only thing that made it life,' said Lilian, +fervently kissing her; 'sometimes the only thing that made me care +to live so, Meg. Such work, such work! So many hours, so many +days, so many long, long nights of hopeless, cheerless, never- +ending work - not to heap up riches, not to live grandly or gaily, +not to live upon enough, however coarse; but to earn bare bread; to +scrape together just enough to toil upon, and want upon, and keep +alive in us the consciousness of our hard fate! Oh Meg, Meg!' she +raised her voice and twined her arms about her as she spoke, like +one in pain. 'How can the cruel world go round, and bear to look +upon such lives!' + +'Lilly!' said Meg, soothing her, and putting back her hair from her +wet face. 'Why, Lilly! You! So pretty and so young!' + +'Oh Meg!' she interrupted, holding her at arm's-length, and looking +in her face imploringly. 'The worst of all, the worst of all! +Strike me old, Meg! Wither me, and shrivel me, and free me from +the dreadful thoughts that tempt me in my youth!' + +Trotty turned to look upon his guide. But the Spirit of the child +had taken flight. Was gone. + +Neither did he himself remain in the same place; for, Sir Joseph +Bowley, Friend and Father of the Poor, held a great festivity at +Bowley Hall, in honour of the natal day of Lady Bowley. And as +Lady Bowley had been born on New Year's Day (which the local +newspapers considered an especial pointing of the finger of +Providence to number One, as Lady Bowley's destined figure in +Creation), it was on a New Year's Day that this festivity took +place. + +Bowley Hall was full of visitors. The red-faced gentleman was +there, Mr. Filer was there, the great Alderman Cute was there - +Alderman Cute had a sympathetic feeling with great people, and had +considerably improved his acquaintance with Sir Joseph Bowley on +the strength of his attentive letter: indeed had become quite a +friend of the family since then - and many guests were there. +Trotty's ghost was there, wandering about, poor phantom, drearily; +and looking for its guide. + +There was to be a great dinner in the Great Hall. At which Sir +Joseph Bowley, in his celebrated character of Friend and Father of +the Poor, was to make his great speech. Certain plum-puddings were +to be eaten by his Friends and Children in another Hall first; and, +at a given signal, Friends and Children flocking in among their +Friends and Fathers, were to form a family assemblage, with not one +manly eye therein unmoistened by emotion. + +But, there was more than this to happen. Even more than this. Sir +Joseph Bowley, Baronet and Member of Parliament, was to play a +match at skittles - real skittles - with his tenants! + +'Which quite reminds me,' said Alderman Cute, 'of the days of old +King Hal, stout King Hal, bluff King Hal. Ah! Fine character!' + +'Very,' said Mr. Filer, dryly. 'For marrying women and murdering +'em. Considerably more than the average number of wives by the +bye.' + +'You'll marry the beautiful ladies, and not murder 'em, eh?' said +Alderman Cute to the heir of Bowley, aged twelve. 'Sweet boy! We +shall have this little gentleman in Parliament now,' said the +Alderman, holding him by the shoulders, and looking as reflective +as he could, 'before we know where we are. We shall hear of his +successes at the poll; his speeches in the House; his overtures +from Governments; his brilliant achievements of all kinds; ah! we +shall make our little orations about him in the Common Council, +I'll be bound; before we have time to look about us!' + +'Oh, the difference of shoes and stockings!' Trotty thought. But +his heart yearned towards the child, for the love of those same +shoeless and stockingless boys, predestined (by the Alderman) to +turn out bad, who might have been the children of poor Meg. + +'Richard,' moaned Trotty, roaming among the company, to and fro; +'where is he? I can't find Richard! Where is Richard?' Not +likely to be there, if still alive! But Trotty's grief and +solitude confused him; and he still went wandering among the +gallant company, looking for his guide, and saying, 'Where is +Richard? Show me Richard!' + +He was wandering thus, when he encountered Mr. Fish, the +confidential Secretary: in great agitation. + +'Bless my heart and soul!' cried Mr. Fish. 'Where's Alderman Cute? +Has anybody seen the Alderman?' + +Seen the Alderman? Oh dear! Who could ever help seeing the +Alderman? He was so considerate, so affable, he bore so much in +mind the natural desires of folks to see him, that if he had a +fault, it was the being constantly On View. And wherever the great +people were, there, to be sure, attracted by the kindred sympathy +between great souls, was Cute. + +Several voices cried that he was in the circle round Sir Joseph. +Mr. Fish made way there; found him; and took him secretly into a +window near at hand. Trotty joined them. Not of his own accord. +He felt that his steps were led in that direction. + +'My dear Alderman Cute,' said Mr. Fish. 'A little more this way. +The most dreadful circumstance has occurred. I have this moment +received the intelligence. I think it will be best not to acquaint +Sir Joseph with it till the day is over. You understand Sir +Joseph, and will give me your opinion. The most frightful and +deplorable event!' + +'Fish!' returned the Alderman. 'Fish! My good fellow, what is the +matter? Nothing revolutionary, I hope! No - no attempted +interference with the magistrates?' + +'Deedles, the banker,' gasped the Secretary. 'Deedles Brothers - +who was to have been here to-day - high in office in the +Goldsmiths' Company - ' + +'Not stopped!' exclaimed the Alderman, 'It can't be!' + +'Shot himself.' + +'Good God!' + +'Put a double-barrelled pistol to his mouth, in his own counting +house,' said Mr. Fish, 'and blew his brains out. No motive. +Princely circumstances!' + +'Circumstances!' exclaimed the Alderman. 'A man of noble fortune. +One of the most respectable of men. Suicide, Mr. Fish! By his own +hand!' + +'This very morning,' returned Mr. Fish. + +'Oh the brain, the brain!' exclaimed the pious Alderman, lifting up +his hands. 'Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this +machine called Man! Oh the little that unhinges it: poor +creatures that we are! Perhaps a dinner, Mr. Fish. Perhaps the +conduct of his son, who, I have heard, ran very wild, and was in +the habit of drawing bills upon him without the least authority! A +most respectable man. One of the most respectable men I ever knew! +A lamentable instance, Mr. Fish. A public calamity! I shall make +a point of wearing the deepest mourning. A most respectable man! +But there is One above. We must submit, Mr. Fish. We must +submit!' + +What, Alderman! No word of Putting Down? Remember, Justice, your +high moral boast and pride. Come, Alderman! Balance those scales. +Throw me into this, the empty one, no dinner, and Nature's founts +in some poor woman, dried by starving misery and rendered obdurate +to claims for which her offspring HAS authority in holy mother Eve. +Weigh me the two, you Daniel, going to judgment, when your day +shall come! Weigh them, in the eyes of suffering thousands, +audience (not unmindful) of the grim farce you play. Or supposing +that you strayed from your five wits - it's not so far to go, but +that it might be - and laid hands upon that throat of yours, +warning your fellows (if you have a fellow) how they croak their +comfortable wickedness to raving heads and stricken hearts. What +then? + +The words rose up in Trotty's breast, as if they had been spoken by +some other voice within him. Alderman Cute pledged himself to Mr. +Fish that he would assist him in breaking the melancholy +catastrophe to Sir Joseph when the day was over. Then, before they +parted, wringing Mr. Fish's hand in bitterness of soul, he said, +'The most respectable of men!' And added that he hardly knew (not +even he), why such afflictions were allowed on earth. + +'It's almost enough to make one think, if one didn't know better,' +said Alderman Cute, 'that at times some motion of a capsizing +nature was going on in things, which affected the general economy +of the social fabric. Deedles Brothers!' + +The skittle-playing came off with immense success. Sir Joseph +knocked the pins about quite skilfully; Master Bowley took an +innings at a shorter distance also; and everybody said that now, +when a Baronet and the Son of a Baronet played at skittles, the +country was coming round again, as fast as it could come. + +At its proper time, the Banquet was served up. Trotty +involuntarily repaired to the Hall with the rest, for he felt +himself conducted thither by some stronger impulse than his own +free will. The sight was gay in the extreme; the ladies were very +handsome; the visitors delighted, cheerful, and good-tempered. +When the lower doors were opened, and the people flocked in, in +their rustic dresses, the beauty of the spectacle was at its +height; but Trotty only murmured more and more, 'Where is Richard! +He should help and comfort her! I can't see Richard!' + +There had been some speeches made; and Lady Bowley's health had +been proposed; and Sir Joseph Bowley had returned thanks, and had +made his great speech, showing by various pieces of evidence that +he was the born Friend and Father, and so forth; and had given as a +Toast, his Friends and Children, and the Dignity of Labour; when a +slight disturbance at the bottom of the Hall attracted Toby's +notice. After some confusion, noise, and opposition, one man broke +through the rest, and stood forward by himself. + +Not Richard. No. But one whom he had thought of, and had looked +for, many times. In a scantier supply of light, he might have +doubted the identity of that worn man, so old, and grey, and bent; +but with a blaze of lamps upon his gnarled and knotted head, he +knew Will Fern as soon as he stepped forth. + +'What is this!' exclaimed Sir Joseph, rising. 'Who gave this man +admittance? This is a criminal from prison! Mr. Fish, sir, WILL +you have the goodness - ' + +'A minute!' said Will Fern. 'A minute! My Lady, you was born on +this day along with a New Year. Get me a minute's leave to speak.' + +She made some intercession for him. Sir Joseph took his seat +again, with native dignity. + +The ragged visitor - for he was miserably dressed - looked round +upon the company, and made his homage to them with a humble bow. + +'Gentlefolks!' he said. 'You've drunk the Labourer. Look at me!' + +'Just come from jail,' said Mr. Fish. + +'Just come from jail,' said Will. 'And neither for the first time, +nor the second, nor the third, nor yet the fourth.' + +Mr. Filer was heard to remark testily, that four times was over the +average; and he ought to be ashamed of himself. + +'Gentlefolks!' repeated Will Fern. 'Look at me! You see I'm at +the worst. Beyond all hurt or harm; beyond your help; for the time +when your kind words or kind actions could have done me good,' - he +struck his hand upon his breast, and shook his head, 'is gone, with +the scent of last year's beans or clover on the air. Let me say a +word for these,' pointing to the labouring people in the Hall; 'and +when you're met together, hear the real Truth spoke out for once.' + +'There's not a man here,' said the host, 'who would have him for a +spokesman.' + +'Like enough, Sir Joseph. I believe it. Not the less true, +perhaps, is what I say. Perhaps that's a proof on it. +Gentlefolks, I've lived many a year in this place. You may see the +cottage from the sunk fence over yonder. I've seen the ladies draw +it in their books, a hundred times. It looks well in a picter, +I've heerd say; but there an't weather in picters, and maybe 'tis +fitter for that, than for a place to live in. Well! I lived +there. How hard - how bitter hard, I lived there, I won't say. +Any day in the year, and every day, you can judge for your own +selves.' + +He spoke as he had spoken on the night when Trotty found him in the +street. His voice was deeper and more husky, and had a trembling +in it now and then; but he never raised it passionately, and seldom +lifted it above the firm stern level of the homely facts he stated. + +''Tis harder than you think for, gentlefolks, to grow up decent, +commonly decent, in such a place. That I growed up a man and not a +brute, says something for me - as I was then. As I am now, there's +nothing can be said for me or done for me. I'm past it.' + +'I am glad this man has entered,' observed Sir Joseph, looking +round serenely. 'Don't disturb him. It appears to be Ordained. +He is an example: a living example. I hope and trust, and +confidently expect, that it will not be lost upon my Friends here.' + +'I dragged on,' said Fern, after a moment's silence, 'somehow. +Neither me nor any other man knows how; but so heavy, that I +couldn't put a cheerful face upon it, or make believe that I was +anything but what I was. Now, gentlemen - you gentlemen that sits +at Sessions - when you see a man with discontent writ on his face, +you says to one another, "He's suspicious. I has my doubts," says +you, "about Will Fern. Watch that fellow!" I don't say, +gentlemen, it ain't quite nat'ral, but I say 'tis so; and from that +hour, whatever Will Fern does, or lets alone - all one - it goes +against him.' + +Alderman Cute stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and +leaning back in his chair, and smiling, winked at a neighbouring +chandelier. As much as to say, 'Of course! I told you so. The +common cry! Lord bless you, we are up to all this sort of thing - +myself and human nature.' + +'Now, gentlemen,' said Will Fern, holding out his hands, and +flushing for an instant in his haggard face, 'see how your laws are +made to trap and hunt us when we're brought to this. I tries to +live elsewhere. And I'm a vagabond. To jail with him! I comes +back here. I goes a-nutting in your woods, and breaks - who don't? +- a limber branch or two. To jail with him! One of your keepers +sees me in the broad day, near my own patch of garden, with a gun. +To jail with him! I has a nat'ral angry word with that man, when +I'm free again. To jail with him! I cuts a stick. To jail with +him! I eats a rotten apple or a turnip. To jail with him! It's +twenty mile away; and coming back I begs a trifle on the road. To +jail with him! At last, the constable, the keeper - anybody - +finds me anywhere, a-doing anything. To jail with him, for he's a +vagrant, and a jail-bird known; and jail's the only home he's got.' + +The Alderman nodded sagaciously, as who should say, 'A very good +home too!' + +'Do I say this to serve MY cause!' cried Fern. 'Who can give me +back my liberty, who can give me back my good name, who can give me +back my innocent niece? Not all the Lords and Ladies in wide +England. But, gentlemen, gentlemen, dealing with other men like +me, begin at the right end. Give us, in mercy, better homes when +we're a-lying in our cradles; give us better food when we're a- +working for our lives; give us kinder laws to bring us back when +were a-going wrong; and don't set jail, jail, jail, afore us, +everywhere we turn. There an't a condescension you can show the +Labourer then, that he won't take, as ready and as grateful as a +man can be; for, he has a patient, peaceful, willing heart. But +you must put his rightful spirit in him first; for, whether he's a +wreck and ruin such as me, or is like one of them that stand here +now, his spirit is divided from you at this time. Bring it back, +gentlefolks, bring it back! Bring it back, afore the day comes +when even his Bible changes in his altered mind, and the words seem +to him to read, as they have sometimes read in my own eyes - in +jail: "Whither thou goest, I can Not go; where thou lodgest, I do +Not lodge; thy people are Not my people; Nor thy God my God!' + +A sudden stir and agitation took place in Hall. Trotty thought at +first, that several had risen to eject the man; and hence this +change in its appearance. But, another moment showed him that the +room and all the company had vanished from his sight, and that his +daughter was again before him, seated at her work. But in a +poorer, meaner garret than before; and with no Lilian by her side. + +The frame at which she had worked, was put away upon a shelf and +covered up. The chair in which she had sat, was turned against the +wall. A history was written in these little things, and in Meg's +grief-worn face. Oh! who could fail to read it! + +Meg strained her eyes upon her work until it was too dark to see +the threads; and when the night closed in, she lighted her feeble +candle and worked on. Still her old father was invisible about +her; looking down upon her; loving her - how dearly loving her! - +and talking to her in a tender voice about the old times, and the +Bells. Though he knew, poor Trotty, though he knew she could not +hear him. + +A great part of the evening had worn away, when a knock came at her +door. She opened it. A man was on the threshold. A slouching, +moody, drunken sloven, wasted by intemperance and vice, and with +his matted hair and unshorn beard in wild disorder; but, with some +traces on him, too, of having been a man of good proportion and +good features in his youth. + +He stopped until he had her leave to enter; and she, retiring a +pace of two from the open door, silently and sorrowfully looked +upon him. Trotty had his wish. He saw Richard. + +'May I come in, Margaret?' + +'Yes! Come in. Come in!' + +It was well that Trotty knew him before he spoke; for with any +doubt remaining on his mind, the harsh discordant voice would have +persuaded him that it was not Richard but some other man. + +There were but two chairs in the room. She gave him hers, and +stood at some short distance from him, waiting to hear what he had +to say. + +He sat, however, staring vacantly at the floor; with a lustreless +and stupid smile. A spectacle of such deep degradation, of such +abject hopelessness, of such a miserable downfall, that she put her +hands before her face and turned away, lest he should see how much +it moved her. + +Roused by the rustling of her dress, or some such trifling sound, +he lifted his head, and began to speak as if there had been no +pause since he entered. + +'Still at work, Margaret? You work late.' + +'I generally do.' + +'And early?' + +'And early.' + +'So she said. She said you never tired; or never owned that you +tired. Not all the time you lived together. Not even when you +fainted, between work and fasting. But I told you that, the last +time I came.' + +'You did,' she answered. 'And I implored you to tell me nothing +more; and you made me a solemn promise, Richard, that you never +would.' + +'A solemn promise,' he repeated, with a drivelling laugh and vacant +stare. 'A solemn promise. To he sure. A solemn promise!' +Awakening, as it were, after a time; in the same manner as before; +he said with sudden animation: + +'How can I help it, Margaret? What am I to do? She has been to me +again!' + +'Again!' cried Meg, clasping her hands. 'O, does she think of me +so often! Has she been again!' + +'Twenty times again,' said Richard. 'Margaret, she haunts me. She +comes behind me in the street, and thrusts it in my hand. I hear +her foot upon the ashes when I'm at my work (ha, ha! that an't +often), and before I can turn my head, her voice is in my ear, +saying, "Richard, don't look round. For Heaven's love, give her +this!" She brings it where I live: she sends it in letters; she +taps at the window and lays it on the sill. What CAN I do? Look +at it!" + +He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked the money it +enclosed. + +'Hide it,' sad Meg. 'Hide it! When she comes again, tell her, +Richard, that I love her in my soul. That I never lie down to +sleep, but I bless her, and pray for her. That, in my solitary +work, I never cease to have her in my thoughts. That she is with +me, night and day. That if I died to-morrow, I would remember her +with my last breath. But, that I cannot look upon it!' + +He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the purse together, said +with a kind of drowsy thoughtfulness: + +'I told her so. I told her so, as plain as words could speak. +I've taken this gift back and left it at her door, a dozen times +since then. But when she came at last, and stood before me, face +to face, what could I do?' + +'You saw her!' exclaimed Meg. 'You saw her! O, Lilian, my sweet +girl! O, Lilian, Lilian!' + +'I saw her,' he went on to say, not answering, but engaged in the +same slow pursuit of his own thoughts. 'There she stood: +trembling! "How does she look, Richard? Does she ever speak of +me? Is she thinner? My old place at the table: what's in my old +place? And the frame she taught me our old work on - has she burnt +it, Richard!" There she was. I heard her say it.' + +Meg checked her sobs, and with the tears streaming from her eyes, +bent over him to listen. Not to lose a breath. + +With his arms resting on his knees; and stooping forward in his +chair, as if what he said were written on the ground in some half +legible character, which it was his occupation to decipher and +connect; he went on. + +'"Richard, I have fallen very low; and you may guess how much I +have suffered in having this sent back, when I can bear to bring it +in my hand to you. But you loved her once, even in my memory, +dearly. Others stepped in between you; fears, and jealousies, and +doubts, and vanities, estranged you from her; but you did love her, +even in my memory!" I suppose I did,' he said, interrupting +himself for a moment. 'I did! That's neither here nor there - "O +Richard, if you ever did; if you have any memory for what is gone +and lost, take it to her once more. Once more! Tell her how I +laid my head upon your shoulder, where her own head might have +lain, and was so humble to you, Richard. Tell her that you looked +into my face, and saw the beauty which she used to praise, all +gone: all gone: and in its place, a poor, wan, hollow cheek, that +she would weep to see. Tell her everything, and take it back, and +she will not refuse again. She will not have the heart!"' + +So he sat musing, and repeating the last words, until he woke +again, and rose. + +'You won't take it, Margaret?' + +She shook her head, and motioned an entreaty to him to leave her. + +'Good night, Margaret.' + +'Good night!' + +He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow, and perhaps by +the pity for himself which trembled in her voice. It was a quick +and rapid action; and for the moment some flash of his old bearing +kindled in his form. In the next he went as he had come. Nor did +this glimmer of a quenched fire seem to light him to a quicker +sense of his debasement. + +In any mood, in any grief, in any torture of the mind or body, +Meg's work must be done. She sat down to her task, and plied it. +Night, midnight. Still she worked. + +She had a meagre fire, the night being very cold; and rose at +intervals to mend it. The Chimes rang half-past twelve while she +was thus engaged; and when they ceased she heard a gentle knocking +at the door. Before she could so much as wonder who was there, at +that unusual hour, it opened. + +O Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at this. O Youth +and Beauty, blest and blessing all within your reach, and working +out the ends of your Beneficent Creator, look at this! + +She saw the entering figure; screamed its name; cried 'Lilian!' + +It was swift, and fell upon its knees before her: clinging to her +dress. + +'Up, dear! Up! Lilian! My own dearest!' + +'Never more, Meg; never more! Here! Here! Close to you, holding +to you, feeling your dear breath upon my face!' + +'Sweet Lilian! Darling Lilian! Child of my heart - no mother's +love can be more tender - lay your head upon my breast!' + +'Never more, Meg. Never more! When I first looked into your face, +you knelt before me. On my knees before you, let me die. Let it +be here!' + +'You have come back. My Treasure! We will live together, work +together, hope together, die together!' + +'Ah! Kiss my lips, Meg; fold your arms about me; press me to your +bosom; look kindly on me; but don't raise me. Let it be here. Let +me see the last of your dear face upon my knees!' + +O Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at this! O Youth +and Beauty, working out the ends of your Beneficent Creator, look +at this! + +'Forgive me, Meg! So dear, so dear! Forgive me! I know you do, I +see you do, but say so, Meg!' + +She said so, with her lips on Lilian's cheek. And with her arms +twined round - she knew it now - a broken heart. + +'His blessing on you, dearest love. Kiss me once more! He +suffered her to sit beside His feet, and dry them with her hair. O +Meg, what Mercy and Compassion!' + +As she died, the Spirit of the child returning, innocent and +radiant, touched the old man with its hand, and beckoned him away. + + + +CHAPTER IV - Fourth Quarter. + + + +SOME new remembrance of the ghostly figures in the Bells; some +faint impression of the ringing of the Chimes; some giddy +consciousness of having seen the swarm of phantoms reproduced and +reproduced until the recollection of them lost itself in the +confusion of their numbers; some hurried knowledge, how conveyed to +him he knew not, that more years had passed; and Trotty, with the +Spirit of the child attending him, stood looking on at mortal +company. + +Fat company, rosy-cheeked company, comfortable company. They were +but two, but they were red enough for ten. They sat before a +bright fire, with a small low table between them; and unless the +fragrance of hot tea and muffins lingered longer in that room than +in most others, the table had seen service very lately. But all +the cups and saucers being clean, and in their proper places in the +corner-cupboard; and the brass toasting-fork hanging in its usual +nook and spreading its four idle fingers out as if it wanted to be +measured for a glove; there remained no other visible tokens of the +meal just finished, than such as purred and washed their whiskers +in the person of the basking cat, and glistened in the gracious, +not to say the greasy, faces of her patrons. + +This cosy couple (married, evidently) had made a fair division of +the fire between them, and sat looking at the glowing sparks that +dropped into the grate; now nodding off into a doze; now waking up +again when some hot fragment, larger than the rest, came rattling +down, as if the fire were coming with it. + +It was in no danger of sudden extinction, however; for it gleamed +not only in the little room, and on the panes of window-glass in +the door, and on the curtain half drawn across them, but in the +little shop beyond. A little shop, quite crammed and choked with +the abundance of its stock; a perfectly voracious little shop, with +a maw as accommodating and full as any shark's. Cheese, butter, +firewood, soap, pickles, matches, bacon, table-beer, peg-tops, +sweetmeats, boys' kites, bird-seed, cold ham, birch brooms, hearth- +stones, salt, vinegar, blacking, red-herrings, stationery, lard, +mushroom-ketchup, staylaces, loaves of bread, shuttlecocks, eggs, +and slate pencil; everything was fish that came to the net of this +greedy little shop, and all articles were in its net. How many +other kinds of petty merchandise were there, it would be difficult +to say; but balls of packthread, ropes of onions, pounds of +candles, cabbage-nets, and brushes, hung in bunches from the +ceiling, like extraordinary fruit; while various odd canisters +emitting aromatic smells, established the veracity of the +inscription over the outer door, which informed the public that the +keeper of this little shop was a licensed dealer in tea, coffee, +tobacco, pepper, and snuff. + +Glancing at such of these articles as were visible in the shining +of the blaze, and the less cheerful radiance of two smoky lamps +which burnt but dimly in the shop itself, as though its plethora +sat heavy on their lungs; and glancing, then, at one of the two +faces by the parlour-fire; Trotty had small difficulty in +recognising in the stout old lady, Mrs. Chickenstalker: always +inclined to corpulency, even in the days when he had known her as +established in the general line, and having a small balance against +him in her books. + +The features of her companion were less easy to him. The great +broad chin, with creases in it large enough to hide a finger in; +the astonished eyes, that seemed to expostulate with themselves for +sinking deeper and deeper into the yielding fat of the soft face; +the nose afflicted with that disordered action of its functions +which is generally termed The Snuffles; the short thick throat and +labouring chest, with other beauties of the like description; +though calculated to impress the memory, Trotty could at first +allot to nobody he had ever known: and yet he had some +recollection of them too. At length, in Mrs. Chickenstalker's +partner in the general line, and in the crooked and eccentric line +of life, he recognised the former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley; an +apoplectic innocent, who had connected himself in Trotty's mind +with Mrs. Chickenstalker years ago, by giving him admission to the +mansion where he had confessed his obligations to that lady, and +drawn on his unlucky head such grave reproach. + +Trotty had little interest in a change like this, after the changes +he had seen; but association is very strong sometimes; and he +looked involuntarily behind the parlour-door, where the accounts of +credit customers were usually kept in chalk. There was no record +of his name. Some names were there, but they were strange to him, +and infinitely fewer than of old; from which he argued that the +porter was an advocate of ready-money transactions, and on coming +into the business had looked pretty sharp after the Chickenstalker +defaulters. + +So desolate was Trotty, and so mournful for the youth and promise +of his blighted child, that it was a sorrow to him, even to have no +place in Mrs. Chickenstalker's ledger. + +'What sort of a night is it, Anne?' inquired the former porter of +Sir Joseph Bowley, stretching out his legs before the fire, and +rubbing as much of them as his short arms could reach; with an air +that added, 'Here I am if it's bad, and I don't want to go out if +it's good.' + +'Blowing and sleeting hard,' returned his wife; 'and threatening +snow. Dark. And very cold.' + +'I'm glad to think we had muffins,' said the former porter, in the +tone of one who had set his conscience at rest. 'It's a sort of +night that's meant for muffins. Likewise crumpets. Also Sally +Lunns.' + +The former porter mentioned each successive kind of eatable, as if +he were musingly summing up his good actions. After which he +rubbed his fat legs as before, and jerking them at the knees to get +the fire upon the yet unroasted parts, laughed as if somebody had +tickled him. + +'You're in spirits, Tugby, my dear,' observed his wife. + +The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker. + +'No,' said Tugby. 'No. Not particular. I'm a little elewated. +The muffins came so pat!' + +With that he chuckled until he was black in the face; and had so +much ado to become any other colour, that his fat legs took the +strangest excursions into the air. Nor were they reduced to +anything like decorum until Mrs. Tugby had thumped him violently on +the back, and shaken him as if he were a great bottle. + +'Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy bless and save the man!' +cried Mrs. Tugby, in great terror. 'What's he doing?' + +Mr. Tugby wiped his eyes, and faintly repeated that he found +himself a little elewated. + +'Then don't be so again, that's a dear good soul,' said Mrs. Tugby, +'if you don't want to frighten me to death, with your struggling +and fighting!' + +Mr. Tugby said he wouldn't; but, his whole existence was a fight, +in which, if any judgment might be founded on the constantly- +increasing shortness of his breath, and the deepening purple of his +face, he was always getting the worst of it. + +'So it's blowing, and sleeting, and threatening snow; and it's +dark, and very cold, is it, my dear?' said Mr. Tugby, looking at +the fire, and reverting to the cream and marrow of his temporary +elevation. + +'Hard weather indeed,' returned his wife, shaking her head. + +'Aye, aye! Years,' said Mr. Tugby, 'are like Christians in that +respect. Some of 'em die hard; some of 'em die easy. This one +hasn't many days to run, and is making a fight for it. I like him +all the better. There's a customer, my love!' + +Attentive to the rattling door, Mrs. Tugby had already risen. + +'Now then!' said that lady, passing out into the little shop. +'What's wanted? Oh! I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure. I didn't +think it was you.' + +She made this apology to a gentleman in black, who, with his +wristbands tucked up, and his hat cocked loungingly on one side, +and his hands in his pockets, sat down astride on the table-beer +barrel, and nodded in return. + +'This is a bad business up-stairs, Mrs. Tugby,' said the gentleman. +'The man can't live.' + +'Not the back-attic can't!' cried Tugby, coming out into the shop +to join the conference. + +'The back-attic, Mr. Tugby,' said the gentleman, 'is coming down- +stairs fast, and will be below the basement very soon.' + +Looking by turns at Tugby and his wife, he sounded the barrel with +his knuckles for the depth of beer, and having found it, played a +tune upon the empty part. + +'The back-attic, Mr. Tugby,' said the gentleman: Tugby having +stood in silent consternation for some time: 'is Going.' + +'Then,' said Tugby, turning to his wife, 'he must Go, you know, +before he's Gone.' + +'I don't think you can move him,' said the gentleman, shaking his +head. 'I wouldn't take the responsibility of saying it could be +done, myself. You had better leave him where he is. He can't live +long.' + +'It's the only subject,' said Tugby, bringing the butter-scale down +upon the counter with a crash, by weighing his fist on it, 'that +we've ever had a word upon; she and me; and look what it comes to! +He's going to die here, after all. Going to die upon the premises. +Going to die in our house!' + +'And where should he have died, Tugby?' cried his wife. + +'In the workhouse,' he returned. 'What are workhouses made for?' + +'Not for that,' said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy. 'Not for that! +Neither did I marry you for that. Don't think it, Tugby. I won't +have it. I won't allow it. I'd be separated first, and never see +your face again. When my widow's name stood over that door, as it +did for many years: this house being known as Mrs. +Chickenstalker's far and wide, and never known but to its honest +credit and its good report: when my widow's name stood over that +door, Tugby, I knew him as a handsome, steady, manly, independent +youth; I knew her as the sweetest-looking, sweetest-tempered girl, +eyes ever saw; I knew her father (poor old creetur, he fell down +from the steeple walking in his sleep, and killed himself), for the +simplest, hardest-working, childest-hearted man, that ever drew the +breath of life; and when I turn them out of house and home, may +angels turn me out of Heaven. As they would! And serve me right!' + +Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled one before the +changes which had come to pass, seemed to shine out of her as she +said these words; and when she dried her eyes, and shook her head +and her handkerchief at Tugby, with an expression of firmness which +it was quite clear was not to be easily resisted, Trotty said, +'Bless her! Bless her!' + +Then he listened, with a panting heart, for what should follow. +Knowing nothing yet, but that they spoke of Meg. + +If Tugby had been a little elevated in the parlour, he more than +balanced that account by being not a little depressed in the shop, +where he now stood staring at his wife, without attempting a reply; +secretly conveying, however - either in a fit of abstraction or as +a precautionary measure - all the money from the till into his own +pockets, as he looked at her. + +The gentleman upon the table-beer cask, who appeared to be some +authorised medical attendant upon the poor, was far too well +accustomed, evidently, to little differences of opinion between man +and wife, to interpose any remark in this instance. He sat softly +whistling, and turning little drops of beer out of the tap upon the +ground, until there was a perfect calm: when he raised his head, +and said to Mrs. Tugby, late Chickenstalker: + +'There's something interesting about the woman, even now. How did +she come to marry him?' + +'Why that,' said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near him, 'is not the +least cruel part of her story, sir. You see they kept company, she +and Richard, many years ago. When they were a young and beautiful +couple, everything was settled, and they were to have been married +on a New Year's Day. But, somehow, Richard got it into his head, +through what the gentlemen told him, that he might do better, and +that he'd soon repent it, and that she wasn't good enough for him, +and that a young man of spirit had no business to be married. And +the gentlemen frightened her, and made her melancholy, and timid of +his deserting her, and of her children coming to the gallows, and +of its being wicked to be man and wife, and a good deal more of it. +And in short, they lingered and lingered, and their trust in one +another was broken, and so at last was the match. But the fault +was his. She would have married him, sir, joyfully. I've seen her +heart swell many times afterwards, when he passed her in a proud +and careless way; and never did a woman grieve more truly for a +man, than she for Richard when he first went wrong.' + +'Oh! he went wrong, did he?' said the gentleman, pulling out the +vent-peg of the table-beer, and trying to peep down into the barrel +through the hole. + +'Well, sir, I don't know that he rightly understood himself, you +see. I think his mind was troubled by their having broke with one +another; and that but for being ashamed before the gentlemen, and +perhaps for being uncertain too, how she might take it, he'd have +gone through any suffering or trial to have had Meg's promise and +Meg's hand again. That's my belief. He never said so; more's the +pity! He took to drinking, idling, bad companions: all the fine +resources that were to be so much better for him than the Home he +might have had. He lost his looks, his character, his health, his +strength, his friends, his work: everything!' + +'He didn't lose everything, Mrs. Tugby,' returned the gentleman, +'because he gained a wife; and I want to know how he gained her.' + +'I'm coming to it, sir, in a moment. This went on for years and +years; he sinking lower and lower; she enduring, poor thing, +miseries enough to wear her life away. At last, he was so cast +down, and cast out, that no one would employ or notice him; and +doors were shut upon him, go where he would. Applying from place +to place, and door to door; and coming for the hundredth time to +one gentleman who had often and often tried him (he was a good +workman to the very end); that gentleman, who knew his history, +said, "I believe you are incorrigible; there is only one person in +the world who has a chance of reclaiming you; ask me to trust you +no more, until she tries to do it." Something like that, in his +anger and vexation.' + +'Ah!' said the gentleman. 'Well?' + +'Well, sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said it was so; +said it ever had been so; and made a prayer to her to save him.' + +'And she? - Don't distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby.' + +'She came to me that night to ask me about living here. "What he +was once to me," she said, "is buried in a grave, side by side with +what I was to him. But I have thought of this; and I will make the +trial. In the hope of saving him; for the love of the light- +hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have been married on a +New Year's Day; and for the love of her Richard." And she said he +had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and she +never could forget that. So they were married; and when they came +home here, and I saw them, I hoped that such prophecies as parted +them when they were young, may not often fulfil themselves as they +did in this case, or I wouldn't be the makers of them for a Mine of +Gold.' + +The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched himself, observing: + +'I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were married?' + +'I don't think he ever did that,' said Mrs. Tugby, shaking her +head, and wiping her eyes. 'He went on better for a short time; +but, his habits were too old and strong to be got rid of; he soon +fell back a little; and was falling fast back, when his illness +came so strong upon him. I think he has always felt for her. I am +sure he has. I have seen him, in his crying fits and tremblings, +try to kiss her hand; and I have heard him call her "Meg," and say +it was her nineteenth birthday. There he has been lying, now, +these weeks and months. Between him and her baby, she has not been +able to do her old work; and by not being able to be regular, she +has lost it, even if she could have done it. How they have lived, +I hardly know!' + +'I know,' muttered Mr. Tugby; looking at the till, and round the +shop, and at his wife; and rolling his head with immense +intelligence. 'Like Fighting Cocks!' + +He was interrupted by a cry - a sound of lamentation - from the +upper story of the house. The gentleman moved hurriedly to the +door. + +'My friend,' he said, looking back, 'you needn't discuss whether he +shall be removed or not. He has spared you that trouble, I +believe.' + +Saying so, he ran up-stairs, followed by Mrs. Tugby; while Mr. +Tugby panted and grumbled after them at leisure: being rendered +more than commonly short-winded by the weight of the till, in which +there had been an inconvenient quantity of copper. Trotty, with +the child beside him, floated up the staircase like mere air. + +'Follow her! Follow her! Follow her!' He heard the ghostly +voices in the Bells repeat their words as he ascended. 'Learn it, +from the creature dearest to your heart!' + +It was over. It was over. And this was she, her father's pride +and joy! This haggard, wretched woman, weeping by the bed, if it +deserved that name, and pressing to her breast, and hanging down +her head upon, an infant. Who can tell how spare, how sickly, and +how poor an infant! Who can tell how dear! + +'Thank God!' cried Trotty, holding up his folded hands. 'O, God be +thanked! She loves her child!' + +The gentleman, not otherwise hard-hearted or indifferent to such +scenes, than that he saw them every day, and knew that they were +figures of no moment in the Filer sums - mere scratches in the +working of these calculations - laid his hand upon the heart that +beat no more, and listened for the breath, and said, 'His pain is +over. It's better as it is!' Mrs. Tugby tried to comfort her with +kindness. Mr. Tugby tried philosophy. + +'Come, come!' he said, with his hands in his pockets, 'you mustn't +give way, you know. That won't do. You must fight up. What would +have become of me if I had given way when I was porter, and we had +as many as six runaway carriage-doubles at our door in one night! +But, I fell back upon my strength of mind, and didn't open it!' + +Again Trotty heard the voices saying, 'Follow her!' He turned +towards his guide, and saw it rising from him, passing through the +air. 'Follow her!' it said. And vanished. + +He hovered round her; sat down at her feet; looked up into her face +for one trace of her old self; listened for one note of her old +pleasant voice. He flitted round the child: so wan, so +prematurely old, so dreadful in its gravity, so plaintive in its +feeble, mournful, miserable wail. He almost worshipped it. He +clung to it as her only safeguard; as the last unbroken link that +bound her to endurance. He set his father's hope and trust on the +frail baby; watched her every look upon it as she held it in her +arms; and cried a thousand times, 'She loves it! God be thanked, +she loves it!' + +He saw the woman tend her in the night; return to her when her +grudging husband was asleep, and all was still; encourage her, shed +tears with her, set nourishment before her. He saw the day come, +and the night again; the day, the night; the time go by; the house +of death relieved of death; the room left to herself and to the +child; he heard it moan and cry; he saw it harass her, and tire her +out, and when she slumbered in exhaustion, drag her back to +consciousness, and hold her with its little hands upon the rack; +but she was constant to it, gentle with it, patient with it. +Patient! Was its loving mother in her inmost heart and soul, and +had its Being knitted up with hers as when she carried it unborn. + +All this time, she was in want: languishing away, in dire and +pining want. With the baby in her arms, she wandered here and +there, in quest of occupation; and with its thin face lying in her +lap, and looking up in hers, did any work for any wretched sum; a +day and night of labour for as many farthings as there were figures +on the dial. If she had quarrelled with it; if she had neglected +it; if she had looked upon it with a moment's hate; if, in the +frenzy of an instant, she had struck it! No. His comfort was, She +loved it always. + +She told no one of her extremity, and wandered abroad in the day +lest she should be questioned by her only friend: for any help she +received from her hands, occasioned fresh disputes between the good +woman and her husband; and it was new bitterness to be the daily +cause of strife and discord, where she owed so much. + +She loved it still. She loved it more and more. But a change fell +on the aspect of her love. One night. + +She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walking to and fro +to hush it, when her door was softly opened, and a man looked in. + +'For the last time,' he said. + +'William Fern!' + +'For the last time.' + +He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in whispers. + +'Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn't finish it, without a +parting word with you. Without one grateful word.' + +'What have you done?' she asked: regarding him with terror. + +He looked at her, but gave no answer. + +After a short silence, he made a gesture with his hand, as if he +set her question by; as if he brushed it aside; and said: + +'It's long ago, Margaret, now: but that night is as fresh in my +memory as ever 'twas. We little thought, then,' he added, looking +round, 'that we should ever meet like this. Your child, Margaret? +Let me have it in my arms. Let me hold your child.' + +He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he trembled as he +took it, from head to foot. + +'Is it a girl?' + +'Yes.' + +He put his hand before its little face. + +'See how weak I'm grown, Margaret, when I want the courage to look +at it! Let her be, a moment. I won't hurt her. It's long ago, +but - What's her name?' + +'Margaret,' she answered, quickly. + +'I'm glad of that,' he said. 'I'm glad of that!' He seemed to +breathe more freely; and after pausing for an instant, took away +his hand, and looked upon the infant's face. But covered it again, +immediately. + +'Margaret!' he said; and gave her back the child. 'It's Lilian's.' + +'Lilian's!' + +'I held the same face in my arms when Lilian's mother died and left +her.' + +'When Lilian's mother died and left her!' she repeated, wildly. + +'How shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes upon me so? +Margaret!' + +She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant to her breast, and +wept over it. Sometimes, she released it from her embrace, to look +anxiously in its face: then strained it to her bosom again. At +those times, when she gazed upon it, then it was that something +fierce and terrible began to mingle with her love. Then it was +that her old father quailed. + +'Follow her!' was sounded through the house. 'Learn it, from the +creature dearest to your heart!' + +'Margaret,' said Fern, bending over her, and kissing her upon the +brow: 'I thank you for the last time. Good night. Good bye! Put +your hand in mine, and tell me you'll forget me from this hour, and +try to think the end of me was here.' + +'What have you done?' she asked again. + +'There'll be a Fire to-night,' he said, removing from her. +'There'll be Fires this winter-time, to light the dark nights, +East, West, North, and South. When you see the distant sky red, +they'll be blazing. When you see the distant sky red, think of me +no more; or, if you do, remember what a Hell was lighted up inside +of me, and think you see its flames reflected in the clouds. Good +night. Good bye!' She called to him; but he was gone. She sat +down stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hunger, +cold, and darkness. She paced the room with it the livelong night, +hushing it and soothing it. She said at intervals, 'Like Lilian, +when her mother died and left her!' Why was her step so quick, her +eye so wild, her love so fierce and terrible, whenever she repeated +those words? + +'But, it is Love,' said Trotty. 'It is Love. She'll never cease +to love it. My poor Meg!' + +She dressed the child next morning with unusual care - ah, vain +expenditure of care upon such squalid robes! - and once more tried +to find some means of life. It was the last day of the Old Year. +She tried till night, and never broke her fast. She tried in vain. + +She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in the snow, until it +pleased some officer appointed to dispense the public charity (the +lawful charity; not that once preached upon a Mount), to call them +in, and question them, and say to this one, 'Go to such a place,' +to that one, 'Come next week;' to make a football of another +wretch, and pass him here and there, from hand to hand, from house +to house, until he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and +robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal, whose claims +allowed of no delay. Here, too, she failed. + +She loved her child, and wished to have it lying on her breast. +And that was quite enough. + +It was night: a bleak, dark, cutting night: when, pressing the +child close to her for warmth, she arrived outside the house she +called her home. She was so faint and giddy, that she saw no one +standing in the doorway until she was close upon it, and about to +enter. Then, she recognised the master of the house, who had so +disposed himself - with his person it was not difficult - as to +fill up the whole entry. + +'O!' he said softly. 'You have come back?' + +She looked at the child, and shook her head. + +'Don't you think you have lived here long enough without paying any +rent? Don't you think that, without any money, you've been a +pretty constant customer at this shop, now?' said Mr. Tugby. + +She repeated the same mute appeal. + +'Suppose you try and deal somewhere else,' he said. 'And suppose +you provide yourself with another lodging. Come! Don't you think +you could manage it?' + +She said in a low voice, that it was very late. To-morrow. + +'Now I see what you want,' said Tugby; 'and what you mean. You +know there are two parties in this house about you, and you delight +in setting 'em by the ears. I don't want any quarrels; I'm +speaking softly to avoid a quarrel; but if you don't go away, I'll +speak out loud, and you shall cause words high enough to please +you. But you shan't come in. That I am determined.' + +She put her hair back with her hand, and looked in a sudden manner +at the sky, and the dark lowering distance. + +'This is the last night of an Old Year, and I won't carry ill-blood +and quarrellings and disturbances into a New One, to please you nor +anybody else,' said Tugby, who was quite a retail Friend and +Father. 'I wonder you an't ashamed of yourself, to carry such +practices into a New Year. If you haven't any business in the +world, but to be always giving way, and always making disturbances +between man and wife, you'd be better out of it. Go along with +you.' + +'Follow her! To desperation!' + +Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up, he saw the figures +hovering in the air, and pointing where she went, down the dark +street. + +'She loves it!' he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty for her. +'Chimes! she loves it still!' + +'Follow her!' The shadow swept upon the track she had taken, like +a cloud. + +He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he looked into her +face. He saw the same fierce and terrible expression mingling with +her love, and kindling in her eyes. He heard her say, 'Like +Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!' and her speed redoubled. + +O, for something to awaken her! For any sight, or sound, or scent, +to call up tender recollections in a brain on fire! For any gentle +image of the Past, to rise before her! + +'I was her father! I was her father!' cried the old man, +stretching out his hands to the dark shadows flying on above. +'Have mercy on her, and on me! Where does she go? Turn her back! +I was her father!' + +But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on; and said, 'To +desperation! Learn it from the creature dearest to your heart!' A +hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of breath expended in +those words. He seemed to take them in, at every gasp he drew. +They were everywhere, and not to be escaped. And still she hurried +on; the same light in her eyes, the same words in her mouth, 'Like +Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!' All at once she stopped. + +'Now, turn her back!' exclaimed the old man, tearing his white +hair. 'My child! Meg! Turn her back! Great Father, turn her +back!' + +In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby warm. With her +fevered hands, she smoothed its limbs, composed its face, arranged +its mean attire. In her wasted arms she folded it, as though she +never would resign it more. And with her dry lips, kissed it in a +final pang, and last long agony of Love. + +Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding it there, within +her dress, next to her distracted heart, she set its sleeping face +against her: closely, steadily, against her: and sped onward to +the River. + +To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter Night sat +brooding like the last dark thoughts of many who had sought a +refuge there before her. Where scattered lights upon the banks +gleamed sullen, red, and dull, as torches that were burning there, +to show the way to Death. Where no abode of living people cast its +shadow, on the deep, impenetrable, melancholy shade. + +To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her desperate footsteps +tended with the swiftness of its rapid waters running to the sea. +He tried to touch her as she passed him, going down to its dark +level: but, the wild distempered form, the fierce and terrible +love, the desperation that had left all human check or hold behind, +swept by him like the wind. + +He followed her. She paused a moment on the brink, before the +dreadful plunge. He fell down on his knees, and in a shriek +addressed the figures in the Bells now hovering above them. + +'I have learnt it!' cried the old man. 'From the creature dearest +to my heart! O, save her, save her!' + +He could wind his fingers in her dress; could hold it! As the +words escaped his lips, he felt his sense of touch return, and knew +that he detained her. + +The figures looked down steadfastly upon him. + +'I have learnt it!' cried the old man. 'O, have mercy on me in +this hour, if, in my love for her, so young and good, I slandered +Nature in the breasts of mothers rendered desperate! Pity my +presumption, wickedness, and ignorance, and save her.' He felt his +hold relaxing. They were silent still. + +'Have mercy on her!' he exclaimed, 'as one in whom this dreadful +crime has sprung from Love perverted; from the strongest, deepest +Love we fallen creatures know! Think what her misery must have +been, when such seed bears such fruit! Heaven meant her to be +good. There is no loving mother on the earth who might not come to +this, if such a life had gone before. O, have mercy on my child, +who, even at this pass, means mercy to her own, and dies herself, +and perils her immortal soul, to save it!' + +She was in his arms. He held her now. His strength was like a +giant's. + +'I see the Spirit of the Chimes among you!' cried the old man, +singling out the child, and speaking in some inspiration, which +their looks conveyed to him. 'I know that our inheritance is held +in store for us by Time. I know there is a sea of Time to rise one +day, before which all who wrong us or oppress us will be swept away +like leaves. I see it, on the flow! I know that we must trust and +hope, and neither doubt ourselves, nor doubt the good in one +another. I have learnt it from the creature dearest to my heart. +I clasp her in my arms again. O Spirits, merciful and good, I take +your lesson to my breast along with her! O Spirits, merciful and +good, I am grateful!' + +He might have said more; but, the Bells, the old familiar Bells, +his own dear, constant, steady friends, the Chimes, began to ring +the joy-peals for a New Year: so lustily, so merrily, so happily, +so gaily, that he leapt upon his feet, and broke the spell that +bound him. + + +'And whatever you do, father,' said Meg, 'don't eat tripe again, +without asking some doctor whether it's likely to agree with you; +for how you HAVE been going on, Good gracious!' + +She was working with her needle, at the little table by the fire; +dressing her simple gown with ribbons for her wedding. So quietly +happy, so blooming and youthful, so full of beautiful promise, that +he uttered a great cry as if it were an Angel in his house; then +flew to clasp her in his arms. + +But, he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had fallen on the +hearth; and somebody came rushing in between them. + +'No!' cried the voice of this same somebody; a generous and jolly +voice it was! 'Not even you. Not even you. The first kiss of Meg +in the New Year is mine. Mine! I have been waiting outside the +house, this hour, to hear the Bells and claim it. Meg, my precious +prize, a happy year! A life of happy years, my darling wife!' + +And Richard smothered her with kisses. + +You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty after this. I +don't care where you have lived or what you have seen; you never in +all your life saw anything at all approaching him! He sat down in +his chair and beat his knees and cried; he sat down in his chair +and beat his knees and laughed; he sat down in his chair and beat +his knees and laughed and cried together; he got out of his chair +and hugged Meg; he got out of his chair and hugged Richard; he got +out of his chair and hugged them both at once; he kept running up +to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face between his hands and kissing +it, going from her backwards not to lose sight of it, and running +up again like a figure in a magic lantern; and whatever he did, he +was constantly sitting himself down in his chair, and never +stopping in it for one single moment; being - that's the truth - +beside himself with joy. + +'And to-morrow's your wedding-day, my pet!' cried Trotty. 'Your +real, happy wedding-day!' + +'To-day!' cried Richard, shaking hands with him. 'To-day. The +Chimes are ringing in the New Year. Hear them!' + +They WERE ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they WERE ringing! +Great Bells as they were; melodious, deep-mouthed, noble Bells; +cast in no common metal; made by no common founder; when had they +ever chimed like that, before! + +'But, to-day, my pet,' said Trotty. 'You and Richard had some +words to-day.' + +'Because he's such a bad fellow, father,' said Meg. 'An't you, +Richard? Such a headstrong, violent man! He'd have made no more +of speaking his mind to that great Alderman, and putting HIM down I +don't know where, than he would of - ' + +' - Kissing Meg,' suggested Richard. Doing it too! + +'No. Not a bit more,' said Meg. 'But I wouldn't let him, father. +Where would have been the use!' + +'Richard my boy!' cried Trotty. 'You was turned up Trumps +originally; and Trumps you must be, till you die! But, you were +crying by the fire to-night, my pet, when I came home! Why did you +cry by the fire?' + +'I was thinking of the years we've passed together, father. Only +that. And thinking that you might miss me, and be lonely.' + +Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair again, when the +child, who had been awakened by the noise, came running in half- +dressed. + +'Why, here she is!' cried Trotty, catching her up. 'Here's little +Lilian! Ha ha ha! Here we are and here we go! O here we are and +here we go again! And here we are and here we go! and Uncle Will +too!' Stopping in his trot to greet him heartily. 'O, Uncle Will, +the vision that I've had to-night, through lodging you! O, Uncle +Will, the obligations that you've laid me under, by your coming, my +good friend!' + +Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a band of music burst +into the room, attended by a lot of neighbours, screaming 'A Happy +New Year, Meg!' 'A Happy Wedding!' 'Many of em!' and other +fragmentary good wishes of that sort. The Drum (who was a private +friend of Trotty's) then stepped forward, and said: + +'Trotty Veck, my boy! It's got about, that your daughter is going +to be married to-morrow. There an't a soul that knows you that +don't wish you well, or that knows her and don't wish her well. Or +that knows you both, and don't wish you both all the happiness the +New Year can bring. And here we are, to play it in and dance it +in, accordingly.' + +Which was received with a general shout. The Drum was rather +drunk, by-the-bye; but, never mind. + +'What a happiness it is, I'm sure,' said Trotty, 'to be so +esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you are! It's all along of my +dear daughter. She deserves it!' + +They were ready for a dance in half a second (Meg and Richard at +the top); and the Drum was on the very brink of feathering away +with all his power; when a combination of prodigious sounds was +heard outside, and a good-humoured comely woman of some fifty years +of age, or thereabouts, came running in, attended by a man bearing +a stone pitcher of terrific size, and closely followed by the +marrow-bones and cleavers, and the bells; not THE Bells, but a +portable collection on a frame. + +Trotty said, 'It's Mrs. Chickenstalker!' And sat down and beat his +knees again. + +'Married, and not tell me, Meg!' cried the good woman. 'Never! I +couldn't rest on the last night of the Old Year without coming to +wish you joy. I couldn't have done it, Meg. Not if I had been +bed-ridden. So here I am; and as it's New Year's Eve, and the Eve +of your wedding too, my dear, I had a little flip made, and brought +it with me.' + +Mrs. Chickenstalker's notion of a little flip did honour to her +character. The pitcher steamed and smoked and reeked like a +volcano; and the man who had carried it, was faint. + +'Mrs. Tugby!' said Trotty, who had been going round and round her, +in an ecstasy. - 'I SHOULD say, Chickenstalker - Bless your heart +and soul! A Happy New Year, and many of 'em! Mrs. Tugby,' said +Trotty when he had saluted her; - 'I SHOULD say, Chickenstalker - +This is William Fern and Lilian.' + +The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale and very red. + +'Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorsetshire!' said she. + +Her uncle answered 'Yes,' and meeting hastily, they exchanged some +hurried words together; of which the upshot was, that Mrs. +Chickenstalker shook him by both hands; saluted Trotty on his cheek +again of her own free will; and took the child to her capacious +breast. + +'Will Fern!' said Trotty, pulling on his right-hand muffler. 'Not +the friend you was hoping to find?' + +'Ay!' returned Will, putting a hand on each of Trotty's shoulders. +'And like to prove a'most as good a friend, if that can be, as one +I found.' + +'O!' said Trotty. 'Please to play up there. Will you have the +goodness!' + +To the music of the band, and, the bells, the marrow-bones and +cleavers, all at once; and while the Chimes were yet in lusty +operation out of doors; Trotty, making Meg and Richard, second +couple, led off Mrs. Chickenstalker down the dance, and danced it +in a step unknown before or since; founded on his own peculiar +trot. + +Had Trotty dreamed? Or, are his joys and sorrows, and the actors +in them, but a dream; himself a dream; the teller of this tale a +dreamer, waking but now? If it be so, O listener, dear to him in +all his visions, try to bear in mind the stern realities from which +these shadows come; and in your sphere - none is too wide, and none +too limited for such an end - endeavour to correct, improve, and +soften them. So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to +many more whose happiness depends on you! So may each year be +happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or +sisterhood debarred their rightful share, in what our Great Creator +formed them to enjoy. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Chimes, by Charles Dickens + +****The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Cricket on the Hearth**** +#10 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of +time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but, I say the +kettle did. I ought to know, I hope! The kettle began it, full +five minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner, +before the Cricket uttered a chirp. + +As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little +Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a +scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre +of imaginary grass before the Cricket joined in at all! + +Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. I +wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. +Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever. +Nothing should induce me. But, this is a question of act. And the +fact is, that the kettle began it, at least five minutes before the +Cricket gave any sign of being in existence. Contradict me, and +I'll say ten. + +Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have proceeded to +do so in my very first word, but for this plain consideration - if +I am to tell a story I must begin at the beginning; and how is it +possible to begin at the beginning, without beginning at the +kettle? + +It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, +you must understand, between the kettle and the Cricket. And this +is what led to it, and how it came about. + +Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking +over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable +rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the +yard - Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt. +Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for +they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the +kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid +it for an instant; for, the water being uncomfortably cold, and in +that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to +penetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included - +had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her +legs. And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon +our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of +stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear. + +Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't +allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of +accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it WOULD lean +forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, +on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered +morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. +Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, +with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived +sideways in - down to the very bottom of the kettle. And the hull +of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to +coming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed +against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again. + +It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its +handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and +mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, 'I won't boil. +Nothing shall induce me!' + +But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby +little hands against each other, and sat down before the kettle, +laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and +gleaming on the little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock, +until one might have thought he stood stock still before the +Moorish Palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame. + +He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, +all right and regular. But, his sufferings when the clock was +going to strike, were frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo +looked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times, +it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice - or like a +something wiry, plucking at his legs. + +It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the +weights and ropes below him had quite subsided, that this terrified +Haymaker became himself again. Nor was he startled without reason; +for these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting +in their operation, and I wonder very much how any set of men, but +most of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. +There is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much +clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know better +than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely. + +Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the +evening. Now it was, that the kettle, growing mellow and musical, +began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge +in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't +quite made up its mind yet, to be good company. Now it was, that +after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial +sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst +into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin +nightingale yet formed the least idea of. + +So plain too! Bless you, you might have understood it like a book +- better than some books you and I could name, perhaps. With its +warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and +gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung about the chimney-corner +as its own domestic Heaven, it trolled its song with that strong +energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon +the fire; and the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid - such is +the influence of a bright example - performed a sort of jig, and +clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known +the use of its twin brother. + +That this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation and welcome +to somebody out of doors: to somebody at that moment coming on, +towards the snug small home and the crisp fire: there is no doubt +whatever. Mrs. Peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing +before the hearth. It's a dark night, sang the kettle, and the +rotten leaves are lying by the way; and, above, all is mist and +darkness, and, below, all is mire and clay; and there's only one +relief in all the sad and murky air; and I don't know that it is +one, for it's nothing but a glare; of deep and angry crimson, where +the sun and wind together; set a brand upon the clouds for being +guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull +streak of black; and there's hoar-frost on the finger-post, and +thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and the water +isn't free; and you couldn't say that anything is what it ought to +be; but he's coming, coming, coming! - + +And here, if you like, the Cricket DID chime in! with a Chirrup, +Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus; with a voice +so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the +kettle; (size! you couldn't see it!) that if it had then and there +burst itself like an overcharged gun, if it had fallen a victim on +the spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces, it would +have seemed a natural and inevitable consequence, for which it had +expressly laboured. + +The kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It persevered +with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took first fiddle and +kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing +voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the +outer darkness like a star. There was an indescribable little +trill and tremble in it, at its loudest, which suggested its being +carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its own intense +enthusiasm. Yet they went very well together, the Cricket and the +kettle. The burden of the song was still the same; and louder, +louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation. + +The fair little listener - for fair she was, and young: though +something of what is called the dumpling shape; but I don't myself +object to that - lighted a candle, glanced at the Haymaker on the +top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of +minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing +to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass. And my +opinion is (and so would yours have been), that she might have +looked a long way, and seen nothing half so agreeable. When she +came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and the +kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of +competition. The kettle's weak side clearly being, that he didn't +know when he was beat. + +There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp, +chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum - m - m! Kettle +making play in the distance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp, +chirp! Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, hum - m - m! Kettle +sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in. Chirp, +chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum - m - m! +Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to +finish him. Hum, hum, hum - m - m! Kettle not to be finished. +Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, +helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and +the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, +or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer +head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like +certainty. But, of this, there is no doubt: that, the kettle and +the Cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of +amalgamation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside +song of comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out +through the window, and a long way down the lane. And this light, +bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached +towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, +literally in a twinkling, and cried, 'Welcome home, old fellow! +Welcome home, my boy!' + +This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and +was taken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went running to the +door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, +the voice of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and +the surprising and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon +the very What's-his-name to pay. + +Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in +that flash of time, I don't know. But a live baby there was, in +Mrs. Peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she +seemed to have in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a +sturdy figure of a man, much taller and much older than herself, +who had to stoop a long way down, to kiss her. But she was worth +the trouble. Six foot six, with the lumbago, might have done it. + +'Oh goodness, John!' said Mrs. P. 'What a state you are in with +the weather!' + +He was something the worse for it, undeniably. The thick mist hung +in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and between the fog +and fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers. + +'Why, you see, Dot,' John made answer, slowly, as he unrolled a +shawl from about his throat; and warmed his hands; 'it - it an't +exactly summer weather. So, no wonder.' + +'I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it,' said +Mrs. Peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed she DID +like it, very much. + +'Why what else are you?' returned John, looking down upon her with +a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand +and arm could give. 'A dot and' - here he glanced at the baby - 'a +dot and carry - I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I +was very near a joke. I don't know as ever I was nearer.' + +He was often near to something or other very clever, by his own +account: this lumbering, slow, honest John; this John so heavy, +but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at +the core; so dull without, so quick within; so stolid, but so good! +Oh Mother Nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that +hid itself in this poor Carrier's breast - he was but a Carrier by +the way - and we can bear to have them talking prose, and leading +lives of prose; and bear to bless thee for their company! + +It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her baby in +her arms: a very doll of a baby: glancing with a coquettish +thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head +just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, +half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great +rugged figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with his +tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his rude support to her +slight need, and make his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not +inappropriate to her blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe +how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took +special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping; +and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust +forward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agreeable +to observe how John the Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the +aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the +infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and bending down, +surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, +such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found +himself, one day, the father of a young canary. + +'An't he beautiful, John? Don't he look precious in his sleep?' + +'Very precious,' said John. 'Very much so. He generally IS +asleep, an't he?' + +'Lor, John! Good gracious no!' + +'Oh,' said John, pondering. 'I thought his eyes was generally +shut. Halloa!' + +'Goodness, John, how you startle one!' + +'It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way!' said the +astonished Carrier, 'is it? See how he's winking with both of 'em +at once! And look at his mouth! Why he's gasping like a gold and +silver fish!' + +'You don't deserve to be a father, you don't,' said Dot, with all +the dignity of an experienced matron. 'But how should you know +what little complaints children are troubled with, John! You +wouldn't so much as know their names, you stupid fellow.' And when +she had turned the baby over on her left arm, and had slapped its +back as a restorative, she pinched her husband's ear, laughing. + +'No,' said John, pulling off his outer coat. 'It's very true, Dot. +I don't know much about it. I only know that I've been fighting +pretty stiffly with the wind to-night. It's been blowing north- +east, straight into the cart, the whole way home.' + +'Poor old man, so it has!' cried Mrs. Peerybingle, instantly +becoming very active. 'Here! Take the precious darling, Tilly, +while I make myself of some use. Bless it, I could smother it with +kissing it, I could! Hie then, good dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! Only +let me make the tea first, John; and then I'll help you with the +parcels, like a busy bee. "How doth the little" - and all the rest +of it, you know, John. Did you ever learn "how doth the little," +when you went to school, John?' + +'Not to quite know it,' John returned. 'I was very near it once. +But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say.' + +'Ha ha,' laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh you ever +heard. 'What a dear old darling of a dunce you are, John, to be +sure!' + +Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see that the +boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro before the +door and window, like a Will of the Wisp, took due care of the +horse; who was fatter than you would quite believe, if I gave you +his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of +antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the +family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in +and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of +short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the +stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, +and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a +shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, +by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; +now, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now, going round +and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established +himself for the night; now, getting up again, and taking that +nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if +he had just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round +trot, to keep it. + +'There! There's the teapot, ready on the hob!' said Dot; as +briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. 'And there's the +old knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; and there's the crusty +loaf, and all! Here's the clothes-basket for the small parcels, +John, if you've got any there - where are you, John?' + +'Don't let the dear child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever you +do!' + +It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the +caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising +talent for getting this baby into difficulties and had several +times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own. +She was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch +that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off +those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. +Her costume was remarkable for the partial development, on all +possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular +structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, +of a corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead-green. Being +always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed, +besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's +perfections and the baby's, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of +judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her head and to +her heart; and though these did less honour to the baby's head, +which they were the occasional means of bringing into contact with +deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bed-posts, and other foreign +substances, still they were the honest results of Tilly Slowboy's +constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and +installed in such a comfortable home. For, the maternal and +paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had been +bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only +differing from fondling by one vowel's length, is very different in +meaning, and expresses quite another thing. + +To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her husband, +tugging at the clothes-basket, and making the most strenuous +exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it), would have +amused you almost as much as it amused him. It may have +entertained the Cricket too, for anything I know; but, certainly, +it now began to chirp again, vehemently. + +'Heyday!' said John, in his slow way. 'It's merrier than ever, to- +night, I think.' + +'And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done +so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth, is the luckiest thing in all +the world!' + +John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into +his head, that she was his Cricket in chief, and he quite agreed +with her. But, it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he +said nothing. + +'The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was on that +night when you brought me home - when you brought me to my new home +here; its little mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect, +John?' + +O yes. John remembered. I should think so! + +'Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so full of promise +and encouragement. It seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle +with me, and would not expect (I had a fear of that, John, then) to +find an old head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife.' + +John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head, +as though he would have said No, no; he had had no such +expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were. +And really he had reason. They were very comely. + +'It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so; for you have +ever been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, the most +affectionate of husbands to me. This has been a happy home, John; +and I love the Cricket for its sake!' + +'Why so do I then,' said the Carrier. 'So do I, Dot.' + +'I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many +thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the +twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, John +- before baby was here to keep me company and make the house gay - +when I have thought how lonely you would be if I should die; how +lonely I should be if I could know that you had lost me, dear; its +Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of +another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose +coming sound my trouble vanished like a dream. And when I used to +fear - I did fear once, John, I was very young you know - that ours +might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being such a child, +and you more like my guardian than my husband; and that you might +not, however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you +hoped and prayed you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me +up again, and filled me with new trust and confidence. I was +thinking of these things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting you; +and I love the Cricket for their sake!' + +'And so do I,' repeated John. 'But, Dot? I hope and pray that I +might learn to love you? How you talk! I had learnt that, long +before I brought you here, to be the Cricket's little mistress, +Dot!' + +She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him +with an agitated face, as if she would have told him something. +Next moment she was down upon her knees before the basket, speaking +in a sprightly voice, and busy with the parcels. + +'There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw some goods +behind the cart, just now; and though they give more trouble, +perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, +have we? Besides, you have been delivering, I dare say, as you +came along?' + +'Oh yes,' John said. 'A good many.' + +'Why what's this round box? Heart alive, John, it's a wedding- +cake!' + +'Leave a woman alone to find out that,' said John, admiringly. +'Now a man would never have thought of it. Whereas, it's my belief +that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a +turn-up bedstead, or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a +woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes; I called for it +at the pastry-cook's.' + +'And it weighs I don't know what - whole hundredweights!' cried +Dot, making a great demonstration of trying to lift it. + +'Whose is it, John? Where is it going?' + +'Read the writing on the other side,' said John. + +'Why, John! My Goodness, John!' + +'Ah! who'd have thought it!' John returned. + +'You never mean to say,' pursued Dot, sitting on the floor and +shaking her head at him, 'that it's Gruff and Tackleton the +toymaker!' + +John nodded. + +Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in assent +- in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips the while +with all their little force (they were never made for screwing up; +I am clear of that), and looking the good Carrier through and +through, in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the mean time, who +had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current +conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the sense +struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural +number, inquired aloud of that young creature, Was it Gruffs and +Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at Pastry-cooks +for wedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when its +fathers brought them homes; and so on. + +'And that is really to come about!' said Dot. 'Why, she and I were +girls at school together, John.' + +He might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of her, +perhaps, as she was in that same school time. He looked upon her +with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer. + +'And he's as old! As unlike her! - Why, how many years older than +you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John?' + +'How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at one sitting, +than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder!' replied +John, good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and +began at the cold ham. 'As to eating, I eat but little; but that +little I enjoy, Dot.' + +Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of his innocent +delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly +contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, +who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her +with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast +down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of. +Absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and +John (although he called to her, and rapped the table with his +knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm; +when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place +behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. But, not as she +had laughed before. The manner and the music were quite changed. + +The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so +cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it. + +'So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?' she said, breaking +a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted to the +practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment - +certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be admitted that he +ate but little. 'So, these are all the parcels; are they, John?' + +'That's all,' said John. 'Why - no - I - ' laying down his knife +and fork, and taking a long breath. 'I declare - I've clean +forgotten the old gentleman!' + +'The old gentleman?' + +'In the cart,' said John. 'He was asleep, among the straw, the +last time I saw him. I've very nearly remembered him, twice, since +I came in; but he went out of my head again. Holloa! Yahip there! +Rouse up! That's my hearty!' + +John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had +hurried with the candle in his hand. + +Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to The Old +Gentleman, and connecting in her mystified imagination certain +associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so +disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to +seek protection near the skirts of her mistress, and coming into +contact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger, she +instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only offensive +instrument within her reach. This instrument happening to be the +baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer +rather tended to increase; for, that good dog, more thoughtful than +its master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his +sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young poplar trees that +were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on him very +closely, worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at the +buttons. + +'You're such an undeniable good sleeper, sir,' said John, when +tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old gentleman had +stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room; 'that +I have half a mind to ask you where the other six are - only that +would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it. Very near though,' +murmured the Carrier, with a chuckle; 'very near!' + +The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, singularly +bold and well defined for an old man, and dark, bright, penetrating +eyes, looked round with a smile, and saluted the Carrier's wife by +gravely inclining his head. + +His garb was very quaint and odd - a long, long way behind the +time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his hand he held a great +brown club or walking-stick; and striking this upon the floor, it +fell asunder, and became a chair. On which he sat down, quite +composedly. + +'There!' said the Carrier, turning to his wife. 'That's the way I +found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone. And +almost as deaf.' + +'Sitting in the open air, John!' + +'In the open air,' replied the Carrier, 'just at dusk. "Carriage +Paid," he said; and gave me eighteenpence. Then he got in. And +there he is.' + +'He's going, John, I think!' + +Not at all. He was only going to speak. + +'If you please, I was to be left till called for,' said the +Stranger, mildly. 'Don't mind me.' + +With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large +pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began to read. +Making no more of Boxer than if he had been a house lamb! + +The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. The +Stranger raised his head; and glancing from the latter to the +former, said, + +'Your daughter, my good friend?' + +'Wife,' returned John. + +'Niece?' said the Stranger. + +'Wife,' roared John. + +'Indeed?' observed the Stranger. 'Surely? Very young!' + +He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, before he +could have read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say: + +'Baby, yours?' + +John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the +affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet. + +'Girl?' + +'Bo-o-oy!' roared John. + +'Also very young, eh?' + +Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. 'Two months and three da- +ays! Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very fine-ly! +Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! Equal +to the general run of children at five months o-old! Takes notice, +in a way quite wonderful! May seem impossible to you, but feels +his legs al-ready!' + +Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these +short sentences into the old man's ear, until her pretty face was +crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant +fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of 'Ketcher, +Ketcher' - which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to a +popular Sneeze - performed some cow-like gambols round that all +unconscious Innocent. + +'Hark! He's called for, sure enough,' said John. 'There's +somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly.' + +Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; +being a primitive sort of door, with a latch, that any one could +lift if he chose - and a good many people did choose, for all kinds +of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with the +Carrier, though he was no great talker himself. Being opened, it +gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man, +who seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the sack-cloth +covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door, and +keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment, +the inscription G & T in large black capitals. Also the word GLASS +in bold characters. + +'Good evening, John!' said the little man. 'Good evening, Mum. +Good evening, Tilly. Good evening, Unbeknown! How's Baby, Mum? +Boxer's pretty well I hope?' + +'All thriving, Caleb,' replied Dot. 'I am sure you need only look +at the dear child, for one, to know that.' + +'And I'm sure I need only look at you for another,' said Caleb. + +He didn't look at her though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye +which seemed to be always projecting itself into some other time +and place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally +apply to his voice. + +'Or at John for another,' said Caleb. 'Or at Tilly, as far as that +goes. Or certainly at Boxer.' + +'Busy just now, Caleb?' asked the Carrier. + +'Why, pretty well, John,' he returned, with the distraught air of a +man who was casting about for the Philosopher's stone, at least. +'Pretty much so. There's rather a run on Noah's Arks at present. +I could have wished to improve upon the Family, but I don't see how +it's to be done at the price. It would be a satisfaction to one's +mind, to make it clearer which was Shems and Hams, and which was +Wives. Flies an't on that scale neither, as compared with +elephants you know! Ah! well! Have you got anything in the parcel +line for me, John?' + +The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken +off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny +flower-pot. + +'There it is!' he said, adjusting it with great care. 'Not so much +as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!' + +Caleb's dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him. + +'Dear, Caleb,' said the Carrier. 'Very dear at this season.' + +'Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,' +returned the little man. 'Anything else, John?' + +'A small box,' replied the Carrier. 'Here you are!' + +'"For Caleb Plummer,"' said the little man, spelling out the +direction. '"With Cash." With Cash, John? I don't think it's for +me.' + +'With Care,' returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder. +'Where do you make out cash?' + +'Oh! To be sure!' said Caleb. 'It's all right. With care! Yes, +yes; that's mine. It might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear +Boy in the Golden South Americas had lived, John. You loved him +like a son; didn't you? You needn't say you did. I know, of +course. "Caleb Plummer. With care." Yes, yes, it's all right. +It's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughter's work. I wish it was +her own sight in a box, John.' + +'I wish it was, or could be!' cried the Carrier. + +'Thank'ee,' said the little man. 'You speak very hearty. To think +that she should never see the Dolls - and them a-staring at her, so +bold, all day long! That's where it cuts. What's the damage, +John?' + +'I'll damage you,' said John, 'if you inquire. Dot! Very near?' + +'Well! it's like you to say so,' observed the little man. 'It's +your kind way. Let me see. I think that's all.' + +'I think not,' said the Carrier. 'Try again.' + +'Something for our Governor, eh?' said Caleb, after pondering a +little while. 'To be sure. That's what I came for; but my head's +so running on them Arks and things! He hasn't been here, has he?' + +'Not he,' returned the Carrier. 'He's too busy, courting.' + +'He's coming round though,' said Caleb; 'for he told me to keep on +the near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he'd +take me up. I had better go, by the bye. - You couldn't have the +goodness to let me pinch Boxer's tail, Mum, for half a moment, +could you?' + +'Why, Caleb! what a question!' + +'Oh never mind, Mum,' said the little man. 'He mightn't like it +perhaps. There's a small order just come in, for barking dogs; and +I should wish to go as close to Natur' as I could, for sixpence. +That's all. Never mind, Mum.' + +It happened opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving the proposed +stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But, as this implied the +approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the +life to a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and +took a hurried leave. He might have spared himself the trouble, +for he met the visitor upon the threshold. + +'Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I'll take you home. +John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my service to your +pretty wife. Handsomer every day! Better too, if possible! And +younger,' mused the speaker, in a low voice; 'that's the Devil of +it!' + +'I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,' +said Dot, not with the best grace in the world; 'but for your +condition.' + +'You know all about it then?' + +'I have got myself to believe it, somehow,' said Dot. + +'After a hard struggle, I suppose?' + +'Very.' + +Tackleton the Toy-merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and +Tackleton - for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out +long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, +according to its Dictionary meaning, in the business - Tackleton +the Toy-merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite +misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians. If they had made him a +Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a +Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, +after having had the full run of himself in ill-natured +transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake +of a little freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the +peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had +been living on children all his life, and was their implacable +enemy. He despised all toys; wouldn't have bought one for the +world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into +the faces of brown-paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen +who advertised lost lawyers' consciences, movable old ladies who +darned stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his +stock in trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks +in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn't lie down, +and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of +countenance; his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only +relief, and safety-valve. He was great in such inventions. +Anything suggestive of a Pony-nightmare was delicious to him. He +had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by +getting up Goblin slides for magic-lanterns, whereon the Powers of +Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with +human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he had +sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, he +could indicate, for the instruction of his artists, with a piece of +chalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those +monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young +gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole +Christmas or Midsummer Vacation. + +What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other things. You +may easily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape, +which reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up +to the chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as +choice a spirit, and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a +pair of bull-headed-looking boots with mahogany-coloured tops. + +Still, Tackleton, the toy-merchant, was going to be married. In +spite of all this, he was going to be married. And to a young wife +too, a beautiful young wife. + +He didn't look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier's +kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and +his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked +down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill- +conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little +eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But, a +Bridegroom he designed to be. + +'In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first +month in the year. That's my wedding-day,' said Tackleton. + +Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye +nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut, was always the +expressive eye? I don't think I did. + +'That's my wedding-day!' said Tackleton, rattling his money. + +'Why, it's our wedding-day too,' exclaimed the Carrier. + +'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton. 'Odd! You're just such another +couple. Just!' + +The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be +described. What next? His imagination would compass the +possibility of just such another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad. + +'I say! A word with you,' murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier +with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. 'You'll come to the +wedding? We're in the same boat, you know.' + +'How in the same boat?' inquired the Carrier. + +'A little disparity, you know,' said Tackleton, with another nudge. +'Come and spend an evening with us, beforehand.' + +'Why?' demanded John, astonished at this pressing hospitality. + +'Why?' returned the other. 'That's a new way of receiving an +invitation. Why, for pleasure - sociability, you know, and all +that!' + +'I thought you were never sociable,' said John, in his plain way. + +'Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free with you, I see,' +said Tackleton. 'Why, then, the truth is you have a - what tea- +drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together, +you and your wife. We know better, you know, but - ' + +'No, we don't know better,' interposed John. 'What are you talking +about?' + +'Well! We DON'T know better, then,' said Tackleton. 'We'll agree +that we don't. As you like; what does it matter? I was going to +say, as you have that sort of appearance, your company will produce +a favourable effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I +don't think your good lady's very friendly to me, in this matter, +still she can't help herself from falling into my views, for +there's a compactness and cosiness of appearance about her that +always tells, even in an indifferent case. You'll say you'll +come?' + +'We have arranged to keep our Wedding-Day (as far as that goes) at +home,' said John. 'We have made the promise to ourselves these six +months. We think, you see, that home - ' + +'Bah! what's home?' cried Tackleton. 'Four walls and a ceiling! +(why don't you kill that Cricket? I would! I always do. I hate +their noise.) There are four walls and a ceiling at my house. +Come to me!' + +'You kill your Crickets, eh?' said John. + +'Scrunch 'em, sir,' returned the other, setting his heel heavily on +the floor. 'You'll say you'll come? it's as much your interest as +mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that +they're quiet and contented, and couldn't be better off. I know +their way. Whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to +clinch, always. There's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, +that if your wife says to my wife, "I'm the happiest woman in the +world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and I dote on +him," my wife will say the same to yours, or more, and half believe +it.' + +'Do you mean to say she don't, then?' asked the Carrier. + +'Don't!' cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. 'Don't what?' + +The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, 'dote upon you.' But, +happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over +the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking +it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to +be doted on, that he substituted, 'that she don't believe it?' + +'Ah you dog! You're joking,' said Tackleton. + +But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his +meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to +be a little more explanatory. + +'I have the humour,' said Tackleton: holding up the fingers of his +left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply 'there I am, +Tackleton to wit:' 'I have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife, +and a pretty wife:' here he rapped his little finger, to express +the Bride; not sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. 'I'm +able to gratify that humour and I do. It's my whim. But - now +look there!' + +He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, before the fire; +leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright +blaze. The Carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at +her, and then at him again. + +'She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,' said Tackleton; 'and +that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for ME. But +do you think there's anything more in it?' + +'I think,' observed the Carrier, 'that I should chuck any man out +of window, who said there wasn't.' + +'Exactly so,' returned the other with an unusual alacrity of +assent. 'To be sure! Doubtless you would. Of course. I'm +certain of it. Good night. Pleasant dreams!' + +The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in +spite of himself. He couldn't help showing it, in his manner. + +'Good night, my dear friend!' said Tackleton, compassionately. +'I'm off. We're exactly alike, in reality, I see. You won't give +us to-morrow evening? Well! Next day you go out visiting, I know. +I'll meet you there, and bring my wife that is to be. It'll do her +good. You're agreeable? Thank'ee. What's that!' + +It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife: a loud, sharp, sudden +cry, that made the room ring, like a glass vessel. She had risen +from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and +surprise. The Stranger had advanced towards the fire to warm +himself, and stood within a short stride of her chair. But quite +still. + +'Dot!' cried the Carrier. 'Mary! Darling! What's the matter?' + +They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been dozing on +the cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his suspended +presence of mind, seized Miss Slowboy by the hair of her head, but +immediately apologised. + +'Mary!' exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms. 'Are +you ill! What is it? Tell me, dear!' + +She only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a +wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking from his grasp upon the +ground, she covered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly. +And then she laughed again, and then she cried again, and then she +said how cold it was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire, +where she sat down as before. The old man standing, as before, +quite still. + +'I'm better, John,' she said. 'I'm quite well now - I -' + +'John!' But John was on the other side of her. Why turn her face +towards the strange old gentleman, as if addressing him! Was her +brain wandering? + +'Only a fancy, John dear - a kind of shock - a something coming +suddenly before my eyes - I don't know what it was. It's quite +gone, quite gone.' + +'I'm glad it's gone,' muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive +eye all round the room. 'I wonder where it's gone, and what it +was. Humph! Caleb, come here! Who's that with the grey hair?' + +'I don't know, sir,' returned Caleb in a whisper. 'Never see him +before, in all my life. A beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; +quite a new model. With a screw-jaw opening down into his +waistcoat, he'd be lovely.' + +'Not ugly enough,' said Tackleton. + +'Or for a firebox, either,' observed Caleb, in deep contemplation, +'what a model! Unscrew his head to put the matches in; turn him +heels up'ards for the light; and what a firebox for a gentleman's +mantel-shelf, just as he stands!' + +'Not half ugly enough,' said Tackleton. 'Nothing in him at all! +Come! Bring that box! All right now, I hope?' + +'Quite gone!' said the little woman, waving him hurriedly away. +'Good night!' + +'Good night,' said Tackleton. 'Good night, John Peerybingle! Take +care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it fall, and I'll murder +you! Dark as pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? Good night!' + +So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the +door; followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his head. + +The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so +busily engaged in soothing and tending her, that he had scarcely +been conscious of the Stranger's presence, until now, when he again +stood there, their only guest. + +'He don't belong to them, you see,' said John. 'I must give him a +hint to go.' + +'I beg your pardon, friend,' said the old gentleman, advancing to +him; 'the more so, as I fear your wife has not been well; but the +Attendant whom my infirmity,' he touched his ears and shook his +head, 'renders almost indispensable, not having arrived, I fear +there must be some mistake. The bad night which made the shelter +of your comfortable cart (may I never have a worse!) so acceptable, +is still as bad as ever. Would you, in your kindness, suffer me to +rent a bed here?' + +'Yes, yes,' cried Dot. 'Yes! Certainly!' + +'Oh!' said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent. + +'Well! I don't object; but, still I'm not quite sure that - ' + +'Hush!' she interrupted. 'Dear John!' + +'Why, he's stone deaf,' urged John. + +'I know he is, but - Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! I'll +make him up a bed, directly, John.' + +As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the +agitation of her manner, were so strange that the Carrier stood +looking after her, quite confounded. + +'Did its mothers make it up a Beds then!' cried Miss Slowboy to the +Baby; 'and did its hair grow brown and curly, when its caps was +lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the +fires!' + +With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is +often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier as +he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even +these absurd words, many times. So many times that he got them by +heart, and was still conning them over and over, like a lesson, +when Tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald +head with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the +practice of nurses), had once more tied the Baby's cap on. + +'And frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires. What +frightened Dot, I wonder!' mused the Carrier, pacing to and fro. + +He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy-merchant, +and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness. For, +Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense, +himself, of being of slow perception, that a broken hint was always +worrying to him. He certainly had no intention in his mind of +linking anything that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct +of his wife, but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind +together, and he could not keep them asunder. + +The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all +refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot - quite well +again, she said, quite well again - arranged the great chair in the +chimney-corner for her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him; +and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth. + +She always WOULD sit on that little stool. I think she must have +had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling little stool. + +She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should say, +in the four quarters of the globe. To see her put that chubby +little finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the +tube, and, when she had done so, affect to think that there was +really something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it +to her eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her +capital little face, as she looked down it, was quite a brilliant +thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject; +and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the +Carrier had it in his mouth - going so very near his nose, and yet +not scorching it - was Art, high Art. + +And the Cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it! +The bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! The little +Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! The +Carrier, in his smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged +it, the readiest of all. + +And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, and as +the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, and as the +Cricket chirped; that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the +Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned +many forms of Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes, +filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on +before him gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half +shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough +image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking +wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, +attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; +matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of +daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and +beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on +sticks, and tottered as they crept along. Old Carriers too, +appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer +carts with younger drivers ('Peerybingle Brothers' on the tilt); +and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of +dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the +Cricket showed him all these things - he saw them plainly, though +his eyes were fixed upon the fire - the Carrier's heart grew light +and happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might, +and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do. + + +But, what was that young figure of a man, which the same Fairy +Cricket set so near Her stool, and which remained there, singly and +alone? Why did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the +chimney-piece, ever repeating 'Married! and not to me!' + +O Dot! O failing Dot! There is no place for it in all your +husband's visions; why has its shadow fallen on his hearth! + + + +CHAPTER II - Chirp The Second + + + +CALEB PLUMMER and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, +as the Story-books say - and my blessing, with yours to back it I +hope, on the Story-books, for saying anything in this workaday +world! - Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by +themselves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which +was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick +nose of Gruff and Tackleton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton +were the great feature of the street; but you might have knocked +down Caleb Plummer's dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off +the pieces in a cart. + +If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plummer the honour +to miss it after such an inroad, it would have been, no doubt, to +commend its demolition as a vast improvement. It stuck to the +premises of Gruff and Tackleton, like a barnacle to a ship's keel, +or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the stem +of a tree. + +But, it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and +Tackleton had sprung; and, under its crazy roof, the Gruff before +last, had, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old boys +and girls, who had played with them, and found them out, and broken +them, and gone to sleep. + +I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived here. I +should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor Blind Daughter +somewhere else - in an enchanted home of Caleb's furnishing, where +scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. Caleb +was no sorcerer, but in the only magic art that still remains to +us, the magic of devoted, deathless love, Nature had been the +mistress of his study; and from her teaching, all the wonder came. + +The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured, walls +blotched and bare of plaster here and there, high crevices +unstopped and widening every day, beams mouldering and tending +downward. The Blind Girl never knew that iron was rusting, wood +rotting, paper peeling off; the size, and shape, and true +proportion of the dwelling, withering away. The Blind Girl never +knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on the board; +that sorrow and faintheartedness were in the house; that Caleb's +scanty hairs were turning greyer and more grey, before her +sightless face. The Blind Girl never knew they had a master, cold, +exacting, and uninterested - never knew that Tackleton was +Tackleton in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric +humourist who loved to have his jest with them, and who, while he +was the Guardian Angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word +of thankfulness. + +And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple father! But +he too had a Cricket on his Hearth; and listening sadly to its +music when the motherless Blind Child was very young, that Spirit +had inspired him with the thought that even her great deprivation +might be almost changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy by +these little means. For all the Cricket tribe are potent Spirits, +even though the people who hold converse with them do not know it +(which is frequently the case); and there are not in the unseen +world, voices more gentle and more true, that may be so implicitly +relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest +counsel, as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the +Hearth address themselves to human kind. + +Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual +working-room, which served them for their ordinary living-room as +well; and a strange place it was. There were houses in it, +finished and unfinished, for Dolls of all stations in life. +Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single +apartments for Dolls of the lower classes; capital town residences +for Dolls of high estate. Some of these establishments were +already furnished according to estimate, with a view to the +convenience of Dolls of limited income; others could be fitted on +the most expensive scale, at a moment's notice, from whole shelves +of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. The +nobility and gentry, and public in general, for whose accommodation +these tenements were designed, lay, here and there, in baskets, +staring straight up at the ceiling; but, in denoting their degrees +in society, and confining them to their respective stations (which +experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), the +makers of these Dolls had far improved on Nature, who is often +froward and perverse; for, they, not resting on such arbitrary +marks as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had superadded +striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake. Thus, +the Doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but +only she and her compeers. The next grade in the social scale +being made of leather, and the next of coarse linen stuff. As to +the common-people, they had just so many matches out of tinder- +boxes, for their arms and legs, and there they were - established +in their sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of +it. + +There were various other samples of his handicraft, besides Dolls, +in Caleb Plummer's room. There were Noah's Arks, in which the +Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though +they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and +shaken into the smallest compass. By a bold poetical licence, most +of these Noah's Arks had knockers on the doors; inconsistent +appendages, perhaps, as suggestive of morning callers and a +Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building. +There were scores of melancholy little carts, which, when the +wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small +fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, +shields, swords, spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in +red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, +and coming down, head first, on the other side; and there were +innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable, +appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the +purpose, in their own street doors. There were beasts of all +sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted +barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the +thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been +hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were +ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a +handle, so it would have been no easy task to mention any human +folly, vice, or weakness, that had not its type, immediate or +remote, in Caleb Plummer's room. And not in an exaggerated form, +for very little handles will move men and women to as strange +performances, as any Toy was ever made to undertake. + +In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat at +work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll's dressmaker; Caleb painting +and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family mansion. + +The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb's face, and his absorbed +and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on some alchemist or +abstruse student, were at first sight an odd contrast to his +occupation, and the trivialities about him. But, trivial things, +invented and pursued for bread, become very serious matters of +fact; and, apart from this consideration, I am not at all prepared +to say, myself, that if Caleb had been a Lord Chamberlain, or a +Member of Parliament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he +would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical, while I have a +very great doubt whether they would have been as harmless. + +'So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful +new great-coat,' said Caleb's daughter. + +'In my beautiful new great-coat,' answered Caleb, glancing towards +a clothes-line in the room, on which the sack-cloth garment +previously described, was carefully hung up to dry. + +'How glad I am you bought it, father!' + +'And of such a tailor, too,' said Caleb. 'Quite a fashionable +tailor. It's too good for me.' + +The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight. + +'Too good, father! What can be too good for you?' + +'I'm half-ashamed to wear it though,' said Caleb, watching the +effect of what he said, upon her brightening face; 'upon my word! +When I hear the boys and people say behind me, "Hal-loa! Here's a +swell!" I don't know which way to look. And when the beggar +wouldn't go away last night; and when I said I was a very common +man, said "No, your Honour! Bless your Honour, don't say that!" I +was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn't a right to wear +it.' + +Happy Blind Girl! How merry she was, in her exultation! + +'I see you, father,' she said, clasping her hands, 'as plainly, as +if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat - +' + +'Bright blue,' said Caleb. + +'Yes, yes! Bright blue!' exclaimed the girl, turning up her +radiant face; 'the colour I can just remember in the blessed sky! +You told me it was blue before! A bright blue coat - ' + +'Made loose to the figure,' suggested Caleb. + +'Made loose to the figure!' cried the Blind Girl, laughing +heartily; 'and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, your +smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair - looking so young +and handsome!' + +'Halloa! Halloa!' said Caleb. 'I shall be vain, presently!' + +'I think you are, already,' cried the Blind Girl, pointing at him, +in her glee. 'I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha! I've found you +out, you see!' + +How different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he sat +observing her! She had spoken of his free step. She was right in +that. For years and years, he had never once crossed that +threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall counterfeited +for her ear; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, +forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and +courageous! + +Heaven knows! But I think Caleb's vague bewilderment of manner may +have half originated in his having confused himself about himself +and everything around him, for the love of his Blind Daughter. How +could the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after labouring +for so many years to destroy his own identity, and that of all the +objects that had any bearing on it! + +'There we are,' said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the +better judgment of his work; 'as near the real thing as +sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the +whole front of the house opens at once! If there was only a +staircase in it, now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! +But that's the worst of my calling, I'm always deluding myself, and +swindling myself.' + +'You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father?' + +'Tired!' echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, 'what +should tire me, Bertha? I was never tired. What does it mean?' + +To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an +involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and yawning +figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal +state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of +a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling +Bowl. He sang it with an assumption of a Devil-may-care voice, +that made his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful +than ever. + +'What! You're singing, are you?' said Tackleton, putting his head +in at the door. 'Go it! I can't sing.' + +Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what is generally +termed a singing face, by any means. + +'I can't afford to sing,' said Tackleton. 'I'm glad YOU CAN. I +hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time for both, I should +think?' + +'If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking at me!' +whispered Caleb. 'Such a man to joke! you'd think, if you didn't +know him, he was in earnest - wouldn't you now?' + +The Blind Girl smiled and nodded. + +'The bird that can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing, they +say,' grumbled Tackleton. 'What about the owl that can't sing, and +oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there anything that HE should +be made to do?' + +'The extent to which he's winking at this moment!' whispered Caleb +to his daughter. 'O, my gracious!' + +'Always merry and light-hearted with us!' cried the smiling Bertha. + +'O, you're there, are you?' answered Tackleton. 'Poor Idiot!' + +He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded the belief, +I can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him. + +'Well! and being there, - how are you?' said Tackleton, in his +grudging way. + +'Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can wish me to be. +As happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!' + +'Poor Idiot!' muttered Tackleton. 'No gleam of reason. Not a +gleam!' + +The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in +her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before +releasing it. There was such unspeakable affection and such +fervent gratitude in the act, that Tackleton himself was moved to +say, in a milder growl than usual: + +'What's the matter now?' + +'I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep last night, +and remembered it in my dreams. And when the day broke, and the +glorious red sun - the RED sun, father?' + +'Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,' said poor Caleb, +with a woeful glance at his employer. + +'When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike myself +against in walking, came into the room, I turned the little tree +towards it, and blessed Heaven for making things so precious, and +blessed you for sending them to cheer me!' + +'Bedlam broke loose!' said Tackleton under his breath. 'We shall +arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. We're getting +on!' + +Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly +before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain +(I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve +her thanks, or not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent, +at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy- +merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, I believe +it would have been an even chance which course he would have taken. +Yet, Caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the little +rose-tree home for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he +had forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her +from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day, denied +himself, that she might be the happier. + +'Bertha!' said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little +cordiality. 'Come here.' + +'Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn't guide me!' she +rejoined. + +'Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?' + +'If you will!' she answered, eagerly. + +How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light, the +listening head! + +'This is the day on which little what's-her-name, the spoilt child, +Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you - makes her +fantastic Pic-Nic here; an't it?' said Tackleton, with a strong +expression of distaste for the whole concern. + +'Yes,' replied Bertha. 'This is the day.' + +'I thought so,' said Tackleton. 'I should like to join the party.' + +'Do you hear that, father!' cried the Blind Girl in an ecstasy. + +'Yes, yes, I hear it,' murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a +sleep-walker; 'but I don't believe it. It's one of my lies, I've +no doubt.' + +'You see I - I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into +company with May Fielding,' said Tackleton. 'I am going to be +married to May.' + +'Married!' cried the Blind Girl, starting from him. + +'She's such a con-founded Idiot,' muttered Tackleton, 'that I was +afraid she'd never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha! Married! Church, +parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, +favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the +tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don't you know what a +wedding is?' + +'I know,' replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. 'I +understand!' + +'Do you?' muttered Tackleton. 'It's more than I expected. Well! +On that account I want to join the party, and to bring May and her +mother. I'll send in a little something or other, before the +afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of +that sort. You'll expect me?' + +'Yes,' she answered. + +She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her +hands crossed, musing. + +'I don't think you will,' muttered Tackleton, looking at her; 'for +you seem to have forgotten all about it, already. Caleb!' + +'I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose,' thought Caleb. 'Sir!' + +'Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to her.' + +'SHE never forgets,' returned Caleb. 'It's one of the few things +she an't clever in.' + +'Every man thinks his own geese swans,' observed the Toy-merchant, +with a shrug. 'Poor devil!' + +Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt, +old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew. + +Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. The +gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad. +Three or four times she shook her head, as if bewailing some +remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no +vent in words. + +It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a +team of horses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the +harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to +his working-stool, and sitting down beside him, said: + +'Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my patient, +willing eyes.' + +'Here they are,' said Caleb. 'Always ready. They are more yours +than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. What shall +your eyes do for you, dear?' + +'Look round the room, father.' + +'All right,' said Caleb. 'No sooner said than done, Bertha.' + +'Tell me about it.' + +'It's much the same as usual,' said Caleb. 'Homely, but very snug. +The gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and +dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the +general cheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very +pretty.' + +Cheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha's hands could busy +themselves. But nowhere else, were cheerfulness and neatness +possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb's fancy so transformed. + +'You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you +wear the handsome coat?' said Bertha, touching him. + +'Not quite so gallant,' answered Caleb. 'Pretty brisk though.' + +'Father,' said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, and +stealing one arm round his neck, 'tell me something about May. She +is very fair?' + +'She is indeed,' said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a +rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his invention. + +'Her hair is dark,' said Bertha, pensively, 'darker than mine. Her +voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it. +Her shape - ' + +'There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it,' said Caleb. +'And her eyes! - ' + +He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, and from +the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he +understood too well. + +He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon +the song about the sparkling bowl; his infallible resource in all +such difficulties. + +'Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you know, +of hearing about him. - Now, was I ever?' she said, hastily. + +'Of course not,' answered Caleb, 'and with reason.' + +'Ah! With how much reason!' cried the Blind Girl. With such +fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not +endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have +read in them his innocent deceit. + +'Then, tell me again about him, dear father,' said Bertha. 'Many +times again! His face is benevolent, kind, and tender. Honest and +true, I am sure it is. The manly heart that tries to cloak all +favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its +every look and glance.' + +'And makes it noble!' added Caleb, in his quiet desperation. + +'And makes it noble!' cried the Blind Girl. 'He is older than May, +father.' + +'Ye-es,' said Caleb, reluctantly. 'He's a little older than May. +But that don't signify.' + +'Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity and age; +to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in +suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; +to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, +and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! What +opportunities for proving all her truth and devotion to him! Would +she do all this, dear father? + +'No doubt of it,' said Caleb. + +'I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!' exclaimed the +Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb's +shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have +brought that tearful happiness upon her. + +In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John +Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn't think +of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh +took time. Not that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as +a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do +about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For +instance, when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain +point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that +another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip- +top Baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in +a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to +speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. From +this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and +roaring violently, to partake of - well? I would rather say, if +you'll permit me to speak generally - of a slight repast. After +which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of +this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you +saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce, +Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so +surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself, +or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared, +independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least +regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, +was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss +Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of +nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all +three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken +more than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike +Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs; and +whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, +standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders. + +As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. +Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, if you +think THAT was necessary. Before you could have seen him lift her +from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy, +saying, 'John! How CAN you! Think of Tilly!' + +If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on any terms, +I would observe of Miss Slowboy's that there was a fatality about +them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that +she never effected the smallest ascent or descent, without +recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson +Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. But as this might +be considered ungenteel, I'll think of it. + +'John? You've got the Basket with the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, +and the bottles of Beer?' said Dot. 'If you haven't, you must turn +round again, this very minute.' + +'You're a nice little article,' returned the Carrier, 'to be +talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an +hour behind my time.' + +'I am sorry for it, John,' said Dot in a great bustle, 'but I +really could not think of going to Bertha's - I would not do it, +John, on any account - without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and +the bottles of Beer. Way!' + +This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't mind it at +all. + +'Oh DO way, John!' said Mrs. Peerybingle. 'Please!' + +'It'll be time enough to do that,' returned John, 'when I begin to +leave things behind me. The basket's here, safe enough.' + +'What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said +so, at once, and save me such a turn! I declared I wouldn't go to +Bertha's without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles +of Beer, for any money. Regularly once a fortnight ever since we +have been married, John, have we made our little Pic-Nic there. If +anything was to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were +never to be lucky again.' + +'It was a kind thought in the first instance,' said the Carrier: +'and I honour you for it, little woman.' + +'My dear John,' replied Dot, turning very red, 'don't talk about +honouring ME. Good Gracious!' + +'By the bye - ' observed the Carrier. 'That old gentleman - ' + +Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed! + +'He's an odd fish,' said the Carrier, looking straight along the +road before them. 'I can't make him out. I don't believe there's +any harm in him.' + +'None at all. I'm - I'm sure there's none at all.' + +'Yes,' said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the +great earnestness of her manner. 'I am glad you feel so certain of +it, because it's a confirmation to me. It's curious that he should +have taken it into his head to ask leave to go on lodging with us; +an't it? Things come about so strangely.' + +'So very strangely,' she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely audible. + +'However, he's a good-natured old gentleman,' said John, 'and pays +as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be relied upon, like a +gentleman's. I had quite a long talk with him this morning: he +can hear me better already, he says, as he gets more used to my +voice. He told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a +great deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me. +I gave him information about my having two beats, you know, in my +business; one day to the right from our house and back again; +another day to the left from our house and back again (for he's a +stranger and don't know the names of places about here); and he +seemed quite pleased. "Why, then I shall be returning home to- +night your way," he says, "when I thought you'd be coming in an +exactly opposite direction. That's capital! I may trouble you for +another lift perhaps, but I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep +again." He WAS sound asleep, sure-ly! - Dot! what are you thinking +of?' + +'Thinking of, John? I - I was listening to you.' + +'O! That's all right!' said the honest Carrier. 'I was afraid, +from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long, as +to set you thinking about something else. I was very near it, I'll +be bound.' + +Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in +silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent very long in John +Peerybingle's cart, for everybody on the road had something to say. +Though it might only be 'How are you!' and indeed it was very often +nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of +cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as +wholesome an action of the lungs withal, as a long-winded +Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback, +plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of +having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both +sides. + +Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of, and +by, the Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians could have done! +Everybody knew him, all along the road - especially the fowls and +pigs, who when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one +side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a +tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew +into remote back settlements, without waiting for the honour of a +nearer acquaintance. He had business everywhere; going down all +the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all +the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-Schools, +fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, +and trotting into the public-houses like a regular customer. +Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, +'Halloa! Here's Boxer!' and out came that somebody forthwith, +accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give John +Peerybingle and his pretty wife, Good Day. + +The packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and +there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out, which +were not by any means the worst parts of the journey. Some people +were so full of expectation about their parcels, and other people +were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people were +so full of inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and John +had such a lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good +as a play. Likewise, there were articles to carry, which required +to be considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment +and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the Carrier +and the senders: at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits of +the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round the +assembled sages and barking himself hoarse. Of all these little +incidents, Dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her +chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on - a charming +little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt - there was no +lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among +the younger men. And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond +measure; for he was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing +that she didn't mind it - that, if anything, she rather liked it +perhaps. + +The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather; +and was raw and cold. But who cared for such trifles? Not Dot, +decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on +any terms, to be the highest point of human joys; the crowning +circumstance of earthly hopes. Not the Baby, I'll be sworn; for +it's not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though +its capacity is great in both respects, than that blessed young +Peerybingle was, all the way. + +You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see +a great deal! It's astonishing how much you may see, in a thicker +fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look for it. +Why, even to sit watching for the Fairy-rings in the fields, and +for the patches of hoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near +hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation: to make no mention +of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came +starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. The hedges +were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands +in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. It was +agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in +possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The river looked +chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace - which was +a great point. The canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be +admitted. Never mind. It would freeze the sooner when the frost +set fairly in, and then there would be skating, and sliding; and +the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf, would smoke +their rusty iron chimney pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it. + +In one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; +and they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, flaring through +the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in +consequence, as she observed, of the smoke 'getting up her nose,' +Miss Slowboy choked - she could do anything of that sort, on the +smallest provocation - and woke the Baby, who wouldn't go to sleep +again. But, Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or +so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the +corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter lived; and long +before they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the +pavement waiting to receive them. + +Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own, +in his communication with Bertha, which persuade me fully that he +knew her to be blind. He never sought to attract her attention by +looking at her, as he often did with other people, but touched her +invariably. What experience he could ever have had of blind people +or blind dogs, I don't know. He had never lived with a blind +master; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his +respectable family on either side, ever been visited with +blindness, that I am aware of. He may have found it out for +himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore +he had hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, until Mrs. +Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, and the basket, were +all got safely within doors. + +May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother - a little +querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of +having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most +transcendent figure; and who, in consequence of having once been +better off, or of labouring under an impression that she might have +been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed +to have never been particularly likely to come to pass - but it's +all the same - was very genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and +Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable, with the evident +sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in +his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the Great +Pyramid. + +'May! My dear old friend!' cried Dot, running up to meet her. +'What a happiness to see you.' + +Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and +it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see +them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste beyond all question. +May was very pretty. + +You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when +it comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it +seems for the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve +the high opinion you have had of it. Now, this was not at all the +case, either with Dot or May; for May's face set off Dot's, and +Dot's face set off May's, so naturally and agreeably, that, as John +Peerybingle was very near saying when he came into the room, they +ought to have been born sisters - which was the only improvement +you could have suggested. + +Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, +a tart besides - but we don't mind a little dissipation when our +brides are in the case. we don't get married every day - and in +addition to these dainties, there were the Veal and Ham-Pie, and +'things,' as Mrs. Peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts +and oranges, and cakes, and such small deer. When the repast was +set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb's contribution, which was +a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by +solemn compact, from producing any other viands), Tackleton led his +intended mother-in-law to the post of honour. For the better +gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul +had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the +thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But +let us be genteel, or die! + +Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side +by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table. +Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article +of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing +else to knock the Baby's head against. + +As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her +and at the company. The venerable old gentlemen at the street +doors (who were all in full action) showed especial interest in the +party, pausing occasionally before leaping, as if they were +listening to the conversation, and then plunging wildly over and +over, a great many times, without halting for breath - as in a +frantic state of delight with the whole proceedings. + +Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish +joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture, they had good +reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the +more cheerful his intended bride became in Dot's society, the less +he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose. +For he was a regular dog in the manger, was Tackleton; and when +they laughed and he couldn't, he took it into his head, +immediately, that they must be laughing at him. + +'Ah, May!' said Dot. 'Dear dear, what changes! To talk of those +merry school-days makes one young again.' + +'Why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are you?' said +Tackleton. + +'Look at my sober plodding husband there,' returned Dot. 'He adds +twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, John?' + +'Forty,' John replied. + +'How many YOU'll add to May's, I am sure I don't know,' said Dot, +laughing. 'But she can't be much less than a hundred years of age +on her next birthday.' + +'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that laugh though. +And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot's neck, comfortably. + +'Dear dear!' said Dot. 'Only to remember how we used to talk, at +school, about the husbands we would choose. I don't know how +young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not +to be! And as to May's! - Ah dear! I don't know whether to laugh +or cry, when I think what silly girls we were.' + +May seemed to know which to do; for the colour flushed into her +face, and tears stood in her eyes. + +'Even the very persons themselves - real live young men - were +fixed on sometimes,' said Dot. 'We little thought how things would +come about. I never fixed on John I'm sure; I never so much as +thought of him. And if I had told you, you were ever to be married +to Mr. Tackleton, why you'd have slapped me. Wouldn't you, May?' + +Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, or express +no, by any means. + +Tackleton laughed - quite shouted, he laughed so loud. John +Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented +manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh, to Tackleton's. + +'You couldn't help yourselves, for all that. You couldn't resist +us, you see,' said Tackleton. 'Here we are! Here we are!' + +'Where are your gay young bridegrooms now!' + +'Some of them are dead,' said Dot; 'and some of them forgotten. +Some of them, if they could stand among us at this moment, would +not believe we were the same creatures; would not believe that what +they saw and heard was real, and we COULD forget them so. No! they +would not believe one word of it!' + +'Why, Dot!' exclaimed the Carrier. 'Little woman!' + +She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in +need of some recalling to herself, without doubt. Her husband's +check was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to +shield old Tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and +said no more. There was an uncommon agitation, even in her +silence, which the wary Tackleton, who had brought his half-shut +eye to bear upon her, noted closely, and remembered to some purpose +too. + +May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her +eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest in what had passed. +The good lady her mother now interposed, observing, in the first +instance, that girls were girls, and byegones byegones, and that so +long as young people were young and thoughtless, they would +probably conduct themselves like young and thoughtless persons: +with two or three other positions of a no less sound and +incontrovertible character. She then remarked, in a devout spirit, +that she thanked Heaven she had always found in her daughter May, a +dutiful and obedient child; for which she took no credit to +herself, though she had every reason to believe it was entirely +owing to herself. With regard to Mr. Tackleton she said, That he +was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual, and That he +was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no one +in their senses could doubt. (She was very emphatic here.) With +regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after some +solicitation, to be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackleton knew that, +although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; +and if certain circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go +so far as to say, with the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not +more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps +have been in possession of wealth. She then remarked that she +would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her +daughter had for some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and +that she would not say a great many other things which she did say, +at great length. Finally, she delivered it as the general result +of her observation and experience, that those marriages in which +there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love, +were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest +possible amount of bliss - not rapturous bliss; but the solid, +steady-going article - from the approaching nuptials. She +concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she +had lived for, expressly; and that when it was over, she would +desire nothing better than to be packed up and disposed of, in any +genteel place of burial. + +As these remarks were quite unanswerable - which is the happy +property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose - +they changed the current of the conversation, and diverted the +general attention to the Veal and Ham-Pie, the cold mutton, the +potatoes, and the tart. In order that the bottled beer might not +be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed To-morrow: the Wedding-Day; +and called upon them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded +on his journey. + +For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old +horse a bait. He had to go some four of five miles farther on; and +when he returned in the evening, he called for Dot, and took +another rest on his way home. This was the order of the day on all +the Pic-Nic occasions, had been, ever since their institution. + +There were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom +elect, who did but indifferent honour to the toast. One of these +was Dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small +occurrence of the moment; the other, Bertha, who rose up hurriedly, +before the rest, and left the table. + +'Good bye!' said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought +coat. 'I shall be back at the old time. Good bye all!' + +'Good bye, John,' returned Caleb. + +He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same +unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha with an anxious +wondering face, that never altered its expression. + +'Good bye, young shaver!' said the jolly Carrier, bending down to +kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon her knife and +fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in +a little cot of Bertha's furnishing; 'good bye! Time will come, I +suppose, when YOU'LL turn out into the cold, my little friend, and +leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the +chimney-corner; eh? Where's Dot?' + +'I'm here, John!' she said, starting. + +'Come, come!' returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding hands. +'Where's the pipe?' + +'I quite forgot the pipe, John.' + +Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of! She! Forgot +the pipe! + +'I'll - I'll fill it directly. It's soon done.' + +But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual place - +the Carrier's dreadnought pocket - with the little pouch, her own +work, from which she was used to fill it, but her hand shook so, +that she entangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have +come out easily, I am sure), and bungled terribly. The filling of +the pipe and lighting it, those little offices in which I have +commended her discretion, were vilely done, from first to last. +During the whole process, Tackleton stood looking on maliciously +with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it met hers - or caught +it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye: rather +being a kind of trap to snatch it up - augmented her confusion in a +most remarkable degree. + +'Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!' said John. 'I +could have done it better myself, I verify believe!' + +With these good-natured words, he strode away, and presently was +heard, in company with Boxer, and the old horse, and the cart, +making lively music down the road. What time the dreamy Caleb +still stood, watching his blind daughter, with the same expression +on his face. + +'Bertha!' said Caleb, softly. 'What has happened? How changed you +are, my darling, in a few hours - since this morning. YOU silent +and dull all day! What is it? Tell me!' + +'Oh father, father!' cried the Blind Girl, bursting into tears. +'Oh my hard, hard fate!' + +Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her. + +'But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha! How +good, and how much loved, by many people.' + +'That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so mindful of +me! Always so kind to me!' + +Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. + +'To be - to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,' he faltered, 'is a +great affliction; but - ' + +'I have never felt it!' cried the Blind Girl. 'I have never felt +it, in its fulness. Never! I have sometimes wished that I could +see you, or could see him - only once, dear father, only for one +little minute - that I might know what it is I treasure up,' she +laid her hands upon her breast, 'and hold here! That I might be +sure and have it right! And sometimes (but then I was a child) I +have wept in my prayers at night, to think that when your images +ascended from my heart to Heaven, they might not be the true +resemblance of yourselves. But I have never had these feelings +long. They have passed away and left me tranquil and contented.' + +'And they will again,' said Caleb. + +'But, father! Oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, if I am +wicked!' said the Blind Girl. 'This is not the sorrow that so +weighs me down!' + +Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she +was so earnest and pathetic, but he did not understand her, yet. + +'Bring her to me,' said Bertha. 'I cannot hold it closed and shut +within myself. Bring her to me, father!' + +She knew he hesitated, and said, 'May. Bring May!' + +May heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly towards her, +touched her on the arm. The Blind Girl turned immediately, and +held her by both hands. + +'Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!' said Bertha. 'Read +it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is written on +it.' + +'Dear Bertha, Yes!' + +The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, down +which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words: + +'There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your +good, bright May! There is not, in my soul, a grateful +recollection stronger than the deep remembrance which is stored +there, of the many many times when, in the full pride of sight and +beauty, you have had consideration for Blind Bertha, even when we +two were children, or when Bertha was as much a child as ever +blindness can be! Every blessing on your head! Light upon your +happy course! Not the less, my dear May;' and she drew towards +her, in a closer grasp; 'not the less, my bird, because, to-day, +the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost +to breaking! Father, May, Mary! oh forgive me that it is so, for +the sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark +life: and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when I call +Heaven to witness that I could not wish him married to a wife more +worthy of his goodness!' + +While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, and clasped +her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love. +Sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange +confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid +her blind face in the folds of her dress. + +'Great Power!' exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the +truth, 'have I deceived her from the cradle, but to break her heart +at last!' + +It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy +little Dot - for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however +you may learn to hate her, in good time - it was well for all of +them, I say, that she was there: or where this would have ended, +it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering her self-possession, +interposed, before May could reply, or Caleb say another word. + +'Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her your arm, +May. So! How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it +is of her to mind us,' said the cheery little woman, kissing her +upon the forehead. 'Come away, dear Bertha. Come! and here's her +good father will come with her; won't you, Caleb? To - be - sure!' + +Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must +have been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her +influence. When she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that +they might comfort and console each other, as she knew they only +could, she presently came bouncing back, - the saying is, as fresh +as any daisy; I say fresher - to mount guard over that bridling +little piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the +dear old creature from making discoveries. + +'So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,' said she, drawing a chair +to the fire; 'and while I have it in my lap, here's Mrs. Fielding, +Tilly, will tell me all about the management of Babies, and put me +right in twenty points where I'm as wrong as can be. Won't you, +Mrs. Fielding?' + +Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular expression, +was so 'slow' as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon +himself, in emulation of a juggling-trick achieved by his arch- +enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the +snare prepared for him, as the old lady did into this artful +pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, +of two or three people having been talking together at a distance, +for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough +to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that +mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-and-twenty +hours. But this becoming deference to her experience, on the part +of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short +affectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best +grace in the world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked Dot, +she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic recipes +and precepts, than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and +done up that Young Peerybingle, though he had been an Infant +Samson. + +To change the theme, Dot did a little needlework - she carried the +contents of a whole workbox in her pocket; however she contrived +it, I don't know - then did a little nursing; then a little more +needlework; then had a little whispering chat with May, while the +old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite +her manner always, found it a very short afternoon. Then, as it +grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of this Institution of the +Pic-Nic that she should perform all Bertha's household tasks, she +trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the tea-board out, +and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle. Then she played an air +or two on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived for +Bertha, and played them very well; for Nature had made her delicate +little ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for +jewels, if she had had any to wear. By this time it was the +established hour for having tea; and Tackleton came back again, to +share the meal, and spend the evening. + +Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb had sat +down to his afternoon's work. But he couldn't settle to it, poor +fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his daughter. It was +touching to see him sitting idle on his working-stool, regarding +her so wistfully, and always saying in his face, 'Have I deceived +her from her cradle, but to break her heart!' + +When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing more to do +in washing up the cups and saucers; in a word - for I must come to +it, and there is no use in putting it off - when the time drew nigh +for expecting the Carrier's return in every sound of distant +wheels, her manner changed again, her colour came and went, and she +was very restless. Not as good wives are, when listening for their +husbands. No, no, no. It was another sort of restlessness from +that. + +Wheels heard. A horse's feet. The barking of a dog. The gradual +approach of all the sounds. The scratching paw of Boxer at the +door! + +'Whose step is that!' cried Bertha, starting up. + +'Whose step?' returned the Carrier, standing in the portal, with +his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air. +'Why, mine.' + +'The other step,' said Bertha. 'The man's tread behind you!' + +'She is not to be deceived,' observed the Carrier, laughing. 'Come +along, sir. You'll be welcome, never fear!' + +He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman +entered. + +'He's not so much a stranger, that you haven't seen him once, +Caleb,' said the Carrier. 'You'll give him house-room till we go?' + +'Oh surely, John, and take it as an honour.' + +'He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,' said John. +'I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em, I can tell you. +Sit down, sir. All friends here, and glad to see you!' + +When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply +corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he added in his +natural tone, 'A chair in the chimney-corner, and leave to sit +quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is all he cares for. +He's easily pleased.' + +Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to her side, +when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, to +describe their visitor. When he had done so (truly now; with +scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time since he had +come in, and sighed, and seemed to have no further interest +concerning him. + +The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, and +fonder of his little wife than ever. + +'A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!' he said, encircling her +with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; 'and yet I +like her somehow. See yonder, Dot!' + +He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think she trembled. + +'He's - ha ha ha! - he's full of admiration for you!' said the +Carrier. 'Talked of nothing else, the whole way here. Why, he's a +brave old boy. I like him for it!' + +'I wish he had had a better subject, John,' she said, with an +uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton especially. + +'A better subject!' cried the jovial John. 'There's no such thing. +Come, off with the great-coat, off with the thick shawl, off with +the heavy wrappers! and a cosy half-hour by the fire! My humble +service, Mistress. A game at cribbage, you and I? That's hearty. +The cards and board, Dot. And a glass of beer here, if there's any +left, small wife!' + +His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting it with +gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game. At +first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes, with a smile, or now +and then called Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and +advise him on some knotty point. But his adversary being a rigid +disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional weakness in respect of +pegging more than she was entitled to, required such vigilance on +his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his +whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and he +thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder restored +him to a consciousness of Tackleton. + +'I am sorry to disturb you - but a word, directly.' + +'I'm going to deal,' returned the Carrier. 'It's a crisis.' + +'It is,' said Tackleton. 'Come here, man!' + +There was that in his pale face which made the other rise +immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was. + +'Hush! John Peerybingle,' said Tackleton. 'I am sorry for this. +I am indeed. I have been afraid of it. I have suspected it from +the first.' + +'What is it?' asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect. + +'Hush! I'll show you, if you'll come with me.' + +The Carrier accompanied him, without another word. They went +across a yard, where the stars were shining, and by a little side- +door, into Tackleton's own counting-house, where there was a glass +window, commanding the ware-room, which was closed for the night. +There was no light in the counting-house itself, but there were +lamps in the long narrow ware-room; and consequently the window was +bright. + +'A moment!' said Tackleton. 'Can you bear to look through that +window, do you think?' + +'Why not?' returned the Carrier. + +'A moment more,' said Tackleton. 'Don't commit any violence. It's +of no use. It's dangerous too. You're a strong-made man; and you +might do murder before you know it.' + +The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he +had been struck. In one stride he was at the window, and he saw - + +Oh Shadow on the Hearth! Oh truthful Cricket! Oh perfidious Wife! + +He saw her, with the old man - old no longer, but erect and gallant +- bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won his way +into their desolate and miserable home. He saw her listening to +him, as he bent his head to whisper in her ear; and suffering him +to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim +wooden gallery towards the door by which they had entered it. He +saw them stop, and saw her turn - to have the face, the face he +loved so, so presented to his view! - and saw her, with her own +hands, adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at +his unsuspicious nature! + +He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have +beaten down a lion. But opening it immediately again, he spread it +out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was tender of her, even +then), and so, as they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was +as weak as any infant. + +He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels, +when she came into the room, prepared for going home. + +'Now, John, dear! Good night, May! Good night, Bertha!' + +Could she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful in her +parting? Could she venture to reveal her face to them without a +blush? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely, and she did all this. + +Tilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and re-crossed +Tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily: + +'Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring its +hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its +cradles but to break its hearts at last!' + +'Now, Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr. Tackleton. Where's +John, for goodness' sake?' + +'He's going to walk beside the horse's head,' said Tackleton; who +helped her to her seat. + +'My dear John. Walk? To-night?' + +The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the +affirmative; and the false stranger and the little nurse being in +their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the unconscious +Boxer, running on before, running back, running round and round the +cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever. + +When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and her mother +home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious +and remorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful +contemplation of her, 'Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to +break her heart at last!' + +The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had all stopped, +and run down, long ago. In the faint light and silence, the +imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking-horses with +distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen at the street-doors, +standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and ankles, the +wry-faced nut-crackers, the very Beasts upon their way into the +Ark, in twos, like a Boarding School out walking, might have been +imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder, at Dot +being false, or Tackleton beloved, under any combination of +circumstances. + + + +CHAPTER III - Chirp the Third + + + +THE Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the Carrier sat down +by his fireside. So troubled and grief-worn, that he seemed to +scare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcements +as short as possible, plunged back into the Moorish Palace again, +and clapped his little door behind him, as if the unwonted +spectacle were too much for his feelings. + +If the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, +and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier's heart, he never +could have gashed and wounded it, as Dot had done. + +It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held +together by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun from +the daily working of her many qualities of endearment; it was a +heart in which she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely; +a heart so single and so earnest in its Truth, so strong in right, +so weak in wrong; that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge +at first, and had only room to hold the broken image of its Idol. + +But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now +cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him, +as an angry wind comes rising in the night. The Stranger was +beneath his outraged roof. Three steps would take him to his +chamber-door. One blow would beat it in. 'You might do murder +before you know it,' Tackleton had said. How could it be murder, +if he gave the villain time to grapple with him hand to hand! He +was the younger man. + +It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It +was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should +change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely +travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would +see shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, +and hear wild noises in the stormy weather. + +He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart +that HE had never touched. Some lover of her early choice, of whom +she had thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when +he had fancied her so happy by his side. O agony to think of it! + +She had been above-stairs with the Baby, getting it to bed. As he +sat brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, without his +knowledge - in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost +all other sounds - and put her little stool at his feet. He only +knew it, when he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking up +into his face. + +With wonder? No. It was his first impression, and he was fain to +look at her again, to set it right. No, not with wonder. With an +eager and inquiring look; but not with wonder. At first it was +alarmed and serious; then, it changed into a strange, wild, +dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then, there was +nothing but her clasped hands on her brow, and her bent head, and +falling hair. + +Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield at that +moment, he had too much of its diviner property of Mercy in his +breast, to have turned one feather's weight of it against her. But +he could not bear to see her crouching down upon the little seat +where he had often looked on her, with love and pride, so innocent +and gay; and, when she rose and left him, sobbing as she went, he +felt it a relief to have the vacant place beside him rather than +her so long-cherished presence. This in itself was anguish keener +than all, reminding him how desolate he was become, and how the +great bond of his life was rent asunder. + +The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better +borne to see her lying prematurely dead before him with their +little child upon her breast, the higher and the stronger rose his +wrath against his enemy. He looked about him for a weapon. + +There was a gun, hanging on the wall. He took it down, and moved a +pace or two towards the door of the perfidious Stranger's room. He +knew the gun was loaded. Some shadowy idea that it was just to +shoot this man like a wild beast, seized him, and dilated in his +mind until it grew into a monstrous demon in complete possession of +him, casting out all milder thoughts and setting up its undivided +empire. + +That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder thoughts, but +artfully transforming them. Changing them into scourges to drive +him on. Turning water into blood, love into hate, gentleness into +blind ferocity. Her image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading +to his tenderness and mercy with resistless power, never left his +mind; but, staying there, it urged him to the door; raised the +weapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved his finger to the +trigger; and cried 'Kill him! In his bed!' + +He reversed the gun to beat the stock up the door; he already held +it lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts of +calling out to him to fly, for God's sake, by the window - + +When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole chimney +with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to Chirp! + +No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even hers, could +so have moved and softened him. The artless words in which she had +told him of her love for this same Cricket, were once more freshly +spoken; her trembling, earnest manner at the moment, was again +before him; her pleasant voice - O what a voice it was, for making +household music at the fireside of an honest man! - thrilled +through and through his better nature, and awoke it into life and +action. + +He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep, +awakened from a frightful dream; and put the gun aside. Clasping +his hands before his face, he then sat down again beside the fire, +and found relief in tears. + +The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood in +Fairy shape before him. + +'"I love it,"' said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well +remembered, '"for the many times I have heard it, and the many +thoughts its harmless music has given me."' + +'She said so!' cried the Carrier. 'True!' + +'"This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for its +sake!"' + +'It has been, Heaven knows,' returned the Carrier. 'She made it +happy, always, - until now.' + +'So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and +light-hearted!' said the Voice. + +'Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,' returned the +Carrier. + +The Voice, correcting him, said 'do.' + +The Carrier repeated 'as I did.' But not firmly. His faltering +tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its own way, for +itself and him. + +The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said: + +'Upon your own hearth - ' + +'The hearth she has blighted,' interposed the Carrier. + +'The hearth she has - how often! - blessed and brightened,' said +the Cricket; 'the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones +and bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the +Altar of your Home; on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty +passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a +tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that +the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better +fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest +shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world! - Upon your own +hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle influences +and associations; hear her! Hear me! Hear everything that speaks +the language of your hearth and home!' + +'And pleads for her?' inquired the Carrier. + +'All things that speak the language of your hearth and home, must +plead for her!' returned the Cricket. 'For they speak the truth.' + +And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to +sit meditating in his chair, the Presence stood beside him, +suggesting his reflections by its power, and presenting them before +him, as in a glass or picture. It was not a solitary Presence. +From the hearthstone, from the chimney, from the clock, the pipe, +the kettle, and the cradle; from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, +and the stairs; from the cart without, and the cupboard within, and +the household implements; from every thing and every place with +which she had ever been familiar, and with which she had ever +entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband's mind; +Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the +Cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do all honour +to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it +appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers +for it to tread on. To try to crown its fair head with their tiny +hands. To show that they were fond of it and loved it; and that +there was not one ugly, wicked or accusatory creature to claim +knowledge of it - none but their playful and approving selves. + +His thoughts were constant to her image. It was always there. + +She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to herself. +Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! The fairy figures +turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with one prodigious +concentrated stare, and seemed to say, 'Is this the light wife you +are mourning for!' + +There were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instruments, and noisy +tongues, and laughter. A crowd of young merry-makers came pouring +in, among whom were May Fielding and a score of pretty girls. Dot +was the fairest of them all; as young as any of them too. They +came to summon her to join their party. It was a dance. If ever +little foot were made for dancing, hers was, surely. But she +laughed, and shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the +fire, and her table ready spread: with an exulting defiance that +rendered her more charming than she was before. And so she merrily +dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners, one by one, as +they passed, but with a comical indifference, enough to make them +go and drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers - and +they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't help it. And +yet indifference was not her character. O no! For presently, +there came a certain Carrier to the door; and bless her what a +welcome she bestowed upon him! + +Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed +to say, 'Is this the wife who has forsaken you!' + +A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it what you +will. A great shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood underneath +their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out all other +objects. But the nimble Fairies worked like bees to clear it off +again. And Dot again was there. Still bright and beautiful. + +Rocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, and +resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in the +musing figure by which the Fairy Cricket stood. + +The night - I mean the real night: not going by Fairy clocks - was +wearing now; and in this stage of the Carrier's thoughts, the moon +burst out, and shone brightly in the sky. Perhaps some calm and +quiet light had risen also, in his mind; and he could think more +soberly of what had happened. + +Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon the +glass - always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined - it never +fell so darkly as at first. Whenever it appeared, the Fairies +uttered a general cry of consternation, and plied their little arms +and legs, with inconceivable activity, to rub it out. And whenever +they got at Dot again, and showed her to him once more, bright and +beautiful, they cheered in the most inspiring manner. + +They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and bright, for +they were Household Spirits to whom falsehood is annihilation; and +being so, what Dot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, +pleasant little creature who had been the light and sun of the +Carrier's Home! + +The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with +the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting +to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, +demure old way upon her husband's arm, attempting - she! such a bud +of a little woman - to convey the idea of having abjured the +vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person +to whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same +breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, +and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart, and mincing +merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance! + +They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with +the Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation +with her wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb +Plummer's home, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl's love +for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy +way of setting Bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for +filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful to +the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday; +her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the Veal and +Ham-Pie and the bottles of Beer; her radiant little face arriving +at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her +whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a +part of the establishment - a something necessary to it, which it +couldn't be without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved +her for. And once again they looked upon him all at once, +appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in +her dress and fondled her, 'Is this the wife who has betrayed your +confidence!' + +More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, +they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent +head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. As he had +seen her last. And when they found her thus, they neither turned +nor looked upon him, but gathered close round her, and comforted +and kissed her, and pressed on one another to show sympathy and +kindness to her, and forgot him altogether. + +Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars grew pale; +the cold day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier still sat, musing, +in the chimney corner. He had sat there, with his head upon his +hands, all night. All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, +Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. All night he had listened to its +voice. All night the household Fairies had been busy with him. +All night she had been amiable and blameless in the glass, except +when that one shadow fell upon it. + +He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself. +He couldn't go about his customary cheerful avocations - he wanted +spirit for them - but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton's +wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He +thought to have gone merrily to church with Dot. But such plans +were at an end. It was their own wedding-day too. Ah! how little +he had looked for such a close to such a year! + +The Carrier had expected that Tackleton would pay him an early +visit; and he was right. He had not walked to and fro before his +own door, many minutes, when he saw the Toy-merchant coming in his +chaise along the road. As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived +that Tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his marriage, and that +he had decorated his horse's head with flowers and favours. + +The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than Tackleton, whose +half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever. But +the Carrier took little heed of this. His thoughts had other +occupation. + +'John Peerybingle!' said Tackleton, with an air of condolence. 'My +good fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?' + +'I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton,' returned the +Carrier, shaking his head: 'for I have been a good deal disturbed +in my mind. But it's over now! Can you spare me half an hour or +so, for some private talk?' + +'I came on purpose,' returned Tackleton, alighting. 'Never mind +the horse. He'll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this +post, if you'll give him a mouthful of hay.' + +The Carrier having brought it from his stable, and set it before +him, they turned into the house. + +'You are not married before noon,' he said, 'I think?' + +'No,' answered Tackleton. 'Plenty of time. Plenty of time.' + +When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping at the +Stranger's door; which was only removed from it by a few steps. +One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, +because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was +knocking very loud; and seemed frightened. + +'If you please I can't make nobody hear,' said Tilly, looking +round. 'I hope nobody an't gone and been and died if you please!' + +This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised with various new +raps and kicks at the door; which led to no result whatever. + +'Shall I go?' said Tackleton. 'It's curious.' + +The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed to him +to go if he would. + +So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and he too kicked and +knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. But he thought +of trying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he +peeped in, looked in, went in, and soon came running out again. + +'John Peerybingle,' said Tackleton, in his ear. 'I hope there has +been nothing - nothing rash in the night?' + +The Carrier turned upon him quickly. + +'Because he's gone!' said Tackleton; 'and the window's open. I +don't see any marks - to be sure it's almost on a level with the +garden: but I was afraid there might have been some - some +scuffle. Eh?' + +He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked at him +so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, +a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him. + +'Make yourself easy,' said the Carrier. 'He went into that room +last night, without harm in word or deed from me, and no one has +entered it since. He is away of his own free will. I'd go out +gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for +life, if I could so change the past that he had never come. But he +has come and gone. And I have done with him!' + +'Oh! - Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,' said Tackleton, +taking a chair. + +The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and shaded +his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding. + +'You showed me last night,' he said at length, 'my wife; my wife +that I love; secretly - ' + +'And tenderly,' insinuated Tackleton. + +'Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of +meeting her alone. I think there's no sight I wouldn't have rather +seen than that. I think there's no man in the world I wouldn't +have rather had to show it me.' + +'I confess to having had my suspicions always,' said Tackleton. +'And that has made me objectionable here, I know.' + +'But as you did show it me,' pursued the Carrier, not minding him; +'and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that I love' - his voice, and +eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: +evidently in pursuance of a steadfast purpose - 'as you saw her at +this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should also see +with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind is, +upon the subject. For it's settled,' said the Carrier, regarding +him attentively. 'And nothing can shake it now.' + +Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being +necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by +the manner of his companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it +had a something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the +soul of generous honour dwelling in the man could have imparted. + +'I am a plain, rough man,' pursued the Carrier, 'with very little +to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as you very well know. I +am not a young man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her +grow up, from a child, in her father's house; because I knew how +precious she was; because she had been my life, for years and +years. There's many men I can't compare with, who never could have +loved my little Dot like me, I think!' + +He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, +before resuming. + +'I often thought that though I wasn't good enough for her, I should +make her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than +another; and in this way I reconciled it to myself, and came to +think it might be possible that we should be married. And in the +end it came about, and we were married.' + +'Hah!' said Tackleton, with a significant shake of the head. + +'I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I knew how +much I loved her, and how happy I should be,' pursued the Carrier. +'But I had not - I feel it now - sufficiently considered her.' + +'To be sure,' said Tackleton. 'Giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, +love of admiration! Not considered! All left out of sight! Hah!' + +'You had best not interrupt me,' said the Carrier, with some +sternness, 'till you understand me; and you're wide of doing so. +If, yesterday, I'd have struck that man down at a blow, who dared +to breathe a word against her, to-day I'd set my foot upon his +face, if he was my brother!' + +The Toy-merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went on in a +softer tone: + +'Did I consider,' said the Carrier, 'that I took her - at her age, +and with her beauty - from her young companions, and the many +scenes of which she was the ornament; in which she was the +brightest little star that ever shone, to shut her up from day to +day in my dull house, and keep my tedious company? Did I consider +how little suited I was to her sprightly humour, and how wearisome +a plodding man like me must be, to one of her quick spirit? Did I +consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved +her, when everybody must, who knew her? Never. I took advantage +of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition; and I married +her. I wish I never had! For her sake; not for mine!' + +The Toy-merchant gazed at him, without winking. Even the half-shut +eye was open now. + +'Heaven bless her!' said the Carrier, 'for the cheerful constancy +with which she tried to keep the knowledge of this from me! And +Heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out +before! Poor child! Poor Dot! I not to find it out, who have +seen her eyes fill with tears, when such a marriage as our own was +spoken of! I, who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a +hundred times, and never suspected it till last night! Poor girl! +That I could ever hope she would be fond of me! That I could ever +believe she was!' + +'She made a show of it,' said Tackleton. 'She made such a show of +it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin of my misgivings.' + +And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who certainly +made no sort of show of being fond of HIM. + +'She has tried,' said the poor Carrier, with greater emotion than +he had exhibited yet; 'I only now begin to know how hard she has +tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife. How good she has been; +how much she has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let +the happiness I have known under this roof bear witness! It will +be some help and comfort to me, when I am here alone.' + +'Here alone?' said Tackleton. 'Oh! Then you do mean to take some +notice of this?' + +'I mean,' returned the Carrier, 'to do her the greatest kindness, +and make her the best reparation, in my power. I can release her +from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to +conceal it. She shall be as free as I can render her.' + +'Make HER reparation!' exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and turning +his great ears with his hands. 'There must be something wrong +here. You didn't say that, of course.' + +The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy-merchant, and +shook him like a reed. + +'Listen to me!' he said. 'And take care that you hear me right. +Listen to me. Do I speak plainly?' + +'Very plainly indeed,' answered Tackleton. + +'As if I meant it?' + +'Very much as if you meant it.' + +'I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night,' exclaimed the +Carrier. 'On the spot where she has often sat beside me, with her +sweet face looking into mine. I called up her whole life, day by +day. I had her dear self, in its every passage, in review before +me. And upon my soul she is innocent, if there is One to judge the +innocent and guilty!' + +Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal household Fairies! + +'Passion and distrust have left me!' said the Carrier; 'and nothing +but my grief remains. In an unhappy moment some old lover, better +suited to her tastes and years than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, +against her will; returned. In an unhappy moment, taken by +surprise, and wanting time to think of what she did, she made +herself a party to his treachery, by concealing it. Last night she +saw him, in the interview we witnessed. It was wrong. But +otherwise than this she is innocent if there is truth on earth!' + +'If that is your opinion' - Tackleton began. + +'So, let her go!' pursued the Carrier. 'Go, with my blessing for +the many happy hours she has given me, and my forgiveness for any +pang she has caused me. Let her go, and have the peace of mind I +wish her! She'll never hate me. She'll learn to like me better, +when I'm not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain I have +riveted, more lightly. This is the day on which I took her, with +so little thought for her enjoyment, from her home. To-day she +shall return to it, and I will trouble her no more. Her father and +mother will be here to-day - we had made a little plan for keeping +it together - and they shall take her home. I can trust her, +there, or anywhere. She leaves me without blame, and she will live +so I am sure. If I should die - I may perhaps while she is still +young; I have lost some courage in a few hours - she'll find that I +remembered her, and loved her to the last! This is the end of what +you showed me. Now, it's over!' + +'O no, John, not over. Do not say it's over yet! Not quite yet. +I have heard your noble words. I could not steal away, pretending +to be ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude. +Do not say it's over, 'till the clock has struck again!' + +She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained there. +She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon her husband. +But she kept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible +between them; and though she spoke with most impassioned +earnestness, she went no nearer to him even then. How different in +this from her old self! + +'No hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the +hours that are gone,' replied the Carrier, with a faint smile. +'But let it be so, if you will, my dear. It will strike soon. +It's of little matter what we say. I'd try to please you in a +harder case than that.' + +'Well!' muttered Tackleton. 'I must be off, for when the clock +strikes again, it'll be necessary for me to be upon my way to +church. Good morning, John Peerybingle. I'm sorry to be deprived +of the pleasure of your company. Sorry for the loss, and the +occasion of it too!' + +'I have spoken plainly?' said the Carrier, accompanying him to the +door. + +'Oh quite!' + +'And you'll remember what I have said?' + +'Why, if you compel me to make the observation,' said Tackleton, +previously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise; 'I +must say that it was so very unexpected, that I'm far from being +likely to forget it.' + +'The better for us both,' returned the Carrier. 'Good bye. I give +you joy!' + +'I wish I could give it to YOU,' said Tackleton. 'As I can't; +thank'ee. Between ourselves, (as I told you before, eh?) I don't +much think I shall have the less joy in my married life, because +May hasn't been too officious about me, and too demonstrative. +Good bye! Take care of yourself.' + +The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the +distance than his horse's flowers and favours near at hand; and +then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, +among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock +was on the eve of striking. + +His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often +dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how +excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, +triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that +Tilly was quite horrified. + +'Ow if you please don't!' said Tilly. 'It's enough to dead and +bury the Baby, so it is if you please.' + +'Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly,' inquired +her mistress, drying her eyes; 'when I can't live here, and have +gone to my old home?' + +'Ow if you please don't!' cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and +bursting out into a howl - she looked at the moment uncommonly like +Boxer. 'Ow if you please don't! Ow, what has everybody gone and +been and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched! +Ow-w-w-w!' + +The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a +deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, +that she must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him +into something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not +encountered Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter. This spectacle +restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few +moments silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to +the bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint +Vitus manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her +face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief +from those extraordinary operations. + +'Mary!' said Bertha. 'Not at the marriage!' + +'I told her you would not be there, mum,' whispered Caleb. 'I +heard as much last night. But bless you,' said the little man, +taking her tenderly by both hands, 'I don't care for what they say. +I don't believe them. There an't much of me, but that little +should be torn to pieces sooner than I'd trust a word against you!' + +He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child might have +hugged one of his own dolls. + +'Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning,' said Caleb. 'She was +afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn't trust herself +to be so near them on their wedding-day. So we started in good +time, and came here. I have been thinking of what I have done,' +said Caleb, after a moment's pause; 'I have been blaming myself +till I hardly knew what to do or where to turn, for the distress of +mind I have caused her; and I've come to the conclusion that I'd +better, if you'll stay with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. +You'll stay with me the while?' he inquired, trembling from head to +foot. 'I don't know what effect it may have upon her; I don't know +what she'll think of me; I don't know that she'll ever care for her +poor father afterwards. But it's best for her that she should be +undeceived, and I must bear the consequences as I deserve!' + +' Mary,' said Bertha, 'where is your hand! Ah! Here it is here it +is!' pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and drawing it through +her arm. 'I heard them speaking softly among themselves, last +night, of some blame against you. They were wrong.' + +The Carrier's Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her. + +'They were wrong,' he said. + +'I knew it!' cried Bertha, proudly. 'I told them so. I scorned to +hear a word! Blame HER with justice!' she pressed the hand between +her own, and the soft cheek against her face. 'No! I am not so +blind as that.' + +Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained upon the +other: holding her hand. + +'I know you all,' said Bertha, 'better than you think. But none so +well as her. Not even you, father. There is nothing half so real +and so true about me, as she is. If I could be restored to sight +this instant, and not a word were spoken, I could choose her from a +crowd! My sister!' + +'Bertha, my dear!' said Caleb, 'I have something on my mind I want +to tell you, while we three are alone. Hear me kindly! I have a +confession to make to you, my darling.' + +'A confession, father?' + +'I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child,' said +Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. 'I have +wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been +cruel.' + +She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated +'Cruel!' + +'He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,' said Dot. 'You'll say +so, presently. You'll be the first to tell him so.' + +'He cruel to me!' cried Bertha, with a smile of incredulity. + +'Not meaning it, my child,' said Caleb. 'But I have been; though I +never suspected it, till yesterday. My dear blind daughter, hear +me and forgive me! The world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't +exist as I have represented it. The eyes you have trusted in, have +been false to you.' + +She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but drew +back, and clung closer to her friend. + +'Your road in life was rough, my poor one,' said Caleb, 'and I +meant to smooth it for you. I have altered objects, changed the +characters of people, invented many things that never have been, to +make you happier. I have had concealments from you, put deceptions +on you, God forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies.' + +'But living people are not fancies!' she said hurriedly, and +turning very pale, and still retiring from him. 'You can't change +them.' + +'I have done so, Bertha,' pleaded Caleb. 'There is one person that +you know, my dove - ' + +'Oh father! why do you say, I know?' she answered, in a term of +keen reproach. 'What and whom do I know! I who have no leader! I +so miserably blind.' + +In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she +were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn +and sad, upon her face. + +'The marriage that takes place to-day,' said Caleb, 'is with a +stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you and me, my dear, +for many years. Ugly in his looks, and in his nature. Cold and +callous always. Unlike what I have painted him to you in +everything, my child. In everything.' + +'Oh why,' cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost +beyond endurance, 'why did you ever do this! Why did you ever fill +my heart so full, and then come in like Death, and tear away the +objects of my love! O Heaven, how blind I am! How helpless and +alone!' + +Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his +penitence and sorrow. + +She had been but a short time in this passion of regret, when the +Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp. Not +merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful +that her tears began to flow; and when the Presence which had been +beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind her, pointing to her +father, they fell down like rain. + +She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and was conscious, +through her blindness, of the Presence hovering about her father. + +'Mary,' said the Blind Girl, 'tell me what my home is. What it +truly is.' + +'It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. The house +will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. It is as +roughly shielded from the weather, Bertha,' Dot continued in a low, +clear voice, 'as your poor father in his sack-cloth coat.' + +The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier's +little wife aside. + +'Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost at my +wish, and were so dearly welcome to me,' she said, trembling; +'where did they come from? Did you send them?' + +'No.' + +'Who then?' + +Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The Blind Girl spread +her hands before her face again. But in quite another manner now. + +'Dear Mary, a moment. One moment? More this way. Speak softly to +me. You are true, I know. You'd not deceive me now; would you?' + +'No, Bertha, indeed!' + +'No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity for me. +Mary, look across the room to where we were just now - to where my +father is - my father, so compassionate and loving to me - and tell +me what you see.' + +'I see,' said Dot, who understood her well, 'an old man sitting in +a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting +on his hand. As if his child should comfort him, Bertha.' + +'Yes, yes. She will. Go on.' + +'He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare, +dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man. I see him now, despondent +and bowed down, and striving against nothing. But, Bertha, I have +seen him many times before, and striving hard in many ways for one +great sacred object. And I honour his grey head, and bless him!' + +The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her +knees before him, took the grey head to her breast. + +'It is my sight restored. It is my sight!' she cried. 'I have +been blind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew him! To think +I might have died, and never truly seen the father who has been so +loving to me!' + +There were no words for Caleb's emotion. + +'There is not a gallant figure on this earth,' exclaimed the Blind +Girl, holding him in her embrace, 'that I would love so dearly, and +would cherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, +the dearer, father! Never let them say I am blind again. There's +not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair upon his head, that +shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to Heaven!' + +Caleb managed to articulate 'My Bertha!' + +'And in my blindness, I believed him,' said the girl, caressing him +with tears of exquisite affection, 'to be so different! And having +him beside me, day by day, so mindful of me - always, never dreamed +of this!' + +'The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,' said poor Caleb. +'He's gone!' + +'Nothing is gone,' she answered. 'Dearest father, no! Everything +is here - in you. The father that I loved so well; the father that +I never loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first +began to reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me; +All are here in you. Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all that +was most dear to me is here - here, with the worn face, and the +grey head. And I am NOT blind, father, any longer!' + +Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, +upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little +Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a +few minutes of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and +excited state. + +'Father,' said Bertha, hesitating. 'Mary.' + +'Yes, my dear,' returned Caleb. 'Here she is.' + +'There is no change in HER. You never told me anything of HER that +was not true?' + +'I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid,' returned Caleb, 'if +I could have made her better than she was. But I must have changed +her for the worse, if I had changed her at all. Nothing could +improve her, Bertha.' + +Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the question, +her delight and pride in the reply and her renewed embrace of Dot, +were charming to behold. + +'More changes than you think for, may happen though, my dear,' said +Dot. 'Changes for the better, I mean; changes for great joy to +some of us. You mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such +should ever happen, and affect you? Are those wheels upon the +road? You've a quick ear, Bertha. Are they wheels?' + +'Yes. Coming very fast.' + +'I - I - I know you have a quick ear,' said Dot, placing her hand +upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast as she could to +hide its palpitating state, 'because I have noticed it often, and +because you were so quick to find out that strange step last night. +Though why you should have said, as I very well recollect you did +say, Bertha, "Whose step is that!" and why you should have taken +any greater observation of it than of any other step, I don't know. +Though as I said just now, there are great changes in the world: +great changes: and we can't do better than prepare ourselves to be +surprised at hardly anything.' + +Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, +no less than to his daughter. He saw her, with astonishment, so +fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and +holding to a chair, to save herself from falling. + +'They are wheels indeed!' she panted. 'Coming nearer! Nearer! +Very close! And now you hear them stopping at the garden-gate! +And now you hear a step outside the door - the same step, Bertha, +is it not! - and now!' - + +She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to +Caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the +room, and flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down +upon them. + +'Is it over?' cried Dot. + +'Yes!' + +'Happily over?' + +'Yes!' + +'Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever hear the +like of it before?' cried Dot. + +'If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive' - said Caleb, +trembling. + +'He is alive!' shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and +clapping them in ecstasy; 'look at him! See where he stands before +you, healthy and strong! Your own dear son! Your own dear living, +loving brother, Bertha + +All honour to the little creature for her transports! All honour +to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one +another's arms! All honour to the heartiness with which she met +the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half-way, +and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to +kiss it, freely, and to press her to his bounding heart! + +And honour to the Cuckoo too - why not! - for bursting out of the +trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a house-breaker, and +hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got +drunk for joy! + +The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, to find +himself in such good company. + +'Look, John!' said Caleb, exultingly, 'look here! My own boy from +the Golden South Americas! My own son! Him that you fitted out, +and sent away yourself! Him that you were always such a friend +to!' + +The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as +some feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the Deaf Man in +the Cart, said: + +'Edward! Was it you?' + +'Now tell him all!' cried Dot. 'Tell him all, Edward; and don't +spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever +again.' + +'I was the man,' said Edward. + +'And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old +friend?' rejoined the Carrier. 'There was a frank boy once - how +many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had +it proved, we thought? - who never would have done that.' + +'There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a father to me +than a friend;' said Edward, 'who never would have judged me, or +any other man, unheard. You were he. So I am certain you will +hear me now.' + +The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away +from him, replied, 'Well! that's but fair. I will.' + +'You must know that when I left here, a boy,' said Edward, 'I was +in love, and my love was returned. She was a very young girl, who +perhaps (you may tell me) didn't know her own mind. But I knew +mine, and I had a passion for her.' + +'You had!' exclaimed the Carrier. 'You!' + +'Indeed I had,' returned the other. 'And she returned it. I have +ever since believed she did, and now I am sure she did.' + +'Heaven help me!' said the Carrier. 'This is worse than all.' + +'Constant to her,' said Edward, 'and returning, full of hope, after +many hardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, I +heard, twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had +forgotten me; and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer +man. I had no mind to reproach her; but I wished to see her, and +to prove beyond dispute that this was true. I hoped she might have +been forced into it, against her own desire and recollection. It +would be small comfort, but it would be some, I thought, and on I +came. That I might have the truth, the real truth; observing +freely for myself, and judging for myself, without obstruction on +the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I had any) before +her, on the other; I dressed myself unlike myself - you know how; +and waited on the road - you know where. You had no suspicion of +me; neither had - had she,' pointing to Dot, 'until I whispered in +her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me.' + +'But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come back,' +sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all +through this narrative; 'and when she knew his purpose, she advised +him by all means to keep his secret close; for his old friend John +Peerybingle was much too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all +artifice - being a clumsy man in general,' said Dot, half laughing +and half crying - 'to keep it for him. And when she - that's me, +John,' sobbed the little woman - 'told him all, and how his +sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had at last +been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly, +dear old thing called advantageous; and when she - that's me again, +John - told him they were not yet married (though close upon it), +and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for +there was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy +to hear it; then she - that's me again - said she would go between +them, as she had often done before in old times, John, and would +sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she - me again, John - +said and thought was right. And it was right, John! And they were +brought together, John! And they were married, John, an hour ago! +And here's the Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor! +And I'm a happy little woman, May, God bless you!' + +She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the +purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her present +transports. There never were congratulations so endearing and +delicious, as those she lavished on herself and on the Bride. + +Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier had +stood, confounded. Flying, now, towards her, Dot stretched out her +hand to stop him, and retreated as before. + +'No, John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any more, John, till +you've heard every word I have to say. It was wrong to have a +secret from you, John. I'm very sorry. I didn't think it any harm, +till I came and sat down by you on the little stool last night. +But when I knew by what was written in your face, that you had seen +me walking in the gallery with Edward, and when I knew what you +thought, I felt how giddy and how wrong it was. But oh, dear John, +how could you, could you, think so!' + +Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle would have +caught her in his arms. But no; she wouldn't let him. + +'Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! When I +was sad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because I +remembered May and Edward such young lovers; and knew that her +heart was far away from Tackleton. You believe that, now. Don't +you, John?' + +John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped +him again. + +'No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I sometimes +do, John, and call you clumsy and a dear old goose, and names of +that sort, it's because I love you, John, so well, and take such +pleasure in your ways, and wouldn't see you altered in the least +respect to have you made a King to-morrow.' + +'Hooroar!' said Caleb with unusual vigour. 'My opinion!' + +'And when I speak of people being middle-aged, and steady, John, +and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot +sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, +that I like, sometimes, to act a kind of Play with Baby, and all +that: and make believe.' + +She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But she was +very nearly too late. + +'No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, John! +What I want most to tell you, I have kept to the last. My dear, +good, generous John, when we were talking the other night about the +Cricket, I had it on my lips to say, that at first I did not love +you quite so dearly as I do now; that when I first came home here, +I was half afraid I mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as +I hoped and prayed I might - being so very young, John! But, dear +John, every day and hour I loved you more and more. And if I could +have loved you better than I do, the noble words I heard you say +this morning, would have made me. But I can't. All the affection +that I had (it was a great deal, John) I gave you, as you well +deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more left to give. Now, my +dear husband, take me to your heart again! That's my home, John; +and never, never think of sending me to any other!' + +You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little +woman in the arms of a third party, as you would have felt if you +had seen Dot run into the Carrier's embrace. It was the most +complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness +that ever you beheld in all your days. + +You maybe sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and +you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all +were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and +wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of +congratulations, handed round the Baby to everybody in succession, +as if it were something to drink. + +But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and +somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton was coming back. +Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and +flustered. + +'Why, what the Devil's this, John Peerybingle!' said Tackleton. +'There's some mistake. I appointed Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at +the church, and I'll swear I passed her on the road, on her way +here. Oh! here she is! I beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the +pleasure of knowing you; but if you can do me the favour to spare +this young lady, she has rather a particular engagement this +morning.' + +'But I can't spare her,' returned Edward. 'I couldn't think of +it.' + +'What do you mean, you vagabond?' said Tackleton. + +'I mean, that as I can make allowance for your being vexed,' +returned the other, with a smile, 'I am as deaf to harsh discourse +this morning, as I was to all discourse last night.' + +The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave! + +'I am sorry, sir,' said Edward, holding out May's left hand, and +especially the third finger; 'that the young lady can't accompany +you to church; but as she has been there once, this morning, +perhaps you'll excuse her.' + +Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little piece +of silver-paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat- +pocket. + +'Miss Slowboy,' said Tackleton. 'Will you have the kindness to +throw that in the fire? Thank'ee.' + +'It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, that +prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with you, I assure +you,' said Edward. + +'Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that I +revealed it to him faithfully; and that I told him, many times, I +never could forget it,' said May, blushing. + +'Oh certainly!' said Tackleton. 'Oh to be sure. Oh it's all +right. It's quite correct. Mrs. Edward Plummer, I infer?' + +'That's the name,' returned the bridegroom. + +'Ah, I shouldn't have known you, sir,' said Tackleton, scrutinising +his face narrowly, and making a low bow. 'I give you joy, sir!' + +'Thank'ee.' + +'Mrs. Peerybingle,' said Tackleton, turning suddenly to where she +stood with her husband; 'I am sorry. You haven't done me a very +great kindness, but, upon my life I am sorry. You are better than +I thought you. John Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; +that's enough. It's quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and +perfectly satisfactory. Good morning!' + +With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too: +merely stopping at the door, to take the flowers and favours from +his horse's head, and to kick that animal once, in the ribs, as a +means of informing him that there was a screw loose in his +arrangements. + +Of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a day of it, +as should mark these events for a high Feast and Festival in the +Peerybingle Calendar for evermore. Accordingly, Dot went to work +to produce such an entertainment, as should reflect undying honour +on the house and on every one concerned; and in a very short space +of time, she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening +the Carrier's coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to +give him a kiss. That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled +the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold +water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts of ways: +while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in from +somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or death, ran +against each other in all the doorways and round all the corners, +and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. +Tilly never came out in such force before. Her ubiquity was the +theme of general admiration. She was a stumbling-block in the +passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the +kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at +five-and-twenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, +a test and touchstone for every description of matter, - animal, +vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't +come, at some time or other, into close acquaintance with it. + +Then, there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and find out +Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent +gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be +happy and forgiving. And when the Expedition first discovered her, +she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable +number of times, that ever she should have lived to see the day! +and couldn't be got to say anything else, except, 'Now carry me to +the grave:' which seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, +or anything at all like it. After a time, she lapsed into a state +of dreadful calmness, and observed, that when that unfortunate +train of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she had +foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every +species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it +was the case; and begged they wouldn't trouble themselves about +her, - for what was she? oh, dear! a nobody! - but would forget +that such a being lived, and would take their course in life +without her. From this bitterly sarcastic mood, she passed into an +angry one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable expression that +the worm would turn if trodden on; and, after that, she yielded to +a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her their +confidence, what might she not have had it in her power to suggest! +Taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the Expedition +embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her +way to John Peerybingle's in a state of unimpeachable gentility; +with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost +as tall, and quite as stiff, as a mitre. + +Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come, in another little +chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were +entertained; and there was much looking out for them down the road; +and Mrs. Fielding always would look in the wrong and morally +impossible direction; and being apprised thereof, hoped she might +take the liberty of looking where she pleased. At last they came: +a chubby little couple, jogging along in a snug and comfortable +little way that quite belonged to the Dot family; and Dot and her +mother, side by side, were wonderful to see. They were so like +each other. + +Then, Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with May's mother; +and May's mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot's mother +never stood on anything but her active little feet. And old Dot - +so to call Dot's father, I forgot it wasn't his right name, but +never mind - took liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and +seemed to think a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn't +defer himself at all to the Indigo Trade, but said there was no +help for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding's summing up, was a good- +natured kind of man - but coarse, my dear. + +I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in her wedding-gown, +my benison on her bright face! for any money. No! nor the good +Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor +the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one +among them. To have missed the dinner would have been to miss as +jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the +overflowing cups in which they drank The Wedding-Day, would have +been the greatest miss of all. + +After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. As I'm +a living man, hoping to keep so, for a year or two, he sang it +through. + +And, by-the-by, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he +finished the last verse. + +There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without +saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on +his head. Setting this down in the middle of the table, +symmetrically in the centre of the nuts and apples, he said: + +'Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't got no use for the +cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it.' + +And with those words, he walked off. + +There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. +Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that +the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake, which, +within her knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue. +But she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May, +with much ceremony and rejoicing. + +I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at +the door, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a +vast brown-paper parcel. + +'Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for the +Babby. They ain't ugly.' + +After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again. + +The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding +words for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to +seek them. But they had none at all; for the messenger had +scarcely shut the door behind him, when there came another tap, and +Tackleton himself walked in. + +'Mrs. Peerybingle!' said the Toy-merchant, hat in hand. 'I'm +sorry. I'm more sorry than I was this morning. I have had time to +think of it. John Peerybingle! I'm sour by disposition; but I +can't help being sweetened, more or less, by coming face to face +with such a man as you. Caleb! This unconscious little nurse gave +me a broken hint last night, of which I have found the thread. I +blush to think how easily I might have bound you and your daughter +to me, and what a miserable idiot I was, when I took her for one! +Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely to-night. I have not +so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared them all away. +Be gracious to me; let me join this happy party!' + +He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a fellow. What +HAD he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known, +before, his great capacity of being jovial! Or what had the +Fairies been doing with him, to have effected such a change! + +'John! you won't send me home this evening; will you?' whispered +Dot. + +He had been very near it though! + +There wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; +and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very thirsty with +hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his +head into a narrow pitcher. He had gone with the cart to its +journey's end, very much disgusted with the absence of his master, +and stupendously rebellious to the Deputy. After lingering about +the stable for some little time, vainly attempting to incite the +old horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account, he +had walked into the tap-room and laid himself down before the fire. +But suddenly yielding to the conviction that the Deputy was a +humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, +and come home. + +There was a dance in the evening. With which general mention of +that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I had not some +reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a +most uncommon figure. It was formed in an odd way; in this way. + +Edward, that sailor-fellow - a good free dashing sort of a fellow +he was - had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, +and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it +in his head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for +Bertha's harp was there, and she had such a hand upon it as you +seldom hear. Dot (sly little piece of affectation when she chose) +said her dancing days were over; I think because the Carrier was +smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best. Mrs. +Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say HER dancing days were +over, after that; and everybody said the same, except May; May was +ready. + +So, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and +Bertha plays her liveliest tune. + +Well! if you'll believe me, they have not been dancing five +minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes Dot +round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, +toe and heel, quite wonderfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this, +than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, takes her round the waist, +and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner sees this, than up he is, all +alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot in the middle of the dance, and is the +foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly +Slowboy by both hands and goes off at score; Miss Slowboy, firm in +the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and +effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only +principle of footing it. + +Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; +and how the kettle hums! + +* * * * * + +But what is this! Even as I listen to them, blithely, and turn +towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant +to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and I am left +alone. A Cricket sings upon the Hearth; a broken child's-toy lies +upon the ground; and nothing else remains. + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Cricket on the Hearth \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/lz4_test.py b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/lz4_test.py new file mode 100755 index 0000000000..9bece48f65 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/lz4_test.py @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 + +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +import logging +import sys +import argparse +from dbe import Lz4Params, Lz4Encoder, Decoder, estimate_lz4_size, TokLT,\ + TokCP, TokMK, Mark +from dbe_data import DataFiles + + +def test(maxlen: int = -1, blocklen: int = -1, verbose: bool = False): + # Setup logging + level = logging.DEBUG if verbose else logging.INFO + logging.basicConfig(level=level, stream=sys.stderr) + + # Load source text + with open(DataFiles.DICKENS_TXT, "rb") as f: + syms_ref = list(f.read(maxlen if maxlen >= 0 else None)) + logging.info(f"Data length: {len(syms_ref)}") + + # LZ4 params + cfg = Lz4Params(8, 16, 16, 13) + enc = Lz4Encoder(cfg, verbose=verbose) + dec = Decoder(cfg) + + if blocklen < 1: + blocklen = max(1, len(syms_ref)) + + toks = [] + syms_dec = [] + nblocks = 0 + for boff in range(0, max(len(syms_ref), 1), blocklen): + block_syms = syms_ref[boff:boff + blocklen] + [Mark.END] + block_toks = enc.encode_block(block_syms) + block_dec = dec.decode(block_toks) + assert isinstance(block_toks[-1], TokMK)\ + and block_toks[-1].mark == Mark.END + assert isinstance(block_dec[-1], Mark)\ + and block_dec[-1] == Mark.END + # Remove END markers + toks.extend(block_toks[:-1]) + syms_dec.extend(block_dec[:-1]) + nblocks += 1 + + for i, s in enumerate(syms_dec): + logging.debug(f'DEC @ {i}: {s}') + + for i, s in enumerate(syms_ref): + logging.debug(f'REF @ {i}: {s}') + + for i in range(max(len(syms_ref), len(syms_dec))): + assert i < len(syms_ref), ( + f"Extra chars in decoded text: " + f"ref_len={len(syms_ref)} dec_len={len(syms_dec)}" + ) + assert i < len(syms_dec), ( + f"Preliminary EOF in decoded text: " + f"ref_len={len(syms_ref)} dec_len={len(syms_dec)}" + ) + sr = syms_ref[i] + sd = syms_dec[i] + assert sr == sd, f"Mismatch @ {i}: expected {sr!r} got {sd!r}" + + logging.info("Token statistics:") + nlit = sum(1 for _ in filter(lambda t: isinstance(t, TokLT), toks)) + ncp = sum(1 for _ in filter(lambda t: isinstance(t, TokCP), toks)) + ncplen = sum(t.cnt for t in filter(lambda t: isinstance(t, TokCP), toks)) + ntot = nlit + ncplen + assert ntot == len(syms_ref) + lz4_sz = estimate_lz4_size(toks) + ratio = ntot / max(lz4_sz, 1) + + logging.info(f"TOTAL SYMBOLS: {nlit + ncplen}") + logging.info(f"NUMBER OF BLOCKS: {nblocks}") + logging.info(f"NUM OF LITERALS: {nlit}") + logging.info(f"NUM OF CP: {ncp}") + logging.info(f"CP-ENCODED SYMBOLS: {ncplen}") + logging.info(f"LZ4 ESTIM SIZE: {lz4_sz}") + logging.info(f"RATIO (overestim.): {ratio:.2f}") + logging.info("Done.") + + +def main(): + parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Lz4 test") + parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbose", action="store_true") + parser.add_argument("-m", "--maxlen", type=int, default=100000) + parser.add_argument("-b", "--blocklen", type=int, default=10000) + args = parser.parse_args() + test(args.maxlen, args.blocklen, args.verbose) + + +if __name__ == "__main__": + main() diff --git a/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/randomize_tokens.py b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/randomize_tokens.py new file mode 100755 index 0000000000..984240d0b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/modules/dbe/scripts/randomize_tokens.py @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 + +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + + +import random +from dbe import get_random_tokens, Params, Decoder, plain_data_to_dslx + + +SYM_BITS = 4 +PTR_BITS = 3 +CNT_BITS = 4 + +OFSSLOPE = 2 +CNTSLOPE = 4 +NTOKS = 32 +NPERLINE = 16 + + +random.seed(0) + +cfg = Params(SYM_BITS, PTR_BITS, CNT_BITS) +toks = get_random_tokens(NTOKS, cfg, OFSSLOPE, CNTSLOPE) +d = Decoder(cfg) +syms = d.decode(toks) + +print(f'Tokens (len={len(toks)}):') +print(',\n'.join(repr(t) for t in toks)) +print('') +print(f'DSLX array (len={len(toks)}):') +print(',\n'.join(t.to_dslx(cfg) for t in toks)) +print('') +print(f'Reference decoding (len={len(syms)}):') +print(',\n'.join(plain_data_to_dslx(s, cfg) for s in syms)) +print('') +print('Done.') diff --git a/xls/simulation/cocotb/BUILD b/xls/simulation/cocotb/BUILD new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..5de39a6641 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/simulation/cocotb/BUILD @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +# Copyright 2020 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + +load("@xls_pip_deps//:requirements.bzl", "requirement") + +package( + default_visibility = ["//xls:xls_public"], + licenses = ["notice"], # Apache 2.0 +) + +py_library( + name = "cocotb_xls", + srcs = ["cocotb_xls.py"], + imports = ["."], + deps = [ + requirement("cocotb"), + requirement("cocotb_bus"), + ], +) diff --git a/xls/simulation/cocotb/cocotb_xls.py b/xls/simulation/cocotb/cocotb_xls.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..751f324c24 --- /dev/null +++ b/xls/simulation/cocotb/cocotb_xls.py @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ +# Copyright 2023 The XLS Authors +# +# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +# You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +# limitations under the License. + +import cocotb + +from cocotb.triggers import RisingEdge +from cocotb.binary import BinaryValue +from cocotb.handle import SimHandleBase + +from cocotb_bus.drivers import BusDriver +from cocotb_bus.monitors import BusMonitor + +from typing import Any, List + + +class XLSChannelDriver(BusDriver): + _signals = ["data", "rdy", "vld"] + + def __init__( + self, entity: SimHandleBase, name: str, clock: SimHandleBase, **kwargs: Any + ): + BusDriver.__init__(self, entity, name, clock, **kwargs) + + self.bus.data.setimmediatevalue(0) + self.bus.vld.setimmediatevalue(0) + + async def write(self, data: List[BinaryValue], sync: bool = True) -> None: + if sync: + await RisingEdge(self.clock) + + for word in data: + self.bus.vld.value = 1 + self.bus.data.value = word + + while True: + await RisingEdge(self.clock) + if self.bus.rdy.value: + break + + self.bus.vld.value = 0 + + +class XLSChannelMonitor(BusMonitor): + _signals = ["data", "rdy", "vld"] + + def __init__( + self, entity: SimHandleBase, name: str, clock: SimHandleBase, **kwargs: Any + ): + BusMonitor.__init__(self, entity, name, clock, **kwargs) + + @cocotb.coroutine + async def _monitor_recv(self) -> None: + while True: + await RisingEdge(self.clock) + if self.bus.vld.value and self.bus.rdy.value: + vec = self.bus.data.value + self._recv(vec)